Redeemer: A Military Space Opera Series (War Undying Book 2)

by N. D. Redding

  “Why is it that important that Arthur returns to your circles or whatever?”

  “There are no Aloi minds outside the circles. There never have been, at least not voluntarily. This is a dangerous precedent which can’t be allowed for the sake of our race. Letting this mind loose entails things I’d rather not even think about.”

  “Can’t we find some common ground?” I asked, trying to sound political rather than emotional. “See, Arthur is part of my crew and I even see him as a brother in a way. I’m here to reach an agreement and cooperate with you. We’re all in this together, so why force him to do something that can only cause distrust between us?”

  None of them spoke. They seemed to ponder over my words. I knew that they knew I was right, but how could an elder race submit to a young speaker?

  “How about this. Let’s continue our negotiations, let’s map out a plan, and after we succeed in the wars to come, you can talk to Arthur again and perhaps convince him to return?”

  “No!” Arthur said resolutely. “No, I won’t return to the circle. I’d rather tear my head out of my spine than let you drag me back into it!”

  “You’re not making this easy on me, Arthur.”

  “This isn’t about you. It is, I mean, but it’s not just about you.” He stared at me, or at least that’s what I thought he did as I couldn’t see his eyes, but then turned toward the three Convictionis. “Tell me, cousin, what is all this? This Dusk Ascendancy, this alliance with the humans? Since when do we perform such unnecessarily convoluted mind-mergers, respecting the hosts’ agency, building up another race’s world, and protecting it with fleets of Crusaders? A thousand years ago, this would be just another zealot-birthing hellhole, but now, all of a sudden, the inner-circle wants to make amends or something? I don’t trust any of this. These are not our ways. There’s something sinister going on here, and I don’t know what it is, but it can’t be good. There’s nothing good in the minds of the Aloi. So tell me, what is all this shit?”

  Once again, the room fell silent as Arthur opened up the one question that was laying heavy on my mind for a while. What was all of this?

  “There’s been change,” Convictionis Jorr’ka said, finally speaking up.

  “Change?” Arthur dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand.

  “You’ve been away a long time, cousin. The waves of pushback against our ways that had been going on since before you even existed finally made their way into the inner-circle. Compassion for other biological races was always a part of our collective thought, but it has never been more powerful than it was in the last few centuries. Change is slow in the Aloi circles, you know much of it yourself, but it is still there.”

  “Change?” Arthur repeated thoughtfully. “You really speak of change? Then what about all the races we have extinguished? The minds we have enslaved, the bodies we have twisted to serve us. There’s a sky full of Crusaders up here. What about the mountain-consciousness forever trapped in their bodies? Will they too feel this change?”

  “It is gradual. Some things take time,” Jorr’ka added.

  Arthur seemed to ponder over his words as he remained silent. His shoulders dropped slightly and he let out a deep sigh.

  “I won’t come back. You’ll have to take me by force, and before I let anyone take me, I’ll kill myself.”

  “I support him fully,” I added quickly. “Arthur is my friend and my brother-in-arms, so there’s no way you’ll get him if he doesn’t want to go with you on his own.”

  “May we speak alone with Richard Stavos, Arthur?” Convictionis Gris said, not allowing for the words to settle. Arthur nodded and left the room without another word. “Will you protect the Aloi with your life?”

  I nodded, hoping it wouldn’t have to come to that. “I will to the fullest of my extent.”

  “And you would abandon your plans to help save your race for him?”

  “Arthur’s part of my crew. If you attack him, you’ll attack me. I don’t think we could win this fight, but I have a knack for situations where all odds are against me. I just hope you won’t test me and that we can put this thing aside. At least for now.”

  “He will return to his circle!” Daxar hissed again.

  The other Convictionis didn’t seem too happy with Daxar’s words. And they let him know through their angry stares.

  “Now then, before we continue, let me apologize for my behavior yesterday. It was brought to my attention that I was somewhat out of line,” I said, trying to steer away this talk about handing over Arthur.

  Convictionis Jorr’ka leaned forward, meshing his fingers and allowing a smile to settle on his face.

  “Tell us more about your dreams, if you don’t mind.”

  “Really, I told you everything I know. Since that episode below the mountain, I’ve been having the same dream, more or less. Sometimes I have it two nights in a row, other times it vanishes for months.”

  “And this place, Bardeena that you mentioned. Do you know what it could represent?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea, Convictionis.”

  “Indeed, tell us, to your mind, what are the Ka?”

  I thought for a while about the question before answering. All I knew about the Ka was from gal-history back in high school. I assumed much of it was propaganda and Arthur agreed, but he didn’t know much more than I did, or at least he didn’t want to say.

  “The Ka are a species older than all the others in the galaxy. They evolved before any other biological life did. They’re incredibly intelligent and, well, I’ve been taught they are endlessly benevolent. I have a hunch you might disagree on that point, though. Oh, right, and according to the Imminy in my holding cell, they can see the future.”

  I hoped the last sentence would at least startle them, but instead I was the one startled by their disinterest.

  “I don’t believe they teach you about the Ala’Ka in the Federation?”

  “I don’t believe that either,” I replied curiously.

  “What you have encountered below the mountain on Detera wasn’t a Ka. It was the last known Ala’Ka. A being belonging to a race that we have worshiped as gods for millennia.”

  “So, I’ve met your god?”

  “In a way,” Jorr’ka continued. “You see us as religious fanatics because we worshiped a god. It’s been hundreds of years since we finally admitted to ourselves that our religion was nothing more than a veil we cast over our fears. Still, our religion wasn’t just that. It was also a vessel to preserve a truth as old as our race, a truth buried in superstition, ritual, and myth. But a truth, nonetheless. The Ala’Ka differs from the Ka only in name. They were gods as much as the Ka were and neither of them would come to aid us.”

  I said nothing. The Ala’Ka he spoke of was eerily Ka-like, and I had my suspicions for a while now. Still, the idea of a Ka that is in disagreement with the others sent chills down my spine. Civil war between god-like creatures? No thanks.

  “There was a war among the Ka. It was so long ago, when our race was but a speck of galactic dust that even our own records have nothing on it. That’s when myth took over the reigns of preserving history. For a long time our race believed that the Ala’Ka would return, that they would destroy the Ka and release the galaxy from their chains. Yet, we had a living Ala’Ka hidden on Detera all that time and only a few Aloi minds, disconnected from our circles, knew of it.”

  That’s when I realized why they were so against Arthur staying on his own. It wasn’t principle, it was experience. Arthur wasn’t the first to rebel, those that strayed from the pack meant trouble, some of cosmic proportions apparently.

  “Your friend, Tailor, knew the Aloi that kept the Ala’Ka hidden; that’s why he sent you down there. You’re a vessel, Richard Stavos. A ship that must be steered toward the ultimate goal of the Ala’Ka: to destroy the Ka for good. The Aloi took their own lives knowing that there wasn’t a place for them in the galaxy anymore. Not among their own circles and certainly not
in the Federation. The Ala’Ka fractured itself so it could be absorbed by something as simplistic as a human. Within your veins, the last of the Ala’Ka still lives.”

  “Within my veins…So the dreams, the H-Nan powers, all of that comes from a Ka that lives within me? Is this what you’re telling me?”

  The implications of this were just too terrifying to take in all at once. Suffice to say I was troubled by that information.

  “The Ala’Ka within you is sadly dead. It will never be what it once was. It’s fractured beyond retrieval, but there are fragments of its mind that remained.”

  “But why? Why would an Ala’Ka kill itself to live inside of me? I’m sorry but this just sounds completely insane.”

  “The Ala’Ka has made that decision and we must respect it. Perhaps it realized it couldn’t hide from its brothers, perhaps it was too weak to continue, perhaps it is you who it thinks should carry the light to Bardeena.”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. When I came here, I had hoped to convince them to help me rescue human colonies. Now I’m suddenly carrying a fragmented Ka within me and should go to a place I heard of in my dreams. But why? What was Bardeena?

  “What is that place I’ve been dreaming of?”

  “That is for you to find out,” Jorr’ka replied. He stared at me intently and I knew that I wasn’t going to get much more out of him.

  “So you don’t know what Bardeena is?”

  “We don’t, but we can assume,” Daxar said. “The Ka’s homeworld perhaps, if something like that even exists. There’s a part of Federation space called the Tarsach nebula; it is a vast region but mostly unsettled. Yet, it is heavily guarded which gives us reason to believe the Ka are hiding something of importance there. There’s a lot of details we have to brief you on, Light-bearer, before you can embark on your mission.”

  “Light-bearer? Mission? You want me to go there?” I asked incredulously. “All right, let’s back up a second. Why in the hell was I chosen for this? What’s so special about me?”

  “Nothing,” Daxar said plainly, but Gris and Jorr’ka looked at him in confusion. All three of them closed their eyes for several seconds, and I guess discussed the issue before Jorr’ka continued.

  “The nanites you carry in your bloodstream. That weapon the Ka have infused you with. What are they in your opinion?”

  “Nanites? Micro-machines directly connected with my brain.”

  “And what else?”

  “Nothing else. They’re a weapon, a tool, nothing more.”

  “Richard Stavos, you sound naïve for someone with your history,” Daxar said.

  “Listen, Daxar, I’ve studied nanites. I know their composition, how they work, what they’re made of, and what they can do for decades. I could have gone into detail, but I don’t think you inquired about my nanites because you want a lecture in nanite engineering.”

  “Why are some Technomancers better than others? Why do some people interact with nanites much better than others?”

  “Because some people practice more, some people are smarter, have more mental discipline and focus. Where are we going with this?”

  “Then how come there aren’t more Technomancers in the Federation’s legions. Aren’t you one of the most effective weapons the Federation ever put in place? Our logs show that a single Techomancer is often worth more than entire squads or even companies. Why not train more of you if training is all that makes a good Technomancer?”

  It was a point I often pondered myself. The answer that my vigorous analysis yielded always circled back to me having quite the ego. I just thought I was born to be a Technomancer, that luck was on my side at least regarding that.

  “Nanites, not completely unlike detrium, are held together by dead Ka consciousness that establish themselves in the connections between nanite materials on a quantum level. They aren’t conscious beings that live within you, but they still exist as quantum patterns in nanite stacks and once injected into an intelligent mind, in that mind too. Without this, you could never establish a connection with your nanites the way you do. You could never recreate a nanite cell back on Persei Prime, could you? Of course not, because you were always missing the main ingredient.”

  “So, you’re saying I have several Ka in my bloodstream? That they like me and that’s why I can do what other Technomancers can’t? What about defecting to the other side? Why didn’t the Ka within me stop me?” So there it was, there was truth in the theory the Imminy had spilled before me.

  “The Ka consciousness in your nanites is even more fragmented than the Ala’Ka within you. It’s not a complete mind, it has no agency, and yet it interacts with its host to a certain degree. The closer you are mentally to the Ka, the easier the connection is established.”

  “I’m thinking like a Ka?”

  “In a sense, yes.”

  Now that wasn’t something I wanted to hear. How the hell could they even compare me with a bloodthirsty… destroyer. Shit. They weren’t even far off.

  “So, there’s several Ka in my bloodstream, one of which is your old god? And he wants me to find Bardeena, whatever that is, and I guess destroy the other Ka?”

  “That’s a very simplistic way of saying things, but yes,” Convictionis Jorr’ka said.

  “Aren’t the Ka within me fighting each other then?”

  “We assume they aren’t. The Ala’Ka within you is very dominant. It is a technology that is beyond us sadly, and we have never deciphered how the Ka managed to use fragmented minds of their own people as weapons for other races, but we are very certain they have.”

  “And humanity? Our colonies, all that? You let me rave on about all those issues.”

  “With the Ka destroyed, the Imminy will not be able to control the Federation. Despite their intelligence and power, the Imminy are nothing but tools to the Ka.”

  “And the Ka themselves? What is their end game? Someone said it’s destroying all biological life in the galaxy, but that just sounds like propaganda.”

  “What the Ka want to do is what they tried to do when the Ala’Ka stopped them millennia ago. That is still their goal and that was always their goal.”

  “Which is?”

  “A galaxy of Ka devoid of all other biological life.”

  27

  A message on my INAS startled me awake. Still somewhat sleepy from last night, I opened the file and lazily glanced over the empty message. No words, no pictures, no nothing. Just the notification of a message but no substance.

  A second message came only seconds later with an urgency tag saying: PLEASE IGNORE PREVIOUS MESSAGE, MCGILL.”

  What the hell was that? Was it on purpose? Was it a game she played? Was it really a mistake? The entirety of the galactic issues I was currently facing sunk into the background and McGill’s beautiful face filled up my entire conscious mind.

  Another message on my INAS, not even remotely as interesting, informed me that the Tanaree was now at 95% mass. I left the quarters of the shipyard with Fars in tow and walked down the corridor to the observation deck where Convictionis Ra’azeem and his Soulspeakers waited for me. Upon my arrival, two more Dusk Ascendancy officers, a man and a woman, both young, healthy and beautiful, stood next to the Convictionis in their traditionally purple military uniforms.

  The man had several military awards and decorations pinned to his chest and his expression shone with pride and dignity. The woman, however, had but one medal on her chest that I later learned was a commendation from the academy which meant she didn’t have any real-life experience and yet was somehow given the rank of captain. Politics, even this far out from Earth.

  Convictionis Ra’azeem introduced the two as Chester J. Harring and Elizabeth Steiner. Both captains of the Dusk Ascendancy, both vastly differing in experience and knowledge, but both now part of my small fleet and to be installed as captains of the two destroyers we had taken over from the Federation.

  “Admiral Stavos, Captains Harring and Steiner have been chosen by
the Dusk Ascendancy to command two of your destroyers as was agreed on in last night’s meeting.”

  I nodded and inspected my new officers. Both introduced themselves with a handshake and a small bow. Captain Steiner was nervous as hell and honestly, she should have been considering she was now an integral part of what I aptly called Hazard Fleet. Captain Harring, however, wasn’t nervous. On the contrary, he seemed not too happy to be part of my fleet and under my command. You could hardly tell how old any Dusk Ascendancy human was. They all looked between twenty-five and forty, but most of them were between sixty and several centuries old. To Captain Harring, I assumed, I was but a problem child with too much power. It didn’t bother me much. I had a Jareet general in my crew and I knew how to establish authority even with the prickliest of officers.

  “Captain Harring, Captain Steiner, I’m glad to have you. I’d very much like to get to know you better but departure is within twelve SST hours and there’s still a lot of things we have to get done. Your crews are mostly ex-Federation so it will take some time to get adjusted. I suggest you assume command of your ships ASAP and get accustomed with the design and crew.”

  “I have studied Federation ships for three decades. I know what I’m in command of,” Harring interjected, crossing his hands over his chest.

  “Officer, put your hands down, stand up straight and address me by my title when you speak to me before I have the Eres tear out both your arms and send you back to Primitea with less of an attitude and fewer appendages!”

  Captain Harring dropped his hands immediately. The Convictionis coughed uncomfortably and one of the Soulspeakers chuckled. It was inappropriate, but who cared? The expression on Harring’s face changed from smugness to shit-is-about-to-go-down in a heartbeat.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, saluting me.

  “Captain Steiner, do you have any objections?”