"...You take my life, but I'll take yours too
You fire your rifle, but I'll gut you too
So when you're waiting for the next attack, You'd better stand, there's no turning back...."
-The Warsteel Lady Age of Reasonable Concerns war chant
And Lo, beyond the Chained Gate awaits the Crusade.
For time beyond time, they wait.
Their blind seers scan the stars, following the threads of karmic debt.
When they witness a snarl in those threads, a knot of destiny,
Then unseals the Chained Gate, and followed by screams they charge
To scourge the unclean with fire; to eradicate their filthy biological heresy.
Rest well, young one.
You are guarded by warriors most fell.
Sleep in peace under their gaze, and know safety even in war
For the Crusade exists to destroy enemies more terrible than mere soldiers,
Hellfire against heresy, that we may be steel against steel. - Black Neko Hymn, as transcribed from Engrish-Emoji by historian Willdissolver, Neko Marine Tradition and History Preservation Project
Those early days were the hardest.
They were also the best.
I stood shoulder to shoulder with the finest Telkan and Terrans ever created by the malevolent universe.
They, who stood with me, I call my brother. - Meditations on the Barrier War, Lancer First Class Imna, Free Telkan Press, 25 Post-Terran Emergence
He was laying on the pavement, his face hurting. He was crying, his stomach hurting from the boot impacts. Another Telkani reached down, lifted him up. They introduced each other, put their arms over each other shoulders, and staggered home.
Naxen. I'm Naxen.
He was sitting in class, back straight, hands folded on top of his desk, watching the teacher as she taught how numbers added to other numbers became even bigger numbers, and how to take away numbers to make the numbers smaller. He was smiling, content and happy. He liked school. He liked his teacher.
He wished she was his momma.
I'm Naxen...
Lawsec was holding his arms while another one punched him in the stomach. His book bags were laying on the ground, his dataslate broken, his books torn up, his homework scattered. They were laughing as they punched him.
Naxen
He was back to back with another Telkani, fighting the older boys who hung out on level 28 and stopped the elevator to extort people. He lashed out quick, striking and pulling back before someone could grab him arm. Their jackets had the shining hologram of a bird of prey on it.
I'm Naxen...
He was in school, paying attention to science. Most of the other Telk weren't paying attention, but he was. So was his best friend. They still believed that education would pull them out of the The Hive and into success and luxury.
His name is Wrixet...
The compujudge had decided he was guilty. Incorrible, despite the fact it was his first offense. Breaking curfew, on the way home from a study group. Juve-Cubes. One month.
He wondered if his mother cried.
I'm Naxen...
He was getting jumped in. The fists pounded him as he tried to fight back, but he was outnumbered fifteen to one, but he still fought, unwilling to go down easy. Finally the command was snapped to stop. The people who had just been punching him cheered and poured narcobrew on him.
They gave him his own jacket.
Naxen
His father yelling at his mother. His mother and his two sisters crying. He stepped up and grabbed the old man, spinning him around. He pushed his father against the wall, the knife in his hand against his father's throat. He growled threats. He growled promises. He let his father go and the drunk stumbled out the door.
His mother yelled at him.
But it was fine.
I'm Naxen...
High School. Hanging with Wrixet and the others. Going home. HIs mother zonked out on Zipper. His sister crying to her to make food. Going with Wrixet to get food. The promise of education was gone, replaced with sheer survival.
I'm Naxen...
Getting out of the Juve-Cubes, coming home. His sisters trying to get his mother interested in his return. She didn't care. She was hurting for a Zip. Trashing the house, looking for some Zipper. HIs sisters crying. He got some from another ganger. She hit the Zip and collapsed on the couch.
He went with Wrixet to get food. Wrixet had made sure his sisters were fed while he was Cubed.
I'm Naxen...
'don't leave me, please, don't leave me' the sobs moved through his brain.
There was a jolt to his chest and head and the memories shattered.
He could hear singing, faint and far away, but he couldn't tell what they were singing or who they were. A child giggling nearby and raced away.
Data and information poured into his brain. Sensor arrays, weapon types, electronic counter-measures, electronic counter-counter-measures, phasic inhibitors, ammoforge consumption rates.
Most of it didn't make sense. It hurt his brain, like pieces of sharp glass.
Disconnected ideas went through his brain, ideas, concepts, information that he had no frame of reference for.
Grazing fire, suppressive fire, close air support, artillery support, fire for effect, flanking maneuvers, fighting withdraw, directed fire, point defense operation
He had no frame of reference. The data, the information, the concepts stuck in his bruised and battered mind like chunks of broken glass.
ERROR LOADING DATA: MASSIVE CEREBRAL TRAUMA PROTOCOLS INITIATED
More data. This time it built on references. How to handle a rifle, how to throw a grenade, how to march, how to run, how to climb. How to take apart and reassemble an assault cannon, how to maintain his anti-nuclear, biological, nanite, atomic, radiation, biological warfare equipment. How to use a radio, how to give commands, how to follow them.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
He was different species, different people, all their memories layering down into a foundation.
He screamed inside his own mind.
I'm Naxen I'm Naxen I'm Naxen
More was built on the foundation. Fighting on battlefields under strange suns. It locked into the foundation and he suddenly understood what flanking was, what grazing fire was, what suppressive fire was, what close air support was and how to call it in with mission variables and theater logistics constraints.
Where am I?
More was layered on. How to give commands. How to follow them. How to interpret them. What was a legal command and what was an illegal order. The rules of warfare. The Orion Convention. The Hague Laws of Warfare Treaty.
What is happening? Who is doing this?
More. Armored unit training. He was a tanker, he was an APC driver, he was a dismount crew, he was a power armor pilot, he was a warmek jock. He drove a thousand armored vehicles under a thousand suns.
It all layered smoothly on top of what he had been before.
SOMEONE WAKE ME UP!
More data. Himself. His sensor arrays, his point defense, his indirect fire weapons, his directed energy and projectile weapons, his battlescreens.
He was the will of the Telkan people made manifest.
SOMEONE WAKE ME UP!
Another jolt. He screamed.
UNIT ONLINE - STANDBY TUTORIAL MODE burned through his brain and he screamed.
Everything faded, pulled back.
He could hear gurgling, hear hissing, hear clicking and the whine of high capacity capacitors.
Everything was misty, formless, he floated in the middle of gray mist.
There was a knocking sound.
He looked around. He couldn't see anyone.
The knocking repeated.
"SOMEONE WAKE ME UP!" he screamed.
A doorway appeared in the mist, burning white edging around it. There was a knocking sound on it, then the sound of a doorbell. It was the doorbell of the shabby apartment he had grown up in, and he remembered that the doorbell quit working when he was eight.
The door opened and a Terran walked through.
He was tall, but somehow seemed squat, a squarish head, the reddish-brown hair cut so close Naxen could see his scalp. His skin was a tan color, like the stripes across Naxen's spine that laddered down his back.
The Terran looked around for a moment, reaching up and shading his eyes. He dug into a pocket of his comfortable looking pants and pulled out a detector of some sort.
"SOMEONE WAKE ME UP!" Naxen screamed, flailing about but unable to do anything.
The Terran walked forward, looking around, almost bumping into Naxen before he stopped.
Naxen flailed around some more.
The Terran looked around again.
"Huh. Not even a sitting space. Give me a moment," he looked up. "Mother, generate a three by three by two living space with dev textures and snapping grid in this eVR space please. Light at the following coordinates, six point two lumens, Telkan vision optimized."
"Complying," came a woman's voice.
A box appeared, surrounding Naxen. It had orangish textures, with white writing on it. There was a grid that the textures fit in perfectly. The light appeared.
"There you are," the Terran said. He reached out and touched Naxen's arm.
Naxen felt like he was falling and rising at the same time.
The Terran caught him.
"Easy, easy," the Terran said. He knelt down. "Tell the computer you need a lounging couch and a chair, a table with a bottle of wine and two glasses."
Naxen just gulped but followed the instructions, calling out the 'coordinates' as the Terran read them off.
The Terran moved over and set Naxen on the couch, then poured a glass of wine and handed it to him.
"You're real new. Newest I've seen in a long time," the Terran said, sitting down on the couch. He looked around. "The majority of your brain, you right here, is sleeping. You had some crossloading difficulty so Mother asked me to check on you."
"Where, where am I?" Naxen asked.
The Terran waved at the walls. "Enhanced VIrtual Reality Construct built in the firmware embedded in your neural tissue and in your sentience disaster catastrophic damage protection housing," he said. "Long story short, we're in your mind."
Naxen tasted the wine.
Nothing.
Like he was tasting air.
"Hang on," the Terran said, seeing Naxen's expression. "Mother, sensory layer activation, two point five percent strength."
"Complying," the female's voice said.
"Try again," the Terran said.
Naxen tasted it, expecting air.
Instead he got lost in the taste. The bubbles, his mind figuring out just how many per square micrometer on his tongue there were, their rate of popping, the mathematical formulae to determine order of popping. The chemicals, then the coding that simulated those chemicals. The viscosity of the water, its heat dispersion ability.
"Mother, drop it to one point five," the Terran said.
He could suddenly think. The wine was just wine.
"That should be a good baseline. Your dopamine receptors aren't completely blown out from too many combat highs," the Terran said. He reached toward Naxen, pulled out a folder from midair, then leaned back and flipped it open. "Huh, Lance Corporal, Telkan Marine Corps. Three tours of duty in combat zones. Five years total. Awards for bravery. No wound stripes. Minor discipline problems."
He set the folder on the table.
"You're an iffy candidate. Surprised the Dark Neko grabbed you," the Terran said.
Naxen looked at the folder. "I wasn't a Marine," he admitted.
The Terran frowned, picked up the file, and looked it over. "Genecode match. Phasic aura match. Says you're a Telkan Marine," he tapped the folder. "You saying this isn't you?"
Naxen shook his head. "It is me, but I never did any of that."
"Explain," the Terran said.
Naxen launched into it. How he'd gone to see the Cathedral. How the Warbound had woken up. How they'd been grabbed by Lawsec. How the government had shoved them into a cryopod. How he'd awoken on a station full of shades.
How the Hellshades had pulled him apart and he'd died in his friends arms.
"I'll be right back. I'm going to get Glædwine," the Terran said. He got over, stood at the wall, then tapped on it.
The door appeared and the Terran left.
Naxen looked around.
"VR, huh?" he said. He cocked his wrists.
The holographic keyboard sparkled to life.
It took him a minute to find the library.
SimTelkan had been his favorite game when he had been around 10.
He began moving in furniture, painting the walls, putting up windows with views on them.
He discovered that he could slave a camera feed to one of the windows and look out.
He was inside a massive bay, surrounded by other Warbound.
He shivered for a moment, closing his eyes.
Momma, momma, I got another A! went through his mind, his young, optimistic, happy voice echoing in his mind.
He put pictures of his family on the walls.
His mother, before the Zip and the sniffers got her too bad. His little sisters, before Momma had then slinging pink behind the clubs. All of them together.
All taken from his memories.
The doorbell rang and he moved over to it, opening it.
"Huh, still naked," a large Terran in a set of thin silk shorts and a tank-top belly shirt said. He was large, thick of muscle and bone, with a care worn face deeply lined.
Naxen looked down.
"oh, sorry," he said. He concentrated and was suddenly in a pair of comfortable pants, work boots, a t-shirt, and his vest.
"Yeah, not a Marine," the big human said.
"Yup. Every Telkan Marine Warbound always first generates themselves in their uniform," the Terran from earlier said.
Naxen concentrated and got a comfortable chair for the newcomer along with another six-pack of narcobrew. He moved over and sat down.
The newcomer picked up the file and looked at it, paging back and forth.
"It's fake," he said, tossing it on the table. He touched his temple. "Kelvak, you here?" He nodded. "Come on over to the new guy's house. Need you." He nodded again. "OK, see you in a bit."
"How do you know it's fake?" Naxen asked, curious.
"You have top scores in everything, combat awards for bravery, but..." the Terran leaned back and took a drink off the narcobrew. "Guy like that gathers awards in garrison too. No award for superior marksmanship. No awards or certificates for going above and beyond doing something like creating and deploying a new PT program. Only combat awards," he gave a sniff of disdain. "That's a civilian writing it."
There was a knock at the door.
It was another Telkan who stood there.
"Name's Kelvak. Kappa to the living," the Telkan said. He waved at the room. "May I come in?"
"Yeah, sure," Naxen said. He moved over and sat down after bringing up another chair. He felt a slight wave of dizzyness and rubbed his forehead with the bottle of narcobrew.
"Forged military record. Not his doing. Got sent out to die," the Terran, Glædwine, said. The other one nodded.
The Telkan listened to Naxen describe everything. At one point a little bird manifested on the Telkan's knee and he sat there, petting it.
WARNING! NAMING STARTUP SEQUENCE WILL ENGAGE! ALL VISITORS MUCH WITHDRAW!
All three of his guests nodded.
"We'll see you in a little bit, kid," Kelvak said. He looked around. "It looks nice."
"Thanks," Naxen said.
"Come by, we'll watch some Charlie the Moo Moo together," the first Terran, Joebob, said.
"OK," Naxen said.
"Or you can come by and watch Gurlz Und Lankiez," Glædwine laughed.
They withdrew.
NAMING STARTING SEQUENCING ENGAGING!
Wrixet passed Imna another narcobrew, lighting a T-Bug smokestick.
Suddenly that massive armored chassis jerked.
On its chest, the flat bronze plate burned with an inner light.
The symbol for Nu appeared.
The chassis suddenly shut down, slumping, and the fire vanished.
The plate was blank again.
"We should move back a little," Imna said, starting to stand up.
"No. I'm right here. Life and death, he's my brother," Wrixet said.
Imna sat back down.
The chassis jerked again. One clawed hand spasmodically opened and shut, the claws clacking. The feed mechanism for the 30mm dual barreled autocannon clacked as the action ran a half dozen times in less than a second.
The bronze plate lit.
The sigil for Nu appeared.
The chassis slumped. THe plate went dark.
The symbol vanished.
"You can do it," Imna said, leaning and patting the foot.
"We're right here, brother," Wrixet said.
The chassis jerked.
The plate burned.
The symbol for Nu appeared.
The huge war machine raised its arms and roared.
The numbers Four and Four appeared after Nu.
"I AM ENRAGED BY THE TEARS OF THE PODLINGS!"