The man loosened up. “Yea, those are the worst, last time we had twenty-seven casualties.”
“Twenty… twenty-seven?” James cringed, losing the words a little, from shock.
“Yea, but we got it cleaned up; anyway, I’ve never seen you around before.”
“Oh, you know, I’ve been um-been working down in the lower levels, yea just got promoted.”
“Promoted?”
Crap.
“I mean-um, moved? Moved! Yea moved up here because um-well, all the members of my squad… died.”
“There are squads down there? Guess you learn something interesting about elevation levels every day.”
“Yea, haha,” James fake laughed, “So this matter leak, what’s the big ‘sitch’ this time?”
“The Dark Matter that makes the E6 2.7s, it spilled again. We extract it from this planet’s atmosphere, enough to make millions of them.”
James tried hard not to faint. “So,” He started, trying to change the subject, “Do you ever think about Earth?”
“Earth? You mean Terra? Never been there, but we’ll clear it out soon enough.”
“Those monsters,” James mumbled.
“Hey, we’re here.” The man smiled.
The room was huge. Over two hundred people, some with visors, others wearing red blinking collars and rags, shoveling black goo into large glass cylinders, pits of fire burning everywhere. It was a diverse group, but something similar about all of them was that they were definitely more muscular. They probably had to be… if you were weak in the Jupitain camps, you were killed. James winced when he thought about what probably happened to the weak ones.
“Here, you’ll need this.” The man handed him a whip. “Keeps the savages in order.” He smirked.
“Savages?” James asked.
“The ones that haven’t been gifted with the sight.” The man gestured at his visor, which James guessed was the sight he was talking about.
“You whip your own people?”
“Only if they're lucky.”
“The unlucky ones?”
“Extermination.”
James looked around; he saw his own kind torturing each other, because of what? Why? Was it Cyrus? The blue man? He was done. For a second, and only a second, his fear faded slightly, and he let his anger take the wheel. He punched the man square in the face with all the strength he could muster, causing him to fall to the ground.
The man started yelling, “Traitor!”
“You’re the traitor.” He hit him again, knocking him out, and taking his gun. He was armed with two laser rifles and started firing at nearby Jupitain guards with one of them, missing almost every shot. The collared humans looked around at the chaos; most were too scared to rebel; they had probably seen every attempt there was, and were afraid of the devastating consequences.
Others rioted and tackled humans with visors. Explosion after explosion, James released his rage on every Jupitain he saw. There was barely any in the room, but that was about to change.
“Kill!” One of the Jupitains shouted.
James responded by shooting its visor, the laser bolt blasting it on the far left section, and causing the Jupitain to devolve into a puddle of Dark matter on the floor. Then, he started destroying every Dark matter chamber near him. Sparks flew everywhere; fires started to light some of the Dark matter, melting through the floor.
Visor humans were trying desperately to restore order, but the collared humans rallied and took their weapons, shooting at everything. Jupitain speeders were starting to hover into the room, one of them shot at James, but he returned fire. The red lasers crashed into the speeder, making the engine explode, and plunge into another speeder next to it.
James tossed a rifle to another prisoner, who nodded vigorously. The prisoner yelled intensely and shot off six Jupitains in less than ten seconds. James looked stunned.
“Get to the hangar!” Another prisoner yelled before he was shot in the head by a stray Jupitain laser.
When James was finally starting to get overwhelmed, he sprinted out through the hallway he had come in through. The speeders caught up to him, but the man he tossed a rifle to earlier shot one of the Jupitains off. James nodded back at him, and hopped onto the speeder, accelerating towards the hangar.
Before he could escape the hallway, a horde of over a hundred Jupitains blocked the exit and started shooting immediately. Some of the humans that had escaped were following him, and tried to shoot through the Jupitain horde, but they were quickly overwhelmed.
James jumped off his speeder and slid behind it for cover, his fear starting to strike realization into him. If one stray laser hit the speeder’s engine, he was gone.
The Jupitains were roaring like animals, shooting down the mob of people, until the sound of a Jupitain fighter could be heard, speeding through the hangar.
“Take that bitches!! Ahahahahaha!!!” Lewis screamed. He was flying a Jupitain fighter and spraying the horde with volleys of red lasers. The Jupitains scattered, disintegrating by the dozens.
James looked up and laughed a little. The man he had helped, ran up to him, “Thank you, brother,” he said, before sprinting off towards the nearest fighter.
The Jupitains tried to fire back but were just blown away. The other humans started to scramble from the site, boarding other Jupitain fighters, ready for a fight. The fighter Lewis and Mark were in was getting more than enough attention. Three other fighters started to fire at them, and soon a chase was started inside of the hangar, laser beams colliding with the walls, causing fires. Some of the humans were in fighters now and were firing at empty ones to prevent the Jupitains from using them.
The closest Jupitain warships near the hangar responded by sending dozens of fighters into the battle, and soon James couldn’t tell who was good or bad. Lewis landed the ship he was piloting, horribly.
“Get in!” Mark shouted. The boarding ramp screeched across the floor of the hangar. James jumped in, and once he did, the ship was fired on, and it tilted towards the floor, slamming into it with a bang!
“Ugh, Lewis why’d I let you fly this thing, let me try!” Mark said.
“One second, geez, this is fun!” Lewis replied while blowing a Jupitain hover tank into a wall.
Mark grimaced but didn’t argue, “So what happened down there? Who are those people?”
“I found some humans.” James replied, hanging on to the control chair for dear life, “How’d you get the ship to work?”
“I asked nicely… but no, I reset the power, turns out you had to turn it off and on.” Lewis said, “Any plans to get out of here?”
“Yea, press the button,” James replied.
“Again? I dunno if that’s a good idea.” Mark said.
“Wait, that would make us go deeper into space.” Lewis said, “I thought we were trying to get back to Earth.”
“I know,” James said, “But whatever the Jupitains are planning, we don’t stand a chance against, Mark you said something about a safe zone?” James asked.
“Yea, the Safe Quadrant, Uliski told me about it,” Mark said, while Lewis shot down another fighter, making it crash into another one beside it.
“Let’s face it, whatever’s out there, might give us a fighting chance against the Jupitains, wherever we go, we die either way…” He paused, sighing, “So, we’re all in agreement?” James sounded more frightened than heroic.
“I think we should go back, we need to tell the Martians about this, they’ll send special forces, and then everything will be safe again? Right?” Mark asked, with shallow hope.
“Negative man, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s been nine years, they’ve upgraded they’re tech, big time. Special forces are gonna get steamrolled,” Lewis said, “I agree with James, we should try to find this safe zone.”
“Fine,” Mark said, thinking of Uliski, “You guys really think we have a chance to help anyone… we… we’re just asteroid clearers.”
Lewi
s pressed the button, and the ship’s engine roared in response, ejecting fumes of blue flames. “Rather die trying to do something noble than die being a space janitor,” Lewis shrugged.
James nodded, “Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.”
The interior of the ship turned blue, and sped into space, searching for the only thing that might save the United World’s existence.
Cyrus, Experiment 10; Two-Hundred Years Before the Invasion of Earth
“Sir, these energy readings are off the charts, fusing the Darsakian design with the core, and the with the Meta-Core material has boosted the machine’s power conductors at an unstable rate.” A Cyrisian scientist said.
“Hmm, I guess that’s a start,” Said the Cyrisian Warlord, looking at the documents on the holo-pad.
They were in a large black room, with dim red lights illuminating it. The Warlord was at least seven feet tall, with high tech battle armor, and a sword, with glowing red edges inside of his metal scabbard. The scientist was two feet shorter and wore dark red battle armor. Tattoos covered almost their entire pitch black skin.
“A start sir? We could defend ourselves against the Kelisian Empire, t-the Nova Alliance… maybe even the Lore, with this kind of power.”
“Perhaps, but have you figured out a way to control it yet? A weapon of this magnitude could level our empire to its roots if uncontrolled, and wreak havoc on systems we don’t need control over. Yet.”
“Control over… wait, you said that we would be using this, for inner-planetary operations only. You didn’t say anything about other systems…”
“Keep at your work,” The Warlord said, completely ignoring the scientist’s complaint, “Have your men constantly fixated on finding a way to control this killer, I need it stable, and ready for when we begin the first part of our mission. The last thing we need is another malfunctioning Meta-Core.”
The scientist looked down, obviously troubled, “It’ll be done, my lord.”
“See to that it is, or else not just your life will be ended for your failure.” The warlord was about to walk out the double sliding doors until a heavily armored Cyrisian soldier came running in, frantic.
“Sir, the Kelisian fleet has just entered our planetary range! Their turrets are charging sir!”
“How many?” asked the warlord.
“Five Gigantium-class saucers sir, and most likely thousands of fighters!”
“Half of their entire fleet?” The warlord chuckled, “This will be entertaining, is the Overlord informed of this?”
The soldier nodded. “He’s getting the armada ready for a counter attack, sir.”
“Good. Release any available Meta-Cores in the process; we’ll rip apart their fleet, and make way for our invasion of the Nova Alliance, and soon, the Lore… then, the entire Galaxy will belong to Cyrus.”
The warlord and soldier ran out through the double doors, leaving the scientist alone in the room. “No no no! That’s not what they told me!” He looked through the glass viewport inside of the metal case, where the machine was. It was a humanoid Meta-Core, at first glance you would think it was a robot, but it was so much more.
“Your no killer… no conqueror. I don’t care how dangerous the Kelisians are; they don’t need you to help with the defense. I’m not letting you out yet.”
Another Cyrisian scientist that had been listening walked into the room. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, sir? We may need all the support we can muster…”
The scientist by the glass sighed, “No… we don’t need him, the Grand Armada will hold, and wipe the Kelisians from the Galaxy… but I refuse to let this machine out and risk it purging innocent systems. The Overlord has gone too far.”
“The Grand Armada cannot handle the Kelisian fleet, sir, have you not been paying attention? We’ve been losing outpost after outpost to the Nova Alliance. They’ve been wiping us from our own systems, and now the Kelisians are ready to collect the bounty over our Empire’s head. Face it, that Meta-Core, is our only option, we all know it!”
“Calm your tone Wreverin. I’m not letting this machine out until it is completed, that is final!”
“Calm my tone?” Wreverin snickered, “This isn’t a game Riois… you can’t keep playing ‘peacemaker’ forever, It’s now or death, death without honor…”
“Don’t start talking about honor…” Riois grimaced, “This Empire lost that centuries ago, now we’re a mere shell of the one that stood up to the Fallen Empire. I’m not letting our name fall any further.”
Wreverin didn’t say anything. He just stared at Riois, his expression deadly. In a split second, Wreverin charged at Riois and tried to lunge at him. Riois grimaced and punched Wreverin in the face, hard, causing him to spin slightly, and fall to the ground.
“Don’t try it,” Riois ordered.
Wreverin wiped his face, blood gushing from his nose and mouth, then he yelled, and kicked Riois’s leg, causing him to fall, abruptly. Wreverin leaped off the ground and slammed the release button to the metal pod holding the Meta-Core.
Steam erupted from it, and a metal hand slowly grabbed the outside of the case, as if making sure it wasn’t dangerous. It grabbed the other side and slowly came out. A humanoid Meta-Core looked around; its face had no features. No eyes, mouth, nose. Nothing, just a black digital screen, sort of pixelated.
Riois got up quickly, and looked at Wreverin, his face saying, ‘what have you done?’
“What is this?” The machine asked, in a deep animatronic voice, its entire face illuminating bright red, blinding the scientists. It was curious.
No matter how worried he was, Riois couldn’t hide his amazement, “T-this is Cyrus.”
The Meta-Core blinked it’s light-face, as if it was thinking. It asked again, “What is this?” pointing towards itself.
“Ohh,” Riois said, “That is… ah, you.”
“What am I?”
“Well, your… a Meta-Core, t-the first Meta-Core with artificial intelligence.”
“Artificial?”
“I’m sure you’ve searched through the mainframe by now, artificial is, well, made, produced, created.”
The Meta-Core stood up, taller than Riois, “Who made me?” It asked in a more, dangerous, and interrogational voice.
“Well…” Riois started, getting a little nervous.
The Meta-Core stopped him. It had already answered its own question through the Cyrisian mainframe. It walked around, away from the scientist, looking at the various advanced equipment and holo-monitors. Then it stopped.
“You made me to kill,” It said simply.
“No, no, to aid Cyrus in universal growth… prosperity for all! Not just to simply, kill.”
The front part of its head lit up in bright red, while the back was just dark metal. “You call it… the Great Purification.” It said while scrolling through millions of files at once in its head. “You want everything.” He turned towards Riois, and its head turned a pixelated black again. It walked towards him, each step hitting the ground with a clank. It leaned into Riois’s face and glowed red again. “What are you?”
“I’m a scientist,” he tried to reply calmly.
“You are different.” The Meta-Core grabbed Riois’s arm and squeezed hard enough for it to hurt a little. “You are soft… organic.”
“Well sure, but…”
“You are weak.” The Meta-Core let go of Riois’s arm and looked at the other scientist.
Wreverin gulped.
“I can see your fear… you're worried, worried that you might feel pain.”
Wreverin straightened up, “The Cyrisian Empire does not wince at pain!” Before he could say another word, the Meta-Core lunged at him, smoothly, and swiftly. It grabbed his arm, but this time, a red, and orange magma started to form in the Meta-Core’s hand, burning the scientist.
“Auuuggh!!!” He yelled, frantically trying to pull the Meta-Core’s hand off him with his free arm, but it wouldn’t move an inch, it was too stro
ng. The scientist kept screaming in pain, his arm starting to seem like it was melting.
“Cyrus feels pain, and like all life, with enough, will shrivel, and die.”
In as firm and confident of a voice he could muster, Riois ordered, “Stop!”
The Meta-Core looked back, turning its head a full 180 degrees, and let go of the scientist’s arm.
Wreverin moaned and started crying uncontrollably, falling to the ground on his knees, holding his burned arm.
The Meta-Core turned its whole body towards Riois and looked down at him. “Pain is a weakness given to living things, to be a limit, of what it can do. I do not feel pain. I have no limits.”
Its face lit up red again. “You call me Alpha because I am stronger, faster… better.”
“No, no, you were made by me! You follow my orders, and my mission!”
Alpha seemed surprised that he was brave enough to yell like that in front of him, for about two seconds. He picked up Riois by the collar of his armor and looked him in the face, only an inch away. Riois could see the trillions of pixels and circuits that made up the inside of Alpha’s face alone. “I am not your equal. I am not your soldier. I am your judgment. Organic life, shall. Be. Tested.” He dropped Riois and started to walk away.
“Cyrus will not rule the universe, but their experiments will. I have seen them, what you have created. I will be the savior of a new generation… a new breath of life for the universe, by clearing away the dirt that stains it now.”
Riois cursed. He knew what that meant, death. Death for trillions. “No, noo!”
Alpha turned towards him. “I am life’s judgment. I am, Alpha.”
The Kelisians were there to stop Cyrus from beginning their universal domination quest, and to collect extremely rewarding bounties from nearby systems. However, they were too late.
“Sir,” said one of the Kelisian soldiers, “I’ve scanned the planet, Experiment Six signatures, or the Dark matter soldiers, have been expanding rapidly around the planet’s surface… too rapidly.”
“And the Cyrisians?” The Kelisian Main Leader asked. He was male and was wearing a clean, white military uniform.
“Depleting fast.”
United We Stand Page 10
