The Eve of War

by Christopher Hopper

  TO-96 squared up to the buildings and suddenly emitted a wide beam of light. The holo-projection filled the foreground with an overlay of the city. As it once was, Awen concluded. “This is what it looked like?” she asked in wonder.

  “Correct, at least insofar as the data provided to me conveys.”

  “It’s… it’s—”

  “It’s beautiful,” Ezo said.

  “Yes.” Awen nodded, biting her index finger.

  The holo-projection seemed to melt away the overgrowth, revealing gleaming surfaces and delicate architecture. Windows spiraled out to meet sweeping walkways suspended over intricate sidewalks. Planters dotted open plazas while arches rose and fell across them like the waves of an ocean swell. In the center stood the largest arch, bearing a script that Awen had never encountered before. Its elegant lines looked like they overlapped one another in three dimensions even though the text was clearly engraved on a two-dimensional surface.

  “What does it say?” Awen asked.

  “The translation, at least as far as I can manage, says, ‘Welcome to all those who wander and wonder. Find direction in darkness, find meaning as one.’”

  “Clumsy, but poetic, I guess,” Ezo replied. “So, you can read their language?”

  “I would say I am learning to,” TO-96 said. “They provided what they want us to know. I am parsing the rest.”

  Awen blinked at TO-96’s holo-projection. Her imagination was lost in what it must have been like to wander these city streets when this civilization was at its height. What did the people look like? What clothes did they wear, what songs did they sing, what food did they eat? How were their family units structured, and what form of government did they employ? The reality was, however, that she’d never know. Judging by the amount of growth around the ruins, it had been hundreds if not thousands of years since any living thing had occupied this place.

  Awen felt a sudden sadness like she was mourning the loss of an old friend who’d passed away years before. The initial sting of death was long gone. In its place was the festering absence that bred a lifelong sorrow. It was an emotion that held on like a stiff joint or a bruised bone.

  Yet… She stood there, looking past the holo-projection into the rest of the city.

  Yet it feels like we’re not alone, she concluded. Like they’re still here. She couldn’t tell Ezo or TO-96 how she knew they were being watched, but she was convinced they were—convinced that this civilization was not completely lost. The notion defied her sense of logic, of course, but so did most of what was to be found in the Unity.

  Awen closed her eyes and withdrew to her inner self once more. If there was something to be found, she knew it could be seen in the Unity of all things. She stretched out with her senses, observing herself, Ezo, and TO-96 as mere blips amid a planet fully awake. The impression of vitality was so overwhelming that Awen was nearly pushed from the Unity. She held on, forcing herself to stare at the cascading ripples of life that emanated from each place she focused on with her inner eyes. Each tree, each plant, each flying, swinging, and crawling creature radiated a life force more intense than anything she had seen before. But how? she wondered. How could one planet’s life be so vibrant, so intense?

  “Are you okay, Awen?” Ezo asked from inside the natural realm. Her inner senses felt the words before her ears heard them.

  “Yes,” she replied, first from inside the Unity and then with her physical mouth. “This planet is incredible. I’ve never seen something so… alive.”

  Then Awen shifted her focus toward the urban structures, eager to see what treasures they might hold. Her inner eyes searched the first ones and then froze. Aside from seeing the buildings in wonderful detail—far more than TO-96’s holo-projection could have rendered—Awen noticed that a strong life current raced through the walls like bundled conduits of energy. The pipelines glowed green with a corona that faded from pink to white.

  “The buildings,” Awen said aloud. “They’re inhabited.”

  TO-96 raised his forearm with the XM31 Type-R blaster affixed to it. As if someone had threatened a beehive by swatting it with a stick, the nearest building’s colors shifted to an angry red and sent out high-frequency ripples in the Unity.

  “Wait.” Awen extended her inner hand, placed it over the bot’s arm, and gently pushed it down. TO-96 jerked away, as she thought he might since her physical hand was nowhere near his arm. “They’re not hostile, at least not as far as I can tell.”

  “Wait—they?” Ezo asked. “As in, the buildings?”

  “No, not the buildings, exactly. It’s more like something that makes up the buildings. Or is flowing in the buildings.”

  “And you can tell they’re not hostile?”

  “They didn’t like TO-96 raising his blaster,” Awen replied, noting that the red had turned back to the greenish, pink, and white glow from before.

  “They didn’t like it?” Ezo asked in disbelief. “How can you—”

  “Relax, Ezo,” Awen said, placing her inner hand on his shoulder for emphasis.

  Ezo winced and let out a yell, trying to brush the unseen touch from his body. “Splick! Was that you?”

  “Yes, Ezo.”

  “Don’t scare me like that,” he said, placing his hands on his knees and trying to catch his breath.

  “More exists on the other side of the seen universe than you can imagine,” she added. “You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

  Ezo placed a hand on his chest and stood upright again. “Okay. So, you don’t think they’re hostile.” He looked to TO-96. “Any ideas where they want us to go, Ninety-Six?”

  “The only destination indicated on the stardrive is Itheliana as a whole.”

  “The whole city?” Ezo said.

  “That’s correct, sir. By my estimation, their invitation was simply to arrive and to explore.”

  “Explore?” Ezo asked, clearly stunned by such an idea. “The whole city? But it would take an entire lifetime!”

  “Based on square kilometers, you may not be far from the truth.”

  “I might have something,” Awen interjected. “There’s some sort of pulsing, moving inward. It seems to have a definitive direction. Like… it wants us to follow.”

  “It wants us to follow it?” Ezo asked. “I’m not sure—”

  “I told you to trust me, didn’t I?”

  Ezo cleared his throat. “Yes. Yes, you did. Just please don’t touch me again like that. It’s… it’s weird.”

  “I won’t have to if you keep up with my instructions. This is my expedition after all, isn’t it, Captain?” She could tell he wasn’t sure how to respond to her when her eyes were closed. Ezo raised a hand and waved it over her face. “Yes, I see you just fine, Ezo. Relax.”

  “So weird,” Ezo mumbled, lowering his hand. “Okay, lead on, Star Queen.”

  • • •

  The trio walked for over an hour, every street revealing a breathtaking view, inspiring architecture, and ingenious engineering. TO-96 kept his holo-projection displayed for Ezo’s sake while Awen remained inside the Unity. The trio stopped only for Awen and Ezo to rest their legs and take long drinks of water from their canteens.

  Not only did the buildings get taller as they moved toward the city’s center, but the streets and sidewalks moved upward as well. Some spiraled over themselves, while others leaped skyward with ramps, bridges, or elevated corridors. And while the jungle continued to retake the structures, it did so with less ferocity as the city moved up and away from the planet’s surface.

  Whatever beings had once lived here, they certainly seemed to have had the stature and preferences of humanoids in Awen’s universe. The doorways leading into buildings were proportioned well enough to fit her. She imagined the streets bustling with shoppers, enterprisers, and families, all flowing past one another on their various errands. Transportation lanes supported elegant vehicles that whisked people from one point in the city to the next. All around her, life swelled, risi
ng and falling like the troughs and peaks of ocean waves.

  In the present, however, there was nothing but the sounds and smells of the forest. Awen wondered just how old Itheliana was and how long it had taken for the jungle to retake the land. She also wondered if she was the first to tread here since… since whatever happened to this species happened. Had others discovered it before her, perhaps others in this universe? TO-96 had called it “metaspace.” Perhaps these people had been conquered by a superior race in their own galaxy, though the city entirely lacked signs of war. Maybe a plague had wiped them out.

  Whatever it was, it had not taken them out completely. Something still lived in the walls and floors and ceilings. Something moved in the pavement and the concrete. As sure as Awen was of her own life force in the Unity of all things, she was convinced that this place contained some remains of sentient life even if it was a shadow of its former glory.

  They walked on for another hour, following Awen’s direction as she followed the rhythmic pulses that summoned her forward. Even though Ezo couldn’t see what she could, he often intuitively chose the correct turn in a street or fork in the sidewalk. She wondered if the life force rippling through the city also summoned him in unseen ways.

  As they rose in altitude, the buildings grew increasingly massive and more elaborate. The structural interconnectivity produced an emotion in Awen—a sense of confidence, interdependence, and reliance on every other thing around her. It was as if these people had embedded the ethos of their culture within the walls of their buildings.

  By the third hour, the trio had summited the city’s uppermost echelon. Here, one building stood out. Its multitiered construction eventually formed a tall spire that seemed to struggle against the creeping vines in a desperate effort to launch itself into the void. Yet the sinuous fibers wrapped around it, forcing the spire to stay grounded, forever bound to the prison of its foundation.

  “In there,” Awen said, pointing to the structure’s large main doors. She could sense they led into a long hallway that proceeded to serve countless rooms, corridors, and plazas. The building was truly immense and felt all-consuming, as if it had an appetite for sentient minds to explore its many secrets. Yet the structure wasn’t a hungry creation that threatened to swallow them. Rather, it was already well-fed—satiated from the nourishment of a thousand generations—and, in fact, offered something to those who wished to partake.

  “It’s a library of some sort,” Awen said.

  “A library?” Ezo asked, taking a moment to look around. “I suppose a library is fitting.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We’d need a mountain of books to uncover everything there is to know about this magical place.”

  “And that’s precisely what I think it wants to share with us.”

  For the first time in over three hours, she opened her eyes and stepped out of the Unity. The transition was a shock, as she knew it would be. Remaining in the Unity for that long was difficult, dangerous, and—when you finally reemerged—disappointing, for nothing ever looked as vibrant and rich in the seen realm as it did in the unseen. Still, she was, like all other Luma, a mortal being in a corporal body. She was not meant to stay in the Unity—no more than a mammal was meant to stay submerged underwater beyond its capacity to hold its breath.

  Awen blinked, stretched her neck and arms, and looked around at the green jungle that covered every surface. Gone were the details of the city streets, buildings, and windows. Gone were the doorways, facades, and meandering hallways. Instead, they were standing in the ruins of some ancient temple square, surrounded by monolithic shrines to cosmic gods.

  The three of them had traveled as high as was possible in Itheliana. The far horizon, which she could see between gaps in the buildings, showed alternating patches of blues and greens, signaling vast oceans and wide stretches of lush terrain. All of it was set beneath the now-fading light of a purple sky. She had to admit that even outside of the Unity, this place was spellbinding.

  As Awen turned back to examine the grand entrance of the library, she noticed TO-96’s holo-projection displaying another inscription across a broad arch. “More text?” Awen asked, pointing toward the Novian script.

  “Yes, Awen. It reads, ‘The temple of all we’ve gained, and the cost of all we’ve left behind.’”

  Ezo let out a grunt. “Seems a little ominous if you ask me.”

  “Anything that involves a cost is ominous-sounding to you, sir.”

  Ezo snorted. “You cost me a lot, Ninety-Six. Maybe I’ll trade you in after this.”

  The bot pulled back. “I would like to think that I have more than made up for my compositional expenses, sir.”

  “Some days, I wonder.”

  Awen almost laughed at the exchange, but the weight of the moment kept her focused. “Shall we go in, gentlemen?” She tried to step toward the front doors, but her feet suddenly held fast to the moss-covered ground. She looked down, thinking a vine had ensnared her, but her boots were clear. It was as if something had welded her feet to the ground. She tried budging them again but to no avail.

  Awen glanced at Ezo. To her surprise, he was looking down at his feet too. “I can’t move my legs,” he said, his voice rising in panic.

  “Neither can I,” Awen replied.

  TO-96 looked between them. “I see nothing which would indicate our immobilization,” he offered, pointing to his own legs, “but I am stuck as well.”

  Awen’s stomach caught in her throat. “That’s because it’s not something physical.”

  An all-too-familiar male voice boomed from across the plaza behind them. “Well deduced, young Luma.”

  Awen twisted around. “No!” she blurted.

  So-Elku stood with his head bowed and his eyes closed. Beside him were two other senior elders, their hands tucked in the sleeves of their red-and-black robes. So-Elku slowly raised his head and opened his eyes.

  “No!” Awen said again as her chest tightened. “How are you here? That’s—it’s not possible!”

  “Nothing’s impossible, Awen,” the Luma master replied. “Not in the Unity. You of all people should know that.”

  “I am sorry to interrupt, Awen, but does this man pose an imminent threat to you?” TO-96 asked.

  “Yes!” Awen yelled more loudly than she intended. She could see Ezo struggling to bring up one of the blasters draped over his shoulders. “Very much, yes, Ninety-Six!”

  “Very well.” The bot spun his torso one hundred eighty degrees, and he raised his arm. Before Awen could blink from the blasts, a cluster of microrockets leaped from behind his wrist. The munitions crossed the square and exploded in a sharp burst of red-and-orange fire. Ezo was also able to fire several bursts of blue blaster bolts in the same direction. The concussion blew Awen’s braid off her shoulder and peppered her skin with debris. She lowered her arm from over her eyes to see the smoke clear. So-Elku was still standing, unmoved.

  “Well, that was highly ineffective,” TO-96 said as he examined his forearm.

  “It’s not your fault,” Awen said.

  She was incredulous now. So-Elku must have been the one tracking Geronimo since Plumeria. But they’d switched ships.

  “How did you find us?” she asked the traitor.

  “Yes,” a voice said from another corner of the square. “How did you find them, So-Elku?”

  Awen turned to see an older bald man, dressed in black, stepping into the open. He was flanked on both sides by two dozen troopers in black armor, blasters raised.

  “Kane,” So-Elku spat. “How nice of you to provide those coordinates you promised.”

  “Well, it seems you didn’t need them after all,” the man in black said, motioning for his troopers to fan out.

  Wait, so… So-Elku wasn’t tracking us, but this man was? Or, she thought, maybe they’ve been working together.

  Suddenly, Awen felt So-Elku’s grip loosen around her feet. She closed her eyes and entered the Unity. Sure enough, the Luma master had diverted his att
ention to this new man. This new threat, Awen corrected herself. The man called Kane.

  “I thought we had a deal,” So-Elku replied. “But I’m beginning to wonder if that was ever your intent.”

  “Perhaps if you had been more patient, you—”

  “You would have looted the place yourself and left me with nothing,” the Luma master spat.

  “Conjecture,” Kane said with a flick of his hand.

  “And in exchange for what?” So-Elku demanded. “My betrayal of the entire order?”

  “Come now, I think you did that a long time ago, So-Elku,” Kane replied.

  Awen opened her eyes and noticed Kane’s troopers spreading around the perimeter. She looked at Ezo and then TO-96. “Hey,” she whispered. “Let’s make a break for it. Inside the library. You ready?”

  “I still can’t move my feet,” Ezo said.

  “You will.” Awen closed her eyes and reached for Ezo’s legs. She gently moved So-Elku’s power aside. She did the same for TO-96 and then herself. The master was clearly focused on Kane and his men. Awen noticed that the entire plaza’s life force had changed from peaceful green, pink, and white to angry red and white hues. Whatever was about to happen wasn’t good.

  “Now!” Awen shouted.

  At that moment, the first barrage of blaster fire lit up the square like a fireworks display.

  Chapter 35

  Magnus was off and running before he had time to see what the Jujari would do. Hopefully, their drunken stupor would lessen their reaction time, and with any luck, Magnus could get to Piper first. Why the girl had screamed he didn’t know, but he feared the obvious: they’d been discovered. Or worse.

  With his MAR30 back in his hand, Magnus pumped his legs, brushing past fabric walls and beating a line toward the skiff on the outskirts of town. He could hear the Jujari barking orders and saw several new torchlights flicker to life around the tents. Magnus sprinted across the first street and was about to cross the next when he slammed into a Jujari warrior coming out of a tent. Magnus toppled over the mutt, and both rolled to a stop in the dust.