A film of ice coated the outer hull of the ship, and despite her size, the previous day's blizzard had pushd the snow banks so high, that the empyrean was nearly covered under a layer of white. Some enterprising marine had managed to dig a tunnel out and onto the icy tundra above, a vast plane of ice sonar stated was many miles deep above the surface of a frigid ocean, not unlike Jupiter's Europa

Inside, the mixed human and alien crew incubated in a tense quiet. Many of their support systems had been turned off, and the cloaking shield remained active by day.

Things had not exactly gone well with the council of zealots, and despite Adam doing everything he could to explain himself, all they saw was their destroyed temple, and their missing prophet.

Now Adam stood on the bridge staring out at a wall of white snow that had nearly covered the empyrean's forward view screen.

"Damn," Ramirez muttered, "I think the proper measurement used in times like this is a metrick fuck ton of snow."

Somewhere on the bridge, Adam could sense Conn's aura of approval.

Behind him Sunny sat in one of the support seats lounging, carefully running a porous stone over the razor edge of her spear.

Dr krill floated nearby examining the snow with a measure of distaste. As a plant based lifeform, he did not appreciate cold climates, the colder it was the worse it was. Based on the empyrean's sensors, the weather outside was somewhere in the -50 range, hostile but livable with the right equipment, a fact that bothered krill to no end. The ship itself was rather warm of course -50 was nothing compared to the vastness of deep space, but even if the cold was a problem, the fallen snow over the outer layer of the ship had slowly melted on the inside and then refrozen into an insulating wall of ice.

The empyrean herself was rather cozy here where she rested planetside, and here is where she would stay for the time being.

More than a little aware of their newly cold climate, the Empyrean had adapted marvelously, heating the ship up to a nice, even seventy six degrees before liberally distributing hot chocolate and cyder despite the inventory technicians indicating that they hadn't acquisitioned either for their trip. With the distribution of hot chocolate came the addition of mittens and hats for crew members with low resting body temperatures. That left Maverick with a new set of mittens, and a beanie covered in snowflakes, which the empyrean insisted she wear despite being inside.

Sunny received the brunt of the Empyrean's attention, however, and it was more than clear that the Empyrean was not above giving certain crew members special treatment. Those of them that knew about Sunny's condition was well aware of the Empyrean's interest in her, and, for this reason, Sunny had received a cloak with hood and four sets of mittens along with a big warmed glass of water root tea.

She wouldn't have worn the mittens,but the empyrean had made some sad sort of beeping sounds, and she didn't have the heart to say no.

"What do you think happened to General Kanza." Krill wondered, "Think she's dead?"

Adam gave a snort, "Not in the lightest. I won't believe that bitch is dead until I see the body."

From where she sat on the floor, Maverick gave a grunt and adjusted her mittens around her mug of hot chocolate, "hard to say. I mean he did dump her into a lake of boiling water. Adam is half maker and he still probably wouldn't survive that. As far as we know Kazna is fully mortal, but with some void enhancements, so maybe she could survive."

"She will survive on the power of pure spite,'' Sunny said never taking her eyes of the edge of her blade as she twirled it lazily through her mittened hands, "Besides, we probably don't want her dead anyway. Imagine Kazna with the power of a Maker with the backing of the oid."

The whole room was quiet for a moment, and Adam grimaced, "Let's assume, and hope, for the time being that she is alive, and even if she isn't that doesn't change our plans." He took a sip from his mug smacking his lips a bit. The Empyrean really knew how to make some good food, and he absently reached out to pat her bulkhead, a habit he was growing more and more accustomed to.

Him and the entire crew who could now be heard muttering thank yous to the ship, patting her when they got the chance, and talking to her openly in some cases. There was nothing more strange than turning the corner and finding one of the crew members patting the wall and crooning soft compliments.

It was a learning curve for all of them, but no one was mad about it.

"Then we should probably get on with our mission as soon as possible." Ramirez said, finishing off his drink and gently handing it over to the empyrean who made it vanish into the wall. He patted her once, "Thanks Emp."

The purpose of their fleeing to this planet was twofold.

Number one: hide from the very angry very vengeful council , who wanted nothing more than to either murder them or lock them away for a very long time. Not even a few days and they had gone from friendly to public enemy.

The second: well it was a bit of a hunch but, by intercepting the radio waves coming in from the other ships, adam and Celex translating, they learned a few interesting things about this particular galaxy.

The council and its citizens were well traveled through their universe. On board their experts suggested that these lifeform had been around almost as long as the Celex, oldest species in their galaxy, had. They had had plenty of time to go exploring, establish multiple planets and hundreds of thousands of colonies.

And discover something interesting.

A strange megastructure built around a star that corresponded with four distinct planetary systems, just like the polaris system in their own galaxy. In fact, when the empyrean crunched the numbers, the pattern, distance and angles made by the the new system were almost identical to the polaris system. Now, while their own galaxies had assumed that the megastructure was built by an ancient race of otherworldly beings, and so determined to examine the nearby planet, to find clues to its origin, their new "friends" had not taken the same rout.

By the time they had found the megastructure, the religion of Shanshara had been established for someone around a thousand years give or take a few centuries, so by the time they had discovered the megastructure and its correspondence with several natural homeworlds for the different sentient lifeforms, they decided to ump to conclusion.

The council of Zealots had announced that the megastructure and the following pattern of planets was a holy symbol bestowed upon them by the great Shanshara, proof of her existence and a blessing unto all of them. It had been announced as a holy site, and was heavily protected by roving bands of auditors in some of their most powerful warships thus restricting anyone from getting to close and taking a look.

All except for the empyrean of course.

With no red mist, the planet accompanying the "Seat of shanshara" , was distinctly different from their own. As far as they could tell there were no obvious alien structures or other related lifeforms, but the void hadn't performed particularly well in the cold, as show by the Tricar homeworld, so there was always a possibility the void had already begun to take over.

If that was not the case than they planned to take it over for themselves.

The crew of the empyrean had been able to run some deep ground sonar scans and found evidence of large pockets and caves within the ice, hundreds of feet down and difficult to make out, but well above where the line of the water might have been. There had been so much snow and ice built up over the centuries that having some sort of subterranean city was entirely plausible.

Back in the polaris system, many of their own stored information had been corrupted or otherwise worn away by the red mist. Only the most important parts of the documentation on maker history had survived, while the rest of it was primarily contaminated. They hoped that by looking through an uncontaminated archive, they might find something that could help them locate the void.

But that meant braving the cold

"When do we go?" Ramirez asked cracking his knuckles with a surprising sense of finality on the subject,

"As soon as the sun comes up." Adam said

"I wish to join you."

Adam turned his head in surprise at Krill, floating at the back of the group.

"You do?"

"Yes, we are on a hostile unknown plane, and part of your plan requires ice skating most of the way, which I already don't like." Ramirez waved a hand and krill continued, "Besides I have been in combat situations before, unlike some of our other science experts. I feel it is my duty to volunteer for the position."

Adam paused, but could see that this was not an argument he was likely to win.

"Alright, fine."

"I am coming as well." WIth surprise, Adam turned his head to look at Sunny, who stood from her seat and adjusted one of her Empyrean issued mittens.

"You will?"

She locked eyes with him and nodded, "I will."

Not much of an argument to make there.

If she wanted to come than he didn't have much of a recourse to stop her. As the saint of Anin he didn't actually have power to command her regardless of the fact that he captained the ship.

"I am not being left behind this time. I am the only one here who is better than simply adequate on skates, so you are going to need me." Ramirez had been a bit bitter lately about his stunning lack of combat, so again, Adam did not argue.

"Ready your kits everyone, and prepare for sub zero."

***

OUt in the cold vastness of the tundra, a small speck of white against an expanse of white was difficult to detect, and even the empyrean's sensors saw it as nothing different than simply a glacial peak sticking up from the ice. A cold wind howled over the snow, and auditor Mitzen pulled his coat up around himself, insulating coils keeping him nice and warm despite the chill.

He couldn't see the interlopers ship from here, but he knew where it was . It felt wrong to be here, standing on a sacred planet against the will of the zealots, but despite his best efforts, no one had listened to him when he radioed in for help. He had seen their ship turn tail from the zealot moon and run. He had followed closely in his own ship, small enough to go mostly unnoticed, and continued to follow even when the warships had fallen behind.

Mitzen was smart, and had predicted their movements at every turn. It was during this chase that, to his horror, he had learned of the tragedy on the zealot moon, so horrible it could not be spoken of, and all caused by the creature that he had brought here.

The guilt was overwhelming.

Thai was all his fault.

And now.... Their greatest connection to shanshara was dead.

And everyone blamed him.

No one had said it outright, but his calls for help had gone unnoticed, ignored and treated with suspicion.

Now he only had one option.

...

Deal with the problem himself