4. Schism

“There is no authority, no honour, in a beheaded family. I truly, worryingly, do not know what they will see fit to do next.” - Hasni Kor-Azor, Imperial geopolitical analyst of House Kor-Azor.”

The great tower now loomed so large before them that Joaquin Farrad had to crane his neck to see anything but its immense form. Jutting infinitely into the evening sky, it flashed and flickered with thousands upon thousands of caution beacons, often the only warning that stopped shuttles from crashing into it at night or times of heavy fog.

He followed the old Caldari down this street with some trepidation. A half hour prior, as they stopped to sip hot mugs of tobacco tea - a loathsome concoction Shogaatsu insisted he try - Farrad finally worked up the courage to ask why the old man had brought him to New Caldari. His cryptic response did little to allay the Gallente fetishist’s concerns.

“We’re going to place a personal wake-up call to an old friend.”

Having told him many stories of his reviled reputation on New Cal, Farrad found it peculiar that Shogaatsu chose to boldly enter the corporate tower through the front entrance - here, in plain view of thousands of office workers streaming out onto the streets and heading to whatever unremarkable grey habitat-cubes the Caldari people lived in.

He would simply have to get used to some discomfort and anxiety while working for the old man, he thought - his own motivations hardly altruistic, he knew well enough to jump on a good thing when it came along. Shogaatsu was clearly an individual whose word had enough weight to send ripples through any pond; his taste for political games on a scale too difficult to wrap one’s head around enthralled and excited Farrad, and he found himself gravitating to Shogaatsu like a moth to flame.

Now if only he could avoid getting burned.

He remembered vividly the first favour asked of him - some years ago, he had been the architect in the assassinations of a number of Gallente chief justices. He was never certain whether to admire or condemn Shogaatsu’s methods of operation - it seemed that death followed his every decision, and he wielded his political clout with all the finesse of a wrecking ball, abducting, torturing, interrogating and killing whenever the chance presented itself. At first he viewed it as immoral, but Joaquin Farrad soon discovered that the sight of one’s wallet swelling like a blood-gorged slaver tick had a remarkable sedative effect on the moral centre of the human mind.

They turned from the cavernous main lobby into an adjacent hall, Shogaatsu nodding a subtle gesture of recognition to the guards stationed therein, who quickly responded in kind - hated or not, he was still locally connected, noted the fetishist. They approached a simple door, recessed into a wall in a fashion that would not betray its nature upon cursory inspection and no different than a half dozen similar niches beside it. As Farrad watched curiously, Shogaatsu removed his ever-present reflective glasses and leaned close to the wall.

“Ident-pattern absent. Access denied.”

The disembodied machine-voice buzzed and echoed through the hall, startling Farrad as he absently dug around in his nose, quite oblivious to the disapproving glares his excavation was garnering. Shogaatsu froze for a moment with a sideward glance of mock-embarrassment. “Oh, I forgot…” he muttered.

As Farrad watched Shogaatsu hold his eye open and touch the iris with his index finger, he noted that upon every meeting he discovered something interesting about the old man - as Shogaatsu slid the brown-coloured contact lens aside and removed it from his eye revealing the bleached white iris and piercing narrow pupil beneath, the Gallente found himself mildly surprised yet again.

The hidden scanner whirred and chirped, reviewing its memory drive for a matching eye signature. “Ident-pattern accepted. Welcome to the main access corridor, president.”

Shogaatsu smiled, replacing the lens. “You don’t know how difficult it was to bribe the new building administrator to leave my old authorizations in place!” he chirped jovially over his shoulder as Farrad followed him into the sinking dark corridor. He could sense the smell of the air change, become more hostile as they travelled farther and deeper into the techno-metallic catacombs beneath the great tower - as they descended through what seemed like dozens of floors on a rapid downward elevator, he noted that the ambient aroma was no longer that of acrid pollution, but that of musty forgotten secrets. The layer of dust covering every inch of ground he could see, and the ill-maintained grind and wheeze of automated doors as they parted before them, confirmed Farrad’s suspicion: no-one had been down here in a very long time.

Farrad cracked a grin. “So your friend lives in the basement? Is he grounded?” - His attempt at brightening the mood was met with silence from Shogaatsu, who simply pointed through a large double doorway and continued down the corridor. Farrad peered in.

“Would you look at that thing.”

Barely visible in the low light, it stood at least six to eight storeys - a great dodecagon of plating and machinery strung up with a thousand cables and conduits, and thus suspended from the ceiling of the dark laboratory, in design vaguely reminiscent of a rudimentary star-gate. A few flickering displays and monitors betrayed the slightest hint of activity from the room, which Farrad noticed was somehow heavy with a charged energy he could not immediately quantify; one that made the pit of his stomach feel as though it were sinking. “What is it?” he asked, finally tearing himself away from the doorway and chasing after the Caldari as he disappeared into shadows.

“A piece of long ago”, Shogaatsu replied. Though he couldn’t see the old man’s face, from his tone Farrad could tell he was smiling.

+ + +

Even through the metre-thick glass of the Minmatar military station’s long and narrow windows, the heat of a distant orange star warmed the icy warrior’s exposed skin. Hamish stared almost directly at it, defiant of the blinding light even as it squeezed tears from his eyes - now aware of the good Commodore Vuylsteke’s grim fate, he wondered to himself if what he saw was anything like the last thing she witnessed as her ship fell toward its burning end.

There was no turning back now, he knew this much - it was his word that commissioned the murder of Hielena Vuylsteke, and it was nothing less than that; cold, calculated murder. Whether by coincidence or some sick premeditation, his previous resignation attempt went un-filed; the orange documents lost somewhere a dozen systems away before they had a chance to be catalogued. In essence he now had a second chance at life away from the Republic Navy - a second chance he was about to capitalize upon.

Blotting out the painfully vibrant sun came the silhouette of a Minmatar ship of war; the Vondur - an antiquated beast which carried somewhere within its hulk a replacement officer, one slated to assume the late Commodore Vuylsteke’s post.

Finding his comrade standing at the window staring at the sun with a rarely seen haunted expression on his face, Ormazd crept up to Hamish quietly. When the taller warrior didn’t notice him, he cleared his throat, gazing off into the same star-lit distance.

“Guess you know about the Commodore, then?” Ormazd pried, trying to sound as indifferent as possible.

“Oh, ah…” Hamish stuttered as he noticed his friend now standing beside him. “Yeah, I heard. Some kind of accident on the bridge, no trace of the ship found aside from some deck plates and debris. I don’t know anything more than what everyone’s heard,” he finished almost defensively.

“I bet you hadn’t heard about her clones.”

“Hmm?” Hamish’s gaze was still fixed straight ahead.

“Her clones. An officer of her rank is mandated by the Navy to keep four separate clones on standby in case of war or foul play, whatever. All four of her fucking clones have been wasted as well. Bombs. The newsletters aren’t saying jack, but everyone’s got their ideas as to why. It’s frightening… that much organization to kill an officer nearing retirement and way past her prime? Have you ever heard of anything like that before?”

Ormazd turned to look at Hamish, who had not moved - in fact, the taller warrior was almost oblivious to Ormazd’s query. He was indeed aware of the destroyed clones, but not by hearing of it - he was by now quite familiar of Shogaatsu’s modus operandi through hearsay and gossip.

Receiving no response, he continued. “Shitty way to go.”

Uncharacteristically, Hamish smiled. “Probably. But there is a certain convenience to the old bat’s death, don’t you think?” The glint of orange starlight in his eye as he briefly turned to meet his friend’s gaze was now bordering on ominous.

“Convenience? The fuck’s wrong with you, that’s not the sort of language I’d use to describe the assassination of the one person keeping this entire area in check. So she was a tight-ass, I don’t see anyone else on this station that could talk down an Ammatar war-host. Worse still, I hear talk that the new guy’s some sort of brass-chasing bootlick with no real time on the field.”

“I’m gambling on it”, Hamish retorted wryly. “Come to think of it, I should get going. I need to talk to the bootlick soon as he settles in. Catch you later, blood.”

Slowly, the tall Minmatar backed away from the window. Ormazd turned to see him off. As Hamish turned away, Ormazd’s eyes could not help but fall to the sheaf of orange forms protruding from a rear pants pocket. In that instant, doubts and mistrusts began to ferment in his mind, things he felt guilty to even suspect his comrade of being involved in. His mind swam with troubling possibilities.

“Yeah… catch you later.”

+ + +

Farrad pressed his palms against the frigid plastic barrier that separated him from the contents of the bizarre bubbling stasis-tank. Frost nipped at his skin, and he leaned closer and closer, attempting to make out the blurry human silhouette contained within. Here, in what felt like the deepest and most foreboding recesses of subterranean halls and corridors, stood rows upon rows of these ice-coffins; some dark and deactivated, and a few - like the one before him - were filled with a pale blue light. He could now feel the painful radiant chill of the cryogenic sarcophagus, and through the wall of plastic and thermo-phobic gel within it he could just barely begin to resolve the features of a face.

“An old ally, in case you were wondering”, Shogaatsu started. “A loyal aide. He was part of an internal police force for the old Endless Corporation… the least I owe him is to retrieve him from this crumbling mausoleum.”

Farrad chuckled. “Do you make a habit of freezing all your loyal allies? Should I invest in a parka?”

“You don’t know the half of it. Clone repositories are so vulnerable these days, a bomb here, an injection of ribosome cohesion inhibitor there and a lifetime’s legacy is erased… or at least so drastically mutated as to be non-feasible. We kept a lot of people stored here at one time. Hell, I think I’ve still got a wet-copy of the galley cook from the Endless command carrier somewhere around here. That man could whip up the best, spiciest pot of Achuran rassarat I’ve ever tasted. I wonder if his family misses him.”

“I find your utter disregard for human life offensive and frankly a little arousing!”, Farrad shrieked incredulously, a wide but nervous grin spreading across his face.

Istvaan merely shook his head in bemusement. “See those five levers on the side of the tube? Why don’t you pull those down all the way, until you hear them click”, he said, smirking and taking two subtle steps back.

With a rapid hiss, the plastic barrier slid upward and out of sight, leaving a wall of semi-solid gelatin standing in place, holding the shape of the tube for the brief moment before it collapsed with a vile sticky noise, piling itself high around the surprised Farrad’s knees. The room filled with the acrid chemical stink of tissue preservatives, and Istvaan stepped forward just in time to catch the falling body in his arms as it lurched forward from the sarcophagus.

Grunting and steadying himself under the surprising weight of the pale carcass, Istvaan winced, realizing his suit was now covered with the reeking blue stasis-matter. “Welcome back to the world of the living, Inquisitor Doradus”, he muttered.

As the clearly displeased Mr. Farrad kicked his way free of the mound of gel around his legs, Shogaatsu dragged the body to a nearby steel table, breathing laboriously under the load. The table, bordered by runoff channels, would appear to be a dissection bench were it not for the instrument panels hanging from its lip. Farrad appeared at the Caldari’s side to ease his burden, and only then noticed that the washed-out unnatural looking man was entirely too tall to be normal, and that his torso and limbs were covered by what looked like suture lines. The Caldari noticed Farrad tracing the maze of surgical wounds on the clammy stranger’s body.

“I think you two will get along. Doradus is also quite familiar with body-mods, although his are somewhat more purpose-oriented than your decorations.”

“How long has he been in that icebox?” Farrad queried, running a finger across the pale blue skin of the spider-like man. He found it jarring and unpleasant to the touch, like the underbelly of an eel. He could not explain why, but his discomfort and anxiety was growing in magnitudes.

“Three, four years now… it has been a time, now that you mention it.”

“Four years and you expect him to wake up?”, Farrad cooed curiously. He had gleaned a wealth of knowledge on the myriad subjects pertaining to cryogenics in his colourful years at the Caduceus. “You realize his cell walls are most likely torn to shit? Probably irrecoverable, you’re going to have to clone him. Ice crystals form in the -“

His sentence incomplete largely in part to the bizarrely elongated arm which silently shot up to his neck and seized his windpipe like some manner of nightmarish many-jointed vise, the terrified Farrad found himself suddenly lifted a few inches from the ground. His eyes bulging and watering, he looked down at the atrophied-looking arm, and watched in horror as just beneath that clammy skin, there coiled and writhed what looked to be serpentine fiber bundles. His frantic gurgling and struggling alerted the Caldari, who quickly jogged back to the table and leaned down close to the Inquisitor’s ear.

“Doradus, stand down. This is Istvaan.”

Fighting himself free of the slackening grip, Farrad tumbled backwards falling back into the mound of stasis gel. His heart pounded and he felt the blood rushing behind his reddened eyes. “What the fuck! What the fuck! What is he!”

“Resilient, for one. Note how he didn’t need a warm-up cycle? It’ll take him a few hours to come to his senses yet, but basic motor control is up and running already. Luckily for you, basic comprehension as well.”

Gathering himself but still clearly shaken, Farrad rubbed his throat tenderly, the garish impression of the Inquisitor’s fingers clearly visible upon it. “I’ve never seen anything like that. I have also never been this afraid! I fucking think it’s high time you dropped the ‘mysterious enlightened manipulator’ act and told me what’s what, sugarplum!”

Shogaatsu nodded slightly. Having nearly gotten his companion killed, the least he could do was explain. “As mentioned above, the good Inquisitor was part of an internal corporate police force. He was also a personal guard, and I dare say somewhat of a friend. In the days of Endless Corporation’s runaway expansion, our ranks filled with pilots whose undesirable tendencies - some criminal, some behavioural - had to be kept in check.”

Farrad stood motionless, transfixed by the sudden heaving of the outstretched giant’s chest as he expelled a few cups of blue gel through his mouth and nose, and took his first rasping breath in four years.

“Doradus is what you would no doubt refer to as a total swap-job. Few of his internal organs are his own, his bones are ceramic-infiltrated composite lattice, and most of his musculature consists of artificial fiber; boosted senses by means of some really advanced cranials, and a few other bells and whistles… for example, the anxiety you now undoubtedly feel is a direct result of modified apocrine glands which secrete large amounts of engineered fear pheromones - don’t worry, you grow accustomed to those rather quickly.”

“So he’s a bloody turbocharged scarecrow?” Farrad howled, a hint of incredulousness peeking through his wary expression.

“Scarecrow, enforcer, fixer, you name it. Who said nothing good comes of slavery.”

Farrad cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t follow?”

Istvaan placed a hand on the Inquisitor’s chest, and smiled approvingly as he felt the wraith-like man draw breath. “The technology used in modifying Heraeus - that’s his first name, by the way - is borne of Amarr human endurance experiments. The roots of his being lie in their attempts to make a slave work-force better able to endure harsh environments; we merely weaponized it, first in the commando units of the Endless Corporation navy, and then in a perfected form - the Inquisitors.”

“How many of these are there?”

“Doradus is the only one present here. The others… lost. Whether to bureaucracy or violence I don’t know. I hear tales of former corporate inquisitors finding lives in the Sarum family for example, but cannot say for certain what became of them.”

“Saaaaaarum…”

Farrad leapt a few steps away in fright as the soggy mess lying and heaving on the steel bench parroted Shogaatsu’s words. The latter leaned down again, and spoke. “You just gather yourself up, old friend. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

+ + +

The spitting image of a cat having consumed a proverbial canary, Hamish Ramatakhlan peeked comically from the doorway of the new Commodore’s office, his mischief-lit gaze meeting that of Ormazd, who until that moment had been anxiously pacing a hole in the adjoining corridor’s deck plating.

“Went well, did it?” he shot off.

Hamish nodded, waving a sheaf of orange forms, stamped and signed off for approval.

“Why am I not surprised”, droned the shorter Matari emphatically. “You’re on a lucky streak recently.”

“Some days, the strands of fate come together just right”, Hamish deflected, a disarming grin invading his expression, utterly oblivious to the origin of his quotation. “I suppose I should start getting packed. Are you coming?”

Ormazd half-turned on his heel, mulling the question over. His own bundle of rectangular orange forms weighing disproportionately heavy upon his vest pocket, he found his thoughts again wondering to the amount of loyalty he felt for his comrade. His comrade who in recent weeks had begun changing in character; whom he punished himself for daring to suspect but whom he now suspected nonetheless of play most foul. On one shoulder sat the angel reminding him of the potential and prestige of a career in the Republic Navy; on the other, sat a devil - needless to say what it whispered.

“Ah, hell…”

“Glad to hear it”, Hamish sang. “I’m chartering a shuttle three days from now, that should give us enough time for at least one going-away party with the fellas from squad.”

“A shuttle to where?” Ormazd queried as he stepped up to the Commodore’s door.

“Matar. Capital City.”

+ + +

The chilling effect of the towering Inquisitor’s bio-engineered aura of terror having subsided considerably upon him, Joaquin Farrad now revelled in the bewildered looks he and his companions were garnering. Always delighted to be the focus of attention, he mused that a seven-foot tall ash-skinned monstrosity and a heavily scarred Gallente surgery fetishist were not common sights on these conservative streets. His eyes peeled for any sign of nightlife, Farrad found himself disappointed time and again with each road crossed - undaunted, he skipped forward with the glee of a heavily medicated child, passer-by giving the apparent madman a wide berth; he would find a dance club if it was the last thing he did.

Istvaan Shogaatsu and the Inquisitor Heraeus Doradus walked shoulder-to-shoulder, allowing the hyperactive Gallente to dart ahead of them. For the longest stretch of time they were silent, having exchanged a warm handshake upon the Inquisitor’s resurrection - yet both were clearly glad to be reunited, Shogaatsu demonstrating it with a subtly brighter countenance, and Doradus appearing altogether thrilled, a thin-lipped upward grimace cracking his ghastly face like a fracture in old plaster.

“You do not know how good it feels to use my eyes again.”

“I suppose this will do!”, screamed Farrad at the top of his lungs from nearly a block away, terrifying a waiter wiping down empty street-side tables. Feigning excitement to hide his disappointment at the lack of available nightlife, the Gallente gestured to the small after-hours cafe he had spotted that thankfully sold a limited selection of alcoholic libations.

The three men sat at a table, their tensions unwinding under the soothing midnight breeze that whipped through the streets of the great city. As Farrad held up three fingers to the waiter indicating the number of drinks he wanted, the two others nodded to each other slightly.

Shogaatsu started. “Well, there’ll be time for more pleasantries later. I suppose we should get down to it.”

“Indeed”, seethed the Inquisitor, his unsettling voice bearing a cadence more serpentine than human. “While I slept, a feed of news data meant to keep my cognitive tissues safe from atrophy kept me abreast to global events…”

“Good. Then you know of the succession in the Empire, and of the decapitation of House Sarum.”

“Yes… it troubled me greatly when it occurred, this I recall. What of our ties to House Sarum?”

Istvaan nodded thanks as the waiter sidled over to their table, an over-loaded tray heavy with drinks precariously balanced upon his head. Taking his trademark cup of steaming tobacco tea and running a finger over the edge, he resumed speaking.

“I’m afraid House Sarum is no longer suited to our needs or disposed to aid us. Our greatest bargaining chips with them are gone; the products manufactured by the Endless Corporation, the ties of loyalty and common interest to the late house matriarch… even Sabaoth Incorporated, our mirror and hand in the Empire has gone dormant - while I am certain this is not permanent, they are little use to us now.”

“Have they truly fallen from grace so utterly?”

Istvaan leaned forward over his cup, inhaling the vapours thoughtfully. His words took on a portentous gravity. “There is a great schism coming in the Empire of the Amarr. I do not foresee this Emperor remaining in power much longer. House Sarum worries me most in this regard, for they are now more than ever without guidance - without an appointed successor, they are reduced to militant and combative system lords vying to out-slaughter each other for a shot at the prize. The potential for extremism is greatest in members of that Imperial family, but there are other driving factors present as well. The Tash-Murkon, the Khanid, even the Emperor’s bastard son - the greatest danger to the Amarr, it seems, will come from within.”

The Inquisitor ponderously swirled a popular soft drink in its container, having ordered it largely for appearances. “Yet our objectives remain unchanged…”

“Indeed.”

“If our dealings with the Amarr are to be at an end, or at least indefinite hiatus… who will you next employ to advance your agenda? The Caldari State no longer welcomes you with open arms, and the Gallente would sooner hang you from the light posts around the crystal boulevard than aid in your machinations. By process of elimination, that leaves…”

Shogaatsu grinned from behind his cup of tea, digging around in his suit pocket with a free hand. He placed a metal-edged business card flat on the table, turned it one hundred and eighty degrees with his fingers to face the Inquisitor, and slid it toward him.

“… The Tribal Trust of Pator.”