

A. Darell Thorpe
SONS OF CANETis is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 by A. Darell Thorpe

Map 1 and Map 2 annotated by A. Darell Thorpe, created with Roll For Fantasy map creator

Copyright © 2017-2018 RollForFantasy.com

Cover design by Les

https://www.fiverr.com/germancreative

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Map 1: Canetis - The Union

Map 2: Canetis - The Southern Seven

Prologue

PART 1: SOUND

Chapter 1: Libra

Chapter 2: The Arc Veldt

Chapter 3: Antiprism

Chapter 4: The Test

Chapter 5: Absorber
PART 2: EOSIN
Chapter 6: Endofringe

Chapter 7: The Academy

Chapter 8: Harrow

Chapter 9: Karatka

Chapter 10: Metamorphosis

Chapter 11: The Ribolan Cemetery

Acknowledgements

For Suzie

"When the Sons of Earth descended upon us, the Mono clade made short work of their forces. When the Sons of Nikun stormed our skies, the Stereo clade whisked them away like puffs of smoke. When the Sons of Celesta infected our lands, Canetis roared, and for the first time, the Vector clade had to be called in to defend our planet against an Outworld threat. But once again, the enemies fell and were forced to retreat to their primal origins. Many others came before, many others came after, yet no external menace has successfully challenged our sovereignty to this day.

Canetis, for millennia, has remained the apex planet, home to the highest evolutionary degree of known life in the galaxy. But there exists a force born of our own mother that we all must eventually face together. A dark entity she cast out, which parallels the canetisian's gift and power. And while we bask in the wake of battles won, this enemy grows strong, until their time shall finally come.

Stay looking, Sons of Canetis, for the Eosin cometh."

Lucas, Son of Ailura.
PART 1

SOUND

"What is sound?" – The Bronze Gargoyle
Chapter 1

LIBRA

The suns burned through the transparent dome roof of the Ticon Arena. It was the battlefield of masters, a palace of dirt, rock and glass where many of the planet's most formidable fighters came to hone their skills. Ticon was the largest of the six arenas that comprised the Ouds Training Complex - OTC, and the second largest of all the arenas located in The Union's capital province, Alkazka.

Nathaniel had been coming to the complex almost every day after leaving The Academy in the evenings, for as long as he could remember. It was like his second home, the training field, and he'd grown rather attached to the place.

Most days he'd be enthusiastic and spry, sparring with his brother or other Academy students, the majority of whom were either at his level or lower. On days like these however, when Nathaniel had few to no lessons to attend at the Academy, he'd meet with his Instructor for their intermittent sessions. It was during these times that he'd spend most of the day crawling across the floor, and that's essentially what he'd grown used to doing whenever his Instructor was the opponent.

Nathaniel dragged himself from the parched terrain. His body ached, muscles spasming all over. He looked up at his Instructor, head still vibrating from the last hit he took, but the Instructor didn't look back.

A dusty nebula swarmed him as he returned to his feet wearily. Slapping the dirt away from his gears, he hacked, dust bathing his nostrils and eyes, forcing him to squint as he staggered to the side to escape the cloud of dirt. He'd been doing this for years, training, but as soon as he'd adapt to a certain level of intensity, the Instructor would increase it just as fast.

He was nineteen and tall, his skin a fawny beige with sharp jaws and a head of low-cut black silk. He still wore teenage muscles, not much padding for all the hammering he'd been under. But his bones were strong, luckily, enough to withstand the violence.

Eventually, the Instructor found his gaze and held it.

"You are weak." the Instructor said, arms folded to his back.

His feet hovered just above the ground as he floated around, defying gravity. He was remarkably steady, gliding seamlessly across the floor, the dirt beneath his feet rippling like a puddle of liquid.

It was a bad place to be dressed in full white. It should've been easy for Nathaniel to achieve the session's objective, to befoul the Instructor's clothes. But for the last few hours he'd been failing miserably, and the only thing that grew dirty was Nathaniel's self-esteem.

"The day grows old, yet my cloak remains spotless." the Instructor sneered.

He was tall and strapping. A Sentry of the highest clade, Canetis knew few warriors stronger than him. A thick white cloak descended from his neck, swimming around him like a wave of snow and beneath it, he wore a seamless ensemble which was just as white as his cloak. His very presence was intimidating, as a Vector should be, and the sun pounced on his glabrous, white head. The reflection, blinding.

"Have you no shame, Son of Libra?" he teased.

The words burned Nathaniel, electrifying his muscles into jets. He sprung forward, fierce, launching himself towards the Instructor, roaring through the air as he did. The atmosphere condensed into a thin mist as Nathaniel burst from the ground. But as he approached the Instructor, a steady finger slithered from beneath the flawless cloak and with a swift whirl, it sent Nathaniel tossing through the dirt several yards once more.

His training gear covered him in full. Gloves, suit, shoes – all a thick yellow-brown elastomer that nearly blended in with his tone. But beneath the gear his skin suffered, bruising and peeling as he was hurled repeatedly across the rocky terrain.

"Again." the Instructor urged.

Nathaniel burst from the ground once more, this time, watching the Instructor's hand movements more closely. The Instructor's finger swooped through the air, blasting a ripple of sound waves towards Nathaniel. The atmosphere crumpled into a wispy texture as they approached.

Nathaniel jumped.

Airborne, he whistled, and a series of high pitched bullets rained down on the arena floor, exploding on impact like grenades. The blasts wove a thick blanket of dust around the Instructor making him virtually invisible as Nathaniel descended from the air.

"Finally." Nathaniel sighed, landing on a pile of fractured stones.

He watched expectantly as the dust cleared, taking deep gulps of air with each breath. He was exhausted, he'd been at it for hours, and the longer he took to achieve his objective, the less strength he had to get it done.

Slowly, he could make out the white figure hovering at the belly of the cloud of brown. The Instructor stood, palm outstretched, the air around him oscillating then settling as he lowered his hand. Nathaniel's eyes scoured the Instructor head to toe, twice.

He was spotless.

"Again." the Instructor said.

Nathaniel growled. His nerves electrified with frustration as he leaped from the pile of rocks and charged forward. He whistled, pitch just as sharp as before. The Instructor effortlessly dodged them all, his feet never truly touching the ground as he danced gracefully, avoiding each of the blasts. The whistles plunged into the walls far behind the Instructor producing a heavy rumble each time they landed against the titanic, concrete slabs.

Nathaniel kept spitting bullets, closing the distance between him and the Instructor a little more with each attack. He was trying to get near, to increase his chances of landing a direct hit, but the Instructor quickly caught sight of Nathaniel's scheme.

Suddenly, he stopped dodging. He whirled on one foot, the other raised in direct path of one of Nathaniel's bullets. The blast stopped inches away from the Instructor's sole and in an instant, he whirled once more and released the bullet, hurling it directly back towards Nathaniel, thrusting him several meters across the ground.

A dune of dirt and rocks heaped behind Nathaniel where he'd stopped rolling. His body wrenched with pain as he coughed, head and ears ringing as he got to his feet. Unable to stand steady, he stooped, panting heavily as he studied the arena floor. Tracks and gutters marked the places where he'd crashed. His heart raced, blood boiling as he peered at the Instructor.

"You are slow, boy, and you lack strategy. Your attacks are linear... predictable."

"How am I supposed to soil your clothes if I can't even get close to you or land a hit?" Nathaniel yelled, the dust in his throat making his voice gravelly.

"That is for you to determine."

Nathaniel growled, vexed. Suddenly able to stand again, he sprung up, brushing away clumps of dirt from his gears vigorously. His gaze locked the Instructor's once more.

"The moment I make a move, you smash me down again. I'm doing my best, dad!"

The Instructor's face changed. The taunting smirk he wore flattened and his brows knitted.

"Watch your tone, boy. There will be no complaining in this arena. And you will only refer to me as Instructor, is that clear?"

Nathaniel's pulse thundered. He huffed. Glancing down at his feet, his legs, his hands - they all wobbled, geriatric, as his muscles trembled with fatigue. His anger suddenly dissipated, replaced by an overwhelming feeling of impuissance as he watched his body quiver, weakened.

"Is that clear!" his father demanded.

The voice shook Nathaniel back into focus. This was no time for self-loathing or pity. "I must improve, I must become stronger. The Eosin are coming." Nathaniel thought.

"Yes Instructor." he replied, a low whisper. His fists clenched as he met his father's gaze.

Silence.

"Now come again, boy. I don't have all day. Your brother would've had me covered in dirt by now." the Instructor scorned, the wind blowing his cloak entirely to one side like a drape as his gaze burned through Nathaniel across the arena.

Nathaniel sucked in a gallon of air and crouched. The dirt at his feet sneezed into the sky and the ground sank into a bowl as his energy ripened.

He was ready to fire.

A silhouette approached the translucent glass doors beyond the balcony, high above the arena's walls. The broad rectangular slabs of glass hissed apart as the figure closed in. A woman emerged, strolling towards the balcony, steps echoing. Her skin was russet, sheathing a robust, athletic frame. Her hair was lacquer, short and swivelled onto her forehead, just above hazel eyes. She wore a full-body suit, leaving only her head and hands exposed and the fabric was a lattice of black and grey. The attire of a Seeker.

She rested against the balcony's glossy rails - celestial, as the sunlight showered down behind her.

"How's it going?" she said.

Nathaniel looked up, the dirt around him settling as he caught sight of the woman.

"Great, mom...It's going great." he replied.

She glanced over at the Instructor, studying him for a second before speaking.

"Atticus," she said, the word rolling out with a drowsy tone.

"Libra," he replied, gracing her with a nod.

His pulse flickered for a second then returned to normal. They hadn't seen each other in a short while and he didn't expect to see her there of all places. He watched as she swung down from the balcony and landed beside Nathaniel. Her impact, soundless. Her feet hovered momentarily above the dirt, like his, then touched down.

"You've been training hard Nate. I can tell." she said, a pleasant smile making her face glow in the light as her hand ruffled his hair into a muss. Dirt speckled onto his shoulders. She brushed it away, then gently picked at a few specks that'd caked onto his cheek.

"Not hard enough." Nate replied dispiritedly.

"Don't worry," she soothed, pressing her finger beneath his chin and raising his head, "You'll get there." she smiled.

Her eyes glittered in the brightness like wet pearls. Her expression was certain, she meant what she said, and for a moment, Nate could feel it too like a thing that was sure to happen. He always loved having her around. She always knew how to keep him from pining away in self-loathing.

Atticus floated towards them.

"Is there a reason why you've interrupted our training session Libra? The boy has work to do." he said. His tone was heavy with annoyance.

Libra looked back at him, a sharp glance, arresting him as he approached. Torching, her eyes flickered down to his legs then back up to hold his gaze. Suddenly, the dirt no longer rippled below his feet and his soles touched the ground for the first time since they'd been there.

Libra turned back to Nathaniel and kissed him on the cheek.

"Go find your brother, honey. He's somewhere in the Arc Veldt with Katya."

Nathaniel's gaze burned at Atticus over Libra's shoulder, then eased onto his mother.

"Ok mom." he said, then sprung up onto the balcony, like a catapult had shot him up from where he stood.

"Love you." Libra said.

"Love you too."

Atticus' brows knitted, his lip arched with disgust. But he said nothing.

The doors clanged shut as Nate left and Libra turned to face her husband. She still considered him as such, even though they'd separated years ago. After all, he was the father of her two sons. She hadn't seen him in weeks, having returned from a mission to the south just a few days prior. He was as impatient as usual, perhaps more so now that she'd interrupted his session. She watched him closely, waiting for him to say something. It was obvious he was edging to make a sly remark.

"You didn't come to stand and gawk at me I presume."

"Not at all."

"Great. Well, the floor's open." Atticus said.

Libra sighed. Atticus always had a bad habit of talking down to people, including her. Normally, she would've hurled something at him already. But today was not the day for that. She had come to deliver important news. News far greater than them and their age-old grievances with each other.

"A few minutes ago, several of our exofringe beacons were destroyed. I thought you should know immediately what's happening out there."

"Another meteor shower turned your little toys into space dust?"

"Unfortunately, no..." Libra rebutted, brushing his derisory remark away. "One of the beacons managed to complete a resonance scan and transmitted the information, just before it went down."

"and..."

"For a while, the resonance pattern we received was a puzzle to everyone in the Antrum. It was nothing any of us had ever seen before." Libra tapped the fluorescent blue band around her left wrist. A hologram came forth.

Atticus had long established his own opinions of people who work in the Antrum. As far as he was concerned, they were all a bunch of crazy quacks parading as the best scientific minds Canetis had to offer, which often made believing anything that came out of there a task that took much convincing for him. They'd missed things in the past, made mistakes that cost lives, and even though they were actually right more often than not, his faith in them always remained fractured.

"We isolated a variety of frequency planes within the resonance pattern and after cross referencing them with the database, only one thing kept coming up,"

Strings of light undulated above her palm, webs of blue and orange. Atticus recognized some of the waves on display and suddenly, his disdain began to fade. His pulse quickened as he studied the patterns.

"Eosin." he drawled.

"Yes."

Atticus' eyes rose from the hologram to Libra. His brows knitted. Lips, ajar. "Those things have reached the exofringe already?" he puzzled.

"Yes. But there's more," Libra went on. She brought up another series of readings on the holosleve's display. They appeared confluent and jagged. Noisy.

"Only about a quarter of the frequency planes we isolated matched our records of the Eosin. The rest were, new. Planes I'd only seen before from records of some of our strongest Vectors, past and present, and we still haven't been able to isolate some of the readings completely just yet."

Atticus paused, scrutinizing the wobbling threads of light.

"So, you're telling me that these people, these things, can generate multiple frequency planes as well as combine planes into singular patterns?"

He swiped across the hologram, skimming through the carousel of frequency readings. There were hundreds. He couldn't look through them all then and there.

"I always knew the Antrum was an asylum for crazy scientists. You guys made a mistake, somewhere." he scorned.

His hand fell back beneath his cloak, a stoic mien. His expression was certain, it was all just another error to add to the Antrum's growing list of mistakes.

The hologram receded from Libra's hand and disappeared into the holosleve. "We've been tracking the Eosin for a while, Atticus. I wish it were a mis-" she started.

"It is a mistake. It must be." Atticus assured. "That's impossible, Libra." he gestured to the holosleve on her wrist, now hanging by her side. "These creatures are primitive, the only thing they know to do is wreak havoc and destroy."

Libra might've agreed with him. But she'd seen too much, she knew better.

"You talk like you've encountered them yourself, Atticus. Yes, it seems extraordinary, but our knowledge of these creatures is rather thin." she replied.

Her voice lowered as she tilted her head towards him. "And you and I both know it's not impossible. These are the Eosin, not your everyday band of rebels. These things are primordial creatures, and if our own Vectors have mastered these techniques in the past, then who's to say the Eosin may not have been growing, learning, mastering their skills too. I like to believe that anything is possible, so we can be prepared when they come." Libra urged.

Atticus growled, turning to face the skylight.

Large trapezoid panes of glass alternated across the ceiling, each held in rows of ten between arched triangular leaflets of glistening metal. The panes decreased in size as the leaflets narrowed towards the centre of the roof where the apex of each triangle met, and between the panes were empty slots where the sky outside communicated freely with the inside.

An Oriellan flew in through one of the open slots. It perched on the balcony, looking on as if waiting to listen to them. It was young, small, but galvanized in sapphire and beautiful nonetheless. Atticus glanced back at Libra.

"If what you speak of is true, then the Eosin have attained...frequency hybridization." Libra completed his sentence with him.

"That level of mastery, is exceptional." Atticus continued.

His hands splayed out of his cloak to the sides. Fingers, teetering as if to mould perspective into the absurdity of her suggestion for Libra to see.

"I can barely name five people in the last fifty years who've mastered that level of particle manipulation. If you are right, Libra, then we cannot wait until the Eosin reach Canetis. We must meet them out there," he said, touching the sky with a steady hand. "and stop them."

Atticus paced for a moment. Baffled. Reluctant to accept any of what he'd been hearing. His thoughts weltered. Can we even defend ourselves against an enemy with that kind of skill? He thought of his grandfather, Lucas, deceased. He thought of Donnei, their only contemporary capable of using such an advanced technique, but she was only one person. What if the Eosin had an entire band of capable fighters, what if...

Atticus' heart rumbled through his chest. He remembered stories his grandfather would recount. Tales from an ancient time which spoke of Harrows, a powerful league of Eosin soldiers who could upheave entire civilizations. And like the tales of the Eosin used to be, Harrows were merely fictitious things meant to scare children. But as time would have it, the Eosin fairy-tale was realized to be a very real terror only a few centuries prior, so the existence of Harrows couldn't fall too far from the tree. His thoughts rambled faster than he could follow. He breathed.

"The exofringe you said?"

"Yes, they are within."

"Just 3 days ago, they'd barely grazed our galaxy's halo, slated not to reach us for another 3 years. Now, you're telling me they've entered the exofringe." Atticus brooded.

"Something happened, something else. We don't know what, but ever since they neared the halo, they were able to accelerate several parsecs, transiently. We're still trying to figure it out, but we really don't know how they did it."

Atticus faced the Oriellan. A grunt squeezed from his nostrils. His finger flickered, as if to shoot a pebble and the Oriellan burst into a cloud of sapphire feathers, a mucoid blue grime slithering down the banister. "Those birds are relics, it is illegal to hunt or hurt one" Libra thought. But the circumstances here were different. She might've done the same if she were on the listening end.

"We better keep our eyes on the sky today. with so many impossible things happening, one of our suns might crash into the planet and blow us to oblivion." Atticus ridiculed but his face was rigid. He went on.

"How long?"

"At their current speed, by the end of the year."

"That's exactly 7 months from now."

"Unfortunately, yes."

Atticus held libra's gaze for a moment. He recalled a phrase his father, Tobias, would always say, often out of context. It was engraved on Tobias' cenotaph in a lost language, some say, of the gods. He could almost see it, rust speckled metal sprouting from the ground in the third quadrangle of the Ribolan Cemetery. It was a burial ground for deceased Vectors who'd died either in service of The Union or in service of Canetis. 'Ik viv ik hanut, stet hanut, viv flos' – where there is life there will be death and in the midst of death, life flourishes, the cenotaph read.

Silence deafened.

Libra sensed his disjoint. She sought to change the topic, something less daunting perhaps.

"How's training coming along?"

"Superb. Gideon's a prodigy, never ceasing to amaze me. His fellow Sentry awe at the boy's tactical skill and prowess. He is a genius."

"That's good. And Nate?"

"You mean your pet?" Atticus hissed, suddenly enraged all over again.

"Excuse me?"

"You've babied that damn boy too much Libra. Now, he's grown weak. Fickle, mind and body alike."

"Oh, and you have done so much for the boys, right?" Libra lashed. He'd struck an old nerve. The Eosin were mere months away from their skies, the last thing she intended was to start a bickering, but his words had exhumed a variety of unresolved ills. "Don't you dare forget who had to raise those boys, alone for seven years. Seven long years, Atticus."

"I am not doing this with you today Libra, not now." Atticus mumbled.

Libra exhaled, calmed. He'd started it, but she didn't want an argument any more than he did. They had bigger problems.

"All that boy wants is your approval, your recognition, Atticus. And all you do is tear him down, always comparing him to his brother." she said sombrely.

"The boy is weak, Lib. You've grown nothing but a delicate flower."

Libra boiled. Lava swilled through her veins. "You will not refer to my child as boy in my presence, Atticus of Emlat! He has a name and he is your son!"

"Hardly. He has no talent, no skill. It's amazing how a warrior of your calibre and mine could produce such, mediocrity."

"He's not as strong as Gideon, yes. But one day, Atticus. One day that boy will surpass even you."

"Oh, will he now? Tell me more." Atticus mocked.

Libra withdrew a little. Her eyes fell shut, a deep breath. She could go on for ages bout Atticus' downfalls as a father and all his other flaws, but she was tired. Physically, still in need of rest following her recent mission to the Southern Seven and emotionally exhausted, years in, with this age-old drama between her and him.

"Just give him some time, Atticus. He'll learn."

"Time Lib. Time?" Atticus pressed. "In case you'd already forgotten, the Eosin are mere months away from entering our galaxy proper. We do not have time!" he growled. "The boy lacks focus. He needs discipline."

"You're too hard on him Atticus. And your bias towards Gideon couldn't be more obvious; more, distasteful. Keep this up, and you're going to make Nate resent you."

"Then so be it."

His cloak burst open.

"Better that than I culture a weakling."

His rage launched him from the arena and onto the balcony, cloak fluttering through the air behind him as if it were alive. His back faced Lib as he landed, head slightly turned to catch her through the corner of his eye.

"You might as well had given me a daughter."

He let his words hang in the air for a moment, then barged through the translucent glass doors.
Chapter 2

THE ARC VELDT

Nathaniel whisked along the echogrid, rills of blue light crawling through the polished grey pavement below him. The echogrid was as wide as ten times his height on his side of traffic, and the edges bled onto the banks as zig-zag lines of grey against the brick red hue of the stony sidewalks.

It wasn't entirely illegal to use the grid without a Streamer, so long as you were adequately fitted with protective gears and your particle control was good enough to keep you from being thrown off by the magnets. But goggles shielding his eyes were the only thing truly protecting anything and Nathaniel didn't own a Streamer for himself. The one he shared with his brother was already by the Veldt so, he decided to get there the old-fashioned way. A dry-run as it was known, was as dangerous as it was exhilarating.

The Arc Veldt stood around twenty miles south of the OTC. He'd have to pass through the city centre then take one of the southern lines, escaping the gangs of skyscrapers that lined every city corner before he could see any semblance of nature and green. The trip was a short one, it wouldn't take more than five or so minutes with a full-speed dash. But while Nate was quite the thrill seeker most times, dry-running at dangerous speeds along the echogrid on a regular basis, he was exhausted after leaving training and he wasn't wearing any protective gears so, a full speed run was off the table; he wasn't in much of a rush anyway.

He reached the Catenary, the gateway to the veldt; a towering triplet of platinum spires suspending chains of electrum at their pinnacles. The light bouncing off their glistening surfaces made them look wet. A streamer was parked at the base of one of the spires, perched precariously against the hefty stump. It was his. It looked slightly out of place, a spindle shaped chassis of glistening metal and glass bursting out against the grassy backdrop.

Beyond the Catenary, the sanctuary opened. Expansive and delightful, home to every specie of fauna Canetis had to offer. Nate removed his goggles and trekked inside. It was a bit cool out, but he still wore his training gears underneath a woolly brown blazer and a pair of thick, fitted pants. The crisp air caressing his dusty face was the only thing that made him notice the temperature.

He searched around for Gideon, no sign of him in the vast ocean of green. Katya lounged in the shade of an Incus, her favourite tree, the aroma of its flowers, rich and enchanting. Nathaniel spotted her thin silhouette, her back turned to him as her body curled forward – reading he presumed. He trekked over delicately, an attempted surprise.

"Your step isn't very light, Nate. I could hear you before you even came in."

Her back was turned to him still. He rushed behind her and squatted, throwing his hands over her eyes. She'd indeed been reading. A novel, The Iron Citadel. She'd borrowed it from a Human girl at the Academy.

"Who is this Nate you speak of, my Lady? Is he the man who's stolen your heart from mine?"

"No, that man goes by another name." she played.

Nate gasped. "Does he now? Very well. Name him, my Lady. I shall find the swine and slay him myself."

Katya rested her book on a patch of dirt to her right, almost finished. She gently lifted his hands from her eyes as she turned and stood. She was 19 too, but just a few inches shorter than him. She looked down at him, scanning. Rays of light speckled the shade on his face. She had something in mind to say, but in a moment, it evaporated.

"You know, I still have trouble telling the difference between you and Gideon sometimes." she said. Her eyes were quartz, hair, honey, thrown back into a ponytail. "Some days I get it right, other days, I couldn't differentiate if my life depended on it. And you guys really need to do something about your wardrobes by the way. You're grown now. It's creepy."

Nathaniel sprung up. "It's simple really. One of us is obviously more handsome than the other." he smirked, brows wiggling as if to indicate himself.

"Yeah, you're right. Gideon does have that edge."

Nathaniel's lip straightened, Katya chuckled.

He glanced down at her book then stooped down and scooped it up.

"Are you still reading this trash?"

"Give it back" Katya grunted.

"You really need a lesson in taste. You and Gideon eat these trashy books up like Earth fruit."

Nathaniel pranced around the Incus, Katya scurrying behind him. Everyone loved the fruits of Earth, Katya loved much more than that. The human planet was home to some of the most palatable provisions in the galaxy – many of which had been brought back to Canetis and grown in the Thalian Conservatory. But Katya always enjoyed learning about Outworld cultures. Besides, they'd all been living amongst each other for centuries now. And with the recent conclusion of her studies of the Nikundra, she needed a new race to explore and obsess about.

"Can you not be a five-year-old right now? I'm nearly done and it's getting exciting." she said, almost annoyed.

Nate flipped to a random page and read aloud. Dramatic, as he pranced.

"Tell me, child of Kesz, what is sound?" The Bronze Gargoyle asks the princess.

" _Sound is energy, oh Great Overseer."_

" _So, what is energy?"_

" _Energy is life."_

" _So, are sound and life equivalent?"_

" _I would suppose so."_

"Then what say you of Space?"

"An odd question, oh Great Overseer. I'm not sure what to say, I've never been to space."

" _But surely, you've heard of it, so tell me, does sound exist in space?"_

" _No, Great Overseer, I believe not."_

"So, do energy and life not exist in space?"

" _Why they certainly do, that is fact."_

"Then you confuse me princess, where did the sound go?"

" _I'm not sure, oh Great One, I hadn't given it much thought, until now."_

"But now, you are thinking. That is good. A thoughtful princess makes a wise queen."

"My respect, oh Great One, but I submit to you, where did the sound go?"

"Where it's always been, princess. One's inability to perceive a sound does not precisely mean that sound is absent. Where there is life and energy, there will be sound."

"But sound cannot exist inside a vacuum, oh Great One. And space is a vacuum, is it not?"

"Why yes, princess. You are correct, in the first instance. Sound cannot exist inside a vacuum, but neither can energy or life. If either of these things are present, then your vacuum is no longer a vacuum!"

"I concede, oh great one. Alas, space is not truly a vacuum then is it."

" _That is correct, young princess. There is more to it, but you grow wiser still. You will make a good queen one day."_

Katya caught up to him. She grabbed the book from his hand then chucked him down onto the grass.

"Such violence." Nate gasped. He threw his hand over his chest, pretending as if he was actually hurt. "Have I angered the princess?" he asked mockingly.

Katya scoffed, then sat across from him, her back against the trunk of the Incus. A flower detached from above and landed on her head. It was a thin green bulb with clumps of purple whiskers for petals. Her hand rose up to pick it from her hair then rolled it against her nose, spinning the whiskers between her fingers. The aroma was magical.

"I submit to you, my princess, that book is shit."

"Shut up." she said, hurling a rock.

Nate dodged it and laughed.

"Where is Gideon anyway?"

"You tell me. Don't you two have some sort of twin-telepathy or something?"

Nate pressed his index finger into his temple and grunted as if he were constipated. "I call upon thee, Gideon, come forth."

"You're such an ass." Katya simpered.

On the far side of the grassland ran a narrow stream. Immediately beyond it sprung a colonnade of Incuses, both young and mature, arching over the sparkly waters.

Katya noticed a shivering within the wall of trees. The branches parted to reveal a grown yellow jabba with a man perched on its back. The short-legged herbivore stalked across the river then stopped, chomping into a mound of grass as the man hopped off.

"Looks like your telepathy really worked." Katya said, and Nate twisted around to see Gideon petting the animal.

It was mid-afternoon, but the suns burned the land, an interesting contrast to the coolness of the atmosphere. The Jabba's yellow hide was almost white in the brightness. Three sharp black horns perched between thick eyelids that covered the eyes almost completely. It was a wonder how they could still see with all that skin clouding their sight. The ears were pink craters dug out into the sides of the massive head and the jaws were broad and prominent, strong enough to crush metal.

The jabba yawned a low, musical purl into the ground, then went on gnawing away at the grass. Gideon was not subtle as he dashed across the veldt into the shade where Nate and Katya sat. He drew between them.

"Brother," Gideon cheered. He threw his arm around Nate and kissed his temple. Katya's eyes lifted from her book, gawking.

"Sorry, I just can't get over the resemblance." She said.

She'd surely known twins before, but none like these two. Nate and Gideon were like Aeos and Dasos, the twin suns of Canetis, not a single difference detectable with the unaided eye. Their bodies, features, bone structure had all grown in such uncanny exactness to each other. The symmetry was almost, unnatural.

Katya went on reading, a descent into the depths of her novel; the twins no longer existed.

"How was training this morning?" Gideon removed his gloves. A platinum ring spilled from his finger, an exact replica of the one Nate also wore. He caught it.

"It was... productive."

"Dad's pressuring you huh?"

"When is he never?" Nate let himself drop back onto the ground.

"It's always a competition between me and you in his head. Everything is Gideon this, Gideon that. Even when I improve, he never acknowledges it, not even remotely. Nothing's ever enough."

"Don't beat yourself up Nate. You haven't done anything wrong. You're doing your best and I agree, you've gotten much stronger. Faster too. I've seen it. I might even have to start watching my back if you keep this up." Gideon grinned at Nate who now lay flat on the grass.

Nate squinted. He wasn't sure if Gideon was being genuine; Gideon was hard to read sometimes.

"Wow," Nate said. "You really are good at kissing ass."

Gideon slugged his leg. "I'm serious. I'm proud of you, brother."

"Thanks." Nate replied sheepishly.

"Dad's just-" Gideon started.

He suddenly remembered that Katya was present. He thought about what he'd long perceived as a manifestation of pure guilt in the way Atticus related to Nate. He thought of the years that passed between childhood and virtual adulthood and he'd always hypothesized that Atticus blamed himself for missing almost a decade of their lives, for not being there for them, for Nathaniel not turning out equally skilled. But that might not have been fit for Katya's ears. Gideon held his tongue.

"He's just under a lot of pressure. He's the leader of the Sentry, he's the Head of The Union's military, and he's the single most powerful statesman in Alkazka besides Emperor Jasuum. Some would argue that he's even more powerful than the Emperor, and I couldn't entirely disagree."

Nate sighed. "I guess you're right." He said.

"Yea. So, don't take it personally. Deep down, he means well." Gideon softened the thought.

"Yea..." Nate exhaled.

He sat up, propped onto his elbows. "So how about you, brother. How's Sentry training?"

"Overrated, tedious."

"What? Really?"

"Yea, I'm pretty sure you could take a couple of them down yourself."

Nate's confidence soared. "Well, I don't doubt it either." he said, sounding a little too convinced.

"It gets boring really, most of them are pretty average fighters if you ask me."

"Or maybe you're just too good for most of them to handle." Nate flattered, poking his arm. "What about the Stereo clade, and the Vectors, don't you train with them too?"

"Oh, Yeah." Gideon's eyes widened with pleasure. "Now that's training. The Stereos are amazing. I might even be able take a couple of them down on a good day. But the Vectors, those guys are the real deal. Even dad better watch his back when they hit the floor."

"Don't be modest, I'm pretty sure you could handle a Vector if you had to."

"You overestimate me, brother. You should really see them in action, it's quite a spectacle."

"I can imagine!" Nate sprung up, startling Katya. "Gideon of Libra – Vector. Now that sounds good." He grinned.

Katya rolled her eyes and scoffed, then fell back into her book. She had little taste for fighting and the sort. Her mother, Donnei, used to be a Vector, one of the strongest Vectors ever known. But Donnei had long left the clade to pursue other interests. And by the time Katya had grown old enough to choose her own path, Donnei's life had transformed to embrace the natural sciences and arts, and so Katya grew to know and love little else.

A melody chimed into the air from below. Gideon looked down at his wrist. His holosleve, glowing.

"Who's that?" Nate asked.

"It's dad."

Gideon got up, then gave a few meters between himself and the other two as he took the call.

"Father."

"Gideon, my son. There's an emergent matter we must address." Atticus said. His tone was serious.

"Understood, what is it?"

"This is highly sensitive information Gideon, are you alone?"

"No father, I'm by the Arc Veldt with Nate and Katya."

Atticus sighed, "I really wish you would elevate your company Gideon. Your time shouldn't be passed with people who have nothing constructive to offer your development."

Nate overheard; actually, he was fully eavesdropping. He scoffed, but the words stung his heart.

Gideon steered the conversation away swiftly.

"Shall I come to you father?"

"No, an emergency meeting has been called with all clades of the Sentry. Evendie will update you there along with everyone else."

"Understood. Where will it be?"

"The Cycad, level 3. Ventricle 6 along the Milligan corridor."

"I don't have ac-" Gideon started.

"All Sentry have been granted temporary access. Don't worry, just be there."

"Understood. Time?"

"When Dasos kisses the horizon, arrive by then." Atticus said. The holographic head nodded, then vanished.

Atticus seemed shaken. Gideon could sense the unease in his father's voice. "I wonder what it is?" He thought, glaring at the sky. Aeos had descended beyond the far mountains, Dasos was still high.

He'd been in the veldt riding jabbas all day, he was filthy, hungry too. He thought he'd run home, eat and clean up before Dasos descended too far.

"Brother, Katya, I have to go." He said.

"Everything ok?" Nate asked, as if he hadn't been listening in.

"Doubtful, I'm not exactly sure what's wrong though."

"You're leaving, already?" Katya asked, distressed. She got up and jogged over to them. "We still haven't reached our quota for the day yet. We've only tagged six, Gideon." She said.

Nate looked at her, confused.

"Oh, Gideon and I are tagging jabbas. We're studying mating patterns and seasonal effects on colour variation."

Nate's expression grew dull. He thought momentarily why they'd want to be studying jabbas and colour variation. Red jabbas were long extinct, all were yellow now. But he wasn't remotely interested enough to prolong the discussion. Anything involving studying things was simply not his taste.

"Ok." he mumbled, his disinterest roaring in his voice.

"Oh yeah." Gideon conceded. He looked over at Nate, quiet. Nate's eyes swayed between Gideon and Katya repeatedly, both darting at him. He could feel them pressuring him.

"What?" Nate hissed.

Gideon's eyes flashed over to Katya then back. "No, I don't want to be part of your... research." the last word came out with a tangible scorn.

"Come on, Nate. It'll be fun." Katya begged.

"Yea brother, fun." Gideon smiled.

Nate watched him closely. He wasn't sure if Gideon was being genuine, or genuinely sarcastic. "Damnit, he's so hard to read sometimes!" Nate thought.

Katya was a bubbly girl, great to hang with, except when she nerds out, that's when he'd know it's time to hand her over to Gideon. He wasn't particularly excited to participate in their little project, but he wasn't sure if his father would be home and he'd had enough thrashing for the day. He could go by his mother, but she'd made him promise to spend less time by her and more with his father. She said it would help build their relationship, Nate saw it as nothing short of torture.

"Ok, fine." Nate agreed reluctantly.

"Yes!" Katya cheered.

"How're you getting home?" Nate asked.

"Oh, I'll just dry-run it. I'll leave the streamer for you guys to use when you're done."

"Alrighty." Nate said, handing Gideon the goggles he wore around his neck.

Gideon embraced them both then left and two strolled back towards the incus where they all sat before.

"You know Nate, boys like you could learn a lot about gender roles and relationships from jabbas. They're really interesting animals when you watch them closely."

"Boys like me," Nate puzzled, "what's that supposed to mean? And I don't intend to learn anything about relationships from a bunch of wild jabbas, Katya. I'm not an animal."

"Hmm, could've fooled me." Katya joked.

She dashed off in the direction of Aeos, which was now almost half way gone behind the mountainous silhouette. Nate snickered and shook his head, then dashed off behind her.
Chapter 3

ANTIPRISM

"We are guardians, we are knights. And we will protect Canetis with our lives." Evendie of Nnaat recited the Sentry's oath as she took the platform.

Her words plunged throughout the Ventricle, nine hundred and ninety-nine seated, listening. There was little to say or see of her figure, sheathed by a cloak of pure white. The only contrast, a crude red hexagon with a 'V' at its centre, pinned just above her left bosom.

She stood centre stage, head perched atop the sea of white. Her falciform nose hung above the shadows hollowed into her cheeks where the lights forgot to land. Head, bald. She was aquiline. She looked like a creature belonging the heavens as she hovered across the stage, lights dangling from the high roof like spider webs with fluorescent cherubim singing her praise.

Gideon was attentive, but for a moment, his focus drifted down to the front row. An assortment of seven glabrous heads glimmered back at him, each dressed just as Evendie was. It was a stark disparity with the full black apparel of the Stereo clade which sat on either side of and behind the row of shaven heads; fifty-Seven Stereos total. The contrast resembled a black-eyed pea, except the colours had been transposed. He panned across the expanse of seats. The rest were occupied by men and women of the Mono clade, all dressed in dull grey bodysuits that came up into a choke, like his.

The Sentry always tried to keep the clade contingents at even numbers. It made things easier for mission planning and deployment of uniform, well equipped squadrons. But the desire to have the numbers evened out was always secondary to the need to ensure that only those Sentry of requisite skill and prowess were allowed admission to the higher clades.

The Ventricle was massive beyond need. A thousand seats occupied by Sentry and still, a thousand more remained. They sat nonetheless with no empty seats between each other, producing a monochromatic landscape of white, then black then grey all around when visualized from the stage up towards the back. A pair of empty seats lay among the Vector clade, but Gideon's attention was drawn back to Evendie before he could tell who was missing.

"The barrier we wish to construct will be no simple task, it will dwarf all other feats of defence we've ever accomplished as a civilization." She said.

Lights dimmed.

A curtain of blue lights grew to encircle Evendie from below then gave birth to a sizeable hologram that swam above all, projecting an unusual shape. The top and bottom were pentagonal in outline, formed by the union of a circular arrangement of ten alternating triangles. She raised her hands to enlarge the object and as it expanded, another projection was revealed within it, their solar system.

"This, is the Antiprism." Evendie continued, "A shell of sound and electromagnetic energy within which we will encapsulate our solar system to keep the Eosin at bay."

Gideon caught a glance of several gaping mouths around him. A series of moans and murmurs oozed from the Ventricle as the projection rotated slowly in the air. It was indeed a mammoth construction; celestial, to say the least.

"We are a thousand in number; the antiprism has ten vertices. We will therefore divide ourselves into squadrons of one hundred, and each will be transported to a predetermined spatial coordinate corresponding to one of these vertices. Each squadron will be led by a mothership, commanded by a Vector and each mothership will carry one of these..."

The hologram evaporated like a puff of steam and another projection appeared. A ring, with three conical spikes spaced equidistantly along its circumference.

"The Nimbus will be used to create a double layered, electromagnetic wall, extending along each face of the Antiprism and between the layers, each squadron will decompress a particle canister." Another ring, slightly smaller than the Nimbus appeared. "The Vectors and Stereos will then disperse a range of frequencies between the layers of the Antiprism and the electromagnetic walls will scatter and sustain these frequencies, disrupting the Eosin's navigation tools as they approach, keeping our solar system virtually inaccessible for as long as the barrier holds."

The projection reverted to the Antiprism. Evendie studied the ventricle as she continued, eyes sweeping across every inch of every row.

"Effective placement and activation of each Nimbus will be the key to successfully constructing this barrier." She spurred.

The large sliding doors towards the rear of the ventricle hissed apart and Gideon peeked back to glimpse Atticus entering. He was reminded of the empty seats among the Vector clade. Atticus sat. Now, the room was a thousand.

"The first seven squadrons, S-one to S-seven, will be transported to each of the vertices highlighted in green." She raised her hands and pointed, and a green circle appeared each time her finger flickered into the sky. Her cloak opened for a while; she was thinner than Gideon would've expected. A wire of a woman, covered in skin and cloth. Nonetheless, she wore the sigil of a Vector, leaving nothing to be asked of her abilities.

"The last three squadrons, S-eight, nine and ten, will be transported here," A ball of yellow light appeared where she pointed. Gideon judged by the spatial orientation, it was directly towards Vega Prime – the Southern star, the exact direction the Eosin would be approaching from. "and those three squadrons will be accompanied by the Armada." her voice lowered, "I need not explain why."

The projection dissipated, like thin blue flames extinguished with a waving gesture of her hand, and the platform lights brightened once again.

"It is not our intention to engage in an all-out battle and we do not anticipate that the Eosin will have reached that close to our system in the next seventeen days while we prepare to launch. Nonetheless, their speed has been fluctuating unpredictably for some time and so, we must be ready for the worst-case scenario."

The raised platform on which she stood began to sink, slowly becoming level with the rest of the ground around it, which itself, expanded circumferentially, pushing the entire Ventricle back to produce a significantly wider, open area.

"You all may have noticed that our numbers are unevenly distributed among the clades. Mono clade – nine hundred thirty-four, Stereo clade – fifty-seven, and Vector clade – nine."

She zoomed towards the audience, a ghoul slithering through the air.

"That itself is not unusual however, in order for us to successfully construct the barrier we desire, we will invariably require another Vector-level Sentry; the circumstances demand it."

Her voice lowered, reverberating throughout the ventricle.

"At this time, the Vector clade would like to open the floor to all Sentry. Is there any one among you who wishes to nominate either them self or their colleague, to put his or her skill to the test, to stand proud and protect Canetis in this time of need?" Evendie roared.

She scanned the audience, her gaze whipping across the aisles, scrutinizing the hundreds of faces like a machine. All was mute; an ant could whisper, and it would be heard.

Her eyes widened as a few moments passed and no one uttered a word. She drifted back into the stage.

"I am appalled." Evendie said, sounding genuinely so.

"Your comrades need you. Canetis needs you. Yet none of you, not even one would attempt?" She pressed.

It was no surprise to see everyone backing down from a challenge such as this. The title of Vector was not simply an appointment you got overnight. The test was borderline deadly, not to mention the humiliation if one were to fail.

Gideon had watched the test before, well part of it, and to be fair, it should be okay to fail, considering the extremely strenuous nature of the task. But who wants to be the guy who failed the test? He looked around, taking care not to call attention to himself.

No one budged.

He'd thought about it before, he'd dreamt of it – more like nightmares really, as at the end of each dream he'd wake up having failed. But with Atticus sitting in the front row, the last thing Gideon wanted to do was to embarrass his father, his mother, his brother.

"Very wel -" Evendie started.

"I, Rubro, Son of Invara would like to nominate...Gideon, Son of Libra"

A sudden murmur swept across the ventricle.

Gideon twisted in his seat swiftly at the sound of his name, to see the boy's face. His eyes burned through Rubro like torches. Gideon's heart thundered, his tongue shrivelled with dread. "What!" is all he could think. He spun back to face Evendie, who gazed in their direction with an uncanny leer. Gideon wasn't sure if she was looking at him or Rubro, but her lips twitched with a subtle excitement. It was menacing.

"Do we have someone to second that nomination?" She said.

"I, Hannah, Daughter of Mayol, Second that nomination."

Gideon's muscles spasmed at the sound of the voice. He didn't look back at the girl, but he knew her. He could see her face as his eyes locked in a vacant stare at Evendie, heart screaming.

"Excellent," Evendie whispered. Her voice hummed with pleasure, "Gideon..." She called, peering up at the startled boy. He seemed to stare back at her. But he was dazed, gazing at nothing at all, pulse hammering, sweat flooding beneath his suit.

"Gideon." She urged.

His awareness flushed back. Surrounded by an ocean of twisted heads with expectant eyes launching towards him from all angles, Gideon's eyes found Evendie's gaze and held it.

"Do you accept?" She asked.

He attempted to answer but his tongue had gone dry. He swallowed. His brain thought No.

"Yes," He replied, sounding more like he was declining, "Yes...I accept."

Evendie smiled, a sinister grin. It was hard to tell if she was genuinely elated someone had accepted the burden of helping to protect the planet, or if she was just glad to have a nominee for the display that was to come. Inside, it was a mixture of both. She'd long kept a watchful eye on him and his progress. Perhaps if another moment had passed, she would have nominated him herself; even the Stereo clade held no warrior who showed as much promise as he did, as far as she could tell. As proctor-to-be for the upcoming test however, she didn't let it show too much, but her heart thrilled.

"This way, young Sentry." Her hand writhed from beneath her cloak like a hidden demon, beckoning him to come closer.

Gideon got up, making sure not to meet anyone's gaze directly. His heart rumbled through his chest. His muscles spasmed, joints quivering. But he made none of it show. He thought of turning back. He wanted to. But he'd already accepted the nomination. He thought of success, he thought of death and worst of all, he thought of failure, but his brain had been reduced to a jumbled conundrum. He could barely keep up with his own thoughts anymore.

As Gideon approached the platform, a bright red hexagon intensified in the centre like a neon disc beneath a transparent glass plate. He stood on the disc, it's diameter no more than twice his shoulders' breadth.

Looking up towards the back of the ventricle, a multitude of eyes scorched down at him. The lights seemed brighter than they did before. Where he stood, they burned. In the periphery of his vision, he could distinguish Atticus in the front row. Gideon was meticulous in avoiding his father's gaze. He could surely do without that kind of anxiety in the moment.

Evendie hovered to the far left of the stage. Two men emerged from behind a doorway Gideon couldn't see very well and gave her a box. It was red and hexagonal, with a 'V' emblazoned in the middle, like her pin. She approached him and opened it, revealing a mask no less white than her cloak. It had no eye-holes, no breathing holes, but clear-enough contours to make it look like a face. With her eyes, she directed him to take it out. He reached. His hand, weary, as he lifted the mask.

In the moment the device approached his face, a pair of tentacles sprung from its sides, latching themselves together around his head. His heart skipped a beat.

All went black.

Gideon gulped air in panic, yet quickly found that he could breathe just fine inside the mask. But he could see absolutely nothing. He heard the box slam shut, and he sensed Evendie drift away from before him. He knew what came next, he'd seen it before.

"In order to be considered worthy of the title of Vector, the inductee must demonstrate Tetra-polar Fettering." Evendie said.

She turned to face the audience once more and her eyes fell upon the Stereo clade. With a gentle nod, a queue of twelve Stereos arose from their seats and approached the stage, taking care not to step beyond the thin rim of blue light which grew to encircle the disc where Gideon stood.

They split themselves into groups of three, one triplet directly behind Gideon, one in front and the last two triplets on either side. They each stood about thirty feet away from him, but Gideon could hear each of their breaths with pristine clarity nonetheless.

"The inductee must fetter four simultaneous Stereo Blasts of tripled intensity and sustain his fettering for no less than sixty seconds, all while staying within the confines of the hexagon." She paused. Her head turned to catch him in the corner of her eye. He felt her eyes pierce him.

"As is customary, the Vectors will invigilate the test. If at any point in time an Invigilator believes that the Inductee's life is in danger, the test will be stopped immediately, and the induction will be withdrawn. Do you understand, Gideon?"

A moment passed before Gideon processed the words fully. His mind was a psychedelic broth.

"Yes." He replied.

His voice was clear. Not in the slightest bit muffled by the device that'd swallowed his face whole, nor did it reflect the terror that quaked his entire body.

"Very well. The timer will begin when the fourth Stereo Blast is launched."

Evendie's feet touched the ground for the first time. She walked towards the row of Vectors and took her seat.

"Stereo," she drawled, reclining in her seat.

"You may proceed."
Chapter 4

THE TEST

The ventricle fell mute. Dead silence as the lights dimmed everywhere except over the stage.

The air buckled as the first blast launched from the Stereo triplet to Gideon's right. In a flash, his hand sprung from his side. Palm vertical as the air around it rippled, fettering the blast inches away from his palm. He could feel the energy dive through his hand and electrify his skeleton.

"Three more? Of these?!" he roared inside.

Evendie gasped.

"Your boy is sharp Atticus, I'm impressed." She whispered, stroking a steady finger against her lip. Her pleasure was a strange automatism, it would seem.

"I'm not," another Vector along the row drawled, "This is the easy part. I like to wait until after the first two blasts. That's when they all get blown to hell."

Atticus glanced over at him, Xavier, Son of Parg, but replied to neither his nor Evendie's remarks. He always knew his son's strength, but whether Gideon had grown strong enough to pass the test was as uncertain to him as it was to everyone else watching.

The second blast bellowed towards Gideon from the triplet on his left. His arm danced into the air like before, fettering the beam as it approached. He could feel his elbows buckling under the sheer pressure as the powerful blasts squeezed his arms towards each other. He held his ground, gracefully, but knew the next beam would be tough to fetter.

As much as he'd tried to prepare his body and mind, the power of the third beam bore into his torso from in front, almost throwing him beyond the confines of the hexagon. His left foot slipped back swiftly to hold his balance. He couldn't see his feet; his exact bearings weren't sure to him. But the test hadn't been stopped yet. He was in the clear, for now. He pushed forward against the current tearing at him from in front, perhaps not the wisest decision he could've made. In the moment he did, the fourth blast dug into his back.

Atticus drew a sharp breath.

"Time." Evendie whispered, and a holographic countdown burst into the sky for all to see.

Gideon's right foot slammed forward, millimetres from the edge of the hexagon as his ill measured momentum to resist the blast from ahead nearly tipped him over with the blast from behind. Safe, he was.

Atticus exhaled.

The ventricle swelled into a thunderous roar. Heavy cheers as Gideon fettered the fourth blast and the countdown began.

For many of the Sentry, this was not the first time they'd witnessed a Vector test. But for the vast majority, they'd never witnessed anyone get past the third Stereo Blast much less make it to the start of the countdown. Locked away inside the capsule of deafening sound and immense pressure, Gideon was unable to hear the uproar that was underway for him. But his comrades cheered him on nonetheless.

"Now, I'm impressed." Xavier drawled, pulling closer to the edge of his seat.

Forty-four, forty-three, forty-two...

A globule of liquid splashed to the floor beneath the interface where Gideon's palm fettered the stereo blast from his right. The sound pressure had grown tremendously, causing the atmosphere to liquefy. In a few seconds, the entire atmosphere surrounding Gideon wrinkled with globs of fluid and soon, he was encompassed by an oscillating shell of gelatinized air. His mouth gaped as a scream yawned from his viscera. The pressure was immense, his organs trembled.

Thirty-three, Thirty-two, Thirty-one...

Gideon had never witnessed a vector test that'd gotten to the half way mark. What he and most others knew of the test was the little they'd seen and what they'd read. But what the test truly entailed for the Sentry who managed to get this far, was untold and onerous; the part not written in the books. The part only those who'd seen it or felt it knew.

Evendie stood as the clock struck thirty. She leaned forward and gave a command to the Stereos.

"Undulate." she whispered, then took her seat once again.

The triplets dispersed to encircle Gideon completely and their arms danced through the air, multiplying the polarity of the Stereo Blasts. Gideon quickly noticed the change in the pressure as he felt his body begin to sway uncontrollably where he stood. He tried to catch himself, almost toppling over one of the edges of the hexagon...he made it. Barely.

Ears popped.

A thread of blood streaked the side of his face from his ear down to his neck; it would have tickled if he could've actually felt it, the pressure making his nerves numb. His bones convulsed under his skin and his body continued to sway wildly, slowly spiralling out of control.

"You've come too far Gideon, you can't fail now!" He thought. But that helped nothing.

His eyes fell shut beneath the mask. His breathing slowed as his thoughts settled.

A memory.

" _Show me Gideon, how do you fetter?" Atticus asks the frisky nine-year-old._

"Like this, father." Gideon demonstrates a widened stance, arms outstretched, palms vertical.

" _That's all?"_

"Yes, father."

" _So, what do you do when a beam comes blasting at you from in front, or behind?"_

" _I move around and catch it."_

"Fair. So, what happens when the beams are coming from many directions all at once?"

"I move around faster and catch them all." Gideon spins himself dizzy.

" _That looks terribly tedious, don't you think?" Atticus chuckles._

" _Hmm, I guess it does. So, what should I do then father?"_

"It's simple. You use the other parts of your body to help you. You have a head, you have a back, you have a belly..." Gideon giggles as his father pokes his abdomen. "Why not use them?"

" _That sounds hard father, I'm not sure how to use them all like that."_

"That's ok Gideon." Atticus says, running a coarse hand through the boy's hair. "One day, you'll learn how to use your entire body as a vessel. And that will be the day you become a Vector."

" _Wow!" Gideon awes, "Like you and mommy, father?"_

"Yes Gideon, just like me and mommy."

Twenty-one, twenty, nineteen, eighteen...

The liquefied air which oscillated around him began to crystallize in blotches, a thin layer of translucent ice growing along the interface between the stereo blasts and Gideon's fettering.

Inside the frozen cocoon, Gideon swayed less and less each second, winding down incrementally until he was utterly steady. His hands lowered, slowly, from their outstretched position and soon he stood unmoved, unyielding, completely balanced inside the hexagon.

The Stereo Blasts continued to bellow at Gideon, but inside the semi-translucent veil of ice, he was unshakable, fettering the blasts with his whole body from an undisturbed stance.

Ten, nine, eight...

The Stereos returned to their initial positions, assuming the tetra-polar triplet configuration from before.

"Not too shabby," Xavier remarked, drawing back to recline in his chair from the edge, "not too shabby at all."

Atticus heard him, but once again said nothing, giving but a smirk. For the first time throughout the test, he'd relaxed. From the outside, he appeared as stoic as usual, but inside, Atticus was perhaps more nervous than even Gideon was.

Evendie held a slant grin, her finger caressing her upper lip gently. Her eyes were wide as the test drew to a close.

Four, three, two...

The Stereo Blasts stopped instantaneously. The room was quiet. The crystalline cocoon that'd manifested around Gideon fizzed and crackled then burst to the ground unceremoniously like a pane of glass being shattered by a bullet. Gideon stood within the red hexagon, the air around him still wrinkled, rippling, settling to a calm.

Beneath him, the glowing red hexagon flashed into a bright green and as it did, the Ventricle erupted into a roar of cheers and applause. His hearing was puffy, but good enough to make out the noise. The mask he wore unlatched its tentacles from around his head spontaneously and collapsed to the floor with a clang, inaudible among the hoorah.

The lights were bright again, but they didn't burn now. The entire ventricle was on its feet and Evendie walked up to the boy rather than hovered. He was a Vector now, she was no longer above him. She carried a flawless white coat, like her own, tossing the shroud over his head and around his neck excitedly.

Gideon stood, numb, and smiled; he could barely believe what he'd just done. It all seemed so dreamlike in the moment. But ploughing through the forefront of his mind as Evendie secured the Vector sigil to his cloak was a single thought.

"Nate's going to laugh when I shave my head."
**Chapter** **5**

ABSORBER

Nate took pride in training by himself. He didn't have to feel less-than whenever he did. It was something he ended up having to do from time to time ever since Atticus came back into his and his brothers' lives. His father would often take Gideon and train with him to the exclusion of Nate. But Nate always felt like he wouldn't have been able to keep up with either of them anyway, he'd only be holding them back and with that, he'd gladly train elsewhere; most times with a partner from the Academy, other times, alone.

Gideon had spent a lot of time with him before he left for his mission, it was Nate who saved his brother's head. They'd been gone several hours now and should be just about to arrive at their respective destinations, he estimated.

Nathaniel could only imagine the level of sacrifice they were making, going as far as they were to protect the planet, to protect everyone. Flushed by a wave of insecurity, his mind wouldn't let him rest and so, he'd been training non-stop for the last several hours, working on his agility, his speed and just about any of the other few things he could adequately work on by himself. He could have easily gotten a friend form the academy to help. But he wasn't exactly in a people mood.

He hadn't eaten, barely slept and cancelled on Katya, whom he was supposed to meet by the Arc veldt to help work on her project. She didn't know about the Eosin as far as he was concerned. Their coming wasn't exactly public knowledge; only the highest officials of The Union's government and military and the handful of leaders from the Southern Seven were privy to information regarding the impending threat.

The people were in the right to know, they should long have been warned even. But a planet wide broadcast about an impending danger that could rip their world asunder wasn't exactly the best way to go about preventing global chaos. They wanted to do everything they could to stop the threat before they absolutely had to let everyone know.

He'd told Katya that he had to run some errands for his mom and that seemed sufficient to get her off his back. He was supposed to feel bad, he might've otherwise, but he didn't. This was more important.

Steps clanged.

Someone came in from the eastern vomitorium. The person's step was heavy, but he could sense a familiar presence as the steps approached.

"I thought I'd find you here," the voice said.

He turned around to catch his mother closing in. Suddenly aware of the blanket of dirt that layered him head to toe, he brushed off as much as he could before she got too close.

"Have you eaten yet?" Libra asked. He didn't answer immediately, they both knew he hadn't.

"I'm not hungry." he said. He wasn't, at least he didn't feel it, "I just need to train, I'll eat later."

"If you say so. But the last thing you want to do is pass out."

"I'm okay for now." she caught his eyes, vacant, pearls rolled in charcoal. They glistened waveringly in a way that didn't suit his usual friskiness.

"Something is bothering you, come, talk to me."

"It's nothing, I just... I just want to keep training. I need to get better."

"That's it isn't it? Getting better."

Nate didn't answer but his eyes left hers. He looked down. He tried not to say anything, but the words welled up inside his tongue, then loosed.

"They're out protecting the planet mom, they're out there on the front line and, where am I? I'm all the way back here, useless. And what if the Eosin arrived tomorrow? I'd be a liability, a civilian casua-"

"Stop that," Libra cut him. "You talk down to yourself too much, Nate. Looks like Atticus has gotten into your head."

"But it's true mom, Gideon's a Vector now, dad's a Vector... you're a Vector." He pressed.

"I've left the clade for years now, Nate. You know that."

"Yeah Mom but the point is, all three of you...your strength and skill are – supreme. And I'm just...average, at best."

"You're far from average, Nate. You're my son...you're your father's son. And we weren't just born Vectors. It took work. Days, weeks," She lifted his chin with a steady finger "Years of blood and training. So, just keep working, you'll get there. And when you do, I'll be here to say I told you so." Libra smiled, her palm cushioned his cheek lightly.

She slugged is shoulder then gave several meters between him and her, strolling over to the other end of the Arena.

"There's not much you can achieve running around the arena by yourself, and since your father and brother aren't here, the least I could do is help out. What do you say? I'm a bit rusty myself, you know." Her lip arched into a smirk, eyes twinkling with a subtle excitement.

They both knew she was only as rusty as a freshly polished blade. He'd actually thought of asking her to help from before, but he figured she might've still been a little tired. It had been several days since she'd returned, but she'd been gone for about a week or so and she'd been working nonstop ever since she came back. 'A mission to the south' is all the detail she gave him about it.

She and Atticus would often readily disclose highly classified state intelligence to both him and Gideon so, they'd long equated her or their father being cryptic about anything at all, with 'assassination' or something else on the spectrum of fighting and death. He and Gideon knew better than to ask too many questions.

The morning sun crept down on her brown texture and she bronzed like a radiant goddess. She wasn't dressed in her usual Seeker suit today. Just a pair of pants that fit too closely for Nathaniel's comfort, a purple top that left both her arms fully exposed, and an obsidian pixie cut, all atop a pair of heels that made her just a few inches taller than him. Athletic but elegant, robust but soft. The gentlest woman he knew.

He'd always heard she was an absolute warmonger back in her Vector days, beneath all that softness and mush, but he never knew her that way. Parents don't exactly run around telling their children all their deepest darkest secrets, and all she'd shown him and his brother growing up were purely nurturing hands and love.

Libra's feet levitated from the rocky ground as she took a stance. No white cloak and a head full of hair, but there was no denying she was still very much a Vector, beyond the clade.

"Nate," She urged. His eyes quivered.

"What are you waiting for," Her fingers flexed on an outstretched right hand. "Come."

There was something scary about seeing her like this. He'd trained with her before but that might have been a few years prior at least.

The rocky terrain coughed beneath her feet. Nate crouched.

"Fine," She exhaled, impatient. "I'll get you moving." The words rolled from her tongue in a soft growl.

Nate caught air.

Libra's fingers flickered, each smashing against her thumb one after the other, firing a volley of missiles far more powerful than the snaps would foretell.

Nathaniel danced around each of them, watching her hands as closely as he could.

"Hmm," she purred, "Faster."

Her fingers accelerated, forcing Nate into a clumsy dodging match to avoid all the bullets.

Her palm closed suddenly. A fist. Then sprang open, releasing a massive shockwave through the air. The blast tore Nate into the wall far back, digging a shallow canal into the arena floor along its trajectory, dust-clouds in its wake. He took a heavy hit.

Libra didn't stop.

Her fingers twitched again, she swayed.

"Move, move, move! Faster!" her voice surged. A sadistic growl, frightening. He'd never seen her like this. It was as if she was quickly transforming into an animal.

Nate jigged across the floor, no time to recover his stance before the next barrage of bullets had come. He kept a close eye on her hands but could barely keep up between flickers. She watched him just as closely, perhaps more.

"I see." She whispered.

With the last flicker of her right index finger, she blasted him into the wall again, not too far from where he'd crashed before.

Dust swelled around him as the arena's walls trembled.

Libra hovered over, helping him out of the rubble.

"We've barely been training 10 minutes and already I see your problem."

"What," he said, brushing the dirt from his clothes. "What do you mean mom?"

"Your eyes, Nate. You're using your eyes and not your ears. You won't achieve much doing that. Seeing is good, but relying on your eyes alone, you'll never foresee what they can't see. The hidden flickers, the sudden, subtle twitches that accumulate and produce those ghostly bullets you can't dodge...unless you hear them the in the instant they're generated."

She tapped her finger against his ear then above his eyelid. "Use more of this, and less of this."

"That's harder than it sounds. I try, but it's just, everything sounds the same. They're all, mixed."

"Yes, there will be some that seem mixed, simultaneous even. But you must focus, son. There's a reason why our hearing in far superior to any other living thing in the galaxy. Discipline your mind. Listen then respond." She said to him gently.

It was nothing he hadn't heard before. His father had said similar things, albeit less tenderly. How does one discipline his mind? Is it a thought, a process, a substance...what is this abstract thing called discipline?

"Ok...I'll try." He replied.

Her brows kitted, a bewildered expression. He caught her eyes, darting.

"What?"

"I don't want to hear that you're going to try, Nate." She said sombrely, but her tone had a strong seriousness to it. "There comes a time when you have to stop trying and start actually doing it."

"But-"

"Don't make me have to get you a blindfold." She said, brows raised. Her finger snuck under his chin to raise his head. "Believe in yourself, Nate. You can do it." Libra smiled.

She hovered back across the arena to where she'd stood before.

"Let's do this again." she urged.

Nate swallowed a deep breath.

Both her hands slithered forward. Her fingers flickered again, faster, stronger blasts. Her digits twitched in the air as if she played an invisible instrument. Nate danced between the bullets, seamlessly.

"Good, good." She growled with pleasure, "That's my boy."

Libra closed her fist again, between flickers, and blast a shockwave towards him. He dodged it this time.

Her attacks paused, abruptly, as a sinister smirk broke her lips ajar.

"Hmmm," A rumble squeezed from her nose. Nate stood far off, panting heavily as he looked on.

"Let's take it up a notch."

I can't even catch my breath, he thought.

Her left hand whirled in place, kneading the air into a ball, then flung forward, pelting a nebula of swirling air directly at him. He'd never seen someone do that, not even Atticus.

Fear chilled his viscera. Whatever it was, he knew better than to allow himself to get hit by one. Is she trying to kill me? he thought, and the look on her face told him she actually might.

He threw himself to the side as the blast shattered the rocky ground into a cloud of dust and pebbles. Libra's right hand followed suit, then the left again and so she propelled a series of grenades, far stronger than her fingers did as they twitched. The blasts tore craters into the walls on impact, and the arena's walls were specially designed concrete made of a highly resistant geopolymer. Even scratching them required significant force.

Nate alternated from ground to wall as he dodged each blast she launched. His particle control at his soles wasn't perfect but it was useful for the transient moments he jumped onto the wall and back. He was growing tired, weary, and dodging was becoming a chore.

The blasts changed as her hand movements transitioned, producing streams of vertical blades of air and sound, slicing the ground as they howled towards him.

"You can't dodge everything son, you must fetter. Let me see you fetter!" Libra growled.

Nathaniel burst from the wall, weaving his body between the blades. Swift. It was like training with Atticus all over again. His mother had upped the intensity so fast, so much. He was running on empty, out of breath.

"Why aren't you fettering!" Libra roared, punctuating each word with a blast stronger than the last as she sustained her attacks.

He found himself caught between a pair of the blasts while a third one tore towards him through the middle. She was trying to force him to fetter.

Unable to swing either side, he burst into the air, barely missing the upper tip of the blade.

Libra grunted. She wondered why he wasn't fettering but didn't ask a second time. Her impatience grew.

Now directed at the sky, her fingers twitched wildly again, waves rippling into the air, crashing into the glass dome of the arena's high roof where Nate swung out of their path. The roof was programmed to open automatically whenever it became disturbed by bursts such as these. A good thing, lest the entire ceiling shatter. It opened like a lotus, the arched triangular facets detaching from each other and bending back to let the sky in.

A whistle.

Sharp, high pitched bullets rained down at Libra as Nate descended.

"Slick." she remarked.

Her stance widened, and her right palm whirled above her head, fettering the bullets as they came, all while her left had kept firing. Her whirling hand seemed to collect all of Nate's bullets into one, then as he landed to the floor once again, her palm came forward and released the bullets all in a single, ear-splitting burst.

A crystalline blanket of ice shimmered around her hand as the blast ripped free. Nate flung himself away wildly using as many muscles as he had available, only just fast enough to escape.

A massive explosion tore through the back of the arena. The eastern vomitorium collapsed completely, slabs of concrete, shattered balcony glass and even a few seats from the pavilion up top tumbled into the rubble.

He looked back at it as the dust lightened. He slouched over, panting, gawking at Libra. Horrified.

"What?" she said.

"That was a little much, Mom. Are you trying to kill me?" he forced a grunt, breathless still.

A menacing laugh burst from her lungs. She smiled, but her eyes were serious.

"You haven't even begun to see much yet. This is not a game, get up and come!" Her eyes widened eerily with the last word, and her voice thundered.

She was angry, or she at least looked angry. He wasn't sure. He'd never seen her get so into it before. The last thing he needed at that point was her pelting bullets at him again. He gulped a gallon of air down and crouched, the ground below him coughing to the sky as he did.

Nate burst forward and made a landing mere inches in front of her, his fist already reaching for her chest. Close range combat was perhaps his strongest point, the one thing he always had an edge for, with most skilled opponents.

The two engaged in an intense exchange a fists and kicks, Nate doing his best to not give her a chance to start firing bullets at him again. He felt assured that somehow, he was able to hold her off from blasting her shockwaves, but it didn't smell legitimate, it just seemed too good to be true.

For a while, they went on fighting. Nate swung a kick, Libra's forearm coming up instantly to block it. She threw a fist towards his jaw, an obvious attack she made little effort to hide. It seemed unusual for her in the moment, predictable, but Nate propped his head to the side anyway, swiftly dodging it. Bad decision. As he shifted, her fist hovered inches beside his head. She grinned.

Her finger snapped.

A blast tore into his head, plunging him through the air, crashing him into the arena wall on the far right. His head swelled with pain, a thumping sensation resonating throughout his skull like a gong that'd been struck. His vision blurred as he pulled himself from the rubble. Everything around him looked like it was shaking.

"You fight dirty mom," he groaned, feeling his ear as if he were checking to see of it was still intact. He squinted as his vision cleared, slowly. "That was a dirty move." he finished, words lazily rolling out as his ear rang.

"Dirty, would have been using my index finger. I only used my pinkie." Libra mocked. "The Eosin are coming Nate, you said it yourself. And if they should end up on our doorsteps tomorrow, do you really think they're going to fight clean?"

Nate grunted as he dragged himself to his feet; his legs were noodles. He didn't answer, but he didn't need to tell her she was right. He wheezed.

Limit reached.

He thought to tell her he was out of it. He couldn't, he didn't get the chance. Libra's fingers snapped again, launching another series of bullets his way.

He'd grown too weary, too exhausted to dodge. His particle control wasn't the best, incipient, so fettering wasn't a skill he could exactly rely on but that was all he had left. He stood wearily, elbows flexed, arms crossed into a shield before him, fettering his mother's blasts head on.

The bullets intensified, grating his soles against the rocky floor, linear tracks slowly growing where his feet dragged. The force, the pressure tore into his arms, setting his bones on hellish fire. He loosed a roar as the strength of the blasts bore down on him. Knees buckled under the tremendous force and in a moment, he could feel his fettering weaken. He didn't budge, he growled, holding steady, fettering each blast as they tore into him – at least, he thought he was fettering.

Libra looked on, astonished, as Nate knelt, absorbing each of her blasts like pellets of liquid onto a sponge. Her hands lowered, fingers suddenly at rest as she watched his arms glow a fierce red hue where he'd been absorbing the blasts. She rushed over towards him frantically.

Nate rose up slowly from his crouched position, realizing the blasts that clawed into him had paused. As he uncrossed arms, a tremendous shockwave burst from his body, sending Libra spiralling through the air and into the wall far behind.

Nate panted, looking up sharply as the uproar from the blast arrested him.

"Mom..." he said. No answer.

A thick cloud of dust grew, stretching as far up as the ceiling opened and as wide as the arena itself.

"Mom!" He yelled again. He could feel her presence but didn't see her.

With a swift wave of his arm, the cloud dissipated partly, revealing Libra, propped precariously into the edge of the ruptured concrete wall. An entire section of the arena had been blown away in the blast, the rubble scattered about outside, some thrown onto the echogrid that lay just beyond the training complex.

Nathaniel Panicked. He launched over and threw himself beside his mother, eyes quivering at the bloody wound torn along her right arm.

"What did I do!" His head screamed.

Her upper arm had been scaled raw. A layer of fresh blood oozed from the injury, the periphery, mottled in dirt. It looked like a terrible burn. Hadn't she moved in the moment she did, the entire left side of her body would've been scorched raw. The speckles of dirt made the whole thing look dread, but it was only skin deep, thankfully. Her awareness edged back. Eyes opened, she got up.

"How did you do that?" Libra groaned. Shards of broken glass drizzled from her dusty clothes as she wobbled to her feet. The blast had shattered a number of leaflets from the roof, broken glass shimmering across the ground.

"Huh?" Nate said, confused. "Mom you're bleeding, we need to get your arm looked at now."

Libra looked down at her arm. She didn't even feel it much less notice it.

"It's fine. It's just a bruise, won't even scar." She said matter-of-factly.

The dirt and oozing blood made it look dread, but she was right, it really was just a bruise. Nate looked at her, baffled. She glanced over at the sky-high hole his blast ripped through the arena. A large metal leaflet of the roof's open rim hung precariously from the crumbling wall up high.

"That's going to need some attention." She said, Nate nodded in agreement.

Libra's gaze left the roof and she peered back down at him, realizing he really didn't know what he'd done.

"Nate, do you remember what just happened?"

"Yea," he replied, sounding uncertain. "You blasted me as you were doing before, and I fettered."

"For a short while, yes. But then you were, absorbing them. You absorbed them all."

"I did?" Nate puzzled.

"Yes." Libra laughed a little. Excited and amazed. "Nate, that's a gift. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Absorption isn't something you just, do. Your body, your insides should have liquefied, or burst." Libra said, studying him head to toe while reaching for his arms to examine them.

"Well, thankfully that didn't happen." He joked, though the thought of what she'd said terrified him a little. They both chuckled.

"I rushed over to you and it's like, you welled everything in and focused it all into a single blast, and then..." She turned to look at the rubble again, aweing at the expanse of the ruin, "this."

Her voice lowered.

"That, what you did, I've only ever known two people who could do that, a very long time ago when I was just a girl." Her voice was serious again. "Your great grandfather, Lucas, and Kaghaan."

Nate's heart quivered, then quickened. His eyes trembled as he gawked at his mother, the second name electrifying every nerve in his body.

Kaghaan was the rebel leader of the Southern Resistance over a century prior. Vexed with The Union for constantly meddling in the affairs of, and as far as he saw, ostracizing and exploiting the Southern Seven, Kaghaan sought to remove all Union influences from the Southern Seven, effectively thwarting the Union's attempt to absorb the seven independent states.

His ambitions soon grew to consume him, and he quickly became a powermonger, unfortunately, one with formidable skill, hell-bent on overthrowing the Emperor and assuming dominion over the whole planet. He singlehandedly took down the entire Sentry, making short work of the Stereo and Vector clades. It cost Lucas his life to defeat Kaghaan; both perished in battle, or so it was believed – neither of their bodies were ever recovered, and Kaghaan was rumoured to have survived.

"I -" Nate started.

His focus was seized abruptly as he looked outside through the massive blast site. The commotion from the blast brought a world of attention. A couple students gathered in blotches outside looking in and others drew their streamers off the echogrid and came out to have a look at the ruins.

Within a few moments, a team of Seekers had swooped down on the scene, funnelling inside through the cavity, all armed with sound cannons and sheathed in black and grey suits.

One of the seekers who led the pack noticed Nate and Libra standing at the edge of the shattered wall. His mannerism changed suddenly as he spotted Libra, recognizing who it was. The entire squad stopped moving right after, their weapons clicking synchronously as the cannons lowered to their sides, deactivated. A voice came from the masked seeker in front. The leader, Nate presumed.

"Everything ok, Lady L?" the Seeker said. The opaque faceplate of the helmet receded from the midline into either side to reveal a man.

He was hideous.

"Yes, Cedric. Just a little training session." she looked over at the blast site once more, "Nothing, big." she said.

Cedric nodded, obviously disagreeing with the nothing big part, but not saying it. "You heard the Lady," he said to his squad, pointing outside. The squad queued back out.

Libra called to Cedric as he walked off. "We're going to need to notify the infrastructure ministry, so they can get someone working on this for us, could you do that for me Cedric?"

"Yes, Lady L. I'll notify them immediately."

"Thank you, Cedric." she said, as he turned and walked on.

The Seekers filed into a fleet of blue and white streamers, each of which had a black 'X' accentuated with a grey circle around it, furnished onto the foremost aspect of the vehicle's chassis. Most of them beamed off along the grid, a few others staying back to clear the fragments and rubble that had been blown onto the echogrid across the open lawn beside the arena and to clear the crowd that was slowly growing outside.

"I think that's enough training for the day, mom. Plus, we should get your arm cleaned up." Nate said.

Libra agreed, and the two walked across the ruined arena and exited through what was left of the western vomitorium.

"Tomorrow we'll work on that absorption of yours. You have an amazing gift Nate, you best learn how to use it." Libra threw her arm around him and smiled, "Your father won't believe when he hears this."
PART 2

EOSIN

"The Eosin cometh." – Lucas
Chapter 6

ENDOFRINGE

It took each squadron about thirteen hours to arrive at their designated coordinates after being launched from the Karatka military base. Situated directly atop the planet's north pole, the base was home the Armada, a monstrous fleet of warships which had no intragalactic contemporary that could compare, the Hyperplane, an intergalactic transportation hub located smack in the centre of the base's central hangar, and the canetisian Army, the largest, most fearsome military force in the galaxy.

The trip was a long one, ranging between ten to fifteen billion kilometres for each squadron and the Hyperplane had only launched them off at forty-three percent light speed. They would have reached in mere minutes had they been launched several increments faster, but they'd thought it wisest to redistribute power towards constructing and charging the Nimbuses that each squadron would be carrying to tether the barrier. The Antiprism would require an astounding amount of energy, and the best way to harvest it in the short time that it was needed, was to redirect power from the Catadon, the high-energy core that fuelled the Hyperplane.

The twelve hundred Armada ships designated to accompany the last three squadrons was no small fleet of warships either, and the energy required to transport that many vessels in addition to charging their arsenals was tremendous, so forty-three percent was about as good as the Hyperplane could have done. The first seven squadrons arrived at their coordinates before the others, but it wasn't long afterwards that the final three also reached their respective destinations.

Gideon stood on the Skydeck of Mothership nine, gazing into the vast expanse of space that opened before him. Inside his space suit, he could breathe well, save for his claustrophobia that'd been making him a tad bit anxious since he put it on. The breathing apparatus was a snugly fit mask covering his nose and mouth, all beneath a helmet with a transparent faceplate. The suit was a thick, metallic hide, loosely conforming to his body's every contour but even then, Gideon could still feel the cold, emptiness of Space around him as his ship drifted to settle at its predetermined location. It was an uncanny darkness, a deathly void.

A voice coughed across the communication channel wired into his suit.

"Squadrons one through seven, locked and ready." the voice said.

A pause.

He wasn't sure who it was. Must've been one of the mission directors from back at the Karatka base. The voice came back on.

"Squadron eight, please confirm Nimbus placement." the voice said; the comm went quiet after.

Gideon looked on as a pair of large metallic arms wormed forward from below the Skydeck where he stood, grasping the Nimbus between crude platinum claws. The Nimbus steadied, clasped between the metal pincers but never really touching the surface of the metal itself. Another voice came over the comm.

"Squadron eight confirming, Nimbus placement successful." Evendie said.

"Received."

The mechanical arms stabilized, and the claws slowly opened to release the Nimbus, which hovered still in the exact space where the pincers had released it. The claws didn't retract, but stood open, apprehensively, ready to clench the Nimbus again at any moment.

"Squadron nine, please confirm Nimbus placement."

The Nimbus spun in place so that one of its three spikes pointed directly upwards. A bright blue pulse swam along the mechanical arms and into the Nimbus. As the pulse reached, the ring assumed a bright orange glow then a thin beam of orange light shot out from the pinnacle of each spike.

"Squadron nine confirming, Nimbus placement successful." Gideon said.

"Received." The voice replied.

Gideon studied the sky, enchanted by the endless darkness of the cosmos. The Nimbus was but a speck of glowing dust in the ocean of black, hanging precariously, waiting to be swallowed by the monstrous void within which it lay.

"Squadron ten, please confirm Nimbus placement." the director said.

The voice slipped past Gideon's ear as his mind warped into the eternal darkness. At least a single star should be visible, he thought, but figured he perhaps got sent to the edge where Space and nothingness were intertwined. His eyes left the periphery of the Nimbus and he peered upwards, the upper border of his faceplate slightly obscuring his view.

A twinkle in the distance was a relief to his searching eyes. Vega Prime, perhaps the only star bright enough to penetrate the inky expanse. It shimmered, a halo twisting around the periphery as it flickered in the sky.

"Squadron ten, please confirm Nimbus placement." The director said once more.

Gideon caught the voice the second time. The previous call for confirmation had flown over his head entirely, but with the passing of the second, the first one seemed to slither back to memory. He listened keenly, waiting for another response. It shouldn't take more than a minute or two to place the Nimbus and already, several minutes had passed since he'd been lost in his daze into the pitch blackness.

"Squadron ten, Squadron ten, please confirm Nimbus placement." The coordinator said.

Gideon's ears pricked, his nerves on edge. What's the hold? Why is squadron ten taking so long?

"Squadron ten, Squadron ten..." the director repeated, urgent. But no transmission came in response.

"Switching to video interface, activating remote systems." Another voice whispered in the background, then the comm went quiet again.

A fierce crackle came rushing through Gideon's helmet, then stopped abruptly. It was a grating sound, like sand between sheets of metal. Gideon's pulse quickened, his nerves flushed with a sudden shot of electricity. The wait for the voice, any voice to come back on line and say, something, seemed an eternity. But in short order, the director's voice came screeching back across the comm, grave.

"Squadron ten under heavy fire, I repeat, squadron ten taking heavy fire." were the director's words.

Gideon's throat choked with a heavy pulse as dread flooded his body.

"...Dad..." He thought.

∆ ∆ ∆ ∆

With their cores charged to capacity, the Armada vessels that had accompanied Motherships eight and nine were fully equipped to make a quasi-light-speed jump towards coordinate ten. Gideon delegated command of Mothership nine to one of the Stereos. He left with Mooncrawler nine-A-one and beamed off to support Squadron ten and the Armada fleet that'd accompanied Evendie's squadron did the same.

Gideon and Evendie each arrived within minutes of departure from their previous coordinates. But by the time they'd reached, Mothership-ten had been completely dismantled. Gideon looked on at the wreckage, debris from the shattered vessel drifting aimlessly in the open space. It was the first thing he saw as Mooncrawler nine-A-one graced the battlefield; not the vicious war raging on ahead of him, not the barrage of fiery blasts blazing in from Eosin warships; none of that seemed to even exist. The sight crashed his heart into his throat and his eyes welled with tears, but he held them back, reluctantly.

Armada-ten, which accompanied squadron-ten, had managed to recover the Nimbus that had fallen free of the Mothership, a trio of Mooncrawlers from their C-fleet having successfully retrieved it. But the particle canister was never recovered, it had been shattered to bits in the blast, and with the Nimbus at hand, they'd just have to make do and build the barrier without the cannister – if they even got the chance to complete the barrier at all.

A host of A-fleet Mooncrawlers, the Armada's frontline battle ships, swarmed forward into a wall, each firing its own volley of bombs and electromagnetic canons at the growing, inbound Eosin fleet. The Mooncrawlers were insectoid metalworks, fitted with numerous cannons and guns for battle but characteristically bearing retractable, claw like appendages affixed to the bottoms and sides of their hulls – A-fleet ships were often modified to exclude the appendages for increased agility and speed. The ships were designed for both fighting and deep space exploration, and the metallic limbs made them particularly useful in retrieving just about anything the claws could grasp.

The Eosin's ships were notably smaller, each resembling a fattened disc with a pair of semilunar wings precariously tethered to either side. But like the A-fleet Mooncrawlers, they were swift, like blades of black and red sweeping through the battlefield, dancing between and around the volley of blasts coming at them from the Armada. They fired back just as fiercely, lightshows of red flashing from their crescentic wings. And as the battle grew more intense by the second, the Eosin fleet closed in dangerously.

Gideon was frantic, paying little attention to the war raging ahead of him and more to the rubble which remained of Mothership-ten. Unlike the men and women around him, Gideon's mind was still an infant to the desolation of war, he'd never encountered any level of terror that could remotely compare to what was unfolding before his eyes.

A daze.

Is this real? What about the C-fleet, did they recover anything...anyone from the blast? His mind was locked, nothing else mattered then. Gideon dashed up towards the control station to contact one of the other Mooncrawlers from squadron ten's C-fleet. The ship's commander, Davio, directed him to one of the free subcommand stations which lay just in front of and below the main command platform. Gideon was the only Vector on board, he should've been commanding the ship, he should have been leading the charge. But Vector or not, he was still young – the prowess and skill of a master but at heart, still a boy who couldn't fathom the thought of losing his father. Command was best left in experienced, stoic hands.

The Eosin had begun to disperse along the sides of the massive wall of Mooncrawlers the Armada had formed and were slowly weaving their way behind the A-fleet's defence. Davio commandeered Mooncrawler nine-A-one to join the wall of vessels, all other A-fleets from all three squadrons integrating into the wall of fire to extend the defensive blockade and keep the Eosin out.

"How's my gamma pulse coming?" Davio urged. He didn't ask anyone in particular, but several answers came from the sub-command stations to his far right.

"Charging sir, forty-eight percent."

"Good, keep it coming. We're going to be needing it real soon. We just got to hold them off a little longer." Davio growled.

Gideon had reached over to sub-station eleven, one of at least fifteen unmanned sub-stations, the first four having been occupied by Davio's sub-commanders. The Mooncrawler's command room could've held twenty soldiers proper, but the strategy was to send as few soldiers as necessary with the Armada and keep the rest on Canetis, preparing, readying to fend of the Eosin if they should make landfall.

Gideon sat shakily and dialled in.

"Mooncrawler-ten-C, Mooncrawler-ten-C, anyone from the C-fleet available?" he urged. His voice quaked over the comm, hands trembling, body shaking. But no answer came.

"Mooncrawler-ten-C, Mooncrawler-ten-C, anyone from the C-"

A voice interrupted him, sputtering back over the comm. The density of electromagnetic firepower and defensive plasma fields around them all made the comm lines crackle.

"This is Commander Minx of Mooncrawler-ten-C-fourteen."

Gideon's hands shook even more as he heard the response, words coming out clearer than his trembling voice should have allowed.

"This is Gideon. I need a report on the crew from Mothership-ten. Were any crew retrieved, Commander?"

"Yes, Vector. Sixteen of twenty crew members retrieved including Vector Atticus," The voice broke over the comm line, a sudden split. Gideon's pulse jammed in the fraction of time that the comm cracked, then the voice came back through, "All unconscious." commander Minx ended.

Gideon's chest imploded. His thoughts and heart froze. For a split moment, a remote recess of his mind rejoiced, relieved when he heard his father had been retrieved from the blast. But no sooner did that feeling flicker through his being than the word unconscious swept it away. He hoped, he prayed that unconscious didn't mean what he thought it meant and his eyes welled all over again; this time, there was no holding it back.

"Location, Mooncrawler-ten-C-fourteen, crew location." Gideon choked.

"All crew retrieved by Mooncrawler-ten-C-four. Vessel outbound for Karatka, sir." Minx replied.

Gideon let the comm hang open. Not intentionally, but withdrew into a vacant stare, horror flooding his mind, tears washing his sorrowed face.

The C-fleet was the surveillance fleet, designated for rescue and recovery, never taking the front lines of battle but always ready to do so if need be. With cores at maximum strength, Mooncrawler-ten-C-four would have at least been able to jump at ninety percent light-speed back to Karatka, they'd at least's be able to reach the base in a few hours, there'd be medics ready and waiting, Atticus would make it... Gideon's thoughts chewed.

Davio's comm opened, resonating throughout the control room for all to hear, the entire fleet was connected, but Gideon's mind had long left his body, no realization of what was happening around him.

"Nimbus, location. We need that Nimbus and we need this barrier closed now!" Davio roared.

The Eosin had made a heavy inflow beyond the wall of A-fleet Mooncrawlers and the B-fleet was having a real challenge thinning the herd.

"Nimbus on hand commander, ten-C-eight and ten-C-twenty-two in possession." a voice replied.

"Damn good." Davio cheered in a low growl.

"All ships prepare for pulse release. Mooncrawlers eight-A-twenty through eight-A-thirty...protect the Nimbus at all cost." another commander said over the line. Davio glanced over to the sub-command stations once again.

"How's our gamma pulse coming?" He asked. Urgent.

"Eighty-seven percent, sir."

He nodded, clenching his grip around the edge of the glass control panel that curved before him, almost hard enough to break it to pieces. He'd been to war before, decades prior. His eyes were coarse, grey rocks, forged in the belly of death, polished on battlefields. But the destruction that raged on around him was unlike any he'd ever witnessed. No enemy preceding the Eosin had ever devastated the Armada so drastically, nothing could have prepared Davio for this.

A blast from the Eosin smashed into the ship, bursting against the Mooncrawler's forcefield, wrenching the control room like an earthquake. The jerk snapped Gideon back into focus. He'd been out of it, talks of the gamma pulse the Armada was planning to release having flown over his head, sights of the legion of Eosin vessels swarming towards them only just connecting with his vision.

He felt dizzy, almost nauseous as he tried to reengage his mind on the battle ahead of him and supress the thoughts of his father that'd consumed his world. It was hard, he failed at that, but at the very least he managed to quell the tears that gushed from his eyes.

Gideon sprung up and rushed to the main command station where Commander Davio stood. The wide glass panel that lay before him glowed with a variety of illuminated controls and displays. Each of the Armada's ships wore a forcefield, affording them increased protection against the explosive blasts raining in from the Eosin. But the fields were not impenetrable. They were only as strong as the ships' energy charges would accommodate and the prolonged fusillade they'd been firing was starting to take its toll on the Mooncrawlers' energy cores.

"Gamma pulse fully charged sir." a sub-commander announced.

"Lock us in right away." Davio roared, urging them to synchronize pulse-release with the other A-fleet ships.

The Mooncrawlers planned to generate a high-energy pulse each, then release them simultaneously into the incoming swarm of Eosin.

"Charging complete for all Mooncrawlers. Prepare to fire." a voice howled over the comm.

Three, two, one...

A massive wave of energy rippled forward from the wall of Mooncrawlers, spreading far out into the approaching Eosin fleet. All ships in the wake of the gamma blast were knocked out of power instantaneously, enervated vessels drifting in space like pelagic creatures suspended in the middle of the sea. In the wake of the pulse, the centre of the wall of Mooncrawlers opened immediately, making way for ten-C-eight and ten-C-twenty-two to flush forward, the Nimbus hitched dubiously in-between the two ships.

Mooncrawlers eight-A-twenty through eight-A-thirty swam from the wall as the Nimbus beamed forward towards the coordinate, forming a secure body shield around the two C-fleet vessels carrying the precious item.

It wasn't long before the Eosin began to recover, and, in the distance, streams of red could be seen jetting towards them out of the inky blackness. Time was short, they'd have to do this fast. The gamma pulse was massive, and it had dropped each of the Mooncrawlers' cores by at least a third of what was left. Another one would be suicide, so they needed to make every second count.

Mooncrawlers weren't equipped to perform the functions the Motherships were, their appendages weren't large enough to hold the Nimbus and stabilize it for activation. The C-fleet vessels propped the Nimbus in place, a seamless display of exquisite coordination between the two vessels which, because of the relative size of the Nimbus, had to use the ships themselves to support the device.

Another A-fleet vessel which had accompanied them for defence, shot an electromagnetic pulse into the Nimbus where it hovered, causing it to burst into a glowing ring of orange, beams of light bursting from the device's three spikes.

The Nimbus was ready.

"Activate the barrier now!" a voice roared across the comm.

It was Commander Lenka from ten-C-eight, one of the two vessels that'd carried the Nimbus and which still floated beside it, tethering it in place. The Eosin were recuperating fast and soon, they had opened fire once more.

"Ten-C-eight and ten-C-twenty-two, withdraw from th-"

"It's tethering between the ships, we have to hold it!" Lenka yelped.

A pause.

The ships would disintegrate the moment the barrier was activated if they didn't withdraw. They'd die...they'd all die.

"Activate the barrier now, Commander!" ten-C-twenty-two roared across the comm, eosin ships now almost inches away from the Nimbus and firing heavily.

In a flash, a mesh-work of intertwined threads of orange light burst from the edges of the Nimbus, spreading far and wide, like a gigantic sea of orange flames. The two C-fleet vessels vaporized instantly upon activation of the barrier and as the Eosin closed in from the other side, their ships crashed into the wall and burst into flames and dust.

"Squadrons one through seven, complete Construction." A commander said over the comm, sombrely.

The electromagnetic component of the Barrier had been completed. It held off the eosin as effectively as they'd hoped it would, but the wall was not finished. Gideon had left Mothership-nine and Evendie had left hers as well. The particle component of the double-layered wall needed to be added, but it would have to be done by the Stereos alone at coordinates eight and nine, ten having lost its cannister, and that would just have to do.

"Antiprism complete." Davio said, sighs of relief swelling from the sub-commanders to his right.

A chain had spilled from beneath Davio's suit and a firm left hand clenched the shimmery electrum pendant. His eyes fell shut. He knew almost everyone well, including Lenka. But it was the nature of war that both friends and foes might fall, and while he'd lost comrades before, it never got any easier.

An alarm howled throughout the control room, a sharp blare.

"We have a number of inbound vessels, Sir. Core capacity less than fifty percent." a sub-commander pressed.

Davio's attention flickered over to her as his eyes sprung open, puzzled.

"We just closed, the barrier how can we still have eos-"

"A number of small ships had already gotten inside before the barrier was complete, commander." she interjected. "The gamma pulse merely deactivated them temporarily."

Davio's pulse quickened. He wasn't surprised that the blast hadn't exactly incapacitated the Eosin ships entirely, but he hadn't been paying much attention to that while the most vital thing, the Antiprism needed to be completed.

"Well then open fire and maintain it, we need to take as many of them down as we can!" Davio urged.

"Our force-field may be compromised if we sustain intense fire, commander. We shou-" she started but cut herself off.

Davio's eyes pierced through her. He didn't respond, but his silence thundered.

The ships that had gotten across were the smaller ones, the nimble, discoid vessels. Some had gotten behind the wall of A-fleet Mooncrawlers before pulse release and managed to go by unaffected by the blast, escaping the B-fleet's second line of defence as well. The pulse had left many of the A-fleet's vessels at sixty percent core strength or less, considering they all had been providing tremendous fire power against the initial flock of Eosin ships.

A blast rumbled through the Mooncrawler's left flank. The control room wrenched violently, throwing many of the crew from their stations. The ship had been hit. The force field was active but weakened, and the A-fleet's vessels were under heavy targeting by the remaining Eosin ships. The combination of low core power, weakened forcefields and intense enemy fire was quickly becoming a terrible nightmare.

Gideon crawled from the harsh metallic ground where the tremor had thrown him down, it was cold and dry, and his heart walloped as his mind processed what was truly unfolding before him. He grabbed onto a curved steel banister that separated the sub-command stations from the main platform above.

He began to pull himself up, lights flickering, alarms blaring and ship still trembling from the blast. As he did, a second blast howled throughout the control room throwing him down onto the cold steel floor once more, and in the second he scurried to his knees and looked up, dread flushed his veins and horror burned his eyes.

The entire control had room burst into flames, and from the outside looking on, Mooncrawler nine-A-one had been shattered to bits.
Chapter 7

THE ACADEMY

The Thalian Conservatory was a shrine of exotic flora, a botanical paragon and sister to the Arc Veldt. It was perhaps The Academy's most valued asset and highly coveted by virtually all Outworld species. The canetisians were centuries ahead of every other known race across the galaxy in their evolutionary timescale, and they'd managed to cultivate an astounding assortment of flora and plant-like microorganisms from around the galaxy – and beyond. Many races, planets even, had been saved from virtual extinction through donorship and recultivation of their damaged home worlds with flora from the conservatory.

Inside the glass menagerie of mostly green, A human girl strolled, weaving flowers and branches through her fingers as she let her hand swim along a row of small plants. She'd come to the Academy, like many other outworld species, to study, to learn, to share in the extensive knowledge that Canetis had to offer. But like many races before them, the humans had abused the canetisians' kindness in the past, moreover, the humans had even waged war against Canetis a couple centuries back and so, their access to most of the planet's finest wonders, had been significantly restricted. The canetisians, kind at heart, forgave the humans however, and eventually allowed them to return and study at the Academy.

A Seeker strolled up behind the human girl.

Eyes inky black, hair red as fire, skin tawny beige and a phrase tattooed along her wrist in an Outworld dialect. She must be an outie. canetisians do no mark their skins, the Seeker thought.

"You are a child of Outworld, yes?" he asked. Faceplate still up and a body fully covered in black armour – a silhouette.

The girl jerked, frightened. She didn't hear the seeker come up behind her. She spun immediately to face him.

"Ye – yes, I am." she stuttered.

"You are not allowed to wander the conservatory unless accompanied by a citizen of Canetis."

The Seeker stepped aside, his steady right arm signalling her to proceed towards the exit.

"Yes sir...my apologies." she replied. She'd only arrived at the Academy a few days prior, still catching up on the endless rules and laws.

Nathaniel and Katya had been wandering the Conservatory all morning themselves. Katya had finished tagging all the Jabbas on her own and needed help scouring through plants for another of her projects. She more so needed company than help, she'd been doing all the work thus far. Nate had already bailed on her once however, and much as he wasn't particularly excited to participate in another of her projects, she was his closest friend, he couldn't bail on her twice.

Ahead, where their footpath intersected a larger one leading to the exit, Katya glimpsed the human girl being escorted out by the Seeker. She knew her. She'd actually volunteered as the human girl's guide when she had arrived. Seeing the Seeker, she figured what must've happened.

"Naomi," Katya called. The seeker paused, the girl too, both looking over as Katya gambolled towards them.

A few moments passed, and Katya came strolling back, the human girl at her side. Nate Straddled along the path to meet them, his gaze scrubbing the girl studiously – borderline libidinous. She was rather easy on the eyes, but he could immediately tell she wasn't canetisian.

"Hmm, an outie." Nate deduced. "You must be my get-out-of-Katya's-science-project card."

Katya slugged his shoulder, then scoffed. He gawked at her as if to ask, what. Her eyes rolled.

"This is Naomi. Naomi, this is Nat-"

"Nathaniel, Son of Libra." Nate cut in. His hand sprung from his side and hovered expectantly in front of the girl. She took it, slowly. Not reluctant, but seemingly afraid.

Katya blew a heavy breath.

"Naomi," she said, punctuating the name with a gentle hand around the girl's arm, "is from Earth. She'll be studying here at the Academy for some time."

Nate froze. Suddenly, the thought of the Eosin flashed into his head again. He'd managed to ease it away from his mind while hanging around with Katya through the morning, but in the moment, it seemed to just flash right back. "Why are we still taking outies? The planet faces an impending threat. Why aren't..." He arrested the thought.

Among the three, he was the only one who knew of the Eosin and among the citizens of the entire planet, he was one of a few who had any knowledge of it all. It still seemed odd how everything and everyone was allowed to be functioning as if all was well. But restricting the status quo all of a sudden would invariably lead to people asking questions and seeking explanations, so that must've been why the Emperor hadn't done anything drastic just yet. He thought of his brother, his father too, but the silence between him and the girls had gone on for a while.

"Well, Welcome to our planet." he said with a half bow.

"Thank you." Naomi smiled.

"So, how are you liking Canetis so far?"

"It's nice. Beautiful to say the least. It's my first time interacting with an alien race." Naomi said. Her voice was a feline thrill. Soft but certain.

Katya smirked. Nate snickered, and Naomi looked on, puzzled.

"What?" she said.

"Technically, you are the alien. We are citizens." Katya teased.

"You guys throw sound from your hands. Where I'm from, that makes you an alien."

Katya chuckled. "You know, that's a common misconception among outies."

"What is?"

"That we run around throwing sound." Katya dramatized, hands wavering through the air. "We don't throw sound. We manipulate particles, matter. And that often does produces sound but-"

"Isn't sound, matter in motion?" Naomi interjected.

"Well, yea. But isn't matter always in motion?"

Naomi squinted, thinking for a moment. "Technically yes. At the atomic level, all matter is in a constant state of moti-"

"Exactly. So, it's already making sound. It's always making sound though you cannot hear it. So, when each of us manipulate particles at whatever frequencies we naturally can, audible sound is often produced, but the sound is collateral." Katya explained.

Naomi's lips puckered as she nodded. Katya deduced she was in agreement.

"So, we go around throwing matter, not sound. If we were just making sounds, we'd be musicians."

"Terrible ones too." Nate added.

Naomi chuckled in agreement. "Fair enough. But particle manipulation still makes you an alien so... Yea." she joked, weaving her fingers together.

Katya grinned and shook her head. "Outies." she sighed, glancing over at Nate.

Nate smiled then studied Naomi for a moment, the tattoo on her left wrist drawing his attention.

"So, I see you've met the Seekers." Nate said, eyes flickering back up to hold Naomi's gaze.

"Yes, I'm guessing you're referring to the guy all covered in black with the big gun." Naomi's smile crept away slowly.

"It's okay. I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with you in particular. Outies just have... a reputation." Nate's eyes widened as he made the words drawl out in a whisper.

"I completely understand." Naomi conceded.

Nate glanced at her wrist once more. The markings along her skin confounding him. "You said you're from Earth, right?"

Naomi watched him puzzle at her tattoo. "That's right."

"But those markings." Nate pointed, then gently took her wrist. "This doesn't look like a human dialect. It almost looks like..." he paused, scrutinizing the patterns inked into her skin with a blue-green hue, "Evhronik." he ended. He looked back up at Naomi, puzzled.

"Right again." she said.

"A human with an Evhronik tattoo. That's something you don't see every day." Nate said, surprised.

Katya glanced back at them as Nate's words caught her ears. She'd been scouring through a collection of plants, searching.

"Don't you guys hate each other or something?" Katya's brows knitted at Naomi, then she turned back to rummage through the shrubs.

The Humans and the Evhronik had long been enemies, centuries before either of the races came to know Canetis. The Humans had discovered the Evhronik during a time of need; the Earth was dying. The Evhronik helped them, but then attempted to seize the Earth, to colonize it as an extension of their empire. That didn't sit well with the humans.

Outnumbered and outweaponed, the Humans resorted to biological warfare and released a nasty plague onto the Evhronik, effectively driving them out of Earth. The plague then found itself back to their home planet, Evhron, and billions were consumed by the disease. Eventually, the Evhronik returned to the Humans, contrite, and the humans gave them the cure. But the races have remained at loggerheads ever since.

"Yes, we do." Naomi exhaled. Her mood changed, sombre. "I am Earth-born, but many of my ancestors were Huvhronik; Human-Evhronik hybrids."

Nate's eyes widened. "Oh. Exotic." he drawled.

"The tattoo was not a choice, it's an identifier. Like you said, Humans hate all things Evhronik, so they mark all hybrid descendants whose DNA express Evhronik genes." Naomi said. Her tone lowered more. Voice, a smooth whisper.

"We're not allowed to breed."

Katya had uprooted one of the shrubs. She turned to face Naomi as she heard the last words, the plant dangling in her hand. She caught Naomi's gaze momentarily, unsure what to say.

Nate looked on at Naomi, equally staggered. He thought to say something, but he wasn't sure if he should.

"I'm sorry." he uttered, the words barely leaving his lips. His fingers stood still, no longer twiddling over the markings as he held her wrist tenderly.

Naomi smiled. Eyes glistening back at him like polished black marbles. She glanced back over at Katya and caught sight of the plant hanging pendulously in Katya's hand. It bore a thin purple stem and yellow, cupped flowers, ornamented by crescentic green leaflets. They could all smell it, strong but not pungent. An almost enchanting aroma bursting from the fibrous roots.

"I know that flower." Naomi said, abruptly switching the topic.

Suddenly, the mood had shifted again. Perhaps deliberately, Naomi didn't want them pitying her too much or too long. She'd long accepted the conditions her ancestry predisposed her to and she never much liked locking people into such emotional hard-spots whenever she'd speak of her tattoo and her past.

"That's a Darkbloom." Naomi said, her hands reaching over to grope the body of the flower. "I have some at home. Their flowers only open out in the dark you know, then close into these, cups, in the light." she said, caressing the plant like a pet, "Their roots make a deadly poison too."

"Look at you." Katya said, smiling mischievously at Naomi.

Nate puzzled. A sudden interest at Naomi's last mention "And exactly what are going to do with a poisonous plant, Katya?"

Katya's eyes rolled.

"What Naomi left out is, the leaves and flowers also carry other chemicals, some of which are analogous to Jabba pheromones. Bet you didn't know that did you." she teased at Naomi.

"I'm not even sure what a Jabba is, to be honest." Naomi conceded.

Nate forced a smile, not hiding that it was forced. It wasn't surprising that everything led back to Jabbas. Katya did have an unusual obsession with them for some time now.

"I honestly wouldn't be surprised if you got married to one of those things. First tagging, now, pheromones... I don't even want to imagine what you have in mind next."

Naomi chuckled. Katya's eyes burned at her for a second, then at Nate.

"Told you before Nate, you could really learn a lot from Jabbas." she wavered a finger at him.

"Sure," he said sarcastically.

He'd planned to spend the latter part of the day training with his mother and the morning was growing old. He'd stay, but he had far less interest in plants than he had in Jabbas, and combined, it still wasn't enough to take his mind off training or worse, the coming threat.

"Well anyway, I think this is an excellent friendship on the rise. You like plants and science," he said to Naomi, "and you..." he smiled at Katya, "you love research and science and..." he wanted to say jabbas, "everything." Nate massaged her arm. "You guys will make the perfect science duo." he cheered, mockingly.

Katya's eyes rolled white, "Thanks for coming," she drawled then embraced him. She didn't need to wait for him to say he was going to leave, it was never hard to tell when he'd grown bored with a thing.

"Nice to meet you Naomi." he said, skipping along the path towards the exit.

Nate made a speedy walk out of the Conservatory. He tapped his holosleeve, a quick call to his mother to confirm they'd still be sparing at the OTC as planned. She didn't return home last night, but he was used to that; never unusual for the head of The Union's internal security forces to spend a night or few out of her home. But the call went unanswered, and after the third try, he figured she must've been busy; she'd never miss his calls.

The expansive corridor leading from the conservatory was a colonnade of ancient crystal columns, roofed by a series of overlapping, polychromatic stone plates. The plates reticulated along the entire length and breadth of the hallway so that the roof looked like fish scales made of rainbows.

Pendulous bulbs dazzled from threads of silver, perched at intervals across the squamous roof. Where the roof bled onto the walls between the crystalline columns, the glass separating the conservatory on either side from the corridor on his side became one, and the vastness of the conservatory simply dissolved into the distance through the transparent walls.

The corridor ended after about two hundred meters of crystal and glass, then bifurcated into smaller corridors on either side. At the centre, where all three paths met, a semicircle of marble paved the floor and a large vestibule opened to the outside beyond it.

Nate glanced up at the massive screens that floated in the centre of the entryway. They never usually made a sound; just slideshows of images and videos of some of the conservatory's most prized growths, and the occasional flash of Canetis, as seen from space. He made his way across to the vestibule, but as he approached the exit, a voice arrested him.

It was loud, amplified by the high stone walls of the room and roaring from the massive cube of screens which floated above.

"Citizens of Canetis, citizens of Outworld..." the voice said.

He knew this voice, a familiar quality. A swift turn to catch the display confirmed it was the Emperor, Jasuum.

"I deliver this message to you with great urgency, as what I have to say can no longer be withheld." His voice was serious, a low, perilous tone.

Nate could hear the echoes more than the room should have allowed. He glanced around to the outside where everyone, scattered across the lawns and walkways, had been arrested in their steps, tuning in to their holosleves, or another device that carried the broadcast. It must have been planet wide...it must have been grave.

"Several hours ago, a fleet of Armada ships came under heavy fire and many fell at the advance of our enemy. The Sentry managed to construct a barrier around our solar system, but the feat was achieved at great cost. We anticipate that the barrier will hold the enemy out for some time, but invariably it will come undone and when it does, the Eosin shall be upon us."

Nate's viscera chilled. Pulse suddenly gushing through his veins as he remembered his father and his brother.

"At once, I order the immediate repatriation of all Outworld inhabitants and already, I've mobilized all military resources across each of The Union's eleven provinces. All members of the Southern Seven have been advised of the imminent threat and have agreed to an alliance between theirs and The Union's forces. Citizens, the threat we face is unlike no other and will surely put our sovereignty as a people to the test. But through the power vested in each of us by the creator herself, we will conquer the Eosin, and protect our home."

The screen flickered to black, then the broadcast came back on, appearing to have looped back to the beginning. Nate stood frozen for a while, his fists so tight, palms blanched. He knew the day would come, but never expected that it would've been this soon. He tapped his wrist, his holosleeve came on. He called his mother once more, still, no answer.

A motley of emotions flushed through his mind and body. Panicking yet calm at the same time, he dashed down the stairway from the conservatory to his streamer, then shot off to the Extrum to find his mother. She must be there, he was certain. But between thoughts of finding her and thoughts of Gideon and Atticus, his brain was reduced to a brooding swill.

"I hope those two made it back okay." His lips trembled.

∆ ∆ ∆ ∆

The Antrum was a ninety-six-storey marvel. Around it, the Extrum grew inward along a wide base and stopped as it abutted the walls of the Antrum, appearing as a cone sitting on its base and hollowed out in the centre to accommodate the glossy skyscraper. From the ground, the Antrum could only be seen along the northern angle, where the cone of the Extrum wedged open to reveal the towering structure.

Along the northern angle, the two buildings had their own echogrid, the String, which communicated directly with the Karatka military base at the North pole. It was convenient for Libra, who doubled as head of internal security for the entire Union while also directing a thirty-membered team of scientists from the Antrum developing advanced weaponry.

Nathaniel was collected by Libra's deputy, Grimolde, within minutes of arrival after being apprehended by a team of Seekers who were on patrol. He'd taken the String to get to the Extrum faster but that was illegal for any civilian vessel, and she'd already suspected he would come looking for his mother.

Grimolde didn't talk much, she knew more than she could say. Instead, she immediately commissioned a streamer to have him taken to Karatka, to his family, without delay.

"What about Gideon, and father, have they come back from the mission yet?" Nate asked. Eyes, voice and hands all trembling as his fingers hovered timorously along the rim of the streamer's open door.

Grimolde smiled, the comforting type, then hugged him gently as she spoke.

"You'll see them soon, Nate." was all she said.

He wasn't sure what she meant, he wasn't sure what to think. He had a terrible feeling ever since the Emperor made the broadcast, and Grimolde's words hadn't been the slightest bit helpful since she'd collected him. But even though a part of him hoped that nothing would be as bad as he'd been feeling, another part knew that something was very wrong.

She eased him away gently and launched him off to Karatka. She'd done her best, she wanted to do more, to say more. But some stories were just not for her to tell.
Chapter 8

HARROW

Libra hadn't enough time to do anything before the Antiprism fell. She hadn't enough time to do her job as head of internal security and safely evacuate civilians to underground bunkers. She hadn't enough time to mourn, to process her loss before the skies crawled with dust, smoke and fire. She was a warrior, she'd been for decades, and she'd unfortunately lost loved ones before. But nothing could've prepared her for the death of her first and only love, and before she could grapple the pain she bore, the Eosin had arrived.

The sons of Canetis were always a non-belligerent people. They cultivated machines of mass destruction and war not because they wanted to but because the universe crawled with envy and strife. They'd by all means use their weapons whenever the circumstances desired, but machines were mere accessories to the raw manpower of the Sentry, especially a Vector who yearned for nothing but the heads of those who'd taken the lover of her life away from her.

The battles began in the skies. Thousands of Armada ships facing off with the nimble, discoid Eosin vessels. It was an explosive light show, a tragic beauty for as long as it lasted. But the real fight began when the Eosin's carrier ships started to make landfall. Scores of Eosin soldiers swarmed the lands like insects, spilling from their nests. The first ships deposited their platoons onto the eastern coast, sweeping their way into the mainland and leaving a nasty trail of blood and death in their wake. The others deposited theirs at various points across The Union and a few hotspots around the Southern Seven, but the vast majority of the Eosin's man power had been dropped directly into the capital province, Alkazka.

The main ship, a gargantuan vessel leading the entire Eosin fleet had attempted a descent upon Karatka but failed to penetrate the plasma shields and deposited instead just south of the Antrum. It was obvious that they'd planned to gain access to the Hyperplane, to shuttle more troops in to the planet to join the siege, and with numbers estimated in the millions upon arrival, it was clear they didn't just come to battle and destroy. They'd come to conquer, to colonize and claim for themselves a brand-new home.

The Sentry had been spread thin across the planet with as many as possible being kept in the capital to rage along the front lines. The canetisian armies were indeed greater in number, but the Eosin's soldiers weren't just brave men and women, with a little training, fighting for a cause. They were all highly skilled warriors, Mono clade-level at the very least, and that shifted the dynamic significantly in their favour. They worked in teams, levelling entire battalions of canetisian soldiers like dunes of sand in a strong gale, slowly drawing northward towards the planet's major stronghold, the Karatka base.

The activated plasma field covered a ten-thousand-mile radius from Karatka southward and so, ships, vessels and just about any other power-driven weaponry or equipment were useless beyond the Northern ridge. Libra took the front line with Evendie, which extended across the String, beyond the Cycad. It was a faceoff of pure manpower from the Northern ridge and beyond.

Them, a crew of a hundred Monos and fourteen Stereos had been fighting hard and long to hold the Eosin back. The military corps held the rear for the occasional few Eosin that slipped past the battle frontier, but the heat of war grew heavy and thick, and it wasn't very long before the Sentry's numbers began to fall to double digits.

Libra and Evendie fought their own battle, the radius around them clear of any canetisian forces for at least a quarter-mile at a time, for safety reasons – a Vector at war was never a force to be taken lightly.

"We have to keep a steady advance at them, or they'll just keep weaving around us." Libra urged.

Her hair was wet, strewn into rivulets of black around her head and onto her face, but her Seeker suit appeared untouched, almost as if she'd been out for a jog rather than at war.

Evendie nodded in agreement, then launched herself into the air. She plunged, sound-speed back into the ground at the centre of a large platoon of Eosin. Her impact was almost nuclear, slicing through the bundle of enemy soldiers and sending troops flying in all directions as the ground sunk into a crater beneath her feet.

Libra got in to help cull the lot. Her fists burst in front, springing open to release a barrage of missiles which tore into and through the advancing Eosin army. For a while, the blasts consistently cleared the Eosin away like bowling pins. Until, a yelp.

"Libra!" Evendie shrieked.

In the second Libra heard the voice cry her name, she glanced over only to see Evendie trawling across the ground as if something had tossed her violently through the air. She thumped intermittently across the terrain as her momentum dissipated, then sprung back up, cloak torn from her neck and laying like some old dirty rug on the fractured pavement. Her clothes, a nasty impasto of grease, dirt and grass against a white canvass.

Before she could recover from the hit enough, the army had begun to swarm towards them again. It was like an endless sea inky figures, screeching a horrid dissonance into the atmosphere.

Libra crouched, her hand flew into the air then sliced down, tearing through the ground at her feet like an axe. An intense shockwave burst through the ground, cracking it violently like a massive fracture growing along an ice berg, exploding through the enemy troops and sweeping them apart.

The blast should have gone further, something stopped it.

In the distance, not far from where Evendie had been tossed, Libra watched as her blast was arrested at the stomp of a large, three-pronged foot; the ground fractured no more beyond the ugly limb. The figure was eldritch, emanating an almost tangible essence of darkness, a bitter aura which consumed the atmosphere as it walked towards Libra, slowly.

The other Eosin soldiers wore a layer of pitch black accentuated with green highlights along the sides all the way up to their heads, none of their faces being exposed. This soldier was a little bigger than all the others. Taller, with yellow accents streaming in tortuous patterns down the arms and torso then into the feet. It all looked like an intricate network of veins pulsing with yellow blood.

Suddenly, as if by some unspoken instruction, the rest of the Eosin army seemed to disperse behind the robust soldier, taking the fight in the eastern direction and leaving him, leaving – it, to take charge of Libra and Evendie. Libra wanted to follow the masses, she thought of the Stereos and Monos holding the front line towards the east, and she wasn't too confident they'd be able to handle the additional wave of Eosin troops on their own. But They'd have to do their best. This, thing was not just another Eosin.

She studied the soldier intently, every step, every twitch and as she did, she recalled the stories she'd grown up hearing of unsightly, brawny Eosin soldiers such as him. Age-old accounts from an unknown time and source, describing large, highly skilled Eosin soldiers, some of whom could match up to three Vectors, or more, in battle. The Harrows; that's what they were called.

Evendie panted, glaring at the soldier as it approached, steadily. She glanced over to Libra.

"That's the one," she said. Indicating it was what had tossed her through the dirt.

Libra's right-hand swung over to clench her left wrist, both outstretched before her. The air crackled into a puffy, white cloud around her arm and a blast of energy tore from her palm towards the Harrow. In a flash, it's arm slithered into the air, fettering the blast then deflecting it to the south east. She watched, with detached attention as her blast exploded into the ground on the Harrow's far right, all the while maintaining her focus on the beast as it closed in on her and Evendie.

He brushed her blast away like it was nothing.

The Harrow's helmet receded into a thick yellow collar to reveal its face.

It was haunting.

The eyes were a pair of yellow marbles rolled in ash. The face, like the suit, streaked with a pulsating network of yellow veins. Four small holes gaped where the nose should have been, and the mouth was replaced by a thin, craggy line across the deeply furrowed, sand-coloured skin. The slit for a mouth tilted, enough for Libra to tell it was some sort of smirk.

The Harrow's jaw dropped, and a terrible squall broke loose.

Libra fettered the blast, for a short moment, but soon lost her ground under the pressure. The squall tossed her across the dirt. She recovered swiftly, a little disoriented, but her head settled quickly as she gawked at the monster. There was something unusual about the squall, Libra puzzled to figure out what. Evendie dashed over to her side.

"I expected more from the infamous Vector clade," a low, greasy voice slithered from the jagged slit in the beast's face where the mouth should have been. "This is going to be much easier than I thought." the voice oozed.

The helmet grew out of the collar and covered the head once again, and the Harrow dashed towards them in a rapid burst.

A shockwave tore between Libra and Evendie, tossing them in opposite directions on either side of the wave's trajectory. Libra managed to stay on her feet. She glanced over to the east and saw that the armies were now raging northward. The Stereos and Monos weren't holding up very well and things were starting to look dread. Her stomach lurched.

In the second she glanced back to locate the Harrow, it had landed inches in front of her, the essence of its deathly presence weighing heavy on her chest.

"Don't get distracted, Vector," the Harrow whispered, swinging a steady arm towards Libra's abdomen. "Your fight is right here with me."

Libra's leg flew up, blocking the punch, then the two commenced an intense exchange of bone-shattering fists. The beast was strong, no doubt. Libra could feel her skeleton tremble each time she blocked one of its attacks and each time it blocked one of hers. She glanced Evendie sprinting towards them over the Harrow's shoulder. Simultaneously, the two launched a heavy punch, Libra's fist plunging towards the Harrow's chest and Evendie's fist plunging towards its back.

In a swift, twisting motion, the Harrow spun to bring its palms, one each, between itself and the two fists. Evendie's eyes gaped as she watched her fist fetter mere inches away from the Harrow's hand. The air buckled into a glittering cloud of ice and liquid around the Harrow's palms, then burst with an immense explosion, throwing Evendie and Libra several hundred meters on either side.

Ears snapped.

Libra's head quaked as she dragged herself from the ground. She contemplated, much as her thoughts rang, why the attacks were so disorienting, so hard to deflect, so hard to fetter. It was as if the beast was manipulating particles at multiple frequencies, simultaneously. Her brain rattled inside her skull. She remembered the initial resonance scans the exofringe beacons had sent a few weeks back. She remembered the patterns. Her heart roared inside her chest.

"Frequency hybridization", she thought. It was an advanced technique, one she'd yet to master herself. Particle manipulation was a gift almost all canetisians had, but there were always limits, and not everyone possessed the same natural capabilities as others. Suffice it to say, everything would make sense then. And if the Harrow was capable of doing what she thought it was doing, she'd have to dig far deeper than she had ever dug before, to keep up.

"I have to b-"

her thought arrested as she looked up.

Horror.

Vision still blurry and shaking, but clear enough for Libra to make out Evendie in the distance, hanging by the neck in the monster's claw. Libra tried to get up, she did, a little. But her balance was terribly compromised from the last hit she took.

"Evendie!" she yelped, her voice cracked with dread.

It was rare for a fighter of her calibre to experience that feeling. The feeling of helplessness that overcomes you, that almost cripples you when you realize that something awful had happened or was about to happen and there was nothing you could do about it. The feeling had visited her only days before when she learned of Atticus' death, and she promised herself she wouldn't be crippled by it. But how many people would have to die before her will was broken.

Her mind latched onto the thought of Atticus as she staggered towards the Harrow. "Why aren't you here!" her head screamed. She pictured Gideon as he was. Unconscious, left arm blown off, strapped into a multitude of machines, all trying to breathe for him, to pump blood for him, to keep him alive. The picture of her son in that state melted her insides into a hellish broth. She was angry, at Atticus, at herself, and she could feel her heart thump heavily inside her body as the terror grew into a rush of tears.

Her legs were rubber and her pulse hammered; faster, stronger. Libra fell to her knees, still too dizzy and disoriented to walk a straight path towards Evendie – weakened, defeated.

But as she knelt, the ground rumbled, a low hum she could feel swimming into her knees and hands as they grazed the fractured pavement. A resonating vibration that intensified each second. Her breathing quickened, and her vision started to clear.

This was not her heart rumbling.

She glanced back towards the south east and watched, puzzled, as the Eosin armies tore into the sky, bursting into fragments and limbs as someone, or something she couldn't see, ripped them apart by the hundreds.

A blast.

A tremendous wave of energy tore across the ruined landscape, forcing Libra to twist her face away under her arm and fetter the shockwave with the little will that threaded through her veins.

The air settled, but the ground rumbled harder than before.

Libra's arm lowered as her head turned to witness the source of the commotion. Her pulse thundered, perhaps more so with awe, and hope than dread as she looked over and saw the sea of silver and yellow swarming in the distance.

A legion of yellow jabbas stormed onto the battle front, each armoured with plates of glistening metal, trampling through the enemy line like mammoths on worms. A flock of around six of the armoured animals danced into a line, then opened their large, stone crushing jaws to release an expansive burst of shockwaves into the army.

Bodies burst.

A red beast, armoured like the other jabbas, galloped at an incredible speed towards the Harrow that had Evendie kicking in its claws. Libra stood, balance returning, as she made out the figure riding atop the crimson behemoth.

It was Katya.

The sight quaked Libra more than her thundering heart and her urge to get over to Evendie did. Red jabbas had long been extinct. Nate had told her Katya and Gideon were doing some kind of Jabba research, but who would have guessed that they had been breeding, growing, training Jabbas to fight.

Just a few meters off, the scarlet beast drew a dusty brake near the Harrow. The Harrow sneered over its shoulder at the jabba, then dropped Evendie like some old toy.

He turned towards Katya and the jabba, making a slow, steady advance. Katya sprung atop the Jabba's back, now standing in a crouch along the animal's adamantine spine. She tugged gently at the central one of the Jabba's three horns, tilting the animal's head up slightly.

The ground buckled into a bowl.

Fragments of dirt and pavement levitated as the animal's jaw dropped to produce a low, heavy bellow. A dusty nebula of air and ice coalesced between the behemoth's jaws, then with an ear-splitting roar, burst from the jabba's mouth into the Harrow.

The Harrow fettered the blast, for a second, then his arm yielded to the immensity of the pressurized ball of swirling matter. The Harrow tore through the air, culminating in a massive explosion as he and the blast crashed into the walls of the Extrum in the far distance.

Libra launched over towards Evendie, who lay hacking on ground.

"Evendie," Libra scurried, helping her into a kneel.

"That, thing..." Evendie grunted, coughing.

She looked up as her blood still thumped through her head, the Harrow having squeezed her neck until her face reddened to a flush. Her eyes burst as her gaze landed on the jabba.

"Is that-"

"A red Jabba...yes." Libra said, sounding just as awed. Katya hopped of the animal's back and strolled over to them.

"How... when did you-" Evendie started.

"I've been growing them, breeding them in the Arc Veldt for just over two years now..." Katya said.

She paused, looked to the ground, then over at Libra, her eyes wavering with a thin film of liquid. "It was Gideon's Idea." she said, turning back to glance over at the dwindling Eosin armies towards the East. The flocks of yellow jabbas had already wiped out hundreds of enemy soldiers, in seconds.

"He and I bred flocks of yellows until we finally got a couple reds, then we inoculated them with a vaccine mom developed from yellow jabba antigens. The infection that drove the reds into extinction shouldn't be much of a problem now." Katya said, looking back at the animal. It sang a low, musical tune.

"Where's your mother?" Libra asked.

"By the south east border." Katy's voice lowered, her brows knitted. She suddenly didn't seem sad anymore. "She, Nate, an a few more jabbas are holding them off." she said, indicating the Harrow that had been blasted into the distance.

Evendie glanced back in the direction of the Extrum then peered at Katya, mortified.

"Them? How many more?"

Katya nodded slowly. "Several more." she replied. "Nate and mom already took out at least twenty, but there's still a good number of them left."

Evendie pined away at what Katya said, gazing into the distance at the Extrum. The part about Nate taking down twenty Harrows, one of which nearly snapped her neck, was a puzzle. The Nathaniel she knew could barely stay on his feet in a fight. But many things had changed, drastically, in the past several days.

Katya turned, a sudden movement, and threw herself back atop the Jabba. The animal's music transformed into a heavy growl. The movement caught Libra's attention.

"What is it?" she said. Katya nodded in the direction of the Extrum.

The Harrow charged towards them, summoning clouds of dust and fractured pavement as he approached. Libra's mouth dried as the realization flushed her body. She thought of Atticus and Gideon... she thought of Nate. Her fists tightened.

"This thing is gonna take a lot of effort to kill." Katya said.

"Well, If Nate and Donnei are doing their part, then we better do ours." Evendie growled.

The Harrow plunged through the air, a cloud of frozen vapor growing around him, and the trio burst from where they stood, launching themselves head-on to clash the enemy.
Chapter 9

KARATKA

Thirty-eight Harrows. The number reeled in and out of Nathaniel's mind as he examined the pack of monstrous soldiers that encircled him. He'd been fighting, nonstop, for almost two days now. They'd all been, but who keeps track of time when the enemy still stands.

Nate faced southward. His body should have been exhausted, instead, it drenched with tremendous energy. The Eosin armies that raged towards the north several hours prior had been completely obliterated by then. The jabbas left nothing but scattered limbs and ruptured bodies carpeting the land for miles. Nate and Donnei however couldn't hold down the entire legion of Harrows they had been fighting, and some had broken forward while the others stayed back, keeping Nate and Donnei busy.

The Harrows that'd fled northward had managed to cut the jabbas down by the dozens, getting as far north as the canteisian military contingencies that held the rear. The Monos and Stereos had been wiped out almost entirely but luckily, Nate was able to hunt the Harrows down in time to stop the bloodbath from claiming anymore lives. Now, the battle lay further northward than before, around half way along the String towards Karatka.

Donnei and Katya battled seven harrows towards Nate's south and Libra and Evendie fought another two towards the west. The remaining twenty-nine had Nate completely surrounded, keeping a close watch on the absorber that had cut them down to double digits. He'd already killed at least fifty, and Donnei had already wiped out another twenty or so. But now, the harrows had become more cautious, more vigilant, and with the weaker members of their lot wiped out, the stronger, smarter ones that remained were much harder to kill.

Silence deafened.

Nate studied the Harrows. Every twitch, every subtle jerk. He might as well had grown eyes in the back of his head; no movement missed him, not even the ones he couldn't see. But for the most part, the harrows didn't move much. They just stood, steady, caging him in. Almost as if they were waiting for him to launch the first attack; almost as if, they were planning something.

A blare.

One of the Harrows to his side released a nasty screech, which sliced through the pavement and tore towards Nate. He neither dodged nor fettered the blast; he had no need to. Another screech bellowed at him from the other side, then six more, each from a new angle, but Nate was rooted, absorbing them all. A shower of dust intensified around him as the blasts pulverized the pavement and dirt, consuming Nate inside the belly of the dusty nebula.

Suddenly, A voice. He heard a sharp whisper, someone calling his name, but it was so transient, so soft, he was almost sure it was inside his head.

Several moments passed, yet the screeches and blasts kept bellowing towards him continuously as he stood there, taking them all in. It was futile, it was pointless. He couldn't understand why they were still at it. It was strange.

The voice cried again. This time, only slightly stronger than before. It was definitely not in his head. A chill electrified his spine. The call was desperate, frightful. Nate crouched, concentrating the energy of the blasts he'd just absorbed then released a counter-wave multiple times stronger than the blasts had been.

Nate loosed a roar as the shockwave exploded from his body. The thick wall of dust dissipated and the harrows around him vaporized like a burst of black steam.

Something was wrong.

Nate looked around, frantic. Only six harrows, well, their remains at least, lay splattered around him.

"Nate!" Donnei cried. "The Hyperplane. They're trying to get to the Hyperplane. You have to stop them!" she urged.

Nate's breath caught.

His pulse quickened as the thought burst into his mind to dash forwards immediately to hunt down the harrows that had gone ahead, but as he glanced over towards Evendie and Libra, his legs arrested. They looked like they were struggling, barely keeping up with the Harrows they fought.

He glanced back over at Donnei, also fighting at the edge of control. She was stronger than the others, the only one among them who had mastered frequency hybridization, she could take care of herself. But with each passing second, his pulse quickened, his thoughts jerked, and he remembered that twenty-plus Harrows had just sped head-on towards Karatka.

"Go!" Libera yelped, "We'll handle these guys. You have to get to the base, now!"

Her voice was strong, resolute. His brain stopped thinking, then his muscles simply reacted. It happens when you're caught on the lines between life and death. Thoughts stop, and muscles just do.

The ground ruptured as Nate sprinted forward and within seconds, he had caught up to the rearmost Harrows. Two of them fell back to hold him off, the rest pressed on.

It was a throwing of fists and nothing more, the harrows knew hand to hand combat would be their best tactic, anything else, he'd just absorb it and then fry them to bits.

Nate could stay back and fight, he could easily kill them in the right time, but the stakes were significantly higher now. All would be lost if the Harrows managed to open the Hyperplane long enough and bring in more of their Eosin contingencies; Canetis would be history. He needed to stop the Harrow's from getting control of the Hyperplane, and that was final.

The Harrows that had fallen back to hold him off weren't making things very easy. One catapulted through the air, launching a kick at him. He dodged it, but the other harrow had already burst behind him. A fist connected, and he blocked, but the force sent Nate bursting into the sky.

He spun. Kicking the air like an invisible staircase, Nate danced back to the ground. His right hand latched the neck of one of the harrows and a pulse of energy burst from his arm and slithered through his hands into the Harrow's neck.

It was like a hot blade through plastic as Nate's hand severed the Harrow's head.

The other Harrow was upon him in milliseconds. Palms outstretched, it attempted desperately to blast him. Nate's arm flashed up, absorbing the beam the moment it left the Harrow's Palms. He stood there sucking the energy into his body then with his free hand, he grabbed the Harrow by the arm.

He thought to release the energy he'd just concentrated, to blast it back through the Harrow. But as he held the Harrows arm he watched as its entire body began to wither, to shrivel into an emaciated remnant of what it was a few seconds prior – like a balloon, slowly deflating. It was as if he'd absorbed the harrow's life energy, leaving nothing but a silhouette off desiccated flesh streaked onto the floor.

He didn't think of it much, it was just an action of muscles. He'd grown strong; stronger than he could have ever imagined he would, perhaps none of them would be able to defeat him. But what would be the point of all that strength if he was the only one strong enough to survive the invasion. What would be the point if everyone else died? All would still be lost; the Eosin would've still won. And in that case, he would might as well have remained the useless, talentless boy his father always bashed.

Nate's insides churned. The thought that they could actually get to the Hyperplane at the rate they were moving made his blood boil. His body steamed. The air around him boiled as he concentrated the energy that he'd absorbed from the Harrow, and his feet launched like rockets from the pavement, blasting him forward.

The Harrows were fast, incredibly so, and by the time Nate had caught up to them, they had reached the edge of the central plasma field that shelled the Karatka base. The shield appeared as an oscillating dome of blue and red threads of light, woven into a pulsating mesh that made it all look, alive.

Beneath the base lay an intricate network of caverns which all lead to subterranean bunkers and shelters, enough to accommodate every citizen of The Union, and then some. Karatka was the main access point to the bunkers, but there were several other access points dispersed across The Union. It was a subterranean citadel that grew deep into the planet's layers and spread for hundreds of miles in all directions.

There were twenty-one Harrows left, but only one of him. They had the advantage of numbers and if as much as one got through the plasma border, the death toll would be immense.

He never thought this feeling was possible. He always wanted to be powerful, to be strong, but in the moment, he still wasn't strong enough, wasn't fast enough to take all the Harrows down at once.

He'd never felt so weak.

A number of Harrows dispersed around the plasma shield and coming at Nate were seven others. The fourteen along the forcefield dug at it, blasting it, cracking it to make their way inside. Beyond the forcefield, teams of seekers and soldiers lined up, anticipating, ready to hold the front lines in the event the shell was breached by one of the Harrows, a valiant stance. But Nate knew that their efforts would be futile. None of them, neither singly nor together, where a match for even a single Harrow.

Nate thought to yell to the seekers, to tell them to shut down the Catadon, to kill the Hyperplane's power. But that would be the end of the plasma shell, and the start of another bloodbath. His mind rattled. Anger. Frustration. He didn't know what to do.

An explosion rumbled through the ground. Nate couldn't see where it was coming from, but it seemed to arise from the far side of the base. Dread washed his mouth, his pulse pounded. He didn't need to guess if the Harrows had breached the shell and made their way into the base.

They obviously had.

"Shut down the core!" Nate yelled to no one in particular. "Shut it down, now!" he cried his throat raw, but by the time it seemed as if someone had heard his holler, bodies began to fly about, and the plasma border began to recede like liquid mercury, draining over the edge of a pane of glass. This was bad. He felt his heart strings pop and his viscera heave.

A sharp, high-pitched woo preceded the appearance of a thick line of blue light from the centre of the main hangar, stretching deep into the sky until it disappeared from sight in the heavens. They'd gotten to the hyperplane. Nate's muscles spasmed.

His first thought was to help the other canetisian soldiers that were being wiped out around him by the remaining Harrows, but they'd have to wait. He weaved himself away from the Harrows he'd been fighting and dashed into the main hangar, speeding through the mile-high steel doors that guarded the entrance.

Around him, thousands of Armada ships lay stacked in rows and columns like books on a shelf. At the centre of the vast space lay the Hyperplane, a volcano of blue light erupting from a massive grey platform where vessels would dock before being sent off into the lightspeed highway. The platform levitated several meters above a dancing blue sphere, the Catadon, which undulated fiercely with intermittent flashes of red, yellow and green lights. Two of the Harrows stood on either side of the Hyperplane's platform, intently crouched over levitating control stations and weaving commands into holographic control panels; commands Nathaniel was sure would mean nothing good for him or Canetis.

Nate sped up towards one of the Harrows, kicking the sky as he climbed to knock the harrow away from the control station. A body flew through the air, intercepting his advance, and crashing him into the harsh metallic ground below. He'd almost forgotten that there were still several Harrows left. They were really a formidable nuisance, using no particle beams, just brute force.

Within seconds, a total of nine were upon him, keeping his hands busy while the others wreaked havoc on the canetisian soldiers and seekers scattered around the base, doing their best to guard the trapdoors that lead to the subterranean bunkers.

It was a dark moment, the weight of the entire planet bearing down on his shoulders.

Nate fought hard, swift, relentless. He cut down four of the harrows. A furious rampage underway as he raged on to eliminate them all. But in the instant he grabbed a fifth one by the neck, a nasty screech shattered the air.

The few Harrows which remained wailed an ugly noise as their throats vibrated simultaneously, like some sort of cheer as they all looked to the open roof of the hangar. Everything suddenly went darker, like an eclipse had blocked the sunlight. Nate peered upwards to see a colossal yellow-streaked, inky vessel materializing in the sky, bursting through the bright blue light-way of the Hyperplane, its expanse slowly growing too large for him to perceive.

Nate's stomach rose into his throat as despair struck his body, a cold rush of death washing his skin.

The ship looked like one of the main carrier ships the Eosin had initially come with, but it was even larger, around ten times in size with threads of space-debris streaking the sir around it.. Nate was stupefied. Muscles and thoughts caught in a motion-less stare at the sky as another vessel, only slightly smaller, materialized behind the first and oozed a swarm of discoid fighter ships into the atmosphere.

He wanted to move, he thought to. He tried to, but his body wouldn't. He heard a whoosh break through the air behind him, he wasn't sure what it was. But no sooner did he capture the sound than he felt something heavy slug into his back.

Whatever it was, it was big, it was dense, and he'd been too terror-stricken, too paralyzed to have done a thing to stop or evade it.

He felt the wind scrape his eyes as he plunged through the air, he felt his neck throw back, perhaps fracture as the blow tore into his back. And as he watched himself plummet towards the Catadon that raged below the Hyperplane, he felt his clothes, his skin, his entire body, vaporize.

"I've failed." he thought, as the Catadon swallowed him whole.

Chapter 10

METAMORPHOSIS

Thoughts echoed.

"What...what is this...what's happening?" His mind puzzled.

Suddenly aware of himself, aware that he was somehow, conscious, he drew a heavy breath, but he felt no air. He couldn't tell if his eyes were closed or open, everything was just, bright. He could feel himself exist, his spatial perception was intact, but he couldn't see himself, he couldn't see anything.

"Am I de-" he started.

The thought burned as the blinding layers of light that encompassed his vision grew thin. Soon, it cleared. He looked around.

Destruction, chaos, death.

But everything was familiar. It all looked almost exactly as he remembered it in the last few seconds before someone, something plunged him into the Catadon. The scenes now, were too close to the last images his mind had saved for it to have been very long since he'd been out.

"Am I...alive?" he puzzled.

He staggered forward, at least, it felt like he was walking. He looked down to see his feet; nothing but light. His legs, his body, his hands, he felt them all there, exactly where they were supposed to be, but studying himself, all he could see were vague remnants of his appendages and body, all bursting with and immense glow. He felt weightless, non-existent, transcendent. Yet at the same time, he could almost taste the energy electrifying his every cell.

A horrid silhouette materialized a few meters ahead of him, then two more beside it.

Harrows.

He remembered them. He couldn't feel a pulse throbbing in his throat, he couldn't feel a heart rumbling through his chest, but he could feel the rage and hate he'd felt before when he first saw one of them, and in that moment, he knew, he was very much alive.

One of the harrows dashed towards him. Nate's hand spring up to blast the enemy, but before the harrow even reached a meter away from him, it evaporated into a thin cloud of black dust. The other two harrows stood still, apprehensive as he turned to face them. Nate approached them, slowly, his measured steps telling he was no less dumbfounded than they were as they gawked upon his radiant form.

The harrows backed away, tense. One attempted to run. Nate's gaze caught it and in the instant his eyes settled upon the harrow, it too burst into a black powder. He looked over at the other harrow. It was gone, a swirl of inky gas swimming up into the air from where it once stood.

Nate looked up to the sky. A thought ripped through his mind.

"The Hyperplane." he gasped, no air.

The sky was clear, save the dirty grey hue from the preceding explosions and fires. The wide beam of blue light which once tore into the vast beyond of the heavens, was gone. He spun around, swift, to see the Hyperplane, the Catadon, to see what had shut it down.

Nothing. Everything was gone.

The platform that once undulated with light now settled atop a vast circular cage of thick, galvanized metal bars. The vigorous ball of blue light that once burned beneath the Hyperplane, powering it and everything else around the base, had vanished. The brilliant rays from Aeos and Dasos, raining down through the vast open roof above, were the only source of illumination for the entire central hangar. All lights were blown out.

Nate's body chilled. He could feel it, he knew it did. He raised his hands once again, studying his entire body like an alien marvel.

"I...absorbed the Catadon..." he confounded.

He turned to face the towering rectangular gateway to the central hangar. Mystified by what had happened, what he had yet to fully understand or even believe. Beyond the gateway, far in the distance, he could see the two large ships he remembered came through the Hyperplane before everything went...bright.

He thought of striking the ships from the sky, he thought of blasting them to dust.

A blink.

Suddenly, he was no longer inside the hangar. He stood beneath the largest of the two ships, peering up at it, the ship's expanse too wide for his visual field to accommodate. For a moment, he froze. Bewildered. How did I get here so... fast? He'd only thought of it, and then it just, happened.

His hands rose above his head and from them, an intense white beam grew towards the sky, tearing through the gargantuan ship like a laser through glass. As his hands lowered and he peered up at the vessel, the entire hull began to dissipate. The insides followed quickly, then the deepest recesses of the ship's structure melted away, until the entire thing had been dissolved into a thick gas, like a black hole had swallowed it and left behind nothing but a rising mist of lacquer for the sky to dissolve.

A sizzle swam through his body, like a worm of energy had been threaded into his being from behind. He turned around to see the other giant ship and a host of smaller battle vessels shooting a volley of blasts at him. He barely felt them as they struck, the only evidence of their existence being the bursting pavement around him and the storms of dirt that began to swarm. Nate raised his hand towards the incoming volley of bullets and ships and as he did, a wide beam of light hurled into the sky doing to all the smaller vessels and the main ship what had been done to the last.

His arm lowered, and he watched as the gaseous remnants of the Eosin's forces vanished. Dissolving into the sky, carried away in the high winds.

It was surreal. Too easy. Too quick. His mind, flummoxed, not in the slightest bit able to process or explain anything well. Nate studied the landscape around him. Ruptured buildings, fragments of land and rock, almost everything had been reduced to a dusty war-scape of rubble and waste. It was once beautiful, a mosaic of skyscrapers and metallic marvels. But now, it all looked primitive, decimated.

Millions of lives had been lost, including the life of his beloved father. He thought of Gideon, wondering if he'd ever even wake up, and for a second, Nate could feel his energy dwindle as the pain flushed into his mind and threaded through his being. He looked down at his body once more, brightness softening to reveal familiar form and structure.

He could feel his lungs fill with air, pulse gurgling and heart slowly tapping inside his chest. He was alive again, the kind he was familiar with. His eyes fell shut then opened to the heavens, peering into the distance where Dasos and Aeos blazed beyond the smoky sky. And as his senses returned in full and the immense energy he'd swallowed dissipated from his body, he tasted the dawn of a new day, the start of a new era for his people, his home.
Chapter 11

THE RIBOLAN CEMETERY

' _Ik viv ik hanut, stet hanut, viv flos', where there is life there will be death and in the midst of death, life flourishes._

Nathaniel studied the words engraved into his father's cenotaph, a crisp gale embracing his skin as his palm caressed the side of the monument. The air was cold, but the metal was warm with life.

Atticus' cenotaph perched a few meters beside his father's, the six-feet-tall obelisk shimmering like a mirror in the lurid daylight. All the cenotaphs in the cemetery had been polished to a lustrous hue. The landscape fluoresced; a sea of blinding reflections.

Nate thought of how far he'd come, and his heart grieved. Aching at the realization that Atticus would never be able to see his progress, that he'd never be able to gain his father's recognition, that he'd never get the chance to feel like he was really his father's son.

"He'd be proud of you Nate. So proud." Gideon said, resting a steady left hand on Nate's shoulder.

His hand was heavy and hard, homage to the crude biomechatronic make of the advanced prosthetic limb. Sheathed with a layer of artificial skin, it worked and looked nothing short of real.

Nate's hand left the obelisk and came to rest on his brother's prosthesis, studying the feel of arm for a short moment – it felt almost exactly like the cenotaph.

Nate turned and caught his brother's gaze, a smile forcing his sorrowed face to budge.

"I guess so." he whispered dispiritedly as Gideon's arm wormed behind his neck to hang across his shoulder.

The twins stalked along the aisles between the scores of obelisks that grew out of the entire landscape and slowly made their way to the cemetery's exit.
Acknowledgement

Many friends have helped me along this journey, some, without even knowing it.

Thank you.

You are all sources of inspiration.

And to the reader, thank you. I hope this book touched at least one of your thirty-five-plus trillion cells.
The exciting saga continues with

RETURN

OF

KAGHAAN

The Eosin have been driven away, but an old rumour echoes through the restless air. It whispers that Kaghaan the rebel, the Absorber, didn't really die. But over a century has passed since the final face-off between him and Lucas. He couldn't possibly be alive...

Or could he?

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A. Darell Thorpe

