by Mars Dorian
“Wherever I was able to find a living thing, I found a will to power.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
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Mars Dorian © 2015
1
“Arise from the darkness, soldier, we need you.”
The female voice appeared out of nowhere.
Glowing letters pierced through the nothingness.
The letters flickered.
A moan echoed through the black. A deep, male intonation.
“Um, what?”
The menu responded.
The female voice cheered.
“Unit: RX-88. Can you hear me?”
She sounded like a goddess from a distant star. Eargasmic wasn’t the best word, but it was the first that came to mind. The male unit arose and didn't mind the darkness as long as that voice spoke inside his head.
“Repeat. Can you hear me?”
Pause.
“Unit: RX-88?”
He moaned and lifted his eyelids. It took effort, but the strength in his body surged.
“Commencing wake-up sequence now,” the female voice said.
“I got it.”
The male unit still had no idea who, or where, he was. But he noticed a fluorescent light shining through his eye cracks. He averted his gaze and grunted.
“Can you dim the light?”
“Roger that. Dimming light source by 45%.”
And she spoke, and he saw that it was good.
“How’s that, unit: RX-88?”
“It’s alright.”
“Glad to hear that.”
Oh man, what a voice.
And although he wished he could slumber longer and chill to her cosmic vocals, the dozing time was over. She only woke him up for urgent matters. As his mind launched, the memories booted up.
He remembered his previous missions.
Remembered where he was.
Remembered whom he served.
"I hope you feel strengthened and ready for action,” Aida said.
That was her name, Aida. He had talked to her many times. Listened to her lovely voice for ages, and never grew tired of it. And no, he wasn’t ready. It didn't matter that humanity traveled to the farthest corners of the galaxy.
Cryo-sleep still sucked.
2
“You’re looking stellar, RX-88.” Aida said.
“I bet you say that to all the men.”
“Would that matter?”
“From a woman like you? Yeah.”
“Now you’re making me blush, RX.”
That was impossible, of course, but he appreciated her comment anyways.
RX grinned, crawled out of his cryo-tube and touched ground with his bare feet. The baby-butt smooth surface frosted his naked sole. His toes numbed.
“Can you heat up the temp? Feels like I’m glued to an ice planet.”
“Already working on that. Take your time."
“Taking time and Stryker Solutions don’t go together.”
“You have nine minutes and forty-three seconds to stay on schedule. And if you fall back, I’ll motivate you with my notorious shock therapy.”
RX smiled.
“Oh Aida, what would I do without you?”
“Lick off the surface from an asteroid and freeze to death.”
That was true.
He made another step and cringed.
A dozen cryo-sleeps later, and he still acted like a deranged rookie awakening for the first time. RX stretched his limbs and heard them crack. Released a satisfying groan and worked his legs. They looked more pale and thinner than last time.
“Aida, what's my muscle mass compared to the last cryo?”
"15.75% atrophy," she said.
RX moaned. Stryker owned some of the best engineers and scientists known to humanity, and they still hadn't found a way to stop muscles from regressing during cryo. He wondered what these desk huggers were researching all day. Creating efficient war technology was one priority, but soldier health?
Too much to ponder.
And the time clocked on.
Ticky-dee tock.
RX waddled toward the locker, picked up the uniform and wrapped it around his body like second skin. He once watched a feed about humans from the dark days. They had to pull their clothes over their bodies, button shirts and zip up their jackets. Poor savages.
Sometimes he felt sorry for his primordial predecessors.
Nah, not really.
He marveled at his reflection and shot himself two thumbs up.
“Looking tight, warrior of the universe.”
“More like worm of the underverse.”
RX turned around and saw the giant of a man prancing toward him—D12. He stretched his pillar-thick arms and chuckled. RX smirked.
“Better a worm than a degenerate mongo.”
“Ouch, that hurt.”
“Yeah right.”
Not even a steel fist launched into the giant’s ribcage would hurt him, maybe tickle. RX was glad they both synchronized. The two male units shook arms like long lost brothers and grinned.
“It’s good to see you.”
“Can’t say the same about you,” RX said.
D12 grinned and looked like a boy for a second.
“Shut your hole.”
Aida’s voice roared again. She sounded less pleasant this time.
“Mmm, boys? The clock is ticking. You’re already thirty-two seconds behind.”
RX and D12 looked up. For some reason, it always seemed as if the AI spoke from above, like an omnipresent being.
“Come on, Aida, just ten seconds of buddy time.”
“You had twenty-two seconds. On company time.”
Pure Aida.
Counting the micro-seconds and making a scene. Someone should boost up her humor level by at least 30%.
“Roger that," RX said.
“Please proceed to the strategy chamber. I’m displaying the waypointers, in case the cryo froze your braincells.”
No, scratch that. She already carried enough sense of humor. What she lacked was the laissez-faire of a human being.
RX looked around the cryo-hall and watched two dozen units arise from their sleep. He counted twenty-three and whistled. It looked as if a major mission was in the making. RX looked forward to his active duty and hoped Stryker would be generous with the bonus. Because now the bad memories awoke. Tagged: financials.
"What's the matter?" D12 said.
"Money, or the lack thereof."
He checked his credit account via the HUD and squeezed his face.
Red was a fugly color, especially if accompanied by blinking notices. The priority message, written in ALL CAPS, auto-read itself. The ear-scratching voice made it worse.
“This is our eleventh warning, unit: RX-88. If you continue to ignore our messages and refuse to pay, your credit ranking will take a dive into the abyss of Alterra. We’re not kidding.”
RX shrugged.
The only thing worse than admonitions were melodramatic admonitions delivered with attitude. He pictured some frustrated secretary penning these words, although he knew algorithms created them. Algorithms with too much baditude.
“You okay?”
RX pushed his stare away from his bank account and looked up at his buddy. D12 looked actually concerned.
“It’s
that bad?"
He grinned like a kid, which looked surreal, given the shape of his muscle-mountain. RX nodded.
“Damn bills blow up my upgrade budget. My entire account beeps like a crash report."
“I feel you. One rule I always abide by: don’t go into cryo with active debt. Compound interest is a bitch, especially if you sleep for ages.”
Simple words that RX ignored since creation. Maybe he should have bought a financial augmentation or an AI upgrade that would handle the biz side of his life. Blasting through space wasn’t fun with debt squeezing your balls.
He needed to level up his career.
And the new mission would help him with that.
3
RX followed D12 into the corridors of the lower decks and climbed into the hyperloop. The tube transportation system shot him through the upper levels and halted his body in section C. One blink and half a breath later, RX staggered out on his wobbly legs. If the cryo-sleep froze his brain cells, the hyperloop twisted his legs like pretzels.
Hyper-freaking-loop.
A failed hybrid between lift and roller coaster with all the vomit-fostering side effects. Although RX seemed to be the only one who shared that sentiment. D12 leaped from the hyperloop opening like someone who practiced in it daily for five years in advance. The giant stomped toward RX.
“Dude, are you getting soft on me? You walk like a five year old with two amputated left legs.”
“I hate everything I can’t control. Cryo, hyperloop, all that automated crap. Put me in a cockpit and I’m riding the stars like your mother.”
“If I only had one.”
They both cracked up like adolescents.
Ah, smalltalk with the peer.
RX missed those conversations back in the cryo. There was something deeply satisfying about cracking jokes with the ones you cared about. A primal delight that harbored back to the pre-colonization age. But smalltalk was over.
He and D12 walked into the strategy room and watched the mission master activating the projection in the middle. Fifteen pilots of various classes sat in their ergo seats and chatted. RX recognized only a couple—every time he awoke from the sleep, he found new pilots joining the roster, while the fallen had vanished from his memory. One day, he’ll also disappear from the public conscience. But that was a worry for another time. The mission master snapped at RX and the incoming pilots.
“If you walk any slower, you look like victims from a freeze beam.”
One pilot spoke up with care.
“Sir, we just awoke from a cryo-sleep.”
“And I just had a bio-engineer print my second liver, and you don’t see me slogging.”
Got a point, RX thought. It was good to see the meanest bastard in the carrier cracking wise jokes. The mission master continued his streak.
“Now stop complaining or I’ll blast your useless asses from the nearest launch pod."
“Roger that, sir.”
The pilots scrambled up and brought their butts down to their final destinations. RX joined D12 in the third row and marveled at the fluorescent projection in the middle of the room. It detailed a 3D representation of a battle scenario in the current sector. The mission master circled around the hologram and pointed his sausage finger toward his chiseled face.
“Ready, ladies?”
Everyone nodded their heads. The mission master clapped his hands.
“Good. Let’s talk war business. I’ll keep it basic so you morons understand the words that are coming out of my mouth."
He pointed toward the flickering 3D map.
“The US Corps want to retake the quadrant, but as we all know, government-backed forces tend to be underfunded and overextended, so they’re looking for a price effective solution. Spoiler alert: they need our help.”
He paused, probably to ensure that everyone paid attention to his next words.
“Our sats have detected a Separatist presence in this sector. We’ve encountered various patrols circumventing the ExoEve planet in the orbital routes you see behind my beautiful back.”
Red triangles displaying the Separatist spacecraft blended in. Their possible flight lines circled a planet RX had never seen before.
“Your mission objective: you will protect an US Corps convoy en route and make sure its precious cargo won't get destroyed by the Separatists. You know how hostile these suckers are. The US Corps has lost three convoys in this sector alone. Needless to say, they didn't order our reasonably priced escort services. Well, they've finally come to their senses."
He paused.
"You’re going to wipe out these abominations to allow the US Corps to establish their presence."
The mission master activated another menu over the iridescent map. Abstract depictions of hostile gliders came into view.
“We've detected twelve Predator units, four Banshee bombers and a new unit type you can see here.”
The spacecraft looked more organic than their usual ship layouts. An aero dynamic shape where weapons and cockpit blended in naturally.
“The first pilot to scan its weapon system gets a credit bonus.”
The pilots whistled.
"You're going to intercept the potential threat in three squadrons—Asset, Bank, and Cash. Asset will deal with the fighters, Bank will take care of the bombers and Cash will stay within the US Corps convoy's vicinity. Your AI will send you the mission data via an encrypted channel before the operation begins. For security reasons, obviously."
The mission master showed the Stryker Solutions vessel.
"Your APEX are getting prepped as we speak. Make sure you're physically up to the task. I don’t want to see a single sucker slouching into their spacecraft.”
Some pilots in the audience chuckled. RX didn’t give a flying fetus. He wanted to know the second most important part of every mission: financial incentives.
And the mission master, ever to his credit, went straight into money talk.
“Now judging from your half-assed facial expressions, I can tell you’re not too hot about the mission. But I got something that may light your bodies on fire: the US Corps is on time pressure and want this threat wiped out ASAP. If you manage to obliterate the patrol without losing a single craft in their convoy, our good friends will reward you with 50,000 credits each.”
RX finally woke up.
50,000 credits for escorting a convoy? It sounded like the punchline for a bad joke, but the mission master didn’t crack up. RX looked around the audience and saw his co-pilots chatting and whispering. The master roared his voice.
“Mission start is in T-minus 43 hours. Grab something to eat, work out in the gym or better, rehash patrol interception and escort tutorials in the simulation. I want your sleepy heads at maximum capacity when the mission begins, do you understand?”
With 50K for a simple operation, everyone understood.
Money was still the clearest language in the universe.
The pilots nodded. The mission master licked his dry lips and stretched his legs. Stood straight like a drill instructor from the pre-colonization age.
“I said, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the pilots replied in unison.
The master touched his right earlobe and leaked a grimace.
“Jeez, I think my hearing amp is malfunctioning. I swear I just heard a couple of castrated mice squeaking.”
“We understand, sir,” the pilots said with increased volume.
The master stretched his back.
“Ah, now that’s better. Now get the hell out of here and prepare.”
RX was the first to move up from his seat. He jogged down the stairs and headed to the exit with D12 when the mission master called his ID.
“RX-88, I need to talk to you.”
He sank his glance. A personal talk with the veteran planner always meant trouble. D12 brushed his shoulder.
“You’ll manage."
RX nodded, pushed through the crowd of pilots that squeezed th
rough the chamber’s entrance. The master deactivated the projection and waited for everyone to leave them alone. When the last pilot left the room, he licked the edge of his mug. RX stood close enough to read its label—Who’s your Space Daddy?
They both knew.
And daddy looked pissed.
4
Silence crept in. RX swore the chamber’s temperature dropped by thirty degrees. He knew it was the mission master’s presence that made him shiver. The veteran commanded an aura that caused elites to shake.
“Tell me RX, are you satisfied with your role at Stryker Solutions?”
“It’s an honor to be part of your PMC, sir.”
“Do you think we treat you fairly? Any complaints about our service?”
“Yes, sir. And no, sir. The crew on this carrier feels like organic family.”
The master took a mighty sip from his dark liquid.
“Do you believe in win-win, RX?”
It dawned on him where his superior was getting at. The master talked about two things only: performance and profit.
“You see, I’ve checked your ranking and it’s making my new liver want to jump up and slap itself.”
He pulled up a menu with RX’s stats.
“Your sim results are good, just like your previous mission evaluations. But do you remember what the Stryker manifesto says about being ‘good’?”
“It says it’s another term for losers, sir.”
“Damn right. And we don’t employ losers.”
RX swallowed. He knew he wasn’t elite level yet, but a loser? Impossible. He finished Basic training with excellent grades, even though that was in a galaxy far, far away.
“Sir, I try to be better.”
The mission master hushed him in mid-sentence.
“Trying is for closers, son, and that ain’t you. Now I remember your early success on Fortuna-5, but that belongs to the history feed. Your epic failure at Alterra smears your track record, and most PMCs would have dropped you for that. Remember, you’re only as good as your last mission, and if you don’t score high on the next, I’m going to let you go.”
‘Letting go’ as in getting discharged from Stryker Solutions. Also known as the death sentence in a pilot’s life.
RX closed his eyes.