Broken World: Liars

Broken World: Liars (Chapter 5)

Jarl, Priest of the Tarifel

He sat on the floor, his long legs with their multiple joints folded beneath him, and prayed to God. He often did that, since he was a cleric, but today he prayed not only for the safety of the ship and the crew, the health of his parents and siblings, and that divine wisdom might be bestowed upon him.

Jarl prayed for death. He prayed for the death of every Item'qar in the ship that the scanners had detected a few hours ago. He prayed that God would destroy them before they left hyperspace. He didn't have much hope, of course. The Tarifel might be the only species that knew of the One God, but the others were nonetheless His creations, and He was not known to take sides. Still, better to ask and be disappointed than not to ask and miss an opportunity.

He ended his prayer, unfolded his legs, and stretched his wings. Then, he left the temple to see how the preparations for the fight were going. The colony's superluminal communication had broken down a few days ago, and they had not yet been able to fix it. If the Item'qar ship knew that, it could wipe them out and leave without officially starting a war.

There was, however, also the possibility that the ship had merely lost its orientation in hyperspace. That was very much possible: When entering the Great Darkness, a vessel was subject to certain forces. Usually, that only meant that it was off course by about one or two degrees, something that could be corrected in one of the multiple stops any ship took while going from one star system to another. Yet any vessel could be thrown completely off course and even go into the direction opposite to the one it was supposed to go. That has happened, and most times been corrected with the next stop. But since it used a lot more fuel to enter hyperspace than to simply stay in it, a crew low on exotic matter would take the relatively low risk of getting lost and travel the distance in one long jump. Should that be the case, Jarl would gladly provide them with some fuel in exchange for them fixing his colony's com system, and then point them in the direction of Ite'sheshyn.

But it was much more likely that this was to be a conquest. The colony was young, and it could still fail. The Item'qar could easily sell it to the Galactic Council that the Tarifel simply hadn't managed to survive, thus making Brol an uninhabited, unclaimed planet once more in the eyes of the Council, most importantly those of the First Beings. Somehow, they must have found out that the connection to the rest of the Tarifeli-governed planets had been interrupted, and now they were here to kill.

Jarl walked up to the military commander, a man by the name of Pratur. The other one was older than Jarl, showing white streaks in the fur that covered every Tarifel's body save the wings.

"How are the preparations coming along, Commander?"

The man bowed lightly. "Artillery is prepared, High Brother. But we lack people. When the Item'qar fly downwards, we'll kill many, but nowhere near enough."

Jarl sighed. "Well, we didn't expect to survive this anyway, did we?"

Pratur laughed softly. "Not really, High Brother. But hope is like the plants in the desert. It always finds something to feed on, and it never really dies."

"I see that wisdom truly does come with age, Commander"

"Wisdom comes from God's creation, that's what the cleric in my town used to say. He wasn't wrong. You can learn so much from looking at nature, on all the worlds on which we can survive. Sometimes even on those where we can't."

"I remember that there was once a-"

"Item'qar vessel, falling out of hyperspace.", interrupted the soldier manning the scanners.

"What class?", asked Pratur. "Cruiser? Destroyer?"

"Uh... It seems to be a ferry, Sir."

The commander frowned. "Are you sure?"