The Province Of Terrans 2

A Starshatter adventure

The Black Knight

Apr 05, 2025

(Art source unknown)

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Index: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16

Chapter 13

Pilgrims of woe

Northstone stole a full minute looking at his wife and the Roundabout’s guests only murmured and grumbled he did not take longer. As a matter of fact, they had been having so much fun with his tale and now, feasting on imported Egyptian canned duck and oxen pates, and drinking beer, they perhaps wanted this bliss to continue a little bit longer. The Spacer, however, he still had the ending of his marvelous tale to tell and so, raising his refilled pint, he continued.

“It is true that weapons and armor, better training, leadership and steely morale won battles, but intelligence was the force multiplier. Thus, following a detailed explanation of what we were going to do and leaving the three Vaugn to guard the Kosmovoi, I led my new Egyptian friends down the pipes. Tired and hungry, for them it wasn’t the easiest of journeys, though it was on the short side and they knew food awaited them at its end.”

The Spacer uploaded a number of holo-slides which helped him better tell how said trek must have felt like. He and Niv carried in turns those who had the greatest trouble walking. Lady Taia had fallen asleep on Northstone’s back and she did indeed look most adorable, a tiny smile on her tired face, as the Spacer held a mother and her snoozing child. More, the longer they watched, many among the audience gritted their teeth, for those people did look quite underfed, their eyes sunken, skin parched, limbs trembling, and breath raspy.

In no shape they were for even a long casual walk around some pleasurably cozy park, let alone picking up a weapon...

“While we trekked across the piping, Niv had contacted his people guarding the Farm. One went back to the Shelter and carried all spare rations. Earlier, I had decided to go back and reach FSS Bird Of Hope, as soon as we got my kin to some relatively safe area. The emergency backup of three month food supply which I had packed in the cargo hold, now, it would last for about a month. Yet I was sure that the Farm would produce more food since we had many more loving hands to nurture it. Not to mention that I needed to snatch one of the wraith-possessed, cyber-enhanced crewmates of this ancient derelict for the Kosmovoi to replenish his strength.”

They watched him and the rest of the Vaugn help people set up improvised resting areas.

“Since we had fully repaired all systems of the Farm, including its life-support, there was no need for erecting complicated shelters. The area, though strange-looking, it soon grew on my people, most of whom were Nile fishermen and farmers. Plants, though alien, and growing in hydroponic basins, they were still... crops. I gave those with the most strength a longish explanation of how everything worked, and what they could do to improve the growth. Bar a few startled looks and gasps, when the farmers learned this place was maintained by an automaton, they were swift to learn. Of course, me being an explorer and not a true farmer, they soon found many little things I had done wrong and began the process of correcting them.”

“Yes, and had you not went there, helped the Vaugn and repaired all the machinery, we wouldn’t have had anything to correct, nor eat.” – chimed Lady Taia with her melodic voice – “Not to mention, we probably wouldn’t be even here, safe, feasting upon such delectables.”

“True, and I do remember that you and your fellow Egyptians said exactly the same, when first trying the space rations I fed you.” – Northstone said with a grin, ate a bite from the slice of bread which his wife had just smothered in aromatic pate, and continued – “I will admit, the first day was you mostly eating and sleeping, and me and Niv’s soldiers, patrolling. Quite understandable and, as the Roundabout’s audience knows well, I have participated in many a slave rescue raids, so this experience is not new for me.”

Northstone showed a collection of holo-slides which depicted him and Niv carrying supply crates, helping people move about, and wondering at the newly growing crop of melon-like fruit. Later, when he had dispensed a number of medisprays, caring for those among the Egyptians with wounds or sicknesses, the Spacer prepared to venture back to FSS Bird Of Hope. Lady Taia had actively meditated and was as rested as she could possibly be in a desperate situation like hers.

“You and I journey together.” – stated Taia and she wore one of the stopgap spacesuits Northstone crafted, and the Spacer’s eyebrow shot up.

“Lady Taia, before you commit to such an action, realize that this place is a giant vessel floating across the stars, pregnant with deadly dangers. The Jaern wretches are but one of Universe only knows how many else lurk in the dark! Your mind is capable of manifesting certain powers, yet I am not aware what those are. Lady priestess, have you employed them in battle before?” – while the Spacer said all of this and inquired of Taia’s experience, nevertheless, he made sure to carefully check if she’d donned the spacesuit proper.

Nodding eagerly, the young woman blew one of her rebellious red quaffs, closed the suit’s faceplate and chimed – “I have now learned of this Farm and, when I learn of your ship, I can walk across the Aether!”

Northstone blinked and the audience saw his eyes widen with first surprise, then happiness – “Meaning, you can fold space?!”

“Fold...? If that is what you call the walking on the Aether, yes. In the ways of pulling and pushing Nile’s life-giving waters I was learned by my head priest, wise Akhenaton. To answer your query about battle... I did crush the ships of invaders, when these plagued our waves, and won a mind duel against a sorcerer of theirs.”

Now it was time for Northstone to ask another question – “Lady, I must ask something, and mind you, your answer will prompt a query of yours which might cause you some grief.”

Taia agreed with a smile and he said – “While my knowledge of Egypt’s dynasties may be rusty, pray tell, during which Pharaoh’s rule did these invaders assail your borders?”

“Thutmos the Divine... Why?”

Northstone placed his armored hand upon her shoulder and looked inside her still quite calm eyes when he replied after a few seconds of thought – “If that is true, then you and your people are now almost nine centuries kidnapped from your age. But, let me assure you, Egypt is still very much alive and here, these days under the most wise rule of your current Pharaoh, Nefersenb.”

The lady priest’s bonny face twitched and yes, there was sorrow in her eye, yet when she spoke following one long sigh, it was with a confident smile on her lips – “Then it is just as I had suspected. Please, lord star-walker, allow me a few minutes to explain this to my people and then we can go on our trek.”

Indeed, to learn that they could no longer return back to the same land which they once so lovingly tended, their relatives, loved ones, and homes long gone, may be too much to handle for some. The Egyptian of old and, indeed, modern days, Northstone knew well, was a most hardy person. They wept quietly, knelt and prayed for their dead mothers, fathers, sons, sisters or brothers. However, as soon as their heart-breaking laments were sang, and the names of their loved ones faithfully chanted in holy remembrance, the Egyptians leapt on their feet and threw themselves back into whatever they were doing before.

“Come, we must fulfill our promise to the Kosmovoi.” – I addressed Niv and two of his soldiers joined me ready to do battle.

“Dear friends, earlier I showed the being two holo-slides, coded through the Vocalizer. The first was of a wraith and the second, a cyber-enhanced being. Many of these were the products of some ancient dark weapon program. A unhallowed specter of Unlife bound to the empowered by cybertech embalmed with medical liquids body. For all intents and purposes, these once living beings were now nothing more than knights of death. Such, armed and armored in technologies of a long corpsified Stellar Imperium.”

The Spacer projected a set of scan-data files, which the Roundabout’s audience already knew of—the strike craft hangar. Among the twelve cyber-enhanced, specter-possessed crewmates, there was one endowed with a much stronger wraith. It would appear that, in the meantime, Northstone had uploaded subsequent and more detailed scans from FSS Bird Of Hope.

How was the Spacer even planning to shackle said wraith, the audience had no clue.

“See, I suspect what many of you are thinking right now. Us Spacers are not in the business of hunting the specters of Unlife with the purpose of capturing them. But,” – said Northstone and made a short pause, displaying the schematic of some boxy device of alien origin – “the beige teams deployed by the Taz’aran Imperium, they often did.”

“Of course,” – and the Spacer showed them a crude copy of said box, which was most assuredly only rough on the outside – “for one to be able to entrap an entity such as this, it needs to be ruined, broken. I, just like any other member of my family would rather smite these beings instead, for they were an affront of all creation. Anti-life, things unborn, and uncreated, they were to be disintegrated on sight. Yet on that day, we had to procure one instead of showering it with particle-beams since the Kosmovoi needed nourishment.”

“Life for Unlife... one rather strange, but oddly satisfying exchange.” – said Northstone with a smile and proceeded to share his next set of holo-vids, depicting his small party on the move.

In the start, they traversed what was perhaps the most intact section of piping. Some holes did sport improvised bridges made of metal taken from other broken places, welded together with plasma torches, tied in place by looted Jaern grappler cables. Indeed, everything did look a tad bit unsightly, yet even the bulky Vaugn trod across without trouble. Without him having to tell them anything, the soldiers showed industriousness.

Taia was silently observing her surroundings, at least for the beginning of their trek. It wasn’t until they approached a recently cleared and stabilized maintenance tunnel entrance, the lady priestess spoke:

“I know I promised to share our unfortunate tale with thee, but please, tell me lord star-walker, how far away from our Earth is this decrepit ship?”

“It took many months of searching between the stars just to uncover its trail. Lady priestess, you call me lord star-walker, yet I am neither a lord nor able to walk across the stars, but a simple explorer. It is my ship,” – and the Spacer showed her a detailed holo of his spacecraft – “FSS Bird Of Hope, she who flies me across the vastness of space.”

“My people believe that it was our ascended ancestors who sent you and these avatars of Sobek here, to save us. Another sign they saw in you, star-walker, for you wielded the Heps’Thwa or the blade of the Nile. Though I felt you were of goodness, neither was of the divine and I had no strength to tell them...” – she continued, her faceplate transparent and a sad smile on her beautiful lips.

“Niv and his soldiers’ minds were shackled inside their own heads, and forced to visit great pain upon innocents by debased mistresses. Until I met them, they yearned for the sleep of the sword.” – Northstone said, while translating everything from Egyptian to Niv, who snapped his jaw a few times, growling and hissing in Primal from his comms.

“He says now that they are free, they chose to lay down their lives for others.” – the Spacer first translated Niv’s reply and addressed Taia’s concerns – “As for you and my kin, had I known in advance that you were held here, that this ancient derelict is much more that what it spelled rumors of, my entire family, their friends, and the friends of their friends would’ve descended upon it and with such hallowed fury...”

“This I now realize from your emanations, great lord star-walker. Only a proper Heron could even dream of wielding the Heps’Thwa.” – said the lady priestess and graced Niv and his soldiers with a bow – “I and my people are much obliged for your sacrifice, oh warriors of Sobek. Though I think forgetting the vile deeds you were forced to commit is not entirely possible, know this, what you did for us shall be learned by all children of Egypt.”

The Roundabout once more became abuzz with polite whispers, hands tapped holo-keyboards, linking many of their friends thoughts and wild hypotheses. Sentients began building interesting theories as to why had these olden Egyptians been transplanted from their age and, most importantly, by whom. Yet they had to wait, watch how Northstone’s party progressed through the stabilized and cleaned of useful salvage tunnel. At one point, the holo-images showed how they were met by a single crewman.

Though everyone expected a battle, it was not to be. The thing had been abandoned and just stood there, covered in dust, unpossessed, its cybertech and flesh too damaged to be of use. Just in case, Niv cleaved it in half with a single sweep of his looted Jaern sword. An act he followed with a set of jaw snaps, which Northstone translated as:

“Discarded, like us...”

“Niv, you will soon learn that no Terran is ever alone.” – said the Spacer and made sure to repeat his words to Taia in her tongue.

As they left the service passageway, the audience noticed that finally, the party was back to that huge tunnel Northstone began his adventure landing at. Indeed, from his holo-images and vids, they could even pick a glimpse of FSS Bird Of Hope, laying among the derelict spaceships. The following holo-vid they saw come to life on the holoprojector showed the clean, spartan insides of the Spacer ship.

“Finally, I was back where it all started, my faithful vessel. While Niv and his soldiers offloaded crates with supplies, I and lady Taia shared words. Just like you, I was so keen on learning how they ended up here, on this ship of terrors. She shared her tale soon after I projected a cultural file from my ship’s mainframe, a more in depth information about the state of her homeland.”

“I wish I knew exactly who they were.” – began Taia of then, her sorrowful voice echoing from the holo-footage and across the entire Roundabout – “One morn, early it was, I, the rest of my fellow priests and our escort of temple warriors were attacked. You see, we had been on a quest to help a distant village. The people had suffered from a most strange and violent flood, one which was not supposed to occur at all. Later, during the attack, I saw something huge move underwater. Then, I thought it an otherworldly beast.”

“Standard invader stealth tactics.” – said Northstone and patted the hull of his vessel when he explained – “They would save energy and cool their ship systems by submerging in large bodies of water. Explorers like me do that too, though we would never subject innocent people to the consequences of our landing.”

“Ah, so it was their star vessel which caused so much death and destruction!” – exclaimed she and clenched her fists – “Such vile people.”

“Please, my lady priestess, describe the general shape of what you saw in the water.” – urged her he, and activated a holo-drawing algo made for painting – “You can use your finger or this brush. The machine will visualize everything you draw and I know quite a lot about alien starships.”

The lady quickly drew one rather rough, yet quite spaceship like shape, which Northstone stared at intensely for a few minutes. It soon became clear that neither he, nor the database on his spaceship had anything even remotely similar. He canted his head and the lady continued her tale:

“Suffice to say, our people had suffered terribly from the flood alone. Homes destroyed, food reserves washed away, the dead and wounded over a hundred. We had arrived the day before and, without delay, proceeded to deliver grain, beer, and heal those we could. Little did we know that on the next morrow, nary a trace from the village or us would remain. They appeared out of thin air and even us priests, we couldn’t see their emanations with our ever vigilant mind’s eye.”

Taia used the holo-brush and drew one armored alien humanoid. Tall, with strange-looking head, it wore an oddly colorless armored spacesuit and wielded something resembling a stun gun. Again, Northstone examined the drawing and when even his adept in the races of this galaxy mind could not find a match for it, he sighed a no.

“Then they are, even after so many centuries, still a mystery.” – continued the lady priestess, drawing a few more items she remembered which the Spacer correctly recognized the use of.

Stasis pods and stun batons.

“Following the initial chaos, we put up a desperate fight. Temple warriors are all chosen among many thousands of volunteers. Back then...” – and the lady choked, wiped a tear before she continued – “In my day, our warriors were gifted weapons and armor endowed with the magics of their temple. Thus, when we saw that these invaders were kidnapping our people, we fought. All priests, including myself, hurled our magics at these faceless enemies and, despite their defenses, we felled many. Our warriors managed to cleave many of them dead despite their thick armor yet, no matter how hard we fought, they overwhelmed us. Hundreds more swarmed out of the water...”

Lady Taia quivered in her chair and Northstone covered her shoulders with one of his spare sets of clothing. His wife now repeated the same gesture from memory, hugging herself with the nano-programmable cloth made of vacfoam and micro threads of megasteel.

“When I awoke, tired, beaten, and shivering, I saw her vile face! The Jaern, one who wielded that foul item, so much was the evil bestowed upon her that, at first, I could not resist. She wormed her mind into mine, screeched what my purpose was to be. Slain upon a vile altar, sacrificed so that she could achieve her goals.”

“Let me guess,” – began the Spacer, his voice emanating despite – “your soul would feed her filthy master and she, gain his supreme blessing?”

“Before I repulsed Saksulan, I did manage to learn her secret. It is, in fact, hers and her sect’s own goal to gain another dark being’s favor.” – began her reply the lady priestess and there was fear in her eye when, finger pointed at the gloomy corridor outside she said – “He.”

“This Jaern wretch, I was wrong about her!” – grumbled Northstone and clenched his fists – “Such grander ambition, to become on par with the monstrums of legend is Saksulan’s filthy dream.”

The entire audience gasped and many shared looks of pure terror. They have already seen what swarms of Ghost-ships and wraith-controlled cyborg crewmates were capable of. Now, the Stygian thought, what a monstrous thing could be bound to this gargantuan hulk of a spaceship gave birth to more nightmarish theories.

“Lord star-walker, are we... alone?” – Taia asked with confusion creeping in her voice as she looked around.

“Bar the Vaugn, myself, and you, there is no one here. Look,” – and he explained how his starship’s scanners operated in the simplest of terms – “there aren’t even ghosts lurking about. With the armaments of my faithful Bird Of Hope, these debased entities were all disintegrated.”

“Why, no... this is nothing like them. That emanation is of goodness, equilibrium, intrepidness, and perfectly resonates with... No... I am mistaken, for I have been shackled by weariness since many centuries came to pass. Forgive me, lord star-walker.”

There was a person of Dzenta’rii descent, who perhaps knew more than most, yet kept his mouth shut, but a faint smirk gracing his lips. Northstone’s friend Narin raised his wineglass and the Spacer, his pint. This came not unnoticed and further intensified the audience’s want to know more, yet they had to wait.

Time to make another choice, my friends... and oh, what a choice!

(One) “Despite Taia’s nightmare-inducing revelation, we had a duty to our friend. Grabbing extra combat supplies from FSS Bird Of Hope’s cargo hold, I, Niv, his soldiers and the lady priestess went on to the strike craft hangar. There, we would make sure to destroy the possessed cyborgs and snatch the strongest of wraiths. All fuel, combat supplies, and useful salvage on sight would be then stored in my starship. Decisions on what to do with the information given could come only after.”

(Two) “It would appear that I needed to plan the demise of Saksulan. For me, a Jaern slayer, there existed only one thing of use when facing their priestesses—a psychic nullifier. Following an expedient battle for the wraith we promised our Kosmovoi, we would return to the Shelter with my food supplies. There, I would use every bit of salvage and spare parts to build the most powerful psychic nullifier I could. With it, we could weather any Jaern attack, even corner that foul wretch and crush her dirty neck! Then it would be adieu derelict, goodbye dark space, and hello dear home.”

(Three) “There I stood, gazing deep into the eyes of my future wife. In the brilliance of that moment, a plan of most dashing, true Spacer nature graced my mind. Took a grand chance with that Vocalizer, yet it paid off and in many ways than one. The Kosmovoi not just befriended but aided us as an ally against the Jaern. Unbound, unbroken, relentless, my kin all knew that we were. I learned Niv and his soldiers of hope and they helped me save lady Taia and my long lost people. Alone, to face the being in possession of this horrid hulk would be inconceivable. Together with Niv and his soldiers, mayhap one single, valiant charge? Taia and the Egyptians, armed, armored, and trained to fight joining said charge could give us all a sliver of an edge. Yet, what happens when our Kosmovoi join us, his tentacles glowing, after he feasts upon the stave of flayed dreams?!”

(*_*_*)

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