“You know, I never really thought of it as being anything special. Déjà vu, that is. That brief moment of realisation during a new experience where you swear it has happened once before. Yet, no one can truly doubt that it is just a trick of the mind. Despite how inconsequential it is in the grand scheme of things, another harmless oddity of the human mind, I was greeted with great confusion and curiosity about the feeling when I discussed it with my Cambiar coworkers. Turns out that that feeling is not something they, nor the Tylas, can feel. I used to think it was the mind trying to conjure a false memory to fit a strange situation, but since finding faith through the Great Observer, I cannot help but feel there may be more to those little moments of awareness. Just my thoughts.” – Henry Dibra, CCH Citizen. Interview taken from Titanlock Life’s column “Every Perspective – The people of the Olympia District”

  “Look, Matvey, I’m just saying – Mr Fluffykins does not have enough coats,” Mikhail whined down the comm-device.

  “Sir, last time I checked, you had well over a hundred coats for just your cats alone,” Matvey, voice as steady and unchanging as ever, said.

  “But it’s nearly December! How will Haze and Craig, and all the others cope with the cold without more coats? They’ll freeze before Christmas even arrives!”

  “My lord… we’re on a ship. Your ship, the same the one you have calibrated exactly to your liking. The air temperature is kept at a consistent level year round. Winter according to Earth’s calendar isn’t going to affect us in any way.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right. See you later, Matvey.” Mikhail didn’t even put effort in trying to act like he had just come to a realisation after such an insipid conversation on his part. He needed to go.

  “Wait sir, we still ne-“

  Mikhail Olegovich, First Blade for the Ten Triumphs and head of the Dawn Fang, hung up on his second in command. With a deep sigh, he came to the conclusion that no matter what, he would be unable to wind poor Matvey up; he was simply too indominable and too loyal. An utter shame. Still, at least he now knew how many coats his cats had. Neat.

  With great reluctance, he put down Mr Fluffykins, one of many sphynx cats he had as part of his private animal sanctuary aboard White Gold and looked over the room. Segregated into perfectly regulated environments were designated areas for the various animals. In an open, carpeted area was the domestic animal section with dozens of Cambiar caretakers and the occasional human solider on a recreation break tending to and playing with the numerous felines and canines littered about. Beyond a series of walls mimicking natural foliage laid the more feral creatures – a number of big cats he’d managed to clone, an artificial stream for the horde of beavers he had accumulated, and even a rare alien Helitan from Prime Nexus, the Cambiar homeworld. Now that had been a struggle to create an enclosure for, but seeing the giant shaggy beast toot its little nozzle-horn about was well worth it.

  Still, there were things to do, people to see, and traitors to kill. Mikhail spun about, giving a farewell cheer to the others in the room, and delivering one last pet to Mr Fluffykins as he made for the training grounds. The entire military and security floor had undergone refurbishment since the ship had started its latest voyage. White Gold was his pride and joy, and no technology other than the best was good enough for his ship. Mikhail had grown into the habit of constantly proposing new additions and upgrades to the Cambiar engineers in his crew, as well as those more specialized back on Last Lance, the Ten-Triumph’s capital, busy.

  If for humans idle hands were the devil’s playthings, then for Cambiar an idle claw was the tool of a sorrower – the quadrupeds loved having something, anything to do. Especially when someone as fantastic as himself asked them. As much as Mikhail had drilled in the importance of one’s own dreams and strengths within the aliens’ still emerging culture, many of them were still unexposed to the human condition and simply continued to work like they had before, though with some trying side activities. But, bit by bit, as more people from the other nations joined the Ten-Tri, he could see the impact he was making on their population as a whole. Soon, Mikhail would not only have a powerful nation to lead, but also a people to fight for.

  Mikhail walked down the wide hallways of his ship, workers still reworking the interiors to the ship with Cambiar bioengineering to replicate the latest trend back on Last Lance – a sort of mixed ecological and artificial blending. Plants and wooden walls were interlaced with wiring and piping, giving the impression that the ship had been both abandoned to time, left for nature to claim, whilst also giving the impression it was anything but natural.

  But there was something far odder he had noticed in the past months than mere architecture from his people and followers. The very way many looked at him now, after months of rallying and making his presence known to the outer colonies of the Ten-Tri, some of whom had never seen a human before, was not just out of curiosity or fear, but something else. Now, Mikhail had already spoilt himself on how the future could go, but only if he badly messed up the next part of his role. What he was excited for was after the next rough patch – when he would return to Last Lance and see the people, his people, cheering for him. His glory, his might, his power. Sure, he had fit some ancient Cambiar prophecy formed just after the Great Awakening, and maybe he had stirred up a bit of hubbub by ‘accidently’ having a montage of security footage from the best of his conquests of the past play in the city centre, but it wasn’t like Mikhail was forcing the future down a particular path. He was just… nudging it. Firmly.

  All of that had only been possible due to his hard work and training with his reaction to the S-Field. He was not entirely unique in this field, as his research had informed him, but Mikhail was one of a very small number with his abilities. So far, at least. It had taken many months of intense work back at Last Lance to even start cracking the secrets of the S-Drive, and it was only when his small cadre of Keepers, those he had greatly respected and rewarded over the years for their assistance with his past missions, arrived that he made real progress. Secrets, hidden code, and much more hid inside the S-Drive. It was during the New Horizon’s incident that Mikhail first felt the real effect of the S-Field, and he still felt he was very amateur at even just tapping into the strange ability.

  It was during his dreams and his meditation that he was able to derive any information further than a minute or two into the future, and even then, it was vague. Shifting images, potential paths that he may or may not go down, and a complete hammering of the senses made his trances mostly unreliable but very fun. It was from his meditations that Mikhail knew he needed to come to Kral’Thul. An intervention with Jii-Xaar was the best direction to go head with making an impact on the Tylas.

  Only a few weeks before, just after he had a threesome with an ex-independent colony leader and a Cambiar musician- or wait, was it a foursome? Who was the other person. That didn’t matter – after said sexual encounter was when he had seen a strange disruption to his usual visions. Amidst the infinite sea of black semi-solid obsidian of the dreamlike world he was taken to when deeply intertwined with the feeling of the S-Field, he had seen another person crawl from its dark bowels, an increasingly frequent occurrence. Mikhail imagined that the distance in the real world was not accurate to the dreamscape, and that the other figures could be halfway across the universe for all he knew, but something about the latest figure gave the impression he was much nearer than the others. They shared a glace for just a moment before the kneeling man disappeared. How strange.

  Still, they weren’t important right now. What was vital was the most recent dream where he saw himself cutting the chains off Barald, the Tylasian monotheistic god. However, it was as he sliced the cuffs made from flesh, bone and sinew that the gigantic figure wailed in joy, or perhaps agony, before crumbling apart. Was Mikhail fated to free the god of the floating aliens, or doom him? He pushed those serious thoughts that were unbecoming of the man Mikhail wished to appear as on the surface – aloof, erratic, illogical. Focusing on the fun at hand, he had almost arrived at the training grounds and was began skipping with excitement to see his soldiers at work.

  He sauntered across a catwalk suspended above the circular fighting arenas, a mix of combat adapted Cambiar and artificially augmented humans clashing with one another in each zone. Seated around the sandy battlegrounds were trainers and teachers who chided them with improvements to their fighting skills. Mikhail had personally styled the training sector after his own childhood experiences in the fighting pits his family had sent him to. It took him a decade from the first days he could walk before he was allowed his first mission outside Broken Fang territory, and that was a day he would never forget. The taste of freedom was sweeter than any sugary dessert and more pleasurable than any woman he’d ever laid. Where he had once fought for his very life on that accursed, bloodstained sand, now his men fought for their own strength and meaning.

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  It was as he passed over one particular ring, the one he had come for the express purpose of seeing, that he received a call from Matvey. Mikhail figured it was a coin toss about the silly cat clothes again, or if he was calling about what Mikhail was about to do.

  “Moshi, moshi,” Mikhail answered, putting his wide knowledge of the various clan languages to use as he raised the comm-device to his ear.

  “Mikhail, my lord, I have a matter I must inform you of,” Matvey said, the sounds hastened movement in the background. “We managed to track down that unregistered transmission from yesterday, the one sent to Jii-Xaar.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember. Something along the lines of how I’m ‘a dangerous threat to the Baraldian Heralds’ and ‘please stop the psychopath before he ruins you’, right? Oh, that and trying to leak our ship schematics and latest weaponry as well, but the insults were what I remembered most.”

  “Yes sir, we found the identity of the traitor, it was-“

  “Private Frontliner Huxin Dao, right?” Mikhail said.

  As much as he wanted to boast about his godlike foresight giving him the answer, the truth was that he had simply dug into the source of the message himself by deciphering the origin of the transmission with his own skill. If nothing else, Mikhail had the attention span of a ferret on synth-coke – waiting even a single day for others to deal with such a thing was too long.

  “Wha- Yes, my lord, but how did… Where are you, Mikhail?”

  “Standing right above his arena as we speak,” Mikhail grunted as he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. “He’s about to see how I act when my feelings are hurt. I’m feeling rather sour right now.”

  “Wait! Sir, we’re on our way, there’s no need for you to tak-“

  Mikhail hung up as he swung himself over the railing, falling a good thirty metres to the sand below. Kicking up a cloud of grit around him as he posed in a superhero landing, fist pressed to the ground, Mikhail felt the grainy silt beneath his knuckles before dramatically rising. The warriors around him had stopped mid-training, looking at their leader as he stood.

  Some were part way through an interlocking of sword against the claws of an alien teammate, testing their melee proficiency, as they stood with wide eyes and slack jawed. Many of the observing trainers and higher ranked officers shouted for identification before immediately dropping to a knee once the sand cleared.

  “Now, now, no need for such drama,” Mikhail said. “Continue as you were. I just desired to watch the fine men and women of the empire working hard.”

  He looked down at the crater he had made from his landing.

  “Oh. Just… avoid that for now.”

  Mikhail sauntered to the side, but did not leave the ring of sand as he watched the soldiers return to action. Most Cambiar used a mixture of artificial blades and biological claws and weapons grown atop additional limbs for melee combat. Despite the natural biological advantage the aliens had over their human counterparts, many of the non-humans were clearly the ones being pushed back. Though the alien soldiers had adapted their bodies and pushed themselves to their genetic limits, combining the strengths of their previously segregated caste system into the perfect fighting form, there was little competition between muscle strengthened by XNA, and hardened steel being driven by raw power and motors.

  Augmentation was technically optional for his frontline troops, but Mikhail had made it clear that personal strength was the way to succeed in the new galaxy he was making. As such many of his soldiers agreed, and those who wished to stay unchanged usually took support roles. Muscles were exchanged for hydraulics, skin switched for armoured plating, and the relatively slow speed of neuron driven reactions were aided and replaced by wires and silicon. By the time his men would become the most elite troops in the galaxy, they would all be more than rich enough to grow a new organic body from the Cambiar a million times over once the fighting was done.

  Still, amidst the smooth, calm kata of the warriors, there was one individual with a slight shake to his hands. It appeared that even the behavioural implant supressing his emotions was too weak to remove his fear of Lord Olegovich. Doing his best not to give away the game too quickly, Mikhail turned away, unable to resist licking his lips. With a sudden clap, the First Blade approached some of the best from the group.

  “Now, you are all doing great!” Mikhail shouted. “That’s fabulous to see. But what I want to know, is who wants to try facing me?”

  It was a clear invitation. If Mikhail was a lesser clanlord, one of the many who feared opposition and saw any threat as a challenge, it would have been bait. He had seen his own father, Aleskey-Oleg, kill good men because they accepted a ‘friendly’ duel and nearly won. Mikhail was not the weak man his progenitor had been. No, three humans and a Cambiar stepped forward. When they looked to one another, checking to see who went first, Mikhail simply shook his head, smiling.

  “No, no. I want all of you fighting together as one. After all – it takes three to tango, and four to… fango?”

  Mikhail shrugged before retrieving a blade to the side. For a moment, he had reflexively reached for Cassaria before remembering she was kidnapped, stolen, by that thief. For now, an unideal replacement would do. The squad grinned as they gave a quick bow of respect, one Mikhail returned, and their fight began. Though it was clear from the outset that the military leader outmatched them, his augmentations without a doubt the best from when he was still in Heaven’s Doctrine, and only improved since then, the team’s effort was enough to bring a tear to his eye. As one, they flowed from strike into strike, movements quicker than the natural eyes could see. When Mikhail put distance between himself and the attackers, they pressed the assault, kicking up the sand as they burst forward in a rush of speed. Servos whirred and claws clicked as Mikhail weaved, blocked and parried their attacks, noticing a number of varied stances and styles in their moves. Wait, was that a style from Greyalt? Ooh, Mikhail would definitely need to pick that defector’s mind later.

  After a great number of clashes, and feeling the welling of pride in his heart, Mikhail raised a hand.

  “Good. Very good. I am more than impressed. If the Ten-Tri takes its place at the peak of the galaxy one day, it will be because of people like you. You see, it is not because you are stronger than your enemy, or faster than them. It is because each and every one of your strikes holds something meaningful. Something valuable.”

  Mikhail walked down the line as he pointed to each of them, one by one.

  “Justice. Valour. Courage.” He looked up towards the excited Cambiar, her tail wagging slightly. “Curiosity. But there is something lacking in… your heart.”

  Mikhail pointed at the slender figure at the end of the line, a faint look of confusion in his synthetic, insectoid-like eyes. “Hmm, yes. There is something not there. Not pride, there’s plenty of that. Not anger, we all have that in spoonfuls. Indeed you are lacking…”

  Mikhail drifted his finger to the side, directed to the target he had truly been addressing - a certain Private Huxin Dao. Just as the others followed the path of the hand, the private’s skin turning snow-white, Mikhail moved.

  One of his favourite upgrades, a gift from a Lengti skin-tailor he had recruited in his teenage years allowed him overlock his reaction times and musculature-based augments, allowing him to make full use of his enhanced body to move at speeds far beyond even the next best augmented perception. Strengthening his own body, mostly just for theatrical effect, he appeared in front of Huxin in a split second, his feral grin spread wide.

  “You lack fear,” Mikhail whispered. “That’s going to get you killed one day.”

  Mikhail seized the man’s head between his hands, pushing inwards on his skull from opposite directions. He did not make it quick. Mikhail wanted the traitor to feel every second of it, Huxin’s enhancements too puny to push Mikhail away. The traitor began slamming his fists into Mikhail chest, leaving barely a mark as Mikhail simply intensified his pressure. Weak, far too weak. Inch by inch, he pushed inwards, feeling the metal augments of his head twisting, bones crunching, and causing an eye to pop out of its socket. Finally, just as the man howled a final, terrified wail, and as the back door to the training arena burst open, Matvey and his squad aiming their overcharged railguns, Mikhail stopped holding back.

  In a split second, the man’s head was crushed between his palms, coating the surrounding area in viscera and staining the previously white sand a deep crimson. Shaking off bits of neural implant and skull from his hands Mikhail turned to see a slightly disappointed Matvey give a sigh. Whether he was upset at his friend’s lack of restraint or himself for not moving fast enough was uncertain, and not really that important. The other soldiers stared back, a mixture of concern and fear marking their expressions. And then, once Matvey moved in and addressed the crowd, Mikhail saw their expressions morph into something like awe. The insect-eyed soldier he had even initially pointed to grew a grin as he watched Huxin’s body get taken away.

  “That was messy, sir,” his second said, passing a towel over to his lord.

  “Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette,” Mikhail said with a shrug. “I saw an opportunity to stretch out a bit, and I took it. Can you blame me?”

  Mikhail left the ring, more than eager to see how many more eggs needed to be cracked once he arrived at Kral’Thul. Itching to feel Cassaria in his grasp once more, he knew he would have his fun sooner or later.