Interlude VIII

Admiral Lemitov sat in his private quarters upon the Khardashian, the imperial flagship of the human space force. While he was the only person in the room, he was not alone, at least not from an operational level. He was in emergency correspondence with that man, even now he hated having to deal with that individual, for while his methods showed results. The individual in question was almost more than he could take.

“Have you been able to get in contact with her?” Admiral Lemitov said, his tone not betraying a hint of his personal insights.

“I have not. It seems that most of our contact have gone dark.”

Hearing that a myriad of calculations flowed through the Admiral’s mind, as he tried to make sense of everything that was happening.

“Do we know what caused this reset?” The Admiral asked.

“No.”

“Well, are there any leads at least?”

“We have our suspicion.”

“Suspicion? Who?”

“Shouldn’t that be obvious admiral. The same person who now sports a pair of Endarian Guardian wings, despite not having sported such wings previously.”

“No, you cannot count that. Those blasted trees exist outside of this, so of course they would hold him to a standard that was not consistent with this timeline.” Admiral Lemitov said.

There was a pause as the two thoughts about the situation. The person that the Admiral was talking to, this Being-X had to pause at that. Then with the most imperceptible of nods, he found himself agreeing with the Admiral’s deduction.

“You are right. For the time being, we cannot assume it was the boy. Speaking of which, what is his current path?”

“He is being discharged from the military, as we speak.”

“What about the court case?”

“That didn’t happen. This time he came back, and the ship was filled with all the missing certs. He is getting out with a severance package of 660 certs.” Admiral Lemitov admitted.

“660? Can he even use them?”

“I don’t know. I just know he can keep them. At the very least, he could sell them if he needed cryptos.”

“Isn’t he already a billionaire?”

“Yes, he is, but one can never have enough money, especially as we move into the end game.” Admiral Lemitov said.

“What is his status now?”

“I don’t know. He is still out processing, but since he has been escalated to guardian status everything about him is hush-hush.”

The dark silhouette of a figure just nodded on the other end of his secure connection.

“Is there nothing we can do? No false charges we can bring up, against him?”

“Nothing. You know just as much as I, that the last time that happened, it was all fabricated. That there were external karmic forces at play.”

“Yes, an artifact. So that means the artifact is no longer in play?”

“It would appear so. That or the person that used it is waiting for a chance to use it again.”

“So, all we can do is wait?”

The Admiral slightly nodded his head at this, not much of a tell. But this was an exceptional tell given his kind. “All we can do is wait.”

“So that brings up the question of what se should do now that, she is no longer in the picture.”

“Yes, we need to clean that up. Go to her place, and if she is MIA, then destroy the evidence.”

“All of it?”

“All of it.” The Admiral admitted.

“Why can’t you do it?”

“I would if I could, but I will be unable to get away for the foreseeable future.”

“Unfortunately, I too will be indisposed for the next week.”

“Fine then. I will go and dispose of the evidence within the week.”

While the Admiral could not see the exact facial expression of the silhouette he was talking to, he could feel the smugness of his satisfaction bleed through their connection. Slightly enraged by this, Admiral Lemitov decided to push the agenda forward.

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes, this is the last topic item up for discussion. This is also the one that is the most important, given our current state of affairs. What should we do about removing the final seal…”

***

MEANWHILE, in a different universe, planet side of the same exact human planet, a meeting was underway to discuss the rapid changes to one hundred fresh recruits.

The trouble with time loops is the slight variables of change. When beings are left outside of the time loop but react differently flags are raised. For veterans of the course, slight changes in wording were not a problem.

“So they all awoke at the same time. All claiming to have experienced an epiphany of Psychic strength?” General Sharma asked her gathered staff members.

“Yes, we are calling the day the Awakening day. Sometime in the night approximately two weeks ago, there was a surge of power that was beyond our comprehension. This anomaly seemed to coincide with the Genesis attack on the Endarian world tree, and the attack on the Dwenvarian home world. On that same day and time an event occurred that opened new or awakened the psychic potential in close to one hundred students.”

Hearing that General Sharma tried to focus her mind, to help try to understand the strands of fate that wove together to generate that moment. Her eyes flashed brightly, but she gave up after just a few seconds. This action was not like her. Her generally tenacious personality would forbid her from quitting at such an early time in the whole process. This was an event that was dismissed by most, except she seemed to have an alternate plan.

This time rather than continuing down the same logical path she did previously. This time she went in an entirely different direction.

“We should make a point to reach out to the Endarians, to note if they have seen anything differently.” General Sharma began. “We also need to see if there is anything related to their world tree? I feel that there is something going on with the tree itself.”

Hearing that the secretary’s eyes grew wide for a second, but he quickly regained his composure. He had noted an anomaly, something that didn’t exist within the first timeline. While this seemed to be within the realm of probability, the odds of this much of a deviation seemed odd. Just one more note to add to his ever-growing list of oddities that surrounded the great General Sharma, of this universe.

***

MEANWHILE, in an alternate universe that was having chatter of an Endarian World tree emerging for the first time in millennia, there was even more news to be concerned about.

“The Goldhammer has already transitioned?” A spokesman said to the Dwenvarian Queen. This was news to her, while she had been aware of the transition in the last timeline, she was not aware of any circumstances that would cause the transition to stick.

“Oh?” Was all the Dwenvarian Matriarch said, as she let the information filter through her mind. This was a delaying tactic used to often phish for more information. Since the informant failed to bite, the Queen pushed forward on her own.

“Is there anything else that we should be aware of?”

Hearing the question, the messenger paused and shifted slightly. “Well, there is one thing…”

The messenger trailed off, but a glare from the queen kept him going. “We believe she is with child.”

“With child? Do we know the sire?” The Queen asked, almost in shock at the sudden string of news.

“No, it appears to be an immaculate conception.”

“Immaculate conception?” The Queen said, as her mind tried to comprehend the details she was now gaining.

The entire time, her steady maid, former bro, and secretary stayed by the Dwenvarian Queen’s side, taking in everything as she made her own plans with the information she had just gathered.