by Craig Gaydas
Lianne.
The Aftermath
The Shreen soon joined the Scarlet Moon in death. The shot-blocking Shreen ended up with a ragged, charred hole in his face for his trouble. His pal was on the ground not far from him, bloodied and lifeless. While surveying the carnage several winged beasts flew past me with their crude weapons clutched in their claws. They were escorted by Vayne and his merry band of “mini-Vayne” crewmembers, armed with hand cannons.
“It's the Quark!” I blurted.
Urlan approached with a bemused Vigil on his heels. Urlan bowed but with his oversized wings it made the gesture appear awkward. “We meet again,” his gravelly voice cracked. When he spoke it sounded like an angry landslide.
“Look what we have here,” Vigil crooned. A smile played at the corner of his lips. “When Vanth updated me on your progress I didn't believe it first.” He surveyed the scene. “Now that I see what happened here, it appears I was wrong.”
Lianne touched the side of my face. “Are you hurt?”
I wiped my face with the back of my hand and it came back sticky with blood. “It's his,” I said, motioning to the corpse of Corvus. I slid my index finger along the base of my throat and winced. It too came back sticky with blood. “I'm afraid this is mine.”
“Well at least you made it through the fight without someone trying to turn you into a cyborg,” a voice growled behind me. Kedge stood behind me with his arms folded across his chest. “Yeah the gang's all here. Don't go getting all mushy on me.”
I was pleased to see my old friends but my happiness was short-lived when I looked past them. Deena's body was being examined by One of Vayne's crewmembers.
“Get away from her,” I screamed and ran to her. The crewmember jumped back with a look of alarm.
I cradled her head in my arms. Despite the desert heat she was cold to the touch. Where her face was once warm and vibrant it was now pale and lifeless. Her eyes looked blankly to the sky as if searching the heavens for an answer to the injustice of her murder. Although I felt a familiar burning at the corner of my eyes I refused to weep. Vanth spoke up from the recesses of my mind. Do not weep for your friends in death, Nathan. They no longer bear the burdens life thrusts upon all her victims. Their soul's voyage to the afterlife is a voyage we all must face.
“Except you, Vanth,” I whispered. “Except for you and your Timeless.” I pushed the thought aside as quickly as it came. I didn't need anger either. Anger was nothing more than a tool without a job, like a hammer without nails.
Lianne's hand fell on my shoulder. “I'm so sorry, Nathan.”
I lowered my head and closed my eyes. “Calypso got away.” I let the statement linger for a moment before continuing. “If you truly care, then help me destroy him.”
Her hand fell from my shoulder. “I will,” she responded firmly. She paused. “Don't forget about the Consortium too, Nathan. We must deal with them as well.”
“By my calculations it is indeed a conundrum,” a voice squeaked. I looked up from Deena's face to see Grillick approaching. “Oh I do so love conundrums. To solve the equation presented we will simply reflect our focus from one enemy to another.”
Lianne glanced at him uncertainly. “Um, okay, so what does that mean?”
Grillick eyes filled with sadness when he looked at Deena's corpse. “It simply means our enemies remain the same. I have spoken with Ibune and she called for an assembly.”
I laid Deena's head gently on the ground and I ran my fingers over her eyes, shutting them forever. When I slid my hand from behind her head, Lianne winced when she saw that my right hand was not what I had originally been born with. She remained silent on the subject, however.
“An assembly of what?” I asked. Exhaustion began to creep into my voice. I was emotionally as well as physically drained.
“For the first time in centuries we will have a formal gathering of the Timeless,” Grillick explained. “We have been summoned and will meet aboard her ship.”
“So what does this assembly mean?” asked Lianne.
“It means that this conflict veers dangerously close to something we are trying to avoid.” Vigil explained enigmatically as he approached. “The Twelve are meeting in order to come to a consensus.”
Vigil reached down and pick up the corpse of Deena. The care he put into it went against the assumptions I had made based on past interactions with him. He did it with the kindness of a father. When he looked at me his eyes were full of sympathy.
“We will take care of her.” He walked towards Grillick's ship.
“Wait a minute,” I exclaimed and started to follow them. “Where is he going with her?”
Grillick placed his hand on my arm. “We are born of the universe,” he explained. “That is where we must return. She will be given the proper rite of passage to her next destination.”
I watched as Vigil loaded her into the back of something Grillick referred to as an all-terrain skiff. The vehicle was nothing more than a Humvee with tank treads instead of tires. Sergeant Cantrell was behind the wheel. With a heavy heart I watched as they continued over the hill toward the ship.
“So what now?” I mumbled.
“The Timeless are coming,” Grillick replied. “Let's go back to the Gordian Knot and wait for their arrival.”
“The what?” I raised an eyebrow.
He threw me a bushy smile. “What? I forgot to tell you what she was called? It's the name of my ship. Just the process of naming her was a conundrum upon itself. But alas, that is a story for another day. Come, we have important work to do.”
As we walked back to his ship we passed the turret. Grillick stopped and squatted next to it. “It worked! My Tri-Fold Inverted Plasma Turret worked!” He exclaimed as he flipped a switch underneath. The weapon folded into itself, reverting back to the cube. “Eureka!” He cried before shoving the cube into his pocket.
When we reached the entrance ramp we found Cantrell waiting with his arms crossed. On the far side of the ship, Vigil drove the skiff up a different ramp and out of view. An icy scowl was glued to his face when he saw Kedge. “I thought that was you. I didn't think I'd ever see you again.”
Kedge met the scowl with one of his own. “It's been a long time, Cantrell. Which garbage scow have you crawled from?”
“It's good to see you haven't lost your sense of humor.” Cantrell said before reaching into a scabbard attached to his belt. He withdrew a knife and I tensed. I relaxed slightly when he started picking at his fingernails with the blade. “So, where are all those mewling ladies you used to hang out with? You called them soldiers, I believe. I always thought they were more like prancing knuckle draggers.”
There was a pistol strapped to Kedge's side. His hand rested on the handle. This was a situation that was about to go south fast, I worried. I had to diffuse it fast.
“How about we concentrate our efforts on locating our enemies instead of comparing the size of our jocks?” I stood between them.
Cantrell eyeballed me. Kedge breathed heavily behind me but remained silent. I breathed a sigh of relief when Cantrell nodded curtly and entered the ship. I hung back with Kedge.
“Why do I get the feeling that you have very few friends in the universe?” I turned to him with a smile.
“You may be right,” he chuckled. “Cantrell is nothing more than a rented gun. He cares nothing about causes, only about filling his pockets.” His tone softened. “Anyway enough about that. It's good to see you alive.”
“It's good to be alive I suppose,” I responded sourly.
Kedge laid a hand on my shoulder. “We will have plenty of time to talk later.” He looked up the ramp and his expression turned somber. Vigil stood at the top of the ramp waiting for us.
“Ibune's ship has entered the planet's orbit.” Vigil rubbed his cheek just under the triangle tattoo. He seemed jumpy. “We will be taking off soon to meet her.”
“Are you OK?” I asked.
He stopped rubbing and nodded slow
ly. “Yeah.” He turned abruptly and entered the ship.
Concerned, I turned to Kedge. “What the hell was that all about?”
Kedge's bionic eye hummed as he focused it on the doorway. He stared at it silently for a long time before answering. “I don't know. Let's go find out.”
The Meeting
Kedge left me when we reached Grog's. His large assortment of fine wines lured him away. He decided to hang back and do what he called “sample the stock”.
“I thought you kicked the habit?” I asked, remembering his story of alcoholism.
He shrugged. “I have a feeling I'm going to need to be drunk by the time this meeting is over.”
I didn't press further. He looked rattled and it took a lot to rattle him. I continued to my room and crawled into bed. I closed my eyes and thought about the upcoming meeting. Deep down I was excited to have the opportunity to meet the other ancient beings known as the Timeless, but a part of me feared the outcome of the meeting. I thought about all those I had met so far: Grillick the Artificer, Vayne the Liberator, Vigil the Surveyor, Vanth the Adjudicator, Menjaro the Messenger, Scribe the Chronicler. That was only half of them. I was curious to learn more about the first six, but I was even more interested to learn about the others. Before I could start forming grandiose assumptions about them, I fell asleep.
Shai haunted my dreams. The nightmare of his headless corpse chasing me through the darkened tunnel of Gorganna would have made Irving proud. I focused on the slim sliver of light ahead before realizing that I held his head in my hands. I dropped it in disgust and continued running. By the time I got to the end Shai had retrieved his head and placed it on his shoulder. He reached for me with his hungry mouth open wide. Rows of razor sharp teeth like a shark filled his gaping maw and he reached closer, as if he meant to swallow me whole.
A knock at the door woke me. Drops of cold sweat trickled down my back like icy fingers. I ran my hand through my soaked hair, moving it away from my eyes. I stumbled to the door like a drunken sailor and opened it to see Lianne standing on the other side.
Her face soured when she saw me. “Are you feeling okay?”
I motioned her inside. “I was just trying to take a nap before the big meeting. I'm almost positive I feel better than I look.”
Lianne didn't seem to agree. “Sorry for waking you,” she responded somberly. “We should be docking with Ibune's ship soon and I wanted to check on you and make sure everything was okay.”
I rubbed the cobwebs of sleep from my eyes and laughed dryly. “Sure everything is okie dokie,” I replied. “After discovering someone I considered a mentor had been killed by Shai, I received the opportunity to watch while he murdered another person I cared about before my eyes. This all coming before I proceeded to hammer his decapitated head into a pile of slush.” I dropped my face into my hands. “Yeah I'm just peachy.”
Lianne clucked sympathetically. “I'm sorry, Nathan. I wish everything could just go back to the way it was prior to Calypso's treachery. Maybe then my father would still be alive.”
I looked into Lianne's eyes. They sparkled with tears at the mention of her father. “Me too,” I muttered. I quickly moved to change the subject. The pain of Deena's death was still fresh and that was a wound I didn't feel like reopening. “I heard Embeth is missing. What happened?”
“When Satou discovered the Ascended had attacked Vaire, he grew furious. He commandeered a Defense Fleet ship and took off from Xajax with a crew of twenty. Embeth knew it was suicide so he tried to gather as many as he could against the advice of Vigil and took off after him.” A flash of anger crossed her face. “None of the Timeless volunteered to join him. Vigil decided their time was better spent coming up with an effective strategy to attack Caelum. He felt the Ascended were a needless distraction.”
“Well, we all saw how that turned out,” I replied sourly.
“I don't want to hate them, Nathan,” she said. “I realize we need them if we are to win this conflict. It's becoming hard, though.”
I narrowed my eyes and locked on her gaze. “Don't hate them, Lianne. Hatred is an emotion better served in other ways.”
She studied me for a long time. “What happened to you?”
I shrugged. “I guess you could say I had my eyes opened. Vanth taught me to control my emotions to better defend myself. He taught me what I needed to know to survive.”
Several moments passed in silence. I used that time to pick at the remaining skull fragments embedded in my prosthetic hand while Lianne watched with a sour expression. Several months had passed since we last saw each other and I have changed since. It was almost as if we had to reintroduce ourselves to each other again, like complete strangers.
Lianne turned and looked toward the window. I followed her gaze to see a ship appear outside Vaire's orbit. It was the largest ship I had ever seen, dwarfing even the Astral Spirit. The hull of the ship formed a triangle. The front point glowed with a thousand small cylindrical lights of varying colors. Some were green while others were red. Some were even bright white which gave the ship a Christmas-like appeal. They blinked in conjunction with each other in some sort of signaling pattern. As we approached I could see that the hull had several metal plates which overlapped each other like scale, like a dragon. A Christmas Dragon ship, I mused.
“That is one hell of a ship,” Lianne acknowledged.
I stood up and flexed my hand to make sure that the last remaining bits of Shai were gone. “It sure is. I bet this will be one hell of a meeting too.”
Lianne offered a wry smile. “Let's go find out.”
I opened the door to find Gard standing on the other side. He blinked his blue eyes rapidly before addressing us.
“Oh, excuse me, Nathan, I was just about to knock. Your presence has been requested. Please follow me to the meeting location.”
On the way we passed Grog's. He was busy smashing a small metal globe with a hammer. Unfortunately the tool didn't seem to have any affect. On his final swing the hammer missed and came down on his left thumb. “DAMN!” he shouted before sticking his wounded digit in his mouth. He tossed us a sour look as we passed. “Move along, this ain't no side show,” he grumbled. He picked up the tool and continued hammering at the object.
When we reached the docking bridge connecting us to Ibune's ship I heard Grog cry out again. It seemed another finger had felt the wrath of the hammer. “Lessons are hard learned for some,” Lianne muttered. She turned her attention to the bridge and sighed. “Well let's go meet these Timeless folks.”
Gard stopped her. “I'm sorry, Lianne. The Timeless will not allow anyone other than summoned parties into the meeting.”
Lianne looked at Gard and pursed her lips. She appeared ready to rip his head off, but she backed off. “I'm not sure whether I should be insulted or relieved,” she admitted.
I followed Gard through the bridge before coming to an elevator aboard her ship. We entered and the doors closed behind us. On the wall were buttons adorned with strange symbols. I didn't recognize most of them except for one. One of the buttons had a symbol of an ankh.
“The ankh again,” I whispered. “What could it mean?”
“Is something wrong?”
“Um, no. Well, I mean, not really,” I stuttered. “I was just surprised to see an ankh as one of these symbols.”
“What a coincidence,” he responded. “That is where we must go.” He pushed the button.
Three other symbols lit up before falling on the ankh. When the button illuminated the doors opened. We stepped out of the elevator and into a large circular room. The ceiling was domed and filled with stars, as if we just stepped into the world's largest observatory. A comet rocketed across the ceiling and I realized I was looking into real-time space, rather than an image. I marveled at the scene.
“Welcome, Nathan.”
The voice broke my trance. A woman approached us. Behind her, In the middle of the room, there was an enormous circular table, black like obsidian
, with sixteen high-back chairs positioned around it. Eleven people stood in front of eleven chairs. Some of the faces I recognized, others I did not. The slender woman standing before me was not much taller than me with long silver hair which seemed to flow endlessly over her shoulders, smooth bronze skin, full purple lips and a strange tattoo in the center of her forehead. It was made up of a sideways crescent with a large circle above it. The entire tattoo seemed to glow with a radiance of its own. She wore a silver tunic with many symbols embroidered in the fabric. I recognized them as the same ones that were inside the elevator. When she opened her arms wide to welcome me I noticed the ankhs etched on the wide metal bracelets encircling her wrists. I made a mental note to ask about the significance of the ankh.
“My name is Ibune,” her voice was soft and melodic. Her words wrapped themselves around me, soothing me. All tension ebbed from my body and a calm peacefulness fell over me. “Come join us.” She smiled and motioned me to the closest empty chair. “I will go around the room and introduce everyone.”
There was a bronze plaque embedded in the rear of the chair. Carved into the metal were the words “Botha the Explorer”. Ibune noticed I stared at the metal plate but said nothing.
The first introduction was Vigil who simply replied with his usual sour look. The second introduction was Grillick who was too busy scratching a screw out of his beard to acknowledge me. Third was Vanth who acknowledged me by a slow nod.
The fourth face was new to me. It was also the most fearsome. He wore a dark metal helmet which ended in a V, completely covering his nose and top half of his face. Sinister scarlet eyes locked on me from behind eyeholes carved from the metal. The lower half of his face was pale-blue with angry scars running along each cheek from lip to eye. He was at least seven feet tall and the ridged armor he wore covered his muscular physique well. To add to his ferocious looks were large blood-red wings which sprouted from his shoulders but were currently folded behind him.
