And there were sure to be more such gems here within the most sacred space the Animals who’d called themselves the Spilursans had. Rumors abounded of powerful ship-based weapons designed around the fledgling blaster. Improved micro-repulsor designs that could be used with armor and lighter starships of the fighter profile. A better jump drive that halved flight time. Fantastic dreams all. And they would spell the end of a galaxy infested with Animals, and the beginning of a new Uplifted era.
The age of Homo deus.
“May it never end,” Crometheus caught himself murmuring within the silent hum of his helmet’s comm. Old habits died hard. The chanting and affirmative reinforcements had been a singular discipline of the early Earth-based Pantheon self-improvement course, as it had once been known. Eventually that had carried over into the fanatical years of the ship’s dark ages where it was almost a religion, shepherding them through those perilous times. Chanting to remember why it was important to starve to death for some future destiny that lay on the other side of the black gulf of space.
Chanting when you’ve had nothing to eat for not just days, but weeks.
Player Romulux had finished droning on and on about how to defend the central core and had begun droning on and on about “objective two,” attacking the Animals that would try to dump the whole level, or even the whole station. If the Animals couldn’t hard connect then they had no choice but to melt the reactor, or even nuke the base via orbital bombardment. The Eternals’ lead hacker, Player Banksee, was already running an analysis on their network. Or at least the captured portions. If the Animals did indeed initiate a core melt from two decks up, they could destroy the cloud. And the entire complex.
The Spilursans’ problem was… that act was irreversible. The lost data, design, and research could not be saved in time. What was represented on the core was several lifetimes’ worth of R&D. No doubt they had to be planning right now, in some giant war room bunker, what to do in the next few hours. Was it worth it to dump the core and lose everything?
Worth it for humanity?
Yes. At this moment rather than let all that valuable tech fall into Savage hands… it absolutely was, Crometheus could almost feel them reasoning.
Worth it for the Spilursan government and economic system, a world leader among the worlds of hyperdrive?
No. Possibly…
The loss of that valuable R&D would put them at the mercy of whichever competitor world managed to survive this war. They were all on the same side as long as they were fighting against the Uplifted they called the Savages, but after that, they would once again be competing against one another for galactic cultural domination.
Little did they know they’d never survive, thought Crometheus. But who could fault them for thinking they had a chance? That they might win. Miraculously. Somehow. Despite the mounting evidence that indicated another outcome. That there was some unthought way out of the noose slowly strangling them from all points of the galactic compass as more and more coordinated Uplifted fleets came out of the deep-space dark like nightmares from the nether and began to ravage their pretty little worlds.
That’s what they, the Animals in charge of all the other Animals, were thinking down in that bunker, wherever it was. Had to be thinking, at this very moment. What was their position and how best to leverage it on the back end of this war they thought they still had a chance at winning.
Then a thought hit Crometheus like lightning out of the blue. Shocking him to the core. Waking him to what must be done…
They were thinking about themselves and only themselves, instead of their collective whole… and in that there was no glory. No honor. That was animal thinking. The way animals who would never be gods thought.
“Objective three,” continued Romulux. “We need to get behind their lines. Up deck. Do some damage and destabilize their assault on the lower levels in order to buy us more time because I suspect this is going to go down to the wire. They’ll come down here eventually, and probably sooner rather than later. We have to hold until Alliance reinforcements arrive on scene. But that’s not everything. Eventually they’ll go for the flush controls a few levels up if they realize they can’t win by retaking the core. We knock the flush control system out in the reactor with a strike team before they get authorization from their higher-ups to initiate a flush and flood the station core. All they can do at that point is surrender. There’s just one problem… the reactor and flush controls are deep inside their held territory on station. We don’t have the numbers to take that area in force. So… we need to draw straws and send in a one-way hit team with very little chance of survival.”
Chatter between the various elements of the Eternals stopped as one.
“It’s a one-way mission,” continued Romulux in the silence. “Odds indicate those who go upward to destabilize the impending attack will not survive. Even post-battle salvage at that point is highly unlikely. Whoever does it, whoever goes up there and buys the rest of us some breathing space and time to wait for the fleet to show up… you’ll be doing it for the greater good…”
“And glory,” interrupted Crometheus over the steady hum of the comm. His voice, that voice they’d all heard croon those greatest rock-and-roll hits and say those lines in those long-lost movies from their collective long ago, a known voice, dry and sly with just a hint of the devil-may-care in it, they heard him say it.
And glory.
“And honor. For glory and honor.”
Silence.
“That’s correct, Cro,” said Romulux, like they’d known each other time immemorial. Like Romulux had been some Rock and Roll Hall of Fame insider all those years ago. Truth was, Romulux had just been a high-flying financier who’d convinced the world it would end if it didn’t buy his latest save-the-planet-from-itself-and-all-of-humanity crisis scheme. He’d monetized their animal fear. Back in the day, of course. He’d bought his access. He’d bought his way inside. He was smart.
Back in the day.
As all of them once had been.
But smart didn’t make you a god. It was only half of the old Greek and Roman equation of knowledge and glory.
Glory. That made men into gods forever. Which was why they’d all joined up in whatever seminar out by the airport, or secret meeting of the powerful and wealthy in some high enclave, or invite-only access retreat in some luxury grove out along one of the coasts… however and wherever. They’d joined up not to find God… but to become gods. The gods they knew themselves to truly be.
And what is truth?
But what you make it, right?
Glory was the final step, thought Crometheus as they all waited for him to explain. Glory obtained by honor.
That was the final step along the path. Maybe even the last…
It didn’t hit him like that last bolt of lightning had. That this was the last step on the Path as revealed by the ever-patient and long-serving Maestro. It didn’t hit him that he’d finally arrived at the last step along… not the Path, but a path. A path, a journey, a quest, a road that had begun long ago on that rainy-day weekend at the airport Marriott. No. Before then. When he first dreamed of being… more… greater than… something special…
When had he known he was made for something more? Something better? Something special.
It didn’t matter now. This was an end. And a beginning…
He understood that now. In deeper ways none of the rest of them did. Glory was the last step. The final step. He could tell by their silence. He was the first. And maybe the only one for just the next couple of beats of the galaxy. As usual, some would try to emulate. Try to follow. Fake it until they made it. But they didn’t understand. They would just be faking it… hoping to make it.
Which was the next best thing when you didn’t understand. They were masters of that back on Earth. It was how they stayed hip and followed the trends. It was how they stayed
in.
Fake it. Even if you don’t mean it.
Follow power and you become powerful.
“I’ll do it,” said Crometheus to them all, to no one. Really just himself. “I’ll go up-station and create as much chaos as possible in order to buy time until relief comes. I’ll deal with the counterassault into the core and stop them from accessing the flush controls.”
Silence. Overwhelming silence. Comprehension dawning in some. Disbelief in others. Covetous desire in everyone.
They coveted what he had from the get-go of that moment. Even if they didn’t understand it. They sensed there was something about the future in it.
And they wanted that more than anything.
Even the R&D sleeping on the server that had to be protected at all costs.
One by one, five others said they’d go too. Volunteered for a chance at honor and glory. Taking a risk that they too would Uplift to the final step and become gods through sacrifice. Hoping for a far side to the end of the road.
They’d been here before.
The plan was approved by Commander Zero. Go up and create chaos in order to delay the inevitable storming of the level by overwhelming Animal forces. Hopefully… they would hold out until the fleet arrived. That was the only way all of them would survive. Or just some.
Later, when they were redistributing the ammo, loading up the Chaos team, as the six who’d go up-level would be known, she came to him and asked why.
“Why? Why are you doing this, Crometheus?”
Commander Zero was making sure the Chaos team, the first-ever designation for what would become the special operators of the Uplifted in all the years and battles to come, had enough of the new incendiary loads for the MK-1000s they’d been reissued out of the towed supply pallets, or taken from the hands of the dead. High-explosive rounds that hit their targets and detonated, propelling a tungsten carbine dumb-round through the impact area for bonus damage and excessive penetration. There weren’t a lot of these magazine loads, but the Chaos team would be getting pride of place for distribution.
Each member of the team also received a bandolier of grenades to loop about their chest plates. Like that vision Crometheus had had of Commander Zero coming through the flaming gas pumps with a necklace of walnut shells and temple bells—or was it death flowers?—worn around her neck. Except now he knew that hadn’t been her he’d seen. It had been himself. He’d had a holy vision of himself becoming.
Each grenade could be unclipped and deployed, or the whole bandolier could be daisy-chained and detonated for catastrophic damage. In the gyrating wild half-light of the powerful information storage core, throwing first purple, then pink, then red dwarf crimson, and finally a wash of cool blues to show that a run-cycle had just completed, the bandolier of grenades looked like that ancient walnut necklace certain religious cults had once worn back in the airports and refugee centers of long-lost ruined Earth.
Walnut shells and temple bells worn round the neck.
“Why do you need to know?” he replied as he fed a belt of high-explosive ammunition into his 1000. Indicator lights signaled load connection and ready for operation. He put the rifle down and checked both sidearms.
“I don’t know,” she said warily, and hesitated. “Something inside me tells me you’ve found… another step. The next step, and maybe even the last, Crometheus. And that somehow this is it. This is the last one. But it makes no sense. It’s like the old hokey religions of Earth when they used to tell you that you had to give up your life to gain it… all that crap. You’ll die up there, Crometheus. Don’t make any mistake about that. The odds are bad. Real bad. Six versus what’s shaping up to be over two thousand of theirs coming in loaded for bear. That’s not exactly even odds. That’s a slaughter no matter what I said a few hours ago.”
“And?”
“If it’s a choice between religions…” she spat back. Her voice hoarse and dry. Filled with some unspoken bitterness that had been there for a long time. “Then I’ll pick the one that gives me the math I can live with. I’ll take hard numbers over a miracle, Crometheus. Any day. And that’s true for every one of us whether we like to admit or not. I’ve never been so blind as to not understand exactly who each and every one of us really is. And what we want out of this,” she added knowingly. “I’ve never been that dishonest with myself. Even since all of this started centuries ago. Never. So why do it? Why throw yourself away today? Because that makes me wonder… about what you’ve found.”
“Come with me then. Find out for yourself.”
She shook her head. Then unclipped her helmet. And pulled it off and over her head.
Holly Wood. For a moment. Just for a moment.
So maybe this is the end, he thought. She’s always there…
For a moment it was Holly Wood from long ago. Except… it wasn’t. She just had that same classically beautiful Southern California tanned and blond beach bunny face. Blue eyes that sparkled like the sun’s reflections off an afternoon ocean.
Just like the Holly Wood of long ago at the roadside diner. Just like when she walked out of his life in some hotel along the road.
Edit.
Her eyes were questioning, wanting to know the secret. And frightened of him in the same moment. And that, too, was just like that long-ago lost dream girl made real he’d lost out there in the byways and highways of a ruined world dying that didn’t even know it was dead yet.
Just like her. Except not all dead and bloody. Buried in a shallow grave halfway between nowhere and the end of the road. Halfway between Reno and Rome.
Edit. Bad Thought.
But not. Funny, he thought to himself. Remembering all his past shedding if only through fragmented details. Details surfacing like wreckage in a pond. Or on the ocean after a storm. A little at a time and bearing no resemblance to the whole of what it all once was. What it all had been. What had really happened, or happened the way he wanted to remember it. She always appeared. Each time he began again. She always did.
Why?
“Honor and glory,” he muttered at Commander Zero as he finished stuffing mags into his carrier. “That’s all now. That’s all there ever really was. It was that easy. We were just too busy angling for the credit.”
She shook her head again, just Commander Zero now and not Holly Wood. She shook her head as though she couldn’t believe that the answer he was going to give her, going to leave her with, before he went off to his certain death, was as simple as that.
“I don’t… understand,” she replied softly. An innocent whisper like some little girl who didn’t know and didn’t mind confessing that the world, the galaxy, the universe, was full of secrets.
Then he smiled at her, giving his commander the old whiplash sneer from the cover of all those albums he’d made when he was just a punk kid with nothing to lose and everything to burn.
“Then I guess you’re just not ready yet.”
And he left her.
Helmets on. Guns up. The Chaos team departed minutes later into the cut the combat engineer specialists had made into the ceiling of this level that gave them access to the next level up-station. Behind them, as they crawled through the darkness ahead, they could hear the plasma torches sealing them off once again.
There was no turning back now. No retreat this time.
There was only forward.
There was only honor and glory to be purchased.
Gods: Chapter Twenty-Nine
Crometheus and the other members of the Chaos team heard the Animals coming down through the station’s levels. But before that they heard the big troop lifters, heavy freighters, coming in. Engines flaring into heavy whines while the industrial-sized repulsors throbbed to life, sending ominous deep bass notes through the superstructure of the mostly underwater station. Then boots on the ground, combat boots, uncountable if you didn’t have the armor’s
sensors and HUD doing all the number-crunching and isolation work. Walker mechs followed, as did other light attack vehicles descending onto the top of the station.
There was comm traffic over the enemy’s channels, but it was scrambled and therefore incomprehensible.
“Need a hard connect to their comm to run my decoder and hack in. Get one of the Animals for me, guys, and we can listen in on all the plans they have for us. Should be fun.”
That was Alantra. Slicer extraordinaire. She’d been a theoretical climate modeler with a massive social media following back in the last days of Earth. A scientist at heart who’d been easy on the eyes and was always adventure vacationing to talk about climate change in a bikini. Crometheus had hooked up with her early on in the flight to the first world. They’d lasted about six months and there’d been no hard feelings when it ended. But they’d all lived a lot of lifetimes since then. And that was a long time ago even in real time. Forever inside the Pantheon.
Now, as their new bodies tried to control adrenal responses and the fear creeping into their psyches that came from being this far forward, or rather upward, of friendly lines, the six of them chattered over the comm to maintain their sense of superiority—that was most likely quite warranted with regard to the troops they were about to face. Tech-wise.
Numbers-wise was another story.
Alantra. That was her chosen god name. And the rest of the Chaos team was…
Smaug.
Zur.
Immaculus.
Marz.
And himself. Crometheus. Squad god of the first Chaos team.
All of them with their godling tags. As if to claim so, was to be so. But they’d had other names, lost and shed long ago.
They all had. Once.
If only, thought Crometheus. The resolve he’d felt when he volunteered to go forward was now fading in the cold light of what they were about to face. If only we were truly now gods.
Gods & Legionnaires (Galaxy's Edge: Savage Wars Book 2) Page 26