Nova Flare (slow updates)

Belly of the Beast

Hos Kalim?  This was Hos Kalim?  Wait a sec ... they were in the hold of a technomage heavy cruiser??

The hooded figure shifted as if sensing Ben's incredulous disbelief.  Before he could say anything, however, Kahri was leaning forward, her expression hard.

"You speak with a great deal of certainty," she hissed.  "Yet I see nothing here that confirms your words.  The psi-lord threw us away from the planet before it could be destroyed but wouldn't say where.  All my eyes tell me is that we're in the darkness, both figuratively and physically.  I sense nothing here that tells me we're in the belly of the beast."

"Nor will you, tier'dal," the being that called itself Hos Kalim bluntly replied.  "Your drow senses are particularly sharp and can detect magic in use from a distance.  But this is a technomage vessel.  No true magic is at play here, even though the technomages would like you to think otherwise."  He glanced over at Ben.  "Technology mimicking magic.  That is what you've seen in your journey to meet with me, Ben Talbott.  Nothing more.  Nothing less."

"Yeah." Ben looked over at the frowning Kahri as she stared down Kalim.  "We know what technomages are, pal."  Then he was returning his gaze to Kalim.

"What we don't know is how you managed to get onto a technomage warship.  Especially one escorting the very weapon I was hired to bring you information about."

The Union operative shifted his full attention back to Ben.

"Ah, yes.  The images of the weapon in action that are currently residing in your neural databank."  The fahdran made a wriggling gesture curiously like a human shrug.  "It was chance, really.  I saw an opportunity and took it."

"What kind of opportunity?" Ben pressed.  "Technomages just don't let anybody waltz onto their vessels little yet a warship, and certainly no Union intelligence agents."

"That's not exactly true," Kalim said somewhat evasively, earning him a hardening of Kahri's look.  He glanced at the drowess briefly then quickly back to Ben after seeing her lips compressed into an almost invisible line.

"If you know how to take advantage of their overbearing arrogance, it's amazing what you can get away with."

"Look, pal," Ben began, his jaw clenching and unclenching with tension.  "I watched the Technomages blow up an entire asteroid colony just to try and stop me, before destroying the ship I was escaping on.  Then, when I get to the rendezvous point, I don't find you, I find some Technomage doppelganger that Kahri managed to shoot before he shot us.  Now we just barely managed to get off that damn planet, thanks in no small part to a psi-lord throwing us into orbit, before it was also blown to bits.  So I think we've managed to earn enough respect by dodging all that death for your Union's cause to get a straight answer."

Again Kalim glanced over to Kahri, who now stood with balled fists in an obvious threatening pose, before looking back to Ben.

"Very well," he said after a moment's thought.  "Considering you're a contractor working for the Union, it's not like I'd be telling Union secrets to the enemy."  Again he glanced over at Kahri. "Especially with a servant of the High Sages standing right there."

"Wow, I'm hearing a lot of words that still don't sound like an explanation," Ben bit out, his frustration with Kalim's evasiveness beginning to swiftly grow.

Ben's taut tone gained him Kalim's full attention.

"As I said, it was more chance than anything," the Union operative began.  "My team and I jumped to Beta Zane on schedule to wait for the arrival of a courier with special intelligence on a suspected Technomage super weapon, that we were then going to take on to the team that would use the intel to track the weapon's whereabouts down.  We couldn't have suspected that the Technomages themselves would jump the weapon into Beta Zane space, apparently as part of an elaborate threat against that psi-lord that you mentioned."