Daevra’s voice overpowered the unfolding scene. “Dear Kwon Oemaru was born over five thousand years ago on the world Neo-Joso, a world steeped in the art of war, a world dominated by technology that exceeds any of our own.” The view of his infant body backed up to reveal a room with several women giving birth, a dozen doctors divided among the laboring women, and a dozen more airborne robots flitting above everyone’s elongated heads, their skeletal hands and arms hanging from cube-like cores. The far side of the room had a wall that was one large window that revealed a majestic panorama of Neo-Joso’s capital city Sujam. A fleet of airships guarded the capital’s slender buildings and everyone living in it. The sight of it caused Oemaru to ache for home. He loved his home world, yet he’d spent such a tiny fraction of his life there. It was the one major drawback of his conquest.
The view of the vision flew through the window and blurred with white light. Once the view stilled, it revealed a toddler version of Oemaru practicing a strategy board game among hundreds of other toddlers. Daevra’s voice narrated the scene.
“The Neo-Josos are born and bred for war. From a young age they are taught tactics, strategy, thinking ahead, how to overpower an opponent, and the importance of never underestimating a foe. Their brain power far exceeds any of us present, yet they succumb to the same emotions and cravings of the flesh as the rest of us, thus placing them on an even field in the end.” The scene shifted several times, showing snippets of Oemaru and his fellow trainees sitting in lecture halls, all of them around age ten, practicing hand-to-hand combat as teenagers, learning how to fly various crafts as young adults, and a ceremony where Oemaru and his peers earned their first stripes, pins and uniforms.
“Out of thousands, dear Kwon Oemaru graduated at the top, proving to be the most tactical and ruthless fighter. No one has ever beat him, except one foe, but we’ll get to that in just a moment.”
The scenes flashed in rapid succession again, showing one world he’d conquered after another. He’d left shattered populations in his wake, new outposts for his people to expand to, worlds getting take over by Neo-Josos, and two world’s he’d destroyed. Only two. Vancor had warned him to be sparing with such actions, for he’d have drawn too much divine attention if he’d demolished too many worlds.
“Kwon Oemaru conquered worlds with a fleet numbering in the mere thousands against populations numbering up to billions. How many of you can boast victory in the face of similar numbers?” Daevra showed snippets of dogfights both in outer space and inside one planet or another’s biosphere, along with bombing raids and ground combat, all of which Oemaru and his fleet decisively won. Opponents surrendered, retreated, or were slaughtered. Once the fighting was done, Oemaru, with an entourage of armed bodyguards, met his defeated opponents as he oversaw the signing of treaties, or rather “submission contracts” as Oemaru fondly called them. “Once his opponents were defeated and broken, he claimed dominion over every last one of them. His conquest spans dozens of galaxies, while none of you have conquered an entire world. Are you sure you dare challenge such prowess?”
The scene shifted once more. This new one gripped Oemaru’s chest with cold fear. This was the only thing he wished Daevra wouldn’t show anyone. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t seem to find his voice, much less his own mouth. He was aware of only what the hooded woman was showing everyone, along with his own thoughts and emotions.
A hundred Kismite men and women sat hunched in tiers of high-backed chairs behind wood desks that ran the length of each tier, each seat accompanied by a lamp and nameplate, and whatever personal items the Kismites had set on their desk. Every last one of them gazed at Oemaru with hate, fear, and their last shred of hope under a guillotine.
Oemaru sat in a hover chair positioned in the center of the stage at the base of the tiers, looking bored with his elongated head propped up on a fist. His entourage guarded him in a semicircle behind his chair, sporting silvery uniforms and white helmets with black, reflective visors, and armed with guns with a trio of barrels angled towards the glossy stage.
Daevra said, “This is an ironic tale. Dear Kwon Oemaru had no intention of conquering the people you see when he’d headed for their corner of the universe. He and his god had no clue the world Kismet existed. The opportunity for another conquest was too tantalizing to pass up, however. He conquered this world with little trouble, but for once, the spoils of victory were spoiled.”
A man wearing a business suit and tie in the front row said, “We’ve been talking about this for a week! How many times do we have to tell you that we don’t want you to destroy Kismet? Just leave us be and go back to focusing on the Frevens! Our pitiful defense against you should be proof enough that we’re no threat to you or Neo-Joso. Just go. Please!”
“What drives you to continue living on this ailing planet? It’s disgustingly polluted.”
“It’s our home. We were erasing the pollution until you came along and started blasting everything we’d built.” His voice cracked. “Now it’s worse than before, but we can fix it if you’d just leave us alone.”
“Maybe you deserve to be punished for what you’ve done to your world. From what I’ve seen, you Kismites don’t even deserve to have a world to call home.” Oemaru from the present regretted having said that. It wouldn’t go over well with the leaders surrounding him.
“That’s neither true, nor your place to decide. We have suffered the consequences of our mistakes. We were rectifying them until you came along and blasted us to a lower square one. Do you really believe you’re better than us?”
“Tell me again: why do you want to stay on Kismet so bad? Why not abandon it? I could put you humans to use either in my fleet or any of the worlds I’ve conquered.”
“We refuse to reduce ourselves to being your pet slaves,” the man said, vigor returning to his voice. He sat up straighter. “Unlike you, war isn’t in our nature. I can promise you that no one on Kismet will ever seek revenge. We have better things to do with our lives. Besides, we don’t have intergalactic technology.”
Standing up with a sigh, Oemaru met the Kismites’ hopeless glares with annoyed uncaring. “No intelligent conqueror leaves enemies untouched so they may one day rally and fight again.”
“Are you implying that you’re afraid of us?”
Oemaru smirked. “I offered you a position of safety among my people. You refused it. Your only other option is death. That’s not fear. That’s me being thorough.” He tapped a button on the side of his hover chair and it collapsed into a rectangular cube complete with indents for gripping. To his guards he said, “Back to the ships. Tell the plasma team to standby for my order to glass this planet.” He headed offstage for a broad doorway leading to the building’s exit.
The Kismites yelled and screamed at him. He tuned them out until one of his men opened fire. Several unarmed natives lay near the lip of the stage, blood pooling under them. “No craving for revenge, huh?” he said with another smirk. The surviving people sat back down and many started crying. Oemaru headed out the doorway that led down a hallway in partial disrepair, thanks to his bombings. Glass and pieces of the tiled ceiling littered the cracked floor. The white walls looked sound, but every window was shattered, letting in foul-smelling air. Several framed paintings were strewn on the floor among the debris.
“Sir!” the soldier on Oemaru’s left barked, holding Oemaru’s helmet out to him.
He snatched it and jammed it on. “General Oemaru, come in, sir!” said a voice inside his helmet.
“This is General Oemaru. What is it, Yola?” He began walking faster and his men kept pace with him.
Yola’s panicked voice bordered on hysteria. “The fleet’s being attacked! We’ve lost five Meta ships! The Mother ships are still unharmed, but we don’t know who’s attacking, or from where!”
Oemaru slid to a halt. “What? Why wasn’t I informed sooner? How long have the attacks been going on?”
“About a minute, sir! We have done intensive vis
ual and radar scans, but nothing has come up! I’m sorry, sir!”
Oemaru started running, his entourage in tow. “Cancel the plasma team standby and prepare all hoppers for departure. We’ll glass Kismet another day.” Glassing a planet meant blasting the surface with enough plasma to turn it to glass and rock, thus wiping out all life.
“Yes, sir!”
Oemaru and his guards ran out into an open quadrangle with several crafts, called hoppers, capable of rocketing into outer space. They broke into pairs and hustled into their space crafts, Oemaru having one all to himself.
Yola yelled, “Sir, we just lost another Meta ship!”
Oemaru grimaced as he dropped into his cockpit. “Put all Nano ships on hot patrol. Shoot down anything suspicious.” He sealed the cockpit hatch with the press of a button and strapped himself in.
“Yes, sir!”
He flipped several choice switches on his control panel, listening to whir and hum of his engines as the hopper warmed up. One of his legs was bouncing with anxiety. No one had ever gotten this kind of drop on him before. He roll-called his ten guards one-by-one. All of them were accounted for and ready to launch. He announced the commencement of their launch to Yola, and then all other sounds got drowned out by the deafening roar of engines rocketing six hoppers into outer space. Oemaru’s hopper rattled and vibrated as he focused on the sickly green and brown sky ahead.
Something in the corner of his vision caught his attention. It looked like a ray of sunlight in the shape of a giant arm and hand. The hand grabbed hold of the nose of his hopper, its fingers and palm big enough to wrap halfway around the heating metal. A warning beeper went off and a voice told him to either straighten out his ascent or return to the surface. Something thudded against starboard side. A humanoid face turned and looked at him from over Oemaru’s shoulder. The female, had close-cropped black hair, red-glowing eyes, and a severe mouth. She glared at him, then the light or whatever surrounding her intensified and she launched herself ahead of the hopper in a blur of light. The force of her jump shoved Oemaru’s jet off-course. More sirens went off. Oemaru tried to right himself but his hopper veered horizontally, plowing through another hopper. He mashed the emergency escape button as the other hopper’s explosion engulfed him. The roar of wind and several rocketing jets assaulted his ears, and then gravity took over. He activated his parachute and the omniscient view of the memory faded to black as Daevra spoke once more.
“Dear Kwon Oemaru, as you already know, survived this defeat. The ironic thing is, it could have been completely avoided. This is the only time he ever lost, and it was the only conquest he’d never intended to pursue. Yet stranger still, he didn’t lose to his known foe, the Kismites. He lost to an enigmatic foe who possess power far greater than any of us mortals present. Their identity is a tale for another day.”
The veladome and everyone in it faded into view, and Oemaru found that he could move once more. He grabbed his thin podium in a death grip and resisted the urge to drop to the ground and stick his head between his knees. That was his worst memory. He’d almost died--not to the crash, but to Kismet’s foul air. In all the confusion his fleet had almost left him behind, but his men’s loyalty proved stronger than the fear of death. Two of the guards from his entourage collected him and brought him back to the Grand Mother ship, and the remaining one-quarter of his fleet fled to Neo-Joso with severely wounded pride. What was worse, they never really understood who or what they lost to, and Daevra wasn’t about to divulge such information.
Oemaru forced himself to look about the dome. Every last leader, except Daevra, looked frayed. Daevra’s face was concealed in darkness, minus her eyes. She stood with the shadowy tendrils wriggling away about her shoulders, her gaze still fixed on Oemaru.
“Think well before you all decide,” she said. “He will lead us to victory today if we unanimously choose to follow him, but he may be our foe in the future. He is always hungry for conquest. I vote to follow him.”
As much as he wanted her loyalty, Oemaru didn’t know whether that was a good or a bad thing. With all the memories she’d wrenched from him and warning she’d given to everyone, she made quite the hasty decision. He returned her unsettling gaze and gleaned nothing from her. He didn’t trust her, couldn’t trust what he didn’t understand. Was it a ploy to lure him into complacency so she and her army could dispose of him while he was preoccupied with an intended foe?
Oemaru projected confidence and strength with the set of his shoulders and holding his elongated head high enough without looking self-absorbed. The other leaders wore distant looks and reflective gazes. Soon, people began pledging to follow him, even the large beast who’d accused him of wanting to turn the rest of them into puppets. Several protested, questioning the authenticity of the visions and Daevra’s words, but far too many knew it in their gut that what they’d been shown was true. Every last one of them respected Oemaru’s accomplishments. He saw it in their eyes as they agreed to follow him, even the ones who had been heavily persuaded to partake in this meeting. No one but him had conquered an entire world, much less half of one.
They unanimously acknowledged him as Grandmaster General. This is exactly what he’d wanted, exactly what he’d been striving for since the day Vancor had showed him this path. He’d worked so hard to get here. It was unfolding the way it was supposed to. So why did it feel like this wasn’t what he wanted? Why did he feel like Daevra was the one who was the one pulling everyone’s strings?
With unexpected reluctance, Oemaru accepted everyone’s loyalty with a few words. He plugged his wyverbit, the little black thing he’d sent flying all over the realm, into the podium. A three-dimensional hologram of the realm appeared over everyone’s head in the center of the veladome. Interesting. It does have an underside. That gave him ideas.
Oemaru slipped into leader mode and began organizing the layout of everyone’s armies according to strengths, tactics, talents, and overall usefulness.
Chapter 21
Jenna sat alone in one of Nostrum Hospital’s staff dorm rooms, wearing pajama shorts and a tank top, and some socks since the tile floor was cold. She had every light off, allowing the gellikin’s LCD to illuminate the room. It was late at night and she needed to get to bed soon for her shift early in the morning. Donai and Skitt were in their own dorms, and Arryk would do the same once his shift was over and the next shift was in full control of all his patients. The four of them were eager to stick around because of the two Aigis.
Right before Jenna had retired to her dorm, she’d checked up on them. They were both asleep, Aerigo recharging, and Rox officially on the mend. She’d looked so much healthier compared to twelve hours ago. Her right arm even looked normal. Now the question was whether it was paralyzed or not. If so, hopefully they could treat it, so long as her physiological makeup didn’t hinder or block treatment.
Jenna opened the other video file Donai had sent her at Kennin’s recommendation. The AI believed it might be helpful in regards to Aerigo, since Jenna had confirmed the Aigis’ inner turmoil was still present. Even with the energy healing and Aerigo’s newfound understanding of his emotions, there was still a chance he would backslide. Jenna wholeheartedly believed what the psychic Orissona had said about the matters of Aerigo’s heart. It was too universal an issue to doubt a word.
Jenna tilted the gellikin’s screen so it faced the ceiling, then reclined against the wall on her bed. Flaps popped out of the edges of the desk and parts of the ceiling, creating a five-foot-tall hologram of the video file. Knees propped up, Jenna grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest.
A block of text introduced the video:
Aerigo was difficult to take care of. He made a scratch above zero progress during the first thirty years of his stay. Staff struggled to get him to eat and sleep, and when they coaxed him to a workout facility, his actions were mechanical and devoid of effort. No one was able to pierce his emotional shell. He went mute, his eyes stuck in a perpetual blue glow. Staf
f were running out of hope for the Noma... until SHE came...
The paragraph faded out and was replaced by a date:
3 Moon of New Life 3135
The date faded to black and Nostrum Hospital’s main reception area faded in, complete with the sliding glass doors and the walkway leading to the front desk. A well-trod area rug covered the tiled floor between the doors and desk. The desk itself was short, made of dark wood, and bulky. A young man with mousy hair sat behind it.
The doors parted and a woman--a very beautiful woman sauntered in. She had enviously lustrous black hair that fell past her petite waist. Jenna ran a hand through her own hair and couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy. The woman wore plain clothes: tennis shoes, jeans, and a white t-shirt. Plain as her attire was, her figure was as envious as her hair. The woman didn’t have a voluptuous build. She had a slender, graceful build, one that filled men with chivalrous compulsions. The woman carried herself with modesty, but not meekness.
The mousy-haired receptionist stared at the woman with his mouth agape and slightly leaning forward in his chair. He swallowed and managed to stop gaping. “M-may I help you?”
The woman smiled sympathetically at the receptionist, then glanced at the double doors and waved to someone the camera couldn’t see. She turned back to the receptionist, who looked like a deer in headlights once their gazes met again. The woman said, “I wish to visit Aerigo.” Her voice was soft and musical, and just as beautiful as the rest of her. Again, Jenna was struck by envy, but not the kind that made her feel inferior. That woman was just plain lucky with her genetics.
The receptionist stared a moment longer, then shook his head and blinked. “Aerigo?” He looked at the computer screen in front of him. Oh, my goodness! The days of computers. They looked so archaic compared to contemporary technology. “Uh, what’s his surname?”
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