“The prelude experience varies from planet to planet, but the effect stays the same.
Death, on a massive scale.”
~Nameless Journal
Sergeant Major Francis sat through the seventh meeting of this night alone, his elbows on the table, and his knuckles wrapped tightly against his lips in prayer—etiquette be damned.
He would rather be out there with his men, defending the lives of what very well could be the last bastion of America, but the commissioned officers swore his presence was needed.
What a load of shit.
The CO’s around the table yelled at each other, throwing terrible ideas left and right. Lieutenant Colonel Jones stood at the helm of all the chaos, wordlessly taking it in instead of getting off his ass and doing something about it. He looked so much older with the little hair he had left on the sides of his head turning gray from stress.
Poor bastard. Francis had known the man for nearly a decade now, working closely with him for five of those years. Jones was supposed to retire this year—if only the apocalypse didn’t decide to spring up out of nowhere.
I always thought that the world would end in nuclear fallout. Privy to more information than most, Francis was keenly aware of relationships between countries, the defense force of each of those powers, and who was stirring up the most shit in the pot. Now, all that knowledge was worth less than the computers they were downloaded on.
The matrix suddenly revealed itself, seemingly by random chance, while the world became a game. His soldiers were out there giving their lives to hold the line against irradiated animals and monsters of all things.
If he listened closely, Francis could still hear the screams between the rounds of gunfire.
“What do you think, Command Sergeant Major?”
“Hm?” CSM Francis shifted his attention back to the meeting. The eyes of the baby-faced, distressed officers were glued to him. “Care to repeat yourself?”
LT COL Jones gave him a look. “...Lieutenant Dan had asked you what you think of his defense proposal.”
Francis swept his eyes over a map of the area, and the toys that represented each of the forces and populations that were involved with the town. “Are these the civilians?” He pointed to the action figures between the little, green, army men and the stuffed animals.
“Civilian Supers. Command Sergeant Major.” Lieutenant Dan corrected. “I was proposing we increase the tax, recruit more soldiers to bolster our forces so—”
“None of this shit is going to work.” Francis cut him off, rearranging the map without asking. “We can’t take these people into our squads and companies, they aren’t trained. Throw superpowers into the mix, and you have walking weapons of mass destruction that aren’t conditioned to follow orders. A goddamn disaster waiting to happen.”
LT Dan frowned. “That’s why I suggested we put them on the frontline to soften the monsters up.”
“So you want to waste the valuable lives of people who can do amazing things, for what? To buy us more time?” Francis scoffed. “You’re too young to be gambling with the lives of soldiers, so you gonna go for the civilians next?”
“You can’t talk to me like that!” LT Dan yelled at him with a red face, “I am a commissioned officer, and you will talk to me with respect!”
“Oh, the shitbag who’s still wet behind his ears is gonna lecture me on respect.” Francis had enough. He jumped from his seat into a boxer’s stance.. “Come at me, boy. I’ll show you who your betters are.”
“Enough!” LT COL Jones yelled, interrupting everyone else. “Sit back down!” He told Francis, who ignored it.
He elected to keep glaring at that fucker who came at him.
“I said sit down, Francis.” Jones said in a respectful tone, easing Francis’ mind enough to get back into his chair. He slowly sat back in his seat, glaring at LT Dan the whole way down.
“I think what Command Sergeant Major Francis was saying was that we won’t be able to control the civilians. What do you suggest we do to remedy that?”
The table was quiet as all the officers looked to Francis for the answer. He sighed, rubbing the headache out of his forehead. “I say don’t change what’s not broken. Protect the Skilled who can’t protect themselves and scout anyone who is useful. After the defense is concluded, we can open the gates for all civilians to hunt, and rotate our soldiers into three shifts of three jobs; one to construct defenses, for sentries, and the other to escort civilians to hunt themselves.”
Francis thought for a moment before continuing, “Also, we need to ease up on taxes and registration requirements. ”
The officers yelled in unison, but were silenced by the combined stares of their lieutenant colonel, and sergeant major.
“Right now, we need the manpower more than anything,” Francis explained. “Shards are coming to us, but we won’t have the people to keep up if things keep going the way they are.”
They calmly broke into discussion at his suggestion, planning out the time of each shift, and other specifics, but once they started to draft who would receive each infusion of shards to awaken, SGT MAJ Francis cut back into the conversation.
“All shards obtained by the brigade will go to the soldiers on the frontline first, starting with every soldier that personally participated during the defense tonight. I will not stand for any one of you awakening or stashing shards away for yourselves before everyone of the enlisted risking their lives out there is awakened first.” Francis said, crossing his arms.
When the grumbles broke out around the table, Francis slammed his fist into the table again, this time not holding his supernatural strength back, and demolishing his corner of the table.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I’m deadly serious. Every infraction will be met with ruthless force. I will personally ensure that standard is maintained in my brigade, am I clear?”
“Yes, Command Sergeant Major.” The officers said in unison.
A knock on the door echoed through the now silent room. A low-ranking soldier walked into the room without being called in, and saluted. Jones waved off the formalities, “Report, Private Gomez.”
“Sir, yes sir. The waves have stopped as of 0553 hours. We also have a soldier who isn’t from our unit that claims they’ve been MIA.”
Cheers broke out around the room, and even Francis felt the urge to smile. “Great. Commanders, go back to your companies and battalions. We will hold a formation at 0700, and will give you instructions to proceed from there.” Jones told his CO’s.
“Start with the police calls, but do not use any shards, we will hand them out at the formation. Dismissed.” With that, the officers left the room, leaving the leaders of the brigade alone.
“Who said you could dismiss my CO’s.” Jones eyed Francis.
“Your receding hairline did.” Franics pointed out.
Jones looked up, as if he could see the top of his head, and rubbed his balding scalp. “Low blow, Frank. Low blow.”
Francis sighed, slumping in his chair. “I’m tired, Jones. Real tired. I thought deployments were tough, but this is a whole other shitshow.”
“I’m surprised you can still fight with those younguns.”
“And I’m surprised you stopped.” Francis looked at his CO. “How could you watch this brigade descend into corruption and madness? How can you sit around and watch these children argue when we can be out there really accomplishing something?”
“I’m not like you, Frank. I’ve never even deployed.” The man seemed to age even more as he admitted. “My father was an officer too, so my job was always cushy. This is my first time in my twenty long years in the army that I ever had to deal with something remotely draining. More than that, I have a daughter to worry about? You can’t sit there and lecture me about something without even having something to worry about.”
“My brother, and his family live here, you coward.” Frank felt disgusted at Jones's accusation. “Either you can unfuck yourself, and do your best to make this town a better place, or you can wallow in your misery by yourself. I’m not letting my family die due to your incompetence.”
Francis walked out of the abandoned daycare after his ultimatum. He had better things to do than babysit.
----------------------------------------
“He’s dead?” John Baptist, the mayor of Bainbridge asked in disbelief.
Just like every other politician, John had an amazingly big home outside the district he worked in; he just happened to be lucky to be at the office when the world ended instead of his gated, forest community.
Which turned out to be the second best thing to ever happen to him since he became mayor of this rinky-dinky town. Despite being only an hour away from Bainbridge, none of his neighbors had made it out of that death trap alive.
John shuddered thinking about what could have possibly happened.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry about that. The town office made for a fine home, with the windows boarded up, especially with the army nearby to kill any monsters that got through the tent city outside the fences into town proper. Now if only I could have them under my thumb too.
“Yes, sir.” His lovely assistant said, reading the message sent via a pair of communication cards. “Bateman hasn’t checked in yet. Several divination readings read that he is no longer alive.”
John sighed. Great, my strongest bargaining chip—gone, just like that. “Tell me there is some good news.”
“Umm, it seems like the diviners have found several locations that have experienced an influx of energy. It may be connected to the places the System has generated.”
John leaned forward at the information, cursing his short height. 5' 5’’ isn’t that bad. He told himself again. “How sure are they of this?’
“70%” His assistant answered.
John waggled his head back and forth, weighing the pros and cons. “...Send in the recon squad to survey the locations. Survey only. Bring me back a risk assessment, then I’ll decide which ones we will go after.”
“Yes, sir.” She said sweetly, typing a message onto the card like a smartphone.
It was important to save any of the important resources for him and his group, but it would be impossible to eat everything. It was better to earn some good will from the army’s higher ups than it was to shortsightedly take all he could see.
“Is there anyone who could possibly replace Bateman?” John asked.
“Hmm.” His assistant looked through the files of every arcanist he held a contract with. “There is Lenny, who was directly underneath Bateman. He had a similar build, and is one of the higher end arcanists we have left.”
“Great. Find him and send him in. I need to have a personal discussion with him.” John felt his card pulse with his intention to use it.
“Also, 33rd Cav Brigade has started to comb the outer areas of the town. It looks like they are collecting shards.”
John stood from his chair abruptly. “What?! We can let them get ahead of us like this. Tell all the citizens that the monsters are gone, and that shards on the ground are free to pick up. Then tell every one of our guys to blend in with everyone else and take as much as they can.”
John very well couldn’t let those soldiers take what was rightfully his, now could he?
----------------------------------------
“Thank you—thank you for saving my family!” A man sobbed into Priestess Marta’s white robe.
Still, she wore a gentle smile. “You have nothing to worry about here, my lost lamb. Go to brother Levy to get your food and drink for the night.” Marta patted the man’s head before heading on her way.
“Thank you, priestess. We’ll follow you forever.” The man kneeled to the ground, but Marta didn’t pay him any more attention.
The gods had spoken today, blessing her with many more sheep for her flock. It was a shame that it took a night full of death to accomplish it.
If I knew that’s all it took to gain more followers for my lords, I might’ve started sooner. Marta thought, then scolded herself. If she began making sacrifices earlier, then she would’ve never had the opportunity to set up shop in Bainbridge.
Divinity worked in the strangest of ways. She chuckled, wearing a smile as she greeted the poor survivors who found refuge on her church grounds. I should know since I wouldn’t be here without them.
“Priestess!” Someone yelled behind her.
Marta turned to see one of her closest aides run from the church. “What's the problem, Deacon Issac?”
“We’ve run out of space to house the refugees, and the ones we can support can only be done for the next week.” Deacon Issac reported. “We’re going to need to put these people to work if we want to take them all in.”
“Or,” Marta smiled again. “We could use the power of a [miracle].”
Issac’s eyes went wide, “Priestess Marta, you don’t need to waste your power on these dregs, lord knows they don’t deserve it.”
“Oh hush. I’ll do whatever I can to ease everyone’s suffering.” She said loudly for everyone to hear.
The priestess pulled out an amber-red stone from her vault before falling to her knees in prayer, “Oh Lord, I know your love, yet I seek to spread your grace. Please bless us with your wonderful bounty.”
The stone in her hands was engulfed by a golden light that seemed to only shine on Marta until it grew to cover the entirety of the church’s estate.
Survivors cheered as hordes of fresh food appeared out of thin air, and the church itself grew large enough to accommodate hundreds of people, albeit uncomfortably.
This should be enough to satisfy the sheep, right Lord? She asked as she waved to the crowd.
The Golden Halo smiles upon you
----------------------------------------
“Subject 0642 has perished.” An emotionless voice droned on through the darkness, illuminated by a pond that currently showed the ragged town of Bainbridge.
“Reason.” Another voice, equally as emotionless, called from the other side of the glowing pond.
“It clashed with a Challenger.”
“Interesting. Results?”
“Bloodline Infusion was temporarily successful, yet the subject failed to match up to the Challenger despite its numerous advantages.”
“I understand. Move onto the next subject.”
“May this lowly one speak out of line, your lordship?”
The other voice paused at such a question. “Very well. Speak.” They commanded.
The diviner slave slammed their forehead into the ground to show deference, “Thank you, your lordship. The subject has given half of the dosage to another human arcanist, who has consumed the drug and lives to tell the tale.”
For a long moment, the lord didn’t speak. The slave trembled on the floor as they waited for their lord’s answer. “...Interesting. What is the status for traveling to this new world called Dirt.”
“Interplanetary travel has been unlocked for rank three and below.” The slave said, their forehead still pressed into the floor.
“Great.” The voice said, the first indication of some emotion other than the stray curiosity. “For your valuable information, you shall only receive ten lashings for the failure of the subject you were surveilling.”
“Thank you, your lordship.” The slave thanked the lord from the floor, but the lord ignored them, heading straight to the Queen.
I’m sure she’ll understand, and permit my leaving. The stakes are just too high. The Lord of the Unseelie Court’s Imperial Diviners thought worriedly, but a smile tugged at the corner of his lips all the same.