by Jacob Holo
“Stay hidden, Tesset. I’ll handle these two.”
“No complaints… here…” she said between pained breaths.
The two thrones circled him, and he fought to keep both in front. They clashed over and over again, each time releasing waves of energy that tore the Sentinel apart. Two of its docking legs cracked off and the once spherical core now looked like the remains of a hatched egg.
Quennin came at him from the right and Veketon from the left, their swift weapons turning into vivid arcs of light. Quennin’s glaive smashed against his shield, and Veketon’s lance crashed into his sword.
Jack shoved Quennin’s attack away, turned, and closed with Veketon. He bashed the lance high with his shield and drew his sword upward. The blade’s burning edge cut across Veketon’s chest, and he fell back.
Quennin came in behind him, and Jack spun around, raising his shield. Her chaos glaive skipped off in a spray of black electricity, and Jack reached out and grasped it tightly.
Armor on his palm melted and the musculature underneath crisped, but he pulled Quennin in by her own weapon and plunged his sword into her shoulder. The outer armor liquefied, and Jack forced the blade deeper into the throne’s flesh. With enough time, he knew he could cut her arm off.
But that was time Jack did not have. Veketon charged in and forced Jack to retreat. The three titans battled on. Jack fought hard and fast, adrenaline and the fever of battle filling him. He and two thrones flew about in crazy orbit, clashing and breaking and clashing again.
The rest of the battle continued to play out. Seraphs clashed with archangels as weapon platforms approached and Fellerossi warships folded into orbit. But that distant conflict paled in comparison to this clash of two thrones and one seraph.
Try as he might, Jack sensed no give, no weakening in his opponents. They made no fatal mistakes, and they fought just as hard and desperately as he did. They did not tire, did not lax, even as he pounded at their defenses and beat back every one of their attacks.
Worse, he felt his own strength waning, and he realized that, as powerful as he was, he wouldn’t win. Not alone. He needed Seth by his side. Only together could they defeat these two.
“Come on, Seth! Where are you?”
Jack opened a tactical view of the battle and found an open intra-gate high above the planet. The last seraph fled through, and the intra-gate winked out of existence.
He was all alone.
“Uh oh…”
“Jack, I’m getting you out of there!” Seth shouted. “Stand by for intra-gate!”
For long seconds, Jack was the only Alliance seraph still in the system. Then a flat white circle formed in front of him, and he sped through. It vanished as soon as he cleared it.
Jack let his sword and shield disperse into a shower of light. He stretched out his wings and floated lazily towards the others. It hadn’t occurred to him just how tired he was until that moment. His hands throbbed from their contact with the portal lance, and he looked down at the blackened, blistering armor over his palms.
The squadron was in tatters. Jared, Yonu, Tesset, and three members of Knight Squadron docked first, each needing medical attention. Nothing life threatening, but it had been over a year since they’d received a beating like this.
Tesset…
Jack opened her biometric readout in a corner of his mind. His wings twitched when he saw the huge splash of red. Tesset’s entire right arm would have to be reconstructed by the Judgment’s medical ward. The flesh was so ruined, her i-suit had actually amputated what was left and sealed off the stump.
“Hey, Tesset. You okay?”
It was a really stupid question, but it was only one that came to mind.
“I’m… okay… all things considered,” she said, her pauses caused by forceful breathing. “Painkillers are starting to work their magic. I love painkillers.”
“Yeah. They’re great, aren’t they?”
Tesset let out a long, slow sigh.
“I just want to say thanks, Tesset. You really saved me out there.”
“What are… friends for?”
“Yeah. Too true.”
Tesset’s seraph shut down, and she cut the channel. She was already inside the Judgment, being raised into her bay where a medical team no doubt awaited her arrival.
Jack approached the Judgment from underneath and flew up into his bay.
“You really showed a lot of initiative today, you know that?”
The seraph was silent.
“Yes, I know. We’ve worked separately before, but never anything too complicated. I mean, you grabbed Veketon from behind and threw him!”
The seraph said nothing.
Jack let out a content sigh, his thoughts falling on Tesset.
“You certainly know who to protect, don’t you?”
An emotion flowed from the seraph to his mind. The seraph did not speak, but if it had, it would have chosen the words: Of course.
Chapter 6
Last of the Eleven
Quennin gazed up at her throne. Bright overhead lighting accentuated every blemish on its smooth black skin. Bulbous machines with long drooping arms hovered above the throne’s shoulder. They peeled the mnemonic armor back and prodded the healing flesh underneath.
“Your throne is regenerating swiftly,” Fuurion said, walking up beside her.
To untrained eyes, he looked harmless. Quennin supposed that was why the Fellerossi used this particular template. In a culture dominated by genetically engineered supermen and ruled by chaos-infused immortals, here was just a weak, little man.
Harmless.
But Quennin knew better.
“Jack continues to grow stronger.” She massaged her shoulder. Kneading the muscles seemed to dull the echoes of pain.
“Master Veketon was right to lay a trap for him.” Fuurion huffed out a frustrated breath. “But he has become surprisingly resilient outside his seraph. Perhaps we should have simply rigged the fortress with antimatter and tried to take him out with it.”
“With the crew still on board?”
“Of course. A trap of that nature wouldn’t succeed otherwise.”
Quennin’s face was a passive mask. She would never come to terms with how Outcasts undervalued life, especially their own. Perhaps this alien morality was a byproduct of manufacturing human beings instead of giving birth to them.
“Fuurion?”
“Yes?”
“Why do you continue to serve him? I mean the Fellerossi, not you personally. All the other Outcast nations fled when Zu’Rashik was destroyed, but the Fellerossi have stayed loyal far beyond that.”
Fuurion smiled thinly. “That is because we have a debt to repay, and we Fellerossi pay our debts in full.”
“A debt to the Original Eleven?”
“That is correct. You may not know this, but we were once slaves of a greater power before the Original Eleven intervened. They were called the Yrrenni, and their choice to us was simple. Either fight and die for them or simply die as they flattened our planets from orbit.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a choice.”
Fuurion shrugged. “Naturally, we chose to fight as their war-slaves. Veketon and the Original Eleven arrived roughly two hundred years later. With fleets of advanced robotic warships and the fortress planet Zu’Rashik, they had a power greater than any one nation, and they used it with surgical precision. In a matter of days, they obliterated the Yrrenni.
“We initially fought the Original Eleven, but soon the fighting stopped. All of our masters were dead or scattered, and we found ourselves free to choose our battles for the first time in centuries. It was a confusing time for my people.”
“So you joined forces with the Original Eleven,” Quennin said.
“How else should war-slaves repay their freedom?”
“That doesn’t sound much different than serving the Yrrenni.”
“Ah, but you miss a vital distinction. We fight for Veketon because we cho
ose to. Not because we must.”
“I think I remember when Veketon told me about this,” Quennin said. “He and the Eleven massacred several of the larger Outcast nations. They created power vacuums and inserted themselves, taking control of the feuding nations one way or another. Your freedom was merely a side effect of their ambition.”
“Oh, undeniably,” Fuurion said. “Master Veketon’s tactics have a, shall we say, brutal edge to them. But I respect that. Besides, this allegiance is not without its benefits. Veketon has granted us advanced technologies that we shall use to safeguard our nation’s future. The Fellerossi shall be slaves to no one ever again, and we gladly repay this debt with our very lifeblood.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by your answer.”
Fuurion bowed his head, maintaining eye contact.
“Do you know where he is right now?” Quennin asked.
“Still in his laboratory, I believe. He’s been working in there since you and he returned.”
Quennin took one last look at the throne. The floating robots closed the shoulder armor over the fully regenerated muscles.
Without another word, she turned away and stepped briskly of out the throne bay. She remembered when the Vengeful Ascendant’s convoluted layout had once seemed so alien, but now each twist and turn felt comfortably familiar. The ship was her home now.
After five minutes of travel through seven corridors, four gravity directional shifts, and three security checkpoints (which she passed without interruption), Quennin arrived at Veketon’s laboratory.
Brightly lit halls stretched out perpendicular to a large central corridor, each hall filled with vessels of various shapes and sizes. Dark silhouettes floated within tall containers of disturbingly red fluid. Light passed through the clouded contents, bathing patches of the floor with a blood-like hue.
Quennin found the hall she was looking for and turned down it. Instead of tanks for archangel or throne biological experiments, this one contained machines. Machines of every size and shape and function. Quennin didn’t know what half— what even a tenth of them did. Most were inert now, just hulking shapes against the walls.
Holograms illuminated the end of the hall. Veketon sat in a metal chair, cheek resting on a fist as he stared at two holographic profiles: one of Zophiel and the other of Vierj. The rest of the holograms were long scrolls of golden script in mathematical languages Quennin couldn’t read.
She walked up to Veketon and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Hey, Vek.”
He spun around so fast she recoiled.
Veketon let out a sigh. “Oh curse it, you scared me.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“No, don’t say that. No apologies needed.” He stood up, making a vague gesture with his hand. “My mind was elsewhere. Thinking.” He turned back to the holograms. “Wondering about what we are up against.”
“Any thoughts on who Zophiel is?”
“A few. I did a subvocal analysis of Zophiel’s message as well as a genetic analysis based on a theoretical reconstruction. Well, as close as I can get to one, given that I only have Vierj’s baseline and a holographic image to—”
Veketon stopped. He faced Quennin with a guilty expression. “I’m sorry. I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”
“A little, but I don’t mind anymore. Please go on.”
Veketon smiled at her. “All the same, I’ll just skip to what I found. Or at least, what I think I found. Tell me, do these two people look related to you?”
Quennin stepped up to the holograms. Clearly, the two were related. The delicate feminine lines of Vierj’s young face translated into powerful masculine lines on Zophiel’s, but they were the same lines. The same slender nose, proud cheeks, prominent chin, and penetrating eyes.
Both were prime physical specimens, as perfectly fit and proportioned as any human could be: Vierj a beautiful and slender young woman, Zophiel a powerful and muscular young male. The only real difference was the eyes, with Zophiel’s being a bright crystalline blue and Vierj possessing unusual silver irises.
“They look like family to me.”
“Yes,” Veketon said. “But I believe the similarities are too close.”
“What do you mean?”
“Initially, I expected Zophiel to be a first-generation descendant: Vierj’s direct offspring. Such a child could make a formidable seraph pilot, but the probability is low without a sufficiently powerful mate.”
“You’re saying he isn’t her son?”
“The genetic tells between Zophiel’s extrapolation and Vierj’s known pattern match too closely. I should be picking out traits from Zophiel’s father, but besides the eyes and a few minor differences, there are none. It’s almost as if he’s Vierj’s gender-altered clone.”
“But if he’s a clone, he won’t have any natural chaos abilities,” Quennin said.
“Correct. And given his interest in the portal lance, I believe he is a powerful wielder of chaos energy, far more powerful than what Vierj’s son would be. His talent could be artificial, as mine is, but that explanation is extremely unlikely.”
“Then what is he?”
Veketon stared at the two holograms as he continued. “Vierj returned to claim the Gate when Bane Donolon found her, but she could have returned at any time. There was little we could have done to stop her. However, she returned only when she encountered another Bane.
“Her desire for an ally, perhaps even a companion, must have been very strong. What if instead of idly waiting all those millennia, she actively tried to create an equal? Our chaos talents are hereditary but not genetic, and any child of Vierj’s would have possessed some of her immense power.
“What if she sired offspring, and then mated with her own sons? The second generation would be stronger than the first. What if this process continued, over and over again for hundreds or even thousands of years? What would the end result be?”
Quennin felt sick to her stomach. “That’s… disturbing.”
“I agree, though I can find no other explanation for Zophiel’s existence.”
“What about genetic flaws?”
“Vierj had none, so this sort of inbreeding approach would have worked for her.”
“Could Zophiel be as powerful as she was?”
Veketon shook his head. “No, I seriously doubt that. But there are other reasons for concern. Come, take a look at this.”
Veketon gestured to a small stand with an ingot of reddish brass on top. A closed eye was etched into the surface. For a second, Quennin thought the etching moved, almost as if the eye were about to open, but it could have been a trick of lighting.
“This is the ingot Zophiel’s messenger brought,” she said.
“Does it look familiar?”
“Well, yes, now that you mention it. The design reminds me of Lunatic Ziggurat. I mean, all those eyes covering that tower do leave an impression. But, you aren’t implying…”
“This ingot is a chaos energy insulator,” Veketon said. “It is impossible to construct such a material in this universe.”
“Then?”
“It’s one of the same materials Lunatic Ziggurat is made of. Watch.”
Veketon drew his sword from its scabbard. With a snap of his wrist, the blade’s edge came alive. He raised the sword overhead and brought it down in one quick motion. Sword and ingot met in a flash of blue sparks, and Veketon drew his blade down and through the stand.
He sheathed his sword and picked up the ingot. “See? Not a scratch.”
Quennin took the ingot and turned it over in her hands. The surprisingly light material warmed her hands.
“Zophiel possesses examples of Ziggurat technology,” Veketon said. “And I have no idea how he came by them.”
“I thought the only Gate to Lunatic Ziggurat was within the Earth. You don’t think there could be a third Gate?”
Veketon shook his head. “No, I am quite certain only two Gates exist within the galaxy. But yo
u must remember, every pilot draws upon the chaos energy within the Lunatic Realm. It is the source of our powers. Every pilot and every seraph acts as a small inter-dimensional bridge with that realm. Therefore, other connections do exist, however tenuous.”
Quennin turned the ingot over in her hands. She remembered Lunatic Ziggurat: that infinite tower of brass shrouded behind layers of endless firestorms. Someone had built it. Someone or something.
The eye on the ingot opened and focused on her. She yelped and dropped it.
“Yes, it sometimes does that.” Veketon bent down and picked up the ingot. “Don’t worry. It’s harmless.”
Is that piece of metal alive? Quennin wondered. Could the Ziggurat have built itself?
“What’s in the Lunatic Realm besides the Ziggurat?” she asked.
“We never encounter any structures far from the Ziggurat. Creatures, we encountered in abundance. These were mostly chaos spawns: amorphous beings the size of seraphs, born of the endless storms of energy. They traveled in packs and, from what we could tell, weren’t very intelligent.
“Chaos fiends were another matter. These were vast and powerful entities that dwarfed our seraphs and could channel chaos energy offensively. We avoided them whenever possible, but again, we never saw any organized behavior or evidence they were intelligent.”
“What about the Ziggurat Builders?”
“We don’t know anything about them,” Veketon said. “We never found any evidence of who or what the Builders were. Of course, we never found the top or bottom of the Ziggurat either. There’s a tremendous amount of unexplored space in that realm. Why do you ask?”
“Just trying to figure out how Zophiel got his hand on this,” Quennin said. “So, you think he’ll have a seraph armed and armored with this stuff?”
Veketon sighed. “Possibly. It’s what I would do.”
“True, but he still needs a seraph. Where’s he going to get one?”
“There is one possibility. Vierj’s original seraph remains unaccounted for.”
“I thought it was destroyed with her ten years ago.”