Empire Reborn (Taran Empire Saga Book 1): A Cadicle Space Opera A.K. DuBoff (guided reading books TXT) 📖

Cris smiled. “Just assuming I’ll come along, hmm?”

“Oh, come on, Dad. I know you’ll jump at any opportunity to go adventuring—especially now that you’re stuck in meetings most days.”

“You’ve always known me too well.”

He exchanged glances with Saera. “Still, we may not find anything.”

“I have no doubt that you’ll find something,” Cris said. “Raena, you and Ryan never did a deep dive in the underground structure, did you?”

She shook her head.

“Do you know if it’s been mapped?” Saera asked.

“Yes, the accessible corridors,” Raena replied, “but I don’t believe they’ve done any advanced imaging of the underground structure.”

Wil nodded. “So much of it’s shielded, anyway. We’ll need to go probing ourselves.”

“Reminds me of when we went searching for the Dainetris estate,” Cris said.

Raena got a mischievous smirk. “I must admit, that was a fun day.”

“All of you really need to get out more.” Wil chuckled, but the reason for the exploration weighed on him. The fate of the Empire is at stake.

His family picked up on his shift in mood, and their smiles faded.

“I’ll dig up the architectural plans for you,” Raena offered. “In the meantime, we can pick up Ryan at his office for the tour and then have a family dinner.”

“All right,” Wil agreed. “The rest can wait until tomorrow.”

“Well, I, for one, am eager to see the new guest wing,” Saera said. She added telepathically to Wil, “Our daughter should come before anything else. It’s been too long since we’ve seen her.”

“No argument here.” Wil nodded to Raena. “Please, lead the way.”

—     —     —

Raena enjoyed watching the interactions between her loved ones. However, whenever her parents and grandparents got together, it seemed like conversations inevitably turned to one galactic-scale problem or another. She wasn’t surprised, since holding key positions in both the TSS and Taran governance had made the Sietinens the single most influential family in the Empire. Some days it felt like too much pressure, but when everyone was together, Raena believed they could accomplish anything. And, given what they’d already achieved, it was probably true.

Ryan had wrapped up his critical tasks for the day by the time they arrived at his office, so the group proceeded on a tour through the estate. Raena and Ryan traded off leading as they highlighted the places that were special to each of them. It was fun revisiting how much they’d put their personal mark on the place in just a few years.

By the end, Raena had worked up an appetite and was ready to sit down to dinner—emphasis on the sitting. Her work heels were comfortable, but flats would have been a more sensible choice for the walking tour.

“Yeah, so aside from the Sanctuary, pretty much everything else has had some form of improvement,” Raena said in summary. “It’s been fun to watch it transform.”

“It really does look lovely, Raena,” Saera said.

“The building architecture is the same, but the entire place feels so different,” Wil agreed.

“It’s taken a while to get there,” Raena admitted. “I didn’t sleep particularly well for the first couple of weeks.”

Ryan nodded. “I’m glad we stuck with it, though. It’s been nice turning the place into something better.”

“The stuff we know about that went on here is bad enough. I can’t imagine what else the Priesthood may have been up to that has remained secret.” Raena’s thoughts often turned to the island’s former occupants in her gloomier moments. Sometimes, her mind played tricks on her and it was as if Priests were still freely roaming the halls, looking for their next experiment victim—or coming for her.

“There’s a lot of history here,” Wil said. “I’d like to hope not all of it was bad.”

Perhaps there was a time when the Priesthood lived up to its name, but none of that was left by the end. As far as she was concerned, nothing about the organization or the monsters that ran it was holy or good. They’d abused and performed secret genetic experimentations on the Taran people for centuries. That was unforgivable.

“Maybe, while we’re digging around, we’ll find out more about what the organization was like before it fractured into the Priesthood and Aesir,” Cris commented.

Wil shrugged. “I’d be interested to know. The Aesir have been rather tight-lipped about their history before they branched off into their own community.”

Raena shook her head. “I’d want to distance myself as far from the Priesthood as I could, too.” She couldn’t help but resent the Aesir a little. They had known about the Priesthood’s genetic manipulation of unwitting Taran citizens and had done nothing to stop them.

“Knowing the Aesir, getting distance from the Priesthood wasn’t their sole reason for leaving,” Wil said.

Cris looked at him questioningly. “Why else?”

“The Aesir have firmly held beliefs about how to achieve enlightenment. I suspect they felt… limited by being planet-bound and wanted to leave anyway.”

“They’re a strange bunch.” Cris shrugged.

“But wise. They have reasons for doing, or not doing, everything. It’s bomaxed annoying, don’t get me wrong, when they refuse to give a straight answer. Except, I’ve come to trust them that some things need to unfold in a certain way.”

“I still hate the cryptic-ness,” Raena said. “Like this whole mess with Jason’s vision not being about the Priesthood, after all.”

“What’s this now?” Cris asked.

Raena glanced at her dad and realized that he hadn’t shared the information with her grandfather. “Um…”

“We’ve been reevaluating our previous interpretation in light of new information,” Wil stated. “It remains a warning with no answer, so there’s nothing new.”

Nonetheless, her grandparents had lost a measure of their joviality.

“But we have a rare night with the family together, so we needn’t dwell on such things,” Wil said, giving Raena an encouraging nod.

She smiled. “That’s right. Dinner should be just about ready. Shall we?”

Raena took Ryan’s