by Marc Watson
Soon, after the initial shock had worn off and the realization came that they weren’t going to use one of their horrifying H.Y. bombs (for reasons Edgar neither knew nor cared about; much like Merrik Caspar many miles north, Edgar Taft knew that knowing these things wasn’t his place in the world), the victories began to pile up. The army was mighty in number and abilities but fragile in the correct circumstances. Those circumstances currently were the proper and well-timed use of the weapons Edgar Taft now commanded. Once the heavily armed tanks and low-flying tactical strikers had arrived two weeks back, the tide shifted overnight. After weeks of being herded back up the massive shores of the Vein on both sides, suddenly they were holding their ground. Soon, they were pushing back. In the last week, they had regained sizable tracks of land back from the enemy. They were merely a shadow of the terrifying enemy they’d been not long before.
Couple this with the report that their central command had been destroyed in the great ocean, a rumor supported by the lack of new robotic troops to arrive as of late, and you had yourself one extremely pleased Field Commander Edgar Taft of the United Peoples Military, the amalgamation of the armies of the Westlanders, Inja at least four ally nations to the north, who had been providing the technical might that had helped them get this far.
Sadly, the smile was short lived. No sooner was he about to give the order to give those heartless bastards another good push when new orders were brought to him via coded transmission.
*ATTN: F.C. EDGAR TAFT,*
*YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO CEASE ALL FURTHER AGGRESSIVE MILITARY ACTION AGAINST THE SOUTHERN INSURGENTS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.*
*AT NO POINT ARE YOU TO PROGRESS FARTHER SOUTH. YOU ARE STRICTLY TO DEFEND, AND DEFEND ONLY.*
*YOURS IN TRUST,*
*A. BREE.*
“God damn it!” Taft screamed.
His good friend, second in command Shan Dio, a representative from a far north race who’d served with Edgar for four years in one way or another, looked up from his desk, glasses askew as he reviewed both digital and paper aerial maps of the area with marked locations of friends and foe.
“Not good news I assume?” he asked, thin face smirking at his own obviousness. Edgar never returned the look. He just stood in their shared military trailer/bunkhouse staring at the orders on the screen in front of him. Shan got up and joined him, adjusting his glasses as he moved his terribly thin frame over to his friend. Once he was done reading it for himself (a taboo, as it should have been for Edgar’s eyes only, but such standard decorum was no longer practiced between these two) he flopped down in a chair next to Edgar and let out a large sigh. He had been just as eager to drive these devils away as his friend and was in the throes of planning how to hit them the hardest when Edgar got the news.
“What on earth does the W.G.C. have up its sleeve that it wants us to stop here, in the middle of winning this war?” he asked, accent thick with rolling ‘R’s like those of his people. It had long since stopped sounding strange to Edgar.
“I have no idea. Why sit on the sidelines for so long only to get involved now? Why not just let us do as we have been? It’s a system that’s seemed to work so far.”
“You don’t think there’s more to it than what we see, do you?”
“Oh I give you a great big good god damn guarantee that it does, Shan, but I haven’t got a fuckin’ clue what it could be. Pass the order along to the troops, I guess. Don’t hide the fact that we’re not big fans of it though. I want them each to know exactly where this is coming from.”
“Can we do that, sir?” ‘Sir’ didn’t come out of Shan’s mouth often. It meant he wasn’t positive whatever Edgar had asked of him was the right course of action.
“We can and we will, Shan. Nothing says we need to run and hide every time the damned W.G.C. gets involved. These are men and women of action. It’d make me sick to my stomach if I heard this order from a commanding officer without good reason. I’d think he wasn’t happy with what we were doin’.
“No, no we tell them straight out that this is bureaucratic interference. They’ve earned that much truth by this point, I’d say.”
“Agreed. Just making sure.” With that, Shan went back to his post and sent word to the standing forces in the front lines, the message heavy with disgust.
“Why, Shan? What are they thinking?”
Shan had no time to answer. A hurried knock on the door interrupted them as a cadet burst in, face red and out of breath. Edgar was about to admonish the young man but was interrupted. “Sir!” he spit out in a ragged breath. “Sorry to interrupt sir, but you need to come here at once. There’s something you need to see!”
Before he had a chance to answer, the cadet was gone again out the door and lost to the masses by the time the two friends looked out. Neither of them liked what they saw outside.
There was panic and discord everywhere. In an unbelievable action, some were even running away, past the military trailer and the two inside. Edgar and Shan stepped out at once, trying to see what was going on. This was the U.P.M. They didn’t run. Period.
Edgar Taft searched out a recognizable face, found a lieutenant he’d seen around and asked what the devil was going on.
“The enemy, sir, they’ve released a new weapon and it’s on its way here!”
Edgar went white as the thought of the H.Y. and its power flashed in his mind. Had they been too complacent? Had their victories of late spurned them too much to be ignored?
“Is it a bomb?”
“No, sir. Worse. Much worse!”
“Well don’t leave me hangin’, son, spit it out!”
“Here, sir. See for yourself.” He handed Edgar the Digital Image Enhancer around his neck. Taft looked into the eyepiece and scanned the horizon. He could see massing of the enemy directly south, but they didn’t seem to be on the move, just clustering around a large aircraft that had arrived.
“What am I looking at, Lieutenant?”
“At the center of the crowd, sir. Near the base of that new plane.”
Edgar enlarged the image, making out the details of the enemy until he could clearly see the place the man had mentioned. There, at the nose of the craft, was a group of non-mechanical people. Fifteen, perhaps twenty, it was hard to say.
“What in the good sweet gods above have they got…” He cut himself short as the image became crystal clear. Human beings, unbelievably enough. Each one of them armed with shields, swords, wooden staffs, canes, any variety of short-range weapons. Why? What did this mean? He was about to ask Shan what he thought when the truth hit him like lightning. A truth so unbelievable he had to steady himself on a crate nearby. The strength that threatened to leave him for so long had finally given up the ghost.
“Shan, call a general retreat, as many of our forces and arms as we can move safely. Do it now and don’t you dare ask me why!”
Shan began to look very worried but did as his friend asked, and he ran back into the trailer. Moments later, Shan popped his head back out and had to shout over the noise of the full-scale retreat. “Sir! Headquarters wants to know what’s going on. It’s got word of your new orders already!”
Bastards are monitoring all the communications, Edgar thought to himself, not entirely surprised.
“What should I tell them?” Shan continued, the look of worry on his skinny face creasing it mercilessly.
“You don’t tell them a damn thing, Shan! You pack your shit and you get the fuck out of here!” He ran past Shan into the trailer, gathered up a few small belongings like data keys and a picture of his family in Bankoor (Gods, please let me see them again, he silently pleaded). Then, he was back out the door with Shan Dio following close behind.
By now the retreat order had spread like wildfire and the masses were falling back, leaving behind tanks and other vehicles that couldn’t carry more than a few people at a speed faster than running. Although scared beyond belief at what he’d seen coming his way, Edgar Taft still held his ground, making sure as m
any of his troops got away as possible.
“Damn it Shan, I told you to get out. I can see to the rest of it myself!” Shan still followed, almost too scared to leave his friend’s side. Shan gave him a quick look that told him no order in the world would make him leave Edgar’s side.
Edgar looked at him in the face, trying to dig into the core of Shan Dio’s reason. “Shan, this isn’t a bomb, or anything else we’ve faced up to this point. This really is something much worse. Something all the might of the U.P.M. can’t stand against. At least, not right now.”
Shan saw the seriousness, but still refused to move. It seemed Edgar hadn’t dug deep enough. “Shan, there are Embracers of the Power over there, and they’re coming this way.”
Shan said nothing. He only turned a paler shade of white. Still, he didn’t move, though now it was possibly because he couldn’t. “Are… are you sure?”
Edgar nodded. “I’m pretty sure. Can’t think of what else they could be. Now, are you going to go, or do I have to throw you?”
“What about you?”
“I’m right behind you as soon as I’m confident we’re not leaving any fool behind. Besides, you’re my eyes and ears right now. If something happens to me, you’re in charge.”
The truth in the words hit Shan Dio. Edgar Taft, although tough and stout, wasn’t expecting to live through whatever was about to come.
“Sir, they’re on a transport and they’re heading this way very quickly!” a scout shouted at him as he began to fall back. Soon the scout was on a high-speed half-track and gone.
“You’re right behind me?” Shan asked, almost pleading in unspoken words for Edgar to reconsider and just come now. There were still a great number of troops left to ensure safe retreat.
“I am, I give you my word, you stick-thin softy, now get the fuck out of here!”
Shan’s face hardened. He had always hated jabs at his skinny frame. “Fine, but you better not do anything stupid, sir.” At last, an understanding between them. Edgar nodded and smiled. Then, like a man possessed, Shan was bounding onto a passing transport, shouting orders and demanding no one was left behind.
After only a few seconds, he was gone.
Taft looked back through the Digital Image Enhancer, though it wasn’t necessary. By now the hovering transport was almost where he was standing. In a few more moments, it would be here, either to let out the Embracers or just pass right over him and head after the rest of his men. He hoped the former, or this was an extremely useless gesture.
There were very few left to pull back when the transport landed at the doorstep of his trailer, the jets below it kicking up the dust and sand. He sat on the step by the door waiting for what came next.
The whine of the engines ceased and a bay door slid open softly from the base of the aircraft. Moments later, the first of the fully armored Embracers stepped out, an average sized man with streaks of bright blue running through his long hair and beard. At his side a gladius was sheathed and ready. Edgar could almost feel the Power radiate from him. Other equally odd and dangerous looking Embracers stepped into view. Twenty that he could count. Men and women, each pulling out their weapons. As they all looked around, Edgar saw the last of the transports in the distance pass behind him and out of sight.
The ethereal blue man came forward with hands open as if to show he came unarmed. Edgar wasn’t born yesterday. He knew the sword was more for show than use in the possession of an Embracer. Edgar Taft knew the real Power was in the body.
“You are commander of these forces?” the man asked, almost casually, as if simply passing the time with idle chitchat.
“I am. Edgar Taft, Field Commander for the United Peoples Military. To whom do I have the honor?”
“You have the honor of me. That’s all you need to know.”
“Well, should I bow or curtsey?” There were no false premonitions now. All Edgar could hope for was to slow these heathens as long as possible, if it would make any difference at all.
The blue man smirked at the guts of the man in front of him. “You should run,” was all he said.
Edgar rolled up his pant leg, revealing the wound and the bandaging. “Don’t feel much like runnin’, truth be told.”
“Ha, so you’d run like the others if you were able to?”
Edgar stood and approached the man cautiously. “Maybe. Seeing as how I had no choice in the matter, I hadn’t given it much thought.”
“I doubt you would, Edgar Taft. You don’t look like a runner.”
“Then, my blue friend, just what do I look like?”
“You look like a man of honor. You also look like a man who has tossed his life aside recklessly for the vain hope of saving the lives of those you command. A man who would meet death with a sharp tongue.”
“Other than the recklessly part, I’d say you have me pegged, Bluey.”
“Do you know who I am, Edgar Taft?”
“I know what you are. That’s enough for me.”
“Good. Then you know what you’re trying to do now is hopeless?”
“Likely, but not as hopeless as runnin’.”
“And you know why we’re here?”
“I do, though the reasoning behind it kinda escapes me at the moment. I thought we were fighting robots, not heathens.”
“And do you think you or your people will win against us 'heathens’?”
“Maybe. You’re not indestructible. There’s always hope.”
The blue man smiled, drawing the sword out. Edgar hesitated when he saw the same blue shade glow through the blade. Echoes raced through his brain as he looked at it, but the sensation was muted once he tore his eyes away.
“In this world, we are indestructible, Edgar Taft. There is no one powerful enough to stop us left on the Earth.”
Edgar got up, grunting as he did so. He stepped over to the man and met him face to face. “You were human once. You have to remember that we don’t give up hope easily.”
The blue man lifted the blade, pointing it past Edgar to his trailer. Instantly the trailer was in the air. When it was high overhead, a large blue spark rocketed from the blade of the weapon. The trailer was obliterated into pieces that rained down behind Edgar. Many Embracers laughed.
“That’s where I kept my belongings, sir. I’d thank you to pick it up.” The sharpness in his voice was still strong, but his gut knew that this simply wasn’t natural. The truth of who he was facing was that much more apparent. Embracers? Siding with the mechanical Army of the Old? What did it mean?
The blue man was amused by Edgar’s wit, but it was obvious that his patience with him was done. “You are a credit to your family and peers, Edgar Taft. It’s a shame to kill you.”
“It’s a shame to die at the hands of one like yourself.”
With a nod of recognition to a true statement, the blue man flicked his wrist, tossing Edgar into the air as if he were made of feathers. At the apogee of the throw, he was frozen and floating just as the trailer had. He knew what would come next. He prayed he would feel nothing but doubted it was going to be so.
“Goodbye, Edgar Taft. Your death is meaningless. Your friends and family will still suffer just as quickly. You have accomplished nothing here. I fear you have died a failure. For one such as yourself, I’d call that a terrible shame.”
Before he had a chance to even consider the truth in the words the blue man had spoken, Edgar Taft was effortlessly wiped from the Earth in a burst of fleeting-but-intense pain, followed by death’s embrace.
Edgar Taft deserved much better.
Coming Soon
Catching Hell
Part 2:
Destination
Other Books by
Marc Watson
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The answer is unclear, until one morning a familiar stranger appears. The poorly dressed man at Ethan’s door seems to have all the answers. But with those answers comes a grave proposition.
Witty and realistically sarcastic; full of self-redemption and the dark, cosmic inner-workings of life and death. Comically sharp yet lighthearted, Death Dresses Poorly is the bittersweet tale of a young man’s journey through the discarded baggage of his childhood.
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In the world of Ryuujin, heroes rise and fall, but there are always stories that slip through the cracks. The tales of the people who shape the years to come. Heroism and betrayal. Conversations between friends and enemies that will change the course of the world.
These are nine stories from a world that is historic, modern, and terrifyingly futuristic. A world where science and magic intertwine, and give birth to the unknown souls who become heroes, and the legends who fade away into history.
From the author of the renowned dark comedy Death Dresses Poorly, and from the world of his hit science-fantasy duology Catching Hell comes a collection of adventure, drama, joy, and terror as we look into the lives of the powerful, the meek, and the people who make the world turn over the course of centuries.