by Ivan Kal
“How long do you think we will need to wait?” Adrian sent.
“They will send some of our tools first to investigate. Then they will come themselves not long after if they decide to talk,” Clear Waters responded.
“And if they decide to use the tools to attack us?” Adrian asked curiously. He wasn’t really worried; he might have been taking a risk, but he didn’t plan on dying. He was wearing a light assault suit with only a mask for air over his mouth, as the Sowir world’s air was thin. He had no weapons other than the mono-blades on his arms. But he himself was a weapon. He could hold out until rescue came, provided that the Sowir don’t bring any heavy weapons.
“The tools will not be a problem. I can take control of them once they are close. They have been made so that orders from the closest Sowir take priority,” Clear Waters sent.
Adrian turned back and studied the grayish water and bleak sky of the Sowir homeworld.
***
Lurker of the Depths and the rest of the twelve watched through the eyes of their tools as they surfaced onto the island. They saw one of their kind with one of the alien ungifted, standing there alone.
“It is a trap,” Dark Stream sent, just as they lost control of their tools. They could still see through their eyes, but no longer could they control their movements.
Lurker of the Depths felt disbelief and anger through the link coming from some of the others.
“They turned one of our own against us!” Sand Shard sent angrily, and others pulled by his emotions joined in his anger.
Lurker of the Depths watched through the eyes of his tools, studying the strange alien. It looked strangely like a Nel, only without their tails. “It is impossible for one of us to be turned; the Spirit binds us,” Lurker of the Depths added.
“Then they have found a way to force us to do their bidding. We should kill them now, before they shackle the rest of us!” Sand Shard sent.
“No.” For the first time in a long time, Lurker of the Depths used the full power of his abilities, drowning out the emotions of others. “Too much is wrong; their actions do not make sense. I want to know why they have done as they did. I will go and look into their minds myself.”
“And if you get turned as well?” Last Wave asked.
“Then there is no hope for any of you,” Lurker of the Depths said, and left the room.
***
Adrian watched as a small shuttle rose from the water some way off the coast, then flew straight at them, landing on the beach close to Adrian and Clear Waters. After its doors opened, a Sowir walked out, dressed in an ornate, tight suit. The Sowir crossed the distance and stopped in front of them, his attention on Clear Waters.
“What is this? How does this ungifted appear connected to the Spirit of the Universe?” the Sowir sent at Clear Waters.
Adrian grimaced at the power of the voice in his head; this Sowir was strong, much stronger than Clear Waters. Before Clear Waters could respond, Adrian used his own telepathy to speak.
“This ‘ungifted’ can speak for himself,” Adrian sent forcefully in the way he’d learned from Clear Waters.
The Sowir’s attention on Adrian intensified, and a massive force slammed against Adrian’s mind, trying to get in. Adrian staggered a step back, but managed to fight the attempt off, just barely. The power was so much greater than that of Clear Waters that he doubted he would be able to fight off another such attack. Then Clear Waters interfered. Adrian felt the two Sowir make a link and start exchanging thoughts far faster than what Adrian was able to comprehend.
Once they were done, Adrian could feel an emotional wave coming from the new Sowir—disbelief and horror.
“We were wrong?” Adrian heard it send in despair, painfully, and he knew that the war with the Sowir was over.
Chapter Nineteen
Three months later – Warpath
Adrian sat at his holo table and looked at the comm message from Bethany in his queue, still unopened. The words recorded inside were her last to him, moments before she’d died because of his mistake. Because he hadn’t been good enough. Because he had grown accustomed to using the Watchtower where all the information was fed into his mind, so much so that outside of it he had forgotten to check everything. He hadn’t accounted for how much larger the fallout of the destruction of the Sowir Construct would be once the massive power generators that ran it exploded. He had failed her, and the people under his command. He feared her words. He feared that she had condemned him, cursed him for killing her.
For the first time ever, he had let his guard down, let someone inside. He had had her for one night, and even then only a handful of days before he’d lost her. His thoughts were a mess. He couldn’t focus. Couldn’t allow himself to grieve. He didn’t allow the loss he felt to show; his face was a cold, emotionless mask. It was his arrogance that had put them in that position. He wanted to make a point to the Sowir: it was he who gave the orders.
He had heard the whispers of those around him. How they called him merciless, without a heart. They questioned how he was able to not care about someone close to him dying. And yet they didn’t know, couldn’t know, that he feared breaking. His friends had tried to talk to him, Laura too. But he didn’t allow anyone close. After his mission in the Sowir home system was finished, he’d rushed to Warpath and shut himself inside his quarters. His only company was Akash, Sora, and his steward, who he only saw during meal time.
And the thing that scared him the most was that he knew in his heart that if he could turn back the time, if he could go back to the moment before Harbinger had fired its weapon and destroyed the Sowir Construct, he would have done the same thing again. They’d needed to destroy the Construct, or risk getting surrounded by Sowir warships on the one side and the Construct on the other. He would have given the order again, even if he’d known beforehand that Bethany—the woman he had loved since he was barely a man—would die. And that was what threatened to break him, the knowledge that he was willing to sacrifice anyone in order to win.
Adrian focused back on the message blinking above his holo table. Gathering all his courage, he played the message. He was met with sounds of battle, chaos in the command center of the Audacious as its crew struggled to survive. And at the center of it all was Bethany, her hair plastered to her sweating face and her lips upturned in a sad smile.
“Adrian. I am sorry that we didn’t have much time together; that was my fault for allowing my pride to rule my decisions. But the few days we did have were the happiest I have ever felt.” Her hand reached up and moved a strand of her red hair from where it had stuck to her forehead. “I want you to know that I love you, Adrian. I always did, and always will.” With that, her other hand reached and stopped the recording. The video went to black and Adrian stared at it.
His breath quickened, and he stood up, walking to the middle of the room. Images flashed through his mind—Bethany at the Academy, their fights during training, them making up, them being given positions together on the Athena, the fight against the Concordis ships, coming to Sanctuary, their long talks while they were on patrols, him finding out that she was getting married, her lashing out at him, then years later their reconciliation, and finally the last days. Their first and only night together.
Rage filled his body, and he felt himself trembling. He spun around and his hand pointed at his holo table and chair. He grabbed hold of them and ripped the table from the floor with his mind, throwing both the table and the chair across the room, smashing them against the wall as he released a gut-wrenching scream. Items on his shelves shook and trembled as his telekinesis reached around him uncontrollably.
Then everything left him as he drained his energy supplies, and Adrian dropped to the floor with tears flowing down his face.
“She didn’t blame me,” he whispered.
Iris appeared in front of him, looking at him with compassion. She tried to touch him, but her holographic hand went right through Adrian. “Of course she didn’t bl
ame you, Adrian,” Iris said. “She was in the Fleet; she was one of the best commanders in the Empire, same as you. She knew that you needed to destroy that Construct or risk many more lives.”
“It was my mistake. I shouldn’t have charged into their system like that. I shouldn’t have ordered her ships so close. I should have known how big the fallout would be,” Adrian said softly, and Iris stayed silent.
“You are good, Adrian, one of the best. But not even you can know everything. You are not omniscient,” Iris told him gently.
He didn’t know how long he sat there crying, but eventually he gathered himself, took a deep breath, and stood.
“Adrian, are you alright?” Iris asked hesitantly.
“Yes…I think so,” Adrian responded.
He turned towards the door to his room and opened them, only to be tackled to the floor by two massive animals. Sora and Akash were nudging him with their snouts, and he petted them while making soothing sounds. He’d left them outside on purpose, not wanting to fall into temptation and have them muffle his emotions.
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” he told them. And then finally after a few more minutes, they allowed him to get up, and he entered his living room and started towards the main doors.
“Where are you going?” Iris asked.
Adrian grabbed his coat off the back of a chair and answered, “Sanctuary.”
Chapter Twenty
June; Year 36 of the Empire – Sanctuary
Tomas stood as Adrian entered his office. He had spoken with Laura the day before and had seen that she was much more relaxed now compared to how she’d been over the last three months. She had been worried about Adrian and his refusal to leave his home on Warpath. But Tomas could understand Adrian’s grief and him wanting to be alone. He had gone through similar experience when he’d lost people back in Sol. He’d known that Adrian would recover; Adrian was far too strong to break.
“Adrian,” Tomas said as he walked around the table and shook his hand.
“Hello, Tomas,” Adrian said.
“Come, sit.” Tomas guided him to the two couches to the side of the room. “How have you been?” Tomas asked once they were comfortable.
“I could be better, but well enough,” Adrian responded.
“Good. It will lessen over time, the pain, become easier to live with. You will never truly forget, but I think that you wouldn’t want to,” Tomas said.
“No,” Adrian agreed.
“So, tell me, why have you come?” Tomas asked.
Adrian took a breath and released it slowly. “I wanted speak to you about the Sentinels.” Tomas quirked his eyebrow, and Adrian continued, “I want to accelerate our plans a bit.”
“In what way?” Tomas asked.
“I know that originally we planned on making the Warpath system the base for Sentinels, but lately I was thinking of moving it to someplace else. We would still train people in Warpath, choose Sentinels from there. But the actual base would be somewhere else. I want to keep Warpath out of it, make it a place where people can train to be warriors, not turn it into a Sentinel choosing ground. We will make an offer, and if someone wants to take it, we transfer them to the program,” Adrian responded.
“I think that we are still a few years away from that, Adrian,” Tomas said.
Adrian made the Nel gesture for agreeing. “We are. But I want to build the base now, to get everything up and running. And there is one more thing. I want to give Sentinels psionics.”
Tomas scratched his head for a few moments, thinking. “Why do you think that they will need them?”
“Besides making them much more formidable, it is the telepathy that will make their work much easier,” Adrian said.
“We don’t know how to use the psionics yet. And our bodies aren’t yet up to par,” Tomas commented.
Adrian looked uncomfortable for a moment before sighing. “I have talked with Seo-yun, and will be going through the treatment she devised in a couple of days. And after I recover, I plan on going to the Sowir homeworld to learn how to use my telepathy.”
“You would go to them to teach you?” Tomas asked, taken aback. He didn’t know if he could have done the same thing.
“They are my only chance of mastering it. The other psionics I will need to discover and master on my own,” Adrian said. “And I didn’t mean that we give psionics to every current Sentinel, and not for a long time. The current Sentinels aren’t ready, they need to learn more. They don’t even know our plans. I will need to see which ones want to take it on. And our people haven’t figured out how to trigger the change in grownups yet. But in five, maybe ten years, we will, and I think that we should give it to them. By then I will have learned enough to train others, and then they can come back and train more.”
Tomas nodded thoughtfully, agreeing. “Yes. And by then we could start triggering the change in infants, in the progeny centers. By the time their psionics manifest, there will be people who could teach them.” Tomas looked at Adrian, impressed. “That is a good plan. And which system do you plan to turn into Sentinel home system?”
Adrian made a Nel gesture that Tomas didn’t recognize and then spoke, “Sol.” He smiled and added, “More precisely, Mars.”
***
Several days later, Tomas sat in his office with his top advisers and friends: Laura, Jack, Nadia, Seo-yun, and Sumia, who was visiting from Nuva.
“The Sowir have apparently kept their word. We haven’t had any incident since Adrian talked with them,” Laura said. “The effort of securing the system is going well, and soon we will be able to let them have a limited control over their system back.”
“What about their tools?” Jack asked.
“They put those in their home system in stasis, and we will transport them out of the system soon,” Seo-yun said. “Those they had left on their other worlds have already turned feral and killed each other or starved. We can’t do anything about those.”
“How is the situation on Guxaxac?” Tomas asked.
“The fighting is still intense. The Sowir are refusing to communicate, even when we broadcast the recordings from their brethren or bring a Sowir from their homeworld to speak with them. It is just as Lurker of the Depths warned us. They will keep fighting. And in truth, I doubt that the Guxcacul would have appreciated or allowed the Sowir to surrender. There is a lot of hate towards the Sowir there,” Jack said.
“At least the Sowir that surrendered don’t appear too broken up about their fellows dying,” Tomas added.
“They are a very strange race. They knew that it was impossible to get their people off Guxaxac, so to them, they are already dead,” Laura added.
“I still can’t believe that the Sowir are defeated,” Sumia said. “It has been so long…before your people came, we were counting days until the Sowir turned and finished us off.”
The others didn’t respond, and the room lapsed into silence, until Nadia broke it.
“The Nelus government is moving. They are going to start angling to get their former worlds back,” she said, “and I’m sure that the Guxcacul will do so too once they get their own world under control.”
“Well, tough luck,” Tomas said. “We took them back; they are ours.”
“Once they see that you won’t budge, they will want to join the Empire,” Sumia added.
“And when they ask, we will speak about it. Until then, I am keeping what we conquered,” Tomas added firmly. He would not allow anything to compromise the strength of his Empire. If the Guxcacul and Nelus wanted to join the Empire, they would have to work for it.
***
Sowir homeworld
Lurker in the Depths swam aimlessly in the ocean that had birthed him. For the first time since he’d ben born, since he had become aware of himself, he was feeling unsure of himself, of his path and that of his people. He had always believed that to feel the Spirit of the Universe was to never know doubt for your actions. What his people had always believed to be the truth w
as nothing more than an incorrect assumption. They’d been wrong.
One moment had changed everything. And now his entire people knew guilt, a thing that they had never felt before. They knew that they had done a horrible thing, and they didn’t know how to handle that.
Already some of his fellows had sunken into madness. The ones on Guxaxac had all gone insane. Lurker of the Depths had lied when he’d told their jailors that they wouldn’t respond to the messages, that they wouldn’t believe them. When they had sent people from the homeworld, let them get close enough to send messages through the Spirit, they had listened. And they had gone mad. They would continue to fight not because they didn’t believe, but because they could not handle the truth. It was they who had almost wiped out an entire species.
Most of those on the homeworld had not been in such positions, where they commanded their tools from the ground to slaughter and kill.
Lurker of the Depths himself was close to madness. He might not have commanded troops on the ground, but he had commanded fleets. He had killed. And he knew that they would never be able to redeem themselves for what they had done.
And yet, there was a part of him that refused to give in to the madness. It would be an insult to all he had killed, all the lives his people had taken. And he would not allow that. The Sowir race would change. It would take time, but Lurker of the Depths would make sure that the Sowir were not remembered as mass murderers.
***
Sanctuary
Adrian, Sora, and Akash stood at the edge of the plateau on which Olympus City was built. Behind them was the city, and below them spread the endless sea of trees, illuminated by the two moons and the nebula. The vista was amazing, with mountains in the distance piercing the teal-tinted sky.
