Mare Tyrrenhum Quadrangle, Mars

2332 A.D.

 

A lone train drifted on magnetic rails across the scorched plains of the quadrangle. Through the drifting, hazy remnants of mushroom clouds - not yet fully dispersed by the weak Martian wind - the sleek vessel whistled through shattered outposts and over blackened craters with twisted piles of metal at the bottom, stopping now and then at lonely platforms in a sea debris.

                For years, the influence of Earth’s government over its colonies had been fading away. The colonies in the Tau Ceti star system, twelve light years from Earth, declared independence ten years ago. Two weeks ago, colonies on Enceladus threatened to abandon the United Nations. Economic depression and social inequalities were slowly pulling humanity apart at the seams, forcing the government to turn its back on its subjects and scramble to rectify the problems it had caused.

                Paying little heed to its military advisors, the government had failed to respond to the sudden assault on Mars. A fleet from Tau Ceti had made it into orbit after a five year journey through interspace, landed an army on the surface and captured the capital, Elysium.

                Such a waste.

                Those were the words that were repeating over and over in Darius Shadehall’s head. Standing apart from a dozen others on a glass-strewn platform, forced to wear an orange emergency spacesuit, he looked around at the cracked dome overhead. Thirty years ago, Darius had helped to raise the dome and seal out the weak Martian atmosphere. He had signed his contract on Earth, in his homeland of Aycilon, and had been shipped out with a hundred other engineers to construct the Emerald Fields Colony. Since then, he had spent half of his life there, watched the colony grow into a city and watched the first rocket lift off from its spaceport.

                All for this.

                The Emerald Fields was derelict now, beyond repair. Artillery and debris from spacecraft falling out of orbit had destroyed it. Many of those who survived the fighting died with their own hands around their throats, their lungs boiling as decompression swept through the colony. Those that survived, by luck alone, had been leaving the colony by train since sunrise.

                The train arrived and the doors of each carriage’s airlock opened. The passengers entered, squeezing into the airlock, waited for the compartment to be pressurised and removed their helmets. Darius had entered a carriage alone, at the back end of the train, finding it completely empty.

                He had brought two steel cases with him – one containing the last of his belongings, the other containing a mystery object he had been ordered to retrieve from a vault during the battle. Placing both securely in an overhead compartment, he wormed his way onto a seat, the front of his inflated suit pressed against the table.

                “Darius Shadehall?” a man asked, startling the engineer. Darius looked over his shoulder, as best as he could, to see a tall man stood beside his seat. His spacesuit was dark grey, not nearly as bulky, adorned with sleek metal plates. Etched into his right breastplate was a wireframe globe, surrounded by a wreath of stars, a winged dagger running down the centre of the golden emblem – the emblem of the United Nations Armed Forces.

                The man himself was aged; no amount of medicine could hide that fact. The corners of his earth-brown eyes were wrinkled, not smooth, and creases ran across the man’s forehead. His voice was crisp, his accent giving away his Britannic heritage, his olive skin slightly browner than the humans of Aycilon who Darius were more familiar with. “Is that correct?” he asked a second time.

                “Yes,” Darius simply responded.

                “I understand the Chief Architect relayed my order directly to you in strict confidence?”

                Rannard Helimoore, the Chief Architect of the Emerald Fields, had been Darius’ superior since they landed on the planet. Until his untimely death during yesterday’s battle, Rannard had been one of his closest friends and had vouched for each of Darius’ promotions. Minutes before he was shot dead, he had suddenly demanded that Darius head into the vault beneath the colony’s control centre and retrieve an ‘item of great importance’ from one of the safes.

                “Yes, the old handle? It’s in that box,” he gestured to one of the unassuming steel cases.

                The soldier beside him sat down on the other side of the table, placing his detached helmet aside and resting his hands atop each other. He gave Darius a stern look. “You opened it up?”

                “Do you mind telling me what’s going on,” Darius snapped back and leaned forward slightly. His irritation was clear, anger for the loss of his home and job welling to the surface. “I’ve just watched half of my life vanish before my fucking eyes and all of my colleagues lose their heads, and I’ve just about had enough of being kept in the dark.”

                A moment of silence fell over them and the soldier sat upright. “Very well,” he said finally. “I’m Aydan Liritus, Field Marshal of the First Field Armyand Praetor of Aycilon. I asked the Chief Architect to secure this object so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, and so that it can be returned to Aycilon for safekeeping.”

                “And what is it?” Darius pressed on.

                The Field Marshal bristled, his right hand curling into a tight ball. His unblinking stare became a little colder. “An old artefact of Ayciel origin – one that I would have preferred to have left alone on Mars, rather than run the risk of having someone lay eyes upon it. That risk clearly didn’t pay off.”

                Another tense silence filled the gap between his answer and the next question. “Why?”

                “Void his tickets,” Aydan said, not to Darius but to another soldier standing by the entrance to the carriage. The other soldier nodded and turned his back, heading into the next carriage along.

                “Are you fucking serious?” Darius spat, slamming his fists down on the edge of the table, leaning forward as much as possible. “Is this actually some sort of joke?”

                “You were planning to return to Beryl, weren’t you?”

                Darius stared at him in furious silence.

                “You’ll be coming to Bulwark instead, aboard the Calderon, not the evacuation planes. Unfortunately for you, opening the containers and seeing for yourself what was inside has put you in more danger than actually fighting the invaders. You and it have some inexplicable connection now, making you a highly valuable target for more than just the Cetus High Command.”

                “What ‘connection’?”

                “For the rest of your life, Darius, you will be subconsciously drawn to the relic. How or why that’s the case, I can’t possibly tell you. I’d reckon that nobody could tell you,” Aydan leaned back and shrugged at the raging man nonchalantly. “Fortunately for you, on the other hand, we performed background checks. We know everything there is to know about you, Darius; in fact, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we know more about you than you know about yourself. Everyone you’ve ever met, everywhere you’ve ever been, everything you’ve ever seen. You’ve never met someone from Tau Ceti. You’ve never met someone who succumbed to corrupting voices from the past. We know everything you’ve ever read – especially books on military and political sciences. Quite unique for an engineer, I have to say; usually it is historians that delve into the former of the two. We know that you’re also quite experienced with a beam rifle.”

                “What do they have to do with anything?”

                “Firstly, it means you’re a solid candidate for being conscripted, as an officer, into the Armed Forces,” Aydan began.

                “You can fuck right off,” Darius growled, starting to wriggle his way out of his seat again.

                “By extension, that means you have a chance to escape an unfortunate ‘disappearance’,” Aydan added coldly.

                Darius retreated into his seat again, now faced with an unknown fate. “That’s it then? You just want me conscripted?” he asked. Aydan nodded. “Why?”

                “For the safety of the relic,” Aydan said, “and yourself. Of course, you don’t really have a choice.”

                “I don’t,” Darius agreed. He felt himself slowly edge forward on his seat as the train began to slow. The lifeless husks of prefabricated buildings passed by silently, a thin haze hanging about the city-colony of Elysium. A mile away, occasionally visible through the buildings, a transport rocket with the same emblem of the Armed Forces waited on a floodlit launch pad. “I accept.”

2: The Covenant of Ethria

Greater Aycilon, Earth

22nd November 2363 A.D.

 

 

Flat lowlands gave way to serrated mountain ridges. Fields gave way to trees, and then again to boulders. Quaint villages turned to faceless stone towers perched on steep hillsides. The sleek maglev train cut its way through the lowlands and wound its way into the cloudless heights, if only for less than an hour, before diving once more into the humid jungle that spanned the northeast coast of Aycilon. For as far as the eye could see, the jade canopy spread into the distance, broken here and there by clusters of silver towers.

                In the latter half of the twenty-first century, in a period of wars and climate change, the vast continent of Aycilon had violently imposed itself on the South Pacific. It filled the great emptiness between Australasia and South America, flooding vast portions of those continents in the process, filling it with a landmass alien to mankind, as though it had been torn from a storybook and placed haphazardly on the planet.

                With it came a number of species, most significantly of all the Ayciels. Akin to humans in appearance, the Ayciels had a natural affinity for the manipulation of magic which permeated the continent and the ability to communicate by words without language. They had developed a transcendental language of their own, coherent to all species which had themselves developed a spoken language, and through that they were able to express themselves in the hundreds of languages and dialects which mankind had developed in their absence on Earth.

                The sheer impossibility it all, to a human mind, would typically be at the forefront of one’s mind just hours before a meeting with the hundreds of Ayciel landowners, administrative staff, heroes and – of course – the venerable Aycielas Verderen himself. Not today. General Darius Shadehall paced along the illuminated aisle marked the long axis of the carriage, his hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed. To his side was Praetor Liritus, seated patiently, staring out at the near-black mass of foliage.

                “We’re wasting our time,” Darius repeated himself for perhaps the tenth time that day. “The United Nations doesn’t even represent half of the administrative regions of Aycilon. Even if the Paragons of those regions were to vote in favour of our motion they could be easily be out-voted by the Paragons from other regions. That isn’t even taking into account the imbalanced of magistrates across the country.”

                “Sit down, Darius.”

                Darius sat but his protesting went on with all its futility and desperation. “We might make up for it with votes from the Outer Colonies, sure. The Saturnian and Jovian colonies have sent every available delegate, I am told.”

                “Darius, you waste your breath,” Aydan said wearily. A small, pitying smile flashed over his wrinkled face. The years were catching up on him and no bioengineering could hide the centennial’s age. “If we aren’t here to gain some political victory this afternoon then we’re here to warn the Ayciels – subtly! – that the United Nations is failing in the exact manner that it had done thirty years ago.”

                A concerned look further wrinkled the Praetor’s face but Darius remained, outwardly, unaffected. Aydan was right, even if blunt. Economic growth was stalling again; the Earthen Alliance once again dominated the United Nations with Earth-centric, egalitarian policies for which they were hated among the colonies, who felt the brunt of its poor economic plans; and unrest was growing in the fringes of society. Worse still, unrest was growing on Earth, and already illegitimate factions were declaring themselves independent from the overburdened state.

                “But half of Aerospace Defence controls Tau Ceti, and field armies seven through twelve have boots on the ground there. You’re worried about revolt from a handful of shell-shocked loyalists?” Darius asked in an almost-disgusted tone.

                Aydan scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Pah. Hardly,” he said and looked out of the window once more. The curved walls and roofs of glassy buildings, navy blue from top to bottom in the canopy shade, passed by in one undetailed blur for a few minutes. “Six field armies divided between two worlds and eight fleets waiting in orbit are not easily overcome from below. Every surface-to-orbit missile built during the time when the United Nations was influential in Tau Ceti is accounted for and the surface is combed almost daily for pockets of resistance. We will not see an uprising there ever. Ever! No, Darius, I’m not worried about loyalists. I’m worried about activists – terrorists, I should call them! – on Earth. Here, on Aycilon, from Highlake to Bulwark.”

                And Darius brushed that off too. “Again, Praetor, the Institute of Counterterrorism is at its strongest. Not a single day goes by where a plot isn’t crushed, but not a single day goes by where the people of Earth come close to danger. Not even for a moment. Your military council handled events with extreme efficiency after you overthrew the Earthen Alliance in the thirties and you set the Planetary Union up for the most progressive five year period in human history.”

                Aydan nodded modestly. “I give you that, but –“

                “Naturally we live in unstable times, Praetor, but without the military we might be under the thumb of Cetus Loyalists. The economy owes its strength to our leadership – past, present and future – and society owes its cohesion to the endless efforts of the branches of the United Nations,” Darius sounded prideful and allowed himself a confident, thin smile.

                “Yes, but –“

                “Branches that wouldn’t exist were it not for our hand in the Planetary Union’s dealings after the –“

                “Will you let me speak, Darius?” Aydan’s voice raised a little, but the aging man did not anger himself over the spiel coming from his subordinate, who fell silent promptly. “The Planetary Union needs to be in power again; the Earthen Alliance are inefficient and short-sighted. We failed to keep them in power and for that we’re letting society – which, may I point out, owes us nothing – slip back into the dark. Have you not visited some of our cities lately? Those out in the desert especially – Escarpment and Karelith come to my mind – have been experiencing water and electricity shortages for the last three months. Electricity shortages! In the twenty-fourth century! Everything from a camping generator to a battleship runs on nuclear fusion and yet, somehow, these cities are left in the dark for minutes at a time.

                “And why is that? Perhaps it is because civilian power stations are forced to run on only the necessary output level so that resources can be saved? The ‘Power Waste Act’ enforced six months ago by the Earthen Alliance, if you recall. Or perhaps it is because the energy infrastructure in this cities gets little maintenance and is even left to decay, to break down entirely, because the local governments do not have the resources to spare?

                “It’s all well and good saving resources but the people are still seeing no progress in other sectors. The last free migration wave to the colonies was fifty years ago. The last major housing project was ten years ago. Education still isn’t free and I somehow doubt it ever will be. Great heavens, even these sectors have had cuts in recent years. There isn’t a single sector which has been the target of increased funding on a truly significant scale and, truly, only the military has remained out of the hands of the state – as it should be!”

                Darius digested the elder man’s rant quickly, sucking on his teeth. “And you think the Planetary Union can pick things up again?”

                “If they can stay in power long enough, yes.”

                “But they won’t.”

                “Why is that?”

                “The Union is far less appealing to the citizens of Earth. Why would citizens vote for a political party who wants to reach out and help the colonies, leaving them to progress just as slowly as the rest? People are greedy and seek to look after themselves; this is fundamental human behaviour, as ingrained as the need to wage war, even,” he said, then added: “And of course, industry hates the Planetary Union. Every motion at the General Assembly to increase corporate tax is shot to ribbons by lobbyists. You remember, of course, when the Union demanded a referendum on increased corporate tax? I’ve never seen such a poor display of neutrality in the media.”

                “What’s with the sudden scepticism, Darius? You were in full support of this evening’s motion until we left Bulwark.”

                “Scepticism?” Darius echoed and an expression of surprise fleeted over his face, quickly disappearing again as he reviewed the last few minutes in a mere second. He laugh shortly, dryly, with understanding. “Don’t confuse scepticism and support, Praetor. I’m in favour of this democratic approach to what is very distinctly a second coup d’état against the Earthen Alliance, especially since I think the first one made the Planetary Union a lot less legitimate to civilians. Perhaps the –“ he paused to consider the next words and the two men shared a look of amusement, curiosity and surprise (to varying degrees) as they were spoken, “- supreme legitimacy of the Ayciels will put the peoples’ minds to rest over the matter.”

                “Supreme legitimacy, yes,” Aydan murmured, rolling the words around in his mouth, watching yet another city pass by. Then, just as quickly as the mountains gave way to the rainforest the rainforest gave way to the mountains. The train listed to either side as it followed the curvature of the track and climbed the mountains again.

 

Ekkeris Fell was a small city or a plain mountain – which of the two it was really depended on the context of the conversation. In this case, it was the city that was the subject and it had the undivided attention of both the General and the Praetor. How a city so small could emanate such an aura of grandeur was a mystery to the minds of men.

                Upon the mountain’s southern face was something that could be described as a palace with extensive living quarters. In actuality, it was the capital city of the Ayciels and one of the oldest on the continent. The scale and complexity of the city was, like the land it had been raised out of, fantastical, and the few records detailing the period of time spanning its construction (which conflicted with themselves) could not be considered true by a sane person.

                A single road, four lanes wide and bordered by the magnetic train track, fed through the only gate into the walled city. Behind that outer wall pink and white rooftops climbed a steady slope to the next wall, even taller than the first, and behind that the rooftops swept upwards to another wall, and behind that the rooftops swept upwards to a final wall. Each wall marked the edge of a great platform carved out of the mountain, each platform smaller than the last, until at last only a single building loomed over the glass domes and colourful rooftops. That last building, partially built into the cleft that the city appeared to spill out of, was constantly illuminated by the Sun from dusk till dawn and throughout the day a subtle band of colour – starting at red in the morning and violet at sunset, progressing through orange to green to indigo – fell upon the city below, following the Sun in its arc across the sky.

                The band was ultramarine now, a hint of palatinate purple forming at the edges, and civil twilight was just a few hours away. By the time the meeting in the palace – that which cast its time-telling glow on the homes of its subjects – would finish it would no doubt be dark outside.

                Drifting lazily through the gates of the city, the whir of coolant in the pipes under the train gave way to the soft, irregular grinding of metal wheels upon the track below, the electromagnets on the underbelly of the sleek vessel shutting down as the station approached. Darius looked outside and despaired internally, since no matter how wonderful the city of the Ayciels was their efficiency never really gave him any time to take in its beauty. A dozen figures, shrouded in golden cloaks that could very well pass off as being made of actual gold, waited on the platform.

                “Efficient as always,” Aydan murmured and Darius breathed a sigh of relief, no longer feeling alone in his thoughts. The two men rose from their seats and pulled cloaks of their own, absolute black and embroidered with silver patterns at the edges, about their shoulders, fastening them to the ceremonial polished-silver breastplates which closely resembled in-service armour.

                Outside, one of the Ayciels greeted them politely, removing the hood of his cloak. Like the human visitors, the Ayciel also wore ornate armour beneath the reflective fabric, though this armour was far more extravagant. Layer upon layer of metal plates neatly lay upon each other and covered every inch of his figure from the neck down, the edges of which were inscribed with esoteric hieroglyphs that surely could not have been crafted by anything other than a laser printer. One thickly-armoured hand was rested upon the pommel of a sword which had apparently seen use in actual combat, albeit long ago, and partially obscured by the cloak was an object most out of place on his person – a dark grey handgun from a human production line.

                The Ayciels were a touch shorter than Darius, Aydan and the various delegates which had come with them. Their faces were soft but the appearance of their skin was hard, lightly tanned in colour and bearing the appearance of finely cracked clay. Some of them had long hair and others had short hair, but none were bald or close to bald. Some of them stood with squared shoulders and others slightly hunched over. Most startling of all were their blue eyes, almost radiant, a pattern of lines in their irises tracing out a faint polygon around their pupils. To some, they resembled finely-cut gemstones.

                And facing them were the men and women of the United Nations, particularly those under the service of the First Field Army. Their skin was tanned and smooth, their hair close-cropped, their armour far less extravagant but far more practical, even if useless in combat. Those men and women stood with square shoulders and straight backs, looking down upon their hosts. History indicated that this was not always the case and from that it was deduced that the Ayciels – as a species and as a society – advanced at a slower pace than humans did.

                The visitors were led away from the train station and through the cobbled streets of the city. They passed through plazas and forums where, from the street-side stalls and restaurants’ seating areas, the local Ayciels gave them a few moments of their curious attention. Younger Ayciels stopped to stare for a little longer before going about their business, and the few children on the streets were fully distracted by the mass of black-cloaked, olive-skinned giants passing by. In the upper levels of the city such attention was non-existent, for those living on the upper levels had watched the dark men pass by since midday.

                They arrived outside the palace after a long walk through the city. Formalities were already underway. Dozens of golden cloaks mingled with men and women in different coloured clothing. From the edge of the enormous courtyard, Darius could distinguish various groups of human delegates. Standing by a sprawling chestnut tree were the Saturnian delegates, wearing a yellow sash across their tunics, which themselves were coloured based on the moon they came from: silver represented Enceladus, beige represented Titan and black represented Iapetus.

                Then there were the Jovian delegates with their red sashes and powder blue tunics, collected in the shade under an ornate marquis, standing out of the intense summer Sun. Seated on the large circular lawn which dominated the middle of the courtyard were the delegates from Psyche, Ceres and Lutetia, wearing sleek mechanical boots and back braces to help them stand upright in Earth’s gravity, a hundred times stronger than the gravity of their home colonies.

                Finally there were there Martian delegates in their twin white sashes and crimson tunics, each wearing a circlet of jagged metal, a tradition symbolising the destruction of their homes in the war thirty years previous. Among them were the Lunar delegates in all-white gowns, the blue embroidery of the United Nations insignia stitched onto the back.

                Between the human delegates were Ayciels, outnumbering the humans two-to-one, mostly identical in dress and varying only in the details of their faces. A few of the Ayciel women wore many-layered dresses in place of armour, and a few of the men chose to wear furs and leather.

                “General Shadehall,” an Ayciel greeted him. Darius glance aside and found that Aydan had been consumed by conversation elsewhere, then giving a nod in return.

                “Crown Paragon,” Darius returned politely. The edges of this one’s armour was more colourful than others, adorned with artistic streaks of crimson. A number of amulets hung from his neck. The Crown Paragon of the Ayciels was second only to their ‘king’ and served as his chief advisor and closest ally. For as long as the position had existed, Aurrus Silverbane was the Crown Paragon. “You’re shorter than I remember,” he added jestingly.

                Aurrus’ lips twitched in an amused smirk. Darius’ comments were expected but were long-exhausted, so he disregarded it entirely and continued on his own accord. “It is good to see you, General. I hope there were no delays on the rail?”

                “Of course not. Your magistrates run a tight shop.”

                “That is good,” Aurrus clapped his hands together. “And where is General Falheim this evening? We are due to start and I have not seen him yet.”

                “The General weighed down by preparations for the military options in the west next month.”

                Aurrus nodded slowly, his pale lips folding inwards into a thin line. The Ayciel’s face was gaunt, aged, but his eyes were sharp unlike Aydan’s. The signs of an unnaturally long life were clear but the radiance of a sharp mind in its prime were there in the sapphire gems which stared back at Darius. “As he should be. What about Haytham Ashborn?”

                “The President?” Darius laughed suddenly and shook his head. “Why would he attend a council where the topic is his removal from office?”

                “To defend his position, naturally.”

                Darius opened his mouth to speak but was cut short by the single toll of a bell. The air wavered as it rang out over the courtyard, the sound cascading down into the city below, and finally the doors of the palace were opened.

                Past the great metal doors and the marble antechamber was the great hall. The hall was a similar size to the courtyard outside, the ceiling a hundred meters overhead and domed. Everything was made of polished white granite or marble, trimmed with gold and silver in the most perfect of designs. Circular stained-glass windows let the sunlight outside through, refracted by deliberately placed spheres of almost transparent crystal to illuminate the room in a myriad of colours.

                Ancient wooden benches were arranged in a semi-circle, the opening of which faced towards a plain stone plinth dominating a third of the room. Stairs were carved into it and, at the top of those, was the palatial throne, the pinnacle of the Ayciels’ extravagance. Whilst their king may not wear a crown, the sprawling boulder which had been shaped into a near-heavenly seat was perhaps a great replacement as the symbol of his sovereignty. It was as though the palace was built around the throne, just as it seemed that the palace was oozing out of the mountainside, a few marble slabs melding into a gritty rocky surface. Protruding from the surface were crystals twice as long as a man was tall, arranged neatly - not by the hands of a craftsmen – to point away from the king’s seat, a pillar of such the same translucent mineral rising out of the backrest.

                For many humans who looked upon the throne it was the fan of shimmering spikes that inspired awe. For Ayciels, however, it was the single ruby as large as a man’s head that had been placed in a socket less than a meter above the king’s head.  The scarlet rock radiated a light of its own and even the air around the arcane gemstone quivered. Above all it was this stone, this crown jewel, which gave Aycielas Verderen the divine right to rule over the land, for three-hundred years had passed since he had personally taken it from the demon-infested city of Eclipsion. It was this that gave the throne its name, the Throne of Eclipsion, even though Eclipsion itself was two thousand miles away.

                The delegates sat down at their designated benches and waited, then waited some more. Despite the efficiency of Ayciels outside the palace, business inside the palace apparently ran at a completely different pace to the world beyond its walls. With all the time in the world to spare, King Aycielas wandered into the great hall, silently down the aisle which divided the semi-circle of benches in two, and took his seat on the Throne of Eclipsion.

                King Aycielas Verderen, physically, was indistinguishable from any other Ayciel. His face, like many in the congregation before him, was aged whilst his mind was sharp. He wore golden armour, left unpolished by choice, each of the various dents and scratches on its once-immaculate surface telling its own story. Affixed to one pauldron was the upper half of a beast’s skull, bleached white, under which a beige cloak spilled out.

                “Let this session of the Covenant of Ethria be started, then,” he said the phrase with a plain tone, having said it thousands of times before. His voice carried across the great hall and high up into the ceiling. “This council has been gathered to determine our collective response to the motion proposed by the Praetor of the Kingdom. Let us first reach a proper understanding of events before we proceed with our council; Praetor, would you kindly summarise the events which have led to your motion?”

                “Of course, my liege,” Aydan replied promptly and rose to his feet. He turned to face the rest of the Covenant of Ethria, which were the collection of Aycilon’s Paragons, human military commanders and political representatives. “Esteemed Covenant, as Praetor of Aycilon I speak on entirely neutral grounds. The evidence is overwhelming; that is, the evidence that the government of the United Nations since the forties has failed to serve correctly. Corrupted through-and-through, the Earthen Alliance has constantly failed society and the economy.

                “Civil unrest is growing on the fringes of society and, worse still, in Aycilon. A major reform of the United Nations – a reform of the kind that we saw in thirties – will be required in the near future. From now until then the safety of civilians in every inhabited part of the galaxy is threatened,” he paused. The Ayciels among the Covenant murmured in protest between themselves whilst the human delegates waited patiently, listening intently. He raises his voice. “That doesn’t exclude Ayciels. Terrorists funded by splinter factions – such as those in Ilydria and Korfjord, further afield in the Levant and in various Outer Colonies – will do all that they can to weaken the resolve of the United Nations.

                “The incumbent government can do nothing about it. They are only interested in the well-being of Earth and even then they fall short of their goals. History has shown that the Planetary Union can stall the ongoing decay and bring normality back to the state.”

                One of the Provincial Paragons (an Ayciel member of the Covenant responsible for overseeing the management of a particular region of Aycilon) partially rose from his seat and raises his voice above the others. The Ayciels, despite their respectful nature in their rigid society, were typically the impatient and impulsive members of the Covenant’s meetings. “Then this does not concern us!” she declared. “We have never involved ourselves in the politics of humans and if times are so uncertain then it is the wrong time to involve ourselves.”

                “Revered one, splinter factions will not discriminate between Ayciels and humans. If their actions will force your hand they will have an even greater impetus to act against you and yours,” Aydan responded directly.

                The argument passed back and forth between the two for a short while before Aycielas silenced the Covenant, tapping against the stone beside him. “State your motion, Praetor,” he ordered as the hum and babble of dozens of private conversations died away to a few whispers.

                “As the Kingdom holds the right to reinstate its sovereignty over human-controlled provinces, I propose that the Provincial Paragons retake control of the human provinces and immediately grant control to the Planetary Union and the United Nations Armed Forces, where applicable.”

                “In essence, you are requesting that we overthrow your current government through archaic rights?”

                “In essence, yes.”

               

Debates carried on into the twilight, until the great hall was illuminated by phosphorescent crystals which had absorbed sunlight throughout the day and were now re-radiating it in a subtle pink glow. Politeness had given way to near-hostility. The Covenant was divided and then divided again over the matter and, at some point in the evening, there appeared to be several hundred varying opinions on the matter – a whole spectrum from vehement denial of the motion to desperate acceptance.

                Members of the Covenant approached Aycielas Verderen over the meeting, hoping to influence him towards a course of action. The king listened patiently, smiled faintly, thanked them for their wisdom and dismissed them. For the entirety of the council he sat patiently on the throne and waited.

                “Aurrus,” his voice rang out clearly, suddenly, and every pair of eyes in the Covenant turned towards the only seated figure in the room. The Crown Paragon navigated his way out of the gathering and stopped on the penultimate step before the king. “Your opinion?”

                Aurrus lowered his voice so that only Aycielas could hear him. “The Planetary Union is certainly the best party that the humans can install at the head of the United Nations,” he began, then bit his tongue and clicked it against the roof of his mouth. “The citizens of the human provinces may not resist the Earthen Alliance being overthrown, initially, but history sets to repeat itself. They will vote the Planetary Union out within twenty years, I am told with almost one-hundred per cent certainty, and a third effort to bring the Union to power is expected to bring about civil war.”

                “Do you feel it is our duty to intervene?”

                “Mankind has aided us greatly in the past centuries, from helping us to secure what remains of our nation to lifting us into an age of harmony between science and magic. Though we have aided them in spreading into space – which we had never considered! – I cannot help but feel we owe them something.”

                “Do you feel it is our duty to intervene with their politics?” Aycielas repeated and added, insistently.

                The Crown Paragon sighed heavily and clicked his tongue again. “No. I do not think it is wise to appear as overlords to their laymen.”

                The king waved a hand to dismiss him. A troubled expression creased the earthen skin of his face. “Thank you, Aurrus,” he said. The other Ayciel re-joined the anxious Covenant in the other half of the great hall, who watched him descend expectantly. Their eyes returned to the king as he rose to his feet.

                “The motion to aid the Planetary Union into power has been turned down,” he announced simply. This time, the human delegates were the impatient ones. “By my authority as the chosen sovereign of the Ayciels, I hold true to the respect I have given to our human counterparts since the end of our last great war. The Ayciels shall never impose themselves upon the freedom or sovereignty of mankind.

                “Praetor, I wish you every success in mitigating the damage that the Earthen Alliance might do to the United Nations. Know that in the darkest times, the Ayciels will stand by you and yours. Let this session of the Covenant of Ethria be ended.”