Chapter Twenty-One

The Lord General and Royal Guard

The two stoic Imperial First Class soldiers soundlessly traversed the skies over an expansive countryside. They were making their way steadily westward. A pair of massive birds of prey, Hoff held position a few body lengths ahead of Darien. They moved high over broad stretches of forest and narrow lakes nestled between humble hills. Here and there a highway or gathering of shingled rooftops would gleam up at them.

They were unwelcome strangers in a land blind to their malevolent presence, and they had no minds for leisurely sightseeing as they embraced the wooded country below. On the contrary, the lush carpet of vibrant foliage that fell away beneath them only stirred up feelings of anger and resentment. If the two soldiers possessed a greater ability to express their tangled emotions, they would have identified their shared sentiments as envy. Envy of the lands the people below called home. In their terse exchanges, Hoff and Darien agreed that an untested and unproven race did not deserve such a flourishing sanctuary.

The pale blue skies of the coastal east gradually gave way to cold blustering clouds that brooded tumultuously around them as they moved west. A cold drizzle touched their armor and the skin of their arms as they examined the lands. After some time soaring through the cold rain, Hoff held up his hand and came to a stop. The Lord General floated still in the dark sky, and Darien came to a stop at his side. The ground beneath them had noticeably shifted topographically; the hills had smoothed into level flatlands, and the broad gray mass of an immense lake extended across the vista to the north and commanded the horizon. The gigantic lake's dreary surface was that of an ocean, flecked with white caps and shadowy menacing swells. A number of rather unimpressive towns were scattered across the bank, and the infinitesimal movement of cars could be seen on the wet highways. Here and there a few buildings reached into the sky from the most prominent hub, perhaps a city. Aside from the several tall steel structures, the coast was cluttered with low rises and parking lots between stands of woods.

"What do you think?" Darien asked as he looked at the sodden roads and rooftops.

Hoff wiped cold precipitation from his brow. "I'm looking down at this world and these people and seeing nothing. I see a civilization that can barely hold back the wilderness that presses in around it. I see people that don't deserve even a shadow of our likeness. This mission is not going to get us anywhere. There's nothing of help to us here. Why Vengelis wants us to hold back at all is lost on me. It's shameful, staying out of sight of these people in this reverent manner. We're hiding from sheep."

"We're not hiding out of respect, Hoff. We're laying low so Vengelis can reach the scientists," Darien called over the growing wind as he squinted below. "But we only need to stay concealed for a little while longer. For now we just have to play our part."

"These...towns...won't serve for a spectacle. There aren't enough buildings down there to draw attention even if they were to fall." Hoff called and spat into the air. He watched his spittle fall far into the swirling rain. "We need to find a more populated city before we make contact with Vengelis."

"Yes," Darien said.

Hoff turned and eyed each horizon. In the north, the slate gray lake stretched beyond sight. To their south, rows of orderly neighborhoods and wet treetops encompassed everywhere the eye could see, which was not very far through the obscuring downpour.

"Do you think such a city exists?" Darien asked.

The Lord General shook his head uncertainly and took out his Harbinger I remote. He brought up a simple map of the North American continent. The screen of the remote glowed in the dreariness, and the Lord General held a forearm up to shield if from the pelting rain.

"According to this map, there's a population of about three million to the west of us. Only a few hundred miles."

"Are they densely concentrated?" Darien called over the growing vehemence of wind.

Hoff raised his gaze, heavy eyebrows dripping as he nodded dispassionately and turned to the west. The two giants continued their expedition, flying underneath the cathedral of churning storm clouds that loomed overhead. It was frigid at their altitude, but the two seemed unaware of the temperature or the worsening rain. Below, the rainstorm was falling heavily on grids of flat fields and endless acres of crops. A thick fog enclosed the region in a drab gloom. Looking down upon the pastoral lands passing them by, Darien felt a sharp despairing sentiment toward their situation. The glory of his race was being forced to seek salvation among farmers. He drew his gaze away from the lands and pulled in close to the Lord General. "Do you think they have any defenses?"

"Doesn't matter."

"I suppose not."

"Their most advanced defenses should at the very least shed some light on their advancement of technology. We'll see the pinnacle of their power. In that sense I really hope we're not left underwhelmed," Hoff said, squinting through the rain.

"I've never been on a planet other than Anthem," Darien said. "This place feels so surreal. I feel like we've traveled in time, not place."

"You've never been off Anthem?"

Darien shook his head.

"I'm surprised you weren't recruited for the Orion campaign. Most of the top soldiers were sent there."

"I was too young." Darien's face darkened, the memories still souring him. "Missed the Imperial Army cut off by three months."

"Well, at least you went on the make the Royal Guard. If it's any consolation, the Orion campaign was tedium."

"Wasn't there intelligent life there?" Darien asked with surprise.

Hoff weighed out the question uncertainly. "Technically, yes, I suppose. You're thinking of the Yarbu, or Yabu or something like that. They were little more than docile animals. It was . . . excessive . . . to call in the top ranks of the Imperial First Class on that one. A couple blundering low-ranks armed with a gun or two could have secured Orion."

"Either way, I wish I had been there." Darien shook his head wistfully. "It's always been a goal of mine to fight on foreign soil."

"Well you're getting that chance now, aren't you?"

Darien shrugged. "I suppose."

"Trust me kid, Orion was grunt work. They were a bunch of cave people and savages. You didn't miss much."

"You were there?"

"Well . . . not for the initial expeditions. I was general of the Royal Guard at the time. They sent for us when one of the soldiers broke rank. The whole thing was hushed up big-time." Hoff paused and considered something for a moment. "But what do classified secrets matter now?"

"There was dissention on Orion?" Darien asked. "This is the first I've heard of it."

"To call it dissention would be to put it lightly."

"What happened?"

Hoff hesitated. "Let me preface this by asking you not to tell Vengelis what I'm about to tell you. Okay?"

Darien gave him a questioning look. "Why?"

"Because he'll be mad that he was never made aware of it. But the truth of the ordeal was kept from everyone—generals and Royalty included. Everybody involved was forced to swear under penalty of execution that they would never speak of it. Emperor Faris himself ordered the cover up."

Darien stared at Hoff with a look of fierce anticipation. "By all means continue."

"Do you promise not to tell Vengelis? He won't see the excuse that I took an oath on my life directly to his father as justifiable. He'll only see it as me having withheld the truth from him. You know how he can get with things like this."

"Yes, yes. I won't tell Vengelis. Please just go on," Darien said.

"Okay. Do you remember the media coverage of the space transport accident that happened on the return journey to Anthem after the Orion campaign?"

Darien had to think back for a moment. He remembered it vividly, mainly because he was thankful not to have been involved. Had he not been too young during the recruitment trials, Darien easily could have been on board himself. The story had stayed in the news for weeks in the aftermath. A number of high-ranking military officials in the Imperial Army had been killed in a transport accident. Several famous soldiers had been lost.

"The accident with the generals, right?" Darien asked.

"Correct."

"Sure I remember." Darien nodded. "One of the transports lost contact in space. Worst accident in modern Imperial First Class history."

"But it wasn't any bunch of generals." Hoff pointed out. "The Lord General Bronson Vikkor himself was killed."

"Vikkor, yes." Darien said. "We lost the commander of the Imperial First Class because of some defective engine. I remember watching his fights in the Grand Arena when I was a kid. He was fierce."

"Yes, he was," Hoff said. "I was appointed to the open position of Lord General after his death. Bronson Vikkor was an old friend. I guess you could say I was a protégé of his."

Darien nodded slowly, rivulets of rain spilling off his broad chin. "I'm sorry to hear that. But what does any of this have to do with soldiers breaking rank?"

"Well, in short it has everything to do with it. The entire story of the space transport lost in space, from start to finish, was a fabrication."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the whole transport accident was a cover story." Hoff veered closer to Darien and took a long dramatic breath. "Lord General Vikkor didn't perish because of some engine failure on the return journey. He was slain on Orion."

Darien immediately stopped his forward flight and halted in place, his head inclined skeptically. Hoff came to a stop as well, basking in his younger partner's reaction to this groundbreaking revelation. They floated separate from their surroundings as the unmentioned downpour gusted in sheets around them.

"What?" Darien demanded, his tone skeptical.

"It's true. Bronson Vikkor was assassinated in the command bridge of the transport," Hoff said with an expression of significance. "And three Royal Guards were hospitalized with wounds when they came to his aid. It was all done by one person."

Darien shook his head. "That's not possible. No one in the Imperial Army could have bested Vikkor and three Royal Guards. Maybe an Epsilon, but even then I would have to see it to believe it."

"I thought the same thing at first." Hoff nodded. "Until I saw the security footage myself."

Head still shaking, Darien's lips moved inarticulately, unable to forge a question. Then he blurted out, "Who was it?"

"Lets keep moving," Hoff turned and accelerated nearly out of sight into the storm.

Darien quickly soared alongside him. "Who?"

"Some Royal nobody," Hoff said. "Pral Nerol's son."

Darien's expression almost looked insulted as he pictured the old Pral Nerol and his research building in Municera. The Nerol's were a disgraced Royal house—scholars and academics for many generations. They were no warriors. "Who?"

"Pral Nerol's son."

Darien shook his head. "I don't believe you."

"You don't have to," Hoff shrugged. "But it's true."

"The Nerol's have amounted to nothing but useless thinkers. They're a stunted and fallen Royal line. I mean for god's sake, look at Pral Nerol: the son of one of the most immaculate Sejero bloodlines in history became a scientist. It sickens me. They're no soldiers!"

"Evidently this one was."

Darien scoffed in disbelief. "If this Nerol was so powerful, how come I've never heard of him?"

"Emperor Faris and the War Council exiled him from Anthem immediately after his dissension on Orion."

"Exiled? Shouldn't he have been executed? He assassinated the Lord General . . . that isn't exactly a minor offense."

"Are you really forgetting Imperial military protocol so soon? In no way should the kid have been exiled, or even punished for that matter. The young Nerol should have been awarded Vikkor's position as Lord General. The security footage of the command deck was combed over for days after the incident. The kid did issue an open challenge to Vikkor before attacking him. Technically speaking, the Epsilon war treatise states that young Nerol was within his rights. But Emperor Faris intervened and issued a Royal mandate for the kid to be exiled. His word superseded military law. Vikkor had a lot of friends in high places—he was not someone the kid should have messed with."

"The kid? What do you mean, the kid?"

"Nerol's son. He was a teenager at the time."

Darien glared through the rain. "A teenager?" he blurted out with rising contempt. "I will not believe a teenager bested the Lord General of the Imperial First Class."

"I swear on the Blood Ring that I'm telling the truth. I saw firsthand the security footage of the Nerol kid taking down an entire command deck of some of the most highly decorated soldiers in the military. Three former Grand Arena champions were on that deck. He took them all on at once. To this day I've never seen anything like it, beyond sparring with Vengelis. Supposedly the young Nerol spent his childhood training with Master Tolland, which is why nobody knew about him. Even discussing the boy was a crime punishable by death, so no one did. But between you and me, the Nerol kid is what prompted Emperor Faris to have Vengelis trained by Master Tolland."

Darien was in complete disbelief that a truth this substantial had been hidden so successfully. He—along with the rest of Anthem—had been under the impression that the venerated Lord General Vikkor died in the middle of space during the ship's return journey. Darien remembered all sorts of theories on how the ship's navigation system failed, and a call to increase the frequency of inspections. It had been treated as a terrible tragedy. If Hoff's story was true, it was obvious why the War Council would keep it from public attention. If a teenager could defeat the Lord General and three other soldiers in single combat, how powerful really was the Imperial First Class?

"After the command deck fell, they called in the Royal Guard to take the Nerol boy down," Hoff said. "You wouldn't believe the mayday transmission that was sent out from Orion. Imagine receiving a transmission stating that the Lord General was dead." Hoff shook his head, his gaze lost in memory. "We didn't know what the hell we were in for, but expected the worst. Maybe the local civilization had some advanced weaponry we had been unaware of. Maybe some higher race had intervened and come to Orion's defense. Maybe we had finally pushed too far and brought the hammer of the gods down on our heads. We had no goddamn idea. I'll tell you this though, the last thing we were expecting was that a teenager had thrown a tantrum."

"Unbelievable . . . " Darien said. He tried to envision how strong this lone Nerol must have been. "How did you get him into custody? Did you fight him?"

Hoff shook his head. "We didn't have to. Nerol's son had locked himself in his quarters before we even arrived. I'd be damned if I was going to be the one to open the door and talk to him. We said to hell with it, and directed the ship back to Anthem with the kid on board."

"Where they proceeded to exile him?"

Hoff nodded. "Where Emperor Faris exiled him, yes."