“–tention required. Repeat: Unidentified craft detected. Valkyrie attention required.” A tinny voice echoes through your quarters. You open your eyes to a red glow. You rapidly extricate yourself from the harness holding you to your bunk and make your way to the cockpit.
“Display unidentified craft.” Your voice cracks. Rapid removal from hype stasis is not unlike awaking from a coma. Despite full functionality, none of your organ systems have been used in quite some time, and they behave as such. This is why you hate distance hyping. No matter how many times you do it, there’s always the chance that the automated systems will encounter a problem they haven’t been programmed to handle. As the primary pilot, you are the only person in the vessel to be awakened. The display lights up in a gentle, dim red that is not difficult to view after your eyes have been closed for so long. A series of numbers appear, denoting the edge coordinates of the craft. It’s large. No, it isn’t large. It’s huge, the size of a small city.
“Enable visual approximation of unidentified craft.” The computer obeys, rendering a rough, three-dimensional image of a small asteroid that has very odd features that seem artificial. The strangest part is the asteroid’s proximity to the Bifrost. It seems to be impossibly close to the Bifrost’s event horizon, but you can’t figure out what’s keeping it there. “Enable full Valkyrie control of Timids.” You speak almost ethereally, driven by pure amazement at this point.
“TMDS controls are now released of all automated functions. Valkyrie has full control.” You miss the gentler voice that had been utilized by the computerized systems in Valkyr 51, but only Valkyr 52 has been properly fitted with the same rapid response controls included in the Armada’s latest 52-F Dragon. But unlike the Dragons, which are simply equipped with pre-programmed, short-distance hype vectors, the Valkyr 52 had manual controls. At this moment, you are simply grateful for that particular feature.
You flinch slightly as the pilot seat engages its contacts with your flight suit. The cockpit is sealed off and filled with liquid as your helmet engages its breathers. When all air in the cockpit has been replaced with the liquid, the systems begin to pressurize to approximately 12 standard atmospheric pressure units, and your breathers force highly oxygenated air into your lungs at an equalizing pressure to prevent your chest from being crushed. Your own slowly extracted plasma is injected back into your bloodstream to increase your blood pressure in order to prevent your blood vessels’ collapse. Your eyes shine brightly, filling your helmet with a cool green as your heart’s muscles are strengthened to prevent heart failure. You grasp the TMDS controls and engage fully manual hyping for the first time in Thorlinthian history.
Were it not for the fact that your entire respiratory system is currently fully regulated, you would surely gasp or skip a heartbeat. Instead of simply feeling that familiar exploding sensation immediately following the implosion of a hype, you now look into a form of space you could never have imagined before this moment. Remembering your objective, you attempt to move toward the strange asteroid. Despite a crushing sensation against your body, however, all visuals seem to indicate that you have not moved. You look for the asteroid and are surprised to find it only an arm’s distance from your left side. Yet that isn’t possible. Your position hasn’t changed.
Resigning yourself to the fact that the manual controls seem not to work, you disengage the hype and feel yourself explode, the sensation that indicates the end of a hype. Your proximity alarms light up, and you see that your position has in fact moved to nearly the exact position of the asteroid. Gripping the controls even more tightly, you maneuver the Valkyr away from what is from this distance obviously a space station. Panicking, you realize the stealth systems are not engaged. Looking about, you see no external signs that the station has reacted to your presence, but that means nothing in space, where there is no need to speak quietly. For all you know, alarms are sounding throughout the station. Quickly, you activate the stealth systems one by one, starting with the gaseous metamaterial shielding, now spread about the skin of the Valkyr and held in from the expanse of space by a cool plasma field only an atom thick. By the time you finish, your Valkyr should be hidden from any sensors.
Nonetheless, you feel uneasy as you approach what appears to be the main docking area of the station. It appears to be open, but looking more closely, you can see that there is a plasma shield. If you tried to fly into the dock like that, you’d probably just bounce off the shield, muddling all the sensors and stealth systems on the Valkyr. Instead, you set about analyzing the frequencies of electromagnetic containment used to hold the plasma shield in place. If you can neutralize the signals with the Valkyr’s own plasma fields’s containment signals, you should be able to pass through, but you would have to do it quickly. Despite this, the signals appear to be constantly changing, probably to prevent exactly such an attempt.
Operating on a hunch, you re-engage the manual hyping system. You find yourself again in that fascinating form of space that even now you cannot seem to properly describe. You adjust the controls to move the ship just inside the docking area. As you suspected, you appear to be at both points simultaneously. You turn the Valkyr to face yourself. Just as surely as the approach of death itself to all living things, you find yourself looking at yourself twice over, from each perspective. Beginning to feel a sensory overload, you disengage the hype once more and find yourself inside the dock, fully concealed.
You land the Valkyr and wait for the cockpit to depressurize, feeling anemic as the extra plasma is removed from your system. Finally, your suit’s restraints disengage from the seat, and you move to the
airlock, feeling impossibly light, even more so than when in deep space. This is probably simply due to the decreased pressure felt on your body, but it is a freeing sensation. You move out of the Valkyr, mapping your exact position in your suit’s location sensors. You quickly scan your surroundings, looking for a door. Just as you spot it, however, it opens. You leap to cover, hiding yourself and remotely utilizing the Valkyr’s sensors to look at the door again. No one’s there. You move inside. The door closes behind you and air rushes into the room you’ve just entered. There are garments of a strange-looking material settled neatly onto a bench. There are no obviously missing sets.
You open one of the compartments on the thigh of your flight suit, removing a small tube. You compress the tube and release it, acquiring an atmosphere sample as you move toward the next door, which has opened on its own just like the previous door. You place the tube in an opening on your wristplate. Your helmet’s display shows that the analysis has begun. You move down the passageway that awaits you past the airlock. The passageway is unusually tall and wide, unbefitting for a space station, which should waste as little space as possible, since more space meant more volume to be heated, which meant more energy consumption.
Suddenly, you notice that there are no handholds on the bulkhead. You gently float to a stop, slowly drifting to the center of the station’s mass. How is one supposed to maneuver about without handholds on such long passageways? Realizing quickly, you spin about and kick off at an angle toward the opposite end of the passageway. You repeat this many times, noticing a slight burning in the less conditioned part of your muscular structure. Clearly, you’ve suffered slight atrophy from your long journey back from Earth. Oh, how Jake would laugh at your current state of fatigue after all your boasting that giving birth wouldn’t have any long-term effects on your physique. Stupid husbands…
You finally make it to the end of the ridiculously long passageway. Looking back, it must have been at least 4 miles long. No, you think to yourself, it was 5 rosts. Slips like that would reveal the mission to be more than just deep space long hype conditioning. Earth mustn’t be discovered yet. Not yet…
The door is open, as you expected it would be. What you did not expect was the vast expanse of greenery that would await you on the other side. Looking up, you see that the room is lit by the Bifrost itself. It’s incredible.
Your helmet beeps quietly at you, and you see that the air is within Thorlinthian standards and devoid of any detectable unknown viruses or bacteria. You set your suit to refill its air supply and supply you direct with the fresh air. The smell of plants fill your nostrils, and you smile unconsciously. Grabbing the branch of a nearby tree-like plant, you begin to maneuver yourself toward the center of the complex, where you had noticed a small tower before entering the station. Again, the door is open. You begin to wonder if the station is an old Thorlinthian project that was abandoned and now trying to start itself back up or if it’s something significantly… older.
You move more easily down this passageway, now accustomed to the mode of travel necessary here. It must be designed this way to prevent its personnel from experiencing muscular deterioration during their time here. You make it to the next open door and are surprised to have arrived at what must be the center of the complex. While it contained yet another large greenroom, at the center was an upward sweeping of the ceiling into the tower. You work your way to the hatch leading to the tower main. It dilates open, and you work your way toward the top.
The passageway becomes narrower as you reach the end, the door opening slowly to a room basked in red light. Maybe someone was in stasis here. You enter the large room, its bulkheads covered in instrumentation and its floor riddled with strange writings on thin pads like paper.
Looking about, you see what must be the stasis area. As you had begun to suspect, the facility is much older than Thorlinthian travel outside the Bifrost. An incredibly tall man with red hair looks past you into the room, frozen in a strange form of stasis, seeming to be completely suspended. But that would kill a man. Concerned for this man who must be long dead, you press your hand against the edge of his stasis pod. It was oddly warm to the touch. No, it was warming itself. The stasis was disengaging.
Looking away from what was sure to be a gruesome sight, you cannot bring yourself to let go of the pod. What had compelled you to come here? What had caused you to disregard the safety of the two still in stasis on the Valkyr 52 and explore this facility? What had opened all those doors?! You begin to look about, searching for enemies, drawing your repeater from its holster under your armpit. Still, your hand will not release the pod behind you. Suddenly, something grasps your fingers.
“Is this a dream or a nightmare, young Thorlinthian?” A voice behind you as you turn in response to the grasping emanates throughout the room, seeming as if it had never been in stasis at all. But it was the man with the red hair who was speaking. Even as you moved the repeater to his face, it disassembled, its parts staying where they disengaged from the rest of the device. By the time your arm had spun toward him completely, a mere 5 milliseconds, the repeater had been reduced to nothing more then a handle.
Something you’ve never felt before begins to arise from within the deepest recesses of your heart. For the first time in your life, you are truly afraid. From stasis, this man had brought you here, and fresh out of it, he had achieved in a moment and without effort what took you a g
reat deal of concentration and five minutes, disassembling the repeater with only his mind. This was a being of a power much greater than yours. No, his power was on level with that of a Sheii’Cronell.
“Well, no, I don’t have quite that much power, Mrs. Kendrick.” That was impossible. How could he know of your marriage? Did he know of Earth? Was that English?! “Don’t panic. I know everything you know right now, Mrs. Kendrick. Please, have a seat.”
Looking around, you realize that not only was there a chair directly next to you that wasn’t there before, but the room had completely changed. Were you in the same room? Seeing no other choice, you sit.
“Mrs. Kendrick, my name is Jil’Hanr. I run this station, as I’m sure you suspected already.” You nod. “Well, we’ve taken a great deal of interest in the Thorlinthians. In fact, this station exists exactly because of the Thorlinthians. I understand you’re a descendant of the Qzicy family, yes?”
You nod, adding, “Qzcivden takes its name from our family.”
“Then you are aware of a document known to your family as the Traitor’s Journal?” You look at the man, Jil’Hanr, with curiosity. Was he saying that the document was true? “It is accurate to our knowledge, yes. At least, it is consistent with other knowledge we’ve acquired from this side of the Galaxy Tear, what your people call the Bifrost. In any case, this means I have much less to explain to you. This is about your son, Drake, and your niece, Terira. We have something very special in mind for them…”
Monthly Archives: August 2012
Mi’Olnr
It was just one of those days. There I was, about to be interviewed for the position as Mi’Olnr (commonly referred to as the Grand Armadian), and I had a whole pint of vorsetic on my uniform. I looked at the captain that had just spilled it. I could tell that he had thought I was someone else because his look of mortification was glued to my rank, Grand Admiral. I was the second-highest ranking officer in the entire Armada, and he had just spilled alcohol all over me.
My look obviously showed some disdain for what was going on because when he finally looked up at it, his face drained. “I’m s-s-so sorry, sir. I’ll c-clean that for you,” the captain stuttered. He was horrified. Surely, his career would be over. But I hadn’t the time for this.
“Nevermind cleaning it,” I said. “Just swap with me. I have important things to do.” At that time, I was glad I had voted towards standardized dress uniforms throughout the officer corps. All we had to do was switch name and rank. Everything else was on the cap we wore at all times but when directly addressing the Monarch. We finished the swap in one centiday.
When I finally got to the meeting, I was only 5 millidays early. As I had suspected, the Sheii’Cronell was already there, and he stared me down as if I had just murdered his mother. “Very nearly late, Admiral Khuda’Mundi.” I glared right back at the Oa’din of a man called Fargerre Sheii’Cronell. For a man who lived so highly according to impulse, he sure was quick to criticize similar behavior from others. Most of the Armada wished him dead, and I happened not to be missing from their ranks. It was a pity Sheii’Cronells were all but immortal.
Now that was an interesting thought to dwell on. I had always heard that particularl legend growing up on Osgord, but it wasn’t until I had seen Fargerre get shot down during the rebellion on Volur and come out of it all without a scratch after his seat ejected directly into an asteroid. His equipment had been destroyed, but somehow that Oa’din of a man had survived. Since that day, I had chosen not to question the other legends surrounding Sheii’Cronells.
“Now then, Admiral Khuda’Mundi,” the Sheii’Cronell spoke, breaking my train of thought and wrenching me back to reality. “I understand you were the first to captain a ship with a temporal manipulation drive system. What made you volunteer for what many considered a guaranteed suicide assignment?” His penetrating gaze set upon me again, but this time it contained something I’d never seen in him before: respect. This beast actually respected me for what had turned out to be the smartest gamble I had ever made in my career.
“Well, to be honest, at the time, I had just lost my wife and daughter to a mauling after a drig got out of its enclosure at the Osgord Zoo, and my son had just been declared missing in action on one of the outer planets. I didn’t really care if it was a suicide assignment or not. I had nothing to lose, and if the drive system worked, which it did, my career would benefit immensely. So I just put it in the Great One’s hands and said, ‘Why not?’” It was the truth. At the time, even I had doubted the system would work, but I would have welcomed a death at the time.
“Of course, much to everyone’s surprise, that system’s turned out to be the most reliable form of space travel we’ve ever used. Sure, it was dirty energy back then, and a few crewmembers died, but our methods have been perfected now, and you’ve reaped the benefits, haven’t you, Grand Admiral?” The Sheii’Cronell clearly hadn’t gotten the answer he was hoping for. No, he had wanted the heroic, valiant declaration of loyalty to the Armada so many a fresh Academy graduate spouted out like it was as natural as drinking from their mother’s teets as a babe.
But I had seen what the Armada really was. I wasn’t stupid. The Armada wasn’t defending anyone from anything. The travelers that had “given” us the TMDS had proven that. Even if we couldn’t translate what they had been transmitting, I had never seen such an obvious distress signal in my life. And the “missile” that had so heinously destroyed a passing cargo ship was revealed during a very hushed military investigation to be an escape pod. No, we were nothing more than the Monarch’s fist. When we had gone out to the travelers’ planet and started spouting out that crap about them being Murhan, I knew the only thing we existed for was to destroy anything that challenged the Monarch’s authority.
Which was why before returning home and personally escorting that stupid Sheii’Cronell beast to his puppet master’s palace, I had created a new ‘training protocol’ for new Valkyries: Monitor evolutionary progress on the nearby blue planet. All reports would be taken directly to Valkyrie Command, which was literally the only command in the Armada that didn’t report to the Monarch. The Valkyries had been trusted implicitly since their formation. And that was why I was the only person in this room that knew about the operation. The temporal misalignment caused by the Bifrost made for some very odd observations, as well. Already, twenty patrols had been sent out, reporting an overall passage of thousands of cycles’ time since the destruction of the travelers’ planet, and there were reports that a small ship of unknown origin had landed on the planet, depositing beings remarkably similar to ourselves.
So I smiled at the Oa’din’s face, feeling as though I was staring down Hikar’Diferus himself, and said, “So it would seem, Excellency. And I believe the 4-F Drig of which your new Drig Reidrs are so proud is based off the same technology. Hyping wouldn’t be possible on such small ships were it not for the TMDS, after all.” His eyes, always that shining red so distinctive of Sheii’Cronells, seemed to be tryi
ng to burn me alive at that comment. “What’s that saying of yours? Vega Lopt, isn’t it? I wonder why you seem so determined to kill the very sky in which you fly. Does your animal nature know no bounds?”
That was too far. The Sheii’Cronell’s hands slammed into the table, driving the metal down a good two fingers. He stood immediately, embarrassed at his own outburst. “We kill the sky itself because it gives the enemy nowhere to fly. Drigs don’t need a sky to fly. As you so aptly pointed out, the 4-F has a TMDS, which means it can hype, Grand Admiral. I’m done here. You’re lucky this interview was just a formality. Mi’Olnr Khuda’Cronell died in entry to Thor’s atmosphere last night when it collided with a rebel stealth bomber headed for Qzcivden. You’re the only man eligible for the job. Congratulations, Mi’Olnr Khuda’Mundi. You’ve got the job.” With that, he stormed out of the room.
The aged man who had been quietly observing the whole exchange slowly stood as well from his seat beside the Sheii’Cronell’s. “Please forgive my protege, Mi’Olnr. The previous Mi’Olnr was his brother. Today’s not been his best day.” It was then that I realized I was in the presence of the Monarch himself. I should have brought my repeater. But there was nothing that could be done. “I look forward to working with you, Mi’Olnr Khuda’Mundi. I’m sure you’ll do a fine job.”
“Of course, your Highness,” I managed to say, swiftly removing my cap to reveal my family’s characteristic green hair. Somehow, I had managed to hide all disdain in my voice, a miracle in and of itself, but the words that followed surprised even me. “It’s an honor to be in the company of one so great as his Majesty.” What was I saying? Was this that Oa’din’s powers at work, forcing me to fawn over him despite my hatred for him, or had I just become that successful a liar? When had that happened?
“Now, then, if you’ll excuse me, Mi’Olnr, I have many other matters to attend today. Good day, Mi’Olnr.” The Monarch turned and moved out of the room so elegantly he seemed to be gliding.
“Good day, your Highness,” I blurted out as he left. The doorway spun closed behind him. I pulled out my istringr and pulled up an old picture of my family, my wife’s gorgeous blue hair blowing in the long-gone breeze of that day. The screen’s light shone into my tear-filled eyes, and I managed to say quietly to my wife long dead and gone to Jal’din, “I’m sorry, my love.” I spent the next three centidays releasing the sick that had found its way to my stomach during that exchange with Hikar’Diferus’s own minions. May the Great One forgive me for what I’ve done in the name of that evil Monarch.
Wilhelm
There are times in a man’s life when he
is forced to question the very essence of his existence. In fact, it
may be more accurate to say that there are times in a man’s life
where he is not forced to question the very essence of his existence,
as this is the rarer circumstance in these times. The arrival of the
Thorlinthians on Phoenix Day three years ago shook the world to its
core, but it was the strange reaction the Americans had to the
situation that likely doomed us all.
I am Wilhelm Johannes Baker. My friends
once called me Wil, but those times are long gone now. In these days,
a man like myself has no friends. It’s not that friends would be
unwelcome in a time like this. Friends are just too hard to keep
alive when you’re silently heading the underground resistance against
an enemy that’s everywhere you turn and seems to be able to see into
your very intentions without even waiting for you to speak or even
look upon them.
I used to work for the Secret Service.
No, that’s not entirely accurate. I still work for the Secret
Service. I just happen to be the only one who knows that I’m still
alive and continuing my mission of protecting our sovereign nation. The hardest part wasn’t even faking
my death, to be honest. That part was painfully easy when compared to
trying to evade Thorlinthian raids. I didn’t even mean to do it,
either. I still remember that attack.
I was playing chess with my partner,
Jim. He always loved chess, but he never had any skill for the game.
Every time we played, I beat him without even having to pay
attention. It made for something better to do during down time than
reading the paper, though. Even in the early days, it seemed like the
Thorlinthians had a complete vice grip on the media. I’d never seen
so much good news. It made me a little nauseous to think that not one
of those stories was even fabricated. For once, the media was
focusing on the positive, trying to keep the masses calm, and it was
disorienting to see what happened when every job became volunteer
work.
One of the very first policies put
forth by the so-called Peace committee was to eliminate all currency
trade systems. Not only that, but bartering was outlawed in the same
policy. If you needed food, you went to work. When you got home,
there would be a daily ration for your family outside your house,
delivered by people who’d previously been on welfare. If you got
sick, you reported to the nearest Peacekeeper Station, and they’d
treat you. If for some reason you needed bedrest (which with the
Thorlinthians’ medical technology usually meant you had just been
treated for cancer or something), your daily ration would still be
provided to your home. If anyone capable of working in the family
didn’t go to work, the daily ration would not be supplied, and no one
in the household would eat. It must have been a joke, shoving all
that Commie crap down our throats while pretending to allow us to
govern ourselves.
The worst part of the deal was that
each country’s military was pulled from wherever it had been and
returned home to serve as Peacekeepers. And yet there I was, part of
the puppet government. I was “serving the President” and charged
with protecting him. So I couldn’t handle the papers anymore. I
started concentrating on the easiest chess games of my life as if
they were championship matches. But then…
A siren bellowed out into the empty
air, screaming to be heard. Someone was on the premises that didn’t
belong. Another assassination attempt? If only people realized that
POTUS didn’t actually have any power. Somehow, the American people
continued to convince themselves that these new policies and all this
news of alien invasions was somehow a government conspiracy intent on
deceiving the American people into sitting by and being trampled on.
But that didn’t matter. There was an intrusion on my facility, and
that meant someone was out for blood. Who would it be this time?
Rednecks? Yankees? Mercenaries?
The truth chilled my bones faster than
liquid nitrogen. In the courtyard, two stories beneath me, was a
single man. It’s amazing how long the human brain can refuse to
register crucial information when it’s just the last thing you want
to see. Instead of seeing the bloody pile of bodies, I saw the young
man’s strangely colored natural green hair. Instead of seeing the two
lone blades he held in his hands with which he had just slain so many
of my men, I saw his piercing violet eyes looking directly at my own
blue ones. Instead of seeing the dark red kilt and wool-like cape
over a red plaid shawl, I saw his gentle face, somehow tainted by
something distant and indiscernable. Indeed, when I should have been
noticing that the men below me were dead due to the sudden appearance
of a Dragon Rider, I was only noticing that there was a man standing
in the courtyard, looking at me.
But soon, the world came to crisp
detail once more as Jim screamed, “Get down!” and fired his
pistol down into the courtyard. But it was too late. As soon as the
window had broken, the Dragon Rider had somehow leaped two floors up
to that very same window. Still shaken, I drew my pistol, too late to
stop the strange Thorlinthian blade that had reached into Jim’s heart
but not too late to hit the Dragon Rider square in the chest.
Normally, this would barely faze a Dragon Rider, as they wear
advanced armor beneath their uniform, but this was a .50 AE Desert
Eagle, and it packed a hell of a bigger punch than standard issue M9.
While not being enough to go through the armor and kill the
Thorlinthian, it was enough to knock him back and to his knees for a
moment, though the latter, in hindsight, was likely due to simple
surprise.
Nonetheless, I managed to bring myself
to a more upright position and move to the door. Then, everything
went wrong. As I called out into the hallway for assistance, I
realized my mistake. I had just turned my back to a live Dragon
Rider. My body soon felt the brunt of that error as the
Thorlinthian’s blade ran its way up my spine. Instantly, I fell to
the ground in agonizing pain but managed not to scream. Somehow, I
was alive, and I planned on keeping it that way.
I don’t know how long I lay there,
praying to God that the enemy wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t dead and
that I wouldn’t bleed to death, but eventually the Dragon Rider must
have left. It felt like an eternity, but somehow I still wasn’t dead
when a small group of men came through, looking quietly for
survivors. As one of the men approached me, he stepped right over me,
not even bothering to check for a pulse, which gave me a pretty good
idea how bad I looked. I tried to speak or even groan, but I couldn’t
produce a single sound. Then another man approached me, and I started
to think that I may actually be dead, simply observing the world near
my place of death.
At the very moment I was certain this
man, too, would simply step over me, he crouched down and checked my
temple for a pulse. Later on, after learning just how near death I
was at that moment, I’m not sure how he felt my pulse at all, but he
did. “This one’s alive. Don’t worry, sir, we’ll get you to help!”
It was at that time that I realized the people searching for
survivors were not men. They were children. I had just been saved by
a boy who hadn’t even started middle school.
The boys placed me carefully on a
makeshift stretcher and piled some pillows on me and covered it all
with a cloth as a disguise to get away from the scene. Before
leaving, however, the children took an iron from one of the rooms and
burned away my fingertips. They then took me to the Peacekeeper
Station, where they told an incredible story about an uncle who had
saved their lives from a pedophile with a sword and whose hands had
been burned on the stovetop as he held his arms over them in
protection. In panic, of course, the pedophile had left, and the boys
had brought me here, bringing that painfully obvious lie to a close.
What happened next baffled me
ceaselessly for the next year: The Thorlinthian healer believed their
story, as the Peacekeepers had just brought in a suspected pedophile
who had been carrying none other than a sword. In the most ridiculous
stroke of luck, my life was saved. Actually, as I discovered a year
later, the Peacekeeper who had brought in the pedophile had told his
son about it only minutes before the boys had gone in to look for
survivors. Still, it had been impressive.
I was treated, and my spine was
repaired for the most part. I would never again be able to move my
right pinky, but that was hardly a price to pay, in my opinion. As I
was being discharged from the station, the Peacekeeper Captain came
into my room and asked for privacy. There, he told me about the
resistance and how to find a man named Larry Denton, who was leading
the organization at the time. I asked if there had been any survivors
from the assault. He informed me that only hours ago, the last of the
three thousand men and women who had worked and lived at that
facility, including the President, who’d been hiding there, had been
declared dead. This included me, which meant I was a dead man on
record.
I spent the next two years working my
way to the top of the resistance, building our ranks the entire time
while watching my world fall apart. When Larry Denton disappeared on
the second anniversary of Phoenix Day, I was placed in charge of the
resistance, and I’ve been moving from town to town ever since,
staying as close to the enemy as possible to avoid being noticed.
Recently, we’d heard word of a research vessel called the Leviathan.
It’s purpose is to attempt to duplicate Thorlinthian weapons
technologies without being noticed. It’s to be launched tomorrow, and
I’m placing some of my most trusted men on its crew as guards and
scientists.
Unfortunately, we aren’t the only ones
to be supplying crew members. Most of the guards are heartless
mercenaries out of work. The Leviathan’s front cover is that it’s a
cargo vessel which will be lost at sea in a few months. We’re putting
a lot of hope into it, and we’re looking forward to some results.
Clayton’s going to be sending me all results as soon as they’re
finalized, just in case they’re discovered, but we’re putting all our
prayers into the hope that what we get back from the Leviathan will
be enough to make a difference in our little war.
That ship is our best hope of actually
pushing away the Thorlinthians. We can’t afford to lose it.