Remnant of the Aether

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 11 — Fires of Remembrance — Part 7

Lyaea

…and sliced through the illusion of Lyaea’s neck

“TARYN Stop!” her amorphous hands held up to block the blow.

Teeth gritted Taryn paused…

“Yeah that’s it ain’t it the cute little Glitteryll Pot to tease me main cannon while her docking bay’s permanently shut…”

“Taryn we can talk about this I’ll be there soon…” she comforted as best she could from the transport that was racing toward the isles

A fierce smirk crossed his face and he lowered his swords

“Sure talk, yeah let’s talk…”

She breathed a slight sigh of relief as she pushed the Karintha class transport ever faster.

<<<<>>>>

Lowering the ship on its grav-drives she hopped out at a clearing nearby, weaving through the night to where Taryn remained standing eyes alight glaring at Melron.

Both men were barely clothed given they had been training, neither seemed to have spoken or moved a millimetre since she spoke to Taryn minutes before.

The tension was the only thing to have grown in that time thicker than the humid air that boiled off the nearby villip paddies.

As she ducked under broad leaves Taryn slowly turned toward her,

“You wanna talk sweet cheeks…let’s talk, away from him…”

She paused nodding

“Alright my ship is nearby…”

She lead the short distance in silence to the clearing lit by the glow of the ships lights the ramp still down.

He stood silent arms crossed against his chest

“Taryn…” she said as soothingly as possible she’d always had a talent for talking herself out of trouble, and now added a hint of her pheromones supress his anger bio mechanically

“Melron was just trying to make you all you can be, you have to admit…” she ran her hands down his shoulders

“You’re stronger, healthier….” Her hands caressed down his sides to the front of his thighs

“More manly than ever…”

He shifted ever so slightly

“We never intended to supress you forever…”

“Oh how generous of you,” was the cynical reply

A genuine smile was her response as she moved closer

“You’ve grown so much, don’t turn away now when everything we want,” she added another burst of pheromones into her saliva and licked her lips

“Is so cl…”

“Feel good are you satisfied?” he pushed her away

“Do you feel like suicide? I think you should,” he stepped toward her

“Is your conscience all right? Does it plague you at night?” he pushed her again,

She was shocked more than anything else that a male Aethan could in any way be aggressive toward a female…

“Do you feel good?  Feel good?” he pressed up against her, height and muscular body overawing her own if only just.

“You talk like a big business tycoon,”

She recognised the lyrics he was quoting…

“You're just a hot air balloon, So no one gives you a damn,” his face was leering and enraged and he tried to intimidate her, she was not concerned, she could protect herself  easily enough from this aberrant behaviour caused by, she hoped, uncorrected genetic and cultural damage.

“You're just an overgrown little tralk,” he whispered with sinister intend,
“Playing the aloof goddess, teasing what you’ll never pay out, well…”

Like lighting his hand went for her arms, she reacted no less quickly with a burst of telekinetic and stasis energy to his core as she had done a dozen times before when he’d gotten too close…

But this time was different…This time he had six months of intense training with a Guardian…this time he knew how to deflect the attack that was based on a Vorynx predation strike because he had hunted vorynx.

Now he hunted her

“…time to put your money where your mouth is you little schutta,”

She pushed again but he curved it off as she struggled in his slightly stronger grip

“Taryn let me go!” she squealed

“Taryn is who you want me to be, not who I want to be!” he bit back one arm now round her pinning her closed while the other pulled back her head.

“Let her go Blaze…” a fourth voice from the ship called.

<<<<>>>>

Lydan

Blaze sniffed the air

“Yeah…of course the nerf herder…” he loosened his grip and Lyaea fell away scrambling.  Almost comically Blaze grabbed her ankles and dragged her back – she hurled a rapid bolt of lightning that he slapped to the side.

Now Lydan stepped out, his Shepherd’s staff in his hands

“Come on you dren soaked loser, give me your best shot!” Blaze dropped Lyaea’s ankle as she hurried out of the line between the two men, never more appreciative of her brother.

Lydan spun his staff as he headed down the ramp sizing up his opponent.  Blaze had grown strong in the last few months…but not that strong, the shock of his disobedience had stunned Lyaea from being more effective in her resistance…

Blaze gestured like a pit fighter with his hands

“Come on, let’s see how all that nerf nuzzling has paid off…” Blaze feet switched and bounced like a boxer between stances Melron had taught and typical street fighting positions.

Lydan didn’t want to hurt him…but had little choice, Blaze needed to be restrained, and there was no reasoning with a pirate.

In the blink of an eye the fight erupted.

Lydan made a rapid teleport skip to swipe straight at the head, Blaze bobbed under and landed three rapid punches to his ribs.

They were firm and effective, Blaze had heeded Melrons lessons – in Morgukai techniques at least – well.  Back up Lydan swung out again using his staff to keep Blaze at a distance.

He threw up solid telekinetic walls to limit Blazes movement, his goal to use the range on his shepherd staff to land crippling blows to the knees and hips.

Blaze moved quickly in response, weaving out of each strike and starting to throw controlled balls of aetheric flame in response, those that missed he was able to pivot back round for another pass like suicide drones – soon the air was filled with a dozen of them as the two men struck against each other.

Lydan’s staff struck against the aether hardened forearms and back when he could, Blaze duck and wove to land quick combo’s to Lydan’s sides when he could, the staff protecting Lydan’s core.

The fire balls spun and struck at Lydan’s shoulders and knee’s - he used tutaminis techniques to absorb most of the aetheric flames and send mental thorns with the excess – most were deflected but occasional winces and missed opportunities showed a few got through.

The Pirate and the Shepherd danced in a game of blow and counter blow, the leaf strewn forest floor churned up, the air given added heat by their exertion, Lyaea now beside a shocked Melron near forgotten as staff hit flesh, and fist bashed body.

Inevitably Lydan knew he would win, he spent his days fending off vorynx, working the tannery and hauling hay bales for the winter, he had endurance to spare, Blaze was used to short sharp fights in the pits, boarding an unfortunate ship or in his own ship beating an errant pirate to assert authority.

Blaze began to waver quickly, burning through his energy just as Lydan had suspected, he barely leapt over a low sweep of the staff, and was knocked by the Lydan’ follow up telekinetic hammer to the chest.

Reeling back angry Lydan saw Blaze eyes flick to something behind him.

Before his mind could assess the strategic import Blaze cut loose with a wall of aetheric fire as large as any Kiraea could produce if less intense and controlled.

The shepherd staff spun fast in his hands hurtling the torrent back, the enchantment and runes Adaea had infused it with dispelling much of the blast…it had to be a distraction Lydan’s senses remained alert…but still he was taken by surprise…

Blaze knee hit straight into his back, Lydan spun with his staff and countered before Blaze could follow through…but Blaze was already moving away.

The pirate shoved himself with a telekinetic shunt up the ships ramp and hit the button to close the door. 

Lydan immediately leapt up to pursue but a hand fell on his shoulder heavy with grief at the second loss of a son of the People.

“Let him go son…” Melron counselled “Let him go…”

<<<<>>>>

[TheDutchman]

Interesting.  Blaze/Taryn's therapy ISN'T working as well as the Aethans were expecting.  Of course, we're talking about DECADES of trauma, conditioning like that isn't something that even the strongest of personalities can overcome in a short time.  Which is why this particular narrative has become a favorite of mine: this character study is such a different perspective into the individual Aethans.  It's also testament to LSG's writing that each distinctive perspective is as disparate as they are remarkable.  And it's especially heartbreaking seeing Melron's feelings of failure reassert themselves over the loss of his family and his belated decision(s) leading to his status as a Guardian-come-lately.

THIS is how pathos is done PROPERLY 

Now just what a PTSD suffering Aethan with sociopathy is going to do with a Karintha-class ship is anyone's guess (but I can't wait to find out  ).  Speaking of...


ANOTHER sweet-looking ship, courtesy of the winning collaboration between FT & LSG 

KEEP THESE COMING PLEASE!!!

[HesaHeart]

FT and Lsg and all you that write are amazingly talented

[Lord_S_Gray]

FT and Lsg and all you that write are amazingly talented

Interesting.  Blaze/Taryn's therapy ISN'T working as well as the Aethans were expecting.  Of course, we're talking about DECADES of trauma, conditioning like that isn't something that even the strongest of personalities can overcome in a short time.  Which is why this particular narrative has become a favorite of mine: this character study is such a different perspective into the individual Aethans.  It's also testament to LSG's writing that each distinctive perspective is as disparate as they are remarkable.  And it's especially heartbreaking seeing Melron's feelings of failure reassert themselves over the loss of his family and his belated decision(s) leading to his status as a Guardian-come-lately.

THIS is how pathos is done PROPERLY 

Now just what a PTSD suffering Aethan with sociopathy is going to do with a Karintha-class ship is anyone's guess (but I can't wait to find out  ).  Speaking of...

ANOTHER sweet-looking ship, courtesy of the winning collaboration between FT & LSG 

KEEP THESE COMING PLEASE!!!

Thanks guys, wanted to do much more character rather than action driven drama with this series, as well as delving the psychology of the Aethans...and their limitations and weaknesses...in more depth. Sounds like I'm succeeding. And Yes FT has really gone beyond with his efforts on these.

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 12 — Inferno of Regret — Part 1

Bjen

His tongue tapped on the upper metal plate in his mouth, a nervous response to stress as another half lead came to a full stop.

Nearly seven months and no sign of Blaze, no trace of anyone trying to shift Naquadha in any quantity…it was as if he’d vanished into a black hole…

Or perhaps his erstwhile captain had simply died against the Housi and they simply never found the body amidst the wreckage…but then where did the Naquadha go, the valuable minerals had a very distinct signature and no trace was found after the carnage.

Uuun grunted and slapped his shoulder.  They hated each other, but had to work together, two more months and Ozrym would sic his bounty hunter guild kath-hounds on them, so they had to work fast too.

His cyborg limbs wheezing with pneumatic hisses for lack of maintenance over the last few months he struggled up from the disturbingly wet seat.

They’d tried ever bar, every station, every port and fence across half of Hutt Space and the lower corporate sector to no avail.

“Now where…” he mused his cybernetic enhanced brain ticking through the remaining probabilities.  Like all Yaka he’d been implanted as an infant, it was the pride of their kind…to meld machine and man perfectly…

What was less well known was the high failure rate, officialy it was none…unofficially it was up to twenty percent, the lucky died as infants, the wretched failed to properly fuse and ended up disabled in ‘sheltered workshops’ that made spice mines look homely, the rest like Bjen were just…cast out, too expensive to repair so had to make a living with their relatively superior cyborg bodies another way.

The mute Uuun just shrugged with no more clue where to look that he did.  They were using Uuun’s remaining ship, crewed by just over three dozen of their men….if had been nearly a hundred…a few more jumped ship every stop for better pastures…

Bjen didn’t blame them, this was why he never wanted to be captain, to avoid the Hutts noticing him…Blaze had attracted too much heat, a swap for Uuun was detestable but preferable…now he was stuck holding the death mark.

Scratching his metal jaw Bjen finally decided they had just to guess…

“We’ll try Nar Kreeta…”  The Hutt colony was a large trading hub under Hutt control, the kind of place only an idiot would try and sell Naqudaha stolen from another Hutt…

It was just audacious enough that Bjen calculated a 14.3 per cent probability Blaze would try it…the highest chance of finding him he had left.

Uuun murmured in incredulity

“You got a better idea, or you wanna go back to Socorro and hand your myvonx to Ozrym on a plate?”

Uuun simply gargled reluctant acquiescence.

<<<<<>>>>

Blaze

Like a bomb the guilt and shame exploded as soon as the heat of the fight had cooled and the ship dropped out of hyperspace.

He sank into the chair and stared into the coloured vista of the deep core utterly spent, mentally and physically. 

“Wish I had died on that raid…”

For the first time he’d had a good thing going…or thought he did…he couldn’t tell with the mind screw – or could he…

Objectively he had food, clean air, no imminent threat of death, people to talk to who didn’t seem like they wanted to put a knife in his back, the chance to learn new things, to learn about himself….

But it was tainted by the manipulation of his mind and body that had driven him over the edge…he was angry it was all fake…and real…and fake and…

“Frell this dren,” he scrapped his circling thoughts and stood up.  Needing something to do he began looking round the ship.

Like the larger one he’d gone to Aethas on it featured a clean grey, white and blue décor, interspersed with garden walls and potted plants.  It was an assault transport of some kind, cockpit, four main rooms, two sleeping quarters, armoury and workshop and a med bay, large storage area at the back three sets of Oblivion armour along with rifles, pistols, swords, glass knives and explosives.

It wasn’t huge but it was well armed with shikkar torpedoes, magnetic accelerator cannons, ion cannons and a cloaking system. 

Frankly it was better than half Ozrym’s pirate….

“…flotilla…” he suddenly thought picking up one of the Oblivion helmets, the featureless lump of Blackstone concealing miniaturized Chiss nano tech…this was badass dren.

“What am I gonna do sit around and mope…talking to myself…”

He looked around for a moment almost wishing Lyaea would appear again…was she listening using one of them aetheric magic tricks?

“I said talking to myself?”

The Old Man even…

No…

“Well frag you, I’m taking this ship and these goodies and I’m gonna frell those mutinous dogs Bjen and Uuun in ways they never thought possible,”

He couldn’t make up or what happened on Aethas…but he could get revenge for his old life.

<<<<<>>>>

Melron

Like a bomb the guilt and shame exploded as soon as the heat of the fight had worn off and the ship burst into hyperspace.

He sank into the chair of the small wooden hut amidst the jungle while they waited for Jarys and Milaea to pick them up.

He had failed more than just Taryn, more than just himself…but Lyaea and Lydan…the whole People…

Again

The same child lost twice…surely there was no forgiveness for that.

Lyaea sat on the floor nuzzled up to her brother, Lydan looked a little worse for wear, he was a strong young man, but Blaze had gotten some solid hits in…Melron should be proud.  But it was Lyaea that worried him the most.

Swallowing his own pain to try and alleviate others he reached out

“You alright Lyaea?”

She blinked a few times then sat up.

“Fine, took me by surprise, still broken I suppose…” she waved his concerns away even as she radiated disappointment in the aether.

The canopy shook breaking the chance for Melron to reply as Jarys and Milaea finally arrived in a Karintha Class transport nearby.  It was barely three seconds before they were with them.

As was fitting Milaea attended to Lyaea with a singular focus.

Jarys wandered to the site of the fight with blaze, scooping up a handful of dirt as he looked through time to see for himself exactly what had happened.

Arms protectively about her Milaea lead Lyaea to the transport as Melron stood and approached Jarys unspoken summons, Lydan behind him.

Jarys was still crouched the last grains of muddy soil slipping through his fingers.

“He has threatened a female, attacked her…” Jarys said his words neither loud nor quiet, detached and clear – he spoke from his position as Guardian.

“He has taken one of our ships…you allowed him to leave…”

Now Jarys turned to him Melron could only nod

Both Guardians knew what had to be done, the only question was who would do it. 

Blaze had been under Melron’s guidance, he had invested heavily emotionally in the boy and his recovery, Jarys rightly suspected Melron would not be able to bring himself to... 

“I know what must be done…” Melron said before Jarys asked him, he had retreated into apathy and despair over his personal failures once before, he would not do so again.

“And I will do it,”

<<<<>>>

Save Me

She lay head buried in Adaea’s lap,

It started off so well / They said we made a perfect pair

There was little point to saying anything, the feeling boiled off her without filter, how hope had turned to disappointment…and disappointment into terror.

I clothed myself in your glory and your love
How I loved you

Lyaea had shared so much of herself so easily, and now was left with the tears of broken trust.

How I cried
The years of care and loyalty

He didn’t shed a tear despite the trembling of his sneer in the mirror as he streaked back his hair.

Were nothing but a sham it seems
The years belie we lived a lie

He’d been kidnapped by a cult who’d pumped him with drugs, whatever ‘feelings’ he might think he had were just a hangover.

Still…
I love you till I die
Save me save me save me

All the familiar comforts of her extended family, all their companionship, just couldn’t quite console her for the loss of a potential mate

I can't face this life alone
Save me save me save me

The last of the clips snapped cleanly in place, the Oblivion armour’s HUD lit up in cool blue data streams, his body now covered in more protection than a hundred plates of doonium.

I'm naked and I'm far from home

Home…it was a rusted corner on a ship, a stinking moist couch in a cantina…he was a fool to think it could’ve been a woollen rug under Aethas bright stars.

The slate will soon be clean
I'll erase the memories

He would soon forget, he couldn’t remember any of the other tralks over the years, he’d forget her too just as easy and

start again with somebody new

Was it all wasted

Lyaea wondered as she sobbed, Adaea’s dress ever damper with her tears

All that love?
I hang my head and I advertise

Had she given too much too quickly in her desperation to finally have what her sisters did in a mate

A soul for sale or rent

Given over to the first buyer to show up for want of other options rather than real afffection?

I have no heart I'm cold inside

He let the flow fill him with its cold fire, the empty drive to survive for no greater purpose than making it through the next fight.

I have no real intent

This was his life, his truth, a world of murder and munity, prostitutes and pimps…revenge and renegades.

And he was the worst of them all

Save me save me save me

<<<<>>>>

Another One Bites the Dust

”She walks warily down the street
With the brim pulled way down low”

He’d finally worked out how to get the music on the Assault Transport, the Kyala II he mockingly called it as the unnervingly silent sublights glided him into a geosynchronous orbit above Ozrym’s palace on Socorro.

Located just outside the Vakeyya it was an blobby collection of large sandstone with sand worn metal pipes and air conditioners bolted to the side, the main focal point a large red dome.  It was at the dead centre of this red dome he aimed the crosshair of the targeting zoom on the view screen.

Hand on the stick he fingered the trigger.

“Ain't no sound but the sound of her feet,
Machine guns ready to go”

“Frell you, ya fat pile of dren,”

The trigger pulled and instantly he felt a tiny bump as two Shikkar torpedoes flew from ensconced tubes on either side of the lower hull, the ultra dense missile struck the Mesoshspere seconds later hurtling well above terminal velocity as the guidance jets on the missiles arced them to the tip of the dome.

It took less than 10 seconds for them to hit.  Viciously serrated tips bore into the dome and several thousand kilometres per hour, his magnified view from the Thermoshpere showed and instant upsurge of red dust and debris.

He waited….

Are you ready, hey, are you ready for this?
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?

The proton bombs in the second compartment of the torpedoes detonated. The torpedoes had bored nearly 50 metres underground by the time they did, foundations and rock beneath no match for the blackstone.

The blasts subsided, and the entire palace complex fell into the void the matter moiling detonation had made, kicking up glass clouds from flash melted sand.

Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat

He stepped out of the ship onto the dusty cracked pavement of Socorro, the filthy wind that filled every fabric with sand seemingly abhorring his new Oblivion shell.

Everyone in Vakeyya were too busy hiding indoors from the dust storm the palaces continuing collapse had had caused to notice him landing the ship or wandering the streets.

He slapped the button to open the door to the Golden Gorog, the local scum and now grounded smugglers and pirates all hunkered inside watching holo’s of the unfolding dust storm, there was no official news channel, so they got feeds from the ships still in orbit. 

He listed to the conversation as he wandered the edge of the main floor all but invisible.

“Couldn’t be a meteorite, would’ve detected it from orbit,”
“Yeah but who would’ve bothered to stop it?”
“The place is sinking, the explosion was subterranean, could just be a sink hole”
“Right under the frelling palace?”
“We’re not that lucky”
“Not lucky at All, Ozrym ain’t even there.”

Frelling Hutt… Blaze face contorted in rage as his fist clenched, the blue flames attracting attention.

“Hey what the….”
“Frag my arse it’s Blaze!”

Now more interesting than the disaster all senses turned to him.

“Blaze….” Ius Ke’un, a Pau’an smuggler and free trader Captain who wore an antique human Admirals jacket that barely fit his lanky form approached

“You…Ozrym has been after you for months….the nerve to come back…did you…did you blow the frelling dren out of his palace?”

Till grinding his teeth in annoyance at Ozrym’s absence he offered a curt nod.

“Yeah…I blasted that Hutt’s dren-hole…” he replied…then instantly realized the mistake he’d made.

Across the cantina full with nearly 200 patrons having clustered to get away from the dust storm, hands reached for blasters, knives were slid from sheaths, crew mates nodded and affirmed the one thought they all had.

“Too bad you didn’t get him Blaze…” Ke’un sighed
“Ozrym’s still alive…that means that bounty on your arse is still valid…”

A chorus of chairs pushing out and boots hitting the floor played across the bar as the weary bar tender and waitresses retreating to their usual hiding places…

Blaze frustration fuelled the flow of power to his limbs…

The first shot was fired and it was on…

Another one bites the dust

Rage, hate, regret, grief, all unleashed from his body onto the flesh of the dozens who wanted his head.

Another one bites the dust

Backs broken, bones breaching skin, blood bursting, the screams of terror started as they began to realize this was not the same pit fighter they knew and hated from six months ago

And another one gone, and another one gone

Oh yeah he fought with the same, indeed more viciousness than ever, but he was felling ten times better at it now, and with the Oblivion armour even the luckiest shots that hit him didn’t count for dren

Another one bites the dust

Now they were trying to get into the dust storm outside, the glass rain preferable to joining their skull smashed comrades

Ke’un crawled scrambling firing his blaster without much aim to get up the few steps, the tall Pau’an comical on the floor…Blaze finally reached him.

Hey, I'm gonna get you, too

He grabbed the tall creature by the ankle and lifted him up, head bouncing on each step as Blaze tore the blaster free telekinetically even as half a dozen of the last pirates choked on their own stomach acids from an extreme malacia attack he had learned from Aethan Fungi.

“You know Ke’un…I always liked that jacket of yours,”

“T…t…take it…take it!!! Just let me go!”

“Oh I will...”

He tore it free with the Aether terrifying the lanky creature even more.

“Now you run along and tell Uuun, Ozrym and Bjen I’ll be waiting right here for them,”

He dropped the pau’un who scrambled absent his jacket as fast as he could crawl.

“Another one bites the dust bitches”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 12 — Inferno of Regret — Part 2

Ozrym

“Oh…dearie me…”

Pride of Myzm a legacy to his dearly deceased nephew was in orbit over Socorro on return from a trip to enjoy the mud pits of Nal Hutta and secure his alliance with the Housi.

The trips success was deflated by the absence of his palace glaring from the view screen.

“I’m afraid nephew…” he called to his grand-nephew Myzm II, “…you may have to remain on the ship…,”

“Master…” came the squeaky voice of his Major Domo

“Hmmm…”

“We have Captain Ke’un who wishes to speak to you, he is in quite a state, rambling about Blaze….”

<<<<>>>>

 

And another one comes….

Lounging back on the wall seat with Ke’un’s former admirals uniform over his Blackstone armour he looked with nothing but scorn at the bevy before him.

“Fragging hopeless…”

Twenty of the best looking tralks rounded up as he waited going to town on each other didn’t do a thing for him....a veritable sea of tits and arses stirred not one throb of blood.

All he could think of was how inferior they were compared to a Real woman.  These had no taste, no scent, no rich presence in the aether, they might as well be made of rock.

“Frelled me over good and proper haven’t you…” he complained the slight hope the Old Man was listening lingering.

Finally his boredom was broken as the door hissed open, behind a dozen the yellow armoured goons that caused the sluts to flee to their hidey holes grasping for what little clothes they had started with were Uuun and…

“Bjen…’me old first mate…” Blaze smiled not standing up
“How’s the Kyala you mutinous mother-frelling nerf sucker?”

The Yaka looked more forlorn than Blaze had ever seen as if he almost regretted his decision.

“Ain’t no getting outta here Blaze…but for old times…” the Yaka walked slowly forward, Blaze heightened perceptions picked up every change since he’d last seen him…including the carbon-beam and thermal detonator.

“…why don’t you grab a schutta and die frelling her?”

Near imperceptibly Blaze flicked his fingers as he replied

“Well ain’t that mighty generous of you…but there’s three things I gotta frell up before I die…”

A clatter of metal and hiss of shock spread as Uuun’s and his commando’s along with Bjen suddenly had all their weapons wrenched by invisible grips from their hands, belts and armour – hovering by strings none could see they all turned on their previous owners, clicking and whirring as they powered up.

“And you two bitches are on that list,”

Pulsing flashes of red blaster fire lit up the room as the goons own weapons opened fire on them, the armour took a few hits ,giving a few time to try and run or hide, but none lasted long under the sustained fire as Bjen and Uuun found themselves flung against the far wall upside down, Blaze savouring the in joke to Lyaea’s defensive technique.

“How do you think I'm going to get along, without you when you're gone?” he screamed pulling Bjen up face to face

“You took me for everything that I had,  And kicked me out on my own” he drew out an Oblivion dagger and slowly waved it in front of the Yaka’s artificial eye

“Are you happy, are you satisfied?” he rammed it into his chest filling it with a  generous serve of aetheric fire fuelled by the cold hatred that returned like a forgotten friend to fill him once more.

“How long can you stand the heat?” he asked as he used all the precision and finesse he had gained to burn the Yaka from the inside out, his cybernetic implants, plastics and metals, melting out from beneath the skin that bubbled and blistered.

The answer was 158 gruelling seconds before the damage to the spine and brain stem finally killed him.

Uuun meanwhile had lost his usual vicious glint and babbled incoherently absent his tongue.

“Don’ worry sweet heart you’re ne…”

The walls blew inward, rubble and sand followed by streams of beam lasers and the scent of rage and predation on the aether…

Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat

<<<<>>>>

 

To Hurt a Man….

There are plenty of ways that you can hurt a man
And bring him to the ground

The words were just part of the verse before…but now Blaze realised the truth of them…

You can beat him, you can cheat him
You could shatter a man’s life by tearing him from his family

Make him hard, cold and brittle in a life without hope that was lived to survive another minute without being killed, maimed or starved

Break his heart, mind, pride by betraying him, using him, trying to make him into what he wasn’t.

You can treat him bad and leave him when he's down

And then you can just abandon him in his hour of greatest need…all these things Hurt…but sometimes…

But I'm ready, yes, I'm ready for you
I'm standing on my own two feet

He was on his feet for a moment…

Then slammed back into the ground.

…yeah sometimes an old fashioned arse kicking was the best way to hurt Blaze realised as his mouth filled with the red dust the palace bombing had kicked up.

Another one bites the dust

Gyl Housi, the Feeorin juggernaut that had beat him senseless six months before was laying the smack down again.

The measly little thing in the Oblivion armour had taken a fortune of Naquadha and three of his best ships, Housi had to treat with a Hutt to recover his funds, he now took out these frustrations.

Grabbing the little things ankle he hefted Blaze up, the weight considerable even for a near millennia old Feeorin…but still Gyl bashed him about like the washer woman would beat poncho’s against rocks on the planet of his birth so long ago.

After Ozrym had sent them down Gyl took no chances, cared nought for collateral damage, blasting the tavern Blaze was in to rubble, then having his youngest sons overwhelm the little dren muncher with beam weapons.

Blaze had put up a good fight for a solid three minutes, Jedaai tricks of fire, lighting and moving objects that Gyl had seen on occasion in his centuries as a mercenary, pirate, bodyguard and on occasion diplomat…

But it didn’t last.

Now Gyl smashed and tugged at the whelps neck trying to pry it out of the ultradense armour, not as valuable as the Naquadha, but would earn decent credits nonetheless.

Blaze simply went with it, finally having reached the end of the road, getting splattered by someone bigger and more vicious after killing his mutineers…amidst the bone jarring face tearing smashes he smiled…

He’d burned his bridges, lost his ship and crew, nothing left to gain or lose, a fitting end for a pirate captain.

Through purple bloated bruised eyes he thought briefly of Lyaea, smiling hair glowing red in the sun, a dream for that was all it was, a brief moment of fantasy before Blaze returned to the life he always knew would kill him.

Giving up the last he closed his eyes as the enormous hand squeezed his skull inward…he gave up content if not happy to die a rebellious little boy out of his depth.

<<<<>>>>

The Old Man

Black as the abyss three arrows sped through four heads, splaying tentacles out in death spasms.

Gyl spun round as the bodies dropped, his other sons, a dozen out of hundreds it had to be said, training their weapons at the likely source.

All they saw was a single figure in the same ultradense armour striding through the dust storm

“Put him down Feeorin, no glory in beating the child to death,”

<Grrrrnnnn…haaak kkksh ko rrrn grrr?> Gyl growled his other son who usually translated still on the ship, yet somehow this creature understood the meaning

<Would you rather take his place >

Melron nodded solemnly

“I would,”

<hrrrnnnnn….>  he dropped Blaze like rag doll to regard the new comer, the firm set of his wizened features as he walked forward sword in hand, Gyl’s other sons waiting for orders.

Stopping at ten paces Melron moved into a firm Kin-atana stance, prepared for a wide variety of attacks, if not excelling in a given riposte.

“You want a fight, fight me,”

”You are certain?” Jarys asked in the quiet of the caverns a day before,

“I am,”

“Very well…then Taryn’s sentence is allocated to you, under the eyes of the Goddesses It Is So,”

“It Is So,” Milaea echoed witness and voice of the Goddesses.

“I pronounce your sentence, You are exiled from the Valley, ostracised from all currently within it…”

Melron knelt as Jarys held out his hand the lighting scratching every inch of Melrons skin to seal it

Jarys considered an apt punishment for offending against a woman.

There was no precedent for such an egregious offence in living memory, numerous mitigating factors consider. He looked to Milaea for inspiration, deciding upon a more restorative than retributive sentence.

“You will remain exiled until you have retrieved one lost to the People,”

<Jarrck-Knn> Gyl waved his sons down, this one smelt of many battles and more blood…victory would be more satisfying that bashing the whelp…..

But less certain

<Chk!>

Just as Melron thought he had arranged for single combat the ‘smaller’ Feeorins, still as large as himself in armour and fifty years at the youngest opened fire.

With instinct borne of painful experience he surrounded himself in a powerful kinetic and energy absorptive shield that within seconds cracked beneath the combined weight of a dozen laser lances and the blizzard fire of gattling lasers.

Only his preternatural reflexes allowed him stay one step ahead of their fire as he micro teleported to the side firing off another two arrows and sending his four shikkar daggers weaving through the rubble millimetres off the ground.

Blackstone arrows shattered chests inwards, glass shikkar cracked ninety degrees to plunge up into the thigh gaps in the Feeorins armour, the handle snapping off as the enchanted blades wound inside their abdomen seeking the warmest organs to plunge through.

Fury as four of his dozen sons dropped lifeless drove the Beast of a Feeorin to charge with speed most beings would find astounding for its size.

Melron took the full brunt of the tank like Feeorin as he would the punishing charge of a Vorynx, lowering his centre of gravity to avoid being toppled.

The Laser beams preventing him from dodging fully he took the spiked shoulder into his chest plate, responding with two combat daggers that scraped against the hardened back plate – they did little good the Feeorins hide was tough as Vosis scales.

Grunting Melron pushed toward the mind but found only obdurate incomprehensibly semi senile alien thoughts.

The mag train power kept pushed against him and Melron charged his Lighting shield, Gyl stiffened and broke off lashing out with his one spiked fist while gripping the haft of his cahin axe off his back.

The lighting melted off the pain and popped the rubber undersuit but had little effect on the Feeorin whose aetheric ‘callous’ proved a hypothesis Valens had that some long lived species, Gen’Dai, Feeorins, wookies, developed this resistance, Gyl was proof of concept.

The Colossus bashed down his chain axe against Melron’s oblivion armour, the ratcheting adamanitum teeth of the blade chipping into the utlradense stone with flecks of yellow. 

Melrons’s Black Stone sword cleaved plate after plate of the Feeorins armour in reply, discarded pieces rattling about as their feet twisted and ground to find stability against each others blows.

The Feeorins sons barked plans over the shattering clash of blows to surround them, their fire only held to prevent hitting their own progenitor, Blaze their original target all but forgotten as he gazed listlessly through bloodshot eyes as he Old Man fought his battle for him. 

The Feeorin was of such an age as to be stronger than an Aethan – an exceptional circumstance requiring Melron to draw on the Aether match raw strength.  They both possessed speed born of decades of training, precision and brutal technique from surviving years of unrelenting war.

Melron dodged the chain axe that was losing teeth against his armour each time it struck, responding with Van-wo into Djen Sha – low strike into high flourish to keep this opponent moving his guard creating opportunities between motions.

Both revelled in the knife edge thrill of a fight they did not completely dominate after so long being supreme.

Melron pushed against the unstoppable brute, limbs flashing red mind with fatigue, teeth gritted, the damn chain axe had taken serious chunks of Mark 1 Oblivion Armour, reverberations from the metronome blows shattered the internal circuitry, the aether callous kept his telekinetic attacks blunted as his sword.

Gyl ground forward against the immoveable enemy, grinding and gaining inexorably. Gyl knew his situation was precarious, the Old Man had been methodical in cutting most of his armoured plating off and keeping him at the limit of his dexterity, forcing him to keep the enemy dead centre to avoid being out manoeuvred.
His chain axe had lost three quarters of its teeth to the ultradense armour, little better than a club now.

Straining with each thrust, burning with each clash they ground each other down into exhaustion in three minutes of dealing and taking blows any one of which would leave a lesser species little more than broken bones and sloughing meat.

Finally a gap, the slightest miscalculation, trusting in the aether the Old Man fashioned a blade like sliver of metaphysical energy to spiral round and behind the Feeorin – the Force-callous blunted much, Gyl growled in agony at the rest.

Melron pressed the advantage with elbow and blade, yet the Sen-Ro-Wo – ‘Severing Low – Flourish’ of the Morgukai came too early, he overestimated the Feeorins reaction speed – Gyl’s diminished with fatigue, Melron’s did not – the expected block was not there, weight committed to the wrong motion for a fraction of a second…

Gyl did react in time – gripping the Aethan’s arm and hurling him with strength developed over centuries quickly away to gain space.

Instinct slammed telekinetic buffers to avoid a crash but still the Old Man tumbled landing in a clatter beside Blaze who stared at him in a near insensate state.

“You come to finish me off Old Man….” The question having no bearing to the imminent danger of the regrouping Feeorins and Gyl lurching toward them murder in his eyes.

“…broke the rules…” the boy’s speech more blood than sound
“…hurt a girl, took your ship…mutinied hehe…” through bloodshot hazy sight he saw Gyl raise his axe high.

 “…can’t let an outsider kill a Person now can we…your job ain’t it Old Man…”

“I’ll never abandon you Son,” Melron replied voice hoarse from blows to the chest as he staggered in sync with the axe falling down.

It struck on and through the rising Gon-Sha high block, the blade flying from the Old Man’s hands the edge of the chain axes casing smashing his face, the bulk of the thing falling straight at Blaze.

The chipped metal teeth lonely on a near stripped chain belt was the last thing Blaze saw before he passed out.

Melron took every blow for Taryn in penance for his own failings, now, in the past, and the future.

Gyl raged that he wouldn’t just drop dead even as his blows weakened and his sons looked stunned as for the first time their master and father met a being he could not crush in moments.

Nothing would move him, Melron would take the pain meant for Taryn Now, for all the pain he couldn’t save Taryn from Then.

Behind bloody arms Melron could see even the mighty Feeorin now heaving with exhaustion, each hammer fist against sloppy guard was weaker, if their biological endurance was equal, Melron’s advantage was he could draw on the aether to keep him upright and shore up the worse damage he was subject to, without it he would’ve been shattered.

There was no sensation in his body, Aephordaea’s grace had flooded him with anaesthetising hormones and cleared his mind of anything but the immediate need for survival and protection of the child behind him.

This need gave him strength to push back now.

With ragged but precise combo’s the Old Man hammered the durasteel like muscles of the Feeorin, smashing his face when he could, the far weaker calcium based bones began to crack beneath the heavy flesh.

Gyl had been beaten before…but not for a century…he was almost laughing amidst the grunts at the novelty of it all.

He waited or his sons to intervene as Melron bashed him to his knees, the Old Man’s knuckles raw and bleeding.

Gyl could not see behind the tiny humanoid thrashing him - Four beings in unforgettable light sucking armour stalking toward Blaze body, one hefting him up with one hand, another levitating pieces of ruined oblivion armour off the ground.

Melron was shaking, his body about to yield, he fell to his knees, two heads shorter than Gyl…it looked like they were kneeling chanting and bobbing their heads on tatami mats. Gyl barely able to raise his arm slapped the Aethan across the face sending him to the ground.

Melron indifferently fired a kinetic blast that sent the huge creature collapsing backwards.

The Housi stood unnerved at what four of these Oblivion creatures might do to them now their father had been forced into a bloody draw with just one of them. 

Their nerve all but broke as they realised the darkness above was not from the dust but a triangular shaped vessel hovering ominously silent directly above peppered by hellfire red lights.

<jnnhhk…kraaaassshh> Gyl struggled – back…lift - dragging himself away.

Lyaea, Jarys, Lydan and Milaea stood stone still just behind Taryn, the Aertemisaea hovering above them, cannons trained on the Feeorins by Kassyndra and Adaea waiting for the word to unleash the MASER cannons. 

They could not help Melron…he had to rescue and retrieve Taryn himself to fulfil his sentence.

But they could stand there and look menacing.

Struggling to his feet Melron locked eyes for a moment with Gyl one last time, two warriors who were both getting too old for this kind of thing shared an unspoken respect and resolution to let this vendetta go, it was not worth it for either of them.

Through the red dust strewn debris, nose choked with sand the Old Man finally retrieved the lost child of Aethas.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 12 — Inferno of Regret — Part 3

Epilogue

“This is frelling boring…” he said to no one
“I feel fine!” he now shouted in the clean blue and white of the medical bay in Mount Aelia.

At first he thought it another, less pleasant near death dream, till the red haze of discomfort made him realize he was all too alive.

“Will you quit you whining?” Lyaea stabbed back standing in the door way

“How long have you been there?”

She just rolled her eyes

“How are you feeling,”

“Fan-Frelling-Tastic…”

“Surprising given you beat up you got,”

“Surprising is I ain’t dead, all I remember is the Old Man showing up, getting creamed by that Feeorin Mountain then the axe splatting my head,”

“Almost splatting your head,”

“how’d he manage that?

“You only saw Melron, we had backup who intervened in time…once Jarys was on the scene the Feeorin’s lost their enthusiasm for the fight,”

“No shavit wonder…” he paused

“Where is the old man, suppose I ought to thank him…”

Lyaea patted his cheek and stood up

“You’ll have plenty of time to soon, for now try and sleep…when you’re done here…you have a lot of bridges to rebuild…”

She strode to the door deliberately swaggering her hips a little more than usual, her thermal senses picking up just the response she wanted.

With a coy smile she closed the door.

“So you’ve forgiven him?” Milaea asked of Taryn in the corridor having just finished with Melron, his worst injuries repaired he now needed only time.

“Blaze offended me…not Taryn…” Lyaea smiled.

After the fight they had taken both Melron and Taryn straight to the Aethenaea’s medical suites, there Milaea had attended to Melron while Lyaea attended to…

“You didn’t heal Blaze did you Lyaea…” Milaea realised

“You Rebuilt Taryn as it pleased you, mentally at least,”

Lyaea’s smile was as mischievous as it was victorious.

Milaea’s stern look in reply reflected her mixed opinion, Blaze had proven dangerous, but trying to change his personality was what had caused him to turn rabid last time…no doubt Lyaea had been more thorough this time with his damaged and undefended mind….

It eliminated the risks, but it meant they would never know whether he might have recovered emotionally and culturally on his own.

Milaea ought to chastise her…a Jedi would…but such was not her role…a Person almost beyond broken had been recovered, revitalized and reintegrated…given the circumstances it was a win for the People.

She simply sighed away the imperfection of the means and smiled for the ends sliding her arm under Lyaea’s

“So…what do you have planned for your next date?”

<<<<>>>>

“Fina….” Taryn stopped short of finishing his sentence as the door slid open, instead of Lyaea it was the Old Man.

“Well…you look like dren,” Taryn said honestly

“And feel like it son…” he tossed a string bound package onto his bed with a smile

“But so do you, now…get dressed, your training continues in an hour,”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 12 — Maternal Instinct — Part 1

Xani

Her mother called her Xani.

The other children called her “Freak” or “Monster”.

The gangs and syndicates called her “Prey”.

When she was little, when Father and Mother were with her, she would do tricks for the other children with her ‘powers’ as they called them.  She rarely knew what she was doing then, but she enjoyed it and got better at it.  Mother encouraged her to experiment, and would tell her stories of their real home before she went to sleep.

It was a place Xani couldn’t imagine.  A place of green, blue and yellow, where there were trees and rivers in place of sewers and support columns.   She saw a picture of a tree once, or something she thought was a tree, she couldn’t be sure, it looked like a column but wasn’t straight and had green hair.

She missed those times curled up with her mother in their small room waiting for father to return.  She felt safe then.  She had been too young to understand.

Then one day Father had not come back.

Mother had waited for nearly a week, then when the owner of the building started demanding the rent every hour she bundled her up and left.

Xani didn’t understand why at the time.  Still didn’t now, not really. 

They went from place to place, but never stayed for long, heading ever deeper into the underlevels, where faces were pallid, eyes dark and wide taking in every photon they could.

Xani thought it an adventure, there was always something new to see, different smells and sounds, her mother would smile as Xani free from adult worries took in the novelties.

Without Father there, they harassed mother, offered her trinkets, food…Xani was so hungry sometimes she wondered why Mother didn’t take it. 

She understood now.  They were traffickers, slavers, whatever they offered would be tainted, was a lure to draw you in and never let you out.

Others didn’t even try to ply them, they just attacked.  Mother used her powers, sometimes even Xani used hers.  Blue flares from her finger tips would melt skin from bones, anger would crush bodies inward, on send rubbish flying into eyes and necks.

Once that happened, and it always happened, they couldn’t stay anymore, someone always told the Syndicates, and the Syndicates were bad men Mother and Father had told her.

So they went deeper and deeper, got hungrier and hungrier.

They found a small hovel beneath a mag-train bridge.  Mother would still sing songs, tell stories and make toys out of things she found after washing them.

One day Mother told her to wait and she did.

She waited for a long time.  Xani never understood time much, it didn’t mean a lot when she’d never seen a sunrise or sunset in her whole life.

Xani couldn’t wait anymore, she was hungry, thirsty.  She had to leave.

She left a message scrawled on the ferrocrete with a piece of metal.

Somehow though…she knew Mother was not coming back.

Xani didn’t know what else to do but what had been done before. 

She went from place to place seeking out other groups of lost children.

Again she would show them tricks with her powers, make little patterns with the blue from her fingers for food or a blanket, a place closer to a fire.  Some were nice, for a little while at least.

It helped her survive hour by hour…it never lasted…soon the syndicates would come.  She never saw them she felt them, it was a chill along her spine, the hairs on her neck rising despite the grease and dirt that otherwise kept them pinned to her sweated grotty skin.

She got that feeling and knew she had to leave.

This was her life. 

From hovel to hovel, outcast group to orphan gang she would run, lithe and lean, strong from prying open old access panels or heavy rusted rubbish bins to find a place to sleep for a few hours, hands and feet raw from lack of protection against the cracked concrete and metal shards on the ground.

But still she tried to have fun, played counting games, remembered funny new things she saw, puzzled at old flimsy with words on it and what they meant.

And when she did find somewhere safe to sleep for a little while she would think about the Home mother had spoken of, wonder if it were real, and wish she woke up in it.

<<<<>>>

Selaena

It had been three days since she had been down here…yet nearly three months since Selaena visited with anyone else.

Light grey of the turbo lift matched by a clean chime as the doors opened to the coldest and deepest vault beneath mount Aelia, the Fortress Mountain almost complete.

“Chilly…” Jenaea noted wrapping her arms about her, having spent most of her time outdoors with Maeson of late in the springtime sun.  Selaena was happy for them finding comfort and connection in each other, just as her Lydan had with Adaea…as to her daughter with Taryn….

She lead to a large Blackstone wall, to all appearances an uncompleted section of the mountain, until with a deft aetheric tweak Selaena moved the vast block of ultradense material aside revealing a clinical white tunnel that blasted out cool air.

“Is this where we keep winter?” Jenaea raised a sarcastic brow recovering her snide sense of humor, a good sign of progress and no doubt also part of her working through her trauma’s, sardonic commentary was one of the few ways a slave could take attain some sense of reprisal.

For Selaena it had been withholding communication, silent protest against the myriad abuses of outsiders, and for long after until she had been reunited with her daughter then son.

“Something far better,” Selaena explained as they headed a further fifteen meters before turning, a quick hand and eye scan then a pulse of her aetheric presence into an orb hidden in the door frame to open the seal.

Blue-White Chiss lumens lit the freezing lab clustered with arrays of refrigerators, sealed medical tools, small humidi-cribs and powered down bulbous Maternity droids, all crisp with a hint of frost, along the back was sealed in azure amber were the twenty clone babies they had recovered from Kamino a year and a half ago, a small bloodstone totem of the goddesses placed inside each amnio-vat as they slept in stasis.

“Was not expecting that…so it’s cold to keep them…fresh?”

“Stable yes…” Selaena replied as Jenaea looked about the room.  It was very familiar to Selaena, she would visit here twice a week at least to check in on the unmoving infants, having taken it upon herself to be their protector and monitor.

Selaena’s own children were growing beyond needing her, one married already, and would have their own children soon.

But she was not past needing them.

Selaena had always wanted another child, or two, but less than plentiful harvests after Lyaea was born meant there simply wasn’t the food available…and then…the Devastation had intervened.

Her husband among the lost, most likely long dead on some forgotten world.  She had never considered remarrying – even if there were any eligible males – she was Lysan’s wife and Lyaea and Lydan’s mother.

Checking on the frozen babies soother some maternal drives. She would look in on each of the twenty, 10 girls and 10 boys, in turn, note how they looked like their primogenitors even at this young age, Valens had harvested the necessary genetic material from fallen guardians, Old Andis, Karintha, Yorna….

The last held a bitter remembrance of the creature Lucovis that had taken another clone of Yorna and artificially aged it with the genetic slurry of nine other clones.

She often thought she might awaken the Yorna clone, adopt it as her own….

But between the search for survivors and the rebuilding of their world the People at present simply did not have the capacity to raise twenty babies, or spare anyone to care for one.

“So this is our future…” Jenaea’s voice, at last lacking and irony, broke Selaena’s introspection
“Seems so cold here…and quiet,”

Selaena agreed it was cold, but enjoyed the quiet, here Selaena could relax, comforted knowing each of these precious children was safe under her gaze…some consolation for all those not so secure lost to the ravenous Outside.

“Until we are ready for them,” Selaena replied, “Here they will wait,”

<<<<>>>>

Plains of cool green grasses stretched before beneath the orange tinge of the setting sun.

Three herds of Gormin each two hundred strong grazed and played in safety as her son sat on a small hill with a full view of the area, his staff close by, beside him leathers stretching on wooden squares as he worked a new satchel.

In the lower valley her daughter Lyaea and daughter in law Adaea were introducing Jenaea to the youngest gormin calves, throwing woven straw balls for them to chase.

“Are you alright,” Maeson said sitting beside her on the hill. 

She didn’t answer, didn’t need to, Maeson and Jarys had rescued her, seen her at her worst, been with her through all those years with the Sons, he understood and resected her silence.

“Thank you for taking Jenaea to see the babies, did her good to see there is a real future, new life…”

He went on

“Still no more signals so far…we were lucky  to get two I think…no word from Mumbles either, strange.”

The only motion she displayed was a barely perciptable tremor in the limbs.

“Restless,” Maeson surmised, in older times with the Sons her restlessness would equate to mercilessness in the next raid or skirmish.  Selaena, he had come to learn, found it hard to sit alone with her thoughts, she needed something outsider herself to focus on – Outsiders to kill to children to obsesses over.

As he followed her gaze over the sunset covered plains to her ever more adult children he realized how being denied the latter outlet was the more frustrating, her visits to the clone babies less protective than obsessive need to do something.

A brief nod confirmed all his observations, followed by a sigh that there was little that could really be done.

Evening closed faster than she expected as she watched her children call the herds in after a day of peaceful play, a sense someone was missing from the scene gnawing emptily in her hungry stomachs.

A sad smile she headed to their long house for a plentiful dinner.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 12 — Maternal Instinct — Part 2

Xani

The jagged piece of glass struggled through the unkempt locks.

It was important to cut her hair often, not just cause it kept away the lice, but also the less girly she looked the less she was bothered.  A mangy hooded cloak that had more prior owners than Xani had name days concealed her increasingly feminine features.

She knew that it wouldn’t be long before she started to develop other less easy to conceal features…assuming she ate well of course…

For now all she had was a handful of crumbed over dried ‘Portions’ that she chewed on while looking once more through her sack as if hoping while she slept something had changed.

There were three half charged batteries, a shiv, blaster casing – no trigger or power pack – and some coils she’d stripped from a crashed speeder.

It wasn’t much but should trade for a few portions with the right fence, maybe if she could ‘press’ a little.  How it worked she wasn’t sure but if she wanted something really badly her brain seemed to ‘push’ out on people, her mother and father had done that too, she must’ve learned it from them.

It didn’t always work…a Toydaraian had set his thugs on her when she tried once, Xani out ran them but again had to move on…that was two dozen levels and hundreds of grimy streets ago.

Her cloak pulled tight she wound through the neglected streets crowded with likewise hobbling arms crossed figures keeping their possessions tight.

She kept to the center of the road, rusted balconies and dark alcoves on the side filled with ‘snatchers’ grabbing anyone weak and slow, dragging them into buildings never to be seen again.

There were no incidents, she reached the small grotty store unmolested.  The Ithorian within had plaid grey flesh and a raspy groaning voice, so far as she knew this was normal for the strange creatures kind.

<What you want?> it asked in its rumble from behind the electric grate, two battered red eyed battle droids just inside the door.

“T…trade…” He pushed her batteries in the hollow that sealed round them, ran a scan for explosives, then the other side opened, behind the grate so the Ithorian could inspect it.

<Trade, this is junk! No trade go!>

“Please!” she pressed with her head “Just half a portion!”

Come on work! she willed

The Ithorians head lolled briefly its strange eye bulbs blinked…

<You go now> the whirr of the droid blasters charging signaled it was time to run.

She spun and scuttled out as fast as she could, the loss of three batteries hurting.

<<<<>>>>

It was one of the more uncertain and dangerous ways to get credits…but she was out of options.

The Green Light Mile as it was called was one of the wider streets, rough worn ferrocrete coated in slick oils, spit and other fluids, gaudy fluro graffiti on walls between lumen lit entrances to various bars, ‘dance’ houses and brothels as a hundreds species of two dozen genders dressed in tight plas-cloth propositioned passers by.

Despite it all Xani found a beauty in it, she liked the myriad colours, such a nice change from the brown and grey of the rest of the universe she lived in, and would often keep small colourful objects to look at, until they were stolen lost or had to be traded away.  She imagined flowers being like that, colourful but fleeting.

Xani kept away from the main street where the worst excesses of drug fueled violence were kept down by the local Bosses goons who’s only identifying signage from other gangers and miscreants  was a red broken triangle on black cloth.

She kept away from them too, they were just as bad.

Staying low she waited in the small nooks and alleys between and behind the main houses, raucous laughter and ear numbing music pounding out making it easy to move unheard.

In little over fifteen minutes she had her first chance.

Out of the back of one establishment a chunky bearded being stumbled out vomiting onto the ground.

Fast as possible she sped toward him still midstream steam hissing off the heated stomach acids and took the chance to pluck what she could from his pocket.

”Stealing is wrong Xani,” her mother had said
”You shouldn’t take things from other People without asking, but there are no other People here, so we can take what we need, but must be careful to only take what we need”

Xani never quite understood what her mother meant by ‘People’ as opposed to people, it was confusing to her, but had something to do with their home her mother talked about.

For the next few hours she continued the pattern plucking what she could from drunk, unconscious, dead, or ‘copulating’ beings she could get to in time.

She wasn’t the only one, she saw at least six other children or small sentient’s plying the same trade who got there before her sometimes.  It was after she noticed they all had a similar clammy white wrist band on one or three hands she knew she had to leave, she was encroaching on their territory – during rush hour they were too busy - but once that was over they would turn on her as an intruder.

Creeping round at the far end of the Green Light Mile she stopped behind a steaming trach compactor as three adults stumbled out a side door laughing and clapping each other, their clothes unusually clean.

“I can’t believe you did that,” the first laughed
“Schutta should’ve thanked me!” said the second
“Boring bitches anyway, hey check this out found it in the ‘fresher” a third jostled in

As they stared at something or rather Xani scooched close t the wall to make her escape. 

Glancing only briefly to ensure they were still oohing over whatever the third had to show she caught a glimpse of a face, clean skin, red hair, green eyes and smooth refined features like

Mother?

She stopped in the shadows an looked more closely,

“Hehehe, look at those two with the bow and arrow, freaky,”

They were flicking through a small book full of clear skin and red tones she could make out as undressed bodies…like those that she saw on advertising-holos along the Green Light Mile – anything outside of the Bosses protection was soon looted – but these were different some how, showing something that the three adults found stimulating but Xani found familiar and compelling…

While they looked at the fleshy features with each page flip she focused on hat surrounded them, garlands of flowers, bows, animals, pottery…things she had only seen drawn by her father on an ancient graphite etch-pad when drawing stories for her…

Stories of Goddesses and Children of Goddesses, women mighty, cunning, clever and funny…

They flicked to the final page, even in the icky artificial green and blue lights that flickered neon shadows she could makes out the words on the back page.

“You think we can find these Voops?”
“Bet even you’re mama couldn’t afford em could get look a likes, there’s a red head down at Heego’s,”

Arts of Aephrodaea Exhibition — Touring Chandrilla, Coruscant, Corellia, Alderaan, Naboo, Lorrd…

“Aephrodaea…” she whispered far too loudly attracting their attention

“Huh,” one looked straight at her…

Without even noticing she was walking toward them, a strange compulsion to take the booklet off them, an innate knowledge it contained something of inestimable importance to her that Outsiders could only blaspheme by looking upon it.

“What you want little schutta, a chit,” another scowled “Get frelled,”

“He…” the middle one with greenish skin and strange cranial undulations laughed
“…not a bad idea…” he stuffed the booklet in his pocket and stepped toward her.

“Seriously a street rat, you are flippin’ Wizard man, probably diseased as a Hutt exhaust!”

She should be running, using her power to throw things to block their pursuit…but the edge of the booklet in their pocket beckoned to her, filled with pictures of women who looked so much like her mother.

“Hold the little wretch down, we’ll see how many ways it can take it,”

The sudden grip of the three fingered hand on her upper arm snapped her out of the malaise and into a fiery scream.

“MOTHER HELP”

“Grab the Schutta!” another grasped her from the other side

“Frell it’s heavy” they struggled to lift her as she kicked and cried pushing her onto the flat top of the trash compactor, the middle one unbuckling his syth leather pants.

Terror and instinct combined in her need for self preservation, an uncontrollable urge to escape that manifested in a way her attackers could not anticipate.

“Ashla’s tight arse!” one screamed as his hands burnt with blue fire

Her entire body was humming with blue energy that crawled up the arms of those holding her and seared their skin, the middle one fumbled back as she jumped off and rushed up to him.

“FREAK!” he pulled a glowing blade from his jacket as he dodged her attempt to grab the booklet

“Get her you mangy kowakians!”

They were surrounding her on all sides, but it was the inside that scared her the most, a bubbling cold heat within that needed to be let out, the power her mother had tried to teach her in the scant moments not foraging for food needed to be released.

Opening her panic tightened fist Xani let it out.

Three bolts of crackling blue white struck each of the adults in an instant as if drawn to them like magnets.

They flew back under the kinetic impact and burnt internally from the eldritch electrical energies.

Trembling and afraid Xani ran past grabbing the booklet that had flown from the pocket into the gluggy gutter and never looked back.

<<<<>>>>

 

Selaena

Two words.

It was only two words but it had cut her to the heart.

She was in the vault with the babies when her link orb flared with the message.  Now it hovered before her, aetheric ghosts of the others projected about her.

“Mother Help,” were the words the Obelisk had picked up, even now Milaea and Adaea were tracing the signal as best they could filtering and refining so they could get a reasonable aetheric profile to track at closer range.

The others spoke about preparations needed, Selaena simply listened to the words over an over.

Her was a Person lost.  Afraid.  Alone.

No, not just a person she realized

“It’s a child…barely a teenager,”

“You’re certain?” Valens floating upper body asked unsure that there could be any Aethans born after the Devastation

“Certain,” Selaena confirmed, she would know that slight higher pitch in voice and resonance anywhere

“Yes…she’s right,” Kassyndra confirmed “It means this child was born…”

“We will soon learn the circumstances,” Valens assured them “Brother, see to it,”

“No,” Selaena interrupted barley consciously, her eyes looking through the arrayed vision of the People to the still baby clone of Yorna beyond.
“I have to help this child…I’ll go,”

Valens inclined his head he could not contradict a female even in his role as war chief unless absolutely critical.

“Very well, who will you take with you,”

Selaena had not thought that far ahead, but of course there could only be one answer,

“All my children of course,”

That would include Lyaea, Lydan and also Adaea now she was Selaena’s daughter by marriage.

“That is four…more should join you…” Valens counselled, they could not be spread thin nor risk going in without sufficient force, both Jenaea and Taryn’s rescues had proven the benefits of moving in numbers…but they needed some to remain on Aethas in case other signals were detected.  As it stood only Jarys, Kiraea and Valens had permission to venture anywhere alone.

“Perhaps we could go,” Melron spoke up

“Taryn’s training is going well, but a change of scene could help explore new avenues for improvement and advancement,”

Selaena’s eyes narrowed, Taryn and Lyaea together worried her…he had already insulted her daughter once…but at least she would be there to monitor them…and she should at least give him a chance, Lyaea had insisted she had removed the uncouth remnants of his od life from him.

“Any objections?” Valens queried

“We need to hurry,” was Selaena’s only reply – she was already running to the Turbo lift.

<<<<>>>>

Orna S’esh

Fleshy strands on her head circled by small ringlets glittered under the bright white lights of the medical centre as she waited.

At the corner of the ward to the turbo lift was the first of her attendants, the white skinned Nagai Hei Etsan looking bored despite the gaudy bright colors of his electromesh amour and ribald green and pink hair, the dour Kiffar Qarn speaking on the comm.

“Madame, we have two witnesses, pickpockets, they broadly corroborate Jnoor’s story,”

Madame S’esh nodded.  The Vulkan woman controlled near half of Carratos underworld however indirectly, and now had all her vassals searching for the one who had placed her son Omil in hospital.

Jnoor, one of his two companions that night had died half an hour earlier of his inexplicable internal injuries, not before Qarn had extracted a bizarre tale of a made man attacking them with some kind of electrical discharge weapon behind a brothel.

“How does it differ?” Hei asked sauntering over, the Nagai had a flair for the dramatic.

“The pickpocket says they were pinning an urchin down about to…use it for their pleasure,”

Madame’s mouth twitched with irritation at her son’s folly.  He was a fool, a lustful, childish violent fool, drug user and rapist who no matter her attempts would still escape on jaunts with his ‘pals’ using her name and reputation to secure free booze, stimms and vugu.

A hundred times he had done so, a hundred times she had blasted him for his stupidity afterwards.

Not this time.

“The urchin then started glowing, exploded some kind of self defense weapon outward, possibly a charged suit…then fled into the warrens…”

The Kiffar scratched at his stubble, the green Qukuuf under his eyes circled round in his cheeks then met again at his chin, symbols of a clan he had long since parted ways with, much like Hei who had lost all ‘honor’ in the Nagai system.

Carratos in the inner rim was often referred to as the Poor Man’s Coruscant, not quite an ecumenopolis, and now off the main trade routes it stumbled along with low population growth and anemic industries, a decaying undercity beneath the main skyscrapers, its biggest claim to fame now was its moon covered in trash.   Once it had been part of a small group of critical worlds in the inner core as civilization bloomed and faster than light travel still took weeks…but that was many centuries if not millennia ago.

It was a place that attracted the likes of the three of them, a quiet but urbanized backwater where the slightly above average nothing on any another world could become something in the small stagnant pond.

“I will inspect the scene…” Qarn possessed the unusual Kiffar ability of Psychometry…a fact that had caused his exile in time past and served as a useful tool in his role as enforcer now – he was the straight man to Hei’s caricature like extravagance as her assassin.

“…and also his clothes if I may,”

Madame simply nodded as the door hissed open. The Siniteen doctor wrinkled cranium, looking as old as she felt, had a dour look.

“Madame…I’m sorry your son…”

Her world ended.

<<<<>>>>

Qarn

“Well?” Hei demanded impatiently juggling a chit as Qarn stood over the scene hand hovering just above the surfaces feeling out what had occurred.

At first he thought it had to be an intentional hit, Madame’s control over the bosses was firm but fair, even so there was always someone with more ambition than sense.

Now he doubted that.  It seemed more as if Madame’s son Omil had tried to rape the wrong being.

Omil was a little spoiled dren, everyone knew it, few would weep at his loss, many would cheer.  But he was Madame’s son, and whether it was a hit, or merely self-defense, his death could not go unavenged.

It had taken nearly an hour for anyone to find him, by then the pickpockets had already spread the story, and Madame could not be seen as weak, more importantly she wanted revenge, if it took her whole organization to achieve it, she would have it.

“I have an image…” Qarn finally answered scrawling the ‘after image’ of – what he considered – the actual victim on his datapad – the face was young, human, male or female was difficult to tell, but he leaned toward the latter based on the more rounded features.

“Enough for a little doodle?” Hei giggled

“Yes,” by doodle Hei meant a sketch to provide to their men and the under bosses of the being to search for, and if necessary the professional hunters, though for Madame’s sake it would be better to do this in house, to have to hire professionals to find her son’s killer would make her operations look incompetent and increase the prestige loss.

“Strange…” Qarn went on even as he completed the sketch

“She took something from Omil’s pocket…”

“But he still had all his chits and code cylinders…”

“Exactly…what did she take worth more than that?”

Hei strode across and knelt beside him

“Perhaps mama’s boy was into something nastier than the usual slice and shove…”

“I fear so…”

<<<<>>>>

Xani

She had barely caught her breath after hours of running, jumping, crawling and climbing to escape and find somewhere relatively safe to hide in.

Her knees and elbows were exposed for the holes worn into them, but her pockets sewn inside her clothing were still full of chits and small pieces of jewelry she had pickpocketed, and more than all that she had the booklet.

In a nook between an ammonia exhaust and a building she flicked it open to read it by the artificial lights of the mag-trains top lights below as the vehicles moved constantly back and forth over the ruination of bodies thrown there for disposal…or jumped there for escape.

The pages were filled with image of the Goddesses her parent had told her stories about.  What others saw as lewd meaningless exploitation she saw as proof at last that the Home mother had spoken of was real, these women live there…there was Aertemisaea with her bow, Aephrodaea with her garlands and animal friends, Aethenaea reading her books – all in the caverns or on the green fields.

She looked again at the back page that listed this exhibition…a word she was not familiar with…she knew the names of some of the cities but not others…but how could she ever get there?

Xani didn’t even know the name of the city she was in, only that it had always been around her.  Perhaps she could find a map to Coruscant and walk…how far could it be. 

A growl in her stomachs reminded her of a more immediate need.  As the excitement of the booklet dropped off she could feel her hunger burn, fortunately she had at least some credits now.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 12 — Maternal Instinct — Part 3

Selaena

“Right so where we headed sweet cheeeeeee….”

Taryn’s playful  pronouncement as he stepped into the Aertemisaea viewing a pleasing firm and familiar woman’s rear bent over in front of a box was cut short as he realised it was not Lyaea but her mother.

“…eeeepers, Swee Cheepers, yeah it’s a, place, erm, we headed there or….”

Melron behind slapped him gently on the back of the head

“Look with the aether and your eyes boy…take the cases in,” the Old Man shook his head

“He’s getting there slowly,” Melron sighed

Selaena nodded, the Recording Orb that held the aetheric signature of the child.  Milaea and Adaea had narrowed the location to somewhere not that far from Coruscant, taking position in the rough middle of the search area and using the Aetheric Nexus Chamber she should be able to detect the child the next time she used the aether…

If she is alive to…

Melron quickly sensed her anxiety, he had felt exactly the same when looking for Taryn,

“We’ll find her, get her out quickly and quietly, less than a week she’ll be safe in the caverns,”

<<<<>>>>

 

Xani

Hands in pockets, head down she made herself small as possible moving through to the street vendor.

There were far more of the Bosses men about than usual, it looked like they were going door to door looking for something.

Shuffling up to the small metal grate above a chunky drawer used for trade she whispered her order.

“Three portions please…” she never forgot her manners, mother wouldn’t want her too.

The drawer slammed out with a rude clang for her to put the chits in which she did so.

There was a pause as no doubt they were verified…but the pause went longer than she thought.  She looked up at the black glassy bulb that served as a security camera and only way for the seller to see their customers from behind the armored boxy stall face.

With a mechanical ‘vrrr’ it zoomed in on her.

Her back turned ice cold – every time it did that she knew there was trouble

Shuffling feet stopped behind her, power pack whirred up.

She ran.

<<<<>>>>

There were at least eight of them, all from her brief glances backward had the symbol of the red triangle on black cloths or bandana’s.

Her speed was tempered by her hunger, and annoyance at the loss of the credits for nothing.

As she slid and leapt over pipes, under walkways and shimmied between trash compactors she wondered if this was all worth that little booklet.

She decided it was – after so long since her mother had been gone it was the only thing that made her feel warm and truly happy again.

“My Sunny Xani” her father had said to her, she was always so cheerful, finding fun and colour almost by instinct.

Even as she ran now she imagined they were not pitied ferrocrete pillars she duck and dove around but real trees, the blaster shots avian swooping.

It made her go that bit faster, finally coming to a large boulevard where skiffs and hover cars threaded through.

The leader of the group behind her sneered that they had her trapped.

She bit her lip and gripped the booklet. 

Goddesses make me lucky!

<<<<>>>>

 

Selaena

“CHUUUN!” the grating voice of Yhum yelled across the storage room, in an instant thrity Extolled warriors and fifteen Shapers and attendants spun to face their avatars arms crossed over their chests, fists on opposite shoulders in the us-hrok sign of deference.

“Belek Tui knotte Yun’o!” he continued – Command Us Beloved of the Gods

In their midst were five experimental Vong-Vorynx hybrid creatures, trained to be somewhat more placid than normal Vorynx they had their senses enhanced by the Extolled shapers with the hopes of making them better able to track down Aethans for rescue…and not attack them of course.

Selaena despised the filthy Far Outsiders and their horrendous customs, but for the sake of the enormous biotechnological advantages they could offer the People she held her disgust in check enough to not slaughter them.

“Everything is ready,” Lyaea beside her queried

Selaena would not speak to them though, she only spoke to Outsiders through the language they truly heard, that of violence.

“It is glorious Avatar of the Thousand Eyed Deliverer, we hunger to join you once more in glorious battle against the heretics and blasphemers!”

Yhum was a true believer, zealous and unwavering, none of the People who worked with the Extolled had failed to notice a divide appear in the Extolled, as some became ever more fanatical in their devotions to their ‘avatars’ a small but not insubstantial number seemed to pay mumbled lip service.

It was an issue to address later, the critical fact was the warriors remained completely dedicated, and by satiating their need for battle their ‘battle brethren bond’ to the Aethans was strengthened.

“You will have your chance soon, form into groups of five, prepare your masquers, we search for a lost Avatar,” she knelt before one of the so call ‘Vongynx’

“Use these to track and protect her, together we will further the plans of the Gods!”

<<<<>>>>

“So how are the slice and dice gang?” Taryn asked waiting for them in front of Nexus Chamber II

“Eager as always,” Lya smiled, Selaena offering only a suspicious glance between the pair, she still didn’t trust Taryn.

“Old Man said to watch you use the Orb to try and trace the little scamp, see the theoretical become practical and all that jazz,”

Selaena ignored his conversation and headed into the Bloodstone chamber that would amplify her aetheric sensory ability. 

Gripping the orb that contained the refined aura signature she reached out first to the enchanted walls, then through them to the Blackstone Hull of the Aertemisaea that would act like an enormous antenna in turn.

The ship was stopped at a lagrange point between Courscant and its nearest star system.  Being so close to the core was dangerous, they had to avoid normal hyperlanes – while they trusted in their ships stealth systems, one could not be too cautious.

She touched on the child’s aura, imagining – no accepting it as her own and with the desperate senses of a frantic mother seeking her child she searched.

Minds by the billion lit up her mind then vanished into so much darkness as false matches, through the nearby systems one by one she scanned and scanned looking for a trace…

There seemed to be nothing for hours and hours that were in reality minutes…but each day for a child without anyone to care for them was a century.

Finally in her mind flared a connection to the aura in the orb held tightly to her breast…one that both excited and terrified her.

Goddeses Make me Lucky!

<<<<>>>>

Xani

Drawing on all her power she ran straight through the high speed traffic.

Her clothes whipped about, the polyester half melted from the friction against motion heated air as her pursuers stood dumbfounded at the suicidal action of crossing four lanes of hover car traffic on foot.

The goddesses were with her, they kept her feet firm, pulled her up and pushed her forward to miss the flashing lights –where present at all – upon the sides of the 400kmph vehicles.

Finally she reached the other side, a few tramps slack jawed staring at her.

There was a thrill and fun to it, though she wasn’t keen to try again, puffing as she was she couldn’t if she wanted to.

Jogging down an alley and leaping up rusted ladders she paused for a breath, feeling tired, hungry but also…

Warm…like there was someone looking at her with more than just predatory fury.

Maybe her Mother was looking down upon her.

<<<<>>>>

Selaena

“You’re certain?” Melron clarified

Selaena nodded finger never wavering in the holo projection of the nearby systems

Carratos was the target.

“Not much information about it, city wide planet, population of 2 billion…” Taryn explained scrolling through the data.

“If she uses the aether again we’ll find her quickly, and the Vongynx will help,” Lydan added more upbeat

“I hope so…” Adaea this time holding her husband’s arm “It sounds like she’s in trouble”

“I’ll get us moving,” Lyaea turned from the war room to the double doors to the bridge, “Everyone else get ready and into transports we deploy as soon as we hit the system,”

<<<<>>>>

Orna S’esh

Old shirts, forgotten school books, toys in a corner.

She remembered them all new once.

Her son’s room was unchanged from when he had left it three nights ago.  It would remain so until she was…

Well that wouldn’t be long.

Her comm was buzzing with unanswered petitions from her vassals and underlings, she only took Qarn and Hei’s calls now.  A patrol had cited the killer but lost it across a transit lane.  All her resources were spent on this now, hundreds if not thousands of affiliate gangs and direct foot soldiers.

Such power, such grandeur she had accumulated to no end.

It was all for her son, to give him a life better than her and her loves.  They had been two Vultan refugees from the slums of Corellia with no education but the cunning of the warrens.  They had made something, with blood, toil and sacrifice on Carratos, gained respect, power, wealth they hoped to give to their child.

She ran her hand under the bed she sat on, the ruination of her son began there.  Lewd holo’s and low grade death sticks.  She didn’t begrudge him experimentation and teenage delinquency, but he had never outgrown it, his father passed she had chalked the continued juvenile behavior to grief, but the years rolled on and she had failed to protect him…

She had bodyguards, assassins, pit fighters, but ultimately she had not protected her son from himself – drugs and whores were not a vice to her, they were a mere recreation – Ashla knew she had turned to both after her Love died…but in moderation, something her Son never grasped and she was too coddling to enforce.

The comm beeped once more insistently trying to draw her attention away. She ought to play the part, make the motions, speak the script…and she would…but only until she had her son avenged and then…

Then she would join him.

<<<<>>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 12 — Maternal Instinct — Part 4

Selaena

She disliked this place already.  It stank of decay and desperation, was cluttered with metal and concrete, a place not fit for a child of the People.  The aether was languid and haggard, the orange tinged sky cut by the profiles of skyscrapers that delved into black undercities.

The large bay they had rented was soon full of their three ships, the Extolled in Masquers leading the Vongynx down, Lyaea giving them direction to begin their search while Melron and Taryn convinced the Customs official of their ‘diplomatic immunity’ and not to worry about the growling four legged beasts sniffing at air and aether.

The customs official placated the Vong set out in groups of five, one of the former Attendant caste of spies and saboteurs, and four warriors to begin the search lead by the beasts.

“Alright,” Lyaea took control effortlessly her focus unrelenting – when the situation called for it
“I’ll go with Taryn and Adaea, try and hack some security systems, Mom you Lydan and Melron find somewhere the aether pools to…”

Selaena shook her head, she would not have her daughter off with Taryn without a full adult, or at all,

“I’ll go with Taryn and Adaea, you look for the nexus, your brother will look after you,”

Lyaea rolled her eyes “Mother I can look after myself…”  both knew the only threat Selaena was concerned about was Taryn, and so did he.

To his credit he did not protest.

“Fine by me,” he sniffed at the air

“I know places like this, went to Taris once, faded grandeur and all that…I know where we can get some info while you lot find the magic mushroom garden,”

Selaena did not suppress the irritated growl.

<<<<>>>>

“That’s not very safe, you know I could probably fix that,” Adaea explained for the fifteenth time.

Selaena should’ve gone with her children rather than these two.

Much as she loved Adaea the younger woman’s compulsion to comment on everything she found wrong with their surrounds was irritating – for on Carratos there was much wrong.

Taryn was a different kind of annoying, seemingly inscrutable in what he was looking for as they wandered from the transit hubs to the nearby entertainment and light industrial districts.

Selaena knew Taryn was not going away, that Lyaea more than fancied him…but for all this she found it hard to give him a chance, once someone injured your child you never forgot, never truly forgave.  At best she hoped he could convince her that it had been ‘Blaze’ who was now dead and cremated.

“Here we are,” Taryn declared as they turned toward a large neon lit cantina – this did nothing to help his case.

“Perfect place to find what we’re looking for,”

“Do you think a young girl would come here?” Adaea asked naively

“No, but publicans are a public service places like this, offering info for a few credits, everyone benefits so no one hurts them, almost a scared law among freebooters.”

Selaena just sneered as they wandered in a shrill beep as they passed a cross shaped scanner.

“’Ey check your weapons!” a Yinchorri complained behind a desk with heavy durasteel lockers behind him

“You Check all your weapons first,” Taryn insisted, the dull Yinchorri immediately turning to check every single weapon in the lockers – at a glance of the vast round blue lit cantina of 542 odd beings it would take the Yinchorri a while.

They attracted little attention with traveler’s cloaks over their armour.

“Those lights are not very energy efficient…” Adaea complained

“Just plug your little slicer in one of those public terminals,” Taryn directed “See what you can scrounge,”

“Oh good idea!”

Taryn sauntered over to the bar raising his fingers
“Three Tatooine Sunrises, no cutting y’hear”

The tender nodded and soon spun up the three orange and red beverages, Taryn slip his hand across the bar then lifted to reveal far more than the drinks cost in clean chits.

“Also after some new runts for my ship, where can we find them?”

<Runts?> Selaena queried
<Runts, like I was, street kids, orphans, look to get off world as hired hands, if out Little Girl Lost made any friends they’d be the ones to ask,>

Selaena was almost impressed, she would never have thought of that.

The bartender took the chits in his greasy fingers

“Down level 388 West Side, the Wrecks they call it, plenty o’ Runts there…” he leaned closer “Just make sure to see Vescid’s first, he runs the West Side of the 300 levels, Red triangle on black band, about 50 or 60 cred’s as a visiting fee and you’ll get no trouble.”

“Right y’are,” Tary replied tilting his glass in what Selaena understood was a ‘cheers’ motion before downing all three sunrises in quick succession.

<Not even a warm buzz…all that clean living and good gut bacteria working a treat> he smiled as they headed toward Adaea

<Anything useful Ada> Selaena asked

<A few things…patched into some closed circuit networks, the local police system seems patchy at best…signal strength is poor, running a scan against Aethan composites will take time over wireless here, their download speeds are horrendous!>

One advantage of such a small closely related population was their facial profiles for Aethan women especially were all very similar, a composite program searching holo or pict footage for such common features could potentially yield fast results.

<Some matches on levels 415 through 390, but they are quite old…>

<Consistent with 388…looks like we have a target.> Taryn concluded.

<<<<>>>>

Lydan

Metal, life, sounds, sights and scent encircled him.  From the steady rhythms and predictable sensation’s of the field this, his first trip to an outsider world, was a shock that threatened to overwhelm him.

The Mark 1 helmet he wore helped, but the presence of his sister and clear focus on retrieving a lost child of the People helped more.

By parkour they descended toward where Melron sensed a conduit amid the natural aetheric flows of this forsaken world, intermittently receiving updates from the Extolled as the Vongxyn scented down any traces of Aethan presence not their own.

“Here….” Melron said pointing ahead. There amidst the small shops and openings to apartments was an oddly placed Fane of some kind amidst the ever more decayed levels closer to the surface.  About it sat a number of beings in thick orange robes seated chanting.

“Strange place for a shrine, what Gods rule here…” Lyaea mused “…those of insufficient maintenance perhaps…”  she sighed growing increasingly bored

“Fine let’s look inside,”

The chanting monk like beings ignored them as they stepped inside.  The minute they crossed the threshold there was a sudden change in the aether, the confused morass senses dissolved into a tranquil but exceedingly deep pool of calm.

Inside everything seemed made of natural substances, tatami flooring and shoji paper room dividers.

An elderly looking Umbaran whose pallid blue tinged skin contrasted hideously with the rich saffron robe sat in the middle of the room alone, seeming to exude the serenity of the aether here.

<Curious creautres…> Melron noted <but the calmer aetheric winds here will make detecting the lost child easier>

“You search for something,” the Umbarana said voice barely a whisper, his eyes still closed

“And what do you know of it?” Lyaea snapped irritated by the outsider interference, blissfully ignoring the fact they had walked into this fane from the street.

“You seek the lost kaadin of your flock, you will find her, but your path will be tainted by the blood of innocents,”

Lydan understood the analogy, they were searching for lost People like he would look for a gormin calf that stumbled away from the herd.

“How do you know so much?” Lydan stepped toward him “Do you sense it from us?”

<Don’t bother brother, these outsiders stumble upon intelligent sentences sometimes pay no heed>

Melron began searching out the aether from this point of calm, but Lydan was interested in this being nonetheless.

“I feel the wake of emotion, one who is with the Force knows the Force,”

<Force the outsider word for the Aether?> he asked telepathically
<Amongst other words…>

“You know the Force, do you create the calmness of it here?” Lydan took one knee to avoid imposing too much above the Umbaran

“The Force holds Peace within, I seek the peace, I channel the Peace,”

<This could be useful…to create a still place within the aether…like when I am on the plains among the herds>

<Very well….> Lyaea mentally sighed

“I wish to learn this peace, will you teach me?” Lydan asked

“The peace is within you already, I can guide you to seek it,”

As the Umbaran opened himself with the force to try and demonstrate the ‘Peace Within’ Lydan sent one of his conscious levels of thought to seek the information as we would from any other Aethan.

The Umbaran stiffened as the overwhelming strength of an Aethan mind grasped seeking knowledge, tearing at thread of thought, leaving shredded wreckage in its wake. 

<There…I sense something…> Melron confirmed <Further down the skyscrapers to the West…>

<Extolled just commed in they’ve smelt something in that direction too, Lydan are you finished,>

<I understand!> He said excitedly having found the sequence of delving into Peaceful calming currents of the aether.

“Thank you for…”

The Umbaran was dead, blood drooling from the nose and eyes

“HA!” Lyaea burst out

“What happened?” Lydan asked genuinely shocked

“Brother these Outsiders don’t have an Aethenaea Cortex…they can’t cope with sharing knowledge like People do it breaks their fragile little brains,”

“Oh...” Lydan stood and followed her out never paying it a second thought as the other monks shocked at the passing of their mentor rushed to guide his shattered spirit to the Calm Waters.

<<<<>>>>

Xani

Someone was looking for her.

Or rather a lot of someone’s.

The Red Triangle gang didn’t just chase anyone, you had to do something real bad for holo-cams to be looking for you.  It was scary.

She didn’t know what she had done wrong, had she taken something, hurt someone…if she had it was only because she would’ve starved otherwise or been hurt by them even worse.

But there were other someone’s looking for her, she didn’t know how she knew…but she knew…it was like…like her parents were whispering to her in ears she didn’t know she had. 

Crawling through a long dried duct she touched the booklet in her breast pocket again.  It had to be connected to this somehow…were the Goddesses coming to find her – should she go out and try and meet them?

Or should she hide from the Red Triangle gangs?

It was very hard to decide. 

Pausing she tried to think of the best thing to do…no matter what she needed to eat something first, twice now she’d been thwarted.

Struggling down the duct she found the grate at the bottom already long since removed.  Sniffing the air her starving senses picked up the savoury flavors of meat nearby.

Hopefully once she had something to eat she could think more clearly.

<<<<>>>>

Selaena

The place was despicable and confirmed every despicable truth about outsiders.

A vast empty warehouse was turned into clandestine accommodation with cheap metal barriers between cots and a large fire in the center, and all about were the ‘Runts’.  Orphans, runaways, pickpockets, shysters, none above fifteen or sixteen.

<See how they abandon their own children to squalor and suffering> Selaena noted unable to be silent

<No Person would treat their precious children thus>

<Truth in that…> Taryn replied
<But I was a Runt once, so was Lya, Lydan, you didn’t choose to make em that way nor did my parents, I’d say most of these ones are the same, lost rather than tossed>

Selaena pursed her lips angrily at the rebuke...but had to swallow down the bitter truth of what Taryn had said.

<At least we try and find those of our children who are lost>

<How do you know there ain’t someone looking for each of these kids?>

<Loo there is someone who seems like they are in charge!> Adaea interrupted before the argument could break out, she disliked any tension between People.

Striding forth Adaea went up to a taller Runt with oddly red skin possibly a Zeltron hybrid, dressed in an oversize half set of Mando’a armour with ‘Neet’ written on a shash around the waist.

Trying to be cordial Adaea knelt slightly hands on her knees and use an aetheric illusion to make it appear her helmet was removed, albeit with a different face.

“Hello! We’re looking for a young girl who might look like this have you or your friends seen her?”

The Runt looked at the preferred piece of flimsy with pictures of all the Aethan women amalgamated to show key features common to all females.

 “pfft you already asked me!” complained ‘Neet’ “Hey, where’s your mark?”

“Wait already asked when?” Taryn interjected

“Nook came in here, different picture though,”

He pressed against her mind to elicit more information

“Who’s Nook?”

“Derrrrrr…with Vescid, everyone’s looking for that kid, didn’t have a colour pict though. Like I told him we ain’t seen her in months, she was weird, freaky wizard powers or something.”

“She was here!” Selaena near exploded, where Taryn had been delicate with his mental suggestions Selaena was forcefully and penetrating as her sniper rounds

“Tell me everything, Where would she go, why is this Vescid after her!”

Neet’s eyes began to glaze over, a thin trickle of blood from her nose under the enormous mental pressure of an Aethan mind.

“Take it easy she’s just a kid!” Taryn complained

“A Child of the People is in danger! This thing is an outsider it assists us then dies!”

“Frell and you thought I was the violent one….”

“You still sympathize with outsiders I knew it all along”

Neet collapsed unconscious as the two Aethans turned on each other, Adaea idly toeing the body as the other Runt’s hid.

“Hey, outsiders have dipped us all in the dren, I’m no exception, but not this one that can’t even tie their bootlaces,”

“I think we have what we need…we just find this Vescid…”Adaea again broke the disagreement tapping away at her datapad connected to local security feeds,

“Oh there he is!”

<<<<>>>>

Lydan

The Vongynx sniffed and yapped being rewarded with small pieces of dried meat as they stalked around the tiny ramshackle room, outside the other Extolled kept the locals from probing too much and the current occupants placated with credits.

“Have a look, a deep look,” Melron counselled the younger Aethans.

Taking his instruction they stared at the far wall behind the few pieces of furniture where a message was etched by a child’s hand into the metal, their minds sunk back in time to when it was created, a shivering hungry child who could wait for her mother no longer – and before that a broken hearted woman and her child wondering how they could survive without her husband.

“She lived here…but couldn’t wait any more…” Lyaea said sadly stroking the etching with its simple message

Went for Food Love Xani

“Xani…” They now had a name, and a face from the after images, although she would be a few years older at least.

“Surprising they had a child…” Melron wondered “…they must’ve escape from the slavers together, found somewhere relatively safe and prosperous enough to think they could raise a baby safely…”

“But something went wrong…” Lyaea deduced sadly kicking over a crate that served as a table,
“…and they ended up here”

“No lasting peace or home can be found for the People anywhere among Outsiders…” Melron agreed as Lyaea began gathering the aether to herself tuning her senses to the aura from the Obelisk and now sharpened with the girls name.

“Time to call her back home,”

<<<<>>>>

Xani

Xani….
She nearly dropped the small curved piece of metal that served as bowl for the few spiced giblets she had managed to swipe after crawling behind the stalls, sometimes when she really wanted to be small and thoughts small she became ‘small’ enough for people to not see her, at least in their peripheral vision.

Xani We’re here…where are you, what level and sector

The voice wasn’t coming from her ears but in her head.

It was trying to be warm, comforting…but after being chased about and attacked Xani could only find it threatening.


It’s alright we’re here to help, we heard you, we’ve come to take you home! it pleaded

Xani swallowed the last of he food and blocked her ears

“No, no go away, stop chasing me!”

We came after you saw the Arts, the Goddesses have guided us to you, Xani just tell us

The Arts…the booklet – All this trouble had started when she found it!

Grabbing it quickly she scrunched the thing up ready to hurl it away…

But she couldn’t, it was the only picture, well close to a picture, she had of her mother and the stories she told…

That’s right Xani we know the stories, tell us where you are and we will come and take you to the world you see there

Xani had heard that line before, or close enough to from traffickers offering to take her to sunny Alderaan or beautiful Ithor.

“No go AWAY!” She blocked the noise from her head imagining a big door shutting around her ears.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 12 — Maternal Instinct — Part 5

Qarn

“Hold…” Hei raised a fist and they stopped dead, flippant though he could be, when he was serious you listened.

They had been following Qarn’s psychometric tracking from where the girl had last been seen to Level 320 – 300 was where Madame – and all the Bosses – influence ended and the feral’s and mutants ruled.

“Problem?”

“Strange…those men are not men…” the Nagai said thumbing round the corner.

Qarn peeked to see five men in unusually clean travelers cloaks being lead by a massive canine of some kind – the snarling head full of bladed teeth swung back and forth with a rapidity that was unnerving for a creature its size.

“They can’t be after the girl surely…” he said out loud as if it could make it so, knowing full well their timing was too much to be coincidence

“Any idea who they are?”

“Something that should not be here…” Hei replied

Qarn tapped his gauntlet while staring at the strange beast – back up would be needed.

<<<<>>>>

Selaena

<She closed me off!> Lyaea sighed across to her
<She didn’t trust me…>

<Understandable unfortunately, poor child probably hasn’t spoken telepathically for years…> Melron deduced

<And with this mean Vescid after her….>Adaea added as she pointed the next turn toward where security footage shows ‘Vescid’ a rather fierce looking dug and a dozen goons with Red triangle symbols hanging about the steps in front of a large once noble building, now defaced with neon flickering feminine silhouettes and bolted on air conditioners.

<Then we continue to look the hard way…> Selaena said as firm as her strides toward the guffawing group ahead.  The crowds wandering the street before her parted instinctively as she allowed her frustration, disgust and anger to seep out like a cloud about her, any being in it’s right mind would subconsciously try to avoid her, making the masses divert of their own accord.

She strode straight up the steps, two of the goons reached out to stop her.  She grabbed the first to reach out to her, twisting the arm rapidly around to pop the shoulder, the second barely having time to process the visual information before she swept kicked him into the jagged worn stairs.

“You Vescid?” She called as the others raised their weapons, the dug looking smug at the top

[I am he] it said in ugly Huttese

<Can’t believe I’m saying this but maybe we should try and keep this a bit calmer…> Taryn warned

Selaena ignored him, she would tolerate no delay in trying to reason or speak with these primitive creatures when a child was scared.

To the immediate shock of his men Vescid lifted from his hammock between two dirt encrusted columns, limbs splayed out and twisted back unnaturally as he hovered in the air.

A metaphysical drill with a dozen tips bored into the Dugs psyche, ripping with heaps of detritus flying off answers to questions she had – why were they searching for Xani, how long had they been looking for her, where was she last seen, or likely to go.

The resistance was pitiful and the information soon extracted.  They had been looking for three standard days, under the Orders of the Madame – the local Crime Lord, their best agents a Kiffar and Nagai were in hot pursuit some levels down – and the why….it was rumoured the Madame’s child had been killed by Xani, to allow her to escape would look extraordinarily weak.

Finished in the blink of an eye Selaena micro shredded the creature’s internal organs and arteries open then let the sack of flesh fall.

<Frag it…> Taryn sighed, before Selaena even needed to give the word he drew his Hades pistols and in a three second burst coinciding with Adaea’s dagger flying like an abyssal hawk through necks, killed the rest of Vescids crew in mere moments.

<Don’t step in any of the Dug’s blood, it stinks> was Lyaea’s only comment from afar,

<Lydan take the Extolled here and join up with Mother at the lower levels, these Gangers sound organised, I’ll stay here with Melron in case Xani comes back home>

A wash of worry tainted Lydan’s presence at being sent out on his own, but he found some calm in reflective thoughts of the plains of Aethas and knew his sisters instruction was ultimately for his benefit.

<Plus we might get to fight together!> Adaea said excitedly ever encouraging her introverted husband.

<Level 320 to 300 Western Sector…> Selaena repeated from the Dugs mind also sharing the details – or rather reputations of the gang’s two elite hunters

<We run>

<<<<>>>>

Orna S’esh

She ignored all but the most critical of the messages waiting for her. 

They did not inspire confidence.

More out of habit than any spite she closed and relaxed her fists under the curved Sil-wood desk, an import from Vulta, a scent of home she had many pieces of furniture fashioned in to try and keep a connection to her ancestral world. 

On the Mandalorian Road Vulta was a hub for arms manufacturing, one that had long since offloaded unwanted citizens on immigration programs rather than increase corporate taxes to pay for welfare.   She could’ve afforded to live there had she sold up the ‘business’, but it was a world she had no true connection to.

Qarn was requesting re-enforcements, they’d picked up some unusual characters stalking about level 320 and below.  An underling Vescid had been ‘mulched’ in front of his bordello, his men wiped out by assailants unknown for reasons unknown.

Orna could only assume in both cases it was Bosses from other sectors already making plays for her territory. 

“So impatient,” she sighed authorising Qarns request for the Heavies to assist.

<<<<>>>>

Xani

Everything was just becoming so scary and confusing she didn’t know what else to do but keep heading further down nearer level 300, there she might be able to find quiet enough spot until all these people stopped chasing her.

Might

She knew it wouldn’t stop, with the same sad certainty she had known first her father then her mother would never return.

Shuffling caught her attention, something strange at the edge of her hearing as she kept low against the ever thicker foundational walls of microbe laced duracrete in the humidity of the lower levels.

“ARRROOOOO”

A sounds she had never heard, primal and vicious resounded with a deep growling undertone

There was more chattering in a foreign tongue nearby as she scrambled forward looking for a way out.

“AVATAR We come to liberate you from the infidels!” A heavily accented voice yelled

Everything was getting scarier and scarier!

She rushed forward as she heard heavy feet bounding closer.

Ducking under a pipe warm and dripping with condensation she chanced a look backward – done the column, pipe and vent covered alley behind her was the largest creature she had ever seen, a long canine snout, glowing yellow eyes and sharp fangs that could devour a Yinchorri.

“ARRRRRRGWWOOO” it called as she locked eyes with it, a troubling feeling that it ‘recognized’ her in a way she could not articulate.

“AVATAR we mean to Extol you to your Righteous place!” Called the shadowed hander behind it.

Terrified she fled.

<<<<>>>>

Qarn

“What the Frell are they about?!” Jor’g asked as the heard the vicious growling screeches of the hunting beast.

“Some kind of whacked cult like those beggars up on 80?”

“Who cares,” Qarn said putting his gauntlet with in-built comm to his ear

“Hei continue flanking we’ll take the freaks and their monster,”

With their better knowledge of the locale Hei and a small group of scouts would move around and catch the target girl will Qarn and Jor’g’s Heavies dealt with these freaks…after that they needed to head up to Vescid’s old territory where there had been some kind of incident.

The group of five warriors up ahead spoke in a harsh tongue as they tried to navigate down the alley the girl had fled, at fist Qarn hoped they could take them all from behind, but whatever zeal they had for finding the girl was tempered by tactical wisdom, two of them stood guard at the alleys entrance as the other three shuffled in – while not as lithe as the child, they were surprisingly agile for their size.

Regardless once Hei got around they would hit them from all sides.

“GO!”

From round the corners of a dozen structural sinks The Heavy Team surged forward with eight thick Riot shields front to block any incoming blast fire – the two handed shields themselves featured an inbuilt dual blaster that they opened up with.

They would create a ring of the shields around the alley entrance - force them back into it then blast them down…or they would’ve had they fallen back.

Relishing the challenge the Extolled warriors bellowed and charged straight at the Heavy Gangers, as their thick seaweed based cloak soaked blaster fire with only grimy black burns and bizarre slithering weapons and insects flew from beneath them Qarn realized he had made a tremendous underestimation.

<<<<>>>>

Xani

The familiar shrill of bolster fire echoed behind her as she squeezed out of a gap between the ungainly bolted on ventilator boxes.

Pushing herself to be ‘small’ she took her first few sprinting steps before her feet left the ground and her hair stung red sensations of discomfort as she was pulled up by it.

A sneering ghost white face smiled at her.

“Hello lovely,” Its overly perfumed breath sneered

The face was hideously white beneath fluro green and pink hair.

She punched and kicked away at the face but it just laughed and dodged before dropping her form a moment then grasping her around the breast pinning her arms.

“Fierce little thing, no wonder Omil got vaped,”

Her fear built again, a pressure of fiery blue inside her about to explode outward as it had days before.

With svelte speedy fingers the Nagai drew a thin needle to pacify the target for delivery to Madame.

The first flickers of blue began to light Xani’s face as the point came down…and curled against her skin indolently.

Hei’s brow switched from high and giddy to creased in an instant.

“Get your pallid paw off her you ghost faced freak,”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 12 — Maternal Instinct — Part 6

Battle in the Underlevels

Frantic strength of a mother desperate to save her child tore the girl free from the Nagai’s arms.

Selaena rushed in from behind as Taryn flew at the Nagai from the side, Adaea coming in behind them both Bow in hand loosing an arrow at the Nagai’s scouts, the Oblivion arrow shattering through the oculus Scout helm with ease.

Against the counter pull of the girls frantic resistance Selaena flew her into her arms, wrapped herself around the frail child and balled up as the fight began around them.

The Nagai’s natural dexterity saved it from being decapitated by Taryn’s swift strike with his newly forged Blackstone Katana, it’s electromesh armour absorbed the Aetheric lightning Taryn had added into the attack.

Hei grinned at the prospect of a challenge spinning his Tehk'la blades, proficiency in which had gained him a high standing in Nagai society, until a series of unfortunate incidents lead to him winning one too many death-duels against members of the wrong Circles.

The Scouts fell ac to cover, using mag-jets to clambered up the steep sides of the endlessly rising buildings and struts all around to gain elevation for their attack, but their sensors on their oculus scanners had difficulty picking up the attackers.

Adaea had no such difficulty drawing in her mind the most elegant curved vectors between her arrows and their aetheric aura’s before loosing them at three times the speed of sound.

Xani continued to struggle against the heavy blackness all around her, instinctive aetheric flames eaten up by Selaena’s armour.

Needing to calm the child Selaena telekinetically unclasped her helmet and shifted the girl far enough to see her face but close enough to remain covered by her body.

Xani stared with wide eyed wonder at the face so similar to her mother’s…yet not…so similar to the Goddesses in the booklet…yet not…she had the cleanest skin Xani had ever seen, light near white hair, but not from age.

“It’s alright Xani, I’m here to look after you, protect you, take you away from this place,”

It was easier said than done as Taryn found himself in an annoyingly even fight against the Nagai assassin, their natural dexterity and reflexes a almost a match for Aethan abilities, and the electromesh armour far less bulky than his own Mark 1 Oblivion armor making up the difference.

Hei slashed and jabbed at the far more hulking opponent whose guard was strong, but still tentative, a novice in the Art of the Blade that Nagai practiced daily as meditation – a talented one Hei admitted – but his journey would end today.

Despite the chaos, confusion, and strangeness of it all, astoundingly to Selaena she felt in the little malnourished girl still a capacity for wonder, trust and love.  The hell of this backwater world had not overcome Xani’s genetic predisposition to a charming happiness, only presented its full expression.

“Are you taking me to the land of the goddesses, will you look after me?” Xani asked with her words and her mind as Selaena’s eyes budded with tears

“I will, always,” Selaena promised scooping the child up and pressing her tightly, the battle about her ignored as she focused all her efforts on covering herself and her ward with the strongest aetheric shields and suppressions she could. 

At the far end of the alley Qarn was beginning to gain an advantage – after losing half his men to the bizarre enemy weapons – strange insects had flown straight around his shield heavies and slammed them in the head with skull shattering force, staff weapons had spewed durasteel melting acid, and then there was the tracking beast itself that had ravaged two more.

His heavy gunners now poured Repeater blaster fire forcing the enemy into cover, the sheer number of shots hitting a few, to what effect he was unsure.

Jor’g and the Tactical’s, less heavily armored than the Shield troops or repeater units but more maneuverable moved up to take them as more fire struck the thick hide of the beast causing it to finally fall whimpering.

The victory was short lived as in quick succession three of his heavy gunners head rolled aside and a stomach churning cry came from behind.

Like a battering ram Lydan slammed through the rear of the gangers ranks, his Naginata, modelled off his Shepard’s staff but infused with an unusual four enchantment levels rather than the usual limit of Blackstone of three courtesy of Adaea’s savant like expertise, whirled with ultradense aetherically enhanced edges slicing through the petty armour like gormin butter.

His mother was scared and desperate to protect her child, which must be his new little sister Xani.  He took the lesson from the Umbaran clearing out the distractions of immediate place, the metal, the machines, the stench of outsiders in their unnatural world and envisaged himself simply driving off a band of Vorynx from his herds, batting them back into the trees with his staff, or a lone, 2.5 metre Vo-ursus giving them a swift telekinetic buff to the side or hurling a rock or log.

Unfortunately for Qarn and his men the reality was less Arcadian.  Impacts designed to knock the genetically enhanced Vorynx into trees, chastened but alive, turned into fatal splatterings against duracrete, swings of the Naginata instead of poking a Vo-ursus thick fur and hide penetrated heavy armour leaving organs ruptured and gushing.

Any attempt to flank or retaliate was soon denied by the Extolled Lydan had brought with him protecting his rear and flanks, exacting their own bloody toll on the band of talented street fighters and the odd gang-war veteran who were now faced with hardened trained warriors from another galaxy who knew neither fear nor pain.

Hei laughed at his opponent at the other side of the alley, a taunt that concealed his concern.  Hui’s skills might be sharper, but the Black armour he faced was nigh impossible to penetrate, and his opponents carefully aggressive technique left few openings even if it didn’t get through Hei’s dexterous dodges.

“Yeah it is funny you pale faced dren,” Taryn sneered between leaping and ducking simultaneously to avoid the Tehk’la blades

“All these goons to catch one little girl, frell me you’re a pathetic bunch,” Oblivion and Nagai Steel Sparked in another clash before they pushed off both preferring a more fluid style.

“Runt gangs on Socorro that would beat you vuug lubers up!”

“If only your blade work was sharp as your tonuge!” Hei replied with a backflip to gain distance before surging once more.

“You might prove a challenge,”

A slight slip the like of which would have the Old Man knock him over the head for and Hei drove one blade into the thin gap between helmet and upper chest plating, the bodyglove though made of a firm nano-weave giving way.

“Frell blade work…” Taryn grunted - he could accept his slowly developing mixed Morgukai-Vong-Aethan style losing out to a better opponent, but he wouldn’t lose the fight.

Twisting his hips he telekinetically spun the Hades Miniaturized Mega-MASER pistols on his hips and fired point blank into the lanky Nagai’s thighs – the elecrtomesh armour took on three quarters of the blaster energy- but the kinetic and thermal energy was another matter.

Hei buckled more shots were in rapids succession – everyone hitting the same point under Taryns precision telekinesis until the Nagai assassins upper thighs were messes of charred meat.

“If only your armour was tough as you guard hey?” Taryn pressed against the Nagai with his head as around him the last scouts fell to Adaea’s arrows,

Hei looked up groggy from the pain as Taryn gripped his throat and pushed into his agony weakened mind.

“Thanks Pale Face…you just might give me an edge over the Old Man,” Taryn smiled as he rent Hei’s skills along with his sanity.

Sweeping under the blow Qarn came up with a heavy punch of his Power-gauntlet into the chest of the Extolled, the energized weapon causing deep electrical burns on the Oglith Masquer, the fleshy pore gripping camouflage drooping off the Extolled dead, the Extolled himself little better as he reeled from internal burns.

He was on the losing side, Qarn knew that much, but he’d always known it would end this was.  Today was a good a day as any, so he might die with some unremembered honor to his clan he ran toward the ‘leader’ of the enemy, the titan in black with the polearm weapon that cleaved Jor’g in two after a spiteful thirty second clash.

Charging both his gauntlets he strode forward retching back to avoid another serpent weapon he struck the Extolled in the head as Lydan singled the leader of the pack out and went to meet him.

His Clan were warriors, his green Qukuuf facial tattoos added to over the years as he grew in prowess until…until in pride of his ability he made a rash decision and paid in exile for it.

Lydan titled his head slightly intrigued at this beings story as it echoed in his aura, but not so intrigued he wouldn’t slay him.

The Naginata spun overhead then slashed down, Qarn side stepped and aimed to smash his powered fists into Lydan’s  flank, but the Aethan was simply too fast, barely had Qarn’s shoulders shifted than the Naginata blade spun back upward forcing the Kiffar to block and jump back or be rent in two.

Lydan’s grip high Qarn rushed in and pummeled his enemies abdomen while he could, the sparking gauntlets energy rather than bubbling and leaching in was simply eaten by the Oblivion armour.  The kinetic impact of the powered fists that would topple a gammorrean lost to the far greater weight of the Aethan.

Rather than try to gain distance to use the Naginata Lydan simply dropped it and struck with his palm and elbows.

The Kiffar was well rounded, his power gauntlets gave him enough strength to block and strike back, but the outcome was inevitable.

A brief spar of sparking clashes saw both gauntlets shatter against Lydan’s armour, and with their loss was the only technological balancer between the two biologically distinct opponents.

Arms batted aside Qarn was lifted by his throat, kicking and elbowing the arm as best he could while struggling to breath.

For years Qarn had used his psychometric talents to give him and edge, to further his survival and career reading objects and on occasion people – now for the first time he would learn what it felt like to be read himself.

<<<<<>>>>

Misattribution

Orna heard nothing but the jabbering of fools as their failures infected every part of her operations.

Any other time she would’ve tightened her iron grip and soon brought order to the chaos.  This time there was no point, she had no son to pass the ‘firm’ onto, so why bother trying to retain it.

He best agents Hei and Qarn were dead, her Heavies wiped out by forces unknown.

Word was quickly spreading confirming rumors of her son’s death to the other bosses.  Vescid’s very public death again at the hands of unknown assailants had emboldened her rivals to start moving in.

She was seen as weak, vapid and falling before recovery.  It was all true apart from the first point.

It was increasingly evident from these attacks’ that her son’s death was not some random killing, albeit impressively staged to look like one, which of the bosses and ambitious lieutenants had arranged all this and organized outside help from these ‘Shadow Warriors’ she would likely never know.


She had strength enough for a final act of vengeful spite against those that had likely killed her son.

Over the years she had amassed vast troves of intelligence on her underlings and rivals to keep them all in check – evidence of who had murdered, stolen, blackmailed, extorted, undercut, undermined who – all this intelligence she would now release freely as she simultaneously called all the gangs, posses, hit squads, and hired guns she had under her to war.

In less than five minutes she had sent data packages to all the necessary recipients – the Blood Brothers would learn that the Yellow Vipers had been the ones who burnt down their Upper Level Casino, the Yularen Sisters would discover it was the Nemi-Pykes that had ambushed a shipments of spice four years earlier among dozens of other infractions and backstabs now all laid bare.

Carratos itself would be her son’s funeral pyre.

<<<<>>>>

Selaena

“Here you go Nibblet,” With a series of quick clips one of her new friends, or family, or both, handed her a large chest plate he had been wearing.

She nearly fell over trying to hold it up.

“Ehhh…need a little more meat on your bones before you can lift it hey…let’s try this…”

Taking back the chest plate Taryn’s fingers lit with electrical blue as he removed on of the three enchantments to add another to give the plating a permanent telekinetic levitation effect to reduce its weigh.

Xani’s eyes were wide with wonder even as she passively took in the knowledge with instinctual delving through her Aethenaea cortex

Selaena was still crouched protectively against the girl as Adaea and Lydan stalked through the dead, the Extolled after recovering their wounded taking position around them.

“Alright there you are, now you hold on tight to this y’hear?” Taryn added handing his own chest plate back to Xani, then removing his helmet to work on that.

Selaena was impressed by him for the first time.  She had not even had to ask before he removed his own armour to give to Xani, this was despite the very obvious fatigue he was feeling from draining the Nagai’s knowledge and the wound to the side of his neck.  The plate was obviously oversized for the undersized teen girl, but gripped to her

There was a long trip back to the ship, the skyscraper canyons at this point far too narrow to navigate with their ship, and Xani would have to be carried.

Inquisitive as ever Xani looked around at the Extolled with wonder even as she slurped down the third of the moist protein and –fluid ration bars they had given her.

“What are they, I’ve never seen a species like that….” She was not referring to their physical appearance as humans or near humans under the Masquers, but rather their absences of an aetheric presence – Selaena felt relived Xani was able to discern such things still, her aetheric instinct still strong.

“They are our servants, termed the Extolled, from another galaxy,” Selaena explained as Adaea and Lydan approached

“My you’re hungry!” Adaea beamed taking off her helmet and pulling another ration bar, they had only two each at this rate she would consume them all.

“Very…my name is Xanaea what is yours?”

“I’m Adaea, this is my husband Lydan…hmm as Selaena is going to look after you that would make me you sister!”

Xani’s face lit up
“I’ve never had a sister!”

“Well now you have lots, and brothers too,”

“Even get you a gobril…” Taryn noted finishing the re-enchantment of his helmet

“Here Nibblet…” He stuck the oversized helmet on Xani’s head, Selaena having to brace her from toppling over.

“Mmm…Hmmmseee”

“I think that was I can’t see?”

Xani’s head almost nodded in agreement

“Well that’s alright, not much on this planet you haven’t seen, will keep your noggin safe…”

As Taryn spoke Selaena paid very close attention to his aura.  There was a protectiveness there she had not yet seen, and also an empathic envy…he wished he had been rescued from his own impoverished and brutal life like Xani was being, and in that sense what was never done for him, he now intended to do for her.

<What did you learn> Selaena asked the adults on a subtle telepathic channel

<These men worked for a local crime lord  - Madame – a Vultan whose rapist son Xani fended off some days ago before he could harm her - thank the Goddesses Xani’s instinctual aetheric defenses are strong> Lydan explained from what he had read from the Kiffars mind.

<She wanted revenge and set her best on finding Xani…> Adaea added

<Then she too must die> Selaena stated
<A mother never stops hunting those that have harmed their children…>

<There is some kind of Riot up here….> Lyaea suddenly broke in from Xani’s old house
<Open gang warfare, dozens of factions pouring in, looting fighting…generally having a good time,>

To her words were added telepathic images of civilians slamming doors and deadbolts, knifings in alleys and streets crisscrossed with blaster bolts between overturned furniture and stalls that acted as makeshift cover.

Competing demands now had to be balanced.  Selaeana wanted Xanaea back on Aethas as fast as physically possible, the rioting made this dangerous - even accounting for their speed and stealth abilities they needed to ascend nearly 400 levels before they could get picked up, three or four hours at least escorting Xanaea. 

Then there was this Madame, no better opportunity would present itself to eliminate her with cover of the chaos, and with the memories torn from the Nagai and Kiffar it should not be difficult to find her.

<Lydan, you and Taryn take Xani and the injured Extolled along these levels and ascend where the fighting is thinnest, Melron return to the ships and take them to meet them, Lyaea, Adaea, the rest of the Extolled and I will find and eliminated this Madame>

She turned Xani who was managing to somehow sneak another ration bar under the helmet into her mouth.

“Xanaea, I have to head off for a moment with your sister’s to make sure it is safe for you to leave this planet, your brother Lydan will look after you,”

Lydan was used to carrying gormin calves while fending off Vorynx, Vosis and Voursus with only a shepherds staff and leather clothing, and to Selaena’s joy, had recovered and grown physically and aetherically stronger than her, there was no better choice to protect Xani.

“Leave the planet?” her voice was somewhat obscured by the comically overlarge helmet
“Are we going to the place in the booklet?” fishing in her tattered clothes she produced a brochure for the Arts of Aephrodaea.

“Exactly there,” Selaena smiled giving her a final hug.

“C’mon nerf herder, let’s get moving,” Taryn slapped Lydan on the back as Adaea kissed him goodbye.

Relapsing her helmet Selaena watched them head off into the shadowy but fortunately largely barren distance, reveling in the warmth of Xani’s light.

Spinning on her heel it turned to cold focus as she set forth to destroy all those that had threatened that poor child.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 12 — Maternal Instinct — Part 7

Orna S’esh

Carratos had few views of any note, the forest of skyscrapers more densely packed than Coruscant, but hers was perhaps more aesthetically pleasing than most – level 612, just into the Upper levels where the government actual had effective control and left anything under 600 to the Bosses.

From here she could see the orderly parade of banal hover car traffic on a backwater core world whose original culture had been diluted by waves of migration to the point it was just ‘any city’ Republic.

It wasn’t Any city to her.  It had been a place where she and her love had toiled for a better life, had been both terrified and overjoyed when she was with child, had hoped to one day be able to see their grandchildren become part of these upper levels with, live ordinary peaceful lives free from the filth she had struggled and never quite succeeded in cralwing out of.

She had imagined her granddaughter as Carratos Senator to the republic, or her Grandson the next Chief Warden of the Carratos Elective.

All of those hopes, none of which were for herself, she willingly remained in the trenches to lift her children to the stars, had been dashed in an instant.

Dull thuds echoed somewhere below her.

She smiled thinly and brushed back the flesh strands on her head then smoothed out her finest Zsajhira bliz-silk dress, a deep red to contrast her Vultan olive green skin.

A slight tremor and the Transparisteel window shook behind her. 

Finally the other bosses were coming for her.

<<<<>>>>

 

Xani

It was like a hover car ride. 

She had only been in a hover car twice with her parents long ago, but could remember how bumping and strange it felt.

With the big helmet on her head and the armour panel clung tightly too her as she was carried by her very big brother she couldn’t see much with her eyes…but somehow she could see using her mind more sharply than ever.

She had always been able to know things, or feel things, but things seemed so much more precise around her two new brothers.

She liked them both already, but they were quite different, Lydan who carried her was gentle and quiet, even when he was stomping things to death or bashing holes in walls.  He was careful to make sure she didn’t move about too sharply even as he jumped and climbed with one arm.

Taryn was funny and noisy, more daring like a flimsy-comic character she might read about in scraps found in the warrens shared between the other orphans and runaways.

Both seemed very determined to get her off this planet and to the nice green world from her parents stories.

Glimpses through the visor or under the edge of the helmet of various things being broken, or beings flying about were matched by a sight in her own head, a kind of learning of what was happening and how

It was like the powers she had always had, but more controlled and focused, but her head soon began to hurt and she couldn’t feel it any more.

“Too much information hey Nibblet?” Taryn said somewhere nearby his pistols spinning on his fingers in flourishes firing 360 degrees around him.

“Know how that feels, you take in things whether you want to or not, but your noggin can only cram so much,”

They worked well together, Lydan acted as a solid center to the Extolled advance, unwavering and precise with rifle shots and Naginata sweeps, Taryn on the fringes kept to his pistols given his lack of armour, boring out eyes and necks with accuracy only genehanced reflexes could achieve.

She caught occasional glimpses of places she recognized as they moved rapidly up level by level, gradually the light grew brighter and brighter as the left the deepest canyons of metal and duracrete.

“C’mon nerf herder we’re almost there!” Blaze called as she felt buffeted by what she first thought were exhaust blast, but now realized were actual winds, she was closer to the sky than ever before.

There was screeching and sirens, then large booms. Lydan suddenly pressed her down and close to him, crouching over her as the world seemed to quake as if it would crumble into the void.

Strange metallic rhythms pounded out nearby followed instantly by more life’s blinking out and vehicle exploding as Melron brought two Karintha Class transports in dangerously deep into Carratos labyrinth of skyscrapers, unleashing MASER auto cannons on the chaotic free for all around the platform they would leave from.

“’bout time Old Man!” Taryn complained as he scanned the smoking bodies behind him, Lydan in a single bound leaping onto the ramp and rushing Xanaea inside.

“Lose your armour son?”Melron replied with a smile, well knowing it was wrapped round the girl, rifle snug against his shoulder scanning for any threats as he piloted both ships with his mind.

“Was cramping my style, let’s move,”

“Your mother?” Melron asked Lydan as he placed Xani gently down in the cockpit,
She breathed a sigh of relief out of the oversized helmet and looked about at the place shinier and brighter than anywhere she had ever been before.

“She and the women have an enemy to be rid of…” Lydan replied as Melron came in the ship already lifting under his telekinetic control.

“And we have little Xani to look after,”

She peered up as the ship rose, there past the large metal pillars was the azure midday sky, it brightness making her squint as the others bustled about. 

All of a sudden they were heading straight for the great wall of azure that was the sky, so sqickly she was afraid they would hit it and crash – but it slowly drifted away into black mixed with glinting lights, among which far away was her true home.

<<<<>>>>

Mother to Mother

They had glided through the growing chaos of internecine chain reactions, one gang scuffle set off another and another, chaining back down the levels, and drawing crowds of pickpockets and scavengers.

In Turn the Government that controlled the upper levels was having to deploy its police forces to keep the violence from bubbling up into the ‘civilized’ levels of Carratos, adding merely more bodies to Omil S’esh funerary offering. 

Their ascent had been relatively smooth, Adaea had sliced a public cargo turbo lift to their exclusive use, Lyaea and the rest of the Extolled leaping in at level 482.

She had noted then the Vong warriors panting and grinning, their seaweed cloaks spattered with blood.

“We got bored waiting so had some fun,” Lyaea grinned mischievously at her own savage entertainments.

They had to get out at 515 when the lift was blocked by a very deliberately parked Hover truck, around the station there was a battle waged between one group with green slithering symbols and another with yellow abstract dots for their gang. 

Out of the lift the Extolled moved as the center, the Aethans on the flanks to tear into the greens from behind – the Yellow’s besieging them thought they were  re-enforcements.

They were wrong.

The Extolled cried in zealous glee with every heretic they destroyed, their throats sore from exhalations to the Yun’o as beside them the Avatars of Yun’Shuno and Yun Ne=Shel – Lyaea and Adaea – obliterated the street fighters with arrows and flicks of lighting as they made their way back and forth between various towers, lifts and even a few stair wells covered in drooping bodies already picked over by runt scavengers till, already caked in blood, dust and carbon they came to one of the entrances to Madame’s head quarters on level 520.

Located in the center of a large plaza the Southern entrance was sandbagged and fortified by the Red Triangle gangs, a scattering of dead bodies on the promenade leading up to it.  The knowledge of the Nagai and Kiffar told her this was the place, gave her the layout and likely defences.

It proved accurate.

Once more The Extolled charged straight down the centre as the gangers in three rows prepared to fire in sequence, Adaea and Lyaea again on the flanks each fired off their six teleporting oblivion arrows that sliced through at least two heads or troso’s each before vanishing back to their hands to be fired again.

Selaean strode just behind the Extolled charge and lifted her hands to raise the sandbags and portable shields, illuminating the air beneath with aetheric lighting that struck the now coverless gangers painfully.

By the time the Extolled hit barely a fifth of the guard still held their weapons. 

The doors behind were rent open with telekinetic fury and level by level, section by section they began their ascent.  The resistance was strong at first, while the gangers and guards inside were few they were supplemented by automated weapons and a labyrinth of blast door traps.

Such defenses would’ve been effective had they been fighting a conventional enemy, they were only an annoyance to Aethans that could tear durasteel with their bare hands and rip doors from hinges with precision telekinesis, overload turrets with Aetheric lighting, and have their flanks and rear guarded by fanatical Yuuzhan Vong with their own array of bio-weapons that defied conventional defenses.

Wading through an ever decreasing resistance, marching on past attempts to blow up entire corners of the building to stop them, cutting down the more professional guards that tried to run or held bitterly for every second they could, Selaena came at last to the simple but elegant curved doors of Madame’s office.

Her amrour already chipped and carbon scored, helmet on her hip from taking a few too many direct shots that had fried the HUD she held up her hand for her daughters to wait outside.

The polished brass door was not locked and swept aside to reveal a spacious minimalisitcally furnished high class office, an above middle age Vultan female in red silks staring out the large oval window on the burning cityscape below as she had for the last six hours unmoved.

This was her, this was Madame, queen of the mid-tier underworld for the last decade, Orna S’esh who with her husband had risen from a refugee with little more than a hundred credits to one of the wealthiest most powerful figures on Carratos.  And above all this, the mother or Omil S’esh.

The Vultan mother turned to regard the Aethan mother.

Orna was surprised at what she saw, not a Blood Brothers Assassin, or one of Boos Yuga’s hit squads at all.

As their eyes locked there was a recognition, Orna saw the starling similarity to the face Qarn had compiled from his psycometirc readings as the killer of her son.

Orna offered a bitter smile.  The initial report had been true…her son had tried to rape a barely teenage girl who had managed somehow to fight him off and kill him in the process.  Her son was the wretch she had always known he was, and she was the failure as a mother to have not saved him from himself. And the alabaster skinned white haired, but strangely youthful woman before her was the mother of that teen girl.

Selaena felt the woman’s realization, that her child had fallen beyond her ability to save, but also the unbreakable resolve, that no matter how vile, he had still been her son, and without him, the only thing left was to watch the galaxy burn out with her rage at losing her only child.

Stepping forward slowly Selaena understood all too well, she had, and did feel the same, the Outsiders needed to be punished for harming her children – not just Lyaea and Lydan, but her daughter in law Adaea, Taryn, Milaea, Kiraea, Jenaea and of course Xanaea - all those younger than her.

And Selaena would never stop just as Orna never would.

Their dedication to protecting and avenging their Children made them the same and ensured they could never but be opposed to each other.

As the brief moment of mutual understanding settled Orna curved her fingers around the thermal detonator the small click of its activation the last sound she would hear.

Raw instinct hurled Orna through the transparisteel in a soundless cocoon of kinetite that dispelled as she began to fall, the detonators extreme heat incinerating her body in an instant leaving only trailing clouds of acrid smoke behind and dust that landed a hundred levels down upon the corpses of those who had died trying to protect her – if only for their own advancement.

Selaean turned indifferently. 

One Outsider that threatened her children was gone.  There were trillions more.

<<<<>>>>

Home

The long house was packed with all the flowers, food and gifts they could assemble on such short notice. 

However when one possessed reflexes four times a human, much could be done in a short time.

Jenaea had made new plates in her kiln, decorated with slip that fired black on earthy orange into floral patterns, Kassyndra and Milaea prepared vast amounts of cakes and stew, Sofa and Kiraea decorated with flowers and ribbons.  Jarys, Valens and Maeson had built an extensive playground from obirio wood and Obhesh fiber ropes in the nearby trees, featuring numerous tunnels, swings, planks and wobbly walkways between tree top outlooks for Xani, and future children, to play in.

While finding Jenaea and Taryn had been causes for celebration, there was something special about Xanaea, not quite a teenager, the whole trip back she had been in wide eyed gaping wonder at everything she saw, jubilant and excited despite all that had happened – she was an inspiration, an invigoration of youth and vitality even before she set foot on Aethas.

Selaena had never left her side since Carratos, adopting her as her own but content with the title Aunt to ensure Xani’s parents were still honored. 

Xanaea was certain they were dead, at some point Valens or Milaea would return to Carratos and use their flow walking expertise to try and find out exactly what had happened to them, though most likely, unarmed and untrained, they had simply been mugged and murdered, it would at least close the chapter fully.  More importantly if they could discover how Xanaea’s parents had survived and escaped slavery, where they had travelled from before Carratos, it might lead them to others.

Finally arriving in system Xanaea took to the welcoming aether here as quickly as she had her new older brothers and sisters, Adaea eager to teach her sewing, tailoring and nano-electrical engineering, Lydan explaining to her the properties of all the plants on the nature deck and eager to have her look after the Gormin calves, Lyaea a sister she could play silly and naughty games with finally free to be childish, and Taryn an ever humorous presence with tawdry in jokes they shared for a similar experience living meal to meal in a metal jungle of gangs and thieves.

Already stuffed with all the food Selaena could push into her she left the others waiting at Selaena’s decorate house as she simply ran happily through the grasses, marveling at the  trees and mountains from her parents stories that had come alive at last, drinking from river waters cleaner than the best filtration on Carratos could offer fresh from the snowy peaks.

Finally arriving at Selaena’s house she as feted upon by all the adults in turn, her youthful energy keeping her going as she was introduced, receiving a bow and arrow set from Valens and Sofa, a sack of sundried fruits from Maeson dusted in sugars, necklace totems with healing properties from Milaea and Kassyndra, a set of link orbs and books from Jarys and Kiraea.

The celebration while largely for Xanaea’s benefit also included moments where Jenaea and Taryn were presented with practical gifts, new outfits tailored to their bodies that had regained a healthy weight and sets of link orbs.

They ate and talked until early evening when Xani’ energy finally hit its limit. Settling her in her new bed of soft Vo-ursus fur, the adults began to depart.

“Come on son, much more to learn,” Melron patted Taryn’s back to pry him away from talking to Lyaea,

“Yeah alright, we’ll see you soon yeah?”

“We’ll see…” she rolled her eyes at her over protective mothers gaze, any hope having Xani to obsess over would lessen her focus on Lyaea soon dispelled, even now she moved to intercept the pair.

“You looked after Xani well,” ever terse in her words Selaena said eyeing Taryn
“Perhaps you might be worthy…when your training is finished,”

Normally quick with witty retorts Taryn showed only deference.

“Then I’d better get straight to it,”

<<<<>>>>

A Future

As she had a hundred times before she strode the familiar passages to the vault.

It felt different now as Xani followed her, no just in that it had taken nearly three hours to get this far, the young girl inquiring about anything and everything she saw as she had done incessantly for the last few weeks.

In the last two days Selaena had spoken more than she had in twenty years of being ran from her home world, her new daughter forcing her to communicate far more verbally as Xani was only slowly developing telepathic precision.

“It’s so cold in here!” Xani noted just as Jenaea had, the temperature was well below water freezing points, but was only noticeable to the recently recovered People who were not yet fully recovered in weight and thermoregulation.

The girl shuffled on her Vo-ursus coat, the thick fur retaining the gentle settling effect the bear like Technocracy designed hybrid possessed to cause its prey to slumber.

“This is very deep, and hidden, something very important must be here…” Xani thought out loud.

“Very important, the most valuable things we possess apart from ourselves…”

The doors hissed open with chilly vapors, Xani once more standing mouth wide in wonder.

“Wow….how did those babies get in there?”

Selaena chuckled at the odd and unexpected question – not why were they there but how! Xanaea’s idiosyncratic view point was an endless source of wonder to Selaena herself.

“They grew in there, created from the blood and bone of Guardians of old…” she guided her daughter to sit before the twenty pods,

“...would you like to hear their stories?”

Xanaea’s smile was an instant answer.

<<<<>>>>

[TheDutchman]

The more we learn of the Aethans, the more of two minds I am: the Devastation was something truly horrific, demolishing their culture while threatening extinction, slavery, and much worse.  The fact that it became the impetus of a type of conquest helps to drive them into the realm of "orange and blue" morality, not "evil" in the traditional sense but--supplemented by the horrors that they've faced--have wrapped themselves in a xenophobia that is almost entirely absolute and a cultural-centric priority that places anyone not of the people on a level to be used...and summarily discarded without a second thought.  Consider both Lydan's and Selaena's terrible consumption of their victim's knowledge (and not just those that were enemies; that poor Umbarana...): for the Aethans, this is taken as a matter of course. 

But that's what makes this narrative so interesting, especially when one considers that in a galaxy-wide community, there are bound to be staggeringly disparate moralities throughout.  The fact that we see only a small sampling in Canon just underscores that I think that those in power are doing us fans a grave disservice.  After all, there are SO many more stories that exist "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

I also have to admit that I am very much enjoying Taryn's/Blaze's characterization.  Sardonic, wickedly barbed wit...LSG's choice of James Marsters as Taryn/Blaze analogue is absolutely perfect    Yet, now we see how he is also becoming more comfortable in Aethan society, no longer tormented by his genetic imperative but instead acting from genuine concern and protection (and deference) towards a female.  And while their are many matriarchal Earth cultures, we see just how much the Technocracy made it a part of each single Aethan.

I have to admit that the chapter's dichotomy--"maternal instinct"--is perfectly presented: both Selaena and Orna would do everything for their children...regardless of the particular character of the child in question.  Another fantastic example of the difference in morality: black, white, shades of gray, and the myriad of colors across the spectrum 

My own selfish inclination: I can't wait to read more about particular Aethans we've already seen 

More now, LSG!