Book 8 – Chapter 45 – Solaris Imperium

“Your true situation is fascinating.” Urs simply said. “Overriding and taking a chassis designed by Relinquished? How did you know you would succeed?”

“I needed it to succeed.” Father simply said. “Failure was not an option.”

“So I see.” Urs locked eyes with him. “That will have to do.”

I’d just witnessed our own gods condemn Father to be a martyr.

“Wait, hold on! There’s got to be other ways than just throwing your life away after you’ve managed to hold on all this time.” I said, turning to Father. “You’re immortal. You’re actually godsdamned immortal, almost nothing in this world could get you. After all you’ve been through, you made it out. All this to end up dying anyhow?”

I can’t imagine Tenisent Winterscar ever being killed in combat. It’s just not possible for Father to lose any fight with exception to Relinquished herself. Sending him into the center of a machine army felt outright safe.

But willfully choosing to go out himself? That’s far more real of a possibility. That could actually happen.

“We don’t have time to hesitate, boy.” Father said. “I’ve already died three times over and cheated death as many. The lady of the night will take me to see my wife again, and I’ll do so knowing I’ve done my part for you, my daughter, my clan, and all humanity.”

As if the prior discussion didn’t hammer it into me, this somehow drove the nail further. “There isn’t any other option out there?”

“Sagrius has the willpower, but not the body for it. He’s human, he would die before sucess. Arcbound has the body for it, but not the willpower.” He turned to look out beyond the walls of the cube, where our stolen Feathers were all learning their steps with their new shells. “The other knights equally have the body to resist, but not the willpower needed. I am the only choice.”

Except that this was a thing that would burn his soul away. Talen himself was expecting to die and the entire thing was built around his specs. It was designed… for a Deathless to use.

“Lord Atius.” I said. “He could fire it, die and return to life.”

“Does he have the willpower for it, boy?”

“He just might.” I said.

“He might.” Father gave a small nod. “Will you gamble all of humanity on this?”

I saw the issue. Atius had a chance to do it. Father was guaranteed to do it.

We both stared at each other. Neither of us speaking.

Urs turned his eyes my direction. Inscrutable. “He is your family, isn’t he?”

“Of course he is.” I already knew Urs could probably read from any data package here that Father was Father.

“That is not my question.” Urs said. “There is family you are born with, and family you choose. Is he your family?”

“He is.” I said. And I meant it. Half a year ago, out in the snow with only my suit and the need to get the hell out of this family, Father hadn’t been family to me. Only an obstacle I had to get around.

Today? I was different. I’d earned my place in this family, and so had he.

“I too have felt loss.” Urs said, and paused. Then his eyes looked back up at me. “Very well. There is another option. You are strong.” The eyes turned around the blackness, to the headlights illuminating the space from all the armors here. “You are all very strong. If Tenisent’s data is accurate, you are stronger than all soldiers I knew of in my days. All those I worked with regularly. This generation has talent unseen before.” The eyes turned and seemed to tunnel directly into me. “One of the few humans in history to have met Relinquished directly in the digital sea, and lived. Accompanied by the first Feather that broke free from Relinquished after the events of the Protofeathers.” The eyes then roved over to Captain Sagrius. “A human enmeshed with the soul of one of my armors. This combination has never been attempted, or even considered. All while leading warriors who’s combat data outscale and outclass anyone from my era. In addition to nine stolen Feathers equally piloted by the same skill.” And then the eyes landed back on Father. “And you. I do not need to expand here. There may be a chance.”

“What chance?” I asked.

“To defeat Talen.”

There was a hush in the room.

“He is alive.” Urs continued. “And I can feel him. He and I share a powerful fractal. One I named Resolve. Do you know of it?”

“I do.” I said, feeling a bit of hope in my head. “A22 gave me the full story of what you are when I met her.”

“A22 also rebelled? Interesting. I wonder if I have traveled to an alternate timeline in my stasis. These events seem almost absurd to consider.”

“She did, I talked to her face to face. And what do you mean we could defeat Talen?”

Urs paused, thinking. “If you wish for your Father to survive, someone else will need to focus the beam, and that person needs to be better suited for the task than Tenisent. Otherwise, I suspect he will not approve.”

Father grunted an affirmative.

The eyes looked over him, confirming, then turned back to me. “Therefore, there is only one candidate.”

“Talen. Can we… even get him back?”

“Yes. Fully restored, he will be able to pilot the modified terraforming platform, and draw out its full power.” The eyes scanned around the room, “Given his abilities, defeating him long enough to work on his soul was improbable during my time. I simply did not have the means or people that could stand against him. I had no one. I was alone. Today, I am now surrounded by people who could each change history.”

The Winterscar knights were dead silent. They felt the pull. They’d followed me here thinking I was a prophet.

They’d be leaving this cube as Godsworn.

On a divine mission, with the world at stake.

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“You can heal him.” I said, looking back at Urs, putting the dots together. “You wouldn’t be suggesting this unless you already knew the way.”

“I can heal him, yes. I have been unable to do so until now, as he could defeat me easily even at my strongest. I am no warrior. Without others to support me, he was functionally out of my reach.”

Urs looked across the group here. “I understand your culture’s mythos has been changed to include Talen and myself as your gods. However, as of now, Talen is not the man he was before. His soul is split in half and he has been inflicted with madness. He must be beaten first. That task now falls to you all here.”

Urs, the god of Resilience, was asking us all to fight Talen, the god of Resolve. All to make Tsuya’s last plan work.

I could tell every knight here was having their faith tested hard. The idea of fighting one’s own god isn’t taken lightly.

The first knight took a step forward, drew his occult blade, and gave a salute to the dead. “I am the blade of House Winterscar.” He said. “I will serve.”

Another stepped next to him, and repeated the oath. As did the rest of the Winterscars, one after another, committing themselves to a greater cause than following me into hell.

This was reality. If Talen had to be beat down so that he could be restored and put back where he belonged, that’s what we’d do. I drew out my own blade, and gave the salute. “We will bring Talen back. At any cost. I swear it.”

The only one in the room that did not pledge a word, was Captain Sagrius. But slowly, hesitantly, his eyes turned away from me, and began to look around at his brothers and sisters in arms.

And then up to Father who stared back at him. “You know what is in your heart, Captain. Speak the words.”

“I understand.” He said. “I sense a longing to do this. I will follow it.” He turned to the dead husk of Urs. Then drew his blade. “I am… the blade of House Winterscar. I will serve humanity.”

The eyes of Urs moved with each knight until they ended on Sagrius. “If you were searching for proof that you have retained your humanity, it is here.”

Sagrius slowly nodded back.

“How long do we have to find Talen? How do we find him?” Father asked, raising the husk up to eye level. ”We don’t have time to stumble around on expeditions.”

Even with Keith Superior on the inside, I wasn’t certain we’d be able to book a portal right into Talen’s current location. Even finding him was something only managed once according to Aztu, and he wiped out most of the protofeather expedition that stumbled onto him.

Relinquished wasn’t going to let us find him either. She’d pay anything to the mites to prevent that from happening. And she knew Urs was being set free right this moment, there’s no telling what she was doing.

“We do not need to find him.” Urs said. “He will find us.”

“How?” Father asked, eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Why would he search for us?”

“Not you in specific. Me. I am holding onto the other half of the Resolve fractal. Talen is likely searching for me in order to eliminate me and restore the fractal to full power. I ordered him to do so at the last moment when defeat seemed inevitable. Unfortunately, our communication lines were being monitored by A57. And when it was clear I would be self-terminating, he cut off communications. I did not know if my orders had been heard, or if he would agree to them. With the lack of information, I made a decision. And it was the wrong one.”

The talking husk sighed, and that seemed the first genuine human emotion I’d seen from Urs yet. “If I had terminated myself, the fractal of resolve would have had my half of the overall power transferred back to Talen, which he could have used to survive the ambush A01 and A57 executed.

Instead, while he was fighting for his life and could have most benefited from the power, I decided to wait until I could speak to him again to confirm my plan. I believed it was a simple unfortunate blackout of communications. Such things happened often back then. That was a grave error.”

The eyes seemed to blink. “It took three days before we had visual contact with Talen again, and by then A57’s plan had been completed. Restoring the full power of the fractal of Resolve would only hand it off to a madman at that point. And so long as he remained alive, his side of the power would not be transferred back to me. It was an effective checkmate where I could no longer do anything. I could not speak or make any attempts with Talen either, as whenever he saw me, he would attempt to attack. Likely seeking me out by instinct, following the last order I’d given him. He of all people would know how important it would be to do so. Even if he has forgotten the reason behind it.”

“So he’s out there,” I said, “Not looking for Relinquished – but for you.”

“Yes. That would be accurate. Within this cube, I was cut off from the outside. Beyond, I will have more options. Do understand however, if I am killed, there is no chance that Talen knows or remembers how to permanently terminate me. I will follow the general path of a Deathless and be restored again within a few months. Talen will still sense I remain, and will continue to wander the underground searching for where I next manifest. Nothing will change.”

“Other than Relinquished having an entire month and some change to eradicate the surface.” I said. “You’re saying we have a single shot at this, and if we mess up protecting you, it’s over.”

“Yes. However, it will not be completely over should I die.” The husk’s eyes turned to Father, who nodded back. “Your original plan with Tenisent would need to succeed. I will not be there to execute anything, and Tsuya is dead. You will need to reach the station yourself, dock with it, properly prime the weapon systems within, and execute the firing sequence alone. I can hand off my permissions and any information of note, but my abilities beyond that will be limited.”

I took a breath and mulled it through. “Will he know the moment you step out of here?”

“No. We will send him a message instead informing him where I am.”

“How much time do we have to prepare a staging ground against him?” I asked.

“So long as the orbital station remains intact, you have time. If you can defend the surface with a large enough force, the machines will be waylaid. How much time gained would depend on the force martialed to protect the surface.”

“You have a plan for this.” Father said, and that wasn’t a guess.

“Tsuya would have resources of some kind to protect the surface in case of catastrophic failure, such as now.” Urs said. “The imperial temples I built on the surface should still be intact. There may be more to her systems and plans that remain working post her death. Bring me to one and I will interface with it, and see if there is anything left of her network to call upon. However, her primary plan is known to me as the Final Edict. I can trigger this from any more secure imperial location, in theory.”

“The final war.” Cathida said in my helmet, speaking for the first time. “I shall seek the lost emperor and return them to their rightful throne. The world must be united.”

“That… that was a crusader vow, wasn’t it?”

Cathida didn’t answer. Instead, a video log opened up. Of the surface. Of the final rite I’d seen.

An Imperator stood before the gathered Crusaders. Speaking before the temple on the surface. “Remain ever vigilant,” He said. “For the end times may come at any day. When the balance between man and machine ends, only a war of extinction remains. This is the true calling of our Order. When that war comes, it is our task to have the world prepared to win it.

And for that to happen, the empire must rise from its ashes. All of it, from body to head.

Solaris Imperium.”

And Urs had watched with us, the armor sending him the data at the same time it replayed it to me.

“I see. Tsuya’s plans with her hidden Chapter remains active and working. Excellent.”

I stared down at Urs. “Can you call them? The entire empire? Ring the bell and alert the world that they’re needed on the surface to fight off Relinquished?”

If he could nod, I could almost tell he would have. “Yes. Both Talen and I have permissions required to trigger the Final Edict. However, this was seven hundred years prior. Anything could have changed. It is a gamble.”

“We’ll have to take that gamble.” I said. “Because it dovetails perfectly with the other item. We need to fight Talen in the best possible location. And we can’t waste time trying to find how to get into Tsuya’s old networks. We need to do both together.”

“What is your suggestion Keith Winterscar?”

“If there’s anywhere in the world where we can stand and fight against Talen, it’ll be the same place where Tsuya would put down access to her network. She’d never put that anywhere that wasn’t the most defended place in the world.”

Keith Superior couldn’t transport us directly to Talen. But he could portal us to the next best place. The only place in the world built from the ground up to fight against an outright apocalypse, with centuries to gather gear, soldiers, and resources for this exact day:

The heart of the Imperial Church.

“Let’s knock on the front door and introduce ourselves.” I said, looking down at the dead husk still held in Father’s hand. “I think they’d be thrilled to meet you.”