At Hyrillka, on the edge of the Horizon Cluster, they would perform one of the Solar Navy’s more traditional duties. His full cohort of fabulous warships would engage in spectacular sky parades to demonstrate the performance skills they had learned. The jovial Hyrillka Designate loved such spectacles and enjoyed hosting feasts and celebrations to honor Ildiran accomplishments.

Recently, the Mage-Imperator had encouraged increasingly grand exhibitions, even commanding Adar Kori’nh himself to lead the next aerial parade to commemorate the leader’s birth anniversary. After so many years of flawless service, the Adar had grown bored with these childish displays of boisterous bravado. He wanted to do something more significant, more substantial.

But after seeing the unpleasantness on Dobro again, he was glad to participate in an event that was far less emotionally taxing.

The cohort of warliners cut like hatchets through space, continuing in perfect formation toward the Horizon Cluster. When the stardrives had powered up to cruising speed, he excused himself. “I will be in my quarters, reviewing military strategy.”

His crew knew their tasks, and he expected no problems. In fact, during his full military career, he had never expected problems. The Solar Navy was a magnificent fleet, the best ever created in the Spiral Arm… yet for many long Ildiran generations they’d had no real enemy to fight. He had never understood why the succession of Mage-Imperators, for thousands of years, had insisted on maintaining such a huge military force when they faced no outside threat.

But a Mage-Imperator knew many things, understood much about the galaxy and the living story of their race.

Kori’nh sat in his cabin and studied the Saga, a private copy of certain relevant portions he always kept aboard his flagship. Many times he had been tempted to employ a rememberer for the fleet, a dedicated historian to regale the soldiers with heroic tales between their duties. But Kori’nh suspected he was the only one with such a specific and obsessive interest in military history.

The Ildiran race was a unified organism, composed of billions of people connected through the gossamer threads of thism. Ildirans had no outside enemies, no internal strife, no major civil wars. Except for one tragic story, which Kori’nh reread, adjusting the blazer panels in his quarters to a high brilliance that more closely simulated Ildira’s seven suns.

One beloved Designate had suffered a serious head injury, but after recovering had been unable to tap into the thism. He could feel no connection with his Mage-Imperator, could receive no instructions. He was alone, adrift… separate.