The Ninth Cycle of TinTay TinTay, who once was known as Justin Taylor, legionary of The Legion of the Orkon Empire, was in deep thought. While TinTay’s hair was no longer as blond as when he was younger, since it was mixed with gray, his eyes were still a bright blue that almost glowed. Recent events had shaken The Legion to its core. A supply convoy of The Legion had been attacked and destroyed. The attack that had shaken The Legion had happened in space. According to long held views fighting in space was impractical due to speed and distance issues. Due to this traditional belief very few ships in the Orkon Navy actually had weaponry that could be used in space and those few were very old. Added to the fact of space combat was the fact that the attackers came from an Unknown World. There was also the possibility that these aliens were capable of locating ships in normal space while they were still in Inner Space. Even more dangerous was the idea that they could control their jumping from Inner Space to a specific point in normal space. As long as the Empire had Inner Space drive it had never been able to develop precise jumping back to normal space. The High General of The Legion had called for the entire Legion to come to Reborah. In addition all surviving members of the second rebirth of Gkolath were to gather for a conference to be held in the council chamber of the High General. The High General was encamped in Reborah now that the planet Hakim had been conquered and added to the Empire. TinTay, as a member of the second rebirth of Gkolath, was waiting for the beginning of the conference. Only 276 members of second rebirth of Gkolath were still alive but they were spread all over the planet of Hakim and it would take several days for all of them to arrive in Reborah. While TinTay waited he began to remember his life since he became a member of the second rebirth of Gkolath, which led to his birth as a Legionary less than a cycle later. Justin had been the first member of his rebirth to pass the tests and to be born a Legionary and to receive his new name of TinTay. TinTay had lost track of how many cycles he had been of The Legion and seldom remembered his life as Justin. The only memory he held onto from his life before the rebirth was his undying love for Brian Kinney and that Brian had finally admitted to himself, and to Justin, that he loved him the night that he had been stolen from his birth planet by the Horab. He only vaguely remembered how many planets he had helped bring into the Empire. He had been very successful in his career and had risen high in the ranks of The Legion very quickly. He had been the sponsor of hundreds of babies during the cycles he had been a Legionary though he usually only sponsored a baby for the short period of time necessary to train him in some specific part of Legionary lore. He had also had many lovers among the other Legionarys. Members of the second rebirth of Gkolath had a reputation for choosing lovers amongst themselves at a higher rate than was usual for The Legion. Like all Legionarys TinTay had passed through the traditional stages of a rebirth. He became a zygote when the Horab had captured him on his birth planet. The Horab were the only non-humanoid members of the Empire and were one of the few non-humanoid aliens that had ever been discovered during the history of the Empire. Other than the original planet of Orkon, the Horab were the only members of the Empire who hadn’t been conquered first. The Horab had willingly allied with the Empire. Technically the Horab weren’t members of the Empire but still just allies, but for all practical purposes the Horab were a member of the Empire. The Horab had delivered their captives to The Legion on Voltt, which The Legion had recently conquered. The fighting had been very intense and casualties among The Legion had been very high which is what had led High General Gkolath to call for a rebirth, the second of his reign. At The Legion rebirth center the embryos were judged to see if they fit the requirements of The Legion. During the raids that had captured the zygotes the Horab had performed a rough selection of their captives. Only young males between the ages of 14 and 21 planetary cycles had been taken, any obvious disabilities and deformities had been used by the Horab to prevent obvious failures of the rebirthing process being brought to Voltt. The Horab were only paid for the number of zygotes that passed and became embryos so it was in their interest to only bring zygotes that had a good chance of becoming embryos. Over the centuries that the Horab had been involved in rebirths of The Legion they had become very good at knowing what The Legion required. At the rebirth center the zygotes were given physical examinations by levy Doctors. Any embryos with congenital defects, serious illnesses, or sexual inadequacies were aborted from the rebirth process. According to tradition the aborted zygotes were taken, by the Horab, to the nearest Empire planet and sold as physical laborers. Of the 8034 zygotes captured in the raid, which had made it to the rebirth center only 102 were aborted. Several hundred other zygotes had died during the trip to Voltt. The Horab received compensation for the 7932 embryos that became the second rebirth of Gkolath. When a zygote became an embryo his clothing was taken away by levy soldiers and levy Doctors implanted the translation device into the ear canal of the embryo. The embryos remained naked until the day they became a baby. Within a few days the devices became fluent in every language that the embryos spoke amongst themselves. The levy Doctors were amazed at the number of languages spoken by this group of embryos, historically there were no more than 3 or 4 languages in a class of embryos. Cycles later historians of The Legion decided that this was the first indication of the uniqueness of the second rebirth of Gkolath. The translation devices allowed the Empire to work since any and every citizen could speak to any other citizen regardless of whether they spoke the same native language. The device translated what it heard into whatever language the person wearing the device understood. So while a person heard an unintelligible noise their brain understood the meaning of that noise. Translation devices had to be trained in order to work so anytime a person met someone who spoke a new language, to the device, it took a few days before fluency was managed but the devices never forgot a language no matter how many cycles might pass between use of a language. Most Legionarys became fluent in many of the native languages spoken by other Legionarys and didn‘t rely on the translation device to talk to each other since the device didn‘t work if the person understood the language being spoken. Within days all of the embryos, of the second rebirth of Gkolath, could understand each other and the levy soldiers, at the rebirth center, started circulating among the embryos so that the devices could begin the process of becoming fluent in Galachh. Following tradition the levy soldiers only spoke in Galachh when in the presence of the embryos. The levy soldiers were very careful to avoid touching the naked embryos in any way. The next step in the rebirth began when the embryos were able to understand Galachh. The embryos learned the history of the Empire and The Legion. They began to learn how to use the teaching devices as well. They began to learn the traditions of The Legion and to determine for themselves if they could follow those traditions. Once an embryo felt that he was ready he could take the birthing test. An embryo was never forced to take the test but could stay an embryo only until the next rebirth. Any remaining embryos at the time of a new rebirth were finally judged as defective and destroyed by the levy soldiers assigned to the rebirth center. All members of the second rebirth of Gkolath passed to the baby stage within a half cycle, which was a record time in the history of The Legion. Justin had been the first member of the rebirth to become a baby of The Legion. According to Imperial law The Legion could have a maximum of 10,000 legionarys and 20,000 embryos and babies. Since a baby could only become a legionary when he passed the tests and there was an opening there was no time limit on how long a baby could remain at that stage. In the long history of The Legion there were babies that died of old age who never passed the birthing tests. There were also those babies that had passed the tests yet remained babies because there were no openings available for them in The Legion. The most extreme example was Urolthy of the 5th rebirth of Jame who went from baby to High General in one day. He had passed every test required for every rank of The Legion but since the Emperor of the time had stopped expansion of the Empire there had been no openings in The Legion. Urolthy had been a genius and passed the tests at a rapid rate, but then as a baby he had nothing to do but study and care for his Legionary sponsors. Urolthy was one of the most successful of the long line of High Generals; during his reign The Legion captured 10 planets for the Empire and only had to be reborn 3 times. Forvac of the 1st rebirth of Kennet had been the worst High General in the history of The Legion. There were 6 rebirths during his time as High General, and yet he died before the only planet that he tried to capture became part of the Empire. Forvac became a curse word among the levy soldiers since his reign cost the levy armies’ uncountable losses in addition to the thousands of Legionarys that died due to his inept decisions. Legionarys sponsored babies, depending on the number of active Legionarys a baby would usually be claimed within days of birth but some babies were never claimed or waited cycles before being claimed. Legionarys with no baby had first claim to any new baby that was born. A sponsor had to teach his baby everything he could possibly teach the baby about the workings of The Legion. The baby took care of every need that his sponsor requested but he always had the right to refuse to do anything he was uncomfortable doing. Since Legionarys varied in their knowledge and abilities they seldom retained sponsorship of a baby until the baby passed the tests and was born a Legionary. Since the whole process of the rebirth was for the survival of The Legion, Generals had the right to remove a baby from the sponsorship of a Legionary if they felt that an infatuation had developed and the Legionary wasn’t doing what was best for the education and training of the baby. Very few babies had the abilities to pass the tests without learning from several sponsors. Justin had been one of those few and had passed the test to become a Legionary after only two sponsors; both of his sponsors had been high ranking in The Legion. The day after TinTay was born a Legionary he sponsored his first baby, Christopher Hobbs.