Chapter 16 Shall We Dance? #2
“Human families. They’re so… affectionate,” she said.
“Not all of them, of course. And not just the families. The people in general, I think. Some of the soldiers I met here, they were so concerned that I was alone for one of their holidays--Thanksgiving, I think?--that they actually had one for me on the base since I couldn’t come to their homes obviously.
The food was… interesting. But the company was.
..” She let her voice drift off, but she was smiling.
“The company was wonderful. The companionship.”
“Did they not understand that missing one of their holidays would not affect you?” Khoth asked.
She snorted. “It would affect me. Not the holiday, but that everyone was off with people they cared for and cared for them while I was alone. It meant quite a bit to me actually to be included. It meant quite a bit that they wanted me to feel like one of them even when I’m clearly not. It’s a strength of theirs.”
Khoth was stunned. “You are here to work for the Alliance. Not to--”
“If you’re going to lecture me about Xi and Xa, I really will have to go walk with the general,” she told him with a lifted eyebrow. “Maybe I will spill Alliance secrets to him.”
“You would not. You are quite unconventional, Flight Commander Thammah,” Khoth finally said.
“Yes, which is both what makes me very good as a pilot, but not so good as a Thaf’ell.” She gave him a wink.
“If you are so fond of being unusual, you should have become a poet,” he muttered.
She let out a bark of laughter that had the general turning around to stare at them. Khoth made his face into an unreadable mask.
Belonging is very important, Gehenna said, her words flashing over his and Thammah’s suits’ systems.
He caught the AI looking longingly at Jace and his parents.
Khoth knew that the AI wanted nothing more than to be walking alongside the three of them.
He thought Jace wanted it too from the times he kept glancing backwards.
Though some of those glances appeared to be aimed at him.
But, likely for similar reasons, he and Gehenna stayed where they were rather than by Jace’s side. Jace’s parents wanted them both away.
“You are not wrong, Gehenna, belonging matters hugely,” Thammah agreed. “And don’t you say that you don’t value belonging, Khoth. That’s your whole problem.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” he replied stiffly.
Was she suggesting that he would have forsook his work and duty to go to some holiday dinner? Just because he was lonely? No, he would not.
“Just that you are trying so hard to be the perfect Thaf’ell and yet your true nature is fighting so hard against it,” she said with another bark of laughter.
He was completely at a loss at this.
“My choices have been perfectly logical and--”
She nodded. “Most of them have been. But you are wrong when you think that the Thaf’ell way is always the logical way. Sometimes I think we are the most illogical species out there.”
“How do you mean?” He’d been frowning so hard through this conversation that his face was starting to hurt from it.
“We act according to our traditions,” she said, “from things that have been passed down. We accept--without thought--that these are the best ways. We do not take in new evidence and change our opinion though.”
“We do, but we have not found better ways,” he stated.
She lifted an eyebrow. “It looks like we’re going to be spending a lot of time with the humans--definitely with one very special human.” Her eyes twinkled in a way he did not like. “I wonder how long you’ll believe that statement you just made.”
He was going to tell her that he was sure his viewpoint would last. After all, everyone knew what humans were like. Jace was different. He was exceptional. That was all it was.
Jace and his parents were standing in front of a wide open set of doors, waiting for them all to catch up. The peculiar scent of Precursor weapons flowed out of the room. Bitter ozone and a chilly scent of snow and ice. Khoth quickened his pace. He wanted to see what was inside.
“All of these rooms were closed to us,” Colonel Parker said with a touch of awe as she gazed inside. One of her hands crept up to the collar of her shirt. “Nothing we did could make them open. And now…”
“Yeah,” Captain Parker said as his gaze flickered over all he was seeing. “Look at all of that.”
“We need to have our scientists in here now,” General Intoshkin stated. He gestured for one of the soldiers to go find the scientists they had left in the Core.
Khoth pressed up behind them, and since he was taller than everyone, he was able to see past them.
It wasn’t just one room with racks of weapons and exo-suits. There were dozens of rooms. He could see into them not just through the now open doorways, but the walls were made of a clear material. Rooms lit up one after another after another seemingly endlessly.
Jace went inside, followed swiftly by everyone else.
The others fanned out, looking at all of the weaponry with wide eyes.
Captain Parker immediately went to an exo-suit that looked to have a jetpack in the back.
Thammah joined Jace’s father. She took down the suit and they both leaned over it, exclaiming at what they saw.
“It’s a good thing there is more than one of these, Jack,” Thammah teased, “because even with your son’s commandment that we take nothing, I would so be stealing one of these.”
“You and me both, Thammah,” Captain Parker laughed.
General Intoshkin, followed closely by the three soldiers, went over to a rack of draagves, though some of them were quite a bit different from his own.
He picked one up and aimed down the site.
The weapon let out a low whine and the sections on the top of it lifted up, showing a red glow inside.
The general grinned and smoothed his hand over the weapon’s silky surface.
Colonel Parker went over to an open-faced cabinet that had what appeared to be chips of different colors. She picked one up and it immediately lit up. She dropped it, but the chip did not fall. Instead, it hovered at her eye-level and then a colored web of lines encircled her.
“Force field!” she breathed, understanding what it was.
She touched the glowing, translucent green shell around her.
Where she touched the shield bloomed with brighter light, but her hand was able to pass through it.
She stepped right then left. The force field stayed around her.
She laughed delightedly as she plucked the chip out of the air and the force field vanished.
Gehenna glided over to Jace. He went to one of the cabinets that was waist high and Khoth walked to his side.
The top of the cabinet lit up, a bright blue white, and a display appeared.
Jace swiped through a visual listing of weapons.
Khoth recognized versions of his bladed weapon, the rahir, and his sighted rifle, the draagves.
“These look like the weapons you had when we met,” Jace said, pointing to the correct ones.
“Yes.” He was surprised considering the condition Jace was in that the young man remembered that. But perhaps it was Gehenna who did so.
“But these are different. More powerful.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
Jace struggled to explain, “On Earth, we have games where a better version of a weapon is indicated by a different color. Like you start with a blue-coded weapon, but then you see one that’s a purple-coded one.
Even though they are the same or have the same name anyway and generally the same shape, the purple-coded one can fire faster or the projectiles deal more damage.
That sort of thing. That’s sort of what I’m seeing here.
Gehenna is explaining pretty much that you have the blue-coded one. ”
You should both try one. Face off against one another, Gehenna suggested.
“Face off? You mean… fight?” Jace gave out a laugh.
“That would actually be wise,” Khoth said with a nod. “We need to assess your skill level, Jace. The training you did was virtual, I take it?”
“It was when I was asleep,” Jace admitted.
“Facing a real, live opponent is different,” Khoth said.
“Yeah, I faced off against some Khul even before I called Metal Rain.” Jace stood up straight, but then he said, “But not in this body. So maybe a little swordplay might be good.”
Khoth was pleased at Jace’s reasonableness.
He had feared that the young man would be resistant to seeing what limits he had.
Considering that Khoth had practically lived with a rahir in his hand since a child and Thaf’ell were simply superior in strength and speed, he would have to hold back so as not to hurt Jace.
But, at the same time, it would be very wise for both of them to see how lacking Jace was before entering the Khul ship.
Not that he expected any Khul to be alive.
They would have returned the ship to the Hive.
He frowned. How long did they have until more Khul did come though?
Jace selected two rahir from the menu. Immediately, the weapons appeared on top of the table. Jace let out a gasp.
“Whoa! Did they teleport? Or were they just created here?” Jace asked. The blue glow appeared in his eyes. “Oh, created! That’s new.”
That was new. That was remarkable. The weapons they used were scavenged.
Now there was quite a bit of it, but still.
To be able to create new weapons? And Jace had said these were better than the ones he had and he had the best. The two swords had a slight curve to them.
The blades were narrow, an inch across in human terms, and thin.
The hilts were banded and there was a pressure point to turn on the laser edge.
“The ship can generate all of this?” General Intoshkin asked as he gestured around them.
“Ah, yeah, and new things too. But that requires…” Jace tilted his head to the side. “Well, we’re going to have to mine. The Osiris can do that. But we need… a whole long list of materials. Oh wow! It’s giving me coordinates!”
“Coordinates for the materials?” Colonel Parker asked, eyes wide.
Jace nodded. “Yep. This is incredible! I have all these star charts in my head--or rather I’m seeing what’s in the Osiris’ head--and there’s so much! Places to mine! Undiscovered Alteath worlds! Just everything!”
Khoth desperately wanted to ask, “What about the Altaeth? Does it say where they are now? What happened to them?”
But he didn’t want their lack of knowledge exposed in front of General Intoshkin.
Jace picked up his rahir. He swept it through the air, not like someone who had just picked one up for the first time, but with confidence. There was a hum and then a sizzle as the whole blade turned an icy blue.
Jace laughed and said, “Looks like I’m going to the Light Side!”
Khoth had no idea what he meant, but he did not care to pursue it at that moment, because he picked up his rahir.
The weapon was expertly weighted. He noted that his hilt was larger.
The ship hadn’t just produced two random rahirs, but had made singular ones for each of them.
This was unprecedented. He ran his thumb over the sensor that turned on the laser.
His blade turned a fiery reddish purple.
“So it really will be a Star Wars battle,” Captain Parker said with a mixture of awe and alarm.
“Light versus Dark. I don’t know, Khoth. I didn’t take you for a Sith,” Jace teased.
“If a Sith is highly skilled with a blade then I take that as a compliment.” Khoth inclined his head.
Jace and his father laughed while the others in the know just shook their heads. The young man then lifted his left hand and gestured towards a section of floor. The cabinetry rolled back and there was a space large enough for them to fight.
Jace grinned, lifted his blade, and asked, “Shall we dance, Khoth?”