by Ivan Kal
“Why? Did you even try to find another way?” Lurker of the Depths asked.
“How can I explain such a thing to you, who have not seen stars be born and die? You live in a world limited by your understanding. There is only one thing that can repair the damage and prevent this Universe from falling apart. And perhaps there might be another way to do it, but you are fooling yourself if you think that it wouldn’t require just as large a sacrifice. Perhaps if young races could be trusted to work on the problem, to set aside their petty desires and differences, perhaps then we would’ve tried to find another way. Now it is too late, and you who call this galaxy home will never unite and work together to find a solution.”
“We united to stop you,” Lurker of the Depths pointed out.
Loranis laughed. “Oh? Have you really? How much time did it take you to convince the others of the threat we pose? How many have refused you? And how long do you think that this alliance of yours will last?” She shook her head. “No, Lurker of the Depths, the others are just waiting to go to war against one another, to kill one another for no better reason except that their neighbors are different. You’ve just shown me the memories of your people. You yourself had wiped out entire races just because they were different than you. How dare you stand there and judge me? Judge me, when you did it for no better reason than that? What we are doing is in order to save all of the universe! There is life beyond this galaxy, and would it be right for them to suffer because of the things that we here have done? Because we meddled with the natural order of things? Because we eroded the barriers that were supposed to protect us!”
Lurker of the Depths looked at her, saw her conviction. He could feel it. They were so close now, mind to mind. Here, there were little secrets between them. Loranis believed that what she was doing was the right thing, and Lurker of the Depths, in part, agreed. Why should strangers suffer for a thing they had no control over? But the races of this galaxy weren’t the ones that had done anything; they hadn’t been uplifted by choice. The People were the ones that meddled, that seeded life. Their only crime was to be born as a result of that meddling.
How could they stand aside and let the Enlightened kill everyone? What sane person would allow themselves to be killed? Lurker of the Depths knew the price of blind belief. Yet someone had to be right. If the Enlightened were right, then was one galaxy too large of a sacrifice to save all the others? It was not up to Lurker of the Depths to choose. He had done that once, and he had vowed to protect life no matter what. It was perhaps selfish, and small minded—perhaps they were dooming everyone by doing this—but they couldn’t let the Enlightened be the ones to decide. They had shown a true disregard for life. They had designed and brought into being their Created, a monstrous lifeform that showed their true beliefs. They valued life little. They were so wrapped up in their guilt that they couldn’t see anything beyond their desire to make things right. They thought it was their responsibility.
“I don’t have any answers for you,” Lurker of the Depths sent. “I can only stand in your way, and history will tell who was right.”
“If you had your way, there would be no history,” Loranis hissed. In that moment, she felt tired. He could see it in every move of her body, and Lurker of the Depths realized that she did care. She only believed that what they were doing was right.
That was what made the Enlightened so dangerous.
She shook her head and the look in her eyes steeled. He felt her gather herself and knew that she would attack. Lurker of the Depths gathered his will and prepared to meet her in battle one last time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Year 718 of the Empire — Galactic Core
Ryaana followed behind her father as they entered the structure, but she didn’t know how she felt. Her mother’s death had hit her hard, and her father’s apparent lack of grief hurt her more than she thought it would. She had heard others call her father heartless, and though she had never agreed with them, now she couldn’t help but feel as if they had been right. Her mother had been a flawed person, but Ryaana had loved her. The only thing that was keeping her from doing something foolish was the fact that Aranis, her former friend, was close, and she would finally get the chance to take her revenge.
They flew through the corridors of the structure, both of them tracking Aranis by his signature in the Sha. Quickly, they reached their destination and saw Aranis standing in front of a pedestal with some kind of orb mounted on a pole in a large round room. His body was healing, his broken wing was repaired and his other one had been regrown. The battle outside had taken its toll, however: Aranis’s form was scorched in places, his body plates were cracked but mending, and his face was haggard. She could see that he was tired, that he had to have been reaching his limit after that battle in space.
Aranis reached for the orb and she felt her father reach out with his telekinesis, grabbing Aranis and pulling him back. The Enlightened crashed into the ground, then rolled before using a disruptive wave to get free and get up to his feet. He glared at the two of them, his Enlightened form looking intimidating and powerful. Black plates covered his body, growing out of his skin; his wings were stretched wide and his face hawkish with strange, all-white eyes which were locked on her father.
“Why must you get in our way? This is right and good! We are only trying to protect this universe!” Aranis screamed at them, both physically and mentally.
Her father took a step forward. “Because life, this life, deserves a chance.”
* * *
Adrian stood across from the Enlightened. Both of them were glaring at each other. The inside of the structure was strange; the walls were made out of a material that he had never encountered before, and he could tell that they were highly compressed matter of some kind. They were also filled with Sha, so much of it that it made it hard to use Sha near them, even in the Sha state. It was not that the walls were resistant, it was just the quantity, and the weight—all of that Sha was compressed so much that it would take an enormous amount of power or will to move it, and he could also somehow tell that the walls would even prevent him from bending space while near them.
He couldn’t even reach Moirai from here. He could feel her up there in orbit near the structure, but couldn’t touch her. Thankfully, he could still speak with Iris, so they could technically speak to Moirai, although he knew that she wouldn’t be able to provide him with any power now.
“Hello, Vas,” Ryaana said, breaking the silence and forcing the Enlightened to look at her. “It’s been a long time.”
Aranis’s face twisted. He folded his now healed black wings on his back. His chest was covered with the black chitin-like plates that grew out of his skin, all of them still healing from the battle in space. His arms and legs were likewise covered, but his face was bare, his nose was hooked, his eyes all white, and on the top of his head there was no hair at all. Adrian switched his eyes to his Sha sight, a rare ability that allowed him to see Sha all around them. Aranis was filled with it, but not nearly as much as there was in the walls. The amount of Sha in him was the same as it was in Adrian, or even Ryaana. What set him apart from other Sha users was that he could enter the Sha state. And to his eyes that state was reflected as a gentle bending of Sha around him, as if it was drawn to him. The same was happening around Ryaana, and Adrian himself.
“Ryaana,” Aranis said, his voice pained. “I never intended for you to suffer.”
“Yet you betrayed me, lied to me for years!” Ryaana said harshly.
“Our work was far more important. You were always meant to be a means to an end. But as I got to know you and the people around me I realized, perhaps for the first time, what the realization of our plan would mean. The death of everyone I have met and come to understand.”
“You are saying that you care?” Ryaana asked skeptically.
“Of course I do,” Aranis replied softly. “I am sorry for hurting you, Ryaana, but it doesn’t change anything. We still need to do what w
e have set out to do.”
“How can you stand there and speak like that? You plan to kill an entire galaxy worth of life, and for what? Because of something that might happen in the future?”
“It will happen. It is inevitable,” the Enlightened replied, his voice now cold. “When we were changed, the amount of Sha in the same place allowed us to see the entire galaxy in a single instant, to feel everything that was inside of it. We felt the barriers failing; we know that it will happen. There is no maybe about it, Ryaana. If we don’t do this, everything—everywhere—will die.”
Ryaana shook her head. “What makes you so certain that what you do here will save the universe? How do you know that this isn’t happening somewhere else right now? It’s an infinite universe out there—it could be happening a hundred times! A thousand! What you do here could be pointless!”
Aranis smiled. “And you think that I don’t know that? We must do it despite that possibility. It is our fault, our responsibility to fix it. If we didn’t make that attempt, if we just assumed that it was happening elsewhere just as it was here, that would be irresponsible. What right do we have to act in such a manner? If you really think that, then why do you even fight? Everyone is going to die at some point. What purpose is there in trying to protect them?”
Ryaana scowled—she didn’t have an answer.
But Adrian did. “This isn’t about that, Aranis. It was never about that. You feel that it is your responsibility to fix your mistake, but you are behaving selfishly. You are doing what you want and what you think is best without considering anyone else. Are you completely certain that another solution isn’t possible? Perhaps in another hundred years we could discover some technology that would let us fix the problem without the need for your plan. It doesn’t need to be this way.”
Aranis met Adrian’s eyes. “Yes, because you care about the people, Heart of the Mountain.” He sneered. “You disregard them as inferior. You don’t care about them at all. Why are you even trying to help them?”
“So many have such an incorrect impression of me.” Adrian shook his head. “I care about the people around me. I love them. I love them because they are, every single one of them, raw potential. How can I explain what it feels like to watch someone grow and achieve power on their own merit?”
Adrian glanced at Ryaana. He couldn’t see her face through her helmet, but he could feel her eyes on him. “Watching my daughter rise through her own skill and power to become what she is today… It was one of the greatest joys of my life. That is one of the reasons for my existence, to watch and meet people who cast away the chains that hold them back, who freed themselves and soared, and to test myself against them. If you do what you want… So much potential will die, and along with it the potential that someone someday will find a way to reverse what your people had started. To save the universe. Don’t you want to see that? To see a birth of such a brilliant mind that could imagine a solution that doesn’t require this genocide?”
Adrian looked at Aranis, but the Enlightened only shook his head. “That is a nice dream, Adrian, but the reality we find ourselves in is very different from that dream. You have seen what this galaxy is: a place filled with chaos and war and death. There are too many races, too many different ideologies, too many different moralities, religions, too many ambitions. They war with one another—even now while you fight me, while your Grand Alliance fought with Doranis. How many didn’t join you? How many are fighting their own wars, not interested in anything beyond their petty and unimportant lives? If the entire galaxy had united, you could’ve overwhelmed us easily. But it hadn’t, because you are not capable of such an act. Do you really think that someone like you say could rise up from such a despicable galaxy? You want me to put the fate of the universe in the hands of races willing to disregard a threat that they have proof of? That they can see? If they didn’t want to accept the truth that we exist, that we are a threat, what makes you think that they would even believe that the universe is in danger?”
“They will if we show them the proof, and if enough people believe, the others will have no choice but to believe as well,” Adrian answered calmly.
“You are lying to yourself, Adrian,” Aranis hissed. “I have watched over the galaxy for a long time, and I have spent a life among you. I know how dangerous you are, how brilliant, but I also know that you are too concerned with yourselves to care for the good of everyone. We cannot take the chance that some miracle solution will present itself. This is the only way that we have ever found that has a chance of working, and you will not stop me from fulfilling my mission. You will not have the help of your ship here, Heart of the Mountain.”
“There are two of us,” Adrian said as he got ready for a fight.
“Can you control the other systems?” he asked Iris through his imp.
“Yes,” she responded.
“You are young,” Aranis said. “We have the same power, but you don’t know how to use it to its fullest.”
“We’ve done well for ourselves. We have even killed one of you,” Adrian reminded him.
He felt Ryaana stiffen at that. Perhaps using reminding her of her mother’s death wasn’t fair, but if it would throw Aranis, then he knew that Anessa would not mind.
“I don’t know how she managed to do so, but rest assured, I will not let you stop me from doing what I must,” Aranis said simply.
“Well, then, I guess there isn’t anything more to talk about, is there?” Adrian said.
“No, there isn’t,” Aranis said, and then his wings spread and swung forward, sending a wave of kinetic energy at them.
Adrian jumped over it and Ryaana followed, both of them pointing their hands at the Enlightened and firing their own kinetic blasts at him. Turrets rose from their backs and fired plasma bolts. Adrian had Iris do the targeting, which allowed him to put it out of his mind. He landed near Aranis and swung his hand at him, a blue blade of energy appearing in front of it—a Sha technique he had learned long ago from the Erasi. Aranis moved faster than his large frame suggested he could, however, and evaded the strike. Adrian attempted to bend space, and found all the Sha around them block him, almost as if it was smothering him.
Ryaana caught Aranis from the side with a kinetic blast, but he blocked with a wing. The shield around him was glowing as it was being impacted by their plasma turrets, but Aranis didn’t seem concerned. Adrian could tell that he was gathering to do something, he just didn’t know what. Aranis bent space and appeared next to Adrian, his hand hitting him in the chest. Immediately pain spread through him, as if his every nerve was on fire. It took everything he had just too stay conscious, but he felt as if his body was falling apart. He could tell that the only reason it hadn’t fallen apart was because he was in the Sha state—it was the only thing holding him together. He glared at the Enlightened, wondering how he was able to bend space in this place, considering Adrian had tried and failed. Was he just that better than him at controlling the Sha?
Ryaana flew at Aranis firing at him, but the Enlightened swung one wing and a kinetic blast sent her flying across the room.
“I told you, Adrian,” Aranis spoke, “that I will not allow you to stop me. I am not foolish enough to allow you time to get up to your tricks, for you to find an opening and be victorious. You have power, but the difference in skill is not something that you can ignore—not without your great beast, at least. I am Aranis, and I excel in the manipulation of matter. Your body is made out of it, and I have studied human biology closely. Right now, your body is falling apart as your cells are being torn apart from the inside. I have instructed the Sha inside of you to flee. The moment you leave the Sha state, you will die.”
With that, he turned around and started walking away. “Perhaps it is a mercy. You will not live long enough to see what I must do next.”
Adrian could barely hear what he was saying, but he had already figured out what Aranis had done. Out in the distance he could hear Ryaana fight on with the Enligh
tened, but he could only focus on his own body.
“Adrian, I can’t help you—the nanites in your body can’t heal this,” Iris’s voice told him with a hint of panic. “Moirai is trying to get through the building, but nothing she’s doing is having any effect!”
Adrian couldn’t even respond, but he thought that perhaps he knew a way to save himself. Every cell in his body was made out of Sha at its basest level, as everything was. His Sha was just trying to leave, as somehow Aranis had managed to get by his innate defenses. But if he could regain control of the Sha in his own body, he could buy himself more time. He focused his mind and pushed his will at the Sha inside of his body, willing it to stay where it was.
* * *
Ryaana fought Aranis as he walked to the center of the room. Nothing she threw at him was doing more than slowing him down. She could tell that whatever he’d done to her father had taken a lot from him, that he was much weaker. He wasn’t trying to attack her, however, and instead was just deflecting and pushing her back. She didn’t let him come anywhere near her, though, fearing that he might try to do the same thing to her. She didn’t know how her father was doing, but Iris had commed her from his armor and informed her that he was out of the fight for now.
She couldn’t believe that it was all up to her now. She pulled back, exciting the gas in her armor to plasma and bathing Aranis in it. His shield flared brightly and he took to the air, his wings giving him a burst of speed. He closed the distance and before she could even react he slammed her to the ground with a burst of air. She hit the floor and bounced.
Aranis flew faster toward the pillar, and she scrambled to her feet following behind him. She flew just over the floor, as Aranis landed next to the pillar. His hand rose as she fired bolts of plasma at him, his shields taking the barrage as his palm touched the sphere. A wave of Sha unlike anything she had ever felt before filled the pillar, flying upward. Aranis’s back arched and his shield flickered, her plasma bolts passing through the few holes that appeared.
