“NO! GET AWAY!”
The owl screeches and rips at me with its talons.
“Snap! I am sorry Snap! You weren’t supposed to die!”
I try to scream more but it grabs my tongue with its beak, and rips away at it. My body shakes uncontrollably as I fight the bonds. HELP! PLASE DON’T DO IT! LEAVE ME ALONE!
“Peee-teer.”
The owl is gone, and I see glowing eyes of a masked face in the corner of the room. It is connected to a slim shadowy body and prolonged twitching limbs.
“Peee-teer, why are you afraid?”
I can’t stop the tears, the fear of it. It is gripping me by the very essence of who I am. Eating away at me. “Please, ple—please, just leave me alone.”
“LOOK AT ME!” The monster glides on top of me and the cot. Its demented limbs shake me. “LOOK AT ME NOW, PETER!”
It grabs me by the cheeks. A heat sucking force in its fingertips as it turns my face to gaze into its.
The horror!
The mask on its head dissipates, and underneath it is a white expressionless face like a manikin. It then bends and molds around mine.
“Peee-teer.” I realize it’s my own mouth talking now.
A mirror angles over me revealing my face. It is the monster’s!
“Oh Pee-ter, why are you so surprised?” my lips say as I watch the monster talk to me.
“No Peter. Oh no, no, no, no. I am not the monster,” says the horrible creature through my lips. “I am not something else.”
“I am you.”
WINTER
He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
XXVII
Wake up.
Wake up now.
My eyes open. The room I’m resting in comes to focus.
“Morning,” says a nurse nearby.
The door opens, and others come in, all of them high ranking officials.
“Begin Oedipus Protocol now,” speaks one of the officials.
I close my eyes to utter darkness.
Remember, remember everything you’ve been taught. Do you remember who you are now?
I open my eyes. “Hello Chief Lucien.”
“Excellent, you have fully recovered. You took one nasty bullet to the back of the head fighting traitors at Khaf’Jadeed. You missed most of the liberation process sadly, suffering amnesia of events leading up till now. But let us make sure the amnesia only affected short term memory as believed.”
He sits down next to me. “Where were you born?”
“Los Angeles, South California State. I was raised in a Federal Orphanage.”
“Ah, not just any orphanage,” he corrects.
“Right, a Junior Party tenant and school facility.”
He smiles. “And what did you do once completion of preliminary schooling?”
“Joined the military, and became a Joint Party-Ranger operative.”
“And what were you doing here on Nova Terra?”
“Fighting the Herculeans and liberating the oppressed people from them and their old governments.”
“And, finally, what is your name?”
“ .”
He turns away towards his peers. “He is ready.”
The room disappears as I fall asleep into the darkness.
Remember your training. Remember you’re a warrior. You are a champion of the Party and Cause. You’re life’s purpose is to fulfill the needs of your countrymen. They need you to win this war. They need you to be their champion.
“Up and ready!” says a Party Rep.
I jump out of bed and stand straight. It’s been nearly a week of training, to test that I’ve fully recovered. I can’t wait to finally get out of here.
“You’re to be at the city square immediately!”
I get dressed and leave down the hallway with the Party Rep, and meet other officers and Commissars gathering around in a balcony overlooking the center square of Jericho. Riot police and armed soldiers line the area as civilians watch and cry and protest. On the square stands fifteen tied and gagged men to posts. Before them awaits a firing squad at attention.
Chief War Commissar Lucien takes the square. “This is the face of the enemy. It is no different than the Herculean’s goal to eradicate humanity on this planet. These are the faces of terrorists. People who would rather raise arms and attack us,” he turns to the crowds who begin to boo him loudly, “your allies and your friends. They are cowards and traitors. And they will die for it.”
The drum goes off to a slow beat and the fire squad raises weapons to the ready. The drum stops, the soldiers fire. The bonded rebels collapse against their posts as blood fills the square. Lucien continues, “Starting today all Coalition controlled territory is under martial law. You will not leave the cities. You will not leave your houses past sunset. And under no circumstance will you be allowed to carry or own weapons. If you are discovered as such you will be treated as a terrorist. And this is what we do to terrorists.” Lucien leaves the stage, and the group directs me to a small air depot lined with Ospreys ready for takeoff.
I stand with my sack ready to leave. Before I depart a Party Rep and man in a lab coat meet me by my Osprey. The doctor speaks, “Do you feel sympathy for the rebels at all? That maybe their punishment was too harsh?”
I look at him. “I came here to fight Herculeans. And anyone who tries to get in my way of doing that is no better than the aliens. They shouldn’t have even been given a trial. We don’t give them to the Herculeans when we go out and fight them. No other enemy of the Coalition should be given that privilege either.” I feel the Party Rep pat me on the back, and I step onto the Osprey ramp to get back to my brothers in arms.
The Osprey takes off. Inside the hull are two other operatives and an officer. The officer informs me first. “Forget any past names you are familiar being addressed by. You are now Operative, Romeo-Alpha-Mike, or Ram. Your two squad mates on each side of me are Zero,” he points to a woman on the left, “Marksmen specialist, and Pi,” he nods to the man on the right, “explosives and demolitions expert.” They are both dressed in tight body encompassing ACU’s. “Ram, you are the support specialist.” He turns around towards a door. “This is no ordinary aircraft. Inside that door, is a miniature armory where you will be outfitted into prototype Legatis armor. These Legatis powered armor suits allow you to move while barely taxing any of your stamina, carry incredible amounts of weight, and sustain an equally incredible amount of damage. The rest of your team, Ram, has already began prep suit up, go inside and get fully combat operational.”
The door slides open. I enter it. The walls and ceiling are lined with robotic arms and arsenals of weaponry and armor. A voice command AI system interacts with me. “Remove exterior clothing.” I strip down naked. A container appears before me. “Attire ACU.”
I put the body covering fatigue over myself. Two robotic arms appear to each side of me. “Please stand still.” A cold grasp tightens around my ankles. I look down, my feet have been locked into place by metal clamps. Then two more robotic arms come down, one before and behind me. They get busy to work. They whiz about inserting an exoskeleton frame around my limbs and torso, that is then bolted together around my limbs in intervals, and large cylinder torso rings up to my shoulders. Next, large plates of gray armor are sealed onto the frame completely encompassing me, but the suit is extremely light. The world becomes dark and quiet. Wires and breathing tubes hiss while they are connected form the back of my helmet to my torso armor and life support system pack. There is a short whine, then my visor lights up into a heads-up-display, and lines of numbers scroll down the left side of the HUD.
The arms go away. One of the walls bends and leans out with a prototype XM-12 LMG. “Equip your weapon.” I grab the LMG. A large metal container is lowered behind me and screwed into
my rear harnesses. The metal cylinder is connected to the stock of my LMG via a feeding cord. Next, a duel, oval shaped container is connected to the underneath of my LMG. My visor kicks in operational after booting up. The data on my armor and weaponry scroll pass my eyes. The LMG can alternate firing modes between rifle ballistic rounds or slug scatter rounds. The container connected on the bottom of the LMG is an under mounted grenade launcher.
These are some sweet toys. Can’t wait to see what he can do with them.
“Systems at full operational capabilities,” says the AI. “Systems go.”
The door opens behind me and my new squad mates stand nearby, grabbing the handle on the ceiling for support. The officer speaks into my earpiece. “The hatches below you will open momentarily Ram, you will enter the pod being ferried by this Osprey with your team. From there, the pod will be launched like an orbital missile directly into a war zone on the northern fringe of the Kuplar region that is resisting a Herculean advance. The battalion is sustaining high casualties. Your directive is to repel the Herculean invasion, and lead elements of any unorganized Coalition force back into combat.”
The hatches open and I step into the pod. I sit down and strap into a full body harness, where minutes later my teammates enter after me armored as well, and strap up. I inspect their Legatis armor. They alternate in size and equipment to fit their combat roles. Pi’s shoulder plates and combat helmet is shaded with a light yellow, and he has a double bandolier of tools and gadgets across his torso, and carries a large cylinder case between his legs. Zero’s armor is a dark red tint, her armor slick and compressed. A mono scope with multiple zoom range rings perches on top of her helmet, alongside an extended radio antennae on her left side so that she can communicate from farther distances.
The pod shakes viciously in the snowy clouds we ascend through.
The AI speaks, “Cabin loosing pressure. Operatives, perform closed system procedures now.” I scroll through the data on my visor while closing my right or left eye depending on what side of the screen I want to access, and blinking at the application I want to use. The outside rumble of the world becomes dwarfed and offset as my suit seals itself shut, and the noise of my breathing becomes louder. The suit creates its own pressure and I feel a normal heavy again. I breathe in the recycled oxygen from a canister on my back. I can only speak to my squad mates through the earpieces now.
“Pod disengaging in ten,” alerts the AI.
My LMG compacts itself into a neat rectangle that magnetically sticks to my side.
“Five.”
My squad mates give me a thumbs up. I grasp the buckles tightly.
“Two.”
It’s time to get these aliens off my planet.
“One.”
XXVIII
Understanding where and what I am becomes blurred as the pod accelerates towards the earth. The pod flips and flops about, my head in a tense position as the straps and meshing try to keep it in place. Equilibrium never has time to catch up with me, and Zero in her red tinted power armor, ends up looking like a red towel in a wash cycle at laundry.
“Stabilizing,” says the AI.
The pod stops spinning, and instead, we bump up and down—must be the pod skipping over the snow covered landscape. The pod begins to roll again, and confusion of my surroundings takes over till the pod eventually comes to a stop. We take a minute to orientate ourselves.
“Determining best exit.” The pod panel above me explodes open as it flies off to the side. The overcast snowstorm welcomes us. We pile out of the pod. Snowflakes land on my visor and a blue electrical wiper streaks across to clear them away. Ahead of us, as outlined by my visor, lays the defensive shield of the besieged marines. Bright flashes of color break through the white and grey landscape as munitions fly and land about.
“Operatives, begin mission,” say the AI.
“Zero, do you copy?”
“Copy Ram.”
“Pi, do you copy?”
“Copy Ram.”
We run in a loose line. I lead with Pi near me, and Zero tailing farther behind with her huge marksmen rifle she lugs against her shoulder plate. We pass the command tents—dug up hovels in the snow—and artillery parks of automated howitzers that fire ordinance over the shield wall at the Herculeans. An observation tower, about eight meters tall and one hundred meters away from the frontline, sticks out of the pale landscape.
“Zero, set up over there.” I ping the location on my visor that will also pop up on hers.
“On my way.”
Pi and I are about twenty meters from the trenches when the shield wall goes out. The bunker towers that operated as channeling pillars for the shield wall sizzle as smoke fumes out of them. We near the trenches, Herculean fire picks up with the shields down. The marines cuss and curse. I watch an engineer waddle out through the snow towards a bunker, he plies off the circuit panel and attacks it with his utility built. Seconds later he flings backwards onto the snow on fire. He rolls around frantically to put himself out as marines crawl out of the trenches to get him.
“Hold men, hold!” says an officer atop the trenches, directing fire at the advancing Herculeans. I focus on him till my visor matches his voice to a name in the database. It is Platoon Commander Tarnus of Company L. One of their marines had received a Medal of Honor, before his tragic drug overdose due to a bullet puncturing his chemsack, and death by a rebel ambush while waiting for a dustoff. Damn, would have liked to meet such a hero.
I order Pi to set up inside a strip of trench nearby. He moves into it and kneels down. His mobile missile launcher on his back extends out to fire rounds. His right shoulder plate unfolds as a target finder is inserted on top of it. A tripod is set up and he connects a HMG to it where he begins to fire away at the Herculeans.
“Make sure to paint me targets Pi,” I remind him.
“I am assuming high yield opportunities?”
“Wouldn’t want it any other way.”
I drop into the front trench. Marines pause to look at me.
It looks like boys like the new look on him.
“What the fuck is that?” says one of them. I visor scan him. Private Isaac Kurtz.
“I don’t know,” says another—Corporal, Conal Bartolina. “But I want one.”
I brace my LMG by folding my left arm underneath it, and look for a target. The Herculeans are advancing under rectangular mobile shields that reject all projectiles flung at it, expect the howitzers that can fire over it. Marines mimic the batteries by lobbing grenades from repeating launchers to try and kill them before they reach the trench.
“Pi, paint me targets over the shields. Zero, try out some of your grape darts. When a shield is down, fire into the condensed groups before they can find cover.”
They both reply with a copy.
Pi’s target finder lobs a small beacon up into the air, my visor instantly picks it up and exaggerates it with a yellow circle around it. I watch it land right before one of the marching shield columns. The visor informs me that I will need to fire my grenade at a sixty-five percent angle to reach the beacon. I adjust accordingly and wait for the shield to walk over the beacon, and fire two rounds.
The grenades land on top of the shield wielders just making it over the shield itself. Two bright explosions followed by the shield collapsing visualize success. Then quick bursts of red circles appear before the exposed line. Those are Zero’s darts. The canister round she fires explodes right before impact, blasting dozens of shrapnel darts into her kill zone. Herculeans fall in waves as Zero’s darts, and concentrated marine fire tear at the exposed gaps. We repeat the process onto the next line with similar success. The Herculeans continue to advance towards our trenches, their alien screaming and war chants now hearable. Commissars on our side try desperately to out noise them with our own Party cries.
I look around as my LMG reloads itself, and notice—feel, something different I haven’t till right now. I have t
o strain to maintain the thought. These marines are eager, a product of their stims and valor in this just cause, but they are all fragile, small, weak from their time out here, and lack of superior equipment. One Herculean plasma bolt takes down any of them instantly, their bodies rolling and wrestling about in the trench as they fight uselessly against death. Where their corpses become trampled over by frozen boots, till the upturned snow covers most of their body. Till only the blood stained trench, the red turned snow they painted, is the only memory of them. This trench, once white like the national color of the Party, is now red, like the stripes on my flag, of the blood of sacrifice. If white is the color of purity and integrity that America claims, it is our red that allows it to be so.
“Heads up Ram,” alerts Zero.
He’s back—that was weird.
Keep him focus.
Our formulaic process of killing Herculeans is disrupted by an unfamiliar sight. Blue orbs shoot up into the sky from the Herculean side, and fall over us onto the artillery park behind. An engineer runs towards us shaking his arms wildly into the air. “EMP, EMP, they took our batteries out!”
“Fuck,” says Conal. “We must rely on our strength and valor men!”
Tarnus exit’s a foxhole to reach our line. “Communications have been cut! We are stranded! I am organizing a retreat! Prepare—” Tarnus’ body collapses against the trench parapets, as the side of his head splatters over the snow frosted blue helmets of nearby marines.
A Commissar walks over placing a boot over Tarnus’ corpse, his revolver smoking at the tip. “Warriors of the Coalition do not retreat! The Ideals of the Party do not retreat! We fight to the last man!” I scan him, Commissar Herus of Platoon L.
The marines cheer, and continue hurling death at the nearby Herculeans, taking back generous amounts of it themselves. I look over at a marine kneeling by Tarnus’ body, he grabs his dog tag and places it into his chest pocket under his scarf. I scan him, Sergeant Blake of E Unit.
Travesty (SolarSide Book 1) Page 29
