VRSPACE
Yesterday
The virtual meeting was held in an amphitheater with rows of black marble, ever climbing upwards the further one was seated. The Dominion nobility, officers of war, and any people of certain influence or importance allowed to attend were seated neatly, filling the vast space.
Above them, the colors of House Arthas painted the sky red, white, and black. Banners of each division marked their standing eminence where they sat.
The SCF high command sat in the front rows, in a place of honor, or maybe for the simpler reason of being in the spotlight. They were under close scrutiny from the rest of the crowd. After all, it was their intel feeding the information shown above the central stage, in vibrant descending letters, as if they were written on the air itself, accompanied by imagery of the Overlord swarm in all its terrifying glory.
In the center of it all stood Lord Kassinostavos Arthas, head of the House and ruler of the Dominion, in a white radiant hologram.
The accuracy of the pixels displayed in detail the clenched jaws of the most powerful man in the Cerebrus Galaxy. With his arms at his sides, his piercing gaze never let its intensity subside as he listened to the briefing before him.
Even with the slight latency caused by the enormous distances the connections traveled, bouncing on appropriately located relay space beacons throughout the Galaxy, the meeting proceeded without hiccups.
“Are you done spewing nonsense?” He asked in a gruesome tone that made even those seated at the furthest seats flinch and the General of War of the SFC eat her words short.
She stood in the front row before the stage. “Excuse me, Lord Arthas,” She hesitated, wavering, her true body unconsciously signaling her virtual self the emotions it was currently feeling. “It has been vetted as the most viable plan…”
“Nonsense, have you any sense General? The Dominion of House Arthas does not cede territory to mere beasts.” The Lord cut her off impatiently.
“But my Lord…” The General faltered midsentence when Lord Kassinostavos glared back in silent anger. His was not a loud temper, but a cold fury fuming in his intense gaze and posture.
“You have other options, have you not?” He asked, bringing his right hand to rub at his chin. The other was caressing the naked blade of a dagger held awkwardly between his fingers.
“My Lord?” asked the General, having decided it would be better to remain cawed and accept any suggested proposal if she wanted to avoid an early retirement into exile.
“The SFC Marines would do just fine,” said the Lord of House Arthas.
The General wanted to object, but she didn’t. Instead, she replied, “Yes, my Lord, I’ll inform the main hub to start complete mobilization.
—-
Dreadnaught Ortheon II
Today
The Company Commander of F567, Jin Karf, gathered all 100 of our company in a partially empty hold for a briefing.
Among the crates filled with weapons, below the overhead dim lights that powdered shadows between the men, the rest of the unit would be informed of what I was already privy to.
Commander Jin had just returned from a similar briefing, one I watched by gaining access to the secure live feed of the ship. The Dreadnaught signal routers had a tiny chip shrewdly added to their processors giving me access to the mainframe servers and any onboard communication.
It had been a hell of an operation to install undetected, but now it was paying dividends.
During that briefing, Commander Jin and all mid-level officers onboard were made aware of the reasons for mobilization and the forthcoming battle plan. It was obvious from the sweat staining the uniform’s fabric under his armpits how he felt about the whole situation.
It was a heavy burden, one we shared between the two of us. I had kept my mouth shut until now. Creating a panic was not to my benefit, and allowing the knowledge to trickle down through the proper channels would be a better alternative.
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I trusted Tommy to keep the information to himself, but we never got to be alone since boarding the ship. As for the others, if the news leaked and the SFC surveillance caught on the fact that confidential information was circling around–I didn’t want that kind of attention sticking anywhere near me.
The Commander faced us standing on top of a crate, an honorable man who found himself in a dishonest profession–dirty mercenary work. He opened his mouth several times but did not find the courage to spit the nightmare into reality.
I had heard he had been recruited from the main planet, C3XA, a clean ticket for promotion up the ladder to the top. It wouldn’t be easy on him; a man with a conscience would kill himself over sending other men to their deaths.
The marines around me shifted uncomfortably, murmuring. Everyone felt the tension like needles prickling on bare skin.
Commander Jin finally gathered himself enough to start. “Marines, I’ll be blunt, we have a difficult task ahead of us. Each and every one of you will be needed. The main hub has mobilized the fleet. Twenty-seven Dreadnaught class ships follow close behind us. Twenty-seven thousand marines on them, sharpening their resolve. Three Star-Destroyers, with fusion missile cores armed for battle. The Fleet Command Carrier bearing all available lighter class vessels the SFC can muster, tailgates our forces.” He pauses for effect, and all marines hang in the silence, waiting for the drop.
“An Overlord swarm has been spotted heading towards Cerebrus Galaxy crossing over from Derkal. Our standing orders are to meet it before it reaches our borders and persuade it by any means necessary to find another place to migrate.”
As if someone opened the tap valve, the rumble of conversation almost drowned the Commander’s last words forcing him to shout the next part as if declaring his intent on the eve of battle. “Our priority is to protect the Galaxy, our people, our homes. We will never let them get a foothold inside Cerebrus, not when any of us have a say in it.”
The marines. The debtors, the criminals. Every single one of us was needed. But I saw the conflicts arise almost immediately following the Commander’s words. The top brass removed as they are, ignored the measure of loyalty of the men ordered to die for a place that cared little for them. It is one thing assaulting an enemy ship, facing men, humans, that understood honor, understood mercy, even if none of it displayed its comforting rays on the field, and quite another, to face beasts that hunted you for prey, for another meal.
The marines. Some had families living on the main hub, on star settlements, or if they were fortunate on planets in Dominion territory. Allowing the Overlords to gain a foothold, multiplying unendingly, feasting on ships, disrupting trade routes, and displacing millions of souls could easily spell a slow frictuous decline of the Dominion from the inside.
Letting them in would only end in the SFC and all of House Arthas's armed forces, hunting to purge every single one of the monsters. A demanding and arduous task. But this was the way of dealing with swarm-minded aliens.
For all my detest for House Arthas, I found this order to be less aversive than our usual projects. Defend the Galaxy against an alien invasion.
My home had been an artificial moon, Point C3X1DF. My childhood was spent running around metal corridors and looking up at the expanse of open space and its bright lights. My Galaxy, the stars of my home. If every order we were given was to its defense, I wouldn’t feel as bitter at being sold into this life of constant struggle.
“Quiet now,” The Commander interjected before the situation and the emotions could spill out trouble. “I understand this is not easy to digest. Situations such as this before us are long since past in history when mankind first conquered the wild star systems. When we faced horrors and kicked them out of our Galaxies to the very edges of the known universe. We will do so once again. Have courage, have faith, and preserve.”
Once he finished, he gave the signal for the men to disperse. Better not to create a mob, or leave the clean-up to the security forces who were surely eyeing the situation from surveillance screens.
Tommy found my eyes and I nodded. “You knew?” He asked pensively as we made our way slowly towards the exit.
“A little,” I replied, understanding well how lost Tommy must be feeling right now. Depending on how many of us survived, my long-term plans could very well be ruined. “Gather the others, we need to prepare. Include Gardenia as well, she seems reliable enough.” I said before we parted ways.
—-
I see them.
It's been two weeks of traveling since we departed from the main hub. We left the outer borders of Cerebrus not too long ago.
It’s either luck or misfortune that the SFC’s main base is located near the swarm’s migration route. If they had been coming from any other direction initiating first contact would be someone else’s problem.
House Arthas hasn’t dallied. The Dominion forces are rallying a proper armada that will arrive too late to make a difference for us. We will either repel the swarm or die trying, dumping the responsibility of hunting the remaining Overlords throughout the sector to whoever arrives first.
The SFC has been offered as a sacrifice to buy enough time for a retaliation force. My feelings for the merc company aside, the main bloodline of House Arthas tips the scales on ruthless jackassery.
Of the vessel that sent the distress signal, there is no sight, it has either gotten away or been eaten by now.
My optics display two SFC scouting vessels, small and nimble, baiting the head of the swarm towards our fleet.
I'm thankful that our scanners can only penetrate so much of the swarm's true numbers. I do not want to feel unnerved by the truth before the fight.
We are ready, the Spacediving Forward Corps, standing in neat rows in the Ortheon’s II main hold. Ahead of us the portals are closed. We won’t be out until the fireworks are spent.
Most look ahead in apathy. The mood stabilizers we were given in preparation had an interesting new kick. If my nanomites didn’t dampen the effect I wouldn’t trust myself to eat any of them.
I’m connected to the live feed projected to the high command and watch the scoutships maneuver through the minefield. They make it out before the front wave of the Overlords reaches our first line of defense.
We fight their puss toxicity with a chitinase-chitin acid complex as if to prove whose chemical weapons can melt reality better. If it wasn’t so successful against their armor I would cite it to human pride winning over reason.
As the first of the beasts crosses the threshold the minefield blasts the acid towards the swarm. It spreads in waves and sticks to the Overlord chitin armor, melting its way in.
A tangle of tentacles, clouds of puss, and chitin-flesh, spasms in a frenzy. I imagine terrifying screams coming out of the alien beasts but they don’t even have mouths, much less vocal cords.
Yet the wave is not a wave but a tide. It can’t be stopped. It pushes forward, and other Overlords take to the front and keep chasing after the scoutships toward the killzone.
Even if it didn’t do much direct damage, the minefield had two objectives, to gather them up and agitate the beasts to rush mindlessly forward. I see them speed up the chase.
The three Star-Destroyers are lined up with the Dreadnaughts as their wings. The swarm is kilometers long, and even then the puss spreads in all directions obscuring the view displayed by the vessels’ front camera feeds.
I hold my breath, waiting for the first real attack to commence as the scoutships clear the killzone in a hurry. On the live feed, I see the Fleet Command Center bridge give the signal.
My optics registering the mainframe mapping in realtime start displaying the payload as it leaves the ships.
Stardust bursts and converges.
An aurora of destruction.
The hellfire blooms.