The ease with which he integrated among us should have rung my alarm bells, but I was either too arrogant or too na?ve to notice. It is odd to think of myself that way, but I had been the one shepherding him—and for all my vaunted power, wisdom, experience, and insight; I had thoroughly misjudged the gravity of my newest charge. The signs had been before me, but either wilfully or fearfully I had ignored them. Now I must wonder: did he know? Did he understand what it was he was doing? The thought he did unsettles me, but the thought that perhaps he truly did not—that he did it all unconsciously? That thought terrifies me.

  Arthur settled into his seat aboard the small interplanetary shuttle with practiced ease, and leaned back while the automatic safety belts snaked across his torso in a criss-crossing X formation to brace him within the comfortable leather.

  The shuttle was a small craft, no more than twenty meters from nose to engines, and equipped with only six passenger seats behind the cockpit—divided into two sets of three with a spacious walkway between them. An on-board lavatory was at the back of the shuttle, and what Arthur assumed to be supply lockers were built into the walls framing the currently unsealed pilot’s access.

  The only passengers aboard were himself, Atreus, Endymion, and Perseus; with the last of the three serving as the ship’s pilot. Endymion was seated in the co-pilot’s chair casually, while Atreus stood behind them both with his feet firmly planted and arms folded over his power-armored chest.

  Arthur had not balked at being told to strap in and take a seat, and it wasn’t as if the armored Kidemónes needed to be away from him to hide conversation. The hermetic seals of their combat helmets did that easily enough.

  Besides, the distance between the passenger area and cockpit was a matter of feet.

  Instead of watching the trio of companions he’d ostensibly fallen in with, Arthur turned instead to look out of his window. It was a small luxury that few spacecraft enjoyed, given the obvious concerns around the vulnerability of what was essentially a missing piece of hull armor; but in the case of the shuttles used by the Vasilikós Kidemónes, it was not an overly large worry.

  Primarily because only the extremely brave or stupid would even think to take a shot at them.

  The view outside the shuttle was no longer of the wide-open and beautiful vista of the city-interior of Port Asfalís, but instead the cold steel and curated cylindric interior of a restricted docking bay within the bowels of the station proper.

  Few to no maintenance workers had been visible while his escorts had led him down carefully veiled elevators and through meticulously clean and eerily vacant corridors painted in sterile white. When they had emerged from the blast doors within a zero gravity docking bay, Arthur had been thankful they’d also kitted him out in a basic shipsuit and retractable helmet.

  “It’s normally several hours from Asfalís to Hellas due to approach procedures, Arthur, but we should be able to skip most of the traffic control measures that enforce that time delay.” Perseus said from the cockpit.

  “That’s a long time.” Arthur said while turning toward the cockpit door. “Aren’t we at the closest of Hellas’ lagrange points?”

  “We are.” Atreus confirmed in Perseus’ place while turning to look at Arthur. “But normally the home fleet will check and verify every spacecraft on approach to Hellas, and clear them for entry to the shield Iris. With our credentials, however, we’ll bypass that need. It is prudent to explain, however, that you may not enjoy such a swift approach each time.”

  “Given I’m supposed to be under your careful eye for the foreseeable future, I doubt I’ll have to worry about that any time soon.” Arthur said with good humor.

  Atreus grunted in what sounded like amusement, and turned back to observe the silver-armored pair manning the controls.

  Arthur counted the interaction as a win.

  Perseus and Endymion were largely known elements to Arthur by that point, insofar as how his mind categorized them, and neither of the Kidemónes were particularly surprising any longer when it came to their interactions. He could rely on Endymion to be surly, blunt, and grouchy—while also being honest even when he shouldn’t be. In much the same way, he could rely on Perseus to be cheerful, optimistic, and more eloquent in how he explained things—though like Endymion, he would not shirk at being honest even if it was an uncomfortable truth.

  While Arthur knew that ‘friends’ might have been too strong a word by then, especially given that all of them were now irrevocably aware of the fact that their initial unification had been in large part thanks to Arthur’s impressive psion density and the supernatural charisma it enforced; they were certainly at least friendly.

  Atreus, meanwhile, was a study in enigmatic indifference coupled with leonine intensity. What little Arthur had managed to glean from the trio—mostly Perseus—combined with his pre-existing knowledge of the Vasilikós Kidemónes, from his study prior to arriving in Graecia; informed on a sense of distinct capability difference between the three.

  The ‘regular’ Kidemónes like Endymion and Perseus normally operated in teams of six, called ‘Shield Squads’ or ‘Hexarons’, and had a doctrine not unlike a pack of wolves. They used coordination, skill, and borderline religiously drilled cohesion to take down foes of the Ascendancy and defend their areas of responsibility with ruthless capability.

  The Myrmidónes, conversely, appeared to be far more lonesome.

  If the regular Kidemónes were wolves, the Myrmidónes were lions.

  One Myrmidón was considered the equivalent of a full Hexaron of Kidemónes or more, depending on their veterancy and power, and were almost exclusively tasked with the most dangerous and most deep-reaching investigations throughout Ascendancy space. They operated somewhat akin to the Inquisitors of the Grand Imperium, from what little he could recall through the fractured kaleidoscope of his memory; and specialized in the hunting and ‘handling’ of threats considered beyond the capabilities of ‘regular people’.

  When asked about the relationship between Paladins and Myrmidónes during their transit to the shuttle, Atreus had simply said that it was an agreement of mutual respect and left it at that. Any further attempts to glean information had been fruitless, and when not given taciturn refusals for elaboration; had been met with outright silence from the towering spartan.

  It was a puzzle that Arthur’s dogged mind had only grown more interested in solving.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  His thoughts, however, were interrupted a moment later when a rumble of ignition abruptly brought the shuttle to full life and he felt the plasma thrusters at the rear of the vessel hum with ignition.

  It was a stark reminder of the technology differential between the Core and the Rim, one that jump started a spark of memory within him that until that moment he had not actively been aware of. The Fringe, he knew, was already well-equipped with proper Impulse technology, and the inner parts of the Verge had graduated very recently to Antimatter Engines.

  Only the Grand Imperium and its Core-spanning Empire, insofar as Arthur’s limited recollection told him, had graduated beyond conventional thrust entirely.

  The thoughts naturally led to his considerations for what manner of Eidolon he would build.

  Plasma thrusters on his Eidolon would be extremely undesirable, Arthur knew instinctively, due in no small part to the sheer inefficiency of the technology when compared to higher forms of technology. While superior to ion thrusters, the fuel requirements, heat issues, and power sinks made plasma unacceptable for his purposes.

  With the holes in his memory as it related to inner sector technology, he could reliably bring his machine to parity with the Fringe. He was confident in that much.

  Anything beyond that, though, was an exercise in guesswork at best.

  It was extremely frustrating to know the knowledge existed, but was inaccessible.

  The rumble of acceleration drew his attention back to the shuttle and the space around it a moment later, however, and Arthur turned his full attention back to the window looking out the docking bay—which was even then rapidly receding.

  Moments later the ship passed through the open bay doors and into the space around Port Asfalís, and Arthur let loose a low whistle at what he saw.

  Graecia had truly redefined the meaning of civilization in its area of space, so many hundreds of light years from humanity’s cradle.

  Port Asfalís was a bustling hive of activity. He’d seen evidence of that on his approach with the Enterprising Fortune. Now though with a different angle of sight, and while departing from what Arthur recognized as the upper part of the colossal ‘rod’ that was the lower half of the station’s design, his shards of memory only helped to reinforce his scope of reference.

  Hundreds of vessels traversed the space around the starport like a colossal swarm of fireflies, lighting up the void in coruscating flashes of azure plasma. Some were close enough to be discerned as freighters, haulers, or luxury civilian transports—others instead so far away that all Arthur saw was the flare of their engines.

  All of them had been invisible due to the space station’s immense bulk.

  The bridge crew of the Enterprising Fortune had never bothered to angle the sensors enough to see the other side of the starport, and so Arthur only then witnessed the activity for the first time himself.

  Seated where he was in the sleek shuttle of the Vasilikós Kidemónes, Arthur was treated to an unobscured vision of prosperity while their ship accelerated to speeds close to or even in excess of 500 m/s2. Based on Arthur’s extensive understanding but limited experience with plasma drives, he knew that the acceleration would be reversed via turnover—literally a flip in space to face the engines toward their destination—just before the halfway mark between their origin and destination; allowing the shuttle to ‘decelerate’ toward Hellas using inverted forward momentum until it came to a stop relative to the planet’s Docking Iris.

  The alternative was slamming into the near-impenetrable energy shield that was a standard part of any colonized world’s defenses, and being atomized on impact. The shield, after all, was designed to stop everything from stray kinetic munitions traveling at velocities close to the speed of light constant—also called c—to world-killer asteroids.

  A single shuttle would prove little more than a gnat by comparison.

  “We’re approaching the Navy’s home fleet flagship.” Atreus cut into Arthur’s thoughts suddenly. “Given you will be fighting for the Ascendancy, you may as well know her on sight. The King Alexander has been the name of every flagship since the first hull was laid in the yards above Hellas.”

  “Alexander?” Arthur asked with a hint of wry amusement. “That’s not subtle at all.”

  “Subtlety has its place. Projection of force is not one of them. The name has intent.”

  “Hard to argue with that logic,” Arthur conceded with a shrug while looking at Atreus. Another flash of memory came to him, and he continued with a small nudge of impulse he couldn’t quite identify, but felt compelled to obey. “Alexander is still one of the most prolific names in human history, even with the Humanosphere’s expansion. I think the only martial records more lauded by military education are the actions the Geneticists took to wipe out the Transhumanists.”

  “I didn’t know you were formally educated, Arthur!” Perseus called with a tone of pleased surprise. “At least not in martial curriculum. I took you for some sort of noble’s kid!”

  “He probably is.” Endymion growled from beside Perseus. “That’s probably why he has that education, Andino.”

  “Sure, whatever, but that still means I can pick your brain about the ethics of—!”

  “Focus on flying, Andino.” Atreus cut in coldly. “Leave Magellan to me.”

  The youngest of the three Kidemónes shut up immediately, and Arthur couldn’t help but smile regardless of Atreus’ words. The Myrmidón’s insistence on dealing with Arthur himself was hardly a surprise. Atreus, Arthur had realized, was professionally paranoid as a matter of course—and greatly disliked not being in control.

  Still, Perseus’ enthusiasm for discourse and debate was equal to Arthur’s own, and he understood implicitly that he enjoyed the act of both. It was something he’d retained even in the false guise of Magellan.

  Though truthfully, Magellan seemed more real to him in some ways than Zacaris.

  It was a strangely ambivalent realization to have.

  Understanding logically that his personality had been fractured was one thing, but the dissociative effects of experiencing it in real-time were far more visceral, and far more unnerving. On one hand he was almost pleased with the chance to objectively assess the bitterness, anger, resentment, and cold indifference to human life with which Zacaris had operated. It let him put things into perspective, and even glean a greater level of insight into his own motivations.

  On the other hand, the comparative simplicity and even enforced naivete of Magellan had created a kind of shock-effect that manifested every time Arthur received a new batch of recollections or particularly graphic memories from his true—or perhaps former—self. He wasn’t certain what manner of person he would become in the long-term, but the marriage between Zacaris and Magellan didn’t merely seem inevitable, it seemed necessary.

  There were strengths he could take from both to balance the weaknesses of each.

  “We’re coming up on the King Alexander now.” Atreus said with another look back at Arthur. “Here is your chance to see it for yourself.”

  Arthur didn’t hesitate in doing as advised, and turned to look out of his window while Perseus gracefully banked the shuttle. The younger Kidemónas must have greatly decreased the vessel’s acceleration somehow without Arthur realizing, because when the King Alexander came into view, it did so slowly and with cinematic grace.

  Even with his fractured memories of the Core, he couldn’t help but be impressed.

  The Supercarrier was one big bastard.