War for Orion: Ghosts from the Past

by Conner Walworth

  Anlon knew they had almost reached the bottom when Giustino took a step forward, ready to get off as quickly as he could. When the elevator came to a stop and Giustino led them both into a dimly lit room filled with computers. Large cords went in all directions on the floor and the computer screens flickered with words moving faster than Anlon could read.

  "How are you doing Officer Giustino?" A silver humanoid approached from behind them.

  Giustino half ignored it. "Good Camillus, now get back to work."

  The humanoid stood there for a second, then turned to go back to what it had been doing before approaching them. Before leaving, it looked at Anlon for a split second and he swore he saw a smile flash across its human-like face.

  "Okay," Giustino said, still typing information into the giant computer. "It's searching for anyone your Dad may have worked with in GSOU."

  "What exactly is this place?" Anlon asked.

  "It doesn't exist first off, remember that. You're only here because these are special circumstances," Giustino said, glaring at Anlon. "And this is where we can search for anyone in the Galaxy and pinpoint their exact location. All these computers you see, log information gathered from all of the planets. When we search on this one, the information we are looking for is gathered from all the smaller computers throughout the room and displayed for us here in one spot," He typed in more information. "Very few officers know about this database because only individuals with high clearance can access it. There are other computers upstairs that are similar, but they won't reveal certain things, like how your Dad works for the GSOU. Some information is best left unknown, and when in the wrong hands, disastrous thing can happen."

  "Look," Kanti pointed to the screen. "There's one person Armino worked with, and they live right here on Gaea!"

  Giustino grinned. "Finally, we may have found a break on this case. He won't be able to tell us everything, but he may know who these races are and where they have gone. That's all we need right now because I'm confident we won't find the races we're looking for down here."

  Anlon looked up at the screen and remembered his name: Moran Borislav. He made mental note of where he lived before Giustino cut off the image. He was aware that Giustino and Kanti would make their way out there as soon as they could, but he would get there first, before either one of them could question Moran.

  "That's everything we need for now," Giustino said, turning around towards the elevator.

  Anlon and Kanti followed him on and they ascended back up to the main floor of the police station. On the way up Anlon caught a glimpse of the humanoid staring at him again through the glass with a smile on his human-like face.

  "That's all we're going to need from you today Anlon. I'll have Kanti take you back to your house."

  Kanti looked over at Anlon. "Let's get you back home."

  She led him back down the narrow hall that they had come through when they first entered the station and walked out into the garage.

  "How am I going to go back home, if you know, there's still..." Anlon started.

  "The robots will have cleaned everything up by now. You won't even know that anything happened there," She looked apologizingly at him. "I mean, you will know, but you won't see anything left that will remind you of what happened there is what I meant to say."

  Kanti walked up to her car and unlocked it for both of them to get into. Anlon got in and sat down in the passenger seat next to Kanti.

  "Thank you for everything," He forced a smile. "I really appreciate it Kanti."

  They made their way back to Anlon's house with some small talk to get their minds off of the gruesome execution of his family. Anlon learned a little bit more about Kanti and she learned some more about him. Anlon couldn't help but to start to like Kanti a little bit because of their somewhat similar situation. He didn't have many friends because he was more of a loner, but Kanti didn't have many either because she had lived her whole life on Demeter isolated from humans.

  As they pulled up, Anlon immediately saw that there was no sign that anything had happened at his house the previous night. All of the police officers were gone and all that was left in his driveway was his mom's black pickup truck. His house looked exactly the same as it had the day before, as if it was just another ordinary day.

  Anlon got out of the car and Kanti followed him up the driveway and into his house. He walked into the room that everything had happened in and immediately saw that Kanti had been right. There was absolutely no sign at all of anything that had happened the night before.

  "These robots are good."

  "They are," Kanti smiled. "Is there anything else you need?"

  He shook his head. "No. I think I should be okay."

  "If you do, don't hesitate to call," She handed him her number. "If you need anyone, I'm here for you. Neither of us has a family now, so I think it's best we become friends. It'll help make things easier for both of us."

  "I will let you know if there's anything I need," he blushed. "I'll see you around."

  He watched as she left and knew he had at least one friend on Hassental, but he had important work to start doing. He needed to find out exactly what type of assignments his father had while in GSOU. He would talk to Moran and go through his dad's things to try to find some answers. He knew that once he had all of that, he would need to find a way into that database room to make sure the killers were on Plouton before flying there. Finding out more about his father was his priority at the moment since he was positive they were on Plouton.

  Giustino called one of the forensics men to his office to debrief him on everything that they had recovered from the execution scene at the Valens' house. After talking with him and going over everything that forensics had found, he concluded that Anlon had been exactly right about everything. Everything he said checked out with what the forensics team had found.

  Giustino told the man to leave the room and fired up his computer to put the information forensics recovered in his computer. He typed in notes from the questioning and uploaded the video into the folder Valens Murder File and shut down his computer.

  Camillus heard a new file downloading to one of the computers that stored sensitive information from within the station on it. The humanoid walked over to the computer and opened the file to view it.

  "Valens Murder File," Camillus muttered under his breath.

  "Interesting," The humanoid kept reading. "He lied about not knowing anything more about the races. That won't help him find his family's murderers."

  Camillus opened a port on the back of his head and inserted a cable in it to download the Valens Murder File.

  Anlon went upstairs to his dad's office and rummaged through some of his personal papers. There were a lot of hidden papers that had to do with the Queen and the GSOU throughout his whole office that were mixed in with all of his other work. Anlon was surprised that he had never paid any more attention to them before. Everything Armino had done had been laying right in front of him, but he had never doubted a word of what his father had said.

  It looked like his father had been one of the best GSOU members to ever take the job and the Queen put he and his selected men on the toughest missions. He found several news article clippings talking about a special unit for the Queen that stopped multiple terror plots and attempted assassinations on the Queen, her Council, planetary leaders, and other high ranking officials throughout Orion. He remembered reading some of these online and seeing them on the news channels, but he never thought that his dad had been a part of such an elite squadron that kept the Galaxy safe.

  After some more digging through his father's desk, he found complete reports of missions and started reading all of them, fascinated at the part of his father's life that he never knew about. He couldn't help but feel proud of Armino for all of the things he did to stop these galactic criminals. The last thing he found was located in the front drawer in a hidden compartment. It had to do with the Queen and a special mission she sent his father
specifically to carry out. The article talked about the sudden death of the Queen's baby during birth, but attached to that article was an official report signed by the Queen that stated that Armino had actually taken the baby to another planet to be safe from any threats.

  The Queen's report didn't say where the baby was taken, but he guessed it was a safety measure, or she possibly didn't know where Armino had taken her baby, in order to keep the heir safe in case the Queen was assassinated. He found more articles about them and saw they had been friends all the way back to before high school, which explained why the Queen seemed to trust him so much with her life and the life of her newborn child.

  Anlon put the papers away and went to his room to get some sleep. He would go to Moran Borislav's house in the morning to learn more about his father and what missions he went on for the Queen in deeper detail than any article could reveal. The police station trip, all these articles, and reports helped him learn a lot about his dad, but he still needed to learn more about the killers and how they found out who he was. He had a feeling that Moran would be able to answer all of these questions.

  Chapter 4

  An alarm went off alerting Donnchadh that Erebos was quickly approaching. He couldn't imagine piloting any other ship, especially one without the Sonodrive which took much of the work and effort out of piloting. Before Sonodrive had been developed, ships had to be manually piloted and it could take weeks, even months, to travel as far as they had just traveled in a matter of hours.

  One of the perks of being a part of the Deimos Brotherhood was that he got the best equipment that hit the market. Kirill had made connections early in his career and continued to keep in touch after going into hiding. Those connections provided money for the Brotherhood, and when money couldn't be provided, the best equipment available on the market. Many politicians throughout Orion had the minds of assassins, they just lacked the will and skills to carry out the jobs, and that's where the Deimos Brotherhood came in. Donnchadh didn't care why these politicians wanted people taken out, all he cared about was getting paid and moving up the ranks of the Brotherhood.

  Donnchadh slowly rolled out of his bed, stretched his arms above his head, and walked down to the cockpit to land Cerberus on Erebos. On the way he hit Ulisse in the chest, who was still sound asleep on one of the chairs in the main cabin, immediately waking him from his slumber.

  "Have you got everything ready?" Donnchadh sat in the pilot seat.

  Sanguinarius nodded. "Ready to start landing when you're ready."

  "Let's do it," Donnchadh said, pushing red levers.

  Though they could safely land at any spaceport on Erebos or any of Plouton's moons without worrying about the spaceport security reporting them, Donnchadh preferred to land on the private port of Deimos Brotherhood's headquarters. Criminal activity on Plouton and its moon's was very high and much black-marketing - ranging from illegal weapons to murder for hires - was conducted regularly. The Council on Hera had given up many decades ago trying to turn Plouton around and eventually just turned their heads the other way to all of the things happening in this part of Orion.

  Donnchadh still didn't like to risking a spy lying low, waiting specifically for ships like his to land. Just because the Council on Hera turned a blind eye towards illegal activities, didn't mean that the Queen and her GSOU wouldn't be waiting to capture them. The GSOU had caught several careless criminals by staking out at the spaceport as common thugs and following the criminals back to where they stayed, only to eventually take them out. Donnchadh wouldn't be one of those careless criminals, he had trained too long to make careless mistakes like that.

  Donnchadh sped through Erebos' atmosphere and saw that nothing had drastically changed since the last time he had left the dead and lifeless planet. The planet still looked void of any type of sustainable life, even though he knew there was life thriving all over the planet.

  Erebos was a dull planet to anyone who had lived on any other planet in Orion. The land was drab grey sand and dirt, without any visible plant life to be seen. The land was rough and rocky with black cliffs and mountains scattered throughout the moon, making living off of it that much more difficult for those who tried. There was little water on the surface of the planet, just lakes and rivers of lava which would kill anyone submerged in a matter of seconds

  This wasn't a planet that any race would willingly live on by choice; it was a planet reserved for the outcast races of the Orion. The races that humans and similar races feared and didn't want to see living alongside them. Those not lucky enough to live hidden from society in the slum on other planets, lived on Plouton or one of its moons.

  Small settlements and cities were set up throughout Erebos by clans or races. Some of the settlements would allow only certain races to live within the limits, while others were made up of only family members. The main cities were where most of the races lived because they were unwilling to fight for their lives on the unforgiving land like the small clans.

  All of the settlements and cities had learned long ago how to utilize the few resources available on the moon, but the cities provided the best chance of survival. Very early on in colonization of the planet, it was discovered that the lava could be used to provide electricity to homes in cities. Other significant discoveries had been made, such as the water wells hidden below the surface of the planet that the races used to for daily activities.

  These conditions made Erebos the perfect place for the Deimos Brotherhood's base, which was hidden between the two biggest mountains on Erebos, far from any permanent city or settlement. The two mountains were parallel to one another and were surrounded by a lake of lava. Very few knew that there was any life hidden in the mountains, and if one happened to see a ship disappear into the mountains, there was no known way to cross the lake of lava safely to investigate any further.

  Donnchadh reduced the thrusters and lowered Cerberus down as he flew in-between the two mountains.

  He pulled out his comline. "You can extract the dock for landing. Cerberus and its crew are back from their mission."

  A reply quickly came from the other end of the comlink. "Extracting the dock now."

  A hole opened up in the mountain and a dock slowly to extruded from it. Donnchadh wasted no time, gently putting the ship down on the dock. When he landed, the dock retracted back into the mountain taking Cerberus into the dark black hole. When it had fully retracted back into the hangar, there was a loud ring to alert those on deck that a ship had entered.

  Donnchadh and Sanguinarius got up from their seats immediately upon hearing the ring and headed towards the ramp. Ulisse was already patiently waiting to open the ship's rear ramp when Donnchadh reached him. He gave a nod of the head and Ulisse lowered the ramp for the three of them to exit.

  Donnchadh led his two men through the quiet hangar, ignoring the looks from the workers, into the elevator. Once his men had gotten on, he pressed a button that would take them down three stories and he turned around to face the direction the door would open once they had descended three floors. Without a sound, the elevator stopped and the doors slid open, letting Donnchadh off and into the main headquarters.

  It didn't take long after getting off of the elevator to get a few smiles from some of the other members who had obviously heard of the success of their last mission. They headed towards a room that said Mission Debrief on the door. This was the room where everyone who was interested in the mission would meet up to hear about how everything had unfolded. It was a way for those assigned to the mission to brag, but it also encouraged others to out-do them on their next mission and possibly learn different ways to deal with certain situations.

  Donnchadh entered the room first, not surprised to see that every single one of the seats was taken, leaving many standing in corners throughout the room.

  This mission was different from the Brotherhood's normal ones and almost every member had volunteered themselves for it. All of the members knew what had happened to Donnchadh and
what Armino had done to some of the very best not long ago.

  Donnchadh stood at the front of the room and smiled. "So I'm guessing you all want to know everything that happened on our little trip Gaea," There was a roar of approving voices and Donnchadh looked at his two partners. "Let me start off by saying that the Deimos Brotherhood has gotten their long awaited revenge on Armino Valens. He suffered a great deal before his death and I personally made sure that he will never harm one of our own again!"

  Donnchadh started to tell all of the members of everything that he, Sanguinarius, and Ulisse had done in great detail, making sure not to leave out a thing. Everyone in the room was grinning with evil pleasure at how much Armino had suffered before his eventual death, though some looked angry that they couldn't have taken part in it.

  Once he had finished, they exited the room, pleased that they would no longer have to worry about the Queen's best man interfering with their work. Armino had foiled a lot of missions in his time as the Queen's right hand man and had made many of the Brotherhood look like complete fools. With Armino gone, there wouldn't be any true leadership in the GSOU for some time. They would be discombobulated and the Brotherhood would gain an upper hand for the first time in a long time. Someone would eventually take over his spot, but they'd be no Armino, leaving the GSOU as a far less elite squadron as they had once been. The Queen had lost her best man to a random murder, with no links to the Deimos Brotherhood, and that opened the doors to many new opportunities.

  Anlon woke up at exactly 7:00 a.m. and went downstairs to down a quick breakfast before he started his day. He went to the cupboard, pulled the door open, and picked out some granola bars to scarf down. He sat down at the table to think about how exactly he was going to confront Moran today. Randomly knocking on the door and asking who killed his family probably wasn't the best approach to take. He still didn't know who this guy personally and didn't know if he'd tell the police that he was actively searching for the killers on his own, which would alert the officers that he had lied to them at the station.