Terminus Cycle

by Dave Walsh

  “So you already knew. I don’t get it. Go out there and denounce her. You're Captain O’Neil. She doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, Jonah,” he tsked. “You haven’t had to learn patience yet. Do you really think that I wanted to be Captain Peter O’Neil? Do you really think that I wanted to be pushed into a marriage arrangement that befitted someone of my role? The daughter of a Minister? None of this,” he started as he motioned toward his uniform. “This isn’t me, but it’s the man I play on your holoscanners and in your imaginations. You're unhappy with your lot in life? Well, take a place in line, kid.”

  “Oh, please,” Jonah said. “Like you would have been anything else if given a choice.”

  “A botanist,” he stated, staring down at his hands in his lap. “I would have been a botanist.”

  “A botanist? Like, a guy who plays with plants?”

  “That,” he answered, still unsure of why he was spilling out this much to him. “That is my passion. I spend hours each day locked inside of my office. They all think that it’s some secret business, some future planning that I’m doing, but I have my garden in a room off of the office. It was used by the previous captains -- my father and grandfather -- as an official strategy room. I saw it as a better fit for some lamps and planters because, let’s be honest here, there were other rooms I could use for official meetings.

  “I make my own tea, grow the plants, pick the leaves, the whole thing. Even have a few coffee plants and make my own coffee, although I’m more of a tea man myself. That’s how I plan to spend my retirement as well, finding a nice plot of land and growing my own food, keeping to myself. I can make an arrangement with Jeanette when we get down there, maybe just see her for official functions. My bet is she’ll be happy that I didn’t toss her out of the airlock.

  “So no,” he continued. “You aren’t the only one who was dealt a bad hand. Hell, even if you picked poorly, you picked who you got to be with.”

  They both laughed. “Yeah, I sure did make a mess of things with that one. I never meant to hurt her, though. She’s young and selfish, but she’s not a bad person.”

  He paused, and O’Neil kept his gaze fixed on him. “So,” Jonah said, swallowing hard. “What’s gonna happen to me?”

  “Oh, the usual methods would require a tribunal or an executive decision. It was definitely treason, though, enough to make a sound argument for getting the airlock treatment.”

  Jonah sighed. “I thought so.”

  “Doesn’t mean that’s what I’m going to do, though.” He picked himself up, straightening out his uniform. “This uniform still means something for now. And you -- well, you're still a bit of clay that has yet to harden. Humanity needs more noble fools chasing windmills.”

  Jonah smiled, sighing in relief.

  “But...”

  “No, no,” Jonah said as he began to panic.

  O'Neil leaned down to pick up the crysdrive. “I’m not sure that any of this reflects too well on either of us, but my time in command is running short. Anything official that I can push for will take days to process, and by then... well.” He paused as he pocketed the drive. “Everything will need to go through Navarro. Hell, right now, we're in the process of preparing to hand over all operations to him and the Fourth Fleet.

  “But,” he said before pausing again and pulling Jonah’s holoscanner from his pocket. “I’ve heard they speak somewhat of a modified Nordic language on the planet, the language of Odin and Thor and whatever else. Our holoscanners should be able to translate them -- and us to them -- quite well. The Fourth Fleet has been working on this for a while now, although it’s not perfect.” O’Neil flicked a switch, and the field to Jonah’s cell dissipated.

  “I don’t understand,” Jonah said as he stared up at him.

  “I’m tossing you out of the fucking airlock, kid,” he replied as he flashed the crysdrive in front of him. “For treason.”

  Jonah looked up at the captain, the color escaping from his face. He was clearly locked up with fear.

  * * *

  “O’Neil,” Admiral Navarro said. He was there, inside of his office, standing at the doorway to his garden. “Nice little garden that you have here. Can’t say that it’s within regulations for a briefing room, but I understand that things get a bit more... relaxed out here and so far away from home. Once we are able to take care of the Omegans, you’ll have plenty of time to grow whatever you like down there, I’m sure.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” he replied. “A retirement of nothing but living off of the land is what has kept me going for all these years.”

  “Well,” he began as he kept his stern tone. “Everyone has their dreams, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So I saw this briefing about Minister Levine,” Navarro said as he motioned toward the captain’s console screen. “Heard something about blackmail against him and heard you have the culprit in custody.”

  “Yes.” He nodded, keeping his composure. “We did.”

  “'Did'? Past tense?”

  “Executive decision, sir,” he replied as he pulled up Jonah Freeman’s file, an overlay reading “deceased” appeared over his photo.

  “He was guilty of treason, blackmailing a member of the Ministry to the extent that Levine saw no other way out than to end his life. It’s during these final days that our values are most important. When we make our official announcement tomorrow, we can announce that justice was served.”

  “A bit draconic,” Navarro said. “But it seems fair. What, exactly, was he being blackmailed over, might I ask? I’m sure it will appear in an official report, but I’d like to hear about it before I read it, so I can prepare myself and whatnot.”

  “Well, Jim had a bit of a drinking problem,” O'Neil said as he made eye contact with the admiral. “He was also cheating on his wife, and Freeman had some video of him and the woman. He was threatening to make it public and broadcast it over the whole station.”

  “‘May all your disgraces be private,’” Navarro muttered under his breath. “Terrible business, no place in our new world, for sure. I thought that Freeman was romantically involved with Levine’s daughter?”

  “He was, sir. It seems like he may have held some sort of family vendetta against the Levines, and it was all just a ploy to get to him.”

  “A shame, really,” he mused. “Truly a dreadful affair on all parts. Your handling shows that you are a man of action, though, Captain. Would you reconsider your retirement, or at least place it on hold for a while? We’ll need men like you when we build our new world down on Omega.”

  “Not sure what a captain’s value is without a ship, sir.”

  “Titles are merely ornamental, Captain. I’m sure that you understand that. Regardless, we could easily have a ship commissioned for you and sent from Earth in just a matter of weeks.”

  “Admiral, I’m here to serve the Ministry,” he said. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and knowing that peace would never come easily for him. Not then, not ever. “If my continued service is needed during this transition, I’m more than happy to offer it.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Navarro said as he smiled and clicked his heels together.

  013. Rebellion

  Ingen the Krigan Warrior

  Tyr slammed the steel door open, a flood of light pouring in. He was standing like a Norse god in the doorway of the underground bunker. Bloodstains lined his armor, and his giant pulseaxe -- an ax that doubled as an energy rifle -- rested on his shoulder. The artfully bearded blade had blood caked onto it.

  “Today, my brothers, was far from easy, but we beat those dogs back into their starships,” he cried out to the room full of men. Some were no older than boys but had become men the day that the starships appeared in the sky.

  “Aye, Tyr,” a burly man with a blonde beard and a long war braid called out. A scar lined the side of his face, almost obscuring his missing left eye. “But how much longer do we keep beating them back befor
e they stop waging war upon us like men and start raining down fire upon us yet again?

  “It is time that we fire upon them. We sit here, fighting a ground war against these men who have no honor. We shoot them out of the sky, and it all goes away!” A few of the warriors, a mix of boys, men and war-scarred women, rallied to his side, cheering for the call to action.

  “My brothers and sisters,” Tyr began as he rested his knee on a bench, his pulseaxe balancing on top of it. “It might seem like the easiest solution -- even I have questioned why we haven’t used our reserves just yet -- but this planet has seen enough horrors. It has been over a thousand cycles, and yet Andlios hasn’t recovered. Think of the lands that can still bear no crops. Think of those who venture out only to return ill from the wastelands. That is, and always will be, Øystein, our very last resort.”

  “We are prisoners on our own home,” Øystein said as he spat on the ground. “As fucked up as this planet is, Andlios is our home, and these spawns of the Banished return to claim it for their own now!”

  Tyr pulled a rag out from his jacket, spat on the blade of his pulseaxe and began rubbing at the blood. The pulseaxe was the weapon that Andliosians had been using for decades. It was a longer rifle that instantly fired a beam of focused energy at the target, with the trigger mechanism housed inside of an ax blade. To some, it may have seemed cumbersome, but watching a Andliosian fire off at an enemy and seamlessly turn around to bash a nearby foe with the ax was a thing of beauty.

  Tyr said, “Be that as it may, Ingen has already told us that they did not know where they were going. The Banished were so heavily shamed that they purged their own history. There were no records of their exile, just hearsay. Ingen also has doubts about them being the Banished.”

  “So? They still attack us and try to steal our home!”

  “Øystein, my friend,” Tyr said as he let out a tired sigh and turned to his old friend. “We both know that if we shoot those ships out of the sky, they’ll just send more. They’ve already sent more since they arrived two cycles ago. Ingen believes that there is another way. We have to trust him.”

  “Ingen is a fool,” Øystein snarled. “Just another descendent of the Banished who was sent away by his own people!”

  “So he is. But you cannot deny the help that he has already provided for us! Without him, without his knowledge of the Banished, we would have fallen prey to them long ago. We’d be slaves on our home world and finally paying the price of our ancestors scorching Andlios and exiling the Banished!”

  “So you wish for what? Peace and understanding?”

  “If possible, yes!” he shouted over the growing murmurs from the crowd of warriors. “Our ancestors sent them away in shame after they themselves shamed Andlios!”

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it!” Øystein said.

  “Then explain the wastelands!”

  Øystein fell silent, turned his back away from Tyr and slammed his pulseaxe to the ground. “So we are paying the price then? It was more than the bombs, Tyr. It was the atrocities. It was what they did to themselves.”

  “Everyone has borne this burden, from those who made the decision to us who now have to deal with the consequences. Our fathers and grandfathers dealt with the famine, the fallout, the horrors! We can right these wrongs now because if not now, then when?”

  “I still don’t trust Ingen!”

  “Then you are a fool, Øystein,” Tyr said. “Ingen came to us, humbled, broken, looking only to help in exchange for his life. It is not anyone’s fault but your own that you challenged him whilst drunk and he bested you in combat.”

  “That didn’t count!” He turned back to face Tyr, pointing his finger in his face, and a few chuckles arose from the crowd. “That boy didn’t adhere to our rules of unarmed combat!”

  “Why should he have? He knew nothing of our ways, only brief glimpses of what survived of our culture on Earth from the Banished. You saw an easy target, and he wasn’t that easy. Accept it -- it was almost a full cycle ago now. You are still the leader of the most feared warband on Andlios. Don’t make a fool of yourself any further now! The topic is no longer under discussion.”

  “Bah,” Øystein said as he leaned down and snatched up his pulseaxe. He stomped out from the room with four of the men quick on his heels as Tyr shook his head and pulled off his boots.

  “Alva,” he called to his daughter. She was almost 12 cycles now and strong, but she still reminded him of her deceased mother. She wanted nothing else than to be a warrior, but Tyr had always wanted something more for her.

  “Yes, father,” she answered as she strode into the room, her hair pulled back into a war braid of her own. She was tall and skinny but still rugged enough. Most mistook her for a boy a few years older than she was, and she very rarely corrected them. The crowd was dispersing, leaving them alone in the room.

  “Go and fetch Ingen, won’t you? We have much to discuss after today’s battle. Tell him I met Captain Slattery and introduced him to my pulseaxe personally.” His broad smile lit up the room, and Alva returned it before nodding.

  “Right away.”

  * * *

  “I’d bring you Slattery’s head, but I figured my word is good enough, Ingen,” Tyr said, his voice booming in the dark room, which was illuminated by only a few screens. “Your plan worked perfectly. What did you call it again?”

  “A pincer,” Ingen replied. He looked away from the screens, turning the chair around to see the haggard-looking Tyr. “I mean, I can’t believe that you guys had fought for so long without knowing about the pincer.”

  “Our people are proud, Ingen,” he said. He leaned over, glancing at the screens. “Our battles were almost always head-on, two sides clashing like the great tides. The best and the strongest side always won.”

  “What about the smartest?” Ingen placed the holoscanner that O’Neil had handed to him before helping him escape the Omega on the table behind him. Then he turned back to Tyr.

  “War is no place for brilliance, I fear.” The proud warrior had always resisted Ingen’s ways, but he was happy to benefit from them. “Slattery was a smart man, was he not? Yet my ax found his neck just like the rest.”

  “Then how do you explain the battles that you’ve been winning against the Ministry, even though you’ve been outgunned since the start?”

  “Your brilliance is without question,” he said as he smacked Ingen across the back, which sent Ingen reeling. “I fear that we’d be in the ground if it wasn’t for you, although not everyone feels that way.”

  “You mean Øystein.”

  “I mean Øystein,” he said. “But a bruised ego is better than him losing another eye. Even he admits that your help has done much for us.”

  “I’m just not sure how much longer we can hold out. It takes anywhere from 10 to 15 weeks for them to send new cruisers out here.” He paused, his part of the 82-year voyage still fresh in his mind. His entire life was aboard the Starship Omega, but for what? Earth can get another fleet out here in just three months.

  “Are you sure that there is nothing else on Andlios that we can use for defenses? I saw some of your tech on the journey here, and I know what this civilization is capable of, Tyr.”

  “Capable of destruction, Ingen. You’ve seen what’s left -- that is our legacy. That is what man has done to Andlios.”

  “I know,” he said. “But what weapons did this?”

  “Atomics.”

  “Well, sure, that’s what I figured, but don’t you have any more?” He threw his hands up in frustration. “I know that there is advanced technology on this world, Tyr. I’ve seen some of it! Yet we are living in caves and using axes to crush skulls. I don’t get it.”

  “Ingen, you might be knowledgeable of your home’s history, but in terms of ours, you are still naive. The War of the Atomics decimated us, decimated Andlios. We survived, and the Cymages and Helgeans survived as well but exist in smaller numbers now. They've all been disarmed. Well, except f
or the Cymages but --”

  “Why aren’t they fighting with us?” he asked, flicking off his holoscanner and rubbing his tired eyes. “They are of Andlios as well. Why aren’t they fighting?”

  “They lost the will to fight a long time ago. They welcomed these outsiders with open arms, Ingen. It is only us.”

  “Okay, good,” he said. “So back to my point: How did it get to be this way? I know the War of Atomics, but clearly one side won, which was you, the Krigans. Do you have more weapons?”

  “Atomics are forbidden, Ingen,” he replied. He shook his head, sat down, pulled out a rag and began slowly wiping the length of the blade of his pulseaxe. “They have shown us horrors.”

  “So you choose honor instead? Look, Tyr, I’m not sure what to tell you here, but without force, we aren’t going to be able to hold out much longer. We don’t even need to use them -- you just gotta tell me if you actually have any of these weapons left.”

  “Ingen,” Tyr began. He cleared his throat, looking up from his pulseaxe. “In the two cycles that you’ve been with us, you’ve helped us. Your knowledge -- your wisdom -- has helped us to not only survive but to retake what is ours and what was taken from us!”

  “I know, I know,” he said as he yawned and rubbed his eyes again. “Taking out Slattery sent a message to them, but man, I don’t know.”

  He shrugged. “Now they are just going to be pissed off! They are going to send worse! Things aren’t going to get any better, Tyr. History tells us that this will just escalate until they can’t hold back anymore. They’ll send in their worst, and they’ll destroy us with a sweep of an arm. All of this has just been them playing, them justifying the use of excessive force. They can turn to everyone and say, ‘Look, we tried, but they didn’t listen.’ We’re fucked.”