Galaxy of Exiles book 2 - Bile and Blood

Chapter Four

It had been a week since the funeral, and Fabien had been neck deep in conversations at all hours of day and night since then. He desperately wanted to sleep, but it was daytime here. The lights on the Carabalite forge ring synchronised to the day-night cycle of Carabal's main colony, Volta, at almost the polar opposite of Standard Chron. It was the Hegemony's greatest hub of commerce, industry... and time lag. Fabien tried not to let his fatigue show to the dozen-or-so engineers standing in front of him. Still, one of them must have noticed, because they nudged a mug of coffee across the standing desk towards him. Fabien accepted it with an audible groan of relief and some mouthed words of thanks.

He took a sip and closed his eyes. Several seconds later, he asked, 'Is everyone present?'

The project lead spoke up. 'System architect's down on Volta sorting out a problem at the freight docks, but we can catch her up.' She stood with her arms folded across from him, the grey hair on one side of her head shaved away to reveal bold tattoos over her dark scalp. If Fabien remembered right, she used to fly with the arsaeria. Or maybe she still did – the Hegemony's most impressive architects came from among their artistic troupes, but they did most of their work as contractors.

Fabien nodded. 'I would be grateful for that. You have all been made aware of the need for secrecy?'

They all nodded. Good. His consul shifted audibly on her feet beside him. His consul. Not long ago, that rank had been his. Now that he was Magister of the Hegemony, all twenty consuls reported to him. The idea took some getting used to.

Fabien drew a deep breath. 'I'm sure you have all heard about the demise of the previous Magister. The reports circulated through the news feeds should have explained that his death prevented him from committing a war crime, the pursuit of which had already come at the cost of one of our own citizens.' He waited until he saw signs of agreement before continuing. A shuttle passed by the viewscreen above them, heading for where the flagship sat moored on a kilometre-long docking boom further along the ring. Given the flagship's size, its misshapen flank still took up most of the screen. 'This is all true, but what they won't have explained is the nature of the weapon he planned to use.'

At this, Fabien gestured to the viewscreen. 'Over a year ago, the Magister docked the flagship at this ring for a major refit. I know some of you were involved with it. You probably noticed a lot of nexite being shipped in-system and you probably thought it was to upgrade the ship's nexite drive. It did, but that was a side effect. The Magister had a separate team of engineers working on a secret project alongside the other work, which involved laying nexite all through the ship's structure, not just the drive shaft and lance. We don't know exactly what the changes were. We haven't been able to track down anyone who worked on them.'

Eyes downcast, Fabien took another sip of coffee and winced at its bitterness. Making people disappear was underhand. If they posed a significant danger to the public, he could understand and perhaps hesitantly make that decision, but disappearing them just to keep silence? That was a Protectorate trick. Fabien had been good friends with Magister Lavennon – or he thought he had. It was hard to believe he would stoop to that level. Hard to believe he wanted the Empyrean gone that badly.

'Do you know what the weapon does?' the project lead asked.

Fabien let the steam from the mug wash over his face and sting his eyes. 'It kills planets. It strips them bare.'

'Oh, zash.' She leant back, grimacing. 'Everatus Four, right? Your kid?'

'Yes.'

'All that was the– was Lavennon's weapon?'

'From an admittedly limited sample size' – Fabien stole a phrase a physicist had used some weeks earlier; he liked the bitter way it twisted in his mouth – 'we think the weapon strips empyrric energy from a target and siphons it up to the flagship, where it's stored in nexite batteries. We're not sure how much the process was aided by Lavennon's own ability, as an empyrric, but it certainly requires empyrric control. That charging process alone makes it a dangerous weapon. Magister Lavennon planned to unleash it upon Hesperex, but we can't tell exactly how it would have worked. It either would have caused outright destruction or, as prior investigation indicates, removed the ability to command the Empyrean from every keeper on Hesperex.'