CHAPTER 22 - THE BULWARK

"Do you know what the Thurise Free Republic is?" Jamaad said.

"Oh, those mad reckless turtle people… what about them?" Rachel asked.

The captain began explaining. "They're the ones who developed InterPlanetary Kill Missiles, and distributed them to the rest of the Barrier of Freedom. You know, the stuff that normally dissuades the Hegemony from attacking the Barrier. Essentially like what nukes were to 20th-century Earth, except proportionally somewhat weaker and easier to counter… but still a great deterrent thanks to being equipped with warp drives. And as Artur could tell you, they have a good working relationship with the BFR. Anyways, the Ilsh-Bewruw Kingdoms, our destination, are highly factitious. Nominally an Union, in organization the civilization more closely resembles the Holy Roman Empire of old: many squabbling fiefdoms vying for dominance. This political structure is, of course, inefficient and slow to adopt technology and institutions. Thus, as it turned out, the idiots misplaced most of their stockpile of IKPMs, and really we and the thurise had doubts they had the capacity to maintain, reproduce, and launch them anyways. Genuinely one of the poorest countries in the damn Oval."

"And what then?"

"That's where the BFR comes in, really. Their engineers miniaturized the torch drives the missiles use for acceleration. Currently, they use the same types we use, with an according thrust-to-weight ratio limit depending on size, so they can't be too small and easy to produce and handle. They have seriously shrunk the size– at the cost of making the damn thing spout so much radiation that they're rather unsafe even with shields and booms to distance habitats from the drives. So for now, the only use is unmanned missiles… classic BFR, only making things that blow shit up," he paused and chuckled.

Artur could be heard snorting in the background.

"Makes sense… so wait, wait, wait, the admiral told you all this?"

"She did. Anyways, to finish up, since it wasn't the thurise themselves who developed the improved IKPMs, and instead it was the BFR, we have to send the ilsh, and by extension the thurise, the schematics. We still couldn't ship the missiles themselves, it would have taken far too long. They can make these miniaturized ones, I'm pretty sure, even if they haven't grown up enough for the big toys. Should still be enough."

"Aaaaand why did they hide this from us?" Kuw said, tilting her head.

"Opsec. Standard operating procedure. But I trust you all now. Rachel, work your magic!"

Rachel's slim fingers danced across the keyboard as she keyed in the password, selected the last ten-minute archive of the audio and video in the CIC, then deliberately corrupted it using a compression app, misusing it on purpose. She had to click through the pop-up nagging her to buy the premium version first, but the program worked well. She wondered if anyone ever, in the history of the software, bought the paid version.

She then manually added a note next to the tampered-with archive.

> >Been running software upgrades on computer systems. Made a mistake; upgrade package had virus. Corrupted one file. Antivirus stopped it too late.

She then thought for a bit, and corrupted a few irrelevant files in the same manner, to make her alibi more plausible, then changed 'one file' to 'several seemingly random files including this log'.

"Done," she said, and made a shushing gesture. Everyone nodded.

For the rest of the exit transit, the air in the CIC was empty of auditory vibrations except for the beeps of several consoles. Everyone was rather afraid of letting slip something illegal. Halfway through the burn, Kuw got up and went to the medbay. Her legs had long gotten used to the high gravity… and had become stronger and bulkier. Walking on this ship during a burn was exercise in and of itself.

She sat down next to Mwiu on the cot. They spoke in the relmai language, of course. "How's it?"

"Feeeels like I'm under a million blankets."

Kuw lifted up a corner of the hefty, garish covering. "Nope just one."

Mwiu smiled. "Not used to such a fast ship."

"Don't ya worry, ya won't get crushed. Just be careful on the ladder. When I first transferred to the Terran navy I fell on my head after trying to do the swing. It was hard to clear my head of that tradition… my captain– not Jamaad, some old cyborg guy– toooold me I 'looked like a jackass'. Was a custom back home!"

"Ya guys don't do that? It's what we knooow the relmai navy people do upon stepping on the ship!"

"The ladder design ain't right for it. Anyways, do ya play games? I and Rachel bought a very very good humie one way back. We've been playing it as often as we can… which isn't ooooften, unfortunately…" Kuw sighed and leaned into the pillow Mwiu was laying on.

"I taaake it ya don't get any free time?" Mwiu said.

"Not muuch at all. Only these past few days… but soon will be the last push towards our destination. Only a few juuumps left."

"What is your destination?"

Kuw shook her head. "It's… an important mission! Erm… how do you handle warp?"

"Not gooood, at leeast when sober. Even with a slight dose, or weak stuff, not good," Mwiu reached below her blanket and pulled a zip bag full of some chunky shimmering liquid out of an unseen pocket, "Now, thiiiiis…"

Kuw's eyes widened. "Is that koukiu? Are ya out of your mind?"

Mwiu smirked. "Maybe I aaaam. Or maybe ya spent too much tiiime around these boring humans? Ya even a relmai, or a human in a suit?"

Kuw rolled her eyes. Both pupils per eye.

"Eh, eh? Wanna try?" Mwiu's tone turned to barely-held-back laughter.

"Soooorry, am on duty. Am only allowed the adrenaline that the Navy prescribes. They are indeed boooring," Kuw gestured.

"How do ya even live then?"

"Dunno. Work distracts me, games distract me, now my partner distracts me. I caaaan manage," Kuw said.

"Am soooorry for ya!"

"Don't be."

Qoolucu the Chimera stirred from the nearby cot. His three-pointed head was hidden in full by the blanket. Colored lights occasionally glimmered through gaps between the sheet and the mattress. "For the sake of providing information and context, I will inform you that I know Liamuju. I would much prefer if you talked in that language over English. I highly despise English, and every five days and six hours I pray to Byycul, the Grand Aspect of Speech, that the abominably un-Harmonious language would vanish from the face of the Oval. I can only imagine how wonderful human society would be life if they had adopted the beautiful language called Volapuk.

Magälolöd jöni!"

He then repeated his statement… in English, and laugh-hummed. The others in the medbay responded likewise, though Qoolucu, in his infinite Chimeric wisdom, didn't know they were laughing at him, not with him. Even the blue android's laugh track straight out of a centuries-old comedy did not clue him in. Knowledge of pre-space-age, completely un-Harmonious Terran culture was extraneous, after all!

"You know, I still can't really get past how we're finally free," the Asian man said, as the last vestiges of the overly-long laugh track began to wind down. "Just a few days ago, I thought we all would die there."

***

"You know, I still can't really get past how we're finally free," Rachel said, looking at the station through the sensors, the installation having now shrunk into a dot. "I thought we would remain stuck there somehow. Like something would delay us. Anyways, up next is the Anti-Abyssal Bulwark. Remind me of what they are like?" she continued, right as Kuw returned.

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"Two species," Jamaad said, "the xzik, who are deaf but can see, and the robth-hu, who are blind but can hear. Their home systems were so close that they could hear each others' broadcasts and TV or radio-equivalents. Despite immense physiological differences, it appeared that the two were also of the same biosphere, implying panspermia millions or billions of years ago– due to the large amount of rogue asteroids in the xzik home-system of Kipa, that seems like the most likely explanation. Thus their societies became closer than the humans and relmai are now, even before inventing FTL. And when one developed torch drives, the other developed warp. They shared these inventions, and set out into space. Their societies were resource-poor but equal and free…"

"This story doesn't haaaave a happy ending, does it?" Kuw said as she sat down at her seat.

"Well no shit!" Artur said.

"...and then the Abyssals came knocking. Having vassalized Yectkogg and the Glubb-enn Domain, they were on something of a conquering spree to expand their abominable Sphere. Fleets from Yectkogg, from Abyssalia, from Glubb-enn, even from Cagg– flooded over the border in a surprise attack that broke a peace treaty. This was in what is, by our time, 2142. The Alliance was too weak and fractious to do anything. There were pyrrhic victories of the twin species over their homeworlds, yet Kipa was ravaged, Robth was devastated. Billions dead, mostly civilians. Unimaginable damage to culture, heritage, and ecology. Entire swathes of colonies were seized by Yectkogg and their people put into corporate slavery. It looked like the Sphere was readying a finishing blow, yet a struggle at home, between rival Abyssal cabals, forced the fleets to pull back to fight a slogging civil war. With this respite given to them, the xzik and the robth-hu united into the Bulwark, a diarchy under a semi-democratic regime whose system is very alien but can best be described as 'military communism', bent on enacting revenge upon the Abyssals. It's not as nice a place to live as it used to be, but they take care of their people well enough, and launch partisan attacks into Yectkogg border space– which was why we stayed away from systems too close to the border."

"Ah, these guys! I read about them long ago, but forgot. They sound like total friendos! Hate cappies, hate fascists, hate Abyssals, hate Hegemony, love me some fighting!" Artur snorted, "Anyways, Terra's a superpower now, the RelComm is a superpower too. Why don't we just come together and help them…" he punched his palm several times.

"Well, first of all, their stated goal is to not spare a single Abyssal. The males, the females, and even the hatchlings too. They want to crack the ice crust of the Abyssal homeworld and dump billions of tons of heavier-than-water neurotoxin into the subsurface ocean– remember that the Abyssals live in burrows in pelagic cliff faces. Not all Abyssals are consciously evil– they have a compulsion to torture, yet they cannot help it. The Alliance has been trying to get them to change their goal to reeducating or neuro-rewiring the Abyssal population, to no avail. I seriously advise you all to not bring this up in the Bulwark when we stop there. Second of all, they are currently too broken to mount an assault against a faction leader. We have been giving them aid, but it's not enough," the captain continued.

"Should we even stop there? We just got our repairs…" Elektra said.

"No, I mean, if something goes terribly wrong– wait, Rachel, check the map again?"

The catgirl leaned into the screen. "The Bulwark is quite thin. Honestly the only reason we can't pass it altogether is that we're on the side of Yectkogg that's far from it. But what's beyond… what's the Yollkul Triarchy?"

"Hm… oh, right. This slipped out of my mind. You all know the wqwkawu?" Jamaad asked.

"Cybernetic vaguely rabbit-esque herbivores with a crippling fear of carnivores. Society collapsed after several scuffles with the Chohjozra Nrukhrizchaa caused by a series of meat-related diplomatic accidents," Rachel said.

"Right. And vr'rok?"

"Barbarians worse than the Canids," Elektra chimed in. Artur didn't react at all. "Who went through several cycles of empires that all ended in nukes, not destroying their civilization only thanks to inherent radiation resistance. The last one, caused by attacking the Kseldani Collective, thus causing it to join the Alliance, was the last one to date, and resulted in interstellar warlordism."

"Right. Imagine the worst of those, but with an actually functional society. The yollkul have aggression and order as their temperaments. A harsh warrior culture, where one rises through the hierarchy by beating an 'outsider' in combat," Jamaad said. "Yes, they're basically Canids but evil. As for our little passengers, that means we won't get to drop them off soon enough. I don't want to keep them for several days. We have to stop for that if nothing else, but the weapons are also good."

"...why don't we go around…?" Rachel sighed.

"Look again at your map. See that huge swath? That's the Yollkul Triarchy. Going around it while avoiding places with strong Abyssal presence would probably waste many days, it encircles the Abyssal Sphere's borders in many directions at once, and as refueling opportunities are few here, we'd have needed to go slower. We're stopping at the Bulwark for a weapons checkup, possibly a recalibration or two. Should be less than a day. Rachel, set course for… whichever is the closest developed Bulwark system to the Yollkul border. Within jump range."

"But–" The catgirl looked him in the eyes.

"No 'but's. My questions were testing you all. I knew all of this."

"Setting course for Ukul-robth," Rachel sighed. The ship turned like a carousel at a carnival, reorienting its thrust for an optimal jump.

"You know, it's a good thing we saved those missiles. I still got five," Artur said.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Elektra said.

Kuw and Patch stayed quiet. The former glanced first at Rachel, then at the captain, then back again. She was clearly nervous. Rachel nodded at her, as if to say that it will all be okay.

***

The shifts, disrupted by the lengthy stay essentially off-duty, restabilized according to everyone's natural rhythms.

28 Apr 2231

Jamaad and Artur were in command during the warp. They stayed on watch for the entire nine hours of the transit. It was oddly peaceful, and the voices in Jamaad's head, instead of the litany of pop-cultural and historical references, recited some old poems: some from the Age of Protests or the later Age of Colonization, yet some from the pre-Space Ages, such as the 19th century and older. He knew he read them once, perhaps decades ago, but only knew that. The words themselves seemed to be retrieved from the deepest recesses of his memory.

Artur, meanwhile, was beset by not just words and images, but feelings. Oddly soft feelings, of warmth from being with his friends, of love for his distant family, of regret caused by his past actions. "Sir, why do I feel all weird now? It's pleasant, but… why?"

"You see, the fifth dimension has something of an unseen landscape in it. Okay, it's not really a dimension, or really a landscape, but you get the idea," Jamaad said.

"Now I understand why Ugolnikov went mad."

***

With an uncharacteristic whole-hull slap, the ship exited a good distance away from Ukul-robth. A stark contrast to the previous red giant, it was a protostar. Its yellowish glow was obscured by a haze of gas and space dust, mixed in with asteroids that were imperceptible at this distance. The debris cloud had already begun coalescing into a thick, wide disk of roiling dust and rock fragments, red-hot streaks showing through the banks of stellar detritus that more resembled storm clouds than any celestial objects. The debris disk was so immense in its size that it even reached out to the warp boundary of the system. The Pheidippides materialized somewhat above this plane, and from Rachel's viewscreen it almost looked like they were above the clouds in the atmosphere of a planet.

Rachel and Kuw were there, accompanying the captain and the weaponsmaster at the tail end of their shift.

"Ya know, I always associated space wiiiith emptiness," Kuw said, leaning into Rachel's screen. "This ain't empty."

"It looks not-empty, but in a few hundreds of megayears this will just be a normal system. But pretty isn't it?" Rachel said.

"It's… unique."

There were not so many ships here, and most stayed well and far away from the disk. A zoom-in by Rachel revealed many, many fiery collisions of asteroids, the bodies themselves being lost in a mess of flashes and molten rock. Clearly, nobody sane would have gone there. The sorties of asteroid miners that were seen approaching the recently-collided, still-molten metallic asteroids and making off with large globs of mixed metals were, then, not sane in the slightest.

One of several starports was fairly nearby. It orbited out of plane with the disk, on a wide arc that resembled the kind a bouncing ball would make. The installation, as well as its surrounding swarm of civilian, military, and police vessels, careened right towards the Pheidippides. Fortunately, it was a fair distance away from the ship, eliminating the possibility of a high-energy collision. A routine retrograde burn, slowly turning around the ship as to spare the stress on its irreparable central pillar, was enough to begin the rendezvous.

Compared to all the other starports the crew had seen before, this station, named Kuhtaath-ghhu, was rather ramshackle. It looked even more hastily built than Decl-tjub, and composed of multiple modules. It looked much like the early space stations built by pre-space-age nation-states, if they kept growing and growing in a labyrinth of criss-crossing modules. The entire complex was slightly larger than FE-01, and was much denser considering the lack of a major hab ring. It was not quite like a kiloproject-grade habitat, but was certainly toeing the line. A large fraction of the modules seemed to be of an industrial nature: various refineries with exposed, grimy machinery sent crates of ore across conveyor belts. The belts merged like rivers, allowing their cargo to enter some kind of immense bay the size and shape of a Mammothyards Colossus-class barge. On a closer examination, it seemed like the bay was such a barge, with everything except for its compartment long since stripped and cannibalized. Instead of a central ring, there were several spinning habitat modules dotted around the maze-like superstructure. Curiously, the blinking lights present on most stations were absent everywhere except for the starport, and the station itself had absolutely no external markings whatsoever.

The multitude of off-center habitat rings would have made the station begin to spin out wildly, if not for a massive, saucer-like solar sail placed 'under' it, facing the star. The sail was crinkled, to compensate for the unbalanced center of mass of the station. It was much wider than Kuhtaath-ghhu itself, and all the surrounding ships took care not to point a single thruster towards it…

"PLEASE TAKE OF CARE TO POINT AN EXHAUST STRICTLY AWAY FROM 'SOL-SHIELD'. PUNISH FOR NOT FOLLOWING: DEPORT."

Thus blared an automated message, immediately after the ship was spotted by the station. Kuw immediately recoiled from the speakers on which she was leaning. "Ow! Been a while since I ran into one of these unprompted protocol messages… but here it makes seeeense."

The approach, which lasted for around eight hours, was uneventful. Elektra was with the passengers, down in the medbay.