“Me neither to be frank,” Zelph said. “Your grandfather is pretty good looking. You clearly didn’t inherit his genes.”
“Now wait a minute-”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” he laughed. “Plus I’m sure a lot of girls will disagree with my statement eh?”
“You’re really annoying at times, you know?” Q sighed and looked at the ledge above him. He jumped and pulled himself onto it. Another quick jump and he was on the roof of a house, or at least what he thought was a house. He laid low and took a look around.
Buildings and houses lay cluttered all around the place. It was quite different compared to Aliea or Drakon, which were primarily made of tall towers, and wide roads. The streets on Orpheus were actually solid metal. Thankfully they weren’t smooth enough to make him slide along them like he was some sort of out of control ice skater.
He could pick out a few buildings on the skyline that were taller than the rest, and the structure taller than anything around was the palace itself. It was tall, but not skyscraper tall. In fact it was more wide than it was tall, more like a tall cake than a thin pencil. The palace had stone white walls, with no windows and a single entrance on the lowest floor.
“Wait is that actually the castle?” Q asked, a bit skeptical of its design.
“Yup,” Zelph said. “Though from outside it sure does look like a prison.”
“Prisons look better than this,” he chuckled. “Anyway, start up a comm link to Andrea.”
“I can’t.”
“How come? You still haven’t found a way into the mainframe?”
“I found a way through, but the problem is the mainframe itself,” Zelph said. “It has blocked off all communications. We can’t communicate with any other planet.”
“Is that it? There’s an easy solution to that.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember where the stealth fighter went?” Q grinned.
“Gotcha,” Zelph said, in a voice that made Q think he was smiling in his virtual world. “I can connect directly through the stealth fighter to Andrea without you having to move. But Valkyrie is on that ship, so do you want to go get it now?”
“Yeah, I’d better do that. We can catch up with Andrea after that.”
“Okay. Plotting path to the stealth fighter.”
An orange line showed up in Q’s vision, running over the end of the terrace and running all over the city building’s walls and rooftops.
“I feel like I’m supposed to be a parkourer,” Q chuckled.
“Well, you only live once, you know?”
He grinned. “I know.” A shade of white appeared across his feet, giving them a bit of lift. “All right,” he crouched low, and burst out.
He jumped off the edge of the building, travelling across the street and onto the next rooftop. He kept going at it, flipping around edges, swinging across poles, his movements aided by the partial energy suit around his feet that helped give him some lift.
“You’re having too much fun,” Zelph complained.
“You want me to list the stuff I’ve gone through in the last three days?” Q asked, a little defensively.
“Whoa, calm down, boss. I was just kidding.”
Q landed on another building top. “Sorry,” he sighed. He stood up on the edge and looked around him, at the endless city on either side. It felt as though the entire planet was one global community. Whether that was true or not, he didn’t know, but he definitely felt it was a bad idea. Being too close always had its repercussions.
“Just a mile left,” Zelph said. “I’ve already found that there are no Knights around the area.”
“Good.”
“But there’s a weird energy signature though. I feel like I’ve seen it before but I can’t pull up any recorded data on it.”
“That’s fine,” Q said, jumping onto the next building. “There are a lot of different objects that log similar energy readings. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”
“Well, okay then.”
Q jumped onto another rooftop. “Hey, Zelph?” he asked.
“Yeah?”
“What’s it like in there?”
“In where?”
“Where you are right now,” he said. “What happens to you when I take my lens off?”
“I just lay there dormant. I won’t even know I exist. I’ll be completely asleep.”
“Wow. You won’t be able to use the lens?”
“Well, the lens design is complicated. It turns off the moment it’s taken off the eye, so that’s a bad example. If a ship were shut down I’d go into hibernation.”
“It must be weird being an AI.”
“It’s just as bad as being human you know.”
“Ouch,” Q smiled, jumping onto a taller building, catching the edge with his hands and pulling himself up.
“Think about it,” Zelph said. “Humans don’t know why it is they think. You have no idea what this conscious part of you is. I’m exactly the same.”
“So you’re saying you’re human?” Q asked.
Zelph paused for a moment. “Oh wow. I didn’t realize I could do that.”
Q laughed. “You were too focused on calling us machines,” he said.
A few yards in front of him, the city buildings gave way to a circular plot about a hundred yards wide. He jumped onto another rooftop to get closer to the empty ground and get a better look at it.
Q’s eyes immediately glazed over, and his body nearly collapsed to the floor in shock. In front of him was an arsenal of massive weapons, cannons as large as they could be built, light glistening off the sleek white metal bodies of each one.
In front of him was an arsenal of Infinity Cannons.
***
“Oh dear,” Zelph said.
“I know,” Q mumbled, his mind still working the details.
“And before you ask, I tried to find a way to take control over them, but there isn’t any entry point I can use.”
Damn, he cursed.
“We’ll think of something. But first we need to get to the stealth fighter.”
Q put aside the Infinity cannon issue for now and followed the last traces of the orange line that lead him to the empty rooftop of a house.
“Zelph?” Q asked. “Are you sure it’s here?”
“Relax, I know what I’m doing.”
The air in front of Q shimmered and the stealth fighter’s hatch door appeared out of nowhere.
“Oh, it’s invisible.”
“Well duh. A stealth can’t be using fireworks to announce its location can it?”
“You don’t have to be that sarcastic.”
“I’ve got to have fun in some way don’t I?” Zelph laughed.
Q entered the stealth fighter, which apparently was a one pilot ship. The hatch directly led into the tightly packed cockpit. He looked around and saw a dark scabbard lying on the pilot’s seat.
“Valkyrie,” he smiled and took the sword, wearing its sheath around his waist.
“Finally. NOW we can connect to Andrea,” Zelph said.
A hologram appeared in Q’s vision just as he took the pilot’s seat. The Empress was in the council room, along with Lokai.
“Hello, sorcerer,” Lokai said.
“Hello,” Q said. “I just needed to report back to you both.”
“I see you found the stealth fighter,” Andrea said. “I hope it proves useful.”
“It already has, your highness,” Q said.
“Were you able to get out of the White Knight ship unharmed?” she asked.
“There were a few…complications,” he said. “But things are fine now.”
“Good to hear, my boy,” Lokai said. “What are your plans for the moment? We’re trying to organize troops to send your way.”
“That would be a waste of time,” Q said, glancing at the army of Infinity Cannons below him. “A large army may cost us the mission.”
“That is true,” Andrea said. “But too f
ew will cost us your life.”
“Your highness, can you really justify spending an entire squad just to save me?”
“If we lose you then there is no resistance left against the White Knights.”
“I will come back alive,” Q said, a little annoyed. “I’ll transmit to you again once I find anything else.”
Zelph abruptly cut the feed for him. “Didn’t go too well?”
Q just shook his head.
“Why didn’t you tell them about the Infinity Cannons?” he asked.
“What do you want me to do? Tell them everything is pointless? That the White Knights have hundreds of weapons that could take down entire planets?”
“They need to know what they may finally go up against. You owe it to them.”
“Maybe,” Q said. “Maybe I do.”
***
Q spent quite a while staring at the cannons from inside the ship, waiting for Zelph to finish checking their area for any other weapons like the Infinity Cannon.
He held Valkyrie by its hilt and pulled out the sword. The dark blade nearly disappeared among the walls of the black stealth fighter, the weapon’s golden runes the only thing keeping it visible.
Q lay his head on the dashboard and sighed. “Taylor,” he mumbled. “Why did it have to be you?”
He could feel his emotions rise up. He quickly laid back and stared out into the open, trying to push his feelings back down and lock them up.
Emotions cannot rule your actions, he told himself.
“Yo boss,” Zelph said.
“You find anything useful?”
“There are two other locations like this within two hundred miles of us.”
Q clenched his teeth. “How big?”
“Much, much smaller,” he said. “Two Infinity cannons at most. Probably just one.”
“I guess that’s good?” Q said doubtfully, confused by how he basically saying that having one mass killing weapon was better than having a hundred more. He did get that that was in fact good, but he just couldn’t believe that the standard for ‘good’ had changed so much.
That’s how bad the situation is, he smiled to himself in sorrowful amusement.
“So what do we do now?” Zelph asked.
Q got up and walked to the hatch door. “We need to do all that we can to shut the cannons down,” he said, and jumped out of the ship.
“Son of Periel,” Loreas stood right next to him, complete in his helmetless battle armor.
Q was stunned for a second. “Loreas?” he asked. “You got away from the explosion?”
“That was more theatrical than actual,” he chuckled. “I set up my house to explode in case I needed to get away from my pursuers. The explosion had more bark than bite. I even have a fake body that deploys so that people think I burned to death.”
“I’m glad you’re alive,” Q smiled, a feeling of comfort washing over him just from knowing he still had someone he could call family.
“It will take more than that to kill me, young one,” the old man smiled. He peeked over Q’s shoulder. “Ah, so you’ve already seen the cannons,” he said, a sudden sorrow in his voice.
“Yes,” Q said quietly.
“I apologize for my faction,” Loreas said. “Their path very much differs from what it used to be.”
“You do not need to apologize, grandfather,” Q said.
“Ah,” Loreas’ eyes widened. “So you heard that part.”
“Was it something I was not meant to hear?”
Loreas shook his head. “I did not want to burden my grandson with more knowledge than he needs,” he said. “My voice turns louder when I am tense. I apologize.”
“Are you sure this dude is in your family?” Zelph asked. “He apologizes a little too much. While you apologize…almost never.”
Oh shut up now, Q said. He turned to Loreas. “Grandfather-”
“Please, call me Loreas.”
“Umm...Loreas, does the main palace have no control over their Infinity cannons?”
“Ah. If you’re asking if they can be controlled from the main palace then no, they cannot,” he said.
“There’s a local control console here then?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “Everything on this planet is wire based, not network based. The important things at least.”
“No wonder a lot of things were tough to get into!” Zelph said.
“There are junction boxes though, which are supposed give status updates to the main palace. I’m not sure if that is what you are looking for, but it may not hurt to try.”
Zelph? Q asked.
“It may be what we need,” the AI said.
“Great, that’ll do,” Q told Loreas. “Where exactly is this?”
“There is one located not too far from here,” he said and looked beyond the circle of cannons in front of them. “A few miles down that end.”
“How do we get there?”
Loreas took a running start and jumped to the rooftop beside them. “Like this,” he laughed.
“Fine by me,” Q smiled.
“Is it safe to leave the stealth fighter over here?” Zelph asked.
“It’s invisible isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but still.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem. Just copy yourself into its systems so that we have total control of it if anything happens.”
“Fine, that should work.”
Q ran up to the edge of the building and jumped over, a wide smile on his face.
“It’s not too far off,” Loreas said. “Come along now.”
The two of them jumped across rooftops, with Loreas glimmering in the sky as his suit reflected the warm light.
“About Levi,” Q said as they jumped, the wind tousling his hair with each step. “Why does he have a younger body than his mind?” he asked. “Is it some sort of disease?”
“Even I am unaware of that,” Loreas said. “He is far older than I am, so I have not witnessed anything related to his situation.”
“Ah, I see.” Q was really curious about Levi. He had always been curious, but this whole bit about him being older than he looked, and that the Quantum Array was no longer real, made Q think there was something big going on here.
He began to wonder if Levi’s claims about the energy beings helping him were true after all. Levi had been known to lie before. And with this new ‘age’ revelation, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that Levi was actually insane. Q hoped all this conflict and destruction wasn’t purely because one old man had gone senile.
“We are here,” Loreas said, pointing to a circular pillar next to them. Q hoped on, and noticed a purple square of metal on the surface. He bent down and touched it, feeling the vibrations it was making.
“Yeah, this is what I needed,” Zelph said. “Thanks.”
Q could tell the AI had gotten right to work.
“Is this what you wanted?” Loreas asked.
Q nodded. “This is perfect,” he said. “I just need to wait here a while.”
“Very well,” he said and sat down, casually.
Q glanced at him, at the nonchalant man in front of him. He could see himself in the happy-go-lucky way Loreas ran his life, and especially his battles. That explosion thing was something Q could definitely see himself doing another forty years down the line.
“If you live that long you mean,” Zelph chuckled.
Don’t you have work to do? Q asked, annoyed.
“Yes yes, getting right to it.”
Q sat down as well and stared at the sky. It was pretty, which was something he didn’t expect from a White Knight home world, but it was pretty in its own way. There were no birds in the sky, or clouds of fluffy white shaped in creative figures.
There was just a shade of bright, sunny blue, and beyond it was the depth of deep black space. It was simple, it was elegant, and in the combination of the two, Q could somehow find it beautiful.
“Done,” Zelph said, his voice less enthusiastic t
han before. “You’re not going to like this.”
“What?” Q asked, tensing up.
“I was able to get through all planet’s weapon systems from here,” he said. “There are nearly a thousand Infinity Cannons, plus a million other weapons all built into the surface. And then there’s a massive nuclear reaction going on under us that keeps all of this weaponry powered up.”
Q froze, his eyes widening in realization of what that meant.
“Orpheus isn’t a planet,” Zelph said. “It’s a battle station.”
***
4-4
A freaking battle station, Q thought. Orpheus is a battle station.
Somehow though, he felt like he had always expected it. Something about that glimmering white and perfectly level surface made him find the planet off in the first place.
“Did you not know the nature of this planet?” Loreas asked casually.
“He KNEW it was a battle station?” Zelph asked.
“We did not know that Orpheus was a planet that was built and not created,” Q said.
Loreas looked down at the metal roads. “We were forced to build a planet after the wars wrecked apart our old one.”
Ah, that makes sense, Q thought. They had to build a new one when their old one was destroyed.
“What part of that justifies building a thousand Infinity Cannons into the surface of the planet?” Zelph complained.
None of it, Q sighed.
Loreas grabbed Q’s hand. ”It is not safe here,” he said. “We must find shelter.”
“Give me five minutes,” he said.
“Very well,” Loreas nodded and kept watch.
Zelph, get me Andrea, he said.
“You just talked to her a few minutes ago,” the AI complained.
Well, a few minutes ago we didn’t know that this planet was an orbiting war waiting to happen, did we? Q asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” Zelph said and a hologram opened up, showing him the Empress’ empty quarters.
“Q?” the Empress’ voice said and she jumped onto her bed, coming into his view.
“Hello, your highness,” he said.
“We just talked a few minutes ago,” she said, confused. “Is something the matter?”
“I think we may have a major problem.”
The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5 Page 95
