Unknown Time

“Perhaps some explanations are in order.” Zerya said.

“You’ve got that right.” Kayden nodded.

“Before the Holy Kel-Azaan Empire and the Vrul Technocracy were rivals, we were friends.” Zerya started. “In our younger years we were both minor diplomats working for our respective peoples. We met during a trade mission, one thing turned into another, and…” She trailed off.

“You fell in love.” Kayden finished.

“Yes.”

Cyrius picked up the story where Zerya left off. “Unfortunately for us both, the mission itself went poorly and marked the beginning of the decline in relations between our people. We desperately tried to stay together but it became harder and harder to justify seeing each other as our societies became more and more hostile towards one another. In our last night together before the war broke out between our peoples, we worked together to develop our crowning achievement: a means for our peoples to create viable offspring. We called it the Xenocompatibility project.”

Zerya continued the story. “I became pregnant, but there were complications.”

“Let me guess – the baby couldn’t use Vrul technology?”

“I…yes. How did you know?” Zerya asked.

“The same technique was used later to…you know what? Never mind. It’s not important right now. Continue, please.” Kayden insisted.

“I didn’t want my daughter to grow up without being able to access her heritage, her birthright.” Cyrius said. “As the Vrul and the Kel marched to war, the two of us faded into reclusion together to care for her. Through a combination of desperation, ingenuity, and sheer dumb luck we achieved something that neither of us thought was possible: synthesis.”

His eyes shined with pride for a moment before hardening and continuing the story. “For a time, things were good. The three of us lived on a remote moon at the edge of the galaxy, away from the political machinations of the Kel and the Vrul. We raised her as best we could, helping her explore the full extent of her powers while teaching her about both societies. She became a prodigious biologist and roboticist at a young age, surpassing all of our expectations.”

He paused for a moment and shook his head before Zerya laid her hand softly on his leg and picked up the story. “It was not meant to last. A Vrul patrol stumbled upon our little hideaway. Before they landed we hid our daughter away and allowed ourselves to be imprisoned – him for desertion, and me for being Kel.”

“What happened after?”

“We were separated. Years passed. The penal colony I was being held on was eventually attacked by the Kel, and I was freed. I immediately journeyed back to the remote moon, but our daughter had long since gone.”

“It’s hard to believe a little girl survived long enough to build a spaceship and leave.” Kayden remarked.

“This was no ordinary little girl.” Cyrius countered. “She was incredibly talented, had robotic attendants, and access to the sum total of knowledge from both our civilizations.”

“You searched for her, didn’t you?” Kayden asked Zerya.

“Naturally. I wasn’t alone either. As a former prisoner of the Vrul, the Kel helped me reintegrate back into society. I began espousing new ideas about synthesis and gathered a small following. Together we discovered where Cyrius was being held and freed him only to discover he’d gathered a following of his own in prison – one with a similar goal. Our two groups came together and joined forces.”

Kayden furrowed his brow. “Its strange – none of this was in any of the archives or records I’ve seen.”

“Of course not.” Cyrius scoffed. “The idea of coming together as a group to achieve synthesis was one thing, but the idea of becoming romantically involved – or having a child – was still taboo. So we hid our love from our fellow partisans.”

“Our group spent several years moving from planet to planet, carefully covering our tracks from our respective governments while the two of us secretly searched for our wayward daughter. All the while, our followers grew ever closer to replicating our feat of achieving synthesis and our little group slowly grew.”

“How did they react when you eventually found her though?” Kayden asked.

“We didn’t find her. She found us.” Zerya corrected him.

“More specifically, she emerged on Vrul Prime with an enormous army.” Cyrius clarified. “One which she immediately used to overrun the planet.”

“When you say emerged…” Kayden started.

“Reports from that period vary but we think she’d been hiding there for years, biding her time. She’d built a cloning lab from nothing and created an army of genetically engineered warriors, which she unleashed on the planet in conjunction with a massive cyberattack that turned most robots and cybernetics hostile towards all Vrul.”

“That sounds…bad.” Kayden replied, thinking about the Voidborn attacks on Arcadia and Sanctuary. “And strangely familiar.”

“It was a massacre. She had several cities under her control before we realized we were even under attack, turning our orbital defenses against us. Her real goal was the planetary driveyards though. While we focused on retaking the planet, she used them to create an enormous fleet of ships of her own design.”

“You didn’t call for reinforcements from other systems?” Kayden asked incredulously.

“You have to understand – this was the seat of our power. The thought that we might actually lose the planet was unthinkable until it happened. By the time we brought in reinforcements she had a fleet of her own, and between that and our own orbital defenses she easily destroyed us. Once she’d consolidated her power over our world she took a sizable portion of her fleet and led them deep into Kel space, throwing the Kel into disarray. With every world she consumed her fleet and army grew larger, and resistance diminished. It was only a matter of time before she destroyed the Kel home world as well, leaving both our societies in shambles.”

“You didn’t try to talk to her?” Kayden asked. “You’re her parents. If anyone could convince her to stand down peacefully, it’s you.”

“We tried.” Zerya said, the pain evident in her cracking voice. “At first she was unrecognizable, but gradually we realized who she was and reached out to her. She told us that during her long period of isolation she’d ascended to a higher plane of existence, and come to the conclusion that both the Kel and the Vrul were too deeply flawed to be allowed to achieve synthesis. Then she cut us off and continued her assault. That’s when we realized that our daughter, the one we knew…was gone forever.”

“So then you hid.” Kayden said, knowing the end of their story already.

“Yes, we hid.” Cyrius confirmed. “Our group was clandestine by nature, so we built this cryosleep chamber while the galaxy crumbled around us. As the ranking remaining member of the Vrul race, I assumed the mantle of Mechanicus-General, and Zerya the title of High Priestess. We preserved as much of our knowledge as we could and went to sleep.”

“Except that you left out the part of the story where the Voidborn Queen is your daughter.” Kayden retorted.

“Telling our comrades that part would only serve to turn them against us.” Zerya countered. “We needed to be united. So we made up a story: that the Voidborn come from the dark space between galaxies.”

“What happened after you woke up?”

“You would know better than we would.” Cyrius said. “Our avatars only awoke when you interacted with the Key to Synthesis. We have no information regarding the events following the beginning of our cryosleep.”

Kayden began to pace back and forth. “Are you willing to tell the whole story to the Kel leadership now?”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“If you deem it to be helpful, yes.” Zerya replied.

“I’m curious: why not the Vrul leadership as well?” Cyrius asked.

“We’re…not exactly on good terms.” Kayden said. “They’re quite literally slowly going insane.”

“Impossible. My people would never follow incompetent leaders.”

“They don’t have a choice.” Kayden countered. “They’re enslaved using the neural links.”

“Why don’t you just disable them?” Zerya asked.

“I would if I knew how.”

Zerya furrowed her brow. “You do know how. You’ve had it done to you.”

Kayden cocked his head in confusion for a moment before the proverbial lightbulb went off in his mind. “Are you talking about the stuff you sprayed me with?”

“Yes.” She replied simply.

“I thought that was just…you know… cyberspace magic.” Kayden said, gesturing to the virtual world around them.

“This world is a reflection of reality.” Cyrius explained. “I will open our data banks now for your AI to read. Whatever information you find there is yours to use in whatever way you see fit.”

“I… thank you.” Kayden said, bowing his head. “This could tilt the scales in our favor.”

“I hope so. You already know the alternative.” Zerya said sadly.

[“I have the data, Kayden. We can recreate the neural link disabling substance. I also have schematics to create a swarm of drones.”]

Thank you Ali. Couldn’t do this without you. Kayden replied mentally, sending a burst of feelings of gratitude towards her.

“You should go.” Zerya said. “We have prepared you as best we can.”

As the world around him started to fade into blackness, Kayden shouted one more question. “Wait! What was your daughter’s name?”

There was a long pause as the world continued to darken, and Kayden was about to give up hope that he’d hear a response. He closed his eyes and felt the connection being severed before they whispered the answer together in a haunting, sad tone.

“Aelira.”

***

04:04, January 4th, 2135

“Ow.” Kayden complained as his consciousness returned to his body.

“Kayden!” Elara exclaimed, placing her hands on either side of his face. “Ali said you were okay in there, but… it’s been hours!”

“I’m okay.” Kayden replied, his eyes slowly opening before wincing. “A bit of a headache, but nothing I haven’t felt before.”

“Are you sure? You should stay down until we get a doctor to look at you, just in case.”

“I’m fine.” Kayden assured her, turning to her before placing one hand on her thigh. “Really. This is too important to wait anyways.”

“What did you find?”

Kayden looked at her kneeling form, trying to find the words to summarize everything that he’d learned. He thought for a moment about the fact that their knowledge of the Voidborn was based on a lie, that the technology that caused the current conflict between the two empires was designed out of love, and that he now held the key to freeing the Vrul from the iron grip of the executors. His mouth opened and closed several times, unsure of where to start. The last thought gradually made him realize there was someone else who needed to be included in this conversation.

“Ali, get Mirana on the radio.” Kayden said as he slowly began to sit up. “She needs to hear this too.”

“That sounds…ominous.” Elara said, reaching under his arms to help him up. “Do you want to tell me what this is about?”

“Not until she’s listening.” Kayden said, placing a hand on her cheek. “I know you’ve still got some reservations about the Vrul, but this is bigger than any of us. You deserve to hear this at the same time.”

“What? No, it’s not that. Her and I…we’re working on things.” She said before grinning slightly. “I’m just impatient, that’s all. I don’t like waiting to hear news.”

Kayden immediately felt a newfound sense of pride and respect for the two women wash over him. He leaned forward and kissed Elara’s blue lips softly, running his hand up to her hip as he did. She responded with a happy little squeal, scooting her kneeling form closer to him so she could return the kiss more fully.

“I’m proud of both you and Mirana.” He said, his grin widening. “You’re working against generations of conflict and prejudice, but you’re doing a fantastic job.”

“Oh, is that what you called me to say?” Mirana’s dry, sarcastic voice came over the radio. “Because if that’s it-”

“That’s not it.” Kayden interjected. “I just met the leaders of your ancestors, and they had a lot to say.”

Over the next 30 minutes, Kayden recounted everything that happened to him in the virtual realm – the avatars, the tests, and the final revelation that the Voidborn Queen was the child of the leaders. Elara and Mirana listened to him speak in English with rapt attention, only interrupting to ask questions where they didn’t understand or needed clarification. When he finally finished he watched Elara closely while listening to the deafening silence on the other end of the radio.

“That…changes things.” Mirana said finally, her words being translated into Kel on Elara’s wrist-mounted computer.

“Agreed. It gives us a fairly clear next course of action though.” Elara added thoughtfully.

“Oh?” Kayden asked.

“Yes. We need to free the Vrul.”

“Well there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear a Kel base commander say.”

Elara laughed in reply. “They’re words I never thought I’d say either, but it’s the right thing to do – nobody should live as a slave.”

“Not to mention we’d be a powerful ally against the Voidborn.” Mirana added.

“Yes, that’s a reason too.” Elara admitted.

“It may not be that simple.” Ali interjected, having heard the whole conversation. “I have the chemical formula required to synthesize the compound, but it requires a delivery device. I doubt the executors will simply allow their power to be usurped.”

“Leave that to me.” Mirana declared. “This is more hope than we’ve had in a very long time. We will find a way to free the Vrul, no matter what it takes.”

“Good. I’ll leave it your hands then – whatever resources you need, let me know. And when the time comes, I’ll help you however I can. In the mean time, we’ll continue to work on getting the Kel on our side. With any luck we’ll come back to Earth with both fleets at our back.”

“Yes executor.” Mirana said before pausing. “And…thank you.”

The line went silent before Kayden looked up at Elara. “Well, this has been an eventful few hours.”

“Eventful doesn’t even begin to describe it.” She said, shaking her head slowly. “Finding these avatars are an archaeologist’s dream. It rewrites entire sections of our history books.”

“I still wish it gave us a bit more.” Kayden countered. “We know now what really happened leading up to your people going into cryosleep, and we already know what happened after you woke up. There’s still a pretty big gap in there of a couple million years where we’ve got no idea what was going on in the galaxy.”

“You want to know what the Voidborn were doing during that time.” She replied, understanding his unsaid question immediately.

“Well, yeah. That thing on Trappist Prime didn’t bury itself, so I’m guessing whatever they were up to had to do with that. Beyond that though, I haven’t got a clue – and that scares me more than a little, because it means they might have more surprises in store for us.”

“Maybe.” Elara admitted.

Taking a deep breath, Kayden nodded. “I guess we’re not going to find out the answer to that question down here though, are we?”

“No, but we can’t leave yet – the doors to the vault are still locked.” She said, glancing up at the door to their hidden room before looking back at him. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. Headache is gone.” Kayden replied.

“Well enough to stand?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” She said, slowly getting to her feet. “Come on then. There’s something I want to show you while we’ve got some time to ourselves.”