Descend- Seeing Stars by Sean Oswald (the ebook reader .TXT) 📕

out a bit, cause well, he just couldn’t help himself, but surprisingly they both managed to keep their clothes on. Maybe it was all the stress. Through it all though, Jay couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen in seven days. Well four since he had been unconscious for three of them.

Chapter 22- Feeding the Flame

      

Jay took the next hour and made his rounds with most of his wives and fuses. Unlike normal, he didn’t create Tempus Fugit fields, but simply checked in with each of them, found out how they were doing, and then gave them a kiss. The two that he knew were going to take more time were Meikiyo and Eesa. He knew that Meikiyo must be impatient to see him so decided to pull off the bandage and get this over with.

      When he found his fire goddess, she was going through long range scans of the Forlorn fleet. The leviathan’s scanners as good as they were couldn’t scan the fleet but the fleeing A’snkarnt had failed to cut off their connection to the main databases back on the home world. Those scans had detailed analysis.

      As he stepped up next to her, Jay said, “I love you, wife. Have you found a safe way for us to go after Higen yet?”

      She didn’t answer him for a moment but then turned and practically fell into his arms. “I can’t see a way through yet. The armada of Forlorn is larger than anything that even the A’snkarnt had expected. It is overwhelming. The reports show battles where automated satellites are fighting ships or where gravity wells have gone off disrupting space for millions of miles. Worse, Eesa says that those weapons can tear holes in subspace which will keep even the Tamoori star fighters from approaching.”

      “That doesn’t mean we will give up, but have you come up with any plans yet?” Jay asked.

She was crying against his chest as she said, “I can’t see a way to get him even if he is on that planet and worse, it seems like any attack would result in the death of anyone who is involved. I want my son back and I would gladly give my life for his, but I can’t risk your life if there is no chance of success, let alone asking any of the others to go on a suicide mission.”

      “You don’t think that I am willing to risk my life for our son?” Jay asked.

      “I know you are. I’m sorry, I’ve been hard on you. I just miss him so much and hate that this happened. If we lost you though I would be dooming all of humanity and I can’t do that even for my son. It just hurts so much. How is it possible to love a little person that you have only known for a few weeks, so very much?” she asked rhetorically.

      They stood in each other's arms drawing comfort from one another for several minutes of silence. Then he said, “I want you to work on a plan. Use whatever resources you need to and let me know what I can do to make it work.”

      She looked at him for a second then said, “There is one thing that you can do, but I know you don’t want to. I was upset about that at first too, but I have had a lot of time to myself recently and I am thinking more clearly now. I do get it. It is a risk to all of us, maybe not a huge risk but there is a risk. And it asks a great deal of you because it's a lifetime commitment.”

      Jay didn’t say anything but looked at her. He didn’t know why he was worried about it, but yet he was. There was a part of him that didn’t want to keep fusing with girl and girl, but it was more than that. He was already at his breaking point in terms of how thin he could stretch his attention.

      None of them, even his fuses, knew the strain that continually being in time dilation placed upon him. He was afraid of losing himself to some grand hive mind. They already could finish each other's sentences and that was only because they still followed old human habits of speaking out loud. Most of the time they knew what each other was thinking without even trying.

      Then there was one other fear. Maybe it was irrational, but he feared the power. He kept thinking that he was becoming god-like but each time he saw a grander scale of power and threat. Now their enemy was a locust like swarm but instead of tiny insects it was massive star ships that were capable of destroying entire planets.

      Power had corrupted the A’snkarnt so that they lost their own ability to pro-create and then felt justified in experimenting on the lesser races. Power had corrupted the Bal’gi who enslaved the weak and drained their very lives to power the strong. Power had corrupted the Forlorn, who were bent on consuming the entire universe.

      On a smaller scale, his study of history had shown example after example of noble leaders turned to petty dictators by the taste of power. Each time lives were lost or ruined and the one with power always came to a sad end. Even their very myths were full of that. And in a far more personal way, his father had held all the power in Jay’s life for almost his first two decades. He had belittled and even beaten Jay all because he could.

      Those genes were in Jay even if he had evolved. Both the heritage of petty tyrants as a human and the specific lineage of lording strength over the weak instead of protecting