Justice/Loneliness (Aspects Book 2)

by L. C. Mawson

  Jia smiled grimly. “It is not unusual among the Dishar for there to be issues of succession. In the past, these issues have become... messy. So, Dishar regularly have our bodies and memories scanned, and those records are then stored. Should any of us die without an apparent heir, a copy can be made to settle the issue. Some still loyal to my line suspected that Geral’s disappearance was not as innocent as his brothers have attempted to claim, and so they brought me back to settle the issue. I quickly determined that there was a chance that I had descendants on Earth and that Geral had likely come here to make sure you didn’t get in his way.

  “Luckily, you took care of him, but I think his brothers may have taken up his work. Like I said, I was sure that another Rena had arrived on Earth, and I tracked them to this location. If that information was correct, they are likely the ones who kidnapped Hate. Probably to get to you.”

  “If the Rena who kidnapped Hate really is connected to Geral, I have to stop them. I have to find Hate.”

  Jia nodded. “I shall accompany you.”

  Love frowned. “Really? After everything you said about how Hate wasn’t right for me, you would be willing to help me rescue her?”

  Jia rolled her eyes. “Just because I don’t think the two of you should be together, doesn’t mean that I want to see her come to harm. Not to mention, there is likely still some part of you that loves her, and the pain of losing her could damage your powers permanently.”

  Love’s frown deepened. “What do you mean? How would you know that? Didn’t you say that you never relied on romantic love for your powers before?”

  Jia nodded. “Back on my homeworld, I never indulged in those kinds of relationships. I understood that, once I was old enough, and my father had found a suitable match, I would have been expected to marry someone suitable out of duty, not love.”

  “Then how can you possibly know about the effect it would have on your powers?”

  “Because I was not the first Aspect of Love, just the first to come to Earth. And while I had never had a romantic relationship at the point at which my memory was last scanned, I did fall in love after coming to Earth. Tell me, do you know how Captain Jia died?”

  Love shook her head. “No, I never really paid much attention in history class, and I don’t think I ever watched the final few tapes.”

  “Well, I watched them. Rena lifespans may not be much longer than Human ones, but they are still longer. It was only natural that I would outlive my Human husband, and yet, despite knowing this, the effect was so pronounced that it destroyed my powers. Even though I had other sources of love – children as well as friends – I had become so reliant on that unstable source of power that it was no longer enough. I could no longer do my duty as the Aspect of Love, and I have always been someone who does their duty.” Her posture became stiff, and her eyes grew hard at that last sentence, leaving Love with the impression that there was something she wasn’t saying.

  “So, what? You got sad about not being able to do your job anymore?”

  Jia turned to glare at her. “There can only be one Aspect of Love at any given time. While we may both wear Aspect Bands now, it took the Rena two hundred years to begin to replicate the technology, and it likely only works for me because I was already an Aspect before my last scan. When I lost control of my powers on Earth, there was no way for a replacement to be chosen before my death.” She gave Love a meaningful look, and it only took a couple of moments to realise what she was trying to convey.

  If Jia hadn’t been able to access her powers, the Aspects would have been weakened.

  There would have been no Aspect of Love until she died...

  Jia didn’t strike her as the type to wait around.

  “Oh...” Love eventually managed, unsure of what else she could say.

  “I don’t want you to ever be put in that position,” Jia told her. “To have to choose between your own life and the safety of your people... It’s better if you never lose control of your powers in the first place. Which means finding Hate, no matter my opinion of your feelings for her. Now, are we going to try and find her, or are we going to continue talking and losing time?”

  Love frowned for a moment, but eventually dropped her staff, deactivating it.

  “Fine,” Love said. “Do you have any idea where she might be?”

  Jia shrugged, pulling a small device from her pocket. “I was tracking the signature of an FTL drive. Wherever this other Rena is, I doubt they would stray too far from their ship.”

  “Then we follow the signal,” Love agreed, allowing Jia to take the lead, though she watched her carefully as they made their way into the forest.

  Jia remained silent as they walked, and Love couldn’t help but watch her as they went.

  She hadn’t had much in the way of theories regarding who the masked woman would be. She'd assumed that it would either be some government official with a vested interest in finding the correct heir, or some distant cousin who was also in line for the throne, though with potentially less hostile intentions than Geral’d had.

  The last thing she'd expected was a clone – was she a clone? Love assumed it had to be some kind of cloning technology... – of her ancestor.

  “So, what exactly has happened in Rena space since you left?” Love eventually asked, unable to keep her questions to herself a moment longer. “Since you left the first time, I mean. We haven’t had much in the way of news from there, apart from Geral coming to kill me, but he was hardly talkative.”

  Jia sighed. “It’s difficult to piece together. The war was long and devastating... But it seems that I was naive to think that this test alone would decide whether or not my father would use the creatures. In fact, it appears that my safety had been the only thing restraining his hand up until that point. As soon as I was out of Rena space, despite the fact that the creatures hadn’t been tested properly, he began to use them to hunt down those who would rebel against him. I’m not saying that the rebels were right, or that they shouldn’t have been stopped. My first job as an Aspect was clean up after they destroyed half a city... But we never should have allowed the situation to get that far in the first place. My father liked to think of himself as a just ruler, but when you have an entire group of people who believe that they were divinely chosen to rule over others, despite their actual ability to do so...”

  Jia sighed again, though this time it was a lot more exasperated. “You must understand, many, many of my family members were unquestioningly incompetent and only gained any position through their blood, rather than their ability. It infuriated me to no end. Of course the people would revolt when those leading them didn’t have sensible heads on their shoulders. Instead of actually talking with them about this problem, and seeing how they could fix it, my father branded them all traitors. And thus the escalation began.

  “We all thought that me being chosen as the next Aspect of Love would calm things, reassure people that I would be a worthy ruler. But they weren’t content to wait until my father died, and half a city was destroyed. Then my father wanted to attack them with the creatures as if that would make things better instead of worse. I tried to convince him to try talking with the rebels, but he wouldn’t have it. My only hope was sabotaging the testing of the creatures, but as I said, he didn’t wait until the test on Earth was complete before using them as weapons.

  “Once he proved himself capable of attacking his own people, it escalated into all-out war. I assume that was why I couldn’t regain communication with them from Earth.”

  “Do you still think you should have gone back?” Love asked, remembering Jia’s jab at herself when Empathy had first shown her the video logs. “Instead of staying here on Earth, I mean.”

  “Yes,” Jia said plainly. “I’m sorry, I know this planet is your home, and I know that my decision to stay here likely saved your species, but it did not save mine. My father died, not too long into the war. If I had returned, I would have taken his place and been able to calm t
he situation. As it was, his generals and the Science Institute took over in my absence, claiming that it had been my father’s wish for them to rule until I returned. The very people who had convinced my father to use those creatures were now in charge of them. They turned out to be even more ruthless than my father, squashing any resistance for a short while. Then things got much, much worse when war broke out again, starting in the outer colonies.

  “The war didn’t even really end, you know. We just reached a stalemate. The people in the outer colonies managed to create some kind of field between them and the inner colonies, disrupting any FTL flight. It has effectively cut us off from them, except for the com-net, and it was agreed that we would leave them alone. Once that was settled, people began to cotton onto the fact that I was probably dead, wherever I was, and it was time for the throne to pass to someone else, instead of my father’s council holding it for me.”

  “And it was supposed to pass to Geral?” Love figured as she tried to piece it all together.

  Jia nodded. “There were questions surrounding the issue, given that no one was certain whether or not I had died without children. And due to the destruction of records in the fighting, there were questions as to whether or not Geral truly was the next in line, even ignoring anyone on Earth. As the discussions began to turn to bringing me back to settle the issue, Geral disappeared. His brothers claimed that he was on a pilgrimage to the mountains of Frehal, and couldn’t be contacted until he returned. Then they claimed that he'd died on the journey, which is common enough for people to believe.

  “Those who doubted the story, however, decided that it was time to bring me back, and I quickly realised where Geral had gone and why.”

  “You realised I existed,” Love said.

  Jia nodded again. “You, and the others like you. Though you and your sister are the only ones of any interest.”

  “Because we’re Aspects, right? That’s what Geral said. We asked why our existence was a threat to him, given that we weren’t full-blooded Rena, and he said that Aspects were considered sacred.”

  Jia sighed. “They used to be,” she admitted. “But if word got back that the only Aspects remaining weren’t entirely Rena? Well, centuries have passed without them being seen in Rena space, they would likely be dismissed.”

  “Then why is everyone so bothered about finding Em and me?”

  “Because it’s all a question of how the story is told. In all honesty, this isn’t a problem we have had to deal with before. Before we found Earth, we thought that the Rena were the only sentient species in the galaxy. That was why it was so easy for the Science Institute to propose that the monsters be sent here. Not only did they claim that your species was far more primitive than it turned out to be, no one had any reason to believe that you would be otherwise.”

  “So you think you can spin our existence into something more positive?”

  “Well, I think I can mitigate some of the problems. After all, given that we haven’t encountered another sentient species before, and given our genetic compatibility, we likely aren’t different species at all. Rena have had space travel for millennia, and there are plenty of stories of lost colonies out there. If humanity was considered just another branch of Rena, and one that could produce Aspects at that, it would likely be enough for you and your sister to be considered legitimate heirs and to threaten Geral’s brothers.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with any kind of alien throne,” Love said quickly.

  Jia shook her head. “I didn’t think that you would. This is simply about making sure that you don’t come to harm as the result of this infighting.”

  Before either of them could say anything else, Jia’s device beeped, and she glanced down at it.

  “We’re almost there,” she said, nodding over to where the trees seemed to thin.

  Love rushed over, not wanting to waste any more time, given the danger Hate might be in.

  She entered the clearing to see a small, silver craft. It was shaped like a teardrop and was barely big enough to fit one person at the larger end.

  What drew her attention, however, was Hate, standing next to the craft, wearing silver shackles that were connected by a small length of plasma.

  “Hate!” Love exclaimed as she ran toward the other Aspect.

  Hate shook her head as soon as she approached. “You shouldn’t have come,” Hate said quickly as Love reached her, examining the shackles to see how to break them. “This is a trap for you.”

  Love nodded. “I know,” she said. “But I wasn’t just going to let them hurt you.”

  “The whole point of hurting me was to get to you! Walking into a trap was monumentally stupid!”

  Love rolled her eyes, Hate’s jabs causing her to smile. Hate always did this when she was worried for her. “I’m sorry, would you rather die than be rescued?”

  “I would if it would keep you safe,” Hate said quickly, her eyes widening as soon as the words left her mouth as if they surprised her as much as they surprised Love.

  “Pretty bold words for the girl who broke up with me,” Love eventually managed, trying to dampen her hope. If Hate pushed her away again, she couldn’t let it bother her like before.

  Hate looked away. “I didn’t want you to give up the future you wanted just to be with me,” Hate eventually said, her voice low. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t still... You know...”

  “Hate, if you had told me that at the time, instead of just outright breaking up with me, I would have told you that I don’t care. That I would rather be with you than have some vague idea of what my future might be, that I might even change my mind on.”

  Hate just stared at her blankly. “I... Really?”

  Love rolled her eyes again. “Really,” she said. “And I really wish you would just talk to me about these things instead of all this drama.”

  Hate looked away once more. “Would you give me a second chance if I promised to work on it?”

  “Yeah, I would,” Love said before leaning in to kiss Hate.

  The moment their lips met, a cascade of black lightning poured down Hate’s arms, destroying the shackles that bound them.

  Love pulled away with a surprised jump. “How did you manage that?”

  Hate gave her a wry smirk. “Hating my inability to make sensible decisions.”

  Love brought her hand to Hate’s cheek. “You’re not supposed to tap into your abilities by hating yourself, remember?”

  Hate shrugged. “In moments like these, I’m going to take whatever power source I can get.”

  “Well, isn’t this touching.”

  Love spun around to see a man entering the clearing. He was clearly Rena, with the silver-lilac eyes of a Dishar and short white-blonde hair pushed back, away from his pale features. He looked enough like Geral, with the identical white outfit, for Love to assume that he was one of his brothers.

  “Hren,” Jia said as he approached. “I should have known it would be you.”

  “And I should have known that you would come here to track down your half-breed offspring, Princess.”

  Hate frowned, before whispering to Love, “Is that Captain Jia? Isn’t she supposed to be dead?”

  “She’s some kind of clone,” Love explained. “She came here to settle the succession issue. She was the masked woman.”

  Hate’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “The masked woman was a clone of Captain Jia the whole time?”

  Love nodded. “Yeah, it’s been a weird day so far...”

  “Here to make sure no one gets in the way of your brother taking the throne?” Jia asked Hren, drawing Love’s attention back.

  Hren shrugged. “I am simply here to find out the truth of the matter.”

  “That’s my job.”

  “And I wish I could say that I was confident in your ability to do your job impartially, but if you went as far as to breed with this subpar species, I cannot believe that you would approach the issue with a rational mind. There
is a risk that you would even overlook the truth – that they are not fit to rule – just because you are blinded by the fact that they are your own blood.”

  Jia glared at him. “I am more than capable of recognising incompetence within my own blood. That’s what you’re truly worried about, isn’t it? I’ve done my research, Hren. Neither you nor your brothers are fit to rule. Geral was entitled, Jival is reckless, Rael wouldn’t recognise trouble approaching if it smacked him over the head, if Kivan was half as politically savvy as he thought he was, you wouldn’t be attempting to assassinate teenagers, and you, the youngest and most ambitious brother, are simply cruel. I read the reports out of Hael’s moon. To treat prisoners of war in such a manner...”

  Hren sighed. “I wanted to believe that you were better than this, Princess. I never believed the official story, that you had merely come to Earth to protect the native species from the creatures. Every piece of information on you said that you are smarter than that. I used to think that you had seen the war coming, and had gone to Earth to wait it out, but now I’m not so sure...”

  Jia’s glare intensified. “I came here to stop the monstrous experiment. To prove that these creatures weren’t going to be effective weapons.”

  “So they were right. You are nothing more than a naive child. How old were you at your last scan? The one this copy was made from? Nineteen? Twenty?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Jia told him firmly. “What matters is that I’m not going to let you hurt my descendants.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said with a smile before turning to Love. “I’ll dispose of them quickly, I doubt they will feel any hurt.”

  “Get down!” Jia yelled as he pulled out a Rena pistol.

  Before Love could move, however, Hate jumped in front of her.

  “No!” Love yelled, though her voice was inaudible beneath the crackling of lightning.

  Love blinked as a wall of black lightning spilt from Hate’s hands, creating a shield between them and Hren.

  She couldn’t see beyond the shield, but she heard several high-pitched squeals of a Rena weapon firing, quickly followed by a spike in the crackling noise of the shield.