Tag Scifi

Conscript, part 5

Captain Mayor Brooks

by Nolan Conrey

This short story is set outside of the Sapient Union, in Glorian space.

The last twenty days passed, a painful blur.

There were only 62 of their unit of 100 left.  They all knew that they were expected to end up with a unit of at least 50, but were more than that allowed?

Their first test of the day was test-firing, to show their skill.

Aiming under these circumstances wasn’t that challenging for them at this point.  Even their worst marksmen were able to achieve par times.

Then they cut down the time.

“If any of you fail to achieve Par Time, you will be shot!  In the unfortunate case of more than one of you failing, well . . . you’ll have to pick who dies.”

No one failed to achieve par time.  Lukis was starting to feel his nerves, and he did not know if he could make it, though, if they cut the time down again.

But they moved on.  The next was a combined field-test; in full kit they had to cross a no-man’s land to reach Guardian Drones before mortars came in.  There was gas on the field, so any damage to your suit’s seal would mean death.

They all made it across, survived the gas and the mortar rain.

Then they were issued ammo for their rifles.

“You will engage in a live-fire exercise against enemy machines!  You will survive and defeat the enemy!”

How the hell could they do that? he wondered.  Though they had progressed to the point of being able to usually defeat the machine men, they still took heavy casualties.

In this case, though, something was different.  The machines did have live-fire weapons, but their full armor was able to take the hits; he and his unit had Guardian drones, too, which intercepted the majority of incoming shots.  They’d never had those in prior training, and the difference they made was huge; almost every round fired by the machines was intercepted.

Their prior training had them conditioned to not exposing themselves, which made it even easier.

The machines had no Guardian drones, no defense at all except some partial armor.

He destroyed the last one himself.  27 and 14 outflanked it, forcing it to move to new cover, when he and two others bracketed it with fire.  It tumbled into a shell hole, and his bloodlust made him move to the lip.

The machine man’s face just had the barest hint of features like eyes, nose, and mouth, its expression eternally passive.  It was trying to take up its weapon with its only remaining arm, but was having trouble reaching it.

Lukis felt like it was justice when he opened fire and destroyed it.

He and the others were cheering by the end; there was only one wounded, 18, and he was walking.

Their win seemed crazy, impossible, but he did not dwell on it, cheering with the others.

“Prepare for Operation 2,” the announcer said.

They hadn’t been told of another operation, but they gathered up.

“You will run it again,” they were told.

They did it again.  This time, one of their group was injured, badly.  A round slipped through his Guardian drone fire, taking him in the side where he had no armor.

The Medics took his body away.

“Again.”

They ran it again.  The machines had better weapons now.  They lost five men, three more badly wounded.

“Again.”

He lost track at ten runs.  But they kept going.  More and more of their group was wounded.  Two more in the next run were killed.  Another was wounded, but not badly enough to be pulled out.  He died on the next run.

The Medics gave them stims, which amped them up but made thinking clearly a little harder.  They kept going on.

By the time they were done, there were only 52 left.

“That’s enough,” they were told.  “You have passed your final test.”

No one felt like celebrating, dragging themselves into the barracks.

“You may wear your armor as you rest,” the Sergeant told them.  “You’ve earned the right.”

The next day they held a parade.  They got to march, after cleaning their armor, through the camp.  They were given crests to put on their helmets, which they returned after the march.  There was genuine excitement again; the officers gave speeches praising them.

“You have shown the capability of greatness.  No longer are you subject to summary execution!  You have earned the privilege of a court trial.  You have begun your path towards proving you are a True Glorian!  Fight well for the Emperor.  Die well.  Your valor will determine how you are remembered, and what bonuses your family will be paid.  Now, take a rest day.  By the Grace of the Emperor.”

They got to drink their fill; all the Barracks Grog they could handle, and even their Sergeant came in to give them some good words.

“A lot of Glorians think that you Ouans are lesser – that you lost that spark inside that made you able to be Men.  But I looked at you that first day, and I saw; some of you still have it.  And by the Emperor, I’d drag it out of you or you’d die in the trying.  Now look at you; you’re on your way to being real Men.  It’ll do.”

And one by one they received their new nicknames.  01 became Fist, 07 Blitz.

Lukis got his message in his HUD and opened it.

“Your codename is Bastard,” it said.

What the hell kind of name was that?

“What’d you get?” one man yelled, slurring and barely audible over the shouts and partying.

“Can’t hear you,” Lukis said, shrugging him off and stepping away.  Feigning going to the bathroom, he looked at his face in the bathroom mirror.

To be a bastard was not a good thing . . . and yes, his father was dead, but he’d known him.  He had been a beloved son, this was . . .

It bothered him.

A shout out in the main room that killed off all the jubliation startled him.  Fearing a fight, he went out, but saw that everyone had fallen into attention, and a group of officers were walking down the middle of the room.

He slipped in with the others and saluted, but was noticed.  The officer scowled but moved on.

“You are all to report, in full kit, outside of the barracks in ten minutes,” the officer said.  “I expect to see you all.  Go!”

They began a mad scramble to the barracks; ten minutes was not a lot of time, but even moreso than getting in full kit was the sluggishness of their own actions after drinking so much.

Lukis saw that half of the unit was present by the time he came out, and the last few came out not long after.  He didn’t know how long it had been, but not everyone was here when the officer came out.

“Three missing,” he said.

“That’ll put us at forty-nine,” their Sergeant said, his voice electronic in his helmet.

“Just two then,” the officer said.

The last three hurried out, and the Sergeant directed two of them away.  The last glanced after his compatriots, but got in formation.

A few moments later they heard the sound of shots.  Lukis flinched, staring at the officer, who watched them calmly.

“Being late is unnaceptable,” the officer said.  His eyes went over them.  “Does anyone wish to discuss it?”

Lukis’s mind went over the grand speeches they’d been given earlier.  But he did not say anything, nor did anyone else.

“Dispense weapons,” the officer said.  He was watching them all, amused.  As if daring them to resist in any way.

They were given rifles, and ammo.  Just one magazine each.

“Weapons live,” the officer said.

As one, they loaded their rifles and turned off the safeties.

“Divide into parties of ten.  Down the line, shoulder-to-shoulder.”

They got in lines, and Lukis wondered just how many here were thinking of shooting the mocking, cruel officer in front of them.

But no one raised their weapon.  They’d probably be killed before they could even get it up.  If their guns even worked.

“There is one last task for your unit before you are shipped out,” the officer said.  “I pride myself on efficiency.  One key to that is not to leave loose ends.  Your compatriots who were late cleared one up for me – having more than the standard number in a unit is not unheard of – but something of an annoyance.”

He paused in front of Lukis, staring into his helmet.  Lukis stayed still, and after a few moments he moved on.

“But there’s another loose end.”  He gestured, and a line of men came out.  Several stopped in front of each group of soldiers, twenty paces away.  They were gaunt, skin and bones, in loose-fitting smocks.  Chains bound their hands and arms, and they stared at the unit with fear.

Lukis recognized some of them, after a few moments of getting used to their new state; they were men from their original group who had been removed or dropped out.

“Ready!” the officer barked.

Around him, his comrades raised their rifles.  The condemned men began to beg – to them, to the officers, the emperor, or the Infinite.  But their leg chains were hooked onto the ground, and they could not do anything.

“Take aim!”

They all aimed at the cowering men.  Lukis found his weapon was shaking.  He knew the man in front of him, they had talked.  He was from the same world as Lukis.

He could have been my neighbor, he thought.

“Fire!”

The peal and cracks of rifles firing went through the air, his helmet bringing the sharp sound down a little.

He hadn’t fired.

Suddenly behind him he heard shouting.

“Point and fire your weapon, soldier!  Fire now!” the man was screaming at him.  He felt a bump as a pistol was put to his head.

He would either die now, or he would kill himself, he thought.

“This is your last warning!”

Lukis looked down his sights at the man.  He was already down, shots from several of his fellows.

But he was still alive.  Still breathing.  His arm was moving feebly.

This was mercy, Lukis thought, as he pulled the trigger.

FINIS

< Conscript Part 4 |

Conscript, part 4

Captain Mayor Brooks 1 Comment

by Nolan Conrey

This short story is set outside of the Sapient Union, in Glorian space.

They had little such downtime, though.  Almost every day they were training from morning until night.  Some days the canteen had little or no food for them, and even the Barracks Grog got rationed.

“Sometimes supplies can’t reach the front.  Things get too hot.  You gotta learn to do without,” their Sergeant told them.

The meds stove off the hunger pains in their bellies, but not the dull loss of energy.

Would they really get these stims if they had no food?  Lukis didn’t know, but he doubted it.

After one such hunger day they had their first mock-battle.  The enemy were just machines that looked like men, but they moved like professional sprinters and tumblers, hard to track.

“This time only they will have harmless laser weapons.  If you get a kill sound,” a sharp squawk came into their helmets, “then stop and put your hands up.  You’ve been killed.”

They went out.

Lukis went all of twelve steps when he got a squawk in his ear.  “Sniper, at 110 degrees,” a cool computer voice told him.

He put up his hands, looking out and saw a figure highlighted.  His comms were off so he couldn’t even talk to the rest of the unit, warn them.  He saw the sniper take aim again and again, the red words ‘KILL CONFIRMED’ popping above its head like it was a video game.

He looked around, and saw that probably half of the unit was dead already.  Surprise and confusion took the rest before long; the machines moved to flank them, and before five minutes was up they were all dead.

“Fucking pathetic,” the Sergeant said.  “You’re all meat, all of you.  The xenos will be fucking your sisters tonight, you’re a shame on humanity.”

Lukis found that he did not flinch at the casual horribleness of his statements.  He did not find himself believing that aliens were really coming their women, but he had to admit that he didn’t really know.  He had never met an alien.

“You’re gonna go again.  And again, until at least one of you survives the ten minute mark.  If you unlikely bunch of shits manage to win – which I doubt – then you’ll even eat tonight.  So watch the mech boys carefully, learn their tactics, and maybe you can do it.”

They fought the whole rest of the day, getting one break and half a pint of Barracks Beer.

He looked, he tried to observe.  He spoke with the others, but no one had any useful ideas.

It didn’t matter; the machine men beat them every single time, all day.

By the end of the day, they were so tired that they could barely move.

“That’s the enemy,” their Sergeant told them.  “The Sapient Union are cowards by nature.  They fight using machine men.  They’ll lube ’em up with your blood, if your performance today is any indication, and humanity is fucked.”

One man raised a hand.  “I thought it was just our sisters,” he said.  A chorus of laughs went through the crowd.

It was 09, Lukis saw.  The man had always struck him as believing everything they were told, not the type to make a joke!

But the man looked exhausted, his eyes hollow.  Maybe he didn’t care, or he thought that this kind of joke was okay.

Lukis knew it wasn’t.

The Sergeant took out his sidearm and shot him.

He fell, a slightly surprised look on his face, while the Sergeant, red in the face, turned towards them all.  “You think this is funny?  How funny do you think he finds it now?” he roared.  “I was gonna let you retards rest, but now you’re running it ten more times!  Get out there, and some of these bullets are going to be live!”

The rest of the night passed in terror.  Night fell and they could barely see, even with their helmets enhancing enemy targets, the ground was just a dark blur.

Twice he thought he was going to take a real bullet, he heard real gunshots.  But it must have been a coincidence, someone else taking a real round.  

In their ninth run, he found one of the victims.  He wasn’t dead, just laying propped up against the mud, breathing hard and holding the wound on his stomach.

He’d taken off his helmet, but even with his face uncovered Lukis did not recognize him.  He watched with eyes wide, the stark white of them standing out against the dark ground more than anything else.

“Medic!” Lukis screamed.

“21 is calling for a Medic,” the announcing voice called.  “No Medics are available.  Leave the dead.”

“He isn’t dead!” Lukis said, the panic prompting him to go on.

“Leave the dead.”

An observation drone hovered right over him.  They were armed; it could shoot him at any moment if he did not obey.

He could not look back at the wounded man, and went on.

They did not take any games that night; but they came close.  The machine soldiers were fast, accurate, and coordinated.  They didn’t throw their lives away in vain, and they often predicted their human enemies’ actions with startling accuracy.

But they had exploitable behaviors.  You could give them apparent openings, and they would operate on what they could clearly see and move into a trap.

It wasn’t a great advantage.  But the machines weren’t immortal; a good burst from their light-guns would cause them to shut down.

In the last match, Lukis and his unit managed to whittle their numbers down to just six.  But they still lost.  The machines feinted a forward assault with four losing two in the process, but their remaining two carefully flanked and then killed their last ten with precise shots.

The Sergeant, pissed, chewed them out for another hour and dismissed them.  They had just three hours to rest before wake-up.

The next day was an instruction day.  They sat and got Injection Learning all day, broken up only by the Sergeant occasionally swatting them across the back.  To make sure they remembered reality, he said.

The Injection Learning was never enjoyable, but with so little sleep he found his brain started hurting very early on, and his headache only grew in intensity.

All day they learned of their enemy’s tactics in an infantry fight: the pure drone warfare of the Bicet, the fast and aggressive tactics of the Dessei, the solid and defensible positions of the Sepht that slowly enveloped, and of course about the tactics of Depraved Humanity.

Their true enemy; they would have to overcome Depraved Humanity, liberate it from the Alien, and reclaim Earth.  It was their solemn duty.

Which made no sense to Lukis.  The one concept he had learned growing up that had seemed important to him was to live and to let others live.  You did not have to mix, but you could let live.  It had been the founding ideal of the Ouo Ledori . . .

But he knew what they wanted you to say, and interspersed through the hours of tactics were the political tests, making sure that you were loyal, that you were a good Glorian Soldier.

Gloria Aeternus.

The tactics of humanity did rely heavily on the machine soldiers, but they had real troops mixed in there, too.  The tactics suggested ways to tell them apart, but the Union machine soldiers were very good at seeming organic in their movements – until they sprung into action.  That was one of the best times to tell them apart, but since sticking your head out for too long got it shot off, and targeting drones were the enemy’s second-priority target, it really didn’t tell you much.

Every Glorian Soldier who kills a Depraved Human warfighter will receive a bonus of 2,000 Credits.

Every Glorian Soldier who kills a Xeno warfighter will receive a bonus of 5,000 Credits.

The words seared into his brain, and for the first time he found himself recoiling at the hideous thought of getting a bonus for committing murder.

Fear made him stop.  He heard the footsteps of the Sergeant approach, and he made himself be still.  Too much of a negative reaction, they might look at what it was that bothered him.  And they would not like his reaction to that.

“Something bothering you?” the Sergeant asked.

“No, sir!” he barked back.

The Sergeant smacked his back with his stick, then moved on.

< Conscript Part 3 | Conscript Part 5 >

Conscript, part 3

Captain Mayor Brooks 1 Comment

by Nolan Conrey

This short story is set outside of the Sapient Union, in Glorian space.

Not every day was horrible.  Every Tenth day, after they passed another life-or-death training run, they got the rest of the day off.

Some of the others set up a drinking area on top of one of their small barracks hut.  Just a short ladder climb and some ad hoc chairs and crates for tables awaited you.  There was always plenty of Barracks Grog, even if it was shit.

They’d introduced that the first day; they could have as much as they wanted.  The pseudo-alcohol could give you a little buzz, but it never built up in your system enough to make you truly stupid.  He’d drank beer before, but this was new, and they had all taken to it.

It was strange to feel up high on the barracks; they never were up high, only in the buildings or underground.  The gravity on this world was heavy; Lukis did not know the name of it, they just called it Boot Camp.  The muscle stims and barracks grog had helped them adjust quickly.

Surely the whole planet wasn’t just used for training, right?  But maybe it was.  He’d caught a glimpse of it from orbit; the land largely barren, the seas a deep, ugly blue, almost black.  It seemed to look like a habitable world while lacking everything that made a habitable world seem nice.

Someone told him that the place hadn’t had any native life.  “Means we seeded it by coming here.  Every germ we shed is gonna make life here.  We’re ancestors!”  Later on, Lukis saw that in the Injection Learning.

From the tops of their huts, they could see all the way out of the camp, to neighboring camps, that seemed to exist at specific intervals.  One was slightly up a cliff side.

“They can see all the other camps really well,” one of his companions said.  Among themselves the use of their names or nicknames were discouraged.  After the fifth day they didn’t even hear their names from the speakers anymore; just their number.

09 was the speaker.  “I bet they can see into the women’s camp.  I bet they get a great view.”

“Women’s camp?  There are no women in the combat corps!” 80, his other companion, said.  The highest-number man to be alive in the unit, which he insisted made him the senior.  

“There are women Dreadnoughts,” 09 replied mockingly.  “And they have to go through training like we do.  I heard from a guy that one of the camps nearby is for women.  So put two and two together . . .”

Lukis watched the two argue it back and forth.  He doubted that there was a women’s camp nearby.  He didn’t know enough about Dreadnoughts to weigh in, though.

The punishment for leaving camp without permission was execution, so it wasn’t like they were going to find out.

The argument died off, settling nothing.  They drank again for a few more minutes.

“Twenty days until we’re through,” 09 finally said.

“Yeah,” Lukis said.  “Just twenty days.”

“Feels like it’s been forever,” 80 said.

09 snorted.  “Yeah, you don’t take to it like I do.”

80 didn’t rise to the bait, though, as they all thought on what would happen once they completed their training.  In just the one month all of their lives changed drastically, and in twenty days it would do so again.

Lukis had no idea what would happen.  None of them did.  There was little concept given of what service was like, other than serving Gloria and doing what you were told, sometimes dying.

They didn’t even know where they’d be.  Sent off to serve as the Conscript Infantry in the Glorian Empire, but where?  A backwater planet, a space station?

All he knew was the most basic; serve out your time, then go back home until they needed you again.

Or make a career of it, if you took to it.  Lukis did not feel like he wanted to do this, even if he seemed to be okay at a lot of it.  He’d gotten an AI-generated kudos after starting the chant of ‘hold’ during their Holding Sit.

“Where do you wanna go?” 09 asked, glancing at him.

“I guess wherever they send me,” Lukis said.  Home, he wished.

80 slapped him on the arm.  “21’s just happy as long as he gets enough Barracks Grog!”

“That’s it,” Lukis said, taking a deep swig of his drink.

“I wanna go to Gloria,” 09 said.  “They say it’s the most beautiful planet in the universe.”

“Hey, don’t go getting sentimental,” 80 said.  “Look, we got new conscripts over there.”

Lukis sat up, looking out.  A whole line of a hundred people were walking into the Welcome Center.  It was not another structure, only half of one; a massive protrusion of mechanical parts projecting out of a wall that the conscripts had to go under.

The new unit of conscripts were herded forward, under the massive machinery, and sat down in chairs.  The chairs grabbed onto them, and a few screamed, until they were silenced by a shock stick or slap from an officer.

“Calm down!” a voice drifted over from the group.  “This is just for preparatory work.  Sit still and it will be fine.”

Next to Lukis, 09 laughed.  “Hard to believe we were ever shitters like that.”

Lukis could not help but to look at him in shock.  It had only been three weeks since they’d been the ones in those chairs.

“Oh, here it comes,” 80 said, pointing.  His Barracks Grog sloshed in his glass, out onto his hand.

A massive machine was slowly moving down the line.  It hung down from giant arms above, with meters of machinery built in.  Large cupolas in its underside and it would move over the heads of a row and then dip down, covering them almost to the chin.  There were uncomfortable sounds under there; discomfort and surprise that always culminated in a shriek of pain.  Strapped in their chairs, they could not escape the machine as it crawled towards them.

Lukis still remembered sitting down there when the machine came at them.  The shock block wasn’t enough to make the memory neutral in his mind.

When the machine lifted to go to the next row, you could see that it had shaved the heads of the conscripts, and burned a code onto the back of their heads.

The worst part was the least visible; the metal disc on the sides of each conscript’s head.  He’d focused on the forced cutting of his hair, the fear of a brand, not even noticed the implant.

The memory of the drill that had cut into his head, implanted the device through his skull was one he could not shake.

A quick injection after that, and a little spray of Flesh-Metal Conjoiner, and then it moved on.

A medic had given them all a quick check-over.  One simply looked into his eyes with a scanner.

“21 is fine,” he had said, moving onto the next immediately.

The headaches for the rest of that first day, and through the night, had been agonizing.  He’d gotten a fever, and the others in his barracks banged on the doors until someone came.  A Medic gave him another injection.

“Now go to sleep!” the man had barked afterward.  “Don’t bother me again, if he dies he dies!”

By morning he’d been still alive, and feeling better.  But his mechanical port remained swollen and inflamed for the rest of the week.

The machine dipped on the second-to-last row.  The screams of pain were louder than usual, and as the machine lifted, one young man was thrashing.

Lukis leaned forward, his heartbeat picking up.  The machinery stopped, lifting higher so the officers and medics could step in.

Blood was splashing out of the man’s head.  It went down his side, onto the man next to him.  Red splattered the white pants of the medics.

Something had gone wrong with his implant; it had not gotten a hold and fallen out under the blood pressure.

One of the officers took out his gun, put it on the young man’s head, and fired.

The ringing blast of the gun fell away, and no other sound replaced it.

Lukis sat still, as did everyone.

“It was a mercy,” 80 said softly.

< Conscript Part 2 | Conscript Part 4 >

Conscript, part 2

Captain Mayor Brooks 1 Comment

by Nolan Conrey

This short story is set outside of the Sapient Union, in Glorian space.

Thirty seconds to cross the field had been surprisingly achievable.

Looking back on it, he was surprised it had taken him as long as it had to make it across the first time.  His fear had made him run foolishly.

Growing the muscle mass had been quick; the growth shots and their high-protein diets made them swell quickly.

His mom had always told him he’d been too skinny.  Now he looked at himself in a mirror and his muscles were defined even when he did not flex.

But the Field Run hadn’t been the worst of it, not by far.

There was the Gas Run, where you kept having to run to different stations to get a mask, which would only last for twenty seconds before intentionally opening.  Double-dipping didn’t help, every mask opened as when that timer hit, even on the racks.  A few had made the mistake of trying and died gasping.

And far worse than the Gas Run had been the Holding Sit.  When mortar shells had been shot at them constantly from above, and they had to hold positions in the open.  All they could do was to huddle under their Guardian drones and hope their combat armor would protect them from the shrapnel.

Sitting in rings, being in the middle meant that there was less chance of ricocheting shrapnel hitting you in the ass.  But it also meant you were at the center of the target; if the Guardian Drones missed one mortar it’d land in your lap.

A few panicked and tried to run out the first time; they were in the same area as the Field Run, and they were so close to the bunkers.

But those who tried, hadn’t made it.  The mortar fire picked up immediately.

Their first shelling, he’d felt the man next to him try to run.  Crushed together so tightly, he could feel the muscles in his legs tensing, ready to carry him out once he thought he’d found the right timing.

“Don’t!” he’d yelled to the man.  He hooked his arm around the other man’s, and his neighbor with his other, locking him in.  “Hold!” he yelled.

“Hold!” another yelled, then another.  Rapidly many.

Then it became a chant.  “Hold!  Hold!  Hold!”

The man, who he only knew as 27, did not try to run, and they made it through.

Shock block washed away his fear and doubt.

It made one feel great after the training.  They made it!

Yeah, it was deadly.  But as long as you did what you were told, and you were good enough, you would probably make it.  The odds were on your side.

Some still hadn’t been able to take it, though.  Maybe the shock blockers didn’t work well for them, or maybe they were just cowards.

They were encouraged to jeer at the malingerers as ‘COWARD’ was branded onto their foreheads.  Afterwards, still bleeding, they were dragged out by the security officers.

“They will work to repay their debt,” the Sergeant had told them.  “No one gets a free ride!”

They said it like that was some kind of justice.  Lukis knew it was not, but he cheered with the others, even if half-heartedly.  

Many, he saw, really meant it.

During their second shelling, one shell slipped through the Guardian drone barrage.  No survivors in that group.

Before the shelling they were put into new groups, and Lukis noticed that the people who rated the poorest were all put together.  Older men, with slower reflexes.

He didn’t know if they hit the group intentionally to get rid of them.  But he wondered.  If anyone else did, they didn’t say anything, and he felt alone.  Hating himself for feeling glad it wasn’t his group.

The safest days were just weapons training, or the Injection Learning days.

The former were the best; even if you had to shoot a rifle all day until your ears rang and your body was sore from the recoil, it was a lot better than the alternative.

Injection Learning was supposedly to teach them tactics and formations and other information more efficiently.  A small headset you put on connected to the device in your head.  Images flashed in front of Lukis’s eyes, words repeated, followed by questions.  It was more than just flashing images, he knew, the Injection Learning was literally altering their brains through the device in their skull.  Sometimes the flashes of information were not even things on the screen, but his brain was being prodded in a way that made it visualize the information.

By the end of the day, you knew everything they were showing you; you could answer questions without knowing how you knew the answer.

Always at the end of the Injection Learning was the propaganda.  A steady hour of it that dragged on and on.

Gloria was the home of humanity, since Earth had been taken by the depraved Rejectionists – those who Rejected the Emperor and brought mindless chaos.

Gloria was the New Earth.

Gloria Aeternus

They only had Gloria because of the Emperor.

Emperor Netanoric de Villard the First and Only, High Dynast of the United Glorian Republic and the 501 stars of the Hyades.

Gloria Aeternus

He had saved humanity from falling completely into depravity.

The humanity of the Sapient Union was depraved, chaotic, and under the sway of the Alien.  Humanity would never obtain their birthright and own the galaxy.

Gloria Aeternus

The Alien would weaken humanity and destroy it.

One day, the Emperor’s Avenging Armies would sweep the cosmos clean of the Depraved, Rejectionist, and Alien, and then they would have paradise.

Whenever Lukis thought of any of it, the words Gloria Aeternus popped into his mind.  He could tell the Glorian stories without ever knowing he’d heard them.  He noticed that the way he thought about things was altered; he sometimes wondered what the Emperor would want him to do, what he could do to make Gloria stronger.

But something key was missing.  That part was clear to him.  The imprinting was missing a bedrock, he thought.  He had not been raised hearing about the Emperor and the Glorian “truth”.

It was sometimes just confusing.  He was not Glorian, his homeworld of Eziter was from a small colony world that had been a part of the Ouo Ledory decades ago.  The place had a population under a million, and even with it being taken in the war between Gloria and the Ledory, not much had changed.

Neither, though, had he been particularly religious.  Sometimes the Propaganda spoke to him about Ouan religious ideals that he only knew passingly, disproving them, suggesting new meanings and interpretations and . . . he could only say it was logic in that it was intended as such.  He’d never had a strong belief, so tweaking those beliefs didn’t have much of an impact.

No matter how much they wanted to paint the Emperor as the Chosen of the Infinite, as the Ouo Ledory awaited, it did not mean much when he did not believe in the prophecy.

But it was still strange, going to bed having learned months worth of book-reading in a day.  He woke up with words on his lips, dreamed of pure information and tactics of 3D shapes on theoretical terrains, and specific tactical situations – watch out for the drones, there were always drones, and the gas bombs that would turn the skies a cursed yellow or red, and if you took off your helmet at all you’d die from them and seal any holes in your damn suit!

Death just swirled together into a morass, and he awoke with cramps from thrashing so hard in his sleep, his head burning with fever.

The first time it happened, a Drone came to him.  When it saw that he couldn’t get back to sleep, it swooped in and offered him a sedative.

Drugged sleep was even worse, though.  The same death states persisted, and he relived his own memories in even deeper dreams that felt real.

Lukis got his conscription notice from the network and the next day they came to collect.  One Collection Officer in heavy armor and a dozen sleek and deadly drones.

The man waddled up awkwardly, one of his legs a cheap prosthetic.  He’d just yelled for him to come out, that he had three minutes to appear.

His mother didn’t want him to go, but when he thought about hiding like she said, he saw the Fail State, and they all died.

He told her they’d just talk to the Collection Officer, tell him that he couldn’t go.  They had to do that much.

As soon as they let the man in, it became clear that there was no talking his way out of it.

The man explained the privileges and duties of a conscript.  Lukis remembered, exaggerated in the dream-state, how the place where the man’s mechanical leg met his flesh had been inflamed, the skin peeling.  Seeing him scratch at it disturbed him in a way he couldn’t put into words.

Every step of that tense day, he had to say the right thing, the thing they wanted to hear, or he would hit a Fail State and die.  His whole family would die.

He couldn’t let that happen, it was easy to just be taken along, and so he agreed to everything they said and left with them to be a soldier for Gloria Aeternus.

“Bye mom,” had been his last words to her, in the dream as it had been in real life.

< Conscript Part 1 | Conscript Part 3 >

Conscript, part 1

Captain Mayor Brooks 1 Comment

by Nolan Conrey

This short story is set outside of the Sapient Union, in Glorian space.

Subject: Option for Ouan Conscripts
Name: Lukis Onnu
Age: 17 Standard Earth Years
Home: Elnath IV, “Eziter” (Planet)
Status: Compensated Conscript
Conscript selected by automatic number selection.  Collection process uneventful.
Average metrics in most ways.  Non-practicing member of the Ouan Faith.
Despite Elnath’s conquest into the Glorian being within living memory, the Conscript has no history of Rejectionist Thought.
Seems pliable enough.  He could work.
Expectation of survival of basic training estimated at 57%.

Lukis Onnu looked out at the field of blasted bodies and scarred soil and felt his stomach rebel.

He couldn’t vomit, not now.  This was a time of life and death.

A shrill whistle blew in his ears; the officer was holding up his clicker, and turning on the sound in their ears.

No pretending you didn’t hear it when it was hooked directly into your brain.  Nothing to do but obey.

They ran forward, the ground soft and giving, churned up by hundreds of artillery shells.  He slipped, he slid and fell.  But he got back up, because he knew they did not have much time.

“40 seconds.  Look at Onnu-21, he’s making good time,” a massively enhanced voice was saying from the sky.  He did not know for whose benefit it was.

But they were referring to him, he realized.  His number in the unit was 21.

He stumbled, started to look back, but fear impelled him on.  Forty seconds, he didn’t feel like he’d possibly gotten halfway across the field yet.

“Thirty seconds.  Onnu-21 has slowed but he is still ahead of pace.  Many are falling behind, however.”

Lukis did not know if some audience of people were actually watching; they didn’t tell them that sort of thing.

They only told them that they had a minute and a half to cross this field before the mortars began to fire.  If they weren’t in the bunkers at the other side by then, they would just have to hope that one of the shellholes would protect them.

“We’re not looking for you to die,” their instructor had told them.  “But you need to understand the seriousness of war.  For Gloria Aeternus.“

He leaped a small shell hole, but realized that there was a massive one on the other side, almost five meters deep.

He tumbled and slipped down the side, mud clinging to his clothes and his face.  He rolled until he reached the bottom, where muddy water had accumulated.  His feet splashed into it, and he froze for a moment.

The voice was more distant now.  “Onnu-21 has fallen into a shell crater.  I don’t know if he’ll have time to get out.”

Across from him was a corpse.  Eyes open, staring sightlessly.  His right side was shredded, his leg missing below the knee, his arm at the elbow.

They had been told that these were the bodies of executed traitors, repurposed for something useful.

But the body across from him was wearing a conscript uniform, not the rags of a traitor.

He sat, frozen, a moment longer, then threw himself back up the side of the crater wall.  His hands dug into the soil like when he’d run up the wilting dunes of plantlife on his homeworld.  This was much wetter, but he still went fast, scrambling up the side he knew would collapse if he wasn’t careful.

Dragging himself over the top, he saw that there was only ten meters left.  He ran, throwing up mud, but the ground here was somewhat flatter, as if shells did not often hit this close to the bunkers.

“Onnu-21 is back up.  His time is acceptable.  Gego-17 definitely isn’t going to make it,” the voice said.

Lukis reached the edge of the concrete; small domes were here with sunken stairs that led to an open door.  The door that would seal on each one to protect them from the artillery.

He went down, but then looked back.  Out towards the field.

“Ten seconds.  Onnu-21 is hesitating.  Gego-17 does not have the time.”

He saw someone running.  They were two-thirds of the way across, but ten seconds was not enough time.

Behind him, he realized that he saw a few faces peering out of shellholes.  Some had decided it was better to just seek cover than to try and outrun the shelling.

“Five seconds.  Onnu-21 is running out of time.”

Panic made him duck into the bunker.  The door closed after him just two seconds after he cleared it.

Then he felt tremors in the earth as artillery shells began to hit outside.

He went deeper; this was only the spiral steps that led into the bunker proper.

The spiral steps were tight, each one covered in mud from all the boots that had trekked over them before.  At the bottom, the stairs opened into a wide, if low-ceilinged room.

Every part of it felt grungy; there was water trickling down the walls in places, fungus seemed to cling to the corners, and mud had been tracked everywhere.

The other conscripts were all here, milling in two groups that had wildly different moods.

On one side, they were huddled in fear, pressed together, eyes downcast.  But the other group was cheering, laughing.  They had cans of beer, and seemed in joy.

“Last one,” an officer said.  He eyed the mud on Lukis.

“I didn’t think he’d get out of that hole,” one of the officers said about him without even turning to face him.  “Glad he did, he’s got good legs.”

“Just cowardice,” another officer said, sneering.  “He’ll get his in one of the later tests.”

One of the medics came to him.  He was a big man, made bigger by implants that gave him another ten centimeters of height.  He seemed towering.

“He made it, his future will take care of itself,” the Medic said.  He reached up, grabbing Lukis by the head.  Lukis wanted to fight, but he had already learned it was a very bad idea, and the Medics had enhancements in their arms that let them hold on impossibly hard.

The man jabbed a needle into his neck.  “Take your shock block and have a drink.  Might as well enjoy it while you can.”

The injection felt cold, then suddenly very warm.  Then his fear melted away, replaced by euphoria.

Or . . . he didn’t know; it felt like the elation of surviving.  But now there was no fear or panic or anything over it, letting it dominate his feelings.

He’d survived!

Another officer issued him his beer.  The man smiled, but did not seem happy.

The other conscripts, free of their fear beckoned him over.  The Medics went through and dosed them all, and soon they were all enjoying the fruits of victory.

Giving no thought to those who hadn’t made it, Lukis thought.  But he could not hold onto that thought; his happiness, or the drugs, seemed to keep him from focusing on grim thoughts.

After the first beer they only had Barracks Grog, the mild alcoholic and protein-rich drink that everyone loved to hate.  It did the job, though, and the sense of victory and joy became overwhelming.  They sang songs, the old songs of their homes, but always someone started in with one of the barracks songs, and that overrode it.  But they were fun, easy songs.

“Gloria Aeternus!” they cried, arm in arm and laughing.  Most of the officers had left, but the few left seemed pleased.

Until a whistle went off in their ears again.

For a horrifying moment, Lukis thought that now the next test had started.

But instead, a ranking officer came in.  He walked stiffly, his clean and perfect uniform horrifyingly out of place in the filthy bunker.

“Congratulations to you who have survived your first Field Run.  This time you had a minute and a half.  Next time you will have one minute.  By the time you’re done, you’ll be crossing the field in thirty seconds.”  He paused, his eyes going over them.  “The next run will be in ten minutes.  You have only ten days to improve.  We are expecting you to rise to the challenge.”

Conscript Part 1 | Conscript Part 2 >

The Craton – A Tentative Deck Plan

Captain Mayor Brooks

This is my working map of the Craton’s interior. It’s a massive image, because I tried to make it all to scale as best I could in GIMP. One pixel is half a meter, approximately.

I wanted to share it, so I wrote out some of my thoughts on this.

You may notice some tiny little lines; those are scale markers, showing heights of 1 meter, 1.5 meters, and 2 meters. I hoped they would give some concept of the size of a human within the ship.

This is far from an exhaustive map; I’m sure many floors would be sectioned differently, extending up or down or otherwise conjoined. And of course this is 2D map of a 3D object, so a lot is lost that way! It’s more intended to get across some ideas.

I do try, when writing, to keep an idea of what decks are used for what. But this is a necessarily vague and messy thing.

Now.

1 – Front Cone
The frontal cone of the Craton is composed partially of ground-up bits of the original asteroid mixed into a concrete. This shield is massive and very heavy, but is important for defense, both in combat and in travel. A small object, traveling fast enough, will have the energy of a bomb, so you need something to protect from that.
I will admit something I have not calculated the optimal shape and size of the cone. I will have to do that sometime, and correct this image accordingly. Right now it’s just what I thought looked good.

2 – Coilguns
The Craton possesses three massive coilguns that are almost as long as the ship itself.
These weapons use electromagnetic coils to move objects to a very high speed and shoot them out. A railgun is similar, but by this point railguns would have fallen out of use, as they damage their own barrels by arcing electricity.
The Craton’s coilguns are extraordinarily efficient; perfect conductors and other advances in materials science has made these, while not wasteless (as that’s an impossibility), freakishly close. A tiny, tiny fraction of a percent of the energy is wasted in the form of heat.
However, the exact power of these railguns is something I’ve left fairly vague so far, though they can vary quite a bit; either doing a slow launch of a shuttle or shooting a bus-sized projectile to a fraction of c. They’re not only weapons.
The tip of the barrel of the three coilguns are covered at most times by very heavy slabs of the same material that the front cone is made from; there are several spots down the barrels that can close. This does create a slightly higher risk of failure, but is deemed wise since it’s a tube that runs down the heart of the ship.

3 – Cone Rim Defenses
Each of these dots show the location of one of the Craton’s Point-Defense Cannons. These are complex arrays that have banks of minigun-style weapons that spit out bullets as fast as possible. At the scales of ships like these, the damage they could do are minimal, but they are an essential tool against enemy missiles. Varying up your defensive options makes defending against both more difficult.
These are not the actual PDCs, incidentally – they are kept under protective shields most of the time and are lifted up and out to fire. This is a quick process, andd missiles can be detected from very far out, so this is not typically an issue.
Missile launchers are not shown here; they are on the main body of the hull, as the missiles can change course. Each missile battery can fire a variety of ordnance of various sizes and powers; warheads are small and nuclear in nature. Conventional explosives just have too little power.

4 – Fusion Reactor 1
The Craton has seven fusion tokamak-style reactors. I wanted to use this classic style, though we don’t know for sure if tokamaks will end up being the proper shape (they are by definition a toroid). I’ve heard of a lot of hopes about a peanut-shaped fusion reactor.
The plasma inside the Craton’s reactors reaches massive temperatures (over a hundred million degrees, probably many hundreds of millions). Obviously that’s pretty hot, but the materials science of the Sapient Union is extraordinary; perfect heat radiators are something they long-ago created, and simply take for granted.
They likely don’t use simple hydrogen fusion, as that produces a lot of neutron radiation. The fuel for their reactors are something rarer that is likely “mined” from gas giant planets and processed on the ship prior to use (similar to Ultra-Dense Deuterium). Any system possessing a gas giant would be stocked for extreme time – and most systems have gas giants.

5 – Outer Hull/Mantle
The cratonic asteroid that the Craton was made from was a very unusual rock.
While many asteroids are essentially mountains of pebbles weakly held together by gravity, cratonic asteroids are solid. They are composed mostly of nickel-iron, but with a third added ingredient, a kind of inert tenkionic matter that has a very high mass and forms extremely solid bonds. This form of matter is safe for mundane life to be around, even for long periods, and is found to be drawn towards zerospace.
For unknown reasons, cratonic asteroids are always found as geoids, despite their small mass. These asteroids are extremely ancient, possibly the first solid matter that formed in the young universe. One thought is that this time the tenkionic matter was more active with their form of radiation, kratonic radiation. In that time, the mass of the object would have been far higher, causing it to collapse into a geoid, almost regardless of size.
Cratonic rock is also extremely strong, and these two qualities have led to many of the cratonic asteroids that are found to be converted into ships.
Carving out the asteroid was extremely difficult, but in the process, ground cratonic rock slush was produced, which was mixed with a tough concrete to resurface parts of the finished ship. This mixture has a distinct appearance from the material of the frontal cone, appearing like the original asteroid, for aesthetic purposes.
Under this artificial layer is some of the original, unaltered asteroid – 50 meters of it. Even with the direct openings like the hangars and Equator Deck, which reach the surface, cratonic rock has been left behind and around them as much as possible.
This cratonic rock layer is a potent defense for the Craton, being harder than any other ship armor in wide use, and also serves to insulate the crew from radiation.
Because the cratonic rock is drawn to zerospace, the Craton is also able to enter that quasi-realm far easier than most ships of larger size.

6 – Equator Deck
The location of many scenes, the Equator Deck is angled differently than most of the decks. Artificial gravity is a requirement to allow people to walk on the “walls” and gaze out at space above them.
On a ship like the Craton, an area dedicated for recreation is a must, and so it was made a key feature of the vessel. Small businesses run by civilians of the ship provide many services, create luxury items, and . The Equator is the major hub of this, but other locations on the ship can be made impromptu art alleys or serve as small markets.
These small owners are not capitalists; the resource allocations for these shops are based on civilians applying for and demonstrating an understanding of certain skills, such as organization and of course the functions of the shop. They may then take on apprentices who earn Exchange Credits for their work. The owner and workers all earn their Ex based on their hours of work.
The Equator Ring has massive windows made of transparent titanium. These serve, through sheer thickness, of protecting people below from radiation, but are an incredibly resource-intensive product, being atomically perfect. There are shutters for them as well, which close before a zerospace jump.
Funny note about eating in this time; dishes are not washed and reused, but recycled and 3D-printed. The fusion generators of the Craton generate so much power that this is more efficient than wasting a lot of water with cleaning.
They probably would look back at us re-using dishes and think it gross and unsafe.

7 – Zerodrive Generator Ring
Zerodrives are large rings that are able to poke holes in reality as we know it. Through these holes, or portals, one enters zerospace. The zero, incidentally, is due to the common thought that this is the “zeroth” dimension.
The force of gravity is stronger in zerospace, and so a small amount of mass is able to do a lot.
The Craton is somewhat unique in being able to make zerospace jumps at such a small size*. Most vessels require 21+ very large reactors to generate enough power, but the Craton’s special nature allows it to do so far more energy-efficiently.
“Speed” is not a very useful term in zerospace, but it is known that velocity increases with time. Three days is the safe limit for time spent submerged, both for the crew’s mental health and for ease of return. If too much velocity is gained in zerospace, it cannot be safely shed to allow a return to realspace, which its harsh rules about going faster than the speed of light.
These engines also can create “thinnings” instead of breaches for a smaller fraction of the energy. This is how the Craton moves in realspace – by opening a portal that draws the ship towards it gravitationally. This means that, unlike most ships, more mass actually has benefit for the Craton in moving itself.
The acceleration is good, and both inertial dampeners (yes, that old scifi trope) that function off cratonic technology, and the nature of cratonic rock, the stresses are spread evenly across the ship’s cratonic structure, preventing it from pulling itself apart.
This behavior has led to conclusions that the cratonic matter behaves akin to a single atom, holding itself together with the strong nuclear force. And physics is left crying.
The extra gravitational energy produced by the zerodrive is called pseudogravity, as it does not propagate infinitely like true gravity does, but goes only a relatively small distance before somehow “sinking” back into zerospace.
Even the Craton’s inertia is subject to this, and over time, if the engines are not used, the ship will lose energy until it has left only the inertia it initially had! This could, theoretically, lead to strange situations like the ship beginning to drift in the opposite direction of its original direction of travel!
Thus, despite the ship being able to move itself, energy is ultimately conserved – yet another way that the Craton seems to defy physics.
In practice, the zerodrive always has thin white rings of lights that face towards the back (which is actually just a polite way of indicating to other vessels which way it’s going), and these would grow brighter as it activates, though it’s not particularly dramatic.
More positively, the ring is always active to some extent so long as there is power, making it hold itself together very well against damage. So they are a target, but not an easy target.

*I have, in the story, mentioned a few examples of other small ships that can do this; special scout ships that are basically all just reactors, and very, very expensive massive capacitors that allow a vessel to store enough charge for a jump or two.
It’s also possible for a ship to

8 – Command Center
At the heart of the Craton, the Command Center is where much of the action in the stories takes place. It is not literally in the center, both because of the coilguns and because it’s never a good idea to make your ship’s brain’s location be too predictable.
The Command Center’s layout has been described, but I really want to do an image like this for that specifically, so I won’t go too much in it.
The Command Center is actually heavily isolated from the rest of the ship in terms of personnel access. It has an attendant section of offices and support rooms, with limited access to other personnel. All traffic in and out is monitored and screened (which is really true on the entire ship, but nowhere moreso than here).
The main center itself has only two entrances on two different decks, and their layout is designed for defense. This makes attempts to capture the ship more difficult.

9 – Main Hangars
The largets hangars on the Craton, they are 70 meters wide and 45 meters tall, and extend nearly 100 meters into the ship. These are specialized for use for accomodating larger vessels, and the ship has other airlocks and several smaller hangars.
These large hangars do have decks within, but these only extend part of the distance from the wall, and can be retracted if need be, though “curtains” of strong material can also be used to cordone off areas, and the doors can open in sections.
Several large wall offices are also visible that are for hangar personnel.
There are no magic forcefields; when the hangar doors are opened they are open directly to the vacuum. Very tricky techniques are needed to get as much oxygen as possible out in case they do need to be opened.
The doors have blocks of transparent titanium embedded in them, usually covered with armored shutters. These can be iris opened and so the hangar is more often used as a grand observatory than its intended purpose.

10 – Coilgun Base
You may remember this from when Jaya oversaw the manual loading of a coilgun shell in a drill, the seven-ton projectile fell to the floor, and a crewman was almost crushed.
The coilguns don’t extend fully to the aft of the ship, and Reactor 7 below it is its primary power source, though any of the reactors can be used for this task if necessary. Reactor Seven is slightly offset in a different axis than we see here, just in case.
Coilgun shells can range from small, accelerated to massive speeds, to bus-sized shells of tungsten alloy that achieve only modest velocity, but will transfer more of their energy to the target.

11 – Radiator Fins
The Craton’s fusion reactors create a lot of waste heat. Getting rid of that so the ship does not melt itself into a glowing orb is very important, so the ship possesses massive radiator fins. The consist of a heavy, solid matrix filled with channels of heat-transferring conductors.
These would glow a dull red most of the time with heat, and may turn even brighter as the ship does more.
The ship also probably takes advantages of more exotic heat regulation, like stringing heated magnetic beads along electromagnetic lines, cyling them in and out of the ship to increase their heat-dissipating surface area.
The fins are thick so that they can also be something of a heat sink in an emergency.

12 – Navigation Laser Tower
The most common threat the Craton may encounter is flying space debris. This can be tiny, something that is just absorbed by the front cone, or could be big and fast enough to be dangerous.
The Navigation Lasers are tasked with destroying small debris before it hits the Craton. They are placed at intervals on 450-meter tall towers, to give them a clear line-of-sight on incoming debris, along with sensors – both those related to their command and control and other, general-use sensors.
As lasers travel at the speed of light, they are the first line of defense of the ship after an incoming threat has been detected. Outside of maintenance, they are always active and watching in all directions.
In times of combat, these lasers are effective against incoming enemy missiles, drones, or small ships. While very powerful, against large ships they are only going to deal small pin-points of damage, thus in such cases are only good for targeting specific weakpoints.
The mix of Point-Defense Cannons and Lasers is considered to be important, as it makes enemy missile designers have to contend with multiple avenues of threat.

Hope this was an interesting read for you. In this series, I have always wanted to respect physics, and allow only for the limited use of a specific family of technologies to break that for writing convenience. I also wanted my non-physics technology to come with its own drawbacks, limitations, and caveats so that as little as possible had to be handwaved.

I will be posting about upcoming stories more soon! I’ve had a long and unpleasant bout of covid, and the long-term symptoms have caused me a lot of issue. This, along with my co-writer having some issues has slowed things down.

But I will bring some positive news soon, I promise!

Episode 14 – part 5

Captain Mayor Brooks

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

Father Cathal Sair knelt and prayed.

He prayed to gods that did not love him; to an emptiness that offered only death.  He did not believe they listened, but he did not feel that his prayers were in vain.  They were more than his pitiful existence.

As low as it was.

Zyzus was losing patience with him.  Despite the ritual, Cathal had not been able to push Apollonia further along her path.  She ignored him, and he dared not approach her.

Brooks had made it clear, in a hall whose lights had suddenly gone dark as the two had met.

His eyes had, naturally, been drawn upwards.  And Brooks had slammed him against the bulkhead.

“Do not go near Apollonia Nor,” Brooks had said.

Cathal shifted in his grip, but could not escape it.  Brooks was stronger than he looked.  “Captain, I do not understa-“

“You heard me.  You understand.  I do not know what you did to her; but I know that you will do nothing to her again.  If you do, I will be watching.”

Sair had felt his righteous indignation swell.  “So this is the true face of the Union-“

Brooks’s look alone was enough to cut off his words.

Sair knew the look on the Captain’s face.  It was one he had seen before, on Gohhi.  The face of a man who was unafraid of consequences and was willing to kill.

His next words would have no meaning.  They would only determine if Brooks killed him now or later.

He blinked slowly.  Multiple thoughts of what to say in response went through his head, and though he had faced death before – this was different.

He was unnerved.

He just nodded.

Brooks let him go, and walked on.  Not looking back.

The lights had turned back on.

Cathal had remained standing there, staring after the Captain.

This was his ship, and he had full control of it; full control of all aspects of it, he realized.  For now.

And Brooks had kept his word; Cathal knew he was being watched.  There was always a drone near him, doing some work, apparently, but watching him all the same.  Different kinds in different places, he was never left alone.

Only here in his cabin was he safe from the prying eyes.  An individual’s room only had drones when the resident allowed it, and he’d banned all of them, carefully cleaning everything himself to keep there from being an excuse for an intrusion.

It made it hard to talk to the Father.  Zyzus was frustrated by it.

“We are nearing the time of the Meeting,” the old man said.  “We need to be more prepared.  We need more numbers.”

The ritual had been too soon, Cathal thought.  Yes, the opportunity had been there, but it had not been the time.  He should have used that time to bring Apollonia more to their side, to win her over.  Now she was distant.

Though he could not yet think he had lost her.  The idea grieved him.  He told himself that he should have stood up to Zyzus about this.

But the man was the Father.  He had the right to make the decision.

His hands trembled, and his prayer fell silent, even in his mind.

He did not know how, they never did, but soon they would be far from the Union; in a place no human had ever been.  There they would find Others.

The Followers of Daikon; their title was something that was simply Known.  In his mind he could see the shape of the concepts.

He had told Zyzus of it.  For all of his great power, he could See better than even the Father.

He shivered now, thinking of just why that was.  What an unnatural thing he was.

He should not be here now, the old thought came to him.  He should have been left to the Void in that other life, as he had wanted.

But Zyzus had pulled him back, made him who he was.  Given him a life, even if it was not the one he had wanted . . .

It was enough, he told himself.  And one day, perhaps it would be more than enough.  He would have back what he most desperately wanted.

The thought of that day weakened him yet more, and he slumped, wracked with sobs.

He just had to hold on for a little while longer.  And he had to find a way to make things right with Apollonia, even if he could not go to her.

A beeping woke Apollonia from her sleep.

“What the fuck,” she murmured, slapping her hand onto her nightstand for her tablet.

There was a clattering as it fell to the floor, and she blindly reached out to find it.  The alarm beep wailed on.

“Shut up!” she finally said.

“An awaited message has arrived,” her system replied helpfully.

There was only one message she was waiting for.

She rolled over in her bed.  “Lights on,” she called.

She saw her tablet had flopped further than she thought.  Crawling to the edge of her bed, she reached out and pulled it closer by a corner, fumbling to pick it up.

Finally pulling it up, she tapped the ‘show message’ button.

An official logo came up, and her heart began to beat faster.  This was it.

Apollonia Nor,

This letter is to inform you that we have carefully considered your Command Aptitude Test results.

We are unfortunately obligated to inform you that you have not been accepted into the Voidfleet Academy for the Class of 2954.

An extraordinary number of beings apply for the Voidfleet each year.  Our decision is never an easy one, and though there are many factors in each individual’s lives that make their interest and goals unique to them, powerful to them, we must judge each applicant fairly and equally.

We express our sincerest regrets that we cannot accept you at this time.  Despite this rejection, we believe that you hold great promise in command.  Do not lose heart over this rejection, and it is our sincerest hope that you will attempt your CAT test again for the class of next year.

Our best wishes to you in your future,

The Voidfleet Review Board

*******

FINIS

< Ep 14 part 4 | Ep 15 part 1 >

Episode 14 – part 4

Captain Mayor Brooks 1 Comment

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

“Dim,” Brooks said.

The lighting in his study faded, leaving only general shapes visible.

He liked the dark.  It was more comforting than the light.  Perhaps it was another reason he liked being in space.

Darkness hid things; like how he’d overloaded the sensors in the hall that Tred had been concerned about.  Poor man – he did his best, and in this case almost too good a job.  But Tred would not discover that Brooks had done it; he had hidden his tracks well.

He did not want anyone to know just what he had done there; what he had said.

Brooks put on some music, but the sound was only another wall against external intrusion.

It was an old Jazz song, from the Classic Antarctic era of the mid-2200s.  He did not know its name, but his system had noted his reaction on hearing and brought it into a playlist.

The machine knew him, he thought.  As he knew the machine.

He was off-duty and should be sleeping now, but he did not want to do that.  Instead, he took a stim and stayed up.

He was more comfortable in his study than his cabin, anyway.

It wasn’t that his cabin wasn’t nice, but he did not like it and no amenities could change that.  He was always more at home in his working environment.

It reminded him of old memories; as a younger man, how his duty station on the dusty and creaky old freighters had become more his home than his bunk.  Shipmates he got along with would joke about it – he was a packrat, a station hobo, a workaholic.  People he did not like did not dare to say anything.

But his study was sparse.  It was better to keep things packed away, and even better to just get rid of them.  Only keep what you need, and most of that was in your head.

He flicked an annoyed finger over his HUD to bring up his messages.

His system sorted them all into categories that were useful to him – ones mirroring his thought process.  One was Annoying Ship Problems – the sort of minor task that he was required to solve that he always felt more on the clumsy-side with, or ones that had no good answer.  Yet not things that were ultimately of great importance.

Then there were Good Problems.  The sorts of ones he actually found himself enjoying solving.

He hadn’t created the categories.  The system had just created – and even named them – on its own, based on its study of his reactions.

Kind of funny to think about, when Good Problems could be true existential crises.  He was the machine, and he knew himself.

Glancing through the important ones, he found that there was nothing urgent.  Urle was on-duty and the ship was cruising smoothly, the Agricultural Station far behind them.

But then he saw the small notification he’d set up secretly.  It was designed to not catch attention from code-trawlers or anyone who somehow managed to get into his personal system.

He brought it up, and saw a message from Nadian Farland.

He read over it; they had stayed in contact since the Relic Station.  Information-sharing – Brooks on his personal experiences with things Tenkionic-related, and Farland with the same, plus what he heard at the fringe.

Farland had been in dire financial straits since the Relic Temple, with the loss of his ship and crew.  The Union had not been under financial obligation to the man, and he had not inquired in any way about compensation.  Thus he was simply floundering.

Not that he’d said as much; it was Union intelligence that had informed him of that.  Farland only spoke to him of what was important.

Brooks saw that his latest research mission to an unnamed world on the fringe had been canceled – his investors were citing cost-to-risk ratio.

So we’re not going to be the first to get to the temple site, and confirm or deny it may have a connection to the X.

X, for Xanagee.  Nadian had explained that the sound was best transliterated that way in Galactic Phonetic Alphabet.

I don’t suppose you can get one of your teams out there?  I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.

Brooks read through the rest; Nadian had not heard any rumors about the vessel of the X that they had seen right before they’d left the Relic Temple.  It had not then appeared in any other nearby system.

The lack of any rumors at all was disconcerting.  While a lot of people saw crazy things on the fringe of space, it felt logical to assume that anything actually weird that was big and noticeable would have some related rumors.

That they hadn’t meant that the Xanagee had only just returned – or were so secretive that they gave no sign of their presence unless they wanted to.

Nadian had not heard from Vermillion Dawn, either – our mutual friend as he called her – not even through any of her lesser contacts.

Nor had he.  Brooks did not like that – it was deeply unsettling to feel that all she had said to him on their last encounter had been more out of love or pity than because she actually wanted to bring him into her larger world.

If she wanted him to stay irrelevant in the schema of this deeper reality, though, she was wrong.  He had left her to join the Voidfleet, but that did not mean he was giving up on making a difference.  He would not be content to remain on the sidelines.

He closed his messages, a reminder being set up automatically to have him reply to Nadian in a little while.  He could not keep the man waiting, though he could not also think of any pressure he could apply in the right places to get a team out to that unnamed world right now.

Probably Dawn already had it, he mused, but the thought felt sour.

He was not immature enough to let his old love fall into hate.  That was far too easy and simple a calculation, and a harmful one.  Dawn had her reasons, and he had his.  She did not make decisions on whims.

Damn it all, though, he thought, allowing himself to feel his irritation.

He rotated his chair, gesturing at the wall and watching it turn into a perfect view of space.

He still liked a real window better, but he had to admit that if he did not know this was a screen, he would not have been able to guess it.

The starfield beyond was his true angle to the galactic disk.  The Craton was moving slightly coreward, which meant that the arms of the galaxy were above his head.  He glanced up and his HUD filled in the Milky Way’s core and arms with again perfect clarity.

Nothing moved, though they were, in fact, moving.  They were light-years from any star, so any noticeable change would take millenia.

They would be diving into zerospace soon, and the feed would no longer be live.

God, how small they were, he thought.

< Ep 14 part 3 | Ep 14 part 5 >

Episode 14 – part 3

Captain Mayor Brooks 1 Comment

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

The day had been long, Jaya thought.

Her uniform had weighed on her on their excursion into the Agricultural Station in a way she had not felt before.  It did not feel like it fit her, like she’d put on someone else’s and the seams and proportions were just a little bit off.

That was not true; scans confirmed all was in line with her current parameters, which were unchanged.

Knowing that did not make them feel like they fit her.

Now, looking at herself in the mirror, Jaya did not think her reflection looked any different.

But she did not like it, either.

Her face was the same as always; her dark hair pulled in a bun, dark brown eyes and light brown skin.

She just did not recognize it as herself.

Waving a hand angrily, the wall turned from its mirror setting back to a blank whiteness.  It took a moment longer before the normal pattern returned, and she tried to shake her own mental image of herself.

She had died, she thought.  She remembered it.  A surge of radiation through the part of the ship she was in.  She remembered all of it.

Alexander Shaw had not survived.  It had been Cathal Sair who had saved her, despite the massive quantity of radiation she had taken.

Enough that she should have been beyond medical care.

Jaya could not say how she knew it was Sair, and it made no sense.  He’d been with an entire crowd of his followers, across the ship.  Well out of harm’s way.

As much as she wanted to speak to him, to figure this out, she found that she could not.  Even the thought of approaching him made her feel unable to act.

A ding came to her door, and her HUD popped up that it was Apollonia.

Her immediate response was positive.  But quickly the thought of actually talking to anyone, even Apollonia, turned sour.

She felt herself shiver, and she could not control it.

Taking a deep breath, she clenched her hands into fists until it subsided.

Several long, deep breaths.

Then she opened the door for Apollonia.

“Hey!  Sorry to bother you, I was jogging by and-” Apollonia’s face fell into seriousness as she studied Jaya.  “Are you all right?”

“I am fine,” Jaya replied evenly.  “What did you need?”

“Uh, I was just wondering if you had heard anything?  About my test.”

“Not yet,” Jaya said.  “Just have patience.”  She smiled slightly, but it felt forced even to her.  “I know you can do that.”

“Yeah.  Thanks . . . and sorry for bothering you,” Apollonia said.

“It is no bother.”

Apollonia lingered a moment, as if she wanted to say more, but Jaya moved to close the door.  She paused, then, giving Apollonia a chance to interject.

“Say,” Apollonia said.  “Ann and Zey are busy tonight, wanna catch dinner?  Now we know where it comes from and everything!  I’m sure that makes it taste better.”  She was grinning, and Jaya considered the request for a moment.

“I’ll have to pass,” she said.  “I have a lot of work that needs doing.”

“Oh, sure.  If I can help or anything, let me know.”

“I don’t think your expertise is in Operations,” Jaya said.  “But thank you.”

She closed the door quickly this time.

Apollonia headed back towards her room.

She felt a keen disappointment from Jaya’s refusal to join her, but she held onto that thought.  In her state of . . . not feeling much, feeling even a negative emotion somehow seemed better.

She kept an eye out for Cathal, but she did not see him.  It was too bad; if he’d been there, in her present state, she might have gone right up to him and yelled out everything, then gone to Brooks and . . .

The thought seemed to slide out of her mind, leaving her drawing a blank.

Something affecting her thoughts, the passing idea came again.  Manipulating her, limiting her.

It was easy, she thought, to just ignore a problem.  It was doing something that was hard.

This made it so much easier to just get on with her life, even if she was feeling nothing.

Brooks walked into the hall near her, and she nearly jumped.

He was not looking at her as he walked, his eyes fixed ahead and his face set in grim lines.

Next to him was walking that strange little Engineer who she’d met on Darkeve; Boniface Tred, her system supplied for her.  He was talking animatedly to Brooks.

“. . . they don’t just go out like that, Captain.  Not a whole hallway.  I know we’ve gone over everything after the, er, relic temple business, but I want to look deeper and see if that could be why the cameras and sensors-“

“No,” Brooks said sternly.  “Like you said, the ship went through a lot.  You’ve replaced the sensors?”

“Yes, but-“

“That’s good enough,” Brooks said.  “But next time we go to port I’ll- oh, hello, Apollonia.”

He had just noticed her – or more likely was using her as an excuse to escape Tred, she thought cynically.

“Hello, Captain,” she said.

He had come to a stop, and so did Tred.  Brooks spared him a glance and waved him on.  “That will be all, Engineer.”

“Er . . .”

“Go,” Brooks said, firmly.

Tred saluted and went on his way.

“He’s good at his job,” she said.

“Yes, and he actually accepted his promotion this time,” Brooks said.  “But sometimes he’s too persistent.”

“So,” Apollonia said.  “Something happened in a hall?”

“Just a minor error,” he said.  “It’s nothing.”

She hesitated.  There was something odd about him.  “Really?”

“Yes,” he said.

Whatever it was was gone, she thought.  Now slid into the vault of his mind.

She suddenly thought of the times she had read minds; could she do that here?  She wanted to know what he was hiding, her curiosity rose up stronger than normal, unhampered by much in the way of other feelings.  She could reach into his mind and pluck the knowledge out . . .

But she rejected that idea immediately, guilt and shock at her own thought driving it away.

Why would she do that?  Just out of curiosity?  She was not . . . a monster.  What a violation of privacy it would be!

And another part of her suddenly wondered if she could even do that to him.  Brooks did not strike her like other people.  There was something larger than life about him.

“Did you enjoy the food production station?” he asked, a slight wry smile at the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, yes,” she said with a laugh she didn’t feel.  “It was amazing.”

“Kind of strange to think we make so much like that.  But it’s been proven for hundreds of years now.  As a species we’re healthier than ever.”

“You don’t have to sell me on food,” she joked.

“All right,” he said warmly.  “Have a good night, Apple.”

“Good night, Captain,” she said.

He went on, and she watched after him, frowning.

There were a lot of people keeping secrets right now, she thought.

< Ep 14 part 2 | Ep 14 part 4 >

Episode 14 – part 2

Captain Mayor Brooks 1 Comment

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

“This really isn’t what I was expecting,” Apollonia said quietly to Urle.

The Executive Officer glanced at her, only a quarter of his face showing skin today.  His lower face was a metal mask that was so tight it suggested he had no jaw at all, along with his left eye and the area around it.  The cluster of sensors were expressionless, disturbing even, but it was lessened by his right.  His bright blue eye was pleasant, and he smiled frequently with just the wrinkles around it.

Which he was doing now.  “What were you expecting from an AgriStation?”

Urle swept his hand out, clad in a heavy gauntlet glove, at the massive metal vats that stretched floor to ceiling.

“I was expecting big fields of crops,” she said.  “Waving grain, with little bees and butterflies fluttering about.”

Urle looked somewhat amused still.  “We grow things in vats and then shape them into more familiar forms later.  Very few foods do we husband in old-fashioned ways.”

“That’s really kinda gross, isn’t it?” she muttered.

Urle shrugged.  “It’s been centuries and we’re healthy on it so far.  Even the luddites gave up complaining about it.”

He knew she knew the reasons; their food production methods made things with perfectly-balanced nutrients, fiber, and calories for baseline human consumption – or for any species in the Union.  The grown stuff, whether literal slabs of meat or algae, would be converted into stuff that was superior to the natural thing in safety, quality, and even taste.

At a certain point of understanding and technology, it was better-suited for them than even the food nature provided, and thousands of times more efficient in production.

When she had been told they were going to an Agricultural Station, she had been interested.  Not many wanted to actually go with him, only Cenz seemed excited – he would be boarding the station to help them with some research for awhile and then rejoin the ship later.

So she’d gotten on the team going in, naively still imagining big fields of plants.

But it was just a stupid tour.  Like what tourists got.

She raised her hand, catching the attention of their tour guide.

“Yes, miss?” he asked.

“Has anyone ever fallen into one of the algae vats?” she asked.  “Like while they were stirring it or something?”

The man looked slightly confused.  “They’re hermetically sealed, miss.  You can’t fall in.”

“But if they managed, what would happen?”

The man froze for a moment, then glanced to Brooks.

“She’s joking,” he said calmly, waving it off.  “Please, go on.”

“Oh, well . . . as I was saying, there are over three million algae vats . . .”

Brooks seemed to be genuinely interested in all of this, Apollonia thought.

From some perspective it had to be interesting.  Certainly important.  Just not exciting to her.

What she’d hoped for was a touch of nature, like she’d seen in the Cloud Forest on Earth . . .

Damn it, she thought too much about Earth.

And thinking of Earth had other consequences.  It made her think of the seat of government around it, Korolev Station.

And that made her think of her Command Aptitude Test.

It had been over three weeks now – with no word.  Jaya had told her to be patient, and she had been.  But this was a very long time to wait for her results.

“It is abnormal,” Jaya had admitted.  But her concern had been distant – as had she, overall.

It seemed to be going around, Apollonia thought.

Looking to Jaya, standing near to the Captain and listening to their guide with the same level of professional attention as he, she felt a stab of guilt.

She should not be so selfish that all she could think of was her CAT, while Jaya herself clearly had something bothering her.

Could she be this shaken up by getting a bump on the head and the insanity around the relic temple?

She had even inquired with Y, and while he had told her he could not tell Jaya’s private information, he did assure her that she did not need to worry.

Though even Y seemed distracted lately.  She’d taken to eating most of her lunches and even sometimes dinners with Ann, Zey, or both, who seemed to be the only people she knew who were acting normal.

Brooks spoke again, breaking the monotonous drone of the tour guide.  The man was himself of high rank, but he was still the one giving this tour.  He wasn’t good at it.

“Are nitrogen and phosphorus sources secure for the station?” he asked.  “What is the supply situation?”

“We keep at least three month’s worth on hand at all times,” the man said.  “It’s not something we really need to worry about.”

“Yes, but what if . . .”  Brooks trailed off, turning to look around him.

Urle stepped forward.  “I have the list, Captain.”

“Ah, thanks,” Brooks said, distractedly, catching sight of him.

Apollonia realized that Urle had been hanging back with her, rather than staying with the Captain as he usually did.

It didn’t really seem intentional.  More like he was as bored as she was, she thought.

“This way,” the guiding commander called, gesturing them towards the door.  “After the clean room are the meat vats, they’re fascinating!”

< Ep 14 part 1 | Ep 14 part 3 >