Greg Anson endured the teeth chattering deep freeze of the night to watch the stars with his daughter. Bundled up in layers of parachute fabric Greg sat at the entrance of the cave while Agra lay contently in the windblown snow. She silently contemplated the fathomless kaleidoscope of twinkling light with wide eyed focus. Squeezing what little heat he could out of his numb hands Greg wondered what his daughter saw in the bright sea of stars. Unlike him Agra could look past the resentment of old grief and search for hope amongst the glowing specks of light.

  “Father what was it like out there?” Agra asked dreamily. Greg leaned forward attentively and rubbed his beard with a learned expression. He willed his numb limbs to move and shuffled towards Agra.

  “Where do I even begin?” he said managing a shivering smile. His vaporous breath drifted skyward as he knelt down beside his daughter. Agra looked up at him with anticipation while ignoring the unwanted interloper haunting the blurred edges of her memory. Quintek was standing there with a confused look of silent dismay. Greg Anson looked past him as if he wasn’t even there.

  “There are too many stars to count,” he said oblivious to Quintek’s presence as he scanned the sky with a sweeping gesture. “It took humanity centuries to visit even a fraction of the sky and we will never see it all. I may have only travelled to a handful of systems, but I saw enough wonders for a lifetime.”

  “Like what?” Agra gasped.

  “I saw the twin jewels of Osiris, ringed gas giants locked in an orbital dance around their star. I spent time on Fortis, where pillars of gold rose from the shifting sands of a great desert. I grew up on Pathos where the waters of our clear blue oceans sparkled beneath an orange sky. It was so peaceful”

  Greg stopped himself with choking whimper, unable to hide his sorrow behind another false smile. The intense look of concern on Agra’s face startled him. She wrapped him in her comforting embrace.

  “Oh Agra!” he sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Agra what is this?” Quintek finally imposed. He took a step forward and felt the sharp malice of Agra’s glare ripple through his body. He stumbled in the snow as the memory around him seemed to stretch and tear. Greg Anson continued to speak with trembling sadness as frozen tears blinded him.

  “You deserve better Agra. You deserved peace not a war that condemned you before you were even born. I have no idea what’s happened but I’m afraid that no matter the outcome you will never be happy. You are an alien to your own people and forever an enemy to mine.”

  “Then I’ll prove that I belong,” Agra proclaimed defiantly. “When we escape I’ll prove them wrong! I’ll show them! If the war still rages I’ll end it!”

  “This is ridiculous,” Quintek interjected as the memory around him once again faltered. His head throbbed as his vision exploded with lights. He fell back in the snow. Agra loomed over him now, her glowing amber eyes the only part of her with any defined shape. The rest of her shadowy form flickered in and out of focus. Her younger self was gone the still memory of her father crouching in the snow embracing empty air

  “You don’t belong here,” she hissed, her voice resonating from deep within her. The stars behind her rippled with her fury..

  “Then why am I here?” Quintek challenged snidely.

  “You wanted to be here,” Greg Anson, or at least something resembling the dead man, explained plainly behind her. Quintek stared at him in shock.

  “Father?” Agra cried, reverting to her younger self as she spun around and fell at his feet.

  “You’ve been probing her mind, my mind, trying to understand what Agra is and she can’t consciously stop you from seeing the truth in her present condition,” Greg said bending down to comfort young Agra. “Now can you see that she’s just a child trying to understand her place in the universe?”

  “Then what are you?” Quintek said eyeing him skeptically. “The human Greg Anson is dead and you are not just a memory.”

  “I’m just another part of a whole. Who I always aspired to be,” Greg said. “Now you’re here too.”

  “I never meant to be here.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have offered yourself so willingly. You should have heeded your teacher’s warnings.”

  “How do you know about him?” Quintek demanded angrily. Greg said nothing as Agra cowered in his arms.

  “I know all your secrets. She took them as soon as she could,” Greg sighed. Quintek shivered as he felt a cold malevolence behind him. He spun around and came face to face with a Syn Queen in all her terrible glory.

  “A mere Queen does not rule an empire that spans the stars,” the wraith laughed as she read Quinteks thoughts. “I am an Empress, I am inevitable.”

  “Agra?” Quintek said recognizing Agra’s intense predatory amber stare. She glowered at Greg and her younger self before focusing entirely on Quintek. The startled Syn soldier felt her in his mind. She spoke in the fierce clicking tones of the sacred tongue.

  “Are you here to gloat Syn? Here to tell me my years of waiting were for nothing?” she snarled. “Are you here to remind me that my Father’s family would never accept me after what I had done? You’ve been thinking that since we left Altaire IV.”

  “So what if I do? Your foolish pursuit has nearly gotten us killed several times. When are you going to accept that things won’t go your way?” Quintek charged.

  “I will get what I want!” Agra lashed out. She launched Quintek across the snow with a forceful shove. Gasping for breath and clutching his chest he quickly stumbled back to his feet, his bristling feathers covered in snow.

  “Stop it!”

  Young Agra emerged from her Father’s protective grasp with a commanding yell. She put herself between her older twisted self and Quintek.

  “I won’t let you hurt him,” she exclaimed. The Empress just laughed.

  “Sooner or later you’re going to have to grow up,” she spat, powerless to defy her younger self. She directed the last of ire at her father. “The humans are worse then you’ve imagined. They are violent pathetic creatures with no future. Their fear and hatred will destroy us then themselves.”

  “Then our people have more in common than I first thought,” Greg Anson answered. He helped Quintek off the snowy ground as young Agra bounded up to him. The Empress was gone for now.

  “What if she’s right?” young Agra wondered.

  “It’s not too late to help them,” Greg replied looking at Quintek. “With his help, anything is possible.”

  “Will you help me?” young Agra pleaded.

  “We can only help them if we’re awake,” Quintek reminded them. Greg and Young Agra vanished, replaced in an instant by the Agra he knew in the waking world. The dreamscape around them faded until they floated alone in a swirling cloud of stars.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Then we better wake up,” Agra said offering her hand.

  Mindful of the soldiers at the door, Patricia Annson blocked their view of the hospital bed as Agra’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Don’t speak,” Patricia warned with a rushed whisper, “I don’t want you to tear your bandages and I don’t want them to hear you. We won’t have much time once they realize you’re awake. I’m Patricia Anson.”

  Agra lit up with familiarity, enraptured by every inch of Patricia’s kind face. She tried to speak, but only managed a muffled croaking sound before the pain overwhelmed her.

  “You’re just as disobedient as she is,” Patricia noted with a subtle shake of her head. “I’m sorry Adelaide did this to you. I hope you can forgive her.”

  “We already have,” Quintek responded with an ambivalent hissing exhalation. He lay motionlessly in the next bed over, his eyes closed and beaked mouth ajar. His hoarse voice spoke distantly with each breathy exhalation. “I, she, was always ready to bear the consequences of the truth. You deserved to know.”

  “The truth hurts Agra,” Patricia mourned with a low sigh. She braced herself against the bed with slumped shoulders and a stifled sob.

  “I’m sorry,” Quintek groaned.

  “No,” Patricia replied sternly. She collected herself, wiping tears and mucus from her face. “None of this was your fault. What I meant to say is that I don’t think I can live with the truth that I failed my husband. Greg would have never stopped looking for me and yet I abandoned him when he needed me the most.”

  “You didn’t abandon him,” Agra said with Quintek’s voice as she reached up to rub a clawed finger across Patricia’s cheek. “He spoke of you often and when he did he couldn’t help but smile. When he stared at the stars I know he was only thinking of you and Adelaide. He was certain that you were alive somewhere even if you thought he was dead. You kept him alive.”

  “What about you?” Patricia said as she placed a soothing hand on Agra’s chest. She could feel her heartbeat, slow and strong, beneath the soft feathery down. “Greg had you.”

  “He could never love me like he loved you,” Agra croaked with a barely audible hiss beneath her bandaged face.”

  “Never say that again.”

  Patricia hadn’t meant to yell. Agra stared up at her with wide amber eyes. Quintek roused as the soldiers posted at the door marched in.

  “He gave you his name, my name, my daughter’s name. You are family in my eyes, another daughter to cherish, and the last legacy of his love.”

  A soldier placed their hand on Patricia’s shoulder. It was time for her to go.

  “You are Agra Anson,” she said as she was led away. “You are the daughter of Greg Anson. He loved you and no matter what nothing thing will ever change that.”

  “The Syncline are here! We have run out of time!”

  “We knew they would find us eventually.”

  “Yes, and we have been caught without a fleet. The Czarists have killed us all!”

  Marco Crozier put his head in the palm of his hand and gave into despair as the hours old emergency meeting of SMCAF high command devolved into a cacophony of inane shouts. It seemed as if the tenuous bonds holding the organization together had finally come undone.

  “You claimed the defensive sphere would become impenetrable if we invested precious resources in your fleet. Your collection of battered hulks couldn’t even stop a single ship Admiral!”

  A chorus of enraged voices drowned out the council chambers as a group of Czarist Union fleet Captains pushed and shoved to the front of the galleries. Marco watched as disaffected Western Sphere Generals began to walk out in protest. Eurasian Mining guild representatives pleaded for peace as the room began to empty. A static hologram of Agra still lorded over the room. Ostensibly the subject of their meeting, they had spent more time assigning blame then discussing the Syncline they feared.

  “I should have known this would happen,” Marco lamented. He picked up his data pad and frowned at the picture of Greg Anson smiling back at him from the report he had prepared. “You knew what you were doing didn’t you.”

  “What should we do now?” uncertain voices debated around him. “This is pointless.”

  “Maybe we should leave. This is going nowhere,” The Admiral beside him suggested with a nudge. Marco seriously considered his words as his wrist communicator beeped urgently. He saw that it was Patricia and reread her message several times. It was finally some good news. Agra was awake and already on her way. Marco grinned, turning towards the doors as some of his comrades stood to leave.

  “I wouldn’t leave if I were you. Things are about to get interesting,” he said stopping them. For a few minutes nothing happened then the sound of activity outside the council chambers interrupted the noise. Those who had left were returning in droves. Everyone in the gallery went silent as a whole contingent of soldiers burst through the doors.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Aleksander Ramsey roared. The room watched in disbelief as Agra Anson strode through the doors with Quintek limping at her side. Bandages wrapped Quintek’s abdomen and strips of gauze crisscrossed Agra’s shattered face. Despite her injuries Agra carried herself proudly, her crowned head held high as she strode towards the center of the room. She studied the angry frightened faces staring back at her with a discouraged frown. Quintek lunged forward to chastise the Admiral, but Agra stopped him with a disapproving hiss. She found Marco Crozier standing high above her amongst the murmuring crowd.

  “I instructed my people to bring Agra here as soon as she was willing to speak with us. It’s imperative we listen to what she has to say,” Marco Crozier announced despite the intense outburst of opposition from every corner of the room.

  “You humans disappoint me,” Quintek roared above the clamor. Such a stunning sentiment from a Syncline soldier shocked the room back into silence. In the crowd a woman leaned forward in response. Unlike her military colleagues she wore a dark gray formal dress with the gold emblem of the Eurasian Mining Guild pinned above her heart.

  “In what ways I wonder,” she expressed with a flamboyant self-aggrandizing smile across her face. She consciously glared at both General Crozier and Admiral Ramsey with a look of absolute disdain.

  “We thought you’d be better than our kin, the ones you call the Syncline. All they do is fight, and you’re no different. Soon you will destroy yourselves,” Quintek charged. Agra narrowed her eyes as she stared silently at the woman.

  “Is that what she really thinks?” Admiral Ramsey interjected so all could hear. “Why doesn’t she just say it herself? Does this self professed Syncline Queen think so little of us to not address us in person?”

  “Her injuries prevent her from speaking so I speak for both of us. I hear her thoughts, and tell you what she wants you to hear,” Quintek explained.

  “Fascinating,” the woman said, “Is that the true power of the Syn?”

  “Who are you?” Quintek said asking his own question. Agra was unwilling to be so rude. His senses told him to be weary of the woman and her wide eyed scrutiny.

  “Where are my manners?” the woman chuckled. “I am Minister Margret Singh. I represent the Eurasian Mining Guild. Unlike some of us here I am very interested in what you two have to say.”

  “We’ve all seen the Orion Dossier,” Ramsey countered desperately as murmurs of agreement were exchanged by his colleagues. “You can’t tell us more than what we’ve always assumed. What more do we need to know beyond the fact that the Syncline aim to exterminate us? That should be all the motivation we need to continue our fight and achieve victory.”

  “Victory?” Quintek repeated incredulously. “By now don’t you realize you never stood a chance? Without our help your defeat is inevitable.”

  “You’d help us?” a voice exclaimed. The drone of overlapping murmurs became a roar.

  “With the same power attributed to you on Altaire IV?” Margret Singh wondered eagerly.

  “Are you seriously entertaining this madness?” sputtered Admiral Ramsey in loud frustration. “Are you really willing to throw away our dignity and admit that Humanity is inferior to the Syncline? Accepting their help is tantamount to acknowledging our defeat.”

  “What choice do we have?”

  “We don’t have any other options.”

  “With Syncline Soldiers at our command we might stand a chance.”

  “We have to wage war on their level if we want to survive.”

  “Absolutely not,” Agra cried out in protest. Her face burned, red blood soaked the stretched and broken gauze strips she tore from her shattered beak. An intense look of contempt shone in her enraged hawkish amber eyes. “I will not help you kill anybody.”

  “Then you are useless to us,” Admiral Ramsey snarled.

  “Don’t sound so disappointed Admiral,” Margret Singh interjected. “I actually agree with your sentiment. We shouldn’t expect them to fight our battles. However, I think they can help us evacuate Meridian Prime.”

  Eager voices repeated that name amongst themselves with whispers of recognition as Agra and Quintek asked for elaboration.

  “What’s on Meridian Prime?” Agra croaked as she dabbed the blood from her face with a strip of her makeshift clothing.

  “Approximately 250,000 of our people,” General Crozier elaborated with a look of somber reflection. “They fled into the underground mining facility when the Syncline overran the system and have been trapped for over two years.”

  Margret Singh leaned forward with her hands clasped together, her intense gaze anticipating Agra’s response.

  “You can help us rescue them,” she said. “Recent survey scans indicate the Syncline have abandoned the system, but the soldiers they left behind still swarm the surface. Nothing but an orbital bombardment can wipe them out though that would compromise the structural integrity of the tunnels. The risk of killing our own people with conventional means is too high. You however can pacify your kin and make a bloodless rescue mission possible.”

  “We can’t do that without the Queens finding us,” Quintek warned.

  “How long would it take them to find you?”

  “I don’t know,” Agra stressed with a grimace. More blood spurted from her beak and onto the floor. “It would at most take a day though probably less, hours even.”

  “I think we can manage,” Minister Singh remarked with an unconcerned grin.