Creed

I made my way toward the escape pods of Kuroe. The sea of neon lights from the invaders and Kuroe’s defenses fighting light up the cloud of dust and smoke filling quadrant II. The sounds of war, explosions, gunfire, screaming, and robotic screeching invade my ears. The robot guards were doing their best to defend the Generator, but they had no idea that nearly all of the people they were tasked to protect were dead.

As far as I knew, I was the only scientist left. There might have been some others who managed to escape into other quadrants, but they were most likely killed in the chaos of the invasion.

Kuroe trembled again, like it had a few times before. The rumbling does not feel like it was caused by an explosion, an explosion large enough to rock all of Kuroe would also be powerful enough to rip the station into pieces. I could only think of a few other reasons Kuroe was trembling. There might’ve been something pressed in the control hub that caused an instability in the devices holding the black hole in place, if that were the case, we would now be orbiting it. Another possibility was that Kuroe was being slowly ripped apart, quadrant by quadrant.

After the initial rumble, another shock threw me sideways into a house. I crashed through the window and luckily landed on a carpet, softening my fall. I can notice a slight consistent rumbling now, but no major shocks.

I ran out of the abandoned house and looked at the door leading to the hallways that led to the generator. The small window on the door showed the hallway section slowly traveling away from quadrant II. Or rather, quadrant II was traveling away from the hallways. The way Kuroe was constructed was a single large construct, the generator itself and the hallways, around the black hole, with the four quadrants connecting to it via smaller hallways and many supports. The invaders must have destroyed these supports, leaving the four quadrants to drift away from the Generator. I caught a glimpse of the other quadrants through the small window, slowly drifting away.

After a few moments, a ship outside of my field of view shot hundreds, maybe even thousands of missiles toward the Generator, the core of Kuroe 228922, ripping the metal structure nearly as large as a small moon into pieces, those pieces swallowed by the black hole itself.

All of my research I’ve done in the last thousand years, gone in an instant. The drug we managed to develop to nearly halt cell degeneration, effectively stopping aging, was stored somewhere in there. Humanity will find the formula for the drug eventually, but the system we had with Kuroe granted us nearly unlimited resources. The Kuroe program, while not too great in the moral department, enslaving people and all, was incredibly efficient in technological development. Now that the IGC has started cracking down on Kuroe stations, technology advancement will start to slow on a galactic scale, the IGC must not know how much of the technology they use was developed in Kuroe installations.

I pulled my eyes away from Kuroe and her feast. I turned around, bringing me back to the war at hand, something I nearly forgot about. I almost wanted to turn around again, open the door, and fall into Kuroe myself, to be destroyed along with all the work me and my colleagues had done, but I know the universe will need someone like me now. The IGC may hate me for participating in the Kuroe program, but I will undoubtedly be one of if not the most experienced scientist in the universe, and become an invaluable asset to them.

The secret of cell degradation stalling was something exclusive to Kuroe 228922. The rest of the universe still had a lifespan of 150 for normal humans, an improvement from 80 when we first left earth. Even after thousands of years, earlier scientists were not able to break that barrier. Aging was an inevitable thing, until Kuroe 228922 made this monumental discovery. Now it was in my hands to spread this secret to the rest of humanity, to bless them with nearly unlimited life.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

But in order to do that, I need to escape Kuroe. I started running toward the airlock where I first met the “inspector” guy who tried to kill me. If there was anywhere I could meet with one of the invaders and have them escort me to a rescue shuttle, it should be there. That is if I don’t run into the inspector on the way there. He knew my face, knew that I was one of the staff here, and would kill me on sight, but now that I shed my lab coat, I looked more or less like a normal civilian. If another one of the invaders found me, they wouldn't hesitate to escort me to one of their ships.

Many layers of the main area of quadrant II had collapsed, creating pathways up and down the layers made of ruined buildings. I passed many different shops and homes as I circled the main area, many already empty, but some still had people in shock, people who died, or ones who refused to leave their loved ones behind. My life was priceless compared to theirs, I had the secret of long life in my head, while these people had nothing. My helping them would only slow me down and risk my life, so I ignored them and continued on, adamant to survive this catastrophe.

A rogue missile flew right in front of me, decimating a house with a grieving family inside, the blast wave throwing me back a few meters. It must have come from the battle taking place across the area, where the Kuroe automatic defenses were desperately trying to keep the invaders from reaching the now-gone Generator. I was thankful that it didn’t hit me, but not that thankful that a shard of metal embedded in my chest.

…

I couldn’t breathe. One of my lungs was gone, the other ripped in half. I didn’t know if my heart was still there or not. My stomach and intestines had been cut open, spilling a revolting combination of stomach acid, half-digested food, and blood out of me. The only good thing I can say about my situation now is that I can’t smell it.

I collapsed on the ground and stared at the ceiling of quadrant II, looking out into the vastness of space out of the ceiling window. It looked so empty. That emptiness was a lie we told the civilians. One to keep them here so us scientists could be stationed here for thousands of years without the need of any outside help, isolating ourselves from the rest of the universe.

I felt a bit sad that my last moments alive were spent gazing at my own lie.

I couldn’t feel my face anymore. I couldn’t cry even if I wanted to. The rest of my body stopped responding to me, and I felt cold. So cold. It’s freezing. Help… I don’t want to die, I can’t. Not yet… I still have so much to give to the universe… Please…

As my world started to darken and my vision started to fade, I noticed my head bouncing around, my vision bouncing along with it. I was jerked back awake to see one of the invaders carrying me and a few other civilians away to their ship.

A glance at my chest revealed a patch of a white substance that looked similar to drywall covering my wound. I felt a pain in my neck, and noticed the man carrying me sticking a needle in me.

“Oh, that’s a rejuvenator, it’ll help keep you from dying and start to heal you up.” The soldier said to me.

I could feel my energy levels rising by the second, and nodded in thanks.

“I’m taking you and these other people to our escort shuttle, they’ll get you patched up and good as new.” He said, picking up the pace.

Before I knew it, we arrived at their shuttle, moved through the crowd of unharmed civilians, and came to their medical bay, where he laid me down on a stretcher. Before I could say a thing, he disappeared, gone to save some more near-dead civilians.

A doctor or a nurse walked by me and stuck me with a needle, which must have had the opposite effect of the earlier one, since I was unconscious in seconds. They were probably putting me to sleep to make operating on me easier.