Chapter 2
Jarys
“Unchained this is Vorynx, going silent, copy,”
“Copy Vorynx, good hunting, over and out,”
The comm died with a click, the lights in the cockpit followed. He arced over the crest of one of the innumerable craters that dotted the moon, the ashen grey dirt barely a hundred metres below, the thin atmosphere a pale blue against the stars.
The pallid yellow of the instruments tracked the progress to the target. At the 20 klik mark he signalled his team with a thought in the aether. Near.
Behind him he heard armour lock and magazines clip. With a thought his own helmet locked in place as he rose. He continued piloting the ship using the aether as he headed to the ramp and picked up his rifle.
He checked its battery, 94% charge. He felt the presence of his two companions behind him as he mentally lowered the ship down in the centre of a smaller crater near the target.
Gases hissed out as the ramp lowered and he stepped foot on the soft sand. Gravity was lower than usual here, but the bulk of his armour kept his fairly grounded, and where that didn’t work there was always the aether. The moved up the sides of the crater to the lip, the male on his right stepped ahead and crouched with his macro binoculars to take a look.
His armour was only a few shades darker than the dirt here, but on the shoulder was a dirty worn yellow with a sigil of a Vorynx breaking from its cage.
“No signs of alert, approach looks clear,” Maeson said with scratchy tones. Jarys had met Maeson on Chorvi VI, the main base of the Sons of Kessel, three years after joining, he’d been liberated from slavery in red marble mines whose dust had left him with a scratchy voice. He was the first other Aethan Jarys had found alive, recognising him from the gathering so long ago Maeson had immediately obeyed Jarys as all Aethans must do before a Guardian. He had been a farmer when the slavers came, father to two children, they along with his wife had been taken on a separate ship and he had not seen them in the 20 years since. Now he served as the anvil of their team, Jarys the hammer.
“Selaena, take position there,” he directed with the aether to the third member of the team, and the only other Aethan he had found. They had found Selaena literally chained to a bed in a brothel on Toydaria, sedated out of her mind for likely the whole five years since she had been enslaved. It had taken nearly a year for her to recover physically…but mentally…she barely spoke to anyone, even Jarys. She served as the sniper and infiltration expert in their team, always at a distance watching their backs…given the mutilations she inflicted on any slavers she got within reach of….it was probably better that way.
The three of them made up Vorynx squad, though the smallest it was still the most deadly unit the Sons of Kessel had, three aethans, one a Guardian, all capable of unleashing aetheric attacks and co-ordinating in a battle meld, “better than Jedi,” Keison called them.
The Sons of Kessel were dedicated to freeing slaves across the galaxy, and ending slavers, they had accepted Jarys and helped him find two of his people. With every mission they undertook they hoped to find another…but in a galaxy this big, and twenty years after the fact they all knew it was all but impossible…but apart from each other…that thin hope was all they had.
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War…war had been his constant companion since he had been torn from Aethas.
Across the moonscape lay a mining facility, twenty or so slum like prefabs, a main processing building and landing zone marked out by red lights nearby. There were no ships today. He could sense the numbers even from here, their pain and despair made them strong in the currents of the aether. 200 odd slaves, 30 guards, a small operation mining yellow sapphires, small but every slave was one too many.
The slaves were mainly underground, but some wandered about the camp, the atmosphere was barely breathable, keeping them weak whilst the guards all had breathers suited to their race.
This was todays battlefield…this was the next theatre in which the war he had fought for twenty years would play out.
Jarys gave the order with his mind. Move.
Crouched he and Maeson circled around the camp on opposite sides, Selaena took position as instructed.
He lay prone and crawled forward using the aether to keep he dust around him settled as he approached the main building. He could sense the dull bored guards nearby, a few scattered in the middle, most underground, and some in the armour/command post near the landing zone on Maesons side.
Slowly carefully he came beside two of them. With practised swiftness he leapt up, his blade slicing into one throat then the next, the grey dirt soaking up the battles first blood, the aether to sheathed his blade as he pulled the flopping forms to the ground, aether suppressed dust or noise.
On the other side he could sense Maeson working his way through with the detached brutality of a soldier who knew nothing but war.
One by one he brought down four more and headed to the main building. Slowly up the metal grate stairs, the door at the top opened, a well armoured Rodian exited turning to look right into the silenced blaster bolt Jarys sent between his eyes. He dragged the corpse into the control room, scanned the equipment for the announcement system. Fortunately the muster control was pre-recorded, he didn’t need to synth a voice. He hit it then readied his rifle and positioned himself behind the door.
As the alarm blared as the guards and slaves came out of the mine. He sensed the guards go from bored to alert as they felt something amiss, as they felt the tremors of silen war. He settled his mind into the over consciousness of an aetheric battle meld. It would guide and organise their actions, drawing upon all their senses, memories and abilities in a mind greater than the sum of its parts.
As the last of the guards and slaves came into place he gently opened the door. War ended and butchery began.
His eye needlessly on his rifles scope a precise ballet of 16 shots began, Jarys, Maeson and Selaena blasted the heads off all the remaining guards in a matter of seconds, their aim, speed and targets all determined by their battle meld. This was what made Vorynx squad the undisputed best.
The slaves scattered, Jarys left the meld and commed in the support ships.
Today’s battle was over.
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The Sons of Kessel were not simply a military outfit, three large transports full of medics and other support workers arrived to ferry the slaves to temporary accommodation in the republic. They were funded by donations from individuals and companies in the Republic, channelled through intermediaries to avoid reprisals - they couldn’t openly support such a violent organisation, indeed many abolitionists in the republic considered them as bad as the slavers they slaughtered. But Jarys cared little for the politics of it.
Jarys looked out over the lines of people wandering up the ramps still in shock, trying to sense anything more than despair…the thin hope that one day he might find Cilina kept him going…but after so many years…any aethan would be welcome.
He gazed at the long line, his eyes were drawn to a stumbling woman, long greasy matted hair, streaked with grey. Something about her was familiar…he reached out…normally every slave was as dead to the aether as other people, but this one suddenly stopped, turned and stared at him with dead eyes.
Selaena and Maseon sensed it too, they rushed toward her and pulled her out of line. Jarys arrived as they had seated her on a crate and give her a bottle to drink from. He looked at the beaten, half healed face…and the scarred ruined eyes…
He thought back to his younger years…what he had done in the arena a lifetime ago…the irony that this aethan had lost her sight was not lost on him….he looked carefully as she reached to him in the aether…he recognised her…
“Mother…,”
“Jarys…” her hands reached out to him finding his face with the aether as he knelt before her…it was Kassyndra, his mother in law, Cilinas mother…
“I thought…I’d hoped,”
“Hush now mother there will be time…”
“No…” she yelled startling them all “there has been too much time….”
Her head bowed as she cried,
“Forgive me Guardian, I failed…I should’ve killed them…but I…I wanted so much to see my daughters again…I lived in hope instead of killing what abominations I could…”
He rose before her and placed his hands on her shoulders, it had been sometime since he had to do the duty of a Guardian,
“You’re forgiven mother…” he took a serious tone as his eyes watered with grief at what she had endured, and pride that she still kept her traditions after all this time, “Do you know of any others?”
“Korrys from the coast worked with me on a farm on a world called Nal Shursha, but that was years ago, he died during our escape attempt…that was when…” she motioned to her eyes…
“We reached a city and he killed dozens of the filth that day…but it was not enough,”
“I understand….”
“and Jarys,” she opened her arms and he sat beside her, placing his arm around her,
“Soon after we were taken I sensed things…even across who knows how far…something happened to Shilea…something terrible…I was screaming all night…and Cilina…I sensed pain then joy from her echoed across he aether for a time…it was similar to when a woman bears a child,”
That was the last straw, Jarys wept openly, Maeson did too, Selaena sat on the other side of Kassyndra and held her.
After a time, Kassyndra spoke again, “Guardian I have lived too long like this, by the aether and the eyes of the Lady herself, please finish what I cannot…I feel my time is come now, I feel it in the winds…having told you this I am reconciled to my earlier failure….”
He nodded gravely, she had observed all the formalities. The line-up had all but passed, no one would see them…none of them would understand. As he held her in one arm, he place his other hand on her chest, she clasped it in hers.
“do not let my death go unavenged,” she whispered
“It will not…,” he replied,
“It will not,” Maeson added,
Selaena nodded gravely
Just a little jolt from Jarys and Kassynrda was enough, the electricity surged through her overloading and destroying each nerve in her body in an instant, the smell of charred flesh soon became apparent. The three Aethans bowed their heads in mourning.
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It was even quieter than usual on the Vorynx…after Kassyndra had died he had cremated her with aetheric fire…he wished to take her back to Aethas...but that was the great pain.
He had a ship, skill to pilot it…but he didn’t know where it was. It was on no star chart he had searched, when he was taken he knew nothing of astrography, it could be one of a million stars perhaps DC_10004563, or DC_10004564…he could find no record, it was one of millions explored in the deep core…then forgotten or lost amongst the ever changing hyperspace corridors as fluctuations in gravity opened and closed. A thousand lifetimes and he would still never find it.
He flicked through his galaxy map idly, Cilina could be on any of them…anywhere…if she was alive…he knew most would be dead by now…perhaps she would’ve stayed alive to have a child…but would she tolerate living in slavery…Jarys doubted it…he had to be realistic…as much as he would love to find her…even if he did what state would she be in…what state would any child raised a slave be in….a child corrupted by the violence of slavery…he would have to fulfil his role as a Guardian and kill it out of mercy.
He gazed out the viewport into the tunnel of hyperspace, the blues and whites of stars distorted into a curious tube….there was nothing for him out there…there was nothing for him in here…they were as empty as each other…No world, no children, no way to rebuild…
He sighed heavily and ran his hand over his face, as if trying to wipe off the despair…he would just go on as he had…looking for was scraps he could find...helping them die as a Guardian should….a grim task lit by a distant star of false hope…all he had.
