Who the hell am I even supposed to tell about this?
The Talo Superdomes didn’t feel like home anymore. Aside from the disappointment of failing to find a piece of Ligeia to bring back as proof and claim the mission’s reward, he found himself almost entirely alone among his factionmates—even more so than usual. Aside from Aurein, Flint was the only one who knew of the Erista Flash in all of Talo. Every person he passed by when moving to or from his quarters, or walking through the mess hall, or spending time in the recreation room—none of them knew what the Erista Flash implied.
A supposed object of unfathomable power—the Terminus—was waiting in their galaxy for the taking. And Tymin was likely already on their way to take it. An object so powerful, it alone could bring a faction to victory, and only Aurein and Flint seemed to know about it. Asking around told him it wasn’t entirely unheard of; in fact, the Terminus was an infamous myth, but nobody realized it was actually out there.
“It’s real?! Seriously?” a tablemate of Flint’s exclaimed at the mess hall.
“It is, I’m certain!”
“You really should tell someone about this,” she said between bites of food with a half-full mouth.
Flint’s frustration grew and he clenched his fists.
“I have been! I’ve been telling everyone I could but… but how do I even get it anywhere? Who can I tell to make this mean something?”
He could only ever get a hold of his fellow, regular Talo fighters. There never seemed to be anyone important around, except for those rare scenarios when a soldier is out of line, in which case officials seemed to appear out of nowhere to put them back in their place. And it was this that made Flint realize what that place was.
He was a pawn.
No, maybe that was a bit of an overstatement—he wasn’t treated like a pawn, not at all. He had good food, good shelter, good—well, he at least had pay—and reasonable leadership. Life in Talo didn’t make him feel like he was being used in the slightest.
But was he?
It had to be the case—if Flint really, truly mattered in this faction, then his voice would be heard. If he couldn’t really make a difference, he had to be a pawn.
This crushed him inside a little. Actually, reevaluating, more than a little. All the work, all the time he spent to get into Talo's main headquarters, all to make the difference in the galaxy that he sought—but he was still merely a piece of a greater whole. Ultimately, he couldn’t make a difference at all, even when he thought he could.
Maybe he could make a difference if he got ahold of his unseen leader.
Wait. Where was his leader?
Come to think of it, Flint had never seen anyone important in the main building before, except for those rare instances where one or two appeared to put down a protest. The employees that managed the hangars and the food and the weapons, all of them were the same rank as him. Leadership existed only in the form of messages on screens or the assignments on the assignment board. Everyone independently fought with the common goal of raising Talo’s ranking, but it stopped there—nobody more important stepped into the matter, and nobody questioned it. Why question the norm if the norm worked just fine?
But they had to be somewhere, right?
After the doubt-inducing revelation of his status within Talo, Flint didn’t want to believe there wasn’t even real leadership. He had to find Talo’s leader.
Flint left the mess hall and made his way to the training facility, where a sweat-covered Aurein was sparring a fellow Talo member. Flint caught his eye, and he left his sparring partner to join Flint’s side.
“What’s going on?” Aurein asked, wiping his face with a towel.
“I want to explore Talo. There are a bunch of domes we haven’t been in yet that I want to visit. I want to find our leader.”
“I thought they were restricted to officials?”
“I thought so too, but we need to tell someone about the Erista Flash. Someone important. I think this is worth breaking a few rules.”
Flint led the way through the main Talo residential dome and towards a heavily sealed metal door at the dome’s boundary. Beside the door was a screen, displaying information about the conditions outside. It read:
DANGER CLASS: 2
TEMPERATURE: 366 KELVIN
WIND SPEED: 15 M/S
TUNNEL STATUS: DEPLOYED
Flint glanced over the information and then pushed a button on the door. It whirred to life, clicks and clunks echoing from within as the bulky, well-secured bulkhead undid its locks and slowly opened before them.
He walked through the doorway to see a large, clear tunnel reinforced by semicircular steel beams. It was filled with intense light from the brutal sun above, and a few hundred feet of tunnel ahead was another large dome with an equally protected door. Flint had never seen it before—the confines of the residential and travel domes were all he had ever known. Neither he nor any other Talo fighter had bothered to travel outside of the boundaries of their orders. He walked through the tunnel, feeling the cold air conditioning blow on him from vents above as he gazed at the searing blue sand outside, Aurein following just behind.
The other door came into sight and Flint pressed another button, the door going through the same system of loud deadbolts undoing themselves. It opened, and Flint walked through.
This dome was similar to the previous one, but with one crucial difference: there were far fewer people, and every person walking around wore a neat, fancy uniform. There was an air of dignity to the scene.
The layout was different, too—instead of being divided by hundreds of smaller rooms, this dome was far more spacious, divided into only a few separate areas. In the middle of the main area they had entered was a large, cylindrical elevator, leading all the way to a large structure attached to the roof of the dome. A balcony was attached to the structure, looking down at the area below, but nobody seemed to be present.
Before even thirty seconds had passed, an armed guard approached the two.
“Are you two authorized to be in this dome?” he asked.
“No, I’m just a fighter; but we’ve found important information that could help Talo advance in this war,” Flint explained.
“I’m sorry sir, but if you’re not authorized to be in this dome, you have to leave immediately.”
“It’s about the Terminus!” Flint sputtered. “We’ve found information about the Terminus.”
The guard froze and then looked between the two.
----------------------------------------
The sheer number of security and background checks the two had to go through on the way to their leader’s office made Flint think they were entering a prison. For at least an hour, he was shunted through a number of dimly-lit, sterile rooms by dozens of different armed guards and uniform-sporting officials. In each room he sat with an interrogator, sometimes multiple, and recounted his life (or rather, death) story and answered numerous security questions. Not once did he see Aurein in the process.
He walked into a purely white room with a number of pin-sized holes in every wall and waited. A voice came on an intercom.
“Please stand still within the sterilization chamber. You will be done shortly.”
With a loud hiss, a cloudy white gas came from every nozzle and quickly filled the chamber. He tried to hold his breath, but eventually he couldn’t anymore, and Flint was forced to inhale the cold, acrid gas. He coughed a few times, his body trying to expel the gas, but the irritation in his lungs and throat eventually subsided. Another loud hiss came from all around and the nozzles began to suck up the gas, turning the chamber clear again. The door opened.
Flint stepped into a large, well-lit conference room with five people sitting within. There was Aurein, already waiting, three impeccably-dressed individuals sitting adjacent to each other, a woman and two men, and a young man sitting cross-legged in his chair, one hand on the table and the other around a massive, thickly-sheathed sword. The sword-wielding man was very casually dressed, even more so than Flint or Aurein, and had a young, bored face. Which of these people was his leader, if any? Nervous, Flint sat next to Aurein.
“Welcome to the Commander’s office,” one of the finely-dressed people said, a man with dark blue hair. “We’ve heard you two have information pertaining to the success of Talo.”
“Y- yes,” Flint stammered, all eyes on him. He felt uncomfortable in the presence of such power. “Aurein and I have discovered–”
“Before you continue, please sign this waver assuring you will not bring any information discussed in this room outside these confines,” the well-dressed woman interrupted, sliding forward a sheet of paper. Every strand of dark-green hair was perfectly placed. “If you disobey the contents of this waver, you may be either expelled from Talo or executed.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Flint gulped and pulled the paper towards himself. There was a pen attached to the paper’s top. In complete silence, he unattached the pen and signed his name on the bottom of the paper, careful not to read the anxiety-inducing contents it entailed. When he was done, he slid the paper back to the woman. Flint noticed there was already another identical paper beside her with Aurein’s name on it.
“Good. Continue,” she ordered.
“Um… well…” Flint started, his confidence now thoroughly shattered, “Aurein and I took a mission a couple days ago—an assassination mission. It was for the spy that escaped a while back, Ligeia Mare, and we ended up finding her after searching for a while.” He then became aware of the sword-wielding man across from him, how the man’s previously wandering attention had locked on to Flint’s words. Flint swallowed uncomfortably.
“We found out that she had been infiltrating Talo to see if we knew about the Erista Flash.” The sword-wielding man’s eyes briefly twitched. “Oh—uhh, the Erista flash is something Tymin scientists found on another planet- er, moon. There was some kind of flash on a moon called Erista, and it was so bright that it could have only been caused by some object of extreme power. The Tymin files we found on it said the Flash had to have been caused by the Terminus. And I wanted to tell you all what we found and ask what the Terminus was.”
The well-dressed officials indistinctly talked amongst themselves and the sword-wielding man played with a scab on his finger, leaving Flint unanswered. After several moments of this, Flint grew impatient.
“And, uh, who are all of you people?” he asked.
Flint’s improper comment snapped the room into silence. Aurein looked at him from the corner of his eye.
“Apologies for the delay. Yes, we have not told you who we are yet. And you have likely never seen us before,” the second well-dressed man said, with a deep and low voice. “My name is Nelja,” Nelja gestured towards himself, “this is Kaksi,” he gestured towards the blue-haired man, “And this is Colma.” He gestured towards the green-haired woman. “We three are the Talo Additional Leadership Committee, or TALC for short-”
“The Calamity Crew,” the sword-wielding man interjected. All eyes shot to him, the eyes of the TALC scornful. His voice was distinct and pronounced, deep yet playful. He turned his dark purple eyes towards Aurein and Flint. “They’re called the Calamity Crew,” he repeated.
“And this,” Nelja started, trying to hide his frustration, “is Jim. He’s Talo’s supreme commander.”
On the very first week of being in power, the fifth leader of Talo, Spine, picked a successor. This successor was a young boy, only age 5 at the time, with an impossibly long and complicated name. His name was Uojeerimeai, but it was pronounced “Jim.” Any correlation between this name and any other names on other planets would happen to be pure coincidence.
Jim, even at the age of four, proved to be a swordsman prodigy. He had no Val, a fact which, on its own, was a statistical likelihood, but it was highly unusual for the successor of any faction in the domain not to possess a Val. He had no particularly notable abilities, and he was unusually unintelligent. But anything that had to do with swordsmanship, however obscure, he excelled at beyond all reasonable belief. He had learned the way of the sword before he had learned to talk.
Before being chosen by Spine, Jim had once wandered into the woods outside of his home. By purely bad luck, he made his way into the central nest of a group of deadly creatures that even the most prestigious hikers and hunters would avoid. However, Jim fended them off for 48 hours with nothing but a long, sword-like stick he happened to pick up off the ground. Jim had slaughtered 9 of them, and by the time he was discovered by a search party, the 4-year old boy was left unscathed, save for the stains of blood on his body from the creatures he had killed.
When his training began under Spine, he was given his first real sword. It was quickly broken during training by Jim’s raw strength, and every other sword that was forged for him would meet the same fate. Spine ordered a sword to be made for the boy, finer than any sword that had ever been made before, one that would take a decade to make. In the meantime, Jim was given a piece of reinforced metal rebar to train with while his sword was constructed.
He trained for a grueling 10 years, substituting almost all traditional education for battle training, and at the age of 15, the Talo leader, Spine, was imprisoned by the Zysti Galaxy Federal Force after becoming weakened in a major battle. Jim became the new Talo leader to the displeasure of a great many Talo fighters, and, as per protocol in the Domain, dozens lined up to take the leadership away from him. If they beat Jim in battle, they became the new leader of Talo. Despite this, however, Jim beat every single challenger with just his signature rebar, occasionally stooping so low as to fend off opponents with a butter knife while he ate.
Eventually, every challenger was defeated, and while Jim was extraordinarily unintelligent, he proved to be a powerful leader over Talo, maintaining the territory Spine had claimed during a particularly tumultuous time in the Domain war. And, not long later, his ultimate sword was complete.
Far more than just blacksmiths were asked to help forge Jim’s sword. Nanoscientists, chemists, and quantum physicists were all asked to help build the strongest, sharpest sword imaginable by man. It weighed in at 83 kilograms of a hyper-dense argium-titanium alloy, such that even the hardest diamonds would shatter upon being hit by the blunt side of the blade. The sword’s blade was fine-tuned to the atomic level, without a single blemish, scratch, or dent. The tip of the blade was lined with singular hydrogen atoms lined up next to each other, small enough to cut individual molecules into pieces. The sword contained a machine that kept the blade at a temperature of 8 kelvin in order to keep the hydrogen in a solid state.
But the most important feature to Jim, its wielder, was a personal request he had put in before the sword’s completion. At the base of the hilt was a small compartment that could be opened with the press of a button. This compartment could dispense jellybeans, Jim’s favorite snack, one at a time, and hold up to 50 inside. He named the legendary blade Bumblo after a childhood pet he had.
Nelja’s mouth was shut, but Flint could see him grind his teeth in frustration. The other two were showing similar reactions.
“Jim has created his own little name for us,” Kaksi explained, his voice short. “He’s childish. He calls us the Calamity Crew because of his adversity towards proper, actual leadership.”
“I call you guys the Calamity Crew ‘cause you make leading Talo a disaster!” Jim huffed. “And you can’t take a joke!” Jim turned again towards the newcomers. “See, look at them, they haven’t smiled at all this whole time. They physically can’t smile,” he explained.
Flint looked over to the Calamity Crew, all of whom simultaneously glaring at Jim, and realized that none of the three had smiled a bit the whole time. Their expressionless faces hadn’t changed.
“But I can smile, see?” Jim said, putting a finger on either end of his mouth and giving them a big, toothy smile. “Nyeeee!”
“Enough, Jim, there’s a task at hand,” Colma interjected, causing Jim to drop his smile and roll his eyes. Colma turned to Flint and gave him a hard stare. “The Terminus. You say you’re certain Tymin has found it?”
Flint was caught off-guard. “Uh—well, I think Tymin has just discovered it. A few weeks ago. I have no idea whether or not they found it.”
“Valid reasoning.”
“But can I ask, what the hell even is the Terminus? Where’d it come from?” he added.
The Calamity Crew all looked at each other again and descended into urgent whispering. Jim picked up his massive sword, tilted it so the hilt was hanging just above his open mouth, and pressed a button on the hilt’s side. To Flint’s astonishment, a jellybean fell into Jim’s mouth, and he chewed it idly while Flint pondered his sanity. About half a minute later, the Calamity Crew emerged and, sitting properly, looked at Flint.
“We will tell you all that is known about the Terminus,” Kaksi said. “Are you aware of the Domain’s origins?”
“Vaguely,” Flint replied.
“I am,” Aurein interjected. All eyes fell on him. Aurein turned to Flint.
“The Domain came to this galaxy from another one called Zysti. Zysti was more developed than our galaxy is, so they kicked the Domain’s leader out after the Domain gained enough power. He came here, to Alue, bringing everyone he had amassed in Zysti, and since most civilizations here weren’t spacefaring, he conquered them all.”
“Correct,” said Kaksi. “And the one who founded the Domain was a man named Teo Nora. All records across the Domain provide different descriptions of his achievements, but they agree on one thing—his unmatched power.”
“I knew that much,” Flint said. “Or at least that he conquered the galaxy. But what does this have to do with the Terminus? What even is it?”
“Teo Nora maintained control of the galaxy for several years before neighboring Zysti Galaxy deemed him too powerful to be left unchecked. They sent a massive fleet into Alue with the intention of defeating the Domain and Teo Nora with it. During their conflict here on Epstrum, the Domain’s capital, Teo Nora vanished without a trace. Nobody knows what happened to him, but each of his five children, all present at the battle, had their own theory.
“The son that would become the future leader of Talo believed that his father had become so powerful that it was an act of fate for him to be struck down, and that a god had destroyed him during the battle. Following his death, Teo Nora’s children split the Domain between them, battling over control over the galaxy and wishing to unify it once more under their own control.
“The Terminus was an object hypothesized to exist either as a product of Teo Nora’s death, being the condensed aftermath of his immense power, or an object that he’d wielded all along and that granted him such power in the first place. We only knew it could exist because, scientifically, the unfathomable strength Teo Nora had in his possession during his time ruling the Domain had to go somewhere. If he died, which Talo’s first leader believed he did, then conservation of energy proved the existence of the Terminus.”
“What if he didn’t die, though? What if the Erista Flash is just his return?” Flint queried.
“Other factions may think so, but it’s unlikely,” Nelja said. “Each of Teo Nora’s children took a fifth of the Domain for their own, each rallying behind a theory of Teo Nora’s fate. The faction Keila believes he will return. But in reality, even someone as powerful as Teo Nora will meet their end. The Terminus was only a theory, but it had to exist somewhere.”
“And now, thanks to you two, we know it does exist,” Colma said. “Well done.”
There was a moment of silence in the conference room, Flint looking between the Calamity Crew with a hopeful look on his face.
“So, does this mean we’re going to take Terminus?” he asked.
“Not so fast,” Colma answered. Flint’s excitement vanished. “If we try to take the Terminus now, it could spark a conflict far beyond anything the Domain has ever seen. Besides, we don’t want to alarm Tymin that we’ve found their secret.”
“The best course of action at the moment is to sit and wait,” Kaksi finished.
Flint looked at the Calamity Crew with disbelief. “That’s it? We find an object with the power of the star created by our faction’s old leader and we just sit and wait?”
“Correct,” Nelja said in a dangerous tone. “Do you have a problem with those orders?”
Flint looked at Aurein, whose expression told him to “leave it be,” and calmed down. He looked down at the table and said tonelessly:
“No, sir.”
“Good. Do not worry—in due time, Talo will take the Terminus. We have a vast array of officials who are more than capable of taking it without a fuss. You have brought Talo one step closer to victory. You may leave now.”
Flint hesitated a moment before getting up from his chair and leaving the conference room, Aurein just behind.
When the door closed behind the two, Jim placed a foot on his chair and leaned on his knee with a smile.
“They really found it, huh?” Jim remarked.
“They did well. The Terminus will prove beneficial to Talo without a doubt,” Nelja said.
Jim said, still smiling, “You guys really think they weren’t totally interested in getting the Terminus for themselves?”
Nelja turned to Jim with disbelief. “Why would they? They specifically received orders not to.”
Jim shook his head and looked nowhere in particular. “You guys sure are tone-deaf.”
----------------------------------------
Almost the instant after entering back into Talo’s residential dome, Flint turned to Aurein.
“Are you thinking exactly what I’m thinking?”
“Yes. We get it ourselves. It’s obvious the Talo officials don’t plan to act anytime soon.”
“What the hell do they think is gonna happen?! Tymin already knows where it is and is probably going to get it as we speak! We can’t just ‘sit and wait!’”
“Not to mention…” Aurein added, looking seriously at Flint.
Flint looked at his body. It wasn’t his own, and it hadn’t been for almost a hundred years. He remembered his parents, he remembered the torturous reality of being able to see and hear the veil of the dead but being too weak to pass through. He dreamt of the power he could gain. He thought of seeing his family again.
“I know,” Flint said. “We have to do it.”