Courage (30 page)

The scene shifted once more. This new one gripped Oemaru’s chest with cold fear. This was the only thing he wished Daevra wouldn’t show anyone. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t seem to find his voice, much less his own mouth. He was aware of only what the hooded woman was showing everyone, along with his own thoughts and emotions.

A hundred Kismite men and women sat hunched in tiers of high-backed chairs behind wood desks that ran the length of each tier, each seat accompanied by a lamp and nameplate, and whatever personal items the Kismites had set on their desk. Every last one of them gazed at Oemaru with hate, fear, and their last shred of hope under a guillotine.

Oemaru sat in a hover chair positioned in the center of the stage at the base of the tiers, looking bored with his elongated head propped up on a fist. His entourage guarded him in a semicircle behind his chair, sporting silvery uniforms and white helmets with black, reflective visors, and armed with guns with a trio of barrels angled towards the glossy stage.

Daevra said, “This is an ironic tale. Dear Kwon Oemaru had no intention of conquering the people you see when he’d headed for their corner of the universe. He and his god had no clue the world Kismet existed. The opportunity for another conquest was too tantalizing to pass up, however. He conquered this world with little trouble, but for once, the spoils of victory were spoiled.”

A man wearing a business suit and tie in the front row said, “We’ve been talking about this for a week! How many times do we have to tell you that we don’t want you to destroy Kismet? Just leave us be and go back to focusing on the Frevens! Our pitiful defense against you should be proof enough that we’re no threat to you or Neo-Joso. Just go. Please!”

“What drives you to continue living on this ailing planet? It’s disgustingly polluted.”

“It’s our home. We were erasing the pollution until you came along and started blasting everything we’d built.” His voice cracked. “Now it’s worse than before, but we can fix it if you’d just leave us alone.”

“Maybe you deserve to be punished for what you’ve done to your world. From what I’ve seen, you Kismites don’t even deserve to have a world to call home.” Oemaru from the present regretted having said that. It wouldn’t go over well with the leaders surrounding him.

“That’s neither true, nor your place to decide. We have suffered the consequences of our mistakes. We were rectifying them until you came along and blasted us to a lower square one. Do you really believe you’re better than us?”

“Tell me again: why do you want to stay on Kismet so bad? Why not abandon it? I could put you humans to use either in my fleet or any of the worlds I’ve conquered.”

“We refuse to reduce ourselves to being your pet slaves,” the man said, vigor returning to his voice. He sat up straighter. “Unlike you, war isn’t in our nature. I can promise you that no one on Kismet will ever seek revenge. We have better things to do with our lives. Besides, we don’t have intergalactic technology.”

Standing up with a sigh, Oemaru met the Kismites’ hopeless glares with annoyed uncaring. “No intelligent conqueror leaves enemies untouched so they may one day rally and fight again.”

“Are you implying that you’re afraid of us?”

Oemaru smirked. “I offered you a position of safety among my people. You refused it. Your only other option is death. That’s not fear. That’s me being thorough.” He tapped a button on the side of his hover chair and it collapsed into a rectangular cube complete with indents for gripping. To his guards he said, “Back to the ships. Tell the plasma team to standby for my order to glass this planet.” He headed offstage for a broad doorway leading to the building’s exit.

The Kismites yelled and screamed at him. He tuned them out until one of his men opened fire. Several unarmed natives lay near the lip of the stage, blood pooling under them. “No craving for revenge, huh?” he said with another smirk. The surviving people sat back down and many started crying. Oemaru headed out the doorway that led down a hallway in partial disrepair, thanks to his bombings. Glass and pieces of the tiled ceiling littered the cracked floor. The white walls looked sound, but every window was shattered, letting in foul-smelling air. Several framed paintings were strewn on the floor among the debris.

“Sir!” the soldier on Oemaru’s left barked, holding Oemaru’s helmet out to him.

He snatched it and jammed it on. “General Oemaru, come in, sir!” said a voice inside his helmet.

“This is General Oemaru. What is it, Yola?” He began walking faster and his men kept pace with him.

Yola’s panicked voice bordered on hysteria. “The fleet’s being attacked! We’ve lost five Meta ships! The Mother ships are still unharmed, but we don’t know who’s attacking, or from where!”

Oemaru slid to a halt. “What? Why wasn’t I informed sooner? How long have the attacks been going on?”

“About a minute, sir! We have done intensive visual and radar scans, but nothing has come up! I’m sorry, sir!”

Oemaru started running, his entourage in tow. “Cancel the plasma team standby and prepare all hoppers for departure. We’ll glass Kismet another day.” Glassing a planet meant blasting the surface with enough plasma to turn it to glass and rock, thus wiping out all life.

“Yes, sir!”

Oemaru and his guards ran out into an open quadrangle with several crafts, called hoppers, capable of rocketing into outer space. They broke into pairs and hustled into their space crafts, Oemaru having one all to himself.

Yola yelled, “Sir, we just lost another Meta ship!”

Oemaru grimaced as he dropped into his cockpit. “Put all Nano ships on hot patrol. Shoot down anything suspicious.” He sealed the cockpit hatch with the press of a button and strapped himself in.

“Yes, sir!”

He flipped several choice switches on his control panel, listening to whir and hum of his engines as the hopper warmed up. One of his legs was bouncing with anxiety. No one had ever gotten this kind of drop on him before. He roll-called his ten guards one-by-one. All of them were accounted for and ready to launch. He announced the commencement of their launch to Yola, and then all other sounds got drowned out by the deafening roar of engines rocketing six hoppers into outer space. Oemaru’s hopper rattled and vibrated as he focused on the sickly green and brown sky ahead.

Something in the corner of his vision caught his attention. It looked like a ray of sunlight in the shape of a giant arm and hand. The hand grabbed hold of the nose of his hopper, its fingers and palm big enough to wrap halfway around the heating metal. A warning beeper went off and a voice told him to either straighten out his ascent or return to the surface. Something thudded against starboard side. A humanoid face turned and looked at him from over Oemaru’s shoulder. The female, had close-cropped black hair, red-glowing eyes, and a severe mouth. She glared at him, then the light or whatever surrounding her intensified and she launched herself ahead of the hopper in a blur of light. The force of her jump shoved Oemaru’s jet off-course. More sirens went off. Oemaru tried to right himself but his hopper veered horizontally, plowing through another hopper. He mashed the emergency escape button as the other hopper’s explosion engulfed him. The roar of wind and several rocketing jets assaulted his ears, and then gravity took over. He activated his parachute and the omniscient view of the memory faded to black as Daevra spoke once more.

“Dear Kwon Oemaru, as you already know, survived this defeat. The ironic thing is, it could have been completely avoided. This is the only time he ever lost, and it was the only conquest he’d never intended to pursue. Yet stranger still, he didn’t lose to his known foe, the Kismites. He lost to an enigmatic foe who possess power far greater than any of us mortals present. Their identity is a tale for another day.”

The veladome and everyone in it faded into view, and Oemaru found that he could move once more. He grabbed his thin podium in a death grip and resisted the urge to drop to the ground and stick his head between his knees. That was his worst memory. He’d almost died--not to the crash, but to Kismet’s foul air. In all the confusion his fleet had almost left him behind, but his men’s loyalty proved stronger than the fear of death. Two of the guards from his entourage collected him and brought him back to the Grand Mother ship, and the remaining one-quarter of his fleet fled to Neo-Joso with severely wounded pride. What was worse, they never really understood who or what they lost to, and Daevra wasn’t about to divulge such information.

Oemaru forced himself to look about the dome. Every last leader, except Daevra, looked frayed. Daevra’s face was concealed in darkness, minus her eyes. She stood with the shadowy tendrils wriggling away about her shoulders, her gaze still fixed on Oemaru.

“Think well before you all decide,” she said. “He will lead us to victory today if we unanimously choose to follow him, but he may be our foe in the future. He is always hungry for conquest. I vote to follow him.”

As much as he wanted her loyalty, Oemaru didn’t know whether that was a good or a bad thing. With all the memories she’d wrenched from him and warning she’d given to everyone, she made quite the hasty decision. He returned her unsettling gaze and gleaned nothing from her. He didn’t trust her, couldn’t trust what he didn’t understand. Was it a ploy to lure him into complacency so she and her army could dispose of him while he was preoccupied with an intended foe?

Oemaru projected confidence and strength with the set of his shoulders and holding his elongated head high enough without looking self-absorbed. The other leaders wore distant looks and reflective gazes. Soon, people began pledging to follow him, even the large beast who’d accused him of wanting to turn the rest of them into puppets. Several protested, questioning the authenticity of the visions and Daevra’s words, but far too many knew it in their gut that what they’d been shown was true. Every last one of them respected Oemaru’s accomplishments. He saw it in their eyes as they agreed to follow him, even the ones who had been heavily persuaded to partake in this meeting. No one but him had conquered an entire world, much less half of one.

They unanimously acknowledged him as Grandmaster General. This is exactly what he’d wanted, exactly what he’d been striving for since the day Vancor had showed him this path. He’d worked so hard to get here. It was unfolding the way it was supposed to. So why did it feel like this wasn’t what he wanted? Why did he feel like Daevra was the one who was the one pulling everyone’s strings?

With unexpected reluctance, Oemaru accepted everyone’s loyalty with a few words. He plugged his wyverbit, the little black thing he’d sent flying all over the realm, into the podium. A three-dimensional hologram of the realm appeared over everyone’s head in the center of the veladome.
Interesting. It does have an underside
. That gave him ideas.

Oemaru slipped into leader mode and began organizing the layout of everyone’s armies according to strengths, tactics, talents, and overall usefulness.

Chapter 21

Jenna sat alone in one of Nostrum Hospital’s staff dorm rooms, wearing pajama shorts and a tank top, and some socks since the tile floor was cold. She had every light off, allowing the gellikin’s LCD to illuminate the room. It was late at night and she needed to get to bed soon for her shift early in the morning. Donai and Skitt were in their own dorms, and Arryk would do the same once his shift was over and the next shift was in full control of all his patients. The four of them were eager to stick around because of the two Aigis.

Right before Jenna had retired to her dorm, she’d checked up on them. They were both asleep, Aerigo recharging, and Rox officially on the mend. She’d looked so much healthier compared to twelve hours ago. Her right arm even looked normal. Now the question was whether it was paralyzed or not. If so, hopefully they could treat it, so long as her physiological makeup didn’t hinder or block treatment.

Jenna opened the other video file Donai had sent her at Kennin’s recommendation. The AI believed it might be helpful in regards to Aerigo, since Jenna had confirmed the Aigis’ inner turmoil was still present. Even with the energy healing and Aerigo’s newfound understanding of his emotions, there was still a chance he would backslide. Jenna wholeheartedly believed what the psychic Orissona had said about the matters of Aerigo’s heart. It was too universal an issue to doubt a word.

Jenna tilted the gellikin’s screen so it faced the ceiling, then reclined against the wall on her bed. Flaps popped out of the edges of the desk and parts of the ceiling, creating a five-foot-tall hologram of the video file. Knees propped up, Jenna grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest.

A block of text introduced the video:

Aerigo was difficult to take care of. He made a scratch above zero progress during the first thirty years of his stay. Staff struggled to get him to eat and sleep, and when they coaxed him to a workout facility, his actions were mechanical and devoid of effort. No one was able to pierce his emotional shell. He went mute, his eyes stuck in a perpetual blue glow. Staff were running out of hope for the Noma... until SHE came...

The paragraph faded out and was replaced by a date:

3 Moon of New Life 3135

The date faded to black and Nostrum Hospital’s main reception area faded in, complete with the sliding glass doors and the walkway leading to the front desk. A well-trod area rug covered the tiled floor between the doors and desk. The desk itself was short, made of dark wood, and bulky. A young man with mousy hair sat behind it.

The doors parted and a woman--a very beautiful woman sauntered in. She had enviously lustrous black hair that fell past her petite waist. Jenna ran a hand through her own hair and couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy. The woman wore plain clothes: tennis shoes, jeans, and a white t-shirt. Plain as her attire was, her figure was as envious as her hair. The woman didn’t have a voluptuous build. She had a slender, graceful build, one that filled men with chivalrous compulsions. The woman carried herself with modesty, but not meekness.

The mousy-haired receptionist stared at the woman with his mouth agape and slightly leaning forward in his chair. He swallowed and managed to stop gaping. “M-may I help you?”

The woman smiled sympathetically at the receptionist, then glanced at the double doors and waved to someone the camera couldn’t see. She turned back to the receptionist, who looked like a deer in headlights once their gazes met again. The woman said, “I wish to visit Aerigo.” Her voice was soft and musical, and just as beautiful as the rest of her. Again, Jenna was struck by envy, but not the kind that made her feel inferior. That woman was just plain lucky with her genetics.

The receptionist stared a moment longer, then shook his head and blinked. “Aerigo?” He looked at the computer screen in front of him.
Oh, my goodness! The days of computers
. They looked so archaic compared to contemporary technology. “Uh, what’s his surname?”

She frowned. “I don’t think he ever adopted one.”

“Oh... ‘kay.” He looked at the woman, then at his computer again. “Let me... let me search the database.” He placed his hands over the keyboard without touching it and stared at the keys as if he didn’t know what they meant. He wiggled his fingers, then placed his fingertips on the home keys. “How do I spell his name, ma’am?”

She placed two slender hands atop the blocky desk. “I believe it’s A-e-r-i-g-o in the Kintish alphabet.”

The receptionist typed in the letters and stared at his screen. “You were right,” he said with a smile.

“Where’s he staying?”

“Fifth floor. Room seventeen of the Psychology Ward. He may be in the lounge at this hour. Would you like me to escort you there?” He got to his feet.

“No, thank you. I can find my way around.” She began moving around the desk.

“Are you sure? I’d love to take you there!” His blurted the words unnecessarily loud and leaned towards the woman like he was moving in to kiss her.

The woman put a hand on the receptionist’s cheek and popped her sympathetic smile. “I appreciate your kindness, but thank you anyway. Good bye.” She walked off-screen and the receptionist fell back into his seat, stunned.

The scene switched to the same lobby where the psychic Orissona had read Aerigo. He was sitting in the same plush green chair positioned in front of a giant fish tank. Jenna couldn’t help but feel stunned at the sheer amount of muscle mass Aerigo had lost. He looked half the size he was now. He ignored the exotic fish and stared at the bland view of Nostrum City through the windows. The woman with the black hair walked into view from the left and stopped just inside the frame. Sadness creased her beautiful face.

“Aerigo?” she called tentatively.

Aerigo flinched, but otherwise remained still.

“Aerigo, it’s me, Kara.” Kara approached him. “I’ve come to visit you.”

Slowly, as if it took great force of will, Aerigo turned his head. His glowing-eyed gaze was full of hurt. He had a beard and head hair, and looked like he hadn’t shaved in at least a week. He stared wordlessly for a moment, then resumed gazing out the windows.

“Oh, Aerigo!” Kara moved between the windows and chair, flicked a hand, then sat on a small cushion seat that magically appeared next to the chair. She wrapped her slender arms around Aerigo’s diminished bulk and hugged him tightly, her head resting on his shoulder. “You poor thing!”

Aerigo stared over the crown of Kara’s head, unmoving.

Kara looked like she was on the verge of tears. “I’m so sorry things turned out the way they did. I really am. Neither you nor Sandra deserved it.” Kara rubbed Aerigo’s arm with a thumb. “Baku told me what happened. I’m both heartbroken for and proud of you.” Aerigo tried to lean away from Kara, but she held him close. “The means don’t justify the ends, but you can’t undo the past. You need your newfound power anyway.”

“I killed my wife!” Aerigo’s voice came out dry and weak. He bowed his head.

Kara cupped Aerigo’s scruffy chin in one hand and lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Aerigo, there’s no way you could have foreseen that letting Sandra sleep a little longer would have resulted in her death.”

Aerigo dropped his gaze. The glow in his eyes shimmered, and then tears rolled down his cheeks. “But I smelled burning. I knew something was up.”

“The blame rests with the Balvadiers,” she said firmly.

“I’m never going back.”

“To Balvar?”

He jerked his head out of Kara’s hand. “To Druconica.”

“Then I guess it’s still too early to discuss such things,” Kara said unhappily. “Rahnjar will be disappointed if he never sees his son-in-law again. He still cares deeply about you.”

“How could he feel anything but hate for the monster who killed his daughter?”

“Enough!” The word came out so strongly that Jenna flinched with Aerigo.

The two sat quietly for some time with the sound of the fish tank bubbling away and muffled voices speaking intermittently. All the fish had amassed in the corner of the tank nearest Kara. They looked like they were jostling for space closest to her.

“I wish to say one last thing in regards to Sandra before I let the subject go,” Kara said. “I know you can’t control who you fall in love with any more than you can control your glowing eyes, but you should have better prepared yourself for accepting that Sandra was going to die well before you’d ever show signs of age.”

“I want to die,” Aerigo whispered.

Kara let go and sat up, shock rounding her thin brows. She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t talk like that. It’s very selfish.”

“I have no reason left to live. I’m just a monster.”

“You’re anything but a monster.” Kara reached to caress Aerigo’s brow, but he recoiled. She put her hands in her lap and looked at them. “You obviously don’t wholeheartedly want to die.” She looked at Aerigo. “Or else you would have committed suicide. Baku and I are grateful you’re still here, and so is Daio, although he’ll never admit it. You’re practically his big brother and--”

“I’ve already tried,” Aerigo said in a thick voice.

Kara stared. “What?”

“Suicide. A few times.”

“No, Aerigo,” she said so quietly that Jenna barely caught the words. Tears welled in Kara’s green eyes and slid down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I would’ve come so much sooner.”

Aerigo’s voice came out thin and distant. “I jumped twenty stories, but the pavement was too brittle to crack my scull. The doctors patched me up and tried to secure me in restraints, but I broke out of everything they locked me in.

“I tried to bleed to death, but nothing here can cut me deep enough before my body repairs itself. The doctors brought in some sort of cell from another world that I couldn’t break out of. For a while I accepted that I’d have to go on living.”

Kara stared in mute horror.

“Years later, I tried starving to death, but they brought in someone from another world who took control of my body and made me feed myself, and they used the same person when I tried to stay out in the open air too long. I gave both up since the sensation of someone moving my body for me was more unbearable than feeding myself.

“On top of all that, I can’t overdose on anything because I’ll either throw up or my body will burn through it. There’s nothing toxic enough on Kismet that’ll kill me before the doctors can heal me. I’m stuck living a pointless life.”

Face screwing up with fury, Kara seized Aerigo’s wrist and backhanded him in the face. The blow connected with a sharp, fleshy slap. She hit him so hard, he reeled and his feet left the ground as he flung out his free arm for balance. “
Don’t ever talk like that again!
” The fish retreated to the far side of the tank. Jenna shrank against the wall and raised her pillow up to her nose. Kara’s suddenly deep and resonant voice carried the force of an ultimate authority not even the brashest person dared cross. She glared at Aerigo so hard that it detracted from her beauty, her long hair writhing like snakes.

Aerigo was so shocked that his eyes had stopped glowing. Blood dribbled down one side of his face. He gingery touched his cheek, looked at the blood on his fingers, then looked at Kara, who returned his gaze with a smoldering glare full of tears.

“You have no idea how badly we need you,” she said, her voice a quavering mix of fury and pain. “Only Baku and I know how badly the universe needs you.” She tore off a piece of her t-shirt and tenderly wiped the blood from Aerigo’s cheek and hand, then kissed his cheek. Aerigo’s eyes started glowing blue again. He sank back in his chair and bowed his head. Kara stood and her chair vanished. She grabbed the cushiony armrest and the chair magically widened. She sat in the new space and took Aerigo’s scruffy face in both hands. “You’re over 2800 years old now. So many people that have lived and died have cared deeply about you. There are many mortals and gods, including me, who care deeply about you right now. I don’t care what other gods think about Aigis. I have a soft spot for you--
both
you and Daio.” She pulled him into a hug. “In all ten thousand years of your life I hope you get to see, so many more people will meet you, like you, and be glad you were a part of their fleeting lives.”

“I don’t want to live that long.”

“Think of others, instead of yourself then, Aerigo. You’re a gift to the mortal realm. Think of all you’ve done before. You’ve helped nations establish themselves, fought with underdogs in hundreds of battles, protected innocent lives with powerful words of persuasion, and enriched individual lives by just being yourself. I doubt Sandra regrets meeting you, if there was a way you could ask her ghost. Don’t let the one time you lose control destroy your perception of yourself. You’re a very good person. Everyone you befriended loved you. I love you. Baku loves you. Sandra loved you.”

“Please don’t mention her.”

Kara sat quiet a moment, thinking. She rested her cheek on Aerigo’s shoulder. “As you wish, for now. One day you’re going to have to put those memories to rest. I hope to see you fall in love again one day. But that can wait.”

“I can’t go through all that again. It’s too much.”

“Shh. You need to find your own reason to keep on living right now. Baku and I can give you so many, but none of them would matter if you wouldn’t find happiness in them. Baku promises he won’t command you to do anything. Still, he’s worried and hopes you’ll recover soon. He and I need you badly.”