“How can you just sit there and ignore the fact that they killed the High Minister? Is that what we want, to live in a shadow government where elected officials only stay in power if they toe the line?”
“You’re being absurd. Anyone with a brain could tell what Agoston was doing to us. He was bringing us down a road of fire and hate.” – From the Ministerial debates, February 12, 3264.
“I’ll admit, there are more ways to use your abilities than sitting on the ship and acting as a relay for your squad,” Unranked Officer Albert Mayer said to the young soldier sitting across from him. “But you need to understand how much danger you pointlessly place yourself in every time you decide to go on a mission. Optics are rare and our skills are invaluable.”
“I understand the risks, and I accept that you truly believe what you’re saying. However, I do not accept what you’re saying as an undeniable fact. If it were, then Officer Ross would fight to keep the Possessors ground to the ship just as hard as you do.” Jack rebutted.
Over the past year, the two men had played out this conversation time and time again. During his initial training on Algol, Jack experienced what it was like to be an Optic that fought on the front lines. Not only did he learn to fight, but his instructor—now First Sergeant—told him in no uncertain terms that it was perfectly acceptable for a soldier to choose their own place on the battlefield.
The topic wasn’t new, but the words themselves always changed. That was part of the danger when you argued with a philosopher. It wasn’t at all uncommon for them to find new and creative ways to turn you toward their way of thinking.
Fortunately, the old man was more than a little understanding. He didn’t yell, nor did he get upset when Jack refuted his will. If the young soldier could argue his beliefs with good reasoning, Albert was ok with his advice being questioned.
“Jack,” Albert said, taking a moment to think, “how many Optics are usually in a basic training company?”
The question was a loaded one, and Jack knew where this was going. Unfortunately, when you were talking to one of the oldest and most powerful humans alive, you could not simply ignore their questions.
“One, two at most, if we’re lucky.”
“And the Phantoms?”
“My company had eight, which we were told was unusually high.”
“You were told correctly.” He said, walking to a bookshelf in the corner.
Paper was rare on Earth. Throughout his life, he’d only seen a handful of physical books, and they protected those behind layers of glass. Collectors paid upwards of a million credits just for the honor of having one. Yet, here was Albert, standing at the center of the largest office on the ship, surrounded by books worth billions back on Earth.
“Can you rebuild your own body in the event of a disaster? Seal off blood vessels so that you don’t bleed out onto the ground of some alien planet?”
“No.”
“Can you shape a shield, protecting yourself from anything as long as there is Light to replenish what you lose?”
“No.”
“Oh, I know. How about keeping yourself safe by sending drones out to do your dirty work?”
“No, you know these answers.” The young man said, a touch of irritation in his voice.
“You’re absolutely right. I know these answers because you and I have the same ability.” Albert said, running his fingers along the brightly colored spines of the books. Jack had borrowed some of these novels, and even though he didn’t quite understand the pop-culture references in Bill the Vampire, he’d enjoyed it greatly. “The point that I’m trying to make is that Optics don’t have the defensive capabilities some of our cousins have. Like it or not, you will be the target of fire one day, and unless you’re able to create a link with every creature on that battlefield, there is always a chance you will get shot. I’m glad that you want to get out there and do some good. And I’m glad that you’re confident in your skills. However, risking the life of an Optic when there are so few of us is nothing but foolish.”
Jack leaned back in his chair, studying the dark mahogany desk as he carefully picked his words.
“Albert, according to the history books, there was a time when corpsmen had to find the place they fit best during battle. It was a fledgling army with fledgling powers. More often than not, using your powers creatively was the only way to adapt to the ever-changing conditions in the field. From what I understand, it wasn’t uncommon for comms to live in the background, hiding away and trying not to get killed, since maintaining communications was more important than anything else. But in the end, it was still their choice.” Jack explained slowly, “that said, no matter how drastically mankind changes, we are still creatures of habit. We will always push for the next great thing while holding on to our traditions with white-knuckled fury. Is it so wrong that a soldier with the same abilities as you found a place where he feels more comfortable? What about the tradition of choice? Do we just ignore that now?”
“When it endangers the greater mission, yes. Yours is the power of connection. If you fall, then so do those connections. Knowing that, isn’t it so much better for you to remain on the ship where you can be safe?” Albert rebutted.
“And what if my lack of presence gets someone else killed? If I’m down there, I can jump in and defend my ally. Up here, I can only scream into the void as they die.” Jack was getting annoyed, but he had to keep his cool or the Unranked Officer would count this as a win.
“We have to accept that soldiers die. We fight, and we die. If we protect our most important assets while doing so, we can minimize our losses.”
Did he really just hear that? Did this man, a core member of the AHF, just say that letting people die was part of the job?
“Then tell me this. First Sergeant Summers is one of us and should have the same mentality. Instead, the man is always, and I mean always, on the ground with us. I have experienced firsthand what he can do. In your eyes, is he a fluke, or is he a fool?”
“Both. The man is a fool for putting himself in harm’s way. However, I’ve only ever seen a handful of Optics fight the way he does… It goes against tradition.” Albert said, returning to his seat. “But he fights from a distance and is a better sniper with a laser-sighted rifle than most Possessors. Are you suggesting that you have the physical stamina to pull off the same thing, but with a sword?”
“I did it on Algol pretty regularly. I do it in the training room every day. Enough training can make up for any lack of stamina I might have. By removing Optics from the front lines, the AHF has taken their ability to feed information to soldiers in real-time. We can watch our men up here, but we can’t see through a creature we don’t know exists. Down there, I can link with both allies and enemies to gain the knowledge I need to protect my squad.” He no longer cared what the ancient Optic thought of him, this was something he felt needed to be said, “How can the members of my squad, or any squad, trust information that comes from a source that won’t even get on the ground with them? How can I live with myself after watching them get hurt, always questioning if I could’ve done something? If I follow your advice, how do I stop myself from being walled off and alienated from the people I’m supposed to protect?”
The words “like you” didn’t need to be spoken. Both men understood the implication without needing to say it out loud. Regardless of how much the Officer wanted to ignore it, the words were true. He had become so tired, so worn over the past millennia. Like an old piece of leather, time cracked him in all the wrong places. He knew what this boy was feeling, he remembered it himself. He’d been there, he’d seen it. The emotional damage a commander faced when he lost a man was high, but it paled compared to losing a friend.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Jack,” He said, breaking the silence that had once again fallen over the room, “I’m going to level with you. The truth is, I fear for all my students. Every single one that I’ve trained is a friend. You are a friend, and frankly, I don’t want to watch you die while I stand helpless on the prow of a ship thousands of light-years away.”
Turning from the young soldier, he continued, “I can’t watch another student die because he has delusions of being something more than he is.”
It was the first time Jack saw the man open up, banishing the god to reveal the man within. Most of the time, it was just philosophy and training, no more, no less. He’d always imagined this was just some pointless assignment handed down by the senate to keep the Unranked Officers busy. He never thought the soldiers they trained actually meant something to these beings.
“That said,” he perked up, “I know that you’re not a glory-chaser. You’re worried about your friends just as I worry about you. And since you will no longer be under my tutelage, I cannot force you to fight in a specific way. The best I can do is to continue offering my services and help you understand our power. Perhaps, in time, you will grow into the soldier you want to be.”
Albert leaned back in his chair and eyes glowing with the violet light of his corps. Unlike his student, his power had been a part of him for so long that Jack doubted the man even noticed when he was using it.
“Drop yourself into the spectrum,” he said. “Remember the exercise I taught you for expanding your range? I want you to focus on a single thread and connect it to as many points as possible. Instead of letting it taper off, pull the power back into yourself and finish the circuit.”
Jack followed along. This wasn’t the first time the two men had gone through this exercise, but more practice couldn’t hurt.
“Search out your squad mates. Feel their presence on the ship and send your thread of Light through each one.”
The process wasn’t as easy as the old man pretended it was. On a ship this large, his friends could be anywhere and doing anything. Unfortunately, one downside to his power as an Optic was how often he caught people in awkward moments they had no desire to share.
“Good. Instead of letting the thread taper off, I want you to pull the far end of that frequency back into yourself. It will create a ring and terminate that thread. Then, start switching between viewpoints as fast as you can without getting sick.”
Deep in the tapestry of Light, Jack cycled through the eyes of the nine soldiers in his squad. He wasn’t gathering any actual information, but he could catch a few major details. When they’d originally started working on this skill, Jack hadn’t been able to handle the information overload and paid the price many times over. Now, he could hold this and two other threads with little difficulty.
“Extend the second thread, this time pulling it out from the audible range.”
He always assumed his corps would be useless without a radio, but much to his surprise, he discovered sound as a frequency, had a pulse of Light.
Connecting all ten soldiers caused the world around him to burst into sound and made him wince from the onslaught. He could feel a slight amount of pressure from holding so many connections, but it was far from his limit.
“Now, your Chain of Command.”
It never felt right to connect to them, but it was for training and under the direct order of Albert Mayer himself. If anyone had an issue with it, they would need to take it up with the ornery old man themselves.
A few moments later, he’d crafted a link with his entire chain of command. Everyone, from his platoon leader to the battalion commander, was his to see. Again, Jack thought about how someone could abuse this power, but that was something he never could imagine himself doing.
“I’m going to push you. Add a fourth and link it to me. Include all the security cameras onboard.”
“Sir?” Jack asked. The two men hadn’t used titles or honorifics since their second meeting. Albert made it perfectly clear early on that he wanted to be called by his name and not his title. That Jack was falling back on one now showed just how intimidating the idea was.
Albert knew Jack had barely scratched the surface of controlling four strands. Adding a fourth would be more than his body was ready for. Unfortunately, they were near the end of his time with the Officer, and he wouldn’t have the obligation of training Jack any longer.
“Just go for it. At worst, you’ll go back to your room with a headache. But if I’m right, you’ll walk away with a better understand of handling four frequencies.”
Focusing on his power, he pushed.
Pain shot through his skull like a white-hot spike driven through both eyes. The young private buried his head in his hands and screamed. He couldn’t do this. What kind of crazy asshole thought a private could handle this much?
We Rise!
A voice echoed through his mind. The words of his father drove back the pain and gave him something else to focus on. It was time to push himself; it was time to rise to the challenge.
Did it hurt? Yes, more than anything.
He forced the strand through the ship, connecting to every viewpoint he could find while doing so. It felt like molten iron being poured into his eyes, but he knew that if he could just…
Jack pushed with everything he had and something inside him gave way. With the nebulous mental barrier gone, he pulled the thread of Light through one final camera. It was a viewpoint that looked into Albert’s office and directly at Jack’s chair. The glowing veins that were a side effect of his mutation blazed more intensely and extended farther than ever before. Instead of stopping at the neck as they normally did, the glowing network of lines inched farther down his torso the longer he held on.
“Drop them! Now!” Albert yelled, the intensity in his voice cutting through the fog descending into his mind.
With more effort than it should’ve taken, he dropped the painful thread of Light. But the damage was done., and the pain in his eyes didn’t fade. He reached for the thread connecting him to command and severed the link, hoping the agony would lessen.
It didn’t.
“You’re doing well, Jack,” Albert said, his voice a little stronger without all the noise in his brain. “You’ve pushed your body more than ever before. Release the last two threads and the pain will be just a memory.”
He didn’t believe it; he knew he was much weaker than other Optics. Measured against career soldiers, he was nothing but a child with a freak mutation that should’ve faded during basic training. Most people lost the glow of power after a few months. But the doctor who’d administered the Serum experimented on a trainee without authorization and gave Jack a second dose. Because of that, the veins of his face would glow a slight violet for the rest of his life, and he could never hide in a crowd again.
But that was history. Now, he needed to clear his mind and drop the connections and lessen his pain.
Focusing hard, his attention returned to the tapestry that made up all Light. There were still two loops tied to his body. He had to believe that the pain would end when they were gone. Groaning, he severed the third loop.
The ache, which was so constant, finally lessened.
It was true. Once the last strand was gone, his agony would just be a memory.
Grabbing the last strand, he noticed it didn’t end with him, but flowed off into oblivion. As he tried to release it, an image unrelated to any of his viewpoints flashed through his mind. It was just a heartbeat, maybe not even that, but it was burned into his memory.
A man in red stood behind a much larger man in black, a pair of swords pressed to his neck. From this angle, it was clear the man in red was about to execute the other.
Then it was gone, fading away as quickly as it had come. Jack knew he would never find that frequency again, but he wanted to see how it played out. Would the man in black be ok? Why was the one in red attacking?
“Good job today. Honestly, the past year has proven that you are capable of much growth.” Albert said, holding a handkerchief out to the young soldier. “That wasn’t easy. I could see that you gave the exercise everything you had.”
“Thank you,” Jack mumbled, barely registering the words as they crossed his lips. Pressing the cloth to his eyes, he continued, “I saw someone in that last moment.”
“And? Our power is the ability to see people. It isn’t so uncommon that you did.”
“This person wasn’t anyone I connected with, nor was it an electrical viewpoint. It was like a pastel drawing, a shadow of real people. But I saw exactly what was going to happen.” When he finally took the cloth away from his eyes, blood stained the white material.
“You may have seen something I call a ‘Light Remanent,’” Albert explained, walking to a bookshelf and pulling a thick notebook. “Few Optics ever see them, and even fewer understand them. I believe they are like echoes in time, impressions made on the fabric of reality. I’ve theorized that Light remembers everything it has ever touched, and everything it will ever touch. Since nothing can truly destroy a wave, only reduce it, its possible that an Optic with significant skill could gain insights of the future.”
Albert stood in front of Jack’s chair and handed him the thick tome. “Here, you can borrow this. These are all the notes I have on these impressions. Hell, I’m not even sure if they are past or future events, or if they are true at all.”
“It’s just a cosmic anomaly that will bother me from time to time?” Jack asked, hesitantly taking the notebook.
“Basically, yes. Perhaps you’ll be the one to teach me what they really are. After all, only the fool believes he knows everything.” Albert chuckled. “Are you ready for the ceremony tomorrow?”
“As ready as I can be,” he answered. He wanted to know more, but he knew Albert wouldn’t give him information without ensuring Jack did his own research first.
“Good,” he replied with a nod. They both knew the change in subject was blatant, but the men had enough tact not to point it out. “I would tell you to get some sleep, but I’m not stupid. I know that every member of your class will be at the bar, drinking until they can’t see straight. So, rather than wasting my breath and you ignoring me, I’m just going to tell you to be careful.”
“Thank you,” Jack replied, walking to the door with the notebook in hand.
“And Jack?”
“Yes?”
“If you see another Remanent, write it down exactly and send it to me. They might be nothing, but then again, they might hold the answers to questions we don’t know to ask yet.”
“Of course, you be careful as well. Rumor says you Unranked Officers party pretty hard when a class graduates.” Jack smiled, stepping out of the office for the last time as a trainee.