{Enki | Bridge}
“I’m sorry, Kyle, can you repeat that? I thought you just said Silence decimated the Weapons with a gesture? Over.”
Xelan and Tameka shared a bewildered look as the Shadow on site confirmed it.
Razor’s projection appeared over the center of the maelstrom near the main terminal where Xelan, Tameka, Tumu, Sagan, and Korac waited for his next instructions. Pehton stood on the highest glass gangway with Iuo, who recorded every word and gesture like his race depended on it.
The projected rendering of Xelan’s old friend smiled. “You missed one glorious display. Silence is quite the wild card. Now, Tameka. Are you ready?”
“I hate to do anything you say, but yes. I’m ready.”
Xelan understood her reticence, but they all trusted Korac’s contingency, which he shared in code to avoid detection by the all-seeing, all-hearing Aegis in the room. The Prince glanced at his General, who nodded. He never trusted an expression as much from any other person in the Twelve Worlds.
Good to go.
Tumu turned and monitored the projected screens, expanding them until the empty display stretched thirty feet wide and tall over the swirling black flames. The old Primary asked, “Okay, Razor. What’re we looking at?” There was something inauthentic about the question that Xelan couldn’t place. Almost exaggerated curiosity, but Xelan ignored it for now.
The Bridge Team stared up at the blank projection, displaying absolutely nothing.
Xelan was the only one who spared a glance behind them at the life-size light show which was the Pain Curator. The Aegis tipped his top hat and winked at him.
Without glancing away from the screen, Korac asked, “What’re you playing at here, Razor—”
Sagan, Tameka, and Pehton gasped, bringing Xelan’s attention back to the display. The image stopped his heart.
Impossible and enormous, the exterior hull of the Dyson’s Sphere encompassed the better part of a solar system surrounded by asteroids and a rainbow of gas clouds. The manifolds of sun-sized light fixtures—currently off—were nestled along various circuitry, paneling, and nacre glass domes. Peppered along the screen, tiny satellites orbited the massive structure, which was how they could view it from the exterior.
Enki was beautiful.
“This is Ishkur.”
Razor smiled at them as all but Tumu faced him with varied expressions of confusion. His smile deepened for Sagan, whose nose was scrunched with her frown. He sighed, ecstatic with the grand demonstration. “I never tire of your inferior capacity to appreciate the totality of Aegis engineering and scale. Allow me to formally introduce you to Enki’s twin. My brothers—Zero’s sons—wanted to replicate the success of Enki, so they built a second Dyson’s Sphere. Enki is a machine of defense. Ishkur is the paradise we sought to protect.”
Without turning from the image, Tumu muttered, “He never meant for us to find it, and I never believed I’d live to see it with my own eyes.”
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Xelan stared at Tumu, finally understanding. “Your people fought to take Enki because you knew Ishkur existed.”
Tumu met Xelan’s eyes. The Tritan looked weary. “Not all of us, but Remorse, Quet, and Bol—Yes. They thought the Aegis were greedy.”
“We were.”
When everyone glanced at Razor, he shrugged, taking ownership of a vice he vouched for in the Aegis.
Iuo said, “In all this time we’ve taken record within the Vast Collective—official and unofficial—no one mentioned a second Dyson’s Sphere.”
Pehton nodded in agreement. “That’s right. We defended Enki for the Tritans across millions of years. I don’t think even Gale knew this place existed.”
“That’s because it isn’t finished.” Tameka stepped closer into Razor’s personal space than Xelan ever saw her do before. She stared him down with an icy understanding in her expression. With a nod at Sagan and Korac, Tameka said, “We heard the entire story you gave them when you uploaded into the Atheneum. The incident you caused that led to…” She glanced at his hands, perched on his cane, with their nail-less fingers.
Razor’s eyes narrowed at the reminder.
Tameka pressed, “You said by calling multitudes of your brothers from various Probabilities that you were trying to help them with a project, and you accidentally caused pandemonium when the copies and your brothers fought in the confusion. It stopped the construction on Ishkur, didn’t it?”
Oh, but that made so much sense. Even as a bitter smile spread across Razor’s lips, confirming Tameka’s assumptions, Xelan made so many more leaps in the story, biting his thumbnail as he considered the possibilities.
“Wingmaster, we’re losing you.”
Korac.
Xelan snapped out of it as Tumu said, “That’s why you need Peaches.”
Razor chuckled, and Tameka glared at him. He gave a cavalier shrug and offered, “What? The nickname is cute.” He waved her off. “Yes. Yes. It is. I disrupted their attempts to generate power, but even without my interference, there were other concerns.”
Pehton folded her arms and glared at Razor’s projection. “Such as?”
He raked his gaze over the orange-feathered Lyrik and smirked. “Peh Peh, have I mentioned recently how much I admire your fire?”
Xelan opened his mouth to redirect the Pain Curator’s attention deficit when Korac groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose, a new habit of his lately. The General admonished, “For the love of Eternity, answer Pehton’s question without objectifying her? I can’t believe I’m related to you.”
Razor’s head ticked to the side. “Jealous someone is paying our Executive Warden her due attentions?”
Korac glared at his brother.
Xelan cleared his throat and walked between them, facing Razor. He gave the devil a discouraging shake of the head. “You’re stalling for something.”
Razor recoiled as if struck, hand flattened to his chest. “How could you accuse me of such underhanded—”
“Primary Rem is making his way to the Pantheon with Pax,” Tumu called from the terminal, voice flat and unhappy. “Bol is nearly there. If the Primaries enter the fray, we’ll lose the advantage Silence afforded us.”
Sagan, paler than her usual tan, fumed despite her apparent weakness. “Pick a side, Razor.”
“Now.” Tameka sounded equally displeased.
Xelan faced the man he once considered a friend, and a heartbeat passed between them in measuring silence. Two.
Then Razor finally said, “Power. The star was significantly weaker than Enki’s, even with its nacre. They could never siphon enough power to keep Ishkur operating, but I believe we have the solution to that problem.” He let his twin crescent eyes settle on Tameka.
She asked, “How?”
Xelan knew the answer. “Enki’s star. You can open a feed between them and sufficiently power Ishkur’s sun.”
Razor grinned at Xelan. “Genius is quite attractive on you.”
Sagan turned and held off Tameka and Korac. She soothed, “I know. I know.”
Tumu rolled his eyes and mumbled about “Xelan’s admirers.”
Iuo and Pehton looked ready to find some popcorn.
Xelan sighed and shook his head at Razor. “Incorrigible doesn’t begin to cover it.”
The projected Aegis looked so pleased with himself until Xelan took Tameka by the shoulders, kissed his lips against her ear, and whispered, “Let’s finish this, save our son, and christen every continent on Ishkur.”
They pulled apart and stared into each other’s eyes for a moment. Tameka nodded and looked at Razor. “How will I get there?”
A conduit split the bridge. Through the wavering energy barrier, they saw an identical space, like a mirror image of where they stood.
“Welcome to Ishkur.”
Welcome to their new home.