Date Point: 3Y 9M 5D AV
Spot, landed in wilderness on Perfection
Adrian Saunders
“Nothing.”
Looking up from his own console, Adrian raised his eyebrow at the little Corti’s report and wondered if he was just messing with him. “You’re fucking joking? I blew up a planet… I created a huge fucking black hole and probably annihilated an entire star system. That’s the sort of shit that gets some attention, but you’re telling me there’s nothing?”
“I don’t think you understand,” Askit replied, scowling slightly at the assertion he’d been inventing his report. “There’s nothing on Hravin. No record of it. There’s no news on Hravin precisely because according to every source outside of this ship there is no Hravin!”
Adrian blinked, trying to make sense of what he’d just been told. “Sorry, but… what?”
“It’s gone, Adrian,” Askit replied. “Trust me when I say I find it even stranger than you do, because I know just how thoroughly every mention of it has been expunged.”
Shaking his head at his continued inability to understand what was going on, Adrian reclined into his seat and stared at his Corti companion. “I don’t understand. How is that even possible?”
“Perhaps it was your Hierarchy?” Xayn suggested. “Though I am not sure how they would benefit.”
“They wouldn’t,” Adrian replied. “They’d benefit more from exposing it and garnering public support for destroying Earth altogether. That was why I asked Askit to trawl for any information in the first place.”
“It’s not possible, but just to be sure I’ve checked about fifty randomly selected navigational systems on the planet,” Askit explained. “None of them have Hravin listed. There are also no celestial objects at its location.”
“What about what Xayn said?” Adrian asked. “Something to do with the Hierarchy, or even someone else?”
“I considered it and checked,” Askit replied. “A lot of those systems haven’t received an update in… ever. The Hierarchy might be dangerous, but are they so competent and pervasive that they could have already changed everything everywhere and covered their own tracks? Having seen them at work I doubt it.”
“The navigational reference still exists in our listing,” Trix helpfully reported. “I took the liberty of cross-referencing the coordinates with the planetary database, and discovered that—”
“The only thing shown for that area is a nebula with an unusual density of exotic sub-atomic particles,” Askit finished, interrupting her. “I was getting to that. I will also note that I’ve contacted some researchers whose names we pulled from the research station’s databanks and they didn’t recognise what I was talking about.”
“Okay…” Adrian began, his frown deepening as his sense of impending trouble rose. “Are you telling me that I’ve not only destroyed a star system but that I’ve entirely erased it from reality? Because that sounds really fucking bad, even to me.”
“That does seem to be the case,” Trix replied, and Askit nodded in agreement. Both of them seemed about as worried as Adrian felt, which at least meant that there were roots to his suspicion of having lost control of the situation.
“Fuck,” Adrian breathed. “We can’t tell anybody about this. Ever.”
“Oh really?” Askit asked with heavy sarcasm. “Surely we want everyone to know that you have the ability to completely and permanently erase them and everyone they care about from time!? That will certainly make our lives easier.”
“Whatever they’ve thought of you so far,” Trix replied in a more measured tone, “that sort of information would turn you and the human race into a threat that would need to be eliminated.”
“That doesn’t explain why we still remember anything,” Adrian noted; he could deal with the possibilities of messing around with the timeline so long as it made some sort of logical sense. “Was it just because we were there? Or because I caused it? Has anything else changed as a result of this?”
“Impossible to know,” said Askit. “Wouldn’t know where to start looking, and I don’t have the original information to cross reference absolutely everything that is known to find whatever has changed.”
“An update to the navigational system indicates that there is a minor offset in stellar coordinates,” Trix reported. “I would imagine this indicates that it has always been gone, and I suspect it might have something to do with the matter/anti-matter mix burning away the singularity from within. As to why we can remember, it seems likely to have something to do with our proximity, and maybe the use of warp and gravity spikes… I’m unfamiliar with the non-existent science on changes to history, so I don’t care to hazard a guess.”
Chuckling in black mirth, a deep and throaty sound, Xayn clapped together his hands in the way he’d seen Adrian do before. “Truly a terrifying weapon! I doubt even the Deceiver could have managed that! I believe you have joined the ranks of the most dangerous individuals in — or in this case possibly out of — history! Have you considered what you could do with this power? You could eliminate the Hierarchy from ever existing, simply by annihilating their homeworld! The same would be true of the Hunters.”
“That’d solve a lot of problems in the galaxy,” Trix replied thoughtfully. “But it would be hard to know the ramifications.”
Adrian just shook his head. “I… never thought I’d say this, but there was this one episode of Star Trek that deals with exactly that.”
“First you need to explain ‘Star Trek’,” Askit noted. “Context might be useful for this.”
“Yeah,” Adrian agreed. “Basically an entertainment drama set on board a starship, there were a few different independent stories… in this one the idea was that the ship was transported to the other side of the galaxy and they were trying to get home.”
“That is a considerable distance,” Trix reported, likely having spent a moment to calculate it. “It would take a long time if you didn’t use wormhole technology, or didn’t have a Corti Sealed-FTL drive.”
“That was part of the overall story,” Adrian replied. “In this specific story they run into these aliens who are erasing things from time to try and get things back to how they were.”
“I can immediately tell you that would be equal parts self-defeating and stupid,” Askit remarked. “And I’m no time-scientist.”
“Well, obviously,” said Adrian, “but the point is that every time they erased something it was basically guesswork to see if things would turn out better or worse. Long story short, erasing anything that’s had any kind of importance is just going to turn into a giant clusterfuck. I wouldn’t have done it at all if I’d had even the slightest fucking notion that it was possible.”
“So what do we do now?” Askit asked. “If anybody does find out about this, your species is dead. If anyone finds out how to build this… I don’t even want to know!”
“First of all, we don’t talk about it,” Adrian told them. “And don’t let those Hierarchy guys capture you, otherwise they’ll just pull the information right out of your brain.”
“I’m updating to the most recent Navigational database and wiping the archive,” Trix reported. “And I’m scrubbing all the details about what happened at Hravin. That means the video feed as well.”
Adrian groaned, he’d really wanted to be able to keep that, but it was so obvious that it’d have to go that he couldn’t contest it. “I know… we’re also going to have to start talking about erasing our memories.”
“Trycrur can do that easily,” Askit replied. “Corti memory is modular, so I should also be able to manage it with a bit of effort and access to a Corti medical suite, though we’d have to destroy it after. But the two of you…”
“The two of us aren’t so easy,” Adrian finished. “There’s only one way that I can think of to do that, and I’m not super-fucking-keen on the idea…”
“Mind upload, edit, then re-download?” Askit guessed, likely inspired by the way Adrian was staring at the computer console so unhappily. “There’s only one group we can go to if we want that sort of service.”
“That’s half the reason we’re going to Point Zero in the first place,” Adrian replied. “We were going to get Trix put back in a body, and if it turns out we can get ourselves sorted out at the same time, more the better.”
“What about the Deceiver,” Xayn asked. “Or whoever he was? It is possible he is still out there, or that he was not the only one of his kind. It would be extremely dangerous to forget about an enemy that powerful.”
“I will create a record of its capabilities and our interaction,” Trix replied. “Censored appropriately. I think we’ll understand.”
“Alright,” Adrian decided, “put that together. There’s nothing more to say on this matter, so don’t talk about it. The fewer memories we need to wipe, the better.”
They sat around quietly pondering the situation for a few more minutes — everyone was too hesitant to push forward with any further discussion — and were only stirred by the timely arrival of Chir’s vessel.
Indicating that the others should remain seated, Adrian rose alone. “The fewer of us who go, the less likely we are to screw this up. We need to figure out what they remember, if anything, without tipping them off that anything is wrong.”
“Are you sure?” Askit asked. “Maybe they’d benefit from hearing about the V’Straki origin?”
“Unfortunately there won’t be time,” Adrian replied. “While I’m gone I want you to check their systems, see if they match up to ours or to Perfection’s, and what their records indicate. I assume you’ve already given yourself total access to their computer systems?”
“I… yes,” Askit said, looking indignant. “You don’t have to put it like that, though. When I do it to friends it’s just to keep them safe.”
“Right,” Adrian replied, knowing full well that the little Corti was paranoid enough to do it in case the other ship was ever taken over by the enemy, or if Chir and company turned against them. “Just get it done and let me know the answer over my translator, which I know you have access to. Don’t go worrying about me, everything will be fine.”
++++
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Date Point: Unknown
The Amber Radiance, Mercenary Vessel, Hravin System
Laphor Metmin
Leaving had proved impossible.
Warp had not worked. A warp field had generated, but it had not allowed them to travel anywhere except closer to the dark heart of the singularity, and having established that was the case they’d just stopped making the attempt. Nearly (two months) had passed since that time, and the food was beginning to run out. If that happened, instincts would take over, and those who ate meat would undoubtedly do what was needed to survive just a little bit longer.
Six Skulls Zripob would probably end up the last living member aboard the ship if it came to that, which was far from the ideal outcome to their joint-venture, but thus far he had shown no indication that he would slaughter anyone and had in fact been lending his assistance where possible in their attempt to escape.
“I’ve spoken with your crew,” he told her now, speaking to her privately. “This vessel lacks the sensor capabilities of an exploratory ship, but we have had the advantage of being able to monitor what’s out there.”
“Go on,” Laphor urged, knowing he was going somewhere important with this; there was no reason for him to have called a meeting if he hadn’t found something.
“We’re trapped in a bubble,” he said. “To quote your technicians, it is a ‘secondary event horizon projected by the singularity’. The whole star system is captured by it.”
“How is that possible?” Laphor asked. “Can we get out of here?”
“Maybe,” Zripob replied, but with hesitation and uncertainty let undisguised. “Your people suggest that it is the result of the way the mass of the singularity is diminishing, and all the exotic particles leaking from it. Both factors have sharply increased since the star fell into it, and the boundary of the secondary event horizon is shrinking at an equal rate.”
“So we just need to let it pass us?” Laphor asked. “It can’t be that simple.”
“We can’t know that anything is actually being set free,” said Zripob. “It’s more likely it is being annihilated. The only real chance is to use a wormhole.”
Laphor laughed bleakly. “That’d be fine, but we don’t have a wormhole generator, Six Skulls.”
“No,” Zripob replied. “You don’t. But we have detected something that might. It’s unknown technology, and it’s much closer to the singularity than we are, but is our only chance.”
++++
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Date Point: 3Y 9M 5D AV
Aboard the Mercenary Ship, Devastator
Adrian
Chir studied Adrian with more intensity than Adrian was used to. From the moment he’d sat down there’d been an unusual amount of scrutiny, and Chir had kept staring Adrian in the eyes.
“Good of you to join us,” the Gaoian had greeted him, though it was obvious he was suspicious for one reason or another. Hopefully Askit could figure out why that might be and let him know.
“Good to be here,” Adrian replied, looking around the others with some discomfort. Doctor Grznk was notably absent. “Where’s Grizzles?”
They shared a confused glance, though it did look like he’d already made a serious faux-pas.
“We do have some sense of cleanliness,” Layla replied, entering and taking a seat alongside Chir. “We weren’t just going to leave him all over everything.”
“Or in my mouth,” Darragh added in disgust. “Bleagh, I’ll never get the fecking taste out.”
Keffa held his hand reassuringly and gave him a smile. “We’ll get a nice meal while we’re here.”
Adrian wasn’t sure which part of the current situation to be more surprised by, but elected to stare at the only one that he was certain still waited in stasis back in his meat-pod. “Uh… hello, Layla.”
“That… is unexpected,” Askit interjected, speaking directly to Adrian through his translator. “We’ve still got her here. There’s no way that’s good for causal reality, so we probably shouldn’t let them meet.”
Layla smiled at him, but spared a confused glance with an equally puzzled Chir. “Hello, Adrian. Thank you for helping me with this, it means a lot to both of us.”
“Yes,” Adrian replied, very hopeful that it was the same reason as it was before. “Though I think I’ll let you guys take the lead on this one.”
Askit was quick to help rectify his ignorance. “We’re all skimming the records here, Adrian. There are a few big differences, mainly that Layla appears to be a welcome consort to Chir, and that she helped us rescue him from the Corporations. We’re here for the same reason, but it turns out that Grznk was killed when we had our meeting in the Hravin nebula.”
“How?” Adrian asked, and then seeing that everyone was staring at him curiously. “I mean how are you wanting to do this?”
Askit answered first. “He was a Hierarchy host. Unwittingly downloaded one while he was getting the engineering mind-module… I should have thought of that, Adrian…”
“They don’t know we’re coming,” Chir said, “and we have three humans and a V’Straki. I think we’ll be fine so long as we don’t make another big fuss and draw attention from the local authorities.”
“You can’t just go blowing everything up anyway,” Layla added. “You can’t put my children at risk.”
Askit waited for a brief silence before continuing his hurried explanation. “It looks like I figured it out, and when we attempted to confront him he just blew the implant and killed Grznk. Messy way to die.”
“We’ll do our best to be careful, then,” Adrian promised her. “We’ll keep it low key and do it right.”
“There are two entrances,” said Darragh, taking an unusual amount of initiative and bringing a floorplan up on the room’s main screen. “Or at least two that we’ll be using. Chir, Keffa and I will all be going in on this one.”
He pointed to the side that was clearly the least guarded, and then he pointed to the front door. “And this is where you and your team will be focusing.”
“I thought you said you didn’t want me to blow everything up?” Adrian asked, trying to think how else he might get into a place like that.
“We’d hope you might try and keep things quiet,” Keffa answered. “Maybe have Askit shut down security systems while you take out the guards themselves. This place is pretty out of the way, so we don’t have to worry about attracting attention from outside the area unless you start firing shipboard weapons or destroying the building itself.”
“Not going to lie,” Darragh continued. “We feel better about letting you deal with the fortified guys.”
“So… it’s Plan B for me and Xayn,” Adrian replied. “Great, because I was just saying to the guys that it’s been too long since a plan fell apart and resulted in a frantic gunfight.”
“We don’t want them alerted,” Darragh warned. “Are you able to do this quietly, or not?”
“Wow,” Askit muttered, “the boy finally grew some testicles.”
Briefly reflecting that the phrase really sounded wrong when put like that, Adrian kept his mind focused on the meeting itself.
“We can do it,” he assured them. “It’ll be fine. But now I’ve got something I need to warn you all about.”
They looked at him with the kind of expression you’d expect from someone if you’d just shit in their cereal. “What is it this time?” Chir asked.
“It wasn’t my fault this time,” Adrian told them as he brought the details about the strange alien up on his own data-pad. “Honestly, I don’t know who this motherfucker is or why he’s got a problem with me…”
He slid it across the table and let them look at it before continuing. “Big ship, yeah? Stupid looking bird-lizard? Xayn tells me it all matches up to the V’Straki creator-god.”
“That’s impossible,” Darragh replied, flicking between the images. “That’s… so long ago. And it’s so big… how did you get away from this thing?”
“I was lucky,” Adrian said in absolute honesty. “It’s cloaking is good — even my ship could barely detect that thing — but it uses the same kind of weapon as the Zhadersil. If you ever detect a low-power warp field, hit the gravity spike immediately. I think we lured it into an accident with a star, but we can’t be sure it’s actually gone for good.”
“You’ve been busy,” Chir said. “We really need to stop leaving you to your own devices before you make an enemy of everyone and everything in the galaxy.”
Darragh snorted in amusement. “That ship’s probably sailed after the whole jailbreak.”
“Alright,” Chir said, slapping the table with both hands to get their full attention. “We’ll go in tomorrow. Rest up and get ready.”
They dispersed, and Adrian went back to the privacy of Spot where his own crew waited with deep concern. They sat in silence until he’d closed the door and had taken his own seat.
“So…?” he said slowly, leaving it as a question to be answered however they wanted.
“There’s not much of a history listed in the ship’s databases,” Askit explained. “Just whatever’s happened since they took that ship. Unfortunately that means that the Hierarchy are going to be aware of all of our plans, so an assault on Point Zero would seem… ill advised.”
“Fuck,” Adrian spat, once again they’d had their plans ruined. “It’d be fucking suicide if they know we’re coming, even if I was out of my fucking mind and had another of those bombs… we’d never get close enough.”
“I guess we’ll have to find another option,” Trix replied. “But at least now we’re not marching headlong into death.”
Adrian shook his head in disbelief. “Jesus, we would have flown straight into that. How else are things different? If Layla is with them as well… what the fuck does that mean?”
“It means we’ve got a spare,” Askit joked, but he wasn’t trying to be all that funny. “I would hazard a guess to say that the divergence began just after they abandoned New Askitoria, and that it’s just increased from there. There’s probably other bits and pieces, but given how similar everything is I’d hope that’s the biggest stuff we’ll see.”
Adrian nodded; it wasn’t as though they could do anything else about it. “We’re all going to have to hope.”
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Hierarchy Communications Link Three
The mission was a failure, the agent had been discovered, and the Corti hacker had proven once again that he was far too clever for his own good. Or at least too clever for Three’s own good, which would eventually amount to the same thing. First of all he had to survive the judgment of his peers, and more importantly of his superiors.
+0003+: I would deem it an achievement to have been able to infiltrate them for this long. The Corti Hacker is known to be exceedingly clever, and it is remarkable that it took him that long to discover the agent.
+0002+: The Corti Doctor was a valuable resource that we have now lost. They will be more vigilant now, Three, and I doubt we’ll be able to gain such access to them again.
+0009+: Not that I’m not enjoying Three’s distress, but hadn’t we better pay more attention to the situation with Point Zero? I don’t remember hearing anything about the preparations being complete, and we still don’t know what Saunders’ plan is.
+0002+: We still don’t know much of anything, except what they intend to do with Jennifer Delaney and with the Gaoian children. Three’s agent has been exceedingly useful in those respects.
+0003+: Thank you, Two.
+0022+: One-Thirty is awaiting reinforcements. I recommend she wait longer, we need everything we’ve got to help protect Point Zero until the transition is over.”
+0002+: Twenty-two, your advice is noted and accepted. I will adjust plans to suit and recall One-Thirty in favour of an alternative solution.
+0009+: Oh I love ‘alternative solutions’, they usually work so well. Why don’t we just hire a gang of people and just shoot him until he’s dead?
User 0009 has been kicked from the channel. (User 0002: Manners!)
+0003+: Go on…
+0002+: Nine raises a good point, and I was indeed considering something similar to just that, but he thinks in such narrow terms. We need that world cleansed, and we need Adrian Saunders distracted or dead. One solution springs to mind: The Hunters.
+0022+: Cunning. He will rush to aid Jennifer Delaney, only to be caught in their trap. Even if he doesn’t die he won’t have time to take on Point Zero, and we’ll be able to transition to the distributed network in peace.
+0003+: And how are we to get this information to Saunders? I don’t exactly have a man on the inside anymore, and I never had one that could relay this information.
+0002+: Nine seems too idle for my liking. I believe I’ll have him rescue some children, attempt to generate a little goodwill, and drop Saunders right into our trap.
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Date Point: 3Y 9M 6D AV
Corporate Hideout, Perfection
Nine
It had been extremely fortunate that Nine had been able to find a detachment of Allebenellin mercenaries available on such short notice, especially somewhere like Perfection, but every soldier needed to go somewhere to spend their hard-earned credits and they may as well go somewhere as nice as Perfection to do it.
Soldiers like these got bored easily, though, and didn’t often stay around for that long without being chased off by the authorities, so when they’d been offered a contract that would keep them on the planet the group had jumped at the task. The corporation hadn’t been ready for an assault by a group of seasoned soldiers, and their security forces had broken quickly.
Having taken the workers at the facility hostage, Nine had executed them all, with the exception of the Gaoian children. The same children that now mewled annoyingly from their cage, likely distressed by having witnessed the systematic slaughter of so many defenceless people, forgetting that these were the same people who had abducted them in the first place.
“Silence!” he shouted at them. “You will be silent!”
They obeyed, barely, and Nine snarled as he stalked the room of the dead. He’d sent the mercenaries away once the work was complete, he hadn’t wanted them to give Saunders the idea that he was here for a fight when what he needed to do was to relay the information. It wasn’t how Nine would have liked to have done it, but orders were orders and Nine was nothing if not obedient.
He heard the hurried footsteps as they came down the hallway, stopping every now and then so as to be cautious, and Nine took a seat where he was clearly not posing a threat to anyone, and waited for them to enter.
They burst through the door, weapons readied, and stared at the carnage Nine had wrought before noticing Nine himself sitting there quietly. “Adrian Saunders and company… in the flesh, as your kind say.”
“What… what’s happened here?” demanded the Gaoian pirate, Chir. He was shorter in person. “These… who are you?”
Nine took the opportunity to introduce himself. “I am Nine. Do you like what I’ve done with the place? I’ve even got you a welcome gift.”
He gestured to the cage. “Consider it a token of good faith.”
“You’re Hierarchy!” accused the human male who wasn’t Adrian Saunders. “What have you done here?”
“Nothing you weren’t going to do,” Nine snapped. “And you needn’t mistrust me so thoroughly, because if I wanted you dead I could have just planted a bomb in the area to kill you all.”
Not a bad idea, but unless it was outlandishly powerful it was unlikely to kill everyone here with absolute certainty. “As it stands, you’re all still alive.”
“So we are,” Saunders grated through gritted teeth. Nine wasn’t an aficionado on human behaviour but that kind of gesture didn’t seem like one he’d make if he was happy. The way he was looking at Nine was filled with such naked hatred that the host body relieved itself without prompting.
“Excuse my body,” Nine apologised, not that he meant it. “It finds you quite terrifying. As I was saying, I am here in good faith.”
“You killed Doctor Grznk!” the other human male claimed. “I got his brains all over my face! I even got it in my fecking mouth!”
“How unpleasant,” Nine replied, uninterested in addressing the complaint. “But moving on, here are the children you seek, and one more useful piece of information: the location of the planet where Jennifer Delaney currently resides.”
They looked at him sceptically. “Why are you giving us that?”
“Because her life hangs in the balance — the Swarm of Swarms is coming for her and the whole world she’s living on — and we have our own reasons as well,” Nine replied cryptically. “It’s all on the data chip by the cage.”
“You want to distract us from Point Zero,” Saunders surmised, rather surprising Nine with his quickness. “And I can’t imagine that the Hunters happened to find her on their own, so you must have told them.”
Nine stared at the human in shock for a moment. “Well… I’d always just thought of you as a blunt instrument, but it seems there’s a sharp mind there as well. You are correct, but it doesn’t change the situation.”
“I’ll be coming for you when I’m done,” Adrian promised him.
“That’s nice,” Nine replied, quietly hoping that day would never come. “Good luck, and in the words of your own people, ‘go fuck yourself’.”
Nine terminated his host; it was always best to finish on a high note.
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Surface above Derktha, Agwaren Capital City
Jennifer Delaney
It felt good to move around again, to be free of the shackles of the bed and the ministrations of the Agwaren surgeons, and Jen even suspected that her eye might be beginning to recover. She was ready, she was sure of it, and since Groddi had kept his word about getting her the twin blades, she was ready to keep her word and stick them into the Dark One.
“Is the army ready?” she asked him, talking her first walk around the camp. It was mostly soldiers, but there were civilians there too, doing whatever was needed to cater to the amassed manpower. “You were sending for more soldiers from other cities, weren’t you?”
“More soldiers will be here soon,” he assured her. His skill with English was still very haphazard, but he seemed to be able to grasp enough of it to guess the rest, and he even got it right about two thirds of the time. “Convincing their masters was difficult without the High Lord available to make the request, but news of you has already traveled and I relied on that to sway them.”
Jen nodded, showing her approval. “And nothing of the Dark One?”
He shook his own head. “Still quiet. Far too quiet for my liking; I have been growing paranoid from the lack of any attack.”
“Don’t worry, soon there will be fighting,” Jen said, though it was a strange way to try and comfort someone. “He can’t stay hidden forever.”
It was a passerby who answered. “Can’t I, indeed?”
Jen had her swords out before Groddi had even moved, had kicked the stranger in the chest and sent him stumbling before Groddi had his sword out, and had her blades scissored across the stranger’s neck by the time Groddi was demanding to know what was going on.
“Who,” hissed Jen, “the fuck are you?!”
She wasn’t sure why she asked the question, it wasn’t like she didn’t already know what the answer was going to be. She’d heard what had been said, she was certain of it, but how else was she supposed to start this sort of conversation.
The Agwaren cackled, an unusual response to the situation in general, but doubly so for an Agwaren, and served to confirm what she already knew. “We meet in person at last, ‘Chosen One’ Jennifer Delaney!”
“The Dark One!” Jennifer spat, pressing down on the blades so that they began to draw blood. It was a moment before it occurred to her. “You’re speaking fucking English!”
“Well spotted,” the Dark One replied. “This, however, is entirely pointless. I’ve copied my mind off-world — apparently they don’t need me here anymore, they’ve got something new instead — but I just wanted to come and convey my pure hatred for everything you are.”
Groddi stood next to them now, looking down at the Dark One with horror. The Dark One was obviously Agwaren, although there were some differences, but Groddi was acting as though the Dark One was the most disfigured thing he’d ever seen. “I’d heard you were hideous, creature, but I had not imagined this. Upturned nose… and those fingers are so disgustingly thin and slender… and separated!”
Jen glanced down; it was true, the Dark One’s host lacked the fused fingers that the other Agwarens had. That was strange, but she had other things to think about first.
“You’re leaving?!” she asked. “But there’s a whole invasion force coming for you! There’s a legend where I’m — that is to say the Chosen One — is supposed to kill you and put the world out of your misery.”
“Surely that’s reason enough for me to go, then?” the Dark One remarked dryly. “But don’t worry, you’ll have all the war you can stomach. I have it on good authority that the Hunters are on their way. All of them.”
Jen stared at the loathsome creature. “The… Hunters?”
“Who is sending hunters?” Groddi asked. “If they’re anything to do with the Dark One I don’t have to guess at what they hunt.”
“Oh, he’s a quick one,” the Dark One snickered. “But he can’t even understand, can he? Not really. And just think, if it wasn’t for you they wouldn’t even be coming here.”
“If they’re coming for me, I’ll have to leave,” Jen replied. “There’s no way these people can fight against that. Tell me you’ve still got my starship!”
“I still have your starship,” the Dark One repeated obediently. “Granted, it might not be in one piece, and you certainly won’t be able to repair it before the Swarm gets here, but every part of it is accounted for.”
The Dark One kept laughing until Jen closed the blades together and sliced away his head, and he died with a mad smile on his lips.
“That… that can’t be it!” Groddi said insistently. “The people will never accept this kind of victory! They’ll never accept that the Dark One could just fall over and die so easily. He is the stuff of nightmares! It can’t just be over!”
Jen stared at the dying eyes of her enemy for a moment, letting her gaze linger on the hateful face as the last of life left it. “No, Groddi,” she said, rising to her feet to stare at the sky. “It’s not over. It hasn’t even begun.”
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Low Chamber of the God Emperor, First World of Irzht
Tjheth, Irzht Clansman of the Eye
The escape pod had survived, its wormhole generator had worked, and Tjheth had somehow managed to still be alive. The same could not be said of his scout ship, which was no longer responding to communications, and all things considered had led to a severe dressing-down by an extremely senior member of the Clan.
That had shaken his nerve, but it was nothing compared to meeting with the God Emperor in the Low Chamber. How often did that happen to those outside the clergy? Almost never, and he couldn’t recall one instance where it had ended well for the visitor.
He was shoved into the chamber by the temple guard, the most blessed members of the Clan of Might, and those gifted with powerful mechanical augmentations that made them closer to machine than flesh.
“Proceed inside,” he was ordered by the one escorting him most closely. “Stop when you enter the yellow circle, and the eye of the God Emperor will fall upon you.”
Tjheth obeyed, though it wasn’t like he had any kind of choice. Visiting the God Emperor was almost certain to be lethal, but disobeying a temple guard was definitely lethal with an inordinate amount of horrible torture factored in.
In short, he’d do whatever he was told.
The Low Chamber was so called by its location: a relatively small hall at the bottom of the massive Divine Palace. The whole thing was painted in holy green, and was so imposing that from the top it would multiply the distance to the horizon hundredfold.
Right now it was black against the great, red setting sun, and the golden roads were a deep, bloody red. He was forced into the room to find it better lit, but the colour scheme unchanged.
Fires burned like stars on both sides of a fountain spilling mist, filling the room with a wonderfully humid heat that Tjheth might have found nostalgic if not for what was to come. The fires burst towards the ceiling in great columns, and then the face of the God Emperor shimmered into existence.
Tjheth dropped to his knees. “Praise be to the God Emperor!”
“TJHETH OF THE EYE CLAN!” the God Emperor boomed, his eyes narrowing in on the circle where Tjheth cowered. “YOU HAVE DISPLEASED ME! THE UNEXPLAINED LOSS OF A SHIP! ANOTHER SPECIES THAT HAS STOLEN A CRADLE!”
“Please!” Tjheth begged, barely able to breathe through his fear. “Please, God Emperor, that was not my doing! This humble servant merely sought to undo the treachery of another! And the ship was destroyed by a singular—”
The God Emperor rumbled with rage. “ARE YOU QUESTIONING MY WORDS, YOU PATHETIC CREATURE!?”
“No! I would never do that!” Tjheth nearly shrieked. “Just… I was trying to serve. I was trying to stop an act of treachery from succeeding! An ancient rebellion, I think, a heretic who stole a ship and fled. That has to be it, they must have been trying to create an army to rise against you, glorious God Emperor!”
Aware that he was rambling, Tjheth stopped talking and waited for the God Emperor to make his decision, bracing himself for the thunderous voice that was to come.
“TJHETH OF THE EYE CLAN, YOUR SENTENCE IS DECIDED,” the God Emperor rumbled ominously. “FOR THE CRIME OF DISOBEDIENCE AND ACTING OUTSIDE YOUR LINEAGE, YOU WILL BE INCARCERATED.”
Prison. Tjheth exhaled, it could be worse.
“FOR THE CRIME OF INSOLENCE TOWARDS YOUR GOD EMPEROR, AND OF LOSS OF PROPERTY,” the God Emperor continued. “INCINERATION.”
Tjheth sagged in horror, weeping and motionless for there was no chance of escape, and why would he ever go against the divine will of the God Emperor? The temple guards approached him, and took him by each arm.
It was then that Tjheth learned the true purpose of those towering columns of flame, and before he burned he wondered if they intended to imprison his ashes.
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