Sacrifices

‘When the wind blows, the elements have no choice but to move where they are directed. Life is very similar. Push and pull as long as you want, eventually your strength will fade, and the wind will move you as it please–without a doubt.’ – Kathus Manatee, Protector of the Tree

 

 For most of Gold’s life, at least, the parts that mattered, he’d been had been carried through the currents by GLAD’s relentless winds. 

Others might scoff at such a surrender. They would preach endlessly about how everyone had to be their own person. Their mantra of everyone making their own choices, or risk drowning in tyranny, was laughable. If everyone just went with the flow, then the systems in place would crumble. 

What evidence, what truth had they ever witnessed that suggested true free will existed? Where did the ability to come and go as you please fit into the concepts of reality? Had anyone ever met a single soul who lived solely by their own conscience, untouched by external influence? Gold was no puppet, no more than anyone else, at least. Yet, when history scrutinized his life, he knew exactly how it would portray him: a loyal pet obediently following GLAD its masters. Did those future critics truly believe themselves superior? Couldn’t they understand how much less they were allowed to achieve because of their unwillingness to stop fighting against the wind?

The familiar thoughts churned through Gold’s mind as he returned to his quarters, but the instant he stepped inside, every last one was swept away by a gust stronger than he’d felt. Gold nearly stumbled backward into the wall, his mind suddenly blank, all his previous musings erased in a single heartbeat. He stood frozen, all the wind in his sails gone. It was as if, for the first time, Gold had no room left inside his head. 

Then came the second gust, deeper and even more disorienting. The pelican sat on the couch, lowered newspaper, the same as this morning, draped across his lap, giving Gold a knowing smile. 

Gold felt reality rushing back like a tide returning to the beach after a large storm, but it provided no clarity. His gaze fell back to the wrist cuff’s display, confirming the impossible. The time was undoubtedly 9am. But how could that be.

He took a shaky breath, struggling to recall whether he’d even checked the time after the pelican had disappeared the first time. He couldn’t remember, his mind had been a foggy mess, too clouded with anxiety to care. Afterward, standing in front of the council, it was as if he’d leaped from one fire into another. It was no wonder he teetered on the verge of madness. 

“Stop swirling,” the pelican said calmly, providing Gold something tangible beyond the chaos in his own head. “Everything you thought you knew about the universe is only the barest fraction of possibilities. Time is an illusion. Your time is not even based off the concepts of your current knowledge. What does time represent aside from an illusion of measurement? You spend minutes, hours, days, even years, at the beck and call of others, like currency spent to buy you nothing at all. Then, as your time inevitably dwindles, you finally grasp how insignificant and meaningless it has all been. You measured yourself on trips around a sun, a sun, mind you, that you, General Gold, have never seen and never will.” The pelican folded its wings neatly, resting one tip atop the other, resting them both on a spindly, yellow leg. 

Gold struggled to find a retort. The pelican hadn’t argued anything compulsively wrong; rather, it had held up a mirror to the thoughts he preferred to avoid; forcing him to confront them directly. How often had he allowed these types of thoughts to haunt him as sleep overtook his exhausted mind?

 Every morning, Gold slid into his armor, paraded around the universe under the guise of glory, and then, by the day’s end, he unburdened himself of what he had accomplished by placing it at the feet of others. Destroying a planet for the cause meant nothing to him. Why would it? He had no control over these decisions. Whether it was his hand, or another in his place, that planet would be nothing more than molten chunks of rock by month’s end. Why not take advantage of these things to prop himself up? Those who questioned too deeply were left with meager scraps for their ideologies. 

Perhaps Gold may have once believed himself a man of principal, but those years had long faded into oblivion. Now, he saw opinions like stars; if they burned slow and dim, they might survive. But should they overstep their bounds, and burn too bright, they’d explode in a violent supernova and vanish altogether. His own cautious approach allowed him to exist, nothing more. Taking no risks, fighting no fights of his own, and succumbing to the will of GLAD had left him with nothing truly of his own. Whatever he had was granted by the liberty of the council or inherited from those who’d worn the boots of a general before him. Better to be hollowed out than annihilated, he told himself. Though, like all things these days, he wasn’t even sure what he believed anymore. 

“It is a tiresome endeavor to compete with your own inner workings,” the pelican interrupted Gold’s pondering. “You know when you lot were created, there was serious consideration to leaving consciousness out altogether. Then, without clear reasoning, it was decided that it was a cruelty to deprive you from free will. We foolishly believed there was value in giving you reasoning. Imagine our amusement, and slight bitterness, when within mere millennia, most beings shed their consciousness in exchange for money, power, or status. People quite literally hung their own thoughts out to dry, proudly parading around in the garments of others with their heads held high. As if it was not embarrassing to model the works of others while their own beliefs dwindled into dried husks.” 

The pelican shook its head, furrowing its brow thoughtfully. “No time for philosophical matters, however. Time for talk has passed; action must be taken. Well, for you, time has stopped as you know it. What we have instead is the designer’s time. You are in a position where very few, so-called living creatures, have been. Not since a long-forgotten place called Earth have mortal beings of creation spoken to the divine in any meaningful manner. Yes, we have occasionally reached in, ” the pelican flared its wings briefly, highlighting its distinct lack of true hands, “but those were always gentled nudges, subtle interventions. Now though, a humble few of us have reluctantly realized that without a more direct approach, this experiment called life, and perhaps existence itself, may soon reach an abrupt and catastrophically violent end.”

Gold’s first rational thought was to grab the blaster from his side table and try again to reduce the pelican into a pile of smoking feathers. His second rational thought recalled precisely how unsuccessful that had been the last time. Instead, he steadied himself just enough to approach his liquor cabinet, pouring himself a two-finger, so to speak, as Gold too lacked true fingers, shot of whiskey. Downing it, he immediately, refilled the glass, and turned toward the pelican, finding him sitting completely still, watching Gold like he was some curiosity to be studied from behind the safety of a glass panel. 

“You know, you have said a lot of words,” Gold said, trying to calm himself with the swirl of whiskey in his glass. “Though, I must admit most of them mean absolutely nothing to me. If I had to guess, I’d say you were some madman escaped from some nearby madhouse. However, that would not explain how you arrived in my rooms, not just once, but twice.” He checked his wrist band again, ensuring that he hadn’t imagined the impossible. Sur enough, like the pelican alluded to, time had stopped completely.

 Gold placed his glass onto the flat surface of the cabinet and began using his mechanical fingers to cycle through the controls embedded into his constructed forearm. Every other function appeared to be normal, nothing frozen, nothing malfunctioning. Yet, every attempt to reset the time ended exactly the same way: as soon as he confirmed the change, the display reverted stubbornly back to 8:13a.m. After the fifth failed attempt, he gave up, grabbing the whiskey bottle directly from the cabinet, forgoing the glass entirely. 

“Some things are meant for answers and others are best left unexplained,” the pelican said, never betraying any emotion. “Your kind were not created to explore beyond an ingrained limitation. We put in a failsafe for many reasons, the main two being: fear and mercy. I will admit a revolution has come to us recently, the fear was self-serving, and the mercy sprang from our own weakness. My kind wanted to make playthings but knew how quickly pets turned into burdens. Though we may have saved your kind from the heartache of knowledge, we also crippled you. While we dilly-dallied our time away in leisure and folly, we failed to monitor you. Our attention waned as our next project came into play. I am ashamed to say, I don’t even remember what distracted us, as sad as it may seem.” 

The pelican tapped a boney leg rhythmically, keeping time to a tune Gold wasn’t privy too. Despite all the strangeness and confusion, Gold found himself focusing solely on that small gesture. It was the only thing that made sense, in even the loosest meaning of the idea. Thinking of anything fogged his mind, making it feel like a gooey mess and turning any attempt at thought into a thick impenetrable soup.

“If I would fail to understand anyhow,” Gold said slowly, “then why would you, a self-proclaimed higher being waste your time and effort divulging this to a person such as myself?”

The pelican’s wing paused mid-beat, then rose thoughtfully to its chin. Its expression shifted into something Gold knew all too well, confusion, perhaps even doubt. Had Gold scored his first direct hit with the question? Maybe he had been too rash when deciding to first attempt dissuading the pelican by force. After all, Gold hadn’t become General by brute force alone. His true skill had always been dissecting the motives and intentions or others, exposing weakness through calculation. Why wouldn’t he do the same here? 

He took another swig from the bottle to steady himself, leaning casually against the liquor cabinet to project confidence he didn’t quite feel. 

Finally, the pelican responded. “I am here at the mercy of a debt,” it admitted, “my first choice would have been to rally the troops and scourge the blight in hopes that we wouldn’t need to prolong this. A very intelligent friend of mine reminded me of something though. Our likelihood of success would be marginal. Though, I am still of mind that we would overcome any blocks within our paths, it remains that, while we are quite powerful, we failed to see the future of our efforts. As my friend put it, anything can and is likely to happen to those who walk only a single path while their enemies walk many. With hesitation to steam roll into the depths of heaven, we devised another method to find what is missing. One that would, I must admit, be something our adversaries would struggle to predict before it came crashing down upon their heads. There is one thing we know, even if we cannot be certain of who our enemy is, it is that they will have ignored you just as readily as we have.” 

Gold wasn’t certain any of these words were meant to inspire him, but he caught the faint glimmer of hope behind the pelican’s somber tone. Still, he couldn’t let himself be swayed easily.

“You’ve said a lot since you appeared in my rooms,” Gold countered sharply, narrowing his eyes to slits. “But, like I already said, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You remind me of some junior cadet who sneaked into the liquor cabinet and found out what it was like to be drunk for the first time, rambling. A decaying mind tends to wander. Am I to assume then that your suggestion of being a superior being is actually nothing more than a mask designed to hide away your mental failures?” 

Years of confronting self-proclaimed kings, queens, high rulers, even gods, had prepared Gold for nearly all conceivable interactions. It came down to listening carefully, identifying your adversary’s weakness, and then methodically plucking away their shields. Move too fast, and you risked tipping them off; too slowly, and you’d leave yourself vulnerable to counterattack. The trick was to find a careful balance, brash enough to unnerve, yet subtle enough to remain unpredictable, conquering your foe before they even realized the battle had begun. 

The pelican peered over the tips of its wings, avoiding direct eye contact, intensifying Gold’s unease, a lingering unease clenched Gold’s innards like a vice, creating a panic threatening to explode like the volcanoes of Eccled, with their atmosphere penetrating magma.

“Had it been anyone else whispering ideas of subterfuge into my ear,” the pelican finally said, voice still edge with uncertainty, “I’d have dismissed them as saboteurs. Even now, I wonder if I am failing to see something right in front of my own eyes. When there are too many curves, even a simple path can become treacherous. Around every corner I can see the shadows of deceit. Though, at the end of the rope, what choice do I have? I cannot let it tighten around my neck without even the semblance of a struggle, can I? Too much is at stake, and thus, I have allowed myself to become entrenched in doubt. Every effort I make to untangle from the creeping vines of indecision, they appear to tighten all the harder.”

 The pelican paused, breathing deeply, betraying signs of vulnerability. Gold needed to wedge into those wounds and pry them open.

“It appears to me,” Gold said, with an attempt at casualness, “you may not be as superior as you may believe yourself to be. Only one of us in this room teeters over the precipice of madness, and it isn’t me.”

The pelican’s eyes snapped dramatically back toward Gold, pinning him with a gaze unlike anything he’d encountered in his entire adult life. Wrath churned visibly in the pelican’s eyes, threatening to coalesce into a force beyond any Gold had ever witnessed. No king, emperor, or self-appointed deity had ever managed to make Gold feel so small, helpless, and all with nothing but a simple stare. And while the words of the pelican made Gold question the bird’s sanity, there was no longer any doubt about the terrifying strength coiled within that deceptively frail form, a strength capable of incinerating everything in its path to mere ashes with a glance. 

“It appears,” the pelican admitted, “that I may not be as superior as I thought, indeed. I will be honest with you. When I came here to your rooms to ask for your assistance, I expected you to melt under the pressure.” 

As the pelican fixed its eyes on Gold again, the aloof act had completely vanished, no more newspapers, no casual leg tapping. Instead, a passion blazed behind the pelican’s eyes threatening to ignite the ship itself. 

“If God wills it,” the pelican continued, its voice growing more intense, “you will be our saving grace. And while it pains me to admit such a weakness, we cannot accomplish this feat on our own. Believing so would be an unmistakably foolish thought. When Yallil suggested we find one of your kind, I scoffed at the humiliation it would bring to us. Standing here, I can see your fear, I can almost taste the anxious waves of doubt pulsating from you. Despite that, and despite your clear confusion, you have foregone running and hiding. You even refrained from the grandiose valor that permeates into the depths of your kind, at least this second go around that is. That tells me you can learn from your mistakes. You can adjust when adjustments are needed. With everything at stake, I believe if your kind is to accomplish this insurmountable burden, then it must be you who takes the reins.” 

In a sudden blur, the pelican moved across the room, feathers trailing in its wake. Before Gold could fumble for his blaster, the pelican was inches from his face, one wing outstretched toward him. 

“Take my wing,” the pelican commanded, fiercely locking eyes with Gold “agree to do what needs to be done.” 

Like the council, Gold could see the expectancy to be obeyed. Unlike the council, Gold had no idea why he wanted so badly to comply with the order. 

***

 

Hours later, General Gold sat alone at the foot of his bed, quietly listening to the rhythmic ticking of the clock he’d pulled from the depths of storage, or, more accurately, had ordered one of the cadets to retrieve. Normally, the sound would have driven him insane, but right now it acted as a soothing reminder that time was behaving again as it should. Several times, Gold questioned himself if maybe he had dreamed of the bizarre interaction altogether, then, he would look into the mirror and see the small talon shaped nodule the pelican had placed into Gold’s mech hand upon their agreement. 

What exactly he’d agreed to, however, remained disturbingly vague. When the pelican stood two feet in front of him, Gold had lost his ability to formulate coherent thoughts. It was almost as if the pelican possessed some innate ability to pull invisible strings, creating a pulley system connected to Gold’s decision-making abilities. Now, Gold had two promises to keep. Neither of which he would have made on his own volition, and neither of which he could fully understand. 

On the one hand, the pelican wanted him to carry out something it claimed was monumentally important. On the other, the council had demanded he obliterate a relatively insignificant, in the grand scheme of things, planet into bits of debris small enough to never be collected. While neither appealed to the greater sense of his motivations, there was a clear winner in terms of which he could actually plan for.

Tossing the clock onto his pillows, and walking to his closet, Gold selected a fresh uniform from the hanger. Slipping it on, he gave himself a subtle once over in the mirror, ensuring all badges, awards, and identification were in order, and then he slipped from his rooms back into the bustling corridors. 

Like most other GLAD vessels, this massive hunk of metal possessed state-of-the-art tech and weapons. But Gold’s ship boasted an extra advantage: a highly sophisticated cloaking system designed under the council’s direct supervision, or more realistically, by a team of tortured technicians working tirelessly on the council’s whims. The system was intended to keep the vessel it was attached to off the radar, including any belonging to other officials, generals, or members of GLAD’s forces. The only set of eyes Gold had to fear were those of the gods, should any of them exist. 

As he strode down the corridor, he grabbed the arm of a clipboard-bearing soldier as they passed, briefly scanning the content displayed on the electronic screen they held. 

“I have something more important than sector 3’s crate counts for you,” Gold snapped, happy to find a target for some of the built-up ire burning in his chest. “I want you to find Captain Gill and Major Antal and tell them to meet General Gold at the bridge in no more than thirty minutes.”

 He held the soldier’s gaze until the poor cadet confirmed with an overly exaggerated nod. 

“And remember,” Gold added, leaning closer, voice dropping to a quiet threat, “if either of them arrives a minute late, I will personally add another crate to sector 3, just large enough for you to fit, but small enough you won’t even have room to breathe, let alone move. 

The soldier’s eyes bulged, and another frantic nod followed, before they scurried off to find two officers. Gold almost felt a pang of guilt, Gill and Antal were notorious for their aversion to anything resembling actual responsibility, especially if combat might be involved. 

The council had strapped Captain Gill and Major Antal to Gold’s command after one of his previous infractions. Neither officer had genuine authority to prevent him from stampeding across galaxies, obliterating planets at will, but they had big mouths, and eager ears at every media outlet ready to amplify their complaints. The council had strapped two political bombs to Gold’s back, a constant reminder of just how tenuous his position truly was. One wrong move, one action deemed ‘intolerant’ by these two incompetent officers, and Gold’s carefully crafted reputation would implode in a spectacular fashion, destroying him completely. Two men unworthy to polish his metal boots, now dictated the limits of his freedom. 

Refusing to hang his head in self-pity, Gold made for the opposite side of the ship. With Gill and Antal busy prepping themselves for an imaginary briefing, he would begin planning the eradication of an entire civilization guilty of nothing more than daring to imagine themselves worthy of freedom. Such was life, he mused bitterly, those who dared to dream often woke in the cold clutch of nightmares. 

“General Gold,” a voice called out from behind him.

One downside of being the highest-ranking officer aboard was that everyone seemed to demand his attention. Most requests Gold easily dispatched, sometimes with nothing more than a stern gaze, a dismissive wave, or a vibrantly phrased series of threats. The latter were his favorite for repeat offenders of especially tiresome requests. 

“What do I owe the surprise?” Gold asked curtly, turning on heel to find himself face-to-face with a woman who he could have gone the rest of his life without hearing from, seeing, or even existing in the same solar system as.

“I don’t plan to be here long,” Lieutenant General Arker said coolly. “The sight of your ship docked at the Council Halls reminded me of my lingering debt to you. The burden of my fortune weighs upon my shoulders, knowing I have yet to make it right with the man who ensured it for me.” 

Gold had never enjoyed the mockery his species often endured due to their forked tongue. Assumptions about a snake’s true nature were unfair and downright childish at the best of times. Yet, watching Lieutenant General Arker, he could almost understand why the sayings of their treachery existed.

 Arker’s slender snout curved delicately upward, her upper lip crowned by a ridge of finely textured scales that swept across the slant of her cheeks, up around her nostrils, before ending in the closest things to eyelashes a snake would ever have. Gold found himself briefly drawn to the symmetry of it all. Long ago, he might have even admitted to himself, privately, at least, that he’d found Arker’s unique features striking, perhaps even beautiful. Now, he could say without a doubt, he wanted nothing more than to hold her head under the deepest, darkest pool of water and watch her flail. 

Without missing a beat, Gold plastered an artificial smile across his lips and gave a forced, humorless chuckle.

“I had almost forgotten our ventures together, Lieutenant General. Afterall, they were almost a decade in the past. Anyone holding onto a debt for such a period would be a fool with little else to occupy their mind. As for me,” he gestured toward his medals, and then to the ship around them, “I have been busy, but such is the life of a man in my position, life never slows, never wanes.” 

Gold packed as many subtle jabs as he could smash in without outright attacking Arker, though admittedly, nothing would have pleased him more. 

Arker met his gaze, showing no change. “You know, I would almost believe such a thing,” she said, coolly, “had it not been for the way your fangs flashed at the mere sight of my face. I am not only flattering myself when it comes to this, I can see the hatred blazing behind your eyes. Do not worry yourself though. I am not here on the council’s orders. In no way do I plan to insert myself into whatever it is GLAD has deemed worthy of the great General Gold.”  She flashed her own set of fangs, smaller than his, but equally deadly, should they find their mark.

“Nevertheless, you are here,” Gold said bluntly, abandoning any pretense. “Unexpected, unannounced, unwanted, I may add.” 

Arker hesitated, calculating her next words carefully. “I will admit, it may have been something more than my debt that brought me here. A general sense of curiosity grabbed me by the collar, hurled me over the railings, and set me right on course for this very port. When the day began, I sipped coffee while staring out into a lovely villa full of peaceful people so far removed from the war, they would be shocked to hear it rages on every single day.” Her confidence wavered slightly, as the next thought came from her pursed lips. “Then, as I am minding by own business, along came a visitor, without invitation. Showing up on my doorstep, or to be more poignant, right in my living room.” 

Gold had no need to hear the next revelation. Nothing else could have compelled Arker to seek him out, not even the council would have been pious enough to provoke him in this way. They knew perfectly well the depths of his contempt. The council had even gone as far as to place Lieutenant General Arker on leave of absence from any combat role indefinitely to keep them from gouging each other’s eyes out. 

“Let me guess,” Gold said flatly, “a bird came to see you.” 

Arker’s carefully maintained composure evaporated like dew in a desert sun. She opened her mouth, closed it, swallowed hard, a lump forming in the base of her throat. Gold felt a grim satisfaction as he watched her persona shatter, but he also felt the urgent need to know exactly why the pelican had involved her. Was this all a sick and twisted joke aimed at creating the pelican pleasure? 

“I just…” Arker began weakly, but Gold cut her off, raising his mech hand to signal her to follow him.

There were some things better discussed privately. The council’s orders could simmer for a few minutes. Offering no resistance, Arker followed, her boots, softer than his mechanical ones, beating a rhythmic pattern off the grates below. Like all soldiers, active duty or not, Arker continued to bleed the patterns drilled into her throughout her youth. Her march marked her as an ally, but Gold knew better. The only true ally anyone would ever have was themselves. Anyone else teetered on a mountain of their own desires, one stiff wind from falling with a knife and landing on your back.

Gold opened a nearby storage door with his keycard and waved Arker inside. She opened her mouth to make a snarky comment, Gold was certain, but with another quick gesture, he shut her down. He wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm. 

Once the door slid shut, Gold wasted no time. Swiftly, he stepped toward Arker, grabbing her by the head. With the element of surprise on his side, Gold pressed against one side, exposing the groove of her neck. Instantly, he laid eyes upon exactly what he was looking for. In the groove of her throat, near her collar, laid the talon mark, only truly noticeable if one knew what to look for. Satisfied Arker had seen the pelican, and he wasn’t going crazy, well, at least not alone, Gold softened a hair and stepped away.

“I am going to guess you have one too?” Arker asked, showing no sign of distress from the barrage.

Gold only nodded. 

“I want you to tell me everything the pelican said to you,” Gold demanded.

“Well,” Arker replied, smoothing her uniform with practiced nonchalance, “you are in luck. That’s exactly why I am here.”