1:3:4 Alliances

Breathe. That’s all Char could think of as she watched Lore frantically explain their thought process to them. She and Blue stood with the clones, barely following a word they said. It was times like these, when Lore was running their mouth at a hundred miles an hour, that she felt a sudden and almost weird attraction to them. She had a smile on her face as she nodded along with Lore. Eventually though, she realised that she had to put an end to the incomprehensible technobabble and remind her partner in crime that they had to slow it down for everyone else.
“Sorry.” Lore’s mojo seemed to disintegrate in that moment. “Humanity is persistent.” They began. “This building was built a century before it could actually be used and they abandoned it… Doesn’t add up. Then, they declared Rexel too expensive to mine, rolled over to The Ministry’s demands but didn’t withdraw any of their infrastructure.”
“So…” Char prompted.
“How far away is that Protectorate refinery?” Lore pointed to the map.
Blue shook their head. “It’s miles away.”
“Show me.”
“Here.” Blue brought up a map. “There’s the entrance to The Syndicate’s mines and that over there, that’s the old Protectorate refinery. It's now disputed land but no-one goes there and no-one wants it. Ghost town.” There was a considerable distance between the two points.
“What’s with all of these groups then?” Char pointed to the different areas, each coloured differently.
“Well, it started off when the first non-Protectorate humans settled the system. There this mad scramble for the resources and, eventually, factions formed. The Unionists, The Reds, The Protectorate and The Syndicate. The Unionists got big on Rexel Three and splintered into two. One side lived up to their name and formed The Ministry of Interplanetary Affairs or The Ministry as everyone calls them. The Ministry created the board with every faction but The Syndicate getting a seat.” Blue pointed at the map, highlighting the presences of each group.
“Why didn’t The Syndicate get a seat?” Char continued.
“Syd didn’t want one. Because of the size of The Syndicate, they wouldn’t make any money on their exports. They got the mining rights for Rexel Five so they’d lose a whole planets worth of cash. Taxes… Even though it’s one board, you still would have to pay each group’s independent tax plus The Ministry processing fee.” Blue shook their head. “Gets even worse if you’re a Ministry worker working on Syndicate land.”
“Right…” Lore wondered if that would factor into their plan. “Have we got a subterranean map?” Lore wasn’t willing to let it go just yet.
Blue looked at them confused. “No. The mine’s owned by The Syndicate. As I said, it’s the one good thing they’ve got going for them so maps like that are locked up tighter than an Acolyte’s knickers.”
Char cleared her throat. “I think I may be able to solve that.” Char bolted to The Vengeance. Lore, Blue and the clones followed in hot pursuit.

Blue had never actually set foot in the true Vengeance apparently. After a brief venture through some maintenance corridors between the superstructure and outer hull, they came to the ship’s interior properly. The room they entered was completely alien to them. Blue promptly exited the ship and confirmed the external dimensions hadn’t changed. Lore and the clones just stood and watched nonchalantly as their mind was blown. “It’s… It’s… big.” They fumbled for the words but they wouldn’t come.
“Quatarrian engineering.” Lore shrugged. “Pretty standard.” Despite their cool exterior, Lore would have admitted that they still found the dimensional projectors incredibly impressive. “Char?” Lore shouted down the corridors. “Hang on.” Lore tapped at their glasses and brought up a map of the nearby sections of the ship. A golden ping appeared just off of the edge of the mapped section. It was surprisingly easy to navigate The Vengeance. Despite the sign’s being in Quatarrian, it was laid out in such a way that their lacking understanding was almost a non-issue. They passed through a shuttle bay, a small engineering section and a rest area before coming to a lift. The lift took them up to the crew deck where, after a short detour through the mess hall, they found the stellar cartography department and Char.
“Should be able to get you a scan in a few minutes.” Char tapped at the monitors.
“How is any of this working?” Blue marvelled at the lights.
“Hello Blue.” Jo’Tastia’T’s disembodied voice caught Blue off guard.
“Hello?” They were apprehensive in their response. “Who are you?”
“To quote your Grandfather, I am ‘the stuck-up siarc who used you to repair my hull then barred you out’.” Rather than play a recording of Mauve, she did her best impression of his gruff voice. She chuckled before saying something to Char in Quatarrian.
“Tastia! Don’t be rude. Their family did save you from the void. Least you could do is show them a little respect.” Char scalded.
“Fine… Thank you and your family Mx. Blue.” Jo’Tastia’T grumbled. “My scanners should be ready in thirty five eiliadauden. Please note they may not be operating at full capacity as I am currently running on reserve power.”
“Thank you.” Char turned to face them. “I’m setting the ship to scan the area under The Syndicate’s and The Protectorate’s land. If Lore’s correct, the two areas should have something in common.”
Whatever unit of time they were using, it wasn’t long until confirmation came that the scan was taking place. Little by little, bit by bit, a three dimensional map of both the overground and underground was built. Starting at the building Blue identified as being The Syndicate’s headquarters and working west toward The Protectorate refinery, a network of tunnels snaked. The underground map continued to flesh out, resembling the root system of a giant tree however, it stopped abruptly. The scanner read about a hundred and fifty human personnel and almost as many aliens. Rexians, Granishe and about a dozen other species occupied the tunnels. For a moment, the scan froze.
“What’s going on?” Lore moved closer to the computer.
“It’s all the Hydroxine. It’s a pain in the arse to scan for without the specialised equipment. It just diffuses anything else. Tastia, skip all quadrants that fail to return data.”
“Acknowledged.”
And with that, the scan resumed. A small dark patch appeared as a new tunnel was generated. Not yet connected to The Syndicate’s system, a single shaft shot out from The Protectorate’s land. One, long, straight tunnel launched diagonally at the missing section of the map. “Slant mining. Blue, you said it yourself, something weird is going on at the refinery and there it is, they’re mining the Hydroxine from under everyone’s noses.”
“Are you sure?” Blue checked the maps again. “Bloody sneaky gits. The Ministry won’t like that. They must have some serious tech down there… it’s been a week maybe?”
“How many of your pilots are under Syndicate contracts?” Lore was continuing to plan.
“All of them… ‘Cept me obviously.”
“And how much fuel do we need?”
“Enough to get us off planet. Half a tank each. Sprinkle in a dash of Hydroxine and it’ll be more than enough. But that’s at least a hundred and fifty thousand units. Plus the nearly million units we’d have to spend to get our crews back… You got deeper pockets than you’re showing?”
“No. I’ve got a plan…” Lore paused. “That’s come together suspiciously too well.” They darted Char a nervous look.
She smiled in return. “You’re doing fine.” She mouthed.
“Care to clue me in? Because you all seem to be telepathic or something…”
“We’re going to need you to sell us to The Syndicate.” Lore didn’t blink, adding to Blue’s discomfort.
“Hang on… Do they actually pay you or…?” Char interjected.
Blue squirmed. “Fifteen hundred units a person so we’ve got about enough to fuel the fleet but not much else.”
“It’s a start. It also means we’ve got room to haggle.”
“That’s one hel of an interest rate.” Char thought for a moment. “A bloody high interest rate.”
“Rexel Five is not the only planet The Syndicate operate on. Sure it’s their biggest but they’ve got outposts on all seven planets; each needs workers and labour ain’t cheap. You should see how much they pay the miners.” Blue shook their head. “Living wage isn’t in the local vocabulary.”
They bowed their heads solemnly. None of them knowing when it would be appropriate to change the subject.
Eventually, Lore continued. “So Blue, you get us into The Syndicate mines then you come back here and wait. Ace, I need you to go get Destiny and infiltrate that Protectorate base.” Lore smiled.
“Alright.” Ace had no questions and seemed ready to go.
“You and Destiny are going to pose as off world health and safety. I’m guessing the facility is more than overdue an inspection. They aren’t going to question four heavily armoured officers and their commander. Destiny should have some idea of what to do but get them out. No casualties, no gunplay. Tell them the site’s compromised or the locals are coming to kick them out or whatever, just get them gone. Once you’ve done that, Char and I will cut a path through the Hydroxine and into The Protectorate shaft to meet up with you. All going to plan, should be a clean sweep with nary a feather ruffled.” Lore got a sudden sinking feeling. “But if things should go wrong, I want a back-up plan, ideas?”
“Faction war?” Blue shrugged. “I’m sure if we told The Syndicate or The Ministry about this they’d react.”
“Not quite what I’m looking for but good to get ideas out.” Lore tried to be as diplomatic as possible in their rejection.
Blue looked to Char and then to the clones. The clones reciprocated. Char waited a moment then spoke. “The Vengeance is only using its reserve energy at the moment but if I could kickstart the power core, we’d have access to a massive ship for evacuation. Something goes wrong in the mine, we could get Jo’Tastia’T to pick us up.” Blue looked offended, gasping but saying nothing.
“Then that’s our priority. I’d much rather go in with a safety net than without.”

Char led them deeper into The Vengeance. At first they hadn’t believed that the whole ship was running on reserve energy but the longer they spent, the more apparent it became. It got harder and harder to see until such a point as their eyes got used to the diminishing light. Char seemed to be able to navigate the ship blindfolded, leading them to the main engineering bay with ease. Like in T he Conglomeration, the mini map on Lore’s glasses became a gods-send. The room looked big enough to store two Destinys perhaps three or one of The Vengeance’s outer dimensions; it was a mostly empty space with computer terminals dotted around its circumference; four large pillars of wires and conduits surrounded a large circle set into the room’s floor. Char bowed before crossing into the inner circle and was careful not to touch or cross the seal at the very centre as she made her way to the only active terminal in the gloomy engineering hall.
“Is it alright for me to come across?” Lore shouted over.
“Oh, yeah, it’s fine. Just do what I did. Bow before entering and make sure your feet and shadow don’t cross the central seal.”
Lore practically folded themselves in two as they approached the pillars. They then scanned the room for light sources before making their attempt on crossing the seal without crossing it. In passing, they made sure to get a good look at it. Hundreds of stamped metal triangles made up a pattern. It shimmered as they passed it.
“Beautiful isn’t it. The dead guarding the living. Now, how’s about we give them something to guard.” Char squeezed Lore to her side as she tapped at the terminal. “Only the best of the best were seen as worthy of such an honour.”
“Who were they?” Lore walked over and knelt by the seal.
“They are the honourable dead. Those who commanded the great ships during the formation of the empire. My mother was a commander of the highest order so she was really into that sort of thing but my dad and I never really understood it. Still, doesn’t mean I can’t respect what it means.” Char shrugged. “Those triangles are like your scar. They identify the soldiers they belonged to.”
“So what are they guarding exactly?” Lore gave a slight nod to the memorial before rising and returning to Char.
“The Quasar Core.” Her smile grew. “One of if not the most powerful generator in the known universe. Those four pillars are Tempora channelers. They generate temporal fields which allow the central core to work.”
“ok… You seem to know a fair bit about this sort of thing.”
“I was an medic who was retrained as an engineer… Or at least I have the memories of an medic who was retrained as an engineer. Anyway these cores were standard on most Quatarrian ships. The pillars create a temporal field which allows the quantum entangler to connect to another device in orbit of a young quasar; the quasar is thereby entangled with the ship. It kicks off a huge amount of energy which is collected via the pillars coating and the shielding actually around it. That’s funnelled into the ship and we’re good to go.”
“Surely you’d need to keep finding new quasars though?”
Char shook her head. “Nope. The Tempora radiates just enough energy to reverse the progress made by the quasar meaning it never ages.”
“Alright then, you’d still need a lot of quasars then if it’s one for each ship.” Lore was not sure how the technology worked but still found themselves in awe of it.
“No again. Every ship shared the same quasar. That’s how it stays alive. One ship can’t put out enough Tempora radiation to keep a quasar from aging but fifty two was more than enough. And hopefully, I’ll be able to dial the core into a radiation band when there were fifty two active cores otherwise we will need a new quasar.”
“What about the laws of physics? If every ship is getting energy from the same star then more energy is being created…” Lore was not satisfied by the answer.
“Well… Time travel? The same star radiates the same energy but… Imagine you could harness the energy of the reflection of a sun and you gave everyone a mirror that could do the same. No one is harvesting the actual sun but everyone is at the same time…” She didn’t seem too sure herself.
“I guess…” Lore scratched their head.
“Quantum Temporal physics. General rule is just smile, nod and hope it works.” Char chuckled.
Char brought up a map on the screen and selected a star. She scrolled through a Quatarrian calendar, settling on a date assumedly in the distant past. She tapped the activation key and dragged Lore towards her. The seal split in two as a blinding light forced its way through. Pale blue energy wreathed around the pillars, snaking between them and eventually encircling the central area. No cube, no words, not even knowing what was going to happen could have adequately prepared Lore for the majesty of a supermassive black hole localised entirely within a star ship. Space folding into itself in perpetuity. Matter and light being created and destroyed only for the temporal field to keep the cycle continuing endlessly. Beauty was too small a word. A beam of light was the only thing that penetrated the quasar’s centre and made it through unbroken. It span there, slowly, like a globe on its axis.
Lore and Char stood there, hand in hand in reverent silence. Char brought her partner closer to her side.
“It’s safe for us to stand here? Don’t these things emit more than lethal amounts of radiation?” Lore snuggled in closer.
Char just shook her head. Rapt more by the company than the setting. They stood there in silence for a few moments more.
“I have a bad feeling about this.” Lore whispered.
“I think we all do. But I trust you. We’re going to be ok.” She placed a kiss on Lore’s temple. Syndicate.