Chapter 4 Return
Return
Khoth’s hands lightly rested on the controls of his personal Paladin-class starship, the Exarch, as he piloted it towards the massive Gate the Altaeth had built above Haseon.
The Gate glittered as the metal--or calcanth as it was called, which the Altaeth built all their structures out of regardless of whether they were on the ground or in darkness of space--was hit by rays of Haseon’s sun.
Strangely, no one in the Illumen Alliance had ever found calcanth on any known Altaeth world, or any world at all, actually.
Some thought that it was not a natural material whatsoever, but had been grown somehow.
Yet calcanth’s constituent parts were just as mysterious as the whole.
It was but another mystery of the countless mysteries surrounding the Altaeth.
The Gate itself was an enigma, too. It was seemingly simple, consisting of only two curved wedges of calcanth--miles wide and tall--that rotated around one another in a graceful circle.
Never touching. They only stopped spinning once a destination Gate was selected on a nearby ship.
Then the wedges locked in place and the space between them would glow a fiery red, before a silvery tunnel appeared.
Entering the tunnel, a ship could be taken across the known galaxy in a matter of hours.
The location of new Gates was a full-time occupation for the Icith, a gentle, gigantic species of spacefaring beings who could not fight to save their lives, but they located Gates with an alacrity that no other species in the Alliance could match.
How the Gates worked--potentially opening wormholes through spacetime--was unknown.
They’d been studied for millennia, but no one dared dismantle one for fear of not being able to put it back together and losing that destination forever.
But scans had shown little to nothing about the interior of these wedges.
Scientists warned that if they did not discover how the Gates worked they might not be able to repair damaged ones later and might lose access to whole swaths of the Alliance.
But that had not happened so far. The Gates were remarkably maintenance and error-free.
They were not attacked by the Khul either, for their enemy needed the Gates as much as the Alliance did to breach the great distances between star systems.
There had been three ships ahead of Khoth to use the Gate, but now he was next.
He lifted his right hand to change his view to a split-screen.
The Gate ahead of him and Haseon, his beloved homeworld, behind him.
His hand trembled and he quickly lowered it, curling his fingers against his palm as he rested it on top of his thigh.
This might be the last time I see Haseon. I should wish it farewell.
But he did not change the view, yet neither did he ask for clearance to leave for Earth. In fact, he was silent for so long that the Gate Control contacted him.
“E-Exarch, is there some difficulty?” the crisp voice of Control asked.
The Thaf’ell Control officer stumbled over his ship’s name. It was not a word that was of any language that was known. It was a made up word as far as he could tell. Daesah had been the one to name it.
“The Exarch. That is your ship’s name,” she’d told him.
He’d frowned at her at the time. “What kind of name is that?”
“I… I don’t know. It is just your ship’s name,” she said almost stubbornly.
Excitement filled him as he thought his sister had found some indication in the ship’s system to come up with such a name. He asked her as much.
“No… not exactly,” she answered.
“Not exactly?” His tone was arch. This time of imprecision was not valued.
“The Exarch is its name, little brother! Why can you just not accept this?”
But despite the slight acidity in her voice, her eyes were distant and her head was cocked to the side as if she was listening to something that only she could hear.
He quickly looked around to see if anyone had noticed his sister’s fey moment.
None had. But they were coming more often of late.
He worried that the stress of her position as High Commander was causing her
“I was considering naming the ship after one of Haseon’s moons,” he began.
But she was shaking her head. “No, your ship’s name is the Exarch.”
He had opened his mouth to persist, but there was something in her face that told him that he shouldn’t argue with her.
And so, his ship’s name was the Exarch and that was the end of that.
His eyes shifted to the leather-bound journal he’d set on the co-pilot’s seat that his sister had taken to writing in addition to the official electronic logs during the last few grand cycles of her life.
It was in this journal that thoughts--such as the name of his ship--were written. Including her thoughts on Earth.
Is that why my mother is sending me here? Father seems to think so, but he also thinks she is sending me out of harm’s way. That she doesn’t want our line to end with me...
“Surely there is some other place that I may be assigned other than Earth!” Khoth had said to his father.
The two of them had been standing outside the Exarch in the landing bay on Haseon.
The tribunal had just ended, but he was to leave immediately.
He was not to contact the members of his old command.
No friends would see him off. He was to simply go immediately to the ass end of nowhere, or as the humans called it, Earth.
He could not help but feel this was as bad or worse than exile.
For if he had been exiled, he could have headed out to one of the fronts against the Khul and continued to fight.
But no, he was to go to Earth and sit there, doing nothing of any use, while his former command, his friends, his family continued the fight.
His father crossed his arms at the wrists behind his back. He showed no frustration with Khoth--he was a master of Xi and Xa being in perfect agreement--but answered simply, “Khoth, this is the ruling. You are to go to Earth. It is a punishment. Not a strategic maneuver.”
“But can we risk not being strategic about everything, even punishments, considering the Khul’s renewed strength?
” Khoth’s hands curled into those traitorous fists as frustration and despair filled him.
He was unable to release them as he said, “I can be of use. Not only in battle, but if you put me where my punishment will be seen by many it will have more effect. We have but a handful of operatives on Earth, working with the… the humans, who care nothing for our rules. Sending me there will not help the whole as much as sending me to one of the systems where the Khul are active.”
“While I agree with you that punishment should not only be to punish the one that is guilty, but to edify or serve as an example for others…” His father’s voice died off and the older man sighed.
“This is what your mother decided. That is enough of a reason, is it not? Or do you think to argue with her?”
“She has sent me to the one place where I cannot help!” Khoth’s voice rose and he quickly swallowed back any more traitorous angry words that might slip out. His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands. His selchilite clacked angrily.
“Or perhaps she has sent you to the one place where she is sure not to lose another child,” his father murmured.
Khoth’s head jerked up and the selchilite drummed against each other and his armor. “Mother would not do that! She would not protect me at the expense of the Alliance!”
His father slowly nodded. His eyes were clouded for a moment. “Perhaps I speak of my own desires.”
“Your own--”
“The positions you and your sister held almost ensured that our line might end,” his father answered. “I had hoped that one of you would follow me and choose to be a Justiciar. But you both took after your mother and joined the military.”
Khoth knew that his father’s ego was such that he would not be offended by his two children choosing another path.
But he had never considered that his father might be afraid that they had.
Now with Daesah dead, he was their only child left.
Khoth realized that his greatest fear had come true and he might be glad that Khoth was sent to a place where the Khul had no interest.
“But you were in the military as well. That is where you met Mother,” Khoth reminded him unnecessarily.
“Yes, but I left it for the very reason I wish that you and Daesah had not chosen the same path,” his father explained. “Your mother and I did not want to orphan you.”
Khoth blinked at this. It was logical and yet there was something so fragile about the statement. Something that opened up a vista of emotions that seemed very alien when he thought of his parents.
“There is another reason you might wish to go to Earth,” his father said slowly.
Khoth could not imagine one. His expression, though placid, caused his father to smile slightly.
“Your sister planned to go to Earth after your last mission,” his father explained.
“What?” Khoth started. “How do you know that? She did not tell me of any such plans!”
And Daesah had been much more likely to confide in him instead of their parents, especially if it was based upon one of her intuitions.
“She did not confide it to me,” his father said, and for a moment, there was a sadness in the slouch of his shoulders, but he quickly firmed them again as he reached inside of his robes and took out a slim soft, leather-bound volume in dark green.
His father ran his fingertips over the material in a way that showed that his grief for a lost daughter was not so far from him.
He abruptly held it out to Khoth. “You should read this. Your mother and I have. You might find it… useful in some way.”