by Jacob Holo
“Vierj is slaughtering us.” Veketon turned and walked up to the panoramic display. His footfalls echoed loudly despite the room’s limitless dimensions. His fellow Seekers gathered behind him.
One by one, Vierj eliminated every last seraph with brutal efficiency. None of them could offer any hope of resistance, and the two that tried to flee were chased down and killed from behind.
Four more holograms flickered into existence behind Veketon. He lowered his head and sighed deeply. The full force of this tragedy had not yet sunk in. All eleven of them were dead, killed by his own daughter.
“What is she doing now?” Dendolet asked.
Veketon looked up.
Vierj dropped to the cold, cracked rubble that had once been the capital. Only the Aktenai fleet in orbit remained to oppose her. They numbered over one hundred ships, but none of their weapons could penetrate her barrier. And so they waited, their armaments trained on a target even portal lances could not harm.
Vierj raised her arms and summoned a sphere of black energy between her open palms. The sphere grew until it was as large as her seraph, then it dwarfed her seraph, and then her seraph was nothing but a speck underneath the vast, engorged sphere.
“Whatever she is doing, we must stop it.” Veketon closed his eyes and connected to the fleet.
Even in this new form, his simulated neural link functioned the same as before. With a mental twitch, he ordered all ships to target the sphere and open fire. As one, the ships in orbit brought their weapons to bear, synchronized, and fired.
Two hundred fifteen fusion beams struck the sphere, each a white-hot lance of focused energy, and eight c-cannons joined in a fraction of a second later, invisible projections that, when they struck the sphere, ignited with the blinding light of instant matter-energy conversion.
The air around Vierj heated to plasma, and great shock waves rushed outward, tearing through Ittenrashik’s lush landscape. Lakes turned to vapor, and whole forests ignited.
The sphere continued to swell.
“Veketon, what are you doing?” Dendolet placed a hand on his shoulder. The physical sensation felt distant, fuzzy. He ignored it.
“Keep firing,” he said.
“All we’re doing is damaging the planet.”
“I said keep firing!”
Five hundred fusion torpedoes followed the first barrage, each of them erupting into miniature suns against the sphere. Dozens of phase missiles arrived a half-second later, traversing the distance to the target instantly. Phase ruptures drank in the plasma storm, then spasmed it back out again.
Several phase missiles landed beneath the sphere. These tore mountain-sized chunks out of the planet’s surface, compressed them to the size of pebbles, then ejected them in a storm of speeding matter.
Vierj did not move. The sphere did not waver.
“Veketon, we must stop!” Dendolet said. “The planet’s biosphere will be ruined if we continue! We must think of the survivors!”
Veketon watched the attack in silence. The orbital barrage was a desperate act, but it was all he had left.
Vierj’s sphere reached six hundred kilometers in diameter, now a tenth the size of the planet itself. She looped around to the top and thrust it towards the surface.
The sphere struck and flattened, and part of it sank into the planet. It expanded into a growing blister that rushed outward, the outer edge becoming a black wave that engulfed everything it touched.
“No…” Veketon whispered, finally realizing what was happening.
“What is she doing?” Dendolet asked.
“She’s pushing the entire planet into an axis of accelerated time,” Veketon said. “She is going to kill our home.”
Behind him, Xixek gasped. Dendolet bit her lower lip, unable to pull her eyes away.
The wave of energy hugged Ittenrashik’s surface. It now covered half the planet, and its wave fronts surged towards each other on the planet’s night side.
Veketon shook his head. “Cease fire.”
The wave fronts met, and for the briefest of moments the entire planet was ensconced within a black egg. And then, with shocking suddenness, the entire field vanished, revealing a desecrated world.
Gone were the sprawling cities, clean oceans, and emerald landscapes. Now its cities sat in cold ruin. The oceans were drained somehow, and craters pockmarked a bleak landscape. Strange artifices hung in space, impressive in size, but ancient and derelict.
The planet was so cold that its atmosphere had frozen.
What happened here? Veketon thought. How many years did Vierj make our home suffer?
“Any signs of survivors?” he asked.
Dendolet could only shake her head.
Dead… all of them… a billion lives… Veketon felt numb, unable to fully appreciate death on this scale. He had led his followers to their dooms.
“And the Cherub Crèche?” he asked.
“Not even they survived.”
Veketon nodded a wordless reply and let out a slow sigh. He focused on the image of Vierj’s seraph, impotent anger welling up within his heart.
The image magnified through the haze of thinning weapon plasma, and he noticed a striking change. Her seraph was still black, but it was not the featureless black of her chaos barrier. Rather, it bore the metallic sheen of armor.
“Vierj’s seraph is visible,” Veketon said, almost a whisper as if he didn’t fully believe his eyes.
Dendolet looked up sharply. The other Seekers gathered around and studied the images intently.
“You’re correct,” Dendolet said. “Her chaos barrier has weakened considerably.”
“That attack must have taken a lot out of her,” Veketon said. “Open fire! Hit her with everything we have!”
The Aktenai ships in orbit fired as soon as the order came in, their guns already trained on the now vulnerable target. Hundreds of fusion beams struck Vierj, tossing her about like a twig in a hurricane. Fusion torpedoes erupted around her, knocking her back with each eruption.
Phase missiles appeared next to her and imploded into space-rending distortions. C-cannons struck the barren wastelands beneath her seraph and instantly converted part of the planet into energy. White hot explosions fountained upward with planet-cracking force.
Vierj wove through the fusillade. She didn’t want to be hit anymore.
“We’re hurting her,” Veketon breathed.
Vierj flew up towards the fleet, battered and wounded, but not beaten. She lashed out with a whip of energy and cleaved the nearest ship in two.
Fusion beams and torpedoes pounded Vierj from all directions, and she tumbled back, explosions blossoming all around her. She regained control and cut through another ship. Its broken halves fell away, rent edges glowing hotly.
Another coordinated salvo of beams focused on her as if through a magnifying glass, and the armor of her right shoulder blistered and cracked. Black blood trailed out of the wound. Vierj dashed through the heart of the fleet.
A volley of phase missiles struck her, warping the space around her, and another crack in her seraph’s armor appeared. Her upper wings bent towards one of the spatial rips, and energized blood poured from the wound.
Vierj accelerated and flew straight up. She cleared the fleet’s battle lines and shot away from the planet at full speed.
Veketon permitted himself a tight grin. His daughter was running.
Beam salvos, torpedo shoals, and phase blasts followed her, but Vierj fled the planet at reckless speeds. She engaged her fold engine and vanished in a flash of light.
The Aktenai fleet did not pursue.
Chapter 1
Hunted Tyrant
Veketon rose from the futon and slowly pushed the cover aside, careful not to disturb Quennin’s blissful slumber. He’d spent the last two hours trying to fall asleep, and at this point staring at the ceiling only served to aggravate him further.
Pale light illuminated his personal residence onboard the Fellerossi command
ship Vengeful Ascendant. A large conical prism hung from the ceiling, caressing the high walls and wide floor with a soft blue glow.
The light intensified slowly as automated systems detected its master’s needs. Through his neural link, Veketon canceled the morning routine and returned his residence to its original gloom.
He ran a hand roughly across his face and massaged his eyes.
Why am I so restless tonight? he thought. The answer eluded him. He’d felt a growing sense of anxiety these past few days that refused to subside. Despite his strict mental discipline, he’d found his mind drawn repeatedly to the day of his death twenty thousand years ago.
Why do I obsess over it now?
Dendolet, Balezuur, Xixek, and so many others. He even missed Ziriken. Their names and faces haunted his waking mind. They were gone, all of the Original Eleven, all of his original companions, gone forever.
I am the last of our order…
Veketon had not come to terms with their true-deaths, not yet. For twenty thousand years, the Original Eleven had worked from beyond death to see their plans and ambitions fulfilled. Perhaps they had once cared about their followers, but death and time had chilled their hearts.
Veketon’s rebirth into a clone body had made that abundantly clear. He and his companions had stagnated for twenty millennia while the societies they created evolved beyond them.
And eventually rejected them.
I am the only one left now, the only one to be reborn by our combined science.
Alone…
Veketon shook his head. No! Not alone. Not anymore.
He looked down at Quennin S’Kev’s slumbering form. Her long, fiery red hair was tousled around a pale and delicate face. The futon’s sheer covers hugged her body’s sensuous curves. She was tall, fit, and so very beautiful, but what had drawn Veketon to her were not these crude physical things.
No, it had been her warrior spirit, her sense of honor and duty, and her devotion to her comrades that had pulled at his heart.
Or so he liked to pretend. Her beauty was undeniable, and Veketon found himself smiling as he gazed at her peaceful face. Softly, he brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek. Quennin moaned quietly and pulled the covers tighter.
Veketon ignored the youthful fire building within his clone body. He left their bedchamber and entered his personal dressing room. The door closed softly behind him, and the lights ramped up to daytime intensity. Fellerossi servants had already laid out several choices of attire, each neatly folded and arranged on a black crystal table.
Veketon selected his white combat slipsuit and dressed. When he finished, he linked with the wall screen and activated its mirror-mode.
A young version of Jack Donolon stared back at him: dark brown hair framed a thin face with gray eyes above a tall, muscular frame. Veketon doubted he would ever grow used to the man’s face as his own, but it was a small price to pay for this cloned body’s power.
Still, not everything was the same. He had grown his hair much longer than Jack ever would, and it now formed a tail stretching halfway down his back. For some reason, the simple change made bearing the face easier.
Veketon finished fastening the slipsuit’s collar. The form-fitting suit flexed over his body like a living metal weave, adjusting itself to match his physique and applying subtle pressure around his limbs.
Content with his appearance, Veketon picked up his sword’s scabbard, fastened it to his waist, and left the private dressing room.
The corridors of his residence brightened to daytime, and wide windows to his side presented a grand view of the entire complex. Veketon’s residence within the command ship resembled a many-part crystalline chandelier with each section joined by translucent walkways.
The entire structure floated within a hollow sphere with the top half of the sphere’s walls hidden behind a simulacrum of planetary life, its fake sun rising over the horizon.
Veketon stepped through an open doorway and descended a slender walkway. The milky glass surface sang with each step. Ahead, the path branched to either side, and the right-hand walkway ended in a square platform. A rich flowery aroma filled his nostrils.
Two Fellerossi servants tended the floating garden, each garbed in loose orange robes with a diagonal swirl of black across their chests. The entire complex was a gift to him from the Fellerossi and served to showcase some of the material and gravitic techniques he had taught them.
Both servants rose from their work and bowed deeply until he passed. Veketon did not acknowledge them. He turned left and hurried down to the sparring chamber, eager to be rid of this growing anxiety.
I must not obsess over my death, he thought, entering the sparring chamber. I cannot afford to show weakness. Not now.
A wide circular space opened before him. Red gridlines broke up the dark blue floor. Concentric light rings provided overhead illumination but did not reveal the various dark shapes pressed against the chamber walls.
“Activate,” Veketon linked mentally.
The sparring chamber’s systems hummed softly.
Veketon drew the sword with his left hand, closed his eyes, and concentrated. Chaos energy flowed through his body, and the shunts in his slipsuit amplified the effect. Vents along his limbs and torso exhaled bright blue waste energy.
He snapped his sword out, and the blade’s curved single-edge ignited, casting fierce blue light across the room.
“Execute base-line training program,” Veketon linked. “Standby to upgrade.”
A humanoid automaton dislodged itself from the wall, brandished a harmless training blade, and charged him. While unable to kill, the training blade would certainly sting if it hit an unarmored human.
Veketon dipped subconsciously into the extra-dimensional sea of chaos energy, and time warped around him. His reflexes accelerated, and his strength augmented. He dashed towards the automaton, crossing twenty meters before the machine could complete another full step.
Veketon swung his sword upward, cutting through its skeletal torso. Hissing pieces of the machine clattered to the ground. A second automaton activated, raised its training blade, and sprinted at him.
In the inner calm of battle, Veketon’s mind wandered to the seraph pilots who hunted him. While the bulk of his Alliance enemies remained near Earth, a few pilots had pursued him all the way across the galaxy. The two leaders of that small band stood out in his mind.
Jack Donolon: a pilot so powerful that Veketon had chosen him as his genetic and chaotic progenitor. The man who would one day become a bane as powerful as Vierj.
And Seth Elexen: the man who killed Vierj.
No deadlier foes existed.
Am I afraid of dying? Veketon thought as he cleaved another automaton in half. He selected a higher training setting, and the automatons came at him six at a time, some brandishing projectile weapons, and others with swords that could kill.
Veketon moved through the automatons in a whirlwind of death. Accelerated bolts fired from live weapons ricocheted off his barrier in bright flashes. He tore through one automaton after another, littering the ground with their smoking carcasses.
Do I really fear them that much? DO I?
The thought shouted in his head, and Veketon amped up the difficulty to maximum. Twenty automatons came at him in continuous waves, and he danced and dodged and cut his way through them. Piles of hewn metallic bodies lay strewn across the ground. More opponents came at him, climbing over their fallen brethren and charging him with mindless fatalism.
“I am not afraid of them!” Veketon screamed, cutting through three automatons with a single wide slash. He whirled around, expecting another wave.
Overhead lights flashed red and a buzzer went off.
The sparring chamber’s stock of automatons had been depleted. Veketon looked around at the surrounding carnage, panting and dripping with sweat. He ran a gloved hand through wet locks of hair and rose from his low fighting stance.
The room fell silent exc
ept for his heavy breathing. A sudden introduction of clapping startled him, and he spun around and raised his sword.
“Impressive as always,” Quennin smiled at him warmly, clapping. She leaned against the sparring chamber’s entrance wearing her own black slipsuit with a sword scabbard at her waist. Her green eyes were bright with affection and admiration, and she’d clasped her long red hair behind her head with a black cord.
Veketon let the chaos energy fade from his system. The blade’s glowing edge winked out, and he stood, placing the sword’s flat on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I must have disturbed you when I left.”
Quennin shook her head and quirked a mischievous smile. “No, not when you left.”
“Oh?”
“You were tossing and turning all night. I barely got any sleep at all.”
“Ah. I see. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Quennin waved the matter aside. “So, is something bothering you?”
“It’s nothing. Bad memories. Nothing to worry about.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“No?” Quennin raised a sly eyebrow. “Just flat out no?”
“I would prefer to sort this out on my own.”
“By wiping out all the automatons?”
“Exercise helps.”
Quennin glanced around the sparring chamber. “Well, Vek, you seem to be out of automatons.” She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Oh well. I guess I’ll have to help you get this out of your system.” She carefully navigated around piles of still-smoldering debris and drew her sword.
Veketon couldn’t help but smile. He lowered his stance, chaos energy easily flowing again. The slipsuit’s vents flared with energy, and his sword burst alive, so bright that Quennin squinted.
“Don’t expect me to be an easy target,” Veketon said.
“Oh, I’d worry if a few automatons could slow you down.”
“There’s more than a few here, you know.”
“Really?” Quennin made a big production of looking around the sparring chamber. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. There must be at least a dozen here.”