Emerald pt. 1
22 Jul 2022User319792
This log is the product of a collaboration with CMDR Bluecrash. Thanks and good tidings to CMDR Bluecrash
Our Imperial escort arrived, docking at pad one on N.O.S. with a mini-flotilla of Imperial Couriers swarming around the carrier, an Imperial Cutter in an almost light-absorbing shade of black. Entering the hangar with a complete disregard for the rest of the crew aboard, the head of Imperial Senator Bluecrash’s escort detail made straight for the briefing room, as the man in the black suit and I watched on the monitors. The man in the black suit donned a slim-fitting one-piece suit, a slim black tie held in place with a silver eye at the center of the knot, and a coat that nearly touched the floor draped over his shoulders, exposing little other than the tips of his shoes and a sharp V that started at his sternum and rose upward toward his collarbones and around his neck. I elected to go with my standard flight suit, outerwear and magboots combination, in white, gray, and red, which attracted more than a few looks from the man in the black suit as we awaited our escort.
“You could try to impress these people, Cadence”
“I could have N.O.S. shoot down the entire escort and bring us there in Octavian”
I’d wished I’d felt the confidence of the throat punch I’d just given the man in the black suit, who did little more than chuckle. From the moment I’d been briefed on Coral’s status, I’d felt a sharp sting at the base of my neck and it had been slowly growing in intensity as the night wore on. We continued to watch as the Imperial escort continued toward the briefing room, pausing slightly to shoot a crew member that crossed his path like a piece of ship wreckage drifting away from a dogfight, never so much as acknowledging the calls from my crew with anything other than existing in the presence of what he clearly deigned radio interference. He entered the compartment and the man in the black suit and I turned to him in unison, him speaking before a single-word left our mouths,
“Imperial Senator Bluecrash informs me you’ve consented to biodesic analysis. You’ll be traveling no further than the contours of Emerald’s exclusion zone, otherwise.”
I looked at the man in the black suit, wondering if “biodesic analysis” was even a thing, and the man in the black suit extended his palm, into which the Imperial escort placed a small disc. I watched as a small probe extended outward from his palm, the tip opening at full-extension into another smaller disc, before hearing the man in the black suit let out a sound that I can only describe as a sneeze with the force of a cannon being throttled at the muzzle. The vein in his neck bulged and his eyes opened-wide before slowly lowering to half-open. He stood, as if in a trance, and I saw blood dripping from the back of his hand. He extended his other arm out as far as it could go, rotating his hands at the wrists, and swinging it outward before returning it to his side. The disc beeped and the man in the black suit made the noise, again, and the disc’s probe returned to its position within the disc, which was then handed to the Imperial escort. The man in the black suit looked back at me, and he pursed his lips while jutting his chin forward, as the Imperial escort handed me a similar disc. I peered down at the chrome object, no bigger than the two-eared head of the eagle on my the Pilot’s Federation trading badge emblazoned on my shoulder, and felt the near weightlessness of the thing. I saw the probe extend from its center and then felt what I can only describe as the sharp sting of the entirety of what I believed to be my existence explode before handing it back to the Imperial escort, looking immediately at the man in the black suit, who looked at me from the corner of his eye, nodding as his shoulders gently rocked up in down and he fought the smile at the corner of his lips.
The Imperial escort looked at both of us, in turn, nodded, and turned on his heels.
“Right, then. Follow me.”
We boarded the Cutter and he led us through its corridors, which grew increasingly dim. I looked at the man in the black suit as he faded into blackness, leaving nothing more than the sound of the Imperial escort’s footsteps, those of the man in the black suit, and my own.
“You’ll be seated in here for the transit to the gallery.”
I stood in complete darkness, unsure of what to do, and then felt a hand grab me roughly by the shoulder and lead me toward my left side, hearing a compartment door close. The faintest whisper of the man in the black suit’s overcoat rustling grew in intensity and, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed that we were in a compartment completely devoid of light.
“Uh… so…”
“Strap in, Cadence. We’re in the good graces of the Empire.”
The transit lasted all of 10 minutes or so, between the faint sound of N.O.S. releasing the Cutter, the explosive ejection from supercruise into Emerald’s atmosphere, and the faint click of the Cutter’s landing gear’s hydraulic locking mechanism as we touched down. A brief moment later, I heard the compartment door open and the Imperial escort was joined by three others, armed with batons, standing at attention behind him.
“Imperial Senator Bluecrash is occupied with things of importance, so we will be escorting you directly into the premises.”
The three guards, wearing headlamps, stepped forward and took their places at the far end of the room, standing at attention, and the Imperial escort beckoned us. I stood and walked toward the door of the compartment, the man in the black suit just behind me, and I saw the lights of the headlamps dancing on the bulkheads as the three guards closed the space behind us, sealing the compartment behind them as they exited.
The exhibition hall took the wind out of me. Less an exhibition hall than a planetary multi-vessel repair dock that could house 50 Majestic-Class Interdictors, it stretched from horizon to horizon on either side of me. The Imperial escort led us toward the entrance, which was cloaked in a shimmering spectacle of Thargons, made from what looked to be the reconstituted panels of Guardian sites, firing lasers of various colors as they traversed harmoniously in Euclidean orbits, pausing occasionally in various geometric patterns, around a walkway leading to a single door. It grew exceedingly difficult to keep my focus on the Imperial escort as he led up forward, with the growing number of thargons swarming around us. I could feel my pulse begin to rise and a bead of sweat forming just underneath my left ear.
The man in the black suit, standing to my right, pointed toward the entrance and I watched as the Imperial escort handed the guard at the door, flanked by an entire special forces squadron in their Dominator suits. The guard slipped the discs into a black box, which made a short whirring sound, and immediately shot a look toward me. His eyes narrowed and made a quick movement with his right hand as we approached the entrance. Stepping in front of us, he raised a eye-scanner toward me and, before running the scan, quickly nodded over my shoulder. I turned my head slightly, peering over my shoulder, and behind me stood three other guards in Dominator suits that, based on the quick count I did, were standing right in front of me just seconds before. I looked away from the guard, feeling the irritation rising in me, and watched as a swarm of thargons began spiraling around a center-point in the shape of the Milky Way, its center throbbing toward and away from me in tandem with the heavy bass of the music escaping through the entry. I saw a curl form on the outer corner of the guard’s lips and he took a quick step back, the special forces operatives behind me pressing me forward through sheer force of will, and I entered the hall.
Stepping onto the catwalk, I saw that the entirety of the proceedings would be taking place along the suspended walkway, nearly 50-meters above the bottom of the hall, which turned out to be mostly underground. The majority of the guests were huddled on a central platform, on which a stage was constructed. Imperial Senator Bluecrash was speaking to the audience, inaudible from where I stood, and between she and I was an impossible distance. Peering above the catwalks were gigantic spires which looked to be constructed from the Guardian beacons I’d seen when flying with CMDR Inf3ctd. I began walking toward the throng, only to have a machine roll toward me, its mechanical arm beckoning me to sit. I looked toward the man in the black suit, who met my eyes with a chuckle and took a seat on another that beckoned him in the same manner. I sat, the hydraulic arm clasping itself around my ankle, and it sped off toward the Imperial Senator at a speed that surprised me.
Watching the spires pass, I thought about my last experience with the Guardian sites, a short drive in my Scorpion through the ruins, and I looked over at one of the spires coming into view realizing they weren’t spires but full-sized Thargoid interceptors made from reconstituted pieces of Guardian technology. The scale was immense and I felt my throat tighten as I watched on after another come into view. There looked to be sixteen or so, all in various stages of attack formation, and as I felt a chill rising from the base of my spine, a swarm of thargons whipped past me, the center of their galactic swarms throbbing with the fast-paced music, which died down as we approached the throng surrounding the Imperial Senator.
The man in the black suit nodded toward the Imperial Senator, who was in conversation with a man I didn’t recognize,
“You know what makes me sad?”
“Your small hands?”
“That you didn’t accept my offer for your collection. You should have taken my offer. I was a trillionaire before you.”
“I’ll flip you for it.”
“For what?”
“One trillion credits.”
The man in conversation with the Senator raised his hand and materialized an old Earth coin and the man in the black suit, who’d been listening with a look of intensity, mumbled,
“That thing is probably worth more than the princess’s entire shoe collection.”
The look on his face was probably worth about the same, and the man in conversation with the Imperial Senator continued,
“Heads or Tails.”
“The brutality of the eagle, it’s very awful. Ever watch wildlife shows? I learned a few things.”
“Like not to swim with sting-rays?”
“Dead men across the Federation would agree with that. I’ll call the coin flip after you toss it”.
The Imperial Senator spoke to the man like he was little more than a nuisance, the disdain dripping from her lips.
The coin seem to magically flip from the man’s hands, without so much as a treble of his wrist, into the air above them.
Without looking away from the man’s eyes, the Imperial Senator called heads, immediately wincing as if she’d known she’d already lost. She’d stopped looking at him as soon as the last words left her mouth. I caught the man in the black suit shudder as the wind caught in his throat,
“She’s just played into a pirate’s game…”
I already knew what the man in the black suit was thinking, and everyone knows that pirates cannot be trusted.
“Tails Bluecrash.”
“You’re going to need the credits for your campaign trail. Or perhaps you would like to pay off the massive debt you have to families living in the Empire’s bubble.”
“Unfair Bluecrash. You’ve been looking a little too closely at my history instead of my credit score. All that bad stuff is in the past. It doesn’t count.”
“You are starting to sound like an ex-girlfriend of mine.”
“Transfer the credits, Bluecrash. Tonight you belong to me. I’m sure the Princess would be pleased at the generosity of the Empire.”
“This planet is a neutral zone. Play nice. I don’t feel like passing any news laws tonight. Ever think, you helped the wrong person steal the wrong thing?”
“The Empire wouldn’t follow three rules if they were all robots.”
“You got jokes.”
“Jokes all day. I am rising up in this galaxy Blue. You’re going to want to be with me. I came from…”
“A Sidewinder, smelling of piss and vinegar, that you bring up in every press expose. You seem to leave off the part about wealthy parents and a life of crime that you seemed to pursue not because you needed the money but because you got bored torturing cats or some other small animal.”
I took a look at the man in conversation with the Imperial Senator, who’d just been described as the man I’ve come to know to be Zachary Rackham, galactic trillionaire and candidate for Federation President, and I was back in the Captain’s chair with Coral speaking to me in hushed tones. The entirety of the room faded into a wash of colors, the man standing before me framed by yet another swarm of thargons, the centers of their galaxies throbbing with an intensity that grew increasingly synchronized with the piercing sting at the base of my neck. Taking no heed of the throng, the man in the black suit, nor myself, the man continued,
“Perhaps you’d rather bore us with stories ‘bout Raxxla, and how you can’t even figure out how to open a single door. And for the record, I would never torture a cat.”
“All the doors in the galaxy are sliding doors. This new door is something I've never seen. But, fair enough. I do have another question for you. Being that you are now just a drinker with a pirate problem. How do you get Jaques Still to work? I’ve combined it with so many different liquids and it never combines anything?”
“You are a peasant Bluecrash. And no matter how many trillions you have, every red cent will be a measure of your ineptitude to anyone of worth within to the Empire. I’ll expect my Zaonce account to have doubled by the time my Beluga staff get me home. And quit sensationalizing history. It is full of dead people, and nobody cares anymore.”
The man walked away with with his entourage of security, well dressed strangers, and thirteen Imperial slaves, boys no older than I or Coral, carrying and pouring liquor from the bar following them on a lift much like the ones on which I and the man in the black suit were seated.
The Imperial Senator looked toward me and I began to return from N.O.S’. viewing deck. The galaxy was obliterated and the thargon swarm reformed into concentric circles, rotating in opposite directions at every level, and wobbling on their axes, and she stepped directly into my view, her head at the center of a devastating halo, and began speaking,
“I’m not sure why he brings his own Ganymede looking bartenders with him everywhere. It’s a lot like Daniel Craig. Cabana boys following him around New York in all the celebrity photos. Perhaps Rackham fancies himself as a Bond type. I’m more a Sean Connery fan, despite all the talk of him throwing hands inappropriately.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. I watched as her eyes slowly relaxed, the tension surrounding her dead eye easing at a far slower pace than that of her living. The man seemed to have had her number, in more ways than one, and she was grinding the words through her teeth. Someone stuck their head out over her shoulder, and she turned her head slightly to listen,
“Everything sold. An ‘unnamed patron’ bought most of it,” the Imperial Senator’s face twisted in a mixture of confusion and giddy joy, “and, according to her escort, has spent far less than her usual budgetary allocations. Where do you want the 117 trillion credits transferred to? Bank of Zaonce like everyone else?”
“No. We have launched a new corporation. And all of this money is going into a trust for a very special project. The Empire will have its own banking system from this week on. You can transfer all the credits to our corporate trust at Ecumenopolis.”
“No one is going to be able to spell that. E-Cum Nopolis. You are pretty kinky for an offworlder”.
“I’ll write it down for you.”
The Imperial Senator pulled a pen shaped like a Manticore cannon from her breast pocket and carved it into the arm of this new conversationalist, who winced with every letter. They continued their conversation, the new conversationalist still wincing, and I felt a presence approach me from the rear.
The Imperial Diplomat smiled weakly at me and I stood, meeting his gaze with my nose in the air. Standing nearly a foot taller than me, he shrank to half-a-foot taller, and the slightest whimper left his throat. The man in the black suit stood, stepping behind my right shoulder, and we met his entropy with a unified exclusion zone.
“Always a pleasure to be in your presence, Ms. Nain,” he respired, the words taking nearly the whole of his essence from him. I stood in silence, awaiting his next words, “and with my new position, I can truly see the fullness of your contributions to Her Empire.”
I hadn’t been keeping track of the man’s exploits since being extracted from his influence, and he’d been granted a reprieve by those even more powerful than Senator Bluecrash herself, being assigned a position as one of Princess Aisling’s personal couriers. There seemed an odd justice to me in the idea that he’d been forgiven his role in the Empire’s near collapse, even inadvertent on his part, and subsequently assigned to a role on the staff of a woman ideologically adverse to his support for the continual propagation of what he believed to be the honorable institution of imperial slavery. I looked toward Imperial Senator Bluecrash, who’d seemingly nodded off, waking with a start and looking at the Imperial Diplomat, who again winced, this time under the gaze of the Imperial Senator.