Awakening of the Shadows [COMPLETE]

Revan's Mark

Antares

With a loud hissing, shrieking noise, a bolt of aetherstream struck the ex-Lieutenant Vance in the center of his chest. He let out an agonized howl, his strangely now-black and once-emerald eyes bulging and rapidly blinking. He collapsed to the ground, his whole body seized by violent spasms. I slumped back against the wall, literally every part of my face feeling as if it was on fire. I managed to pull myself into a sitting position, but that was really about all I could manage. As I did so, my concentration finally broke and the light spell that I'd had going crumbled.

Rynn took a step back, blinking at the rapidly-shaking Trianguli before her, then looked over at where the aetherstream blast had come from - me. Her eyes widened, and she rushed over to me, muttering something unintelligible under her breath.

She knelt by my side. "Antares, are-" she stopped, seemingly lost in thought for a moment. "No, of course not," she mumbled. After an instant of silence that felt like an eternity (My face was still really painful), she seemed to collect her thoughts and spoke again: "Seven Hells, your entire face is covered in blood."

So that wasn't something I particularly wanted to hear, but I'd guessed as much anyway. "Um," I said, spitting a small glob of cyan blood onto the cold stone floor beside me.

With a quick look back at the spasming form of our former colleague, Rynn opened a satchel that hung at her waist and pulled out a vial containing a tattered piece of paper. Etched onto the cork was a symbol in Eldest that glowed with a faint, red chroma:

I recognized that symbol. Almost everyone knew at least one or two symbols in Eldest, and some were commonplace, used in everyday interactions. This particular symbol was one of those commonplace symbols - it was a spell glyph, a Hemokinetic (The official name for the hybrid of Biomantic and Necromantic magic, this particular subtype deals with blood) spell most people referred to as heal (Although its actual name in Eldest was Hevator). It did... well, exactly what it sounds like. It healed surface injuries, quells bleeding, and reduces pain (Although it can't heal things like psychological trauma (That kind of healing magic can only be done by Neuromancers (The official name for the hybrid of Telemantic and Biomantic magic, this particular subtype deals with the mind)), nor can it heal broken bones (Trying to use magic to heal broken bones usually doesn't work, the only ones who can do that kind of spell are Hemomancers who study that particular line of casting for decades)). Unlike most spells, a number of Hemokinetic castings can be used in scrolls, as in they can be written out and read aloud for their effect to take action without the need for a Hemomancer to cast it. I silently thanked Rynn's obsessive compulsion to always bring at least two or three heal spells with her.

Uncorking the vial, Rynn pulled out the scrap of paper within and read aloud the glyph written upon it (The glyph appeared to be written in blood of some sort. Hemomancers particularly enjoy that kind of writing. I've actually read one or two papers written by a Hemomancer who was my neighbor back on Scipio, both of which were written in Xevakh* blood).

Immediately, the pain in my face began to subside. (Except for my nose. The spell's restriction to not being able to heal bones extends to cartilage as well.) I could more or less feel the wounds on my face from where Vance's slightly spiked glove had punched me, and I no longer felt sticky liquid running down my cheeks like tears (Although I could still feel dried blood on my face).

I let out a deep breath, then whispered to Rynn, "Thank you,"

"Of course," Rynn said immediately, taking my hand in hers and squeezing it. Her expression change from worried to teasing, and she added, "My 'compulsion' to bring heal spells with me worked out, didn't it?"

I laughed. "Yeah," I agreed. "They did."

"Can you stand?" she asked.

"I think," I said, starting to pull myself upright, and Rynn stood at the same time, dropping her hand from mine.

I glanced down at my former lieutenant's body. It had stopped spasming, and some kind of black liquid was leaking from his eyes. After a moment I realized that his strange pitch-black eyes were returning to their normal color, their natural jade-green appearance.

"Rynn, take a look at this," I said, pointing at Vance's eyes. More than half of the black... film, I guess, had subsided, and though his eyes were now returning to normal, his strangely half-formed eyes added to the royal blue blood still bleeding profusely from his wounds (And the smoldering hole in his chest) made him look absolutely terrifying and a little bit insane.

"What in Carceri..." she wondered. After a few more moments, his eyes had fully reformed, and jade-green orbs now stared blankly up at the ceiling.

Vance was dead.

Rynn turned to me. "So what does this mean?" she asked.

"I... don't know," I said honestly. "I guess we could take the corpse back to the Supernova, for an autopsy, but-"

"Hold on," Rynn said, raising a hand. "Did you say Supernova? As in MFS Supernova?"

I realized she still didn't know all the details of the situation. All she knew was that Karhhiya had been attacked, I'd come back to save her and the rest of my rebellion, and Vance was apparently a traitor .(Who, apparently, if his threat made to me was to be believed, had access to Wendigos, of all things.)

"Rynn," I said. "There's a lot you need to be caught up on."

. . .

Eldernova

The priceless expression, for once, was not on my face.

Rather, it was on Eternity's.

"Um," Eternity said. "If 'worrying myself half to death' counts as missing you, then yes."

The Trianguli soldier who'd still been conscious after Alaspakta and I (I'd decided that the fight with the soldiers had been both my and Alaspakta's work. I come up with a lot of stories like this in my head) had fought the soldiers made a small noise from behind me, still standing in the Lift. Eternity craned her neck to glance over my shoulder.

"Eldernova," she said. "Is there a reason that a Trianguli soldier is following you around?"

"I'm not sure," I replied honestly. "Alaspakta thinks it might be worth it, but I'm not sure why."

"I told you that once you met up with Eternity I could let you know," Alaspakta's voice rang from the sword in my hand. "Seriously, have a little patience."

"Um," said Eternity. "Is... is the sword always this cynical?"

"Yes," Alaspakta and I said simultaneously. I gave a quick glance at the sword before looking back to Eternity.

"So... can I go now, or something?" asked the soldier behind me.

"That would seem unwise," Eternity said reasonably.

The soldier's face was almost comically plaintive. She muttered something under her breath that sounded like blasted inebulot. I wasn't really sure what that meant.

"So... am I going with you, then?" the soldier said finally.

"That would also seem unwise," said Eternity. "Eldernova, what are your thoughts?"

"Me?" I asked. The expression on her face indicated that yes, she'd been speaking to me, which generally seemed obvious since she had begun her sentence with the word 'Eldernova'. "Um... maybe just leave her in the Lift?"

"I was thinking more that she could direct us to the bridge," Alaspakta said. "Didn't Nocta say she couldn't access the upper decks?"

"That's true," Nocta's voice chimed in on the communication network. "There's several thousand firewalls on the upper three decks, which makes me think that the bridge is up there. But none of the Lifts go up to the top deck."

"W-with respect, ma'am," stuttered the soldier (Who was clearly terrified, it was not everyday that one was threatened by a talking bladed weapon), nervously scratching at her arm. "I d-don't know how t-to get up to the bridge."

Eternity gave the soldier a curious look. "Huh," she murmured. "She genuinely doesn't know. How is that?"

"What?" I asked

"Telepathy, Eldern- actually, do you mind if I just call you Elder? Or Nova, if that's preferable?" Alaspakta said, both answering my question and generating a new one out of thin air.

"Um..." I remembered some of my friends in high school had called me Elder, since that was less of a mouthful than my full name. "Sure, I guess."

"At any rate," Eternity said. "Soldier. Do you know who does?"

"Um..." mumbled the soldier. "Y-yeah, I think he's in the tertiary power generator."

"Who is this person?" Eternity asked.

"H-he's a Snagrider**," the soldier said. "He's in charge of all decks below the upper three."

"Okay, so I asked who you were talking about, and you gave me his job description," Eternity said flatly. "Please actually tell me who we're looking for."

"Are y-you going to kill him?" the soldier asked.

"Seven Hells, just answer the blasted question," Eternity said, a hint of irritation creeping into her voice. "We don't have all day."

"Time is relative," Alaspakta informed us helpfully.

"Thank you, Brightest Day, for your legendary input," Eternity said. "Soldier, please just answer the question and you can go back to whatever the hell you were doing."

"H-he's my father," the soldier said, her voice almost a whisper. "His name is Indirk Vorpal."

Every last drop of blood drained out of Eternity's face.

"Indirk's here? Right now?" she asked, absolute horror clear as day in her voice.

The soldier shrunk back, and I finally stepped out of the elevator shaft. "Eternity, what's wrong?"

"Indirk Vorpal is the most dangerous Snagrider in the Trianguli military," Eternity said. "He's responsible for our loss at the Battle of Ezeem."

"Okay, awesome," I said. "Now in English."

Eternity smacked her forehead. "Snagriders are the fourth rank in the Trianguli military. They ride these... things... native to Scipio called Snagrols into combat, acting as commanders and cavalry for the Triangulum Empire."

"Oh." That didn't sound great.

"M-ma'am?" asked the soldier shakily.

"Yes, you can go," Eternity said dismissively, waving her hand. She tapped her earpiece. "Monitor that soldier. Make sure she doesn't go straight to Indirk."

"Gotcha," Nocta said, causing the blue-skinned Trianguli soldier to pale. She ran off down the hall. "That's our Eternity," Nocta said after a moment. "Spreading a little absolute terror in the afternoon."

"Shut up." Eternity said. She walked over to the wall (Which had two convenient lounge-like chairs sitting against it) and sat down in the leftmost of the pair. She took a deep breath and was quiet for a moment.

Not really knowing what to do, I just stood there, waiting for Eternity to collect her thoughts.

"This is bad," Eternity said finally.

"Thank you, Sentinel Timewind, for your legendary input," Alaspakta commented.

Either Eternity didn't hear her, or she simply chose to ignore the weapon.

"So, what exactly does this mean?" I asked.

"If Indirk is the only one with access to the upper decks, then I guess we'll have to get the keys from him," Eternity said reluctantly. "I'm so sorry you got thrown into this lunacy, Elder." she gave me a plaintive and apologetic glance and then cast her eyes down. "I didn't know this would happen. I wish you could've had a better entry to the Multiverse, you shouldn't have had to begin your new life by finding out you had a part to play in a three-trillion year old prophecy or by having to kill Trianguli soldiers. You should have just been able to acclimate at your own pace, but instead you've been ripped from your old life and dropped into a deadly hellscape in which one false move could spell the end of everything you - and all of us - care about."

I walked over to the seat next to hers and sat down. "Eternity, it isn't your fault."

"The first thing you learn about being a leader," Eternity told me. "Is that everything is your fault."

I took her hand in mine and gave it a light squeeze. She looked up in surprise, and our eyes met.

"Nothing," I said in a voice so low it could not be distinguished from a whisper. "About this is your fault." I watched a small smile cross her face.

"Thank you," Eternity whispered. "Thank you, Eldernova Starfall." She slipped her hand out of my own and stood. Tapping her earpiece, she said, "Let's go get this son of a Manticore."

. . .

Eternity

"Ooh, son of a Manticore!" Nocta said in my ear. "Language, Eternity! There- there are-" she started giggling so hard that I heard the ping of her microphone being muted.

Seven Hells, Nocta was flat-out amazing at her job, but she was quite possibly the most sarcastic entity in the Multiverse.

"Wait, Manticores are- that's a stupid question. Hm, then - no, that's stupid too. Shit," Eldernova said, which I'm sure was as confusing to him as it was to me.

Yeah, 'adorably confused' was definitely a personality trait of Eldernova's. I tapped my earpiece again. "Nocta? Nocta, have you calmed down enough to give us directions?"

My CTO's voice started to come through. "I think you'd better-" she cut herself off with a bark of laughter so loud that it rendered me permanently incapable of hearing. Eldernova's face twisted in pain and he clapped his hands over his ears. (Which actually made the problem worse, he was actively shoving the earpiece further into his ear which would, in turn, make the noise louder.)

I slowly, deliberately, lifted three of my fingers to my temple and held them there. I let out an exasperated sigh.

After a few minutes of my exasperated sigh and Eldernova's (very) confused facial expression, Nocta's voice came in clearly through the earpiece. "Sorry about that," she said (Although I highly doubted that she was). "You'll want to head straight down the hall ahead of you. At the end of it you'll find a Lift, which you will need to take in order to reach Indirk's office."

That sounded about as fun as having my brain set on fire.

Not that I knew what that felt like, but I could only assume.

"Alright then, let's go," I said finally. Eldernova started to walk down the hall, but I stopped him by raising my palm. "Hold on a second."

"Didn't you just say to start walking?" Alaspakta commented.

I gave the sword a look full of venom. From the holster on my waist I retrieved one of the two aetherpistols that were my constant companions. Reluctantly I extended my arm, holding out the pistol for Eldernova to take. "Here," I said.

He gingerly took the pistol. "Um," he said. "Not to be rude... but I have absolutely no idea how to use this."

I nodded. Pulling out the other pistol, I indicated the part of the pistol nearest where a bullet firearm would've had its slide. "This is the cell chamber," I said, sliding open the chamber and revealing the pulsing bright blue power cell inside. "Basically, this is where the aetherstream comes from. When you want to refill it, just take the cell out and swap in a new one." Eldernova nodded, motioning for me to go on. I next pointed to the trigger, which took absolutely no time to explain. I then showed him the safety lock, the kill/stun cycling wheel, and, probably most importantly, how to engage the quantum sights.

When I'd finished, I asked, "So you understand now?"

"Yeah, I guess," Eldernova replied. He slid the gun into the satchel that hung at his belt. Next I handed him three aetherstream cells, which he put into a small pouch next to where he'd put the aetherpistol. Finally, I pulled out a small, white, syringe-like object. Engraved on the cylindrical length was a Hemokinetic symbol:

In Eldest, it was called Esphaltu, but most in the MFS who carried it simply called it regenerate. Unlike it's weaker counterpart, Hevator, the heal spell, Esphaltu was far more potent. It had the capability to heal medium to high physical and mental trauma (Recently-inflicted trauma, of course). For example, if someone was hit with an Electromancer's lightning and their nerves were rendered unusable, a regenerate spell could more or less completely heal the damage.

"What does this do?" Eldernova asked.

"It's a... hm. How would this make sense to you?" I wasn't sure how to phrase it. Spells were one thing, but stimulants and potions like this one were a different matter altogether. "It's... like... um, magical medicine?"

"Oh!" Eldernova said suddenly, a smile crossing his face for reasons unknown to me. "Is it a healing potion, like in Dungeons and Dragons?"

"Um," I said. I'd heard about that archaic board game in Eldernova's mind, and both Seraph and Nocta had enlisted Arcturus of late to produce a Screen-friendly version of the game. I didn't know much about it, but I was more or less aware of the mechanics, as well as most of the monsters (Like, for example, Beholders. Seven Hells, those things are awful). "Yeah, I think."

Eldernova looked as if he'd literally been given the greatest present of all time. "Finally," he said. "A magic item that doesn't completely confound me."

"Well, slow down," I said. "It still might." Eldernova's face fell. "It works like a syringe. Basically, just stab yourself with it, and click the plunger twice. It will heal most injuries."

"Cool," Eldernova said, a little less enthusiastic.

"Also, you'll only get three doses from it, and these things are relatively annoying to make, so please don't waste it."

"Oh," Eldernova said. "Got it." He slid it into his pouch.

"Alright, ready to go?" I asked. Eldernova nodded. I reached quickly into my Slipspace and withdrew another aetherpistol to replace the last one. "Alright. Here we go."

Together (More or less), we walked down the hall towards the Lift.

. . .

Antares
It took about twenty minutes, but finally, I finished explaining the events of - wow, had it really only been a day and a half? - the past thirty-two hours. When my explanation came to an end, Rynn just sat there for a moment.
"I-" she said finally. "I don't know what- I mean, how do you respond to something like... like this?" She wasn't wrong, it was a lot to take in all at once.
"You're right, and it-" I was cut off by a piercing shriek that echoed throughout the room, which elicited a yell from Rynn.. I looked around for a few moments, startled, until I noticed the source: A small, glowing blue semicircle of metal, shaped in just the right way to fit in one's ear canal.
An earpiece - my earpiece, it must've fallen out of my ear during the fight with Vance - was the source of the horrific sound. I hurried over to the fallen communicator and picked it up from the ground, cringing with every step I took closer to it as the sound's volume increased. Finally, after what was probably the longest thirty seconds of my entire life, I managed to press my index finger against the glowing blue microphone button, and the hologram changed to form a line through the icon, indicating that it'd been muted. I let out a sigh of relief.
I turned back to Rynn, who had her phaseblade drawn and looked rather angry. "What," she said. "In Ether's name was that?!"
"That would be my earpiece," I said, holding up the small object which was now essentially the only source of light in the room. I tapped the now-crossed out microphone icon again, and to my surprise, the earpiece did not resume its attempt to render us deaf, rather a crackling voice reverberated out of it - Arcturus's voice.
"Finally," the android said. "I've been trying to get through to you for an hour."
"Antares, who is that?" Rynn asked, and Arcturus inhaled sharply.
"Arcturus," I assured her. "Arcturus, that was Rynn, my rebellion's second-in-command."
"Oh, alright," Arcturus said. "Wait, but that's not what I'm trying to tell you. A large squadron of Trianguli soldiers are moving from Karhhiya to the Enclave, carrying several hundred Drives that conform to Karhhiya's harmonics pattern."
My blood went cold, and Rynn looked at me sharply. In the chaos of Vance's betrayal, I'd completely forgotten about the Drives. "Styx," I cursed under my breath and muted the microphone. Vance must've been only a distraction, to allow the other Trianguli who'd attacked the outpost to escape with the Drives. I felt my magic swell up inside of me, and I sent it to my fingertip in a blast of white light, illuminating the entire room as if it was being struck by the sun.
"Rynn," I said, realizing there was still something I needed to ask her. "Did anyone else survive the attack?"
"I think so," said Rynn, and a surge of hope coursed through me. "Tzil is on the third floor - I think he's still tending to about sixteen other, wounded rebels - and Esta is below us, in the reactor core." It took a moment to process her words. That meant nineteen of Karrhiya's rebels (Including Rynn) were still alive! That was more than I'd been willing to even hope for.
I unmuted the earpiece and shoved it back into my auditory canal. "Arcturus, can you send a team down to extract the remaining eighteen rebels? Sixteen of them are injured."
Arcturus let out a long sigh. "Our bridge crew is already stretched," he said. "Nocta, Helix and I need to remain here. And-"
"No, I don't mean any crew aboard the bridge," I said, cutting him off. "Can't you just send someone else? Perhaps a team formed of your security guards?"
"Hm," Arcturus said thoughtfully. "I'll look into it. In the meanwhile, your window of time to stop the Trianguli from stealing the Drives is rapidly closing. I suggest you get going." I nodded. Now that I knew the people of my rebellion were safe, I was ready to save the rebellion itself.
"Let's go," I said. Rynn smiled, and we hurriedly exited the dark stone corridors of Outpost Karhhiya.

It was only about a minute before we reached the exit (It'd taken longer to exit than to enter because Rynn took us on a different route that would lead us to where the Trianguli were faster), but for my anxiety-ridden brain, it might as well had been a thousand years. We stepped out into the sunlight - or at least, what was left of it. We'd been in Karhhiya for far longer than I realized, the sun was now beginning to set and I realized thate in a few hours, we would only have five days left before Saladin struck.
Running around the edge of the outpost took us only a few seconds, however a few seconds too many it seemed, for by the time the TES Enclave came into my line in sight, all we could see was the last of the Trianguli squadron disappearing up a ramp that lead farther into the ship. I flipped out my aetherpistol, disengaged the safety, and fired once, twice, three times at the escaping soldiers. The first two bolts ricocheted off of the metal support beams, but the third one caught a soldier in the arm. I couldn't hear the howl of agony that it undoubtedly caused, but I did see the soldier stumbled forward, clutching his arm. None of the soldiers retaliated, and before I could get off another shot, the soldiers had disappeared inside of the ship.

Unless Rynn and I could close the thirty-meter gap between us and the Enclave, figure out a way on board the ship, locate where the soldiers were going, and somehow win a two against thirty-five encounter, my rebellion was absolutely, undoubtedly, completely, doomed.
"No." Rynn whispered. "No, this can't be happening."
My mind echoed her sentiments. We had failed, and now everything I cared about was going to suffer for it.
Rynn and I stood there for a few moments as we realized that the rebellion we'd grown from a single pair of unusual Trianguli, thrown together by chance, to a massive legion of twenty-six thousand fighters now had all of its secrets, laid bare to Emperor Saladin.
Finally, Rynn shook her head, as if refusing to allow this to happen. "No, no, I refuse," she said angrily. "We're not going to let them crush our lives between their Snagrols' jaws."
"Rynn..." I said sadly. "There's nothing we can do, not anymore."
"I'm not sure if it's appropriate to bring this up now," Arcturus suddenly piped up. "But there might be... something that you can do. The main transmitter, on all Trianguli ships, is located on the bridge. Those soldiers will have to bring your Drives up to the top deck of the ship, which gives you about thirty extra minutes to stop them. Also, you know where they're going. I've been talking to Nocta and trying to formulate a plan, and I think I've finally come up with one. Eternity and Eldernova are seeking a route to the bridge, which is where they'd find the Scipio coordinates if they exist, and Nocta's mapped out a way to get there. If you can get aboard the Enclave, I think I could guide you to the deck where Indirk will be."
"Wait, slow down," I said. "What do you mean by 'where Indirk will be'?" I had a horrible feeling that I already knew what he was saying, but I was stubbornly refusing to accept it.
"There's an officer who controls access to the bridge on the Enclave, information that Eternity extracted from a Trianguli soldier," Arcturus informed me. "That officer is a Snagrider. His name is Indirk Vorpal."
I choked. Indirk Vorpal was probably the greatest tactician the Triangulum Empire had, and he had been the leader of Saladin's campaign to destroy my rebellion since the Battle of Chrynimax four years ago.
"You're joking, right?" I asked shakily.
"I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with the strategies that one uses to make 'jokes'," Arcturus said flatly, answering my question without even meaning to.
"So... what you're saying is, Eternity and Eldernova are going to... to fight Indirk? To try to kill, or at least extract information or something similar from Indirk Vorpal?"
"Yes," Arcturus said.
I muted the microphone for a moment and looked at Rynn, whose expression looked absolutely horrified.
"Yeah, definitely doomed," I said finally.
There was a way to save my rebellion, sure, however there was a tiny flaw: that particular way involved attempting the murder of the most legendary Snagrider in living memory.
I'd felt hopeless before, and I'd felt extreme doubt. I knew what it felt like to realize that you were about to die.
But I'd never felt more hopeless than I did now.

. . .

Eldernova

The Lift's doors slid apart, and Eternity stepped inside with me right behind her. The doors followed suit and reconstructed themselves back into the shape of a door, and after a moment the Lift began to move upward.

"So, Nocta," Eternity said, tapping her earpiece. "Any chance you have a map of Indirk's office?"

"Right... his office," Nocta said. "Um... I probably should have mentioned that his office is located at the back of a large room in which four dozen armed Trianguli work."

Eternity's lips pressed into a thin line of irritation. "Oh," she said quietly, as if hoping that speaking in a quieter voice would somehow stop her from roaring out her frustration into the earpiece. "Alright. You know, it's just that it would have been helpful-" - she spat out the word as if it was made of poison - "If you could have mentioned that beforehand." You could have cut the tension in the room with a knife.

"So..." I said. "Anyway... can we get a map, Nocta?" There was a soft ding sound, and Eternity pulled open her Screen. She stared at the map that was undoubtedly displayed on it (It is impossible to see what one is looking at from the backside of their screen to my knowledge) for a few moments, her radiant gaze sweeping across the sheet of light, and then gestured to turn the Screen towards me. It was a fairly simple map, but it gave us all we needed to know. Forty-eight hostile signatures, one extremely hostile signature, and a clean multi-level map of the room:

"Well... so...." I said. The map was helpful, but emotionally it only seemed to instill more paralyzing terror. "That's the room we're going into?"

Eternity opened her mouth and began to speak, but before she could even begin a loud DING shattered the silence. I nearly jumped out of my skin (To Alaspakta's great amusement), but Eternity just looked startled and a bit irritated. The doors slid open, and we were faced by forty-eight Trianguli, each staring at us with expressions ranging from confused to downright hostile. I supposed it wasn't every day that a Hyperian and a Hukam simply walked out of the Lift and into their place of work.

"Hello!" I tried, my voice far higher pitched than should have been possible. One of the Trianguli gave me a look that seemed to say how is it that you have broken your larynx?

Eternity raised one of her aetherpistols, and every one of the Trianguli stiffened as they realized what Eternity and I were doing here.

A pair of doors, located at the front of the office located against the back wall of the room, slid apart, and from them stepped a gray-skinned (Yes, his skin was genuinely grey, grey like the color of a shark (Assuming sharks still even existed)) Trianguli, with eyes so brown they were almost gold. He wore full battle armor, spiked blades protruding from the part of his armor that would cover his spine, with smaller yet identical sets of them edging out from his gauntlets and greaves and a final set, seemingly carved to look like bull horns, protruding from his helmet (Which covered the lower half of his head, however the upper half was still exposed). Seven pairs of wickedly curved hatchets were strapped in sheathes hanging from strategically useful parts of his armor.

But even his spike-covered armor designed to be as menacing as possible couldn't hold a candle to the... creature... that stalked out of the office beside him.

In theory, I knew what it was - a Snagrol - but I'd never imagined a creature so terrifying could ever exist.

It had a body similar to that of a wolf, only enlarged to the size of a bull. Its lower jaw split into twin sections, both lined with teeth undoubtedly as sharp as razors. Mandible-like pincers extended from the sides of its face, reminding me of a monster in an ancient video game that I used to play back on Earth, Subnautica. I believe the monster I was thinking of was called a 'reaper shark' or something like that.

And oh, gods, its eyes. They were the brightest shade of yellow I'd ever seen. Not gold, like the Snagrol's master's, more of an electric yellow. They pinned me with an intense stare, and if looks could kill, I would probably no longer have a head.

Its back was covered with spines, all the way back to the end of its long tail, which was tipped with an absolutely terrifying sickle of a stinger. Long talons, at least the length of my forearm, clicked along the metal floor as it stalked forward, its index talons... holy shit. They were tapping against the floor, in the way that a velociraptor in Earth's prehistoric eras might have.

I mentally screamed at myself for thinking of Earth again, not once but twice.

The Trianguli who stood next to the Snagrol was obviously Indirk, given that Eternity had told me he was a Snagrider (Which explained the bull-sized monster next to the soldier) and that the office he'd stepped out of was undoubtedly his.

The Snagrol let out a sharp noise that sounded like a snarl combined with a whine and shook its huge head.

"Down, Kevrokh," Indirk told it sternly. It snorted as if to say, excuse me? He turned his harsh gold eyes onto Eternity and I, his expression morphing from that of a stern parent toward the Snagrol to that of a cold enemy toward us.

I noticed that Eternity still had her pistol pointed directly at Indirk's face, and I started to breathe faster than was normal for Humans.

"Ssssoo," Indirk hissed menacingly. "What... is the Star Sentinel of the Multiversal Federation... doing in the middle of nowhere, on the Triangulum borders?" I noticed he hadn't mentioned me, and I wondered if he knew - or even cared - that I was there. Nevertheless, my heart started beating faster and I started nervously fidgeting with my fingers, rapidly tapping them against the satchel at my waist.

The Snagrol, however, did seem to both know and care that I was in the room, because it was still murdering me with its eyes.

Eternity said nothing and started edging into the room, gun still trained on Indirk's head.

"Oh," the Trianguli said. "Do you think because you have a gun that I am going to run away screaming, Miss Timewind? I am not a little child." He snorted and waved his hand dismissively. It took me a moment to realize that he, in fact, had referred to Eternity as 'Miss Timewind' and not as her proper title, which was Sentinel Timewind. For whatever reason, his demeaning usage of 'Miss' and complete dismissiveness of Eternity made me feel violently angry. I recognized this feeling, I'd felt it often back on Earth pertaining to my twin sister. Same mother, same father. She'd been born exactly two minutes and fourteen seconds after I had.

Her name is... was... Autumn. Autumn Starfall. She'd been not just my sister, but my best friend and ally. She hadn't sped through the education system like I had (I finished college at fourteen), so when the UN abandoned us, she was just finishing college at UC Berkeley. Shortly before I'd left myself, I'd taken my ship there to save her from the geostorm, but just as we'd been about to board a pair of looters had grabbed her. I'd surged forward, but my guards had pulled me back since at that moment a lava fissure opened between us and them. The last I'd seen of Autumn was her wide, confused eyes as the looters took her.

I remembered feeling that feeling of violent anger towards those who would harm Autumn. I knew that was a certain feeling that Humans had towards their loved ones, or at least people that they like.

Somebody I like.

Was that Eternity? And if so, did she feel the same?

FOCUS, ELDERNOVA.

With tremendous mental force, I wrenched my thoughts away from the chaotic helstrom of emotions that was my overall thought pattern.

I'd apparently missed about thirty seconds of meaningless chatter from Indirk's mouth, continuing to address Eternity as 'Miss Timewind'. Eternity, ever the master of both restraint and her own temper, still hadn't responded.

"Why don't you speak?" Indirk growled, clearly annoyed at the lack of response he was getting from her. Again, Eternity did not respond; she had now moved onto one of the ladders and was slowly, using one of her hands and both of her legs, climbing the ladder, with her remaining hand still gripping the handle of the pistol - which, of course, was still aimed at Indirk. Indirk, who was still wasting his own time taunting Eternity, had yet to draw a weapon of his own. His snagrol - I believed he called it Kevrokh - was whining at him and nudging him with it's upper and non-razor-lined upper snout.

"Psst. Elder," Nocta said in my ear, her voice a low whisper. I immediately snapped to attention. "I might have a plan to help Eternity. If the snagrol attacks her, she has a lowish chance of survival. I mean, she could do it, but it might take a while, which could give Indirk the time to escape." I already knew this, of course. Despite Eternity's obvious skills in combat, that hardly seemed like it would offer much protection against a bull-sized wolf monster.

"Alright," I subvocalized, not wanting to allow any of the Trianguli in the room to notice me. "So, what is this plan of yours?"

"Both Indirk and the snagrol are focused on Eternity," said Nocta.

"The snagrol isn't," I said. "It's currently trying to make me stop existing by the sheer force of its anger alone, so..." I trailed off, not really sure what else to say.

"Okay, whatever," Nocta said dismissively. "My point is, try drawing Indirk's attention away from Eternity. Give her time to defeat him."

"How?" I asked. "You just said it yourself - Indirk either doesn't know or doesn't care that I'm here."

"I don't know, try firing at him or something?" Nocta offered. Did she mean the aetherpistol? I glanced down at the satchel that hung from my belt. "You do know how to use it, right?" I nodded; Eternity had, after all, showed me how to use the weapon, but that didn't exactly make me feel comfortable with using it.

"You want me to shoot him?" I asked, my voice slipping from my control and morphing momentarily into a loud whisper. When I'd regained my composure, I subvocalized, "I don't know if I could do that. I don't even know if I would be capable of hitting him from this distance. Literally, the first time I held a firearm was two days ago."

"You don't need to hit him, exactly," Nocta explained. "Just draw his attention away from Eternity."

Honestly, I was really bad with accuracy. Throwing, shooting, any kind of ranged attack outside of a video game I was absolutely terrible with. I wasn't entirely sure I would not hit Indirk, either, it was just as likely that in trying to not shoot him I would accidentally hit him.

Eldernova, Alaspakta warned mentally. Please, enough with the blasted self-doubt. Your brain is driving me crazy.

Right back at you, I thought wearily. But perhaps her words had given me a little bit of extra courage. Pulling open the flap of my satchel, I reached inside and retrieved the sleek form of the aetherpistol It took me a few moments to cycle the weapon, turn off the safety, and set it to whatever the hell the not-killing setting was, but I eventually managed it.

Pointing the muzzle of the gun at Indirk, I let out a long breath that I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Here we go, I thought. I gazed down the sight and started to pull the trigger.

And then, without warning and of its own accord, my nose sneezed and the gun fired, a bolt of aetherstream traveling directly toward Indirk's face. Shit. The snagrider's gaze whipped toward me, his eyes narrowing. Cursing, he dove out of the way, accidentally allowing the blast to strike the window of his office and pinball directly into a fluorescent light on the ceiling, which promptly exploded, showering the room with random bits of... glass? Luminite Crystal? I wasn't sure, and honestly I didn't really care all that much. What I did care about was the fact that about one hundred pounds of glass/Luminite shrapnel was now raining from the ceiling. Indirk let out a I can't fucking believe this is happening laugh, raced towards a console on the right side of the upper layer, shoved the Trianguli who'd been working inside out into the shrapnel rain, and ducked under the cover. I didn't see much after that, but I could have sworn I heard the distinct sound of an aetherpistol powering up.

Eternity muttered something unintelligible, leaped over the edge and twisted mid-air, grabbing the metal platform that was the second level and quickly maneuvering herself underneath the platform.

The snagrol got a large piece of glass embedded in its back and several smaller ones in its leg, and it howled a long, angry shriek of absolute psychotic rage. Whining, it limp-ran back inside the relative safety of Indirk's office, its terrifying eyes almost glowing with fury.

"By all the gods, Elder," Nocta said, laughing. "That was impressively ludicrous."

I cursed my luck (And possibly a few deities of luck from multiple different pantheons), just as Indirk whirled around the edge of the console he'd hidden in and opened fire at me. I leapt behind the frontal walls of the Lift and promptly began to hyperventilate.

I heard Indirk's rough voice shout something - "Kevrokh, get the Human!" - and then I heard the furious snarl of the snagrol, and the noise of its talons clicking along the floor again - it must've found a way to remove the glass shards - and then the sound became more rapid, going faster and faster.

"GET OUT OF THAT GODS-BLASTED LIFT!" Nocta screamed in my ear. "NOW!" I ducked and launched myself out and into the room ahead, just barely avoiding the outstretched talons of the Snagrol, which had somehow managed to close the twelve meter and one entire floor gap between myself and it within only a few seconds. Diving towards the leftmost ladder, I began to climb like my life depended on it - which it did -, hearing the noise of the snagrol's claws scrabbling along the floor as it righted itself and started to race towards me again. In the back of my mind, I continued to hear the sounds of aetherpistols going off - no doubt Eternity had begun firing her own pistol, with Indirk firing back in response.

Below me, the snagrol leapt upwards and latched onto my trenchcoat. I let out a screeching noise of terror, pointing my own pistol downwards and firing once, twice, three times into the snagrol's face. It bellowed with anger, clearly not 'stunned' by the gun which was set to stun, and instead, it just seemed really, really angry. I continued to climb before I heard a hideous growling noise from below, and I made the mistake of looking down.

The snagrol was starting to race up the ladder, its fangs gnashing and electric eyes almost glowing with anger.

I nearly screamed again, but I finally heaved myself up onto the second level of the room and scrambled to get away from the snagrol's fangs.

From behind me, I heard the sound of several aetherrifles powering up - a sound I now recognized from my experience with the other Trianguli soldiers on the lower deck - and turned around.

Several Trianguli soldiers stood before me, pointing their weapons at me.

I was stuck between the fangs of the snagrol and the muzzles of the soldiers' guns.

. . .

Eternity

The ceiling exploded.

Of course, not all the way, otherwise the entirety of the deck above us would have fallen upon us, likely killing us all - both Eldernova and I and the Trianguli.

No, rather, Eldernova's mistakenly (I could only assume it was accidentally fired. Maybe not. I wasn't sure)-fired shot ricocheted off of the glass window of Indirk's office and darted directly into a fluorescent light that looked like it was made of regular glass (Wow, this ship must've been old). Instantly, the light strip exploded, causing a chain reaction of blasts around the room. One after another, nearly every light in the ceiling exploded, spraying the entire room with an absolutely insane amount of glass shrapnel and plunging most of the room into darkness.

"Starfire," I cursed under my breath. I leaped off the edge of the platform and twisted as best I could, outstretching my arms. With a jarring shock, my arms landed on the metal platform, and I quickly swung myself underneath it, just before a large shard of glass shaped like a javelin smashed into the spot where my left hand had been only a second earlier.

That was close, I thought. One was generally required to have both hands intact if one wanted to be a starship captain. Through the dust in the air and the sound of several hundred pounds of glass breaking, I thought I heard Indirk shout something - I wasn't entirely sure what - but I did catch the words Kevrokh and Human, which after thinking about the words for a moment, absolutely terrified me.

The snagrider had, most likely, just ordered his mount to kill Eldernova, given he was the only Human for several kilometers. My theory was given further credibility as the dust began clearing and I made out the shape of the snagrol racing across the room, front talons outstretched and venomous tail arched menacingly - and it was heading straight for the Lift that I knew Eldernova was in. An instant later, Eldernova burst from the Lift, raced towards the leftmost ladder, and began climbing, with the snagrol very close behind him. It leaped upward to bite him, but only managed to tear off part of his coat before he fired three aetherstream blasts into its face. The snagrol fell back to the ground before scrambling to its feet and beginning to climb up the ladder as fast as it possibly could. I saw Eldernova stop once he got up the ladder, several Trianguli pointing aetherrifles at his backside - his eyes were still facing where the snagrol was coming from.

Shit. Time to help.

I started to swing off the platform, but on my second momentum-gathering swing, I heard a sharp SLICE sound from above me, and I twisted out of the way. I glanced up and saw Indirk Vorpal, kneeling above me. In his hands were one of his seven pairs of throwing axes - which he was now using to attack me.

"Fine," I said. I let go of the platform and fell downward toward the lower level, landing on my feet and immediately pointing one of my pistols straight up. With the other pistol I took aim at the ladder on which the snagrol was climbing and fired three shots, incinerating three rungs. The part of the ladder (Which the snagrol was currently clinging to) below those three rungs promptly fell to the ground, landing on top of the snagrol. The wolf-like monstrosity howled, but unfortunately I didn't have time to gloat over my victory, because, at that moment, the platform that Indirk had stabbed into broke open, and the snagrider leaped down. In his hands were his signature curved hatchets, and his terrifyingly gold eyes were filled with anger, shining brightly in stark contrast to the dark room.

He twirled his axes. "So, Miss Timewind," he snarled, eyes twinkling with murder. "Would you prefer to be stabbed or slashed to death?"

I pointed both aetherpistols at him and opened fire, beginning to back away from the Trianguli as I did so. Fast as a bullet, the snagrider twisted out of the way and began advancing toward me at a very fast pace. Soon he was within three feet of me. I snapped one pistol towards his face, deciding to try pistol-whipping him, something I'd never really tried before. He stabbed the blade of his hatchet into my gun, cutting the muzzle clean off. Sheathing the other, I jumped back as he slashed with both axes. My hands went to the twin sheathes at my waist, drawing from them a pair of phaseknives. I practically danced out of the way of another slash as I readied them. Electric blue sparks begin flying from them, casting the area in a rather terrifying blue glow. Indirk, for the first time, looked a bit uncertain, taking a nervous step backward. I twirled both knives in different patterns, just to show how easy it was for me to fight two weapons at once.

Indirk's eyes narrowed, and he charged forward, blades outstretched and ready to cut through my flesh. He was clearly operating mostly on anger right now, Indirk's overall personality was nothing if not primarily rage-driven.

I flashed my knives forward, catching one of his axes in the slight curve of one and parrying the other's upperhand strike. I shifted forward slightly and slashed at his midriff with my right hand knife, still gripping the curve of one of his axes with the left hand knife. Indirk tried to whirl out of the way, but his axe still caught in my knife curve prevented him from moving too far. I slammed the hilt of my right hand knife into his arm, and he screamed in fury and pain.

The impact of my slam had jarred his axe out of my blade, and he stumbled away from me, breathing heavily. I stalked towards him, twirling both knives and ready to strike again.

I never got the chance to, because, with the accuracy of a trained sniper, he tossed one axe at me. It spun through the air towards me, making a sharp hissing sound as it flew. I swore and ducked my head out of the way. Indirk had proven his unmatched prowess with hatchets time and time again on the battlefield; no one wanted to be on the receiving end of his deadly aim. Quick as lightning Indirk had a new axe in his empty palm. As for his other arm, he was still winding it back, preparing to throw it at me with equally deadly accuracy. At the same time he took backward step after backward step to keep out of the range of my daggers (Which I was just as well-trained in as I was with my twin aetherpistols (Or, should I say, single and soon-to-be-twin aetherpistols)).

"You should have known better than to come here," Indirk taunted, his mouth twisting into a triumphant smirk. "You walked right into our trap." I darted forward and managed to cut a shallow wound in the part of Indirk's right arm that was exposed before leaping back as he slashed down at me with the axe he'd been preparing to throw just seconds before. It wasn't that bad of a wound, but aetherstream is about three times hotter than blue fire and a lot more painful. Blue energy smoldered around the edges of the cut, in which midnight blue blood was already beginning to well up in. Indirk roared and took a step forwards toward me, twirling both axes in his hands, his golden-brown eyes flashing dangerously.

Indirk fought angry, not smart. You wanted to talk about falling into traps?

Indirk wasn't angry enough to totally lose his temper, though, and that was essential to my plan of defeating him. I needed to agitate him further.

That didn't seem like it was going to be that hard. Indirk had already proven his short temper and complete incapability to show restraint.

In response to his comment, I snorted a laugh and spat on the metal floor of the room. Then I took three steps backward and away, with my arms held out as if to say, hell yeah, I just went there.

Indirk's eyes hardened.

I barely had time to realize what he was doing, his hands moved so fast. In an instant, both of his axes were coming at me, slicing through the air like a knife through butter. I didn't have time for anything crazy, like a dodge, so instead I brought my knives up and slammed the twin blades out of the air with the flat of their blades, not wanting to actually slice the axes apart - airborne projectiles were extremely unpredictable once their flight pattern was forcefully changed. If I'd simply cut them in half and the blades had kept their trajectory, I would have instead had to deal with four projectiles instead of two. I also didn't want to half to managed ricocheting axe blades. With both axes neutralized, I charged at Indirk and lashed out twice, landing small slashes on both of his exposed upper forearms. Aetherstream immediately began hissing from the wound, royal blue liquid dripping from the pierces. Indirk screamed, throwing his head back and baring his fangs like some kind of animal.

I took the few moments of peace that I had from that to check in on Eldernova's condition. Kevrokh, the snagrol, was sitting a few feet from me and Indirk's area in which we were fighting, obviously waiting for us to move so that it could climb the other ladder. As for Eldernova, he stood facing four Trianguli soldiers with his sword drawn. Alaspakta was delivering some kind of speech regarding the mistreatment and bias towards sentient objects, and both Eldernova and the Trianguli looked extremely confused, with expressions that said why did you choose this moment to do this.

I quickly turned my attention back to Indirk, who was charging toward me like a rabid walrus on drugs, aimlessly waving his axes (I'm sure he meant to look threatening, but honestly he looked like he was having a seizure). His eyes had a promise of murder glinting within them.

I sidestepped out of the way as he got close enough to attack. Inertia threw him forward a few steps past where I'd been, but he quickly turned around and (EXTREMELY) inaccurately threw his axes at me. I didn't ever bother blocking because their trajectories were so far off course that they were barely even pointing in my direction. Unfortunately for Kevrokh (And Indirk), one of the axes promptly buried itself in the snagrol's leg. It howled an agonized cry of fury, its blazing eyes turning on Indirk. A warning flashed through them that I interpreted as Do that again and I'll rip out your spine and beat you to death with it, which seemed a perfectly warranted thing to say given the circumstances.

Only... it wasn't. All of the Federation's research indicated that snagrols had an unbreakable bond with their Trianguli counterparts, and they would never do anything that even remotely threatened their masters.

So, that could only mean two things: Either the MFS was wrong, or, for whatever reason, Kevrokh was not Indirk's snagrol. Maybe his snagrol was out sick or something? I glanced back at the snagrol again, my curiosity further piqued by the fact that I now realized I didn't recognize the snagrol. Kevrokh did not look like the snagrol that, in the past, Indirk had always appeared with.

Weird.

Indirk furiously growled at me and seizure-charged at me again, drawing a second pair of axes and spinning them so quickly I honestly thought he might accidentally throw one into his own face. I could honestly say I'd never seen someone get so angry before; Indirk looked as if someone had just murdered everyone he'd ever cared about and followed it up by burning down his house (Not that I knew what that looked like, but I could only assume). I stepped to the side, letting inertia take its course, and then, once he'd staggered to a halt, visibly shaking with barely-contained rage, I darted forward and lashed out into his back armor, shearing through the metal protection and inflicting slashes that were, while still shallow, deeper than the others I'd made. Indirk started rapidly shaking, a piercing, high-pitched shrieking sound echoing from his mouth. By all the gods, anything to make that sound stop. I stabbed one knife back into one of the two wounds I'd cut. Indirk's entire body stiffened, and the sound was cut off (Probably because I'd punctured a lung). A shudder went through him, and then without a sound he fell to the ground, nearly pulling me down with him with the sheer weight of his armor tugging on my knife.

Indirk Vorpal, the most legendary snagrider in living memory, was dead.

. . .

Antares

Twenty minutes left.

I stopped, standing on a balcony that overlooked a hangar with a pair of dead Trianguli soldiers inside, smoldering aetherstream wounds present in both their forms. Rynn stood beside me, frowning down at the area.

"Arcturus, I thought you said this was a Lift leading to the lower deck control center," I said frustratedly. "This... is a balcony."

"I'm aware of that, thanks very much," Arcturus said, and I heard the noise of rapid typing in the background. "Nocta, can you explain how the hell you got Eldernova and Eternity up to the control center?"

"They took a different route," a faint voice - Nocta's voice - said in the background. "You see that door?" Her voice sounded closer and less faint, as if she had pulled up a Screen in order to show Arcturus the map.

"Yes, I see that," Arcturus said, his tone irate.

"They took that door and made their way up from there," said Nocta.

"That helps us how?" I asked.

"Right. Not-" Whatever Nocta had been about to say was cut short as Rynn muttered a curse, leaped into the air and backflipped off the edge of the balcony.

"Seven Hells, Rynn, what-" I rushed to the side of the balcony, to see that Rynn had successfully landed on a lower platform below us, and seemed to be preparing to jump the rest of the way down to the hangar floor. "Blast it." I followed behind, making sure to wait until Rynn had jumped all the way down. A few seconds later, the two of us stood on the floor of the hangar bay.

"Nocta, any-" I started to say, but Nocta had already beaten me to it. After a moment, the doors slid open, revealing a long hall that split off into two separate sections. I sputtered, trying to correct my statement.

"Right passage," Arcturus said. "There's a lift at the end of the hall."

I glanced at Rynn. It seemed all was not lost after all.

It only took us about a minute to cross the distance, and soon the doors of the Lift had opened (Courtesy of Arcturus) and we'd stepped inside.

Fifteen minutes left.

"Arcturus, where are the Trianguli soldiers with the drives now?" I asked.

"You've still got a head start. If you move fast enough, you can catch them at the entrance to the control center." Arcturus explained. "There's a lot of them, so exercise extreme caution." When we'd seen the Trianguli boarding the Enclave, back at the entrance of Karhhiya, we hadn't had enough time to count them. I'd assumed there'd be about six or seven, but apparently, there were a lot of them.

"Define 'a lot,'" I said.

"Two dozen," said Arcturus flatly. Styx. That was... not a good probability of us winning. Twenty-four against two? Even with Rynn's magic that she'd neglected to use back at Karhhiya and my iron fan, twenty-four would be a challenge. It was circumstances that made me wish I could've been able to bring my snagrol with me, when Rynn and I had escaped Scipio. But instead she'd remained behind and loyally covered our retreat. Where she was now was anyone's guess.

The Lift DINGED and the doors slid open, revealing a stark grey hallway with a pair of red velvet chairs leaning against the walls. I could faintly hear the sounds of boots stamping on the metal floor - which probably meant that the Trianguli soldiers were close. Really close.

"Arcturus, where are we going?" Rynn asked from beside me, stepping out of the Lift.

"Right again," said the android. I turned and stared down a long hallway with several tunnels branching off seemingly without reason or purpose. That sentence pretty much summed up the life of anyone who worked on a Trianguli starship. The tramping sound was slowly getting louder, which worried me.

"Let's go," I said. Rynn had seemingly already realized the worth of that idea and was jogging a few paces ahead of me. I started after her, hoping to catch up but having no luck. Rynn had always been faster than me - and mostly everyone around her - going back to our days on Scipio.

She finally skidded to a halt, as we finally reached one of the branch-offs. I tapped my earpiece, indicating a question for where to go. "Take the tunnel you just stopped at," Arcturus told me, and I pointed down the hall. Glancing back down the hall we'd come down, I could have sworn I could see the shadows of Trianguli soldiers approaching, but 'could have sworn' was about as specific as I could get because at that moment Rynn grabbed me and pulled me into the tunnel.

Within seconds, Arcturus stopped us. "The door next to you." I turned left, then right, seeing no evidence of a door.

"What?" The stomping of the soldiers was getting even louder, and Arcturus sighed. I heard the faint sound of typing from his side, and then the wall shimmered with a violet color, revealing a hidden pair of doors.

"That's the lift. It will take you directly to Indirk's office," Arcturus told me. "I was hoping you would use a true sight spell and find it yourself so I didn't' have to expend computing resources, but I guess we can't have everything we wish for."

I muted the earpiece. "What now?" I asked, turning to Rynn. Her jade eyes turned from watching the hallway to me.

"We wait for them to arrive," she said, unsheathing her phaseblade and powering the edge on. "Then we destroy them, take back the Drives, and save our rebellion." From the sheath on my lower back, I withdrew my iron fan, determination settling over me.

"Let's do this."

The plan was to hide in the little nooks in the hallway that opened into storage chambers, wait for the Trianguli to arrive, and get the drop on them before they could notice us - Rynn on one side of the hall, and me on the other.

It fell apart almost immediately.

Ducking my head out of cover, I checked the end of the hallway we were in for the soldiers' shadows, which had begun to creep into the hallway. Now, I could see almost the entire shadow, and the sound of them running was almost deafening.

Voices began to fade into my auditory range. "Don't see why we couldn't just beam this to the bridge," an irate voice grumbled.

"Our job's not to question the Corsair's orders," a second said, his voice seemingly strained by something. I wondered if he was one of the soldiers who were carrying the box of Drives. "We're only supposed to follow them."

"But, just really think about it," yet another voice said in a reasonable tone. "It's not as if they really needed us to carry them up here."

"I get the feeling you don't understand how Drives work," said the second voice. "Teleporting messes with their systems, corrupts their data. Not safe to beam up by anyone's standards. But again, I'm sure the Corsair has her reasons.

I glanced at Rynn. She looked... the best way I could describe her expression would be bored out of her mind. Rynn had never been a lay-a-trap and ambush-the-hostiles kind of person, even back when we'd been in training together she'd never been content to sit still. In retrospect, this may have been part of the reason why she always won our practice matches - she seemingly had boundless energy, while my stamina only lasted about thirty minutes of pure combat.

The sounds of the soldier's boots began to echo down the hallway, indicating that the trap was nearly ready to be sprung.

3...

"We'd better not be arguing about this when we enter the room," the second voice said. "Indirk is nothing if not a harsh reprimander."

2...

"To hell with Indirk," said the first voice. "Why should it matter what we argue about?"

1....

"Shush, you blasted invertebrates," a fourth voice said.

0.

"Live free or die," I whispered, almost inaudibly. The soldiers stepped into view, and with a flash of steel in the air, I tore my iron fan from its sheath and lashed forward, the serrated blades jabbing into one soldier's arm.

"BY ALL THE GODS-" the soldier's cry was cut short as Rynn leapt out into the hall and slammed the base of her phaseblade into his head, then proceeded to begin an assault against the dumbstruck guards. I ripped my fan out of the soldier before me's arm as he crumpled to the ground, motionless.

At least seven of the soldiers were staring at us, expressions on their faces that ranged from anger, to shock, to fear, to combinations of all three.

A particularly tall Trianguli near to the front of the group reached upward, his hand about to go to the microphone of his earpiece. Shit. If he called for backup, Rynn and I would be absolutely screwed.

I glanced at Rynn, who was too far away to get there in time, and nothing short of throwing her phaseblade looked like it would be about to take the soldier out.

Nothing short of throwing her weapon.

I wound my arm back and flung my fan like a boomerang. It spun through the air, closing the distance between myself and the soldier in about three seconds, and with a horrible sound of bone breaking and skin shredding, the bladed weapon slashed through my target's throat. The Trianguli hadn't even had time to scream before my weapon had reached him.

Simultaneously, the remaining guards (Rynn had already incapacitated four of them) raised their guns, and a hailstorm of blue light seared through the air towards us. I ducked my head and twisted around, managing to pull myself into cover. I couldn't see what Rynn had decided to do, but I hoped she'd made it out okay.

Alright, think, Antares, I told myself. I didn't have my iron fan now, so that left me with a pair of Iridium knives in my belt and the aetherpistol sheathed higher up on my waist. Of those choices, and given the circumstances of the aetherstream helstrom out there, the pistol seemed the best choice. I reached into the sheath and whirled out the gun, rotating the chamber and recycling the pistol's battery. I peeked out of cover, and six more bolts of aetherstream launched themselves at me.

That wasn't great. I pointed my pistol out of cover and fired a shot into the fluorescent light (Luckily it was built of glass given how old the Enclave was as a ship). Instantaneously it shattered, plunging the hall into darkness. I took the momentary confusion to roll out of my nook I'd been sitting in. I tore myself upright and fired a spray of aetherstream into the hallway, flooding the soldiers' bodies with deadly, flesh-burning energy.

"Rynn!" I shouted. Where was she? I didn't' see the light of her phaseblade anywhere in the hall, though that might have been because of the seemingly random blue light streaming in all directions. My eyes searched the hall desperately, but I couldn't see her anywhere.

I leapt into the air and backflipped straight into the center of the soldiers. "Hello!" I said, ramming my fist into the soldier I'd landed in front of's face. He staggered back, clutching his jawline and cursing prolifically. Some of the words he was rasping even I didn't know. I twisted in a circle, firing eight shots with perfect precision. Aetherstream wounds opened in a ring around me, creating an eerie circle of smoldering blue holes. I lashed out into another soldier's face, smashing him out of my way. Unlike the previous guard I'd punched, this one instantly collapsed and curled into a literal ball.

"RYNN!" I shouted again, louder this time.

"Here," Rynn called, and a flash of blue light seared through the air to my left. In the chaos of the blue light, I hadn't been able to distinguish between the blasts, but now that Rynn was actively trying to indicate her position, I could see her perfectly. She was in the midst of the soldiers, her phaseblade spinning and hacking and slashing, tearing apart the soldiers around her. Her lithe body was moving so quickly that I could barely make out her attack pattern, and it seemed to be having a similar effect on the soldiers. The soldiers. After a moment I realized that every single one of the remaining soldiers were focusing on Rynn, which gave me quite a lot of breathing room.

I put it on my mental to-do list to ask her how in the Seven Hells she could do that. Assuming we survived this, of course.

That possibility was becoming increasingly unlikely. It was probably nighttime now, outside the Enclave, which meant we had about five days left. Plus or minus the hours until midnight.

Right. My iron fan. I brought my aetherpistol up and turned on the flashlight, shining it around the pitch-black room with my eyes searching not far behind it's dazzling glow. It took a moment, but when my flashlight landed on the wall, I immediately noticed my fan. It had, after severing its target's head, stabbed itself into the wall and was now sticking out like a branch from a tree. A very sharp branch sticking out of a very oddly-shaped tree.

Lying a few feet away from the wall, but with the same apparent trajectory of the fan, was the headless corpse of the soldier whom I'd thrown the fan at.

I gagged and resisted the urge to throw up as bile rose to my throat. Of course I'd known that he'd wind up headless as a result of my throwing attack, but this was the first time I'd ever seen someone with... with no head. This was probably going to feature as the leading role in my nightmares for a while.

I walked over to the wall, carefully avoiding the body of the Trianguli I'd decapitated, and snatched my fan out of the metal wall in which it'd embedded itself in. The entire surface of the weapon was literally soaked in royal-blue trianguli blood (Since the whole of the weapon had passed through the geyser of blood that the soldier's neck had become). This was probably the primary driving factor in why I then promptly threw up on the floor (And no, I am not going to describe what Trianguli vomit looks like to you. Some things are better left to the imagination).

When I'd recovered, I turned back to the other soldiers and Rynn to find the ranks of the platoon thinning, Rynn's blade cutting wide arcs across the room and forcing the Trianguli to stay away from her.

However, the more pressing matter was that three of the soldiers had now focused their attention on me, the flashlights strapped to their aetherrifles bathing my entire form in light.

"Ekshnet foch," I told them, which was Trianguli for you poor, blind fools. Which they were. It was genuinely depressing how few Trianguli could see Saladin for what he was - a xenocidal dictator. I'd managed to recruit two hundred and sixty-four Trianguli from the empire to my rebellion in the five years that I'd had it going, which was an absolute disappointment of a number. Perhaps I hadn't tried hard enough, but the fact of the matter was that ninety-nine point ninety-eight percent of all Trianguli were blind loyalists, following a lunatic who offered nothing to them but death and strife.

Two of the Trianguli looked at each other, as if only now realizing who I was. I was fairly infamous among the Trianguli populace, but not many actually knew what I looked like. I held out my left wrist, tattooed on which was the mark of my rebellion, and one of the Trianguli gasped and took a step back. "It's really him," said the soldier, looking awed and a bit terrifying. "Prince Antares Whitewater."

I raised my aetherpistol. "Damn right it's me," I growled. The tip of the gun began to glow brightly. The three rifles pointed at me began to glow in response, but their surprise at realizing my identity had slowed them, giving me a chance to get the drop on them. I fired twice with the setting on stun, then tossed the pistol into the last of the three soldiers' head. He staggered back, lowering his rifle. His face was a highly reasonable picture of surprise. I considered this a good reaction, as it was extremely rare that one was hit in the face by an airborne pistol.

I walked up to the guard and punched him in the stomach, dropping the soldier to the floor nearly instantly with an audible whoosh as the air flew out of his lungs. I knelt, picked up the pistol, and blasted him in the soldier with a stunbolt.

I turned my gaze back to where Rynn and the soldiers were standing and then stood corrected as 'the soldiers' were no longer there, collapsed in heaps on the ground around Rynn. She stood in the center of them, her phaseblade held against the ground like a staff and her jade eyes gleaming.

Against literally every odd imaginable, the two of us had defeated twenty-four trained Trianguli soldiers.

I staggered over to Rynn (For whatever reason, my calf stung as I walked). "Well, that was new," I said.

"Maybe for you," Rynn said, managing a half-smile. "Remember that I was sent on quite a few so-called 'impossible' missions and came back victorious."

"Okay, well-" I grunted in pain and fell to one knee. Rynn's eyes widened and she deftly leaped through the incapacitated, helpless, or unconscious soldiers around her and landed at my side. I turned my head around to look at my calf, which now felt highly painful, and realized that a rather large (And sharp, by all the gods) shard of glass was embedded in my calf. It had to have landed there when I'd shattered the glass light, and the level of adrenaline that'd been pumping through my body had numbed the pain. But now, the adrenaline was draining out of me, and I was really feeling the pain of being stabbed with a piece of jagged glass.

"Ohhh dear," Rynn said, her expression turning from surprise to worry and fear. "Alright, Antares, this is... well, that's a lie." I wondered if she'd been about to say 'this may sting a bit' or something like that. "Actually, this may sting like... unimaginably painfully," she said, which was hilarious (At least, by my combat-hyped brain's definition).

"Awesome," I said, and she tore the glass out of my leg.

"BY ALL THE GODS-"

The echo of my agony roared through the airwaves of the hallway, breaking whatever calm might've been left. Rynn jumped back, as a snarling roar of absolute pain escaped my lungs. Hot spikes stabbed along my entire leg, the shock of Rynn tearing out the glass having fully awakened the pain. Cyan-blue blood welled out of the gash, frothing and bubbling.

"Starfire; that must've hit a blood vessel," Rynn hissed. She reached down to the tattered fabric that hung from her belt and tore a piece off, pressing it to the exposed (And shredded) tissue. Now, applying pressure probably would help stop the bleeding, and I was fully aware of that fact, but the sudden pressure at the wound sent a wave of fire through my leg's nerves.
"Rynn," I gasped, gritting my teeth to avoid screaming. "Not-not the-get the heal spell," I glanced pointedly at the pouch in which two still-corked vials were contained. Rynn followed my gaze and cursed.

"Right, stay still," Rynn said, removing the piece of fabric from my injured calf. "And don't scream. If you interrupt a spell, especially a Hemokinetic spell like this, this is going to go very badly for the both of us."

I kept my body perfectly still, biting down on the inside of my mouth - hard - to keep from screaming my head off, as Rynn read the single word of her spell. The scroll flared with red light, and instantly I felt the pain in my leg disappearing, fading away as if it never existed. I looked at the wound, and the skin was knitting back together, closing over the bloody gash and healing my shredded tissues. The fiery agony was... still present, but diminishing.

I let out a shaky breath as the rupture in my leg closed, the pain receding into nothingness.

I looked up at Rynn, who was staring intently at the spot on my leg, as if expecting the spell to be undone and the wound to reopen (Thankfully, there are few ways to do that). But nothing happened, and after a few moments, she sighed and turned her gaze to my face. "You okay?" she asked.

"Only for the last few seconds," I said, smiling. I started to move to get to my feet, and Rynn took my hand, helping me to stand. The nerves in my legs likely still hadn't gotten the message that I was healed yet, so when I stood, my leg nearly buckled. If Rynn hadn't been there, I probably would have.

Together, with me leaning on Rynn and draping my arm over her shoulders, we staggered to the box of Drives.

The lid was still shut tight, and Rynn cursed. "Yeah, that's gonna take a while to get open," she said, examining the paddock.

A resounding crash from Indirk's office suddenly pierced the quiet hallway, making me jerk. Rynn turned and unslung her phaseblade. My fan was still in my Slipspace, in which I was cleaning it, and until that got finished I wouldn't be able to use the thing. Blast my luck.

"We should probably check that out," said Rynn.

"Yeah," I said. I hobbled over to the door that Arcturus had pointed out and gestured for an Array. A sheet of light sprang up, and I pressed the UP button. The door slid apart, and I stepped into the Lift. Rynn casually walked in behind me, carrying the Drive box with one hand and her phaseblade in her other.

By all the gods, if only I had the physical strength that Rynn had. The door closed behind us, and the Lift began to whirr as it shot up the elevator shaft. A few instants later, the door at the front of the Lift opened, revealing...

"What in Carceri?" Rynn murmured, stepping out of the Lift and looking around.
Indirk's Terminal room had been trashed. It was, more or less, completely empty, with only intermittently beeping Arrays to break the silence. Up on the second level, several Trianguli soldiers lay on the floor, unconscious or dead. A layer of white dust covered the room, accompanied by what looked like a metric ton of broken glass.
"What..." I trailed off. It was just too much.

A snarl cut through the silence.

.     .     .

Eldernova

 It is not everyday that one is trapped within a room covered in broken glass, with both of his escape routes cut off either by assault rifle or... wolf thing.

But, by some miracle, that is where I was.

"Place your pistol on the floor," said the soldier nearest to me. From behind me, I heard the snagrol's claws scrabbling along the metal of the ladder, desperately trying to reach me and kill me as if its life depended on it. Maybe it did, I wasn't sure. Maybe snagrols had a 'return victorious or don't return at all' policy. I crouched down and slowly set the gun down on the dust-covered floor, then stepped away from it. Was I supposed to put my hands up? I didn't remember.

"The satchel, too," the soldier said, and once I'd complied, he nodded at Alaspakta (Who was still sheathed on my back). "And the sword."

I had just begun to pull Alaspakta out of the sheath when her runes glowed in the manner which indicated speech. "THE SWORD?" she questioned indignantly. "I will not be referred to in such a disrespectful manner! Do that again one more time, just try it!" She let out some kind of snarling sound that would have been very intimidating if it had not come from a sharp, glowing length of metal.

All six of the soldiers who'd cornered me stared at Alaspakta, with absolutely priceless expressions plastered to their faces.

"The... sword talks?" a soldier to the right of the group (About six feet from me) finally asked.

"Damn right!" Alaspakta replied.

More staring. "So it's... it's a..." the soldier trailed off.

"Refer to me as it one more time," Alaspakta snarled. "I dare you."

A particularly dim-looking soldier of the group started to say something suitably snarky in response before the first soldier who'd spoken slapped him across the face and held a finger to his lips. The idiot soldier who'd been about to be stabbed to death by Alaspakta whimpered and stumbled back a few steps.

"What pronoun would you prefer?" asked a fourth soldier tiredly.

"I'm glad you had enough respect and moral decency to ask," Alaspakta grumbled. "So often, sentient weapons are cast aside and assumed to be pieces of metal! Far too often are we discriminated against!"

"Um," said a fifth soldier. "Are you... not a piece of metal?"

Alaspakta let out a cry of fury. Her runes lit up like a supernova, and then the blade twisted and flew out of my hand. I was so startled by her sudden escape that I backed up a few steps and nearly fell off the platform (And into the snagrol's jaws) before three aetherstream shots resounded across the room. Three rungs on the ladder snapped apart, and the snagrol promptly fell back to the ground below. I looked to where the source of the attack was, and I saw Eternity standing there, one pistol aimed at the ladder and the other at Indirk's head. I would've waved, but she'd already turned back to her own battle.

I quickly moved my gaze back to Alaspakta and the Trianguli (Who she was currently beating her hilt against the heads of) and nearly choked on laughter. She was, quite literally, trashing them. Two of them already lay on the ground, unconscious, with large (Very swollen) bumps on their head where Alaspakta had undoubtedly hilt-bashed them, and the other four were struggling to get away from the infuriated (And, for that matter, flying) longsword.

I wished I had a camera to record this with. This was without exaggeration the greatest thing I'd ever seen.

"ANTI-SENTIENT WEAPONISTS!" Alaspakta shouted, stabbing her blade through the particularly stupid guard's shoulder and then promptly breaking his nose with her hilt. One soldier who'd managed to get his rifle cycled aimed down the sights and fired off several bursts of aetherstream (Which, upon hitting Alaspakta, simply dissolved against her unbreakable exterior). However, this did seem to aggravate her, because she darted through the air, chopped the rifle into two separate pieces, and then proceeded to smack the guard in the face with the flat of her blade.

Oh, yeah. If only I had a camera. I picked up a satchel and frantically looked for my phone. My hands closed around its sleek case, and I tore it from the back. I quickly swiped it open and pulled up the Camera app, swiped to video, and pressed the large, red button. I aimed the phone at Alaspakta (Who was now attacking the other two soldiers).

One soldier was apparently attempting to use the bayonet-like object at the end of his rifle to fight Alaspakta, but his obvious ineptitude was leading to him stumbling around, desperately attempting to block the strikes of Alaspakta. He was expending so much energy on parrying that he had no chance to get a strike of his own in (Not that it would have done anything. How does one attack a sword?).

Finally the guard with the bayonet smashed into the final soldier while trying to avoid another of Alaspakta's strikes, knocking them both the ground. They rolled around for a few moments before promptly falling (Face-first, last I saw it) off the platform and onto the glass-covered floor below.

Two resounding shrieks confirmed my suspicions.

Alaspakta floated in the last spot she'd been in for a moment, visibly shaking (With rage? Or is that just how sentient weapons move? Was there like, a owner's manual for this kind of stuff?). Her runes pulsed on and off, glowing an intense shade of fire orange when they were bright.

I turned off the wondrous recording and shoved the phone into its slot in my satchel. I quickly picked both objects up (The pistol and the satchel), and reslung them in their proper places.

Alaspakta zipped over to me and dropped herself in my hand rather unexpectedly, which nearly caused me to fall directly into the snagrol's open maw (Again).

"Um," I said. "Is there-"

"Let's just go," Alaspakta said frustratedly. I wondered if she'd been able to get all of her anger out during her assault on the soldiers.

"Al-alright," I said. I carefully sheathed the blade once more and looked around.

Below me, Eternity stood in front of Indirk's body. Two large punctures were visible in his back plating, and Eternity was breathing heavily. The snagrol (Or Kevrokh, I guess) was in a sitting position near the Lift that lead into the room.

"Eternity!" I called. I carefully descended the ladder, jumping down the final few rungs (Which no longer existed, since Eternity had incinerated them). I quickly brought my pistol up to fire at the snagrol before I realized that it wasn't even looking at me or Eternity. It was... sort of just staring off into space, a glazed expression in its electrical eyes.

The Hyperian whirled, her eyes brightening. She rushed towards me and caught me in her arms (Nearly throwing me into the ladder, which probably would have broken my spinal cord into several pieces). I stiffened, not expecting the sudden contact, before cautiously (And rather weakly) returning the embrace.

After a few seconds, Eternity stepped back. "How - what - you-" she stammered.

"Don't ask me," I said, smiling. I pulled out Alaspakta and pointed to her. "Ask her."

Eternity looked at the sword. "What?"

"Apparently," I said. "Alaspakta is mobile."

As if to prove my point (And probably to brag), Alaspakta hovered a few inches off of my hand. If the sword had a face, I had no doubt it would be smirking.

"So," Eternity said, disbelieving. "You defeated six highly trained soldiers with assault rifles... with a cynical sword that can fly."

"Yes, exactly," I said. "That a problem?"

"Um... no."

. . .

Eternity

 Eldernova let out a small laugh, as if he, too, couldn't believe he'd survived. I remembered the embrace that I'd wrapped him in and shivered. At first, when he'd stiffened, I'd thought he was going to push me away. But then... he'd returned the hug, albeit cautiously and weakly, but he had.

I wondered if that meant... if he felt...

I shook myself. It didn't matter.

Turning my attention to Kevrokh, I frowned and cocked my head. "What's up with her?" I wondered aloud.

"Why," replied Eldernova. "Would you expect me, of all people, to know the answer to that question?" He smiled to show he wasn't being completely serious. I smiled to myself; why would he have an answer. My brain must've been tired.

Or maybe... maybe I was starting to trust him (Maybe more than trust, my heart whispered).

Kevrokh, meanwhile, was continuing to stare blankly ahead. I wondered if that happened when a snagrol lost its partner. But then... if Kevrokh wasn't Indirk's, after all, then what was going on here?

Much like Eldernova, my feelings, and the whole damn Multiverse, Kevrokh was an enigma. An enigma that, unfortunately, I didn't have time to decipher.

"Alright, ready to go?" I asked, turning back to Eldernova. Eldernova nodded, and I gestured for him to follow me. I started making my way across the room to the still-intact ladder. Behind me I could hear Eldernova's footsteps as he hastily followed behind, broken pieces of glass crunching beneath our feet like Autumn leaves.

We quickly reached Indirk's office, where I was fairly certain that we would either find a map to the bridge, or a Lift that connected directly to said bridge.

Stepping into the office, I searched the room for a console on which I might input or receive data regarding the whereabouts of the bridge. One large console that looked like a work computer sat on a Seinhet wood desk before which a desk chair sat, and a second was embedded into the back wall, sitting next to a pair of doors that lead... gods knew where.

"Hey," Eldernova said, pointing to the mounted console. "Isn't that a Lift keypad?" I thought it was, and I'd been having similar thoughts myself.

"Yeah, I think so," I said, pleased to know that he was starting to catch on to the Multiverse's technology. I crossed the room to keypad and typed in a few symbols. Nothing happened, likely because Nocta hadn't gotten the chance to hack it yet and because I wasn't Indirk Vorpal (Who, I assumed, was normally the only one who went through.

I tapped my earpiece. "Nocta, can you open up this Lift for us?" I asked.

"Sure!" came the cheerful-yet-sardonic reply. For a moment Nocta was quiet, and then the Lift console pulsed green. The doors opened immediately after, revealing a very fancy elevator. I wondered how much Indirk paid for it, it had to have been an excessively large amount.

"Thanks," I said. I turned to Eldernova, who was holding a piece of paper in his hand, eyes scanning it intensely. Whatever was on that paper, it had to be important. Maybe a map? Or coordinates...?

I walked over to him and peered over his shoulder. Written on the paper, in immaculate Triangulese script, was the following:

Snagrider Indirk,

I trust that you are well. I have rather good news to share with you; we have received information regarding the whereabouts of the MFS fleet. To their best estimate, my Directory Sensorium believe that they have been dispatched, with their trajectory set for Scipio. I have already launched multiple ships to deal with the fleet, but it seems that the Supernova, their flagship, is housing the Traitor Prince aboard: Antares Whitewater. They are due to stop at his 'Outpost Karhhiya', and I believe that we may be able to draw them into a trap. I thought you might like to face Eternity in battle again after your failure to destroy her at the battle of Claudroth.

I've also sent you a snagrol, to replace your dying Vinsezz: Kevrokh. She once belonged to Antares himself, so if we draw him out correctly, seeing you and Kevrokh partnered should cause him a great deal of pain.

So.

Sikhet will be taking the Enclave to Triaxus. You are to accompany them.

Good luck. Make the empire proud, soldier.

By the three blades,

Emperor Saladin III

For a moment, I felt like I couldn't breathe properly. Every part of our excursion to the Enclave, every single part, had been a scheme to destroy us.

"We need to warn the fleet," I rasped, mouth dry with horror. I tapped my earpiece and suppressed a shudder. "Nocta, tell the rest of the fleet to, if they see a Trianguli craft at the planet they're due to stop at, DO NOT ENGAGE for any reason."

"What - wait, but -" Nocta sputtered, clearly surprised.

"Do it now, Nocta!" I said, voice raised. Nocta stammered an affirmative and began to type. "Elder," I said. He turned to me, his bright brown eyes wide with surprise and fear. "Let's go." I gestured in the general direction of the Lift.

Together we walked into the Lift and began ascending to the final level of the TES Enclave.

. . .

 We spoke nearly no words on the ride up. Eldernova looked terrified; he'd watched Indirk fight, but he'd never seen someone use magic before. At least, not for combat. I'd briefly explained who the captain, or Corsair as they were called by the Trianguli, of the Enclave was: Sikhet Antess. An Electromancer of high regard and generally described as violently unstable and a bit of a psychopath. She specialized in electricity and lightning, usually in the form of electrical blasts; she'd proven her powers and mastery over the storm multiple times on the battlefield, and she was generally feared for her extreme volatility and psychotic battle-rages in which she would blast lightning everywhere, not caring who she hit. Very few Electromancers could go into that state, which we referred to as Stormtrancing. A power only accessible to Electromancers and Electrokinesis-focused Xenomancers, it wasn't to be trifled with and could devastate entire armies in minutes.

So, reasonably, Eldernova was currently scared out of his wits.

"Hey," I said, breaking the silence when Eldernova's breathing got too rapid for both my anxiety and what should be healthy for a Human. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said. I could tell he was trying to be brave and not show his fear, but his quivering lip, wide eyes, and pale skin told me otherwise.

I reached out and squeezed his hand. "I'm not going to laugh at you. It's okay to be afraid, especially of someone like Sikhet. Literally, one of Nebula's recorded definitions for her is evil bitch."

A faint smile tugged at Elder's mouth, and he turned his gaze from the spot he'd been staring at and gazed at me, his eyes like crystal pools of earth. "Eternity..."

The doors of the Lift slid open.

 The bridge was dark - sort of. It had a dark feel to it. The viewport stared out at the jungle below, and faint blue light emanated from the consoles that beeped all over the bridge. Steps lead down from the part of the bridge we stood on to the lower level, on which the Corsair's Terminal stood. A single Trianguli woman stood there, clad in the yellow and black robes of the Electromancers. I couldn't see much of her form, only the backside of her cloak and the auburn hair spilling down her shoulders.

"Indirk, what by all the gods took you so-"

I cut her off. "It's not Indirk." The Corsair whirled to face us us, her eyes widening. I smiled sardonically and waved. Her robes didn't loop all the way around her, instead splitting down the middle and flowing down at her sides. She had the usual indigo skin that I saw so often in Trianguli, only her eyes were a startlingly vibrant shade of blue. Honestly, if I had to describe her using one word, I would choose menacing.

"You," she snarled. "Sentinel Timewind." I felt her identify spell sweep over me, confirming who I was. I felt it move to Eldernova, and the Corsair's eyes narrowed. "Why can't I get inside your mind, worm?" She stabbed an accusing finger at Eldernova, whose face was a picture of confusion.

"I - I don't -" he stammered, taking a step backwards, away from the bridge and Sikhet's undiluted fury.

"You can't be strong enough to resist me," Sikhet muttered, beginning to pace. "Are you hiding him, Timewind?" She turned her furious gaze onto me, the raw animus in her eyes giving me pause at its intensity.

I steeled myself against her hate, though its fiery tendrils dripped from her aura like poison. "No," I said calmly. My words had to be the calm eye of the dire storm, or else Sikhet would incinerate the both of us on the spot. But, gods, it wasn't easy; Sikhet's eyes were like that of a rabid dog, and her mere presence felt like it was slowly annihilating me. I felt as if that, if I stayed there much longer, it would choke all the light out of me and leave only the dark behind.

"Then HOW is that MAGGOT HIDING FROM ME?!" Sikhet screamed, echoes of rancor reverberating through her voice. She spat in the general direction of Eldernova. "Humans are weak, inferior, unfit to live and CERTAINLY unfit to wield magic! So I will as you once more: HOW ARE YOU RESISTING ME?!"

Eldernova's hand jerked, and in an instant he had his aetherpistol trained on Sikhet's head. "I don't know who you think you are, calling Humans weak," he said - no, snarled -, eyes burning with rage. "But I've just spent the past week doing everything I could to prevent my race's extinction, and so far I've succeeded. So I ask you, Corsair Sikhet, tell me my race is weak again. I fucking dare you."

For a moment everything was quiet. Even Sikhet looked stunned.

"So, the glorified ape has spirit," Sikhet said in a mocking tone finally, clapping her hands. "Good. We will see whether or not that will spell your doom." She paced a bit more, then turned back to Eldernova. Her eyes pulsed for a moment with blue light. Electric blue light.

"Elder, LOOK OUT!" I screamed, just as Sikhet raised a hand and laughed malevolently.

"Think fast!" she shouted gleefully. Eldernova's eyes widened and he dove, as tendrils of bright yellow lightning shot from Sikhet's fingertips, branching out in a deadly network across the room. But Eldernova didn't dive back into the Lift, where the shields would protect him, leaving me to fend for myself. He dove... at me. He knocked me to the ground several feet away from where I'd been standing, behind a console and out of Sikhet's sight. She probably hadn't even seen us jump, her lightning would have obscured her vision.

For a moment, we just lay there as Sikhet continued to screech an absolutely psychotic laughing noise, Eldernova's arms wrapped around my waist and his face pressed against my dark hair.

Then the moment shattered, and Eldernova hastily moved off of me. "Sorry," he mumbled.

It took me a moment to realized what had just transpired. Elder... had just saved me, when he could've saved himself in a non-risky way. And then he'd apologized for it.

 I decided, right then and there, that I like this Human. He might have come from a different race and a dying world, but he was funny, sweet, and reliable. I'd only known him for four days, but I would trust him with my life, and he seemed to trust me with his.

"Elder," I whispered, Sikhet's howling but a dim background to the beating of my own heart. Those bright brown eyes stared back at me, making my heart jump.

Leaning in, I kissed him on the cheek. He went rigid, and my blood turned to ice. Shit. Maybe he didn't like me, after all. But just as I was about to pull away and apologize for what apparently had been a moment of insanity, his hand rose and brushed a long strand of hair out of my eyes, tucking behind my ear. I pulled away, and his clear and radiant eyes shone back at me.

"For luck," I murmured, managing a tight smile. The hints of a smile crossed his face, filling me with hope.

Not the time, Eternity. What were you thinking?

Shut up, I told my highly inconsiderate brain. It's my heart; I can stick whomever I damn well please in there.

Sikhet, said my brain.

That word was all it took to shock me out of my kissing-based stupor, and I slipped back into soldier mode. "Ready?" I asked quietly. Eldernova nodded, cycling his pistol. I signaled for him to go left unintentionally (Gods, I really had to stop doing that), but Eldernova apparently knew what that meant and began heading out the opposite side of the console to me. I pulled out my own pistols and edged out of cover, to find that Sikhet, apparently, still hadn't noticed where Elder and I had gone. I took this opportunity to shoot Sikhet, twice; once in the foot and once in the thigh.

The Corsair's eyes lit up with hate and fury. "SPINELESS BEASTS!" she shrieked, sending forth a second wave of electricity. I ducked and rolled to the side, pulling my body behind the barrier of a beeping console. Blue light snapped all around me.

When it finally faded, I peeked out of cover, searching the room for Sikhet's vile form. The Electromancer was snarling and pacing, apparently returning the favor and searching for me.

Where was Eldernova, though? My eyes wandered, looking for his distinct orange and white trench coat (Which I did approve of, by the way (Actually I hadn't found anything in him that I didn't approve of so far, but the coat was on a different level of amazing). Trench coats were probably the greatest article of clothing ever invented, and had I not been required to wear the uniform of the MFS, I probably would wear a coat of my own). I didn't see him, not at first, but as my gaze traveled across the bridge, it finally found something. Standing in between a pair of consoles at the edge of my vision, he held an aetherpistol which pulsed faintly. I assumed Sikhet was far more focused on me than him, so I gave him a somewhat safe tight smile and a thumbs-up. He nodded almost imperceptibly, probably trying to not give his location away, and slipped out of sight again.

 "Where are you, little worms? Sikhet mocked, and I hear her boots clicking as she stalked across the floor. "You can't hide; not from me. I can smell your auras." I silently shuffled around the console as Sikhet continued to walk. "Perhaps you need a little encouragement," she mused. I could almost hear her venomous sneer. However, I could, in fact, hear the crackle of her lightning.

"And perhaps," I shot back quickly, making her pause. "You need some manners."

"So, the Sentinel speaks at last," snarled the Corsair. "Good to know you aren't mute as well as completely worthless."

Completely worthless. I'd always hated being called that. When I'd acquired captainship of the MFS Supernova, many in the Federation had said things like 'you can play captain as long as you like, but when the Nova arrives you'll be forgotten', or 'you're just a Hyperian. A girl. You can't possibly captain the Supernova, because you're completely worthless.' I'd eventually managed to prove my critics wrong, but it still ticked me off to hear the old rumors again.

I crouched down, returning to reality, and noiselessly made my way behind a leather sofa marred by multiple scorch marks. No mystery as to where they came from - undoubtedly they were the work of a raging Electromancer. I pulled open my pistols and checked the charges - twelve shots each. Make them count, the warrior in me whispered. I closed the guns and looked around the corner, where Sikhet was continuing her predatory pacing. Her eyes pulsed with a faint blue glow, indicating her lightning was still active - just not audible.

Come on, Elder, hurry up. I'm not sure how long I can hide from her.

As if on cue, with comical timing, I saw Elder's coat - so fast I couldn't even be sure if I'd really seen it - slip through the space between a pair of consoles behind Sikhet, a glowing blue shape in his hand. An aetherpistol? I wasn't sure; he'd moved to fast for me to identify what it'd been.

Sikhet snarled, and her gaze whipped to the spot in which my head was. I ripped myself back into cover.

"Do you think I did not see that, Sentinel Timewind?" Sikhet hissed. "Do you think that you can continue to hide? I have found you. There is nowhere to run." I tried to ignore her taunting and began planning my method of attack. I would, when I felt her aura near me, leap out of cover, and open fire with both pistols.

"Tick, tock, Timewind," Sikhet taunted, and I resisted the urge to snarl. Enough should be enough, by now; she'd pissed me off already, and this was the final straw. I tensed to whirl out of cover, my eyes hardening and ruff flaring. I spun and shot into the air. As I flew, I spotted Sikhet standing below me, her eyes glowing and her form wreathed in lightning. Starfire. She'd been expecting an attack.

Pointing one finger at me, Sikhet howled a single, Electrokinetic word as whips of electricity lashed around her, scorching the ground and searing the air:

Sednofeh.

Stormtrance.

My blood turned colder than the frozen seas of Titan. Lightning, blue, intense, and jagged, poured from Sikhate towards me. Her eyes glowed with bright blue light, and her lips twisted into a spiteful smile. Tines of the energy caught my body mid-air, curling around my waist like a constrictor snake.

Instantly, my nerves lit up with agony; electrical waves burned across my skin, leaving jagged red brands in their wake. I let out a scream of absolute pain, terror, and fury; but Sikhet did not relent. The pain was worse than anything I could ever have imagined, searing across my nerves like a bath of magma. I felt faint, black spots dancing before my eyes. Any time now, Elder! I thought, desperately fighting to stay awake, knowing it was likely that if I fell unconscious I would never wake up again. I tried my hardest to form a teleport spell, but I simply was not able to focus; the agony of the lightning made it completely impossible.

As my eyes closed and the scream died in my throat, I thought I heard... and saw... something.

"Eternity!"... and I thought I saw three bright blue... things... flying through the air, from the doors of the Lift, which were now open. Strange.

My eyes closed, and the world cut out like a light.

. . .

Antares

I jerked to attention as the furious sound split the air. I unfolded my fan and muttered a short spell. Spotlights of blue energy fanned out from me on all sides, illuminating most of the dust-choked chamber. I still couldn't see the source of the sound, however.

"What was that?" Rynn asked me nervously, eyeing the room around us warily. Though I'd lit up the room, it was still covered in dust, and too much of it was hidden behind thick clouds. If only I had some actually useful spells and wasn't limited to standard cantrips and underwater casting (Though when in water I was exceedingly powerful). If only, if only.

"I don't know," I said honestly, my gaze tearing along the room, searching desperately for the source of the snarl before it could attack... whatever it was. "There's too much dust; I can't get a good look, and I can't get rid of the dust, either."

"Oh," Rynn said. She held up one hand, muttered something that sounded like a Pyrokinetic incantation, and a wave of red light pulsed from her palm. It surged through the whole room, quickly morphing into a ring of blazing flames, incinerating the dust and exposing the parts of the room hidden by dust clouds. "How's that?" she asked, smiling.

"That," I said. "Was pretty great." I guess I'd forgotten Rynn had a bit of Pyromancer in her, in addition to her Aeromancer blood.

A snagrol limped out of the no-longer-dark, clearly uncomfortable with walking over the shattered bits of glass (Where had those come from?). It stopped about six yards from us and stared up at me, gazing into my essence with bright yellow eyes. Bright yellow eyes I'd recognize anywhere, the fierce, electric yellow stare of Kevrokh. My snagrol. The snagrol that I'd parted ways with five years ago, when she'd stayed behind to cover Rynn and I's retreat.

"Kevrokh?" I whispered, unwilling to believe that I had found my lost friend after five years. The snagrol barked, a sound that, to others, might have sounded terrifying, but to me it was a happy sound, one filled with joy and longing; one that I knew by heart. Yes; the snagrol before me... was Kevrokh. For the first time in five years, I actually felt genuinely happy. Not many understood the Snagrider bond, and even fewer could actually connect one. I'd been lucky to be born with the power, but the truth was very few people were able to bond with a snagrol. This rarity was partially why there were so few snagriders - there were really only about two thousand of us, out of the trillion-strong race of Trianguli. When a snagrider 'Forges' with a snagrol, as it's called, it feels... exhilarating, but odd. It is... like you've been missing half of your Lifespark your entire life... and never noticed, which is partially true; even after death, snagriders are judged alongside their snagrols by Erebus, and snagriders are literally even put on hold until their mount dies so that this particular rule can work. It's an interesting bond, but the point is, snagriders and their mounts are deeply connected, telepathically so (Technically, it's an empathic bond, but that falls under the purview of Telekinesis, so it's still telepathic), and when the two halves of said bond are not near each other... it can be physically and emotionally disorienting.

But now, Kevrokh was back in my life, and I felt a surge of hope and a flood of defiance for Saladin's empire. He could not be allowed to win, could not be allowed to annihilate the MFS, because then, what stopped the Trianguli from using the technology of the Federation to crush the other factions, namely the Cycleoneeans and the Andromedals?

I had to be the spark that lit an empire ablaze; and I had to topple the throne of Lord Saladin. That... had... always been my goal, and my belief, but I'd never... really had the courage to fervently believe in it. It'd always felt too terrifying, without Kevrokh there to fight beside me.

But now, Kevrokh was back, and I found a mantra repeating in my head, familiar and welcome yet inexorable and fiery:

Live free or die.

Above us, in the direction of the Lift in Indirk's office, a scream echoed.

* * *

My gaze shot to the second level. No one - no one conscious, at least - was up there, which left only one alternative. I remembered Arcturus saying that Eternity and Eldernova had been making their way up to the bridge, and judging by the state of the chamber (And I thought I saw Indirk's spiked armor lying on the ground nearby, too), they'd made it through here and would be on the bridge now, facing the single most unstable Electromancer to ever live: Corsair Sikhet Antess. Sadistic and venomous, Sikhet would likely be torturing them up there if either of them got caught in her chains of lightning.

"Arcturus, what is the status of Eternity and Eldernova?" I asked, afraid to know the answer.

"Alive," Arcturus said, making me slump with relief. "Eternity's vitals - particularly her nervous system - are strange, though." My blood turned to ice. Starfire.

"Let's go!" I shouted, beginning to rush across the room to the still-intact right ladder (The other appeared to be half-incinerated. I wasn't entirely sure why). Kevrokh's ears perked up and the snagrol bounded after me. Rynn just looked confused, but after a moment she started hurriedly walking. But really not fast enough; we all needed to be faster or Eternity was going to die. I started scaling the ladder, cleared the obstacle in seconds, and lunged onto the platform above. From there, it was only a seven-second dash to the doors of Indirk's Lift. Kevrokh quickly leaped up onto the platform with a bit of Biokinetic augmentation from me, and Rynn simply cast an Aerokinetic wind gust, levitating her up to the next level.

I stepped into the Lift, Kevrokh at my side, and Rynn landed at the doors to Indirk's office. "I assume you have a good reason for this," Rynn said, her expression perplexed as she walked through the office and into the Lift, taking her place beside Kevrokh and I. The doors slid shut behind us with a hiss.

"Yup," I said, frantically pressing the UP button. The Lift was almost comically slow in beginning its ascent, something I would have laughed at if this day had gone a different way. "Come on," I muttered, staring at the Lift's doors and pacing back and forth. "Faster!" I sheathed my fan and ripped out my aetherpistol, staring down the sight at the door once I'd cycled the weapon.

"Are you... going to tell me what it is?" Rynn asked.

"Yup," I said, which I'm sure was very helpful.

"When... are you going to tell me said reason?

"Yup," I tapped my earpiece and quickly spoke into it. "Arcturus, send my Screen a monitor of Eternity's vitals."

The Android compiled, and a ding cut through the silence as my Screen notified me that the signatures had arrived. I pulled it open to reveal an absolutely insane nerve scan. "Oh, by all the gods," I hissed furiously, waving the light-sheet into nonexistence.

"Antares!" Rynn said, lightly punching my shoulder. I turned to face her.

"Yes?" I asked.

"WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?" she asked, her voice raised.

"Oh. Right, that," I said, which I'm sure was even more helpful to Rynn. I quickly explained my logic, my concern that Eternity was currently caught in Sikhet's lightning, and exactly what I planned to do about it. After a moment of Rynn staring blankly at me, her expression lit up.

"That... is a lot more reasonable than suddenly running off to the Lift," said Rynn.

"Yup," I turned back to the doors, which were in the process of sliding open. "Here we go," I murmured, sliding the switch on my pistol to the stun setting.

With a click, the doors pulled apart, and we entered the bridge chamber of the TES Enclave.

I didn't see Eldernova - not at first, at least. Eternity, however, was caught in a literal cage of electric chains, which all to some extent arched back to the raised hands of a yellow and black-robed Trianguli, auburn locks of hair floating at different levels around her head as a result of the static electricity.

Sikhet Antess.

"Oh," Rynn said quietly. "Well, that's a problem."

"Really?" I asked (very hilariously). "I hadn't noticed." I opened fire, hitting Sikhet in the back three times. Waves of crystal-blue light spilled over her, spreading out from that point of origin where the aetherstream had hit. Instantly, the flow of lightning cut off, dropping Eternity to the floor like a sack of stones, her eyes closed and breathing ragged. I pulled open a Screen and checked her heart rate, which was slow, but not gone (Yet, my brain whispered), then slid it back into cyberspace.

"NO!" Sikhet shrieked, stumbling. She staggered over to a console and held out her hand against it to steady herself. "You will not - I can't - no, stop -" the Electromancer fell to her knees as her consciousness slipped.

"Stay down, Corsair," I told the fallen Electromancer, stalking out into the room with my gun still raised. Sikhet looked directly at me, her eyes filled with loathing and fury.

"Traitor," she spat. "You think you've won? You can't imagine what Saladin will do to you. Your DAYS are NUMBERED, Traitor Prince!"

"Oh, by the Five Spires, stop talking," Rynn said irately. Sikhet gave us all one last look of venomous hatred before collapsing to the ground.

Sikhet held up a hand and pulled up a Screen. "May your blood SOAK THE EARTH!" For an instant, so fast I couldn't be sure I'd seen it, a mark seared its way across the Screen, seeming to suck the light out of the air around it like a black hole of malevolence and spite. before collapsing to the ground. Sikhet gave us all one last look of venomous hatred before collapsing to the ground, her Screen - and the mark that had burned along it - disappeared.

Eldernova suddenly rushed out of a hiding place between two consoles and knelt at Eternity's side, reminding me of why we had come to the bridge: the possible death of Eternity Timewind, Star Sentinel of the Multiversal Federation. I knew that. I knew what that meant, and that its effects could not be anything good. But the thing that I could not shake from my mind, the thing that worried me the most, was the mark that had burned across Sikhet's Screen.

The mark was seared in violet light, was twisted and curved into a shape like fangs. I - all of us who had seen it - had to know what it was. It was terrifying, and that Sikhet had summoned it - that could only mean one thing.

The mark... was one I knew. One of darkness and hate.

 It was the mark... of Revan.

. . .