“Officer Kharz!” I hear the modulated voices grab my attention as I look upon the unmoving board of Kar Zetharn. “You were partnered with the former Officer Threxorn, Yes?”
I feel the anger rise in me. “Yes, that is correct. He told me he and his wife were heading to Elystra to celebrate. I sensed a lie but did not feel it was appropriate to initiate a conflict.” I say back to them.
“Good you did the right thing” One voice speaks up.
“Absolutely, the two of them are truly invaluable to Kar Zetharn.” The voice at the head of the table speaks up. “Regarding that. Officer Kharz, you have been given the full authority of Kar Zetharn to hunt down and retrieve the strand-splice offspring.”
“Just the child?” I ask, skeptically. “I don't think they will be willing to part with it.”
“The survival of the heretics is not our concern, you must retrieve the child.” The collective seems to speak in unison, and with that they each are lowered out of the chamber.
I turn to leave the room. They’ve already got a full cycle's head start, but I will find them. Racing to my car, I open the map and find the nearest systems trying to narrow down which possible direction they went off in. He would have left in a direction that was the shortest way to get them out of Ascendancy space. They probably would want to avoid the Syndicate, and knowing Threx’s history of being a purity officer, I would imagine most Pact members would not look kindly upon him. That leaves the Concord, the Fold, or the Federation, and the easiest to find would be the Fold.
The closest location would have been Kaelen’s Folly, the moon named after the fool who thought he could hold a pact planet with his token force. Now it's so well armed that we couldn't take it back even if we wanted to. I grab my supplies and head off to the nearest planet that they could have made it to. The trip is fairly quick in the Ascendancy provided star ship, allowing me to utilize the iridite FTL drive. This brings me to the planet where they first stopped. I land and begin questioning if anyone had seen two ascendancy officers who looked like they had been living out of their ship, the wife is clearly pregnant.
Everyone I spoke to gave me the same answer, that they didn't recall anyone matching their description. I warned the citizens about interfering with a Varkh Officer in the pursuit of his duties, but the threats uselessly fell against them. These fools have no idea what we are truly protecting them from. They welcome the chaos of the Strand into their lives and order falls away, the Varkh is the only thing truly guarding the useless beings of this galaxy from the Chaos of the Strand.
I return to the ship and pull up the files on Threx and Litha in each of their files I find the standard bloodline purity jargon that the Varkh insists on using to make it official. But then I see a redacted section flashing in blood red PROJECT SABLE GENESIS - CLEARANCE LEVEL 17 REQUIRED. I stare at the matching section in both of their files and try to figure out what it means, I decide to check their bloodlines, and amongst all of them I see the same redaction PROJECT SABLE GENESIS - CLEARANCE LEVEL 17 REQUIRED.
I open a channel to the Kar Zetharn Council to request higher clearance and immediately I am brought into a secure communication line. “Office Kharz” the heavily modulated voice of the council head says “What are you requesting access for?”
“I am requesting level 17 clearance so I can figure out what Sable Genesis is.” I reply back to them confused as to what all this pomp is regarding. They merely sit there silently contemplating the request. “It will be easier to figure out what is truly at stake if I can see their whole file. What is Sable Genesis and how does it connect their families…”
Eventually a small voice comes through “For millennia we have been told that colonials are unable to utilize the strand. Sable Genesis will allow us to take this resource for ourselves and not have to rely on the disgusting mixing of species to allow strand sensitivity to happen in colonials. Threxorn and Lithayra represent generations of selective breeding that will allow the Varkh to create our own Strand sensitive colonials.”
I just stood there in stunned silence, “So, Officer Kharz, you need to recover the child as it represents 50,000 years of selective breeding to achieve this. The child is the property of the Varkh, and must be recovered.” I shake myself out of it and return to my determined look. The Varkh knows the path we must take to prevent the chaos. I exit the call and attempt to calculate the next planet they will make it to.
I set the FTL and am transported there in a matter of seconds, I scan the surface and find a small family sized ship, the signature matches Threx. I land on the planet and go a good distance away so they are not able to detect my presence of my ship until it is too late. As we land I head towards the town making sure to stop by their ship first. I see it, looking significantly worse for wear, as I step closer a Starforged who has been set up as the engineer on the port.
He attempts to stand between me and the ship until I show him my Zetharn badge, he immediately recoils from me and I lean below and yank on a small section of their FTL drive. This will keep them limping through the void. Now I need to find them, I walk for a while until I hear their distinct Caer Aeternum accent begin cutting through the local noise. I find them, but I do not rush in, instead I just stare at Threxorn, as he blissfully tries to create a sense of normal with him and his wife.
Then he sees me, his face changes to shame, as he walks towards me, he hind poised on his pistol, along with Lithayra. “How are you two? Did you enjoy your time on Elystra so much that you decided to extend the celebration?” Lithayra looks away as I mockingly shout her lies back at her.
“You can't take us back Kharz! I won't let my child become a slave for them!” Threx looks back at me desperately trying to convince me that he did this for the right reasons.
“I don't care, Threx! My job is not to listen to you two, it is to take your child back to the Varkh. It is a strandsplice and the Varkh knows how to deal with them.” I say back at him unblinking
“By what? Melting them down or torturing them until they accept the Varkh as the only truth?! That's not a life Kharz! It’s a prison and I won't let you take my child there!” with this last word he points the gun at Lithayra with tears in her face she looks back at him with a sad resolve like she knew this was the possibility.
“And if I let you leave? According to the Ascendancy, you two are responsible for the theft of Varkh property.” Then I look at both of their faces, they would rather die than come back. “I will give you 10 Segments to disappear…” Threxorn relaxes his grip on the gun and looks back at me confused. “If I catch you in Ascendancy Space; You, Your Wife, and Your Strandsplice will be considered heretics and traitors and brought to Vexis Prime.”
I let them leave back to their ship as I head back to my own. Their crippled FTL will not let them get very far, and once they leave the system they are in syndicate space. We will see how long they last against the pirates. I open another channel to the Kar Zetharn Council “How does the pursuit go against our stolen asset Officer Threxorn?”
“I lost them outside ascendancy space, they had a crippled FTL drive and were taken by Syndicate pirates. The asset is unfortunately lost to the void.” I say back to them, knowing that the Syndicate doesn't leave any traces and are too disparate to be punished for their attack.
“You have shown great dedication and loyalty to Kar Zetharn, we have discussed and you will be put in charge of security for Project Sable Genesis. You are to make sure that this kind of incident does not occur again for the future of the project.” They say back to me as the weight of this task sets in. I am now a shepherd for hybrids and strandsplice, and I must make sure that the sheep cannot escape the pen again.
