Aetheral Space

Dragan Hadrien hugged himself tight as the shuttle came into dock. You could always tell when a shuttle’s systems synchronized with another ship — the sudden shift in temperature couldn’t be missed. From lukewarm to freezing, the charming bleakness of a Supremacy cruiser. The arms of a freezing person didn’t do much to provide comfort.

He looked around the shuttle, taking in the sight of the other occupants, memorizing their features with a glance in the way Cogitants could. Nervous-looking expressions, every one, save for the grim face of a burly Pugnant lurking in the corner. Dragan raised an eyebrow; if he had the personal heating of a Pugnant in this kind of freezer, he certainly wouldn’t be frowning. Motion sickness, maybe?

The sound of docking clamps rang out through the steel walls of the shuttle. Dragan smiled: finally. Passing the time in his Archive had lost its appeal after the first few hours.

The shuttle ramp descended, coming down onto the floor of the hangar with an echoing thump. The hangar itself was well-lit, squads of Supremacy soldiers marching to and fro on their various assignments. Taking in their coordinated movements, Dragan could tell this was a fairly well-disciplined ship — where there were deviations from the norm, it was obviously a result of unintentional negligence rather than willful rebellion.

As he stood up from his bench, Dragan heard his joints crack. He’d been sat in the same position for a while, and the cadet suit they’d given him for this assignment wasn’t exactly accommodating. If he sat down the wrong way, the bulky outer pockets of the otherwise slim suit dug right into his chest. Weren’t pockets supposed to be convenient?

Brushing a lock of silver hair out the way of his vision, Dragan observed the others as they got up. The practiced way six of the ten, the Pugnant among them, got to their feet told him that this wasn’t their first assignment — or, at the very least, they were used to space travel. The other four were more unsteady on their feet, one even stumbling. Dragan looked away from them; they obviously wouldn’t be useful to him.

Dragan made sure to be at the front of one of the two lines of transferees: as the only Cogitant in the mostly Crownless group, he was sure to stand out either way, but he wanted to present an image of responsibility right from the start. The bright blue eyes were a dead giveaway, of course, but he needed to show the competence expected with them.

The group assembled in front of the watching commander, a grim-looking man whose stark white coat was buttoned tight. Dragan did his best to conceal his envy at the man’s expensive-looking attire: the Supremacy’s encouragement of individuality only really came into effect past a certain military rank. At least this man’s coat sort of fit with the military image — Dragan had seen commanders in the past who’d seemed more suited to a travelling circus than any kind of official position.

The Commander clasped his hands behind his back. “Each of you,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Have been assigned to an existing project on this ship. I will read these assignments out now. You will proceed directly to your assignments. No detours, no deviations. The captain does not tolerate unearned disobedience aboard his ship. Am I understood?”

A chorus of affirmation rang out through the hangar. As he saluted, Dragan couldn’t help but notice the second man who approached from behind the Commander. If the Commander was taking liberties with his outfit, this second man was just going overboard.

The man had clearly taken the barest effort to armour himself, instead opting for a loose kind of robe with bracers on his arms. Speed prioritized over defense, obviously. A pistol sat in its holster strapped to the man’s left hip — the gun was polished, but it was perfunctory, a matter of obligation. The sword hanging from his right hip had clearly been maintained with something approaching love. Slicked black hair ended with a long ponytail.

Dragan did his best not to look too surprised. Melee weapons weren’t exactly uncommon among the Supremacy military; there was no shortage of systems that could disable firearms in the galaxy. But where they were used, they were typically things like batons, mass-produced trash like punchpoint firearms. Swords weren’t very common, though, outside of people like Special Officer Koujirou and a few Contenders over the years. This guy clearly thought highly of himself.

His stance, though, the way he held himself — despite the eccentricity of his wardrobe, there was a quiet dignity to him. The kind of confidence that came with experience, along with the obvious independence that came with rank … he was a Special Officer himself.

Dragan took the information and folded it into the shape of a file, thought converted into text. Conjuring a shelf, he stored it away in his Archive. From the perspective of anyone else, though, he just stared off into space for a moment.

The Commander barked out names, one after the other. Dragan doubted he had to, but he memorized them also, tucking them away into his collection of miscellaneous information. They could be useful for calling in favours or redirecting blame if it came down to it. The Pugnant lumbered off to their new assignment down in the bowels of the ship — interrogation, maybe? No, the Supremacy had no reason to hide their prisoners aboard their own ship, so it was likely something to do with the engines instead.

“Dragan Hadrien,” the Commander said. He nodded his head towards the second man. “You’re with him.”

The Commander obviously disliked this man. The distaste on his face was well-concealed, but you couldn’t hide such things from a Cogitant. The slightest brush of tooth against lip — as though he were barely refraining from biting his tongue — and the quirk of his eyebrows suggested this was due to a mixture of jealousy and the natural friction that came with a newly arrived colleague of superior rank.

“Yes, sir,” Dragan smiled, saluting, before moving to approach the black-haired man. Even before he reached him, the man turned away and started walking, clearly expecting Dragan to follow after him. That kind of arrogance confirmed it, then: this man was clearly a Special Officer, an asshole, or both.

“Atoy Muzazi,” the man said by way of introduction as Dragan reached him. “Dragan Hadrien, correct?”

“That’s right, sir,” Dragan said, matching Muzazi’s pace. He did his best to seem obedient; the appearance of obedience was much better than the real thing, as it actually allowed you to be competent at the same time. “Am I to understand you’re the one who requested me?”

Muzazi nodded. “Cogitants are hardly an abundant resource. As of now, you’re the only one of your kind aboard the Prasutagus — and we have need of your unique talents.”

While Dragan felt it was nice to be praised, what Muzazi had said wasn’t exactly true. Even if they didn’t have the highest population, Cogitants were one of the great subspecies of humanity — there was hardly a shortage of people with the same ‘unique’ talents as him. No, no, he was just a convenient resource, which was fine with him as it inevitably meant being provided with opportunities for advancement.

“Well,” said Dragan, spreading his smile as endearingly as he could. “I’m always happy to help!”

“Mm,” Muzazi grunted, continuing to walk along. The pair began moving out of the hangar and down a hallway that — according to a holographic sign — led to the brig. A wall-sized window on the left side of the hallway gave an open view of the expanse of space, and of the sickly-green planet they were currently orbiting: Caelus Breck. The glass looked flimsy, but Dragan could tell without looking that blast doors were ready to slam shut at the first sign of damage.

They passed a few patrols of guards, but other than that the walk was silent, and the hallway seemed to stretch on and on. The stark-white aesthetic of Supremacy ships grew irritating to the eyes pretty quickly; Dragan wondered if there were cases of people going blind from it.

Finally, Dragan cleared his throat. “It might be helpful if I knew specifically what I was doing,” he said, hands clasped behind his back. “Just so I could mentally prepare.”

Muzazi glanced back at Dragan, then tapped a button on his script. A holographic screen popped out of the wafer-thin device, and with a wave of Muzazi’s hand it was set to float in front of Dragan’s face as they walked.

The Cogitant gave it a quick scan. The assignment was to assist in prisoner interrogation — specifically the interrogation of a Pugnant criminal named Ruth Blaine, arrested for the confirmed murder of a Supremacy admiral. There was an image of her on the side of the screen: a muscular, red-haired young woman, a wide grin showing off the sharp canines common among the Pugnant subspecies.

Dragan raised an eyebrow. “Pardon my lack of understanding, sir, but from reading this it seems Blaine’s crime has already been confirmed. I’m not sure why exactly my presence is required.”

Again, all he got was a glance. Intentional rudeness? No, Muzazi seemed more like the sort of person who didn’t quite understand social cues. “We believe this girl works with a crew of criminals, all of whom were involved with the incident. I need you to help us get their location out of her, as well as determine what other crimes she may have committed.”

A smile played across Dragan’s lips.

Now that he could work with.

-

Through the cramped observation booth, Dragan could watch the Pugnant girl without being seen himself. She was sat down in an inmate uniform, shackled to the interrogation table, a Supremacy officer across from her.

She didn’t look concerned in the least.

Cocking her head, she spoke: “You guys got burgers around here? Cheeseburgers, hamburgers? I could really go for one! Oh, unless they’ve got pickles, I don’t like pickles — oh, unless they’re red pickles, I do like those. You got any?”

The officer blinked slowly, placidly. “Do you realize the kind of sentence you’ll be receiving, Miss?”

As the girl rambled on, Dragan watched her facial expression carefully. The appearance of irreverence was there, of course, but it was at least partly a mask. He peeked underneath it. Caution, worry and determination in a fairly even ratio. Caution and worry were unsurprising, but where was the determination being aimed?

She was looking at the interrogator as he droned on, but her gaze was blank - her focus wasn't on him. He didn't even qualify as an obstacle.

Whatever her mind was on wasn't something she could see, then. Dragan smirked; she was determined to protect her comrades, then. Determined not to sell them out.

Admirable, but unrealistic. The Supremacy never missed a trick. The best course of action was to keep your head down and do as you were told.

Dragan put a hand to his chin as he considered his next move. If he continued watching this girl he was certain he could reason out the information the Supremacy wanted, but what good would that do him? That was just doing his job, the bare minimum. There was no opportunity for advancement or award there.

As pieces of a plan began to click together in his head like a puzzle, Dragan smiled. He could make this work, and it might just be enjoyable, too.

Lying was his second favourite activity, after all, just under sleeping.

-

The quarters they'd given him for his stay aboard the Prasutagus were more than a little cramped, but that was fine. As much as he might wish otherwise, Dragan didn't take up much space. So long as he had a bed and a desk, he could operate just fine.

Dragan sat down. The chair wasn't much to speak of; cold metal and a rigid unkind shape.

If he had just his thoughts, somewhere comfortable to sleep, and an extranet connection, he could live very happily. The idea of being able to observe the world as much as you liked while it couldn't do a damn thing to you was very appealing.

Dragan's ambition was very simple: to achieve a position where he didn't need to have ambition. Not low-ranking enough to have duties to perform, but not high-ranking enough to have people pay attention to him. A holy land of delegation and comfort.

This sounded simple enough, but the fact that he was a part of the Supremacy's military - even in a non-combat position - made it anything but.

The Supremacy was a society formed around … not, survival of the fittest exactly, but certainly 'might makes right'. Those with power had the right to tell others what to do, and those without power had only the right to obey those orders.

Strength, intelligence, talent … as long as you had enough of at least one of them and had proven your loyalty, the Supremacy would pretty much let you do whatever you wanted.

To a society of idiots, the ability to punch a little harder, a little faster, was an all-important metric. That had never been Dragan's talent.

But there were shortcuts for such things…

Dragan glanced at the door, listened intently, and - once he was satisfied nobody would be entering anytime soon - retrieved his testing block from a pocket.

It was a lump of loose metal Dragan had picked up a few assignments back, durable material used to make these back-destroying chairs. There were a few scratches in its surface, each deeper than the last, charting the progress of Dragan's self-training over the last few months.

Not deep enough, though. Not nearly deep enough to make the kind of impression he wanted.

Taking a deep breath, Dragan reached for his Aether. It was difficult to describe how exactly he accessed that energy, but if he had to do so he'd say that it was like turning on a non-existent organ inside his body. It had taken him weeks of work for him to reach the point where he could access it so quickly; in the beginning, he'd had to sit cross-legged for hours before he could get so much as the vaguest expression of it.

The moment Dragan accessed the Aether, the tingling sensation spread throughout his body, from the core of his bones all the way to the tips of his hairs. It was like receiving an extreme electric shock that couldn't harm you - and, as if to fit the metaphor, arcs of what looked like blue electricity blinked in and out of existence around his body.

The possibilities of what he could do with this energy poured through Dragan's mind. He could concentrate it inside his body to strengthen it, he could fire it out as a projectile, he could even force it into the shape of an object or weapon - and those were just the possibilities that sprung to mind first.

If he was smart about this, his Aether could be a very useful tool.

Aether was no secret, of course - the majority of the upper-ranks in the Supremacy made heavy use of it - but learning it often required an expensive tutor or a sympathetic superior. He didn't have the money or patience for either of those.

Self-teaching like Dragan was attempting was extremely rare, and doubtless much less effective than having an actual teacher, but his Cogitant heritage was picking up some of the slack there. Working out the next steps from what he'd already accomplished.

Back in the days of the Gene Tyrants, before the Thousand Revolutions, the Cogitant subspecies had been engineered to serve as strategists, administrators, aides. People to do the thinking so the rulers didn't have to. The kind of reasoning Dragan was doing was something he’d been all but designed for.

When you create something smarter than you by design, it obviously doesn't turn out well. That empire had fallen nearly a thousand years ago, and gene manipulation had become the most taboo of taboos, but the descendants of the subspecies lived on.

Dragan found himself grateful for that very often. It wasn't very satisfying to get ahead with the benefits of heritage, but so long as he did get ahead Dragan didn't much care.

Using the method he'd managed to reason out, Dragan focused his Aether into his fingernail. The arcs of blue collected there, the nail itself shining, and as they did Dragan felt an intense warmth behind his eyes. They were glowing slightly, the blue light illuminating his testing block. Apparently, glowing eyes was a fairly common Aether tic. He supposed it could be worse; during his research, he'd dug up reports of people who ended up with things like rapid hair or teeth growth. Glowing eyes were better than that any day - more convenient, too, if you were lost in the dark.

Dragan gritted his teeth, exerting himself as much as he could to keep his Aether focused, and dragged his enhanced fingernail across the surface of the testing block.

The nail slid through like a knife through butter, leaving a satisfyingly smooth trail. The moment he reached the other side of the block, Dragan let his Aether dissipate with a shower of blue sparks, wiping the sweat from his brow. From what he'd observed so far, the most important things to work on were the strength of the Aether and how long you could hold it. Those could be done via simple practice.

The rest, though, was for the moment beyond him. From what he understood, Aether users had as many unique applications of it as there were stars in the sky, but he himself wasn't confident in his ability to meddle too much with it without blowing himself up.

Satisfied with his current progress, Dragan stuffed the testing block back into his pocket. Ideally, he wanted to reach a level where he could keep his Aether up while moving around and fighting. Then he could begin his advancement in earnest.

He leaned back in his chair, looking out the cabin's porthole into the void of space beyond. This side of the ship was facing away from Caelus Breck - thank goodness, it looked a shithole - so he had access to the full calming view.

So - onto the matter of Ruth Blaine.

Closing his eyes, Dragan accessed his Archive. He liked to imagine it as a chalk-white castle standing in the sea, the sound of crashing waves giving him something constant to cling onto if he was at risk of getting distracted.

Flicking through imaginary files, Dragan brought up all the information he'd memorized about the prisoner. An Archive really was so very useful. A great many Cogitants had them - or at least had some method of organising their thoughts. If they didn't learn that early, all sorts of nastiness ensued once their brains grew bored.

Blaine was definitely guilty of what she'd been accused of … but couldn't she be guilty of more? Exposing a few other crimes of hers would look very good on Dragan's record. There were more than a few unsolved assassinations he could pin on her.

A pang of guilt hit out at him, but he suppressed it. The girl was getting the death penalty anyway, so he was hardly making things worse for her. If she was screwed anyway, wouldn't it be better for a little more good to come out with, at least?

He compiled a list of offenses she could feasibly have been involved with, and made a mental note to come up with links to them in short order.

That was all well and good, but he'd been assigned here to determine the location of her allies. With a flick of his finger, Dragan filed away the information he'd been dealing with and concentrated.

Something didn't quite fit with the data he'd been given - like a jigsaw puzzle with one piece slightly too big. Blaine had been caught by herself, with her allies nowhere to be seen. But the records indicated that she was never far from her comrades.

Had they parted ways? No, her expression had indicated a determination to keep them safe - the kind of determination that only comes about when there's a possibility of failure. She knew exactly where they were.

But there had been that other determination, hadn't there? When she'd sat in the interrogation room, there'd been a sense of purpose to her. She had come there for a reason.

Dragan's mind began working in overdrive, synapses like coiled superhighways of thought.

Had she let herself be caught? Why?

For something she could only get on the ship.

What could she only get on the ship? This was a mass-produced Supremacy freighter. There wasn't anything unique here. No valuable resources. No -

A chill ran down Dragan's spine.

Perhaps … she was after something that would be sent here to help with her interrogation? Something that the ship didn't otherwise have?

A Cogitant administrator, for instance? One who'd be kept close to where he was needed?

Dragan suddenly became aware of how very cold his sweat was. Surely, he was … no, no … he was overthinking. That was known to happen with Cogitants, too. Runaway trains of thought. Ridiculous.

Behind him, the alarm started blaring.

Oh shit.