‘Well,’ Grie thought to himself as he fell through the silence of space away from the half-destroyed Fhit, ‘This is quite a predicament.’ He wasn’t sure if his armor would even handle re-entry on its own, but he was certain no matter what he hit when he finally reached the surface, he’d be pulverized. He wondered if any of his comrades had survived the initial blast of the explosion. Truth be told, he had only survived because he had gotten a bad feeling immediately beforehand and put his gloves and helmet back on before running into the main passageway to see if something was wrong. Had he not, exposure alone would have already killed him, even if the blast that ripped the galley to shreds hadn’t done so first.
‘At least I have a few minutes to sort out my last thoughts.’ Based on the distance at which the Fhit had been orbiting, it would be another ten minutes at least before he even hit atmo. Grie pulled himself into a ball, using changes in his center of gravity to turn himself back toward the ship to see how it was faring. He wished he hadn’t.
The section of the ship that contained the TMDS itself had been torn open in the blast. As a result, the system was now providing additional forces on the frame of the ship and was slowly tearing the ship apart. After the TMDS containment unit was compromised, the crew should have had two minutes to reach the nearest escape shuttle. Unfortunately, whatever had caused the blast had blown open the main steam lines, which meant there was only enough pressure to operate the underbridge launchers, which ran on an auxiliary system. With those limitations, only about four hundred could get off the ship, maximum, and a Qzeno-class Ultracarrier had a crew in the tens of thousands. Whoever had planned this had either gotten very lucky or knew far too much about Thorlinthian ship design.
Looking about, he saw a few other possible survivors, but before he could even try to reach them on the wireless, the Fhit’s TMDS finally collapsed, and the resulting forms of radiation, while not particularly harmful to organics, knocked out any chance of communication for the next five minutes while the suits’ electrical subsystems restarted. Luckily, when electrical current was cut to the helmet, the darkened visor cleared up, allowing the wearer to see even if the suit was shut down by these exact types of conditions. Resigning from his attempts to hail the survivors, Grie lay his head back.
He did so just in time to see a shuttle create a small shadow over a star. It had to be more than a mile away, but for some reason, it gave Grie hope. It had the Armada’s insignia on it, after all, and that’s exactly the type of sight he needed right now. Now thinking along lines more in favor of living, Grie thought back to a conversation he had had with Drigondii Sheii’Cronell several months ago.
“Sir, there’s something that’s been bothering me for a while now,” Grie said as he looked up from his plate to his leader. “The day you saved me, your eyes shone red, just like the Sheii’Cronell stories, and they do every time you perform one of your incredible feats. Does it have anything to do with how you achieve them?”
Drigondii looked up from his own plate, grinning ever so slightly. “You know, now that you mention it, it probably does. My eyes shine like that whenever I manipulate lifeforce.”
“Lifeforce, sir? Like in those movies you like much?” Grie began to think of laser swords, energy shields, and other such impossible or simply impractical things that were also featured in those films. “Seems a bit fictitious to me, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir.”
“Well, that’s just what it’s called. Apparently, it’s derived from a very ancient word used to describe the powerful nature of the universe. I think it was even a religious term at one point. The word itself apparently has a strange interaction with some people’s brains, allowing them to access these types of powers. It’s really got more to do with quantum interdimensional connections between matter and energy than an actual life force, but I have to admit, I’m not exactly well enough educated in those matters to explain it to you, and I don’t know a better word for quantum interdimensional connections. Plus, whenever you use it, it’s like a million voices are speaking to you from inside and outside yourself at the same time. Lifeforce doesn’t seem unfitting.” At this Drigondii chuckled and took another bite of his steak.
“What’s the word, sir?” Grie asked. Drigondii looked up again, giving Grie a look that expressed both pride and amusement.
“The word, Grie? Are you asking because you don’t know or because you do?” Drigondii didn’t speak again until the end of the dinner.
Reaching out with every fiber of his being to the ship, Grie spoke into the nothingness the word that he could never have known and yet which now seemed so obvious. It was a word so ancient, it could not be expressed with sound or symbol. It could only be spoken with thought, feeling, and understanding. Grie thought of his child’s birth, his own growth to a man, his best friend’s death, the tree that stood in his yard. He thought of the cycle of a star, a cloud of gas, a bu
rning inferno, and a massive explosion leading to more clouds of gas which would do the same.
And as he thought these things, as he began to make all the connections between himself and every particle and thing and person around him, the word came, like a thundering voice in and out of himself. And it spoke power into him, and he spoke it out to the shuttle. For the shuttle was as much a part of that word as he was, as was the space between them. And for those few moments, as Grie found himself coming closer to the shuttle, he felt as though he could see all the expanse of the worlds. Was this how the Great One saw, he wondered, as if nothing were separate and all of space and time were the same?
But just as he had begun to form these thoughts, he found his hand grasping the cold metal of the shuttle, and the word was gone and took with it all of its profound thoughts. ‘Just in time, too,’ Grie thought, as the flames of re-entry began to wrap around the shuttle, barely missing him as he lay as flat against the top of the shuttle as he could while holding onto its piping hot throughput vents as hard as he could. And with that, he passed into an exhausted slumber.
Inside the shuttle, Angus Ayling looked up toward the thunking sound which had occured just before the deafening roar of re-entry. “What was that?” He looked to his wife, Summer, who shrugged.
“Probably just an insulator plate popping. I’ve heard they have a tendency to do that sometimes.” She placed her hand on Angus’s shoulder. He’d been thoroughly shaken since he had seen the face of one of the Tees back on the ship. It had been a young man, no older than seventeen, and he had looked more normal than any of the Tees Angus had seen thus far. No unusual or foreign trait was to be spotted on the boy. Angus had realized just as the shuttle’s door was closing that it was because the boy was from Earth, visiting the ship with a group of high schoolers who were being recruited for the Armada.
“Well, we can check it out when we land,” Lieutenant Denton said. He looked even paler than Angus. The Dragon Riders had been there as part of a recruitment ploy, and he had realized it far too late to abort or even alter the mission. “For now, let’s just get some rest.” The team retired to their rooms for a few hours’ rest as the shuttle moved across the Pacific toward their awaiting landing zone.
All posts by admin
Dragon Slayers
Summer was sweating as she shakingly manipulated the final mechanisms of the device she had been assigned to build. If she did something wrong to one of these pieces, the entire timing assembly could fail, and the device would go off before the team delivering had time to get off the target ship. Just one… more… solder. Done. Leaning back, Summer let out a sigh and slumped her hands away just in time not to destroy all her work when a loud banging was heard through her door, and she jumped.
“Hey, Summer, is it done yet?” A man looking to be in his early thirties stepped into the room as he opened the door. He looked uneasy, as was everyone aboard the shuttle. The final stage of assembly had to be completed on the way to the target due to an emergency change in schedule, so the entire team was nervous.
Summer glowered at the man and reached out to her desk, grabbing the last bit of outer plating and placing it over the recently soldered area. “Yes,” she snapped. “And if it hadn’t been, you could have killed us all just now with that banging.” The man grimaced at the thought, then raised his eyebrows to hers in an apologetic manner. “Oh, it’s fine, Angus. No harm done, right?” She smiled crookedly at him, still a bit shaken by the timing of it all.
“Thanks, Summer. Listen, we really appreciate you filling in for Clayton’s part on this assignment. He just got moved to a top secret assignment by the Muffin Man himself. Apparently, it was a now or never type of deal. So, thanks.” He smiled back at Summer and extended his hand in gratitude. She took it, and they spent a few moments recalling easier times in each other’s eyes.
“Hey, Angus!” A booming voice called out, quite in contrast to Angus’s own light tenor. “Did you find out? Is it done yet?”
Summer let go of Angus’s hand, instead placing hers on his shoulder and yelling past him, “Yes, it’s done, you silly goat! Is the rest of the team ready?” She couldn’t help but shake her head at the Lieutenant. He’d done a fine enough job in the Navy, but all his protocol and properness flew out the window as soon as he got out on the eve of Phoenix Day. If this mission hadn’t been entirely his plan, she’d have thought the man had lost all military sense whatsoever.
“Good!” the Lieutenant shouted. “But do we really need to shout if the door’s open?” He turned his head toward her as she peeked out into the main cabin, in which he was leaning against the far bulkhead and grinning mischievously at her.
Summer’s smooth face formed a few creases as she glowered playfully at him, scrunching her face as tightly as she could and saying quietly, “No. We don’t. Are we almost there? I’m starting to lose my stomach to the simgrav. The Tees could have come up with something a little closer to normal levels. It’s weird being this light.” She exhaled slowly in an attempt to calm her stomach, which was not taking well to space travel.
“Aye, we’ll be there soon enough.” He bashed his hand against the door to his right twice. “Oi, how much longer d’you think, Mickey? Five, maybe ten minutes?” He pressed his ear to the door, just barely moving from his previous leaning position. After a few moments, he stood upright and said, “Yeah, he’s figuring about five minutes. Everybody’s suited up, Angus?”
“We’re all good to go, L.T.” Angus reported in a manner becoming of a military man, which was ironic because he was the only one on the shuttle with no military experience.
“Weapons are all good? No fingerprints?” The Lieutenants concern in this regard was shared by most of the crew. Even though they were willing to die if the need came about, they’d rather not be found out should they actually survive, and it was even more important that no one find out who had smuggled the weapons from the peacekeepers to the resistance. If the smugglers were found out, the Tees could easily crush the resistance’s supply lines.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, L.T. I checked ‘em all myself.” A bulking man with a thick Texas accent walked into the cabin. “If there’s anything I learned dusting for prints, it’s how ta’ get ‘em off.” The man grinned at the Lieutenant proudly and lifted the chin of his helmet The neck guard became tight, preventing him from leaning his head further back. “Cain’t say I’m too fond of these suits, though. Tees could’a given a bit more thought to comfort…”
“I don’t think the Tees give a rat’s–” Angus started before being abruptly interrupted by Summer.
“My studies have shown that the utmost care has been given to ensure the safety of the wearer in case of accidental venting due to hull breaches and the like. You may not want to wear these for pyjamas, but they’ll keep you alive in vacuum, under fire, and with a tank sitting on your chest.” Summer’s matter-of-fact tone made it clear that any further complaints would be pointless. The mission depended on the suits, so they were staying on. Besides, it would be critical in adding to the element of surprise when the Tees started to see their fellows firing on them.
The dark, mirrored visors that would conceal their identities were also designed to protect the crew’s eyes from radiant blasts caused by many battlefield weaponry and had the added benefit of a HUD wirelessly connected to the weapons in the suit’s immediate vicinity, removing any guesswork from ammunition count and aim. There were no sights on the Tees’ weapons, only small cameras used by the HUD to produce a reticle where each weapon was aimed over the wearer’s view of the battlefield, which was extended to 360 degrees by the cameras around the helmet. It took some getting used to, but it made suprise attacks from behind a thing of the past. Angus thought it was a lot like a video game, but when he mentioned this, the rest of the team scolded him for not taking the mission seriously.
Only a few minutes later, the shuttle was secured inside the target ship’s receiving bay, where Mickey would wait exactly twenty-eight minutes for the team to return. The rest of the team moved into the airlock, securing their visors and ensuring their weapons were loaded.
“Right, everyone,” Lieutenant Larry Denton said over the secure comm line for the team. “Let’s go Dragon slaying!”
The team nodded, taking a few possibly last glances at one another, and took off into the TAS Fhit’s receiving bay, making their way to the main hangar where five Dragon 52-Fs were waiting to be refueled. An explosion of the right variety there would take out not only the Dragons, but the entire aft quarter of the ship, including the aft galley, where five Dragon Riders were eating with other Tee pilots and flight officers.
Grie Khuda’Cronell was among them.
Eden
“Valkyr 53, this is Dragon King actual.” Your wireless goes off quietly beside you as you sit in the cockpit of your Valkyr, silently contemplating what dishes you should serve for dinner when your sister next comes to dinner.
“This is Valkyr 53. Go ahead, Dragon King.” You grow tired of the standardized protocols employed by the Armada, but they are a peeve which must be tolerated for the sake of this mission.
“53, we’ve been picking up some weird readings in your sector. We believe there’s an unidentified craft on the other side of the large gas planet. Please investigate.” Of course there is. Jupiter’s electromagnetic field makes for quite a light show on the sensors, which means anything suspected to be behind it probably doesn’t even exist. Sensor ghosts are rather common when scanning too close to a planet.
“I’m on my way,” you reply, ignoring protocols requiring you to terminate the conversation. You’re a Valkyrie, anyway, and the Valkyries are technically independent of the Thorlinthian government and its military. As such, you don’t have to follow Armadian procedures and protocols. After setting the hype coordinates, you secure yourself to the seat and engage the hype. A quick implosion and explosion later, you find yourself staring at Jupiter’s backside, searching for any possible ships using your close-range sensors.
After about half a day of scanning and nearly returning to Earth, you notice something strange out of the corner of your eye. There appears to be a slightly misshapen area on Jupiter’s atmosphere, which means only one thing to your well-trained mind: There is a gravitational disturbance beneath it. You fly closer to investigate.
Sure enough, once you get closer, you notice that there is a distinct change in the smooth appearance of the raging gases prevalent in Jupiter’s atmosphere. You perform a gravitational analysis using one of the auxiliary functions of the Timids and notice that there is a rather large ship floating about in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Due to the erratic trail it seems to have traced, however, it does not appear to be fully operational, if at all, and is being held up by the pressure of the gases surrounding it.
Sending a quick message to Drigondii detailing the situation, you take the Valkyr into the atmosphere, an action which any engineer would probably not advise. Many of Jupiter’s gases are highly corrosive, and the storms are extremely volatile. Keeping that in mind, you engage the plasma shielding around the Valkyr. While not strong enough to stop a projectile from making it through to the heavily armored hull, the plasma shield can maintain a comfortable bubble around the Valkyr through which the gases will not be able to pass.
Once you are within your entirely too limited visual range of the ship, you open the outer shields directly surrounding the cockpit, allowing you to rely on your eyes instead of the twitchy sensors in this highly electrical storm cell. What you can make out appears to be very old and shut down. You send out a few standard interrogative signals, questioning the ship’s identity, but you know that to be useless as you move back to your small office space in the area of the ship directly behind the galley.
Reaching your desk just as the third signal is being sent, you start looking through your drawers for a small box your mother-in-law had given you in case you encountered just such a ship and which you were expressly forbidden from opening otherwise. Taking it to the cockpit, you begin to fiddle with the complex symbol on top of the box, trying to return it to the same pattern you saw on it when it was closed in your mother-in-law’s private office. As the office she shared with her brother, the Director of Internal Security, there were no monitoring devices allowed in the entire building, which meant there were bugs everywhere, and she couldn’t explain the lock mechanism aloud.
Nonetheless, you are a Valkyrie, and you quickly remembered the pattern and took only moments to unscramble the lock. Once the symbol is restored to the Tyrian symbol of the Kuli, the box gives a slight whistle as the airtight seal is opened. Opening the box, you are surprised to find a single, handheld device with which you are well familiarized. It is an old-issue hand repeater. Remembering your instructions, you disassemble using only the mental powers you possess as a Valkyrie. As you reach the final pieces, however, you notice there are two pieces that very clearly do not belong in the repeater and which would have been damaged had the gun been disassembled manually. Removing the pieces, you reassemble the repeater and absent-mindedly place it in your armpit holster.
The pieces you’ve found are considerably less foreign, and you place them together in the only apparent manner you can. The completed device, no larger than the silence stone on your Valkyrie ring, begins manipulating itself and expanding in a manner that seems physically impossible. You then realize that you had just reassembled a small hype controller, though clearly not for the same hyping your people uses, as there is no popping as the device expands, turns, and contorts, only a light pouring sound as the air around the minute hype window is displaced as more and more of the device enters standard spacetime.
After several millidays, the device stops moving. Looking at the completely returned device now resting rather heavily on your lap, you are grateful for the systems actively countering the surplus gravity provided by Jupiter, as it would likely have otherwise crushed your legs. You feel as though perhaps Drigondii’s mother could have warned you to open the box on the deck of the ship. Giving the device a face you usually saved for a misbehaving Lihandii, who had incidentally been named after her paternal grandmother, you take it with one arm and bring it back to the cargo main, along with the box.
Upon reaching the cargo main, you place the device on the deck and begin to analyze it more thoroughly. Its lower half is rectangular in nature, with a lip around the middle of the device, revealing complex circuitry unlike anything you’ve seen in your lifetime. It does not appear to be active, however, and you quickly realize why.
Taking the box’s lid, you carefully place it over the device and lower it to the surrounding lip. The device responds with a whistling that informs you an airtight seal has been formed, and the symbol atop the box begins to flicker with a soft light. Just as a slight movement starts to be noticeable on the symbol and the flickering changes to a constant light, alarms begin to trip in your cockpit, and you move quickly to respond.
As you enter the cockpit, you are surprised to see the large ship rising steadily from its prior location. Looking to your alarms, you see that electrical systems have been detected throughout the ship, and the Valkyr is responding to the ship awakening. Securing yourself into the cockpit’s seat, you maneuver the Valkyr out of Jupiter’s atmosphere and into a geosynchronous orbit from which you can safely await the rising ship without the bother of more alarms indicative of excessive pressure, temperature, and gravity, and where you can return to the Kuli device.
Returning to the cargo main, you find the device floating helplessly in the air, and you bring it back to the deck, securing it with light cargo clamps. You notice that the Kuli symbol has protruded from the device, taking a more three-dimensional appearance. The device is clearly some sort of remote activation and control device for the large ship now rising out of the gas planet’s atmosphere.
A small hologram appears above the device, displaying the ship and denoting areas which are exposed to the vacuum of space or had been exposed to high levels of radiation. You make note of a few choice areas on the ship and return to the cockpit, maneuvering the Valkyr into the ship’s main bay, which has not yet recovered enough to initiate the docking shield. Securing the Valkyr to the deck of the bay, you take the device and grab a life support extender for your flight suit.
As the suit’s helmet activates, pressurizing the suit, you give your leg a reminiscent rub, remembering another occasion in which the suit had staved off death for you just long enough to save your life. Smiling at other details of the memory, you release your leg and move through the Valkyr’s airlock, passing into the larger ship’s main bay. This was clearly once a military ship, but the bay appears to have been repurposed to receive shuttles and other non-militant ships, as the bay’s many shiplocks appear to have been jury-rigged to fit a larger variety of ships and shuttles than it had originally been designed. As you enter the passageway through a malfunctioning airlock, you notice that quite a bit of the ship appears to have been pieced together in a hurry using other ships.
Deciding to consult the device’s map, you begin to head forward, toward the area most highly shielded and protected, an area that doesn’t appear to have lost any of its functions and therefore a likely important area. Looking about as you go through the damaged passageways, you examine the more highly exposed areas of the ship. Based on the damaged airlocks and the sheer depth of the hull, clearly apparent through the holes that have been corroded away by Jupiter’s atmosphere, the ship must have been sitting in the storms of Jupiter for a very long time, somewhere on the scale of hundreds of thousands of cycles, perhaps even millions.
Finally reaching a sealed area, you pass through an auxiliary airlock and are not particularly surprised to find the air to be nearly toxic in oxygen levels. Based on the ship map on the remote device, the ship got its oxygen from plants and bacteria, which would certainly outlive any crew to produce carbon dioxide. You smartly decide to keep your life support engaged, but set it to retrieve any needed oxygen from the surrounding air to maintain a steady level of oxygen to carbon dioxide in its contained air supply.
Passing by one of the arboretums on your way to the cockpit, you notice many of the plants have died off from lack of carbon dioxide in the air, a bitter reminder of just how long the crew must have been dead, though the lack of contaminants in the air had nearly halted the decomposition of the bodies, which were still strewn about the passageways. The problem with the air must once have been quite the opposite what it is now, likely due to the loss of arboretums throughout the ship, which appear largely to be the most heavily damaged areas.
Consulting the map again, you look for an area similar to a bridge, where many personnel would be present. The first few areas you check out appear to have been galleys and engineering spaces. Reaching one of the uppermost but aftermost areas in question, you notice the door holds the same Kuli symbol as the device. After trying for a few moments in vain to search for an opening mechanism, you roll your eyes at yourself. Well that should have been obvious. Almost dejectedly, you hold out the remote device to the door, and after several beeps, thunks and hisses, the door separating the rest of the ship from the bridge’s entry airlock opens.
You enter into the airlock and shut the door behind you. Once several more beeps, thunks, and hisses have taken place, a very loud whooshing sound comes from overhead as the air is ejected from the airlock back into the main filtration system. When the final hisses of air are gone, two thunks are heard, the first from above and the second from below. Another rush of air enters into the airlock, and you are shocked to see after a sample that this is ideally filtered air, a nearly impossible feat after all this time. Moments later, the door to the highly sterile bridge opens, and you are amazed at the sleek simplicity of the design as you scan the room with your helmlight.
A series of pedestals are sticking out of the deck on each side of the bridge. Atop each pedestal is a metallic orb. There is a sum total of seven of these pedestals, the foremost being at the center of the bridge instead of one of the sides. Directly behind each pedestal is a round hatch and beside each hatch are two slots, one on either side, in which a device exactly like the one you are carrying should be resting. There is one missing from the foremost control suite, and you make your way to it, making note of the lack of displays or viewports. However the ship was controlled, its operation was beyond the understanding of any Thorlinthian, excepting perhaps the elder Lihandii Khuda’Cronell, your mother-in-law.
Placing the device carefully into the slot, the symbol retreated again into its place on the skin of the device, and the map of the ship disappeared. Immediately, the bridge’s domed wall came alight with a gentle red light, and each of the pedestals came alight with holographic displays while the devices on each side of the hatches lifted their kuli symbols on columns of light to the same level as the pedestals. The symbols then activated holographic displays of their own, facing inward to the hatches.
Upon this task being completed, hissing can be heard from each of the hatches, followed by a metallic thunk and a hydraulic hum as the hatches lift to reveal cylinders, which when fully lifted from the hatches’ enclosure, slide aft on the deck silently as the hatches return to their position flush with the deck. At this point, you look about and notice that the cylinders are actually stasis pods, and though every instinct in you tells you to draw your repeater in anticipation, you instead remove your holster and place it on the ground before you without drawing it, sensing a power comparable to your own from each of these pods. You’re outnumbered, and at the very least, whoever are in these pods are alive and potentially as dangerous as yourself, if not more so, a thought you immediately wish you hadn’t considered.
Since you have no way of determining what kind of stasis this has been, you have no idea in what condition the crew will emerge. You only know that you are usually rather irritable after a long stasis, and there has probably never been a stasis this long before. You think back to Kahlisa, who was able to remain alive in a deep state of meditation for cycles without nourishment or a stasis system. You wonder how long she could have lasted in one of these pods.
Your thoughts are brought to a halt as an arm comes around your neck. Sensing no killing intent, you do not choose to fight against the hold, as this could result only in harm to yourself and your captor. Remaining calm, you reach out with what Kahlisa called the mindspeak and what Drigondii called telepathy and touch the mind of your captor, sending only the message, ‘I am not your enemy.’
The man holding you, however, does not release you just yet, responding with the thought, ‘Who are you, and what are you doing on my ship?’ The thought is not panicked. The man is simply taking the most cautious and logical course of action, neutralizing a possible threat while assessing its status as such. He communicates with the same calculated measures as Kahlisa, though he seems to be more highly trained. Putting the pieces together, you assume this man and, most likely, every other member of this small remnant of a crew is Kuli.
‘Let the girl go, J’Ulus. She’s the one who just brought the ship back online. The Watch must have sent her here with the secondary Key. It’s the only way our systems could have been reactivated.’ The second voice, though still in mindspeak, seems only to be such out of courtesy for the fact that not everyone in the bridge may speak the same language. ‘What is your name, young student? Do you bring word from Tyria? We’ve completed our mission. Twenty planets have been successfully seeded. We would have kept going, but we ran into… difficulties’
You don’t understand what he’s talking about and tell him such. ‘I don’t understand. I am Terira, but I am no student, and I don’t know anyone named Tyria.’ At these final words, the crew of the bridge all take on expressions of mixed sorrow and pity.
A female to your left with flaming red hair speaks, ‘Tyria is the home galaxy. Are you saying you are not Kuli?’
‘She’s at least Linthian, J’Hiloa. Look at her. Looks to be from the main system, too. That system went through the Tear, though. What are you doing here, Terira?’ The woman who speaks this time is on your right. She has hair white as snow, but her face shows no signs of age, and her eyes are a sight to match her hair.
A hiss comes from the foremost pod, and a man with red hair and a fatherly face emerges. All the crew look to him, and you do the same. This man, however, dons a mischievous smile and spoke aloud in a language you are extremely surprised to hear and that seems to take aback the rest of the crew as well: English. “I think I might be able to explain the situation. Welcome aboard the Seed Ship Eden, better known to its operating crew as New Beginnings 8, young Thorlinthian. I’ve been waiting a very long time for your arrival.”
Family Dinner
“Daddy!” A now ten cycle-old Gildr Khuda’Mundi ran into his father’s arms for the first time in his life only minutes after finally landing on Earth. The man catching him, Grie Khuda’Mundi, was quickly reduced to tears, a highly uncommon sight on a Dragon Rider, particularly when still wearing his Drigarmr. Still, Grie hadn’t seen his son since shortly after the boy’s first cycle-mark over nine cycles ago. His violet eyes filled with tears quickly, and he gripped his son more tightly as his cheeks began to cool from the tears evaporating in the wind.
“Oh, my boy! You’re so big.” Grie held his son out at arm’s length as he said this, then picked him up, making a small seat for him in the crook of his arm, a feat that most would no longer be able to manage at the boy’s current age; but Grie was a Dragon Rider, and his strength was second to very few, so it was to him as effortless as an atmo-hype. With the boy secured and tightly embracing his father around the shoulders, Grie pulled his wife closer for a kiss.
“We took the first passenger ship out of Osgord as soon as we could. Oh, Grie, I’ve missed you.” Priha’Di broke into tears of her own as she spoke. “I’m so sorry about Veriar, Grie.”
At this, Grie’s face took a more somber look upon itself for a few moments. “Accidents happened our first few cycles here. The people weren’t quite as receptive to the idea of the Monarchy as we’d hoped at first. It wasn’t even an attack. We had the English Prime Minister in custody at the time, and a protester jumped onto the shuttle to make it land and got sucked into the turbines. The whole thing was just an accident. So many people…” His voice trailed off into the same wind that was tousling his green hair. Priha’Di nodded.
“Now! Where’s that sister of yours?” Priha’Di smiled sharply at this, wanting to move the conversation to a lighter venue. Little Gildr even looked up from the hand that had been playing with his father’s short red cape to search for his aunt and playmate.
“Auntie Kehrann! Auntie Kehrann, where’d you go?” His boyish voice, loud as it was, carried across the entire room, and a short, green-haired teenager quickly scampered her way to the group with her backbag bouncing to and fro as she went.
“Hi there, Grie-ellr!” Kehrann worked her way into a one armed hug from Grie and then reached up and disheveled her nephew’s hair. “Thanks for calling me, Gildr. I thought I’d lost you guys!”
“Ungr-bug, what are you doing here? I’d have thought you’d go back to our parents’ home when these two shipped over here. I’m so happy to see you! Oh, hey, is this everyone? We have to go register with the umbodsmother before the housing office closes.” Grie looked about, half-expecting to see another of his sisters or his brother.
“Nope!” Kehrann beamed. “We’ve got one more family member to grab before we leave,” she said before scampering off in a slightly more intentional direction than that she had used when finding them.
“Who else is here, dear?” Grie looked to his wife, who bit away the smile creeping onto her face. Grie may not have seen that expression in a long time, but he still knew it meant he’d like whatever the surprise was. He grinned and looked back to his son. “So have you been learning a lot from your mommy?” The boy shook his head fervently, making his mother scoff and pinch his leg playfully.
“Yes, he has. We just finished hyping physics last week. Sorry, I meant to get to it a lot sooner, but there were some timing issues when we were getting ready to leave, so he got off to a late start.” At this, Grie laughed loudly. “What? What’s so funny?” Priha’Di looked totally bewildered.
“Oh, Pri, you would know if you’d been with me to the American school their last winter. You know, they don’t follow a standard cycle here. The planet revolves almost thirty-five days fast. Oh, but the local day is exactly one standard day. They split it up weird, though. You’ll get used to it.. Anyway, by little Gildr’s age, the locals haven’t even learned differential mathematics. He’s the best-educated child his age on the whole planet. There aren’t any other kids here with former Valkyries for mommies, after all. Well, except the Sheii’Cronell’s daughter, that is.”
“The Sheii’Cronell’s married?” Priha’Di was even more astounded at this fact than Grie had been when he found out. It was another exceptional trait of the man he had come to see as something of a friend and mentor. Sheii’Cronells didn’t marry. They were supposedly infertile. “Who’s his wife? Do I know her?”
“That’s the best part, Pri. It’s Terira.” Grie beamed at this particular statement. Priha’Di hadn’t heard anything from her sister since she had left for the Deep Space Navigation Program over her (the same mission, in fact, during which Terira found Earth), in main due to the fact that she hadn’t stayed on Thor when she married Grie, who had been a low-ranking enlisted Armadian at the time. By the time Terira got back, Priha’Di had already moved to Osgord.
“You’re joking!” Priha’Di exclaim
ed. “Daddy’s joking, huh, little Gildr?” She tickled the boy, who started wiggling and laughing, which made it considerably harder for Grie to hold onto him. Grie just kept smiling and looking at his wife. “Wait,” she said, her tickling slowing to a crawl as she looked back at her husband. “You’re not joking?” He shook his head. “Terira’s here?” He nodded. “And she’s married to the Sheii’Cronell?” Again, he nodded. “The same Sheii’Cronell who saved your life and got you into the Dragon Riders is actually our brother-in-law?”
“Now you’re getting it…” Grie smiled even wider. “She’s invited us to dinner, too, which is another reason we have to hurry up to register. That’s why I told you to dress nicely today in my last correspondence.”
At this, Priha’Di looked positively mortified. She had dressed with a slightly different type of appeal in mind when planning to see her husband for the first time in nine cycles. She hardly considered her present outfit, a sweater suit with leggings and a ladies’ kilt, appropriate for dinner with a Sheii’Cronell and a sister she hadn’t seen in about fifteen cycles. Grie must have sensed this, though, since his next words were, “You look great, Pri. I think Terira’s wearing something casual, though the men are obviously wearing our Drigarmr formals. Oh, speaking of which!” Grie reached into the Armadian pattern satchel he was carrying and pulled out a small set of Dragon Rider’s Drigarmr, though with the armor itself made of local leather instead of actual Drigarmr. “This is for you to wear, little guy.” Gildr grabbed excitedly at the armor and instantly did his best to wrinkle the material with his arms as children do when they hold clothes they love.
“Still making trouble, I see,” a familiar voice said from behind Grie, the speaker placing his wrinkled hand on Grie’s shoulder. Grie turned to look at the little, graying man.
“Hello, grandfather.” It was a phrase of caring practice, holding in it an old formality a little boy had once learned to make his grandfather proud.
“This is everyone,” Kehrann said from beside her grandfather. “Now we can go, Grie-ellr.”
“Sounds great,” Grie said enthusiastically. This was the third best day of his life, the second being his wedding, and the first being Gildr’s birth. He was looking forward to it. “Well, the Umbodsmother’s office closes soon, so we should get going. I’ve got a pulse car waiting for us. The office will send someone to get all your belongings.
Agreeing, they all headed off to the outer shell of the docks. “So, grandfather, what are you doing here,” Grie asked as the boy in his arm excitedly tried to work his way into the Drigarmor without taking off any of the clothes he was already wearing, which included a rather thick coat and made his task practically impossible.
“Well, you know your grandmother was my second wife. After she died a few months before Priha’Di here ended up leaving, I was offered to come live with these two young ladies and my favorite little man here.” At this, he pinched one Gildr’s cheeks gently. Gildr made a halfhearted effort to stop the man, but he obviously didn’t really mind. “When we got word that families were allowed to head out to Earth, Priha’Di asked me to come with. Said it’d be a good surprise for you and that I’d be good fun for Gildr during the trip.”
“It’s the beard, grandfather. Kids can’t help but fall in love with you when you’ve got that silver beard. You remind them too much of the Saint of Winter.” That was probably true. All children loved that old story and the presents they got every year ‘from the Saint of Winter’ on Drigan’di’s Day.
“Well, in any case, I’m glad I offered. Your parents were going to send him to an Ellrhome. That would have been a tragedy,” Priha’Di added into the conversation. Kehrann and Grie nodded.
“Still, I can’t believe my little Grie grew up to be a Drig Reidr. I remember when they first started up over a hundred cycles ago on Thorlinthia’s side of the Bifrost, you know. Who knows how long it’s been on this side. How that new Sheii’Cronell managed to synchronize the two sides still leaves me totally stumped, and I’ve been trying to figure it out for the past seven cycles.”
“It’s Dragon Riders now, grandfather, and it’s not as bad as it used to be. We aren’t all bloodthirsty Oa’din, you know. And the Sheii’Cronell isn’t a bad man, either. Something’s different about him. You’ll see what I mean. You’re joining us for dinner, I assume?” Grie hoped he could show his grandfather that Drigondii Sheii’Cronell wasn’t like Fargerre Sheii’Cronell at all.
“Of course I’m coming. Not even an old man’s prejudice could keep old Gril’Die from having dinner with family, and there’s no questioning that this is a family dinner. I still have my old uniform in good condition. I’ll change at the same time Gildr does. And trust me, I’d love nothing more than to meet a good Sheii’Cronell.”
A few hours later, according to Grie, the family was on the shuttle to America for the family dinner. Apparently, Drigondii had made his home in a small base in an area called Texas for reasons undisclosed. He seemed fond of the area.
In the shuttle, Gril’Die Khuda’Mundi stood out a bit with the standard Armadian uniform, admittedly much more highly decorated than most. The other two males were wearing the Dragon Rider uniform (which still seemed to fascinate Gildr), and the females were wearing the same semi-formal attire in which they had arrived. Every time Grie looked over to see if his grandfather was paying attention, he’d find the old man’s eyes gently fixed on the speaker even as his hands continued to fiddle with his uniform, trying to further perfect it.
A few minutes before they landed, Grie clapped his hands together loudly, and everyone jumped. “I just remembered to warn you that our hosts have another guest we’ll be meeting today.” When everyone gave him a look that said they clearly didn’t understand why this mandated a warning, he added, “She’s an alien. Just don’t freak out. She’s very kind, and she’s been very helpful with relations with the locals. Go figure, right? But she was held in custody by the Earthers for quite some time, so she’s become a bit shy around new people. I called ahead to let them know I was bringing more than just Pri and Gildr, but I just thought I’d let you all know not to act too surprised at her appearance. Just don’t give her any weird looks, please.”
Once everyone had agreed to this, Grie nodded, smiled, patted his boy’s head, and walked into the cockpit to oversee the landing procedures, since they’d need his authorization number to get through to the Sheii’Cronell’s residence. The shuttle touched down without incident, and the Khuda’Mundi family stepped out together to see a surprisingly small and plain house before them. It was quite unlike what they would have expected from a Sheii’Cronell, but nothing about this Sheii’Cronell was to be as expected, apparently.
Grie took Priha’Di and Gildr by the hand and walked to the front door with Gril’Die and Kehrann in tow behind them. He lifted Gildr again when they reached the door and had him knock. From inside, the scraping of wooden chairs against ceramic flooring heralded the fact that someone was coming to the door, which opened shortly thereafter.
A kind looking young woman with blue hair and green eyes who held a remarkable resemblance to her sister stood at the door in a sweater and ladies’ kilt. Smiling, she said, “Hello, Pri. I’ve missed you. Won’t you and your family come in. Hello again, Grie.”
“Hello, Terira. This is my son, Gildr; my sister, Kehrann; and my grandfather, Gril’Die.” Grie introduced everyone one at a time, gesturing to each of them.
Terira beamed, escorting them to the house’s dining room, in which waited Drigondii Sheii’Cronell and their alien guest. “Dear, this is Grie’s family, and this also happens to be my sister, Priha’Di. Pri, you’re very well known in this house. Umm, sweetheart, where did Lihandii go?” While shaking everyone’s hands, Drigondii pointed into the kitchen, where a young girl with blue hair no older than Gildr was grabbing a bowl to bring to the table. “Right, everyone, this is my daughter, Lihandii. Say hello, dear.” The girl managed out what was apparently a hello and set the bowl upon the table, finishing the final preparations for their dinner.
“Forgive me,” Gril’Die said. Everyone looked to the old man, who was looking to the alien with tears streaming down his face. “Forgive me, but I must ask you. What is your name?” The alien looked to the man, and its expression changed from one of curiosity to one of concern.
“Her name is–” Terira began but was interrupted when the alien began to speak, which was obviously something that did not happen often around strangers.
“This one’s name is Kahlisa. It is very good to meet you.” Kahlisa set one of her six hands on Gril’Die’s shoulder and whispered something into his ear. The man immediately embraced Kahlisa, a strange sight for everyone in the room but a calming and welcome one at that.
“I am honored to meet you, Kahlisa. And I am so glad that I have lived to this day. Thank you for your words. They mean a great deal.” Gril’Die wiped his tears and looked to Drigondii. Everyone finished introducing one another, and the family sat to the table. Kahlisa merely lowered herself onto her lowest set of hands to bring herself to the level of the table, where she had a quite different meal from everyone else.
Before the prayer, Grie noticed, Drigondii and his daughter made the same two sweeping motions with their fingers over their bodies and did so again at the end of the prayer. This was never pointed out or explained, but Grie did find it odd. “Now then,” Drigondii said to his extended family, which had become much larger this day, “I understand you’ve all been waiting quite some time to try Earther food, and I won’t make you wait any longer. I will say that this meal was made as a joint effort between myself, Terira, and Lihandii, so we all hope you enjoy it. I am very pleased to have such a large and wonderful family.” Drigondii smiled, and the family ate.
Grie’s Letter
My Dearest Priha’Di,
It’s been two whole cycles since I saw you last. I still remember what you said the day I left. To be honest, it’s part of what’s gotten me through this journey. Even with the Timids, we can only safely travel so far every day with a ship this large and highly manned, but today marks an amazing point in our journey. During the third hype today, we officially crossed the halfway point between the Bifrost and this new planet, Earth. I met with the Sheii’Cronell who’s taking us there about a week ago, and I must tell you, he’s nothing like the stories!
I had been going to the forward galley to talk to Veriar. You remember Veriar, I’m sure. I was one of his attendants at his wedding three cycles ago. It’s actually his third cycle-mark tomorrow, and I thought it would be fun to get together. So I was on my way to see him to make plans, and the ship encountered a planetoid cloud, so we started performing some of the flashier maneuvers these massive girls can do, and one of the pulse-cars beside me came loose of its fasteners and almost crushed me. I was terrified, Priha’Di. I must be honest with you.
Anyway, there I am, standing certain of my death, and this Sheii’Cronell just appears between me and the pulse-car in a blur and just catches it like it was a fielded playball. I thanked him, and he actually looked at me as if to say it was no bother! I had always heard that Sheii’Cronell’s don’t look a man in the eye unless he either greatly respects him as a warrior or wants to kill him, but there was something about his eyes that was almost gentle. It was a sad softness, too, like he had once experienced a great loss.
So he looks at me and says, “Are you alright?” And, of course, I was so blown away that he would even talk to me that I just blithered about the words trying to leave my mouth. And do you know what he did next, Priha’Di? He actually escorted me to the forward galley and pulled aside Veriar for me. Then he took us to his personal wardroom, where we had the most delicious meats and vegetables that he claimed actually came from the world we’re heading to! I really hope the people there are willing to join the Monarchy. It would be wonderful to eat such foods regularly.
I only wish you could have tasted the food! There was one fruit in particular called a watermelon… Oh, Priha’Di, it was so sweet, and the juices literally just flowed every time I took a bite from my slice. And did I mention that they’re easily twice as big as a head? For a small one? And speaking of small ones, there was this root called a potato. Apparently, the people of Earth actually pull it out of the dirt, wash it off, and use it to make all sorts of side dishes. Who would ever think to eat the root of a plant? I mean, yes, we use some roots to produce chemicals for medicines, but that’s different from just eating something that spent its whole life covered in dirt. Anyway, we had what he called mashed potatoes, where you crush the potato into a paste and mix in a small amount of churned cream to give it some color and add to the flavor. He even said that these are simple dishes made quite often on parts of Earth. Can you imagine?
While we were eating, the Sheii’Cronell asked if I had someone dear to me, so of course I brought you up. How could I not? You’re such an important part of my life, even if we are separated by such a distance now. And the Bifrost. Apparently, there’s a chance that the time that passes here does so at such a different rate from over there that a milliday on one side could be cycles on the other. Still, I cannot help but pray to the Great One that I may see you again one day soon.
After the dinner, I got to talk to the Sheii’Cronell about my job here. I often regret not going to the Academy, but he said I should just apply for the Dragon Riders since there’s no rank in the Dragon Riders, and he says there aren’t enough Riders with my particular skill set. I wonder if he had that in mind all along when he saved my life… So I’m going to apply and just see what happens.
Oh, and there’s something else about this Sheii’Cronell. I saw his eyes shine red just like the stories when he had just caught the pulse-car, but they’re usually just a light reddish-brown. I’ve never heard of someone changing their eye color like he did. Something about him just makes me think he’s not the same kind of demon the Sheii’Cronells have always been. There’s just something undeniably good in him.
But enough about that. In your last letter, you said you’d gotten into a fight with my sister. What happened? I know she acts tough, but don’t let the green hair fool you. She’s pretty sensitive about some things, so please don’t be too hard on her. She’s doing us a huge favor by helping you watch after little Gildr. And make sure you’re taking care of yourself, too! You can worry so much sometimes, I can’t help but think you might forget occasionally that you need rest, too.
I’ve heard that once we get to Earth and work out arrangements with the locals, we’re going to try to build a base over its southernmost pole. Wouldn’t that be great? Then, you’d be able to move there with me. I have a pretty good feeling I’ll get that position as a Dragon Rider, and they get excellent benefits. You could bring Gildr, and we could keep our little family close. I hope things go smoothly on Earth. Halfway there…
I miss you, Priha’Di. No matter what else is going on around me, all I can think about is you and Gildr. We’ll be together again. I promise it. Stay strong. Hopefully, the next time you see me, we’ll be able to enjoy an entire bucket of potatoes,
and I’ll cook them all sorts of different ways for you and Gildr.
With the greatest love,
Grie
Last Day at Work
“Hey, Clayton,” Henry Nicholson whispered from his rack. He turned his head toward the other man in their shared quarters. The man just grunted, doing his best to stay asleep. “Clayton, come on. This is important.”
“What do you want, Nicholson? I’m trying to sleep.” Well, that was fair. They had another 24 hour shift in the labs in just a few more hours, and time spent sleeping was invaluable. Still, something was bothering Nicholson.
“Just listen!” Nicholson’s eyes expressed a slight sense of paranoia, which was not in small part due to the nature of the dream from which he had just awakened. Silence followed.
“I don’t hear anything, Nicholson. What am I supposed to– Wait.” Clayton sat up and looked at Nicholson, who gave him a ‘told you so’ look. “What happened to the engines?” The engines were loud enough to be an annoying sound wherever one happened to be on the Leviathan. Their silence could not be good news.
“I don’t understand. It’s Tuesday. What are the engines doing off?” In order to avoid being spotted as unusual, the ship remained in constant movement all days but Saturday, which was a work-free day for the Thorlinthians. That meant any movement on the sea for anything other than storm avoidance was not permitted on Saturdays, so even the Leviathan stopped, again in an attempt to avoid detection. This had been the pattern for four straight years, since the ship had headed out into the ocean and faked its own disappearance.
So why were the engines silent? This could only mean one thing: Thorlinthians were onboard. “How many do you think there are?” Clayton asked with a worried expression.
“If we’re very lucky, a lot. If we’re very unlucky, one.” Clayton’s eyes widened at this comment.
“You don’t think they’d send a Dragon Rider here, do you? I mean, they’re for taking down government facilities and being highly visible. Nobody even knows we’re still out here except top tier Resistance members…”
“I don’t think they’d send a Dragon Rider, no, but before we left, there had been stories on the radio about a Valkyrie called the Angel of Death. She doesn’t have a copilot, though. Some say she died, and others say she’s just that good. Either way, she’s supposedly been taking out Top Secret facilities single-handedly since Phoenix Day seven years ago. If there’s not a raiding party here, it’s got to be her. And if we’re very, very lucky, we won’t all die.” Nicholson grimaced at the thought as he sat up and began to dress. Clayton was doing the same.
“Well,” Clayton said with a slight, half-hearted smile, “I guess we’d better make sure we send as much information back to the Muffin Man before that happens, then.”
Nicholson nodded, and they both headed out. When they got to their lab, they immediately started the ERT protocol, which released a virus that would hack all the other computers on the ship and send their data to the Muffin Man, the leader of the Resistance. They didn’t know what all was being researched there, but they knew it wasn’t all oxygen production. They had heard rumors of a secret weapon being developed in the area beneath the lab decks, which could only be accessed through special hatches that remained closed at all times. The people down there must have their own way of getting food.
“Hey, Clayton,” Nicholson called out from one of the computers. “Why is he called the Muffin Man? You’ve met him, right?” Clayton nodded.
“It’s got something to do with his name. Before he joined up, he was CIA or Secret Service or something like that, but he was declared dead when all those organizations were taken out by the Dragon Riders. He’s still got a pretty nice scar from it, too. Anyway, if he uses his real name, they’d probably figure out he was alive and start looking for him, so he calls himself the Muffin Man.”
Nicholson made a sound that made it clear he understood and dropped the subject. Everyone knew the Muffin Man, which was kind of the joke. Since it was a children’s rhyme, you could ask anyone if they knew the Muffin Man, and they’d respond, which was also normal. What was not normal was that instead of replying with Drury Lane, a local who was part of the resistance would say the location of the nearest Resistance safe house.
“Talking about the Muffin Man always makes me so hungry,” Nicholson said, patting his belly in a way a larger man may. It was a habit he had gotten into before Phoenix Day, and his weight loss over the years hadn’t been able to end the tic. It was an amusing sight on such a thin man, but it reminded Clayton how much things had changed since the Thorlinthians arrived.
“I heard they legalized a standard trade system a couple of years ago. Apparently the trade freeze was just to stabilize the world economy. I wonder what else is legal again.” Clayton didn’t actually care what was legal anymore, but it was a common topic of conversation.
“Clayton, you’ve been using that line for two years now. I haven’t heard anything you haven’t heard.” Nicholson wasn’t in the mood to talk about the Thorlinthians, which was understandable. A few hours passed without much more conversation.
“Wow,” Nicholson said, surprised. “That’s everything. I guess we may as well go get something to eat since we aren’t dead yet. Maybe there’s no Thorlinthian here, after all.” He chuckled, hopeful.
“Yeah,” Clayton agreed as they headed out of the lab into the passageway. “Maybe they’re just performing maintenance on the… engines…” They stopped in the middle of their walk to the galley as they looked first at the open hatch, then at the blue-haired woman pointing a pistol at Clayton.
The woman, haggard and beaten in appearance, speaks in a voice that seems to have taken a few blows to the vocal chords, “What is this place, who are you, and where are we?”
Khuda’Mundi’s Confession
As a Minor Admiral, I remember, I was a bit less abrasive than I later became in life. My career had consisted only of quelling rebellions that were inevitable on the outer planets. Due to the dangerous debris from the remnants of other, less fortunate outer planets’ collisions during the Ragn’Rouk, the surviving outer planets were difficult to reach for most cargo vessels, which meant that they mainly had to fend for themselves, supply-wise. This gave them considerably more independence than other planets, which in turn made them more rebellious.
The most distant planet from the core of the system was Nivlahim, a planet which had itself not completely survived the Ragn’Rouk. The initial passage of our system through the Bifrost had altered Nivlahim’s orbit so severely that it had actually rammed another planet whose name was lost long ago. Were it not for the fact that Nivlahim had already had a rather extreme environment for which its inhabitants had heavily adapted, the impact alone would have destroyed all life on the planet. Its atmosphere had dissipated to near-nothingness, and the volcanic activity that followed the collision made what little atmosphere remained highly toxic. But the people of Nivlahim had built most of their society beneath the oceans, and so a loss of atmosphere had little effect.
As if the planet had not suffered enough from the collision, Nivlahim had also been sent into an elongated orbit, causing extreme winters two standard cycles long. Still, its people had survived. The ice above their homes grew thicker, which helped to insulate them from the cold above them. With an entire quadrant of the planet decimated, a hellish winter, and almost no atmosphere, the people of Nivlahim had to form a very different culture from that most formed before space travel became again viable well over a hundred cycles after the Ragn’Rouk.
It wasn’t until Nivlahim began sending out its own ships two hundred cycles after that, looking for other survivors of the Ragn’Rouk, that the other planets of Thorlinthia even knew they had survived. Because of this incredible feat, in fact, the people of Nivlahim became known to the Thorlinthian people as the heroes of the ice for quite some time. Then, upon the annunciation of the Monarch, they rejected the Thorlinthian identity. They were proud of their planetary heritage, and they refused to adopt the Monarchy and abandon their republic. The Monarch refused to accept this and sent the Armada to forcibly occupy Nivlahim. That sparked the beginning of the rebellions.
The Armada was never able to overtake Nivlahim. Due to the nature of the atmosphere, troops could not be landed above the ice, and ships were immediately overwhelmed when they tried to land in the cramped Nivlahim docks. The Armada’s assault ships held no measure against the ice, which was miles thick. Eventually, the planet was merely quarantined. No cargo would be taken to Nivlahim, and any ships leaving the planet were to be destroyed.
Upon word of the first assault on a Nivlahim ship reaching the planet, we discovered how well suited to war the Nivlahim were. Swarms of small fighters and bombers would launch against a single ship at a time, making short work of the quarantine. Larger ships followed. They were slow and clumsy, but they were so heavily gunned and armored that our ships were no match for their fleet, which flew in close formation toward the core. Then, when they reached the fourth orbital range, they stopped.
They had been sent out to remove the quarantine and any members of the Armada from stopping their trade with the other outer planets. Their cargo ships were unlike our own, equipped with weaponry capable of destroying any small debris in their way and maneuverable enough to work around any debris too large to destroy. Their technology was then shared with the outer planets, and those planets formed the Ginnung Domain. The highly militarized void between the Ginnung Domain and the Thorlinthian core worlds became known as the Ginnung Gap.
After over a thousand cycles of all-out war, the Monarch declared a cease-fire. But secretly, he had formed a military organization completely independent of the Armada. Composed entirely of Khuda’Cronell females who possessed unique genetic makeup, the organization was known as the Valkyries, alluding to the great Valkyri’din who had fought in the Eternal War of scripture. The Valkyries were assassins, straight and to the point. They utilized two-person crews and the latest technology to achieve nearly unlimited military strength with only a handful of ships, called Valkyrs.
Valkyrs 1 through 4 were all built within the same cycle, and they were quickly utilized to infiltrate the heavily armored ships guarding the Ginnung Gap. Within hours of arriving, the Valkyries left the ships to die in the cold of space, their crews freshly killed inside the only things keeping them warm. As they moved from ship to ship, the Armada moved in behind them, disposing quickly of fighters that had once been superior to their ancestral counterparts. As they worked through the Ginnung Domain, the Armada occupied the worlds that had seceded from Thorlinthia all those many cycles before. It was not until only Nivlahim remained that the Armada stopped moving outward.
The Valkyries moved in to infiltrate Nivlahim’s cities, but Valkyrs 1 and 4 were gunned down by the people of Nivlahim. Only Valkyrs 2 and 3 remained, but upon reaching the docks of Rym’Yotn, Nivlahim forces overtook Valkyr 2. Valkyr 3 managed to land, and when the boots of the Valkyries touched Nivlahim deckplates, the war was as good as over. More deadly than any ship, Valkyries had strange power that gave them impossible speed and reflexes. A single Valkyrie was stronger than a hundred Special Operations Armadians. Though they carried a repeater for suppressive fire, they tore their foes apart with their bare hands. In centidays, they had moved to the Capi
tol in Rym’Yotn. A full surrender was declared by the Nivlahim senate, and the war had ended. All the worlds of Thorlinthia were united under the Monarch, and the tales of the blue-haired angels of death faded into legend.
Nonetheless, the occasional rebellion still sprung up in the outer worlds, and the Armada spent most of its time providing a preventive presence in the Ginnung Gap, still riddled with dead ships such in number that it was just as hazardous to travel through as the debris fields.
So there I was, a Minor Admiral suppressing another small rebellion, when the Bifrost came alight. It was well known through the Armada that flying too close to the Bifrost would result in the total destruction of your ship, but this was not the light of a core explosion. “Admiral, we’re picking up some strange signals from the Bifrost!” A young ensign panicked as he announced his news without even standing from his console. “There’s a very large ship out there, sir. I’ve never seen anything so massive.”
It must be one of the ancient worlds, I thought. If a world collided with the Bifrost, it would surely spew strange radio signals, and small bits would likely remain of the planet, large enough certainly to be confused with a ship.
No such luck. “Sir, we’re receiving the signals on every wavelength. It doesn’t sound like noise. It’s almost like…” The ensign trailed off, concentrating more intensely on his displays. I pulled up the signal.
A noise rang throughout the bridge. It was almost like a voice, but there was something more animal to the sound. Nevertheless, the same sound repeated through the bridge. “See if you can clean that up. The ancient worlds produce all sorts of interference.” The ensign nodded and spoke quietly to a handful of enlisted men that worked under him. They nodded in turn and got to work removing the signal noise by comparing the signal on varying wavelengths.
“Garf’kan, Fehmadadi bara. Defri serai farjin? Fehmadadi jibah serai farjin!” Such was the content of the message. It was being broadcast on all wavelengths in raw audio. This was a distress beacon, but who–?
“Sir, the ship just passed Nivlahim! It looks like it’ll reach the Ginnung Gap in ten centidays.” The minor officer speaking from battlefield detection was frightened and rightly so. If that ship was moving quickly enough to close that void in only ten centidays, colliding with a planet could be enough to eliminate all life on the planet it hit within five.
“Does it show any sign of slowing?” I grimaced. Here was our first extra-Thorlinthian contact since our system’s passage through the Bifrost, and we faced rapidly expanding crisis. If it slowed down enough, we could aim our weapons to its foremost points and keep it from hitting a planet.
“Y-yes, sir. In fact, it appears to be slowing at such a rate that it will stop of its own accord by the time it reaches Valhal’s orbital range.” That was too quick. Acceleration that great would crush any ship.
“Double-check those calculations! Cease all cargo traffic between that ship and the Ginnung Gap. Maneuver all available Armadian resources along its previously projected flight path. If that ship isn’t really stopping on its own, I want to be able to stop it before it hits the core worlds. And take us as close to that ship as we can get.”
A chorus of “Aye, sir”s resonated through the bridge. Orders were spread along through the ship, and we moved with a military precision one normally only saw in battle. The next several centidays are well enough known to the public.
The ship stopped exactly where it was expected to stop. When we approached it, its hull became visible, and everyone on the bridge or with a feed to the external cameras could tell the ship had been badly damaged. When it began ejecting cylinders, we realized that there was a cargo ship still in the area. It was later discovered that it had lost its wireless to the debris field and hadn’t received the order to leave the unknown ship’s flight path. One of the cylinders hit the cargo ship, and the cargo ship vented into space. The fighters standing by reported later that they had received orders to do so, but no one ordered anyone to destroy the other cylinders. They did anyway. Other Armadian vessels began to fire on the ship, which released four smaller versions of itself that began to fly back to the Bifrost. All but one was destroyed or immobilized.
The final alien ship reached the Bifrost, which lit up brightly once again, and was gone. A few Armadian ships had followed too closely and disappeared into the Bifrost themselves. Investigations were launched, and technological advances in materials, plasma shielding, and drive systems were made in the next cycle that would have taken tens of thousands more cycles. Two cycles later, the Temporal Manipulation Drive System was announced, TMDS for short or Timids to technicians and pilots.
A cycle after that, the ships that had disappeared into the Bifrost reappeared, repo
rting having been gone only centidays, and the Monarch announced those unfortunate travelers that had been encountered to be the Murhan of old, citing the technology used as evidence. He announced that we would go after them with massive new ships of an entirely new design being built at that time and destroy them, finally avenging our ancestors’ fate of being thrown through the Bifrost.
After I had volunteered to test the first ship with a TMDS on a suicidal whim, I was promoted and assigned by Mi’Olnr Khuda’Cronell to lead the Armada with him in the newest flagship, the TAS Fhit, one of the new Qzceno class ultracarriers. A Sheii’Cronell would be accompanying us to test out his new team of fighter pilots, the Drig Reidrs.
I was told that I would receive the greatest honors if the operation was successful. Five cycles later, the new Armada, completely refitted with new hull designs and TMDS propulsion, headed through the Bifrost, and I left my home to destroy another’s.
I was going to destroy the homeworld of the one creature whose body had made it through that fateful day cycles ago. In my pocket still, I carried the soft slip of cloth that bore a picture of two of the creatures holding another, smaller. When I held that slip out, it still emitted a small sound which I could only assume was the laughter of that small child. When I ran my thumb over the characters on the back, it spoke that foreign word, “Kahlisa.”
Great One, my name is Gril’Die Khuda’Mundi, Grand Admiral of the Thorlinthian Armada, and today, my ship has arrived over a world innocent of my people’s blood. And I will kill them all. Forgive me.
I was going to destroy the homeworld of the one creature whose body had made it through that fateful day cycles ago. In my pocket still, I carried the soft slip of cloth that bore a picture of two of the creatures holding another, smaller. When I held that slip out, it still emitted a small sound which I could only assume was the laughter of that small child. When I ran my thumb over the characters on the back, it spoke that foreign word, “Kahlisa.”
Great One, my name is Gril’Die Khuda’Mundi, Grand Admiral of the Thorlinthian Armada, and today, my ship has arrived over a world innocent of my people’s blood. And I will kill them all. Forgive me.
Valkyr 52
“–tention required. Repeat: Unidentified craft detected. Valkyrie attention required.” A tinny voice echoes through your quarters. You open your eyes to a red glow. You rapidly extricate yourself from the harness holding you to your bunk and make your way to the cockpit.
“Display unidentified craft.” Your voice cracks. Rapid removal from hype stasis is not unlike awaking from a coma. Despite full functionality, none of your organ systems have been used in quite some time, and they behave as such. This is why you hate distance hyping. No matter how many times you do it, there’s always the chance that the automated systems will encounter a problem they haven’t been programmed to handle. As the primary pilot, you are the only person in the vessel to be awakened. The display lights up in a gentle, dim red that is not difficult to view after your eyes have been closed for so long. A series of numbers appear, denoting the edge coordinates of the craft. It’s large. No, it isn’t large. It’s huge, the size of a small city.
“Enable visual approximation of unidentified craft.” The computer obeys, rendering a rough, three-dimensional image of a small asteroid that has very odd features that seem artificial. The strangest part is the asteroid’s proximity to the Bifrost. It seems to be impossibly close to the Bifrost’s event horizon, but you can’t figure out what’s keeping it there. “Enable full Valkyrie control of Timids.” You speak almost ethereally, driven by pure amazement at this point.
“TMDS controls are now released of all automated functions. Valkyrie has full control.” You miss the gentler voice that had been utilized by the computerized systems in Valkyr 51, but only Valkyr 52 has been properly fitted with the same rapid response controls included in the Armada’s latest 52-F Dragon. But unlike the Dragons, which are simply equipped with pre-programmed, short-distance hype vectors, the Valkyr 52 had manual controls. At this moment, you are simply grateful for that particular feature.
You flinch slightly as the pilot seat engages its contacts with your flight suit. The cockpit is sealed off and filled with liquid as your helmet engages its breathers. When all air in the cockpit has been replaced with the liquid, the systems begin to pressurize to approximately 12 standard atmospheric pressure units, and your breathers force highly oxygenated air into your lungs at an equalizing pressure to prevent your chest from being crushed. Your own slowly extracted plasma is injected back into your bloodstream to increase your blood pressure in order to prevent your blood vessels’ collapse. Your eyes shine brightly, filling your helmet with a cool green as your heart’s muscles are strengthened to prevent heart failure. You grasp the TMDS controls and engage fully manual hyping for the first time in Thorlinthian history.
Were it not for the fact that your entire respiratory system is currently fully regulated, you would surely gasp or skip a heartbeat. Instead of simply feeling that familiar exploding sensation immediately following the implosion of a hype, you now look into a form of space you could never have imagined before this moment. Remembering your objective, you attempt to move toward the strange asteroid. Despite a crushing sensation against your body, however, all visuals seem to indicate that you have not moved. You look for the asteroid and are surprised to find it only an arm’s distance from your left side. Yet that isn’t possible. Your position hasn’t changed.
Resigning yourself to the fact that the manual controls seem not to work, you disengage the hype and feel yourself explode, the sensation that indicates the end of a hype. Your proximity alarms light up, and you see that your position has in fact moved to nearly the exact position of the asteroid. Gripping the controls even more tightly, you maneuver the Valkyr away from what is from this distance obviously a space station. Panicking, you realize the stealth systems are not engaged. Looking about, you see no external signs that the station has reacted to your presence, but that means nothing in space, where there is no need to speak quietly. For all you know, alarms are sounding throughout the station. Quickly, you activate the stealth systems one by one, starting with the gaseous metamaterial shielding, now spread about the skin of the Valkyr and held in from the expanse of space by a cool plasma field only an atom thick. By the time you finish, your Valkyr should be hidden from any sensors.
Nonetheless, you feel uneasy as you approach what appears to be the main docking area of the station. It appears to be open, but looking more closely, you can see that there is a plasma shield. If you tried to fly into the dock like that, you’d probably just bounce off the shield, muddling all the sensors and stealth systems on the Valkyr. Instead, you set about analyzing the frequencies of electromagnetic containment used to hold the plasma shield in place. If you can neutralize the signals with the Valkyr’s own plasma fields’s containment signals, you should be able to pass through, but you would have to do it quickly. Despite this, the signals appear to be constantly changing, probably to prevent exactly such an attempt.
Operating on a hunch, you re-engage the manual hyping system. You find yourself again in that fascinating form of space that even now you cannot seem to properly describe. You adjust the controls to move the ship just inside the docking area. As you suspected, you appear to be at both points simultaneously. You turn the Valkyr to face yourself. Just as surely as the approach of death itself to all living things, you find yourself looking at yourself twice over, from each perspective. Beginning to feel a sensory overload, you disengage the hype once more and find yourself inside the dock, fully concealed.
You land the Valkyr and wait for the cockpit to depressurize, feeling anemic as the extra plasma is removed from your system. Finally, your suit’s restraints disengage from the seat, and you move to the
airlock, feeling impossibly light, even more so than when in deep space. This is probably simply due to the decreased pressure felt on your body, but it is a freeing sensation. You move out of the Valkyr, mapping your exact position in your suit’s location sensors. You quickly scan your surroundings, looking for a door. Just as you spot it, however, it opens. You leap to cover, hiding yourself and remotely utilizing the Valkyr’s sensors to look at the door again. No one’s there. You move inside. The door closes behind you and air rushes into the room you’ve just entered. There are garments of a strange-looking material settled neatly onto a bench. There are no obviously missing sets.
You open one of the compartments on the thigh of your flight suit, removing a small tube. You compress the tube and release it, acquiring an atmosphere sample as you move toward the next door, which has opened on its own just like the previous door. You place the tube in an opening on your wristplate. Your helmet’s display shows that the analysis has begun. You move down the passageway that awaits you past the airlock. The passageway is unusually tall and wide, unbefitting for a space station, which should waste as little space as possible, since more space meant more volume to be heated, which meant more energy consumption.
Suddenly, you notice that there are no handholds on the bulkhead. You gently float to a stop, slowly drifting to the center of the station’s mass. How is one supposed to maneuver about without handholds on such long passageways? Realizing quickly, you spin about and kick off at an angle toward the opposite end of the passageway. You repeat this many times, noticing a slight burning in the less conditioned part of your muscular structure. Clearly, you’ve suffered slight atrophy from your long journey back from Earth. Oh, how Jake would laugh at your current state of fatigue after all your boasting that giving birth wouldn’t have any long-term effects on your physique. Stupid husbands…
You finally make it to the end of the ridiculously long passageway. Looking back, it must have been at least 4 miles long. No, you think to yourself, it was 5 rosts. Slips like that would reveal the mission to be more than just deep space long hype conditioning. Earth mustn’t be discovered yet. Not yet…
The door is open, as you expected it would be. What you did not expect was the vast expanse of greenery that would await you on the other side. Looking up, you see that the room is lit by the Bifrost itself. It’s incredible.
Your helmet beeps quietly at you, and you see that the air is within Thorlinthian standards and devoid of any detectable unknown viruses or bacteria. You set your suit to refill its air supply and supply you direct with the fresh air. The smell of plants fill your nostrils, and you smile unconsciously. Grabbing the branch of a nearby tree-like plant, you begin to maneuver yourself toward the center of the complex, where you had noticed a small tower before entering the station. Again, the door is open. You begin to wonder if the station is an old Thorlinthian project that was abandoned and now trying to start itself back up or if it’s something significantly… older.
You move more easily down this passageway, now accustomed to the mode of travel necessary here. It must be designed this way to prevent its personnel from experiencing muscular deterioration during their time here. You make it to the next open door and are surprised to have arrived at what must be the center of the complex. While it contained yet another large greenroom, at the center was an upward sweeping of the ceiling into the tower. You work your way to the hatch leading to the tower main. It dilates open, and you work your way toward the top.
The passageway becomes narrower as you reach the end, the door opening slowly to a room basked in red light. Maybe someone was in stasis here. You enter the large room, its bulkheads covered in instrumentation and its floor riddled with strange writings on thin pads like paper.
Looking about, you see what must be the stasis area. As you had begun to suspect, the facility is much older than Thorlinthian travel outside the Bifrost. An incredibly tall man with red hair looks past you into the room, frozen in a strange form of stasis, seeming to be completely suspended. But that would kill a man. Concerned for this man who must be long dead, you press your hand against the edge of his stasis pod. It was oddly warm to the touch. No, it was warming itself. The stasis was disengaging.
Looking away from what was sure to be a gruesome sight, you cannot bring yourself to let go of the pod. What had compelled you to come here? What had caused you to disregard the safety of the two still in stasis on the Valkyr 52 and explore this facility? What had opened all those doors?! You begin to look about, searching for enemies, drawing your repeater from its holster under your armpit. Still, your hand will not release the pod behind you. Suddenly, something grasps your fingers.
“Is this a dream or a nightmare, young Thorlinthian?” A voice behind you as you turn in response to the grasping emanates throughout the room, seeming as if it had never been in stasis at all. But it was the man with the red hair who was speaking. Even as you moved the repeater to his face, it disassembled, its parts staying where they disengaged from the rest of the device. By the time your arm had spun toward him completely, a mere 5 milliseconds, the repeater had been reduced to nothing more then a handle.
Something you’ve never felt before begins to arise from within the deepest recesses of your heart. For the first time in your life, you are truly afraid. From stasis, this man had brought you here, and fresh out of it, he had achieved in a moment and without effort what took you a g
reat deal of concentration and five minutes, disassembling the repeater with only his mind. This was a being of a power much greater than yours. No, his power was on level with that of a Sheii’Cronell.
“Well, no, I don’t have quite that much power, Mrs. Kendrick.” That was impossible. How could he know of your marriage? Did he know of Earth? Was that English?! “Don’t panic. I know everything you know right now, Mrs. Kendrick. Please, have a seat.”
Looking around, you realize that not only was there a chair directly next to you that wasn’t there before, but the room had completely changed. Were you in the same room? Seeing no other choice, you sit.
“Mrs. Kendrick, my name is Jil’Hanr. I run this station, as I’m sure you suspected already.” You nod. “Well, we’ve taken a great deal of interest in the Thorlinthians. In fact, this station exists exactly because of the Thorlinthians. I understand you’re a descendant of the Qzicy family, yes?”
You nod, adding, “Qzcivden takes its name from our family.”
“Then you are aware of a document known to your family as the Traitor’s Journal?” You look at the man, Jil’Hanr, with curiosity. Was he saying that the document was true? “It is accurate to our knowledge, yes. At least, it is consistent with other knowledge we’ve acquired from this side of the Galaxy Tear, what your people call the Bifrost. In any case, this means I have much less to explain to you. This is about your son, Drake, and your niece, Terira. We have something very special in mind for them…”
Mi’Olnr
It was just one of those days. There I was, about to be interviewed for the position as Mi’Olnr (commonly referred to as the Grand Armadian), and I had a whole pint of vorsetic on my uniform. I looked at the captain that had just spilled it. I could tell that he had thought I was someone else because his look of mortification was glued to my rank, Grand Admiral. I was the second-highest ranking officer in the entire Armada, and he had just spilled alcohol all over me.
My look obviously showed some disdain for what was going on because when he finally looked up at it, his face drained. “I’m s-s-so sorry, sir. I’ll c-clean that for you,” the captain stuttered. He was horrified. Surely, his career would be over. But I hadn’t the time for this.
“Nevermind cleaning it,” I said. “Just swap with me. I have important things to do.” At that time, I was glad I had voted towards standardized dress uniforms throughout the officer corps. All we had to do was switch name and rank. Everything else was on the cap we wore at all times but when directly addressing the Monarch. We finished the swap in one centiday.
When I finally got to the meeting, I was only 5 millidays early. As I had suspected, the Sheii’Cronell was already there, and he stared me down as if I had just murdered his mother. “Very nearly late, Admiral Khuda’Mundi.” I glared right back at the Oa’din of a man called Fargerre Sheii’Cronell. For a man who lived so highly according to impulse, he sure was quick to criticize similar behavior from others. Most of the Armada wished him dead, and I happened not to be missing from their ranks. It was a pity Sheii’Cronells were all but immortal.
Now that was an interesting thought to dwell on. I had always heard that particularl legend growing up on Osgord, but it wasn’t until I had seen Fargerre get shot down during the rebellion on Volur and come out of it all without a scratch after his seat ejected directly into an asteroid. His equipment had been destroyed, but somehow that Oa’din of a man had survived. Since that day, I had chosen not to question the other legends surrounding Sheii’Cronells.
“Now then, Admiral Khuda’Mundi,” the Sheii’Cronell spoke, breaking my train of thought and wrenching me back to reality. “I understand you were the first to captain a ship with a temporal manipulation drive system. What made you volunteer for what many considered a guaranteed suicide assignment?” His penetrating gaze set upon me again, but this time it contained something I’d never seen in him before: respect. This beast actually respected me for what had turned out to be the smartest gamble I had ever made in my career.
“Well, to be honest, at the time, I had just lost my wife and daughter to a mauling after a drig got out of its enclosure at the Osgord Zoo, and my son had just been declared missing in action on one of the outer planets. I didn’t really care if it was a suicide assignment or not. I had nothing to lose, and if the drive system worked, which it did, my career would benefit immensely. So I just put it in the Great One’s hands and said, ‘Why not?’” It was the truth. At the time, even I had doubted the system would work, but I would have welcomed a death at the time.
“Of course, much to everyone’s surprise, that system’s turned out to be the most reliable form of space travel we’ve ever used. Sure, it was dirty energy back then, and a few crewmembers died, but our methods have been perfected now, and you’ve reaped the benefits, haven’t you, Grand Admiral?” The Sheii’Cronell clearly hadn’t gotten the answer he was hoping for. No, he had wanted the heroic, valiant declaration of loyalty to the Armada so many a fresh Academy graduate spouted out like it was as natural as drinking from their mother’s teets as a babe.
But I had seen what the Armada really was. I wasn’t stupid. The Armada wasn’t defending anyone from anything. The travelers that had “given” us the TMDS had proven that. Even if we couldn’t translate what they had been transmitting, I had never seen such an obvious distress signal in my life. And the “missile” that had so heinously destroyed a passing cargo ship was revealed during a very hushed military investigation to be an escape pod. No, we were nothing more than the Monarch’s fist. When we had gone out to the travelers’ planet and started spouting out that crap about them being Murhan, I knew the only thing we existed for was to destroy anything that challenged the Monarch’s authority.
Which was why before returning home and personally escorting that stupid Sheii’Cronell beast to his puppet master’s palace, I had created a new ‘training protocol’ for new Valkyries: Monitor evolutionary progress on the nearby blue planet. All reports would be taken directly to Valkyrie Command, which was literally the only command in the Armada that didn’t report to the Monarch. The Valkyries had been trusted implicitly since their formation. And that was why I was the only person in this room that knew about the operation. The temporal misalignment caused by the Bifrost made for some very odd observations, as well. Already, twenty patrols had been sent out, reporting an overall passage of thousands of cycles’ time since the destruction of the travelers’ planet, and there were reports that a small ship of unknown origin had landed on the planet, depositing beings remarkably similar to ourselves.
So I smiled at the Oa’din’s face, feeling as though I was staring down Hikar’Diferus himself, and said, “So it would seem, Excellency. And I believe the 4-F Drig of which your new Drig Reidrs are so proud is based off the same technology. Hyping wouldn’t be possible on such small ships were it not for the TMDS, after all.” His eyes, always that shining red so distinctive of Sheii’Cronells, seemed to be tryi
ng to burn me alive at that comment. “What’s that saying of yours? Vega Lopt, isn’t it? I wonder why you seem so determined to kill the very sky in which you fly. Does your animal nature know no bounds?”
That was too far. The Sheii’Cronell’s hands slammed into the table, driving the metal down a good two fingers. He stood immediately, embarrassed at his own outburst. “We kill the sky itself because it gives the enemy nowhere to fly. Drigs don’t need a sky to fly. As you so aptly pointed out, the 4-F has a TMDS, which means it can hype, Grand Admiral. I’m done here. You’re lucky this interview was just a formality. Mi’Olnr Khuda’Cronell died in entry to Thor’s atmosphere last night when it collided with a rebel stealth bomber headed for Qzcivden. You’re the only man eligible for the job. Congratulations, Mi’Olnr Khuda’Mundi. You’ve got the job.” With that, he stormed out of the room.
The aged man who had been quietly observing the whole exchange slowly stood as well from his seat beside the Sheii’Cronell’s. “Please forgive my protege, Mi’Olnr. The previous Mi’Olnr was his brother. Today’s not been his best day.” It was then that I realized I was in the presence of the Monarch himself. I should have brought my repeater. But there was nothing that could be done. “I look forward to working with you, Mi’Olnr Khuda’Mundi. I’m sure you’ll do a fine job.”
“Of course, your Highness,” I managed to say, swiftly removing my cap to reveal my family’s characteristic green hair. Somehow, I had managed to hide all disdain in my voice, a miracle in and of itself, but the words that followed surprised even me. “It’s an honor to be in the company of one so great as his Majesty.” What was I saying? Was this that Oa’din’s powers at work, forcing me to fawn over him despite my hatred for him, or had I just become that successful a liar? When had that happened?
“Now, then, if you’ll excuse me, Mi’Olnr, I have many other matters to attend today. Good day, Mi’Olnr.” The Monarch turned and moved out of the room so elegantly he seemed to be gliding.
“Good day, your Highness,” I blurted out as he left. The doorway spun closed behind him. I pulled out my istringr and pulled up an old picture of my family, my wife’s gorgeous blue hair blowing in the long-gone breeze of that day. The screen’s light shone into my tear-filled eyes, and I managed to say quietly to my wife long dead and gone to Jal’din, “I’m sorry, my love.” I spent the next three centidays releasing the sick that had found its way to my stomach during that exchange with Hikar’Diferus’s own minions. May the Great One forgive me for what I’ve done in the name of that evil Monarch.
Wilhelm
There are times in a man’s life when he
is forced to question the very essence of his existence. In fact, it
may be more accurate to say that there are times in a man’s life
where he is not forced to question the very essence of his existence,
as this is the rarer circumstance in these times. The arrival of the
Thorlinthians on Phoenix Day three years ago shook the world to its
core, but it was the strange reaction the Americans had to the
situation that likely doomed us all.
I am Wilhelm Johannes Baker. My friends
once called me Wil, but those times are long gone now. In these days,
a man like myself has no friends. It’s not that friends would be
unwelcome in a time like this. Friends are just too hard to keep
alive when you’re silently heading the underground resistance against
an enemy that’s everywhere you turn and seems to be able to see into
your very intentions without even waiting for you to speak or even
look upon them.
I used to work for the Secret Service.
No, that’s not entirely accurate. I still work for the Secret
Service. I just happen to be the only one who knows that I’m still
alive and continuing my mission of protecting our sovereign nation. The hardest part wasn’t even faking
my death, to be honest. That part was painfully easy when compared to
trying to evade Thorlinthian raids. I didn’t even mean to do it,
either. I still remember that attack.
I was playing chess with my partner,
Jim. He always loved chess, but he never had any skill for the game.
Every time we played, I beat him without even having to pay
attention. It made for something better to do during down time than
reading the paper, though. Even in the early days, it seemed like the
Thorlinthians had a complete vice grip on the media. I’d never seen
so much good news. It made me a little nauseous to think that not one
of those stories was even fabricated. For once, the media was
focusing on the positive, trying to keep the masses calm, and it was
disorienting to see what happened when every job became volunteer
work.
One of the very first policies put
forth by the so-called Peace committee was to eliminate all currency
trade systems. Not only that, but bartering was outlawed in the same
policy. If you needed food, you went to work. When you got home,
there would be a daily ration for your family outside your house,
delivered by people who’d previously been on welfare. If you got
sick, you reported to the nearest Peacekeeper Station, and they’d
treat you. If for some reason you needed bedrest (which with the
Thorlinthians’ medical technology usually meant you had just been
treated for cancer or something), your daily ration would still be
provided to your home. If anyone capable of working in the family
didn’t go to work, the daily ration would not be supplied, and no one
in the household would eat. It must have been a joke, shoving all
that Commie crap down our throats while pretending to allow us to
govern ourselves.
The worst part of the deal was that
each country’s military was pulled from wherever it had been and
returned home to serve as Peacekeepers. And yet there I was, part of
the puppet government. I was “serving the President” and charged
with protecting him. So I couldn’t handle the papers anymore. I
started concentrating on the easiest chess games of my life as if
they were championship matches. But then…
A siren bellowed out into the empty
air, screaming to be heard. Someone was on the premises that didn’t
belong. Another assassination attempt? If only people realized that
POTUS didn’t actually have any power. Somehow, the American people
continued to convince themselves that these new policies and all this
news of alien invasions was somehow a government conspiracy intent on
deceiving the American people into sitting by and being trampled on.
But that didn’t matter. There was an intrusion on my facility, and
that meant someone was out for blood. Who would it be this time?
Rednecks? Yankees? Mercenaries?
The truth chilled my bones faster than
liquid nitrogen. In the courtyard, two stories beneath me, was a
single man. It’s amazing how long the human brain can refuse to
register crucial information when it’s just the last thing you want
to see. Instead of seeing the bloody pile of bodies, I saw the young
man’s strangely colored natural green hair. Instead of seeing the two
lone blades he held in his hands with which he had just slain so many
of my men, I saw his piercing violet eyes looking directly at my own
blue ones. Instead of seeing the dark red kilt and wool-like cape
over a red plaid shawl, I saw his gentle face, somehow tainted by
something distant and indiscernable. Indeed, when I should have been
noticing that the men below me were dead due to the sudden appearance
of a Dragon Rider, I was only noticing that there was a man standing
in the courtyard, looking at me.
But soon, the world came to crisp
detail once more as Jim screamed, “Get down!” and fired his
pistol down into the courtyard. But it was too late. As soon as the
window had broken, the Dragon Rider had somehow leaped two floors up
to that very same window. Still shaken, I drew my pistol, too late to
stop the strange Thorlinthian blade that had reached into Jim’s heart
but not too late to hit the Dragon Rider square in the chest.
Normally, this would barely faze a Dragon Rider, as they wear
advanced armor beneath their uniform, but this was a .50 AE Desert
Eagle, and it packed a hell of a bigger punch than standard issue M9.
While not being enough to go through the armor and kill the
Thorlinthian, it was enough to knock him back and to his knees for a
moment, though the latter, in hindsight, was likely due to simple
surprise.
Nonetheless, I managed to bring myself
to a more upright position and move to the door. Then, everything
went wrong. As I called out into the hallway for assistance, I
realized my mistake. I had just turned my back to a live Dragon
Rider. My body soon felt the brunt of that error as the
Thorlinthian’s blade ran its way up my spine. Instantly, I fell to
the ground in agonizing pain but managed not to scream. Somehow, I
was alive, and I planned on keeping it that way.
I don’t know how long I lay there,
praying to God that the enemy wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t dead and
that I wouldn’t bleed to death, but eventually the Dragon Rider must
have left. It felt like an eternity, but somehow I still wasn’t dead
when a small group of men came through, looking quietly for
survivors. As one of the men approached me, he stepped right over me,
not even bothering to check for a pulse, which gave me a pretty good
idea how bad I looked. I tried to speak or even groan, but I couldn’t
produce a single sound. Then another man approached me, and I started
to think that I may actually be dead, simply observing the world near
my place of death.
At the very moment I was certain this
man, too, would simply step over me, he crouched down and checked my
temple for a pulse. Later on, after learning just how near death I
was at that moment, I’m not sure how he felt my pulse at all, but he
did. “This one’s alive. Don’t worry, sir, we’ll get you to help!”
It was at that time that I realized the people searching for
survivors were not men. They were children. I had just been saved by
a boy who hadn’t even started middle school.
The boys placed me carefully on a
makeshift stretcher and piled some pillows on me and covered it all
with a cloth as a disguise to get away from the scene. Before
leaving, however, the children took an iron from one of the rooms and
burned away my fingertips. They then took me to the Peacekeeper
Station, where they told an incredible story about an uncle who had
saved their lives from a pedophile with a sword and whose hands had
been burned on the stovetop as he held his arms over them in
protection. In panic, of course, the pedophile had left, and the boys
had brought me here, bringing that painfully obvious lie to a close.
What happened next baffled me
ceaselessly for the next year: The Thorlinthian healer believed their
story, as the Peacekeepers had just brought in a suspected pedophile
who had been carrying none other than a sword. In the most ridiculous
stroke of luck, my life was saved. Actually, as I discovered a year
later, the Peacekeeper who had brought in the pedophile had told his
son about it only minutes before the boys had gone in to look for
survivors. Still, it had been impressive.
I was treated, and my spine was
repaired for the most part. I would never again be able to move my
right pinky, but that was hardly a price to pay, in my opinion. As I
was being discharged from the station, the Peacekeeper Captain came
into my room and asked for privacy. There, he told me about the
resistance and how to find a man named Larry Denton, who was leading
the organization at the time. I asked if there had been any survivors
from the assault. He informed me that only hours ago, the last of the
three thousand men and women who had worked and lived at that
facility, including the President, who’d been hiding there, had been
declared dead. This included me, which meant I was a dead man on
record.
I spent the next two years working my
way to the top of the resistance, building our ranks the entire time
while watching my world fall apart. When Larry Denton disappeared on
the second anniversary of Phoenix Day, I was placed in charge of the
resistance, and I’ve been moving from town to town ever since,
staying as close to the enemy as possible to avoid being noticed.
Recently, we’d heard word of a research vessel called the Leviathan.
It’s purpose is to attempt to duplicate Thorlinthian weapons
technologies without being noticed. It’s to be launched tomorrow, and
I’m placing some of my most trusted men on its crew as guards and
scientists.
Unfortunately, we aren’t the only ones
to be supplying crew members. Most of the guards are heartless
mercenaries out of work. The Leviathan’s front cover is that it’s a
cargo vessel which will be lost at sea in a few months. We’re putting
a lot of hope into it, and we’re looking forward to some results.
Clayton’s going to be sending me all results as soon as they’re
finalized, just in case they’re discovered, but we’re putting all our
prayers into the hope that what we get back from the Leviathan will
be enough to make a difference in our little war.
That ship is our best hope of actually
pushing away the Thorlinthians. We can’t afford to lose it.