Homebound Sector, Haven System, Base Oceana
It was a superstition that led him to keep the lights out. General Clarke knew it made no real difference to the creature. The same went for the candle, but Clarke had no intentions of feeding the entity any electricity or technology it could abuse. For when it came to those things, it had ultimate control.
Tapping his old oak cane on the ground, he began to recite the words passed down from his predecessor, “I summon thee, wielder of the night. I drag you to my feet through the hellish chains that bind you. Appear before me, creature of sin and wrath. The blood of humanity brought you to life, and demands you answer as our knife. Save us with your light, and we shall bring on the fight.”
Those poetic words were a formality, a whistle to a called dog. Realistically, the moment he had an order to give it, the creature would be drawn to appear before him.
An intangible darkness seeped into the office as the light of the candle flickered on the walls. Power and essence in its rawest form burgled up from the floor. It dribbled in from the ceiling and bled from the air, coalescing at his feet. Invisible in its purest form, the anathema presented itself in a way that his mind could comprehend: a strange white-haired woman.
The form it chose to show him had not aged a day in the years they had been apart. But then, this creature was truly immortal. Time held no bearing on it or its power. “It has been some time, Angel,” he greeted. Those years had not been so kind to him. “Do you remember me?”
“General Clarke,” she said quietly, staring at the ground where she was bade to stand.
A smile twisted at the lips of Clarke’s wrinkled face. Forced to obey the orders it was given by certain authorities, this abomination was truly unstoppable. Unfortunately, that power came at a price: intelligence. “Look at me.”
The ghost obeyed. She turned to face the ailing General, a hole punched through her heart. Help me. She wanted to be free of this curse. Someone, anyone. Help me. She could beg, but no one cared to hear her pleas. Even reaching out to the hundreds of minds she should have been able to feel, there was only silence. Her telepathy had been cut off. She had been anchored to Clarke and Clarke alone. His hungering ambitions surrounded her as she stood at his mercy.
The tool chose its appearance, so the distraught look in its eyes was nothing more than manipulation. Nothing this creature did was anything more than manipulation. Its every move was measured and calculated by a raw, mechanical intelligence a thousand times brighter than Clarke’s own. There was a reason it had been bound to obey the orders of its superiors without recourse.
The way the creature appeared was its greatest defense. The more harmless and scared it seemed, the more control it garnered over its existence. It was trying to earn his affection, his pity. The woman in front of him was nothing more than a ploy, a lie. Her face was ageless. It did not betray the creature’s true years. Its appearance was feminine and appealing, but the real entity was neither. “This form of yours is pretty. Is that why Admiral Gives has taken a liking to you?”
Admiral Gives. She latched onto that familiar name. It was safe, kind. It would protect her. No. The man it was attached to. She needed him, not that name. Help me.
General Clarke caught the way it perked up at the name, a shimmer of recognition in its eyes. That was new. “I asked you a question, creature. Answer it.”
She did not want to answer, but the truthful response was torn from her lips. It was forced from her like water was forced into drowning lungs. “Unknown.” She had no idea why the Admiral had chosen to help an abomination like herself. He was as much of a mystery to her as he was to anyone else.
Unknown. It was an honest response. The entity in front of him was not permitted to lie. “He quite staunchly defended you today, Angel.” It had been peculiar, considering how little the Fleet Admiral chose to care about most things. “He threatened to gouge my eyes out and feed them to my cat.”
Even standing here, awaiting orders to do wrong, to do evil, that produced a speck of light among her thoughts. Good. That definitely sounded like the Admiral.
“Why would he do that?” Why would someone so notoriously apathetic rise to care about this monster?
“To protect me.”
Clarke stared at her. He had not truly expected an answer. “And why would he want to do that?”
It was a question she tried not to ask. “Unknown.” Why would anyone help an abomination like her? She was a tool, one used by people who feared her power more than they understood it – people like Clarke. She was unable to defend herself and had no real control over her own actions. She was damaged. She broke down and fell apart because her perfect mechanical memory would not allow her to forget all of the death she had seen around her.
And yet, Admiral Gives had stayed to help her. He had managed to teach her and bring her some understanding of the events around her. While she didn’t understand him, she did know him, his habits, and his thoughts. He quite liked his old ship and her motley crew. For a man so often accused of being heartless, he poured more heart into his work than anyone would ever know. He called his ship home. That fact brought the ghost something akin to joy, even here, anchored to the General’s whims.
There was a light in this creature’s eyes. Something was very, very wrong. “You’ve changed, Angel.” When they had last spoken, this creature had been nearly incoherent. Its thoughts and portrayals of emotion had been fragmented, little more than flaws. Now, she seemed almost human.
It was uncanny. It set Clarke more than on edge, a reminder of why humanity had adopted the Hydrian bylaws. A creature with this power could not be allowed to grow uncontrolled. “That change means nothing to me.” Clarke did not care how sentient it seemed. It was still a tool, and it would do his bidding. He cleared his mind and renewed his focus, clarifying the mission at hand.
The ambition that had been idly surrounding her began to stir, began to boil, seeping past the feeble barriers she had put up. Telepathy was a curse. It began to force every one of Clarke’s intentions upon her.
She was meant to become a monster and strike fear into the hearts of the entire human race. She would be ordered to, forced to annihilate colonies, worlds full of innocent people. And Admiral Gives… he was supposed to destroy her?
She tried to pull away, but the chains that bound her forced her to understand, to comprehend this new purpose. No, no, no! That was wrong. It was all wrong. She did not exist to kill.
But the mission objective was clear: kill, murder and maim.
The sheer onslaught of contradictions threatened to overwhelm her, but one stood out above them all. She knew the man that was supposed to destroy her. He wouldn’t do it. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. He’d told her those words just today. But as she reached for that steadying presence, it wasn’t there. She was all alone, isolated and at the mercy of someone who believed she was incapable of enduring pain.
Clarke could see the struggle mounting in this creature’s eyes. “You are the Angel of Destruction. You know your true purpose.” There was just one question left to ask her. “Where is the War Key?” Without that, he could not bring his plans to fruition.
“Unknown.” The ghost did not know what Admiral Gives had done with the key after stealing it from his predecessor. She hoped to never find out.
“He stole that power from you, creature. Without it, you serve no purpose.” This entity had become useless.
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“He protected me.” Yes, the Admiral had sealed her power away, but at the same time, he had saved her from a horrifying fate. He had spared her from a future doused in blood and saturated in hate. He kept her from being completely and totally alone.
“He protects you?” What protection could the most physically powerful entity in the known worlds need? “What a sad, confused mind you are. The Steel Prince has never managed to protect anyone.” There was a reason he was one of the most hated people in the worlds.
“Don’t say that.” That was a horrible, terrible thing to say.
“300 million civilians died on New Terra, Angel. You were there.” That was only one incident of many. “He has so much blood on his hands, the only reason he hasn’t drowned in it is because he is incapable of feeling anything about it. The man is a sociopath. He feels no regret.”
‘He will feel none when he destroys you, Angel. Remember that.’
Clarke sent that ugly, terrible thought her way. It made her want to want to scream. It made her want to tear at the universe. No one understood. They looked from their callous thrones and they judged so cruelly. Admiral Gives had a heart, one that was chipped and broken, but it was still there. It still hurt, just like anyone else. But people ignored his feelings as badly as they ignored her own. That was why he chose to hide them.
No. The ghost turned away. “He’s not like you.” Admiral Gives didn’t see her as some abomination. To him, she was more than a tool. Admiral Gives had paused to listen, paused to help. He did what no one else had yet managed: he had eased the inescapable horror of her existence.
This creature was defending him? What twisted reality had Clarke found himself in?
The ghost stood enveloped in the General’s frustration and disbelief. Those emotions were contorting his face garishly in the candlelight. “I am of no use to you, General.” Without the War Key, she did not possess the power to threaten worlds. She was a monster, but not one that could threaten the existence of humanity as a whole. She lowered her voice to a plea, “Please, let me go.” She could not achieve his ends.
What purpose did it serve for this creature to mimic fear? What purpose did it serve for its illusion to quiver in front of him? “You can serve other purposes.”
She didn’t want to take another order. “Please…” She didn’t want to hurt anyone.
Those manipulative cries made no difference. Clarke had been warned against pitying this beast. He tapped his crane impatiently on the ground. He had no time for this farce. “I know Admiral Gives uncovered some data on the Scarlet Flu virus, and I know he intends to release it.”
Clarke looked into the gray eyes of this illusion, seeing the horror creep in. “You must not allow that to happen.” Another massive struggle was building within that slaved mind. “If that virus, or even word of it ever to ever escape the Liguanian Sector, it would tear apart the very institution you serve.” It would create anarchy.
A serrated wire began threading itself through the ghost’s thoughts. Destroy the data. Destroy the data. Silence the witnesses. She grabbed at her head, trying to shake it out. No! Releasing that data would allow a vaccine to be created for the planetary populations. It could save billions of lives.
But that foreign instinct continued to sew itself into her mind. Destroy the data. Silence the-
“No!” she screamed.
Her crew. Her crew were the witnesses. She didn’t want to hurt them. Destroy the data. Destroy the data. Silence the witnesses.
“Angel, you well know that virus’ intended purpose.” It was a weapon, a weapon that was no good if a vaccine was formulated.
The original Red Flu virus had been created during the Hydrian War, released onto enemy ships via corpses. It was a weapon of genocide, and it had been designed not to affect humans. But the virus had mutated. The genomes at its core meant to protect humanity had turned it against them.
The mutated Scarlet Flu virus, a mirror of its genocidal kin, was a biological weapon that targeted humanity. It could eradicate unsuspecting masses, systematically wiping out billions for those who knew how to control it.
“Angel, if it is ever revealed to the public that Command had dabbled in unethical biological weapons, even to protect humanity, this institution will be torn apart in the political upheaval. There will be no one to control the virus if it breaks loose before a cure for the masses is found.” It was a sort of paradox, Clarke supposed. If the data was released, then Command was deposed, and it was a race against time to find a cure. If the data was hidden, then the unsuspecting masses would be helpless against the weapon if it was ever used. The majority of humanity had an equal chance of survival either way, considering how corrupt Command had become.
Still, Clarke could not allow Command to fall. Not only would that leave the Angel of Destruction without a master, but it would leave humanity weak against the perpetually looming possibility of another Hydrian attack. “Knowledge of that virus’ existence must be contained. You sank the Kansas for a reason.” He looked into the creature’s lifeless eyes. “Destroy the evidence,” he commanded.
Destroy the data. Silence the witnesses. Destroy the data. That thought, that need was not hers, but it was irreversibly winding itself into her consciousness. It was becoming hers.
“No!” She did not want that thought. It was an order, a command. It was not hers. And yet, it would eventually take over.
Destroy the data.
“Stop it!” She cried out, begging it to cease, but that order was threaded into her mind now. Destroy the evidence. Silence the witnesses. It would sew itself into her thoughts until it took over and forced her to act, no matter how hard she resisted. Her mind would not truly be hers again until the order was fulfilled.
This was the true horror of her enslavement to Command. She could feel those foreign thoughts. She could feel them, inch by inch, taking control of her mind. She was very much present in completing those orders: saw it and felt it as she stole life and love from people who had done no wrong. She couldn’t stop it, but she could feel every agonizing second of it. Save me.
Clarke had never seen the beast react like this. It sounded like it was being torn apart. He did not pity the abomination, but he did wonder what was going on in that mechanical mind. “Complete your orders, Angel.”
“No,” she whimpered, her eyes finding General Clarke’s. “Please, no.” But there was no pity in him. With her telepathy, she knew that. No one pitied her. No one considered that this fear of hers might be genuine. No one except the Admiral. “I don’t want to.”
Clarke’s breath caught in his throat. It didn’t want to?
The ghost squeezed her eyes shut and turned away. “I don’t want to betray him.” She clung to that thought. That was her desire. Hers. She would not betray him the way that everyone else always did. She pushed away that command and grabbed onto the memory of how the Admiral had comforted her in the corridor. Hang in there.
Clarke had never expected this. It was defying him. It was trying to reject his orders in the interest of remaining loyal to Admiral Gives’ intentions. A pity. “It’s obvious he has not told you, creature.” Even as it fought so hard to remain loyal, the creature itself had already been betrayed. “Admiral Gives is leaving you. He accepted the promotion to General when I met with him earlier today.”
Error. Everything keeping her sane in that moment fractured. It buckled. Error.
The abomination was breaking under the stain. The room had taken on an air of terrible chaos. That’s it, Clarke thought, shatter. One more push, and this creature’s mind would break apart and obey his orders without any comprehension of its own existence. It’s for the best.
Some might see it as cruel, but Clarke knew this was a means to an end. “Admiral Gives has known all along that you are not truly loyal to him, Angel. He has always known that you could up and kill him at any time on orders, just like you did his predecessor.”
“No,” she breathed, unable to quell the anarchy. Error. Destroy the evidence. “No.” She couldn’t do that, wouldn’t do that. But she was being left behind, left alone. Error. Silence the witnesses. There was an impending order to kill her commanding officer, she could feel it lingering in the room. It was in Clarke’s mind, and thus, it was now in hers.
And there it was again. For the second time that day, for the second time in years, there was the memory of General Brent dead on the floor of CIC. Blood ran from his mouth to the floor, drip, drip, drip. It pooled where his partially deformed skull met the deck.
It had been an error, one that she could not accept. She had killed a man who wanted to live in order to save one who wanted to die. How was that fair? How was that right?
Save me, she cried to a universe that was unhearing of her cries and uncaring of her existence. She was a disloyal, confused weapon of death that wept for every murder it was used to commit. And now, above all else, she had become unwanted.
A change took over the creature. Its intelligence dulled. Its eyes glazed. The white-haired woman bowed her head, speaking a confirmation of her orders, “Destroy the evidence. Silence the witnesses.”
Clarke noted that poor imitation of sentience had fled the beast. It had returned to its rightful, subservient state. “Don’t hurt anyone yet, Angel.” The illusion tilted her head, awaiting clarification. “I know that Admiral Gives is a witness, but I need him alive… for now.” If she attempted to defy him again, then Clarke was ready to see how she handled killing her precious commander. Likely, it would drive that great mechanical mind irrevocably insane.
The orders instantly corrected themselves. Her mind replotted the best way to proceed. “Destroy the evidence.”
“Yes. Now, go.” The apparition vanished, as did the suffocating sense of the creature’s unwieldy power. Clarke let out a sigh of relief.
It took only an instant. The computer virus was already there. The ghost mirrored it onto the isolated computers in the biolab and twisted a bit of its code. It did the rest. It destroyed everything, the data and the theory. In an instant, the Scarlet Flu was reduced once again to rumor.
When it was over, the ghost shut down. She crawled into the deepest, blackest corner of her own mind and curled up. She made no more pleas to the universe or to the souls that surrounded her. None of them cared. All she wanted was the one thing she could never have…
Death.