A black curtain filled with pinpricks or a dark painter's canvas with drops of milk splattered about it in seemingly random patterns known before the beginning of time.
A circle of oranges and reds and several slowly-moving pinpricks with a minor taint of color about them surrounding it.
Piercing it all like a needle hanging from an invisible thread is a ship full of people. Call them pirates, call them scoundrels, call them refugees, call them whatever you wish.
There are twelve of them onboard.
And then there's the first.
***
Lloyd ap Dhia was staring out the big window dead ahead of him. He was straining his eyes, trying desperately to see the menace that lay ahead.
"Paolaon, how long until we get to the Outer Fringe?" he asked.
"Fifty-three days," answered a young woman in a silver-black jumpsuit with dark blue hair. She was working at her console rather intently, and spoke without looking up.
"Do we have enough energy stockpiled to run the magnetic repulsors the whole way through this time?" Lloyd asked skeptically. But before he could get an answer to his inquiry, a black-haired girl in a red top strode onto the bridge with a pot of coffee in one hand and three empty mugs in the other.
"Coffee, anyone?" she offered. Her offer seemed to be accepted, as both Lloyd's and Paolaon's stomachs rumbled at the lovely lovely prospect of consuming something other than the ration barrs they had been living on for the past week.
"Amber, how did-" Lloyd began before he cut himself off. "Do we even have coffee onboard?"
"Well, obviously we do," Paolaon answered. "And by the smell of it, Kafano Gold at that. Best stuff in the caels and more expensive than gold-plated crack."
"What I meant to say was more along the lines of 'where did you get it?'" Lloyd defended.
"Oh," Paolaon said.
Amber went down the steel steps to Paolaon's console, where she steered the ship. She set down one of the mugs, a white ceramic one with a picture of a prancing unicorn on the side, and began pouring.
"Well?" Lloyd and Paolaon demanded in unison.
"Well what?" Amber replied, oblivious.
"Where did you get this stuff?" Lloyd asked.
"Well, since we're all buccies and all now," Amber began in a truly atrocious attempt at pirate's cant, "I cognied me to pirate something, y'know, steal a thing an' sell it back. I saw a bag of Kafano Gold at a dutifree in McCartney, so I teffed it when the vendie wasn't mirring. I then went me up to the counter and tried to hawk it for the creds. He didn't purch the merch; actually he was quite murderkill in the way of yourstrue, so I skedded me out on him and The Man when they were voxed for. Tote be sedendone, an' I holds the Kafano Gold in these paws, o mine buccies."
By the time she was done, Lloyd and Paolaon were fighting back tears of uproarious laughter in an effort to not make Amber feel bad. They met with mixed success.
"What is this that amuses my homepeople?" she asked, confounded. "Lloydiesan? Paoliechan?"
"Amber, please, you're killing us," Lloyd gasped desperately. "Who taught you all that... that?"
"Deac was dexing me tote about the cant of the buccies a few hours before he somnied."
"Just talk normal, please," Paolaon begged. "Even I can't stop laughing."
"Is that what this is to you, o mine buccies and mine homepeople!?" demanded Amber, slamming down Lloyd's mug on a console and hastily pouring it. "A bloody warking joke?" After that, she stormed out of the bridge, coffeepot in hand.
"Look what you've done," Paolaon chided, trying not to laugh. "A-Ambiechan will never be the same, 'o mine buccie'."
***
The cargo bay on Scion of Trinity was packed with people. They were wearing black, grey, brown, and sometimes jumpsuits. They were a motley bunch, mostly from McCartney and Gallagher, who were refugees traveling with Lloyd. They weren't sure where they were headed, but every single one of them had the same symbol Lloyd had tattooed on his right knuckles: the trinity of quadrisect eights (or hourglasses?).
Then there was Mujahede Sayyif.
He was a former cabbie from Ganycent, and he was sitting on one of the many fold-out cots. He was wearing tan clothing and was currently kneeling on a small thin rug, reciting something in a strange tongue and facing towards the bridge.
"What are you doing, Mujiesan?" she asked him. He ignored her and kept reciting.
"Mr. Sayyif? Can you hear me?" she inquired timidly.
A man laying on one of the cots opened one of his eyes. He had blond hair and green eyes.
"'E's prayin, Amber. Don't interrupt him."
Amber sat down next to him, and was quiet, waiting patiently. The muffled words of Mujahede echoed in Aravine, his language most holy. At long last, he got up from his prostration and looked around. Amber took the opportunity to pounce on him with her questions.
"Who is Allahu and why is he akbar, Mujiesan?" Amber asked.
"It's Allah, Amber. He is God. Akbar merely means 'great'. How 'bout you speak normal for the moment?"
"You don't like my pirate cant either? Aaargh!" She pouted for a moment, hiding her hurt. "Well, if Allah is God, why does he have two names? Why don't you just call him Allah or God?"
Mujahede exhaled audibly, somewhat exhausted. "You have two names, Amber Sayyif. Why don't we just call you 'Sayyif'?"
Amber seemed to understand. "But you are a Sayyif as well. People would get confused."
"As it is with God. There are many faiths that believe in one God, but their one God is different from the other God that the other faiths practice. My God is Allah."
"Maybe it's all the same God," Amber postulated. "Maybe nobody's realized it yet."
Everyone in the cargo bay gasped.
"Woman, what you just uttered is blasphemy," Deac said. "To all of us."
"But why?" she asked. "Wouldn't that bring all the faiths together?"
"Do you not get just how wrong that is?" began Deac. "Mujahede has his faith, we have ours, and we mutually realise that one of us is wrong. No hard feelings. But if the faiths were merged, I would worship a God I did not know and so would he. One of us is right, and one of us is wrong. But we know that, and we wouldn't allow the truth, whatever it is, to be mixed with a lie, whatever it is."
"Do you agree with this, Mr. Sayyif?"
"Completely. Allah is God but Allah is not Xristos."
Amber nodded then and mustered a weak smile.
"Well, if Mr. Sayyif thinks it is so then I trust him."
"You are still very trusting, Amber," said a voice from the bridge door. They turned and saw Lloyd leaning against the doorpost. "When will you learn that the universe is full of lies?"
"You hate me," Amber pouted as she turned back to Mr. Sayyif. "Leave me alone."
"Actually, I would like to talk to you, in private," Lloyd said. "If you would allow me."
That just made her angrier.
"Only one person has ever 'talked to me in private', and I hate that bastard with all I have. Are you going to do to me what he did?"
Lloyd was mystified. "What the deuce are you talking about?"
"You hate me and now you're going to 'talk to me'. Maybe I was better off dying on Ganymede."
Lloyd sat down next to her, trying to comfort her.
"I'm not going to bloody hurt you," he sort of assured her, rough as always. "I don't know what garble is rattling around in your head, but when I say I want to talk to you, I mean just that. Will you please get over here?"
She was still pouting, but at least she was looking at him now.
"I bought some popcorn before I left McCartney," Lloyd said. "I'll give you some if you come talk to me."
"All right," she agreed. "I'll talk. But it'd better be buttered popcorn, like the kind I had in Ganycent."
"Sure thing, Amber."
***
The sound of popcorn popping in a microwave greeted them as they entered the captain's quarters. The captain's quarters were a small room, yet spacious considering that it was in theory dedicated to one individual. However, to make room for the refugees, Paolaon and Deac had apparently moved in with their personal effects.
"Wait... I saw Deac sleeping in cargo," Amber muttered. "But he's sleeping here?"
"I asked him to clear out so we could talk, just the two of us."
Amber walked over to the bed set into the wall, and sat down. Lloyd remained standing.
"Amber, you've surely figured out by now that you're a very important person," he began.
"Are you coming on to me?" she asked, defensive.
"No, just stating the facts. It's not... normal for people to be grown in vats and to be fully mature at three years old."
Amber started to cry.
"Look, I know that, it's just... you don't have to rub it in my face!"
Lloyd went over to hug her. "Hush. It's okay, I didn't mean anything by it."
Amber looked up at him, calmer. "Well then, what did you mean?"
Lloyd got up. "Well, like it or not, it's a fact of your existence and part of why you're so important. You see, there's half a dozen organizations that want to capture you, kill you, or enlist you. We're one of the latter, but we won't force it."
"Who do you work for?"
"We're a loose organization of people against the Coalition for... different reasons, all of them valid. We believe that what they are doing is wrong. We don't have a name."
"How am I so important?"
"You play into this in a major way. If I'm right, you're going to lead us to victory over the Coalition."
Amber's face fell and she stared into space.
"What's wrong?"
"I can't lead you all!" she protested. "I don't know the first thing about any of this! I don't even know the bloody pirate cant, o mine buccie!"
Lloyd smiled at that.
"About that, earlier, understand that we weren't laughing at you. It was, just, well..." Lloyd seemed at a loss for words.
"Well what?" she demanded.
"It was cute," he blurted. "Very much like something you'd do. And you reminded me, just for a moment, of an old friend of mine."
"So you think I'm cute?" she asked, her eyes sparkling.
"Well... not like that!" he protested. "But anyway..."
They stood there for a moment.
"So, I'm gonna be captain?" she asked. "The skippie? Buccielord?"
"You're not grasping the scale of this," Lloyd realised as he grabbed a palmtop and called up a picture. It was a green, blue, and white circle with a smaller white circle in the background.
"What's that?" Amber asked.
"That's the human homeworld, Earth," Lloyd explained. "Fifty billion people live on that planet right now, and that's not even taking the refugees that'll be arriving into account."
"That's where we're headed," she realised.
"Sooner or later. All roads lead to Earth."
"Roads? I don't see-"
"It's an expression, Amber." He gave the palmtop to her to study, and started pacing. "It means that it's a very important place, the economic, cultural and political center of the system."
"So what does it have to do with me?"
"You're going to help determine their fate in a very major way. What way, though, we're not quite certain yet."
"But I'm not ready!"
"You're not doing it today. This won't be for a few years, probably. And we'll be right here to help you."
"But what if I don't want to?" she asked. "You know, maybe I just wanted a normal life."
"Nobody in this system gets a normal life starting with Kyriakos Anastasia," Lloyd stated. "This includes you. Anyway, you-"
Amber started clutching her stomach and making whimpering noises.
"What's wrong!?" Lloyd asked, running over to her side.
"It's like... Ganycent... genemodding... fetus... ugh." She collapsed onto the floor.
***
"Oi! Do we have a medic onboard!?" a panic-crazed Lloyd demanded as he stormed the cargo bay. "Amber's unconscious!"
Mujahede stood up right then, grabbing a first-aid kit off the wall and making a dash for the door.
"You're a cabbie!" Lloyd said.
"I dropped outta medschool, and anyway she's sorta like my daughter! I have to help her!"
The two of them ran through the bridge, flying down the ladder and bursting through the door to the captain's quarters.
"She's in pain," Mujahede reported, reading from a diagnostic device. "And... there's a very high amount of EM radiation coming from her womb. On the gigawatt scale."
"The only thing that requires that much wattage is... well, I haven't the foggiest."
"Hold on," Mujahede interrupted. "There's a matter stream entering her body."
"A matter stream!? As in teleporters!?" Lloyd exclaimed.
"There's a teleporter in her," Mujahede reported. "Extremely small, and it's related to other mechano-electrical systems. It's implanted in her womb."
"That's... how?"
"There's genetic resequencing going on right now in her womb," Mujahede reported. "It involves a fetus within her."
"You mean she's pregnant?" Lloyd said. "Will she be okay?"
"The unconsciousness seems to have been triggered by an anesthesia supply in one of the implants. She should recover in about ten minutes, and be perfectly fine."
"Well, that's good news. This day's just fulla surprises."
***
The captain's quarters was apparently also a makeshift medical bay. Staffed by an interstellar vagrant medschool dropout who worked almost nonexistent hours with a first aid kit, it was the best medical facility within the nearest asterunit. And, thankfully, it was sufficient to take care of Amber... for now.
"Rook?" she muttered. "King? Parliament?"
"What the deuce is she muttering?" asked Lloyd, expecting Mujahede to provide an answer. For Mujahede's part, he just shrugged.
Amber noticed the question, and opened her eyes to find the two of them sitting bedside, monitoring her.
"I saw three people!" she tried to explain. "We were having a conversation! But Parliament said something about incantation... incineration... incarnation? and he disappeared and then the other two waved and it was all pretty and then I woke up here!"
"You were just dreaming, Amber," Mujahede assured. "It's your imagination playing tricks on you."
"No, it isn't!" she insisted. "I've met Rook before! He was there in Ganycent with me! He was there when the man in the blue suit..." She broke down, crying, unable to complete the sentence.
"You're just confused," Mujahede insisted. "It was a very vivid dream, but it's over now."
"Hold on," began Lloyd, "Amber might have something here. Especially relating to the twelve and first-"
"That's what they called Parliament!" interjected Amber. "The first of the twelve! There's something you guys aren't telling me!"
"I don't even know what they're talking about," Mujahede said. "Amber, just try to get some rest."
"Yes, Mr. Sayyif," Amber nodded. "Maybe I'll see Rook and King again."
And before Mujahede could say anything, she had her eyes shut.
***
"Get outta here," Mujahede told Paolaon. "We an' Lloyd gotta talk."
Paolaon looked to Lloyd, who nodded slowly. She climbed the ladder and went through the door to the cargo bay.
"So what's all this about, Mujahede?" inquired Lloyd, sweet as honey and innocent as a murderer.
"Funny, I was about to say those exact same words. First, I hear all this 'twelve and first' nonsense when we leave, and now you're buying into imaginary nonsense. An' don't think that I haven't noticed that warky little tattoo all you people have on your right knuckles. I'm starting to think that I boarded Cult Express Flight Nothing on a crash-course for insanity."
"Faith does play a part in all this, Mujahede. These are dark days."
"Really? No koose, cap'n. What else are you gonna tell me? We being invaded by aliens?"
"Cut the sarc, cabbie," snapped Lloyd. "You have no clue what I'm talking about."
"Faith. Dark days. So when does everyone get little piggie faces?"
"That's right, you're Muslim. But look, what's happening nowadays is part of something bigger than you real-"
"I smell bacon!" interrupted Mujahede.
Lloyd just rolled his eyes.
"No, look behind you, man! The scanners are flashing! The ??? are within half an aster!"
Lloyd turned around, and his eyes went wide. He jumped into the third chair, which had status monitors for all non-weapon and non-propulsion systems onboard. He fixed scanners on the bogey in Scanner Grid Nine that was putting out a Chi Xi Stigma ion signature, and he read the results.
"This isn't good," Lloyd concluded. "It's the Unity Ascendant, the first of the Chi Xi Stigma's new Draconia-Class battleships. They're a week from our position and if we try to outrun them, they'll still just be two weeks away from us. They're going at full thrust to Earth and they can easily outgun us if it comes to that."
"Should I summon the regular crew?" asked Mujahede.
"Yeah, go get Deac and Paolaon," Lloyd barked as he called up the tactical controls on the monitor. "Do you know how to fire a Perditor Class V?"
"How hard is it?" Mujahede asked.
"Just aim and fire. Scion can power a shot from one of the two Perditors every three seconds at empty and a ten-shot burst at full. That's all you need to know."
Mujahede nodded and ran upstairs. A moment later, Paolaon and Deac were in their seats and Lloyd was making his way to the command chair.
"What's this with the Chi Xi Stigma ship?" asked Deac. "Enough to break up a poker game?"
"Unless you were betting our lives on your hand, yes. Paolaon, do they see us?"
"If they do, we won't know it unless they head for us," she said. "They've got fighters on that baby that can outgun us. I wouldn't attack that ship with Emeriqua's Kyriakos Anastasia and Nippon's Yamato together."
"So what do we do?"
"He's on that ship."
The three of them turned around to see Amber standing in the doorway.
"King told me that I'd see him again soon."
"Who are you talking about?" demanded Paolaon. "And who's King?"
"Do we have any monitoring equipment onboard?" Deac asked. "I'd kill to be a fly on the wall on that ship."
"It was all destroyed in the escape from Ganycent," Lloyd informed. "Amber, what are you doing up?"
"I felt something unspeakably evil so I decided to get up," Amber explained. "And I feel fine, so don't tell me to go back to sleep."
"Well, what do we have in the way of normal broadcasting frequencies?" Deac asked.
"It's all okay. We can monitor and broadcast in standard channels."
"I suggest we monitor Chi Xi Stigma channels," Deac suggested. "They're encoded, but we can at least check the frequency and direction of communications and infer off of that."
"Good idea," Amber said. "Give me a chair and a station and I'll do that."
"You know what to do?" Lloyd inquired.
"No, so you'll have to give me a crash course. But it looks like you people are busy, so I'll do it."
Lloyd set Amber up on the top level of the bridge at one of the dormant stations. He brushed off the dust and he sat her down and he showed her how to work it. She absorbed the information like a sponge and she got to work ten minutes later.
"Paolaon, tell me if the Unity Ascendant changes course for any reason. I'm ending my shift and I'm gonna try to sleep."
***
The cargo bay was semi-active at all times. There were only six bunks in the bay, so the ten refugees pretty much took turns using them. Otherwise, they passed the time watching the onboard movies and playing various games.
Mujahede's favorites happened to be poker and chess. He was currently playing a round with Deac, and he seemed to be winning. His side, light, had captured both dark bishops as well as the queen. Various dark pawns were scattered across the board, half of them trapped by light pawns and by knights.
"This isn't looking good for you, is it?" mused Mujahede as he watched Deac squirrm. "Your forces are weak. I've slain both bishops and the queen, and your rooks are seemingly trapped at the moment. Move."
"You're relishing this, aren't you?" asked Deac as he moved a knight forward. Mujahede moved his queen seven squares across the board to slay a dark pawn.
"I am possessing you, am I not?" gloated Mujahede.
"You've got to quit it," Deac joked. "You're drunk on my blood."
"Well, it's hard not to be when there's so much of it," Mujahede replied.
The banter continued back and forth, but through overconfidence and some sloppy playing, the dark side managed to bring a rook out and thus slay both knights. It then backed up a dark knight as it forked the light king and a light rook. Having no choice but to move the king, a light rook was slain.
"We're only halfway through this," Mujahede defended. "I may still win."
The other light rook survived, and it managed to get out and start some havoc. More pieces were slain until all that was left to dark was four pawns, a rook, a king, and a knight. All white had left was a queen, a king, a bishop, and six pawns.
Deac moved a dark pawn to the end, and the dark queen was returned to the board. With the odds in its favor, the dark side slew the light queen and bishop. Finally, the light king moved away in his only available direction, but the dark king moved forward and finished a checkmate trap.
Light was finished.
"Checkmate."
Mujahede nodded, and started chuckling.
"You never doubted that you'd win, did you?"
"I was the Jovian chess champ for three years straight. I knew how it'd play out from the very beginning; I guess you could say that I was toying with you and giving you a chance to do damage before I moved in for the kill."
"You're rather cocky."
"Not cocky, just honest," Deac replied. "I suppose this means that I'll never play chess with you again, having demonstrated how I possessed you, mundie."
Mujahede smiled. "Is that a challenge?"
"Come get you some, o mine homeperson."
They were interrupted by Paolaon throwing open the doors.
"Quick! Turn on the vidscreen!"
***
Everyone's eyes were glued to the vidscreens. Static fuzzed and two black silhouettes came into being onscreen. Their shapes were contour lines and topography bitmaps, shifting as they moved forwards and backwards.
"We are Freedom Radio, streaming live out of Hell on Earth. We are Liberty's last voice in the system, and we are unstoppable and we are untraceable."
Lloyd, who had just awoken, perked up. "Hey! I heard about these guys!"
"We have obtained information from the highest levels in the universal government that the Provisional Director of the Global Defence Coalition, Cristobal Chacazzo, is on his way back from the Jovian area. It seems that despite the alien threat, he felt a compelling need to travel towards them if for only a moment. Remeber, if you will, that according to the Human Peace and Safety Act passed by the Coalition earlier this year, the Provisional Director's movements are classified. Hence nobody knows where he is save for his trusted advisors. I wouldn't trust them so heavily if I were you, Cristobal. They may turn on you one day."
The other shadow stepped forward, and the first one receded. The second shadow began to speak.
"I'm certain that everyone's heard of the might of the Chi Xi Stigma Battle Fleet," he began. "But you haven't heard this in the mainstream media, because it detracts from the image of might of Chacazzo's new toys. What I'm talking about is called the Zed Street Riots. Roll the footage."
Everyone onboard gasped, both delighted at the infamy and worried that they would be given away accidentally like the source in 'the highest levels of the universal government'. What they saw was Zed Street in Ganycent, and an explosive streetfight.
"A mysterious, nameless girl was being hunted by Coalition secret agents on the streets of Ganycent," the first one resumed. "They had fought it out well, but they needed to escape. We have no clue as of yet why the Coalition was after these people. In any case, an encoded transmission passed between one of the combatants and a ship suspected of smuggling by thirteen nations, called Scion of Trinity, blasted the agents with onboard guns about... now, and then in a few moments they'll pick up the girl, a cab driver identified as Mujahede Sayyif, and the owner of Scion, called Lloyd ap Dhia. They were then chased by local police, acting in conjunction with the Chi Xi Stigma, but they managed to evade and escape the city by blasting through the outer airlock. We don't have that footage, unfortunately."
The second one came back on. "Now, the people on Zed Street had seen it all, and needless to say, Coalition loyalty was running somewhat low anyway. Well, the people, having seen tyranny in action, decided to launch a commendable first strike against the Coalition. The Ganymedan government has been destabilised, but they've thrown in their lot firmly with the Coalition and are backing Chi Xi Stigma efforts to destroy the rebel government that has arisen from the Riots. We at Freedom Radio fully back the rebel government and we urge all nations to pull out of this disgusting Coalition and substitute unity for a union."
The first one returned. "One more thing before we go. The original Freedom Radio announcement has initiated sporadic resistance throughout the world. In Eire, the bastion of the anti-Coalition movement, the local resistance movement has bombed the Chi Xi Stigma energy depot in Belvaz, resulting in the temporary deactivation of the occupation forces in that city. In Zhongua, the Xristarchist underground has destroyed Tienenman Spaceyard, commandeered by Chacazzo two months ago to build the new Chi Xi Stigma fleet. These were major sacrifices, bought with the blood of free men and women. Tienenman was the pride and joy of the Zhonguan Imperium before the Chi Xi Stigma, blown up for the common good. Let this inspire a free humanity to fight. Thank you. Out."
As mysteriously as it had come, it went and background fuzz replaced it.
"Why weren't you monitoring Chi Xi Stigma channels?" Lloyd inquired.
"I was monitoring Chi Xi Stigma channels," Amber answered. "I still am, for that matter."
"So we left a revolution in our wake," Deac commented, nodding approvingly.
"And just when I was beginning to think we just sat on our arses and played chess all day," Paoloan joked.