by Ivan Kal
Adrian didn’t let him even begin. He unleashed a telepathic strike against Aranis’s defenses as he jumped backward, pulling with his telekinesis in two directions—one pulling himself through the air and toward the building, and the other pulling the rock buried beneath the earth from below his feet free of the ground. In moments, he had the rock free and flying toward the Enlightened.
Aranis didn’t even move—the telepathic attack against him had little effect. He simply grabbed the rock from the air, ripped it from Adrian’s control and flung it back at him. Adrian pulled himself sideways and dodged the rock, which then shattered against the building.
Extending his hands forward, Adrian fired balls of bluish plasma at Aranis, who just soaked them up with his shield. Aranis swiped a hand at him and a kinetic strike punched Adrian in the chest, sending him flying into the building.
Adrian bounced off the hard surface of the building and fell toward the ground, catching himself only mere moments before crashing down. He stumbled for a moment and then righted himself and stared at the Enlightened, triggering his Sha sight. The world changed and he saw it as a world filled with shadows. The Sha around the Enlightened was bright and tightly controlled, and a small line was creeping toward Adrian from his side. Before it could reach him, he jumped forward and unleashed his mind at the Enlightened, battering at his defenses. It was having an effect by the look of the Sha’s movements around his mind.
But Adrian was not done. He put both his hands in front of him and unleashed a beam of heated plasma heading straight for Aranis. The attack on his mind must’ve distracted the Enlightened at least enough that his shield faltered, and a portion of the attack passed through, singeing his shoulder. A moment later, a kinetic blast exploded out of Aranis on all sides. Adrian put a shield around himself and weathered the attack.
“Enough!” Aranis sent with his mind, and a moment later Adrian felt a larger change. The Sha around him churned as if excited and the shadows swirled inside of him. Then his body changed—his clothes burned off in a flash of fire, plates of black grew out of his skin to cover most of his form, and large wings seemingly made out of a similar material grew from his back. His face grew more predatory, with more angular lines. This was the Aranis that Axull Darr had warned about, and power echoed off of him. Adrian knew what it was; he had seen it in Anessa and Lurker of the Depths. Aranis had entered the Sha state.
Adrian looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out if there was any difference between them. But he could see nothing—the Sha state was supposed to be an equalizer. In that state, all that mattered was will and knowledge.
Adrian calmed his mind and reached down into the core of who he was. The Sha was there always, waiting. It was a part of him, as it was a part of everything in this universe. He allowed himself to cease to be bound to the Sha’s surface, and instead he reached deeper, entering the state where he was far closer to the true nature of the Sha.
“So you have achieved it,” Aranis said. “Mind telling me how?”
“Lurker of the Depths was the first. He taught it to us.”
“You and Anessa, I assume?” Aranis asked as he floated above the ground, his wings spread but seemingly motionless.
“Yes,” Adrian answered.
“But you didn’t teach Ryaana?”
“I did not think that she was strong enough to handle it,” Adrian admitted.
Aranis nodded his head. “It takes a special kind of willpower not to be consumed by the Sha. It is overwhelming.”
Then Aranis’s wings snapped forward and kinetic blasts much larger than before exploded toward Adrian. He jumped and then flew upward as the blasts blew apart the ground where he had been standing before. He focused on moving the Sha that held his body together and moving it through the air.
Adrian pitted his mind against Aranis again, feeling the Enlightened’s barriers hold under his assault. At the same time he gathered the air above himself into six points above his head and pushed the air into them, compressing it.
Aranis fought off Adrian’s mind attacks and swiped his wings at him again. Adrian flew away, the six points of compressing air following him. Then Aranis spread his arms and balls of energy formed in his hands. He flicked his fingers and the two balls flew at Adrian.
The attack was lightning fast, and Adrian had no time to fly away. Instead, he threw a quick kinetic strike at one and raised a shield for the other. The first ball encountered his kinetic strike and exploded violently, while the other crashed against his shield with enough power to nearly overwhelm him. His shield shattered and the remaining kinetic energy sent him flying through the air.
Adrian managed to catch himself and steady his body in the air, and then he glared back at Aranis, who was in the same position. Adrian narrowed his eyes as he prepared to fire off his own attack. He enveloped the six points of compressed air with containments and then exerted his will on them, exciting the air and heating it up at the same time until it finally blossomed into plasma.
With a thought he sent two flying at Aranis, then another two, and finally the last two. In a staggered formation, the plasma bombs flew at the Enlightened. Aranis, realizing their danger, did something to the first two that made them completely disappear. Adrian had never seen anything like it. The next pair he grabbed hold of somehow and threw them aside, sending them flying over the horizons. The last pair, however, drew closer. And Aranis didn’t seem to have an answer—instead, he formed a shield in front of himself and caught them against it. The explosions burst outward as the containment collapsed. Adrian flew higher in the air and kept his eyes averted as the explosions sent shock waves flying through the air.
Then it was gone, and Adrian looked down to see Aranis flying and then crashing on the ground. He rolled a few times, and Adrian didn’t give him time to recover. Instead, Adrian pulled on the earth, forcing it to crack and open and fly into the air.
Then he threw it over the fallen Enlightened.
Several tons’ worth of earth crashed down on Aranis—and for a moment, all was still.
Then, an instant later, the air in front of Adrian seemed to collapse and then expand almost instantaneously with a snap.
A dirt-covered Aranis stood there.
“I’m done playing.”
A moment later, a wing slammed into Adrian, sending him flying toward the ground.
Adrian slammed against the ground so hard that with all the power coursing through him, making him stronger, faster, and with all the genetic augmentations making his bones denser and tougher, his arm still shattered.
He resisted a scream that threatened to come out and somehow managed to get to his feet. Immediately, he felt the nanites in his blood trying to heal the damage. He pulled on his arm, placing it in its proper position, and then focused his power on it to heal. It hurt like hell, but it was healing already.
Adrian turned his eyes on the floating Aranis. “Did you just…teleport?”
“You have a lot of power, Adrian, but you know little about how to truly use it. You don’t know half of what is possible.”
“Well, you are covered in dirt, and I see my blasts have singed your badass plates a bit.”
Aranis’s expression darkened for a moment, but then a wave of Sha flashed around him and the dirt disintegrated, and his shoulder repaired itself. Then he laughed. “Even faced with someone who is your superior, you still act with such arrogance.”
“You being ahead just means that I have something to look up to. Something to overcome.”
“And what if I killed you right now?” Aranis asked.
“Let’s not pretend now, Aranis. You are enjoying yourself.”
“I must admit that I am. We have never really unleashed ourselves against someone that could hold their own. Still, you must’ve learned by now that you can’t defeat me.”
“I learned that you can be hurt, and so you can die. And I have a fleet out there fully capable of accomplishing that,” Adrian said. His arm sti
ll hurt like hell, but he got back some feeling in it.
“Sadly, Adrian, I doubt that you will be leaving this system alive. You should’ve accepted running away when I offered.”
“Oh, and why is that?”
Aranis looked over to the sky, then back down on Adrian. “My brother has arrived…and Doranis is far less forgiving than I am.”
Adrian frowned, but then he reached out through the ocean of the Sha, extending his senses as far as they would go—and there, at the far edge of his limit, he saw another power. Another Enlightened. Unlike Aranis, Doranis did nothing to hide what he was.
“Well, that’s not good.”
“Not for you,” Aranis said. “I am sorry, Adrian, but I must end this. It is time that I rejoined my kin.”
Adrian took a deep breath and then released it slowly. “Sorry to disappoint you, Aranis, but I have one last trick to play. One I prepared especially for you—the Enlightened. And I doubt that you are going to like it.”
“I doubt that any of your tricks could pose a serious threat to me,” Aranis said nonchalantly.
“I knew that everything pointed to me not being able to match you. You were older, probably had more knowledge and power. But I had to try, you know, to see exactly how big the gap between us was.”
“And what are you going to do now?”
“Well, not so much a what as a who,” Adrian said.
Aranis frowned at that, and Adrian gathered all of his power and sent it flying toward the sky above him.
“Moirai!” Adrian called.
And a moment later, she answered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Year 714 of the Empire — the containment zone — control system
Doranis sat on board his flagship, the Living-ship Devourer. The call from Aranis had been unexpected, but not unwelcome. Doranis had long argued against them waiting; he did not want to give the races of the galaxy the time to increase their populations and advance their technology. Not that they would be much of a threat either way—he just didn’t want any obstacles. The life in this galaxy was an error, it disrupted the balance, and as such it had to be corrected. The tears had to be closed and the damage repaired. The only way to do that was to pay the price in life.
Even had Doranis cared for them and their lives, it would not change a thing, and so he tried not to think about all of them being living beings. They were their error, and no matter what Aranis and Loranis thought, Doranis understood that it was the Enlightened who would bear the weight of what they had to do.
Even they themselves were something that was not supposed to exist. A mistake had changed them; the life form that they had created, with its highly evolving nature, had merged with them, and in doing so had evolved them far ahead of where they used to be as the People. What they were now was supposed to be the end result of an evolution that should’ve taken a long time. It was what the People would’ve become had they not interfered with their own genetic code. The Enlightened had gained a far greater understanding of what life truly was, and the power that the Enlightened now wielded had never been supposed to be available to all, but only to those who were truly exceptional—the peak examples of evolution and inner strength.
Interference from the People had thrown all of that out of order, upsetting the balance and advancing races far beyond what they had earned, and the end result was their carelessness and ignorance, which was breaking down the walls of their universe. And Doranis would not stand for that to happen.
He stood up and stretched his neck. They would arrive in the system soon enough, and then they would begin. Finally they would break from the containment and announce themselves to the galaxy. Doranis was the one that had created their battle plan. It was meant to create as much chaos and confusion as possible—enough so that no one noticed their real plan.
Hopefully Loranis had finished the last touches on the relays, and the Conduit was operational.
Doranis was thankful that Aranis had finally seen some sense, that there was no more point in waiting. It had been too long already.
Lost in his musings, Doranis suddenly felt a flash of something pass through the Sha, and he knew Ullax Darr was dead. The Enlightened were far more in tune with the Sha and with those who had been of the People. They had felt the deaths of every one of the People that had been left.
For a moment Doranis wondered if perhaps Aranis had killed her, but then dismissed the thought. Aranis would not do such a thing; he was held back too much by his former self. But in truth, Doranis wouldn’t have done it either. Aranis and Loranis had been right when they made the agreement to wait until the last of the People died. They deserved respect for what they represented, the first intelligent race in the galaxy, despite the errors that they had committed.
But now, they were free to act.
Several more minutes passed, and then they finally arrived. Dropping out of the skim and into the control system, Doranis spread his mind through the amplifier and looked at the system through every bioship in his fleet. Immediately he noticed the machine ships, and then a force several times larger sitting at the system’s gas giant.
Through the Sha, Doranis felt Aranis on the planet, and another signature. For a moment he thought that it was Loranis, but then he realized that it felt nothing like her. Whoever that was had the power that only the Enlightened were supposed to possess—and they were fighting Aranis. Doranis frowned at that. There had never been anyone who could stand up to them, and he wondered what exactly had Aranis found on his little trip across the galaxy.
He was sure that he was going to get the answers to that question. But for now, Aranis had called him to complete a task, and Doranis knew that the force in the system was that task. He ordered his ships forward toward them at full speed. The system had a skim-nullifying field deployed, which was bothersome, but it could be dealt with. For now, it suited him for it to stay deployed.
What did intrigue him was the fact that none of the machine fleets had moved since he arrived in system. That was a strange development, and completely contrary to their programming. He wondered what that meant.
But as long as they didn’t bother him, he was not going to attack and provoke them. He had another target.
He turned his attention to the forces around the gas giant. His forces outnumbered theirs, but there were quite a lot of massive vessels in this force. One was even the same size as a World-ship, and even looked a lot like one. The others were smaller, but still outmassed five of his largest ships combined. His first instinct was to dismiss the fleet as inconsequential, but Aranis had told him that it was a threat, and so he would proceed more cautiously.
He had already received communications from them, but he didn’t even bother to listen to them. There was no point. Aranis had told him that they were a threat, and he would deal with them accordingly.
The force had started maneuvering as soon as Doranis had entered the system, and he started sending out orders to his ships. He had brought a force that consisted mainly of lighter units, with a smaller core of larger ones. From the look of things, his larger classes were about equivalent to the second-largest vessels that this force possessed. It was obvious to him that this force was made out of ships from several different races, but their ship sizes were mostly about the same. Still, his smaller core of larger vessels still outnumbered all of the hostile forces. He did not think that he would have any problems.
He ordered his forces forward, keeping his Living-ship back, as there was no need to risk it. He split the force into three formations of about equal strength—around 150,000 ships each—and arranged them in three wall formations, placing them so that each of them formed a corner of a triangle, with one fleet at the bottom and two above it.
The hostile force was split into two formations of about the same size and were speeding toward the second planet, where Aranis currently was. There was also a ship there, one almost as large as a World-ship. Doranis assumed that they had someone on the p
lanet and were moving to the rescue. It was a foolish decision, but then again there wasn’t anywhere else that they could go. Doranis was behind them, and any attempt from them to reach the range where they could activate their hyperspace drives would mean going through him.
Still, they were trapped inside the system, and his ships were faster at sublight. The thing that bothered him was that the machine ships were still just standing there, not moving, even after both of the other forces in the system had started maneuvering. He didn’t want to provoke them for now, as the situation worked in his favor, with their skim nullifiers active, and so he tried to steer his forces as far away from them as possible.
He did the calculations, and his forces would reach his enemy before they reached the planet Aranis was on. Then he would see the mettle of these foes—would they turn and fight, or try to run away?
* * *
Anessa watched the massive force speeding toward her, a force that had another one of the Enlightened on it. She had used the Sha state to scan the force when it had arrived. They now had two Enlightened in the system.
She didn’t know how or why it was here. The containment was supposed to keep them away, but the AI had already done things that it was supposedly not supposed to do, and its ships were not reacting to the Enlightened. She wondered if they had just let this force pass through. She shook her head of those thoughts—she had no time for them.
They had a much larger problem. They couldn’t retreat to the hyperspace barrier as the Enlightened’s forces were in that direction, nor could they outrun them. The Enlightened’s strange ships were faster. Most of the Enlightened’s ships followed the same design: a elongated teardrop with a tail spreading back, with additional four tails trailing back as well. The larger ones had seven tails instead of five and their fronts looked like mushroom heads. They were all organic in appearance, but there were clearly mechanical parts. Every ship had a large ring around its body starting from the point where the tails started to about halfway to the front.