by Jacob Holo
“So what? You thought Quennin might become another bane if you didn’t isolate her? That’s ridiculous!”
“No, it was for her own good,” Vorin said. “You have no idea how divided the Choir was over this. Some of them wanted to kill her immediately. Others wanted to experiment on her, as if we were no different than the Eleven. I had to do something. Quennin’s life was at stake, and I bartered heavily with the Choir for her safety.
“In the end we chose exile. Not to prevent something as fanciful as the Bane reawakening, but to protect Quennin from the Choir and the Original Eleven. I did what I did to keep her safe.”
Seth glanced over at Tesset. “How very altruistic of you.”
“That is an unfair judgment. Yes, I admit there were other factors to consider. Can you blame me for thinking of my own daughter’s wellbeing?”
Seth shook his head. “No, I suppose not.”
“It wasn’t a perfect solution,” Zo said. “But it was the best one we had.”
“And yet you ordered her killed.”
“Yes,” Vorin said firmly. “And I gave the order myself.”
“Why?”
“We didn’t anticipate the Original Eleven learning of her condition,” Vorin said. “Somehow her secret found its way to their ears, but that is another matter entirely, one I will investigate thoroughly. My immediate concern is what they might do with her.”
“What do you think will happen to her now, Sovereign?” Zo asked.
“I don’t understand. What is it you two fear?” Seth asked.
Vorin shook his head. “Pilot Elexen, look at what our former masters have done with the thrones and their versions of the archangels. As incomprehensible as it is, they seem capable of mass producing Pilot Donolon’s abilities. What if they were to do the same with Quennin? What if they extract the key to the Bane’s power and mass produce it in the thousands? Is not one death a fair price to prevent such a holocaust?
“Look at my daughter,” Vorin motioned to Tesset with an open palm. “She is an example of the Eleven’s handiwork. Over two hundred children stolen from the caretakers and experimented on in secret. Only she survived the Eleven’s failures. What do you think our old masters would do to Quennin given a chance to revive the Bane’s power? What measures would they stop at? Would death not be a mercy when compared to such alternatives?”
The room fell silent. All eyes turned to Seth.
All his rage was gone. Only a sick, empty feeling remained in the pit of his stomach. He wanted Quennin to live, yes, but not in a life filled with suffering. He bowed his head sadly, closed his eyes, and spoke the words he never thought he’d say.
“You were right.”
Chapter 8
Rebirths
Quennin stepped out of the flyer and looked around. The Glorious Destiny’s archangel bays stretched away to her right: an endless row of towering archangels, floating weapon loaders, and deep launch chutes. Crews worked feverishly, arming and launching or disarming and servicing the archangels as required.
All along the bay floor and up in the observational balcony, Outcast warriors hurried about their duties. Their dress varied greatly, some colorful, others subdued. Some carried tokens or badges, sashes or armbands, others wore simple utility jumpers.
Quennin noted one group was clearly in charge: the warriors with orange and black sashes like the markings on Plaerion’s armor. Most Outcasts didn’t carry weapons, but those did.
Plaerion and the other four Outcasts stepped out of the flyer. They looked around suspiciously, as if suspecting an attack here in the heart of the command ship.
The bay must have been equipped with hologram emitters, because Dendolet appeared once more, walking serenely up to Quennin. Their group drew quite a number of onlookers.
“Get back to work, Jallero stillborn,” Plaerion growled.
An archangel attendant flinched as if struck and scurried away.
Dendolet’s translucent form gestured to the bay exit. “This way, please.”
Please? Quennin thought.
It was a strange word coming from the Original Eleven. But, as Quennin saw it, her choices were obey or be dragged along. She stepped in line and followed Dendolet out of the archangel bay.
Quennin, the hologram, and her five Outcast captors proceeded through a maze of cramped passages. She tried memorizing the route but became totally disoriented after the seventh intersection. Even if she could return to the flyer, how could she possibly commandeer it?
Plaerion and the others had left their weapons inside. But for beings that could rip limbs from sockets and crush a human skull with their bare hands, the point was rather moot.
They turned down another corridor where the passages widened, opening into another archangel bay. Or rather, a throne bay.
Quennin gazed up at the machine. The throne towered over her, even though it was only visible down to the waist. Its two ring-like wings floated behind it. The white armored skin shone brightly in the bay’s lights. Quennin’s eye traced down the sides of the arms and along the interior of both rings.
Veketon’s heraldry, she thought. Blatant and unmistakable.
A lance stood upright in the throne’s hand, its entire length engraved with elegant flowing script that Quennin’s neural link failed to decipher.
A scaffold expanded from the bay floor, unfolding and rising until its top was level with the throne’s upper torso. If the throne were human, the scaffold would have stopped opposite the heart.
Mnemonic skin peeled back, and the cockpit hatch opened. A pilot stepped out, clad in white with black heraldry, his face concealed by his helmet. The man’s equipment had the look of an interface-suit, but not quite as bulky.
The pilot stepped onto the scaffold, which began to retract, each piece folding neatly back together.
Plaerion leaned in. “Mind your manners, Quennin S’Kev,” he said quietly but with a dash of threat. “Show proper respect to the man who saved your life.”
“I didn’t need saving,” Quennin whispered back. “You kidnapped me.”
“And you have never done worse in the service of your masters?”
“Warrior Plaerion, remember,” Dendolet said. “She is our honored guest and should be treated as such.”
“As you wish, venerable master.”
“We admit the manner of your arrival is unusual, Quennin S’Kev,” Dendolet said. “But you must see now it was necessary. The Aktenai tried to kill you, as we predicted.”
Quennin said nothing but recalled their flight from Alliance space all too well. She’d watched in stunned silence as the Renseki destroyed several groups of flyers before they lost the rest in the gas giants. After that, the Outcasts’ own scanner chaff had made any observations difficult, even with her covert link to its network.
Quennin remembered the speed of those seraphs, their grace of form and majestic power reminding her of what she’d lost. Jealousy had welled up stronger than she thought possible. Only the shock of their attack on the flyers had snapped her out of that dark emotion.
The throne pilot finished his descent and walked over. All five Outcasts dropped to one knee and bowed their heads. An orderly approached from the side to take his helmet. The throne pilot undid the clasps along his neck and lifted the helmet off.
Quennin gasped.
“Venerable master,” Plaerion said with the deepest reverence.
“Arise, faithful servants,” the pilot intoned.
That voice! It’s him!
Quennin couldn’t believe it. Her eyes and ears had to be lying! It didn’t make sense! Jack Donolon was the pilot?
But then the shock passed and Quennin noticed subtle details. The pilot’s age appeared far too young. This man possessed the same dark brown hair and cool gray eyes, but the lines of his face were smoother, and his hairline wasn’t receding at the temples.
His voice…
The sound matched perfectly, but the tone and the accent were completely wrong.
Quennin had never heard Jack speak in such a manner, with every syllable drenched in arrogance. Even if Jack had felt that way, he would have obscured those feelings behind his strange Earther sense of humor.
This man couldn’t be Jack.
Quennin guessed the pilot’s age at seventeen or eighteen, but his eyes contradicted that. What they held was not youthful bravado, but a look of perfect comprehension and utter confidence. They were the eyes of the Original Eleven.
The man turned to her for the first time and something changed, softened perhaps. He smiled ever so slightly. Not a mean or condescending gesture, but one that hinted at honest joy when he saw her. It vanished quickly.
The pilot walked up to her, standing slightly shorter than both the real Jack and Quennin.
“I am Veketon. Welcome aboard the Glorious Destiny, Quennin S’Kev.”
Veketon waited for her reply. A thousand questions came to her mind, but none reached her lips.
Veketon turned to Plaerion. “Was she treated well?”
“Yes, venerable master. Upon my word.”
“And you did not harm anyone with her when you arrived on Earth?”
“It was as you requested.”
Veketon nodded. He turned back to Quennin and gave her a knowing smile. “I believe you have something of hers.”
“Yes, venerable master.” Plaerion opened one of his four breast pockets and pulled out the slender black sheath. He placed the knife in Veketon’s outstretched hand.
“A curious trinket.” Veketon pulled the knife out and studied the gleaming blade from all angles. “But it appears to hold some sentimental value.”
Veketon sheathed the knife and handed it to her.
Quennin looked down at the proffered blade. Veketon held the sheath end. With a quick jerk, she could pull the knife free and… and then what? Attack Veketon? Make a run for it? Navigate a maze, board a flyer, and somehow return to Aktenzek?
The Aktenai tried to kill me.
Where was home? If not Aktenzek or Earth, then where? Even if she could leave, where would she run to?
Quennin accepted the knife and gripped it tightly with both hands.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“You are quite welcome. Are you hungry?”
The question surprised Quennin. She’d eaten on the flyer, but not for some time. Her appetite had vanished once seraphs started destroying flyers.
“A little.”
“Then we should remedy that,” Veketon said. “I’ll explain matters over a proper meal. Our Outcast servants may share much with truer humans, but I find their taste in nutrition rather lacking.”
Veketon placed a guiding hand on Quennin’s shoulder. The gesture startled her, and she flinched back without thinking.
He backed off. “As you wish,” he said without hint of disappointment. “This way, please.”
Veketon led the party into the convoluted depths of the Glorious Destiny.
Quennin once again became totally disoriented, a problem exacerbated by Outcast ideas on artificial gravity. There was no common up or down, such as on an Aktenai carrier. Instead, floors often curved before key intersections, twisting until walls became floors and up was suddenly straight ahead.
In a way it made sense. Why build a vertical lift for something that could just as easily be a corridor? Quennin wondered if Outcasts were designed with superior spatial thinking in addition to their obvious physical advantages.
Up. Up. Down. Left. Down. Quennin couldn’t keep track of all the turns and was thankful when they finally reached their destination. The corridor widened until they could walk five across, its walls now checkered in black and white. A series of three airlocks parted as the group moved forward, revealing a vast open space.
Quennin passed through the last airlock and drank in the scenery.
The space measured three hundred meters in diameter and about one hundred meters tall: a fat cylinder of space within the Glorious Destiny. So immense was the chamber that seraphs could stride across it unhindered. Quennin had trouble judging the exact height, since the walls and ceiling were concealed behind a holographic simulacrum of planet life. It was noon.
A skillful eye had crafted the landscape with gentle hills and rocky waterways. White marble bridges spanned bubbling creaks, and colorful flower gardens stretched out, filling the air with exotic and pleasant aromas.
Birds wheeled overhead, and various small animals meandered through gardens and meadows. In the center of the chamber rose a tall structure, smooth and tapered inward, its walls like white marble rising from the ground all the way to the unseen ceiling.
“A serviceable abode for when I am on the Glorious Destiny,” Veketon said, guiding them towards the white marble tower. “Humble compared to the palace on Zu’Rashik, but pleasant in a quaint sort of way.”
“You’ve… lived…” Quennin found the question sticking in her throat. A dead man stood before her, wrapped in a clone of the living. Where did she even begin with her questions?
“I transferred my personality to this body three years ago. I am the first among the Eleven to undergo the procedure, though I shall not be the last.”
“The process is complicated and very risky,” Dendolet said. “In twenty-five years of trying, we have succeeded only once.”
“But we are patient in this endeavor,” Veketon said. “Time is on our side, and one by one, we shall see all of the Original Eleven revived.”
Quennin weighed these words in silence. The Original Eleven would be reborn!
They reached the tower. Veketon turned to the Outcasts.
“You are dismissed,” he said. “I will summon you later to discuss the well-earned rewards you and your nation shall receive.”
“As you wish, venerable master.” Plaerion bowed before leading his fellow warriors away from the tower.
Veketon lead the way through spacious white rooms, each adorned with the white-and-black patterned heraldry of different founders. Artifacts stood on plinths or hung from walls: exquisitely ornate weapons, amazingly lifelike sculptures, and imaginative displays of fluidic gravity art. Gifts from his loyal subjects, perhaps? Tokens of his conquest? They traversed a long corridor, its walls draped with a hundred Outcast flags, several of them singed or torn, all preserved behind transparent panes.
“It was a nasty business securing the manpower for this war.” Veketon gestured to the flags. “I won’t bore you with the details, but we carefully selected our targets. By isolating and eliminating a few of the crueler, more aggressive regimes, we secured the loyalty of countless others. Alone, no Outcast nation can stand against Zu’Rashik and what your Alliance calls the Dead Fleet.”
“The Outcasts respect strength,” Quennin said. “Crush enough of them, and the rest will follow you just to avoid getting trampled.”
“Hmm, perhaps that is true as well,” Veketon said with a bemused grin.
They entered the dining hall. A long rectangular table dominated the space, constructed from polished marble. The smooth top was finely patterned in white and black sections: circles and half-moons, arches and rings. To the table’s left, a window bowed outward, looking down onto the green rolling vista.
Veketon sat down at the head of the table, as Quennin expected, and beckoned for her to join him at his right. Dendolet’s hologram settled into the chair at his left, looking reserved and contemplative. Quennin could almost feel their intense scrutiny.
Outcast servants, both male and female, waited on the two living occupants, bringing out cold drink and hot food. Steam rose off lavish Aktenai dishes, carrying a heavily spiced odor. The food’s smell caught Quennin by surprise, and she found her mouth watering.
K’Zemmin. They’ve actually prepared k’zemmin.
It was Quennin’s favorite dish. Six medallions of white meat were arranged in a row with the sweet white sauce to the left and the spicy blue sauce to the right. She cut off a small section of meat, dabbed it in each sauce, and took a bite.
The taste was sublime with just the right amount of zest she and Seth both loved.
Seth…
Veketon prodded his meal with a fork. “Oh, I do hope they got the recipe right. It’s the sense of smell, I’m afraid. Far sharper than ours, but less offended by many odors.”
Veketon was about to take a bite but frowned suddenly, eyeing his fork. He set the fork down with his left hand and picked it up with his right. Quennin vaguely recalled that Jack was left-handed and watched as Veketon ate right-handed in a forced, awkward manner.
“So, does the meal meet with your satisfaction?” he asked.
“You did not bring me here to discuss food,” Quennin said.
Veketon set his fork down. “Yes, of course. Well, I suppose I’ll start with myself. As you know, there is no official way to copy chaos talents from one human to another. The light of a soul is a tricky extra-dimensional formation attached to the mind and body, and it does not respond well to tampering. Pilots must be bred. Talents must be trained. That is the nature of seraph pilots and their abilities. Or so we have led everyone to believe.”
“Another one of your lies?”
“We merely kept the technology secret,” Dendolet said.
“Our breakthrough occurred shortly after Bane Donolon merged with his seraph,” Veketon said. “In the twenty-five years since, we have secretly developed this discovery into a workable technique. Actually, it is quite similar to the imprinting process between a pilot and his or her seraph, though there are issues of scale. Something the size of a throne is easier when compared to something as small as this.” He tapped his temple with a finger. Quennin noted it was his left hand.
“We have much to learn before we can perfect the duplication matrix,” Veketon continued. “The technique is expensive in both time and material, making the learning process a slow one. And we have had many, many failures over the years. Some failures have come tantalizingly close, and those we have used to create our archangel squadrons.”
