Slow Burn_Deep Darkness

by Stephen Landry

  "I'm sure you need some time, we will talk again in person in a few hours, tap the drawer again for some food and water, till then we hope that the following message will help put you at ease, I'm sorry if you suffered any great loss," the voice said before cutting off.

  "We are pleased to welcome you to the crew of the Erebus.

  As you have recently been told the Earth, Mars, and the many various colonies of mankind have recently been destroyed. We are sorry for your loss. The loss of loved ones, family, friends, homes, and values. Words cannot express what you must be feeling right now. Each of us has suffered greatly. Please remember that you are not alone and that if you need counseling we are ready to provide immediate service. Many are aware of our relationship with the Skrav. The alien race that invaded us not even two hundred years ago. They are the ones responsible for our loss. However, this is not our defeat. Through countless hours of research and development the Sons of Sol have developed immersion core technology and the human race is now on our way to a brand new solar system, a New Earth. It is your duty to serve on board the Erebus, safeguard this ship and the personal on board so that future generations may flourish in a new garden of Eden. We are sure that if you are listening to this message then you are more than capable of following all of the duties that will be subjugated to you and that you will help us build a better, stronger tomorrow. It is because of you and others like you that we will have what it takes to survive.

  Thank you for your service, End message."

  For the first time in my life since I was a child, I wanted to cry.

  This was the moment I learned that everything I had ever known was gone.

  I wasn't just on a starship. I had been on starships before.

  I was on an interstellar ship with no port.

  I was drifting inside a tomb.

  Log - 3

  "Not like you ever really had a home," said a voice. I had been sitting in the room for hours. During that time I felt anger, sadness, depression, I prayed to God that this was all a dream. I hit myself over and over and I even assembled the rifle. I could still feel my hand shaking from the moment I loaded a clip into it. I had thought about taking my life. What life would I have here? What good is a freelancer without any work, without a war? I was a loose cannon and if people were waking up it would be easier to take my own life than to starve or suffocate. The voice wasn't coming through a comm. Someone else had crept into the room with me.

  "You think they would at least do something about that smell," said the voice from the corner of the room. I grabbed the rifle from the table. I felt my training kick in and my hands stop shaking. I was ready to pull the trigger. "You don't need that," the voice said. I felt like I was tracking a ghost. I could have sprayed my clip around the room, it would have been impossible to miss.

  "Elis, twenty-seven years old, freelancer, seems you use to be a member of special forces, a squad 13 for the Hegemony, the indirect government that controls most of the Earth's nations as well as the Terran Military. I also see here that you are the single survivor of the Caleuche. I'm sorry about what happened to your squad but you might be interested to know that Reynolds, the commanding officer that sent you into that hell hole and the reason that you left the army and became a freelancer... he's the Captain of this ship," the voice said.

  Before my very eyes appeared a man. He slowly took off a cloak that made him invisible.

  A cloak covered in cameras that reflected everything that was behind him. I had worn one once. It was something of an unfair advantage, especially in such a dim lit area.

  He smiled at me. He had a soft frail appearance with black curly hair. He looked like he hadn't shaved in a few weeks but his beard was well kept.

  "We spoke earlier. I thought his time I would visit you in person for some one on one,"

  I didn't say a word. I kept my rifle held up pointing at him.

  "Yes, the collar, I'm sure you have been wondering about that, you might want to lower that weapon though, any hostile action against me or any of my subordinates and you'll be a bloody mess," he said walking towards me and putting the tip of his finger against the top of my rifle. He slowly lowered it down moving closer to me until we were only inches apart. I could smell his breath, his body, his hair. He smelled like sweat, copper, and iron much like the rest of the ship only there was a small scent of lavender.

  "The two of us have a problem. Yours is that collar strapped around your neck, mine is Reynolds. He wants to see me dead. Now, I truly believe that I can help you with yours. I might just have a key to that collar lying about somewhere here or there but I just can't seem to find the time to look for it thinking about how Reynolds wants to put a bullet through my head," he said.

  I finally spoke, "If Reynolds wants you dead, I'm sure he has a good reason," I said.

  "Sure, I may have done some regrettable things in my past life but I'm not that different from you truthfully."

  The man opened a wallet and pinched out some money, printed on crisp new bills. "Slut," he said, "meaningless amount of matter, do you know how much of this there is on the Erebus, I may very well be the richest man here, I had more than enough back home to carry myself out of orbit, more than enough to buy a new identity, and more than enough to have that face registered as a full fledged crew member. I suppose some of that gets skimmed over by the Sons of Sol whatever they are but for the most part I am here like many others to be a part of something new, I even brought along a crew of my own men, each proficient in flying dropships and starships back home, I doubt they would have much of a problem figuring out how to drive this whale." He threw the money at me, "and now I have bought you."

  The next thing I knew he had tossed my rifle to the ground and pushed me up against the wall. I could feel him grinding his body against mine as he wrapped his arm around my neck. I wasn't about to let him have his way with me. I shifted my weight and pushed against him as hard as I could knocking him back against the table. I moved around and pulled his neck against mine.

  "Blow me," I said knowing that if my collar went off this explosion would take his life at this range. "Yes, yes, you are exactly what we have been looking for, I think I love you," he laughed. I let him go slamming his head against the table. When he got up he was laughing touching his broken bleeding nose.

  "The last elevator to the hangar leaves in about an hour. Your friend was on that one..." he paused. There was no hiding, this wretch whoever he has had a mission in mind for me and the cost was my life. "Chances are good that he'll still be in the terminal when you arrive,"

  "I hope you keep your word, my life for his," I said.

  He almost smiled but gave up halfway through. Slowly he changed his posture and the impression on his face transformed from one of a frail man to that of someone of power. He stood up straight. At the very least he was six feet tall. Taller than I thought. He was playing games with me. He let me have my way with him. If he wanted to he could have raped me or killed me easily.

  Suddenly the look on his face turned to anger and then quickly back to normal. I felt like I was watching two people simultaneously battle it out with one another inside one human body. One moment I felt like the man was going to laugh and the next I thought he was going to rip my head off. He tapped his ear. An earpiece probably. Someone was talking to him and he didn't like what they were saying. I felt sorry for whoever it was on the other end. Perhaps they too had a collar around their neck.

  "Hmm.... might have a problem," he said looking me up and down.

  "What problem, I said I would kill for you," I said.

  "I have just received word that Reynolds is already on the planet, looks like things really are falling to shit around here, will make it easier for things on my end but I still need you to do what you do best," he said putting his hand on my lip and brushing my hair.

  "You owe me for this broken nose," he said, "and I always collect my debt."

  I felt sick. If I didn't have this collar aroun
d my neck I would have gutted this degenerate.

  Log - 4

  Nobody ever looks up. Not ever. In the jungles of Menoa, I was fighting alongside the Terran military before I joined Squad 13 before I became a freelancer. It was there in that jungle that I watched a group of insurrectionists takes down five members of my platoon by diving down from the tops of trees on a wire before any of us looked up. They played with us. Slitting the throats of those that they killed and dropping them down in front of us. I can still remember Kal, one of my team freaking out and screaming, "We know you're out there," before they dropped down and came at us with knives and swords. It was a quick firefight. They looked like primitives compared to us. They fought us with blades while we used metal bullets and lasers to cut through their numbers. We massacred them and sent a message. Most insurrectionists movements stirred in the outer colonies on recently terraformed moons around Jupiter and Saturn in the 24th century, where many colonists started to demand independence from the Terran Military. The Hegemony did their best to deal with the colonists but the distance between them, Earth, Mars, and the inner colonies was too vast.

  A major attack against the Hegemony happened about ten years (fourteen now as long as you are counting the time I was in stasis) ago in which a group of insurrectionists detonated a nuclear device above the surface of Mars. Mars which had been terraformed and populated for nearly 150 years had a vast population with millions of refugees from Earth (during the early stages many who lived in the over populated cities of Earth immigrated to Mars). The blast above the surface killed two hundred thousand people and injured close to one million not including those that were harmed by the clouds of radiation that contaminated parts of the planet for years. Sure it was easy for some to get help quickly with the advances in medicine that we had made, minor radiation wasn't that big a deal. It was after that attack that the Hegemony and Terran Military began sending us after these rebel groups. At the time I thought nothing of it. Just another day on the job. One dead rebel here, another there, no loss to anyone. We were population control. It was after the events of Menoa, Kal and I were each asked to join Squad 13. It seemed there was a bigger threat out there than rebels. A group of insurrectionists calling themselves Section-17 had begun experimenting in human genetics. Something that was outlawed hundreds of years ago alongside cloning. Just because we had the technology didn't mean we should do it. It's the same as just saying we are all capable of murder or rape gives us the right to kill or push ourselves onto anyone that we want. I know I am a sociopath. I kill because I can. It has become a part of who I am. I was young when I took my first life and now it has become a part of who I am. I was baptized in blood. Killing rebels felt just like going to the grocery store.

  No, I'm not trying to make excuses, I know I'm going to hell. I have had very few moments when murder and mayhem didn't seem natural to me and I have always done my best to reserve myself and control my emotions. I even had therapist once - didn't kill her - did sleep with her. All in all, Kal might have been the only person I ever cared about.

  ___________________

  Kal shook his head. "Maybe it will, but it still doesn't make much sense for us to be here together, even in the same room. There's no guessing how well the rebels have this place under surveillance, at least if they saw one of us we could then provide a distraction."

  I was about to argue, Kal was bleeding out. A part of me knew he was right. Like Reynolds had told us, 'we didn't exist,' Squad 13 was a black ops squad serving under the Hegemony to make sure that certain events transpired to their liking. Lately, those events meant that we were hunting down humans with specialized strength and abilities. Our last run in with one (which was also our first) had left us with one dead oversized steroid user and a few hundred terabytes of information to comb through. When we found out where their next deal was going down we got ourselves into the mess we're in now.

  "All right," I said, "I suppose there's reason for you to stay."

  "Are you sure you can handle Cain on your own?" he asked. I could see the blood running down from his mouth now. I knew it would be hard for me to go one on one with a super soldier like Cain but from long range, it would take one headshot.

  "Fuck these Sect-17 guys for me," Kal said.

  "I'll try not to disappoint but wouldn't you rather I kill them," I said cracking a joke.

  "Slut," Kal laughed.

  "I'll try not to disappoint," I smiled.

  Kal looked at me for a long moment. I felt like he was going to say something more but no words ever came, then he nodded and turned away. I watched him as I left the chamber and shrugged making my way to the door. Slowly I moved up the stairs. We were hiding out in the ruins of an abandoned skyscraper. We were on Mars and this was one of the cities that had since become deserted since the bombing. Kal was on the second floor. If anyone came up the stairs or through the elevator even from his position he would have a shot. We didn't run into many insurgents on our way up but just enough. I thought we had taken them out with ease but a stray bullet had ripped through Kal's armor and unitard and pierced his gut.

  I adjusted my scope. From the fourth floor, I could see two dropships landing not even two hundred yards away. If they looked hard enough in my direction they would have spotted me. Their whole transaction seemed half-ass and messy. I watched as my target, a genetically altered soldier named Cain exited the dropship. He didn't look any different from any other human but the alterations he had made to himself gave him enhanced strength and speed. He was trading his blood for money. I would have to kill everyone on the ground and make sure there was nothing left to trade. One ounce of Cain's blood would go for millions on the black market. I could kill him and make a fortune from his body. The thought crossed my mind as it always did. That wasn't why I was there, I was there to kill.

  Clean shot. Priceless.

  Cain fell to the ground. A part of my mind felt like the ground shook when he tumbled over. A small cloud of dust rose around his body as all of the rebels on the ground dove and ran for cover. From another building, three shots were fired. It was the other members of my team.

  "Path clear, time to burn up and go home," I said into my comm.

  "Clear," said three voices at the same time.

  From my scope, I watched as Cain lay surrounded by several dozen bodies.

  "This was too easy," I said watching as a missile fell from the sky and blew up the two dropships and cremated the bodies.

  I made my way down to Kal and found him laying back against the wall. The hallway and stairs were littered with dozens of dead bodies. Rebels had spotted me. Cain had sent his men my way and Kal had taken the beating for me. I was careless.

  I thought about how he had looked at me. I wish I had said more. A shadow glommed over us of the outside. Our transport was landing. I adjusted Kal's coat and began to walk away. His body shimmered as it caught fire. We were ghosts, Squad 13 doesn't exist. It was a part of the job. I turned around facing the elevator waiting for my ride and slipped my hand into my pocket resting it against the diamond ring Kal had given me a few nights before.

  Log - 5

  "Ma'am? Ma'am" are you alright?" said a woman standing next to me as I stood to wait for the elevator. I jumped. Not having heard her footsteps as she walked in behind me. We were inside the observation room. A temporary refugee camp had been set up. The Erebus was hovering over the surface of an Earth-like planet. Slowly passengers that had woken up were being taken to the surface below. The ship had too many breathing bodies on board and not enough oxygen. If we hadn't found this planet when we did it was likely that many of us would have been forced out an airlock or suffocated as parts of the ship became sealed away. Was this our new Earth I wondered? We had only been in space four years. The amount of time it took to travel through the immer versus real space was incredible. If we had this technology back home it would have been like teleporting from one place to the next instantly. Imagine zapping from Earth to Mars to Venus in
an instant.

  "Are you going down to the surface too?" she asked. I thought about lying, maybe ignoring her but then again that might have drawn suspicion. Everyone seemed to talk to one another. Many were excited to have woken up complaining about backaches and migraines blaming cryosleep for the wrinkles under their eyes. It was like they had no idea the danger they were all in. Socialites, aristocrats, scientists, and civies that had somehow learned or earned an invitation to be here. How many fucked there way to the top I wondered staring at the woman next to me. This ship smelled of class. The kind of people that drank gin in their offices, the kind of people that made bank off the secret wars and products that were sold to the masses. Maybe not all of them but most. Certainly, a few in the room looked innocent enough, faking their smiles as they hid in pockets in the corner of the room. They were lucky to be brought on board. At the very least maybe a few of those that funded this project were not so corrupt after all. The future would need a mix of people from all kinds of backgrounds and histories, that was just as important for the salvation of mankind. All the power the rich had back home was taken from them now, everyone here was on equal footing, aside from the military onboard the Erebus was all about balance.

  "I'm fine, thank you," I smiled and said.

  The woman eventually walked away telling me dinner would be ready soon and that I looked too skinny and I should eat ranting about how there was no more reason to look beautiful or get dressed up anymore.

  "Ellis, can you hear me?" it was his voice again. I felt disgusted listening to him in my ear.