Requiem of a Nightmare

by Jeremy Spires

  “Let’s go.” I ordered. The office door slid open and we stepped out. A handful of navy personnel were armed and looking around nervously. Ivata swung open a hatch and stepped onto the ladder, gripped the rails and slid down. I glanced at Mallory, who smiled at me. I kissed her cheek and winked. “See you soon.” I said. She nodded, then I dropped after Ivata.

  We hit the floor on deck four, where the primary hangar bays were located and slowly opened the hatch. Four carbines were in our faces and I poked my head over Ivata’s shoulder. “Stand down,” I said, and Kelis immediately stepped back. He was accompanied by three former marauders, who looked grim and determined. “Report.” I said to Kelis.

  “We don’t know where they are yet, sir, they’re using some kind of sensor jamming technology.”

  “Grace.” Ivata said. “Where is Lieutenant Grace?”

  I stepped out, accepted a carbine and a radio from a marauder, and tapped in commands to my own tablet. “Her radio shows her on this deck.” I said calmly. That didn’t mean much, the hangar deck of the Eternity was almost two miles long internally. “Who is here?”

  Kelis gestured. “This is everyone.” There were ten or so night stalkers, and half a dozen marauders.

  “Fan out.” I said. “Two-man teams.” I looked around and counted again. Well, damn, that would leave someone by themselves. Guess that would be me.

  “Sir,” Kelis said, and held out a sword in a scabbard. “From Vandorian Arms,” He said. “They sent this over in a shuttle a little bit ago. I didn’t have time to bring it up to you.”

  Since I’d escaped the evil clutches of the doctors aboard the Eternity, Ivata and I had been training heavily with the night stalkers in sword combat, with some help from an unlikely source, the Phelbs. They’d absorbed every culture on Earth, and the Japanese apparently were very masterful swordsman in ancient eras. We had trained and learned and adapted and now, if there were Gilbaglian agents aboard, I would probably lose my other arm to them if I wasn’t careful.

  “Thank you,” I said, accepting the weapon. “Go with Noku.” I ordered, then ventured off on my own in the stillness of the hangar, a place usually full of frantic activity regardless of the time of day. Now pilots hunkered in their ships, civilian staff were together near us, being guarded by a couple of the night stalkers.

  My communications clicked in my ear. “Destota,” Mallory said, her voice calm. “The life signs are sixty meters in front of you, access shaft.”

  “Copy that,” I replied. I left the carbine hanging on its sling around my shoulder, across the front of my body, and drew the sword. Why not, if I was going to lose a limb I might as well get it over with.

  I advanced and so did two other teams. “Movement,” Mallory said in my ear. “Picking up movement.”

  I reached out and opened the hatch as fast I could, which, considering my own speed was fast indeed. And it was lucky I was fast, because as the hatch open, a long thin string of silver flashed up towards my throat. I dropped and rolled backwards, coming up on my feet with the sword raised.

  Two heavy Gilbaglians stepped out, one of them missing an eye and bleeding, but looking overall intact. Both wore the expression that would have been a smirk on a human. They both held the swords that had been used to sever my arm and I felt a gut-punch of primal terror rise in me at seeing one of the weapons.

  “Well, hello, Colonel Valentine.” The first snickered in its high pitched, warbling voice. “We’d heard you were compassionate, but you are not very smart.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that.” I agreed, advancing on them. “Where is my soldier?”

  “You mean this one?” He reached behind his back and held up Lieutenant Grace’s severed head. My stomach turned, and my fury exploded into red fire, making my vision narrow and my adrenaline surge.

  My adrenaline was a weapon itself. I was able to tap into the potential energy of the human body and mind much better than the average human due to my genetic modifications, and when I did, I reached a level of violence and power unlike anyone had ever expected when we were modified genetically.

  I swept the sword down and around in a lightning fast strike and took his arm, which was covered in a dark green plumage, off just below the elbow. Grace’s head hit the floor with the arm attached and the Gilbaglian roared in pain and rage. I snapped my wrists around and slashed high, before the second Avian bastard ever had the chance to move. The Gilbaglians head came off and fell to the deck.

  I pointed the tip of the sword at the second. “I’ll give you exactly five seconds to surrender before I rip you apart.” I snarled. My heart was hammering and felt empty and sick inside my chest. I could only think of my wife, and what had become of poor Grace’s body, and the infant life she had carried, now both lost to us. Casualty reports were not preferred reading to me, but Mallory did. And she had known, even if nobody else aboard knew, that Vearse had lost his entire family on Vandor, and she had prevented them from escaping with whatever they had wanted the young woman for.

  The Gilbaglian sword clanged to the deck and my soldiers surged forward, knocked him down and beat him into submission.

  “Take this piece of shit into custody.” I said, wiping the blood off the sword on my sleeve. “And get him in a holding cell immediately.” I touched my earpiece. “Admiral advise we sweep the hull to check for their ship?”

  “Already done,” She replied swiftly. “They came aboard in an escape pod launched from the edge of the system. Looks like they had four destroyers at the outer boundary near the Oort cloud.”

  “Copy that.” I replied, then glared at the Gilbaglian that we now had. “I’ll find out what these bastards were after.”

  Chapter Two

  ---

  Starship Shadow of Eternity

  Sol system, outer boundary

  My interrogation tactics, I knew, probably needed work.

  I had once sat in my office on Vandor and spoke with Commander Jennisk, the leader of the Phelb Marauders, who had taken over our planet. I’d calmly spoken with him, and when he gave me false information, rather than rationally working things out, I’d killed him with a well thrown knife.

  I’m not particularly patient. I’m also not the brightest mind that Vandor ever produced, even if I am smart by human standards. What I lack, however, is compassion for my enemy. It wasn’t drilled into me the way math and special reasoning was during my training. I do know, however, that a man, or alien, will say anything under torture to make the pain stop. It didn’t have to be true, any respite from the pain would help the tortured party. Whereas I’d laughed as the Phelbs shocked me, beat me, drowned me, whatever they could think up, the Gilbaglian blubbered and wailed.

  Oh, he’d been defiant at first. But he didn’t realize that I also have a sadistic streak as wide as the milky way.

  I’d plucked every feather from his body, one at a time, calmly repeating my questions over and over until he had screamed and begged me to stop. I hadn’t. MacKenzie of the marauders had taken a turn, rubbing the sore spots with an alcohol compound, both to sterilize and cause immense pain.

  Now I was watching as his three-fingered hands danged away from his body as he begged me once more for mercy and not to do what I was about to do. I watched impassively, sitting on a chair backwards as the chair he was locked into was lowered towards the deck. There, two bowls of corrosive acid sat on the deck, and the tips of his fingers dipped into them. The stench was horrible, and turned my stomach, but I continued to stare as he howled and sobbed in agony as the acid melted away the tips of his fingers.

  Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. That it’s a savage, brutal, evil thing we’re doing to a sentient being that was on a mission from his superiors to do harm to their enemies, and we’d have done the same thing.

  Well, you’re wrong.

  We discovered easily, a small bottle in one of his belt pouches. When we analyzed it, the horror that hit me was so bad that I’d vomited. And so, had Ivata, MacKenzie and Mallor
y. Contained in the small bottle was the liquified remains of Lieutenant Grace’s fetus, her unborn child. They had been taking it back to discover an immunity to an unknown disease, and they had taken her head as a trophy.

  So, fuck them and their sentience and rights for being treated fairly.

  I made the decision to kill the Gilbaglian on the spot. I’d also decided that I was going to do it very slowly and painfully. Not because he was a soldier following orders, but because this particular alien, this animal, this savage, evil creature had murdered a young woman for nothing more than an embryo and a DNA sample that had they asked, we would have provided in the interests of peace.

  Instead, they had gone the route of beings without conscious and killed mindlessly. They only knew of her pregnancy due to poor communication security between her and Vearse, and they had targeted her. It could have been any of our pregnant females, even my own wife.

  And now, because they could not be trusted even at the level of a soldier to behave like civilized beings, I was going to eradicate them from the galaxy.

  The Avian screamed again and I decided that I’d had all I could take from him. I stood up, drew my pistol and fired once into his head. His screaming cut off abruptly and his head drooped over the seat back behind him, dripping the weird blue-green blood onto the floor.

  I exited the chamber still feeling sick and empty inside. Two intruders had killed one of my people in a vicious attack, and I couldn’t strike back against them until the fleet was refit, resupplied and rearmed to fight them.

  Walking slowly down the long corridor that led from the detention block, Ivata pushed himself off the wall to walk beside me. After a few moments of silence, he asked, “Ended it?”

  “Yes.” I replied, my tone icy. “I want to petition the council for genocide.”

  “That’s a pretty big ask.” He said softly. He’d grown tired of killing other humans, but he had told me how furious he was about the Gilbaglian lies and their attacks on humans as a whole and he wanted them dead as badly as I did. “But I will back you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think Mallory will as well.”

  “Have you given more thought to our command staff?”

  “Well, since you’re back…” I started to say.

  “I’m going to stay behind for this one.” He said, surprising me.

  “What do you mean, Major?”

  “Someone needs to stay back and train the next army. And the one after that, Colonel. I asked for this assignment, I won’t give it back lightly.”

  “Fair enough, old friend.” I said. “Who do you recommend to take your place, then?”

  “Captain MacKenzie.” He replied without hesitation. I glanced at him.

  “You want me to put a Phelb in charge?”

  “Well, the alternative is that you, the greatest killer of Phelbs keeps trying to lead a joint army. They stop listening to you eventually, and then you lose the ability to keep the organization under control. You need to have someone you can trust to help keep both armies in line until we have the chance to integrate properly.”

  That made more sense than I liked. Having a Phelb command night stalkers would be an interesting thing, but it would also be a Vandorian commanding Phelbs, so I could see the balancing act idea, until our armies got used to working together as a unit. “All right,” I agreed. “Have him come see me on the station.” Ivata nodded. We were clearing out of the Eternity as the refit crews began their work, and I would be departing the stations for Earth after only a few short hours. Even with the horror I’d been party to, I wanted to clear my mind with my wife for a few days before I went back to killing.

  “And clear some time for more sword training when I get back.” I added. Ivata nodded.

  “It’s already been organized. I have both armies becoming proficient. I think we need to increase our sniper teams, though, sir, because we’re not going to have a cavalry charge against Gilbaglians on any planet, we want standoff weapons and close quarters as a last resort.”

  The idea of a cavalry charge against an avian species was interesting to say the least, and I wanted to try it, because I have a crazy streak like that.

  “Good point.” I said. “Train as many snipers as you can find.”

  The man I’d known all my life looked at me and smirked. “That’s all the night stalkers, half the Vandorian army, and maybe six of the Phelbs.”

  “Oh.” I shrugged. “Okay, well, I’m going to leave that decision up to you, Major.” I said. “I’m going to the station to meet with MacKenzie. Make sure nobody is unaccounted for. We’re not doing this again.”

  He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  We’d also issued orders that Phelb and Vandorian soldiers were to be armed at all times, regardless of the situation. A couple of Phelb civilians had complained about the ‘weapons’ being present, to which our councilors replied they were guests on our ships and if they’d like to go face the Gilbaglians without weapons, they were welcome to do so. That silenced the naysayers quickly.

  I walked down the umbilical tube that connected the mighty Eternity to the Phelb shipyard, and I pondered the irony of the situation that had led us here. As I walked through the weirdly sterile white hallways of the Phelb station, I considered that the Cetoplin had been running from the Gilbaglians when they dropped a packet on Earth in an effort to destroy a potential staging base for the Gilbaglians.

  They had, in effect, wiped out a potential saurian race, because the avians had flung asteroids at the Cetoplin and ended up hitting Earth with three of them, exterminating the dinosaur and other creatures that could have given rise to intelligent life, and had instead opened the door to humanity. Humanity had ripped itself apart for six millennia, only to be reborn as a united species against an enemy so ancient that even our creators had tried their best to avoid them.

  I shook my head and banished these thoughts as I entered the chamber where the councilors were waiting with Chancellor Wrathe and my wife.

  “Good afternoon, Colonel.” Said Wingell. I gazed at the man for a long moment. A few years ago, I’d shot him because he had claimed my father was a Phelb collaborator, threw him in prison and even punched him a couple of times. Later, he had gone on the mission with Vearse and Venlent to the Cetoplin home world and brought back evidence that we should ally with our enemies. His partial insanity had been corrected by our doctors, which we had come to learn was a genetic coding left behind by his ancestors to ensure that humans wouldn’t fight an endless war over God.

  Because that had obviously worked so well.

  “Good afternoon, councilors, Chancellor.” I said, nodding at them and taking a seat next to my wife.

  Wrathe spoke first. “Sir, we have deepest sympathies for Lieutenant Grace.” He said, then looked like he was about to offer funeral rites for her, then stopped, remembering the Vandorians didn’t do funerals. We didn’t, because so many of us had died over the eons and it had become an inconvenience. Instead, we tended towards revenge.

  “Yes, thank you.” I replied, and then turned to the council. “I have a request.”

  “Oh boy.” Mallory said under her breath.

  “What is it, Colonel?” Moore asked, raising a brow.

  “I wish to seek a resolution of genocide against the Gilbaglians.” I said with a flat tone.

  “Thank you and good night.” Mallory sighed, running a hand over her face.

  Advirdia raised her white brows so high they almost touched her hair line. “Genocide?” She gasped. “You want permission to exterminate their species entirely?”

  “Yes.” I replied.

  Silence greeted me, along with a few gaping jaws and stunned eyes. Except for Mallory, who was looking down at her tablet without any real interest. Maybe she’s been around me too long to know that I was going to do whatever I thought was the right thing.

  Maybe I was just too angry at the Gilbaglians to see anything but death and violence.

  “How did they get aboar
d?” This was Chancellor Wrathe, an unexpected voice. “Any time Phelb soldiers tried to board Vandorian warships, they were destroyed before they got close.”

  “I’m afraid that is our fault.” Mallory said, looking up once more. “Due to the docking, we had shut down most of our major sensor systems. The Gilbaglians were able to use a holographic generator to mask their signatures.” She held up a small device that looked like it attached to a belt or similar. “It is highly advanced technology. We are analyzing the devices to see how they managed to fool even Colonel Valentine.” Her face reflected an apology, but I knew she didn’t mean any harm to me by it. There was simply no way I could have known.

  Moore nodded slowly. “That makes a kind of sense. Were there any other incursions?”

  Wrathe spoke again. “Two of our pregnant women were killed in a similar fashion. I fear whatever they were after, they escaped with.”

  I saw red once more. The thought of those liquified fetuses was fresh in my mind and filled me with a rage I could not explain.

  “We must expedite repairs and refit,” Mallory said. “And I recommend we offload non-essential crew on Earth.” This surprised me. We usually discussed all policy decisions, but as she was technically my commanding officer, she had no reason to inform me of any decisions she made.

  “You mean the families and such?” Wingell asked. He’d been opposed to embarking family members of our crew and soldiers onboard, but knowing your family was safe kept your mind clear for fighting.

  “Yes,” She replied. “The engagement against the Gilbaglians was the first real defeat we’ve ever had as a modern force, and I need more time to analyze the battle and to see if there is anything we can do to change the outcome of the next one.”

  Wingell nodded, looked at me. “But you would like permission to destroy their entire species?”

  “We could start small.” I offered, my face impassive. “I’d like to kill their leadership caste first.”

  Moore chuckled, Ivata barked one short laugh. Only Wrathe looked stunned. “Colonel, isn’t it a little brutal to just want to kill an entire race? Shouldn’t we entertain the possibility of capture?”