by Will Crudge
“Genius!” Martin said under his breath. “Course plotted, thrusters spooled up. On your command, Master Chief”
“Engage thrusters.” Thomas calmly ordered.
The frigate rotated its hull violently to allow the shields to flare up momentarily. The flared reflection of photon it would emit would hide their initial vector from visual scans. By the time the Crimson fleet closed the 3 light minute gap, the Viking’s ion trail would have dissipated enough to make its destination a guessing game on an astronomical scale.
The mighty thrusters engaged before the shield flare settled and the tiny craft was underway. Martin looked closely at his helm display to see the armada of nearly twenty five thousand ships begin to fade from visual range. His breathing settled. They were in the clear…
At least it was before the incoming laser beam got lucky and hit the port thruster assembly.
Insane Psychic Monk
Location: En Route to Unknown point in space
Date Time: Post Interstellar 07/27/4201 0435HRS Local
System: Creole System, 487 Light Minutes from Heliopause Inner Edge
“How did you…? This is a private conversation.” Sam said.
“Sorry. I would have stayed quiet, but I’m not good at being deceptive. Kinda goes against everything I stand for.” Val replied.
“I’m not even detecting a neural interface. How are you doing a direct link?” Sam was noticeably confused.
“Not all tech involves hardware my dear. We humans have immense potential that typical science can’t or won’t acknowledge. Besides, it’s time I cleared the air on a few things.” Val clarified.
“Yes, let’s do that. This is supposed to be my assignment, after all!” Kara must have had her connection to the audio link open thought Darius.
“Your assignment was an escort mission.” Val’s words seemed sarcastic at first glance, but his statement also seemed absent of any malice.
“Yes, I’m aware. Please go on.” Kara prodded.
“The first phase is complete, but the plan has changed. You’ve successfully brought me Darius and the Doom-Raptor.” Val seemed calm and gentle with his tone… But Darius was none too pleased.
“Just what in forty-fucks are you playing at, holy man?” Darius’ rough words left nothing to the imagination. He was pissed.
“I never anticipated you would turn in your MEDLOG chips on your way to our original rendezvous location. Now the Crimson Fleet will be hunting you openly. The time had come to bring you to your true calling, but I couldn’t foresee that you’re true nature be revealed this way.” Val’s words seemed honest, but Darius was still flabbergasted by the cryptic sounding implications.
“Destiny? You’re going to have to spill it now! And use UAHC Standard English for once! Not that damned ancient-ass accent of yours... I mean seriously? You sound like a character in a 21st century movie!” Darius was losing it now. He never lost it. He realized he was losing his grip on his anger and had to calm down.
“More like 22d century, but I digress…” Val calmly resumed as if no words of anger had been spoken at all. “I’ve been around a while… A long while. I’ve seen the dawn of religions… I’ve witnessed the time of the War Masters… And I’ve fought in many battles. I could easily have left this existence eons ago, but chose to remain and guide humanity to its true potential any way possible.”
“More gibberish. War Master’s? Give me a break. Those semi-mythical fuck-sticks gave rise to the corruption in the UAHC military, and caused us to radically change our entire military philosophy. We Soldiers are free from letting our egos determine our actions. Our assignments, promotions, and even our retirements are solely determined by an array of super AI’s that monitor our every action. We have nothing to gain by forging political relationships, or sucking up to our supervisors. We execute the best we can, and gladly accept what we are given. We don’t question. We don’t do anything but train and serve. It’s pure. It’s… Incorruptible.” Darius realized he was off topic, but he thought the point should be made.
“Yes. I am very aware of all of that.” Val calmly offered. “Be that as it may, you may know a thing or two about the Life Temple’s philosophy.”
“I do. At least the basics, I suppose.” Darius wanted to see where this was headed.
“Well forget it all. The philosophy evolved into a religion. It became dogmatic and structured. That was never the intent of the founder…” Val was cut off.
“The Victorious Agent of Life? The magical wizard prophet that founded the whole thing?” Darius asked.
“That was the title the clergy gave him, centuries after he went into obscurity.” Val clarified. “But it his name was Victor Allen Livingston.”
Darius eyes went wide. The revelation hit him like a ton of bricks. “It’s you. Val… Victor Allen Livingston.”
“Yes. The Life Temple evolved from my philosophies. And later a schism occurred, and my teachings were warped… than fragmented.”
“Wait a damned minute! Are you saying you’re this super-magical being that caused millennia of hocus pokus religious bullshit?” Kara couldn’t contain herself. “There is space, time, and matter. Humans are a happy accident of chemical soup that exist only to make more soup and try to not die sooner than we have to… Secret of life solved!”
“You’re fully entitled to your viewpoint, my dear.” Val said with a smile he projected onto her HUD. “The Temple you know of is vastly different than what it should have become. When it became structured and pious it began to do so before humanity was ready. There are countless of non-human life-forms out there… Most have followed the path of pacifism at all costs. Most even abandoned the knowledge of weapons and military strategy. Humans are unique… in this galaxy at least. We’ve embraced peace and war, love and hate. We are capable of pure evil and pure love at the same time. Only a race of beings with that balance can protect this corner of the universe from unspeakable horrors. We are the ultimate weapons to maintain balance in the known universe. If life cannot be protected, then life cannot ascend into higher realms of being.” Val’s words sounded like a poetic sermon.”
“Back to me, please.” Darius was clearly concerned about his own piece in this. “What do malfunctioning MEDLOG chips have to do with jack or shit?”
“Everything.” Val said as a matter of fact. “Double helix DNA is our standard structure as you know… But new strands can form as the need for humanity to ascend to its potential increases. The first known human to achieve this was born with a mutation that allowed expansion, but couldn’t achieve it without direct intervention. But that has changed. There is something occurring in space-time that is causing that first man’s descendants to develop additional strands naturally. The War Masters, for example.”
“So, that’s all real?” Kara asked, but with a very skeptical tone.
“Yes. For around two millennia, they guided and advised humanity in warfare. War is in human nature. It cannot be stopped, but it can be controlled. The twelve War Master bloodlines formed clans, and they mastered every aspect of warfare. Everything from ancient swords to interstellar war. Each War Master trained for a century to master their own minds and bodies. Then they spent their lives as advisors for generals and heads of state. Their goal was to try to prevent war when possible, but when it inevitably broke out, they provided counsel to keep it from spilling over into protracted campaigns of death and genocide.”
“I
s the legend true? Did they evolve from your… philosophy-religion thingy?” Kara asked.
“Bingo! That was the schism. The Life Temple believed in divesting all possessions, attachments, and most of all violence. The Guild of War Masters believed in all of that too, but defined it differently. For example… The Temple defined violence as anything that caused harm to a living thing. The Guild, on the other hand, shared my original philosophy. They believe, as do I, that violence is only defined as harm done when there is a choice not to. Violence should be avoided, but protecting yourself or others that cannot protect themselves is imperative. A Temple Priest would stand by and watch a woman be sodomized, and do nothing but offer condolences… A War Master would sacrifice his own life to destroy any imminent threat to the innocent.”
“What the hell is my DNA an issue? I’m not a War Master. I’m only a Gunnery Sergeant because it was a consolation prize for being inactivated. I haven’t even been given an Acting Command! Some fucking genetic lottery I won, huh?” Darius realized he had finally vocalized his frustrations that haunted him.
“Dearest, I have a confession to make…” Sam interjected. “Your DNA is what got you deactivated. I’ve never met Val, or even knew of him… But I saw the anomalies… I saw the strands of DNA start to form. I couldn’t hide the data from your MEDLOG anymore. I was desperate to not have you turned into some kind of experiment and cut to pieces. I reached out to Unum for help, but they were already aware. Apparently they had been tracking you since birth. Unum controls the system that determines Soldiers’ and AI’s career paths… At least indirectly. They knew you were on the edge of some kind of Event Horizon. Inactivating you was the only way you could be protected.”
Darius broke into tears. His best friend. His only family. His Judas.
***
The dream was always the same. It was a vivid memory from Darius’ past, and it always came back to replay in his mind… For decades. He never understood why it haunted him, until now.
“Pirate destroyer inbound!” Lance Corporal Stephens shouted! PFC Darius was at his 3 o’clock perimeter fighting position, but craned his neck around to see the Lance Corporal kneeling down with his eyes transfixed on the mobile ATC console. He was the platoon Forward Air Controller, and it was his job to monitor the airspace on the terraformed back water rock they were on.
“Eyes up! 9 o’clock!” Stephens called out. The entire platoon took their eyes of their designated sectors of fire and trained them to the 9 o’clock vantage. “It’s a big mother!”
Darius squinted his eyes in a struggle to see through the mist. His optics implant procedure wasn’t scheduled until after their Pirate Patrol tour was up, but his wished he had them already. They were on a sandy beach with brilliant white light from the young star making everything appear like a vacationer’s paradise… But this was no pleasure trip.
His Company was dropped on the planet to recover a cache of stolen goods that was tracked to a reinforced bunker 45 clicks to the south along the beach. INTEL reported the planet was devoid of human life, and there were no pirates within 45 light minutes from the Mars-sized rock. The planet had been terraformed a decade prior, but the colonization charter was buried in red tape at some obscure civil office of the UAHC.
The heavy mist obscured the surface of visual scans, and the small flotilla of pirate vessels must have had their reactors powered down enough for the magnetic fields of the planet’s polar regions obscure their presence. The Company drop ships were ambushed once they dropped below the planet’s stratosphere. Two platoons managed to evade the pirate ship –to –ship beam strikes, and made it to their DZ’s.
Darius’ ship was none to lucky… A solid barrage of laser and particle beam strikes flared their shields and caused the shield generators to over-load. Within a second of the shield failure, a short range atmospheric missile took out half of their thruster array, and consequently cause their pilot to make an emergency landing.
A shadow emerged from the mist over the ocean… The large square form instantly registered in Darius’ mind as a pirate vessel. They were caught in the open… Death was imminent.
Streaks of blue plasma came out of nowhere and impacted all around the Soldiers’ perimeter. “Ground contacts!” Darius didn’t take any time to try and recognize the voice. The Soldiers resorted to their instincts and dropped into their fighting positions and returned fire. It was obvious that the pirate warship was there to take their collective eyes off of the 3 o’clock position that Darius was assigned.
“Switch to plas!” Sergeant Andrews called out. Darius switch his massive multi-purpose rifle to plasma mode. It was evident that the ground contacts had gotten within one hundred meters of their position. Plasma bolts were ideal for close in fighting… Beyond two hundred meters, however, the plasma would rapidly cool and cause nothing more than superficial burns… But they still hurt.
The pirates weren’t disciplined troops, but they weren’t exactly push-overs. They would never engage UAHC Soldiers without a significant advantage in numbers. Plasma bursts landed all around the Soldiers. Controlled bursts of plasma poured out of Darius’ rifle. He had to stay calm and spread out his burst fire over several seconds, otherwise he would overheat the plasma canister and have to change it out.
One enemy dropped… then two… then a dozen more. Screams of pain rang out from everywhere. Darius realized his comrades weren’t coming out without a scratch… The screams came from both the pirates and his platoon alike.
“PFC Darius, roll left! Fill that gap!” The voice was that of his fire team leader, Corporal Roja. Darius performed a combat roll and settled behind a basalt slab that jutted from the pristine sand. He didn’t think… he didn’t hesitate… he pulled his helmet’s HUD back up and scanned for his next target. Then it all went black.
Pain filled his upper body, and the intense heat caused him to release a howl of pain. His helmet made a thud as he pried it off of his head. His neural net would have simply retracted it automatically, but it didn’t respond to his thoughts… He opened his eyes to see the fading glow of plasma mingled with molten metal from his full faced helmet. The ballistic one piece eye shield was completely scorched but had done its job. Now without a targeting HUB, Darius would have to rely on marksmanship fundamentals. He could barely see the enemy, but the plasma bolts streaked from the direction of their assault, so he tracked their sources and unloaded with a fury of controlled bursts.
30 seconds later the pirates’ firing when silent. Were they all neutralized? Darius asked himself in his own head. Normally they would maneuver by teams and do a bounding over watch to get close enough to be sure… However, their plight was still dire.
“Team two! Form a skirmish line to the 3 o’clock!” The Sergeant called out. “Teams three, four, and…” The Sergeant exploded with the impact of a magnetic pulse burst that came from the pirate vessel.
“Hunker down!” The Corporal immediately took charge, as he was trained to do. The remnants of the platoon dropped behind whatever cover they could. Darius looked up to see the massive pirate vessel hover menacingly over the surf. It was motionless… ominous… dreadful.
“Woohoo!” The sound came from the inside of their perimeter. The Lance Corporal was still kneeling steadfast over his ATC console. “We’ve got a concerned citizen offering air cover!”
“Where are our birds?” The Corporal asked with a scowl.
“Engaging ground targets at the bunker. We’re solo for now!” The Lance Corporal replied as he spit. “Looks like an Unum registered IDENT pinging… Civilian craft… call sign, Death-Nail.”
“What the fuck is a civilian going to do against a fucking monstrosity like that?!” The Corporal was gesturing toward the pirate vessel.
“Coms traffic is in and out… This Death-Nail craft, or whatever is the owner of something the pirates took.”
“I hope it’s worth it… He’s toast when this thing sees him.” The Corporal was speaking to the forward air controll
er, but his eyes were transfixed on the massive ship creeping in the mist.
“Something about a… sword? and… What the shit?! An exotic animal?” The Lance Corporal was dumbfounded. “Inbound! Coming from the north… skirting the beach... supersonic… hyper sonic… fuck! It’s fast! It’s REALLY fucking fast! HIT THE DIRT!”
Darius did what he was told. The Soldiers were flush with the sand… heads down… hands covering their necks. He couldn’t help himself… He looked up to see the fireball streaking down the beach from the north. It took a fraction of a second for it to skim across the nose of the pirate craft, and burn out of sight.
A split second later the shock wave hit the ship and it imploded in a sublime glow. When the wave caught up to their perimeter the world went dark, and Darius knew no more.
Furry Creature
Location: CFS Cerberus, Light Cruiser, En Route to Unknown Location
Date Time: Post Interstellar 07/27/4201 2134HRS Crimson Fleet Zulu Time
System: Creole System, 321 Light Minutes from Heliopause Inner Edge
“Soon it will all be behind us.” A female voice softly spoke as her slender hands stroked the creature’s fur. “Surely chaos will follow. But I take solace in leaving this ruse behind… Not to mention, finding you in one piece.”
The silky pitch black fur sifted between her fingertips as two large green eyes opened and set their gaze on her. She could barely make them out in the darkness of the cramped cell, but she knew what thoughts laid behind the eyes of this magnificent creature. She frowned for a moment as her thoughts drifted towards the creatures’ current circumstances. She knew that once the cruiser, and its vile crew, completed their next capture mission, that there would be unspeakable things done to her four legged companion.
“I’ve had to witness unspeakable acts. Atrocities. The Crimson Alliance has been behind many of the pirate attacks that plague the edges of UAHC space. We’ve suspected this for decades… But now I believe Father’s suspicions have been confirmed.” She spoke as she continued to comfort her companion. She supposed that her secret visits did more to comfort her than it did the beast. That was part of the reason he existed… That was his oath. “It’s too risky to data burst the details… I’ve had to keep my transmissions vague to avoid discovery. The ship’s AI’s are oblivious to the darkness embedded deep within them.”
