Origin: Eternity's End

by Uneeb Qureshi

  “Master Field Officer Azuryl. We call him Az.” He motioned to the other three, “And those are their Medics Lispara and Mairwyn, and Krontos.”

  “They are the finest men and women I have ever had the privilege of fighting beside.”

  Sheppard paused as he searched the crowd. He ordered them to ready for battle.

  He looked at the Apollyon team beside him and thought deeply for a second. “Do what you do best.”

  Chapter 17

  Omnipresent

  Dawn the Next Day,

  Aboard the Eternity

  Proximity alerts sounded an hour after the sun appeared over the horizon. The enemy was within a light-year of Earth. However erratic their movements were they were, the legions were prepared for anything.

  As the pilots ran their pre-launch checks Prox hovered at the side of his wife’s aircraft. He had not seen her for two-years, an instant for immortals but still it seemed strange.

  Sheppard milled about the deck. To everyone else he seemed like a legend or myth, a story told to fresh recruits to boost their morale. Yet for all that was said and done he was still human. He had little else to live for other than war.

  Sheppard eyed Prox and his wife from a distance. Just a hundred meters behind them was an airlock that could blow any minute by surprise if they were not ready.

  Damnit, Sheppard why do you think of such things… He told himself.

  He could not help but seeing the two happy together.

  “C-Commander,” a young boy stuttered behind Sheppard, “I was hoping I could ask um…if you would sign my cast.”

  The boy’s arm had been bound to several gel casts and plaster molds. He was nervous and obviously felt so being in the presence of such a legendary hero. His parents, dock technicians, were just a few meters behind him urging their son not to be afraid. Sheppard smiled and waved to the parents, “Of course young man,” he said pulling out a pen, “What is your name?”

  “Amoros sir, Michyl Amoros.” The Commander wrote out a long sentence in the archaic immortal language that wrapped around his cast like a bracer. “What does it say?”

  “Well Michyl,” he said tapping the boy’s nose with his pen, “You will have to that figure out in your studies.”

  As he said those words a number of new alarms blared across the ship. The proximity alarms went off-line and the combat lights emitted their bright blue lights. Sheppard and Prox connected stares for a minute and each nodded.

  “Immortals!” He shouted, catching the attention of people nearby, “Now is the time to realize your fate. For thousands of years you have waited, yearning to return to the homeland of your ancestors. And now beyond our mother world’s orbit are enemies threatening to destroy the last vestiges of our humanity. Should we fail, then we will fail in defense of the world that cradled our people!”

  A thunderous road emanated through the halls. Millions of soldiers were now aboard the vessel shouting and chanting victory for their Earth, for mankind.

  Sheppard felt like he was sending his men to their inevitable deaths. But they would die knowing they had secured mankind’s continued existence.

  Bulbously shaped drop-ships housed the soldiers as they readied to drop to Earth at a moment’s notice. A one-way trip. Sheppard could barely make out the ramblings of their fellow soldiers underneath his sound dampening armor. Inside his helmet was a silent world where all he could hear was breathing. His thoughts were focused on reaching his personal ship first.

  “Soul,” he said to the AI in his armor’s memory system, “Start up the engines, and have it follow us on our drop to Earth.”

  The AI acknowledged his request and uploaded itself to the ship’s navigational system. It reordered the runway take-off list to have it follow their drop-ship into the atmosphere below.

  He slung his rifle over his shoulder and checked his packs. On his back was the suit’s exorbitantly large power cell housing medical and combat tools within it. It was made of the same light-weight high-impact material as the Eternity’s inner hull providing unparalleled protection. A personal black box.

  He returned outside, making his way toward the staging area along with the rest of his personnel. Each of them was an officer. The members of his personal guard were right beside him. They promptly boarded before the hatch closed and the drop-ship was loaded, ready to drop with nearly a hundred others on the ship’s aft.

  Prox removed his helmet and took a small portable ration from Lispara. He removed the plastic seal and licked the contents vorac-iously. Thoroughly satisfied, he held the container to his face and squeezed its contents into his mouth. He licked the remaining contents ravenously.

  Daria looked at him in disgust, “Does he always do that?”

  Lispara shrugged, “Pudding helps him calm down.”

  Daria cocked her eyebrow as she looked back at him. The chocolate pudding was smeared all over his cheeks and nose. He tore the container apart.

  “I see.” She replied. “Your Legion has strange customs. Do you do anything else besides feed him pudding?”

  She looked at Mairwyn and they both nodded with a sly grin, “We act kind and manipulate the men in our unit to do our bidding.”

  “Yes,” Mairwyn added, “They sometimes mistake kindness for affection, meaning free stuff for us.”

  All the women aboard the drop-ship shared a laugh while the men just shook their heads. Sheppard was glad they could keep a sense of humor just minutes before battle. Once they landed even breathing would be a luxury they could rarely afford.

  Sheppard programmed the display in the middle of the drop-ship to display the stellar maps, crossing them with the battle field movements. On the virtual screen were nearly six Eri vessels, each with an accompanying fleet of smaller vessels. None however were the size of the battleship Eternity. But Sheppard knew with size there would be a sacrifice in maneuverability.

  The Eternity opened up four large hangar bays at its sides unveiling four ships similar in size to the Eri fleet’s largest vessels. The odds on the cosmic battlefield were evened out slightly.

  The Eri fleet appeared just minutes behind the moon, preventing a pre-emptive strike. In the meanwhile, each side prepared its fleets for the inevitable confrontation.

  Of the millions of Legionnaire’s aboard the Eternity, there were little over a million fighter pilots. Prox worried about his wife but knew she was an ace pilot, possibly better than him.

  Each pilot boarded their ships and angled to swarm out of the battleship in their own flight patterns as to not collide with one another. Engineers aboard the vessel diverted most of the power in the ship to reinforce their electro-magnetic fields.

  In an age where war was so dependent on electronics, protection against electromagnetic pulses and solar wind was crucial. If one side or the other lost control of any part of its fleet the battle would be over instantly.

  The electromagnetic field was bulbously large as it initially engaged itself, covering nearly two large spherical areas around the ship from the center. Entering or leaving the powerful EM field that surrounded their fleet would temporarily disorient any electronic devices. Arnael and Solb deployed the fighters just before activating the main ship’s shield.

  Hundreds of thousands of fighters swarmed out of the crevices of the main battle cruiser and its ancillary vessels. The battle was beginning to seem swarms fighting over hive-ground.

  But before they could launch theground fleet it began instantly.

  Around both sides of the moon the Eri fleet attempted to out-flank them as Sheppard suspected. The effort however was futile. Legion vessels unleashed a salvo of munitions toward them, cannon-fire and super-heated plasma blasts flew through the vacuum faster than their vessels giving the enemy fleets little time to dodge. The energy based munitions were nearly deionized on impact with the shields, while the remaining projectile weaponry deflected and hit different sections of the vessels than anticipated.

  This was only a portion of the fl
eet, four out of the six that had originally appeared in orbit. After several barrages of Legion fire the one of the vessels was decimated. But the rest had yet to be seen.

  The Legions waited in a wing formation with the Eternity at its center. And it was not long before another two vessels appeared, exiting lunar orbit beside the Legion fleet.

  They were wrapped in a dark cloud of matter, re-appearing just above the Earth. Small fighter craft swarmed about the fleet leaving the field between both armadas a light show of fantastic explosions.

  Solb ordered his fleet to disengage and re-route toward the vessels now stationed above Earth.

  Sheppard did not need to wait, “Release all ground forces to Earth now!” The time had come for the Phoenix Legions to rise again from the ashes and reclaim their former home.

  By the time the Legion drop-ships hit the atmosphere, the Eri had already begun their cleansing. Estimates put their numbers at roughly three million. Sheppard had no major ground artillery units or aerial support with the orbit in chaos. His legions would have to improvise.

  “Daria,” he spoke into a private channel, “Earth governments were warned of the invasion correct?”

  She clicked back a reply, “Yes, my agents had given them nearly two-days warning.”

  They plummeted to the Earth at terminal velocity, their drop ships dissipated heat just as the flaps deployed. They would break speed upon entering the atmosphere. But the trajectories worried Sheppard; less than half would hit land.

  As they breached the upper atmosphere metallic parachutes held by extra thick cables deployed from their vessels. The ship slowed down little by little.

  While many of the troops had done drops like this on many other worlds Earth-like gravity was still a challenge to some.

  Soldiers like Prox felt their veins throb. His pudding-stained face contorted from the free-fall. The gelatinous pudding began to trail up his face during the descent. He used his free hand to wipe the pudding trailing underneath his eye and licked his fingertips before snapping his jaw shut again.

  By the time they had reached a quarter-kilometer from the Earth’s surface the reserve parachutes were detached again and an explosion was heard from within the module.

  Outside giant air bags inflated with atmospheric gases. The airbags collapsed as soon as they hit the brush and its rocky terrain, Sheppard last calculated his ship’s trajectory over the Appalachian mountains of North America. According to his GPS, they were in West Virginia.

  Daria’s troops did not drop collectively as Sheppard’s legion did. Instead they deployed in single occupant aircrafts across the globe, streaking across the sky like shooting stars.

  Her own ship reached an altitude of nearly forty-four kilometers above the surface, just below the upper end of the o-zone layer. The thin air would allow her craft to reach higher speeds without burning to a cinder.

  Her theatre of war was the Middle East, and she was not one to waste time.

  With a quick input of instruction she activated the navigation system giving it the GPS location of her main contingent in the region. The craft’s auto-pilot oriented itself on the axis. She traversed the light side of the Earth to the dark side in minutes.

  In an instant the craft’s advanced scramjet technology activated. Her computer shielded the cockpit with a layered metallic screen causing the inside to become pitch black instantly. The dim flicker of her craft’s control panel was all that she could see. In an instant she felt the g-forces climb. The pressure became almost unbearable.

  Her craft had reached speeds of over Mach 6. The g-forces were tremendous but her innate immortal physiology was able to tolerate the eye-popping stress.

  She closed her eyes and controlled her breathing. It felt as if she was being run over by a steam-roller. Her lungs compressed amidst the enormous pressure being applied by her suit.

  The instrument panel read her altitude. In her state she read the numbers periodically. 5500…3300…900.

  The cockpit began to feel like an oven, the metal hissed as the enormous friction forces acted upon it. She probably could have cooked meat on the cockpit glass at that moment.

  When the craft finally reached speeds of around five hundred she could feel her legs becoming heavy. Blood circulated slower. Her heart was beating at nearly a hundred and seventy beats a minute just to fight the effects of gravity.

  She breathed quickly to keep pace with her heart. The craft’s ailerons let off loud moans. The ship was melting from the heat.

  Looks like a one-way trip.

  The auto-pilot was running in the dark now. The cockpit glass formed splotches of deformities on its surface, but she was still able to see the stars.

  Her altitude declined quickly with the craft’s deceleration. By the time she could see her native homelands she could only see fires erupting in cities.

  ETA 59 seconds.

  The craft’s deceleration flaps opened slightly increasing wind resistance on its approach. It was trying to find a suitable landing spot on the ground. She was somewhere over Lebanon now.

  Her craft howled through the sky like a fireball. Emergency systems shot a giant blob of gel into the cockpit. The gel seeped into the controls and fitted against Dar. As she closed into the ground she braced for impact.

  All available emergency flaps emerged causing the ship to rock violently, she dreaded a mid-air tailspin. In moments her ship hit the ground, the viscous material surrounding her absorbed the impact considerably. The craft skid forward across the dunes. The gel hardened to stone as the craft finally came to a halt. The sand around her had turned fluid-like against the extreme heat of the ship.

  The gel dissipated upon impact. It sublimed, forcing the cockpit to disengage. As the super-elastic tethers around her snapped, airbags deployed absorbing her remaining momentum.

  Her head had been thrown around like a rag doll but her joints absorbed the shock with little injury. She was extremely disoriented. The short but brief experiment in projectile dynamics was enough to give anyone a headache.

  The cockpit rang out like a gunshot, the sound was dampened by her helmet but it still startled her.

  I hate flying…

  She crawled out onto the sand and nearly lost her balance, the calcium crystals in her head were awry. She grasped her forehead and brought herself up to a crawl, trying to re-orient herself. If the enemy had seen her landing trajectory they would be upon her soon.

  The sound of gunfire in the distance gave her a second wind. She crawled over the ridge and activated her optical camouflage. She surveyed the scene and saw a number of hostiles.

  Their weapons were immortal in design, the characteristic hyperbaric loading chambers and magnetically-propelled projectile rifles. She seemed to have stumbled upon an isolated forward camp not far from a city.

  She took steps lightly in the sand, keeping an eye out for any proximity alarms. Seeing none she continued to discreetly crouch behind a patrolling combatant unnoticed. Getting within distance, she pulled out a fiber wire and garroted the soldier. He tried to scream but the sharp wire instantly closed and cut his vocal cords, he continued to struggle causing blood to seep into the desert sands, Not clean enough Daria.

  She picked up his body and tried to bury it as much as she could in the sand without catching anyone’s notice. The camp remained silent, there were many guards stationed at a derelict truck that was being refurbished for some purpose. She approached closer, peering over the side of a make-shift tent.

  A fist grabbed her leg from underneath the sand. Her senses reacted quickly and she plunged her arm into the sand grabbing the hidden enemy by the throat. In shock she realized it was one of Sheppard’s soldiers.

  They were running silent. Their signatures were not being broadcast to nearby units lest they also be picked up by enemy radar.

  In Daria’s hand was a female soldier, she waved her hand across her throat in silence to signal to her. There were apparently a number of other Legionnaires hidden un
derneath the sand surrounding the camp. Good, Daria thought, her landing coordinates were not too unreliable.

  Another enemy patrol approached from the opposite side of the tent to check on the previous patrolman. They were both exposed.

  Daria broke stealth, out of surprise she instantly jabbed the lead patrolman in the neck, abdomen and groin then swiftly kicked him in the back, knocking him to the ground.

  The young soldier grabbed Daria’s shoulder and somersaulted over her back landing on the other soldier. She squeezed her feet together around the soldier’s neck and performed a powerful back flip launching the soldier behind her instantly.

  The young Phoenix Legionnaire then somersaulted onto his back and revealed a concealed blade in her gauntlet. She plunged it into the man’s carotid artery, severing blood flow. The man fell dead in seconds.

  Daria’s target was not so easily stopped. He stood up and raised his fists trying to put up a fight. Daria disarmed him immediately. His step faltered, she sent blows to the neck and abdomen knocking the wind out of him. The earlier blow to his groin weakened his legs. She walked up to him dodging his counter effortlessly and pushed him back to the ground.

  Other enemy soldiers nearby saw the scuffle behind the tent and raised their weapons about to open fire. Right on cue, friendly sniper fire rained down from a distance.

  Each unit in the Legion battalion quickly took formation neutralizing the remaining enemy soldiers. Gunfire from inside the tent alerted Daria. She found two Eri grunts hovering over the body of another man.

  They killed their superior to prevent interrogation…

  “Commander Dar, they have surrendered. Your orders?” The Phoenix Legionnaire asked.

  “Detain them, that was Sheppard's orders. Find out what they were doing here.” Dar looked at the young girl behind her, if she were a mortal she would not look a day over eighteen with her body. But she had been more ruthless and efficient than Daria had been in ages, “By the way, good work. My Legion could use you if Sheppard is willing to let a fine soldier like you go.” She said with a short laugh.