Chapter 2

“Travel throughout normal space, hereforth simply referred to as space, is limited by the laws of physics. To achieve faster-than-light travel with consistency, we must abstract ourselves from those laws by sidestepping the issue entirely. Travelling through a universe with no physical laws presents its own set of issues, as any material or energy encountered in such a universe would likely result in the destruction of anything from a more stable universe, so the only safe method for travel under these conditions would involve a universe that contains neither physical laws, energy, or material. 

Ontologically speaking, in the infinity of potential planes, such a world would only take so long to discover, and prior to our own experience with null-space, hereforth referred to simply as n-space, it was frequented by all travelers from our own plane of existence. Hypothetically, it is used for the same purpose by any residents of additional planes where intelligent life and magic have developed, but as yet, there has been no observable evidence of this. Space is vast, n-space, containing nothing, seems even more so, and as such, the likelihood of ever encountering another traveler is extremely low.”

—Methodology of Interdiction, Part One, Zhaan Triffet

The Saizen brothers did not look delighted to see them when they returned. Possibly because they’d been trying to take off as the planet began to break apart beneath them, and Sylvas had plucked them back out of the air and slammed them down to land.

“Never said anything about exploding planets when we cut our deal, did you?” one Saizen complained as he opened the hatch.

“Never said that there wouldn’t be any either,” Kaya snapped back.

“That’s the sort of thing you might want to mention to a man,” the other brother called through from the cockpit.

Sylvas was the last on board before the hatch snapped shut. “We didn’t know that things were going to turn out like this.”

“Bet you could have guessed, though,” the sweaty little Saizen brother in the airlock grumbled. “You’re a gambling man. What were the odds?”

A shiver ran through Sylvas, and he had to lean against the wall to recapture his balance. When his hand came away, there was a rusty handprint left behind, and the little indicator lights on the surrounding panels had all gone out. “It’s done.” His voice came out lower than intended, almost a growl. “We don’t have time to squabble.”

“You don’t have time to squabble. There’s two of me, and we’ve got plenty of time.” Saizen continued his complaining all the way to the front of the ship.

Darling, I’m going to need you to remain as calm as possible. Integrating this new eidolon into the already complex mesh of circles and systems that we have in operation is proving to be a little… trying. The fact that its very nature is that of unmaking, and we’re trying to make something…

“Fast as you can,” Sylvas blurted out loud before realizing that all eyes in the cockpit were once again on him. Luckily, the Saizen in the pilot’s circle thought that he was being spoken to. Unluckily, he had a lot of opinions to share.

“And there I was thinking to take my time. Doing the scenic tour of the planetary collapse. Taking in the sights.” He had flung the ship into motion the moment that the hatch had closed behind Sylvas, but now he was pouring everything he had into the engines. The planet had lost much of its gravity with the destruction of the anchor portal, but there was still enough to fight them as they tried to escape its grasp. “Fast would have been leaving without you. Fast would have been leaving the minute we saw what this place was. Fast as I can…”

“Aye, thank you so much for waiting for us,” Kaya grumbled. “Abandoning us the first chance you got.”

“First chance we got would have been selling you out to the highest bidder back on Glamrock. Second chance would have been turning you in at the border. We must have been up to about the nineteenth chance by the time we weren’t taking off the second you were out of sight.” The Saizen brothers seemed to be genuinely incensed. “This wasn’t no first chance thing; this was trying to save our asses from a planet blowing up. Don’t get high and mighty with us when we’re the ones sticking our necks out for you.”

“We genuinely appreciate all that you’ve done to help us,” Rania began placating them, only to be cut off by the ship shuddering so violently she was flung into Malachai’s arms.

“The hell was that?” the Saizen who wasn’t piloting asked the other.

“Planet blowing up?” he guessed, trying to maintain his balance as he hauled at the engines to pivot the ship around.

Sylvas extended his senses out beyond the ship, even though Mira was quietly yelping for him to sit still while she worked. The planet beneath them had lost its cohesion, and the gravity that had been fighting the ship’s ascent had broken off into the much smaller pull of all the various different fragments of the planet that were left over. It might have explained the sudden impact on the ship, but Sylvas had now been through the death of enough worlds to recognize the change. He shook his head. “Something else.”

The ship was rocked again by another impact. But this time, with his awareness stretched out, Sylvas was able to make out the spell-form before it detonated. “We’re under attack. Long-distance concussion spells. Looks like it’s coming from outside the system, given how much the spells are degraded before they pop.”

Both of the Saizen brothers and Kaya launched into an overlapping stream of expletives so coarse that even Malachai, who had spent several years in military training camps, blushed. Sylvas pressed on, talking over them, “I don’t know if they’ve spotted us. It feels like they’re doing some exploratory bombardment.”

The Saizens looked at each other. “If they’re firing. They know we’re here.”

The pilot began, “Got to be Dominion. From the fleet. Scouts would close the distance.”

The other one picked up the thought. “Even with the planet…”

“Yeah, maneuverability and…” It was kind of fascinating to watch.

“Not enough firepower for the ranged bombardment.” Like there was only one person, talking to themselves.

“Not the whole fleet.” Reasoning back and forth between them.

“Not for one smuggler.” Until narrowing down on the conclusion.

“One ship of the line broken off?” Sylvas wondered if this was how he thought.

“Maybe an attack wing? Three ships of the line and their fighters.” Or if he had started thinking back and forth like this since he’d fragmented his mind and Mira had emerged.

“Split the difference, guess two. One will be blocking null-space.” Though, of course, it could have just been the way that brothers spoke. Sylvas wouldn’t know. He’d always been alone in the world.

“One covering our retreat to the border.” The Saizens were nodding together now, like they were coming to some mutual agreement.

“One covering the route deeper into the Dominion.” Their volume had reached something like a shout.

“Flanked and spanked from two sides.” The one who’d met them at the airlock stared out at the readouts beneath the window, looking desolate. “Crossfire kill zone.”

They turned together to look at Sylvas. “You. You’re a gravity mage, right?” one said before the other took over. 

“You can make this bag of bolts fly faster than anything we’ve ever seen!”

“I… Maybe?” Sylvas was in shock at the sudden change in tone and focus from the Saizens.

“We ain’t sneaking out, no hope, but if you can gun the engines hard enough, we might be able to get past them before they can get turned and pursue. If we go all out, we could clear some distance and then pivot back to Empyrean space before they know we’re gone.”

Despite the bizarreness of the whole interaction between the clones, Sylvas had been following the conversation. “What if there is a third ship of the line, an attack wing, like you said? Wouldn’t it move to block that route? It isn’t like we can double back through the planet as it collapses. We have a limited cone of directions we can escape into.”

“We could, though,” Kaya interrupted, leading the other three in the argument to whip around and look at her. “I’ve seen the Stanzbuhr drop us into Null-space to dodge right through a planet. And there’s not enough gravity left to disrupt a jump…”

Sylvas opened his mouth to agree with her, but the Saizens were shaking their heads in stereo. “Can’t do it,” the other agreed. “No hope.”

“Gambling they can’t block our jump when we’re heading into open space is risky.” They were back into the strange switching rhythm again. “Gambling they can’t block our jump when we’re flying at a wall is suicidal.”

“Can’t anyone tell if they’ve activated whatever spell blocks the jump?” Rania asked.

All together, the Saizens, Kaya, and Sylvas shook their heads. Malachai leaned over to begin explaining the metaphysics of it but was interrupted by another concussion detonating nearby.

“The longer we wait, the worse our odds get.” Saizen stepped out of the circle, gesturing for Sylvas to get in. “Security’s off. Take us out, kid.”

Sylvas had never piloted a ship quite like this unnamed smuggler’s vessel. There were all of the systems that he would have expected laid out on the top level of his awareness, but beneath that level, it felt like there were heaped needles, just waiting for him to be dumb enough to look deeper to impale his brain. The security was off, and when he reached down to the systems hidden under that top level, the needles retreated, but there could be no forgetting that they were there, even if you used the ship non-stop. The Saizens must have been crazy to endure living on the knife-edge every time they piloted their ship.

Beneath that top level, where the regular systems lay, there was a considerably more powerful ship hiding. Weapons systems hidden in places nobody would have ever thought to look, engines substantially more powerful than the speed that they’d been going seemed to indicate, not to mention all of the various cloaking and illusion spells woven throughout the ship, designed to fluctuate and fail if they came under too much scrutiny, only to reveal the next layer of disguises hidden underneath. 

Masks on top of masks on top of masks, all the way down. The only system that was only as powerful as it had looked at a glance was the ship’s sensory array, but with just a little push of will, Sylvas would be able to expand his awareness out through that array to blossom across space and spot their enemies. But, of course, the moment he did that, they’d just as likely see him. Playing blind was the only way that the Saizen’s plan was going to work.

With his magic spread out throughout the ship, system alerts began to blink all around the periphery of his awareness. Minor systems that should have easily taken the strain of the power he was easing into them burst apart; the spells that had been functioning onboard since it had been built were crumbling with old age. Lights flickered out in various parts of the ship as sparks showered from overloaded spellforms and machinery. The Saizens were in harmony again as they cried out in dismay, “Ay!”

Sylvas launched them forward, aiming for the black and empty space between where Mira was overlaying the predicted positions of the Dominion ships. He reached out with his will to encompass the ship and push it ahead faster, but the moment that he did, the minor alerts turned into screeches about hull integrity being compromised. Turning the half-blind sensor array back towards the ship, he could see rust suddenly blossoming all over its surface.

Darling, when I tell you the eidolon of destruction is not integrated yet, and you should limit how you use your magic until we have managed to…

“I know!” he shouted, once again looking like a maniac, before he drew as much of his mana back into his body as he could. Throughout the various embodiments and enhancements, he hadn’t realized that he was constructing it into the perfect prison for an eidolon. 

Even with the last one that he’d absorbed, he never quite recognized how well it had been designed for that specific function, all the reinforcement against damage from his own power, the carving of channels through flesh to contain the magic within. It was like he’d been built to purpose from the very beginning, even though, to his knowledge, he’d been making his choices based on the needs of the moment.

The ship surged forward into the emptiness in space, and the concussions that had been so distant before came closer and closer as the ships of the line adjusted their aim and tried to pin him between their arcs of spell-fire. Explosions chased after them as they violently accelerated, surging ahead each time that the mages on those distant craft adjusted their aim and tried again.

They were as fast as he could get them without tearing parts off the ship, and as far from the dying planet as they could go. Sylvas cast the spell to punch through into null-space and escape.

It didn’t work.

The spell ruptured reality, the way that it was meant to, but then it seemed to impact on some invisible force, rebounding back and closing the portal before they could pass through. Sylvas could feel the preventative magic the moment that the portal opened, but all that he could do was to fling the ship into a barrel-roll out of the path of the reality tear or risk ripping their hull apart even more. “They’re blocking us!”

The cacophony of cursing from all parties was overshadowed by the brief thump as one of the Saizens tried to shoulder Sylvas out of the control circle and realized that while he might have looked human, he was made of considerably denser material. The non-floored Saizen pushed some mana into the sensory array, and the universe beyond the screen was finally populated with useful information. “They’ve got the third ship running as a disruptor to keep us trapped. We’re screwed.”

Three huge and elaborate Dominion ships were spread equidistant from each other around the broken planet, swarms of fighter craft surrounding each of them like they had pre-kicked hornets’ nests attached. Each of them was shaped like a crescent moon, a sickle blade of matte black against the dark of space.

“What do we do?” Kaya asked the Saizens, to no response. She turned to Malachai. “What do we do?”

Sylvas set his shoulders and spun the ship to face the closest of the Dominion’s ships. The one that was keeping them trapped. “We fight.”