Horizon

Chapter 17

The encounter with Vasara continued to shadow every discussion Nala had over the next few days. While the raider had not really said anything threatening, the revelation that Taif had worked with him left room to think something more was afoot. Perhaps he was the wheel the elf captain had referred to before taking his own life.

She had a nagging feeling that they were playing straight into the dead captains plans, but there was no evidence to support that feeling. It was frustrating and made her want to break things just so she could feel a momentary relief.

Talking with Isris turned out to be the better course of action. The Esperan had a knack for seeing things in peoples words others did not. Perhaps even more importantly, she had topics to discuss that had nothing to do with the raider. They were a great distraction from what otherwise was the dominant topic of her every conversation.

After the fourth jump away from the Therlyea system the topic finally started to be forgotten. It looked like the rest of their journey would be uneventful and that suited everyone on-board just fine. There had been enough drama and troubles already.

It took them nearly a month to reach the final star system they would stop at before their final destination. They knew for a fact this one was not inhabited by any other civilization and it was far away from the Rad'Sul territories so it seemed unlikely they would be there to give grief.

Not much happened during those days of travel. The routines of the vessel were the only things keeping everyone busy and that left a lot of free time in the hands of almost everybody. The commercial street and its various shops and restaurants saw a spike in use as the crew had more free time on their hands and spent it with their families.

Nala spent much of the time in the home tree of her parents. Despite it being void of most furniture, she still felt more at home there than she did in her actual quarters. Isris was often there with her and they sat beside the fireplace or at the large, round table that took up much of the space in the large ground floor room. They exchanged stories and Nala learned a lot about the history of the Esperans.

The fact they had been the only intelligent race on their planet was intriguing. Nala had grown in a world where there were dozens of races competing for the living space so it was exotic to hear how things could go when there was only a single intelligent race. Though she quickly found out that did not change certain things at all. There were still wars, kingdoms rose and fell. The single race found ways to divide itself and use those as excuses for massacre. It could have been something as simple as a piece of land or a different faith that triggered a conflict that cost hundreds if not thousands of lives.

But over time the Esperans had come to understand each other and the divisions had started to erode as a larger galaxy was revealed to them. It was also one of the reasons why they were so reluctant to align themselves with anyone. Only relatively recently had they learned to get along with each other, so how could they hope to get along with an entirely different race, let alone a multitude of them under a single governing body.

“How did the Union come to be?” asked Isris one time as they sat on the chairs and looked at the empty fireplace.

“Out of necessity,” replied Nala. It had been a while since she thought about the events that led to its formation. “I've told you about the Fireborn, haven't I?”

Isris nodded.

“The Fireborn had bases and completely controlled almost half of the space The Union now occupies. They were sapping magic for their own purposes and robbing others of its use. Knowing their plans for it, it could not be allowed to continue. For that reason an effort was made to unite against them amongst the races that were suffering due to their actions.”