Starkindler (MechaVerse Series Book 1)

by Jeremy Cunkle

  He felt a burning sensation in his arm, and ever so slowly struggled to override his cowardice and look down. He had been expecting to see blood, his life-force, pouring out from where he had been shot, a sense of relief passing through his body along with a shameful shudder; but instead he felt as if he were drowning in the darkness that now enveloped him, falling into a bottomless pit from which there was no return. He could feel the liquid fire enter his veins, burning its way throughout his body. He convulsed in sudden panic, the last shred of his humanity desperately fighting to stave off the inevitable end. He struggled to keep the liquid from entering his body, but it was too late, the deed was done. He went slack as the waves of darkness crashed over him, although in the time of the real world, time not slowed by his attempt to understand, the string of events was almost instantaneous. She was prepared for the eventuality though. She gently laid him back down on the sweat-soaked bed, running her hands through his hair like his mom used to. She whispered quietly in his ear telling him to dream any other dream but that one as the narcotics drifted him out to calmer seas.

  * * * * *

  He regained consciousness in her sisterly, loving arms, which tenderly but firmly held him pinned in place as the needle was swiftly removed from his arm. He struggled to regain his composure as he caught a glimpse of her face, her sad smile reassuring him that everything was going to be okay, that the worst was over. The effects of the narcotics were slow to wear off. He fought through the fog they produced in his head. A glass of water was handed to him; he drank deeply, dehydrated from the exertion of screaming and another night spent wrestling with his demons. He felt the glass taken away from him, his grasp too weak to produce a struggle and then heard the clink as the glass was set upon the bedside stand. It was just a moment accompanied by a feeling, but he felt her reassuring presence leave, heard the whoosh of hydraulics as the door opened and closed, and then he drifted off once again into the nether nothingness.

  * * * * *

  It had been a day of celebration, until it turned into a massacre. They were celebrating their graduation from secondary school and acceptance into the world of adults. The five of them had been standing at the table of honor, set on a stage off by itself. They were surrounded by their friends, family, and other classmates who had graduated with them. It was the only reason they had lived.

  An effect of the dramatic overcrowding of Earth was the astronomical price of real estate. Simply owning a house was beyond average peoples means. Factories increasingly built cramped multi story apartments on adjacent land, using the rent produced from the sub-par lodging to pad their bottom lines, locking their workers into a perpetual cycle of debt and dependence on the factory. The disappearance of parks to make way for progress had become so commonplace that green spaces were now being relegated to locations under the elevated highways that spanned the globe, as vast and varied as the veins in a body.

  The celebration had occurred within one such park, taking place on what had been until that point a perfect midsummer’s day. The Elevated Anti Gravitational Super Highway Rail System ran overhead, the high tensile beams of the anti-grav struts strung between quarter-mile support structures were like ribbons cutting paths through the horizon. A pavilion, a stage, a small lawn with a few planted trees and a circular concrete walkway were all that consisted of the coveted park. The crowd of family members and close friends assembled for the celebration overwhelmed what little there was to offer. Thoughtful planning foresaw and dealt with the problem; chairs, tables and other decorations were scattered about, filled to capacity with well-wishers. A myriad of smells accompanied dozens of grills, all competing to produce the most salivating scents. They were escorted by neat ranks of buffet tables, all of which were surrounded by minimally supervised children whose parents split off into the small clichés that always form in social circumstances.

  Right before the nearest support structure amidst the park, an off-ramp curved down smoothly from the elevated highway that connected a network of roads servicing a series of factories nearby. About halfway through the celebration, Mikkhael and the other four graduates had been seated at the table of honor finishing their meal when suddenly an anti-grav cart went careening off the side of the highway, landing heavily on the exit ramp. The overloaded cart bounced heavily on the struts of the exit ramp, computer algorithms strained to compensate for the sudden drop in elevation, followed immediately by wild flashes of lightning as electricity arced out of control in protest of the anti-grav system’s mistreatment, and then with one final thunderous explosion the manically screaming cart was ejected from the tracks. A huge vertical drop followed, and then the cart smashed heavily into the green zone, unspent kinetic forces continuing to propel the cart farther into the park.

  The driver and the computer had almost been able to work in tandem in order to rebalance the cart, but at the last second they gave conflicting commands resulting in a gross overcorrection, rolling the cart into a family gathered around a table that were too stunned to move in time. Everyone stared in open-mouthed horror as the cart crushed the innocents underneath the rolling carriage. The thrusters underneath the still-rotating cart fired desperately as they tried to re-gain altitude in order to avoid the civilians, setting everything within five meters of them ablaze. Confused proximity sensors blared external warnings of pedestrians in danger. As the cart finished its first full rotation, computer algorithms timely fired all working thrusters, managing to provide enough power to allow the cart to glide in slow-motion over the rest of the revelers. The critically wounded cart was too damaged to balance itself though, internal computers continuing to blare external alarms as it crashed into foliage across the clearing, spilling its occupants who immediately scrambled for cover. Hydraulic and other miscellaneous fluids bled from the smashed lines of the still-bleating cart’s underbelly, sparks spewing from the damaged struts landed amongst the pooling fluids setting them alight, threatening to engulf the local area in an inferno as the engines screamed in protest, the onboard computer striving all the while to attempt to right the cart.

  Minutes behind the terrorist’s anti-grav cart were several more official versions loaded with dozens of militia, Federal Police, and Special Service Agents in chase. Most of the pursuing forces had been able to exit the highway using the ramp properly, managing to stop before plowing through the gathering of people. However, as soon as the cart full of terrorists tipped over for the final time, the pursuing security forces piled out of their vehicles and immediately proceeded to shoot across the gathering of people with complete disregard for those caught in the crossfire. A few quick-witted terrorists returned fire as best they could, while others panicked, foolishly attempting to burrow their way into non-existence amongst the light foliage. The civilians were boxed into the park by the support beams, the security forces on one side, and the rebels on the other, a growing inferno amongst them. They were shot indiscriminately by both sides, mercilessly murdered where they stood, casualties of circumstance.

  A civilian court would later charge the Special Service Agents with intentionally shooting the civilians, attempting to blame the murders on corporate terrorists fleeing after unsuccessfully attempting to critically overload a power plant causing catastrophic failure. A report by the post-situational committee formed to investigate the massacre eventually determined that eight terrorists were wiped out in the ensuing firefight, as well as eighty two civilians who had been attending the graduation ceremony of Mikkhael and his four friends, who found themselves slaughtered by both sides. Six militia and several Federal Officers were also killed; however, that was no consolation to the five students who had been the sole survivors of the gathering. They had managed to survive by hiding in a service well of a support column for the highway, permanently scarred by the incalculable horrors they witnessed. The scandal that ensued served to narrow interplanetary attention on the corruption of Earth’s police services, as well as the impunity with which the Special Directorates served
their various government and corporate entities.

  The verdict eventually passed down by the judge overseeing the case was decried by all as being too lenient, the militia and Federal Officers were suspended for their involvement without pay during the years long investigation. The Special Service Agents were considered non-reformable and promptly kicked off planet to the prison system on Mars, never allowed to return to Earth. Like many of their kind, their tainted skills were highly sought after in the untamed lands, and they quickly found themselves folded into the still-forming Martian Planetary Defense Forces Mecha Corps. The team of lawyers suing the United Nations Civil Defense Forces was able to extricate an enormous amount of money from the government, as much to satisfy their own greed as to provide any future for the surviving teenagers. The amount settled on was one billion credits for every relative or friend murdered on that fateful day, totaling eighty two billion credits of which the lawyers took thirty percent in legal fees.

  In the wake of everything, mortally wounded and all but forgotten except by anyone seeking to use them, the five graduates were left to piece together a semblance of normality after every living relative and friend they had was murdered right before them.

  General Akari - Commander Cerberus Province,

  Dissertations and Thoughts:

  Personal Entry: June 14th 2092 A.D

  Men fight for different reasons. Some men have always had to fight and know nothing else. A soldier fights in the name of the cause they serve such as protecting their country. A thief will fight when they are cornered and can no longer run. A good man fights for what he believes in. A parent fights for their children. But it is the man who has known peace, and gives it up to fight that I fear most. Such men fight to restore the peace they knew, and they fight to restore it for others. Give a man like that a cause, a reason to kill with a righteous fury, and you cannot win until you kill him and all who would come after him. That is not a fight I want. It is not a fight that can be won.

  Chapter 2 - Aboard the SkySail – 2079 A.D.

  “Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.” -- Elie Wiesel

  The light hiss of the hydraulic door system and the slight depressurization of the deck was the only announcement Mikkhael or anyone else ever received as they reported for duty to the command and control center of the SkySail. With a compliment of only five people aboard the permanently aloft airship, there was never much fanfare. He stepped just inside the entrance so that the door would close, and briefly adjusted his black Captain’s tunic, an unspoken sign acknowledging that he was running late. Each head turned briefly from the workstation they were working at and muttered a quick “Good morning.” Then, as he stepped forward to take his place at his own workstation, each head turned back to resume their work.

  They were as well-attenuated to each other’s nuances as any small group of people in the galaxy. After the deaths of their friends and family, the five survivors built the SkySail to escape the well-intentioned questions, the invasive cameras, and the ever-present and completely hollow sympathy shown by everyone who met them. More importantly, they built their new refuge to escape their memories. Soaring together in the heavens with only the clouds, sun, and moon for company was the only companionship they needed.

  Without the cheapness of verbal acknowledgement, his companions recognized that Mikkhael’s past chose the previous night to reassert itself, and the after-effects of the drug-induced stupor that occasionally helped them all cope with the same affliction was the cause for his tardiness. It was not their nightmares or even dreams that haunted this small group; it was reality itself. Being a survivor was what defined them, impacted every aspect of their life, permanently tinting the lenses through which they viewed life. Because of their unique circumstances, tardiness was tolerated on some level. They all had relapses from time to time, and it was understood that everyone always did their best to pull their weight.

  Mikkhael was greeted by Vera, looking ragged with strands of her normally perfectly maintained hair out of place and shadows under her eyes as she walked over to him, handing him a data slate in lieu of a greeting. “Morning, status is green across the board with nothing special to report, I am going to get some rest.” Brief formalities over, she stepped in front of the door which hissed farewell as she disappeared into the bowels of the airship.

  They had all taken titles, more to distinguish their roles amongst each other and establish a pecking order for duties than anything else. Normality would escape their grasp forevermore, yet certain attempts were made to maintain appearances. With as much uncertainty as they now faced in life, order held special meaning for them all, something they relied upon for stability. Mikkhael was chosen as Captain, with Alyona serving as the SkySail’s pilot. Vera served as the medical officer, which left Kiryl as head of maintenance, and finally Kurtis in the role of communications and intelligence officer.

  The unique vessel they lived in was aptly named the SkySail, an enormous fixed-wing craft stretching several hundred meters across, and another one hundred and forty meters long. The mammoth airship was crafted out of ultra-light composite materials that were also incredibly strong. No expense had been spared in the design; they had more money than any mortal deserved after the government settlement. On top of that, their inventions were extremely profitable, allowing them to pursue their dreams. On the rear of the craft, as well as under each wing section, large, nearly frictionless rotors utilizing profound amounts of rare earth metals in their singular bid to keep the craft indefinitely airborne. The airship was powered by a miniature nuclear reactor that was illegal to possess in every single one of the myriad countries they operated from, further encouraging their separation from society.

  The SkySail’s purpose was to attach itself via a long cable to transoceanic cargo ships, and then tow them to whatever destination they chose. The unique nature of their services proved a lucrative business as their crew of five basically replaced any crew compliment the client ship would normally carry, as well as dramatically reducing fuel used by the client ship. Due to the severe overpopulation of Earth following centuries of over consumption and mismanagement, much of Earth's economically recoverable mineral wealth had been depleted. That stark reality led to extraordinary annual inflation on items such as fuel, making all such items dear to those who consumed them, and opportunity for those who could provide them.

  Vera was able to keep a section of the tail as a simple vegetable garden, where she grew some of the food that the five ate on board, complete with a stone paved walkway and small gurgling fountain. The garden served a dual purpose: keeping the oxygen levels inside the ship at healthy norms, as well as providing the crew members with fresh food. Kurtis and Kiryl teamed up to build a 3D virtual environment simulator complete with haptic sensors and physical feedback suits filled with haptic sensors that vividly mimicked realistic scenarios they’d spent hours programming. Each user of the simulator could load custom environments into the computer, then step inside a wide chamber wearing a pair of form-melding glasses and a custom suit embedded with a body harness covered in wireless light sensors that served to translate for the system where the person’s body was in relation to the small room they occupied. The system served to insert the user into the program itself, thousands of miniature actuators within the suit communicating feedback from the simulator such as g-forces, creating lifelike virtual reality scenarios indistinguishable from reality. With the assistance of the computer, the crew members crafted simulations mirroring racing, flying, and even martial arts combat. All five members of the crew used the simulator daily to keep their reflexes in excellent shape, remaining in peak physical condition in a meld of meditation and physical exercise.

  The command and control center was located in the nose of the airship. The wings contained spacious high ceilinged living and common quarters. Space was plentiful, so each set of individual living quarters contained a bedroom, personal room, and smal
l toilet area with an enclosed showerhead. In between the sets of rooms was a common kitchen and large common space with small offices off to each side. The rear of the ship held all of the engines, servers, and maintenance equipment to keep their flying world airborne.

  As Mikkhael assumed command of the deck, Kurtis updated him on the status of their destination. “Mikkhael, it looks like we are about twenty minutes away from the port of Marseilles. I was going to let the Captain of the Integris know she may prepare to resume control of her ship if that is all right? I also have the Marseilles Port Authority asking our intentions, as well as our next client, a ship named the Nautilus of all things ready to be contacted.” Most important of all was the look he gave Mikkhael, the run ragged glance that overwhelmed people show when they let their guard drop momentarily.

  Mikkhael gave a light chuckle, “They running you ragged? I apologize for being late, and I will apologize to Vera later, I know she was stretched thin. Deal with the Integris, then the Nautilus, after you patch me in with the Port Authority.”

  Kurtis quickly hunched over the prodigious set of displays and pressed a seemingly endless series of buttons while Mikkhael picked up a handset. A thumbs-up from Kurtis who did not turn from his station, signaled a line had been established. “Marseilles Port Authority, this is the Captain of the SkySail designation R0568 requesting permissions to enter your airspace long enough to grab our next client, over.”

  There was a slight delay and Mikkhael was actually considering re-keying the mike when he received a response. “SkySail, this is the Marseilles Port Authority, permission granted, we have clean linens and warm food ready for when you get in, over.”