Interzeit: A Space Opera (15 page)

Eventually he was woken by a knock at the door.
Slinking
back into the realness of his life,
he half expects
to slip on some wet souvenir left on the floor from the night before.

After a shower and shave he felt
livelier
. They rushed him quickly to the surface afterwards, hoping to preserve his well kept state at its optimum presentability. He was excited to see the
sun,
his anticipation grew as they pulled him up the elevator. The dark pit of the launch pad watched him knowingly as he ascended with his escorts (their presence taking on an ever more definable double role).

The pit of darkness allowed his escaped, as it knew the face of the guards. It knew that he would be back to serve in its black kingdom.

The sun was intense, blinding him on its sudden re-emergence into his field of view. They led him across the base as he shaded his eyes with his hand. He worked through the squinting and fluttering.

An officer’s center of some kind, it had large tiled floors
,
a stair case leading up to a second level. They walked up the stairs, and he recognized Ophelia in a glass room of some kind, a meeting room.

Translucent, but sealed so as to (theoretically) give them all the privacy that a military situation warranted.

Their eyes met as he headed towards the door. When they did, he
smiled,
it felt good, like re-connecting with the sun
had
.

Nol
broke eye contact th
e rest of the way into the room
.

He was torn between two minds. She had questions,
they were innocent and pure in intention (as far as he could te
ll, though often the leviathan of
the Cabinet can choose to take on any face it wishes), but he could not answer the
m without spilling the secrets
he had hours before agreed to retain underground.

Berkant was no
fool,
a leak would be found and expelled,
or worse. He didn’t fear dying
, but there was one thing he would not betray the secrets for.

Ophelia was
lovely,
her kindness almost covered her inquisitive intentions entirely, such as.

“Are you okay Nol?” She asked generally, an open one, deceivingly open.

“Yes, of course,” Nol smiled back,

“You aren’t hurt?”

“Why do you ask?” Nol scanned his skin for a cut or bruise he had missed,

“You were limping as you came in, did you hurt your leg somehow?”

His paranoia crept in, had he limped? He didn’t think so, but he could be wrong. It was a ruse, it must be.

“I hadn’t noticed,” He said finally, trying not
fidget
and test her claims for
himself
, “Maybe I just slept on it wrong.”

She
smiled,
a smile can mean a thousand different things.

The
y
moved
past the topic. Next,
she asked about the details of training, he admitted that it was rough.

“Not
everybody
can handle this,” He says, “
But…I think it’s for a good purpose
.”

She gave a
plain
“Hmm”, and filed it away in some unknown database within her
brain
.

He was escorted back to the “Synchronization Training” room, where everyone was well into mumbling nightmarish connection sessions, building their connection to the
AI,
and the nervous system that they all needed
ti
learn to work with
.

They wired him in silently, he stared at the ceiling as they worked, emptying his mind, trying to ready himself as the electrical tension built inside him. He was launched into
it, and he started the old patterns. The AI embraced it immediately, remembering his past actions with precision.

His eyes failed him, and he was flying through a blue empty space. It was serene,
and
unexpectedly soothing.
Out of no
where
he lost the flying
and
fell
. Suddenly his
actions were back in his own form, his own hands materia
li
zing before him.

He was configured into his slashing from the night before. His murderous rage refills him, and the AI loops it over and over, attentive
ly
drinking in this action.

Repeating again he slashes through the assailant with the blade, everything is strong, something locking in, a movement with purpose at last. The scene divides in half and multiplies, and divides again. This dimensional cell mitosis continues ten fold, then the re-merge
s
into
itself
, leaving
Nol
in a room with twenty instead of two.

He feels
an invisible smile curling to the corners of a non-existent mouth,
anticipation,
it awaits its next lesson.

In his mind’s throat he screams obligingly, his rage flies free, and her runs in blasting and slashing.

The blood sprays into a mist, boiling into a fog, red rage murder fills him. He loses all composure and cleaves through them recklessly with both hands. The emitter blade tears free and hungrily through two and three bodies at once.

In his rage he cuts his own neck with a back swing. A tinge of real pain shoots through him. His fingers touch to the wound, a black oozing ichor returns with them.

The
Nazer
cruised smoothly back towards the inner system. Septis and Lei watched the twinkling pastiche of space roll by on the command deck’s view screen. They shared
stories,
Septis intently deman
ded a thorough recounting of her mission
. Over and over, questioning minor details she hadn’t considered.

“Will you stay with me for longer, Lei?” Septis asked, “I could use someone with your skill set as an advisor.”

Lei laughed to
herself
, “The executives are quite eager to replace Tiger West, they sense
I think, their edge slipping away
.”

“A power vacuum is dangerous,” Septis agreed, “All of the major players are striving to fill it.”

“The most dangerous part of the power vacuum, is how it is
filled.” Lei added,

Septis learned that she would be meeting up with the TST engi
neers at Lunar Colony 3,
a mixed use habitat that
was well known for being a trade
site for
Kuipterra
and other spacers
.

“Can I come see you?” Septis asked, “After the work on my war mech is complet
e, I will need a…” He hesitates
to reveal his true intentions.

“Don’t you have families of bonded instructors to fill this role Prince?” She asked cautiously,

“None of them have ever seen combat. The future is unstable
to leave in the hands of theorists
. The only two in my nation who had this experience are of no help to me.”

“I can’t promise
anything,” Lei answered, “
Tian
Shan
is bigger than any individual citizen, even a
mech
pilot.
”

They returned to t
rading stories and experiences.

Xuna
came to him after an hour of this, informing him of an urgent communication from Earth. They put it on screen, the message faded in with the seal of the planetary cabinet. A surge of excitement and tension rolled through Septis.

However, when the image faded in,
in the picture was another Cabinet bureaucrat
. Their grey and white robes and stoic demeanor delivered the message from the Executor himself. It was an order to turn back from Earth.

A specific trade
route,
had turned on its unified distress call
. It was a distribution colony orbiting around the primary ITN gravity corridor between Ceres and Mars.

The critical resource channel served as a cornerstone for most of the space community. Septis offered to lend Lei a craft to send her onwards to the Moon on her own.

She resisted, not wanting to leave a
TST matter in
Kuipterra
n hands.
However, the robed official explained that t
he Executor
was reaching
out to the
Nazer
specifically for time and distance reasons.

The
stations orbiting the corridors were at risk of total collapse.

“There must be something I can do,” Lei protested
her departure now
, “I can’t turn
my back on people in trouble.”

“There is nothing,”
Septis
lamented, “You are a war mech pilot, Lei. And we have no war mechs here.”

They argued awhile longer, but the point sank in. Lei thanked Xuna and Septis once again, and was given a small personal ship to continue her journey.

She launched away from the
hangar in the small fixed wing craft
.

The
Nazer
drifted into a curve, a ship with
no rockets, or jet
s, the large angular monolith willed itself by some mysterious force towards its new destination
.

Septis
issued a general alert to the crew of the Nazer as they changed destination. The pilots scrambled into their gear, and spacesuits. The engineering bay readied the auxiliary generators, warming them
up to increase energy capacity.

“How do you feel about this one Xuna?” He asked,

“The lack of intelligence is disconcerting,”
She answered, “Walking in blind
is dangerous,”

“How many pilots can we spare for recon?” He continued,

“We have
12
interplanetary class strike craft,
4
cargo class transports, and
17
light assault drones. One strike craft,
and
two drones would be my recommendation, we slow speed, and arrive fifteen minutes after them.”

“Sensible, see it done.” Septis replied, “I want the targeting computer online, and the lasers hot by the time we roll in,”

The pair call
s the
tactical
staff
and examined the data on the colony.
The colony,
Jibril
,
orbited around the gravity corridor in a centerless halo path. The corridor was a slow, but efficient way to ship unrefined materials of great magnitudes to Mars.

Many taking several years to reach the refineries of her moons, these packages were shipped out in a constant assembly line manner. Some of the larger ones being fitted with stabilizer rings, a simple insurance method for such valuable commodities.

The colony had weak cannons
, but
a thick hull
. Like a snake tail, a magnetically corralled field of asteroids followed behind its orbit. This tail was ever expanding and contracting, being processed and shipped out in carefully automated paces.

“
I feel like a knight,” Septis mutters as they discuss likely attack vectors.

Most of the staff grow silent, confused by the ambiguous and grandiose statement,

“Sir,” Xuna said finally, “That isn’t an appropriate summation of your position.”

“I didn’t mean it literally,” He continued, “I feel we are being played, by someone, perhaps multiple forces. For now we seem to b
e stuck, like a knight in chess
.”

“The knight is an important piece,”
A tactical officer commented, “Mobility is the key to offense, offense the key to victory.”

Septis
agreed, “
W
hile we’re performing the
chivalrous
duties of safeguarding the board, the larger game goes on, following a larger pattern that we cannot see. Our fast
galloping,
and narrow visor ensures this.”

“There can be no more delay after this.
” He says
,”
We must return to Earth.”

The chamber grew quiet, the command
ers, captains and substrata vitri
cul
at
ing downwards into the petty officers and technicians of the ship
. One by one took their necessary posts.

The aura of something unfamiliar to their generation was forming slowly. It was crystallizing slowly as the accumulation of nervous pangs, anger, and fatigue conglomerated around them. It was dread, its dark form shaped and trapped in the structure of the will.

Their indiv
idual survival had to be subdued
. Hierarchy is a convenient spell for organization. Smooth, almost gliding, it only becom
es tense when the costs of their
trust come to bear. Septis sees Xuna monitoring the scouts closely. They pinged in small dots as their beacons repeated their position back to them.

“Two engagements,” He said to her softly, “Is not so bad.”

“The precedent
is
being set Prince,” She responded, not pulling her gaze from her terminal.

“Yes, I feel it too. It’s a slippery slope, from policing to war.” He replied.

In the ensuing silence,
he turned away, pacing the deck
. It was an exterior calm. Caught in-between moments, Septis is trapped in an insulated
serenity,
his mind traces and re-traces steps well executed in the hands of others.

His restlessness builds inside of his chest, his breath quickens.

“Xuna, relay the recon information to me as soon as you process it.”

“Sir?”
She replied,

He looked at her in
tently and nodding
and
then
leaving the deck. He travels past the administrative staff in the n
ext room, and takes a turbolift. It flits quickly through the gliding constructed corridors. Pristine, efficient, he arrives.

He walks around the outer section
of the ship. Shaped in a square it
traveled the circumference of the craft, the point of greatest volume, where the Triangular spikes merged, intersecting.
The corridor is wide
until it branches
.
Septis
follows the outer branch into
the narrow weapon’s ring. T
his path leads out to the geometric protrusions of the ship. Angling up, out, below and above, little snake holes of metal leading to each points emitter cannon.

The turretmen turn quickly upon his arrival to their emitter nook
s
.

They wear black
jumpsuits, that
melt into the low lighting of reds and greens. Their advanced ionic systems trail up and down their bodies like macabre Christmas lights, culminating at their head,
the
nexus point of all sensors natural and unnatural.

He approaches the first three man crew he comes
across,
their heads bow as he enters the cannon room.

“For what, do we deserve this honor m’lord?” The crew captain says with gushing formality.

Septis learns their names, Corin, Kimson, and the crew captain Maethus. With much brooding he gives them a speech, or is it a request, a prayer to them, to the fates in general?

“Maethus,” He says, “How have
the weapon teams performed thus far?”

He told him with pride that they were expectional: fearless, eager, precise. The cannon technicians nodded in thanks, and amplified his opinion.

“So far, you have done your duty without erring in the slightest. I thank you on behalf of all the lives you have saved.”

“Thank you Prince,” Corin bows,

“
These are troubling times,” Septis continues, “Perhaps this is the last battle we will ever see. I am hopeful for that, but we must be ready. Darkness falls over the
system,
this may only yet be a harbinger, a taste of the madness to follow.

We
will
do
our duty, but
i
n madness there is no safety
. There is no guarantee of anything but death.

Even in perfect harmony we may lose some along the way, we may all pay the ultimate price. So take pride in your unity.”

He wanders past them, moving on. His head turns back for one last comment, “
And prepare for the trouble
it may bring.”

Septis is wandering through the crystalline corridors when he receives word from Xuna. Thirty-ei
ght ships were still attacking
the meager
Jibril
.

Xuna
had already given the order to burn reserve fuel to close the remaining gap.

“ETA
five
minutes, please return the the command deck sir.”

Septis
took a last look
at the catacomb of technicians turning soldiers
.

The command deck was
in a state of uproar
, the tactical team poured over the data coming in from the scouts.

A large
squad
of ships swarmed around the colony, being peppered by the blasts of
Jibril’s
rail guns.

Usar
and one
remaining
drone
skirmished
defensively around the tail end
of the formation.

Septis
oversaw the projected targets and trajectory calculations, assigning the ships
’
targets in
advance
.

Septis, Xuna, and the rest sat down around the tactical terminal, its complex hologram floating above the flat table surface.

They arrived,
screaming onto the battlefield,
continuing
to gaze intently on the tactical hologram. The real space came and went in the screen view in the background. The realness of the death around them, reduced to digestible information.