Empire Saga: The Fight for the Paradise, #1
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Empire Saga: The Fight for the Paradise, #1
Copyright 2016 by Lori Beery
Kindle Edition, v2
Personal Journal
I was on the run. This was a deadly game I was playing – a game I was playing not just with my own life – but also with the lives of my unwitting companions. The cost of failure would be high. But, greatness often demanded such a price.
I was guilty of betrayal. If caught, my life, and that of my friends, would be in jeopardy. My only hope was to move as fast and as far as I could. Perhaps, we could reach our destination before my betrayal was discovered. In truth, I didn’t believe I would be so fortunate.
So far, our luck had held. My friends and I had escaped the core of the Imperial worlds by using the Pasang network which facilitated instantaneous site-to-site teleportation. After that, we were forced to travel by more conventional means – specifically a series of passenger transports. Fortunately, we were now traveling on our last vessel.
The ship was named the Paradise. Its final destination was Thendara Station – the last Imperial stronghold on the edge of the frontier. If I was discovered there, it would take three quarters of a cycle for me to be transported back to the Imperial Capital – maybe an entire cycle given the slow rate of communication.
I intended to make good my escape. I intended to be out in the frontier before any orders could possibly come through for my arrest.
That meant I would have to trust a friend to be more loyal to me than to his superiors. He had offered to transport my companions and me to our final destination, a planet called Dinave. Because of this and my own hopeful agenda, I had decided to betray the Emperor of the Rajhian Empire.
Dinave, the third planet in the Altera System, offered my companions and me both a refuge and an opportunity to serve; to use the gifts we had been born with and trained to wield.
It was a remote place located out in the frontier – as far from the Imperial Capital as one could get and still be in the Empire. That alone suited me just fine. But, there was another reason it attracted me. It had been the home of Alton tower and a well-known university.
The tower’s very existence told me that there had once been a Hexator and a Hexacle serving there. My friends and I could fill this role.
My six companions were my hexacle and I was their Hexator. That meant I could link with their minds to accomplish work. Together we could make repairs in hostile environments, like space, without risking lives. We could concentrate minerals closer to the surface for easier mining and minimal ecological impact. Also, we could desalinate sea water for people lacking a fresh water supply. The possibilities were limitless.
As far as the tower, a mystery shrouds the place. History credits Hexator Quentin Zorrell with being the founder of both Alton tower and the university. He was instrumental in uniting the inhabitants of the System.
His university, which welcomed all, became a renowned place of learning for many years. Then, somehow – no record is clear on this – the school and the tower fell into ruin. As for Zorrell, history records nothing beyond the university becoming respected. What happened? What caused it all to fall into ruin? What became of Hexator Zorrell? I wanted answers.
In truth, I wanted more than answers. I craved a place to belong and be useful – to finely get to use the training I had received. I desired a chance to practice, grow, and develop my abilities as well as those of my hexacle.
The most likely place to achieve all of this was on Dinave… as the new Hexator and Hexacle.
~~~
Chapter 1
The door to our suite swished opened. I looked up to see my Hexacle troop in. They had returned from exploring the Paradise. And right then, they were involved in a mental conversation; I only heard and saw their movements.
Beltrain entered first. He looked very professional. His black hair, mustache, and beard were neatly trimmed. He was dressed in black trousers and coordinated dress shirt. Right behind him came Jacarr, whose blonde hair fell to his jawline. He had no facial hair and was attired in causal knee-length pants and short sleeved pull-on shirt. Next was KwinJai. He had black hair almost to his shoulders which he had pulled back into a queue. His skin was brown, his eyes amber. He wore long pants that touched the top of his shoes. His shirt was the same type as Jacarr’s. Following him were Marleah and Lucera. Marleah’s straight black hair framed her oval face and cascaded down past her shoulder blades. Her eyes were almond shaped and tipped up toward her temples. The pupils were a beautiful violet. She was wearing loose fitting long pants and a sleeveless shirt. Lucera was the youngest of them. She was slender with a long, blonde braid trailing down her back. She was dressed in a knee-length skirt and short sleeved pull-on top. Bringing up the rear was Dulain. Though his hair was gray, he wasn’t an old man. His face and stature were that of a man in his prime. One could be forgiven for not noticing him at first because of his bland appearance. But meet his gaze and there would be plenty of second glances. Dulain’s drab appearance made his striking green eyes all the more dazzling. I’ve often wondered if his race dressed so plainly just to get a kick out of watching people’s expressions as they did a double take.
Beltrain turned toward the door and the others stopped in a bunch in front of him. I was struck with an image of Beltrain as the teacher and the rest of them as his students. They had just returned from a field trip and were going over their impressions of said excursion. The picture made me smile. They hadn’t noticed me yet, which made my smile widen. I rose and approached them.
“What did you discover?” I asked, deliberately speaking aloud. They all started, surprised, and turned to me with varying degrees of guilt. I had requested we start practicing verbal communication so that when we arrived on Dinave we would be proficient. Converting thought into speech and waiting for others to create sounds was a slow process. It was a necessity because the people on Dinave used verbal communication and our preferred mind-speech might be traumatic for them.
“Nothing new,” Jacarr spoke up. “It’s a good thing we watched the new vids while we were aboard the first ship. There isn’t anything newer than a decade old aboard the Paradise.”
“That is true. However, there are vids that were around before you youngsters were interested in vids. Those would be ‘new’ to you,” remarked Beltrain.
Jacarr creased his brow and turned his brown eyes to Beltrain. “Are those vids even in holographic form?”
Beltrain smiled and shook his head. “That is why we were directed to the library if we wanted to browse their selection.”
Jacarr rolled his eyes. Marleah laid a hand on his arm in a calming gesture. She then turned to me and extended her hand with a vid tube in it. “I found this,” she said smiling.
I took the tube. It was labeled Zorrell University, Altera System. I raised an eyebrow and smiled at her. “An unexpected treasure,” I responded. Shifting my sapphire blue gaze to take in the entire group, I asked “Shall we take a look?”
We moved further into the suite.
“Would you do the honors?” I asked as I handed the tube back to Marleah. She nodded and proceeded to the vid apparatus. She inserted the tube and selected ‘floor display.’ Instantly, a campus materialized in a 1.5 meter radius of the player. There were eight buildings that were arranged in a roughly heptagonal shape. All were built of stone and capped with crystal roofs, a Kateryn architectural preference.
The back edifice was clearly Alton Tower. It was a circular tower about ten meters in diameter and rising thirty meters high. The base had a single wing that extended some twenty meters to the right with a height of ten meters. It looked taller due to being
built on a terrace above the gently rolling hills surrounding the other buildings.
A figured exited the front middle building. As he did, the view closed in on him. He was tall with short, dark, curly hair. His eyes were a deep blue and his face was angular and pleasant. He wore Hexator purple robes, the long sleeved and hem-touching-the-ground type. He smiled and spread his arms wide.
“Welcome!” he said in a pleasant tenor. “I am Hexator Quinten Zorrell. This is Zorrell University!” he said grandly sweeping his hand to indicate the buildings behind him. “This school is open to all who pass the entrance exams. These exams are designed to test three main areas: basic knowledge, social interaction, and psi-ability.”
He went on to explain that of the three, psi-ability was not mandatory. If a student possessed it, he or she would be trained to use it. If he or she didn’t have it, technology could be used to enable the student to mimic it. It depended on the students aspirations.
Hexator Zorrell then took us on a tour of the campus. We visited dorms, classrooms, workshops, and laboratories. The dorms were furnished suites. The classrooms were well designed. The workshops and labs seemed to be state of the art, which was quite a feat since the University had been established 200 cycles ago. Sadly, we didn’t get to see inside Alton Tower.
The vid ended with Hexator Zorrell entering the building he had exited in the beginning. The view returned to include all the buildings.
“So, who would like to attend Zorrell University?” asked Dulain. There was a chorus of “I would” and “me”.
“That was a very effective advertisement!” announced Jacarr with a chuckle. The rest of us had to agree.
“Marleah, see if you can find when this vid was made,” I requested. Of us, she was closest to the player.
After a few moments, she exclaimed triumphantly, “I found it! 18253 IC”!
“That’s three years after it was founded,” reported Beltrain.
“Let’s compare this map to the newest one we have,” I suggested. “I want to check the position of the tower in relation to the rest of the reserve. KwinJai, would you fetch the file?”
KwinJai returned with the file crystal and held it aloft.
“Would you like to continue?” I asked.
He nodded and nudged the crystal onto his palm. His eyes became unfocused and the crystal began to glimmer. Then, a map shimmered into existence above the vid player’s image. KwinJai expanded it and positioned it so the towers were aligned. He then set our map on top of the image.
According to our map, the University was gone. There were no ruins except for the tower itself. There was no sign that the other seven buildings had ever stood there at all. The land seemed to slope more gradually up to the tower. It was doubtful that natural processes in the time that elapsed could have changed the landscape so much. The mystery grew.
“What happened to it?” Lucera asked frowning.
“That’s the question,” I replied. “I couldn’t find anything beyond the University becoming well-known. Nor could I find out what happened to Zorrell. There is very little in the Imperial Archives or in the Hexator Records.”
“Perhaps we could find something more in the library here or on Thendara Station,” suggested Marleah. “Maybe the people of Dinave will know more.”
“We can hope,” I stated with a smile at Marleah. Inwardly, I groaned. I ran a hand through my short-cropped raven curls, then dropped my hand to my side. The Hexator Complex should have had detailed reports up until whatever transpired occurred. I had found a wealth of information covering the first one hundred twenty seven cycles. After that, the reports had become more and more sporadic until there was nothing but silence for the last sixty three cycles. Surprisingly, I discovered no evidence that any kind of investigation was ever launched. Mystifying! Keeping my frustration to myself, I turned to KwinJai.
“Please mark the location of the University on our map,” I requested. “Then lift it above the vid image and shrink it to show all the reserve.” KwinJai did as I asked.
The reserve had a polygonal shape and contained 69,624,100 hectares. The terrain ranged from rolling hills and plains to soaring mountains. The reserve was well-watered with several lakes and rivers. It looked like one of the rivers spread into a large marsh that lay across the western boundary. The University’s seven buildings and its surrounding land had occupied a mere 40.47 hectares in the southwestern most portion of the reserve. There appeared to be no sign of any other structures.
“Please remind me why we are interested in this tract of land,” said Lucera into the quiet.
I looked over at her with a smile. “We are interested in this land because it is an Imperial Reserve. It is not owned by any of the peoples living on Dinave. As such, we will not be subject to their authority.”
“We will be able to serve all the peoples. We won’t be expected to prioritize our host nation even though a different people has a greater need,” supplied Beltrain.
“Oh. But it looks so inhospitable,” she said disheartened.
“Inhospitable or uncivilized since there are no other buildings?” asked Jacarr.
“Both, maybe. It’s just so very different. I was kind of hoping for something familiar,” she whispered.
“It is very different than Cassyndryl. But, once the Tower is restored, it will be a little more familiar. Our adventure is only just beginning,” I said gently.
“I know,” she said. “I just have never been to another world. And I’m a little nervous and scared. … And – I’m excited to actually stand on it.”
“Such a jumble of emotions and thoughts,” smirked Jacarr. “Welcome to the state of confusion that we all share”.
“Really, you all feel this way too?” Lucera asked. We all nodded. She smiled as she took it in. Then, she looked at me.
“You feel this way?” she asked surprised.
“I do. I am excited about going to Dinave. I really want to restore Alton Tower and serve there as Hexator with all of you as my Hexacle. On the other hand, I am disturbed that we don’t know what happened to the Tower, the University, or Hexator Zorrell. And I am scared because I don’t know what to expect or what dangers we will face.”
“You don’t act like you feel like that,” she accused.
I dropped my gaze, silently chuckling. I smiled as I met her blue eyes. “I think that we are all well-trained and ready for this adventure. We are as prepared as we can be. We will continue to learn all we can. And we will use our abilities to serve others in a way that preserves life and causes minimal impact to the environment.”
Heartened, she returned my smile. “So, what else can this map tell us?” she asked.
“Do we know when or by whom the map was made?” asked Dulain.
“The cartographer is a company. The name is Hubble Maps,” said KwinJai. “… And the date is 18388 IC.”
“Wait, it’s what?” I asked. KwinJai repeated the date for me. I turned to Beltrain. I saw and felt his disbelief. “When was the last report from Zorrell on file at the Hexator complex?” I asked him.
With brow furrowed in confusion, Beltrain responded, “It was 18387 IC. There was no mention of anything out of the ordinary.”
“How could the University be wiped from the surface, the Tower become a ruin, and the landscape seem green and healthy in only one cycle?” questioned Marleah.
“That’s just it; it shouldn’t be possible,” replied Beltrain. “Something is definitely off.”
“Could it be the cycle count is not IC?” asked Dulain.
“It is labeled IC here on the file and map,” stated KwinJai.
I swept my gaze around at my Hexacle. KwinJai now stood closest to the vid player. “Let’s simplify things a little. KwinJai would you please remove the vid image?” I asked. The Zorrell image disappeared. “Let’s assume, for whatever reason, this map has been altered. How would we know?”
“Perhaps, we could see some sort of distortion around the buildings … o
r the date,” suggested Marleah.
“A distortion?” asked Lucera.
Marleah nodded and explained, “The distortion would look blurry or unclear. Such an imprecise area might indicate the section had been recorded over. ”
“It’s a start,” I replied. “Let’s make a copy of the map first.”
KwinJai nodded. After a pause, a second, identical, map floated over the first.
“Good,” I said smiling. Looking at KwinJai, I continued, “Go ahead and save the copy to the crystal. Dulain, verify.”
“Done,” stated KwinJai after a moment’s delay.
“Verified,” responded Dulain following a very short pause.
“Let’s expand the section containing the University. Make it as big as the vid image was,” I said. When the map was enlarged to my specifications, we spaced ourselves evenly around it. “Ok, let’s look for blurriness.”
Each of us bent to the task. We expanded the entire perimeter of the University trying to find blurriness. Failing to discovery any, we worked our way from the center of the University out past the buildings until we reached a radius that equaled 90 km on the map scale. There was no sign of distortion.
“It’s all crystal clear,” reported Jacarr.
“Let’s do the same to the date and company name section,” suggested Marleah.
We repositioned the map and began magnifying the area of interest.
“Well, look at that!” exclaimed Dulain. “There is a blurry halo around the date. The company name, however, is clear.”
“KwinJai, do you still have that mirrored strip?” I asked looking up at him.
“Yes,” he answered uncertainly. “I will go fetch it.”
“Thank you,” I said smiling. He returned and handed it to me.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Watch,” I replied. Slowly, I slid the mirror into the ‘blurry halo’ closest to me. As I pressed the mirror into the map at a 45` angle, the distortion was deflected. Sliding the mirror away from me while slowly decreasing the angle of it to the light, revealed a different date. It was 18420 IC. I stood up, puzzled.