{Enki | Tritan Residences}

Wow. This would make one hell of a story time.

Sagan went to Korac’s side and took his hand. She found it chilled compared to his usual comforting warmth. Even with his careful composure, his brows were up and his mouth was open—shocked. Tameka hugged herself. Lucy watched the room with a careful consideration in her gaze. Her friend, Yito, looked positively devastated and visibly braced himself for the story to come.

Lance was the only person in the room without shock on his face. Shame emanated from him in waves of depressing failure.

Same as Tumu.

Sagan took the memory capsule Tumu offered her, and the rest did the same. Korac was the last, hesitant.

She mouthed, “I. Trust. Him.”

He nodded and downed it.

As it took effect, Tumu began narrating their journey. “We came here so long ago, we Tritans. Traveling across the stars in search of a home after plague decimated our own. The rumors are true. An enemy chased us.”

{Milky Way Galaxy | Two Galactic Years Ago}

“Primary Rem, we should surrender. Their terms are fair!”

Sparks exploded above Tumu’s head from the station’s secondary navigation panel. At this speed, the bulkheads would compress and fail. None of this equipment was meant to withstand the pressure of a chase. But try telling that to any of these headstrong fools.

“Primary Quet, reconsider.”

Piloting the station, all the Primaries were slid down into their interfacing pods. The station’s hybrid organic mechanics encased them in a membrane cocoon to absorb impact. They operated the bridge through a connection in their biorhythms and telepathic suggestion.

The station was alive and very blue.

But it wasn’t impervious.

Especially after half of it was shed away in an escape vehicle equipped for emergency colonization in case the Tritans crashed onto a planet without means of escape. Now, their own colony vessel with a three-billion Tritan capacity attacked them with weapons designed only for defense.

The station was helpless. No defenses and their adversaries masterfully disabled their weapons before the mutiny.

Mutiny.

Was this really happening?

Tumu tried again. “Primary Bol, tell me you hear me—”

Rem’s voice cut him off. “We all hear you, Primary Tumu. We are considerably busy piloting the ship to secure our escape. Your near-treasonous pleas are a distraction against our survival.”

Disgusted, Tumu snarled. “Treasonous?! Only you would consider mending ties with our females a treasonous act!”

“They refuse to relent,” Primary Bol reminded. “We gave them viable options—”

“Slavery is not an option, Bol!” Again, Tumu heard the revulsion in his own voice. “We should consider their counteroffer.”

The sliver of a pod slipping open had Tumu rolling his voids upward. Rem exited his cocoon to stand over Tumu. Not a flattering angle, especially with that venomous look on his face. “We will not cater to their whims. They know this is for the good of the race, and they mutinied. Nearly marooned us in this infant galaxy. And you expect us to capitulate—Fuck!” The most recent impact sent him staggering across the bridge.

A voice came over the comms then. Female, stern, and in a tone not much different from her mate. “This is Vi. Rem, surrender. We want our men safe to save our race—”

“Mate, mine.” Primary Rem sounded more composed than during this entire journey. “See reason. Only we can manufacture the perfect breeding program to reinstate female offspring—”

“You and Quet reduced us to this. Why in Eternity would the females trust you to recover it while we live as pregnant stock?!”

This was going nowhere.

While they bickered, the firing ceased. Tumu exited his pod, crossed to the east side of the bridge, and shoved his hands into a viscous gel to access their trajectory for any objects—

“What…”

Scans returned an unbelievable mass over four hundred and eighteen million kilometers wide. Spherical in shape. It was too heavy to be a star.

Bol asked over Tumu’s shoulder. “Have you found something?”

Quet cried from his pod, “Give us a heading, Tumu!”

“Rem, you’re only alive because we wish it.” Vi’s voice denoted perfect calm and calculation. “The females engineered every centimeter of the station, its stasis lab, and the colony vessel. Our crew knows where to shoot to finish you. And what will you do without us? I find it unlikely any of you will learn complex organic engineering to repair the station. You need us.”

Rem walked over to Tumu and shoved his hands into the viscous gel, too. Plugged in, he called out the galactic coordinates of the sphere. The others slid back into their pods. Rem glared at Tumu before doing the same.

This was it.

Tumu walked to the center of the bridge. “Hello, Vi.”

“Hello, Tumu.” Her voice warmed in her response to him.

Exhausted, he hung his head and sighed.

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She heard and asked, “Rem returned to his pod, am I correct?”

Why was this happening? “You know your mate.”

Anyone else might sound sad at that reminder, but not Vi. She sounded set and determined. “We will pursue you. All of you. Tumu, I know you see our terms as fair, but we will make an example of all the Primaries.”

“Yes. Do as you must.”

“Goodbye, Tumu.”

“Goodbye, Vi.”

The comms died, and the firing continued.

Primary Rem ordered, “Return to your pod, Primary Tumu. We are within orbit of the sphere.”

No glass. No visual. Sensory awareness came from a kind of sonar which only gave the impression of the massive non-planetary object.

Defeated, Tumu slid into his pod and prayed to Eternity they all survived somehow. As he prayed, the blows to the station came harder and more frequently. Sparks rained down from everywhere now. They wouldn’t make it—

Quet called to the bridge, “Something is moving down there. Opening! A bay!”

“Quick, maneuver us inside.” Bol squirmed with excitement from within his pod.

Tumu barely piloted his effort—

Rem ordered through gritted teeth. “Pick up your share, Tumu.”

So very done, he relented, “Maybe you should wake up the other Primaries to pilot—”

“Greetings!” A voice called over the comms. Friendly and energetic. “Welcome to Enki, new friends—Oh, my. Is that ship pursing you?”

Bol answered, “Yes, they are armed! They keep firing at us!”

The friendly voice kindly directed, “No worries. Dock in bay twelve if you have skids. Land on pad four if you have hydraulics.”

Uhm. “Does anyone know what kind we have?” Quet asked.

They were so fucked without their women.

Tumu sighed and took control, sliding on their skates into bay twelve. Only then did it occur to him, he could read the number twelve and understand the strangers at all. “Do they have translators?”

“We can ask when we meet them.” Quet seemed equally curious.

Primary Rem wasn’t just curious. Almost enthralled, he exited his pod and opened the hatch, calling out, “It’s so vast. So advanced.” The hangar was enormous and encased in an unfamiliar metal with a seamless surface. The rest climbed out of the station together.

Uninterested, Bol said, “Let’s hope they can solve our reproductive dilemma. Come now. This way.” He headed down the only corridor.

“But for a moment.” The friendly stranger held some massive weapon on them. “We need to disarm you first.” White hair, white eyes, and white skin. The pupils of his eyes… were they—

They were bouncing. Up and down in time together.

Two more men with the same characteristic but varied pupils frisked the Primaries. “Do you have more on board?”

With technology this advanced, they must know and expected an honest answer. Tumu lowered his hands and said, “Yes. We have a few dozen asleep in stasis.”

The friendly stranger lowered his gun once the search produced no weapons. “Very well. Come this way. We are dealing with your pursuers. They are only minutes away.”

As the Tritans fell in step behind their new acquaintances, Quet asked, “Why can we understand you?”

“The sphere. It translates all of our communications. Even writing.”

Tumu stopped listening because he lost sight of Rem. Never a good thing. When he looked back, he found the other Primary gazing at everything with an unexpected wonder. And as they transitioned from the bay into an open bridge, they all gaped.

There was a star inside of Enki. Behind them was a rounded wall with an ocean from top to bottom of the shell. It was hard to make out, but walls lined the ocean and land masses bordered it on either side.

“Oh, yes.” The friendly stranger nodded solemnly. “Plenty of this to see—Here we are.” He pointed to the gaping entry of the Sphere’s shell.

Tumu’s voids widened as the colony vessel bearing their women entered the Sphere. So tiny compared to the surrounding mechanisms and the space between.

Primary Rem warned, “They will shoot us. We have to reason—”

From all around the Sphere, light triangulated into one central column and unleashed on the colony vessel. For one horrifying moment, the ship was engulfed in white light. The next breath Tumu took was in a world without their females.

Eradicated.

“Wow, few people have seen the Chorus,” the friendly stranger announced. “Satellites harness the energy and then combine it within the Sphere’s center—What… what is the matter? You look… Well, you look quite devastated.”

Quet gripped the rail of the walkway with his mouth wide open and his voids bulging from his head. Bol looked away. Rem’s reaction shocked Tumu.

The Tritan fell to his knees and black tears gushed from his eyes. In a broken voice, Rem cried, “V—Vi!”

Tumu wasn’t mated, but the strangers obliterated many of his friends in an attempt to rescue the men from their pursuers.

What an ugly mess this was.

Tumu knelt beside Rem. Stilted, frightful, the younger Primary, the one who’d just lost his spouse of many generations, faced Tumu with abject horror in his voids. Rem said, “My… my mate. Tumu. Our females. Our race.”

“They were superior to us, and I hope you feel the remorse you deserve.”

{Enki | Now}

“Primary Rem showed no signs of blame or regret afterward. Instead, he fell headlong into the lab the Aegis offered us to compensate for killing half of our species in a misunderstanding. The other Primaries, Eminents, and Officers settled into life on Enki while we kept our young bulls in stasis to preserve their pre-nacre lifespans. Gargantuans lived longer than any Tritan, and we were few. Not long after, the other Primaries established a small dynasty in Enki and created ecosystems on our test planets. Strife between the two major races followed. A war to claim Enki for themselves.

“And that’s it. Our women died in a ridiculous feud, a civil war.”

The room was quiet as everyone emerged from the memory capsules. Sagan sniffled, feeling Tumu’s regrets. Tameka kept her head down, probably overwhelmed with bad feelings in the last twenty-four hours. Korac regained some of his composure and pulled Sagan against his side, which she cherished.

Lucy rubbed Yito’s back. The poor guy fell to his knees at some point. Choked with emotion, he asked, “Why do they keep this from us?”

Lance answered, “Would you want to admit your complicity in such an event? I struggled so much to understand why I awoke a widower. My beautiful Maz. We had three daughters. Every one of them… gone.” He wiped away his tears and swallowed hard.

Pity washed over Sagan. Some part of her wondered how she had any capacity left to feel for those who’d wronged them. Was it never ending, this well in her? Lance condemned Rayne, but he was a man in a desperate position—

Sagan buried her face in Korac’s side and let out a shuddering breath. This was too much. She totally got why Rayne would rather fight through everything. Violence was easy.

While Sagan hid, Tameka took a powerful step forward and put a hand on Tumu’s arm. When he looked at her, she said, “Thank you for sharing your story. I’m sorry.”

Xelan said over the earpiece, “I’m sorry, too. We have more than a few teary eyes here.”

Tumu touched Tameka’s hand. “Thank you, Peaches.”

Gently, she pressed on, “Now I need to ask, where are the rest of your race? Like Yito.”

Yito answered, “They keep us asleep still.”

Lucy helped him stand and gave him a reassuring smile. Again, it didn’t reach her eyes.

“I want them evacuated, and I want the demolition teams evacuated. War is coming to Enki again, and I don’t plan to leave it whole when I’m done. You get me?” Tameka sounded like a ruler.

Sagan smiled in admiration.

Tumu nodded solemnly. “I think Enki has had its time. We can’t derive its functions with the Aegis gone, at any rate.” He cast a cautious glance in Korac’s direction.

Ignoring him, Korac said, “We came here to ask about the bridge.”

Lance recoiled. “That’s a myth.” At their stern stares, he asked, “Is it not?”

Korac chafed Sagan’s arm as he said, “As it were, it happens to be real.”

“And under Torrentus,” Tumu finished.

Tameka declared, “We plan to enter it from the Pantheon—”

“Oh, you can’t,” Lance said. “That conduit is bio-locked—like the Pretiosum Cruor locked Cinder—to Celindria.” After a thoughtful pause, he added, “But I have an idea.”

Xelan said over the earpiece, “I vote we trust him.”

Tumu nodded.

Korac shrugged.

This was momentous. It was different this time. Bigger. More important. Tameka glanced at Sagan for her to weigh in on this decision. Place their faith in another person with a history of betrayal. Take a chance and trust again.

Sagan moved out of her retreat at Korac’s side. He peered down at her without pressure, but also without his opinion. As if he wanted her to make this decision on her own. She looked at Lance, Yito, and Tumu. Three potential Tritan allies with murky histories.

It was different this time. Insiders. That’s what the Shadow needed.

Decided, Sagan faced Tameka and smiled with her nod.

Tameka returned the expression before addressing Lance, “What did you have in mind?”