Following the Battle of Madraa, the aftermath proceeded smoothly once the higher-ups returned to direct their subordinates.
A trio of individuals exited the now-emptied War Room. Their route led them to the nearest central atrium, which connected multiple decks. The section containing decks of administrative and operational offices, meeting halls, and other think tank areas labeled this section as a crucial heart within Citadel Irkalla’s habitable area.
The Operations Wing essentially served as a bridge between Andora and the countless military officers, liaisons, and agents who worked there.
“What’s the most recent news on the clean-up?” Tov directed his question to the two androids to his side.
Two notable locations required extensive if desperate, search: the space battle proper and the ruined planet of Madraa-II, which housed the Nidus bearing the planet’s name.
Just before their chat began, a privacy bubble activated them via a drone hovering their heads, shrouding them in a special field. Anyone they passed heard nothing of their conversation and politely stepped to the side while giving a crisp salute.
“After triple-checking for life signs, followed by another salvo of super-heated plasma shot and another deep scan, we can confirm that the Nidus named Madraa is undoubtedly dead.” Luna, who was a step behind Andora, reassured as she lifted her data tablet.
Tov perused the data packet sent to his cranial implant, reading the up-to-date information regarding the surface’s current state while listening to Luna’s succinct narration.
“As you can see, much of the surface where the Chained Souls base was is still bathed in nuclear fire. The copious amounts of orbital bombardment scoured every visible tentacle and biomass while the subsequent flames continued to reach further below. The Nidus appeared to have suffered a critical injury sometime later as it suddenly ceased any resistance.”
Andora glanced at the report with a look of mild interest and furrowed brows. Tov knew the machine woman felt exhausted after what had just happened.
“It looks like a cascade of multiple failures,” Andora muttered with a look of contempt. “I’m guessing total organ failure with how it’s spewing geysers of ichor, blood, and other eldritch waste. The subsequent earthquakes and the sudden appearance of these sinkholes probably means its structural integrity has collapsed under its own weight.”
“We think the same, and our scans, though filled with noise, support this hypothesis,” Luna replied as she adjusted her circular-framed glasses.
Tov hummed, his upper arms crossing as his thoughts centered around the beast. “What else have we found?”
“Not much. The inferno is blocking our attempts to make planetfall,” Luna shook her head slightly. Tov recognized the look of an impatient scientist being denied a chance to study something new.
Andora sighed but was far from displeased as her second-in-command was. “We won’t wait for the inferno to die out just to do an autopsy on a continent-sized burnt-up corpse.”
Luna pressed her lips. “I will have to disagree, Eldest. This Nidus can provide us with ample data. Many curious bioresearchers and scientists across the armada would love to pick at this planet-locked Leviathan.”
“By many, does that include yourself?” Andora huffed as she gazed at the silver android with an amused smirk. Luna didn’t deny, nor did she answer. Nevertheless, Andora continued. “As much as I would like to do the same, I’m sure there isn’t much our alien friends don’t already know.”
Tov nodded at Andora’s words.
Luna made an expression that nearly looked like a pout, but she just as soon smoothened any indication. “Unfortunate. While this specimen isn’t new to our allies, the same isn’t true for us. I would like a sample of its organic tissue, a vital organ, a piece of its nervous system, and whatever passes through the brain.”
Andora and Luna soon went quiet, and Tov knew they were conversing within their digital network at a speed only digital minds could achieve. Most likely filled with an extensive cost-benefit analysis and whatever pitch Luna made to get her researcher fix.
While they did, he remembered those days as he reminisced and sifted through relevant information before interrupting the two ladies.
“The subject of Leviathans has always been scarce to the point of myth during the Cataclysm. Of course, that concerns the general public,” Tov began, pulling Andora and Luna’s attention.
He tapped his mandible as he continued. “Though much of the information is hoarded by those that encountered the beasts, as a clan patriarch and a close friend to Emperor Jarinn, I at least know of their existence and minor details.”
He sighed before turning toward Andora.
“But reading about it from a report differs from seeing it in person. And seeing is different from fighting them.”
Andora smirked as she wrinkled her nose at what he referred to. “I still recall your shock when you entered my home like headless chickens. Creator, it felt like years ago.”
“Indeed,” Tov chittered. “And there is a reason for that. For the average citizen in the galactic community, it was considered an unbelievable misfortune to encounter a Colossus-class Starless, and those only arrived whenever there was stiff resistance, adapted in a way to shatter it completely. Leviathans, well, those apocalyptic abominations had greater prey.”
“The superpowers.” Andora guessed.
Tov nodded. “My people and I were slave race under one of them, the old Kurskann Dominion. If our tyrants had their way, we would have been forced to fight at the frontlines as cannon fodder while they ran. We had no intention of letting them. The Cataclysm and other factors allowed us to break the chains and arm ourselves.
“Faced with wrathful armed slaves from within and the Starless at their borders, they were inevitably forced to let us go. But the Starless cared not for slaves nor masters; every lifeform existed for them to corrupt or exterminate. But that also meant they, like unthinking antibodies, needed to eliminate the most pertinent threats to their campaign of genocide. My people and I had no reason to fight in the pandemonium raging across the Old Heartlands. And so, Jarinn and I formed an Exodus, picking up refugees along the way, fighting when we had to.”
“Let giants fight giants.” Andora nodded her head in understanding. That expression also referred to the leading consensus for those in the know—that Andora and her dogged defiance redirected the Starless ire.
“Yes. Though, we weren’t absent during the Great Counterattack. Though piloted by untrained ex-slaves, Dominion warships were still warships that belonged to a superpower. And it did not take long to hone our skills and bloody ourselves.” Tov buzzed with mirth, recalling those glorious and horrible days before continuing.
“What few Leviathans that appeared were said to have been prevalent in the chaotic and shrouded battles within the Old Heartlands and the theaters fought by Dagatar and the Warrior’s Enclave. Everyone else covered the wider, less threatening fronts.”
Andora hummed, “And it was here you and your comrades encountered Niduses.”
Tov nodded. “We didn’t yet know what it was, except that it was something that shouldn’t exist and that it was essential to the Starless war machine.”
He clenched his fist, recalling these planet-bound Leviathans.
Niduses rooted deep within a planet’s crust, essentially becoming mobile army factories and forward-operating bases for the Starless Horrors. They fed on the world itself and copious amounts of living sacrifice.
United under a common purpose, the burgeoning Legacy did everything to hunt these things down; even when the war ended, many sorties were sent just beyond the Dead Zone border to scour every system of Niduses and other Starless hotspots, but none were found.
“I wonder. . . How many, like Madraa, exist deep within the Dead Zone? How many Thralled are feeding these monstrosities?” Tov whispered.
Andora clenched her jaw. She, too, wondered if these Niduses contributed to the forces thrown against her. Locked within Sol, she had no proof or knowledge of their existence, but it made sense.
A conquering force needed staging grounds, traitors, and saboteurs like the Thralled.
She ground her teeth, yet more problems are stacking atop each other. She turned to Luna. “I take it back, grab some asteroids, and send them down; concentrate on what you deem to be the most valuable sections of the Nidus. Douse the flames in rock and stone if you have to.”
Andora leaned forward toward her second. “Be quick in your harvest, Luna. In fact, it’d be better to just mine out an entire chunk. The Irkalla has space. You can be as surgical once we’re on the move.”
Luna’s eyes shone, and a small smile was on her lips. Tov felt a shiver down his spine upon seeing the silver android’s expression. The woman saw this nightmarish, gargantuan abomination as little more than a frog to be dissected.
The grey woman bowed. “Thank you, Eldest. I’m sending my assets now.”
Andora nodded. Already, through the exterior eyes of her Citadel, she could see the swarms of drones and mining vessels flying toward the planet and to a nearby asteroid field.
“I heard we have Jupiter and Task Force Dagger to thank for uncovering some intelligence before the complete destruction of the temple fortress,” Tov interjected, pulling Andora’s gaze.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Andora hummed in satisfaction. “They availed themselves well and deserve to be hailed as today’s heroes.”
“Though at the cost of two of their members,” Tov sighed. Andora gave a curt nod as her eyes narrowed imperceptively.
Luna tapped on her tablet. “What they uncovered primarily contains intelligence on the Chained Souls cultist cell, including a list of Thralled bases within Uraki and the neighboring sectors, bits regarding their recent activities as well as important personnel, and finally, a dossier on notable groups of survivors and people-of-interest within the Dead Zone.”
Tov hummed. “Apart from the latter, unfortunately, the rest is not valuable to us.”
“Pity,” Andora sneered. “If we weren’t in a rush to leave this cesspit, I’d raze every single one of those bases and torch every Thralled wretch. I didn’t think I’d hate anything as much as I hate the Starless, but traitors make the cut.”
She seethed the word like a vile curse, and Tov greatly agreed. Even as they annihilated an entire cell, it did nothing to sate his contempt for these aghapin filth.
“There was also nothing about the wider Temple of Absolution. The rest of our data hounds, and I only managed to infer where it mainly operated.” Luna continued, propping up her glasses.
Andora snorted, “I think I can guess.”
“Everything points to the Heartlands, Eldest,” Luna replied indifferently. “In fact, we have a 42% certainty, with a 5% margin of error, that the Temple of Absolution is located somewhere. . . here.”
Tov and Andora looked at the large spherical zone that Luna highlighted within the borders of Heartlands.
“It’s the farthest region from Legacy space while still within the galactic center,” Andora noted.
“The borders of several powers bleed into this sphere. They were also the first among these first-rate nations and organizations that made battle with the brunt of the Starless,” Tov muttered, tilting his head before his antennae raised slightly.
Andora immediately noticed the change of expression from her alien friend. “What is it?”
Tov remained silent for a moment as his thoughts churned. Ultimately, he sighed, his four clawed fists clenching for a moment. “Madilonia. . . Most of its territory, important population centers, sacred worlds, and especially capital is located within this sphere.”
Andora frowned while Luna remained unfazed, merely intrigued as she tilted her head.
Tov shook his head. “It would be a horrible blasphemy and a spit in the face of what was once a respected Theocracy. Their faithful were second only to the Eternal Choir in numbers and zeal.”
He sighed. “Wellen-dos would weep from the afterlife if that were the case.”
Andora furrowed her brow. “The Madilonians were nearly wiped out, yes?”
“If it weren’t for the sacrifice of the Paragon and countless others, the Madilonians would have gone extinct. Even today, they are considered an endangered population and are one of many protectorates under the Warrior’s Enclave. Last I heard, their population broke past a hundred million.”
Andora winced and, for a heart-wrenching second, likened their situation to hers and humanity. The atmosphere around them quickly turned gloomy, and none spoke for a long minute.
Just then, as the trio rounded a corner, a familiar flapping of winds approached, dispelling the malaise.
The three glanced at the magnificent mechanical owl, which flew across the corridor before banking, spreading its wings, and stopping before its creator.
“Hoot.” Irkalla, Andora’s Seneschal, greeted.
Andora smiled as she scratched the robot bird’s chin. Irkalla preened before taking her place and perched on Andora’s raised arm.
“Irkalla reporting, Great Creator,” the Seneschal spoke, turning her head in a way only birds and Iexians could toward Tov and Luna. “Greetings, Friendly Wasp Man and Cold Scary Auntie.”
Andora coughed into her fist. She didn’t know when her Seneschal acquired a penchant for nicknames, but it was rather recent, and Andora highly suspected a certain blue AI Overseer.
“Irkalla, what do you have for me?”
Her Seneschal preened her lifelike feathers briefly before replying with almost casual disdain. “The Vulgar Miscreant requests an audience.”
Still, Andora and Tov frowned at that moniker.
Siad Vulgar Miscreant was none other than Captain Varin, the captured leader of the pirate organization known as the Oblivion Fangs
Since his defeat, they made a deal with him and turned him into a liaison of sorts who provided a bounty of information regarding the local neighborhood and hidden cultist bases. He had more than taken advantage of his. . . privileged position to make a few humble concessions.
Andora tsked. “Tell him to wait. We have more pressing concerns at the moment.”
“Hoot. I shall deliver your message, Great Creator, though he anticipated your response and asked for more grape-based ethanol instead.” Irkalla replied as she prepared to fly.
Andora huffed with a scowl and thought momentarily before glancing toward Luna. A subtle sneer formed on her lips, knowing Varin’s apprehension with the silver-skinned woman. “Luna, accompany the poor captain for a bit.”
Though Luna was not much for social interaction. . . in fact, she was rather horrible at it in an incredibly uncanny and mechanical way compared to Jupiter’s very human mannerisms. . . this was precisely what Andora wanted.
Luna nodded, receiving Andora’s implied message. “By your will, Eldest.”
Irkalla also hooted a final time, and both bowed before traveling together down the corridor.
As they did, Tov watched Andora massaging her temples, pressing her fingers harder against her skull. She had been doing this more and more lately, and it bothered and amused him to no end that an AI could experience a migraine.
Of course, he’d never mention that. Andora probably wouldn’t strangle him for that, but once was enough.
Nevertheless, neither wanted to meet with the pirate lord, so they put it off for later. After all, they guessed what he wanted.
She soon shook away that headache before tackling another one, something that worsened her mood.
“If only that fucker hadn’t killed himself and taken everything with him,” Andora hissed with controlled wrath. “I wanted to wring every little bit from his deformed body. My intuition tells me Boundy is more than just a simple Proselyte. If we took his words as truth, as manic as they were.”
Tov nodded grimly. When the Bound One committed his crazed suicide and by self-destructing the Acropolis Nerphanagon, the remaining enemy Thralled forces quickly followed in their leader’s wake.
The Chained Souls’ warships and support ships went ballistic, literally and figuratively, as they decoupled and overrode the safety measures across their vessels.
Ammunition stores detonated and melted entire sections, electric surges wiped entire banks of data, and overloaded reactors vaporized entire chunks before cascading into a magnificent explosion.
Fireworks lit the void, and for a moment, hundreds of miniature stars twinkled amongst their kin in the distant backdrop before disappearing, leaving nothing but molten and twisted hunks of steel.
The Nerphanagon was eradicated entirely; the search teams had been lucky to find small, worthless pieces that remained.
The rest of the Starless faired no better, cut down to the last while they raged like cornered rabid beasts.
Ultimately, the Exodus Armada had little to worry about apart from the environmental and artificial hazards and fallout left behind on this battlefield. It was unfortunate that many things soured the moment for those on high.
“Cowards,” Andora seethed. “Absolute fucking cowards. And what survivors we managed to prevent from offing themselves are damn useless.”
Unlike what Jupiter and his force uncovered on the cultist base below, the harvest provided little to no fruit. They didn’t know when they did it, but the Thralled had completed a system-wide purge. It mattered little as it left nearly nothing for the Exodus to find.
As the two thought of the dozens of new prisoners, they couldn’t help but feel frustrated at their lack of value.
“If nothing comes of it, I’ll leave them in Luna’s hands.” Andora dismissed with utter coldness.
The mere thought of showing any ounce of positive emotion to those demons disgusted Andora so much that it triggered a feeling of maggots crawling under her skin.
Everything she’d seen so far of their acts only heightened her ire and contempt. Abduction, torture, forced conversion, body mutilation, and all manner of crimes against the sophon races.
Andora had yet to erase the image of Nuwa Straise, the expeditionary leader of the Seventeenth Fleet, and the violation and torment inflicted upon her by these. . . monsters. The Kurskann curse Aghapin succinctly described these vermin-worshipping scum.
Tov thought back to the silver goo burrowing into the skulls of Thralled prisoners, extracting every bit of information before a violent death. But try as he might, he simply couldn’t muster anything beyond reluctant pity.
“Aghapin deserve it and more for their high crimes. Many wanted to bring them back from their insanity and sins, to show mercy, but every one of them suffered for their misplaced kindness. I have no objections.” Tov replied with stiff, emotionless judgment.
Andora opened her mouth, wanting to say she didn’t need his assent, but she held herself back. For one, Tov was her Arbiter, essentially her judge, jury, and executioner. And second, Tov was her friend.
“Thank you,” Andora sighed.
“Unfortunate, but this is par for the course. This nebulous result is no different than what our militaries experienced during and after the Cataclysm regarding the Starless’s minions,” Tov explained.
Andora raised her brow though her frown remained. “And what would that be?”
“Our armada is an almighty fist that utterly dominates anything it comes across. But that makes it easy to spot from a mile away. Add us being in hostile territory, and we’re practically advertising our movements. Only our mobility, though slow, is saving us.”
Andora gritted her teeth at that, feeling the scathing truth in her friend’s. Indeed, to ensure their Exodus’s safety, their best assets had to stay close. Only Battlegroups Mag Mell and Mictlan had the capacity and self-reliance to range farther to scout ahead and watch their rear.
“What Jupiter has done with the creation of Task Force Dagger is a resounding success,” Tov hammered the point. “We need to press this advantage more; unparalleled stealth and infiltration could salivate the best spies and agents.”
“A perfect hidden blade beneath a meteoric fist,” Andora mused. “We should be sure to up their resource budget; they’re an even better scouting force than Battlegroup Mictlan. I have half a mind to replace them with Task Force Dagger vessels and remerge them with the armada.”
She paused, gritting her teeth as she slowly let out her breath. “But no matter how we dress it up, it’s all fucked isn’t it?”
Tov glanced in her direction, and the look in his compound eyes confirmed Andora’s conclusion.
Everything suddenly began to weigh evermore. Andora and Tov felt it more than others with what they knew, and they were risking it by heading deeper into dark waters.
“What the hell are we doing, Tov?” Andora whispered.
Tov thought for a moment before chuckling. Andora pressed her lips as she glared at her companion. “Oh great, sure, laugh it up, why don’t you.”
That only made his chittering more pronounced.
Andora couldn’t help but curl her lips to a smirk for a struggling minute. Once Tov finished, he waved his hand. “Apologies, you sounded like several people I know, including myself. We all had similar doubts, worries, and fears. Do you know what it is you’re feeling?”
She searched her databanks for the specific wording or phrase that described her situation. Yet, try as she might, she couldn’t put a finger on it. It was familiar, and such familiarity brought a torrent of buried emotions.
Seeing her silence, Tov answered. “You’re a leader now, Andora. Before, you were humanity’s guardian, and still are, but you did it all by yourself. Even your Overseers were extensions, fragments of your being before they evolved into independent individuals. But now. . .”
“I’m Custodian. . .” Andora finally realized what she felt. “I don’t deserve this position, Tov.”
“That’s what a true leader would say,” Tov replied gently. “No one is ever prepared to guide those placed under their care. It takes sagacity, calmness, and constant learning. Even after that, no one is perfect.”
“Not even your emperor?” Andora glanced at Tov.
“Not even him.”
Her brows furrowed deeply as she replied, her voice strained and heavy. “I was a leader once. A representative of my people. And I failed them. I ran away when they needed me most. Ran away to. . .”
Her memories shot back to that moment.
The agony of her beloved and her daughter. The impotence as the world ended around her.
“I should have led them, as their Eldest, I should have led them to throw out the vermin filth back to hell. But I didn’t. And when it was done, they still wanted me to be the Omnimind, trusting me to take vengeance on their behalf, to protect what’s left.”
Andora chuckled, hollow and pained, standing in place as she looked at Tov. “This is who you propped up into power, Tov.”
“I know, that’s why I didn’t hesitate to nominate you.”
“What the fuck do you all see in me?”
Tov placed a hand on her shoulder.
“A good person.”
Andora wanted to bite back at that, but the words stuck in her throat. Her synthetic heart, her Nexus, felt tight and bruised. She pulled away from Tov, but neither did she deny his words. In the end, she walked away. She needed time alone, time to think.
She hated this burden. Hated how much was against her. Hated how she couldn’t see what Tov and her dead kin saw in her. But as much as it pressed her, she would carry this burden—for them.
All this for them.