Salvation

by voroshilov

Daux Secundus

Penumbra had tunnel vision, rather severely. Her eyes were only able to show her the path to the airlock, with her ears giving her nothing but the voice of the woman from her dream, her calling a melody from the distance. Her voice was ghostly, easily mistakable as simply Penumbra’s ears playing tricks on her, but the level of coincidence was too much to simply ignore, not after she’d travelled so far, at least.

Though she couldn’t see her, Ablazed Glory was trying to stop Penumbra from walking away. But, a combination of Penumbra’s strength and Ablazed Glory’s lack of energy meant that her attempts did little more than to slightly wobble Penumbra’s view for a moment. No doubt she was yelling out something, she had a tendency to be very loud. No matter what she did, though, Penumbra’s mind was set, she was following the signal to its source.

Ablazed Glory rushed to block the airlock, once she realised Penumbra was planning to use it, but a flash of violet light prevented her tactic from working, as Penumbra simply teleported to the other side.

Penumbra began the procedure to unlock the outer airlock door. With a hiss and rush of air at her feet, the airlock depressurised, preventing an explosive decompression when the outer door was opened. A second later, silent due to the vacuum, the door slowly opened, the dust of the nebula gradually seeping in.

She allowed herself to float out, the eyepieces of her helmet both protecting her eyes from the dust but also giving the ability to see through the cloud. She followed the source of the voice with her eyes, locating the shining beacon of magic in the distance - burning like a star. As she approached it, using similar magic to propel herself forwards at exponentially increasing speeds, her display flashed up its location: a free-floating, rocky spheroid, what was likely once a moon.

Scans of the moon indicated its orbital parent had been destroyed, with the moon having suffered damage itself - its original surface scorched - though its gravity had brought in some of the dust and rock surrounding it to repair most of that damage. It struck Penumbra as curious that a moon could survive a star’s destruction of all things, though, as she knew full well, stranger things had happened.

When she neared ten miles from the moon, the dust and rock of the nebula stopped abruptly, as if held back by something, like it was behind glass. The magical star grew brighter and brighter, even though as Penumbra closed in on it she realised it couldn’t be much larger than herself. When she finally brought herself to land, snapping instantly from incredible speed - even though she had begun to slow her descent at the ten mile mark - to full stop, she was met with the unmistakable figure of the woman from her dream, standing as if sat on an invisible chair.

“Welcome,” she said, voice carrying despite a distinct lack of an atmosphere, “this is a beautiful place, is it not?”

“Where are we?” Penumbra asked, using her magic to project her voice and make it audible in the vacuum.

“Irenton,” she said, “what is left of it, at least. This was once my home, this system. I remember it well during its infancy, it is sobering to see how it has changed.”

“Not so much changed,” Penumbra mused, casting a glance at the brown dome that encircled them.

The woman chuckled, though did not follow her gaze. “Indeed. I know you were a student of Nicholas, so I will presuppose I do not need to introduce you to him. Well, it was he who saved this moon from annihilation, when the star at the centre of this system gave its last, dying breath. It was he who allowed the Rift generators beneath his world’s surface to overload, halting the propagation of the destruction, saving countless billions of lives at the cost of his own.”

“Wait.” Penumbra shook a claw in disapproval. “That’s not possible,” she scoffed, “this happened long before Nicholas’ time. Besides, if he died, then how did he enter the Great Experiment? Or, eventually, teach me what I know today?”

The woman laughed again. “You young ones have such a linear view of reality. The Nicholas you knew and the Nicholas who saved this moon were very different, even though they were identical.”

Penumbra couldn’t bring herself to reply vocally, simply shaking her head in confusion. Different yet identical, so it was one of those then, was it?

“Nicholas’ very existence is an enigma. He is less a being and more a phenomena, an event, one that changes the course of history for all living creatures. He is unique in that he exists partially outside of time. From a certain perspective, it is almost like the universe was built around him, for him. From another, more nuanced perspective, you can see how it is the opposite.”

“I don’t understand,” Penumbra uttered one of the only sentences she truly hated - even after so long.

The woman smiled. “That is quite alright. I do not believe anyone fully does. But, one day, all will be revealed to you. You, as he, are special, destined for great things. I am known to be an excellent judge of character.”

“Who are you?” Penumbra reversed the flow of the dialogue at once and repeated the question she had asked during their previous meeting, “you’re not like Kaurava, not a creation of Nicholas’, at least. I can see your presence in this world is almost too much, as if you’re burning a hole through reality just by being in it.”

She nodded. “A valid assumption, I had said you were promising, had I not? You see, this meeting was a test, to see if I was, indeed, correct in who I thought you were. You passed. I believe it is time we meet, Sunless-Halo-of-Penumbra. There is a system, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, called the Tiberius System - named after one of my brothers, ironically - your ship will be able to find it, I have made sure of that. Return to your vessel, set in the course and come to me, it is time you learned.”

In a burst of light, the woman was gone, simply vanishing beneath the flare. Penumbra looked skyward to see the Retaliator, engines a dull orange, passing through the dome of dust.

She took to the sky, locating the primary view camera and signalling to Ablazed Glory she was entering through the airlock. Self-levitation was draining, however, and Penumbra only just managed to bob inside the airlock by the time her magic demanded she rest. She sat on her haunches as the automated recompression process was carried out, with the inner door unlocking and opening to reveal a furious looking Ablazed Glory.

“What the hell were you thinking?” She yelled, “you could’ve gotten killed!”

Penumbra looked at her with a deadly seriousness. “We need to go to the Tiberius System, there’s something extremely important there.”

Ablazed Glory shook her head. “No. You need to tell me why you took us to this nebula then jumped out of the damn ship to have a swim in it. What if you’d suffocated? Or gotten stuck? What then? I couldn’t have saved you!”

“There was a message,” she said, her tone completely uncompromising, “a dream, from someone who knew Nicholas.”

Ablazed Glory’s jaw dropped. “You had a dream? That’s the reason? You had a dream? Have you gone mad?”

“They knew him,” she said, “I know they did. They had a magical signature like a star and knew about Nicholas in the past, before the Empire, before the Great Experiment.” Her voice lowered. “Before this system died.”

Exasperated, Ablazed Glory rubbed her eyes. “This is ridiculous,” she mumbled, before speaking directly to Penumbra once again, “you do realise, that systems are not entered into the navigation database by name, right? Just by their coordinates, even Chronove. Saying to go to the ‘Tiberius System’ is about as useful as saying ‘come to me’. I spent years looking at old star charts, there is no Tiberius System in this galaxy.”

“It’s in the Large Magellanic Cloud,” Penumbra said, rising to her feet.

“Brilliant,” Ablazed Glory said, sarcasm oozing from her voice, “its outside of Dominion space. Not only that, it's in the LMC, where half of the galaxy’s pirates are suspected to reside - and where the other half are known to. Go on then, let’s find your ‘Tiberius System’, but we are not leaving this nebula until we know exactly where we are going, to the lightyear.”

The two walked in silence back to the command bridge, Ablazed Glory literally fuming with rage. When they entered, she stood by the captain’s chair, gesturing to it with a furious scowl on her face.

“Luminary,” Penumbra said, her confidence in what she had been told still intact, “set a course for the Tiberius System.”

A second went by in silence, Ablazed Glory clearly declaring victory in her head.

“Affirmative,” the Luminary answered, Ablazed Glory whipping around frantically, “coordinates engaged, standing by for Rift transition.”

“Woah, woah woah,” Ablazed Glory shouted, dashing to her console and inputting the commands to bring up a star map on the view screen, “show me where this system is, exactly.”

The image of the Milky Way zoomed out, to an image of the galaxy and its satellites. Then the image zoomed in again, this time to the small blob that was the Large Magellanic Cloud. A red circular marker appeared, marking the exact centre of the target system.

Ablazed Glory shook her head. “That’s impossible. Luminary, where has this location data come from?”

The Luminary took five seconds to answer, far longer than normal. “From the Tiberius System,” it replied, “transmitted by a vessel of redacted classification.”

“Redacted? Luminary declassify that information.”

“Negative,” it replied instantly, “information is classified by order of Dominion Defence Command.”

Ablazed Glory turned, malice lost from her face. “If I die because of this,” she said, “I will haunt you for the rest of time.”

Penumbra nodded. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t. Luminary, engage Rift drive.”

The map of the Large Magellanic Cloud was replaced by the Rift, its visible maelstrom a far cry from the serenity it provided to Penumbra’s mind.