CHAPTER 19 – ALLIES OF THE WAY

"Having arrived in our galaxy scarcely two decades ago and isolated from both the Consortium and the Union, it is understandable they still present a major mystery. Regardless, against intense interest from both the public and from highly-respected academics like xenologist Paval Juykone, governmental and private institutions refuse to establish stronger diplomatic or cultural relations with these exo-galactyrs. In fact, such endeavors are actively discouraged. One can only speculate why the leaders of transhumanity so audaciously disregard such prodigious people who had achieved the remarkable feat of crossing the intergalactic medium, a miracle beyond our current capabilities due to the ruinous constraints of the Black Void."

– Archivist Nakatori Jel, "The H'raal Enigma", Datalinks

Up close the Revenant vaguely resembled the human it had been in life. The golden, spectral shape carried an echo of features, a hint of eyes, a trace of posture. It didn't speak. It didn't try to get free. It did nothing at all, its ethereal visage completely devoid of all discernable expression.

Airo and Veralla stood a few paces away. The Revenant was restrained by a barely-visible set of Æther barriers, emitted by several projectors from the nearby walls. The makeshift prison was installed on Ilsorin's medical level, since the area had the most readily-available aethertech designed for outward interaction. Two Radiant Knights were posted on guard until the interrogation was concluded. They were the Emaerel twins. The irony wasn't lost on Airo.

"So how did you capture a... a Revenant?" Veralla asked, staring at the apparition, her wings and tail twitching nervously.

"A roaming band of them stumbled upon one of the supply meetings," he said. "We were well within capability to eliminate them, so I ordered several Conduits among the Knights to focus on a single target and attempt to restrain it. A spontaneous opportunity, though transporting the thing proved challenging."

"Conduits? I thought Awakened Knights were called aethereals."

"Well, semantics," Airo snorted. "The Consortium uses a more pragmatic term, while the Order sticks to its symbolic lingo. It is probably because of the old man."

"Old man? Oh, you mean Magus." Veralla flicked her forked tongue in thought. "So, what are you going to do with this Revenant?"

"Cloud will attempt to question it for information. Experiment on it, see the extent of these monsters' capabilities. Then kill it."

"Kill it?" Veralla startled, her purple eyes full of concern. "But–"

"Give me a break," Airo snapped. "That thing is not a living being anymore. It is not even a spirit, according to others. Look at it!"

She did so. "Yes, well, you are right," she murmured. "Although..."

"Are you sensing something?" he asked, suddenly intent.

"I... no, I am not sure." She shook her horn-crested head. "Its aura is too terrible for me to dwell on it."

"All right," he said. "Do not strain yourself. You are not expected to take part in this anyway. How is Nightsong?" he asked, cursing himself at changing the subject so clumsily, and with such choice of topic.

"Oh," she said, her wings drooping a little, "she is still very sick. Kiana is still caring for her, but she is very tired. I want to help but I do not know how." Her voice was despondent. "I am afraid they both might die."

Airo didn't know what to say. He was never one to use false assurances, and had no idea how to console Veralla in the current situation. He petted her head, and she rubbed thankfully against his touch. He told her the only thing which came to mind: "Do you want to visit them now?"

"Oh, yes! Let us visit them."

***

After visiting Kiana and Nightsong, Airo headed toward Ilsorin's command room. His heart was heavy from seeing the sick dragonet again. She was just like the day of her hatching, only scales and bones, moaning and on the verge of death. He had instructed Cloud to spare no resources, yet Nightsong's passing seemed inevitable. But while her ultra-short life was a foregone conclusion, there was the rise of dark tides on much more important fronts. Airo pushed aside his rediscovered compassion, focusing on the issues that this time threatened to defeat him and his defiant forces once and for all.

He traversed Ilsorin's ever-brilliant hallways with haste, ignoring the friendly greetings of the various refugees. The power armor's HUD informed him Lylana, Glawlrhain, Stamat, and Magus were already in the command room. He reached one of the huge irised doors and stormed into the room, beginning the meeting without any preamble.

"Three more attacks last week," he said. "Two of them during supply missions. Draconic Revenant are sighted within the atmosphere regularly, and several times we had to evade them. The enemy is definitely hunting for us.

"We are short on everything," Airo continued. "Personnel, firepower, and raw materials. Veronite production is halved in order to keep dragons on field duty at peak capacity. Resonance fields continue to be in sharp deficit, even with the optimized formula. Meanwhile, the Consortium and the Union are both whittled away each day by the advancing Revenant.

"These are the final hours, people. Cloud, show the figures and simulations."

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The strataplan screens lit with data. Everyone watched grimly the scrolling numbers and graphs. Lylana sighed heavily and leaned with her armored arms on the command table.

"So this is it, then?" she asked with a defeated tone. "We hole up once more and wait for the Reality Vortex to destroy Terra Para."

"That is one available option," Airo nodded gravely. "However, I do not intend to pursue it. No, I think we should commit in the ultimate manner."

"How?" Glawlrhain growled in aggravation, the word nearly unintelligible.

"By striking at Ferrtau directly," Airo said. "We must gather all of our power, and launch a lightning-fast assault. Take him by surprise, like you did at Dragon Retreat, and finish him off."

Lylana, Glawlrhain, and Stamat all started to say something, yet fell silent at Magus Dei's raised hand.

"The problem with this plan is two-fold," the old Knight noted calmly. "First, we cannot defeat Ferrtau in direct combat, even if we have the benefit of surprise. He merely retreated from the confrontation at Dragon Retreat, and I suspect he did not do so because he felt overwhelmed." Magus cast a glance toward Lylana and Glawlrhain. "Second, even if we accept for the sake of discussion the remnants of the Radiant Order can overpower Ferrtau, there remains the issue of his exact whereabouts – which are unknown to this moment, as far as I am aware."

Airo scowled. "I was told Ferrtau originally stayed at the Shard. He probably has returned to it by now."

"And what if he has not?" Magus asked. "What will you do if you strike in the dark and miss?"

Airo didn't reply, staring at the old Knight sullenly.

"We must be able to do something!" Stamat said hotly. The Highlander Knight smacked a fist against his palm. "We were faced with hard situations before. I'm confident we can overcome this one, too."

"No, we cannot," Airo said. "This is not a new problem, kid. It is the same one that shadowed us from the start, and it finally caught up. Our power base is crippled. Unless we receive serious support in terms of logistical infrastructure, supplies, and soldiers, we cannot wage this war any further in a meaningful way."

"What about the people we saved?" Stamat asked stubbornly. "We can ask for their help. If we tell them the stakes, they'd all join to the last galactyr!"

"Even if we draft civilians," Airo objected, "they will be without experience and without armaments. Useless, in other words. And we lack the means to correct those flaws in any reasonable time."

"Let's contact the Consortium and the Union again then! By now they should've figured who's truly responsible for this war!"

"They have not. And they are not listening, as usual. Yeoman Cloud tries to reach them every week."

"Maybe we should try to shore up our forces with defectors from their ranks," Lylana mused. "What's the status on the shadow alliances?"

"There was no success in recruiting anyone of significant station," Airo said grimly. "By Cloud's estimates, we have gained the favor of only about twenty percent of the forces the Consortium and the Union have available, and none of the officers among them hold posts higher than battalion commander. We make a steady headway among the rank-and-file, yet war casualties almost cancel out this increase. Riley and Trahaearn also informed me the stellar civilizations have caught wind of our rogue operations and have removed several officers on espionage charges. So this backup solution has become a dead-end."

"And without majority support, we cannot instigate a coup," Lylana shook her head.

"Do we have any further alternatives?" Glawlrhain asked quietly.

"No. We have none," Airo said.

Silence descended upon the command room. Stamat embraced Glawlrhain with a disheartened expression, and the small dragon draped a wing around the young Knight's shoulders. Lylana stared forward, unseeing, her professional countenance half-broken, her thoughts in some private hell. Magus Dei kept his hands clasped before him, hidden within the broad sleeves of his crimson robe, his face grim and foreboding. Airo gazed at one end of the command table, noting the absence of Mentoria. Her presence wasn't strictly necessary – or welcome, for that matter – yet the exotic aethereal never missed the opportunity to flaunt her superiority and gloat bizarrely in the face of all-encompassing doom. He didn't like her one bit, yet he couldn't deny her aid was invaluable. Aid. Hmph. Airo's strong suit has always been his rational, strategic approach to problems. He has never been one to engineer sudden turnarounds, or plan for them in advance. Which was why...

He took a random stab in the dark. "Hey, old man."

"Yes?" Magus raised an eyebrow, the gesture somehow conveying the entire weight of sharp disapproval he had for such an address.

"Do you have any other tricks hidden in those antiquated sleeves of yours, or the stratagem with the dreadnought was the only one?"

"Not exactly," the old Knight said dryly. He frowned, and then sighed as if he just made a decision. "We could try to visit the H'raal."

"The H'raal?" Stamat exclaimed. "I thought they had left the system long ago."

"They did, though not entirely by their own will," Magus said. "However, a... number of them have remained here, for their private reasons."

"I remember the H'raal well," Lylana said, folding her arms. "They are notoriously... difficult to deal with. Is there any chance at all they would be willing to help us in this war?"

"That is why I suggested a visitation," Magus pointed out. "This is not a clear-cut solution, merely a chance for reaching out and getting luck."

Airo silently requested from Yeoman Cloud all pertinent data on the subject of the H'raal. He rapidly scanned the condensed summary. The H'raal were a sapient alien species, one of the very few to be discovered after the uplifting of dragonkind. Or rather, they showed up on their own during the Starblaze. Initial relations had been extremely hostile, yet the Radiant Knights had managed to secure the H'raal's favor for long enough to end the conflict which had ravaged the galaxy at the time.

He cleared his heads-up display and asked, "What is the approximate strength of their armed forces?"

"As survivors and exiles from another galaxy," Magus replied, "the H'raal are extremely militant, and virtually have no civilian populace. All of their kind are exceptionally well-trained in the arts of war and battle."

"Wait, they are not from Solaria?" Airo asked, his interest piqued.

"No, they are not. The H'raal are intergalactic refugees, although their point of origin was never learned."

"And to this day, they never told us what they were running from," Lylana added, her expression grim.

"That," Airo emphasized, "is a problem of another scope and another time. At this point, I am interested of the potential help we can receive from them. Do they possess any starships?"

"Plenty," Magus said. "The last time I saw them, they were completely space-bound."

"This is still the case," Lylana nodded. "If the armada which stayed originally within the Ascendancy system is still intact, we are looking at no less than several dozen dreadnoughts and a mothership which rivals in size any Fortress-class starship we have ever created."

Airo felt galvanized by that information. With that many capital starships, this war could be completely turned around. Not only they could take the fight to the draconic Revenant, they could also force the Consortium and the Union to cooperate. This was a game-changer.

"Why has no one told me about these potential assets from the start?" he asked, struggling to keep his tone level.

Lylana, Stamat, and Glawlrhain looked vaguely guilty, yet Magus snorted with surprising vehemence.

"Assets?" the old Knight said, narrowing his eyes. "You are too hasty adding the H'raal to your side. Persuading them to join will take much... discretion."

"Which is why you are coming along, old man," Airo snapped, already thinking up ideas and plans in his mind. "It is time to put that overdone eloquence of yours into practical use. This is war, and we need to win. One way or another, these aliens are helping us. Cloud, schedule a diplomatic mission. We are finally going to make a breakthrough."