On a forgotten blue jewel lies the eye of the storm.
A gateway to the infinite, a passage to that which is lost but is doomed to be found by the hapless.
Propylon Chamber - HMS Excalibur - Geo-synchronous Orbit Karin City
OCCUPATION: DAY FIFTY-ONE
Darien had pulled a dragoon coat on over the top of a plain black fleece jacket. Selecting a pair of squared, mirrored-blue skiing sunglasses and clipping Pacheyus-Ra's shard weapon to his belt, he entered the Propylon chamber.
"I will be a few hours," he said absently as he reached out to scoop his 49er's hat off of Edward's head and adjusting it back to his size.
Edward leaned on the console looking about him and cocking a slightly worried look at Darien. "The Fida'i are going to have a shit-fit when they realize you just took off."
"Yep," Darien agreed, walking to the centre of the Propylon ring and gesturing to his boyfriend, "but someone has to meet with Riley. I'll be back in a few hours."
"These aren't Riley's co-ordinates," Edward pointed out as he tapped them into the computer.
"I know," Darien answered, smiling as Doctor Kyr stumbled out of the elevator, hurriedly stuffing articles into a canvas backpack and trying to pull it onto his back.
"But the Fida'i don't need to know that," Darien answered, patting his weapon, "and I have a kill'a'ma'jig. We all know that means no trouble."
"You off the ship is always trouble," Kyr observed, coming to stand beside Taine and looking back at Edward. "Don't worry, I'll take care of him." He slung his pack up to his shoulder, wincing as the stuff he had just piled into it came tumbling out to the deck.
Darien shook his head and bent down to repack the gear, securing the pack and adjusting it on the doctor's back. Nodding again to Edward, "Go."
They vanished in a sweep of light, reappearing on a grassy plateau thousands of light years away, the wind sweeping noisily through the grass. The pale double suns overhead warmed the ground, but there was a hint of cold in the air, and Darien was thankful for the warm Dragoon jacket.
"It's very blue," Kyr observed, looking around him in the dim twighlight-like world. There was a decided absence of bright colours; even the few flowers that poked up from the grass were a greyish colour. "Where are we exactly?"
"Expedition camp two," Darien answered, walking through the grass as he fished out his TAC-link. "Taine to Expedition two?"
There was a pause on the line, followed by a brisk Karin accent, "Hansen to Taine, nice to have you here, Your Lordship. I have a dropship inbound to you now."
Kyr shrugged on his backpack, examining his shoes as he walked behind Darien through the long undergrowth. "Where are we?"
Darien angled his head back a little. "We're corewards, thus the rather bright light, and this is actually night time here. A planet called Aivilik close to Muwani territory..."
"Eelim space," Kyr breathed, suddenly drawing his coat close about him and looking up at the sky. "Isn't this a rather dangerous place to be hanging about?"
"It is," Darien answered, "except for the fact that we're on a pretty remote world, and since it's the only known archaeological site listed in the Peligian Journal, we have no real choice but to examine it."
"Still on the quest for Peligia?" Kyr asked earnestly, his short legs scurrying to keep up with Darien's long strides. "I thought with Rikard dead that was all over."
"Rikard isn't dead," Darien answered, pausing and running his hand through the scrub, "and he is a very patient man. He'll find a way to overcome his current predicament if he hasn't already."
Kyr ran a hand through his shaggy hair and looked perplexed, "What is it about Peligia, Darien? Why are you so worried about a legend?"
Darien looked thoughtful. "A feeling I have, I guess, one that says all these things to do with Peligia aren't a coincidence, that it wants to be found. All I know is that if it was important enough for VonGrippen to hide, then it is important enough for me to get there before Rikard does, figure out what it is and stop him from completing whatever was valuable enough to sacrifice humanity for the past three hundred years.
"You want it because he wants it." Kyr shifted uncomfortably. "We're risking a lot on your intuition here."
Darien shrugged, continuing his walk across the grassy plains. "You asked why."
Kyr blew out a long breath and shook his head as he followed the Imperial Warlord, hefting his pack and keeping an eye trained on the skies just in case the Eelim swarm decided to pick an inopportune time to show up.
They weren't walking long, the dot on the horizon resolved into an Imperial dropship, clipping just above the ground and moving quickly. Its side doors were open and the pintle mounted auto-masers were slung out, Imperial troops wearing Dragoon coats manning them. Kyr suddenly felt a wave of relief as he spied them, and waited as the Dropship positioned itself for a landing. He smiled as he recognized Captain Hansen bounding down to the grass, his Pulse Rifle in his hands and his distinctive batter baseball cap on his head.
"Yo!" he called, jerking a thumb behind him, "Your chariot awaits, Your Lordship."
Darien smiled lightly, shrugging off his coat and tossing it into the back of the dropship as he unzipped his black fleece halfway open. "Captain, sit-rep?"
"Well," Hansen mused resting his hands on the stock of his rifle as he looked perplexed, "there hasn't been much progress here, but then I'm not an archaeologist. I'll leave that stuff for Doctor Murphy and Doctor Casey to talk to you about. Militarily, this place is about as exciting as maple sap drying, and that's saying something, milord."
Darien helped Kyr off with his pack, securing it in the main body of the dropship before he reached down to haul the small doctor up and inside the body of the craft. "I'll take anything on Peligia at this point," Darien replied, moving forward. "Mind if I fly?"
"Itchy wings, sir?" Hansen inquired with a smile, strapping himself into one of the crash seats and gesturing for Kyr to do the same.
"I haven't had much chance to of late," Darien admitted, resting a hand fondly on a bulkhead. "I still find it very Zen... Matt's words, not mine."
"Ahh," Hansen nodded in understanding. "Be my guest, beats being a chauffeur any day."
Darien grinned back at the Dragoon Captain; it was easy to forget that Hansen was the eldest son of one of the richest families in the Empire, growing up on commonwealth shipping money. He didn't fight for the empire because he had to, he fought because he truly believed in it and what the Excalibur represented. A good man, he was an excellent fit as Colonel Mayfair's Executive Officer aboard the ship heading up the Dragoon program. Tough as nails, the SAS badges he wore on his uniform were a testament to the fact that he was no pampered rich kid playing at war.
Relieving the pilot, who quickly switched to the second chair, Darien slid into the pilot's seat, his mirrored sunglasses sweeping over the controls, re-familiarizing himself with them. He was glad of the time he'd spent aboard the Dragonfly; the controls were similar, as the two vessels used the same style tilt booster system to manoeuvre.
He pulled on a TAC-link headset, adjusting the mouthpiece so that it was at the right height. The system searched for and connected to the small display built into the sunglasses, displaying a functioning HUD over his field of vision that included the tactical systems and the Radar.
The Imperial Dropship was capable of both aerial assault operations and heavy lift utility. In its assault role, it could move a squad of 11 combat troops with equipment, or reposition an ITE Mech with full ammunition payload, as well as a four man crew, in a single drop. Its advanced avionics and electronics increased its survivability over comparable craft used by the other galactic superpowers with the exception of perhaps the Amsus Raptor-class frigate, which was a class unto itself.
The particular variant he was flying was a standard UDS-902K designed for range and endurance, with a pair of bulbous external stores mounted like outriggers on the main body of the dropship. It was perfectly suited for operations on remote worlds, as well as being modular enough to actually go through the gating process of the Propylon chamber aboard the Excalibur without major reconfiguration.
He fired the twin ion boosters, powering the dropship into a vertical climb, keeping an eye on his altimeter as he guided the dropship, designated Super-Six-One, up to speed. Cruising lightly, he reached out and retracted the small window beside him, listening to the steady thrum of the dropship's power plant undulating over the steady roar of the ion drives.
"You've flown one of these before, milord," his co-pilot, Wheeler from the name tape on his combat fatigues, observed with a smile.
"I used to fly something similar back before the war," Darien answered. "It was bigger than this, but feels the same."
He nudged the sticks over, turning Super-Six-One on to a heading for the camp, his eyes sweeping out of the Plexiglas window. He spotted the small yurt village and looked down towards the gathering of expedition tents set up just to the side of the village, around a collection of crumbling crystalline ruins. He powered back on the throttle, bringing the dropship to a safe distance from the tents. He noted the Dragoon squad that was waiting for him to arrive.
They touched down without much ceremony, the dropship bouncing on its wheels and rolling forward a little. Captain Hansen was already out of his seat and down on the ground, ducking to avoid the tilt boosters that were folding back into their cowlings as the dropship powered down.
Darien disconnected from the dropship's computer, resting a hand on the shard weapon attached to his belt, reassuring himself to its presence. He looked back towards Doctor Kyr. "Sorry for dragging you out here like this."
Kyr, who was standing on his seat so that he could reach his backpack stowed in the overhead webbing, looked over at Darien. "Well I'd have liked to know more about why I was dragged literally halfway across the galaxy, but then sometimes with you I wonder if I really want to know."
"You are always so caustic when you're off the ship," Darien observed with a smile, helping the doctor recover his bags. "The local population haven't had the benefit of a doctor since the last Tradeliner passed this way around six months ago. They've been very helpful to the advanced expedition..."
"So you're returning the favour." Kyr nodded, fishing through the backpack and pulling out things he'd need. "If they show me the way, I'll get started. What physiology are they?"
Darien looked down out of the dropship at Hansen, who shrugged. "Short?" he offered lamely.
Kyr blinked.
"They're descendants of Muwani traders who were stranded on this world some two thousand years ago," A quiet voice said, before a compact man with hair blowing in the wind and large round glasses walked into view.
He was wearing the standard Dragoon jacket, over the top of civilian clothing; comfortable yet practical. The Peligian Expedition logo was on his shoulder, a winged sword, the mark of a tenuous truce between the Imperials and the Polians, with the twin EX embroidered upon it. He looked uncomfortable in the wind, almost like he'd start shivering at any moment which, given his Karin accent, seemed almost implausible.
Darien nodded. "Doctor Ted Murphy, archaeology, Doctor Cornelius Kyr, medical."
"Doctor Casey is over in the burial mound," Murphy said, gesturing with a pen as he tucked a battered metal clipboard under his arm. "She's attempting to translate some text we found there."
"Doctor Chiang Casey," Darien clarified for Kyr as he dropped down to the ground, "our linguistics expert."
"Sounds like a full house," Kyr remarked, joining them as a Dragoon relieved him of his pack and began strapping it with bungee cords to the back of a four wheeled ATV that was purring quietly off to the side of the landing field.
"There's only the pair of us," Murphy answered, chewing his lip and looking at Darien. "Things still bad back home?"
Darien nodded simply. "You'll be happy to know your House isn't giving up without a fight, but Karin city is still occupied and we're not gaining much ground."
It was the first time Kyr had heard Darien give a frank assessment of the situation on the annexed Imperial capital, and the doctor wondered at the resignation in Darien's voice.
Murphy nodded, looking over at Kyr. "The people call themselves the Tuniit, the village is Yupik."
"Tonne-it, Yoo-pick," Kyr sounded out the unfamiliar words. "Right, shouldn't be too difficult."
Murphy nodded "Language... well, speak slowly in Orion and you should be okay. The qamutiit," he pointed to the ATV, "will get you to the edge of the village, but the Tuniit don't like them driving in the village limit - too much noise, and they are sensitive to it."
"Yes," Kyr nodded, "Kind of like my species and scents. You humans really should bathe more."
"Right." Murphy flushed a brighter shade of red. "Sorry, not much thought about it out here."
"I'm quite used to it," Kyr answered with a light smile. "I'll head in and get started. Message me when you need me back."
Darien nodded, and he followed Captain Hansen and Doctor Murphy towards the expedition tents to the east of the village. He listened to Murphy's chatter about the discoveries the small team had made in the short time they'd been on Aivilik. Apparently it had been a remote outpost of Peligian territory, encroaching on Polian space. The equivalent of a listening post that had monitored the growth of the 'younger race' that the Polians had been at the time.
"It is interesting to see what is, basically, early Polian development as well," Murphy was saying. "Peligian means 'watcher' in their tongue. They were a race of similar dimensions to human beings, and there are some striking parallels of their history to our own. Doctor Casey has translated texts that seem to imply that the Polians were a created race of theirs, much the same as the Amsus were created by the old Empire."
Darien inclined his head as they entered the camp, glad to see that Hansen wasn't taking any chances. His hyperspace relay was prepped and loaded, additional relays were stored safely in a blast bunker that had been constructed a safe distance from the original emitter. Each of his men wore their jackets complete with their recallers that, should an emergency happen, would whisk them from the world in seconds.
With a nod, Hansen separated to the command tent, while Darien motioned for Murphy to lead the way towards the burial mound. He spared a moment to look at the weather-beaten crystal spire that ended in a shattered crescent sticking out from the ground - A territorial marker signalling an ancient boundary of a long-dead people.
"It's fantastic, isn't it?" Murphy asked, pausing to look over the spire. "We haven't been able to decipher the script as yet; we can't seem to identify what the Peligians used for a power source. However, if we run a low level current from a portable generator we can almost make out the lower third of the spire."
"It's a clock," Darien said simply, recognizing the markings on the shattered circle at the top. "It was significant to the Peligians."
Murphy opened his mouth to challenge Darien's hypothesis, but something in the Warlord's manner said it wasn't a guess. Motioning towards an open excavation ladder, he waited while Darien descended into a narrow gorge where there had been a number of bridging boards and safety harnesses set up.
Darien hopped over a small, bubbling stream that ran and splashed its way over rocks at the far end, glancing back up towards the sky before walking down through a carved entranceway into the depths of the earth.
It smelled earthy, new supports had been knocked into place to hold back the earth and shore up the ancient ceiling that sagged threateningly above them. Murphy clicked on a flashlight, following through the narrow opening into a wider area with a circular dais lit by fluorescent glow sticks casting a dim yellow light over everything.
Murphy climbed the dais, leading the way across the polished black crystal. Darien remembered another walk into a similar tomb years before, thousands of light years away. "This is familiar," he noted dryly as his hand instinctively touched his shard weapon, following the doctor down a second set of steps and into the burial mound.
The sub-chamber was brightly lit, heavy stone colonnades supporting a dark crystal ceiling that shone like the night sky above them. Darien moved out across the white limestone to the edge of the upper tier and looked down the length of the circular chamber at the familiar pattern of five stones several stories beneath him.
"Propylons," the Warlord observed with a keen interest.
"They aren't functioning," Murphy said with a shrug, "no power. If they were, they'd have brought you here when you gated to this world."
Darien raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"They apparently draw gates into their focal points, a power saving feature from what we've been able to figure out from the manual." Murphy smiled proudly.
"A technical manual for Propylons?" Darien mused in wonder. "Now I know a good Engineer who'd give his right arm for that."
"We're still translating it." A lightly accented feminine voice echoed around the chamber, and Darien looked back and down to where a woman was standing in the centre of the rings, "but we're learning some interesting things from it. I've compiled a detailed scan of the crystal tablets... I'll come up."
Darien waved his hand as he called back, "We'll come down to you, Doctor."
The pair walking around the spiral gallery and descended the massive ramp to the open floor below. The two scientists had set up a number of tables with computers and scientific equipment to study the large sheets of Peligian crystal that lined the walls around the antechamber to the Propylons. A micro-fusion reactor sat off to one side, flaring as it powered the crystal system allowing Doctor Casey to see the rotating glyphs that danced upon the mirrored black surface.
Darien allowed his eyes to wander over the sheets of text, smiling his thanks that the Peligians had enough forethought to build a computer system that wouldn't decay or corrode after millennia of abandonment. He turned as Doctor Casey entered the antechamber, her sleeves rolled up and a determined look on her face.
"Do I get my field assistants?" she asked pointedly. "Teaching Dragoon's the finer points of paleo-linguistics is a bit like teaching a monkey how to use an arc welder."
Murphy shook his head. "There's still trouble back home, we're on our own."
Casey looked pained. "Not that I don't appreciate the opportunities this site has to offer, but I could spend decades trying to decipher this by myself. Couldn't you pop off to the universities and kidnap me a few grad students?" The middle-aged Asian woman looked hopeful.
Darien smiled, he always enjoyed Casey's sense of humour. She had an intelligent wit about her that was well-sharpened, but lost on Hansen and his men.
"I'm working on it," he replied. "As soon as I can build you a team; I'll have them brought out to you. For the moment, have you found anything that indicates the location of Peligia?"
Casey shook her head, as if she'd expected that question. "I've found mainly technical instructions," she pointed to the tablets, "and of course Murphy's found a few historical texts in the lower chambers. However, we're out of our depth here. We're going to need more resources to pull specifics out of all of this."
Darien nodded, his hand resting on the Peligian Diary that sat on one of the metal tables, running his fingers over the torn edges where Galadriel had pulled the cover off to find the octagonal cipher. He missed her again in that moment. She would have revelled in the find, a chance to follow a lead from an obscure passage in the diary that had led them to a second set of Propylons, a chance to stand in something truly Peligian.
He buried his emotions deeply within him, looking thoughtful. "Can you extract the last set of co-ordinates from the Propylons?" he asked, looking hopeful. "When the Peligians abandoned this outpost they had to head somewhere, and with luck maybe it will lead us to another find."
"We're going to need more power," Murphy mused, "and an engineering team..."
"And grad students," Casey chimed in.
"I'll see what I can do," Darien reassured. "Commander Durnham has a portable system, I'll ask him to split his time between the Excalibur and here. FTL-communicators should be able to up and download his program. He isn't much, but probably better than a graduate student."
Tuniit Settlement - Aivilik - Eelim Territory
OCCUPATION: Day FIFTY-ONE
The yurts were arrayed in rings around a large open area laden with woven straw mats and cooking pots. The rich smells of food tickled the doctor's nostrils as he emerged from the tent, tucking his stethoscope back into his blue satchel and sighing tiredly.
It had been a busy day, inoculating aliens against the commonest of human exports, the flu. Of course there had been the broken arm that he'd set, and the tribe leader who was suffering from gall stones. But that was typical of a house call to a planet with no doctor of its own.
He smiled at a couple of the females. The natives of Aivilik were short, tortoise-like creatures, just without the shells. They had broad faces with deep black eyes and bright colouration to their throats on the males. For mating purposes, Kyr presumed.
They offered him a bowl of stew, and Kyr grinned, accepting it, sitting on the mats and falling into the stew ravenously. He glanced at the children clustering at the edge of the mats, watching him with curious eyes.
As strange as they were to him, he was just as strange to them. He waved his spoon a little at them.
"Hello," they chorused together in English.
Kyr blinked. "Hello," he replied.
"Hello," the chorused again.
"They do that because they think you like it," Captain Hansen said, standing back by the first ring of Yurts, resting his hands on the stock of his assault rifle and staring through his sunglasses at the children.
Kyr looked at the Dragoon Captain scratching his jaw. "I didn't realize. They're nice though."
"A great culture," Hansen responded, waving his hand to refuse a bowl of stew one of the women was trying to offer him. "Murphy nearly creamed himself the first couple of days. If he had his way we would've spent the first week studying them and not the ruins."
"That is what this is all about though," Kyr said. "With the war, and the Empire, we forget that humanity started out as explorers and colonizers in space."
"We'll get there again." Hansen smiled tightly, looking up into the sky. "Still lots of space out there, and with Propylon technology, everything's just gotten a lot closer together."
Kyr nodded, sipping some more of the stew into his mouth. "How's Darien doing?"
"His lordship is up in the dropship again, stretching his wings." Hansen chuckled. "Seems the man was looking for an excuse to get away."
"Things are pretty bad on Karin," Kyr replied. "Darien's taking things hard, blaming himself for everything, as usual. I just... I don't know what he can do about it."
"He's the skipper," Hansen answered. "He's going to work it out, until then we need to do our part and make things easier for him. We've already given him a way to reprogram the Propylon computer to make it more efficient, and if Doc Casey can crack the language, we could stand to learn a lot more about them."
"Yeah," Kyr muttered into his stew, wondering if Darien had that much time left.
Barrow - Aivilik - Eelim Territory
OCCUPATION: Day FIFTY-ONE
"It says 'Beware the spire of black glass'," Doctor Casey said as she looked at Darien brushing his fingers over the crystal wall, scanning the runes there.
"The spire of glass," Darien repeated.
"It's a vague transliteration," Casey admitted, picking up one of her books and checking her notes. "We have no basis for Peligian idioms or grammar. It could mean absolutely anything, much like aliens trying to understand the cat being out of the bag."
"It's still important to note that there are two distinct styles of writing here," Murphy pointed out, over eager as always. "We have the quasi religious warnings about Peligia and the Peligians being on a path of blood, then of course we have the more technical writings detailing, we think, the proper operation of the Propylons."
"Right," Darien acknowledged, pulling the Peligian Journal out of the pocket of his cargo trousers. He flipped through the pages, examining the layout of the room and comparing it to the diagrams the author had sketched years before.
"As near as we can tell, this is the Propylon chamber the Doctor found," Murphy offered.
"And lo," Darien read, looking up at the wall of text he had just been reading, "amidst a starless sky, the shattered tower awaits the return of the darkness. A warning that the oracle comes, and that Peligia's road of blood has only begun to claim its toll..."
"That is a common theme to the Peligian myths," Murphy agreed, folding his arms thoughtfully as he leaned against a pillar. "Always about the sky and clouds. Even the symbol for Peligia seems to be braced by wings."
"What of the Kule?" Doctor Casey offered. "They scavenged many of the archaeological sites in the Journal long ago, then they just vanished. Is there a connection you think? That the way to Peligia is trapped?"
"It is pure guesswork at the moment," Doctor Murphy replied, looking at the warning, "but if the Peligians thought it wise to leave a warning, then chances are there's something there. But then this could all be a metaphor for the disasters that befell their people for reaching too far."
"Any mention of a clock?" Darien asked absently.
"Not specifically," Casey said shaking her head, "a lot of temporal references, but nothing about a timepiece specifically. Why?"
"Another clue," Darien answered, pocketing the journal again and marching off, climbing towards the surface.
Monastery - Keppe - Orion Territory
OCCUPATION: Day FIFTY-ONE
Rikard fussed, pulling on a tee-shirt over his lean and muscular form, adjusting his physique so that it fit better. He'd dressed to kill without being aware of it. A pair of blue jeans that were a little worn and faded with a green tee-shirt with Japanese writing all over a tattered version of the old Japanese flag. He thought it fitting given that the House of Denver had arisen out of the land of the rising sun. His sculpted body fit it in all the right places, straining it slightly in just the right way.
The contrast from his normal state was exactly what Rikard was hoping for, but even so it didn't stop him from picking at the loose edges of his jeans. He hated feeling anything other than immaculate, and he almost itched to be back in the clean lines of a suit. But Galadriel had asked him to relax, and so he endeavoured to try.
It had been years since he'd been out with the express purpose of relaxing, but with their puzzle no closer to a solution he figured Galadriel had a point about getting out of the monotony of their routine.
He bounced on his feet, leaving his hair neatly combed as he popped his glasses back on, trying to imagine what it must have been like for normal human beings as teenagers getting ready for dates, or to go clubbing. He'd never been a 'normal' anything, and in his teens he'd been attending universities learning about genetics and gaining his first doctorate.
He didn't hear her come in, and as he looked up he started. "I thought we were going for low profile," he said, eyeing the revealing dress she had chosen.
It was sheer, the silver link belt hooked together into a loincloth that went all the way to her ankles. It was matched by a series of three black straps of white leather that banded her torso, buckled at the back in ornate silver clasps. Her hair was pulled up and away from her slender neck where a cluster of fire diamonds hung about her olive skin like stars.
"It's the fashion here," she answered, reaching out her hands to un-tuck Rikard's tee-shirt, pulling it so that it was a little uneven on one side and reaching up to mess up his perfectly parted hair. "You should wear a cap." She nodded to his head. "People won't recognize you that way."
"Lovely," Rikard replied sarcastically, "then I can be Darien Taine's elder brother. Saving the universe as slothfully dressed as possible."
"It's a cap," Galadriel stated, removing Rikard's glasses and folding them up, making sure she was as close to him as possible, aware that his eyes were travelling down to where the straps covered her breasts. "Please?"
Rikard sighed, willing one into existence, knowing it was far too much over kill just for a fashion accessory, but he'd be damned if he was going to wear the Templar cap Galadriel had bought when she'd first arrived on Keppe. He banged out the cap, which bore a blue star logo on a plain white background. "Cowboys," he explained with a grin. "I am sure Taine would understand."
"You know," Galadriel asked, "for all your 'I'm evolved' rhetoric, Darien really annoys you, doesn't he?"
"He reminds me of VonGrippen," Rikard answered as he followed Galadriel outside, waiting to let her go first, following behind appreciating her exposed thighs as she went down the stairs, "and VonGrippen used to annoy the hell out of me. That same unassuming demeanour of helping people... it's just so forced."
"It's more than that," Galadriel asserted.
"Okay you are beginning to annoy me with the 'I know you' routine," Rikard said calmly as they walked out into the well-lit courtyard, already feeling the music of the celebration that, ironically, was occurring in the main Cathedral. The glowing sign over the night stairs into the back of the cathedral caused Rikard to balk a little.
"What?" Galadriel inquired, looking at the glowing Orion script. She balked as well. "Rave?"
"I am not going in there!" Rikard stated in flat refusal. "I..." he shuddered, "the people in these things have a habit of decomposing right before my eyes."
Galadriel frowned at him. "We're expected," she said calmly, "we have to go."
Rikard affixed a look of displeasure to his face as he followed her down the stairs. "The last time I was in a night club, it was an unpleasant experience for me..."
"You got shot down," Galadriel replied, nodding. "It happens, deal with it." She pushed him towards the Templar security guard who waved them through and inside the wooden doors.
The rhythmic pounding of dance music greeted them the moment they crossed the threshold, the volume of which only seemed to get louder the closer they got to the dance floor, which took up much of the nave. A wash of lights danced to the beat in a kaleidoscope of patterns, dizzying to the senses, clashing with the sounds of music and the dancing mass of bodies. Youths of human, Orion and the odd smattering of Kaynin danced, mingling together as they drank and gyrated against one another.
A woman in a particularly thin dress walked past them, glancing at Rikard in a curiously appraising fashion. And Rikard was sure she wiggled her rear end at him as she did so.
"I am so far from my element," Rikard stated, reaching out to catch Galadriel's arm.
She waggled a finger at her ear, indicating that she couldn't hear him above the cacophony of sound.
Colours flitted about in constantly shifting patterns that defied the senses as the beat intensified.
Galadriel turned as a rather sinuous blonde man danced past her, the base way he stared into her eyes left no doubt what he wanted, and Galadriel shrugged out of Rikard's grip, dancing her way into the crowd.
Rikard sighed heavily, finding the bar and ordering something noxious, surprised when they handed him an Earth beer called Angkor, he sniffed it a few times, sampled its cats-pee consistency and promptly ordered something better.
He stretched out his senses to try to slow time in the way that Prince Edward had, but his strengths had never extended in that direction. Each of the transcended, or semi-transcended, possessed their own particular gifts: Rikard's were definitely telekinetic in nature; Sephradon possessed the ability to travel at will and could meddle with the weather, and Edward seemed to have a mastery over time.
Turning, he watched Galadriel moving through the crowds, both males and females giving her attention as she made her way up the stairs, like a beautiful woman of the old Imperial court. She was a lady amidst so much trash. He straightened where he stood to look at her.
She rested the flat of her palm against his chest and took the beer from his hands, sampling it while staring him directly in the eyes.
Rikard, again, found himself mesmerized by the beauty before him, amazed at how regal she was, how poised despite all the chaotic noise around them. He forced the noise to subside around them, manipulating the air so that it was just the two of them, standing in close proximity and complete silence. He was standing so close to her that he could catch the faint scent of her beneath her perfume; she was radiant.
"I want to kiss you," he said, his iron cold control slipping.
"I know," she said coyly, looking up at him still holding the bottle in front of her. "Why don't you?"
She watched him hesitate, his hands reaching up to her bare shoulders, drawing her close to him as she lowered the bottle, coiling a hand around his neck as they kissed. She closed her eyes and moaned into the kiss, her leg sliding up and around the back of his jeans as he caressed her skin, their tongues meeting explosively.
Galadriel pulled away from him after a moment, taking a shuddering breath as she did so, "I don't think... I don't we should have done that."
Rikard tilted the brim of his cap back away from his eyes and looked at her. "There are a great many things that a good little Tempus girl like you shouldn't be doing with a man like me..."
"And you think I will?" she asked an edge of warning in her voice.
"The line between love and hate is very thin, as the cliché goes," he said evenly. "Plus, evil is, by its nature, a temptation. And I am an evil incarnate."
"You're not the man you pretend to be," Galadriel said again, feeling his arms about her pulling her close, "I can see it in you. You're alone. Totally, desperately alone."
"Ahh, and you would like nothing better than to redeem me?" Rikard smiled and shook his head. "You may indeed be the most beautiful and intelligent woman I have ever met, but I am not going to fall for your rather obvious manipulations..."
Her fingers ran up the sides of his face to where the grey decorated his temples. It didn't make him look old, if anything it only added to his handsome features. She could appreciate his trim body, sense his anticipation of sex, and his arousal at the prospect. She gave him the coolest of smiles and lifted his shirt, raking nails lightly over his back. "You're mine if I want you," she said firmly, confidently.
Rikard snorted, opening his mouth to counter her again and then closing it as he became aware of the crowd that was watching them in a semi-circle around the bar. Monks from the monastery, sisters, and their clients, all were giving them positive attention.
He glared at them a moment and Galadriel swept his hat from his head, tucking it onto her own. "I want to dance."
Rikard nodded, pulling his tee back down, and with a cocky grin at the jealous people around him, allowed her to pull him towards the dance floor.
Thornton District School - Outpost A-IX - Amsus Territory
OCCUPATION: DAY FIFTY-ONE
Duncan stretched his leg, massaging the knee as the phantom pain that caused him so much agony flared again. It was stupid, he could rationalize that there was no injury. But he could feel the echo of one. He had taken books from the library on the subject of phantom pains, but the closest he could find to what he was experiencing was when a person lost a limb but could still experience an itch.
It had to have something to do with what he was.
The constructs all knew what they were, there was little hiding it. The innate flaws that were built into them hadn't been undone, the desire for nightly companionship. A sickening addiction that drove them all half mad, segregated as they were in Thornton's dormitories, following the asinine school rule that no one was to be out of their rooms past curfew. Obviously whoever had written the school charter had failed to take into account twenty-five touch deprived addicts with intellects exceeding genius level.
There had been an amusing incident involving Aleš all but running through the walls of his bedroom at one point, sleepwalking. Professor Zahn had the misfortune of having to deal with that one, trying to restrain a boy who was all but frantic for human contact. There was typically chaos almost as soon as the lights went out.
Duncan sat in a window seat in a common room, looking out at the township below the school. He rested his head on the cold stones, trying to keep his own addiction under control, regulating his breathing as he tried to keep his mind busy. He was hunting the rogue battleship. He needed to find it, deal with it before it could do any more harm.
He wasn't naive, as much as his professors seemed to think that all the children were. Being taught the sanitized history of the Hegemony had only whetted his appetite. He'd wanted more and he'd found it in texts that lay on dormant computers, files talking about the Empire. He'd read both Archduke Francesco's The Fall of the Empire, and Bellevance's Myth Behind the Man. Trying to glean some kind of insight into the workings of the Empire and how to beat it.
There was no real question in his mind. the Empire committed heinous crimes: the Middle East, Ararat, and of course against the Polians recently. The actions of Lamont, Aquinas, VonGrippen, Kardiac and Taine read like an almanac of betrayal, deceit and genocide. They were butchers on a galactic scale with agendas that stretched forth in a nightmare that had stained three hundred years of history.
Though, through all the sanitized propaganda and the mind-numbing news feeds that had been sterilized for their benefit, Duncan and the others gleaned an appreciation that there was more going on than that which had been made public. And the general consensus amongst the children was that in order to fight the war, they needed access to the intelligence, uncensored and unpolluted.
Strega had deemed it her mission to protect the Earth, taking on Riley head to head, but without any true information on who Riley really was, she was fighting blind. Fighting a picture and a name wasn't an easy task, even for a young woman who excelled in tactics and strategy. But she was working on a plan, guarding it jealously even from him.
Jealousy was something that plagued the children, and Strega saw the fight as her dominion. Guarding it fiercely and taking any criticism of her plans as personal attacks. The disadvantage of only being teenagers was that they suffered the same hormonal imbalances as regular children. It didn't matter that Duncan could see the flaws in her strategies, nor that when it came to tactics he could hold his own with her. She was older, and thus she was in command. That left him with the rogue battleship.
Lex Talionis.
His data was limited: a single transmission on a general broadcast that showed Kardiac Aul'Jakaram acting upon the will of his god, the Immortal Emperor; the flight recorders of the ships that attempted to intercept the battleship, and the scattered sighting reports from Hegemony intelligence sources.
Last reports placed it somewhere near to Orion territory, and if it had sprinted there then it had to be going after Keppe.
Keppe had been important to Kardiac, and if the ship was controlled by, or identified itself with the psychopathic leader of the Templar, then naturally it would try to make for the monastery. There was no other logical reason for it to head to Orion Territory. Unless of course Denver was a factor in the equation...
Aleš swore that he had Denver well and truly under control. But what exactly that meant Duncan had no idea. Aleš seemed to have a knack with numbers - financial data and markets were as easy to him as a battlefield was to Strega. Each of the GN's seemed to have a talent that was truly theirs and they seemed to revel in it.
There were too many uncertainties for him to dispatch his four carriers. And he wondered if he should have asked for more, but Strega might have questioned his sole command had he sought more resources. And he needed her well away from his puzzle. She was far too territorial as it was, and Duncan needed to be unfettered as he hunted a prey far more dangerous than four command carriers and a collection of obsolete Amsus Predators.
He pushed off of the wall, grabbing his trousers from the floor and pulling them on, sliding a black tee-shirt over his too-lean form. He needed to think and he couldn't do it in the claustrophobic room. He pulled open the door and stumbled in surprise at the young woman standing on the far side of it.
She was wrapped up in a dressing gown, her auburn hair pulled away from a slender and delicate neck, green eyes shining luminously in the shadowy hall.
"Katherine," he sounded surprised and yet he wasn't, really.
She had her hands thrust deeply into the gowns pockets, as she looked at him directly, "I can't sleep," she said in a resolute voice.
"And that's my problem how?" Duncan answered, folding his arms, angry that she'd just assumed that he'd be willing to oblige her demand.
"Don't be a bastard." she pushed him aside and entered his room walking to the heavy oak bed and sitting down on the edge of it. "I know you need it too."
Haughtily he turned. "Why, because someone programmed it into me? You know what, I think I'll pass."
She laughed at him, so cold and scornful that he flinched from it, and he turned his head away from the rebuke.
"You need it, I think it's our destiny." She patted the bed beside her. "Come and sit down with me, I think you're feeling what I am... at least I hope you are." She turned her eyes upon him, her slender hand sweeping down the edge of his sheets.
"Then you're wrong," Duncan answered, reaching out to scoop up his cane from beside the door. "Don't be here when I get back."
Katherine leaned back onto the bed, and shook her head. "You really think that you can avoid what you are? There's a plan for each of us, you know."
Duncan slammed the door behind him, wincing at the twinge from his leg as he hobbled down the hall, glaring at some of the others who pocked their heads out of their dorm rooms. Strega stood at the far end of the hall, her arms folded, smirking after him as he stormed away.
He didn't care. He wasn't going to get drawn into the bitch's web of manipulation. There were fractures in their small group, each of them vying for a level of control. Strega had to be behind sending Katherine to him, and his hormone addled brain was still acute enough to spot her ploy. Sex was a command, and they were pre-programmed to obey it.
Damn them.
Bursting out into the moonlight, he marched through the grounds, the cane effective in keeping his balance though his knee screamed at him in agony. The pain urged him to stop, his body begging him for rest, sleep, the flush of sex, the...
His leg gave out beneath him as he mis-stepped, and he crashed to the dewy grass, his cane clattering to the stones of the path. Curling about himself he cradled his leg, trying his best not to cry. Everything frustrated him, he couldn't think, he didn't want to. He just wanted to rant and rail, rebel against who and what they expected him to be. And yet he couldn't, he was too smart for that.
His mind warred with his emotions as he tried to find a balance, heaving himself back to his feet, and picking up his cane again. Crippled by a memory, caged by genetic engineering, and hunted by his brethren. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be, but he knew it wasn't a mindless tool of the Hegemony.
Ahead of him, a pair of Amsus troopers patrolled, erratically sweeping the grounds. They were like ants, pausing to touch each other as they completed a circuit, moving on around the perimeter of the school holding their DT-09 assault rifles at the ready. They were no doubt being watched by an inquisitor somewhere high in the school.
Predatory insects that guarded their territory. Perfectly loyal soldiers, they denied themselves the capacity to think and merely carried out their masters' will. Tools of war, and he was supposed to be the hand that guided them.
He slipped down the path, waiting till the troopers were mid-circuit before making a break across the lawn, slipping in towards the ivy covered wall, panting as he clutched his rebellious knee again, willing the pain to stop, and promising that he would tend to it when he had a chance.
He barely made it over the wall, collapsing into a heap on the far side. He wondered if trying to escape was such a good idea. Clutching his cane tightly, he limped down the road and away from the school, panting as he went, weaving between the low rows of homes on the hill and heading in towards where the lights were brightest.
It was still early in the evening, sometime around ten, but already the nightlife on the Outpost was beginning. People rushing to catch busses, taking rides to get out and escape the humdrum of their lives in the Raptor factories. Duncan slipped aboard a bus when it stopped at a busy intersection, boarding from the backdoor with a couple of other errant youths dodging the fare.
They eyed him from beneath scruffy multi-coloured hats. A few of them sported the Red SF hats that were popular amongst the mundane student body of Thornton. They nudged each other nodding towards his cane and giggling, and Duncan rolled it lazily between his thumb and forefinger, watching them in return. They were young, without worry, without the fate of millions, and without the threat of destiny. He envied them.
He sat back, allowing his aches to subside, gazing out of the bus window at the brightness of life. Things he'd never seen in his short life beyond the cloning tubes that had created him, or the school that imprisoned him.
He disembarked when they did, staying back as he worked his way along the footpath, looking at closed shop windows, mannequins sporting the latest fashions, and travel agencies that boasted about exotic getaways to other worlds for those actually rich enough to afford the travel documents to go anywhere.
There were bars everywhere, dotting the street. People lining up to be let into dens filled with noise and music. Others, more sedate, were holes to lose oneself in drink and anonymity. Appealing, Duncan supposed. Alcohol was one possible answer to his sleep problem.
He silenced the analytical part of his mind that was cataloguing everything he was seeing, weighing it and trying to gauge how it could benefit him. He didn't care, he just wanted to be away.
He paused in front of an appliance store, stopping to look at the monitor that faced back at him. It was an Orion news broadcast, showing footage and discussing something to do with the Empire. It displayed a picture of the hated enemy, and Duncan got his first real look at Darien Taine.
Taine wasn't what Duncan had expected; short, with scruffy brown hair falling in curls about his ears. Glasses that seemed out of place. An air of wisdom on his tired looking face. Not the face of the man who had destroyed Arcanis or plunged the Hegemony back into the chaos of war.
Duncan wished he could hear sound, resting a hand on the plate glass window he stared into the eyes of the enemy, trying to find a clue to understanding the man. There was a flash as the picture changed and he blinked, realizing he was looking at himself.
The caption identified the figure on the screen as Prince Edward, the figurehead ruler of the Empire. But Duncan stood as if staring at himself in a mirror. Disbelief settled in first, and he reached up to touch his face as he watched. There was a moment's horror of uncertainty, filled with the dread that came with understanding something.
The footage changed to show the reporter and Duncan stepped back, trying to work out what this new revelation could mean for him. And he stared up again, his brow creased as the screen changed to show more archival footage, a blonde haired Prince Edward dancing with Taine at some kind of Imperial gala. The way they moved, the way they touched...
"Oh my god, I'm a jezzie?" Duncan said aloud in a mixture of shock and mild annoyance at the fact that he hadn't realized it before.
A couple walking arm in arm up the street jumped at his words, the girl giggling as the boy dragged her away, staring at the freak on the street as he did so.
Duncan turned from the screen, slumping down on the steps of the shop, tapping his head against the cane as he tried to think. If he was a clone, then it stood to reason, based on the nature theory that he was supposed to be an exact duplicate. However, of course, there were still vehement proponents for the nurture viewpoint... He tapped his forehead again.
"Bollocks!" He swore for the first time in his life and realized that it actually felt quite good to say something forbidden.
Opening his eyes he glanced back at the news. "Okay, so I'm a clone of Prince Edward... and a numpty. Figures. I had to be a construct of somebody." He got up again. "Fine, stands to reason then that I am still my own person. I get to make my own choices." He scrubbed a hand through his long hair, "Starting there. Short, I think..." he grinned as he eyed the tattoo and piercing parlour across the street. "Destiny, eh?"