All That Was Lost Page 16

  “I pulled the pin on those grenades, I remember getting hit with something, but I’m not sure what, and then…” he thought about the voice and the head he saw when he was in that inky blackness.

  Quintus laughed. “You went full on badass on the traitors on the roof, used enough explosives to turn them to jelly and disable the array so we could hear from the Admiral. Because of you we heard from Karst about reinforcements for the fleet and the cruisers that showed sent their Sparrowhawks down. We had enough reinforcements we were able to find three of the General’s lieutenants and bring them in for justice, there were almost a thousand boots on the ground searching for them, all thanks to you.”

  He took it in, smiled at them and said “So we caught them, but not the General?”

  “Did you not hear me? Because of you we were able to get more reinforcements and take three high ranking members of Rising Anvil. Not to mention retake the colony, and liberate the civilians that they kept oppressed thanks to that communications array.” Quintus put a hand on his shoulder “Because of you, we saved one-hundred-thirty-four thousand people from the traitors. You saved them.”

  He let those words sink in, smiled back at them, and felt the pain in his back spike. Tiberius, you are needed, was all he heard in his mind before the pain became to much to bear.

  Each one of them jumped back as he fell flat against the bed unconscious and light filled the room, pouring from his body.

  “By the gods.” Karst said, beholding something unseen for thousands of years.

  Epilogue

  Past the planet Pluto a ship full of explorers journey to the very edges of the solar system in search of new life and new planets to investigate. As they travel through the void of space something interesting happens.

  “Um, sir? Somethings wrong with the systems.” Sahib Othi said to his boss, Janal Lidder the owner of the Hazzid.

  “What kind of wrong?” He leaned over his console to look at his radar techs’ console. It was a small ship, with a crew of five, so the “bridge” was nowhere near as large as what most people think of when they think of a bridge.

  “The radar just went to static, wait I’m seeing something now. What the hell is that?”

  They both looked up from the console to the viewscreen that showed them what was going on outside, and saw just what horror awaited them. A large asteroid moved towards them quickly, coming outta nowhere.

  “Get us out of here Jeba!”

  Their navigator’s fingers flew over the controls as she maneuvered them out of the asteroid’s path, only to have it correct itself and her have to move them again. And again the asteroid corrected itself, causing her to jump from the shock.

  “Dear Allah.” She was terrified, the asteroid-like object moved like a ship, it’s trajectory constantly changing to compensate for their changes, proving it wasn’t just a rock.

  It was close enough now that they could see the craters in it’s surface, they could see three of them open like the doors of a hangar and smaller rock-like objects flew out of the openings and flew directly at them.

  Every one of the objects began accelerating at them as she tried to maneuver the ship out of their way, she even tried putting in the coordinates for the void-drives, but she was too late. One of them got close enough to fire some kind of beam at their engines and the entire ship went dead.

  “Get us out of here Jeba!” the boss cried out as he white knuckled the arms of his chair, his fear palpable as he stared in terror at the screen and everything coming at them.

  “I can’t sir, we’re dead in the water.” She continued pressing buttons, hoping something would start working in their favor as the alien ships closed in on them. “Are we going to die here sir?” she asked as one of them latched onto their ship.

  Before he could say anything the ship went completely dark, the emergency lights wouldn’t come on, the air recycler stopped working, even the artificial gravity went out. And then everything for them went black as they passed out. The alien ships closed the distance to them and pulled them towards the asteroid. And towards a fate worse than death.

  —

  “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” Doctor Aziz, their expert on the human body and the only doctor Tiberius would speak to after dealing with Dr. Rhul, told the Admiral. “It truly is a miracle. Or a blessing from the gods. Either way I’ll take it because he shouldn’t have woken up from that coma, then to heal this quickly…it’s amazing.”

  “He’s amazing. And he healed completely in just an hour? No more contusions or bruises, no scar tissue either?”

  The Doctor nodded.

  “Astounding. What could have done this?”

  “Only the gods and the Emperor know. But I would keep an eye on him, we don’t quite have a grasp on his mental state just yet so we aren’t certain how stable he is.” The doctor also wondered just what the white light was that everyone saw pouring into his patient.

  —

  Tiberius ran on the treadmill, hit the gym for the heavy bags, even sparred some with his ‘mates and he knew there was something exceedingly different about him now than before. He had so much more energy, he wasn’t tiring as he used to. It was amazing, it was a miracle.

  Tiberius, you are needed.

  It drove him, just that one sentence spurred him to do as much as he could, even though he didn’t understand it. He was at peace with his life now, and he felt more powerful than ever.

  But where had that voice come from, and who did it belong to?

  Tiberius.

  He stopped dead in his tracks. It was the same voice from before.

  You are destined for great things. We have great plans for you. Go to the planet Sagrellia, a new enemy awaits you there. As does your destiny.