The Luna Wrath emerged from hyperspace. Sheets of light rolled off the viewscreen, and the starship bounced. Jace’s body slammed forwards against the crash harness. He had just woken up from ten hours of sleep, another Vault completed, a rigorous session of cycling and physical exercises to channel his agility and strength attributes, and after that, a few hours of proper sleep. He’d only woken up five minutes ago.
The lurch, however, was enough to jolt away what little drowsiness remained and shake him back to complete consciousness.
Worth it. Absolutely worth it.
A planet occupied the bottom half of the Wrath’s viewscreen. The oceans were a vibrant turquoise, and land masses were crimson. Vast circles of light intersected the swaths of nature, and city lights glimmered all across the planet’s dark side.
“We have arrived,” said Kinfild. He gripped the control yoke and sat straight up in his seat. “Kinath-Aertes, the capital of the Starrealm.”
Just above the soft radiance of the planet’s atmosphere, a slew of Starrealm battleships and other, smaller vessels orbited. They chuffed smoke and flew their holographic flags proudly.
“That is the Third Capital Fleet—the pride and power of the Starrealm’s armada.” Kinfild motioned towards the battleships.
The Wrath swooped down towards the surface. Kinfild guided them into a stream of small spacecraft, all about the same size as the Wrath. It was a three-dimensional highway, surrounded by the golden dust sloughing off the vessels as they pulled out of hyperspace and vented Aes. Kinfild guided the control yoke back and forth, swerving around other starships. The Wrath travelled nearly twice as fast as the others.
They passed through a wispy layer of white clouds, revealing the continent below. It was a mountainous region, with forests of red-leaved trees masking the ground where rock wasn't jutting out. He couldn’t tell if it was autumn or if that was simply the colour they always were. Perhaps both were true.
For a few minutes, they flew over an empty wilderness. There were a few roads, and that was it.
But then, the Wrath skimmed just over a mountain’s peak, and suddenly, it seemed like Jace had been transported to a different planet. A metropolis sprawled for kilometers in a deep mountain valley, with high rocky peaks on either side. Skyscrapers and buildings filled the valley entirely, and he couldn’t see any ground that wasn’t metal or marble or glass. Millions of windows reflected the evening light through the city’s haze, and colourful neon lights illuminated the shaded underlevels.
The descending starships shifted into orderly lanes, flying between or overtop of the buildings. Kinfild slowed the Wrath’s pace as they neared the downtown area. ‘Downtown’ was the best guess Jace could come up with; the towers were tall enough to rival the peaks of the surrounding mountains, and they were packed so tightly that the narrow traffic lanes could only accommodate a single vessel like theirs.
But they passed through the downtown area quickly. The towers became shorter again, until they flew above a quilt of glowing light and smoke-coughing chimneys. After a couple minutes, there was only the occasional tower. When he looked down, he spotted old asphalt roads; most had either been built on top of or were crumbling, and he didn’t see any automobiles.
“We're approaching the Old City,” Kinfild said as he flicked a switch on the wall with mechanical precision.
“Where are we going specifically?” Jace asked.
“We will speak to the Attendant of the Starrealm.”
“The…Attendant?”
“Yes. I, a member of the Crimson Table, am welcome in the company of even the highest lord of the Starrealm. As a friend of mine, you will be welcome as well, but only if you keep your aspect hidden.”
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“What about the Watchmen?”
“There will be a few of them here.”
Jace bit his lip uncertainly, then placed a hand on the pommel of the Whistling Blade. He’d fight if he had to, but he didn’t want to.
“We’ll land at the administration district spaceport, and from there, it will be a short walk,” Kinfild explained. He guided the Wrath lower and lower until they shot along just above the metal walkways and crowded markets.
The spaceport was just ahead. It was a domed structure, wide enough to fit the Luna Wrath a hundred times across its diameter. Landing platforms jutted out of the dome, and they were covered in all sorts of starships and airborne vehicles.
A device atop the dashboard buzzed to life, and a mechanical voice stated, “Luna Wrath, you are cleared for docking at pad eighteen.” Jace hoped they didn’t await a response; Kinfild didn’t give one.
The Wrath descended towards a landing platform near the top of the dome. It was large enough to fit another dozen freighters, and it seemed like its own miniature city. Foreign pilots sat beside their ships, and workers scurried around to unload cargo. Some were humans, all with varying skin tones (and in skin tones, there were more than just the small range present on Earth; there were greens, blues, and oranges).
There was a distant whir, and the Wrath’s boarding ramp lowered. The starship settled down with a thud.
“We need to get moving,” Jace said. “This…uh, First Attendant needs to know about the threat he faces.”
He threw off his crash harness and leapt up, then ran with Kinfild out onto the landing platform. Before they set off into the city, Kinfild turned back and called, “Aur-Six! Keep the furnace hot!”
They walked across the platform. Jace expected them to enter the main dome of the spaceport, but instead, they approached the edge of the platform, where a walkway led toward the nearby buildings. They were all made of pale stone. At the upper levels, the ornate carvings clung to the walls, but the deeper Jace looked, the more modifications he saw: tacked on pipes, neon signs, and haphazard walkways.
They walked for about fifteen minutes, passing through a canyon of respectably-tall buildings and following the curves and turns of the pathway. It transitioned from metal to glass to concrete, but always, wrought-iron street lamps lined it.
As they walked, a distant hall emerged from its city surroundings. Its black-shingled roof was steep, but a spire sprouted from the center, taller than anything around it. Flags hung from the eaves—each a flaxen Starrealm banner.
To call the hall ornate would be an understatement. Somehow, such a description didn’t seem proper for all of the statues and gargoyles that clung to the walls, and it couldn’t do justice to the stained-glass frescoes of the windows. Worker kyborgs scraped patina from the white stone and washed each window.
“That is the Artanor Hall,” Kinfild said, “and the Spire of Predellion. It used to be the tallest structure in the galaxy, but that glory has long since been surpassed.”
Jace tilted his head. Soon, he had to crane his neck upwards to see the tip of the spire.
Fanning out into a delta of concrete, the walkway merged with the front facade of the Starrealm Hall, forming a plaza that could have fit the entirety of the Baldwin Ranch within it. Trees laden with sky-blue blossoms surrounded the plaza’s edges, and statues lined a central path. Jace and Kinfild walked down the center.
“Who…who does the hall belong to?”
“Once, it belonged to the kings of the Starrealm. The nobility would oversee great parliaments here, where elected Ministers would vote on the future of the planets they represented. Now?” Kinfild scoffed. “It’s a home to the Attendants. A distant relation to the noble bloodline, shackled to the will of an ineffective and weak-willed parliament who would rather spend their days bickering over minutiae than helping the worlds they represent. A shadow of what they once were.”
Jace swallowed. Surely, Kinfild was exaggerating. But Jace had never been one to engage in political debates, and he wasn’t about to start now—especially not when he’d only been here for a few days. He nodded placatingly. They had more important business to worry about.
“Thankfully, the First Attendant still exercises some power,” continued Kinfild. “And parliament doesn’t meet today, so if we can convince the First Attendant to make an executive order, we may be able to bring Starrealm forces into position and defend the Celacor System.”
“Is this the only way to protect those planets?”
“It is our best chance,” Kinfild said. He and Jace were getting closer to the Artanor Hall. Now, yellow-armoured guards lined the pathway. They didn’t move to intercept Kinfild—they must have recognized him as a Wielder of the Crimson Table. Three even ran to the hall’s gate and began to push it inward for him.
“If the Starrealm can repel Stenol’s false attack swiftly and decisively, we may yet prevent a war,” Kinfild said.
And Jace would have a shot at the queen-core.
The gate, a pair of three-story tall wooden doors, slid apart when the guards pushed on them. Kinfild turned and looked back at Jace. “Now, we are meeting a very important person. Be respectful and kind—no matter what happens.”