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LUNARA
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Chapter Fifty: Musings of Duty - Part Six
Galactic Location: Theocratic Imperium’s cluster
Ruling Government: Theocratic Imperium
Solar System: Adrius
Location: Adrius Prime
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***
Six Months Ago
***
My hands are clenched, though somehow not as tight as my stomach as I glide downward toward the planet’s surface. Looking out at the thousands of shuttles that flitter across the sky, countless more drones, owned by the Imperium, blot the skies. My heart aches thinking of Yekka, hoping that Inquisitor Victoria does not truly have her and that father will save me from this nightmare. Thoughts of my grandfather brush the curious parts of my mind too. Why is he involved in this? Why would an Inquisitor find purpose in seeking him out?
The lift hums to a halt as I reach my destination. Father is there already. His face, there it is again, almost the inkling of feeling ebbing across it. Yet, before it fully crests, it is battered down, years of repressing his emotions showing form.
“We move.” He says, not giving me even a glance.
“Father,” I say, no longer following his path.
He stops, yet he does not scold me as he normally would for not following decorum in public.
“Where is Yekka?” I ask him, grasping his arm, feeling the cold metal of his black armor.
“Taken.” He says, pulling his arm from my grasp slowly before turning “Do not speak of it here.”
His stride opens, his eyes looming back and forth between empty halls. So, she is really taken, that was not a trick. Did Yekka know this would happen? Is that why she looked so worried before? Why has my father not demanded her back? She is a member of our house. No, Inquisitor Victoria must have something to hold over his head, father would never let such an insult to our house stand. What is going on? Something larger must be at play, and I am just a puppet on someone’s strings. Perhaps it is to get at my father, he is Primus for one of the galaxy’s strongest houses. Victoria even said so herself.
The pace of his stride makes me jog to keep behind him, even though his steps look calm and measured, they are much quicker than normal.
“Luna!” a voice yells from one of the halls as I pass.
My head turns as I stop and go back, it is Solara, she rushes to meet me.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Girl.” My father says sternly to me, having stopped to wait, giving Solara a menacing look now. He always calls me that when he is displeased, which of late has been frequent.
“I am leaving,” I say to Solara.
“Leaving?” she asks, ignoring the look from my father “You’ve only just arrived, what about the trials?”
My head hangs low, shame rising from my chest, if I was not such a failure of an heir, this never would have happened. Yekka would not be captured.
“I failed the preliminary,” I admit, the words feel like poison to my resolve.
She gives me a twisted look, backing away.
“Preposterous, you did better than anyone else, myself included.” She protests, a look of anger skews her face. It surprises me, I have not known her very long. For her to get angry on my behalf, it is a strange feeling.
“Girl,” father warns me again.
He is not wrong, we should make haste. I wish there were more time, to get to know her, perhaps even hear things about our mothers. It is seldom that anyone speaks of mine.
“It was good to meet you, Sola,” I say, holding out my arm.
She embraces it. Swiping her holopad to mine, exchanging our contacts.
“I pray it will not be the last I see you.” She says.
Father begins to move, and my feet follow, giving one last glance to her as I go. It almost looks like worry on her brow. If she was from the Republic of Hekate, I wonder if we could have become true friends. Something tells me that my father will not approve, whether it is because she is from the Gallec Empire or something else, I cannot tell.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
***
We did not speak even on the shuttle ride to the Hyperion. My mind fills with more questions than answers, the silence is deafening as the worry kicks me in the chest. If I fail this mission, she will kill Yekka, more so, she will destroy my house. A threat from an Inquisitor is not easily disregarded.
When the shuttle loading bay door opens, a hundred knights in their heavy crusader armor salute my father. Their thick pauldrons and heavily plated armor are designed to withstand almost all but Ionic weapons. Each one’s armor is specially made, with small adjustments to suit their preferences, a customary right after they have become a knight. I remember when I received mine after becoming a Knight, that pride at hearing my father calling me by the rank, a lost memory now in the face of my failure.
The craftsmanship of our house’s knight armor is some of the best in the Galaxy, owing to the many Dwarthen worlds our forefathers liberated from a fallen empire. We are fortunate that they volunteer to join our armies willingly.
From what I am told, the Gallec Empire does not employ any race that is not Alverian. My eyes lower, what hardships the people of their empire must face. It reminds me how fortunate that we are. The Republic of Hekate is one of the few meritorious governments in the galaxy. Kotina told me so after three bottles, so I know it to be true. I remember that she said as an Arasha, she would never have been selected to become a Knight Commander, were she still outside the Republic. Her short blue hair bobs as she moves past the Knights towards my father. Her deep blue eyes looking at her subordinates kindly, giving them playful looks. She is well respected, more than anyone else in our house, save my father. There is not a single person who would claim she did not earn her place, that is her legacy, one of merit and honor above all. It is why her Edict chose her instead of others before her.
“Carry on.” my father says to all of the saluting knights, beckoning Kotina to him with a single glance.
“Welcome back, Lord,” Kotina says, then looking at me she pauses, confused she asks “The trials?”
I was not supposed to return for at least a year, if I returned at all.
“Failure,” I admit.
“I find that very hard to believe,” Kotina says, but she turns and looks at my father when she says it.
“Ready the diplomatic chamber,” Father says, giving her an eye.
“Are we expecting company?” Kotina asks, swiping a command through her holopad.
“No.” He says, moving toward the lift.
“Should I ready the weapon systems?” she asks him quietly.
“They should always be ready,” he says, giving her a look.
“What about those other…” she begins, but he cuts her off.
“Not yet.”
Their pace is quicker than mine, but I still manage. The heavy thuds of the Knights escorting my father resound off the hard composite metal floors. Bright lights from the ceiling and the side walls amplify the light in the large hanger bay. Hundreds of shuttles are tucked neatly up in storage mode by robotic arms. Pilots moving back and forth, conducting simulations in pods, always preparing. The whir of the servos in the Knight armor is almost washed away by the sound of a Dwarthen chief warrant officer barking orders to his troops. The engineering and repair part of the ship's crew. Without them, we would all be lost. It is one of the reasons that the flagship Hyperion is coveted and not looked down upon.
One of the Dwarthen soldiers moves past my father’s path quickly, standing at less than half my father’s height. My father makes even Arasha and Alverians look short, to this Dwarthen man, he is a looming mountain. The soldier strains his head upwards towards my father, rendering a salute. My father returns it without looking at him. His mind focused on something else. When we reach the lift, Kotina swipes her holopad at the console.
The lift hums upwards, father and Kotina exchange cryptic glances as we ascend to the middle decks of the ship. Nearest the Etherium generators that keep us safe from Netheric sabotage among other things. There is only one reason father would want to meet in the diplomatic chambers, the same reason he located them so close to the main Etherium hub of the ship. To avoid prying eyes and ears. As we approach the room, three large metal circular interlocking doors guard its contents.
“Post outside, Knights,” Kotina says to the escort as my father opens the doors with his command holopad.
After we enter, the doors slide closed and my father punches another command in. Mana swims into the air, vibrating rapidly in condensed waves, until it reaches the edges of the room. Sound echoes back at us.
“What the frag happened?” Kotina asks me as soon as she is sure the room is shielded.
Father moves to the head of a long and elegant wooden table, carved from the white Ikarian trees that grow upon Ravena Prime, silver metallic lines trace its substructures, having reinforced it against the gravitational onslaught of where it was grown. They glitter in the bright lights from the high ceilings. Purple patterns weave upon the black-painted walls. Mosaics of our house’s Goddess Ravena are depicted in silver paint.
“Sit.” My father says, rubbing his temples for a moment before collecting himself.
Following his bidding, Kotina and I sit near him, waiting for his next command.
“Tell me everything, even details you think irrelevant.” He says, crossing his arms and looking at me intently. Kotina does the same.
***
After I finish retelling the story, silence hangs in the air for almost a minute.
“Alert Fennec, his services will be required.” My father says to Kotina, standing now.
Kotina and I stand as well, waiting for him to speak again.
“See to the departure, I need to pray.” He says.
Kotina nods, giving me a glance.
“Understood, Lord.”
Father breaks away from us, heading toward the shrine of Ravena in the very center of the ship. It is not often that he prays, he must truly be worried to seek our Goddess’s guidance.
“Come on pup,” Kotina says, slapping my shoulder firmly.
She tries to hide the worry on her face, but she has never been good at pretending. It is perhaps one of the things I admire about her. Never able to be anyone but herself. Honest and chivalrous to a fault.
“We need to get you set up for your mission.”
“Who is Fennec?” I ask her.
She pauses for a moment ruminating on it.
“He is… a scoundrel, at times a liar, almost always a cheat.” She says raising an eyebrow as though deep in memory “But he is loyal to your father, and he has honor, most of the time.”
She looks at me, and seeing the confusion on my face she chuckles.
“He is a good choice for this mission, especially since you go to look amongst the Kuwathi for your grandfather.” She says earnestly.
Thoughts rattle in my mind. Wondering if there is more that she knows and is not saying, not about Fennec, but about the mission. She was awfully quiet when I spoke about what happened, giving my father more of those cryptic glances. What will my future hold I wonder…