Slow Awakening (741 hits)
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Submitted by Snark << snarkk.at.gmail.com (View user info) at 2006-10-19 14:52:03 EDT
I saw a plasma storm wipe out a continent once.
I watched it from low orbit as it slid across the surface of Crillium; silver and blue, beautiful, all encompassing. It spread northward from the southern polar region, cloaking a good third of the planet in its undulating grip and stayed there a lunar day until the storm had eaten its fill of the planet and the rising of the second sun burnt it away like autumn fog. Where there had once been rock, sand and the two legged parasites that lived there, there was only the shimmering glow of the copper ocean.
600 million lives had become particle dust in the space of the hour it took for the storm to appear and spread, and where there should have been lamenting and tearing of robes, there was cheering and subspace pats on the back as 20 thousand drop ships aborted and turned their thrusters towards the spherical light ridden monstrosities that had birthed them.
Alliance Military Command issued a statement a couple hours after that which said the storm was the result of a malfunction in planetary defense systems. A representative of Earth Gov Council released a different version on Galaxycast less than fifteen minutes later... something about mass suicide in the face of the overwhelming invasion force. They didn't mention survivors because there weren't any; the storm pushed an electromagnetic wave before it that knocked out all but the most hardened electronics. Stratospheric bombardment took care of the rest.
The invasion was called off and the celebration spread from fleet to planet to system as news of the end of the war spread faster than echo drive.
I kept my ship in geosynchronous orbit over the greatest crime scene in six galaxies for two days after that, while the computer by my bed announced a new deposit to my account every hour on the hour as had been promised, and the fusion key to a device that had officially never existed, bit into the palm of my hand until nanite infected blood cells ran down my forearm in thick rivulets to stain my sheets black.
Two earth days later, the governing body of non-aligned planets officially surrendered and a year after that - to the day - they were absorbed into the alliance and peace reigned, as far as the public knew anyway.
I lost Trillian and Pivvuk after that.
Trill had a breakdown and took a long hard suck on a blaster round and Pivvuk took a freelance job that was sure suicide. Parts of him are still scattered across the big black between Tallus and Earth. Sometimes, when I manage to sneak enough alcohol past my anti-toxin mods, I think about the day we ended the war and all the gruesome days leading up to it, and I'm amazed that the big black doesn't have a crimson hue.
And yeah, I could give you reasons why we did it. I could argue lives taken versus lives saved. I could remind you that Tallusians retain their ancestral memory, that there are no children to kill and no innocents to protect amongst their kind. I could point fingers and ideals and fill the air with bullshit ideologies but in the end, you and I both know that there is only what you do and what you do not.
Maybe we lost the face of God somewhere in the vastness of space or maybe he turned away from us when we told him his house wasn't good enough anymore and began raping every world capable of sustaining half assed life.
I don't know and I shouldn't care and I have the bio-mods to prove it, but something changed after the incident with Father Pykuss. Maybe it's an after affect of the nanite virus he gave me or the subsequent purge of it back into his frail body. Maybe it was watching my team torn to shreds by his mercs or maybe military grade conscience removal ain't all its cracked up to be, but when I close my eyes and the digital goes dim, I see the plasma storm in my dreams. I feel it spreading out from Tallus towards me, borne on the screams of the enemy.
If Harper were still alive we'd get drunk and he'd tell me that the storm dream is an embodiment of my fear of the anti-moddite movement that Pykuss championed, and that I made infinitely stronger by martyring him, but Harper was blasted beyond repair and apparently his ghost is as scared of the man coming to kill me as the rest of the universe.
He calls himself Sypher Bledd and he's the storm made flesh.
He started by killing the medical team that brought me back from the ether after I bled out on Pykuss' floor and he's been killing everyone I've ever known since. He's a freelance assassin who's a legend in his own time. He's half mystery and half nightmare, a patchwork creature of conjecture and rumor, a man without a face who has never been id'd and never missed a kill. Some say he's more a code word than a man, that he's a government unit put together to do the black ops that the black ops guys won't do. Others say he's gone completely digital, that he's nothing more than binary consciousness now; a whirling mass of ones and zeroes set to invade the cortical node of anyone he chooses to use to carry out his job. No one knows for sure.
Whatever the case, whoever hired him didn't do it for business purposes. They don't simply want me dead, they want me erased. They have him eliminating anyone who could acknowledge I ever existed.
He's murdered relatives I didn't even know I had. He's murdered military personnel, ex lovers, and people that dropped off the map long ago. He even killed the Deletion Team that Alliance Mil sent after me when they realized why so many of their high ranking intelligence personnel were accidentally taking naps on the wrong side of an airlock.
He wants me to know he's coming. He wants me to know what I'm losing and how he's progressing.
I remember coming around in the med bay after I bled out. I remember the pain of the tissue reconstruction despite the meds they'd pumped into me and the incredible chill that invades every molecule of your body when they fill your veins with room temperature nanite infused plasma. I remember the machine hovering above me; poking, prodding, slicing and mending like a steel spider looking for a place to lay its eggs. I remember it as if it just happened and none of it bothers me cuz I've been there before and I've had worse.
No, the thing that really got me when I woke up was the weakness. It was the ache in my joints and the fatigue in my bones. It was feeling my age that horrified me more than anything.
It took two full days for the bio-techs to replace my damaged gear and reactivate the mods they could save. It took a week longer for them to initialize the nanite controllers implanted in my brain to work properly.
I was still weak when I walked out of the med lab and started calling in favors.
I swore to myself I'd never feel that weakness again. I promised myself I'd never truly know the kind of helplessness that comes with a modification free body; the kind of helplessness that one might feel were they trapped between atmospheric bombardment and a thousand mile high plasma storm.
Three hours after leaving the med lab I was in another - two hundred meters underground - while doctors without names or souls ripped me apart and fitted me with the newest in covert military "non-existent" bio gear.
I'm stronger than I ever was. I look two years younger than I used to and nowhere near the 80 year old that I am somewhere under it all, but I missed something somewhere. I didn't get the part of me fixed that manufactures regret and shame.
There's a flashing icon on the top right corner of the HUD of my right eye. It's a picture of an envelope. The line above it is blank... no subject... I don't have to open it to know that within it is the dna code of someone I don't remember meeting, who has stopped living because of something I did.
I need to figure out what it was. I need to find out who hired Bledd and how long I have before he comes for me.
I don't have anyone left that I would call friend, so I'm going to turn to the next best thing.
I'm going to my enemies' homeworld. I'm going back to Crillium. I'm going to track down everyone I've ever worked against until I get some answers. I'm going to kill Bledd, then take the fight to Pykuss' people.
I got nothing else to do and a body full of untried toys.
I'm going to embrace the storm.
Harper would've been proud.
Sequel to http://www.ubersite.com/m/73693
User Reviews
Submitted by Stabkill (user info) at 2008-09-16 02:24:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Alter (user info) at 2007-09-26 22:36:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No, Comment.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-10-20 18:52:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good reading on a Friday afternoon...
Much needed considering the shitstorm the front page becomes on a Friday.
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2006-10-20 16:16:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent.
Had trouble with some of the names for some reason, I found them distracting.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-20 11:50:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Needs more reviews.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-20 03:07:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2006-10-20 03:06:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2006-10-19 23:25:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice.
And I just wanted to point out at times it felt like you were forcing the sci-fi. Unless you wanted an extremely heavy handed sci-fi influence in which case it's fine.
Submitted by peckerhead (user info) at 2006-10-19 20:33:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great story. Excellent writing.
Submitted by gravitas (user info) at 2006-10-19 19:08:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2006-10-19 19:04:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
My dog has WAY bad gas this evening. He stinks.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-10-19 18:59:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2006-10-19 18:36:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
great stuff Snark.
Too bad it's being missed because people would rather play shenanigans than enjoy a story.
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2006-10-19 16:53:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
use of the word 'cuz' halfway through jarred, but other than this tiny gripe, this was a masterpiece
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2006-10-19 16:16:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice.
Submitted by MyTeeOne (user info) at 2006-10-19 15:58:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Holy shit, yes. That was awesome.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-10-19 15:21:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
DOH,
Shit sorry, I thought this was Pulsehead.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-10-19 15:19:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
WHAT THE GHEY, WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS A SERIOUS WRITERS FORUM OR SOMETHING??
Submitted by HadToBeDone (user info) at 2006-10-19 15:18:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You marvelous motherfucker....
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-10-19 14:52:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'll be popping back and forth between this and the Coventown series.