by Jedi Reach
“Tolerance is a byproduct of it.”
“What’s the root then?”
The sound of the waterfall trickled Xenia’s ear.
“Love.” she said.
“Aha, the highest value,” Lars shook his head and smiled. “I may not agree with everything you’ve done, but I do admire your courage Xenia. No one else in the federation was willing to undertake such a task with primitive creatures.”
“Not all of them are primitive. Some have hope, some are very wise, and some, we can learn from.”
“Maybe. Nevertheless, while I didn’t probe too deeply into Nova, I was, for the sake of my mission parameters, able to identify the dynamic between you and Jace…”
Xenia’s cheeks reddened, and she began feeling defensive.
“…not to worry, all that needs to be said is I understand why he’s important to you and the mission at large. Furthermore, it makes me respect you more as your own being, capable of not only making your own choices, but wise ones that require a heavy burden. As a Herald, you have a difficult path my sister, but one, if seen to completion, will achieve greatness.”
A tear ran down Xenia’s cheek. She walked into Lars and hugged him, kneading her head in his chest.
“You have no idea what it’s like to walk this path. Sometimes I feel so alone…”
Lars held his sister as she wept.
“…for years I struggled asking myself over and over if I did the right thing. The original mission helping mankind had seemingly failed, and still, I knew deep down that I needed to stay and see it through. Do you know what it’s like when federation looks down at you for your decision despite knowing deep down what you’re doing is right, even though you or no one else can see it manifest immediately. When Adron showed up, as weird as it may be, I felt as if I had actually made the right decision to stay behind for the first time in years.”
Lars placed his hands on his sister’s shoulders and looked her in the eyes.
“I understand. It would be different if the ethics were degenerated and the morality called into play, but a deep analysis of your situation showed me not only is your heart in the right place; you’re doing the best you can within relative limitations. Still, it’s my duty as your older brother to keep you sharp and push you for greater.”
Xenia wiped her cheeks, straightened her posture and backed away.
“I know. I don’t take your words wrongly.” she said.
“This situation with Adron is serious, Xenia. We must aim for as little to no mistakes as much as possible. If we fail, then there will be no earth for the redemption and completion of your mission as a Herald. No ET to contact a desolate planet.”
“I’m aware. Tell me, what are your plans?” Xenia responded.
“I need information from your end. What do you foresee as the outcome with the virol both in and outside Nova?”
“Concerning the strain Nova has, I think it will work for the best. It’s possible we can reverse engineer it for a cure and perhaps some countermeasures against Adron. As far as the ones contained by the earth governments, this is something that has to be handled with care.”
“Very well, then I’ll trust you with that, but if the situation does not improve for the better then I will have to eradicate it myself. That also includes the virol Nova possesses if it does not go according to your plan.”
“Reasonable. If you will take a backseat to the virol cleanup for the while, does that mean Adron is shifted to top priority for you?”
“So it is so.”
“You’ll go after him alone?”
“That’s of correctness.”
Xenia shook her head.
“What’s the matter?” Lars inquired.
“I don’t think you should. I think you should wait on us.”
“Us meaning Nova?”
“Yes.”
“Xenia, I can handle this. While you were specifically tailored for your mission, I was for mine.”
“I do not deny your capabilities. If it were Adron alone then surely, it would be a situation you would be able to handle, but therein lies the issue because Adron is not alone and we do not know what he could be planning.”
“I’m aware of the rogue Scion that defected. She will not be an issue.”
“I still think you should wait for us. These are my feelings.”
“I take your words with careful consideration. However, time is running out and I have a mission to accomplish. Lives are stake. What must be done needs to be done.”
Lars’ wrist computer flashed red.
“Time’s up, this area will no longer be secure for our contact.” the hunter said.
“Lars,” Xenia eyed her brother seriously. “I want you to promise me something.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“Promise me that you will send for help if you need it.”
Lars smiled.
“Emphasis on if. Goodbye, dear sister.” he said before vanishing from sight.
A patrol drone flew overhead and noticed Xenia standing near the waterfall alone. The alien beauty looked to her right over the horizon where the shores could be seen.
Be safe, she thought about her brother.
CHAPTER 15
Adron lifted and fitted the final pieces of the stolen doorway prototype using his psychokinesis. Upon completion, the alien overlord backed away, and a took a moment to breathe in appreciation for his craft.
“Are you ready?” he looked over at Lea on his right.
Lea nodded and took a few steps closer to the inactive stargate. She stretched the palm of her hand open and concentrated with great intensity. Adron kept his eyes on the Scion. He had seen her create portals before, but those were generally short-distance. Long distance not only required vastly more energy, but imaginative-consciousness capability.
The ground shook and the few lights in the pyramid dimmed as Lea’s powers amplified. The viromorphs in the nearby vicinity got startled though Adron kept them in check through his mass telepathy. Sporadic flashes of sparks and energetic circuits circled around the doorway.
That’s it, Adron thought to himself as he looked on.
Lea pushed as hard as she could to manifest the portal, but her energy waned, and in a fit of frustration, she fell to her knees, sobbing.
“I can’t do this. I can’t generate enough power to sustain it.” she cried.
Adron kneeled next to her and perked her chin up so that he could look into her eyes. The overlord wiped a tear from the Scion’s check.
“Why do you deny yourself?” Adron asked.
“What do you mean?” Lea said, astonished by his discernment.
“Time after time, you plunge yourself into ‘I can’t’, so I ask you again, why?”
“I don’t know.” Lea confessed.
“That is why you fail.” Adron rose to his feet.
A fire boiled in Lea. Something about the way he said what he said made the young Scion rebellious. She got to her feet and dried her tears.
“Yeah, well at least I tried!” she shouted.
“No, you didn’t.” Adron said, his back turned to her as he salvaged the area for parts. Adron’s sudden lack of care drove Lea up a wall. She stomped toward him, fearless.
“How can you say that! You want me to create a portal to a world I’ve never been to! How can I imagine that?!” she cried.
“Tell me,” Adron faced her. “When you created the portal to here, were you in this world before?”
“That’s-” Lea’s tongue twisted.
“I didn’t think so. So, tell me, what made your first portal a success?” Adron asked.
“I don’t know,” Lea shook her head thinking over the time. “I just wanted to escape.”
“You used the might of your very being to ensure what you really wanted truly manifested…” Adron moved close to Lea, the height difference between them becoming painfully obvious. “…what you just did wasn’t using that might, and that’s why you fail.
You have no certainty in yourself; you float like a leaf in the wind, carried by the slightest inconvenience. It’s only by some sheer miracle you honed into my frequencies to open the portal here, but alas, perhaps I overestimated you.”
The overload turned his back at the Scion and walked a few feet away from her, looking over the horizon outside the pyramid. Lea clenched her fists. Her whole body started trembling.
“Perhaps it was only by blind luck you made contact with me or perhaps there is potential in there, only, wasted by a childish mentality. Maybe you should go back to your world, the uncertainty runs in great measure there. You’ll fit right in.”
“Fuck you!” Lea screamed.
The walls trembled, and the entire pyramid shook with a violent earthquake. Violet light surrounded the Scion and her eyes became illuminated. Adron looked on with apathy, though his dogs were terrified and ran away. Lea crunched her fist, faced the doorway and stretched her hand at it. Electrical currents spiraled around the stargate and collapsed into a singularity. Adron smiled behind Lea as the Scion stretched both her hands forward and focused on the portal until it became a stabilized gateway to another world.
“Well done,” Adron said as he neared Lea’s side. “If you hold to the certainty in your capabilities, then truly I say to you, you will be unstoppable.”
The Scion slowly calmed herself and the light surrounding her body dissipated. The portal didn’t need her help any longer, the doorway’s technology was able to contain it from becoming volatile. Lea stared at Adron with a cold glare.
“What are you doing to me?” she asked.
“Unleashing you,” Adron pointed to the portal. “Shall we?”
Lea looked at the portal and marched toward it, defiant. Adron soon followed. Things were going according to plan.
**************
Lea and Adron walked through the gateway and upon arrival to the other side, Lea was astounded. While Adron’s world was dark, cloudy, and reddened with lightning, this one was clear, frozen with snow, and twirling in the night’s sky, two pulsars flashed their jets across space. Humongous ice mountains loomed over head. They were so tall, Lea had to tilt her head back to see them, and with the foreign air, she found herself choking and collapsing to her knees. Adron came to her side and touched the back of her head. Virol covered Lea’s mouth and nose and the Scion felt life returning to her.
“Thank you.” she said as she got to her feet.
“Beautiful isn’t it?” Adron observed the desolate planet, his flaming virol eyes illuminated. “As haunting as it is, there’s a solace to worlds like this; places left abandoned. A quiet.”
Lea watched Adron as the alien took in the view.
“We weren’t supposed to survive,” Adron continued. “That’s why they exiled us in worlds like this. There was a chance we could spread the plague across other solar systems. When the virol infected us, we were supposed to be doomed.”
“Do you think your friends survived?” Lea asked.
“I don’t know. I can feel their tug; their calls. I can sense their energies calling to me and yet, I confess, I find myself hesitant.” Adron feigned a smile.
“Hesitant?” Lea furrowed her eyebrows.
“I don’t know if I’m receiving these calls too late.” Adron moved toward the direction he felt the fluidal energy of his old crew and Lea followed. Though it was dark, the pulsating flashes of the neutron stars in the dark sky emitted enough light overhead for occasional flashes of visibility.
Adron led Lea into a valley of icicles, some as tall as skyscrapers. Lea started freezing on route. The alien overlord touched her again, this time on her shoulder, and the virol coated the Scion in a form fitting bio-organic suit like Adron’s. It kept Lea warm, and most importantly, it kept her protected.
Adron and Lea came across a strange slab of ice the size of a large house in a valley. The alien couldn’t get his mind off the slab. Something was calling to him. He leapt into the air and landed on top of the slab of ice with great force. The virol covered his fist and transformed into a long blunt weapon which he used to smash open the ice like a pick axe. He removed sheets and blocks of ice, tossing them away, frantically searching.
Adron suddenly hit something. Underneath the cleared ice was a metallic surface, and on the surface, written in a language Adron understood, said the words, “For Justice.” Adron smashed the metallic surface, ripped it open, then tossed the shredded piece away. He jumped inside the hole. Lea couldn’t sit still anymore; she was far too curious. The Scion formed a portal in front of her and one where Adron was. She walked through the first one and ended up at the second one, then jumped in after Adron.
Inside was pitch black and Lea heard the quiet echoes of her breath bouncing against distant walls. She created another portal as a means of light to determine her surroundings. The Scion found herself inside the command room of what appeared to be an abandoned alien vessel.
“Adron?” Lea called.
No response came.
“Adron?” she tried more desperately.
A blue light covered in an alien language emitted in the near distance. Lea got spooked when she noticed Adron’s red eyes next to it. He was operating the terminal. Sometimes it was hard for her to be brave. Between the new worlds and the technology, not to mention, Adron, Lea never imagined living such experiences. Her life had become so monotonous being a pet for secret services that she had forgotten the thrill of adventure. Here with Adron, though she was scared, she was getting her fix. Flickering light came to the ship, enough to give better visibility. The Scion moved next to Adron who was busy typing on a holographic keyboard by the terminal.
Another hologram appeared in front of them. It was the likeliness of a tall man in a damaged space suit covered with black goo slowly taking over his body. Though the log was somewhat functional, it occasionally short-circuited, causing sporadic flashes and voice distortions.
“ZzzzZkkk- log 4512, I’ve--- zzzzrrrkkk. So much gone. Fought so hard. My will,” the man dropped to his knees, holding his head in agony. “I can’t anymore. It wins. I waited. I waited so long. Can’t any longer.”
Lea tried to make sense of the hologram. Adron, on the other hand, was visibly distraught by the recorded message. The virol retracted from the alien’s face as he watched the holographic man scrambling for life before the transmission faded.
“Was that one of them?” Lea asked.
Adron walked next to where the hologram was.
“His name was Zerod, sailor of the dark seas.” Adron said while investigating the room.
“What happened to him?” Lea wondered aloud, her eyes still darting around identifying the alien surrounding.
“The virol bested him. He died. Centuries ago as a matter of fact. Spacetime has a funny way of working throughout distances.” the alien overlord said before molting his fists into two swords and slicing the jammed door in front of him. He kicked the broken pieces aside and ventured in. Lea quickly followed.
“I’m sorry.” she said as they walked down the ship’s hull.
Adron abruptly stopped and squeezed his fists.
“This is my fault.” he said.
Lea moved to his side and tossed a portal in the middle of the room, its light immediately providing greater visibility.
“How? You were imprisoned. You couldn’t help them.” she replied.
Adron looked to his left and noticed something shimmering. He approached it cautiously, but not caution out of fear, rather, caution of belief. The alien kneeled and stretched his hand out, touching the helmet of his former crew; all that was left was the dust from bones and the shredded pieces of a suit overran by virol.
“You don’t understand,” Adron held Zerod’s helmet. “I led them to their fate. They trusted me with their lives, and this, is what became of it.” the overlord held the helmet with one hand, the other, clenched as he thought about his deceased colleague.
“As a leader, it is my fault,” Adron
held Zerod’s helmet close to his chest. “And I accept it.”
“I’m so sorry.” Lea felt a little teary.
Adron held his other hand over Zerod’s helmet and telekinetically pulled off the remaining virol from the armor. The virol rushed into Adron and the overlord trembled with growing power.
“Now you may rest my friend. Your memories will be a part of me,” Adron then faced Lea. “Let us depart from this place and never return.”
**************
Jace rushed to the containment facility, denying, but knowing deep down, the truth. He stopped at an observatory glass that peered into a room filled with dead, rotted bodies and workers in biohazard suits, moving the deceased. Jace placed the palm of his hand on the glass while he observed the fallen. They were the soldiers from his previous mission and not one of them survived the infection. Among them was Royce, and once Jace caught sight of him, the Nova Leader felt his heart drop. Xenia entered the room, intending to discuss Lars, but she felt Jace’s disturbed swinging waves. She came to his side and peered through the glass silently with him.
“This is my fault. Those men trusted me with their lives. I failed them.” Jace broke the silence.
“You won’t get far blaming yourself for this, Jace.” Xenia said.
“Still, their blood is on my hands and that’s something I won’t run away from. I shattered their trust. I can’t let their deaths be for nothing.”
Xenia turned Jace’s head to look her in the eyes.
“It won’t. It’s not over.” Xenia replied.
“No matter what happens, I won’t give up Xenia. I don’t care how many times I lose; I’ll never give up. Are you with me?”
“All the way.”
Jace looked back through the glass, thinking on the repercussions.
“How did your meeting go?” he asked.
“I wish to discuss in detail when you’re ready.” she replied.
“After the burning.” Jace said.
