Aboard the alien vessel, Lady Nimue Gael sat upon a luxurious cushion on a small hill in her expansive stateroom, scanning through screen after holographic screen of reports she’d been sent since making planetfall. Every square meter of the richly appointed suite had been covered with soil from Gael IV, the ancestral home of the House of Gael. Diffuse bluish light filled the suite, nurturing the lush carpet of blue-green clover that covered the floor along with the ornamental dwarf lace-leaf trees that cast their own dim light from purple bioluminescent leaves. Holographic projections covered the few metal surfaces in the room, giving the feeling that one had stepped into a small forest clearing rather than the personal domain of the most important woman aboard the Spear of Destiny.
Lady Nimue herself, however, would instantly draw attention away from the scenery of her stateroom with her presence alone. From her milky pale skin to her rich purple hair, not a single centimeter of her diminutive figure could be called imperfect. Fine sapphire jewels the same shade as her lush, bow-shaped lips, draped from delicate, pointed ears. Her deep blue eyes radiated a piercing intellect with pupils that changed shape from round to elongated as she worked her way through the dozens of reports requiring her attention.
Finally, after waiting far longer than she’d expected, one of the trees in her stateroom shimmered before transforming into a doorway that led to the ship’s far more modern interior. The woman who entered immediately touched her fingertips to her pencil-thin brows, then her firm lips, and then crossed her hands over her chest as she bowed deeply to the noble lady in command of their ship. “My Lady, I bring good news. While there is much about the relic we still don’t understand, the directional guidance we received from it has led us to a candidate among the captives. We were able to extract him from his mech before the fire in the cockpit inflicted life-threatening injuries. I would have reported sooner but given the importance of a candidate, I felt it best to tend to his medical treatment personally,” she explained.
“So the first pulse wasn’t an error, there really was a candidate on this planet,” Lady Nimue said, her shimmering butterfly-like wings fluttering in excitement before she forced herself to calm down. Of all the Fae aboard the Spear of Destiny, very few possessed the genuine physical wings that marked her as a member of one of the great noble houses. While the glow of her wings was dim, she knew that would change as long as she managed to turn this near disaster around with the prize they’d obtained. “Tell me about these captives, Priestess Eirian, and about our candidate in particular. Their war machines seemed very primitive, even if they were just an offshoot of the Solarian Empire.”
“My Lady, this is one of the parts that took so long to verify. No one has charted this star cluster in over two hundred years. Our last probes found nothing other than barely evolved silicates with the intelligence of common pests. It seems, however, that in the past two hundred years, much has changed,” the priestess explained. “My Lady, the people we seized are Original Stock humans.”
“What!” Lady Nimue exclaimed. “How are there Original Stock humans this close to the Vela Dark Clouds? I thought that the only humans who were this close to civilized space were other outcasts and victims of the Solarian Empire’s cleansing. You’re telling me that we’ve captured actual citizens of the Solarian Empire?”
“My Lady, it seems that the Solarian Empire collapsed more than a thousand years ago,” the priestess replied with a twitch of her ears. “Human space is now ruled by business magnates and corporate entities. The enemy our ancestors fled no longer exists,” the priestess explained. It seemed surreal. After so many years, the empire that had nearly eradicated their people had fallen. For the priestess, it was a powerful vindication of her faith that the more evolved among Ancient Earth’s descendents had prevailed but the absence of the great threat left a hole within her that she had yet to fully process.
“According to the raiding party dispatched to their orbital stations, the humans sent members of their indentured servant class here to extract minerals from this world,” Eirian continued, bringing the conversation away from the disquieting news to more immediate concerns. “The rather primitive mechs they sent against us were used in the excavation of minerals. The only warrior mech among them seems to have been configured as an overseer.”
With a wave of her hand, Priestess Eirian conjured a holographic projection of Sergeant Dane’s instructions to the pilots of the Rock Breakers along with a translation of his words in glowing blue script at the bottom. “We extracted this recording from the overseer’s mech after disabling it,” she explained. “As you can see, currency and mercantile interests along with threats of violence are their only methods of controlling their indentured servant class.”
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“How insulting,” Lady Nimue spat with a furious gaze. “They dispatched menial laborers to fight against our soldiers while their actual soldiers tried to flee. Even this Overseer seems to have been forced into unwilling action. You’re telling me that you found a candidate among this rabble?” Seeing the actions of the Overseer, it made it difficult for her to believe that anyone among these indentured servants could possess the kind of fire and determination to provoke a response from the powerful relic. People who fought for currency could never compare to those who fought for something greater!
“I did,” the priestess said with a gleam in her amethyst eyes. “This person,” she indicated, bringing up a recording of Zayd’s charge among his fellow Rock Breakers. “His mech is all but crippled to prevent it from being capable of combat but his movements are an order of magnitude more refined than the others in this pack of mongrels. He was ruthless enough to use one of his fallen companions as a shield against our soldiers and then use that same fallen companion as a munition to suppress several of our soldiers. His actions were futile but he reached the hull of the Spear of Destiny and managed to strike a blow. I can’t help but wonder how effective he would have been if he’d had a real warfighting machine,” she mused.
“I admit that he’s better than the rabble he fought with but that doesn’t make him worthy. Yet you claim that the relic responded to him?” Lady Nimue asked, reviewing the recording from several angles.
“It did. He seems to have developed a mutation that resembles the Luminary strain of mutated humans. While it’s unlikely, the original Luminaries were the result of selective breeding without the injection of alien DNA. It’s possible for the original mutation to reoccur naturally among Original Stock humans,” Eirian explained. “Records we seized from their orbital installations indicate that this mutation prevented him from utilizing the cybernetic augmentations they use to connect their minds to their fighting machines,” Eirian explained. “This mutation has a fraction of the potential of a true Luminary but we found no signs of anything similar among any of the other Original Stock humans we captured. Rather than recognizing his potential for greatness, they affixed him with the label ‘defective’ and pressed him into service as a laborer.”
“Show me this man, how is his appearance?” Lady Nimue asked, beginning to become genuinely curious. Luminaries had been among the first strains of humanity to harness the power of Dark Energy and their place in the Imperium had never fallen despite several newer strains emerging with distinct advantages in harnessing Dark Energy.
“I think My Lady will be pleased,” the priestess said, her smile turning mischievous as she flicked to a projection of Zayd’s unconscious figure, stripped naked and lying on an examination table in a research lab. “He’s almost thirty centimeters taller than you at one hundred and ninety centimeters, his physique shows signs of systemic training with honed musculature. I can’t say that I entirely enjoy the short hairstyles favored by these indentured servant class humans but somehow, it fits his face well enough that I wouldn’t object if he chose to keep it.”
“What happened to his nose? Is that crookedness part of why they labeled him ‘defective’?” Lady Nimue wondered. “No, his whole face is like that, not quite symmetrical anywhere, it’s like you stitched together two halves of a clone that weren’t quite exactly the same. How odd.”
“This seems to be common among Original Stock,” the priestess explained. “Still, it’s easily correctable if it displeases you. We should consider carefully how much we may wish to modify him if we intend to use him. As stands, his appearance is distinctive in its imperfection. Some may look down on him for the differences but he will be memorable. If he is successful at harnessing the power of the relic, the voices that look down on his imperfections will be silenced by his strength, leaving you with only the benefits of his unique appearance,” she proposed.
“Very well, I’ve seen enough,” she said, giving his lean, muscular body a final glance before turning her attention back to the priestess. “I’m placing you in charge of this matter, Priestess Eirian. As an indentured servant, he should welcome the opportunity to become my Champion. If he’s stubborn, use whatever methods you deem fit to overcome that, though if he truly possesses a version of a Luminary strain you’ll need to be delicate. Do you have the means in your lab to progress his evolution?”
“No My Lady,” the priestess said with a shake of her head. “We’ll need to reach civilized space so I can receive the necessary base sequences before I can attempt to progress his evolution. Still, I can use rudimentary therapies to correct other deficiencies that have resulted from the primitive selective breeding that these merchants have used to produce him. I can also use more aggressive tissue modification if needed to give him at least rudimentary capabilities with our weapons. For a person like him who seems to have been bred to be a soldier, it should be an additional incentive to gain his cooperation.”
“Do it, and whatever else you need to do, but Priestess,” Lady Nimue warned. “Do not attempt to fuse him with the relic until he has sworn an oath to serve me. We have one opportunity, I will not squander it!”
“Your will, My Lady,” the priestess said, once again touching fingertips to her brows, lips, and across her chest before she bowed and made her exit. “Now, let’s see whether or not I have a willing specimen,” she said softly as she entered a transit tube that would carry her to her lab and the unconscious Zayd.