SAW 1: Stars at War

by Lee Guo

  This is the price we pay to defend our nation… “Helen.” Patel glanced at a colonel from the med unit. “Get medic teams toward that broken grazer mount immediately. A lot of people are going to need help.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Scotty, recheck the asteroid vector projections.” Patel sighed. “Let’s hope an error like that doesn’t happen, again.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Star System Dalon, Viron Empire Core

  Planet Dalon's World, Viron Administrative Capital

  Parade Street, Outside the Capitol Building

  6 days later…

  The trip itself down to the planet turned out to be uneventful for Admiral Prancort.

  When the scouts detected that the snake fleet wasn’t going to attack another planet, Prancort’s immediate thought was that the invasion could be over. The snakes must have decided they’d taken too much damage and couldn’t justify more damage to its fleet.

  Everyone, including Prancort, leapt in happiness in response to the news.

  When the word of it reached Dalon’s World, the president, Jinho Hyun, immediately requested Prancort return to the capital, where he would be awarded many metals befitting his actions. Prancort, realizing the snake threat seemed to be over, at least…temporarily…so he agreed.

  Therefore, for the past three hours, Prancort patiently waited as his shuttle descended through the cloud banks onto the star port, outlying the capital city of Haven’s Glas. When he got out, he was showered with applause. Two entire platoons of marines parade marched him through the city’s center, as part of an morale boosting planetary event, broadcasted on live holo throughout the empire.

  Thus, before he knew it, Admiral Prancort found himself walking through miles of city streets, until he finally reached Parade Street, which lay directly outside the Capitol Building, where President Hyun and many political dignitaries awaited him with metals prepared to be strapped on his chest.

  "Admiral Prancort! Admiral Prancort!" a young female’s voice sounded through the crowds.

  On both sides, the crowds showered Prancort with glittering flowers. The colors of the Imperial flag flew at full banner on all sides of Parade Street. Red and Green, the stars of destruction and life.

  "Welcome home, legendary admiral!" waved President Jinho Hyun, who stood directly ahead with a wide smile.

  “You’re on national TV. Smile back and wave to the president,” reminded the Marine colonel.

  Prancort, embarrassed, waved back.

  There seemed to be so much applause, so much! He felt he didn't deserve it. The hysterical crowds to his left and right jammed to see him. The Viron Main Hall, the center of government for 25 billion humans, stood tall and vast ahead of him.

  "It's the fleet admiral!"

  "Oh, let me through, I want to see him in real life!" someone yelled.

  "Admiral Prancort, will you marry me?"

  "People! People!" the General Secretariat called out from beside Prancort, "You have to let him through. He can't shake the President's hands if—Ooof!" Someone crashed into the general secretary.

  Prancort barely saw a blur from the man who did it. The next moment he was carrying the secretary through the crowds and the moment after that he, too, was on the ground in a bleeding trance.

  "Help!" someone yelled. "The admiral is down!"

  The world around him disappeared in a haze of colors, flashes, and ominous sounds. He faintly recalled a doctor's voice yelling at nurses, and teams of surgeons racing his body along on a stretcher. He’d been unconscious most of the time, and minutes could have been hours or days. Time occasionally, slowed to a crawl, or passed by a week without him remembering any of it.

  Then—he dreamed—he dreamed so much.

  One moment, he was in grade school.

  Teachers told him what to do. School kids yelled and screamed. Prancort quietly sat in the same classroom every day. He saw friends…people he loved and passed on. People he hadn't seen in years.

  Another moment, he was coming home from school. He stared out of a gigantic train that zoomed at over five hundred kilometers per hour past thousands of massive skyscrapers that went as high as the sky. His home city bustled with life. Gigantic flashy signs in bright colors passed by as Prancort pressed his nose onto the train's window. How old was he? Twelve? Thirteen? He was a city kid. Everyone on the planet was a city kid.

  Next, someone sat by him, someone he was familiar with.

  Who was this girl? Eva? Lena? He remembered her face. A face he hadn't seen in decades. Olive skin, curled lips. They walked home together after the train. Neighbors.

  "Hey, Lena!" he called out inside the train.

  Another second, he stood in a place with a lot of trees. This was odd. His planet didn't have many trees, anymore, especially not in his city. CO2 was recycled through oxygen plants. Then, he realized he wasn't on the planet of his birth, anymore. He was in college—the space academy on Gredor! Full of artificial trees, underneath a giant biodome.

  He saw a redheaded teenager passing by him. Other cadets trailed the red headed cadet like an idol.

  "Who is that?" Prancort asked.

  "That's Kirkeis, our leading cadet," someone answered, "He is unbeatable in test simulations and he's class valedictorian. His marks are record setting in the school's history."

  Prancort glanced over at the source of that voice and saw someone familiar. Steiner! He hadn't seen his roommate in years—ever since they graduated! "I can beat Kirkeis," Prancort boasted.

  "Sure you can…" Steiner grinned.

  "No, I can, and I have. This is just a dream. You're not real."

  "Uh, huh," Steiner kept grinning.

  I can beat him, can't I? Is this too much to want? Prancort was just a city boy from a megapolis world, defending his territory from the snake onslaught, with okay grades, and a propensity to game too much.

  Every day at the space academy, Prancort would spend time in the simulation rooms, practicing tactics and strategy, preparing for the day when he could beat Kirkeis. His war sim scores were average at first, but soon they rose—and fast. His player-versus-player scores shot straight through the roof. He became a rising star. "Legend killer" they called him.

  "But not Kirkeis," they said. "Kirkeis will beat this upstart. Kirkeis is invincible."

  "You can't beat him! You can't beat him!" they said.

  I can beat him. I can beat him, right?

  Who is that girl that always cheered for him? Genny? Genie? Genee?

  One day, on a fresh Monday morning, he fought Kirkeis. Kirkeis was two years ahead of Prancort. The dreaded Kirkeis was in fourth form, while Prancort was in second form.

  After the game, Kirkeis came up to Prancort with a smile. Prancort was dazzled by his opponent.

  "You won, the title goes to the best competitor," said the red-headed Kirkeis. "When the snakes come, I wouldn't have it any other way."

  "Thank you, sir."

  Kirkeis would later graduate and make a name out of himself in the space navy, but so would Prancort.

  The dream-world changed, again. He no longer stood on campus, studying or practicing in his dormitory. He now walked the hallway of a massive battle station—just like Epsilon Decimus. Where am I going?

  A door to his left slid open. A blast of recycled air mixed with that stale odor of cigar smoke drifted through. "Come in, Captain Prancort," a commanding voice prompted.

  Prancort walked into the dark room. He saw four old men staring back at him. They were his seniors and outranked him.

  "Once in a while, we, the fleet, are blessed by a gifted individual. Today, that gifted individual is you," said the admiral sitting in the middle. "You have shown exceptional talent and keenness. Therefore, we're promoting you. May your future actions reinforce our judgment. May you bring the fleet excellence."

  "I will, sir." Prancort eyed the middle admiral. "I won't let you down."

  The middle admiral nodded. "It doesn't matter. Because
you can't beat me! You can't beat me!"

  Then the admiral suddenly shifted in form—the old man's body elongated. Limbs formed on the sides of his torso. Two large mandibles appeared where his lips were. The admiral became a centipede.

  "I can—I can," Prancort stammered.

  "You can't," click, click—then it reached out and bit Prancort.

  Everything turned black. The dreams disappeared. Prancort felt like he fell with a perpetual descent down to a bottomless pit. What's happening? Where am I going?

  He fell and drop downward, out of control.

  Forever.

  I'm losing myself.

  One moment, he was in the space academy, again. Cadets crowded around him. Then, everything turned black and he would be falling, again.

  Next moment, he was inside a train, going home. The adults crowded him. To his right, he saw Lena changing into a centipede.

  Click. Click.

  Everything turned black.

  He fell again.

  He was in homeroom, in grade school. Then, school kids ran everywhere in a playground. Recess. Then, blackness.

  He fell, again.

  It's all disappearing! Why? Why? My dreams, my memories, my life, they're all disappearing! Help me! Someone help me!

  He kept falling.

  Soon, he couldn't even think. His thoughts weren't his. He had no thoughts.

  I'm dying.

  Everything disappeared, except the sound of mandibles clicking.

  Click. Click.

  Blackness.

  Star System Dalon, Core of the Viron Empire

  Planet Dalon's World

  Highguard Hospital Complex, Aquaria

  Building E, VIP Floor, Intensive Care Unit

  Room 001

  "What's wrong with him?" Admiral Prion de Caille asked.

  "He's been infected with a neural-toxin, targeting the brain," the hospital's lead doctor explained.

  "Why hasn't the treatments been working? You are treating him, right?"

  "Of course, but the nanite toxin infecting him is powerful. Whoever did this knew exactly how to contaminate him. Our best medical nanites are having difficulty pushing it back. It keeps replicating, while eating away at his neurons."

  "How did someone manage to slide this through his security?" demanded Prion.

  "I don't know about his security details. But nano-contaminants are very hard to detect."

  Prion grabbed the bed girdling, eyeing the unconscious Prancort, before her, dressed in hospital white with his eyes closed. This was the wrong time to be unconscious. The world needed Prancort. The world needed its fleet admiral now more than ever. Prion realized the tightness of her grip, and loosened.

  I must be picking up the habit from an old friend. Prion turned towards a lieutenant in the hospital room's doorway. "Put four guards surrounding his room at all times. I want this room guarded. Take a brigade of general Opheim's marines and guard all entrances to the hospital. Nobody comes in or out without being scanned."

  "Ma'am, but this is a major hospital! 30,000 people enter and exit every day!"

  "I don't want any buts, just do it! Take more if you have to. On my orders."

  "Yes—admiral," the lieutenant stammered. "But is it—really necessary to guard the entire medical complex?"

  "Yes, it is," Prion confirmed, wide-eyed.

  "Perhaps, we can move him somewhere safer?"

  "But then he won't get the best medical care."

  "Maybe—we could move the doctors and—"

  "Don't question my orders, Lieutenant! Just do it!"

  "Yes, ma'am!"

  "I have to go." Prion turned towards the doctor. "I take you'll use every resource in your technological arsenal to make sure he comes out of this alive...and well?"

  "Yes, our whole hospital team is on it," said the leading doctor, a wizened man in his fifties.

  "Good. Use every resource in your disposal. If he dies, we die. Got me?"

  The doctor nodded.

  Prion took one last look at the sleeping Prancort. She wanted to touch him, but she worried it would betray her feelings, as well as look awkward for her rank. She settled on speaking to him, "Good bye, old friend. When I come back—if I come back, I hope you will have won one more battle."

  She walked out the room.

  Star System Dalon, Core of the Viron Empire

  Planet Dalon's World

  In Transit towards the Starport

  Sitting inside her air car, Prion gazed out as the metropolis slid past her. Since Prancort’s attempted assassination, she was now a full admiral, with a full security detachment. Two squad cars in front of her…Two squad cars behind her. Her driver, a marine captain named Luis Carpender, stoically maneuvered the car through the city's turbulent air traffic.

  Damn the president! If the president had barred bystanders from touching the admiral, none of this would have happened. But the President's PO people had suggested they let bystanders touch their hero as a way to increase the man's popularity and national morale, and President Hyun had relented.

  If the president hadn't been so slack in his security, even after checking each human in the crowd for conventional weapons, Admiral Prancort wouldn't be in his condition now.

  Prion crossed her legs. How in the hell did the damn terrorists—the damn activists who wanted humanity to lose, so all humans would be space born—how did they know they could successfully sneak a bio-weapon?

  After the incident, the president's security details detained all the bystanders. Yet, they still hadn't found the culprit! Prion rubbed her brow. With all the latest and advanced lie-detector techs, the president's security still haven't found him!

  The problem turned out to be during the admiral's ‘walk of victory’, there were so many people who touched him. Any number of people could have infected him with the nano-toxin. It was also likely the culprit could have walked away as much as ten minutes before the admiral even collapsed.

  Then, there was the issue of internal security. It may not have been one of the crowds at all. Prancort could have eaten something during his trip down to planet-side. Prion frowned, suddenly remembering how one battleship during the battle of Orasis fried its navcom.

  Judging by the number of possible culprits, Prion found the problem perplexing. Worse yet, she could very well be next.

  So many people. If she launched a full-scale investigation, she would probably have to detain over a hundred people. His cook. The pilot. Anyone could have left some dirty nanites on his seat in the shuttle down to the planet. Then, she realized she would have to check his outfitter. The nano-toxin could have been implanted on his clothing.

  "Ma'am, we're at the star port," said her driver.

  "Good." Prion suddenly realized she didn't have the time to launch an investigation. The air car opened. She walked onto one of the star port’s launch pads. A space shuttle, forty meters long, parked before her. It would take off from a runway and take her to a fast-transit light-cruiser, which would head for the borders of the empire.

  An aide followed her.

  "Report on the situation, Lieutenant Abernathy," Prion ordered.

  "A new snake fleet has invaded inward from the galactic center. They are knocking out our sensor probes as they go."

  "Have they reached any of the inhabited border worlds?"

  "Of course not, ma'am."

  "Where is Rear Admiral Gilbert's position?"

  "He's still moving the fleet outward to intercept."

  "But he's not engaging them outside the line of our border worlds, is he?"

  "No, ma'am. As per orders."

  "Good. We need to use each fortified system's missile supply to our advantage. It's imperative that he doesn't intercept the enemy fleet with just starships alone."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Star System Hephaestus

  Mobile Fortress Epsilon Decimus

  Flag Bridge

  A week later

  Another invasion. Anot
her war. This time, the ship counts were much smaller.

  So, you went back to lick your wounds, and now you're back, huh?...Prion stood watching the holomap.…Except this time, you're not fighting Prancort. You're fighting me.

  She glanced at the enemy fleet on the outer fringes of the holomap. Then, at her own. Behind Prion's fleet, Hephaestus's dual suns encircled each other. One was a yellow main sequence star, the other a brown dwarf.

  She studied the red dots and the green dots carefully. Just now, the red dots were accelerating inward, having dropped out of warp in order to enter the system's gravity well. Prion's fleet, the green dots, hovered idly around the system's second planet, a fortified world with no human population.

  Since the war had long been coming, human planners created a shield wall of fortified planets in between the heavily populated worlds and any invading snake force. The battle of Orasis V had been a complete fluke. No one expected the snakes would invade from that direction, where no fortified system existed. Luckily, they’d been beaten away, or they could have done irrevocable damage on the nation's inner population and infrastructure.

  "Alright ladies and gentlemen…" Prion, eyed the bridge of the Epsilon Decimus. "Let's begin the fight. Comm, signal the fleet to action stations."

  The men and women below her snapped off their salutes and returned to their duties.

  "Action stations. Action stations. All hands prepare for battle," the comm voice, repeated over and over.

  Prion used her instruments to check on the status of her ships. The very same data-pads Prancort used not less than a month ago, Her fleet, much smaller than Prancort's pre-battle fleet, comprised of the leftovers from the Orasis battle, but also included newly created ships from the nation's shipyards. Three quarters of the ships were veterans.

  A total of 55 battleships: 18 heavy-cruisers, 22 lights, 8 juggernauts, and 7 destroyers. The destroyer line-up already took a heavy blow because both sides believed the easiest, smallest targets should be taken out first.