Chapter 17
The Lovers
When Solar was left alone with Sephra, she wanted to talk to her. They spent quite a lot of time together as they shared a room. She enjoyed conversing with the woman, and it seemed that Sephra also enjoyed her company. Perhaps they were the only ones on the spaceship who had developed a good relationship. While others merely tolerated each other’s company, they could have meaningful conversations about all sorts of things, sometimes even about meaningless matters. Sephra seemed to enjoy not having to behave seriously for a few minutes.
“You know, it’s very strange that we’re not going to your planet.”
“My planet is Shouta. That’s where I grew up.”
“Even then, you’re not from there. How is it that everyone in our team is going to their home planets except you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been to Karona. That’s my planet, if you will. It’s out on the edge of Genesis, on the imperial side. Most of us work as scientists, scattered across the Galaxy. We like to study others. I’ve only seen pictures of it. It’s planet with forests, clearings, rivers, and large seas.”
“Have you never wanted to go back home?”
“Why would I? I never considered that place my home. Shouta is my home.”
“But your parents…”
“My biological mother died when I was born. I never knew my father. Why should I care about someone who abandoned me before even seeing me? They mean nothing to me. Angron’s parents are my real parents. They took me in, raised me, and loved me as if I were their own daughter. It doesn’t matter that we’re not blood relatives. They are my true family.”
“I don’t understand…”
“What?”
“Why are you both imperial, then, if your father is a rebel?”
“We made different decisions.”
“Why didn’t you stay on Shouta?”
“I had no reason to.”
“But you and Angron…”
“No! Maybe there was a chance long ago, but… It’s over now.”
After this, the girl fell silent, but Sephra could tell she was dwelling on something. Her fidgeting annoyed her.
“Just say what you want to say!”
“Why did you make different decisions? I mean… You said your father made a different decision than you. Why?”
“Look, I… Okay. Let it be. I left Shouta during my studies. Angron didn’t care at all, he just wanted to get away from there. Although, maybe he only followed me in the end. As for me, I knew the Emperor. He was liked and wanted me to work for him. I would never have had a better opportunity than that. Father joined the rebels later. It’s a complicated story.”
“Wait! Are you saying you knew the former Emperor personally?!”
“Yes.”
Solar looked at her with a mixture of fear and amazement. “Tell me! What was he like?! I’ve never known anyone who knew him!”
Sephra looked at her hands thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again. “He was strange.”
“Excuse me?”
“He was strange. Enigmatic. Sometimes it was difficult to navigate around him. He did many things that were hard to understand at first. His foresight often left others bewildered, planning decades ahead with an unwavering certainty. Despite this, many failed to grasp his true intentions. He looked out for the interests of the Galaxy much more than people thought. He knew exactly why he did what he did. You know, he had someone to learn from. His mother was the Empress before. His family had been in control of Genesis for millennia. Actually, they had been in power for so long that there are no records of anyone else. They were never able to overthrow their rule.”
“Do you really not know what happened to him?”
“He simply disappeared. No one knows where he is. He may be dead.”
Solar was thinking for a bit before she spoke again.
“It seems like you have liked him.”
“I have.”
“Then please tell me honestly… Was Hyraus right? Did the Emperor really go mad? Was it justified to rebel against him?”
Sephra twirled one of her purple strands of hair and looked up with a sad smile. “It wasn’t the Emperor who went mad, but Hyraus, for thinking he could kill him.”
***
“Admiral…” The woman raised her head and looked around. Serion approached her, his face filled with mixed emotions.
“What’s wrong?”
The man shook his head, swaying away a silver lock of hair from his eyes. It was evident that he struggled to say what he wanted to say.
“Nothing, everything’s fine. I just wanted to… Thank you for getting us out. I mean, back on Gadzen. When we were escaping. You know.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“I… I just… I was thinking of challenging you.”
This took the admiral by surprise.
“Excuse me?”
“To a duel. I… I’m just curious who would win.”
“Right now? Here?”
The man flashed a faint smile, seeming a bit more confident.
“Yes. After all, a good soldier is always ready for a fight, right?”
“Let it be.” Sephra went into her room, then returned with her sword. By then, Serion also held his own. “Just because you spoke from the heart.”
“I know,” the man whispered as they stood close to each other during the initial greetings before the duel began. The woman grinned and attacked.
Their fight lasted for more than a quarter of an hour, although they didn’t pay attention to the time. Both of them enjoyed and relished the duel, knowing it wasn’t about drawing blood but rather a display of skill, albeit a serious one. The clash of swords and banter created such a cacophony that even a small audience gathered. Solar watched them curiously from the doorway. She didn’t dare to come closer, fearing that in the heat of battle, one of them might accidentally cut her head off. Serion and Sephra displayed such intensity that Solar had never seen before in anyone. They seemed to forget everything else and focused solely on each other. Perhaps they didn’t even notice her. What surprised her the most was that the man, who often appeared cold, genuinely enjoyed himself throughout the duel. Sephra, who usually looked at everyone with biting sarcasm, laughed.
The girl couldn’t decide whose side to cheer for, so she remained silent. She noticed Angron on the other side. He also didn’t enter but stood at the doorway of the cockpit, arms crossed, leaning against the wall, observing the fight. At first, his expression was unreadable, but as the duel prolonged, his gaze toward Serion grew increasingly hateful. He also noticed how much enjoyment the two soldiers derived from the duel.
Solar wished for the duel to end before Angron would put an end to it himself. Her wish was granted when Sephra swiftly knocked the sword out of Serion’s hand, causing it to fly across the room and land on the floor with a loud clang.
Both of them were panting and drenched in sweat. For a moment, they silently watched each other, then they started laughing almost simultaneously. The woman raised the blade and pointed it at Serion’s throat.
“See, soldier, never mess with the Grand Admiral!”
The man seemed amused by the defeat.
“I must agree, admiral. Will you kill me, or let me live my pathetic life?”
With a melodramatic sigh, Sephra lowered the weapon, and the man bowed exaggeratedly before going to retrieve his own.
Solar realized that with their similar sense of humor, abilities, appearance, and their entire beings, they astonishingly complemented each other. She hardly ever saw them together, yet that was the feeling she got.
She nervously glanced at Angron. The man still watched Serion with deep hatred, while the soldier, in complete peace of mind, walked away. The pilot pondered for a moment before following him.
Solar didn’t want to know anything about this, so she quietly slipped back into her room and closed the door.
After the fight, Serion realized he hadn’t eaten anything for almost a day and a half. So, after tossing the sword somewhere, he went to the storage to rummage through the odd assortment of items.
By the time he found something edible-looking and turned to leave, Angron blocked his path. The light flooding from behind him almost turned his face black, with only his blue eyes gleaming with anger.
Serion calmly met his gaze for a good minute before speaking up.
“Excuse me, but I’d like to leave.”
Angron approached Serion, his expression tense. “You’re not going anywhere. I have something to discuss with you.”
Serion unwrapped the packaging to take a bite of the unidentified food. “Yes? Well, what can’t the others hear? Make it quick, I have things to do!”
“Don’t get cheeky with me! I saw the way you looked at her.”
“I didn’t touch her, as you asked. We just had a little fun. What’s the problem?”
Angron advanced, and a grin spread across his face as the other man began to back away. Then the pilot grabbed Serion by the throat and pinned him against the wall.
“I don’t want you to have anything to do with her. No fights, no talks, not even a glance!”
Serion looked up at him with his black eyes and sadly smiled.
“I feel sorry for you, for needing to secure your position this way… For resorting to violence for what others could achieve with simple kindness. If you were to pay attention to her instead of me, perhaps you’d have a chance with her. Although, maybe not. It seems you’re forever stuck at the friend level.”
Angron muttered something under his breath in his own language. Suddenly, he grabbed Serion’s neck with his other hand as well, lifted him up, and began to squeeze his throat. Fear replaced the calm look in the soldier’s eyes as he was being choked. He realized that Angron truly intended to kill him, and despite his attempts to break free, he couldn’t. His punches were futile. He tried to say something, but his words got lost in the void.
Then the pilot let him go, and Serion fell to the ground, gasping for air. He crawled on all fours, coughing. Angron watched him with a malicious smirk as the other man struggled to get up, rubbing his throat.
“You’re insane…”
“I’ve always been. Keep provoking me! Come on!”
Serion shook his head and looked up again.
“Better ask her!”
“What?”
“Ask her if she wants to be your girlfriend. I bet you’ve never confessed your love to her. If you tell her, maybe she can decide what she wants. If she says yes, I swear, I won’t even look at her anymore, unless I have to.”
Angron didn’t reply immediately, just stared down at him with his darkly gleaming eyes. Finally, with a snarl, he turned around and left. It took Serion a few minutes to calm down enough to get up.
Angron was fully aware that the soldier was right, but feeling something was quite different than talking about it.
He had known Sephra since childhood. He was just about to confess his love to her when troubles began. After his mother and sister died, he fell into deep grief. When his father left the planet, he was confused and desperate. And then… Then he turned into a monster and was unable to say anything to her. Then Sephra left. She joined the Empire, and he followed shortly after, but he studied on a different planet. They didn’t see each other personally for several years, only exchanging letters when they had time. During this time, he tried to get her out of his head, but he couldn’t.
As he managed to hold himself together due to the unfinished antidote, he tried to date others, but no one could capture his interest enough. When they finally ran into each other again, Sephra behaved differently towards him. She was friendly, attentive, but something had changed. The woman was colder, more serious, and focused only on work. The man was no longer sure if Sephra still loved him, and he dared not say anything about his feelings.
Perhaps the time had come. He feared that if he didn’t confess now, given his condition, he would never have a chance. But he was also worried about the answer. He was almost certain that if he had confessed his feelings back then, they would have stayed together.
Angron sighed and knocked on the door. Sephra was sitting in front of a computer, but when she noticed him, she turned it off and pushed it aside. Angron never asked why she spent so much time on these machines. In the past, when they were at home, she wasn’t so such interested in technology.
“What is it?” Sephra asked, looking at him.
“I need to tell you something… It’s actually a bit difficult. I should have said it a long time ago, but it never happened.”
Sephra didn’t interrupt, just looked at him curiously.
“I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time, even back on Shouta, but I never dared to say it. Since then, nothing has changed, and I still… I still love you.”
He couldn’t say more. He had already done more than he thought himself capable of. He only looked up when Sephra remained silent even after a minute. The woman just stared at him silently, with an expressionless face. Only her eyes reflected something, but it didn’t resemble joy in the slightest.
“You’re not saying anything?” Angron asked.
Sephra turned her head away, thinking for a while before speaking again.
“Unbelievable. You could only say it after all this time?”
“You knew?”
“I suspected, but since you never said anything…”
“Okay, but now that you know, what’s your answer?”
Sephra closed her eyes for a moment before looking back at him.
“I’m sorry, but no. After all this time, I can’t do it. I don’t have feelings for you anymore.”
“What?! Why not? It’s not too late! There could still be something between us! Or… It’s because of my transformations, isn’t it?”
“I don’t care about your transformations!” Sephra yelled, leaving Angron stunned.
Sephra seldom lost her temper, and a moment later, she had regained her composure and lowered her voice.
“If those transformations hadn’t happened, you would still have been late with your confession.”
“But why?!”
“Ten years, Angron! You waited ten years to tell me. To me, it felt like an eternity! I waited for you for so long! I wished so much that you would say something back on Shouta.”
“I was terrified when all this started. I thought you wouldn’t love me anymore.”
“How could I not love you? It didn’t matter what you did! I knew it wasn’t intentional! You were still important to me! I kept waiting, but you didn’t say anything.”
“You were the one who joined the Imperials. You left me behind!”
“Why do you think that happened?! I wanted to forget you, but I couldn’t as long as you were around! That’s why I accepted their offer!”
Angron opened his mouth, then closed it. He wanted to say something but found himself speechless.
Sephra stood up and turned toward the door. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
The pilot ran after her, stopping her in the hallway. He grabbed her hands.
“Let me go, Angron!” Sephra yelled.
Their three companions peeked out of their rooms upon hearing the yelling.
Angron, upset, exclaimed, “So it meant nothing to you that we slept together?”
The others expressed their surprise. Solar took a bite of her sweet treat, evidently excited by the news.
Daron observed both of them, then asked, “How…?”
Both Angron and Sephra turned to the boy, yelling, “None of your business!”
Sephra then turned back to Angron, twisting her hand to free it before continuing.
“I also thought that it meant something, but you gave me no further signs. You never invited me anywhere. I thought you had no feelings for me anymore, and it made me sad. Even dad tried to comfort me, assuring me that you surely still loved me.”
“I thought he didn’t know.”
“How could he not have known?! Did you think he was blind? Both he and mom knew about us. Did you really believe they’ve never noticed that we spent all our time together?”
Angron remained silent.
Sephra continued, “When they came for me, you were there. We said goodbye, and I just waited. I thought you would finally take a step, but you didn’t. When I started to leave, I hoped you would run after me. As soon as I stepped onto the ship, I turned back, wanting you to come and stop me. But you didn’t. You let me go to a completely different planet where I couldn’t see you anymore. I cried the entire way because of you. When I landed there, millions of light-years away, I decided that I wouldn’t look at you with love anymore. But no matter what I tried, I couldn’t completely forget you. You remained important to me. I wanted you to heal. But by the time we met again, I could only see you as a close friend, as a brother, as it should have been. I erased all other feelings for you from myself, only for you to come here after all this time and ask me why I don’t throw myself into your arms when you finally blurt out that you love me!”
Angron was speechless. Sephra’s confession hit him like a shockwave.
The woman had never spoken to him about her feelings because she was waiting for him.
Sighing, the admiral shook her head again before backing away. She paused one last time, not looking at him as she spoke.
“I didn’t care what you had become back then. It would have only taken a single word, and I would have stayed with you forever. You’re too late now, by nearly ten years.”
With these words, she left the hallway.
Angron stood silently, his eyes wide, looking at their companions. Daron quickly left.
Serion gave him a smug smile. Then, turning on his heel, he found himself facing Solar, who grabbed his arm and pulled him aside into a quieter corner, right beside the ship’s engine, whose soft hum filled the space, drowning out their voices.
“We need to talk,” Solar said.
“I suspected. Lately, everyone wants to talk to me privately,” Serion replied.
“That’s irrelevant… I’m interested in what you think about Sephra.”
“Why is this important?”
“Avoiding the question is one of the most straightforward answers. Look, I know Angron wants to tear you apart because of this, but I actually think you fit together with her much better than he does.”
“Stop it, please! Me and the Grand Admiral?”
“Seriously! When you were fighting earlier… I’ve never seen such harmony! If you both feel the same way as it seemed, then there could be something amazing from this relationship!”
“Listen here! Stop this until I say it nicely! I have a fiancée.”
“I see, I didn’t think about that. What’s her precious name?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Alright. However, then I don’t understand why you keep staring at Sephra so much.”
“I’m not staring at her!”
“Oh, come on! Even that dumb Daron noticed it, not to mention Angron.”
“Okay, fine, maybe I glance at her occasionally. So what? She’s very beautiful, extremely intelligent, sometimes a bit quiet, but I don’t mind that anyway, and…”
At that moment, Serion snapped out of it, and the girl noticed his embarrassment.
“She’s likable, I admit. She always has been, but I never really had a chance to talk to her. Nevertheless, there’s nothing between us. I haven’t kissed her, haven’t done anything, so I don’t understand why you’re all so obsessed with me and her. I’m just a soldier, and she’s an admiral. We don’t stand a chance together. Focus on your own relationships!”
“I’m not onto that kind of thing! Not yet…”
“Listen, since we’re already off-topic, something interests me too. When you first talked about your revenge, I fully believed you wanted it. But now, Daron has been with you for a while, and you still haven’t killed him. Why?”
Solar suddenly seemed to notice something incredibly interesting on her blaster, as she didn’t answer immediately.
“I’ve planned it so many times… You wouldn’t believe how many. At first, I wanted to finish him off quickly, but he kept insisting he was innocent. I began to doubt. I don’t want to kill someone who hasn’t done anything. I was waiting for some sign. When Kyen said there really was a bounty on him…”
“For treason, not for killing your father.”
“But I have seen him before!”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with your father’s death.”
Solar’s smile turned hollow as she turned her head away.
“I have to blame someone… Someone has to pay for it.”
***
Angron completely closed himself off. He didn’t even notice if someone talked to him, just sat there, hugging himself. He didn’t care about the ship, but he didn’t move from beside the wheel. With monotonous movements, he pushed the buttons on the panel when necessary.
He had messed up everything. Finally, he did what he had been unable to do for years, but it was futile. He should never have confessed his feelings. He had never wished more desperately to somehow rewind time. Then he could have hidden again all that he felt, even if it broke his heart.
Angron’s empty eyes wandered to the reflecting glass.
His reflection looked back at him with a bloody smile before speaking.
“If you didn’t stay alive to be with her, then why?”
***
Solar tried to focus on the sword. Based on what she had learned so far, she suspected that she would have to find the shard of the sword herself, but she still didn’t know where it could be.
She went over Angron’s brief, detail-lacking story and Daron’s enthusiastic, slightly proud report. She compared them to what Sephra had said. It required a place where no one went. However, the more she tried to find such a place, the more often she ended up elsewhere.
Despite her efforts to keep her distance from the boy, she realized that something was off. Daron couldn’t be the killer, but still… If there was nobody else.. Someone had to pay for it.
Daron lay on his bed. He found out that the girl still wanted to kill him; Serion had told him. He noticed that the man cared about his fate since he took him to the cathedral. He thought perhaps Serion saw in him a conversational partner with whom he didn’t have to compete. He now knew for sure what he had suspected before. He wasn’t the one the girl was looking for, but he didn’t know how to convince her of that.
Sephra immersed herself in a sea of information. The others might have thought that she had been crying constantly since her withdrawal, but that was not the case. She was sad, but she tried to keep herself busy. So much had happened in those few days while they were on their way! So much new knowledge, plans, and actions were revealed, yet she hardly enjoyed going over them. However hard she tried, she could barely concentrate on them.
She hadn’t spoken to Angron since he confessed his feelings. She didn’t regret what she had said to him. She meant it sincerely. Although Angron remained important to her, she couldn’t think of him with love anymore. After all this time, she simply couldn’t. The hardships of military life and the years had completely eradicated any tender feelings she had for him. He remained a close friend. She knew she had hurt Angron with this, but she couldn’t do anything more about it. All chances were lost. However, that didn’t mean she wanted to end her relationship with him. If he decided he wanted to remain on good terms with her, she was there for him. However, she had already decided not to initiate anything anymore.
Sephra shook her head to snap herself out of her thoughts. She had plenty to do.
She wasn’t worried about Rangza. It was a peaceful Imperial planet with kind inhabitants. Then there was Gadzen. Everything went more or less smoothly, and because of that, Daron gained a little more respect in her eyes. Originally, she didn’t regard him as anything more than a tool to achieve the goal, but the boy surprisingly survived the journey, and Sephra appreciated that.
She had just started typing when Serion entered.
“Sorry,” the man spoke first. “I didn’t know you were still here.”
Sephra didn’t shut down the computer, as she usually did.
“It’s fine. Why did you come?”
“I just… It’s not important. I see you’re busy, so I’ll leave.”
The man turned to leave, but then Sephra cleared her throat warningly, causing Serion to stop and obediently turn back.
“Admiral?”
“Solar told me about your fiancée.”
“That girl can’t keep her mouth shut,” Serion grumbled.
“Well… I agree with that. As a matter of fact… I’m starting to like her a little.”
“Actually, so am I. She’s a bit too lively, but a decent kid… Why did you stop me? What do you want to say?”
“I just have one question. Your fiancée. Do you love her?”
Serion opened his mouth to answer, then closed it. He visibly thought for a few seconds about how to express what he wanted to say most appropriately.
Finally, he lowered his head and smiled sadly.
“Almost obsessively.”
Sephra turned back to the monitor, but she couldn’t concentrate.
***
The Captain himself didn’t know how long he had been on the bridge. He stood motionless, hardly blinking. He enjoyed observing others at work. On one hand, his mere presence instilled discipline, and on the other hand, he could watch out for mistakes. Most importantly, he was able to keep an eye on everyone and observe if they were planning anything that could cause trouble.
Although the workers visibly weren’t pleased when he walked past them, he thought that if they were tense while working, it was almost as if they were in battle. Everyone believed that as soon as he spotted something out of place, he would rush to report it to the Leader. He didn’t even attempt to behave differently; let them think that he was eagle-eyed for mistakes. They were all the more cautious not to make any.
The starship began to slow down and finally came to a halt. The soldiers and workers were in disarray, trying to figure out what the problem could be.
“Report!” shouted the Captain, immediately restoring order. Lord Quilen wasn’t present, so it was natural that he had to take charge.
A response came from somewhere in the crowd, “Something has stopped us, sir. I’ve never encountered anything like this. It might be some kind of generator.”
The Captain shoved aside one of the workers, examining his monitor. The image flickered for a while, then the whole system shut down.
“They’ve disrupted the system, sir. It seems like nothing is functioning properly. It may last only a few minutes…”
“A few minutes!” whispered a nearby worker. “Anyone could blast us apart in that time!”
The Captain hurried back to the bridge without a word, looking out the panorama window. Everyone was talking to each other in the background. The murmuring was continuous. Most of them had never encountered a situation where the entire system of a ship was shut down.
The Captain raised his head when a few lights flickered and went out. Despite doing everything the protocol demanded at such times, the workers kept glancing back at him, expecting something from him.
“Calm down! I don’t know what kind of interference this is, but as soon as the system is back in order, we’ll continue immediately! We won’t wait for a single moment, clear? It’s enough to get a bit of distance, then we’ll continue our journey.”
“Sir…” one of the soldiers spoke up, pointing outward.
The Captain turned back to the window. He didn’t see anything before, but now an Imperial spacecraft was emerging from space. It slowly took shape, but it was clear that it was much larger even on its own than any rebel ship. It was at least three times the size of their starship.
“Message, sir. In the public part, they request that we don’t attempt to jump until we’ve listened to them, otherwise, they’ll be forced to stop us again and attack. The rest is private, encrypted with your personal password, sir.”
“How do they… Alright. Forward it to me personally!”
The man sat down at the only computer terminal at the end of the bridge. Under normal circumstances, this was used by the Leader, but if he was away, the Captain had every right to operate it as well. He and Quilen had a shared password alongside their own, precisely for situations like this. While he couldn’t see everything with it, he could access the most important things, such as this message.
The Empire had something very important to convey. Who was he to prevent them from doing so?
He put on the headphones to listen to what they sent. When the encrypted message arrived, he entered the password and began to listen to the speech. After the second sentence, he froze completely motionless and remained so until the message ended.
Complete silence reigned on the bridge. Despite the images slowly returning to the monitors, no one paid attention to them. Everyone was watching him, waiting.
The Captain looked out at the massive spaceship hovering securely in the distance. When the speech ended, he wordlessly removed the headphones and then stood up.
“Sir? What was it, sir?” asked one of the crew members.
“The message came for the Leader. Personally from the imperial Emperor.”
He wasn’t surprised by the general astonishment. Excited murmuring rippled through the ranks.
“Do we attack them?” asked the sergeant. “All our instruments are functioning again, sir. We’re ready.”
“No. Let them be! We’re moving on!”
“But, sir… If the Emperor is on that ship and we manage to kill…”
“I said we’re moving on!” the Captain raised his voice, silencing the sergeant. “I’ve told you, we’re not attacking. The Emperor isn’t on that ship. He’s not that foolish. Tell them we’ve received the message and have no hostile intentions! Then we’ll depart immediately! I’m going to see Lord Quilen.”
With that, he left them. His command spread, and everyone obeyed. Although he didn’t look back, he sensed that the imperial ship had withdrawn, but that was the least of his concerns right now. What he heard wasn’t addressed to him at all, yet he knew every word by heart.
When he arrived at the chamber, he entered without knocking.
Quilen glanced up from his monitor. There was a momentary surprise in his eyes at the sudden intrusion, but he quickly composed himself.
“I was expecting you. Obviously, it’s about our recent strange halt. What happened?”
“A imperial starship stopped us. It was much larger than anything I’ve ever seen. They didn’t attack, just delivered a message. Personally from the Emperor.”
Quilen listened attentively. This time, he didn’t appear surprised. He waited for further details, and the Captain recounted everything he heard.
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone else hear about it?”
“No.”
“What orders did you give to the soldiers?”
“To proceed towards our destination.”
“Good. I knew I could count on you even in such situations.”
“The soldiers wanted to attack, sir. They will be suspicious.”
“It doesn’t matter. Let them suspect whatever they want, it doesn’t concern me. Just keep all the information confidential. Act as if you don’t know anything! I’ve placed my complete trust in you, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t abuse it.”
“You don’t need to threaten me, sir. I have no intention of betraying you.”
“I’m glad. We’ll arrive soon, Captain. Then we’ll just wait until they arrive too. If they’re moving at this pace, they’ll be here soon! Reassure everyone! I don’t want any trouble.”
“Yes, sir. I… I’m just worried about Angron…”
“Needlessly. They won’t be able to kill him anyway.”
“No… I mean, I’m worried that he’ll kill someone.”
Quilen ran his hand through his hair and grimaced.
“Indeed… That worries me too… I’m sorry we subjected him to this torture on Shouta, but we didn’t have many choices. Nevertheless, I believe the admiral can keep him in check.”
“I hope so…”
Quilen silently watched the closing door before returning to his computer and initiating a call. He wasn’t surprised to receive a response within a minute.
He smiled. The Emperor hadn’t even shown his face yet.
Whoever he was, he never appeared publicly. He never made himself known. It piqued Quilen’s interest, but no matter how hard he investigated, he couldn’t establish contact. The Emperor possessed half the Galaxy, yet Quilen couldn’t reach him through anyone.
He was just about to give up, convinced that the Emperor didn’t even exist, when the Emperor himself approached him. Quilen had never been so shocked as when, out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, two hands appeared on his screen, without any prior announcement, and someone started speaking to him. At first, he didn’t believe it, but eventually he was convinced.
No matter what anyone said, the new imperial Emperor existed and knew exactly what he was doing.
Many years ago, Quilen swore allegiance to only three things: One, that no matter what happened, he would never become a tyrant. Two, that he would never allow the Empire to destroy everything he had fought for. And three, that he would never submit to anyone ever again.
He didn’t now. He merely bowed his head in front of the image appearing on the monitor because, against all odds, the new Emperor had earned his respect.
“Your Majesty. It’s time for us to talk.”
Stella Watson author/író 