16 - Continuum

On the Firedrake

In the sauna, we contemplate the situation in the skies as well as the transcendent invitation we received.

Mpho and Meade discuss dimensions, Meade suggesting that while we live in a 4-dimensional space, the 5th dimension, where the Ur may now dwell, is possibility."

Moth says that while we live in 4 dimensions (including time), we are trapped or constrained to a preordained "string" of life along those dimensions, with beads of events. So the 5th dimension providing "possibility" is hopeful.

Franky explains the legend of an ancient "Earth" civilization called the Maori, who saw the past as uncertain and the future as certain. 

Meade: "Do you think Earth ever really existed? A single world where all humans came from? 

Moth: "No, humans are a multi-originate species."

Later, Franky takes a moment to say (potentially) final words to Iceberg and Jenny.

Meade makes no speech to the many warring camps of this fractured sector. Instead, he drinks moderately in the sauna. 

Moth takes this time to look at the picture of Harmony in his office. 

Before the Storm

Franky prepares to chart a safe course with the Aleph Engine, past the final battle of Scorpio and Ascension to the Rin-Iota gate. 

Moth studies comms chatter to try to find a safe angle into the gate. 

Meade gets up and feels the warm floor on his feet. He goes to the cocoon room, inhaling the familiar perfume of lavender and rose. He breaks shards off the cocoon, combines them with sugar, and melts them down into a gin cocktail that changes from purple to cerulean and back again.

He brings it to the rest of the team. Mpho remarks, "Smells like placenta!"

Meade says "Oh, no, it's just lavender and rose."

The Storm of War

As we engage the Aleph Engine, using up the reliable Aleph key, we for a moment experience the "white space" where Keve's husband Ken and so many others are trapped and liminal. All their possessions, clothing, and even any artificial body parts were left behind.

The Scorpio and Ascension, and their attendant fighters, launch sorties and barrages at each other, surrounded by the shattered remains of civilian freighters. Many other ships besides the Firedrake are waiting nervously outside the storm, eager to enter the gate and get to Rin.

Now that Diana is dead in body (and ascended to hell in spirit), we lack leverage over the 51st legion. So both sides will shoot at us eagerly. 

We decide to recruit the other waiting civilian ships to "bum rush" the gate with us – they can't stop all of us. And meanwhile we use our fake transponder – and here's what Meade says:

"This is Doctor Flancey of the Maker's Guild. We have been requested to escort supply ships to a critical situation."

An actual ship of the Maker's Guild then wishes Dr. Flancey a belated happy birthday. Hey, they remark, we thought you were on Mem. 

"My secret errands carry me all over the Procyon Sector."

Meanwhile, a hood is removed and we see the wide-eyed stare of Ora. "Tell us what you know."

Looming over her is the mangled face of the Inquisitor Aram, so disfigured that a mouth had to be re-cut open for him.

On Mem, the frost covers the waters. 

The Caress approaches. 

"ETA?"

"A few hours."

The officer drinks his Perrier.

"First target?" 

"Aleph, sir."

"Aleph? Aleph…" he rolls it on his tongue. "Prepare the gas."

As the Holt sun dims, the Hantu gate shudders. On Sonhandra, the disputed Ortcutt farmlands beyond the river are no longer sunlit. The house where Moth grew up is, for now, still in sunlight. 

Into the Gate

With this ruse, we get through the fray without interference from the 51st Legion. The Lost Legion thinks the 51st's movement to accommodate us presents an opening, but the 51st's young, zealous officers are prepared for this and inflict casualties on the Lost Legion. 

Franky retrofits Lil Bro Gun to take the Gateslayer Device and make it useable at a crucial moment. Franky knows, however, that doing it this way could fry Job AI or the ship. Moth helps with convincing Jon AI to contribute.

The 51st protects us, but the Lost Legion is like an uncaged rabid dog.

Aboard the Caress

"Dreadnaughts 8 through 10 ready."

"Inform the brigade of shock troops in case we need to attack a station."

Power-suited tropes with skulls on their face plates form up. Flamethrower on one arm, miniguns loaded with flechettes on the other.

R'Tam boards his golden ship.

Heart's Fire and Cold Metal

We arrive at Rin to a cloud of wreckage, and see the symbols of Maelstrom Pirates flying. The Maelstrom is native to Baftoma, that husk of a world whose ores were harvested to make Warren. 

The Maelstrom targets the weaker craft stranded here at the gate, now that no authority holds control over the Rin system. 

Their Nightbreaker is a ship our size. It releases a swarm of "wasps" with 2 blasters and a harpoon gun each to collect their prey. 

Meade hails the Nightbreaker, and we behold the Amazonian thews of Samara the Red, her hair as wild and crimson as a forest fire. 

She looks past Meade and sees Franky.

Samara: "Franky! You stole my heart and threw it into space."

Meade: "Samara, you look magnificent!"

Samara: "They shall know that I dared to love."

Meade: "The fires of your heart are unquenchable! But this….this isn't Franky. The universe holds even hotter fires – he dared to plunge into the stellar, cosmic flame. And the man was burned away."

Franky is crushed by this, and gazes at his metallic hands in horror: "Is this true?"

"Yes," Moth says, "We've broken it to you 3 times!"

And then Samara's eyes gleamed with an even greater desire than lust or vengeance – a love and an urge to care for a wounded soul.

Meade: "If you let us pass through, once we have completed our mission, Franky can return to you. And maybe you can find the humanity in him again."

Meade thus convinced Samara to let us pass.

[Daniel or anybody, if you have a more faithful record of Meade's conversation with Samara, please amend or replace this one!]

Not Broken, But Restored

Moth studies the the 2nd Aleph Key, which we have spoken of as malfunctioning ever since we found it. He realizes that it is not broken but instead functioning as intended – it has been restored. The white space is a holding cell created (or connected to) by the Ur. This tells us that the Ur had need of prisons. 

Meade, Franky, and Mpho attune with the 2nd Aleph Key to attempt this second "skip" safely. Meade's desperation galvanizes into a determination not to be naked for eternity. And in his prayer. he is willing to prioritize the mission over Ora, for now. 

Now Franky must be in space to operate the machines. How does it feel for Franky to be in space? It feels like nothing at all. 

Thus, we reach the Rin-Core gate.

The Hegemony Advance Force

The Hegemony Advance Force is arrayed before the gate. Attack ships latched on to their dedicated freighter like lampreys. 

However, due to our fake transponder, we still seem to be a ship of the Makers Guild.

"This is Quartermaster Stark of the Hegemony Advance Force. This region is off limits. Please turn back or be fired upon."

Just before we respond, a message comes through from Ulek Spacedancer for Meade:

"I found where Ora is being held. We are advancing on the position."

It's near to the warehouse where Meade used to smuggle goods and where he was framed.

"I will give my life for this my friend." 

Meade knows he could turn aside from the mission and save Ora, but he holds fast to our cosmic purpose. 

Franky uses hacking to further implant the Flancey illusion in the HAF ships. And Moth (in a flashback) seeds more evidence of Flancey in the records of the Shimaya Academy.

"Good sport, that Flancey," people always said. And there's a photo of Flancey and one Mevakor Ortcutt smiling and laughing after coming in 3rd in the racquetball tournament.

Under his picture in the yearbook, it says "It wasn't about the win. It was always about the game."

As House Malklaith retreats, shadows fall over the faces of the people of Sonhandra. The stalking panther of darkness claims the planet, and all of Sonhandra now rejects the light. 

The Gate-Closing Device is now ready to fire. After receiving the transmission from Flancey, Stark says "Of course. Would you like to pass through now?"

Flancey responds. "Thank you for your help, but we don't wish to delay the important business of the Caress."

Franky, in a sidebar to the Firedrake team, asks "Can we give them a way back before we close the gate? This seems really permanent."

Moth: "These jackboots deserve whatever Samara gives to them."

Meade: "Also, there's a chance they'll realize our ruse and shoot us."

Then Mpho senses another ship has an Ur-method to skip space within a system. Her husband is coming. 

The Holt star goes brown, and Sonhandra is a lightless orb of dark. The oceans of Mem are encased in Rime, but the Mem are swimming deep.

The Hantu Gate opens. A bulbous ship emerges, like spheres connected by tubes (like a bunch of grapes?). At the helm is a Mem, but different from many of those we've known – more expressive,

And behind that ship come many more like ships, bearing great masses of water in their spheres.

So Follow Me

Meanwhile, the opulent golden space yacht of Malklaith lits off.

R'Tam has many Ur artifacts, and he uses them to skip near to our location, at the Ur-Core gate.

R'Tam demands access to the gate, "To plead my case for my wrongful declaration of incompetence – all is going according to plan!"

Although our transponder has fooled the official and technical sensors aboard these ships, a real person – a widower – gazes out a portal. Rye Malklaith sees us. 

He possesses something that let's him know where Mpho's body is at all times. 

He pleads with his father to go get the body, to inter it. 

And that is how R'Tam Malklaith learns that the Firedrake is here.

Mpho creates a psychic link to send a message to Rye. "Remember your vow to follow me wherever I go. So follow me."

Mpho moves through our ship to the Boba submarine shuttle. She deploys it and launches herself toward the gate. 

R'Tam Malklaith and Stark continue to talk. Malklaith says to let his yacht and the shuttle through the gate, then shoot the Firedrake. Stark is caught in what he thinks is a conflict between Guild and House.

Then Franky drops the ruse and tells Stark we're going to close the gate. Franky tries to convince Stark to just retreat back through the gate. And Moth helps by saying, "I don't know you've you'll be burned by Samara or drowned by the Mem. But either way you will be had."

Stark: "By Hegemonic law, we are requared to escort craft. And…that's what we're doing." Stark then flanks the massive golden eyesore and prepares to escort it through the gate.

Franky reaches out to Mpho: "Big sisbro, what's the password?"

Mpho: "Super.

Thanks for the journey, I'll see you guys around."

And then she is gone. 

Aram leans in close, and what could be interpreted as a smile crosses his new-cut lips:

"He loves you and you love him. What an interesting thing to find out."

Aram cuts his own forearm with a scalpel, and then reaches out with that hand to seize Ora's head and embed new pains and commands in her.

"We'll kill this part and we'll make you anew."

That's when Ulek bursts in! But before he turns to face this threat, Aram says, "Oh, you think he'll save you? What will he find, but an assassin!"

The Open Door

The Rin-Core gate begins to twitch.

Franky says that, to make the timing perfectly precise, to catch the Caress while it is within the wormhole connecting gates, only someone outside of space & time could do it. 

Franky: "Doctor, when we're you planning to go?"

Franky hands the doctor the Cryptex.

Moth: "I didn't think I would make it this far. I thought to go once we had – if we could – see it through."

Moth smiles and nods to Franky. He rushes to his room, breaks the picture frame, and hastily folds the picture of Harmony to put in his pocket.

Moth: "Give Samara a real chance to find your humanity again. And Meade, I know you'll put it right."

Meade: "I'll make it right."

Moth carefully connects the resonance of the rings of the Cryptex with the rings of the jump gate -- using himself in transit to the 5th-dimensional Nirvana as the conduit between them. And when he finds the way to connect it just right, he realizes that he has a few extra degrees of freedom.

So as Moth enters what might be heaven, he makes a stop on the way in the past. He finds Harmony there in the moment where, in the concrete version of reality they decided to go their separate ways. But now he offers her the chance to dance together again. 

She takes his hand, and Moth brings Harmony with him out of death and into the beyond. 

The Caress is stranded in space between jump gates, 100 light years from the nearest solar system.

The One True Hegemon refuses to surrender to the 51st Legion.

OTH: "You could have had a queen, and now you'll have chaos, starvation and death." By suicide she preserves her dream of authority. 

The disabled Ascension is boarded by Scorpio troops. And thereafter it sits as basically a space station at the Rin-Iota gate. 

Ulek struggles with Aram in pitched battle, suffering terrible injuries from Aram's Way-blasts. But finally Ulek kills the inquisitor with his blazing sword. He touches Ora: "Meade sent me. I'm here to rescue you."

Epilogues

Over the days and weeks to follow, Meade starts to make real appearances, sharing his true message that people deserve to have control over the fruits of their own work. 

In time, he is raised to the position of Chairman to lead the revolution and rebuilding.

Iceberg and Franky and Jenny work together to rebuild.

Littlefoot returns to Omega.

[Mike has a note here saying "Silhouettte on the levi" but idk what that means. Please fill in if you do!]

On Isotropa Max, rioting prisoners use burning mattresses to smoke out the remaining guards. And Doctor Xhu is dragged down by his former patients. 

In the Shimaya Academy, a council of scholars forms the Advisors to the Chairmen.

Mpho, in time, returns to the Cerati to open an investigation into the true events of her species' past.

The stellar nation of the Mem sends its ships and emissaries through the Hantu gate. Mill was indeed one of their advance explorers. He found a way to open the gate briefly from their side and came through – and that's how he knew how to make a gate close. 

That's also why he had such advanced knowledge to construct the dreadnaughts and to teach Iceberg, Franky, and Jenny their incredible skills.

Over time, the Stellar Nation of the Mem opens cautious negotiations with Chairman Grey. The have a list of names of humans they want to see punished for crimes against the Mem. On that list is Flancey, but he still remains at large.