Misbegotten Memories

Chapter 298

General Hadrian, the Sage of Perception, squinted through the window at the disaster playing out below.  The holographs projected by the orbital citadel had gone down for a few seconds.  When they returned, it was with gaps in their coverage.  Major portions of the battle were represented as fuzzy static.  The Jinn blamed that on loss of communications and interference.

They were mostly blind and Perception hated being ignorant of his situation.

A vicious smile came to his face.  At least dying in battle would be better than going out in one of President Bluff’s purges.  He could pretend this was an honorable end.  Or maybe just be comforted that he’d have lots of company on his journey to the afterlife.

Everything had gone wrong immediately upon the appearance of the Dragon.  Apparently the grandiose claims made about the Sage of Foresight had some substance to them.  She nailed exactly where and when the beast appeared, as well as its threat rating.  This was indeed a civilization ender.

As the Dragon escaped the region of its containment, Hadrian winced at the echoes of the conceptual battle that the ritualists had lost.  Anyone with a realm couldn’t help but feel what had happened.  The will of this Dragon was like the world’s largest mountain and the rest of them were no more than small hills in comparison.  They could not contest the Dragon’s claims – not jointly and certainly not one-on-one.

In real time, Hadrian saw the Sage of Conflagration arrive on footsteps coated in fire.  They only had a few level eleven existences on all of Maya.  This particular man was a rogue entity outside the power structure of any organization.  A true Sage, people said of him.  One obsessed with plumbing the depths of his insight to the exclusion of all other concerns.  Hadrian almost felt hope.

Conflagration summoned the angry red whip of fire and flicked its tip forward.  The length of the whip externality extended as it shot forward.  Illusory energy gathered and poured down its length, boosted by resonance and will.  A bright white pulse traveled down the red whip.

And the thickening miasma in the air quenched the fire.

One moment the whip promised to burn utterly anything.  The next it wasn’t there.  A Sage of Swords jumped free of a gunboat to fall towards the Dragon, huge sword pointed downwards.  The man collapsed into goo before he made it halfway to his target.  Lightning and immense arrows flew towards the beast at a steady rate, each attack more impotent than the previous one.

Schism beams carved up space in an attempt to harm the Dragon.  All failed miserably.

Dark clouds were growing as the constant emanation of miasma tainted the environment.  A flick of the serpent’s tail shattered War Barge Elliott.  One of the icons of the Dragon Compact was killed by a casual motion of their foe.  A nearby aerostat fell victim to the miasma and its lower half sloughed off to drop to the ground far below.

Hadrian returned his attention to the command center.  His eyes ran over the gathered generals.  None of them had anything of value to offer.  They looked to be caught up in despair.  Half of the fools probably didn’t realize there was miasma attacking their minds on the mental band.  Not that it mattered.  They were out of contact with most of the forces under their command.  Even if they could communicate their orders, what would they say?  Keep fighting?  The soldiers didn’t need a rousing pep talk.  They needed a weapon that could actually do harm to this impossible enemy.

His gaze latched onto that of Foresight.  She didn’t looked as concerned as the rest of them.  Hadrian’s perception insight kicked into overdrive.  There was a great deal of exhaustion in her bearing, which certainly made sense given how hard the woman worked to arrange an unprecedented military action.  But there was something else in her features….

Foresight abruptly stood and faced the gathered generals.  “This is the day that humanity will rise or fall.  The battle has not been lost yet.”

The flash of annoyance Hadrian felt in that moment almost drove him to violence.  She dared utter empty platitudes and mystic mumblings during such a time?  The other generals bristled at Foresight’s failed cheer-leading as well.

On the holographic display, they saw the Dragon ram through one of the aerostats, causing it to shatter into shards of matter that degraded away into nothing under the fell influence.  Several gunships tumbled from the sky as their gravitonics failed.

General Kristi stood abruptly.  She took a moment to fix her hair and then pulled a bag of dirt from a satchel she wore cross body.  “All executive appointments need to report back to President Bluff.  The rest of the generals should remain in place.  We will return as soon as we receive instructions on how to proceed.”

Hadrian’s nostrils flared.  The cowards who had bent the knee to Martin Bluff were running away.  Six generals and their staff rushed forward and painted quick runes onto the plastic flooring while General Kristi sprinkled the dirt in a line.  A quick chant later and the delegation rushed through a portal to Union Central.  They would be back on Maya in less than an hour.

Everyone knew they would not be returning.  This was being used as another opportunity to shed people who weren’t loyal enough to the current administration.  Hadrian sneered at the closing portal.  Their slow-moving coup was a joke at this point.  If Terra fell, the Coalition lost the ability to sterilize worlds before their cores were infected with miasma.  It wouldn’t be long before humans were removed like an unsightly stain from the entire multiverse.

Hadrian suspected that the demise of humanity was long overdue.  They had failed repeatedly to unite in the face of a common threat.  Even if driven exclusively by self-interest, any rational actor should have seen the need to make common cause and operate in good faith.  Not the leaders of humanity, however.  At least not within Svarga.  It was a rat’s nest of petty intrigues.

He shared a meaningful look with General Ham.  The man had been out of favor with Bluff since before the election.  Only his stellar reputation had protected Ham so far.  With proud motions, Ham straightened his neck tie and smoothed the lapels of his jacket.  Then the man stood and bowed to his peers.  “Dear colleagues, I find myself shamed by the cowardice displayed by my countrymen.  To defend the honor of Svarga, I go now to do battle directly with the foe.  Though my personal might may be lacking, I have never experienced a deficit of courage.”

A Jinn general whose skull above his eyebrows had been replaced by metal shook his head.  “Such theatrics are unnecessary, General Ham.  We are well aware of the political situation of your home world and do not think the actions of some others infringes upon your honor.”

General Ham’s lips compressed into a firm line.  “I appreciate the sentiment, General Emmett.  I will still go into battle.  This conflict long ago passed the point where able leadership can make a difference.  If this is my last fight, then I would fight.”

Hadrian sighed as his old friend left the room.  Such grand gestures did not suit him.  No matter how he appeared on the outside, Hadrian knew he was an old man whose strength had withered.  He’d long since accepted that fact.  He was still a strategic thinker who kept an eye on the details.  Sadly, being an effective military leader didn’t mean much in a hopeless battle such as this one.  It just meant he didn’t see the appeal in making a grand last gesture by jumping to his death.

“Miasma levels have reached critical levels,” one of the Jinn aides announced.  “Resonant suppression within a twenty kilometer radius estimated at fifty percent.”

One of the Jinn generals sent an open broadcast instructing all vessels to retreat beyond the danger zone.  No one countermanded the order.  Keeping war barges in the sky was the right call to make, even if it meant the greater distance would further degrade the strength of their schism beams.  Given how impotent those beams had been so far, there wasn’t a right call to make in this situation.  It was just a matter of picking which poison to drink.

Hadrian looked back out the window.  The sky had grown considerably darker.  What should have been noon-day brightness was rapidly declining into the deep dark of a moonless night.  The Dragon was somehow still visible in the heart of the blackness, its existence so conceptually significant that it could be sensed even in the darkness.

On one side of the battlefield, a point of light caught his eye.  From the rooftop of a listing aerostat, a stubborn beacon of hope glowed.  As it defied the sea of miasma, the Dragon spun to face the provocation.  Whatever had managed to persist so deep within the sea of miasma had certainly caught the Dragon’s attention.