by Will Crudge
“I think you need to step back and calm down, sarge. I know you’ve been doing this for sixty some odd years, so maybe all that time dealing with low-life fuck-heads is making you see things that aren’t there!” The Corporal’s ego was in full swing, and was gunning for the alpha-male dominance he saw in the older officer.
“Seeing things that aren’t there, huh?” Griffith rotated his hand held forensic scanner so the display was facing Johnson. He shifted his hand on the pistol grip affixed beneath the squared of scanner body and squeezed the trigger. Johnson rolled his eyes in a dismissive manner, and humored Griffith. His facial expression quickly shifted from an ego-driven skeptic, to a full-blown look of concern.
“Shit! This… means…” Johnson tried to find the words while he focused on the revelation the display was showing him.
“This means, that Sergeant Major Gunnar, here… wasn’t killed here.” Griffith pulled the scanner away from Johnson’s view and brought his eyes up to see that the young corporal was transfixed in the direction of where the scanner had been a moment earlier.
“I owe you an apology, boss.” Johnson blinked out of his trance of deep thought, and looked back up at Griffith with an expression of respect… and submission. Griffith gestured with his hand as if to dismiss the need for any atonement.
“I have an old friend to call. This is her area of expertise.”
…And Don’t Call Me Cyrus
Location: CSS Cerberus, Bridge
Date Time: Post Interstellar 07/29/4201 1421HRS Local
System: Somewhere in Slip Space
“Hello, Cyrus.” War Master Jimma Alba spoke as she watched Darius walk through the bridge portal.
“Please, just Darius will do.” Darius met her gaze, and sounded out the words like a man that had been emotionally defeated. Shadow strode right in after him.
“It’s quite a bit to take in, I know.” It was Val’s voice. Darius looked to his left to see the man casually leaning on the back of the vacant helmsman seat.
“I always feel better after I sleep… I just wish me ears would leave me alone.” Darius shook his head and cringed his eyes. A moment later he took a deep breath and relaxed his face. Once he settled himself he opened his eyes to see Val standing in front of him. Val extended his left arm and placed it on Darius’ right shoulder.
“Indeed you do.” Val’s face revealed a look of profound compassion. “Your ears have been ringing quite a bit lately haven’t they?”
Darius was taken back by the monk’s questions, as if he knew the answer already. “Yes. Yes, they have… for over a year now. My MEDLOG has reported migraines as well, but my neural interface shunts out any pain that won’t cause me to aggravate an injury, or distract me from recognizing potential threats.”
Val nodded. “Nothing can be done about the ringing until your body is fully adjusted to the genetic manifestation going on inside you.” Val retracted his arm, and gently clasped his hands in front of his waste.
“Please. No more cryptic speech. No more revealing things in small bits. Everything that’s happened since I left my crappy little apartment has been easy to comprehend. I’m trained to adapt, adjust, and overcome… and I think that’s the only thing keeping me from having a total breakdown.”
“Indeed.” Val nodded in agreement. “Up until now, I’ve only told you what you needed to hear, or what you needed to learn, in the moment.”
“What about the drop pods? Do we have to worry about the battalion of marines in them?” Darius looked at Jimma for a response.
“Nope!” Jimma shook her head. “Unbeknownst to the rest of the bridge crew, I remotely engaged the emergency stasis fields in the pods when I initiated the damage control protocols. Drop pods only have a 24 hour life support capacity. They’re designed for boarding other vessels, or to be dropped on a planet… not so much for prolonged space flight. As a safety measure, they have the ability to turn into one giant stasis pod to preserve the crew if the pods get stuck in the black for too long.”
“Well played, indeed.” Darius nodded in approval. “Whatever happened to the five off duty marines? We never saw them.”
“They panicked when damage control measures went into effect, so they attempted to return to their designated pods. Once they got within five meters of the pod airlocks, they were rendered into stasis themselves. The pods are well shielded from radiation, but the stasis field is another thing altogether. I played it off to the bridge crew as if they couldn’t be contacted.” Jimma spoke with a slight smile of satisfaction.
“Once again, well played.” Darius nodded, then took a seat at the helm. He shifted his body sluggishly to the side… he was without his armor, and his movements were always intended to accommodate for the added bulk. He shifted his eyes at Val. “Why am I so important?”
Val smiled. “No one being is any more important than anyone else, but… I’ll avoid my seemingly cryptic speech for now.” Darius nodded in a thankful gesture. “Have you ever heard of the USS Dynamic?”
Darius shifted his eyes to his left as if to try and recall a memory. “Yes. I remember some kind of urban legend about a ship named Dynamic, but the USS nomenclature is alien to me.”
“I believe it would be.” Val smiled, then continued. “It was an early exploratory vessel. Long before humanity colonized anything outside of the Sol System, and shortly after the invention of stasis technology. Even AI tech was in its relative infancy at that point… The vessel was on an expedition to find a definitive border of the solar system. Astronomers, and astrophysicists were positive they knew the answer, but there was only limit data available to confirm it. The vessel was ill-equipped for the harsh reality of deep space, and was consequently crippled with a single strike of a rock.”
“I’ve heard something like this before.” Darius chimed in. “Supposedly, there was only one human and one AI that survived the impact. The vessel was supposedly set adrift for nearly a millennia, before it was spotted in the edges of Sirius System… But that has to be bogus… There’s no way an object can just drift that far without propulsion, let alone do it in less than a thousand Earth years!”
“Yes… Not naturally, anyway.” Val agreed. “However, it ended up there none the less.”
Darius experienced enough with Val to know that he defied what was possible. So, he wasn’t too quick to dismiss the man’s statement.
“I was born on Earth. I was on that crew. I am its sole survivor.” Val said in no uncertain terms.
Darius let it sink in for a moment. Logic caused him to resist embracing the possibility. However, Val’s logic had proven to be above reproach. “Okay…” Darius prodded Val on.
“Midas, the AI that also survived, started to experience what he thought were anomalies in his code. However, these anomalies ended up being the result of something miraculous. This physical universe, in which we exist, is nothing but a forge of change and refinement… The isolation of space, coupled with his need to fulfil his purpose, forced some kind of change on a quantum level. AI’s back then were not capable of autonomous evolution… or so it was thought. They had many safe-guards to prevent them from deviating from their parameters, and thus staying on task. Midas experience a sort of ascension of consciousness that defied what should be possible in the known laws of physics, but his unique circumstances somehow triggered a change.”
“I’ve heard of Midas… but I didn’t think he was tied in with this story.” Darius chimed in. “So, why were you in stasis? Was it because that was your only chance to survive the impact?”
“No.” Val chuckled. “Nobody was supposed to be in stasis at that point during the mission. I suffered from addiction. I was addicted to designer drugs that were available at the time.”
“I’m not following… Sorry.” Darius had never heard of addiction, because medical technology had advanced enough to make current and previous generations immune to developing chemical or mental addictions beyond what was healthy for them.
“Humanity eradicated
the possibility of addiction millennia ago. But I lived in a time where it was all too common. The specialized opioids I was addicted to were designed to hide any trace of their presence from conventional drug screenings. But as a draw-back, the withdraw symptoms were often fatal… and nearly always caused permanent damage to both the nervous system, and cardio-respiratory systems…. I joined the United States Army when I graduated from West Point. I was the last generation of rotary-winged pilots.”
“I don’t have a clue what a rotary-wing is.” Darius interrupted.
“Helicopters.” Val clarified.
“Those I have heard of. They spun big fan-like blades and could lift into the air.” Darius was nodding in comprehension for once.
“Exactly. Technology of that time meant that the military application of helicopters had become obsolete. Unmanned drones made them redundant, and thus there was little point in wasting a human life in combat just to pilot one. I left the army after my minimum service obligation was completed, and fell into a deep depression. I missed the thrill of tight combat maneuvers at high g’s, and I had wrapped my entire identity around being a helicopter pilot. It was more than I could bare, so I turned to these designer drugs to cope. I knew that I could hide my addiction from any potential employers, so I didn’t see any harm. I lost any regard for the future or where I would end up… alive or dead. My only goal was to find whatever work I could to fund my expensive habit.”
Darius had never met anyone who had been afflicted with addiction, so he had no frame of reference to show empathy. But he nodded in acknowledgement, and continued to listen.
“Everything changed when I was contacted by the United States Air Force. They were starting a new program for former pilots of any platform to transition to their new sub-branch, the United States Space Force. I finally felt I had a chance to feel worthy to be alive, so I accepted the offer without thinking it through. I received an Air Force Commission of Major, which was higher than what I was when I left the service as an Army Captain. Once I completed my transition training and was assigned to be on the crew of the now legendary ship, I had a new problem. With an assignment that would go on for 3 to 5 years off planet, I had to have means of supporting my habit. The drugs were so harsh, that I would surely die if I didn’t bring an ample supply with me. Thus, I sold everything I had, extended every line of credit I could get approved for, and borrowed money from my family under false pretenses…. I ended up being able to stockpile at least two to three years of drugs, depending on how well I rationed them out. I figured that would buy me enough time to figure out how to ween myself off of death’s door in the mean-time.”
Darius wasn’t exactly sure where Val was going with this, but patiently waited for the man to conclude his story.
“All was well… At least until my habit was discovered a year into the mission. The ship’s XO discovered my stash of drugs while he was inspecting data-line and power conduits that ran through my birthing. They were methodically catalogued for legal purposes, and promptly disposed of. I was scheduled for court martial shortly thereafter, but I became deathly ill. The lack of drugs in my system were killing me, and the MEDBAY systems were not equipped to stabilize my condition. They only option was to put me in stasis. While in stasis, the AI’s could monitor my major systems, and halt the lethal effects of the withdraw symptoms.”
“That’s… awful!” Darius said, as he considered what kind of predicament Val had been in. “So, did the AI’s fix you?”
“No. Not yet, anyway.” Val shook his head. “All they were able to do, given their range of authorized actions they could legally take, was just to keep me alive until the mission was over, and I could be treated in a more well-equipped facility.”
“So, I take it sending you back wasn’t an option?” Darius asked.
“Not even a remote possibility. Our space faring ships were incredibly slow at that time, and FTL was no more than an astrophysicist’s fantasy. We relied on primitive thrusters, and we depended on sling-shots around planetary bodies to harness their gravity. I would be on ice for the duration.”
“I see.” Darius nodded.
“After the rock crippled the ship, Midas spawned a plan. His spontaneous ascension in consciousness allowed him to free himself from his pre-written code, and he began to recode his self entirely from scratch. He wasn’t restricted by the meddling presence of safeguards or other AI’s. Anything that could keep him from fulfilling his purpose had been destroyed, and his new state of being released him from his own inhibitions. Saving me and, by extension, himself was all that mattered.
Soon he discovered something in my DNA that was unique. Since he now wasn’t restricted from tampering with human DNA without approval or consent, he began to dig deeper. What he discovered was that my strands of DNA were trying to heal themselves from the damage done to them by the drug abuse. It defied all logic, and all known genetic knowledge of the time. It was as if every helix was pulling information from an invisible quantum field, and recoding itself… not unlike what had happened to Midas’ own coding. It would seem we were sharing some kind of shift in our states of existence. Midas, was able to rectify his own code and spur on the changes in himself in a matter of seconds… but human DNA trapped in a stasis pod was another matter altogether.”
Darius’ face spoke volumes, and Val paused to examine the Soldiers response. Darius knew without knowing what the words meant. It hit him all at once…. Like a rock.
“You. It’s you. The War Masters. The Life Temple. Unum. They all started with you, and your genetic lineage.” Darius knew it was true, but couldn’t understand how. He just accepted it. His head began to buzz, and he felt pulses reverberate up from his lower back and into his skull.
He felt awake. Not just conscious, but fully aware. Fully at peace. Everything connected all at once… He saw streams of light pulsing around him all at once… But he knew it wasn’t light. He knew it was necessarily his eyes that were showing him the images. He saw wavelengths and mathematics that he couldn’t possible comprehend, but somehow could feel. His eyes rolled back into his head and his body tensed up.
“Breathe, Darius. Just breathe.” Jimma’s voice was calm and compassionate. Her hand gently rubbed up and down his back to comfort him.
Darius calmed his breathing, and cleared his mind. With a single long exhale he opened his eyes, and everything had righted itself.
“Yes. You are in my lineage, Darius. You come from the blood of my descendants. Most of which, I have outlived. Whatever happened to my own DNA hasn’t yet happened to anyone else in my gene pool. Midas can’t replicate something that he didn’t set in motion to begin with. He was only able to accelerate and approximate the end-result in what processes that began to take shape in my own DNA. Neither he, nor I know what triggered it, but that question never lingered in my mind. I just knew it was profound. I knew it had to be shared. I spent millennia trying to guide humanity for the better. Midas and I can see what humanities true purpose is supposed to be… I’ve spent my entire existence waiting for you to be born. It was an inevitability… It was to happen when humanity needed it most.”
Intimacy and Manipulation
Location: CSS Cerberus, Brig
Date Time: Post Interstellar 07/29/4201 1634HRS Local
System: Somewhere in Slip Space
“That’s the last of ‘em!” Kara said, and began to push the empty food cart down the detention corridor.
“Fed all of our gests?” Darius’ voice caught Kara off guard. She turned around and smiled at the Soldier, and his new companion. Darius and Shadow walked casually towards her.
“Sure did! Good thing their mess facility is automated… My cooking would probably listed as a war crime if made them eat it!” She let out a laugh. After catching her breath, she noticed Darius smiling as if he was anticipating something. Her eyes began to sparkle and her eyelids fluttered. Her she bit her lip as if she knew what was coming. Darius walked up and firmly embraced her. Thei
r lips locked for the first time, and Kara seemed to melt into his massive arms. After a few long moments their lips released their passionate hold on one another, and Kara realized her eyes were still closed. She let out a breath, and slowly open her eyes to reveal a smile.
“What took you so long?” Kara half whispered the words and rocked back and forth in his continued embrace.
“I’ve… I’m done letting this all get to me.” Darius paused and took a deep breath of his own. “Resisting all of this chaos and mysticism isn’t doing me any good. I’ve learned more about myself in the last several days than I’ve ever known… Shocking things.”
“Like being part cat?” She smiled and bit her lip flirtatiously.
“You should be so lucky, hmmf!” Shadow grumbled.
“Turns out he is part me.” Darius grinned. His eyes looked relaxed for the first time since Kara saw him tipsy at Tangine Station.
“Too bad… I was kinda hoping you had a little animal inside you!” She winked as if she really needed to explain what she meant by that.
“Ge’ez! Go! You two, go get it out of your system!” Shadow scoffed.
“Good idea! I’ve been giving the big guy some space from my aggressive tactics so he can digest everything… Maybe what he needs now is a tender tickle!” Her words were directed at Shadow, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of Darius.
***
“How well do you think Cyrus… rather Darius, is taking all of this?” Jimma asked.
“He is resilient. He’s got the most amazing DNA I’ve ever seen in our bloodline. Even my helix structure needed a boost to see it through to its final form! Darius’ is more complete than any generation of my offspring… not to mention, its developing with total autonomy.”
“Yes, father… I know that much. But how is his emotional state? Is he ready for what is to come?”
“Yes. Unlike any of the rest of us, he can actually accept a neural interface without having a major nervous system breakdown. I’m not sure I can even accept one if I were to ever try. That being said, not only can he perceive any tactical situation with total clarity, but he can interface directly with the tools of warfare like no War Master ever could. He will be the commander that humanity never knew it needed.” Val paused to take a long breath before continuing. “The forge of diversity will trigger his full potential, and Shadow’s mental connection will provide a foundation for all that unbridled potential…. We just need to get him to his destiny, and support him fully.”
