Shadows of the Aether

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 13 - Confession - Part 2

497BBY - Nihil Retreat

“All this…” she lay on the deck, fists tight in frustration under the weight of the Yokusei, her access to her power cut as soon as countless millions had died to an Apocalypse of Anzat and Aethan power. 

She had no sympathy for the Rhandite Elite who believed in their putrid philosophy, nor millions of slaves who had the misfortune to be born beneath the Sorcerers rule perishing with them, though it betrayed her adoptive father Soryu’s most cherished teachings of the value of all life.

She protested not the Apocalypse, but the Compulsion forced upon her.
“...for what?”

“I will find my children Witch…” he breathed hard over her
“...and Your treacherous delays will be severely punished,” reminding her this devastation was, in part, the product of her vain attempts to delay him.

“Why are you like this?,” she sniffed as she trembled with exhaustion and tears, wet emerald eyes staring helpless into his bloody red glare of aristocratic disdain, that for a brief instant wavered with something approximating empathy…a gnawing desire to reach out and help her rise to her feet.

Clamping down he attributed such weakness to his fatigue and troubled wa after such exertion.

“Who are you?” she asked, “Truly, beneath all these titles and powers, what kind of man were you?”

I am Rannek-Soma Mare Q’Atrox.  The despised and unworthy son of Jeshu the Wise whose judging shadow never leaves me.

He, Paragon of his Era, Conqueror, Statesman, Feared and Respected above all…died ingloriously, slipping on a rock with a Iuzbata, a prostitute whom the guards ruined with questioning, incredulous such a great Anzat could die so accidentally.  The Hama, manager of the Iuzbata, demanded compensation for silence - I paid, but the filth sold the tale of my father's shame to every other caste.

I rage, in confusion, in youthful ignorance I fed on her. 

I was not the first Anzat to feed on another - I was worse. 

I was the first to escape punishment due to my station.  I longed for the taste of Anzat once more and drew others into my depravity, the Gaki - young vicious hedonistic nobles.

I waged more wars, conquered more lands and gathered more treasure than my father could have dreamed...and committed more sins than can be counted in doing so. 

I was cursed for it

You shall not die till every ghost you have made has had is fill of vengeance upon you

I sneered at the words. The two centuries that followed were of glorious joy, I delighted in my twins, son and daughter, though cursed my folly in treating their mother, dying in childbirth, so poorly. 

It was the first sign of the curse in action, though in my blindness I knew not.

The punishment for my sins fell upon my children.

The Great Sorrow - they vanished shortly after leaving Anzat prime for a tour of the Core.

I spent everything I had, ruined my domain to scour the galaxy, killed and fed on more beings than I could count, whilst the Kuru, the mental degradation caused by animopaphagy, began to turn my Gaki mad. 

There were still wars to be fought - I needed to defend my Domain to keep providing resources for my search - against the Sith, Hutts, Mandalorian Crusaders, Krath, and others as galactic empires rose and fell.  They all melded into one as my frustrated obsession with finding my children ate what little of my soul remained.

I watched as the Evokation squandered its chances to become a great empire because I would not lead it, watched as the fear of being fed on and temptation of feeding on the delicacies of other species scattered the Anzat across the galaxy.

For every ghost that had its vengeance I created two more as I slaughtered and fed through the millenia, alternating between violent spiteful crusades searching, and depressed solitude, my castles and fortresses slowly crumbling around me.

The Kuru, for whatever reason, came to me late, drip by drip.  More and more I was forced to hibernate to deaden the terrified screams of my victims' last moments swirling through my head, till ever more millenia passed in the same sick cycles of stasis, searching and sorrow.

All the while secretly hoping for relief, either to find my children or…

To finally die.

He said none of this to the Witch.

The last chance in his life to truly unburden himself to any being was lost to him.

He stared at her hopeless, trembling form on the ground, wanting so much to help her up, to give and receive a non violent touch for the first time in centuries, to experience even an echo of what it was to stand tall by stooping to help a child.

His pride, his station, his tainted honour were barriers enough, let alone his curse…

For that which caused his children to suffer…he would not allow himself even that ephemeral moment of connection. 

He left her sobbing on the floor.  His children awaited him.

<<<<>>>>

3947 BBY — Aethas

“Where is she?” Atris stood at the sealed door to the operating theatres in the med centre, her own donation scars mildly itching under her tunic.

The Old Man barred her path.

“It’s not your concern, you’re not in command of the colony. Yet”

“Yet is the key word,” Atris replied, righting herself to a more ‘Jedi Master’ stance..

“I was prepared to tolerate much for my freedom, but this is abhorrent if it’s true,”
She still had some hope what Alixa had proudly said offhandedly about Mira being harvested for the Genesis Deus project was untrue.

“It…was necessary,” the Old Man Replied, but his voice was wavering, the bluster he had when they first spoke was lost as age and dissonance caught up to him.

“You don’t believe that, indeed I can sense you disagree with much of what is happening here.  Why are you not only allowing, but helping it happen.”

“It’s necessary.” he snapped a flicker of the old rage alive for but a moment
“You agreed to let Varas work, and he needs his resources,”

“Perhaps so but there are better ways to do things than incapacitating and forcibly removing eggs from a woman - you should have offered her credits first,”

“This was the last piece, there won’t be a next time,” the Old Man said as if it justified the latest act of theft.

“This is wearing you down Gray, you’ve seen much, done more, but you can’t escape something deep within that is tearing you up with guilt and shame, and your rage is no longer strong enough to hide it” Atris judged him all too accurately.
“Who are you Old Man, who are you truly?”

I am Kar Xandir. 
Son of Kor’Xan’Dir and Lyv’Ya’Cam.  Brother of Klu and Kay Xandir. Husband of Nye’La’Rin, Father of Jem’Li’Xandir.  Knight of the Mak’Tor.

My Clan joined the Jedi in the War against Exar’Kun.
My Wife died, my Sister consoled me.
My Sister Died. My daughter consoled me.
My Daughter Died…

I could not let go.

For a decade I kept her body in cryogenic freeze, willing her lips to move once more.  My brother pleaded for me to give up, my niece and nephew as well.

I could not.

I found a man, a genius, a visionary. Soron Varas.

A man who knew no limits in his pursuit of proving his brilliance in genetic manipulation.  A man who could do what I could not.

I gave him my daughter's body, he extracted her eggs.  He needed more - I desecrated my wife, my sister's, my parents ossuaries for genetic material.

He created for me and himself children.  Alixa and Varasian, with his Miraluka wife as surrogate. The Authorities found out about his breaching of so many laws it defied listing. 

My Brother...pleaded for me to seek forgiveness from the Maker. 

I struck him. We fought. I ran.

I don’t know if he survived.

The wealthy who saw potential in Varas funded a colony world in the Deep Core, beyond all laws and restraint. 

I was running from my crimes, I had to protect Alixa and Varasian...I joined him and committed so many more since.

He promised me he could ensure I never saw a child or grandchild die before their parents, I could always keep Alixa and Varasian safe.  I did all he asked.

I still do.

I do not understand the scope of his plans, I do not care, I only want my children, and their children to live, to thrive, stronger with each generation so they never know the pain I have felt.

I run from my name.  My family. From the Maker I say I do not believe in.

I am old...so tired...But for Alixa, for Varasian and for the generations that follow, I must go on.

He said none of this to Atris, he held his ground, he was too far gone to turn back.

“I am an old soldier, nothing more,” 

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 13 - Confession - Part 3

497BBY - Way of Schesa Hyperspace Lane

“There will be no delays, no treachery, no witchcraft or sorcery,” his voice was the sharp blade of steel being drawn.

Rannek walked along the kneeling ranks of his Oblivion clad vassals, behind each was a Teppo-gami with a rifle pushed into the back of their necks. Druhanne followed him as he oversaw Lek’un servants attempting to erect an appropriate throne from what goods they could scavenge about the ship.

At the corner of his vision he could see the ghosts of his victims, obdurate need to complete this next step on his long Quest for his Children keeping them at bay for the moment.

“You will direct this vessel and your escorts to the planet Aethas, in the interim…you will tell me all you know of the planet…and why the Witch attempted to keep me from it.”  his eyes passed over the whole of the eighteen Oblivion Warriors present, the Shadow burning into them more intensely with his gaze.

“You, speak!” his eyes fixed on Taryn, the one whose expression was the most defiant, seeking to break the leader of any attempt at resistance.
“What know you of the world Aethas?”

Taryn tried to hold his tongue, but the Shadow pressed like a vice around his head and heart, as if he would be burst apart by the darkness.

“It’s our homeworld…” he finally blurted despite himself
“She didn’t tell you cause…the kids are all there, our families, barely defended”

Rannek nodded understanding at last, and pleased the Yokusei seemed far more efficacious on the men than the women of this species, though still incredible it affected them at all.

“Then you are responsible for stealing my adored children,” he growled, regardless of when and how, in wars between Kindes of Anzat guilt was always transferred across generations.

“What defenses will be present?”

“Four ships like our escorts, six Verdari heavy troops, 162 Yuuzhan Vong soldiers, at least 18 other adult women.”

Rannek appeared incredulous, pulsing another wave of compulsion into the Aethan, but finding no deception.

“You are truly so few…” a thin half smile twisted his corrupted highborn features
“...all the easier,”

“Comis, arrange a plan of attack with these, I want every threat eliminated to ensure my search is uninterrupted,” he ordered his Lek’un military chief, then glared back at the Aethans with a pulse of the Yokusei,

“They will provide useful strategic and tactical advice,” the Anima intensided the choking Shadow upon them ensuring they would comply, yet the backwash upon Rannek was rapid with the oily stink of the Kuru assailing him strongly.

“Efendi, I take my ablutions,”

Druhanne dutifully led him to the room he had, as far as possible, made comfortable for his Hanshõ, the Witch struggling with each step behind him as always. 

Rannek would not let the treacherous and powerful woman out of his sight.

The Clucir’s pace quickened, the blue-grey panels of the corridor were starting to bleed rank black fluids, fingers were prying the walls open from within - screaming faces were pushing out from the floor.

He Had to Meditate immediately, he had pushed his Anima far, the Kuru could only be held at bay….

“...so long, just a little more, a few days is all I require, then I will be recovered and the search will resume,” he faltered as he stood, Druhanni helping steady him as the Apothecaries busied themselves with their various medicines - all he knew were ineffective.

He knew exactly what had brought on his sudden stillness in the midst of battle - the Kuru that had eluded him for so many years he thought, in hopeful pride, himself immune had finally come for him.

There was no time for this, the bas rebels of the Sabaku needed to be suppressed to keep the ores flowing up the Tokaido road to his munitions factories, the Trudenn were stockpiling equipment and weapons from offworld sources, they must be preparing a challenge, and he could not allow that.

The Q’Atrox needed to maintain control to supply resources for his search.  The Efendi bowing and leaving him alone Rannek finally relaxed, reclining upon the gossamer and silken bed…

…falling to the cold hard deck,
“Hanshõ!,” Druhanne cried immediately summoning the Apothecary to place smelling salts under his nose, trying to lift his large still heavily armoured master up,

The figure stood at the end of his settee. Rannek leapt up blade in hand, slicing at the intruder.

But the Tanto did nothing more than cause a ripple in the rotten mist of the figure -the Hama! after all this time how…

Blood sprayed across the party as Rannek slashed the Apothecaries throat open, his eyes glazed over, Druhanne and his servants bustling to try and take the weapon from his hand.

Milaea saw the madness was taking him once more and looked for a chance.

The Hama was no longer alone, they were everywhere.  He had called on their fragments and reopened the door for them to accost his mind.

And among them with tear stained face trembling in fear was his Misíta.

The violence of his rage covered his face as surely as the blood, the twitching naked body of the courtesan prone on the bed, the head falling off the edge, bloody nostrils dripping brain fluids and blood onto the floor.

He fumbled over to grab his daughter before she screamed or ran as the courtesans ghostly form rose from the bed to join the others that reached toward him.

Ancient hands gripped Milaea’s arms as the world twisted about her, corners of the larger of the cabins darkened - then moved.

She felt Ranneks grip on her tighten as if seeking comfort and safety - a child clutching its mother - as the wavering darkness became to form on columns of smoke that morphed into the skeletal faces of Anzat.

Noses distended and broken, eyes all a glassy black, their vengeful stares convicted the Clucir for using the power he had eaten from their Souls along with their lives.

Bony fingers formed from tendrils of the eldritch mist reaching out toward him and his daughter, he growled to try and deter them - yet could not escape what was so indelibly  part of him.

From the floors and ceilings arms reach out to grab them, all concern for the Rhandite fleet lost as Faveah shrieked at the sight of the overwhelming Price of Rannek’s incredible powers.

Mouths opened wider than should be possible, vast gaping whorls with smog formed gnashing teeth, sharpened proboscis from rotten heads of Noble and commoner alike, Rannek twisted away from them, taking Milaea with him - unwilling to let go of her.

“Back!” he hissed, “You’ll not take my Misíta!”

At the fore of the smoke melded ghosts, a large figure emerged, in antiquated plated armour, his face broad and creased by a grim smile.

Rannek seemed to recognise this one more than the others shuffling back further - but from every wall the hands were cracking out, they could no longer see the Obelisks or the floor, just a testing writhing morass of faces and hands that began to claw up their legs and down their backs.

He knew he had pushed himself too much, the Kuru was growing in concert with his use of his Yokusei and Anima.  But he would not concede defeat, not until he had his Children safe and secure in his Storm Hold!

Milaea pushed against him even as she tried to pry off the amorphous hands that plucked at her Kimono, twisted her head away from the ghostly proboscis that sought her nose. 

This was the Anzat’s curse.

Let him have it, she thought - if she could break his grasp….

“Stay with me Misíta!” he pleaded to her, Druhanne and the Lek’un confused and aghast as he gripped the Witch for dear life as the Kuru assailed him.

Rannek  would not let her go, his grip on her shoulders turned to an arm around her neck, pulling her close to him.

Despite herself Milaea had no choice but to help him - quickly realising how limited his techniques were.

Rannek was a Warlord, an aristocrat for whom occult things were viewed with suspicion and disgust, beneath his station. 

He had accrued enormous power but never undertaken training, the blunt extremity of his power enough to enact his Will upon Reality - arguably the ultimate in simplicity and the sign of True power.

He pushed the wraiths away one by one, but only a few ‘meters’ - he didn’t fully appreciate the metaphysical plane upon which this attack was occuring, that the limitations of the physical world need not apply here.

Rotten nails scratched at her legs and hair, she and Rannek were at the core of a sphere of the hungry vengeful dead cloaked in rotten black blood clawing to subsume them as he dragged her into his tormented psyche by virtue of their recent force connection.

With a grimace of resignation she bit back into him as just he had into her to destroy the Rhandites, siphoning his power once more - her eyes in the mental horizon flared with crimson fire that blasted in every direction.

The oily rotten flesh dried then crackled to dust, bodies flared into mist one by one under her concentrated blast, using Ranneks own power more efficiently than he had ever done.

The scene around them was shifting, wall twisted into recent memory after image of the Obelisks, themselves morphing into wooden columns, into shoji a grand throne behind them one moment, a fragrant hearth the next as the Abyss of his Memory twisted and jumbled them through moments centuries apart.

She burnt through ghosts of Anzat, Lek’un, Massassi, even Taung Mandalorians - every species he had fed upon, inflicting an ironic second death using the power their first death had given Rannek.

Milaea was using him as much as he was using her now for her own survival, biting deeper into the Abyssal depths of his power to shatter the madness that was the price.

Twisting out of his grip she managed to ‘weave’ her hands in intricate patterns a sphere of crimson flame surrounding them, a metaphysical firewall that sliced many in half, plummeting their corpses to the fires ‘below’ and ‘above’ - there was no up or down here.

Digging her ethereal ‘fangs’ further in she drained more and more of his power, it was enormous but not infinite - there were limits - but far beyond anything she had imagined.

Unconsciously she was using the very same consumption method she had seen Taryn and the men use on the near dead Taung and Cultists.

It felt natural, easy - and Rannek felt it too - an all too consuming sensation - yet for the first time he was the one being fed on. The distance of the ghosts allowed his lucidity to return.

The fire around him strengthened further, the Phantoms of his Sins thrashed against it, burning themselves in their painless advance, but for now unable to break through, and only diminishing their vast - but still finite - number in the process.

Her claws in his soul began to twist to his very core, his mind calmed enough to see he was gripping the Witch for dear life, his Misíta still long missing.

With a guttural grunt he threw her into the ground.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 13 - Confession - Part 4

497BBY - Way of Schesa Hyperspace Lane

“My Lord!” Druhanne gasped as Milaea balled up on the floor

“Leave….” he growled trying to right himself, Druhanne rushing to assist.

“LEAVE!”

Obedient as ever his servants departed leaving the Gaki and Witch alone, shattered.

He was crashed against the floor and a large bed, his armour a mess of tassels and buckles, the Witch all but undressed from the ruination of her Kimono.

Milaea coughed, righting herself best she could, her face full of hate for the Anzat across from her.

“...Witch, Death Demon…” his eyes narrowed scrutinising her closer, trying to blink away the after image of Faveah he saw in her features.

Her super human endurance allowed her to sit upright, defiantly looking down on him for once.

“...something worse…” his voice was ragged as his face was rotten with exhaustion - and yet his mind was steady - the Witches Fire had cleansed him of the Kuru’s grasp quicker than anything he had known - it would not last- nothing ever did.  But he only needed long enough to find his beloved twins.

He could no longer stem his need to understand how she was able to stem the Kuru, why she was afflicted by the Yokusei.

“What are you...” he rasped as Milaea held his gaze.

I am the First, and Last daughter of a Broken People.

Born to an enslaved father and a murdered mother, the greatest Warrior and Seeress bloodlines mingle in my veins. By right of birth inheritor of the pinnacle of my species power.

The Powers of a dead Goddess, the apex of Technocracy gene editing, Force Infusement and selective breeding, were appended to that I was born with by my desperate frightened uncle.

I was raised by the last man in centuries who could claim the title Jedi without the caveat of Knight, used by the Order, my People and above all the Goddesses whose Chosen - whose Pawn - I have always been since they plotted my very conception.

So many times I thought I was taking a more merciful, more compassionate path in extricating my People from one near fatal disaster to the next - away from the heat of the crisis I see it was all their Divine Plan moving through me.

I can’t be separated from the Goddesses that use me - for I am a fundamental part of the sentient Overmind that comprises them - I influence them by being a part of them even as they place me where and how I am needed to ensure their goals - the reflection of my Peoples Will for War, Fertility, Knowledge, and above all Survival and Perfection - are achieved.

Unique among my species I know I’m the tool of the Goddesses. 

I no longer try to fight it.

The values my compassionate merciful adoptive father tried to gift to me are long gone. The biological schema the Technocracy built dissolved all nurture attempted.

I will Love my nieces and nephews, Family, People - and now think nothing of using the incredible power the Goddesses have Blessed and Damned me with for genocide, enslavement, torture and theft - all to protect those I hold dear -

Just. Like. You.

She said none of this.

The chance to reveal to him that she too was inexorably falling into an abyss of her own biology, the one being who could possibly understand the burden of supreme powers and the slow fall from the edge of the cliff of reason - was lost.

Her cold rage at how his existence had put her nieces and nephews in a coma, had beaten and broken Ari and her sisters, controlled and used her, was barely throttled by the Yokusei that chained her to his service and prevented her killing him.

Her face twitched in a vicious sneer that reminded Rannek too much of his own.

“I am the Goddess that will watch you burn,”

<<<<>>>>

[TheDutchman]

And so after all this time--across centuries, millennia, cultures dead, dying, desperately fighting for Survival--we come to a shared instant of Revelation:

The Abomination whose sole salvation resides in an impossible quest to restore his long-lost children to his family to the exclusion of all else: his sanity, his station, his planet, his responsibility.  All the while suffering the throes of the very real curse imparted upon him by an ancient enemy, whose own prophecy echoes throughout the Abyss of Time.

The Apostate whose brilliant, farseeing, husband with unrelenting vision of purpose perverts the very motive of her motherhood, not as a parent but rather a progenitor.

The Fallen Knight whose very guilt both empowers and condemns his actions, those undeniably seen as anathema by his family, the Mak'Tor Order, even himself.

The Goddess whose last vestiges of Humanity have been burnt away amidst the colossal power of the insane Force god, his own actions the impetus of her choice.

In every single one of these instances, the convictions of each is not so much questioned but rather justified, sacrificed upon the Alter of Necessity (regardless of circumstances, Real or Imagined).  Even with the revelation of each personal motive, our players run headlong into one another not as a thrall of some metaphysical being, not as a consequence of the Will of the Force, not even as an unlucky target of Karmic Fate, but rather by the decisions of every person involved.

Consider: from Rannek to Isas to Kar Xandir to Miliaea, each have themselves been used and have used that which is deemed "necessary" but still find themselves slaves to the most basic biological imperative: survival.  What is personal freedom, ethics, comfort, autonomy, honor, belief compared to such?  If nothing else, it is not only "enough" to justify any and all actions in pursuit of survival, it becomes the ONLY matter of import.

The problem then becomes one of each individual: what is one willing to sacrifice to secure such survival?  The cost to each is but a part of the narrative; certainly every single one pays in more than one way and with more than coin.  To wit: Ari had a perfect opportunity to reveal herself to her adoptive father, just as Kazic would've been given the same to requite his daughter the love he's always had but misused...a commonality that our players also seem all too ready to trade for said survival.

But is that enough?

Whatever the answers that the future holds, I posit that they will be both abundantly acceptable and woefully inadequate.  Case(s) in point: Soron Varas' generational plans are brilliant and, ultimately, doomed, Genesis Deus almost undone by the almost-extinction of the Devastation; Rannek's sole grace residing in his children who have been lost to him throughout Time and Space; Miliaea's reluctant Humanity, gifted to her by her surrogate father, only to lose it amidst the realization that she has embraced the genetic imperative.  These represent the incredible contrariety that is both solution and problem.

Meta-note: OUTSTANDING chapter!  Answering the questions we had while instilling a precarious feeling of upcoming dread, LSG has woven throughout the narrative the unifying theme between the disparate threads while ratcheting up the suspense, the excitement, and--especially!--the horror.  Even if the Aethans win...what will be left?  A deepening xenophobic-turned-aggressive Aethan army intent on survival at any cost?  The resurgence of Purgio Astra?  Or perhaps something even more dire?

How can Rannek possibly be defeated?  Why are the Aethans so affected by the Yokusei?  Can the gap between Ari and Kazic (and, by extension Mili and her own Humanity) be bridged?  And what of the Rhandites?  Their armada, their colony, their society may be in chaos but they're FAR from defeated.

The travels of each party's path leading them to the now has been both elucidating while raising more questions, chief amongst them: what will become of them?

This is my new favorite chapter 

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 14 - Confrontation - Part 1

3947BBY - Aethas

She had to take the ‘long’ way - using Force concealment to avoid the Old Man, but Atris was finally inside the higher security areas of the Colony Medical Centre, a vast structure built of prefab shipping container sized modules linked together until a more permanent structure could be built.

Built in a grid pattern it was still of unnecessarily vast size, and filled with colonists, human and Miraluka in plas-coats going about their various tasks, notably loading small vials into shock resistant crates that misted icy air for transport to the Southern Pole research station.

Avoiding these she sought out the beacon of unrepentant focus within the colony, not hard as she knew that self assuredness, the belief everything you did was utterly justified all too well.

“Atris, can I assist you?” Isas said before the disgraced Jedi Master could even speak, the white haired woman well aware it was rarely possible to sneak up on a Miraluka.

“Is it true, was Mira forced to make a ‘donation’ to the Colony,”

“Her gene’s are too valuable to waste, perhaps more precious than any of ours,” the Seer noted

“Alixa implied it was not consensual,”

“No credits or prizes would have allayed Mira’s sentimental opposition. She was taken from her family, raised by the Mandalorian Crusaders, survived Malachor V, became a bounty hunter, tracker, Jedi, an astonishingly resilient woman, that is the kind of blood we need,”

“So her samples were taken without her agreement?” Atris demanded

“Varasian incapacitated her and I performed the procedure myself, the Old Man is escorting her to her ship now,”

Isas could feel the heat radiate off Atris, harvesting the Anzat who had attacked them was one thing, betraying an ally quite another.

“I will ensure she leaves safely,” the white haired former Jedi said with firmness that Isas could feel.

<<<<>>>>

497BBY - Namadii Corridor

It was smooth sailing from here - coreward along the Namadii, then the Byss Run at Teta…then things got interesting trying to go round the Ygmir Giant and the Persphaea Nova to reach Aethas.

Everything was programmed in that could be, Taryn acting in complete obedience to his new ‘master’, the high and mighty Clucir.

Yet he still tried to find ways to undermine or delay him, but each time he did the invisible fist of the Shadow smacked his Will back down, picked it up and thrust it in the direction of obedience. 
 
Even with all his shortcuts and pushing the drives hard, it was still several days to get from the Unknown Regions to the Danger Zones of the Deep Core - days that allowed them all to recover physically if nothing else.

The Shadow in the Aether fluctuated within each of them to the extent they used the aether to serve Rannek’s purpose.

Valens and Jarys used it to plan an invasion of their own homeworld with the Lek’un Comis, Taryn and Arryn to plot perfect hyper-jumps, and more than any Milaea.

Rannek never allowed her to leave his sight - now knowing she had the ability to keep the Kuru at bay longer than his own efforts, he exploited it to the full.

Worse it enabled him to stop at jump points and summon more Anzat to him without experiencing any effects of the Kuru that had previously slowed him.

Rannek stood behind Taryn on the bridge surrounded by his tentacle headed patsies, Milaea dressed in an outfit sewn for her with what few fabrics they had by the Lek’un to replace her ruined Kimono, Druhanne insistent she be well attired as befitted the unofficial ‘Court Majo’.

Despite the cruelty with which Rannek treated her, the Lek’un seemed to dote upon Milaea.

“Your treachery has not been forgotten, Witch. And it will be punished,” Rannek explained, Taryn’s stomachs tightening with indolent rage.

The Anzat’s face turned somehow more horrible in the reflection off the viewscreen as the ghost of the near smile that was all his hate wracked features could manage appeared.

“The men of your species will deliver every woman and child to me, and if I have to drill holes in your thick bones, my children and I will sup upon each one of them in turn while you watch.”

The most distributing of his words was the offhanded delusion of his children joining him, as if they might still be alive and perfectly able to sup.

“Your warriors and vessels will then serve me till they die, restoring glory to the Kinde that my Children might inherit something more than the ghostly wreck that Q’Atrox has become. With the Yokusei I will begin an ingathering of exiles, the Evokation will arise, the Wa of the Silent Voices will be restored, the Great Sorrow alleviated,”

It was patently insane, his grandiose ambitions predicate on finding these ‘Children’ of his…yet Taryn could see the pride and joy in the tentacle headed Lek’un’s eyes at the idea of reviving their twisted archaic culture.

“And you witch,” Rannek ruined face turned fully to Milaea drawing close to her, an act of transgression Taryn knew he should punish yet simply couldn’t, making his rage ball even tighter in his chest.

“Will spend your days creating a cure for the Kuru with your alchemies and witchcraft…whether you succeed or not your fate will be the same I will tear out your tongue, parade you before the Court of the Capugio, then toss you to the Pit for any wretched creature to do as it pleases to you. Then Witch, then you will know the price of betraying your oaths to the Q’Atrox by rising in rebellion against me.”

He drew his blade along the cheek slicing the cool grey skin open.

“Voices curse you!” the Spodir of Maiko spat, the glob hitting the soot covered shin plate of Ranneks armour.

“As they will your soul for consorting with Witches,” Rannek snapped

He’d half a mind to defile the Witch himself, but was wary of their witches' wyrds.

“Take her to be burned,” he ordered his Sword Kenin, Voices knew it would not be hard as the Stormhold of Maiko burnt around them, Trudenn was next after their failed attempt to unseat the Q’Atrox and not only deny Rannek the resources to continue the search for his children, but rob them of their inheritance.

Maiko had consorted with Witches of the steaming bog filled forest of Yurei ‘Ghost’ Bamboo, sacrificing his own child for their malefic help against Rannek…for all the good it did him, he would…
Wake UP!

A wall of red fire burst over Rannek’s eyes dissolving the dreams that intruded his waking moments.

Taryn shot a quick glance to Milaea, a red glow around her from breaking the Clucir from his solipsism, until the Lek’un guard hit Taryn on the back of the head to continue his work calculating the next jump.

Rannek growled with irritation at the slip, but his compulsion upon the Witch to wake him from such a ‘meditation’ ensured it lasted barely a few seconds instead of hours.

The bridge was but for the humm of engines, soft drone of air exchangers and occasionally tick as the Navicomputers sequenced out jump vectors - the calculations to reach the Deep Core via the ‘upper path’ over the Galactic Plane from Teta too complex and dangerous to trust any one computer’s results with.

Even then it took an Aethan mind to interpret and judge the options.

“...Keep the Kuru from my thoughts, Witch, as I summon more thralls,” Rannek ordered with a pulse of the Shadow that made Taryn wince, knowing it must’ve been far more painful directed at Milaea.

Her expression was drawn and bitter, a coldness Taryn had never seen before in her eyes.

And that bastard Anzat was the cause.

Closing his eye’s Taryn felt the eddies of the Yokusei wash over him as it expanded across the Sector, then the entire Quadrant, implanting in all Anzat a singular irresistible urge.

“Gather to Me” Rannek ordered, his eyes flickered open an pinned Taryn’s own.

“Where shall we next leave the Folded Portal?”

By that he must mean hyperspace.

“Before the final sequence, Empress Teta System,” Taryn replied as his throat pushed out the words despite himself.

Ranneks eyes closed, pulsing that Gathering location to Anzat far and wide.

There were only, perhaps, half a million Anzat in the Galaxy as a whole, the tiniest fraction would have the physical means to actually reach the rendezvous in time, but even a few dozen would add cannon fodder to Rannek’s force.

Over the Galactic North the scattered Anzat stopped head, bodies swaying to heed the Call of the Ancient.

Further away at the Xorth Junction Kazic Ovarug trembled in his restraints, his own blood still a souring taste in his mouth from Kiraea’s visceral warning as an indefinable certainty that somehow Aresaea was a victim of this Ancients schemes tormented his thoughts, and in a sick irony gave him the focus he needed to resist the Yokusei.   

Ranneks focus on distant Anzat, Taryn felt the pressure of the Yokusei upon himself ‘lift’ however briefly.

Taryn staggered up from his seat, the Yari-Gami Lek’un ramming his Vibro-Yari in Taryns face.
“Gaijin Sit or be slain!”

“I need to use th ‘fresher! Or would you rather I befoul the Hanshõ’s presence with excrement?” Taryn replied adopting the Lek’uns archaic phrases, unphased by the crackling weapons that sent static tingles over his skin.

The Lek’un checked with his Ranking officer who allowed it grudgingly under escort.

Rising up Taryn took careful strides, catching Milaea’s eyes when he could, blinking rapidly in Dot-Dash code, his eyelids moving faster than the Lek’un would be able to notice.

[Cover me] Taryn asked
[I’ll Try] Milaea blinked back

Closely followed they only gave him minimal privacy with the door to the refresher still open. 

He took his time unsuiting from his armour that still bore the blood and soot of the Nihil Retreat till he felt a sudden flare of release, Milaea using a burst of he metaphysical fire to ‘burn’ a little more of the Kuru and its associated Yokusei effect than was truly needed, but this time she flared it in a ‘direction’.

She was learning how to manipulate the imposed bond with Rannek, but only slowly, this was a test more than anything.

Quickly moving Taryn began singing a bawdy shanty from his days as a Runt
“‘Board the ‘rillian Corvette Veenus…You really shoul’a seen us…”

“Silence Gaijin!” was the quick response, as Taryn slid the leathery wet villip from his undersuit into his hand furthest from the door. He hated using the filthy Vong thing but it was the only way he could get a message through anywhere.
He began squeezing it in the dot-dash-squeeze code of the Extolled’s secret transmissions hoping he got the translation into Vong right.

“...with a figure head of a whore in bed and a…”

The Vibro Yari appeared in his face once more

“Hey, no privacy?”

“Enough Gaijin return to your station,”

The Shadow was already beginning to reassert itself, he just hoped the Vong were listening at the other end.

<<<<>>>>

497BBY - Corellian Run

Beneath the leering hateful eyes of the Aethans slave race - the Extolled Vong - or rather the ghola duplicates of the most loyal of them bred to serve the ‘Avatars of the Gods’ - were the Anzat slave Lek’un

Most were unconscious in a pile of barely clad bodies in the port store room of the Aethenaea already being poisoned by the radiation and Noble and reactive element heavy air suited to the Aethan species, the Consumption was draining them of the will to live.

Kiraea, Aresaea, Lyaea, Evaea and Xanea were picking them up by their lekku and Consuming their aether connection to just on the point of death, piercing their aura’s, widening them as far as they could and siphoning the aether to heal themselves.

It was working well, the injuries inflicted by some of the same Lek’un they now consumed were rapidly repaired with Verdari Sixth and Chiss Med-droids overseeing more conventional healing at an accelerated pace. 

The limitation was simply the vast volume of Lek’un required to attain even a fraction of their normal power, as it was every Lek’un had already been harvested at least twice, and they were suffering from diminished returns.

“All report to the bridge,” was Ninth’s demand over the speakers.

Already largely healed from discovering the Consumption first Kiraea and Aresaea  swiftly made their way up where Yhum IV, the fourth iteration of the loyal servant Yhum, awaited them.

Ninth was waiting with the bridges galactic map beaming across the view screen as they headed toward Aethas.

“A deep space ping came through - the Aephrodaea has been destroyed somewhere near the Hecate, Lyssia and Alixaea,”

Ari’s stomach sank, the Shadow was still upon them - Rannek soma-mare Q’Atrox still lived…but she was unable to sense anything of Milaea for that very reason.

“Also Yhum’s Villip received a string of numbers and two words ‘Trap Poppet’,”

“Taryn,” Ari instantly recognised his nickname for her, the Venrdai less sensitive to such interpersonal nuances had missed it.
“Those are probably coordinates,”

The bulky Verndari Third in the command chair quickly began inputting and cross referencing them, finding them too short for system coordinated he narrowed to Aethas itself.

“Located,” his over deep voice boomed, “An exit point in the home system,”

“Then that is where the Target will be arriving,” Kiraea realised swiftly the Shadow’s pulse still upon them leaving no doubt Rannek was still alive, and now it seemed he had Taryn at least in his thrall.

“Yhum gather your villips, we will commune with your forces to prepare to trap the vessels, and hopefully arrive not long after,” Kiraea took swift command as the threat to her children increased exponentially, the Target could not set foot on the Homeworld.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 14 - Confrontation - Part 2

497BBY - Aethas

Written by hand on lino-papyri Karintha quickly comprehended the intense danger of the situation in the dimming candle light.

She could barely move from the rugs that were her bed now, every energy dedicated to keeping her unborn child ‘paused’ while the Shadow’s pall remained thick upon them.

The tidings that Selaena brought to her, Sofa and Kassyndra each cradling one of the still insensate children beside her, was far from fortuitous.

The Aephrodaea’s mission had been successful - Katarr located albeit after an attempt by the Miraluka to use the Aethan women - and the Source of the Shadow in the Aether found - but not in the way they expected.

It’s source was, according to Kiraea and Aresaea’s briefing, an Ancient Anzat, who commanded relentless efficient warriors known as Lek’un - had briefly captured the women and had their limbs broken - their recovery only due to the ability to circumvent the Shadow by latching to said Lek’uns Aether aura, effectively consuming the aether through them..

They were enroute back with the Aethenaea and a successful Ninth with hundreds of Lek’un captives to drain the life energy from, but attempts to learn of a method to avoid the Shadow from Kazic Ovarug had largely failed.  It seemed killing the Ancient was the only way.

But now the Aephrodaea had sent its death signal, Milaea was unaccounted for, only based on the Villip were they aware Taryn was coming with the Ancient, who else was with them unknown.

Karintha handed the lino-papyri back with some strain,

“This Anzat is coming here, for us - and our children, we must assume all our men and Milaea have not been able to stop him, only it seems delay. Selaena, tell Ninth to hurry..”

White hair over her grim face Selaena nodded and raced out of the caverns, knowing it would be impossible from Ninth and the Aethenaea to get there first.

Now she turned to Kassyndra, the grandmother clutching little Maraea who remained slumped on her shoulder, Sofa beside her holding her second eldest Vesaea.

“Kassyndra…Sofa, I’m no in a state to lead the People…seal the caverns and prepare lead our defences in my stead,”

There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run to - this was their only home - a world that had seen a Collapse and a Devastation already and still struggled on.  And upon no other world was their power, even blotched by the Shadow, stronger. .

“Let this Anzat come…let him face the wrath of the mothers of those he has incapacitated and see what power he wields on the world where our Goddesses dwell,”

<<<<>>>>

3947BBY - Aethas

Hard and heavy as a block of lead, Mira walked beside Visas to the Strider as it’s gas exchangers hissed out the last puffs, the Colonist techs finishing up the pre-flight checks for them.

Something had happened, what exactly Mira did not say and the Old Man would never mention, even as Visas bade farewell to her Aunt, Isas had been uncharacteristically demure.

Of course Isas was unhappy Visas had decided to leave with Mira, out of an attempt to allay her sorrow Visas had said she would consider returning another time, but for now she didn’t feel joining the colony, smooth and easy as that path was, it was not the right one to set her feet upon.

The Old Man kept a steady pace just ahead of them up the grated metal steps to the landing platform, a vast Plasteel temporary construction much like all the fledgling colonies building and infrastructure for the moment.

Alixa was waiting for them by the Strider’s closest landing gear, a self assured calm radiating off her like a warm wind, yet one which set Visas skin itching with worry.

“The ship has been programmed with a safe route out of the Deep Core,” Alixa noted as the morning sun warmed the sides of the Strider - Mira’s faithful Corellian Engineering Corporation HWK-180.

The red haired human was wearing more layers of clothing than normal, her synth leather jacket buttoned as the aftershocks of the egregious violation she had suffered rippled through her.

Alixa stepped beside her on the large open air landing pad outside the aesthetically pleasing and morally repugnant colony, the snow capped mountains reaching to a pink blue sky behind the sepia tinged radiation shield.

“Don’t worry everything is in working order, and your credits are on board, along with your bonus,” Alixa added, a cruel playful smile dancing on her lips, felt by Visas as a bladed barb of ice cutting the warm morning air.

“Unless you have changed your mind and would like to accept my brother's invitation?”

Frag, Mira wanted to hit her, lay that snooty bitch on her arse then take her lightsaber and ram it down Varasian’s throat…

But that would mean being on this befouled planet one second longer than absolutely necessary.

“I hope something bigger, uglier and frelling meaner than Darth Nihilus comes and wrecks your little world you freak frelling schutta,” was Mira’s acid reply that set her aura aflame with heat that had been bubbling beneath, surprising Visas with its intensity.

“Mira, what is going on?” Visas asked, noting Atris appearing at the peripheral of her near senses, hurrying toward them, and another figure - this one dark and unfamiliar, a looming tower of focus that smelt of blood

“Nothing, let’s get the frell outta…” Mira saw him coming, the Old Man too snapped round.

Varasian was striding toward them in full armour, his face set grim as his aura, as though he were a completely different person.

The Old Man stepped down to the gravel path to intercept him.

“Go.” he told the women.
“Now.”

Varasian’s mind was made up. He wanted Mira and he would have her. He had already asked his father who had no qualms, indeed Varas was too deep in his work to likely realise what he had asked at all.

“Stay here Mira, you don’t have to leave,” Varasian said as Atris hurried to reach them, Alixa skirting the edge of the two other women, ever supportive of her ‘brother’.

“We have a contract, she fulfilled her role, now she is free to leave, we’ve taken enough from her already,” Kar Xandir replied in as controlled a voice as he could blocking Varasians path.

Mira and Visas were not waiting around, feeling the intense waves of Varasians primal, near feral, desire for the woman he regarded already as his mate.

On their heels they found themselves blocked from the Striders ramp by the glinting dark blade of Alixa’s sword.

“I told you, my brother's problems are my own,” Alixa noted - but her confidence was soon melted as her hand started to tremble, Atris pulling her arm back with the Force.

“Stand down girl and let them leave as agreed, we have taken enough from them, they are a detriment to the colony kept against their will,” Atris couched her intervention in terms of benefit to the Colony hoping to reach Alixa that way, even as the former Jedi winced at the effort to keep Alixa’s arm pinned, the human-miraluka hybrid unnervingly strong in the Force for her young age.

“I want her,” Varasian insisted meters away
“I won’t let her go,” 

“Sometimes letting go is the right thing to do,” Kar advised, knowing full well not letting go of his own daughter had led him to this dark moment, where his genetic ‘son’ by nurture and nature could not even fathom questioning the actions and goals of Varas and Isas.

“Let go of me Jedi,” Alixa growled as she staggered back, Mira and Visas quickly skidding past,

“Leave swiftly I’ll hold her,” Atris advised even as she felt her grasp on Alixa slipping.

“She will be useful to the colony once convinced.” the steel was building in his voice, Varasians gentle nature swiftly turning viscerally angry as a near feral adrenaline fuelled state, yet to be perfected by Varas but no less potent, began to overtake him.
“Why shouldn’t I keep her?” he growled more than spoke incensed any would keep his mate from him.

“Because it’s WRONG!” Kar yelled

Both hybrids looked shocked, utterly perplexed by the word, the whole concept of being denied their desires astonishing.

Kar sagged back, Atris and Alixa’s Force standoff kept them both pinned telekinetically as Mira swiftly powered the sublights, heat and air pulsing around the four on the ground as Visas shut them out, raising the ramp and locking it.

Why wouldn’t they be confused? Kar realised - all their life, all they had seen was Varas, Isas and himself taking what they wanted, doing as they pleased, telling Varasian and Alixa how special and unique they were, the first of a new Civilization. 

They simply couldn’t comprehend that other sentients had a right to their own choices when they conflicted with what they themselves wanted.

A truth he felt in his gut as Varasian knocked him aside as the Strider’s repulsors kicked in, the younger man then sent a hammer of kinetic energy into Atris side, the Jedi Master swiftly blocking sending a burst of air around her - but it divided her attention, Alixa escaping her grasp.

A wave of kinetic energy burst from beneath Atris feet, sending her over as Kar recovered from the shock  - not of the blow but the full realisation of the kind of amoral children he had created - inheritors of his Darkest desires and nothing of the Light.

Mira punched the sublights in the small cockpit surrounded by buttons and levers of glossy silver and burnished brass but felt the whole ship shuddered as the hybrid siblings tried to drag it back down with their telekinetic prowess.

Still it was slowly lifting in fits and starts.

Visas gripping the frame at the cockpits entrance, focused on the pair trying to ‘scuttle’ their concentration, but the singular minded almost instinctual purpose of Varasian couldn’t be diverted.

“Son of a Bitch!” Mira cursed meaning it very literally so far as Isas was concerned as she flicked a toggle to deploy the underside laser cannon, the targeting screen switching on with a hazy green image she grabbed the stick and lined up on Varasian, his fingers clawed stretching out to grasp her.

Without any regret she pulled the trigger.

Two electric cracks flared from the Strider’s cannon as Kar Xandir tackled Varasian to the ground with a scraping squealing crash of armour on armour.

Kinetic grip lost, the ship burst free like a snapped spring into the sky, Atris using her Echanni martial skills to palm strike Alixa’s shoulder, breaking her grip on the ship as well, a brief exchange of blows before the former Jedi Master knocked the younger woman to the ground.

Piercing through the yellow radiation shield mere moments later, Varasian pushed Kar off him,

“AAARRRGH!” he cried in frustration and annoyance
“How could you let her…” he stopped, the smoke of charred flesh filling his nose.

The Old Man, steam hissing from a great whorl in his back, lay silent and still.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 14 - Confrontation - Part 3

497BBY - Aethas

Slabs of 5 meter thick Blackstone were heaved into the openings of the Caverns of Aephrodaea, the scratch and thud echoing through the candlelit passageways not disrupting the unnatural sleep of the children for a moment as the last natural light was cut from view.

The women of Aethas then began to move the next barrier in place.

The Caverns had three main entrances at the geothermal pools at the foot of the mountain, feeding into the main passageway, then half a dozen smaller passageways deeper into the mountain which wound throughout the phirk topped range.

Threads of Ryhspyder silk were used to prime traps and warnings throughout these smaller passages, it had to be assumed all were compromised and the Ancient Anzat was coming to destroy them.

Sofa oversaw the ‘entry’ defences, Selaena the back passages, whilst the remaining Verndari worked to prepare an Extolled ambush for their own ships.

Clearly this ancient Anzat had a blind spot in the Extolled, their communications methods based on biotech unknown to him allowing a message to get out from Taryn.

Threading through the micro thin line she hoped these traps would not be necessary, but could not be certain.

A shuffling ahead Sofa poked her head up
“Careful where you step,” she called out, Nalaea, one of the Rorak 12 as they had been known once enslaved to the Hutts for breeding purposes, was cautious to step over the near invisible thread, a large crate in her arms, and another strapped to her back as she brought weapons and supplies in.

“Five more loads to come,” Nalaea noted “About twenty minutes”

They had no idea exactly when the Ancient would arrive given the uncertain nature of Deep Core transit, or whether there would be a siege or a fight…they had to assume soon and yes to both eventualities.

“Try to make it fifteen,” Sofa said to her fellow mother, Nali had four of her own children in a coma, like all of them hadn’t fully slept, only cycled conscious levels, since the Shadow in the aether fell.

Nalaea hadn’t stopped moving and was by now quite a ways down the echoing passage

“I’ll see it done,” she called back.  Sofa just hoped that was soon enough.

<<<<>>>>

497BBY - Byss Run

“The Hanshõ is stern, but always fair,” the Lek’un explained from his delusional slave viewpoint
“If you continue to serve him well he may allow some of your companions to live,”

Druhanne busied himself with unnecessary dusting about the cabin the Hanshõ had taken as his own with the Witch whose ministrations soothed the Kuru more than Druhanne thought possible.

It brought him hope the Great Sorrow might yet be lifted, the Kinde restored to glory and the curse of the Kuru lifted from his beloved Hanshõ.

Milaea sat on the bed staring indifferently ahead as Rannek ‘meditated upon a couch of cushions across the room, still as a statue, her ministrations against the Kuru effective but still not quite sufficient to avoid the need for some ‘rest’.

“If you are able to guide him to his Children, he will forgive your tresspasses and reward you,” Druhanne offered hopefully to the red haired woman, his pose one of genial submission, hand folded in front of his unfortunately soiled robes.

“As he rewards his loyal Lek’un?” Milaea replied caustically never deigning to look at the lesser being

“The Hanshõ’s ill-health has not permitted him to perform Ceremonies of Completion,” Druhanne noted, completely missing the irony of Milaea’s point, the Aethan knowing there was no saving the Lek’un from their ingrained servitude, now wondering why she had bothered.

Despite the numerous hours in hyperspace between jump points and nominal instructions to ‘rest’ she was still exhausted, unable to sleep in the presence of the Clucir, even her ‘rest state’ conscious levels twisted in obsessive circles to puzzle out a way to destroy him and save the others.

She was happy to sacrifice herself and the Hecate itself, but everyone else?  The People could not afford to lose nearly all the men in one fell swoop, Taryn knew that too or he would’ve used the brief cover she had provided him with to ram them into a Supernovae with a slight miscalculation of a jump.

Yet what life was it to be enslaved to the will of the Ancient Anzat.

Staring at the softly humming Druhanne as he incessantly swept an already sparkling side table by her bed she saw the future of her People as Rannek’s thralls.

The men of Aethas despised snarling animals loosed on Gaijin upon Anzat prime, then ferocious raiders taking whatever resources Rannek desired from nearby systems to rebuild the Q’Atrox - their raging hate for the Clucir that had fed upon their wives and children directed against whatever enemy the Anzat lord wished, till, century by century, they were finally ground to dust, replaced by a resurgent mini-empire around Anzat prime, as the exiled Anzat slowly returned to submit themselves to the restored Kinde of Q’atrox, Mardenes leading the new army, Faveah commanding an economic boom on Anzat prime….

Or perhaps that was merely the future Rannek imagined infecting her thoughts - for his children surely could not live…

and yet…at least that future held some life. 

Should his children truly be dead…the Aethan species, in all likelihood would die with them.

<<<<>>>>

“Pathetic,” Rannek whispered as he surveyed again the latest batch of Anzat that had joined them at Teta in response to his summons.

It seemed they sought to out do the depravity of the first lot of Anzat, this was a bunch of effete’s, quims and dilettantes who lived luxurious lives in the Core worlds, a handful of former warriors, scholars and a smattering of lower class ruffians, some still bleeding from the vicious fights they engaged in stealing a ship to answer the irresistible call of the Ancient.

The most useful to him were likely ferals who could not reach a vessel in time, such was the state of the Blood of Emperors in this era.

Striding between the two sides beneath the Shadows of the Spear tipped shaped fighters of the Witch’s species, the hangar suffused by blue glows from edge lights between grey wall panels, he noted the difference between the fallen ‘Anzat’ and the Witches warriors.

One side a disorganized rabble, absent Kinde and culture. 

On the other the Males the Witch had thought to destroy him with, armoured in light draining plate, strong stances, keen and deadly minds, faces bearing only the faintest scars from the ‘Rhandite’ creatures, their eyes never leaving Rannek himself, screaming hatred at him.  Far more useful tools.

Finally the Efendi and Witch joined them escorted by Yari-Gami.

“Where on Aethas are my children,” the Clucir demanded, voice booming through the bay shaking the overhead catwalks and cranes.

“I’ve never heard of Anzat ever being on Aethas,” Milaea said far more quietly, sparing a sympathetic glance to her biological father - Jarys along with all the other men on the Hecate except Arryn who remained on the Bridge.

They were in two lines of six, Jarys, Valens, Taran, Taryn, Maekal and Coryn, ahead of Maran, Oran, Evyn, Davys, Narys and Lydan. The others aboard the Lyssia and Alixaea, the only women in the force, Kisaea and Yorna - Kisi was hidden away with the Lek’un handmaids that still survived, Yorna still unconscious from when the Shadow first hit a seeming lifetime ago, hidden somewhere by Coryn, the Anzat not knowing to ask about her, though she could hardly help.

“There is only one thing that might know, located in the Southern Polar region…the holo-projection of Soron Varas,” Milaea explained

“And where are your kindred? the Children?” the Yokusei strengthened with each word, she tried to resist, a futile effort Druhanne could not understand as he looked with some sympathy upon her pained expression.

“Northern continent, large mountain range, Alpine Valley 60.4720° north, 8.4689° East…” Milaea blurted out painfully something he could easily have demanded with less effort from one of the men.

She was beginning to understand him more - he enjoyed forcing her to be the one to say it.

“Then that is where these uncouth mistakes of fornication that call themselves Anzat shall go - ‘Warchief’,” he sneered addressing Valens, the Aethan man’s knees trembling then buckling to kneel under the Yokusei - all 11 of his fellows kneeling in time.

“Hanshõ…your command,” Valens gritted out.

“Ready your vessels to counter the trap this faithless Witch thought she could conceal from me,” Rannek now turned to Taryn who felt the heat of the Clucir’s eyes on him, realising his attempt at subversion had not gone unnoticed.

“Comis, correct this one to the second degree for his transgressions,”

“You can’t!” Milaea protested even as the Yari -Gami moved to grab Taryn

“Be silent Witch lest you be next,” Rannek warned, though in truth he knew he would never so cruelly punish the Witch…she was too useful to him and…and

Something else…something he didn’t want to admit yet they both knew. Somehow they had always known…

“Taryn is our best pilot and naval combat expert, if anyone should counter the trap we organised it should be him,” she pleaded breaking Rannek from a brief reverie, telling the truth this time.

The Clucir stared at the wide wet eyes of emerald green that looked to him for mercy and felt, for the first time in so long, a pang of empathy…no the Kuru, it must be the Kuru…

“So be it,” Rannek relented,
“But he does not require legs to command this vessel, Comis proceed,” Rannek ordered,

Chained by the Yokusei, Taryn couldn’t resist and the others couldn’t intervene.

“You’ll get yours you stinking old corpse,” Taryn hissed as he was flung to the floor with a clang Yari-gami activating the vibrations of their weapons to begin slicing into his thighs.

“I want to reach this polar region as soon as possible, meanwhile your Warchief will lead your soldiers and these Anzat to the Alpine Valley - breach any defence to the women and children and then…”

Rannek stood unnervingly close behind Milaea as blood spurted from a grimly silent Taryn.

“That you might learn your place Witch - break and defile their bodies till I arrive, then my children and I shall sup upon them one by one.”

Her eyes were on Taryn, feeling the impotence the Yokusei caused them as the Yari drove deeper fighting against his dense muscle and near diamond strength bone.

It wasn’t the first time he had lost a limb, regrowing them was a pain but perfectly common for Aethans - but this wasn’t in battle against a Tof Berserker, this was purely for the Clucir to show his sadistic power to his new and existing thralls - and an example of what he intended to do to Ari, her sisters, cousins…nieces…nephews…

Milaea’s eye’s twitched, fists clenched and by pure instinct her power bit into Rannek’s along the connection he had forced upon her to soothe the Kuru.

“Enough!” the word burst from her lips and Ranneks simultaneously.

The Lek’un to cease in their efforts, the Clucir staggered shocked as the Witch used his own power against him to the point of forcing words from his mouth.

Recovering quickly he seemed to slice through space to grip her by the neck lifting her far heavier frame up with the strength of his anima, proboscis jutting like spears toward her face

“WITCH you dare!”

She didn’t let her ‘teeth’ biting into his power relent, matching his furious gaze.

The assembled Aethans, Anzat and Lek’un stared perplexed, unable to witness the confrontation that was occuring on the metaphysical plane.

Rannek was tossling with the Witch for access to his own powers - he had underestimated her feminine subtleties, he had opened the door to his Anima to her to destroy the Rhandites and burn off the maddening Kuru - now she was prying it ever wider open - and he could not get her out.

She dug deeper, pulling at his energies to push against the Yokusei that drew from the same pool of consumed souls. His proboscis crept at her nostrils in rage and hunger.

Perhaps…if he consumed her he would gain the knowledge of her Kuru delaying power, as well as her own eldritch abilities…

Try it just try it she thought, well knowing her bones were far stronger than the Lek’un and Anzat he was used to, it was highly doubtful he could pierce through to the brain - and any cuts he inflicted would only cover him in Aethan blood - and its wide array of vicious macrophagic immune cells with it. He would end up embarrassed and potentially poisoned.

Whereas…if she could consume him using the method Taryn and the others had on the Rhandites…

“BEGONE!” with a grunting effort he slammed Milaea bodily to the floor, the physical shock breaking her metaphysical connection as her back arched up painfully.

Enraged, confused and hungry he prowled between his slaves, hissing before grabbing a younger Anzat, proboscis still hardened he rammed into the nostrils, blood spurting out as he fed to relieve the tension.

The other Anzat cowered back as the young dilettante convulsed under the feeding, held by the wiry but incredibly strong hands of the Ancient.

Tossing his corpse aside Rannek pointed at Milaea.

“Anger me again Misíta and I will take the heads off all your friends!”

It seemed an innocuous slip, but it was one Druhanne took careful note of.

It was the second time the Hanshõ had called her Misíta, the term for his beloved Faveah.  The obvious reason was the Kuru…and yet…..

Rannek’s face was covered in blood still, the sugar taste of Soup dribbling off his chin.

A low pitch alert chimed before he could speak again, they were exiting hyperspace.

<<<<>>>>

497BBY - Aethas Lower System Plane

The Extolled were prepared and in position.

Six Coral-Skipper with Dovin-basals that could latch onto the mass of an object to slow it, three Yorik-Trema’s prepared to board with a dozen warriors on each, and the Faithful Ro'ik chuun m'arh - Frigate analogue.

Hardly enough to take on the Hecate and it’s escorts in pitched battle, they planned on the use of Dovin Basals and yaret-kors as soon as they left hyperspace to disable them, with the coordinates provided by Taryn they were positioned behind where the Hecate would exit and arrayed to ensure optimal spread of fire and pinning.

None of this mattered.

Taryn, Valens and Jarys, fully aware they were waiting for them, programmed their ships weapons based on where they predicted the Vong forces - which they knew the exact composition of - to be.

The Hecate exited hyperspace with its magnetic accelerator cannons firing on predetermined vectors, Lyssia and Alixaea at 45 degree angles to ensure overlapping fire.

The Extolled’s trap, betrayed by the Yokusei and countered by their own Avatars never stood a chance.

The Aethans predictions were 85% correct, the remaining Extolled forces insufficient to delay them in any meaningful way.

Milaea felt the jolt of sublights burning as the Karintha class transport ferrying her, Rannek and his Lek’un Elite burst from the Hecate straight toward the Southern pole. 

She caught momentary glimpses of the explosions of yorik coral as the trap was defeated with contemptuous ease.

Taryn felt the numbness of his ‘punished’ limbs all the more keenly as he fired on the last of the Extolled he had sent to their deaths. 

He cared nothing for their lives, his disappointment was that their last best chance of killing Rannek died with those Extolled - and whilst all replaceable as ghola’s it would be years before they could regrow that many copies of their faithful servants and living space vessels again.

Years that seemed a dream as their lives were measured now in hours.

Rannek sat opposite Milaea, face covered in blood from several more feedings that he refused to clean up after, still and silent as his Lek’un armed him, demanding her gaze upon the decrepit aristocratic face that promised death to her and all who delayed his reunion with his children.

In the Caverns of Aephrodaea the defeat and the deployment was detected just as the last barriers to the Caverns were rolled into place.

Sofa, Karintha, Selaena and all the women armed and ready to protect their unconscious children with whatever it took, knowing a third and final genocide of their species could be moments away, praying for their Goddesses to intervene against the approaching Gaki.

Approaching from the opposite side of the planet the Aethenaea skidded out of hyperspace barely decelerating as a single Vorynx fighter launched.

Kiraea, the most comprehensively healed and fuelled with energy siphoned from Lek’un to avoid the Shadows darkness - piloted the fighter as she felt the Source of the Shadow - the Heart of her Target and sped toward it.

To Kiraea all was simplicity - She would kill the Anzat who sought his children to protect her own.

<<<<>>>

[TheDutchman]

As Rannek's assault of Aethas draws ever closer, the Matriarch and her sisters do what they can to shore up defenses.  Unfortunately, she is ignorant of valuable intel, doing what she can in the final defense of the children.  With such problems, one wonders just how effective those measures will be...especially in light of the fact that the Homeworld Aethans face not only Rannek and his Lek'un/Anzat forces but, more drastically, her own People, the men almost completely subservient to the Ancient Anzat's domination.

However, Rannek himself has his own blind spots, especially when the efforts of Milaea's ministrations are able to push back the Kuru; he has forgotten (or quite likely never even considered) that the flow of the Force/Aether/Anima goes both ways.  Such efforts I believe will be pivotal in Mili's refutation against the insane Clucír and the Shadow, the proverbial chink in his armor.  A few questions remain: can she continue to do so effectively and for how long?  Mili may be a demigod, but Rannek--an Eldar Anzat with millennia of life, Anima stolen from thousands (if not millions) of sentients and the will to use it--is a dark god.  Case in point: the Aethans themselves (the men especially) are in thrall under Rannek's forced mastery.  Yet...what happens to a god that has gone insane?  Consider: this is the second time that Rannek has mistake Mili for Faveah, his beloved daughter, his Misita.

Which brings up another crucial point: why?  One thinks that it might have something to do--literally!--with Rannek's children (particularly his daughter).  Soron Varas was not only a genius but also an opportunist; he would not be one to pass up the chance to "farm" the genes of two incredibly powerful Higher Anzati (after all, we've not seen them since their run in with Mira&Co.; I'd say it is entirely plausible that they ended up as "genetic parents" of our current Aethans).  Should that be the case, it would go a long way by way of reason to explain how the Yokusei can so adversely affect the Aethans (and, as a minor tangent, the Children themselves; as they are not yet fully developed, they would be the most susceptible to the deprivations of Rannek's Anima).

But it is not just Rannek whom has foisted his own will upon others; as already stated: Soron IS a genius...and one completely devoid of ethics.  In his pursuit of Genesis Deus, he has gathered 'round him those willing to further his goal, to inflict upon others that which is deemed "necessary" absent any adherence to morality e.g. Mira's own "farming," a violation most egregious especially for the independent woman).  I can neither fault her for her deadly response nor her actions leading to Kar Xandir's death.  And while it is tragic--much like the man himself--one must wonder if such isn't a karmic action, a Whim of the Maker or the Will of the Force, perhaps.  Whatever Kar's sins, he saw the ramifications of Soron's Legacy and (at least a POSSIBLE) future.  Regardless, this IS the impetus of the Technocracy, for good or ill.

Yet the Aethans are not without morals (regardless of how myopic and xenophobic their cultural lens is): Kiraea is nothing if not decisive and driven to protect her Children.  Following that tangent, should one be considered a Friend (capital "F"), then such consideration is also extended towards said Friend, if not so strongly.  Still: we've seen that Friends of People are decidedly not relegated to a "non-status."  In that lies another key...one for future consideration.

Meta-note: Interesting that Mili has deduced a weakness (and motive) within Rannek's plans in her ability to push back the solipsism of the Kuru.  Now what to do about it... I have to wonder if Kazic ever learns more about the Eldar Anzat and his adoptive daughter, an opportunity for both missed...tantalizingly close yet so far away...

Oh, and LSG's incredible visuals are phenomenal 

What awaits Rannek on Aethas?  Will the Shadow consume the rest of the Aethans?  Will there be any long-lasting ramifications of the Shadow in Aethan Society?  We shall see...

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 15 - Revelation — Part 1

497BBY - Aethas Alpine Valley

It was not a homecoming, but an invasion.

Three Karintha class vessels spewed forth Anzat onto the slopes of the Aethan Alpine mountains, each around an entrance to the Caverns of Aephrodaea where Valens knew the women and children would be hiding.

His boots hit the ground with a mournful thud as his heart screamed to stop, but the razor wire of the Yokusei compelled him forward and animated his muscles.

Find the Women and the Children.  Break their bodies. Deliver them to me for feeding

His body, his mind were slaved to Rannek’s will - and that was to find his family, break their bodies, then deliver them to be fed upon -a matra that repeated over and over in his head animating his limbs - idly he understood that would require him drilling through the thick Aethan bones under the eyes to allow the Hanshõ’s proboscis access.

Valens was leading the breaching team at the main entrance to the caverns, Jarys would command at the north eastern, Taran at the Western most.

Eye’s blinking across the HUD of his Mark III Oblivion Armour he brought up the cavern map Kisaea had provided - none of the men had ever set foot in the sacred caverns or knew its layout, relying instead on Kisaea enthralled as they were to provide the details as they planned.

The woman herself stepped off behind him, more stilted in her movements as her sex allowed her to fight against the Yokusei more effectively, but still not sufficiently.

“They will have sealed the entrances with blackstone boulders,” she explained as Valens stretch out his arm to kinetically grip the light eating slab clogging the light grey phirk cavern entrance that looked out on the verdant geothermal springs and waterfalls that glistened in midday sun, vibrant green shrubs budding with flowers about to bloom.

The slab of blackstone simply absorbed his aether energies deaf to the usual commanding touch of an Aethan.

“Enchanted to resist all removal,” Kisaea noted as the Anzat clustered round hungry to feed and despoil in accordance with the Ancients' will that itched their minds constantly.

“We blast it open,” Valens ordered.

<<<<>>>>

3947BBY - Aethas

“I don’t understand…” she cried, gripping her grandfather's hand.

Kar Xandir lay face down, his back a cavernous charred ruin from where Mira had fired a space warfare grade cannon into him.

“Why did you try to stop us?”

Alixa couldn’t comprehend why her Grandfather and Atris didn’t want Varasian to keep Mira, even going so far as to brawl with them over it. 

“My dear child,” the comforting voice of Soron Varas interrupted over the beep and hisses of the life support system.

“I came as soon as I heard…oh Kar, my friend what a misadventure.”

“She tried to kill Varasian, Grandfather saved him…” Alixa said through bitter tears.

“Yes, I heard, a tragic farce…” his presence and words were a comfort to Alixa, she had always thought of Varas as a second father, his voice had been with her since birth, encouraging her to make use of all the skills her hybrid biology was capable of, ever reminding her how special and unique she was.

His thin hand rested on her shoulder.

“But you must not give into despair my child,”
“I don’t despair,” her voice was sharp as a razor
“I avenge,”

“A natural and laudable response Dearest Child…you…” he paused as Varasian entered the room, his son’s face grimmer than ever he had seen it.

A squeeze to Alixa’s shoulder he quickly moved to embrace his son.

“This is not your fault my Son, you must not blame yourself,”

Varasian hugged him back fiercely, almost painfully, Varas impressed at the physical strength he had built into his Son’s genome.

“I don’t, we…just don’t understand…I just wanted Mira…why did she resist, why did he and Atris?”

Varas sighed sympathetic to his gene crafted progeny

“My children you, and your children will increasingly find lesser beings unable to appreciate the depth of your wisdom and comprehension.  They will not know what is good for them, will misconstrue your genius and respond with violence and resistance.” he turned to glance at Kar’s wounds, well aware they were undoubtedly fatal.

“I myself know I am limited by the imperfections of my neurology, but my humility allows me to defer to the truths of the universe, Evolution, striving to the perfection of Apotheosis, the path upon which you and your children are set. Perhaps dear Kar lost sight of that for a critical moment, was confused…at his age neurodegeneration can manifest suddenly…” 

Of course Varas suspected the truth was far more troubling. 

Kar Xandir’s old Maker loving Mak’tor morality had somehow resurfaced, a vile restrictive belief system Varas had thought Kar had purged himself of…alas the insidious nature of indoctrination into a religious tradition as a child seemed to endure even after 30 years living in opposition to it.

“And Atris…has not been with us long enough to fully appreciate your special role here my children, as first and most supreme among us. I will personally make sure she understands your Will is never to be questioned in future.”

The former Jedi master would be easily dealt with, her experience had broken her thought limiting Jedi beliefs far more comprehensively.

The children seemed soothed by his words, ever trusting in his guidance.

“I want her dead.” Alixa seethed of Mira
“I want to put his fist through her skull,”

“Darling daughter…” Varas focused on her once more
“...there is perhaps an even greater revenge you could take upon her…”

“What?” Alixa asked, squeezing Kar’s hand tightly.

“Use her own genes against her, through Gensis Deus Mira’s eggs will birth children with all her skills and talents, let one them avenge their lost Grandfather, let the last thing she sees be the children she might’ve raised herself - had she chosen wisely to stay here - ending her.”

Varasian nodded, with all he knew of Mira’s longing for family it would be a fitting end.

“Honour your grandfather by teaching the next generation all he taught you.” Varas went on as Kar’s eyes blinked tightly, his heart rate spiking.

The fallen Mak’tor could hear all of it, and the regret was breaking his heart.  All he had taught Alixa and Varasian was selfishness, entitlement, and a sense of supremacy over every other being, now Varas poured promethium on the inferno.

Kar’s rebellion against the Maker, his heritage, the natural cycles of life and death itself, would amplify itself in the echo chamber of Varas myopic genetic creations through the generations. 

Kar wanted to scream, recant, confess his Sins - his spine was all but gone, mouth bulging, stuffed with breathing apparatus and feeding tubes.

Klu…my brother…I’m sorry…Maker…for…forg….

Cries, panic filled his ears as his body faded, Alixa pleaded, Varasian tried to help heal him, but the damage was too great.

Yes, the Damage Kar had done was too great. 

There would be no redemption, no forgiveness, and his children were left with only Kar’s own worst examples, the ethnocentric Isas Marr, amoral Atris and obsessive self satisfied Soron Varas to guide them.

Kar Xandir died regretting everything he was and had done since first he refused to let his Sainted daughter's body be buried.

<<<<>>>>

497BBY - Aethas Southern Polar Laboratory

Nails digging into her neck, Rannek used Milaea as a bludgeon to smash the door inward then threw her to the ground of the central laboratory, the white light from the frosted over glass giving ghostly lumination to the consoles and cogitators as Soron Varas Hologram stuttered back to life, observing the scene behind his replicated spectacles with curious detachment.

“My dear child, what manner of beast is this…”

“This is the Place,” Rannek boomed
“Where is my Misíta!”

They had encountered no resistance coming here, the Sonae had swiftly secured the entire facility, careful not to damage anything lest it be of value in locating their Hanshõ’s children and alleviating the Great Sorrow.

Milaea struggled up once more, the cold of the polar region slowing her limbs, wondering what the chances were that answers existed for the crazed Anzat - until Varas spoke.

“Misíta?” the Hologram slightly chuckled
“Ah so you are the mighty Rannek-Some mare Q’atrox…” Varas offered a condensing smile from the safety of his artificial form
“How quaint,”

“You know me machine,” Rannek glared irritated the object was beyond his powers of compulsion, via Yokusei or torture.

“By reputation only, it is quite humorous we haven't met in a way, but I must insist you treat our progeny with more care.  Strong though our Daughters are, they are still, for the time being, only mortal,”

“What madness does this machine speak,” Rannek snapped glaring at Milaea as Druhanne, the Comis and a retinue of Sonae secured the room, then awaited their Hanshõ’s pleasure with utter silence.

Grave matters were taking place - beyond the role of Lek’un to speak or intervene unless called upon. 

To a man they positioned themselves in the most distant corners they could while ensuring they had the exit secured and the witch covered by overlapping fields of fire if necessary.

Druhanne remained in a corner by the door observing the grand proceedings discreetly.

The Aethan woman was shocked at Varas' awareness, however cursory, of who and what Rannek was.

“How do you know him?” she stammered out Rannek allowing her to speak.

“I do not know him, but I know his kind, indeed I actively sought them out, but as you might be aware Anzat are a rare and lithe prey - difficult to catch, near impossible to keep” Varas explained

“But the Anzat possess, in addition to prodigious physical attributes and longevity, the capacity to consume memories - inelegantly and imperfectly, the so-called ‘Soup Kuru’ is the result of their neurology being incapable of storing that information properly - but the Lek’un’s genetic memory…”

He laughed at a joke only he understood, the irony of these two races possessing that which the other needed to truly ascend in evolution yet dividing themselves by something as trivial as culture and species.

“Combining the two with Miralukan cortices as a bridge created the Aethenaea Cortex and Aephrodaen Cerebellum, the key to my Children's ability to absorb and retain in perfect detail all the knowledge of their forebears and contemporaries, using innate Anzat Telepathy enhanced by Miralukan Force ‘Vision’ - dispensing with the messiness of nasal feeding or the solipsism of a race meant for slavery.”

He paused contemplative for a moment, an affectation for a hologram once more revealing the depth of the self indulgence of the man upon whom this simulation was based.

“It was my Genius that started you on the path, though it took generations of careful gene crafting, and alas many imperfect experiments that had to be ‘recycled’, to blend the strengths of four races into one more perfect whole,”

Ranneks face concealed none of his apoplectic hatred at even the concept of the abominable possibility of a ‘hybrid’ of so many species - against laws of nature, even  one as mired in Sin as he, would not cross.
“Does this machine speak the truth?”

Milaea stared cold into Varas faux eyes, knowing while the self aggrandizing emulation of the Genecrafting genius might boast, he never lied.

“It does,”

Rannek stiffened, pieces falling into place in his mind.

“Then that is why you are prey to the Yokusei.” the Clucir realized

“Yokusei?” Varas inquired, a rare nugget of information he did not possess.

“He’s controlling all of us or diminishing our power, the Shadow in the Aether, the cortex anaesthetics…its coming from him…the loss of Aether and our telepathaeon abilities,”
She replied in a burst at her normal cadence barely comprehensible to Rannek who slapped her in frustration.

“Speak properly Witch, you will not conspire further against me!”

“This ‘Yokusei’ Power, a shame I never knew of it,” Varas replied his words and ‘gzae’ directed at Rannek

“I would’ve kept the pair for longer….Of Course, it makes sense now, if this Yokusei ability uses the same brain structures I appropriated to create the Aethenaea Cortex, triggering the ‘Shadow’ you experienced…yet that is only a partial explanation” Varas still seemed marvelled at his own genius even as he deliberated the flaws in it.

“Yes, other Anzat no doubt have used a similar power without affecting Aethans over the years…but not one who is directly related to them.  You my dear daughter were especially susceptible to your ‘flesh’ fathers power,”

“Father’s power…,” Rannek was increasingly agitated as a thought, a possibility bubbled in the back of his mind that was beyond disgusting.

“Oh yes,” Varas smiled with his prideful self assurance
“Our dearly cherished Milaea is the inheritor of genetic material from both your children - your ‘Granddaughter’ one might say,” he finished with a slight chuckle at his own joke.

“You….” Rannek hissed glaring beneath anger creased brows at Milaea as a truth he had in some deep part of himself known since he first laid eyes upon her became undeniable.

“You are my…Granddaughter?” the word was almost laughable.
She was so far removed in generations the number of ‘greats’ that would have to be prefixed would take days to even calculate.

His bloodshot eyes stared into her cool green seeing the faintest traces of all her maternal ancestors mingled there, Isas, Mira, Visas, Atris, Jem Xandir, Meetra Surik, Kyrndra Draay, a half dozen others, even a Lek’un handmaid…and yes his Misíta Faveah mare-Q'Atrox.

As was so often the case, Druhanne and the Lek’un were forgotten, silent, in the corners of the room as his Hanshõ dealt with crucial affairs of State and Spirit beyond an Efendi’s capacity to assist. 

But Lek’un eidetic memory recorded every word Druhanne heard - devoid of the true context.

“...my..Heir? Milaea…sangre-mare ‘Q’Atrox, Enfanta of my Kinde!” the words were a poison joke in Rannek’s mouth, and the second time he ever said the name of his descendant. 

Yet any irony and jest was lost to the trembling rage in his tone - Druhanne, not understanding, marvelling that his Hanshõ was ennobling and adopting the young woman, granting the joined name Sangre no doubt in reference to the Witch's Blood red magicks and crimson hair.

At the speed of darkness Rannek sprang forward lifting her fatigued form up by the neck.

“My blood runs through your veins,” he sneered finally smelling the lingering traces beneath millenia of abominable dilution and heretical modification - minute but undeniable.

“And all your kind…” the very thought was beyond repellent, the Noble pure blood of the Anzat harnessed and perverted for sick Gaijin experiments, and worse than all that -  His own children.

His. Own. Children.

Cut, sliced, tortured, their blood mixed in abhorrent incestuous offspring with not only Gaijin but - truly beyond any horror he might have imagined - with Lek’un.

What sick insanity would mix the blood of the Race of ‘Emperors’ with their servile chattel?!

Druhanne understood none of this, only hearing the words ‘My blood runs through your veins’.

“Do be gentle with her!” Varas protested Rannek’s violence toward one of his prized creations as one might a fumbling child handling a valuable piece of porcelain.

“Enough of this Trifling contraptions drivel and blasphemies,” The Fury of the Ancient echoed across the whole of the Aethan race, the Shadow upon their mind sharpening like knives at their connection to the Aether making it bleed energy even as they wielded it to attack their own kind.

Rannek lifted Milaea by the back of the head, pushing her through the more curious than concerned ghost of Varas, pressing her face against the cold frosted glass wall behind him.

“WHERE is my Misíta, show me now Witch,” He demanded body trembling as the words of Varas echoed in his mind

Kept the pair the machine had said - could it be?

“Show me what happened here!” he released his grip and loosened the Yokusei to allow her Flow Sight.

Standing with as much dignity as she could Milaea gave both of the men a bitter look before opening herself to Time and Space, the laboratory whirling round as the years bundled so tightly into the present unfurled into the strands of the past.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 15 - Revelation — Part 2

497BBY - Aethas Alpine Valley

He had to fulfil the Hanshõ’s will…yet that did not mean he couldn’t work to undermine him in some ways.

Midway up the mountain first where the rocks barely held space to keep a single foot flat, and the snow was a dusty wind driven mist in his face, Jarys pointed to the concealed cavern entrance.

“Go, fulfil the Hanshõ’s will,” he ordered the Anzat of his party.

The near feral creatures rushed inside, seeming to have a more primal reaction to the Yokusei than the Aethans.

Barely five seconds later they started to die as traps he knew would’ve been laid by the women were triggered.  Boulders collapsed in on them, primed springs covered in phirk spikes snapped into their backs crushing them - killing the intruders and further blocking the cavern.

Evyn was already prepping the magma mines and explosives, as below them at the base of the mountain, Valens opened fire on the blackstone barriers with Space Warfare grade Magnetic accelerators carriers pulled off their transports.

He couldn’t stop himself attacking the sacred caverns but he could limit the damage he did under the guise of concentrating fire - aiming the ultrasonic projectiles at Shatterpoint points in the ultradense ore.

Behind the dozens of meter thick barrier his wife was already fighting - against herself.

The Shadow in the Aether had not only doubled in intensity but the explicit will of Rannek soma-mare Q’atrox had been added to it, demanding Sofa surrender herself and her children to him.

Clawing at the rock of the cavern wall as if she could climb out of the pain of her own mind she fought against the urge to push the boulders aside, the other women in her group, Adaea, Nalaea and Kassyndra likewise struggling not to open up to their attackers.

More and more traps sprung above, rumbles began to echo from every side of the caverns as more of the barriers were melted or blasted apart. 

The defence had bought time but nothing more, the thick blackstone of the mountain diminished the strength of the Yokusei but could certainly not dissolve it completely - the only reason the women were able to not turn themselves over for torture.

The northern passage too narrow for heavy weapons, Taran and Lydan hacked away with their Shatterpoint powered Claymore and Naginata respectively, the Shadow in the aether lifted only to the extent their power served the Hanshõ’s demands.

Chucks of Backstone were flecking off as the women felt their husband’s, brothers and relatives presences through the Shadow, a sensation that filled them with nothing but dread as meter by meter the final genocide of the Aethan species at it’s own Yokusei chained hands grew closer.

<<<<>>>>

497BBY - Aethas Southern Polar Laboratory

Ice bit her impassive skin as she moved with the frosty wind over the dunes of snow.

Lek’un Teppo-gami shuddered near the entrance to the Laboratory vault, ill equipped for the freezing conditions of the Alipe world, but grateful to endure any hardship for the sake of their Hanshõ.

Kiraea drew deeply on their confederates on the Aethenaea even as those aboard, even the Verdari, began to succumb to the Yokusei, like gravity its power growing exponentially with proximity to the black source.

Submit the voice in her head echoed over and over. 

She pushed against it, not with her own power, but that drained from the fanged siphons she had attached to the Leku’n captured on Anzat prime.  their life energies untainted by the Shadow provided a temporary resistance to the compulsion.

A benefit the others lacked.

The Teppo-gami raised weapons as the vast black bulk of the Aethenaea hovered above them. 

On board Ninth lowered the vessel, Ari leaning out of the hangar waving the Lek’un down, shouting her, and the ships submission to the Clucir’s Will over the gales of snow flecked wind.

They had banked all their ‘Lek’un Aether batteries’ on board to power Kiraea, hoping by the Goddesses she could kill Rannek before the Clucir knew to ask about any threats to him - or the Lek’uns life forces gave out.

Distracted by the descending vessel, Kiraea swiftly made her way closer to the entrances.

For now the ‘focus’ of the Yokusei - the Target himself - seemed…distracted…he was not putting all his energy into the mental domination - it gave Kiraea crucial relief.

But the distance was getting too great and she was depleting the Lek’un on the Aethenaea rapidly -  detaching one chain she quickly threw the metaphysical noose around the nearest Teppo-gami’s soul to feed on the energy of those closer to her.

She delved into the snows as the storm gathered and blew sleet into the Lek’uns faces as they surrounded the Aethenaea ready to arrest the Yokusei compelled Aethans.

Kiraea’s draining of their life energies as she approached was mistaken for the effects of the cold - they endured without complaint.

Crawling on her belly, obsessed with the need to end the threat to her children, she took a long way round and up over the lip to the entrance to the lab, sliding down behind the three guards and quickly pressing her black covered form into the shadow.

If anything the air from within was colder - slowly, carefully, she proceeded inside.

<<<<>>>>

497BBY - Aethas Alpine Valley

The first red heated cracks began to appear on the inner side of the barriers, the steady stream of concentrated fire and shatterpoint blasts from numerous Aethans at once overcoming the enchanted strength of the blackstone barriers at the top and bottom of the Valley.

Sofa could hear them coming, feel their mass and now even start to smell them.  the Anzat thralls were in a frenzy to get at them, but she and other women were writhing on the ground or clawing at the walls barely able to keep themselves from assisting in their own torment.

Adaea staggered up, Sofa trying to grab her leg but failing as the internal torment took all her energy. 

She didn’t want to, knew it would put her children and the others in danger…but the Yokusei demanded she Submit…

Grabbing a chunk of fractured black stone she pulled it free, the afternoon sun blasting in with a gust of hot air.

The maw of a hungry Anzat face followed a second after, heaving mass of bodies at the entrance piled up, the fractured stone creaking and buckling inwards till it finally collapsed.

They were inside.

<<<<>>>>

497BBY - Aethas Southern Polar Laboratory

Decades of silence and isolation vanished in the Laboratory, the years after the collapse, everything still and untouched…and still Milaea pushed further, pressing herself and Rannek through the tangled curtains of time into the past.

The frantic fury of the days before the Sith had come, systems placed on minimal power, seals fixed, air locks secured, safes bolted.

Before that occasional visitors, Scientists in crisp white and blue discussing high level concepts with the Hologram of Varas, inputting more data for the machine to consider as it charted the Technocracies path to ever more advanced and powerful offspring.

Further back the layout changed, the Hologram projector well absent, a man of flesh and blood in place of the hologram, attended by dozens of eager minds.

The ever frosted glass wall was clear, behind it being’s held in stasis cages, covered in the red lights of Resonance scans, micro-needles extracting samples.

“Stop,” Rannek ordered, not with the vicious demands of a Clucir, but the hushed plea of a desperate father.

There they were, after all this time.

His son, Sine Mardenes mare-Q'Atrox and his, Misíta the Enfanta Sínã Faveah mare Q'Atrox, held upright, scanned and sampled by the humans and Miraluka, wrestling, alternating threats of doom, then pleading for release.

Dropped to the floor to be allowed to ‘feed’ on captured Lek’un, brain monitoring devices on their heads to analysed in excruciating detail the chemical and hormonal effects of the consumption.

All occurring under Varas cold confident eyes, his glasses reflecting the reams of data that spurred his genius to new heights.

They stripped Faveah bare, held her in place tightly, scanned her abdomen, inserted the long thin needle to extract his daughter's eggs, harvested seed from his son, all taken away in shining glass canisters to create the Abominations of Anzat, Lek’un, Human and Miraluka that called themselves Aethan.

Isas Marr stood where Milaea did now, her mind closed to the suffering of the Anzat and Lek’un, assured that any price was worth paying for the survival and enhancement of line of Katarr - the Anzat, Lek’un, even Mira were Sacrifices akin to those given to the Goddesses of Old Miraluka Tradition, the vengeful, maternal entities of Hekata, He’ra and Demetra - before they were consolidated into the palatable and innocuous Ashla. 

Soron Varas with his needles and scalpels rather than a runic dagger was the priest performing the rites, offering blood for fertility. 

Kar Xandir, the Old Man, had never come this deep into the labs, not wanting to see what was happening as the lingering traces of his Mak’Tor morality gnashed at his heels, till it finally killed him.

Isas would not turn away, she would feel the blood and pain that paled in comparison to the damage wrought by Nihilus upon Katarr, and know what she had set in motion was True, Just and Righteous - if only for Her.

Through Milaea, their common Granddaughter of so many greats and carefully planned twists of genetic engineering it defied counting, Rannek-soma mare-Q’Atrox stood beside Isas Marr.

“You did this to my children,” he hissed, feeling the impotence of all his great power to alter the past.

“So that our Grand children will become Gods,” she replied to the stranger linked to her through generations yet to be born, feeling the strained warmth of her descendants power to connect them over millennia   

“Gods!” Rannek snapped enraged

“I will be the Damnation of Your ‘Gods’, this Perversion will be wiped from the Universe,” his Anima pulsed stronger than ever and the ghosts of his victims faces began to cloud his peripheral vision in reply.

“By my Oath before the Silent Voices - They will all Die.” he somberly pledged as time moved on further.

Insult upon insult was heaped on Faveah, all under the smug confident gaze of Soron Varas.

Rannek’s daughter was used over, and over, to attempt to bear children of the genius devising, combinations of human, miraluka, lek’un and Anzat gametes.  Most ended in bloody miscarriages, a handful of still born abominations of mangled flesh, one breathing a few gasps before expiring.

For Soron Varas each was a wealth of new information on what gene’s could, and could not be combined, what system’s conflicted or co-operated - tests all the simulations in the galaxy could never achieve.

Finally the viable Daughter was created, whisked away to be slotted into her allocated place within the puzzle of Genesis Deus

Rannek’s children aged and withered, their skin growing pallid and white from years of incarceration beneath the earth, bodies weak as the only stimulation they received was to test reflexes and confirm hypotheses of functioning, fed occasionally with soup from the other Lek’un and Anzat captives, neuro probes in their brains during the process to record both sides.

Yet the elderly Soron Varas had one last insult when their usefulness was, after five decades, at an end.

Kept apart in separate cryo-cells for years meters out of reach and communication Mardenes and Faveah were at last brought together.

Face to face. Close.  Too Close.

“All other combinations have been exhausted - Anzat to Anzat, Anzat to Lek’un, human…but I wonder what difference it will make - if any - should the Consumer and the Consumed be related…” his aged face was cruel as it smiled.

Rannek’s face dropped at the thought - his rage moments earlier lost to despair once more.

Even after all that time still his Misíta struggled against their restraint, bloody rings where time and again the metal had cut into their wrists, ankles and necks.

But Mardenes, weary and broken, looked to his sister one last time, knowing how much she must hunger, for he did likewise.

“Sister…” he raised himself best he could, bearing himself as a Lord of Q’Atrox should
“Have no fear, among the Silent Voices, never shall we be separated again,”

Faveah didn’t want to, couldn’t bring herself too mentally or emotionally - but her body starved of Soup for years knew nothing of her disgust.

Proboscis raised by the desperate need to end the famine from beside her nose…..

<<<<>>>>

497BBY - Aethas Alpine Valley

The Anzat tore and thrashed at women’s armoured forms, trying to rip into the meat beneath.

All most of the Anzat achieved were wrecking their teeth and nails, a few rushing deeper into the cavern finding the multiple inner barriers that isolated the children from the adults.

It could hold out the Anzat - but not the men.

They dragged their sisters and cousins from the tumult, threw them against walls and hurled them outside to be collected for the Hanshõ’s consumption.

There was no resistance, how could there be when the power of a million consumed souls demand they Submit.

Valens lifted Sofa from the ground, not to save her but to press her against the wall, his elbow jutting into her throat.

“Where are the children,” his mouth demanded without the assent of his heart.

“Third junction, straight down the gallery…four levels in” she unwillingly replied.

He cast her aside, the closest to mercy they could show was for the Aethan men to focus on finding the children, leaving the ‘Breaking’ demanded by the Hanshõ to the comparatively weaker Anzat thralls, though he knew it was only a temporary measure.

Swiftly directing his team forward they pushed deep into the sacred caverns, the carved images of the Goddesses seeming to weep as they passed.

Where were their Goddesses now? 
Where had they been at the Devastation?
The Collapse? 
Whom had they chosen as their favorites to save this time?
Or was the power of the Gaki so much greater than the Goddesses they were rendered impotent in their own sacred spaces?

The directions led to a seemingly dead end rounded room with tapestries on the wall. Keen Aethan senses felt out the slight differentials in mass.  heading to one tapestry Valens tore it down to reveal another large blockage behind which the Children had to be concealed.

Sofa lay supine as a tattooed Anzat Ganger tried in vain to break her legs, unconcerned for her own suffering, weeping inside tears her body would not allow - for they did not serve the Hanshõ - for the fate about to befall her daughters.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 15 - Revelation — Part 3

497BBY - Aethas Southern Polar Laboratory

She was in a cryo facility, the small flecks of moisture on her skin crystallizing in an instant, trails of steam following her motion as she warmed the resentful cold of ages.

Her senses told her she was close, sliding carefully beneath the hanging empty cages in the pitch dark, her mass senses sketching out their sharp restraints in her mind, what had been housed here in centuries past she cared not.

The Target was ahead, near her little sister, amidst the Shadow the energy the Target was forcing Milaea to use was obscene, but provided a piercing beacon for her to follow to his Doom.

Tendrils on nearby Lek’un allowed her to Latch and Drain them, as she got nearer she felt more in the vicinity, scrutinising their placement in a defensive formation at key intersections and doorways, utterly unaware of the vast frozen chambers beneath.

Their power gave her speed and satiety as she moved closer and closer, cracking old ice to squeeze through frost gaps, brushing past frigid bare metal pipes, then calming a brittle old ladder toward an access hatch.
 
Peering through the grooves she could see another of the hanging cages, but this featured a lone occupant, still, dead and frozen solid, if in disconnected pieces, for the better part of three thousand years.

Tentatively lifting the hatch she scuttled to a low wall above which was a large frosted glass panel.

He was on the other side, wrapped in Milaea’s reality destroying power.

There would never be a better time, caught in the Temporal Vortex, the Target was more vulnerable than ever in the fragile moments when he returned to Actualised Time and Space.

That was the moment.

<<<<>>>>

The Universe and last shred of the Clucir’s sanity shattered as he watched his starving daughter forced to feed on her brother, and then, her usefulness at an end the final desecration - Faveah was dissected, catalogued and frozen beyond life, a curiosity to study now and then, a reference ‘text’ of blood and bone.

Milaea expected Rage - a Nuclear Tsunami of Destruction to explode in waves of bitter hate exploding from the Anzat Ancient.

Instead there was only her own still small voice in the silence that followed Revelation.

“...I’m sorry…” Milaea’s voice barely a whisper in her exhaustion as the past faded into the present with a shattering of glass and sprays of blood.

<<<<>>>>

Exploding through the frosted glass with shatterpoint precision Kiraea saw the Target gripping Milaea’s arm, his red eyes bleeding tears, haggard face showing every day of his 12,000 plus years of life.

In a half second that seemed to last an hour Kiraea threw one Oblivion blade at his neck as she flipped through the fragments of glass over their heads.

Rannek’s focus was solely on the dissected components of his daughter's body, crusted in ice and time before him, head, torso, limbs and a few organs in icy jars on separate mechanical arms holding them still in the cryo chamber, shock freezing him stiff as his children.

Kiraea landed on her knees the full force of her stalled momentum pushed into the Oblivion Shortsword in a reverse grip that plunged behind her and into Rannek’s back.

It cut through the elegant blossoming Tsubaki, the red camilla, of the Kamon of Q’Atrox upon his cape, through his weathered Gaki crenellated armour, severed the neurons between spinal discs, its tip through muscle and into his heart as Kiraea coldly instructed Milaea.

“Consume!”

Rapidly Milaea turned her full power into ten thousand fangs digging into Rannek’s Anima.

Raw instinct from latent Anzat derived genes that Taryn, Kiraea and the others had first unlocked when the Shadow denied them alternatives to use the Aether, and Milaea was forced to activate as Rannek forced her to connect with him to allay the Kuru - all powered and enabled her ‘bite’ into him.

The imbalance between his extreme highly pressurized Anima, and the depleted low pressure of Milaea’s own energy created a vast gradient - only amplified by the sudden stress response of Rannek’s body, disconnected from his conscious mind which was stalled with grief.

Ranneks power flooded into her, his vast ability to draw on the Force diminishing even as it was added to Milaea’s own already demi-god like capacity.

Soron Varas, or rather his acolytes and successors, had built into the Aethan genome and soul a modified form of Anzat Consumption that allowed her to draw from him, or any other victim, all the raw power and leave the Ghosts trapped in his soul.

The half second ended and Rannek collapsed back as Kiraea’s blade slid out, black blood trickling behind.

Milaea shaking from the ingestion of such enormous power caught him as her legs failed her, Kiraea swinging her blade forward to take on any of the Lek’un who dared try to intervene.

But the servant race was astonishingly silent and still.

Rannek’s head fell into Milaea’s lap, his red eyes turning ever darker as the Ghosts of his Victims began to grab at every inch of his skin, the enormous power that had been the only thing holding the Kuru back for so many centuries now gone.

You shall not die till every ghost you have made has had is fill of vengeance upon you

The Vornic of the Vel had uttered that with his last blood and ash choked breath - Rannek could hear the words once more, as the curse was at last fulfilled.

He looked into Milaea’s face, with what little life and sanity was left raising his hand.

“Misíta….” he stroked her face. She thought he had once again confused her with Faveah.

“Milaea…” he confirmed, speaking her name for the third and last time to make sure she knew he had made no mistake now. 

He saw her - Milaea - his Descendant, his Heir.

Rotten fingers crawled under his skin, mouldy teeth began to bite at his organs as tears mingled with blood dripping down his face - the Ghosts had Him - and…

She was all he had left.

“My Child… don’t leave me…”

Defenceless, the ghosts began shredding his soul to pieces, each taking back first that piece he had stolen from them, then fighting for ever more fragmented pieces of the withered core that remained.

<<<<>>>>

[TheDutchman]

Poor Rannek.

His is a story as lamentable as any Greek Tragedy, from the degeneration of his entire society to the loss of his children to the second (and much, MUCH more gruesome) loss of his children to the realization that he's been in company of his "grandchildren" all along... But that's not all: the complete refutation of his (past!) species' dominance over the Lek'un only to "meet" their genetic fusion; such must have been a crushing realization for the Elder Anzat...

...Yet the reminder: this IS the consummation of Tyrrel's curse millennia ago.  This is not just ONE "bad thing" or even a series of complications; no, this is an absolute malediction that has become Rannek's life AND fate.  One almost--almost!--feels (simultaneously) sympathetic for Rannek (as well for Kar Xandir).  He (they) are certainly the playthings of the galaxy's deities...

...Or perhaps is the recipient of karmic judgement.  Perhaps.

However, this HAS been elucidating with the (forgive the pun) genesis of our Aethans, especially with the various species that comprise the genetic makeup of their genome.  Even now the necessary genius required to bring about the fusion of such disparate genetic coding is remarkably incredible.  Soron Varas is most definitely deserving of his genius status (which is mitigated by his complete lack of ethics).  One now wonders...what else did Soron do; it's highly doubtful that combining the four species genomes as a basis for Aethan DNA was EVERYTHING that he (or for that matter, the Technocracy itself) has done/will do.  More to come, I'm sure.

Special focus on Kiraea: she gets to show off her skills as the resident Aethan assassin (Evyn and Evaea notwithstanding), razor-focused on her Target especially as an avenging angel/enforcer for the Children.  Able to siphon the necessary Force/Aether energies from the Lek'un--just as the eidetic absorption seen in earlier Aethan stories--has been explained as the genetic gift courtesy of the Aethans' Lek'un "parentage."  One wonders just what the remaining Lek'un will do now that their Hanshó is now dead.  For that matter, what else lies in store for our Aethans now that the Shadow has been expunged.

Meta-note: FANTASTIC payoff with both this story's mysteries AND the overall Aethan narrative!  How horrible for Rannek (and especially Mardenes and Faveah) with their fates; it goes to underscore the horrible things done in pursuit of Genesis Deus.  Perhaps a reason for the current Aethans' Fate: the ramifications of their birth is bathed in blood and horror and requires payment in kind.

LSG has masterfully pulled these threads together organically and given us a resolution that was exciting, engrossing, and amazing!

EXPLOSIVE climax!  Looking forward to what's to come 

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 16 - Resolution - Part 1

497BBY - Caverns of Aephrodaea

With a start Sophi sat up, her mouth dry and tummy hungry.
“Mumma?” she called out blinking her heavy eyes open.

Where was she…she wasn’t here before…she was racing with Lysi…

Aether candles burnt low, there were several small fire pits illuminating a strange scene.  She was beside her sisters, all were swaddled up, and around them on blankets and cushions…everyone! All her cousins it seemed.

Trying to stand up her legs and arms felt weak like when she would be so tired the morning after playing too long into the night.

There was a tube in her arm, she pulled it out with a scrunched face.
“Eww…”
Finally righting herself she looked around, starting to hear the sighs and gasps as the younger children woke.

“Mumma, Pappa, Aunty Kiri, Aunty Ari?” she called

No one replied.

Forcing herself up she looked for Lysi, she was beside her sister and brothers.  Sophi knelt and shook her awake.

“Lysi wake up, everything is strange!” Lysi was the second oldest, if there were no adults around then she and Lysi had to look after the others.

Lysi stirred, her eyes blinking out of synchronicity

“Where…”
“I don’t know… it looks like one of the caves…”

Somewhere behind them she heard sobbing, then a cry.

“Come on, we have to look after our cousins!” Sophi demanded.

It took a little while but eventually everyone woke up and they pulled out the tubes connected to water filled bags. 

There were bladders with heated milk and water, satchels and baskets with food in one corner for them, but no obvious way out of the cavern, the walls were all solid and covered in tapestries and paintings, except for one large blocky piece of Blackstone like Great Uncle Melron would mine out of the quarries.

Sophi and Lysi grouped the kids up, making sure the littlest ones were looked after by the older, everyone trying to seek their parents in the aether, but the walls seemed to block them from everything!

“How are we gonna get out?” Vesi asked her older sister Sophi,
“I don’t know…” she said staring at the blackstone slab “I’m not sure if we should move it…maybe it’s keeping something bad out…we should wait a little longer for Mumma and Pappa…” they could smell from trace fragments on the blankets and cushions - Mumma and most of their Aunts had been here recently.

“Less than a day ago,” Lysi confirmed her tracking scent skills slightly better than Sophi’s, to Sophi’s great annoyance.

“hmmm…I’ll just ask…” without any ceremony Sophi went over to a small hollow in the cavern wall where three marbled statues, mostly the vibrant White-scar laced with strands of the teal Aquarion, with arms linked and their various totems stood, each image just over half a meter high and perfectly proportioned beneath a Triquetra banner.
 
“Aethenaea, Aertemisaea, Aephrodaea, where are our parents?” Sophi asked the Goddesses directly.

The statues eyes stared back at her quietly for a moment, their faces serene and kindly, before they looked past her to the blackstone slab that desperate muscles began to move with ferocious haste.

<<<<>>>>

3947BBY - Aethas Alpine Valley

He stood in the spartan accommodation of his deceased friend, a moment of quiet contemplation surveying the few trinkets Kar Xandir had kept in the dark grey walled room of the prefab apartment he shared with Alixa.

Printed images of Alixa as a babe next to those of Jem Xandir, Kar’s daughter and yet Alixa’s mother. 

Truly they had brought joy from tragedy, it was just a shame, Varas thought, that Kar hadn’t stayed the course fully.

He began packing the few possessions away, a task he preferred to do himself…just in case Kar had left anything that might…confuse…Alixa and Varasian as to the nature of their progenitor.

Through the footlockers and cupboard he found only one items of potential interest, an old box of hardened durasteel, a Republic Army stamp upon it.

Unlocked, there were three items inside.  Varas was relieved, he had feared Kar had kept that mind numbing shamble of mythological rubbish the Book of the Way of the Maker, fortunately none was present. Instead there were two lightsabers - no doubt those belonging to Jem Xandir and Kar’s sister Kay Xandir, and a curious cube.

“Ah a Holocron…dear Kar never willing to let go of life…” a sentence that caused something akin to what must be grief for Varas, to know Kar had sacrificed himself for Varasian, noble in it’s way some might call it, simple good sense for Varas, the older generation must give their all for the survival and thriving of the new.

Gently tapping it a small conical projection of blue was emitted from the Holocron but no image.

Was it…blank?

He would have to ask Atris but perhaps…perhaps that was for the best. 

Indeed what if…he were to use it himself, to ensure the correct philosophy behind Genesis Deus was passed through the ages and all his hard won knowledge of gene coding was not only preserved but expanded with the Holocrons learning algorithms…

“My dear Kar, thank you for your last gift.  Immortality.”

<<<<>>>>

497BBY - Aethas Southern Polar Laboratory

Rannek’s head rolled back as his blood poured out with every twitch of his damaged heart, steaming in the cold, his body still and silent, but within his still flickering brain he burned in a Yomi of the glassy shards of his victims gnashing and scratching hatred.

“Quickly my dear, into the Cryovat, his body can still be of use to us!” Varas insisted his hologram appearing right beside them

Milaea remained staring at Rannek, conflicted in what, if anything she felt toward her tormentor - and ancestor - a man, a monster, who had brutally pushed aside every barrier to finding his children, rightly hating the torment they had endured, yet finding some scrap of hope in Milaea herself before his own crimes consumed him.

“You’re worse than him,” she whispered to Varas

“My child you are merely distressed...I made you. Condemn me and damn your own existence,” he replied tranquilly, his algorithms incapable of conceiving his progeny might ever detest their means of genesis.

“With his body we can learn more of the ‘Yokusei’, the Shadow in the Aether - and how to inoculate the Aethan race against it.”

She couldn’t disagree with that.

Lifting Rannek up she slowly hefted him over the shattered glass as the thrum of the refrigerator units intensified to compensate for the breach in the seal - not difficult in the frigid glacial polar region.

To Kiraea’s suspicion the Lek’un remained utterly unmoved, Rannek’s guards watching with almost indifference at the death of their feudal Lord.

The reason for their absence of action was buried deep in their Lekku - all had memories of their ancestral Hanshõ’s being murdered and the Kinde claimed by another - for the Lek’un were never to intervene in such inheritance disputes within a Kinde.

The Anzat had long ago discerned that they benefited more from the Lek’un’s loyalty to the position of an Anzat within a Kinde rather than the person - it made inheriting them as property seamless - whoever occupied the rank of Clucir, regardless of how they obtained said Title, was whom the Q’atrox Lek’un served.

And though not strictly Anzat, the desperation of the long abandoned Lek’un - enforced by their culture and genetic memory of servitude to obey any even near legitimate successors made Druhanne grasp this thin thread with all his might.

As Milaea placed Ranneks body - the blood already snap freezing around his wounds - onto an empty ice encrusted gurney, the Efendi gestured to the Sonae to kneel.

Druhanne pressed his head to the floor nine times in obeisance, then rose to the Seiza pose proudly.

“Hail and Honour Clucíra Milaea-Sangre-mare Q’Atrox, first of her name! Granddaughter of Rannek-Soma. Hanshõ of Kinde Q’atrox, Defender of the Evokation, Supreme Lady of the Circle of Nine, First Protector of the Echo Throne, Shogun of the United Armies of Anzat Prime, Benevolent Intercessor of the Grateful Lek’un!”

“HAIL MILAEA, HAIL MILAEA!” the Sonae chanted as one.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 16 - Resolution - Part 2

497BBY - Aethas Alpine Valley

Even by the standards of a species described, even by their most sympathetic observer Kazic Ovarug, as near feral monsters, the slaughter that followed the sudden and inexplicable lifting of the Shadow of the Aether, and the Yokusei with it, had been horrific.

The brothers Valens and Jarys fingers had stopped dead, the red blazing energy from their Hades rifles pounding into the Blackstone boulder that kept the children from them dissipating slowly away.

Around them the beating of their wives, sisters and cousins ceased as the Anzat felt light headed, the intense urge to break the limbs and scourge the skin of the women gone, disorientation and confusion in its place.

Jarys and Valens lowered their rifles, their genecrafted frontal cortices neurology quickly reasserting full control from the rear brain organs that had overridden them under the compulsion of the Yokusei.

Bright warm flows of the aether streamed through every cell in their body renewing strength and health.

Resistance and anger once impotently contained within them was now able to be unleashed.

Sofa pulled herself up and grabbed her attackers face, the full force of her superhuman muscles pressing till it cracked inward.

Swift as the wind Valens and Jarys turned on the Anzat behind them, casting their rifles aside to rip at the intruders with their bare hands and teeth.

Across the caverns the Aethan’s mercilessly took their vengeance upon the Anzat, tearing limbs and heads free, stomping bodies into the rocky floor, rending throats with tooth and nail.

The Anzat whose recovery from the stupor of the Yokusei was slower began to resist after a time, but they were not a unified force - a confused random aggregation of whoever could answer the Clucir’s call, and were now upon a feral hostile world of vengeful Tribals with insatiable lust for blood.

Many died in minutes, the women they had been clawing exploded their heads or burning them alive with their renewed aether power. More died slowly, bleeding out after being rendered little more than shredded torso’s.

Those few Anzat with combat experience and training found themselves fighting against three enraged demi-god men at once, sliced into pieces in moments as bottled hatred manifested as gushing Anzat blood.

<<<<>>>>

The movement of the big slab of rock had stopped.  Then there was nothing for a long time as the children chewed and slurped the food and milk left for them, watching the blackstone slab expectantly, their trust in the Goddesses whose statue watched over them protectively was absolute.

Finally the big slab began to move, Lysi and Sophi trusted they were safe, but were still cautious, knives in their hands.

Scent particles, a mix of earthy blood, slowly turning icky flesh and the sharp spikes of gases they had only smelt when their parents did target practice with outsider guns filled their small noses, and the Aether at last began to flow both in and out now the barrier was removed.

Pushing through as soon as the gap was wide enough to the very millimeter Sofa rushed, sweeping Lysi and Sophi up in her arms as Valens, Jarys, Taran and Lydan combined continued the strenuous task of pushing the enormous slab aside.

The rest of the mothers swarmed in, grabbing their children tightly, overjoyed to see them awake, unharmed apart from restless limbs and empty stomachs.

The flood of bonding hormones doubled the speed of the neurological systems that purged ‘useless’ sensations like trauma and distress, only the curious gazes of their children on the splotchy bruises and patched cuts reminding them of the terror that had just swept across them.

They enjoyed the moments of the Reunion, knowing the work of recovery - however enhanced by their genetic design - loomed long ahead of them.

<<<<>>>>

497BBY - Aethas Southern Polar Laboratory

Snow burst up as Ari hit the ground, the Vendari behind her instantly running full tilt at the Lab entrance.

The Aethenaea had barely reached the Southern Pole, intent on submitting to Rannek himself before the Yokusei vanished and the Shadow lifted.

Shivering Lek’un Teppo-gami hid behind what cover of glacial rocks they could till the heavy phirk doors stuttered open behind them.

Raising her rifle in her right hand, balling a crackling fist of Aether lighting in her left, Ari prepared to unleash a wave of destruction at whatever came through the door, the pall of the Shadow that had limited her so long at last gone.

She stalled only when she saw Kiraea, sword to a Lek’un in formal robs throats marching out, behind her dozens more Lek’un hands on their heads, weapons nowhere to be seen.

Druhanne called for the Sonae to lay down their weapons, the warriors at the surface complying with confusion as Ari and the Verdari reached them, Ninth and her enormous revenant warriors swiftly kicking the legs from under each of the supine Lek’un as soon as the reached them, then pushing their faces into the bitter snow.

Kiraea reached for Ari’s mind, at long last their instinctive telepathy restored, the simplest and a welcome of message communicated.

<Target Eliminated> Kiraea ‘said’

<Where is Milaea?> Aris asked with desperate urgency.

<<<<>>>>

The Goddess watched the Gaki burn.

The mighty Clucir Rannek-soma mare Q’Atrox hung in state of cryogenic suspension, the gaping wound in his heart an irrelevance as the flash freezing at barely 100 Kelvin temperature kept him a state of suspense a moment from actual death.

Freeze burns left black marks on his limbs and face - did he feel them?

Was he consumed by torment within as, absent his Anima, the ghosts of his victims tormented his mind while denied the release of death?

Milaea could not tell, there was no sensation from him at all, no Anima or Aura to sense, he was no different to a block of ice in the Aether.

Perhaps he was dead to all sensation.  At least now he would be forced to hear, if not listen.

“Everything you’ve done, all the..pain…you’ve caused…will be forgotten.” she said with sharpness that had never been in her voice before rising with each syllable.

“Even now I can feel the psy-conditioning hormones and neural contingencies activating to dispel any trauma, leaving only factual recollections of your…demands…your brutality…but your Power…” a wry self deprecating smile itched at the corner of her mouth

“That I will keep,  along with my rightful inheritance - Your precious lands, your Lek’un, it’s the least you owe me for everything you’ve done.”

The Genius - or his mechanical shadow - seemed pleased with her monologue as he already began working on the task of unlocking the secrets of the Yokusei, the most powerful practitioner of it now an unresisting test subject.

As his children before him...she found a transgressive mirth in the cruel thought.

Mardenes and Faveah had not deserved such a fate, Rannek though…

The Southern Laboratories would be repaired and reactivated, the work begun so long ago as Genesis Deus needed to be completed, at whatever cost, for the People's survival.

She felt a warmth in the aether radiating from across the planet, a reunion of mothers, fathers and children, the comforting arms of the Goddesses offering protection and succour wrapping about the People.

A chill half sneer - unconscious imitation of the un-smile that had been the limit of Ranneks expressive range - creased her perfectly symmetrical alabaster features.

Where had those Goddesses been through all this?

Wounded, sore, but quickly recovering Milaea sensed all the People had survived.

“So that is where you were…ensuring no Aethan died…even at the cost of grievous wounds.”

She knew it was true, the Goddesses were in Her, as much as she was part of them.

“You didn’t create Rannek, didn’t inspire his crusade, but you made sure it worked, in the end, to your advantage…” Milaea went on her right hand opening fingers clawed. 
Red sparks of aether lighting, each capable of sending a grown Aethan man to his knees, danced between her finger tips coming in and out of existence by the dozen with a trivial mote of her newly expanded power, casting crimson shadows across Rannek still face.

’Our’ Advantage Sweet Child…the cost was the last of our gathered power, We can no longer protect you, or intervene, away from this world. the voice was both from within and outside her, inextricably linked as she was to the Goddesses.

“And what of the other costs…” Milaea demanded the Divine justify the suffering, even if mitigated, they had allowed.

We Survive. We Thrive. That is all that matters. was the non answer

“Is it?” Milaea replied bitterly.

“Mili?” Ari’s voice echoed through the room.

With an exuberant rush Ari dashed to embrace her as Milaea turned.

Perhaps it was just the cryo of the lab, the shock of whatever traumas she had suffered Ari thought - but Milaea’s return embrace had never felt so cold. 

<<<<>>>>

3912BBY - Alderaan

“I’m not saying don’t, I’m just saying take your time about it,” she insisted as they walked along the busy promenade, the glistening Aldera lake to their left, shimmering silver in the setting sun.

Maarten scratched the back of his head, his dark copper hair ruffling in the light breeze as they stepped around other’s on evening strolls or dining in the colourful restaurants built along the white granite walkways.

Mira smacked his hand away, annoyed by her son’s habit, one he had had since he was barely five.

“I know Mom, just really like her is all,”

“No reason to get caught up, trust me you’ll miss your freedom if you’re not ready,”  she knew that from experience, sometimes she still regretted having him at all, wondering if she hadn’t kept him after that somewhat drunken liaison, could she have spent more time looking for her family - her original family….

But really by then too many decades had come and gone, if she wanted a family she had to make her own - the one thing those freaks in the deep core all those years ago had been right about on the very rare times she ever thought about that awful experience.

“Now where did you want to eat…” she paused as amidst the crowd one figure in a crimson robe stood right in her path, a small grimace she shifted to move around.

The pedestrian threw the hood on the robe back - and Mira looked into her own eyes.

“Hello Mother,” the young woman said her features radiant and bright,
“Grandfather send’s his regards,” she jolted forward, then in a smooth motion turned round and vanished into the crowd.

Only then did Mira feel the warm trickle of something wet running down her synth leather pants, and Maarten fell to his knees.

Raising her hand Mira saw it was covered in blood, but her eyes were on Maarten, her son flopping to the side, his saber rolling free from his jacket along with his blood.

Kira left them for dead, the obsolete fools. 

It was quite true, Mira was her ‘mother’, but so were Alixa and Atris - Jaro Katas and Noab Hulis her ‘fathers’, such were the wonders of Great Grandfather Varas’ genetic craft. 

This particular ‘mother’ had not only scorned the chance to be part of the great Aethas Colony but killed her grandfather Kar Xandir - a bastion of marital prowess and champion of Technocratic ideals. 

Before the Colony, at long last self-sufficient, closed itself to the galaxy full of imperfect ugly xeno’s and decrepit backward ‘cultures’, they wished to avenge that never forgotten insult.

Bystanders rushed to help as Kira vanished back into the crowd, Mira felt herself lifted as blue lights scanned over her face, curved emergency assistance droids popping from nearby venues to administer immediate treatment in a futile effort.

Blinking back her fading vision she thought she saw a man she once knew…Varasian…somewhere behind the throng of people trying to help her.

“You should have stayed with me,” he said with bitterness that followed the child she dared have with someone else into death.

<<<<>>>>

[TheDutchman]

It seems that Milaea's (and, indeed, Soron Varas') quest towards apotheosis is--if not complete then is--that much closer.  With her having taken at least part of Rannek's Anima, she herself is closer to the literal goddess that she was born to become.

But at what cost?

Given all of her experiences with Rannek, the depredations that inflicted up her, her wife, her Children, her very People, Milaea has suppressed the Humanity that her adoptive Father instilled within her, Soryu's legacy one of monumental galactic importance.  Now at the end, we see much, much more of the Red Goddess and much, much less of Mili.

What--if anything--can be done to stop her from completely giving up on her Humanity so as not to succumb to the violent xenophobia genetically engineered into her very make up?

The other Aethans (those without good Outsider experience) will certainly see this as further proof (not that they needed any) that "anyone Other than People" is a threat to be eliminated, a resource to be exploited, or barely considered collateral damage that had the temerity to be in their way.  Should this provenance continue, it would be very likely indeed that the "Mirror Universe" containing a galaxy conquered and obedient to complete Aethan rule would become the "Prime Timeline."

And those are just the over-arching ramifications of Rannek's actions.  What of the interpersonal relationships between Aethans?  True, they've been genetically modified so as not to ruminate upon "bad things" but even genecrafting cannot completely eliminate the emotional imperative e.g. all Aethans still have consideration for two conditions: "People" and "Friends"

Yet more of what we shall have to see...

But we are given a very clear reason as to why the Aethans are not more known the galaxy throughout: Mira (and her son) are specifically targeted and killed.  One wonders though: how much of that can be ascribed to petty vindictiveness rather than "Cleansing" genetic chattel.  Regardless, the ending is a graphic example of xenophobia and amorality that surrounds Genesis Deus since its inception.

Meta-note:  Incredible entry; extremely dark turn especially towards the end.  I'd hoped that maybe--maybe!--Mira would've been able to escape...but I think that she essentially damned herself with her killing Kar as he possessed the last vestiges of morality that could've made the difference in Aethan society.
But the other major victim (and she is) is none other than Milaea.  She'd not only been subject to a marginalization akin to rape but then had to watch as her entire People's Legacy (the Children) are in a constant state of threat, one only and timely subverted thanks to Kiraea's assassination of Rannek.  Worse: this will no doubtably act as a reason/incentive/inducement to pull her People tighter together, that everyone NOT People will be relegated to the status of "Other" (or, more realistically, "Enemy").
It is as gripping a tale as it is melancholic.

BUT, it also makes me wonder: where does LSG take us next?

EXCELLENT conclusion sir!

P.S. The fan casting was OUTSTANDING