Lazar and Otho busy themselves – grabbing chunks of rusted, discarded metal and large rocks that they balance on top of the old wall. Then, only a makeshift shooting gallery has been erected, Lazar strides over to me, a faint smile on his face.
I gaze up at him. There’s pride in his eyes – eagerness.
I’m his prisoner, and yet this towering Aurelian wants to teach me how to shoot.
No, more than that – he wants to teach me how to take care of myself.
It’s something I need to learn how to do. After all, I grew up behind walls. For most of my life, I’ve been hidden away from the horrors of the world by my father in his huge, towering estate.
Instead of learning how to take care of myself, I’ve learned how to hide – hiding behind Gerard, my father, and even behind those faceless, emotionless Sentinels.
When it came to a real kidnapping – when it finally came time for me to face everything my father had tried to protect me from – his years of sheltering me backfired.
Everything I knew was useless. Everything he’d done to protect me had ended up making me so much more vulnerable – so much less prepared for what I might face out in the dark, dangerous universe.
Lazar, in complete contrast to my father, wants me to learn how to take care of myself.
He’s protective of me, but in the way that’s useful – that’s real.
He’s protecting me by making sure I’m not reliant on him – that the strongest ally I’ll ever have is me.
As we stand before the wall, Lazar looks down at me and murmurs:
“Now, you’re going to take your time with your shots this time. You’re going to focus on your target and visualize how the Orb-Beam fires. You’re going to picture the reality, and then you’re going to activate the weapon and make it the reality.”
“You aim with your mind,” Otho says quietly, behind his battle-brother. “Not your eye.”
Then, Otho lumbers to my right side. I find myself flanked by these two, huge shadows. I’ve never felt so protected before – as if I have nothing to fear in this universe except for what might happen if any of us lose control of ourselves.
That’s the irony, of course. I should be trembling to be surrounded by these towering, alien warriors. I should feel vulnerable – knowing they could turn on me at any time – scoop me up in those huge, muscular arms of theirs and do whatever they wanted to me…
Gods, what a thought!
But, in reality, I feel safe – knowing that nothing other than they could hurt me out here; since they are both my captors and my protectors. They might have kidnapped me, and punished me…
…but they’re on my side. They’re here with me. For me.
With that reassurance bringing steadiness to my breath, I bring the gun up to my eye – focusing down the smooth, black barrel at the targets ahead; and then focusing on the vision of each of those chunks of metal and scrap being obliterated.
“Breathe in.”
Lazar’s voice is hypnotic. I can’t tell if I’m hearing him, or feeling him.
“Hold that breath… Focus – and now, breathe out. Activate.”
I let the breath leave my chest, and, as I do, all external thoughts disappear. Instead, I imagine the first three of those pieces of metal and rock exploding in front of me...
…the gun responds instantly with three bursts of black-blue Orb-Blast.
As if targets by laser, the three chunks of metal and rock I’d been imagining are blown into dust…
…along with a good portion of the wall.
I jump back – stunned at the effortless lethality of the weapon.
My hand guided that?
Suddenly, I’m giddy – jumping up and down, excited at my success.
“I got them! I hit them!”
Lazar grins. Otho chuckles.
“The Orb in the gun has a mind of its own, Natali. You communicated to it, and the Orb helped you make the shots.”
Lazar adds: “You did a good job. You’re a natural.”
My excitement suddenly cools. A chill ripples through me.
The Orb in the gun has a mind of its own.
I’ve read about Orbs. I’ve read that we still know very little about them. Despite millennia of use, we’re still ignorant of their true origin, or power. Some of what we know, we try not to – like how some scholars have written that Orbs possess a sentience of their own; something otherworldly, in possession of its own, base cunning.
Like the majority of scholars, I’ve never liked the thought of that. I prefer to think of them as objects. Things. Perhaps things that behave in unexpected, eerily intelligent ways…
…but not alive. Not like us.
If they were... Well, each Orb has been around for the duration of the universe – forged in crucible of creation itself. Surely no sentient being could be alive for that long… Should be alive for that long.
Hearing the Aurelians confirm their belief in this rumor… It makes me uneasy.
I looked down at the gun in my hand. This gleaming, black weapon is just one example of the thousands of ways in which Orb-Material has been weaponized.
The greatest weapons known to man are all powered by Orbs. The jump drives of warships and cruisers… Even the legendary Planet-Killers; the forbidden craft of war that had once nearly obliterated life in the great galactic war between Aurelians and Toad.
They, too, were fuelled by Orbs.
If they’re alive in some capacity – sentient – then what manner of murderous indifference must it take to be used as weapons of some petty, mortal war. They fire when we ask them to, which must mean they possess the power to refuse…
…and yet they don’t. Knowing they are being used to kill, or maim, or destroy, the Orbs still allow their otherworldly energy to be harnessed; as if the devastation wrought by it is inconsequential.
I don’t like the thought that Orbs knowingly play a part in any war – but especially the great war, and to
