by Sam Sea
Ch
apter 24 – Farewell
When Mikka woke up again, she found herself in one of the rooms in the monastery. Derran was there by the window, looking outside. At what exactly, Mikka could not tell.
“Are Silent and Les all right?” she asked instantly.
“Yes, they are both fine… Les is still sleeping, but Silent is eager to see you.”
“The rest?”
“Ronnich has lost a lot of blood, but he will be fine too, and the villagers have started to arrive… It will be an effort to see them all settle…”
Mikka laid on her back, and closed her eyes again. She almost felt like she could relax. And even though her whole body echoed with pain, she felt good.
Derran, still staring through the window, cleared his throat a few times.
"You know very little about me..." the old man voice came slow and sad, almost apologetic. Some vibe in it made Mikka tense.
"Yeah, I figured that out by now.”
“A long time ago, before I met you at that abbey, I was a head of the ECI program."
Mikka seemed like a bullet hit her. But her mouth only tensed down and no words came out of it.
"I was there from the start, for two hundred years… The program was meant to do good, but then… With years I got discouraged, disillusioned, and after… certain things happened, I left. That was about twenty years ago. I moved to a distant planet, and cut off all connection to the outside world. As you know, a few years later I met you, in a convent... you remember... where I took the cheese of my goat to sell to the monks.
“But then, I do not know how, they found me ten years back. It was not an ECI, it was somebody else... He asked for my help... It seems they intercepted a communication coming to the Capital. It came from unknown origin, the communication originated in space where no planets were know. So I helped them. We deciphered the communication and we found it very disturbing……”
"What was the communication about?"
"Among other things, it talked about gates that lead to the outside universe. It seemed some people believed that not all gates to the outside were destroyed, that there existed at least one more gateway to the outside. You know what that could mean?"
"Yes, but if that is truth, why try to hide it?"
"Exactly. Unless you want to use it for some sinister purpose, so it seemed. If they tried to reactivate the gate not for scientific and exploratory purposed, we of course would not have a problem. But, whoever controls the location of the gateway, controls it for the reasons and motives that are far sinister... It talked about all the power they could enjoy if they could control the gateway. They talked about creating an army of creatures, strong enough to overtake the entire empire. Do you understand what that would mean?"
"Yes... the war, the colossal war."
"That's right, the total war.. And hundreds of billions of people would be at risk. Everyone, everywhere. All life. Every planet. Can you imagine that?"
"So you decided to step in and got involved?"
"That's right."
"And?"
"I still cannot know the exact location of this gateway... But it was said to be on this planet. That is why I came here…" Derran turned away from the window and looked at Mikka. “Two other agents I sent to investigate this had all mysteriously disappeared, my contacts in ECI seemed to be systematically eliminated… It seems everyone related to this project has been hunted down and killed. I did not want to risk anyone else. So I came…”
Mikka didn’t like that look.
“I need to find who is behind all of these… I have no doubt it is the same group that is behind everything. And I need to find that gateway. And I need your help.”
“You always say that. But, I am so tired.”
“When you go out there to the Capital-“
"You mean, now you want me to become your ECI?"
"I do not care about titles… But I can give you power to go and see the emperor himself… And…”
“Why don’t you go instead?” The idea made the most sense to Mikka.
“You know I cannot…”
“Why not?” Mikka insisted, fearing the answer.
“You’ve seen these people… I cannot abandon them now… They are like little children. If I leave them for five minutes, who knows what disaster is going to befall on them.”
“But, you’re getting old… too old. And you know if you do not get to the Capital in the next few years, you will die…”
“I know. But if I leave now, millions will probably die. Maybe much more than that. I cannot live with myself knowing that…”
“And there is no way to find where this gateway may be right now?”
"I have been trying to do that. But in the last ten years, I got nowhere with it. The gateway to the wormhole might be not in space or in open site at all. It could be anywhere, hidden, could be right underneath my feet. But it is cloaked so well that we cannot detect it. I guess who ever hid it did it fully understanding what kind of equipment we could use to detect it. There was a reason behind that…"
"And now, who ever finds it first…”
“Yes. Hopefully it will be us. Because if it is not…They would take this planet over completely, use it to serve them as a base, as a starting point to attack the entire empire. They could destroy everything.”
“I was better off not knowing any of this.”
“I know. But now that you do, you cannot run away from it.”
“I thought I could get some rest, a few years at least.”
Derran chuckled quietly looking at her. “Not even when you get old, old like me…”
“And you are sure they did not find the gateway already?”
“I am constantly afraid of that, but I think they had not… not yet at least. For we would see creatures here that surpass our wildest fears.”
“Besides talking to the emperor, what do you want me to do?"
"Find records of old, the ones that only a few have authority to see, that talk about other empire in its beginning and how the galaxy existed before it was even formed.”
Mikka thought about it for a while before she asked another question. “Why would anybody want to do this? Bother with us… we know there are millions of other systems, other empires out there. Why bother to fight for the power here?””
“Our system might be small. But we still are very rich... And we still have something that humans have been craving for as long as they have become conscious of their own existences.”
"Immortality..." Mikka whispered the answer.
"Yes... We know we achieved that only during the last three thousand years. So, everyone outside our realm might still be only dreaming about it . And that changes a lot of things…”
Derran pulled his hand in a pocket and took out an ordinary golden ring, showing it to Mikka who was not able to guess what it was all about. “A long time ago, I was approached by these group of people... They called themselves Cosmic Justice League, and they were bound by the code, working togehter to protect life and do whatever it takes to bring justice to the empire. I do not know how many of them are still around, but... take this ring...” He offered it to Mikka who took it in her palm, yet unsure what to do with it.
“It was already programmed to work with your DNA, and I haave already put your file into the system... Don’t worry, it will embed into your finger...”
As Mikka put it on her index finger, the ring instantly melted into her finger, leaving only a thin circling tattoo of a golden color. Mikka gave him inquisitive and distrusting look. “I cannot even feel it.”
“It’s because it is not really made of gold, just made it look like that as a decoy. It’s biological in nature and among other things, it will serve as your agent id... just tap it and move it around...”
As Mikka did that, the circles on her fingers came to life and a Emperor’s golden seal holo-casted itself right above her pawn.
“This way, you are ab
ove the law now... all your past sins are washed away. You are now above any prosecution and can go anywhere you want to. You are now golden ECI and have authority to do whatever it takes to finish this job. And you report only to me. But remember, to control your anger. Your training is not yet finished... Remember what that means...”
The knock on the door interrupted them as Silent without waiting for an answer had burst in.
“I heard voices, so I knew you were up…” she said as she ran and hugged Mikka.
Mikka held her for a long while, and when she pulled away moment later, both of them had tears to wipe.
Mikka stared at her for a long time before asking Derran, “So then, when do I leave?”
The End of Part 1
Thank you for reading this prequel to Cosmic Justice League series.
Hope you enjoyed it as much as the author had writing it. Your review and remarks are always greatly appreciated.
Subscribe to author's monthly newsletter to be notified of new releases as well as the regularly scheduled discounts -> link
About the Author
Sam Sea is an author who takes interstellar trips and travels through the stars and distant galaxies and from time to time remembers to write about it all.
He equally likes to mingle with emperors of galaxies, with space pirates that raid them, with deadly assassins whose looks can kill as well as their guns, and with beings that never need to grow old.
He’d like to use this chance to apologize if his writing can sometimes seem rough and not well refine. Bit in his own words, he would like to say: “So many things to see, so many beings to meet, and so little time to put it all down…”