Chapter 19

Eteren One Orbital Starbase

Mottmor System, Venddral Raidezel Sector

Date: Zeran 19, Year 4731

Conus had been wandering the Promenade of Eteren One for hours, weaving through the market district and its many attractions within the, multi-level space. The air carried the aroma of spices and freshly prepared meals from countless vendor stalls. Voices surrounded him—some nearby, others fading into the distance. At times, the foot traffic became so dense that Conus had to step aside, letting streams of passersby from every corner of the galaxy flow past.

He wasn’t searching for anything in particular, pausing occasionally to browse shops or take in the sights. More than anything, he wanted to experience the station itself. Eventually, he made his way to the upper levels of the Promenade, heading toward the destination he had deliberately saved for last: the Viewing Lounge.

Tucked away from the main thoroughfare, the Viewing Lounge greeted visitors with calm, unbroken serenity. Its centerpiece was a floor-to-ceiling window offering a panoramic view of Eteren—the emerald-green planet the station orbited—and its three moons. Starships moved across the vast expanse, some docking, others departing, and a few descending toward the vibrant world below.

Soft seating and elevated platforms provided unobstructed views of Eteren and its moons, while at its center, a fountain trickled over smooth, dark stones.

Conus selected a single seat on one of the elevated platforms near the back. As he settled in, an attendant approached—a smiling Ottorin carrying a steaming cup. “Try our famous Selvara Dewberry tea, sir. It only grows on Eteren. Perfect for relaxation,” she said warmly, her thick Ottorin accent coloring her words.

“Thank you,” Conus replied, accepting the cup. The server moved on, offering refreshments to other guests.

The sip barely touched his lips before his expression soured. That’s awful, he thought, setting the cup down on a small table beside his chair. Still, he intended to finish it.

Selvara Dewberry, a small shrub unique to Eteren, known for its sweet, fruity flavor and reputed rejuvenating properties—something Conus had read about and been eager to try. Now, he couldn’t help but question the hype.

Nearby, a group of RDF personnel clustered around a set of seats, still in uniform. Stories of recent missions flowed between them, interrupted by fits of laughter. From what Conus could gather, their ship was stationed at Eteren One for the night, granting the crew some downtime.

“Can you believe they spotted a Vorcon War Galleon in this sector?” one officer exclaimed.

“At the edge of the sector,” another officer clarified. “It wasn’t even close.”

“Still!” the first officer shot back.

“It’s hard to imagine,” a third officer said, shaking his head as he leaned back in his seat. “The Chiaxten system is so remote. What could they possibly want out there?”

“There’s not much,” the first officer admitted. “But it happened near a small Camerian settlement in that system.”

“A Camerian settlement there? I didn’t know that. Really? Interesting,” another officer remarked, leaning forward.

“Yeah, but I still don’t buy the part about Vorcons,” someone else said skeptically.

“It’s true.”

“How do you know?” a voice challenged.

I have a friend on the Resilience,” the first officer began, leaning in conspiratorially. “He said they picked up a small ship—with a Camerian, some guy from the RSIA who’s practically more Augment than human, and... General Garen Rivers.”

“General Rivers? From the Riftkin?” another officer asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah!”

“No way,” a voice scoffed. “Now I know you’re making this up.”

“What kind of trio is that?” someone else chimed in with a laugh.

“No, it’s true,” the first officer insisted.

“No one’s seen Garen Rivers in years,” a female officer interjected.

“I heard he’s dead,” another officer added.

“If the RDF had really seen Vorcons in this sector, the fleet would be on high alert right now, and we’re not,” a skeptical voice countered.

“No?” The first officer smirked. “The Resilience and a few other ships are out on patrol as we speak.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. Ships go on patrol all the time.”

“Sure, and I’m sure General Rivers is out there swinging his Scalar Falcata, chopping down Vorcons like it’s the old days. You’ve got to be bored to come up with this stuff,” one officer quipped.

“Garen Rivers went crazy,” another officer dismissed.

“No, he didn’t. He left the Seven Worlds on his own terms,” the first officer shot back.

“Why would he do that?”

“They took away his command after everything he did. They made him look bad—forced him out.”

“Oh, great,” someone said sarcastically. “Another conspiracy theorist. You think there’s always some big ulterior motive. Sometimes things are exactly as they seem.”

“You’re right. Sometimes they are,” the first officer admitted. “But sometimes they’re not.”

Another officer sighed heavily. “Enough. Conversations about Garen Rivers always end up in politics. We’ve got the night off. Let’s get drinks and talk about something else.”

With that, the group began to disperse, their animated conversation fading as they headed for a bar. Conus remained in his seat, watching them go, his augmented hearing still catching fragments of their banter.

He was surprised the events he’d been part of were already a topic of speculation among RDF officers. His crew had died. Vorcons had died. While word had clearly gotten out, the specific details hadn’t. Yet here they were, debating whether it had even happened.

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The situation unsettled him. The officers had a point—sending out a small patrol seemed like an inadequate response. Then again, it might be more practical to investigate quietly before committing larger forces. Neither side should be eager to reignite a war whose scars still lingered across the galaxy. Was the Council of Seven taking the situation seriously? Or was RDF command simply ignoring the signs?

A dull ache throbbed in his head—familiar and persistent, yet no less frustrating. He recalled stepping onto the Promenade earlier, when a sudden jolt of sharp pain had struck him: fleeting but oddly evocative, as if a buried memory were clawing its way to the surface. It mirrored the sensation he’d felt briefly on Chiex. For a moment, he thought he might finally grasp the memory buried within the pain—but, as always, it slipped away.

These recent moments were more intense than he was used to. While he had learned to manage the constant dull aches, these sudden, sharper spikes of pain caused him real concern.

His augments, though lifesaving, had not come without side effects. The ache always seemed to center where his synthetic brain merged with his organic one, leaving him with frequent discomfort he’d grown accustomed to managing. Worse, the augments had fractured his memories into disjointed fragments. His recollections came to him like fleeting video clips or still images—that deepened his questions rather than offering answers.

No doctor had been able to explain it; their understanding only went so far. Conus's augments had pushed beyond the limits of current knowledge, with research at their level long banned in the Seven Worlds of Rhyus—restricted and, in many aspects, outright outlawed.

This was the cost of integrating artificial components with organic brain matter. Conus knew the brain he had now shared little with the one he’d been born with. How much of it is even organic anymore? How much of it still functions? he wondered. The question surfaced often, leaving him to grapple with an unsettling thought: Is what’s left of my organic brain enough to make the augments work, or is it the other way around?

The doctors had never given him a clear answer. Perhaps they didn’t know. Or perhaps they’d chosen not to tell him.

Each memory fragment felt like a puzzle piece without a full picture. Conus could only grasp at the edges, piecing together moments that refused to connect. The accident had obliterated most of his early memories, leaving him with only these fractured shards. The doctors explained that his brain had been so severely damaged that survival had been nearly impossible. Whoever had operated on him—whoever had made the impossible possible—had essentially rebuilt him, replacing destroyed brain tissue with augmented technology.

The doctors warned him that his memories would likely remain incomplete. His childhood, they said, might be something he’d never fully recover. The fragments might be all he would ever have. But even they weren’t certain.

There was something else they’d told him—something that unsettled him every time it crossed his mind. His injuries had been so severe that, technically, he’d died on the day of the accident. Cryogenic preservation had halted cellular death, giving his rescuers the time they needed to augment and revive him.

If I died, and so much of me was replaced—my brain, my organs—am I still the same person? Was something new created in my place? Am I mourning something that I no longer am? What if I’m holding onto a past that was never mine to begin with? The questions haunted him.

Somewhere in the fragments of his mind, Conus believed he had a family. He clung to the thought, though their faces remained a mystery. He wished he could know them—truly know them—beyond the faint memories.

The fragments of childhood memories felt vivid, real—as though they had to be his. Yet doubt lingered.

His attention shifted to a Kirlu seated alone nearby. Its exoskeleton was etched with natural ridges and grooves, and its triangular head was crowned with antennae that twitched almost imperceptibly. Four independent eyes gazed out the viewing window.

Conus studied the being, wondering if the Kirlu’s eyes perceived four separate images or if its brain combined them into one seamless view. He decided against asking. It felt too personal—too strange a question to pose to a stranger. Instead his gaze drifted back to the sweeping panorama of Eteren.

Space stations always evoked a peculiar feeling in him—a mix of wonder and deep, inescapable melancholy. He had few memories of his childhood that he could recall at will, but one often replayed in his mind: a moment aboard his father’s trade ship.

He could still remember the thrill of approaching a space station, though the station itself remained a blur in his fragmented memories. His father had promised to let him explore it—a rare opportunity that had filled young Conus with excitement. But the promise was broken as swiftly as it was made.

Instead, Conus had been left staring at the station through the small window of his cramped quarters. His father, angry about something unrelated, had unleashed his frustration on him anyway. The disappointment and yearning for the sights and encounters he’d been denied lingered vividly, etched into his fractured past.

It wasn’t a happy memory, but it was one of the few he could clearly recall of his father. The memory felt strangely hollow. His father’s cold indifference and his mother’s dismissive responses to his complaints painted a lonely picture of his early years. Yet not all his memories were like that. Fleeting fragments hinted at joy—though they were moments too incomplete to fully grasp.

Most of what he remembered pointed to a lonely childhood, too scattered to form a coherent picture. He simply didn’t have enough to know for certain.

Conus’s attention drifted back to the ships beyond the viewing window, the sight stirring a peculiar sense of déjà vu. From his quarters aboard his father’s trade vessel, he had often watched ships like these, imagining the beings he might meet and the worlds he might explore—if only he could step beyond the confines of his father’s ship.

One particular vessel caught his eye, its design sparking a brief flicker of recognition, as if he’d seen it long ago. A sharp pang shot through his head as he strained to recall where he might have encountered it. But the memory slipped away as quickly as the pain receded, leaving him with only the faintest trace of what might have been.

Across the open room, a group of off-duty RDF officers began to gather. Their laughter broke the fragile thread of memory Conus had been grasping at. Among them, a pair briefly held hands. Conus watched them for a moment, a quiet longing surfacing before he turned his eyes back to the window.

He’d never had that—no close friends, no meaningful connections. Thinking back to his early days in the Seven Worlds of Rhyus, school had been a minefield of challenges. His augmentations set him apart, drawing whispers, stares, and judgments. Few dared to confront him directly, but the fear he inspired only deepened his isolation. He often felt like a distant observer, disconnected.

At the RDF Academy, Conus had hoped for change—that the stigma surrounding his augmentations would fade. But it hadn’t. Instead, he poured his energy into his studies, rising to the top of his class. In the RDF, he built professional relationships with his peers—partners in drills, competitions, and test scenarios—but those connections rarely extended beyond duty.

The societal bias against his augmentations was relentless. In the Seven Worlds, where rehabilitation was championed over enhancement, his extensive augments were viewed as an unfair advantage. It didn’t matter that they were a necessity for survival, not a pursuit of superiority. People rarely looked beyond the synthetic parts. They didn’t see him.

He remembered an incident at the Academy—a fellow cadet had loudly accused him of cheating during a competition, claiming his augments gave him an edge. Though Conus had performed well within regulations, the accusation had stung. That sentiment followed him throughout his RDF career.

He realized early on that command opportunities would be limited for someone like him. The RDF wasn’t ready to entrust leadership to someone they didn’t fully accept.

Still, there had been exceptions. Admiral Amar Lavont came to mind. They first met at Conus’s graduation ceremony, where Lavont had pulled him aside with words of encouragement. From that day, Lavont became a mentor, guiding him through the challenges of his early career. His support had been invaluable.

Lavont’s mentorship remained a guiding light in his life. One piece of advice stood out: “Your augmentations are a part of you. Use them to your advantage.” Though said offhandedly during a broader discussion, those words had stuck with Conus ever since.

He didn’t know the full extent of what Lavont had planned for Garen Rivers, but he was eager to contribute. More than anything, he wanted to prove himself useful in whatever mission Lavont envisioned.

Suddenly, a sharp pain flared in his right temple—intense and pinpointed, like being targeted. The suddenness overwhelmed him, and he hunched over, clutching his head. This time, it lasted longer than it ever had before. Then, just as abruptly as it came, the pain receded, leaving him shaken.

And then, something surfaced—a fragmented memory, clearer than ever before. The Nomadicus. His father’s trade ship. The name rose unbidden, both foreign and familiar, as though it had been buried deep in his mind, waiting for the right moment to emerge. Now it felt as if he’d always known it. How could I have forgotten this?

The knowledge felt unshakable, as though it had always been a part of him, waiting to be uncovered. He had never recalled it before, never even questioned its absence. Yet here it was, solid and undeniable. The realization struck him with equal parts wonder and unease. Is this real? he wondered, his augmented mind struggling to process the sudden clarity.

He sat with the name, letting it settle over him. The Nomadicus. He exhaled slowly, turning his gaze back to the planet Eteren. The pain in his head eased, leaving behind a fragile calm as he refocused on the world beyond the viewing port.