"Tell me a story, grampa..." - every child ever
There had been many things occurring. The Atrekna Phasic Gate System Pulse. The Terran Shade Assault. The Re-Emergence of the Digital Omnimessiah. The Flashbang Pulse.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only have its form changed.
Zero point eight of the Universe had been effected that the instantaneous pulse that cascaded across the very stars, resonating in the supermassive black holes of the galaxies old and young. The pulse reflected off the Expansion Wall and back into the interior of the Universe.
It wasn't a stomach ache. Not quite nausea as we could comprehend it. It wasn't an itch either. Those are just the closest we can come to understanding how the Malevolent Universe, our mercurial and maniacal mother, felt at that instant.
The phasic pulse reflected through the 9D Stack Tesseract.
Some of the other Universes chuckled.
Behold indeed they commented in their own unknowable way.
Sparks that would be Big Bangs giggled in childish glee at the flash even as their 'weight' increased slightly and they laughed and tittered as the slid downward, excited glee filling them. Older, depleted universes, spent of the last particle and preparing for the final emptiness that would see them rise to meet the older, heavier Bangsparks, felt the 'warmth' of the phasic pulse as it propagated and basked in it, becoming lighter, rising up.
The Universe twitched slightly at the stomach ache.
The titanic struggle between the pinworms of the Atrekna and the soothing balm of those who defied them had left the Universe's skin... well... a little itchy.
But that's not what our story is about.
[The Universe Hiccuped]
The day was cool, where Fort Kalketika was located on the cool dry central plains of the (now) cracked protocontinent was largely dry. Recovery was still undergoing, even in the two months since the Flashbang.
In one building, that had a military-grade zero-point reactor set in the parking lot and cables run to the building itself, was an office with windows that faced the parking lot. There were almost no decorations in the office, which held two desks.
On the door read "Major Vuxten, Brigade Maintenance OIC" and "Technical Specialist Six 471 - Brigade Armor Maintenance" with two pieces of tape marked with black block letters.
In the office was a Treana'ad, sitting in one of the comfortable chairs, smoking a cigarette. The rank of the Treana'ad's adaptive camouflage top was Colonel, and the officer had a cybernetic arm and cybernetic rear lower left leg.
The Treana'ad motioned at the walls, looking at the Telkan behind the desk.
"By the Old Egg Stealing Gods, Major, your office depresses me. I'm not sure if your lack of decorations is a sign of sociopathy and misanthropy or if you're planning on stealing the Brigade Ice Cream Fund and making a run for it," the Treana'ad said.
The Telkan, whose desk nameplate read "MAJOR VUXTEN" felt the tips of his ear redden. "I just haven't had time to up stuff."
"Seems like a man who won the Confederate Cluster of Gallantry would at least put a copy of his award letter up for us to marvel at," the Colonel said, puffing smoke rings from three of his legs.
The Telkan flushed again. "Didn't want that."
"Of course you didn't!" the Treana'ad said, gesturing. "That's why we waited till you were asleep after surgery, snuck up on you, and glued it to your forehead!" the Treana'ad gave a grinding laugh. "We had to use the good stickum or you'd have peeled it off and pretended you didn't get it," the Treana'ad shook his head. "By the Detainees chubby ankles, Major, you think you got that for political reasons?"
The Telkan nodded.
The Treana'ad gave a bovine-like snort. "Fights in the War in Heaven, assaults the very afterlife next to the Walking War Crime and the Digital Omnimessiah himself, fights ancient Screaming Ones and Glassing Era phasic shades and androids as he defends the Detainee as she pulls people's very immortal souls from languishing in darkness, tanks at least two hits from a Novastar while defending the Digital Omnimessiah himself, once while outside of his armor and with a severe concussion, and thinks he got his Cluster due to politics," he took a long drag off his cigarette. "Major, I assure you, going over your record, going over the absolute whirlwind your life has been since you got conscripted by a Multistellar Corporation, that Cluster was earned by just being who you are."
Vuxten flushed again.
Colonel Brett T'Klakak shook his head. "It is interesting to see that it isn't just modesty and humbleness, but you honestly do not understand that you, Major, have it."
Vuxten frowned. "It?"
"It," the Colonel said, as if that explained it all.
"What is... it?" Vuxten asked.
"That spark, that fire, that little bit of special that not only makes men follow you into the very gates of Hell with only a mouthful of spit and wishes, but has you leading the way. That makes others believe in you," the Colonel said.
471 put up a bunch of equations that were lost on Vuxten.
"That little bit of fire that means that not only do you make it through the worst hellfire engagements, but you lead as many men as possible to that victory," the Colonel said. He leaned back slightly. "It isn't just being in an untenable situation and pulling victory out of your ass. Any amateur can do that. It's the ability to come through without wasting a single life. Without your men feeling like you threw them away for victory. That victory might have come with a terrible cost, but you paid it just as much as they did," the big Treana'ad said. He held out his hand and a low rez 320p image appeared.
It was a three panel vertical meme.
The first one showed a Telkan in full armor in the middle of a ruined city, surrounded by the dead. The impact font text read "When all seems lost..." The second one showed the Telkan crossing his arms and squeezing himself tightly. "You can always hug yourself" the text read. The bottom was the picture of a nuclear detonation. "And brighten everyone's day."
"Recognize this, Major?" the Treana'a'd Colonel asked.
Vuxten nodded, his mouth suddenly going dry as he remembered how the wide eyed just-starting-to-smile podling had dissolved into sparkling dust that had twinkled and vanished.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The Colonel nodded. "The first thing you yelled out when you saw it was 'Find out who made that!' which was expected. The Treana'ad looked at the picture again. "How positively gruesome," he shook his head. "It was your second statement, your second order, that those of us in command noticed."
Vuxten furrowed his brow, trying to remember.
"Alert Pysch-Med was your second command," the Colonel said. "Not a demand for punishment, not a demand for that person to be put on report," the Colonel shook his head. "No. You correctly identified psych injuries were starting to mount and got ahead of them."
Looking at the desk Vuxten shrugged. "The Division took 38% psych casualties during that operation," he said softly.
"Yes, you did. That was terrible. I looked over some of the footage. Nasty business, that," the Colonel said. "Yet, psych injuries can be healed with time and proper therapy. I checked, not a single one of your men put his service pistol in his mouth because you stressed mental health during the recovery phase," the Colonel looked at the ceiling for a moment. "That operation saw the use of the Black Cauldron Protocol, the death of 98% of the Terran Descent Humanity that existed, and you podded planetside into a complete shitshow," he said.
Vuxten opened his mouth as the Colonel sat up, reaching up for his datalink, his eyes staring out the window. He twirled his chair and stood up.
A white cloud was rushing toward the building. Ahead of it a sparkling layer of thick white was advancing rapidly, tendrils crackling out, thickening until they joined. It was covering vehicles, buildings, the lawns, the roads.
Two soldiers on sidewalk turned toward and went down on one knee, the opposite fist pressed against the pavement, the other arm used to shield their faces.
"INCOMING!" the Colonel got out.
Vuxten felt a fzzt across his back teeth and felt the armor jack slam home. His repaired nerves, still not at a hundred percent, screamed with white fire as the armor sent micropulses down them. 471 vanished from his desk with a twinkle and Vuxten saw 471's icon go live.
It all happened in a split second.
The white wave washed over the two troops, across the parking lot, then slammed into the building.
The windows exploded inward, the safety feature of the smart glass turning the shards into tiny plastic covered squares that bounced and pinged off Vuxten's armor even as he got one forearm over his face, the nerve implants in his chest screaming.
The armor wailed an internal alarm as the surface temperature of the armor dropped to almost two point five degrees Kelvin, bobbled for a moment, then went to 15K then dropped back down to 0.35K then back up to 20K before settling back down at 1.75K.
Frost covered Vuxten's visor and he heard the metal plating creak slightly as the thermal shock protection struggled to handle the sudden temperature changes. Vuxten was aware of his chainsword and stubber on his hip, the pistol in the holster, the rifle on his back, and the heavy Madame 318 in the gunner's harness.
The white dwindled and Vuxten took stock.
He had massive warnings across the board. The Madame-318 was listed as inop, same with the pistol and rifle. Vuxten looked at the 318 and swore.
It was covered in thick ice.
He tried to bring it into play, hit the power button, something.
The struts of the gunner harness snapped like twigs, the Madame-318 crashing to the ground, sending ice chips skittering across the floor and bouncing off the walls. His armor beeped as the mag-tac system failed and the rifle fell off his back, landing on the floor, covered in inch thick ice.
His armor creaked again and Vuxten shivered inside the armor. He checked the pistol, found out he couldn't even pull it from the frozen holster, and pulled the holster free of the button sized mag-tac and looked at it.
It was covered in thick white frost. The telltales were out.
--we ok kicking thermals-- 471 said. He put out several laughing emojis. --that was close--
"Yeah," Vuxten said, slowly turning around, ice crackling under his boots. He set the pistol on the desk, looked up, and gave a gasp of shock.
The Colonel was frozen in place, covered in a thick layer of ice, with icicles hanging down from his pointing bladearm, his abdomen, and his shoulders. Vuxten's onboard VI hiccuped then estimated the ice thickness at eight inches at the thickest and two inches at the thinnest. The Colonel was clearly visible, just hidden here and there by sprays of white frost on the ice and made somewhat wavery due to distortion by the ice.
--flash froze-- 471 said. --looks like home-made cryostatis--
"Yeah," Vuxten said again. He closed his eyes, his left cybereye clicking. "Someone cryo-cracked us," he tried the communication systems.
All he got was a weird pleasant jingling sound and the sound of bells.
"Planetary commo is down, some kind of weird jamming," Vuxten said.
--coms uplink only three miles away-- 471 suggested. --maybe not still mad at you--
Vuxten snorted. The commo tech had been more than a little irritated that Vuxten had disabled the com networks by having a tank run them over.
Vuxten moved carefully across the thick ice and frost on the floor and stared at the door.
It, like the walls, was covered with thick ice, with foot thick at the base icicles hanging from the roof, adhered to the wall.
The doorknob was completely covered by ice.
"Here goes nothing," Vuxten said. He slammed his armored elbow into the ice, intending on driving the spikes deep into it.
Instead it was like hitting warsteel. The ice didn't even chip and his armor gave a thermal warning.
His whole arm was cold, numb, and tingling.
--adjusting thermal-- 471 said. --weird weird weird didn't even chip--
"We'll take the window," Vuxten said.
He carefully climbed out the window and looked around.
The two troops across the street were frozen in place, inside a large mass of bluish tinted clear ice, thick frost on the top of the lump, perfectly visible even if the distortion made them look like they were underwater.
"Weird," Vuxten said, looking around.
--turning off visor compensation looky looky looky-- 471 said. --compensation go glitchy glitchy--
Snow appeared. Fat flakes, thin flakes, light flakes, heavy flakes, tiny flakes, large flakes. All drifting down. The snow fell silently, landing on the ice with a whisper.
Steam hissed from Vuxten's shoulder pauldrons.
"What was that?" Vuxten asked.
--unsure-- 471 said.
Vuxten looked up. The clouds were dark, heavy, and low.
The sky had been clear less than five minutes prior.
"We'll cut across the baseball field and 202 MI's parking lot," Vuxten said.
--busy busy busy keeping armor stable-- 471 said.
"Just do your best," Vuxten said. "Keep me warm."
--easier said that done-- 471 said. --never seen a cold reactor before--
"Give you something to brag about," Vuxten said, slowly walking to the edge of the parking lot.
The snow was up to his waist.
He pushed his way into it, moving around the building. He passed under the shadow of a fruit tree with a large fowl in it, the entire thing frozen over. Snow drifted down from the branches as he passed the tree, heading toward the back parking lot.
--oh pears pears are yummy-- 471 said.
Birds were frozen on the bushes. Insects were frozen on leaves. A Rigellian officer was frozen putting her keys into the lock of her Privately Owned Vehicle, her arm and the key a thick ice bridge connecting her body to the car.
Vuxten just pushed forward through the snow.
"Can you recompensate for the snow?" he asked.
--nope nope nope-- 471 said. --software and firmware is dropping in and out of OS--
"Just do your best," Vuxten said, slowly making his way past the bushes at the edge of the back parking lot of the Regimental Headquarters.
He came around a set of large shrubs, covered in ice and covered more fully every second by the snow, shrubs he couldn't remember, and stopped dead.
Where the baseball diamond should have been was a lake.
A large, frozen over lake, surrounded by bushes and trees. Bushes were on either side of him, the same with large trees. The snow went to the edge of the thick white ice on the lake that had replaced the baseball field.
On the ice were little blue furred Pubvians, wearing hats, gloves, scarves, puffy jackets and pants, and bladed shoes. There was almost a dozen of the little blue puffies wearing sparkling white dresses covered in gleaming dustings of gems. The ones in sparkling white dresses twirled and leaped, landing in elegant arcs.
Podlings glided by on the bladed shoes, holding hands, giggling to each other.
There was a popping noise and Vuxten suddenly heard the sound of the puffie and podling voices.
It took him a moment to realize that the "La la la" was a song.
As he watched all the puffies and podlings suddenly spun in place, even as the kept moving in the same direction they had been going, their bladed shoes sending up sprays of glimmering frost. They all dropped out of the spin and into a long, sweeping curve, laughing and giggling as they did so. They began skating along in little groups, some hand holding lines, all a complex interlocked pattern of movement. The puffies in the white dresses leaped and twirled, sometimes reaching twice their height into the air, their arms pulled tight, their dresses flared out, the blades on their skates flashing. Here and there a podling fell over, to be helped up by a puffie that held the podling's hand in one of its three hand. Here and there podlings and puffies held hands as they skated.
The entire time, Vuxten could hear them sing.
--oooooh boy--