Lucid Truth - 6. No Distance

The destination we arrived at was a familiar one. There were two stars, in a distant binary configuration -- a slightly larger orange dwarf and a smaller red. Both were remote, their light muted, but it was the revisited image of the planet that caught our attention on arrival.

A lone planetary satellite of this solar system, the super-Earth sat far from its sun, the annual period multiple human years. On an outlying orbit, it was a lifeless, rugged world, wreathed in frozen ammonia and howling winds.

Yahet.

The location of the final node before Dagen's Grace, it was the first thing that sprang to mind when we fled the Herald's second appearance.

I'm not leading this thing to anywhere populated. When I make it die, it has to be cut off from everything that matters. I won't let it hurt anyone or anything else if I have any choice in the matter.

The white-grey of the clouded surface blossomed as Mira began to guide us to Yahet's surface and the node. He had taken primary control of the ship's navigation and propulsion like it was second nature, and with my limited knowledge of Kirak's former life, that might even have been true. It certainly seemed that she must have been well versed in piloting, because he stepped effortlessly into the role. With nimble graceful movements, his fingers moved through the virtual display in front with speed and delicacy, as if he were conducting a symphony of light in the air. Our ship was entering and descending through the planetary atmosphere, approaching the quantum node's location, quick and direct.

Were we not in such a dramatic situation, I would have watched him act, the holographic glaze reflecting in his eyes, a sheen of it tinting his skin and hair pale blue as he concentrated.

Poetry in movement.

Opposite him, Elia was doing something else, and while I didn't yet understand her impulses as naturally as I could his, there was still a familiarity I knew I would soon learn. Her attention to the advanced technology was as instinctive, with the same level of focus. She was rapidly switching through a list of the ship's applied functions, perhaps examining systemic contingencies, or whatever passed for weaponry.

"It took a while to find us where we were, in the Scutum-Centaurus arm." I spoke, addressing the bridge at large. "Maybe some of that time was spent rebuilding its ... body, recreating itself, but with any luck we'll have some grace before-"

I didn't get to finish the sentence, and exactly as before, we were caught.

A shuddering of the cosmic warp, and ... there it was.

The Herald.

Followed to Yahet in less than half a minute.

"What?" I stared at the marauding shape, the visual automatically displaying in front of me next to the planet's statistical information. "Gravity detection is one thing, but I know the range isn't that great! It was more than fifty thousand light years away -- and so fast! How?!"

"Shay." Yugan's voice was calm, a counter to my concerned disbelief. "It is this ship, and the technology inherent, that draws the Herald to us."

The technology inherent?

"I do not speak of the quantum power alone, but a combination of energy and matter that is in everything of the ancestral civilisation. Within the constructions, the vessels, the tools and weapons, and not least the very blood and stone of my forebears, this distinct quality lies. I cannot tell you precisely why and how this is so, but I feel it. My senses know it. If the Mishith are to reclaim the past, it must be a part of us again."

There he paused, thoughtful. "Such is the danger. Our foe perceives this as infinite revelation. It can detect our essence from anywhere. This is why Dagen committed the Sundering. He masked our scent by dividing us, to make us invisible, because without that painful mercy he foresaw my kind would be destroyed."

As Yugan spoke, he extended a clawed finger to where the Herald's image was beginning to move, reacquiring a tracking line toward us. "Even by itself, it will hunt us just as the Master's greatest servants did during the first war. I now recall memories -- blurred horrific memories -- of a slaughter across innumerable cycles, by strange immense ghosts that rent worlds lifeless and devoured stars." His medial eyes focused on the representation of the leviathan beginning its approach, and I could not tell if it was anger, sadness, or fear that dominated his emotions. "This creature is but a lesser shadow next to the wraiths of old, yet we Mishith have diminished further. Endlessly will it follow any remnant of the empire -- this ship -- without rest, without fear, past all barriers and illusions, and throughout all space."

Throughout all space.

"Yugan." We were sinking through the clouds, the forward view filled by swirling milky white as we descended to the node. "I don't know what to do about it. We need to fight it, to destroy it in some way that it can't rebuild and return, but ... it's here. Now. We don't- ... I don't have time."

Yugan made an odd noise, a throaty combination between a cough and a wheeze, his incisors momentarily visible as his mouth opened from the sound. It took me a second to realise this was the equivalent of a chuckle.

He was laughing.

"On the contrary, we will have all the time required. As much as we will need to uncover what we must."

Grasping by the shoulder, Yugan pulled me back from the console. I was tense, both physically and emotionally, and ready to put my mind to defeating the Herald, but he led us back next to the rear wall of the bridge. With a fraternal insistence, he drew my attention away from the impending conflict, his lower right arm clasping my left bicep, the upper gently turning my head from Mira and Elia, to him. His clawed digits made indents in my cheek from the light pressure of his grip, though once I was properly looking at him, he let go, the hand shifting to hold my neck and ear.

It was unexpectedly familiar and though I didn't know for certain, it felt like he was treating me as if I were a real family member, a blood relation.

Like we really are brothers.

"Ignore the Herald for now. I have foreseen we will have time to speak. There is no better moment than this for narrowing the path to a solution. It is what Dagen intended; for he and Sulin to act together, and for you and I to repeat their harmony. The foresight is mine, and the strength is yours. The others -- Kirak and Kelor -- have the purpose of defending us until the course is decided. They will strive for this with all their ability."

He's right.

But where were we meant to start, when the threat of death was nearly on top of us, and with so much that I still didn't understand?

What should I DO about this?

Calming my stressed-out mood and soothing my nerves, I tried to focus, my Mishith brother watching me patiently. The inarguably alien, triangular sockets with their X-shaped pupils and deep-saturated amethyst irises had a serenity that contrasted with my own internal angst. There was a reassurance to him that was as steadfast as it was encouraging.

You can do this, Shay.

Don't think about what's next, just whatever it is we're missing here and now.

So, what ARE we missing?

The basic truth of it had to come back to the nature of our enemy, and the constructed artificial force of aqumi.

Like yin and yang, the two opposing cosmic principles were at the heart of it all.

Black and white, light and dark.

Still ... the future around the Herald is clouded, and something Yugan can't 'see' properly.

Why?

"Yugan. You see ... probabilities, right? Complex future probabilities that show likely courses of events?"

"Yes. The possible interactions of the physical world, and the energies at work upon the individuals within it, are visible to me as countless streams from a vast river." He nodded. "Those streams are likelihoods of potential futures, and their own branches grow and change strength constantly from choices made in the present. They can stretch far and be seen for what might be thousands of cycles, but always there comes our foe. In any circumstance where the Enemy wins, the water will run dry and the stream withers to nothing."

To nothing?

The meaning was obvious.

No more possibilities because everything is gone.

He continued. "When the outcome is less certain, the Master's greater servants will always intervene at a contentious critical point. From those points, the flow becomes unclear. Dagen's wisdom has taught me this is because their involvement produces variables that cannot be tracked by the quantum prediction. The future beyond fades into a haze, too difficult for my eyes."

Our conversation was interrupted by the node sliding through the ship's floor until it was in the middle of the bridge. Mira brought us to a standstill, forcing the ship into a perfect stationary position so the node was hovering in the air between the viewscreen and the control podia like an invisible star.

Scarcely three seconds later, the roiling frozen winds that cloaked Yahet's surface vanished in an instant, like breathy condensation evaporating in the sun's warmth. A burst of expanding force struck us, similar to what was used at Dagen's Grace against the defensive weaponry. The result was a clean surface for probably leagues in every direction, the shroud ripped away. Even from our limited elevation the scale of it was enough to see freely all around, with the crags and fissures and plateaus of icy ammonia desert extending to the horizon.

There, directly behind our view of the quantum beacon in the foreground, was framed the Herald.

Still dozens of kilometres away, the size of it nonetheless loomed large. It was simply there, a predator with prey cornered, slowed and poised for the strike. Its bulk filled much of the sky near us, the wings spread like terrible sharpened arms and the enormous tentacles undulating behind. They swished in and out of view off its flanks, coiling and waving idly; a spaceborne hunter afloat the turbulence of the planetary atmosphere.

Like the previous confrontation, a jet of bubbling, rippling space shot out, the same disabling attack. This time though, Elia was there to react. Her left hand pressed down onto her podium's top, a stream of aqumi particles flowing into the ship's systems, and with her right, she was flicking through the holographic controls incredibly fast, as quickly as I'd seen Mira do anything in haste. It took no more than a couple of moments, and then there was a change, a subtle beat, a shimmer of something passing through the vessel's structure; an operational switch being flipped. The warping distortion wavered and then it vanished, the projected field retracting as it collapsed in reverse back to the Herald.

"Analysis: protocol applied. Spatial uniformity function active. Stability enforced; disruption neutralised."

Through this, I did as Yugan said.

As difficult as it was, I dragged my thoughts away from what was happening -- the monster near us -- and back to him, to us.

The action continued beyond our conversation, but I ignored it.

So ...Yugan can't foresee the Herald's motivations, but it can't foresee ours either. That was why it was unable to counter Mira when he killed it before, because it didn't know what Kirak would do.

But ... again ... why?

It had to be something to do with aqumi.

What was the unified quantum force, really?

A means to control the four physical fundamentals -- at least as humans understood them -- in the form of a single artificial particle, able to be generated from fixed points in space, tied into an object, or embedded in a living subject.

Boiled down to a functional explanation it was simple enough, but what did that mean?

The quantum unity can predict the behaviour of these four because it can influence them, govern them, control them at their core level. The way gravity, the nuclear forces, electromagnetism works is described by the aqumi coding. But, the arbiters, the hounds, the executors, the Herald -- they exist here in our universe too, even if they came from beyond it. They have to obey the laws, to some extent, but they aren't part of that prediction.

So that means ... aqumi does NOT unify everything.

By definition, it couldn't.

If it truly included all basic forces, the Master's servants would never have made it this far.

Aqumi has a missing piece -- some part of universal physics that's very important.

How could I know what that was?

Even with all the knowledge and power I had been given, how could one person comprehend the incomprehensible, the unknowable, the blank space?

Then, another possibility occurred.

If I was still following the path Dagen intended, then the way through this had to be deducible.

Either it was something I was about to discover, or something I had seen before.

What if ... I already know?

From the day I awoke on Lucere, I had experienced many things that were so bizarre to the average human mind that they would appear extreme and alien. There were so many concepts and images that broke the mold of what my species could accept as real and possible.

But, after thought and contemplation, most of what I learned could be rationalised, and fit into some kind of structure so it made sense.

Everything except how the enemy's power works.

My confrontations with the arbiters hadn't taught me anything about that.

The only new thing -- the only separate thing -- was the method Liberty used for interstellar travel.

A thought popped into my head, an innocent memory derived from the simple lesson our turncoat ship had taught when it showed me how to feel the 'weight' of gravity like a seventh sense.

I remembered my mind touching something as the ship guided my consciousness to the abstract place that enabled it to perceive mass shadows, allowing the means to navigate between stars and planets.

The experience wasn't anything I could put into words, because it was like tasting a colour or hearing a smell. The concept didn't translate into anything that had an equivalent, but I did recall that 'something' being a distinct thing, a special place, next to the Veil of Shadow.

When I witnessed their ships -- Disciples, Emissaries, Apostles -- bend gravity and jump through space, in the split second going from A to B, they 'descended' close to the smallest limit of reality. As they passed, I recalled them drawing on some kind of strange energy during the transition.

It was always so fast, in what amounted to a nanosecond of contact, like a bird skimming the surface of a lake, before they exited the jump at their destination. Each crossing was done in less than a blink, and I never considered what occurred in that blip meaningful, let alone evidence of something so crucially important.

Though, it was.

It had to be.

Retrospectively, I had felt it.

It was there.

That invisible sliver of existence was the unknown factor. The lowest edge of reality lay just beneath, and the limit of quantum power ended just above.

It was the only thing entirely outside aqumi.

"I can tell your thoughts, brother," Yugan rumbled, his predictive ability and current close attunement allowing him to know where I was headed before I got there; in a practical sense he was almost reading my mind. "The Veil of Shadow separates us from whence they came, but a step nearer lies an untouched layer."

"Yes! It ... has to be another natural phenomenon, too far down for aqumi to reach. Below all the subatomic stuff -- deeper and smaller ­-- but still higher than the barrier. Whatever this source is, it's a powerful medium. It can be manipulated similarly to aqumi. Similar, but different." While I couldn't say I understood what this abstract place was, I was certain I had identified it as the missing piece. "We've seen it in use too many times. Our enemy has always been doing things we couldn't explain, couldn't directly counter. Never what, nor how. Seems obvious the first thing they'd encounter after breaking into the universe is this power source, because it's right next to the Veil itself."

"I see it is true. This is the channel through which their efforts are made real and magnified." The Mishith agreed, his voice softening. "A filter that disperses the Master's will to his slaves and binds reality as desired."

On those words, a sound brought my attention back to the fight once more. The Herald's image was even larger than previously, entirely blocking the sky beyond. From it, biosteel quills were flying in a barrage, enlarged and imbued with a thermal quality, like incendiary harpoons. They were striking Mira's projected shield in a hail hundreds strong, arriving from weaponry mounts all over the leviathan's forward structure.

Elia was directing the point defence herself, but she had also empowered it, with the emitters shooting larger highly-energised beams. Instead of merely picking off incoming projectiles in momentary zaps, they shot extended continuous streams all the way to the Herald proper. Thin but bright yellow lines carved across the creature's surface, dancing to and fro with repeated flicks. They didn't have the penetrating power for more than superficial damage, but Elia's aim was tactical. The enhanced point defence sliced through anything on the epidermal layer helping the attack; she was hitting the apparatus of launchers, projection nodes, sensory communicators.

Then with a flourish the wings curved around, all twelve entering their malleable state. They plunged down about us, burying into the planetary surface with a forceful punch. Each rammed into the ground in an enormous spreading ring, an encircling cage of limbs as big around as skyscrapers. Gouts of rock and ice fountained into the air from the violent disturbance of Yahet's crust, but it was Elia's verbal response that made me take notice.

"No." She spat it angrily, her eyes fixed on the Herald with a hatred that was sharp and clear. Her voice was as emotionally provocative as her twin's, and eerily reminiscent of Mira's tenacious animosity from Lucere. "No."

Her hands moved again, selecting a new utility, and then with another dexterous flurry, she activated a function that I recognised.

Did she just ... teleport something?

In an instant, one of the surface rocks that had careened off to the side reappeared, a glimmer of static around it. With some kind of technical modification, she had imparted momentum the rock didn't previously have. In a blink of my aqumi vision I saw a brief tinge of gold, fading with the spatial translocation; the chunk moving fast on its arrival. Above the nearest tentacle off our starboard bow, it fell down and at an angle directly into the limb's upper curve. The tentacle lurched slightly from the impact, and while the rock must have been many thousands of tonnes, it didn't seem large enough to cause any lasting damage.

But then there was another.

I heard Elia's voice again in the background, now a telepathic shout that grew in volume with each word, and the fiery anger within her was even more plain.

You must DIE!

A much bigger piece, this one at least millions of tonnes, appeared in the sky to our left, even higher in the air. It hurtled in a near perfect horizontal arc to slam into another limb, this time further back. The projectile broke upon impact, separating into a shower of smaller pieces, and again, no damage was immediately obvious. Yet as the view cleared, I could see the wing visibly deformed; the hardened organic surface had fractured, and it was repositioning itself as the Herald's autonomous bodily reaction began to repair the damaged hull.

Did she actually hurt it?

Then there was another slab of frozen crust appearing at a different angle, above, and then another, further off to the right, and Elia was hurling whatever she could at the Herald.

She did.

The rearward tentacles were flexing, flicking about the sides to intercept the new threats, and there was an almost perceptible change in the Herald's aura.

I could sense it.

It's angry too.

It had never been challenged like this.

"Shay." Yugan gestured with his upper right arm, to the artificial meteors being employed, before he brought it back to my shoulder again. "Our chance to think and talk is nearly over, and then you must act along with Mira and Elia. I see she understands, perhaps by instinct only, that aqumi is not always the weapon itself. Sometimes it is the means to create that weapon from what is around us."

Again, he was right.

Aqumi can't kill the Herald directly -- at least not the way we have to fight it -- because there's no control over its power source. But ... there are things in the physical universe that can harm it. On Samed, I had already done that when I used gravity to bend sunlight and incinerate a half dozen Disciples and arbiters. This though? The Herald is SO much bigger.

It was a matter of proportion.

"I- ... I don't know how I'm meant to use the power I have like that. Sometimes I can project it, make it manifest away from myself in really big ways, and sometimes it just ... doesn't work."

His head dipped slightly, his ears straightened and gave a twitch, thoughtful, and he spoke, though the words were now quicker, urgent, with our grace almost gone. Beyond, half-noticed, was a blurry combination of colour and movement as my beloved and his twin continued to defy and resist the monster.

"Dagen's every decision was for the purpose of victory, but most important was his choice of your race. Human minds are suited to the quantum unity in a way unlike any other species. You learn and adapt as the Mishith do, you are diplomats as well as fighters, and you overcome much. However, the quality he believed most important was your tendency to impose yourselves on everything and everyone you encounter. It is both a weakness and a strength, but also why I cannot use aqumi as you would."

Imposing ourselves?

What he said was true.

Thousands of years of civilisation had certainly proved it. From the environment, to animals, to society's rules, and even each other; if humanity was good at anything, it was molding what was around us to reflect what we wanted it to be.

It was also borne out by Yugan doing things that I couldn't do -- neither Mira, nor Elia for that matter -- and it was because he was a different species than us, with a different mind.

Again, it came back to size and range.

Distance.

"The kitten," I whispered. "How did you do that? You were further than I could imagine, but you could reach it. You possessed it. You spoke to me too, from a different solar system. I haven't done that. Mira hasn't. It seems as impossible to me as stars and planets being networked, linked, through aqumi from light years apart. How?"

"I can only tell you this." His grip tightened on my shoulder, the claws digging into the skin, and it wasn't enough to hurt, but it added a serious note to his words. "There is no distance."

No distance?

I wasn't sure what that meant.

"Space is all around us, yes, but there is a part of aqumi that is both here and there at once. It exists not in a place, but in a possibility. That part may be anywhere. It is where it is, only if you know it is there. It may be nowhere, if you do not know."

His statement felt like nonsense, as if it was a philosopher's riddle, but Yugan wasn't done.

"This is a Mishith understanding, and I cannot explain it further." His head tilted a fraction, his rightmost eye glancing to the conflict taking place. "Yet, you are the best of your kind and Sulin lives in you. I have prepared you as I can, but the time is gone. You must help them ... now."

At that exact moment, Mira's telepathic voice came to me, calling out.

Shay!

I turned from Yugan's grip, unable to neglect the situation any longer, and rushed the few feet back to his side.

It was chaos.

Gigantic rocky projectiles were appearing every few seconds around the Herald. From just about every angle Elia could manage, they were hurtling into any part of the superstructure she could aim at. In response, the rearward tentacles were flicking about like whips, attempting to shield and swat anything incoming, while the dozen forward limbs, the wings, had dug in further, anchoring the gargantuan shape above us as if it were a jailer. A renewed rain of spines was striking us, and they seemed enlarged even further; thrumming adamantine bolts that resonated with exotic energy and glowing heat. Mira was strained, his strength going into the shield alone, but the reason for his cry was even more dire.

The nearest wing was pulling out of Yahet's surface. In front, it turned and with a sudden thrust, stabbed directly at us. Although it had the diameter of an apartment block, the tip was narrowed down to a point, a piercing spearhead.

Mira let out a grunt of concentration, and with horror, I saw the tip breach the defence. It began to push in, the shield forced open around it. The sharpened end ground forward, a colossal lance aimed directly at the ship.

At me.

Fuck!

Then Yugan was next to us and a Mishith hand thumped onto Mira's shoulder. A tide of invisible gold flowed into him, the shield reinforcing, and it clamped around the protrusion, holding it still. I was free to choose a counter, and I stepped across to an open podium and swiped through the holographic controls.

We need more power!

Placing my left hand on the podium's top, I flooded aqumi through the ship's systems, copying Elia's strategy of augmentation. It went into the point defence emitters, and using my right hand, I directed them at the intruding wing.

All eight emitters shot out, slicing along the junction between the shield and the intruding tentacle. It had pushed only a dozen metres inside, but the thickness of even that much with so much mass behind it was an immovable obstacle. The beams cut up and down, retracing the same circumference line, drilling trenches through the dense biometal. It didn't seem like it was enough but then-

-the shield's pressure finished it.

The wing shuddered, and the material beneath the point defence started to loosen and tear. In a microsecond, the shield's noose constricted, and it closed, severing through entirely. The amputated fingertip, a monstrous blob of dismembered material, vanished out of view as it fell to the icy surface. Above, the shield had sealed over, reforming, and the rest of the wing recoiled.

I wasn't sure if it was in shock, or ... pain.

Shay.

It was Elia this time, and her eyes were on me, momentarily away from her guided bombardment of the Herald. Just like her brother, she didn't have to directly speak, and the emotional communication was so strong and so intimate it caught me completely off guard.

I wasn't expecting to meet anybody who I could visually read just like Mira, but her expression was as clear to me as if she had spoken it aloud; 'help me hurt this thing, I know we can.'

Yeah, we can.

My heart swelled with an intense feeling of hope, of gratitude that she was with us.

We will.

Maybe aqumi wasn't the bullet, but it could be the gun.

The ammunition was everything that I could see.

Keep doing what you're doing, I told her. I'm going to get ... more.

Relaxing, my eyes stayed fixed on the Herald. It was withdrawing two more of its wings from where they were impaled, preparing a second physical attack, even as I extended a net of aqumi outward through Yahet's surface.

I had dug a hole once before to reach the node, but this time, I needed to go further.

With my focus, I stretched the quantum power out to at least ten kilometres -- laterally and vertically -- and then I pulled upward, lifting from beneath.

It's a lot, but I can do this.

The effort of moving so much mass at once was a burden that I could feel, the mental equivalent of a weightlifter pushed near their limit, but through the forward view we could see it.

Everywhere, the fractured ground was rising in defiance of gravity.

An enormous wall of rock and ice that gathered speedily into a halo about the leviathan.

With a single impulse, I threw it all.

Slabs of rock kilometres wide flew up and inward, gigantic ice-encased crumbling meteors converging on the central location. The Herald rose slightly, backing away from us in a defensive motion. About the first quarter struck it before the invigorated tentacles began to thrash even faster, smashing the rest in a vicious fury.

A booming bass note grated through the air, like a battlecry of frustration or rage.

The only reason I could think for its anger was that the bombardment was damaging it.

It IS hurting.

Undeterred, the wings stabbed the shield from two forward angles, and I could see the ripples in the surface from the immense pressure.

"Again." Yugan's suggestion had an air of tension to it, that he and Mira were exerting themselves too. "The force is greater now! You must strike again!"

More.

We need much more.

Again, I stretched out, reaching as far as I thought I could.

Not just laterally, but down too, into the planet.

I have to go deep.

Twenty kilometres, then thirty.

Fifty.

Really deep, as far as I can go.

Seventy.

As far as possible.

At around one hundred, I paused.

My breath was coming short, and it seemed like this was the limit, but I could sense it.

I could feel what I was touching.

I've ... got this. I have a grip on it.

It was SO much more than anything I'd attempted before, but ... I was going to do it.

I have to.

I will.

It was all there, in my mind's eye

Now ... lift.

Up.

I felt as if I was no more than a toddler with his hand on the tyre of a truck; a child pushing fruitlessly against something far too large to shift. It had to be too big, too great to attempt, a level beyond what I could manage.

Then ... something.

The smallest movement.

It was taking all my concentration -- exercising every bit of mental strength as deliberately, singlemindedly, as possible -- but, what I had grasped was beginning to shift.

Slowly and surely.

The first sign was the Herald's sudden retraction. The wings let go, and it pulled higher, the monstrous shape rising further to allow room to defend itself a second time. Yahet's buckling cratered surface had not gone unnoticed, and the leviathan receded through the atmosphere, backing up at least fifty kilometres, in a cautionary vantage.

Then we could see it too.

Around our ship was empty space, roughly five kilometres in diameter, that I kept purposely free of any material. Everything was directed outside that avoidance zone, pulled around and away as it rose, for our safety.

Beyond that?

Firstly came a crushed mixture of silicate rocks; grey and brown and white.

Kilometre after kilometre of it.

My grip on the incredible volume that I had excavated was secure, but I was pulling harder and harder, forcing it higher with increasing momentum.

The speed was picking up, and everything accelerated skyward.

Next were clouds of ammonium vapour, as the hotter layers became exposed to the atmosphere's temperature and gusting winds. Billowing fog wreathed the ice as it met the growing heat, clinging and swirling about the cubic miles of rock climbing by us.

Then it was a transition to molten pockets, and then slopping congealed rivers of it, running through and spilling around what was solid. Rivers became lakes; viscous oozing reservoirs that had served as underground seas. Brown and red and black, amorphous blobs of pressure-heated rocky compounds levitated; gigantic in their own right, but less defined and more fluid as the lower extremities emerged.

A hundred kilometres scooped out of Yahet's surface, right to the mantle.

More than the Herald's own mass.

All of it, a surging pile of matter propelled by my quantum anti-gravity.

I forced what I was holding to spread wider and simultaneously compress into a dense aggregate layer. The topmost part slowed, allowing the rest to catch up and crush together, becoming tighter and compact. It formed into a tremendous concave dish facing the enemy, nearly two hundred kilometres across.

You will know pain.

As the bulk of my telekinetic effort finally reached high enough, with another whim I pushed the entire mess inward, again launching everything at once.

On the screen, the view displayed what was happening in perfect detail.

In the centre was the Herald.

Like an implosion, the corona of inrushing rock was met with writhing limbs. In seconds, the creature was concealed behind expansive clouds of vapour and dust, created from the lashing movement and colliding rock, ice, and biosteel. The only things visible were the writhing tentacles flicking through the maelstrom and the brightness of splashing magmatic debris. Then that too was obscured within the great suffocating expanse of choking gas and flying rubble that flooded out from the struggle, the spectacle hidden.

For a few long tense seconds, the visual obstruction didn't allow us to see anything, and during that I wondered if perhaps it had been enough.

Did we really-

I didn't get a chance to finish the thought, and there was a pulse of force, the same as the earlier clearing blast.

In an instant, the sky was emptied again, and the splintered material of my attack was shooting away in violent repulsion. It wasn't an explosion, but the result was similar. All the matter I sent was now shards, cooling vapour, and sparkling detritus; the burst ejected everything in their constituent parts. The largest pieces were still chunks in the range of thousands of tonnes but in practice mere fragments; reduced to nothing in comparison to the original. All the mass was flying wide across the atmosphere, cut down to an ineffectual hail that was only able to coat Yahet's ravaged planetary surface for thousands of square kilometres beyond sight.

Where it was, the Herald remained.

But, through both the ship's sensors and my enhanced ability, I could tell that it wasn't untouched.

The limbs -- both the forward wings and the rear tentacles -- were damaged from scoring and impact marks, with at least half of them showing signs of physical deformation. Not only that, but the exoskeletal ribs had speckles of heat in many places that were symptoms of wounding; either adherent magma or superhot biosteel.

There were indications that all over the superstructure it had taken damage -- but nothing beyond superficial.

I stared in disbelief.

All that effort and I didn't do more than dent the armour?

As if responding directly to my thoughts, the creature let out another angry pulse of energy, this time laced with an undercurrent of something different.

Before our eyes, the wings began to thicken and lengthen as the Herald redirected its mass internally, intravenously. Along their lengths, and along its flanks, the surface texture was morphing, the properties of the hull altering.

I didn't know for sure, but it seemed like something to do with kinetic damage resistance. That, and a kind of resonant energy coating that was being fabricated on the impaling ends of the wings.

A type that had the beginnings of shield disruption written all over it.

The Herald was specialising its primary weapon to pierce our defence.

It's adapting.

Evolving itself to combat us.

My despair was real.

We had hurt it, but it wasn't anywhere near enough.

If my best effort did almost nothing, then how? What can I even do?

I need so much more power. I need-

...

The node.

My eyes locked onto the quantum singularity, still hovering where it was, our position around it not having changed.

I had chosen this world because the node represented a relative safe point, but perhaps it was more than that.

I've done this before, but ... I couldn't control it. I nearly nuked a city by accident.

Was that kind of risk worth attempting?

It wasn't even a real question, and I knew I had to try as soon as I thought of it.

If I don't, we're dead anyway.

Slipping around the podium, I ran across to stand beneath the tiny invisible star, which was just past head height.

If I wanted bigger bullets, I needed a bigger gun.

Reaching up, I held my hand just under the blazing point and with all my strength I pulled.

Just like the control node on Lucere, despite weighing nothing, it was heavier than anything else. Still, it grudgingly moved as I hauled on it, with odd invisible ripples of aqumi fluttering from the node while it crawled slowly down to my palm. Only a couple seconds after passing the skin, the resistance vanished, the node dissolving as the aqumi within it interfaced and combined with what was in my body.

In a heartbeat, the contained energy dispersed and I was filled with it.

It was Aspira all over again.

The sensation of being flooded, of being full of aqumi was indescribable.

I could feel the force within but turned up to a ridiculous degree, unable to keep itself chained to my body. If I closed my eyes, I could have been back in Accession Memorial Plaza on that fateful day, brimming with so much quantum heat that it broke out to become points of light floating in the air around me. I knew the visual manifestations were artifacts produced by the over-abundance of what was within, symptoms of my inability to contain and control the awesome potential that I seized.

Yet, this time there was no ruined human city, no sharpeling horde, no hostile military distracting me.

Just me and a genocidal alien monster.

I had learned so much since then too, and I wasn't going to let that mistake happen again.

Focusing everything inward, I concentrated.

I dragged it back, squashed it, restrained it.

Stay within, stay calm.

The intensity of what I was trying to direct was difficult. It was starting to pulse out through my skin just like before, demanding an outlet, seeking release. The autonomous part of it was running on the instinctual assumption that I was over-capacity, that it had to vent because my body wasn't made for this and couldn't handle it.

No.

I can manage this.

Regulate it. Stabilise it.

My hand shook and I gritted my teeth.

I am commanding you that this is possible.

I had to make the light listen.

You will accept it!

For a second, I felt the heat bloom all over my body, wanting out through the skin. Pinpoints of it burst in a glimmering smatter along my arms, chest, legs.

"Haaaah." I breathed aloud, my body tense, and I drew in a sharp breath.

No. I clawed the aqumi back. Obey me!

It shrank down, the light fading again as I forced it inside, and finally with a wavering quiver, like an overgrown pet brought to heel, it calmed.

Blinking, I glanced at my hands.

Through the aqumi vision I could see myself; white hot and blazing -- but contained.

Burning bright and only just under control.

"Shay."

It was Elia's voice.

My eyes flicked to her, and she just pointed.

The Herald.

The wings had lengthened, half again as long, and the final third of that length was thrumming with a variation of what I saw on the arbiters. Only instead of a fire aura, it was a shimmering vibrating haze that seemed straight from some kind of nightmare.

No sooner than I glimpsed it, the transformation completed and the Herald began to move again, and rapidly. It was oncoming, a giant devouring maw surrounded by a dozen clawing mandibles.

NO.

My reaction was simple instinct.

A ripple of combined forces shot from my extended hand, through the ship's hull and up.

The blast hit the Herald head on as it descended on us.

Enormous, resistant to aqumi and going at speed, there was no expectation I would have an effect on the leviathan, but ... I was stronger.

The force stopped it dead, my increased potency nullifying the forward momentum, the circlet of limbs splaying loosely around it as if it had slammed into a wall.

For a moment, stunned.

Yes!

With a shove of equal strength, I pushed the Herald away before it could regather itself, the silhouette shrinking into the sky. It took no more than a couple of seconds for the propelling tentacles to apply counterthrust, but by then it was at least two thousand kilometres away.

Without pause, I turned my attention to the shield.

The tiny bubble around us expanded, pushing outward.

Behind me, I could sense through aqumi my miracle relinquishing his control over the safeguard, handing it directly to me. The ship rose, and he was piloting it up and away from the vast pit I had carved into Yahet.

Away from the planet.

Toward the Herald.

We had to confront it, and he knew I was the only one who could really challenge it.

Mira's faith in me was untouchable.

Yugan believed I would know what to do.

And Elia? I wasn't sure how she felt, but I did know she wanted it dead. Perhaps more than any of us was her vengeance justified.

It's up to me.

As we rose, the shield's diameter grew along with our altitude. At the same time I was strengthening it; the power within was adding so much extra plating. Double the durability, triple, and even more past the already formidable stopping power the others had previously given it.

Finally, the shimmering blockade halted at four hundred kilometres; flat, wide, and seemingly so solid with aqumi that it was impenetrable.

Still, I wasn't sure it would be enough.

In the upper atmosphere, the resurgent monster hit us.

Recovered from the push I had given it, the Herald was an imminent dark outline that intercepted our movement. Scything down, all twelve wings stabbed into the shield far above us. Across the bubble's upper curve, long sinuous limbs jabbed in a broad spread, their enhanced penetration juddering against the opposing barricade. Instantly could I feel the pressure, an order of magnitude greater than before. There was more behind it, and the sensation was horrible; sharper, harder, stronger.

Like the previous changes, crafted for the purpose of our defeat.

Unstoppable force against immovable object.

I had a nearly boundless ability to reinforce within, but I already knew the attack was going to drain more than I could provide.

Each time the Herald hit us, it was greater than before.

The node's boost had given me an actual chance, but it could only help for so long.

That's ... all I need.

A little time.

A dozen needles -- each miles of flexible biosteel -- pressed into the only thing separating us from death.

They were pushing through it, one ethereal granule after another.

Remember what Yugan said.

Think about it, Shay.

Hold the shield steady, and think.

I closed my eyes, relaxing.

Letting the aqumi stretch from my body.

Projecting, flowing out.

Away.

Down.

No, don't think.

Just ... know it as concepts, ideas.

It doesn't matter how far.

Above, the horrendously sharp end of the first wing broke the final layer, a colossal impaler driven by unbearable might.

There is no far, no near.

Surface.

Rock.

Heat.

A second and third wing began to pierce, monstrous clawed points breaking into the only sanctuary we had.

No inches, no feet, no miles.

Depth.

Weight.

Pressure.

The gap around the first rupture wound began to widen, and a fourth and fifth also punctured the shell, emerging with the others.

The alien grip tightened, the energy within the dome's structure fluctuating wildly from the stress, but it held.

No astronomical units, no light years, no parsecs.

None of that.

Rock.

There is no distance.

More rock.

There is no distance.

Endless rock.

There is no-

The pressure vanished.

My shield vibrated, shaking ... but still holding.

Pierced in eight places through ever-widening holes, by giant limbs that were close to making it cave altogether.

No pressure because ... space?

Space.

My breath caught.

I ... can't have.

Can I?

I could feel it, what I was touching through the extended field.

All of it.

There is no big, no small.

Just possibility, probability.

In my mind's view, it was there, right in front of me.

The mentally-fabricated avatar was a foot across, and I reached out physically with both hands to touch it.

"There is no distance," I whispered. "Just possibility."

Possibility is reality.

It was a representation like a hologram, but it was also real.

Gripping both sides of the construct, I pulled and twisted, gentle but firm.

With only light resistance, the image cracked. Apparently more brittle than it appeared, the sphere crumbled, splintering into several dozen pieces like a smashed glass orb. The pieces drifted outward, clinging near and following my skin as if magnetised.

Drawing my hands apart slightly and up, like an orchestral conductor, the construct's leftovers trailed lazily in the motion's wake. The two coalescent pulverised halves clustered about my splayed fingertips, spread still in as a loose shell of what they had been.

There is no distance.

I inhaled, and opened my eyes.

In all directions lay continent-size remnants, gripped in an invisible framework of quantum power. Rifts of fluctuating width ran between torn chunks, each piece ranging from low hundreds to multiple thousands of miles in dimension. A mixture of jagged angles and diffuse spray that devolved to flowing streamers, every disparate part was held in suspension. From crust, to mantle, to the distorted white-bright fluidic-rock gelatin of the shattered glowing planetary core, the entirety was scattered about us in a controlled debris field.

All of Yahet's mass was kept by my will alone.

The Herald paused what it was doing, all twelve wings poised to apply the final pressure that would rip through the shield.

The limbs withdrew from the assault, the tentacles behind the superstructure swishing in suspicious agitation, the leviathan's senses bristling in anger and hungry uncertainty at what I was doing.

"Mira." I spoke aloud, without turning around, my attention fixed on the monster.

His reply was a brief telepathic query, the equivalent of a clarifying question mark.

I gave my instruction, a single sentence of what to find.

I trusted he would take care of it, that he would understand what I was doing.

He'll know.

He always did.

The alien intellect was turning inward, unafraid but not rash, and I could feel the malicious pressure as it focused in on us behind the battered defence.

On me specifically.

For the first time during the struggle it spoke, the voice cutting through everything in that horribly disconcerting way. It struck right to my consciousness like a deafening psychic shout.

No force is power enough.

I am perpetual.

Maybe.

My reply was a mental whisper as I stared back at the Herald.

Or ... maybe not.

Without taking my eyes off it, I brought my hands together, fingers clasping, palm to palm.

In the same moment, I dropped the shield.

The accumulated mass of the former planet of Yahet collapsed inward, converging at improbably high speed on both us and the enemy.

Goodbye.

A moment before twenty sextillion tonnes of rushing heated matter struck us, our ship jumped away, vanishing from the ruins of the broken world.

-o-0-O-0-o-

The choice of location had never been in doubt.

Coming from orbit, he had taken a military transport directly to Athens, and then the mass transit north to Greek Macedonia. Though there was a temptation to go specifically where he was familiar, he avoided the family home near Stavros. He had no intention of bringing any kind of trouble to his mother and sisters by associating his personal life with the duty placed upon him by the supreme commander.

No more than requisite, that was. Lucas Thessaloniki's contact with the Brotherhood of Man had been as delicate and detached as possible, though admittedly still a necessary risk. The circumstances surrounding Konstantin Andropov's arrival on Earth and everything that ensued in the wake were uniquely historic.

Bending the rules for the right reasons was in one way professionally unethical, but in the other morally righteous.

The line walked in doing so had been a very careful one, and the self-justification questionable.

Still, Lucas had a clear conscience and now a more vital purpose.

He took the ferry from Kavala to Thasos island. Three activated infantry reservists met him at Skala Prinou port, an escort detail he had requested on his arrival from space. Specialised in counter insurgency and protection assignment, the individuals -- two men, one woman -- introduced themselves and asked no questions outside of establishing operational parameters.

From there, the group travelled inland until they found the village and the residence Lucas had rented. Konstantin's authority as backing meant he had practically limitless credit for any urgent expenses, and he had used this to find a remote house in the island's interior. Shrouded by trees, with glimpses of sparsely-covered rocky hills further out, mild dry winds, and the waters of the Aegean in the distance, it was as isolated -- and typically Mediterranean -- as he could ask for.

Barely two days later, the invasion occurred.

Though it was not through official channels that Lucas first realised what was happening.

Early Tuesday afternoon, he had been reading some staff reports on the burgeoning civilian violence between loyalist and corporatist elements, along with detailed internal memoranda to do with the implementation of martial law. The previous day's declaration had been a shock, and while Lucas agreed with the assessment that it was constitutionally mandated to protect the federal government's implosion through interfactional warfare, the moment was nonetheless an unprecedented one.

Regardless, it was distressing to see the army's intervention was not only necessary, but in actuality the most sane course of action to protect the global hierarchy from itself.

To Lucas, it felt like the contemporary discourse had regressed to angry sloganeering and retro-nationalist 'might makes right' extremism; a way of acting common to the extinct fascist ideologues and banana republics from more than two centuries prior.

He hated that force was the only real answer to the situation, but moreso he hated that the sides involved had made Konstantin's decision absolutely necessary. The deliberate erosion and subversion of democratic virtue had created the conditions for the current situation.

Perhaps, Lucas considered, that fringe extremism had never truly gone away. Somehow it had lingered, zombified or mutated or transformed, breeding into what lurked at the edges wearing the modern veneer. Maybe now that veneer was simply cast aside, and what was being muttered under the breath instead was spoken aloud fearlessly.

All of his pontificating was suddenly and rudely interrupted.

The soldiers were busy elsewhere. They were all regional nationalities and had chosen animal monikers for identification instead of formal names. Falcon, clearly also a Greek, was outside clearing the overgrown part of the yard. Badger, probably Bulgarian, was working out in the exercise room downstairs. Cat -- he had not been able to place her accent, except that it was south Slavic, perhaps Kosovar or Montenegrin -- was in her room studying the local operations reports.

To his surprise, it was Nyx.

Despite being the very reason for his assignment, the girl had stayed unobtrusively aloof throughout the transit from space and public travel. She watched the scenery and human interactions happen with wide questioning eyes, but otherwise remained silent and detached. This included the escorting soldiers, whose presence she seemingly tolerated by ignoring them after the first contact.

Yet, when she entered the lounge, her attitude was anything but calm.

She skittered directly across the room to him, seated at the work table by the window that overlooked the forested islandscape sloping to the western sea. Her quickened movement was so boldly unusual that Lucas was standing and turning, a surprised reaction to her agitation, datapads and holographs hastily forgotten.

"Nyx?"

Up close, her hands scrunched in fistfuls of his shirt. So near that she was staring into his face from a couple of inches away, her expression said it all. The bottom lip trembled, eyes glaring and glossy, wider than mere inexperienced curiosity. For a couple of seconds she held that way, and then looked across her shoulder and up, her attention fixing on the corner of the room.

Though, not really.

Somehow, it seemed like she was seeing through the building's exterior.

Through to the distant sky and whatever lay beyond.

At that exact moment, there was an insistent series of beeps from a datapad behind him on the desk, as a priority military warning was issued, followed immediately by an echoing government emergency transmission. Groping with one hand behind, he grabbed the pad and lifted it to where he could see it.

The information was simple and stark.

His breath caught and her behaviour suddenly made sense.

She knew the second they arrived, and it terrified her.

It was as inexplicable as what he had witnessed on Lucere, and it simply drove home how special this girl was.

"Nyx."

She turned back to him, though her eyes furtively darted to the same previous angle, unable to ignore. It was just for a moment before she focused on him fully again, but it struck an emotional nerve with Lucas.

She could feel their arrival, see it somehow from this far, and it had shaken her.

"I- ... I promise to protect you." He wasn't sure if she understood him, but her attention, the soft deep brown of her frightened gaze told him the tone was enough. "Whatever I can do, I will."

Wordless, she stared, her lips moving, and then she pressed her head against his chest.

Lucas put his arms around her, his chin rubbing her hair.

Duty was one thing, but this?

He recognised it was becoming more.

His responsibility felt greater than the objectively ethical, legal, moral, that it had been when Konstantin issued the order.

It was about what it meant to be human.

For the remainder of that day, Nyx didn't let him out of her sight. She sat with him at the work table, at first fiddling distractedly with one of the datapads while he pored over all the situational information available, then watching the birds nesting in the olive trees in the yard. When the time came for sleep, she followed him into his room, and waited on the bed. Without any verbal communication, every bit of her body language told him she was going to stay there one way or another.

Unable to argue and not even sure it was possible to convince her otherwise, Lucas simply gave in.

That was how he woke the following day, with Nyx curled up peacefully against him, as close as she could get.

It had been a long time since he had slept in the same bed as anyone.

Wandering through the house after waking, he exchanged brief morning greetings with Falcon and Cat, both of whom were apparently very early risers. Then it was to the kitchen for coffee -- he preferred to make it himself, a daily ritual that he wouldn't entrust to the housekeeping AI -- and while it brewed, he went over the latest updates.

The ground situation was evolving, with clear zones of control solidifying in South America and Africa. North America and Europe were more fragmented and contested, whilst most of Asia outside of the Indian subcontinent seemed undeclared, the hesitation linked to the space war's proximity.

The fleet communiqués were less revealing, probably to limit the impact on public order. The only clear information was dramatic though; the First had been decimated by some kind of explosive superweapon. This was balanced by a diversion performed by Admiral Kerensky, resulting in a human victory dubbed 'the Mars Gambit.' Finally, an ambush had destroyed Delta 1 and the Aegis, followed by what was apparently an alien withdrawal and orbital entrenchment of some kind.

The details on the last part were not clear.

He was leaning on the lounge table, sipping his freshly brewed coffee and caught up in thought about the sheer number of things going on, when Nyx came out from his bedroom. In a nightshirt and pajama pants, she ambled over to him, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

"Good morning." He said it anyhow, knowing it wouldn't get a response. "After I've had this," he lifted the coffee in indication, "we'll get something to eat."

She stared inquisitively at the steaming-liquid-filled cup, then lazily back to him.

"Maybe I'll make an omeletta or some fried bread. I think Badger-"

Her hand on his left arm stopped him, and then Nyx was standing up straighter. Her body seemed to tense, her eyes narrowing in a way very unlike her, shoulders pushing back, lips pursing.

[ We must talk, Lucas Thessaloniki. ]

His grip tightened on the cup handle out of pure shock, his throat constricting.

It was like a different person, a split personality had taken control.

With care, he placed the cup on the table next to him.

"You- ... you aren't her. She doesn't know language," he croaked. "Who- ... what ... are you?"

[ Very perceptive. I live within Nyx, but I am not human. ] The head tilted and she blinked. [ The last of five, reborn into a new body. Her actions, those you believe impossible, were inspired by my influence. ]

Not human?

Despite the insanity of the moment, Lucas forged on.

"Then, the war-" he tried, pausing to rephrase, but he failed to think of any better way to say it. "Our enemy, they're yours too?"

[ They are the enemy of all life. A mistake your kind and mine may fix together. ]

"How?"

[ I gift to you a memory of when I walked the world you call Lucere. ] The hand grasping his arm rose, the girl's expression serene, and she touched his cheek very lightly. [ From this, you will know what you must know, and nothing more. ]

His vision grew misty. Colour flashed, and Lucas' reality shifted in an unnerving sensory dislocation. Existence wavered, and he was immersed in a new and foreign setting.

An alien recollection.

He was walking through an immense city, a nexus of colour and light. Wide sweeping boulevards ran between mountainous crystalline structures larger and more intricately wrought than any human edifice. Glittering conduits of advanced energy wove around towering works of monumental geometric artistry, and threaded through technological artifacts so advanced that he had no conception of what they did.

In the sky, the famous glowing clouds, enhancing the mystique.

Next to him was a physical version of whatever alien spirit inhabited Nyx; the previous resident species of Lucere. Four arms, more than twice Lucas' human height, with an alternating layered musculature and skin that seemed some blending of metal and organic. Four eyes, vaguely but not decisively felinoid facial features, and an air that suggested noble tenacity and patient intelligence.

From his own perspective, he too was wearing a similar body, reviewing the memory as if he were living it himself then and there.

"You described this choice as a difficult honour." A voice issued from within his throat, heavy and deep, and he realised he was the speaker. The words were like no Earth language, but he understood them as if English or Greek. "Tell me why it is mine, friend Dagen."

"The honour is in the ending we create," the other replied, the dialogue mingling with the thump of dual footfalls on the walkway, the pair treading the avenue through an alien city. "The difficulty in bearing witness to so much destruction before that end. There are four ready, good Mesot, and we have our roles. My brother Sulin, the Master. Kirak of Garet-Sul and her sister Kelor, the Guardians. Myself, the Seer. You will be the fifth."

"For what role would you call on I, devoted of Meset's principles?" His arms moved, gesturing with the speech. "I have no martial prowess as the great Kirak does, nor do I possess the famed will of your brother's strategic mind."

"Indeed not," Dagen agreed. "Four of us -- myself and the others named -- will follow a different path upon our return, if all goes to my best intent. You though, good Mesot? You have a philosopher's consideration, and Meset's discipline of thought will open a way to you that no other can discern."

"Through what means," Mesot asked, "is this way allowed?"

"Your host shall bear a genetic marking, and it will grant you the unified force, but of a kind different again from Master, Guardian, and Seer. Yours is a boon of adaptation, and when you are joined with her, your unified mind alone may turn the Enemy's own strength against it." Dagen gave a grunt of what could only be dissatisfaction. "What sadness it is that I cannot perceive how you will achieve this feat, or today's war might have another outcome."

"And then what follows?"

"You will meet a warrior of the same younger race, these 'humans', and you will travel with him to his homeworld."

Warrior? Younger race? Lucas didn't understand the meaning of half the conversation, but one thing was clear. They were talking about humans, about him.

"Once you are there, the Enemy will strike the planet in a final attempt to recreate the wound of old. When this occurs, you must deliver to the warrior this very memory and my message therein." There, Dagen turned to Mesot, and Lucas could feel the eyes upon him -- not the body he was watching from, but himself, the human viewer, as if this alien was addressing him personally through time and space from some incredibly vast distance, right into his very heart.

Into his soul.

"Hear me, Lucas Thessaloniki. If the female you defend, Mesot's host, is captured or killed before they can work their skill, then your world will be overrun and devoured. Should this come to pass, the Enemy will breach the Veil so completely that no victory through my brother's godlike power will be enough to stop the dissolution of cosmic foundations and the end of all life. Understand this well: she must live -- and through her your world and race -- until the boy Shay Andersen and Yugan the Unifier return."

Even through the vision, Lucas felt chilled by the sentiment.

All of this seemed impossible.

It was so bizarre it had to be a fever dream, or a hallucination.

Yet, he trusted his own senses well, and he had no reason to dismiss this apparent fantasy as false.

It had to be real.

"That is all the wisdom you would pass to him?"

"The future is a subtle knife. One may slice with its knowledge in any direction but only with great care." Dagen's head dipped slightly, his arms waving along with the words, the light of Lucere's sun glinting off the texture of his shoulders. "There is one last caution I offer. He will be joined by a companion who appears faithful, and claims to serve those he trusts. Beware! This is a ruse! Identify the betrayer and kill them immediately."

Ruse? A betrayer?

He had no further time to dwell on the words, nor take in the complete amazement of alien architecture and the glimpses of an advanced non-human civilisation, because after Dagen's warning, his vision went hazy again, and then he was blinking.

Back at Thasos, the Aegean, Greece.

Earth, not Lucere.

She was withdrawing her hand from his face, solemn and wise.

[ Now do you understand? ] The human voice had echoes of the alien personality, even though the language, tone, timbre could not have been more different; serious, thoughtful, calculating. [ Protect her. Protect me. We will speak again, but later. I cannot risk the other humans realising, and one is about to enter this room. ]

Her shoulders dropped slightly, her body relaxing as control was relinquished, and Nyx -- the real human Nyx -- frowned in confused irritation. Lucas hadn't managed to collect his thoughts enough to say a word, and she was already glancing toward the far lounge entrance to the downstairs, expectant.

That second, Cat walked through it.

"Lucas." She was skimming a datapad, her forehead crinkled in skeptical mistrust. "Got a private-band bounce on a restricted channel. It's a message from a 'Cousin Danny' saying that he's sent a friend to visit you. Do you want me to acknowledge received and confirm?"

Lindani?

"I- .. uh, yeah." He found his voice. "I've got a security key. If the friend's is a match, forward the location and do a background."

"Got it. Already ran a basic anyway. Wasn't expecting an Arab."

"You find anything? What's his name?"

"Nothing. He's some green field techie. Syrian background. Name is Amal." She told him. "Amal Khaled."