Ravens of Eternity

274 The Allure of Gold, Pt The Accursed Bootlegger flashed into unregulated space, just outside the edges of Federation territory. They appeared in the middle of a vast fleet, a few hundred meters above a gigantic flagship.

Alarm shot through Eva as she looked through the live feed, and saw golden apples emblazoned on each and every single ship out there.

“Your rich friend’s a goddamned Discordian?” she said with incredulity.

“Not just any Discordian,” Lucifer replied. “The Discordian.”

“You... you tricked us into coming out here! Fooled us into turning ourselves over to a bunch of pirates!”

“Calm down. I’ve done no such thing. You’re acting like parlaying with a pirate’s some kind of death sentence.”

“Maybe if they hadn’t shot at me so many times before, I wouldn’t see it that way.”

“It’s not like they were shooting at you, personally. They’re pirates. They shoot at everything.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

.....

“Look, you shot back, right? Even killed a few yourself. Consider yourselves even. But now, the only people who can help you are the ones right in front of us. Best start putting aside your differences.”

Eva grumbled lightly in her seat, and crossed her arms across her chest. Something told her that this “meeting” was going to cost her a great deal. It dawned on her that no matter where she went, or what she did, someone always wanted to grab hold of her.

And they always wanted something from her.

“You might not like any of this,” continued Lucifer, “but this is the only path you’ve got left to you. And if you truly wanna be free? Then you gotta follow in the path of those who already are free.”

“That freedom isn’t free,” she retorted. “Their wealth cost someone else their own.”

“You’ve just described life. That’s how anything that lives, flourishes.”

“Not everything.”

The Accursed Bootlegger flew towards one of the flagship’s many large open hangar bays, and requested a landing. Given Lucifer was who ze was, they were automatically approved, no questions asked.

They landed with little fanfare, but were also greeted by an armed contingent as they walked down the ramp. It didn’t seem like a ceremonial act to Eva, more like a courtesy.

She also noted that a few within their escort team seemed nervous. At her and the Ravens, yes, but mostly at Lucifer. It didn’t seem like fear or awe to her. It was something else, like anxiety or anticipation, perhaps.

Eva couldn’t really tell, and so shrugged it off. Something told her Lucifer’s presence did this to people – hir being in their presence caused their knees to buckle. Her own did the same as well, just not to that great a degree.

All of them were ushered into multiple compact hoppers and cruised deep into the ship’s core, towards its bridge. The Ravens wowed at just how huge the entire ship was.

It was certainly large enough for the many passageways to fit the compact hoppers. In fact, it even had major thoroughfares that spanned the length of the ship itself. The flagship was the largest ship they had ever boarded – it was about the size of an average colonial settlement, in fact.

The ship was even zoned like one, and had an internal transportation infrastructure built in. Not just the thoroughfares, but it also had transport pod tubes laced throughout, like a subway or metro. Except the pods were sized for four rather than dozens.

Amal spaced out as they passed by a huge medical sector. Here were a number of clinics that treated all manner of ailments. There was even a larger hospital-like building that seemed to deal with more critical injuries.

The entire sector was clean and incredibly well run, and not at all what she expected to see.

Kali was similarly awed at the variety of entertainment venues that were on board. Even though they were a closed community, like the Prophets used to be, they had all manner of vices to be enjoyed.

There were drinking holes and fighting pits and gambling nooks and food vendors and escort services galore.

Xylo and Claire both wondered aloud how much it all cost. The more they saw, the more their count added up. And the numbers didn’t’ seem to stop climbing.

Miko’s eyes darted around as she absorbed everything in front of her. Particularly at the drones and circuits and systems that connected everything together. And she was rather impressed with what she saw.

Everything was laid out in such a way that things could be moved around and shifted with little interruption to the power grid. Entire sectors were shielded from each other as well, and every circuit was made redundant. All to prevent as many single points of failure as possible.

The system’s design was impressive, and certainly well-thought out. She hoped to get a chance to peek at their intelligences at some point.

Eva glanced out as they cruised by as well, and wondered why there weren’t any parks or trees or a single blade of grass anywhere. Even the Admiral’s secret asteroid lab had them, and it was about the same size as this ship.

It wasn’t long before they passed through the civilian sectors and reached the core of the ship. The large passageway simply terminated, and right in the middle of everything was a robust security station.

The hoppers all stopped right at the entrance, and let out their passengers – the rest of the way was only accessible by foot. They sped off as the Ravens, Lucifer, and their escort walked further in.

The bridge sector was large, and held far more than just the bridge itself. It was actually surrounded by all sorts of circuits and databanks, all inside of heavily reinforced, climate-controlled racks.

Miko couldn’t help but drool as they walked through the heavily protected and transparent passageways between the towering, blinking monstrosities.

Then, they walked into the large circular room that encompassed the bridge. They marveled at the giant screens that circled around everywhere – on the walls, and hanging from the ceiling. There were dozens and dozens of terminals, each one with diligent technicians and officers and analysts behind them.

Right in the center was Pirate Queen Eris. She watched her empire grow with a satisfied grin while she sat on her throne.

Her captain’s chair spun in place as her guests approached. Eris’ eyes lit up when she saw Lucifer walk in with the Ravens at hir side.

“Luci!” she said exuberantly. “You’re back! And you’ve brought me the presents I asked for!”

Eris got up from her chair, extended her arms, and hugged Lucifer tightly.

Eva immediately groaned.

“You delivered us?” she said. “I knew it. I goddamned knew it. You were contracted to bring us here, weren’t you?! How could I have been so damned stupid!”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Lucifer chided her. “Business is business. That’s all there is to it.”

“So you charged her, and you charged us? Explain to me how that’s not extortion!”

“Getting you out of trouble and bringing you to Eris are two completely different things. You both paid me to get results, and results you received. There’s no conspiracy here – your goals happened to intersect, and I saw my opportunity.”

Eva was completely stymied by Lucifer. She felt betrayed by hir, felt as though she was purposefully misled for an ulterior motive. One where others profited on her misfortune, as always.

“Well, this isn’t starting out very well, is it?” said Eris.

“Oh. My. God,” said Amal. “I recognize you. You were on that magazine’s Person of the Year edition!”

Everyone turned to look at Amal, who stood bewildered and wide-eyed at Eris.

Eris laughed loudly and proudly. She put her hands on her hips, and cocked them slightly.

“That was the young me,” she said. “I had almost forgotten about that article. Wow, how time flies.”

“Hold on, are you saying you’re a refugee?” said Eva. “From Earth? No, from Bellum Aeterna?”

“Uh, yeah! That’s Cassandra Draco!” said Amal.

Eva took a second take at Eris, blinked, then saw the resemblance. Then she too gawked like Amal did.

Cassandra Draco was one of the most powerful businesswomen on Earth. Their old Earth, anyway. She built up Dracolith Analytics from the ground up in her teens, from her family’s basement.

The girl was always interested in information – how it was stored, how it was organized, how it was analyzed, and how it was used. At first it was simple stuff – she had some data on the people who lived in her town.

Nothing personal, just basic demographics. Who lived where, what sort of things they bought, what they believed in.

Over time, she built deeper systems that peered into various databases and derived datapoints from them. Highly lucrative datapoints that corporations could use to attract more customers, or for politicians to find more voters, or for police to find potential criminals.

The data was there – it simply needed to be translated, packaged, and sold. And she pulled data from all sources – social media, advertising trackers, porn sites, torrent and pirate networks, everywhere.

No source was taboo, or out of her reach.

And with such an overwhelming amount of data, found all of the juiciest, most lucrative patterns her software could find. By the time she was 30, her company had grown exponentially, and her services were sought out worldwide by those with the deepest pockets.

But that wasn’t the only avenue of her company’s growth. In fact, she swallowed up any of her competitors. Often bought them outright, or simply outcompeted them to ruin. Every time she was challenged, she hit back.

Then consumed them.

Her ruthless acumen made her one of the youngest tech billionaires on the planet, and also one of the most notorious. Her company ensured her wealth, and tore down multiple institutions along the way. Governments included.

“You played Bellum?” said Eva after a while. “Seriously?”

“Hell yeah, why not?” Eris replied. “I invested in the damned thing. And I’m glad I played, too. Look where it got me.”

“You’re happy you were taken away from your many, many billions?”

“What’s a few billion? Nothing, I’ll tell you. This ship, the one you’re currently standing in, cost way over a trillion credits. By itself. And it’s mine. I could do anything with it. If I wanted to fly it into the closest star, I could.”

Xylo and Claire both stared at each other with eyes wide open. Both of their estimates fell far below the actual number.

The others were also in abject shock, not just at the cost of it, but because there were so many other ships out there. The whole fleet was likely worth many more trillions. Perhaps a hundred of them.

Eva was aghast. She couldn’t understand how she achieved that much wealth in just a few short years. From what she could tell, Eris had been transported into the galaxy only a month prior to her and Miko.

While they built themselves up to one ship, Eris built up to an entire goddamned fleet.

She realized that this person, who seemed to have everything she wanted in the galaxy, paid to get them here, in front of her.

“Okay, fine. Why’d you bring us here?” Eva asked.

Eris grinned widely at the question.

“Work for me,” she said. “Be a part of my family. Here, we make each other richer than any of us have ever dreamed. None of us have anything to want for. We fight, we fuck, we burn whenever the hell we want. Nothing more, nothing less. And we get paid heaps to do it all. Now, take a nice, big bite of the golden apple and join me. I won’t take no for an answer.”