Blur of color, and gold-banded imperial is slain by black turned blue. A burst of red from the nearest neck sprays out, the ruffling of cloth and motion of gun and sword punctuated by bullets firing and rebounding and penetrating flesh. Two men fall dead, bodies floating downward after instant eternity. Darts this way and that, too fast for eyes, too silent for ears, too formless to touch, too pure to taste or smell, action outpaces thought, and death after death comes to the soldiers, each in turn, untouched pride flowing out with blood and life. Stillness does not come, only motion leaving, as the flowing black cape flits in air, and the blur of blue, untouched by the red, moves into the hall.

Earth was black. Watching from its umbra, the moon half a world away, only the stars and the faint lights of the Cathedral pylons are visible through the glass. Approaching, one can see the faint light of the torches, the light lattice of purple adorning the immense black of the pylon. Just imagine the vastness of those structures, a vast Leviathan in the night, with a thousand glowing eyes watching the heavens and the Earth. The Cathedral was the only mystery left, its cloak of blackness sheilds wonders only the Church knows, wonders even the Law Clerics don’t know. The Emperor is down there. The ship begins its descent, moving toward the dark surface of the planet. From here, the school is impossible to see, but I know where it is. The great School of Jerusalem; center of the Clerical Guard, the training ground from the elite Law Clerics.

I cannot blame the Emperor so much now; he was always the favored son, but also the weaker. First sons have a duty to themselves to hold their power, and the younger was inevitably cast out; never sought the throne anyway, but to be cast out of the house was almost a death sentence, and was certainly meant exile from the heart of civilization on Mars. Imagine: only sixteen and already banished from the face of the planet, forced to move to the Outer planets, or even an asteroid. Of course, Ganymede or even Io were not terrible places, but they lacked the schools, and for a noble-born to lack Imperial training was a dishonor to the entire empire.

The walls were an obsidian that made space jealous. Blue chased down the hall a terrified imperial, the gold stained with the blood of his comrades, and now stained with his own. As he dropped, his killer burst through the hall door, entering the chamber of the Guard. The room was circular, of the same black as the hall, but the walls had a band of yellow running round the room, and the columns that stood near the walls reflected the color. Colors blurred outside in the hall, but here, the solid black was clean, cold, and lifeless. Secondus felt alone, but he was not alone.

—You’re telling me that I can’t even train as a soldier?
—Yes. I uphold the stability of an Empire that has ruled for eighty-five generations. You would threaten that far too much. I can’t have you here, a constant threat, a distraction from my duties.
—I’m your brother! You are the Emperor! What threat can I possibly pose to you, that you can’t hold in check with your little finger?
—You remind me that I am not the best man for this job, my birthright, and worse; you remind everyone else—friends, enemies—on this planet of that fact. Leave the house, leave the planet, and go live in anonymity.
—Then I am to be denied the Guardship.
—Stay long in this house, brother, and there will be no Guard.

I left for Ganymede on my sixteenth birthday, with a healthy sum of money and a personal guard who would accompany me on the ship, but would not stay with me on Ganymede. My only belonging was an azure blade, the symbol of nobility, named Justice many centuries ago by a man with great foresight. After I left Mars, the Emperor declared a day of mourning over the death of his dearly loved brother. The trip was bitter. Though I lacked a formally complete training, I still had sixteen years of being raised as an Imperial noble behind me. I started a quiet business, married a young woman, and stayed out of the politics and troubles that started to plague the planet.

Secondus stepped forward into the chamber, and could almost feel the cold of the stone. The only ship in the fleet with real stone in its construction, it cost a fortune for it to even dock. He kept his right hand on the gun, silently counting the columns. Eighteen. He brought his hand to rest on the sword at his waist, grasping it firmly. He took a breath, and then took a step forward. Instantly the room exploded with action, and from behind each column stepped out a Guardsman, the elite of the Imperial Army, handpicked by the Emperor out of the Cleric. The lead two brought their arms to bear on him, but a swift cut from his sword separated arms from arms, and the battle was joined anew.

Ganymede's troubles were older than my brother's reign, though they gained strength only after he took the throne. Years of pollution and weak terraforming had slowly begun to reduce the moon from the thriving center of Outer Planets culture to an urbanized wasteland, the richest of its citizens emmigrating to Mars. I, of course, didn’t have this choice, and as I stayed, I began to take a renewed interest in the affairs of the Empire.

The main problem was the taboo on technology, especially terraforming, that the Empire and the Church upheld. The Empire had the Army and the Fleet, and ruled the worlds with its force. The Church had the Clerics and the Paladins, ruling the world through subterfuge and its control of technology. Most people didn't recognize the entire stability in the world, the sheer static force emanating from these two extremely conservative entities. Politicians argued about the legality of technology, but the society had already decided against it. High technology could save Ganymede, but high technology was the great enemy that nearly destroyed humankind in the time of Earth. What we feared was our inquisitive and thus self-destructive nature.

The black cloaks of Imperial Guardsmen are made of the lightest fabric ever created, and they glide with the fluid motions of the Guardsmen themselves. Thrust and parry, gunshot and countershot, the smoothness of their action and the unresisting nature of the cloth made the struggling group look like a living beast of black oil, churning like a sea at night. Secondus was swift, and he was skilled. He fought fast; Parry! Thrust! Counterthrust! He looked for an opening, but found none, and in the sea of swords, guns, cloaks, and gold, he was being matched closer and closer.

It was when the first smog storm ended that I finally had enough. Ten million dead, and my youngest son, a little boy who in the end coughed up blood that wasn’t red—it was the last horror I thought I could stand.

My wife and I joined an Action, the Ganymede Life, which was a formerly controversial group that suddenly gained a great deal of support and interest. Though it didn’ claim its technologism outright, science and technology were so assosiated with it that declaring it would have mattered little. The Emperor had a hell of a time with whole thing, but he wasn’t about to do anything rash yet. Rebellion was unthinkable, the old taboos were still strong, and the Empire and Church still locked in their traditional positions.

Life with the GL was simple, and our two surviving children were happy in their schools, never knowing their royal blood and ancestry. Even my wife didn't know my secret, though she knew I had a grudge on Mars. My work for the Action, as befitted a relatively affluent man as myself, was to raise community support, and I soon found I had a fine talent for speechmaking.

Traveling around the city, I spoke as a midlevel member, protected by the anonymity of numbers. Still, there were those in the GL who were intrigued by my mysterious past, and were seeking to dig up those secrets I had left buried.

Blue gave way to black as Secondus was pushed further and further in, the circle of Guardsmen around him closing and tightening, their give lessening and attacks strengthening. But they grew confident, and Secondus finally saw his opening. A quick slash ended two Guardsmen who had been aiming their guns, and a gunshot hit a third Imperial in the face. The circle drew back in a moment of doubt, and Secondus kicked a one-armed gunman in the neck. He dropped his sword, and took out the hidden blade he was carrying; a purple shard of dioglass, and highest trophy of the ranks of the Church’s Law Cleric. Eyes around the room opened wider, and Secondus smiled.

—You’re the brother of the Emperor.
—What?—Time froze within me.
—You are the brother of the Emperor, the one that supposedly died ten years ago.
—I’m a dead man?
—There’s no use denying it. I’ve seen your file, I’ve had a dozen analyists studying your history. You are Lucius Pontius. Brother of Leo.

A pause, and a decade of secrets was revealed without saying a word. Then he said quietly,
—Some even say that you were the rightful heir to the throne, the true Emperor Earth.
—No. He was the heir. Not a day went by where my brother wouldn’t remind me of that fact.
—Does your wife know?
—No, but I’ll tell her now. I’ll tell them all now. Ten years I’ve been hiding, and he has been ruling. Ten years is enough.

Within a week, I went from a midlevel Action functionary to the figurehead of the group, and I spoke with the legitimacy of a noble, the poise and power of the Empire I should have ruled. I raised a fury that hadn’t ever been seen on Ganymede, or on any world. As long as the knowledge of my birth was known, I was invincible. Over the course of a month, I gained the support of the entire world. With my enemies reeling and my popularity skyrocketing, I at last brought out the great agenda of my party. We would develop new technology to terraform the moon again, to repair the great damage done to it. Eyes all over the Solar System were upon me, including those of my brother. The Lion now looked toward the Light.

Purple met red, and Secondus cut his way out of the circle. Thirteen were left, but thirteen was still formidable, especially thirteen hardened by the realization that he was not so soft as the other rebels. They opened fire on him as he dodged behind a column, and as three moved in to flank him, a whirl of black from the cloaks of the fallen met their faces. Secondus took the opportunity to dive under the feet of his enemies, and felled two more as he slid across the floor to reach the next column. Eleven.

The last time I saw my family alive was after I spoken at the Governing Assembly of Ganymede. A scathing indictment of the Emperor issued from my lips, fermented by the decade of bitterness he left me. I loved my life with my wife, my children, but I had still been denied the life I was meant to have, my birthright. I no longered desired that life, but I still despised the jealousy and fear my brother had.

It was my own fault; I did not know the true extent of his jealousy, and I misjudged his anger. What I thought would be an eruption became an explosion, an act of madness and anger I will never forgive him for. That night I went to bed, fearless, and knowing that my family would be there the next day.

I awoke in a secret hospital bed seven months later, both my legs missing, my face smashed, and my entire body burned up. Machines had replaced a dozen of my vitan organs, and my eyesight had been reduced by half, a gaping hole where a bullet had followed an oblique angle through my face. I could not speak, breathe, or eat. My heart was a lump of steel and plastic. They had to recombine my brain. But I was alive. My family was not.

They had come in the night, they told me. Imperial Guards, some of their best, were sent secretly to kill my family and me. It was only my good luck that the Arm, a secret resistence movement learned of the plan, and sent a group of defenders. I do not know what kind of battle must of ensued, but judging from my own injuries, it seems it must have been eventful.

Sliding across the floor, Secondus opened fire again, and the bullets flew across the air to penetrate black cloak and then air again. Return fire rebounded off the walls, and the gold in the walls came quickly apart. Two Guardsmen dove at him, one at his torso, and the other at his feet, and Secondus jumped up, and met them both in the air. He impaled the one, and the other he knocked to the ground. He landed, turning his body with arms stretched out, and slammed his blade with full force into the guardsman who was just getting up off the ground. He ducked, and the covering fire hit the wall behind him.

The Arm was protected in secret by the Silver House of Ganymede, whose lord was Panther Argyros. Argyros often visited me during those weeks of recovery; he was the one who told me about my family. He also told me about the Arm and his goals for the world.

—We live in a dark age, Lucius.
—Hasn’t our society accomplished anything these past eighty five generations?
—Nothing great, only stagnation. It is time for action, for humankind to rediscover science, technology, to rediscover its nature.
—How can we do that?
—By overthrowing the Empire! By defeating the Church! They have spent two millenia setting up great plots against each other, so let’s release them all at once! General war between the Empire and the Church would give us a chance, a chance for us to secure our freedom.
—Freedom to do what?
—Freedom to learn! To discover! What the Church refuses us and the Empire denies us we will take!

—We have a weapon they do not, you know.
—Panther?
—A technology, unknown to humanity for the past two thousand years, that took us three centuries to develop in secret labs scattered beyond neptune and hidden in the asteroid belts.
—What is it?
—Nanites! Nanorobotics! The greatest technology man ever developed is ours to control.
—Nanites? What makes you think you can control them now? Two thousand years ago nanities destroyed civilization on Earth. It’s a graveyard now, a Cathedral to memory and death.
—We are not as foolish as they, Lucius.

The nanites were the key to my recovery and survival. Injected into my bloodstream, they rebuilt everything with speed that nature could never match. My brain, my nervous system, my muscles, my bones, my organs; the nanites built my body from a broken shell into that of a Greek god. Then better. To my brain they added a computer that interfaced with my mind directly, and gave me conscious control over my entire body and its functions. To my nerves, they gave insect reflexes and finer control than any athelet had. To my bones, they gave iron strength, and to my muscles, they gave the strength to bend iron, and great endurance. I was now a superhuman being.