by Sarah Hawke
“Raxyl is Seraphim,” I insisted.
Falric offered me a condescending smile, like a parent humoring the naïveté of a toddler. “Call him whatever you like, it changes nothing. He is no more Seraphim than your Velothi pet here.” He turned towards Kaveri and snorted. “Can you even imagine the odds? I tried to build my son a loyal whore, not a Psychophage-addled mutant.”
“She is a Blade of the Seraph!” I insisted.
“No, she is merely the latest pet trained to perform tricks by an old, defeated man,” Falric said. “Just like your mother, Wynn here could never resist a good charity case. Has he ever told you about the broken mongrel he once took for a lover? Did he ever tell you how the mere sight of her nauseated his own men during the war?”
“You miserable son of a bitch,” Mosaad snarled as he lifted his psi-blade into a ready position. “I don’t know how you survived Keledon, and I don’t know how you wormed your way into the Convectorate. But honestly, I don’t care. You will not escape justice again!”
He lunged forward with a primal scream, his blade sizzling as he moved. He swung so hard, so viciously, he could have been striking at a giant feral beast rather than a man. I could feel the rage pouring off of him; I could feel his thirst for vengeance in every step.
But an instant before he struck, my father calmly stretched out his hand and shaped his own psi-blade out of thin air. He lifted the weapon just in time to parry Mosaad’s attack, and when their swords met an explosive clash of psionic energy washed over the bridge and knocked me from my feet. My pistol flipped from my hand and skittered across the bridge, and Kaveri had to brace herself against the guard railing to stay upright.
“You couldn’t kill me before,” Falric sneered as the burning psi-blades clashed a centimeter in front of his eyes. “What makes you think you can kill me now?”
He pushed Mosaad away with a sudden heave, but the older man’s rage couldn’t be quenched so easily. He lunged forward again, striking with a fury and precision I had seen in Kaveri many times. I didn’t know anything about fencing with a real sword, let alone one shaped with pure mental energy, but even I could appreciate his skill and grace.
Just like how I could appreciate that it made no difference whatsoever.
Falric clearly should have been overmatched; his movements were quick but stiff and stilted. His parries looked more like random flailing than a calculated defense. But for all Mosaad’s skill, he moved so slowly he could have been fighting underwater. At first I was terribly confused—how could someone with his obvious expertise be so sluggish?—but then I belatedly realized what was happening.
My father was manipulating his own time frame to make it appear as if he were dramatically faster than he actually was, and somehow I was caught in the temporal distortion with him. Everything around me seemed to moving at a tenth its normal speed: the tac-holo, the space battle outside, even Kaveri…
Then Mosaad abruptly screeched, and everything returned to normal. He stumbled backwards into the guard rail, a smoldering black streak across his left shoulder where Falric’s blade had seared through his armor. My father was suddenly several meters away near the command throne, a self-satisfied sneer on his lips.
“Master!” Kaveri shrieked, leaping to his side.
“Four and a half years,” Falric said, shaking his head. “Four and a half years and you’re still as predictable as ever. It’s almost sad, really. I still remember attending those galas on Keledon when I was a child. All the ‘great military minds’ would hail your plans and tactics. They practically worshipped you. But now…look at the pathetic mess you’ve become.”
Mosaad clutched at his shoulder as Kaveri helped him up. Despite the grimace on his face, his psi-blade continued burning as brightly as ever.
“You see now why the Blades must finally be destroyed,” Falric said, glancing back over to me. “They are an old and tired order led by an old and tired fool. They were meant to obey the Crystal Throne unquestioningly…and soon, they will again.”
“Never,” Mosaad spat. “You will answer for your betrayal!”
He lunged forward again, and Kaveri joined him. Just like before, they attacked with the breathtaking, coordinated grace only true telepaths could ever hope to achieve. Every time one of them overextended, the other would compensate; every time one of them creating an opening, the other would exploit it. I could easily imagine them carving through a horde of Tarreen or combat mechs. I doubted that an entire army could have stopped them.
But my father could. Time once again slowed to a crawl around me, and I watched the duel play out in the eons between my heartbeats. I had never felt so helpless; my breath caught in my throat every time my father’s blade clashed against Kaveri’s. He could kill her at any moment, and I had no idea what I could possibly do to stop him…
“Argh!”
Once again Mosaad’s agonized shriek collapsed the temporal bubble. A black, smoldering line marred the otherwise pristine armor covering his leg, and his blade vanished as he clutched at the wound. Falric’s backswing would have seared the head from the older man’s shoulders if Kaveri hadn’t deflected the attack at the last instant. The explosive clash of their swords unleashed another wave of telekinetic force that pummeled me backwards, and when I finally recovered and glanced back up Falric was looming over Mosaad’s body.
“What a sad, ignoble end to a once proud order,” he sneered. “If you’d only had the courtesy to die on Keledon or Talasea like the others, you could have at least gone out with some dignity. The Blades might have even been remembered fondly, after a time. But this…this is truly pathetic. After all these centuries, the fabled protectors of the Seraph are reduced to one broken man and his latest alien whore.”
“Stop this!” I shouted, my voice trembling with helpless rage. “If you want to take me, fine—take me. Just let everyone else leave.”
Falric arched an eyebrow at me. “I’m glad to see that your mother and her lizard didn’t completely drain the integrity from your royal blood. I feared that a life in this Rim cesspool might have corrupted you beyond redemption.”
“Please, just let them all go,” I begged, holding up my hands. “I’ll come with you. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Cole, stay back!” Kaveri warned as she crawled back to Mosaad, blade held defensively in front of her.
“I already told you that he has nothing to fear from me, my dear,” Falric said. “You, on the other hand…what a disappointment you turned out to be. You were designed to serve my son from your knees and on your back. You should have embraced your role. You should have been honored by the privilege.”
“Leave her out of this,” I said, ignoring Kaveri’s warning and approaching closer. “Just take me with you and let the rest of them leave.”
My father studied me for a long moment, another disturbing smile tugging at his lips. “I can see your mother’s influence on you after all. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Thanks to her lizard, you’ve never had the chance to live among your own kind. How can I expect you to know what you’re missing?”
I raised my hands defensively. “Then show me. But please, just let them go.”
“If only it were that simple,” Falric said softly. “They will all come along with us, Cole, and I promise you I will take care of them. We will rebuild the Blades and the Wings, and together we will scour the Tarreen from the face of the galaxy!”
He glanced back down to Kaveri and Mosaad. “But first, you need to be untethered from this life,” he said. “For what it’s worth, my dear, I’m sorry it has to be this way. I suppose I’ll just have to order a new one…”
Falric slashed down at her with his blade, and Kaveri barely managed to deflect the attack in time. My heart froze in my chest as another temporal bubble distorted reality around us. My father lashed out with his blazing blue sword, and Kaveri frantically struggled to fend him off. She was one of the fastest, most dexterous people I had ever met, but even she couldn�
�t keep up forever. In a few more seconds, she would be dead.
“No!” I screamed. The thunderous ripples of my voice were so slow the words themselves enveloped me. I lunged forward, hoping against hope that I could tackle him before he overwhelmed her defenses. My movements were blindingly fast—my own legs were a blur of motion—but I knew it still wouldn’t be enough. Every footstep was still a microsecond behind his assault, and I opened my mouth to scream as he thrust his sword at her chest…
Only to be intercepted at the last possible instant by Mosaad’s blade. The explosive clash threw me off-balance; I tripped and crashed onto the cold deck plates just before I reached my father. And when I looked up, the vibrations of my fall rippling in the distorted air, I watched in horror as he drove his sword through Mosaad’s chest instead.
I gasped, paralyzed, as time abruptly returned to normal. Everything seemed to happen at once: Master Mosaad crumpled to the deck, black wisps of smoke rose up from his scorched breastplate, and a shrieking Kaveri dove protectively over him even as his psi-blade dissipated for the last time.
“A martyr to the end,” Falric said. “How disappointing.”
My heart pounded in my ears so loudly it drowned out Kaveri’s screams. My mind kept insisting that this wasn’t real—I must have been having one final nightmare in my bed on the Gazack. Of all the ways I had thought this attack could turn against us, I had never once envisioned that my resurrected father would be standing here threatening to murder or brainwash everyone and everything I cared about…
“Perhaps it is better this way, old friend,” Falric sneered. “For once, you won’t have to outlive the companions you failed.”
He pointed his blade back at Kaveri to finish the job. She glared up at him, her luminescent eyes streaked with tears, knowing she couldn’t possibly stop him…
“No!” I shrieked. Inexplicably, a wave of telekinetic force exploded from my outstretched palms, slamming into my father and hurling him across the bridge. He crashed into the wall so hard he almost dented the bulkhead, and for a long, aching moment I stared down at my hands in stunned silence. I had absolutely no idea how I’d done that—I’d never actually moved anything with my mind before…
“It would seem you have some of your mother’s gifts after all,” Falric rasped as he propped himself up on an elbow. A trickle of blood seeped down through his hair and matted his sideburns. “Fascinating…”
I swallowed heavily and balled my hand into a fist. I could still feel the telekinetic vibrations shuddering through my bones, but I had no idea how—or if—I could harness them again.
“All you lack is control,” Falric said as if answering my thoughts. “Your powers are purely reactive, just as mine were years ago. You must learn to focus—you must learn to make reality bend to your whim, not the other way around. And once you do, you will be invincible. The legacy of the Seraph flows through your veins!”
He slowly dragged himself to his feet. “You and I, we are not merely Seraphim, Cole,” he went on. “We are chosen—we are divine. The universe itself calls us to a higher purpose.” He shifted his eyes down to Kaveri and her fallen master. “For all his flaws, Wynn was right about one thing: we are destined to defeat the Tarreen. Our ancestors could have exterminated the vermin centuries ago, but when the day of the judgment finally came, the first Seraphim wavered. They allowed the Tarreen survivors to flee into the Rim…and look what their mercy has wrought. The monsters returned, just as we knew they would, and they found a weak, decadent civilization ripe for conquest.”
Falric shook his head, his movements still blurred by the temporal bubble. “My father—your grandfather—may have been a great man, but he was too willing to capitulate and compromise with his political enemies. He never should have founded the Alien Assembly. He never should have ceded a centimeter to the non-human filth trying to infest our empire!”
I swallowed between staggered breaths. “And you honestly wonder why so many of them joined the Convectorate?”
“That’s precisely my point,” Falric said. “Your grandfather thought he could buy the loyalty of the alien hordes with appeasement, but when the Convectorate attacked the Kreen and Krosians and so many others still joined our enemies. His compassion only revealed his weakness to the galaxy—a weakness our enemies were all-too-willing to exploit.”
“So your solution is to conquer them instead?”
“This isn’t about war, Cole. It is about enlightenment. I will offer them civilization instead of barbarism. I will offer them order rather than chaos.”
“And you think I have lived in bubble all my life,” I muttered. “The people out here in Rim despise humans…and I’m finally starting to understand why. They will fight you at every turn.”
“For a time, perhaps,” Falric admitted with a shrug. “The weak naturally follow the strong, and the mortal inevitably submit to the divine. They merely await a new symbol of leadership.”
I scoffed. “You?”
“Us,” Falric corrected. “The rightful emperor resurrected from the dead, and the rightful prince returned from exile on the Rim. The rest of the pieces are already in place, I assure you. Once we add your friends to our army, we will finally be ready. The galaxy will tremble at the mere mention of the Seraphim Dominion!”
“Not likely,” I muttered, shaking my head. It was only then, when I glanced back to the console behind me, that I realized Raxyl was no longer there. He had been so quiet that I’d almost forgotten about him; I hadn’t even seen him for several minutes. Where could he have—?
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the faint, imperceptible shimmer of his Kali camouflage on the other side of the bridge. No one was paying attention to him, and he seemed to be slowly maneuvering his way towards the corpses of the Baalir commandos for some reason…
“I will prove it to you, Cole,” my father said, still fixated upon me. “I can’t wait to show you the empire I have built in the shadows. My forces merely await my command to step into the light.”
I glanced at the tac-holo as the last Valkyrie finally winked out of existence amidst a swarm of drones. The Vantrax was still desperately trying to recover them all in time, but its defenses wouldn’t last much longer. In a few more minutes, everything we had built would be lost.
But then I caught another flicker of movement at the fringes of my vision. I finally realized what Raxyl was trying to do…and I finally realized what I needed to.
I reached out and offered Falric my hand. He smiled and clasped my arm, and I begrudgingly pulled him in for a real embrace.
“Whatever you think you know about me, I am on your side,” he told me. “You are my son, and I will always be your father.”
“There’s just one problem with that,” I said, locking my arms around his back. “I already have a father.”
I could actually feel a premonition shudder through Falric’s body. His eyes widened, his body stiffened, and he whirled his head around just in time to watch Raxyl drop his camouflage and retrieve one of the commando’s massive plasma rifles.
“For Maris,” Raxyl said.
Falric shaped another temporal bubble around the instant the Kali pulled the trigger. The smoldering green-white plasma bolt crawled towards us so slowly I could actually see the air sizzling in its wake. My father started to move clear of the blast…and I held him firmly in place.
His head whipped back around to glare at me, and I had the satisfaction of watching terror fill his eyes when he belatedly realized what was happening…
And then the temporal bubble collapsed. The plasma burst exploded in Falric’s back, and the impact sent both of us tumbling across the bridge. When I recovered, I stared down at the hissing black crater in my father’s back for what felt like a small eternity before I finally closed my eyes and grit my teeth. I found it even harder to breathe than to swallow; I swore I was choking on my own tongue. But eventually I heard Raxyl step forward and offer me his hand.
�
��We must get off this vessel,” he said, his scales a shade of dark green I had never seen before. “The Vantrax has retrieved the disabled Valkyries, but their shields will not hold much longer.”
My neck nodded reflexively, though it no longer felt like it was attached to my head. I didn’t feel like I was in control of my body at all; everything had gone cold and numb.
“We need to get Master Mosaad to Shandris as soon as possible,” Kaveri said, clutching her mentor’s body. “I can move him with my telekinesis to keep him as still as—”
“It’s too late for that,” he rasped, grabbing her hand before she could bounce back to her feet. “You have to get out of here. You have to get out of here now.”
Kaveri grimaced and shook her head. “We’re not going to leave you behind. We can still get you to Shandris before—”
“Kaveri, it’s over,” Mosaad said, his entire arm trembling as he clutched hers. “You have to take Cole and leave. Now!”
My stomach sank even further when I looked down at him. I wasn’t a doctor by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d patched enough stabs and pulse burns over the years to recognize a mortal injury when I saw one. If we had been lying in the infirmary surrounded by medical drones, they might have been able to save him. But here, trapped on the bridge of an enemy battleship a hundred meters from our only healer…
“Save as many of the others as you can,” Mosaad said. “You are their protector now.”
“Master—”
“I will do everything I can to cover your escape from here,” he told her. “Now go. Go…and live.”
Her luminescent eyes flickered so intently I honestly wondered if they might stop glowing altogether. But then her warrior poise somehow reasserted itself, and she squeezed his hand as she leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. He whispered something into her ear, and she nodded and stood.
“We should go,” Kaveri said. “The others need our help.”
I started to follow, but I stopped in the doorway and cast one last look back at my father’s corpse. I couldn’t even begin to parse the pain and terror and sorrow and relief all rushing through me at once. I had come here expecting to fight Tarreen. Instead…