Leeroy beckoned and Taza followed, the feeling he was being watched growing stronger the deeper into the chamber they went. They reached the crystal cluster. The structures towered over him, its crystals weaving into organic shapes. Up close, it looked like a giant plant. Purple petals grew from its sides at odd angles. Vines pulsing with lights spilled over the highest petals. The alien construct or growth—he wasn’t sure which—cast dancing lights on every surface within a stone’s throw.
A thicker concentration of webs and pods hung from the ceiling above the crystal-plant.
A welcoming warmth emanated from the flower, and Taza caught a whiff of alluring perfume. It pulled on him. He reached for a petal.
Leeroy put a hand on his chest, pushing him back.
"That’s far enough," he whispered, looking into a dark corner while rubbing his forearm. "The offspring don’t take too kindly to those who touch her majesty’s throne without explicit permission."
Taza shook his head, trying to rid himself of the mists gathering there. "I understand."
The redhead kneeled. "I have brought the Terran as requested, your highness."
"Good," many voices said at once.
Taza couldn’t tell if the sound came from the so-called throne or the shadows above.
Leeroy gestured for him to kneel.
Taza obeyed. "Your highness."
"The Terran has recovered well thanks to your care. We are grateful."
"Of course," the many whispering voices spoke in harmony. "We could not allow the darkness to have this one. He is too…important."
Leeroy shot Taza a look that said he should speak.
He looked to the throne. "You have my gratitude."
"And you have ours, Archagent Arkona."
"You’re welcome." He decided against asking what she meant.
Best not to come across as confused as I look.
"We cannot blame you for such confusion," the whispering voices said.
He tried his best not to swear in his head. "You must forgive me, your highness. I’ve only communicated this way once before."
"Yes, with one of our cousins. You call them Thandrall. We can see the coupling in your mind even as you recall the memories. It is somewhat…unsettling."
His eyebrows arched. "The Thandrall are related to the Aknar? And what do you mean by coupling?"
Leeroy shot him a warning glance, but Taza couldn’t help himself.
"You have a greater role to play in all of this than even we realized," the whispering chorus said. "But we do not have time for so many questions."
Taza sighed. "I don’t understand, your highness."
"You do not," the pulsing whispers grew louder. "But you will…given time."
The throne’s beating light brightened.
Leeroy took several steps back and signaled for Taza to do the same.
Taza obeyed without question, his eyes locked on the mesmerizing rhythm.
The pulsing vines began to move. They unfurled and slithered like serpents, sliding over the throne and out of view. The large purple petals, each one several feet broad, shifted slightly. The purple light faded. Nothing happened.
Taza waited.
Still nothing.
He looked to Leeroy with a cocked eyebrow and the redhead nodded at the throne.
Light shone through cracks between the petals, and the throne opened like a flower.
The petals curled around a core of blinding white.
The light faded to a soft purple, revealing a seat big enough for a human.
Taza’s gut went into free-fall. His head spun and he felt faint. He’d stopped breathing with shock. He forced himself to draw deep breaths, telling himself the Aknar venom in his blood was causing him to hallucinate.
Upon the silken throne sat Zora. She was naked, and her skin was so pale her body seemed to meld with the glowing web.
"Taza…it’s good to see you again." Her lips smiled, though sorrow filled her eyes. "I didn’t expect events to develop so suddenly, but if life has taught me one thing it’s that time waits for no one."
"I…" Taza managed before letting his jaw slacken. He drew several more breaths.
Zora waved an arm in a sweeping arch. "I know this is a…surprise."
"Surprise?" Taza said, barely clinging to reality. He wondered whether he was still stuck in one of his nightmares. "Zora…What is this?"
"Do not be afraid," the chorus of voices from before whispered inside his head.
Zora’s lips hadn’t moved.
"If you’re on the throne," Taza said panting, "who’s talking inside my head?"
Strands of web snapped from her body as Zora slowly rose. She turned her back on him, revealing a fist-sized spider attached to the base of her skull, its eight legs buried in her neck. "Queen Charr and her children communicate using the music of the mind."
"Why is she attached to your neck? She’s...very small." He thought the words before he could stop himself.
Zora smiled and the sweet laughter rang out in his head. Queen Charr spoke. "This is one of many forms we have taken over the centuries. Currently we are smaller than many of our children. Remaining compact has ensured survival."
"I meant no offense," Taza said quickly.
“We take no offense," the voices said.
"I don’t get it…” He finally felt a little more grounded. "How did you get tied up in all of this, Zora?"
Zora faced him again. Her chest heaved as she sighed. "While investigating the Refinery months ago, it was clear that Ushtarans-Chan relations had deteriorated more than the Omnion had realized. Before the explosion in Chamber Four, the Ushtarans had started mistreating the Chan more than usual. They demanded that more tridarium be mined and refined than was possible without putting countless lives in danger. We later discovered that they needed the additional material for a weapon. Chan started disappearing into the catacombs. Only a few at first, but by the time I arrived, hundreds had gone missing."
“When I came through the gate," Leeroy said. "I hid in the tunnels for months before I stumbled upon Ria. She was searching for friends who had gone missing down here. Scared the hell out of me. Anyway, Ria convinced me to help her search. We found her friends in a cavern they’d been using for secret meetings. One thing led to another and I ended up training them to fight."
Zora nodded. "Before the rebellion kicked off, Agent Bulstrad and Chancellor Namoro discovered that the Ushtaran leadership were plotting something. The leadership tried to throw them off by blowing a sub-reactor in Chamber Four. But it only made things messier. Bulstrad and Namoro soon realized that Chimera had arrived on Ushtar. They learned that Chimera were connected with the Quamat and the Omnion retrovirus. They also learned that Chimera were in bed with the Ushtaran leadership. Seeing that Bulstrad and Namoro knew too much, the Ushtarans had them killed. All the while, the leadership’s misdeeds caused rebel numbers to swell."
"We have ten-thousand strong and more Chan flock by the minute,” Leeroy added. "We’re struggling to keep so many supplied, though Queen Charr has helped us a great deal."
"We’ve tried to get word out, but the atmospheric storms have been raging for longer than usual. We suspect that has something to do with the weapon the Ushtarans are building. We hijacked a long-range communications station, but the storms bounced our transmissions and the Ushtarans took the facility back. We’ve had no contact with the outside."
Taza looked at Leeroy. "Until Zora arrived."
The redhead nodded. "It took time to make contact with her. The Ushtarans made sure she was closely watched at all times."
"But my investigation led me into the catacombs," Zora said. "That was when Queen Charr called from the shadows.”
"If not for Zora, we would have perished," the lilting voices said in his head.
"I followed Charr’s whispers and found this chamber. She had been hibernating for millennia, but the heat from Chamber Four’s explosion disturbed her slumber and the fallout destroy
ed most of her nest," she added with a touch of melancholy. "We melded before she died and we moved to this place. She laid her final eggs and the hatchlings built a new nest."
"They are still infants, but they have done well," Queen Charr said with a pride reflected in Zora’s eyes.
Taza could hardly believe how genial Zora was. "I’m struggling to come to terms with this. I didn’t think I would see you again after…your message."
"When I last left the Orinmore, I knew I wouldn’t return." Sadness returned to her eyes. "That was why I left you that message. Before I met the Omnion, I worked as a tridarium prospector for the Xerocorp Mining Corporation."
"The same organization that owns Xerocorp Labs."
"I didn’t know it at the time, but they were linked with Chimera. I was prospecting an anomaly on an unregistered, mineral-rich planet when I lost control of my ship and crash-landed. I activated a beacon and investigated the anomaly while waiting for an extraction. The anomaly turned out to be a time-space distortion created by a high concentration of tridarium and a Primordial Orb.”
She paused to catch her breath.
Taza looked to Leeroy, but the human offered no help. "Am I supposed to know what that means?"
"The Primordials created many powerful devices before they left,” Queen Charr’s voices said in his mind.
"The Primordials were an advanced civilization that spanned the galaxy," Zora added.
"The Ancients?" Taza said. Such a revelation hardly shed light on matters.
Zora shook her head. "According to Aknar memories, the Primordials ascended to a form of being beyond reality. The Ancients appeared in their place and eventually tried to follow the Primordials. A few succeeded, but the war they caused in doing so had decimated the galaxy."
"What has that got to do with this?" He gestured to the nest.
"Those who touch a Primordial orb sometimes catch a real glimpse of the future. More than a calculation. When I touched the object, my life flashed before my eyes. When I came around, I couldn’t remember much. It was like waking from a dream. But one memory in particular lingered. And that memory featured you."
As disturbing as the notion was, it sounded familiar. "So this orb worked like the Orinmore math machine."
"The Primordial orb I found on that planet currently powers the Orinmore’s oracle-drive. Wu showed up with an Omnion ship soon after I’d accidentally activated the orb. Wu left me with one of his agents before returning to the Shroud with the orb. Soon, the Omnion had a working oracle-drive. Until then, they had limited contact beyond the Shroud. Their single key only allowed a single small ship to pass through the storm walls at a time, and though they had many agents scattered throughout the galaxy, their information channels were still subject to time. But the oracle-drive changed everything. Not only could they peer into events in Sentinel space, they could calculate how those events might ripple through space and time. The system was far from perfect, but its accuracy was astounding. I was eventually assigned as their eyes and ears on the Sentinel."
“I first met Wu on the Brink,” Taza said. Some pieces started to fit together.
“Chimera discovered my beacon. When they realized what we’d found, they set chase. Wu got me to safety, but they caught up to him and locked him on the Brink. I didn’t know that at the time either, of course."
He pointed at the throne. "Did you know you would end up here?”
"I had an inkling. When Queen Charr called out to me, following her voice felt right. Like I had dreamt about it once. I soon remembered it was part of the vision the Primordial orb gave me.”
"Did you tell the Omnion about this vision?"
Zora shook her head. "I couldn’t remember much, so there wasn’t a whole lot to tell. However, while training as an agent, Wu learned that the Primordial Orb had bonded to me and that I could intuitively decipher the oracle-drive’s probability calculations better than any Omnion as a result. That was why they sent me to the Sentinel. Where better to place someone so useful than at the political center of the galaxy?"
Zora winced and doubled over.
Leeroy reached forward and helped her back onto the throne. "Is there anything I can do, your highness?"
"No, red one," the voices murmured. "But we thank you."
"What’s wrong?" Taza stepped forward, one arm outstretched. Countless clicks buzzed ominously in the shadows.
Zora gestured for him to stay back. “I’ll be fine. It’ll soon pass."
Leeroy pulled him back. "Zora and the Queen are not well."
"We are dying," the voices whispered in his head.
"Dying?"
Zora recovered somewhat, though her face remained twisted with discomfort. "I’ve had an incurable brain tumor. The fits started after I touched the orb. Omnion medication suppressed them for the most part, but I near the end."
"You can’t…" His words trailed off. The thought of finding Zora again only to have her snatched away was too much to absorb.
"It’s okay," Zora said, squeezing her eyes shut. "You’re here. That’s all that matters."
"I don’t…What use am I?" As hard as Taza tried, he fumbled with his words. "I can’t even defend myself against a short Chan."
Zora laughed. "Ria had an unfair advantage. I trained her hard.”
Another piece of the puzzle suddenly clicked into place. "You were her mentor. That does explain a few things, but it doesn’t explain why I’m here."
"Queen Charr can explain it better than I. This all started long ago, back when her people ruled this planet. She will tell you while Leeroy fetches the others."
Leeroy bowed before setting off, and Zora shut her eyes again.
“I am the eldest of our kind." Queen Charr’s voices now spoke as one. “The Aknar and Aphnai once thrived across the galaxy, long after the Ancients had fallen, but long before even the Tal’Ri had emerged from their swamps. The Aknar and Aphnai fought many wars, but we also enjoyed long stretches of peace."
The Aphnai haven’t been very peaceful lately…The thought came to him unbidden.
"I am aware that my cousins beyond the Shroud have also awoken. They have hatched many eggs. I feel them on the web."
Taza regarded the web on the ceiling. “How can you feel them on your web when they are outside the Shroud?"
"Aknar and Aphnai queens can touch strands beyond space and time. Sometimes we hear things through the web. Recently, I have sensed the Aphnai growing in great numbers. They thrive, yet something remains amiss. They are being…manipulated. The Aphnai are not virtuous by nature, but neither are they evil. They are intelligent, but naturally, they do what must be done to survive. However, I fear that an old power compels them."
Taza had never really concerned himself with the insectoid creatures Clio and Grimshaw occasionally mentioned, but it sounded like they had become more of a threat than he thought. "What kind of old power? Why return after all this time? How do we stop them?"
"So many questions…" Queen Charr continued. “I will answer what I can in what little time we have. With the Ancients gone, the Aknar and Aphnai spread throughout the galaxy. After a long stretch of peace, a war greater than all that came before it broke out. The conflict extinguished many, reducing numbers on both sides to just a few. Then the Aphnai stumbled upon the species you call Kragak…the old servants of the Ancients. We thought they had gone, but a small pocket remained. The Kragak’s war with the Aphnai eventually spread to Aknar space. The killing lasted for centuries. Though the Aknar and Aphnai fought side-by-side for the first time, we were no match for a species bred for battle. We fled, but the Kragak were relentless, hunting the Aknar and the Aphnai to near-extinction. The last few queens went into hiding. We entered the long sleep, knowing that one day, the same power that ended the Ancients would return. Most of those queens are dead now. I am the last of the Aknar. Two Aphnai queens also survived. I hear their life vibrations on the web even now." She fell silent.
"This power that destroyed
the Ancients sounds dangerous?"
"More than dangerous," her voices became slurred and discordant again. "It can wipe out all living things in the Galaxy. Ascension requires the sacrifice of one’s life. However, the Ancients spilled the blood of those who did not wish to die so that they might attain ascension without such a sacrifice. They used a weapon so powerful, it wiped them from existence. The Primordials turned their weapons against what few Ancients remained…those who hoped to ascend but had failed. The Primordials imprisoned those Ancients in the spaces between dimensions, a place some call the Void. There, they would suffer in nothingness until they learned or until the end. However, Chimera broke the seal and the Ancients now seek to return. Chimera control the Aphnai using ancient crystals. However, that control wanes. If the crystals have ruined the Aphnai minds as I fear it has, they will sweep across the galaxy consuming everything in their madness. Perhaps that is what the Ancients trapped inside the Void desire.”
"What am I supposed to do? I’m just one man on a strange world, stuck inside a nebula of storms."
“I fear the Shroud’s walls will fall.”
"How?"
"The Chimera scientists who came through the gate have almost finished their weapon. It will tear openings in the Shroud’s walls, allowing any to pass."
"If they can build such a weapon, why not just use it outside the Shroud?”
"The weapon exists in two parts. One half is outside the Shroud. The Shanti civil war has allowed Chimera to move freely within Shanti space. The other half of their device, they’ve built on Ushtar. They need both parts to function simultaneously to create a hole large enough for ships to enter."
"Chimera will attack the Omnion head-on."
"They will attack from both side. The gate on Ushtar is old and consumes significant quantities of energy. It could only be activated once every few months, but Chimera have since found a way to make it charge faster. Even now, they run their final tests."
"We have to stop them!"
"We are in agreement. We need your help. The Chan have sent a lot of support. Leeroy has trained a small team to destroy the weapon, but most of the Chan rebels are unskilled in fighting. Your assistance in destroying half of Chimera’s weapon will be invaluable."
The Galactic Sentinel: Ultimate Edition: 4 Books with 2000+ Pages of Highly Entertaining Sci-Fi Space Adventure Page 101
