“Why’s that?”
Chief Browder gave the same grin every Chief and NCO gave him as a young Officer when he started asking questions. “Well Sir, this thing was made for you and you alone based off the dimensions you provided. It came out in one solid piece, and then the threading process shaped it to fit your physical body. Once the threading process is completed, it locks in the fabric like different atoms binding together to create something entirely different. So, if we start changing the fabric post threading process, then it slightly alters the way the suit was designed to protect you.”
“Could’ve guessed that,” Neuma jested.
“Wow! I think I actually understood that explanation,” Euphretes laughed as his ran his hands down the back of the suit. A single zipper would allow the wearer to get in and out of the suit. It ran from the base of the neck down to the lower back, and the teeth off the zipper were made from the same fabric as the suit itself. This ensured maximum protection down its seam.
“Well, we like to keep things simple around here, Sir,” Browder said as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Gotta break it down for us simple folk, I see.”
“Exactly,” Browder said chuckling before resuming, “Anyway, with the extra material that came with your suit, we “conducted some tests" to see how the new design compared to your old First Line Protective Suit.” He paused for a second. “We felt it was justified, Sir, in the name of science, of course!”
This made Euphretes literally laugh out loud. “Of Course!! A bunch of armorers trying to destroy something, I genuinely wish I could’ve been there to see that. How did these experiments go?”
“No offense Admiral, but that is Warrant Officer business. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you!!” he teased. “But seriously, we can still get away with things like that as long as Commissioned Officers aren’t on site to over analyze every safety threat,” Browder replied with brutal honestly.
“He’s got a point. You guys get fixated on some of the dumbest stuff,” Neuma remarked in good spirit, reminding Euphretes of an instance that happened twenty-five days after receiving his very first Commission. In the middle of a storm, Euphretes stopped to reprimand a soldier not for the fact that he was carrying his unit’s solid metal guidon in an electrical storm, but for the fact that the soldier was not wearing headgear while walking around outside.
“Definitely not one of my finer moments,” Euphretes hadn’t forgotten how naive he was back then. “No offense taken Chief, as I can be the worst of them sometimes.”
“Well, anyway, let me tell you Sir, this thing can take a beating; and I mean a beating,” Browder exclaimed, remembering all the different ways he had tried to obliterate the tiny pieces of fabric.
“Let’s hope I never have to find out just how much of a beating this thing can take.”
“Alright, let’s see how it works on ya,” Browder finally said after letting the Admiral get a decent look at it up close.
Euphretes could feel Browder’s anxiety sky rocket, afraid all of his hard work might not be good enough for the Armada Commander. Placing a hand on the Chief’s shoulder, “Chief, relax. I already love it; regardless if it works as planned or not!” Euphretes affirmed.
Relieved, Chief Browder started calling in a few droids to help expedite the process of getting Euphretes into his armor.
With the First Line Protective Body Suit on, Euphretes pressed a button on the collar that pushed miniature electrodes out of the suit’s lining and into the outer layers of his skin. Each conduit was designed to read all aspects of his body while also converting energy created by Euphretes into usable power for the Kit. The suit flawlessly hugged Euphretes’s massive muscular frame, making it look like the matte deep red suit was an actual layer of skin. Almost instantly, Euphretes felt the suit stabilizing the temperature between the microscopic barrier between the fabric and his skin. It took a few moments for the other aspects of the suit to hit Euphretes. But when they did, he knew it. Out of nowhere, the sensation of losing stamina as the suit began to pull energy struck. He marveled at the vibrating heat taking place along his spine; it was unlike anything he had ever experienced. At first, it was an awkward feeling, tickling and numbing the skin around the electrodes while also sending a warming sensation throughout the nearby muscles. However, the feeling faded as he grew accustomed to it until it was almost non-existent, where it remained for as long as Euphretes wore the suit.
“Is that you making it work?!” Euphretes excitedly asked Neuma.
“It is!” She answered, ecstatic with her success.
Chief Browder’s jaw dropped as he monitored the armor’s reaction to Euphretes’s body on a portable command console. “What’s different?” He mumbled to himself in deep thought, curious as to why the First Line Protective Body Suit would suddenly start working as designed for the Admiral and not for any of his soldiers.
Ignoring the Chief’s comment, Euphretes moved his body, admiring how natural the Kit felt wrapped around his frame. Almost acting as if it was a new layer of skin, the suit’s under coating gave no unnatural sensations to Euphretes’s epidermis. “This is incredible. It’s like I’m not wearing anything,” he exclaimed with amazement.
Browder literally laughed out loud. “Really? Well I, for one, am very glad that you are.”
“It will take some time for me to figure out how to better control the flow of energy, but it is working just as I thought it would!” Neuma said with relief.
Outside Euphretes’s mind space, Chief Browder stood perplexed. “How is it working on you but not on anyone else?!” he asked louder this time, noticeably confused.
The fully armored Euphretes, minus the helmet, smiled wryly and spoke sarcastically, “It’s Officer business, Chief. I could tell you, but, you know . . .”
Browder could only shake his head in wonder and frustration. The past month he had worked continuously on something that probably could’ve been solved at the beginning. Sensing the conflict inside the Warrant Officer’s aura, Euphretes continued speaking. “You said it was made for my body, so perhaps it’s just that simple. But if I’m just a fluke, then all that research and time spent trying to figure this thing out is that much more valuable. You did your job Chief, and a really good job at that. At the end of the day, I’m a happy customer. And considering I’m your only customer with this specific Kit, who cares if it doesn’t work for anyone else!”
“Good point. And to be honest, as much as I like that Kit, I really really don’t want to have to build any more,” Browder confessed. “It was a brutal ordeal.”
“The helmet! Put in on!” Neuma shouted suddenly.
The abrupt outburst startled Euphretes, waking him up from his own little world. He grabbed the helmet and slid it over his head and unsealed the visor.
CLICK. CLICK. SHHSSSSS.
“Euphretes Huron.” The Admiral spoke into the helmet to confirm his identity before speaking directly to Browder with a crafty smirk, “Point taken. I’ll save the bulk armor purchases for when you change duty stations.” The helmet turned on as Euphretes spoke to Chief Browder, wirelessly receiving information and power from the suit.
Unexpectedly, Euphretes felt an abrupt expansion of his consciousness. As if his empathy escaped from its cocoon, he could sense his surroundings the same way he could read people’s auras. Mentally reaching out and touching the environment around him, Euphretes spoke in a half daze half stupor, “Yeah, I won’t force you to make any more of these if you don’t want to Chief.”
With the admiral sounding slightly inebriated, “No worries Sir,” Browder replied, his eyes narrowing as they focused in on the Admiral.
“This is beyond amazing,” Neuma’s voice was overflowing with astonishment. “It’s like the digital universe just opened its doors and let me in.”
Exploring the possibilities of his newfound abilities, “Wow. Neuma, this. This. This changes everything,” Euphretes whispered back, afraid his words might wake
him up from the dream he felt that he was in.
“I know! I thought that only I would be projected through the transmitter when I designed it; but it seems a part of your consciousness extends out with me!” Neuma explained as she reigned herself back to within his mind space.
Euphretes’s sensations abruptly stopped without warning or intention. “Wait, I lost it. Where did it go?!”
“Sorry, that was me. I just wanted to see if you remained extended if I fully returned to you.”
Before Euphretes could reply, Neuma once again reached out using the helmet’s transmitter. This time however, she went as far and fast as possible. The experience was utterly overwhelming for Euphretes as he felt his essence getting stretched further and further. Feeling like the rebirth of his consciousness, it was invigorating; yet the onslaught of new signals coming from senses never before used was utterly exhausting for his soul. He was unaccustomed to the avalanche of sensations pounding his consciousness from all angles.
“I am literally inside the mainframe’s super-sub-structure! Like I can feel Steadfast and Loyal. Every room, every wire, every bolt, every aspect of this thing is an open book! I can almost feel the entire UIS calling me on further!” Neuma explained triumphantly.
Euphretes, struggling to control how much of himself was extending with Neuma’s joy ride into the Flagship, seemed to be unable to stem the rising tide. “Chief, I apologize, but can you…” he barely managed to mumble out loud as his sentience snapped from being stretched too thin. Just before the void devoured him, Euphretes’s field of vision froze. In that terrifying break in Space-Time Consciousness, his failing cognizance caught the time on a clock at a nearby work station, 0316:11 CT. At the very same moment he also saw the reflection of Chief Browder’s terrified expression.
“I’ve killed the Emperor’s son!!!”
“EUPHRETES! COME BACK!”
“COME BACK TO ME EUPHRETES!”
“PLEASE.”
“JUST COME BACK.”
Chapter 10:
Destiny’s Advocate
CUSTOS DATE: 00000000000
Euphretes suddenly awoke with a jolt, feeling as if his very soul had been put through a meat grinder. A lingering headache pounded away at his brain and fogged his senses. “Can we please not do that again,” He said with exasperation to Neuma.
Her only response was a cold, hopeless mind space.
Memories of Lani’s frozen face came rushing back to him all at once in an avalanche of anxiety. The panic of having to experience losing the two most important people in his life all over again started to take hold of his thought processes and run wild. “Neuma, not again. Please not again, just answer me. Please. Neuma.”
Icy silence.
The lack of a response whipped the fear into a frenzy, preventing him from realizing that he wasn’t actually cold and that he couldn’t feel any sand on his skin. “Why do you keep doing this?!” He bitterly yelled at the empty hole where Neuma’s presence used to abide. Again, deafening silence.
“Fine, I’ll just lie here until you answer me,” Euphretes hissed with bitterness.
After an untold amount of time spent lying in self-induced misery, Destiny had had enough of Euphretes’s childish response and took action.
Boom!
Dirt rained down all around him as the blast sent Euphretes’s body tumbling down a hill; crashing him into a gigantic metal pole protruding from the ground.
THUNK!
Euphretes carefully opened his eyes. He was instantly met with the upper torso of the standard Huron Ground Forces armored Kit, its helmet’s black visor staring down at him. It was then that he noticed that he was wearing the exact same equipment, except his felt ancient and obtrusive to his body’s natural movements. Far out in the distance, past the soldier’s upper body, Fleet Vessels hovered thousands of feet in the air as they cleared enemy ground troops from an objective. Baikal Specters, Natron Fighters, and Huron Hunters darted across the horizon, a few popping into an oblivion every other second with a brilliant display of explosions. Dim lighting and no visible location of a sun in the sky told Euphretes that it was either early morning or evening on some sort of battle field.
Muffled noises that resembled bits and pieces of words, reverberated around his ears while a pressure gripped his forearm and yanked with incredible strength. Euphretes felt weightless as the super human, who had come to his aid, lifted him off the ground. Feeling majorly concussed, he looked around and found himself on the outskirts of an apocalyptic battle. The terrain around him was fraught with destruction. Gigantic craters, bombed out structures still burning out of control, and scattered random pieces of buildings blanketed the ground as far his helmet would let him see.
Euphretes was truly paralyzed when he noticed an alarming sight, “What the…” As if called by the battle’s dead souls, a menacingly dark cloud appeared to be drifting in, hovering only a few feet above a ground littered with death and suffering. The haze seemed alive, as if it was feeding off of the battle’s chaos.
POP! POP!POP!CRACK!
He could hear the faint sounds of intermittent gun fire, giving him the false impression that the sounds were coming from far away. Whoever had helped him to his feet was gone, lost in the never-ending rubble. Looking around his immediate surroundings for any inclination as to where he was, Euphretes spotted an MR870, his preferred weapon of choice. Surprised that none of the helmet’s standard quiet tones went off when he looked at it lying on the ground, Euphretes decided to test his hearing.
“Neuma, where are you?!” He yelled out loud, only to be met by the quiet mumble that was his voice. He quickly realized that his hearing was severely restricted, and that if he could hear the gun fire at all, then they had to be incredibly close to his location. Fear now rising in his gut, Euphretes’s dropped to one knee and seized the weapon. His field of vision lit up with the weapon’s diagnostics the moment his fingers wrapped around the trigger handle. A slew of information appeared before Euphretes; the MR870’s rounds expended, rounds left by type, battery life, and damage reports, etc. Seeing that the weapon hadn’t even been fired yet, he gladly brought it up to his shoulder in a firing stance and began looking for the threat.
The semi-automatic rifle that was currently providing a false sense of security for Euphretes had the ability to fire a multitude of different projectiles. Three different types of kinetic slugs, with over ten different rounds to choose from, could be stored inside the weapon. In total, the MR870 provided up to one hundred trigger squeezes before needing to be reloaded. Interchangeable batteries weighing only nine ounces were fastened to the stock of the weapon. When a battery was placed in the firing chamber, in a fashion similar to a standard breach loading weapon, it became a lethal killing tool. Once fired, the hard-hitting energy bolts could take down armored vehicles or objectives with multiple targets. The MR870 was cumbersome and took extreme precision and years of experience to master, making it a rarity on the battle field.
“Neuma, any idea where we are?” He asked to his empty mind space, forgetting that she had yet to respond to him. As soon as the question escaped his mind space, dread overwhelmed him as the memories of his nightmare and the emptiness inside of him came rushing back. Without her soft voice to guide him out of the darkness, the panic and fear quickly overtook the confidence he felt from holding the MR870.
The dire need for Neuma’s companionship weighed heavily upon his thought processes, physically manifesting itself by forcing Euphretes’s head to hang and face the dirt. As the gloom pressed his eyes downward, the charred dirt seemed to morph into Lani’s frozen face, peering up at him from the beyond. The image brought a reinvigorated strength to continue through the torment, releasing Euphretes from the chains of Fate and allowing him to lift up his eyes. With his head up, Euphretes returned his attention to the muffled sounds of the raging battle.
POP! POP! POP!
Seeing small puffs of dirt burst from the ground near his feet, Euphretes
scrambled over to the closest source of cover. He looked like a brand new recruit who had just been thrown into the fray. “I’m going to strangle that AI if I ever find her,” He cursed as he threw his body against the metal pipe that broke his fall earlier.
Chunks of metal began raining down around him as his source of cover was quickly getting whittled away by the relentless enemy. Closer examination revealed that his dwindling cover was actually a delivery pipeline entrance with its armored cover ripped off. Euphretes magnetically attached the MR870 to his back and sprinted around to the pipe’s opening. Taking one last look around him, he dove inside.
VRIP! VRIP! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! VRIP! VRIP!
The pipe instantly became filled with the screeching repercussions created by the enemy projectiles ricocheting off the metal exterior. Without realizing, his hearing returned to normal the moment he got inside the pipe. Every noise sent him ducking, like a scared recruit. He turned on his helmet’s flashlight, and slid-crawled down the pipe, praying that it got bigger at the other end. Finally, he arrived at a flat narrow hole that he could just squeeze through. Euphretes forced his way inside. “Thank God I’m not claustrophobic,” he thought to himself.
He fell onto a flat surface on the other end and accidentally turned off his light source at the same time. Everything suddenly went black. “What now?!” Euphretes moaned. Frustrated and unable to see anything, he turned on his helmet’s external light, unmagnetized his weapon, and tactically made his way into the darkness. After what felt like an eternity of stalking through the chasm, his ears picked up the screams of an animal reverberating throughout the underworld.
Through the Abyss Page 25