Wraiths

"Those ships…they look like Wraiths."

"Ghost ships then?"

"I suppose. You do know that a wraith is an Old Earth word for a ghost or spirit right?"

"Of course. I figure that the Ghost Program was so named because wraith was taken and spirit didn't have the same ring to it."

"No. Of course not."

Valerian remained standing on the bridge of the Brin, not moving or flinching. Just as Jake did. He suspected that even now, Jake didn't trust him. That the good doctor likely only trusted two people in his life, one of them being a former merc, the other being a protoss who'd decided to remain onboard with Project Blackstone. And he might have found it frustrating if he didn't have to deal with people who didn't trust him on a daily basis, and people who wanted to kill him on a weekly one. Being an emperor was hard that way.

"So what do you think?" Jake asked, still not moving. "We gonna call them Wraiths? Ghosts? Spirits?"

"I'm sure we'll think of something."

"Ah yes." The archaeologist snorted. "We."

Valerian frowned. But kept watching through the bridge's plexiglas windows.

The Brin was operating in the depths of space. Depths so deep that it had taken him two weeks' warp travel on the fastest ship the Dominion had available to arrive. At most, he could stay here a week. Which meant that he would be absent for over a month on Korhal, and anything could happen there. But with the discovery of a long dead alien civilization, a civilization that had technological development roughly equivalent to humanity's, he had to come. Because so far every other alien civilization Valerian knew of was either insanely advanced, or had never got beyond its homeworld and died in its cradle. Finding a species that had existed in the middle ground of the technological and cultural spectrum was quite refreshing.

And yet this civilization was likely long dead. Watching the Brin's utility vehicles comb through the ruins, he looked at the fighters that hung in the darkness of space – starfighters, shaped in a similar V pattern to a CF/A-17 Wraith. Drifting in-between the debris of what was likely once a capital-class starship.

"We know anything about them?" Valerian asked. "These aliens?"

"Why?" Jake asked. "Want to find more to dissect?"

Valerian didn't rise to the bait. "Indulge me Jake. Whatever you may think of me, I'm still the one paying the bills. And right now, there's every reason for me to stop paying them and allocate them elsewhere."

"Then why don't you?"

Valerian opened his mouth. Then closed it. Either he could lie, or tell the truth, that despite being emperor of an empire that existed in name only, he was still a boy at heart. An explorer at heart. And as emperor, he had the permission and means to spend those funds how he wanted, regardless of what his subjects might think about that.

"If you want info on the aliens themselves, ask Talen," Jake said. He walked across the bridge to a terminal. "But culturally, all I can tell you is that these starships belonged to a body that roughly translates as Pax Imperia."

"Pax Imperia?"

"Yes, Pax Imperia," Jake said. "As in-"

"Imperial peace." The archeologist looked at Valerian. "Yes Jake, I know Latin. Not to mention that a pax imperia what I want for the Dominion."

"Course you do."

"Yes, I do," Valerian said firmly. He gestured out through the window. "Because look at them Jake. Clearly they didn't have peace. All that's left are ghosts. And wraiths."

Jake looked at him, raising an eyebrow. But he didn't say anything, and went back to the terminal. As far as Valerian was aware, Jake had lost his telepathic abilities when that preserver was removed from his mind. But if he still had them, he had no doubt that the archaeologist would be reading his mind right now. And laughing.

Because looking out at the starfighters, Valerian supposed "wraith" was a good name for them. The terran Wraith was an aging starfighter, and however he chose to rebuild the Dominion's military, he'd need a better one to do the job, to complement the Viking rather than rival it. But these ships, they were indeed wraiths. Ghost ships. Derelicts. No longer functioning war machines of a long dead civilization.

And he felt afraid. Because terrans used Wraiths. Their civilization was on the brink. And of the rumours he'd heard of what was going on in protoss-controlled space…

…wraiths, he feared, was what might become of all galactic civilizations if they weren't careful.

Valerian took a quick look around the bridge before calling Dr Ayers in.

He had no desire for the Brin to become a derelict anytime soon.

A/N

I'd known for awhile that Blizzard worked on Pax Imperia 2 before selling the rights to THQ, but as a result of the cancellation of Titan, I ended up stumbling on a trailer when the game was still known as PI2, rather than Eminent Domain. What caught my eye was the starfighter design, how they bore similarity to Wraiths. It wouldn't surprise me if inspiration was taken - after all, the walkers from Shattered Nations ended up becoming the basis for Goliaths.

Anyway, drabbled this up as a result.