On Trackless Seas

Chapter 04
***

I stared at the miniature elf who had spoken. She really was tiny. A grown woman scaled down to three and a half feet, according to my HUD. Blonde haired, blue eyed, tiny elf.

 

This was unexpected. Alice? I tried to think towards the shipgirl, hoping for a response.

 

I felt another click in my head of a switch being flipped and got a reply.

 

‘Ah, sorry captain. There was an energy surge from the Forerunner relic the moment it detected active teleportation in the vicinity and you were redirected there.’

 

It’s not your fault. Just something to keep in mind for later, I assured her.

 

Now, the question was how to deal with this before things spiraled out of—

 

“The gods have come! Praise be!”

 

My eyes were drawn to the source of the loud, feminine voice. This Eru was a hair taller than the blonde elf type, with large horns decorated with small silver drooping chains rising from the sides of her head through her long, black hair. She wore a set of white robes trimmed in bright green that clung to her form, making them look less like a sack and more like some sort of sexy cosplay.

 

Where the blonde with the crown was perfectly proportioned with aristocratic, if elven, features this woman was the very definition of a sexy, mature woman (at three foot eight inches tall). Thick thighs hinted at beneath the robes, wide hips, narrow waist, and a massive bust. It was topped off with a cute face set with violet bedroom eyes and full, pouty lips.

 

Before I could say anything one way or another, the… priestess? fell into a full on, forehead on the floor bow. An honest to God kowtow.

 

The woman with the crown in the very front, throne-like seat, followed immediately. Reaching out, she jerked at the hem of the dress attached to the woman at her side: an animal type girl with dog-like ears and tail with light brown hair and eyes, who seemed somewhere in the middle physically between who I suspected was the empress of this land and the priestess.

 

The crowd followed in a wave that moved from the front of the room to the very back, the sound of small people hitting their knees and foreheads hitting the ground crashing over the room.

 

Shaking off my shock and stupefaction, I decided to get control of the situation before it devolved further. Stepping over to the woman I recognized from my briefing as the empress, I took a knee before her to put me on her level, or at least close to it. Holding out my hand, I said quietly enough that only she and the woman beside her would hear, “Hey now, none of that. Stand up.”

 

Carefully lifting her head, her blue eyes locked with mine in reverence before tracking down to my hand. Slowly, she placed her hand in mine, my much larger hand looking more like a paw by comparison as it engulfed hers. I rose and pulled the little woman to her feet.

 

“Are you the ruler of this nation?”

 

Blinking at my question, she seemed to regain her wits and bearing, remembering her position. Clearing her throat, she nodded. “I am Empress Eruzonia va Erulona IV, ruler of the nation of Erulona, my Lord.”

 

“Great. May we speak in private?” I asked, looking around overtly and reminding her of where we were and just how many people were watching and listening.

 

“O-of course, my Lord!” Eruzonia immediately agreed. Looking around, she locked eyes with the priestess, who was peeking up from the floor. “We’ll use your office.”

 

With that decided she strode away at a brisk pace (for her size), her hand clutching mine tightly as though afraid I’d disappear if she let go.

 

I heard scrambling behind us and glanced back. The dog eared woman rushed to her feet and hurried to follow while the priestess likewise bolted upright and yanked a nearby woman in similar garb to her feet, pulling her into a quick whispered conversation before she scrambled to catch up. Eruzonia lead me into a hall off to the side of the main floor, passing several doors before stopping at one in particular. I noticed that while the handle of the door was at her height, the door itself was sized for someone of my own stature. Now that I was paying attention, the ceilings were all sized for human normal as well, as opposed to being closer to something like six feet—which would give them three or so feet of clearance, just as most ceilings were nine feet tall in newer American homes.

 

She opened the door and all but yanked me in behind her. The dog eared girl followed after and Eruzonia held the door just long enough for the priestess to follow before slamming it shut and throwing the bolt home.

 

“This is as much privacy as we can get, short of traveling to the palace, my Lord,” Eruzonia explained, pulling me by the hand as she moved up one of the chairs in front of the desk and took a seat. As though just realizing she had kept a death grip on me the entire time, she let go and carefully placed her hands in her lap, a faint blush spreading across her cheeks as she did.

 

“I believe introductions are in order, my Lord. As I stated before, I am Eruzonia va Erulona IV, Empress of Erulona. This,” she gestured and the dog eared girl materialized at her left hand, “is my advisor, Inumi.”

 

The now named brunette bowed at the waist. “My Lord,” she greeted quietly.

 

“And finally—”

 

“I can introduce myself, thank you Nia,” the horned woman cut the empress off.

 

While Eruzonia looked annoyed, I recognized it as the sort of long suffering look of one intimately familiar with dealing with someone else’s bullshit—mostly because my best friend and brother tended to wear that look around me from time to time.

 

“As you wish, Visa.”

 

Bowing at the waist, the horned woman said, “I am Dravis, Popess of Eru, your humble servant and Wife.” When she stood from her bow, she moved behind the desk and took a seat at the chair there, casting an annoyed look at Eruzonia, presumably for taking the chair closest to me.

 

I turned a questioning look on Eruzonia, who answered the unspoken question with no further prompting. “All sisters of Eru commit their bodies to the gods. Their vows of service are worded as vows of marriage to the gods in general, as opposed to any one specific god. Before today, it was simply interpreted as a vow of celibacy, but…”

 

“An actual, physical God changes things,” Dravis murmured, her voice on the edge on seductive.

 

Can smart matter…? I started to ask, trying to protect a thought of what I wanted to do towards Alice.

 

‘It shouldn’t be a problem, my captain.’

 

With no seat of my own, or at least not one cut to my size, I pulled off my long coat. Snapping it out like I was shaking off water, I tried to send it the mental image of what I wanted. The smart matter that made up the coat flowed and rearranged itself, producing a simple cushioned chair. Placing it at an angle so I could see both Eruzonia and her advisor, along with the Popess, I sat down. I noticed all the Eru women had gone a bit wide eyed at that.

 

Bowing a bit at the waist, I sent them a grin. Since they had given titles, I decided to put on a few airs of my own. “Kyle Wright, captain of the INSV Last Whisper.”

 

Even if it had been less than a day as far as I was concerned (those days spent unconscious didn’t count), the ship in question had still kidnapped me and named me her captain herself. The title and the position that came with it were mine, and though I wasn’t quite sure what to do with or how to deal with Alice yet, I wasn’t going to waffle on it. It was something that, now that I had it, I would claim proudly and fight to keep. A god, on the other hand? I couldn’t honestly claim that and it would be best to clear that up now before problems arose.

 

“I’m not a god, just a man. A human, from a planet called Earth. I traveled here on a space ship, currently in orbit around your sun, and my arrival here was purely by accident.”

 

The three women exchanged looks before, at some silent signal, Dravis took the lead. “Where is ‘Earth?’ Could you describe it?”

 

 

Alice’s response this time wasn’t verbal, but I felt the material of the right sleeve of my uniform jacket shift. Holding out my hand, a hologram sprang to life much like the one on the Whisper’s bridge.

 

“Earth is the third planet from the sun in my home system,” the hologram began with an aerial view of Earth, moving out to just beyond the moon, where it paused for a moment before zooming out to show a view of the solar system I was familiar with, showing the orbital paths of the planets around the sun. The Eru women stared in rapt fascination, eyes unblinking as they watched in silence.

 

“That system is home to eight or nine planets, depending on who you ask. There’s some debate over whether this one qualifies,” I tapped Pluto, floating out on its elliptical path, before rolling my eyes. “But for our purposes, and because that’s how I was taught, we’ll say it does.”

 

The view zoomed out again at my direction and I explained where the solar system was within the Milky Way galaxy, and further where that was. Then, I expanded the hologram out to the view showing the great unknown between my world and theirs before bringing it inward and eventually stopping on their planet.

 

“So, as you can see, I’m a long way from home.”

 

The three Eru women looked thoughtful at that before Dravis stood and walked over to a nearby book shelf. Pulling a particularly thick tome from the shelf, she retook her seat and began flipping through pages. Eventually, she stopped on one in particular. Smiling across the desk at me, she placed the book down and spun it around so I could see.

 

And see I did.

 

It was an illustration. An illustration of a blue and green planet with a single moon. Turning the page carefully, I found two more illustrations. The first much like the hologram I had shown: the solar system and a blue planet three out from the sun. The second: two pairs of tastefully nude men and women, one set clearly much taller and without the characteristics of the Eru.

 

“Huh,” I muttered. Alice?

 

‘I am at as much of a loss as you, captain. Perhaps the Forerunner artifact holds some answers.’

 

“Okay, look,” I began, deciding to argue the point. “I’m not a god. I eat, breathe, sleep, shit, fuck, curse, and bleed just like everyone else.”

 

“Of course,” Dravis agreed immediately. “In order to descend from the heavens and interact with mortals, a god must themselves be moral. The world, let alone a mere shell of flesh and blood, could not contain your divinity. It’s too much. Too great.”

 

Eruzonia and Inumi nodded along, but at least the blonde didn’t seem quite so fervent. Running a hand down my face in mounting frustration, I gave up on it for now. My time would be better used telling them of the threat they now faced.

 

“Putting that discussion aside,” I began, getting agreement from Eruzonia and Inumi and a contrite look from Dravis. “The reason I’m here is to warn you of a threat to your world. To put it simply, your sun is going out. Within—”

 

‘Three full months. Eru years are about twice as long as those of Earth. Months and years are measured by halves. They get two sets of four seasons per full year.’

 

“—Three full months it will have gone dim enough for your oceans to freeze, along with everything else on the planet.”

 

The women shared another of those silent conversations. This time it was Eruzonia who was elected to speak on their behalf. “I assume this is not a courtesy visit to warn us of our impending demise and advise us to start praying. What can we do to avert or survive this catastrophe?”

 

Immediately to business—no denials, no begging for me to solve their problem for them, just jumping straight to what they could do about it. I liked that. “We’re working on a solution on our end. There’s no way to fix the star. We can’t undo the damage already done or slow it down, either. The only viable option is relocation.”

 

Inumi spoke up, a look of shock on her face. She seemed to catch on the fastest and realized the implications first. “Relocation? Of how many? If the number is low, we’ll have to implement a lottery system…”

 

The others caught on, but I was quick to allay their fears. “Thankfully, no. We should be able to get you all. That’s what we’re working on: expanding the Whisper and her facilities to accommodate everyone. It’s going to be close, though. That’s where you come in. There’s going to be limited space for freight, but limited doesn’t mean none. We’re going to try to resettle you on a new world, so you’ll want to start gathering up what you think you’ll need to rebuild. We can help a bit in reconstruction, but you shouldn’t rely on us to do everything. I’d suggest stockpiles of prepared materials, tools, and the like.”

 

At a mental message from Alice, I added, “Additionally, things like books and culturally significant items you feel you can’t live without. It would help if families gathered food and clothing for transport as well, before the move. You’ll be making the trip asleep, essentially. No need for food or water in transit, but once you get there it would be useful to have those things prepared. We can’t really bring your livestock, but we can grow new ones on a new world, assuming they’re compatible.”

 

The trio were silent for a few moments as they digested that, before Dravis spoke in a reverent whisper. “The Great Pilgrimage is upon us. I never thought it would be in my lifetime.” Turning to her companions, her purple eyes had gone wide and taken on a fervent look. “We must prepare! I’ll go tend to the flock.”

 

Standing shakily, Dravis hurried from the room. Inumi followed, adding a one word explanation as she went. “Logistics.”

 

Eruzonia sighed deeply, or as deeply as she could. “Those two.” Shaking her head, she met my gaze and asked, “Were we the first ones you reached out to?”

 

“Yeah,” I agree, nodding. “You rule the nation with the largest single population of any on Eruvia. The plan was to take a day or three and teleport around from place to place, getting the word out to the ruling governments on the other continents. But with that thing intercepting teleportation…”

 

Realizing there was no time like the present, I asked, “Is there some like of, I don’t know, holy relic around here? May seem like magic or something?”

 

“There is.” Eruzonia hopped out of her seat and took my hand again. I noticed that this time, the gesture was entirely intentional. “Come, I’ll show you.”

 

I grabbed my chair, the smart matter flowing up from the floor and reconfiguring into my coat sound me without having to actually pull it on, and followed after the small woman as she hurried through the church, or whatever religious building they called it.

 

Eruzonia lead me down a set of stone stairs hidden behind a set of thick wooden doors set on well oiled hinges, which is the only way I figured someone of her stature could move a door that looked like it would have given me trouble with my old body. We walked through a corridor lit by recently installed electric lighting before coming to a large, open chamber—directly below the room where mass was held, according to my sense of direction. My HUD confirmed it.

 

Standing in the center of the room was a black, three sided obelisk with trails of glowing lights flowing up and down it. Eruzonia gasped quietly. “It’s never lit up like that.”

 

“It’s probably because it detected my beaming in.” Moving over to the obelisk, I circled around it and found that it wasn’t actually blank as I’d thought. On each side, about chest high for me, was a golden circle. When I got close to one, the circle lit up with a green palm print. It was pretty obvious what it wanted.

 

“The circles moved.”

 

“Hm?” I asked Eruzonia, my attention on my HUD as the sensor suite built into my new body tried and failed to get more than a surface scan, which came back inconclusive.

 

Reaching out, she laid a hand against the side of the obelisk. “They were always right here.”

 

So, they moved when it detected my presence. Made sense, if its user interface was smart enough. Eru height for Eru, human height for humans. Reaching out, I laid my right hand against the surface of the obelisk, inside one of the golden circles.

 

 

I felt something in my brain itch.

 

 

Images and words flooded my mind before resolving into a menu. Alice, you getting this?

 

‘Yes, captain. Just leave your hand on the artifact.’

 

 

 

 

I stood there for a while, no longer seeing menus in my mind, while Alice was silent. Finally, I got a message stating that the transfer was compete.

 

‘There’s a lot of data here. It’ll take me a while to go over everything. I’m sorry I can’t provide results faster, captain.’

 

 

‘Yes, unfortunately. It’s a safeguard against anyone trying to use beaming technology to get cute. Everything that isn’t human bounces into space and nothing can be beamed off world. I can turn the obelisk off now that we have administrator access, but I would rather wait until we’re ready to transport the Eru to do so. In the meantime, foreseeing the need for speedy transportation, I’ve sent a care package. It’s not a combat drop ship, but I’m sure you’ll like it.’

 

 

“I’m done here,” I told Eruzonia and the small ruler took my hand again and lead me topside.

 

As we walked, she asked, “How do you intend to reach the other nations? It is roughly two days of travel to our nearest neighbor to the east. It could take years to cover just the territory I rule over. Even if we sent messengers right now to each kingdom individually and ordered them to send messengers and so forth, it would still take longer than you’ve said we have.”

 

“Alice—that is, the ship’s controlling mind—sent down transportation from the Whisper. It won’t be as fast as teleportation, but it’ll be good enough.”

 

She nodded. “Good. I will accompany you myself, then.”

 

Her statement was so decisive and authoritative that I almost agreed reflexively. I had barely been in command of my own ship and crew of technically two for little more than a day. This woman had ruled an empire for at least a few years now and had been born and bred into it. I took notes, but ultimately it was my decision.

 

“What makes you say that?” I wasn’t against the idea, I just wanted to hear her reasoning. “Don’t you have duties as empress?”

 

“Inumi will handle those,” she waved my concern off and I mentally adjusted Inumi’s position, or at least authority, upwards from ‘advisor’ to something more along the lines of equivalent to a vice president. Or maybe majordomo. I needed more information before I made a call one way or another.

 

“As for why, allow me to answer a question with a question. Do you have someone in mind who can navigate Eru politics, has had contact with the rulers of those nations, and who won’t immediately send them either to the ground kneeling or up in arms claiming you’re an impostor? My presence would lend you credibility.”

 

I shot her a knowing look. “And mine gives you the backing of, if not a god, then at least someone with resources and technology your people don’t have. Also, makes you look like you’re in good with the savior of your people.”

 

Rather than being offended, Eruzonia beamed a happy smile up at me. “I can tell you’re new to this. Politics and your position both. However, you grasp at least that much. That is very promising. If you don’t mind, I would like it if we could become closer—drop the formalities when we’re in private, at least. Please captain, call me Nia.”

 

“If you’ll call me Kyle,” I agreed easily. I was not a kiss-ass by nature. I had been raised to be polite, but I would much prefer a more informal relationship if I was going to be working with her for any prolonged period of time.

 

Our ride became obvious when it dropped out of the sky nearly on top of us. At eight feet long, it had a look very much in keeping with the Whisper’s aesthetic: sleek, angular, dark, and deadly.

 

 

‘Close enough. The flight controls are very simple and it uses a force field to protect against wind and debris. It’s armed with a pair of rapid fire rail guns and a main energy beam, but I don’t think you’ll need it. Have fun.’

 

“Have fun, she says,” I muttered, climbing up onto the bike. Holding out a hand, I helped Eruzonia up basically into my lap, the dress forcing her to ride side-saddle. “We should probably stop by your castle or palace or whatever and let them know I’m borrowing you.”

 

Eruzonia chuckled. “Palace. And yes, I imagine they would panic a bit at news of my kidnapping. I would also appreciate some time to set things in motion before we depart. Would you be okay with waiting for the morrow?”

 

“That’s fine,” I agreed. “Hold on.”

 

The bike lifted up and Nia squealed as I gunned it a bit once we cleared the buildings.