by Dave Walsh
The diagnostic had finished running, showing that everything was running fine and that he probably didn’t need to run another diagnostic for at least a month or so, but he’d continue his nightly ritual to remind himself that he was not only alive but also part machine. The whole process kept him grounded. At least that was what he told himself, although he suspected it was more a matter of trust after all these cycles. He knew he could trust his own body, but the augmentations weren’t his body, they were just mechanical imitations. At least he wasn’t Krigan, though. The Krigans despised the idea of the augmentations, even if they were getting along and had supposedly put aside their differences.
O’Neil methodically placed all the equipment back into the case, sealed it and placed it back on the bookshelf. He took a long look around his study and felt very alone inside his cold secure wing of the palace, where no one dared to enter. For cycles he had been the man trying to hold the realm together in secret, but it had led to many things simply passing him by, and now he stood there an old man with no one left to talk to. He let out a sigh and tapped in a few commands at the console on his desk, pulling up a link to Jack. Of course, his old first mate didn’t answer; it was late, probably even later on Andal-3 where Jack lived.
“Hey Jack.” He settled into his hard oak chair, trying not to look too haggard. “Hope that everything is going well for you and Hideo out there on Andal-3. I just wanted to check in, although it’s pretty late here and I have no clue what time it is over there, but just get back to me when you can. I’d love to meet up next time you are back on Andlios. Keep me posted.”
The transmission cut off and he let out a forlorn sigh. Letting Jack go was difficult, but a man of his skills was needed elsewhere and could make a better living for himself off-planet. O’Neil knew it was best for Jack and Hideo, but they were his only real links left to the world outside the palace and he was beginning to wonder how much of his artificially-extended life would be spent as a lonely old man. Katrijn had been reported dead four days ago now at this point, but she had been in some tight jams before, so chances were that she had made it out somehow. At least he hoped so. O’Neil decided to reach out to his man on Cyngen again, just because.
“Well if it isn’t the Old Man.” The man was beaming a wide smile, but O’Neil could tell he had woken him up. Loren was always smiling, even when the world was falling apart around him, that’s just how he was. The room he was in was a clean polished white, a stark contrast to his dark skin and his neatly-buzzed hair. “What can I do for you at this ungodly hour?”
“Ungodly hour?” O’Neil scoffed, rolling with the pleasantries because he had really just been looking for someone to talk to. “It’s what, 9 in the morning there?”
“So, it’s past 3 in the morning back in Krigar, is it not?”
“You have a point, but since when are you concerned about my well-being, Loren?” Loren was originally a soldier, one who Jack decided needed some help with his return to his civilian life, which led to Loren being under the employment of one of the most powerful men in the Andlios Republic. Men with skills such as Loren’s couldn’t do much else in the world outside of service, so working as his agent seemed to fit him just fine, especially somewhere as remote as Cyngen. As much as Cyngen was technically a part of the Republic, it was so far from the reach of the emperor that things tended to slip out there and O’Neil needed to be aware. He had contacts like Loren all over the Republic, even on the fringes.
“Someone has to worry about the Old Man, don’t they?” His smile only broadened.
“You know I hate that name, Loren.” He shook his head, doing his best to avoid looking embarrassed. He had somewhere along the line earned the moniker of “the Old Man” to everyone, the name somehow indicative of the widely held opinion that he was some shadowy figure really making the decisions. He never bothered correcting anyone either, feeling that it was best to let people believe in their boogeyman. Image was valuable, especially in such troubled times.
“Well, we both know that there is some truth to it, right? You are the most powerful man in all of the Andlios Republic, Peter.”
“Then why can’t I keep track of one girl?” He deftly steered the conversation on-topic, knowing that Loren could talk about nothing for a very, very long time. That was part of what made him so endearing.
“Of course, I don’t just get a call from Peter O’Neil out of the blue now do I?” Loren said. “Nobody worries about Loren, do they? Busting his ass out here.”
“Loren, cut it out.” His tone took a turn for the serious. “There was a report that her ship got blown up, you’ve had no communications at all? I mean, she missed the rendezvous, but…”
“Oh, she missed it alright,” he said. “Look, man, I’ve been keeping an eye out, but I think your girl is gone, Old Man.”
“Keep looking. Check any transports or cargo ships from the last few days, maybe she was able to get out before her ship went down. She’s a smart one, Loren.”
“I’m sure she is, Old Man,” Loren said. “But tell me, Peter, what is it about this one? Why is she so special?”
“I made a promise to an old friend that I’d look after her.” He paused for a second, taking a few deep breaths. “I keep my promises, you know that. This one doesn’t make it easy, that’s for sure.”
“If you can’t keep track of her…” he let his thought trail off, the silence growing between them. “Well, I’ll run some checks, alright? I’ll let you know if something comes up.”
“Thanks, Loren,” he said, the image blinking away.
O’Neil sat in the silence and darkness for what felt like hours, simply staring off into space, picking at his fingernails absently just to keep his mind busy. Katrijn was always the ace up his sleeve, but she was also just about the only play he had left in him when it came to trying to correct the course of the Andlios Republic. Without her, there wasn’t much hope left to dispose of Cronus and attempt to fix things.
The Republic in its current state was a disaster. Cronus’s excesses had led to a divide between the people and the ruling class that was worse than O’Neil could have ever feared. There were talks of the fringe planets breaking off from the Republic and things on Andlios were bleak, to say the least. Katrijn had to leave for her own good, they both knew that. Jonah had plans, but he somehow didn’t plan for his own son to end his life. They had all feared Cronus but never thought he’d go that far that young. They were wrong, though. Power was dangled in front of his face and pulled away from him one too many times, so he took his destiny into his own hands. O’Neil couldn’t blame him, really, but it still led to the death of his good friend, which he would never be able to forgive.
O’Neil’s garden was beckoning to him, even though it was late at night. Some things had changed since his time as the captain of the Omega Destiny, but his garden was still all he had that really felt like his own. Some of the plants were directly transplanted from his garden on the Omega Destiny, meaning that a part of Earth was thriving on Andlios. Of course, there were plants from Earth all over Andlios now, but his felt different, they felt special.
The garden had been tended to earlier in the day, but the air outside was cool and felt soothing after all the worrying he had been doing over the previous few days. He sat down on the bench overlooking his garden and stared up at the stars, feeling pangs of guilt that he ever got off the Omega Destiny. He had a good life up there, even if there were some bumps along the way. He had a wife, he was the captain and he had his garden. Things could have worked out for him up there, but somehow he got infected by Jonah’s fervor. He didn’t regret his decisions, but his life could have turned out a lot differently. O’Neil had made a few visits to Speera, which was a city built mostly from the broken-off modules that were the Omega Destiny, where he had spent a good deal of time before moving to Krigar, but it wasn’t his home anymore, just an ever-fading memory.
His mind jogged back to Dr. Susan Brandis. At first, he had k
ept track of her, but she made it clear to him that she wanted nothing to do with him and that she had moved on. She was the science officer aboard the Omega Destiny and had fallen for him. He had fallen for her as well, but he was worried about duty and honor first, inadvertently stringing her along for a long time before he finally divorced his wife. Ruining things with her hurt, he couldn’t lie. He had never tried to hurt her but knew deep down that he had never truly opened himself up to her fully, that he never gave back what she gave to him. It hurt to know that he had wronged someone who was so important to him. Hopefully she was happy now, wherever she was. O’Neil made it a point to not look her up, even though on nights like this he wanted nothing more than to be able to talk to her.
A jolt hit him as he looked down at the holoscanner next to him to see that Kara was calling him. It wouldn’t be good, especially not at that hour. “Your Majesty,” he answered, the image of her looking flustered appeared in front of him. She looked exhausted, but clearly, something was bothering her.
“Peter.” She looked like she had seen a ghost. “I’m at the door to your wing, please let me in.”
“Dammit,” he said, picking himself up. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Cronus,” she whispered. “He’s gone mad. Just…let me in, please.”
“Okay,” he collected himself, pocketing his holoscanner and taking a deep breath. What could it be now?
006. The Grand Illusion
Alva
Sweat was dripping down Alva’s face and all of her muscles were aching while she collapsed to her knees in the middle of the training field, fighting to catch her breath. Trallex stood motionless in the corner, arms crossed. She imagined if she could see his face she’d see a disapproving look. For a brief moment, she imagined the look on her father’s face whenever she’d fail to live up to his expectations of her and she immediately wondered how he’d feel about his daughter augmented so heavily and becoming more Cydonian than Krigan. It was most likely better that she couldn’t see Trallex’s expression, she supposed.
She was still Krigan, though, she reminded herself while she pushed herself back up to her feet. A Krigan could face down any situation and do it with honor, which was what she had to do. She couldn’t let Trallex break her. “Again,” his voice hissed out from his mask, echoing through the large room. “Try it again.”
“Okay,” she said, concentrating on the chair across from her and imagining it transporting to her. The key was relaxing, he had drilled into her, but it was hard to be anything but frustrated when it simply wouldn’t work. “I mean, is this not working because you know the trick?”
“It’s not a trick,” he said. “That is your problem—you do not believe. This is about belief, Alva. This is about you believing that you moved the chair. This is not magic, this is science.”
“I know,” she said, more frustrated with herself than the same line of pedantic reasoning. The idea was to manipulate the gravitational field around the chair with the augmentations in her right arm. There was a disruptor module installed in her. None of this was magic, though, it was all about simply dragging it to her while mentally transmitting the idea that it was floating. The module worked on any mind—Cydonian, Krigan, Earther, Zarr’nid or Helgean.
Of course, she didn’t even need to worry about the mental transmissions yet; her main concern was using the disruptor and dragging the chair to her using what felt like arcane magic. She still had a hard time believing that it was, in fact, something a human being was capable of doing, even with the technology they had. They had the ability to move faster than light and the ability to beam matter across moderate distances, but somehow the idea of disrupting a gravitational field with her mind and a few gizmos felt wrong to her.
“Try again.” Trallex casually walked toward her, hands clenched behind his back. “Try again.”
“I am.” Her hand was pointed at the chair and she imagined a field covering the base of the chair legs, traveling up it until she was in firm control of it. Alva imagined feeling like she held the chair in the palm of her hand, being able to tug it toward her. She gave it a tug and the chair started to budge. Slowly at first, but she heard the legs scrape against the floor.
“Good.” His voice remained calm and even. “Now focus.”
She simply nodded to acknowledge him, imagining her grip unwavering on the chair and tugged again, and this time it moved a centimeter toward her, which made her jump back, losing her focus. She gnashed her teeth, focusing again and feeling the chair in her hand only for the thought to slip from her mind, the chair freezing in place.
“No no no. You must not lose focus, Princess Alva.”
“I couldn’t help it.” She took a deep breath, wiping more sweat from her brow. “But I moved it, did you see that? I actually moved it!” It was difficult for her not to feel proud; how many non-Cydonians had ever accomplished such a feat, she wondered.
“So you did,” he said, spinning on his heel away from her. “So you did, but you have much to learn yet.” Trallex’s voice trailed off while he walked toward the door, motioning violently with his hand to open it, the door flying open before he walked out of the room without another word.
Alva collapsed onto her knees again in frustration, balling up her fist and wanting to smash it into the ground, but held back. The last thing she needed was to hurt herself and show Trallex that he was getting the better of her. That was the Krigan in her, she figured—not wanting to show weakness of any kind to an outsider, especially a Cydonian. Tears were clouding her vision, but she focused to keep the tears from exploding onto her face.
“Princess Alva,” a voice came from the doorway. Alva looked up and saw Trella standing in the doorway with a towel in hand. “Trallex told me you were done training for the day.”
“Oh, right.” She couldn’t help but smile at Trella standing there. “You don’t have to always wait on me like this, you know that, right?”
“I know,” Trella’s voice buzzed through her mask, but it was still soothing. “But I choose to.”
“Sure you do.” Alva threw her a wry smile while she walked over to Trella and took the towel from her hand, nodding at her before wiping off her face. “I kind of want to get out of here for a bit, go for a walk or something, get some food. Want to come with me?”
“You know that we don’t really get our nutrition from eating solid food, Princess Alva, but…”
“Oh, I know that,” she said, quickly stepping into the shower and stripping off her soaking wet clothing, tossing them aside into a heap. “I mean, just come with me, most of the restaurants out there have their own brands of special protein packs.”
She stood in the shower, only taking a brief rinse knowing that she could stay in there for at least an hour, but she knew Trella was probably stressing out about her proposed trip out. Cydonians were almost agoraphobic sometimes with how little they ventured much further than their immediate surroundings. They didn’t need to with how they communicated with each other and how most of their work was automated. The thought of that being an option for Alva still kind of amazed her. If she chose to, she too could live like that, but she still held onto her humanity as much as she could.
“So how about it?” She stepped out from the shower with a towel wrapped around her, her hair dripping down her back. “You want to go or what?”
“Yes, Princess Alva,” she said. If her voice could sound uncertain, the tone that she had would probably be it. “I would be delighted to go with you.”
“No, you wouldn’t. And you know you don’t have to call me ‘Princess’ all the time, I’ve told you that so many times. You are the closest thing I have to a friend on this planet, Trella.”
“Oh, Princess Alva…”
“Alva,” she corrected her from the other room, quickly getting dressed into a shirt and a pair of pants with her favorite Krigan boots that she had found in one of the local shops.
“Yes,” she said.
It felt good
to be out in the cool, humid air of the caverns of Cyngen. They took a transport to the Seventh District, where most of the non-Cydonians were and walked among what were the brave few who felt like breaking away from Andlios. The area wasn’t actually called the Seventh District, it was just the name the human population had given it, seeing as though the Cydonians took little interest in assigning titles to where they lived. Cyngen was still a part of the Andlios Republic, but the influence of Andlios was very loose on Cyngen. At least that is what Alva had gathered in her years on the planet. She saw very little Krigan influence and everyone had spoken so poorly of Emperor Cronus Freeman.
The idea that Ingen’s son was such a monster was still difficult for Alva to process, but that made Cronus an extended member of her family with Ingen being like a brother to her and all. She knew that someday she would cross paths with Cronus Freeman—Trallex told her it was her destiny—but she tried not to think about her destiny. The thought of what she might have to do to the blood of Ingen kept her up at night, even though it was never explicitly stated that she was to kill him. Trella walked silently next to her and if she was upset she was so used to containing her emotions that it didn’t show, but her body language showed that she wasn’t entirely comfortable.
“I know you don’t always enjoy this, Trella.” Alva turned and smiled at the Cydonian. “But it means a lot to me. I needed to get out of there and get some air.”
“I understand…Alva,” Alva noted the brief pause, but it still made her smile to herself. “How is your training coming along?”