I, Propitiator: "Chapter 12"

Chapter 12

Darkness cannot consume love because love itself generates that light which pierces darkness.

The Prime I awoke and telepathically reached Captain Lee. ‘Do not be dismayed. Commander Lewis died the way he wanted to, defending Itxaro from the explosion. He was still barely alive when the explosion when off and it was his telepathic call for help that told me what had happened, he knew you wanted to thank him. He was at peace when he swallowed what would have destroyed the ship.’

Captain Lee froze in the middle of the hallway as he had been walking back to his own room. The news of how his best friend had died was both so tragic and so beautiful that the captain finally allowed himself to cry openly. As he did, a crewman Cyaf came out of the ship comm. pad and played a soothing song which sounded much like what you’d imagine a water lily to sound like. The captain sat there in the middle of the hallway, sobbing and finally being able to grieve the loss of his dearest friend. Yet because he was able to, time would be able to heal his wounds from this and the captain would be able to lead the A.R.S. Zoelight into her most dangerous battle yet.

Oliver stood before Zurui for a second time. The blood red Z on his suit seemed to almost glow in a haunting manner. Zurui sighed, “I was hoping for someone else now in hind sight… however, you’ll have to suit my plans anyways… “Would you prefer chains or sedatives?”

Oliver looked about as confused as Zurui had been before Oliver arrived then he answered, “Um… chains?”

“Sedatives it is!” Zurui joyously shouted.

Meanwhile, while Zurui attempted to give Oliver the drug, we had reached the edge of the trap and were nearly outside the formation of ships. It was at this moment that Zurui’s eyes widened looking at Oliver’s charged tipir that was knocking the drug out of Zurui’s hands. Zurui shouted, “Such cunning is atypical of an I. You really should have joined me when you had the chance.”

Oliver then remembered a few things from Lieutenant Tam’s tactics and telepathically reached out to his tipir and caused it to fire on the consoles that controlled the ships. Oliver smiled and stated, “Yet it was not the path of love to bow down to evil.”

With that the tipir lashed out at Zurui forcing the master strategist to backflip, draw his energy staff, parry off the incoming strike and then run for Oliver. Now Oliver knew that Zurui also had a variety of other weapons on hand, under his coat and whatnot. So instead of trying to fight Zurui directly, Oliver ran through the ship, away from Zurui, while his tipir followed Zurui randomly firing in every direction, wreaking destruction on the ship from the inside. Eventually, Zurui stopped chasing Oliver and teleported to another ship, as the ship was now about to explode with all its shields still up. Zurui laughed happy with having led Oliver into what he thought was a trap, but Mom was still capable of penetrating Zurui’s shields despite the new adaptations Zurui had hoped would stop her. Upon returning to the ship, Oliver ordered David, “Fire at the ship Mom pulled me off of with the ion cannon, that should magnify and hasten the oncoming explosion, as soon as he does, Seraphina you’ll need to move us even faster than previously planned.”

Zurui watched the series of events unfold and realized that Oliver had probably gotten away from the explosion. In a furious rage of having lost to the Avners again, he sped his ships away trying to lessen the damage. By the time everything cleared, it was not clear to him where we had taken off to, frustrating him all the more. Yet where this would usually be where Zurui would swear to kill someone, he surprisingly didn’t instead he just reassembled his ship and went home for repairs.

Itxaro was overjoyed to finally see the A.R.S. Victory coming into visual range. The level of excitement that she celebrated it with was tremendous because to her it meant that the nightmare of Decion had really passed in every sense of the word. We pulled up alongside the A.R.S. Lighting as Mom teleported Mason, Oliver and me over. The moment we were in the presence of the Prime I, my heart melted. Whatever had been felt toward Daedalus seemed weak to what the Prime I resonated through my being. If being star-struck is somewhere between five and ten on a one to ten scale depending on the star, this was infinity. My mind didn’t know what to do with my body. So in wonder his presence captivated me and it seemed impossible to get over how majestically beautiful he was, is and will always be.

While my feet could not move me an inch, Itxaro directed Mason to the engine so he could help her with the final repairs to the A.R.S. Lightning. Oliver didn’t say a word, perhaps because the Prime I was telepathically talking to him about the situation. After a moment of silence, the Prime I spoke directly to me, “Seraphina Avner, Crowned Fiery Daughter of Light, it would be to my pleasure if Oliver should serve as commander on the A.R.S. Zoelight until we finally get back to the Sol System Space station. Would you be alright with that?”

Oliver must have been shocked to see the Prime I leaving the final decision to me and to be quite honest, every part of me wondered why he should care about what I even thought of this matter, so all that my body could manage was a simple nod to signify that there was nothing wrong with this plan. Then the Prime I addressed me again, “Seraphina, it would also be my desire to make Oliver the leading commander at the Sol System Space Station and my personal informant on all that occurs over there. Do you have any concerns with this?”

This time finding my voice was actually possible, though it still sounded quite paralyzed as the words faintly left my lips, “No, what you have said is good.”

By now Oliver seemed to get the idea of what the Prime I was doing or at least partly, though to me, this all seemed incredibly strange and frightening, yet enjoyable. Then, just as there was enough time for me to assume that the Prime I was done asking me questions, he proved my analysis wrong, inquiring, “Now what are your dreams within the resistance, Crowned Daughter of Light?”

Then it dawned on me that when he telepathically said crowned fiery daughter of light or some slight variant of it, he was calling me by what my name truly meant and restoring to it all the splendor that was there at birth. How did he know this of me? Better yet, why was it placed there? However, finding the answer to this mystery would have to be put on hold, since my mind had yet to even think of an answer for his question, so scrambling my thoughts together, “Um… Well, that hadn’t really crossed my mind in detail, but it should seem that the resistance needs people to help in all the ways unseen.”

The Prime I smiled with my response and then we took both ships to get back to the A.R.S. Zoelight.

Mason’s phone rang. He looked at the screen, the call was coming from Terra Lapsa, so he reasoned it had to be an I, as the Ies were the only race in the resistance stationed on Terra, Vytor and Cyafs didn’t blend in well enough. With slight hesitation he answered, “Hello?”

Gabriela’s voice sounded her usual cheeriness, which probably bugged Mason a little, as she said, “Zurui’s ship just cut right through I space, without slowing down or any heightened cloak. It should seem he’s taunting us.”

Mason was perplexed over many things, yet he started with what to me seemed the most illogical mystery, asking her, “Ok, so why are you telling me this?”

In hindsight, perhaps he didn’t realize he appeared to be an important figure to Gabriela, but the wording of his question stung her, yet she tried to mask this in her voice, “Well… uh… aren’t you with Commander Avner at the moment? Not to mention the Prime I?”

“Oh… right… is that all?”

Gabriela hesitated, then said, “Well, things are looking stormy over here, some of the Ies at the station are getting discouraged as a result of all of this, so it would help me to know when you all were gonna arrive so their minds could be put to ease and morale can return to decent levels.”

“Allow me a few moments to find a sensible estimate for you.”

“Of course,” she said.

Mason set the phone down, ran to the ship comm. panel and asked Oliver a few questions. Eventually, he came back to the phone and said, “We’ll probably get back to the station in seven to ten days, is that reasonable?”

“Yeah… one more thing, could you tell Oliver to call me when he has the time? Captain Dalton assigned me to cover some of his duties while you guys were gone, but making sense of Oliver’s organization patterns isn’t exactly easy.”

“Very well,” Mason said flatly.

“Good bye then.”

And after a similar farewell, Mason hung up the phone.