The Path to Loss (Approaching Infinity Book 4) Read online

  At seventeen, and with both his father and grandfather killed in the assault on Fortus, Stol Kossig showed great restraint and maturity receiving Raohan La’s proposal, but such are the qualities of great leaders. Stol could see past his own personal loss, could acknowledge Raohan La’s sincerity, and could envision peace between man and reptile. That it was in fact banishment and not true peace saddened him, but both he and Raohan La knew that there was no other way. A great friendship was established that day and remains in effect.

  The rest of the two populations took some convincing, but Raohan La was impossible to discredit and Stol both performed and inherited the role of humanity’s savior. Both leaders did their parts to ensure that their respective sides honored the proposal. Through collaboration, they issued a worldwide broadcast, declaring an end to all violence. The reptiles, wherever they were, whatever their clan, stopped fighting. Though only the Godsorts posed any real danger to the reptiles, humans were warned under strict penalty not to take advantage of the truce with any attempts at retaliation or vengeance.

  Leaving his cousins to watch over Fortus, Stol accompanied Raohan La, leading the pilgrimage of reptiles away from the Engine and its harmful getnium rays. All looked on in wonder when Raohan La opened time and space to reveal the pristine, untouched landscape of Stolom’s distant past. The two giants stood as sentinels, ensuring that no one was left behind. When all the reptiles had passed through the opening, Stol—in his Godsort—and Raohan La gripped each other’s hands in friendship and parted.

  Thus the war on Stolom ended and the ten-year reign of peace began in the present day. Through technology and Raohan La’s incredible mental powers, a portal was established so that communication and their great friendship could be maintained across time. Indeed, Raohan La, though physically absent, remained Stol’s top advisor thereafter.

  (10,899.026)

  “I tell you, Stol, my calculations are not wrong.”

  Stol stared down the scaly muzzle into the glassy black eyes which hid the monstrous intelligence he knew could not, in fact, be wrong. The window through which they spoke, an impossibility linking them instantly across over two hundred million years, was a product of that intellect. The means to physically travel back to those primordial days of Stolom’s distant, verdant past was a product of that intellect. The ability to overcome well-founded, inter-species hatred for the sake of both races was also a product of that intellect. Reflecting on this last still moved Stol nearly to tears. Of course he believed Raohan La. There could be no question, but what did it mean? He shook his head.

  “No, old friend, I don’t doubt you,” Stol said. “What you describe sounds dangerous, but exactly how dangerous is it to Stolom, to our generation? Suns expire. Seas dry up. Nature provides all manner of calamity. What can we do about inevitabilities?”

  Raohan La shifted, his image flickering within the freestanding, ornate metal frame which made their communication possible. A fine sheen of rain had begun to fall, making the marble paving stones shimmer with false depth. Stol ignored the spray except to note how light from the temporal window caught each of the delicate droplets as they swirled in the summer breeze. The sun was starting its final descent into a bank of relenting clouds upon the horizon, and made him squint as it reflected harshly off the Godsorts. They’d been inert for the last ten years, lined up on the sward just beyond the open marble square, providing symbolic vigil.

  “Stol,” Raohan La said, “I do not believe that this is natural or inevitable. Here, the universe is still expanding. It is possible that at some point during the course of the intervening two hundred and twenty-seven million years it reached the limit of its expansion and began to contract on its own, but the degree of contraction over the last ten years makes it highly unlikely that this is a natural occurrence. Additionally, it appears that Stolom lies in the path of advanced, localized collapse.”

  “You’ve observed this?”

  “Measured and recorded it.”

  “So you believe that someone is making the universe collapse? And directing that collapse at Stolom?”

  “Yes, it sounds ludicrous. I can’t know the particulars yet, but I have learned not to ignore my intuition.”

  “As have I. What do you suggest?”

  “Readiness.”

  Stol took a deep breath. “On what order?”

  “The grandest, if necessary. Listen, Stol. I cannot and will not accept that the natural end of all things—because that is, ultimately, what will result from a total collapse—is being accomplished by what amounts to a cosmic needle, knitting the universe together just as a tailor takes in a garment. Whatever is coming, I believe it to be tangible. I believe with a double front, your Godsorts, and my. . . more subtle talents, we can potentially stem the collapse, even stop it altogether.”

  “The Godsorts will support you in any endeavor you propose, my friend. If with fists of steel we can avert disaster, then we will do all that is possible to do for Stolom’s past and present.”

  “Thank you Stol. I only hope that our success will ensure Stolom’s future.”

  3.2 PAST DEFENSE

  10,900.084

  Raus crumpled to the gravity block, both bolt-lined arms bent at wild, insupportable angles.

  Jav walked forward and stood over him. “Can you move?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  Raus snorted. “It always hurts.”

  Jav nodded. “Do you want me to help you up?”

  “No, let me trouble Vays by laying here until I get some feeling back. I think your tugging might have wrenched my spine.”

  Raus reflexively waited for an apology he no longer expected from Jav. It didn’t bother him that the apology didn’t come. Of Jav’s peers, Raus alone had some inkling of what was happening to Jav. It did bother him that there was no real way to address the problem. It was like a phantom limb, itching and aching, though long since severed. The analogy was appropriate and served to remind him of two things: that Jav still deserved his friendship, no matter how cold and how flat he’d become; and that the he might find himself in the same or similar circumstances if he did anything more than offer Jav his friendship. He had too much to lose by not playing ignorant. His brother was so close to a cure now. Reclaiming his home planet of Sarsa as his own upon retirement was also a strong incentive. With all the genetic material the Empire held in storage, he hoped to one day reproduce Milla Marz and settle their karmic feud, hopefully peaceably.

  The current was pouring through Raus’s body now. He felt it surge down his spine, guided by the nerve wires of the Resurrection Bolts, mending the tear and making his legs twitch. His arms twisted, like hoses through which water is suddenly pumped, the bones realigning, setting, and stitching back together. He sat up and rolled his head upon his prodigious neck, eliciting pops that sounded as bad as the injury from which he was just now recovering. He sighed when he saw Vays, arms folded, glaring at him from off the gravity block.

  “All right, I’m coming,” Raus said.

  Raus shook his head. Vays. It wasn’t a glare so much as a permanent feature, like the color of his hair, but stemming from his general impatience and sense of superiority rather than genetics. He’d grown accustomed to Vays and his ego. Raus glanced at Jav who, still standing over him, shrugged. Everyone was accustomed to Vays and his ego.

  As Raus stood, Jav clapped him on the shoulder. That single act nearly crippled him. The buried root of their friendship expressed itself in that moment and Raus hated himself for the secret he kept. After all that Jav had gone through, all that he had lost and was losing—because to Raus it was clear that pieces of Jav were being ripped away with nearly every planetfall—Jav was still sometimes able to claw through the mire of his special brand of torment and offer up a modicum of compassion, even if unvoiced. No matter how many times Jav crippled Raus on the gravity block, he never took Raus’s ability to heal for granted. It was a small thing, but Raus appreciated it
. He only wished that he could do more for Jav, that he didn’t feel trapped by his own circumstances to help, if only by sharing his suspicions. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Raus knew he had a choice, but it was easier to think otherwise.

  Vays shouldered past Raus on his way off the block. “You ready, Holson?” he said.

  Jav turned, removed his black leather jacket, and said without looking, “Always.” He tossed the jacket onto a bench at the foot of the block and didn’t have to wait for Vays to seize the opportunity of a turned back.

  The blade fell in an S pattern that should have cut Jav into thirds, but over a hundred years of leading the fight on the Viscain frontier had turned Jav’s facility with Approaching Infinity into a kind of sixth sense, so he evaded the blade easily, even without being able to see it. Vays had suspected this burgeoning ability, and more and more Jav seemed to taunt him with opportunities—traps, Vays now realized—just like this.

  Jav ducked and stepped deftly, getting inside the reach of the blade. He never once turned to look, but he fell, almost clumsily in appearance, back into Vays, driving a right elbow into his midsection, then using both hands to anchor Vays in place by locking onto his sword hand so that the blade was pointing straight out, away from them both. Jav sank down as he shot the ball of his foot up to impact with the flat of the blade, causing it to explode into glitter with the application of AI. Jav turned around to face Vays, roughly releasing his sword hand in the process, and drove paired palms into his already smarting midsection. This time Vays lurched from his place upon the gravity block, sailing backwards like a sack of clothes before he regained enough control over his body to effect a semi-graceful landing in a skidding half-crouch.

  Vays had learned his lesson. Light glared where he crouched, reflecting off of the steely angles of the armor provided by the Titan Star. From his helmet, the Titan Saber flashed and came one hundred and eight times like deadly horizontal rain. There were situations which made the Star Factory potentially deadly to Jav, but this was not one of them. Vays was fast, but it was a purely physical assault, reactive, and not yet empowered by the true application of his martial art..

  The Star Factory was fast enough to require Jav to summon the Kaiser Bones, and the sight of them forced Vays to calm himself. Anger had its place, but the Single Element Ghost Sword demanded a cool head. Vays had a hot temper and an incomparable ego, but he knew better than to underestimate Jav. There were two people living that he genuinely respected, which is to say feared: Jav Holson, whom he viewed as his only peer, and Hilene Tanser, whom he viewed as an inhuman monster.

  Vays stopped, stood straight, held the Titan Saber at his chest so that the blade made a vertical line before his gleaming faceplate. He knocked the knuckles of his left index and middle fingers upon the blade near the hilt, setting the steel to vibrate, to sing. Dull light shone from the center of the blade, all up its length. This took less than a second, but the gathering weight of the blade began to dominate the room instantly. He let the tip of the blade drop before him and then he was a blur.

  He plied his blade with incomparable skill and grace and would have carved several lesser opponents to the bone several times over, but Jav matched Vays’s movements calmly, easily, almost mechanically, employing his own martial skill and the spatial sense he’d unconsciously developed over nearly two centuries. Whenever the blade came too close—when Vays particularly outdid himself—Jav met the flat of it with the palm of his hand or the Bones upon his forearms, always turning it harmlessly away, no matter how much Vays managed to gather into it. His Single Element Ghost Sword was superb, but Jav’s application of AI almost always robbed him of a clean victory.

  Vays had been preparing in secret for over a year now, though, readying a new technique. He’d been biding his time, waiting for the right moment to unveil it, which was quite a feat given his impatience, but he felt confident that now was appropriate. He kicked off the block with mock force, which took him temporarily out of Jav’s reach, but the twenty-five gravities yanked him back down almost immediately. As they did, he thrust the Titan Saber towards Jav.

  Jav was surprised by this simple frontal assault because of its obvious futility. There were countless ways for him to avoid or deflect it. He settled for a hand slap to guide the blade harmlessly past him, but was shocked by a pulsing sting from his fingers. As he directed his attention to his hand, a klaxon sounded and emergency lights flashed, bathing the facility with red light at intervals.

  “Warning,” and automated voice called out. “Root Palace walls have been breached.”

  Jav followed the length of the Titan Saber with his eyes from its hilt, past his hand, and through the facility wall. The blade was moving, like a river of silver pumping from a limitless source.

  “Warning. Root Palace walls have been breached.”

  Jav shot a glance back at Vays, who jerked the Titan Saber to retract the extended blade in an instant.”

  The klaxon went silent and the regular lights came back on. “Breach sealed. Warp field integrity nominal. Minor course correction in progress,” the automatic voice said.

  “How do you like the Titan Lance?” Vays said.

  “I’m not sure,” Jav said, squeezing blood drops from his clenched fist. “Let’s try that again.”

  Vays snorted. “You sure?”

  Jav shrugged and launched forward. Vays stumbled backwards, reflexively aiming his sword at Jav, and set the Titan Lance in motion once again.

  Jav knew what to expect now. He wanted to test both himself and Vays’s technique. The tip was coming straight for him at a speed and backed by a power Jav thought beyond Vays. He was impressed. He used AI to “create” space between them so that the blade seemed to extend interminably, never reaching him. Far, far away, he became aware of the vents upon Vays’s armor shifting, blasting out steam and shining with pinpoint red and green lights. Then the blade, already made heavy into the Single Element, threatened to overwhelm him like a sudden and unexpected surge in the tide. He calculated furiously, but couldn’t create space fast enough to keep up with the rush of the blade, until finally, his mental reflexes took over and unconsciously reworked the calculations to effect his uncanny displacement technique, the Ghost Kaiser.

  Once out of the blade’s path, the fight was over. Jav followed the blade, striking it as he rushed back towards Vays to finally strike him, removing him from the gravity Block.

  Still recovering from the shock of the previous alert, Raus wasn’t quite sure what he just saw. He watched Jav advance upon Vays, then both appeared to move in slow motion until Jav winked out of existence for a moment to reappear in staccato flashes, slowly approaching Vays and driving a palm into his face. Then time resumed and all the metal came clattering down out of nowhere like a rain of shrapnel.

  Jav returned to normal and helped Vays to his feet. “That’s your win, Vays,” he said.

  Vays cocked his head. “Mine?”

  Jav nodded. “Keep working on that technique.”

  “My win, but keep working on the technique?” Vays was teetering on anger, but Jav was already collecting his jacket and on his way out.

  “Control during deployment,” Jav said at the door. “You’re a swordsman after all, not a marksman.”

  The door shut and Vays just stared at it. After a moment he looked to Raus, who shrugged. Finally, he sighed. “He’s right. How does he do that?”

  Raus shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what just happened.”

  • • •

  Jav put his black leather jacket on as he walked the corridor. The cuts along his fingers from the Titan Lance were already sealed, leaving fine white scars that were nearly nearly invisible amongst the flex lines of the joints. He saw them, though, and felt a strange anxiety he couldn’t remember experiencing before. Was he afraid of that technique? Though powerful, it was overly simplistic, easy enough to avoid—if you could see it coming. If Vays followed his advice and learned to control th
e blade and direct it as it flowed forth, then he would have real cause to fear. But not until then.

  He squeezed his hand into a fist, stepped into the personnel jump deck alcove, hit the keys to select his destination, winced at the grating noise of the warp field engaging, then stepped back off the deck and proceeded left down the new corridor. He stopped finally at a pressure door and entered the lock code on the keypad. Three separate doors pulling from right, left, then right again, slid away to give him access. He stared up at what had become a familiar sight.

  The room appeared to be open to the black of space, though in fact a transparent bubble of vine resin kept the vacuum at bay. Six articulated arms, issuing from the walls, floor and ceiling, supported reverse gravity generators, each pressing towards a center with 25 gravities in perfect, opposing balance. Hovering in the middle of the heavy sphere was Hilene Tanser, Dark with the Attenuated Splitter. She was facing away from him, showed no reaction to his entrance, but addressed him just the same.

  “Though I appreciate the sentiment, there was no need to collect me for planetfall,” she said.

  Using AI, he rose up to a position parallel to hers. “I know.”

  She turned to face him, returning to normal.

  He still found her attractive—arrestingly so with her red eyes and hair, her white skin. He was not blind to her perfection, but that perfection was for someone else, not him.

  “Then what?” she said with a well-worn smile.

  “I envy you, you know.”

  “Whatever for?”