Chapter Sixteen

I watched in silence as the city outskirts whizzed by my window and were eventually replaced by sky roads winding above nature. Settlements were few and far between, as they’d only been built for specific reasons: such as to house the farmers working in the agriculture sectors, or for the engineers who ran mining operations.

Erik and Crowe had remained utterly silent for the past long while, and the messages from Rel had stopped coming. I’d tried a few times to grab Rel’s attention before double-checking that I could still access my chip’s other functions. Since everything was fine, I had to assume he’d fallen asleep…or gone somewhere that cut off his connection. After all, one of his last messages had mentioned something about going deeper underground to see whatever Jysel’s excavation team had discovered.

He’d offered to give me a play-by-play, but that clearly wasn’t happening.

Time to play good little soldier? I wondered, eyeing Crowe. “Sir, where are we going and what is my mission?”

Crowe winced. “Your mission is to protect me in case there are hostiles at the target location.”

“The target location being…?” If I hadn’t been wearing my suit and visor, I would have given him a nasty look. His wince gave me an idea, and what he said next confirmed it.

“The ruins of Grand Anldu.” Crowe’s shoulders slumped, and he bowed his head. “As the reason for my adventure so far from the capitol is vague at best, we suspect this may have been arranged—by my enemies in the Imperator’s inner circle, by the Syldrari, or by the orbiting Eritika war fleet.

“We confirmed that the operation you busted belonged to the Eritika fleet. Their council was very unhappy that the Syldrari relics were lost…and furious when they discovered their hirelings turned out to be criminals. While we don’t officially fault them, we also don’t trust them.”

I propped my chin in my palm and let out a soft sigh. “So, we’re going to the ruins of the first Resonance Incident—the place the Creshe Empire found me.”

“Yes.”

“This…fleet. Are Eritika another alien species?”

Crowe shook his head sharply. “Not exactly. Eritika is an intergalactic power that is home to countless species and races, founded by ex-pats and refugees. They’re known to be violent to protect their ideals or to bring down corrupt system lords.

“They will not disclose their target with us and will be in this system for a while because they have business with Jalan-ki Citomy. Emperor Julien’s inner circle, as you can imagine, is on edge.”

Erik glanced between us a few times before settling his focus on me. “I’ll be handling any possible human targets, and you’ll be going for xenos—unless there’s so many people that I can’t handle the humans myself.

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“There’re rumors that Grand Anldu’s ruins were taken over by ‘wild’ people who put the Creshe Empire behind them. They think Syldrari are gods, so with what happened to the city…”

“They think it was smote by divine fury.” I rolled my eyes, shooting all the information to Rel as it came to me. “I’ll admit I’m not happy about going back there. What are the plans if I go feral, and why haven’t we brought more of my team?”

Crowe grimaced. “About that…this is your last mission aside from emergencies. We—”

“What?!” I exclaimed. “What happened to ‘needing’ me for extermination?”

“Elara, please, let me finish,” Crowe held up both hands. “Citomy’s husbands put a lot of pressure on us to move you to the reserves. They showed us the destruction and chaos queens can inflict and warned that even synthetic queens would be terribly dangerous. They scared the inner circle.

“You will still be training with Rel and passing on what you learn to others in the program. I’ve sent him a formal request to train your team and you simultaneously. He accepted.”

“Ugh… And this is all effective when?” I grumbled.

“As soon as we return. Your patrols have also been cancelled,” Crowe answered. “I don’t like it either, but you don’t want to hear this shit from the other circle members.”

I eyed him when his tone turned venomous. “And why are you so sympathetic, General? I can’t get a read on your motives like I can with other humans.”

General Crowe smiled broadly. “I want to work with other civilizations toward the betterment of humankind. That is all. I’ve read the same histories you have, and more. On our current course, it’s only a matter of time until the Creshe Empire falls. One way or another.”

“See, this is what I like about you. Despite your rank, you’re a realist,” I remarked before I could consider keeping my mouth shut. He didn’t seem to mind, though, given the belly laugh.

“Hah! Surviving a war because your alien allies put themselves at risk to help you, despite being a prick of a kid, has a way of framing perspective,” Crowe offered. “I was a stupid, xenophobic kid like the rest of the empire once. The reality of war beat that out of me right quick. I’d be dead if it weren’t for our Brihl and Forseyl allies haulin’ my ass to safety and nursing me to health while we waited for rescue.

“Besides…aliens? Efficient killers, most of them. The war was against another, smaller human empire at the time. Things I saw them do to people, to aliens and other humans alike, it was sickening.”

“Multiple species have a saying that translates roughly to, ‘do not play with your prey as humans do. There is no peace in life or death for them or their victims.’ Some species are worse, of course…” Erik trailed off, shaking his head slowly as if to shake off how ill he’d started to look. “I haven’t been around as long as the general here, but I’ve seen my share of bad.”

“And even with all this information available, people choose to be unaware.” I couldn’t fathom being so willingly ignorant. Perhaps losing my memories had given me a thirst for knowledge, or the boredom of isolation had given me a need to do something. Either way, I struggled to understand the Creshe populace, or why no other species had directly interfered so far.

“There it is—Grand Anldu. I’m not seeing any campfires.” Crowe frowned, peering out the window behind me.

I shifted, spotting a shallow crater lit only by moonlight. Around it, the plains had taken on an unnatural appearance, the texture of the grass and plants nearly like that of crystal. The color was clearly off too, though I couldn’t make out the precise shade in the low light.

Within the crater, it was the same color, coating even the stubs of the few buildings that hadn’t been totally vaporized. Tents and mud houses dotted the inside of the crater, but there were no fires—and something was clearly wrong.

“Don’t land yet, do a scan,” I barked to the pilot, causing Erik to whip out some device and bring it to his eyes.

“Fucking…” Erik whispered, the rest too low for me to make out. “Sir, you should see this.”