Starblazer- Through the Black Gate

by Reiter

  Taking only a moment of silence, Jocasta whispered, “How can you not fall in love with that?”

  “Believe it or not, I tried,” he admitted.

  “Nope, you never stood a chance. You see, us love-sayers, we know these things.”

  “Love-sayer?” Dungias asked.

  “The ones who say ‘I love you’ first, Z,” Jocasta explained, patting his chest. “Keep up, man!”

  “My apologies, Captain.”

  “Don’t get sorry, get with it! Now, us love-sayers, we spend most of our time waiting for you love-admitters to buy a clue and get on the same page. She was patient just long enough. Gods, Z, she sounds almost unbelievable!”

  “That she did, and that she does,” Dungias replied and he smiled. The sight of it lifted Jocasta’s heart, and she touched his face. “Please remember that we are still alive, Jocasta. What you feel in your heart is proof of that. Look to what you felt and are feeling, and realize its power and place in your world. If I learned nothing else from my nyaka, it was that I was not meant to excel at every single moment of my life. Concerns over victory and defeat are for the foolish. Focus on the moment at hand and let nature take its trek. It will do so anyway.

  “And one last thing, Captain,” Dungias added. “But this is just from me. You may have to remind yourself of one thing in the coming days.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To be no less than the person you were when this passing of two ships happened. Because if you had been any less the person you are, this moment would not have occurred! Every event of significance changes us, and while we trek what we think is the best course, in times of great loss, we can fall short of our ambitions. To stumble is one thing, to lose ground or to lose your way is another.

  “That sounds pretty Z-ish,” Jocasta chuckled. “Nugar teach you that?”

  “No, Captain… you did!” Dungias moved out from under her. “And, in response to your teachings, I have vowed never to hold back ever again. Take a moment. I will remind you that the wash basin is available in the rear of the craft,” he said before leaving the shuttle.

  Jocasta found herself too flabbergasted to be emotional as she watched him walk off the ship. He even closed the door behind him to ensure her privacy. “Huh!” was all she could say as she sat looking at the closed door with her mouth open.

  Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.

  Bernice Johnson Reagon

  (X)

  Within the boundaries of the Rims, days come and days go; most without a need for notation as there are no events of enough significance from one city to the next, let alone from one planet to the next, one system to the next, one Rim to the next! But there is an awesome contradiction unfolding, and on this day Mr. Feliort opened the doors to his bakery in the dead of night, anticipating the work that awaited him before the dawning of the artificial sun.

  At the very same time…

  Baxzym Effelrukk received his third summons. The white-bearded Delman was being called from his home in Sandthrunn in order to be foreman of the construction project to restore and renovate the Imperial Embassy in Oasis City. It was a job he was not interested in taking, but the scarred Temple Chevalier who brought the summons did not appear to be the sort who was willing to engage in a debate.

  In the very same instant…

  Shifu Forenzia Cortez put the keycard to her security system, locking the doors to her dojo. The class had gone a lot smoother; all of them had been since the unexpected departure of Stewart Campbell. She had made inquiries as to his whereabouts, and had been told he had transferred to another home. She posted correspondence to his telnet account and left the matter in his hands. She had a good long walk before her, and she smiled as the cool night air blew over her face.

  And still, within the same moment…

  Tolarra stood awestruck and confused, looking at the smoldering, twisted heap of carved stone, shaped steel and glass. She shook her head in disbelief, not knowing what to feel or think. She had spent hours streaking through star systems, teleporting in between them, eventually reaching the coordinates Freund had given her, only to find empty space. Nothing seemed to be out of sorts, and her senses told her she had come to an empty location. Still she pressed her light to shine so she could bear out something. After days of searching, she had found nothing!

  “And my Plan B isn’t looking so hot either,” she thought, gazing at the remains of the Temple of Light. Something had hammered it into rubble and dust; she could feel none of the power that had made this place, and the order it had housed, so very special to her.

  “I know there weren’t many Light Priests,” she reviewed. “… but I thought there were enough to hold the Temple; and it was KaA that did this! Not of the same alignment of the Light Priests, but it’s definitely linked to a deity.”

  “Your level of sentience is inspiring!” a voice noted as a figure materialized in front of Tolarra. The Star Lark was immediately drawn to the glowing teal eyes of the man. She had not learned much about vitaception, save that it was something of which one should be fearful. “Inspiring and yet unfortunate.”

  “I had a feeling you were going to say something like that,” Tolarra hissed as she readied herself.

  “You prepare to do battle against me?!” the Mensori man asked, not knowing if he should laugh at the humor or be insulted by the incompetence. “What do you hope to achieve?”

  “You’ve got a point,” Tolarra said, closing her eyes. She locked her mind on the moment when her light had been used to distract the entity of the board. D’Vatri was her name and in the instant that Tolarra was pulled away from her, their minds had touched. Tolarra had taken much of her flight time to look back through those thoughts and the more she saw, the more she feared the Mensori. She had, however, been led to discover a means to fight the vitaceptive. It was probably an accolade that needed to be conferred on Freund, but that was not important at the moment. She focused her thoughts on her center and touched upon her love for Freund. She found it as the crystalline sword found and slashed her heart. It had not even fully materialized when the point pierced her flesh. She could not scream, and the illusory image of her body faded from sight. Her ability to bend light around her body was suspended and she could be seen once more by the untrained eye. Neither ploy had worked against the creature, and she was now dying.

  “Wrong,” the man said softly. “Your love was a fuel, not the technique that had proven so effective against D’Vatri. Still, I can see where you might have been led to that particular assumption. These are the mistakes–”

  “To hell with you!” Tolarra thought, reaching for her most powerful expression of light. Fifty Star Larks flew from the center of the explosion of light and the Mensori looked impressed.

  “A most peculiar response to my death-stroke,” the man noted. “… you have indeed been learning from Rendell. But you forget the universal balance. You created light, leaving room for shadow. Behold!” Fifty shadow spears lashed out and ran through each of the birds, destroying all fifty of them. The Mensori man smirked at his efficiency when his crystalline sword exploded and shards ripped through his flesh, thrashing especially his face, neck, and chest. His contact with the cosmos was broken, and Tolarra, already converted to living light, took to the pommel of the weapon, using it to find the means to enter the creature’s body. She triggered a massive explosion, ripping his right arm from his torso. The man cried out in pain as light shot into his mouth. One final explosion saw the man’s head fly apart from atop his own shoulders.

  “I’ve been doing more than learning from Rendell,” Tolarra snapped as her light turned back to flesh. “Using a crystal-based construct on light?! Yeah, you’re the best in your class!

  “But your pompous ass did just gave me one hell of an idea! I’d thank you, but you simply don’t know how many shits I don’t give about you right now.” Taking only a moment to focus on her collecte
d thoughts, Tolarra changed to her Star Lark form and took once more to the stars. She had been told to find out all she could, and she intended to do that.

  ** b *** t *** o *** r **

  Freund stood at the door to the chamber with his arms folded, hearing and feeling the actions and reactions of his latest wards as they were put through their paces. They were eager, the lot of them! Eager and driven. They had the energy of youth and the vision of time-weathered eyes given to them by their foster mother. Their mutual love was apparent and Freund smiled at the sensation of it all. It had been a very short time, but they were progressing nicely all the same.

  “You look very pleased with yourself,” Aleesha said as she approached, using the towel to dry herself after a very necessary shower.

  “I try to soak in moments like these for as long as I am allowed,” he returned. “… it will pass soon enough, I’m sure. We cannot be allowed too much in the way of happiness; it might lead to some level of confirmation that what we’re doing is somehow right or needed.”

  “So why is it that I get the feeling you create your own misery?” Aleesha questioned.

  “Because you are an intuitive woman. Both of you are!”

  “Both of us?” Aleesha asked.

  “He was talking to me as well, Aleesha,” Shuronne said as she allowed herself to be seen. “You’ve got to tell me how you knew I was there.”

  “I knew because you did,” Freund replied, pleased to see his two leaders invested in tasking both his reasoning and his ability. “And no, I am not going to explain what I mean. That is for you to fathom.

  “I am glad the two of you are here,” Freund continued. “Kaila will be along shortly, but it may not be in time.”

  “In time for what?” Shuronne asked.

  “With any good fortune, Tolarra will return soon. Until she returns, Shuronne, you are in charge. I would like to think you know that means much, much more than the giving of orders.”

  “I do,” Shuronne replied. It was clear she did not like the subject of the conversation, but she was not about to argue what she had been told. She had witnessed enough of Freund to take him at his words and trust his instincts the same as, if not more than, her own. “I take it the castle will brief me when the time comes?”

  “It will,” Freund said, mentally placing the order to the castle, and it giggled at how smoothly Freund had corrected his oversight. “And thank you, Shuronne.”

  “Thank me when all of this is over and done with,” she insisted.

  “Uh oh, this can’t be good,” Kaila said as she entered the chamber.

  “Looks like we’ve got female intuition to spare,” Aleesha said. “Now if only we could get a–”

  a loud, booming horn echoed through the castle, shaking every chamber and cracking much of the stone bricks that made up the construct. The students and their teachers fell to the ground, writhing in pain, and even the two Chevalierra were forced to join them. No offensive or painful sound reached Freund’s ears. The summons was meant for him and no one else.

  “If nothing else, Greesdev has improved,” Freund thought. The Adjudicator called to Freund, and the blind entity could feel the aperture forming in the wall behind him. He was slowly losing his perception of the observation deck and everyone on it. Apparently it was more than a mere summons that had found him. Freund directed two thoughts to Tolarra. The first was filled with emotions and a sense of gratitude. She had been more than a comfort to him; she had reminded him what it was to love and be loved in a way that only two can demonstrate. The second was where she could go in his castle to find his journal. There she would find what he had planned for his new entities. With a gentle smile, he summoned his staff and walked through the portal. The time for the Game had come! The door closed quickly behind him and the castle was returned to the state in which Greesdev’s summons had found it. The ThoughtWill messages left from inside the castle, seeking out the mind for which they had been generated.

  Shuronne winced in pain as she slowly got up from the floor. “I’m tempted to say that the man calls them as he sees them, but then I’m reminded that he is blind.”

  “Just his eyes,” Aleesha said.

  “Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Kaila asked.

  “Sure,” Shuronne returned. “Get the team ready for a field deployment. We’ve got personnel to collect.”

  “More people?” Aleesha asked, slowly getting up from the floor. It was going to take some time before her headache would pass. “And shouldn’t you review Freund’s plans before making that call?”

  “We’re going to war against the anti-life, people,” Shuronne returned as she started to glow slightly. “Just how small of an army do you want?”

  “Good point,” the older woman agreed.

  “Thank you, Aleesha,” Shuronne said softly. “And I don’t need Freund’s updates to know where we should be making our first recruiting attempt.”

  ** b *** t *** o *** r **

  Ethadior sat in the high chair of his old wooden desk and tucked his thinning gray hair behind his ears. The wood in the fireplace had been replaced by a long-standing incantation, and the fire continued to burn warm and bright. It had grown late in the evening, and the sounds of the campus had fallen to a relative murmur; the occasional student or two passing by in the midst of a conversation. The potpourri on the windowsill had been replaced just a day ago, so the aroma from it was still strong but soothing. However, there was no easing the tortured soul today… not with what he had just seen! He closed the lid of the chest and removed his glasses before rubbing the bridge of his nose. He was tired, but there was so much more work to do.

  “Is it that bad?” Shanvah asked, and Ethadior spun around in his chair, his normally brown eyes already aglow with MannA. He lifted his hand, readying his take on the MannA Bolt Spell, but his wrist was caught. He looked over to see that the woman who had spoken to him had not barged into his office alone. A young, lean black man held Ethadior’s wrist with a strength that did not suit his frame. There was a softness to his deep, brown eyes, though, and he quickly released the Enacranite once it was clear that he was not going to cast. “I think we’ve demonstrated that we’re not here to do you any harm, Teacher.”

  “I am not your teacher!” Ethadior quickly stated.

  “Our benefactor would greatly disagree,” Shanvah returned. “And I think you might have just taken a peek into why it is that the man himself has not come to speak with you.”

  “How do you know what I’ve seen?” Ethadior asked, trying to buy time so that he could figure out what to do.

  “He’s stalling,” Reginald reported as he looked at the man. “Working a backdoor to the moment, from the looks of it.”

  “That will be enough, Reggie,” Shanvah said, and the young man took an immediate step back. The Chevalierra knew there was a swagger to her stride, but it was about as contained as it was going to get. She had been in the field many times, both as a lead and support. She was the former now, but doubted seriously she had ever given Shuronne the feeling of control and power that Survaysi’s children provided in abundance. She knew Reggie did not agree with her directive, but that did not matter; the directive had been given. If the two of them were still alive after this, there would remain the chance for a discussion. Until that moment, she was in charge and his job was to see to the mission first, her orders second. “Enacranite Ethadior, we don’t have time to play games! I’m certainly not going to hold your hand and talk away all of the fears your mind is generating about me and my colleague… so I’ll just come to it.

  “You’ve been a busy little boy,” she stated as she turned to walk around the room. Ethadior had an opportunity… to die! The moment he looked at the woman walking, the young man began to shake his head ‘no’. Ethadior’s eyes dropped to his right pinky-ring. Its lack of reaction told him there was no discernible, exercised ThoughtWill in the area. The young man was indeed in the Enacranite’s mind, but he was not us
ing telepathy in order to achieve that position. That told the InvokeR that despite the young man’s appearance, the accolade that might best address his status of training would be ‘supreme’. “Not too long ago, a quaint little sandy planet in the Gulmar System played center stage to a circumstance of events you had a hand in initiating. The body of Enacranites must be a buzz right now. Or at least, they soon will be.”

  “The holding chamber of Qualzuroth,” Ethadior admitted. “I have had it moved.”

  “The holding chamber!” Shanvah repeated. “Why did you do that?”

  “You must be joking!” Ethadior snapped. “Do you know what was stored in that room?! All the knowledge… the power! And they don’t even know it’s gone, do they? Placing some trickster’s gadget in the room to guard it! I grafted a Living Key to the room, without their knowledge and using a practitioner judged insufficient by my fellow colleagues, I sent it off to the bloody Gulmar System! Gulmar! By now, that room is in the hands of a former applicant, one that was also denied Enacranite status because of the condition of their blood! We will see what they think of their ability now!”

  “How is it I always get stuck with these jobs?” Shanvah thought. “Dealing with another freakin’ know-it-all, only this one has a revolutionary axe to grind, a statement to make! And he’s so busy making it that he failed to keep his eye on the ball!