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The Chieftains' Logs
[13/03/826]
When will the Sabik return?
Days stretch into weeks, months, astral seasons. We train, diligently; we work the mining shifts, as all Errai do, and wrestle with the accounting; learn the subtleties of our vessels and intricacies of our plants.
All necessary, given our standing, but when will it end?
We have come of age during its absence. We know enough to operate on our own, we know our history, we know our obligations to the Kith.
We have started keeping these logs, even, as if we were the chieftains - a simple means to occupy these long waits, she told the reluctant brother, disregarding omens, and grow accustomed to one of the most common duties of leaders and captains alike.
We are ready, and yet here we stand; waiting, and training, and waiting, for news of the fleet and of our venerable father.
For his proud warship to breach the nebulae shrouding Jakarta and boast of the riches won, the battles fought, the sights seen; his roaring laughter, his confident and inspiring gaze, his resolute command. When will we join him?
When will the Sabik return?
[07/07/826]
The sister is restless, the brother sullen.
He speaks again of ill omens, of violently bright and alien lights in the north, searing to the eye, and lidless eyes staring, wreathed in lightning; the instruments detect nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual traffic of Guilders.
And as ever, the Sabik or its fleet are not in its midst.
She knows not what to make of his visions, borne of that mystic orange haze; and his omens - the winking of constellations, a repeated specific pattern in the influx of data - all sound too much like coincidence, or strained nerves.
No blame shall be passed. It cannot be helped.
One year has passed by now, today being the very eve of the fleet's departure. We still see it: the festive tracer fire outside and the joyous clash of aquamarine lights on the assembled vessels, the chanting of propitiatory hymns, the tales of fortune and bravery awaiting, the well-wishes and the hugs, the long last night on Terra Firma, spent making merry around the fires.
A mere one year. It feels like a decade, and the searing longing that comes with it.
[12/08/826]
Enough of this unending wait. We act.
"If the sea will not come to Eduum-Mat, then Eduum-Mat must go to the sea", recited the ancient proverb; a simple wisdom, perhaps, but one we should have sooner heeded instead of left confined to the realm of abstract precept.
Hindsight, as ever, is as sharp as it is merciless.
She took for herself a Manaslu, and bid four other among our Kithsmen to join her search; he reached out to the crews of Guild and freelancer Corvos alike, purchased their eyes and sensors, and set out to process their reports.
Where to look, we know not yet. We act regardless, starting from the northern fringes; it was there the Sabik was last seen, far too long ago, and it is there that we will trace its steps.
And pray we have not moved too late.
[28/11/826]
It defies reason. Where IS it?
Scouring the north availed us little, close calls with the residing raider lords aside; expanding outwards was met with similar insuccess, remarkable though some of the systems charted may have been.
The research vessels found little of note themselves, certainly nothing pertaining to our venerable father or his fleet; however, an item of some note has emerged.
Motes of starlight, some report, hovering about a handful of very specific places - wrecks, but only some - like tormented souls, and just like them impervious to any and all analysis, assault or physical contact.
She is doubtful of their significance; he is unsettled but darkly fascinated, and wishes to see them for himself.
The legends of old are rife with such phenomena, as he well knows, and hopes they may aid in the search. She suspects it is his visions that beckon him, those lidless eyes of lightning and those alien blinks.
For want of clearer options, we will seek out these motes.
Here, fortunately, we know where they are.
[14/03/827]
What are these things?
Scientific reports differ considerably in their theories, and the phenomena accompanying these sparks are just as varied. Some phase in and out of existence at regular intervals; some appear to hum a sort of sound at varying pitches, almost as if singing; in some we believe to have glimpsed something, a fleeting movement within or perhaps a shadow.
It is both fascinating and frustrating, in equal measure, and ever surprising. Nevertheless, we fear this may not bring us any closer to an answer.
We compile what we can and observe their behaviour, but we cannot in good conscience say whether it will amount to anything; he, too, finds his initial faith in this course of action shaken and continues delving in his tomes, while she plots new search missions.
There will be ample time to reflect on the data acquired as we proceed.
[07/07/827]
A dead end. Another, and another, and another.
All we have collected are dead ends; nowhere we search, no matter what we do, nothing is what we find. No signals, no hulks, no beacons, no wrecks.
As if some dark beast of the depths surfaced and swallowed them whole, never to return.
Two years have gone by, on this very day. A less festive occasion we cannot recall, and what kithmen still remain with us are similarly dejected; they have given their all in the search, as have we, and yet it amounted to nothing.
Not even the brother's visions could shed light on this mystery.
Does it even matter, at this point?
To us, it does; to our laws, it does not. The chieftain has been missing for this long, with none able to find them or their men - by rights, their successors are now the chieftains.
Thus was decreed in centuries past, to ensure the Kitha would endure and prosper in the face of adversity, and we have always seen the wisdom in this.
It still caught us by surprise, the realisation, when one of ours came to us and asked, "what shall we do now, kithai?"
He was taken aback, she recoiled. We never thought this would happen; that our venerable, wise and brave father would join the ever-growing ranks of fools lost to space and greed, and not make his triumphant return at our stardock.
That we would become chieftains not by the virtue of our merits, charged in solemn ceremony by him and his advisors, but by his absence and an expectant question, spoken in a deserted hangar bay.
She was the first to recover. A glint in her eye, as sparks struck from metal, and the shade of a smile accompanied her words.
"We pay our dues and our respects. We scrape by what resources remain, salvage what we can, and rebuild our fleet. We endure, and we will prosper."
[21/07/827]
We did not expect this to be simple. We did not expect this to be so hard either.
The scale of the former fleet is staggering, and our hearts sank when we realised we had only ever seen a fraction of what the kith consisted of, let alone those who would man it all.
And now it's gone.
We do not mean to speak ill of the dead, suns forbid, no. It is no fault of their own, we think and hope. But it stands as fact that they are gone, and we are left with nothing; not a ship, nor a message, nor a sign. Lost, to the fathomless depths of the void.
And the losses are very much commensurate.
We set to work, nevertheless. To dwell overlong on such matters is to invite further misfortune.
First in the order of things, it was to ascertain the entity of the losses, and by our reckoning it will take a fraction of the former fleet to pay for the fallen's farewells; several tens of millions, then, to restore the baseline of those fleets, our former mining freighters. To speak nothing of the rest.
Tens of billions, conservatively estimated, would be the amount of our dues.
We have not a tenth of that, and we have nothing to draw it from in a befitting fashion. What work could we perform, when we have no tools, no men, no means to acquire them?
It is most unpleasant, painful even to think of, but our only choice appears to be what she spoke of - scrape by what we can, salvage what we cannot, and crucially, relinquish our ancient hold.
The palace of many memories, of triumphs shining and hardships bleak, of countless lives led. Its vast thoroughfares, the bustling markets lining the corridors, the promenades and the gardens-- this and more, it accompanied us all for so long as we have lived. It is our home.
And it will be no more.
[31/07/827]
We speak.
Amidst thin plumes of orange smoke and draped in the ancestral habits, ivory silks and azure lapis with gilt inlaids and our gauntlets, we address what little remains of the Kith on the topmost deck.
His voice, soft and sombre, resounds through Qadesh, the Garden of Stars.
The ripple of the echo, as it first came upon his ears, silenced him - shaken, deeply and painfully, he was, as he recalled times when one's voice struggled to breach the hubbub of hundreds of souls basking in the floral beauty.
He faltered, and the sister took his hand and exchanged a look of shared sorrow, and nodded. He blinked away the mist in his eyes, caught his breath and began anew, to lead the funerary rites.
The last farewell - to theirs, to us, to home.
Her gaze swept the monumental garden, ignoring its verdant delights for the tired and dejected expressions of their kithsmen, as the brother entreated stars and deities alike to bestow their blessings on the departed.
As he struggled, in spite of all his erudition and profound knowledge of the ways, she held his hand and looked on calmly, resolutely - all the while driving her own anguish within.
His memories are hers. The ties he made, the sights he saw, the dreams he dreamt, are hers as well; his pain, too, is hers, and as he struggled, she fought back with all her might the urge to curse and rage.
Against who or what, it was of no moment - there was only anger at an unjust turn of fortune, judgement passed on by an uncaring universe.
She treasured it.
It fell upon her to speak, at last.
The anger she felt was then released, channeled in a show of defiance at the vagaries of fate; a pledge to hold their ground and stand against the oncoming storm, and emerge victorious as they ever did. To endure, to rebuild, to prosper.
Spirited vows, spoken from the soul and on the crest of emotion, and all the more gripping for it.
They all clung together, a chain of man - and spoke, shouted their vow for all to listen, be they kith or stars or gods.
Only later, as the haze of emotion cleared and only we remained in the Garden, would she come to regret them. To promise without certainty of one's ability to uphold their word is to betray, but the fumes - they stir the heart, awaken the senses, set the mind ablaze.
One speaks out of turn, says she in disapproval; one voices their true self, says he in consolation.
No matter.
"The vow is spoken, and it shall be upheld", say we, and kneel in prayer for one last time.
To our forefathers, to their legacy, to the path they carved for us to walk, we render thanks and honour their memory - that they bestow upon us the wisdom to see it through.
We pray, in the Garden of Qadesh, that we may one day return.
[18/12/827]
As we record , it occurs to us it has lain forgotten for longer than anticipated.
The exertion of hard work and dutiful planning caught up to us with greater haste than our obligations to posterity.
We rectify posthaste.
A clear path has been charted and pursued, arduous as it is.
As the sister first called for, what could be salvaged and repurposed was, and what could not was sold for scrap to our Rheinlander acquaintances at ALG; ever friends of our noble father, and just as friends of the bounties of vanquished metal he would return.
They offered fair prices, we took them; with the credits, we secured one of their older heavy transports of the Uruz class, and upon it laid the foundation of our future work.
Independence has ever been a tenet of our Kith, a distinctive element; whereas many would settle and weave intricate schemes and alliances, we moved on the wings of fortune and opportunity.
To do so effectively we relied on great convoys and the Forgeships, great mercantile and war vessels modified to bear industrial machinery, mineral refineries and production lines. Limited arrays, for we had proper stations to rely on as they went; alas, that is no longer a possibility.
The Uruz would follow in the Forgeships' steps and tread them all the heavier, Rheinland craftsmanship being almost naturally suited for heavy industry; the great struts once holding containers shall now bear assemblers and manipulators for both internal and external use if need be, and the interiors shall be turned to the traditional mineral and manufacturing facilities.
Space within shall be scarce, yes, but we will bear the discomfort - for possessing our own shipyard grants us the boon of putting all space without in reach.
With work on the Forgeship underway and those among us that may assist the ALG craftsmen already engaged, our attention turned to the next issue in line - how would we sate its ravenous appetite, once ready?
This question proved rather more easily solved, in truth, as the IMG had already approached the issue of owning and moving mining fleets; their answer was to make their worker vessels lithe and nimble enough to navigate the densest of asteroid fields like the busiest of hangar bays, and the much-celebrated Annapurna was testament to their ingenuity.
We purchased two, with what credits remained, and their gear.
Lastly, with independence being bolstered both on the front of autarchic capabilities and resources acquisition, came the final step towards ensuring it - strength.
Or a measure of it, anyway.
With the Sabik gone and its many escorts vanished, and our finances strained, there is very little we could field as a credible deterrent, even more so when there are so few veteran combat pilots left.
A different approach was needed.
As we reflected upon future routes and inquiring about potential contracts, after many days of pondering, we came to the conclusion that only with significant time and investment would we be able to mount the aforementioned forces; in the meantime, our best defence shall also be our most storied one, mobility and a far reach.
The Uruz (we have yet to find a suitable name for it; the brother is consulting his tomes) will be outfitted with what defences it can take, vast arrays of flak and point-defence batteries, but those would merely be a last resort, as the two Manaslu we acquired would serve both as surveyors, patrols and recons.
They will forewarn the fleet of movement, hostile or friendly, and afford us the time to act accordingly.
As we record, all this is little more than planning - and yet, after long languishing, a spark of excitement lights the kith's spirits.
There are goals in sight, tangible, and a path forward.
[30/03/828]
At last, the day is come.
Our Forgeship, the first of many in our aspirations, is fully converted and ready to take flight; the Annapurna freighters like the Manaslu explorers rest within its hangars, manned and ready to join her.
Thrilled chatter, excited and expectant and overjoyed, surrounds us and can be felt throughout. We join in the relief of kithi and starry-eyed hopes of the new crews, cheerfully talking with the latter she and recounting inspiring tales to the former he.
Though truthfully our accomplishments so far have been but a bandage applied over a deep, weeping gash, we confess to a pang of proud satisfaction - the bleeding was stymied, and the kith lives yet.
Not many of those who stand among us know in full the mortal peril we faced. Indeed, it is mostly our own that do; the new blood, recently recruited and came from across Sirius, only know of it in the vaguest of terms, of some misfortune that diminished us. It is correct, albeit reductive... no matter.
A swirl of multicoloured garbs and faces, many tongues familiar and foreign speaking at once; not all of it we understand, as we still struggle to grasp the many languages of Sirius, and in a hubris only now we recognise our noble father discounted their need, but it is nevertheless a most invigorating experience.
It leads the mind's eye down those lost alleys of home and their bustle, the bartering and the bantering...
Ah, see how powerfully the past beckons? For all its priceless guidance it is also a treacherous tutor, shining its faint yet vital light forward and yet lighting the past in the warm, alluring radiance of nostalgia.
We must not pay heed to it. Indeed, we must think of the present and its lynchpin - our yet unnamed Forgeship.
Thought we had already agreed upon a name we elected to wait until now to reveal it, as is traditional and auspicious.
We will stand at the helm, shoulder to shoulder, and address our kithi old and new alike - a call for silence, to be filled with the Foundation, and we will utter the name.
Aldebaran, "the one who follows", it shall be.
For we follow in the winding paths of our forefathers, ever in the Suns' light, to fortune and prosperity - and, to us, the hope of one day finding our father's last tracks we yet seek.
Faal amshal tanir tariakh.
May a thousand Suns light our path.