Rise of Aen (29 page)

“Gentlemen,” he began without any formalities, “I assume each of you has been briefed?” He waited for a response and when there was none he continued. “Good. First of all, we have to start with the belief that we will be overrun by the aggressor’s technology and tactics quickly, so we must decide today how to divide and save what military assets we can today. The only absolute thing we cannot sacrifice is the submarine fleets; those we must hide. The rest we will decide on
today.”

He went on with his thoughts in an elaborate presentation. Faces peered back at him with concern and interest, but all of them waited until he was done to add their opinions. One by one, the men offered suggestions and began to lay out the ground work for a strategy for survival. To Patterson’s surprise, egos and ideals were set aside—the gravity of the task at hand was too daunting to carry old
grudges.

Hours rolled by, and most of the military might had been separated from priorities to expendables. Early on, each government gave orders to their submarine fleet to go into hiding, getting at least one important taken care of before it was too late. It was decided that each country that had them would sacrifice one aircraft carrier on the first day and would harbour the others in ports off small islands around the world. Destroyer fleets would also be used to fight the initial wave with only a few being diverted to hide. Four hours in and the Naval strategy had been set. Exhaustion was setting in, so Patterson tabled a break of four hours for rest. He asked that they synchronize their watches, so that no one would be late for the continuance; there was too much at stake to be
lackadaisical.

Lyarran Vessel Dark Light, Uncharted Space -
Four Months and Seventeen Days until Arrival

The mood in the Dark Light was that of tension. Everyone knew that their commander had gone against the majority decision of the Council, and none of them wanted to walk into a fight against the dreaded Husk, but each of them would follow Council Lyxia to the afterlife without question. She had proven herself as worthy of their trust and a more than capable leader time after time, and that meant they stood with her now as they raced across the cosmos to save a race that couldn’t even get back to their own
moon.

But she had addressed the ship as a whole soon after they were under way, telling them a story from Terra Sol’s history, told to her by Ameia. It was the story from ancient “Greece,” the battle of “Thermopolis,” in which three hundred men stood against over a hundred thousand and nearly won. This seemed to alleviate any doubts about the caliber of the beings they were to save and seemed to spark a sense of kin with the mighty Ifierin, foot soldiers of the Empire. Soon, doubt and hesitance was replaced with excitement and exuberance. The beings aboard the Dark Light had a purpose
now!

Soon after her visit via holo-link, Lyxia had retired to her quarters to unwind. Between the always taxing Council session and her encounter with the alien from Terra Sol, she was spent. His eyes had moved her deeply; her soul seemed lost in the depths of the darkness they held. And his voice resonated in her mind, his passion was so moving. Never before had a creature made her swoon so, and Lyxia needed time to gather herself so that she wouldn’t appear like a youngling in lust. But as she lay back on her bed, all she could see when she closed her eyes was him—Aen. With a loud crack in the dimly lit room, Lyxia smacked the side of her head in an attempt to rid her mind of this distraction. There was too much to think about to have him floating about her thoughts
randomly.

Slowly, she began to refocus her thoughts; strategies for the looming battle rolled about her mind. She was risking a great deal to rush to a rim star to save a species they had never met, but in her heart it seemed the right thing to do. Without intervention, Terra Sol would fall and all of her friend`s work would be in
vain.

Her eyes shot open at the thought of what would be lost, as a shiver ran up her spine. These humans were anatomically close to her own people, the Paxyns. So much so that they could have been an evolutionary split long ago. Even though it was nearly impossible, life had a funny way of keeping things similar in faraway places. This is what had fueled the fire within her friend, this is what had made Ameia run to the rim of the galaxy to study them. Humanity was the perfect chance to look deep into the past of their own race, a chance to see their own race stumble as they grew into the beings they were
now.

“Transfer files from the Amarra download to my quarters and begin review.” She said as she sat up, realizing that rest was not to be at this
time.

“Transferring.”
The mechanical voice of the ship’s AI replied, in a cool female representation. Lyxia had it reprogrammed after her initial walkthrough when the ship had been completed; the old one was too
informal.

The Dark Light was a culmination of the dream of the Empress—a long range exploration vessel with the firepower to overmatch an Imperial warship. As it neared completion, all in the fleet began to covet her command. But the Empress threw a curve ball to everyone, announcing the newly-appointed Council Lyxia as commander, ruffling quite a few feathers in doing so. A young Council at the helm of the Imperial Flagship—this upset many, but no one dared challenge the
Empress!

Lyxia thought back to the day when the ship readied for launch, the day she was granted an audience with the Empress. She was told that command of the community came with a responsibility to put the beings aboard first, before herself. That their lives were all precious and the loss of any one of them should be thought of as losing one’s own child. But in the same light, she would have to be able to sacrifice life when the situation called for it. The Empress reminded her that never before had one so young been appointed command of a vessel such as this, but Lyxia was fated to be the first. It had been long whispered by the prophets that this young maiden would be the key to unlocking the enigma that is the Harbinger. This had been where Lyxia had troubles following blindly. Belief in the prophets and their guidance was one thing, but to believe she was an integral part of a grand scheme of fate was beyond her. But the Empress assured her to look within, to believe in herself, and fate would
follow.

“Is that why I am driven so to rush to the edge of the galaxy to save this creature and his people?” she asked the emptiness in her room. “Is it fate that pulls us
together?”

Her mind flooded once again with the images of this Harbinger, the way he spoke so defiantly and the confidence he held in his actions as he addressed the Council was staggering. Lyxia had seen Councillors thousands of years old who were unable to stand so proud before the Empress! To her, this Aen was a puzzle her curious mind needed to
solve.

One by one, the files from the Amarra began to appear on the holo-screen at her desk. Lyxia stretched out, shed the covers and sauntered across the room naked. After the Council session ended, she couldn’t wait to rid herself of her cumbersome dress uniform and simply lounge around in nothing but her skin. The cool air of the room soothed her tense
muscles.

Slowly, she began to research what she so adamantly sought to blindly protect; a world at the cusp of discovery, but also at the brink of annihilation. She had felt for Aen, his words tugged at her emotions, but the Dark Light was also the closest Imperial ship to the Sol region. They had already been dispatched to find out why the Amarra had fallen silent, and were halfway across the galaxy when the plea was made. To Lyxia, it made sense to offer her services, but it was also a sobering reality. They alone would be facing a Husk Harvester, quite different than any raider party they had ever encountered before. And help would not come until long after the battle had ended—it would be nearly two weeks after she arrived on Terra Sol before the Empress and her escorts would join
her.

So she read in the silence of her quarters; her staff knew better then to disturb her this soon after a Council meeting. On and on she read the detailed reports recorded by Ameia amazed her. Time seemed to slow as she lost herself in the data stream, then she reached the reports and analysis of the Harbinger and she began to see why the prophets so coveted this being. Everything she had ever believed in was called into question as the readouts revealed his true
nature.

Lyxia’s heart raced, and her eyes traced back to the picture of his face. Nothing she had ever learned in the Academy could prepare her for what she was seeing. Energy readouts like this were usually emitted from the gods themselves; the stars. But here, on this lonely planet out on the edge of the known galaxy, a living god was born of flesh! All the tales about the Harbinger that she’d scoffed at once, dismissed as tales to scary younglings, they were all true—he existed, and in nine days she would meet him face-to-face. Soon she would be part of history; soon she would become
legend.

“How long until we reach the heliosphere of Sol?” she queried the
AI.

“It will be one hundred and fifty two days, twenty two hours and seventeen minutes until we reach the outer reaches of Sol’s fire.”
The computer sang back.
“Then it will take a few hours to plot navigation to Terra Sol before we can resume course. The system is shrouded in a thick cloud of ice and debris that makes direct jumps
difficult.”

Lyxia thought for a moment; a few hours stationary at the edges of the system were a few hours the planet didn’t have. “Can we use any of the data sent from the Amarra to extrapolate navigational info? Surely there is something in this pile of reports that will help us save
time?”

“Processing,”
the computer replied as it began to sift through the mountains of data saved throughout the last few thousand years by the research team. The silence was deafening as Lyxia waited
impatiently.

“I believe you may have something there, Councillor,”
it said at long last.
“There is much pertinent information on the orbits of the eight planets in orbit around Sol that we can properly navigate a direct path to Terra Sol—give or take a margin of error of a million or so
kilometers.”

“Good.” She said as she too began to study a representation of the planetary orbits. Strategically, she began to plan out an angle of attack to best catch the slavers by surprise. That would be an important part of the battle; if they became alert to the presence of the Dark Light, the task of defeating their foes would rise
threefold.

“As we close in to the heliosphere, lock on to the Amarra’s transponder to cut down on the margin of error. I want to come in on the vertical plane, not the horizontal and I want to come out of jump space between the planet’s moon and itself with weapons
charged!”

“That is a highly risky manoeuver.”
The VI chimed in. “
One that breaks more than a few Imperial regulations for inner system
travel.”

“I appreciate the warnings, but if we don’t catch them off-guard, there won’t be much of us left for the brass at Fleet Command to scream at. Revise the time index for our arrival using these parameters and
recalculate.”

“Stand by
,”
it said coldly. The seconds ticked by in silent agony; Lyxia made a mental note to work on her patience, as it seemed to be nonexistent
lately.

“Revised trajectory calculated; time to target eight days, twenty three hours and fifty six minutes with no delay at edge of
heliosphere.”

“Excellent.” She said with another stretch. Looking back at her bed she realized that she could now feel herself relaxing enough to sleep for a few hours. “Wake me in three hours please. I have a lot to accomplish before we reach our destination, and I would hate to arrive unprepared,” she said, as she crawled under the covers and closed her eyes. Her skin was caressed by the silky soft sheets that had been cooled by the air in the room. As slumber began to take hold of her, she started to dream of this paradise at the edge of the galaxy, and of the stunning god of power that welcomed her with open
arms.

Lyarran Vessel Amarra, Southern Pacific Ocean Floor -
Four Months and Ten Days until Arrival

“I really hate to wake you Aen, but it is rather
urgent.”

Caretaker’s voice rang off the metallic walls like the world’s most annoying alarm clock and quite possibly the last thing Aen wanted to hear as he was sleeping. It had the ability to change the tone of its voice to better convey emotional context and this one was a drawl of pessimism. His eyes slowly opened, and with it the dim lighting of the room raised from the constant glow of the outer rim of his eyes. Once his head moved, the room’s sensors reacted and raised the lighting to normal. Aen had fallen asleep in the midst of his research; the data pad lay on his chest as it still scrolled with incoming files. It didn’t take him long to shake the fatigue off and sit up to respond to the AI’s request as he simply tossed the pad on his
cot.

“What is it?” he asked, still a bit
groggy.

“I believe it is something that must be shown to you, rather than
told.”

“Fine, I’ll be there right away.” Aen said with a sigh. Caretaker was a bit melodramatic and now seemed to be one of those times when it really showed. He wasn’t sure it was just that the AI annoyed him with its antics, or that he was roused from his dreams of the blue-eyed Paxyn beauty. As much as Aen wanted it to be the former, it was plainly apparent that he was more than smitten with Council Lyxia and it was her that dominated his thoughts; waking and in his dreams. He pulled the wetsuit-like under-layer up and over his shoulders, and the suit’s electronic weave closed the seam in the front automatically, making it look like it was never there. That always amazed him, no matter how many times he did
it.