FUCKING DONE! Whoo-hoo! Thanks for waiting everyone. This installment doesn't have a sex scene, but the next few actions likely will. Without further a due:
Spoiler (click to show/hide):
Action 6
[ad hoc device a00021 online]
[begin trans]
Ensign Katie Teuschle
Medical Center, Relei, Pressia
32 Hours after the scuttling of the Orion
The pain ebbs and subsides, leaving her head feeling emptied of substance. Konntest du nicht schreien? A voice calls to her through unseen channels, a mother’s voice cast across the gulf of time. Konntest du nicht laufen? Wer würde für dich kommen? Sparst du dich, sonst du werden sterben.
“Mutti?” Teuschle sputters through dry, cracked lips. “Wo sind sie? Hilfe mich!”
Kann ich dass nicht machen, meine Tochter. Ich bin mit Tod, aber du bist nicht. Erwachet!
Teuschle sits straight up in the hospital bed, sweating and breathing hard. Her mother’s old admonitions ring through her ears as she surveys the area around her. She’s in a medical bay, but everything has been abandoned. Scores of beds have been left askew down the central alleyway and the floor is littered with scraps of clothing, bedding, and numerous shining medical utensils knocked loose from trays. She tries to move from the bed, but two thick, leather and wool straps hold her wrists to the immovable secure points on the side of the bedrails. She’s stuck.
“Well fuck me,” she says aloud to the empty hall. She thinks for a moment and immediately regrets the words in context of her predicament. She pulls at the straps and gets nowhere. Somewhere in the distance a siren blares its baleful tune through the air, someone screams, and gunfire pops off in staccato beats that echo their way through the city streets. She was listening to the third movement in the Symphony of Destruction, warfare.
Nothing to do now but wait.
[transmission interrupted]
[intermission sequence]
[…]
[begin trans]
Warrant Officer Ichi “Sugar” Katsuo
Bridge, Casa Nostra; Presidium Class, in orbit over Pressia
31.5 Hours after the scuttling of the Orion
A long time ago the bridges of battleships were up high in the center of the ship to give the captain the best possible view of the surrounding areas. Men and women no longer fought on the seas of Earth, or any other planet for that matter, and that had changed the scope of things. Sugar was on the bridge of the Casa Nostra, which meant he was at the actual center of the ship. Despite that, the holographic interface made it seem as though he was standing on a tiny platform in the middle of space, Pressia itself a blue-brown ball that hovered just over his left shoulder. Figuratively speaking, they were hovering upside down over the planet, but orientation meant jack-shit in space. Admiral Fontaine was glibly eyeing him from her command chair a few feet in front of him, waiting for him to repeat himself.
“There were, uh, two transmissions from Grand ma’am.” He said, unconsciously rubbing his toes against the sole of his boot. He always wore holes in his socks doing that, but it wasn’t a habit he’d ever been able to shake. He hated speaking in public and the twenty-some-odd crewmembers on the deck were all staring at him. The news was important enough to temporarily disregard their workstations.
“Go on Sugar.” He hated when she called him that. She gave him the name, he loved the name, but hated it when she called him by it. Maybe it was just that phrase though, “go on Sugar”. It had been the last three words he’d ever heard before she had made him a murderer.
“Yes ma’am. Well, uh, the first was from the worthy Consul. He, um, well, gave the go ahead for stellar bombardment. Five volleys for every major city. The second well…” Sugar looked around at the waiting faces. Most of them had never been on a detail personally overseen by the second most powerful figure in the known universe. It was an honor for them. His mouth dried as he tried to form the words for the last part of his brief. “The second… The second was, is, that the worthy Consul had had first attempt made on his life during a speech on the Mezzanine.” A deep hush settled over the deck. “Apparently that was just a diversion, and the Consul was killed by an unknown assailant less than a cycle ago. The Pro-Consul is nowhere to be found, and it is believed that his recent extended leave has a direct connection with the event. Grand Station is, um, leaderless now and apparently there have been confirmed reports that widespread looting has followed an insurrection against the empty Consulship.” Fontaine didn’t move, she just sat there as stoic as ever and nodded for him to continue. Someone had started crying behind him.
“The report from main also continued to state that a majority of the senators have been killed by insurrectionists and the rest have either joined the insurrection or dropped off the grid entirely. People are abandoning their Collars. There’re uncontrollable fires in at least five sectors. Martial law has been declared and the current casualty estimates put the body count up to—“
“Sugar!” Fontaine retained her calm throughout the report, but now had raised a hand to stop him. “That’s enough news from Grand.” She gestured her head to the crew. They were despondent. Low hung heads and bloodless faces. Tears dried on the back of sweaty palms. Moments ago they were ready for another routine execution, now that shoes had changed feet they were very nearly broken. Strange how things changed. “Did they give a suggested course of action?”
“Yes ma’am. Uh, basically, ball’s in our court.”
“Come again?”
“They said that, um, we could continue the mission or not. Communications Officer Bartlett, the uh, guy I got the audio from on Grand. He uh, was in a bad way. Said that the order had been given for all personnel in Garrison to abandon station and that all deployed units could either continue on mission or disembark. Um, permanently. Then there was some yelling, and gunfire. Then uh, it got quiet…” Sugar shifted his feet. “All further attempts to contact Grand have failed, ma’am.”
Silence hung over the room, save the echoing sobs of some yeoman who had buried his face in his hands over his Consul. The sailor next to him had her arm over his shoulder, and was whispering quietly in his ear. Her terrified eyes caught Sugars and he quickly diverted his attention back to Fontaine. The Admiral had rested her chin on her thumb. Her knuckles came up to obscure her mouth. Her eyes stared hard at the diamond-plate steel of the central platform. She muttered something to herself that Sugar couldn’t hear. Around them, the panorama of the universe slowly rotated, dark and deep and silent.
Sugar had heard a story once, from an exploration crew that had skimmed the outlying rim of the solar system. They had found a red star, a titan billions of times larger than the sun circling a black hole. They had gotten close enough that they could see it with a telescopic lens. The immense gravity tore away at the star, creating a solar flare billions of miles in length and width. A star of such heat and size that they had picked up its signature clear as day well outside the normal range for good reading, and they watched it circle the drain like so much bathwater. From a light year away they said it had looked like a comma. How does one compare the death of a man, he thought, to the light of a dying star?
“We will stay the course,” said Fontaine suddenly. She hadn’t moved an inch. “We have received no additional orders, and therefore are required to continue on with the mission as planned. Those of you who have family on Grand will be rotated in cycle-long shifts to contact your relatives and any parties with whom you may be concerned. The cycling will be conducted by rank from lowest to highest. Captain Gobe? I want every gun on this ship staffed, operational, and targeted according to orders in the next hour. We are moving up the bombardment. Crest? I want all fighters scrambled and either on security for us or escorting the Pericles to the ground. I want boots on the ground in that city down there where they’ve been taking our units. All infantry and in-atmosphere pilots will be deployed in full gear with respirators. All non-essential personnel will be loading magazines, prepping gear, and doing whatever the ground units need them to do to. Understood?”
Sugar found himself yelling along with the bridge-wide “yes ma’am”, and watched as the crew surged to life around him. They churned over and around each other like well oiled machine parts. As the Admiral continued to shout out commands, different parts of the hologram surrounding them became slowly cluttered with red and green screens, all detailing completion statuses and logistic data. Sugar turned to head back to his suite, but Fontaine stopped him.
“Warrant Officer Katsuo!” He turned and snapped back to attention, a bit thrown off by his own reaction.
“Uh, yes ma’am?”
“Relay our recent actions to Grand and the Pericles. Also,” she paused for a moment. “What is the latest on that leviathan?”
“After it reached ground an hour ago it did considerable damage to that city, and then it started, uh, dying.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I think its body might be collapsing under the pressure of its own weight. I’m, uh, pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to go aground.”
“Hmm.” She leaned back in her chair and looked at Pressia in the hologram. “Keep an eye on it. It’s important to all this, I just don’t know why yet.”
“Roger that ma’am.” She waved him off, and he turned to descend the sloping ramp that led to the platform. He could barely hear the clank of his boots against the steel over the tumultuous movement of the crew around him. Back on the platform Fontaine continued to pipe out an order every other second, a queen surrounded by her loyal hive.
The pressurized door hushed open then closed behind him as he made his way into the hall outside the bridge. A cadre of pilots, all face-masked and jump-suited up jogged past him on the opposite side of the black-painted hexagonal corridor. The red and blue “gangway” lights were on and he hugged the right-side bulkhead to prevent getting bowled over by the infantry platoon that would inevitably come barreling down to get to their ride. Eventually they passed him, their boots chop, chop, chopping by in unison as they passed. Their bodies were fully covered in aluminum and ceramic plating. With their masks on, they were as faceless as the countless soldiers who jogged in that formation throughout history. Then they were gone at the red and blue lights flicked off, leaving Sugar walking alone through the dim, yellow overhead lights.
He made it to his communications suite a few minutes later. He had always favored the old ladder wells to the high-speed magnetic lifts that everyone else used. They tended to be empty, and he preferred to avoid interacting directly with the crew though it cost him more time to get from place to place. He made his way up to his chair and picked an empty water bottle out of the waste bin on the way up, packing a can of tobacco with his free hand. The holographic windows cycled up and blinked on. He put in a chew and began to send Fontaine’s message to Grand when the incoming screen activated itself.
“Is this the Casa Nostra?” Called a male voice over the audio. Sugar responded affirmative and hit the video feed. The transmission was coming directly from main, but the distance should have been much to far for streaming communication. A tall, thin man in a long black coat smiled at him through the screen. “Splendid! Then am I talking with Warrant Officer Ichi Katsuo?” The mention of his name took Sugar aback.
“Uh, Yes, this is Katsuo. Can I ask how you’re streaming communication directly to the Casa Nostra from Grand?” The man laughed.
“The technology has actually been around for a while, I’ll actually called to tell you the story behind it. I don’t suppose you know who I am do you?”
“Judging from the coat you’re a priest, right?”
“Yes, the Metatron actually, but that office has recently become moot. Could we speak for a moment?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess.”
“Perfect.”
[end intermission]
[…]
[device a00021 not ready]
[begin intermission]
[feed capture initiated]
[device online]
[begin trans]
Free Citizen San Paral
San’s Apartment, Relei, Pressia
31 Hours after the scuttling of the Orion
The air burned in San’s lungs as she sprinted up the stairs and away from the rapidly rising waters from the ocean. She paused and looked back in terror as god itself reared up over the Banker’s Building and crushed it to nothing. Emergency sirens were screaming all around her, and as she watched the tidal waters picked up a mother and her child as they ran across the street. The woman’s eyes caught San’s for just a moment, then she was gone with the next surge.
San had only ever heard about god from her parents, when they had gone there to have her after being married. She’d even seen a picture or two. Now the thing her mom had told her about with so much affection in her voice was destroying the town.
Ever since that Imperial starship had fallen from the sky, everything had gone to hell in Relei. Her neighbors disappeared from their homes. Armed soldiers walked the streets. Genuinely nice people had been going from house to house recently, maddened by fear and hunting for “collaborators”.
She ran into her apartment and slammed the door behind her. She made her way quickly to her bedroom and threw the last of her things into the duffel bag she had packed a day ago, when the old man who lived next store had been drug off by a group of teenagers armed with sticks and hammers. She hadn’t seen him since.
Finished packing, San threw the bag over her shoulder and went to the front door. She opened it and screamed. God loomed over her, not fifty meters away. Its front end extended further than she could see up, and kilometers to her right and left. She slammed the door behind her and ditched the bag, sprinting for the rear window. She pushed it the rest of the way up and climbed out onto her downstairs neighbor’s roof, running across it and jumping down to the ground. The water wasn’t as deep uphill and she forced her legs through the water, wading as fast as possible till she got to the floodway than ran perpendicular to the beach. It had been built for rainy season runoff from the highlands, and in reverse made the perfect getaway from the rapidly flooding streets.
She made it to the floodway and began to run up it when her heart sank. Burning hulks of metal from a crashed vertical lander clogged up the passage between the buildings. She went to it anyway, trying to find someway by as the water slowly crept up around her feet. It was too hot to touch; the aluminum shell was glowing orange and bending from the heat of the fire inside. The water had made it up to her ankles. The buildings on either side of the floodway were several stories tall and didn’t have any ground floor windows. The road behind her had filled with fast moving water. She was trapped, a rat in a box filling with water. It was up to her knees now and the current was moving so fast she had to spread her feet and lean against it. She turned to look at god as it made its way toward her.
It was less than twenty meters away. She saw that its front was made of millions, billions of long, thin white straws that were covered in algae. Thousands of fish and other Pressians were logged in between them, all struggling to get free. As she watched, long worm-like things with mouths the size of doors popped out from the straws and pulled the captives in. Then it was on top of her, blacking out the sky. The straws collapsed around her, pulling her in and protecting her from the heat of the wreckage as god moved past her tiny trap in the floodway.
It drew her in further and she could feel herself being moved quickly up its face. Her legs hung out behind her, drying in the hot air that bellowed from god’s interior. Every rush of wind was humid and smelled like old rot. Dead fish lying on a dock in the sun, boiling.
The straws rustled against each other as god moved across her town, making an all-encompassing static din that drowned out all other sound. From somewhere above her a lost shoe fell, tumbling over and over as it bounced its way down and out of sight. It pulled her higher and higher and then she was looking into the face of another Pressian. Pan could see that she was terrified. Tears fell from brown eyes as the girl reached her hand toward San, and San managed to reach through the straws and grab it. The girl’s fingers curled tightly around San’s own and San could feel her trembling. The dim glow of the sun through the straws cast long shadows across them that rippled and swelled. It was almost like being underwater.
“It’ll be ok!” San screamed over the din, wondering if the girl could even hear her. The young woman bit her lip in reply and shook her head slowly. San could feel the straws beginning to move quicker and quicker around them.
There was a tug from the girl’s hand. She screamed. Then she was gone, pulled back through the waving straws as they collapsed around her. San’s heart went cold and she could feel the heat of her tears mixing with the cold water that covered her face. The absolute noise became absolute silence as her ears became useless. She struggled. She failed. She screamed. She grew silent. Soon, even the tears wouldn’t come. Every breath caught in her chest, as hard and painful as a stone. Nothing to do know but wait, she thought. Did I lock the door to my apartment?
Around her, the straws began to rustle harder.
[transmission interrupted]
[signal lost]
[…]
[foreign comms unit detected]
[cracking signal]
[crack ok]
[patching]
[…]
[device online]
[begin trans]
Commander Eld of the First Battalion of the World Army
Throne Room, Relei, Pressia
31.5 Hours after the scuttling of the Orion
Another terrified group of evacuees pushed pass him through the hallway as Eld made his way to the throne room. A group of faceless, terrified people. He’d seen the same thing in the final World War. They’d run and run and run, making their way to ships only to be turned down. They’d panic and run for the hills on their own feet, and great caravans of people wearing clothes too nice for camping would make their way down the roads to other towns that hadn’t been overtaken. Miles-long lines of starving women and children, sick men, and abandoned pets. There’d be thefts, murders, rapes, and all that before the Imperials fell on them. Rich, poor, smart, stupid, none of that mattered. People without cities and laws became animals faster than they’d ever admit to themselves. There was nothing he could do for them.
Another group passed by with a little girl in tow. A man, a woman, and two older boys were with her, overburdened with cases and bags full of things Eld knew they wouldn’t need. The girl clutched a fool-doll to her chest, its limp limbs bounding up and down as her little legs pushed to keep up with her family. They always had dolls, Eld thought. It was almost a like a rule that all refugees followed. She’d lose it eventually. All little girls lost their dolls during war. A programmed voice boomed over the recessed speakers set throughout the palace.
“Attention. Attention. Reports have confirmed that evacuation by all sea routes has become impossible. Natural forces have made sea travel impossible. All class-blue evacuees please redirect travel to backups Alpha and Upsilon. All other classes please continue to your directed EVAC points in a polite and orderly fashion. Tha—“ A shockwave ripped through the building and the evacuees began a long collective scream. Eld fell to his knees, but was back up again in seconds. His old age had never interfered with duty, and he had a job to do. He quickened his pace to a trot and left the families and their confused wailing behind him.
The path to the throne room had already been cleared. The evacuees in that area had panicked and fled, leaving behind a scattered trail of brick-a-brak that cluttered the hall. He passed through it with ease, determined to not let anything stop him from getting where he needed to go. The great doors to the throne room stood before him a moment later and he blasted through them, causing one to slap the wall loudly as he passed onto the marble floor that led to the throne. The boom echoed through the empty hall. Across from him, Cer sat on the throne. One of his legs was kicked up on the back of an attendant, who knelt on all fours in front of the massive golden chair.
“Commander Eld!” Called the Low King as Eld approached. “How nice of you to join me! My ensemble seems to have left me, whatever will I do for entertainment now?” The king cocked his head to the side and pursed his lip at Eld.
“That’s none of my concern,” Eld replied. He had made his way up to the tiered marble staircase that led to the throne. The usually bright flowers that filled the golden pots that littered the stairs had gone brown and dry. His day now felt ripe with ugly metaphor.
“But you are one of my most loyal subjects, are you not?” The king sat back in his throne and kicked the boy that had been holding his legs up. The young man looked fearfully at Eld, then back at Cer who waved a dismissive hand to him. The boy stood and sprinted from the throne room, his footfalls sending out staccato echoes that resounded through the chamber. “Your life is beholden to my whim, correct?” The king had begun to grow red in the face and his voice picked up volume as he leaned forward in his chair. “Are you not the Commander of the First Battalion? Why are you her—“
“Shut the fuck up Cer,” said Eld. “We both know you sit on a throne of lies, you always have.” Cer calmed down instantly and made an ugly grin. He rested his elbows on his knees.
“Why Commander, what ever do you mean?”
“My boy, Per, he saw you talking to an Imperial in your room.” Eld’s face was grim, hard set. Cer didn’t have the same discipline. His eyes darted to the left. A fraction of millimeter, but Eld saw it. He’d been lied to by every sort of insufferable whelp, every sort of glory hounding officer in his life. A spoiled little shit like Cer didn’t even have a poker face.
“Of course he did, that girl belongs to –“
“On your communicator you fuckwit.” Cer’s face reddened at the insult.
“How dare you.”
“How dare I what?” Eld responded, beginning to climb the stairs. “How dare I accuse you of treason?” He had reached Cer by the end of the question, and Eld could see the first glimpse of fear in his eyes. Behind them, the throne room stood empty. Silent.
“You simple fuck of a soldier, who do you think you’re fucking talking to!?” Cer screamed.
“You.” Said Eld, cocking back and punching Cer in his temple. The vicious right hook snapped Cer’s head to the right and made him slump down in his seat. He wished in his heart that someone could have taken a picture of Cer’s face as his gloved fist slammed into it. Eld would have kept that token in his ID fold for the rest of his life. The satisfaction was short lived as Cer pulled a gun from the seat behind him and fired a shot into Eld’s midsection. The world went hazy and another round slammed into his guts and echoed off the solemn white walls.
He could smell smoke. Everything was numb. Red. Hot. Pain arched through him and his legs gave out and he fell down the stairs. He hit his head on the way down and everything went fuzzy and gray. Explosions of stars blurred his vision further and when he brought his hand to his face it was covered in blood. He could hear his wife admonishing him. “You keep sticking to your guns, and you’ll get killed by ‘em one day.”
“Arn, honey,” he said to himself as Cer descended the steps, the gun’s muzzle pointed at Eld. “You just may have been right.” He chuckled through blood-covered teeth, then coughed up a gout of blood that ran down his cheeks and chin. “Ahh, fuck me.” Somewhere outside the halls, sirens blared louder and louder. The entire world was panicking. A chill worked its way steadily up from Eld’s toes. He could feel one of his legs shaking involuntarily. His mouth was full of salt and copper. Pretty much the end, I guess. Through the haze he saw Cer steady the gun with his other hand. A small gash on the Low King’s head dribbled blood over his jaw onto his shoulder. He sneered at Eld and began to pull the trigger.
An explosion. A gust of pulling wind and screaming. Silence. Darkness.
[transmission interrupted]
[signal interrupted]
[searching]
[…]
[signal found]
[patching]
[begin trans]
Consul Rick Tanner Sr.
Safe Room 2BA5, Axis Terminal Core, Grand Station
32 Hours the scuttling of the Orion
How many cycles had it been? How many hours? The Consul had grown up telling time by hours. His office had required him to think in cycles and megacycles. Cycles were perfect hours. One hour long rotation of the station that could be measured by simply looking out of a window. Mega cycles were like years in his mind, but not quite as long. It was all supposed to metric. Base 10. A simple and perfect grid of time that could replicated by any ship if it matched its rotation speed at a ten-meter diameter to the rotation speed of Grand at a ten-meter diameter.
The system’s flaws became apparent when ships of different sizes were taken into account. Rotational speeds at ten meters became extraordinarily high the further one got from the axis. Smaller ships couldn’t tell time and maintain gravity. Larger ships had disproportionate gravity. Eventually the system was turned over to atomic clocks that would maintain the correct time based an element’s half-life. The hour was replaced by a different form of hour, and then scientists realized that transition jumping through worm holes bent time into non-existence for the traveler’s reference frame and even that system became useless.
With the egalitarianist economy, people didn’t use time anymore. You woke and slept along with your biological processes. When something needed to be done you were called. When that thing was finished you were released. There was no sun now, no moon. No night or day for people that didn’t live on Stadtwelten, and even they weren’t beholden to Grand’s system of measurements. The only people who used time regularly were in the military. Ten minutes to bombing. Three cycles till planet fall. The ultimate indicator of mortality regulated to the use of those who dealt death for a living. Now that Earth was gone, there weren’t even real years anymore. People didn’t have birthdays. They just celebrated existence.
The Consul wondered what year it was as he looked over the pictures of his people burning Grand away around themselves. How long had it been now that men had sailed through the stars. Millennia had passed since the first man walked on a planet other than earth. The years poured themselves away through an unimaginable funnel. All gone, most forgotten. How old was he now? Fifty, sixty years? Older? He caught the reflection of his worn face in the mirrored finish of the screen. No more mirrors for old men to pity themselves in, he thought. Now everything had to be witnessed, processed, and returned to the end user in the most efficient form for consumption. The consul turned his back to the screen and sat in the simple metal folding chair at the aluminum desk they had provided for him.
A canteen half emptied of scotch sat next to a sad little glass one of the men had handed him before leaving. The Consul had dismissed his guards to allow them to find their families. His only son was light years away. There was no reason for him to deny his personal guard what he was being denied at the moment. They had all left hesitantly, knowing deep down that something was ending in this Grand Station in the sky. That they had only a small amount of time to get themselves and their families far away to some colony world where the fighting wouldn’t be so bad. The Consul knew in his heart that somewhere out there in the vastness of the vacuum was some great clock ticking out the time of existence in a perfect, unyielding rhythm. He could feel that unstoppable second hand that ticked for him moving steadily towards its apex point. To his end. He sighed and poured another glass, wishing momentarily that he had some ice.
A knock at the steel hatch boomed through the room. Three loud-fisted bangs. This is it, thought the Consul, rising from his chair. He wondered if they would rush him, tear him limb from limb. A tyrant in a long history of tyrants to fall beneath the blades of paupers. He felt vaguely that he should have know this was coming. What leader is so terrible that he plans for his own coups? He arrived at the hatch and spun the mechanical locking wheel that held it shut with three large steel plates. It opened, he found himself unsurprised to see Marl standing on the other side of the doorway, alone and smiling. They met each other’s eyes for a long moment. Marl with his smile and the Consul’s half-drunk stare.
“May I come in?” Asked the Metatron, not waiting for the answer before entering. “I believe we’re long overdue for palaver.”
“By all means,” said the Consul, waiting for him to pass before shutting the door and locking it. They made their way without speaking to their places around the desk. They both sat in identical folding chairs on opposite sides of the desk. Marl faced the screen and the Consul the door. The Consul spoke first.
“So,” he began. “This is all your doing isn’t it? Was I right all along that I should have shot you down years ago?” Marl’s smile softened at the question.
“Should I answer all of those at once?” The Consul shrugged, and filled another glass and offered the canteen to Marl. To his surprise, the Metatron accepted and took a long swig before returning the heavy plastic container. The Consul capped it and returned it to the table. “Well then, the less complicated answer is yes. It wouldn’t be gross an insinuation to say that I am behind your recent troubles. That you would have reached another conclusion to this by ‘shooting me down’? Also yes, but as I said, those are the easy answers. I am not a simple man, my Consul, as I’m sure you know. Would you like to hear a story?”
“A story?”
“A narrative, of sorts, yes. I’m sure you have the time for it, you seem to have far fewer responsibilities today than you did yesterday. Either way it’s quite short, so I shouldn’t take up much of your time.”
“I’ve been feeling that lately time isn’t on my side.” The Metatron smiled.
“That is a fair assessment of you situation. Also, would you mind if we dispense with our titles? Time is short and recently both of our honorifics have come to hold significantly less water, as they say.” Tanner nodded and handed Marl the canteen again. “Then let us begin.”
“Firstly, a simple conundrum. What are we called? I know where we sit: a safe room on Grand Station. I know that Grand Station is space station larger than our native planet’s moon orbiting Alpha Centauri from a great distance. I know I am a human being. But what is my faction, and to whom do my loyalties lie? I’m the highest mortal servant of the Living God, but our religion has no name. Our political system, no name. Even our military lacks a banner to fight beneath. Great black cylinders float through the heavens spreading death and they have no name to do it in.”
“The tenants of the Living God guided the hands of the Consuls. Without them we would have never left Earth.”
“But still, is it not a monarchy? Are you not merely a tyrant beneath the thumb of a tyrant?”
“A tyrant, maybe, but beneath the thumb of a God. A god created by man to lead mankind into a new era. All of this,” the Consul said, waving his hand about. “Is because of him.” Marl chuckled.
“Yes, and more so than you know. But he was just a scientist before he became what he was.” The Consul’s eyebrow raised at the use of the past tense and Marl raised a hand. “I’ll get to that momentarily. What I was trying to tell you is that he was never anything more than a man. Gifted, granted, but a man nonetheless. He retained his vices, as I’m sure you know. Funny that we were the first culture to worship an impotent god. With his record half of humanity would be walking about, naked and glowing with white light. No, the process that made him what he was merely made him more powerful in the physical world. The sheep of humanity saw a glowing man who could survive lethal conditions and never aged and heaped upon him laurels he was never made to have.
“He became what people believed of him, and conquered the Earth itself with his army of supplicants. He knew enough of the history of princes to not be an insane despot, and through his intervention mankind came to be united as a world beneath the glittering man of the southern continents. Earth became the first Stadtwelt. We reached for the stars and grabbed them. But we were never free after that. His way became the way and all of humanity felt it best not to argue with a god, especially when life beneath him was bearable.
“Hundreds, thousand of years of exploration and turmoil led to humanity’s spread throughout the vacuum. The golden age of man. But what of our collars?” Asked Marl, flicking his golden collar into the air around his neck. He smiled broadly at Tanner and pulled it off, causing Tanner to flinch momentarily. “Don’t worry, the old repercussions are over. It’s actually been safe for several days now to remove it.” Tanner reached up and brushed his fingers over his own collar. He had seen people remove them before, but they never lived long. They passed another drink between each other, the canteen was beginning to run dry.
“He made the collars because he feared us, do you know that? He told me the story himself, actually. I broke his arm first, but he told me. Several hundred years ago a child had misbehaved around his mother, and God, being completely unable to avoid interfering in other people’s lives decided to reprimand the child. But the kid ignored him, and told him ‘I don’t have to do what you say because I don’t want to’. Said this to God of all people. Did you know his name was originally Jeff? Absurd name for an immortal don’t you think? Anyway, this made God extraordinarily incensed so he made a way for him to watch anyone, anywhere, and ensure that they were doing exactly what he said. The collars. They’ve gone through their iterations over the years but they were instilled to do just that, make sure we don’t stray from the path. Like dogs, we are his willing pets. To be scolded or rewarded as he sees fit until the end of time. He believed that of us until I smothered him to death with a pillow.”
“You killed God?” Tanner’s eyes had glassed over a bit from the alcohol, but they widened at Marl’s admission.
“Temporarily at least. When you kill him he doesn’t stay dead for that long. The fungus that made him incandescent is also capable of reviving the human part of his biology. The only way to end the symbiotic relationship is intense heat. So I smuggled his bloated holiness in a laundry cart, then had the body put on a skiff and sailed into Alpha Centauri. He was awake for the last bit of it. It’s a bit gruesome, but I had to listen to ensure he was completely gone. In either case, I doubt he’ll be able to swim out of a star’s gravity well. He was only human.” Marl laughed and Tanner went gray.
“You killed him? Why?”
“For the same reason that I’ve destabilized his empire, the same one that you, by proxy are responsible for. The nameless black hand of mankind that crosses the gulf of the stars. Because mankind can do better without him.”
“What?”
“Think about it Tanner. He was just a man. A brilliant scientist to be sure, but the peers of his day were all just as smart, some even smarter. He was simply lucky enough to have experimented on a bit of rock that had floated to us from a place beyond knowing. The fungus on the rock survived vacuum, reentry, and the impact. When he discovered it could be bonded with other organisms he bonded the last of it with himself. From the beginning he was more concerned with power than with humanity as a whole. The only reason he brought the rest of us along was because he needed an audience.
“Millennia later his audience grew tired of him, and stopped following his every word like gospel. When I was five he had my planet destroyed because we allowed a colony of colony of collarless refugees find a home there. Mag guns leveled every inhabitable acre of the planet, and stellar bombardment evaporated every drop of water. It still hangs there, dead, circling its parent star. It doesn’t even have a name in the official records. A graveyard with no headstones wandering the cosmos in absolute silence. But I remembered, and I swore that it would never happen again.”
“So you killed him in vengeance, huh?” They passed the canteen one last time. It was empty now. Tanner tossed the hollow shell and it bounced sadly into the corner of the room. The two men watched its movement in silence. “Then what about the rest of this?”
“His legacy too, I’m afraid, must be extinguished. He’ll live on in people’s memories I’m sure, but only for a short time. Humanity must be allowed to grow again. To spread our own wings once more and fight for the right to share ourselves with the galaxy. If your influence wasn’t brought into check, you would have maintained the status quo, but people will start realizing soon that there is no one to make their decisions but themselves. That was more crucial than God’s death to my planning. Your loyalty would have kept humanity on the same course with or without him. The stagnation had to end, so you had to end. I’m sorry for the outcome, if it’s any consolation.”
“It’s not.” The Consul slugged back the last bit of his glass, empty now too.
“Well then, be assured in the fact that I’ve preserved your son’s life. He’ll be rescued by the Pericles when it EVACs the survivors.”
“I understand all of this,” said the Consul. “But why Pressia? Why kill those aliens?”
“Aliens? No. They are all as human as you and I. Some elementary differences, but the same blood runs through all our veins.”
“What?”
“They were his experiment. He wanted to try and replicate the fungus that made him. He believed he could share his ‘gift’ with humanity, and by default create what you might think of as a beehive with him as the queen, so to speak.” Marl shared a wink that Tanner didn’t quite pick up on. “Needless to say the experiment failed. The seed colony on Pressia branched out of its own accord and created a floating mega biomass with a central hive mind that overruled God’s control.
“The reports I found were a bit hazy, but it seems that the fungus can alter the genetics of other animals to form a symbiotic relationship with them that will allow it to survive any conditions. I don’t know why he left it there, but he abandoned the science crew and 200,000 or so colony members there without any ships capable of intersystem travel. What we think of as Pressians are just the descendants of the original inhabitants. Their current appearance is just an effect of thousands years of forced evolution.”
“So you plan to kill them all?”
“No, only a few. An ugly sacrifice, but necessary. No one can be allowed to gain the sort of power that turned a man named Jeff into God. My only aim is to destroy his legacy. The Pressians will survive, I’ve made sure of it.”
“And what about our troops?”
“I’ve made similar provisions, though I do wish more had survived the Orion.”
“Were you responsible for that?” Marl’s smile faded. For the first time Tanner could see that thing behind his eyes. It was hard, cold determination.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Men do things for different reasons. I had a man in your ranks who was a deep believer in God’s wisdom. He detonated a bomb in the power plant, a suicide mission. A false flag operation to bring the full weight of the military down on Pressia, so I could put our ships to work burning that abomination from the surface of the planet. By luck it hit the leviathan in the back and complicated the plan. A sea landing would have decreased casualties significantly.”
“What is all this even supposed to accomplish? How are you any better than what you claim God to be? Thousands will die over your grudge.”
“Billions have died already, and they died for nothing but the ambitions of one insane man. Absolute harmony through absolute control. If I spend the rest of my life atoning and a million years after that it wouldn’t be enough, but that’s a burden I’ll bear if it gives humanity back its free will. We will make the wrong and right decisions, but we will make them. Choice. The choice to not make choices, whatever. We won’t have to make gods, we will become them.”
“You’re insane,” said the Consul, raising a hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn. Marl shrugged.
“Maybe. I can’t say I’ve ever discounted the possibility.”
“So what now?”
“Nothing. Talk’s over, I just thought I owed you an explanation.”
“Well thanks.”
“No problem,” said Marl, pulling a gun quickly from inside his long, dark jacket and firing a round into Tanner’s chest. The Consul jerked from the impact, a long dry gasp coming from his lips. Marl stood and aimed again, taking time to look into Tanner’s eyes before he pulled the trigger again and again, emptying the entire clip in a few seconds. A hazy cloud of smoke hung low over the room, diffusing the light and coiling over itself. Tanner slumped back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the ceiling and going cold. Marl ejected the magazine from the gun, set both on the table, and went around the desk to gently push the Consul’s eyelids down. He took off his long coat and spread it over Tanner’s body. He turned off the monitors and made his way to the door, spinning the opening wheel with one deft push. Marl paused for a moment and looked at the former Consul then put his finger to his temple. He popped a quick salute, then turned the lights off and closed the door behind him. Midnight.
[transmission ended]
[signal lost]
[searching]
[…]
[ad hoc device a00021 online]
[begin trans]
Ensign Katie Teuschle
Medical Center, Relei, Pressia
32 Hours after the scuttling of the Orion
She hears the footsteps coming before she sees the figure in the distance. A girl, moving slowly through the wreckage of the hospital wing. She’s Pressian, wearing a green silk shawl that encircles her head and neck tightly, leaving only a small gap across her eyes. She’s also carrying a big knife, which Katie finds distressing. The woman looks at Teuschle and Teuschle meets her gaze. The woman nods to her and starts walking with purpose.
“You came out of the sky in a ball of burning steel,” she says to Teuschle, pointing at her with the knife. “A great warrior who strides across the back of god unclaimed by her native sons. You come to the house of a king and strike his cheek. He kills you and you return to health. God herself climbs into her sacred city and dies upon the beach. Our order has long considered these tails to fables for entertainment and the learning of morals. Your green eyes betray your calling.”
“Look,” says Teuschle, eyeing the glittering edge of the blade. “Put the knife down. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The woman pauses at the edge of the gurney and bends over to look into Teuschle’s face. The Pressian’s eyes are a deep shade of scarlet inside the slit of her shawl. They show no emotion.
“The Matron will bear herself soon, and from the Matron shall be born a thousand young,” said the woman, still hovering over Katie. “She shall face the stars and the spears of the false harbinger, and she will prevail over both. Then she will stand before the holy vessel…” The woman brought her free hand up and ran it up Teuschle’s calf. Past her knee and over her thighs to her groin. The woman presses her fingers firmly in between Teuschle’s thighs and Teuschle sets her jaw, screaming at herself in her mind not to head butt the knife wielding wackjob hanging over her. “And the final choice will be made.”
The woman moves to Katie’s lips and kisses her, slowly and softly. She stays there for a moment, then moves lower and plants another kiss on Teuschle’s exposed stomach, just below her navel. Then the knife flashes and Katie’s arm is free from the side of the gurney. Before she can move, the woman strikes lighting fast and the knife is buried deep in the headrest a hands breadth from Teuschle’s head. They are face to face once more.
“Stay alive, my pretty little killer,” she says. Their faces are centimeters apart and Katie can smell sweet fruit on the woman’s breath. “You’ve passed from your petty destiny into something far greater than pride and vengeance. Your people will be waiting for you in the western desert. Your destiny waits for you there as well.” The woman stood and walked away, leaving the knife buried in the table. “If you continue to wear that collar,” she called back as she passed through the debris. “you’ll find you’ve been hung by it.” Katie watches her till she is out of sight, then pulls the knife out of the headrest and begins to cut herself free.
Not a single goddamned thing on this planet makes sense, she thought as she cuts away the heavy leather strap. Every five fucking minutes it’s something new. The strap is off and a second later she’s on her feet and naked save a papery hospital gown pilfered from a nearby desk. You need to find a different line of work girl, she thinks as she moves through the debris in the direction the woman had come from. Teuschle takes care as she moves. There isn’t any footwear to be found in the collection of junk, and she hopes that the evacuation has come to a close. Naked foreign women armed with knives and dressed in nothing but hospital gowns sometimes draw attention. She pauses in front of a steel mirror set into the wall at the end of the medical hall.
Her eyes have turned green alright, she notes, pulling down her eyelids to get a better look. She wonders if it’s permanent. Then she runs a finger over her Collar. The canvas of it has been worn soft from wear. She’s taken it off before, but never in an uncontrolled environment. Hygiene and emergencies, two primary rules. She’s worn it for so long it almost feels like a part of her. If the Pressians have more of those little switches, she’s fucked. If her superiors find her Collarless behind enemy lines, hard questions will be asked.
“What a fucking situation…”
She curls her fingers around the Collar and closes her eyes.
[end trans]
END ACTION SIX: [historiae] TIME ELAPSED: D-8 TO CLEANSING: CASA NOSTRA ON STATION IN ORBIT AROUND PRESSIA AMBASSADOR CLASS PERICLES EN ROUTE FOR EVAC
A LUX, DEO
As of note, this action doesn't include the repercussions for the choice made earlier, that'll come early next action so I can start brainstorming that part right away.
Also, could anyone tell me why my poll is wigging out? HTML hates me.
The next actions should be finished in a more timely manner. Sorry for the delays and thanks for reading!
by NamelessSynthetic » Sat Jun 02, 2012 11:37 pm 
