Excerpt: You want me to do what?

Sonic showers were ever so much better than water for that. Water took forever to dry out. That was the only thing that was not so cool about surfing. You’d think after all these years Liam would be used to the it. And he was, sort of. But lounging around on the beach naked or nearly so, with the wind gently blowing through your fur, little grains of sand embedding themselves into every nook and crook they could. There it was all just part of the reality of being there. The fact that you tracked some of it home on you is what made it a real experience, not just a holo deck fake that shrugged off when you passed out the arch, leaving all the fantasy behind you as the grid reappeared.

Liam shrugged out of his trunks and hit the shower, relaxing in the subtle tingling caress of the “waves” as they shook free any little detritus from his fur and skin.

He was running a brush through and over his fur when the door rang. Who could be calling on him at this hour, he thought to himself. It wasn’t even noon yet. Hmm. Maybe it was just one of his bar buddies looking for a place to crash.

Anyway, Liam slipped into a pair of loose trousers and walked out to the living room, calling out a deep, rumbling “I’m coming” as he strode across the room, and pulled the front door open.

He was not expecting that.

Grand Duke Wykat was standing at his front door, a pair of panther guards flanking him to either side. And he was holding a rather large, almost but not quite two handed broadsword in a reverent looking pose before him in outstretched hands.

“Erm… are you sure you have the right address?” was all Liam could think to say. He stood there blinking in confusion, staring at the trio standing there, staring back at him.

“Are you Liam Chandler?”

Nodding slowly, Liam took a couple paces back into his room. Then, remembering that he had guests standing on his front stoop as it were, added a quick “won’t you come inside?”

Wykat smiled reassuringly and accepted the invitation, walking calmly in, and nodding at the sofa, said to Liam, “Perhaps you should sit down for this. Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble.”

Liam nodded, still not sure this was for real. After all, Grand Duke Wykat might well be the most important man on the planet after King David. And not only was he the King’s topmost advisor, he was also a Lieutenant President of the Alliance. One of only a handful of people in the entire intergalactic alliance that was in charge of the military that protected all the worlds of the federation. And he was a noble, as well as one of the oldest men alive, period. He and his sister were with the first settlers who colonized New Thunara so many centuries ago.

“I think I’ll stand, if it’s just the same,” Liam said, still wholly and completely befuddled by the arrival of so great a personage as the Grand Duke and his entourage, however small. Liam had thought the Grand Duke never traveled without at least a half dozen guards, whether they were just for show or for actual security. Apparently, he had been wrong in that assessment.

After an awkward pause that seemed to last an eternity, Liam blurted out, “Are you sure you have the right guy?” Liam was a commoner, after all. Nobody that someone like the Grand Duke would be wanting to drop in for a visit.

Curling his lips into a smirk of a smile, Grand Duke Wykat said, “We’ll know for sure in just a moment. Here. Take this.” He held the sword out to Liam, his head bowing slightly as he did so.

No sooner had Liam’s hand touched the hilt of the blade then, though, a dark ruby embedded at the crossbar began to glow with an inner fire, bathing the room in a crimson glow, and an overwhelming sense of power hit Liam as if it were boring straight into his brain from within. He knew the Great Spirit wanted him, wanted him to have this sword, knew him from his innermost core being, and had chosen him. Him. He was chosen. He was needed. He was a leader, he was destined to do great things, and it would not be long before he was called on to go out and do them. Liam was special. Very special.

Not that Liam was aware of it, but as soon as he took the sword in his hands, his eyes lit up with the same crimson glow as the ruby embedded in the crossbar. Wykat knew that was the most obvious outward symbol of the Great Spirit. Any time someone was possessed by the Great Spirit, spoken to or directed by the Spirit, his or her eyes lit up and glowed like red hot coals. Aliens were quite often totally freaked out by such displays when they happened, especially that one time a few decades ago that the Great Spirit had moved every living Thunaran simultaneously to return to the home world. Not long after that, they had discovered the far galaxy where other Thunaran refugees had escaped so many centuries ago, cut off from Cosmos, to evolve so far removed from home that Old Thunara had faded to nothing but a myth by the time those from here made contact. All Wykat knew was that the Great Spirit had charged him and his companions to forge the new weapons and find their new owners.

After the eternal minute passed, both the sword’s gem and Liam’s eyes ceased their bright crimson glowing, returning to their normal, non-luminous states.

Woah. Liam could not even think of words that would do that epic experience justice. Awesome, astonishing, exalted, magnificent, majestic even. Maybe mind-blowing might work… anyway, he’d never been particularly religious growing up, no more so than anyone else he knew. But this… this was so in your face real. He’d heard about how the Great Spirit had spoken to people before, through the Eye of Thunara, through the King, possessing great and epic champions in the chronicles. This was… all that and more than he could possibly put into coherent thought. And the Great Spirit chose HIM.

Why me? Liam thought. What’s so special about me?

Finally, the Grand Duke spoke, breaking the silence with a gentle, reverent, almost whispered “there can be no doubt about it, Liam. You are the one the Great Spirit wishes.”

Liam nodded absently, still dazed by the whole of it. He sat absently down on the sofa, staring at the blade in his hands, his mind whirling. “But what am I supposed to do?”