“Okay. So we have a Bang Gate in dead space. Parked right outside Centerpoint.”
Tooley had done more analysis of the gravitational anomaly, and confirmed without any shadow of a doubt that there was an active Bang Gate anchored just a few swaps worth of travel outside the Arkenne Galaxy. With how infrequently people scanned dead space, it was likely they were the only ones who knew about it—other than those who had constructed it. Given its positioning between Centerpoint and the Morrakesh Collective, and the general fuckery they’d been living through for weeks now, the crew had gone ahead and assumed it was Morrakesh that built the Bang Gate.
“What’s that mean for us?”
“It means there’s even more going on than we fucking thought there was,” Kamak said. He slammed a fist into the wall in frustration. “Every god damn time we think we take a step forward we find out just how far behind we are.”
“What part does this possibly play? Aren’t those Bang Gates super expensive?” Corey asked. Tooley nodded in confirmation. “If he did all that work to make trade routes go around Centerpoint in the first place, why would he build a new one right outside the damn galaxy?”
The inconsistent logic baffled them all. Farsus was the first one to connect the dots. They watched his thick red brows furrow in concentration for a moment before he pounded both fists on his chest and shouted loudly.
“Bastard,” Farsus screamed. He slammed his fist down on the table hard enough to shake it.
“Is something wrong, Farsus?”
That kind of outburst was out of character for a man who usually embraced chaos in any form. For him to be frustrated, much less genuinely outraged, was rare.
“We’ve been fooled, and fooled again,” Farsus said. “Deception upon deception.”
“Then quit screaming about it and start explaining it,” Kamak demanded. Farsus gladly obliged.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Corey! Your uncle and his cult, they have been preaching madly about the Great Wheel,” Farsus said. “Morrakesh put this in their heads to make it seem like a conspiracy theory, to discredit news of attacks by the same wheel ship that attacked Timeka.”
Farsus was madly gesticulating now, to an almost frightening extent.
“The elimination of trade routes and control of Bang Gates was never focused on controlling trade, but transit,” Farsus said. He pulled up the map of the universe and pointed to the key routes that Morrakesh sought to sabotage, like those that traveled through Sturit or Doccan-controlled space. “And attacking Timeka was not about disrupting a potential trade rival, but disrupting a supplier of valuable materials and production.”
A red finger jabbed at all the various points of interest across the universal map. Corey could almost see a corkboard with a bunch of newspaper articles and red string manifesting behind Farsus as he unfurled this sudden change in the conspiracy. Yet so far, everything he said made sense. The Sturit and Doccan both controlled travel routes that might be vital in emergencies, and with the xenophobic Structuralist’s in charge of Turitha, and the Doccan having destroyed a Bang Gate, those routes were now throttled or outright destroyed.
“And Morrakesh let us live,” Farsus said. “Because we thought we knew what he was doing. Because even in our efforts to defy him, we were still distracting and misinforming his enemies.”
Farsus stepped back from the map, took a deep breath, and placed his hands on his hips. He stared at the map with a mixture of defiant anger and revelatory joy in his eyes. Though he finally understood the grand plan, the inadvertent part he had played in advancing Morrakesh’s scheme still made him burn with anger.
“Because we were telling his enemies it was all about trade routes.”
The illusory corkboard Corey was imagining suddenly had all of its threads connected around two points. The Bang Gate, and their new alien friends, the Horuk. A species from beyond any known galaxy, unknown in number -or intent.
“Shit.”
Corey didn’t know how he hadn’t put the pieces together himself sooner. Everything started to fall into place at once, and he could see looks of intense disgust, anger, and fear spread across the table. Tooley looked ready to kill someone, and Kamak suddenly appeared sick to his stomach. Only Doprel and To Vo proved immune to Farsus’ contagious revelation. To Vo was the first one to admit her own naivete.
“Um. What is...happening?”
“All of this. Everything we’ve been through. Morrakesh is not planning to manipulate trade routes.”
Farsus crossed his arms across his chest and looked at the universal map, and imagined everything it represented. Dozens of galaxies. Hundreds of inhabited planets and space stations. Trillions of living beings.
“He is planning an invasion.”