24 Thilar
“Is that it?” Penny asked, standing next to me on the bridge where we gazed out toward Jar’tool, a small, mostly uninhabitable planet with limited uses, one of them being the small settlement on the equator that acted as a trade station.
The Edda was already orbiting it. It was a massive colony ship made up of hundreds of habitation vessels all pieced together in a harmonious ring surrounding a central life-support sphere.
“Yes, that’s it,” I said.
Yuros stepped up beside me as the Qohaan made its approach. When the ship jerked a little, Penny grabbed my forearm, bracing herself.
“What was that?”
“The Edda has a gravitational pull,” I said.
“Naan and Kora will be your primaries,” Yuros informed me.
“I have no doubt they’ve gone over everything I’ve sent as well as Prince Kaelth’s message thoroughly.
” His eyes made a brief pass over Penny.
“Coincidentally, there is another that has requested a meeting with the clerics. A valerian general is on the Edda as we speak with his human mate negotiating the use of our forces in their newly rekindled conflict with the gek’tal. ”
Penny perked up as if wanting to know what Yuros was saying.
“What is he saying?” she asked me.
“The valerians are interested in a contractual alliance. One of them is here to negotiate and he’s with his human mate.”
“His human mate?”
“Evidently. A woman named Innifer Saint.”
Her brows shot up again and she stepped back from me. “Innifer? She’s with a valerian? Jesus, how long have I been gone?”
“If you were acquired in cryo, it could have been any length of time.”
“Please, don’t say that.”
She grabbed hold of my arm again as if the idea of having been in cryo-sleep for an extended time stressed her out.
I’d been in cryo many times to traverse space on many missions, but the fact that humans were new to the concept of intergalactic travel was something I had to keep reminding myself of.
“We will be docking soon,” Yuros said. “The clerics are already gathered to receive the two of you.”
I translated his words once more to Penny and she shook her head. “Why does it feel like I’m meeting my boyfriend’s parents?” She instantly looked as if she wanted to eat those words back up. “Sorry, that was a dumb comparison.”
“Is ‘boyfriend’ something humans call—”
“It’s just what women call a guy they’re courting. Or dating. Whatever.”
I could tell she was trying to brush it off, but the way her cheeks reddened betrayed her every time. I left it alone, but I could not help the corner of my mouth from curling up on one side.
“Are we supposed to dress any certain way to meet these clerics?”
“No,” I said. “They will expect us in whatever attire we’ve been wearing for our journey. It will be part of their analysis.”
“Analysis. That sounds so… robotic. I suppose it’s all just procedure.” She released my arm and straightened. “I’ve been through worse. Guess it’s good to get it all over with.”
The docking procedures seemed to take ages, but once the Qohaan was finally anchored to the Edda and the ship was transferred into a power-saving mode that silenced the entire room, Yuros turned to me.
“They will not harm or keep the human against her will,” he assured me. “They will only ask questions and then likely send her on her way with the valerian general.”
“I know,” I nodded, confident.
“As for your—”
“I am not worried about my judgement. I will accept whatever they decide is appropriate for this situation.”
Yuros nodded once, shifting his attention briefly to Penny.
“Let us move forward then,” he said.
The two of us followed him through the ship into the docking tunnel leading to one of the Edda’s multiple hangars with Sunhai uncharacteristically quiet as she tailed us.
Penny kept moving her fingers, curling them into loose fists and flexing them over and over until I could not stand it.
I moved closer to her as we walked and reached out, wrapping my fingers around hers.
She glanced up at me, the tension in her face dissolving.
She was so cold, as usual. The heat of my touch seemed to instantly soothe her and a small whisper of a smile teased her lips.
My heart swelled at the idea that I could relieve her nerves like that. For how much longer, I didn’t know, but I wanted to savor it while I could.
Once we emerged from the docking tunnel and entered the massive hangar, Penny’s attention was pulled in every direction.
Slick, silver walls stretched up ten stories above.
Metal walkways wound from one side to the other with crew members all doing their jobs in an organized fashion.
A dome overhead peered out into space, giving us a clear view of Jar’tool in all its swirling colors.
On the other side of the hangar was a foreign ship.
One I understood was of valerian design, shaped like the head of an arrow with a slick, dark exterior.
Penny noticed it, too. Even with the unfamiliar new environment, she was attentive.
“That’s the valerian ship,” she pointed out. “At least I recognize something.”
I nodded. “It’s general Vahko’s. We’ve heard of him.”
“Vahko? I… I know him. That’s the general you were talking about? He’s here? Now?”
“Yes.”
“He’s Innifer’s mate?”
Her gaze quickly swept the hangar as if he would appear right there in front of us.
“You know them both, then?” I was relieved. If she was leaving with them, I was glad to know she would be in familiar hands. “You are friends with his human mate?”
“Not really. I was her boss on the Nexus,” she scoffed and looked around again. “Jesus, this place is huge.”
“The Edda’s hangars are built to house continuum ships, colony cruisers, and warships if need be. This hangar is for foreign visitors and smaller vessels.”
“Smaller vessels? This is the small hangar?”
“Yes.”
“That’s amazing.”
“The Edda is the oldest habitation vessel in the monrian fleet. Its core is powered by stored solar energy, unlike our newer designs, which use dark matter to navigate more efficiently. It has its own ecosystem and atmosphere.”
“So, when you say old, how old do you mean?”
“Parts of the Edda came from the first colony ship evacuated from our home world. I do not know how to convert that length of time into a measure you can understand, but it has been long enough to see thousands of generations live and die in space.”
“That’s hard to wrap my head around. For people on Earth, a hundred years is a lot. To think we barely made it to space and your people are living on ships like this… it’s unfathomable.”
We continued walking until we reached a transport at the very back of the hangar. It hovered over a single, magnetic track with two compartments for passengers.
“You have to take a transport to get around this place? Why didn’t I expect that?” Penny said as we boarded.
“This is for short distances. There are shuttles for longer travel.”
We did not bother sitting. The ride on the transport was smooth and fast, zipping through tunnels and speedways so quickly, Penny couldn’t get a good look at our surroundings, as much as she tried.
We passed farming wings. Repair stations.
Trade centers. We began a vertical climb once we’d cleared the common population areas and finally, the ship opened up into a massive central energy shield above the core where all of space could be seen from the transport highway.
Many other shuttles flew by in all directions.
Penny pressed her hand to the glass of the transport and peered out in utter awe at the cityscape.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“Twenty-three million inhabitants reside on the Edda at any given time,” I explained. “Retirees, soldiers in training, scientists, clerics, diplomats, negotiators. It’s one of the many hubs that assigns missions, discusses terms, keeps records, and votes on new laws and practices.”
“Where are the other hubs?”
“Stationed in other quadrants. We have thirteen outposts with similar habitation vessels, most of them more streamlined than this one. As I said, this is one of our oldest.”
“I never could have imagined this when I took a job on the Nexus. This is something humans couldn’t wrap their minds around. The Nexus was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen not too long ago. But this…”
“Give it a few million years,” Sunhai said, reminding us she was there.
Glancing back, I noticed she wasn’t looking too thrilled about being on a monrian ship.
Not because she was nervous. Because she was bored.
Being there meant she, too, was being sent away, likely somewhere safe.
But she was not the type to like stagnancy.
I had come to know that much since I met her.
When the transport came to a tall, silver tower at the very edge of the inner ring orbiting the core, it slowly docked at a narrow tunnel leading toward the top floor.
The doors slid open and a gust of cold air instantly hit Penny, making her gasp.
I took her hand again and led her on through a blue hall, toward a set of large double doors that were guarded by two monrian sentinels, retired soldiers stationed to follow the clerics everywhere they went.
They wielded ancient spears, which were mostly ornamental, but lethal in the right hands.
Penny eyed them as we passed, noting their uncharacteristically archaic armor.
“Why do they look like that?” she asked.
“They dawn the uniforms as a symbolic gesture,” I explained. “Sentinels volunteer for their positions. They guard clerics and scribes. It is an honor. I had planned to be one of them one day.”
Penny squeezed my hand as we passed them because what came next was a large, open room with a high, domed ceiling and a crescent table spanning the outer edges where fourteen clerics were meant to sit on a council.
Yuros held up a hand toward Sunhai, prompting her to wait in the hall, and with a roll of her eyes, she diverted.