Vala caught her breath. Above her, clear from her vantage on the tower, the sky rained crystal fire. The fluid green had gone, turned dark by chaos above and pierced by the violet crystal bones of the Surge.

“What is it?” she said.

“Why you askin’ me?” said Ramses.

“One of the Eight?” Black Fountain mused.

“No,” said Vala. “But perhaps another of their kind. An emissary from Beulah itself.”

“If ever I were to believe in such a place,” Ramses said, “then this would be the thing to make me.”

Its wings innumerable danced in rings to east and to west.

“It is alive,” said Black Fountain.

The eye within its center glowed.

“It is dangerous,” said Ramses.

The spears of light shot from the eye held still, fanned outward in a deadly halo outside the span of the wings.

“It fought for us,” said Vala.

The dark shroud over the sky fled from a blinding pink glare and when their eyes grew pained returned, only to slowly fade and give place to the native green. Vala was mesmerized by the transformation, and so she did not see when the visitor left, only that it was gone.

Ramses sucked in a gulp of breath. “Ai. I try to be a pragmatist for hundreds of years, and then something like this happens.”

Black Fountain turned and stomped to the center of the tower, examining the symbols at his feet.

“Will we find our answers here, friend? Or are they in Albion?”

All three heads reared with closed eyes and, as Ramses had done, Black Fountain sucked in breath. “Answers are everywhere.”

Vala smiled. “Well said. Now, my noble brothers, I pose you a question: what honor can we bestow on the warriors who through courage and labor won us the day?”

“They do deserve credit,” Ramses said. “They won the fight with the kzinti. No doubts there.”

All three were quiet for a long while, basking in the hot air that came ahead of the falling corpses, turned to frozen light by their many winged savior.

Those micro stars pierced the atmosphere, as the Surge were known to do in life, encased in the arrival’s judgement, bursting into fragments of glowing shards when they hit the desolate ground below. Time went by and they fell like rain. Vala felt her heart surge as their shards fluttered in the air beneath them, falling twinkling to cover the ground like a sheet of fresh snow and, as the unexpected opposite of corpse ash, rose upward in the form of a luminescent mist, and Vala felt life pour into her through her nostrils.

“Mm,” Ramses said, beaming, “that’s some good-ass prana.”

“Let us go down,” said Black Fountain.

“You go ahead,” said Vala. “I want to stay here a while.”

Her comrades saluted here and descended the stairs, leaving her alone with the green sky of that unnamed world, now a refactor fortress in their defense of Briah. She heard whispers of old words, and she chose from them a name for that green-skied place.

“Urthona. As my army has staked and held a claim over you, and as we were chosen for protection by the divine messenger, I name you Urthona, for you are a dark world, yet from your depths life has sprung.”

Surface, the light-young mortals called it, but the Harbingers, themselves a union of cosmic essence, that being light, and darkness in so as the flesh is described, it being a matte wrapping that reflects light and so is a devourer (a beneficiary of light, and the conscious observer of the impossibilities of the solar cycle), know the landmass of a planetoid to be its depths. What could a land bound mammal know of the sea? In this manner the Harbingers know intimately well the relationship between terra firma and splendor solis.

She hesitated to leave the tower, but the assembly was due to gather. She stepped off the pinnacle, riding the wind downward like a leaf, and caught the stairs with her feet at the tower’s hips. The remainder of her descent she trod, and ate from a plate of fruit laid on the banquet table set by those who missed the battle to fortify their command center and search the sky for clues of home.

“We’ve received no communications from Albion,” Ramses said when she found him.

“Albion, darkening in the West,” said Paragas, who sat across the table.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

The table was immense, printed especially for the occasion. As they enjoyed the gift of holy technology their living home provided, Vala reflected on the unity born from battle. In her small circle alone was Ramses, who favored fire, Black Fountain and his awesome strength, and Paragas whose weapon was his mind. And she, she expressed her radiant being with the raw force of will; what the laymen call telekinesis. And along the long table were many others with expressions similar and disparate, and the might of all became a single missile fired into the heart of a strong opponent, and that opponent fell.

She caught sight of Harbinger One, as many as were fit to attend, farther down the table. The young girl, Ishtar, was engaged in deep talk with their new pilot. Their captain’s partner sat quietly, and the lieutenant and master sergeant were laughing and conversing with the teams seated around them.

“Ramses,” Vala said, tapping his arm. “Have you noticed that the teams are all sitting together?”

He made a show of looking up and down the banquet table, then nodded. “Want me to break them all up?”

“Yes, actually. But not now. Over time. I’d like to encourage more social interplay.”

“There any particular reason why?”

“Yes.”

He smiled. “Well, you the boss. It might help me though if I understood.”

She turned to face him. “You and I have never served in the same team, and yet we’re dear friends. All of us here can say the same. But the younger Harbingers, while broadly loyal, seem more divided than our generation ever was.”

Ramses sipped his champagne. “Back when Yonto and I were serving under White Moon Braxxus, I couldn’t wait to get away from my team and mingle.”

“It was the same for me. It’s healthy, bonding with our comrades and broadening our horizons.”

He sipped his champagne again, this time almost draining his glads. “Speaking of teams, Vala, you need to form one. I know it’s a painful subject…”

“There are more pressing matters.”

“That can be delegated. You need a team, Vala.”

“I’m more mobile on my own.”

“Vala, you need a team, and we all need you to have a team.”

She drained her stein, then looked her friend in the eye. “I’ll replace my old team when the general replaces his.”

She sat in wait for Ramses’ rebuttal, thinking of all the section chiefs who delayed forming their new teams upon promotion. But Ramses was quiet. Black Fountain had risen and, taking a pitcher in each hand, begun to refill people’s drinks, starting with Vala’s stein. She took a long pull and set her drink down hard on the table. “Solomon never formed a second team.”

“No. He ran away.”

Vala growled under her breath l. “It’s little more than a formality.”

“Since when is honoring old warriors a formality?”

“I tell you what, Ramses; you spoke of delegation, well, I’ll leave it to you to form my new team.”

“No.”

She felt her radiance burning and narrowed her eyes. “I could make it an order.”

“Aye. Or you could start behaving like a grown woman. I know it’s hard…” he raised a hand, stopping her from cutting him off, “and I know this’ll be your third team. But you got to think outside yourself, Vala. There are broken and scattered teams now. If they all get matched into new teams, and you chose none of them, what message does that send?”

He may as well have punched her in the gut. She felt her shoulders sink and her head drift downward. “You’re right. Damn you. All right, Ramses, I’ll select from the ranks and…”

She caught his eyes, bright burn melancholic apology, and rose without a word, finding herself standing near the table but removed, the torchlight dim, reserved for the celebrants, one pf whom she then was not. He stood in front of her. His young eyes looked sad.

“Revol,” she said.

“Ma’am.”

“Where went your mirth, soldier?”

“It’s right over there.” He pointed to his lover.

Vala smiled, remembering the talk among the chiefs of regulations and protocol when those two made their affection known. What touched her most was that in all his many battles against authority, Solomon never fought more fiercely than when he stopd up for these two and their love.

“I owe you an apology, ma’am,” Revol said.

“You assuradely do not.”

“With all respect, ma’am, I do. I went to battle with half a team, and your orders were for all of us.”

“Lieutenant, you followed orders to the extent they could be followed, and there is nothing more a commander could expect of her subordinates. The reality of the situation is that we would have been defeated without your contribution. You showed yourself to be a brilliant tactician, Lieutenant. And while your efforts to mobilize your team yielded limited results, your methods were as inspired as your tactical gnosis.”

“Understood, ma’am. I’ll try to wrap my head around this ‘almost os good enough’ idea.”

“Revol…”

She paused, the future forming in her mind’s eyes.

“Revol,” she continued, “there is a reason the mysteries of command are withheld. Only when a soldier distinguishes themself for command are those mysteries gradually revealed. I don’t know what Sensus has chosen to reveal to you, but I’ll give you this lesson: Ask for a mountain, even of a pebble is the most that can be given.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Sensus told me a little, but he also told us that Harbingers are warriors, not soldiers, and that we don’t serve kings and queens, but we are kings and queens. I guess he was just motivating us.”

Vala laughed. “He’s a remarkable man, our general. I hope he’s okay.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Lieutenant,” she said, the thought having formed to completion, “I have a lot of decisions to make. You’ve helped me make one of them.”