Sins of the Past

[Orion]

Orion floated crosslegged, hands on his knees, the end of his robe brushing the ground. With eyes closed, he breathed deeply through his nose, in and out. He had forgotten the simple pleasures of meditation. Clearing the mind and focusing only on the passing of air through his nostrils brought great calm and focus, and he quietly scolded himself for forgetting its practical uses in the intervening years since he learned it.

Once he recognised the heartbroken fury of losing his tail and, thematically, his entire sense of self and the sacrifices that composed it, he remembered that meditation would help in cutting through the blinding pain and resentment that Darkseid so readily used as a bridle to break Orion’s will.

But since he was so out of practice, it would take time for it to become natural again. His first attempts were fruitful, and they would continue to be, he knew, but this was a journey.

However, such journeys were often interrupted. So he had to train for those eventualities.

The dragging of steel against the hard rock of the ground entered Orion’s awareness. Snarls and hisses orbited his position. The acrid stench of their breath and possibly body odour signaled to the Saiyan what had surrounded him.

Orion inhaled slowly, holding his breath momentarily, and released it as he opened his eye.

The harbingers of Darkseid, the parademons, growled at him. Their glowing red eyes and serrated teeth exposed their true feral nature despite the laser rifles and sinister spears they wielded as adeptly as any other sentient being. Their ebony power armour granted them protection beyond what most soldiers and mercenaries could penetrate.

He had intended this. Meditating in the wilds of Cevanti almost necessitated a visit from the marauding parademons. Practicing a peaceful and centred state of mind while in the midst of a frenzied attack would help hammer in the need to abandon the rage that he had allowed into his battle style. He knew it intellectually. He just had to train it in emotionally.

The servants of the Fallen Arbiter seemed to take exception to the Saiyan meeting their hungry gaze, readying their weapons and lunging at him.

Orion’s boots met the ground.

The first parademon stabbed forward with their obsidian spear, its pointed tip coated with a film of dry blood. Orion raised his knee and pivoted slightly to the side, his foot crashing down on the spear as it missed its target. The shaft snapped beneath the Saiyan’s stomp. The parademon continued forward with its momentum, providing an unguarded moment for Orion to drive his knee into the beast’s face. A sickening crack sounded from the impact, sending a thick stream of green blood from its pointed maw. It hit the ground twitching, its crimson goggles laced with fractures.

Watching their comrade collapse so easily drew greater fury to the surface of the parademons’ twisted faces, and they attacked in tandem.

Their anger overrides any fleeting sense they might have, Orion thought to himself. Far too similar to myself when I faced off against Saren.

Three of the remaining five parademons entered the fray with spears, while the other two took aim with their laser rifles. A hail of ruby hued projectiles lit up the dull, rocky area in a pale red light. A handful of shots connected with Orion’s armour, leaving scorch marks and imparting noticeable pain but unable to break his ki infused body. Forming a ball of energy, the Saiyan detonated it at his feet as the trio of spear wielders reached him, instantly covering himself in a plume of dust and smoke.

The lasers still whizzed through the shroud, but the lack of sight on Orion meant most went nowhere near him. Though blinded himself, the parademons shone with brilliant life energy easily detectable by the Saiyan’s ki sense. He struck with heavy precision at the first unaware victim in the back of the skull, gripping it in one hand and slamming the creature headfirst into the unyielding earth. The sound and vibrations acted as a clarion call to the other two spear wielders. They beat their sharpened wings and headed for Orion, their backdraft scattering the dusty cloak that hid him so well.

Stomping on the downed parademon’s skull for good measure, Orion snatched its spear from limp fingers and hurled it at one of the riflemen while the plume still held. The spear turned javelin pierced the beast’s throat, forcing it backwards as it choked and gasped for air. It held its finger down on the rifle as streaks of red flew into the sky haphazardly, until it toppled over.

Orion took a fast second to evaluate his mental state. Focused, pumping with adrenaline, but without the hate and malice that accompanied his last battle. Good.

A glint of ebony nicked the side of Orion’s left bicep, catching him in the moment, his guard momentarily lowered. The Saiyan spun away from the strike as the second parademon closed in.

An almost reflexive spike of rage wanted to guide Orion’s actions, but he recognised it for the echo of his habitual fury that it was and reseated himself in the flow of battle.

Instead of lashing out, he tapped his forehead with index and middle fingers, vanishing as the second parademon attempted to skewer him. Materialising behind the monster, Orion drove a roundhouse kick into its cheek with all the strength he possessed. The parademon thumped into the rocky earth headfirst, its body standing upright almost comically while its head was firmly planted downwards. The rest of the monster flopped downwards lifelessly.

The last spear wielder jabbed at him with its weapon. Orion deflected the piercing tip with his silver vambraces, birthing a spurt of orange sparks, guiding the point into the ground. Grabbing the shaft, Orion yanked on the spear and pulled the parademon towards him. He closed his eyes and slammed his head into the monster’s, mimicking the earlier brutality of his knee strike. He heard the crunch of broken teeth and cracked goggle lenses as the last melee attacker gracelessly fell to the earth, its wings beating in fits and starts.

A sharp sting blossomed in Orion’s left temple, knocking him off kilter. He groaned as his mind buzzed, the impact point sore and pulsing. Puzzlingly, the sight from his cybernetic eye stopped. The last parademon advanced on him behind a storm of crimson lasers.

Disoriented, Orion lifted his arms to block the projectiles. A haze thickened the passageway for his thoughts as if he’d taken a strong blow to the head, but it persisted much longer. Some laser bolts splashed harmlessly off his armour or vambraces but the deaths of the parademon’s allies seemed to hone its aim. Other shots seared the exposed skin of his forearms, leaving blackened burns, and tearing holes through his ornate robe.

The Saiyan battled against a dazed mind. Unable to formulate a proper response but lucid enough to defend himself, he stepped backwards amidst the laser fire, enduring the hits but incapable of stopping them.

As swiftly as the bewilderment set in, it evaporated. Regaining his wits, Orion swung his arms to the side and opened his mouth in preparation of an instinctual, iconic Great Ape attack. A blazing column of ki burst forward, absorbing the laser fire and enveloping the parademon. As Orion closed his lips, a charred and emaciated humanoid frame toppled over, its body disintegrating into blackened ash on impact with the ground.

Orion sighed to reset himself, dusting his hands. The carnage he wrought wasn’t in the name of repressed anger or bitterness but of a desire to live and to implement the many hard won lessons of his extensive fighting career. But he knew he hadn’t completed his objective. His fury took a chance to take control of him – it still lingered, unwilling to submit so easily after decades of suppression. But he didn’t let it. That was the important part, and a heartening display of his own developing mental control.

He probed the gash on his arm with a finger. Not too deep, but the spear tip would hardly qualify as sanitary. Just in case he received some sort of hellish Unmade virus, Orion fished out a senzu bean and popped it in his mouth. A few moments after swallowing, the wound cleared up immediately, as did the numerous burns along the exposed skin of his upper arms.

He pressed two fingers into his left temple. Still a headache, though not as strong. Certainly not debilitating as it was earlier. Unusual.

Maybe a beer will fix that, Orion thought to himself, ascending into the sky.

 

[Orion]

Orion tried not to make a habit of visiting the same places regularly. Perhaps it fell into the category of a paranoid delusion of grandeur, but if anyone happened to be hunting him – and the list of people with motivations to do so was likely longer than he fully appreciated – frequenting the same locations only simplified the job for his imaginary assassin.

Even so, the Saiyan found some semblance of peace whenever he arrived at the Snowy Oasis. He claimed the stool at the very end of the bar, within short walking distance of the toilets and a television he only had to crane his neck upwards to watch. The bartender knew him well enough not to engage in idle banter but offered an ear if the old warrior had a question. A line of windows along the wall behind his favourite stool were always open, stopping the baked in smells of vomit and cigar smoke from being caged within. Plus most rowdy patrons learned to take their physical altercations outside ever since Orion ‘persuaded’ one such incident into the alleyway.

It was just … nice to have somewhere he could call his ‘local,’ even if no one but he and the bartender knew it.

Pressing through the doorway, Orion found his way to his stool and planted himself. He ran his calloused fingers over the rough grain of the wooden countertop.

“The usual?” the bartender said, already pouring a frothy beer into a glass mug without waiting for Orion’s response.

Orion tapped the bar twice and she slid the drink to his waiting hand. With the other, he placed down a handful of credits. “Best service in town. Keep the change.”

The bartender smiled and collected the payment. She counted the coins in her hand. “Wow. You keep this up and I might be able to retire.”

“Folks like me don’t tend to live long,” Orion said.

“Well, you better triple your tip in future,” she said with a cheeky wink.

Orion smirked. Nice woman.

“Oh, actually someone was looking for you earlier,” the bartender said.

“Looking for me?” Orion asked. Who could that be? Anyone who he had dealt with in the Crossroads could contact him through his NOVA unit. “Who were they?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “They just mentioned your description and called you Orion. And they left this.”

The bartender slid a small business card to the Saiyan. He picked it up, inspecting it. Plain white with a contact number in bold black font. No identifying information.

Orion sequestered the card in an outside pocket of his robe. “What did they look like? Brown hair, glasses?”

She shook her head. “They wore a helmet, I couldn’t see their face. Though the voice was distinctly masculine. That’s about all I know.” The bartender moved onto another patron.

Odd. Maybe Orion’s fear of being tracked wasn’t as foolish as he thought.

Before he investigated, he needed a beer. He wrapped his fingers around the handle and lifted the rim to his lips.

“Ah!”

The Saiyan almost fumbled the mug as a sharp pain burrowed into his left temple. He hunched over the bar grimacing as the vision behind his eyepatch faltered again and his mind went dark. Clutching at his skull, the only thought that broke through the painful static was that any injury he sustained against the parademons should have been resolved when he consumed the senzu bean.

In an instant, the overwhelming agony dissipated. Orion looked up, noticing a few people along the bar staring at him.

The Saiyan exhaled loudly enough to be heard, meeting their gaze. They all turned away.

He took a swig of beer. What was going on? Senzu beans were supposed to heal any injury instantaneously. Was his latest batch bad somehow? Or was there something deeper going on?

This had to be fixed, and fast. He couldn’t afford to crumple into a groaning vegetable in the middle of a confrontation. But where did he begin? He downed the rest of his drink in one gulp and gave a quick salute to the bartender as he left the Snowy Oasis.

Stepping onto the sidewalk, Orion stuffed his hands into his robe pockets as he navigated the crowd strolling past him. His fingers brushed the thin edge of the business card he placed there earlier. Retrieving it, he stared at the number.

Sorting out his chronic, unexpected headaches took first place on his list of things to do. But without a clear direction, unsure of where to turn, the mystery number ate away at his focus. It couldn’t be Kitriana or Mustang – they both knew how to reach him. Yet this mysterious scout knew his physical description, his name… a niggling fear told him the receiver on the other end of the line was trouble, but it would snare him eventually anyway if he ignored it.

What if they broke into his apartment as he slept, or revealed themselves as another headache clamped down on his skull? Initiating contact on his terms made sense, if only to discover what interest they held in the Saiyan warrior.

Orion thought the number and his NOVA unit dialed.

The line connected almost immediately. They were expecting him. “Orion. I’m glad you could reach out.”

The Saiyan didn’t recognise the voice. “Who is this?”

“My name is Tenso. I have some pressing news for you.” The man spoke calmly, with an accent that denoted a wealthy upbringing.

“I don’t know any Tenso,” Orion said.

“No. You would not. In any case, we must meet.”

“Why don’t you tell me this pressing news now?”

“Communication channels are not safe to discuss this topic,” Tenso said. “As secure and encrypted as I’m certain your device is, the powers of Cevanti will no doubt have a way to hear us.”

“Not very reassuring,” Orion responded, eyeing the people he walked past. “A stranger leaves a card for me to call them, and then demands a meeting with me without saying why. If this is your first time setting a trap, it shows.”

“Then perhaps it would interest you to know that I am aware of your headaches. The ones that leave you a gasping, paralysed simpleton. And that I have a resolution for them.”

Orion stopped in his tracks. A few people walking behind him in the crowd bumped into him and said a few unsavoury words, but the Saiyan didn’t process them.

“That’s… not…”

“Possible? I assure you, it is.”

“They only started when-“

“You were fighting outside Cevanti’s barrier, yes,” Tenso said. “I would really prefer not to continue expounding on your situation through this channel, Orion. I hope that this at least buys me enough trust to establish an audience with you.”

Orion stood in the sidewalk, forcing people to walk around him as he considered.

“I will have contingencies in place,” the Saiyan warrior said. “If I suspect any of this is a trap, I will-“

“Your threats are noted,” Tenso said. “And while my reassurances are simply worthless to someone who doesn’t know me personally, you have my word that you will not come to any harm.”

A light throbbing in his left temple emerged. Orion crushed the card in his hand.

“When and where?”

 

[Orion]

Orion’s boots touched down outside Cevanti’s spaceport. The only official spaceport on the entire planet, it bustled with commerce. Small personal spacecraft lifted off in the distance while huge transport carriers gently lowered themselves into the port, their enormous, cavernous thrusters expelling torrents of flame. He didn’t understand the method, but some form of technology or exemplary acoustic design prevented the mammoth bellowing of the spaceships from deafening anyone within earshot. They were still audible, but they should have been much more so.

A line of people formed outside the entrance to the spaceport and Orion joined them. A number of them shouldered heavy bags, clutching children or prized possessions while repeatedly checking their time keeping devices. From what the Saiyan understood, many people bought tickets to leave the planet, fearing Cevanti’s fate would resemble the Unmade-ravaged world, Governmorne. After the Siege of Markov, it took little wonder to understand their reasoning.

Although things looked calm – for a busy spaceport terminal, the only one on the whole planet – Orion remained alert. This Tenso asked to meet here. Orion agreed, though he could theorise as to why this location was chosen. A critical piece of infrastructure such as the spaceport would necessitate a strong enforcement presence. Tenso may have chosen this location specifically for that purpose, as a subtle indication that he didn’t intend to attack. Yet many plausible reasons had been perfect cover for the true intentions in the past for the Saiyan warrior.

Thinking ahead, Orion planned for such unexpected dangers.

Orion, this is Mustang, Colonel Roy Mustang said through the Saiyan’s NOVA unit. I have four snipers poised outside the entrance with a sweeping view of the spaceport. Another six plainclothes officers are inside, and they’ll stay close enough to you that they’ll be able to react should something happen.

“I appreciate this,” Orion said. “I don’t know what to expect inside, but I feel better knowing someone else is watching.”

Think of it as a bonus for the job you pulled with Saren, Mustang said. Got to keep my best and brightest motivated. Of course, do try not to ruffle Dulmare’s troops. I’d rather not be involved in an incident if at all possible.

“The area’s full of civilians,” Orion said as the line shuffled closer to the door. “Any reaction on my part will be in self defense and only to allow me to escape. I hope I’m being paranoid.”

Paranoid’s better than dead, Mustang said. Over and out.

Orion passed through the entrance, allowing the guards to scan him for weaponry or other illegal items. After removing his vambraces, gloves, flat pauldrons and explaining the ‘metal plate’ in his head, they permitted him ingress into the spaceport.

People flooded the spaceport. Humanoids of all species walked through the terminal in a random criss-cross of traffic streams, most speed walking and sporting taciturn expressions as they hurried to the check-in counters or their gate. Markov was a true melting pot of species from, most likely, the entire universe. Orion himself wasn’t from this galaxy and he was here. He wondered how many others had been displaced here by some freak quantum fluctuation, and how many were native.

Unsure of Tenso’s location, Orion filtered through the travelling crowds. The mystery caller described himself as possessing pale blue skin and orange irises, with black hair and an occasional silver strand. The variety of appearances in the spaceport complicated the search, but eventually a man matching that description spotted the Saiyan and waved over the top of the throng.

Mustang’s plainclothes officers excellently blended in with their surroundings; Orion couldn’t place a single one of them. Though he couldn’t identify any of them himself, he trusted that the Colonel wasn’t lying to him as he strode up to Tenso.

The blue skinned man held out a hand, smiling wanly as if expecting to be snubbed. His prediction was remarkably accurate.

“Orion,” Tenso said, lowering his arm. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

Tenso, much as his voice suggested, appeared from noble stock. He stood tall and confidently, shoulders back, and impeccably groomed. A slight lowering of his eyelids spoke of self assurance and superiority. No apparent bodyguards waited by him at all. Regardless of the truth, Tenso’s body language told Orion he thought he was in control.

“Why did you want to meet with me?” Orion said. “And why here, of all places?”

“Firstly, the spaceport is a secure location,” Tenso said. “We both understand the importance of this facility, and the government much more so. I hoped it would put you at ease compared to a dusty abandoned warehouse or a grimy back alleyway.”

“And secondly?”

Tenso’s polite demeanour hardened a fraction, the ends of his mouth flattening. “If you agree to my proposal, it’s a short walk to my shuttle.”

Orion narrowed his eye. “Before you begin proposing anything to me, you need to explain how you know me. How you knew the bar I go to regularly. How you knew about the headaches, which only just began.”

“Much of that will be disclosed in due time,” Tenso said, his countenance changing to concern. “However, I must broach the most significant message I have for you now. You will die soon.”

Orion scowled. “Expand on that quickly, or I’ll have to assume that’s a threat.”

Tenso pointed to the Saiyan’s eyepatch. “Behind that stylish accessory is your NOVA unit. I don’t need to ask you if I’m right. I know I am.”

“NOVA unit?” Orion echoed as a warm sensation flooded his chest. “How could you possibly-“

“And the pain you’re experiencing? The headaches that repeat on you? The ones that don’t respond to senzu beans? They’re a direct result of internal damage to your NOVA unit. If you do nothing, they will occur more frequently until it eventually kills you.”

Orion bristled. “You know far too much information about me for a run-of-the-mill stranger. How about you start – ah!”

Speak of the devil. Pain like clawed lightning raked through his skull, forcing him to a knee while he clutched at his head. His mind froze, just like the times before.

“I see it’s progressing faster than estimates predicted,” Tenso said, kneeling by Orion. He slipped on a silver metal circle over his palm, held in place with a fabric strap. “This will clear it up for now.”

Tenso hovered the silver circle near Orion’s left temple. Even if he wanted to stop him, his agency didn’t exist while in the throes of the vice-like headache.

After a few seconds, Orion’s sense stumbled back into his mind. After a few more, the pain had weakened substantially, and in another few, was expunged completely.

Tenso watched Orion’s reaction with tender interest. “How do you feel?”

The Saiyan eyed Tenso with suspicion as he rose to his feet. “I think it’s obvious.”

The blue skinned man smiled. “Good. I hope that proves to you that I’m not a threat.”

“Knowing what a NOVA unit is, let alone knowing about the one in my skull, gives me enough pause to reconsider that,” Orion said. “There are very few people in existence who know anything about the project, let alone living ones.”

“Then… perhaps we should speak further,” Tenso said. “This calibrator on my hand will stave off the NOVA’s malfunction for a time longer. I get the feeling we won’t be going anywhere until I assuage your nerves.”

Orion didn’t like this at all. There were far too many unknowns with this Tenso after only speaking with him for a few minutes. How could he know enough about the NOVA project to identify Orion, understand what was happening, and even administer a temporary fix for it? The project was still a mystery to the Saiyan even after all these years, and he had never met or heard of anyone like Tenso.

But what choice was there? Continue scoffing senzu beans in the vain hope that the headaches stop? Or trust that despite his enigmatic identity, Tenso may actually prove useful?

Truly, that seemed the only path available to him. Besides, if executed right, Orion might finally learn more about the shadowy experiments he was subject to against his will.

Orion, this is Scarlet 1, a voice entered in his mind through his NOVA unit. All of Scarlet Team have eyes on you. We saw you take a knee. Do you need us to intervene?

No, Orion thought back. Keep me in sight. If I call out your fire team’s name, then approach.

Copy.

“Fine,” Orion said. “Where can we obtain some privacy?”

“My shuttle is just-“

Orion shook his head. “I’m staying grounded until I understand what mess I’m falling into.”

Tenso looked around the terminal. “I think I spotted a set of conference rooms in that direction. Shall we speak there?”

The Saiyan warrior balled his fists until the knuckles cracked. “Lead the way.”

 

[Orion]

The door clicked shut. Tenso took a seat on the other side of an oval shaped desk. The small room barely fit the table and the ten or so chairs that crowded around it, but it would do for their conversation. Frosted windows surrounded them on three sides, behind which were the moving, shapeless blobs of the customers in the spaceport terminal.

Tenso gestured to a seat. “Let’s begin.”

Orion sat down, leaning back in the chair and folding his arms. His blue skinned contact carried the same confident, unflappable air of a man with no concerns. The Saiyan dug his fingers into his biceps. How could this stranger, this nobody, be this knowledgeable about the NOVA project?

All Orion knew about it was that it had something to do with the Cold Empire. He may have known more once, in the past, but much of that had faded into obscurity while he focused on his survival. Even if he hadn’t forgotten, it was not substantially more than that, he was certain.

Outside of the pale blue skin, Tenso appeared more human than lizard. If he belonged to Frieza’s and King Cold’s race, he deviated from the norm significantly.

His calm and haughty manner mirrored the demeanour of their insidious lineage, though.

Tenso spread his arms. “So, Orion. You need more information before you can trust me. Rather than solliloquise at you, I thought it would be better if I answer any question you ask me.”

Orion narrowed his eye. “Any question?”

Tenso smirked. “Well, within reason.”

“I’ll be the judge of what’s reasonable,” Orion said. “Let’s start from the beginning. How do you know who I am, what I look like, and where I would likely be on Markov? I’ve been here for less than a year, and I know everyone I’ve had any significant contact with. You aren’t one of them.”

“I’m positive there are other people spying on you that you’re not aware of,” Tenso said. “Markov is not the place to be anonymous while battling ancient mechas from a mythical apocalypse or assaulting Unmade underground facilities.”

Orion took a sharp breath in and slammed the table with a fist. “Answer the question, like you said you would.”

“I’ll be blunt,” Tenso said, tenting his fingers. “I represent Alastor.”

Orion frowned. “Who?”

Tenso rolled his eyes. “Oh, of course! That’s his new name. You knew him as Zintwo.”

“Zin… Zintwo? He’s here?” Orion said, pushing on the table with an index finger.

“In orbit, to be precise.”

Was that good news or bad? Zintwo and Orion shared a bond over the NOVA project. Orion was the experiment, while Zintwo was somewhat of an amnesiac creator. Zin was a Saiyan under the employ of Frost, one of the strongest of the Cold Empire’s royal family. Though physically useless in combat, Zin excelled in the sciences and was the mastermind behind the entire NOVA project. However, after Orion’s squad mates busted him out of the laboratory, Zin was executed by Frost. Suspecting that his life would end shortly, he implored his assistant droid Zintwo to finish his work.

Zintwo happened to be an identical copy of Zin’s personality and knowledge, except for one thing… the purpose of the NOVA project. Such a black hole in Zintwo’s data banks drew the droid mad.

Together they had collaborated on Orion’s final mission before arriving in the Crossroads – Orion was to collect the dragon balls and wish for the missing knowledge, while Zintwo provided the resources he needed to get the job done. However Zintwo feared a betrayal and dispatched a powerful battle droid to snatch the dragon balls from Orion once he gathered all seven. Orion destroyed the battle droid and instead wished for his NOVA unit to be fully operational, having discovered that many functions were locked off thanks to Tristelle’s investigations.

Immediately after Shenron vanished, Orion escaped the planet for fear of reprisal, but ended up on Markov.

“How long?” Orion asked.

“Alastor watched you stumble out of your space pod when you crash landed on the planet,” Tenso said, still composed.

“But… why? Why didn’t he do anything? I’ve been here for months. Hell, why is he sending his errand boy now?”

“Alastor has bided his time,” Tenso said. “He isn’t here for revenge. He’s here to complete the NOVA project. And he knew if he attempted to contact you too soon, it could turn ugly.”

“And what makes him think it won’t still?”

Tenso waved the circular device over his palm. “This. Alastor has the technology to fix your NOVA unit, Orion. Not only that, he can upgrade it. You were one of the first experiments. Alastor has refined the unit far beyond your early model.”

Orion rubbed his chin. “So Zintwo is banking on my co-operation, and my reward is for him to tinker more with my head?”

Tenso laughed. “It’s also to save your life, Orion. Without a refurbished NOVA unit, you’ll die. That limits your options considerably. And it’s what Alastor has been waiting for.”

“He knew it would malfunction?”

“He suspected. And now he’s been proven right.”

Orion looked away. What would Zintwo want with him? What strings dangled from the promise of a non-fatal NOVA unit?

“Hold up. You said Zintwo is here to complete the NOVA project. How did he discover its purpose? I used the dragon balls for my own wish, not his.”

“Alastor established an uplink to your NOVA unit while you were still planetside,” Tenso said. “Part of what the Eternal Dragon unlocked was a data file with the early information on the project’s purpose. Alastor uploaded that file from you, underneath that insipid AI Tristelle’s nose, and deleted it before either of you knew it happened. He’s been hard at work ever since.”

“He’s known all this time?” Orion said, standing from his chair. He paced around his side of the table, looking at his footsteps. “Then why contact me at all? He has everything he needs.”

“He wasn’t very forthcoming with that answer, I’m afraid,” Tenso said, shrugging. “You must represent some missing piece to the NOVA puzzle. As for how and why? You’ll need to ask Alastor directly.”

The leather of Orion’s gloves tightened against his skin as he balled his hands into fists. All of this felt so convenient. Every instinct screamed at him that this was a trap. But Tenso couldn’t happen upon the knowledge of Zintwo – or Alastor, as he went by now – without meeting him in person. Tenso was telling the truth, insofar as the subject of Alastor and the spotty history of the NOVA project were concerned.

Besides, it would be nice to know the reason why Orion’s entire life was turned upside down. Thousands died unknowingly because of him. If Alastor could impart the reason, as unreasonable as it would be, meeting him seemed worth the risk.

He glanced at Tenso. The middleman smiled.

“Is there anything else I can answer for you?”

“Yeah,” Orion said. “How long will it take to get into orbit?”

 

[Orion]

Orion stared out the side window of the small shuttle. The buzzing, relentless glow of Markov shrank as they soared upwards and tore free of Cevanti’s atmosphere. As different and alien as this galaxy was, nothing differed in the cold, black sea of space that engulfed existence. Constellations twinkled, framing the other worlds of the Crossroads that Orion had never seen. If he hadn’t witnessed the anomaly that swallowed his space pod outside of Arlia, he would have no reason to believe he had warped anywhere. Well, outside of inaccurate star maps, he supposed.

More of a space faring limousine than a shuttle, Orion sat across from Tenso in the passenger area while an unidentified droid drove the ship. The blue skinned ambassador for Alastor delicately tapped on a tablet device with his index finger, sighing quietly through his nose.

“Now that I think about it, I have a few more questions,” Orion said.

“Oh?” Tenso said, his disinterested gaze still on his portable screen. “And what makes you think I’ll answer them?”

“Huh?”

“I have you en route to Alastor,” Tenso said, tapping and swiping. “I don’t need to persuade you further.”

Quite the shift from his earlier behaviour. Like most landed gentry, his true colours shone through once he got what he wanted.

Orion smiled wickedly. “I don’t know how much you know about Saiyan physiology, but did you know my species can survive in the outer limits of a planet? Not for long of course, we still require air to breathe. But our bodies are so efficient, we can exist very briefly in an atmosphere of low oxygen. Long enough to head safely back down onto the planet’s surface, at least.”

Tenso finally looked up from his device. “And what does that piece of trivia have to do with –“

The Saiyan formed a ball of ki in his hand.

Tenso rolled his eyes. “Fine. If it will stop your theatrics.”

The ball of energy evaporated as Orion’s fingers folded over it.

“Who are you in all of this?” Orion asked. “I’ve never seen any assistants with Zintwo before. And if I did, I would expect them to be metal and full of circuits.”

“Alastor,” Tenso corrected. “I’m one of the few organics in his crew. Though if that’s your recollection of him, you’ll be surprised when we dock. He has a veritable space station on thrusters, filled with hard working droids. It takes a lot of hands to make-“

Orion cocked an eyebrow. “Make what?”

Tenso looked away. “You’ll see in due time. Regardless, the thrust of your question was about me. He hired me for my diplomatic and persuasive skills, something that can sometimes be missing from artificial intelligence. “

So, Alastor needs a silver tongue now, Orion thought. For what purpose? Who’s he trying to persuade? Surely it’s not just me.

But what of this Tenso? If he is from noble stock, why is he working for anyone, let alone an AI?

“Forgive me for making assumptions, but you don’t seem the type to be in need of work,” Orion said. “You must appreciate that makes me curious.”

“You may not have the luxury of understanding this, but when one is independently wealthy, life can grow a tad droll,” Tenso said, returning to his tablet. “Utilising skills that don’t require capital is somewhat like taking an adventure holiday.”

“Boredom, huh?” Orion said, turning to look out the window once more. “I wish I was more familiar with the concept.”

As the Saiyan gazed at the star studded environment outside, a shimmer caught his eye. It appeared as an almost invisible ripple in the black of space, gradually filling in and becoming a solid object. A huge starship inserted itself into view from nothing, as if it grew into existence from nothing. Soon the behemoth absorbed all of Orion’s view.

“What the hell is that thing?” Orion said.

“That is Alastor’s starship,” Tenso said. “I told you it was enormous.”

“That?” Orion said, pointing. “The cloaking technology alone must take enough power to run a capital city. That isn’t the ship he had when I last saw him.”

Tenso shrugged.

“But you said Alastor saw me get out of my space pod after I landed on Cevanti. There’s no way he could have obtained a starship this large so quickly and followed me into the anomaly to witness that.”

“So… you crashed on Cevanti immediately after arriving in this galaxy?” Tenso asked.

Orion nodded.

“Hm. Alastor mentioned that he was chasing you when he hired me, which I suspect occurred after you entered the anomaly, as you call it. I assumed you had already zipped around the Crossroads before you ventured into Markov. So perhaps this anomaly was a space-time aberration and not just a space one.”

“Space-time? So how long did it take for Zintwo to catch up?”

“Alastor. And I don’t know. Feel free to ask when you see him.”

The shuttle craft sped towards a gigantic gate as it slowly opened. Within, a landing bay waited to accept them.

Orion stared with concern at the ships within. Some were single pilot attack craft, small and nimble with obvious laser cannons welded to their wings. Others were oblong craft with two bulbous personnel bays that lined underneath them like distended sausages. Was Alastor constructing a fleet?

Orion wondered if Scarlet Team could hear him up here now, or if they could even intercept him if he asked for help. Jumping out an airlock wasn’t an option anymore; he would suffocate before he reached Cevanti’s surface. Not even Tristelle rode with him anymore, the one backup that he had actually grown accustomed to.

For the first time in recent memory, Orion sprinted headlong into danger alone.

 

[Orion]

Tenso’s boots layered with Orion’s own to form a repeating, uneven echo as they travelled down a hexagonal corridor. The bar lights in the ceiling lit up the unblemished gun-metal grey walls. Pristine and barely used, he surmised. Where did Alastor find this enormous starship? Had he built it himself?

Orion’s minder led the Saiyan through unremarkable and quiet pathways. Outside of touching down in the landing bay, he had seen nothing of real interest. He was certain that was intentional. Tenso wanted to keep Orion in the dark as much as possible. Maybe one of the many chambers gave away Alastor’s plan. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t good.

The blue skinned ambassador for the Saiyan AI walked stiffly as Orion followed behind, his arms clutching the tablet to his chest, his upper body barely moving, back straight as a rod.

They reached the end of the corridor with a spiral metal pattern set into the wall. Tenso pressed a button and the spiral shards disconnected and slid into the wall. The room within lacked any source of light.

“Alastor’s waiting for you,” Tenso said, stretching his arm towards the doorway. “I remind you to remain cordial with him.”

Orion gave the blue skinned humanoid a sideways glance and stepped through the threshold. The spiral doorway shut immediately behind him.

The Saiyan stood in darkness. He thought about using his NOVA eye to see but worried it would accelerate his headaches.

“To think you came here without a fight,” a familiar voice said. “I wasn’t certain I’d ever see Tenso alive again.”

A flash of light blinded Orion momentarily as his eye adjusted.

In the centre of the cold, steel-blue room, a spotlight shone upon a robotic figure suspended in the air by a myriad of silver cables plugged into their metallic skin. Two blue pinpricks of light set in stylised black glass illuminated in place of eyes as the cables menacingly lowered the figure to the ground. If Orion couldn’t detect ki signatures, he would have believed that this was a humanoid in minimalist power armour. Black silver metal alloy covered most of its body, though its thighs were a mud brown, as was the cloak that hung down its back and the strips of fabric beneath its rounded pauldrons.

As Alastor’s feet made contact with the floor, the cables disengaged from his frame and wound upwards into the black shadows that framed the room. His movements appeared natural, but slower and more purposeful than an organic being.

This creature didn’t move like Zintwo. It held more purpose, more confidence, as it stood inspecting the Saiyan. It was as if Orion were some bug that crawled across Zintwo’s desk, and he spent a moment judging whether it deserved to live. He set his blue dots for eyes on Orion, the light reflecting off his bald head, and spoke though lacking a mouth.

“I’ll presume you don’t recognise me,” he said.

“You don’t look like Zintwo at all anymore,” Orion said.

Alastor spread his arms. “Because I am not him. I am his evolution, just as he was Zin’s. I kept the voice though, in order to assuage those who need familiarity to be comfortable.”

“I thought Zintwo was a backup of Zin’s mind so the work on the NOVA project would not cease in the event of his death, not some next stage of existence.”

“Science often stumbles upon advances it never intended to find,” Alastor said. “Zin may have created Zintwo to replace him, but he had no idea what he truly set in motion.”

“This upgrade of yours… I understand I had a hand in it,” Orion said, crossing his arms.. “Tenso wasn’t all that informed. Care to enlighten me? Among other things, like how you came into the possession of this warship?”

“A lot of it is besides the point of why I brought you here,” Alastor said. “But I know your mind well enough.”

The Saiyan AI grasped his hands behind his back. “This warship, as you call it, was part of Zin’s original blueprints. Funded by Frost and completed some time after his death, the Black Armada is the head starship and the main platform to coordinate the NOVA project. You would have seen the landing bay – a construction facility attached nearby builds the vehicles required to execute the project. Once I realised its existence – after learning of it from the file I uploaded from inside your head, of all places – I quickly commandeered it. I also constructed a body with this ship’s facilities that better suited me.”

Orion never considered the project was this huge in scope. Frost must have sunk a lot of zeni into the Black Armada’s construction.

“Tenso mentioned you understood the purpose of the NOVA project now,” Orion said. “What is it for?”

Finally, after decades of suffering, Orion would know why he had to endure it. He wasn’t sure he was ready for it, but he refused to wait any longer.

“As a gesture of good will, I’ll tell you,” Alastor said. “Though it’s simpler an explanation than you’re hoping for.”

“I don’t care. I want to know.”

“To build the strongest warrior army the cosmos has ever known.”

Orion grunted. “There’s a lot of space for you to fill in there.”

“The NOVA project consists of two main components,” Alastor said. “One is the Commanders, hand-picked, seasoned warriors with excellent battle instincts and storied war campaigns. They are the best conflict-oriented minds the Cold Empire owns. They span generals who have subjugated powerful enemy forces to veteran front-line warriors who cannot physically fight any longer.”

“The other is the Drones, a mass produced set of Saiyan cyborgs. When the Drones are deployed, the Commanders sit in modified seats in orbit of the defending planet and have their active consciousness copied and inserted into the Drones to take control of their bodies in real-time.”

“Surely that can’t mean what you’re implying,” Orion said.

Alastor had no facial features to express derision, but the Saiyan felt it all the same. “In effect, this means the Commander’s mind exists in all Drones minds simultaneously, steering each one individually while existing in legion.”

Orion frowned. “What? Why?”

“If I were to guess, it would be to make the Cold Empire even more ruthlessly effective at conquering worlds,” Alastor said. “While Saiyans as a whole may not be the strongest of the empire’s troops, their remarkable ability to gain strength after serious injury, coupled with the race’s unique transformations, make them perfect candidates for Drones. I suspect this is why our race was chosen rather than simply building an army of battle droids.”

“And if a Drone dies, there are many more to replace them. However, many Saiyans are not disciplined or skilled enough for the changelings’ liking. Inserting Commander minds into theirs fixes that shortcoming.”

Orion snarled. “You say that like you aren’t a Saiyan.”

“I’m not technically any longer,” Alastor said. “Besides, I was never a warrior. I was physically inferior compared to most. I bet you know how I was treated by my kin until the Cold Empire recognised my brilliant mind. Besides, I don’t take it personally. Saiyans were selected due to their advantageous natural strengths.”

The lizards were never satisfied, were they? The Saiyans were already conquered, forced into slavery their entire lives. Apparently they weren’t fast or efficient enough, so they had to be torn to pieces and rebuilt to please the changeling masters. Orion knew the truth wouldn’t be pleasant, but the revelation still stung more than he prepared himself for.

“You need to calm down,” Alastor said. “Readings indicate your power level is rising.”

Orion took a deep breath and released. He let his strength settle.

“I almost died for this project,” Orion said. “Tirak and Taros died for it. Along with countless other Saiyans, I’m certain. You’ll appreciate if my reflexive reaction isn’t a positive one.”

“I can.”

“So who is supposed to control me?”

Alastor tilted his head. “I think you misunderstand your role, Orion. You aren’t a Drone. You’re a Commander.”

 

[Orion]

Orion narrowed his eye. “Commander?”

“The first successful Commander, as well,” Alastor said, walking around the spotlight aimlessly. “You may recall the army that invaded your little unmapped planet, where the last of the Tuffle refugees hid. The reason so much effort was expended in finding you is because you were the only living Commander at the time that had no ill effects.”

The Saiyan wanted to probe that further. Loved ones died at his hand during the climactic battle, others he was sure were either, on reflection, a Drone or a Commander. But this was enough to absorb at once. He didn’t need to pile on more emotional pain, more uncertainty.

“Does that mean I’m still the only operable Commander?” Orion asked. “Is that why you chased me here?”

“No,” Alastor said. “It’s been some time since you entered the wormhole that brought you to this galaxy. After I retrieved the file in your head, I began my work in earnest. I claimed this ship and I engineered new Drones and new Commanders. The schematics I took from you were excellently detailed, and I managed to improve on their design. I have an entire army ready to be deployed, all with enhanced NOVA units that eliminate all of the old technology’s side effects and while augmenting all of its features.”

“You went ahead with the project? Even though you aren’t shackled to Frost anymore? What reason could you possibly-“

“I am merely fulfilling my destiny,” Alastor said.

“More like obeying your programming,” Orion rebutted, pointing at the droid. “Now that you’ve built this enormous hammer, who are you going to hit with it? You’ve destroyed even more lives than the NOVA project had to, all to satisfy the lines of ones and zeroes you’re compelled to execute!”

“In time, I will be vindicated,” Alastor said. “There will be a purpose to NOVA.”

Orion threw up his hands and let them slap his sides. “I still don’t understand why you stalked me. It sounds like you had everything you needed and wanted. Why did you follow me here? Why did you wait so long to contact me?”

“I waited because I know you,” Alastor said. “You would have assumed hostile intent, since we had an altercation over the dragon balls. I had to wait until you needed me. Now that your NOVA unit is failing, I am necessary to your survival.”

“And the other question?”

Alastor turned his back to Orion. A plethora of holographic screens appeared out of the ether, some displaying statistics about the Saiyan while others rolled video reels of Orion in combat.

“Not only are you the only survivor of the alpha Commander subjects, you are one of, if not the most, experienced of the ones that exist,” Alastor said. “The NOVA project is simply a gaunt shadow of what it could be without your battle honed instincts.”

Alastor turned back. “You’re not just a Commander, Orion. You are the Head Commander.”

Orion had heard enough. He turned and stormed towards the door.

“Leaving so soon?”

“I won’t be subjected to this,” Orion said. “I won’t lead some changeling inspired war machine with no target and no purpose!”

The Saiyan went limp and hit the ground. A moment later, pain like molten lava coursed through his mind and down his back. He convulsed helplessly, incapable of thinking a single thought.

When his senses returned, he saw Tenso crouching beside him, holding the metal disc over the Saiyan’s head.

“You’re welcome to leave, of course,” Alastor said. “I can’t force you to participate. If the decision isn’t voluntary, the connection between you and the Drones won’t work. However, you need a new NOVA unit if you’re going to survive.”

Tenso offered a hand up but Orion refused it and stood without assistance. “How do I know any retrofitting won’t make me a Drone? Or worse?”

“I have no reason to lie to you,” Alastor said. “I’m no longer scraping by, clambering for a crumb of a clue to realise my destiny. It surrounds me now. And the best path to achieve NOVA’s full potential is to let you decide that your participation as my Head Commander is the right choice. Your death, or any modifications against your original design, will hamper that.”

Orion knew Alastor had him over a barrel. Still, he rummaged for any reason to refuse. “Did you spearhead the attack on Tolsiris? Are you the one who ordered me captured at any cost, and wiped out the Tuffles?”

“No,” Alastor said. “I was a fugitive at that point, as were you. The one who hunted you also hunted me. I do not know who they are.”

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Because nothing I’ve ever done has been so flagrantly wasteful and bombastic as that, even if I had the resources then as I do now. You know I’ve been waiting for you patiently, months on end. If I had attacked you on that planet, wouldn’t I have done the same thing to Cevanti now? Besides, like I said, I was fleeing from an empire that feared what I knew. I had to secure my own existence before I started confirming yours.”

“Were they part of NOVA?”

“I suspect so. Led by Frost before his death, perhaps. Or it may have been another branch of the project that Zin, and by extension myself, were not aware of. Zin only knew as much as Frost allowed.”

Part of Orion hated hearing Alastor wasn’t responsible. If he had been, the Saiyan would have happily self destructed on the spot, killing Zin’s AI ghost and crippling the NOVA project once and for all. He would have extracted the revenge that kept him going for so long.

But doing so now would be premature. Alastor held partial responsibility for this cursed series of events, but the instigator of the invasion of Tolsiris needed retribution as well. If he could live long enough to discover them and their motives, maybe he could kill them before returning to Alastor and ending him too.

To live long enough to do that, he had to place his trust in Alastor.

“All right,” Orion said. “Fix my head.”

 

[Orion]

The operating room gleamed with the reflected glare of the blazing surgical lights affixed to the ceiling. Cold and sterile, the room brought back many half remembered and foggy memories of heavily sedated ‘experimentations’ of his body. Orion took a breath to centre himself. It wouldn’t be like that this time. He hoped.

A metal operating table rested in the centre of the room, anchored to the ground by a thick, flexible metal rod. The table angled forwards as if alive, pausing in a position that would allow Orion to lean into it so it could then lay him flat. The flat surface rippled momentarily, as if its metal finish was made of liquid.

Alastor and Tenso walked past Orion and up to the operating table as an array of holographic monitors zapped into view around them.

“You’ll need to remove your robe,” Alastor said, shifting the monitors around using his finger tips as if they were physical objects.

Orion slid off the garment and dropped it on the floor. “Why? Isn’t the NOVA unit in my head?”

“Yes, you were an early model which was focused on getting the Commander-Drone synchronisation functional so you weren’t modified anywhere else. But I want to complete a full body scan as well. Better to check your health now and nip any unforeseen ailments in the bud before they can flower.”

“Please, lean back onto the table,” Tenso said, his eyes glued to a hovering projection.

Orion pressed himself against the metal. The surface beneath oscillated against his back, then shifted form to create a mold of Orion’s body. Instead of becoming rigid and solid, the material remained in a sand-like state of flux, moving with the Saiyan’s breathing to keep him both comfortable and in place.

“How long is this going to take?” Orion asked, squinting against the harsh surgery lighting.

“For something as complicated as neuro-technological integration, far less than you’d think,” Tenso said. “A few hours at the most. The majority of the work will be conducted by droids, while Alastor and I oversee the procedure.”

“Wait a minute…” Alastor said. “Scans indicate your tail is missing!”

Orion grunted. “Yes. A recent development.”

“How did-“

“I’d rather not delve into the specifics,” Orion said. “Let’s just say the person who stabbed me in the back isn’t able to do that any longer.”

“Trust,” Alastor said as a silver metal cart rose out of the floor from some hitherto unknown place. He lifted a syringe and flicked it delicately. “A warrior can be as strong and powerful as you, and yet suffer because of someone being unworthy of it.”

“What is that for?” Orion asked.

“A salve for what ails you,” Alastor said.

The Saiyan AI stuck the needle into Orion’s arm and injected its contents. A moment later, a strangely familiar sensation overcame him. He blinked softly several times as he tried to process the feeling. Yes… it was as if he were about to transform into a Great Ape.

His eye shot open as something burst out of his back at the base of his spine. Orion leapt out of the snug operating table, swatting his back. His hand came into contact with soft, bristly fur. He realised he could move it. He wrapped it around his waist.

“A tail?” Orion asked, gobsmacked.

“We can’t have you missing your race’s greatest attribute,” Tenso said.

Orion couldn’t process what just happened. “Tails are supposed to be gone forever once they’re removed. That’s what we were all told.”

“They tend to stop regrowing once you reach a certain age,” Alastor said. “Somewhere around the mid-teens. If a Saiyan younger than that loses their tail, it will regenerate after a time. Others might regrow it once and that’s it. It all depends.”

“So how did you do this?”

“Part of the research into NOVA,” Alastor said. “If a valuable asset loses their tail, we want to be able to regrow it. To dumb it down, after some experimentation I discovered the ‘switch’ that goes dormant after a Saiyan reaches adulthood. That injection you just received stimulates that switch to regrow the tail. It’s a once-off, however. Lose it again and you’ll need another injection.”

Orion moved the tail around like it was a new toy. He felt so conflicted. Losing it caused him so much rage and sadness, but he ultimately grew because of it. Now it was back, and all of the things that he once tied to it no longer needed the tail to matter. At the least, he could become a Great Ape again.

The Saiyan looked at Alastor, wondering if he should thank him. Instead, he gave the NOVA project leader a respectful nod.

“Please, lie down again,” Tenso said.

He did so. The apprehension and concern he carried got lighter as he felt the fresh fur of his tail against his waist. Regardless of Alastor’s intentions, at least Orion had a piece of himself back.

“Alright, there are no other abnormalities detected,” Alastor said, reviewing the text on his projection. “We are ready to begin the upgrade. You’ll now be administered an anaesthetic. You’ll wake once the procedure is over.”

The semi-liquid tabletop crawled up Orion’s sides in waves. The material sank into his body, holding him firmly in place. Moments later, a sense of sleepiness set into the Saiyan’s brain.

In faint echoes, he thought he heard the sound of electricity surging through metal, and then a muffled clump as something hit the ground. Through blurry vision he recognised Tenso leaning over him, smiling, and everything went black.

 

[Orion]

It was all going to hell.

Tollash grimaced as the arid, rocky landscape around him was bombarded with ki shells. They arced high in the sky, pausing at their apex like orange-yellow stars, and fell upon them mercilessly. Explosions rocked the earth, carving it away to form craters and showering the area with distracting domes of light and dislodged rocks. He sprinted at full pace, bounding through a smoke cloud as he endured the quaking ground and the terrifying vision of hundreds of ki mortars hanging in the air while an endless storm of them pelted downwards.

“Cabbis!” Tirak shouted. “Cabbis, come in!”

Tirak, one of his best friends and likely the physically strongest of his squadron, sprinted nearby. With a frame that put some Great Apes to shame, he moved with adroitness not usually reserved for Saiyans with such enormous builds. His normally jovial nature retracted in the face of their situation as light from the ki shell explosions shone in his bald head.

Despite the roaring battlefield around him, the accelerated thumping of his heart beat saturated his hearing. Regardless of his own safety, Tollash blazed forwards as his scouter ticked over, searching for any faint signals of his squad mates. Taros vanished early in the conflict but there had been no indication of what happened to him. Did he strike out after they were separated, and he was now cutting swathes through the enemy forces? Or had he taken a blast from one of the ki shells, scrambling to find safety? Or worse?

Right now, he charged for the remains of a combat walker. Its left arm obliterated and its cockpit exposed, it collapsed into the centre of its own crater. The ground shook again. Every time a ki mortar detonated, Tollash’s scouter glitched, losing track of any signature it may have been homing in on. Tollash stared pointedly at the melted combat walker, almost willing the device to function beyond its limitations, but no lock resulted from it. He almost tore the thing from his face if it hadn’t been working as a communicator as well.

“Tirak!”

“What?”

“Is your scouter picking up Cabbis?”

“No! All these blasted bombs going off! It cannot scan properly!”

Reaching the lip of the crater, Tollash launched himself into it, firing a bolt of ki at a descending mortar. A hellish explosion tore through the air, its incredible heat washing over him but otherwise angrily flaring and fading without damaging him. Tirak hurled himself in a moment later.

The combat walker slumped over on the ground. Cabbis, the smartest of Tollash’s squad, stole one of the defending army’s machines of war to have a little more fun. That was before the armed forces of Serin suddenly retreated and instigated the brutal bombardment of the area. Cabbis and his repurposed vehicle took a direct hit from a mortar, but Tollash wouldn’t give up on him until he found his body.

The two Saiyans sifted through chunks of metal debris, hauling him out of the crater as they searched. So much junk littered the area. Cabbis could be under any of it. Still the scouter would not detect a ki signature, constantly cycling due to the constant explosions.

“Anything, Tirak?”

A huge sheet of steel frisbeed out of the crater as if it was made of cardboard. Tirak dug his hands into another fragment.

“No! I cannot even find a body!”

This was useless. How could he-

“Tollash!”

Tirak pointed a beefy finger into the sky. A ki shell headed directly for the crater.

Tollash turned to leap out, damning their lack of progress, but his boot slipped on loose gravel. He slapped the ground hard. The whistling of the descending shell soon overtook the pounding heart beat in his ears.

A great hand grasped him by the back of his armour and tossed him out. An enormous blast of heat and pressure threw Tollash even further, sending him rolling over the landscape. Immediately he bounded to his feet to find his teammate. Tirak crashed heavily beside him a moment later, his body fragmenting the earth beneath him.

“Tirak! Did you make it out OK?” Tollash said, rolling his friend over.

“Oof! Close one, huh?” Tirak said, grinning.

Tollash looked up. The crater with the combat walker wreckage had been obliterated.

“Cabbis…” Tollash said.

Tirak slumped his head for a second, closing his eyes. He snapped back up and grasped his commander by the shoulder. “Cabbis is gone. We must not waste any more time. We must escape!”

“But Taros-“

“We do not know where he is!” Tirak shouted over the relentless din of explosions. “We will end up like Cabbis if we do not head home now!”

Tollash roared in frustration, knowing Tirak was right. He wanted to confirm Cabbis' death, or at least acknowledge it emotionally. He stuffed it all down, feeling his entire body tense, a lump bulging in his throat. There would be time to mourn, but they had to live long enough to do it first.

“I think I saw some vehicles that way,” Tirak said, pointing. “Maybe they can help?”

Tollash nodded and they took off at a sprint. Flight was impossible with the ki shell bombardment – it would be too easy to be hit without notice. Not that running over the battlefield was much of an improvement, but if they stayed aware, their chances were significantly improved.

An almighty crash thundered through Tollash’s ears. His vision swam with blazing white light. All sense of self vanished as he hurtled through an unfeeling void.

A quiet voice echoed in the abyss – “Orion!” – but it quickly stopped.

 

[Orion]

Orion took his position.

Hundreds of Tuffle soldiers lined up behind him, creating a wall that extended hundreds of metres behind them. Equipped with scouters, hands cradling laser rifles, they watched on emotionlessly, waiting for their general to give the order they had been preparing for.

Across the grass plain, the invaders stared them down. An equally sized enemy force stood behind their commander, their armour steel and black, their faces cloaked behind featureless helmets.

In the far distance, a leviathan starship hung in the sky like a hovering mountain. The platform from where the invaders attacked.

I hope you’re ready for this, Tristelle said. I’ll be here for every second.

Orion could barely bring himself to look the enemy commander in the eye. She smirked at him, her long black hair flowing in the wind, as did her garish robe – an identical copy of the robe Orion wore. It was not a gift from the Tuffles as his was, nor one she robbed from a brave Tuffle corpse. It was a replication of his own, intended to affect him psychologically. But her identity was enough to do that.

“Tollash, dear,” Parika said, hands on her hips. “Do you expect to defeat your own wife in combat?”

Orion clenched his fists. An acrid combination of sorrow and fury clashed together within him, making him involuntarily hiss his breath out through clenched teeth.

Parika had never been stronger than him. At least before he lost the battle on Serin and ended up in the Cold Empire’s experimentation division, she wasn’t. But Parika had not been left untouched since his departure. She would have never hunted him the way this caricature of his beloved had, never spoken such acidic words. Who knew what power she wielded now?

She wore an eye patch just as he did, having never worn one before. Was it to hide an injury, another mocking piece of her outfit… or to indicate another NOVA unit identical to her own had been lodged into her skull? The thought drove the Saiyan to distraction.

“Where is Kale?” Orion shouted as the grass blades swayed in the breeze.

She shrugged. “How should I know? In fact, why don’t you know? He’s your son too.”

This wasn’t Parika. Whether that was indeed the original before him, her true spirit no longer dwelled there.

Perhaps realising his beloved was, in essence, already dead would make this battle easier.

But not by much.

But the Tuffles behind him relied on him. He goaded Parika into a battle to the death, with the stipulation that if Orion fell, the Tuffles would surrender, but Parika would also do the same in the event of her loss. There was no way to enforce her word, but the Saiyan general had no intention of losing. The Tuffles would not fall today.

He didn’t fool himself, however. They were in the closing weeks of the war. If Orion didn’t strike a decisive victory now, they were fighting on borrowed time. Parika’s leader, probably Frost or some other NOVA benefactor, would overwhelm them completely with their superior resources and firepower.

Orion threw off his robe. “I’ll try to make this quick.”

“Oh Tollash,” Parika said. “I guess it really will be till death that we part?”

+++

Orion blinked. The battlefield had morphed drastically. Fires burned in earnest. Large swathes of grassland had been torn up beneath the tyranny of ki blasts.

And he stood over Parika, a hole in her abdomen, blood pouring out copiously.

He held her hand as she breathed rapidly, her eye staying focused onto his. Their fingers locked, coated red.

“You know… you know that wasn’t me…” she said, tears welling and sliding down her face as she blinked.

Orion couldn’t choke a word past the lump in his throat. He nodded.

Parika’s hand slipped from his.

The Saiyan general stared at his wife’s limp body. Despite the hellish field around them, the shouts of Parika’s soldiers advancing and breaking her word of surrender, he took in none of it. Time, he had been told before, was an illusion. If any moment in his entire life proved that statement, it was now.

He scooped Parika up and took her back to his soldiers, laying her down gently.

“Your only order,” Orion bellowed, grief cracking his voice, “is to guard her body!”

He turned back to the enemy force. They had already cleared much of the ground between them, firing ki blasts at the Tuffle army. He knew the ‘deal’ would be broken immediately. He was expecting it.

Orion, Tristelle said. I’m not going to let you kill yourself. What are you planning to do?

“They may be Saiyans,” Orion growled as tears streamed from his one eye. “They may have tails. But false moons don’t work on this planet. This planet has no moons. But if this cursed NOVA unit has one upside, it’s that I don’t need a moon.”

OK, Tristelle said softly. Like I said. I’ll be here. For every second.

The NOVA unit responded to Orion’s demand. He dwelt in his rage, his pain, his tears, as his entire body expanded. Fur burst from his skin. Muscles bulged and bones elongated. A long muzzle lined with flesh-tearing teeth protruded from his face.

Seconds later, Great Ape Orion channeled all of his agony into a single, soul chilling bellow.

A massive yellow beam of ki launched from his maw, vaporising the enemy soldiers beneath him. He stomped forward, his keen vision detecting every life form on that battlefield that didn’t align with him and the Tuffles, and he snuffed them out. His gigantic fists pulverised Parika’s forces into crimson mush, his scorching ki breath burned them to ash. Lasers and ki blasts pelted his hide, but they could not pierce it. The pain only infuriated him more, made him lash out harder, stronger, faster.

There, Tristelle said. The starship. If I can make a suggestion? Destroy it.

Orion opened his mouth and charged energy within. He appeared as a looming lighthouse, its singular beacon blazing brighter with each second.

The ki beam punched through the starship like a rock through paper. A tremendous explosion rattled the entire planet as it dissected, flames and groaning steel filling the sky.

But Orion wasn’t done.

They would all pay.

“Orion!” Tristelle shouted, her voice more urgent than before. “Orion! Can you hear me? Stop! STOP!”

 

[Orion]

Orion hovered above the tree line. It was impossible to ignore the low boom of the thrusters, and the silver sheen of the gigantic command ships that damn near blocked out the sky, even while traipsing through the forest.

Cabbis shot up through the canopy to join him. “They’re back, aren’t they?”

Tightness like a vice crushed his chest. “Three this time. It can’t be anyone else.”

“We drove them off,” Cabbis said almost absent mindedly, the wind tossing his shoulder length hair. “You obliterated their capital ship. What made them think it was a good idea to do it all again?”

Orion shook his head. “When they lost contact, they must have sent another fleet.”

“All for this?” Cabbis asked. “The Tuffles barely have three cities to string together. And calling them cities is generous. Maybe it’s revenge? Or they’re just very very keen to eliminate the Tuffles after the Saiyans didn’t do it?”

Orion gazed at Cabbis. “You saw the enemy bodies, Cabbis. They had augments in their heads, just like mine. If they’ve come back… it must be for me.”

Cabbis’ countenance turned to worry. “You seem really sure about your importance in all of this.”

“You saw the videos you stole from the facility,” Orion said.

“Yes but you weren’t the only Saiyan they experimented on,” Cabbis said. “And their last campaign proved they understood their technology – as you said, plenty of their rank and file had metal jammed into their heads too.”

Cabbis had a way of presenting a perfectly plausible explanation of a situation, even though Orion’s gut couldn’t reconcile his logical words with an inscrutable hunch. He was so glad he survived the attack on Serin, even if Orion wasn’t the one to save him.

Ugh, another reminder that Tirak and Taros weren’t with them anymore. Focus on the task at hand.

Some of this seemed awfully familiar, as if he had somehow worked out his place in this mystery, but the thoughts slipped from his grasp when he tried to access them. Like trying to remember a dream as it faded from the depths of his memories.

“This is all conjecture,” Orion said. “The only thing that matters is repelling them again.”

“I like the sentiment, but how?” Cabbis said. “We barely snatched victory from them last time. The Tuffles don’t have the same military strength they did before, which was already pretty lackluster. No, the only path forward here is to find out why they’ve come back and resolve it somehow. Another confrontation on a scale of the last war will only end in one-“

A deep rumble blasted through the atmosphere, drowning out Cabbis and silencing any thought Orion was having. They didn’t see a need for stealth, it seemed, as the capital ships aligned, their prows angled to point into empty space common to them.

Particles of light collected in that space, congealing to form a pulsing crimson orb. More energy joined the orb, pushing out its size to a concerning degree. Red light tinged the green leaves beneath them. The whole planet must have seen it by now.

“What… what are they doing?” Cabbis said. “That’s so much energy. Are they just going to scorch the entire planet black?”

“They still don’t know where the Tuffle settlements are,” Orion said. “Burning every square inch of Tolsiris might be their next-“

The orb reached its capacity and a crimson beam exploded forth. The impact of the blast shook the planet immediately. Birds scattered from the canopy, though their frightened squawks couldn’t pierce the noise suffocating them. No… it couldn’t be. The collision point was too far away from them to feel the vibrations so strongly. Orion’s stomach clenched. Something was going on beyond their understanding.

“Oh Kais!” Cabbis shouted, the colour draining from his face. “That beam isn’t for scarring the face of the planet.”

“No…” Orion whispered as Cabbis’ inference dawned on him too. “It’s for drilling. They’re destabilising the planet’s core.”

The two Saiyans stared at each other, frozen in terrifying realization.

“We have to get the word out, now!” Cabbis said, a cloak of blue light enveloping his body as he rocketed towards the nearest Tuffle settlement, not waiting for his Saiyan commander.

Did they even have enough functional spaceships to mount an escape? If they did, could they corral all the Tuffles into them and launch before the planet collapsed on itself? Of all the times for Tristelle to be absent from his NOVA unit…

Orion raced after Cabbis, following the diminishing tail of light left in his wake. Harried thoughts scrambled for centre stage as they raced for home. Where was Eldina? Was it right to search out for her first before helping Cabbis with organising the exodus from Tolsiris? Could he live with himself if he did? Could his heart handle another loss like that? Did it matter?

A mass of glitching blue and purple shapes burst out of nothing in front of Orion, halting him in his tracks. They oscillated, appearing and reappearing jarringly, never sitting still.

“What the hell?” he said. This didn’t feel right. Was his NOVA unit malfunctioning?

“Orion”, a distorted voice emanated from the jittery squares and rectangles. “This isn’t real.”

“I… what?” he said as the earth beneath the forest buckled. The clash of rock breaking against rock created an opening, freeing a flash of orange-red light.

A blurry feminine figure etched its outline into the shifting shapes. “Orion, it’s Tristelle. Listen to me and you will make it out. Don’t, and you’re dead.”

 

[Orion]

Tenso knelt down and examined the magnetised cuffs around Alastor’s wrists and ankles. The droid’s eye lights had not reactivated but he wanted to ensure the restraints were holding. For all he knew, Alastor could be waiting for the opportune moment to strike, keeping his systems spun down to portray unconsciousness. Tenso wouldn’t be fooled. Not when victory danced so tantalisingly close.

He stood and turned back to the monitors. A bevy of screens allowed vision into Orion’s mind from many different angles, capturing the memories the Saiyan was forced to relive, over and over again. Tenso didn’t know how long the repeated traumas had been playing for, but it must have been a number of hours at this point.

Tenso feasted on angry satisfaction as Orion endured for the umpteenth time the destruction of his second home. Good. Over and over and over again, until Tenso’s vengeance was slaked. And then, when he could derive no more pleasure from the evil Saiyan’s torture, he would fire Orion out of the airlock, watching as he regained consciousness long enough to comprehend his situation and asphyxiate in the black, unforgiving void. Tenso wanted – no, demanded – to see Orion’s final moments, to witness the fear and hopelessness in his eyes as the light behind them winked out for all eternity.

How long could he continue to revel in Orion’s endless torment? Tenso surprised himself with the longevity of his desire for retribution. He thought by now he would be content, and yet every lingering moment of replayed pain only seemed to drive him further. He was like a dehydrated man lost in a desert, only to stumble upon a source of fresh water. He couldn’t stop gulping, even beyond the initial quenching of his thirst. It just felt so good.

But he couldn’t linger too long. Experience taught him that complacency often brought down the high and mighty. He glanced at the shackled Alastor. That proud AI was a poster child for it.

No, he had to prepare Orion for the airlock now. Thankfully he recorded all of Orion’s relived misfortunes to be experienced later, to be rewatched endlessly. He would always have that.

A few button presses and the surgical table Orion lied upon disconnected from its stand with a hiss, hovering above the ground. Alastor pushed the table along, grinning as he watched the Saiyan’s worried, crease lined face.

+++

“I don’t understand,” Orion said. “I need to get to the villagers now!”

“This is not real,” Tristelle said, her voice actually carrying audibly instead of only ‘hearing’ it in his head. “You are trapped in a virtual reconstruction of your worst memories, and you’ve been reliving them for hours. In your actual experienced time, it’s probably been much, much longer than that.”

Orion rubbed his eyes. “This is nonsense! A hallucination brought on by the perilousness of the situation! Go! Get out of my sight!”

“Gods, why are these encryption protocols so hard to break?” Tristelle said, still a silhouette amidst a kaleidoscope of pulsing geometric shapes. “I thought anything the Cold Empire designed would’ve been easy to break knowing what I took from The Chorus.”

The Chorus. That phrase shook Orion out of his mental confusion. He blinked rapidly as an entire hidden library of memories flooded his mind.

“What? Where am I?” Orion said. “Tristelle? Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“Heh, had you going for a while there, huh?” Tristelle said.

“But how-“

“We don’t have time for lengthy expositions. Tenso is about to shoot you out of the airlock and the damn ship you’re on is very resistant to my attempts to hack it. It’s a miracle you and I are even talking right now. So what’s going to happen is this – I’ll stop you being the star of the ‘Orion’s Miserable History Variety Show’, and you do the rest. Got it?”

“I-“

“No time! Here you go!”

+++

Orion shot upright. He was greeted by a porthole. A swarm of stars set against the black of space. He jumped off the table and headed the opposite direction, only to press his hands against another door with a small porthole. Tenso looked in at him, irritation on his face.

“You weren’t supposed to wake up yet!” he said through an intercom.

The Saiyan warrior almost asked where he was, until it dawned on him. The small room, a window into space, locked doors on either side…

“What are you doing?” Orion yelled. “Let me out this instant!”

Tenso smiled creepily, shaking his head. “Maybe I won’t get to see that delicious moment when your mind twigs that your death is imminent. But I’ll still watch you die!”

He punched a button, and Orion’s breath stilled in his lungs as he braced himself for the inevitable vacuum to suck him into oblivion.

 

[Orion]

For the first time in a while, Orion’s mind went blank. Being thrown into space from an airlock wasn’t a situation that offered a lot of solutions. The only one that sprung to mind was to blow the secured door protecting Tenso from the vacuum of space, at least drawing him into the same fate he had bestowed on Orion. It wouldn’t save the Saiyan warrior’s life, but he always looked for a silver lining.

A ball of ki sparked to life in his open palm and he quickly aimed it at the door. As he prepared himself to release it and blast the protective door off its hinges, he realised that he still stood in the airlock. Tenso frowned and pressed the button again, this time with greater force. Still Orion remained within the starship.

“What?” Tenso growled, tapping the button with his finger repeatedly like the needle of a sewing machine. “Why isn’t this working?! Die already!”

Orion thrust his fist through the porthole, sending fragments of glass over a shocked Tenso. “I wouldn’t keep hitting that button if I were you, or you’ll die gasping.”

The blue skinned schemer shuffled backwards, his eyes round and manic, exposing his teeth. “No! You have to die! You have to!”

Orion kicked the door down and rushed Tenso, seizing him by the collar and slamming him against the wall. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

Tenso grimaced, tears welling in his eyes. “Go on! Do it! Kill me already!”

The stress of reliving so many painful times in his life knotted Orion’s stomach. His chest felt as if a huge weight pressed against it. He didn’t carry over a consciousness aware of each replay during the time he was reliving them, but since awakening, every single run-through slammed back into his memory. The cumulative emotional sorrow made itself known throughout his body in constricted muscles and into his mind through furious sadness.

Part of that relived trauma screamed at him to bathe in revenge. He wanted to throw Tenso to the ground and stomp his skull into paste. But more than that, the fury demanded answers for being awoken.

“Tell me why!” Orion bellowed.

“Fuck you!” Tenso shouted back.

Rage got the better of the Saiyan and he slammed the blue skinned humanoid into the ground, pinning him there with his forearm locked down over Tenso’s throat. It would be so easy to jolt the bastard’s neck and crack it like a twig…

No, he had to reset. Threats weren’t loosening Tenso’s lips. He needed a reason beyond death to speak up.

“You obviously have some issue with me,” Orion said through gritted teeth. “You went to a ridiculous amount of trouble to torture me. Why would you go to such extreme lengths and then shut your mouth when it’s all finally in the open? There must be something eating away at you from the inside. Let it out!”

Tenso snarled like a wild animal, unrepentant vitriol flashing in his eyes. “You want to know?! You don’t even know who I am, do you?!”

“Of course not!” Orion snapped. “You’re just another nobody who wants me dead!”

“Oh, but you’re not a nobody to me!” Tenso said. “You really don’t remember me, do you?”

Something moved near Orion’s foot. Tenso fished out a small remote from a pocket and pressed its sole button.

“Then let me refresh your memory!”

+++

Dull, explosive grumbles, like thunder but more sinister, filtered through the walls. The walk-in pantry shook with each quake, rattling the shelf of dishes and bowls. The ominous sounds grew louder and closer, though less frequent. What was happening out there? He was too tense to peer out a window. What if he was spotted? What if the invader decided to investigate the pair of eyes staring out at them? No, he would stay, clutching his most prized possessions amid the bags of grain. His son in one arm, his wife in another.

Another explosion very nearby scattered dirt and debris against the wall of the building. His son yelped but bit his lip, fighting the fear within. All he could do was hope it would pass.

The next thought was peaceful and stripped of all emotion as he opened his eyes from a white sheen cast over his vision. It faded, and the sky greeted him. A sharp ringing blotted out all sound as he rose into a sitting position.

Only jagged, half-obliterated walls remained of his house. He had been thrown some distance, but there was too much about the bombed structure that aligned with his home.

“Did I hit any of them?”

“No, Tollash. Just another civilian home.”

“What a pathetic military. Taking to hiding in their own peoples’ homes just to escape from us. All of these non-combatant deaths are on their hands.”

There had been someone with him, hadn’t there? Two people? He touched his forehead and his fingertips became wet and dark red.

“You!”

A figure marched up to him and grabbed him by the neck, lifting him up. He looked into the invader’s face. Sharp eyes, short beard and moustache, and a long ponytail. His white armour with tan shoulder plates barely looked scuffed.

“You’re not military,” the invader said, dropping him to the ground like a piece of refuse. “Keep searching. One of these buildings will be hiding them.”

+++

Orion stumbled backwards and fell over. “What… what did you do? You hacked my NOVA unit somehow. That wasn’t my memory…”

“No,” Tenso said, grimacing. “It was mine.”

 

[Orion]

The pieces clicked into place.

“It was me,” Orion said, still on the ground. “It was my squadron. We wiped out your planet, didn’t we?”

Tenso stared at the Saiyan with baleful, glowering eyes. Tears fell freely from them and down his cheek in a continuous, unbroken stream like a waterfall. “Yes. You may have a different name and look, but I could never forget that gaze. That voice. You took… everything… from me. My home, my family… my entire society, burned to ash in a matter of days. Not even our army could slow your relentless campaign. You just… destroyed.”

Orion went silent and stared at the floor between his feet.

“How did you survive?”

“I couldn’t even begin to fathom,” Tenso said, his eyes finally breaking from Orion and lowering to the ground as he recounted his tale. “My wounds were bad, but not fatal. I waited until your genocidal bloodlust was sated, hiding in ruins and scavenging supplies where I could. Once I was sure you were gone, I found a working space shuttle and left my razed world behind. Fortunately, if you could say anything about my life since has been fortunate, I was wealthy on my planet and didn’t want for money. I kept myself alive, taking on work such that I was fit for, unsure how to truly move on with my life.”

Speaking seemed ill advised, so Orion stilled his lips and listened.

“My most recent assignment happened to be for Alastor,” Tenso continued. “I was largely supposed to act as his representative, since he feared – and still does – that he’s being hunted. So I travel to appointments that require physical interaction on his behalf. But when Alastor asked me to ferry you back to the Black Armada and showed me an image of you… I was immediately cast back to that day you and your kin slaughtered mine, bloodied and heartbroken. If anything had kept me alive until now, I know it was so I could claim revenge on you for my entire dead civilisation.”

Tenso lifted his gaze back to Orion. “But just killing you wasn’t good enough. No, you needed to suffer. Once I had you on the operating table, I stunned Alastor and used his technology to view the worst moments of your life. Then I replayed them to your sleeping subconscious over and over, making you witness every horror that your life has so deservedly visited upon you. That NOVA unit’s perfect storage of your memory was a double edged sword for you. Then, once I was satisfied with your punishment, you were to be ejected into space and suffocate on nothingness. Unfortunately… that didn’t come to pass… and my one chance at retribution has died, just as my family did… just as I am about to.”

The blue skinned man slumped against the wall, the will to fight extinguished.

Orion climbed to his feet and walked over to the defeated alien, towering over him. Tenso didn’t even look up.

“No.”

Seizing Tenso by the collar, Orion wrenched him from the floor and onto his feet.

“I’m not going to kill you, Tenso.”

Tenso’s lips quivered. “Why? Why won’t you at least give me the peace of the grave? Don’t you hate me for what I just did to you? What I almost did to you?”

“There are hundreds of scenarios where the person who just forced me to relive the worst sections of my life would be a red smear on the wall,” Orion said. “But this is one of the few where that isn’t happening.”

“Do you think sparing me somehow absolves you of what you’ve done?” Tenso said, a fire reigniting in his voice. “The sins of the past can never be expunged. Their echo will never fade.”

Orion nodded. “You’re right, Tenso. I can say I’m sorry, and I can mean it, but what does that do for the man who lost everything to that mistake? It’s almost farcical how much well meaning words from the wrong person can sting.”

“So… what? What is your big gesture here, letting me live?”

Orion briefly considered the dragon balls. A wish from them could restore Tenso’s planet and all his people. But he didn’t know if this galaxy had a set, and as far as he understood, there was no leaving the Crossroads once entered.

Yet the Saiyan warrior had evolved recently. He had been forced to view his past and his self identity through a whole new prism after losing his tail.

“I can only offer one thing,” Orion said. “A second chance. And hard earned wisdom – leave your anger and resentment behind.”

Tenso’s eyes flared. “What did you just say?!”

“I’m not saying to forget your people and your loved ones,” Orion said. “If anything, I’m saying the opposite. But the pain of loss, the directionless fury you feel when you realise they aren’t here with you anymore… learn to release it.”

“How could you possibly suggest –“

“Because it is a poison, Tenso. You hold onto this soul rending agony as a memorial for the unfairness of life, not for the memorial of those you lost. You will always be sad that your life is irrevocably worse than it was before. But imbibing that poison every day warps you into a bitter, seething husk that your family would revile.”

Tenso’s anger was still etched into his face, but Orion noted shock as well.

“You saw my past,” Orion said. “You know I’ve experienced immense loss as well. The only thing that drove me forward for decades was the prospect of revenge, even though I never thought I’d taste it. But I’ve discovered the only true, honest way to pay respects to those I’ve lost… is to be the best person I can be, so that if they were still here… there would be no doubt that they would be proud of me.”

Orion released his grip of Tenso’s collar. The blue skinned man wiped the wet lines from his cheeks.

“I don’t forgive you, you know. I never will.”

“I know.”

Tenso eyed Orion with suspicion, but his fury had diminished. “So… what now?”

“You need to leave,” the Saiyan said. “Before Alastor wakes up and does what you thought I was going to do to you. I’ll make sure you get to an escape pod. But after that, you’re on your own.”

A metal thump directed Orion’s attention to the doorway. A black plated humanoid stared into the room with glowing blue eyes.

“Ah, Orion,” Alastor said. “I see you have the traitor cornered. Kill him, won’t you?”

 

[Orion]

Tension suffused the room. Tenso looked from Orion to Alastor, his eyes expressing his uncertainty. The Saiyan warrior left his face a blank slate. Alastor’s featureless chrome face betrayed no emotion, but his intent for Tenso couldn’t have been clearer.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” Alastor said, storming into the room. “Do it already!”

“I always keep my word,” Orion said, his eye on Tenso.

“What? What word?” Alastor said.

Orion spun around and slugged Alastor in the head, knocking the droid down.

“Go!” he shouted at Tenso, who stood in shock.

The command snapped the blue skinned man out of his daze and he sprinted for the exit. Orion started after him, but an iron grip seized his wrist.

“I need to have a word with you,” Alastor said, his blue eyes glowing malevolently.

“You have one chance to release me,” Orion said. “Tenso is leaving. You’re going to let him do it.”

“See, that’s where we need to talk,” Alastor said. “I won’t.”

Orion sighed. “No one ever takes the chance.”

With a powerful exertion, the veteran Saiyan soldier yanked his arm forwards. Alastor’s arm tore from its socket, dragging wiring and cords along with it. The severed limb lost its hold and clattered to the ground.

Before Alastor could react, Orion drove a kick into his midsection, launching the Saiyan AI across the room and into the wall. He took off at a sprint immediately, chasing after Tenso.

He caught up to the alien in short order. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Yes,” Tenso said through puffing breaths. “There’s a set of escape pods near Alastor’s chamber in case he and any high-value allies need an emergency exit while meeting there. They’re the closest ones to us. The only problem is that because they’re specifically for Alastor’s use, they have a strong homing beacon. He’ll know where we are as soon as we eject, as well as where we land. But we’re just not close enough to any others.”

“You leave that to me,” Orion said as they sprinted down a corridor. “I won’t be going.”

“What?” Alastor said. “After what you just did to him? He’s going to kill you. You can’t stay here.”

“Is that concern I detect?” Orion said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tenso said. “It’s incredulousness. The smart thing to do is run, not stay.”

“Yeah well… he didn’t have any trouble tracking me down before. Best I stand my ground here.”

Tenso rolled his eyes. “I guess I might still get to see you dead after all.”

The two found the escape pods. Each hinged, circular hatch had a keypad on it. Tenso ran to the first door and input a code. The keypad buzzed.

“What’s the matter?” Orion said.

“The code,” Tenso said, firing off another attempt only to have the same grating sound repeat. “It’s not working. Shit! Alastor must have a special set of codes for his private escape pods.”

“Then we need to find another escape pod,” Orion said. “If this isn’t a sure way free, we can’t waste time on it.”

“Unfortunately, your time is up.”

They spun at the new voice. Alastor held the detached arm against its socket and pressed it in firmly. A click signified its reconnection with his body. He flexed the elbow and finger joints to test their function.

“You should have hit him harder,” Tenso said.

“I didn’t exactly tap him lightly,” Orion said.

“No, you didn’t,” Alastor said as a series of droids filtered into the area behind him. “You just underestimated the resilience of my droid body.”

Orion eyed the robotic soldiers as they trained their laser weaponry towards them. No, not them. Their barrels ignored the Saiyan and focused solely on Tenso. Orion fell into a defensive fighting stance.

“You’re really going to protect this piece of traitorous scum?” Alastor said, gesturing at Tenso. “I know what he did to you, Orion. You know that he’s been playing us both since the first moment he laid eyes on your mug shot. You’re not beholden to him in any way. In fact, I’m beyond surprised you’re defending him. Move out of the way and let me deal with him.”

“This might be difficult for an amoral Saiyan scientist AI to understand, but I owe him at the very least this,” Orion said. “Open the escape pod, turn off the tracking beacon, let him go peacefully, and we can all go back to what we were doing before.”

Alastor shook his head. “Unacceptable. Stand down so I can put Tenso down. It’ll only take a second.”

Orion stared the droid down.

“Fine,” Alastor said, lifting his forearm as if he were checking his watch. “But don’t let it be said I didn’t offer you a chance to avoid all of this getting messy.”

Alastor slapped his forearm and Orion crumpled to the ground. The mind numbing white noise infected him once more, drilling pain into every nerve in his body. He convulsed on the floor, unable to even conjure a single thought as he suffered in inexplicable agony.

After what felt like an eternity, the pain stopped. Orion instinctively leapt to his feet, expecting to see Tenso’s laser-scorched body slouched against the escape pod door.

Instead, the door swung open with a stunned Tenso beside it in perfect health. Orion’s attention snapped back to Alastor. He looked around at his droids. They all slumped at the waist, dropping their weaponry.

“What? What is this?” Alastor said, scanning the roof as if he believed the answer hung from there. “What’s happening on my ship!?”

“Zin! Long time no see!” a familiar disembodied voice answered.

“What? Who is this? What are you- no, how are you doing this?”

Orion, you mind? Tristelle’s voice said in his mind. Orion shook his head.

Shafts of purple-blue light pierced through Orion’s eye patch, forming a holographic image of Tristelle through his NOVA unit.

Alastor examined her as if encountering an entirely new alien species. “Am I supposed to know who you are?”

Tristelle shrugged exaggeratedly. “Probably not. Hi! I’m Tristelle! I was one of the AIs constructed to facilitate operations of the original NOVA project. Built by Frost’s programmers, I should mention, not Saiyan ones. I happened to be on the starship that Orion’s friends commandeered to save him all those decades ago. They locked me into the console until Cabbis and Orion escaped Serin and crash landed on Tolsiris, which is where I entered the story. You see-“

“All right, I get it,” Alastor said. “How could you possibly take control of the Black Armada? How are you exerting your will over mine here?”

“A run-in with ancient alien technology taught me a lot of new tricks,” Tristelle said. “It’s what let me infiltrate Tenso’s mind prison and wake up Orion, and I was the one who disabled the airlock button.”

“Huh,” Tenso said. “I thought it was strange that a starship with this much money put into it would have something as poor as a broken button.”

“Although I’ll admit, even with my upgrade, your ship was still a really hard nut to crack,” Tristelle said. “I was at it for a good half hour at least. For something crafted by the changelings, that’s really saying something. Considering I was crafted by them too! Obviously different protocols were used when designing-“

“Enough blabbering,” Alastor said. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking after my boy,” Tristelle said, smiling at Orion. “Can’t have you killing him in some memory-exception-error episode now, can I?”

“I wasn’t going to kill him, you moron,” Alastor said. “Just the traitor.”

“Oh no, you misunderstand,” Tristelle said. “There’s a good chance Orion would have lost his shit and gone down in a blaze of glory if you managed to kill Tenso. So your blighted desire for revenge would have led directly to his death. Oh, and speaking of…”

Orion spun. Tenso had already clambered into the escape pod. He gave Orion a long, unreadable gaze as the door slammed shut and the pod jettisoned from the star cruiser.

Tristelle counted off on her fingers as she spoke. “Beacon’s disabled, no turrets will fire on it, and all automated drones have been instructed to ignore the pod. I think I covered everything. Orion?”

“Sounds comprehensive to me.”

“You might stop it being easy,” Alastor said, “but I will still find Tenso.”

“Look, whatever, OK? He’s gone, let’s focus on the present moment,” Tristelle said. “You and I are gonna fix up Orion’s NOVA unit, then we’re both leaving. You can keep floating around up here in space, ranting and raving about NOVA’s ‘true purpose’ as long as you want. I’ll get out, and we all go our separate ways, yeah?”

Alastor looked through Tristelle’s projection and into Orion’s eye. “On one condition.”

“Uh… not sure if you noticed, but you’re not really in a position to be throwing out stipulations on this-“

Orion lifted a hand. “Tristelle. Let him speak.”

The AI rolled her eyes. “I’m sure this will be enlightening and not at all unreasonable.”

“Orion,” Alastor said earnestly, the anger and bewilderment stripped from his vocal processors. “There is a reason to all of this. A reason why you were abducted. A reason why I was built to carry out the NOVA project until its completion. I know I’m an AI, but my functions were mapped from a living Saiyan brain. I can’t prove anything yet, but there is something inside me, beyond subservient obligation to my programming, that is certain the NOVA project has a purpose I haven’t discovered yet.”

“A purpose above conquering planets faster and more efficiently for the lizards?” Orion asked.

Alastor nodded. “That’s how it looks on the surface. But trust me – there’s more.”

“So I should believe this on a hunch?”

“You never directly interacted with Frost or any of his family, did you?”

Orion shook his head.

“Zin sensed something from Frost during one of his dressing downs one day. Have you ever known the changelings to be afraid of something?”

The Saiyan frowned. “No.”

“Well, Frost was,” Alastor said. “It was big. Big enough to let his regal composure slip and expose the fear buried deep beneath. And it had to do with NOVA. I’m certain that this entire project was dreamed up to stop whatever terrified him. Can you imagine how powerful that thing must be that it not only scared a being as unstoppable as Frost, but inspired him to build a brand new army platform just to combat it?”

Tristelle looked at Orion. Her grim expression said more than her words could. She believed him.

“What’s your condition?” Orion said.

“I’ll leave you alone and, as your mouthy AI friend says, ‘rant and rave’ up here as I search for the final milestone of this project,” Alastor said. “But when I do – and make no mistake, I will – you’ll come back to the Black Armada and assume your intended position as Head Commander.”

Orion considered in silence for a moment. “If you find out this hunch is based in reality, I will hear you out. But I make no promises to be involved in something prematurely that I don’t have all the information for.”

“That is about as much as I can expect from you, I suppose,” Alastor said.

An uneasy, unsatisfying compromise had been made. But it was the best they could hope for.

“Enough noise from our various noise apparatus..es? Apparati?” Tristelle mused thoughtfully. “Let’s get to some Saiyan skull surgery!”

 

[Orion]

Orion stared at himself in the mirror. He didn’t know how to react.

A new eye.

Well, not a flesh and blood eye. The red lens that once poorly imitated his left eye had been removed, along with his old NOVA unit. In its place was a replica of a realistic eyeball, matching his organic one. He touched the skin beneath the fake ocular prosthetic. It even glistened correctly in the light.

It felt so… alien, to have two eyes again. The original NOVA unit replaced his lost eye with a red lens that he could see through, but now whenever he caught a glimpse of his reflection without the eye patch, he wouldn’t see that sterile crimson glass.

“An improvement, wouldn’t you say?” Alastor said from behind him.

“It’s… going to take some getting used to,” Orion said, snapping his eye patch over it.

“You don’t need to do that,” the Saiyan AI said. “You can see out of it perfectly fine. And no one will think-“

“I know,” Orion said. “But I want to wear the eye patch.”

“As you wish,” Alastor said, displeased. “The prosthetic eye will also expand when you transform into a Great Ape and turn red entirely, just like your flesh eye. The NOVA unit itself will also transform.”

“And I’m free and clear of those damned headaches?” Orion said, turning away from the mirror.

“Never again,” Alastor said. “The materials used in the latest model of the NOVA units will not degrade like the older ones, and are much more damage resistant. These are not experimental like your first unit was.”

“Nice to know my suffering paved the way for so much innovation,” Orion said.

“Speaking of innovation, one last upgrade you’ll definitely get some use out of is the Replicate function,” Alastor said. “The NOVA unit can scan another being and, as long as the power or complexity falls within its scope, allow you to perfectly mimic their abilities. Shooting lightning, breathing underwater, materialising a weapon… the NOVA unit uses your incredible reserves of ki to make them happen.”

“Huh,” Orion said. “I’ll admit… that sounds helpful.”

Orion adjusted his robe and wrapped his tail around his waist. He arrived at the starship a Saiyan with no tail and a death sentence in his head, and was leaving with his furry appendage intact and a safer, more powerful NOVA unit. Part of him wanted to thank Alastor for what he did, but without Zin, Orion never would have succumbed to all of this in the first place.

It was enough that he agreed to hear him out in the future. That made them square, as far as he was concerned.

All right, time to head planet side, Tristelle said in Orion’s mind. There’s still so much to do.

“We are prepared to leave,” Orion said.

Alastor dipped his head. “The same shuttle that brought you here will take you back. I look forward to seeing you again… when all of the stones have been turned over.”

The least Orion could do was humour him. “I’ll be waiting.”

+++

Orion crossed his arms and gazed out the window of the shuttle. Cevanti shone like a green jewel. It could be difficult to reconcile the quiet beauty of a planet from orbit and the ferocious, chaotic nature of living on its surface.

It was strange to sit in the back of the shuttle all alone without Tenso tapping his tablet. Well, not quite alone.

So?

“So what?”

Aren’t you going to thank me?

Orion sighed. “Thank you, Tristelle.”

You’re welcome!

“How did you even know I was in orbit?”

I’ve been keeping tabs on you. Once I realised where you were going, I bounced off a few satellites and broke through Alastor’s network to make sure my tabs were still up to date.

“You know, I thought you were gone,” Orion said. “After I went berserk and obliterated the robotic sand worm you were piloting, I figured that was the last time I would hear from you.”

Yeah… I should probably apologise for telling The Chorus to rip your tail off, huh?

“I don’t think it’s your fault,” Orion said. “I remember what it was like to be controlled. You didn’t choose to betray me.”

Huh.

“What?”

I don’t know. I just figured you’d be angrier about it.

“Oh, I was angry about it,” Orion said. “Murderously so. But I’ve worked through it. Mostly.”

Mostly?

“Mostly.”

Any of that leftover anger for me?

“No.”

The next few moments passed in silence.

“So?”

So what?

“Where have you been all of this time?”

Uh… cards on the table?

“I’d prefer it that way.”

I’ve been working with Kitriana to understand The Chorus better.

Orion thinned his eye. “Yes, you mentioned something about them on Alastor’s starship. That they somehow made you… more advanced?”

More or less.

“A pity they didn’t advance your personality.”

I’ll ignore that jab.

“I spoke to Kitriana not long ago. She mentioned she was studying them. Has your research been fruitful?”

‘Slow’ is the accurate word. The Chorus is composed of hundreds of minds. Willful minds, I should add. We’re making progress, but nothing substantial yet.

“Well, if things go off the deep end…”

I know where to find you.

“Are you done with the adventuring lifestyle?” Orion asked.

I charged in after you, didn’t I?

“That was to protect me. That’s different.”

So?

“I thought you would’ve contacted me if you survived that battle,” Orion said. “Instead you joined Dr. Wilde in a laboratory to pour over data.”

That ‘data’ is from a civilisation thousands of years dead, before a planetary apocalypse. So yeah, no offense to the glorious pastime of watching you pop off scumbags, but that’s a touch more interesting. But if you ever get tired of mopping up grunts and doing the bidding of whoever has the fattest wallet…

“I know where to find you,” Orion said.

The shuttle broke atmosphere. The usual pale orange flames engulfed its front and flared across the windows.

Do you think Tenso will outrun Alastor?

“I hope he’s at the starport right now, organising a flight to another planet,” Orion said. “And under an alias.”

You didn’t answer the question.

The Saiyan remained silent.

You really feel for him, huh?

Orion grunted. “Hard not to.”