“But they use darkside tactics.”
“Yes, and it’s time we started showing what the lightside can do. I don’t know why I didn’t see…”
“I do, belatedly.”
Davis stared at the floor for a moment of introspection. “Earth?”
“You haven’t been the same since it was decimated. All your efforts were based on strongholds, then Essence made them hilariously useless. You’ve been on defense ever since, and justly so, but it’s not the way we need to fight. It’s a way to catch our breath.”
“If this works, breath caught.”
“No it’s not,” Bren differed. “This is the Hadarak we’re talking about. The major Essence threat comes from the Rim, and you don’t do well when you’re helpless. You don’t want to get comfortable accepting losses to win, but we can fight that way if we have no other choice.”
“Am I that easy to read?”
“Only to one who you’ve confided in.”
“Can’t have personal guards I don’t completely trust, now can I?”
“You could, but you’re wise enough to cover multiple contingencies. You just got the ground upended on you by Essence. There’s one thing I think you need to focus on to get your footing again.”
“What is that?”
“All the Essence powers of the Founders can’t stop the Hadarak from beating them. If they’re losing one of their galaxies as we speak, then they’re on the defensive and the Hadarak may take them out for us.”
“I hadn’t considered that because it would take so long to happen they will have plenty of time to come swat us down before then.”
“Why bother when they’ve got another galaxy to conquer to replace the one they’ve lost?”
“You don’t plan for what people should do, you plan for what they can do, and we’re still vulnerable.”
“We don’t need you to save us, Sean. We need you to lead us. If we die, it’s not your fault. It’s the enemy’s, and none of us would switch teams if we had the choice. Death before dishonor. So stop thinking about how to avoid death, and start thing about how to hurt these bastards.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Not permanently. But take a mental vacation every now and then to try running things from that perspective. You’re not letting anybody down by doing that for a few hours.”
“Thank you, Yoda.”
Bren put his hands on his hips defiantly. “We need our leader to lead, not cower. You’re letting the enemy trick you into not performing at your full potential. Assume we are going to lose this war, and instead of planning how to win, plan how to do the most damage to the Founders before they take us out. And I for one don’t want to wait for what they have planned for us. I’d rather hit them first and force the combat on our terms…though I have no idea what that looks like with Essence warfare.”
“Carnage,” Davis said simply. “Carnage with no armor or shields. Just people hacking away at each other with no defense.”
Bren tapped on the device he wore on his chest. “Not anymore, and we’ll get better equipment with time.”
“There’s no guarantee of that.”
“No…but it’ll happen. I’ll wager you a planet on it.”
The lingering terror in Davis’s mind melted away in an instant as he was suddenly analyzing this from the opposite side, now that his opposition was in the position of hope and Davis had to analyze his chances of success as a threat against him…and that’s when he realized that, while there was no guarantee, the odds were not terrible. In fact, he wasn’t willing to take that bet because he suspected he might lose.
“No bet,” he said, punching Bren in the side of his massive leg. “Get back in there and make this work. I’ve got something else to do.”
“When do you not have something else to do?” Bren asked, patting the smaller man on the head as he walked away.
Davis considered that, wondering when the last time was that he had a real vacation…then he realized it was before the discovery of the pyramid, for every day since then he’d been working on something related to saving Earth, or now the galaxy.
“Workaholic,” he scolded himself, then walked off to go do some more.
9
May 13, 128888
Happhetima Nebula (Zavrex Kingdom)
Gamma Tricumbda Temple
Kara hovered in midair amongst a series of floating target drones, each a white orb adorned with gold trim and specifically crafted to collect Essence in its raw form…and what little they could from damaging attacks, but Kara wasn’t trying to destroy them, rather practice her accuracy and coordination with flinging Essence beyond her body.
Many Essence skills she’d learned from Strovok didn’t leave the body, like the Hard Light weapons that formed as an extension of their body and locked to their Essence…which in turn was locked to their Core. Those two things coexisted within her body, but when she created an Essence Rush it forced the energy to disconnect from her Core. She could then craft weapons out of it that extended off her Core…which occupied every piece of her body, not just her brain.
Kara could feel it now, not from a physical sense, but in a way that was hard to articulate. She could feel herself everywhere in her body, and when she disconnected from her physical senses Kara was like a blonde statue floating in the darkness, with her light defining the shape of her body.
That light could then clasp to it and extend into swords, hammers, or anything else she practiced enough to get used to forging. If the Hard
