Davis grabbed her data pad and searched for the reports. Hers was one of three pads that had complete access to all of the Earth network’s reaches; one of the perks to her new posting out here. Only Council Foster and General Patterson himself had similar access, but she doubted either of them utilized it to the extent she did.
“There are four inbound vessels.” She stated as soon as she read the report. “Three are supply ships and the last is an empty ore carrier. All are scheduled to arrive in the next week.”
“And is the Aries ready to go?”
She hesitated to answer the question, as Davis knew that he had the same reports she did and knew the answer before he asked.
“You know it is.” She replied. “It is only missing her jump-space reactor being completed, but all systems are fully operational.”
“Flag all those ships on that list for immediate stop and search upon arrival and have Admiral Zhan take two troop transports and the Aries to intercept them with orders to open fire if they so much as flinch about being boarded.” He was deep in thought now. “It’s going to show a bit of our hand before we planned, but I think there’s something big happening and unfortunately its going down in our back yard.”
“Can you let me in on this ‘train of thought’ sir?”
Patterson quickly tapped a few commands on the console and the image of the mystery assassin from his warning message came up. He stared intently at the picture as if he was trying to see through the aged armor and helmet the creature wore. The picture gave her the chills; the fact that he had attacked the Empire and killed the Empress made him more formidable of a foe than she ever dreamed humanity would face.
“If the Lyarrans aren’t scanning the comms, and we aren’t doing it, then we have a new player in all this. And if it’s him, then you can bet we are going to need a hell of a lot more firepower than just the Aries as shit is gonna get real here right quick. Either he and his allies are on one of those ships, or those devils of the temple are coming to find him; because you can bet if we have come to this conclusion then sure as shit someone else has too.”
It hit home in an instant what he was eluding to. Five years after avoiding the apocalypse, humanity now could face the devil himself. There was no way they could be ready for any of this; no way to warn everyone on Earth about a theory with little or no facts. But the theory was sound, and it fit what had happened thus far.
“Get on the horn with Wilson and his men,” Patterson continued. “Let him know what we think and if he can add any more information to confirm or deny what is going on. In the least, we can prepare them for the beginning of hell on Earth.”
—
Alexandria, Egypt
Alexandria was as beautiful as advertised, and even Aen had to take a step back and drink in all that one of the oldest cities on the planet had to offer. It was busy, but not like Tokyo. Instead of a neon and LED assault on one’s senses, this was an old world type of busy; with markets in the streets and endless foot traffic. Massive groups of tourists - both human and extra-terrestrial - followed happy go lucky tour guides to focal points all around the old Egyptian port.
They had been here for a few days now, and while Aen had immediately turned to business, Iana had become the sightseer; leaving before dawn and returning after midnight. It was something that he had expected of her; she was finally enjoying the freedom of anonymity at long last. With her physical alterations, she had become just another Paxyn in the crowd.
But Aen had paid little attention to her comings and goings from their shared hotel suite as he narrowed his focus on his prey; Palla. She was a different creature, a born hunter hiding amongst the herd and doing it well. She was hard to weed out from the everyday resident; she did have over a thousand years of experience in doing so. Aen had found her home fairly easily; the active data console was a dead point marker to where she could be, but it became apparent that she didn’t return home on a daily basis.
Aen used three different disguises in three different days as he attempted to find a lead from the homestead to not arouse any suspicion. It was apparent she knew of Jyn’s death, but to what extent of preparation for her visit she had made, he was unsure. In fact, it wasn’t until he was wandering slowly back to his hotel that Aen noticed that the careful predator was in fact stalking him.
It was a subtle move of a shadow on an unusually quiet street as he passed that tipped him off, but he kept walking to not let on that he was any wiser. The whole night he had a feeling of being watched, but could never pin down by whom until now. She had made an error; one that wouldn’t matter if she was hunting anyone or anything other than him. Clearly Palla had mistaken him for a common assassin, and soon Aen would make her pay for that mistake with her life.
Turning down an alley, he ducked into a dark corner and disappeared; reappearing high above on the roof tops that faced into the alley entrance and he made sure he was shrouded by the comfort and safety of the night shadows as he waited. There were no footfalls to announce her arrival, yet she soon appeared like a ghost without a sound on the old cobblestone road. As he always did, Aen took stock of his quarry; making sure to memorize every detail and movement so that nothing she could do would surprise him.
Palla was tall; standing about Aen’s height of six foot seven; and was very well built physically. She moved like a cat as every step had both meaning and function; no movement was wasted. Her once long blue locks were now sandy brown, and her eyes shone green in the low street lamp light. Her face was almost human; eyebrows and a more human nose adorned her visage as the result of a similar process that Iana had used to blend in. She wore military fatigue trousers and a tight black tank top; a plasma rifle held carefully and accurately in the ready as she scanned the now empty alley way.
“I know you are still here!” she called out in a gravelly voice. “Tell the master that my hand is no longer hers to wield.”
Aen said nothing, but studied her every movement as he shifted his appearance back to his own in the shadows. He was waiting; he didn’t know enough yet about her, to strike at the moment.
“You arrived three days ago from Tokyo.” She called out again. “With that distraction of a mate for cover, I am impressed you managed to find my home. I am even more impressed that she sent a male to hunt me down.”
Again, Aen said nothing as he watched her move slowly into the alley to search for her quarry. But she had begun to peak his interest; the mention of her ‘master’ meant she knew more than her friend in Tokyo and this made her more valuable than the information hoarding Jyn.
“You might as well come out and face me.” She invited. “Fight and die with honor; do the God’s proud as only a Forgotten can.” She swung her rifle up to where he stood and fired off three quick rounds. Aen sped away from his perch, impressed that she had been looking for a prime firing position all the while. As much as he thought he had the upper hand, she was still hunting him. It was time to change that!
Aen teleported himself directly behind her and caught the weapon in his right hand as she spun instinctively to her attacker. With her weapon held tightly in check, Palla struck out with a series of blows with her left hand and followed up with a heavy roundhouse kick to his chest. All would have fell the largest of J’Karin bull males, but to Aen they had no affect at all. He simply pulled the rifle from her right hand and with his left hit her with an open palm square in the chest; sending her flying back ten or so feet to land on the sandy cobblestone road.
The blow was more to gain distance, but as she rose he could see it had some psychological effect too. Palla’s eyes gave away a glimpse of fear; she wasn’t used to hitting something that hard with no result. Slowly, she wiped the blue blood from her lip as the shot had broken a rib or two and began to compose herself for round two.
“I expected more from reading your file.” It was Aen’s turn to goad her now. “A high order Forgotten should have better than that, or are you as pathetic as those fools in the temple
that I dispatched so easily?”
Palla growled and lunged angrily at her foe, but her leap did little to take Aen off guard. Instead, he simply caught her in mid-air by altering the field of gravity around her and held her still. He left her dangling helplessly for a few seconds before flinging her right back to the same spot she had landed before; and equally as hard. This time, she did not get back up so quickly.
“Tell me more about this ‘master’ you spoke of earlier,” Aen demanded as he slowly closed the distance between the two. “And I will grant you the same honorable death you were so kind to offer me. Resist, and it will be less than honorable and much more like Jyn’s.”
“It was you then!” she said, slowly standing to face her dominant opponent.
“It has always been me.” Aen answered. “From the temple, to the Empress, to Jyn and now to you; it is what must be done to beat back the growing darkness, and for now I am the answer to all the riddles of the Prophets.”
“I will not betray the master.” She spat. “There is much you cannot see as that which has remained in the shadows has not yet come to pass. Thy kingdom will come, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.”
Aen reached out and pushed her with a gravity wave; flinging her body backwards thirty feet to the alley wall and crashing into the old brick of the building behind them. Her body fell in a heap, but yet she struggled to stand again; her left arm broken and twisted to face the wrong way and her bluish blood pouring from both nostrils now.
“Why does your master summon you now, and why do you choose not to respond?” he commanded.
There was a sparkle of defiance in her eyes as she looked up to him while he moved in once more. “It is not my master that calls, but it is his will that is being served by the message.” She laughed. “You see only the pawns on the board, but fail to see the true power behind them and think you have the upper hand. What was once shall soon be reclaimed, and the Empire shall bow to its rightful ruler. I have seen the future, blasphemer. You would do well to consider your place in it before the storm sweeps you away like all the others.”
“Is that why you betrayed the Empress?” he demanded. “Is that why your order of honor walked away from its creator?”
“Why do you care about Iana the Clueless; you’re the one that murdered her?”
Aen smiled, for the whole time he was questioning her she had the upper hand. But now it was his to control, and he was about to tame the wild beast Palla before he crushed her spirit and killed her.
“It is you who fails to see the big picture.” He warned her. “You and your masters waited too long to pull the trigger on your plan.”
Palla was held in place by an unseen force that slowly pressed her into the wall; crushing her at a snail’s pace slowly and painfully, yet she still stood defiantly.
“We waited long enough to see her fail on the grandest stage.” She tried to argue. “We saw the rise and fall of the Harbinger; his death was the final nail in the old Empire’s coffin. Without him, there is no hope to survive his will.”
‘His’ will. It was the second time she had referred to her master in the male tense. He was breaking her, but her body wouldn’t last much longer. It was time for Aen to make the last push for all the information he could before she expired.
“Then it is their mistake to act when they did, for hope is as alive as I am.” He said, ripping off the goggles that masked his eyes.
A thousand slaps to the face wouldn’t have the same effect on her as his revelation of his identity did. In an instant, all the beliefs Palla had built up in her life were shattered in a second. Aen saw the surprise and devastation in her eyes; like Jyn, he had broken her right before the end.
“The Harbinger is dead!” she gasped. “I saw it with my own eyes and reported it to them myself.”
“I assure you, I am quite alive, along with all the ideals and hope of the Lyarran Empire.”
“You cannot stop them! Even you aren’t that strong!”
“Hope is stronger than any one being, and I will restore what has been lost to right the ship before your storm. The Empire will not fall and all your plans will be for naught.”
Aen pulled the same ancient samurai sword he had impaled Jyn on, from his back and held it up to show his helpless foe. The dim lights revealed the dull blue glow of her old friend’s blood; a tear fell from her eye in remembrance of his passing.
“Now you will tell me all I want to know, and I will let you enter the afterlife as a warrior should, and not as a whimpering waste of life like you are now.” He began. “Your journey ends here, but you have one last chance to do your ancestors proud before you join them. It’s up to you, either way all that matters to me, is that you die.”
Aen lifted the sword up to her chest and pointed it horizontally at her. Palla hesitated, drew in a deep breath and opened her eyes to stare at the monster who had bested her as she opened her mouth to speak one last time.
—
Geneva, Switzerland
Though none of the events concerned her, Lyxia still listened on intently as Sara was briefed on the incident in Tokyo. Her mind raced trying to connect this event with the others she had come to Terra Sol to investigate, but in her heart she knew it was a stretch. In previous conversations, Sara had told her about the long history of the act of terrorism in the human world and this seemed to be just another instance.
It had been six days since they had arrived on the planet, and Lyxia was shown every comfort imaginable as a foreign dignity. Her lodgings were close to what she had always imagined the Empress’ own quarters; with a plush king size bed, a large soaking hot tub, and a balcony that overlooked the picturesque Swiss countryside. Lyxia felt like she was in a dream and not the edge of the Empire itself.
Since their landing, she had been in steady contact with the Dark Light. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Axyn as much as she didn’t know how to let go. So to no one’s surprise she called up to ten times a day for updates despite very little happening at the time. As expected, Axyn was meeting a bit of resistance from the senior staff in Operations Control, but he handled it with his usual hard ass demeanor. Lyxia knew when she returned, there would be more than a few egos to soothe; Paxyn women did not respond well to a male in the dominant role.
“The blast was how hot?” she heard Sara ask as her voice raised for the first time in the conversation. Something was indeed different about this ‘minor incident’ as it had been called. Lyxia cleared the thoughts of the mess that awaited her back on the ship from her mind and listened closer.
“Close to four thousand degrees Celsius.” The military advisor answered. “There isn’t a stitch of evidence to examine; Wilson and his team have moved on to Alexandria to investigate another incident.”
“Another incident?” Sara was growing agitated.
“A body was found in the slums of the city; beaten, broken and put on display to be found.” The guard looked over at Lyxia nervously then continued. “Preliminary results show that it was a Paxyn female that was murdered. Wilson has the entire area on lockdown until he arrives; even the body was put in stasis on scene as he wanted to see it all as a whole.”
“Do you have an identity on her?” Lyxia spoke up as she approached the two. “I want to be there to make sure her body is treated with the proper respect until she can be given a rightful death ceremony.”
The soldier looked at Lyxia in confusion, then over at the Terra Sol Council for instruction.
“Get my shuttle ready and inform Wilson not to move or touch the body until we get there!” she ordered. “Shit, it is bad enough out there as it is, we don’t need this getting worse than it is.”
With a nod of understanding, the soldier snapped a quick salute, spun on his heels and disappeared out the door. Sara muttered some kind of language quietly that Lyxia didn’t quite understand, but her friend’s body language told her all she needed to know. Sara’s head hung low, her shoulders hunched a bit, and her face
showed the strain of frustration. This was a far cry from the woman she had known to be powerful and confident; Sara Foster clearly felt the gravity of a Lyarran dying on Terra Sol in the wake of what was happening around them.
“Well,” Sara began after a deep breath. “I guess it’s time for you to get your armor back on and let your entourage know we’re going sight-seeing.” She said sarcastically.
“It is not your fault.” Lyxia replied. “But rest assured, I am now a major part in your inquiry on this matter and I will be the one to punish the one responsible.”
“The one behind this will be brought to justice.” Sara answered. “But they will be convicted by our judicial system before any rash punishment is doled out. We stand on the brink of an Imperial civil war, and the last thing any of us need is rash actions and emotional responses. What we need are answers; the ones you came for and the ones that stem from this.”
“You are wise beyond your years, my friend.” Lyxia smiled. “Iana chose well when she made you Council of this world, and your people are lucky to have one such as you lead them into tomorrow.”
“It is tomorrow that scares me.” Sara replied with a shaky smile. “Because today is getting darker and darker each hour. Something tells me that all this is just the start of a bigger picture we can’t see yet, and I hope it isn’t connected to Iana’s death.”
“I too hope that.” Lyxia agreed. “For if it is, I pray the Gods to help us all make it to tomorrow alive.”
—
Alexandria, Egypt
Aen appeared in the hotel suite and immediately began to pack his things. It had been a long night, and Palla had finally broken as the dawn began to rise. In her last moments of life, she spilled all her deep secrets like her blood which poured from her dying body. He hadn’t wanted her to die like that, but Aen had to know what she was hiding at all costs. But now that he had that information, he had more questions than answers.
Since the beginning, Aen had focused on a female figure that was behind the coup because that was the manner of the Imperial hierarchy. But Palla had continued to refer to her true master as a he, and seeing as that didn’t follow the leadership caste of the Temple he had tested her mettle and pushed her to the brink. Despite the pain, the male connotation continued and Palla feared retribution from her master more than she feared wrath from Aen. And in the end, she turned on her handler in the Temple as she died. Aen now had names and a portion of the plan itself, but still didn’t know who the true mastermind in the shadows was.
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