Ravens of Eternity

420 The Meadow of the Dead

Freya walked down a stone pathway towards the meadow inside of a wooded park. Or rather, the wooded park inside of the unnamed cruiser that was the heart of the Republic.

Of course, its citizens had long since tired of it being unnamed, and had thus renamed it Folkvang. Because of that, the park itself was renamed Folkvang Forest, which was apt despite only having sparse woods inside it.

She came to the middle of the meadow and looked up at the sculpture that towered above her.

It wasn’t holographic or any kind of digital projection – this sculpture was a real, physical, tangible thing. She walked right up to it and touched it with an open hand. It felt cold, hard, metallic.

The entire sculpture was made of bands of metal which felt soft under her fingers, like gold. Except the metal itself was a coppery gray.

Then she took a step back and peered at the sculpture itself.

It was of the Accursed Bootlegger, with its main thrusters flared out widely. It was held aloft by a dozen or so thin metal strips that swooped and swirled behind the ship itself. They gave the sculpture a sense that it was taking off to somewhere, towards some distant unknown.

The plaque at its base told her that this wasn’t the resting place of Lucifer, Xylo, and all the citizens lost to the war. Rather, it was their jumping off point.

And that hopefully, should anyone else from the Republic end up going their way, there would always be room for them.

.....

“Thanks for doing this,” said Freya. “It’s perfect.”

By her side were Azrael and Raijin, who had brought her here. They figured she would want to see the sculpture with her own eyes.

“It was the least any of us could do,” Raijin answered. She also looked up at it, and could almost feel its thruster’s backblast. “After all, if not for them, we might not be alive now. We perhaps owe everything to them.”

“Almost everyone in the fleet comes by to pay their respects,” Azrael added. “I mean, as often as they’re able anyway. Everyone’s also got access to a portable holo version, but it isn’t the same. I mean, not that that matters and… alright sorry, I’m babbling.”

Freya spun around, stepped back, and faced both her friends. She felt she was again on the verge of tears from the sadness of it, and needed to divert her emotions somehow.

“How’s the family doing?” she asked. “Haven’t seen anyone in so long.”

Azrael lowered her head slightly and frowned. Her eyes turned misty at the same time. It seemed like she wanted to reply, but simply couldn’t.

“My father passed away two years, four months, one week, and seven cycles ago,” Raijin said first. Her voice cut through the silence like a shot. “Heart attack. Okasa says their doctor blames their greasy food habit, but they loved it too much to ever give it up.

“I miss him.”

Raijin then looked over to Azrael, as though it was her turn to share. And share she did. But it felt rough and difficult for her to get through.

“It was only a couple months ago,” Azrael began. “My… Ommi… She got in an accident. Drunk driver, head on, it was bad. I don’t wanna get into specifics.

“It just kills me sometimes ‘coz I know that if I was there, it would all be fine. I’ve got all the knowledge and all the tech to make it all like it never happened in the first place. But nothing I coulda done about it, you know?

“Anyway, she never made it to the hospital, died on the way. I think about her so much sometimes.”

Although Azrael wanted to keep talking, her throat seemed to get stuck and nothing more came out. So instead she simply let her grief take hold of her, if only for a moment.

“I-I’m sorry,” Freya stammered. “I didn’t mean to bring it up. And I’m extra sorry that I wasn’t here for either of you. I should’ve been. I guess we can add that to my heaping pile of failure, huh?”

“Try not to bury yourselves in guilt or sorrow,” Raijin interjected. “We have too much to do and a war to survive. Please focus yourselves towards that instead.”

The words struck Azrael, and she quickly shook off her pain. There was always more time for that later, she reasoned with herself.

Freya also recentered herself to some degree, but that guilt was now a large part of her and there was no letting go of it.

Realization suddenly hit her as she thought about what Raijin just said.

“You said a while ago that you all needed me,” Freya said. “I thought, at the time, that you meant metaphorically. Family and togetherness and whatnot. But now I’m realizing that you probably meant specifically, yeah?”

“Why can’t it be both?” Azrael countered. To which Freya nodded.

“Do you recall T-Rex?” Raijin asked.

“‘Course I do,” Freya replied. “Could never forget the Seven. Wait… Is he alright?”

“Well, he fled the Federation and joined the Republic for one thing.”

“Fled? What? Why? The war? He become some kinda wartime smuggler or something? Ran afoul of their ridiculous laws?”

Raijin shook her head adamantly.

“Because he was being hunted,” Raijin said. “Both Locke and Fluke were murdered. T-Rex believes he’s next. He came all the way out to the Hegemony in the middle of a war just to get away. And thankfully the de Jardins pointed him to us.”

“Okay, great, well that is terrible and all, but honestly I’m not sure why I need to be involved at all. Not that I don’t want to, it just seems, I dunno, something our operatives could handle? Unless you need something, uh, just completely obliterated.”

“Except, of course, we believe the Benefactor is involved. So in a way, you are correct.”

“T-Rex said that they were working on a theory,” Azrael said. “They thought that people high up in the Federation’s chain of command were directly influenced by the Benefactor. Maybe even the Grand Minister, if you could believe that.”

“And then, of course, I heard that nearly-dead drogar on your ship utter the Benefactor’s name,” added Raijin. “Which means that they have influence over the Empire as well.”

Freya grimaced hard on hearing all of that.

Numerous memories of her piercing the minds of her enemies. Of senators and machinefather and swarmfathers. Of Konleth’s and Gravoss’ minds, specifically.

Some of them certainly held the word in their thoughts. It sat in the dark shadows and were carefully hidden under numerous layers.

She remembered as she squeezed whatever iota of memories they had surrounding the word. She remembered how much pain she put them through to get them.

Then shivered at her own actions. The sheer inhumanity of it.

“Yeah, it’s true, I think,” she said after a moment. “I can… I pulled their memories out of their heads. Forcibly. I can recall everything they remembered, almost like it’s my own memories. Feels weird sometimes, going through them.

“Anyway, I got all their political plans, where their ledgers were, everything they loved and held dear.

“And I also found the Benefactor too, among the rest of their thoughts. Well, in some of the drogar anyway. Like Szereth’s competitor – Gravoss. He and the Benefactor were in constant contact for years. It almost felt like the two of them were friends.

“But wait nah, that’s wrong. They weren’t friends. No way.

“I think it’s more like trusted business partners. Contractually obligated trust. The kind that requires a signature. So, not much trust at all, in the end. Not really.”

“What did the Benefactor give him?” asked Raijin. Her face was plastered with absolute curiosity. This was more information than any of them had ever gotten about the Benefactor. She couldn’t help but want to know more.

Freya gave it some thought, and scoured through the memories she had stolen from Gravoss. Of course, they came with the memories of her own atrocities.

They bit at her each and every time.

“Mostly market predictions,” she said after a moment. “Multi-layered competitive analysis reports, that sort of thing. It was almost like he was this elite business consultant for Gravoss. Gave him all kinds of reports every week. I can’t even quantify how much richer that made him over all that time.”

“What did Gravoss do in exchange?” Azrael asked. “I mean, that seems like some major benefits. I figure he had to do some insane things to get them, you know?”

“Doesn’t seem like the Benefactor asked for a whole lot in return,” she replied. “Maybe a favor once or twice a year at the most. But they seemed big. Or at least some of them did.

“One time, he requested that Gravoss buy out a company so they could get liquidated. I remember he was kinda angry at having to do it, ‘coz it cost him so much money just to do. I mean, he didn’t find any profit in it. That went against who he was, deep down.

“It almost bankrupted one of his other businesses, or something like that. I don’t really get how it all works.

“But anyway, in the end, Gravoss did it without asking any questions. Bought out the company that the Benefactor wanted, completely dissolved it and sold off everything he could. Just flat out erased the entire operation at his own cost.

“I recall him justifying the loss by some previous amazing gain that the Benefactor gave to him. Like some merger or something. I dunno. All I can say is that he was pretty happy by the end of it.”

Raijin floated in the air and thought about everything that Freya was saying. From what they knew, and as far as they could tell, the Benefactor clearly did the same things in the Empire as he or she did in the Federation – caused massive disruptions between corporations.

“What about Konleth?” Raijin asked after a moment.

Freya peered into the senator’s stolen memories with a few winces before she replied.

“Similar things,” she said. “Only from a political perspective rather than corporate. Block this vote. Pass that vote. Ensure this trade route. In exchange, Konleth got direct infusions of money. Always from completely unknowable sources.

“And get this – both of them were asked by the Benefactor to kill Retholis. Practically demanded it from them.”

“I hope the Hegemony isn’t also under the Benefactor’s influence,” Azrael sighed. “That could be real terrible for us.”

“We should try to investigate that a little,” Raijin said. “We should know before we begin our hunt.”

Freya’s brow suddenly raised.

“I’m sorry, did you say hunt?” she said. “You all want to go after the Benefactor?”

“Yes, of course,” Raijin replied. “If, in theory, the Benefactor is the true cause of this war, then wouldn’t it be fair to say that neutralizing them is most important in stopping this war?”

“We don’t even know who this person is!” Freya protested.

“You’ve definitely got years worth of clues at least,” said Azrael. “And so did Locke and Fluke. T-Rex also, to some degree. But he did footwork. The two others did the sleuthing. They’ve got data. Or at least, we think they do.”

“That is our current theory, yes,” Raijin added. “I have attempted to break into their terminals remotely, but they have been wiped clean. However, they must have data hidden somewhere. Outside of the networks, where they cannot be found.”

“And you mean we’ve gotta be the ones to find them,” said Freya. “So I get it now. I get why you asked me to come back – or at least one of the reasons why you asked me back. Because we’ve gotta fight something that can manipulate galactic nations. And we might need to obliterate it with great prejudice. Fun.”