Desolation of Erimos
Copyright© 2026 by Rycliff
Chapter 2: Breadcrumbs
The report from Outpost 297 did not travel to only one destination.
One copy entered the ordinary Imperial revenue network, where almost no one noticed it. A second copy was caught by a private filter buried inside the communications system under an authorization so narrow that most Imperial intelligence officers did not know it existed.
The filter had one purpose.
Find Alliyanna Kar’Jan.
Within minutes, a private intelligence cell attached directly to the Emperor received confirmation that Baroness Alliyanna Kar’Jan had personally completed a legitimate commercial transaction at an obsolete frontier station. The report included authentication of her House signet, purchase totals, taxes paid, and departure time.
It did not include a destination.
The analyst reading it smiled anyway.
A verified sighting was a verified sighting.
The same commercial report entered another filter several hours later.
This one belonged to a Senate investigative committee quietly examining whether Alliyanna’s claim to the Birsha succession could be invalidated. Its members did not know the Emperor had a private operation looking for her. The Emperor’s analysts did not know the Senate committee had built its own collection system.
If either group had known the other existed, both would have been alarmed.
The Senate received exactly the same facts and interpreted them differently.
Alliyanna had used House Kar’Jan credentials rather than the disputed Birsha title.
That might mean caution.
It might mean uncertainty.
It might mean she herself did not believe the Ducal claim was secure.
An aide highlighted the point for further legal review.
Another detail received even more attention.
The outpost had authenticated her betrothal contract as genuine.
It had not ruled on succession. It had no authority to do so. But the fact that a neutral Imperial registry had accepted the seals and document structure meant the Senate could not dismiss the contract itself as counterfeit.
That made their work harder.
The report also proved she was moving.
That made their work urgent.
Neither operation yet knew where she was going.
The Emperor’s private cell built a timeline around the Outpost 297 report.
The Star Shadow had arrived.
It had remained long enough to refuel and purchase several tons of supplies.
It had departed without requesting a route authorization.
That told the analysts two things.
First, Alliyanna was not wandering blindly. Someone aboard the ship had enough navigation experience to move through neglected space without relying on normal commercial routing.
Second, she was preparing for a trip longer and harsher than an ordinary run between stations.
The food purchases alone could have been explained as caution.
The medical supplies were harder to dismiss.
The water volume was more interesting still.
The analyst marked the report for comparison against future purchases.
The Senate committee did the same thing for a different reason.
Its legal staff cared less about water than it did about conduct.
One senator argued that paying excise duties while refusing to file a destination showed deliberate evasion of Imperial authority.
Another pointed out that no law required a departing commercial vessel from Outpost 297 to disclose a destination once local traffic clearance was complete.
A third suggested that the distinction did not matter politically.
“If she is behaving like a fugitive, we should say so.”
The committee counsel shook her head.
“If we say it before we can prove it, we strengthen her argument that the Senate had already decided the outcome before she appeared.”
That ended the discussion.
For the moment.
Neither side understood that their parallel investigations were beginning to create a race.
The Emperor wanted to know where Alliyanna was going.
The Senate wanted enough evidence to control what happened when she came back.
Both assumed they would be the first to know.
Aboard the Star Shadow, Viki knew exactly where she wanted them to go.
The route appeared over the galley table as a string of lights.
Erimos sat at the end.
Between the Star Shadow and the desert world were four additional waypoints.
Talak studied the display.
“You’re certain?”
“I calculated the route one hundred times before Outpost 297 and an additional three hundred twelve times after departure.”
Kahlan looked at Alliyanna. “I think we hurt her feelings.”
“I do not have feelings in the biological sense,” Viki replied.
“Of course not.”
“I am still waiting for your apology.”
Kahlan sighed. “Viki, I apologize for calling you just a machine.”
“Accepted.”
Talak pointed at the first waypoint. “How old?”
“Automated. Imperial records indicate minimal service traffic. Current physical condition unknown.”
“And the others?”
“Similar. The final waypoint remains actively serviced.”
Alliyanna looked at the route.
“ETA?”
Viki answered with a number so precise that Talak stared at the ceiling.
Kahlan waited until she finished.
“You could have said about two months.”
“I could have. It would have been less accurate.”
Viki’s route was not a straight line.
That was the point.
A straight run from Outpost 297 toward Erimos would have advertised the destination to anyone with enough data to compare vectors. Instead Viki built a broken path through old service points, using each stop as both a supply opportunity and a direction change.
Talak studied the route for nearly an hour.
“How much time does this add?”
“Seven days, eleven hours, nine minutes under current drive performance.”
Kahlan looked at him. “Don’t ask for seconds.”
“I was not going to.”
Viki added, “Thirty-two seconds.”
Talak closed his eyes.
Alliyanna smiled.
The first several days after Outpost 297 were uneventful. That did not make them restful.
Talak changed course twice when long-range sensors picked up commercial traffic.
Kahlan monitored public communications and heard the Imperial notice three more times.
Each repetition sounded exactly the same.
Baroness Alliyanna Kar’Jan, styling herself as Duchess Birsha.
Submit to custody.
Senate inquiry.
Ten years.
Alliyanna stopped listening after the third one.
“If they wanted me to voluntarily surrender,” she said, “they probably should have found a less irritating way to ask.”
Talak glanced toward her.
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