All That Was Lost

by Robert Byers

  Both men spun on her and had their rifles aimed at her, but kept their fingers away from the triggers. “Identify yourself!” Ensign Mason called out.

  “It’s just me men, stand down already.”

  “Sorry Cap, just a little jumpy with us being boarded and all.”

  “Yeah, with reports of boarders and all of us being told to get to battle stations, well it gets you a little adrenaline rush going.” Ensign Victor commented.

  She nodded, “I understand boys, I’ve seen my fair share of combat, but if I remember right you two haven’t had much combat experience have you?”” they both shook their heads and she frowned. “Damnit, not many from my squad have real experience. We all move together then, I have three more of my squad heading for the armory on this deck, we need to meet them there.”

  “That sounds great Cap, we’ll bring up the rear.” Mason said as he and Ensign Victor moved to the side to let them go first.

  She knew they were both good cadets, but there weren’t a whole lot of big wars for them to fight in so they had only really dealt with small uprisings from cults and such that thought they knew better than the Imperial Emperor. But both cadets had been there for at least a four year tour.

  “We got the area cleared up to the next bulkhead Cap.” Mason said.

  “Then lets get a move on.” She replied and took the lead, she kept her pistols drawn and aimed forward. Checking around each corner as she led them through to the next bulkhead, when she waived her hand over the activation stud the doors slid apart and they heard a weapon discharge. The same type that came from the old fashioned slug throwers, the type that fired ballistic ammunition rather than the advanced plasma and hard light energy weapons that were commonplace in the Terran military.

  She signaled to the rest of her squad to stay where they were. She kept Cadet Oliver next to her and leaned in close, “Keep your weapons at the ready, whoever is using those ancient weapons is our enemy, and we will capture them.” The girl nodded and held her rifle up, but pointed away from her captain. Sidonia looked back at the others and they all nodded, ready for what was to come as they kept their weapons at the ready as well.

  As she led them forward with their weapons held high, she took in the scene before her. There were three men using slug throwers, each one was the same height and build, and they were all wearing green uniforms with a red stripe going down each arm and leg, and their arms were an anvil insignia with a star behind it. She filed that bit of information away for later review.

  On the floor she saw two men in Terran navy attire, their hands were bound behind their backs and they were executed in cold blood.

  Captain Sidonia saw red, she aimed at them before they could turn around and each of her squad did the same as she called out, “fire.” And each one fired at one of the men, who was just turning as the stun rounds slammed into them at full speed and they were knocked down.

  The pair fell to the floor unconscious and their guns went skidding away from them as she rushed to their sides, guns still trained on them.

  Ensign Mason walked up to the two dead soldiers and bent down to read their dog tags, the exit wounds of the slug throwers made a facial identification a no go. “Fuck. They killed two PFCs, Billingsby and Ryder. Fucking animals!” he hauled off and kicked the one in the head hard enough to flip his body.

  “Wait, Erik Ryder?” Cadet Oliver asked, when he nodded she got a dark look on her face, “He was my brother-in-law.

  Captain Sidonia stared at the dead men for a second too long and Cadet Oliver found the one who stood behind Ryder and stomped on his crotch, they could all hear a crunch and the men present cupped themselves out of subconscious pity for the man.

  Oliver wasn’t done there as she stomped on his kneecap and broke it, then aimed for the other side as he was coming around from the pain and as she slammed her foot down on the other knee she shattered it as well. His eyes caught hers and for a second she smiled, “You killed my family you sonofabitch!” and she stomped with all of her might on his crotch again and he passed out from the pain.

  Sidonia grabbed the girl and held her close, “Ensigns restrain her.” She looked at Oliver with compassion and sorrow. “If we start killing these men when they are so vulnerable, we are no better than they are. Do you really want to be like them?”

  “I want his head on a stake, and I want to be the one to do it! That fucking animal doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as we do!” she fought their hold and almost got away with it until Captain Sidonia grabbed her hand and put her pistol in it. “This won’t do anything but stun him, it’s worthless!” she screamed.

  “Aim for his heart, not center mass, his heart.” She looked at the captain for a second and even the two ensigns looked at her surprised. “Hit him there three times and you’ll cause a heart attack that will kill him. I refuse to dishonor these soldiers bodies by having more blood spilled on them, but this way you can get some closure.”

  Oliver looked back at the gun in her hand and thought about it. Faced with a way to actually kill the enemy could she really do it? A moment of indecision was all she needed, she walked up to the body and pressed the muzzle to his chest, she was about to pull the trigger when her captain placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “You need to keep something in mind before you do this, child. Once you take a life you will never be the same. Either you will be so haunted by it that you won’t sleep right and drink, or do worse for the rest of your days just trying to forget. Or you’ll get a taste for it and never stop. Think about that before you end his life. If you can live with the consequences then do it.”

  Cadet Oliver looked at Captain Sidonia for a few seconds, then back at the man lying unconscious on the floor. She thought hard, would she be able to live with what she was about to do? Then she saw her sister’s face and knew how Erik’s death would effect her and she had her answer.

  Reaching forward she ripped his shirt open and fired the pistol into his chest, over and over again. She knew she fired more than three times, but less than a dozen. She just kept firing until her tears at the act and her arm, grew tired. She dropped the gun and fell onto her brother-in-law’s body crying into his shoulder.

  Captain Sidonia looked at her and frowned, she knew the girl’s type and it wouldn’t be pretty from here on out. She’d need sent to a desk job of some sort because now she’d be too haunted to do her job properly. Walking up to her Sidonia put a hand on her shoulder and she looked up at her. “I’m sorry you felt you had to kill him, you know our Admiral would never have left him live, right?”

  The girl nodded and tried to talk through tear stained hands, her voice was muffled enough it was hard for Sidonia to hear, and she had to lean closer.

  “But he wouldn’t have let me kill him myself.”

  —

  Tiberius walked with his squadmates flanking him, the table had been concealing the door that led them to freedom. It felt like hours they’d been walking the catwalks and back alleys of the ship heading for the armory, he only hoped that the captain and the rest of their squad made it safely.

  “There’s something up ahead.” Quintus called out.

  “What did you fine?” Tiberius asked.

  They moved closer and saw it was a small doorway, they had to duck to get through it, the maintenance shafts were smaller than normal since they used bots to do most of the repairs, and if they needed controlling the person usually stayed in one place and controlled them via remote. The back alley of the ship was starting to get to Tiberius and he hoped it was a door to the armory.

  Walking up to it he pressed the button to slide the doors apart.

  Outside in the hallway he saw the door to the armory, it was closed still but it was there and within sprinting distance. They moved quickly to the other side and heard scuffling down the corridor. Pressing a hand to the small panel placed to the side of the door they waited for it to open, but it made a strange “bonk” sound at them and remained closed. />
  He tried it a couple more times, each time it made the same sound and continued to remain closed. Tiberius realized what was wrong with the palm scanner, his prints weren’t in the system yet! Cursing their luck he said, “Walsh—”

  But the man moved quicker than he did and was pressing his hand to the pad, it beeped and glowed green before the door started to slide open as he shoved both Tiberius and Quintus inside. Pressing his thumb again the doors closed silently and he let out a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad these things are biometrically protected. Those assholes won’t be able to get in here now.”

  “That’s what we always thought about the ship itself though and they managed to get people aboard.” Quintus pointed out.

  “We can’t worry about that now, we need to arm ourselves.” Tiberius said as he began looking at the weapon racks around them. Each deck had it’s own armory and the one on F deck was equipped with the same weaponry as the others.

  “Wait, you want to go kill them now instead of using the stun rounds?” Quintus asked him flabbergasted at his change in morals.

  “They killed our mate, Bowen did nothing except try to run a simulation and they murdered him without a second thought. Why should I think twice about exterminating the rats?” he asked, the venom in his voice made both men think twice about what Tiberius was going through.

  “Did you stop being human kid? Isn’t there a shred of humanity left in you?” Walsh demanded, he looked scared because he hadn’t had to kill anyone yet, he wished he could get a cushy patrol job, but that wasn’t in the cards for him. He’d seen what had happened to his friends when they had to kill and weren’t ready for it. One was still silent almost a year later. He’d completely shut down emotionally and while it wasn’t good for himself, it made him a valuable soldier because he didn’t think about killing anymore, he enjoyed it.

  “I mean…this is a person we are talking about here, not some deer you shoot in the woods, or that your servant shot so you can claim to be a big man. This is an actual living, breathing human being who you’re talking about killing!” Walsh was starting to lose his cool, he knew the terrorists would continue until they were all killed, or imprisoned. But he could still hold onto some hope that they were just imprisoned and not killed, right?

  Tiberius looked around the room at the racks of guns and ammunition. There was a plethora of pulse rifles, and hard light pistols that looked futuristic even to him, he was used to the civilian weapons used for hunting, they were slug throwers, lightyears away from military standards. He began picking up a pistol and holder that he attached to his right thigh. “Look, it’s simple to me. They need to be killed in order to keep us all safe. If that means I have to be the one to do that then fine. But they killed one f our squad and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them get away with it.”

  He checked the battery pack for the rifle and found it was full, grabbed a couple extra batteries and tried to figure out where to stash them on his body when he saw the vests hanging on the wall. They were the MOLLE vests and he set the rifle down, pulled on a vest and clipped it in place and felt the heaviness of it.

  Stashing a couple mags for his pistol and a few more batteries for the rifle in the various pockets he stared at his comrades and said. “Lets go kill some terrorists.”

  Chapter 7

  Admiral Harcourt was antsy to say the least, he wanted the enemy ship destroyed, obliterated. He wanted his friend’s death avenged. And he wanted it done now. Just the thought that some terrorist was sitting in the command chair of one of the Imperium's battlecruisers made his skin crawl. “Is the ship killer ready yet?”

  “Thirty seconds sir, it’s moving as fast as it can.” The weapons officer said, hoping it would placate him.

  His XO even commented, “Sir, are you sure you want to do this? You know the ship killers can cause enough radiation from the detonation that we could be hit with it.” She hoped he would see reason, with their ship nearly hulled they couldn’t risk any more damage to the outside. If they did they might end up floating in space for eternity.

  “Of course I know, that’s why as soon as we see it hit we’ll be gone. I want the void-drives warmed up and we will be long gone by the time the blast hits where we’re sitting right now.”

  “Sir, jumping to void-space that close to an explosion of this magnitude, it’s very risky. We may not make it to void-space before the blast wave hits us.”

  Admiral Harcourt looked over his entire bridge crew and smiled. “If we don’t, if we die here, then we take that sonofabitch with us, and I can’t think of a better crew to have served beside.” He stood and saluted them all, an act that was out of character for the three-star Admiral. Each of his bridge crew saluted back and when he’d finished he sat back in his command chair. “Have the repair droids start working on the hull, what they can’t repair we’ll get done soon enough.”

  The crew went back to their consoles as Ensign Mellan said, “Sir, ship killer is ready, are you sure you want to use it?” it was risky to question the Admiral’s orders, but if there was such a time to do it, that was now.

  The Admiral nodded to him. “Fire.”

  Pressing the button the ship shuddered as the missile was launched, and Ensign Mellan hoped he hadn’t just doomed them all. The missile was small by comparison to its force, the weapon could deliver a full megaton of nuclear energy, enough to incinerate the ship and everyone aboard it. It was meant to be a weapon of last resort.

  But in this case, it was meant to be a statement of power from the Imperium to the rebellious terrorists.

  The missile moved in closer, soaring through space quickly approaching it’s target, none of the crew was sure if the Infineon’s systems just weren’t showing the warhead on approach or if there was something more sinister going on here.

  Just before it would have impacted the enemy ship they tried to put the Infineon’s shields up, but that would never have been enough to stop the awesome might of the warhead. There was a bright, white-hot light and the navigations officers, Lieutenant Junior Joshua Brown, pressed the button to send them to void-space and the entire ship went forward, disappearing from sight as it entered the void between galaxies, their destination awaiting them.

  —

  The trio of recruits left the armory fully kitted out.

  Tiberius with a pulse rifle, a hard light pistol, battery packs for each, and a pulse knife; it was just like a regular KA-BAR except the blade emitted a silhouette of energy when the activation stud was pressed which allowed it to cut through nearly any metal.

  Quintus had an auto rifle that worked on old school ballistic ammo but had a higher rate of fire than the pulse weapons did. It wasn’t recommended to use ballistic weapons aboard a ship, but when it came to being sure they put their enemies down, he was willing to risk it. On his back he carried another loop of ammunition for it and he carried the weapon with both hands, on on the grip, the other on the front grip so he could use it like it was meant to be used.

  And finally, Walsh rounded out the small fireteam with two hard light handguns he kept aimed ahead of him, just in case.

  Tiberius thought back to their discussion inside the armory and said, “We need to have a way to distinguish between friend and foe. Especially if they are dressed in our uniforms. Being new here, Walsh I think you have the most knowledge of who’s aboard this ship.”

  “Well if they are wearing our uniforms I say we just ask for their serial number.” Quintus interjected.

  “That won’t work.” Walsh replied. “If they’ve made it onto our ship they’ve probably prepared for us to make the mistake of not firing first. They probably have a few serial numbers memorized that they could use in an instant.”

  “Then that’s what we do.” Tiberius said matter-of-factly.

  “What? Fire on them first and hope that they aren’t our people?” Walsh asked appalled.

  “No, but it gives me an idea.”

  They walked down one corridor and h
eard the sound of combat boots on steel. Tiberius took a hand from his rifle and gestured for silence before returning it to the rifle. As the trio moved to either side of the corridor the sound intensified, their weapons were aimed down the corridor towards the sound.

  Walsh saw it first, a shock of red hair and he called out, “Captain Sidonia!”

  The people at the other end of the corridor stopped, and the other two members saw their captain finally.

  They lowered their weapons to the floor as she brought the rest of their squad to meet up with them. The trio noticed two new additions at the end of the line and looked at her. “Ensigns Mason and Victor, good mean. Terran men.”

  It was all the explanation Tiberius needed to salute the men.

  “Damn cadets, I wasn’t expecting you to be fully kitted out. Who took the initiative for this?”

  “Tiberius, Sir. Crazy sonofabitch wanted to get real weapons, said it was only fair we kill them since they have no problems killing us.” Walsh said, and Tiberius wasn’t sure if he was trying to get him in trouble for his words, or just was that angry with how easily he thought it’d be to kill someone.

  “Good work Tiberius. I’m impressed.”

  The ship shuddered and lurched as they all stumbled for a second before the Admiral’s voice came over the coms. “We’ve entered void-space, to any terrorists left alive you should know we’ve destroyed your ship with a nuke, and we have confirmation it’s been atomized. Give up now, give us any information we want and I promise you will not be tortured or harmed. But if you resist you will pay.”

  “Well damn, the Admiral’s a lot more accommodating than I would be.” One of the new additions, Ensign Victor said.