by Greg Laurel
“Correct, but we should not think this as their grand defeat,” a Laksorian assured. The yellow-furred lapin appeared to have some kind of scientific wear that Miles could draw the connection to. Sure, it wasn’t a white lab coat of Earth, but it was clear this woman was a scientist. “The Dark Six batter at the walls of reality every moment, and while they seldom breach, a breach it remains. We can sure as hell relax, but let’s not be complacent.”
“I agree with..,” Miles started.
“Jaden.”
“I agree with Jaden, then. Whatever all your plans are, I’m going to participate in this universe I’ve just been shown.”
As if Miles had said something profound, the entire Conclave fell silent, looking to him as if they couldn’t believe he just said that.
“Have I offended?” Miles said, a little worried.
“Your surname, it’s Radien, correct?” the Hykentiu asked. Miles nodded, and both paused. “Brothers and sisters of the Conclave... we all are familiar with the Old Cynofraxian word ‘Rayd,’ and the suffix ‘-ien’?”
“We should not press upon that now,” Jaden interrupted. “We must not be so quick to... try to find the new one.”
The Conclave quickly adjourned, and Miles caught up with the Hykentiu at the building’s pub, who admittedly had a lot more tone to his muscle than first noticed. “I never got your name, but what was Jaden on about?”
“I’m Miirkae,” he informed, then taking a swig from a glass full of cloudy drink. “Jaden was on about Caltoran.”
Miles asked for a glass of botanical distillate, hoping it would get him something near to gin. “Keep in mind, I only just got here when it comes to anything beyond planet-scale matters.”
Miirkae continued as Miles sipped from what was probably gin. It was close enough. The bottle was labeled ‘Kalisaine’s Root’. “Caltoran was a hero to many, many worlds, even whole galaxies. Towns and provinces had their champions, planets have folk heroes, and the universe had Caltoran, its defender. He was killed rather recently, but he had honestly died a good while before then.”
Miirkae downed whatever was in his glass, then another as he recounted what was clearly a painful story. “A Demon killed him like a coward. Shot him from far away, in the aftermath of a skirmish. Didn’t even have the balls to finish him up close. Just kept shooting as he moved forward, making sure he was dead, because he was just that fuckin’ scared of what Caltoran would do if he were alive to defend himself. The Dark Six took Caltoran’s body after that. Used it, and his high status to take the universe by surprise. Hundreds of thousands of worlds burned a day by Caltoran’s power, now under the control of the Dark fucking Six. Not even, I think. Just some Demon pawn, just like our Caltoran became. It took some of the most twisted and forbidden weapons the universe has ever devised just to bring him down, a second time, even...”
Miles took a drink from his own glass, and looked to Miirkae. “I know that saying I’m sorry is rather useless here. But if there were a different word I knew, I’d use that.”
“I get it. And for it, thanks.” This young warrior indeed, fit and prime, certainly seemed as though while he was appreciative to have his skill and his physique, likely regretted its necessity. “I hope you don’t mind if I just call you Radien. I figure most people will be doing that, it’s a little more palatable than Miles.”
“Of course,” Miles responded with a slight smile. “I suppose if I had the choice, Radien is more... legend-sounding.” Miirkae laughed at that in agreement, and eventually went their own ways. Miles then headed to The Hideout, finally meeting Xenidar in person. Xenidar was only about up to Miles’s ribs in height, and Miles wasn’t any taller than five foot six. But Miles had been the shortest in the room many times before, so he had no plans to hold it against the Talvas Vulpian.
“Good to meet you in person, Radien,” Xenidar greeted. “What can I help you with?”
“What can you tell me about that Laksorian from the Conclave, and her relation to Caltoran?”
Xenidar was almost surprised, but not quite. “It’s not difficult to tell that they were good friends. What eats at her most is how much people insisted she be kept away from the corrupted body of a once honorable Laksorian. She was practically forced to inaction, as one of Laksor’s leading minds behind Genome Hacking.”
“That’d burn anyone, primordially,” Miles quickly commented. “Lemme guess: Everyone said she was too valuable to risk losing, and made sure she wouldn’t be, by any means?” To which Xenidar solemnly nodded. He sure didn’t agree with the idea. “Well, I suppose that’s what I needed to know for now.”
An alarm blared, and Xenidar groaned. “Only two buildings on this whole damn planet, and still they can’t be arsed to leave it alone!”
“Demons?” Miles asked.
“Thank the gods, no. Just a token group of anarchist-pirate... whatever the hell. The void between stars never seems to run out of jackasses after the information I guard here.” Xenidar leaned over his desk and pressed a button, flipping several terminals over to reveal weapons, both melee and ranged of multiple styles and munitions. “Everyone who’s willing, grab your favorite and get ready to defend The Hideout! Scanners show about a quarter-armada, mixed craft. Orbital defenses should keep all but... I’d say a couple thousand from hitting the ground.”
To Miles’s surprise, no one started to leave via the teleport bays in the building. Then again, Miles didn’t exactly come from a planet known for producing loyal creatures. Time for him to be better. His Orvitarian Collapse Rifle conjured in his hands, courtesy of The Aura. Xenidar looked over and nodded in approval of the weapon, ready to open the door of The Hideout to its attackers, to which Miles was confused.
“That door wouldn’t hold them for long, and it’s not cheap to replace it. If it makes no difference, then we can at least spare ourselves that,” Xenidar commented, clearly noticing Miles’s confusion, followed by resolve as he raised his weapon.
The door opened, and the firefight began. Everyone inside The Hideout fired at the open door from their cover, shredding many of the attackers with bullets, lasers and bolts of plasma. Miles’s rifle was in its close-range mode, and thus capable of full auto. He was able to pick off several of these lightly armored goons throwing themselves at the door, hardly even trying to use their compatriot’s corpses as cover, which worried him, wondering if these men were just a diversion.
“Xenidar! Where are they trying to get to?” Miles shouted to the Talvas Vulpian, who was kneecapping targets with a corner-rifle of some kind.
“Well, they’re just trying to get in to take over! If they got to the security hub, they’d pretty much secure this place! But this is the only way in, and they’re using it!”
Miles gave Xenidar the kind of look an intelligent action hero gives the idiot who overlooked something obvious, and bolted off, following the signs for the security hub. “Techbooth, get me a map of this place, and all routes to the security hub!” He quickly ordered with the earpiece he wore, still connected to that machine that was just on Cynofrax now, at Veralis’s home in Kaldres-Viane. The earpiece became a single-lens glass over his left eye, showing him the route to the security hub, and a readout:
ONE ESCAPE ROUTE ON PUBLIC PLANS EXISTS WITH A SMALL GUARD CONTINGENT, SLIGHTLY LONGER ROUTE FROM ENTRANCE TO SECURITY HUB.
Miles looked through the door to the hub, and saw the empty room, then started making his way towards the emergency exit, as it were. He rounded a corner and saw at least a dozen forms, far more heavily armored than the ones at the entrance, casually making their way to the security hub, having dealt with the fewer guards along the way. A burst of snap-fire later, and one was down, before Miles had to duck back to avoid the retaliation. Only one way to that hub now, and that was through him.
He made the motion to conjure The Aura’s energy, but what would’ve been a flame fizzled instead. The readout from Techbooth: THE HIDEOUT’S INNER HALLS ARE SURROUNDED BY A VOID EMULATOR, RENDERI
NG ACTIVE COSMIC POWER USELESS.
“I think I just figured that out, thanks,” Miles quickly said to himself. He looked to his belt, as if expecting some grenades to conveniently appear like he actually had literal foresight to know this battle was coming. No dice, though.
“Ugh, fine,” Miles grumbled, and the suppressive fire stopped from the other side of the corner. Footsteps. The first real combat. Avanchenvaldr was a duel the Demon already thought they won. The others were thugs or idiots. Time to see what he was made of.
The tip of a laser rifle peeked out next to Miles, and he went for it, driving the tip away from him with the palm of his hand, and drawing the AZP-621 pistol on his hip, blasting the man in front of him, then kicking the lifeless form back into his friends, while shooting the one immediately next to him. Two more shots, and the two that weren’t in front of the careening corpse were down. A shot to one of them on the ground, leaving the other to struggle with the weight of a whole body as Miles charged forward. A shoulder roll to drop himself down as his opponents finally reacted to his presence and fired, and Miles came up right in front of his next two quarries, shooting one immediately, and grabbing the other, putting this armored shield of a body in front of the shots his friends in the back just let loose. Six shots and four fresh bodies later, and Miles let go of his cover and began to walk back towards the entrance, executing the one trapped under bodies from before.
The whole fight lasted less than fifteen seconds.
Miles was almost back to the main entrance when Xenidar showed up. “The rest have retreated. Whatever you did, it made them know they lost.”
Miles looked at the hall full of heavily armored bodies. Heavily armored, but still very much dead. Xenidar seemed confused, not at their existence, but rather that they got as far as they did. “How the hell would the Rowdy Armada get armor like that, let alone men trained to use it? Thanks for the assist by the way Radien, and I’ll deal with the rest, including the investigation into these guys.”
Miles nodded, and headed out, warping back to Cynofrax, and his new base in Kaldres-Viane. There he stood, contemplating. Not about the people he killed that day, gods no. It wasn’t a new idea to him, even before The Aura. Once again he contemplated this whole new universe before him. Perhaps that was what he was going to be doing between things to do. No, he rejected that. Contemplation was for later, and he’d done plenty already. He warped himself to Orvitaire, the planet Veralis said he’d enjoy on a proper visit. The Taigron armsmaster was coincidentally the first person he saw.
“Radien, is it?” she asked. Miles nodded. “Veralis thought a person like you might be back soon enough.”
“Aye, and I wonder why she thought that?”
She introduced herself as Lyrais Kenteros, then explained herself. “Veralis, among other words, described you as ‘Gival-Rokirien’. It’s a Vulpian word, roughly meaning ‘fighter with no fight to be fought’. Orvitaire is not called the Martial Planet for nothing. Peoples from across the universe come here to hone their skills as warriors, and as good men and women, and all in between or around. Just about every town has an arena, ours is over there.” Lyrais pointed to a nearby building, more akin to a townhouse than a colosseum, but if the whole planet was fighters, then that made sense.
Miles thanked Lyrais for the information, and made his way to this arena. Sure enough, it almost was more like a townhouse, even with its own restaurant, but also multiple rings set up for sparring. Some people were on the side, shouting advice and betting drink purchases as they waited their own turn. Miles stood patiently on those sidelines, and a few others, likely regulars, noticed the odd man out.
“Hey, you want a match?” one asked, to Miles’s surprise.
“Well, I’m not exactly here to write a treatise am I?” To which a good portion of the crowd cheered, once again surprising Miles that this was his welcome, rather than a boot out the door. One of the crowd suddenly shouted ‘Run the gauntlet!,’ and soon enough, the whole arena was roaring that phrase. ‘Run the gauntlet! Run the gauntlet!”
“I sure can’t go refusing that, then!” Miles excitedly proclaimed, to everyone’s approval. The Gauntlet, it turned out, was fifteen fighters, one at a time. Either last for three minutes, or make them yield, whichever came first. The first match was honestly the hardest, as the adrenaline-induced twitchyness was causing some of his actions to be a little more exaggerated than he’d have liked. On one occasion during that match, he moved his leg a little too far and fast to check a kick, and almost lost his balance entirely. That one went to time. By the third, he was in his rhythm, forcing this and the next few opponents to yield. But even with The Aura, he could tire, even though it’d take a while.
Eventually came his last opponent, the fifteenth of The Gauntlet. The two eventually took each other to the ground, not Miles’s favored position, but he was making it hell to keep him there, escaping a hold here, pinning a limb to his chest there, just making sure the Loriken atop him couldn’t get that final lock, and the bell finally rang, to the cheers of the crowd, and Miles flopping back, utterly winded. So was his opponent, too, it seemed. The Loriken flopped on top of him.
“Buy me a drink first,” Miles said, and the two laughed as they pulled themselves up.
“Is that an offer?” she asked, soon after introducing herself as Nirial. Miles was once again surprised, and rather stammered out his response, with a message adding up to ‘Possibly?’ Nirial must’ve seen something in that confusing set of jabbered words, because she then suddenly caught Miles in her arms with a hug, and he nearly jumped out of his skin in shock. After that was dealt with, Miles cleared his throat.
“Thanks,” he said. “I think I owe you now.” Nirial shook her head and assured that all was well. It honestly was unlikely that the universe was odd, more that Miles had just grown up on a particularly shitty planet. The worst kind of lethal, that doesn’t even have the gall to stab you in the front, but instead has to hide behind a scope a mile away because they’re that afraid of a fair fight. Unfortunately, it’s also well understood that the moral high ground doesn’t do the dead any favors.
Orvitaire was certainly a haven world in many ways. Miles even learned a bit about its history, and that the first colonists on the planet were warriors and philosophers who had fled their home world to safely practice their crafts and hone their skills, after the sheer bureaucracy and near-totalitarianism back home made it impossible to lift a finger in your own defense without repercussions as if you started the fight, regardless of anything.
They came to Orvitaire to just be decent. Of course, this was many millions of years ago, before self-defense was recognized as an essential right across the stars. And the stars were clearly better for that right of one’s own protection. Miles couldn’t help but feel like he was coming into the game rather late, when all the questions had an answer now, with a huge and sensitive history of conflict for them all. In a universe as big as this, there had likely been a war over everything by now. But at least these people were understanding, and didn’t expect perfection and infallibility in all actions at all times.
Veralis wasn’t slow to pull Radien out of this ridiculous contemplation. “You’ve got a universe to participate in, not ponder about,” she said, having successfully snuck up on him somehow.
“And I suppose you have something to tell me in that regard?” Miles said, finishing the drink he had gotten to having. Veralis placed a small video player in front of him. Miles activated it, and Jaden showed on the screen.
“I’m wondering if you can help me find a few components for a project of mine I’m working on, codename ‘Gama,’ the anachronism for the device I’m trying to build,” Jaden greeted. Miles looked over to Veralis, who assured him that she could be trusted.
“I’m listening,” Miles replied.
“The GAMA device, or Genome Assimilation-Manipulation Apparatus, banks itself on the principle of DNA strands simply being lines of code associated with chemicals, that
in theory, can be changed by removing chemicals and replacing them with new ones. For example, if the chemical string ABCDE leads to yellow fur coloring, one might swap chemical A with chemical F and get, say, green fur.”
“I understand the principle, but what do you need me for?”
“My prototype is able to map the genome in less than a second. However, the actual operation of hacking the genome currently looks to take years on a single voluntary subject. What I need is a tech that can make that process quicker, and I’ve narrowed down some candidates.”
Three devices showed themselves onscreen, labeled “TAIGRON E-GEAR OPTIMIZER”, “REDARIAN BIO-INTEGRATOR”, and “HAJIVAKK BLOODSTREAM ACCELERANT MODULE”. The third of these had a red border to signify that it was likely to be the most helpful, and most difficult to attain.
“I just need those items, and I can figure out everything else. You’ll be rewarded well for each, and even more so if you manage to get them all.”
Miles was a little confused about the reward aspect of things, and turned to Veralis, who, outside of frame, made a circle with one hand and pointed her index finger through it, which now added surprise to Miles’s confusion. He turned back to Jaden.
“I’ll see what I can do. Should I expect resistance, or is there a different reason you’re not doing this yourself?”
“I’m up to my eyes with other work, and getting other parts on my own. This will just streamline the process, and wouldn’t go unappreciated.”
Miles nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.” To which Jaden thanked, and the video comm switched off. Miles turned to Veralis. “Really? Like... actually?”
Veralis shrugged. “Laksorians are like that sometimes. Most species in the universe rather understand the pointlessness of most traditional currency systems, so trades are often made in things needed now, favors for later, or services immediately. For her, she honestly might think she’s offering lower than average.”
