Malaran stood alone in the ancient chamber deep beneath the surface, wearing the green and black of the House of Ashoka, a basic officer’s uniform in the Ashoka tradition. The area looked a much larger version of the Oculus chamber she had been familiar with, a great orb of a room at least a hundred feet in diameter and a floor of blackest obsidian while ancient technology encrusted the polished white walls and ceiling. Deep within one of their underground sacratoriums, she waited for an audience with the Order of Calista. Like some of the Crown’s military installations, the Calistites had dug underground for several of their sacratoriums, not only as a defensive strategy against the return of the Umpala but perhaps to keep away prying eyes.
She just had no idea of the scope. At this site, a small, non-descript Calistite compound hid the entrance to a vast underground cavern that stretched perhaps a few hundred meters in diameter, and within the cavern stood a great, glowing sacratorium like one out of the history books. It boggled her mind that the Calistites had constructed such a magnificent complex on such a low-tech world, a behemoth of metal and crystal. Odd geometries suggested an alien influence to the architecture, perhaps modeled after the Crucible or other alien archeological sites. Humans had encountered only three alien races capable of star travel, the Umpala, the Lyagushka, the mysterious Glotternexae, but they had discovered artifacts and remains from at least a dozen advanced alien civilizations. The Sacerdotes had always liked to include some alien-influenced architecture in their sacratoriums, though Malaran had no idea if it was purely artistic or whether it was functional in some way. Or just purely to enhance their reputation – making the Priestesses appear even more mystical and powerful.
She had been led down a great spiraling staircase into the cavern, but again she thought it was all for effect. They must have had a lift somewhere, but the stairway allowed one to bathe in the full scope of the creation, the exterior fully lit up for no apparent reason other than to show off. Inside, she was led to the opulently-sized version of the Oculus chamber and left to stand and wait her for her audience.
Every little sound would echo and reverberate here in such a polished chamber, but she stood very still, her outward demeanor like a stone. Beneath, her mind raced. She knew she was being observed, the Order pondering her and her mission though she had not spoken of it yet. Fore-Sight typically proved of limited value in predicting the future beyond the next few moments in time, more in such cases a creative tool to see all the possibilities, but Malaran knew that the masters of Fore-Sight among the Order surely saw very likely her mission and why she had come.
As she stood there, she wondered how this great chamber and its ancient tech would boost her abilities. Could she once again use Far-Sight to peer far into space? Could she open a bubble into the Void once again? She had often tried to repeat that feat, but with no success. That is why she had come. Surely some of the Elders here could perform similar acts.
Her dreams had been haunted by nuclear explosions and false emperors, but the dream of Calista’s last stand had come to her again too, helping to reassert her resolve to do her part as Calista had done hers. The storm the comes when Calista tears open the Void seemed to become more and more intense each time she revisited the dream.
Then without a sound, they came. Five entered, each from a different entrance. Clad in simple black hooded robes, the Calistites approached her to stand around her in a circle. They made no sound, their ability to move silently surmounting the chamber's ability to echo it. This stealth seemed in contradiction to their age. All seemed in the twilight of their life, gray hair with wrinkled wisdom adorning their faces. All had the deep, penetrating eyes of a Sacrator Superiore.
Malaran suspected the whole little show was meant to unnerve her and test her somehow. It was unnerving to stand before five Elders to begin with, but to have them arrayed around her in a circle was even more so. Malaran could only face one directly at a time and was forced to stand with her back two of the Sacrator Superiores, forced to choose which would she would show the most respect to and which ones she would show the least.
As gracefully as she could, Malaran turned as they approached and met eyes with each, giving each a short nod of her head before turning to the next. Malaran kept telling herself that she was no longer one of their students, she was a princess of House Ashoka and a direct descendent of the Emperor of Man. She was Princess Malaran Athena Marissa Alicia Ashoka, and she had met the enemy in battle and proved victorious.
But her mistakes had cost Father and Mother their lives. At best she could push the self-doubt to the back, but it was always there.
As Malaran acknowledged each Elder, she met eyes with Kalima, her facial expression as blank and unreadable as ever. Only weeks had passed since Kalima had been Malaran's teacher and mentor, but it seemed another lifetime. Malaran had no idea who held the highest rank here, no idea really if one of these was the Sacrator Maximus, so Malaran chose to face Kalima after acknowledging everyone. It was good to see her again. Malaran did actually miss her. She had a very strong urge to smile, maybe just to see if Kalima would react, but she didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the negotiations.
"You would ask much of us," said the shortest, perhaps the eldest, she with the short cropped gray hair and the deepest wrinkled skin, but very alert brown eyes. "Especially for one who abandoned us."
Malaran turned to face the speaker. She knew this would be awkward turning to face whoever spoke, but she didn’t seem to have much choice. This was the position they put her in. As far as the Elder’s jab about abandoning the Order, Malaran expected the issue to be raised, but she would not attempt to defend her decision unless they forced her. Instead, she focused on the more important decision. "I ask not any more of you than I ask of myself."
"Maybe what you ask of yourself is folly," said another.
Malaran turned as gracefully as she could to face the droopy woman. Just about everything about her was droopy, her face, her clothes. But not her eyes, eyes that had peered across the stars.
The Elder continued, "Maybe what you ask of us is further folly. The first starship since the Fall of Man has far-reaching implications."
"I ask you to stand with me to protect humanity, as Calista did five hundred years ago. That is why the Order was formed. We cannot allow a madman tyrant to destroy what is left of humanity. Cannot just sit here as he nukes the planet again and again."
"Maybe such a path can be averted by other means," said another.
Once again Malaran turned to meet the speaker’s eyes. She was the biggest of the five, tall and broad. As to her comment, that had been the question in hatching her plan. Would the Calistites prefer a different path, one of restraint and subtlety? Would they rise to exploit a possible advantage?
As good as his intelligence seemed to be, the imposter emperor on the starship did not seem to recognize that the Order of Calista had splintered away from the Priestesses of the Void. He seemed to think Malaran one of the Sacerdotes, pacifists, not the Calistite offshoot that combined both the Priestesses study of the Void with the Agema's study of the martial arts. Definitely not pacifists, though infernally subtle.
She planned to take advantage of this mistaken belief that she and these Elders were pacifists. She would kill the Emperor after agreeing to the marriage. But she knew she would have only one chance, with a limited possibility of success. And only one chance to also prepare a contingency in case she failed. To bring other "Priestesses" aboard the starship, those who could use their abilities to destroy the starship. Malaran didn’t think it required Fore-Sight to realize that the false Emperor wouldn’t mind having a few Priestesses come under his control, especially if he had pilot issues and ever planned on acquiring more starships.
She had hoped that she would be able to duplicate her feat with the bubble and maybe damage the starship. Calista had employed a similar feat to destroy much of the Umpala fleet at Athene. All Malaran would need to do is compromise one single starship, from the i
nside. But she didn't seem to be up to it. No matter how much she practiced, she could not duplicate her trick with bubble.
She would have to kill the Emperor with her bare hands, and if she failed, she needed Calistites there who had greater mastery than herself that could use their powers of the Void to destroy the starship if necessary.
She had accepted that she would likely die no matter what, but she needed to make sure it would not be in vain. She needed to destroy this monster at whatever cost and prevent him from destroying Nuevo and what was left of humanity. And take her revenge on the monster who killed her parents.
"Many paths exist," said Malaran as she looked the Elder in her eyes. "But only one opportunity will present itself to exploit this imposter's mistaken belief that the Order is harmless pacifists. I will do my best to destroy this monster whether the Order accompanies me or not, and then the ploy of pacifism will never work again."
Malaran was ready to turn and face the next speaker, but nobody said a word. Malaran remained looking into the eyes of the big woman. Calistite training and discipline enabled Malaran to keep her outward demeanor calm, her breaths steady and even, but she had trouble restraining her heart. She had a feeling that the rapid pulses in her carotids seemed glaringly obvious to these masters among the Order.
She knew it was more likely minutes, but it seemed like hours that they stood there in silence as she looked into the eyes of an Elder. It was so silent that the subtle hum of the chamber seemed to start reverberating through her bones, and Malaran began to feel wisps of unknown energies flutter across her skin. She wondered what these Calistites were seeing, what feats they were performing here in this great chamber devoted to amplification of abilities and powers. Reading her mind, or reading her future?
Kalima spoke this time, the sudden end to the silence a little jolting, and Malaran quickly turned to face her, relieved to no longer be staring into the same set of eyes.
"If this so-called Emperor will allow it,” said Kalima, “the five of us will accompany you as your wedding retinue. Fore-Sight predicts that he will likely allow some Priestesses to join you.”
That was too easy. She had expected to be grilled much more, and she worried that they would retire to endlessly debate the issue further among themselves. They proved much more decisive and less bureaucratic than she had anticipated. Way more. She had hoped to pull the Calistites into her plan, but now she couldn’t help but wonder if it was the other way around.
She also wasn’t sure though how she felt about Kalima coming along. On occasion she had scene Kalima demonstrate some advanced combat forms to the older students so she knew how formidable she could be. But Malaran had envisioned this as a suicide mission. It made her uncomfortable to think that she was asking someone she knew to come die with her.
Another Calistite who had yet to speak, a harsh-looking square-faced woman, said, "We have this." She reached into her robe and pulled out two bracelets engraved with ancient symbols. "A wedding gift," she said with an almost imperceptible grin. She placed the bracelets upon her wrists and held out her arms to demonstrate.
Each bracelet turned to a coil of metallic fibers. The one on her left wrist stretched out and weaved itself into a small elliptical shield that fastened itself onto her upper left arm. The one on her right weaved into a battle staff.
Malaran felt her jaw drop. The true original weapons of the Agema. The secrets of the smart-metal had been lost along with so much else during the Fall. The Order had employed replicas of the shield and staff, but never any this advanced. The Order’s more advanced versions could fold in half once or twice, but these could completely transform. Then the battle staff shrank down to only about two feet long, one end in the Elder’s hand, the other tip glowing with a midnight-blue glow. A battle baton.
The battle baton configuration was designed for cramped or compact situations where a full-size staff would be unwieldy. The baton could not fire out energy pulses over any distance, but would discharge the energy pulse when physical contact was made with the glowing tip. Supposedly it could blow someone off their feet and fracture any nearby bones, but Malaran had never used a real battle baton before. She had trained with inert versions but not ones that could be energized. Since the vast majority of battle staves on Nuevo lacked the technology to transform back and forth between staff and baton configurations, greater emphasis in training had always been placed on the staff.
The weapons collapsed back down into bracelets, and the Calistite handed these to Malaran. "The probabilities are that their weapons scanners will allow these to pass."
Malaran looked down at her new weapons and felt a renewed sense of optimism. This plan might actually work.