Chapter 4.4 Down to the Web of Marinagua.

Victor stood up and nodded to the captain, "Alright, Captain. So just to be sure, I wanted to ask, what operations are you expecting me to do down there? I will prepare keeping that in mind."

"Chaala nods. Hopefully, just supporting diplomacy, but we see what happened when Dominicus tried that, so combat isn't off the table. We're going to try our damndest not to have that happen, though. You'll want to be ready to give physical exams to all of the crew. Talk to Voss about the diet he's been getting, they're probably getting something similar. He's lost weight and they likely will have, too. Might need nutritional supplementation and they might have been more restricted on the kinds of exercise they could do."

Information Learned from Voss’s Check-Up and Debrief

Dr. Shone’s examination confirms that Voss is undernourished but not starving. He has lost noticeable weight from months of restricted diet, stress, poor sleep, and limited movement, but there is no sign of deliberate abuse or systematic deprivation. His condition fits someone who was kept alive, watched, fed irregularly but not cruelly, and allowed just enough activity to maintain the cutter.

His diet appears to have consisted mostly of grain cakes or flatbread analogues, stewed legumes or root vegetables, dried fruit or sweetened pulp, watered fermented drink or weak tea, occasional meat, probably small game or preserved herd animal, and rare offworld food, usually brought by Free Captains or port intermediaries.

Dr. Shone would likely conclude that Dominicus, Troulin, and the rest of the landing party may need electrolytes, protein, vitamin support, and careful refeeding, but not emergency starvation treatment unless their conditions are worse than Voss’s. Voss warns that the landing party’s diet may be better or worse depending on their custodians, because he was isolated near the cutter and not housed with them.

Xá’kai port handlers: They were the most frequent Alejia presence near the cutter. They brought basic food, water, and sometimes fuel-cell components or local repair stock. They spoke little Galanglic. Their behavior was controlled, formal, and watchful. Voss believes they considered themselves responsible for him, but not friendly toward him.

A senior Xá’kai port official: Voss never got the official’s full name. Early on, he admits he made the mistake of trying to read Alejia authority through human habits, such as voice, build, dress, or posture, but he now understands that does not apply. This senior official inspected the cutter twice and seemed to have authority over the people who supplied him. They did not threaten him. They asked technical questions through a poor translator and seemed most concerned that he not "wake the wrong fire," which Voss took to mean not restoring full power, comms, or weapon-linked systems without permission.

Jalen Verik of Star’s Mercy: Verik visited several times. He brought practical food, water filters, and once a small diagnostic part that Voss thinks came from a Free Captain supply locker rather than local stock. Verik asked careful questions but never pressed too hard. Voss considers him the safest first broker, though not harmless.

Alira "Stormhand" Cox of Proud Swiftsure: Cox came by less often. She was blunt, practical, and did not waste time. Voss saw Alejia port figures treat her seriously, not warmly. She seemed to know where the lines were and did not step over them.

L.C. Raimes of Lucky Lady: Raimes visited twice, brought brandy once, and talked like a friend while learning more than he gave away. Voss liked him despite himself and distrusts that fact. Raimes floated the idea that a competent engineer could always find better employment, which Voss took as half-joke, half-recruitment.

Unnamed Alejia intermediaries: Voss saw several Alejia who did not behave like port workers. They came, watched, spoke to the Xá’kai, sometimes inspected the cutter from a distance, and left. Voss believes they represented other tribal interests. He could not identify them reliably, and he avoids assigning them human gender categories.

Dominicus, Troulin, and the rest of the landing party: Voss has not seen Dominicus, Troulin, Corvan, Kade, Larsen, or Gruber since the separation. He knows only what filtered back through hints, Free Captain gossip, and Alejia behavior: the missing crew are alive, or at least believed alive, and their status is politically complicated rather than criminal. He has no confirmed information that any of them are dead.

Scene — Voss in the Harrier Sick Bay

Scout-Engineer Harlan Voss sits on the edge of the medical berth in the ISS Harrier’s sick bay with a diagnostic cuff around one arm and a thin blanket over his shoulders. He looks smaller than he probably did when he left port with Dominicus, but not broken. Tired, yes. Worn down, certainly. But his eyes are alert, and every few seconds they flick toward the bulkhead, the deck, the cutter status feed, anything that proves he is really back aboard an Imperial Scout vessel and not still waiting under Marinagua’s sky.

Dr. Shone works through the check-up with clinical patience. The results are not good, but they are not catastrophic. Voss is dehydrated, protein-deficient, short on several trace nutrients, and carrying the kind of fatigue that does not come from one bad week but from months of sleeping lightly. His hands shake slightly when he accepts water, but he drinks slowly when Shone tells him to. The discipline is still there.

Voss gives a faint, embarrassed smile when the questions turn to diet.

"Food was food," he says. "Mostly flat cakes, boiled roots, beans or something close enough to beans, dried fruit, tea. Sometimes meat. Not often. Verik brought better rations when he came by. Cox brought something salted once. Raimes brought brandy, which I am told is not a complete nutritional plan."

He glances at Shone, then adds more seriously.

"I was not starved. Not intentionally. But I was not being fed for strength either. I was being kept present. Maintained. There is a difference."

When asked about Dominicus, Troulin, and the others, his expression tightens.

"I cannot tell you what they have been eating. I was not kept with them. That is important. Do not assume my condition is theirs. Mine came from isolation, rationing, stress, and staying ready with too little to work with. If the others are under household custody, they may be better fed. If they are being moved or hidden, worse."

He looks toward Shone.

"If you get to them, bring protein supplements, electrolytes, vitamins, and something easy on the stomach. Corvan will know what to do if she is able. If she is not..."

He stops there, jaw tightening briefly.

"Then you will need to assume they have been underfed for months and bring them back slowly."

The debrief moves to names and contacts. Voss answers carefully, aware that every word matters.

"The Xá’kai were the ones closest to me. Port people, mostly. They brought water and food. Sometimes parts. They did not act like jailers exactly, but they were not hosts either. More like they had been given responsibility for a dangerous object and the idiot offworlder attached to it."

A weak smile crosses his face.

"There was one senior Xá’kai official. I never got their name properly. At first, I kept trying to sort Alejia by human habits — voice, build, dress, posture. That was a mistake. They are not organized that way. Once I realized that, I stopped trying to make them fit categories that do not apply."

He rubs at his face, then continues.

"That official came twice. Asked about the cutter. Power systems. Comms. What would happen if I ‘woke the wrong fire.’ That was the translator’s phrase, not mine. I took it to mean they did not want me bringing the cutter fully alive without permission."

He continues, steadier now.

"Verik came more than anyone else. Careful man. Brought useful things. Asked useful questions. Never made it feel like an interrogation, which probably means it was one. Still, if you are picking one of the Free Captains to walk through the first door with, I would pick him."

"Cox came less. Direct. No wasted words. The Alejia near the port took her seriously. Not fondly, maybe, but seriously. That matters."

"Raimes came twice. Brought brandy once. Talked like we were old friends. I liked him. That is why I would be careful with him. He leaves with more than he arrives with."

Then Chaala addresses him, offering the possibility that his rank and assignment make it reasonable for him to assume the position of Acting Captain until Dominicus and the rest of the crew are recovered. Voss looks at her for a long moment. The offer lands harder than he expected. For several seconds, he does not answer.

Finally, he lowers his eyes to the deck.

"Ma’am, I appreciate that. More than I can probably say correctly right now."

He takes a breath.

"But no. I am not Acting Captain of this ship."

The answer is quiet, but firm.

"Dominicus is the captain. Until I see proof otherwise, this is still her ship. And Chief Troulin is still the senior engineer unless someone proves otherwise. I kept the cutter alive because that was the piece of the mission I still had in my hands. I did not keep command. I did not keep the crew together. I am not saying that out of self-pity. I am saying it because command is not a chair you sit in because everyone else is missing."

He looks up again.

"I can act as ship’s engineer for the Harrier. I can advise you on what I saw. I can tell you where the cutter systems complain, which port workers were regular, which Free Captain was lying badly and which one was lying well. But I am not taking Dominicus’s place while she may still be alive down there."

There is another pause.

"As for going back to the surface..."

His expression shifts. The exhaustion remains, but something steadier pushes through it.

"I will go back."

He glances briefly toward Shone, anticipating the objection.

"I know. I need rest. I need food. I probably need a week in a bunk and someone telling me I am not responsible for every bad thing that happened after we landed. But I also know the cutter. I know the port. I know how the Xá’kai look when they are annoyed versus when they are frightened. I know Verik’s face when he is giving you the whole truth, and when he is giving you the safe part of it."

He looks back to Chaala.

"And if Dominicus, Troulin, or any of the others see one of you first, that may be enough. But if they see me with you, they will know you reached the Harrier. They will know the ship is still ours. They will know this is not another negotiation trick being played around them."

His voice drops slightly.

"So I am going back. Not as Acting Captain. Not as a hero. As the engineer who got left with the cutter and is now returning with help."

A tired smile appears, brief but real.

"Besides, ma’am, if you are taking my cutter back down to that spiderweb, someone familiar with its bad habits should probably be aboard."

Virel listens quietly to the exchange between Chaala and Voss, keeping his thoughts to himself though giving a slight nod when Voss refuses the offer of command. Whatever lingering doubts he may have held faded. The man had not abandoned his crew and Virel respected that.

Still, he frowned slightly when Voss insisted on returning to the surface. Part of him had hoped they had at least managed to pull one person clear of the situation. Yet the longer he considered it, the more he understood the value in Voss returning with them. The Alejia already recognized him as part of the existing balance. His presence would help present the team's arrival as a continuation of what already existed.

Satisfied that the immediate decisions had finally been made, Virel quietly withdrew to his quarters to prepare his gear. The knife should not cause much concern, but the auto rifle was another matter entirely. If it came with him, it would stay out of sight unless circumstances left no other choice.

"I doubt they'll ask me, since I go back to being just a contractor once Halsson is back on her feet and Dominicus is retrieved, but I'll be sure to record your dedication to crew and mission in your file for the promotion board while I'm still official. Get as much rest as you can and as much nutrition as Doc will let you before we head down. For the rest of us, let's get the cutter loaded with the appropriate supplements along with our gear and get clearance to land at the commercial pad."

Victor followed all the steps necessary to give Voss the correct care and made notes about his vitals. He didn't like the idea of taking him to the field again. It would hamper any improvement that came from the supplements, but he didn't have anything to say because he understood Voss's role in the upcoming mission. After telling Voss to rest, he went to review his gear and prepare for the mission.

Chaala will secure the body pistol in an ankle holster.

"Ordinarily, I'd have Ruiha pilot the shuttle, but she's staying with Harrier, so I'll need a volunteer. I have basic familiarity training on the cutter and can fly it, but I'm no expert if we have to make sudden corrections. If we're following the current plan of no evasive maneuvers or deviations from the flight plan, I can do it."

Descent to Marinagua

The decision, once made, changes the rhythm aboard the ships. Amara and Edrin transfer back to Azure Voyager, taking with them the orbital coordination burden and the quiet responsibility of watching over Captain Halsson in the autodoc. The Azure Voyager remains above Marinagua, distant enough to preserve options and close enough to coordinate through tight, disciplined bursts. The ISS Harrier stays where it has been since the beginning of this crisis, half-buried in shadow within a crater on the moon of Marinagua, powered low and watchful. For the first time in months, though, the Harrier is no longer only a hiding place. Its cutter is awake, crewed, and preparing to descend.

Inside the cutter, the atmosphere is close and purposeful. Ruiha takes the pilot’s station, hands settling over controls that still carry the habits of Scout Service design. Chaala straps into the co-pilot’s position beside her, not taking over, but watching every indicator that matters: power draw, comms, transponder logic, passive sensors, and the faint stutter of surface-side traffic coordination. Voss takes a rear systems seat where he can monitor the cutter’s bad habits and mutter at them before they become actual problems. The rest of the team secures themselves in the passenger compartment, close enough to hear the cockpit calls, far enough back to feel every adjustment through the frame.

The cutter separates from the Harrier with a muted tremor through the hull. Outside, the crater wall slides past the forward display, then gives way to black sky and the wide curve of Marinagua below. For several minutes the only sound is the steady rhythm of systems reporting nominal status and Ruiha’s calm voice marking each stage of descent. The trajectory is deliberately ordinary. No stealth profile. No sharp evasive vector. No dramatic burn. The flight plan says exactly what Verik told them it should say: relocation for reception and consultation.

Aboard Azure Voyager, Amara keeps the orbital display open, tracking the cutter’s vector with cold precision. Edrin sits nearby, managing the communications board and keeping one eye on the autodoc telemetry.


"Cutter is steady," Amara reports over the internal link. "No pursuit, no hard lock, no active targeting. Surface traffic is watching, but not reacting."


Edrin answers with a quiet, "Verik’s channel is active. He’s waiting for the commercial-band notice."

As the cutter crosses into Marinagua’s upper atmosphere, the ride turns rougher. The hull begins to tremble as heat and air take hold. Ruiha rides it carefully, neither overcorrecting nor letting the cutter drift outside the accepted path. The descent corridor sent by Verik’s people is narrow—not because the airspace demands it, but because the politics do. Too far east and the flight brushes against a district controlled by another tribal authority. Too far west and it looks like the cutter is avoiding the Xá’kai approach grid. Too steep and it appears urgent. Too shallow and it appears hesitant.

The corridor marker slides close to the amber limit, and the problem is obvious from the co-pilot’s station. Chaala has the angle to see it first and flags the developing crosswind for Ruiha without taking the controls.


"I see it," Ruiha replies.

The cutter shudders again, harder this time, as a thermal shear rolls off the broken urban heat below Balac Pontli. One warning tone chirps and dies before becoming serious. Voss leans forward from the rear console.

"That trim actuator always lags under load. Give it half a second before you fight it."

Ruiha does exactly that. The cutter dips, steadies, then settles back into the descent path. Not elegant, perhaps, but clean.

Then the commercial channel opens.

Verik’s voice comes through first, calm and public, speaking not to the cutter but to the starport net.

"Ad Hoc Starport Control, this is Star’s Mercy. I acknowledge incoming offworld auxiliary craft on commercial relocation vector. Receiving party is prepared at Pad Seven-Three. Movement is under my observation."

A pause follows. It is short. It feels longer.

A Xá’kai controller answers in careful, accented Galanglic, voice flattened by translation software and formal habit.

"Star’s Mercy, acknowledgment received. Offworld auxiliary craft will maintain assigned vector. No deviation. No weapons posture. No extended hover. Pad Seven-Three is observed."

Verik replies without hesitation.

"Understood, Control. No deviation. No extended hover. Receiving party standing by."

Only then does the Xá’kai controller address the cutter directly.

"Offworld auxiliary craft, continue descent. Pad Seven-Three. You are observed."

The words are simple. They carry more weight than their length deserves.

Ruiha keeps the cutter steady through the final approach. Below, the rolling savanna of Marinagua opens beneath them in broad gold-green sweeps, broken by winding rivers, dark belts of floodplain forest, and long scars of old roads cutting toward the horizon. Herds or vehicle columns are too small to identify from this altitude, but movement exists everywhere once the eye learns how to look for it. This is not wilderness. It is inhabited land—watched land—cultivated, crossed, claimed, and remembered.

Then Balac Pontli rises into view.

At first it seems like a dark stain across the river plains. Then the scale resolves, and the mind has to adjust. The city does not sit on the land so much as possess it. District after district spreads outward in layered density, a vast urban mass holding somewhere between four hundred fifty and six hundred million Alejia within its roads, courtyards, towers, markets, barracks, shrines, and old industrial belts. Wide green floodplains reach toward the sea, but the city interrupts them in every direction: concrete, stone, metal roofs, fortified compounds, smoke plumes, broken transit corridors, and long avenues radiating toward a hard central core.

Through haze and distance, the Citadel of the K’áhnohtli can be seen at the heart of the capital—a walled mass of high stone bastions and angular towers dominating the skyline even from the cutter’s approach path. Around it, other fortress-palaces rise like rival teeth, each massive enough to be mistaken for a separate city center. Between them stretch neighborhoods that glitter in places and fall into shadow in others: dense residential districts, market sprawl, militia-held roadblocks, improvised shanties pressed against older grand structures, and bright banners or painted roofs marking tribal allegiance in colors the offworlders cannot yet read.

Closer to the descent corridor, the unrest becomes more visible. Some boulevards still show traces of older planning—long, straight cuts once lined with shade trees or flowering grasses—but many are choked with stalls, vehicles, barriers, and moving crowds. In some places, music or public chant rises faintly through the atmospheric filters as flickers in the audio spectrum. In others, smoke climbs from cooking fires, generators, workshops, or something less benign. Balac Pontli does not look dead. It looks intensely alive, crowded, proud, and always on the edge of becoming dangerous.

The Ad Hoc Starport appears almost abruptly on the city’s outer fringe, a hard geometry of old runways and concrete aprons inside a newer ring of earthworks. From above, it is clear this was not built as a starport. It was once a major atmospheric airport—broad runways, terminal blocks, vehicle lots, service roads, hangars, and maintenance yards—partially converted before the war and never finished. Fifty years later, the Xá’kai have made it into something else. A security berm surrounds the entire airport complex, thick and deliberate, with controlled gates at the road exits. The old terminal buildings are occupied and fortified. Observation posts and tribal checkpoints sit where passenger access roads once flowed freely. The NMTC compound lies on the far side of the old airport grounds, separated by distance, fencing, and its own perimeter discipline, but the roads out of the airport—the real access to Balac Pontli—run through Xá’kai control.

The commercial pad field comes into view beyond the old terminal structures. Ships sit on converted aircraft aprons under watchful towers and improvised service frames. Some equipment still carries faded color bands from an older airport system whose meaning is no longer obvious: yellow panels beside blue gantries, red-striped service boxes, white runway markings half-painted over by newer tribal symbols, and patched utility pylons marked in schemes that do not match any offworld standard. Some markings may once have meant fuel, fire control, cargo, maintenance, or passenger routing. Now they are just another layer of inherited meaning the newcomers cannot yet read.

Then Star’s Mercy appears on the display, settled heavily beside the assigned pad, her hull marked by use, commerce, and long experience with places exactly like this. Nearby, two other Free Captain ships are visible among the converted commercial pads. Proud Swiftsure, Captain "Stormhand" Alira Cox’s Poserdon-built courier, sits with the lean, purposeful lines of a vessel built for impossible extractions and daring escapes. Farther across the apron rests Solana, Free Captain L.C. Raimes’s unremarkable 600-ton merchant, so ordinary in profile that its plainness feels almost deliberate. The empty pad opposite Star’s Mercy has been cleared. Not deserted—cleared. There is a difference. Figures stand back from the marked landing zone. Alejia port personnel watch from a distance, bright fabrics and tribal markings visible even through the cutter’s magnified feed. A few human and mixed offworld faces linger near cargo equipment, making no attempt to hide that they are watching too. Beyond them, the berm, the gates, the old terminal, and the immense restless city beyond all seem to say the same thing: arrival is permitted, but never private.

The final seconds are the hardest. A gust rolls across the apron as the cutter drops below the surrounding structures. The left side lifts a meter higher than it should. The landing grid flashes correction guidance. Ruiha brings the nose down, Chaala calls the drift, and Voss barks a single warning from the rear.

"Do not chase it—settle through it."

Ruiha settles through it.

The cutter comes down hard enough for everyone aboard to feel it in their teeth, but the landing gear takes the impact. A second later, the frame stops trembling. The engines cycle down. Outside, dust and grit roll outward across the pad in a low brown wave, breaking against the edge markers and the waiting shapes beyond.

For one breath, nothing happens.

Then the Xá’kai control voice returns over the channel.

"Pad Seven-Three. Arrival complete. Remain on pad. Receiving party may approach."



Across the apron, the ramp of Star’s Mercy lowers with practiced confidence. Captain Jalen Verik appears at the top of it, dressed not as a noble and not as a soldier, but as a working captain who understands exactly how many eyes are on him. Beside him stands a compact, sharp-eyed crewmember in a worn utility jacket marked with the ship’s colors, one hand resting near a comm unit rather than a weapon. The crewmember’s posture says security, but not threat.

Inside the cutter, the pressure seal releases with a low mechanical sigh. The hatch unlocks. Light from Marinagua’s starport spills across the deck.

The cutter doors open opposite Star’s Mercy, and Captain Verik waits at his ramp to greet the newcomers.

Actions?

"Virel, you're on point, you make first contact, after Voss if he prefers to make the introduction. Bodhie, you're in charge of watching the rest of the interactions, figure out what's not being said. Wilbur, you're on tactical, keep an eye out for threats. Doc, you're a free agent, hopefully we don't need your specialist skills just yet. Ruiha, you stay with the ship, out of sight, ready to get us out of here if this isn't as presented." Chaala calmoly hands out assignments, "No visible weapons on first contact. Let's keep our translators quiet for the moment as well. Not keeping secrets, exactly, just not announcing capability. We want to show them we trust them more than we probably do. Hopefully things don't turn hostile until we make them turn hostile, and hopefully we don't see a need to make them turn hostile."

Wilbur nods his head.
"Understood Captain"

Victor came out of the cutter and finally walked on some solid ground after a long time. He looked up at the sky and breathed in. He cautiously eyed the Aleija in the distance but kept to himself and remained close with others. It was a tense scenario, and nothing could be done until further information came from the captain. He nodded to Chaala and then silently strolled around the cutter as if he was just checking the ship.