Sora

“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to,” I said. “We can always ask the captain to cook us something.”

Sami blanched at that thought, but continued to poke at her food in silence. I didn’t consider myself to be a terrible cook, but I was nowhere near as good as Thea. Besides, my food was still leagues above what Bryce created when allowed in the kitchen. At least what I cooked was still technically food.

“Do you think we’ll be able to get Thea back?” Sami asked without looking up from her dinner.

I shrugged and pushed my plate away. The food was still well under a lethal dose of salt, but you wouldn’t have been able to guess from the taste.

“I don’t think Bryce is going to stop trying until she does,” I said. It had been over a week since Thea disappeared and we had spent most of that time in the Aether traveling to Zephili. We were only a few days out, but we still didn’t even know if Bryce’s contact would be willing to work with us. It was a gamble, but it was the best shot we had left.

“Speaking of,” I said as I saw Bryce coming down the stairs. “It looks like the captain just finished her call.”

Sami turned around in her chair to look back at Bryce as she approached. “Captain, please tell me you have good news.”

Bryce smirked as she approached the table. When she saw the steaks I had prepared, her smirk turned to a frown, and she continued past where we were sitting.

“About as good of news as we could have hoped for,” she shouted from the kitchen over the sound of dishes being moved about. Bryce returned to the table a few moments later after she resigned herself to a nutri-paste bar.

“I was able to get in contact with Varlin,” Bryce explained. “He’s willing to give us information on doctor Phaylex, but only if we do him a favor first.”

“What kind of favor?” Sami asked.

“And does he know about your recent career change?” I added.

“He made it very clear that officially he doesn’t know anything about a career change,” Bryce answered. “As far as the favor goes, it’s probably something else that he officially doesn’t know anything about.”

“So, the private military contractor full of necromancers is offering us a job.” I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair. “This is either very illegal or very political, and still probably illegal.”

Bryce chuckled, but her smile just looked tired. “It’s probably the latter,” she responded. “Zephili is a recent acquisition and Varlin is relatively new as an admiral. He’s going to want this operation to go smoothly, otherwise his leadership could be called into question.”

“Why did Legion want Zephili?” Sami asked. She had seemingly given up on finishing her steak, with only about a quarter of it left. I was impressed she managed to eat that much of it.

“It’s a relatively high population industrial world, about 13 billion people, and it’s near Legion space,” Bryce explained. “Due to dangerous work, high levels of pollutants, and atmospheric radiation, the natives have an extremely low life expectancy, which is great for Legion’s post-mortem mandatory service laws.”

“Post-mortem mandatory service?” Sami asked. “How does that work?”

“They’re necromancers, Sami,” I said. She scrunched up her face in disgust, but I continued. “If this place is the veritable holy land for Legion, then why didn’t they take it sooner?”

“It used to belong to the Radiant Theocracy, who famously don’t approve of necromancy.” Bryce bunched up her nutri-paste wrapper as she finished the last of the bar. “Theological pillars aside, they were also using Zephili’s factories to arm their most recent crusade.”

“What changed?” I asked. The leaders of the Radiant Theocracy were fanatical about their tenets. There was no way that they would just hand over a vital planet to a bunch of necromancers without a damn good reason.

Bryce snorted. “Their god died.”

Okay, that was a pretty damn good reason, and I was dumbfounded. Gods died. It wasn’t common, but it still happened. What really surprised me was that this god had died.

The Radiant Theocracy was by far the largest group of worshipers to ever organize around a single god. The church was entirely devoted to Inim, the god of truth, light, and healing. If he was really dead, then that would have a profound effect on Network politics. I wasn’t sure what sort of effect that would be, but I doubted it would be a good one.

“Are you sure Inim is dead?” I asked.

“Do you remember where devils come from?” Bryce replied with a question. I thought back to when Thea had lectured to me on the origins of devils and couldn’t remember a word of it.

Thankfully, Sami came to my rescue with the answer. “Demons are born and devils are fallen celestials that were created by a god.”

“That’s exactly right,” Bryce said. “As it turns out, Thea was the last celestial ever made by Inim. She left his service, and then some unknown time later, he died.”

“What are the chances?” I asked.

Bryce shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s probably more likely than you think. Inim had a lot of followers, which meant he could create a lot of celestials.”

“Is that actually how that works?” Sami asked.

“That’s what I’ve read at least,” Bryce shrugged. “But honestly, I never asked Thea for the specifics. She likes to pretend it doesn’t affect her, but it’s pretty obvious that she doesn't like to talk about it.”

“How long has the Theocracy been lying about their god?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Bryce answered. “Thea didn’t say, and we got distracted before I could ask.”

“Gross,” Sami commented.

“Nothing like that.” Bryce shook her head. “This was right before we sent a message to Esme, and you found the bomb on the ship.”

“Oh sure, that makes sense,” Sami said, as she took a sheepish drink of her water.

“I’ve been thinking about it recently,” Bryce continued. “It’s possible that most of the Theocracy doesn’t know about Inim’s death.”

“How would they not know?” I asked.

“I haven’t really ever dealt with the Theocracy, but my understanding is that Inim never interacted with them directly all that much,” Bryce explained. “Most of the sects are led by celestials, clerics, or particularly prominent paladins.”

“But if their god is dead, then wouldn’t their clerics and paladins lose their power? And there’s no way the celestials wouldn’t know,” I argued. “I mean, apparently Thea found out while she was down in the hells.”

“That’s why I said most of the Theocracy,” Bryce explained. “The celestials would be devils at this point and they’d have to know it. But the paladins don’t actually pull power from their god, not directly anyway. They get their power from their oaths. It’s like the power of friendship or something, but instead of being bullshit, it actually works.”

I raised an eyebrow. “But the clerics?”

“That’s the part that has me stumped,” Bryce shook her head. “Clerics do actually get their power directly from their gods. So, they should be powerless now.”

“Unless they’re getting their power from a different source,” Sami said.

“That has to be the answer,” Bryce said. “I just don’t know what source could be powerful enough.”

“Another god, maybe?” Sami asked.

“Dead gods aside,” I interrupted. “We’ll be at Zephili the day after tomorrow; what’s our plan for when we get there?”

Bryce chewed on her lip and tilted her head up to the ceiling. “That’s the real question, or the only one that matters right now.”

“You do have a plan, right?” I asked.

“A couple,” Bryce answered. “The problem is that I trust Varlin.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Sami asked.

Bryce looked at Sami and made a wishy-washy motion with her hand. “Usually that’d be a great thing, but we really can’t afford to trust anybody right now. Especially not somebody who has corporate ties that could lead back to EVI corp.”

“So we should just move forward as if we don’t trust him,” I said. “What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that the plan where we don’t trust Varlin is a lot more dangerous,” Bryce explained. “Ideally, we trust him and I just explain everything over dinner. Then he gives us whatever little project he has in mind. We complete it, and get the information we need.”

“And if we don’t trust him?” I asked.

“Then our situation becomes a lot more complicated,” Bryce exhaled before continuing. “If we don’t trust him, then there are a myriad of ways in which we could get fucked here. This could be a trap and we’re fucked the moment we shift out of the Aether, or he could actually want help and we’re fucked the moment we finish helping him, OR he could try to play it safe by calling in our destination after we leave which would fuck us when we go to meet Dr. Phaylex.”

“Which of those is the most likely?” Sami asked.

Bryce thought for a moment before answering. “I don’t think this is a trap, at least not one that would spring the moment we arrive. He asked that we show up in stealth, and while he’s good with magic, he’s not good enough to see through one of my non-detection spells.”

That was a bit of a brag, or so I would normally think, if I hadn’t seen Bryce’s absurd magic first hand. If she was capable of hiding the ship from an aether leviathan nest for 3 hours while half-dead, she probably wouldn’t have any issues hiding it from a glorified mercenary.

“So that only leaves the other two,” I said.

Bryce nodded. “I think that I have a solution that can account for both and pay off majorly if he betrays us, but there’s an issue.”

“What’s the issue?” Sami asked.

“Well, Samira, that depends.” Bryce leaned forward with a slight smile. “How good are your acting skills?”