by Yakov Merkin
“There isn’t much time to explain, but you have to trust me. The First Scion is a traitor, subverted by the Tyrannodon leader, along with possibly others, sabotaging our war effort from within. He is planning to leave the Scionate very soon. We cannot let him do so. I need you to summon all Scions to the arrival hall now.” What exactly would happen was unclear, but Dalcon hoped that Gendae would have few supporters, and regardless, all Scions had to know what was happening.
Solcon’s glowing brightened very slightly. “I understand. I will meet you there as soon as I have made the arrangements.” He ended the transmission. Good, reliable Solcon. Few others would accept such news without questions, but their trust had been forged in battle. They did not lie to each other.
Dalcon stopped walking for a few moments, and attempted to calm himself down. He was already so worked up; a level head was what was needed now most of all. He took a drink from his canteen. He could very well need every bit of power he could spare. He considered going back to his quarters for his helmet and pistols, but decided against it. He had to get to the arrival hall as quickly as possible to be sure Gendae didn’t bolt; he’d make do without.
* * *
When Dalcon reached the arrival hall a few minutes later, he saw that the room was already filling up. Approximately six thousand out of the seven and a half thousand Scions in the organization were at the Scionate now; when the war had began most had been summoned, despite the Scions only taking a small part in the war thus far. There were already at least a thousand of them in the massive hall, which could easily hold twice the number of Scions that existed. The hall served multiple purposes. As per its name, it was where new ships would arrive—there was currently a small Scionate vessel docked on the landing berth, the First Scion’s personal insertion vessel, with six Scions Dalcon did not recognize standing guard. Gendae’s men; either traitors as well or people who were just doing as they were told. Dalcon was sorely tempted to make his way past them and disable the ship personally, but he held himself back. He had to confront Gendae in public, then display his proof. Otherwise, most Scions would assume he was making a power play. It was not a common thing, but it had happened in the past.
So Dalcon passed the next half hour drinking water and watching as more Scions arrived, Scions of nearly every known species from Tehlman and Talvostan to Nihluran and Stiliek, trying without success to determine which were with Gendae. As the room grew more and more full, Dalcon moved toward the ship. How long had it been since there had been a function held here that drew everyone? Dalcon would have been proud to see almost the entirety of the organization’s strength in one place, had the circumstances been different.
When Solcon finally arrived, he was leading a group of almost two dozen Scions. He clasped Dalcon’s forearm firmly. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said. “This could become a messy political situation if you’re wrong.”
“I wish I was wrong.” Dalcon glanced at Solcon’s group. “You trust them all?”
“With my life. They are not traitors,” Solcon stated, his ethereal voice easily audible over the noise of others conversing.
Dalcon didn’t mention that he would have trusted Gendae with his life merely hours ago, and nodded. “Good. When the First Scion arrives, we’re going to confront him in front of the ship. I will make my accusation, and when he denies it, I will play my proof.” He lifted his left arm slightly, indicating the multitool. We must be prepared for a fight if he will not surrender for a hearing.”
“I figured as much. We are all prepared.” None of them wore weapons either, though they would have had time to get them.
“Very good. You have prepared a way to get the room quiet?” As it turned out, gathering several thousand people, including groups of friends, could lead to quite a lot of noise.
“Yes. I have someone in the communications office. He sent the summonses, and when I give the signal, he will make it so we have quiet.”
“You have my eternal thanks, my friend,” Dalcon said. “I knew I would be able to count on you.”
Solcon nodded silently.
Over the next few minutes, Dalcon turned his attention to anything but the ship and its guards. He had to focus, keep from becoming too tense. He looked at the memorial wall, which bore the names of all Scions killed in the line of duty. It included the names of those killed in the war thus far, glittering gold, under the more faded plaques for those fallen long ago. How many more names was he about to add to that wall? If they were very lucky, it would be a simple thing. But if Gendae and his supporters wouldn’t give up, good people would likely die.
“There he is!” said one of the Scions Solcon had brought with him, a female Nihluran.
Sure enough, there was Gendae, just entering the room along with four Scions that Dalcon recognized as holding notable positions within the organization. Could this corruption really have spread so far? The five of them silently walked toward the ship, the room quieting as they passed through. Maybe they thought the First Scion was going to make an address.
“Let’s go,” Dalcon ordered as he began walking toward the ship’s loading ramp. Solcon sent the signal to his man in the communications room, then followed along with his dozen Scions.
As both groups reached the ramp, a familiar sound came over the hall’s sound system. A short, blaring tune used as a wake-up call for prospective Scions during training. The room quickly quieted just as Dalcon stopped and faced Gendae. There was something about the elderly Kareben’s eyes that Dalcon had failed to notice earlier; they were darker, the irises impossible to tell apart from the pupils. It reminded Dalcon of the Tyrannodon executor’s claws.
“First Scion,” Dalcon began loudly once the sound system had gone silent, “by my authority as Second Scion and in fulfillment of my sworn duty to the Galactic Alliance and this order, I place you under arrest for high treason.” Dalcon ignored the vocalized surprise of the assembled Scions and continued. “If you surrender quietly, I will guarantee you treatment compliant with the War Accords, and a fair trial at which your past service will be taken into account along with your crimes.”
Immediately after he finished speaking, Dalcon played back the recording of his conversation with Gendae as loudly as his armor’s external speakers permitted, the sound reverberating throughout the room, which had quieted from its initial reaction as the recording played, though there were a few audible gasps of shock. No shouting though. Scions were too disciplined for that. And throughout it all, Gendae was silent, though Dalcon could feel him doing something, trying to make Dalcon take back his words and join him. Dalcon easily repulsed the attempts. Thank the flaming Ashmouth for that Daeris stubbornness.
Dalcon wasn’t sure what he had expected from his former mentor: Anger, denial, a witty retort? Gendae simply smiled, his distorted eyes widening as he spoke slowly, deliberately. “Well played, Dalcon. It is a pity you are so stubborn, as with all of your kind. You could have served my lord well. But once again, you fail… to see… the bigger picture!”
As he spoke the last words, Gendae flicked his hand and a small bolt of energy, black as space, materialized and flew toward Dalcon. Immediately, Solcon was there, taking the blow himself. As the beam struck the Cytan’s neck, the affected area appeared to not simply be damaged, but it was as though it had completely vanished, and Solcon’s head fell to the floor with an audible thunk as the remains of the beam continued on for a moment before dissipating.
Then all nine hells broke loose.
Dalcon tore his cloak from his shoulders as he harnessed his power and fired a pair of energy ribbons at Gendae, who deflected them with ribbons of his own, then pushed himself off the ground and away from Dalcon as the room erupted into a confused melee. Dalcon tried to keep track of the Scions that Solcon had brought, but they were quickly lost in the chaos. Energy ribbons and other, more complex uses of the power, such as barriers and waves, flew every which way as people flailed about, particularly the poor fools wh
o hadn’t shed their ceremonial cloaks, at a loss as to who was friend and who was foe. But if this much chaos had started, there must have been a substantial number of corrupted Scions.
Dalcon lashed out at a Darvian Scion who had just swung an energy ribbon at him, firing a taut ribbon into his assailant’s chest, then pulling him close enough to finish him off with a slash from a wrist blade.
Gendae. Where was Gendae?
Dalcon put up a barrier, which would hopefully give him a few moments to scan the room. Now the sound of weapons fire was added to the shouting and screaming.
A few moments later, Dalcon finally spotted Gendae, who, along with the four Scions—Dalcon wondered if he should still call them that—that had followed him into the room, were fighting as a unit and lashing out with both the Scionate’s power and the black energy that Gendae had used earlier.
Dalcon jumped as a flying body slammed into his barrier before tumbling to the ground. Dalcon dropped the barrier and fired an energy ribbon across the room, lodged it in the wall, and retracted it, pulling himself forward at a blinding speed, bowling over a short Bannet Scion about to finish off a bony Talvostan as he flew past. Had he just saved a life? Or had he given an enemy another chance?
Dalcon ran out of time to wonder about that as he reached Gendae’s group. While he was still flying through the air, Dalcon fired a narrow ribbon into the eye of one of Gendae’s defenders, a huge Darvian, and the Scion—former Scion—fell to the ground dead even as Dalcon completely recalled his energy ribbons and stabbed another one of the former Scions, a female Kareben, in the chest with a wrist blade, then threw up a clumsy partial barrier as the remaining two attacked.
Dalcon retracted his wrist blade, extricating it from the fallen enemy just in time to raise a proper barrier against their onslaught. They continued to assail his barrier as Gendae turned around, having just killed another good Scion, and appeared to be gathering more of the black energy for an attack. With the barrier up, Dalcon had few offensive options, none of which would help him fight both these two and Gendae.
He was saved when another Scion, an Algen, flew headlong into Gendae, screaming something in his native tongue as the two crashed to the ground. Dalcon took advantage of the distraction, then overloaded his barrier, sending the energy flying out in a concussive wave, knocking his two assailants to the ground, which gave him time to capture what energy he could from his attack and down the rest of his canteen. He had been running low on power, and from the sounds of battle, many of the others were too; the clangs of metal on metal were far more pervasive than they had been minutes earlier.
Dalcon fired a ribbon into the chest of each of his fallen attackers, killing them instantly, then turned to look for Gendae again when he was shot in the back, the force sending him to the ground.
Dalcon dropped into a roll and returned to his feet moments later, not bothering to check for a wound. There was no pain, which either meant that the armor had saved him yet again or that all of the hormones filling his body were simply masking it. Either way, it meant that he could fight on.
He raised a barrier as his new opponent fired again, and finally got a chance to see who the attacker was. It was the Tehlman Scion who had accompanied Gendae to the meeting after the battle on Darvia. He continued to fire the pistol as he advanced, pausing only to knock aside another Scion coming to Dalcon’s aid with what seemed to be the last of his power, a simple glow surrounding the man’s fist.
Dalcon maintained the barrier until the Tehlman expended his weapon’s power cell, then dropped it and fired an energy ribbon. The Tehlman twisted out of the way, but Dalcon commanded the ribbon to change course, and it caught the man in the back of the head. Dalcon watched him fall, then picked up the dead man’s pistol along with the rest of his power cells, and began to hunt for Gendae, noting that while the room had gotten significantly quieter, and felt emptier, but it didn’t make the short Kareben any easier to spot.
When he finally spotted the former First Scion, Gendae was back at the boarding ramp of his ship, which still sat on the loading dock. He looked wounded, but was walking under his own strength, protected by a number of his followers. The darkness in his eyes seemed to have spread to more of his face.
Dalcon shoved a fresh cell into the pistol and opened fire, while firing another energy ribbon. It was becoming far more difficult to form the ribbons now; he was running low on power, and tiring fast.
Gendae turned around as Dalcon fired the first shot, and raised a small barrier of the black energy, only protecting his vital areas, taking two hits to the leg as he fired a bolt of the black energy at Dalcon’s energy ribbon, cutting it in two. The ribbon’s remains snapped back to Dalcon’s hand, and then Gendae was gone, vanished into the ship along with perhaps two dozen other former Scions. Dalcon shouted for someone to stop the ship, and, using everything he had left, fired a wide energy blast. It hit one of the ship’s engines, obliterating it, but the other three roared to life moments later.
Dalcon ran forward, firing as he went. He could not let them escape. Then, a small voice inside him whispered, reminding him that while the power granted to him as a Scion had been depleted, there was always another option, the fire that was his by right. Dalcon hesitated. He had sworn never to use it; the fire was forbidden, using it would undo everything he had worked for. But if it meant stopping Gendae….
Before Dalcon could come to a decision, he found himself falling to the ground, a sharp pain in his back. He spun as he fell, which caused more pain, but allowed him to maneuver the pistol to shoot his attacker, another Kareben, in the face. Dalcon unloaded all that remained in the power cell, and the former scion fell, his face an utter ruin.
Dalcon let himself sag to the floor. He was definitely wounded, though he couldn’t tell how badly, and exhausted. Over the next few minutes, the noise level continued to drop, until victory cries—Scion and Alliance victory cries—began to fill the room. And just like that, the battle was over.
Dalcon pulled himself to his feet, breathing heavily through his mouth, so as to encounter less of the smells of blood and death. His back felt like it was burning, but that wasn’t what was important. He powered on his fortunately intact multitool, and tried to raise the Scionate’s defenses. If they could get a few fighters in the air, maybe they could… “Damn it!” Dalcon shouted, and kicked a chunk of wall. Communications were cut off.
“Somebody get the damned communications back online!” Dalcon shouted, barely keeping himself from kicking something else as he felt his body temperature rise. They had won, sure, but Gendae had still escaped. And how much had this victory cost? Dalcon looked around the room, at all the bodies splayed about. There were so many, representative of nearly every species in the Alliance. There couldn’t have been much more than two thousand people still standing. Dalcon wasn’t sure he could call this a victory at all.
* * *
Several hours later, Dalcon stood in the office of the First Scion—his office now, with even more evidence of Gendae’s treachery displayed on the former First Scion’s computer screen. He stared at the commNet terminal as he tried to figure out what he would say to the Alliance chairman. But what could he say? That a third of the Scions, including the First Scion, had been traitors? That the Scions as an organization, the Alliance’s only true advantage in this war, was now one third its original size? Plus the supreme commander of the Legion Navy was likely dead. Dalcon shook his head. He had never sought leadership. He had gotten used to leading squads in battle over time, but this was completely different. He felt completely unprepared. But the remaining Scions had unanimously affirmed him as the new First Scion. Who was he to refuse them?
He might as well get this over with. Dalcon ordered the terminal to contact the chairman directly, on a priority line.
“Second Scion?” the chairman asked as he appeared on the screen. “Has something happened? I’ve just begun receiving reports of a battle on Tythian, and I wasn’t able to reach th
e Scionate. A response fleet is en route. Have you been attacked?”
“No,” Dalcon replied. “Though, truth be told, that might not have been as bad.” Dalcon quickly recounted to Chairman Gasno his meeting with the Tyrannodon executor on Daukar, then paused before telling what had transpired in the Scionate. “I decided to bring the matter to the First Scion himself; I trusted him the most. But it turned out that he was the traitor, completely under the sway of the Tyrannodon High Lord, and that he had been spreading that influence to others, including Supreme Commander Ronner, who was likely killed shortly after breaking free, and other Scions.” Dalcon stopped for a moment as he tried to determine the best way to describe the disaster that had followed. “Just after I learned this, we lost contact with the outside. I decided that I had to stop Gendae from leaving, so I arranged for all Scions here to gather in the arrival hall, where I planned to confront the First Scion with evidence of his treachery and arrest him.”
“You wanted to ensure that his actions were known,” Gasno commented, nodding.
“Yes. It has been centuries since it has last happened, but First Scions have been deposed by their juniors who sought power. Given the circumstances and what I am, I had to confront him in public.”
“And I gather from your voice that the plan went all to hell.”
“All nine of them,” Dalcon replied. “The First Scion didn’t even try to deny the charges. Instead, he attacked me, and all of the Scions under his sway did so as well.” Dalcon paused. “There were many of them.”
The chairman’s eyes widened, and he visibly paled. “Heavens help us.”
Dalcon nodded. “It was a massacre; there was no way to tell friend from foe. A lot of good people died, and Gendae still escaped, along with some two dozen of his followers.”
“His destination?” Gasno asked, his voice sounding strained.