The Cafererkn Bareian was one of the larger factions within Alimarian society. A bareian itself is a composite of many extended families who actively vie for more respect within the clan by accomplishments in their careers. Because of their overall cooperative nature, Alimarians do not wage war with one another between the clans. However failures in one family can bring down the respect of an entire clan, and such power shifts happen often.
In long past eras the more ambitious bareians often denied the failings of their head family, and this usually led to self destruction. The modern remedy for such concerns is a self deprecating level of criticism and inspection by fellows who belong to the same clan.
The utter transparency of this culture of constant assessment has made the hierarchy of most accomplished Bareians to remain highly dynamic.For the Cafererkn this is the case, and in the decades since Grawno’s time with the clans folk the head family of Torguny had fallen in rank within the clan. Now the Torguny represent themselves more prominently by their members that were involved with infrastructure and trade, as opposed to when their family ranked high in the navy and administrative councils.
Due to several untimely deaths in recent conflicts with the Xexus, and a shame induced suicide scandal the Torguny family was on the long road to recovering their respect within the powerful clan.
Patckart Torguny was a youth in the family, born too late to enjoy the prestige of being at the head of the clan. His father’s family was in charge of managing the major shipping lanes between Plaith and the Kyrian colonies, and the Torguny’s standing had largely been saved by his father’s success. Yet Patckart’s ambitions led him to conscript with the navy in hopes that he could help rebuild the Torguny name within the important institution. Receiving few favors, the young alimarian was stationed as a communications officer, one of seven, on a picket vessel in the most volatile regions of Plaith.
His captain Duxarty Lunjite was young like himself, and ambitious for his own family’s sake. So his time spent in the navy had been eventful. From the time he spent as a pilot in the flyer squadrons, to the survival of many Xexus incursions into the developed zones on the ice realm, Duxarty was young, with experience. As the lead ship in their portion of the picket line they held against the Xexus, they faced the enemy often, and the ship had always pulled through. While the Lunjite were ambitious, as Patckart had always known, the family was also incredibly critical of efficiencies not being practiced.
As such Patckart was limited in most leisure, and was encouraged to spend this time researching his field and preparing for the coming shift. His personal property was too limited, not allowed anything more than what he could carry on his person, and allowed just one non issued personal pack to do so. So he was forced to adopt the ship’s life as his own. When looking into captain Duxarty’s service record, he had seen such ideas espoused by his commander, and was beginning to see how this lifestyle was his only way forward. If he wanted to gain respect for the family, his chance came with the success of the ship, and his ship’s captain.
Now at the end of his rotation his mind stayed on his work and how uneventful it was. Which for a communications officer meant he couldn’t help feeling like the usual chatter was absent from today’s scans. It made him uneasy enough to send a notice to his superior in the control deck before his replacement took over his station.
Should he have done that? It was logged under general suspicion so would it even be looked at? He couldn’t do the deeper scans from his station, and probing into the space they patrolled would alert their potential enemies. The specific Xexus marauders that might decide to attempt an incursion in this region were typically a part of the Lristhit corporate structure that had recently raised enough capital to fund raids on the vent mines that made this region of Plaith volatile, in more than one way.
Usually the chatter of these pirates was filled with taunts to one another for not being bold enough, or for not having the same level of equipment. Often because they knew in all likelihood that they were being listened to, there was also always a healthy amount of derisiveness towards the Cafererkn Navy and often his own people in general. However none of that could be heard today on the popular frequencies they used.
No one else seemed too concerned about it though so now his doubts began to creep in. His fellow officers, long cousins from the Brenglut family, Yurtis and Optur certainly weren’t. The Brengluts held a very low standing within their clan and it seemed Yurtis and Optur were resigned in their family’s forced conscription into the Navy, and therefore seemed to just barely hold up the standards of their post.
Patkart stared blankly at the grendals as they darted and dipped away from the tetrad of his limbs and his fellows as they corralled their meal into a pattern that could be dwindled away at. The conically shaped seafood were white and red tubes of protein and minerals that swam in schools all across Plaith.
Yurtis snapped one up quickly, biting into the hard shell of its red cone head, sending out a cloud of pale yellow ichor and shell fragments.
Saying while chewing, “You know Kart it concerns me how you dine on the grendies, it’s really just barbaric the way you…”
Patkart quickly demonstrated with a sharp inhale of water as he snatched two grendals and downed both one after another into his wide open mouth without a bite.
“Like this you mean?” he said afterwards.
Optur’s face twisted in disgust as he tore another writhing victim in half, “Show the poor guys some mercy Kart, the grendals have feelings too after all.” He asserted as he tossed one half into his snapping jaws while the other end let loose nervously twitching, and clouding up the space even more.
The two knew what they were doing, the blood caused the grendals to scatter in and out of formation making the whole meal more a sport. Grendals that broke out of the formation were near impossible to catch freehand and would have to be left for others later. So as the pointed swimmers flew by it was a game to snatch what could be caught before it was too late and the meal scattered.
Patkart was eating as cleanly and simply as he should, these two just insisted on being fools. As the thick clouds around them became denser the filter systems kicked on and began to clean the water, pulling it away towards a wall mounted exhaust port.
His inner dialogue was always different from what he said to them. The rapport he was building with the Brengluts was purely for the facility that these two offered when they all worked together. When they all got along everything worked fine, but when Patkart first joined the crew and was stationed with them it hadn’t been that way. Their resentment was immediately understood and adjusted to. He knew they didn’t get along, so he chose to have fun as he was. Which as it turned out was very important for the Brengluts, they knew he was from a more respected family but if he was liberal enough to indulge their foolish banter, he wasn’t all that bad of a station mate.
After the meal met his accepted standards for both consumption and socialization, Patkart quickly summoned a pod to take him to his quarters.
Yurtis whined “And with that you leave us? Grim tidings for those poor grendies, slowly turning to plume in the guts of such a boring …”
Already at the exit port Patkart cut him off, “I can see you two will be fine to finish off the rest of the school. You both look famished.”
Optur coughed out a laugh which rang in everyone’s heads for a second, as his soft body shook and giggled. While Yurtis shot a scowl at this smaller cousin, before joining the chuckle.
As his transport pod docked and the exit door opened, jets of water blasted out around the doorway keeping the mess hall waters in the mess hall. Patkart settled in the widest seat just as the pod set off in its short course through the belly of the ship. The door doubled as a view port when it wasn’t docked and his seat held the lead position.
Patkart had been spending a lot of time in the simulator getting ready for flyer duties he had coming up. Duties which he had specifically requested to progress his career. Just like he had chosen to enroll in the communications assignment, an understaffed position in high demand with the current engagements. Now that he had a position on a vessel commanded by a pilot, he knew the captain expected all of his crew to be capable pilots should the situation call for it. So rather than waiting for such assignments on a rotation, he made the move himself asking in advance.
‘The pod could be piloted, but the automatic router was always quicker and safer’ he mused, and then it happened almost within the time it took to think that. The ship was attacked by a Xexus marauder, with a band of comrades not far behind.
Patkart along with everyone on board heard and felt the attack as the marauder sent out a burst of psionic resonance. The blast ripped open a gash in the vessel and the water filled interior of the craft began to quickly drain out of one side of the hull as they flew over their ice encrusted world. Immediately the ship went into battle mode as alarms began to sound, sending the crew into action.
Quickly Patkart realized his pod was responding to the emergency all wrong and if he didn’t take control of the transport he would be pulled out of the ship with all of the water. The control deck of the ship was still underwater and close to his pod, so after taking manual control he started in the direction of the nearest entry port.
Then that sound of harmonic cutting started and Patkart knew the marauder was widening the tear in the hull to gain entry into the ships belly, he was likely held fast to the exterior in his exo-suit waiting for the water to drain before breaching. He could feel the pod being pulled down by the whirlpool forming below, and he pushed the throttle even harder, knowing it was already at max thrust. Just as the view port was aligned with the door to the control deck the water level dropped low enough that the view port was poking just above the surface. Patkart held as still as possible waiting for the indicator to light up saying the door seal could be engaged.
The tugging on the pod from below became less as the docking process began to pull on the pod instead. Slowly as the viewport creeped closer to the control deck door, the pod shook drastically like he had never felt before. Then it all stopped and the indicator lit up. The pod had a secure connection, just as the water level dropped too low for the pod to maintain the height it needed to dock. Patkart knew just how close he had come and sat for a moment in shock.
The sound of the marauder peeling away at the hole had stopped, and Patkart knew he had to keep moving as he made for the door. But when he tried to gain access to the control deck he couldn’t, the sensors had detected the air before his pod docked and automatically locked down the doors.
Patkart used the access panel to page the others on the inside, but they would no doubt be very busy trying to keep the ship in the air and as far away from the rest of the band. Suddenly Patkart looked down at a bright light coming from the smaller viewport behind where his chair was. All of the water had drained out enough and now the white light from the outside began to shine through.
As he got closer to the viewport panic began to set in when he looked directly at the opening in the hull. There the dark armored form of the marauder began creeping into the ship. Its blue armored exo-suit covered his long arachnid shaped body making it twice as large as it would be normally. He watched in horror as the Xexus surveyed the interior, his head darting around until it locked on to his pod. Looking at the red visor on its pointed helmet paralyzed Patkart with fear.
‘Why had there been no warning from the control deck! How did this happen?’ his mind raced to understand the situation.
Turning around again to the access panel he frantically paged the control deck again and again, hoping by some luck anyone on the other side would unlock the door. Glancing back at the small viewport he no longer saw the invader, but he felt the vibrations of its climbing inside the hull. He paged again one more time before his body felt the pressure change in the pod and the door opened into the commotion of Captain Duxarty’s command center.
Commander Vuriff Tresivar, who overrode the lockout and opened the door yelled, “Ensign Torguny what are you doing here?”
Patkart moved quickly out of the pod closing the door, “It’s inside, the marauder it’s in the ship!” he said as he continued to interact with the control panel.“We know, it’s a band of Lristhits, we’re trying to see how it happened but the communications center was destroyed right before the attack.” The commander responded.
‘So they are gone just like that!’ Patkart thought as he realized what the commander just told him, the other communications officers were dead. The three that took over after he and the Brengluts ended their shift.
Before he had time to dwell, the commander pressed on, “The attack overloaded the lieutenant’s station, leaving him unconscious. I need you to assume his position on an auxiliary station we have set up, I need my security officers at their posts not communications so really you arrived just in time!”
Patkart looked at the lieutenant acknowledging his orders before disengaging the pod and letting it fall into the ship. As it fell, unknown to anyone but the marauder, it managed to slam square into the armored Xexus menace sending him down from the wall he was climbing, crushing him to the floor.