Secrets

“There’s something really weird going on here,” Lihandii said, trying to determine the necessary vocabulary needed to comprehend all the information coming at her while taking the occasional sip of water.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Feri’Andi replied. Valkyr 52 had been parked on top of a large concrete building in the city where they had landed for two days already, and the Valkyries had yet to deactivate Plug Nine or even go outside.

This entire time, Feri’Andi and Lihandii had been analyzing the electromagnetic broadcasts throughout the city. Most of these broadcasts were raw audio, but some were also video. It didn’t seem the locals were actually using the hypenet signals being projected across the planet. In fact, it seemed like the advanced computers that had concerned Lihandii so much two days earlier were barely advanced at all, though still too much so for a non-spacefaring populace.

What struck the Valkyries as particularly disturbing was that, as far as they could tell from the images and sounds on the broadcasts, the natives were closely related, genetically, to Thorlinthians. Their average intelligence was clearly lacking, but there were distinct physical similarities, and even some parts of the local language seemed vaguely familiar. Yet they were also clearly not Thorlinthians. Not only that, but Thorlinthia wasn’t known to have any colonized worlds on this side of the Bifrost, and yet the beacon outside the system was clearly of the same advanced technological origins as Thorlinthia, though further analysis of that showed that its design was considerably older than the TMDS, which had been the first drive system that allowed safe travel through the Bifrost.

“You know those stories your grandmother used to tell us on Linthi’daag?” Feri’Andi looked over to Lihandii as she asked. “They always had to do with the time before the Bifrost, when Linthia shone as the beacon of civilization for an entire galaxy of stars. Didn’t she say something was supposed to happen if the Old War was lost?”

Lihandii’s eyes widened as the suggestion sunk in fully. “You think these people were planted here?” Her eyebrows lifted as she lowered her chin. “Those were just children’s stories, Feri. If this planet had been planted, shouldn’t there be all sorts of advanced technology here?” Then she looked back at one of her screens, where she had taken a picture of one of the hypenet signal sources as the ship had passed overhead, and her jaw slackened somewhat, her face turning a bit more curious.

“There was, though, wasn’t there?” Feri’Andi smiled nervously as Lihandii began to reach the same conclusion. “At some point, this planet had all sorts of advanced technology, even hypenet, though the protocols here are far different from our own.” It was true. The hypenet protocols on this planet were obviously designed for a different hyping system, but the basic location parameters Thorlinthia used were as old as flight. They had been in place in the Age of Darkness, before the Monarch had come.

“So you’re thinking all those stories were true?” The implications were ridiculously vast. All those children’s tales of Kuh’Lii and Sahlter’ra were so fantastical that even a superpowered Valkyrie would discount them as only stories. Seed Ships and the Old War were stories she had known since infancy. If they were all true, then the very identity of Thorlinthia could be nothing but a lie.

“Think about it, Lihandii,” Feri’Andi said, seriously. “Only the first Valkyries of each family ever get told those stories. Remember how much trouble you made for yourself when you told Pri about the story of the Traitor? Your mother was furious. Maybe that’s why she didn’t get picked for this so-called training exercise. Only people who already know the stories get sent here. Maybe it’s so that they’ll only report it to the right people. This whole system is a secret!”

Lihandii scoffed. “If that’s true, from whom are we even keeping this supposed secret, Feri?” She knew that the argument wasn’t exactly sturdy, but she didn’t want to be the first one to say it if this was all leading where she knew it was.

As the question hit Feri’Andi, her face made it clear she didn’t want to say it, either. If what they were thinking right now was wrong, or if there was some major piece of information they were missing, and that made their conclusion incorrect somehow, they would be traitors to Thorlinthia for even uttering the phrase. By law, they would be, anyway. “Well, obviously, if the stories were true,” Feri’Andi faltered as she spoke. Then, after a few moments, she stood taller in her seat and continued. “If the stories are true, then this system would have to be kept a complete secret from the Monarch.”

And there it was: the reason only two Valkyries, always the firstborn in their generation, were ever sent on this exercise. Since they were the only ones who were told those stories as children, they would be the only ones capable of reaching such a conclusion that would keep them from making a complete report to the Monarch as soon as they returned. Instead, the Valkyries sent on this mission, as a mere training exercise, would only report to the High Valkyrie, and there would be nothing suspicious about it.

“I guess we had better start collecting more data, then, shouldn’t we? This is a reconnaissance mission if ever I’ve seen one. I can only imagine how long we’ve been monitoring this place. You know how weird time can act on this side of the Bifrost. There’s no telling.” Agreeing, the two began to rebuff their attempts to make sense of the transmissions coming through the air.

“Hang on,” Lihandii said after several centidays. The ship was listing. She looked out the main viewport and saw smoke, suddenly regretting locking the flight controls. “I think this building is on fire.”

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