[2016] Full Circle: The Pied Piper Returns
Page 1
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Presents
Full Circle:
The Pied Piper Returns
by
K. Anderson Yancy
Copyright 1993 K. Anderson Yancy
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STORY DESCRIPTION: Full Circle: The Pied Piper Returns
FOREWORD:
THE STORY: Full Circle: The Pied Piper Returns
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STORY DESCRIPTION: Full Circle: The Pied Piper Returns
On the eve of a great battle in which he will lead an invasion of a world, a man prepares letters revealing to his mother, their people’s leader, and daughter that their pasts and futures are much more entwined then anyone could have ever conceived.
FOREWORD:
I served as a naval officer in the U.S. Navy. Warships are filled with incessant sounds of activity twenty four hours a day, be it the mechanics of the ship and the activity of men and women onboard carrying out their tasks. But on the eve before a combat action, the sounds die down and all you hear is the ship like heartbeat of its life, as if everyone onboard in contemplative silence prepares for the horrors of the next day, the unknowns of what they’ll see, what they’ll do, what. . . A large part of the science-fiction world is invasion lore. With this work I bring a little of that real world contemplation of the unknown to the fictional.
Enjoy.
K.
THE STORY: Full Circle: The Pied Piper Returns
"Initialize Recording."
"Initialized."
"Encryption protocol Lazarus."
"Lazarus protocol engaged."
"April 29, 2083 C1
"Dear Carla,
"I was thinking of the strolls we took through the fields, in our distant youths. And how no matter how slowly I walked or how many butterflies I ran off to chase along the way, you never let me walk behind.
"God, I miss you. I can hardly control my excitement with the knowledge that soon this war will end and we'll be together again.
"For so long, I haven't felt anything. How could I? Tomorrow, I'm going to be responsible for the death of Nineteen Billion People! No rational person can think of that and not go mad from pain and guilt.
"When this campaign, Ligeia, ends, I'll be a different person. We'll be a different people. I hope I don't disappoint you when we meet again.
"Today concludes our fifth orbital month around the Earth. We've completed infrastructures on its moon and in its seas.
"Funny. We work there right alongside them . . . unseen, unfelt, unnoticed. Just slightly out of phase with their existence, watching them work, live, love, retake their first fledgling steps to the stars. It makes me wonder just how much goes on around all of us that we never notice . . . and that we don't have the ability to see. Are there others here, watching observing, or just existing? Does all time exist at the same instance? Or just some?
"Anyway . . .
"No major projects remain until—I don't even want to think about it.
"I've taken advantage of the lull in activity and stolen away to an observation deck near the ship's upper sensory array. How many times have I been here? The Democritus is a grand old workhorse. She's held up well, very well over the years. How many campaigns has she seen? C30? C80? C800? Interesting, the more advanced ships still couldn't make the transit, a paradox.
"The array is quiet and still. This is the first moment I've had alone in a very long while. The view's inspiring. The entire compartment is transparent. Outside, the cosmos stretches to infinity. I feel like I've been dropped into the center of the universe and given the opportunity to see—no experience it all at once.
"I've taken a seat on the floor with my back to the Earth. It's just too painful to watch, painful because of what they've done to it. They've taken a pristine stellar jewel, and turned it into a grotesquely, occluded crag, polluted to the point that visibility and life—if you can call it that are not possible without mechanical or genetic assistance.
"And yes, it's painful to watch because tomorrow we'll do a deed as black as the air they breathe, maybe even darker.
"As I gaze out at the stars, the beauty, the simplicity of their elegance makes everything else seem so unreal. They’re like little diamonds on a sable background, a bright audience waiting for this play to begin, a drama in which a dark, little world will be invaded and a civilization destroyed by an orbiting armada.
"The stars sit unmoving. Silent sentinels. No. More like observers—witnesses and judges. It seems that no matter what we do, they'll render a verdict. If we turn around now and go home, they'll make a decision. If we don't, they'll still form an opinion. It could be negative, positive or neither. All we can do is choose a single course of action and make it the right one. This optionless destiny was determined for us long, long, long ago. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
"As you’d expect, the mood of the task force is somber. I still can't believe it. In a few hours we'll annihilate nearly all this sphere's inhabitants, so many lives, so many loves. But we have no choice.
"Genocide or triage? THE GREAT DEBATE still rages. "They are a people in retrograde. If they're lucky enough to survive another century, they'll be attempting to reinvent the wheel." God, how many times have we heard that argument? And, how true it is.
"They've been warned time and time again, that their actions would lead to their own destruction and now on Walpurgis Nacht it is upon them. Walpurgis Nacht? One of the most evil nights of their year, a Satanic Sabbath.
""Reeling in shadows, blasted by night
Eager, excited, entranced by the sight,
Lustrous and luminous Moon over May-Eve
Exposing dark deeds dreams dare not conceive"
""Deeds dreams dare not conceive." How true. How ironic. An invasion on Walpurgis Nacht, the night of the 30th of April until the dawn of May 1st. I guess it's true, Evil is a point of view. But it's the only solution.
""But it's the only solution." "But it's the only solution." "But we have no choice." "But we have no choice." Those words have become mantras for us all. I wish . . . I wish . . . But it's pointless . . .
"Funny, All Hallows' Eve would have been an equally ironic night. These people have so altered themselves that aberrant mechanical or genetic body modifications are a norm.
"Well . . . in another bit of irony, we've genetically engineered a virus that will destroy all the planet's population over three years of age. Their deaths will be quick and painless. Within only a few minutes of infection, the pathogens will multiply, consuming their hosts and shoving these . . . mini ecospheres into extinction. The only evidence either existed will be a faint gray ash that unless vi
ewed closely would be mistaken for dust.
"Tomorrow, when the Earth reaches its solstice—This year it happens tomorrow April 30th. A few short years ago, it occurred annually on June 22. The Earth's orbit is becoming dangerously erratic. They're not only killing themselves, but their world.
"So . . . tomorrow, when the Earth reaches its solstice and its orbit takes the world's celestial equator the greatest distance from the sun, we'll respond to this solar signal and seed the biosphere with the toxin.
"We claim to be sparing those three and under because of our humanity. Incorporating them into our society will be much less painful for them . . . and for us because they're less likely to contaminate our culture with values they've brought from theirs—they haven't had a chance to learn too many.
"The truth is they’re young. They’ll forget this happened. We’ll erase it from history and this nasty little secret will be kept for two generations until . . .
"A benign cousin of our virus will also be released. It'll attach to these children so they'll be easier to find after its lethal relatives have completed their tasks.
"Further, we've identified cryo banks containing their ova and sperm samples. Using these materials, we can quickly repopulate the world once it's been reclaimed.
"There's a small region where the hunter virus will be ineffective. Small in that it's a band that's represents twenty percent of its landmass. There we'll have to manually combat its inhabitants in the vast urban battle zones in which they've live their lives.
"It’s unimaginably horrendous that we have to participate even indirectly in global genocide. But, my unit's been given the honor, if you can call it that, of leading that assault. Yes, we've been blessed.
"We'll also sustain much greater casualties than we should to save their children . . . our children. But again, we have no choice—What kind of a world, of a people are these where children are implanted with weapons and sensors to direct them from birth in order to protect them. My god, what savages. The only reason most of these people don't eat each other is their too polluted.
"Though fate has forced us down this alternativeless road, it still disturbs me to see the enthusiasm with which some of the unit anticipates tomorrow. Those in the Nurseries don't really bother me, they're involved with lifesaving and giving, and returning these children to their normal genetic state.
"But the Settlement Specialists have an unnerving zeal, with which they gladly prepare for tomorrow. They're responsible for the internment of any prisoners, all those over three years old, taken during the conflict. The Settlement Specialists call themselves "SS." It's fairly appropriate given their function. I call them "DC's" . . . Death Campers.
"They conjure up images from the Third Reich, of "I was only following orders." It's hardly believable people like them exist among us, especially in such large numbers. The only difference between them and their counterparts in the society we're about to destroy is their "SS" equivalents control their worlds. We keep ours in check . . . for now.
"If there is such a thing as a humane death camp, we have it. The captured will be fed, comforted and exposed to the virus in a controlled environment. God, forgive us!
"Only the upper echelon is aware of this, but our standing orders call for the extermination of the "SS" through some "accident", once their role is completed. Apparently, there's no room in the "New World" for them either. And, who'll give the order to kill their executioners and their executioners' executioners . . . Hamlet was right, "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all." Where does the madness end? Not in my lifeline.
"Tomorrow and in the days to come we'll perform some truly hideous acts. And, despite the good I know will come from them, I can't help but wonder if I'm doing the right thing. "For what does it profit a man if he gains the world but loses his soul?"
"If I do lose my soul over my deeds, it's a small, small price to pay for what we'll accomplish. "There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time . . ."
"Yes, more Hamlet. Today, more than any, as I reflect on my charge to exterminate a people given to me by the ghost of my mother. It's only appropriate Hamlet keeps running through my mind.
"It's ironic, no, more . . . paradoxical, but we truly have come from "The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns."
""To be or not to be . . . " You don’t know how long I’ve struggled with that question. And, even now, I don’t have an answer.
"I'm sorry. I know there'll be times when you'll hate me for what I'll do. I won't blame you. Had that aspect of our fate been reversed, I would hate you. I'm lying. There was a time that I did hate you. But that's behind me now. And, I take comfort, knowing in time your pain will ease and you'll forgive me, just as I have forgiven you. We know each other too well for me to believe otherwise. We've been close in the past and we will be again in the future. It's funny. I've always felt we've known each other far more than the arc of our lives, that we're linked together in one great, unending, unseverable chain. If ever the Fates entwined two lives with golden threads, it was ours.
"Tomorrow, I'll find you and your brother huddled together hungry, near dehydration, shaking and scared in the shadows of a burnt out building. Despite your fears, you both will trust me. We'll form a family and grow to love one another. You'll make innumerable contributions to our people while raising five fine sons. And as The Doyen Suzerain, you will be the chief architect of Ligeia and send me off to take part in the killing of your parents. We share life. We share love. We share a crime. Neither Sophocles nor Poe could have come up with this plot. You'll have your youngest son, Jon, given this holographic letter on your death just as you will be given it on mine.
"You were too young to know it, but your world would have been totally uninhabitable by the time you should have reached your 13th birthday. Our history and our observations now, told us it had been horribly polluted and on the brink of death until the invasion. Our people waged war on its past, in order to save its future!
""And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will." Joseph Glanvill.
"In an unending circuitous route, through the strength of our collective will, we reclaimed our dying world and built a flourishing society.
"You can't imagine how sorry I am for my involvement in the untimely deaths of your natural parents and all the others. But for an act of this magnitude, an apology’s only a hollow gesture.
"Unfortunately, the deaths of your parents and the others were necessary for you and so many others to continue to live and I, along with so many others, to be born . . . I don't know what else to say, but I am sorry.
"Jonathan Aaron Abiria"
"Lieutenant General"
"Earth Expeditionary Force"
"End Recording—For now "
"Recording Terminated."
* * *
"Initialize Recording."
"Initialized."
"Encryption protocol Lazarus."
"Lazarus protocol engaged."
"April 30, 2083 C1
"I've just kissed you good night and all I can think of is how I've loved you, from the very first time I saw you . . . both of them.
"Love Always,
"Jon
"Your Father & Your Son
"End Recording."
"Recording Terminated."
~~~ The End ~~~
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* * * For Mor
e Works, Classic Stories & Audiobooks by SonicMovie.net & K. Anderson Yancy visit Amazon at: http://amzn.to/1ZPcWXc ***
AUTHOR’S BIO:
From 2003 – 2013 I was a producing partner of XM / Sirius Satellite Radio providing SonicMovies, my brand of premium audio dramas, to its Book Radio and Playboy's Sexy Stories. I've written, adapted, directed, produced and performed in nearly 300 SonicMovies, been anthologized with John Grisham, Scott Turow, Erle Stanley Gardner and other authors of note in the Mammoth Book of Legal Thrillers, a #1 Bestseller in Australia, appeared in commercials, ads and programs for McDonald’s, Buick, . . . industrial videos; written and directed several short films; been a semi-finalist and finalist in several screenwriting competition and written numerous short stories, novellas and novels.
~~ For more K. Anderson Yancy stories: http://amzn.to/1ZPcWXc ~~
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