If the word ‘grandiose’ could be embodied by a bladeship, the Auric Wind had done it. On Anitora Voy saw plenty of bladeships, and further still plenty of warships, but none of them were so richly adorned. Sixteen hundred meters of gold clad vacsteel lay on a landing field utterly at odds with the ship itself. Its spinal column ran with the rich blue and verdant green of House Caldion, but its stand off armor sections were entirely gilded.

  The front of the ship was shaped like a rounded spear tip for the two hundred meters before the body of the ship tapered down into a horizontal skyscraper’s worth of space-worthy metal. It bulked up again near the vessel’s rear, the last hundred meters or so serving to support the blades which gave rise to the ‘bladeship’ moniker. If one were facing the ship head on, the aforementioned blades would appear like a set of compass points fixed around the vessel’s rear. Each was a giant wing-like structure, with the ones on the top, left, and right of the ship each being the same size and the great blade on the bottom being many times larger.

  These ‘wings’ did very little during conventional flight. They were far too short and narrow to aid with atmospheric lift, and normal wings have no air to ride in vacspace, but the blades were absolutely critical for faster than light travel. Bladeships relied upon their underside great blade to in essence ‘cut’ their way out of normal space and lodge the ship in currents of energy that moved outside the bounds of traditional physics and hitch a ride to far off destinations. The smaller anchor blades, when activated, lodged the ship’s topside in normal space and pulled free the great blade below freeing the ship from the stream of primordial energy it rode.

  At the moment, the Auric’s great blade was hidden beneath it in a dug out tunnel beneath the ship, such accommodations were common on thurgian landing fields, without them landing bladeships was a far more precarious affair. Massive landing gear legs stuck out from the ship and supported it’s weight against the ground, aided by gently humming anti-gravity plates left idling to keep the ship artificially light on the ground. It’s underside was lit a subtle purple color, a side effect of agitated gravitons that no prodigy of the technical arts had ever been able to suppress. If one was to manipulate gravity, one had to accept the presence of purple light.

  At the ship’s front a large landing ramp lay open. Voy thought it looked something like a big mouth. Together with Elara he approached the opening, his body recovered enough that he could walk without a limp or a wince. At the top of the ramp Hembrandt waited with eight guards in ceremonial attire. The admiral himself wore the same well-adorned uniform from the thronehall, his cape fluttered in artificial wind generated by the Auric’s ventilation system.

  Elara and Voy were still covered in their carapace save for their helms, which remained retracted since the end of their moegon encounter. In oceanic blue and warm golden bronze Elara was the visual foil to Voy’s dull grey, asymmetrical plate. By her side he felt more the pale imitation of a kartorim he was. What could this Hembrant possibly need him for? What could Avaron need him for? The admiral smiled expectantly, the mask of sincerity he wore suited him well.

  “Remember, just walk right up and give him a handshake, it’s an important custom,” Elara whispered as they reached the base of the ramp. Voy nodded, grateful that she’d gone over may of the do’s and don’ts while on board. Their footsteps met metal, replacing the scrunch of gravel with the thunk of unyielding vacsteel. Doing as he was counseled, Voy reached out his hand and strode right up to admiral Hembrandt to formally introduce himself.

  “Stand back!” All eight of his guards raised ornate rifles at once and trained them on Voy, the leader among them barked orders for him to halt. Voy froze, unsure what he’d done wrong. Laughter behind him filled in the gaps as Hembrandt frowned and looked past him down at Elara. He made a gesture with his hand and the guards lowered their weapons.

  “I apologize for her behavior,” Hembrandt said to Voy without taking his eyes off the still laughing Elara. Voy blinked away the storm of nerves and confusion as Hembrandt met his outstretched hand with a firm handshake. “Glad to have you aboard. Follow me, I have something to show you.” Hembrandt turned and led Voy into the ship, his guards trailing close behind. Elara did not appear to follow, though there was no telling what hidden passages the unfamiliar ship had. For all Voy knew, the ceiling was one way transparent and she was trailing from above as a security measure.

  Once inside the ship proper it became rapidly apparent that the inside was just as lavishly composed as the ship’s exterior. Instead of the cool greyish blue of bare vacsteel, the floors and walls had been coated with something similar to marble. Every bolt, fastener, screw and connection point was made from gold or coated in it. Sunlight, artificial though it may be, was omnipresent once they’d passed from the loading bay at the ship’s head to the first interior corridor. It was as though the vessel’s engineers had domesticated the mid morning of a late spring day and kept it housed inside.

  Led by Hembrandt, Voy passed through several large open areas. A cafeteria that rivaled restaurants back on Anitora, a park like section centered around a large tree, and a training complex stocked with all manner of weights and equipment flew by as they moved. The admiral did not slow to allow Voy to take anything in, but his senses were robust enough that the full measure of the Auric Wind’s amenities was not lost on him. It was practically a cruise ship. Whatever it was that had Hembrandt in such a hurry took greater precedence than any tour however. Other crewman stepped and shifted out of his way as he walked, near jogged, through the halls of his ship until at last he reached a new section of the vessel.

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  This hall was more a room unto itself than simply a way to go from point A to point B. Banners lined its walls, all half blue and half green, each bearing a list of names. Voy recognized some, they were records. Records of the kartorim who had served on this vessel for House Caldion going as far back as Thurgia’s founding. One of the banners even had Lord Caldion himself listed, the first name on the oldest registry.

  Hembrandt’s guards peeled away as the reached the edge of the monument corridor, leaving Voy alone with the admiral. At the hall’s end a pair of carved looking marble doors slid into the wall and opened to a room Voy could only describe as a vault. When Voy entered, the doors closed behind him and his enigmatic host.

  Inside the general aesthetic shifted once more. Gone were the halls of marble and gold, here the bones of the ship lay bare. The floor, the walls, and the platform at the room’s center were all the cool grey of reinforced vacsteel. Hembrandt moved to the center of the room, where a raised grate platform housed a vertical glasteel tube. Silence reigned. Voy approached the center of the room cautiously.

  “Do you know what living data is, Lord Voy?” Voy laughed at the question almost immediately. Hembrandt turned to face him with a raised eyebrow. “Is something funny?”

  “No no no, it’s just… I haven’t been called ‘lord’ anything, ever,” Voy replied, calming himself. “Voy is fine.” Hembrandt nodded thoughtfully as the glasteel tube at the room’s center began to radiate a green aura. An object sat suspended within, a crystal that refused to resolve properly when Voy looked at it with a series of cables and electronics fastened to its surface.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Voy stepped up to the transparent siding of the containment cylinder and went to place a hand against the glass. His hand was stopped short by the admiral, who reached over and held back his arm. Though it would have been no struggle at all for Voy to push his arm through, he allowed himself to be held back.

  “I’ll assume you’re not familiar with living data then,” Voy’s hand fell back to his side. “The last thing you want to do is touch it. Or anything containing it.” Tearing himself away from the mutilated Iyaethrum quarantined before him, Voy remembered the reason he’d allowed himself to be brought onto the offworlder’s ship in the first place.

  “You said Avaron himself had orders for me to join you. I need to see them.” Voy said, his mind still tallying the veritable novel of crimes an Iyaethrum stored and profaned like this would see the admiral charged with.

  “Right, where are my manners?” The admiral reached into the coat of his uniform and produced a small red and gold metal cylinder and passed it to Voy. The ends of the cylinder were capped with reliefs of the four winged thurgian hawk, which did not in and of itself prove the authenticity of the document within… but it helped. Forging the hawk was an extremely executable offense.

  Clicking the mechanism within by pressing in one of the caps, the device split longways and opened to reveal a scroll of eggshell colored parchment paper. It uncoiled itself with a gentle pull, and Voy read the page that promised freedom from his unofficial exile. His eyes read and re-read the page, much of it was formality and preamble, but the relevant words hit home every time he took them in.

  ‘This document serves as formal notice to the Torchbearers to induct the scion of Avaron into their ranks. While efforts to mitigate or prevent the Apoctillon are ongoing, he shall remain a Torchbearer asset. Redeemer guide you.’

  Voy’s hands trembled, his eyes dangerously close to shedding a tear. It didn’t matter that Avaron had not arrived with the means to treat him, being given assignment away from Treffel meant he was safe to serve as he always wanted, to fight battles that mattered, to embrace his purpose. If Avaron thought he could do that without being healed first, then he damn well could.

  “I do apologize if this isn’t as authentic as you’d like, the nature of our work demands we minimize our digital trail as much as possible.” Hembrandt preempted the scrutiny he thought Voy would level over the scroll.

  “It’s as authentic as it could possibly be, I’m sure of it,” Voy paused and looked up from the page. “It’s his handwriting.” Hembrandt exhaled in relief as Voy tucked the scroll back into its container. The admiral allowed Voy a moment to recompose himself before he spoke again.

  “I do not mean to be too hasty, but we are on a time crunch. If you accept the assignment here, we’ll make final preparations to launch within twenty four hours.” Renewed determination radiated through Voy’s being, his face bereft of the masked despair he had nurtured over the past five years.

  “The document mentioned preventing the Apoctillon. It wasn’t clear how. Can you elaborate?” Voy asked as though he hadn’t yet made up his mind.

  “The god-gem in a jar over here contains the command protocols for a collective of metal-minds on a world in the Buffer, past Thurgia’s borders,” he paused and looked absently at the floor for a moment, as if debating over what bits of information to divulge or how best to phrase them. “The metal-minds, and the facility they are stored in and part of, predates Thurgia. Probably predates whatever came before too.”

  “You mean to stop one apocalypse by causing another?” Voy interrupted, sounding offended at the idea of rousing slumbering monsters.

  “Not quite. We deliver the command index over here to the raikon, and he will take control of the metal-mind facility there, the Darkmount. Once he does, an automated army will rise to his will and crush the horde the Pantheon is mustering when they try to take their first world. His world.” The admiral looked into the glasteel containment tube at the Iyaethrum hovering inside.

  Voy knew there were details he was not being told, the admiral’s body language told as much a story as his words. Avaron’s orders were legitimate though, and Voy reasoned that there must be some layer of secrecy Hembrandt was sworn to that prevented him from granting greater clarity. Despite his misgivings, Voy had most certainly made up his mind, but he had two small questions he felt justified in asking before finalizing his decision.

  “What is a raikon?” Hembrandt shifted uncomfortably, perhaps dreading what questions Voy might yet have to follow up this one.

  “Its a local word, something of a hybrid between ‘king’ and ‘champion’. Little more than a title for their executive head really.” Hembrandt hid something in his dismissive tone, but Voy couldn’t begin to guess what it was. It would have to do for now, perhaps it would come up later.

  “Only one other question, and unless you throw me something truly absurd I’ll accept the assignment,” Voy spoke elation into Hembrandt’s being. “What buffer world is so important that Avaron himself is ordering secret missions to go and save them?” Hembrandt stood tall as victorious grin manifested on his face.

  “Filigree.”