by Jacob Holo
“We have long known this moment would come,” Dendolet said. “Vierj’s return was inevitable. Though the timing is… most inconvenient, especially when the products of this false Mission are so near fruition.”
Veketon shook his head. “To think that we would actually succeed in creating another one, only to make the same critical error.”
“We did not foresee the consequences of removing the seraph’s limiters,” Dendolet said. “We thought no one was capable of surviving such an ordeal, since all our previous attempts had failed.”
“At the time, Pilot Donolon’s strength nearly exceeded our own when we lived,” Balezuur said. “We should have anticipated he’d survive the merger.”
“Regardless, we have failed to foresee much,” Veketon said. “To think that both those failures would unite. We chased Jack Donolon away too quickly.”
“We could not control him, as we could not control Vierj,” Dendolet said.
“Veketon, what do you believe those two are planning?” Xixek asked.
“We’ve known what Vierj wanted ever since Ittenrashik fell and became Imayirot,” Veketon said. “Is it not obvious those two seek the Homeland Gate?”
“But what possible motivation could Jack Donolon have for seeking the Homeland Gate?” Dendolet asked.
“Unknown. Perhaps he seeks it for Vierj’s sake.” Veketon shook his head, unsatisfied with his own answer. “It does not matter. I believe they will seek out the Homeland Gate. And that means they will come here, to Aktenzek.”
“Even if those two failed experiments attack us here, we are not defenseless,” Dendolet said. “We have the seraphs and Aktenzek’s temporal shielding.”
“We should still plan for the worst,” Veketon said. “We cannot rely solely on Aktenzek’s defenses to stop Vierj.”
One of the Eleven cleared his throat and grinned. “Ahh, but what is life without its little challenges?” said Ziriken, Eleventh of the Eleven.
A wave of painful groans spread around the circle as they all glared at their most eccentric member.
“Must I continually remind you that we are dead?” Dendolet breathed.
“You are not helping matters, Ziriken,” Veketon said. “Shut up or I will purge you this time.”
“My apologies. It just occurred to me how exciting these next few days might be.”
“Veketon, they are becoming quite agitated,” Dendolet nodded towards the vast crowd of Aktenai sovereigns. “We should finalize what we are going to tell them.”
“I will handle this.” Veketon stepped out of the circle and walked towards Vorin. He stopped and spoke in a booming voice that filled the Great Hall. “We have finished our deliberations.”
Vorin bowed deeply towards Veketon. “Venerable master, will you now reveal to us what you know?”
“First, let me state this.” He traced his gaze across the stands. “We do not make this announcement easily, for we ourselves were in doubt until recently. However, upon careful consideration of the evidence at hand, we, the Original Eleven of the Aktenai, are prepared to reveal our discovery to you. And so it is with absolute certainty that I announce the following: this pilot Azeal is none other than our greatest enemy, the Bane of Ittenrashik!”
Cries of shock and disbelief erupted across the listening sovereigns. The entire Great Hall filled with thousands of agitated and frightened conversations. Vorin himself looked sick to his stomach.
“We regret the delay in revealing this information to you, our faithful servants,” Veketon said. “But I am sure you understand we could not make such a monumental announcement casually. We, the Original Eleven, appreciate your understanding and your patience.”
Veketon turned away from the stunned audience and returned to the circle of founders.
“A small drop of truth for a group of small minds,” Dendolet said.
“This is a necessary risk,” Veketon said. “Besides, letting them know who Vierj is may increase Aktenzek’s chances of survival when she finally attacks.”
“But, Veketon,” Balezuur said, “it may lead them to discover that pilots—”
“No, I seriously doubt that, though I share your concern. Regardless of what is to come, we must be prepared. We should make arrangements for leaving Aktenzek.”
“But where to?” Xixek asked.
“Zu’Rashik, the fortress planet under construction. That is our path of retreat if all turns against us.”
The other founders nodded cautiously.
“In preparation,” Veketon said, “we must move the thrones and our other research material to Zu’Rashik.”
“The thrones are not ready for deployment,” Dendolet said.
“No, they are incomplete. That does not make them useless in combat. And, I fear, we may need their power.”
“But releasing them is dangerous. They are uncontrollable, even psychotic in some cases. We dare not use them.”
“We may not have a choice,” Veketon said. “But this is only a precaution. With fortune on our side, no one will ever know about the thrones until it is too late.”
“Despite what we learned from Jack Donolon’s seraph,” Dendolet said. “We have not perfected how to transfer our personalities to the thrones.”
“We have waited millennia for our divinity,” Veketon said. “We can wait a little longer.”
***
Quennin sat with all the Resolute’s pilots, medics, technicians, and even the Renseki in the recreation center. Vorin’s hologram shimmered within a rough ring of tables, resplendent in his gold-trimmed coat-of-office as he explained the situation simultaneously to all Aktenai pilots across the fleet. They hung on his every word in breathless silence.
Azeal is the Bane! Quennin thought, grasping her trembling hands. She closed her eyes and took a calming breath.
A part of her didn’t want to believe it, but the Original Eleven had spoken and had set all doubts aside. The seraph squadrons not only faced the traitor Jack Donolon and the hordes of archangels, but also the greatest foe the Aktenai had ever known.
Seth sat next to her, his fists clenched in rage. She rested a hand on his, understanding his anger all too well.
“It wasn’t enough that he killed our son,” Seth whispered, breathing in angry huffs.
“All seraph squadrons and fleet elements are being recalled to Aktenzek,” Vorin said. “We have reason to believe an attack of enormous proportions is imminent, and we believe the Bane will participate. Those who can, return to us as quickly as possible.”
The hologram flickered and vanished.
“Seth?” Quennin put a hand on his shoulder.
Seth stood quickly, face twisted in anger. His chair clattered to the ground behind him, and he walked out of the room.
Quennin watched him go and almost followed, but she knew Seth preferred to sort out his emotions alone, at least until some of the heat left his mind.
All six of the Renseki sat one table over from Quennin. Yonu had joined her parents there and now stood.
“Okay, not to put too fine a point on this, but how are we supposed to stop the Bane?” Yonu asked. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t have any idea how we’re expected to beat this thing. This is the same creature that destroyed Imayirot, and it’s coming after Aktenzek! Maybe some of you are made of sterner stuff than me, but I’m terrified by what that means!”
Quennin stood, her fingertips resting on the tabletop. “You are forgetting one very important thing. This is our purpose. This is what we have trained for all our lives. We as seraph pilots are the only people capable of stopping the Bane. Even though we’ve spent most of our lives fighting the Grendeni, this is what we were all born to do! To complete our Great Mission! To finally defeat the Bane!”
“And yet, a seraph pilot has allied himself with the Bane,” Yonu said.
The memory of Tevyr’s seraph being cut down stung Quennin’s mind, and she looked away.
“I know. All I can say is we here are
still true to the Great Mission, and it is our duty to carry it out.”
Yonu sat down. Quennin saw a tentative hand go up from the EN table. The pilot seemed nervous, as if the very act of asking his question might be an insult.
“Yes, Pilot Daykin?” Quennin said.
Jared stood up. “Now, I hope I’m not making a fool of myself by doing this. Most of you Aktenai may find this question disturbing, but please bear with me.”
“Of course, pilot. What do you need?”
“This is just for my own personal benefit, since I’m a simple guy from Earth,” Jared said. “But could someone please tell me what this Bane actually is and how we’re supposed to beat it?”
Several Aktenai stared at him in disbelief, but Quennin nodded, expecting this. Earthers did not share Aktenzek’s long history, nor were they required to learn it as children. Concepts like the Great Mission, the horror of Imayirot’s destruction, and the Bane’s terrifying power were still foreign concepts to them, yet so important to what went into being Aktenai.
“The Bane is a creature that the Original Eleven and their followers, the Aktenai, created,” Quennin said. “It is our great sin, and it became our Great Mission to right this wrong. This is what it means to be Aktenai, to be one of the Forsaken. The Bane is a creature that can manipulate time, speeding its passage or stopping it entirely, and can use this ability to lay waste to entire worlds.
“Our Great Mission, the reason we seraph pilots exist, is to kill this creature unchanged by eons, to kill that which cannot be killed… for if we cannot, no one else will.”
“So, how do we kill something that can’t be killed?” Jared asked. “The Bane destroyed that gloomy planet we visited, right? What chance do we have?”
“Seraph pilots are immune to the Bane’s manipulations,” Quennin said. “Pilots and their seraphs, through the protection of their chaos barriers, cannot not be frozen in time or rapidly aged.”
Jared nodded thoughtfully. “Well, that’s better, I guess. The Bane may be able to slaughter everyone and everything we all care about, but at least we’ll be safe in our cockpits. We still can’t hurt that monster.”
Quennin could think of nothing to say. Jared slumped in his seat and stared glumly ahead. After that the meeting began to break up.
Four of the Renseki left, but the twins Kevik and Kiro walked over to Jared and sat with him. Despite his gloomy disposition, he seemed slightly cheered by their arrival. Quennin wondered why.
Slowly, groups of people left the rec center. Some were quiet, while others loudly discussed these revelations. Quennin followed a large group of technicians out, determined to find Seth and check on him.
As she walked through the Resolute’s long corridors, her mind buzzed with activity. Something about Jared’s question bothered her, though she couldn’t quite pin it down. She had never given much thought to why a seraph pilot could fight the Bane, and up until now she never had reason to. It was always a given that this final battle should be a seraph pilot’s true purpose in life.
So how can we resist the Bane’s powers? Quennin thought. What makes us so special? And how could anyone prove we have this ability? It’s not like there were seraphs and seraph pilots around when the Bane destroyed Imayirot. The first seraph was created two thousand years ago, eighteen millennia too late for that battle.
No, I’m missing something here. Something doesn’t feel right.
The question lingered in the back of her mind, but she took a moment to link with the Resolute’s computer and call up Seth’s position. He was near his seraph, as he often was when something got under his skin.
Quennin took a lift down to the seraph bays, working the questions through her mind. The more she thought, the more she found threads linking seraphs and the Bane. First there was Jack Donolon, hero and traitor in equal parts, allied with the Bane. Second was the Bane in battle: fighting them from within a seraph, defended by an impervious barrier, but still fighting very much like another pilot.
The Bane inside of a seraph… the Bane can pilot a seraph…
Oh no.
That train of thought was almost too horrible to comprehend. When the lift opened, Quennin burst into a run down the row of dormant seraphs. She rushed across the bay shelves, thankful that no one was around to see her, and spotted Seth donning his i-suit.
“Seth!” she called out, running towards him. “Seth!”
Her beloved looked up, surprise and confusion written on his face. She came to a stop next to him.
“What’s the matter, Quennin?”
“Seth, I think I know why Jack—”
“All pilots to your seraphs! All pilots to your seraphs! Aktenzek is under attack!” The booming voice echoed in the cavernous bays.
Quennin and Seth exchanged looks.
“What is it, Quennin?” Seth asked. He must have seen her unease.
“I’ll…” she paused, not wanting to burden Seth before the battle. “I’ll tell you when we get back.”
There was nothing more to do but prepare for battle.
Chapter 14
Return of the Bane
In full control of his seraph with vast fleets arrayed about him, Jack retreated to his inner thoughts, back to where he’d set all of this in motion seventeen years ago. In the three years after merging with his seraph, before abandoning Earth and his friends, a slow horror had begun to settle in. He’d suspected what he was, or rather what he was becoming, and had begun a search for something to prove himself wrong.
That search began with Aktenzek’s mammoth but restricted archives. He used to spend hours sifting through those ancient digital tomes in a quest for answers, but they were few and far between. Even though the Choir undoubtedly knew a great deal about the Bane, the Gate, the destruction of Imayirot, the Exile, and other subjects, the archives held little of value.
The Choir hid the detailed technical data on those subjects. After all, how could the Choir know seraph pilots were immune to the Bane’s attacks without such information? No, there was a great store of knowledge being denied to the seraph pilots, and perhaps even to the majority of the Choir.
But despite these attempts at censorship, small gems of information fell through the cracks, allowing Jack to choose a course of action. Most of this seemingly useless knowledge pertained to the Gate and its strange physical manifestation within this universe.
The Gate was a dimensional disruption, not unlike those a seraph pilot created when drawing chaotic energies into this universe. However, the Gate operated on a much higher power scale and far more precise organizational structure. It created a field effect around itself, nullifying other dimensional disruptions in close proximity.
And so, Jack surmised, as one approached the Gate, a seraph pilot would lose many of his or her abilities.
Jack turned his head to the right and let his wings flex outward slightly. Vierj’s shadowed seraph hovered in space, ready and eager for battle. He wondered if he would succeed in the end.
But first I must find the Gate, wherever the Choir has hidden it, and to do that, we must assault Aktenzek and force its location from them.
“First wave has secured our entry,” Dominic said, monitoring the battle from over a hundred light-years away. “We’ll be sending the second wave through momentarily.”
Thousands of warships floated serenely about him, waiting their turn to assault Aktenzek. In the cold calculations of war, every machine in this fleet was expendable if the Grendeni could wrest control of the Gate and hold it. To the Grendeni, the Gate was a means to an end, not the quasi-religious artifact the Aktenai held it to be.
If the Grendeni secured the Gate, they could force Aktenzek to stop the war. Even if the Grendeni could not physically destroy the dimensional rupture, they could theoretically move it to the heart of a star or throw it into a black hole.
The Aktenai would obey any demand to keep that from happening.
“How’s the assault going?” Jack asked.
Vierj opened a private channel. “I’m surprised by how anxious this waiting is making me.”
“I know, but be patient. Let the Grendeni pay the price for entering Aktenzek, not us.”
“Of course, Jack Donolon.”
Hundreds of Grendeni warships, thousands of exodrones, and dozens of archangel carriers all powered up their fold engines simultaneously. Space rippled as each ship punched a momentary hole through space-time and vanished. Vast distortion rings expanded outward, turning space into a violently disturbed black pool.
Thirty archangel carriers were in the second wave alone. Each massively armored craft held four full squadrons of archangels. That was almost fifteen hundred archangels in a single wave.
“We’ve got an opening for you,” Dominic said. “It’s not much, but it’s better than the hell the rest of the fleet is engaged in. Transmitting fold coordinates. Good hunting.”
“Thanks, Dominic. We won’t let you down.”
The hypercast link shifted, and Dominic spoke privately to Jack. Or so he thought, at least. “Make sure you keep her under control. We want the Gate, not genocide.”
“I understand, Dominic. And thank you.”
“Just get us that location. I’m trusting you here. Don’t prove me wrong.”
“Oh, have a little faith, will you?”
The countdown reached zero. Jack and Vierj folded space to Aktenzek.
Fleets in the thousands dueled in the black skies above the fortress planet. Thick clouds of exodrones buzzed about them, disgorging salvos of torpedoes and stinging with internal lasers. Even the Earth Nation fleet participated, approaching cautiously from Earth and adding its own fire to the storm of beams, explosions, and death.
