After greeting the guests and mingling for a while, Alistair prepared to join his brother, who was about to make a toast. Suddenly, both he and Riseth sensed a miniaturized machine being deployed by a nearby guest, rapidly approaching the Kaiakos. Alistair immediately informed Nessyra about the responsible guest and moved to intercept the small robot, while Riseth wordlessly went to distract the individual who deployed it. Their new bloodline trait already proved its value, as they were immediately alerted to the machine's presence. Riseth reached the guest, a large Revenax pretending to indulge in the hors d'oeuvres, and casually engaged them in conversation.
Alistair quickly swiped the little machine, careful not to crush it. He trapped it in one of his higher-tier empty glass flasks to prevent it from escaping and stored it in his breast pocket as he wasn't sure how the machinery would react to being magically stored. His mind raced as he considered his next move. He knew the smartest course of action was to walk toward the Kaiakos to minimize potential exposure. Based on the energy signature, it wasn't a bomb; at worst, it was a machine intended for sabotage or a beacon of some sort. Either way, it was surely designed to latch onto the Kaiakos and be stored alongside it. This meant he needed to time storing it with the Kaiakos to minimize suspicion, assuming the machine lacked the ability to transmit a live feed. He informed his brother over the Akashic Link about the situation as he moved closer to the Kaiakos and the small platform in front of it.
"I can't really take a good look at it without my specialized equipment. Let's hope the thing is just a tracker and doesn't provide a live feed, or they already know you caught them," James remarked over the link.
"I thought the same thing. Let's set a timer to store the Kaiakos and the little machine after my speech," Alistair suggested.
James looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and they both knew that Alistair wasn't big on speeches. Riseth and Nessyra excused themselves from the crowd and joined him and James in front of the Kaiakos. Alistair and Riseth flexed their aura gently over the room as they lined up, grabbing everyone's attention. Alistair stepped up after giving his prepared speech a quick read-over.
"Welcome, everyone, and thank you all for coming," Alistair began, his voice steady and confident. "Over the last year, our lives have been thrown into chaos and forever changed as we embarked on a journey into the unknown. Everyone present is here because our paths converged to create something bigger, and for many of us, to find a new home under the Ryser Clan's banner."
As he paused, a display revealed the new sigil: a large stylized depiction of the Heavenly Purity Ginkgo in silvery white on a midnight blue background with a subtle nebula effect. The roots of the tree reached for the stars, while a feathered serpent with a wyvern head formed a runic R with its body in front of the tree.
Amid the applause and cheers, Alistair gestured towards the spacecraft behind him. "The Kaiakos is the culmination of everyone's hard work and dedication. Each of you has played a vital role in making this possible. Your contributions, whether big or small, have been invaluable. Let's celebrate this achievement together, knowing it stands as a testament to our collective effort and determination. Cheers!" Alistair raised his glass to the crowd.
Alistair looked at his brother, and a timer appeared on both their displays as they synchronized the storage of the two items. Locking arms with Riseth, he stepped down from the platform. The Kaiakos and the small machine vanished, and they began mingling with the more eager guests, though Alistair's mind was only half present as they continued discussing over their Akashic Link.
"The guy deploying the machine isn't one of our workers or guests but a plus-one of one of the workers who helped build the Kaiakos. I'll look into the worker. His name is Tiocru, and he isn't slated to join our expedition, but I don't think he knew about this and just fell for a honeypot," Nessyra added after a pause, "Honeypot is such a better term than what we use."
"What do we know of the Revenax, and do we have any means to have him followed?" Alistair inquired.
He heard Nessyra tsk in annoyance over the link. "We know his name is Kakrith, but tracking him is difficult with all the subspaces and gates. I'm already tapping my contacts to find out about his connections and usual haunts. We'll have people on the lookout for him after the party."
"Perhaps the little machine will let us find out more," James suggested.
"Either way, once the people are gone, we will make another complete sweep of the Kaiakos. I am unwilling to be tracked or sabotaged by unknown parties," Nessyra insisted.
They continued entertaining their guests while discreetly gathering information. Eventually, Kakrith left, and they quickly lost track of the Revenax as he exited through the workshop's portal. Taking the opportunity, they spoke with Ticoru, who was shocked by the little they did tell him and mentioned their plans to grind some more levels together the next day. They convinced him to keep quiet, hinting that Kakrith and his associates might have intended to kill him on that trip. Nessyra excused herself early from the party to question Ticoru further, though he had little more to offer.
Once the guests had departed, they inspected the Kaiakos and inspected the miniaturized tracking device. Fortunately, James determined that the device had no means of sending feedback other than its position in space and acting as a beacon, which suggested their discovery had gone unnoticed. They then convened an emergency meeting with Simon and a few others.
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"Should we try to catch Kakrith and his accomplices to question them?" Riseth asked the group.
"No," Simon countered. "The trial ends soon, and they know the system would pull them out unless we kill them, and killing them won't help us much and expose what we know."
"We should help Ticoru to find an excuse not to go hunting and keep pretending we don't know anything. Maybe we can lure them into an ambush of our own outside the trial," Alistair proposed, surprising everyone.
"I don't know about that. We shouldn't risk the Kaiakos like that," James said reluctantly.
"Think about it. Riseth has space mines, and if we can find a moon or some other location to place our railguns and planetary defenses, we should be able to destroy any syndicate or independent faction that tries to catch us," Alistair elaborated.
"But what if it isn't the Blackmarket syndicate but an advanced planetary faction? We've angered some Greys," Riseth pointed out.
"I think Alistair's plan has merit," Nessyra interjected. "The Greys from that planet aren't that vindictive or advanced from what I found out. I doubt they, or any faction other than the Blackmarket, would go this far to make enemies of us and our allies."
They had a brief back-and-forth until Alistair turned to Riseth with a crucial question. "Riseth, is an ambush feasible?"
"The way space travel works, we should be able to set up a pretty nasty ambush with the tools at our disposal," Riseth replied.
"Can you elaborate on how space travel works so everyone is on the same page? It could be crucial to making this ambush work," Alistair requested, looking intently at Riseth.
"Sure," Riseth began. "Most jumps use a combination of technology and space or teleportation magic. Jumpdrives need an anchor to target, and the longer the distance, the larger the anchor needs to be. Additionally, the jumpdrive requires more time to calculate the distance, account for spatial drift, and avoid void rifts and other obstacles.
"If no beacons or gates are available, natural anchors are used. Depending on the distance, these anchors can be stars or planets' gravity wells. Intergalactic jumps typically use black holes or other large, high-gravity phenomena at the galaxy's center. This allows the jump to drop just outside the edge of their gravity wells before performing shorter jumps."
"Once in the gravity well of a new galaxy, you can perform more precise and shorter jumps aiming for stable points in space known as Lagrange points of nearby star systems. These stable points are often used to place beacons and gates, which significantly speed up the jumpdrives' calculations and usually get you much closer in-system, rather than having to fly in from the edge of a star's gravity well," Riseth concluded.
"Since we plan to settle in a nebula, how does that interact with jumpdrives?" Alistair asked.
"Due to the common lack of a large gravity well in a nebula, we'll need to jump to a nearby galaxy first," Riseth explained. "Once there, the jumpdrive needs to calculate for a few days to find an anchor within the nebula for a blind jump. From there, we’ll have to perform short jumps from one-star system's gravity well within the nebula to another. If they use a beacon, they can target our location once we stop, essentially skipping a lot of the calculations, cutting down the time their jumpdrives require to calculate significantly."
"How do they even maintain a connection over such vast distances?" Simon asked, confused.
"It's some really bizarre magic mixed with a natural phenomenon," Riseth replied. "You might know it as quantum entanglement. Essentially, they are linked through magic even when light-years apart. If you mess with one, the other responds."
"And what are those Void Rifts you mentioned?" Simon questioned.
"Void Rifts are areas in space completely devoid of mana," Riseth explained. "They exist in most galaxies, consuming anything that enters their range and preventing teleportation and navigation. Acting as natural barriers, they extend above and below the galaxy's axis, making it pointless to try to fly over or below them, forcing navigation around the rifts.
"These rifts are often used by empires to form the borders of factions. Not even gods dare enter those zones for long. While not exactly invisible, they are a kind of nothingness that you can't see. If you look at a picture of a galaxy, you can often notice cutoff points and separations, which are usually Void Rifts," Riseth concluded.
They continued talking about the viability and the risk of whoever chased them catching up before they were ready, and they were confident if they diverted the course into another nebula and had the Artemis deploy the railguns and space mines ahead of the Kaiakos'es arrival were certain that they could handle any grouping aiming for them or at least escape after inflicting catastrophic damage.
Did the sweep of the Kaiakos turn up anything?" Simon eventually asked.
"No, we're in the clear on that front. I'm more curious about finding out more about the Revenax who tried to plant the beacon," James said, turning to Nessyra.
"He is not officially affiliated with any faction, so he is either a spy or, more likely, part of a Blackmarket Syndicate or independent pirate group," Nessyra added grimly. "As I said, they have likely identified us as a future threat that needs to be eliminated or neutralized as soon as possible."
Alistair knew that the Blackmarket Syndicate was one of the vilest factions in the multiverse, catering to everyone's needs and wants, no matter how dark or depraved. They networked with various, mostly independent factions, offering services like assassination, slavery, drugs, prostitution, and sheltering individuals practicing forbidden and restricted magics. Once Nessyra had gathered enough information on them, he and Riseth had instructed her to keep them at arm's length, not wishing to trade with such individuals unless absolutely necessary.
Being targeted by the Syndicate was more a matter of when than if. The faction was notorious for swiftly networking and establishing itself in new universes, functioning more like an association than a traditional faction with defined leadership and directives. They frequently targeted emerging factions not aligned with them, aiming to cripple or eliminate them before they could become a future problem. Many promising clans and factions had perished in their infancy due to these tactics.
It seemed the Ryser Clan was next in line for such an attempt. However, Alistair and the others unanimously agreed: the Ryser Clan would send a clear message that they were not to be fucked with.