1:3:9 Ascension (Part 2)

Finding the taxi was a godssend. It cut their journey time significantly as they pulled up to the docks. They had been docked there for a while but still, The Destiny waited alone in the smog. The landing lights were on and the engines were idling but apart from that, The Destiny looked abandoned. Mauve applied the handbrake and exited the taxi; he didn’t say a word and just stared at The Destiny.
“Hmm.” He tilted his head and ducked to get a better view of her underside. “I expected her to be bigger.” He walked to the edge of the docks to see as much of her fore as possible. “And better armed.”
“She does the job.” Char approached the landing ramp and inserted her key. It hissed as it lowered, allowing them into the airlock.
“How the hel did you get a key? Lore give it to you?” Destiny sounded as though she had been caught naked or in an equally compromised situation. “I’m afraid we can’t see each other yet but I’ll fill you in once you’re in the cargo hold.”
The airlock cycled giving Char’s anger even longer to stew. When the door eventually opened, Char was the last to exit. She waited, scanning the room ahead for cameras. Realising she had likely already been captured by the camera pointing directly into the airlock, she joined Sky and Mauve. A holographic face appeared in the centre of the room. Destiny’s new form started blue but quickly flashed to red as she got a closer look at Char.
“Intruder alert?” Destiny didn’t seem too confident in herself.
“I think so.” Char countered. “You let Reid shoot me.”
Destiny, who had started off at a metre and a half tall, shrunk to less than twenty centimetres as she awkwardly backed away from Char. “We were maintaining our cover.”
“You still let her put a shot through my skull.” Char maintained.
“We thought you’d survive.” Destiny was desperate. “Look, that doesn’t matter. All that matters is you’re here and Lore and the clones aren’t. We need to change that.”
“You’ve got a plan?” Sky moved herself between them.
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Destiny’s face shrunk once more and a holographic model of Crait’s ship appeared. “This is Simplicity, Crait’s flagship. She’s absolutely massive and she’s armed to the teeth. I’ve downloaded a full set of schematics so we know exactly what the inside of the ship looks like.”
“And that helps how?” Char was sceptical, planning her own alternative scheme in her head.
“Compared to that ship, I’m an ant to its elephant.” All three of them looked at her confused. “Sorry, I’m Pluto to its Saturn?” Mauve and Sky nodded in agreement, Char remained still. “Anyway… The size difference means I’ll likely not register as a threat, allowing us to get close enough for you to Breach aboard and rescue Lore.”
Char scoffed. “Your plan is relying on a warship allowing us to not only get really close but also to let me Breach aboard. I’m guessing they have chronometric sensors.”
“They do.” Destiny paused. “Oh.”
“My turn?” Char was feigning anger at this point because she thought it was funny. “Right then, Lore being missing doesn’t actually change much. We always knew there was a chance we were going to have to fight our way off of Rexel so let’s fight our way off of Rexel.”
“Might I remind you, we still only have one ship.” Destiny returned.
“A very small ship.” Mauve added.
“That was never the plan.” Char sounded annoyed before she realised. “None of you were there. Right. The plan was that once we had cleared the mine we were going to sell the machinery to Syd and the Syndicate.”
“You what?” Mauve scowled.
“We were going to give the mine and the machinery to Syd.”
“For what?” Sky held Mauve back.
“The fleet. The mining gear for everyone Blue sold into slavery. But now, now I think I’ve got a better offer.” Char smiled. Everyone else remained quiet. “Okay then, we go back to Syd and do the deal, Destiny you stay here and get yourself to The Hole and get Blue ready.”
“Then I’m going to need a body.” Destiny created a holographic arm and pointed it towards the locker rooms. “In my locker, there should be a handful of small metal capsules. Open them and tip them out onto the floor.”
Char obliged, using her key to unlock the locker. There was just a test tube rack on the top shelf; it had space to hold eight vials but currently only stored four. Char took all of them back to the main cargo hold. She tried to open them but with only one hand it was easier said than done. She instead elected to hand them to Mauve and Sky who opened them and tipped them onto the metal floor below. The Macrocomps tinkled against its surface like hail on a tin roof. They suddenly magnetized together and began forming a shape. Destiny rose from the floor but stopped at about half of her usual height. Her proportions remained the same but she was significantly shorter.
“Don’t laugh. I gave two vials to Curve and I kept two vials with me for repairs which are also now with Curve so… At least now I can properly access the ship.” She shrugged before turning to leave the room. “You lot going to get on?”
Char smiled. “No hard feelings.”

Back in the smog, they watched as The Destiny took flight and headed towards The Hole.
“She could have at least given us a lift.” Mauve scolded.
“Walk’ll do you some good.” Sky smiled.
Char let the two of them walk ahead of her. She didn’t say anything, she just listened.
“Never thought I’d miss the Rexian air. Didn’t realise how claustrophobic those mines were.” Sky stretched out, beaming under the midday sky. “Haven’t missed the smell though.”
“The smell’s part of the allure.” Mauve chuckled. “I’ve stood on a half dozen different planets and none of them have had such a specific smell. It’s the unique combination of hydrocarbons, methane, sulphur dioxide and ionised carbon.” He took a deep breath, opening his nostrils as wide as he could. “Gods I’m glad I got that lung augment.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.” Sky turned back to Char. “You alright?”
“I’ve got enough in me to keep my lungs working.” Char flashed a pained smile. “You two are freaks by the way. Wait until we get you off Rexel.”
“Clean air’s overrated. If you can breathe anywhere, there’s no place like home.” Mauve looked around. “I mean where in the galaxy are you going to find so many species just existing? No fighting, no war, just living together?”
Something he said had triggered a memory she didn’t know she had. “You should have seen the Quatarrian empire. Pre-war, it spanned three galaxies, over millennia. Species that would never have met one another, from thousands of years apart, just enjoying the present. I watched the brokering of peace at the end of the Paradox War, The Joining of the Three and the rise of the ‘Gilded’ age of countless planets.”
“What’s the Paradox War?” Sky looked to an equally clueless Mauve.
Char focussed on her newfound memories. “It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got time.” Mauve looked ahead, they were half way back to the settlement’s centre and a third of the way to Syd.
“Fine. The Quatarrians were testing a new form of time travel. A way of opening gateways between different times. With these gateways, we could mount massive aid projects just as they were needed without having to individually transport each crate or medic. One of our allied planets, the Jerasskaa I think, offered us a moon to test on. According to them, it had only been visited once briefly so the crews made sure to avoid that time period. They set up the machinery and began the test; things were looking good until an unexpected triped came through and attacked the research station. Not only did it start The Paradox war but it also inadvertently helped create one of the most devastating weapons ever lost to time, The Schism. That triped was a long forgotten ancestor of the Jerasskaa that made their way to the barren moon centuries before anyone thought possible. The tribe were in their stone age but managed to travel nearly the distance between Rexel three and four.”
“How?” Sky’s mind was abuzz with theories. Mauve just stood there as if something had his tongue.
“I bet time travel.” Mauve sounded as though it were obvious. Char gave him a nod. “Seriously?”
“Turned out the Quatarrians took the tribe and set them up on the moon without creating any records so that the future Quatarrians would use the moon and thus create The Schism.”
“But why?”
“The Schism was seen as the ultimate demonstration of our people’s mastery of time. A weapon that could reset a whole planet to a specific point in time. If it were activated on Earth today, it could be used to rewind the whole planet to a time before time travel or fast forward it to one where you’ve destroyed yourself with it.” Char took a moment to consider Sky’s actual question. “I honestly don’t know why anyone would ever need that power. Only two more Schism devices were ever made. One of them was never used. They kept it in a locked room in the centre of Quatarr.”
“So your people started a war, in a way that couldn’t be easily traced back to them, and then brokered peace with the two factions and took all of the credit?” Mauve scoffed. “Wow…” He paused. “What happened to the other?”
“When you put it like that, yes it sounds bad but the people who created The Schism and started the war were sentenced to death by it. They were stranded on a planet with no history and The Schism was activated from orbit. Some believed that they were sent back in time, others thought that they were torn apart by the temporal radiation. Thirty scientists purged in an instant.” Char felt a bead of cold sweat roll down her spine. “Renegades and those who disturbed the peace were dealt with extreme prejudice.”
“Makes what The Protectorate does sound almost tame.” Sky looked at her with her eyes wide.
“Once we discovered time travel, and then space travel, there were only a hundred and forty executions. In a species of billions, that’s not too bad. Sure there were fallings out between the different species but that’s to be expected.” Her rationale made her feel slightly better. “No one went hungry, everyone was looked after.”
“But I’m guessing that empire was built on your temporal superiority.” Mauve looked at her wrists. “Look at you for example: Your body is a weapon and you can kill anyone before they were even born.”
Char was at a loss for words. She just walked in silence, thinking. “At first, sure, our time travel was seen as a threat but after the formation of the Imperial Council, everyone got a vote and everyone got what they needed.”
“You know what, I wouldn’t have minded meeting some of your lot.” Mauve sounded somewhat genuine. “But perhaps later on.”
“At its height, it was spectacular. I’m not going to say it was perfect but it was a damn sight better than the alternative. The ‘Rexian air’ didn’t exist until The Protectorate.”
“Never mind then.” Mauve slapped her shoulder jovially.
It wasn’t long until they reached the square. Char let Sky and Mauve guide her back to The Syndicate’s headquarters. There was a faint sound of sirens in the distance, escaping from the maw of the mines. The walkways were empty, the shop fronts deserted. They were the only ones around, their feet against the degrading metal almost as alone as the only sound. Char was in her own head; she had no idea where those memories came from but they were different to the others. They definitely hadn’t come from the Lores and she had definitely never been to Jerasskaa. She was gently pulled from her thoughts by a growing discomfort; she didn’t want to admit it but in her weakened state, the ‘alluring Rexian air’ was beginning to singe her eyes and lungs. She weighed up the pros and cons before dispensing another capacitor’s worth of energy into her body. She felt the rush run through her veins. Her eyes welled up, the tears burnt her worse than Rexel had but it was a weird relief. After a few blurry metres, her eyes were back to normal; her lungs felt slightly better too. She looked down at the cannon, there was still enough energy to do what she wanted but now she wasn’t sure that she did. Deciding to find another way, she drained the capacitors. Mauve and Sky turned around to see a lighthouse in the smog, pure as gold and just as glittery. Char wasn’t quite her old self yet but she felt close. She returned the tube to the cannon and it concurred; her body was now producing its own rejuvinative energy but it would be a while before it could do anything more than heal her.
“What was that?” Sky pointed to a vein on Char’s forehead that still carried the golden glow.
“Me, making a choice.” She soon realised how needlessly cryptic she sounded. “I healed myself using the stored energy in my cannon. Thing’s next to useless now. One good thing about it though is now I can put it into low power mode.” Char held the button she had used to drain the device while sliding the main body further up her arm. It curved along with her elbow as her hand was finally freed from its housing. The grips remained as it climbed, not unlike a slug, up her arm, a trail of metal left in its wake. “Ahh…” She flexed her fingers. She hadn’t realised they’d long since gone numb.
Mauve looked back at her. “Feeling better?” Char nodded. “You know what? I think I met the J’Synes but if I remember correctly, they were quadrupeds not tripeds. Lovely planet, shame I couldn’t stay longer.”
Despite the generational genetic modifications to her lungs, Sky nearly choked on the smog.
“The bluest water you’d ever seen and the least friendly peoples in the known galaxy.” He shook his head with a nostalgic twinkle in his eye. “The best planets either want you dead or hate your guts. After The Protectorate entered the scene…” He just shook his head. “People do not like when you try the same trick twice apparently.”
Char too, nearly choked but instead on her laughter. “The Protectorate tried to claim temporal superiority? They can barely monitor the timeline much less control it.”
“You’d be surprised. The Protectorate’s control reaches deep into ex-Quatarrian space.” He pointed at the high rise towers and sky bridges. “The Protectorate may not have been directly responsible for the Rexian air, all this, but they certainly pushed a domino or two.”
Sky let Mauve take the lead as they fell back in line with Char. “Thank you.” They smiled at her. She didn’t know why.
They returned to silence after that. Mauve gave all of his directions through gesture as he wormed his way through the backstreets with little regard to whether his two companions were still following him. Char couldn’t help but draw parallels between travelling with Mauve and Blue; on the one hand, they were both very knowledgeable of Rexel, knowing the back routes like the back of their own hands but on the other, Mauve had this confidence about him that usually only comes with age. It wasn’t always on full display but Char knew it was there. He carried himself tall and proud unlike his grandchild who seemed to favour a more squat and stealthy approach. The differences became more apparent when they reached the foot of the building Blue had chosen to take them through.
“Two choices. We can go in through the main building, saving us a hel of a lot of time or we can avoid the indentureds and go the round about way.”
“Blue took us in that way last time.” Char pointed at the nearby lab building.
“Course they did. Nothing wrong with it but we’re going this way.” Mauve made up their collective minds and pressed on into the main Syndicate building.