A Shifting Land

Epilogue

Fingers tapped, drumming against sheer metal. Each hit sparked, burning pits into the steel. Computers whirred, whining merrily along their shadowy wall. Something had pulled him to this room. To this seat. And it certainly wasn't the corpse on his floor. 

Ting! 

He clenched his fist, eyes drawn to the screen in question. Planets buzzed, each one lit with a vast array of colour. His colours. His minds, stretching across the universe. Except one.

His pride, his favourite little farm, yet now it sat there, shrouded in darkness. The Dukari homeworld. He grinned, tracing the outline of the planet. "It only took your kind 200 000 years, but what was your cost? Who did you choose to kill?"

The male drew a shallow breath, his teeth gleaming as he snapped them shut. His fist met the metal, crumpling the sheet with a single blow. "You don't have enough of your kind left. You have no Alpha heirs. I would know, I tracked your only 2 last generation and neither have reported any live kits yet." 

He reached out, his mind twisting and turning as it wove across space. It slammed into a wall, forcing him back three steps. A Dukari made wall. A wall he recognized well, traced with his signature energy. Energy that he had left in specific minds. So why was it here. How was it here?

He blinked, one hand against his forehead, the throbbing in his mind making the room spin. Someone. No, not just someone, one of the ones from last generation, had blocked him. Him! Ripped that signature energy from their minds and- He took a deep breath, rage burning through him. One of them had to have hidden abilities, abilities like his.

Turien snarled softly, "You. DARE. To. Take. My. Toys?" He spun, catching his cloak in a spin as he drapes it across his shoulders. He stalked, teleporting into his ship with ease. 

Guards moved fast, quickly clearing the ship for take-off, lest they disturb the beast known as their boss.

He launched, burning through many shields, alarms screaming at him as he erupted into space. 

His fingers caressed the controls, hesitating for only a moment before triggering the teleportation sequence.

He stared, his eyes wide. A single sad alarm alerted him to what he could see. Warning, planetary failure imminent. No heat signature registered. 

"No shit." He muttered, waving a hand. "THERE'S NOTHING HERE!" 

He fired a missile, it's flares lighting up across the vast expanse of space. Holes hovered, torn where there had once been massive heat signatures. Planets lay dead, cold lumps of rock.

He threw himself back into his seat, teams quickly coming to his exact point. They scanned, harvesting every section of the solar system, searching for anything, anything at all that may give him an idea. Anything to trace at all. 

Silence. Empty promises. Not even a trace, a grain of sand, a particle of fuel. Nothing. Nada. 

Turien roared, tearing minds apart across every known world. He shivered, trembling with suppressed rage. How could someone simply move an entire solar system? His breath tore from him with a gusty exhale, for the first time in a long time he was lost. There was nothing to begin his search with, no traces left.  

"It's gone. Someone stole my planet."