The city was luxurious, Dhruv Deshmuhk had to admit. He had accumulated vast amounts of wealth during Interstellar War by providing legions of clones to first the Combine and then the Imperium. True, there was the embarrassment almost a hundred years ago which led to the fall of the Clone Corporate Collective, but that had shattered the old method and allowed him to achieve his current powerful position.
With the end of the Mantid/Interstellar War, there was plenty of decomissioned warships to go around. With the Imperium of Humanity having outlawed the great Martial Orders of Lost TerraSol he predicted he would be able to accrue even more military hardware. Manning the ships would be no problem, he'd paid handsomely to veterans of the Interstellar War for their mental engrams.
Sure, he'd been required to hire the best and institute a crash manhattanprogram to edit out all the trauma and life experiences to just retain the experience and training of crew-members, but it had been worth it. The vast cloning banks in his possession could produce ten thousand highly skilled spacers in a matter of days.
Nobody would dare to face him now.
The Imperium was stupid to outlaw the Martial Orders, they were the iron first, the only thing anyone would be afraid of, Dhruv thought to himself, staring at the sky out the 230th story window at the city. It had a population of nearly 15 million, all of them clones of twenty-two bloodlines, with thirty-eight different experience and skill sets.
A perfect world, Dhruv thought to himself. The mistake the Mantids made was the hive mind. Once that was breached they fell apart, rebelled, cried out for the Martial Orders to destroy the hive mind so that they could have freedom of thought.
He looked down at the teeming city.
They have freedom of thought, but they all think within select parameters, Dhruv thought. Humanity, clean of the scarring of our history. No madness from the Glassing, no hatred of racism, sexism, specism, or even phenotype. I've even managed to remove the disdain for the few remaining Freeborn out there.
That made him curl his lip. One of the few good things the Combine did after the Glassing of TerraSol was institute the Genomic Matching System, ensuring that the survivors didn't interbreed and that defective genetic structures could be eliminated. True, that had been the status quo after the Extinction Agenda Attack, ensuring that only the genetically compatible were allowed to breed and only then in minimal number, but since the Great Glassing and the Interstellar War that followed, humanity needed to get its numbers up. Which meant breeding, but everyone knew that unrestrained breeding willy-nilly just led to genetic damage and weakness in the genome.
He had to admit, his held a disgust for the freeborn in his heart.
Which is why he had subtly, through bribery, extortion, and threats, ensured that the coding he wanted was the coding that the Genomic Matching System used to determine breeding pairs.
His comlink, the secure one that had an unlisted and limited access number, started to flash. Not the green of a standard unimportant message nor the amber of something needing his immediate attention.
But red. Which meant that it was catastrophic.
"Yes?" Dhruv asked, tapping the accept button.
"Sire, there is a situation. You are needed in the war-room," came the calm voice of Razak, his head of military security.
Dhruv didn't answer, just hung up. He hurried to the elevator and then to a waiting air-limo, noticing that the normal two guards had been increased to twelve and that there were two sting-wings flying with his craft.
Nobody told him anything, but he wasn't worried. What worried him was the fact that Razak had convinced the Planetary Supervisor to order everyone into the shelters. Even from this height he could see the shutters lowering over windows on the skyscrapers and faintly hear the sirens blaring out.
The ride was short, only thirty minutes, to the mountain entrance of the military command center. Identical clones, all of them with decades of infantry experiences in their brains and muscle memory carefully programmed to match the experience, all saluted as he hurried from the underground parking garage and into the elevator. The elevator dropped with a notable feeling, plunging him deep into the planet's crust.
From there it was a short walk that only took about five minutes until he reached the war-room.
The amount of beings there looked like a practical exercise. Every commander from continental ground forces to system extraction infrastructure defense to the special operations command were all present. Military commanders from each city were present in holographic form, as were commanders of any unit Corps or higher.
Dhruv moved over and sat down, taking a moment to ensure his expensive suit was properly situated and his jewelry was in the correct locations. Finally, he was finished. He summoned up a drink, sipped at it, and did his best to look unconcerned.
The monitors were all showing the system of Nirvana-4585, with the icons for the various fleets and ships.
Two more months and I'd have ten times the ships, he thought to himself.
"What do we have?" Dhruv asked.
Razak stood up, looking dapper in his uniform, his appearance, like all of his genetic lineage and mental engram line, was lean and professional. Deadly looking.
"Approximately seventy minutes ago there was a massive FTL transit just outside the jumpspace resonance zone, which is the recognized system boundary of all star systems," Razak said. He pointed at the holotank, where there was a tight cluster of what looked like hundreds of icons.
Dhruv knew he didn't need to ask who they were, Razak would get to it.
"None of them are broadcasting their registries or IFF beacons," Razak said, pointing at the cluster. "Every single probe we've launched gets taken out light seconds from them. Looks like kinetic kill weaponry on drones."
Dhruv felt a chill settle over him looking at the cluster of icons. It was risky for them to all drop in that close together without all vanishing in clouds of debris as two vessels tried to materialize in the same spot and the cascading debris cloud wiped out the whole formation. Whoever did it was capable of pin-point astrogration that not even the best DS could be confident of.
"What did they use? Jumpspace, hyperspace, string-drive?" Dhruv asked.
"Unknown energy signature. Strong one, it scrambled the sensors in the nearby scan-arrays," Razak said.
"Approximately five minutes after they all arrived a single vessel started moving in system," Razak said. "High speed, they're already up to .25C, which is what they seem to be comfortable with," he clicked the holotank over to another view. A single red icon moving inward on an obvious intercept with the planet. "Fifty-two minutes ago on of our extraction stations got a good look at it and transmitted the data to us."
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Another click, this showing the vessel. It was grainy, due to distance, but everyone around the table sucked in a breath.
Big. The size of a dreadnaught. All black warsteel, a skull for the front with eyes full of blazing red fire. The forms of twisting and pleading humans sculpted all over the ship. Great pillars and spires. The engines were leaking red and purple and greenish-yellow energy.
The jaw of the skull held two six-barrel rotary nCv-Cannons with bores measured in the meters.
"It's not broadcasting. According to the scan, there's no life forms aboard," Razar said. "The ship's signatures and appearance doesn't match any ship Naval Intelligence has."
"Then I should have them fed into the genetic reclaimers," Dhruv said, gritting his teeth.
Him. Of anyone, it had to be him that shows up. The question is, did the Imperium send him? Dhruv wondered, staring at the menacing ship.
"Sire?" Razar asked.
"That ship should have been immediately identified," Dhruv growled. "That's the Taneea, probably the worst thing to see on your scopes."
"What government is the ship registered to?" Razak asked, checking his datapad.
"None," Dhruv said. "No system, no government, nobody would claim that ship."
Razak shook his head. "So, some military surplus ship held by a particularly bloodthirsty raider?" He tapped his datapad. "That's odd. My datapad just bricked."
Dhruv snarled, bring up the file on his implant and chucking it at the holotank.
A human head, ugly face, square jawed, tattoos in black ink on the face, shaved head. The eyes glowered with hatred. Small annotations came up, identifying the tattoos.
System Identification Number without enough digits - Born Pre-Diaispora - Delta City - America
Prisoner Number - Aspen Reclamation Camp - Multiple Life Sentences Without Parole
Tear-drop next to the eye to signify the being had killed, done in chrome
Helmet with a knife in it on the temple - Had killed a LawSec officer
Combine Military Rank - Colonel
Imperium Military Rank - Grand Knight
Blood Type: O-Neg
Red Tear on the other eye - He'd lost someone in the Glassing. Two tears below that for a total of 3.
A Mantid Head cracked from the top with a knife in it - Anthill Veteran
Below it was the name.
FREEBORN, DAXIN - WANTED BY IMPERIUM AUTHORITIES - CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS - !WARNING! CLINICAL MISANTHROPE WITH PSYCHOTIC AND OMNICIDAL TENDENCIES !WARNING!
scrolled by. Underneath was a list of crimes.
"Digital Omnimessiah," Ongotz whispered as the number of murders scrolled by.
"That doesn't count the fact he planet-cracked the Dunston Colony on Sharver's World," Dhruv said, shaking his head.
"What does he want with us?" Razak wondered.
"We should send in the fleet, there's only one of him," Nilitza suggested. "He can't take on our entire navy."
"Are you forgetting the hundreds, thousands of ships that came with him?" Razak said, shaking his head. "Sure, we could kill him but..."
"No, we couldn't," Dhruv said. When everyone looked at him he shook his head. "Believe me, a lot of beings have tried. Hell, the entire Mantid race tried. Anthill tried. The Combine tried. By burning Mars, even the Imperium tried."
Dhruv stood up, moving over to touch the screen. "See that? Now we know where the Martial Orders of the Imperium disappeared to. That's them. Right there. Everyone one of the Enraged Ones, following the biggest mass of rage and hatred the universe ever spawned."
Dhruv turned away from the screen, moving toward his chair. "All of you are too young, were decanted too late, to know just how terrifying it is that he's here."
Dhruv sat down and wiped his brow with a kerchief. "He's a walking goddamn war crime.
"And he's here."
Nilitza scoffed. "He's one man. Blow him out of space when he reaches orbit and activate the system defense arrays."
Dhruv turned and stared at him. "I didn't enhance your intelligence for you to fart out useless idiotic shit."
Nilitza colored and looked down. "It's just one man."
"That's not a man!" Dhruv yelled, coming to his feet and pointing at Daxin's picture. "He's the last of the Immortals. The first and the fucking last! Does that get it through your misbegotten head?"
Nilitza stood up. "You may be my creator but I don't have to listen to this."
"Yes, you do," Dhruv snarled, clenching a fist.
Nilitza opened his mouth then looked at the clenched fist. It was wreathed in purple energy, dark and light, a crackling mass that crawled up and down Dhruv's forearm. Black mist seemed to drift off of Dhruv's fist, disappearing a few inches from the floor. Nilitza sat down slowly, his forehead beading with sweat.
"He'll land at the spaceport. It would be best if I met him there," Dhruv said, standing up. "Keep everyone in the shelters."
-----------
The shuttle that landed looked like it had been through a war, which Dhruv felt probably wasn't too far off. It was battered and scorched, the skull motif late Combine/early Imperium, the coloration all black with red streaks.
The craft landed, steam hissing out from underneath, smelling of rusting iron and the sharp acrid smell of Mantid blood. The door hissed down, steam or mist, Dhruv wasn't sure which, poured out for a moment and then he moved down the gangplank.
Part of Dhruv wanted to run away screaming.
Daxin Freeborn thudded down the gangplank, heavy pistons wheezing, chains rattling, gears grinding. His eyes still burned with madness, his head was still scarred and shaved, purple pskyer lightning still crackled across his heavy armor, and that massive warboi he called a 'hellhound' bounded out after him, liquid warsteel pouring from the massive cybernetic hound's jaws.
The day seemed to get chillier as Daxin walked across the tarmac, leaving burning footprints behind him, getting closer and closer to Dhruv until he stopped in front of him, looking down at the much smaller man.
"You look like a fool without your armor," Daxin rumbled. Dhruv jerked slightly. The massive soldier was speaking Hindi as if he had born to it. Dhruv could even recognize which region.
"Times change, Colonel," Dhruv said, giving a slow bow.
"Don't bow to me. I'm nobody's ruler," Daxin said.
Dhruv stood up and stared. He should have known the day his spies had intercepted the report that Daxin had somehow broken out of the Titan mines that this day, this scene right here, would come to pass.
"You sold me out to Imperium Intelligence," Daxin rumbled. He looked around slowly. "Sold me out to them for all of this."
He leaned forward, eclipsing the sun.
"I hope it was worth it, Major Deshmuhk," Daxin growled. It wasn't just the growl that made the hairs on the back of Dhruv's neck stand up, but the Old India accent that Daxin emulated perfectly. The slight tilt the words of a superior addressing one of the untouchables. "I could take it all from you."
Dhruv nodded slowly, swallowing thickly.
"Take it all away, break your legs, rip this planet down to nothing but rad blasted sand and rock, ram a prybary through your guts, leave you exactly like I found you," Daxin rumbled.
Dhruv kept nodding, his stomach suddenly clenching in remembered pain.
"You know. I know it," the Terran said. He slowly straightened up. "I hope it was worth it."
"I won't know for some time yet," Dhruv admitted, shaking his head. "Right now, as I'm sure you noticed, I'm not really strong enough to resist any attack by the Imperium or any of their allies."
The big human looked up at the sky as if he could see all the starships in orbit. "Hmph. Easily remedied."
"How? The Imperium and Cybo shipyards are keeping pretty good track of who's buying ships," Dhruv said. "They know I'm trying to buy warships."
Daxin made a tossing noises and Dhruv's datalink gave a squeal of pain as the datapack slammed into the firewall, shattered it, and crashed into Dhruv's onboard memory. The weight of the it practically drove Dhruv to the ground.
"There. The access codes to the ships. Registry codes, AI passphrases, everything you'd need to use those ships once you printed off the crews in your genejack vats," Daxin said, still staring up.
"That doesn't do me any good if... oh..." Dhruv saw it. Astrogation codes, satellite transponder codes, everything he would need.
The Imperium had mothballed its fleet around four brown dwarf stars. Thousands of warships just orbiting the dead star like an artificial asteroid belt.
"They're there. I did a scan personally," Daxin said. To Dhruv his voice sounded like grinding metal. "Just sitting there, like there won't be another war for ever and ever bless all the cookies and puppies and rainbows shit out by the Digital Omnimessiah."
"Is it true?" Dhruv asked the question that had been burning on everyone's mind for the last two years.
"Many things are true, Major," Daxin said.
"Is it true about what happened between you and the..." Dhruv started to ask.
Daxin turned and stared at Dhruv. "What do you care? You betrayed me. You have no place at my right hand, Major," he made a motion out to the sky. "I'm still here. They aren't."
//should bite legs off leave staring at sun with no eyelids traitor traitor// the massive hellhound broadcast to Dhruv's implant.
Dhruv swallowed again, feeling his stomach fill with acid.
"What do you want, Colonel?" Dhruv asked, trying to gain some sense of control.
Daxin leaned down, putting Dhruv in shadow again.
"You know exactly what I'm here for," he growled.
Dhruv shook his head to deny the truth.
"You owe me."
Dhruv closed his eyes, knowing what was coming next.
"You will pay me back. Won't you..."
Dhruv nodded slowly.
"Legion."