Anthem's Fall

Chapter Forty Three

Chapter Twelve

Vengelis

The hours monotonously and claustrophobically passed as the Harbinger I traveled onward through the vastness of space toward the distant Filgaia. As the initial shock of their plight waned, a fog of bleak misery descended upon the living quarters and narrow hallways of Master Tolland's ship.

Darien was sitting in the command deck fruitlessly attempting to disengage the autopilot of the Harbinger I. The Royal Guard found the computer system of the craft to be remarkably complex, and far beyond his limited comprehension of programming. Pral Nerol himself had designed the Harbinger I, and Darien knew he had no hope of prevailing over the brilliant scientist's mind. Any attempt to divert their course back toward Anthem seemed to be utterly futile. There would be no impressing Vengelis with his technical abilities. Darien gave up and slumped back into his chair, irritably pushing the control console away from him with a mammoth palm.

"Take it easy there. I wouldn't risk breaking any of those controls if I were you," Lord General Hoff said as he walked into the command deck. Hoff had to lower his huge stature through the doorframe, his head taking up half the width of the threshold.

Darien regarded Hoff quietly. "I was trying to turn off this damn autopilot."

"Ah yes," Hoff yawned, and winced from a broken rib he had received during their spar with Vengelis on the side of Mount Karlsbad. "Did Vengelis wake up yet?"

Darien nodded. "He woke late last night."

"I take it he didn't appreciate that we initiated the locked autopilot?"

"That would be an understatement," Darien said. "I thought he was going to kill me when I told him it wouldn't disengage until we reached Filgaia."

"I expected as much. Don't worry, once he cools down he'll forgive us. Vengelis would have been angrier had we not followed Tolland's orders." Hoff sat down in one of the command seats, which yielded considerably under his bulk. The two warriors looked incongruously out of place as they sat in the command bridge. The Harbinger I had clearly been constructed for the transport of Royal sons, and the two giants looked like adults sitting in a child's playhouse, their broad hips extending beyond the seats and their hands larger than the keypads themselves.

The abnormal height and robust musculature of many contemporary Imperial Army soldiers lacking Royal descent, especially those holding positions in the Imperial First Class, were the consequence of a merciless custom. Although a number of Royal and well-bred lineages—including house Epsilon, Bregarion, Tolland, Grahman, Nerol, Prill and many others—meticulously recorded and maintained their inherited Sejero purity, countless lesser families did not. The ancient Sejero, their sanctified ancestors who had risen amid the mushroom clouds of the Primus race's darkest hour to stand against the brutal technological firepower of the Zergos, had been few in number. Separated by long wilting years of time, a vast majority of the modern Primus population only had trace amounts of the transcendent and unnatural Sejero traits remaining in their blood. Every year more sons and daughters were born weak, ineffectual—some even lacking the gift of flight and others susceptible to bleeding from simple wounds.

The resolution to their concerns surfaced in the form of eugenics. Only the largest and most powerful of the warrior classes were allowed children, and spousal selection fell under the strict jurisdiction of the Imperial War Council. Though the draconian efforts ultimately did little to preserve or revive dwindling Sejero purity, the venture did give rise to the unnatural size and muscle mass of many lesser bloodlines. Both Hoff and Darien, along with most of the Imperial First Class ranks were the children of equally gigantic parents, and their parents before them, going back generations.