Archon Waystation

I lost every game in the simulator against Emiko. None of the matches were close. Nightwing’s navigations officer was smarter, faster, and more oppressive than any opponent I had faced in the academy.

It was like Emiko was back in Bridge Mode again, except she commanded multiple ships instead of one and fired on me from a galaxy of unpredictable angles.

At some point, the captains of Edge of Knight and Kindred Lancer stood besides us in the otherwise empty mess hall, watching us play. Alexis and Friede whispered amongst themselves, but otherwise did not appear surprised at anything. When I had lost the thirtieth consecutive game, I resigned.

“Wow,” Friede said. “She really shit on you. Not so tough now are you, princess?”

“You made an execution error on the Furioso Gambit,” Alexis observed.

“Duly noted,” Emiko rested her hands over the keys. “Anything else?”

“Nope,” Friede whistled. “Thanks for giving me a hell of a good time.”

The two captains sauntered off. Emiko looked at me.

“Let’s head back to our ship,” she said.

I swallowed my immediate frustrations.

“What do you think about all this?” I asked.

She took a second to think.

“You’re wondering why the captain takes their side? Why she puts up with it?”

I nodded.

“We have a lot more in common with them than you realize,” Emiko said. “The people aboard Edge of Knight and Kindred Lancer. They are not… terrible people.”

“They call us imperial dogs.”

“You call them pirate scum.”

“That’s…” I paused. “Fine.”

“Come back to my room,” Emiko said. “You get a better view of Archon Waystation from there.”

“What’s so impressive about this waystation?”

“You’ll see.”

“You like holding people in suspense, don’t you?”

Emiko laughed. I followed her out of the mess hall.

“You learn pretty quickly.”

“And I’ve never seen someone handle the simulator like that,” I said. “Where did you learn all of that?”

“Where else? Back at the academy.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe what you want. The captain taught me everything I know.”

It took another few seconds for me to register the connection.

“Diane is also an IFA graduate?”

“Do you think they’d let someone captain Nightwing who wasn’t one?”

“Probably not, but the names of Nightwing’s crew members are completely redacted from the classified documents. There’s no mention of where they came from. Are you saying everyone here is a graduate from the IFA?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Emiko pouted. “Stephen could never pass enough classes to graduate.”

Emiko keyed the thumbpad into her room. Her quarters were a lot more decorated than mine. She had a proper kitchen and refrigerator. Vibrant lava lamps lit the room with a warm vermillion glow. Old military uniforms hung from the walls along with several portraits and photographs. There was a short bookshelf standing next to the bed, half filled with textbooks.

“You can sit on the bed or something. Can I get you anything?” Emiko asked. “Water? Maybe a bottle of wine? I have tea if you fancy that.”

“Tea, please,” I said. “I make tea infusions back home. They help me sleep.”

“I have just the thing then,” Emiko smiled. “Wait a moment.”

A giant window gazed into space. Another difference between our rooms.

“My room looks more like a prison cell compared to yours,” I said.

“There’s a better room one floor above us. It’s got everything you need. We can move you there later. The captain just wanted me to look after you.”

“How long have you known her for?”

“A long time,” Emiko said. “I’ve lost count. A decade. Maybe more.”

“Did you all follow her willingly here?” I asked.

“You mean are we all okay with being subjected to Ulysses’s every whim?” Emiko asked. “Hard to say. But where the captain goes, we go, but I don’t agree with the implication that the captain is the reason we’re here.”

“Why are you here then?” I asked. “You fly the infamous Nightwing. You all could have escaped a long time ago. You could have done anything with this ship. Why here?”

Emiko fetched a box from a cupboard above the stove. She tossed a tea bag into a cup, grasped the handle of a boiling kettle, and poured.

“People are often victims of their circumstances, Miss Greymoor,” she explained. “Why, for instance, is someone from a prestigious Caerleon house here?”

“So you do know who I am,” I said. “Does the captain know?”

“She doesn’t concern herself with the noble houses,” Emiko shrugged. “And I don't know much about House Greymoor myself. I’ve only heard the usual rumors. But the question still stands. Why are you here?”

“I guess,” I said. “I guess I had no choice.”

“Then that’s my answer to you,” Emiko handed me a mug. “Here you go.”

I took a whiff of the tea.

“These are Caerleon lilies,” I said.

“Correct.”

“They’re not easy to procure all the way out here.”

“Another benefit of Archon Waystation,” Emiko replied. “Most things you need go through there.”

I drank. Fragrant, with herbal notes and an earthy finish.

“It’s delicious,” I breathed. “Wow. I’ve missed this.”

“Great! Less questions, more sipping then.”

Emiko poured herself a cup as well. We sat together watching the view outside the window. The stars, lone planets, the frigates and corvettes and carriers that sailed alongside Circe and Nightwing. Life had been so fast paced I hadn’t taken the opportunity to just sit and think about nothing. When I finished my cup, Emiko poured me another, and then another, and then at some point, she pointed outside.

“There it is,” she said. “Look.”

Waystations were invented as a logistical measure during wartime. In order to supply an army with fuel, weapons, and rations, there was a requirement for non-planetary space platforms that could provide equipment to mobile armies. But these platforms needed more than just equipment that you handed off to the military when they visited. They needed manpower and a service hub for everyone who worked aboard the station.

In a sense, waystations could be more adequately described as “cities in space,” because that’s really what they ended up becoming. So when Ulysses and the others mentioned that we were arriving at a waystation, I imagined another city in space.

Archon Waystation was not a city.

The first thing that struck me was the colossal size of it. Archon Waystation possessed the span of a modest gas giant. Then, of course, was the shape. It was a ringlike megastructure that coiled like a tightly wound spring. All along the surface sat an intricate pattern of scattered lights and metallic nodes, spaceships and buildings that spanned the circumference of the station.

But the distribution of objects along the coil looked unnatural, like everything had been added after the fact. It reminded me of those underwater documentaries that showed creatures that would take over abandoned sea shells as their own. I tried to remove the buildings and the lights, to imagine the superstructure that lay beneath. I saw the makings of an outer hull.

“My goodness,” I gasped. “Is that a titan?”

“What remains of one, at least,” Emiko replied. “Now it’s just a waystation that belongs to the Sunless Fleet. The largest supply depot outside the core worlds.”

“You weren’t kidding with the surprises,” I muttered.

Titans were the apex predator in the imperial fleet, the trump card that kept the imperium safe for generations. They had a special name. Fleet killers. These machines were massive and often miniature planets in disguise. I hadn’t even considered that any of them could be destroyed.

“We’re headed to the lower half of the station,” Emiko said. “It’s more fun there.”

“Right,” I said. “Ulysses had said something about giving everyone shore leave.”

“The fleet usually stays here for several weeks in between expeditions,” Emiko explained. “This time we’re only staying until we’ve refueled and rearmed.”

“The Pirate King must be in a hurry then.”

“He’s always in a hurry.”

She sounded innocuous at first, but Emiko’s tone rang cryptic, as if she had coded a subliminal message and was expecting me to figure it out. She left the bed and placed her empty mug on the counter. She glanced at me, as if waiting for me to say something. I said nothing. Time passed. She smiled.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go meet up with the others. Let’s make the best of your first shore leave, shall we?”