The Last Cycle

by A. R. Knight

  “These are humans,” Coorvin says.

  “Worthless ones,” Ferrolite grumbles, and Viera gives the creature a light smack with the butt of her miner.

  “Humans?” the Vyphen asks. “Should I know what these are?”

  The question gives me a chance to lay out the concise version of human history, which comes out to about three sentences: we’re from a planet called Earth, the Sevora landed there and brought all kinds of awful with them, and now the Chorus found us and brought us here. I don’t mention Ignos, I don’t talk about how the Amigga thought we were the answer to their Sevora problem, and I definitely don’t mention how the Chorus decided we were better off annihilated than allowed to survive.

  “Sounds like they’re on our side,” the Vyphen says.

  “I don’t trust them,” the Whelk counters.

  “You don’t trust anyone,” Coorvin says.

  “I trust you both.”

  “Only because I pay you,” the Vyphen holds up a feathered limb to forestall another comeback and turns to me. “If you’re all the way up here, holding an Amigga hostage, you must have more of a story.”

  “I do, and I’ll tell you. Later.” I nod past the trio. “Where are Bas and Lan? I need to speak to them.”

  What I don’t say is that I want to leave this place. That I want to get back to Earth as fast as possible so that I can stand with my people when the Chorus decides to send their Oratus to wipe all of us away.

  The Vyphen gets the point, thankfully, and, after sending the Whelk to give Ferrolite additional assurance of its demise should any escape be considered, we walk through one of the section tunnels to a chamber I’d hoped never to see again.

  The Chorus room is back to its classic red and black. Each of the Amigga booths are empty, without the faintest sign of the dozen Amigga and their attendants that cast who knows how many species to their ultimate ends. Or tried to, anyway.

  Lan, and the larger Oratus they called Evva occupy the center. When she sees me, Lan breaks out into a toothy grin.

  “Your hunt was successful,” Lan hisses first.

  “Barely,” I reply. “Where’s Bas?”

  “Her pair needs her,” Lan says, and the smallest echo of concern comes through. “I would have gone as well, but Evva must be protected. Though, it seems, not from this Amigga.”

  It’s strange, seeing the very creatures that struck so much fear into me not all that long ago, laughing at Ferrolite. Seeing the Oratus give us a friendly greeting melts the last of the ice away from the Vyphen and Whelk as well, and conversations break out between us. I fall into a re-telling of where we went in the Meridia, and when Lan asks for the fuller story, I tell that too. Still, I keep humanity’s origins a secret.

  Evva stays silent as I tell my tale, I see her eyes tighten as I talk about the archives, when I lie and say we wound up there after trying to find our way down the giant tower to where the fighting was taking place. Whatever goes on inside her mind, she chooses not to confront me, and waits until I’m done to speak.

  “You nearly pledged your species to the Chorus,” Evva says when I’m done, her voice a stronger timber than Lan’s. I recognize the weight - confidence. I’d heard it in the Emperor, in Dalachite on Cobalt, and even in Malo while Ignos held his body and commanded me to surrender.

  “Because I did not, I think I’ve killed us.”

  “No,” Evva says the word. “I don’t think the Chorus will be much of a threat anymore.”

  “They won’t give up just because you took this tower,” Ferrolite calls, having drifted close enough to hear our conversation. “The Vincere will take it back. You can’t hope to hold it.”

  “The Vincere no longer works for you,” Evva says. “I would choose your next words carefully, Amigga. Your species may have a part to play in what comes, and you would seem to be in a good position to determine how big a part that is.”

  Ferrolite, a slave to ambition, falls silent. Which returns the Oratus gazes to me. It’s not much of a guess to see what they’re looking for.

  “You want the same thing the Chorus do,” I say to the dozens of teeth, those shimmering scales, those yellow-black eyes.

  Evva doesn’t deny it.

  “The Amigga ruled by themselves,” the Oratus says. “We will do things differently. A council, yes, but one made up of every species. Yours included.”

  Sit in one of those red-lit sections? Live in this tower, or on the world far below? This wouldn’t be the servitude of the Chorus, but it wouldn’t be home either. I throw a glance back to Malo and he meets me, steady and ready to accept whatever I choose.

  “Kaishi,” Viera’s voice speaks up. “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”

  That has all of us turning towards the Lunare, who still has her miner trained on the Amigga.

  “What?” Viera says. “Always said I liked seeing new places. No offense Kaishi, but if you’re going back to those tunnels, or that sweaty city of yours, I’d rather stay here. Make sure the lizards don’t get too power-hungry.”

  “Lizards?” Evva hisses.

  And I laugh. I laugh because Viera’s wearing a cocky smile that says she’s more than up for the challenge. Equipped with an attitude that would have earned her a swift death from the Chorus, Viera might be the voice humans would need here. She’d make sure we wouldn’t get thrown around, that Earth would be safe.

  Or she’d annoy everyone so much the Oratus would eat her.

  There’s a lot of eyes staring at me. A lot of teeth, too. The red light inside the chamber, all that space suddenly seems big. Too big. I’d asked for destiny and it came for me, but I never really chose it. Here, though, my own life, Viera’s, and humanity’s role in the galaxy at large all comes down to a word from my lips.

  “Can I take a moment?” I say, and it’s softer than I mean, but I want to get away, to breathe and think without all the eyes.

  Malo catches my thought and takes me by the hand, guides me out as the Oratus grant my wish with a hissing assent. I’m barely out from the middle before Evva starts up behind me on some other task, so I don’t feel all that rushed.

  “Thanks,” I tell Malo once we’re outside, back in the cold metal of the ring. “It was a lot, in there.”

  “Even Empresses need a break sometimes.”

  I nod, and start walking. Without the threat of death or under Ferrolite’s demanding direction, the Chorus level seems nice. Evva’s troops - I’m guessing - have commandeered the room controlling all the various screens, and the terminals have reverted to their prior cascade of pictures from across the galaxy. The foreign landscapes, covered in icy vistas, rocky plains, and sprawling purple jungles, calm me down. Distract me from my own lingering pains.

  “You’re worried about her?” Malo ventures the question after we’ve gone a quarter way around.

  “I feel like this is my responsibility. I brought us this far, it’s not fair for me to walk away.”

  “I think you’ve earned that right.” Malo’s voice doesn’t sound like my father, but it’s something I could imagine him saying. “I thought part of being a leader meant knowing what your people could do better than you.”

  “You think Viera would make a good ambassador?”

  “I don’t think she’d let them kill us.” Malo laughs. “Or push us around.”

  “I’m afraid she doesn’t have the patience for it.”

  “How do you know?”

  I pause. We’ve reached the part of the ring where our old safe room sits to my left. The door’s open, the panel green, and through it I can see the fringe of Aspicis’ blue atmosphere. Malo’s question is a good one. I’ve been on the run with Viera, in plenty of danger, but the time we spent running Damantum before the Oratus arrived was brief. It’s hard to pay attention to a friend when you’re learning everything on the fly.

  “Viera did manage to live with our tribe for a while,” I say slow, feeling out the idea. “She didn’t manage to offend us too much.”
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  “Compare that with you,” Malo says. “Everywhere you go either falls apart or gets attacked.”

  “Hey.”

  Malo laughs and I can’t hate that.

  We make it back to the red-lit center ring and I ask Viera one last time if she’s willing to accept the job. Her response is a little too enthusiastic, and prompts a sigh from Ferrolite, one which Viera rewards with another swat of her miner.

  “You can’t do that to everyone you don’t like, you know,” I say as Ferrolite floats away from her. “You have to talk to them.”

  “Don’t think the new government’s started yet,” Viera replies. “When it does, I’ll be nice. Nice enough, anyway.”

  Even as I roll my eyes, my thoughts are turning to one place. The only one that really matters.

  Home.

  24 A Dying Star

  For once, Sax isn’t thinking about prey and predators. His claws aren’t raised and his teeth aren’t ready to sink into an enemy. He’s not wearing a mask, nor wielding miners.

  Relaxed.

  The word makes him laugh, a delighted hiss and gets a glance from Bas, standing next to him in front of the many meters-high shield giving view to the purple-red expanding light show in front of them. Behind and around the two Oratus, plenty of other species are doing the same thing; watching nature’s grandest spectacle while robots bring food, beverages, and all manner of other pleasures to their sides.

  Above and around Sax, a sound-dampening field serves to quiet every word not coming from his pair’s mouth, ensuring a magical, private experience. The old Sax would have found the inability to hear what’s going on around him stressful - too easy to sneak up on someone when they can’t hear you coming. The new Sax? The new Sax doesn’t care.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh like that,” Bas says, and there’s concern in her eyes. “Are you all right?”

  “Look around us,” Sax says, and he gestures to his right, where Plake and Agra-Red sit at the next circular pad. Beyond them, Nobaa and Engee occupy their own, and the various Flaum, Coorvin included, sit beyond Bas. “How could I not?”

  Once they’d managed to square things away on Aspicis, Evva insisted the lot of them needed to go and leave her alone to work things out as various ambassadors, merchants, and power brokers flew in to stake their claim within the new galaxy. Sax wanted no part of the politics, and neither did the rest of Plake’s mercenary crew.

  “You’re changing,” Bas says. “I like it.”

  “I’ll always be a hunter,” Sax replies. “But this isn’t so bad either.”

  A robot floating on microjets enters their sound-proof dome and slides, using some precise magnets, a series of bowls full of strange-looking puddings, noodles, and slabs of red-brown meat, all grown right in Nova’s own gardens and labs.

  “Do you know the last time I had a meal that wasn’t nutrient goop?” Bas says as she hooks one of the slabs with her right foreclaw.

  “You didn’t eat a single Flaum when you took the Meridia?”

  “A little bit of fur doesn’t count,” Bas laughs, tosses the steak into her mouth. “The last time was here, Sax.”

  Sax blinks. Guess that’s true for him too. So much time grinding through nutrient goop-fueled jobs for the Vincere and eventually he’d stopped remembering the meals. Now he follows his pair’s lead, nabs a slab of slight-singed meat, eats it. Juicy, soft, real. Sax devours a few more while Bas starts recounting how they met, and Sax realizes they’ll have all the time now for the past, for each other.

  The idea doesn’t scare him like it would have not long ago - his pair is his purpose, and Sax has yet to fail a mission.

  In front of them, deeply nestled in the blooming red, a tiny purple blossoms. Just a speck, gas expanding out into the wide infinite. Something new in a stellar cloud older than all the cycles the Chorus ever saw.

  25 What’s Old Is New

  Damantum isn’t as I left it. There’s a lot more metal here, for one, and the sky isn’t a clear blue because it’s crowded with so many ships.

  I’m standing on the Vaos, that golden temple in the middle of my city and one of the few structures left intact after the Sevora started their war. I wasn’t here when it happened, but I’ve heard from my own people that dark shapes appeared overhead, followed by bright lances of burning energy that crashed through homes, walls, and palaces alike. The Charre, my adopted people, fled the city in all directions and plenty haven’t returned in the time since, with the Vincere’s help, we drove the Sevora away.

  “You’re frowning,” Malo says. He’s next to me, watching my face as the wind blows my hair into my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I reply. “Just thinking about what happened, and what’s next.”

  The future’s everywhere in front of us, down the Vaos’ many steps and stretching over a city under construction. Some of the repairs look familiar, but most are strange, with mobs of humans watching as Flaum and other species demonstrate the technologies being sent our way in all those ships. Viera sent notice that we’d be getting a surprise not long after Malo and I, courtesy of Plake and her shiny new Vincere ship - apparently it had belonged to a Chorus Amigga - made it home. After dropping with us, T’Oli had scurried off with a band of welcoming traders and left in search of Vee, noting that it was probably a bad idea to let a rogue Oratus wander free for too long.

  While Evva and the new leadership of the Vincere sorted their thing out, plenty of planets and groups wanted to get in on what was now a wide open galaxy. Resources and expansion were the new thing, and Earth had plenty of the former, with possibilities for the latter. As such I’d already been invited to a dozen dinners aboard various cruisers, and had all sorts of strange bribes offered to me.

  I’d turned them all down.

  “You think all this generosity will melt your heart?” Malo says. “They’re really trying.”

  Another wave came in the form of donations, of personnel coming with tools and trades to teach my people, and the Solare and Lunare in the jungles and mountains, about all the ways their own lives could be easier. I wasn’t asked about any of these, but with our military still in shambles and my own appetite for a fight long gone, I’m not objecting to a little bit of charity.

  “It’s going to take them a long time.” I put my hand on the altar next to me. There’s still red there, a stain from a lifestyle dying away, but no more sacrifices. I encouraged the priests to worship Ignos, but without the bloodshed. Unity, cooperation. We’d give those a try and see how our god treated us. “And I don’t mind. If everyone’s busy with the visitors, then they’re not asking me questions.”

  Malo laughs, shakes his head, and we watch Ignos tilt its way towards the horizon.

  “I wonder how long this will last,” Malo says after a minute.

  “How long?”

  “Everything’s already changing, Kaishi. It won’t be too long before the Charre decide they don’t need an Empress, or warriors. We’ll be part of all... this.”

  The wind picks up at the top of the temple and I relish the breeze. Too long breathing in artificial air, with the drone of a fan behind every gust. Now I get spices, the smell of baking bread and, yes, a bit of that tongue-tingling current of burning electricity.

  “After all we’ve been through, you’re worried about a little change?”

  Malo looks at me, the corner of his mouth lifting up. “I suppose that sounds stupid, doesn’t it? It’s just that we’ve only made it home, and now we’re losing it again.”

  “It’s changing Malo, but it’s still here.” I take a step down from the top. “Come on, I can smell those peppers cooking.”

  If you liked this story, please leave a review!

  And if you didn’t, or just want to say hi, please send us comments at www.blackkeybooks.com - we’re always looking for feedback from our readers!

  Also by A.R. Knight

  The Mercenaries Trilogy

  The Metal Man
<
br />   Wild Nines

  Dark Ice

  One Shot

  The Riven Trilogy

  Riven

  The Cycle

  Spirit’s End

  The Rakers Saga

  Rakers

  The Skyward Saga

  The Spear

  Oratus

  Starshot

  Mind’s Eye

  Clarity’s Dawn

  Creator’s End

  Humanity Rising

  The Last Cycle

  Discover More Stories

  Want to find out when the next adventure comes out? I’ll only send out a newsletter when there’s a new release, so no spam, only sweet, sweet story goodness.

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  Acknowledgments

  The Last Cycle closes the longest series I’ve ever written, consisting of six novels and a pair of novellas. It’s easy to say that these stories are the product of an over-active imagination and that the only requirement to telling them was to sit in front of a keyboard and type.

  I wrote this series in multiple countries, on beaches and on mountainsides. In planes and in bars, restaurants, cafes and in the corners of libraries. All of those moments came with the help of others, from my wife and her endless patience with my escapes to other worlds, to the baristas whipping up espresso or the attendant carefully handing me water across full seats in turbulence so as not to spill on my computer.

  In short, a series like this takes time and effort, not just by the writer, but by those who help give that writer the time and space to, well, write. So, thank you, because without your help, I never would have met Kaishi, nor traveled the stars with Sax and the Sevora.