by Paul Tassi
“Manners,” the Archon said, glittering eyes narrowing. “The serum in your veins has disabled the physical aspects of your gift.”
Gift. Lucas should have known something was wrong when Alpha referred to his previously abhorrent powers as such. And instructed him how to properly use them. Lucas spoke again through clenched teeth.
“What happened here?”
The Archon spoke, his voice reverberating in Lucas’s mind.
“You destroyed the Soran solar system’s most advanced listening post without Xala firing a shot. They are now scrambling to figure out what sort of disaster caused the station to combust. Our ship was never seen.”
The Soran solar system?
“It was the only station that may have had even a chance of detecting our approach at such a close range. I thank you for your service.”
Lucas’s mind was racing. Had he just unknowingly killed thousands of Sorans? He scanned the debris for any traces that could tell him. This was another of the Archon’s tricks. It had to be.
“Detecting what?” Lucas said, turning back toward the creature, who seemed to effortlessly blend into the darkness that surrounded him.
“Why, the invasion of Sora, of course.”
The Archon raised his hand and the ship pivoted around. The debris field disappeared and was replaced by a bright blue, white, and green orb. Sora.
Oh god.
From the corners of the viewscreen, Lucas could see other Xalan ships of every shape and size come into view. Motherships, transports, and colossal titanic cruisers he’d only seen in orbit around Xala itself. The radar of their own ship was alive with lights, each indicator a Xalan vessel. There were thousands.
This is it. This is their entire fleet.
They were racing toward the planet, which was growing larger.
“What are you doing?” Lucas said. “The planetary fleet defenses will shred you before you’re within a million miles.”
This was the all-out assault Madric Stoller had been warned about, but it was always dismissed as impossible. The SDI had thousands of ships spread out in the system, guarding Sora from such an attack. But what role was the listening post supposed to play?
“You can’t tell me you fixed a cloaking drive to every ship in your fleet,” Lucas said, trying to understand. The Archon blinked, his lids closing sideways.
“I do not need a thousand cloaking drives for a thousand ships. Only one.”
What?
“And you are riding inside of it.”
The ship passed by an SDI dreadnought, which acted like they weren’t even there. The planet was getting closer and closer.
A ship that cloaked an entire fleet? It was impossible.
“This last creation, assembled in the furthest corner of black space, will be Sora’s end. I don’t trust the fools I have tasked with its completion, and must return to unveil its glory myself.”
Lucas remembered what the Archon had told him before his departure in Dubai. This was it. His final weapon. A ship, a mobile cloaking drive to render an entire fleet invisible. The Sorans couldn’t be within a thousand years of developing or detecting such a thing. There had to be a way to warn them. Lucas’s eyes raced around the room, a hundred consoles were executing a million different tasks. It occurred to him that the Archon was controlling all of them with his mind, even as he gazed out the viewscreen. Lucas ran to one of the consoles and started trying to read the flurry of Xalan symbols and appropriate it for his own use somehow.
His body seized up, and he was wrenched across the room, slamming into the viewscreen.
“You force me to wreath you with chains as well as strip you of your strength?” the Archon said, annoyed. He turned the immobilized Lucas to look out the window. Sora loomed large, and they were passing more and more SDI ships.
“What are you?” Lucas choked out. “Another Shadow mutant? Some general or scientist or covert operative who rose up to fill the void left by the Council?”
The Archon turned to look at him. The lights in his eyes grew brighter.
“Amusing,” he purred. “But insulting. I am not one of these wretched creatures. I am a dragon commanding ants, to use terms of your world. The time has come for me to be silent no more. Xala exists because I built it. The Xalans live because they serve my will. I am their god, their creator. And yours, do not forget.”
“You’re psychotic, delusional. The Sorans made the Xalans,” Lucas said with certainty. “And you didn’t create me, only warped me into … this.” He looked down at his black veins. “I do not serve you.”
“Perhaps the weight of the thousands of Soran lives you just ended has not found its way to your soul yet. But it will, in time, perhaps once you realize you helped kill billions more. You are more difficult to manage than the other, but you show much promise.”
“The other. What did you do to Maston?” Lucas asked. “What did you do to my friend?”
The fleet passed a glass-domed space station, and cloaked Xalan ships split out of the way to avoid it.
“The Sorans were poor test subjects. Useless bags of faulty genes and weakness. But him. The one who killed not one, but two of my own Shadows, even a further evolved psionic variant. When I discovered his body orbiting our planet, I would have been remiss not to attempt to reforge him into a warrior of my own.”
Lucas struggled against his invisible bonds as the Archon continued.
“The first thirty clones were dismal failures, but the last one survived conversion, by some miracle. A fractured soul, still clinging to life, it seemed. The clone’s mind was unstable, with memories exceptionally easy to mold and shape. His power was unmatched, and only needed gentle prodding to kill thousands of his own kind on what he imagines to be a noble quest.”
The Archon turned to him.
“But you. The first human subject. The last of Earthkind. You were an unmatched success with exceptional power not seen in eons. Some subtle mutation that allows it. I must have more of you, after seeing what you are capable of. I have sent the other to collect more specimens as the invasion commences.”
The colony. His sons. Asha. The Earthborn, the only humans left in existence. He wanted them all now after seeing what Lucas could do. His heart was racing and sweat was pouring down his face.
“But first, you serve a more important purpose. As Sora burns, we will have work to do.”
Lucas had no idea what he meant, but was fuming. “Stay away from my family. Turn and leave Sora while you can. The SDI will tear you to pieces if I can’t first!”
“You cannot,” the Archon said. “And neither can they. You fail to understand. The war between Sora and Xala ended when you destroyed that sensor station. It was the planet’s only hope of possibly detecting this fleet early enough to mobilize their defenses. Now, they investigate a presumed accident, not what was the first shot in this, the last battle of the Great War.”
Sora was huge now, a giant ball of life and hope. Tears started to well in Lucas’s eyes. The Archon suddenly released him from his psychic grip, but he couldn’t move regardless. He just stood, transfixed as the cloaking ship pulled up in front of an SDI warship and came to rest. Scattered Soran ships were everywhere around them, and a holographic map of the solar system showed the Xalan fleet was spread all over, nestled up next to unsuspecting military targets. Their every move was guided by the Archon’s inaudible orders.
“Witness the fall of Sora,” the Archon said. “The beginning of the end of your entire species.”
Lucas looked around the bridge. Every console, every display was glowing orange and flashed with a single Xalan word. The symbol for FIRE.
The darkness of space erupted with silent, brilliant, blazing chaos.
31
Less than a dozen people were present for the funeral of a man who once governed a planet of a hundred billion. Tannon’s body was rotted and warped from Hayne’s poison, and so his metal casket, fashioned from the housing of a defunct missile, remaine
d closed. Solarion Station mostly burned their dead or sent them tumbling down the elevator shafts to feed the feral creatures on the lowest levels, but everyone agreed Tannon Vale deserved something more dignified.
They were in orbit around the station aboard Zaela’s warship, the Skysplitter, a stolen SDI interceptor and a legendary pirate vessel in its heyday. Only a small group of them had assembled to see Tannon off, including Asha and Alpha, who had arrived at the station in a bizarre-looking military fighter with no recollection of the journey. Noah listened as they recounted their entire harrowing tale of being abducted by the Viceroy and the SDI and rescued by Lucas, only to be boarded by the Black Corsair, who they discovered was their late friend, the legendary Commander Mars Maston. Or at least some twisted version of him. Malorious Auran quickly deduced the signs of the Corsair version of Maston being a “torn clone,” one grown at full adulthood from a dead body, with the distorted memories and psychosis typical of the process.
There was no trace of the Viceroy’s vessel when they tried to locate it. Likely the ship had been destroyed and Lucas and Maston were light-years away. Asha and Alpha were already panicked when they arrived, and their mood was certainly not improved when they learned that their old friend Tannon Vale had died, however heroically. Both stood with stone gazes, looking out into the field of stars behind his casket.
Erik was alive, and the clorixine had been purged from his system over the past few days. He’d barely spoken since he’d regained consciousness, and now stood at attention more rigidly than he ever had when Tannon was alive and barking orders at him. Noah wasn’t sure if it was luck or divine favor that Erik had survived the poison, but his brother had emerged from the ordeal looking less like a boy and more like a man.
Noah’s head ached severely; he still hadn’t fully recovered from the night he’d drunk himself into a stupor and almost been murdered on the streets of the station. His hand and leg were on the mend, and a constant stream of questionably legal meds kept the pain at bay.
He’d mostly avoided the girls over the past few days. Sakai was still bubbling with quiet rage and neither of them were anywhere near apologizing to each other. She cast hard glares at him whenever they passed in the compound, but had nothing to say. It hurt Noah to have her so angry at him, given how loving and kind she was normally. But he didn’t know what to say to fix things. Really, he didn’t know if he wanted to fix things.
It was impossible not to think about the moment he shared with Kyra, the only part of that night he wanted to remember. She blushed when she saw him and gave him shy smiles, a welcome change from Sakai’s frowns, but mostly spent her time looking after Erik once he’d woken up. They hadn’t had more than a spare moment to talk about what happened, not that Noah would know what to say if they did.
Solarion was about the most unromantic place imaginable, and death was in the air all around them. Zaela was slowly solidifying her newfound power as SolSec officers fought to assume Hayne’s command, their troops being torn apart by rival gangs as they did so. The violence appeared to be settling down somewhat at last, as more and more SolSec troops were defecting instead of fighting back.
Zaela, Celton, and Key were taking turns sharing old Guardian war stories with the group as their way of memorializing their old commanding officer. Some were actually quite funny, including one about a young, newly minted Tannon ordering a raid on a Kulvath rebel outpost that turned out to be a whorehouse. Rather than reorganizing and relaunching the mission, Tannon declared the following week “shore leave,” much to the dismay of the Grand Admiral at the time, his father Varrus.
It was good to laugh, even on such a somber occasion, and the entire affair was a much more fitting tribute to the man than some buttoned-up state funeral at the Grand Palace with Madric Stoller giving a meaningless eulogy full of false flattery. In the end, nearly everyone shared a story or two, including Noah. He managed to get through one about Tannon’s first day as colony Watchman without choking up.
Noah had won a race through a forest course soon after military training had started for the young Earthborn, but was chastised by Tannon when he reached the finish line and forced to run the circuit twice more. Noah was confused. He hadn’t just won, he’d beaten everyone by a mile due to his age, size, and strength.
“Why am I being punished, Watchman?” he asked.
“Because what good is being fast and strong if you leave the ones struggling behind?” Tannon said. “Selfish soldiers will either run ahead to get themselves killed, or leave everyone else to die in their wake.”
The next race, Noah came in last, carrying an injured Sakai, who had twisted her ankle on a root, and Tannon had nodded in approval. Noah swore he saw a smile briefly flicker across Sakai’s face as he finished the story, but only for a moment. It wasn’t long after that they’d become a pair.
Erik refused an opportunity to speak, only staring blankly at the casket. He leaned against the back wall, shoulders now slumped, his usual confidence sapped from him completely. He looked hollowed out, and older. Much older.
Asha stepped forward to circle Tannon’s metal tomb. It seemed like she hadn’t slept in days. She ran her hand over the metal, and turned back toward the group.
“What can I say?” she said. “Tannon Vale found us drifting in the black of space, believed our story, and gave us the training to become soldiers, not just survivors. He worked to clear our names when the whole planet thought we were liars, murderers, and traitors. He essentially raised our children when I …”
Asha trailed off and looked at Noah.
“… when I could not. I am honored to have called him a mentor and friend, and if Lucas were here, I know he would say the same. This galaxy has seen few better men, and Sora should be lucky to see another ruler like him.”
And with that, there was nothing more to say. The Skysplitter pivoted around until the shaded sun engulfed them all in its red-and-orange radiance. Tannon’s coffin was loaded into the launch bay and, as they all watched, was shot into the sun, faint fiery engines carrying it toward the glowing mass.
The next few hours were spent debating how best to try and locate Lucas, but no one, not even Alpha, had any useful ideas. Maston and Lucas could be anywhere now, given the insane travel speeds of the Corsair’s ship. For all they knew, Lucas was already in the clutches of the Archon himself. Their only consolation through it all was that they knew the Archon wanted Lucas alive. Though it would be a fate worse than death if the Archon was trying to transform Lucas into a leashed monster like the Corsair Maston.
It was a while before Noah noticed that his newly silent brother had disappeared from the room altogether. Noah left the comms bay where they all were gathered and headed back up to the bridge of the ship, which was now docked at the station. He found Erik alone, slouched in the captain’s chair in front of the viewscreen, gazing into the tinted sun.
Noah walked around the chair and saw his brother was holding a pistol in his hand. Not Stoller’s laser weapon, but Tannon’s hefty hand cannon. He hadn’t realized Erik had picked it up during the fight at SolSec.
“What are you doing up here?” Noah asked.
Erik turned the gun over his hand. It was old, scratched, and flecked with dried blood.
“That should have been in his coffin,” Noah continued. “I think it was his father’s.”
Erik didn’t look at him.
“I forgot I even had it,” he said, raising the gun up, holding the barrel with two fingers. “Here, feel free to tape it to a missile and fire it at the sun.”
Noah exploded with anger.
“You asshole! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he shouted, he spun the chair around to face him, but was stopped by what he saw. There were tears in Erik’s eyes. He hadn’t seen his brother cry since they were children.
“Go on!” Erik yelled back, sitting up straight. “Let’s hear it! Let’s hear all about how much I screwed up and how I got a man killed who’s worth a hundre
d times what I am.”
Noah was struck mute. His anger froze, then faded. Erik went on.
“Let’s hear about how I finally went too far this time. About how I’m a danger to anyone and everyone. I’ve heard it from you a thousand times already. Sakai blew up on me yesterday, and Asha nearly took my head off a few hours ago. And even Kyra is thinking it, though she’d never say it out loud. I get it! And you’re all right!”
Noah just looked at his brother’s grief-stricken face.
“I wanted Hayne dead more than I wanted anyone else alive. And for what? To impress a girl by handing her his head? A girl who is peace and grace and kindness incarnate? I’m a godsdamn fool.”
Erik looked down the sight of the pistol, aiming at nothing in particular.
“I’m well aware the Watchman died because of me. I know you could have too. The only real justice would have been for me to die as well, but these witch doctors pulled me back from the brink somehow. I was close. I was close to the other side, and there was nothing there. No one. I was alone. And now that I’m back, that feeling hasn’t left me. I don’t think it ever will.”
Noah finally spoke up, the rage gone from his voice.
“You’re not alone. You know that. As much as you seem to want to reject us, you have a family. You have the Earthborn. Hell, you have an entire planet who adores you.”
“Being a celebrity isn’t being a hero,” Erik shot back.
“It’s not,” Noah said, nodding. “But you’re well on your way to graduating. You have the talent. You have the heart. But you lack the restraint.”
Erik shook his head.
“Gods, you sound like the Watchman. He gave me this same speech a hundred times.”
“Well, maybe now that he’s dead, you’ll finally take it to heart,” Noah said quietly. “You want to make this right? Be the man he always knew you could be.”
Erik was silent. This wasn’t the lecture Noah had envisioned. He couldn’t yell and scream and threaten his brother when he seemed so broken. Finally, Erik stood up from the chair and attached Tannon’s hand cannon to his right hip. His laser pistol was on his left.