ONE: Epilogue of Hermesh

44. The Deceivers

Ascending through the upper atmosphere, Tooran left behind the space station orbiting Alamiin and flew deep into the darkness beyond.

“President Tekkar,” she heard her first officer call from behind her. “We've just received a message confirming the two fleets under Vice Admiral Valdek have made it to the rendezvous point at Mahuka.”

“What about the rest of the fleets?” Tekkar asked without turning. 

“All are expected to be there by tomorrow. Only our Ninth has been reassigned to join the Xacreths' Third Armada, in order to guard the Aroragi.”

“How far are we from Station Zero?”

“We should be approaching the outer threshold in a few minutes.”

As the junior officer left, Tekkar was once more on her own. Looking back, the newly appointed President could remember many occasions over the last 2 years, when she, like many others, had tried to visualise what the end might look like. However, every time she started to imagine she was overcome with a strange guilt for surviving through this brutal conflict.

With every passing day, as the list of casualties grew longer, Tekkar kept finding names of friends and former colleagues in them. Several times, during the heat of the battle, she had believed death was inevitable. That, sooner rather than later, she would join the ranks of the fallen. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, Tekkar remained the only officer in the entire conflict who had managed to remain alive, despite partaking in almost every significant engagement of the war.

But now, no matter how the saga of this war may unfold, whether they end up succeeding in their last audacious endeavour or fail, whether life that evolved in Hermesh becomes extinct or continues to live on beyond, whether they win or lose, Tekkar knew this was the end and she did indeed survive to bare witness to it. The first ever engagement of this war was where Tekkar experienced actual combat for the first time. And now, President Tekkar was about to lead the last united forces of Hermesh into the last one.

Tekkar felt her neural interface buzz her out of her reverie. The transmission was from Station Zero. This station was situated just outside the projected radius of the event horizon that the quasi-geod was expected to create. She looked up to see the dimly lit string of lights appear in the distance.

Activating the neural interface, she saw the orb called Onkar appear in front of her.

“Greetings, President Tekkar,” Onkar said cordially.

“Greetings, Onkar. Is everything on schedule?” Tekkar asked.

“Everything is ready for your final inspection. We await your arrival.”

With her eyes fixed on the lights, Tekkar disconnected her neural connection. The string of lights slowly became brighter, finally revealing themselves to be part of Aroragi, a quasi-geode the size of an average moon. Surrounding it from all sides were thousands of ships, hovering silently like dark spectres.

Tekkar was aware that along with the Nashger reborn Mondroh Annokh, a prominent Manwatu scientist by the name of Onkar was in charge of Project Venua. But this was the very first time that she had the opportunity to meet him face to face.

Tekkar, like many others of her kind, felt a distinct discomfort when in the presence of a Manwatu. Personally, Tekkar attributed their general uneasiness to the Manwatus' indifference towards other living beings, which manifested in almost an absence of empathy for the other sentient life forms of Hermesh. After learning about the Asurs, her belief had only grown stronger.

But standing onboard Station Zero,  as Tekkar faced Onkar, the young Amarthian tried very hard not to think about any of that.

“Since, in most likelihood, we will not see each other again, please allow me to take this opportunity to thank you and everyone else who worked on Project Venua.” Tekkar said diplomatically.