Chapter 4: One Headed Hydra

We staged our operation on Taluat from a familiar little cabin on a hill near the western ocean. I had to fight back tears when we arrived. I could swear I heard a gentle little 'chirr' and felt a tail brush under my chin. I had to fight them back hard.

Eru and I both were quiet when we first arrived. I'm sure there were even more memories here for him.

We did a quick scan of the nearby area, but found nothing and no one out of the ordinary. We cleaned up the small cabin a little, mostly I played human vacuum cleaner and used a touch of telekinesis to quickly remove the thick layer of dust from everything. We cleared the table from the center of the room, piling it and the two chairs that had sat around it in a pile on the small cot that lay along the east wall.

I jumped our meditation rug into my hands and laid it out in the center of the room. I did another scan of the vicinity, more slowly this time, and everything still looked clean.

<All clear.> I sent. Cyrus and Chet jumped in with their Legion armor in full stealth mode, immediately followed by Ginny, Zaia and Riah.

In stealth mode, the Legion armor reminded me of the 'sort of invisible' look of the aliens in the movie 'Predator'. You weren't really invisible, although you were close to it when not moving, but you were incredibly hard to see, and if someone wasn't looking for you, they were not likely to know you were there.

<We'll be doing a two-deep patrol, you guys do what you need. You're covered.> Cyrus' thoughts came.

We formed our circle, getting comfortable, letting the adrenalin subside and our sense of self settle. Calm and centered, we joined lightly at first, letting ourselves get comfortable this way too.

Two hours later we were silently and invisibly present as Eldo Lev stood before the Regional Court in the coastal city of New Brise and plead not guilty to the charge of harboring a fugitive. After reading the plea to the court, it was handed to Marsel Jey, The Regional High Prosecutor, who handed it in turn to his assistant, who placed it in a leather case with the other official documents of the case. The Regional High Prosecutor was far too highly placed to risk scanning for now, but his assistant, the lovely and efficient Irini Fre, was another matter.

We slipped into her thoughts, finding nothing but raw ambition and focus. She concentrated on the needs of her boss, all his needs — at least until she could find someone even further up the chain who wanted a lovely, efficient and willing assistant. We left behind the faintest of tags, enough to find her again quickly, and then we were gone.

New Brise was Taluat's equivalent to San Francisco, both in size and history. It was one of the earliest places to be settled on the western coast, and had been a thriving port city for many centuries. We spent four hours ghosting our thoughts from mind to mind within the Regional Justice Center, then the Regional Administrative Complex in which it was located, then finally the city itself.

We were a whisper, a stray thought, a whim, a glance.

With Eru's part of our fused mind as guide, we were seeing for the first time what life in Taluat was like first hand, and experiencing the true nature of the people who lived there.

And they were us.

The people of Taluat, as Eru had told us before, were no better or worse than the people of Earth, they were petty and compassionate, wicked and pure, kind and cruel in the same measure.

The next day we toured the city of Haredem, the national capital, through the eyes of Irini Fre. After a quick meeting with his superiors in the Justice Center, and a quick tour of the Chamber of Justice, which really got Irini's blood boiling - Marsel got very lucky during lunch in his luxury suite - We found her room, rented only for propriety's sake in her thoughts, and jumped ourselves there. Irini was sharing Marsel Jey's room of course, and made sure others knew it!

With a physical location to base our operations, we called in Con and the rest of the Legion. With our five still running in full Light fusion, the Legion linked up and we let them tap our feed as we sent our senses through the Justice Center. We scouted the key locations and people we felt we could safely scan, until we had the layout of the complex down cold. We had been running in fully fueled Light mode for over six hours. We broke our fusion then, and we all jumped back to Obsidian to eat and sleep. We kept ourselves on Haredem local time.

The morning of our third day we all sat once again in Irini Fre's unused hotel room in Haredem; Eru, Ginny, Zaia, Riah and I joined together, and the Legion lightly linked with each other, waiting. In Haredem, at the center of the continent, near what would be Lincoln, Nebraska on Earth, the High Board of Governors met. The regional High prosecutor who was in charge of the case against Eldo Lev, presented his plea. In every mind we'd touched that morning we saw that it was expected that the High Board would elevate the charge from harboring a fugitive to High Treason against the State.

We ramped up the power of our fusion in stages until we were just touching the Light, not quite in it yet, and we let ourselves settle again until we felt comfortable. As soon as we felt ready, we reached out with our senses and found Irini Fre. With a thought, our minds and senses were there with her. We saw in her thoughts, and through her eyes that we were in the High Board's Chamber of Judgment, alongside the Regional High Prosecutor. We stood before the raised dais at which the fifteen High Governors sat in session.

With our targets in sight we slipped fully into the Light, and once again the world dripped diamond and silver Light. We slid into the Prosecutor's mind first, and found our fears were unfounded. He was under no compulsion or coercion. He, like his assistant was simply trying to move up the food chain of Taluatan government. In his mind he saw himself sitting up on that dais someday himself.

Next we examined the eight guards who were stationed around the room. Only the two senior guards were under a compulsion, and they were both wrapped in multiple heavy layers of coercion.

For the last three months we had practiced what we were going to do next, using the members of the Legion as our subjects. In our Light-fueled fusion, they were unable to stop us, even when they linked together. They saw it as defensive training, but we had used it to prepare for this confrontation.

We swept through the room and discovered immediately that six of our fifteen High Governors were coercers!

Correction, five were coercers. The sixth person, Verisa Vers, was a fully gifted, fully functioning and fully corrupted and evil Soul Diver!

This realization struck at Eru like a dagger to the heart, and we saw immediately which of our scripted plans we would follow, for his sake.

Our first move was to remove the coercions and compulsions laid on the two senior guards and the other High Governors. We followed this immediately with a sweeping command that froze every one of them in their seats, unable to move, except to turn their heads.

<<Now!>> Eru thought to us. At his signal we jumped Con, Chet and Cyrus into a room several levels below us. The three technicians and one producer in the room were quickly immobilized and Constantine sat down at one of the consoles, and using knowledge pulled from the technicians minds, he brought the video cameras in the Chamber of Judgment online. Another quick series of keystrokes and their feed was being broadcast to every receiver in the Western hemisphere.

Eru jumped himself into the High Chamber, and with a pause to allow his presence to be noted by all, spoke.

"I am Eru Jehn, Soul Diver, and the true subject of this proceeding. I stand before you to make declaration, as the old traditions would have me, of abomination and evil. I accuse Verisa Vers, High Governor of the Western Alliance of crimes against society and High Treason. I further name her renegade Soul Diver, and invoke the ancient rite of trial by combat."

"Traitor! Shoot that man!" Yelled Kel Medri, one of the five coercers.

"Kill him! Kill him!" Screeched Yxi Hain, quickly echoed by the remaining coercers.

As the five screamed and postured physically, something the remaining High Governors found themselves unable to do, they used their gifts to attempt to take control of the eight guards in the room. Verisa Vers, hoping to use their efforts as a distraction, attacked Eru's mind directly.

"So the conspirators reveal themselves." Eru added. "Kel Medri, Yxi Hain, Gan Dafri, Ken Huru and Spiri Deneste, I name you coercer, and charge you with crimes against the people of Taluat."

"Very well Soul Diver. You have made your accusations, but you will not leave this room alive to see them carried out!" Verisa unknowingly broadcast to the world, standing at last.

With that statement the five coercers stopped their histrionics and fell silent as the corrupt soul diver pulled them roughly into a mental link. They joined their minds to hers and attacked!

Their combined assault managed to break through Eru's defenses for a brief moment, before we pumped more Light into our fusion and refocused our efforts. To the eyes of Verisa Vers and her coven of coercers, Eru sagged and staggered back for a moment before recovering.

"Your efforts were meant to surprise and overwhelm me, Verisa Vers, but you have failed, because just as you are operating with the aide of these five corrupt souls, I too am not alone!"

With that word we jumped Riah and Zaia into the Chamber to join Eru.

"You have tried to eradicate the Soul Divers of Taluat, but you have failed. Even as your efforts intensified our numbers have grown."

"We shall see!" Verisa crowed, and with that the five coercers clustered around her, forming a circle with their clasped hands. The renegade Soul Diver pulled the five coercers tighter into the linkage they had formed, into a full blown fusion. Fused and functioning as one mind they assaulted Eru with illusion and fantasy and fear. They slipped tendrils of paranoia and panic at his shields.

In our own Light-fueled fusion, the efforts were actually more tissue thin and pathetic than the direct mental assaults had been. Reality dripped with Light, but thought was not of the Light, and to use it to deceive the perceptions of the Light-aware was like trying to pass off a picture postcard of the Grand Canyon as the real thing.

With the attacks on Eru diverted to a mode that posed no threat, Riah and Zaia were free to deal with the coercers. One at a time they dove into the minds of a coercer, battering his defenses aside and shut down the gifts in their brains, commanding them to sleep, unable to even watch the rest of the events along with the rest of Taluat.

"You rage at me for what you see happening, don't you, Verisa Vers. You wonder at how an elderly and solitary Soul Diver, who had gone willingly into retirement has managed to return, younger and stronger, with students at his side to defeat you."

The moment was rapidly approaching. Ginny and I deactivated our Legion armor and we slipped quickly into the garb worn by the Ancient Taluatans of legend. We built ourselves shields of Light-construct and wove them about us. All the time I had spent teaching myself this little trick was finally going to pay off. Within our fusion Eru felt us preparing and knew we were ready as well.