The people he worked for weren’t easily fooled.
He took a deep breath.
“For…” he stopped himself, he hated saying his mission statement beforehand. Mist erupted off his hands, his eyes dissolved and a blue fog came from his eye sockets. He walked through the door. A two story-tall Dosia lay asleep in an incredibly large bed. Labor required her to return to her regular size. A comically large crib sat next to it. And Shir Ical stood next to the window, staring at him.
Jaylen stepped forward. Shir backed into the window, with a look of fear on her face, which became slick with sweat.
As Jaylen came closer, she raised her hands. “Now I…I know that my father has enemies…but…but we had nothing to do…please…please, not my daughter…” she stuttered. Before she said another word, Jaylen’s hand pierced her chest. She screamed as she exploded into a blue dust.
Her clothes fell to the ground on top of the pile of dust. Dosia stirred behind him. Jaylen acted quickly, he placed a hand over her resting face and with a quick motion of his hand she was ash.
He heard a low whine behind him. Dosia’s newborn. He moved to the side of the crib. The Serephin baby was dwarfed by the size of his crib. A small bracelet was on his arm. It kept him the small manageable size he was now.
If he took it off, the baby would grow to double the size.
Five minutes. The voice went off in his head.
“Raisa, what to do with the newborn?”
Raisa was the voice in his head, she didn’t answer back immediately. The baby started to laugh. He was just a child with no evil or hate in his heart. The world had yet to touch his soul. He didn’t want to do what he was— Do you want him to avenge his family when he’s older? No loose ends.
Jaylen paused. She was right. There would be consequences if he didn’t kill him. But…
Jaylen raised his hand to strike. The newborn reached for him and started to cry. He wanted to be held. Three minutes.
He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t kill a baby. Jaylen!
He was a killer. A killer had no rights to morals.
He struck and the room grew silent.
Jaylen panted. Go. Now!
Jaylen glanced at the pile of dust that was in the crib as he left.
…
When he arrived back to his room, it was empty. Anu was gone. Turn in for the night, you should be clear in the morning. Raisa’s voice echoed in his head. He sent back a simple okay as the communication cut off.
He disrobes and fixed his gaze on the bathroom mirror, and then without a thought, lay in his bed over the covers. He killed a child, a baby barely a days old. All because he was told to.
He felt as though the world was going to crash down on top of him. He killed a lot of people, for a lot of different reasons. But, their deaths were for something, for his cause and for the eventual downfall of the Starmaker. At least that was the belief he chose to follow.
But Dosia’s son ‘s death felt meaningless, he was birthed into a world of violence without having a say. He was innocent, the purest a person could have been.
It made him think of all the lives he’d taken, and how meaningful they really were. They were all adults, grown. Though he didn’t know if he really made a difference to his cause. He did what he was told. He never got to see the lives he changed, the sorrow he caused others.
He didn’t want to think about the incident any longer. He let his eyes disappear into a blue mist. All he saw was a turbulent sea of turquoise lights, waves in a moonless ocean. The natural motions of the universe’s energy.
All around him, the walls ripped apart molecule by molecule. The ceiling faded away into a turquoise fade. A shadow of its former self, its true self. He could have always seen this. But at his training, he was taught to see the reality of the world. He could see small turquoise sparks of light in the ocean. It filled his sky.
Those were living people, but past them were the endless oceans he’d always dreamed. It was comforting, staring at all of this. But the world was not a comforting place.
So he re-formed his eyes and the natural ‘real’ world came back into his view and all that was above him again was a cold metal ceiling. He turned on his side, moved under the covers and closed his eyes.
Part 3 – Training to see the unseen
Jaylen’s eyes opened. He sat at a desk in a classroom, it was filled with other teenaged Jour students. He was on his home world, Duilo. The teacher in front wrote History and politics on the black electronic board.
A metallic pen left white where it traced. Above the board was a rough looking black pillar, floating as a symbol and a reminder. Jaylen’s planet was aligned with the separatists.
The Jour race was embroiled in a secret war, the separatists wanted to leave the council and advance the Jour’s race without Jahum’s help and his ‘treacherous’ ways. Jaylen’s people believed Jahum was the reason that the stars were disappearing, they believed that if they destroyed Jahum and undo everything he’d done, the universe would naturally fix itself.
Their proof that this was possible was the symbol of their cause. A black pillar that they were able to create without Jahum’s help. It blocked and denied the use of the power of the stars. A pillar that could extinguish the spark of a star in a person’s very being.
The loyalists wanted to prevent that and so there was a war. Jaylen’s younger self at the time didn’t care about the loyalists or the separatists or whatever cause his people were supporting. The only thing that mattered to him was that he got high marks in class, even if he was on a separatist planet.
“What word is used to replace the first name of a person who ascends to archangel?” the teacher asked.
Someone answered “El.”
“Correct.”
Jaylen stared heedlessly at the board. The teacher was reviewing for their final exams. Everyone around him wrote in their various notebooks and journals, but Jaylen didn’t need any of it. He was at the top of his class and knew all the material.
“Why is Jahum called the creator?”
Someone answered wrong.
“Dammit Igor, could you be right for once! No, the insidious Jahum created the stars, that’s it. He would have you believe otherwise, that he created our reality, our existence, that he is some kind of all-knowing being. But it’s common knowledge that whenever he created the stars, he messed up, he made a mistake and lied to us. Because of him, there is a blackness in the middle of the universe where nothing can exist and black holes ripping through our galaxies and the worst part of it is that he won’t tell us about the mistakes he made. I would have expected you to know more about our cause, Igor.”
The class stared at Igor as he sank into his seat. As a separatist planet, the political studies leaned heavily to an obvious side.
“Jaylen!” the teacher called out.
“Yes,” Jaylen answered.
“Are you planning on joining the classroom discussion?”
“Not really.”
“Good, I don’t want you helping them.” And with that, the exams were passed out after the reviews and Jaylen was the first to finish. As he was leaving, his teacher gave him a congratulations. Jaylen didn’t pay mind to that comment until he got home later that day.
His parents were waiting for him.
“Hello son,” his mother greeted.
He looked at his father, who had a smile on his face.
His parents never greeted him like that and his father never smiled.
“What is it?” Jaylen asked. His father spoke up.
“You’ve been chosen for a program.”
“A training program so you can do more for the cause, so you can be a greater part in our struggle, if you don’t want to do it then we won’t make you,” his mother added. There was a glimmer in her eyes as she said that last part. If you say no, you will disappoint us.
At this point, Jaylen had never made any difficult decisions in his life; his parents had always provided for h
im and made sure he was never too close to the war. He didn’t hate the loyalists, nor did he care for the separatists.
He didn’t want to go to this ‘training’ of which he knew nothing, but he had never had a real conflicting thought in his head before. At this point, he still believed his parents knew best.
“How long will I be gone?”
His parents let out a sigh of relief.
“They didn’t say, it will take as long as it needs to take.” Jaylen’s stomach suddenly dropped. He was about to abandon his home, his comfort, to go fight in a war.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew by the vague definition of the training that it would probably lead to a direct involvement in the war. He didn’t want to go, war was still a fantasy to him he’d never physically seen. But he had never said, “No,” before, and he wasn’t about to start now.
Little did he know that very moment would be the last time he would ever see his parents again.
…
The transport ship that carried Jaylen and the other training candidates exited the atmosphere. Jaylen glanced out of the window. He wasn’t expecting to leave the planet. He’d left the planet many times before, but this time was different. He felt as though he would never see his home again, flying into the black.
Inside the ship, fifty rows of seats filled the interior, with two major walkways splitting the rows into three sections.
Next to Jaylen sat a man by the name of Niven. All of them wore name tags. He looked far older than Jaylen.
“Pardon me, but you look older than a teenager,” Jaylen said.
“What?” Niven said.
“Sorry, I mean, I thought this training was just for teenagers.”
“Ha! No! This training is for anyone who qualifies, we are some of the brightest and smartest Jour you’ll find. Myself, I will ascend in a hundred years or so.”
“It seems like you know more about our training than I do.”
“No, I actually don’t. This program we’re training for has been very hush-hush. But I do know we will be playing a huge part for our cause.”
Jaylen listened to the other candidates around him. They all spoke of the cause. There were a variety of candidates, young, old, small and athletic, all Jour, all speaking to the death to Jahum and the Citadel council, the rise of the Jour race and the tending of the universe. They all seemed a lot more enthusiastic about the cause and the training than Jaylen. There were no ascended among them.
A man in military uniform walked out into the middle aisle and the sound stopped. “The estimated time of our trip is 67 days and 3 hours,” the man said.
“What!?” There were immediate complaints from the candidates. One hundred sixty-seven days; that would mean wherever they were going was on the other side of the universe. Even with hyper drive, it should take less than half of that time.
Most interplanetary traveling Jour ships had star drives with the ability to travel through tears in the universe. The ability to create temporary worm holes to travel farther than many had ever imagined. But the cost of using them was a large amount of energy. An energy that was expelled at the end of a ships journey as they exited a worm hole. Marking their location to the entire universe.
Jaylen guessed that their journey was a secretive one. He guessed they were going to use their hyper drives. An engine that moved the space around them instead of them moving through space. It used far less energy than their star drive but made their trip that much longer.
They could travel as slow as they need to, in order limit their energy output to avoid detection.
“We will exit hyperspace somewhere along our journey and use our ion drives for the rest of the journey. We will not chance any detections as your training is one of the secretive sort.”
Niven became restless. “What do you expect us to do for all that time, this ship is no bigger than a hand basket.”
“Consider this the first part of your training, trying not to bore yourselves to death. The seats can be made into beds, you will get three meals a day at the same time every day, and from now on, I will be acknowledged as ‘sir’ or Captain Bran as I am your commanding officer. You are now cadets, I don’t expect any back talk from this point on, if you have an issue with this, feel free to jettison yourself out of the air lock and hope the stars will listen to your problems. If you’re lucky enough to learn how to breathe in space.”
…
The trip wasn’t as bad as Jaylen had expected, Niven provided a certain amount of entertainment. They spoke of what he did before he was ‘recruited’. He had been interning at a political firm that specialized in Citadel politics. He wanted to change the universe, but it was leading nowhere and it seemed like the training was the next best thing.
Jaylen never had anything to say about his past. As he was only eighteen years old, he hadn’t lived long enough to have one. He took a liking to a girl, Anu, another cadet. They were the same age and had similar interests. Just like him, she wasn’t able to say no to the training. The only difference was that she was far more into the cause than him. Between the two, he didn’t socialize much, but it helped the time pass.
…
One hundred and sixty days later, Jaylen watched out of the windows as they approached a green blue orb floating in the black. Their destination, their new home for the unforeseeable future. Jaylen made a point of how odd the planet was. There was only a single star and the planet. There were no stars surrounding them, just the black.
Absolutely nothing.
Where were they going? Others made similar comments, their guesses being that they were at the edge of the universe, a place where there shouldn’t have been any stars or planets.
…
They broke through the atmosphere, an endless aqua green ocean under them and a small island ahead. It was a base of some sort, a control tower stuck out from its middle. As they approached the island, the sea sparked to life. All kinds of fish: blue, red, green, big, and small swam through the green. But one stuck out in particular. A shimmering glowing large blue fish. It flew over the seas as if gravity was just a minor inconvenience.
“What’s that?” Anu poked her head over Jaylen’s shoulder as he looked out.
“A sun fish. Because of their long lives, they become naturally in tune with the power of the stars. I’m surprised they’re on this planet.”
“They’re beautiful,” Anu said.
The fish flew across the jade sea like a shooting star.
“Attention!”
Everyone snapped to their feet. Captain Bran had not squandered those last one hundred and sixty days. He taught them military lessons and terms, how to stand at attention, Told them how to march. He also told them about the planet, it was very much like Glion, except it spun on a twenty-four and an half cycle. They were ready to start their training.
“Gather your things and prepare for landing. Welcome to hell,” he said with a smile.
He didn’t lie about it being hell. As soon as they landed, they began training and were told to drop off their things at the barracks.
As they jogged in formation to the barracks, Jaylen took in his surroundings. They were at a military base, but it was small and empty. There were no other soldiers or commanders, not a single ship in the blue sky. Their training must have really been a top level secret.
But to Jaylen, his training didn’t feel special. Over the next three weeks all he did was, what he had felt like was regular military training.
At 0400 every morning, they were awoken by bells.
At 0410, they stood at attention in front of their beds.
At 0415, Captain Bran inspected the cadet’s stations. Jaylen’s was always perfect.
At 0420, Captain Bran issued demerits to various cadets, ordering minuscule and demeaning punishments. One day, a woman and a man had to run and train naked during physical training.
At 0430, they ran in formation to a hill at the other end of the island, through a lush, humid forest. Captain
Bran led the pack.
To give everyone equal footing, there were pillars of serpents floating over the island so that the older cadets wouldn’t unfairly use their star power to help themselves. Jaylen counted twenty pillars hovering above them.
It limited everyone’s star power, so every cadet felt every mile they ran. Their bones creaked and their legs moaned. Every mile someone passed out and every day Captain Bran somehow created another path in the forest. Every day it was one more mile to and from their destination. Jaylen thought Captain Bran would have run out of random trails to get them to the hill, but he never did.
Captain Bran never broke into a heavy pant. It was all effortless for him.
At 0600, they were back at the base, running strength routines, pushups, crunches, and the unusually mundane.
At 0700 was the first meal, there were no personnel serving them food, just machines, food composers. Usually there would’ve been an unlimited amount of choices of food, as the machine could create food from the most basic of elements. But here, there were only an option between yellow gruel and slightly less disgusting brown gruel.
Jaylen got his brown gruel and walked over to a table with Anu and Niven, they left a seat for him between them.
Jaylen plopped down. Nobody spoke. Nobody usually did after PT. It was their reflection.
“At least this time was better than the last time,” Anu murmured. She glanced at the two naked cadets staring at their food at a far off table.
“Maybe just for you.” Niven pushed around the food on his plate.
On the day they arrived, Captain Bran decided to show them around the island, with a twenty mile run. Jaylen was able to breeze through it but Anu threw up everything she’d eaten from the day before.
Anu leaned against Jaylen and rested on his shoulder. She smelled bad, the whole room smelled, but Jaylen had gotten used to it. There was only one shower and five toilets between the fifty of them.
Chaos in the Starless Nights (In A Universe Without Stars book 1.5) Page 4