“No one can touch her or get close to her because of the drones and she’s using the deathsquads to enforce her command,” Talon wasn’t finished telling us about what happened after the Erebus crash-landed. I wasn’t sure he would ever be. The things he described the deathsquads doing not just to those that resisted but to captured Skrav and Tesh-Kar were horrible. This was how she was going to do it. The technology on Eden-3 was what she would use to create her imperium.
“Did you know this was going to happen?” I asked Aira. We were traveling on the backs of a Belau together. A few of Talon’s squad stayed back on the Praxis investigating and researching it to see if they could find a way to make it fly or use it as a weapon. I didn’t care what they did with it, it was dangerous and it had a way of getting into people’s heads that didn’t feel right. We had just eaten our first real meal in ages and I could see the color coming back into her face. “In a way we knew this was a possibility, the nexus showed us many things and variables.” That was all I needed to hear. I was just as convinced now as Aira had been before that Balkava had to die. I would help her to kill my old friend unless we found another way to stop this. Aira was the first to look at me and say I was now officially a part of the resistance.
We were days away from the bridge when a group of Skrav got the drop on us. They were vicious warrior types with long swords made from the bone of animals they had killed on the hunts they had been on. They killed the Belau our main method of transportation. In the end it was their own pride that led to their quick and easy defeat. They were trying to scalp us with their bladed weapons rather then fire on us and by the time they realized we were too much of a match their honor betrayed them. The ones that were injured left alive had their weapons ripped from their hands before they were shot. A few of the Skrav dug their blades into them pulling it through their bodies with their small arms. We set up camp and watched hellbeast feast on their remains. We were lucky none of us got killed in the attack it seemed they were already weakened and ill from whatever humans had at them first. I guess that was a part of the reason they let their pride get the better of them. They wanted to prove to themselves they could win against a small group of men and women. They had only moved into the hills because of the signal Aira had sent. They were heading towards the Praxis. There was no other reason for them to be out here. It wouldn’t be long now before Balkava herself sent a garrison our way. If she were using my image as a weapon what would they do if they saw me? Her deathsquads probably knew the truth, I felt like that was safe to assume. I was the child of Errikus, a survivor and hero and that made me a symbol; a symbol which the adept could follow. If I managed to make my way into the Erebus camp maybe I could gather enough public support the resistance could dethrone Balkava and we could put a stop to this civil war.
We were still miles away and had no way to carry our supplies on foot. The season around us was changing. If we had arrived here during the winter it was now turning into spring. I wonder how hot it got here. Were there summers or would it just get cold again? The Erebus always had a constant temperature it was never too much of anything. The orbital’s weather seemed so exact. We orbited a star in the perfect Goldie locks zone but yet the air and everything around us was controlled perfect. We weren’t tidally locked or tipped too far to any side. I could only imagine what it was like building this thing. Carving the caves and mountains from planets and asteroids. It must have taken centuries to pull it off. The icy rivers were melting and in the water we began to see new forms of life. Massive whale like creatures surfaced coming out of hibernation. We watched as they moved in the massive river in the direction of the bridge.
It gave Talon an idea. Around us buried in the snow were pieces from the hull of the Aelita. While most of it was thick and made from exot metal there were pieces small enough made from light organic sheets light enough to float on water and tough enough to withstand anything the current could throw at us. We stripped the sheets from the pieces of hull and welded them together with some of the supplies. In hours we had made a raft five by fifteen feet across and three feet tall. We had a barge built well enough it would take us to the bridge. Using our rifles we shoved off and let the current guide us occasionally using some of the two handed blades we had looted off the Skrav to position ourselves and steer through the waves.
Along our way we drifted through a small ravine. The walls of stone were hundreds of feet high and the sides were layered with eggs. The same eggs I stumbled upon in the hellbeast hive. We were surrounded on all sides. Each egg was ready to hatch we could see the small beasts about the size of a dog moving and beating against the membrane of their sacs. The Zeesk that Aira had adopted was growling at the edge of our barge. It moved itself in a way lifting its face and shoulders so that it looked bigger and fiercer then it was. Each of us stood with our rifles ready as the barge turned in small spirals. Round and round we went. We were nearing the edge of the ravine hoping we would just float by all the horror that surrounded us when we saw a massive hellbeast crawling down the side of the cliff. It crawled like a spider down a web it’s legs clinging to the rock like it was nothing but a flat surface. It lifted one of its eggs into it’s mouth tearing apart the membrane and releasing it’s small youngling. It’s eyes looked at us and we watched as its massive body began to straighten ready to leap into the water and kill us all in an instant. It never took its eyes off us. Slowly round and round we drifted out of the shadows under the hellbeast’s watchful gaze.
The bridge was the border between Skrav territory and Balkava’s new empire. It was dead center in the battle and while Balkava’s forces never seemed to attack it was already under siege by alien forces by the time we arrived. I could here several resistance soldiers shouting and screaming as waves of fire filled trenches they had dug into the melting snow. Several caves in the area were used to store supplies set up as small command posts. It felt good to be reunited with two of my friends again: Meddix and Trevor. They both knew the truth about me and had no doubt I was on their side. They had heard and seen first hand the escape Hayden and I made. They were happy that at the very least one of us was alive and looking well. They were the ones in charge of the small command post. Trevor looked very much the same as before only he was wearing a bulkier set of battle armor that seemed to make his face seem small and out of place. Meddix was strung out. Balkava had killed his family after impact, a power play few on Erebus expected. They were a family that slept in stasis during much of his life that he was more then ready to meet on Eden-3.
Meddix was broken and torn with revenge. The trenches were under constant attack by the Skrav and he was always the first to fire back. I watched him several times grab hold of an automatic bio-rigged machine gun and fire projectile after projectile tearing the enemy apart. The look on his face when he imagined every one as Balkava was disturbing. He was eating something called worms when I sat to talk to him. It was our third night at the bridge and the first one on one time I had with anyone. He offered me a handful and I politely declined. During their first few days at the bridge there were only a handful of soldiers to protect it and they were low on supplies. It was a soldier named Cree that first suggested they scour the snow and dirt to see if there was anything they could eat. The worms had an interesting side effect. During moments of intense rage or pain they would show you the faces and bodies of the ones you loved. The bodies would whisper into your ears the things you want to hear, things that helped you move past the pain. Every battle Meddix took part in he was hearing the voice of his little sister. A small child he had only met a half a dozen times. She moved through the battlefield with him like an angel telling him she was ok, telling him he was a hero.
Meddix shrugged and continued to eat them. He cut his arm with a small knife about seven inches in length and began to smile. I could only wonder who was talking to him now. I didn’t bother to ask. We had all but noticed the Zeesk under our table was eating some of the scraps Meddix had dropped. It looked
up at the two of us stoned. Aira came inside our makeshift room and smiled asking what the hell we had fed it. It licked her palm as she stared down at it’s two round eyes ablaze. That night I thought long and hard about trying the worms. I wondered whom I would see. Would Hayden come back and tell me everything was ok? Would my mother answer the many questions I had for her? Would Lore appear in his human form and apologize? I had had enough visions for one lifetime through the nexus, I didn’t need a hallucinogen to tell me the world would be fine when I knew very well there was a battle coming and nothing would be the same.
Morning came. Clouds blocked the sun and it seemed like it was going to rain. Perhaps that meant there would be no barrage or firing today. Trevor and I gathered water from the river as Aira, another woman named Vale, and a Drok named Trey guarded us. One of our other jobs while we were away from camp was to see if there were any supplies or dead we could carry back. We gathered several swords and rifles from dead Skrav. Most of the bodies had been washed away by the river. The water was cold and on occasion we could still see small circles of ice floating through it. It was there in the shallows of the riverbed we saw one of the drones Trevor had stolen from Balkava, one of the engineers at the bridge had reprogrammed it to do recon for us days before Aira, Talon, and I arrived. The drone was buried under the thick mud and it took two hours for us to dig it out. Vale and Trey were put in charge of hauling the five hundred pound machine back with us. Trey being naturally strong did most of the carrying. When Trevor finally got the drone hooked into one of our rigged holos we watched as the bulky machine showed us an aerial shot of Balkava’s territory. The drone was soon shot at by several humans. They were no threat. Balkava was more concerned with wiping out the Tesh-Kar and mining for Lethe technology in the area surrounding the Erebus then she was with the resistance she would soon be up against. We could see the pain and hurt faces of the crowds digging in the snow and dirt. Old men and women too weak to exist in Balkava’s new world gunned down by deathsquads. The footage was haunting and it only got worst. While Balkava was digging letting us hold the bridge something that we had hoped would be to our advantage there was an army coming together in Skrav territory. They wanted this world for their own and they were going to do anything to wipe away humanity once and for all. The microphones picked up the noise of the march louder and louder. We expected their numbers to be on par with us, a few hundred survivors, maybe a thousand at most. We thought they had sent at least half of their swarm to war with us in space but the drone showed us different. There were a thousand if not more heavily armed with blades and lancers, heavy weapons and exot laser rifles rigged with out tech probably stolen from a world conquered years ago. It was easy to see what the Skrav were now. They were a society bred for war adapting and stealing technology and using their own nexus to maintain dominance. We were there greatest threat and as far as we knew the only other species that could see the future. The Praxis destroyed their world, an inevitable outcome of a war we have been fighting on parallel lines for centuries. One of the alien soldiers shot a blast at the drone and the footage went black. It must have crashed in the river only hours later programmed to report back at the first sign of any real threat. None of us were sure what to do next. In days the Skrav would be upon us.
Each of us took time to think running over the situation in our minds. There were only a few hundred of us to protect the bridge. If we were going to survive we would need Balkava’s army, we had a neutral enemy in the Skrav and she had all the heavy weapons. “We should have taken more when we ran, at least if we had a couple drop ships we could bomb the hell of out them,” Meddix said. “We took all we could, we had no time to think and no way to know there could be that many of them left,” Trevor replied. Trevor was the first to suggest we call a truce out loud. Meddix cursed him for it but agreed. In the end we all agreed. Trevor pulled up a holo print showing layer by layer the passages that could take us close to the Erebus. Once we surfaced we would be near the front. When the Erebus made landfall it hit a mountain causing it to turn to it’s left one hundred and eighty degrees. We would have to rip a hole in the side and walk our way to the core. The next image Trevor pulled up showed the Erebus itself layer by layer. Hundreds of layers and corridors mostly stasis chambers, mess halls, armories, and datahouses laid out before us but a majority of it was blacked out etched from the map. The Erebus was full of secret corridors and passageways only a handful of which were still in use. Trevor mapped out our best route and transferred the blueprint to our wrist PDA. Meddix and Trevor were going to stay and hold back the Skrav as long as possible; Aira, Trey, Vale, Cree, and myself were each designated ambassadors. Talon who had been quiet through most of this was going to take point and take another group to the Erebus above ground towards some of the Lethe ruins Balkava had been digging. If we sent two small squads we at had a greater chance of one of us reaching her with our plea.
We left a few hours later. There was no time anymore. We only took what we needed a single rife each, a sword, some water and a pack of food. If Balkava didn’t help us all would be lost. I said my goodbye to Meddix and Trevor embracing them in a brotherly hug and handshake something we never had enough of. I prayed they would not have the same fate as Don, Duv’Mir, Brecca, Lore, Addax, and the others before. Meddix once again offered me a handful of worms. I took them as a gesture of kindness putting them inside the pocket of my suit. Worst comes to worst it couldn’t hurt to hear some kind loving words in the end. In the end that is all we want anyway, to be surrounded by the people we love; does it really matter if it is a dream or a mirage?
I blacked out in the tunnels. The shards always seem to break at the wrong moment. One moment I was walking and the next I was surrounded by water and then I could saw the bridge. The Skrav walked like mindless husks into a barrage of fire. They were empty devoid of emotion and life. If they had any thoughts or desires they had shut them down and out for war. Trevor sent several of his engineers up river not long after we left. He gave them rifles and flares to grab the attention of the hellbeast and the hives. He repaired the drone and sent it with them as a bodyguard hoping it would give them enough of a distraction to make it back to our camp and if they failed it was programmed to do the same. Shake the hive, disturb the bees halfway through the battle I saw the drone fly its way over the head of the Skrav followed by an array of beasts. Meddix, Trevor, and the hundred or so men were doing better then we could have hoped. They blew the bridge to pieces forcing the Skrav through the hollows and rocks of the river gunning them from above and watching the injured drown.
Meddix was screaming firing his turret across the air. He had lost his mind; the voices and illusions of the worm were no longer enough. When Skrav began crawling over the bodies of their dead in and out of the water he shot at anything that moved human and alien alike. Trevor screamed and cried for him to calm down but nothing changed. Meddix had already killed half a dozen of his own men in the firefight and the cost was too great. With a pistol Trevor fired a bullet into Meddix’s skull. I felt myself screaming in my mind. For a moment I felt like the body I was in began to scream with me and together in unison we cried out for Trevor and Meddix. When I came back to reality Aira was sitting by my side. She laughed at me and said we all needed a rest anyway. A part of me wondered if she knew or had any idea what I might have seen. I didn’t tell her what I saw. Not enough time had passed for it to have even happened yet. At that moment in time Meddix was still alive and the future uncertain. We could ALL survive.
Driveshaft
There is no life, only darkness, only pain, only sorrow. There is no death, only eternity.
There is no sound, only waves of chaos and disorder, There is no sight, only decay and sulfur.
There is no touch, no senses, no order. There is only one rule – the sacrifice of a warrior.
There is only taste…
There is the taste of blood and water. When we came to the surface we were exactly were Trevor said we were
going to be. The Erebus stood in front of us like a mountain made of metal and steel. Its massive front ion canons and weapons were suspended above the ground thousands of feet into the air pointed up towards the horizon. From miles away they must have looked like thorns sticking upwards from the ground, metal constructs out of place, intimidating yet so aesthetic you would have to question whether they were man made or created by natures own hand. “Everything I have ever known is in there,” I said as we reached the outer hull, “Not everything, you knew me, Dom, Hayden, Errikus, all of that before any of this, before you ever even knew about this ship. You are not a part of their world. Like me you are a child of Errikus, a survivor, a fighter, and no lesser part of the human race deserving to exist,” Aira said taking my hand. I was having a hard time with all of it. It was getting more and more difficult the longer our mission went on. In the distance we could already hear the gunfire from the bridge. If it hasn’t happened now it will happen soon, Meddix will be dead and Trevor will be fighting a losing battle.
It only took several charges to blow a hole wide enough for us to make our way inside. First we were crawling through small air ducts. We had to leave our packs, mostly empty food and water behind. When we finally came to an opening we were in a part of the ship none of us had seen before; we were inside a prison. All around us we were surrounded by cages and shield generators made to hold the worst of the worst. Blood splatter covered the ground and several of the walls. “There were people in here?” I asked the question knowing the answer; there were people here but no one that I had ever met. These cages were meant to hold only vicious experiments and unwanted citizens taken from stasis or areas of the ship that didn’t matter, taken for genetic testing and experimentation by the elders. We could see bodies; chimeras of men and animal much like ones on Parcae only these weren’t in tubes they laid against the walls of cells unclean and unkempt. Some of them were still breathing whispering for death with several faces drawn and remade into something else. Aira shot without hesitation into the bodies severing bits and pieces putting them out of their misery.
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