by Jacob Holo
“There is no need for alarm,” Veketon said. “The technique I am using to bypass your security will only work once. After this intrusion, the Choir will undoubtedly block any future attack. I was saving this little gem of code for a special occasion. Be glad I am using it for a benign purpose.”
“What do you want, Veketon?”
The clone seemed amused but not surprised. “So you recognize me. Interesting. I don’t hold any hostility towards Bane Donolon. He has been of great use to us, after all. I suppose it’s only natural that he survived. He is still alive I take it?”
Seth said nothing. His face was stone.
Veketon sighed and crossed his arms. “As you wish.”
“You went through a lot of trouble to talk to me. Get to the point.”
“Oh, please. Don’t make yourself sound more important than you are. You did rid us of Vierj, and I am grateful for that, but you’re really nothing more than a decent soldier. Hardly worth what little effort this is taking, to be honest.”
“Fine. Then I’m not important. Just get this over with, whatever it is.”
“Straight to business? Very well. If you insist.” Veketon gestured to his right. “I have someone who would like to speak to you.”
The second hologram appeared, focusing into a tall and full-figured woman with long red hair and green eyes now downcast and shy. She wore clothes like Veketon’s, only black instead of white.
“Quennin,” Seth whispered.
She looked up and granted him a tentative smile. “Hello, Seth.” She held her hands in front, slowly wringing them.
“Farewell, Pilot Elexen,” Veketon said. “I imagine our next meeting will be far less cordial. I look forward to matching my skills against yours.”
Veketon vanished, leaving the two pilots alone and in silence. They stayed like that for a time, Seth surprised and Quennin bashful. He couldn’t think of where to start. He had a million things to say, to ask, to apologize for. Where could he possibly begin?
“It’s good to talk with you again,” Quennin finally said. “I’ve wanted to for a long time, but I’m sad it had to be like this.”
“Quennin…” Seth stumbled. Seeing her again dried his throat and stole the words from his mouth. Where to begin? He took in her clothing, an exact inversion of Veketon’s own garments, licked his lips and asked, “Quennin, have you sworn your allegiance to the Eleven?”
“Yes, Seth. I have.”
“But why?”
She explained it to him, in detail and at length. She explained all that led up to it, the five years of useless meandering, the painful hopelessness and the desires to end her own life. She explained the change that came over her in those years, the hatred for the Choir that bloomed in her, and the need to have purpose again. She explained everything, going into the details of her treatment by Veketon and the Eleven, their need for her talent and willingness to give her a second chance.
Deep down, Seth had known his decision to obey the Sovereign and the Choir had been wrong. But now he truly saw the extent of his error. It grieved him to see just how wrong he’d been.
“I’m… sorry,” Quennin said at end. She looked down, unable to meet his gaze.
“It is I who should be apologizing,” Seth said.
“Whatever for?” Quennin asked.
Seth spent a moment collecting his thoughts.
“It’s like this,” he said. “I’ve always fought hard for what I’ve believed in. We both did. It didn’t matter the odds we faced or if we thought we’d live or if it’d get us fame or glory. We did what we thought was right because it was right.
“And it didn’t matter who was on the other side, whether it was the Renseki or Jack or the Bane itself. It didn’t matter. We never abandoned our duty, not a single time. Except once. I abandoned my duty to you. I should have fought the Choir and Vorin just as hard as I fought anyone else, and curses on all their veiled threats!”
Quennin’s eyes lit up with understanding. “They made threats?”
“Yes. They made it sound like my decision was tied to your life.”
“I see…”
“But that doesn’t matter!” Seth said. “I let them fill my head with notions of duty and the greater good, but I shouldn’t have listened to them. Let them make their cursed threats! I should have boarded my seraph, blown a hole through whatever stood in my way, and not stopped until I was with you again!”
“You feel better now?” Quennin cracked a smile. “It sounds like you’ve wanted to get that off your chest for a while.”
“Well, I… Yes! I do feel better! I just… I just never had someone to tell it to.”
Quennin’s smile turned sad. “Then I guess I was right. There isn’t a place for me back on Aktenzek.”
“No, that’s isn’t true. The Choir fears you, or at least the part of you the Bane left behind. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. Everything is in the open now. I can convince them, Quennin, I know I can. You can come back. There’s no need to serve the Eleven.”
“You know I can’t do that. I’ve given them my word, and they’ve fulfilled every promise they’ve made. I am not coming back.”
It was the finality of her statement that struck Seth. Quennin wasn’t speaking to him in order to scold him for abandoning her or to reminisce about the good old days. This conversation wasn’t about her having a change of heart or secretly dropping clues for some farfetched escape.
Quennin was saying goodbye.
These were her parting words.
The revelation twisted in Seth’s stomach like a knife.
“We both should move on,” Quennin said. “After all, you have.”
She knows about Tesset… Seth thought. The look on Quennin’s face was unmistakable.
“The Sovereign’s own daughter? Not bad, Seth.”
Seth bowed his head. “I won’t make any excuses.”
Quennin opened her mouth, but then stopped and shook her head. “No, I don’t want us to end like this. I thought getting angry would make this easier, but I can’t stay angry. Not at you, Seth. I wish I could return to you. I really do. It would be wonderful to have everything back the way it was. But I cannot and will not break my word.”
“I…” Seth swallowed. “I understand.”
Quennin’s hologram took a few steps forward. She smiled sadly at him. “You know what’s to come. Be true to yourself. Don’t you hold back, because I won’t. We will see each other again soon, my beloved.”
And then she was gone, an unfocused pillar of light that evaporated into nothing.
Seth stood there, stunned and shaken by her words. His neural link came back online and immediately sent his last pending message to the Choir, informing them of the intrusion.
Seth took a few weak steps forward and dropped heavily to his knees. He stared at the floor, emotions boiling within him, then grasped his head with both hands and screamed. He screamed with pure fury at everything, indiscriminate in his rage. He screamed until his throat hurt and his lungs were empty. And then he sucked in a breath and wept.
It changed nothing.
Chapter 14
Throne of the Twelfth
Quennin held onto the gravity platform railing with a white-knuckled grip. For a former (and soon to be again) pilot, she really hated heights. The drop was over ten stories and rising. Veketon didn’t seem to notice, currently absorbed with the adjustments being made to his throne.
Quennin recalled her fight with Jack in this very bay. It had been so different with chaos energy surging through her body. All the particulars of geometry and force were comprehended with a moment’s thought. She looked down at the gravity cranes stored below. Had she really jumped down to one of those?
It had been like piloting again. In her seraph, she could have done anything. Power washed her fears away.
Quennin wore the black slipsuit again. She turned to the throne and watched four robotic arms unfold from another crane hovering above the throne’s
head.
The throne’s face was smoothed over, giving only a general impression of a male human face, but still one of strength and confidence. It conveyed Veketon’s personality well.
The white mask covered the head’s internal mechanisms. Arms from the gravity crane latched onto key points along the perimeter and decoupled the mask from the throne.
“I thought you should know what it is you are being asked to pilot,” Veketon said.
The crane lifted the mask off.
Quennin gasped. She slapped a hand over her mouth.
“Yes, that’s the typical reaction,” Veketon said blandly. “But they really aren’t that far removed from the seraphs. Seraphs are, after all, biomechanical entities. They use artificial neural tissue for their influx amplifiers. Conductor fluid may be manufactured, but it holds many similarities to human blood. The seraphs are more machine than alive, whereas the thrones are more alive than machine. These weapons are merely the logical progression of what you have already piloted.”
Quennin looked at the exposed skinless face.
Two giant gray eyes stared back at her, lidless and vacant. Exposed muscles flexed and contracted across the horrible flayed visage. Great rows of human teeth in a lipless mouth parted slightly, then shut again.
“Is it…” the question stuck in Quennin’s throat.
“A living creature? Oh, yes. The thrones are not machines controlling organic parts, but rather organisms guided and aided by machines. They are based on human genetic and chaotic templates.”
“Is it conscious?”
“Not like you or I, but to an extent. That is why we freeze them and keep them sedated between uses.” Veketon linked with the gravity crane and brought the mask back into place. “Is it conscious when I pilot it? No. My mind supplants that of the throne’s. I become the throne temporarily in the same way a seraph pilot becomes the seraph.”
Their gravity platform moved to the right, descending slowly.
“Why did you show me that?” Quennin asked.
“Because I wish to hide nothing from you.”
“You could have warned me.”
“Do you still wish to pilot your throne?” Veketon asked.
My throne, she thought. As if it belongs to me.
“You don’t need to ask,” she said. “I think you know me well enough by now.”
“Hmm, yes. That I do.”
Veketon swept his hand across the next bay. With dramatic timing, floodlights switched on to reveal a giant in black armor. Where Veketon’s throne possessed human curves belonging to a male, this throne was clearly female. Not voluptuous, but fit and athletic. A female warrior.
Chaos shunts resembling vented grills cut diagonally across the forearms, sides of the torso, and lower legs. As with Veketon’s own throne, heraldry decorated the shunts. As his protégé, it was her right to carry his heraldry into battle. Quennin admired the perfectly ordered randomness of arches, rings, and circles.
Two halo-wings floated serenely behind the throne. Both their surfaces shared the throne’s heraldic markings. The throne held a poled weapon in its right hand tipped with a curved blade. Unlike the portal lance, this weapon was unadorned.
Veketon pointed to the armament. “We made an attempt to copy the portal lance when designing your weapon. To say that we failed is perhaps overly harsh. We did not succeed, though. Your chaos glaive will be superior to any Alliance seraph weapons you will face but is inferior to the original.”
“I’m sure it will suffice,” Quennin said.
“The original portal lance manipulates dimensional influx at very high orders of magnitude. It is, in essence, a key for opening the Gates. The portal lance can also create small-scale gates on its own. We Seekers used them to traverse large distances in whatever realm we found ourselves in.”
“Like fold engines?”
“Well, if you mean like a fold engine that can’t be negated, requires no charge up time, and can fold space without a trace, then yes. Like a fold engine. It also serves as an effective weapon. The pilot can channel tremendous influx through it at far greater efficiencies than those Grendeni imitations.” He turned to her. “You know, when the Grendeni developed the first chaos swords it was something of a sore point for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“The people who came up with that idea are less than one percent my age.”
“Ah. I see,” Quennin said.
“Is there anything else you’re curious about?”
“Yes, actually.” She nodded towards the throne. “The wings. Why halos?”
“Ah, yes.” Veketon grinned widely. “I’m sure it seems quite unorthodox to you. The wings spin rapidly when in operation, about thirty rotations per second. You see, a chaos barrier has properties similar to magnetic fields. By pushing its way through the field, energy is transferred from the throne’s barrier to the wing at nearly ninety percent efficiency. Most seraphs have between seventy-five and eighty percent efficiency with the fluidic conductors in their wings.
“And not only that!” Veketon swung the platform around for a closer look. “Without the transfer rate of conductor fluid to worry about, any change in energy usage is instantaneous because it is directly proportional to the intensity of the throne’s barrier. So, what we get from this is a slight increase in response time, a more efficient propulsion system, and a smaller profile target. The wings are well known to be the most vulnerable part of a seraph. Not a bad piece of work if I do say so myself.”
“Your design?” She really didn’t need to ask.
“Well.” Veketon shrugged in fake humility. “I can’t take all the credit for the design. Xixek helped with some of the mathematical grunt work, and Balezuur laid out the gravitic rotary systems. But, yes, the original concept is mine.”
Quennin felt suddenly confused. Not by what Veketon was saying, but how he was saying it.
Is he trying to impress me?
Why would… No that doesn’t make sense. He’s just proud of his work, that’s all. Just a typical braggart.
Who happens to be thirty thousand years old.
And inhabits a cloned body.
So not exactly normal, but still proud of his accomplishments. Definitely not trying to impress me for any reason whatsoever. Don’t be stupid, Quennin. It’s just your imagination. He’s one of the Original Eleven after all!
Veketon brought the gravity platform down in front of the new throne. The railing folded away. Steps extruded from the front.
He stepped down and cleared his throat.
“Oh. Right.” Quennin followed him off the platform and walked over to the throne. A scaffold deployed from the bay ledge just in front of the throne, unfolding upward until the top was level with the throne’s upper torso.
Quennin stopped and looked up at the black-armored giant.
“I just had a thought,” she said. “What if I’ve lost my edge?”
“Nonsense,” Veketon said. “Look at me. I spent twenty millennia dead, and I did fine.”
“Somehow, I don’t think it’s quite the same.”
“Would it help if I just counted the millennia? In that case, I’m only thirty. That puts us fairly close, age-wise.”
Quennin laughed. “No, that doesn’t help at all.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just give it a try, and we’ll see what happens.”
Quennin turned back to the throne and stepped into the scaffold. She let the platform rise to the scaffold’s summit. Black mnemonic skin along the throne’s exterior peeled back, revealing the cockpit hatch. The hatch arced down, and Quennin walked across into the all-too-familiar cockpit.
Configured just like my seraph…
A tingle of excitement ran down her limbs. She settled into the pilot alcove and let the cockpit cocoon her within the machine.
Quennin took a deep breath, relishing the nostalgia of fitting snuggly in the alcove, and closed her eyes.
Nothing happened—
—
and then everything all at once.
The throne activated.
Power flowed through its body. The throne jerked, muscles contracting as if jolted with electricity. The throne’s heart flinched to life then settled into a steady rhythm, driving richly energized fluid out to its limbs. Shunts flared alive, burning with black light edged in green.
Quennin sensed the throne’s mind, or rather the absence of one. She reached out and touched the void within this giant corpse, an empty pit that beckoned to be filled. With no effort at all, she poured herself into that pit, claiming the void as her own.
Quennin opened her eyes from the throne’s perspective.
“How does it feel?” Veketon linked.
“Familiar, but still different,” Quennin said. “I don’t remember it being quite this easy. I feel like I have to consciously restrain the throne’s power.”
“That’s good. Are you ready to launch?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go.”
Gravity cranes latched onto her shoulders and lowered her into the launch chute. The first bay door opened, and the cranes shoved her down fast. She passed the first door and the cranes released her with a lurch. The bay door above snapped shut and the next door opened. She fell through the launch chute, passed two more bay doors, then was flung into space.
Quennin floated through the void, at peace in ways she scarcely remembered. The Glorious Destiny shrank away above her.
She flooded her new body with power. The halo-wings accelerated, turning into a blur of motion. Edges ignited with green-tinged energy, and Quennin shot away. She powered up towards the Glorious Destiny, flew over it, and then darted across the vessel’s immense span.
So fast! So easy!
It was incredible! Exhilarating! Quennin couldn’t find the words to describe her joy. She banked around the Glorious Destiny’s gravity drive blades, then laughed as she flew back to her starting point underneath the command ship.
Veketon’s throne emerged from the launch chute. His halo-wings flashed into motion, and he pulled up to the Glorious Destiny’s bow. Quennin joined him.
“This is amazing!” she exclaimed. “I’m piloting again!”
