Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Bellow them, from horizon to horizon, was a solid grey wall of steel. As the planet was roughly twice the diameter of earth, they could see thirteen hundred miles in any direction, far enough to see both San Diego and Boston from Kansas. And nowhere in that vast sea of metal could they see so much as a single patch of earth or water.

"As you can see, we have completely covered this entire planet. This city contains roughly three hundred billion people. Roughly fifty billion of them are part of our army. The rest are scientists, such as astrophysicists, bio-engineers, battle-simulators, computer scientists, and vacuum-energists. Families are not allowed on this planet. Each and every one of us was grown in a test tube, genetically engineered for our specific jobs."

Simon, trying not to vomit, looked down; and vomited again. Maybe it would have helped if the floor wasn't glass...

Edmund, however, seemed perfectly fine. A strange smile crossed his face.

"Where do we fit in?"

"You will see shortly. You will meat with our leader soon."

Edmund gulped. "And where is he?"

"Up." The man walked out farther onto the platform, and pointed up.

Edmund rushed forward to see what he was indicating, but Simon stayed where he was. He didn't want to think about anymore up.

Craning his head back, Edmund did look up. His eyes twitched slightly. Then he lay down on his back, and stared up some more.

Their building ended some five hundred feet above, in a large, clear space port. There were maybe ten ships in total, each about the size of a Mall. They were not the kind of ship used for fast flight, but rather that for transporting a small city of people to-and-from the planets five small moons.

Past that, another two hundred miles up, a counter weight the size of a city was barely visible, connected to the rest of the tower by a tiny, one foot thick, forcefeild supported diamond and nano-tube tower. However, even this was wasn’t what amazed Edmund. Past the closest moon, past space debris and space ships and little floating space ports, was a massive platform.

Even though it was so far away, it was clearly visible, about a twelfth the size of the moon from earth. It was a space port the area of North America, the central docking point for several million space ships.

"W-what is that?", asked Edmund.

"You do not have a word for it, I am afraid. It is, simply speaking, the space equivalent of an aircraft carrier. But it is also much more. It is the docking point of over a third of our armed forced, including four million ships, and half a million class A fighters. It itself can only travel around Warp 2, or Warp 3.2 during a battle, when most of the ships will have left it. We have yet another one orbiting the System near the edge of the Oort cloud, and a third--well, a third that is traveling."

He was quiet for a minute, staring out into the darkness, eyes slightly unfocused. Then he continued.

"The closest one is called Incudem, or anvil. The one in the Oort cloud is called Ignis, or fire, and the third is simply named Eum, or him. We will be traveling to Ignis shortly, but first you must be fed. Come this way, we will get you something to eat."

Both Simon and Edmund were rather hungry and rather weak as it was. The gravity was rather strange here, pulling up and down at once, causing their stomachs much grief.

They were lead back through the great room, and through one of the doors, a different one than before. This time, it was a short trip, maybe 5 minutes of twisting hall ways. Simon stared at everything in wonder, mesmerized by the strange people. Edmund stared as well, but for a very different reason. It was his eyes that were hungry now.

They finally arrived at a small restaurant-like building, decorated in a strange red and orange pattern that kept on repeating in different ways. When Simon blinked, the colors changed slightly, the lines morphing into each other. He found it very relaxing.

They sat at a table that could have held many; Simon felt very small. A man came over, and handed each of them a small plate. Simon picked it up, inspected it, put it down. It was just a plate.

"What do we do with this?" asked Simon.

"Simon, I don't like this. Remember, Merlin--"

At that moment, Simons ears popped, and a small cracker appeared on the plate. Without thinking, Simon picked it up and ate it. As he did so, the whole room changed. In an instant, he was back in his favorite restaurant from back home, a small generic pizza place called Bela Bite Pizza. He didn't even noticed he was suddenly alone.

Scien paced his study, his frown deepening as he studied his statistics.

While Simon and Edmund were eating at their favorite restaurants, within feet of each other, a series of physiological and physical tests were being exercised on them. First was the reaction to the cracker. While Simon had eaten it, Edmund had not. Next was the sudden change of setting. Simon had been startled, while Edmund had been intimidated. Then there was the brief conversation with the waiter, the food choices, the time to eat them, and the amount paid.

That last test was an interesting one. Each had been given a fake credit card with a respectably large amount of money. Each was told they could spent as much or little on the food as they wanted, but they could only used the credit card in that restaurant. While the total price of the food, tip, and tax had been given to them as normally would at a restaurant on Earth, there was an additional line. They could add or subtract as much as they wanted from the total price. Simon had bought a lavish meal, and paid exactly what was asked. Edmund, however, had eaten little, and paid nothing.

After running several tests on these results, Sciens computer had concluded that Edmund would be much easier to bring over than Simon. Edmund showed as being 83% Executive, 10% Scientist, and 7% Mechanic, which amounted to one thing; he wanted to lead. Simon, however, scored very differently. He scored as 71% Visionary, 15% Scientist, 13 % Do-er and 1% Artist. Although in no way smarter than Edmund, he was more of a thinker, and would be less tempted by power.

After they were done eating, both of them suddenly found themselves back in their original restaurant. Simon had still been eating his dessert, which would have lasted several minutes longer, and was still was holding his spoon. However, all the ice cream was gone from it, alas.

Edmund had been sitting quietly, waiting for something to happen. He had finished eating some three minutes ago. What they didn't know was that they were still being watched.

The third to last test of Sciens was seeing how they would react to the sudden change in environment. If his models had been made correctly, they would react as calculated.

Simon was more amused than startled, and more than a little sad about the loss of his dessert. He had grown used to the strange and abrupt changes over the past day, and was not at all surprised by this one. He had rather expected it, in fact.

Edmund, however, had not. He jumped to his feet, stared around, and started to ask Simon something, than stopped. A slight smile played across his face, then hid behind his jaw-line.

Scien was pleased; the model had been correct. The only thing that had not been predicted was the smile. And although this seemed but a small thing, it was not.

Simon and Edmund discovered something rather odd; they were totally and utterly alone. Not only had their guide gone, but everyone else who had been in the room. Unsure what to do, they argued about whether or not they should leave. Deciding that they could do nothing more there as it was, they ventured out of the restaurant, and went in search of theirs guide.

However, they became quickly baffled. Going out through the large room the restaurant branched off of; they saw not a single person. However, there were evident signs of life; still hot plates of food, computers left on, random items from a normal work place. But there were no people to go with the stuff.

Simon was rather worried by this. He had feared many things upon capture, but being abandoned was not one of them. Interestingly, Edmund quickly grew less worried, while he was starting to feel more worried. Simon hadn’t quiet grasped or ever really understood this part of Edmund; nor had Edmund till then.

It was at this point that they decided to split up. They had just gotten, through an interesting elevator-like transport, to a small room entirely made up of doors branching outwards. The strange part was that although the doors were visible, whatever was behind was not. About an inch from the frames, the air shivered a light purple, then abruptly there was no more air to speak of. Edmund took the straw he had been holding onto and threw it at one of the doors. It passed through, and the air in the room suddenly became much colder. They both shivered. Simon assumed at first that this was some sort of teleportation device, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Should we go back?” asked Simon. He was feeling a bit nervous.

“I’m going to stick my hand through.” Edmund responded, walking over to the closest door.

“What…?”

“Watch.”

Edmund suddenly and swiftly plunged his hand through the door.

At that moment, out of all of the other doors, a severed hand fell onto the floor. They were the same as Edmunds, all right hands, except slightly smoother.

Another of the slight smiles played across Edmunds face. Before Simon could react, their guide walked right out of the door Edmund had stuck his hand through.

“Ah, there you are. We will be going now.”

Grabbing both of them firmly by the hands, he glanced up at the ceiling, and a second later they were hurtling upwards at extraordinary speeds.

Half a second later their pod shot free from the top of the tower, and they were sent hurtling upwards into space. Simon couldn’t understand why he was still standing—then he saw another set of discs, and it made sense. There was no inertia.

The pod they were in was twelve feet in diameter and about fifty feet tall, although there seemed no apparent reason for this.

They shot upwards faster and faster, the little rectangle that was the Carrier growing larger at a rate similar to a car on a highway approaching a sign about a mile away. In this circumstance, very, very fast.

The carrier was exactly half a million miles from the top of the tower they had left, because for the moment it was actually anchored to it. Light travels 186,000 miles a second, meaning half a million miles at the fastest possible speed, excluding warp, would take around 2.7 seconds. The pod took 14 seconds, around a fifth the speed of light.

Now, if this were a normal pod riding on a super nova (which pass that speed), the people inside would have instantly become a thick pool of crushed bone and blood. However, Simon only had 14 seconds to think about this before something even more exciting happened.

As they approached the Carrier, their vision was obstructed by tens of thousands of ships leaving and returning. This only was noticeable for three seconds, however, before they landed on the Carrier itself.

Scale is hard to judge in space. In fact, it is nearly impossible. Even though Simon knew that is was the side of North America didn’t quiet convey what that really means. As they approached, he noticed a single small tower jutting out of the center, and tried to use that to compare. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize it was ten miles tall. If you imagine that it was a foot tall, the Carrier would have been a square sixty miles to a side.

They landed in a small cleared area near the building, where armed personnel met them and escorted them, if rather nicely, to the tower. Looking up, Simon could see just above the tower a very faint force field, which must be what, was holding in all the air. He was surprised to see that although the building was indeed rather imposingly big, he didn’t feel nauseous looking up past it; he later realized that yet again, it was because of the lack of scale. There were no other land marks to compare it too, as most of the ships were too far away to gauge their size in themselves.

Edmund hadn’t said anything up till then. He had been gazing all around him, like a shoplifter who also happened to be a cop. Simon looked over at him, started to say something witty, and then stopped. Edmund stared at a very interesting random point in the air, then decided that random interesting points were about as interesting as a well constructed political argument, where one of the people doesn’t show up.

They were led through a series of security tests that Simon and Edmund never noticed. All they saw was a brief flicker of the lights, while several thousand nano bots circled them, collecting weaknesses.

They were then brought to a very uninteresting elevator. Simon looked all around, and yet again was surprised by the scarcity of the surveillance; ever since he had found The Token, and although he had never known it, he had gained a sense for things connected with the tokens. For example, the two inertia discs. Those used Sciens power, and the connection between them buzzed in Simons mind, although he was unaware of it at the time. In fact, this elevator was the first time since they had gotten in the yellow ship that he couldn’t feel it. It was like sitting in a room with a fan on all day, and then suddenly someone turns if off, and it isn’t until then that you realize just how loud the fan really was. That was what happened to Simon.

The elevator was, in fact, a normal escalator. As escalators go, it was bulletproof, sound proof, traveling 50 miles an hour, and being lifted by magnetic a coil, which is to say, the last thing Simon expected to be shot in.

Fifteen soft noises later everyone except Edmund had been shot with a tranquilizer gun in the back.

Given that their guards had been alternating facing different directions in a circle around Simon and Edmund, Simon was only the fourth thing Edmund though. The first was an impulse to duck. The second was him wondering how everyone but him could have been shot in such a way, given that no guns were visible anywhere in the elevator. The third was an impulse to grab hold of something, because without an inertia disc, the elevator suddenly stopped. Banging his head against the suspiciously soft plastic walls of the elevator, Edmund finally realized that Simon had been shot, but not him. The fifth thing he wondered was whether he was still dreaming.

A panel opened in the ceiling, and a single man dropped through.

“Come, quickly!”

Edmund stared at him. He was rather tall, even by human standards, maybe seven feet six inches, meaning that he barely fell when entering the elevator.. His shirt was torn, and he wore a green back pack. Most importantly, he was holding a large tranquilizer gun in one hand, and a strange looking needle in the other. Running over to Simon he grabbed him, and yelled something at Edmund, which after a second Edmund realized was “First-up-fists-down!”

Now, had Edmund been his normal self, he would have realized he had been tricked once again. But he wasn’t himself, so he followed the tall man, who had scooped up Simon like he wasn’t already carrying his weight in baggage. Edmund trailed behind him, unsure of what to do with himself. However, even if he had been feeling normal, and was not drugged, he wouldn’t have gone with the man. As it was, conditioned so as to be on Sciens side, he wasn’t very rash to escape, as he saw it, from the group that was brining him to Scien.

However, Edmund hadn’t gotten the full affect of the drug, because of his connection with Simon. Because Simon had been protected by The Token, Edmund had been partly protected as well. So when he saw a chance to escape, a small spark of light, drowning in the depths of his mind, lit up the horizons of his thoughts. And so without question, he followed the man.

The man had thrown Simon up onto the top of the elevator by the time Edmund decided to go with him, and was turning around as Edmund tried to climb up out of the elevator. Giving Edmund a hand, he pulled him up, and without a word started examining the surrounding walls.

Although the elevator was extremely advanced, it still went up a narrow chute. This meant that for the present, the only way out was through a wall, through the elevator, or up.

This didn’t leave them with many options. But before the man had time to consider this, he introduced himself.

“Hello, my name is Kusal. You may be wondering what I am doing here. I have just saved your life.”

“But who are you?” asked Edmund in bewilderment.

“That will come later. You might not have noticed, but one of the guards in that elevator was out to kidnap you. Bring you back to the Empire. I was sent by Scien himself to intercept him. He had been evading me for several weeks, until I finally tracked him to your personal guard. Unfortunately, he was not unprepared. When I—”

Kusal stopped talking as abruptly as a news reported who just got shot. There was a slight whirring noise coming from somewhere above them. Then there was a blinding flash. Then there was utter darkness.

A man fell from several hundred feet above them, crashing downwards as something like a heavily weaponized golf cart followed suit. With a fluid movement, Kusal drew a small Frisbee out of his pocket, and threw is straight upwards. Grabbing Edmund and flinging him to the ground, Kusal started shooting upwards.

Edmund never saw what the gun was, but he never forgot what it did.

Out of it flew five blue bullets, each the size of a baseball. They flickered and spun together, weaving and dodging in patterns that defied the eye and shattered the mind. With a soft flick they shot upwards through the chute, and within seconds reached the two falling objects. The cart and the man started to fall backwards through the air, rising up and out of sight.

There was a blinding flash. Then there was light again.

The blue energy expanded and flew in all directions, and within seconds was gone.

Kusal released Edmund and stood up. The air felt dry and dead; everything around them glowed a soft blue. As Edmund rose, the air shimmered around him like cloth, the dust held still in the heaviness of the silence.

Kusal had already returned the gun to his side. Picking up Simon, he walked over to the edge of the chute, and casually started inspecting the wall. Looking over at Edmund, he smiled slightly, and a small wave of understanding passed between them.

“I have suspended our personal time in stasis for one hour from our perspective. At the moment, everything is as it was before the blinding flash, which was the result of rooting ourselves at that point.”

“But… you didn’t fire the gun until after—“

“Gun? That wasn’t a gun. And does it matter? I was able to pick the time we locked onto; just not at that moment. We are currently five seconds back in time.”

Edmund nodded, understanding.

One hour later would find them nine miles higher, if not out of breath

First of all, Kusal blasted through the wall of the chute, which took around ten minutes. The material it was made of was rather good at not being destroyed. Kusal had to used a very special laser, which he clamed was usually used for cutting straight through mountains. After that, there was the problem of getting to the top of the tower, where Scien was. That was rather hard, because the elevator had only climbed a mile. The elevators couldn’t move at all, because one needs to move in time to move in a line. The next fifteen minutes involved much running and unnecessary shouting. They finally found a small armored golf cart (Edmund was about to argue over this, when Kusal explained these were very common) that for some unknown reason worked rather well. Kusal drove it up several flights of stairs, through a perfectly fine wall, and then into a rather open space that lacked any walls or floors at all.

It was then that Edmund found out that it could fly, using a rather interesting set of CD like discs that he had never seen before. Another fifteen minutes later, they finally made it to the top of the tower. Now came the tricky part.

Scien was at the moment at the very top of his tower, in fact on the roof, watching his ships flying back and forth, back and forth. He was waiting for Simon and Edmund to come, and he had stationed a series of hidden guards. Although he had not told Kusal this, he planned to kill anyone besides Simon and Edmund, should they get this far. The elevator they would have come up exited some three hundred feet to his left.

Glancing down at his watch, he saw that it was five seconds before the elevator was about to rise. He motioned the guard to turn on a special little machine he had just installed himself. It could detected fluctuations in time.

A minute later there was a sudden spike, and a dull explosion from below. At the same time, there was a second spike, and a blindingly blue flash in front of them. The elevator doors were blown shut, leaving the chute in darkness. The air flickered before Scien, and an armored golf cart materialized. Instantly, gunfire burst forth like hail from a cloud.

However, from the moment Kusal had seen the falling golf cart, he had know what was to happen. Throwing Simon and Edmund off the cart, he drove straight towards Scien. The gun fire intensified, as a simmering force field erupted around Scien. With super human reflexes, Scien turned, and in turn shot a single bullet from a small gun that fit in his palm. It passed through the force field, and connected with the cart.

The bullet was a very special, very deadly piece of metal, about as dangerous and expensive as a medium sized fighter-jet. It was to other bullets as a key is to a wooden club.

Traveling at five times the speed of sniper rifle fire, it pushed the cart straight through the elevator roof, and knocked Kusal off his perch. Several seconds later, his past self would be startled by a falling golf cart and a lone man.

Edmund rolled to a stop as several guards rushed over to him, deftly lifting him to his feet. Meanwhile, Scien had walked over to a slightly raised chair, not a throne to rule from, but a throne to kill from.

Edmund was led to him, as two men clad in blue strode out from a doorway, and started examining Simon. They rolled him onto a cart and brought him over as well.

Edmund watched Scien with interest, if not fear. He was an imposing man, rather tall and thin, his black hair pushed forwards so that it appeared to be the edge of a cliff. His eyes were pastel blue, cold and unlike any other eyes Edmund had seen. They were more imposing that if they had been without color, for at least then he could have looked into them. But this blue, it was like a wall, and he could see nothing past it.

Besides his eyes, his face was very long and angular, his cheek bones visible and his lips a two thin, pale lines. His nose was thin as well, long and heavily slanted. His teeth were bleached of color, and his gums were the same shade as the rest of his face. He wore a uniform of bone white leather, with blue shoes and blue gloves, which reached the edge of his sleeves. On top of this he wore a very peculiar vest, made of interlocking pieces of blue jade and black quartz, covered in a thin layer of flexible glass. The pieces of jade and quartz, each an inch long and half an inch wide, were off set like bricks in a building, except vertically aligned. They were each spinning towards the center, so that it appeared that the vest was a whirl pool of black ships in blue waters.

As he sat down, he drew a thin cane from the left arm, and twirled it in his hands. Edmund blinked. The top was a globe about the size of a grape fruit, a swirling void of darkness. The air around it shimmered, and Edmund felt a cold, groping claw reaching across from it towards him. His eyes opened wide, and a small squeak escaped his lips. A vein in his neck throbbed. He felt his feet rising from the ground, and his arms started moving of their own accord. Pointing upwards, they grasped each other, then slowly released and pointed forwards.

Edmunds was falling. He felt the bottom of his mind fall out from beneath him, a voice echo upwards from the depths.

The words were soft and cold, like snow flakes. They shimmered and melted, leaving behind pools of thoughts and dreams. The stars were all around him, and he felt whispering songs of the empire shifting and spinning through the night. He felt the vibrations of music instruments, the notes and the voice expanding and surrounding his mind. The coldness was eternal, numbing him from the heat and the pain and the light.

He saw as if in a dream. He saw wars among the stars, victories and defeats, hundreds and thousand of years passing by with flickering motions of peace and war. And in the corner of it all, he saw the Earth, spinning and spinning without purpose or knowledge of those wondrous, might beings that was the Empire.

The stars shone brighter and brighter, the years passed faster, and then there was a sudden explosion, and the stars went dead.

Around the dying stars, a forced loomed, a force of pain and endless suffering.

With them came a brightness that outshone the brightest suns. With them came a war so vicious the stars themselves were destroyed, and time passed on. Finally, the brightness flickered, and the threat was gone, leaving a smoldering ruin that was the galaxy. And the brightness shimmered and diminished, and the flickering started up again.

Edmund watched for hours as the modern history of the Empire passed by, so much information overwhelming him he knew he wouldn’t remember it all.

At the same time, a very similar experience was going through Simons mind, but for a different purpose.

While Scien needed both of them, he needed Simon to believe he was more worthy than his brother. All he needed Edmund to understand was the true power of The Tokens, which Simon already understood.

Simon watched as well, viewing not only the history of the Empire, but more importantly Sciens own history. Growing up as a future ruler. Watching his younger brothers becoming engrossed in war, and his youngest still training to become King. Sciens life was a cold, hard one, watching and waiting. Then his rejection from command, the scar he had been imparted with.

Then the rebellion he started. Back in the early days, when he was the leader of only ten ships. Then his deal with the Slevnoth X3 ruler, and the sudden command of a small planet, in exchange for a very precious shipment of Ratteminol he had hijacked, the most indestructible substance in the galaxy. As the Slevnoth X3 ruler had been appointed the poetical ruler of a small section of space consisting of five populated solar systems, giving up one was quiet inconsequential. The shipment, in fact, was only about fifteen tons of the mental, but as it could be pounded to a molecule thick and withstand direct anitmatter attacks, fifteen tons was enough to render around a hundred thousand ships nearly indestructible.

With the new planet, Scien quickly took advantage of the two billion people living there, and constructed a small fleet. With that, he quietly sabotaged the fleet of the former X3 commander, took back the alloy, and left the planet with fifty five thousand ships.

Five years later he arrived at the other edge of the galaxy, and set up a new base on a planet that was at one point used as an outpost in the Ancient war. After ten years of struggle, they finally brought the atmosphere to livable conditions, although over seventy percent of the fleet was killed from starvation in the last five months, when they ran out of food. However, by the time a small military base had been constructed, around another half were dying from an alien virus, most likely left behind by the aliens during their attack.

Scien suffered from several horrifyingly destructive diseases, a consequence of fleeing from his rejection. He nearly died every time, and each time was left a lesser man. After another ten years, the planet was finally functioning well, and there were half a billion people. Of the two million original people, only ten thousand survived, all because they were forced to replace body parts with metal ones, leaving them the cyborgs Simon and Edmund had seen twice.

Years passed, and Scien continued to grow his rebellion, his hate replaced with cold determination. His army grew, and he expanded to new planets, some of which he destroyed, looking for materials. His first carrier he built in five years, the next in four, the third in one. It came to his attention one day that he was being looked for, and a plan formed in his mind. He went out and met his brother, planning on taking both Tokens, killing the Kings son, and taking over the galaxy. But the son and one of the Tokens escaped. With the single Token, his cold numbness grew, but so did his strength.

For the next fourteen years he spent his time searching for the missing goods, paying little attention to the rest of his little empire. He left everything to his second in command, and focused all his energies on his prize.

It was around the time that the third Carrier was finished that Scien finally realized he was a very powerful force. Although outnumbered by the empire, he had several things on his side. The first was complete order. The men and woman he controlled had always known him as their ruler, and would die for him. The second was flexibility. He had enough troops to pose as a threat, but was also small enough that he could quickly change direction in any champagne. The third was speed. Because of how small his fleet way, communication between sections was rather easy, because those sections could never be very far apart. Fourthly, he had surprise. The empire was strong, but it still didn’t know where he was. He could quietly attack from any point without the empire ever seeing him. Fifthly, he had made several incredible advances in weapon technology, and with the fifteen tons of Ratteminol, he had rendered about a fourth of his fleet, or the A class fighters, virtually indestructible. And finally, he had a Token, while the Empire did not. This difference was extremely important, as the commander of a single token could destroy planets and crush civilizations at will.

However, he still relied heavily off of the hand full of planets he had been able to teraform, while the empire had tens of thousands. No matter how strong his fleet was, they would be nothing without those planets, for they were the sources of the metals used in the construction of the new ships.

Then there was the pin pointing of the tokens path through space, and its projected crash landing on earth. Several ships were sent to retrieve it, but none of them ever returned. He sent several more ships, and never heard from them either.

After several more attempts, Scien finally gave up, seeing that through some mysterious way, his best ships were simply being destroyed, with no other explanation.

Some years passed. Having nothing else to do, Scien posted guards around Earth, although he still lost some now and then, enough to gather results that Scien found quiet interesting. Based on comparisons of the disappearances of the ships, although they all got to varying degrees away from the earth, their paths did connect with the position and rotation of the earth. After much calculation, the results showed at around 80 percent accuracy that the defense line was a sphere five light years in diameter, and the center was located on a non-moving point on earth. Scien was baffled by this for several reasons. He knew that although earth was a fairly advanced branch of human life, they did not have the technology to snipe his ships, whenever they entered a highly specified range, especially without him noticing. Not only that, this would be impossible without nearby ships, as the timing of the attacks would have to be impeccable. As no other ships could be detected, this ruled that out. However, the main interest was that the specific point on earth. If earth had somehow figured out how to create a stationary defense system to protect earth, this would most likely be some form of war-technology based missiles, possibly positioned around the asteroid belt, or a powerful force field, strong enough to reach exactly 5 light years out before dying—or, if humanity felt that scared by a few hundred alien ships, a neutrino ray, a rather complicated, dangerous, expensive device, which is the equivalent of trying to kill someone underwater with a water gun.

However, although all of those things could be used from a specific spot, there would be rather bad affects on the surrounding humans. Warp drives don’t turn on well near planets, a force field that powerful should evaporate the oceans, and neutrino radiation is nearly impossible to aim.

That left Scien with a conclusion; the only thing that could generate that much energy without killing humans was a Token. So he waited. He held his ships as close to the area as possible, because if the position of the boundary shifted, he needed to know.

This position did not shift for three years, and he didn’t loose a single ship during that entire time.

Also during those three years, the point on earth was calculated and compared with the projected path of the missing Token. Although one said it should have landed on the mars and the other said the point was over the ocean (Simon lived within thirty miles of the coast), it was reasonable to say that this proved the token was on earth.

Then, around six months ago, a single ship returned. Apparently, with no sign of warning, every other ship was gone. When their last computer logs were checked, it showed them definitely outside the five light year range. Scien sent several ships back, unarmed ones, and sent them straight towards earth, to see how far they could get. The disappeared fifty light years from earth.

Now, Scien was no idiot, and he knew quiet a lot about the Tokens. For one, he knew that for there to be such a sudden change, something very sudden must have happened. The fifty light year death zone was not of any importance itself, as his ships never went that way other than to guard earth—not to mention, fifty light years was still an incredible small distance, about as annoying as trying to cross a circular room 100 feet in diameter, without touching a small golf ball near the edge. And for such a sudden thing to happen, only a few situations were possible. The first was someone or something had tried to or succeeded in taking or moving the token. The other option was that the earth needed more protection, because of some form of attack. The third option was that it was trying to trick Scien into thinking one of the first two had happened.

All of these options meant that he needed to surround the earth now. If someone was trying to or had taken the Token, it could only be someone from the empire. He knew for a fact that the humans on earth were genetically different, and would not be able to use it without certain death.

He then commenced to surround the earth with twelve thousand ships, which was sufficient that no ship could go past the 50 light year zone without him noticing. At those numbers, each ship would have to patrol a square 1.6 light years to a side, which was very small, given that each could send around 70 small probes through that area, meaning that across the entire sphere, no object could be farther than a fifth of a light year apart.

However, after that sudden change, nothing happened. Nothing continued to happen for a while. Scien grew impatient, and decided to experiment. He connected to the center of his Token, and traveled the fifty light years in an instant.

What he found was startling; the other Token was surrounded by a field of churning energy, stopping him from communication. He fought against it, but light the other force field, there was an even stronger one in the mind. Finding that useless, he searched around the barrier, and discovered something weaker—Simon.

Simon had a weak connection to his Token, something Scien didn’t understand at first. All he knew was that a human had somehow connected with the Token, and had not died. So he tried to kill Simon from a distance; and almost succeeded. But the results were even better.

Through an interesting form of mental strain, Scien damaged the connection with Simon, making it so he would be pained every time he used the Token. What he didn’t anticipate, although this was possibly even more profitable, was that the backlash on the Token depleted the physical shield.

Although he had succeeded, he was very tired, and it wasn’t until several hours later that he commanded a small handful of ships to go in towards earth.

Scien was rather pleased to find the ships pass through the earth’s atmosphere unnoticed. However, he commanded them before they left to not attack right away. They first pin pointed the Tokens location, then analyzed the surrounding air space, and the house it was in. When this was done, the people themselves were analyzed.

None of them seemed to pose much of a problem, so after a few days, Scien sent in a single ship.

Now, Scien knew that he couldn’t simply take the Token, he knew he would have to be given it by whoever had it at the time. So his men were simply trying to take whoever that was, not kill them. The house was breached easily, but there were several complications. In the case that the person could not be taken by force, another person should be taken, to be used as a hostage. After the people inside were knocked unconscious, it was found that none of his men could lift Simon, although they could touch him. He seemed to be stuck to the floor. As told, they simply took another person, and left.

Scien was furious, but there was little he could do. So he waited for a turn of events that would allow him to strike. If he needed to he would rip the whole house out of the ground, he would.

However, he would rather not do that, as the earth’s military was sizable, and even if they could not damage him to much extent, they could definitely destroy any ships that tried to take off with a large house, which would be disastrous, because with Simon’s death, the Token would be lost to him forever.

The turn of events came much sooner than expected, when out of nowhere, a massive cloud of the empires ships took out all of the patrolling ships, surrounding the planet and destroying any of his ships that tried to approach.

Scien knew that if they had found his real location, they would be attacking him now, but they weren’t, so he was still safe. However, if they somehow took back the Token, his life would be forfeit. So he gathered together half of his A class ships, and attacked.

The battles raged for months as both sides fought for control of the earth, a speeding, shifting mass that finally located itself near Jupiter, then Saturn, then simply dissolved into smaller skirmishes across the outer edge of the Oort cloud.

However, through all of this, a handful of the empires ships made it through, and the Token was taken.

Scien did not realize until they had cleared the solar system, and were speeding off towards the center of the galaxy. However, although his forces dominated in numbers, the tactical genius of the empire was unequaled. However, he finally got enough of an advantage to send several hundred ships out after the escaping ship.

The ships were lost to him several days later as they passed outside of the Oort cloud, where their probes were intercepted, and their natural communication systems blocked by the solar winds.

However, his second in command was with them, and he heard later of the smaller battle around an empire planet.

There had been a massive chase for about a week before his ships had caught up with the fleeing group, but the force Scien had sent was not prepared for the amount of guard ships, and they were outnumbered by about a hundred ships. While this battle was going on, again, the main ship got away. Yet again, a group of ships went after them, but none returned, and the precious cargo went off their radar for around a month. The battle with the guard ships finally wound down to a stale mate, with more than half of each forces ships destroyed, and neither with any ammo left. His ships quickly retreated to the real battle.

Back around earth, the battle was going rather well. Scien was able to send a much larger force of ships this time, and the fleeing ships were quickly destroyed. However, there was another complication.

It is rather hard to conceal a large scale battle in space, and earth had noticed the sudden damage to their solar system, especially when destroyed ships started crashing into mars, where an extensive colony of half a million people lived.

So, as you would expect, each tried to communicate with the new “aliens”. This posed a problem—neither side, the empire or the rebellion, wanted to be responsible for these communications. In fact, to avoid contact, both sides simply flew away from earth as fast as they could, dissolving the main battle.

The events after that were as could be deduced; Sciens forces penetrated the atmosphere of the planet, tricked Simon and Edmund, and made off with them.

Hours past as information flowed from Scien to the friends and the guards started shifting in their positions. Ships flew by overhead; the sun slowly came into view as the carrier turned on its very slow axis, each of its days a week on earth. All this information transferred from Scien to Simon, nothing left out from the complete account of events up until that moment. Scien knew that Simon would despise him for what he was, but he knew that trust was something Simon could not give him. All he needed now for Simon to fear him, maybe even admire him.

But with Edmund, Scien saw trust. He saw deceit and lust and a will to break from Simon. So he fed Edmund only what was needed, and shaped in his mind a cold fury, a blinding sense of wrong. Then he whispered something more into their minds, and started to bring them out of their slumber.

Scien stirred. Slowly rising to his feet, he lifted his staff high, and shouted a short word, which was lost in the roar of a passing ship. The two companions slowly returned back to the ground, and they both opened their eyes. Edmund had a dreary look, as if he had been asleep, while Simon simply looked… baffled. For the first time, he finally understood what was happening, and who Scien really was. And he was afraid.

Scien smiled, and walked over to Edmund. He held his chin and looked into his eyes, searching. Edmund shivered, and then smiled back. Simon slowly backed away.

Scien turned on Simon, the swish of his clothes like a river of stones. Grabbing Simons arm, he pulled him very close, and whispered, “Do you understand me?”

Simon gulped, and strained to pull away, but to no avail. Sciens grip was stronger than steel.

“Do you understand me?”

“I-I do. You should not be.”

“That is right. I am not, ah, natural. Now will you yield? You know it will be the easiest way.”

“I will not yield to you! You have taken everything from me! I will not have peace with you until my father is returned to me!”

Scien laughed so loudly he let go of Simon, who fell backwards and scrambled away.

“Your father! Have they told you nothing? I see I have another card to play. For you cannot escape from me—my powers are not restrained by such a fearful mind as your own! Yes! You only do what is right from fear of the consequences. I have no such limitations; you will never free yourself from those bounds, for of your own design you are imprisoned. The only escape from the confines of your mind is the death of your body. And I hope I will have the chance to set you free.”

Simon shook his head, but his body trembled from the sight of such a twisted man. Fori had died for him, and he would not yield until equal blood was spilled, every drop. But he was afraid. He looked over to Edmund for help, but found Edmund was already staring at him.

“Give me the Token, Simon,” said Edmund.

At first Simon did not understand. How could that help? Then he knew. He had been betrayed.

“Edmund! What do you mean! We’re a team, remember?”

“Teams share the joy and the sorrows equally, Simon. We have never been a team. I have always trailed behind you, going through all this without a word. I have no stake in this; my father is still on earth. I’ve helped you through all this, and through pure luck we have fallen into the hands of our savior. Scien isn’t a monster, Simon—he is just daring to oppose fear. His is the right cause. Now give me The Token. This is what I’ve been here all along to do; to enlighten you. There is too much fear—we will make it right.”

Simon pulled The Token out of his pocket, and reached out his arm to Edmund

“Take it then! If you are without fear, take it! You—we—have heard the consequences. You can’t simply take it from me, even if I offer it to you. I must truly want you to have it, and I don’t. If you take it, this will mean the end of us.”

Edmund reached over to Simon, and lifted it out of his hand.

For a second, the three stood in shocked silence. Then, a small speck of light blared forth from the center of The Token, and Edmund screamed. His hand turned blue as The Token changed colors, and a thick green liquid spread from it around Edmunds arms, black flames dancing above them. Edmund fell over, but he couldn’t let go of the Token. His arms flailed as the fire started burning his body. Simon rushed over to help, but hit a barrier in the air, and was thrown backwards. Scien laughed, a strange, unearthly noise, and signaled to his guards to restrain Simon. No one could interfere at this point. It was too late.

As Simon was pulled away he screamed as the link between him and The Token broke, and blood coated his throat. The token expanded, and engulfed Edmund is a whirlwind of glowing ashes, and Scien plucked his own Token from the end of his staff. Then, like a dying star, the cloud imploded, falling inwards into itself until it was a single dot, and then it passed out of sight. A second later Simon gasped as his connection formed again—and Scien fell to the ground, as the point of light exploded outwards and consumed everything in sight.

When the dust cleared Edmund was again lying on the ground, the Token not far from him. Scien picked himself up and looked around. The building they had been standing on was gone, and all the ships within several miles were on fire. Simon realized he was no longer being held back. The guards were gone as well.

He rushed over to Edmund, who started coughing, but otherwise looked fine. But when he opened his eyes, they were the same color as Sciens, that strange, menacing blue.

“Simon—what happened?”

“Its going to be fine, Edmund. You were just—“

“I finally understand. I was a fool.” He smiled, then coughed again.

“Edmund, what happened to you?”

“I was… enlightened.”

“Enlightened? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Now boys,’ said Scien, ‘I think it is time Simon and I had a little chat.”