Eternal Winter's Reign - Book 2 - Intermission (Patreon)

The Capital Planet of the Terran Empire

Edward North crushes the skull of a massive creature with the power of a Tier 4 Symbiont Host through nothing but his physical strength. Then he drops the corpse and turns around, beginning to walk back to the base while his anger shows in the form of steam rising from his body. A sign of the heat energy – something the researchers finally begun to understand about the symbionts thanks to the introduction of the Eternal Winter’s cold energy – in his body manifesting in his power.

The power to create and control flames from his skin.

However, as many of his soldiers have come to understand nowadays, after the Great Silence that occurred when the powerful surge radiated from Cocytus and silenced all communication, including that of the terminal, he doesn’t always have full control over his power. Even if he’s never actually harmed someone on accident through it.

None of his soldiers blame him for his anger, since they all understand why he is upset. Most of them would be too, after all. If their child was left on another planet where he can’t reach him, with their last contact being a call from his niece telling him that his son was in a coma.

And the General of the Military never takes his anger out on them either, even if he is terrifying to talk to nowadays.

Meanwhile the General in question just ignores everyone’s cautious stares and marches right on into the base while shouting, “Clean up the mess! And bring the damned corpse to those cold-damned researchers!”

“Yes, Sir!” every soldier nearby shouts, regardless of if it’s their job or not.

Edward North continues walking through the base until he reaches the research area, where dozens of researchers can be seen working on a spaceship. Then he stands there and watches them for several seconds before walking up and looking for the head researcher.

“General North! What brings you-” the head researcher immediately and enthusiastically begins to ask the moment he sees Edward, but the general cuts him off without hesitation to ask, “What’s the progress?”

The head researcher lets out a sigh and turns to look at the ship as he answers, “As I’ve stated yesterday, general, the ship will not be ready for spacefaring for at least another few years. The atmosphere itself has changed since the Eternal Winter came, not to mention the changes to space. We need to add and test vast amounts of coldproof metals to keep everyone from freezing to death inside of the ship during a voyage. We need to find a way to efficiently power a ship large enough to move through space. And we need to find a way to stop the shards from passing through the ship’s hull, letting the oxygen out during its passing.”

Edward grits his teeth and clenches his fists, but he doesn’t do any more than that. He just turns and stares at the spaceship that is still only half-made without saying a word.

“Look, general, I understand that you must be worried about your son and your niece, but we need to make sure the ships we design are safe for everyone to use,” the head researcher continues. But all Edward does is nod his head without a word, not taking his gaze from the ship.

No matter how many times Edward asks, he always feels like asking again the next time he has the chance. As if asking the same question over and over again would change the result.

In reality though, he understands that he’s grasping at straws at this point.

Edward finally turns away and leaves the research area of the base and heads towards the wall before activating a small switch on his wrist that is powered by cold energy. And only ten minutes later, his second in command – a lieutenant general named Gloria Fellman – arrives and nods her head in respect before stating, “Lieutenant General Fellman reporting, Sir.”

The general quickly orders, “Speak.”

“Of course,” she says with another nod of her head before moving her clipboard from under her arm to in front of her as she looks down, her golden hair falling over her shoulder in the process. “With the latest frozen one assault, we have managed to clear out over half the planet of Tier 4 equivalent frozen ones. There are still seven more located on the other side of the planet biding their time with the Tier 5 equivalent frozen one, but we believe that they are beginning to show signs of movement.”

Edward nods his head while narrowing his eyes out at the soldiers cleaning up the frozen ones outside of the massive fortress that is nearly akin to a castle in its defenses. A castle personally belonging to the General of the Military.

“Have the intelligent ones caught wind of our scouts yet?” Edward asks without looking back at the woman whose age should be a dozen or so years older than his son.

“The scouts aren’t sure,” Gloria answers. “Some of them believe that the frozen ones have long since found them out but are leaving them be, while the more prideful ones are absolutely certain that they have not been spotted.”

“Hmm,” Edward hums while crossing his arms.

If they have already spotted them but aren’t doing anything, then they’re most likely letting us spy on them. But should I take this as a challenge? As arrogance? Or are they trying to feed us false intel somehow?

After thinking over it for a little while, Edward eventually says, “Make sure to triple check all of the intel the scouts bring to make sure the intel isn’t being falsified by the enemy. And send a new scout every week to a different location without telling the other scouts.”

“Understood, Sir,” Gloria says with a salute.

“You’re dismissed,” Edward says while still looking out over the soldiers.

Gloria salutes once more before turning around, placing the clipboard back under her arm again, and walking away.

That should at least let us figure out if they’re trying to falsify our information or not. They won’t be able to find the new scouts immediately every time. And if they do, that just means we can’t trust the intel beyond a surface level.

Edward continues looking out over the wall of the base for a while, his fist clenching slightly at his side once more.

Please be okay, Alex. I can’t lose you too.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For those of you who are reading this on a website that is not Patreon, please stop. You're reading a pirated version. Instead, if you would be so kind, please click on the table of contents link below and go to my Patreon instead. Or even read it off of Royal Road, which is free.

Discord Invite

Top Web Fiction

Table of Contents