Anthem's Fall

by S. L. Dunn

  Though in the end, the hulking size and strength of the colossally bred warriors proved to be inferior to the inherent vigor of Royal blood.

  “Vengelis will be angry when he realizes we didn’t join the fight against the Felixes,” Darien said, failing to hide the unease in his voice. He recalled all too clearly the look of rage on Vengelis’s beaten face before he had stormed out of the command deck.

  Hoff cast him a cautious look. “We didn’t join the battle because we were ordered not to by Master Tolland. I am the Lord General. Do you think I would rather be here in this ship instead of leading the Imperial Army?”

  “No, of course not. But we didn’t come to the defense of Sejeroreich.”

  Hoff dismissed the idea with a confident shake of his head. “We were following orders. It wasn’t our privilege to question Master Tolland.”

  Darien was not accustomed to the intensity of Vengelis Epsilon. His whole life Darien had dreamed of being recruited into the Royal Guard—the highest attainable honor for a warrior of his birth. Yet it had taken nearly all of his willpower not to give up his post after his savage first training session with the young Epsilon prince. Darien had never experienced anything like it. Vengelis had nearly beaten him to death in cold blood during what was scheduled to be a half-speed spar—and to Vengelis Epsilon that is what it had been. That was the way of the Sejero of old, and that was the way of Vengelis. After the initial thrashing, Darien knew that he would have to adapt or die, and so he resigned himself to stoicism. In the process he had transformed himself into a warrior he never would have thought possible.

  “We haven’t received a single transmission from Anthem.” Hoff groaned and leaned back, his seat creaking under him. “What did Vengelis say about Filgaia?”

  “Nothing,” Darien said. “He had never heard of it.”

  “What? I thought he would understand the significance.”

  “Vengelis was just as confused as we were. I for one have never heard of a planet Filgaia. What if it doesn’t exist, Hoff? What if Master Tolland was delirious when he gave us his orders?”

  “He wasn’t,” the Lord General said flatly, but he did not look entirely convinced.

  “There’s no way of knowing,” Darien said. “What are we going to do if we reach the coordinates of this ‘Filgaia’ and find nothing there?”

  “I don’t think that will happen. Master Tolland gave us the explicit coordinates of the place. He told us exactly where Vengelis fell within the entirety of the chaos in Sejeroreich. He told us where the Harbinger I was docked outside the city. Hell, he was lucid enough to specifically order us to engage and lock the autopilot before Vengelis awoke, knowing Vengelis would demand to reverse directions back to Anthem. Tolland ordered all that despite his condition. Delirious men don’t speak with that kind of precision.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “But it doesn’t matter anyways.”

  Darien looked up with surprise at the unusually bleak and caustic tone of the Lord General.

  “There’s no goddamn empire left to save,” Hoff said. “If Vengelis was defeated, that’s it. The might of the Sejero has fallen. We’re at the mercy of the Felixes. If they choose to destroy Anthem and kill every last one of our people, then it will happen—and to me it seems as though the Felixes made their intentions quite clear.”

  “You really believe no fight can be made?”

  Hoff stared out the command bridge window into the eerie blackness beyond. “I will say this. If there is a way to defeat these Felixes, Vengelis will find it. Vengelis isn’t like his father Faris—may he rest in peace. Vengelis is an Epsilon of old. He wasn’t born to be a politician or a thinker. Vengelis Epsilon was born a fighter. It can’t be chance that his rise to power coincided with this catastrophe. I’ve known him since he was a little kid, and I’ve never seen him back down from anything. On board with us is the greatest warrior in many ages, and that notion gives me hope.”

  As the door to his quarters shut hours earlier, Vengelis had sunk to the floor on his hands and knees in despair. After nearly two thousand years of consecutive reign, house Epsilon had fallen. All the people he knew and loved had been ruthlessly massacred and left to ruin. His hands trembled and his body convulsed as emotion poured out of him. Vengelis raised his gaze and stared at the banner of the Epsilon empire hanging before him. It hung from wall to wall, the sigil of house Epsilon woven in black fibers. He rose, unsteady and drunk with rage, and ripped it from the wall. Tears of fury slid down his face as he tore the thick fabric into shreds with his beaten hands. How could it have come to this?

  It was a holocaust.

  The Primus had been powerless. The limitless might of the Sejero had been merely brushed aside like nothing at all, and the magnificence of his people erased. He wanted more than anything to embrace death and accept the same fate as his family. Vengelis thought of Master Tolland, how he had wheezed hoarsely alongside him during the struggle with the Felixes. He remembered the hundreds of Imperial First Class bodies littering the streets of Sejeroreich and the millions more who had been swept away in the indiscriminate killing. He remembered the hope in the eyes of the young boy he had saved from the blonde Felix. Surely the boy was lost now, as was Master Tolland and all the others who had risen to face their peril.

  Each and every one had died with the hope that where they failed, Vengelis Epsilon would triumph.

  But Vengelis had let them all down. He blinked at the bare wall, his breathing heavy and pained. With great effort, he exhaled his rising rage and tried to expel with it his tempestuous passion. Mustering every ounce of discipline in his body, he straightened himself and stood. Vengelis shut his swollen eyes and relaxed his sore muscles, allowing his constricted forearms to release their clenched fists. There was only one choice, only one course of action, and it was up to him to do it.

  Redemption.

  Hours later, with bruises spanning his body and wounds still weeping blood, Vengelis meticulously scanned through the Imperial database for information on the inexplicable Felixes. Only the glow of his monitor illuminated him against the pale stars and blackness beyond the narrow porthole.

  Vengelis started from the beginning. The Imperial messenger that had reached them on Mount Karlsbad and interrupted his spar with Master Tolland had specifically called the attackers machines. Why? The Felixes looked like Primus. Eve and his mother had also called the attackers machines. Having known nothing about the attackers, Vengelis would have thought the Felixes were fellow Primus; anyone would have—they were identical to the Primus in almost every respect except their eyes. There must have been some sort of broadcast or rumor that described the Felixes as machines. Somewhere tucked away in the Imperial database there had to be information on these Felixes, and he would not rest until it was uncovered.

  Vengelis scanned through his father’s itinerary from the days preceding Sejeroreich’s destruction. If information did exist on the Felixes, however minimal, his father would have been made aware of it. The attack had been underway for nearly an entire day before the onslaught reached Sejeroreich. He recalled all too vividly the fires of Municera and the Twin Cities. A meeting of the War Council would have been assembled after their fall.

  Sure enough, in his father’s automated itinerary Vengelis found that the War Council had been convened in the early morning. It had been held just before the alarms of Sejeroreich sounded. Vengelis hastily opened the file. Two notes and a video file were in the content of the meeting. One note read: Meeting of War Council. Open war declared. Imperial First Class dispatched under the direction of General Portid. Vengelis shook his head and sighed scornfully. General Portid was a fool. With effort he quelled the sudden rise of frustration and continued. The second note read: Sejeroreich under assault. Vengelis drooped and forcefully rubbed the bleariness from his vision. After a moment he moved the cursor over the video file thumbnail expecting it to be a recording of the proceedings.

  It was titled: Pral Nero
l research laboratory. Municera. Morning of attack.

  Vengelis jolted upright and shook away fatigue. He touched the play button and watched as a video of a laboratory sprung to life. At once, he knew he had found exactly what he had been looking for, and simultaneously felt the blood drain from his face. On a steel pedestal among three other bodies and interspersed with laboratory workers moving back and forth, was unmistakably the blonde Felix that had nearly killed him.

  “What the hell is this?” Vengelis muttered in disbelief.

  Pral Nerol began to give his introductions. Vengelis stared at the talking image of Nerol and listened attentively. He was only vaguely familiar with house Nerol. They were a prestigious but reclusive Royal family, mostly academics and scholars in recent generations. Vengelis also recalled headlines of Pral Nerol’s son being one of the soldiers that perished in the famous Orion transport disaster several years back. The death of any Royal son or daughter was a grievous loss.

  “With me here in the lab are my research assistants: Argos Trace, Cintha Loh, and Vera Gray. Imperial warrior Von Krass has also been gracious enough to join us, as a precautionary measure,” said the image of Pral Nerol.

  Vengelis’s eyes narrowed. Von Krass was powerful, almost as powerful as Darien and Hoff. He was absurdly high ranked to be required as a mere “precautionary measure” in a laboratory in Municera. The researchers must have known there was some danger involved with the Felixes. Clearly, they had vastly underestimated it.

  Knowing what he already did about the Felixes, the gruesome remainder of the video feed came as no surprise to him. When it cut, Vengelis sat silently for a long time tapping the tips of his fingers on the monitor, his face alight with a hope renewed. The origin of the machines was known, and it provided Vengelis a glimmer of optimism. The Felixes had been conceived by a Primus mind and created by a Primus hand, and therefore a Primus could unmake them accordingly.

  At once Vengelis’s fingers burst back into action, typing feverishly on the keyboard. He needed to find Pral Nerol’s research notes. The scientist’s information might have contained some details on a weakness or exploitable attribute of the Felixes. The Royal Epsilon username could override any password protection, so Vengelis had all the information that existed at his disposal. It was simply a matter of finding it in the entire Imperial network. If Von Krass was present at Pral Nerol’s laboratory, it meant the Epsilon empire had been aware of the project beforehand. Someone high up must have received a copy of the research proposal in order to approve it for testing. Though they were likely dead in the rubble of Sejeroreich, the information would still be sitting in their account.

  But who would have evaluated it?

  Vengelis quickly scanned his father’s inbox. Nothing. One by one he arduously scanned through every councillor’s personal account. Finally, while sifting through Councillor Harken’s inbox many draining hours later, Vengelis found Pral Nerol’s research notes.

  Councillor Harken had been the one to approve it. Vengelis frowned in disappointment. He had always considered Harken to be an exceedingly intelligent and capable advisor—one of the few. All things considered, Vengelis had also always admired the ingenuity of Pral Nerol. How was it possible the risks of this Felix project had been so fatally miscalculated by such brilliant minds? He shook his head in disapproval of their irresponsibility as he clicked on the file.

  Operation Felix Rises

  Nerol, Pral; Trace, Argos; Loh, Cintha; et al.

  Our research aims to investigate the complex tissue structuring potential of the recently discovered Felix cell. The Felix cell is a highly anomalous artificial form that mirrors the physiology and structure of a biological cell. Recombinant Felix cells were imbued with Primus genetic sequences with the intention of producing a synthetically derived Primus entity. Potential alterations of complex muscular-skeletal system physical traits resulting from the aberrant and anatomically enhanced Felix cells are unknown, but likely to match the Primus genetic sequences used as templates. It is predicted that the Felixes will exhibit Sejero traits, though to what degree is currently unknown.

  Vengelis read through the abstract warily. Potential muscular-skeletal alterations unknown. At least they had that part right. He scrolled through the rest of the report. It was well over two hundred pages, and he did not even recognize, least of all comprehend, half of the dense scientific terminology. A small light flashed next to his monitor. It was the ship communication speaker. Darien had been good about not disrupting him, and he must have relayed the command to Hoff, who had also yet to butt in.

  Vengelis pushed the button. “What?”

  “My lord, we’ve reached transmission distance from Filgaia. Master Tolland was correct in his coordinates. It is very far, but a planet does appear to exist exactly where he guided us. We’re a little over two days out,” Darien’s baritone voice spoke through the speaker.

  “I’ll be right there,” Vengelis said. He looked back to the text of the Felix report. It was going to take a while to get through the pages, and he had two days to study it with little else to occupy his time. He stood and limped down the narrow hallway toward the command deck, keeping as little weight as possible on his tender right leg.

  Both giants stood at attention when he entered the command deck and roared, “Hail, Emperor Vengelis Epsilon!”

  Vengelis’s face flickered irritably. “Spare me. You need an empire in order to call yourself an emperor.”

  Darien and Hoff exchanged an uncertain look.

  “Forgive us for interrupting you, my lord, but we have found a trove of . . . strange . . . archival information on planet Filgaia. We thought you would want to see it right away,” Darien said.

  “What does it say?” Vengelis asked with little interest.

  “Well . . . quite a bit, my lord,” Hoff said. “We’re very confused.”

  “What?” Vengelis looked to his Lord General. “I thought Darien told me there was no information on Filgaia in the Imperial database.”

  “Well, there isn’t.” The light of a nearby monitor cast a greenish light on Hoff’s baffled expression. “You had better come look at this. It’s from this ship’s own private archive.”

  Vengelis approached the monitor and stared at it. There was a scanned copy of a handwritten note.

  Pral,

  Greetings. I have thoroughly investigated the unchartered planet Filgaia. You were correct in your prediction. The planet’s ecosystems closely resemble accounts of a pre-Zergos Anthem. The planet is inhabited by, among countless other species, a sister-species to the Primus: human. Human chromosomes are identical with pre-Sejero Primus. Inherent inferences arising in the discovery of a sister-species are nearly beyond my comprehension. The humans are vastly inferior to Sejero power and must be preserved at all costs. I shudder at the thought of the empire invading the young world. Though I believe its remoteness will insulate Filgaia from colonization and extraction, as a precaution I would advise you to immediately fabricate evidence that will discourage long distance exploration into the region. Perhaps a lecture to the Science Council on the evidence of a black hole in the region will suffice? I will leave the creative end up to you.

  Best regards. See you at the next Council.

  Tolland

  Vengelis slowly read the personalized note. After a long puzzled moment he asked, still staring at the correspondence. “What exactly is this?”

  “We have no idea,” Lord General Hoff said with equal confusion.

  “It would appear as though the Harbinger I and this other ship that’s referenced, the Traverser I, have an independent database separate from the Imperial network,” Vengelis mumbled as he began to scan through each of the ship’s logs. “You said this ship, the Harbinger I, belonged to Master Tolland, right?”

  “Yes. He told us to get on board his ship, this ship, and leave Anthem,” Darien said.

  “The other ship mentioned, the Traverser I, must have belonged to Pral Nerol,” Vengelis said. He
had seen that Pral Nerol had constructed each spacecraft on the plaque outside his medical room. It was unheard of for a private individual to own a deep space craft, even among the tremendously rich Royal families. Vengelis cursed Pral Nerol’s resourcefulness; the man truly was a genius.

  “Did Master Tolland ever mention Pral Nerol?” Lord General Hoff asked. “I wasn’t aware they even knew each other.”

  “Tolland only mentioned Nerol in passing, if at all,” Vengelis said as he looked through the ship log at previous journeys of the Harbinger I. “Though based on the familiarity of the message between the two, it appears as though Master Tolland and Pral Nerol were friends.”

  “They clearly knew each other well enough for Pral Nerol to give Master Tolland the Harbinger I,” Darien said.

  “The date on this correspondence about Filgaia is from twenty years ago,” Vengelis said with a frown as he pictured a young Master Tolland sitting in the same command bridge around the time of his own birth.

  “Yeah,” Darien said. “Back when they both held a seat in the War Council.”

  “Now I’m even more confused,” Vengelis said. “Why after twenty years of working with Pral Nerol to conceal the knowledge of this Filgaia place would Master Tolland send me there in his last breath? It doesn’t make any sense. There are several hospitable planets he could have directed us toward, and all of them closer than this Filgaia.”

  Lord General Hoff shrugged. “I can’t imagine.”

  “There must be a reason specific to Filgaia,” Vengelis murmured. “And I need to find out what it is.”

  Reading the note once more, Vengelis decided he did not like its contents. Could Master Tolland have sent him to Filgaia in order to start anew with this so-called sister-species? Vengelis shook the notion from his mind. He knew Master Tolland too well; his teacher would have chosen the extinction of the Primus race before he would send Vengelis along with two recognized warmongers to inevitably subjugate an inferior people.