“You said you have ships, weaponized vehicles, pilots, right?” Deacon said. “I can lead everyone in, provide cover. How much of an air force could Alastor have, anyway?”

“It’s risky… but I think it’s the best chance we have. Let’s do it,” said Saul, slapping his hand down on the table.

Zedock nodded. “I agree. We hit them on all fronts. Through the tunnels, through the air, and hopefully Bayorn will be ready to support us from the inside. We’re gonna lay it all on the line. Are there any objections?”

Saul, Maka, Deacon, and Zip all nodded in agreement, their faces hard and determined.

It was all too much for Letho. He could do this alone; there was no need to put everyone’s lives at risk! He spun on his heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the door hard enough to knock an ancient plaque from the wall.

“Letho!” Maka chased him down the hall. With a powerful stride, he closed the gap between them and grasped Letho’s arm.

“Let go of me!” Letho shouted. Hot tears were streaming down his face.

“Letho, you knew this day would come. All of us must fight.”

“I just don’t want to lose you, Maka. I wanted you by my side.”

“And I want to be by yours. But I must fight alongside the Tarsi. In this way I can help you, Letho, to complete your mission. The Tarsi are strong, and they want to fight. They want to kill many Mendraga. And with Bayorn gone, only I can lead them.”

Letho looked his friend in the eye. “Just promise me you won’t get yourself killed.”

“That is not a promise I can make, Letho. But I will do my best.”

FOURTEEN - The Calm

Abraxas sat upon his gilded throne, surveying the lay of his kingdom. He gestured with his great claw, swiping to the side to alter the display that hovered in front of his aged eyes. Atop a long-dead traffic light, a security camera spun, focusing on the vast sprawl of dormitories that had been erected to house the Fulcrum station citizens upon their return to Eursus. He counted the number of Mendraga patrolling the streets on their hoverbikes, keeping the peace.

“Peace” was a word that Abraxas had known little in his long life. Conflict was an old friend, a comfortable lover. In fact, in times of relative calm he felt uneasy, as though there was an itch deep within his cortex that longed for the adrenaline surge of crushing his foes and exerting his will upon them.

He had first come to Eursus by mistake; his damaged ship’s wormhole navigation system had malfunctioned, sending him crash-landing on the distant planet at a time when the human race still dwelt in caves, drew crude antelope on the walls with charcoal, and stoked pitiful fires to keep predators at bay. And there he lay, transformed into a wood-like golem by his injuries, a ruined tree growing up and and around him, dead but unable to pass on to the next realm.

He had been fleeing the battle for control of his own planet, a battle he had begun with his race of elite Tarsi, whom he had named Mendraga, which meant “eternal warrior” in his tongue. Just as his brother Sartruvus had warned him, the Council had not taken kindly to his scientific meddling and the new and superior race it created. A civil war began, between those who accepted Abraxas’s gift, and those who did not. The war raged on for centuries, ravaging the planet.

Abraxas knew not how long he had withered inside his broken ship before Alastor came along, his greatest ally, his hand, the executor of his will. Over the centuries, as man’s technological capabilities had grown, Alastor and his followers had been able to rebuild Abraxas’s ship, so that together they could make the trek back to his home planet and reunite with his race on Tarsus—as he had no doubt that they had been victorious. They had lacked the necessary components to repair the wormhole navigator, so he was forced to travel at a snail’s pace across the galaxy. It took centuries, both he and Alastor in stasis, but at last they had arrived—only to find a barren planet, for the victorious Mendraga had long since consumed all that lived, and then ultimately themselves. Even the very substance that had shown him the way to eternal life had been destroyed, for all samples of the strange meteorite that had struck Tarsus had been destroyed along with Abraxas’s laboratories.

A scan of the archives revealed that the Council, foreseeing the death of their planet and the potential extinction of the Tarsi race, had sent their women and children into the vessels that the Eursans would come to call Fulcrum stations. These vessels had been designed to cultivate barren planets and seed life through dissemination of the basic elements needed to begin the process of evolution. But they had been used as simple escape vehicles. They were probably landing on Eursus even as Abraxas set foot on Tarsus.

Fools. All of them. Over centuries of breeding in their dark subterranean mechanical world, becoming something less than they once were, the Tarsi inside had completely forgotten their mission. It was no surprise to Abraxas that they had become willing subjugates to the Eursan men who found the Fulcrum stations orbiting their planet and towed them to the planet’s surface to repurpose them for their own aims.

If only the Tarsi inside had been able to communicate the true purpose of the Fulcrum stations instead of becoming slaves. They could have saved the planet, and created a world in which the Eursans and Tarsi could have lived harmoniously. No doubt this was the intent of the Council.

But then again, if they had, Abraxas would never have been able to gain control. Very few knew the secret of the Fulcrum stations. Not even his most trusted associate Alastor knew. With a few keystrokes and the use of the codes he had taken from the foolish Elder Fintran, he could order the Fulcrum stations to land and begin a terraforming process that would rejuvenate the entire planet, rebalancing everything so that all life could flourish once again. The Fulcrum station even had a stockpile of seeds that could be launched into the sky, spreading them far and wide, making the planet green once again.

But why should he? Eursus’s climate did not bother his Mendraga in the least, yet it was inhospitable enough that the Eursan cattle could not venture out into it without dying. They needed him to survive, just as he needed them.

He could also make the Fulcrum stations explode by causing their fusion cores to go critical, obliterating himself, his people, and the Eursan and Tarsi race in a white flash. It would be painless, instantaneous. But he wasn’t ready for that. He was enjoying his time as a god-king.

Still, as of late he was growing weary. When he had first come to Eursus, it had been much simpler to subjugate man. They received him as a god without question. They accepted his will when he took a child to some dark corner to feed. They fell at his feet and worshipped him when he meted swift, merciless judgement on transgressors.

But these modern Eursans were not so easily fooled. During his long sleep, humans had pushed back the obsidian veil, learning to keep the shadows at bay through their Promethean quest for knowledge. Sure, there were many who still accepted without question that Abraxas was a supreme being, one with the ability to manipulate the cosmic forces that moved their world. Yet there were others who saw him for what he truly was, and it would only be a matter of time before those who questioned him outnumbered those who believed.

No, modern man was not so easily fooled. But the primitives were. The working caste. He chuckled to himself, running a skeletal hand across his naked, white cranium. They lived like animals in filthy hovels, communicating in coughing syllables that drove Abraxas insane. But they served their purpose, toiling in steaming factories thick with the stink of mildew and perspiration. They were strong, stupid, and didn’t ask questions. They were a marvel of modern human engineering.