by West, Edward
“No way! The soldier was a girl?” Gin asked.
“Yup. A rebel spy not much older than us. It wasn't just that though.” Swift looked at Gin and added “I want to end this war, but not with a thousand corpses in my wake.”
Gin chose his words carefully and said “But we're talking about killing one person, not one thousand.”
“Killing someone isn't that easy Gin. I decided a long time ago that when it comes to death, one equals one thousand. There is a vast difference between killing someone in the name of peace, and killing to protect the life of others. Both are mutually exclusive.”
“So...killing people in order to achieve peace is pointless because violence only brings more violence. Yet if you kill someone to save the life of another, the end justifies the means?” Gin asked.
“Even then it becomes complicated.” Swift said “If a large score of people want one person dead, then there will always be someone after that person. You'd then have to resolve to strike down each and everyone who'd threaten the lives of those you hold dear. Could you commit yourself to this Gin?”
“I don't know...” Gin said as he fumbled with his id card, and asked “Could you?”
“If someone were seriously trying to kill you, or any of my loved ones, I'd end them. Complete destruction with no mercy.”
“That makes sense.” Gin said with a nod.
“It sort of does, but it doesn't wash my hands clean. In the end people have to die regardless. I like to avoid death if it's possible, and two years ago I thought it was.”
“So what happened next?”
“She disarmed me and captured us both. I then managed to convince her to surrender and release us, but things took a turn for the worse. Benny saved me, but ended up being charged with treason by The Empire.”
“Why in the hell would they do that?” Gin asked, but the elevator chimed to signal their arrival and Swift got to his feet.
“That” he said “is a story for another time.”
They then stepped out of the orbital elevator and onto the dusty red surface of Mars.
-43-
“Eh.” Gin grunted.
“What?” Swift asked as he lead the way.
Gin looked around and said “It's nothing.”
Swift stopped walking and said “Seriously dude, what?”
“Well it's not what I expected. Aren't there any buildings and stuff?”
Swift started walking again and asked “What did ya expect? A McDonald's?”
Gin waved his hands in front of himself and said “No way! Maybe...a plaza or something.”
“So a Starbucks then?”
“Never mind.”
Swift laughed and said “There are a few research stations, and an observation platform or two.” he put his hands into his pockets and added “Then there's the mining base I told you about. They've got burgers and coffee, but both taste more like turds and muddy water.”
“Aw gross. Worse than Meatloaf Mondays at the academy?” Gin asked.
Swift stuck his tongue out and said “A burger on that base was like having last Monday's meatloaf next Friday.”
Gin cringed and said “Oh god...meat so old it can order it's own drink.”
“So dry that it could use one too.” Swift said and they both laughed.
“It's pretty trippy that we can walk around on Mars without space suits.” Gin observed.
“Yeah. Thanks to o-fields and gravity distortion devices we can walk around like it's Earth. The first time I came here though, I drank a lot of water before I got on the orbital elevator.”
“What?” Gin asked “Why?”
“I thought it'd be like the desert or something.”
“Ha! How'd that work out?”
“Well I had to use the bathroom really bad and, as you can see, there aren't too many bathrooms just sitting around.”
“Hm. Seems like space suits would have come in handy back then. I heard that you could use the bathroom in them and stuff.”
Swift shuddered and said “Nah dude, I wouldn't be able to pee myself after all of the time and effort I spent potty training.”
It took them about thirty minutes to document all of the data and collect the specimens. Gin bagged the last rock while Swift scanned the horizon with a viewfinder. Just as Gin was about to ask what he was looking at, Swift spoke.
“C'mon Gin. We've got one more stop.” Swift said and set off down a rocky ridge. Gin quickly sealed the bag and placed it into his static inventory before hurrying after him. They walked fifteen meters as far as Gin could tell before they found themselves in a group of standing stones. Swift shuffled about and to Gin it looked like he was aimlessly kicking rocks and dirt. He was just about to say something when he heard a click followed by a heavy thud. A few tense seconds passed by before grinding and rumbling noises marked the opening of a doorway in the standing stone nearest to them.
“Ooo! I wonder what we do now?” Swift asked as if he hadn't already made up his mind.
“Go back to the academy so we can turn in the mission and be rewarded?” Gin asked hopefully.
“Yup. That would be the smartest thing to do.” Swift said and began walking towards the doorway.
“H-hey! The orbital elevator isn't that way! You're actually heading towards a no doubt off limits and potentially dangerous area!” Gin called to Swift, who had already disappeared into the dark mouth of the doorway. As he began trying to see if he could spot the orbital elevator in the distance, Swift's voice came booming out of the doorway.
“Move it Gin! On the double!”
“Aye aye captain!” Gin hollered as he ran towards the doorway.
“Call me Swift!”
-44-
Swift moaned and said “Who the heck puts stairs inside of a rock? That's some Legend of Zelda crap.”
They had been descending a dimly lit stairway that had begun almost immediately at the doorway. Swift looked back up the stairs and noted that he could no longer see the entrance.
Gin shivered and asked “I dunno man, but isn't it getting colder?”
“Yeah.” Swift sniffled, wiped his nose with his sleeve and added “This kind of air conditioning makes me think that there's some pretty intense equipment wherever it is that we're going.”
At the bottom was a door with a small panel. Swift pressed a few buttons. He sucked his teeth when a red symbol appeared on the screen followed by a buzzer.
Gin dusted his hands and said “Welp! We gave it a shot. Back to the orbital elevator.”
“What an ordinary conclusion, drawn normally, by the most usual guy I know.” Swift said, taking out his smartphone.
Gin grimaced and asked dejectedly “Why you gotta go there man?”
The door opened with a whoosh sound and Swift laughed. He then put his smartphone back into his pocket and patted Gin on the shoulder.
“Don't worry. This is normal for me, so normal isn't that boring.” Swift said and they stepped through the doorway.
What came next was a long, brightly lit corridor with white walls and an impeccably clean floor.
Gin whispered “It's like Area 51...”
“But how would you know?” Swift asked in a whisper.
“You ever play Perfect Dark?”
“Oh...you're kinda right. It does look a bit like that.”
As they approached an intersection Swift put his hand out to stop Gin. Placing a finger over his lips, they heard a low whirring noise approaching from the left. Swift mouthed the words “somethings coming” and Gin nodded. Both boys began to look for a hiding place. Due to the lack of any objects or doorways to duck behind, hiding seemed impossible. Swift looked up and caught hold of some piping along the ceiling before pulling himself up. He then hooked his legs on a pipe and swung back down to grab an unwitting Gin just as a small robot on treads rounded the corner and stopped beneath them. Swift took out his smartphone and scanned the robot. Obtaining what information he needed, he put away the smartphone and dr
opped down from the ceiling. He then quickly opened a hatch on the robots back and pressed several buttons, causing the robot to power down.
Gin dropped from the ceiling and said “Whoa! You're like James Bond or some junk.”
Swift smirked and said “I learned everything I know about hacking from playing Bioshock.”
Just then the robot came back to life and Gin scrambled back away from it. It blinked it's shuttered lens and looked around.
“Swifty!” it said.
Gin leaped forward and knelt in front of the robot.
“No way! LC?” he asked it.
“Gin gin!” LC chirped and Gin laughed.
Swift looked around and said “LC, we're kinda lost here. Mind showing us around the place?”
“You bet!” LC replied “Where would you like to go first?”
Swift put his hand on his chin and said “First I'd like to know where we are.”
A few LED lights flashed on the robot's lenses and LC said “This is a research facility that specializes in foreign dimension technology and organisms.”
“Foreign dimensions?” Swift asked “Like aliens and that kinda stuff?”
“Yup yup.” LC confirmed.
“Then take us to the tech lab first.” Swift decided.
The three of them set off deeper into the research facility. As they made their way, Gin found that he was growing more and more curious about the incident with Benny and Swift.
“I just don't get it.” Gin said.
Swift asked “Don't get what?”
“Why they wanted to execute him just because he saved your life. It just doesn't make sense.”
They walked on in silence and Gin was just about to drop it when Swift said “It wasn't just me he saved. He rescued the girl too.”
Gin gave him a look of bewilderment and asked “What? Why?”
“We took her as a prisoner back to the mining base and...” Swift hesitated and they walked on it silence once more. It was weird for Gin to see Swift take so long to find the right words. When he did speak again, his tone was much darker and that look of weariness had came over his eyes.
“The personnel on base were all male, and they hadn't been home in a long time...so...they planned to rape and kill her. They were going to then dispose of the body in this old forge located deep in the mines.”
Gin stopped mid step. He was rooted in place as if paralyzed by what Swift just told him.
“How could they even think of doing such a thing? It's inhuman!” Gin shouted. He couldn't help but picture his sister in that situation and it was enough to nearly make him throw up.
Swift stopped as well, placed his hands into his pockets and said “That's exactly how I felt. Even if the Rebel Faction murdered my parents, I wasn't going to sit by while a woman was being raped and killed. No one deserves that.”
Gin looked down at his feet and said “I-I don't know what I'd have done.”
Swift leaned against the wall and said “I know what I did. I rushed in headfirst and got my ass handed to me. They beat me down and didn't show signs of stopping.”
“You couldn't take them down with Wrath?” Gin asked.
“Wrath didn't exist back then. Benny ended up jumping in with his DMG weapon, Runic Sword, and saved me as well as the girl. It's not like we could walk away at this point, so they killed the imperial soldiers to cover our escape. The problem was I just couldn't give up the academy. I didn't feel strong enough without it. Plus there was someone I just couldn't bear to having crying over me if I left for good.”
“So what did you do?” Gin asked.
“I wished Benny and the rebel girl, Elliot, the best of luck and went back to the command center on the surface. I reported our capture by a rebel soldier. I also told them that Elliot killed Benny as well as the troops at the post, and how I barely escaped.” Swift said.
“They didn't buy it did they?”
“Not even a penny's worth. I suck at lying. Anyway, to them there was no way that a common rebel soldier could defeat two trained combat specialists as well as a troop of skilled imperial soldiers without inside help.”
“Did they lock you up?”
“They interrogated me for hours. I sat, handcuffed to this metal chair in a small metal room, while these imperial soldiers asked me questions. Some of them were direct, while others were set in place to mislead me or trip me up. When I didn't crack they just hit harder, and harder. At one point I was sure that I wanted to die. Or maybe just sleep forever.”
“Jesus that's insane!” Gin cried.
“It gets better. If they had left right away, Benny and Elliot would have escaped without a hitch, but Benny was always worrying about me. So they came back, learned about my predicament, and saved me a second time. At that point I had made up my mind to go with them. As we ran from the imperial soldiers, Benny turned to me and said 'time to go home little Leo' before shooting me in the chest. After that everything went black.”
Gin stood there stupefied. He was at a total loss for words. All he could do was just stare at a boy who he thought was just like him, but a little cooler maybe. Hell, who was he kidding? Gin thought of Swift as a super hero who beat down the bad guys all of the time.
“A few days had passed before I woke up on Earth feeling like I fell into and out of a thresher, and learned about the trial as well as the execution.” Swift said.
After regaining his composure Gin said “So he shot you to clear your name, but really had no intention of killing you.”
Swift nodded and said “That's what I've believed this entire time.”
“But back on the captured ship it seemed like he was out for blood.” Gin observed.
“Maybe not. Benny is a good guy at heart, but he is always plotting something.”
Gin ran his hands through his hair and said “Man you have a complicated past.”
“Even more than you know.” Swift stood up and started walking down the corridor again “Let's get moving.”
-45-
The tech lab was filled with impressive looking machinery, some of which Swift had never seen before. On the walls were several monitors and hologlyphs that had complex read outs and weird symbols that seemed to make no sense. Gin had no idea what any of this meant, but Swift went to the nearest input console with his smartphone out.
“LC, are you seeing these ship specs?” he asked.
“I'm detecting several undocumented cases.” she responded.
He thumbed his smartphone with one hand while he typed busily on the input console with the other.
“Incredible.” he muttered “No...impossible. LC, download the entire database and bookmark the ship specs.”
When they reached the organism lab Gin groaned in dismay at what they saw. A dozen or so glass tanks lined the rectangle shaped room. In each was a different, grotesque oddity of varying shape and size.
“Aw sick dude.” he moaned.
Swift circled a tank and said “Not really what I expected aliens to look like.”
These are not the funny little gray men that Hollywood loves to sell, Swift thought. Cracked, ebon colored skin stretched over bones that seemed altogether too big for their frames. The skinny ones were scrawny, but closer inspection revealed that they were quite muscular. The bigger ones seemed emaciated as well, but Swift could tell from other specimens bearing their teeth that this was a species of predators accustomed to eating meat.
“Jeez, will ya look at this?” Gin called Swift over to the glass tank that he had been peering into.
This alien was a pasty off-white color, and combined with the texture of it's skin gave Swift the impression of curdled milk. It's brow appeared permanently furrowed and its eyes forever locked in an open position. That didn't matter though, as it's eye sockets were barren anyway; picked clean and pitted. A long tongue overlapped it's chin, the base of which protruded from a lipless slit on the face. Swift concluded that this thing was largely gross and pretty disgusting.
“I don't think I'll be able eat for a week...” Gin said, only to be betrayed by a low growl issued from his stomach. He laughed sheepishly and took the Snickers bar from his pocket.
“Just be glad” Swift took his own candy bar out of his pocket and unwrapped it “that you'll never find one of these under your bed.”
Once they'd completed their gawking, Swift and Gin hit the corridor once more. They'd only walked a short distance before LC warned them of a person detected ahead.
“Just one? Can you tell if he's a guard, or a scientist?” Swift asked.
“Neither.” LC replied.
“A janitor maybe?” Gin suggested.
“My sensors indicate that I have this person's name in my database.”
Swift stopped walking and asked “Who is it?”
“Benedict Fisher.” LC replied.
Gin narrowly missed grabbing a hold of Swift's sleeve as he broke into a full sprint.
“Wait! You don't know what could be ahead!” Gin shouted, but Swift ignored him and kept running.
“So this is what they've been up to.” Elliot said as she scrolled through a tablet in her hands.
“It's exactly what we figured. Things can only get worse from here.” Fisher said.
“I'll head back to the ship and upload this information.” she said, turning to leave.
Just then Swift burst into the room and called out “Benny!”
Elliot reached for her pistol, recognized him, and relaxed.
“You go on ahead L. I've got this.” said Fisher.
Elliot looked at Fisher and said with a smile “Don't kill him.”
Fisher shrugged and said “No promises.”
Elliot waved goodbye to a confused Swift and made her exit before he could ask her any questions. Fisher then turned to Swift and said “You know Leo, I'm a soldier now, so you should call me Fisher.”
“Yeah? Well I go by Swift, and you know this, man.” Swift replied.
“Fair enough. So what brings you here? Sight seeing? Or maybe...” Fisher cracked his knuckles and asked “you're looking to settle things?”
