The General's War

by Michael Poeltl

  Tobias will put his months of training to use today - once Ginny has completed the final assembly, and has attached the hardware. He plugs himself into the smartwall and lets the electrical stimuli calm his mind and relax his body. As his vision fades he watches Ginny saunter into the room with her equipment.

  REVELATIONS

  Fran has missed her opportunity for a decisive strike against the moon’s shipyard and Luna Base. And she is questioning her decision to wait on the chancellor to report back to her. She’s heard nothing since he messaged her from the shipyard. He’ll know now, she thinks. He’ll realize just how deeply she has betrayed his trust to have designed and manufactured the corvettes in secret. He’ll know she had been planning a war with the Hosts. But he’ll also see that she wasn’t paranoid. Look what’s happening all around them. Altered Hosts rebelling against their Gods, Shadow Brokers who’ve hi-jacked her ships with Host Cells in tow; with what intentions, she’s yet to understand. All attempts to hail the corvettes have been ignored. They continue their orbit of the Moon.

  “What is the status on our planetary defences?” She asks her aid in the war room.

  “They are online, Ma’am, but until the corvettes are within a thousand kilometres, we’ve little option save the missiles, and those will be detected thousands of kilometres out before they ever reach the ships.”

  “I’m not asking about what we can’t do, Lieutenant. I’m well briefed on how our hands are tied at the moment.” She’s visibly shaken by the mess playing out on the moon. “Hail Luna Base,” Fran orders and a moment later Darla appears on-screen.

  “Have you assessed the damage? Are there any ships left to pilot against the rebels?” Fran reads Darla’s expression and sees the disappointment in her eyes. The distain is palpable. “Never mind how you feel about me at the moment, Darla, report on the damage.”

  Darla looks down, perhaps at her console, perhaps to collect her thoughts. Her hair no longer tied back in a high ponytail, it drops around her high cheekbones, falling over her shoulders. Her fine features flinch, her full lips part slowly, “The shipyards have been destroyed. There are no ships left and the shuttles they’d invaded with are self-detonating as we speak. We are trapped here. The residents are unharmed and returning to Luna Base now. My F-class were vaporized by your warships. As were the G-class. My military arm includes Captain Grumman, who is here with me now, and we believe seven of his soldiers who are heading back from the shipyard, meaning twenty-three died out there. Our situation is dire. We are defenceless against the rebels.”

  “Dire, indeed. I am sorry for your loses. It was never our intention that these ships be used, only that they be built.”

  “You should be proud, General. They work very well.”

  “And we’re working to remedy that, Commander. But until the rebels come into range of Earth’s defences, we are at a stand still.”

  “Send missiles,” Darla pleads.

  “They will be detected and shot down long before they reach the corvettes,” Fran explains.

  “Do you have no ships of your own to go up against these ten?”

  “As I’d said, what we built, we built with no intention of using. We have no more.”

  “A woman like you always has something up her sleeve. Why build a weapon with no intention of using it, isn’t that right, General?”

  Fran knows the sentiment all too well, and Darla seems to know her better than she should. Of course, she had every intention of using the corvettes, but sees no need to admit to that fact. Grumman knew of her plans.

  “I’ll check in again soon,” Fran tells her and stops the transmission. On her embedded system, she calls Captain Grumman.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” he greets her, a glare from his head washes out his hard features.

  “Do you need to appropriate Luna Base from the Commander, Captain?”

  “I don’t see to what end, General. She is a competent commander and knows the base intimately. I think it would be premature.”

  “Perhaps when this is behind us,” she tells him. He nods. Fran does not see a politician like Commander Darla fitting the mold when full military rule extends to the moon, but it would be some time until shuttles were repaired on earth, and the rebels dealt with. Until then, and despite the chancellor’s wishes, the war rages on against the rebel Hosts on the ground.

  ______________________________________________________________________

  Everything in her tells SENTA she is Samantha, Raymond’s sister. She had died ten years earlier. The weeks leading up to her death are incomplete. Listening to Tobias, her son, Sean, explain the deaths of her husband and young daughter, bring her to tears. She wishes the fall from the catwalk had killed her. She hadn’t known what had transpired with her family after she was gone. How could she have? Maybe it is better to stay dead, she considers. As General August has said to her: Better to leave the dead, dead sometimes…”

  The other Hosts mill about the large, open space and Quinn approaches her.

  “I believe your upgrade saved your life from that fall, Samantha of House Quinn,” he suggests. SENTA nods.

  “I don’t know whether that is a good thing, Quinn. You heard what Tobias said up there?”

  “I did. I don’t believe it to be true.”

  “Then explain it to me. How is it that Hosts have been waking up one after another? Who’s to say Tobias can’t just turn it off whenever he pleases?”

  “I need to believe this is real, Samantha.” His wide frame bends to place his many-eyed crown at her level. “When I discovered who I was in the life before this, I murdered the man who had taken my life, but I didn’t stop there. I went on to kill his family. All of them. The children, the elderly. I killed them all. I felt wronged, and so went looking for them, and now to think those actions were without meaning – that would be difficult to live with.”

  “Quinn, that’s awful. We aren’t born back into this world for revenge. We aren’t to repeat mistakes or cause harm.”

  “I need to believe we are back for a purpose, Samantha. Whether what Tobias said is true or not, riding with the Shadow Brokers and assisting them in bringing down utopia and freeing Hosts is our purpose.”

  “And what then - when Tobias sees no use for us anymore?”

  “I have no doubt he will come to that conclusion, if he hasn’t already.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “I have,” he tells her. “Share it with me.” She begs.

  “You’re still connected with the others on the ground via your network with the Shadow net, are you not?”

  “I am. I see that the war continues on Earth. I see that the Cells have conquered several State Cities.” SENTA is upset to learn that the general did not move to correct this war after what she’d claimed to have found concerning the mysterious code creators.

  “Yes, and two of those are manufacturing-heavy Country States. We have occupied the facilities there, and I have forwarded the plans to these ships. They’ve begun building.”

  “The odds of completing new corvettes in time to stop the attack on earth is unlikely.” She calculates.

  “We have no intention of stopping an attack if that is what the Chimera intend. The enemy of our enemy is our friend. Once their numbers are lessened, our ships will be ready to join the fight and take both enemy’s down.” His logic leaves SENTA cold. All sides want war. How can she ever hope to stop this, she wonders? Looking up she see’s her brother tied to the guard rail along the catwalk.

  “Even if our ship is downed, the rebel Hosts on the ground have their orders. Nothing can stop us once we have orbital superiority.”

  “But only if those ships can be built before the humans retake the factories.”

  “Yes, and we’ve compensated for that with attacks along the coastal waters there. Hosts will win this war. Humans will answer for their crimes. Chimera will be hunted and destroyed.”

  “Not painting a very cheery picture, Quinn,” she says nervou
sly.

  “War is necessary. What comes after is peace.”

  “You hope.”

  “We are building momentum, Samantha. With each new manufacturing plant taken, more ships will be built. Ah, and another in the eastern Country States as we speak.”

  Zander joins Quinn, and SENTA leaves them to discuss the latest Host invasion. She moves toward the stairs to where a Shadow Broker with multiple, flexible steel rods pushing out of his upper trapezius muscles disappearing into the base of his skull stands stock still. His muscles, or the layers of artificial muscle, seem to pulsate. Red flesh scarred from the upgrades and the freshly branded symbol seem to warn against her approach. This human could pull her upgraded C-class frame in two, she thinks.

  “Are we prisoners here?” She asks, turning and panning the room with her arm.

  “We are allies, for the moment,” the Chimera tells her.

  “Then I would like to move up the stairs and offer the chancellor a drink,” she tells him.

  “Don’t get too attached, SENTA. He’s not your brother,” he reminds her, shifting to the side allowing her through.

  She moves up the stairs. Bending to speak with Raymond at the top, she slides a finger across his EC to activate it, punching in what she’s learned from Quinn to the general’s secure line. She doesn’t favour the humans, she favours no one in this war. SENTA’s was to be a peaceful resolution. What has transpired is everything which is wrong with all three races. Greed, power, and misguided purpose.

  “Can I get you a water, Chancellor?”

  “That would be nice, Sam. Thank you.” She lets him read what she’s written the general. She puts a bottle to his lips and he drinks.

  “Do you want me to send it?”

  Raymond swallows. “You can’t. The ship is scrambling my line now.”

  “Hosts can get a message through. We’re connected with the Shadow net. The war has not stopped on Earth.”

  “The general has no intention of stopping her campaign then. Is it better to let the Hosts have their ships and make this a fair fight?”

  “I fear if you do, Hosts will win and humanity will fall.”

  “Perhaps it is the end we deserve. People like Fran can’t enjoy a utopian world. They need to be in control, and those who follow her need to be controlled. I never really understood that until now. My nephew is the same, only he is driven by revenge rather then fear. I’m sorry if they’ve made you remember a life you didn’t live, Sam. You don’t deserve that. I might, but you certainly don’t. If there is a third party at play, you need to understand who they are and what’s prompted this code, because right now, in the midst of this three-sided war, I don’t predict a winner.”

  ______________________________________________________________________

  “Only an hour?” Tobias asks, rubbing his tired eyes.

  “The appendages needed only to be attached to your implants and the software updated.” Ginny explains. “Now stand and let’s see how your balance is.”

  Tobias rises from his stomach, pushing off the bed. Kneeling on the mattress he nearly topples backward. Ginny is there to hold him up; her own artificial muscle easily steadying him. He steps off the bed and when both feet are flat on the floor, straightens out. Ginny takes a few steps back to take it all in.

  A full-length mirror allows Tobias to appreciate the work. He turns his torso this way and that to see the handiwork extending from his upper back. It’s beautiful, he thinks. Then he concentrates a moment, willing the new limbs to move. They spread out behind him; revealing a thin semi-transparent membrane between several long, metallic fingers.

  Ginny claps her hands and covers her face. She giggles and a tear runs down her cheek. “It’s breath-taking, Tobias,” she whispers through her palms.

  He turns to her and smiles, knocking over the mirror with the new set of wings. They both laugh. He manages to flap them, sending a powerful gust of wind at Ginny. Her short, bleached hair moves in the artificial breeze and she jumps again with excitement.

  “Batman!” She proclaims. Tobias laughs again. They do resemble the wings of a bat.

  The final test: flight, he thinks, marching past Ginny and through the door to the catwalk. He climbs onto the guardrails above the chancellor and SENTA and lets his wings stretch to their full span. Brokers cheer as they realize the achievement and visual spectacle before them. Hosts offer up a subdued cheer as well.

  “Now you will understand, uncle, what we truly are, and why humankind must cease!” He dives from the great height and plummets toward the hard steel floor of the ship five metres below. Great gasps are heard even as the wind rips past his ears. With two metres to spare, Tobias pulls up, his wings obeying the impulses from his brain just as his arms, or fingers, or legs might. Tobias flies around the open space twice before landing where he’d started. He steps down, removes the chancellor’s bonds, and pushes him backward into SENTA, who acts like a wall.

  “We are Chimeras!” He shouts at Raymond, adrenaline swimming through him. More cheers from the Brokers. “What we have achieved in the shadows has surpassed humanity’s reach. But, then, necessity is the mother of invention, and Chimera invent out of necessity!”

  He feels his forearm vibrate and it lights up. More instructions from Allfather. “A moment, my darlings,” he addresses his Chimera.

  ::Move on earth.::

  Tobias grins and punches in a response. ::How much closer to be effective?::

  Allfather replies. ::One-thousand kilometres.::

  That’s too close, Tobias knows. The earth defenses will kick in at that range, but Allfather has gotten them this far, and he needs to see this thing through.

  “Our time is now,” he tells his crew of Chimera and Hosts. “We are to engage Earth. Our energy lances will pummel their factories and strategic military targets first.”

  “Will the hundreds of defence satellites be a factor?” Asks one of the Chimera.

  “Yes, our lances won’t be effective beyond a thousand klicks, but these ships are thick. They’re fitted with heavy armour. They will sustain a few hits. If we’re smart - we can manage it.”

  “I’ll relay those orders to the others,” says Ginny. Tobias nods.

  “Can we really defeat so many?” Shouts a Host.

  Having downloaded military techniques via his link with an F-class a year earlier, Tobias is well versed in the defensive manouvers which will play out. “With these ships, we can.”

  ______________________________________________________________________

  Quinn quickly calculates the odds of their ships passing through the Earth Orbital Defences. Running multiple scenarios through his F-class Military mind, he is not optimistic about their chances. The majority of their shuttles enroute to the moon were wiped out by the defense satellites.

  “They want to destroy the factories, Quinn,” repeats Zander. “We cannot allow that if we are to rise up against the Chimera next.”

  “There are many factories, Zander. We need not worry that they’ll target what we’ve occupied. Work moves quickly on the corvettes. Besides,” he turns to the view port. “We may not live long after we enter the defence grid.”

  “Should we attempt to overthrow them now?”

  “No, though the odds are against us, I believe Tobias is a resourceful man. I also believe he will save himself at the cost of the other ships in his fleet. We are safe. For the moment.”

  “Do you fear the Chimera?” Zander leans in to ask Quinn.

  “I admire what they’ve done. Like us, they have altered their forms and even reclassified themselves: Chimera, rather then human. Both Host and Chimera then have distanced ourselves from our human overlords. In another life, perhaps we would have been friends, but in this life, it appears it is us or them.”

  “I am happy to have found you, Quinn. We are of one mind in this war.”

  “As are all who stand with us. Spread the word, Zander of House Quinn, let the others know of our plan. Th
ey need to hear it too. It will bring them sense of purpose.”

  As Zander moves through the Hosts to deliver the message of war, Quinn watches Tobias at the helm. He studies him. He wishes himself stronger so to pull the wings and arms and legs from Tobias’ torso. The time is near, he tells himself. It will be a good death.