As voted for by my patrons, we have a bright and shiny new chapter of The Serpent’s Garden! A snipper is below, while the full work is at the link above. Enjoy!
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The journey to 798-Falaamel took three days, all of which were thankfully uneventful, though Nanil couldn’t shake a tiny edge of superstitious worry. This system was where Unveiling of Satisfactory Emolument had suffered its near-cataclysmic rip system failure, and gainsay had it that once such a thing happened, more of the same were likely to follow. There were stories, some going back eight-decades to the very beginning of the Hegmony’s use of faster than light travel, that said that the rip grew stronger with misfortune, while others claimed it wasn’t the calamity itself, but surviving it that caused further incidents. The rip’s hunger was left unsatisfied, those stories went, and the risk to others grew higher, the accidents more dire until a vessel and crew did not survive and that hunger was at last filled.
It was all nonsense. The rip was no more alive than normal space was, but the stories had persisted, enough that all these eight-decades later, they still resonated with the young hierarch. Superstition, she reminded herself as the countdown to realspace emergence neared zero. Just superstition.
Thoughtful Repudiation of Intent and its courtiers burst from the rip with a blinding surge of energy. “Venting initiated,” the border sentinel’s synth noted. “Full systems functionality three hundred and seventy-seven seconds.”
Four eighties and fifty-seven seconds. Better than the Pride had ever had, especially for a synchronized flight. A heavy explorer was blind and dumb for three hundred and forty-four seconds after emergence, waiting for the corona of radiation that surrounded every vessel after it left the rip to dissipate, clearing sensors and letting internal systems return to full functionality.
Comm systems were the first to come back. As soon as they did, Nanil’s Comm officer raised his head. “Signal from Implacable Agent of Retribution, doyenne.”
Nanil blinked, cocking her head to the right. She hadn’t expected an interstellar unit of Retribution’s size to be operational yet. “Connect,” she ordered. Pride vessels used a six-tiered colour system for signalling; at the top was green running through blue, yellow, red and orange to grey. Green alerts were low priority, green status indicated that a system was operating at or above spec, and a green sensor contact meant something like another Pride ship or governmental vessel. Orange meant a high-priority message, a hostile contact or a failing system. Grey indicated a dead or near-dead system or unit. Right now, Intent’scomm system had just climbed out of yellow status as tech teams and the Pride unit’s auto-repair functions restored it, but the signal to Retribution was clear and strong.
“Hierarch Nanil-Wanlei responding. What can we do for you?”
Though the border sentinel’s sensors weren’t yet restored, the silver-coated woman didn’t need them to know how close the massive alien vessel was. The speed of Red One’s answer told her that Implacable Agent of Retribution was very close. “We have a problem.”
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Proximal Flame's Fiction 