A New Divide (Science Fiction) (11 page)

              Doctor Reselles then bolted out of his chair, rubbed his glasses on his red vest, and pointed directly at the screen. "Look!"

              The broadcast of the engineer took an interesting turn when he was pulled out of the locker he was hiding in. He found himself lying on the floor, staring up the barrel of an assault rifle. I'm sure this came as no surprise that they let him live, at least so
their king
could have this moment with Mark.

              Arcoh walked casually over to the engineer and waved aside the pawn who was pointing the rifle at him. The engineer attempted to stand, but Arcoh bent down, and persisted.             

              "Oh please, there is no need to get up, good sir. You are fine right where you are. Kick your feet up, relax."

              The engineer then shot a stare at Arcoh, and began pleading for his life. "Please, I . . . I don't know what you want, but—"

              "Shut up."

              "I don't know anything, I'm just an engineer, I—"

              "Shut. Up."

              "I will be of no help. Please let me go. I have a family."

              "SHUT UP! Shut up! Shut up!"

              Arcoh then began beating the engineer with his bare fists as he continued to speak. "I - don't - like - repeating - MYSELF!"

              Arcoh sighed and then saw the blood on his white gloves. He shook his head in disappointment, and snapped his fingers at one of his soldiers. After a soldier came up to him to hand him a new pair of gloves, he addressed the engineer.

              "I don't care if you can hear me, because I know you are recording. You are broadcasting to them. I have a message I want to deliver to your
Good Commander
, as they call him."

              Arcoh then ran his hands through his oily, jet-black hair, and formed it into a straight fashion. He smiled and even laughed slightly as he began to explain his threat.

              "Mark. I am hurt. My dear old friend. Why did you take my prize away from me? You have angered me to a point where . . . where . . . where I have become violent! SO violent! You have no idea what you have done! NO IDEA! And you will have no idea of the kind of hell I am about to make you—and all of Remora—experience!"

              Mark and the others were speechless. Silence can be immensely horrifying for most people in situations such as these. I'm sure that at least Mark felt that—knowing what could come next.

Arcoh ceased his outrage and gathered himself before he would kneel down, and speak directly into the camera, implementing a soft tone to his voice. “The thing about violence, it is progress. One wins, one does not. And, I'm afraid that, this is just one of these situations, old buddy. It's natural selection—conflict is the only way we can survive. Because it challenges us. But, you, Mark, the Good Commander, you will not be a challenge, you will be exercise.

              "You will not beat me, and now that I have your precious weapon, I promise that I will bring the weight of the world down on your shoulders. You will collapse under my wrath. You will lose everything. You took
that boy
out of my hands.

              "You stand no chance, I will not accept surrender. This is not a threat—this is a guarantee. This is fate. I will see you soon, old friend."

              Arcoh smiled and moved his head directly to the side, while the soldier behind him raised his firearm, and fired a round into the camera, and through the eye of the technician. Effectively ending the feed, and turning the holoscreen projection into static.

              "Commander?"

              Have you ever had a moment in life, where you knew you were missing something, and that it would hurt when you found out? Call it a momentary lapse in judgment. You knew something bad was going to happen, but you chose not to believe in the consequences. And it felt terrible, did it not? Mark didn't make the wrong decisions, but he had his doubts. He was struck with a sort of paralysis, precisely how I felt there in that field of ashes on Minerva. Profound it is to be speechless.

              "How did this happen?"

              "I'll tell you exactly how it happened! You have a spy in your fleet, Commander Wyman," Reselles said as he shot over a glare to Mark.

              "No, it can't be. The soldiers of the moons are the most loyal in all of Eden." Mark walked up to the half-circle table and placed himself in the middle of the conversation. Reselles sighed and tapped his fingers together and looked towards Lady Angelides.
              "Where outsiders gather so do ideals of identity, you know that this is poison to Remoran society. Not all men are as selfless as you are, Mark. That is one of the two reasons we appointed you to defend our planet. The second reason was to protect our interests in paving ways to new and healthy ideals of social, and personal evolution. Our primary concern is order and civility among our people, and my fellow leaders. I fear that if news of this act of terror reaches our citizens—there will be a panic."
              "Mark, if we don't stop him."
              Mark knew the significant power of the weapon, a tool of boundless power. He knew that he should have left it in the ocean where he found it. He was beginning to realize how careless he had been. How much damage his negligence would cost.
              "We did not create this expedition in order to wage war against the largest nation in Eden!" Reselles shouted.
              "I will do everything it takes to ensure we are not destroyed by our own weapon! That I can promise you!"

"Enough." Lady Angelides, still dressed in light, laid her hand on Mark's shoulder and broke her silence. "Mark knows what he has done, I know that he would do anything to protect us. He wants to fix this, I say we let him."

              "My lady, surely you cannot condone war against the Kingdom of Salaras." 

              The lady nodded to Mark, who spoke out in a slower tone, obviously still quite disturbed, and embarrassed by his failure as a military leader.
              "I'm sorry that this happened. We had to save them. I can't stand the feeling that the decency of humanity is fading away."
              Reselles spoke out against the commander in defiance. "Why again did we rescue those degenerates?"
              "Mr. Reselles, their death tolls account for 7 percent of the entire human race. It most certainly would have spread to our sector had it not been stopped. I have already given the speech to my soldiers. This expedition will continue as planned.

              "The war against the Kingdom of Salaras has always been inevitable, so we will travel to Gannon, and ask the president of the GDR for the assistance of their great armada. In the meantime, we will help rebuild what Arcoh's crusade has taken from the people of Eden."

After sitting for so long in silence, the fifth member finally spoke up—a conduit, an ambassador to Father Cyrus, the tip of the Triangle.

              "What do you say, Father? You are the deciding vote."

              The hooded conduit—those who were the mortal voice of Father Cyrus himself. From what I understood this Father Cyrus was merged with our technology, and had attained transdimensional abilities. He couldn't be seen by the human eye, due to his transcendence over a thousand years ago, so he had these conduits, projections of hooded monks like those who surrounded the Temple of the Void.

              "Was this expedition all an effort to form a front against the Kingdom of Salaras, Commander Wyman?"

              Mark let out a sigh, and redirected his stare out to the all-encompassing open balcony. All of it gently smothered by the beautiful weather covering the city. "In a way yes, but not only. The lady has already stated: we are striving to provide the children of Eden with better opportunities than the ones we were dealt. I want them to be able to sleep in their beds knowing that they don't have the fear of waking up to a world on fire."
              Doctor Reselles adjusted his glasses and looked towards Mark. "Do you hope to accomplish this with the help of this Collin King? What does he have to do with your great expedition, Commander?"
              Father Cyrus looked down as Lady Angelides spoke for this situation. "You have no right to drag this boy into your quest for galactic retribution, Commander. We all agree on the great expedition, but this one boy, what could he possibly do?"
              Mark looked down and after a long silence he responded as a smile came over his face.
"You see, he is the answer to the question we have been seeking for so long. He is proof that we can do better. The decadence of isolation, and fear, is killing the human race. He knows how to draw a crowd, and people will follow behind. You will see, I promise you—his evolution will change everything. People will follow him because of who and what he is. You cannot possibly imagine how significant he is."

              The conduit looked intrigued as the figure leaned in towards the table.

              "I plan on seeing him shortly, and what question does he answer Commander?"

              "Why do we deserve to live, when we destroy everything we create?"

              "Ha, how cliché, Commander. I like it, but if you foul this up—another race will die. This Arcoh, he seems to be a man on the edge of insanity; he'll do everything he can to claw his way out, and secure this misplaced sense of greatness he hopes to acquire. Be wary, Mark, he is very unpredictable, and capable beyond anything you can imagine."

              "I understand the risks involved, and thank you for the warning. There is much to be done, we will ascend back into the heavens within the hour. Father? If you could please, when you meet Collin, tell him where he can find us."

***

              We were walking for
what felt like hours. Maybe I had been spoiled by artificial gravity my whole life—I felt heavier on this world. Normally it would not have been a problem, thanks to PGL training. I hate to admit this, but my injuries at the time were slowing me down. I had not fully recovered from all that happened on Minerva—I don't think I ever will fully recover.

              The gravity on my injuries, especially on my leg that Legate Ivan broke, took a serious toll on my mobility. I admit, I felt a little intimidated when I saw that Helena had barely broken a sweat.

              "Hurry up, slowpoke!" she shouted.

              "This heat is killing me."

              "It's 24.7 degrees Celsius, with a light breeze. You couldn't ask for better weather!"

              "It's the gravity, I need to stop for a moment."

              "Huh. Didn't you used to be a professional
gravityball
athlete?"

              I was panting and sweating profusely, then I fell over to my side, collapsing onto a rock embedded into the side of the vegetation-covered mountainside.

              "Collin!"

              Helena hastily came to where I fell, and kneeled down to me as I groaned in pain.

              "I'd like to stop here. Yeah. We're stopping right here for a minute."

              "Let me see."

              I pulled up my pant leg and she took a look at my thigh. It was swollen, but still healing—my bone was no longer broken, but the pain was still there.

              "Why didn't you say something!"

              "I didn't want to make us late."

              "Collin, I know this is hard for you, but you have to let in eventually. Hmm?"

              "What is it?"

              "Well, your bone has already been completely repaired, and this happened how long ago?"

              "Like a week or two now. Do you know what's happening to me? The idiot doctor ran out on me before I got an explanation."

              The stress of climbing up on the mountain had further damaged some of the tissue in my thigh, which had not completely healed—hence the pain I felt. However, the minute I took the time to relax I instantly began to feel better.

              "When you took the injection, it collided with a genetic code that you carry. I'm not sure how—Cyrus can explain more than I ever could."

              She smiled at me and took a step back. "Can you stand now?"

              Without any resistance I was able to stand, and once again my body was feeling great. I felt like I could walk for another four hours. That is before my tissue and ligaments began to tear again.

              "I feel great."

              "Good. I wanna try something."

              "Helena, we don't have the time to—"

              Through the corner of my eye I saw it, she flung a large rock at my head. I quickly turned around, and like an athlete's instinct, I deflected the rock.