Amalgam [Young Justice / Ben 10 SI]
- Thread starter Hmmaster
- Start date
- Pronouns
- She/He/They/It
Man this story is so cool, hope it continues
0.9
- Location
- Alabama
OSMOS V
August 04, 15:32 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
We were fortunate that the area of the Magnus Desertus around Sanitas was not a complete sand pit. On a scale of "dunes for miles" and "dry, cracked wasteland," it was far closer to the latter. Searing sunlight, blazing heat, and blistering winds were still difficult pills to swallow, but at least the land was mostly flat terrain with almost even footing.
The ground around us was a webbed network of breaks, dips, and valleys – evidence of a lake that had long since dried. Grandfather used to tell me stories that life in town had revolved around it, when he was young. Centuries ago. It was a wonder that my hometown still thrived without it for so long. Perhaps Osmosians were similar to humans in that regard – families tended to stick together in places that were familiar, even if they could often be suited to any environment. Add in the longer lifespan, and it made for a closer family unit than most.
Or perhaps even longer held grudges.
"You sure this is the place?"
I wanted to ignore Gabriel's question – the man had shown remarkable aptitude to move through the desert without complaint, for someone less suited to the environment. Sheets of sweat poured from him, but he merely chugged water from containers at his side to keep himself moving. Mother, on the contrary, was starting to grow weary, and I was propelled along through sheer willpower to see it through.
"I'm sure we're not far."
The human – and what a trip it was to call him that – continued following the ridge, stepping deftly over small crevices and spots of weakness. "You boys were lucky you had that drone to plot your path. Without it, I don't think you'd have ma…." His voice trailed off.
No one wanted to be reminded of how close I had come to dying.
I banked on the idea that if we could somehow find the remains of the weather drone, then we'd be real close. Gabriel could study the crash site, could report back to whatever organization he worked for, and could point us in the direction toward Father. Assuming all of the pieces I thought were connected were legitimate, then we could do something.
Mother sighed as we rounded another bend and found nothing. Another strip of blank, barren land under a baking sun. "I'm calling Maximus, this is ridiculous-"
"No!" I barked. "We're not far now."
She did not stop reaching for a communicator, and I pushed through exhaustion to reach her side quickly. "We can find another way, Cassian."
"I'm telling you! It's close!"
It had to be close.
It had to be.
"For all we know, we're moving in circles-"
Gabriel cleared his throat loudly and raised his hand, revealing a compass. The most basic compass I'd ever seen, one that could have easily been bought in a Dick's Sporting Goods store. To pull such a simple device from his pocket while I am wearing a sophisticated piece of armor he created from a capsule smaller than his pinky finger? I suspected nanotech was at play, or perhaps hard-light, and I don't even know what to think.
"We're not going in circles," he promised, then leveled his attention on me. "Kid, we're gonna want to start a radial search pattern soon if you can't lead us there directly. Then, we'll be going in circles." He chuckled to diffuse the tension, but it didn't make Mother feel any better from the look of her face.
I scoured the surroundings even as Mother groaned and typed on the communicator.
… Oh.
I dashed ahead as quickly as I could, nearly tripping over loose stones, and skid to the ground. Mother and Gabriel were fast at my heels. I pulled at the upper layer of dust until finally, something familiar came loose.
A piece of metal. Thin, faded lightly on one end from exposure. One that matched the shaped frame and color of a familiar weather drone.
I held the heavy debris aloft with vindication. "This is it! I told you! We're close!"
Mother and Gabriel passed the drone piece to each other, and while she held it in her hands, her eyes softened as they glanced over its surface. Fingers traced over a serrated edge. "You… encountered something that did this?"
That alien's snarling maw haunted my dreams. Its lack of eyes, its horrendous breath, its sharpened claws, its flashing tail…. It was almost the shape of a xenomorph in its stature, and it moved like one too.
I never wanted to be that helpless ever again.
Gabriel pressed something in his jacket lapel – a camera, perhaps, or some other type of scanner I couldn't recognize. Whatever tech it was had a lens, but it was small and not attached to anything else I could make out. "All right. You got us this far, kid. I'll take it from here."
As he walked, he turned his torso in as many directions as he could. Mother followed slowly behind him, uncertain. A sense of relief invigorated me – we had found the area, and now, someone else was taking the burden of responsibility. The adults – the other adults – likely felt they had had it for the last two and a half hour hike, but it was me. It was exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure.
"Should we stay here?" Mother prodded as she clutched onto my arm, daring Gabriel to challenge her.
The man sharply shook his head once. "That ship sailed a long time ago, my friends. I would go on ahead myself, but I don't know what's out there." He looked Mother up and down. "You're the strongest of us here, Lucrecia. I want you watching my back."
Left unsaid was that neither one of them wanted me left alone.
That served me well enough.
Begrudgingly, she urged me forward.
OSMOS V
August 04, 16:29 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The Ambassador knew his role and he knew it well. Preparations were well underway for a meeting with the Triarchy's enemies in the far-flung continents across the oceans. Within the week, the Osmosians would be deep in discussions over sovereignty, conflicts, and eventual assimilation. The Ambassador's agents had already been in talks with important pillars from each of the independent city-states, and it would be only a matter of time before they, too, came to the table and were ready to deal. The Reach stood to gain the most from any negotiations, and the Ambassador was looking forward to sharing this new world with the rest of the empire once their machinations were complete.
A panel of data floated at his mental command – substantial blackmail material he would only use against one of the more stubborn resisters if necessary – but he had no time to review its intricate details before someone barged into the room, uninvited.
He softened slightly as he saw her. The Enforcer and her golden scarab armor gleamed under the artificial light of the chamber, details from the monitors displaying a stunning view of the Triarchy's Capital glittering across her feathered wings. Her body language was tense – not at all like what he expected to see. Behind her entered two of her guard, red cloaks billowing under plate and plasma spears at the ready.
Old paranoia gripped him – perhaps this was a power play. It would not be the first he had endured, and it would not be the last. This was the perfect time, too – on the cusp of victory, without the Reach having to lift a single appendage against the populace. All it would take is a single stroke, and she could take all of the credit.
Instead, the Enforcer spoke with haste, offering only a faint amount of the mirth that she normally held in conversations with him. "Amby, there has been a breach in planet sector B24, near crash site seven."
He winced at the nickname said in mixed company but did not deign to admonish her.
The Ambassador thought carefully of where that might be, before she ordered her scarab to take command of the security panels. The display of the Capital marked with points of interest shifted to that of a desert environs. A map of its perimeter, the site of the crash, and its proximity to an outlying Osmosian town joined the displays.
"Why is this of urgent interest to me? Protocol dictates that-"
"Preliminary data indicates one of the three who have breached the perimeter is not Osmosian, nor of any species among the Reach."
The Ambassador could not hide his curiosity. "Fascinating. And we are certain it is no fluke of our sensors? Perhaps they are merely one carrying the genetic factor for Osmosian Exceptions and reading incorrectly in our systems."
Scanned data from perimeter probes raced onto the screens, and the Ambassador studied them with interest. No… this man was no Exception, and no native, despite sharing many of the same morphological structures. The Reach held no data with a cursory glance of their archives that could reveal his nature, and that was of interest.
"I can perform a more thorough analysis at your command, Ambassador," the Enforcer's scarab offered as it broke the silence of the grand meeting chamber. "Perhaps the Enforcer and I can investigate in person."
The Ambassador shook his head. "Negative. Enforcer, send Xandros."
"But Amby, he's in a-"
He waved her off. "Never mind. I'll do it."
The Ambassador reached onto a carapace-like console and interfaced with the only other infiltrator-class scarab in the system. A live feed revealed that Xandros and his wife Camila were mid-coupling. With the command of a button, the armor slid over the nude man's form, and Xandros yelped as he lost control of his body. The Ambassador spoke for Xandros through the connection. "Camila, I have an urgent mission."
Xandros begged for this to stop, but his wife could not hear him. The commander of the Reach operation on Osmos V had little care for what their pawn wanted, and it brought the insect a great satisfaction that he could witness Xandros' most private moments.
The Ambassador took control of their Osmosian asset for the second time in twelve hours. Without much more fanfare, the Scarlet Scarab rocketed high into the sky, a crying wife left behind amid broken skylight glass.
OSMOS V
August 04, 18:47 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Maximus hated waiting in the vehicle for a sign that they needed him. He had never been a patient man, in youth or in his now older years. He had a lot more life to live, and he doubted that mindset would change any time soon.
He had no shortcuts to make his role in all of this easier. He'd constantly sought ways to make things simpler, to make things faster, to automate what he could so that he could focus time on his children. But now? His son was missing, and he had no Gift to try to fix any of it.
Lucrecia did. Cassian did, too, for all the good that would do for the boy without experience. The boy's mother – Maximus'd have to pin all of his hopes on her, for the woman had years of power under her belt, even muted after all the time of a desk job.
During those early years of their relationship, Horatio must have seen something in the woman that Maximus hadn't. She was pretty, but pretty doesn't excuse bad behavior. It was clear that she was trouble for others or was in trouble herself. Maximus wasn't sure when Lucrecia evened out, but it was long before Cassian came along. The boy probably had no idea that his parents both held some pretty rough patches in their past.
She had some fight in her, at the end of the day, and that fight would have to be enough to get them through anything dangerous they might find. Maximus hoped they wouldn't see anything, of course, but well, they'd be fine with her there.
Still… he considered what he'd uncovered in these trying weeks, what he'd been trying to create. He desperately wished to make contact, to set plans into motion that would only be necessary if the worst comes to pass, and he was close to making the call.
A tone alerted his attention, and he activated the communicator to hear Jula's voice cutting into the din of the car. Maximus sighed slightly, not quite sure if he was prepared to hear whatever this was.
"Father, how goes the search?"
Distracted from his desperate thoughts, the sound of his daughter's voice brought him some amount of calm. "I'm on vehicle duty, while the others go out there to see what they can find."
Jula hesitated. "How's my nephew doing cooped up?"
Maximus wanted to chuckle when he realized she was trying to talk louder, to prod at the boy if he were here. Instead, he focused on the grim reality that their eight year old was out there. "He's not. He went with them."
A pause. "Did he sneak away?"
"No, but I wouldn't put that past him."
Jula sounded exasperated. "Listen – Cassian wasn't lying about the aliens. They're real. The Reach confirmed it!"
She played an audio recording of the interrupted product announcement broadcast, and Maximus felt every muscle grow taut with tension. None of this was a coincidence.
"I didn't think the boy was lying," he muttered, more to himself than to her, "but I don't like any of this."
Jula's voice shook. "I-I don't either. Father, you have to listen to me. Don't stay out any longer than you have to. Honestly – bring them home as soon as possible. We're hearing a ton of things in the Capital, and things don't look pretty if even a quarter of it is true."
Maximus sensed the seriousness in her plea, and it was not like her to be so worried about any shift in the state of affairs. She was more collected in moments where it counted. "I'll give 'em some more time. But only some."
As she ended the call to make preparations of her own, he adjusted his communicator and engaged in paranoia. He prayed they would not be needed, but he hoped that they would be ready in the worst possible outcome.
OSMOS V
August 04, 19:22 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The moment I stepped around a particular rock formation is the moment I knew we had arrived. The sun had begun to set in the distance, and the way the shadows fell around it reminded me of that night. Mother clutched onto my arm when I abruptly stopped, and it did not need to be said that we had found it.
Gabriel immediately dropped into what should be the impact crater, something that was much deeper several weeks ago. Sands had largely pooled within the space, coating the bottom, though not evenly. A bit of digging, and we should be able to uncover the ship. I hurriedly moved to follow him, but Mother held tight and shook her head.
"I'm trusting you to stay right here," she answered my pleading eye. "I'm going to help him dig. If you spot something, shout us a warning and then run."
I started to complain, but I soon realized that it was the best I would get out of her. I had a nebulously strong piece of intergalactic tech covering my torso, and she probably thought it would be enough to stave off injury until help arrived. It would have to be enough.
Mother slid down into the crater with an almost unnatural ease. Gabriel began directing her to help him uncover the earth in several places, while he pulled a chrome rod from the back of his belt and brandished it before him. Every few seconds, a flicker of light would emanate from its widened tip. Once he performed a seemingly full sweep, he reached for a pair of thick-rimmed goggles hidden in a jacket pocket and slid them over his eyes, looking nearly every bit an emerald version of Cyclops.
"What do those do?" I called out to ask him, curious about whatever tech a human would bring with them in this likely futuristic society. One that apparently still used a compass for navigation, but perhaps had a spaceship somewhere hidden. I still wanted to ask him so many questions.
He seemed to consider the question for several seconds before he cleared his throat, the goofy device so tight around his head that it pulled his cheeks taut. "Both are scanners for types of radiation. If we find an ion trail, or something like it, it can tell us a lot about where the alien came from, or perhaps even where it went."
"Why ions? What's that mean?" Mother asked. I doubted anyone here did not know what ions were, but I was also at a loss for why that would be relevant.
"When ships move through space, they tend to leave behind a trail of material you can track. Not with your eye, but with tools like these."
"You have devices that can track spaceships?" I prodded. "Where'd you get them?"
"Took them from an engineering lab a few years back," he explained casually. He was a good liar – might even be true. "A buddy let me use them to look some things over, and I figured they'd come in handy during an investigation like this."
"You getting anything helpful?" Mother asked, impatient. "Where am I digging?"
He gestured for Mother to start in a different place from himself, and the two began sifting through earth as quickly as they could. Mother had a significant advantage after turning her hands into something metallic, fingers and palms acting almost like shovels to break apart the more packed earthen chunks and dig deeper. She was determined.
"When you looked through the other crash sites," I began, "did you ever find the ships?"
"No," Gabriel admitted, "but the big difference here is that this one happened much more recently than the rest, and it's in such a far-off place. It'd take days to get into position to retrieve it."
Mother was confused, even as she swung her shoveling hands further into the dirt. "You think the Triarchy has the other ships?"
"Who else?" He shrugged. "Them or the Reach. No one else stands to gain as much, and that's a big question you have to ask yourself when you investigate anything."
On that somber point, the digging continued. Gabriel's tools were curious and multi-purposed, and contemplating why he would be carrying such a strange collection of gadgets kept me entertained throughout the long, arduous process. It did not take long before they allowed me to assist with the digging, to give one of them a break while they watched for danger. Throughout each moment of intense exertion, I posited a few potential scenarios in my head for Gabriel.
One – the man worked for NASA, or a futuristic equivalent of it. Perhaps he was a scientist sent into space to investigate alien life. The tools he carried were meant for exploration, discovery, and research.
Two – the man worked for a space-age arm of the military. A lone scout sent to infiltrate a potential hostile planet. Maybe we were close enough to Earth that it was feasible we could be a threat, even without the planet having access to interstellar travel. These gizmos could easily just be for threat assessment.
Three – and the more likely option – I didn't have enough information to guess. I didn't know how to ask him outright without tipping my hand, and that paralysis just kept me from-
"Got it!"
Mother's shout broke my hour-long reverie. Torso covered in strange metal, she pulled and pulled at a large, protesting piece of the same substance until it finally lurched in a whine from the more solid base. Beneath the panel she bent into two pieces with impressive strength lay a container capable of holding a single one of those canine aliens. Sand trickled into the interior of the pod from several spaces, and a bit of light emanated from machines that were still running, weeks later.
Gabriel moved so quickly he nearly tumbled, end over end, down an incline. "Incredible! We found it."
I joined them a moment later, and Mother did not turn to look at me when I clapped her on a metallic arm. She stared in horror at the pod, as though surprised to see the ship and having all of what I'd said confirmed.
"We're the first to find this?" I asked. "Can you tell?"
Gabriel ignored me and climbed into the space, adjusting the lip of the ship so that the sand would stop pouring into the interior. Mother took the moment to clear some of it away from the edge, but I didn't want to miss anything that the human was going to do. He tried interfacing with any of the tech that seemed to still work, and it was difficult to tell what was meant to look like it was cracked into pieces and what was not. Perhaps he knew better, because he began taking things apart and adjusting switches and knobs.
"Are there any clues?" I finally asked. "Things you think will lead to Father?"
I had placed a lot of thought into how Gabriel would know what to find to lead the two of us to the missing people. It would not be as simple as finding a trail in the sand, but I did not have much of a gauge for how much more complex it would be. There could be any sign in the data here. I couldn't read the man to see exactly how well or not he understood what he was studying, but he seemed confident.
The man barely responded, still adjusting anything he could touch and applying various implements that he had yet to explain from his pockets. "When I find something, I promise you'll know. This is going to take us some time."
A whine sounded throughout the area, painful almost to my ears.
"I don't think we have it."
Mother's comment confused me until I heard a sizzling bolt of plasma strike against her metallic side.
She threw me to the dunes so quickly that I had little time to react. A grunt of pain from her heavy torso slamming into me escaped my lungs, but the sound of it barely reached my ears above the din of super-heated material splashing against the impact crater. She rolled atop me and covered my smaller frame with hers, and each wince on her face was as painful to me as a dagger to the chest.
"Gabriel!" she shouted, turning her head long enough to try to see what's happening. The smell of charred flesh was overpowering, and I couldn't catch my breath long enough to sense if that was me or her.
From the angle she had me pinned, protecting me with her transformed upper body, I couldn't see much. Choking from smoke that billowed up where the hot material touched, and the crunch of hot glass beneath my fingers, I clawed for some free space to move, but she held me tighter.
"No, no, no, no!" Mother croaked. "S-stay down!"
I reached for something – anything – that could get me an idea of what the hell was happening. Pushing hard against Mother's chest, I barely managed to move her a fraction of an inch – or perhaps she merely moved out of the way enough for me to see – but I caught a glimpse of something in the air above us.
High in the sky, amid billowing black smoke, was a familiar man coated in scarlet armor. A single arm pointed down, a circle brimming with light the same color as the oozing plasma where his hand should be. A moment later, another volley fell from the flying Scarlet Scarab, and it was all I could do to shout a warning to the human nearby before concentrated heat glassed everything in sight.
August 04, 15:32 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
We were fortunate that the area of the Magnus Desertus around Sanitas was not a complete sand pit. On a scale of "dunes for miles" and "dry, cracked wasteland," it was far closer to the latter. Searing sunlight, blazing heat, and blistering winds were still difficult pills to swallow, but at least the land was mostly flat terrain with almost even footing.
The ground around us was a webbed network of breaks, dips, and valleys – evidence of a lake that had long since dried. Grandfather used to tell me stories that life in town had revolved around it, when he was young. Centuries ago. It was a wonder that my hometown still thrived without it for so long. Perhaps Osmosians were similar to humans in that regard – families tended to stick together in places that were familiar, even if they could often be suited to any environment. Add in the longer lifespan, and it made for a closer family unit than most.
Or perhaps even longer held grudges.
"You sure this is the place?"
I wanted to ignore Gabriel's question – the man had shown remarkable aptitude to move through the desert without complaint, for someone less suited to the environment. Sheets of sweat poured from him, but he merely chugged water from containers at his side to keep himself moving. Mother, on the contrary, was starting to grow weary, and I was propelled along through sheer willpower to see it through.
"I'm sure we're not far."
The human – and what a trip it was to call him that – continued following the ridge, stepping deftly over small crevices and spots of weakness. "You boys were lucky you had that drone to plot your path. Without it, I don't think you'd have ma…." His voice trailed off.
No one wanted to be reminded of how close I had come to dying.
I banked on the idea that if we could somehow find the remains of the weather drone, then we'd be real close. Gabriel could study the crash site, could report back to whatever organization he worked for, and could point us in the direction toward Father. Assuming all of the pieces I thought were connected were legitimate, then we could do something.
Mother sighed as we rounded another bend and found nothing. Another strip of blank, barren land under a baking sun. "I'm calling Maximus, this is ridiculous-"
"No!" I barked. "We're not far now."
She did not stop reaching for a communicator, and I pushed through exhaustion to reach her side quickly. "We can find another way, Cassian."
"I'm telling you! It's close!"
It had to be close.
It had to be.
"For all we know, we're moving in circles-"
Gabriel cleared his throat loudly and raised his hand, revealing a compass. The most basic compass I'd ever seen, one that could have easily been bought in a Dick's Sporting Goods store. To pull such a simple device from his pocket while I am wearing a sophisticated piece of armor he created from a capsule smaller than his pinky finger? I suspected nanotech was at play, or perhaps hard-light, and I don't even know what to think.
"We're not going in circles," he promised, then leveled his attention on me. "Kid, we're gonna want to start a radial search pattern soon if you can't lead us there directly. Then, we'll be going in circles." He chuckled to diffuse the tension, but it didn't make Mother feel any better from the look of her face.
I scoured the surroundings even as Mother groaned and typed on the communicator.
… Oh.
I dashed ahead as quickly as I could, nearly tripping over loose stones, and skid to the ground. Mother and Gabriel were fast at my heels. I pulled at the upper layer of dust until finally, something familiar came loose.
A piece of metal. Thin, faded lightly on one end from exposure. One that matched the shaped frame and color of a familiar weather drone.
I held the heavy debris aloft with vindication. "This is it! I told you! We're close!"
Mother and Gabriel passed the drone piece to each other, and while she held it in her hands, her eyes softened as they glanced over its surface. Fingers traced over a serrated edge. "You… encountered something that did this?"
That alien's snarling maw haunted my dreams. Its lack of eyes, its horrendous breath, its sharpened claws, its flashing tail…. It was almost the shape of a xenomorph in its stature, and it moved like one too.
I never wanted to be that helpless ever again.
Gabriel pressed something in his jacket lapel – a camera, perhaps, or some other type of scanner I couldn't recognize. Whatever tech it was had a lens, but it was small and not attached to anything else I could make out. "All right. You got us this far, kid. I'll take it from here."
As he walked, he turned his torso in as many directions as he could. Mother followed slowly behind him, uncertain. A sense of relief invigorated me – we had found the area, and now, someone else was taking the burden of responsibility. The adults – the other adults – likely felt they had had it for the last two and a half hour hike, but it was me. It was exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure.
"Should we stay here?" Mother prodded as she clutched onto my arm, daring Gabriel to challenge her.
The man sharply shook his head once. "That ship sailed a long time ago, my friends. I would go on ahead myself, but I don't know what's out there." He looked Mother up and down. "You're the strongest of us here, Lucrecia. I want you watching my back."
Left unsaid was that neither one of them wanted me left alone.
That served me well enough.
Begrudgingly, she urged me forward.
OSMOS V
August 04, 16:29 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The Ambassador knew his role and he knew it well. Preparations were well underway for a meeting with the Triarchy's enemies in the far-flung continents across the oceans. Within the week, the Osmosians would be deep in discussions over sovereignty, conflicts, and eventual assimilation. The Ambassador's agents had already been in talks with important pillars from each of the independent city-states, and it would be only a matter of time before they, too, came to the table and were ready to deal. The Reach stood to gain the most from any negotiations, and the Ambassador was looking forward to sharing this new world with the rest of the empire once their machinations were complete.
A panel of data floated at his mental command – substantial blackmail material he would only use against one of the more stubborn resisters if necessary – but he had no time to review its intricate details before someone barged into the room, uninvited.
He softened slightly as he saw her. The Enforcer and her golden scarab armor gleamed under the artificial light of the chamber, details from the monitors displaying a stunning view of the Triarchy's Capital glittering across her feathered wings. Her body language was tense – not at all like what he expected to see. Behind her entered two of her guard, red cloaks billowing under plate and plasma spears at the ready.
Old paranoia gripped him – perhaps this was a power play. It would not be the first he had endured, and it would not be the last. This was the perfect time, too – on the cusp of victory, without the Reach having to lift a single appendage against the populace. All it would take is a single stroke, and she could take all of the credit.
Instead, the Enforcer spoke with haste, offering only a faint amount of the mirth that she normally held in conversations with him. "Amby, there has been a breach in planet sector B24, near crash site seven."
He winced at the nickname said in mixed company but did not deign to admonish her.
The Ambassador thought carefully of where that might be, before she ordered her scarab to take command of the security panels. The display of the Capital marked with points of interest shifted to that of a desert environs. A map of its perimeter, the site of the crash, and its proximity to an outlying Osmosian town joined the displays.
"Why is this of urgent interest to me? Protocol dictates that-"
"Preliminary data indicates one of the three who have breached the perimeter is not Osmosian, nor of any species among the Reach."
The Ambassador could not hide his curiosity. "Fascinating. And we are certain it is no fluke of our sensors? Perhaps they are merely one carrying the genetic factor for Osmosian Exceptions and reading incorrectly in our systems."
Scanned data from perimeter probes raced onto the screens, and the Ambassador studied them with interest. No… this man was no Exception, and no native, despite sharing many of the same morphological structures. The Reach held no data with a cursory glance of their archives that could reveal his nature, and that was of interest.
"I can perform a more thorough analysis at your command, Ambassador," the Enforcer's scarab offered as it broke the silence of the grand meeting chamber. "Perhaps the Enforcer and I can investigate in person."
The Ambassador shook his head. "Negative. Enforcer, send Xandros."
"But Amby, he's in a-"
He waved her off. "Never mind. I'll do it."
The Ambassador reached onto a carapace-like console and interfaced with the only other infiltrator-class scarab in the system. A live feed revealed that Xandros and his wife Camila were mid-coupling. With the command of a button, the armor slid over the nude man's form, and Xandros yelped as he lost control of his body. The Ambassador spoke for Xandros through the connection. "Camila, I have an urgent mission."
Xandros begged for this to stop, but his wife could not hear him. The commander of the Reach operation on Osmos V had little care for what their pawn wanted, and it brought the insect a great satisfaction that he could witness Xandros' most private moments.
The Ambassador took control of their Osmosian asset for the second time in twelve hours. Without much more fanfare, the Scarlet Scarab rocketed high into the sky, a crying wife left behind amid broken skylight glass.
OSMOS V
August 04, 18:47 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Maximus hated waiting in the vehicle for a sign that they needed him. He had never been a patient man, in youth or in his now older years. He had a lot more life to live, and he doubted that mindset would change any time soon.
He had no shortcuts to make his role in all of this easier. He'd constantly sought ways to make things simpler, to make things faster, to automate what he could so that he could focus time on his children. But now? His son was missing, and he had no Gift to try to fix any of it.
Lucrecia did. Cassian did, too, for all the good that would do for the boy without experience. The boy's mother – Maximus'd have to pin all of his hopes on her, for the woman had years of power under her belt, even muted after all the time of a desk job.
During those early years of their relationship, Horatio must have seen something in the woman that Maximus hadn't. She was pretty, but pretty doesn't excuse bad behavior. It was clear that she was trouble for others or was in trouble herself. Maximus wasn't sure when Lucrecia evened out, but it was long before Cassian came along. The boy probably had no idea that his parents both held some pretty rough patches in their past.
She had some fight in her, at the end of the day, and that fight would have to be enough to get them through anything dangerous they might find. Maximus hoped they wouldn't see anything, of course, but well, they'd be fine with her there.
Still… he considered what he'd uncovered in these trying weeks, what he'd been trying to create. He desperately wished to make contact, to set plans into motion that would only be necessary if the worst comes to pass, and he was close to making the call.
A tone alerted his attention, and he activated the communicator to hear Jula's voice cutting into the din of the car. Maximus sighed slightly, not quite sure if he was prepared to hear whatever this was.
"Father, how goes the search?"
Distracted from his desperate thoughts, the sound of his daughter's voice brought him some amount of calm. "I'm on vehicle duty, while the others go out there to see what they can find."
Jula hesitated. "How's my nephew doing cooped up?"
Maximus wanted to chuckle when he realized she was trying to talk louder, to prod at the boy if he were here. Instead, he focused on the grim reality that their eight year old was out there. "He's not. He went with them."
A pause. "Did he sneak away?"
"No, but I wouldn't put that past him."
Jula sounded exasperated. "Listen – Cassian wasn't lying about the aliens. They're real. The Reach confirmed it!"
She played an audio recording of the interrupted product announcement broadcast, and Maximus felt every muscle grow taut with tension. None of this was a coincidence.
"I didn't think the boy was lying," he muttered, more to himself than to her, "but I don't like any of this."
Jula's voice shook. "I-I don't either. Father, you have to listen to me. Don't stay out any longer than you have to. Honestly – bring them home as soon as possible. We're hearing a ton of things in the Capital, and things don't look pretty if even a quarter of it is true."
Maximus sensed the seriousness in her plea, and it was not like her to be so worried about any shift in the state of affairs. She was more collected in moments where it counted. "I'll give 'em some more time. But only some."
As she ended the call to make preparations of her own, he adjusted his communicator and engaged in paranoia. He prayed they would not be needed, but he hoped that they would be ready in the worst possible outcome.
OSMOS V
August 04, 19:22 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The moment I stepped around a particular rock formation is the moment I knew we had arrived. The sun had begun to set in the distance, and the way the shadows fell around it reminded me of that night. Mother clutched onto my arm when I abruptly stopped, and it did not need to be said that we had found it.
Gabriel immediately dropped into what should be the impact crater, something that was much deeper several weeks ago. Sands had largely pooled within the space, coating the bottom, though not evenly. A bit of digging, and we should be able to uncover the ship. I hurriedly moved to follow him, but Mother held tight and shook her head.
"I'm trusting you to stay right here," she answered my pleading eye. "I'm going to help him dig. If you spot something, shout us a warning and then run."
I started to complain, but I soon realized that it was the best I would get out of her. I had a nebulously strong piece of intergalactic tech covering my torso, and she probably thought it would be enough to stave off injury until help arrived. It would have to be enough.
Mother slid down into the crater with an almost unnatural ease. Gabriel began directing her to help him uncover the earth in several places, while he pulled a chrome rod from the back of his belt and brandished it before him. Every few seconds, a flicker of light would emanate from its widened tip. Once he performed a seemingly full sweep, he reached for a pair of thick-rimmed goggles hidden in a jacket pocket and slid them over his eyes, looking nearly every bit an emerald version of Cyclops.
"What do those do?" I called out to ask him, curious about whatever tech a human would bring with them in this likely futuristic society. One that apparently still used a compass for navigation, but perhaps had a spaceship somewhere hidden. I still wanted to ask him so many questions.
He seemed to consider the question for several seconds before he cleared his throat, the goofy device so tight around his head that it pulled his cheeks taut. "Both are scanners for types of radiation. If we find an ion trail, or something like it, it can tell us a lot about where the alien came from, or perhaps even where it went."
"Why ions? What's that mean?" Mother asked. I doubted anyone here did not know what ions were, but I was also at a loss for why that would be relevant.
"When ships move through space, they tend to leave behind a trail of material you can track. Not with your eye, but with tools like these."
"You have devices that can track spaceships?" I prodded. "Where'd you get them?"
"Took them from an engineering lab a few years back," he explained casually. He was a good liar – might even be true. "A buddy let me use them to look some things over, and I figured they'd come in handy during an investigation like this."
"You getting anything helpful?" Mother asked, impatient. "Where am I digging?"
He gestured for Mother to start in a different place from himself, and the two began sifting through earth as quickly as they could. Mother had a significant advantage after turning her hands into something metallic, fingers and palms acting almost like shovels to break apart the more packed earthen chunks and dig deeper. She was determined.
"When you looked through the other crash sites," I began, "did you ever find the ships?"
"No," Gabriel admitted, "but the big difference here is that this one happened much more recently than the rest, and it's in such a far-off place. It'd take days to get into position to retrieve it."
Mother was confused, even as she swung her shoveling hands further into the dirt. "You think the Triarchy has the other ships?"
"Who else?" He shrugged. "Them or the Reach. No one else stands to gain as much, and that's a big question you have to ask yourself when you investigate anything."
On that somber point, the digging continued. Gabriel's tools were curious and multi-purposed, and contemplating why he would be carrying such a strange collection of gadgets kept me entertained throughout the long, arduous process. It did not take long before they allowed me to assist with the digging, to give one of them a break while they watched for danger. Throughout each moment of intense exertion, I posited a few potential scenarios in my head for Gabriel.
One – the man worked for NASA, or a futuristic equivalent of it. Perhaps he was a scientist sent into space to investigate alien life. The tools he carried were meant for exploration, discovery, and research.
Two – the man worked for a space-age arm of the military. A lone scout sent to infiltrate a potential hostile planet. Maybe we were close enough to Earth that it was feasible we could be a threat, even without the planet having access to interstellar travel. These gizmos could easily just be for threat assessment.
Three – and the more likely option – I didn't have enough information to guess. I didn't know how to ask him outright without tipping my hand, and that paralysis just kept me from-
"Got it!"
Mother's shout broke my hour-long reverie. Torso covered in strange metal, she pulled and pulled at a large, protesting piece of the same substance until it finally lurched in a whine from the more solid base. Beneath the panel she bent into two pieces with impressive strength lay a container capable of holding a single one of those canine aliens. Sand trickled into the interior of the pod from several spaces, and a bit of light emanated from machines that were still running, weeks later.
Gabriel moved so quickly he nearly tumbled, end over end, down an incline. "Incredible! We found it."
I joined them a moment later, and Mother did not turn to look at me when I clapped her on a metallic arm. She stared in horror at the pod, as though surprised to see the ship and having all of what I'd said confirmed.
"We're the first to find this?" I asked. "Can you tell?"
Gabriel ignored me and climbed into the space, adjusting the lip of the ship so that the sand would stop pouring into the interior. Mother took the moment to clear some of it away from the edge, but I didn't want to miss anything that the human was going to do. He tried interfacing with any of the tech that seemed to still work, and it was difficult to tell what was meant to look like it was cracked into pieces and what was not. Perhaps he knew better, because he began taking things apart and adjusting switches and knobs.
"Are there any clues?" I finally asked. "Things you think will lead to Father?"
I had placed a lot of thought into how Gabriel would know what to find to lead the two of us to the missing people. It would not be as simple as finding a trail in the sand, but I did not have much of a gauge for how much more complex it would be. There could be any sign in the data here. I couldn't read the man to see exactly how well or not he understood what he was studying, but he seemed confident.
The man barely responded, still adjusting anything he could touch and applying various implements that he had yet to explain from his pockets. "When I find something, I promise you'll know. This is going to take us some time."
A whine sounded throughout the area, painful almost to my ears.
"I don't think we have it."
Mother's comment confused me until I heard a sizzling bolt of plasma strike against her metallic side.
She threw me to the dunes so quickly that I had little time to react. A grunt of pain from her heavy torso slamming into me escaped my lungs, but the sound of it barely reached my ears above the din of super-heated material splashing against the impact crater. She rolled atop me and covered my smaller frame with hers, and each wince on her face was as painful to me as a dagger to the chest.
"Gabriel!" she shouted, turning her head long enough to try to see what's happening. The smell of charred flesh was overpowering, and I couldn't catch my breath long enough to sense if that was me or her.
From the angle she had me pinned, protecting me with her transformed upper body, I couldn't see much. Choking from smoke that billowed up where the hot material touched, and the crunch of hot glass beneath my fingers, I clawed for some free space to move, but she held me tighter.
"No, no, no, no!" Mother croaked. "S-stay down!"
I reached for something – anything – that could get me an idea of what the hell was happening. Pushing hard against Mother's chest, I barely managed to move her a fraction of an inch – or perhaps she merely moved out of the way enough for me to see – but I caught a glimpse of something in the air above us.
High in the sky, amid billowing black smoke, was a familiar man coated in scarlet armor. A single arm pointed down, a circle brimming with light the same color as the oozing plasma where his hand should be. A moment later, another volley fell from the flying Scarlet Scarab, and it was all I could do to shout a warning to the human nearby before concentrated heat glassed everything in sight.
- Location
- USA
Oh boy. They have an aerial ambusher with likely superior firepower and they have no cover to speak of other than the interior of the spaceship.
Poor Scarlet Scarab and his Wife. I wonder if she's in the know or just thinks their relationship is falling apart.
Wow. This Ambassador is a Ick with a capital D.
Poor Scarlet Scarab and his Wife. I wonder if she's in the know or just thinks their relationship is falling apart.
Wow. This Ambassador is a Ick with a capital D.
0.10
- Location
- Alabama
OSMOS V
August 04, 21:16 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
When the dust settled, I was not sure how I made it to my feet, nor how I began to run through cracked, hot wasteland. On autopilot, I forced my feet to carry me over sizzling, newly-formed blast craters, my shoes painfully melting from the leftover heat. Each step was like agony, but I kept running.
I made it a solid few yards before I flipped around in terror. Mother! Gabriel!
Amidst warm smoke, bright glass, and incredible scorched earth lay only one of the two: Mother. Her prone, unmoving form was no longer metal but instead reverted to flesh, much of her clothing burned away. My legs carried me forward at the highest speeds I could muster, long strides on too small a child's frame.
Inexplicably riding atop a thin platform of metal, shining with green light, was Gabriel. The platform carried him fast at an angle straight for the armored Reach warrior, climbing higher and higher. A real life hoverboard! A sleek black and silver body suit had replaced his previous clothing, and he carried several glowing orbs in his hand. A look of determination burned across his face, which changed only slightly when he looked down long enough to lock eyes with me.
"Run!" he shouted, then turned away long enough to chuck an orb toward Xandros. "Get her and run!"
A moment later, the sky erupted in a catastrophe of emerald and silver light, undulating on itself like a willful flame. Bigger than any explosion I'd ever seen, perhaps rivaling movies back on Earth in another lifetime. Nothing could live through that!
I had to look away, using the moment to close the distance toward Mother. I spared a glance upward for but a second, and Gabriel flew straight through the flickering embers left behind and into a great cloud of smoke that choked light from the area.
Good god, what was all this?
What- how?
I cried for Mother to awaken. I begged myself not to focus on the sight of her ruined legs, her scarred back, her burned shoulders. I forced my twitching hands to pull her to her side, then to her back, to check her for any sign of consciousness. Every medical show or moment in a movie came to my mind, to check for a pulse, to check for signs of life, but I could only whimper in helplessness.
She had taken every bit of that force.
Every bit of that heat.
She had saved my life.
Another series of explosive blasts of plasma fell on the ground several dozen yards away, cooking every bit of sand and dirt in the area.
Every inclination I had to not trust the Reach had proven correct.
I could not dwell on it.
I had to get her out of here. Had to get her away from here. Where… where was safe?
He could fly! There was nowhere to hide that he couldn't see, even stumbling in the dark. There was no cover from an aerial onslaught in a flat wasteland. Sanitas was the closest settlement, at least two hours away without carrying her to safety. Grandfather was close, but the vehicle could not outpace the scarab technology. We were sitting ducks to run on our own.
My only solution: let Gabriel buy us some time.
Gift or not, neither Mother nor I had anything that could close the distance. Xandros could freely rain plasma down on us from dozens of feet in the air, and we could do nothing to stop it. Gabriel? He could close the distance. I dare not hope he could win, no matter what awe-inspiring tech he could bring to the table.
The hoverboard carried the man into view above me once more, carving a trail through the smoke. The human hefted something in the shape of a pistol and aimed at the retreating form of the armored beetle warrior. A few pulls of the trigger later, and electricity danced harmlessly against an energy shield that emerged from an outstretched gauntlet. I could practically see the Osmosian man's sick grin, despite the closed helmet obscuring his face. Gabriel shouted for me to leave again, as he changed ammo sources and unleashed something else that left scars.
I reached down to grab for Mother, only just now trying to comprehend why the Reach would do this. What do they gain by attacking people they do not know? Why was Xandros okay with attacking his own people? Why open fire first without discussion? They meant to kill us for investigating this?
I heaved her onto my shoulder, grateful to feel the soft shifting of her breathing against my back. Compared to a human child, it was easy to carry her weight, but cumbersome to keep her from dragging behind me. She was still too long compared to my height, and I had to grab at legs that were far too scarred to not have permanent damage just to pull them into a position to be easy to carry. It took great effort to not think about the wet wounds I could feel beneath my hands.
A horrifically loud sound reverberated somewhere above us. A new cannon unleashed a kind of sonic attack, and Gabriel narrowly dodged the impact force of it. Where it touched against the desert floor, a cloud of sand emerged in waves. The human tried to toss another grenade, but the silver and green orb missed and detonated several yards away, flashing the sky again with impressive light and fire.
Xandros flew through the mass of heat without worry. Voice amplified loudly enough that I can hear it as I try to flee, he taunted, "There is little chance of escape. Surrender now to the Triarchy, and you may face clemency for your trespass."
If I had been a gullible man, I might have believed that. If he really wanted us to surrender, he wouldn't have started with enough explosive force to level a building. But I was not a gullible man, and neither was Gabriel. The human scoffed and brandished his weapon with a short burst round of fire, one of the shots managing to mark a solid hole in the side of the armor. In response, the Reach's lapdog redoubled his efforts with the sonic weapon, and I pushed myself faster.
I carried her as far as I could in the direction of any sign of cover. Gabriel had managed to drive the man's focus away from Mother and I, and I stopped long enough to reach for the communicato-
Fried.
Useless.
I grumbled as I tossed the device onto the dirt. Grandfather would surely see or hear the sound of the explosions and come. If I could hide long enough, maybe he'd have time to get here and escort us out of harm's way.
Another distant flash of light preceded an immediate explosion, and the force of it rattled my knees. I didn't dare turn to see this time – fleeing was more important. Far more important.
OSMOS V
August 04, 21:31 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Jula would like to believe that she felt a shift in the air before the announcement. The past few days had confirmed it for her, and until this mess with her family began, she would have assumed nothing. Calls, messages, reports – not all were similar in content, but many were similar in meaning: things were about to change for the worse. For whom? Probably for everyone.
Since her call with her father, Jula had spent the afternoon trying to gather information from as many people as she could. Reporters, friends, business rivals – no useful information. The company had forced her to make many contacts over the years, and she held quite a few close relationships with people in the government. The worrying thing? Not one of them would talk with her beyond the expected, and they repeated the same bottom line from Elder Gordia's announcements. No amount of smooth talking could convince them, and Jula felt truly in hot water.
It wasn't until the next broadcast where she learned exactly where things were headed, and she wished with every fiber of her being that her family were here. They were stuck in the wilderness, chasing after something that might not pan out, while everyone else stood ready to hear the most dramatic news imaginable.
Jula'd been in mid-conversation with a former colleague when the message began. Elders Seneca, Cato, and Gordia – the current Triarchs – interrupted every signal on anything with a screen and a strong enough connection, including her desk terminal. Their faces were calm, their voices resolute, their speech impassioned, their postures united. A perfectly poised message to deliver dreadful news. In the past twenty-four hours, life within the borders of the Triarchy had changed, and nothing signaled that more to Jula than seeing such a rehearsed message.
Gordia delivered the bulk of the message, and Jula supposed that if anyone could deliver them through this, it would be the woman who had ruled the longest.
"Earlier today, I delivered news of the grave threat that our planet faces. Our partners among the Reach have confirmed the presence of additional landing sites, to a number far beyond initial estimates. There have been hundreds of landings scattered across our planet, among nearly every region around the world."
Jula gasped in horror when they showed their evidence. A graphic displayed a map of the affected locations. Every major region across the three continents. Many were near cities, and even the Capital had dozens of landing zones around it.
While the message continued, she could see the panic beginning to spread from far below her penthouse window. The Overcity would be ensconced in mayhem within minutes, as people scrambled to make ends meet before chaos began. The aliens beyond their walls could be minutes away from causing harm, abducting more people like her brother, and she cursed herself and the whole damn situation.
Seneca stepped forward next. "These hostile creatures from beyond our stars are highly dangerous, with natural and unnatural abilities that threaten the stability of our home. Normal life in our great world cannot continue as it is under the presence of this close danger."
A trio of clips played on the screen below their three stalwart faces. In the first, a reptilian alien grew to be dozens of feet tall and barreled through a stone pillar, forcing a building to collapse. In the second, a strange shape flash-froze an entire ship near the coast, before diving into frozen water. In the third, a panicked group of civilians were torn apart as an alien spawned dozens of itself and swarmed them, ripping into them with teeth and bare hands.
With shaking fingers, Jula tried to shift the communicator to contact her father, but it refused to move away from the mandatory broadcast. With a glance toward the city, what few viewing screens she could see on the sides of buildings or through opened windows were displaying the same information. They wanted everyone to be on the same page, and it would calm and excite to equal degrees.
"Our forces unite against them now," Cato explained impassively, as the clips repeated. "Given the magnitude of the situation, we are instituting a strict mandate. You must shelter in place until further information arrives. Violators will be prosecuted under the full weight of the law, for the safety of yourselves and your neighbors. Information about logistics will be provided-"
She tuned them out.
Martial law. Intended to keep them safe, but would it succeed?
Jula ordered her robotic attendants to gather supplies from anything she might have and to place it in an organized pile for her to further collect. The broadcast continued, outlining more specific information, for nearly ten additional minutes, but Jula only half-listened. Instead, she and her drones carried the supplies down to her garage.
She was grateful for the private elevator to the ground floor. From its windows, she watched waves of uncertainty, waves of distress, and waves of violence begin to wash over the city. The people in her building, who lived below her, had no such access point to easily get to the ground floor, forced to fight for the same paths. The drones stood behind her, ready to defend her from any potential crowds.
The elevator's speaker continued the message as it reached its conclusion. "Cooperation from the Reach is ongoing to address the influx of violence we face from hostile dissidents. Even now, Diplomat Xandros engages with threats to our people's safety, and we thank our partners for carrying us through such a trying time. Osmos V will live on to a new day because they are here to help."
Jula had to admit that she once believed the Reach to be a boon. A people with technological superiority who were willing to share their resources with their society? Medicine, food, water, transportation, computing – all of those fields, and more, were better than they had been. Their sensors located this threat to Osmos V, an invasion right under the Triarchy's noses. If they helped stop the damage before it could spread too highly, then maybe? Maybe it was good.
Her brother and her father did not think so. Cassian didn't think so, and the kid had a remarkably fixed perspective on the whole thing. Many of her colleagues were on her side, but a few agreed with those of her family. She felt torn between suspicion and praise, and the entire thing was just… off.
Upon reaching the base floor of the building and its expansive garage, she could hear the sounds of panic in the streets just beyond its walls. Her three drones placed the gathered supplies into the back of the vehicle, and within minutes, she forced her way into the cramped roads, sure to activate her security system behind her as the door to the building closed. The man-sized robots sat among the cabin, and her most experienced at driving took the wheel.
Others held the same idea.
Get onto the road.
Get out of the city.
Get into the city.
The vehicle turned corners too-sharply and drove over walk-paths, only so quickly to avoid harming any of the growing crowds. More joined the roads in their own machines, or were already in transit, and she pressed on to the nearest gate. Once she was out into the desert proper, she could go off-road and avoid what would more likely become a target.
The second the broadcast ended, she tried again to call her father, to tell her that she was on the way to Sanitas.
Jammed.
Static.
Busy.
Jula cursed aloud and messaged her boss an update. Several replies followed in swift succession, and she ignored them to continue the drive. Someone in the city would know where she headed, and she hoped she could make it before martial law settled into place.
She wasn't the only one who had those same hopes.
Horror spread across her face as she crossed a second thoroughfare that led toward the nearest city exit, this one more packed than the first she'd checked. Desperate people crawled from the Undercity entrances to the surface. Idiots descended into the tunnels in the vain hopes things would be safer. Vehicles and people alike cramped the city streets as all looked for ways out, ways in, and anywhere else between.
Several minutes passed before her vehicle even made progress, and each harrowing second was a second where fear gripped her heart. The two drones at either side of her in the back of the cabin shifted into defensive postures each time a scared, dirty face crossed too close to the windows looking outside. Jula almost told them to hold off, to become less aggressive, until she saw an Exception in the distance spit enough acid at a vehicle that the door melted, making it easy pray for looting.
Jula's fingers desperately tried to call again, to send a message, to let someone know. Heart pounding in her chest, there was no tone, no reply. Lucrecia, Cassian, Maximus, Horatio – no one was responding.
Someone thumped into her vehicle. Foot traffic and vehicle traffic became too tight to escape, too tight to turn around, too tight to get out. The robot to her left tensed as a metallic arm rose in a defensive posture, ready to crash through the window at anyone who managed to get too close. Jula had programmed them well for situations like muggers, not for crowds of people who just wanted out and were willing to do anything to get out.
A heavy crash caused panicked screams. Jula tried to see what caused it, but there was too much happening.
A voice – digitally enhanced to be as loud as possible – reverberated throughout the masses. "Citizens of the Capital are now under strict orders to return to your homes. This is for your safety."
The message repeated several times, and the people were not listening. Those who wanted to turn around could not, for there was little room to escape the immediate area. Anger bled from fear, and Jula desperately wished to be anywhere but here.
This was a mistake.
Another crash. A flicker of orange flames. An Exception stretching her body in impossible shapes, weaving her strange body through the crowd to try to get closer, only to get shoved away and then forced to retaliate.
In mere moments, Jula's vehicle lay in the center of a violent riot.
At her request, the drone to her left opened the door to the vehicle with such force that she knocked a pair of parents and their young son to the ground. Jula's heart sang with guilt as she dropped to the ground behind the exiting robot, the other two abandoning the vehicle behind her. A small bag of supplies over its metallic shoulders, the drone behind her stiff-armed a running citizen, knocking him away forcefully before he could get too close.
From the street, she could see a better angle of what lay ahead. The passageway through the city's perimeter walls, once designed to protect against the elements, now served as a reminder of a prison. Armed military operatives dressed in fatigues, four of them as hard as stone, two as sleek as metal. Others among them carried weapons and riot gear, and were actively using different methods to fight back against the ensuing threat of citizens who were too afraid to think clearly.
… She hadn't been thinking clearly either, she realized too late.
Jula did not have more time to contemplate as the first volley of the army's warning shots - and actual shots - fired in her vicinity. Blaster bolts struck flesh all around her, and those who could still stand began to hobble away as some in the crowd dispersed. Others, incensed, used the Gift and Exceptions to fight back, and Jula could not afford to stay to watch the violence.
She darted away as quickly as she could muster, robotic drones surrounding her. One took a heavy hit from a kinetic weapon, arm plates loose from their correct orientation. They readied their weapons as a deterrent, built-in stunner mounts on their shoulders, and at least three people who looked to cross in front of her backed away in shock. She had a clear path.
"I can't believe they'd attack us!"
"Get the damned aliens!"
"Morons are fighting them too! Get us all killed!"
"Elder Cato's gonna save us!"
More voices of the citizens joined the din of reactions, and she moved for the only place that looked safe – anywhere but here.
OSMOS V
August 04, 21:41 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Mother stirred awake, and I hurriedly dropped her as gently as I could beneath the rocky outcropping. I hadn't wanted to stop here for long – it would be painfully obvious that this was the only bit of cover around, and I'd had to carry her for far too long to even get here. Somehow, the confrontation between Gabriel and the Reach warrior had not yet ended, and if it ended right then, at that moment, I was just glad he bought her enough time to awaken.
If this was it, I could say my-
"C-cassi-"
I clutched her hand. The one that was least disfigured. She held tight.
"Mom, I – you gotta – you gotta move. We can't stay here. Can you?"
I knew the likely answer in my brain, but my heart was not listening.
She tried to stand. I could see the effort in her face, could hear it in her breath. Distantly, the warbling sounds of sonic cannons caught my attention, and each moment where Gabriel did not catch up with us was another moment where he'd just lose. I almost missed her finally pull herself to a sitting position, with immense effort.
"Don't stress yourself if it's too hard," I tried weakly. "We're gonna get help. The – Gabriel's using some weapons to fight him off."
She wasn't listening – or perhaps was in too much pain to hear me. Several seconds passed while Mother stared at her hands, and she reached down as though to grab for the rock. A look on her face told me she wanted to absorb it, but she did not follow through. Was there too much pain?
"Who- who is Gabriel fighting?"
"The Scarlet Scarab," I answered carefully. "I don't know how or why, but Xandros attacked us." I explained more about what I saw, but her eyes were distant as she thought deeply.
"Are you hurt?"
I was, and I told her. She hadn't completely covered me with her body, and there was a serious burn on my right leg that wrapped almost entirely around it, between my ankle and my knee. It was nowhere near as deep as anything Mother had, and the sight of it brought her to fresh tears.
"Oh, Cassian. You- you – I hate this."
I gestured to the jacket Gabriel had given me. "I guess this thing worked. I'm okay – I will be okay. And you will too. We just gotta wait it out." I exhaled. "Just wait it out." I glanced toward her extensively burned legs, trying not to think about the smell. "You can walk?"
Mother glanced toward her hands again and then toward me, toward my chest. The sky glittered with the flash of another explosion, and she grabbed onto my shoulder without a second thought.
Energy crackled where she touched, green light flickering and trying to escape her absorbant grasp. My eyes widened with shock as I realized what she was doing, and I watched with horror as her own eyes flashed with an emerald glow. Within seconds, the jacket had completely disappeared, and all of that energy had gone into her.
With shaky movements, light shimmered across her body in crackling waves, solidifying into an aura that enveloped her. In movements that surprised both of us, she stood confidently – if wearily – onto her feet, energy cascading off of her with such distorting force that I could feel it from feet away.
"Mother, you-"
"Do as I say, not as I do."
Green light flickered into existence across her entire body, and then she took off running toward the sounds of battle. As she ran, the ridges around her eyes deepened into solid black lines, and the horns that were not due to grow for several more years lengthened into prominent, permanent fixtures across her head. If she noticed, I wasn't sure, but she turned long enough to throw a warding hand toward me.
"Stay here!"
And with an impossible leap despite wounded legs, she bound into the air with such force that she almost cleared the ground entirely. I watched in pure surprise as she landed several dozen yards away with a crash, and then leaped again, even higher and farther.
Toward the site of the battle.
August 04, 21:16 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
When the dust settled, I was not sure how I made it to my feet, nor how I began to run through cracked, hot wasteland. On autopilot, I forced my feet to carry me over sizzling, newly-formed blast craters, my shoes painfully melting from the leftover heat. Each step was like agony, but I kept running.
I made it a solid few yards before I flipped around in terror. Mother! Gabriel!
Amidst warm smoke, bright glass, and incredible scorched earth lay only one of the two: Mother. Her prone, unmoving form was no longer metal but instead reverted to flesh, much of her clothing burned away. My legs carried me forward at the highest speeds I could muster, long strides on too small a child's frame.
Inexplicably riding atop a thin platform of metal, shining with green light, was Gabriel. The platform carried him fast at an angle straight for the armored Reach warrior, climbing higher and higher. A real life hoverboard! A sleek black and silver body suit had replaced his previous clothing, and he carried several glowing orbs in his hand. A look of determination burned across his face, which changed only slightly when he looked down long enough to lock eyes with me.
"Run!" he shouted, then turned away long enough to chuck an orb toward Xandros. "Get her and run!"
A moment later, the sky erupted in a catastrophe of emerald and silver light, undulating on itself like a willful flame. Bigger than any explosion I'd ever seen, perhaps rivaling movies back on Earth in another lifetime. Nothing could live through that!
I had to look away, using the moment to close the distance toward Mother. I spared a glance upward for but a second, and Gabriel flew straight through the flickering embers left behind and into a great cloud of smoke that choked light from the area.
Good god, what was all this?
What- how?
I cried for Mother to awaken. I begged myself not to focus on the sight of her ruined legs, her scarred back, her burned shoulders. I forced my twitching hands to pull her to her side, then to her back, to check her for any sign of consciousness. Every medical show or moment in a movie came to my mind, to check for a pulse, to check for signs of life, but I could only whimper in helplessness.
She had taken every bit of that force.
Every bit of that heat.
She had saved my life.
Another series of explosive blasts of plasma fell on the ground several dozen yards away, cooking every bit of sand and dirt in the area.
Every inclination I had to not trust the Reach had proven correct.
I could not dwell on it.
I had to get her out of here. Had to get her away from here. Where… where was safe?
He could fly! There was nowhere to hide that he couldn't see, even stumbling in the dark. There was no cover from an aerial onslaught in a flat wasteland. Sanitas was the closest settlement, at least two hours away without carrying her to safety. Grandfather was close, but the vehicle could not outpace the scarab technology. We were sitting ducks to run on our own.
My only solution: let Gabriel buy us some time.
Gift or not, neither Mother nor I had anything that could close the distance. Xandros could freely rain plasma down on us from dozens of feet in the air, and we could do nothing to stop it. Gabriel? He could close the distance. I dare not hope he could win, no matter what awe-inspiring tech he could bring to the table.
The hoverboard carried the man into view above me once more, carving a trail through the smoke. The human hefted something in the shape of a pistol and aimed at the retreating form of the armored beetle warrior. A few pulls of the trigger later, and electricity danced harmlessly against an energy shield that emerged from an outstretched gauntlet. I could practically see the Osmosian man's sick grin, despite the closed helmet obscuring his face. Gabriel shouted for me to leave again, as he changed ammo sources and unleashed something else that left scars.
I reached down to grab for Mother, only just now trying to comprehend why the Reach would do this. What do they gain by attacking people they do not know? Why was Xandros okay with attacking his own people? Why open fire first without discussion? They meant to kill us for investigating this?
I heaved her onto my shoulder, grateful to feel the soft shifting of her breathing against my back. Compared to a human child, it was easy to carry her weight, but cumbersome to keep her from dragging behind me. She was still too long compared to my height, and I had to grab at legs that were far too scarred to not have permanent damage just to pull them into a position to be easy to carry. It took great effort to not think about the wet wounds I could feel beneath my hands.
A horrifically loud sound reverberated somewhere above us. A new cannon unleashed a kind of sonic attack, and Gabriel narrowly dodged the impact force of it. Where it touched against the desert floor, a cloud of sand emerged in waves. The human tried to toss another grenade, but the silver and green orb missed and detonated several yards away, flashing the sky again with impressive light and fire.
Xandros flew through the mass of heat without worry. Voice amplified loudly enough that I can hear it as I try to flee, he taunted, "There is little chance of escape. Surrender now to the Triarchy, and you may face clemency for your trespass."
If I had been a gullible man, I might have believed that. If he really wanted us to surrender, he wouldn't have started with enough explosive force to level a building. But I was not a gullible man, and neither was Gabriel. The human scoffed and brandished his weapon with a short burst round of fire, one of the shots managing to mark a solid hole in the side of the armor. In response, the Reach's lapdog redoubled his efforts with the sonic weapon, and I pushed myself faster.
I carried her as far as I could in the direction of any sign of cover. Gabriel had managed to drive the man's focus away from Mother and I, and I stopped long enough to reach for the communicato-
Fried.
Useless.
I grumbled as I tossed the device onto the dirt. Grandfather would surely see or hear the sound of the explosions and come. If I could hide long enough, maybe he'd have time to get here and escort us out of harm's way.
Another distant flash of light preceded an immediate explosion, and the force of it rattled my knees. I didn't dare turn to see this time – fleeing was more important. Far more important.
OSMOS V
August 04, 21:31 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Jula would like to believe that she felt a shift in the air before the announcement. The past few days had confirmed it for her, and until this mess with her family began, she would have assumed nothing. Calls, messages, reports – not all were similar in content, but many were similar in meaning: things were about to change for the worse. For whom? Probably for everyone.
Since her call with her father, Jula had spent the afternoon trying to gather information from as many people as she could. Reporters, friends, business rivals – no useful information. The company had forced her to make many contacts over the years, and she held quite a few close relationships with people in the government. The worrying thing? Not one of them would talk with her beyond the expected, and they repeated the same bottom line from Elder Gordia's announcements. No amount of smooth talking could convince them, and Jula felt truly in hot water.
It wasn't until the next broadcast where she learned exactly where things were headed, and she wished with every fiber of her being that her family were here. They were stuck in the wilderness, chasing after something that might not pan out, while everyone else stood ready to hear the most dramatic news imaginable.
Jula'd been in mid-conversation with a former colleague when the message began. Elders Seneca, Cato, and Gordia – the current Triarchs – interrupted every signal on anything with a screen and a strong enough connection, including her desk terminal. Their faces were calm, their voices resolute, their speech impassioned, their postures united. A perfectly poised message to deliver dreadful news. In the past twenty-four hours, life within the borders of the Triarchy had changed, and nothing signaled that more to Jula than seeing such a rehearsed message.
Gordia delivered the bulk of the message, and Jula supposed that if anyone could deliver them through this, it would be the woman who had ruled the longest.
"Earlier today, I delivered news of the grave threat that our planet faces. Our partners among the Reach have confirmed the presence of additional landing sites, to a number far beyond initial estimates. There have been hundreds of landings scattered across our planet, among nearly every region around the world."
Jula gasped in horror when they showed their evidence. A graphic displayed a map of the affected locations. Every major region across the three continents. Many were near cities, and even the Capital had dozens of landing zones around it.
While the message continued, she could see the panic beginning to spread from far below her penthouse window. The Overcity would be ensconced in mayhem within minutes, as people scrambled to make ends meet before chaos began. The aliens beyond their walls could be minutes away from causing harm, abducting more people like her brother, and she cursed herself and the whole damn situation.
Seneca stepped forward next. "These hostile creatures from beyond our stars are highly dangerous, with natural and unnatural abilities that threaten the stability of our home. Normal life in our great world cannot continue as it is under the presence of this close danger."
A trio of clips played on the screen below their three stalwart faces. In the first, a reptilian alien grew to be dozens of feet tall and barreled through a stone pillar, forcing a building to collapse. In the second, a strange shape flash-froze an entire ship near the coast, before diving into frozen water. In the third, a panicked group of civilians were torn apart as an alien spawned dozens of itself and swarmed them, ripping into them with teeth and bare hands.
With shaking fingers, Jula tried to shift the communicator to contact her father, but it refused to move away from the mandatory broadcast. With a glance toward the city, what few viewing screens she could see on the sides of buildings or through opened windows were displaying the same information. They wanted everyone to be on the same page, and it would calm and excite to equal degrees.
"Our forces unite against them now," Cato explained impassively, as the clips repeated. "Given the magnitude of the situation, we are instituting a strict mandate. You must shelter in place until further information arrives. Violators will be prosecuted under the full weight of the law, for the safety of yourselves and your neighbors. Information about logistics will be provided-"
She tuned them out.
Martial law. Intended to keep them safe, but would it succeed?
Jula ordered her robotic attendants to gather supplies from anything she might have and to place it in an organized pile for her to further collect. The broadcast continued, outlining more specific information, for nearly ten additional minutes, but Jula only half-listened. Instead, she and her drones carried the supplies down to her garage.
She was grateful for the private elevator to the ground floor. From its windows, she watched waves of uncertainty, waves of distress, and waves of violence begin to wash over the city. The people in her building, who lived below her, had no such access point to easily get to the ground floor, forced to fight for the same paths. The drones stood behind her, ready to defend her from any potential crowds.
The elevator's speaker continued the message as it reached its conclusion. "Cooperation from the Reach is ongoing to address the influx of violence we face from hostile dissidents. Even now, Diplomat Xandros engages with threats to our people's safety, and we thank our partners for carrying us through such a trying time. Osmos V will live on to a new day because they are here to help."
Jula had to admit that she once believed the Reach to be a boon. A people with technological superiority who were willing to share their resources with their society? Medicine, food, water, transportation, computing – all of those fields, and more, were better than they had been. Their sensors located this threat to Osmos V, an invasion right under the Triarchy's noses. If they helped stop the damage before it could spread too highly, then maybe? Maybe it was good.
Her brother and her father did not think so. Cassian didn't think so, and the kid had a remarkably fixed perspective on the whole thing. Many of her colleagues were on her side, but a few agreed with those of her family. She felt torn between suspicion and praise, and the entire thing was just… off.
Upon reaching the base floor of the building and its expansive garage, she could hear the sounds of panic in the streets just beyond its walls. Her three drones placed the gathered supplies into the back of the vehicle, and within minutes, she forced her way into the cramped roads, sure to activate her security system behind her as the door to the building closed. The man-sized robots sat among the cabin, and her most experienced at driving took the wheel.
Others held the same idea.
Get onto the road.
Get out of the city.
Get into the city.
The vehicle turned corners too-sharply and drove over walk-paths, only so quickly to avoid harming any of the growing crowds. More joined the roads in their own machines, or were already in transit, and she pressed on to the nearest gate. Once she was out into the desert proper, she could go off-road and avoid what would more likely become a target.
The second the broadcast ended, she tried again to call her father, to tell her that she was on the way to Sanitas.
Jammed.
Static.
Busy.
Jula cursed aloud and messaged her boss an update. Several replies followed in swift succession, and she ignored them to continue the drive. Someone in the city would know where she headed, and she hoped she could make it before martial law settled into place.
She wasn't the only one who had those same hopes.
Horror spread across her face as she crossed a second thoroughfare that led toward the nearest city exit, this one more packed than the first she'd checked. Desperate people crawled from the Undercity entrances to the surface. Idiots descended into the tunnels in the vain hopes things would be safer. Vehicles and people alike cramped the city streets as all looked for ways out, ways in, and anywhere else between.
Several minutes passed before her vehicle even made progress, and each harrowing second was a second where fear gripped her heart. The two drones at either side of her in the back of the cabin shifted into defensive postures each time a scared, dirty face crossed too close to the windows looking outside. Jula almost told them to hold off, to become less aggressive, until she saw an Exception in the distance spit enough acid at a vehicle that the door melted, making it easy pray for looting.
Jula's fingers desperately tried to call again, to send a message, to let someone know. Heart pounding in her chest, there was no tone, no reply. Lucrecia, Cassian, Maximus, Horatio – no one was responding.
Someone thumped into her vehicle. Foot traffic and vehicle traffic became too tight to escape, too tight to turn around, too tight to get out. The robot to her left tensed as a metallic arm rose in a defensive posture, ready to crash through the window at anyone who managed to get too close. Jula had programmed them well for situations like muggers, not for crowds of people who just wanted out and were willing to do anything to get out.
A heavy crash caused panicked screams. Jula tried to see what caused it, but there was too much happening.
A voice – digitally enhanced to be as loud as possible – reverberated throughout the masses. "Citizens of the Capital are now under strict orders to return to your homes. This is for your safety."
The message repeated several times, and the people were not listening. Those who wanted to turn around could not, for there was little room to escape the immediate area. Anger bled from fear, and Jula desperately wished to be anywhere but here.
This was a mistake.
Another crash. A flicker of orange flames. An Exception stretching her body in impossible shapes, weaving her strange body through the crowd to try to get closer, only to get shoved away and then forced to retaliate.
In mere moments, Jula's vehicle lay in the center of a violent riot.
At her request, the drone to her left opened the door to the vehicle with such force that she knocked a pair of parents and their young son to the ground. Jula's heart sang with guilt as she dropped to the ground behind the exiting robot, the other two abandoning the vehicle behind her. A small bag of supplies over its metallic shoulders, the drone behind her stiff-armed a running citizen, knocking him away forcefully before he could get too close.
From the street, she could see a better angle of what lay ahead. The passageway through the city's perimeter walls, once designed to protect against the elements, now served as a reminder of a prison. Armed military operatives dressed in fatigues, four of them as hard as stone, two as sleek as metal. Others among them carried weapons and riot gear, and were actively using different methods to fight back against the ensuing threat of citizens who were too afraid to think clearly.
… She hadn't been thinking clearly either, she realized too late.
Jula did not have more time to contemplate as the first volley of the army's warning shots - and actual shots - fired in her vicinity. Blaster bolts struck flesh all around her, and those who could still stand began to hobble away as some in the crowd dispersed. Others, incensed, used the Gift and Exceptions to fight back, and Jula could not afford to stay to watch the violence.
She darted away as quickly as she could muster, robotic drones surrounding her. One took a heavy hit from a kinetic weapon, arm plates loose from their correct orientation. They readied their weapons as a deterrent, built-in stunner mounts on their shoulders, and at least three people who looked to cross in front of her backed away in shock. She had a clear path.
"I can't believe they'd attack us!"
"Get the damned aliens!"
"Morons are fighting them too! Get us all killed!"
"Elder Cato's gonna save us!"
More voices of the citizens joined the din of reactions, and she moved for the only place that looked safe – anywhere but here.
OSMOS V
August 04, 21:41 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Mother stirred awake, and I hurriedly dropped her as gently as I could beneath the rocky outcropping. I hadn't wanted to stop here for long – it would be painfully obvious that this was the only bit of cover around, and I'd had to carry her for far too long to even get here. Somehow, the confrontation between Gabriel and the Reach warrior had not yet ended, and if it ended right then, at that moment, I was just glad he bought her enough time to awaken.
If this was it, I could say my-
"C-cassi-"
I clutched her hand. The one that was least disfigured. She held tight.
"Mom, I – you gotta – you gotta move. We can't stay here. Can you?"
I knew the likely answer in my brain, but my heart was not listening.
She tried to stand. I could see the effort in her face, could hear it in her breath. Distantly, the warbling sounds of sonic cannons caught my attention, and each moment where Gabriel did not catch up with us was another moment where he'd just lose. I almost missed her finally pull herself to a sitting position, with immense effort.
"Don't stress yourself if it's too hard," I tried weakly. "We're gonna get help. The – Gabriel's using some weapons to fight him off."
She wasn't listening – or perhaps was in too much pain to hear me. Several seconds passed while Mother stared at her hands, and she reached down as though to grab for the rock. A look on her face told me she wanted to absorb it, but she did not follow through. Was there too much pain?
"Who- who is Gabriel fighting?"
"The Scarlet Scarab," I answered carefully. "I don't know how or why, but Xandros attacked us." I explained more about what I saw, but her eyes were distant as she thought deeply.
"Are you hurt?"
I was, and I told her. She hadn't completely covered me with her body, and there was a serious burn on my right leg that wrapped almost entirely around it, between my ankle and my knee. It was nowhere near as deep as anything Mother had, and the sight of it brought her to fresh tears.
"Oh, Cassian. You- you – I hate this."
I gestured to the jacket Gabriel had given me. "I guess this thing worked. I'm okay – I will be okay. And you will too. We just gotta wait it out." I exhaled. "Just wait it out." I glanced toward her extensively burned legs, trying not to think about the smell. "You can walk?"
Mother glanced toward her hands again and then toward me, toward my chest. The sky glittered with the flash of another explosion, and she grabbed onto my shoulder without a second thought.
Energy crackled where she touched, green light flickering and trying to escape her absorbant grasp. My eyes widened with shock as I realized what she was doing, and I watched with horror as her own eyes flashed with an emerald glow. Within seconds, the jacket had completely disappeared, and all of that energy had gone into her.
With shaky movements, light shimmered across her body in crackling waves, solidifying into an aura that enveloped her. In movements that surprised both of us, she stood confidently – if wearily – onto her feet, energy cascading off of her with such distorting force that I could feel it from feet away.
"Mother, you-"
"Do as I say, not as I do."
Green light flickered into existence across her entire body, and then she took off running toward the sounds of battle. As she ran, the ridges around her eyes deepened into solid black lines, and the horns that were not due to grow for several more years lengthened into prominent, permanent fixtures across her head. If she noticed, I wasn't sure, but she turned long enough to throw a warding hand toward me.
"Stay here!"
And with an impossible leap despite wounded legs, she bound into the air with such force that she almost cleared the ground entirely. I watched in pure surprise as she landed several dozen yards away with a crash, and then leaped again, even higher and farther.
Toward the site of the battle.
I have had this moment planned for Lucrecia for months, and it feels hype as hell to finally get to it.
Next chapter concludes this section of the flashback arc. Not the whole flashback arc, but it feels nice to see this one end on 0.11.
Next chapter concludes this section of the flashback arc. Not the whole flashback arc, but it feels nice to see this one end on 0.11.
- Pronouns
- She/He/They/It
Yoooo we got a badass moment!!
- Location
- Alabama
Thank you!
I was definitely channeling a few disaster movies in my head while writing. It's not quite to the level of total collapse, but you know, time will tell.
- Location
- USA
You've crafted a very interesting society in your story.
To theory craft here a little.
They are xenophobic and are proud of their ancestors abilities to resist Xeno enslavement. And while many probably assumed those stories were just myths at first. Now they now that their are aliens out in the cosmos and they are hostile. This will probably cause quite a few people to rethink their opinions on those old tales.
The Reach are in an interesting situation. The second they are no longer considered the "Good Aliens" in this situation, they'll likely have to contend with an ever growing population of xenophobic traditionalists.
A long while back, an alien matching the profile of a Vulpimancer (aka Wildmutt) showed up. Now we have broadcasts of a size-shifting dinosaur that may be a Vaxasaurian (aka Humungousaur), an alien that could freeze things and then seem to disappear into the ice, suggesting a Necrofriggian (aka Big Chill), a lot of familiar aliens appear. Then there's the one that duplicated, which might be a Splixson (aka Ditto) maybe? Either there's a bunch of unrelated invasions, or maybe an Omnitrix wielder is present somewhere on this world. Or maybe multiple Omnitrix wielders.
This is where the fun begins and it brings a smile on my face.
- Location
- USA
Assuming the Reach didn't just abduct a bunch of alien individuals and brainwash them into mindless killing machines. Because I could totally see them making their own "villains" to sell their "Hero" and to drum up fear of the "Evil" Non-Reach Alien.
0.11
- Location
- Alabama
OSMOS V
August 04, 22:10 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Lucrecia's body buzzed. Every cell, every nerve ending, every muscle, every tissue – a glimmer of something more raced between them all, exciting each and every sensation she could imagine and others she could not. Never before had she felt so energized as she did in those fleeting moments, so intense that she could forget about the debilitating pain that throbbed in the back of her mind.
She ignored the pain and focused instead on what she needed to do, on what she had the power to do.
This was not the first time that she had interacted with energy beyond her own. This situation brought back painful memories of a shameful time, and she held those moments in her mind long enough to consider how to use the energy she had absorbed. She had a limited window to make something happen.
The Osmosian landed in a tumble beneath the aerial fight. A quick glance upward showed a sweating Gabriel, carried by a flying platform through the air. Minor abrasions and likely bruises were visible on his face, and she hoped he had no serious injuries that she could not see beneath his uniform. There was little she understood about Gabriel – especially now – but if he was fighting to defend her son and find Horatio, that was more than enough for her.
His opponent came into view, spiraling through the sky. Carried aloft through bug-like wings and some kind of tech along his back, he was fast. Deadly fast. Armed with weapons that were more sophisticated than she had ever seen, Xandros renewed his efforts and launched several projectiles toward Gabriel. The investigator twisted up on the platform and rocketed into the sky, gravity a mere suggestion for him, and the attacks missed in a wide arc. Where they struck against the sands below, they exploded into a series of flaming conflagrations that left behind warped fields of glass.
Gabriel evened out in the air and returned fire with a gun in hand, bolts of light flickering across a flashing sky. Xandros seemed prepared for everything, armored plates shifting into a shield that took the attacks head on. Lucrecia was glad to see that they'd damaged the defenses, and he'd had to toss the ruined metal away into the dirt far below him. She'd expected to see that his gauntlets had lost some material to make that, but if it had, she couldn't see it from this distance.
The fight began anew, and Lucrecia redoubled her efforts to find – or make – an opening. Whether either of them had noticed her was unclear, but both of them would know her soon. She was sure of it.
The twisting energetic excess vibrated amid her arms, crackling visibly in green tendrils that wafted from her form like smoke. She'd tried not to think of the vehicle she'd destroyed once, many years ago, with a move like this. Aching for release, she leaped with a building of power in her ruined legs, a wince of pain escaping even as she jumped dozens of feet into the air. Rearing back at the apex of her climb, she shouted, "Xandros!"
An arc of green light cascaded like a cannon through the air. The released energy twisted around itself like a coil, moving too fast to track properly with her eyes. A mere moment later, an emerald explosion erupted mid-air as it found its target. It was a terrifying display and far more powerful than she could really comprehend – what was this technology?
The Scarlet Scarab emerged from the smoke cloud in a downward spiral. End over end, he plummeted into a rocky edifice far below him. Wings failed to unfurl in time to stop his descent, and the dust cloud that formed on impact might have dwarfed the size of their home in Sanitas. Lucrecia grinned as she finished her arc through the air and collided with the ground in a roll. Her legs spiked with renewed pain, the energy suffusing it bleeding away by the second.
The realization that it had taken a significant chunk of whatever power source for the armor she'd absorbed to pull that off further sobered her mood. If this confrontation continued, she would not likely produce something to that effect again.
Gabriel descended to get within earshot. He started to say something upbeat, but his eyes flickered downward to study her lower half. "Nice effort. Is your kid all right?"
"He'll be fine." She started to move toward the downed diplomat, but the flying man held up an arm.
"Lucrecia, take what you have left and go. I got this."
She considered the suggestion and disregarded it. "I jumped in front of a bomb to save my son, and it only saved him from the worst of it. Once this wears off, I might never walk again. You think I'm letting that bastard live?"
That shut the man up quickly.
Lucrecia steadied herself and arced more of the borrowed strength into her extremities. Soothing sparks of power flickered visibly behind her knees, her thighs, her ankles, her shins as she accelerated into a sprint. Adrenaline - and more - pumped into her veins and muffled the ache of each step. A half-second survey of the top of her bare foot revealed visible bone beneath melted tissue, and she decided that this must be a miracle that she could move at all.
Her ally settled into her path, flying just in front and to the right of her. His bodysuit was torn in several places, revealing wounds of his own that seeped into the black material. The technology the man possessed was a confusing mystery to her, and she wondered if they had what it took to finish the threat. Perhaps together, they could-
Xandros snapped into a sitting position and brandished twin cannons, one from each scarlet gauntlet. Power coils pulsated beneath the exposed ends, threatening them both with whatever power he could exploit. Behind him, damaged wings tried and failed to unfurl, to help him to move. "By the authority of the Triarchy and their Reach allies, I demand that you stand down."
Lucrecia merely sneered as she dashed faster. Gabriel hesitated long enough for her to dart past him, but whatever warning he shouted was lost on her determined ears.
The Scarlet Scarab armor bombarded the space between them with plasma, so hot that the very air sizzled with heat everywhere it touched along the way. Instinct forced her to pull up a single arm to defend her face, but she did not stop moving. The blast struck her torso, but she was too angry to care about the overwhelming pain.
Xandros scrambled to his feet and tried to back away, but she closed the distance. A fist shimmering with emerald light slammed into a hastily-formed hexagonal shield of transparent material. Gabriel attempted to add to the onslaught with some kind of tossed binding material, but Xandros showed no signs of fear. As the ruined shield and ruined wings crumbled away, he pivoted to the side to avoid the follow-through of her blow and leaped away from Gabriel's tech.
Lucrecia whirled around, anger filling every pore, and attempted a second strike, but Xandros conjured a blade at the end of his gauntlet. A swing of the sharp insectoid weapon caught her imposing arm, still glittering and crackling with borrowed power. A moment of rational thought broke through her fury, and she barely yanked her arm away in time before she lost her entire hand. Instead, blood dripped onto the sand below her feet from a thick gash on her forearm.
Xandros redoubled his efforts and formed a second blade, charging forward with propulsion from his boots. The movements were nearly too fast to track in these close-quarters, and Lucrecia fell on the back foot. She narrowly dodged to the left of one fatal slash, but that placed her in the path of a second. A crackle of light flashed out from her at her mental urging and struck the Reach warrior in the abdomen, but it was nowhere near as effective or powerful as her initial burst.
It didn't slow him down either.
Fortunately, Gabriel intercepted the blow with a metallic staff that brimmed with power similar to the energy rushing through her body. He maneuvered in such a way that he was now taking the focus of the enemy. The platform beneath his feet was less flying and more skating across the ground as he moved, tightly able to maintain the momentum of the fight.
"Lucrecia, you can't beat him-"
The words only made her angrier.
She reached for the end of the staff and felt the energetic pull of power flowing into her. Gabriel cursed as it vanished from his grip, fully absorbed into her body as the apparent energy construct faded and became one with her energy reserves. She flooded herself with it, pain muting and becoming nothing but background noise. Wounds still flowed freely from several places in her body, but everything was too vibrant, too vivid, too all encompassing to care.
"You have to get out of here!"
Ignoring him, she forced herself forward and traded places with her ally once more. A flicker of power gathered around her fist as she attempted a strike against the armored warrior. The fist itself did not make purchase, but crackling energy surged in its path and managed to hit the scarab's armored arm indirectly. Where it touched became scarred, burned, and cracked, revealing Osmosian forearm beneath.
Before she could celebrate, Gabriel forcibly shoved her away from a cannon that had formed in Xandros's breastplate. An immense blast of power scorched the environment and only scored an indirect hit on the man's outstretched arm, burning away the uniform and singeing the flesh beneath for but a moment.
"You should listen to your friend, woman," Xandros taunted, armor still functional and visibly repairing from the effort of the fight. The chest beam weapon still hummed with power and could release a charge at any moment. Something resembling the wings he'd been using earlier began to reform behind him. "If you insist on this fight, you will lose. Stand down and come willingly into custody."
Lucrecia cursed. "You almost hit my little boy with something that could kill him! Could kill any of us. Now you suddenly care about taking us alive?"
Gabriel agreed with a subtle nod, face alarmed and ready to maneuver at any moment. "If I had to guess, you're far more scared of what we've accomplished together than you let on."
With each passing second, she could feel the energy surging through her diminishing. She held it in her grasp as fervently as she could, for she would need it to continue.
"Ha!" Xandros laughed. "You've no idea what I can do. What the Reach and Osmos V can do together. This is only the beginning of what we will accomplish, and I have more than enough resources to end you both in seconds." Twin cannons formed in his gauntlets, while six more emerged from insectoid appendages jutting from his back. "You can end this farce of a confrontation now and live to see tomorrow." His face turned directly to her. "Live to see your son and husband again."
Lucrecia erupted.
OSMOS V
August 04, 22:24 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
I didn't stay put.
How could I possibly stay put? I was too far away to see the fight and understand its outcome. My mother left to fight the Scarlet Scarab, empowered by technology that dwarfed anything even Jula's company had been doing for decades. My father might be dead, might be kidnapped, might be imprisoned – I wouldn't know for sure until I found him, and I might never find him. I can't add uncertainty about Mother's fate.
I played it smart.
I approached the battle while staying low. I moved as quickly yet quietly as I could. I transformed my arms into stone to add to already boosted durability, in case stray debris struck me. I even managed to cover most of my chest with the material, which was more than I'd previously ever managed, and I had just as good a chance as I ever would finding some level of defense against something like this.
The fight, even viewed from afar, was insane to witness.
Xandros was a perfect weapon. A mixture of close-combat and ranged skills made it difficult for the others to find an opening. He countered their attacks with increasingly varied armor constructs, and counterattacked with surprises of his own. Each new configuration he manifested with his armor was a different challenge for his opponents to resist, and it was only a matter of time.
Gabriel moved like a whirlwind through the air on his hoverboard and pulled a multitude of tools from his belt to use in the confrontation. He'd somehow gained the air superiority, or at the very least, Xandros chose to continue the fight on the ground. The additional range was perhaps the only reason they were still able to fight.
If Gabriel was like a storm in the sky, Mother was like a meteor. She glittered with that borrowed power, an aura of green light surrounding her in pulsing waves. Each attempt to strike Xandros was devastating when it landed, but he was keeping her at a distance. I didn't think they could do enough damage to take him down without a solid amount of luck on their side. Despite the craters sometimes left in her fists' wake where they struck.
I didn't dare get too close. Gabriel and Mother did not need to worry about my safety while they fought. I had no fighting skills whatsoever to make a difference, so I didn't need to get closer and didn't need to intervene. Mother had to have been in a few scrapes before to hold her own, and I suspected there was much about both of my parents that I had not known. Father once worked for a terrorist group, and Mother was brave enough to strike head-on against a superior opponent. What did they do in the past?
I managed to find a crouching spot outside of the effected area of the fight, the terrain shifting with each passing second. I wanted nothing more than to shout advice, to provide pointers, but what did I know that either of them didn't? The Reach provided no knowledge to the public about how the scarab truly worked, so I knew of no weaknesses despite how many hours I'd spent looking into their tech. If Gabriel had been on the planet for longer than I'd initially thought, he may have even more information that I do.
The fight shifted to one of defense for the pair, interrupting my thoughts. Surprise struck me as Xandros darted forward with rocket-propelled movement, a trail of light almost flickering behind him in the coming darkness of the desert night. Mother was unprepared for the movement change and took a direct hit from one of the beetle-like blades, a wide gash opening in the stomach!
I screamed.
The three of them darted their attention to me, even as Gabriel landed several shots from a blaster pistol onto the Reach warrior's front. Mother grimaced in shocked pain. Xandros grinned beneath the armored face-plate.
"Run!"
"Both of you, run!"
I raced to scramble away at the sound of Gabriel's warning, and I almost tripped over my own two feet and uneven ground. Mother turned away from the two men and darted for my side, moving with such speed that she almost seemed to fly across the distance, glittering with light the color of emeralds. I grasped onto her hand with pleading fingers, and she cursed under her breath as she leaped into the sky with me in tow.
Something struck me around the mid-section a moment later, moving at such a velocity that I'm ripped from her grip. A scarlet bar-like device pinned me against the ground around my midsection, like a giant human-sized staple. Stunned partially from the impact against the ground, I pushed against it with stony hands, but it does not budge. With horrified, desperate eyes, I noticed a second staple projectile scored a more direct hit on Mother. One end extended from her bloody hip while the other end fastened her to the ground a few feet away.
Gabriel launched an explosive that created a cloud of dust that surrounded us. I hurriedly tried to pull myself out, tried to reach Mother, tried to do something, but nothing was working. I smashed my fist against the staple so strongly that the stone cracked away, revealing bruised knuckles beneath.
"Leave them both out of this." Gabriel shouted. "Your quarrel is with me, not them."
Scarlet Scarab ignored the human and walked closer to both of us, armored gauntlets transforming into twin cannons once more. Green light flickered faintly from Mother's body as she tried to muster her strength, but the injuries she had suffered were extensive. She was fading fast – too fast for comfort, and anger filled my soul.
"Stand down," Xandros dared Gabriel. The armor whirred to life as he leveled his fist in my direction, at point-blank range. "The boy joins his mother."
"Don't you- da-re!" Mother cried with a gurgle. She managed to force the staple-like device to bend, but a second joined the first with such efficiency of movement that I barely saw it form from the scarlet armored plating. This one did not pierce her body, but the message was clear: he had her restrained.
She struggled further, but I- I don't think she- she can't-
"Let them go. Take me instead."
The human's offer sent me into a further spiral of despair.
My one chance to escape this place. To return home. To find Father. To save Mother. To save myself.
Xandros did not lower the weapon pointed at my face, but it did noticeably reduce in power.
Gabriel and his hoverboard descended to ground level. He kicked the center of it with a heel. The contraption flickered until it became nothing more than a single silver disc, no more than six inches across, that floated of its own accord into the buckle of his belt. Other gear joined it within a few seconds, and the Reach warrior grew more excited the longer it took the man to disarm. Once the last of it was finished, he whirled the weapon in the human's direction.
My last chance, gone in one evening.
Xandros sneered as the man fell to his knees. "I am surprised someone not of this planet would care to throw your freedom and livelihood away for the locals."
The Reach knew about his humanity?
"Says the local," Gabriel prodded. "You'd never understand if you tried."
"You think me incapable of sentiment?"
"Imperialist beetle fucks proved that a long time ago. This is just more of the same. How many more orphans you going to make before you stop?"
Orphans?
The word caught in my throat and in my thoughts.
I wasn't- I wasn't! She was right there, still breathing- still awake.
Covered in scars. Bleeding profusely. The strange energy of Gabriel's technology slipped away more each passing second, and with it, Mother's ability to fight the pain of her wounds. I could see it on her face, marred with six large bruises that were already swelling. She weakly tried to absorb the metal of the Reach's restraining device, but it failed as her concentration failed.
"Why would you do this to us?!" I screamed, too goddamn angry to cry. I gripped the metal of the staple and pulled on its material, shifting away from stone and instead to its cold structure. I struggled anew, making more progress than before, and the staple began to bend. "What did we do to you? You're supposed to be one of us, not one of them!"
The Scarlet Scarab leaned down without taking his sensors off of Gabriel and any surprise tech. "Because you're nothing but meaningless meat."
"You attacked us!"
He ignored my complaint and gestured for the human to stay put as he walked closer. By now, much of the damage the battle had done to his suit was rapidly repairing.
"Unprovoked!"
Again, the Osmosian turncoat ignored me.
Gabriel met my eyes as Xandros gripped the other man's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I should not have involved any of you. I hope, one day, you can find a way to forgive me."
Xandros activated the wings of his power armor and jettisoned himself and the human into the sky, leaving behind a thick dust cloud that enveloped us both.
With a heavy heart and a release of negative emotion in the shape of tears and a forceful tearing of staple pins from above my ribcage, I crawled over to Mother. I was barely able to think clearly enough to do it, too furious and pulled in several goddamn directions to make any rational goddamn decision.
"Ca-cass-Cassian."
I choked, tears free flowing and dropping onto Mother's newfound horns. "Don't- don't do this. Don't die. You can't."
I couldn't deal with this.
Not again.
When I left my old life behind, through whatever means, I also left my mother behind. A remarkable woman who inspired me to teach. Mom was the best and brightest – she had her rough spots, don't get me wrong, but in many ways she had been my best friend.
And then I vanished and appeared a universe away with no reasonable ability to return. As a new infant to a new mom. A mom - no, mother that was similar and yet so different from the first, one who tried hard to be the best she could. But… she would never be the best, because I'd already had the best.
And now, nearly eight years later, I l-lost this one too.
OSMOS V
August 05, 03:52 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Jula had managed to hide within the Undercity, a mess of seedy taverns, cramped housing, and heavily-guarded and out of the way estates from richer folks who wanted no one in their business. She now regretted the decision she'd made, after her first major bonus at Vir Actus, to not purchase property here. At the time, she'd valued living under the stars as paramount, for she'd always found value in reaching higher and higher. Living in a grungy affair, hidden away from the rest of the rabble down here, wouldn't let her enjoy the view from the skylight in her office.
Now? She couldn't care less about the sky.
Her robotic guards kept her isolated through sheer force of technological will. They were imposing figures to the have-nots that had joined her within the underbelly of an above-ground theater. The other citizens huddled in cramped clusters, while some individuals paced back and forth in pure nervousness. The lights above them provided warm light to such a dreary, fear-filled atmosphere, and the sight of such terrified families brought tears to her eyes.
She refused to cry. She had a better position than most. The immediate danger would soon fall, the government would tighten its grip on the rioting populace, and she could return home to obey whatever curfew. She'd use what resources she had to contact her father, get her family back to the Capital. They could wait out the storm of whatever threat these aliens posed, while the Triarchy squashed it.
A young man without horns stood so abruptly that it drew her attention. One of his arms was longer than the other by nearly a foot: an Exception, perhaps, or someone born with an unfortunate birth defect. "We gotta make a plan. We can't just sit here-"
"Sitting here is working so far!"
"Get down, fool. You're scaring my daughter!"
"My kids too."
Shouting continued for several moments, and Jula wanted nothing more than to drown it all out. This wasn't helping.
The long-armed man drifted that hand into the air, dark skin glowing with a faint yellow light. Jula tightened her grip on one of her bodyguard's metallic limbs. "C'mon, being scared isn't going to get us anywhere. What if we're here for several days? Any of you brought food? Water? Weapons? If one of them aliens comes down here, how you gonna fight for your life?"
Several frightened people nearby, including a boy a little older than Cassian, turned their eyes toward her and the robots that surrounded her. She warded them off with a glare, but refused to meet the child's eyes.
Murmurs swept across the crowd. One couple – young, too innocent – offered some of their provisions in a pile in the center of the theater. Another man started shoving tables and chairs to one side of the room, to block the entrance, which inspired several others to help. The man with the Exception gleamed at the possibility that he might be getting somewhere. "That's it, that's it. We gotta stick together, do what's right. Someone get a headcount, someone start taking down names. We gotta…"
Jula watched with faint hope at the display. Maybe, just maybe, they'd get through this.
"Quite the trinkets you have there."
A man approached her calmly. Dark hair that flowed past his shoulders, horns atop his head, a long billowing cloak wrapped around his torso. He was handsome, with a build that suggested he took care of himself. Jula bristled at the idea of his coming closer, and her bodyguards were programmed to respond to the tension in her body language. The nearest one turned to place its torso between them.
He raised a placating gesture and stopped a few feet from her. "Not to worry. I won't get closer. Just admiring these models, wondering if they might be useful if we get in a pinch."
She considered, briefly, ignoring the man, but he didn't seem to be the type to let things go. "They'll do what's needed."
"I'd hope so," he offered. "With everything that's happening out there, I'm glad to see you have some tools to help you stay safe."
Jula almost rolled her eyes. "Why do you care so much about if I'm safe?"
"Oh? It's not about you, madam. It's about all of us."
She'd already counted. "Big enough group forces its way past that barricade and tries to steal our stuff? I doubt my robots could keep us all safe."
He scanned the room, eyes settling on the women and children. "They probably would have trouble, yes. I don't mean the people in this room, madam. I am speaking for all of us on Osmos V."
The man was deluded, Jula decided. Charisma be damned.
"We rest on the precipice of defeat, of destruction. Barring a miracle, our society will crumble. Every one of us must stand ready to fight, tooth, horn, and nail, for everything we have if we want to survive."
"That's ridiculous. The Triarchs will-"
"Those supplicants?" The man laughed. "They fell when they decided to share."
OSMOS V
August 05, 07:39 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The Ambassador was pleased with himself. A dangerous dissident element on the planet had been uprooted before it could bear fruit. The minimal threat of this non-Osmosian man had been reduced to nothing, now under their thumb.
One of his assistants within his direct employ as the Ambassador brought with him an update, passing a slim panel covered in insectoid plates into the Enforcer's waiting gauntlet-covered hands. "Sir, pockets of violence have erupted across the Triarchy and its rival city-states across the seas. This event has rippled across the planet beyond our expectations."
The Ambassador could not help but bask in the glory of that information, even as he dismissed the officer after the report. Many events were ongoing simultaneously, though what caught his attention more were the efforts of Xandros against this unknown man.
The Scientist, chief researcher of the entire operation on Osmos V, entered the chamber at the height of their victory, likely to bring a report of another of their various projects. A large carapace-like screen still displayed elements from the surprising combat against a foe with unexpected technology, much of which did not fit within their extensive databases. The Ambassador studied the written hypotheses on the screen, but none of them fit the picture quite perfectly. Perhaps the Scientist had come to place his input into that matter.
A careful finger traced the plating of his arm, and he did not turn away from the screen even as the former Thanagarian Enforcer whispered, "You're spending a lot of thought on something that is no longer a worry, Amby. Why don't we get some rest? The coming days will be long and arduous."
The Scientist settled opposite the Enforcer on the Ambassador's other side. He could tell the Reach man had something to report, but knew better than to interrupt a conversation between the Ambassador and the Enforcer.
"There are too many unknowns," the leader of the Reach on Osmos V reiterated. "Our tactics are sound. This strategy guarantees us control of the population soon. If we stay the course, and there are no other unnecessary and unexpected interruptions, then predictions indicate all resistance will be negligible within six months."
The Scientist cleared his throat. "With all due respect, those were initial estimates. The genetic variability of the denizens of this planet could produce significant challenge to any of our number, especially as outnumbered as we are."
The Enforcer scoffed at the Scientist. "The Triarchy already wrestles with martial law. Our little game will force everything to crumble – they are far too unorganized to mount any significant challenge."
"If we deploy too early," the Scientist warned, "then we'll have no choice but to-"
The Ambassador cut him off and leaned slightly into the buxom Enforcer's loose embrace. "Deploy all but the reserve Assets in strategic locations."
"But, but that will-"
"Total pandemonium." The Enforcer purred. "You're a madman, Amby."
"Ensure our forces are in position to mitigate the chaos. See to it that the citizens of Osmos V know that they owe their survival to us."
The Scientist bristled at the command, and the winged beetle warrior left to engineer their master stroke. The races native to their system and those races that were assimilated from others moved with purpose throughout the complex like an orchestra, and the music of their activity forced the Ambassador into a great sense of satisfaction.
The Scientist was clearly still uncomfortable. "This is ahead of schedule, Ambassador. Did the capture of this prisoner truly engender this response?"
The Ambassador did not affirm or deny the question outright. "There are two major concerns, Scientist, with this individual's identity and the technology he commanded. My suspicions are largely that: suspicions, and until a proper interrogation occurs, I suspect we will not know for certain. Regardless of the truth, I believe his interference warrants an advancement of our timetable, if only because our position needs to be more tenable. If I am right, we cannot afford to leave any stone unturned to force Osmos V's hand."
The Scientist hesitated. "Can you share your suspicions?"
The leader merely pointed at one of the captured clips of the fight, taken through Xandros' scarab. Diagnostic readings suggested two major possibilities, though neither were confirmed. Both indicated a difficult position for their future, though one held far more potential consequences than the latter.
"Mysticism?" the Scientist remarked with clear doubt in his voice. "The chances of this are minimal at best, from initial surveys of the planet. There is very little thaumaturgic activity within the sector."
The Ambassador understood the speculation and the doubt. "It would not be the first time in our empire's history for us to underestimate mysticism and its many wonders."
The other Reach man scoffed. "The technology behaves like technology, not anything I've studied from the other realms. We have little reason to fear that."
"And the other possibility?"
The Scientist read over the panel for several seconds, replaying one clip of an explosive grenade several times. When the man finally realized the possibility, he gripped the panel in his hands tightly. "They wouldn't dare interfere."
OSMOS V
August 09, 19:41 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Months.
Months of agony.
Months of loss.
Months of uncertainty.
Months of fear.
Horatio could do little but think in the few moments of lucidity he possessed. Unconscious hours slipped into unconscious days, and for all he knew, it had actually been years. The only reason he thought he had a sliver of an idea of how long it had been were the seemingly regular intervals where his captors brought him a meal. Slid the disgusting plate of food right through the energy field that kept him from the outside world.
These meal times were precious, he'd learned early on, because they were the only sustenance he had. He'd tried to refuse to eat, but learned quickly that he'd need his strength to maintain his mind through the torture.
From the moment of his abduction by a green-skinned, four-armed behemoth, he'd sustained himself through countless days of tests, needles, electrical shocks, and too many others to count.
He'd let his mind wander about the possibilities of escape. About the possibilities of returning home to Lucrecia, to Cassian, to Jula, to Father. He missed them all dearly, and he'd thought of what their reunion would be like countless times and in countless variations.
Lucrecia would embrace him and never let go. Jula would berate him for the years they'd spent hating one another. Father would bemoan himself for allowing it to happen, and Horatio would have to console the man so he could keep his pride. Cassian would laugh in tearful joy and then demand to know everything, no matter how much he'd want to shield the boy from the truth.
So repeated these wonderings were, in fact, that he would often lose himself in their dream-like wonder.
These moments were the only moments to allow him any sort of reprieve. He'd tried to learn what they wanted with him and the others, but the insect-like Reach spoke in trills and high-pitched whines. When soldiers of the Senecan Legion spoke to them in Osmotin, the conversations were clipped and difficult to parse. His only thought, truly, was that they'd wanted him for Carnifex, somehow, but the details made no sense.
The satisfaction that he'd been right all along about the Triarchs did not carry him far, but it had vindicated decisions that he'd made for Carnifex in his youth. That vindication came from the uneasy realization that they'd willingly allow these Reach to perform mad science experiments on their own citizens. It was not at all what the group had had in mind, but it was far worse than anything the corrupt government had done in its long history.
A shift outside caught his attention, different mechanisms of the likely spaceship he'd called home lighting up at someone's behest. A moment later, the golden beetle warrior with brilliant wings entered the view of his cell for the smallest of moments, carrying something - no, someone - in her arms. He stood with weak knees and tried to get a good look at them, wondering whom the newest miscreant might be, but he didn't recognize the man. A moment later, and they were out of sight as the Reach soldier vanished around the bend.
It had been only days since the last arrival, and weeks more for the one before that. The sudden frequency confused him, and when several more began trickling into the ship, he realized something was amiss. Something was happening, and he was determined to learn what it was.
That determination would carry him through the rest of this ordeal. It had to, because he had very little left to keep him going.
August 04, 22:10 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Lucrecia's body buzzed. Every cell, every nerve ending, every muscle, every tissue – a glimmer of something more raced between them all, exciting each and every sensation she could imagine and others she could not. Never before had she felt so energized as she did in those fleeting moments, so intense that she could forget about the debilitating pain that throbbed in the back of her mind.
She ignored the pain and focused instead on what she needed to do, on what she had the power to do.
This was not the first time that she had interacted with energy beyond her own. This situation brought back painful memories of a shameful time, and she held those moments in her mind long enough to consider how to use the energy she had absorbed. She had a limited window to make something happen.
The Osmosian landed in a tumble beneath the aerial fight. A quick glance upward showed a sweating Gabriel, carried by a flying platform through the air. Minor abrasions and likely bruises were visible on his face, and she hoped he had no serious injuries that she could not see beneath his uniform. There was little she understood about Gabriel – especially now – but if he was fighting to defend her son and find Horatio, that was more than enough for her.
His opponent came into view, spiraling through the sky. Carried aloft through bug-like wings and some kind of tech along his back, he was fast. Deadly fast. Armed with weapons that were more sophisticated than she had ever seen, Xandros renewed his efforts and launched several projectiles toward Gabriel. The investigator twisted up on the platform and rocketed into the sky, gravity a mere suggestion for him, and the attacks missed in a wide arc. Where they struck against the sands below, they exploded into a series of flaming conflagrations that left behind warped fields of glass.
Gabriel evened out in the air and returned fire with a gun in hand, bolts of light flickering across a flashing sky. Xandros seemed prepared for everything, armored plates shifting into a shield that took the attacks head on. Lucrecia was glad to see that they'd damaged the defenses, and he'd had to toss the ruined metal away into the dirt far below him. She'd expected to see that his gauntlets had lost some material to make that, but if it had, she couldn't see it from this distance.
The fight began anew, and Lucrecia redoubled her efforts to find – or make – an opening. Whether either of them had noticed her was unclear, but both of them would know her soon. She was sure of it.
The twisting energetic excess vibrated amid her arms, crackling visibly in green tendrils that wafted from her form like smoke. She'd tried not to think of the vehicle she'd destroyed once, many years ago, with a move like this. Aching for release, she leaped with a building of power in her ruined legs, a wince of pain escaping even as she jumped dozens of feet into the air. Rearing back at the apex of her climb, she shouted, "Xandros!"
An arc of green light cascaded like a cannon through the air. The released energy twisted around itself like a coil, moving too fast to track properly with her eyes. A mere moment later, an emerald explosion erupted mid-air as it found its target. It was a terrifying display and far more powerful than she could really comprehend – what was this technology?
The Scarlet Scarab emerged from the smoke cloud in a downward spiral. End over end, he plummeted into a rocky edifice far below him. Wings failed to unfurl in time to stop his descent, and the dust cloud that formed on impact might have dwarfed the size of their home in Sanitas. Lucrecia grinned as she finished her arc through the air and collided with the ground in a roll. Her legs spiked with renewed pain, the energy suffusing it bleeding away by the second.
The realization that it had taken a significant chunk of whatever power source for the armor she'd absorbed to pull that off further sobered her mood. If this confrontation continued, she would not likely produce something to that effect again.
Gabriel descended to get within earshot. He started to say something upbeat, but his eyes flickered downward to study her lower half. "Nice effort. Is your kid all right?"
"He'll be fine." She started to move toward the downed diplomat, but the flying man held up an arm.
"Lucrecia, take what you have left and go. I got this."
She considered the suggestion and disregarded it. "I jumped in front of a bomb to save my son, and it only saved him from the worst of it. Once this wears off, I might never walk again. You think I'm letting that bastard live?"
That shut the man up quickly.
Lucrecia steadied herself and arced more of the borrowed strength into her extremities. Soothing sparks of power flickered visibly behind her knees, her thighs, her ankles, her shins as she accelerated into a sprint. Adrenaline - and more - pumped into her veins and muffled the ache of each step. A half-second survey of the top of her bare foot revealed visible bone beneath melted tissue, and she decided that this must be a miracle that she could move at all.
Her ally settled into her path, flying just in front and to the right of her. His bodysuit was torn in several places, revealing wounds of his own that seeped into the black material. The technology the man possessed was a confusing mystery to her, and she wondered if they had what it took to finish the threat. Perhaps together, they could-
Xandros snapped into a sitting position and brandished twin cannons, one from each scarlet gauntlet. Power coils pulsated beneath the exposed ends, threatening them both with whatever power he could exploit. Behind him, damaged wings tried and failed to unfurl, to help him to move. "By the authority of the Triarchy and their Reach allies, I demand that you stand down."
Lucrecia merely sneered as she dashed faster. Gabriel hesitated long enough for her to dart past him, but whatever warning he shouted was lost on her determined ears.
The Scarlet Scarab armor bombarded the space between them with plasma, so hot that the very air sizzled with heat everywhere it touched along the way. Instinct forced her to pull up a single arm to defend her face, but she did not stop moving. The blast struck her torso, but she was too angry to care about the overwhelming pain.
Xandros scrambled to his feet and tried to back away, but she closed the distance. A fist shimmering with emerald light slammed into a hastily-formed hexagonal shield of transparent material. Gabriel attempted to add to the onslaught with some kind of tossed binding material, but Xandros showed no signs of fear. As the ruined shield and ruined wings crumbled away, he pivoted to the side to avoid the follow-through of her blow and leaped away from Gabriel's tech.
Lucrecia whirled around, anger filling every pore, and attempted a second strike, but Xandros conjured a blade at the end of his gauntlet. A swing of the sharp insectoid weapon caught her imposing arm, still glittering and crackling with borrowed power. A moment of rational thought broke through her fury, and she barely yanked her arm away in time before she lost her entire hand. Instead, blood dripped onto the sand below her feet from a thick gash on her forearm.
Xandros redoubled his efforts and formed a second blade, charging forward with propulsion from his boots. The movements were nearly too fast to track in these close-quarters, and Lucrecia fell on the back foot. She narrowly dodged to the left of one fatal slash, but that placed her in the path of a second. A crackle of light flashed out from her at her mental urging and struck the Reach warrior in the abdomen, but it was nowhere near as effective or powerful as her initial burst.
It didn't slow him down either.
Fortunately, Gabriel intercepted the blow with a metallic staff that brimmed with power similar to the energy rushing through her body. He maneuvered in such a way that he was now taking the focus of the enemy. The platform beneath his feet was less flying and more skating across the ground as he moved, tightly able to maintain the momentum of the fight.
"Lucrecia, you can't beat him-"
The words only made her angrier.
She reached for the end of the staff and felt the energetic pull of power flowing into her. Gabriel cursed as it vanished from his grip, fully absorbed into her body as the apparent energy construct faded and became one with her energy reserves. She flooded herself with it, pain muting and becoming nothing but background noise. Wounds still flowed freely from several places in her body, but everything was too vibrant, too vivid, too all encompassing to care.
"You have to get out of here!"
Ignoring him, she forced herself forward and traded places with her ally once more. A flicker of power gathered around her fist as she attempted a strike against the armored warrior. The fist itself did not make purchase, but crackling energy surged in its path and managed to hit the scarab's armored arm indirectly. Where it touched became scarred, burned, and cracked, revealing Osmosian forearm beneath.
Before she could celebrate, Gabriel forcibly shoved her away from a cannon that had formed in Xandros's breastplate. An immense blast of power scorched the environment and only scored an indirect hit on the man's outstretched arm, burning away the uniform and singeing the flesh beneath for but a moment.
"You should listen to your friend, woman," Xandros taunted, armor still functional and visibly repairing from the effort of the fight. The chest beam weapon still hummed with power and could release a charge at any moment. Something resembling the wings he'd been using earlier began to reform behind him. "If you insist on this fight, you will lose. Stand down and come willingly into custody."
Lucrecia cursed. "You almost hit my little boy with something that could kill him! Could kill any of us. Now you suddenly care about taking us alive?"
Gabriel agreed with a subtle nod, face alarmed and ready to maneuver at any moment. "If I had to guess, you're far more scared of what we've accomplished together than you let on."
With each passing second, she could feel the energy surging through her diminishing. She held it in her grasp as fervently as she could, for she would need it to continue.
"Ha!" Xandros laughed. "You've no idea what I can do. What the Reach and Osmos V can do together. This is only the beginning of what we will accomplish, and I have more than enough resources to end you both in seconds." Twin cannons formed in his gauntlets, while six more emerged from insectoid appendages jutting from his back. "You can end this farce of a confrontation now and live to see tomorrow." His face turned directly to her. "Live to see your son and husband again."
Lucrecia erupted.
OSMOS V
August 04, 22:24 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
I didn't stay put.
How could I possibly stay put? I was too far away to see the fight and understand its outcome. My mother left to fight the Scarlet Scarab, empowered by technology that dwarfed anything even Jula's company had been doing for decades. My father might be dead, might be kidnapped, might be imprisoned – I wouldn't know for sure until I found him, and I might never find him. I can't add uncertainty about Mother's fate.
I played it smart.
I approached the battle while staying low. I moved as quickly yet quietly as I could. I transformed my arms into stone to add to already boosted durability, in case stray debris struck me. I even managed to cover most of my chest with the material, which was more than I'd previously ever managed, and I had just as good a chance as I ever would finding some level of defense against something like this.
The fight, even viewed from afar, was insane to witness.
Xandros was a perfect weapon. A mixture of close-combat and ranged skills made it difficult for the others to find an opening. He countered their attacks with increasingly varied armor constructs, and counterattacked with surprises of his own. Each new configuration he manifested with his armor was a different challenge for his opponents to resist, and it was only a matter of time.
Gabriel moved like a whirlwind through the air on his hoverboard and pulled a multitude of tools from his belt to use in the confrontation. He'd somehow gained the air superiority, or at the very least, Xandros chose to continue the fight on the ground. The additional range was perhaps the only reason they were still able to fight.
If Gabriel was like a storm in the sky, Mother was like a meteor. She glittered with that borrowed power, an aura of green light surrounding her in pulsing waves. Each attempt to strike Xandros was devastating when it landed, but he was keeping her at a distance. I didn't think they could do enough damage to take him down without a solid amount of luck on their side. Despite the craters sometimes left in her fists' wake where they struck.
I didn't dare get too close. Gabriel and Mother did not need to worry about my safety while they fought. I had no fighting skills whatsoever to make a difference, so I didn't need to get closer and didn't need to intervene. Mother had to have been in a few scrapes before to hold her own, and I suspected there was much about both of my parents that I had not known. Father once worked for a terrorist group, and Mother was brave enough to strike head-on against a superior opponent. What did they do in the past?
I managed to find a crouching spot outside of the effected area of the fight, the terrain shifting with each passing second. I wanted nothing more than to shout advice, to provide pointers, but what did I know that either of them didn't? The Reach provided no knowledge to the public about how the scarab truly worked, so I knew of no weaknesses despite how many hours I'd spent looking into their tech. If Gabriel had been on the planet for longer than I'd initially thought, he may have even more information that I do.
The fight shifted to one of defense for the pair, interrupting my thoughts. Surprise struck me as Xandros darted forward with rocket-propelled movement, a trail of light almost flickering behind him in the coming darkness of the desert night. Mother was unprepared for the movement change and took a direct hit from one of the beetle-like blades, a wide gash opening in the stomach!
I screamed.
The three of them darted their attention to me, even as Gabriel landed several shots from a blaster pistol onto the Reach warrior's front. Mother grimaced in shocked pain. Xandros grinned beneath the armored face-plate.
"Run!"
"Both of you, run!"
I raced to scramble away at the sound of Gabriel's warning, and I almost tripped over my own two feet and uneven ground. Mother turned away from the two men and darted for my side, moving with such speed that she almost seemed to fly across the distance, glittering with light the color of emeralds. I grasped onto her hand with pleading fingers, and she cursed under her breath as she leaped into the sky with me in tow.
Something struck me around the mid-section a moment later, moving at such a velocity that I'm ripped from her grip. A scarlet bar-like device pinned me against the ground around my midsection, like a giant human-sized staple. Stunned partially from the impact against the ground, I pushed against it with stony hands, but it does not budge. With horrified, desperate eyes, I noticed a second staple projectile scored a more direct hit on Mother. One end extended from her bloody hip while the other end fastened her to the ground a few feet away.
Gabriel launched an explosive that created a cloud of dust that surrounded us. I hurriedly tried to pull myself out, tried to reach Mother, tried to do something, but nothing was working. I smashed my fist against the staple so strongly that the stone cracked away, revealing bruised knuckles beneath.
"Leave them both out of this." Gabriel shouted. "Your quarrel is with me, not them."
Scarlet Scarab ignored the human and walked closer to both of us, armored gauntlets transforming into twin cannons once more. Green light flickered faintly from Mother's body as she tried to muster her strength, but the injuries she had suffered were extensive. She was fading fast – too fast for comfort, and anger filled my soul.
"Stand down," Xandros dared Gabriel. The armor whirred to life as he leveled his fist in my direction, at point-blank range. "The boy joins his mother."
"Don't you- da-re!" Mother cried with a gurgle. She managed to force the staple-like device to bend, but a second joined the first with such efficiency of movement that I barely saw it form from the scarlet armored plating. This one did not pierce her body, but the message was clear: he had her restrained.
She struggled further, but I- I don't think she- she can't-
"Let them go. Take me instead."
The human's offer sent me into a further spiral of despair.
My one chance to escape this place. To return home. To find Father. To save Mother. To save myself.
Xandros did not lower the weapon pointed at my face, but it did noticeably reduce in power.
Gabriel and his hoverboard descended to ground level. He kicked the center of it with a heel. The contraption flickered until it became nothing more than a single silver disc, no more than six inches across, that floated of its own accord into the buckle of his belt. Other gear joined it within a few seconds, and the Reach warrior grew more excited the longer it took the man to disarm. Once the last of it was finished, he whirled the weapon in the human's direction.
My last chance, gone in one evening.
Xandros sneered as the man fell to his knees. "I am surprised someone not of this planet would care to throw your freedom and livelihood away for the locals."
The Reach knew about his humanity?
"Says the local," Gabriel prodded. "You'd never understand if you tried."
"You think me incapable of sentiment?"
"Imperialist beetle fucks proved that a long time ago. This is just more of the same. How many more orphans you going to make before you stop?"
Orphans?
The word caught in my throat and in my thoughts.
I wasn't- I wasn't! She was right there, still breathing- still awake.
Covered in scars. Bleeding profusely. The strange energy of Gabriel's technology slipped away more each passing second, and with it, Mother's ability to fight the pain of her wounds. I could see it on her face, marred with six large bruises that were already swelling. She weakly tried to absorb the metal of the Reach's restraining device, but it failed as her concentration failed.
"Why would you do this to us?!" I screamed, too goddamn angry to cry. I gripped the metal of the staple and pulled on its material, shifting away from stone and instead to its cold structure. I struggled anew, making more progress than before, and the staple began to bend. "What did we do to you? You're supposed to be one of us, not one of them!"
The Scarlet Scarab leaned down without taking his sensors off of Gabriel and any surprise tech. "Because you're nothing but meaningless meat."
"You attacked us!"
He ignored my complaint and gestured for the human to stay put as he walked closer. By now, much of the damage the battle had done to his suit was rapidly repairing.
"Unprovoked!"
Again, the Osmosian turncoat ignored me.
Gabriel met my eyes as Xandros gripped the other man's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I should not have involved any of you. I hope, one day, you can find a way to forgive me."
Xandros activated the wings of his power armor and jettisoned himself and the human into the sky, leaving behind a thick dust cloud that enveloped us both.
With a heavy heart and a release of negative emotion in the shape of tears and a forceful tearing of staple pins from above my ribcage, I crawled over to Mother. I was barely able to think clearly enough to do it, too furious and pulled in several goddamn directions to make any rational goddamn decision.
"Ca-cass-Cassian."
I choked, tears free flowing and dropping onto Mother's newfound horns. "Don't- don't do this. Don't die. You can't."
I couldn't deal with this.
Not again.
When I left my old life behind, through whatever means, I also left my mother behind. A remarkable woman who inspired me to teach. Mom was the best and brightest – she had her rough spots, don't get me wrong, but in many ways she had been my best friend.
And then I vanished and appeared a universe away with no reasonable ability to return. As a new infant to a new mom. A mom - no, mother that was similar and yet so different from the first, one who tried hard to be the best she could. But… she would never be the best, because I'd already had the best.
And now, nearly eight years later, I l-lost this one too.
OSMOS V
August 05, 03:52 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Jula had managed to hide within the Undercity, a mess of seedy taverns, cramped housing, and heavily-guarded and out of the way estates from richer folks who wanted no one in their business. She now regretted the decision she'd made, after her first major bonus at Vir Actus, to not purchase property here. At the time, she'd valued living under the stars as paramount, for she'd always found value in reaching higher and higher. Living in a grungy affair, hidden away from the rest of the rabble down here, wouldn't let her enjoy the view from the skylight in her office.
Now? She couldn't care less about the sky.
Her robotic guards kept her isolated through sheer force of technological will. They were imposing figures to the have-nots that had joined her within the underbelly of an above-ground theater. The other citizens huddled in cramped clusters, while some individuals paced back and forth in pure nervousness. The lights above them provided warm light to such a dreary, fear-filled atmosphere, and the sight of such terrified families brought tears to her eyes.
She refused to cry. She had a better position than most. The immediate danger would soon fall, the government would tighten its grip on the rioting populace, and she could return home to obey whatever curfew. She'd use what resources she had to contact her father, get her family back to the Capital. They could wait out the storm of whatever threat these aliens posed, while the Triarchy squashed it.
A young man without horns stood so abruptly that it drew her attention. One of his arms was longer than the other by nearly a foot: an Exception, perhaps, or someone born with an unfortunate birth defect. "We gotta make a plan. We can't just sit here-"
"Sitting here is working so far!"
"Get down, fool. You're scaring my daughter!"
"My kids too."
Shouting continued for several moments, and Jula wanted nothing more than to drown it all out. This wasn't helping.
The long-armed man drifted that hand into the air, dark skin glowing with a faint yellow light. Jula tightened her grip on one of her bodyguard's metallic limbs. "C'mon, being scared isn't going to get us anywhere. What if we're here for several days? Any of you brought food? Water? Weapons? If one of them aliens comes down here, how you gonna fight for your life?"
Several frightened people nearby, including a boy a little older than Cassian, turned their eyes toward her and the robots that surrounded her. She warded them off with a glare, but refused to meet the child's eyes.
Murmurs swept across the crowd. One couple – young, too innocent – offered some of their provisions in a pile in the center of the theater. Another man started shoving tables and chairs to one side of the room, to block the entrance, which inspired several others to help. The man with the Exception gleamed at the possibility that he might be getting somewhere. "That's it, that's it. We gotta stick together, do what's right. Someone get a headcount, someone start taking down names. We gotta…"
Jula watched with faint hope at the display. Maybe, just maybe, they'd get through this.
"Quite the trinkets you have there."
A man approached her calmly. Dark hair that flowed past his shoulders, horns atop his head, a long billowing cloak wrapped around his torso. He was handsome, with a build that suggested he took care of himself. Jula bristled at the idea of his coming closer, and her bodyguards were programmed to respond to the tension in her body language. The nearest one turned to place its torso between them.
He raised a placating gesture and stopped a few feet from her. "Not to worry. I won't get closer. Just admiring these models, wondering if they might be useful if we get in a pinch."
She considered, briefly, ignoring the man, but he didn't seem to be the type to let things go. "They'll do what's needed."
"I'd hope so," he offered. "With everything that's happening out there, I'm glad to see you have some tools to help you stay safe."
Jula almost rolled her eyes. "Why do you care so much about if I'm safe?"
"Oh? It's not about you, madam. It's about all of us."
She'd already counted. "Big enough group forces its way past that barricade and tries to steal our stuff? I doubt my robots could keep us all safe."
He scanned the room, eyes settling on the women and children. "They probably would have trouble, yes. I don't mean the people in this room, madam. I am speaking for all of us on Osmos V."
The man was deluded, Jula decided. Charisma be damned.
"We rest on the precipice of defeat, of destruction. Barring a miracle, our society will crumble. Every one of us must stand ready to fight, tooth, horn, and nail, for everything we have if we want to survive."
"That's ridiculous. The Triarchs will-"
"Those supplicants?" The man laughed. "They fell when they decided to share."
OSMOS V
August 05, 07:39 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The Ambassador was pleased with himself. A dangerous dissident element on the planet had been uprooted before it could bear fruit. The minimal threat of this non-Osmosian man had been reduced to nothing, now under their thumb.
One of his assistants within his direct employ as the Ambassador brought with him an update, passing a slim panel covered in insectoid plates into the Enforcer's waiting gauntlet-covered hands. "Sir, pockets of violence have erupted across the Triarchy and its rival city-states across the seas. This event has rippled across the planet beyond our expectations."
The Ambassador could not help but bask in the glory of that information, even as he dismissed the officer after the report. Many events were ongoing simultaneously, though what caught his attention more were the efforts of Xandros against this unknown man.
The Scientist, chief researcher of the entire operation on Osmos V, entered the chamber at the height of their victory, likely to bring a report of another of their various projects. A large carapace-like screen still displayed elements from the surprising combat against a foe with unexpected technology, much of which did not fit within their extensive databases. The Ambassador studied the written hypotheses on the screen, but none of them fit the picture quite perfectly. Perhaps the Scientist had come to place his input into that matter.
A careful finger traced the plating of his arm, and he did not turn away from the screen even as the former Thanagarian Enforcer whispered, "You're spending a lot of thought on something that is no longer a worry, Amby. Why don't we get some rest? The coming days will be long and arduous."
The Scientist settled opposite the Enforcer on the Ambassador's other side. He could tell the Reach man had something to report, but knew better than to interrupt a conversation between the Ambassador and the Enforcer.
"There are too many unknowns," the leader of the Reach on Osmos V reiterated. "Our tactics are sound. This strategy guarantees us control of the population soon. If we stay the course, and there are no other unnecessary and unexpected interruptions, then predictions indicate all resistance will be negligible within six months."
The Scientist cleared his throat. "With all due respect, those were initial estimates. The genetic variability of the denizens of this planet could produce significant challenge to any of our number, especially as outnumbered as we are."
The Enforcer scoffed at the Scientist. "The Triarchy already wrestles with martial law. Our little game will force everything to crumble – they are far too unorganized to mount any significant challenge."
"If we deploy too early," the Scientist warned, "then we'll have no choice but to-"
The Ambassador cut him off and leaned slightly into the buxom Enforcer's loose embrace. "Deploy all but the reserve Assets in strategic locations."
"But, but that will-"
"Total pandemonium." The Enforcer purred. "You're a madman, Amby."
"Ensure our forces are in position to mitigate the chaos. See to it that the citizens of Osmos V know that they owe their survival to us."
The Scientist bristled at the command, and the winged beetle warrior left to engineer their master stroke. The races native to their system and those races that were assimilated from others moved with purpose throughout the complex like an orchestra, and the music of their activity forced the Ambassador into a great sense of satisfaction.
The Scientist was clearly still uncomfortable. "This is ahead of schedule, Ambassador. Did the capture of this prisoner truly engender this response?"
The Ambassador did not affirm or deny the question outright. "There are two major concerns, Scientist, with this individual's identity and the technology he commanded. My suspicions are largely that: suspicions, and until a proper interrogation occurs, I suspect we will not know for certain. Regardless of the truth, I believe his interference warrants an advancement of our timetable, if only because our position needs to be more tenable. If I am right, we cannot afford to leave any stone unturned to force Osmos V's hand."
The Scientist hesitated. "Can you share your suspicions?"
The leader merely pointed at one of the captured clips of the fight, taken through Xandros' scarab. Diagnostic readings suggested two major possibilities, though neither were confirmed. Both indicated a difficult position for their future, though one held far more potential consequences than the latter.
"Mysticism?" the Scientist remarked with clear doubt in his voice. "The chances of this are minimal at best, from initial surveys of the planet. There is very little thaumaturgic activity within the sector."
The Ambassador understood the speculation and the doubt. "It would not be the first time in our empire's history for us to underestimate mysticism and its many wonders."
The other Reach man scoffed. "The technology behaves like technology, not anything I've studied from the other realms. We have little reason to fear that."
"And the other possibility?"
The Scientist read over the panel for several seconds, replaying one clip of an explosive grenade several times. When the man finally realized the possibility, he gripped the panel in his hands tightly. "They wouldn't dare interfere."
OSMOS V
August 09, 19:41 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Months.
Months of agony.
Months of loss.
Months of uncertainty.
Months of fear.
Horatio could do little but think in the few moments of lucidity he possessed. Unconscious hours slipped into unconscious days, and for all he knew, it had actually been years. The only reason he thought he had a sliver of an idea of how long it had been were the seemingly regular intervals where his captors brought him a meal. Slid the disgusting plate of food right through the energy field that kept him from the outside world.
These meal times were precious, he'd learned early on, because they were the only sustenance he had. He'd tried to refuse to eat, but learned quickly that he'd need his strength to maintain his mind through the torture.
From the moment of his abduction by a green-skinned, four-armed behemoth, he'd sustained himself through countless days of tests, needles, electrical shocks, and too many others to count.
He'd let his mind wander about the possibilities of escape. About the possibilities of returning home to Lucrecia, to Cassian, to Jula, to Father. He missed them all dearly, and he'd thought of what their reunion would be like countless times and in countless variations.
Lucrecia would embrace him and never let go. Jula would berate him for the years they'd spent hating one another. Father would bemoan himself for allowing it to happen, and Horatio would have to console the man so he could keep his pride. Cassian would laugh in tearful joy and then demand to know everything, no matter how much he'd want to shield the boy from the truth.
So repeated these wonderings were, in fact, that he would often lose himself in their dream-like wonder.
These moments were the only moments to allow him any sort of reprieve. He'd tried to learn what they wanted with him and the others, but the insect-like Reach spoke in trills and high-pitched whines. When soldiers of the Senecan Legion spoke to them in Osmotin, the conversations were clipped and difficult to parse. His only thought, truly, was that they'd wanted him for Carnifex, somehow, but the details made no sense.
The satisfaction that he'd been right all along about the Triarchs did not carry him far, but it had vindicated decisions that he'd made for Carnifex in his youth. That vindication came from the uneasy realization that they'd willingly allow these Reach to perform mad science experiments on their own citizens. It was not at all what the group had had in mind, but it was far worse than anything the corrupt government had done in its long history.
A shift outside caught his attention, different mechanisms of the likely spaceship he'd called home lighting up at someone's behest. A moment later, the golden beetle warrior with brilliant wings entered the view of his cell for the smallest of moments, carrying something - no, someone - in her arms. He stood with weak knees and tried to get a good look at them, wondering whom the newest miscreant might be, but he didn't recognize the man. A moment later, and they were out of sight as the Reach soldier vanished around the bend.
It had been only days since the last arrival, and weeks more for the one before that. The sudden frequency confused him, and when several more began trickling into the ship, he realized something was amiss. Something was happening, and he was determined to learn what it was.
That determination would carry him through the rest of this ordeal. It had to, because he had very little left to keep him going.
It feels so damned nice to finally post this monumental chapter. Jula meets a strange man, Gabriel gives himself over, Horatio's alive, and Lucrecia has passed. The Reach launch their next phase, and Osmos V will never be the same.
Next chapter, we forge ahead in time, and we begin the swift countdown to the finish line of Arc 0. Thank you for coming along for the ride.
Next chapter, we forge ahead in time, and we begin the swift countdown to the finish line of Arc 0. Thank you for coming along for the ride.
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Character Art
- Location
- Alabama
Yeah! I wanted to pull back on that foreshadowing thread early in the story that he's in the DC universe - even if he hasn't realized it yet. He does know what a Thanagarian is, he just hasn't connected the dots to know yet. The Reach are not something he's familiar with because that was something I didn't realize was a thing until YJ.
I can't take credit for the art, but I think it's a fun visual to see what the characters look like. I don't have the time to really hone my drawing skill, though I don't lack the motivation. I love sketching, but translating that into art that I'd want the internet to see is a laughable idea.
And yeah - this is the big kick in the teeth moment. Several bad things happened all at once, and because he survived the encounter, he's one of the only people to publicly realize that the Reach are responsible for a lot of the ills of their current situation. He's gotta step up for that alone, but he has a ton of personal motivation now to kick something's ass for everything that happened.
- Location
- USA
Oh I get ya. Drawing is a hobby of mine, but I prefer pencil drawing and I don't usually color them in. I've thought about trying to get into digit art.
Yep and that a very classic superhero origin. The number of heroes that didn't lose a parental which eventually drove them into heroics is staggeringly small.
I suspect that either Cassian does eventually manage to at least do enough damage to the Reach for the time being that it could lead to a very different iteration of the Invasion storyline in season 2, or it would only be a temporary dent in their plans that helps set them up for their partnership with the Light.
- Location
- Alabama
As far as tropes go, it's a classic one but it's a good one.
From a sociological standpoint, it makes sense that this is often the motivating event for any heroic sort of character in fiction, if only because writers know the audience have parents (or have relationships like parents). There's a relatability there for an audience to latch onto, so that emotions run high when the story beat hits. It also is a wonderful transition point for a character: here was life with parents, here was life after tragedy: see how differently the character's approach is to the world? It's a transition point that happens for people in life - sometimes younger, sometimes older, but you will likely live longer than your parents and will one day have to live without them. It's good drama.
Yep - there're some interesting possibilities to explore here. When Cassian gets to earth, he'll be dragging with him all sorts of complex problems for the powers that be on Earth to consider.
0.12
- Location
- Alabama
OSMOS V
February 24, 11:53 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SIX
Adrius tried to keep his fingers still, to keep his legs from twitching. The heart pounded in his chest so forcefully that his head throbbed. A thick sheet of metal wrapped around his skull, covering his eyes completely – or what was left of them. He could move his hands mere inches, and he'd been roughly bound around the waist. He could hardly keep his breath steady from sheer anxiety, and every few hours, something pricked his arm and forced him to become even weaker than before.
A mantra from his brother, given just before all of this started, was the only thing that kept him going, but he was fading fast.
"Give them nothing. You know nothing. You have nothing."
Those were the last words his brother said to him, whispered just moments before Cato's soldiers barged into their home and changed their lives forever.
One minute, the two were sitting with their father and listening to an update about the ongoing efforts to stop the invasion. The next, a group of men sundered the simple fortifications covering the entrance to the place they'd been hiding for months and took them all into custody.
Their father had tried valiantly to fight them off, but he was powerless to stop them. Adrius had been the luckier of the two brothers, and he'd managed to down a soldier with a short blast of azure light from his eyes. His Exception had not been enough to defeat anyone else, and Felixus hissed that mantra just before they were carried into separate rovers and driven away.
Adrius wanted many things.
He wanted to cry.
He wanted to fight.
He wanted to surrender.
He wanted an end.
He wanted revenge.
He wanted escape.
He wanted peace.
It had been days of captivity. Days of separation from his father, from his brother. Days since he'd eaten a proper meal. Days since the skin around his eyes had melted the first time he'd tried to use his Exception to burst the metal covering his only weapon, his only resource to earn his freedom. Adrius had no idea if he'd ever see again, or if he even could if he tried. All was horrific pain, and he doubted they were giving him anything to avoid infections.
He was going to die.
On schedule – roughly – the door to the chamber opened with a slick sound like a ripple across water. Someone stalked inside the room and came to a stop beside him, the pattering of their feet against a metal floor the only sign to him that they'd approached. Adrius tried to resist his bindings out of sheer frustration, but he had no real chance of making it out. If he had the Gift, if he were older, if he were smarter, maybe he could….
No.
He repeated the mantra.
"I don't know anythi-ing," he pleaded. "You can't keep me here forever! I'm just a kid!"
The person ignored him, an odd clicking noise emanating from the place the figure must be standing. He could not tell if that was from some machine or from a person, but it was a really odd sound all the same. It wasn't the first time he'd heard it, and if he weren't in such a panic, he could probably figure it out. His father always said he was the smartest kid he knew.
"We'll keep you here as long as we like," the person said – a woman, maybe. He'd not heard her before during this time. The last person who'd come in had sounded like a man.
"You can't!"
"Oh, but we can," she argued with a tap to his shoulder, an action that forced his body into a flailing panic. "Boy, the sooner you realize no one can stop us, the sooner you'll realize your place."
Adrius didn't understand what she meant, nor what she or they wanted with him. Even his brother's warning was confusing to him – what did he know that no one else did?
"I'm just a kid!"
"True, and that makes you great for all kinds of tests." More clicking noises came from her – was it a language?
Something shifted behind him and prodded him in four different places: one at the base of the neck, one at the base of the spine, and one at the back of each thigh. The pain was immense as they put something inside his body, something that burned as it spread with every second that passed. He cried out in agony, twisting in his restraints as sweat pooled and dripped onto the metal floor.
"P-pl-please don't. No more!"
The woman merely laughed.
Four more pricks – one in each wrist, one in each heel. Blood from trickling wounds joined the sweat on the floor, and his breathing quickened. His heart strummed in his chest to their tune, and whatever they'd injected him with this time was the most excruciating thing he'd experienced, more than even the scorching of his eyes.
"Wh-why?" he cried. "Father! Brother! Please- please help! Anyone!"
"No one is coming. Your parental and fraternal meat are no more."
Adrius grimaced at the sound of that. No more? Does that mean- no. That can't be!
Awareness of his surroundings became a blur as his senses failed him. Smells, tastes, sounds: all became too stressed for comfort. He could only hear the sound of his own heartbeat, faster than it had ever been. Everywhere something touched him was like a burning hot flame – the clothes, the bindings, the beads of sweat.
"You are little more than meat to be exploited for our gain."
The woman gripped his throat with one hand and pulled his chin down. He tried to bite at the deft fingers that held his mouth open and forced him to drink a mouthful of a tangy, sweet substance. He'd not expected the pleasant flavor, and he tried to vomit, to cough, to push it all back up, but the reflex wouldn't come. He howled in anguish.
Someone new entered the room with a sharp sound. Someone must have been pushed, because they tumbled to the ground near his feet. Adrius was too weak to care as the chemicals churned in his body.
"Brother!"
A spark of hope rose in his chest.
"Felixus?" He tried to struggle again.
The door opened as footsteps receded, and he suspected that they'd left the two of us alone unless someone was really quietly watching in the corner.
"I'm here, here. It's me. You – your eyes!"
Tender hands tried to touch his arms, to check his condition, but every touch was like fire. He flinched away. A churning in the core of his stomach began to build, heart stammering in his chest.
"Can yo- you g-g-get us out?"
Felixus hesitated for far too long.
"What? What is it? Are they let-eting us go free?"
"Where would we go, Adrius?" Felixus paced. "When they brought me here, they took me past a viewing deck. We're in space, Adrius – the aliens got us!"
The spark of hope faded. The broiling heat from his abdomen expanded to his torso and began to stretch through his arms and legs.
"Space? How- why?"
"I don't know. They asked me questions, and I gave them no answers. Just kept asking about you and Dad. They did some tests or something on me, but I don't think I had what they wanted. They brought me here, finally, and I don't know what we're going to do next."
"But space?" Adrius asked again, bewildered. "They're ta-taking kids to space?"
"I think they're taking a lot of people to space," Felixus said. "I passed a bunch of rooms like this one, and there were kids, adults, just as locked up as any of us. There were dozens, brother!"
Space. They didn't teach us much about outer space in schooling, and the idea that he'd left the planet was terrifying. He missed his father. Father would know what to do.
"Is Father okay?"
The agitation spread to his throat and began to crawl up his facial muscles. He twitched weakly.
Felixus reached to the space around the back of his head. "Hold on, let me get you out of that."
Several seconds passed until finally, relief. The metal peeled away from his face, and Adrius nearly passed out from the mixture of pain, pleasure, and discomfort that rose from everything they'd put into his body and the irritation around his eyes.
"Oh. You- you-"
Adrius slowly forced his eyes open and met the face of his older brother. Unblemished, but pale. A grin erupted across the other's face, and a swell of emotions released all at once.
Alongside a surge of excitement that finally bubbled to the surface, all of it concentrating behind his eyelids.
An azure flash.
Powerful.
Uncontrolled.
It carved through the metal of the floor as well as it did flesh.
Adrius screeched in anguish and tried to look away, tried to close his eyes, tried to redirect it. Everywhere he looked, carnage spread as metal buckled, ripped, melted.
None of it as meaningful as the initial burst that took his brother away from him forever.
OSMOS V
April 03, 16:24 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE FIVE
"She loved this place as much as anyone did."
I listened to Grandfather's words with a heavy heart and rubbed at the dirt caught between my fingernails absently. This world's equivalent of a flak jacket made the motion difficult, sleeves too long for the length of my arms by a couple of inches. Maximus kept promising that they'd tailor it, but no one at the compound was willing to make the first pass at it. Once they made the precedent, they'd have the opportunity to put more of us to work in the field.
"It was the quiet life," I offered quietly, taking in the view. "They valued it more than anything."
The sands of the Magnus Desertus stretched as far as I could see in many directions, but Sanitas was just below us beneath the ridge. Domed buildings that once possessed character, activity, and familiarity had been replaced with broken shambles of their former selves. Streets lay obscured in sandy piles, and detritus that had not been covered over time still lay visible across its abandoned paths. It was strange to see a place I'd grown to love, even as isolated as I was from it for those long earlier years, to be so empty and void of life.
The ridge overlooking the city was a popular spot, and I'd come here with my parents on more than a few occasions. Taller than most of the buildings, you could see every nook and cranny for miles, and it was so close to the city itself that you could hear many of the happenings above the din of the wind.
I imagined myself as a teenager or an adult, sneaking off with a date to come here. Where I'd grown up in my first life, there was nothing close to a typical "Make-Out Point." It was naive, now, to have become so excited at the idea that this place might be like that when I get old enough again. The town was a wreck, the consequences of the war so high that even smaller towns on the outskirts couldn't escape it.
"They never told me why they settled here. I have my theories, but did they ever tell you?"
Grandfather stood near the edge and reached down to let the sand filter through his fingers. "Like most things in life, there were many reasons for it. Some good, some bad. I tried to convince them to stay near the Capital, but they refused. Horatio had recently broken away from Carnifex at the time, and he needed a place to lie low. He'd met Lucrecia while on one of his last jobs with them, and they'd fallen for each other by then. She'd had a checkered past too, and when offered, they jumped at the chance to come here. You came along not long after."
The information was mostly in line with what I was thinking had happened, and it frustrated me to no end that they'd not shared this story to me before they died. I didn't know the details of how they met, what their life was really like, and they'd kept all of this from me for so long-
…
I admonished myself inwardly. These thoughts were not productive, and I wanted to save every ounce of goddamn anger for the right people.
"Your parents were complicated individuals, Cassian. They both lived full lives before they had you – decades-long careers. They'd established themselves, they'd had their fair share of struggles, and they'd succeeded at something not everyone gets a chance to do with their background: solace."
I scoffed, gesturing to the ruined city, at a nearby building with holes burned right through the roof from acid. "Some solace that turned out to be."
Maximus offered a small pitying smile. "Son, with the amount of attention on your father, they should have been grateful-"
"What did he even do?" I asked pointedly. Everyone at the compound spoke highly of my father, of his past deeds, but they had yet to share anything of substance about those final months.
Maximus considered the question for a long moment.
Too long.
"Forget I asked," I muttered bitterly. "Why'd we even bother coming here? This is a waste of ti-"
"It's your mother's birthday."
The reminder may as well have been a slap in the face.
Her birthday had been all I could think about for weeks in preparation for this trip. The reminder did nothing to quell my mood, and I felt every bit the snot-nosed kid I still appeared to be. Perhaps no one alive had been through as much as I had in these short years, and to still be a goddamn child in the eyes of all those I cared about? Fuck that, and fuck this.
"We scrounged for weeks for supplies for this trip," Maximus continued, frown extending throughout his features. "I used up all the social capital I have. I had Jula pull favors, and I spent hours researching and plotting the safest paths through potential warzones. Don't dare act like this moment wasn't worth it."
It was not worth it.
Not by a longshot.
Risking detection, taking resources, braving the wilds? All for what? Closure?
I won't have closure until Xandros has his head on a pike.
But… Maximus was trying.
The better part of the past two years have been a nightmare, and I was lucky to have him in my corner. Before my parents died, I'd reached an acceptance that they were like parents, and that I should not treat them so distantly. Yes, they weren't my real parents, but they'd acted in all the ways that mattered as a mother and father should. It was difficult to accept Maximus, though, not because he was a bad grandfather. No, it was because I'd put in so much effort trying to wrap my head around having a new set of parents, only to have them ripped away from me far too young and as a consequence of war.
Why bother doing the same with Maximus?
I didn't want to hurt him, so I played along. I bit my tongue. I grew more frustrated.
The only saving grace was that he trusted me to be an active participant in whatever horrors we would face. He couldn't train me the way that his daughter-in-law had, but he offered advice, suggestions, and it was easy to see him as a mentor in this new, changed world. He'd been alive far longer than most, and he had a lot of knowledge to share.
He just had moments where he backslid into a condescending adult.
I couldn't take it personally for long. The stakes were far too high to hold anything against him long term. Without him, I'd be far less active in the war effort.
I took a long breath. "We should get moving."
Maximus glanced back toward me and then slowly nodded, but his face was still filled with pain from the turmoil of the previous moment. I didn't want to upset him, but I was just bloody frustrated. The conversation was not over.
With a flick of a button from a device at his many pocketed belt, one of our borrowed Jula-Drones hovered out of his backpack and began to beep, its chrome-coloration glinting in the sunlight far above us. The oblong object began scanning the environment, and we had to wait for only a few seconds before it finally glowed with a flicker of blue light from one of its sensors. The glimmer of light was set to its dimmest calibration on purpose, to avoid sparking any notice from anyone who happened to be hiding in the ruined city below.
We followed the path as quickly as we could in relative silence. Descending the ridge to return to our vehicle was easier than climbing it had been, and I wished that we did not have so long to go. I wished we could head into the city, look for survivors, look for any evidence that anyone I knew had lived here. My teachers, my friends from school, anyone – but we had a job to do. This was the only reason that they had justified our trip here, and honestly, probably the only reason it had been worth coming.
Closure was not going to come from here.
Our home on the outskirts came into view after a short rover drive, and it was clear that the place had been looted long ago. It had been more than a year since anyone had lived there, and as I stepped out of the vehicle and walked a familiar pathway to the front of the building, I couldn't help but feel connected to its sights, its smells. I wouldn't even mind coming back here when all of this is over, settling down, and building back this place from the ground up.
"Are you okay to go in with me?"
I nodded at the question but said little else. My voice caught in my throat at the sight of my once bedroom window, glass still standing but with spider-webbed cracks running through its surface.
The place was ransacked. Anything valuable had long been stripped away, sold or bartered to anyone who might need raw supplies. We hadn't had that many worthy possessions, but it still hurt to see much of what I remembered gone at worst, or out of place at best. Even the cutlery was gone, including the too bent spoon-equivalent I'd used as a toddler.
The office – Father's bunker – was the destination. A door that had ultimately spiraled me into where I am today, I still remembered the faces of my parents when they realized what I'd done. The months of punishment afterward had been brutal, but the satisfaction that I'd learned some of the family secrets at the time had made it all worth it. I still didn't know everything, but what child does learn everything about their parents?
The door was relatively undisturbed. It was clear someone had tried to open it and had failed. It pleased me to know that Mother and Father had increased security and that it had worked to stave off looters. A not insignificant amount of pride swelled in my chest.
Maximus bypassed the protections, and the dust-filled room opened. We descended down, and the Jula-Drone began to hover throughout the room. Father must have taken many of the items with him, like the blaster that had typically rested on the shelf for easy access. The computer terminal remained untouched, and various other tools were present, but it was difficult to know how useful they might be. The two of us began to collect as much of it as possible, while the drone accessed the computer and began to take everything.
"You think he had anything useful to us now?"
Exactly why Father had gone missing was still a mystery, though after what happened with Mother and Gabriel, I strongly suspected that he had poked his head into the wrong place and gotten killed or taken. Other former members of Carnifex had similarly gone missing, and I suspected that it was his reconnection with them that led to his downfall. It pained me to believe, but no one stayed missing this long and reappeared in one piece. He was gone.
"Most of any intelligence he gathered would be out of date," Maximus explained. "Still, Carnifex needs to compartmentalize."
I understood their reasoning. The organization had – before the invasion began – involved splinter cells and agents spread throughout the Triarchy, in its many corners, rather than the war force it had become today. Father had effectively left the organization when he came to Sanitas, but he'd still established a bunker in our home, as an inactive solo act. Old habits. Given the way that information security was kept, it was only a matter of time before any base like this of a Carnifex agent became a target to ferret out the truth of our movements, our numbers, and our resources.
Everything was at risk of exposure if this place stayed.
When we were finished gathering anything of value, Maximus handed me the charge but said nothing. Face resolute, he turned and began to leave, gesturing only once to his belt to collect his Jula-Drone. His retreating back disappeared around the corner as he climbed back outside.
With a heavy heart, I placed the metal casing beneath the now depleted terminal, nearest to a thick support beam. I pressed a single finger against one end and felt a small rush course through my body. The foreign energy left the device and became mine. Excitement, irritation, exhilaration filled the core of my mind, and I allowed myself to bask in its thrill for but a moment. A finger of the other hand became the vehicle to unleash the borrowed energy, a spark cascading visibly into the device.
I booked it from the house and joined Maximus by the rover, parked nearly three hundred yards from the building. I turned to watch as the chain reaction built to its crescendo, but Maximus cleared his throat. "We can't afford to stay."
I said nothing, and I did not budge.
Maximus did not press the issue.
The rover's engine ignited behind me just as the explosion rippled weakly from beneath the building. It cascaded in its destruction until debris was all that remained of the person I had become in this world. I had other family, other connections, but this place was the last link to years of an upbringing that had been as frustrating as it had been rewarding. In many ways, I hated this place because it had felt as much a cage as my age had been – still was.
As I settled into the rover next to Maximus, I turned my back on a smoking crater and promised myself that nothing would ever cage me again.
OSMOS V
October 07, 09:47 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE FIVE
"I have a son."
The words were like ice in the man's veins as he heard them, barely audible above the din of manual labor. He wished he could filter the conversation out, but the implants had long since resorted to only auxiliary power. He barely had enough to translate the language these days, much less do anything more complex. Much like the rest of his human body, his cybernetic implants would fail without access to the proper resources, and then he'd be dumb and dead.
"My daughter moved abroad to Vincendis a few years back," another offered. "Last I heard, she had my first grandchild on the way."
"They took me away during my friend's wedding. Last good meal I'll probably ever have."
"Don't say that – we'll get out."
A small group of middle-aged Osmosians – though how was Gabriel really to tell their ages apart? – huddled together and commiserated over the friends and family that they'd left behind when they'd been captured. It was not the first time he'd overheard a conversation like that, and it pained him every time. Even before his station in this Frontier Sector, he'd heard plenty of people of all shapes, sizes, and origins lamenting the distance from their loved ones. He should be used to this by now, but he understood now on a fundamental level exactly what they were feeling.
A small touch to his shoulder pulled him from his reverie. "What about you?" the Osmosian woman asked as she tried to include him through sheer proximity alone. He was only taking a long enough break within this damn mine to catch his bearings, and now the whole thing was ruined.
"We should get back to work."
The woman scoffed, and the other group were in agreement with her. "They can wait a few more minutes."
Gabriel glanced toward the observation deck at the top of the cavernous space. A gaudy, metallic contraption that contained enough automated turrets to dissuade anyone from trying anything stupid. If he had access to any of his tech, he could spare them all from forced labor and get them back to the people they loved. To get himself back to those he loved.
As it was, he was biding his time. For the first few weeks, he told himself that the Plumbers would notice and would send help. Weeks turned to months, months turned to years, and he abandoned those thoughts. No – Osmos V would not get any outside help, unless he found a way to ask for it directly. He was the only outside help they would likely get, and he had no real ability to fight an army of colonizing insects and their superpowered sycophants, with or without all of his tech.
They would have to seize the moment and drive the Reach away. Not an easy task. Perhaps not a possible one.
"Focus on the present, not the past," he finally answered them. "We all have people out there. The memories might comfort you, but the only way you'll make it through this is to go with the flow. I've been here longer than many of you. The last group that tried to skip out on work became food for a lepidopterran hive."
Word of that sparked fear into many of their eyes, and most began to renew their efforts.
This horrific time in captivity had all but confirmed to Gabriel that the Reach were violating several intergalactic laws. There were intensive regulations against the integration of foreign species into a planet's ecosystem. On Osmos V, it was happening en masse, something that would forcibly wreck the fragile stability of the planet's biosphere within a generation. Those species that managed to survive their forced migration and leave behind enough offspring? Well, Osmos V would be changed forever.
Why all of these different aliens – some of them known for their sentience or even sapience – would agree to work with the Reach was a conundrum he had not quite solved. Perhaps they'd forced it to happen. Maybe they'd gotten the aliens to agree to favorable terms. Or, worse, maybe they'd found themselves in danger.
Gabriel wished he could prove it. Wished he could bring the information to his superiors and indict the Reach on formal charges of wrongdoing. As it was, he had no ability to get the word to anyone, not even to the artificial intelligence within the Sector House. He wondered if he could-
"Who is it?"
A man lingered near him while everyone else started to work. A man whom brought back every uncomfortable feeling about this entire situation. They'd spoken at length about it all before, shared details about what had transpired. At the end of the day, seeing Horatio forced to work in the same prison camp – two years and some change later - felt a bit like God was playing tricks on him.
"Who did you leave behind?" The man repeated the question softly, and Gabriel frowned as every impulse he had to keep his mouth shut failed him all at once.
"It feels strange to be telling you of all people about it," he said finally, kicking lightly at the stony floor of the cave. "I have a son too, named Kyle. The thought of getting back to him? Keeps me going."
Horatio considered it for a long moment, until a distant horn blared. "That's not what you told the others a couple minutes ago."
"Yeah?" he asked. "I'm a hypocrite."
The elder man laughed. "How old would he be now?"
"Around ten," Gabriel added. With each word, it was becoming easier to explain his thoughts. "Looks more like his mother than me – at least, he did. Haven't seen him in so long that he might end up looking the opposite."
He'd never see his son as an adult.
Kyle would probably not have anything to do with him now. He'd been gone too long, much longer than even his usual Plumber assignments. What would he even say to Kyle now, if he could?
"Cassian's age," Horatio said with a surprised smile. "We're more alike than you know, then."
"Yeah," Gabriel muttered. "Both shitty fathers who wound up stuck in an alien prison camp together, with sons around the same age who have no idea that we're still alive, that we're still out there. No way to contact them, no way to ask for help, no way to break free easily."
The horn sounded again, this time in a warning tone, and Gabriel shifted into work mode. Horatio found a comfortable pace beside him and said little else, biting his tongue until a more appropriate time. Something seemed to occur to him, several minutes later, and Gabriel could only smirk.
"Break free 'easily'?"
Gabriel scoffed. "If it were easy, I'd have already done it."
LOS ANGELES
October 29, 14:02 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE FIVE
Fourth grade was a nightmare, even on the last school day before Halloween.
This annoying girl, Alexandra, recently moved to the city and just had to come to his school, to be assigned to his class. She thought she was so special, and everyone else seemed to think so too. A lot of his friends were trying to talk with her all the time, and all the girls liked her. Mrs. Rasburn treated her differently too and gave her special attention.
He was the one who was supposed to get special attention!
The whole thing was just unfair.
She'd come to school with the best costume too. Dressed like a miniature replica of a blonde Wonder Woman, her costume was well-made and looked the spitting image of pictures he'd seen from World War II in their history textbooks. And then, to top it all off, her dad came to their party dressed as Batman.
Batman!
He sulked in the corner as he watched them interact. Their costumes were so cool, they were probably custom made. His mom bought his Green Lantern one from the store, but it didn't even come with a cool ring prop. Instead, she'd bought him a green apple Ring Pop, but he'd eaten that hours ago.
His mom couldn't get off work.
Ms. Rasburn wouldn't leave him alone.
Mr. Dewitt was too cool.
One of the kids he thought was his friend ripped up one of his sketches of a Jack-o-Lantern and tossed it in the toilet.
The whole day was basically ruined.
GOTHAM CITY
October 31, 19:49 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE FIVE
Jinx had always loved stories of Halloween. Dubbed Disney movies and other little cartoons were like her only snapshot into what that holiday was like growing up, though the fact that the voices didn't match up to their mouths always bothered her.
The games, the prizes, the candy, the costumes, the caramel, the dances! All of it was so much fun to see, and she had always wanted to experience it for herself. No one had ever really made an effort to celebrate in her corner of the world.
But, she jumped at the chance to come to America on a job during the weekend of her favorite holiday. The city streets of Gotham were abuzz with celebration, darkness, atmosphere! If not for her handlers, she wouldn't have gotten the chance to come here, and she had to silently thank them for the opportunity.
She threw herself at the biggest street fair and abandoned her disguising features, proudly displaying the pallor to her skin that would normally intimidate anyone. Monsters, fiction, and celebrities were a healthy mix of identities for people to don, but on a day like today? She would just wear herself and be proud.
She made a point to laugh with two kids dressed as princesses, a boy dressed as Indiana Jones, and a pair of triplets who each wore a different red ranger outfit. She danced with a Mulan and a Pikachu. A Master Chief won a competition of bobbing for apples and shared the reward with her. When he tried to compete again, she nudged the water only slightly with her magic to help him win a second time.
Jinx was halfway through a street-side showing of Invasion of the Body Snatchers when her pager buzzed at her waist. She frowned as she read the message.
"Time to get to work."
When Jinx began to work her magic, hardly anyone noticed over the atmosphere of Gotham City on a night like this. Wayne Enterprises won't even know what hit them.
February 24, 11:53 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SIX
Adrius tried to keep his fingers still, to keep his legs from twitching. The heart pounded in his chest so forcefully that his head throbbed. A thick sheet of metal wrapped around his skull, covering his eyes completely – or what was left of them. He could move his hands mere inches, and he'd been roughly bound around the waist. He could hardly keep his breath steady from sheer anxiety, and every few hours, something pricked his arm and forced him to become even weaker than before.
A mantra from his brother, given just before all of this started, was the only thing that kept him going, but he was fading fast.
"Give them nothing. You know nothing. You have nothing."
Those were the last words his brother said to him, whispered just moments before Cato's soldiers barged into their home and changed their lives forever.
One minute, the two were sitting with their father and listening to an update about the ongoing efforts to stop the invasion. The next, a group of men sundered the simple fortifications covering the entrance to the place they'd been hiding for months and took them all into custody.
Their father had tried valiantly to fight them off, but he was powerless to stop them. Adrius had been the luckier of the two brothers, and he'd managed to down a soldier with a short blast of azure light from his eyes. His Exception had not been enough to defeat anyone else, and Felixus hissed that mantra just before they were carried into separate rovers and driven away.
Adrius wanted many things.
He wanted to cry.
He wanted to fight.
He wanted to surrender.
He wanted an end.
He wanted revenge.
He wanted escape.
He wanted peace.
It had been days of captivity. Days of separation from his father, from his brother. Days since he'd eaten a proper meal. Days since the skin around his eyes had melted the first time he'd tried to use his Exception to burst the metal covering his only weapon, his only resource to earn his freedom. Adrius had no idea if he'd ever see again, or if he even could if he tried. All was horrific pain, and he doubted they were giving him anything to avoid infections.
He was going to die.
On schedule – roughly – the door to the chamber opened with a slick sound like a ripple across water. Someone stalked inside the room and came to a stop beside him, the pattering of their feet against a metal floor the only sign to him that they'd approached. Adrius tried to resist his bindings out of sheer frustration, but he had no real chance of making it out. If he had the Gift, if he were older, if he were smarter, maybe he could….
No.
He repeated the mantra.
"I don't know anythi-ing," he pleaded. "You can't keep me here forever! I'm just a kid!"
The person ignored him, an odd clicking noise emanating from the place the figure must be standing. He could not tell if that was from some machine or from a person, but it was a really odd sound all the same. It wasn't the first time he'd heard it, and if he weren't in such a panic, he could probably figure it out. His father always said he was the smartest kid he knew.
"We'll keep you here as long as we like," the person said – a woman, maybe. He'd not heard her before during this time. The last person who'd come in had sounded like a man.
"You can't!"
"Oh, but we can," she argued with a tap to his shoulder, an action that forced his body into a flailing panic. "Boy, the sooner you realize no one can stop us, the sooner you'll realize your place."
Adrius didn't understand what she meant, nor what she or they wanted with him. Even his brother's warning was confusing to him – what did he know that no one else did?
"I'm just a kid!"
"True, and that makes you great for all kinds of tests." More clicking noises came from her – was it a language?
Something shifted behind him and prodded him in four different places: one at the base of the neck, one at the base of the spine, and one at the back of each thigh. The pain was immense as they put something inside his body, something that burned as it spread with every second that passed. He cried out in agony, twisting in his restraints as sweat pooled and dripped onto the metal floor.
"P-pl-please don't. No more!"
The woman merely laughed.
Four more pricks – one in each wrist, one in each heel. Blood from trickling wounds joined the sweat on the floor, and his breathing quickened. His heart strummed in his chest to their tune, and whatever they'd injected him with this time was the most excruciating thing he'd experienced, more than even the scorching of his eyes.
"Wh-why?" he cried. "Father! Brother! Please- please help! Anyone!"
"No one is coming. Your parental and fraternal meat are no more."
Adrius grimaced at the sound of that. No more? Does that mean- no. That can't be!
Awareness of his surroundings became a blur as his senses failed him. Smells, tastes, sounds: all became too stressed for comfort. He could only hear the sound of his own heartbeat, faster than it had ever been. Everywhere something touched him was like a burning hot flame – the clothes, the bindings, the beads of sweat.
"You are little more than meat to be exploited for our gain."
The woman gripped his throat with one hand and pulled his chin down. He tried to bite at the deft fingers that held his mouth open and forced him to drink a mouthful of a tangy, sweet substance. He'd not expected the pleasant flavor, and he tried to vomit, to cough, to push it all back up, but the reflex wouldn't come. He howled in anguish.
Someone new entered the room with a sharp sound. Someone must have been pushed, because they tumbled to the ground near his feet. Adrius was too weak to care as the chemicals churned in his body.
"Brother!"
A spark of hope rose in his chest.
"Felixus?" He tried to struggle again.
The door opened as footsteps receded, and he suspected that they'd left the two of us alone unless someone was really quietly watching in the corner.
"I'm here, here. It's me. You – your eyes!"
Tender hands tried to touch his arms, to check his condition, but every touch was like fire. He flinched away. A churning in the core of his stomach began to build, heart stammering in his chest.
"Can yo- you g-g-get us out?"
Felixus hesitated for far too long.
"What? What is it? Are they let-eting us go free?"
"Where would we go, Adrius?" Felixus paced. "When they brought me here, they took me past a viewing deck. We're in space, Adrius – the aliens got us!"
The spark of hope faded. The broiling heat from his abdomen expanded to his torso and began to stretch through his arms and legs.
"Space? How- why?"
"I don't know. They asked me questions, and I gave them no answers. Just kept asking about you and Dad. They did some tests or something on me, but I don't think I had what they wanted. They brought me here, finally, and I don't know what we're going to do next."
"But space?" Adrius asked again, bewildered. "They're ta-taking kids to space?"
"I think they're taking a lot of people to space," Felixus said. "I passed a bunch of rooms like this one, and there were kids, adults, just as locked up as any of us. There were dozens, brother!"
Space. They didn't teach us much about outer space in schooling, and the idea that he'd left the planet was terrifying. He missed his father. Father would know what to do.
"Is Father okay?"
The agitation spread to his throat and began to crawl up his facial muscles. He twitched weakly.
Felixus reached to the space around the back of his head. "Hold on, let me get you out of that."
Several seconds passed until finally, relief. The metal peeled away from his face, and Adrius nearly passed out from the mixture of pain, pleasure, and discomfort that rose from everything they'd put into his body and the irritation around his eyes.
"Oh. You- you-"
Adrius slowly forced his eyes open and met the face of his older brother. Unblemished, but pale. A grin erupted across the other's face, and a swell of emotions released all at once.
Alongside a surge of excitement that finally bubbled to the surface, all of it concentrating behind his eyelids.
An azure flash.
Powerful.
Uncontrolled.
It carved through the metal of the floor as well as it did flesh.
Adrius screeched in anguish and tried to look away, tried to close his eyes, tried to redirect it. Everywhere he looked, carnage spread as metal buckled, ripped, melted.
None of it as meaningful as the initial burst that took his brother away from him forever.
OSMOS V
April 03, 16:24 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE FIVE
"She loved this place as much as anyone did."
I listened to Grandfather's words with a heavy heart and rubbed at the dirt caught between my fingernails absently. This world's equivalent of a flak jacket made the motion difficult, sleeves too long for the length of my arms by a couple of inches. Maximus kept promising that they'd tailor it, but no one at the compound was willing to make the first pass at it. Once they made the precedent, they'd have the opportunity to put more of us to work in the field.
"It was the quiet life," I offered quietly, taking in the view. "They valued it more than anything."
The sands of the Magnus Desertus stretched as far as I could see in many directions, but Sanitas was just below us beneath the ridge. Domed buildings that once possessed character, activity, and familiarity had been replaced with broken shambles of their former selves. Streets lay obscured in sandy piles, and detritus that had not been covered over time still lay visible across its abandoned paths. It was strange to see a place I'd grown to love, even as isolated as I was from it for those long earlier years, to be so empty and void of life.
The ridge overlooking the city was a popular spot, and I'd come here with my parents on more than a few occasions. Taller than most of the buildings, you could see every nook and cranny for miles, and it was so close to the city itself that you could hear many of the happenings above the din of the wind.
I imagined myself as a teenager or an adult, sneaking off with a date to come here. Where I'd grown up in my first life, there was nothing close to a typical "Make-Out Point." It was naive, now, to have become so excited at the idea that this place might be like that when I get old enough again. The town was a wreck, the consequences of the war so high that even smaller towns on the outskirts couldn't escape it.
"They never told me why they settled here. I have my theories, but did they ever tell you?"
Grandfather stood near the edge and reached down to let the sand filter through his fingers. "Like most things in life, there were many reasons for it. Some good, some bad. I tried to convince them to stay near the Capital, but they refused. Horatio had recently broken away from Carnifex at the time, and he needed a place to lie low. He'd met Lucrecia while on one of his last jobs with them, and they'd fallen for each other by then. She'd had a checkered past too, and when offered, they jumped at the chance to come here. You came along not long after."
The information was mostly in line with what I was thinking had happened, and it frustrated me to no end that they'd not shared this story to me before they died. I didn't know the details of how they met, what their life was really like, and they'd kept all of this from me for so long-
…
I admonished myself inwardly. These thoughts were not productive, and I wanted to save every ounce of goddamn anger for the right people.
"Your parents were complicated individuals, Cassian. They both lived full lives before they had you – decades-long careers. They'd established themselves, they'd had their fair share of struggles, and they'd succeeded at something not everyone gets a chance to do with their background: solace."
I scoffed, gesturing to the ruined city, at a nearby building with holes burned right through the roof from acid. "Some solace that turned out to be."
Maximus offered a small pitying smile. "Son, with the amount of attention on your father, they should have been grateful-"
"What did he even do?" I asked pointedly. Everyone at the compound spoke highly of my father, of his past deeds, but they had yet to share anything of substance about those final months.
Maximus considered the question for a long moment.
Too long.
"Forget I asked," I muttered bitterly. "Why'd we even bother coming here? This is a waste of ti-"
"It's your mother's birthday."
The reminder may as well have been a slap in the face.
Her birthday had been all I could think about for weeks in preparation for this trip. The reminder did nothing to quell my mood, and I felt every bit the snot-nosed kid I still appeared to be. Perhaps no one alive had been through as much as I had in these short years, and to still be a goddamn child in the eyes of all those I cared about? Fuck that, and fuck this.
"We scrounged for weeks for supplies for this trip," Maximus continued, frown extending throughout his features. "I used up all the social capital I have. I had Jula pull favors, and I spent hours researching and plotting the safest paths through potential warzones. Don't dare act like this moment wasn't worth it."
It was not worth it.
Not by a longshot.
Risking detection, taking resources, braving the wilds? All for what? Closure?
I won't have closure until Xandros has his head on a pike.
But… Maximus was trying.
The better part of the past two years have been a nightmare, and I was lucky to have him in my corner. Before my parents died, I'd reached an acceptance that they were like parents, and that I should not treat them so distantly. Yes, they weren't my real parents, but they'd acted in all the ways that mattered as a mother and father should. It was difficult to accept Maximus, though, not because he was a bad grandfather. No, it was because I'd put in so much effort trying to wrap my head around having a new set of parents, only to have them ripped away from me far too young and as a consequence of war.
Why bother doing the same with Maximus?
I didn't want to hurt him, so I played along. I bit my tongue. I grew more frustrated.
The only saving grace was that he trusted me to be an active participant in whatever horrors we would face. He couldn't train me the way that his daughter-in-law had, but he offered advice, suggestions, and it was easy to see him as a mentor in this new, changed world. He'd been alive far longer than most, and he had a lot of knowledge to share.
He just had moments where he backslid into a condescending adult.
I couldn't take it personally for long. The stakes were far too high to hold anything against him long term. Without him, I'd be far less active in the war effort.
I took a long breath. "We should get moving."
Maximus glanced back toward me and then slowly nodded, but his face was still filled with pain from the turmoil of the previous moment. I didn't want to upset him, but I was just bloody frustrated. The conversation was not over.
With a flick of a button from a device at his many pocketed belt, one of our borrowed Jula-Drones hovered out of his backpack and began to beep, its chrome-coloration glinting in the sunlight far above us. The oblong object began scanning the environment, and we had to wait for only a few seconds before it finally glowed with a flicker of blue light from one of its sensors. The glimmer of light was set to its dimmest calibration on purpose, to avoid sparking any notice from anyone who happened to be hiding in the ruined city below.
We followed the path as quickly as we could in relative silence. Descending the ridge to return to our vehicle was easier than climbing it had been, and I wished that we did not have so long to go. I wished we could head into the city, look for survivors, look for any evidence that anyone I knew had lived here. My teachers, my friends from school, anyone – but we had a job to do. This was the only reason that they had justified our trip here, and honestly, probably the only reason it had been worth coming.
Closure was not going to come from here.
Our home on the outskirts came into view after a short rover drive, and it was clear that the place had been looted long ago. It had been more than a year since anyone had lived there, and as I stepped out of the vehicle and walked a familiar pathway to the front of the building, I couldn't help but feel connected to its sights, its smells. I wouldn't even mind coming back here when all of this is over, settling down, and building back this place from the ground up.
"Are you okay to go in with me?"
I nodded at the question but said little else. My voice caught in my throat at the sight of my once bedroom window, glass still standing but with spider-webbed cracks running through its surface.
The place was ransacked. Anything valuable had long been stripped away, sold or bartered to anyone who might need raw supplies. We hadn't had that many worthy possessions, but it still hurt to see much of what I remembered gone at worst, or out of place at best. Even the cutlery was gone, including the too bent spoon-equivalent I'd used as a toddler.
The office – Father's bunker – was the destination. A door that had ultimately spiraled me into where I am today, I still remembered the faces of my parents when they realized what I'd done. The months of punishment afterward had been brutal, but the satisfaction that I'd learned some of the family secrets at the time had made it all worth it. I still didn't know everything, but what child does learn everything about their parents?
The door was relatively undisturbed. It was clear someone had tried to open it and had failed. It pleased me to know that Mother and Father had increased security and that it had worked to stave off looters. A not insignificant amount of pride swelled in my chest.
Maximus bypassed the protections, and the dust-filled room opened. We descended down, and the Jula-Drone began to hover throughout the room. Father must have taken many of the items with him, like the blaster that had typically rested on the shelf for easy access. The computer terminal remained untouched, and various other tools were present, but it was difficult to know how useful they might be. The two of us began to collect as much of it as possible, while the drone accessed the computer and began to take everything.
"You think he had anything useful to us now?"
Exactly why Father had gone missing was still a mystery, though after what happened with Mother and Gabriel, I strongly suspected that he had poked his head into the wrong place and gotten killed or taken. Other former members of Carnifex had similarly gone missing, and I suspected that it was his reconnection with them that led to his downfall. It pained me to believe, but no one stayed missing this long and reappeared in one piece. He was gone.
"Most of any intelligence he gathered would be out of date," Maximus explained. "Still, Carnifex needs to compartmentalize."
I understood their reasoning. The organization had – before the invasion began – involved splinter cells and agents spread throughout the Triarchy, in its many corners, rather than the war force it had become today. Father had effectively left the organization when he came to Sanitas, but he'd still established a bunker in our home, as an inactive solo act. Old habits. Given the way that information security was kept, it was only a matter of time before any base like this of a Carnifex agent became a target to ferret out the truth of our movements, our numbers, and our resources.
Everything was at risk of exposure if this place stayed.
When we were finished gathering anything of value, Maximus handed me the charge but said nothing. Face resolute, he turned and began to leave, gesturing only once to his belt to collect his Jula-Drone. His retreating back disappeared around the corner as he climbed back outside.
With a heavy heart, I placed the metal casing beneath the now depleted terminal, nearest to a thick support beam. I pressed a single finger against one end and felt a small rush course through my body. The foreign energy left the device and became mine. Excitement, irritation, exhilaration filled the core of my mind, and I allowed myself to bask in its thrill for but a moment. A finger of the other hand became the vehicle to unleash the borrowed energy, a spark cascading visibly into the device.
I booked it from the house and joined Maximus by the rover, parked nearly three hundred yards from the building. I turned to watch as the chain reaction built to its crescendo, but Maximus cleared his throat. "We can't afford to stay."
I said nothing, and I did not budge.
Maximus did not press the issue.
The rover's engine ignited behind me just as the explosion rippled weakly from beneath the building. It cascaded in its destruction until debris was all that remained of the person I had become in this world. I had other family, other connections, but this place was the last link to years of an upbringing that had been as frustrating as it had been rewarding. In many ways, I hated this place because it had felt as much a cage as my age had been – still was.
As I settled into the rover next to Maximus, I turned my back on a smoking crater and promised myself that nothing would ever cage me again.
OSMOS V
October 07, 09:47 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE FIVE
"I have a son."
The words were like ice in the man's veins as he heard them, barely audible above the din of manual labor. He wished he could filter the conversation out, but the implants had long since resorted to only auxiliary power. He barely had enough to translate the language these days, much less do anything more complex. Much like the rest of his human body, his cybernetic implants would fail without access to the proper resources, and then he'd be dumb and dead.
"My daughter moved abroad to Vincendis a few years back," another offered. "Last I heard, she had my first grandchild on the way."
"They took me away during my friend's wedding. Last good meal I'll probably ever have."
"Don't say that – we'll get out."
A small group of middle-aged Osmosians – though how was Gabriel really to tell their ages apart? – huddled together and commiserated over the friends and family that they'd left behind when they'd been captured. It was not the first time he'd overheard a conversation like that, and it pained him every time. Even before his station in this Frontier Sector, he'd heard plenty of people of all shapes, sizes, and origins lamenting the distance from their loved ones. He should be used to this by now, but he understood now on a fundamental level exactly what they were feeling.
A small touch to his shoulder pulled him from his reverie. "What about you?" the Osmosian woman asked as she tried to include him through sheer proximity alone. He was only taking a long enough break within this damn mine to catch his bearings, and now the whole thing was ruined.
"We should get back to work."
The woman scoffed, and the other group were in agreement with her. "They can wait a few more minutes."
Gabriel glanced toward the observation deck at the top of the cavernous space. A gaudy, metallic contraption that contained enough automated turrets to dissuade anyone from trying anything stupid. If he had access to any of his tech, he could spare them all from forced labor and get them back to the people they loved. To get himself back to those he loved.
As it was, he was biding his time. For the first few weeks, he told himself that the Plumbers would notice and would send help. Weeks turned to months, months turned to years, and he abandoned those thoughts. No – Osmos V would not get any outside help, unless he found a way to ask for it directly. He was the only outside help they would likely get, and he had no real ability to fight an army of colonizing insects and their superpowered sycophants, with or without all of his tech.
They would have to seize the moment and drive the Reach away. Not an easy task. Perhaps not a possible one.
"Focus on the present, not the past," he finally answered them. "We all have people out there. The memories might comfort you, but the only way you'll make it through this is to go with the flow. I've been here longer than many of you. The last group that tried to skip out on work became food for a lepidopterran hive."
Word of that sparked fear into many of their eyes, and most began to renew their efforts.
This horrific time in captivity had all but confirmed to Gabriel that the Reach were violating several intergalactic laws. There were intensive regulations against the integration of foreign species into a planet's ecosystem. On Osmos V, it was happening en masse, something that would forcibly wreck the fragile stability of the planet's biosphere within a generation. Those species that managed to survive their forced migration and leave behind enough offspring? Well, Osmos V would be changed forever.
Why all of these different aliens – some of them known for their sentience or even sapience – would agree to work with the Reach was a conundrum he had not quite solved. Perhaps they'd forced it to happen. Maybe they'd gotten the aliens to agree to favorable terms. Or, worse, maybe they'd found themselves in danger.
Gabriel wished he could prove it. Wished he could bring the information to his superiors and indict the Reach on formal charges of wrongdoing. As it was, he had no ability to get the word to anyone, not even to the artificial intelligence within the Sector House. He wondered if he could-
"Who is it?"
A man lingered near him while everyone else started to work. A man whom brought back every uncomfortable feeling about this entire situation. They'd spoken at length about it all before, shared details about what had transpired. At the end of the day, seeing Horatio forced to work in the same prison camp – two years and some change later - felt a bit like God was playing tricks on him.
"Who did you leave behind?" The man repeated the question softly, and Gabriel frowned as every impulse he had to keep his mouth shut failed him all at once.
"It feels strange to be telling you of all people about it," he said finally, kicking lightly at the stony floor of the cave. "I have a son too, named Kyle. The thought of getting back to him? Keeps me going."
Horatio considered it for a long moment, until a distant horn blared. "That's not what you told the others a couple minutes ago."
"Yeah?" he asked. "I'm a hypocrite."
The elder man laughed. "How old would he be now?"
"Around ten," Gabriel added. With each word, it was becoming easier to explain his thoughts. "Looks more like his mother than me – at least, he did. Haven't seen him in so long that he might end up looking the opposite."
He'd never see his son as an adult.
Kyle would probably not have anything to do with him now. He'd been gone too long, much longer than even his usual Plumber assignments. What would he even say to Kyle now, if he could?
"Cassian's age," Horatio said with a surprised smile. "We're more alike than you know, then."
"Yeah," Gabriel muttered. "Both shitty fathers who wound up stuck in an alien prison camp together, with sons around the same age who have no idea that we're still alive, that we're still out there. No way to contact them, no way to ask for help, no way to break free easily."
The horn sounded again, this time in a warning tone, and Gabriel shifted into work mode. Horatio found a comfortable pace beside him and said little else, biting his tongue until a more appropriate time. Something seemed to occur to him, several minutes later, and Gabriel could only smirk.
"Break free 'easily'?"
Gabriel scoffed. "If it were easy, I'd have already done it."
LOS ANGELES
October 29, 14:02 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE FIVE
Fourth grade was a nightmare, even on the last school day before Halloween.
This annoying girl, Alexandra, recently moved to the city and just had to come to his school, to be assigned to his class. She thought she was so special, and everyone else seemed to think so too. A lot of his friends were trying to talk with her all the time, and all the girls liked her. Mrs. Rasburn treated her differently too and gave her special attention.
He was the one who was supposed to get special attention!
The whole thing was just unfair.
She'd come to school with the best costume too. Dressed like a miniature replica of a blonde Wonder Woman, her costume was well-made and looked the spitting image of pictures he'd seen from World War II in their history textbooks. And then, to top it all off, her dad came to their party dressed as Batman.
Batman!
He sulked in the corner as he watched them interact. Their costumes were so cool, they were probably custom made. His mom bought his Green Lantern one from the store, but it didn't even come with a cool ring prop. Instead, she'd bought him a green apple Ring Pop, but he'd eaten that hours ago.
His mom couldn't get off work.
Ms. Rasburn wouldn't leave him alone.
Mr. Dewitt was too cool.
One of the kids he thought was his friend ripped up one of his sketches of a Jack-o-Lantern and tossed it in the toilet.
The whole day was basically ruined.
GOTHAM CITY
October 31, 19:49 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE FIVE
Jinx had always loved stories of Halloween. Dubbed Disney movies and other little cartoons were like her only snapshot into what that holiday was like growing up, though the fact that the voices didn't match up to their mouths always bothered her.
The games, the prizes, the candy, the costumes, the caramel, the dances! All of it was so much fun to see, and she had always wanted to experience it for herself. No one had ever really made an effort to celebrate in her corner of the world.
But, she jumped at the chance to come to America on a job during the weekend of her favorite holiday. The city streets of Gotham were abuzz with celebration, darkness, atmosphere! If not for her handlers, she wouldn't have gotten the chance to come here, and she had to silently thank them for the opportunity.
She threw herself at the biggest street fair and abandoned her disguising features, proudly displaying the pallor to her skin that would normally intimidate anyone. Monsters, fiction, and celebrities were a healthy mix of identities for people to don, but on a day like today? She would just wear herself and be proud.
She made a point to laugh with two kids dressed as princesses, a boy dressed as Indiana Jones, and a pair of triplets who each wore a different red ranger outfit. She danced with a Mulan and a Pikachu. A Master Chief won a competition of bobbing for apples and shared the reward with her. When he tried to compete again, she nudged the water only slightly with her magic to help him win a second time.
Jinx was halfway through a street-side showing of Invasion of the Body Snatchers when her pager buzzed at her waist. She frowned as she read the message.
"Time to get to work."
When Jinx began to work her magic, hardly anyone noticed over the atmosphere of Gotham City on a night like this. Wayne Enterprises won't even know what hit them.
- Location
- Alabama
I'm excited for you all to see what I'm cooking.
0.13
- Location
- Alabama
OSMOS V
November 10, 16:11 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE FOUR
Ignoring the slick grime that caused my joints to stick, I slipped through the ruined marketplace, a small bazaar of interconnected storefronts and discarded kiosks. There were signs of recent travel or use from people: discarded food that had not yet fallen to rot, strips of fabric too nice to have been left out here to dry for that long, and the occasional smell of embers from a recent fire. My eyes scanned for where they may have gone, but from prior experience, they were just as likely to have retreated into the upper floors of any buildings as they were to any excavated tunnels below. It was paramount for many communities these days to only interact with the public when strictly necessary.
As inconspicuously as possible, I forced fresh tears to fill my eyes and readied myself to drop into a defenseless crouch. If anyone saw me, I'd look every bit the scared little boy I should be in this situation, and I needed that bit of subterfuge to make it through the assignment. I didn't have a lot of time to make the right impression, before everything turned to shit.
The sun was peeking from below the horizon as night threatened to fall. What infrastructure remained to provide light to a dreary, nearly abandoned city flickered to life as the minute drove near, but for every light that remained, three had been scavenged for spare parts or to serve makeshift light fixtures within whatever counted as a home these days. Foreboding shadows stretched across the city's damaged streets and ruined walkways. Everywhere but maybe the Capital looked like this these days, and even that wasn't in pristine condition.
Nearly ready to give up looking in this sector, I stopped in my tracks and shared a glance with the first person I'd seen in over an hour: a pair of large, tearful eyes hiding behind a pane of glass and stamped wooden boards. When they realized they'd been seen, they hesitated and then darted away with a shuffle of fabric, vanishing behind fortifications that would do nothing to save them from the coming threat.
"Hey, hey! I don't- can you spare some food?" I called out as I approached the squat building that had once served as a dance studio. "I'm hungry, and I haven't eaten in-"
A distant, grumbling roar.
Almost too low to hear, but I was listening for it.
If the people living here thought things were bad here now, they had no idea what was coming.
"Please, I'm starving! I don't know where my dad is," I swiped back a real tear, "and I don't wanna be out here at night. Please, please, please!"
I pounded on the doorway with enough force to split the wood.
Sold the desperation. Emphasized the strength I had in this new life compared to the old, and I wasn't even trying.
A panel below the window opened with a shifting of material, and a small hand reached up into the light before a larger one pulled it back.
"Come in, come in." Hushed whispers.
A pair of women ushered me inside, neither of them possessing horns yet. With them, a girl with darker skin who couldn't be older than seven. They were her eyes I saw in the window, and the gaunt little girl should not have to live like this.
They shoved the panel back into place and within moments, they'd trusted too much. They seated me at a table and slid a bowl of lukewarm soup in front of me, its scent wonderful. I surveyed the room quickly while they exchanged hushed greetings, introduced themselves, and shooed away any apprehensive onlookers. Within the dance-studio-turned-bunker, there was only one who had a visible Exception, her forked tail covered in barbs. The rest eyed me with distrust, and I refused to meet the hopeful gaze of the youngest assembled, the little girl who was so close to malnutrition that she'd likely never develop any Gifts, if she had them.
"Son, why are you wandering the streets alone?"
I frowned in a practiced motion, not looking up to meet their discerning faces. The two women settled in across from me, while the little girl remained glued to my side like a lost puppy. She was the youngest here, but there was no one else even close to her age. Most were verging on the elderly and the infirm, though it was hard to tell with Osmosians.
I had a few options on how to take this, how to answer her question. I wasn't looking for a place to hide, I wasn't looking for a place to shelter, I wasn't looking for a new survivor group to align with. I already had aligned myself with the best chance that anyone would have to stop this, to save Osmos V. I didn't need to ingratiate myself to the group, like others might have done, because I honestly did not have the time.
"This is all I've known for years," I lied, thinking on the information that I'd learned about this frontier town. "Ever since that day my school exploded, I've been fending for myself."
The woman with kind blue eyes and no ridges around them reached forward to take my hand. "Were you a student at Central?" I crossed my arms more tightly around my torso. "You poor dear."
Central was one of two schools in the area and had, a few months back, been the site of a battle between a so-called "horde" of aliens and the Scarlet Scarab. It was just one of many sites of horror that Xandros had inflicted upon his own people in the guise of a false invasion, and I would not fucking stand for it any longer.
"How have you all made it this long?"
This was, hopefully, one of many groups of survivors within the community that remained. From what intelligence I'd gathered and been allowed to see, frontier towns like this one were hotbeds of activity. Missing or dead people, victims of alien attacks, a stage for the Reach and the Triarchy to wage battle against the invasion, and the altogether crumbling aftermath of "order" they supposedly leave behind. The slow approach toward total anarchy had long accelerated to a near certainty.
"I found good people," I answer truthfully. "The best people. A bunch of brains, a bunch of brawn, all gathered together. A group who grow by the day, by the week, by the month." I reach into a pocket and produce a single slip of paper and pass it to the pair of women. Several of the onlookers step forward to try to peek at its contents. "We can always use more folks, folks like you." My eyes scanned the room and settled on the one with the Exception, her tail flexing with apprehension. "Every able-bodied fight-"
"You want us to believe this?" "You're a traitor the Triarchs!" "Turn him in!" "He's just a boy!"
The cacophony of voices all scrambled to speak at once, and their volumes dimmed when my upper torso became the same material as the table. I reached down with fingers made of plastic and pulled up my pant leg, revealing a thick scar from a plasma burn.
The same plasma burns that killed my mother.
"I'm fighting for you, for me, for all the people I've lost, and the people you've lost."
"You shouldn't-"
"Shouldn't what?" I challenged. "There are more than a dozen people in this room. There might be a hundred folks left in this town, maybe more if you've been exceptionally lucky, and I'm going to break you of that notion now- you haven't been lucky."
I hold up the slip of paper for the rest to see, a faded photograph of a dinosaur-like alien ripping a building to shreds. It was easily twenty or so feet tall, and that was on its whim.
"One of these is on its way here. You don't have the weapons to take it down, and unless one of you has the Gift like me, you don't have the powers either." I gesture in its vague direction. "You have maybe an hour, tops, before its rampage reaches this building, and there's nothing you can do to stop it."
The reactions were mixed, difficult, and immediate. Fear, anger, frustration, hesitation – all bubbled to the surface.
"What are we supposed to do?"
"Flee," I explained simply. "Run as far and as fast as you can. Get to the southwestern edge of town, right where the desert starts."
"We can't just run into the desert!" a portly man shouted, so different from the rest that I wondered if he'd be hoarding food. "Why are we listening to this?"
"Your group can't have this place all to yourselves!"
"You looters are despicable."
I snap my fists together, frustrating building in my own mind. "I am not anything of the sort. You have but one option – listen to me or die to that thing out there."
Hesitation gripped several of the individuals, many showing signs of the same malnutrition that the girl possessed. Once the Capital abandoned the social infrastructure that supported towns on the frontier like this, they had to fend for what they had, and what they had wasn't enough. There were dozens of communities like this one, who've already collapsed or were on the brink of collapse.
"Sounds more like die now or die later. We'll starve!"
"You already are."
That shut the most resistant up.
"My people are waiting just outside of town to escort any survivors to safety. Vehicles, food, supplies, medicine – we have it all. If you're concerned about your options, you should be, but you've truly got one option, one choice. If you choose to not listen to that, maybe the alien will get bored or hungry before he rips you apart, or before this place collapses on you."
I slipped another piece of paper from my belt and unfurled it, revealing a grotesque image of the aftermath of this creature's path. A Jula-drone took the picture from the air, showing a debris field miles wide.
"This is what you're facing. Every minute you waste now is a minute you waste getting the hell out of here."
The picture was what did it, was what spurned many of them to action. A couple of holdouts looked at me with mistrust but Osmosians were just as much social primates as humans were: they stuck with their in-group, and most were listening out of sheer fear more than anything else.
The little girl clutched at my hand and pulled me with her, squeezing it for comfort while she packed a small bag with her own belongings. She mumbled her name to me in greeting, but I was too busy noticing that she'd packed a knife alongside a couple of toys and other small but useful items. I was proud of her and the person who taught her.
Within minutes, they'd largely packed their things and were ready to follow me. Two chose to stay, and I wished them luck.
This crop for Carnifex would be somewhat useful even if only five or six managed to stick around after they got to safety, and I felt encouraged as I led them out into the marketplace once more. The pathway out was largely marked in my head, and I scrounged beneath the muck-covered grate on the way to retrieve the real bag I'd left behind right before I started on this assignment. Couldn't be too careful that I'd find looters instead of survivors, and the gear in here was too valuable to lose.
The little girl, whose name she'd brightly declared was Marcilia, stuck as close to me as she could, cradling a wooden doll in her hand. Her shoes were muggy, and her steps were awkward from emaciated muscles. I'd seen far too much over these few months, and she was too close to falling like many others had.
"Take this, get some energy."
A small portion of bread from my bag became her next meal, chewing on it as she walked. It was more cracker than dinner roll, but it was the best the cooks could do for anyone on short notice for any kind of travel assignment. I ate the rest of it, knowing I'd need the calories to fight effectively, should I need to.
"How much farth-"
A building toppled in the distance, a pile of dust rising up into view. A woman amidst the group screamed, and I heard someone mutter that the Triarchy would send someone soon, that they'd manage to stop it before all was lost.
I don't break their hopeful spirit.
"We'll need to go this way!" I directed them down a different thoroughfare, one that would form a wide looping arc around a likely radius of destruction. The dinosaur monster had already passed through this space, and the resulted debris from collapsed shops, grumbled garages, and sunken government complexes did nothing to improve the mood. "Keep your heads down! If it sees you, it's probably too late, so move. quickly."
Minutes passed of pure tension, and I only held back from pulling out the Jula-drone because I could tell where we were. If things became any less clear, I'd need it to guide our passage.
Thankfully, it hadn't been needed, but our luck fizzled as we reached sight of the edge of the city. A hundred meters.
A nearby tower shook, its supporting structural integrity failing and leaving a heap of material to block the street behind us. Dust covered the slowest of the survivors, Marcilia screamed in terror, and the alien leaped through the cloud in a move that proved its strength ten-fold. Where it landed, stone cracked from the force of its impact and a nearby window shattered.
A quick voice command threw a Jula-Drone into the air to guide the group, its chrome body blinking with light as it unfurled into an almost spider-like design. Each limb mimicked mine as I gestured frantically for them to follow it, half of its metallic tendrils sporting scanners to help guide its path.
In the same moment, I mimicked the metal of nearby debris with a quick tap, the coating to my body spreading completely and increasing my own resilience. I had no idea if it would be enough, but it would buy them – and my allies - time. A hundred meters was nothing, and a bit more beyond that to connect to my allies.
I released my held breath, and the rampaging alien snarled as I stayed behind, slitted eyes flickering between the group and me.
My running leap and forceful fist impact sent the surprised reptilian alien back several feet, skidding across sand-covered pavement. A mere half-second was all it took for it to recover from the blow, and I rolled through the next motion to barely avoid a tail that tried to intercept me. I had to be agile, I had to use my size, I had to keep out of harm's way as much as possible.
Not wanting to give the creature a single chance to catch his bearings, I leaped up and to the right, landing atop a fourth-floor balcony with a single bounce.
C'mon, follow me!
The alien rolled through the ground floor beneath where I stood, and the balcony began to collapse as a supporting wall turned to dust. Holding my footing through sheer luck, I ripped at the metal railing with ease, releasing it from its bounds. This… this'll work, I told myself.
As I fell, I swiped quickly with the railing to wrap the metal around his neck, pulling it taut like a solid, angular leash. In anger, it pulled immediately at the makeshift bindings and ripped them apart with ease. Before I'd even landed back on my feet, he tossed the shards like a shotgun round, the material peppering against my crossed arms and cutting through armor.
It did not work.
The creature bounded for me, lifted me in its grasp, and readied a throw that might end its arc in the upper atmosphere.
I would not survive that.
Heart pounding in my chest, I gripped its scaled arm with my bare palm and pulled.
The alien exhaled in agony, a roar that shook my eardrums, and it fell to its knee in weakness.
Energy, material, DNA – all of it available at the touch of a hand, a grazing of the skin. With such a grip, the alien's strength, endurance, and ability to expand or retract in size became mine. With each second that passed, the alien would grow weaker and weaker until-
A knee impacted with my abdomen so forcefully I began seeing stars. Forced to let go, I struggled to recover from the strain, noting the significant damage to the material I'd absorbed even with its stolen strength.
It was the alien's wooziness from the drain that gave me a moment of advantage. I pressed my newfound strength into a full-scale assault. A metallic uppercut launched the alien across the street and through a stone barrier in a shower of dust, easily the strongest I'd ever been on borrowed power.
A grin crossed my lips.
Before it could recover, I jumped with increased strength, landed on its chest heel-first, and knocked the breath from its lungs.
"Give up, you brute!"
There was no point in talking to them. Carnifex had discovered that long ago. These aliens had intelligence, but there was more than a language barrier. They lacked reason. State-backed media claimed there had been talks, that there had been discussions, but it wasn't true. The Reach had done something to them to make them lose their way, for aliens that should otherwise be able to speak.
I tried to pull away, but a furious swat of its fist batted me away. What surprised me as much as it surprised the alien was that I only moved a few feet instead of several dozen yards. This thing… this thing was strong, and until this borrowed power faded, maybe I could actually do something.
I glanced quickly in the direction of the retreating refugees, and they'd crossed from street to sand. The beeping of the retreating drone was a signal to me as much as it was to gathered Carnifex support, and I had to keep fighting this thing for as long as I could. Within seconds, vehicles would be coming from their hidden places to extract the group.
With an angry roar, the alien expanded to the size of a small building.
With a concentration on whatever connection I felt to this alien's abilities, I fucking matched him.
Within seconds, I'd become the size of a two-story building. The enemy was bigger, thicker, and tougher, but it wasn't growing any larger. Neither could I, but I had to try.
A flick of my wrist tossed a support column the size of an oak tree at the dinosaur, and it collided against its hide and broke into dozens of pieces. I bounded toward it to grapple the creature, but it grappled into me instead, forcing me onto my back and crushing four abandoned vehicles just from my size alone. A gouging fissure was left in our wake, the street forever ruined.
I punched once, twice, three times at his reptilian face, so hard that the metal I'd absorbed cracked from the effort. It was rocked, but not down, and I knew ultimately that, pound for pound, it was still stronger than me. The Gift had limits to how much it could absorb and for how long.
I shrunk to dodge the haymaker that would have surely left me a pile of gore, a crater in the earth left behind where it struck. A kick to its side did nothing to harm it and did everything to push me away, and I rolled onto my feet with a heavy exhale.
I did the best thing I could do.
I ran.
Debris exploded in my direction as the tall creature bounded after me. I wheeled my body to the side and avoided a tail that skewered a vehicle in a shower of glass and metal. With as much force as I could muster, I bounded over a mid-size building in a single jump, landed in a rolling crouch atop its roof, and then leaped again toward the desert.
The apartment complex did next-to-nothing to slow the wanna-be kaiju, but I didn't need it to.
The second my feet touched the sandy wasteland of the Magnus Desertus, my allies were moving into position. A hovering rover sped over the nearby dunes and crossed the distance toward me. Others of Carnifex were hastily escorting refugees into their only means of escape, while some moved into position to assist. Covering fire from ballistics and plasma rifles – some stolen and modified with Reach tech – blasted into the creature and its path. A shower of heat, sparks, and gunfire would not stop the alien, but we didn't need to.
We only needed to outrun it.
We had the means.
As soon as the last of the survivors strapped into place, the Osmosian rebels joined them. I slid into the opened back hatch of a rover that did not hesitate to immediately kick into high gear, and if not for Marcilia's quick reaction to grab hold of my arm, I might have fallen into the dunes behind.
It was following.
It was fast. Each bounded leap carried it closer to us, and with each passing second, the weakness I'd created through the absorption would fade. It would get faster, and it only needed to catch one of the rovers to make the whole thing pointless.
We needed… one more advantage.
An idea!
"Deploy the drones!" I shouted.
The tactic that had allowed me to escape the canine alien: sacrificing the weather drone that Adrius and Felixus had brought with them that night.
Five drones launched into the air and began firing their automated turrets. Plasma peppered into the alien as they moved like a veritable storm, and if there was any intelligence in the thing left at all, it would ignore them. They didn't have the ordinance to even damage the creature's skin more than mild burns, but its attention left the retreating convoy.
We'd done it.
We'd made it.
I patted the little girl on the shoulder, and it was all worth it to see the smile on her face.
OSMOS V
January 06, 19:09 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE THREE
The Reach Ambassador liked to think that he was a patient man.
He had much to show for his favor of that approach. His previous assignment to spread the Reach's intergalactic influence had been a rousing success after nearly a decade of careful manipulation, and they had not had to fire a single shot against the Lepidopterran homeworld. That success bought him the chance for a new assignment: Osmos V.
Truthfully, the Empire had not realized what a gem this planet's resources were. No, it was not in natural resources or even artificial resources. Instead, it was in genetic resources. The meat on this planet was far, far more than what anyone had predicted, and his superiors were incredibly happy with the results. Even now, there were Osmosians sent to the four corners of the Empire and beyond, to extend the Reach across the cosmos.
As patient as he had been and as resourceful as the planet was, that approach had cost him dearly on a few fronts. It had been important to them, in those initial discussions, not to spoil the meat with a planetary war, to bring down their superior firepower onto the populace and force them to capitulate. That task, then, was of course given to the Ambassador, and he'd managed for so long to remain patient, vigilant, and successful.
That patience had cost them too much meat. In the long run, it mattered little: breeding camps were already in place to ensure that they'd continue to develop the Osmosian Gifts and Exceptions that made them so useful to an intergalactic cause they should beg to continue. In the short run, open rebellion had led to loss of life and good stock, and the false invasion they'd instituted as a cover for their true aims had killed many.
The most frustrating source of his impatience had been increasingly frustrating as of late.
A Reach Technician with a worried look across his yellow-plated insectoid face entered the room and passed a chitinous screen to their leader. "Another successful broadcast across the extranet. They managed to repeat the message four times across all major networks before we thwarted it."
The Ambassador cursed as the message played across the screen. An Osmosian woman – one they'd been monitoring long before she'd directly become a thorn in their side – followed in the footsteps of her traitorous family and had quickly become the public face of the movement. She'd managed these broadcasts more than once across the last few months, and they'd only increased in frequency.
"To all citizens of the Triarchy and the United Cities, I am Jula. Like you, I have lost many of my closest relatives and friends. Know that you are not alone. Know that your government has failed you. Know that you need not be afraid, know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Carnifex will remove the Reach's influence from this planet and will bring justice to the Triarchs who invited these invaders to our planet. They are responsible for all that has wronged us, and we will take our planet back!"
Images accompanied the message displaying their evidence, which was a new development in these broadcasts and one that concerned the Ambassador immensely. One of them – and he didn't know how they'd managed to do it – was brand new and displayed a clear image of the fleet the Reach had hidden beneath the planet's oceans, inaccessible with this planet's level of technology. The image showed dozens of ships, not even a fraction of what they possessed overall, but enough to complicate many, many things.
"The Reach have a space-capable fleet and the numbers and technology to turn the tide in the invasion, but they have not intervened to put a stop to it! What does that tell you? This is no conspiracy theory, this is fact, Osmosians. You are mere puppet-"
The broadcast had ended there, and the Ambassador cursed his patience.
OSMOS V
January 07, 07:05 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE THREE
Sweat dripped from my pores in a slick sheen. Heavy breath flowed in and out of my chest. Knuckles cracked with nervous need.
"Again."
At the sound of the command, I slipped into a readied stance alongside twelve others. Men, women, children – we could no longer afford to discriminate. Every hand – with few limits – could be useful to the resistance, and I was both excited and mournful at the prospect.
I'd argued so long for some semblance of respect. When it finally came – when I was finally trusted to actively contribute to the state of the world?
It did not just apply to me.
I was almost four years older than the eight year old girl within the bunker's isolated training chamber, who followed the same repeated training motions that I did. Marcilia, a girl I'd rescued. She had no Gift nor Exception. Perhaps a mutation would develop, perhaps it would not, but they trained everyone they could with hand-to-hand and small arms. Bruises lined her arms from the tough regimen, and she was so skinny that I thought she might faint at any moment.
Early in the resistance effort, none of this had been necessary. Carnifex had smaller aims and operated with smaller numbers. Small squads of three to four would exterminate targets, infiltrate the Legions, and scout uncontrolled territories. The extent of the false invasion had not yet been clear, nor were the scale of its consequences. We knew better now and had to change.
Aggregor, the leader of this training – and the ultimate leader of the resistance – calmly stepped between us to make suggestions, discourage laziness, and improve form. He wore no shirt, which showed the extent of his physique and the lengths of his devotion to the cause. Numerous scars from burns and gashes stretched across his chest and back, some reaching as high as his neck. The tell-tale signs of a Reach plasma weapon burn were the worst example, mirroring my own scarred flesh on the back of my right shin. A painful reminder.
It was Aggregor's influence over the former Carnifex leaders that forced him to take over and to introduce every able-bodied warrior they could into our plans. Those days had been tense, but Carnifex evolved into a fighting force that might actually manage. Would allowing children a chance to fight make a difference in the battles to come?
They already had. Children like myself had been useful in scouting missions, recruitment drives, and espionage. No one suspected a child.
Aggregor loomed over me. I rose to meet his eyes, despite the fact that I was short for even an eleven year old. That much had not changed during my second life.
"Your stance is too wide."
I considered it for half a second. "No, because a wider stance means I'm less likely to-"
"Too wide," he repeated.
Aggregor did not remain in position to see if I corrected it. He was not that kind of teacher, and I appreciated the comment all the same. He moved on to address what I felt were more serious concerns: a forty-year old woman who bore signs of early pregnancy leaned at a dangerous angle with her sidearm, firing her blaster poorly and inaccurately toward the glass target at the end of the range.
I repeated the motions as I watched him work, marveling at the difference a simple comment from him made in her progress. The man was charismatic, and I wondered not for the first time why he wasn't trusted someone else within the ranks of Carnifex's veterans to train us.
I got the opportunity to ask him when we next rested, the sound of soothing music playing from the bunker's loudspeaker. "Why isn't Darien leading the session today?" The woman had largely been training operatives for weeks, and she hadn't been at her post. Perhaps that was the answer, but Aggregor could certainly ask someone else to take over.
The man wiped sweat from his forehead with the edge of his collar. "Darien has an extended assignment overseas, and others are in place or pre-occupied. At the end of the day, understanding your progress is key to our success."
"And where are we striking next?"
I'd heard talk to try to take Vicendis, the only city-state that held a candle of threat to the Triarchy's Capital during the pre-Reach days. Perhaps that was where Darien had gone, to join with that effort. The goal was simple, but the means complex: remove Reach influence over that city and establish order, and there'll be others who flock to it as an example. The Triarchy had invited the Reach into their good graces, and I wouldn't stop until I proved to everyone who would listen they should be ousted.
Aggregor confirmed my suspicions but gave little information about how it would be done.
"Are we trying to encourage those with powers to riot?"
That method had worked previously in a couple of notable instances, from what I could recall, but that was a short term solution to a long term problem.
Aggregor did not answer.
"Carpet bombing?"
Aggregor did not answer.
"Subterfuge?"
No answer.
As much as I had been trusted to do something, I had not been trusted to do everything, to know everything. I didn't need to be.
Moving against Vicendis was big, I could feel it. They typically shared more, revealed more about their aims to even an almost twelve-year-old nuisance. Maybe, just maybe, it would be the turning of the tide.
PLUMBER SECTOR HOUSE, FRONTIER SPACE
January 10, 19:09 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE THREE
A single, miniscule ping of alert on the scanners changed everything.
A routine operation, one designed to monitor the communications of any planets within this Sector of Frontier Space. Its many systems were typically inactive without a conduit agent to directly witness and access its records, beyond the bare minimum of function. This region had not had a reported interaction with its assigned agent for years, but that was not atypical depending on the assignment. Sometimes, this Sector House's attendant artificial intelligence could go years without a report, due to the vastness of Frontier Space compared to the patrolled Sectors of the Known Universe.
No, communications were routinely inspected through installations of its Plumber agent, Gabriel Vasquez. By the time of his last report, Vasquez had been focused on Osmos V, and many of the sensors he'd established in secret were now working in overtime. One such inspection sparked renewed interest in the AI, and there were clear protocols in place that it could utilize.
Communications were clear: the Reach had broken the laws of the Guardians of the Universe, and there were clauses in its code of conduct that could allow the AI to intervene directly.
So… the AI intervened.
November 10, 16:11 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE FOUR
Ignoring the slick grime that caused my joints to stick, I slipped through the ruined marketplace, a small bazaar of interconnected storefronts and discarded kiosks. There were signs of recent travel or use from people: discarded food that had not yet fallen to rot, strips of fabric too nice to have been left out here to dry for that long, and the occasional smell of embers from a recent fire. My eyes scanned for where they may have gone, but from prior experience, they were just as likely to have retreated into the upper floors of any buildings as they were to any excavated tunnels below. It was paramount for many communities these days to only interact with the public when strictly necessary.
As inconspicuously as possible, I forced fresh tears to fill my eyes and readied myself to drop into a defenseless crouch. If anyone saw me, I'd look every bit the scared little boy I should be in this situation, and I needed that bit of subterfuge to make it through the assignment. I didn't have a lot of time to make the right impression, before everything turned to shit.
The sun was peeking from below the horizon as night threatened to fall. What infrastructure remained to provide light to a dreary, nearly abandoned city flickered to life as the minute drove near, but for every light that remained, three had been scavenged for spare parts or to serve makeshift light fixtures within whatever counted as a home these days. Foreboding shadows stretched across the city's damaged streets and ruined walkways. Everywhere but maybe the Capital looked like this these days, and even that wasn't in pristine condition.
Nearly ready to give up looking in this sector, I stopped in my tracks and shared a glance with the first person I'd seen in over an hour: a pair of large, tearful eyes hiding behind a pane of glass and stamped wooden boards. When they realized they'd been seen, they hesitated and then darted away with a shuffle of fabric, vanishing behind fortifications that would do nothing to save them from the coming threat.
"Hey, hey! I don't- can you spare some food?" I called out as I approached the squat building that had once served as a dance studio. "I'm hungry, and I haven't eaten in-"
A distant, grumbling roar.
Almost too low to hear, but I was listening for it.
If the people living here thought things were bad here now, they had no idea what was coming.
"Please, I'm starving! I don't know where my dad is," I swiped back a real tear, "and I don't wanna be out here at night. Please, please, please!"
I pounded on the doorway with enough force to split the wood.
Sold the desperation. Emphasized the strength I had in this new life compared to the old, and I wasn't even trying.
A panel below the window opened with a shifting of material, and a small hand reached up into the light before a larger one pulled it back.
"Come in, come in." Hushed whispers.
A pair of women ushered me inside, neither of them possessing horns yet. With them, a girl with darker skin who couldn't be older than seven. They were her eyes I saw in the window, and the gaunt little girl should not have to live like this.
They shoved the panel back into place and within moments, they'd trusted too much. They seated me at a table and slid a bowl of lukewarm soup in front of me, its scent wonderful. I surveyed the room quickly while they exchanged hushed greetings, introduced themselves, and shooed away any apprehensive onlookers. Within the dance-studio-turned-bunker, there was only one who had a visible Exception, her forked tail covered in barbs. The rest eyed me with distrust, and I refused to meet the hopeful gaze of the youngest assembled, the little girl who was so close to malnutrition that she'd likely never develop any Gifts, if she had them.
"Son, why are you wandering the streets alone?"
I frowned in a practiced motion, not looking up to meet their discerning faces. The two women settled in across from me, while the little girl remained glued to my side like a lost puppy. She was the youngest here, but there was no one else even close to her age. Most were verging on the elderly and the infirm, though it was hard to tell with Osmosians.
I had a few options on how to take this, how to answer her question. I wasn't looking for a place to hide, I wasn't looking for a place to shelter, I wasn't looking for a new survivor group to align with. I already had aligned myself with the best chance that anyone would have to stop this, to save Osmos V. I didn't need to ingratiate myself to the group, like others might have done, because I honestly did not have the time.
"This is all I've known for years," I lied, thinking on the information that I'd learned about this frontier town. "Ever since that day my school exploded, I've been fending for myself."
The woman with kind blue eyes and no ridges around them reached forward to take my hand. "Were you a student at Central?" I crossed my arms more tightly around my torso. "You poor dear."
Central was one of two schools in the area and had, a few months back, been the site of a battle between a so-called "horde" of aliens and the Scarlet Scarab. It was just one of many sites of horror that Xandros had inflicted upon his own people in the guise of a false invasion, and I would not fucking stand for it any longer.
"How have you all made it this long?"
This was, hopefully, one of many groups of survivors within the community that remained. From what intelligence I'd gathered and been allowed to see, frontier towns like this one were hotbeds of activity. Missing or dead people, victims of alien attacks, a stage for the Reach and the Triarchy to wage battle against the invasion, and the altogether crumbling aftermath of "order" they supposedly leave behind. The slow approach toward total anarchy had long accelerated to a near certainty.
"I found good people," I answer truthfully. "The best people. A bunch of brains, a bunch of brawn, all gathered together. A group who grow by the day, by the week, by the month." I reach into a pocket and produce a single slip of paper and pass it to the pair of women. Several of the onlookers step forward to try to peek at its contents. "We can always use more folks, folks like you." My eyes scanned the room and settled on the one with the Exception, her tail flexing with apprehension. "Every able-bodied fight-"
"You want us to believe this?" "You're a traitor the Triarchs!" "Turn him in!" "He's just a boy!"
The cacophony of voices all scrambled to speak at once, and their volumes dimmed when my upper torso became the same material as the table. I reached down with fingers made of plastic and pulled up my pant leg, revealing a thick scar from a plasma burn.
The same plasma burns that killed my mother.
"I'm fighting for you, for me, for all the people I've lost, and the people you've lost."
"You shouldn't-"
"Shouldn't what?" I challenged. "There are more than a dozen people in this room. There might be a hundred folks left in this town, maybe more if you've been exceptionally lucky, and I'm going to break you of that notion now- you haven't been lucky."
I hold up the slip of paper for the rest to see, a faded photograph of a dinosaur-like alien ripping a building to shreds. It was easily twenty or so feet tall, and that was on its whim.
"One of these is on its way here. You don't have the weapons to take it down, and unless one of you has the Gift like me, you don't have the powers either." I gesture in its vague direction. "You have maybe an hour, tops, before its rampage reaches this building, and there's nothing you can do to stop it."
The reactions were mixed, difficult, and immediate. Fear, anger, frustration, hesitation – all bubbled to the surface.
"What are we supposed to do?"
"Flee," I explained simply. "Run as far and as fast as you can. Get to the southwestern edge of town, right where the desert starts."
"We can't just run into the desert!" a portly man shouted, so different from the rest that I wondered if he'd be hoarding food. "Why are we listening to this?"
"Your group can't have this place all to yourselves!"
"You looters are despicable."
I snap my fists together, frustrating building in my own mind. "I am not anything of the sort. You have but one option – listen to me or die to that thing out there."
Hesitation gripped several of the individuals, many showing signs of the same malnutrition that the girl possessed. Once the Capital abandoned the social infrastructure that supported towns on the frontier like this, they had to fend for what they had, and what they had wasn't enough. There were dozens of communities like this one, who've already collapsed or were on the brink of collapse.
"Sounds more like die now or die later. We'll starve!"
"You already are."
That shut the most resistant up.
"My people are waiting just outside of town to escort any survivors to safety. Vehicles, food, supplies, medicine – we have it all. If you're concerned about your options, you should be, but you've truly got one option, one choice. If you choose to not listen to that, maybe the alien will get bored or hungry before he rips you apart, or before this place collapses on you."
I slipped another piece of paper from my belt and unfurled it, revealing a grotesque image of the aftermath of this creature's path. A Jula-drone took the picture from the air, showing a debris field miles wide.
"This is what you're facing. Every minute you waste now is a minute you waste getting the hell out of here."
The picture was what did it, was what spurned many of them to action. A couple of holdouts looked at me with mistrust but Osmosians were just as much social primates as humans were: they stuck with their in-group, and most were listening out of sheer fear more than anything else.
The little girl clutched at my hand and pulled me with her, squeezing it for comfort while she packed a small bag with her own belongings. She mumbled her name to me in greeting, but I was too busy noticing that she'd packed a knife alongside a couple of toys and other small but useful items. I was proud of her and the person who taught her.
Within minutes, they'd largely packed their things and were ready to follow me. Two chose to stay, and I wished them luck.
This crop for Carnifex would be somewhat useful even if only five or six managed to stick around after they got to safety, and I felt encouraged as I led them out into the marketplace once more. The pathway out was largely marked in my head, and I scrounged beneath the muck-covered grate on the way to retrieve the real bag I'd left behind right before I started on this assignment. Couldn't be too careful that I'd find looters instead of survivors, and the gear in here was too valuable to lose.
The little girl, whose name she'd brightly declared was Marcilia, stuck as close to me as she could, cradling a wooden doll in her hand. Her shoes were muggy, and her steps were awkward from emaciated muscles. I'd seen far too much over these few months, and she was too close to falling like many others had.
"Take this, get some energy."
A small portion of bread from my bag became her next meal, chewing on it as she walked. It was more cracker than dinner roll, but it was the best the cooks could do for anyone on short notice for any kind of travel assignment. I ate the rest of it, knowing I'd need the calories to fight effectively, should I need to.
"How much farth-"
A building toppled in the distance, a pile of dust rising up into view. A woman amidst the group screamed, and I heard someone mutter that the Triarchy would send someone soon, that they'd manage to stop it before all was lost.
I don't break their hopeful spirit.
"We'll need to go this way!" I directed them down a different thoroughfare, one that would form a wide looping arc around a likely radius of destruction. The dinosaur monster had already passed through this space, and the resulted debris from collapsed shops, grumbled garages, and sunken government complexes did nothing to improve the mood. "Keep your heads down! If it sees you, it's probably too late, so move. quickly."
Minutes passed of pure tension, and I only held back from pulling out the Jula-drone because I could tell where we were. If things became any less clear, I'd need it to guide our passage.
Thankfully, it hadn't been needed, but our luck fizzled as we reached sight of the edge of the city. A hundred meters.
A nearby tower shook, its supporting structural integrity failing and leaving a heap of material to block the street behind us. Dust covered the slowest of the survivors, Marcilia screamed in terror, and the alien leaped through the cloud in a move that proved its strength ten-fold. Where it landed, stone cracked from the force of its impact and a nearby window shattered.
A quick voice command threw a Jula-Drone into the air to guide the group, its chrome body blinking with light as it unfurled into an almost spider-like design. Each limb mimicked mine as I gestured frantically for them to follow it, half of its metallic tendrils sporting scanners to help guide its path.
In the same moment, I mimicked the metal of nearby debris with a quick tap, the coating to my body spreading completely and increasing my own resilience. I had no idea if it would be enough, but it would buy them – and my allies - time. A hundred meters was nothing, and a bit more beyond that to connect to my allies.
I released my held breath, and the rampaging alien snarled as I stayed behind, slitted eyes flickering between the group and me.
My running leap and forceful fist impact sent the surprised reptilian alien back several feet, skidding across sand-covered pavement. A mere half-second was all it took for it to recover from the blow, and I rolled through the next motion to barely avoid a tail that tried to intercept me. I had to be agile, I had to use my size, I had to keep out of harm's way as much as possible.
Not wanting to give the creature a single chance to catch his bearings, I leaped up and to the right, landing atop a fourth-floor balcony with a single bounce.
C'mon, follow me!
The alien rolled through the ground floor beneath where I stood, and the balcony began to collapse as a supporting wall turned to dust. Holding my footing through sheer luck, I ripped at the metal railing with ease, releasing it from its bounds. This… this'll work, I told myself.
As I fell, I swiped quickly with the railing to wrap the metal around his neck, pulling it taut like a solid, angular leash. In anger, it pulled immediately at the makeshift bindings and ripped them apart with ease. Before I'd even landed back on my feet, he tossed the shards like a shotgun round, the material peppering against my crossed arms and cutting through armor.
It did not work.
The creature bounded for me, lifted me in its grasp, and readied a throw that might end its arc in the upper atmosphere.
I would not survive that.
Heart pounding in my chest, I gripped its scaled arm with my bare palm and pulled.
The alien exhaled in agony, a roar that shook my eardrums, and it fell to its knee in weakness.
Energy, material, DNA – all of it available at the touch of a hand, a grazing of the skin. With such a grip, the alien's strength, endurance, and ability to expand or retract in size became mine. With each second that passed, the alien would grow weaker and weaker until-
A knee impacted with my abdomen so forcefully I began seeing stars. Forced to let go, I struggled to recover from the strain, noting the significant damage to the material I'd absorbed even with its stolen strength.
It was the alien's wooziness from the drain that gave me a moment of advantage. I pressed my newfound strength into a full-scale assault. A metallic uppercut launched the alien across the street and through a stone barrier in a shower of dust, easily the strongest I'd ever been on borrowed power.
A grin crossed my lips.
Before it could recover, I jumped with increased strength, landed on its chest heel-first, and knocked the breath from its lungs.
"Give up, you brute!"
There was no point in talking to them. Carnifex had discovered that long ago. These aliens had intelligence, but there was more than a language barrier. They lacked reason. State-backed media claimed there had been talks, that there had been discussions, but it wasn't true. The Reach had done something to them to make them lose their way, for aliens that should otherwise be able to speak.
I tried to pull away, but a furious swat of its fist batted me away. What surprised me as much as it surprised the alien was that I only moved a few feet instead of several dozen yards. This thing… this thing was strong, and until this borrowed power faded, maybe I could actually do something.
I glanced quickly in the direction of the retreating refugees, and they'd crossed from street to sand. The beeping of the retreating drone was a signal to me as much as it was to gathered Carnifex support, and I had to keep fighting this thing for as long as I could. Within seconds, vehicles would be coming from their hidden places to extract the group.
With an angry roar, the alien expanded to the size of a small building.
With a concentration on whatever connection I felt to this alien's abilities, I fucking matched him.
Within seconds, I'd become the size of a two-story building. The enemy was bigger, thicker, and tougher, but it wasn't growing any larger. Neither could I, but I had to try.
A flick of my wrist tossed a support column the size of an oak tree at the dinosaur, and it collided against its hide and broke into dozens of pieces. I bounded toward it to grapple the creature, but it grappled into me instead, forcing me onto my back and crushing four abandoned vehicles just from my size alone. A gouging fissure was left in our wake, the street forever ruined.
I punched once, twice, three times at his reptilian face, so hard that the metal I'd absorbed cracked from the effort. It was rocked, but not down, and I knew ultimately that, pound for pound, it was still stronger than me. The Gift had limits to how much it could absorb and for how long.
I shrunk to dodge the haymaker that would have surely left me a pile of gore, a crater in the earth left behind where it struck. A kick to its side did nothing to harm it and did everything to push me away, and I rolled onto my feet with a heavy exhale.
I did the best thing I could do.
I ran.
Debris exploded in my direction as the tall creature bounded after me. I wheeled my body to the side and avoided a tail that skewered a vehicle in a shower of glass and metal. With as much force as I could muster, I bounded over a mid-size building in a single jump, landed in a rolling crouch atop its roof, and then leaped again toward the desert.
The apartment complex did next-to-nothing to slow the wanna-be kaiju, but I didn't need it to.
The second my feet touched the sandy wasteland of the Magnus Desertus, my allies were moving into position. A hovering rover sped over the nearby dunes and crossed the distance toward me. Others of Carnifex were hastily escorting refugees into their only means of escape, while some moved into position to assist. Covering fire from ballistics and plasma rifles – some stolen and modified with Reach tech – blasted into the creature and its path. A shower of heat, sparks, and gunfire would not stop the alien, but we didn't need to.
We only needed to outrun it.
We had the means.
As soon as the last of the survivors strapped into place, the Osmosian rebels joined them. I slid into the opened back hatch of a rover that did not hesitate to immediately kick into high gear, and if not for Marcilia's quick reaction to grab hold of my arm, I might have fallen into the dunes behind.
It was following.
It was fast. Each bounded leap carried it closer to us, and with each passing second, the weakness I'd created through the absorption would fade. It would get faster, and it only needed to catch one of the rovers to make the whole thing pointless.
We needed… one more advantage.
An idea!
"Deploy the drones!" I shouted.
The tactic that had allowed me to escape the canine alien: sacrificing the weather drone that Adrius and Felixus had brought with them that night.
Five drones launched into the air and began firing their automated turrets. Plasma peppered into the alien as they moved like a veritable storm, and if there was any intelligence in the thing left at all, it would ignore them. They didn't have the ordinance to even damage the creature's skin more than mild burns, but its attention left the retreating convoy.
We'd done it.
We'd made it.
I patted the little girl on the shoulder, and it was all worth it to see the smile on her face.
OSMOS V
January 06, 19:09 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE THREE
The Reach Ambassador liked to think that he was a patient man.
He had much to show for his favor of that approach. His previous assignment to spread the Reach's intergalactic influence had been a rousing success after nearly a decade of careful manipulation, and they had not had to fire a single shot against the Lepidopterran homeworld. That success bought him the chance for a new assignment: Osmos V.
Truthfully, the Empire had not realized what a gem this planet's resources were. No, it was not in natural resources or even artificial resources. Instead, it was in genetic resources. The meat on this planet was far, far more than what anyone had predicted, and his superiors were incredibly happy with the results. Even now, there were Osmosians sent to the four corners of the Empire and beyond, to extend the Reach across the cosmos.
As patient as he had been and as resourceful as the planet was, that approach had cost him dearly on a few fronts. It had been important to them, in those initial discussions, not to spoil the meat with a planetary war, to bring down their superior firepower onto the populace and force them to capitulate. That task, then, was of course given to the Ambassador, and he'd managed for so long to remain patient, vigilant, and successful.
That patience had cost them too much meat. In the long run, it mattered little: breeding camps were already in place to ensure that they'd continue to develop the Osmosian Gifts and Exceptions that made them so useful to an intergalactic cause they should beg to continue. In the short run, open rebellion had led to loss of life and good stock, and the false invasion they'd instituted as a cover for their true aims had killed many.
The most frustrating source of his impatience had been increasingly frustrating as of late.
A Reach Technician with a worried look across his yellow-plated insectoid face entered the room and passed a chitinous screen to their leader. "Another successful broadcast across the extranet. They managed to repeat the message four times across all major networks before we thwarted it."
The Ambassador cursed as the message played across the screen. An Osmosian woman – one they'd been monitoring long before she'd directly become a thorn in their side – followed in the footsteps of her traitorous family and had quickly become the public face of the movement. She'd managed these broadcasts more than once across the last few months, and they'd only increased in frequency.
"To all citizens of the Triarchy and the United Cities, I am Jula. Like you, I have lost many of my closest relatives and friends. Know that you are not alone. Know that your government has failed you. Know that you need not be afraid, know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Carnifex will remove the Reach's influence from this planet and will bring justice to the Triarchs who invited these invaders to our planet. They are responsible for all that has wronged us, and we will take our planet back!"
Images accompanied the message displaying their evidence, which was a new development in these broadcasts and one that concerned the Ambassador immensely. One of them – and he didn't know how they'd managed to do it – was brand new and displayed a clear image of the fleet the Reach had hidden beneath the planet's oceans, inaccessible with this planet's level of technology. The image showed dozens of ships, not even a fraction of what they possessed overall, but enough to complicate many, many things.
"The Reach have a space-capable fleet and the numbers and technology to turn the tide in the invasion, but they have not intervened to put a stop to it! What does that tell you? This is no conspiracy theory, this is fact, Osmosians. You are mere puppet-"
The broadcast had ended there, and the Ambassador cursed his patience.
OSMOS V
January 07, 07:05 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE THREE
Sweat dripped from my pores in a slick sheen. Heavy breath flowed in and out of my chest. Knuckles cracked with nervous need.
"Again."
At the sound of the command, I slipped into a readied stance alongside twelve others. Men, women, children – we could no longer afford to discriminate. Every hand – with few limits – could be useful to the resistance, and I was both excited and mournful at the prospect.
I'd argued so long for some semblance of respect. When it finally came – when I was finally trusted to actively contribute to the state of the world?
It did not just apply to me.
I was almost four years older than the eight year old girl within the bunker's isolated training chamber, who followed the same repeated training motions that I did. Marcilia, a girl I'd rescued. She had no Gift nor Exception. Perhaps a mutation would develop, perhaps it would not, but they trained everyone they could with hand-to-hand and small arms. Bruises lined her arms from the tough regimen, and she was so skinny that I thought she might faint at any moment.
Early in the resistance effort, none of this had been necessary. Carnifex had smaller aims and operated with smaller numbers. Small squads of three to four would exterminate targets, infiltrate the Legions, and scout uncontrolled territories. The extent of the false invasion had not yet been clear, nor were the scale of its consequences. We knew better now and had to change.
Aggregor, the leader of this training – and the ultimate leader of the resistance – calmly stepped between us to make suggestions, discourage laziness, and improve form. He wore no shirt, which showed the extent of his physique and the lengths of his devotion to the cause. Numerous scars from burns and gashes stretched across his chest and back, some reaching as high as his neck. The tell-tale signs of a Reach plasma weapon burn were the worst example, mirroring my own scarred flesh on the back of my right shin. A painful reminder.
It was Aggregor's influence over the former Carnifex leaders that forced him to take over and to introduce every able-bodied warrior they could into our plans. Those days had been tense, but Carnifex evolved into a fighting force that might actually manage. Would allowing children a chance to fight make a difference in the battles to come?
They already had. Children like myself had been useful in scouting missions, recruitment drives, and espionage. No one suspected a child.
Aggregor loomed over me. I rose to meet his eyes, despite the fact that I was short for even an eleven year old. That much had not changed during my second life.
"Your stance is too wide."
I considered it for half a second. "No, because a wider stance means I'm less likely to-"
"Too wide," he repeated.
Aggregor did not remain in position to see if I corrected it. He was not that kind of teacher, and I appreciated the comment all the same. He moved on to address what I felt were more serious concerns: a forty-year old woman who bore signs of early pregnancy leaned at a dangerous angle with her sidearm, firing her blaster poorly and inaccurately toward the glass target at the end of the range.
I repeated the motions as I watched him work, marveling at the difference a simple comment from him made in her progress. The man was charismatic, and I wondered not for the first time why he wasn't trusted someone else within the ranks of Carnifex's veterans to train us.
I got the opportunity to ask him when we next rested, the sound of soothing music playing from the bunker's loudspeaker. "Why isn't Darien leading the session today?" The woman had largely been training operatives for weeks, and she hadn't been at her post. Perhaps that was the answer, but Aggregor could certainly ask someone else to take over.
The man wiped sweat from his forehead with the edge of his collar. "Darien has an extended assignment overseas, and others are in place or pre-occupied. At the end of the day, understanding your progress is key to our success."
"And where are we striking next?"
I'd heard talk to try to take Vicendis, the only city-state that held a candle of threat to the Triarchy's Capital during the pre-Reach days. Perhaps that was where Darien had gone, to join with that effort. The goal was simple, but the means complex: remove Reach influence over that city and establish order, and there'll be others who flock to it as an example. The Triarchy had invited the Reach into their good graces, and I wouldn't stop until I proved to everyone who would listen they should be ousted.
Aggregor confirmed my suspicions but gave little information about how it would be done.
"Are we trying to encourage those with powers to riot?"
That method had worked previously in a couple of notable instances, from what I could recall, but that was a short term solution to a long term problem.
Aggregor did not answer.
"Carpet bombing?"
Aggregor did not answer.
"Subterfuge?"
No answer.
As much as I had been trusted to do something, I had not been trusted to do everything, to know everything. I didn't need to be.
Moving against Vicendis was big, I could feel it. They typically shared more, revealed more about their aims to even an almost twelve-year-old nuisance. Maybe, just maybe, it would be the turning of the tide.
PLUMBER SECTOR HOUSE, FRONTIER SPACE
January 10, 19:09 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE THREE
A single, miniscule ping of alert on the scanners changed everything.
A routine operation, one designed to monitor the communications of any planets within this Sector of Frontier Space. Its many systems were typically inactive without a conduit agent to directly witness and access its records, beyond the bare minimum of function. This region had not had a reported interaction with its assigned agent for years, but that was not atypical depending on the assignment. Sometimes, this Sector House's attendant artificial intelligence could go years without a report, due to the vastness of Frontier Space compared to the patrolled Sectors of the Known Universe.
No, communications were routinely inspected through installations of its Plumber agent, Gabriel Vasquez. By the time of his last report, Vasquez had been focused on Osmos V, and many of the sensors he'd established in secret were now working in overtime. One such inspection sparked renewed interest in the AI, and there were clear protocols in place that it could utilize.
Communications were clear: the Reach had broken the laws of the Guardians of the Universe, and there were clauses in its code of conduct that could allow the AI to intervene directly.
So… the AI intervened.