Interlude-Harbor

Tasser wasn’t usually envious of Nai.

He imagined her life was even more stressful than his own. She had the weight of expectations on her. Pressure, in some of its grandest forms. Things were demanded of Nai, of the Warlock, that were simply too much for Tasser to even think about coping with.

She was sleeping.

No doubt, she was in dire need of rest after the last few days. Nai would likely suffer some permanent nerve damage for pushing herself this far. Just going by the odds, she would actually be lucky to only suffer nerve damage. There was immense variance to the symptoms accumulation could present with.

Neither he nor Nemuleki were dozing though. Tasser, because it was his turn to be awake in case anyone needed anything, and Nemuleki because she was still too highly strung to sleep.

She wanted to make conversation.

“What’s it like?” Nemuleki asked. “Knowing the Warlock?”

Conversation he wasn’t very ready to engage in. Not right now.

“See, I think that’s a bit of an odd question.” Tasser said. “What are you expecting to be different about being friends with Nai as opposed to some other Adept?”

Nemuleki gestured vaguely, trying to keep her voice down, “I mean, you’re chummy with one of the greatest Adepts of the day. There’s star systems she hasn’t even set foot in that know her name.”

His fellow Officer was determined to drag dialogue out of him.

“I guess I’m still not sure what you want to know about knowing her.” Tasser said, “She’s… just Nai. She’s my—”

He cut himself off with a cough to clear his throat, “One of my best friends.”

“But she’s the Warlock . I don’t get how you’re this casual about knowing someone like that. A living legend…”

Nemuleki trailed off, getting caught up in her imagination for a second.

“The last few days haven’t given you a more realistic idea?”

“She’s been barely conscious since we touched down, and she’s still gone head-to-head with enemy after enemy. She lives up to the legend.”

“They wouldn’t be legends for no reason.” Tasser agreed, “But look again.”

Nemuleki humored him and for a few moments, both Casti were staring at one of the unconscious aliens in the infirmary.

Tasser saw a friend on the mend. An incredibly powerful, notorious friend, but still just a friend.

But he knew that Nemuleki didn’t quite see the same ‘Nai’. She saw the Warlock instead. She and countless others knew Nai’s name, and the names of those like her, because they were heroes. It was more than just being admirable by themselves, it was the knowledge that there was an enemy coming from other stars, and that their enemy feared people like Nai.

Knowing that fear existed was comforting.

“Our Adepts are incredible, but she can be hurt and killed just like you or me. Even with all their power, they’re still mortal.”

Nemuleki nodded thoughtfully. “Those first few hours after we landed. First Osino got shot, and then Nai wouldn’t wake up. I really thought she might not ever. I was asking myself if I was watching a legend die.”

“I knew she’d pull through.” Tasser said simply.

“No you didn’t.” Nemuleki snorted, “You might be an odd bird, but you’re not that inscrutable. You were worried.”

“Never said I wasn’t.” He agreed, “But I also know what Nai’s capable of. She’s slept off worse damage than this.”

“Like what?”

“Classified.” Tasser said, giving Nemuleki a smirk.

“We’re the same rank.” Nemuleki frowned.

Instead of following her comment, Tasser changed the subject.

“What about you? It’s been a few days. What do you think of Nai, the Farnata, instead of the Warlock?”

Nemuleki puzzled for a few moments. “I’m not sure. She was out of it for so much.”

“You still had some time in the thick of it. When the camouflage Rak was coming after me and it.” Tasser said, nodding toward the alien sleeping in the quarantine bubble. “Plus you did most of the driving, and Nai spent most of the trip in the next seat. You didn’t have any conversations?”

“A few. Nothing substantial, just minor tactical details. Where I’m from—I almost asked her where she was from, I thought I might die.”

Genuine surprise flickered across Tasser’s face. “She didn’t react poorly?”

“I don’t think she was entirely cogent. She didn’t hear me exactly, and I corrected myself.”

“Lucky you.” Tasser said.

Nemuleki looked down at the Casti medical gowns they were in. The medical officer had taken blood draws to see if time around Cayleb was going to kill them, or others.

And as important as that test was, Tasser had noticed her focus linger on the blood itself.

“…I keep feeling guilty.” She admitted. “So much has happened, I feel like I’m not doing what I should to remember the others.”

Their assault team originally consisted of eight Casti. Within minutes of landing on Korbanok, they’d been reduced to six, and Lorel had been forced to take command of their unit. Four of their squad had escaped the Vorak base, with two extras.

But things hadn’t stopped on the ground. First Osino. Then Lorel.

“We’re the last two, aren’t we?” Tasser said.

Nemuleki nodded. “Lorel might still be alive. Captured.”

It was a small and uncertain comfort. They’d watched Lorel be captured, but in the wake of Korbanok? The fur-fish could be eager for retribution.

Tasser thought back to their chaotic battle when they first encountered enemies. Could any of them have survived? He replayed the moments he recalled, trying to focus on whether he’d seen his squadmates die, or merely vanish into the frenzy.

He was hurt to find that he remembered each of their deaths.

“We knew it would be bad going in.” Tasser said, “Still, two out of ten returning…”

“Makes me want to throw the strategist on a spike.”

Tasser glanced at Nemuleki, trying to weigh how she spoke. Sometimes he couldn’t tell how serious people were being when they said things like that. He had trouble with a lot of what people said.

But Nemuleki had come through more than once. He found it easy to give her the benefit of the doubt. She was joking. Almost certainly.

Out of all the Casti he’d been assigned to serve with, Lorel and Nemuleki had been some of the best. If he hadn’t just spent a few days fleeing from Adepts with her, spending even more time in isolated proximity to Nemuleki might have been intolerable.

But when you get shot at, stabbed, and hunted together, you either put up with each other’s company or die.

And while Tasser might not like conventional socializing, he liked not dying more.

Nai had told him in the past that he just needed more practice talking to people.

She often forgot Tasser was almost a decade older than her. He had plenty of practice.

He had a rather carefully cultivated image among his military peers. He liked being quiet and unapproachable, even if it made other Casti think he might be unstable. It helped that he had a reputation as someone who buried Rak Adepts. It bought him credibility without compromising his preference to keep to himself.

But despite how much he wanted to simply sit in silent, restful, contemplation, Nemuleki’s effort to connect did not go unappreciated. He hadn’t gotten to know Osino and the others well enough either.

“Why is fighting them important to you?” He asked.

Nemuleki blinked in surprise for a moment. She might have thought he was talking about the strategist, based on the last thing she said.

“I mean, the Vorak.” He clarified.

“I know,” she replied, “it’s just a big question. Caught me off guard.”

“Sorry. I have bad conversation habits. I don’t really ‘lead into’ things. I just… ask.”

Nemuleki nodded thoughtfully.

“I think it’s actually a really important question.” She said, “For me… it’s not actually about the occupation.”

That was unusual, especially for a system native like Nemuleki. Nine out of ten Coalition personnel were native colonists who’d tolerated the Vorak occupation too long.

The Assembly and its combined fleets were fighting insurrection on multiple fronts, in multiple systems. They sent their own to each colony.

But the Coalition, by the very nature of its creation and position, had only been able to send a tiny number of external troops. Most of their efforts had to be homegrown, inside the system itself.

“For the first year or so, it wasn’t personal or anything.” Nemuleki continued, “The Rak were here, they dug in, and they got mean with anyone that poked them.”

Tasser understood. He’d heard this story before after all.

“You figured if you didn’t poke them…”

“I kept my head down, focused on school. It even worked. It’s hard to say, but a lot of Casti do just fine under the occupation.”

“So what ended up happening?”

“My aunt was a mechanic a few hours away from school. The Rak impounded a bunch of vehicles she was working on, ruined her overnight. They thought she was smuggling, and they wanted what she was moving. She was detained, and they shot her in custody.”

“I’m sorry.” Tasser said.

“Story’s not over.” Nemuleki said. Her voice was quiet. It couldn’t be easy to talk about. “The official story says my aunt tried to steal one of their guns and fight her way free, but come on.”

Nemuleki rubbed her face, trying to massage the muscles that were tightening around her eyes. Tasser thought if she’d been Farnata, she’d be ‘crying’.

What did it say about him that he found the emotional affectations of another species more intuitive than his own people’s?

“I still didn’t think about joining then.” She confessed.

“Why?” Tasser asked.

“I knew my aunt. She probably was smuggling. And I just wanted to get a degree.” Nemuleki said, “It wasn’t until I got a beam from my cousin that things really came into focus. My aunt had a son, really young kid too, and he left me mail asking me why his mom died. I didn’t have an answer, and when I really thought about it… the Vorak don’t belong here. They don’t have the right to be here. They shouldn’t be allowed to kill us for not wanting them here. It’s that simple.”

“Important enough for you to suspend your future.” Tasser said.

Nemuleki nodded.

“How about you?” She asked.

“I was born on the homeworld, but I got shipped out to Deleten before I was through school. My parents were trying to be homesteaders. Things didn’t go so well, and I enlisted as soon as I was old enough. Just trying to get away from a bad place.”

“For someone who doesn’t seem as invested, you sure picked a dangerous specialty.” Nemuleki said, “Counter-Adepts don’t live long.”

“I’m plenty invested.” He corrected, “I met the right people.”

Nemuleki seemed like she wanted to press further, but to Tasser’s surprise, she didn’t. People didn’t usually stop pressing unless he got upset.

Still, talking about counter-Adept work had made his fellow Officer curious.

“If you don’t mind sharing, what’s the most dangerous thing you’ve seen an Adept do?” Nemuleki asked.

Nemuleki wasn’t trained in counter-Adept tactics like Tasser. She’d never been exposed to Adept powers like this before their trip with Nai.

Tasser had noticed her flex her palm a few times in the past hour, like she was imagining what Caleb did when they created their bright bombs.

“Nai is the most dangerous Adept I’ve ever met, but I take it that’s not quite what you meant.” He said.

Nemuleki nodded, “There’s almost as many stories about the best Adept-hunters as there are the Adepts themselves. I didn’t get to ask Osino about any of his. I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.”

“Osino and I were actually in training together.” Tasser said. “Different units, but we still saw each other.”

“It’s a small galaxy after all.” Nemuleki mused.

“No it isn’t.” Tasser said wryly, “But to answer your question, the scariest Adept I had to fight alone was this L2 on Hiirak.”

Nemuleki frowned, “What were you doing on Hiirak? It’s totally barren.”

“Not four years ago it wasn’t.” Tasser said, “Rak got tricky and landed this prefabbed monitoring station on the surface. They snuck it to the surface while the other moons were on the other side of the gas giant. The whole thing burrowed into the surface and covered itself up.”

“And you were one of the ones sent to dig it up?”

Tasser frowned like she’d asked an unexpected question, “No, I was one of the ones sent to investigate what happened to the first group. No one had any clue it was there. We were combing the surface for the first group’s wreckage for a week, and eventually we decided to land and check it out from the ground.”

“And you found some Rak Adept?”

“It found us.” Tasser said, “Six of us were on the surface and we’d been there a while when they ambushed us. Three died in the first ten seconds. The Rak knew what they were doing. They knew they had to move quick and kill us all before we called for help.”

“What category were they?”

“I don’t know for sure, but my guess is L2 in magnitude and range. I’ve got a pretty good sense for that. They used classic ground-spikes, but the area was uncommonly wide, and their speed of emergence was top notch, as good as Nai’s even.”

“How’d you win?”

“Training.” He shrugged, “And luck. The Rak didn’t keep count of how many of us there were. They killed one of the other two survivors, captured the other. I hid in a fissure in the chaos.”

“You hid while they killed your allies?”

Tasser’s face grimaced painfully. “Like I said, ‘training’.”

“I don’t understand.” Nemuleki said, a bit dumbfounded.

Tasser sighed, it was the ugly truth of fighting Adepts that ordinary soldiers usually didn’t have to confront.

“Counter-Adept tactics can be reduced down to two options: fury and flight. You either overwhelm them by force in the first few moments, or you run away. First thing Nai taught me was that prolonged engagements with an Adept increasingly favor the Adept. The more time you give them to think, plan, and adapt, the worse you’re going to do. Hit hard, hit fast, and if they survive, back off quickly and wait for another chance.”

“So that’s exactly what you did? Just wait for a window to punish them?”

“They obliged,” Tasser said, “they were in a rush. They stole our rover, loaded it with the bodies and went underground without confirming they weren’t seen.”

“You followed to the buried base.”

“I got inside too. The outpost itself was tiny. Only four Rak manning it, but that was all it took for the listening post to function. I managed to sneak a gun to the one they took prisoner. I fought the Adept while my ally shot the other three.”

“So why was this one the scariest Adept you fought?”

Tasser shifted uncomfortably, but shared the details anyway. “I was fighting them alone, and they just wouldn’t die. Tactical doctrine says don’t engage an Adept like that without a headcount of at least eight to one. I had to fight with a generous one and a half.”

“But you won.”

“I shot them more than twenty times and they didn’t die.” Tasser said darkly, “It was augmented enough that standard rounds weren’t penetrating their skin.”

Nemuleki stared dumbfounded. “Twenty times?”

“I only had a sidearm. Didn’t have the metal to really hurt them.”

“So you got lucky, just how?”

“Most of the outposts mechanical functions were secured, like the controls to make it dig back up to the surface. But they had an emergency dig function that could make it go deeper .” Tasser said, “We managed to trip that emergency switch, and bailed. The Adept was stuck in their own base while it dug a few hundred meters down. I don’t think they got crushed, but even so, it would have taken weeks to dig out. And they didn’t have weeks.”

“You killed a Rak Adept… by starving them?” Nemuleki asked.

“Well, they probably ran out of air first.”

Either way it would have been a bad way to go. But back then Tasser had watched the thing kill four of his allies, so it was hard to muster any sympathy, even years later.

“Were you the only one to make it out?” Nemuleki asked.

“No, I got my captured buddy out in one piece, but he died a year later.”

“ Dira. I’m sorry.”

“So was I.”

“I keep managing to move this conversation into a really depressing place. There has to be something brighter to talk about.”

Tasser thought to himself for a moment. “…I do have a story about Osino.”

“I didn’t know much about him. He was another counter-Adept gun, right?”

“We were in the same training group, back when.”

“Come on. ‘Back when’ wasn’t that long ago. You’re what?” Nemuleki paused to do the math, “It couldn’t have been more than three years ago. Wait, if you were training at the same time, did he learn tactics from Nai too?”

“A bit.” Tasser said, “But we were in different groups. We were only in the same facility for a week or so.”

“He shot a Rak about to gut me on Korbanok.” Nemuleki said.

Tasser nodded. “I saw.”

“…Do you know if he observed any spiritual traditions? Did he mention anything unconventional?”

He was slow to respond. “…Conventional should suit him fine. He never said anything to me. But even if he had, what could we do? His body is back west.”

“If I had a radio, I could get in touch with my Hahi and—” Nemuleki trailed off, realizing what a terrible idea it was. “—and get her arrested for talking to Coalition heads.”

“Shame we don’t have anything to drink.” Tasser muttered, “I could show you a prank that he and Nai pulled on me.”

“Osino pranked you?” Nemuleki asked incredulously.

Tasser understood her surprise. Osino had been very straight laced, which is most of why the prank had worked so well.

“He and Nai spiked my canteen with acrid spirit. My head was spinning all morning and I had no clue what was going on. Nai laid me out without even using any abilities.”

Nemuleki frowned. “So? She’s Farnata, she could do that to most Casti.”

“Sure, but I was so staggered, she did it without ever touching me. I fell over a dozen times, just trying to follow her steps before I figured out something was off.”

Nemuleki smiled at the story. “Did you two become friends in counter-Adept training?”

Tasser clicked his tongue. “No, I met her once a few months beforehand by coincidence. Then we ran into each other again the week before training, and then when we wound up in the same training group, we thought it was funny.”

“If that was that long ago, you must have known Nai before she got infamous, before she got called Warlock.”

“Back when no one thought she was more than a person.” Tasser muttered, almost certainly too quiet for Nemuleki to hear.

Nai groggily sat up from the thick foam pad she’d been asleep on.

“Were you talking about me while I slept again?” Nai asked.

Tasser noted the embarrassed look on Nemuleki’s face as she realized Nai was awake.

“Yes.” Tasser answered plainly, while Nemuleki tried to squeak “No!”

The other Casti shot Tasser a betrayed look and he pretended like there was something else incredibly interesting to look at.

Which, in fact, there was. The Farnata medical officer, Dyn, had entered their half of the infirmary wearing a full hazmat suit and carrying a short stack of foil containers.

“ Shamva .” He said, giving Nai a nod.

The Warlock nodded back, returning the greeting. “ Shamya. ”

Without even a word of explanation, the Farnata handed two of the foil tins to Tasser and Nemuleki, the third one had slightly different packaging and labeling. It went to Nai.

Food.

Tasser pulled the top off his eagerly. A lukewarm paddy of noodles was pressed into one of the container’s sections. Other divots in the tin had nut paste, mushroom crumbles, other simple unperishable food stuffs.

The two Casti didn’t hold back in front of the feast. It was the first real meal they’d had in days. The last thing they’d eaten was the meager snacks Nemuleki’s professor had delivered them, and those hadn’t even been edible to Nai.

There weren’t many Farnata on the planet, or anywhere else in the star system. But there were still some, like Dyn. Tasser knew that most Farnata outside their handful of colonies ate mass produced rations strictly for their nutrition.

Now that Tasser thought about it, it occurred to him Cayleb was probably eating similar rations.

But Nai opened her container, a slightly different shape than the Casti ready-meals. It was a proper rigid container, likely reusable.

Nemuleki wolfed down her first meal in days, but Tasser took notice of Nai’s own food.

Thick crackers were stacked next to vegetable slices thinner than paper. There was even something Tasser recognized as a whipped dessert. Ultimately, the tin was different from his own for reasons besides just the species it was manufactured to feed.

The quality of Nai’s was much higher. His Speropi was practically nonexistent, but he understood one word on the container, ‘special’. This was a limited packaging of higher quality meal. Something likely made exclusively to be shipped to remote Farnata in the odd ends of the void.

It was a rare treat.

Nai just stared at the meal for more than a minute, just taking in the smell of the stale contents. Tasser thought she might be about to cry.

She looked up at Dyn and asked him a question in Speropi. He only shrugged.

“Just remember to actually, you know, eat it,” Tasser chided. “You look like you might just stare at it for days.”

Nai smiled at Tasser, for what felt like the first time since encountering each other again during their mission.

“It’s not a ration,” Nai said. “It’s from his personal stock.”

“That’s very kind of you.” Tasser said to Dyn.

The Chief Medic was already pursuing another task, but he gave Tasser a nod.

Dyn was the only one besides the station’s commander, one Colonel Serralinitus, that knew of the alien as such, and not just an obscured Farnata arriving under a tarp.

He went about hanging another plastic sheet near the door of the infirmary, securing it in place with foam adhesive spray. It had to be airtight.

Well, it should have been airtight. But just like their own first attempt, it was a half-hearted measure. Cayleb had spent days outside quarantine, enough that if a disaster was going to happen from his biology being exposed to a Casti ecosystem, it was going to.

Keeping them all in quarantine further was arguably just to keep them isolated for the time being.

Tasser was pretty sure Nai had thought about that already. But being kept in isolation like this was pure downtime—a welcome change.

Even Cayleb the alien was taking full advantage of their newfound security. The minor commotion of Dyn’s meal delivery didn’t even make it stir. It was fast asleep.

“Has it done anything?” Dyn asked, without looking or interrupting his work. As the only other informed person on the base, Dyn was doing most of the legwork involved in isolating them.

How long could that last?

“No. It fell asleep a few minutes after it washed itself.” Nemuleki shared.

“It sleeps. Hmm.” Dyn said, sparing the alien a look. “Washing it will be important, retrieve the water afterward, we’ll need to test cultures from the wash too.”

“You’re testing the bacteria even just on its skin?” Nai asked curiously.

“Yes,” Dyn said, “I tested the blood from its bandages, so I know some of its basic biochemistry. Enough to know we don’t have to worry about viruses. But the larger infection vectors are going to be pending for days. If bacteria from its body thrive in local conditions, even dumping out its water could make an eco-disaster.”

“The odds of that are infinitesimal though, aren’t they? For the same reason the alien can’t eat any old food, the bacteria can’t either. The odds it can break down the local organic molecules into anything usable are tiny.” Nemuleki said.

Dyn gave her an irritable look. “Someone’s done their reading.”

“I was at Kallins until I enlisted.”

Dyn just snorted. “Yes, the risk is slim. But I guarantee you don’t want to take that chance. The consequences if you’re wrong could be catastrophic…”

He trailed off like he’d forgotten something. Whatever it was, it was the first thing to distract him from the task in front of him. He muttered a few phrases in Speropi, like he was running down a checklist.

“ Iya, meher, asab…mammeroma . Mammeroma— food! ” He exclaimed. “It has water and air, but what is it eating? I need to know, now .”

“It has some rations.” Tasser said, “They’re in the pack it carries.”

“Wake it up, then.” Dyn said. “I need a sample, or else it’s probably going to starve once its out.”

“Is it really urgent?” Nai asked groggily.

Dyn frowned. “No… it can wait a few hours, but don’t let it eat the last of its stock.”

The Farnata only just now seemed to realize he’d stopped working on the plastic sheeting project and he turned back with an aggravated sigh.

It was plain he was overworked right now. As long as the new alien presence remained secret, he probably couldn’t rely on assistance from anyone not privy to the information.

But despite doing the work of at least four people, Dyn was particularly vigorous despite how weary he was. It caught Tasser’s attention.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Focused back on his work, Dyn answered without so much as a glance. “I’m devising a partition for you to talk through. Colonel Serralinitus wants to speak with each of you.”

Tasser looked at Nai. The first thing they’d been ordered to do after the commander of the base allowed them in was to submit reports on events and how they’d arrived at Demon’s Pit base.

They were still only written accounts. Simple summary.

Now it was time to be properly debriefed.