by Tristan Vick
“This is worth fighting for. And, maybe I’m foolish for believing in such fine things as peace, freedom, and equality, but these are what matter to me, because in everything I’ve seen they’re the only weapons we have against evil. And above all else...I believe in love. These, I think you’ll find, are worth fighting a thousand wars.”
Epilogue
Space and time distorted, the stars warped and then cascaded toward a central mass, as though they were all being sucked down into a funnel. The gravity well grew deeper and denser until a blinding flash followed by an aftershock that kicked out an energy ring like a supernova going off. The energy ring raced away from the radiant golden squid entity that had manifested in the middle of an uncharted sector.
La’Garren hovered for a bit in orbit of the purple and green world. Bright blue flashes sparked on the surface as though a storm was raging in multiple hemispheres all at once. But they quickly dissipated again.
His tentacles probing the space around him, he finally sank into the atmosphere and descended toward the planet. As he broke through the cloud cover, the lightning storm appeared to be giant electrical arcs leaping from mammoth crystals the size of thirty story buildings. La’Garren flew between the crystals, some emerald, some topaz, others a deep ruby red. Another electrical arc danced over La’Garren who flew casually beneath the raging electrical discharges.
Several kilometers later, a valley dipped down and the crystals multiplied by several hundred. Then by the thousands until the very terrain bellow looked like the inside of an amethyst. Only, with the array of colors, it was like looking at a multi-colored rainbow amethyst.
The crystals all thrummed and vibrated to certain melodic tones as La’Garren flew passed them. It almost seemed as though they were singing to him.
At the center of the outcropping was a massive crystal in both girth and height. Its very tip was so massive that it looked like the ancient pyramids of Vallorian City on Nyctan. La’Garren flew closer and closer, noting that as he did, the electrical discharges began firing more rapidly. Before he could even reach the central obelisk, a thunderous sound wave crashed into him and sent him freewheeling backward.
La’Garren righted himself as another loud wave rushed over him. This time it was less shocking and the decibels had dropped considerably. Finally, a third wave came and with it a voice. A voice which seemed to speak directly into his mind in his own language.
Little one, you are far from home. What brings you to Kruos?
La’Garren sunk down, one of his wavering tentacles floating toward one of the smaller crystals. When he touched it, the crystal warmed with an infusion of energy and a small electrical spark leaped from it to a larger crystal, and then from that crystal all the way along the rows of crystals until the energy ran up the body of the massive crystal at the center of the crystalline garden.
We see, boomed the voice. It seemed to emanate directly from the crystal’s inner energy. Each sound wave arose from the harmonic vibrations of various crystals, all of them working in tandem to produce tones that carried their message, like a song carried on the breeze. The crystals themselves were talking to La’Garren.
You’ve journeyed all this way to ask for our help. So that you may help your friends? This altruistic predisposition impresses us, and we find no objection to your request. Our answer is, yes. We will help you and your friends, little one.
A tremor shook the crystals and then, the very ground split open. A new protrusion rose up and it was a bright red Dygra crystal.
This crystal, which is a part of Kruos and the Great Dygra, contains indescribable power. Use it wisely, for not only can it spark life into existence, it can also extinguish it.
La’Garren’s numerous tentacles wrapped themselves around the slender crystal and with a glass like clink, the crystal fractured and broke off in La’Garren’s arms.
Weighted down by the hefty size of it, he began dropping in altitude. His body, exerting more energy to compensate, began to glow bright yellow with a radiant energy and he flew up. Another tentacle brushed one of the nearby emerald crystals and La’Garren turned and flew away. As he departed Kruos, the voice followed him up into the sky.
You’re welcome.
Once he found himself back in orbit, La’Garren did one more pass of the sparkling planet. As he approached the atmosphere, it all became clear to him. The electrical arcs weren’t storms. They were the discharges of a planet sized neural network that was linked together by the crystals.
The entire planet of Kruos was sentient.
La’Garren picked up speed, using Kruos’s gravitational well to slingshot himself back toward home. As he rounded the planet, his body lit up with golden light that poured out of him and into the darkness of space. Then, in another blinding flash of light, he jumped out of the system, the red Dygra crystal he’d procured clutched safely to his underbelly.
THE GLOWING LIGHT OF La’Garren faded into the heavens and the crystals all died down to a dimly lit glow. They stayed this way for a while and then they all began to pulse.
Each pulse had a slow, rhythmic, and almost soothing quality to it. Then, incrementally, their collective pulsating grew quicker and more frenetic.
A ripple wavered over the dark glittering sand and then a humanoid figure decloaked, the shimmer melting away to reveal a navy blue and charcoal gray EV suit fitted to a feminine form which, in turn, stood in the middle of the large clearing surveying the alien terrain.
The astronaut’s visor was reflective gold and reflected the rainbow colors of the various crystals and their pulsing lights. The form-fitted suit was compact and the armor plating and materials seemed to be made with a technology light years beyond anything currently available.
Each step left boot prints in the soft soil and the astronaut bent down and took a soil sample. After that she took a reading of the air and of the radiation levels of this world.
Somehow, although she didn’t know how, this crystalline planet had a breathable atmosphere. Maybe underground vents, perhaps hot springs with oxygen producing algae that shot up steam from one of the thousands of fissures she detected on her scanners. Whatever the cause, however, the oxygen rich atmosphere was optimal for breathing.
She turned and took a step toward the giant crystal protruding from the outcrop in the central region of the crystalline growth. The closer the female astronaut came to the large crystal, the faster and more frenetic the other crystals pulsed.
At the same time, they vibrated too with increasing pitch and frequency. In fact, it seemed for each step she took nearer to the primary crystal, the more the crystals seemed to grow agitated.
Soon they were humming loudly enough that she could pick up their sounds inside her helmet. She ignored their vibrating warnings and continued to cautiously walk toward the central crystal, the humming growing steadily with every step until it turned into a high pitch whine. When she was about fifty meters from the central column, the shrill noise increased in both decibel and frequency until all that filled her ears was a crippling tinnitus that would not relent.
The high-pitch screaming of the crystals all vibrating in such a way that they literally erected a sound barrier that forced her to take a step back. As she did so, the crystals vigorous vibrating died down substantially. Curious, she took another step back and the debilitating sound became a soft rhythmic hum again. It had an almost song-like quality to it.
The astronaut with golden visor tilted her head back and looked up at the giant glowing crystal at the center. If crystals of Kruos had a leader, she assumed this must be it. She stared for a while and then, very slowly, reached up to her helmet and tapped a button on the side.
Automatically, the helmet seemed to fragment with a series of fracture lines. Each fragment, however, seemed to fold up into the previous, and one by one the pieces folded away from the woman’s face and retracted themselves back into the back of the suit just at the base of her neck.
Gray hair tied in a
bun adorned her head and she peered up with old, wise eyes replete with crow’s feet. Smiling up at the massive crystal, her face was beautiful and youthful looking, even though she was clearly approaching her late sixties. Luckily though, her eyes hadn’t lost any of their color and remained a dark and smoldering walnut brown.
The crystal pulsed in an unusual manner and the woman laughed out loud. “I understood that,” she said, tapping her temple with her gloved hand.
In response, the crystal pulsed and vibrated again, resonating with different harmonics. It sounded as though it were playing melodies on crystal wine glasses. But even though such a form of communication was expressly alien to her, with every melodic intonation, she seemed to understand as though it were speaking her very own native tongue.
The woman smiled and tilted her hips as she rested her hands on them. “So, you’re the great Dygra,” she said aloud. “I have heard stories about you. The most ancient of beings in the entire universe.”
Again, the crystal played its prosodic melodies and the woman smiled wider as though it had said something funny.
“No, I’m not here to destroy you,” she reassured the crystalline entity. Almost immediately after receiving her answer, the melodies became chipper and more optimistic sounding.
“Apologies,” she said, her eyes narrowing as she smiled. “I didn’t mean for my harmony to interfere with yours.” She pulled a small shard of an old, cracked burgundy crystal out of a pouch on her pocket and held it out. “I need you to revitalize this.”
All the crystals started pulsing frantically and the shrill noise between her ears grew to migraine inducing levels. When the woman shouted “Stop! You’re hurting me,” the crystals quickly died down again.
She took a step toward the massive crystal at the center, easing forward on one foot and watching to make sure she didn’t startle it. She knew it could sense her vibrations and so any sudden movements would alert it to an imminent threat.
This time the crystals didn’t react. They merely remained steady in their song. She drew close and, then, bending down, removed some of the glittering dark soil which seemed to be made of crystal dust from eons and eons of shattered crystals and whatever other strange geology thrived on this world. She dug a small hole and planted her crystal fragment inside.
After packing some soil on top of the crystal she slowly rose to her feet and took a few steps back and watched as the crystals all around her pulsed in strange rhythms. About thirty seconds passed when, unexpectedly, a new crystal sprouted from the ground. It was no bigger than a beanstalk, but it flashed a brilliant hot pink.
All the crystals began to vibrate in strange ways. The harmony they once had changed to a discordant cacophony. Eventually, however, they reharmonized in a manner that almost sounded like speech.
She listened carefully and in due course their words became clear. The vibrations floated through the air and mimicked, to the best of their ability, human speech.
“Old lady...” was the first part. The second word that the crystals had managed to utter in their mimicry of language was a name. A name the woman hadn’t heard in a very long time. “Jegra.”
“Yes,” she said, brushing a lose strand of gray hair out of her eyes and tucking it back behind her right ear. “I am an old lady. That tends to happen when you’re three hundred years old.”
The crystals flashed random colors and tones and Jegra had to steady herself because the sounds and vibrations were so foreign that they messed with her inner ear and caused her to lose her balance.
“No,” she said. “I’ve come back in time through a wormhole to warn my younger self not to trust H’aaztre’s words. His promise of lenience is a lie. I have to warn her that if she surrenders herself, like I did, he still will kill everyone that...I...she...ever held dear.”
There was a brief pause as she grappled with her grief, then, taking in a deep breath, she continued.
“I may have lost everything, but it doesn’t need to be that way for her. I can still change the future. I can save them all. But I need your help, Great Dygra. I need you to bond your power to me one last time so that I may have the strength to finish this bloody war once and for all.”
THE END
JEGRA WILL RETURN IN:
The Chronicles of Jegra: Galaxy at War
Sign up to Tristan Vick’s newsletter mailing list and get Jegra’s origin story for free!
The Chronicles of Jegra: Origins of the Gladiatrix
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tristan Vick is a multi-genre author who specializes in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror and has dabbled in mystery and suspense as well. He graduated from Montana State University with degrees in English Literature and Asian Cultural Studies and speaks fluent Japanese. He lives with his wife and three children in Japan. When he's not commuting on the train or teaching English, he spends his time reading, writing, blogging, binge-watching his favorite television shows, and eating sara-udon. In addition to being traditionally published, Tristan Vick continues to self-publish under his own imprint, Regolith Publications. You can learn more about him and his works on his official author webpage at:
www.tristanvick.com
ALSO BY TRISTAN VICK
AVAILABLE NOW
BITTEN: Resurrection
BITTEN 2: Land of the Rising Dead
BITTEN 3: Kingdom of the Living Dead
Valandra: The Winds of Time (Book 1)
Valandra: The Dragon Blade (Book 2)
Valandra: The Goddess of War (Book 3)
Valandra: The Black Knight & The Golden Arm (Book 4)
Dark Forces of Nature (Volume 1)
The Chronicles of JEGRA:
Gladiatrix of the Galaxy (Book 1)
Imperatrix of the Galaxy (Book 2)
Destroyer of Galaxies (Book 3)
COMING SOON
The Chronicles of JEGRA:
Galaxy at War (Book 5)
The Knights of Caelum: Oath Breaker (Book 1)
The Skywend: The Last Peacekeeper (Book 1)
BITTEN 4: Ancient of Dread Days
Visit Tristan Vick’s official author website at:
www.tristanvick.com
