Chapter 14: A Need for a Little Light Reading

Dead.

She had to be dead.

She had trained for this. Sharpened her instincts. Reactions timed, qualified, retried and re-timed over and over again until every action came involuntarily, until the mind clicked on its own, in its own time, in its own speed.

Ignore the pain.

Forget it searing through your skin, eating away at your spirit.

Focus. Recreate the scene. There were twelve of us Handmen, all Flanking Withryn. Protection detail. Her fourth real assignment since graduating through the academy. Withryn spoke – a meticulously crafted speech, no doubt labored over by seven different communications liasions. Large crowd. Perimeter guards were in place, keeping the peace. No protestors in sight. All clear. Watched Withryn speak. He plans and times his gestures perfectly, accentuating exactly what he needs to when he needs to like an operatic conductor. He was only missing the glowing baton.

Then movement. The first waves of light from a bright orange flash hit her eyes. Time stopped, or at least slowed down to her speed. Muscles were already firing, contracting and stretching.

Globular burst. Bright orange. Fiorgel. Arms reached out, pushed aside slower Handmen. Approximate timing to impact was 0.007 seconds.

Fiorgel. They banned it quite some time ago. Reaction to carbon-based life forms: immediate chemical reaction inducing excruciating burns, charring, scarring, 72% successful reconstruction possible.

Legs sprung. Body leapt at Withryn. Fiorgel impact in 0.002, 0.001, impact.

Searing hot whiteness.

Kristol remembered nothing after that having been put down in a mandate coma to begin repairing her burned body. Survivors of fiorgel wounds rarely survived and the pain involved in surviving often didn’t allow the victims to survive much long after. But she had been trained as a Handman. Pain existed only as a communication system, relaying messages from the extremeties to the brain, a glorified status report.

It took surgeons a whole year to repair her decimated body, rebuilding her bone and flesh from the inside out. A hard task to be sure. Once bone, sinew and muscle were fully repaired, they could begin the harder, more detailed work of repairing the delicate skin.

The easiest solution was to replace the damaged skin with artificial skin, however, in Kristol’s living will paperwork she did not consent to any artificial means of replacement, citing a strong desire to retain her humanity. So the surgeons had a tough task of regrowing and patching together a framework of skin for her to replace the large amount that no longer existed.

After the first graft, she was awoken to test her sensitivity to the repairs. Sealed in a hermetic plastic chamber and attached to several biomedical monitoring machines, her eyes opened for the first time since saving the Grand Minister. One would think after what she had last seen and done, she’d awaken to a scream. Which she did, but only in her mind. The pain registry in her brain lit up like a thousand points of light, yet she said nothing. She only took a deep breath through her breathing apparatus and turned her head to see the panel of doctors working on her and next to them stood the Grand Minister himself, a tear in his eye.

He had survived.

Her mind felt a little at ease.

Then the Grand Minister turned from her and addressed a pack of people outside her chamber. His hands were gesturing again – conducting an audience. Every once in a while a flash erupted from the pack. Photogs. Press. Kristol’s mind snapped back into investigative form. Withryn was turning the tragedy into a historic event. Kristol imagined Withryn’s telling of the tale – swooped up with heroism, grandeur and hyperbole – hitting the COM. Her name would be known across a thousand systems. Her story would live longer than she would.

Then a tragic thought hit her. Her life wouldn’t be the same again. Her dream of becoming a Handman came true, but she didn’t want a public life. She wanted to bust criminals, protect the innocent and go on with what she thought was a normal life: work, get paid, go on vacations, etc, etc. That was out of the question now. No longer would she be able to melt into the background, become just a piece of the government. She couldn’t imagine what her life would become now. It definitely wouldn't be under her control as much as she wanted it to be.

That night after the circus had long since left, Withryn ushered out the doctors and sat at the communication switch. After switching it on, she heard his voice through the speaker and it sounded tinnier than it normally did, less human. “My dear, Kristol,” he said. “My savior. My life. I’ll have you know that I have dispatched the finest reconstructive surgeons. They’re on their way here now. Before you know it, you’ll be back to normal.”

Kristol lifted her arm and head, Kristol waved him off. She tried saying “no” over the breathing tubes muffling her speech.

But Withryn, a master at the gesture also expertly picked up on them as well. She supposed he had to be. Part of speaking to people well, convincing them of things was in the way a person picked up on their signals or cues. Withryn looked pained, but agreed with Kristol. “I do as you please, my dear. I can only offer you the world, the galaxy at my fingertips for the service you provided me. I am completely indebted to you. I’ve even appointed you to a higher position as Prime Investigator and Minister Liasion and I’ve begun construction of a living suite at the top of Handman quarters atop the Amber D'Alsace Spire. And for those, I will not accept your decline. They are already done. End of story.”

He paused in mid thought, almost like he was thinking of other things to help repay her. “You know when I was younger, I had high ambitions. Nothing as high as this, though. I wanted to be a city administrator. Back then, I never realized my gifts, my abilities to see into people and understand what they needed. It can be burdensome at times. See, to focus so much on the immediate, allows little time to lament on the past or the future. But who am I talking to, surely you of all people understand this concept.”

She did, but not on his level of noticing people’s cues. Her’s was the ability to breakdown a situation in a fraction of a second and assess it for a solution. Not quite the same thing as reading a person’s facial expressions and gestures, but she understood what he meant.

“Not many people take the time of the present to absorb all the information they are getting and then, customizing speech and gesture immediately, respond with a compelling reaction. It requires a certain grace and an adamant focus on listening. And the communicating part. Once you have listened enough, responding is like being a musician, you simply need to find the right notes to please your listeners.”

Kristol tried to smile, pleased that her thoughts mirrored the Minster’s. She watched him speak. Confident. Empathetic. Strong.

He continued, “I don’t know if you know, but I get fed incalculable amounts of data. So much I grow weary at the mere mention of it. After a while, you can even pick up on the clues and gestures within this data – just like a conversation. I only mention it because it affects you and this new position I created for you.

“See my dataminers have shown my evidence that in the last three years, Hallastaare’s underworld has increased activity across the GSA. A mere observer would just see this as a barely perceptible blip on a radar screen, but when you read into it, you can see that something is happening. Oh, I shouldn’t trouble you with such twaddlespeak. You have healing to do. But I wanted to tell you at least that. I want you to head up any investigations into the underworld, specifically those centering around Hallastaare’s activities.” He stood up and straightened out his minister robes and finished, “We don’t want this blip growing outside our control, do we?”

Kristol watched his face. It showed different for that part of his speech. Darker. Controlling. Quashing. She watched him exit her room. One thing was clear, she thought amidst the drone of biomedical equipment around her, despite her initial feelings toward the subject, her new life now had few more prospects going for it.

* * *

On Draedus, the Solar homestead fluttered with activity. The plumes of smoke from the razing were long gone, replaced by the chilled morning air and the bustle of Handmen setting up evidence markers and perimeter scanners. Orchestrating it all, Kristol stood on the ramp to the Scythe, which was convertible to a temporary mission control center.

She watched Handmen on the roof of the home, scanning plasma burns and taking samples. To both sides, Handmen scoured the brush and trees surrounding the home. Others walked about taking scans of the ground. At a holographic display table, Kristol watched a map of the area bloom with evidence as the Handmen did their work. The map elements appeared green and across it were various evidence representations in both red and blue. Professor Deyston followed Kristol closely. He found the crime scene reconstruction technology to be very fascinating. “So they all do their thing and then the data is uploaded here and combined?” he asked.

Kristol reached into the holographic map display and interacted with it, changing the perspective of the map. “Exactly,” she told him. “See those red markings?”

Deyston nodded.

“Those are unidentified evidence trails.”

Deyston smiled and replied, “And the blue. Those are evidence trails left by you and your team?”

Kristol manipulated the map to remove all the blue traces. “Right again, Professor,” she said. “You catch on quick. See all Handmen DNA, fingerprints and equipment is profiled and entered into the system. When the scanners pick it up, it codes it blue. Anything not predefined in our initial profile is encoded red.”

“It’s amazing the way technology makes breaking the law and NOT getting caught almost impossible to do,” the professor said.

“Truly,” Kristol said. “Especially since the corporation that developed this tech was immediately purchased by the GSA, so we’re the only ones that have it and no one can find the work arounds…at least not yet.”

Kristol pointed at the house on the map and it immediately zoomed in and pulled up a schematic of the building. Isolating the security wiring in the building, she pointed to it and brought up security footage from the building cams. Scrolling through hundreds of files, she found the files associated with the time of the razing. She selected the file for the front exterior cam and wound it back to the time of the razing.

In the footage window on the display, it showed a bearded man dressed in archaic clothing and wearing a long green sash around his forehead. He seemed to be carrying something as he walked out the front of the building, but his body blocked the camera’s view of it. The man stopped amidst violent explosions of plasma all around him and off in the distance, above the tree tops, the faint image of the firing ship came into view.

“Got you,” Kristol said, pointing to the ship on the screen. By touching the ship image, the program immediately began a systemwide search, pulling up the make, model, portlog entries and fueling depot stops of the ship and registry images of the ship and owner. The picture of the owner popped up – a Podarian with a missing fourth eye. The picture of the ship looked like it’s captured version on the video, only the name came up as the Polished Teapot. “Interesting,” Kristol said.

“What is it?” asked Deyston.

“I’ve seen this combo before,” said Kristol. “It’s a fake.”

“What do you mean?”

“Often shady organizations misregister ships and owners to hide their trails. Usually they’re better than this. But I’ve seen this profile with a different name and a different style ship on a smuggling ring we busted a few months ago that smelled an awful lot like Hallastaare.”

Deyston backed away, a noticeable shudder coursed down his body. “Hallastaare?” he asked. “Really?”

Kristol nodded and a thought occurred in her head, but it hadn’t solidified yet. Quickly, she pointed to the security footage window and scanned through the video files looking for an internal view. She opened up a bunch and watched them simultaneously, until she saw the stream showing the victim, a young man and a young woman staring at a cube of laminate that contained a jewel-encrusted, golden gauntlet.

“Does that look like the gauntlet to an ancient suit of armor to you?” Kristol asked Deyston, hinting at the quest of the Gardaan, the reason she brought him along.

Deyston spotted it and nodded his head. “Yes. I would say that could be right.”

They both nodded at each other in silence for a few beats. Kristol’s face contorted into an angry, annoyed face.

Deyston was ignorant to it all. “What? Am I missing something?” Finally, Kristol turned and pointed to the gauntlet on the screen. “Gauntlet? Armor? Old armor that brings one ultimate power?”

Suddenly, Deyston got it and grew red in the face, then he turned and dashed into the ship. He returned moments later with a few older books and Reutian laserscroll, which he opened and turned the dials as he walked, looking for the answer Kristol wanted. But he obviously hadn’t found it yet.

Kristol switched the display view back to the outside of the house, then removed the blue trace and focused on the red trace. Footrpints of the participants were everywhere. She clicked on a few trails and looked at the data.

The main victim was human – DNA traces proved that. Who he was had yet to be discovered in the system searches.

She clicked another and the profile came up as Palo Solar with a registered photo of him. “Figured that. Good boy registering on the COM and all that,” Kristol said to herself, waiting to hear from Deyston.

To fill her time she clicked on a third evidence trail and it came up human, unidentified, but cellular trace detected cognizantia, a biomechanical coolant used in fusing tech with organic material.

“May have to check on registered orgs with over 50% tech replacement surgeries done,” she said to herself.

On to another trail. That one came in as not human, but as Saculian, unidentified. The thought she had earlier connected. The Saculian huntsmen. Why hadn’t she picked up on it before? Of course his papers checked out back in Param Eon, Hallastaare made it so. She couldn’t even count the amount of time the COM techs detected file corruption that hazily seemed to lead to Hallastaare. She started questioning the validity of the data in the COM.

Deep inside her mind, her instincts clicked on. Better keep a closer eye on things – who knows what is real or fake anymore? “Deyston,” Kristol shouted. “Anything in your books about Hallastaare being connected to all this?”

Deyston struggled, turning dials furiously on the laserscroll. My master had recorded oral stories written down about an Arman brute who may or may not have stolen a sacred, left-handed gauntlet from a tribal elder on Fharkenghulr.”

Kristol turned to meet Deyston, who stopped short in front of her, intimidated. “An Arman brute,” Kristol said. “Some of the intel I’ve heard about Hallastaare often hints at an enforcer of his – an Arman brute.”

She turned and reupped the video footage of Palo and his friends staring at the gauntlet in the cube of laminate, then pointed to it for Deyston’s viewing. “Is that the thing you’re talking about?”

Deyston squinted his eyes and looked at the small image and said, “No. My records indicate that he has the left one. That is a right-handed gauntlet.” If he picked up on the same thing Kristol had picked up on, he wasn’t showing it. For a professor, he surely took a long time getting to points. Kristol tapped her foot and said, “You’re not getting it yet? Hallastaare had someone steal this gauntlet and your records indicate he already has the left one. So he already has two pieces.”

Deyston still wasn’t up to speed and said, “I’m sorry. My master was the scholar on this. I haven’t actually spent a lot of time studying this. I can only search the records my master had on file.”

Kristol turned back to her display map, which sported a higher intelligence factor than her hand-picked expert. “Go back into the ship and get reading. I need to know how many pieces of armor this thing has. And please do not let it be three!”

Deyston grabbed his things and scurried off into the ship like a freshly whipped canedog.

Kristol studied the ever-growing map of the crime scene, amazed at its power. Then she thought about this Saculian’s connections to Hallastaare and the “loopholes” that relationship seems to find within the COM. Withryn mentioned something about theology and magic about this assignment, but couldn’t understand what it meant.

“Perhaps I too need to do a little reading,” she told herself.

Chapter 13: Fever Dreams

Morigin?! Morigin?!!

The smooth, metallic female voice whispered to him from beyond a dull, throbbing glow. But the glow felt warm, inviting. What happened? Where was he? A pain stabbed at him. Thoughts hurt. He felt the world lolling around him drunk on moir wine, staggering to find sense of things. But the harder he tried to focus, the more pain stung through him.

Finally the dull glow opened up, pulling into a memory. A planet. The stark white glow of Spectre. He remembered it well. Around the planet and the whole system, slag-colored rings of debris circled in orbits and stretched between moons on great belts of starship debris. He could see the scrapper ships docking to massive clusters of mangled steel and technology, all centuries old. Scrappers in atmosphere suits bubbled out of the scrapper ships, armed with halo torches and tow cables. Like colono ants, they scampered over the chunks of debris, cut off pieces and guided them back to the cargo bays.

Scrapping was a hard life. Morigin knew that. He spent a good portion of his life there collecting scrap, hauling it to depot cruisers and getting paid squat for it, then blowing it all in the station pubs and picking fights with noob scrappers. He thought things were turning around when he found her. Putting down a third double shift in a row and on a solo show, he found a largely intact Bulsa cruiser, roughly fashioned after the Lodan Airshark.

It was love at first sight.

Immediately, he sensor tagged the ship, marking it as his own private salvage, a scrapper's right and unwritten law. Clamoring abroad its hull, he ran his gloved hand over its talonsteel curves. The hull had plasma burns and heat blisters pocked all over it. In one place, a massive breach had burst through the side – big enough, when he floated over to it, he and another scrapper could have climbed through no problem. The death shot he thought. A glimmer of pain and sympathy ran through his mind. At the time, he hadn't noticed those early, fleeting feelings he had for the ship. Nor did he know they grow to the point they would.

The inside looked worse than the outside if that was possible. System consoles melted into fleshy bulbs, cracked screens, panels burst open, wiring and coolant piping hanging from the ceilings and walls, floor panels ruptured and bent. Standing there, the hum of his environment suit echoing in the cabin, he muttered to himself, “Need to get this hull patched up first. All new wiring. Environment systems. A new reactor. Some brand new halo boosters. It'll be a lot of work. No doubt about that.”

Morigin looked at the massive cracked viewscreen and sensed a voice behind it. The voice of his ship. He ran his hand across the control console like it was brand new, like his hands were made to run those controls. The ship's reactor had long since died, but he sensed a breath or two left in the walls.

It took nearly a full Spectre year, to retrofit the hull after he installed the new reactor. There had been the central hole that Morigin thought was created by a fiorgel missle of some kind, but he remembered at the time he found it, he couldn’t actually place the type of energy used to raze the ship. Although salvageable, the ship’s existing hull was fabricated with tempurion, a suitable alloy, but not the make-up necessary for the types of runs Morigin planned on making. A bulky alloy, tempurion was used in many destroyer class ships, meant to deflect long range plasma bursts.

Morigin hadn’t planned on meeting any warships face-to-face. He wanted stealth. He wanted his ship to be able to slip in an out of ports unchecked, unnoticed and easily forgettable. Talonsteel would do just fine – it looked like fabrikore, a widely used hull metal, but its composite had the sneaky ability to scatter particles and waves, while being highly chemical and heat resistant. Talonsteel would do very nicely.

Every week, he purchased insignificant amounts of talonsteel from multiple different credit accounts and had it shipped to Spectre. He knew ordering a vast amount would draw attention to himself, as would numerous shipments paid for by one account. Within the year, from the outside, his ship looked brand new.

Inside, however, was a different story. Morigin floated in the destroyed cabin. Wiring sprung from virtually every panel like wild tanubird hair. Standing there in his envirosuit, Morigin looked at the mess and almost wanted to quit. There was so much work yet to do. On the floor beneath his feet sat two jannies, or maintenance droids, magnetically stuck to the floor panels. Small, thin and dome-shaped, jannies were constructed to fit into the spaces of starships other beings couldn’t reach. Both droids had all their tools sprung out on tiny, but sturdy robotic arms, doing a systems check – irons, welders splicers grips, everything whirred and clicked and then hid beneath panels in the droids’ bodies.

“Okay boys,” Morigin told them. “We have to get the environment systems going on the temp COM system. Get some air pushing down from above so we can a have a semblance of gravity and of course breathe. I don’t want to mess with all this wiring in an envirosuit. Damn things give me the heebies.”

Both droids emitted holographic blueprints of the ship, beeped and rolled off on their magnetized wheels in opposite directions.

Once the envirosystems were online, the rest of the interior work went smoothly. Morigin remembered submerging himself in the panels and consoles of his ship, sometimes only having his feet jutting out in order to repair all the wiring. The jannies were there helping too, often wheeling by his feet, only to stop and look at the feet to ascertain why they weren’t connected to a body, then wheeling on to replace a microboard or conduit panel.

While entangled in the massive ship console, Morigin busily repaired some connections and remembered that he had an odd feeling at that part of the ship. He had spanned over to the underconsole where the new COM system he purchased would be installed. He felt a near emotional pang that he thought emanated from the ship, when he noticed the absence of the COM, both the heart and mind of any ship. Now in that emptiness was a faint green glow, even though no hardware was underneath there to glow. He took it as a sign.

At that moment, he thought perhaps even starships had souls, personalities, spirits and he often felt during those rebuilding years as if something had been watching him, speaking to him through subtle air currents or electricity discharges. He couldn’t explain, but there was a presence there with him and the jannies, a presence he grew accustomed too and often spoke to before the new COM system was even installed.

Installing new wall paneling in the cargo bay, Morigin asked the ship, “What business you think we should get into? I know I’ve been a scrapper for as long as I know, but, I just want a change. I want to travel. How about you? You’re not built for freight, but you got a nice-sized cargo bay. We could install some smuggling panels if you’re feeling naughty?” Morigin stopped pressing the trigger on his fastening tool and looked around at the room. All alone. He smiled to himself.

Another day, Morigin was mainlining the plasma cannons into the COM circuitry, when he started another conversation with the spirit in his ship, “Now, I know these cannons aren’t that big. And I’m sorry about that. But you’re a lover not a fighter. We’ll be in and out of most skirmishes. Stealth, lady. That’s what you’re going to be all about – gliding seamlessly, smoothly, quietly, effortlessly from port to port – not a wary eye on the look out for you, no one noticing you. We’ll be a shimmer on the gleam of everyone’s eye. The second-take. The mirage. The ghost in the corner. That’s us, my dear. Lovers. Not fighters.”

In the washroom, he fastened the last bit of plumbing to the basin. Lying flat on his back and welding the pipes in place, he said, “Gotta look good for my girl. Need a washroom to clean the morning crusties from my eyes. Plus, I know you may not like this, but I can be quite a drunkard at times. I like the bottles and all the fires within them. I’ll try to go easy on them, because I know you’ll hate to pick up after my trashy self, but I just wanted to tell you about it. I don’t want anything to come between us.”

The day the new COM system arrived, Morigin slid it under the cabin console. Ten phetas computing power. Way more than he ever needed, but he wanted the best for his girl. The last piece to the remodel, Morigin had relished this day for five hard-worked years. Over that time, he had come to know his ship fantastically and intimately well. He called her Jade, short for the Jade Tendril, named after the ghostly green glow under the console and the wisps of ghostliness he felt in her, her tendrils wrapping around his body, speaking to him, caressing him.

Sliding the COM system in place and fastening the connectors, the underconsole lit up in bright green light. That time Morigin didn’t say it loudly to the ship and the jannies scooting about, but he said it silently to himself with a hint of sentimentality to it, “Good morning, Jade.”

After crawling out of the console and fastening the paneling in place, Morigin looked up at the shimmering green viewscreen, watching the systematic scrawl of binary and computing languages flash across the screen in a boot sequence.

Then he heard it - the first thing his beloved ship said to him as matching language appeared on the screen, “COM system online. Temporary com system offline.” Morigin expected a more graceful, polished, pretty voice, but Jade’s first words were spoken with a steely coldness that reminded Morigin of a computer. He made a mental note to get a personality patch quickly.

She continued, “Reactor online. Operational systems online. Environsystems online. Navsystems online. Weaponry online. Shielding online. Secondary protocols booting. Assessing profile.” Morigin saw a small, green light flashing high above the viewscreen. Jade’s visual actuary. “Good morning, Captain,” the ship replied.

Morigin felt affronted. “You can call me, Morigin,” he said to the ship. “Data records indicate name of owner to be Captain Morigin Tunney. As is accustom to human social custom, do you not get addressed by your first name as entered in the system, Captain?”

Morigin blushed to himself, alone in the cabin. On each side of him, the jannies sat immobile, staring up at the huge glowing viewscreen. He looked down at them, embarrassed that, in his haste, he inadvertently entered ‘Captain’ in the name field. “No that is perfectly alright,” he told Jade. “The error is mine.”

But deep down he felt this exchange as their first in a long line of dry banter between the two of them, and even though she hadn't yet become what he knew her to be, he couldn’t help but smile at the unintended, dry, logical humor of the situation. He had never felt this way about any ship and he had been in hundreds of them. The others, he determined, didn't have spirit. This ship did.

Spirit. Something about that word stuck with Morigin.

After his celebration bender, he had picked a fight with a Perado. Took two hits of his stinger. That night Telo saved his life. He spoke to Morigin about the loss of faith and belief in greater forces, divine forces stronger than any science or technology the GSA could muster. He had mentioned that it left the galaxy, the universe without a spirit, that somewhere, actually everywhere its spirit remained, just unnoticed and unfound, ignored and forgotten.

“You do know how that planet got it's name, right?” asked Telo that night.

Morigin had been groggy. Tired. The stings drained him. Plus, the moir wine always left him with foggy deliriums. “They say their was a huge battle here. Something happened. I've heard stories, but every one is different. One said this used to be the center of an older, greater civilization that was lost in the battle. Other stories said this is the place God died. I even heard a freighter captain tell a yarn about a great magnetic force drawing every ship, every city, every piece of machinery in the galaxy to one point to destroy it.”

Telo laughed while he soaked more bandages in biotics. “All are true in some fashion. Spectre has its place in history. It's a an old scar that many people don't like to talk about.” Telo placed more bandages on Morigin's neck. “This place was once the center of a great civilization led by a god named Ruktuu.”

“A god?” asked Morigin.

Telo laughed again. “Yes. A god in a way. If you saw him, the light emanating from him would blind you, the song vibrating from his voice would deafen you and the entire galaxy trembled in his presence. Ruktuu was the last of the godkings, bearer of the Gardaan, or the “Skin of God,” a powerful set of armor crafted from the divine energies existing across the universe. Legend says the Gardaan is bestowed upon the one being with the power to actually control it. That being is the antennae for all the divine energies in the universe. A god in many ways.”

“That's ridiculous,” Morigin had said. “Someone that powerful would have been recorded, remembered. We would have heard about it.”

“It's only ridiculous,” Telo said. “Because it has been forgotten in the pages of time. See as with all great civilizations or kings, with great power comes an overpowering thirst to possess it by others. At the height of his power, Ruuktu was assaulted at every angle by warring systems looking to capture his power. That's what lies around the rings and belts of Spectre – an entire galaxy of the finest fleets, sent there to raze the god planet and strip him of the Gardaan.”

“I'm guessing that didn't end particularly well,” Morigin had said.

“No. For neither side. Oh, the razing fleets had their work cut out for them. I believe they never fully understood the power the Gardaan possessed. Much like this civilization, their entire existence was supported by science and technology. They had massive battleships with capital atom cannons and fighters so thick they blocked out the suns around Spectre. The largest battle in the galaxy also ended the quickest.

Ruktuu knew what came to his world. He had foreseen it. At the attack point, he drew in all his power and vaulted it toward the heavens, eradicating every ship, every pilot, every soldier, weapon and bomb in a three system radius.”

Morigin remembered this part of the story the most, because it completely dumbfounded him at his core. There was no way one being could possess or harness that kind of energy. But the way Telo told it, it was as if he was there. Morigin tried to find the insanity in the old man's word, but he could find none, just a barely audible whisper, emanating from the energy of the universe, creeping into his ear and saying, “Listen. He speaks the truth.” And up until that point in his life, he had never heard anything speak to him like that on that level. It gave him chills. He felt compelled to ask, “But then what happened to the Gardaan? If he stopped the incursion, what happened to him?”

Telo washed his hands in a basin and said, “Ah, yes. The best part of the story. Yes. Ruktuu, the last bearer of the Gardaan, possessed the massive offensive power of a god, but he also possessed the crushing empathy of a god as well. So distraught over the trillions of lives he extinguished in one second, he flew to the center of the galaxy, where he focused all his divine power on his own being, shattering it and the precious Gardaan into a fiery supernova. From that time on the Gardaan was extinguished from history, mostly out of ignorance. Those that knew what happened perished in the cataclysm. Sure there were pockets here and there that told stories about it, but the belief never returned to the height it once was. The legend of the Gardaan slipped from memory and became a trivial piece of lore passed down from crazy old men.”

“But what of the Gardaan?” Morigin asked. “Surely it survived.”

“Yes it did. Backwater stories of people finding and claiming the known six pieces of the Gardaan slipped in and out of depot stations and systems throughout the galaxy. More often than naught, the possessor of a piece of the Gardaan perished under its power. Only the most powerful wills can bear it. Weaker beings slipping on a piece of the Gardaan we're known to be consumed by it, their atoms literally falling apart. In this fashion, the pieces work to find their way to the next god king.”

“But why me?” Morigin asked. “Why do you ask a drunkard scrapper to come with you on this odyssey?”

“You remind me of my son,” Telo said. “You’re much older, but I see him in your eyes, in the way that you are so sure you have a grasp on the things around you.”

“Well, why don’t you ask him?”

“I can’t,” Telo rubbed his face in embarrassment. “I’m ashamed. All his life, I was away. Digging up crusty artifacts on desolate worlds. Oh, how I longed to have him go with me, but his interests lied elsewhere: girls, trino boarding, sailgliding. He just never had it in him – what I do. I tried. I told him everything about the Gardaan. Even the mysteries behind where I thought the pieces resided. They were long tales and stories that I knew bored him, but I told him everything to convince him to join me. But he wouldn’t. I couldn’t fix the resentment he carried for me. After his mother died, he no longer had a reason to stay home. He jumped the first cruiser to Param Eon. He always liked that blasphemous city – all the lights, the scum, the chaos, all banded together with technology to do all the work.”

Telo’s face grew angry. “Chipping the rock and soil, straining your back and feet, breaking a hard sweat and getting your face straight into the dirt. Now that is work.” Telo held up his hands and looked at them. “They are magical gifts of evolution, hands. Yet no one dares use them to lift anything, push a dolley-crate or pull a cargo net. No. There are retroes and bots to do all that.”

Telo pointed to Morigin’s head. “And this. The mind. Are you aware that the Flagellans use almost 67% of their brain capacity? Humans historically use 11%. Do you know what lies in that other 89?%?”

Morigin shook his head, listening intently to Telo’s empassioned diatribe. “Power. Telepathy. Telekinesis. Superior body control. Rapid healing. You name it, the mind can grasp it and control it. Why do you think the flagellan live so long? They have such control over their own bodies they can increase their healing factor, raise their immunity levels and cheat death. Have you ever seen an elder Armanon?”

Morigin shook his head again.

“They control protein levels in their blood to the point of massive, instantaneous muscle generation – nearly quadrupling their strength in a matter of minutes.”

Morigin finally broke in, “What you’re talking about isn’t possible? Sure through tech, but not naturally.”

“That’s what you’ve come to accept. Millenia of denial, loss of faith and ever-increasing reliance on science and technology. Long ago these physical abilities existed and were evolutionally unlearned, forced back into the recesses of the mind and body. And it’s not just humans, either. All species have become subjected to this de-evolution.”

“How can we relearn it?”

“Meditation and concentration,” Telo said.

“But there’s a missing element.”

“Which is what?”

“Faith,” Telo had said. “Everything we are capable of requires energy, a certain symbiosis with everything around us, the universe, what our ancestors would refer to as God.”

“Ruktuu?”

“No. He was thought of as a god-like being, not the divine creator and energy source fueling the entire universe – a concept not easily grasped by species of today. That is what is needed to complete the evolution. Meditate, pray and tap into that symbiotic energy and should you be able to attain oneness with the universe, you are granted access to its energy, to its power. Many species involuntarily tap into this – their recession away from faith left trace physiological patches that enable that connection. You can see it in highly-intelligent, passive, non-tech-centric species.”

“How do you know when you have reached ‘one-ness?’”

Telo smiled and said, “You know that rush your mind feels in a life or death moment, the panic of when death gets so close you’ll wish anything to prevent it from happening and then miraculously it happens?”

Morigin thought about his fight with the Perado, it’s stinger jabbing into his neck. He could feel the bony barb wrenching underneath his skin. At that very moment, he remembered his mind made a call out, a silent tendril of thought to an unnamed listener, asking to make the stinger stop. He had never really noticed before.

Even though it happened in a cellular second, a span of time unimaginably small to even conceive, when that stinger pierced him, he could feel the presence of the sender, himself, and a larger, more spacious presence of a listener, and at the notice of that listener, Morigin open his eyes and saw Telo, lifting him up and carrying him away from the fight.

Back in Morigin's room, Telo saw the recognition in Morigin’s eyes. “See. You have made the connection before. That is what I speak of.”

Morigin shook his head like he had come out of a life long fog. “So you’ve spent your whole life – missed your only son’s childhood, missed an entire marriage – in pursuit of a sacred suit of armor, the claimed “skin of God,” from a god – the all-creator, divine force that is the beginning and end to everything there is in the universe – that no one believes exists anymore.”

Telo nodded at Morigin’s long-winded comment.

Morigin wanted to disbelieve it all. Even his comments weren’t aimed to convince Telo that he was crazy, but to convince himself that everything he heard was ash on the wind. He rubbed the welt on his neck and still felt the bony burr of the stinger.

“Plus, you have a new ship,” Telo said. “A ship that, if I heard you in the pub correctly, just had a contraband COM stealth patch installed.”

Morigin smiled. He liked how this old man thought. “Yes. I just got it installed.”

“You weren’t planning on doing a little smuggling, were you?” Telo asked.

Morgin smiled broadly and said, “Not at all.”

...What're we going to do?

...Jade?

...I'm searching...setting course for Odiacz.

Chapter 12: The Fire Within

“I specifically asked for you to be here and fully setup an hour beforehand!”

Busily preparing a vast feast of perrivine salads, terces cuts, senna rolls and a variety of kaffe pots in a large boardroom, the caterer sweated and avoided eye contact with the administrator. Making sure he worked while speaking to her, he said, “I’m very sorry. I thought it be best to serve the kaffe piping hot. Waiting an hour would –”

Dressed in a tight-fitting powder blue dress, the administrator hung over the caterer and said, “Do you have no clue where you are?! Have you know wits about you? This is Vaulquarium Incorporated. Do you know who we are? We’re the largest financial institution on Erusaert. Over sixty percent of this system’s credits pass through here every year. I want all this set up and you out of this building in the next ten ticks!”

The caterer stabbed a brilliant sable spoon into a full salad bowl and said, “Y-Y-Yes. I understand. I will hurry.” He turned to her only once, quick enough to see her COM leds on her chin and ear lit up in bright pink, her face a permanent frown.

She turned briskly and stamped out of the board room, talking into her COM, “Yes. The room is prepared. The presentation is prepped. We are ready for your arrival in fifteen ticks.

Finished, the caterer swept the white cloths covering the trays and tables of opulent food. He double-checked the kaffe pots – still hot. Double-checked the cutlets – all there. Taking a deep breath, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a few glowing plastic business cards and as he walked out of the massive boardroom, he left them spaced out evenly between all the food.

As he left the boardroom, he nodded slightly to the administrator as she blindly ignored him and continued to talk on her COM. With a confident smile, the caterer continued to the elevators and waited patiently for the next lift down. A Huerian accountant stopped next to him. Having never seen a Huerian, he was mystified by her sapphire skin, bronze eyes and her long black hair.

A light ding sounded the arrival of the lift, and the caterer caught himself staring at her. “Sorry,” he chimed to her. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was high, distant and airy – as if someone behind him was talking rather than her. “Pheremones. You haven’t been around my kind before, have you?”

The doors opened to the lift and a mass of people exited. The Huerian and the caterer entered the lift together and the doors closed. He felt his insides rise as the lift jetted downward. He couldn’t tell if it was the lift or her.

“Our phermones are quite strong,” she continued. “Even for other species. You get used to it and eventually the infatuation goes away.” Thin and wide, her mouth rose in a flirtatious smile.

“Amazing,” the caterer said. “It’s intoxicating.”

The Huerian blushed – her cheeks grew white as she said, “My name is Dal’Lalia.”

“Fielder,” said the caterer as the lift again dinged, announcing their arrival.

“Nice to meet you,” she said as the doors slid open and she slinked away.

The caterer stepped out and said to himself, “Nice to meet you too.”

Standing in the large annex to the building, the caterer saw a large group of dignitaries – likely representing the various investors across the system. Having done a lot of these business meetings, he knew where they were headed – to the boardroom he just decked out with luscious foods. Smiling slightly for a job well done, he strode past the dignitaries, nodding his head and saying, “Good day,” to many of them, before he walked to the doors and pulled out his temporary security badge.

He slid it into a small slot and a metallic voice said, “Green Dragon Catering. Your security access has expired. Have a nice day.” The doorlocks opened with a loud chunk and the caterer passed through.

Outside, the Vaulquarium Incorporated building sprawled high into the Erusaertian sky. Pyramid in shape, the outside shimmered in the sunlight – its deep green glass panels sparkling brilliantly. The caterer turned back to see the beauty of the building before crossing the street and walking a few blocks. People bustled through the busy streets.

Set off on the corner across from him, a ramshackle bodega sat. Selling cheap newsclips and carbo parcels, the caterer approached it and looked at the cloaked man sitting on the stool in the bodega. The only thing that stood out about the man’s face was his deep indigo skin and his white eyes. Barely audible, the man barked at the caterer, “Has the meal been served?”

Behind them, high atop the Vaulquarium building a flash erupted at the peak, spreading a blinding white light throughout the city. As the flash died down, a great cloud of black smoke began to rise revealing that the entire upper half of the building had been completely blown off. The city erupted in panic. People of every species screamed and ran down the streets, knocking over street vendors, stampeding over each other in their attempts to get away. A shuttle crashed into another building, causing a wingpod and a skiff to crash into each other.

Amidst all the chaos, the caterer looked into the bodega and found the man gone, but lying on the bodega shelf was a cred chip. He took it and flipped it into the air as he walked away, a thick gray cloud of dust, paper and debris raining down all around him – people running and screaming past him. And in all this chaos – the caterer remained as calm as a klectuu pond, no ripples, no noise and all silence.

* * *

...Amidst the 10^th anniversary of the Vaulquarium terrorist bombing, Grand Minister Withryn has ramped up efforts to protect government buildings, ports and stations throughout the GSA...

Fizzing and zapping filled the armory of the Broken Fang, drowning out the flashing COM beacon in the corner, spewing news updates. Buried behind a workbench, Sellihca worked tiredly on the last piece of his armor – the helm.

“That job paid for this armor and ship. Terrorism,” Sellihca grumbled. In truth, that was his first assignment fresh in Hallastaare’s network. To him, the job felt huge – eliminating twenty of the galaxy’s most powerful banking brokers hadn’t even been attempted before. But to Hallastare, it was merely one of many expertly strategized maneuvers aimed at clearing roads for his influence.

With nanoculars affixed over his eyes, Sellihca pressed the micro-iron to a cylinder of circuits. Armor plates lie scattered on the workbench, waiting to be placed over the helm’s circuitry – finally being complete again. With deftness of a master tinkerer, he repaired the circuits and installed the armor plates. Turning the helm over in his dark indigo hands, he polished away leftover fluxgrease until the golden sheen of the armor shown through.

Sellihca turned around on his small power stool and stood up next to his entire armor suit standing in its case. Putting the helm in place atop the suit, all the pieces powered on and rifled through a systems check. The eyes of the helm lit up and passed from red, to white to green. With all systems checked, the suit powered down.

After wiping his hands off on a piece of dirty kotcloth, Sellihca stepped out of the armory and walked through a hallway to the Broken Fang's cabin. Outfitted with shabby plastellic consoles and dimly lit indicators, the cabin may not have looked like much, but it always got the job done. Numerous ceiling panels still had wiring hanging down and as he sat down in the captain's chair, he had to brush some of the wiring aside.

“Once we finish this,” Sellicha said to the lonely spaces within the cabin. “We'll be able to make some customizations. We could even get you a profile patch.”

After sitting down, he unrolled a small keyboard and attached it to the dashboard. The navscreen lit up as he keyed, pulling up a map of the planet. He initiated a populous search under the name of Solar. Streams and streams of data filed across the screen. The map zoomed and soared over the Rebotco Sea, until it isolated a house on the shore. Blinking above the location was the name Telo Solar.

“That was easy enough,” Sellicha said to himself. But he knew it wouldn't be easy. Nothing had been easy since he entered Hallastaare's network. Marr almost killed him in his initiation. And this assignment to clean up Marr's messy handiwork not only was more than he bargained for, but almost destroyed his precious armor. No. Something about this job was different than all the others. It felt like something more than just a job – as if the very universe itself plucked him like a string in a woven fabric stretching across the stars.

It was a strange feeling for Sellicha. For him, everything came down to calculations and planning – the science of a blade cutting flesh, the radius of a shockbomb. Not this feeling of connectedness, this dread that seems to haunt him like a spirit. No. He was but a huntsman. How could he be involved in something that large, that integrated with the energy of everything around him. A shiver slipped down his back.

He had to get back to work.

Outside the Solar home, Sellihca crept through the brush holding a datapad. Stopping at a tall, apap tree, he reached high an attached a sensor to the sticky bark of the tree. He figured his targets wouldn't proceed into the house until they thoroughly scanned the area for the thermal imprint of starships. By placing the transmitters around the perimeter, he will be alerted to there arrival and from a safe distance, he'll be able to strike. He could see there faces now, stopped in awe at the Broken Fang rising from the depths of the lake, the kor in their hands for the taking.

No more reacting. They were walking right into his hands.

He entered the Broken Fang and lowered her into the lake, beyond the reach of thermal scans. He powered down the generators and left enough juice on to get a reading on his transmitters and listen to the COM. In the darkened cabin, the dull green holographic glow of the COM fed shadows around Sellihca's face. Using his hands to direct the COM, he waved through news stories he had already heard. Nothing seemed interesting. He grew so bored, his eyes became heavy.

Wait. He wasn't tired.

But he couldn't help it, something clogged his mind, soothed it into shutting down. His hands and feet tingled. Every cell in his body seemed to yawn in unison. Within in seconds, his eyes closed and he felt his body slump into his chair, arms hanging down the sides. This wasn't sleep. Something else was at work. He felt his body slowly grow numb and his mind turned black.

Then, off in the darkness a great black storm rolled. Bolts of lightning radiated from cloud to cloud. As it drew closer, the lightning dimmed and calm seemed to take over.

Ah, an ancient foggy voice said. My new hand. Very few have earned direct contact. But I'm sure you are aware of that. Heard my name drifting into your ears at night, mind racing from fiendish bedtime stories. Some even believe I'm not alive anymore, that my strategists puppeteer a flimsy visage in hopes of keeping my power. I assure you. I am very much alive, as far as your kind can perceive, anyway.

Defeating Marr was not an easy task. But one that needed completing. He who vanquishes a hand, must take his place. That is why I berth the vast reaches to give you another order, an order I cannot trust to strategists and generals. The memory kor is still your primary directive. But my network spies have come across some very useful information. In all my spying and tracking of dear Telo, I give him credit. He disguised this move very well. Between his apprentice and the couriers, we could never accurately tell where the artifact was at any given time.

But now we know.

Infiltrate the Solar home and steal the artifact from the vault. Inside a protective laminate cube is an ornate gauntlet. It should be quite unmistakable. Then recover the kor and kill the interlopers.

Like a passing storm, the black clouds paled and withdrew from his thoughts. After a few moments, his mind cleared and he opened his eyes to the cabin of his starship, alarms blaring and blinking. His head hurt badly like someone just bored a hole in the base of his skull, a taste of fengrass littered his mouth. He stood up shakily and assessed the console. A bright, red light flashed on the console like a silent, impatient child.

They had arrived. How long had he been out? His thoughts tried to focus on the controls of the ship as he raised it out of the lake, but he couldn't help but think about what just happened. He knew Hallastare possessed great power, but the invasion of minds and bodily control. Sellihca now sensed how truly powerless he was in this situation and thought about just how his life would end.

As the Broken Fang emerged from the lake, Sellihca couldn't help shake the feeling that again, something reached into his plans and scrambled them all up. What did he need to do to get something done properly? He shook his head in frustration.

Rising above the lakeside cliff, he saw the Solar home come into view on the screen. Sellicha adjusted the console and the screen switched to a thermal scan that showed a blue and green environment with a bright red splotch outside of the home. As the ship strafed around to the front side of the house, Sellicha switched to a normal scan. That's when a smile erupted on his face, because standing in front of the house stood a bearded man dressed in what looked like antique clothes with a long, green sash tied around his head. In his hands, the man held the laminate cube and inside it – the artifact Hallastare described.

Quickly flipping on his guns, Sellihca lined up the reticle and fired. On the screen, the ground around the strange man erupted in plasma fire, the ground exploding and raining down on the main in clumps. Although the ground around him was torched, the man rolled out and began running. So Sellihca lined up the reticle again and fired, blowing apart apuco trees and scarabrush, but also hitting the strange man squarely in the torso, knocking him down.

Sellicha repositioned the ship and brought it down near the strange man. Once the hatch opened, Sellicha drew his hunting knife and stalked through the woods until he stood over him, his body rancid with plasma burns. He picked up the laminate block and stared at the bejeweled gauntlet inside. He too could feel its power emanate from within.

“Marvelous,” Sellihca said to himself.

Bending over to the man again, he searched his dirty linen shirt and found the memory kor.

“Too easy.”

Tucking the kor in his vest pocket and securely holding the artifact under his arm, he ran back through the ship hatch and tucked himself into the captain's chair. Pulling back on the controls, the Broken Fang rose above the woods and the house. He armed the side rockets, aligned the reticle onto the house and pulled the trigger.

Onscreen a great explosion erupted over the house. Flames stretched high and Sellicha smiled. For once, things went the way he wanted them to. He fired again. More explosions and fire. A blackness swept through him. He fired again. And again.

It took him a moment to shake out of it. Onscreen the Solar house burned wildly, the ground all around it charred and lifeless. He remembered the odd feeling. A black shiver wafting through him, controlling him, firing on that house, burning it to the ground. In all his years, all the hunting, the killing, he understood his choices, his movements, the effects of all his actions. Although he was a master at inflicting pain on other people, he did it on his own accord. No one controlled him. He controlled his hand – the knife it held.

Sellicha pulled back on the controls and the Broken Fang veered away from the burning house. His job was done. The artifact was secure. The kor was secure. The interlopers were eliminated.

As the ship shuddered through the atmosphere, volleying for the darkness of space beyond, he searched deep within himself, looking for that black flicker, that flame that took him over for a brief second. Alien to his thoughts, it was an intruder and needed to be snuffed out in any manner necessary.

Chapter 11: Snatched

“Good night,” her mother said. Vaga watched her back away from her bedrack hanging from the prefab wall. Dressed in a simple gray, raddon dress with her long, brown hair pulled back in a tail, her mother’s face had a warmth and softness that made her feel safe and loved. Standing in the doorway, her father held his wide field hat in his hands. His boots dirty, he appeared worn out, yet a smile cut through his face when he looked at her.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “You can help me plant yecaron.”

“And you can help me harvest the woodberries,” her mother said. “For pie.”

Vaga smiled and turned over in her bedrack. More like a shelf than bed, it hung from the wall by chain links. Opposite the door, a large circular window of thick laminate showed the full yellowed moon hovering over the countryside. She hadn’t made up her mind yet if she liked this place yet. Everything seemed to be hard. They grew their own food, bartered with other colonists for tools, and when a new prefab went up, the entire village showed up to lend a hand – and everyone prepared a massive feast for the newcomers.

Deep inside her, she missed the ionbikes, wingpods and channel cars of the big cities, but most of all she missed the lights. Back on Hesmucet, the cities came alive each night – every building and street lit up like the heavens. People of every species mingled among the streets. And the shows they’d go to see. Amazing. When her father said they had to leave, she was heartbroken. It was home. But better alive on a backwater planet, then drained dry by the Nerge.

Vaga rolled over and hugged her blanket, a circle of moonlight showing on her wall. A loud thump sat her up in bed. A quick scan of the room showed nothing had changed. The circle of moonlight still spread against the wall. Climbing out of the bedrack, Vaga stepped into the center of her room, where a brisk breeze rustled in. Quickly she stepped to the window but stubbed her toe on something. When she looked down, she saw a great circle of laminate on the floor – the laminate from her prefab window!

“Sweetheart,” her mother called from the hall. “Is everything all right?”

Before Vaga could scream, she saw two massive arms reaching into the gaping hole that used to be her window. They snatched her up and as she flew backward through the hole, she screamed, “Help me!”

Falling, she hit her head on the ground and everything went fuzzy. She knew only a few things, something was dragging her off through the reedgrass and her father and mother were running after her – her father launching shot after shot toward her attacker with his plasma rifle. Then her eyes closed to blackness.

* * *

Would you take her in the back and get her cleaned up?! We have fifteen minutes before arrival and I don’t want to wait for some narcaleptic stowaway.

Morigin’s words rang distant to her ears – almost dream-like. A forceful grip came to her arms as she was hauled up from the floor, her body tingling and numb.

“Don’t worry,” Palo whispered in her ear. “Once we’re on Draedus, we’ll figure something out.”

Vaga shook the dream from her head and looked at him. “Maybe once he has what he’s looking for, he’ll let us go.”

Palo helped her to the washroom and over to the basin. “Maybe.”

Vaga braced her arms on the basin and wretched into it. The flashbacks were getting easier – she could already feel her stomach settling down. Rising from the cold steel basin, she threw her head back and wiped her mouth. “What do you mean maybe?”

“All those things I mentioned,” he told her. “I made it up. Those gifts are just cheap trinkets my father found in backwater bodegas. They’re worthless.”

“And what happens when he finds that part out?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did you lie to him?”

Palo looked away from Vaga and said, “I couldn’t let him do that to you.”

The Jade Tendril shuddered and shook. They were entering the atmosphere of Draedus. Palo and Vaga staggered back to the cabin and strapped in. Through the viewport, they watched Draedus loom closer and closer. After a few moments of turbulance, the Tendril flattened its trajectory over the Rebotco Sea. Before them stretched a massive green expanse of water and just beyond that a continent.

As the ship flew over land, Vaga thought back to her conversation with Palo – he acted in her interest. He had been looking at her strangly quite a bit and she couldn’t figure out why. She turned to watch him. He stared at the viewport – they were approaching a large lake now. Deep in her stomach, Vaga felt a flutter of warmth run through her. It was different than when a memory was coming back. She didn’t feel uneasy like she was about to wretch. It comforted her. It felt good.

“There it is!” exclaimed Palo.

Morigin turned around and said, “I know. I’ve been here before.”

The Tendril passed over an expansive lake home on the farthest shore. A glorified three-level prefab, with faux fawnwood siding, the home stuck out amidst the pinet trees and carab-brush. Banking hard to the left, the Tendril passed over a clearing in the forest and fired retroes to buffet the landing.

Morigin didn’t wait for the landing to unstrap and stand up. “Let’s go.” He walked into the corridor and Palo and Vaga followed. They entered the corridor and saw the cases attached to the walls – each one held a different weapon. Morigin pressed his palm against a locked stashaway. The door clicked and opened to show a cache of plasma blasters, rifles and repeaters. Morigin reached up to the case above the entrance to the cabin and detached his cutlass, then he reached across the corridor and grabbed the Colt 45.

“What do we need all of this for?” asked Palo.

Morigin turned to him and said, “That huntsman that was after you? He found you once, and I don’t want to take the chance that he’ll find you again.” Morigin reached into the stashaway and handed Palo a repeater.

“Do you need a weapon?” Morigin asked Vaga.

Her mind seemed disconnected for a moment. With all the weapons in front of her, an odd light blinked in the back of her brain. It throbbed and hummed and told her body to be warm, hot and ready. She felt strangely detached.

“Conduit?!” Morigin asked louder. “You need a weapon or can you still do all that hand-to-hand stuff your kind is known for?”

Vaga shook her head and took the rifle into her hands. She couldn’t place those feelings earlier. Trance-like, she watched Palo and Morigin gear up. Palo winked at her. Surely he felt better now that Morigin had given them weapons. Breathing deeply, she followed them out of the ship and down the ramp.

The air on Draedus slid warm and wet down her throat – almost tropical. A warm breeze wafted off the lake. Vaga adjusted her grip on the rifle and waited. Palo would probably give her a signal and they would both turn on the captain, make a slippery escape. But escape in what? They couldn’t pilot the Jade Tendril without the captain. Perhaps Palo had an old ionbike stashed in the garage or something.

Once out of the ship, Morigin swiped his ear and pressed the corner of his eye – glowing marks lit up underneath his ear and a green sheen filled his eyes. “Jade, cover up and watch our backside.” Vaga watched in amazement as the dingy panels of the Jade Tendril shimmered slightly then disappeared. Her mouth agape, she felt fingers dig into her shoulder to turn her around.

Morigin glared at her and said, “I know. Pretty cool. Let’s go.” He moved Palo in front of him and said, “Let’s go look at these gifts.”

In a single file line, they walked through the sparse pinet trees until the large lake home loomed in front of them. On the corner eve of the house a keymon sat, its burgundy dorsal feathers ruffled. Vaga watched its long, prehensile, feathered tail swash against the faunwood siding. Its deep blue eyes followed her and the others to the side door. It cuckled at them – almost like it welcomed them.

“I’m sure he never changed the locks,” Palo said to Morigin as they stopped at the door.

Morigin cut in front of him and reached to an archaic keypad. After punching in a few codes, the door lurched open and Morigin said, “No. He never did.” He grabbed Palo’s arm and shoved him through.

For a brief moment Vaga entertained the idea of abandoning Palo and whatever plan he had. All she had to do was run – run fast and run far. Scenarios rambled through her mind, isolated wingpodders stopping to pick her up on the pathways, a skiff bus of children coming home from school – surely she’d run into someone, someone willing to help a lost soul. A sweat bead grew above her left eyebrow. Behind her the keymon cuckled, almost a laugh. She held the rifle up and looked closer – it seemed so foreign to her. Deep scrapes rusted into the black metal of the rifle – it had seen some time.

Then a hand from the blackness inside grabbed her and yanked her in. “If we get ambushed, we stand a better chance together, then separated,” the gruff voice of Morigin said in the darkness. Jostled and tugged through a dark garage, Vaga erupted into a lighted hall with Morigin in front of her.

A few steps later they walked into a large living area with a massive fireplace in the center. A crystal table by some lounge chairs supported numerous strange artifacts sitting on small silver stands. Art pieces hung from the walls – impressions, typography, landscapes. Along the hall leading to the sleeping quarters a neat row of framed parchments displayed strange glyphs or symbols on them. Morigin focused on those. He stood in front of each one and blinked – there was a brief flash and then he’d move on to the next one and do the same.

“Don’t just stand there,” he told her. “We don’t have much time. Help Palo find those gifts, then we’re out of here.” He flashed on another framed glyph.

Shaking her head, Vaga passed Morigin in the hall and walked to Palo’s bedroom. The layout was just as she remembered from the encrypted videos she hacked aboard the Jade Tendril. Standing in the doorway, she watched Palo rummage through all his old things. He seemed to have lost focus on his original plan. Stepping closer to him to be sure Morigin couldn’t hear, she said, “So how do we get out of this?”

Holding a glass cube in his hand, Palo looked at the long dead kello fish encased in the laminate and said, “Right. The neighbors down the shore have a lake cruiser we can borrow.” Palo set aside the laminate cube and opened the drawers to his dresser – riddled among the neatly folded clothes were numerous gift bags and packages, obviously opened and discarded.

“That’s it?” Vaga asked.

Palo opened a long, thin box filled with pale tissue paper. Dipping his fingers in, he pulled out a fine, plain silken glove. Incredibly light and almost sheer, it had a powerful grace to it, almost a shimmer. Palo placed the glove back amidst the tissues, closed the box and through it next to the laminate cube. “That’s all I have. It isn’t much, but it’s all we got.”

He sorted through the other bags and boxes – a minature statuette of a hinyxbear, a paper effigy of the Dunare satellite, a large dried out poppa podseed stamped with the Tropico national seal, an ornate vial filled with colored sands, an acurabattery and other nonsensical items.

“Instead of sitting there pouting,” he told her while tossing an old cloth pack her way. “Stuff this bag full of this stuff.”

“Why?” she asked. “This stuff is worthless.”

“It’s all I have now. We should be able to sell some of it if we can make it to Daerduri.”

Vaga opened the pack and started stuffing it with the gifts. “Where is that?”

“The other side of the lake,” Palo said. “We should be able to find a transport to anywhere we want.”

Vaga just tightened down the full pack, when she heard Morigin’s overjoyed voice exclaim, “Thank the suns and moons!”

Palo and Vaga ran out of the bedroom and followed Morigin’s voice to Telo’s lab. Once there, Vaga saw Morigin standing in front of a great whitesteel vault. Rubbing his hands over the smooth plates of vault armor, Morigin said, “I thought for certain they had beaten us here.”

“What are you talking about?” Vaga asked.

Morigin turned to face her and he had a gleeful look about him, almost as if he was experiencing a spiritual epiphany. “The R’Ihande . It’s here. Locked up in this vault, safe from anyone wishing to steal it. That was the delivery Telo sent me on when he was killed. I expected to get here to find it blown open and robbed – Telo’s death would have been for nothing.”

Vaga watched Palo’s face. Deep in thought, she felt him slipping away from whatever plan he concocted in his head. Just the mention of his estranged father’s name diverted him. New calculations ran through his head – she could see them contorting his forehead and eyes. And Morigin’s face. In her short time with him, she had never seen him so elated and happy – joyful. His grin stretched from ear-to-ear. An odd, almost unnoticeable ring split through the silence. She couldn’t figure out if the others could hear it, or if it was something in her mind, some small piece of hope that sparked and then died. Her future was changing before her eyes.

“Well,” said Morigin. “Let’s not stand around.” He swung around to the coded lock to the vault – a circular opening. Morigin thrust his left arm in the opening and the lock lit up in lights and let out a fleshy sounding thunk. Morigin cringed for a moment, then the lock whirred and he removed his arm. Before them pressure seals fired and the great vault door spiraled open, revealing a well lit room that only had one thing in it – an archaic wooden pedestal and atop it, sealed in a cube of clear plasteel hung suspended a gleaming gold and jewel encrusted gauntlet.

Vaga and Palo looked at it with amazement. Their steps seemed slower – time spun almost to a stop as they gazed upon the R’Ihande.

Filled with almost pure rapture Morigin grinned wide and bright. His fingers traced the smooth sides of the plasteel as he said, “One of six sacred pieces, the R’Ihande, according to legend, means ‘vacuum’ or ‘blackness,’ reportedly giving its wielder the power of some great dark energy. I’ve only seen partial stories – descriptions really. No one knows exactly what it does and we are the only three living souls in this galaxy to have seen it.”

“Amazing,” Vaga said. She too found herself touching a prodding her fingertip to the encased artifact. Something drew her to it. Doubt lingered in her head. It couldn’t be true. Morigin was a raving lunatic. He couldn’t be right. Could he? About this? But a warm feeling ran through her and made her feel like she was on the right side of something big.

A full loop around the gauntlet, Vaga noticed Palo just standing there staring – deep in thought. Curdling emotions had to be swirling in his head. She remembered the video feed – the bitterness Palo held for his father. The regret his father forged by putting his work over his family. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Palo reject even this stark symbol of his father’s work – push it off the pedestal and kick it through the wall. Or he might even collapse right in front of the artifact and weep.

“He was right,” Palo said, barely beneath his breath. “This whole time he wasn’t chasing down bedtime stories. He really was on to something. And I never believed him.”

Vaga didn’t know what to do. She felt badly for him and wanted to help but she didn’t know what to do or say. She made fists with her hands instead and cocked her head every few seconds to look at him.

“No you didn’t,” Morigin told him. He pulled the plasteel case off the pedestal and tucked it under his arm. Then in a move that surprised Vaga, Morigin stepped over to Palo and clapped his hand a few times on his shoulder and said, “It’s in the past son. We’ve all made stupid choices.” Then Morigin walked out of the vault room.

“I didn’t expect that,” said Palo.

Vaga was still staring at the hallway, trying to recalculate her feelings about Morigin. He perhaps had a human side. “Do you think he still wants to hook me up to an experience chamber?”

Palo adjusted the strap on the pack he held over his shoulder and said, “I think what we found has delayed his decision on that. But I’m not about to believe he’s a changed man.”

“What should we do?” she asked. “He’s left us alone.”

Palo thought about it for a moment and said, “I’m really sorry, but I need to go with him. What we’ve found here…it – well it changes the course of things for me. all my life I’ve hated my father for this. Now that I know it is true – that it is a real thing capable of changing things in this galaxy, I can’t abandon it. I feel compelled to finish what my father started – whatever he was doing.”

“What about me?” Vaga asked. Palo looked sheepishly at her and she felt a warmness again. Something in the way he looked at her – his eyes bright, a slight curl in his smile – made her feel good. She couldn’t figure out what it was, but it made her smile too.

“You can choose to run away right now if you want,” Palo said, his voice a bit disapproving. “I’d cover for you. Stall as long as I can to give you a head start. Or, you could come with us. I give you my word, I’ll do whatever I can to protect you, if you need it? I’ve heard stories about conduits.”

Vaga smiled. She knew from how Palo said it, that he wanted her to come with him and she measured that want against all the bad possible outcomes. “I’ll come. But if we get within one click of that technology, I’ll bring that ship down on a star. I’m not going through that again.”

“Fair enough,” Palo said.

Through the hallway and subdued by the darkness of the garage, Palo and Vaga heard voices outside. Muffled at first and hard to hear, they walked quickly to the side door, before the whole house shook and they were knocked to the floor. Ears ringing, Palo and Vaga quickly got up and ran outside. Another explosion and they fell to the ground. On her back, Vaga saw a ship circling the house. Scorched by what she could only assume was 500 years of plasma fire, the ship vollied blast after blast of plasma at the house. She rolled over and shrugged Palo awake. Struggling to get up, they turned and saw Morigin – lying face down in the plivet grass, smoke from flesh plasma wavering over his body.

“You are making this too easy for me,” a voice said above them.