Villain

by Ivan Kal

  He was just a moment to slow.

  Her visor protected her eyes from the brilliant light. Adrian had burned his eyes out when he’d used this attack. Hers was smaller, as she had less particles, but it was not at all less powerful. Doranis floated in space, one of his arms missing. He looked at it incredulously, and Anessa cursed. The first thing that they had agreed for fighting the Enlightened was to go all out from the start. Surprise them, and never give them a chance to strike. They couldn’t afford to get involved in a prolonged battle. The Enlightened knew more than them, were stronger one on one.

  Before she could prepare another attack, she saw that the ships had gotten in position, surrounding them. Her armor was constantly sending targeting data to the ships, more precise than what their own systems could get. Doranis turned on her, his eyes blazing and fired of a series of attacks that Anessa had never seen. She raised a shield, negating one of the attacks, but the other passed through her shields and she managed to twist away only at the last second. The attack scorched her leg, and she screamed inside of her helmet before giving the order. The ships started firing, and Doranis raised his shields and blocked, curving a few beams at Anessa and the ships around him. She dodged, flying through space and getting some distance. He wasn’t able to defend from the ships and attack her at the same time.

  Seeing him try to ready an attack, she struck.

  She sent a wave of disrupting energy at him. It lowered her defenses, but she wasn’t being targeted at the moment. His shields disappeared, and she saw him turn to look at her, his eyes blazing as a moment later a proton beam struck him in the chest. It didn’t kill him, even though an attack like that would’ve killed Anessa if it struck her unprotected. But Doranis was weathering the storm as more and more weapons fire hit him. He was taking damage, she could see, and then he tried to bend space and run away. She followed, her Sha allowing her to sense her, and let her sensors pick him up again, sending the data back to the ships.

  He reappeared only a short distance away, as he was violently ejected out of subspace. The ships that were surrounding them didn’t do so just so that they could fire—they were there to prevent him from escaping. The same countermeasures that prevented the full capabilities of the Enlightened access-point weapon had been used all around them.

  Lurker of the Depths and Anessa had tested it a couple of months ago. With the subspace disruptors active, it was almost impossible to bend space through the disruption. Doranis raised partial shields even as he was being pelted by beams from the ships. He sent many back toward Anessa, and fired a wave from his hand that blew a massive hole in one of the nearby ships. His body was ragged, bleeding, with tiny pieces falling off. Then she felt a buildup of energy around him that she recognized.

  A field extended around him, a field that neutralized the skim-nullifying field in the area around him. A moment later, the skim field formed around him and he shot out. He slammed into a Titan and an explosion rocked it. Then a sphere of blue energy exploded and nearly swallowed the entire ship before collapsing quickly and leaving only two small pieces of the ship floating in space with circular cuts in their hull.

  Doranis entered skim again and shot to the other side of the system.

  Anessa sighed, her mind pounding. Her armor was destroyed, her leg was burning and she was barely keeping herself alive in space. Her suit had stopped providing safety from the vacuum a while ago. She had won the battle, and that was enough. With a herculean effort, she bent space and appeared back on the twins’ Sovereign, the Kar Ona. The moment she was inside a pressurized area, she collapsed to her knees. She heard shouts and felt hands grabbing her, but she lost the Sha state, and the pain intensified. A moment later, she was unconscious.

  * * *

  Doranis nestled into his cocoon, healing from his injuries again. When Aranis had told him that they had equals in the galaxy now, he hadn’t truly believed. And now he had been hurt twice. He didn’t think that he could’ve fallen for such tricks more than once, yet he had. These people did not fight in the same way he did. They used their technology as a crutch, used it for everything. He had been brought low by weapons fire from ships. It made him angry enough to explode.

  While inside his cocoon, he reached for his ship’s amplifier. He was certain that there was only one of the Sha state users here, only Anessa. No enemy would allow such an opportunity to pass. He had been vulnerable; they could’ve killed him. He kept searching with his mind, using the amplifier, and found where Anessa was. She was on one of the fleet-killers, the ones belonging to a Shara Daim. He made certain that his Overseer breeds took note of the ship and kept track of it.

  As he healed, he knew that this he could not allow to pass. He, one of the Enlightened, had been nearly killed by a child. He would spend time in his cocoon, recover, and then he would show them what it truly meant to be an Enlightened.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Year 718 of the Empire — Galactic Core

  Adrian didn’t feel the transition into realspace from hyperspace, but Moirai did, and he knew the instant that they arrived. He watched the holo in front of him. Iris stood next to him in her life-sized form, and both of them were waiting impatiently for their sensors to get a picture of the system.

  This was the moment when they would find out if they had been right, or if they had made a huge mistake. For a long while it seemed like the holo wasn’t updating, but then the shape of the system started to take form. It was huge, the largest system he had ever seen. It couldn’t even be called a system—it was more like an amalgamation of several. There were a couple of stars, hundreds of planets, comets, asteroid belts and fields, gas giants that made Jupiter look small. The black hole dominated everything, its effects visible even to the naked eye. Dozens of stars were being drawn into it, along with cracked planets and massive nebulas. It was a sight unlike anything he had ever seen.

  And then came the Enlightened forces. The entire system was teeming with them: several forces numbering in the hundreds of thousands of ships, moving as if they were simple patrols. But there, deep in the system, near the edge of the black hole, was something that he didn’t even know how to describe. On his holo he studied a planet, a world covered in what looked like massive tubes going all around it, stabbing into it. As Iris zoomed in, he saw what looked like massive satellite dishes, except that they seemed to be glowing. And there, on the northern continent, was something else some kind of massive structure made out of black material. It reached far into the atmosphere and beyond it, high into space. It looked like a pyramid at the base, but up in space it was a pillar. He couldn’t tell if it was already finished or if it was still under construction. Such a structure would’ve probably taken centuries, or maybe far more, to build.

  Adrian realized that that had probably been what had happened. The Enlightened had been building this thing for an incredible amount of time. He assumed that the structure on the planet was the Conduit. He wondered how they had built it—did they do it on the planet, or somewhere else before hauling it here? It seemed like it was a bit too massive for something like that. But the Enlightened had had a long time to think about this and to plan.

  All around the planet were massive constructs. Some Iris recognized—the designs looking similar enough to the records of the People—as energy plants. Some were solar harvesters, while others she identified as fusion or anti-matter plants. But there were others, out in the high orbit, closer to the black hole. Hundreds, thousands, more, spherical objects with lines stretching into the black hole. She didn’t know what those were, but Adrian knew just how the Enlightened planned to power their weapon. Somehow they were tapping into the power of the black hole itself.

  He couldn’t tell if the weapon was operational, but the fact that they were still there seemed to suggest so. He wondered what the piece of the puzzle was that they still needed.

  Perhaps all those power generators were the key. He still saw them gathering and sending power to the planet. Perhap
s they needed far more power. He couldn’t even imagine how much power was required to pull off what they were attempting. To kill every life form in the galaxy, in an instant? It had to have insane power requirements.

  The planet was surrounded by Enlightened ships, millions of them. Platforms with rings attached to them were speckled here and there, but the ships were the main defenses. He saw two Living-ships, and neither matched the one they encountered in Ullax Darr’s system. That meant that those two were Loranis and Aranis.

  “There are so many of them,” Adrian said. His force was massive, but it looked like the enemy had more ships.

  “We aren’t here to fight a war,” Iris said. “That planet holds the weapon. We get there and destroy it, and we win.”

  “If only they would let us.” Adrian shook his head, then sent a quick message to Lurker of the Depths and Ryaana, warning them to be ready for anything. The Seventh had already started giving out orders to their forces, and he saw Iris moving her machine ships and the Black Swarm in concert with the rest of the fleets. The machine ships took position at the front, followed by the Krashinar packs. The entire force was moving forward on a direct course toward the planet that held the weapon. Already Adrian could see that the Enlightened forces were changing their courses, heading to meet the threat.

  He wondered if Anessa had already reached the enemy system, if she was already fighting. There was no way to know; they didn’t have relays here for communication, and any message would take months to reach her. Adrian turned his attention back to the holo. Studying the enemy’s positions, numbers, and possible responses, he was starting to get a larger picture of what was to come.

  The Enlightened had the entire system, or at least the areas important to them, under the skim-nullifying field. There would be no quick jumps to their target planet. Sure, Moirai could go alone, and maybe bring a few ships. If Adrian, Lurker of the Depths, and Ryaana combined their power they might be able to bend space and send a dozen or so ships there. But he could already see the forces around the planet, and he knew it wasn’t going to be enough. They wouldn’t survive even a minute. Adrian was tempted to try anyway. All they needed to do was unleash everything they had on the structure. But they knew nothing of it, of its defenses, and for all they knew, it had a powerful shield that they wouldn’t be able to penetrate.

  They were going to need to play things step by step. Act, then see how the Enlightened responded. They couldn’t afford a mistake that would cost them their lives. They were everyone’s last hope.

  Then Adrian felt something at the edge of his senses, and he dropped into the Sha state immediately, Moirai making the connection with him at the same moment. He found a tendril of a powerful mind passing over his forces. He felt Lurker of the Depths move to counter and he added his and Moirai’s power to it. The clash of minds was tenuous, each side testing the other, and then Ryaana joined a few moments later. All three of them batted away the thousands of tendrils that were attempting to see into the minds of people in his fleet. This had to be Loranis, the one who was the most powerful telepath of the Enlightened.

  Lurker of the Depths and she battled for a bit—more like lightly sparred—taking each other’s measure. Then another mind joined her, and Adrian recognized Aranis.

  “Adrian—or, rather, Heart of the Mountain,” Aranis sent. “I should have known that you would find a way to make yourself a nuisance.”

  “I told you that I would stop you. I keep my promises,” Adrian sent.

  “Yes, you do,” Aranis sent, feelings of annoyance accompanying the words.

  “And you’ve brought others. Lurker of the Depths I know, but who is this other, I wonder?”

  “Vas,” Ryaana sent, and Adrian felt Aranis’s shock.

  “What? Ryaana? I see that you have come far since we last saw each other.”

  “Far enough to have you answer for what you did to me,” Ryaana said with anger.

  Adrian felt guilt from Aranis, and he was surprised to feel it—both because the Enlightened had allowed it to come through the link, and that he in fact felt such an emotion.

  “For what is worth, I am sorry for deceiving you about who I was. I did not intend to stay for long, but then… It matters not. I might be sorry, but this does not mean that I will change my mind. This must happen, or otherwise the universe, which is meant to go on forever, will come to an end.”

  Adrian grimaced. He shared that belief with the Enlightened, but he did not agree that they should sacrifice the potential of people. The reason that they wanted to do this was because they believed that too much life caused this, and they wanted to return things to the status quo. Adrian, however, refused to believe that it was inevitable.

  “We will stop you, Aranis,” Ryaana sent to the Enlightened.

  “You will try, but some things are inevitable,” Aranis sent back, and then both he and Loranis retreated their minds.

  Adrian and the others pulled their minds back, but remained in the Sha state with their minds connected.

  “Lurker of the Depths, how strong is she?” Adrian asked.

  “Very. She countered all my attempts to strike back at her, no matter how many tendrils I sent. I think that I can counter her, but it will be difficult.”

  The one Enlightened they had the least information about was Loranis. The People’s encounters with her usually ended quickly, with her breaking minds or sowing chaos inside fleets send against her. Lurker of the Depths was the only one that could counter her in skill. Adrian could probably hold her off with Moirai, but they didn’t want to risk going against her and having her worm her way inside their heads.

  Aranis felt as powerful as ever, and the injury he suffered the last time didn’t seem to have made him any weaker. He knew that they could regenerate, but he just didn’t know their limits.

  They were going to need to be very careful about when and where they engaged them.

  * * *

  The Seventh looked through Araxi’s eyes. Before them lay a system filled with wonders unlike any it had ever seen. They were in the center of the galaxy, seeing beauty that was life and death. Terrible forces were at odds here: the pull of the black hole, pulsars that blasted radiation, nebulas that seemed almost like paintings as they were drawn across the sky with their mass being pulled into the black hole. It was not a hospitable system, but it was beautiful.

  Krashinar did not see the universe around them in the same way as other races; many things that were important to them were without worth to the Krashinar. Wars, greed, deceit—these were all concepts that the Krashinar had learned from other races. It made the Seven sad to know that their neighbors were all consumed with such ideals. They killed each other for petty things, lied to and stole from one another. Yet despite all that, the Krashinar had given their word and joined forces with them. Because of two things only: they believed that the Enlightened threatened all life, and because the Heart of the Mountain had asked it of them.

  The alliance with the other races, their Great Packs dying alongside races that didn’t understand them, that would hate them and make war with them if they didn’t have the Enlightened to contend with—all of that was because of him. Because he understood them; because Heart of the Mountain was the first true friend of the Krashinar people, and that was something precious to them. They knew him, and his life. The memory of the life that the Seventh who was then the Old Scar had tasted would stay with them for all time. That life had been shared with the other of the Seven, and when it was time for the Seventh to pass, it would pass on to the next. All of the Krashinar would always remember Heart of the Mountain.

  And now, the Seventh had followed the Heart of the Mountain into the very core of the galaxy to protect all life. The Krashinar were not like other races, and they did not see as other races saw, but they understood more than others might assume. They could see what an honor the Heart of the Mountain had bestowed upon them. Out of all the races in the galaxy, all of his friends and allies, the
Heart of the Mountain had called upon the Krashinar to follow him here, had chosen one of the Krashinar to lead the battle that would decide the fight of all life in the galaxy.

  The Seven had felt what was inside the Heart of the Mountain, and they knew that the Krashinar were trusted by him completely. The honor that he had given them would never be forgotten, and if they failed and all life ceased to be, the Krashinar would remember in whatever came to pass after.

  The Seventh passed on its orders to its handlers, and they sent on orders to the Sowir telepaths on the ships of the Empire, who in turn passed them on to their commanders. Some of those orders concerned the cold ships of metal that flew alongside the Great Packs, and as the telepaths relayed them to their communications officers, the creature that was not of flesh moved its ships. The creature that called itself Iris was known to the Krashinar—it was foreign, yet in their memories they had seen it since its birth. The Krashinar trusted that Iris would act even before the Seventh could send orders. Indeed, its orders to Iris were just that: to watch and adapt to what the Krashinar and the Nomad Fleet were doing.

  The Seventh knew how fast Iris could think and analyze data, and there was no need for it to send orders that would be delayed.

  The Great Pack under his command moved, getting closer to the enemy forces. Soon the battle would start.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Year 718 of the Empire — Josanti League Territory

  Doranis watched as the battle raged across the system. The invaders had taken the gas giant and set up a defensible zone around it, and now the bulk of their forces were heading toward the star even as many smaller task forces were fighting his own across the system. The main force, however, was pushing for the star, and he knew why. They intended to at least contest the access point, making it hard for Doranis to bring in more reinforcements that way, or for him to flee. That, or they were just securing a way out for themselves. It didn’t matter—he was not about to let them do that.