“I saw you with that adept earlier. You lifted him clear of the floor with one punch, and he was taller than you by half a head at least,” he said.
“Yes, I didn’t hold back enough. It’s hard sometimes to gauge exactly how much strength I am using,” she said.
Master Hayashi hummed thoughtfully, then the childlike twinkle returned to his eyes. “And what about the…?” he asked, his voice trailing off as he raised his hand and wiggled his fingers in a strange gesture that Aileen recognized the meaning of.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how to use any of the psionics yet,” she answered in a monotone tone that came from answering the same question a hundred times. “Although, I did have an accident a few days ago.”
“What kind of accident?” he asked.
“Well, I was in the bathroom, and…” She stopped. “On the other hand, I’m not telling you about that, it’s too embarrassing.”
Master Hayashi grinned, but didn’t press her. Then his face straightened, and he spoke seriously again. “Are you sure about going with him?”
Aileen shifted uncomfortably. “No, but I am the only one that can do it,” she said.
“There is always someone else.”
“What I meant to say was that I am the one who can do it best. It makes sense to take someone who is intimately familiar with the Ra’a’zani. And I was the personal slave to the Earth Overlord, I know them best,” Aileen said.
Master Hayashi grimaced. “Perhaps, but you know that no one is forcing you to go, right? You can say no.”
“Of course I know. It has been made very clear to me,” she answered with a sad smile. “But I want to. I need to face them again. And I can’t back out now; he is the only one that can teach me how to use my new abilities.”
Master Hayashi nodded grimly. “That might be for the best.” He then studied her with a strange look in his eyes. After a few awkward moments of the two of them standing there, Aileen broke the silence.
“What is it?”
Master Hayashi blinked and the look was gone. “You remind me so much of him.” He sighed.
“Really?” Aileen said, surprised.
“Yes.” He nodded. “You have the same drive, in here.” He pointed at her heart. “And the same way of thinking up here,” he said, pointing at her head. “I can see it in the way you fight, in the way you reason your actions.”
“I doubt that; we have led very different lives.” Aileen shook her head.
“Yes, very different lives. Yet trust me when I say this, you are far more alike than not. Adrian was born with a raw talent unlike any I have ever seen, and not just for fighting, but for everything. He pushes himself so far, so much. He pushes not to be the strongest, but for the simple reason that he knows that he has not yet reached his limit. And I believe that when he reaches that limit, he will not stop. He will push further and further simply because he can.”
Master Hayashi laid a hand on her shoulder. “That unyielding drive is what you share, although it comes from different reasons. Things always came easily to him, and he knows it. It is what has made him complacent at times, made him suffer great grief. But his goal was never to be the best for the sake of being above others; the only thing he craves is the challenge of that imaginary boundary that he intends to push through,” he said with a respect that Aileen had rarely heard from her master.
“Things come easy to you, too, but not as easy as they come to him, because you are weighed down. You push to run away. You remember what you once were, and you train to get away from that person. But you will never escape her; she is you,” he said sympathetically. “That is where you and Adrian differ. He has left his past behind him, remembering it but not allowing it to pull him backwards. He faced his moment and didn’t break, and he emerged stronger. But his past was not like yours. He had never been left at the mercy of another, and he has never felt helpless to the same extent as you have. He is free. And you can be like him if you face that person, look her in the eye, and let her go.”
Aileen turned away from her former master, feeling his hand drop from her shoulder. She was shaken, because she knew that he was right. She was held back. She hated her past self; each time her dreams took her to that time, she wanted to scream at that pathetic, beaten slave, to grab her and shake her to ask her what the hell was wrong with her that she would allow them to own her, to make her turn on her own people. It was that time that drove her now. She would never be that helpless and weak again.
She had been broken when she’d arrived in the Empire, one of the few survivors from Earth. It had taken her years to learn all about who humans were, their history, their legacy. And then she’d had a choice; she could be anything she wanted. Some of the survivors had left to found their own Clan, but Aileen had never really felt like a part of them. She was the only one who had been in the service of the Ra’a’zani, and they never let her forget that. Instead, she had chosen to stay on Sanctuary, and eventually she’d started working at the progeny centers as a caretaker. It was those children that she’d raised that had helped her heal, had helped her find herself.
But it still hadn’t been enough. She’d needed to feel strong, to regain the control over her life. So she’d joined Warpath, had started learning what it truly meant to be a warrior. With a deep breath, she gathered herself and turned around to look at her former master. He had waited, not trying to make her feel better.
“I guess that we will see if I can do that. I will meet with the Ra’a’zani sooner or later,” Aileen said.
“You will, and that will be your moment,” Master Hayashi said. Then in a single second, his demeanor changed back to his regular cheerful self. “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow,” Aileen said, relaxing as they changed the subject. “They are adding some last-minute cargo to the ship now.”
At the mention of the ship, Master Hayashi got a wistful look on his face. “Ah… I hear that it has the new drives,” he said.
“It does,” Aileen said. New drives that were born from the knowledge the Empire had gained from Axull Darr’s sphere. They allowed the ship that was already capable of traveling through both trans-space and hyperspace to move at faster-than-light speeds inside a star system through normal space. But only in relatively short bursts, and with moderate recharge time. Aileen didn’t know much about the technology, aside from the fact that the techs nicknamed it ‘skimming’ and that it was similar to technology humanity had once theorized about called the Alcubierre drive. All the newer Empire ships had the technology.
“The new drives are probably the only reason why I am not worried that I will go crazy on the trip,” Aileen said with a smile. “I should go, there are still a few things I need taken care of before I leave.”
“Of course, child,” he said, reminding Aileen of the man that was the reason she was alive now. She stepped forward and took the much older man into a hug. With no hesitation, he returned the embrace. And then she stepped back. Master Hayashi smiled. “Don’t forget to send me a message when you have a chance.”
“I won’t,” Aileen said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Aileen stepped into the large docking stations inside Warpath’s Forge, one of its three asteroids that served as the center of the Clan. She walked towards the area where the ship she would take to Sol was docked, all the way avoiding people running around the halls and large open areas where cargo was constantly moved around. It took her a good half hour to get to her destination. She could have taken a train cart, but she still had time to kill until her scheduled departure. As she entered the docking area where her ship was, she saw a flurry people moving about, still putting cargo boxes on the ship.