Chronicles of the Aeons War, page 118
part #3 of The Omniverse Series
--Zohor “living wall” swarm attacks the fleet, decimating it.
27 “The End of the Beginning”
The war against the Zohor has reached a critical juncture: The Guardian forces have discovered the location of a secret Zohor stronghold and manufacturing complex. A successful strike against the stronghold will weaken the Zohor forces in the sector. As well, intelligence captured from the dead Zohor suggest valuable intelligence is kept within the stronghold. At the same time, a distress signal is received from Midian’s defence station.
--Grandmaster Benedict realizes that this is the mission on which he’ll die.
--Out of hate for his plans for her daughter, Allison “Confirms” this.
--Benedict begins devising strategy for the mission—and for his escape.
--Scouts report back on the strength of the Zohor swarm guarding the base.
--Zaiola begs Benedict not to go
--Benedict gives his final orders to DeQuar: to take command of The Queen’s Heart and return to defend Midian.
--The Guardian attack forces prepare to attack the Zohor stronghold.
--“Remember our bargain” conversation between Benedict and Allison.
28 “The Beginning of the End”
As the Guardian fleet regroup after the disastrous Zohor attack, making ready for their last assault against the Zohor, the animosity between Allison and Benedict becomes overt hostility, threatening to destroy everything.
--The fleet limps back to its staging area.
--Benedict decides a new strategy is needed.
--Allison confronts Benedict about her daughter.
--“Figure out how to save me and I’ll figure out how to save her.” Bargain between Benedict and Allison.
--Zohor reinforcements arrive at the central distribution station.
29 “In the last, alone”
Damaged and adrift, Grandmaster Benedict’s AIS unit is failing. He tries to restore power and wait for rescue, but he knows none is coming. Wounded during the attack when he jettisoned, Benedict recalls the battle and other moments from his life as he is dying.
30 “V is for Victory”
Using a single ship to get past the Living Wall and the Zohor Swarm, Allison and Benedict raid the central distribution station in preparation for the final assault.
--Benedict and Allison get past the blockade.
--Reaching the station they find the way open for them.
--At the heart of the station, they find Gabrielle waiting for them.
--Allison begs for Gabrielle’s release, offering herself in exchange.
--The Zohor agree to the switch.
--Allison infects herself with the Nimbus as she is “assimilated”.
--The Nimbus virus breaches the body/brain barrier and adapts itself in such a way as to infect the Zohor.
--Allison is ejected from the Zohor and vanishes
--Benedict and Gabrielle flee, as the Zohor begin to self-destruct.
--“The war is over!” DeQuar exclaims
--“It’s only just getting started. Now, we have to move against the Nimbus.” Benedict replies.
THE MYSTICAL FIVES
Because it was my favourite number as a kid, and because numeric symbolism has always had ties to major religions, I decided to invest Aeons War with recurring sets of five; this is just a partial list. Go back and re-read the behemoth and see how many more fives you can find!
Five Books to the Omniverse
Five sets of seven chapters (thirty-five) for the serial
Five Shrines in the Temple of the Way: Stone, Earth, Water, Star, Rose
Five Tribes of El-Ahur: Suphia, Phenex, Gesheol, Hadosh, Jibrail
The Five Mysteries: The Queen of Light and Sorrow, The Nai’Marak, The Rai’ha, The Hope, and The Grandmaster
Five Levels of development of Sentient Life: Self-Awareness, Empathy, Polyempathy (Hive Mind/Collectivity/Group Consciousness), Transcendence, Singularity (Sometimes called Unity)
Five Armies of the Suphia El-Ahur
Five Fleets of the Phenex El-Ahur (Two destroyed prior to or during the first Battle of Thalia)
Five Great Houses in Landing society
Five Houses in each Great House
Five Families in each House
Five principle Religions on Midian: Buddhist/Hindu offshoot; The Way of Light and Sorrow; Islam; Christianity; Judaism
Five Tiers to the city Olympus
Five Levels to each Tier
Five Levels to the Gesheol El Ahur village/town
Five El-Ahur genomes must be sampled to unlock the Gate to the City of Olympus. (10 hands of 5 fingers each!)
Five mountains make up the Crown of God surrounding the city of New Rome
Hidden Five on the path from the Mountains to the Keep: From Landing to the Djed, from the Djed to the Channels; from the Channels to the Valley; from the Valley to the City from the City to the Keep
Five members of the Jibrail Ruling Council, the Pentavirate (Says so right in the name)
Five Decision Engines controlling the Zohor
Five Meta-Fleets to fight the Decision Engines
AEONS WAR BRAIN FARTS
What follows, in no particular order, are bits and pieces that I wrote but cut out of Aeons War, because I couldn’t make them work. I liked them enough to save them, and now you can read them and judge for yourselves whether I was right or wrong to cut them. Each scene will be prefaced with a little note to give you context and make it easier to digest.
♦♦♦
This passage was about the Queen’s Ascension, when, according to religious canon, the young woman McQuire Allison was swallowed by the Old Ship and transformed into the Queen of Light and Sorrow. I really wanted to use it, I’d even imagined a grand ceremony similar to a Catholic High Mass, but I just couldn’t get it into the story without making it seem shoe-horned – Steve.
Four women were chosen and underwent the Tribulations. But only Allison survived. And this was how She was transformed. The Spirit of the Old Ship cured the Zohor Blood sickness in Her, and this was how She defeated Death. But the agony of the cure, the pain of being transformed was Hers and Hers to bear alone. And She suffered unbearably, screaming and crying out as the Spirit of the Old Ship reshaped the clay of Her body. Alone, She faced agony and fear. Alone, She faced the learning of what She had become. Alone, She defeated the Zohor. Alone, She took the Passengers to Midian. For the Queen of Light and Sorrow always suffers alone, even as we are all joined to her.
♦♦♦
This was going to be part the original prologue. I cut it because it completely derailed what I was trying to establish, and, ultimately, it was also too much information to reveal to the reader, too soon; namely, it dealt with Yeung Acshah’s birth, and how she was an El-Ahur. You can also see where a few early versions of character names and the name of the El-Ahur came from – Steve.
It was a beautiful ceremony; one not played out merely in custom, but with feeling, with joy. Yeung Elizabeth and Gray Daniel were married. They had known one each other for years; they were so young and in love. And so, the Firstborn and the High Priests knew this Joining was blessed, for the Ahura were there to offer their blessings and prayers to the Mysteries.
Yeung Acshah was born twelve years later. Again, Decker Marius was there to witness the event, from the hospital’s observation theatre. Otherwise the delivery was a private affair between mother and father, and the team of healers who made sure the delivery was easy and painless. The moment of her conception, Yeung Acshah had been immediately recognized by the Ahura, who knew one of their own in the newborn baby girl. She did not cry, instead opening her eyes wide to look around at the world outside her mother’s womb, her still-feral newborn mind instinctively reaching out to the other minds around her. Yeung was able to recognize every living mind around her, but she zeroed in on the minds of the Ahura, able to sense that these minds would be able to communicate with her. She did this without any of the Ahura sending a conscious thought her way.
Their minds appeared in her imagination as orbs of silver-white light, interconnected by diaphanous strands of luminous silver. Yeung knew that she was part of this web of minds, and the knowledge of this became her first conscious thought. Decker Marius and his comrades watched Yeung Elizabeth and Gray Daniel raise Yeung Acshah and her brothers and sisters. They watched as Acshah became a particularly observant little girl with almond eyes and dark red hair. They watched as she began school, always the first to ask a question and almost always the first to have an answer. Yeung Acshah was a gentle child, making friends easily as she discovered new things every day with family, with friends, in school and in temple.
Like all good followers of the Way, Acshah knew the stories of the Old Ship, of the Prophecies of the Nai’Marak, of the Queen of Light and Sorrow and their arrival on Midian. Acshah loved listening to her mother or her father read her the stories as a child, closing her eyes and imagining vivid scenes in her mind. The Ahura watched as Yeung Acshah grew older and joined the ranks of the acolytes of the Temple of the Way her eleventh birthday, the age of induction into the Temple.
Yeung Acshah had an affinity for history and a love of books. When she wasn’t in studies or performing chores with the other inductees, Yeung Acshah was alone in the library. Over the next four years she didn’t so much read the texts as she consumed them. Yeung loved the history of Humankind’s time on Midian, and she had read the works of authors both religious and secular. She disliked the texts on the Schism, finding the subjects of war, of Midianite fighting Midianite both tragic and oddly incomplete. She always sensed in the writings that some things had been omitted from the reporting of events that led to the Abrahamic followers breaking away from the Easterners and the followers of the Way. Though she couldn’t articulate it, Yeung Acshah felt as though history had been written around the secrets, and that there was a hole around whatever the historians had avoided disclosing.
As Yeung grew older, entering her late teens, she began to have more and more questions about more and more topics. Though she knew the ceremonies of the Temple, she constantly questioned their significance, their origins and their purpose. Yeung challenged her teachers’ opinions and often offered up her own interpretation of facts. She became more and more estranged from her religion, and at the age of twenty-one, Yeung Acshah quit the Temple.
It was a decision that caused a rift between her and her family, and the Ahura were saddened when Yeung left the family estate and headed north across the ocean to Tear. She spent the next several years establishing a life for herself in the city of New Bangalore. Though there were small communities of Abrahamics and the followers of the Way in Tear, the majority of its people followed the Eastern Traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, the Tao and Shinto. In general Tear was a secular society, all religions and traditions welcome among them. For the most part, Tear was a peaceful place. Yeung Acshah found work and a room in a community flat in the West End of New Bangalore, making friends with many of her flat-mates.
As she had grown up and grown away from her family and her religion, Yeung Acshah had forgotten or stopped believing in a great many things. As a child, she’d believed that she could sometimes see angels hiding among the normal people of Landing. Sometimes she saw angels in Temple, sometimes on the street. Eventually, however, Yeung grew out of believing in angels. She also stopped believing that she could sometimes hear people’s thoughts. She began to believe that the teachings of the Way were nothing more than fables and legends, exaggerated into religion with the passage of time. Given how things had ended with her family before she left for New Bangalore, Yeung neither missed the traditions of the Way, nor the society of Landing.
Yeung had no way of knowing that her rejection of those traditions and teachings brought her that much closer to the Ahura. Though they knew the tales and teachings of the Way were true, the Ahura did not want dogmatic followers among their number. The Ahura wanted, above all else, the open-minded, the imaginative, the visionary. They were the guardians of the people of Midian, the soldiers of the Queen. They could not afford blind devotion to faith or faction; their cause was too great for idealism or zealotry.
♦♦♦
This passage was meant to take place following the First Zohor Attack on Midian; before discovering she was El-Ahur, while waiting to be evacuated to the ships above, Yeung Acshah helps feed the refugees filling the Temple Compound. This takes place before the Queen is found, while the First Battle of Thalia is still being waged to buy time for the evacuation fleet. I decided to cut it for pacing reasons – Steve
Acshah volunteered to help with the evacuation; at Mother’s insistence, she was restricted to the Temple grounds until she came up in the evacuation roster. Acshah was put to work helping to coordinate the emergency kitchens set up to feed the flood of frightened and desperate refugees now gathered at Temple. The El-Ahur were already ferrying people up to the ships in confused hordes aboard densely-packed shuttles. Word was circulating that the Line had broken, that the Zohor were only hours away. Acshah didn’t know whether to believe it or not; she held out no hope and wrestled with no fear. These elements were all there within her, ebbing and flowing, gaining and losing influence over her, but she felt encapsulated from her own broken psyche. The nightmare world she’d woken into after the explosion hadn’t gone away, only gotten progressively more complex and more frightening. She was now striving to just make it through what she had been assigned to do. It felt like the only thing keeping her mind together was having something to do.
As she rushed from the hot, steaming kitchen hastily set up in the Hall of the Shrine of the Star to the eating area set up in its cooler inner sanctum, Acshah briefly wondered what Nima would think if he could see her overseeing what was essentially a giant restaurant; she who couldn’t even cook. Thinking of Kal and abruptly realizing he was likely dead in Tear hit Acshah in the stomach like a punch. She had to lean against the wall’s railing as she wondered after him, hating herself for sneaking away to Landing without telling him, leaving him behind when maybe if she’d have told him and let him come (as she knew he would have insisted upon), maybe he might still be alive. She squeezed her eyes shut over tears that came out nonetheless, seeping from her eyes and weeping down her face. She took deep breaths, trying to regain control; there was too much to do for too many people... if there was an after, if there was a later, she’d grieve then. These people needed her now; and now, she needed these people to keep from losing her mind.
She circulated, talking with each worker at each station personally, asking what, if anything, they needed. She circulated briefly through the crowd to meet with volunteers and survivors alike. She made her way back to the kitchens, to the line that was preparing boxed meals to be taken out into the camps and infirmary, to the refugees and volunteers who couldn’t make it to the mess. They were completing the last delivery of the night to the infirmary. The Line would be put to use feeding the people gathering here; they had found more survivors. After being cleared by triage, they were brought here for a hot meal. Fewer and fewer refugees were being found. Acshah dreaded when word would come in that the search and rescue was called off. She knew there were many more out there, still alive. And she feared that very few of them would see the rescue they were waiting for. She could imagine their terror, their growing dread as they began to realize that no help was coming.
♦♦♦
The El-Ahur revere the Queen of Light and Sorrow, and were originally far more religiously dogmatic than portrayed in Aeons War. This is a Boarding Ceremony as they are embarking the Ouroboros prior to departing Bloom’s Point Cut, again for pacing, and also because I wanted to get away from the idea that the El-Ahur were religious zealots and more into the idea that they were faithful servants of a living, flesh-and-blood God – Steve
They were assembled along the deck gantry that led from Bloom’s Point and into their ship. It was moored at the far end of the vast deck; ramps led from the gantry to dozens of airlocks in the portside hull of the Ouroboros. The ship loomed over them, lit by floodlights the size of skyscrapers along the dock. The Commodore and his senior officers stood on a podium in front of them. The crew was assembled by rank, according to department. Honoured guests sat to the left of the procession, facing the stage.
“We honour those who came before us,” Baxter said, “Bloom Margaret, who first came to this place seeking the Exodus of the Old League. Benedict Jack, who was lost in space and time before he could return here. Castaneda Nadia, who came here to form the first Starfleet of the El-Ahur. Castaneda Lucia, who followed her mother many long years later, to bolster the Phenex El-Ahur’s Starfleet. And we, who were sent down the Mountain and into space, by the Queen of Light and Sorrow.”
