Remnant of the Aether

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 10 — Blaze of Memory — Part 1

Then

He didn’t like it here.

Everything was smelly and ugly.  He wanted mommy and daddy. But he couldn’t see or feel them.

Everything was hard and cold, even more scary than when the booms had gone off.  He didn’t like the booms, and the lights, they hurt his ears and eyes, Daddy had run out with his axe, mommy...

There were big booms and he woke up here.  A big ugly thing walked past the big window he was behind, across was old Scintaea, she looked hurt. 

He remembered going to see Scintaea’s house once when he had a cough, her house smelled funny and had lots of dry leaves, and he had to drink a yucky drink, but he didn’t cough so much after that.

He couldn’t see the sky or the sun here…he didn’t know what time it was…he had to go home to feed Bomo…

He missed Bomo…but Bomo wouldn’t like it here…Bomo was his friend, he was a gormin and furry, he had been born at the end of winter, he got to help wash his fur.

Daddy had said he was old enough to look after a Gormin so he had to feed and water Bomo every morning and every night.  He had left a lot of food for Bomo when they went to the big village…but he might’ve been hungry and eaten it all by now.

There were more loud noises, it was like a Vorynx growling…Vorynx were scary…maybe they had a big one.

<<<<>>>>

A big ugly green thing opened the window and pulled him out, it hurt his shoulder.  He had fallen asleep and his leg hurt because it was too tight to lie down.

He saw other people getting pushed around by more big ugly things.

“Take my hand Taryn,” Scintaea said reaching down.  He took it, her hand was hard and rough.

They walked through a big place to outside, the sky looked funny, all the people they pushed into a big group, it was very strange, it looked like the place here was made of mountain stones, big ugly things were all around them.  Everyone felt sad.

They were made to line up, a funny looking thing waved a magic box over them one by one saying things he couldn’t really understand

“Dish Wun, Fwawty Yars Uld, Ferty Fowsand.”

“Dish Wun, Feefty Yars Uld, Tweentee Farv Fowsand”

Scintaea understood now…they were being sold…only the elderly, the mothers and the youngest children had been on the flying machines she had been on…No doubt the teens and young adults had been taken elsewhere…she had no illusions they would fare better…

She glanced over to the other older women and one Old Man from the coast village left.  There was little choice…the Guardians were gone, they were in a strange land beyond their ability to ever return…surrounded by creatures she had no name for. 

“Dish Wun…” the grotty creased faced creature drooled infront of her,

“Seexty Yars Uld…Feefteen Fowsand,”

She closed her eyes and felt the assent of the others around her…they would not be caged…

It was time.

The brown ugly things head exploded, he rolled into a ball as bits of sticky black goo dropped over him.

Taryn held his hands against his ears as loud noises started, and closed his eyes as bright colourful lights went all over everywhere.

He started to cry…they were hurting,…everyone was hurting and vanishing, where were they going?…He didn’t understand – he wanted mommy and daddy!

“Fracking DREN!” yelled captain Xega as the last shots died down and the smoke rose off the dead, his first mate lying dead at his feet, his neck broken by invisible hands.

“You Kriff licking idiots don’t know how to use stun! That’s 300 K out the air lock!”  he scanned over the row of blackened corpses…he’d already lost a third of his men on the forsaken world they’d picked these forcelings up from, now he’d lost six more.

He’d barely break even on this now.

“egh…that was…unpleasant…” the snivelling Lyr poked out from behind the landing gear,

“Shut your Hutt licking hole!” the Vordan captain replied

He surveyed what was left of the shipment idly scratching the longest of his chin horns. One of the old ones was coughing up blood, another had taken a bolt straight through the bicep…might be able to fix those…apart from that one of the mother ones was balled up around her infant, and a few of the little ones were wailing on the ground…but only half.

He strode over to the limp form of one of the smaller products…

“Dren…”  they had killed their own rather than be sold…they fetched at least a hundred thousand each…he couldn’t bet on the insurance he had with Myzm covering this….he had his debt to consider – barely paid off his own freedom…from Myzm…and was deep into it with the loan he’d taken for his ship…from Myzm…he might be a free Vordan legally, but the bonds of debt kept him chained…this should’ve been the break he needed.

His monochromatic eyes scanned the remnants, one of the small products wasn’t whimpering, it was shaking an old woman’s corpse,

“Scinta…Scin…” it garbled.  He reached down and grasped its shoulder effortlessly lifting it up,

“I’m Keeping this one for me self” he yelled over to Lyr, the deal had been Myzm had first right to purchase all the product at usually below market values “Guaranteed credits rather than risking a loss at auction” Lyr sold it as –

Frell the fat slug, he could make a decent amount off this one at a private auction, he tossed the little squealing product back up the ramp.

<<<<>>>>

Now

Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time
The music played through the head phones as he switched his boots mag locks off…
I feel alive…. And the world I'll turn it inside out
A knee powered flip into a void streaked by yellow and red lights bolts of pure energy traded between the ships, orange blooms died as oxygen was cut by bulk heads, ruby and obsidian tears of blood floated from blue and grey lifeless corpses in the silver wreckage.
And floating around in ecstasy
It was almost a sense of peace to be alone and floating like this…

But peace was boring.

So don't stop me now, don't stop me…'Cause I'm having a good time, having a good time….

Grenade launcher in one hand, disintegrator blaster in the other Blaze hit the thrusters and pulled at the Flow to send himself shooting ahead.

I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky like a tiger

A Starchasher streaked past buffeting him with backwash carried by the expelled nitrogen field, the Flow let him twist from fragments of a Z-75 Headhunter blasted apart on its way through, heated wreak melting frozen globules of water from a busted tank.

Defying the laws of gravity

He spun like a top toward the Chandrillan Star Liner firing off his grenade launcher – weaving the explosive through the quagmire of wreckage against the pull of the Ki’tani’s gravity well that had dragged the Liner out of Hyperspace

I'm a racing car passing by like Lady Gdyva

The grenade smashed into the unshielded doonium blasting another hole in the hull, barely slowing he flipped round to slam his boots down inside an access corridor, in one swift motion he reloaded and fired another round into the blast door shattering it inward – then it below out with an explosive decompression as he spun through the shrapnel.

I'm gonna go go go…There's no stopping me

He was IN, ditching the launcher he pounded forward flicking out his tremor sword running into the durasteel of the corridor just to see the sparks fly.

I'm burnin' through the sky two hundred degrees

The doors were sealing ahead…no matter…he flicked his hand up and Blazed – a stream of blue white flame poured onto the metal searing it into a white hot mess that turned yellow then orange as it sloughed to the floor as he jumped through the heat.

That's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit

A burst of speed and he was into one of the multi storied concourses, a few security guards stunned at his arrival.

I'm traveling at the speed of light

Three shots, three kills, heads turned to ash from the disruptor as he leapt off the balcony down three stories to the fountain at the centre of the Luxury Cruise liners shopping mall.  Crisp clean illuminated metal brand logo’s hung above grated doors due to the lock down,

<Pirate Scum>

The Flow called

“Pirate SCUM!” the guard said in the real world, Blaze spun round into a crouch to avoid the stun-baton his disintegrator straight into the body armour.

He pulled the trigger – the blaster sending him flying up and away

I wanna make a supersonic man out of you…Don't stop me now

“Section secure boys!” he stalked toward the Cartyr Jeweller store, ripping the pathetic grate open with the Flow. The cases were full of luxury jewellery the patsies hadn’t had time to put away.

Smashing one case open he grabbed a handful and stuffed it under his chest plate, the armour all red accented with black flames – he figured he deserved an extra cut.

I'm having such a good time, I'm having a ball

Something tickled his nose…flicking out his hand he tore the door off the staff room and strode in, the two women cowering inside beside the ‘safe’.

“Don't stop me now baby,”

<<<<>>>>

Lyaea

Ooh, each morning I get up I die a little
Can barely stand on my feet

She shifted out of her bunk and onto the cold floor, her ODSC suit right in her face in the cramped cabin aboard the Chiss Destroyer.

Barely able to stand without hitting something she shook off the echoes of her invariably erotic dreams as bet she could….

Dreams were all they were.

(Take a look at yourself) Take a look in the mirror and cry (and cry)

The refresher was 90 degrees to the bed, her hair a bit messy but her features the same alabaster white, smooth as syth-silk skin…the same as her mother, Kiraea, Adaea, only slightly at variance in the nose and distance between eyes to Milaea and Kassyndra.

They’d called her beautiful all the time on Commenor, petty outsiders trying to attract her affections…

But even then she had known they were of no value to her, she needed a real man…

Lord, what you're doing to me
I have spent all my years in believing you
But I just can't get no relief, Lord!

A pang of jealousy filled her as she checked her i-holo messages, Adaea sending a pict of her and Lydan having a picnic, the Gormin the background...

It wasn’t that they were on Aethas relaxing and she was here fighting for the Chiss that made her jealous…

It was knowing what her adoptive and sister and brother would be doing on that nice warm rug in the cool of the evening.

Somebody (somebody) ooh somebody (somebody)

There was just no suitable mate for her…

“All my beauty going to waste…” she woefully noted as she suited up…
Perhaps she would find some relief in slaughtering the Ebruchii pirates that were harassing the Chiss colonies…

Still the track on her i-holo played on.

Can anybody find me somebody to love?

<<<<>>>>

Melron

Yellow clouds rushed past his vision as he fell.  He’d hit terminal velocity, the counter on the HUD running down to when he should activate the proton jets to brake.

He ignored it as it flashed red indicating death was imminent.  The Orbital Drop shock suit was designed for Chiss safety, not People. 

The aether buoyed him in a protective bubble as his momentum slammed into the top of the building, a dozen shattered floors rushed past him, smashing through the upper floors of the command post.

Detritus fell as dust rose round Ultradense Blackstone Mark 1 armour registering only a series of minor scrapes – small price to pay for having infiltrated the enemy’s last bastion.

The Ebruchi were hardly the People’s enemies, but they were annoying the Chiss with their pirate raids – the CEDF was capable but not invincible, and their advanced technology and rich minerals were too tempting a target for the Ebruchi to pass up. 

He stopped at sub-basement three, littered around the dent in the floor the remnant of a Tarro working with the ever so accommodating Ebruchi pirates who seemed to accept anyone willing to join their pirate crews as a fellow Ebruchi. 

Such lax acceptance of outsiders was foreign to Melron, even accepting the unusual case of Sofa and in a way Milaea…People were People.

Rising up he sensed around…56 alive on this and the floor below – the aether tense, emotions firm and steady –this confirmed what their battle meld had sensed – this was the main base of operations.

<Found it> he thought back to Jarys
<Re-enforcement>
<Not necessary, 2 minutes, implement Chokehold>
<Confirmed>

Like lighting he burst forward, the aether a living ring about him shattering internal walls as he headed to the largest group of life forms. 
They staggered as the plasteel wall shattered. 
They died as their bones came apart under his fists.

He pulled his rifle and turned to fire three precise shots into others at the far end of the floor, now the barriers were removed it was like a vast ‘stadium’ if he recalled the word correctly…a place he could practice his aim.

Ebruchi leapt below ruined servers, consols, generators and lockers as he blew their creamy white tentacle faces apart, interspersing his fire with telekinetic grips that liquefied Morseerian, Tarro and Eickarie bodies beneath their armour.

The panic rose below him…he needed it to peak.  He felt out the weakest minds even as he stormed ahead kneeing a crouching Tarro in the face. 

Two…three…he launched his murderous intentions into their minds overwhelming their consciousness with the aether.  In an instant the Ebruchi comms officer, strategist and engineer turned into murderous savages attacking their own.

Now he felt the conviction of the leader break…only for a moment…but a moment was all it took. 

Melron leapt up and slammed through the final floor into subbasement 2, shikkars flying down the corridor seeking the heat signals his senses told were living beings.

He didn’t bother with doors, genetically enhanced strength bashed down the walls to the command room.  This was an operation the Chiss could’ve accomplished on their own – but not without significant losses of key personnel – and a statement needed to be made to these pirates.

He cleared the rubble, green bolts poured over him.  With a thought aetheric lighting followed their paths back to the blasters overloading power cells into a dozen explosions that destroyed hands and shoulders along with the weapons.

The lighting reformed into a shield as he stalked forward idly flash burning those he didn’t need alive.

The building rumbled as ‘Chokehold’ was implemented.  Across the grimy green mesa Valens, Jarys and Lyaea were embedded in Chiss strike teams preventing the pirates escape, while Selaena and Maeson in their Vorynx fighters supported the Chiss Claw craft to deal with the ones who had run at the first sign of trouble.

A burly Tarro rushed him, its seven fingered hands eagerly flicking the vibro staff alight yellow with energy.  If it thought it could face an Aethan Gaurdian in melee combat and succeed…it was dead wrong.  Melron side stepped its first slash, spun into an elbow mashing its face to bone and gristle as the Pirate War Chief opened fire, its facial tentacles splayed and dripping with rage. 

A hidden Eickarie fired green bolts, Melron took the energy of the blasts in, turned it to his will and fired it back out at a as aetheric fire even as he closed with the war chief.

Faster than the Ebruchi could see Melron broke its limbs.

The squelching creature cried out in pain and defiance.

“Your resistance is irrelevant…” Melron knelt beside it scanning the last few survivors – finding respiratory systems and closing them with the aether.

“You’re going to go back to your pirate kin…and you’re going to tell them what happened here…and you’re going to warn them…if they attack the CEDF again…this will happen…again and again…”

<…And again…> the broken creature agreed.

<<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 10 — Blaze of Memory — Part 2

Melron

“32 ships captured, 18 destroyed, 589 pirate casualties, 43 CEDF…” Admiral Ithhawa’Tran’Nuuso paused

“Zero allied…”

He flicked to the next debriefing slide

“War Chief Zmmar has been dispatched carrying tidings of his defeat and a warning to the others….

<Along with a little surprise> Lyaea half smiled behind her helmet

Melron had added other instructions – notably transmitting as much of the Ebruchi’s star maps of the Unknown Regions as possible, and then commencing a civil war amongst the pirates – fourth and fifth level cognisant aetheric manipulation the Chiss were not aware of.

“Operation Chokehold has been a moderate success.”

Melron nodded, it could’ve been better had they given the People complete command – but despite Aethan inherent superiority the Chiss remained cautious about turning over full control. 

Melron could respect the desire to retain control…he would never allow the Chiss to command People, he should not expect People to command Chiss strategy.

“My thanks to our venerable allies in this matter,”

Lyaea stood to give a curt salute of sorts, as part of future proofing the People they took turns commanding missions and dealing with their allies.

“We are proud to assist you in this and any other matters that you might wish to include us on.” She added without much enthusiasm

Despite, or perhaps because of her ‘naughtiness’, Lyaea had done well against Xithar and on the Demagol and managed the Extolled very well.  She was developing into a competent leader, she still had girlish quirks and as the youngest was in fact permitted to be ‘naughty’ in the tradition of Erisaea Daughter of the Goddesses…

But recently…he could sense her disquiet, frustrations growing over the months since the weddings.  She was more lax and irritable than usual…she was of an age, where – traditionally – she would have been married and have her first children on the way – her energies focused and her natural instincts to mate, reproduce, and care for her own children fulfilled.

With their limited population that was not possible. A few years and Milaea would the same…a significant problem to have the two women with the most matriarchal potential so personally unfulfilled.

The Admiral offered a swift efficient salute, Officially they were now Lieutenants in the CEDF, all of them having easily passed the accelerated officer training at the Chiss academies, years of study for a normal Chiss accomplished in weeks by People. 

Melron still recalled the first sparring session he had with a Chiss – the poor instructor broke his wrist punching Melron’s chest – after that it was determined they could only be tested against droids – all of which ended up ruined after half an hour. Still the Chiss had much to teach them about discipline, group tactics, logistics and administration that was valuable.

Lyaea saluted in turn to end the briefing,

“With your permission Admiral we will return to our system unless you have another task requiring our skills,”

Tran’Nuuso so shook his head
“That will be all for now Lieutenant, we can handle the clean-up, you are dismissed,”

Formalities done the Admiral cautiously exiting with his aides leaving them Old Man and young woman alone.

<Lets get the Frell outta here> Lyaea demanded.

<<<<>>>>

Then

Taryn was sure they were going to eat him, through him in one of the huge pots that bubbled by his cage as a huge ugly troll thing boomed about

He’d never get to see Bomo again, or his favourite tree that had the Goddesses carved in them that made it easy to climb on…or his mum or dad…where were they!  He pushed out with the Aeffa but was alone, it was all black.

It was wet here, in the air, he’d never felt anything like it, and there were all kinds of monsters around him that smelled ugly, big ones and little one.

“Hey lets ‘ave some sport,” Bjen called out reaching behind the bench in what could only imaginatively be called a kitchen as the vermin bubbled away in the pots.  He grabbed up on of the runts of the Ki’tani. 

Every time they came into port they’d pick up a few more runts to replace the ones that died - stray children from Soccorro and Nar Shadda for whom anything was better than the streets - even the dangerous work of manually loading cannons, maintaining gears and patching up circuits in the ducts too large for an adult to get into. 

But dying from radiation leaks and electrical overloads was a far more merciful way to go than being used for the Pirate Crews entertainment.

Bjen, a Yaka the Captain Xega openly admitted was a few connections short of a circuit hurled the little rodian into a rapidly forming ring of hot bodies pressed into the few more or less hospitable areas of the ship.

From somewhere a knife too large for the child was thrown before him,

“Right get another runt….” Already knowing were this was heading the runts had rapidly scurried back into dark corners or behind vast muscled legs…all except Taryn who remained in his cage.  With a creaking cybernetic hand Bjen ripped him out.

This one’ll do. The kid Xega had put in the cage was unusually heavy and sobbing as Bjen tossed him to the grimy oil and piss slick floor.

Bjen flicked out a credit chit,

“This to the winner” he grinned at the Rodian child who quickly snatched up the rusted knife that even with both hands he could barely hold.

Taryn didn’t know what was happening, only felt suddenly cold despite how hot it was here as the Aeffa burst in the back of his head.

The queer mermaid thing charged at him, without knowing how Taryn’s feet pushed to the side to get out of its way.  The rodian child quickly spun round, lean hungry limbs powering him forward.  Raising the knife over his head to the point of near tipping over he swung down at the little pink boy.

Taryn closed his eyes and shielding his face convinced they were now chopping him up to be eaten like a Gopin.

Bjen looked on with more interest as the rusted knife his the little humans crossed arms – the knife wasn’t the best…but even so it should’ve cut the skin…

The Rodian hacked away desperate for the credit chit to buy a little extra from the Cook as Taryn rolled around in a ball to raucous laughter from all around.

Bjen had been on the raid in the deep core, knew these meta humans took a lot of stun shots to bring down, and the adults had killed themselves and their children rather than be taken…but till now he hadn’t realised just how unusual they were…the knife- even accounting for how rusty it was - could only make a few odd scratches against the pink skin as the boy howled terrified.

“Finish ‘im!” someone yelled tossing in a lit vibro knife, the Rodian child quickly threw the rusted blade aside and grabbed it running back to Taryn to finish him off.

“What do you think yer doing!” Captain Xega yelled his scales itching in the humidity, that little meta-human was for private sale, he’d told the Cook to keep him fed, last thing he needed was damaged product…looking around he saw Cook passed out dribbling moonshine from his three mouths again as the crew clapped on as a rodian runt attacked the product.

The cold biting in Taryns head distracted him from the red hurting of the boo-boos he’d gotten…the mermaid things ran at him again with a magical blue knife….

Everything seemed to stop.

The Aeffa cold turned hot in his mind, his arms slowly fell away from shielding his head as his hands got very warm.

Xega stopped dead and Bjen’s mouth dropped as the Rodian runt exploded into a ball of blue flame – its snout and eyes exploding out charred pieces of flesh as it dropped.

The human child was a blaze with the same blue glow, but wasn’t consumed by it.

An instant later the product flopped unconscious on the floor.

Any anger Xega had about his product being damaged in a runt fight was washed away as he considered the turn of events – he had intended to sell it…but now…there might be a more profitable way to utilize the little Blazing child.

<<<<>>>

Now

“Here is how it works,” Blaze called out across the assembly of well to do types presses into what had been a central plaza with a nice fountain till his crew wrecked it.

“You all belong to me now…” he strode along the top of what had been a caf cart, each footstep eliciting a moan from a…actually he wasn’t sure what species that was – under the wheel of the cart who had tried to resist.

“But I’m a nice boss ain’t that right Doon?” he went on patting the over sized Yinchorri on the head

“Dat right,” Doon still had a smirk from putting the cart on top of the trader – small things amusing small minds Blaze figured.

“See from the Yinchi’s mouth and you know they’re too dumb to lie…so here’ is the deal…” he gestured toward his least untrustworthy goons holding portable E-Funds transfer devices, blocky but sturdy things equipped with ocular scanners.

“A hundred thousand a piece and your free,” he smiled across the overfed gaudily dressed rich tralks and tossers

A number of puddles dropped in the Flow – some afraid of having to part with their precious credits, others – mostly the Star Liners staff - that they couldn’t pay at all.

“You can’t pay - then you work off your debt…” he offered a snide smirk at that line the humour lost on anyone but him as he noted the glint at the far side of the room.

He leapt down straight onto the caf traders head splotching out blue goop and eliciting numerous disgusted cries as he approached an old Togruta sheltering his two much younger women, pushing past the old loser he gripped the females montrails in what for him was gentle but he knew was painful for these lesser creatures.

“…its hard work…” he whispered grabbing one of the women’s hands and pushing it onto his crotch

“So I suggest you pay!” he had no intention of taking slaves – too much hassle, they got sick, bitched, you had to feed them – simple extortion was so much easier.

He pushed past as the glint he had seen got even closer. A more brash Bothan mouth opened to speak in that slow way the losers all did…Blaze cut him off

“And in case anyone thinks they can get out of paying by force or persuasion.”

The light hit his eyes, he twisted to the side then the sound of the blaster shot reached his ears – the red bolt searing into the Bothan’s head. 

In a smooth continuation of his dodge Blaze spun into a reverse crouch and hurled a torrent of flame into the would be hero who had been lurking in the shadows waiting for a chance to strike.

“Let that be a lesson to you.”

<<<<>>>>

 

Then

“FASTAAAHH” Vorg yelled as he hauled the power cells behind him, legs cramping after hours and hours of treading the sharp grated floors of the Ki’tani’s weapons decks.

With a grunt he let go of his burden grabbed the red hot cell on the wall and twisted the latch to eject it. 

His hands were black with burnt skin covering up the innumerable minor scrapes and wounds.

In a rapid single motion he slammed in then relocked a new power cell so the turbo laser could keep firing.  Then repeated the process on the next one.

The Ki’tani shuddered as it took more hits form somewhere…the Flow gave him a general idea of where the attack was coming from but he didn’t know exactly.  He hated it, he wanted to see who they were fighting instead of being down here on the decks. 

Occasionally he’d sneak up to the bridge using a passage through the ducts and access ways Gnma had taught him…before he broke Gnma’s neck fighting over half a nerf steak.

“Get more Blaze!” Vorg yelled from the control dais in the middle of the huge corridor of batteries, other runts running to and fro just like him…no not like him…none of them could move two cells at once, none of them could run as fast or work for as long as him, that was why he was Bjen’s favourite…and why he let him fight in the pits when they visited Nar Shadda.

He won lots of credits there for Xega and got extra rations in return…for a few days at least.

He turned back and pounded toward the storage room…he’d done this so many times he knew every chink of metal, every patch of discoloured paint, the rhythm of the flickering wires and hissing gas pipes so precisely he could avoid them every time.

Blaze couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a sky…come to think of it he might never have…even on Socorro it was a pall of red pollution. Sometimes he dreamed about a place, green and blue…he didn’t remember ever being there, must’ve just been something he saw on the holo-tube in between Djogers XXX holo-vids that he’d sneak in with Yrma to watch.

One night Yrma got caught by Djoger…Yrma came back a few days after but couldn’t walk or talk right anymore, then he died.  That was the way it was with runts, Blaze quickly made sure to take his clothes and shoes to trade to the new runts that always came.

Spinning into the room he nearly banged his head on the door – he was getting taller…soon he would be too big to be a runt…then he would be with the crew…if they didn’t just haze him to death first, that happened to Fjoko who had always been there like Blaze…but when she got too old…Knodun told her to come up and start sleeping in the main dorms…then one day she vanished too, Knodun was shot in a raid a few weeks later.  When Blaze stripped his body he found Fjoko’s ear in his pocket with a few others on a string.

Gripping three cells he hefted them up his arms taught with strength – no one would do that to him…even little as he was when he got really angry…the Flow overcame him and nothing could stop him then – he’d done it time and again in the pits against other planet side runts…they’d get a few cuts in then he’d get set alight by the Flow and bash and burn them to death.

Trudging back the wall exploded inward ahead of him.

Three runts flew into pieces cut by the explosion of durasteels as a breaching tube ground its way inside.

The Ki’tani buckled and warped as he grabbed onto the ledge, if the atmo was lost he’d have only a few seconds to get to the nearest hatch. 

The breaching tube burst open spewing forth grimy yellow armoured Trandoshans as he climbed up, Vorg behind the consoles firing off his pistols. 

The breach hissed air as the first wave secured positions behind floating crates and spent power converters as gravity fluctuated.  Blaze clambered toward the hatch up ahead as one of the hissing cuts in the hull was filled temporarily but the body of another runt, three Trandoshans in Orange rather than yellow carrying a sealed metal boxed floating out.

Once more he felt the Flow chill him inside – it always happened just before something dangerous or exciting – usually both…His hand gripped the hatch wheel…but what difference would it make being on the other side if the Ki’tani was destroyed – there were no escape pods as no one in their right mind would want to get picked up by the winners after a battle between pirates.

Clenching his fist rather than gripping the hatch handle he spun around the Flow boosting his speed as the Trandoshan scratched in their growling tongue through the ever thinner air.

It didn’t bother him – metahuman Bjen called him – what he was no one knew and frankly didn’t care.  Only that he could do…THIS!

Hands opening out the chill of the Flow turned hot in an instance seeking out the blotches of the Flow that were the Trandoshans, one managed to spy him but it was too late – the incandescent blue fire struck him full on melting his vac suit and cooking him within as its snout contorted in a death stifled scream.

The others spun round and fired – their bolts were blinding blobs in the Flow, but he could just manage to smear them a bit – a few still hit him, but instead of tight hard bullets they were like flabby dead rodents against his grotty skin.

The blue blaze he was named for chained across the Trandoshans, following the Flow between them as if they were all points on a circuit till the whole group was left a bubbling mess as the explosive sucking of the air into the void died.

<<<<>>>>

He was trembling, he always did after using the Flow like that…or rather it using him…he couldn’t do it whenever he wanted only when he felt the cold panic…but that was enough to survive and all that mattered.

Crouched at the back of the runts on the main deck Xega smashed his power fist into the Trandoshan captains face, leaving a trail of sharpened teeth on the hazard striped floor. At the far end Bjen directed the forklifts to move the boxes full of furry tall creatures into cargo straps – Blaze noted the fur was the same as those some of the dead Trandoshans wore – like Knodun with his ears everyone took a prize.

“Blaze come over ‘ere” Xega called out as the Trandoshan hissed.

Flanked by Bjen and Voga Xega looked commanding in his black armour.

“Yessir…” he stammered still shaking

“Voga say you nuked a bunch of breacher’s before they could set charges…” he reached out and muffled his hair

“And you’re getting too big for the runts…”

Xega took out his Vibro blade flipped it and proffered the handle.

“Kill this loser and join the Crew!”

His heart churned quicker as the Trandoshan looked up at him glassy eyes full of spite to be killed by a mere runt.

He could be part of the real crew…not have to fight – well not fight as hard – for food anymore – maybe go into the bars when they were in dock instead of just hanging outside…finally get to be in the action instead of underneath it all.

He didn’t take the knife. 

With a rapid motion he slammed his fist into the Trandoshans leathery head, kicked him over then drove his knee into its chest. 

Gripping the head in both hands he twisted it off, deciding he would collect its main incisor tooth as a trophy.

<<<<>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 10 — Blaze of Memory — Part 3

Blaze

“You’ve got 3 minutes then we’re leaving without you!” He called out across the plaza as the last losers coughed up their credits.  He already knew how much it would net him…after repairs, paying for the crew, consumables and of course Ozryms cut…not that much all things considered. 

The Kyala was a decent ship but she guzzled coaxium like crazy – it had once belonged to Captain Xega who had called it the Ki’Tani some retard name Blaze never cared to learn the meaning of.  He recalled the last time he’d seen Xega…lying on the floor an axe in his head.

“Good job Blaze…” Xega had slapped him on the back after Blaze had lead the boarding and carbonised half the Gammorreans

“A few more jobs like this your debt will be paid in no time,”

My debt… Blaze had thought

For what feeding me shellty scraps, sleeping next to a damn humidifier in the arse end of the ship, I get the tip on this shipment of Spice, I risked my neck smashing up those nikto’s to get the tracking beacon, and then I fight the battles for you and I have the debt!!!

A tension he had been carrying for too long release and Blaze had taken his boot off the Gammoreans neck as the ash that had once been flesh settled through the flash blackened corridor of the ship, in the hold below three tonnes of spice fresh from Kessel…a fortune for Xega to pay off his debts to the Hutts.

“Hey Cap,” he called out boot kicking the half cooked gammoreans scorched axe.

Xega had turned round

“Catch,”

A single motion kicked up the axe with his left foot then booted it straight as a spear with his right – the half melted blade still hot from the Flow fire searing Xega’s head apart.

The image still made him smile, the shock on the others faces as Xega flopped over – the annoyance that they hadn’t been the ones to do it – he’d had to cull half the senior crew afterwards to establish his place…

That was a night to remember, as soon as the spice was loaded they’d turned on him – only the Flow and his speed had let him win, beating former first mate Vorg into a bloody mess, slamming his face into durasteel till the flesh was tenderised.

“Boss here’s the taking,” Bjen interrupted– the tough as doonium Yaka a few conduits short of a circuit handed him the beaten datapad summarising what he already knew.  Bjen had been ‘good’ to him, taught him things, probably cause he saw Blaze potential and wanted to exploit it – for now Blaze used him as a First mate…for now.

“Just what I thought,” he pushed off the table he’d been perched upon watching the nerfs pay their dues.

“Let’s move…” for the mere sake of showmanship he fired three blasts into the ceiling sending the nerfs cowering, doubling the speed at which the last few paid up.

Striding away his goons followed a predictable pattern of covering the exit, with the usual suspects taking their time enjoying a few of the captives. 

Tchek in the corner blaster rifle slung across his back as he toyed with himself holding a pamphlet.

“Give a rest you demented freak,” Blaze snapped, snatching the pamphlet

“What the hell are you fapping off to this time, a bloody menu?,”  most of the goons had their weirdness, Tchek’s was playing with himself every chance he got, never touched a real nerf or whore though ‘doesn’t want to catch anything’. Yeah right Blaze thought, probably so used to his own touch no one else’s would work.

“Hey I was looking at dat!”

“Yeah well now I’m looking at…whoa…” as Blazes eyes glanced at it he stopped in his tracks

“Hello Lovely…”

The Pamphlet showed a series of erotically posed statues, rendered double life size of various women – who knew Tchek did have some taste, or perhaps lucked out –

But one in particular caught his eye, flaming red hair a playful look in her carved eyes.

“…What is this…” he flipped it over to read the actual words

“Arts of….”

Aephordaea something stopped him saying the word, something he couldn’t explain.

For a brief moment something deep and cold within him reared up like vomit till his flaming hate set it back down violently.

He scrunched up the pamphlet and tossed it away as if it were a thermal detonator about to blow

“Get your pants on and arse moving.” He recovered with a bitching snipe.

<<<<>>>>

 

Melron

The Black Obelisk stood towering above exuding oddly silent sound. 

He picked up the recording orb checking for any signals while working with the Chiss…everyone was so busy now, either meting Chiss demands, working the farms, investigating other leads or making sure the Arts of Aephrodaea Exhibition was being properly promoted across the galaxy.

The Recording Orb had a ‘full’ feeling to it, usually Blackstone ached to consume aetheric energy from you, this bloated one wished to ‘expel’ the excess.

He allowed it to flow over him, a strange sensation a sif his mind were adrift in the void seeking any bright spark of presence, all too many of the bright lights turning out to be mirages or shadows of past and future blips. 

It was an imperfect method…but they were slowly improving it.

Days of aetheric recording streamed over him, half realized blips of focus, scattered threads of meaning too loose to fix upon…the tragedy of this was not lost on him…any one of those could be a Person in distress too weak to signal any louder…

The burden of that limitation weighed heavily on Melron…he had done all he could to get back up to speed…but he couldn’t help but curse himself for not doing it sooner, for giving into his depression at the Devastation…if he had started earlier would they be stronger, would they have more Obelisks ready sooner to get a more precise reading?

He could only do what he could do…

Distracted he nearly missed the splotchy but bright blue flare in the peripheral of his mind…just strong enough to stand above the other half living lights…disturbed, confused, lost…

He focused…drew forth the thread.  Moving his body he approached the control dais the Recording orb hovering before him, setting it in the empty cradle he grasped two orbs beside it, channelling the aether back into the vast device and though the Obelisks tertiary channels.

It was a finicky thing at best, like trying to catch Kreekles with soapy hands in the mud, his teeth grit as he pushed to keep the light in the centre of his mind and draw on the Obelisk Enchantments to feel it out more thoroughly…yes this was their…Song, their signature trace in the Aether! 

It was a Person!  But where…

The Observatory Aetheric Map of the Galaxy couldn’t give a precise location…just a vague sense of direction and distance…but that was often enough to start with, cross reference it to hyperspace lanes and populated planets and they usually had only two or three sectors to search.

He grasped the threads together more tightly…he would not let this Person remain lost and alone any longer.

<<<<>>>>

 

Lyaea

Like

Like

Shocked

Tongue out

Hmmm….

What emoji to put in response to this post of a bunch of university sophomores dancing like drunk kaadu…

She scrolled through the 12,425 options bored as the whirlpool of stars twisted around her on the view screens.

Maybe Wookie Dancing.

Flicking the emoji response to a comment on her own Whacked Galaxy Page she tossed the mini-pad across the floor of the Aethenaea’s empty bridge.

Everyone else was off doing something exciting except her it seemed.  Most of the others were chasing a lead in Hutt space from a far stronger signal, Jarys and Milaea working on mining another Obelisk with Extolled dovin basals.

A brief moment of jealous scrunched her perfect nose usually Lyaea dealt with the Extolled as their Goddess Yun’shuno…

Instead she was stuck with old Melron heading into a ‘region’ of space near where he had sensed a’ ‘faint reflex signal’ from what ‘could be a lost Person’.

It was a wild Gopin chase…she could be doing something so much more interesting…

As much as she liked being back on Aethas sometimes she missed Commenor…when it was just her Adaea and Kiraea…going to shopping malls, using the aether to prank aliens.  Everything seemed too serious now…Everyone else was having all the fun…

Irritated she stood up and quickly checked all the systems were nominal, perhaps a walk on the Nature deck would help he feeless frustrated and jealous.

She doubted it.

Levels 6 and 7, just below the Spear tip shaped Destroyers midline were combined to create a large open area where they had created a garden, full of plants, animals and insects dissuaded from venturing away by aetheric suppressants in the walls, and generally disinclined to go too near artificial floors at any rate.

It provided natural air filtration and oxygen cycling, food and water purification, but most importantly it kept them connected to their world even when away. 

Through the empty corridors and hollow alcoves –they simply hadn’t time to make and put up paintings, tapestries and statues yet – she felt the cold of loneliness wrap around her.

Melron was there yes…she could talk to her mother, brother or adoptive sisters at any time with the link orbs on her belt…but…

Even when she was with them she felt slightly hollow, especially since the wedding.

They had always done everything together, Lyaea, Kiraea and Adaea, when it was just the three of them, gone to school, university, learned to drive, teased Maynard, set buildings on fire, took speeders for joy rides…

Now Kiraea and Adaea were married, moving into the next phase of life…and she was left behind, after all there was no mate for her at all...

Strolling along the carefully arranged boxes beneath the trees that sheltered her from the artificial light in the roof above she swept up her i-holo while using her superior dexterity to simultaneously kick of her shoes.

She hopped onto the grass twirling in absent half dancing motions hand around the thin trunk of the recently planted Kyala tree as if it were a Twi’Leki Dance Pole,

She was the prettiest, she knew that, she shouldn’t be wasting her time killing pirates and chasing whispers in the aether, she should be living it up somewhere with someone!

Hair loose and flowing she spent her excess energy as best she could in random acrobatics, scattering the few gobrils and gosalam that had been rehoused on the ship in an experiment to see how they would manage – if the nature deck was to thrive properly it required a substantially functional ecosystem.

Stuck on this boring trip with boring old Melron, in boring old space, not even outsiders to kill or manipulate…how was she going to get new content to post on her Holotube channel after all she wasn’t allowed to film herself, or on Aethas or their ships cause of ‘security’?

And just the same boring old toys in her cabins locked chest, same boring chores of programming one of the Obelisk Arrays Signal Filtering orbs….

She fell onto her back on the grass staring at the faux lights above.

Teasing at the hem of her trousers she went down for another Rite to try and convince Aephrodaea to bring her a real man to replace her fingers.

<<<<>>>>

Melron

Blood and black encased him in darkness.

He sat unclothed but for a small cloth in case Lyaea wandered in bored…he made sure there was minimum barrier between himself and the charged walls of the Aetheric Warfare Chamber.

Like the other four destroyers the Aethenaea was equipped with three Aetheric Nexus chambers – vast orbs made of Blood and Black Stone that contained and multiplied an Aethans power connected by Bloodstone ‘wires’ to the Blackstone hull enabling the powers generated here to be projected into space during battle…or for the aetheric waves that criss-crossed space to be drawn in and analysed.

Beside him the Recording Orb with the signal that had lead him to this dead stop in the empty midst of the Kibilini sector, based on his analysis and confirmed by Lyaea it seemed the most likely place the signal had come from.

Ideally Lyaea should be doing this, she was much more attuned to such things…but she seemed, bored, distracted…hyperactive and lethargic in a queer combination of opposites.

He understood all too well, in their traditional way of life she’d have been married by now, her energy given dozens of more natural outlets that could be offered to her. 

Still she had shown so many instances of leadership and was focused when she needed to be…A problem for another time….

He took in the blue sparking…flame he had sensed from the Obelisk array and let it guide his mind as he loosed himself on the winds of the aether…seeking anything similar nearby…he just needed another spark…

If the Person he was seeking could just use the aether then like two magnetic poles the prior signal and the new one would draw a line straight to him across the astral planes, far more accurate now he was, he hoped, physically closer….

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 10 — Blaze of Memory — Part 4

Blaze

Slender hands played at the row of yellowed mouldy teeth around his neck.

He should keep some credits aside, but after a fight he always wanted a frell.

The two Nagai women draped on him showed all the signs of undernourishment, arms peppered in tiny red points over throbbing veins where they shot up.

Around the table Bjen, Snnri and the others were wither drinking down the house brews or slurping up their whores mammaries and equivalents.

He looked absently at the half empty death-tubes on the table – like the alcohol it had no effect on him…nothing did…whatever kind of meta human – according to Bjen – he ‘metabolized organic compounds too efficiently’ for the intoxicants to even reach his brain.  Usually a good frell would be enough but even as one of the Nagai sisters suckled him he felt nothing.

“What’s got you burning low?” Bjen asked.

Blaze mouth twitched…ever since he’d seen that pamphlet those words…something…something had gnawed at him…he couldn’t forget that face – it wasn’t just because she was beautiful for a human…it was something more…something…familiar.

“Tralk’s just no good at it,” he waved away the concern slapping the woman off then grasping the other ones hair

“You try,” he pushed her down.

The other showed no displeasure and simply licked at his chest, the necklace brushed upward. 

There were nearly forty teeth on there now…as many as could fit.  He’d thrown away dozens more over the years becoming more selective – only his first and then the ones that really made an impact him he kept…Feeorins, Besalisks, Barabels, even a Gen’Dai…he remembered them all…everything…since the first Rodian runt he set ablaze…

He remembered that moment, he was on the gortty mess floor of the Kyala he was barely tall enough to see over the chairs…Bjen was laughing
“You want to eat, you kill your meat!” they all chanted. 

It was his first memory, that was when they started calling him Blaze…cause he blazed that little runt – and a dozen more after as the pirates made sport of the kids that lived on the ship, setting them to fight each other for scraps, kicking them for fun, having them crawl into the ducts too small for anyone else to do repairs, cart around ammunition in a firefight…

There were always more kids though, every time they came into port more joined – apparently life on a Pirate Destroyer, even at the risk of being starved or killed for fun – was better than life on the streets of Nar Shadda. Course some used the kids for other things too, but never Blaze…ever since they saw he could set himself on fire, no one dared touch him, and Bjen took him under his wing - more or less.

Sometimes he dreamt there was something before that…in deep dreams he saw a verdant world…a furry creature warm beside him rather than the cold press of a whore’s malnourished flesh…a fantasy.

The Nagai’s was no good either, he pushed her off throwing on his jacket – still a few scars…now at any rate – he’d collected as many as the others but they never lasted…he couldn’t even get inked because of his weird metabolism and tough skin – fast healing Bjen said, stage 9 meta human – all Blaze knew was as he grew he was stronger, faster and smarter than anyone – add in the Flow and he’d barely lost a fight – oh he’d taken beatings but he recovered frelling fast.

Pushing through the drug scented air his eyes always alert for anything coming at him from the sides picked up a flash of flesh – not real flesh but an image.

Spinning round he strode up to the pink vape hazed booth where half a dozen gran were ogling a pamphlet just like the one Tchek had had…

Something about them looking at it was…blasphemous as though they were intruding on something sacred and yet he couldn’t rationalise why he felt his way over a pamphlet showing some tits and arses.

“What you want!” one looked up with its middle eye

“Get spaced,”

A cold sweat covered him, all he had to do was walk away, they’d assume him just another drunk pirate on shore leave…but he couldn’t - he needed that damn pamphlet like Tchek needed a damn wash cloth.

Before he knew he had his fist was in the grans face – its eye stalks breaking under his raw strength.

Shocked at what he had done he paused as the bar exploded around him.

Fists, blasters, knives, chairs, tables, glasses, whores all flew through the air, and Blaze as at the centre.  Why it had started no longer mattered, his crew was up in an instant, the Grans as well – no one cared everyone just wanted to fight and frel; - turned out it was fight time.

Ducking under a swinging table, dodging a hold out blast Blaze kicked the table up into the their faces as a glass bottle shattered on his head, rapidly evaporating spirit steaming off his neck and hair.

He spun round to kick the attack in the guts sending them flying backward before turning to face the recovering gran – behind him Bjen and Snnri were bashing some more gran with chairs. 

Hurling the table off themselves all they found was Blaze’s fists and elbows flying into them.  they moved slow, everyone moved slow to Blaze – it was why Xega and Bjen had tossed him into the fighting pits when they visited Nar Shadda – either he won enough to pay his food for another few months, or died. 

Blaze always won

Like he had against a hundred others hard points of elbow and knee to shattered guards, unusually strong fingers pried off facial features – the grans jutting ear flaps, snouts and eye stalks easy prey for such a move that left wobbling stumps dripping fluids as he mounted the one who had the pamphlet and kneed him into the wall over and over, each impact yielding a gurgling crack of bone.

An electric chill went up his back – pain or the thing he felt always – didn’t matter how many times he’d been cut or shot, it never stopped him, never made him yell out – he was aware of it but indifferent to it unless it meant he couldn’t use a part of his body.

He could smell the burn of the synthleather of his jacket as he spun round sweeping up his own pistol and triggering off three fast shots into the bastard who’d shot him in the back.

As an afterthought he grabbed up the pamphlet now stained with blood and liquor before smashing his way into the melee to get out of it – like all bar fights it had now expanded well beyond the original combatants, the whores and bar tenders crawling to their familiar ‘safe’ niches to wait it out as an over head light was rent down and smashed onto a Vordan.

The swirl of kicks and blades filled his mind, this was the Flow in its purest form, rabid vicious and merciless.

By the time he left he could barely remember why he had started the fight at all…

<<<<>>>>

 

Melron

They were too late.

He had sensed the aether use some few hours after his meditative scrying ritual began, cross referenced against the sector star charts they had determined the location was Socorro – a dusty planet about a large red star that stank in the aether of the violent desperation common to smugglers and pirates, a lawless outland well beyond the care of the Republic – not that it had much power in the systems that were members anyway – leaving the planet in the hands of the Hutts and a few factions of the still broken post-Xithar Black Sun.

He cursed under his breath as he knelt over the blood spattered floor of the cantina, feeling the echoes of the aether that had drawn him here. 

The resonances were jittery and raw, the backwash of instinctual use of the aether to survive...but not thrive – effective yes but unrefined by proper training or even just general Aethan child rearing practices.

“It was a male…” Lyaea noted stepping over the unconscious owners – they wanted no distraction so she had cut off the arteries that fed their various brain equivalent organs long enough to put them under.

“About my age…” she sniffed the air, women’s olfactory senses were 14.3 per cent better than male ones, combined with better training in hormone and pheromone analysis as part of the Sacred Rites it enabled her to discern with greater precision the nature of their prey.

“He was wounded superficially…” Melron added in their normal cadence that would be incomprehensible to most beings – he could smell charred hyperkeratin of their skin in the air, but not Aethan blood or fat from lower dermal layers.

“What if we don’t find him in time…” Melron said mostly to himself, ashamed at having missed him.

“He’s survived this long on his own...” Lyaea comforted as she tinkered behind the bar with an outdated gortty green lines screen surrounded by bulbous buttons and nobs

“He can survive a little longer…” her voice trailed off as she scanned through the security footage.

“Here…”

Melron was soon looking at the screen over her shoulder, noting every captured moment of the fight…and before.  Played at 6 time’s regular pace they took in three hours of footage in barely twenty minutes, interrupted only by the snoring of the unconscious pile of bodies on the floor.

As she had deduced the boy – for boy was all he was given the age – could defend himself well enough – no match for Jedi or Vhal’Dan, but certainly could hold them off for a time. 

Against the low grade pirates and bounty hunters that frequented this establishment he was a cyclone of death.

The camera’s solution was too low to get a good view of his features, but there was no mistaking the speed, the dexterity of an Aethan in combat, not matter how crude.

“Soon son,” Melron promised to this lost struggling child,

“Soon.”

<<<<>>>>

 

Blaze

The flabby pile of dren that called itself Ozrym the Hutt lounged about on his divan attended to by fluttering naked Toydarians of all things…gross.

He’d had to wait nearly three hours for the ‘audience’ time enough for all his scars from the bar fight to heal over, now only thin pink traces remained. 

Blaze despised pandering to the Hutt, the pathetic attempts to display power and hierarchy by having him wait. 

But that was the game - You play it or it breaks you.

Past the glimmering guards he recalled the first time he had come here, dumping Xega and Vorgs heads on the floor as a sign he was now captain of the ship and all challengers were dead, Ozrym had gurgled and acquiesced to the change in leadership and Permitted him to ‘buy’ Xega’s ship and rename it, leaving with a debt to Ozrym.

He despised the fact, every day he dreamed of blasting the Hutt to chunks…the only thing that kept him in check was the knowledge that if he did he’d end up with every Bounty Hunter this side of Nar Shadda on his arse.

“Get your money you fat slug,” Blaze snapped by way of opening

Ozrym either ignored the insult or took it as a compliment, Hutts seemed to consider obesity a sign of status and dominance after all.

<I did receive my share…> Ozrym groaned in Huttese referring to the takings from the Star Liner

<Seems less lucrative than last time…>
“Well the nerfs are getting wise to it, less ships with less rich tourists along the usual routes, might be time to shake things up, let the bantha regrow some fur before we shave it again,”

<Perhaps…perhaps….>

The Hutt leaned back as a Toydarian – Blaze didn’t know and frankly didn’t want to know if they had genders – massaged the blobs bumpy head in a dramatic scene of introspection, Blaze well knew Ozrym already had a plan in mind for the next major hit, he just liked to keep you waiting.

<I hear the Housi Sect is mining Naquadah…ultra-dense mineral, very valuable very rare….>

“The Housi’s they were Black Sun…” Blaze noted, a few years back the Black Sun had been shattered with three Vigos – Aur Hondo, Jyx and most importantly the king pin Xithar all killed in months by the Sons of Kessel – since then it had dissolved into sub-factions fighting each other and carving mini crime empires, none of the new ‘Vigo’s’ strong enough to bring them together for any prolonged period.

This made them easy but unpredictable targets.

<No matter no matter…perhaps you could obtain some, I hear they are transporting it to the mid rim through a new route by passing Kwenn…>

Blaze mouth twitched, Kwenn was on the dividing line between Hutt space and the Republic Mid Rim, the only known route was a hyperspace corridor that dropped out just outside the system before going to the Republic where the Hutts had set up a space station to collect tariff’s on goods going to and fro.

If the Housi’s had found another route that would deny the Hutt’s their traiff’s and be just as valuable as the Naquadah itself for Ozrym who would no doubt prefer to ship his own goods through there to avoid paying his ‘fellow’ Hutt’s their due.

But there was a lager opportunity here…If Blaze could find this route…sell the vectors to the other Hutts – Boro or Vemm perhaps – he could easily get enough for what he ‘owed’ on the Kyala, and stick it to Ozrym to boot.

Then free of the Hutt he could make his own way in the galaxy at last.

“Alright…see what I can manage, it’s a long trip to Kwenn, goons might get rowdy if I don’t offer some sport,”

He’d have to make a few raids on the trip there to resupply, keep the goons from getting lazy, hopefully press gang a few more recruits.

<Of course of course…see what you can do…tottle oo Blaze> Ozrym dismissed, watching the overconfident pirate stride out past his golden armoured Vordan guards.

When the door were sealed Ozrym plopped up to slap with a greasy hand his comm

“You may enter….”

From the side door Captain Hjjana, a more reliable operator who knew his place entered with a low bow followed by his first mate Uuun, an Ikotchi Orzym had never heard speak for the loss of vocal cords to a blaster bolt, but was overdue for a ship of his own in Ozrym’s services.

<Weed out the seed before the mud dries…> Ozyrm gurgled the well-known Huttese proverb referring to the beautifully slick muds of his home world, where weeds did not grow until after the rains when the sloppy soil dried out to allow them to spread roots- by removing them while the mud was still wet they never had the time to grow and spoil the delicious mud a Hutt could wallow in.

Blaze was not yet a problem, but he would be one day, he was too ambitious.  Ozrym had no intention to allowing things to get to the point that his profits would suffer – the mud was drying, the seed of Blaze insolence would be removed before it set further.

<Follow him…let his crew take the brunt of the fight with the Housi’s…then take your new ship Captain Uuun>

The Ikotchi smiled showing off a glinting row of duasteel teeth.

<<<<>>>>

Melron

Instinctively it should be the other way around.

Melron should be the one being held up by the throat and choked into submission.

Instead it was the hulking Barabel that thrashed inconsequentially against his armour as Melron squeezed, Aethan genehanced muscles having easily overpowered the reptilian.

“K….K… Kyala” it finally gasped out
“And the Captain’s name,” Lyaea questioned off to the side, aetheric lighting making delicate and intricate patterns between her fingers.

“Blaaaa…ssssee”

“Blasé?”

“Tttchsss”

Melron lifted an eyebrow,

“Perhaps zerek?” she wondered the Barabel unlikely to be able to produce the sound even when its throat was not being gripped by a blackstone fist

“Blaze”

“Yessss…”

Melron pressed tighter with his mind to affirm the information - the third source they since the cantina, much as he wanted to find this lost child he needed to be sure he was on the right path – time checking before was preferable to time wasted following the wrong lead.

Through the hazy alien memory he found what he needed, then pressed tighter to snap the leathery neck, dropping the twitching body to the broken pavement of the alley.

Anger briefly overtook him and he stomped the creatures head into a burst of brain and bone that went halfway up his leg.

“A damn pirate…a child of the People living as a…the outsiders who did this will die…”

Lyaea sympathized with his anger, and felt once more a sense of guilt that she had Kiraea to protect her as a child.  This Blaze had had no one.

“We have what we need,” she pushed past the emotion to focus on the task

“Hopefully he hasn’t left the planet, but even so wherever he is heading we can get there first,”

No matter what upgrades, no pirate vessel could escape an Aertemisaea Class Destroyer with a Mon-Cal-Chiss Hybrid Hyperdrive.

“And then…when he is safe…the outsiders pay for their crimes by the dozen.”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 10 — Blaze of Memory — Part 5

Blaze

Yellow luminosity danced into ripples of blue as the Kyala unleashed a broadside against the Corvette.

He smashed the throttle forward as the energy field shattered his Star Viper painted with lurid blue flames along the wings accelerating into the thousands of metres per second in an instant from dead float.

The Corvette was an old Corellian hammer head model with more than a few modifications underneath the tribal painted hull,  similar patterns tattooed on muscled grey-green arms he’d seen once too often.

“Feeorin tribe…frell…”

He’d known that the Housi Sect was a solid outfit among the Black Sun dregs…but Ozrym had neglected to inform him they were Feeorins.

Feeorin were tough bastards but through the Flow he knew there weren’t many on that ship…a dozen or so in a patchy mess of the Flow, it was never totally accurate…but with them were at least three score of Gamorreans, the dumb filth were like a Phirk weight in the Flow, hard and heavy.

Cursing Ozrym he shrugged it off it was too late now, the first shots had been fired.

Shatter nets of green screamed across toward him as the Feeorins realised the ruse – they weren’t going to get boarded by the Kyala instead it was the fighters he had positioned amidst floating debris nearby that would land on the hull, cut it open and space the occupants out before slaving the ship back to Socorro to sell.

They were halfway to the target location at Kwenn and as he suspected the trip had the crew antsy for action, so pumped with combat stimms if Blaze didn’t give them someone else to fight they’d turn on each other, so he’d set up an ambush just outside an old mining rig Ozrym’s wiry info-broker had told him served as a Housi  stopover.

He wound past the shock nets that spiralled harmlessly into space, on his flank one clipped his escorts lower wing. 

“That’s coming out of your cut schutta!” he growled over the comm.

“Now get me close…”

The vipers formed up to shield him as he clipped on his helmet…his oldest trick had never failed him yet, so long as he could turn the Flow which even now ran up his spine in excited and fearful chills into blazing hate from his finger it never would.

The Vipers peppered the corvettes hull with las-cannon fire, furious orange welts of melted durasteel appearing along its length interspersed with metal explosions as they took out the anti fighter defences on this side of the ship.

The corvette made a sudden juddering motion…they were trying to make a jump…but the Kyala’s tractor beam intensified to hold them in place, Bjen as always doing his job well as Blazes first mate.

Blaze had initially wondered why Bjen hadn’t tried to take the chair himself, then realised it was because Bjen wanted all the trappings of being in charge without having to deal with the Hutts.

Fair call that, all the cut none of the crap

Finally over top, slamming the eject he hurled out with the concussive force of the gas jets on his seat.

Slamming himself back with the Flow he arced straight toward what looked like a service hatch on the hull, unclipping the chair to let it fly a mere instant before his boots slammed onto the doonimum plate mag locking.

Gripping the hatch with his mind he hurled it off with the Flow even as his joints still settled from the landing.

Air spewed out into the void then was cut off as the section was automatically sealed.

He was already leaping inside disintegrator and grenade launcher at the ready.

The corvette looked like it was still under construction, panels removed to make repairs and never bolted back on – probably as things went wrong so often it wasted time.  It seemed they spent all their credits on the outside paint job and neglected the interior…still he could fetch a few hundred thousand for it.

The chill of the Flow filled his limbs in opposition to the fiery blood flowing through him…Things were about to get heated.

The blast door before him wilted like paper as he stretched out a hand turning cold to flame, the Flow moving through him effortlessly, channelling tension, hatred and impotent anger all those runt fight’s he’d been part of had generated, shuddering fear each time he was thrown in the fighting pits, all the sleepless hours grasping what food he could steal hoping no one stole it from him in turn.

Everything just flowed…he let himself be carried with it, moving forward burning and blasting the Gamorreans who stumbled with the decompressive blast of gas into the vacuum of the breached section Blaze was expanding.

His eyes glazed even as he moved between their axes and spears, hammering their bulky plate armour with the butt of his rifle in such a way it made the plates shatter, the Flow in his minds eyes showing bring bulbs where things were weakest.

He was deep into it…deeper than he could ever recall, cold internal tingle lost to the heated exterior explosions as he melted doorways and burnt bodies.  Images flashed past in his lower mind levels, the fight with the Rodian boy…that very first memory, the cold overcoming him into heat…the rumble of the furred animals the smile of an older man that had his face in the setting sun…the kind eyes of the woman just like in the pamphlet…Aephrodaea, I’ve seen her before…

“You got to the bridge yet?” Bjen commed shattering the trance like state.

He was deep into the ship past he crew cabins, the timer on his HUD showing fifteen minutes…he’d drifted off there…that damn pamphlet, every time he thought about it he went as dopey as Spice snorter.

“Give me a chance…” he replied shaking off disorientation to melt the next blast door, the tension behind his eyes suddenly becoming apparent…too much using the Flow did that. He needed to be more sparing…once the…

Spinning on his heel he ducked low as fire came from behind…damn Feeorins had gone round behind him.

He could feel the vibrations through the deck as heavy booted Gamorreans in clunky exo suits raced up power-axes cracking with energy. 

Ducking behind a column he fired off an RPG straight in the fat belly of the first one.  Without air the explosion was more concussive than thermal, but the mag locked boots on the snouted creature kept it up right even if the face mask was torn free leaving its stumpy hand to warble trying to catch air to shove in its ugly nose.

“Where’s frelling Tchek and Doon!” the obsessive self-stimulator and the block head Yinchorri were meant to be covering his Blazes ass, not, as was probably the case, playing with their own.

“Can’t get a signal they fired some burst nets….” Bjen replied from the safety of the Kyala before the line turned to static.

The pounding got closer, the presence of the Feeorins, like a fire ball filled the Flow with a scraping of ice on rock in his head…he’d used it too much already.

He’d regret this later but…

His own fires of hate blazed into a blue inferno covering his body – rounding the corner he rushed forward finger holding the disruptor trigger down as he aimed high at the head planting bolts through eye lenses and nose plugs.

They returned fire - in the confines of the corridor there was nowhere to hide- but the Flow’s fire took up most of the energy…sometimes he felt it could be used to actually absorb it…but he never had time to practice, if he asked a crew man to fire a blaster at him…well it wouldn’t be for training.

Gammorean’s dropped as quickly as the charge in the disruptor rifle, in the other hand he fired another rpg over their stumpy heads to where the Feeorins were behind columns taking careful shots.

The blast hit the gamorreans in the back sending them straight onto blazing elbows and knees melting durasteel exo suits into their flesh – he was disappointed in the zero atmo he couldn’t hear their screams…yet in the Flow he could still feel their pain which was some consolidation.

There were eight of them crowded - he wove through like some nefarious sentient solar flare breaking bones and boiling blood as he duck and wove through their clumsy heavy sweeps that damaged the walls more than him.

A few hit his suit that brittle under his own fire…he could never control it right it would burn his own clothing when he used it all over…there must be a way…someone must know how… no he was the only one with the Flow he knew of in any real way…a few pit fighters had an inkling but never like him…he’d heard of things called Jedi that could lift objects with their mind like he could, some of the Black Sun rejects said they’d fought them, but he doubted it.

Past the gamorreans were disciplined Feeorins, tough and able finding their rifles useless they switched to melee weapons – tremor swords and elector-batons as he closed in.

A few tried to retreat back, he was too naturally fast, skidding down beneath the swings of their swords he grabbed at their legs, his blue fire hand crushing their ankles into steamed messes of bone and charred flesh.

The hacked and slashed at him, more blows connecting, the pressure behind his eyes was getting too much, he could feel his hearts squeeze intensifying.  One blade as he stood scratched into his upper helmet taking shard of steel and jutting just inside the slimy body glove to slice at his skin.

The red sensation of damage angered him into a sloppy burst of blows the disciplined Feeorins punished with rapid cuts to his back – the flames around him sputtering as they cut into old oxygen tanks that hissed and tried to push him forward as the gas expelled.

Destabilised he wavered in the midst of the four of them, the flames kept them at a distance but they were probing and could see the intensity of his fire fading.

Teeth gritted with hate he channelled the rage and despair for a life he couldn’t even recall that had been stolen, the primitive desire to live that had triggered the first time he had unleashed fire from his hands, survive the hourly violence of life among the cruel and depraved.

Again it pulled him through.

A second wind of cold clarity overcame him as hormones he was not aware of let alone able to name pumped through him.

It could not make him faster or stronger, but it could suppress the red signals of pain, ignore the scratching overuse of the Flow that itched his every cell.

He took blows, counted them clearly but the Feeorins paid the price for each one as genehanced hands gripped their blades and snapped them off, engineered legs swept backwards with their 270 degree articulation to trip them before slamming them down with instinctual telekinetic blows that compressed them into the floor.

A vague realisation came to him that his enemies were dead, he was bleeding and depleted, mouth and nose locked in the vacuum as his suits seals had long since been breached – his meta human biology able to survive for a short time in pure vacuum all that kept him alive.

He seemed a passenger in his own body as it walked to the hatch was and gripped with bloody fingers to twist the manual release open, stand against the rushing air that struck his face, then quickly slide in and reseal the door behind him.

As Blaze finally came back to himself he collapsed.

<<<<<>>>>

“Where were you vugu licker!” he sneered slapping Tchek on his ugly face.

“I nearly got skewered!”

The idiot just hung his head.

Tchek had found Blaze alive – if barely – in a sealed storage room in the aft of the corvette –Blaze had blasted through half the ship then vanished.

They filled him with booze and covered him with bacta patches and within half an hour he was up again feeling like he’d just tried to drink a rancor under the table.

“Not his fault, those Feeorins were tricky bastards…” Bjen intervened as they stood on the captured bridge, boots in the blood of the former owner.

“Besides you rushed in ahead,”

“Yeah cause I’m the only one who seems to do anything or it don’t get done at all,” Blaze screamed finger almost up Bjen’s metal substitute for a nose.

He was too tired for this dren…

“Get the ship slaved up, I want to be outta here in the hour,” Blaze waved them off hobbling away.

He would soon be recovered Bjen knew. The Yaka First mate had never worked out what kind of meta-human he was, only that it was very advanced, not a gene spliced monster the likes of which were produced commercially in the corporate sector…no this was something refined and perfected across generations.

As Tchek got to work on the navigation system Bjen checked his implanted message screen

[He dead?] the question was outstanding.

[Almost…That muck freller Tchek patched him up…revert to original plan] he replied to his soon to be Captain Uuun.

Much as he was fond of Blaze…well…even a short circuiting Yaka wasn’t dumb enough to stand in the way of a Hutts orders.

<<<<<>>>>

 

Lyaea

“Unnnggggggg.”

Her groan filled the ship…they’d missed him again!

They had worked out a quick route to Kwenn where they had determined he was headed after their interrogations, the hope was to beat him there and be waiting…

Three quarters there the Orb they had tuned to this Persons signature lit up like a nova as he drew heavily – desperately on the aether.

Turning round they had honed in on the position only to find they were too late once more.

“I’m sick of this chase the gobril!” she complained while absently flicking thought the latest chirps of Holo-Cheep

[Got such a nice Life day gift from my bae #bestbfEVA]

[Dinner by the Beach on Spira woo #LifeDayDates]

Lucky bitches…If I was in range I’d make you vomit all over your mates

A wicked malicious smile lit up her face at the thought, and excitement at the number of views that would get on her Whacked Galaxy Holotube page…

hmmm maybe the Vong have some more poisons I can use on the outsiders…unleash on a whole city just for fun…something that makes them puke up dren would be hilarious…or set some of those blorash jellies loose on an ice skating rink at the Chandrilla Winter Games….

“Lyaea!” Melron said firmly…almost demandingly…Almost she was a grown woman no male, no matter how much older and more experienced, would even contemplate telling her what to do.

“Oh fine!”

Tossling her hair she threw the i-holo to the floor for Melron to pick up and headed into the Nexus. 

Sitting on the cushion in the centre she reached back with the aether, the Bloodstone walls charge making it far easier to see the very recent past, and with the Tracking Orb it was near effortless to latch onto what this ‘Blaze’ had been up to in the few hours before they got here.

She peered into the void eyes closed, the panorama expanding before here as life forms wound backward in her minds eye…

“There…He arrived 15.4 standard hours ago…waited around in a fighter for 6 hours…then…attacked some ship…”

The limitation with Flow Vision through time like this was ‘dead’ objects without the aether vanished very quickly the further you went away in time…likely why no one in the Jedi would ever sense the Yuuzhan Vong coming…as it was mere 3 hours after the fact she could barely make out what type of vessel Blaze and his crew had attacked.

“He fought…killed some fugly things…then…got hit in the rear…are they…Nautolons? No Feeorins…nasty ones…forced him too…”

She focused her vision more tightly

“Oh…he got to a state of Aephrodaea’s grace…that is desperate,”

“Wasn’t his crew with him?” Melron asked

“No…they were…one was arguing with another about moving in…they….”

Pieces rapidly filled into place with their fourth level cognizance

“They were happy to let him die…delaying re-enforcing…some of his crew plan to turn on him…I can feel it, one of them felt disappointment when the other rescued him…”

She focused more on the image of Blaze flopped in a store room, bleeding, hands bruised from breaking Outsider bodies…so fresh from the fight so…sexy

Lyaea absently licked her lips.

“He’s in danger then…more than we thought…” Melron surmised

“hmmm…maybe this won’t be so boring after all…” Lyaea mused concerned only for her own entertainment.

<<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 10 — Blaze of Memory — Part 6

Blaze

The plains rolled out endlessly before him.  Even at the horizon glimmering in yellow and orange infinity seemed a hands breath away.

She was there, her back to him, red hair blowing in the wind along with the sheer white dress.

“Aeph…Ae….” He couldn’t say the name…it was not his place, he was merely a male, unworthy to utter it.

Her face moved, he caught just the slightest curve of her eyes, like the furtive light of a new moons thinnest edge at last lighting after being obscured in darkness signalling the new month beginning.

He stepped toward her, but was left behind, one body move but he somehow stayed in place.

It’s not him who or would go forward, he wasn’t…wasn’t as he should be…

“What am I then?” he asked impotently as the blaring horns drummed through his skull….

“errggghhh…” arm over his forehead he struggled up, the bones on his trophy necklace – now with three more Feeorin incisors – clattered as he sat up.

“You ‘live boss?” Doon, the dumbest Yinchorri in the galaxy asked from his corner.  Stupid as the tower of meat and muscle was it loyal after Blaze, in need of muscle, had hauled it out of the Pits on Nar Shadda after it lost a few too many fights and was destined for the Spice Mines.

“No thanks to you…frell me…what is that sound,”

“We’z near Oomm Pobol, Bjen said we take some rest ‘ere before we hit dem Housi’s”

“Did he now…” Blaze scowled.

Analysing the data from the Corvette they’d worked out one of the drop out points on the Housi’s new hyperspace route, he’d ordered Bjen to go straight there not to the Ootmian Pabol which Doon was incapable of pronouncing– the border between the Republic and Hutt Space where Kwenn station lay - just before he headed to sleep.

He glanced to the bedside table made from the husk of a broken generator, the corner worn ‘Arts of Aephrodaea’ pamphlet peeking out.

I thought I closed that drawer…

The ship suddenly shuddered as something clamped to it.  They were docking.

“You frelling dren sniffer Bjen.”

<<<<<>>>>

So far as Hutt run space stations went Kwenn was probably the nicest. 

It needed to be, legitimate Republic businesses operated here, the kind of casual violence, drug taking and prostitution that infected other places was not tolerated.  To that end it was run by the Nimbanese, a Hutt client race who, like the Rodians, held a large degree of autonomy and had worlds that were more peaceful and lawful than most of the Republic.

Even so just above the hexagonal modular docking lattice work that could be reconfigured to accommodate ships of any size – on the lowest ring of the three tiered station was the more seedy parts where the Spice and Death sticks were sold under the counters as ‘indentured workers’ offered favours for three times the price they would on Socorro while those same clean suit Republic businesses sentients ogled dancers and holo-vids illegal in most Republic systems.

Any other time Blaze would be partaking of what was on offer.

Not today.

“I told you,” he screamed finger under Bjen’s metal plate cyborg nose
“To go straight to the ambush, not stop off for a beer, bong and a bang,”

“The crew were getting rowdy…” Bjen tried to soothe
“You know they’re no good if they’re like that,”

“Yeah well now I’m getting rowdy you metal mouthed arse juice drinker.”

Bjen took the insult, noting with his cybernetic senses how exhausted Blaze was…he wasn’t sleeping…even more reason to have him replaced.  The real reason he was here was simple, he was giving Uuun time to set up a second ambush.  After the Kyala ambushed the Housi’s, if Blaze wasn’t killed by the Feeorins in that fight, Uuun would sweep in and finish him off, claim the Kyala – with Bjen as First mate of course – then head back with the Naquadha and whatever ships they had captured to Ozrym.

Blaze could feel the frozen tingle of something amiss…but ever since he’d seen that darn pamphlet everything seemed to give him that feeling…

“Alright, 8 hours then we leave, that’ll give us three hours to set up for the ambush, got it?”

“As you say Blaze,”

“Yeah as I say,”

<<<<<>>>>

The pulsing music and warbling flesh of the dancers did nothing for him.
It all seemed vague and unreal, as if he were in a permanent Death Stick Haze.

Doon clapped along to the Twi’Leki and Zeltron dancers as Blaze stared vacantly, still burnt out from the fight with the Feeorins, and not keen for the next one – undoubtedly the Naquadha shipment would be better guarded…no more solo EVA attacks this time.

He’d need to make sure the chain cannons were loaded, work out who to put where on the boarding parties…

His mind kept retching back to that face that…Goddess of a woman…as if he had a more important score unrelated to all…this.

Shaking it off he headed to the bar “I’m getting a drink,”

Pushing through the mix of business men and his stinking crew he slouched onto a bar stool.

“Three Toydarain Blitz’s and four Tatooine sunrises,” Maybe, just maybe that would have an effect… he squinted pinching at his nose as the raw itch of the pain from using the Flow too much just kept scratching.

“I don’t think that will cure that kind of hangover,” a feminine and slightly wizened voice noted behind the bar

“Didn’t ask for your opinion just the drinks, “ he looked at the queer bartender, a short stumpy orange creature with oversized lenses on her head

“As you prefer, but I know something of those kind of aches, and I know it won’t be relieved till you accept who you are is not who you ought to be,”

Now Blaze looked at the thing more intently
“What is this, but two drinks or more get a free psych evaluation?”

“Such fire, but from a place of fear and cold, not warmth and confidence,” the orange creature chided

“Look sunshine, just serve the drinks or you’ll get a taste of that fire,” he slammed his fist on the counter, the creature wise enough not to push her luck.

As rapidly as they were poured he drank them down, only the slightest tingle of effect as his microbiome rapidly sliced the more potent chemicals into neat packages of useful protein building blocks long before they could reach his blood stream.

Still frustrated he stumbled out of the bar toward the docking bays, stumbling along as the echoes of his Flow hangover chipped away at his balance.  The alcohol on his breath almost a convenient excuse for the deeper issues.

What Am I doing…even if tis raid goes fine…so what, I sell out Ozrym, end up working for another Hutt…they never let you go…I should take a fighter and blitz…but then what…

This parade of violence, theft and debauchery was all he had known, he was made by the system ad trapped within it, rocking his way to the side wall of a concourse he stared at the business men come and go, fresh faced with a predatory smile in, guffawing with silken favours and lipstick marks out.
I want to Break free…

The only way this ended was with dead, either in a     messed up raid or stabbed in the back by some ambitious little tralk like he had been.

 I want to break free

He could be the greatest pirate in the galaxy, and it wouldn’t change that fact, just make him more lucrative to kill for the reputation it would bring – ‘I killed Blaze the flaming maniac’

I want to break free from your lies

There was nothing or him here, or anywhere, he just survived day by day, waiting till someone topped him.

You're so self satisfied I don't need you

Why not just whore and kill with the time he had left.

I've got to break free

Hand in his pocket he scrunched up the pamphlet…ever since he’d seen it he’d felt nothing but doubt, chaos and confusion as he questioned his life and dreamed of something better that could never be…something that was already dead.

He needed to be free of hope life could be any different, free of the nagging thought he belonged anywhere other than here, could do anything more than frell, slaughter and burn.

A sweeping calm came over him as he went back to the equilibrium of resigned acceptance of the hedonism and violence that was his entire existence.

God knows, God knows I want to break free

<<<<<>>>>

 

Melron

The Aethenaea set at a dead float.

Waiting.

Watching.

They’d mostly caught up with Blaze ship, arriving at Kwenn just in time to see it depart on an unusual heading.

At some point they had overtaken Blaze ship which was still in hyperspace, the tug on the tracking orb keyed to his aetheric ‘song’ as Milaea called it, pivoting to the aft rather than stern.

They dropped out at a natural junction at the end of this routes safe hyperspace zone, the point at which any ship with conventional navigation systems would need to drop out to recalibrate the next jump.

This was where it would happen.

They couldn’t detect Blaze until he used the aether strongly, his presence was naturally closed off until he did, a survival mechanism no doubt…it meant even more waiting to pinpoint him…

Melron breathed out his frustration as his Blackstone cuirass locked to his bodyglove.

The aether crackled with energy here…not in the now…but the near future…

Something rapid and violent was about to come to pass.

His Mark 1 helmet clasping on with a hiss he spun his sword in a Morgukai Djen-wo flourish.

Let this future be realized – Melron and Lyaea would be that violence that saved a lost child from Outsider tormentors at last.

<<<<<>>>>

Blaze

On perfect schedule the bulky cargo hauler flanked by two frigates dropped out of hyperspace.

Blaze mind was all but empty as he stood on the bridge of the Kyala the menials on the consoles below punching away in the dim light as he slouched on the command throne gazing blankly into space, the Pirate destroyer at dead float with minimal systems online.

The chipped and rusted metal was bare around him but for flecks of an old paint job that peeled every now and then to land on the floor and be crushed under boots.

Bjen waited for his signal.

A cold river of panic had frozen in Blaze spine, the kind of feeling that he usually pushed out a blazing blue fire…yet something about this time was different, as if there was no amount of fire he could hurl to escape the icy grip of death this time.

“Switch it on,” he ordered calmly allowing the pre-battle clarity to settle over him, in a few moments that feeling would take over and he’d be in the zone completely – it was only in moments of peace where his thoughts weren’t drowned out by battle and blood lust that such uncertainties bothered him.

“Mass drivers 50 per cent!” Bjen cled out his croaky voice amplified by his cybernetics.

The gravitational fields whirred causing the entire ship to shake as the well was generated and the lights of the Kyala switched back on with the shields.

They would know they were there now, he didn’t care.

“Bring us round heading 33.5 get us right up alongside, upper cannons on the right freighter, lower on the left,” Blaze continued passively sensing the blotches of life on the vessels he was about to annihilate.

The Frigates were well quipped but simply out gunned,

They fired the first shots a volley of solid turbo laser fire to his engines.

They know they can’t make the jump…they know we’re going to board…they just wwant to play for time

The yellow balsts hammered agains the rea shield, lights blinked and alarms screamed

“Rear shield 45 per cent, overlap?” the defence operator asked

“Leave them,” Blaze replied, the Kyala had six shield generators along ships core, each could be expanded to overlap with the ones immediately next to it to intensify defences if a section as targeted, but for now he had no desire to do so.

“Pull he power to the sub lights by 50 percent when they make a hit,” he went on, he could almost feel Bjen’s curiosity

“Shield down to 25 per cent,”

“Returning fire”

Bloated red launched from the top of the Kyala along the rear top of the ship, he couldn’t see it from the bridge apart from the read outs.  The Cargo hauler began to reposition, painted with the same Feeorin Tribal symbols Blaze scrutinized the outline even at this vast distance with his superior eye sight…

“That’s not a cargo ship…that’s a frelling Cruiser…Ozrym you arse sniffing dren glugger…”

Confirmation he’d been played came moments later as the Cruiser fired off a volley of twelve shots of arcing green turbo laser fire visible to the naked eye, followed by mini pings of missiles only detectable on the long range sensors.

The glacier of fear in the Flow gave way to urgent action as Blaze mind without prompt drew on all his experiences and knowledge two decades as a space pirate brought to work out the best response.

He leapt up from the chair.

“Double shields front,     turn about on heading 26.8 Y 49.5 Z aiming intercept course angled 5.6 degrees so we come up along side, send all the runts to load the chain shot on the port side, have the boarders get there too, I want every hatch ready to blow and lock, full gas spray before we go in.”

He strode up to the main gunnery command console, pushing the operator aside to plug in his own calculations of where the frigates would be even as they broke through the rear shields yielding a screech of alarms from metal throats weary from years of similar alerts.

As he ordered the sublights were cut by 50 percent even though the damage of the next hit was to the plating only – they would think the Kyala had been slowed.

“Hold off retuning fire till I say but keep pivoting around.”

This was the distance manoeuvring phase of a capital ship duel, not close enough for medium range weapons, were every degree mattered as they closed in as a single wrong vector once close was impossible to correct with such bulky vessels given the time they took to position.

The space between the ships lit with increasing amounts of turbo laser fire, bouncing mostly off the shields for now. 

Blazes jaw shifted as he waited for the right time to see if they took the bait…

More shots hit the rear of his ship, still he waited as the his vessel slowly pivoted his eyes darting between screens halfway across the deck checking on the rapidly switching numbers on ancient plastic counters.

Another alarm signalled a breach, one of the Frigates scoring a solid hit, not doubt a section and a few dozen lives would be lost, he kept waiting – no one cared for losses, just less shares of the booty.

“Full sublight on this…” he swept to navigation and typed it in himself “heading, all port side cannons primed on my command!”

They’d taken he bait the Cruiser and the Frigate intercept vectors were based on the Kyala at half sublight, they’d assumed their hit earlier was a success, they would soon regret that.

Now moving head on the front shields were being hammered down to 14 per cent and the entire ship lurched with the sudden acceleration.

The Kyala pushed forward on the heading pivoting on its lateral axis slightly, the Cruiser was moving too fast to reposition in response, the frigates now faced the upper hull.

Blaze could only smile as the trick came to fruition and the Port side of his destroyer lined up just under the Cruises underbelly as it’s hammered its positioning thrusters to get away.

“Fire!’

The chain shot- a vicious amalgam of two 500 kg weights on the end of a fifty metre durasteel chain fired at 500KMp/h at a distance of only a few kilometres it tore through the shields and ripped into the doonium of the Cruisers belly and the Frigates sides as the Kyala passed in between them on a dangerously close course.

“Hit the tractors!”

Another loud clunk as the tractor beams engaged dragging the Cruiser now spewing metal and men toward the port side where the boarding doors were waiting to burst open an unleash a horde of half sane violent pirates itching for blood and booty.

“Take care of the Frigates!” Blaze ordered Bjen,

“I’ll take this little bitch myself,”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 10 — Blaze of Memory — Part 7

Blaze

3 metre high extendable ramps of donnimum slammed ‘down’ if one could ascribe direction to space warfare. 

As the Frigates traded blows with the upper decks dozens of Blaze’s crew rushed across the ramps on mag boots as they expanded to their full 9 metre potential length into the wrecked Cruises under levels.

Relative to the cruiser they were walking on the walls amidst the sea of steel, sparking cables and flash frozen bodies. 

The Feeorins were competent enough to have locked down those sections as best they could, even thrown a few auto turrets and mines that exploded on proximity sending half cooked bodies flying off to the side to bounced between the Kyala and the cruisers hulls before being lost completely to the void. 

Didn’t matter.  Nothing to lose, nothing to gain, only the Fight to live for.

Blaze was on Fire.

Buddy, you're a boy, make a big noise

Hand out Flow pulsing he grabbed the blast door and pulled it open, explosive decompression sending two chubby gamorrean bodies flying out.

Playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday

Leaving his goons behind he stomped on what was usually the wall, grenade launcher in one hand firing down the corridor, blaster in the other picking blasting the barrels of rifles as they picked out with his generically enhanced sight and reflexes.

You got mud on your face, you big disgrace

A lucky shot grazed the edge of his helmet, air hissed out, he ignored it, he could go without oxygen for a few hours. He took the shots in his stride ducking and weaving as he picked up pace, then closed with the Feeorin’s in their grey and teal tribal painted armour.

Kicking your can all over the place, singin'

Bobbing and bouncing he used the launchers stock and blaster handle to batter them, blows built up from years of street and pit fighting rather than any formal training, they were unrefined but undeniably brutal.

The second of two dead he bashed the armoured body against the next blast door, the flow pulsing in him, seeming to guide him exactly where to hit to cause the duasteel to fracture unnaturally, making it effortless to bash in with another hit, revealing one of the main store rooms, behind, strong boxes full of Naquadha and half a dozen Feeorins among a gaggle of gamorreans.

“I will, I will ROCK YOU!”

Buddy, you're a young man, hard man

He dove straight in, he didn’t care anymore about the booty, the crew, the Hutts, the damn Aephrodaea woman, he just wanted to get lost in the blood lust and the Fire.

That he was met with a veritable blizzard of blaster fire and hurricane of vibro-axe swings just meant he had no cognitive capacity to spend on anything else.

Shouting in the street, gonna take on the world someday

He took the horde on, grenades firing behind cover, blasters shots blowing out eyes, his body alight with the Flow, elbows driving into gamorrean guts, knees into Feeorin chests.

You got blood on your face, you big disgrace

Between blast of Flow Fire that sent beings rolling on the floor and bursting grenades that forced Feeorins out of cover he ran out of ammo, chucked his blaster and launcher at 200kmph into a Gamorrean snout, pulled his vibro swords and took on the axes and halberds, closing in against the longer weapons one by one other used the reach to scratch up his armour.

He sliced an axe pole apart to get close and ram both blades in – one to the chest one to the neck, flashed fire into one trying to get behind him, the Feeorin tearing off his helmet as if the vacuum was preferably to the conflagration, not realising the Flow needed no air to burn.

Blaze burned through his energy as quickly as he incinerated lives, casually noticing he was running out of enemies.

Waving your banner all over the place

“Let’s frell this bitch every way we can boys!” he called as a handful of his goons lead by Tchek and Doon caught up.

The far blast door opened and the largest Feeorin he’d ever seen stepped in flanked by four more, his helmet painted in the manner of some kind of fanged beast, the armour etched with tribal motifs rather than just painted.

“I Will Rock you Bitch!” he leapt fire blazing.
Buddy, you're an Old Man, poor man

The titan of a Feeorin, over seven hundred years old was having none of it, the petulant human was smacked aside as he spun his power-axe into his face.

Blaze slammed into the crates that were mag locked and strapped to the ‘floor’, given they had been fighting on the ‘wall’ relative to the ships normal orientation.

Doon and Tchek were taken up rushing to cover as the other Feeorins pinned them up with more disciplined fire than the fire bunch had shown, the largest one that had to be the Captain slowly pacing toward him axe humming with power as he raised a gauntlet blaster and unleashed hell hot bolts.

Pleading with your eyes, gonna get you some peace someday

Blaze rolled as best he could but one of them struck his thigh, red flashes of pain sensation suppressed quickly by his metahuman hormones

Spinning up he poured the Fires that had saved him as a child so many times as the walking tank.  The thick armour’s outer layer bubbled and cracked, but it was too thick and Blaze too exhausted.

With surprising speed for his size the Feeorin closed, axe swing straight at Blaze injured leg.  With no feeling in the numb limb he lifted it in time but felt a sickly wet pop in his hip…the axe bit deep into the steel of a crate. 

The follow up punch shattered Blaze helmet fully and made his face feel like it was imploding.

You got mud on your face, big disgrace

Recovering slightly he crouched low and went to move in tight, one eye now closed with bruising, he spun beneath the huge creature aiming of the legs, his speed letting him get a blow into the back of the knee, then skidding along came up behind to leap and slice into the tentacles trailing at the back of the ancient Feeorins head.

Somebody better put you back into your place

Screeching with pain the creature spun faster than Blaze would’ve believed possible to land a furious slap straight in Blaze chest. 

But Blaze grabbed the arm almost as big as his torso and just Poured all the Fire he could.  Every moment cowering before the adults who would kick him about, all the nights clinging to stolen food worrying someone would steal it off him in turn, all the hollow feeling after breaking another malnourished kid in the Pits, all the casual violence, indifferent whores, traitorous Hutts, twisted half memories that Aephrodaea’ woman’s face brought to him…

It all flowed out as pure blue flame onto the now frantic Feeorin whose other hand swung the huge axe down.

Blaze struggled just enough for it to miss his head, but it still sleaved off half his left shoulder muscled, blood icing in the vacuum even as gurgling boiling pops signalled the flesh within the Feeorin’s armour being cooked.

It was still not enough. The Feeorin raised him up and slammed him into a crate spilling dense bars of Naquadha onto the floor, crumpling his bones inward if not breaking them.

Blaze lost his grip with his strength and slid off as Doon, the dumb loyal old Yinch bloody and battered headed toward him…..

We will, we will…

Then dropped.

As his enormous form crashed down Blaze saw behind him a dozen figures in murky once yellow armour, at their head a twisted smile beneath a partially transparent visor.

Uuun and his goons, and beside him…

“Just business Blaze,” Bjen sighed.

Rock You

<<<<<>>>>

Killer Queen

She keeps her Corellian Whisky
In her pretty cabinet

She bounced her hips along with the rhythm of the song against the turbulence of the vessel she was cramped in.

Finally this gobril chase was coming to an end she could see the Person they had been tracking bright as the sun in the aether up ahead.

She spiralled through the void in the Vorsis Boarding Torpedo – based on one man Chiss Orbital Drop pods it was a grinding drill like missile of Blackstone that would bore into the side of ship then burst open to let the Aethan inside cause havoc within the ship.

These petty pirates fighting among themselves had no idea what was about to hit them.

"Let them eat cake", she says
Just like the Hapan Queen

Invisible to most conventional sensors she swept through the cross fire between the Pirate Destroyer and the escort frigates, guiding herself with the aether straight at the Housi Cruisers upper decks.

Her hands tightened on her short sword as she gripped the front of the Vorsis torpedo with her fourth level of consciousness and spun the drilling blades telekinetically with her thrid.

A built-in remedy
For Lord Hoth and Skere Kaan

With a shattering crunch Blackstone met doonium – the ultradense mineral spinning and several thousand RPM tore the weaker metal apart gas and cured shards spilling into space.

At anytime an invitation
You can't decline

An instant later she was halfway through the vessels and two ruined decks down, a flick of her eyes to the ocular tracked controls in her Mark 1 Guardian HUD blasted the torpedo hatch open with explosive force that ripped apart the floor between decks it was grinding against.

The explosion was overshadowed by her own leap out, mind cold and focused.  Yes she might be bratty and flippant most of the time, but that was because Lyaea was so deadly serious when ‘on the job’.

Spice and Death Sticks
Well versed in etiquette
Extraordinarily nice…

She spun into the corridors, the place a mess of broken sparking cables, atmosphere tubes spiralling wildly and gravity slowly dying as shrapnel floated about.

Like a wind of black death she sailed toward the nearest bulk head three shots from her Phase Rifle ripping it free to enjoy an explosive decompression.

The gaggles of yellow armoured troops behind grabbing onto columns and struts to avoid being pulled out as she moved in.

She's a Killer Queen
Vibro Blades, disintegrators
Detonators and a laser stream
Guaranteed to blow your mind

She wove through the collection of shocked creatures with grace and precision, her Blackstone short swords – a recent gift from her brother - had been enchanted like his shepherd’s staff to be stronger and sharper than a Vorynx claw, slicing through the yellow durasteel the Outsiders cloaked themselves like a vibro blade through Hapan crème cake.

Recommended at the price
Insatiable an appetite

The resistance began to grow as the initial shock wore off, more goons turned to fire on her as she zeroed on her target, flopped an near dead beneath a towering Feeorin with an axe large than she was.

”Wanna try me?” she yelled the challenge through the aether to every Yellow armed twit and Feeorin fink crowding the large cargo deck, rail grooves running along the floor twisted, bodies of Feeorins, Gammoreans and Pirates floating about amidst frozen droplets of bloody rain.

As one Blazes crew, Uuun’s Commando’s and the Feeorins turned their attention from each other and Blaze and straight onto her.

To avoid complications
She never kept the same address

A rain of green and red flew from polished durasteel rifles at her, she wove like mist between them never stationary, never presenting more than a third of her profile to target even as she obscured herself in a broad aetheric perceptual illusion that made her little more than an indistinct waif in a hazy mirage.

She fired back with her rifle and sent her short swords ahead – the two blades spun like pinwheels of death guided by her telekinetic expertise.

Chests blew out, arms flew off at the shoulder, heads were split from ear to ear as she devastated the petty outsiders.

She had just spent a month fighting Ebruchi pirates hard-core enough to tangle with the Chiss…most of these losers were average in comparison.

They began to break and falter as the black mist that was her illusion slowly filled the cargo deck, only the enormous Feeorin seemed to hold his crew together barking orders in an ancient crackled dialect.

Pain was leaching off the Feeorin Captain but he plodded on raising his axe and firing at her directly as if he’d seen through such illusions before…based on his size he was centuries old and likely had…

What she didn’t spin through her armour absorbed with ease as he got closer, grabbing at the hulking brutes feet with her mind…and pulling down through the weakened wall that served as a floor.

Using her surrounds she dedicated her second level of conscious to grasp floating Aquarion – Naquadha the Outsiders called it – and hurled the ultradense blocks all around at 400kmph slamming the Feeorins and Yellow goons about, half a dozen slamming into the Captain’s head knocking him unconscious.

Losing blood head filled with Flow exhaustion Blaze was phasing in and out of consciousness all he saw in his tunnel vision was a shadow slowly sucking up the corridor, Uuun’s goons vanishing one by one into the cloud of death till it enveloped him…

A tiny hiss and then…everything was black except for Her face…the face from the pamphlet…Aephrodaea herself.

“Come with me if you want to live”

In conversation
She spoke just like a baroness

Her hand out, helmet off to show she was not a threat she looked down at Blaze wretched form, his hair bleached white, skin mottled and bruised, exuding raw painful echoes of aetheric overuse.

Eyes rolling in death throes he took her hand convinced he was experiencing a life ending hallucination…at least she was pretty.

Met a man from Chandrilla
Went down to Corellia
Then again incidentally
If you're that way inclined

She had no time to talk more, with a swift motion from holding his hand to throwing him over her back and resealing her helmet.
<Got him> she telepathically signalled Melron
<Teach them a lesson>

<Gladly> was the response from the Aethenaea’s Aetheric Nexus as Melron unleashed the Blackstone Shikkar Torpedoes he’d been keeping in wait.

Already the Housi Cruiser was falling apart from the chain shot and boarding torpedo, now they would wipe out the rest of the pirates.

Twelve jagged blades of ultradense Greysleet that would, at best, appear as rocks on the Kyala’s scanners slammed into it’s from all directions even as another eight struck Uuun’s temporary vessel the Pride of Ozrym.

Again Blackstone met doonium and again Doonium lost, the Shikkar’s ripping through and within the ships on carefully guided courses hitting all key systems in turn before exiting leaving the ships crippled dying hulks.

Blaze remained oblivious to all this, his weary half sleeping mind filled with the pleasant remnants of the aroma of Lyaea’s hair that still help to her shoulder pads after a brief touch even with her helmet back on.

Perfume came naturally from Naboo Naturally
For corvettes she couldn't care less

Her primary mission accomplished she guided the Assault Transport Gobril with her mind for extraction, considering Blaze’s injuries she had no time for disposing of the others, though she might as well take the Aquarion while she was here.

The Naquadha broke free from its crates and lodgement in rib cages and heads, the ultradense stone yielding easily to the touch of an Aethan, as the scattered survivors of mosh pit of destruction began to hit their gas jets to escape the Cruiser as a massive gash into open space opened up and bodies and flotsam from the Kyala beginning slamming inside at dangerous speeds dislodged by Melron’s missiles.

Fastidious and precise
She's a Killer Queen

Her mind on the controls the Gobril used it Blackstone hull to barge straight into the gash that had opened up its rear hatch slowly lowering as she drew the Aquarion bars around her as a protective shield from the high speed shards of metal now flying across the devastated amalgam of two ships that rocked with tertiary explosions.

Lightsabre, turbo beams
Vibro’s with a killer gleam
Guaranteed to blow your mind

Astoundingly amidst the carnage the Feeorin Captain was pulling himself from the floor Lyaea had sunk him in, roaring from a battered helmet and firing off blasts toward the Gobril from his gauntlet cannon

Irritated it was still alive she fired off an indifferent glass shikkar at the beastly thing as she dropped into the ship the blocks of Aquarion following her in.

Drop of a hat she's as willing and
Playful as a Zeltron cad

She had to act fast now, she hit the accelerator telekinetically as she tore Blaze clothes off while sealing the ramp behind her and summoning the emergency medical kits as she poured healing energy into the failing body.

Then momentarily out of action
Temporarily out of gas

Even as she hooked up IV’s and slapped a suppressive aetheric totem on Blaze bare, muscular but wiry chest the Gobril shook with the shockwaves of the detonations behind her.

Blaze body reacted quickly to the nutrient supply and bacta-patches, heart squeeze slowing and steadying.

To absolutely drive you wild, wild

An annoying if successful little skirmish she thought glancing at the body of Blaze asleep on the floor by a spill of Naquadha bars.

“You better be worth it”

She's all out to get you
She's a Killer Queen

<<<<<>>>>

[HesaHeart]

Sir, i hope you get published one day

[TheDutchman]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this storyline is magnificent!!  I absolutely LOVE the unique details, the disparate characterizations, the incredible plotting!  And all of this is supplemented by LSG's encyclopedic knowledge (seriously, if not for Wookiepedia, I would NEVER have known what LSG constantly and organically writes, peppering some phenomenal world-building into his narrative  ).  Now to the particulars...

I feel for Blaze who--once again, epitomizing Aethan survivors after the Devestation--is a victim of circumstance, enslaved in a system that amounts to sharecropper's math.  I really appreciate the depths that you explored in Taryn's life as he becomes Blaze, ultimately condemned to the vicious circle that he fought within and against...if not for the timely rescue by Lyaea and Melron.  I think that HH put it best...

Sir, i hope you get published one day

I could NOT agree MORE 


I love how these pics more than supplement our writing (goodness knows that I'm lucky and grateful that FT has given me his visual expertise with many pics for my own stories  ), and this collaboration between FT and LSG just demonstrates WHY I love these forums and how it has brought us together in a shared universe!

Hats off to FT and LSG for these AWESOME rendering(s)!!!

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 11 — Fires of Remembrance — Part 1

Ozrym

“I find myself confused once more…” he gargled in between gulps of sweet-water – taking a break from more heavily intoxicating beverages to keep his mind clear during this particular conference.

“The Kyala and Pride of Ozrym both of which I gifted to you Uuun…were damaged beyond repair by ‘meteorites’ of some kind, the Cruiser also destroyed, and the Naquadha, along with Blaze whom you assured me you would dispatch and take over command from, vanished along with a ‘Shadow woman’?”

Bjen, Uuun and a few of their surviving higher ranking crew members stood heads bowed before him – surrounded of course by Ozryms Gold Armoured Vordan body guards to remind them that punishment would not be long in coming.

“Is that correct?”

Bjen, the demented Yaka looked up and opened his mouth with what Ozrym already knew would be a self-justifying excuse before he heard it.

“I was on the Kyala the whole time, sent Blaze right into the trap, disabled the Housi ship, then this turd sniffer botched it up!” he pointed an accusing finger at the silent Uuun.

“Don’t’ believe his tales about a ‘Shadow Woman, its Bathna sprog, his goons got their butts kicked and Blaze took off in one of his ships!”

That seems more believable than a random shadow woman appearing and killing Uuun’s men Ozrym had to concede Blaze was one of the best fighters with his unusual abilities that Ozrym knew were of the Force but had no inclination to educate anyone on.

Ozrym looked to Uuun who simply remained silent and frustrated.

“It seems I have, in trusting you to rid me of a single disobedient Captain…lost three good ships, several tons of Naquadha and nearly two hundred men…and had the said Captain vanish with a Hutts ransom in Naquadha…”

Ozrym sighed for dramatic effect his tail dipped low in mourning as he placed his stubby hands over his nipples in another sign of contrition

“I trusted in your abilities Uuun, in your loyalty to me over Blaze, Bjen…it is not the credits that hurt me…”
Actually it is…the Kyala was bringing in nearly 10 million credits a year
“…it’s the breach of faith I had in you…”

He paused again for dramatic effect a near sincere tear wetting his large eyes.

“But you can earn it back…Blaze it not a subtle man, Naquadha is not an easy thing sell in that quantity, he will show up, and when he does I have Faith the two of you and your surviving crew will be there to deliver him…or at least the identifiable majority of him….to me – along with the Naquadha or the credits Blaze got for it of course”

He paused again for dramatic effect.

“If not…well I may have to recover my losses by…” he sniffled with faux sadness
“…having to sell you my good friends to the Pykes….or the Pits”

Now Uuun showed some reaction, looking to Bjen, as much as they might dislike each other their fates were now tied, if they didn’t get results quick…they would be on the same chain gang.

“Well I’m quite tired after such a stressful conversation, Tootle-oo my faithful friends…I pray you won’t disappoint me again,”

Once more as the main door slid closed another to the side opened, the floor quaking with the heavy footsteps of his next guest.

Gyl Housi, a Feeorin older than Ozrym was, skin on his face melted and twisted by Blazes eldritch powers stepped forward, helmet under his arm, beside him another Feeorin translator.  Like all Feeorins Gyl grew stronger as he aged, but also suffered the effects of such a long life in loss of memory, as it was he could no longer speak Basic or Huttese, only his native tongue. 

(Well Hutt) his translator echoed for him

“Friend Housi, my apologies again for my men’s unsanctioned attack on your vessels, I am committed to ensuring you are adequately compensated,”
“Hrggggnnnn” Gyl growled

The translator paused before replying
(I consider that unlikely)

“Oh I assure you I am, and in doing business with the Housi Tribe on an ongoing basis, as we discussed via holo comm,”

Blaze, Uuun and Bjen had all failed, but Gyl had proven exceedingly resilient and capable, his Naquadha mining operation and new hyperspace lane marked him as strategic and clever Chief, likely too clever to ever fall under Ozrym’s power fully, but one with whom he could rely on more than most of his own men.

“As soon as Bjen and Uuun located Blaze and you Naquadha you will be informed, and have the opportunity to avenge yourself on him to your satisfaction.”

“YaaarkkkGruulll Nasshhhhee Huttusha”
(Make it quick Hutt)

“Naar shimm deiii”
(Or I will take my satisfaction upon you)

<<<<<>>>>

Blaze

Heavy eye lids shuttered open and closed unwilling to fully break from the nepenthe of empty sleep.

But the light was too bright, the smells too many to shut out once the threshold of wakefulness had been crossed.

Blaze opened his eyes to a dream

Green foliage was above him, scents he had never imagined surrounded him, and the taste of air not six times passed through air scrubbers filled his respiratory system.

His body felt heavy as doonium as he pressed down onto a warm, yielding surface…

soil… he’d never touched real soil before…the dirt and dust of Soccorro hardly counted…

Nor had he seen a real tree such as that which now confronted him – Nar Shadda not being known for its botanical gardens, nor pirates much for visiting them.

The surreal feeling only intensified as his eyes adjusted enough to the white light above to see it came from rounded alcoves in a ceiling rather than a sun.

“<Ah you’re awake son>,” a voice came from behind him…yet more than a voice even if he couldn’t hear it with his ears he would’ve heard it somehow.

Shifting around he noted he was undressed except for a neat cloth and coarse but tightly wound bandages covering where he’s taken cuts and blaster bolts.

Behind Blaze sitting cross legged in a simple coarse looking shirt on the grass, a few small furred animals peeking from shrubs nearby, was an over middle aged human with a rough world weary face.

“How are you feeling?”

Blaze considered for a moment.

“Frelling mind Schatt,” he decided upon

“This is a trip ain’t it…I’ve lost the plot, seeing trees and furballs and wise old sages…”

He shook his head, he’d finally taken too much of hit to the head, or was hallucinating as the air was sapped from his lung equivalents by the vacuum, causing weird reactions in his brain as he did.

“But it’s fine, all be over soon,” he closed his eyes expecting to cease his existence.

He breathed in.

And Out.

He was still there

“Well frell…why can’t I have lucid dreams of an orgy before I cark it….”

“You’re not dead so…”

“FRELLING SHAVIT DREN!” Blaze near on jumped out of his skin, one second the man had been sitting a good 10 metres away now he was right next to him

“How the frell did you do that!”

The man stood up along with him his hands open and wide in a calming gesture that was only having the opposite effect

“It’s alright son, I’m not going to harm you, you’ve just adapted to Outsider movement speed and gait, but you’ll soon readapt to your natural speed,”

“What’s-the-matter-is-he-oh-awake-hello-can-i-get-you-anything-to-eat-or-drink”

“What the frell”

Now he had to turn to see another figure following a burst on incomprehensible words

<He’s-adapted-to-outsider-speed>

<Oh-well-that-will-make-this-hard-will-have-to-slowly-wean-him-back-up>

Finally he saw the speaker it was…

Her

The girl from the Arts of Aephrodaea pamphlet, the one that had been in his head…or rather…not quite her…a photo-edited version of her…but still it was Her

“Halloooo” she said slowly as he stood mouth agape at her sheer presence, the alabaster skin, crimson hair, flawless features.
“My Name is Lyyy-Ayyyy-yyaaa, this is Mellll-Rrr-ohhhnn, are you…” she had peppered her conversation thus far by pointing to herself then the other man as if he were a five year old.

“Huuun- garrreeee?” to this she added a demonstration of eating then drinking, then rubbing her belly beneath the tight black synth suit of some kind.

Blaze mouth simply widened.

“Right…well you make sense,” he decided upon
“I’ve been having weirdly non carnal dreams about you since I saw your picture, I get that delusion…”

He looked at the Old Man and the strange inside garden

“But this…this is just tripped out, maybe you’re like some daddy fantasy, and this place a mix up of my ship and dreams…” he spoke out loud his thoughts, after all it was his dying hallucination.

“Right well seeing as I’m about to get crumped by that Feeorin giant at any moment now, or just floating in space blood slowly freezing, might as well enjoy this last acid trip while it lasts…”

He reached out to grab at ‘Aephroadaea’s’ tits…

And suddenly found himself upside down against a tree.

“Frell me even in my dreams I can’t get my hands on those fun bags…”

Melron sighed,

“You’re not dreaming son, you’re alive, on a ship headed home…”

He gently lowered Blaze down with the aether.

“You’ve been lost for a long time, done what you had to just to survived, struggled, suffered, maybe more than anyone else…for that I’m sorry, sorry we…I…didn’t come sooner…”

Suddenly the Old Man had his arms wrapped around him

“But I’m here now son, I’ll take care of you, help you heal, be with you every step of the way,”

Blaze was still staring at ‘Lyy-ayy–yya’

“Well that’s great Pops but if you don’t mind I’d like to shag frellalicious over there before I tootle off to death, or at least get a good look at her v….”

<<<<>>>>

Melron

This would not be easy…it was already harder than he anticipated…but then what else could he expect, the boy had been raised by pirates and smugglers where violence and sex were daily currency.

<Lya, perhaps you should get some food for him before he insults you further..>

Lyaea mentally shrugged <Doesn’t bother me, frankly it’s flattering he finds me so attractive>

Blaze plopped back to the ground humming to himself

“Is this the real life…or is this just fantasy…caught in a landslide…”

“No escape from reality,” Lyaea finished for him

“Hey you know the lyrics!” Blaze smiled
“But of course you do, you’re my fantasy of the perfect woman, pretty, fun and totally unattainable…” he scratched at his back unwilling to risk being slammed into the tree trying to grab her pert ass cheeks…though it was a chance he was seriously considering taking.

Lyaea raised an eyebrow,

“One of my favourites, you can borrow my I-holo, or better still I can play it across the ship internal comms,”

<might help settle him down?> Lyaea noted to Melron

<Worth a shot>

He sat next to him once more

“This is real life, and a better life, you’re safe with us now, soon you’ll be home, but for now there is much to tell you…I don’t know how much you remember, much might’ve been locked away as a defensive instinct, but this is certain

You are of the People, an Aethan child of the Three Goddesses, heir to the Aethan Technocracy, the product of millennia of genetic enhancement and selective breeding to bring us all closer divinity and perfection.  Blood and Aether are your birth right to wield and enjoy  You will be welcomed, helped to find your place and join us in rebuilding our People and living as we were meant to among your own in the Valley.”

Blaze simply blinked

“Shavit…am I the one on spice or are you, I’m not sure any more, am I hallucinating about you, or are you hallucinating about me?”

“It’s not a hallucination…” Melorn reiterated as Lyaea arrived with arms full of Kyala fruit.
“Here…” he took one and offered it to Blaze
“A Kyala fruit, like you ship was named, did you ever wonder why you dreamt of fields of green, where that name came from?”

“Wait what do you meant ‘was named’”

“Oh we blew that pile of junk up,” Lyaea said tactlessly

“Frag it between your thighs or something no doubt…so when is this gonna end cause seriously I’m happy to die now, this is getting weird and boring, and as nice as it is staring at your pretty little face sweet cheeks if I’m not gonna get to rub myself all over that tight body of yours I’ll just drop now,”

He flopped back eyes closed again.

<This is gonna take a looong time>

<<<<>>>>

As the hours passed Blaze slowly began to realise this was not an oxygen depletion delusion…mainly because of time elapsed rather than anything Melron had said.

He sat among the trees eating fruits and drinking gormin milk they brought him, likely the best he had eaten in…well possibly since he was taken…as Melron tried to explain what had occurred and trigger his memories.  Based on his current age, accounting for nutritional deficiencies, he was likely a few years younger than Lyaea when he had been taken, 4 or 5 years old…it was astounding he had survived, and likely had to enter a permanent ‘fight’ state to do so at a young age, what implications that might have were uncertain…he could hypothesize but would need to speak to the others.

“…so the story is twenty two years ago, your little village gets raided, your ‘Guardians’ who are evidently shelle at their job get lost in the galaxy, team up to kick some Jedi butt…then go looking for other lost People, that about it,”

“In summary yes,” Melron agreed.

“And I’m one of these lost kids?”

“You are, that is why you survived, why you were so much stronger and faster than others, why you could call on the Aether to utilize telekinesis and pyro kinesis, it is innate to our People.”

“Well don’t that all just tie up so nicely…and you arrive just as I’m about to get wasted by a Feeorin and my men mutiny on me…you think that might be a little too convenient?”

“There are no coincidences where the Aether is concerned, the Goddesses power is great, but not infinite, they are wise but not all knowing, they guided the flows to this point, likely from the very start with what strength they could after the Devastation robbed them of their children.”

“Wait I thought that red headed frell-box was your goddess Aeph…aeph…”

He still couldn’t say the Goddesses name forbidden to males as was fitting, a sign he still retained subconsciously something of his early youth.

“Lyaea is part of the Goddesses as all women are…but she is not he Goddess in isolation…her picture and those of others were spread across the galaxy to find the lost ones like you, it causes a deep seated reaction, a signal in the aether unique to our kind that we only now have the ability to detect across galactic distances,”

Melron made sure to be clear and detailed in his explanations, Blaze might be ignorant of the Peoples ways, but he was not a fool, one does not become captain of a Pirate destroyer without being a capable warrior and keen strategist.

“Ummm right so Aether if the Flow…or the Force….”

“Depending who you ask, it is the unifying thread between life forms, of this galaxy at least.” Melron agreed

“This galaxy?”

“We have encountered beings from others,”

“Sure…right little blue space jellies, frag me sideways…this is doing my head in…one moment I’m getting my arse handed to me next I’m…wherever this is…”

Melron had to concede it was a lot to take in.

“I shall leave you to rest, we will be home soon,”

<<<<>>>>

“I can’t imagine what he must’ve gone through…” Jarys said across the link orb from Aethas

“I barely coped on Nar Shadda as a trained Guardian at twenty…for a child of four or five,”

“I fear,” Milaea added from Aeda working on the Obelisks, “His will not be the worst of what has been suffered, I’m thankful he’s at least lucid, not completely given over to the violence of his upbringing,”

“Even has a sense of humour and good taste in music,” Lyaea smiled

“We’ll be back in about eighteen hours, taking the Cerebus Nova route to save time,” Melron went on,

“I don’t want to delay his reunion any more than necessary…”

“True…Maeson contacted us earlier, the others are still working on the lead deeper in Hutt space, it will only be us, Lydan and Adaea there when you arrive, but hopefully the others aren’t far off,”

“hmm…I will take him to the Shepherds village…based on his facial profile I think that is where he came from originally, perhaps it will stir memories in combination with regenerative healing,”

“If you need assistance with that let me know,” Milaea offered.

Blaze had grown undoubtedly without sufficient nutrition or other key inputs including the right type of gravity, atmosphere and radiation, a cursory assessment of his cellular function Lyaea had made indicated that while he had grown some key metabolic systems were suboptimal, and whilst he would recover over time naturally…they had no time to waste.

While unconscious Lyaea had begun correcting his organ’s and cellular systems while she repaired the main damage he suffered in the recent battle, work which Melron would continue as Blaze slept, though Milaea was the expert Melron felt confident he could perform this task…

And he needed to do it…to contribute to the healing as much as he could…to make up for his prior errors – not that he ever could fully.

“I will, and I’m sure the goddesses will work to repair him as soon as we reach home.”

There was much to be fixed, and Melron as determined not to lose this poor boy a second time.

Glancing briefly at the emerald nebulae outside as he calibrated for the next jump, he hoped the colour was a portent of renewal for all of them.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 11 — Fires of Remembrance — Part 2

Blaze

The Old Man had left him alone nearly an hour ago…apart from a strange small furred animal that looked at him inquisitively.

“What?”

The animal glanced to the fruit in his hand.

“You want this?”

Something about the way it perked up indicated ‘yes’

“Go get it,” he tossed it across the room, like a blaster bolt the little four legged thing vanished after it.

“What the Frell is going on…”

If they wanted to kill him…well he wouldn’t’ be here, if they wanted to torture him they had a weird way of doing it…as to their mad stories about genetic engineering, Goddesses, Jedi and rescuing lost People…

I have to get away from these lunatics…

After a waiting a few minutes he tentatively headed to the far door, the animals and trees for the most part ignoring him, a few creatures blinking in his direction. 

There was something familiar about the smells he had to admit…but distant, and irrelevant to his current needs.

To his surprise the large door simply swept open by motion sensor revealing a neat blue-grey corridor with oddly empty alcoves leading to a turbo lift directly ahead and branching off on either side.

He breathed in the cool unusually fresh air and dipped into the Flow trying to find a glimmer of where he needed to go…

Arms slightly out he felt for the minute tremors that indicated motion…they were there but subtle…smooth…this was a far more polished and sleek vessel than the Kyala which bounced like a Zeltron on a vibrator with every gravitational pulse.

Reaching out further he could only feel other bulbs of living energy behind him in the Nature deck and two others one above and ahead of him in the ship, the other above and a little further back…

one on the bridge one in the crew quarters most like…

The blooming Flow way finder in his mind directed him toward the rear, lines visible only in his minds eyes guided him to the turbo lift first.

The door opened with a gentle slide, there were only 10 buttons, trusting in the Flow he pressed the 9th.

The sudden whoosh nearly toppled him over, finally a lift for which the term ‘turbo’ was appropriate unlike the clanking counter weight driven ones on the Kyala

The door opened as swiftly as he moved, again there was a large double door opposite the turbo lift, double door design no doubt to make sure one couldn’t go straight from the turbo lift to the main areas on any given deck.

Of course no use when said door was unlocked.

The door opened to reveal a neatly apportioned ready room, an air lock across the room, to the side a stair case up to what he figured must be the hangar control room, an emergency medical station, a few crates, and on the left wall…

“Now we’re talkin’…”

Flight suits, weapons, and various gadgets that he couldn’t pick but looked damned expensive.

Pulling off his bandages and coarse shirt he noted his body was healing even faster than normal as he pulled on one of the larger flight suits – there were only two sizes and the smaller looked very feminine in the groin.

A sudden image of this Lyaea girl wearing something that tight flashed before his eyes….

Jaw rolling in supressed desire he paused before taking one of the rifles on the rack of nine.

“Frell…” the rifle was damn heavy…almost too heavy to lift, but it had some kind of magnetic lock that made it clamp to corresponding clips on the flight suit, the same with the pistols and sword.

All were made of weird heavy material he had never seen the like of, so dark it seemed to eat the light…he should be worried about it…but it was…familiar…almost natural to his touch.

In the flight pockets he stuffed whatever expensive gadgets he could, and then looked bemused at a pedestal with balls of the black material in two sizes arrayed in perfect three by three niches of large then small.

What are they for?

He had no time to worry, he raced across the room up the stair finding himself as expected in a control room overlooking a hangar bay.  There were four larger spear head shaped vessels on the almost mirror sheen polished bay floor, smaller dagger like vessels held above them in racks of six on each side. 

In the centre floor was a vast sealed and shielded door, obviously the hangar exit.

The control panels were all blue and white, only the odd green for colouring.  It was so clean and neat it looked brand new, the buttons all curved, sinuous, not blocky and square like any other ship he had seen.

He had no idea what each button did…he just let the Flow guide him.  The large blast door slowly slid open without a sound, the tunnel of hyperspace spiralling away behind the azure flicker of the atmosphere shields, the rim of the exit flanked by seriously deadly looking guns he’d never seen the likes of before, docking clamps released on one of the larger ships.

Sweeping down the stairs in a single bound he slapped the airlock open, it hissed and sprayed out gases that tasted unusually…Rich as if full of additives that were meant specifically to make him feel…stronger…

Then next door opened and he checked his broader Flow senses again…
Still the life forms were in the same place…

Odd never used the Flow like that…it’s never been so precise…

No time to contemplate he rushed to the unclamped ship.

“Perhaps you should contemplate it,” the honey like voice trickled from behind him.

He spun on is heels pulling both blasters…then tightened his grip as he felt them wrenched from his hands…but she wouldn’t be denied and they flew out of his grip.

Lyaea was sitting on a cargo rail on the wall between the airlock and the transparisteel of the control room

“That is very rude to pull a gun on me…good thing none are powered you might have hurt yourself,”

He simply shook his head before replying rhetorically

“How did I know you wouldn’t let me leave….”

“Oh I’m not going to stop you, you’ll do that yourself, and you’ll tell me why right now…”

Something tickled at his nose as she spoke his head felt light and clear, he shook his head trying to regain focus…or at least a sense of self,

“You’re right, I’m not gonna leave, no point, my ships blown, crew deserted me, what do I have to go back to apart from most likely getting…hey…”

His mind raced through the sequence of events

“Did you lot do this, set this whole thing up?”

“Pfft,” Lyaea blew her hair up the golden red locks gently wafting back into place in mesmerizing waves.

“If we’d been on Socorro sooner we would’ve just taken you from your bed rather than chasing you round like headless gopins, but now you were saying?”

Like that any suspicion he had vanished…

“Likely getting my head chopped and roasted for Ozrym to pick at if I go back…I’ll take my chances here,”

She moved closer, barely a hands breadth away

“And what ‘chances’ will you be taking next,” her smile playful and inviting as her scent trickled through his nose to cloud his head, squeeze his heart and further down...

“You know I’ve had tralks, schutta’s, whores, but never a Goddess…”

As he whispered his hands slowly moved toward her waist, fingers curling round to grasp…

“Gnnnhnnnng” he blurted out as he found himself once again upside, this time against the wall on the far side of the hangar from where Lyaea was standing.

“Too soon boy…too soon…” Lyaea sighed turning to leave as he skidded down the shield that numbed him with it electromagnetic pulses

“Oh yes and as promised,” she flicked her fingers as speakers across the room burst into music

Are you gonna take me home tonight?
Ah, down beside that red firelight
Are you gonna let it all hang out?
Black leather Girls
You make the rockin' world go 'round

<<<<>>>>

It was like a big wet wave had smashed against him.

At some point between eating and listening the Old Man randomly blather about ‘Traditions, People and genetic healing’ he felt them drop out of hyperspace - his senses growing more acute with each passing hour.

Out of nowhere the Aether – as his captors/caretakers called it – hit him warm and soft in a sickly controlling way that he ‘slid’ in the Flow to avoid its direct hit…but it was ubiquitous…he was sliding everywhere and couldn’t avoid it forever

But damn if I won’t try

The trip down he remained on the so called, “Nature Deck” until Lyaea returned to collect him a bag over her right shoulder and an ear bud linked to an i-holo on her belt in her left ear.

“We’re home lets go,”

He stood up from the strange gaggle of little furred ‘gobrils’ that seemed to multiply and then vanish in an instant adding to the sense of dis-reality.

He accepted now that he wasn’t actually dead or dying…hallucinating…maybe…but he had nowhere better to be, indeed it seemed as if his wish to break free from the chaos of a pirates life had been answered by these crazed Goddesses in their own bizarre way.

I want to break free

“What,” he asked
“I didn’t say anything,”
I want to break free…

“I want to break free of you lies your so…” he finished realising he was hearing the song from the ear bud hanging loose by her side.

“…self satisfied I don’t need you,” she went on eyeing him

“God knows sweet cheeks,” he winked as he followed her out.

There were four more ‘People’ waiting in the spacious hangar, two men and two women. 

“Well here he is!” Melron beamed as the two women approached

“He’s forgotten much, even his true name…but by his looks I think He’s from the Shepherd Village originally, calls himself ‘Blaze’ for now…a penchant for aetheric fire apparently,”

“Well welcome home Blaze,” a woman said to him, red hair like Lyaea tinged a slight brown

“I’m Milaea, this is Adaea,” the other woman shorter with brown hair and a smile like a brain dead twit.

“Yes welcome, here I made you this!” out of nowhere a bunch of leather and coarse clothes like the Old Man wore appeared in her hand and she shoved them into his chest

“They should fit, I’ve stitched them in a bit as you’re underweight, but we can open them back up once you are healthy again, Lydan…my husband…” she pointed to the younger looking of the men who wore simple worn leather clothes and held a wooden staff like a beggar,

“…has made sure to keep some gormin milk aside just for you,”

“ummm…great…” was all he could say as he felt the gaze of the other male standing toward the back arms across his chest.

You don’t survive long on Socorro or a Pirate Destroyer without getting a sense of who can handle themselves and who not to mess with…this guy ticked both categories.

Lyaea headed across to embrace Milaea and Adaea in greeting, kissing each on their cheeks,

“Not too much trouble?” Milaea asked
“No, just a few pirates, an extension of our mission with the Chiss in a way…”
<You seem a lot happier than before you left> Milaea noted privately among the women

<Much happier> Adaea agreed

<Just happy to have found another lost Person, I suppose I didn’t really believe this whole thing would work>

She parted with the women and headed to Lydan grabbing him tightly pressing close against him

Blaze felt a stab of jealousy at seeing the ‘Goddess’ of his dreams touching another man, one that, unbeknownst to him, every other Aethan in the room sensed immediately.

<Oh…so that is why you’re happy Lya!> Adaea squeaked <He’s got a crush on you!>

<Lust for me more like…for now…>

“How are you brother? How is the herd?” Lyaea said as she rocked in her brothers arms

“Better, and they are fine, a few more pregnancies,”

Brother… relief flooded for a moment…till he felt once more the other guy boring holes into him with his eyes and the Aether.

Milaea now moved to intercept,

“And this is my father Jarys,” she said leading Blaze over to the muscled statue of a man.

Just being near him Blaze felt incredibly small, like he would be stepped on without a second thought.

Suddenly the statue moved stretching out a hand, more out of habit than desire Blaze took it – Jarys pulled him into an embrace that nearly broke his spine.

“Welcome home, anything I can do to help you in your recovery I will,”

“Umm…thanks” Blaze squeezed out nearly dying in the giants grasp before he let go.  This was not a man Blaze ever desired to get on the wrong side of, even that Feeorin captain would have a tough time against this Jarys.

Milaea took Blaze hand as she lead him few steps away

“Here…a small gift to help you,” in it she placed a necklace of a deep blood red stone in an interlocking pattern,

“A Triquetra, made of Blood stone, if you need help just hold onto it and ask we can all hear it…it will also help knowledge flow more clearly to you,”

“That is a rare gift son,” Melron said nodding to Milaea, only women were typically permitted to wear the Triquetra, no doubt Milaea had consulted with the others for permission in light of the unique circumstances.

<My thanks Milaea> Melron said privately

<None necessary, I’ve enchanted it to passively monitor and stabilise his hormonal balances and metabolism, it can also trigger a sleep sequence to ensure you can work more fully on his healing when you need to>

<That will be useful my thanks>

The People briefly introduced themselves more fully noting their ‘roles’ or current tasks in the ‘Tribe’, Milaea appeared to be a healer of sorts, Adaea an engineer, Jarys builder and general guard as well as assisting Milaea with some kind of ‘Obelisk’, and Lydan,

“Lydan looks after the Gormin herds,” Adaea said looking up at her husband face beaming with pride

“Gormin…” the word was familiar…warm…

“Oh a genetically perfected Nerf and Bantha hybrid, Lydan is their shepherd,”

“Shepherd…herd…like a nerf herder…” Blaze said a dumbfounded expression on his face

“You’re literally a nerf herder,”

“Gormin, not nerfs” the ever ebullient Adaea beamed
“Isn’t it wonderful!”

“Ummm yeah…great…”

Frell me they fly bloody ultradense coated space ships and then go home and herd nerfs….

“So what happens now, what am I to do to ‘heal’?” he asked

“That is up to Melron, he will care for you,” Lyaea replied

Melron nodded “We’ll head into the Valley at sunrise, get you back to your real home,”

“Well, time to head home,” Lyaea noted

“Wait you’re not coming with us?” Blaze asked

“Of course not I have other things to catch up on, Melron will take care of you,”
Blaze felt more than a little miffed, so far Lyaea’s pretty face was what made sticking around worthwhile…no that he could probably leave if he wanted to now anyway.

Lyaea seemed to sense his disquiet

“But I will visit when it is appropriate, or you can visit us at the farm depending where your path takes you,”

As Lydan and Adaea said their goodbyes Milaea slid beside Melron
<Be cautious, this is much to take in for him…>

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 11 — Fires of Remembrance — Part 3

Blaze

“Frell me it’s hot…”

He’d never been outside…well planet-side outside…for so long in his life.  You couldn’t see the sky in the lower levels of Nar Shadda, and he rarely went to the light side anyway, and on Socorro you didn’t stay outside for more than a few minutes unless you were masochistic enough to enjoy the coarse red sand filling your nose.

Two weeks he’d been following the Old Man, his space pallid skin getting slightly darker each day, his hair reverting to natural brown as the bleaching faded out…

Something unnatural about that…pigment shouldn’t restore in hair follicles…wait how do I know that…aarrgh this whole place is cooky

The first few days they’d headed from the Mount fortress through the rugged alpine foothills, never had he felt so damn cold or smelt so many bloody trees…or been so tired…as large as the Kyala had been and as often as he’d been forced to run around loading crates, ammo and hauling stuff for the crew as a runt it was all flat apart from a few stairs, nothing like the sloping mountains.

They’d headed past the Mountain Village where a few of the other People lived like bloody savages in wood and stone huts around central fires. 

Blaze couldn’t figure it, they had this fancy as anything fortress in the mountain, clean ships that any pirate would envy and they lived in wooden huts! 

As they wandered the alpine forests the Old Man would tell him stories constantly about why this tree was important, why that mountain or hill was named this or that.  As they’d wandered an old path crunching light snow and wet leaves he felt eyes on him all around…

“Vorynx,” the Old Man said pausing and kneeling to smell the air and reach out with the aether trying to guide Blaze to do the same.

He resented the ‘push’ into his head and pushed back just as he was pushing against the ever determined ‘Flow’ of this whole planet trying to suffocate him.

Even so the sense of being watched was unnerving and he yielded out of a sheer need to know what had eyes on him.

Slowly he found the profiles of the large animals, yellow eyes glinting between rugged brown trees.

“They’ll stay at a distance…they know there’s no gain in trying to hunt us,”

“Nice to feel wanted…” was his only reply.

The next stop was a large abandoned village…large and familiar as if something he’d seen in a dream.  The Old Man had noted how slowly he walked a slight hopefulness in his presence…

Presence… Blaze had never felt someone’s presence before with the Flow, or aether…whatever he wanted to call it…each day though he seemed more…aware of it, more in tune with it…and the temptation to just let the building pressure of its power flow through him greater and greater.

They paused at a statue of black and blood red stone surrounded by nine blue flamed scones.

“That fire…”

“Like yours isn’t it son, or rather yours is like it, that is the inheritance of our people, to turn the aether to flame, lighting, motion, thought, memory…to use it anyway we can imagine…”

The torches blazed azure light that cast the sculptured faces into strong contrast, the flickers of the flames seeming to flow luminous tears down the central woman - the Goddess - face. Beneath her cradled in her arms were three figures, two women and a male, fallen and broken.

“They represent those lost to us in the Devastation, including you son, taken, tormented, and now in need of healing.”

He had never been sentimental – there was no time to be when every day was a fight for food scraps and keeping yourself from being beaten to death at the hands of the violent urges of a half sane pirate…but the thought this was a monument to his suffering was affecting…

…so much so that after a few minutes he couldn’t look at the statue anymore

“Can we get moving now to….wherever the hell we’re going,”

Melron nodded
“To the Shepherds old village on the plains, hopefully there you will remember who you really are,”

Anger born of grief he could not find a way to express snapped back at the Old Man

“I know who I am Old Man, I know what I am, and I ain’t what you want me to be, and I never will be,”

He hadn’t even noticed he was right up in his face finger pointed under the Old Man’s chin

“Yet you’re still here son,”

“And I’m NOT your son,”

“I know…” the reply barely a whisper as Melron hung his head

“I wasn’t there when the slavers came, fell into despair after they left, failed to change, to adapt, indulged the endless appetite for grief instead letting it feed on itself.  Grief for the loss of my wife before the Devastation, my friends and other family after.  I never had a son, or daughter, and I admit I hope to be a father to you as I couldn’t be to the others during those years I locked myself away…if only to redeem myself and fulfil my need to have progeny…and that is unfair on you.”

The Old Man turned away then as if he too could not bear to look upon the monument to the People’s suffering for the remainder of his own failures it brought.

“If you want me gone I will leave, Jarys or Milaea can teach you better than I can anyway.”

The grief, the guilt was like a mountain even amidst those that bordered this Valley, and it bore down on Blaze in a way that was…not painful…but uncomfortable…he felt…for the first time in his life for anyone or anything…sympathy.

Hundred’s he’d killed, beaten, sold, stabbed…never did he feel the slightest hint of remorse or concern, there was no place for it in the life he lead…and…on reflection every other being no matter how close…Bjen as a half father, Doon as dumb guard, a dozen whores as pleasure fodder…he always felt apart from them…but with the Old Man and Lyaea…even the others after their brief meeting he felt something.

And it scared him to feel even in part what they did, to care. He wanted the feeling gone.

“That true Old Man you ‘fail the People?’”

“I did,”

“huh…so this is why you’re so frantic, you want to make up for it…and you know you can’t, that bitch is already dead…good to know you’re as frelled as I am.”

They had spoken little after that as they wound out of the village and back to the roads, but slowly the Old Man began his tales again as they crossed streams, repairing the odd rope bridge.

A week into the trip the food they had packed was gone and the Old Man began showing him how to live off the land, they picked fruits and berries, dug out mushrooms.

In all cases there was a trick, you needed to use the Aether – everything on this planet was alive with it…or unusually absent of it.

You couldn’t just take an berry, the plant would release a so called Malacia aetheric attack making Blaze for the first time experience the need to vomit till the Old Man showed him how to ‘slide’ the attack away from himself, mushroom would be charged with aetheric energy and near on burn your hand off to the touch, the Old Man again showed him how to draw the aetheric energy into himself safely then discharge it at his whim.

They hunted Goyruts, mountain animals with long legs and sharp horns that could run near on vertically up the cliff faces.  Blaze had figured it would be no trouble at all…if he had a blaster…instead he had first to find decent wood to fashion a bow, feathers for arrows…then work out how to sneak up on the Goyruts without them sensing him…

By the time he did he was already frustrated…two days and every time he got near them they’d vanish up the mountain or round boulders or trees…he felt a burning annoyance that such a dumb animal could outwit him.

This time as he lay prone shrouded by a bush he had them though…notching the arrow- pains in the arse they were to make – he slowly drew lining up the small curve under the neck where the arteries were…he had to ‘charge’ the arrow a little with the aether or it wouldn’t be strong enough to breach the hide – doing that had given him away last time but he was more subtle this time.

Drawing back silently he held for a second, checked his target then loosed.

The arrow slashed the air straight and true…

Then shattered halfway to the goyrut

“The Frell!!!” he cried as they ran off again “I had it dead to rights!”

“They have their defences too…” the Old Man seemed uncertain for a moment then said it anyway “…son.”

“Why are we bothering with this dren, why not just grab blaster and lace em, or better still got to a damn Kwik-Z-Mart,”

“You’re the captain of a ship,” the Old Man replied firmly “you always have all the weapons you wanted, your guns always fully charged in every battle?”

Blaze eyes narrowed as he saw the parallel

“No, you adapted to your targets, now how would you go about taking down a ship with responsive shielding like that?”

The next time he got it right, he climbed a ledge some distance away and kept above the herd, then primed two arrows silently – the first shattered against the shield, the second mere millimetres to the side got through – just as he would have taken a ship with reflex shields- hi them close with one turbo laser then fire another milliseconds after to get through the brief impact flicker.

Sitting beside the fire that night…it was the first time Blaze felt…at ease as he ate, actually getting to enjoy what he was tasting rather than just shoving down the food before anyone else could take it off him, or worried it was poisoned or rotten.

He still, honestly, didn’t know what he was doing here or why, what they really wanted from him or why…but for now at least he felt, for the first time…

Something other than cold terror and anxiety that any moment would be his last.

They had headed ever further from the mountain fortress after that, more stories more scrounging for food.  The Old Man now began to ask Blaze tangentially about things he had done, by again referring to how he might catch an animal or work round a block in the road

“If this were a ship…” or “If this were on Socorro…” “If you were hunting a similar target…”

It was the first time anyone had ever showed any interest in what he thought…apart from simply asking for orders ‘What now ‘Boss’ or the like…at first he was suspicious but the Old Man was growing on him, and he began to answer.  The Old Man always listened, asked brief clarifying questions but never probed uncomfortably.

Finally they left the canopy covered tracks to areas beneath the open sky.

The stars were brighter and more colourful than anything Blaze had seen, so close to the core they shone with freshness and life, nova’s and gas clouds of different colours packed in…the immensity only exceeded by the Old Man’s tales of what each constellation was – invariably it was some daughter of the Goddess or their bow, sword…handkerchief…and how they moved in relation to the seasons.

Blaze had never seen the stars as anything more than the gaseous blazing inferno’s they were, places to plunder or plonk down at. He sneered that they could attribute any meaning to the random patterning of the dots of light based purely on Aethas position…

Yet could not deny the sense of familiarity as he looked up and listened to the tales of Alixaea, the favoured daughter fighting the trolls, entering the underworld.

“You don’t think this stuff actually happened did you?” Blaze asked incredulously lying back on the overgrown grass staring up.

“Have you not travelled the stars, delved beneath the surface of a planet, flown through the rings of a gas giant, hurled fire with your hands,” the Old Man replied

“Is the tale of a woman fighting a Serpent the size of a planet with the lighting from her finger tips so unbelievable when you’ve seen a Space worm yourself?”

“I guess not…maybe it’s the way you tell the story…like it’s happening now and yet far away,”

“It is son, with every retelling that memory, those moments live again, that’s why, though our People may be lost and scattered they are never truly gone while we remember.”

The Old Man sat up straighter. 

“I’ll take the first watch…I smell the Vorynx in the air…and tomorrow we’ll visit Lyaea’s home,”

Blaze perked up at that, replying with faux indifference

“Whatever Old Man,”

<<<<>>>>

Melron

Blaze slept soundly and deeply, all six conscious levels at rest…meanwhile his subconscious mind was buzzing with activity.

Every day his Aethenaea Cortex was passively taking in knowledge, even if at a slower rate than Melron would like.

Blaze still resisted the full embrace of the aether, self-protective no doubt, but it was delaying his healing and recovery.  Melron needed to find a way to get him to fully open…but did not want to push.

He shifted over to sit above Blaze, the triquetra Milaea had given him around his neck jostling with the teeth of Blaze former victims. 

The triquetra’s aetheric enchantment was working at all times to supress Blaze’s more aggressive impulses and avoid sudden hormonal changes, it kept him pliant and peaceful, and pushed him into a deep sleep so Melron could continue the work.

With each meal Blaze put on weight, and each night Melron used the raw resources to repair more cellular systems.

His finger lit with healing red light that arced over the boy’s body, delving deeply, seeking out new systems to activate or refine, to switch from their malformed activation patterns to natural states, enabling protein production and enzymes that had been docile in the absence of sufficient nutrition…and most important of all repointing and enabling brain functions that had atrophied without appropriate stimulation as a child and teenager.

He triggered the regrowth of empathy centres that had never developed for there were no People to empathize with and Outsiders – no matter how caring – could never trigger their activation. It required a unique combination of aetheric, visual and scent stimuli to properly develop.  Melron improved sound sensory and interpretation networks to ensure Blaze could comprehend regular Aethan cadence, reduced the fight nexus and sympathetic nervous system adrenal glands that had grown abnormally large in response to a life of constant violence.

Melron recalled the conversation they had had shortly after the activation of the Obelisks,

“It’s clear from experience we may find People severely damaged, traumatised…we must heal them comprehensively where needed,” Valens had explained

“Altering their brain chemistry…” Milaea deduced immediately

“Where it is necessary, where they have been subject to severe damage, such as Lydan, or abnormal growth patterns,”

“Lydan…was a special case…those combat drugs they forced into him were despicable, but to change others Peoples neural networks that have adapted with high plasticity to their environment…it would change who they are…”

“Milaea makes a good point our experiences define us…” Jarys agreed “who are we to re-write a Persons sense of self,”

“We need not go too far,” Kiraea countered siding with Valens as she often did

“But think about it my love,” she spoke directly to Milaea whose expertise was needed to enact the plan

“What is more dangerous to themselves and others, an Aethan whose repaired to a more average baseline neurological pattern, or one left with extremes of – in all likelihood – violent or submissive tendencies,”

Milaea had thought for nearly 30 seconds after that – a long time for an Aethan to pause.

“That’s…true…but we can be subtle about it, only repair excessive damage where it’s needed for their own safety…”

“We’ll let the goddesses guide us” Kiraea affirmed

Melron knew here, in the Valley the Goddesses were doing just that.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 11 — Fires of Remembrance — Part 4

Lyaea

Despite knowing from the aether they weren’t nearby she couldn’t help looking out the window hoping she would spy them coming over the rise.

“Excited?” Adaea asked knowing the answer

“hmmm…a little I suppose,”

“A lot I reckon!”

Lyaea’s mouth scrunched most un-prettily

“Well he’s interesting…different…and likes Queen…”

She turned away from the window to slump back on the floor amidst the pile of Blackstone orbs they were programming for the Obelisk Array.

“But he’s too…” she shrugged and grimaced not knowing how to express the sense

“Wild, dangerous…damaged…” Adaea sighed her fingers alight with quick needle point precise motions programming the filtering orbs.

Gentle and meek as Adaea usually was she could be quite blunt, especially at her new home where she had taken to being the Lady of the House following her marriage.

“I suppose…though it is kind of exciting…pfff…” she blew her hair from her eyes

“He seems like fun…like we could have fun that is…but after what he has been through…”

“You should be cautious…”

There was nothing hidden between them, Adaea very well aware Lyaea wanted something more than friendship from a man…but only the right one…

“And for now…he’s still just a boy…”

<<<<>>>>

As soon as they crested the ridge she leapt up checking her hair and outfit, it was a plain traditional dress, homespun cream coloured.

Adaea merely smiled and headed to the door as they came down the path.

She noticed the change immediately, the bleach blonde hair was nearly gone, his face which had been ghostly white from living in space before was now tinged pink, it would not doubt settle to the slightly darker skin most men had in time and lost the irritation it was obviously experiencing under the Aethan sun.

Blaze looked calmer, more settled, but still had a glint of mischief in his eye.

“Hello Melron, Blaze…unless you have a different name…” Adaea said uncertain

“Still Blaze,” he replied slightly puffing, whilst not unfit when they found him it would take time to get up to the other men’s level.

“Adaea, Lyaea, may we visit,” Melron asked formally, even though as a Guardian he had permission to enter any house.

“You may,” Adaea giggled at the formality

“Lydan will be back at sunset with the herd’s,” she said leading them inside the long house, the fire in the centre, walls covered with tapestries and embroidery, off to the left a door to the rooms and to the right the kitchen and store.

“There is your seats…” Adaea pointed to the guest spot near the fire where she’d already laid out earthen mugs and a small plate of berries and seeds.

“What are all those…” Blaze asked pointing to the dozen orbs lying about

“Oh those are for the Obelisk array, filtering devices that channel out non-People-sequenced aetheric patterns and amplify signals with rhythmic consistency to Aethan standard presence patters…it’s how we found you,” Adaea explained

“Right…well that explains it…” he replied not understanding a word

“Good!” Adaea not comprehending sarcasm,

Blaze looked to Lyaea who just shrugged

“So you like playing with balls too?” he asked a hint of a smile on his lips.

Lyaea sneered rolling her eyes at the pathetic double entendre.

“Only full sized ones,” she replied in a cringe worthy tone, the innuendo lost on the literal Adaea and traditionally minded Melron.

“How are you enjoying being back home?” Adaea asked

“Oh it’s great, lots of fresh air and singing Kuum-Baya round the campfire, be painting each others toes nails next,”

“Oh that sounds like fun!” Adaea beamed becoming more comfortable, Blaze just sighed.

The afternoon passed quickly, Adaea attempting to show Blaze how the filtering orbs worked, while Blaze tip toed around insult with cynical or innuendo laced comments only Lyaea with her greater understanding of Outsider culture understood…indeed he seemed to be trying to share secret jokes with her.

Lydan returned just as the sun set, Blaze noting his arrival bluntly as the door opened

“Hutt’s breath what it that smell?”

“Hello My Love!” Adaea beamed rushing to her husband leaping up wrapping arms and legs around his now solid muscular frame, unworried by the stains on his smock.

“Bloody hell…” Blaze noted as the young married couple kissed passionately, Lyaea and Melron, indifferently continuing to program Orbs.

“…work hard, play hard…get hard…”

Lyaea sensed out his thoughts, it seemed Blaze had no problem with the open display of affection – he’d seen far more soiled and explicit beings in the dives of Socorro going at it…it was the nature of the affection, the mutual bond between Lydan and Adaea that was caring and supportive and non-exploitative that was novel to him.

“Evening brother,” Lyaea said as they broke apart, “The tanning is going well,”

Lydan nodded
“Very well, we’ll have three hides ready by the end of the week,”
As the herd had grown and some Gormin had passed from old age Lydan had rebuilt the old tannery and was working there on his way back from the grazing.

“Welcome to you too Blaze,” Lydan said

“Yeah thanks, nerf herding going well?”

“Gormin herding, yes, the herd is growing, more young taking the place of the old, the cycle continuing,” the shepherd replied

“As it should be,” Melron noted, Lyaea sensing the analogy in Melron’s mind that he was cycling out…and perhaps teaching Blaze was his effort to balance the cycle young for old.

The dinner was hearty and simple, again Blaze subtly teasing at poor Lydan even as her oblivious brother with his adoring wife explained the intricacies of preparing the hides and leather.

Soon after the evening fires were lit Lyaea extended Blaze an offer,

“Come on I’ll show you the sites nearby,”

The pair headed out over the nearby hill and Lyaea hit her iholo to add some music

“Finally a bit of civilization,” Blaze grinned,

“Here is some more,” she reached into her small pack to throw two candy bars to him,

“Huh never seen one completely wrapped before…” he mentioned before taking a bite

“So…how are you finding it here, really?”

“Oh it’s great, never knew so many people could have ‘aea’ at the end of their name…” he replied wryly

“Ha…still you wouldn’t rather be back to piracy…”

Blaze seemed to think for a minute

“Never had it so peaceful…sometimes…doesn’t feel right you know, like this is all a dream…or feels empty, there’s no action, no motion…used to a ship ploughing through hyperspace not a ball of dirt slowly turning…and it’s so…quiet…I mean all the animals I can hear them more and more…but it’s not like the banter, the insults on the ship…”

Lyaea frowned
“So you would rather be gone,”

“Didn’t say that,” Blaze replied suddenly defensive
“It’s just…different is all…”

He relaxed back

“Plus getting to see you in the flesh instead of just printed on a pamphlet…maybe one day you’ll show me some of the Rite of the Goddess…”

“Oh,” she said surprised “and what makes you think that,”

His eyes glinted with a touch of lust in the strong purple light of the stars

“C’mon sweet cheeks, we both know you’re dripping and I’m up for it,”

“And what is it?” she said coyly

“Well,” he whispered stepping close dropping the empty candy wrapper

“Let me…”

Vooosh

Once more Blaze fund himself flying upside down away from her into a tree.

Lyaea sighed at his impatience…and littering.

“Too soon again boy…” she said wandering up to him kneeling as he stared from upside down pinned to a tree by a half level of consciousness on her part.

“I’ll admit, I find you attractive, interesting, we share a taste in music, senses of humour…”

She sighed her breath straight into his nose, knowing full well there would be trace pheromones on it

“But you’re still just a boy…and I don’t know you…really know you…and you don’t know me either…”

She leaned back as he clumsily righted himself shaking off the disorientation of his sudden motion.

“…perhaps when you know both of those things we can talk…”

“Yeah well it’d be easier if I didn’t spend half my time flying through the air…gonna work out how you do that one of these days…” he replied pulling leaves from his rough shirt.

“Right I don’t know you so tell me, tell me how you ended up where you are?”

“Well...” she said sitting down beside him as the night winds off the distant mountains began to close in cold,

“I was taken too in the Devastation, to Nar Shadda, put in a cage, separate from my family…no idea what was happening…I was only seven, surrounded by monsters that gawked at me and took the other girls away one by one…”

Her face drew long in bitter memory, body slightly shivering Blaze took off his shirt and put it round her almost touching her.

“Aesaea, Nyaea, Shilea, Cilina, Laela…I thought the monsters were eating them, imagined all sorts of strange things trying to make sense of it…but there was no senses to be made…I just crawled into the corner and tried to hide…but whenever more buyers came they zapped me out to look me over…”

But no one took me away…I was happy in one way I didn’t want to go with the monsters, but at the same time sad, there were less and less others with me and I didn’t want to be alone…I imagined they were all bing taken home and I was being left behind…eventually there was only myself and Adaea left but then…then Kiraea came…

I remember the feeling of elation to see one of us on the other side of the glass…and the look in her eyes, the cold fury as she ‘bought’ us back…tempered by brittle anger she couldn’t get more…we were together…but still lost in a galaxy we couldn’t understand…I was scared of the refresher, I thought there was sea monster trying to suck me in…scared of everything…Adaea reacted by being quiet and shy, I reacted by breaking things, throwing tantrums…Kiraea did her best but she was only 16 herself…she had an outsider – Colm – under her control but still everything was just….crazy…going to school, university…I learned how to be in the galaxy but not part of it, learning the ways of the aether from Kiraea learned how to be People…but not here at home was not part of it either…didn’t belong to one side or the other…just riding the waves of chaos

I guess it’s why my holo channel is called Whacked Galaxy…and filled with things I find bizarre and strange…because even now, the whole galaxy is whacked, everything in it is bizarre…nothing can be taken seriously, perhaps I’m an anarchistic absurdist at heart.”

She stared out into the purple and blues of the sky as yellow pulses danced deeper in the core a million year ago as the next track ticked over on the iholo

Open up your mind and let me step inside
Rest your weary head and let your heart decide

“Never really tell anyone all that before did you?” he said quietly picking out the constellations the Old Man had shown despite himself, the yellow blooms were the lights of Alixaea’s arrows hitting the hydra.

“Only my mother,”

“Then why me now? The others have their own sob stories to odon’t they?”

It's so easy when you know the rules
It's so easy

“I don’t know…perhaps easier talking to a stranger my own age…Milaea is younger in years but….”

She sighed breath frosty as the late winter cold set in

“guess I don’t feel so lonely around you,”

When your feeling down and your resistance is low
Light another cigarette and let yourself go

“Sucks…” he said after a long pause

“Life that is…a bitch then you die, no one gets out alive and all that dren…but you just keep at it….”

“Look at me, I was a captain, trying to make my credits, make my name, break out from the Hutts…the whole time knowing sooner or later the crew would mutiny or earn a death mark….”

This is your life, don't play hard to get
It's a free world

“So took what I could while I could, forget about yesterday what’s done is done ain’t it?  You gotta do the same sweet cheeks,”

He tentatively shifted closer not desiring another trip to the tree upside down, feeling now the chill himself even used to the cold of space as he was.

“Take the warmth and screw the cold right out,”

My game of love has just begun
Love runs from my head down to my toes

“ha…practical advice, Kiraea would agree,” she giggled enjoying how close he was….shifting a little closer herself physically as she just had emotionally.

My love is pumping trough my veins
Driving me insane

“We should go back, no doubt Melron will have you up before the sun,”

Play the game, play the game
Play the game everybody play the game of love

 

<<<<>>>>

 

Blaze

“Gooooorrrrrrmmmmm,”

His eyes remained heavily shut as he pushed the hard pillow over his ears…he was just getting used to actually sleeping…

“Gooooorrrmmmm”

Now this…

“What. The. Frell. Is that sound.” He pushed up from the guest ‘bed’ which was a rug and pillow on the floor about the main fire place.

“The gormin, time to leave,” the Old Man said standing near the door,

“Great what we got to eat,”

“Adaea left some fruits and seed bars before she and Lyaea left,”

No Blaze awoke fully

“They left already,”

The Old Man nodded
“To deliver the Orbs’s…”
Now Blaze tried he could sense the absences of the flow sucking objects in the room
“We’ll head out with Lydan as far as twin hill,”
“Great morning with the nerf’s.”

Up until that point Blaze had not seen a Gormin, they had been in the barns the night before…wandering out of the house, danw light barely a candle over the mountains he stopped at the sight of the furred animals, terrified as a small one ran up to him stubby legs pushing through thick orange and red furs.

Bomo…

“That’s right,” Lydan off to the side
“That is little Bomo, Momo’s calf,” the rounded animal pushed at Blaze legs which felt incredibly wobbly

He had seen these animals before had…had…

Melron eyed him from the side, the flickers of a memory touching kindling in Blazes mind.

A morning much like this, wisps of pollen on the air, a man kneeling beside a Gormin so he could look the boy in the eye,
“You’re a big boy now son, you know many things and are very clever, I want you to share that by looking after little Bomo here,” the man patted the small Gormin

“Weeely?” the boy asked

“Of course, we care for the gormin and they care for us, you’ll need to feed Bomo, cut his fur when it gets too long, take him to the river to drink each morning, but then you can play together in the upper fields,”

He swallowed back the afterimages of a life he’d had to supress even as the little Gormin nuzzled his leg.

“We moving or what,” Blaze snapped away his discomfort.

Lydan shared a look with Melron, Blaze though he heard a whisper of some kind…he still couldn’t pick the way they spoke telepathically, whatever was said, Lydan spoke next

“Of course this way,”

<<<<>>>>

Again the heat assailed him, he was puffing after what seemed like hours of running.

Lydan like the Old Man walked faster than him and showed no such fatigue. Blaze was not unfit, certainly not compared to the rest of his crew had been…it seemed rather the Aethans on this world were in their element.

Behind them was a veritable army of 232 Gormin, most juveniles or calves, a few scarred older ones in a circle about them, all following Lydan and his shepherd’s staff without a word or question.

They walked through neatly cut – or rather eaten, grass lands to other fields where the grasses were high and yet to be grazed.

“These are the grazing lands,” Melron noted as the crested the rise to see vast plains of wind swept grasses intersperse by wooden hills, the sapphire blue river running through.

“Before the Devastation near on 10,000 Gormin would graze the pastures each day returning to the homesteads by the creeks and river each night…”

The Old Man paused for a moment to let Blaze catch his breath

“Any of this look familiar?”

“Should it?”

“Not for me to say son.” Melron left the thought and pointed to a small block of houses even he could only just make out within a copse for shade

“There is the shepherd’s villages, where we are headed, where I think your home was before,”

Lydan finally settled on a large grassy hill with his flock before they took a break chewing down the dried fruits and warm milk, like all the food here it was more filling than anything Blaze had eaten, little Bomo wandered up and plonked itself beside him, he idly ran his fingers through the gormins furs….and combined with the quiet rumble of the grazing animals and shuffling sound of wind through long grass he felt almost at peace…quiet…the warmth of the aether edging at him offering him escape if he just fell into it…

But he held back…ever since he arrived he had not fully allowed that sickly warm feeling in…it was getting tiring, he wondered if that wasn’t part of his exhaustion.


“Time to part ways,” Melron stood up
“Thank you Lydan, and thank Adaea for me for the food,” he patted his leather rucksack.

“You’re welcome, I hope you find yourself again Blaze…” Lydan shifted over to sit beside him.

“I know what it’s like to be…lost…injured…apart from everything and confused…”

“Yeah what’s your story then?” Blaze eyed the nerf herder

“I was taken like you, made to fight, to kill, mutilated…” Lydan looked across as he sensed movement in the nearby trees, eyes sharpening to see if it was Vorynx of Vosis…it appeared not to be.

“I found healing here, with the Gormin, with our People, in the arms of our Goddesses…” he reached out to ruffle the happily groaning Bomo’s shaggy ears,

“Let yourself find the same,”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 11 — Fires of Remembrance — Part 5

Blaze

The next few days they took a slower pace, each twist in the long since abandoned road causing Blaze to pause and more and more images flashed sparks of reminisce in his mind

Each time the Old Man tried to tease the details out of him but he couldn’t share…wouldn’t share…it was as if to do so were to admit something terrible – to admit the life he had lived for some many years was an aberration…and what did that then make him but a living joke.

That normally wouldn’t have bothered Blaze, his life had been violent chaos and desperate scratching that left no room for pride, just rolling with the insanity of the galaxy….but something now made him feel he needed to be worth something to himself so he could be worth something to Lyaea…something more than a curious playmate to send hurtling against trees upside down.

He tried to shake it, but she’d done something to him, ever since he first saw her picture…he wanted her of course, but not like he’d wanted girls before…he wanted her as a woman…and wanted to be worthy of that.

They came upon the empty wooden huts of the village, moss on wooden log walls, turf rooves overgrown, linens and shade clothes torn by weather, gardens spilled out across path ways with new growth.

He knew this place.

“Familiar son?”

“Maybe…” he whispered

At first he thought it was the place alive with the aether, but it was his own hands, they trembled and shook as he wandered toward one house on the edge of the village old dried leaves and triquetra totems on the outside.

“This…was Scintaea’s house…I went there when I was sick…”

Melron nodded himself remembering

“Scintaea was a seior, wise woman of the village for many years…do you know what happened to her?”

“She…” he felt a lead weight in his stomachs

“…wouldn’t let them take us…would rather die than….”

Melron gripped the younger man’s shoulder supportively, the memory flowing freely in the aether to him…she had understood the fate that awaited them and decided a quick death preferable to a life of suffering…he could not fault the decision, considering what happened to Blaze, Lydan and the others it was likely the more merciful choice.

“It’s alright Son, let it out…”

Blaze shook his head stifling back the tears even as he pushed against the press of the warm aether, the Goddesses desperate to comfort their lost son, but still he resisted.

“Bitch left me behind…” he sneered with congested nasal tones
“left me to…”

“To live son, you lived…”

“I wish I hadn’t…” he broke from Melrons grip and headed forward legs trembling with each step as he caught the sight of the corner of a building, old wind chimes with faded ribbons once Brown and Green, what had been his families colours….

“Your home son?”

Blaze nodded then shook

“Our…house in the village that was my mother’s…there was another…the farm house on the fields my fath…”

His voice broke along with his body, he crimpled to his knees, Melron soon beside him.

“I can’t I’m not…that’s not me…not my life…”

“It was son, you’re still that child, still of the People, those times, and those after they’re both you, when you reconcile yourself to yourself then you will begin your recovery…come let’s go inside…”

“NO!” he pushed out surprising Melron with his speed, his physical recovery had been impressive with a more suitable diet.

“I’m not…I don’t want this anymore!” he spun and ran.

<<<<<>>>>

He ran hot and hard, panting, exhausted, trying to out speed the press of the aether and the growing heat of his memories.

The path he raced along was familiar, the carved trees and bridges over babbling creeks old friends he had seen a dozen times.

He couldn’t seem to escape it….any of it…

He had wanted to get away from being a pirate…had secretly longed for the day a mutiny saw him gutted and drinking the nepenthe of oblivion…

Instead he was in a surreal afterlife where the woman of his dreams was constantly tantalizingly out of reach, the reality of his past pushing to break free and sweep away the man…boy…he was…

Knees near on hit his chin as he pounded up the incredibly steep hill, the physical, aetheric and psychological exhaustion reaching a peak as he crested the top and fell into the endless waves of long grass prickly with seed stalks.

The lost child lay prostrate before a Sacred tree on the steepest peak among the graze lands…the trunk carved into the three Goddesses, their arms interlocked they gazed  across the rolling pains in all directions, old offering bowls and totems scattered among weather ruined blankets at the foot.

The vague pressure of the aether that had surrounded him ever since he entered the system now seemed to be coming from one point…this tree.

Slowly,
Inch by inch
Tense by muscle tense he pushed himself to face the Goddesses.

Their wooden visages were more animated and alive than the vast majority of being he’d seen in the death stick stench bars of Socorro, sucking beings for a day’s pay in the brothels of Nar Shadda, or in resigned chains loading the same mass-reactive cannons in the bowels of a destroyer.

They looked at him even as their ‘hand’ extended toward him.

He had been here before…multiple times…not looking up at the face but down…

But how could he look down on them when a child?

Only when held high on his father and mothers shoulders as they showed him the plains below

“See all the Gormin, that is our herd, passed from my grandmother, from her grandfather, down to my mother and to me, one day to you, and then your son or daughter...we care for them…”
“..And they care for us…”

They all would gather at the change of seasons, water sprinkled on new babies heads before the Goddesses, oaths of betrothal made with happy handshakes.  Children ran about the summit with their young Gormin, the adults looking over the calves deciding on trades of heifers and bulls that would strengthen everyone’s herd and prevent inbreeding.

It was another world, a world of peace and calm Blaze could never imagine, but the world that He had been born into.

He couldn’t hold the tide back anymore, the concerned faces of the Goddesses pleaded with him to accept their help, to return to them and to himself.

The fires of remembrance could be stilled no longer, they overcame his fear, the deep cold barrier that had suppressed them so he could survive the horrors of the Outsiders galaxy.

As that magma frothed from within the heated waves of the Goddesses covered him from without.

Time passed…how long he didn’t know…before the Old Man finally caught up with him.

The younger man was standing naked upon the hill top, body still lean and crisscrossed with slowly fading scars.

“Son…Blaze are you…”

“Not Blaze,” the young man cut him off.

“Taryn,”

<<<<>>>>

Lyaea

With a hint of a smile she stalked around the empty village carefully creeping toward her target.

Over the thatched rooves and under broken fences she slid to the only ‘occupied’ house through a long since broken window.

It was unnecessary to be so veiled in her approach, but she liked surprising people, and it was good practice for her technique now she didn’t spend as much time taking things from shops as she had as a teenager on Commenor…thy were fun times, using the aether to distract or outright send made customers and store owner to swipe what she wanted while Adaea kept a look out under Kiraea’s guidance.

“Outsiders are just like plants, if we see nice berries we pick them…but like plants at home you have to watch out for malacia, electrical or telekinetic attacks!” Kiraea had said. 

Looking back she realised now it was, unconsciously, a way of ‘taking back’ from the outsiders who had taken so much from them as well as training in the absences of the native flora and fauna of Aethas that resisted being picked. 

Sounds and light supressed by the aether she crawled up behind as he crouched looking through an old chest.

“Taryn!”

“FRELL!”

He nearly leapt out as skin as she pinched his sides in surprise as she rolled about laughing

“Oh…you…frell what are you trying to do give me a heart attack?”

“Aethans can’t have heart attacks silly,” she replied between giggles at the sight of his face

“Our hearts squeeze gently across the twelve chambers not pump or beat or contract whatever like silly four chambered human ones,”

“Well common turn of phrase, still shouldn’t sneak up like that, next time I might shoot first ask who later,”

“Ha you couldn’t hit me if you tried Taryn”

“You heard about that,”

“Everyone heard about that, I came to congratulate you on rediscovering you name…if not fully who you are quite yet…so what is in the box?”

“Oh this, old clothes and stuff that belong to…” he swallowed as the next words came unnaturally

“My mother…”

“hmmm…” Lyaea peered inside, various sewing and knitting tools, threads and wool, pieces of clothing that had never been repaired, and an old small well used blanket.

“This…” she took the blanket out, “Would’ve been yours…” she sniffed it
“Definitely yours…when you were a baby…here feel it…”

He rubbed it between his fingers

“No feel it…”

Taryn rolled his eyes and reached out with the aether

She felt the connection immediately, the chimes of a gentle aetheric lullaby infused in the blanket that reacted to his presence, it was clearly having a deep effect on him…too much so, he let go of it in a hurry.

“Cute,” he tried to dismiss then pivoted the conversation
“So what are you really here for, not just to wish me well on my ‘name day’?”

He leaned back against the wall with a cocksure grin,
“Something else you wanted to do?”

“Just wanted to meet Taryn for the first time in person,”

“Oh and what do you think of him?” Taryn smiled

“I think…” she sauntered up to him and ran her hand over his chest
“He’s much more attractive than Blaze was…not as…frazzled but still has a rogues charm…,”

Just as he leaned toward she spun round, her hair in a ponytail slapping his face

“Will have to see what kind of a man he grows into…”

Lyaea instantly felt the pang or irritation and insult in Taryn, she didn’t need to turn to know he was scowling to be called a ‘boy’ still…

More than man enough for a little girl like you…

He at least had the maturity to bite back actually saying it, but thinking it was unfitting for a male of the People and the kind of pride and misogyny he needed to lose to cease being a child.

“And if he grows into the right kind of man?” Taryn asked arms, stronger each day, crossed over his chest

“Then he gets the right kind of woman,”

<<<<>>>>

Crazy Little Thing

This thing called love
I just can't handle it

Half tripping on his own feet the Old Man shook his head at his lack of focus as they worked in the glaring sun with scythes cutting the long grass on the plains his ancestors had once herded gormin, piling up to dry into straw for Lydan’s herd.

That boring shavit wasn’t what was distracting Taryn, rather he promise that once they had filled the barn Lyaea would visit for the evening and make him dinner – a welcome break from the Old Man’s insistence they hunt and forage everyday on the slow road to the coast.

This thing called love
I must get round to it

She spent all afternoon getting ready to see him, bath scented with fresh picked flowers, made the picnic breads from flour she picked and ground in a flurry of domesticity she never thought herself capable of.

The wind was cool, the conversation light, feelings warm as the iholo played, but when he shifted in to try and kiss her…

I ain't ready

He once more ended up telekinetically flung upside down into a tree.

Crazy little thing called love

Shaking it off he jumped back up with a smile.

This thing (this thing) called love (called love)
It cries (like a baby) in a cradle all night

She would wonder where he was at night, what camp site they had found, what he was eating, had he hunted it, gotten into a fight with a vorynx…the suspense had her jittery, flicking between screens on her iholo, looking for things to take her mind off him….

It swings (ooh, ooh), it jives (ooh, ooh)
It shakes all over like a jelly fish,

….but he just couldn’t stop having ever second thought about her, even while trying to avoid the vicious blade like beaks of the Snow-hawks as he clambered up a rocky peak to swipe some eggs for breakfast, their telekinetic attacks gripping his ankle sand wrists, he had to use the Old Man’s ‘shunt’ techniques to bat them off….

If only he could shunt out the thoughts of Lyaea he thought ruefully in the days he didn’t see her…but honestly those fantasies….

I kinda like it
Crazy little thing called love

Neither could get enough of them.

There goes my baby
She knows how to rock-n-roll

She had to head off to work and train with the Extolled…he felt even as she lay back on the grass whining, her voice always that bit more shrill, about how they doted on her like a Goddess kow-towing and such he felt a burning pain that he might never see her, already felt how he would miss her as they sat together for the last time for possibly a month

She drives me crazy

Under the warming autumn sun he reached out to touch her….

She gives me hot and cold fever
She leaves me in a cool, cool sweat

And as always ended upside 200 metres away.

“One day…I’m gonna get you sweet cheeks…” he cringed righting himself – even after the sadistic beating the Old Man could inflict, Lyaea still somehow always hit him harder.

“One day…” she smiled hips swaying amidst leaves red as her hair up as the seasons turned

“I’ll let you,”

I gotta be cool, relax, get hip
Get on my tracks

He plodded along behind the Old Man smelling the salt from the sea for the first time, bundles of wood on his back, arms aching from cutting trees to build a boat to sail to the jungle isles of the equator where his ‘healing and training’ would continue,

Take a back seat, hitch-hike
And take a long ride on my hover-bike

The days dragged on, the mewling worship of the Extolled grating more than usual, she found herself procrastinating more than working, but she knew she had to wait till he was ready…till she was ready….before she finally knew if it was what she hoped.

Until I'm ready
Crazy little thing called love

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 11 — Fires of Remembrance — Part 6

Melron

Taryn swung between branches, ran over boughs, and skidded in between Vong Hybrid creatures in the sweltering jungle heat of the isles that days ago had been uncomfortable until Taryn, so used to the cold of space had finally adapted.

His grip was strong, his movements more fluid as he move through the course over and over again, Taryn’s dexterity had increased as the courses required him to use ranges of motion beyond humanoid standard for the first time, his body forced to adapt and regain its potential as muscles and tendons grew and firmed.

Dovin basals in swamp like pool gripped at him trying to pull Taryn from the thin branches he raced upon, he countered with a buoyant burst in the aether.

Wild amphistaffs lashed and spat acid a him, forcing him to pivot near 180 degrees at the torso.

Taryn still burnt through his energy too quickly, needed to develop endurance, but for now it served Melron’s purpose. 

Taryn still had a young man’s vigour, useful for the intensity of the training he needed to fully recover, but also a risk.

Grabbing the real ribbon hidden among the villips Melron had hidden after tuning the choir to twist into images of the same Taryn dove beneath the claws of Vosis that sprung rom the swamp like paddies.

An example of Vong and Aethan species interacting the reptilian Vosis – genetically perfected Hssiss – had taken quickly to living in the villip paddies and preying on Vong aquatic creatures, the Villips in turn twisting in their choirs of leathery skin to an image of Vosis to deter animals that would otherwise eat them.

The young man avoided the first sweeps but found himself back into a trap as another vosis rose up.  The creatures were nearly two metres in length at least a meter and a half in height, strong as a vorynx with scaled hides and phase shifting stealth abilities of Hssiss but far deadlier venoms and leaner more flexible build.

Dripping claws slashed through the humid air as it splashed up and into his back, painful scratches etched in blood.

Taryn spun and unleashed a furious burst of aetheric fire, an instinctual response that had kept him alive against pirates, mercenaries and freebooters that was counterproductive against aetheric wielding creatures. 

The Vosis cared not for the heat, they revelled in the heat that stimulated the cold blooded animals metabolisms and was not anywhere near hot enough to damage their grey-green scales.

They bit and lashed forcing Taryn to scramble in the mud, it was four onto one, and in the gluggy still waters leech like creatures began to circle attracted by the blood dripping from his back.

Melron stood staff in hand…perhaps this was a test too soon…

“Back on your arse Old Man!” Taryn yelled pirouetting between the fangs and claws that cut the heat hazed air.

Such pride, such a need to prove himself was both endearing and worrying.  Taryn wanted to prove himself to Lyaea, show himself a worthy mate…but he was going about it the wrong way, his physical and aetheric abilities were nearing an adequate level…but they were outstripping his psychological and cultural recovery.

The young man gazed into the fanged maws that surrounded him, cloaking himself in a kinetic shield as Melron had taught him only a few weeks before as they sailed to the equatorial isles from the Valley, the shield necessary to keep their small boat safe from pounding sea hail and intense waves.

On the brine soaked ship they had fought the elements together as one by the end as Melron taught him navigation, sailing, fishing and the stars above.  It had been a good end to an inauspicious start, Tayrn complaining about the rowing and annoyed they didn’t simply fly.

“What’s the point of having these fancy pants oblivion ships if you don’t use em?”

“What is the point,” Melron countered “Of using the wrong tool for the wrong job?”

“Hello, ship fast, boat slow, getting from Aurek to Besh gonna be faster in ship dumb dumb,” he complained as they sat side by side rowing in the calm of a temporarily windless ocean.

“Did you consider there are more goals to be accomplished that simply getting from Aurek to Besh?”

Taryn had sniffed indignantly
“All about the journey hey Old Man,”

Taryn had been right however cynical, but the lesson hadn’t stuck.

He took the closest Vosis head on, leaping toward its mouth teeth dripping with acidic venom.

Taryn took the welts that burst on his skin as the venom hit to grab the mouth open, using the jaw as the grip to toss the huge beast at least 450kg into another.

The splash sent the leeches scrambling, the villips curling up for protection.  Taryn heaved out as the claws bashed against his shield, he rushed the beasts head on like he just had…then leapt high into the vines above grabbing an amphistaff in each hand, the wild serpents resenting his grip and moving to strike and cut him with their blade like bodies. 

As he came down he hurled them at the Vosis that were leaping toward him in turn.  A mid air fight of three ensure, the Amphistaffs hitting the Vosis cutting and curling round in their anger at being taken from their vines, the Vosis lashing at Taryn and trying to shake the amphistaff, Taryn himself pushing himself telekinetically to stay in the air and pushing himself back and down under the Vosis.

He deftly twisted from their gnashing and clawing to get just under them, ramming his fists and feet into the relatively softer scales of the under belly cracking ribs.

All crashed to the swamp in a rain of mud, blood and stagnant microbe filled waters.

There was another tussle and Melron moved forward, unable to see who was what in the melee, reptilian hisses and villip ululations cried out amidst Taryn’s grunting.

Then quiet as they all fell under the water level.

Melron rushed forward just as a head, the last faded traces of bleached hair poking out beside a tightly clenched ribbon in a bloody fist.

“See…” Taryn huffed
“All too easy…”

<<<<>>>>

There was no need for a fire, indeed it would not last in the humid air and attract too many predators, so they sat lit only by the stars through the canopy.

Taryn was patching his wounds with various gums and saps to speed recovery, another sign of his progress in learning the facts Melron could teach.

But he seemed to be missing the meaning.

“Something on your mind Old Man?”

“You’ve learnt much Taryn these past few weeks since you recovered your name,”

“Yeah well haven’t had much of a choice, it’s learn or starve and get eaten, but that’s the point ain’t it, People adapt, like I did to survive with the Pirates, you’re making me adapt to survive with the Aethans,”

Melron nodded at the correct analogy, but again a deeper meaning he was trying to impart was missed, he didn’t want Taryn to merely ‘survive’ among the People but to be one of them….

It didn’t matter how many skills Taryn mastered, how well he recovered physically, these things were necessary but not enough to be one of the People, and would not on their own impress Lyaea as Taryn hoped. 

Melron could sense Taryn believed if he could prove he was as tough and able as any other Aethan male Lyaea would consider him a man and give him what he wanted from her…

The erroneous assumptions in that scheme were, even for an Aethan, beyond count.  What Lyaea would consider a ‘man’ was culturally conditioned very differently to what Taryn believed. And he would be sorely disappointed if he pushed his luck before he realized this truth.

Melron didn’t blame Taryn, he had grown in a deeply misogynist culture where the only women he interacted with were hard bitten violent pirates, passive resigned prostitutes, artificially eager sluts on XXX rated holo-vids, or caricatures on holo drama’s.  Melron had to make sure, for all their sakes, Taryn learnt his place as a male among the People and accepted it before he made any further attempts to court Lyaea…or risk all they had achieved.

“So any story tonight about Alixaea and her ten thousand daughters?” Taryn asked leaning back on a moss covered rock.

“No more stories…” Taryn had heard hem all any way but still their meaning was not translating…Melron stood into a Morgukai ready stance

“Come copy me…Sha means high, wo means low, Kan middle…”

“Really…now?” Taryn complained

“Really,”

With a huff Taryn got up and instinctively tugged on Melrons mind for the exact details - his Aethenaea cortex was now fully reactivated enabling him to passively delve other People for procedural, declarative and kinetic memories and absorb them.  This key part of Taryn’s brain had been severely diminished for lack of stimulation by adult Aethan’s and its recover had been one of Melron’s focuses.

“This is Djen-wo…low flourish,” Melron moved, Taryn following precisely milliseconds after palms moving with grace but firm power in a movement across he body to protect one’s own core with striking the enemies thighs.
“Djen-Sha high flourish,” he went on rising his taught arms up, the movements need to be firm, fast and fluid,

Taryn copied precisely as the knowledge passed between them.

Melron was seeing now how over confident he had been what the Aethenaea cortex could achieve…it could impart skills and knowledge by rote, but not the cultural meaning associated with it.

“These techniques are used by the Morgukai, dwellers of the Wannschok, the Endless deserts” Melron explained as they moved through the sequences

“Warriors who value truth and honour, who respect their foes, this is shown in their marital arts, Van –wo – Low strike,” he continued with a solid forward kick

“I learned these techniques from  Morgukai warrior on the verge of killing me…I tore the knowledge from his mind…with it I was able to defeat him…with it I became a better warrior, a better teacher, a better Person…Kai-Kan – Mid throw – “ they motioned to a quick hand over hand grip to an invisible foe then practices the downward pull and follow up stomp.

“This was not because of the techniques themselves, but the meaning…I saw in the Morgukai way values I had lost in myself, and ways that were better than those I held, firmness, endurance, that to respect your foe is to respect yourself….Ren-Ko-Sha,”

They were moving seamlessly to the untrained eye now, so deep was the flow between their cortices Taryn’s delay was barely half a millisecond as they backflip kicked.

“To learn simply the stances and strikes by rote would’ve gained me nothing, I had to be open to taking in more than just that,”

Taryn was no fool he understood the implicit censure

“You’re saying I’m not?” he snapped even as they went through the Jin-Kan mid-level rapid strikes

“Spread myself wider than a 5 credit Zeltron to your Aether, been a good boy paddling the boat, even stuck it out in this humid hell hole, you just said yourself I’ve learned much”

“Learned yes but you need to live out what you have learned, Valens once quoted his Master Yoda one must unlearn what you have learned until you take what I’ve taught you into yourself you will remain a lost child…”

<<<<>>>>

 

Taryn

He stopped dead in the cold night air.

“Child, who you calling child Old Man!” he snapped the rage building cold as aetheric fire in him

“I don’t need your approval, I was a Captain, survivor and fighter long before I met you and your cooky clan,”

His face twisted with unhidden anger as he jutted his thumb toward himself

“I listened to your silly stories, rowed the damn boat, found my old name, learned how to hunt in this world fully of whacko bio-engineered monsters not because I set all that aside but because I drew on it, cause this…this ain’t nothing compared to the pits of Nar Shadda or the arse end of the Kyala loading laser cores and snatching food,”

Now he pointed at the Old Man

“And I’ll live any damn way I please,”

To emphasize the point he was his own man he grabbed the triquetra pendant Milaea had given him about his neck supplanting his lost teeth trophies, tugged hard and fast enough to snap the wound cord.

The reaction on the Old Man’s face was short, barely a millisecond, but with his senses refined and sharpened after months of close contact Taryn did not miss it his own face twisted from annoyance to confusion at why such a trivial gesture would elicit such a response. 

Then he felt it…clarity as if waking from a dream haze…he looked quickly down at the pendant in his sweaty hand then to the firm but anxious eyes of the Old Man – all the while he used all he had been taught these last few months to seek out what the pendant had been doing…

The Old Man exuded a strange combination of worry and pride as Taryn used Psychometry and Flow Sight he’d learnt to track Aethan animals on the small pendant, integrated with his burgeoning understanding of aetheric enchantments on the babies blanket and other household items he found in his birth parents house, the consciousness stripping attacks used by Voren feline predators, the shatter point healing methods Melron had taught him and he’d used after the fight with the Vosis….

You suck my blood like a leech
You break the law and you preach

It all came together in one level of his conscious mind…the pendant was not a symbolic welcome gift…it a complex and precisely tuned device built to moderate hormone levels and supress activation of ‘fight’ sympathetic nervous system responses, encourage the repointing and growth of empathy centres in the brain and facilitate a back-up ‘sleep’ pattern so that…so that…

The Old Man could fidget with genes each…and every…night.

Screw my brain till it hurts

“Son of a bitch…” Taryn whispered…

“Son of a mother frelling, arse licking, bitch…”

He wanted to hurl the pendant but could only muster the weakness to let it drop, plopping onto the leave strewn ground.

Now the yelling began

“You use your damn witches charm to castrate me then frell around with my DNA!”

You've taken all my money
And you want more

The suppressive effect lost at the moment it was needed the most Taryn curled his head in his hands as he trembled with rage.

“I couldn’t understand why I put up with this gundark dren…why I was enjoying it feeling at home…that was why…I was doped to the nines….”

“Son…it was to heal…”

Misguided old mule with your pig headed rules
With your narrow minded cronies

“I’M NOT YOUR FELLLING SON!”

The scream was paired with a burst of instinctive aetheric fire blazing from Taryn’s eyes and hands slamming an unprepared emotionally stunned Melron straight into a tree where the rustle of leaves, insects and bird burst the night’s silence apart as they fled.

“…heal you…” Melron struggled rising up quickly needing to contain the damage…and likely needed help

<Anyone…Taryn has taken a turn…come quickly>

“…fix what was broken by the outsiders…”

Who are fools of the first division

“Fix what was broken my frelling arse…” his head pounding cold with rage, fists and arms burnt with blue fire that lit the copse.

“I thought…thought I was here by choice…for the first time I had a choice in what I was doing in my life not just surviving day by day….”  He shook his head as he stepped toward their leather and hide packs

“More frelling fool me….”  He picked up both training swords, the greysleet blades were not as heavy or sharp as blackstone but could still…with enough force…kill.

“My crew mutinied on me…yeah that shavit sucked hard…but that was the game, the life of a pirate…we were all honest about it, never claimed like sweet arse Lya did I could come and go as I pleased, I was trapped in that dren-storm of a life, but I had no frelling illusions….no hope…”

He strode forward both blades in hand as Melron stood before him, face only a little red from the blast of fire.

“We wanted to help you…heal…”

“Save the preaching Old Man…” he rose both blades in Tat-Ro-Shan – Neck Slice High Strike.

Melron would not raise his hand against this boy he had so comprehensively failed twice…once to protect him from Outsiders, now to protect Taryn from himself.

The swords cut through the air….

Death on two legs
You're tearing me apart

<<<<>>>>