Bryce

“Executive, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person,” Captain Ashaiya said as we shook hands. “Although, I’m surprised you chose to come alone, it would have been well within your rights to have Legion provide a number of escorts for your protection.”

“I appreciate that,” I explained. “But I have close ties with the children of Inim, and I trust you and your crew to keep me safe.” That was a bit of a stretch, but apparently true enough that Ashaiya didn’t register it as a lie.

“I’m glad to see that followers of my father have reached even the highest levels of your corporation.” Captain Ashaiya smiled pleasantly as she led me through the halls of the Flaming Talon. The Theocran ship was extravagant, but in a strangely functional kind of way.

The walls and floor were some sort of resistant polymer that looked like white marble with gold veins, and the corners where the walls met the ceilings were lined with gilded synth-wood. There weren’t any decorations beyond that, aside from a few functional lights. Everything felt expensive and well maintained, but didn’t quite hit the level of insanity of say, a dragon crime lord.

“You have a beautiful-” I tripped on nothing and fell as I received Thea’s request for additional mana. Without thinking, I declined it, before sending her back an offer with more than what she had asked for. I instantly felt the drain of her accepting. Those numbers worried me, but I figured if she felt like it was too much, then she could always just decline and send me a new request. Besides if she was in danger, then too much was better than too little.

Thea and I initially created a different pact when she was first summoned. At the time, we agreed on 5% of my maximum mana in exchange for her saving my life. We later increased that amount to 7%, and then again to 20% before we fought Rajak on Drassun.

We did it so often that we recently created this request system where either of us could attempt to change the amount, but the other would have to approve it. The only issue was that these rapid increases in mana made Thea sick, and the more mana we added, the worse it got.

She could fight against the sickness, but only if she spent the mana at least as fast as it was pouring into her. Of course, even that was only temporary. Eventually it would all catch up to her. Which is why we hadn’t bothered to increase the mana the pact provided ever since we killed Rajak.

And also why I had completely overlooked our ability to do it. There had to be a way that I could abuse it to communicate with Thea, beyond just letting me know she was still alive. It was something that I was going to have to look into when I finished negotiating with Ashaiya.

In the meantime, the celestial captain was staring down at me with a shy smile as she adjusted her glasses. “While I appreciate the compliment, executive, I hardly believe my beauty is worth falling for.”

“That’s not…” I started, but stopped when I recognized the golden glint in her eyes. She was definitely Thea’s sister. “I received a message from a friend that I wasn’t expecting, and that caused me to miss a step.”

“That’s quite alright.” Ashaiya helped me to my feet. “I just hope it wasn’t bad news.”

“The message was mixed,” I explained as we continued walking. “While it was nice to hear from her, she needed my help, and I’m worried she might be in trouble.”

“You help your friends like this often, executive?” Ashaiya asked.

“Whenever I can,” I answered. “As you know, I’m here in part as a favor for Varlin. We had dealings before he became an admiral, and I consider him a close friend.”

“Well, in that case, I hope after our dealings, you’ll consider me a close friend as well.” We stopped moving in front of an open doorway, and Ashaiya directed me inside. “This is my personal office. Please take a seat and we can discuss the unfortunate situation we’ve found ourselves in.”

The office was set up as two separate areas, a desk with a pair of chairs across from it and a couple of comfortable looking synth-leather couches with a coffee table between them. I opted for the couches and took a seat on the far end.

It was surprisingly uncomfortable. The cushions were stiff, and the synth-leather cracked as I sat down. I got the feeling the captain didn’t use the couches very often, and hadn’t bothered to maintain them over the decades.

Ashaiya chose the couch across from me and sat primly with her back ram-rod straight. She looked almost mechanical.

“I’ve already heard Admiral Varlin’s side of the story,” I said. “But if you don’t mind, then I’d like to hear yours before we start any discussions.”

“That seems as good a place to start as any,” she replied. “15 months ago, an armored transport called the Bulwark was commandeered by an unknown rogue group. We tracked them to Legion space, and eventually received permission to retrieve them. However, once we arrived, the Bulwark’s cargo had been looted, and the ship destroyed.”

That wasn’t exactly what Varlin had said, but it was close enough that I could piece together a few possible scenarios.

In the best case, Legion happened to be investigating the area for unrelated reasons, and destroyed the ship in self-defense. In the worst case, Legion purposefully delayed allowing the Theocracy to enter their borders so that they could recover the cargo for themselves.

The truth was probably somewhere in between, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure if it actually mattered.

“What exactly was the cargo?” I asked.

Ashaiya adjusted her glasses before answering slowly. “I’m afraid that's complicated.”

“Complicated how?” I sat up a little straighter in my seat. When I initially asked, I hadn’t been expecting anything more than a vague description of the relic, and definitely wasn't expecting complications.

“The Bulwark was commandeered as a part of a much larger heist,” Ashaiya explained. “A group of thieves managed to gain access to one of our secure vaults on Modria. It contained a number of priceless works of art and powerful artifacts, but our primary concern is a specific holy relic.”

“But not the other artifacts?” I asked. “What makes this relic so special?”

“I’d prefer not to get into the specifics, as I don’t believe they're relevant, but suffice it to say the relic is of cultural significance,” Ashaiya said. That was exactly the kind of vague response I had been expecting earlier, but the information about the heist did raise a few questions for later. Before that though, there were other things I wanted clarified.

“I believe I understand,” I said. “What can you tell me about the negotiations to obtain it?”

The celestial sighed. “That was an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

“How so?” I asked. “The paperwork Varlin showed me seemed very straightforward.”

“Yes, the paperwork was extremely straightforward and completely ironclad,” Ashaiya explained. “The misunderstanding was on the part of Salayah, my younger sister, who was responsible for guarding the relic and, by extension, responsible for retrieving it.”

“I take it she negotiated the exchange then?”

“That’s correct,” Ashaiya nodded. “She was given the post directly by our father and told to protect the relic by any means necessary. Which she took to mean any price would be acceptable, so long as she re-acquired it.”

“So, she had the authority to act on behalf of the Radiant Theocracy?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted her to confirm it. Generally speaking, celestials within the Theocracy had the power to act with the same authority as Inim himself.

Ashaiya closed her eyes and sighed as she nodded. “She did, which is why that portion of the deal is not in dispute.”

“What is in dispute, then?” I asked.

“The authenticity of the relic,” Ashaiya explained. “What we received was a complete forgery.” And that was the crux of the issue. The wording on the contract wasn’t particular as to what the relic was, but it did specify that it was a relic of Inim. If it was fake, then the contract would be voided.

“Do you have any way to verify that it was a forgery?”

My question earned me a raised eyebrow and a frown. “Is my word as the child of Inim worth so little?”

The word of one of Inim’s celestials would be worth everything. If Inim was still alive.

But since he wasn’t, and all of his celestials were now devils, her word was worthless. But because that wasn’t exactly common knowledge, and there was a non-zero chance that Ashaiya would try to attack me to keep it a secret, I wanted to be a bit more diplomatic.

“Unfortunately, from a legal perspective, nobody’s word is worth much.” I smiled apologetically. “If you want the contract voided, then you’ll need some sort of proof as to the inauthenticity of the relic.”

“Beyond what we’ve already provided?”Ashaiya deflated. “We believed what we offered to be more than adequate and weren’t prepared to offer further evidence.”

Varlin hadn’t mentioned anything about the Theocracy attempting to prove the relic was fake. Which was just another thing I would have to question him about later. “I wasn’t aware any evidence had been provided, may I see it?”

~~~~

The Radiant Theocracy kept extremely extensive records going back a little over two centuries. Those records included things like a magically guaranteed provenance of every piece of art, every artifact, and every relic. That made it easy to verify authenticity if it ever came into question.

Ashaiya spent well over two hours showing me ship logs, video evidence, and chains of custody to prove the Theocracy hadn’t swapped it out for a fake, or hidden the real thing. It was abundantly clear that this was the same one Legion handed over.

And while it was still possible that Legion didn’t know the relic was fake when they made the exchange, it didn’t matter. The contract was worded in such a way that Legion only got Zephili if they gave the Theocracy the real relic, which they clearly hadn’t. Varlin was in the wrong.

To make matters worse, Ashaiya had sent all of this evidence to Varlin repeatedly over the last year, and again the moment the Skull Candy entered the system. Sora and I had scoured his ship logs before this meeting, and there was no trace of the messages. Which meant he had to have deleted it.

This forced me into a terrible position. Varlin had to know what I would find, which meant he wanted me to figure out a way to cover for him. But there was only one way I could think to do that.

I leaned back into the uncomfortable couch with a sigh. “So, where’s the real relic then?” I asked.

“Legion must still have it.” Ashaiya sat her data-pad back down on the coffee table. “There’s no other place it could be.”

“I'm not convinced they ever actually had it.” I leaned forward to rest my elbows on my knees. “Who were these thieves that broke into the vault?”

Ashaiya shrugged. “As best we can tell, they were just a group of mercenaries, nothing particularly special about them.”

“If they were mercenaries then somebody had to have hired them, right?” I asked.

The celestial shook her head. “We don’t know. They were all killed when the Bulwark was destroyed, so we had nobody left to question.”

I needed more information. Like a lot more information. It was beginning to become clear that this wasn’t the kind of mystery that could be solved from a couch. And as much as I wanted to help Varlin, there was a lot already on my plate. But maybe we didn’t need a solution, not an immediate one at least.

“Would you be willing to compromise?” I asked.

“That depends on the compromise.” Ashaiya adjusted her glasses once again. “If it’s within my capability, then I’d be willing to consider it.”

“I’ll promise to find your relic,” I said. “In exchange, I just need the time to do it. So, you’ll need to stop telling the citizens of Zephili that Legion is lying to them. Because if production doesn’t start up again soon, then Legion is just going to use them for fresh corpses.” I didn’t actually plan on finding the relic, I was just going to push that onto Varlin after buying him enough time to do it. Besides, this was his problem to begin with, so he should be the one to clean it up.

Ashaiya furrowed her brow. “I don’t understand.”

“Legion only really wants Zephili as a source of corpses,” I explained. “The production output is a nice bonus, but if they have to work to keep them in line, then it’s not worth it. So, they’ll cut their losses and cull the population.”

“Executive, production has never been higher,” Ashaiya said while shaking her head. “Theocran law was never popular in this system, and now the factories are allowed to manufacture whatever they want, however they want. Zephili has always had an abnormally high amount of civil unrest, but it’s died down a lot since the deal. They couldn't have been more happy to be traded to Legion.”

“Wait, then why would…” I quickly stood up from the couch. “That gods damned old man!”

I opened my feed and sent a message to Sora. “Has there been any outgoing messages from the Skull Candy since we arrived? Anything through subspace? Anything at all?”

“Executive, what’s wrong?” Ashaiya asked, but I ignored her as I waited impatiently for Sora’s reply.

“I’m seeing exactly one. It was relayed through the beacon, not subspace,” Sora replied. “It’s heavily encrypted, so I’m not sure what it said, but it looks like the recipient was nearby in the Aether.”