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|cover=DefendingElysium.jpg
|released=Holiday 2009
|word-count=14,616
|annotation=annotation
|setting = [[Cytoverse]]
}}
'''''Defending Elysium''''' is a non-[[cosmere]] short story written by [[Brandon Sanderson]] published on his [[bws: defending-elysium|website]].{{bws ref|
== Background ==
The United Governments military had accidentally shot down a Tenasi diplomatic vessel during an embarrassing first contact. Humanity had worried this would throw them into a conflict, then the Phone Company stepped in and, using methods unknown to even
Other alien races refused to communicate with humanity unless they went through the PC first. Thus far, humankind has expanded beyond the reach of Saturn but is kept back by the PC's refusal to share FTL travel technology they are suspected of possessing. They are, however, capable of constructing orbital stations from nothing more than inert metal, using their Element-specific gravity generators.
Back at the hotel, Jason convinces Coln to take Denise to Jupiter Fourteen, handing Coln his PC pin so officials at the office won't give him trouble, but only if Jason will tell him if the PC have FTL drives and are keeping them back from humankind or not. As they are about to leave Denise becomes unresponsive and Jason realizes a faint whiff of gas in the room. All three are rendered unconscious.
Having his Cytonic Sense disabled, his link to the outside world severed, Jason is trapped both physically and figuratively. Without his Sense the darkness swallows him whole, sending him into a blind panic as he is unable to answer the voice interrogating him from above.
Coln is similarly imprisoned, but unlike Jason he can see the confines of his "prison" for the storage closet it is, with Denise sat beside him. Suddenly, Jason's intercom crackles in his ear and Jason tells Coln to cut the power. Somehow. Not sure if he can trust Jason, Coln does as he's asked anyway, finding a power jack on the wall.
Unable to escape the darkness, Jason slips further into insanity, wanting nothing more than to find bliss in unconsciousness. Then his Sense returns, only for a brief moment before the backup generators kick in and re-energise whatever was suppressing his Sense in the first place. He wouldn't allow that to happen though, lashing out with the destructive force of his mindblades and shredding apart his [[telanium]] prison and the suppressor along with it.
As Coln severs the power jack the room next to his explodes. Looking into the room he is stunned to find Jason at its epicentre. Jason only tells Coln to take Denise and go when Coln questions what he is. The same voice that had interrogated Jason comes again from a wall speaker. Jason demands that the owner show himself and punctually a man appears down the hallway outside. The man is [[Edmund (Cytonic)|Edmund]], a man Jason supposedly knows from his past. And another thing occurs to him: the shooting in the cafe had been to test his mindblades.
A battle, unseen to normal eyes, rages between Jason and Edmund, both men possessing the mindblade ability. Jason is surprised to find that Edmund has surpassed him and he gambles that the Varvax taught Edmund to use them effectively; to which Edmund discovers Jason's bluff about reading minds. Realising the potential difference in ability, Jason uses the only thing he can think of to gain the advantage. By focusing Sense in on himself he is able to step outside normal space and vanish. Reappearing moments later with his hand inside Edmund's chest, gripping the man's heart. Edmund's mindblades explode where Jason had been and Jason squeezes the man's heart, killing him.
Using FTL, Jason transports Coln, Denise, and himself to the PC headquarters on Earth, revealing the PC do infact possess FTL technology, and that they were keeping it from humanity until they were ready. The machine Coln originally thought was the FTL drive is in fact a coffee machine. The real FTL drive is the man - dressed up as a security guard - seated beside it. His mind is the link for millions of FTL transmissions. Lanna rushes into the room and is introduced as Jason's wife.
Jason is contacted by the Varvax Sonn who explains how the Varvax compel their subjects into submission, including other alien races they have subjugated, as they will with humanity, all in the progress of peace.
In the last moments of Defending Elysium, Jason sits back and tells Lanna to prepare a press release: tell humanity that the Phone Company has finally developed faster-than-light travel, and that it will be released to the public. His last words are a hope for the illusion he'd believed in for so long.
;[[Denise Carlson]]: She is the scientist that Jason has been searching for. However, when they do find her at a local hospital she is amnesiac. Later, they discover this is due to her being a Varvax imposter - a dissenter trying to escape her own people. Jason takes her to the PC headquarters on Earth at the end of the story.
;[[Edmund (Cytonic)|Edmund]]: He is a Cytonic like Jason who kidnaps him in order to discover whether Jason really does possess mindblades.
== Organizations ==
;FTL: Faster-than-light travel has been acquired by all species except humankind. The Phone Company possesses this technology but has withheld it from them for so long. The technology is not powered by standard electronics as would be expected, but by cognition. The technology developed from Cytonics.
:Jason is the only character seen actually using this ability in the story
:It involves Sensing inwards on yourself and removing yourself from normal space, apparently moving through a different dimension to reappear at a different point in normal space light-years away in seconds.
==Notes==
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