The day was at its brightest. Even now, however, the warmth of Linthia was not enough to keep away the cold, even here on the surface. At least, it wasn’t enough this far out into the eternal depths of space. As if that weren’t enough to keep away any signs of life, the limited atmosphere was incredibly toxic and a low enough pressure that the typical man would get altitude sickness at sea level. That was why, here on Nivlahim, civilization was several miles beneath the ice, its power provided by the surging currents of the ocean under the ice and the heat of the planet’s core. It was there, in extensive tunnel systems stretching entire continents, that the people of the planet had built one of the most unique and dreaded technologies ever conceived by the minds of men.
Here, beneath rosts of snow, ice, and sea, the people of Nivlahim had created the most terrible prison ever created. Prisoners were not kept in a secure facility with walls that held them in while they corrupted and rallied against each other. Here, in the prison known only as the Nivlahim facility, the greatest war criminals and mass murderers were suspended in the waters and kept alive through limited life support systems that were operated from systems half a world away. It was here, where prisoner 83109 was meant to be transferred, that he was least likely to come.
And that, of course, was why the Matriarch was standing on the surface, looking across the sky, looking for him. It was here, where he would never come in a million cycles, that she knew he would come. Surely enough, after standing totally still in the freezing winds so long that it covered her shoulders, she blinked at the flicker of movement she now caught in the corner of her eye. She looked toward the flicker, and it was more easily seen the second time through the wispy clouds above in the cold, green sky. Careful not to move, she adjusted her view to more adequately see the ship in which the escaped Sheii’Cronell was now flying.
The ship quickly came into the focus of the high-amplification camera of Valkyr Zero, the Matriarch’s personal ship which predated any Thorlinthian ship in the skies and which had been built long before any ship was fitted with the new Temporal Manipulation Drive System. In fact, Valkyr Zero was more accurately known as VA1L-KZ0 and predated most of the ancient ruins that were the basis for so much Thorlinthian technology. Even now, it was the most advanced piece of purely artificial technology in Thorlinthia. It was made with technologies that were decreed unlawful shortly after its construction. Its very existence was a secret even from the Monarch, and the Matriarch intended to keep it that way.
The ship started setting down. The Matriarch knew she wouldn’t get a better shot than now. Quickly, she sent out a mental command to her ship’s weapons systems, which fired on 83109’s ship with such precision and damage, one would have thought it was fired at point-blank range rather than from over twenty rosts away. As she expected, the forward viewport of the ship blasted open only moments before the round impacted, and 83109 lept out of the ship just in time to avoid the damage caused by the destruction of the ship’s TMDS. That, she thought quietly, was part of why such technologies had been forbidden.
As she predicted, the Sheii’Cronell barely set foot on the ground before a massive shockwave was sent out from his position as he jumped toward her ship. Not wanting to risk its damage, she quickly sent it into the spacetime dimensional matrix to which the Thorlinthians referred as the hypenet. Her ship, however, was not operated under the same parameters as a TMDS-driven ship. There was no shock or implosion as it disappeared. It simply vanished as it slipped out of the standard spacetime dimensional matrix.
Less than a milliday later, the sonic wave following 83109 reached the Matriarch’s location, and the snow that had built up around her was blasted away, even as she stood still as a pillar rooted to the planet like the lifetree. 83109 noticed her figure as he passed, and there was another shockwave as he clapped the air ahead of him, transferring his remaining kinetic energy to the air before him and dropping straight down to the ground. When he landed, the cracking could be heard in the ice, but it was rosts thick. Even a nuclear blast wouldn’t penetrate the ice deeply enough to expose the liquid waters beneath.
“You’re a Valkyrie, aren’t you?” 83109 projected his voice using their wireless systems, but every menacing drop of venom was still felt by the Matriarch as she turned her head to him coolly. He began charging toward her, much of his energy expended for now from his leap across the precisely calculated distance at which the Matriarch had placed her ship. When he reached her, his fist burned through the air so quickly that it seemed to be made of lightning, but the Matriarch was no longer in its path when it reached the intended point of impact.
83109 stumbled forward a bit as he felt for the first time the loss of balance from a missed punch with bad footing. He quickly saw the error of his ways, though, as the Matriarch caught his hand and pulled it forward to bring him off-balance even more, blending with the motion of his attack and turning him, twisting his arm back upon him, snapping his shoulder out of its place. 83109’s gasp of shock could be heard over the wireless as his dislocated arm was brought around behind him into a lock, and the Matriarch said back to him, “Not exactly.”
She placed her right foot on his back quickly, before he could recover from the shock of the event, and kicked his body away, his arm detaching entirely as she held it in place. He careened forward, falling to the ground for only a moment before his powers began kicking in fully. It had been so long since he had actually used it that the advanced healing factor innate in his body had been rendered ine
rt. Now, it reactivated, quickly sealing the wound where his arm had just been. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time to grow back the whole arm as the Matriarch was suddenly upon him, and he brought his other hand forward to block the blow he expected.
Instead, however, the Matriarch slid around him, grabbing him across the front with one arm and tossing him to the side like a rag doll. As she feared, however, the powers in him were growing to be more of a problem. He hadn’t even reached arm’s distance from where he had been thrown before he blasted himself to his feet with a pulse of air that he expanded in his path. Again, however, the Matriarch had predicted this. The reactions of 83109 were instinctual and animalistic, lacking forethought and rationality. He lunged forward again, screaming in rage and pain. As he approached her, the Matriarch jumped into a forward flip, spinning around and grabbing 83109 from behind.
This time, she did not let go as she recited the ancient words she had long ago committed to memory in order to protect her son from the dark fate of instinct to which all Sheii’Cronells fell at an early age. She reached into the deepest recesses of his mind, beginning to form the blocks. It wouldn’t lock away the rage or the fear that had built up in his mind as a boy, but it would secure his powers, rendering them useless. Only the most highly trained Supreme would be able to recognize the power inside him with a Level Five block, and as far as she knew, there were no more Supremes. The Guardians were gone now, too.
As she sealed the last of the blocks and released 83109, who dropped to the ground in sudden weakness, she wept for the galaxy only she remembered. She wept for her son, who had died long ago. She wept for the girl who had once accepted her son and who had died alongside him. She wept for the Kuli, who had nearly died out entirely in the war. She wept for the worlds that had been destroyed and the races that had been killed. She would never stop mourning the past that only she and the Monarch remembered, but neither would she regret a single action she took.
Casting aside her tears, she brought Valkyr Zero back from the hypenet and engaged its communications array. “I have him,” she said over the wireless. “We can begin interrogations as soon as I return.” She picked up 83109 as she headed back to her ship. She wondered how many times she could keep coming out of stasis like this. Even now, she could feel the toll time was taking on her body despite the processes that were now held as the deepest secrets of the Valkries.
Looking to the sky before entering her ship, she whispered out to the endless black that resided beyond the bright sky, “I’m waiting for you.” Stepping into her ship, she began preparing for the flight back to Valhal.