World Hunger

By Mark Manifesto

Sheets of poison smoke hung over the night sky. Trails from the crumbled skyscrapers. Faint alarms. Most had died out. Staring from overtop the metropolis, Hector tried not to think of the lives beneath the burning steel, generations which had erected these towers, towers cleaved in less than an hour. A world taken in less than a day.

The planet shook under the Obstinought’s step. It was his own. All ten thousand feet of the titan. The flesh over his bones, the eyes through which he stared out of Thesakles’ visor, they weren’t really him, the suit was.

Admiral Booker called over the radio, “One last wasp, Thesakles.”

Soaring in from northern clouds hummed a mammoth battleship. His greataxe carved through the streets as he dragged up and over his back.

“Quellcannon,” Hector commanded.

The quiverholster rotated. Power inputs attached from wrist to rifle. Missiles flared out from the ship in rounded arcs, a great plague of fireflies. He doubted they’d darken the hull.

He slid the power control near the trigger. Three percent. A red glow illuminated the rifle’s core. With crosshairs on the ship, he felt a sudden fit of asphyxiation, panic and self-loathing. He reminded himself of the billions of Unus Animus citizens waiting in orbit, exiled from a world turned desert. Pauci pro multis. A few for the many.

Hyllan had its time.

Hundreds of fiery plumes burst over the hull. He squeezed the trigger. Unholy thunder roared and a colossal pearl of red energy cleared the city’s smoke. Like a fist through wet paper, the ship erupted.

Hector looked over the apocalyptic landscape. Gauges read that he’d only used twenty three percent of the suit's battery over the course of the day. The casualty estimate bore too many commas to conceptualize. Acid licked sharply at the lining of his stomach.

“Hell of a job, Thesakles,” Booker called from the ship. He looked up to the celestial gray sphere in orbit. “Hyllan’s down for count.”

“...”

“Steak on me.”

A firmament quivering roar rolled from the jets on Thesakles’ back. Buildings below seared and boiled as the mecha rose towards the stars.

————

Arms at his back, eyes on the Harvester ships descending upon Hyllan, Hector’s mind ventured towards places he wouldn’t let himself dwell. Booker finished reading the report and tossed the tablet onto his desk.

There was a time when Hector didn't worry about the results. “Sir?” he asked, fingers running over the input jacks atop his hands.

“Nothing I haven’t seen,” Booker said. Deep wrinkles scored his ebony cheeks. Dark oysters swelled beneath his eyes.

“So I’m stable.”

“As anyone. They’re going to boost your prescriptions. More SNRI for the fits and PPI for the ulcers,” he said, sitting on the end of his desk. For a man who hadn’t undergone the Pilot Surgeries— and pushing 197 years old— he was a unit.

“How’d it feel to get back in the suit?” Booker asked.

Hector’s gaze turned to the sun and Thesakles before it, a spiraling cone of light siphoning the star’s combined energies into its core. Sharp thorns ran from shoulder to knuckles, hips to ankles. Its crimson alloy drank the light.

“I didn’t think about it.”

Rion grinned and shook his head. “Maybe it’s time I had the med team hollow me out too.”

People genuinely thought that Pilots couldn’t feel.

“Anything useful we should know?” Booker asked.

“The air and water have dangerous amounts of heavy metal. A lot of microplastics in the soil. Regardless of its size, I’m guessing the next two planets might provide more in the way of untainted resources.”

A sharp buzz sounded from the door. The security monitor in the corner showed Dr. Lanna Ross, tablet in hand, foot tapping anxiously. She buzzed again.

Booker sighed. “Keep your head together, kid.”

He remembered the term as pedantic in his younger years, but at seventy two, he didn’t care.

The steel door slid open, and without a second’s pause, Doctor Ross stormed forward. She held her tablet up like a second coming of the commandments.

“See!” she said, pushing her glasses and pulling her loose trousers up. Her hair poked like straw out of her ponytail. “I told you.”

“Most likely,” Booker said.

“This time near it was at the center of the Paramecium Galaxy. Last week in the Sculptor Dwarf. So either there are multiple of them or it can jump. Organic wormholes. Quicker than ours. Look,” she said, handing him the tablet.

Hector turned to leave.

“Captain Thorne, can you tell me what you see?” Booker asked.

The image showed a blurred image of a large cylindrical formation floating through space, surrounded by small asteroids, and hovering before a blue planet. Next showed it nearer, the last showed no planet. Ross glared in the abominable manner he’d become accustomed to at advisory panels.

“I’m not an astronomer.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Booker said.

“I see a large and irregularly shaped asteroid, surrounded by smaller ones. Then what looks like a planetary devastation.”

“Are you serious?” Ross asked, almost knocking her glasses off as she palmed her face. “An asteroid that size would be round, held together by gravity. And it couldn’t change direction, look at the frames! And these ones from last week. And these ones from two months back! Don’t be ridiculous.”

“As ridiculous as an interstellar, planet-eating levitation, with symbiotic insects? We’ve been crossing stars for nearly three thousand years, Lanna, and not once have we seen one of these things. You’re making a wild leap.” Brooker stood and stared down his nose. “And more importantly, I told you to stop wasting satellite time on personal projects when your job is to tend to the Obstinoughts. We’re still behind on Deianira’s core systems, and I’m waiting for a damage report.”

She tried to match the heat in his gaze. “This isn’t why I joined.”

“Dismissed.”

Down the stainless steel halls, past communications rooms, and labs, the phantom reverberation of Thesakle’s axe through Hyllan’s Planetary Capitol Building sent a shiver through Hector’s forearm. Flashes of incoming missiles played in the periphery of his sight. Splattered bodies that could hardly be made out.

“Captain Thorne!” Ross called, running down the hall.

“Yes?” he asked.

Hunched over to catch her breath, she said, “Your psych evaluation.”

His heart sped and eyes turned furtively. “I’m tired, Doctor.”

“It’s my job to make sure our Obstinoughts and they’re pilots are in working condition.”

“Thesakles is fine.”

“He always is.”

“... What do you want?”

“To discuss your future.”

Fifty years of service, thirty at the helm of humanity’s greatest sword, and now a small case of regret was going to ruin him? “Can we have this conversation in private?” he asked.

Ross’s office was adorned like most of the research and maintenance team. Monitors, files, VR systems, fidget toys, and a hologram table.

“You don’t have to stand at attention,” she said, taking a seat and gesturing to him to do the same. “Suit yourself.”

“Are you going to recommend my dismissal?”

“No. I want to discuss the dismissal of the Conquest program.”

His brow furrowed. It was like discussing the end of public education.

She continued, “Have you ever thought about how ridiculous this system is?”

“To live is to consume.”

“To live is to learn.”

His jaw tightened in defense of many things. “There are over five hundred trillion Unus Animus citizens spread across a hundred worlds. How else should we provide for them?”

“For starters, taking care of those worlds.”

“Easier in theory.”

“Easier than relocating a population every few years.”

“You should talk to someone who can help.”

“I am.” She sighed and rubbed circles in her temples. “For deeply troubling reasons, people look up to Obstinough pilots, yet you, your colleagues, and predecessors only use your celebrity to sell bullshit.”

“The pension isn’t great.”

“The pension isn’t the problem— and there’s a reason most don’t live to see it.”

The crystalline memory flashed of his father slumped in his office chair. Blood on the wall, a half finished note. He cited the Unus Animus motto, “Pauci pro multis”.

“What I’m saying is that if you endorsed alternative means of resource allocation, alliances, or maybe even just sustainable living instead of Dunbar’s Discount Imitation Shrimp, maybe we wouldn’t need to decimate half a dozen planets a decade.”

One of the main reasons he’d joined the military is because it was— on the surface— supposed to be simple.

“You overestimate how much people care about us.”

“And you haven’t estimated it at all. You might try to look like teflon, but you’re breaking. You have been since the last Conquest. Your liver’s proof.”

He squeezed irritation through his wrists.

“It’s my job, Ma’am.”

Too flustered to speak, she snarled, “It won’t last forever.”

He nodded and looked to the textureless steel floor. “Am I excused?”

“I’m not a commander.” She rolled her eyes upon seeing him still there. “Yes.”

“Thank you. And good luck.”

He meant it.

————

The steak almost tasted real, but lab-grown meat was always a bit off. They couldn’t replicate the flavor of digested grass. It was close enough.

Utensils clicked over plastic plates. Beyond the window of his room, the expanse of space struck him as black and beautiful as the first time he’d left Themis. Had it not been for the sudden stall in the hologram, a part of him might have gone on thinking Olivia was really there. She’s getting big, he thought. Puncture drive or not, wormholes still took time to navigate.

“How old are—”

“Thirteen,” Olivia said, without looking up. She was beginning to look like her grandmother, a child of the sun.

“… Six years,” he said, taking a bite. “It wasn’t that long for me.”

Her lips tightened. “I know.”

“How’s your mom?” A phantom pain flared in his ribs from where the hydrogen bomb had detonated.

Olivia shrugged. “Fine. Out with James.”

The fork bent as imagined ‘James’.

“So how much longer until you’re back?” she asked.

“... I don’t know. Maybe half a year. For me.”

“Try not to miss my wedding.”

“I told you, you’re not allowed to get married until you're fifty.” She never could tell when he was joking. “I’ll be back.”

Olivia pushed her tofu around. “They’re starting on your monument soon. Congress wants it to be ready for you when you get back.”

Pride swelled in his chest, but washed away in seeing it wasn’t shared.

“Hopefully it turns out better than grandpas… Did they scrub the graffiti?”

“Yeah, but it’s back.”

Hector wondered, If he would’ve just overdosed like most pilots, would I still get the nightmares?

“Do you think you deserve it?” Olivia asked.

Chemically dampened emotions and all, the words left his ears ringing. “If they say I do.”

“Do you ever have thoughts of your own?” she asked.

“I try not to.”

“Why?”

“They’re not useful.”

“That’s a terrible reason.”

“But it’s mine.” He moved the pieces of red dyed meat around his plate. “Do you still like sprinkle pancakes?” Hector asked.

“I don’t eat breakfast.”

He gestured to her plate. “You don’t eat dinner either.”

“I’ve got a date later.”

White rage buzzed in his ears, the sort he felt in swinging his greataxe, in remembering scores of soldiers whose intestines painted the battlefields of his first deployments, in pleading with God.

“You can’t go on a date,” he said, resolutely.

With how skinny she’d become, Hector saw every sinew of her jaw tighten. “You can start telling me what to do when you pay child support.”

“I sent your mom the money. There must have been a problem with the connection.”

She smirked and looked his hologram up and down. “It seems fine to me.”

Something inside of him wanted to throw the plate, to smash the apartment and shout how she needed to listen to her father, to level planets, but instead he sat there staring at the synthetic steak.

“I gotta go, Dad. I’ll talk to you… whenever.”

Without the hologram, the room went dark. His eyes fell shut. Two more planets.

————

The titanium staff blurred past his face. A genuine spike to his heart rate. The kid was fast.

Thesakles and Deianira stood opposite the green valley, an orange sunset catching dully on her black alloy. Even in its virtually simulated form, Vera’s Obstinought was something. Thinner, faster, the primary alloy almost two times stronger than Thesakles, devoid of the wicked-looking spikes which covered his, outfitted with two small quellcannons on both arms instead of the oversized rifle. A good decision, practical and efficient. Throughout his tenure, he’d never once taken his quellcannon over thirty percent— theoretically couldn’t even take it over ninety without risking detonation.

The Obstinoughts circled, weapons at the ready. He didn’t give advice during training.

She led with a jab— he knew she would. A dash off-center and he swung his axe. The blade cleaved through her elbow and buried into the ground. Sparks flared as she stumbled. Even through the pain, she managed to hold onto her weapon this time.

Hector pressed the attack and tasted the blunt kiss of her staff upside his cheek. Pain pulsed through his teeth and brought to life something within him. He ducked, swung, caught an edge into her midsection, spun, and buried it in her spine.

Suddenly, his balance was gone, swept at the ankle. He crashed on his back and she mounted. A steel fist pummeled his face and sent stars through his vision. Vera raised a hammer fist, and overhead a spear formation of bombers shot past. Before she could look, the nuke’s burst over her back. His hand caught her neck, and with a jet’s surge, he drove her up to the sky. A moment of frozen clarity at the apex of the arc before he slammed her back to the earth. Vera’s screams carried through the VR room as she watched his sole descend upon her face. The cockpit crumbled.

Haptic feedback cut, the virtual display disappeared, and he was back in the simulation room. The hardlight suits evaporated and he dropped to the illuminated floor. Vera pushed herself off the ground, blood running from her nose, bright against her dark skin.

“You alright?” Hector asked.

She nodded and caught her breath.

“You didn’t see the bombers. Were you paying attention to the radar?”

Vera shook her head and placed her gloves on the chargers.

“Incorporate your cannons.”

She sighed.

“Watch the midsection. And use the pattern recognition software.”

Her lips sealed without a crease.

“Don’t assume because someone’s down that it’s over.”

“...”

“Never leave your weapon.”

“Alright!”

Hector froze, a quick spike of anger, but he let it go. Regardless of the Pilot Surgeries, she was young. He couldn’t have handled all this at twenty eight. He struggled in his fifties. It was one of the reasons he suggested her rejection.

Her head fell. “Sorry, Sir. I just feel like I’m letting you down.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “It’s not just you.”

It didn’t provide her the comfort he’d hoped.

“We get better with time. Keep your head clear and focused,” he said.

Her lips tightened into a faint line. “How do you do it?”

“I…” His breath sped as he thought of fire and blood. “I try to remember why we’re doing it.”

“I hope I can be like you.”

The muscles of his throat tensed. “It’d be better if you weren’t.”

————

Each jack, sealing into their input down his back, arms, and legs, took his breath away. The neurocaster connected with Thesakles’ control system. His eyes fluttered and their vision became one.

“Clear the hangar!”

A great exhale sounded from the station’s doors as they opened to the void. Before him shone a blue green marvel, perfect as the pictures of Earth. Thesakles’ engines roared.

“Be careful down there,” Admiral Booker said over the radio. “Estimates show some of them might be bigger than we thought.”

“How much bigger?”

“Two thousand feet at most. But they’re dumb. Wild. Like putting down steer.”

“Vera, are you watching?”

“Yes, Sir,” she called.

“Keep the footage, I want to review after.” The locks on Thesakles’ wrists and ankles released. He spared a glance towards Deianira off to his right, mostly constructed. The future.

The jets thundered as he soared towards the planet. Facefirst through the vacuum, he felt serenely weightless, then the atmosphere’s crash. Heat glowed over the suit, streaming flames in his wake, the gauges flashed a light yellow. Pulled by the planet’s heavy gravity, he descended over the ‘Queen Nests’, a green crescent archipelago.

The air tore before him. Sparks flared off the visor. He lowered his feet, fired the jets, and crashed into the shallows. The connected islands bore a mix of round and sharp peaks, lush greenery and golden sands. The greataxe sang as he slung it over his shoulder.

“I don’t see them,” he said.

Booker said, “Try switching to thermal sights.”

Nothing.

“They’re cold blooded, Sir,” Ross said.

Something grasped his ankle, a massive tentacle wrapping from the depths. Without thought, he cleaved. A sea of umber blood sprayed as the feeler writhed. It sloshed white back through the water and there arose an uneasy silence. Then a resounding explosion from the sea. A horrid monster, bipedal and coral-carapaced with a sprawl of spiked tentacles and a fishlike head devoid of eyes. Brown, needle fangs flashed within its wide maw.

A trio of tentacles shot forward and he cleaved at an angle. A high pitched squeal rang as they splashed to the ocean. He stepped forward and pulled back, but from the other side of the mountain, a tentacle wrapped the axe’s neck. His leg ripped out from under him and witha hard crash, he found himself looking up to gnashing teeth. Caught by the neck, drool poured over the visor. His arm trembled against its hunger, and all around, sprouting from the depths, dozens more.

Fear flashed white through his heart, a lifetime of regrets and hopes all before him. Mission control blared in his ear. Only Vera’s voice rang clear. “Get the hell up, Sir!”

His fingers clasped hard and he opened his mouth. Sonic waves at two hundred decibels rolled in a reverberating screech. It reeled and screamed, tentacles flailing, blood dripping from its ear holes. Feet to its chest, Thesakles’ jets fired and sent the thing soaring as he shot to his feet. The creature opposite the island charged and his axe buried deep into skull. His surgically dampened fear turned into black rage as he ripped it loose and split the handle. One in each hand, he scanned the encircling colossi. He ground his teeth and let them come.

Razor tips through carapace and flesh. Cleaving head from neck. Spilling miles of intestines. Alarms sounded with returning blows. The sharp pain of teeth in the shoulder and spiked tentacles wrapping around the arms. Hector roared through each swing, each fist, each knee and relished the shattering of bone.

The sea stained dark and murky, Thesakles stalked over the last, whimpering and pulling itself forward on stub tentacles and a single leg. Seething breaths fueled his temper. Over a bay of mangled corpses, he raised both axes and screamed. The clouds parted and the edges buried into the bedrock. Waves rolled. Then peace. Hector caught his breath and looked around.

“Any sign of the Queen?” he asked.

Radio silence.

Seismic vibrations shook the archipelago. The water seemed to be boiling. Evermore violent, he stumbled and the mountains broke from the sea. As the ground fissured below and the waters surged, Thesakles gathered himself and took to the air.

Aloft below the clouds, he watched the archipelago bend. Seven others emerged from below the surrounding waters, rising until they took shape. Fingers of a mammoth hand which forced a body up from the tectonic plates, a porous rock behemoth, dripping magma, water, and bathed in steam, a thing which dwarfed him as it rose ten, twenty, thirty, a hundred thousand feet. Water rushed to fill the vast cavern of its vacancy. Hector’s pulse raced on the monitor. He forced himself to breathe. These are what the humans of Earth had talked about when they posited gods.

“Shit,” Booker said.

Hector clasped the axes back together, secured them within the quiver holster, and took up the quellcannon. Solar heat flared red through its core.

“Power estimate?” he asked.

After a moment of deliberation, Ross said, “Maybe thirty eight percent.”

His thumb slid the lever to forty. The titan’s roar shattered the clouds in visible sonic waves. It was like someone had fired a .45 inside his head. Blood dripped from his ears and the world spun. Hector leveled the rifle and peered through the sights as the creature reared a fist the size of a state.

There was something divine about the moment.

“Are you sure we have no reason to keep this thing alive?” Hector asked.

“Unless you’re opening a zoo,” Booker said.

Hector exhaled and, with forced mental effort, pulled the trigger.

Red light cut a gaping hole through the center of its tectonic chest and fired out the atmosphere. Fissures rippled from the impact and widened. Massive boulders crumpled to the sea and cast rolling waves out to the horizon. Hung within the clouds, Hector pondered cosmic reckoning.

“Well done, Thesakles. Four more nests before dinner.”

The last of its cries faded as it toppled and a cramp seized his stomach.

“You hear me, Thorne?”

“... Copy.”

————

Hector watched the video with crossed arms, the crimson titan ducking under the massive claws of the Western Hemisphere’s Queen, catching its stinger, ripping it from its socket, and burying it into the spawn behind him. Miles of jungle fell with each step. Thesakles turned and, with a closed fist, compacted the Queen’s wolf-like snout into its single eye. The shadow sensation of the impact echoed through his forearm.

“Pause,” he said.

The video froze and Vera looked to him coldly. He doubted he really needed to point any of this out, but he figured it was his job.

“The problem?” he asked.

“You didn’t see the one behind you.”

“No, my feet were too close together. Always be thinking about your center of balance. It needs to be instinctive. That was twice in one day that I got taken down. In Type One Societies, even half of Type One, you get taken down and the next thing you know you’re looking at an orbital strike.”

She nodded and the video proceeded. Thesakles crashed on his back, caught the massive cyclops wolf’s face as it plunged for the bite, and ripped its jaws in two.

“Expand your peripherals, any motion is a threat, any irregularity is motion.” Hector rolled out the pain in his shoulder.

“Sir,” Vera said, “We don’t have to do this right now. You’re hurt. We can pick up tomorrow.”

“It’s easier while the memories are fresh.”

They watched in silence as he hacked the last of the Queen’s spawn into pieces, but eventually her silence became unavoidable.

“What’s wrong,” he asked.

She raised her chin. “Nothing.”

“Don’t waste my time.”

“... I’m just starting to feel it.”

“You’ve still got a while. After this leg, it probably won’t be another five years until the next Conquest. And even then, they probably won’t choose you.”

He knew full well that sitting on ice didn’t make the inevitability any easier.

Hector paced his office and looked to the shimmering blue planet below. A dozen ocean pumps were already protruding through the atmosphere.

“It’s normal to be scared. But when you’re in the suit, it all goes away.” He leaned on the cold glass. He wanted to be honest. “It’ll haunt you.”

“Which part?” A slight glimmer played off her eyes. She knew full well. “But we have to.”

He nodded.

“So what do we do?”

Hector felt his lungs locking, vision beginning to shake, the hooded presence of dread over his back. His hand dove into his pocket and fished through the pill canister. The SNRI tablet ground into bitter powder between his teeth. It didn’t kick right away, but the taste brought about a pseudo-somatic response.

He jumped to Vera’s hand on his back. Her voice broke the white noise. “Sir?”

He drew a long breath. “I… you’re right. Let’s pick up tomorrow. Simulation room at nine.” It wasn’t necessarily the dread that angered him, but her worry.

Before she left, she asked, “I know it’s not required, but will you be there for my first Conquest?”

Just the thought sent the room back into a pulse. “We’ll see,” he said.

The doors sealed and he chewed another two tablets. The shakes remained. Stories of Ragnarok echoed from his childhood. He turned away, unable to watch the planet anymore.

Through the halls, he wandered without purpose. Most were empty at the late hour— and on the heels of a successful day. He wished some of the writers on the station could have seen Georgus in person. No doubt they’d witness the video, or at least parts— the military only released bits— but it wasn’t the same as seeing it in person.

As he passed the mission control, he noticed the red lock on the door’s display. Curiosity reared its head. The only occasion for it to lock was in the event of intruders— but the alarms would have sounded long ago. Hector tapped his neurocaster into the panel and ventured through the ship's archive. Within the emergency files he found the code.

The door opened to an empty room. Just one person on the rightmost communication console, Dr. Ross, headphones over her ears, the monitor’s blue glow illuminating her pale features. His eyes narrowed.

“— You have to prepare whatever defenses you can,” she said.

He crept silently around.

“I know… I’ve seen your planet’s schematics… I helped map them. I’m sorry.”

He paused and probed into the system. The opposite line was connected to a distant radio number, galaxies off, ESO 151-41. A cold hand pressed into the base of his spine. It was coming from Kroan. The last planet of the Conquest.

“By the time you see us, it’ll be too late. At most you have two weeks.”

He heard the frightened radio operator, “Please, we can’t fight. Our society hasn’t even reached the nearest planet. Whatever you want, take it.”

Ross shook her head. “Even if a planet surrenders, it’s the military’s belief that uprisings are inevitable. For resource acquisition, they don’t move in until the global population has dropped to twenty percent.” She choked out the last bit, “And for Kroan, they want more than your resources.”

“What does that mean?”

“The plan is to use the planet for relocation. They won’t leave anyone alive.”

A long measure of radio silence elapsed. Hector’s mind ran incomplete circles. His duty, trillions of lives, a career of service. Sweat dripped coolly down his neck hairs. Ross turned and let out a muted scream before covering her mouth.

“Are you okay?” the Kroan operator asked.

“I…”

“Please, we can live together. We have space. We’re peaceful.”

Ross’s eyes glittered in terror behind her glasses.

“There are over five billion people here!” the operator said.

Hector felt himself growing weak in the knees.

“... Thorne.” she whispered.

He closed his eyes and turned towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Ross called, tears in her voice.

“To my room.”

“Are you going to…”

His feet moved by themselves. The door sealed. It felt as if his brain was going to explode.

————

Hector sat at the end of his bed, the lights low to ease his pounding migraine. Sweat soaked his undershirt and briefs. The dial tone continued to ring sharply as he watched the old video of Priam Thorne and the unstoppable Hyperiues tearing through the secondary capital of Panth. Felled skyscrapers at his feet, airships fleeing, surrounded by a half dozen of the planet’s own defense titans— rudimentary versions, perhaps three hundred years behind Hyperiues, each a good four thousand feet shorter. The video swiveled to catch the charge of the incoming mecha. His father’s greatsword glinted. Sparking halves added to the city’s debris. The others charged—

The dial tone broke and a full size hologram of his mother appeared in the room. Hunched in her wheelchair and wrapped in a swaddle of white blankets, she looked over her shoulder and spoke with one of the home’s assistants in a confused and irritated tone.

“Mom,” he said.

She squinted her eyes and said, “Hello?”

“It’s Hector.”

Her expression turned in perplexity. She looked back to the attendant for confirmation. Maybe this was justice paid forward on behalf of him and his father. Dementia at her age? Barely over a hundred?

“Where are you?” she asked.

“On deployment.”

A small measure of recollection seemed to click. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah… yeah.”

“Are you visiting soon? Jolleen keeps asking why I don’t have visitors.”

Hector sucked on his teeth.

“She stole my boyfriend, you know.”

“Don’t tell me that.”

“Then who am I going to tell?”

Hector’s reddish brown hair fell over his face as he pinched his eyes. “I don’t know. Not me.”

“Why’d you call then?”

A question he still hadn’t answered himself. “I wanted to ask you about dad.” He sighed. “Did he ever have regrets?”

Her eyes glazed in rumination of the past. “Everyone has regrets.”

“I mean… when I was growing up, he was Superman. Untouchable. Sure as steel. But the more I think about it, the more I realize I never really knew him.”

“Of course you knew him. Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, hands shaking over her knee.

“He used to tell me that what he went through was a small price compared to what Animus received. I assumed he meant the pain. The synaptic and somatic issues.”

Her eyes squinted in remembrance.

“I didn’t even know he was on drugs until I joined the infantry.”

“...”

Hector scratched his browline. “He was so big. Every time I imagine him, he’s blotting out the sun. But I think the shadows hid his face. When I found him in the office, outside of the hole, his eyes… I’d seen them like that before. I think if I paid attention, I would have known he was crying.”

“... A rock never cries.”

He felt a fracture through his heart. “They just break.” Hector thought of the question. “So the answer’s yes?”

“When am I going home?”

He paused for a long while, the cramp in his throat too painful to speak over. “I’ve never asked you about it, but his note, what do you think he meant? ‘The dying of light’.”

The words struck an electric and melancholy chord. Upon trembling lips, she whispered,

“And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Her teeth broke into a quick chatter and tears loosed down the lines of her cheeks. As he stared at the still frame of his father’s Obstinought on the screen, indomitable over the felled city, he asked himself, Then why did he?

————

Whispers rang around the round conference table, fleet advisors in gray uniforms, the windows sealed over with titanium, beyond it, the streaming colors of torn spacetime as the station soared through the belly of the wormhole. The shine of the stainless steel room worsened the harsh beat of his headache.

He shared a glance with Ross, who’s eyes danced furtively over the table. “A bit early for the final tactics review,” Vera said. “We’re still a week out from Kroan.”

The ecologist to her left said, “It’s about the station that got taken out a few days ago. They’re probably calling us back to the Capital.”

“Attacked?” she asked.

“They don’t know. No SOS made it out.”

Vera looked to Hector for confirmation. He tried not to fall into panic. The doors slid open and the room quieted. Admiral Booker’s thick soled bootsteps pounded around the table. With sunken eyes, he scanned the room.

“This job isn’t easy,” Booker said, in a conflicted voice. After a long pause, he continued, “But we didn’t fall into our positions by accident. We all knew the cost.”

Vera sat up, trying to look resolute. Hector squeezed a fist to fight the shakes.

Booker continued, “Before we make a station-wide announcement, I wanted to inform you that last week there was an unauthorized use of the ship’s Puncture Drive. Someone made radio contact with Kroan. There’s no transcript, but I think the purpose is obvious.” He let the fact soak in. “First Degree Treason.”

Furrowed looks of disbelief rounded the table.

“Maybe it was one of you, maybe it wasn’t, but the truth will come out.”

Beads of sweat shone on Ross’s forehead.

“I shouldn’t have to remind you that a crime like this could result in the death penalty, but I’m telling you now because I want to give whoever did this a chance. If they come forward, I’ll fight on their side to lessen the sentencing, but if we have to root them out, there’s nothing I can do.” He didn’t seem to take any pleasure in the room’s discomfort, but he didn’t ease it either.

One of the Heads of resource acquisitions asked, “Do you have any leads?”

His gaze passed over everyone, but Hector noticed a slightly longer pause on Dr. Ross. By the flush of her cheeks, she noticed too— and at least a few others.

“I’m not at liberty to—”

He didn’t think. Didn’t plan. The words took form by themselves. “It was me, Sir,” Hector said.

A strange sensation overcame him, cold on the inside, hot on the out.

The Admiral’s jaw fell slightly ajar before sealing it tight. “... Thorne.”

“I take full responsibility, Sir.”

Booker’s eyes narrowed into glittering black marbles. “Why?”

“You’ve seen my psych report… I couldn’t take it.”

Gazes turned between them.

Hector continued, “They’ve offered their surrender and authorized full use of their planet. Annihilation isn’t necessary.”

Tides of pain and betrayal pulled at the Admiral’s expression.

“That doesn’t change anything.”

“In the history of the Conquest program, only four planets ever revolted. Four out of the hundreds. It’s not right that because of them, we annihilate the rest.”

“Those uprisings spread to other colonies.”

“Their sins shouldn’t damn the universe.”

“It’s not on us to determine what’s right and wrong, Thorne.”

“Maybe, Sir. But I did it nonetheless.”

Around the table, eyes bounced back and forth. He didn’t have to look at Vera to feel her anger. Didn’t have to spare more than a glance to see Ross’s guilt.

“Nine planets, Captain, and here at the end of your service, you turn your back?”

Hector thought of burning cities, crumbled mountains, and beautiful species brought to extinction or held underfoot while Animus drained their oceans and carved the gold from their cores. “Pauci pro multis… but five billion isn’t a few.”

The Admiral pinched his eyes. “You let me down, Captain.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

“Should I call security?”

Hector stood calmly and advisors around the table recoiled in fear. “I can walk myself.”

His steps were the only sound. The halls, the comms rooms, the offices, mess halls, R&D labs, a great machine. He wondered what was one part less.

————

The cell was purgatorial white. Headache inducing. Hector sat impassively atop his cot and stared at the wall, contemplating how Olivia was going to take the news. Her mother, his mother. The empire. He told himself he shouldn’t care.

Days were hard to quantify. He guessed it’d been six. What did it say that Booker had been his only visitor? Hector didn’t blame Vera. Had the same happened with his mentor, he likely would’ve turned his back too.

Given today was her first drop, she didn’t need anymore confusion.

Hector paced toward the glass and noticed the guards at the end of the hall listening to their radios before disappearing through the sliding doors. He imagined Vera’s prep, how nervous she must be. He wished he could be there, wished he could be proud of her. He was.

He paced back and looked into the security camera. If not for the signal blockers, he might have streamed the mission feed through his neurocaster. Be safe, Kid.

A knock sounded on the glass. He turned to Ross, haggard looking, eyes swollen behind her glasses, mostly bone.

“Sorry it’s taken so long,” she said. “Booker’s had people watching me around the clock. I don’t think he’s convinced.” Tears glittered over her eyes. “Why’d you do it?”

“I’m at the end of my line, Doctor. Whether I spend my life in a cell or a one room apartment doesn’t make much difference.”

“But it’s not right.”

“I haven’t done much of that in my life.” He sat and braced his chin with his fists.

“I assume you know what today is?” she said.

“When are they sending her out?”

“Within the hour.”

“I imagine Booker’s having an aneurysm wondering where the System’s Chief is.”

She didn’t see any humor in it. “Thorne, you’re the first pilot to ever step down. You’ve started something.”

Step down? “Don’t be dramatic.”

“People are talking.”

“Seems like things are normal.”

“Don’t be stupid!”

“What do you want from me?”

“Convince the kid not to go. She’ll listen to you. Save those people down there.”

“She’s being deployed in an hour, Ross. This has been her dream for a long time, she won’t just abandon it.”

“I saw her evaluation. She’s not even close to ready.”

Not even one drop and she was already breaking.

“Even if I did, there’s always another,” he said.

“One pilot turns to two, two to four… who knows what happens next.”

Hector stared at the floor, his body feeling like iron.

“If not for Kroan, think of the kid.”

He imagined Olivia stomping on societies… and in time tying a noose in an empty home. The glass slid open. Neither said a word.

Face down through the halls, past the whispers, they ascended the station to Ross’s office. She slid into her chair and hurried into Deianira’s system. A feed of the hangar came to life on the monitor. Deianira and Thesakles side by side, the final locks coming off her wrists and core charging a bright blue. A pressing wave of guilt overcame him seeing Vera wired into the Obstinought, a steel look of death about her.

Ross handed him her headset, and the words flowed from his chest. “Kid,” he said.

Her head turned, a sudden expression of panic.

“Captain?” Vera whispered.

Booker’s voice cut through, “Is that Thorne?”

Hector said. “I know you think you have to do this, that you can’t throw away all the time it took to get into that suit, but you have a choice.”

Booker shouted, “Is he out of his cell? Find him!”

“I fell for it too, Vera. We were raised to think this is the only way, that our survival is the only thing that matters. But I promise you, the only thing that matters to all those people down there is whether you drop.”

Booker interrupted, “Captain Kassian, you have a job, your responsibility is not them. We’ve got a billion people on this station without a home. We owe it to them.”

“There’s more to this numbers,” Hector said.

A long silence held sway over the radio. Vera’s head fell in solemn consideration. She whispered, “Unus Animus.”

Her jets fired and, in a face first dive, the Obstinought shot towards the blue surface of Kroan. Existential dread gripped Hector’s spine. Divergent worries rendered him into ice. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard Ross—

“Thorne…”

Security footage showed soldiers racing down their hall.

Pain flashed through his gritted teeth. “Can you deploy Thesakles from here?” he asked.

Her expression was stern and unquestioning.

Hector stepped into the hall and eyed the incoming three, clad in ballistic armor, brandishing black stunner sticks. With a deep exhale, calmness overcame. A left step from the first swing and a front kick to the ribs which toppled two. He caught the arm of the third, and with a backhand cracked his jaw. His feet pounded down the hall, around the corner, up the elevator and before another group of three. They met his gaze with glittering fear, and stepped aside.

Breath cool and even at his sprint, the upper hangar doors opened and he ran the top platform towards Thesakles crown. Technicians parted, in fear, confusion, and with a few smiles. Booker’s voice rang through the speakers—

“Don’t make this any worse on yourself, Captain.”

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Hector said, vision unifying with Thesakles’.

Ross spoke over him, “Are you good?”

“Let me out.”

The locks released. Alarms rang and the technicians ran towards the exit. Thesakles’ jets fired. Adrenaline flooded his veins, tightened his muscles, and filled him with a sort of purpose he hadn’t felt since he was a young man.

He hit the atmosphere with a burning crash. Face first through the clouds, he followed Deianira’s descent upon an island metropolis. The towering Obstinough stood over the post-industrial city, frozen, staff in hand, and staring at the masses below. Just in landing, she’d already taken out twenty square blocks.

Booker called on the radio, “I know this is you Ross. Drop open your door and we can discuss this before things escalade.”

“Sorry, Admiral… I’ve made my choice.”

Thesakles’ jets shook the air as he slowed to a low hover over the city.

Deianira’s visor shone gold against the sun at his back. Neither spoke. He hoped that the agency of presence might illuminate his plea.

“You’re a traitor, Sir,” Vera finally said.

“If it means saving you from hell, fine.”

“What about our people?”

“There’s more than one way to survive.”

“But it’s ours.”

“... Prove it.”

Her visor flashed as she scanned the cityscape. Fingers tightened along the staff. Over the radio, Ross whispered in a wary voice, “Thorne, I’m getting some strange signals in the solar system.. Gravitational disturbances.”

“Kroan defense systems?”

“No, they don't have the technology to affect spacetime like this.”

“Then what is it?” he asked, anxiety rising from the kid’s silence.

“A wormhole.”

His head throbbed in harsh beats. “Let Booker know. Vera, they’ve already surrendered.”

Black dots appeared through the clouds on the horizon, aircrafts in spear formation. Vera whispered through her teeth, “You’re wrong, Sir.”

Her quellcannons charged blue. Duty and sorrow wrestled a knot in Hector’s heart.

I’m sorry.

In a forward dive, he grasped her wrist and throat and pulled her through the air. Her foot caught the edge of a tower and a cloud of debris crashed on the city. The cannon’s blue beam fired into the atmosphere. Hector squeezed tight, soared over the coastline, and heaved her into the ocean.

She landed on her feet and he crashed before her. A hail of bombs burst over both hulls and sea. They recoiled to fire while the jets ripped eastward.

Booker cut through, “Captain Kassian, your mission now is to capture the prisoner and return our property.”

The ocean’s breeze rang swift and cold.

“Copy.”

Deianira’s staff whirled into an offensive position. Hector’s eyes fell shut in resignation and he split the axe in two.

She rushed first, a jab— no, a feint. He stepped left and into the blow. Pain flared through his cheek, yet through it, he caught sight of her swinging for the leg. He lifted over the sweep and planted his alloyed sole into her face.

Deianira crashed through water, a fracture in the visor and a tidal wave around. Instinct called to strike the heart, but he froze and found himself looking at the charged barrel of her cannon. Ducking the first, the second burned into his chest and sent him airborne. Pain flared as he bounced. Staff overhead, she charged and he crossed his axes. Almost too fast to register, her knee cracked his chin. Alarms sounded as the visor fissured. His back hit hard within the bay.

Once more he was looking at the butt end of her staff. She plunged for his heart and he rolled— not quick enough. The end tore through the ribs and pressed a wave of agony. He ignored the pain, kicked her ankles, and in her stagger, fired off his back. Up into her chest, he drove her into the sky and back to the sea.

Her breathless gasp pressed needles into his heart. “Vera… please. Enough—”

In his peripherals, he caught sight of a blurred green missile. A thought-wrenching impact blasted his heart. He soared off his feet, the blow like a bull’s horn. Alarms and white noise filled the cockpit. Internal defense systems activated to extinguish the fire around the core. From his belly, he saw on the horizon a black warship. Enhanced vision showed a large DEW, a rectangular particle beam repositioning for the next strike.

Pain pulsing through his ribs, he watched frozen as Deianira raised her arm and fired. The short beam sliced over the curvature of the planet and a resounding plume of flame and water rose into the air.

“You see, Sir. There’s no such thing as surrender—”

The axe tore through her elbow. He spun and wrapped the handle around her neck. Conflicted tears stung his eyes. Her breathless cries rang in his ear. Then he was hurling over her shoulder, thrown at the hip. As he crashed, he knew what she was going to do. Always quick to sprawl, to dive into a grapple, to drop her weapon—

Deianira tore his axe away, and in frozen moments, he watched its head fall upon him. Agony flashed white through as the blade cleaved through his shoulder and lopped his arm. Hector grasped at the phantom pain and roared over the alarms.

“Yield, Sir,” Vera said, the cannon aimed at his face. His gaze turned between her, the city, to the moon-sized station in orbit. Maybe he was wrong. For her sake, he hoped he was.

In a perplexed voice, Booker called on the radio, “What the hell is that?”

There was no excitement in Ross’s response. “I told you.” Video from space streamed into Thesakles’ cockpit— given her pause, he figured Vera was watching the same. Near the dark end of the solar system, small ripples in space showed over distant stars as a whitehole grew from the abyss. No sound carried through the vacuum, but could it, he figured it might shatter an atmosphere. Slithering through the blackness, larger than anything he’d ever dreamed, an eldritch leviathan. Head wide as a sun with thousands of horrid eyes, pale as death, and bearing hundreds lipless mouths, the most prominent at the front, a gaping baleen maw large enough to fit all of Kroan.

The smaller mouths opened, and through the fangs merged an army of silver, winged spiders— by satellite measurement, the size of hundred story skyscrapers.

“Ross, what the fuck is this?” Booker asked.

“I told you.”

“I understand that! What is it doing?”

“From what I’ve seen, the symbiotes go first. They seek out biological fuel and the main body takes everything else.”

“What do you mean everything else?”

“Planets, space stations, anything.”

Alarms blared over the radio, Booker called ships to the ready, defensive formations. Everything they had. Deianira looked between the city and blue skies above, shaking in the knees.

Through pain in his shoulder and chest, Hector pushed himself up on one arm. They shared a silent glance. Vera handed him his axe and fished her staff from the sea. There was a lot he wished he could say. Side by side, they soared towards the heavens.

The video showed as the spiders shot through the solar system towards the station. White Animus ships emerged from the hangars like bees from a hive. Into the abyss, Thesakles and Deianira picked up speed. Shouted orders carried over the radio, estimates on numbers, maybe a thousand of the creatures against five hundred ships. Questions of how effective the particle cannons would be. Questions of retreat. The clear answer that there wasn’t enough time to open a big enough hole.

“Sir?” Vera asked. “Orders?”

“Keep them off the stations.”

“What about the big one?”

He eyed his battery, bleeding with his wounds, twenty percent. The sun burned red and forty million miles off.

“Ross,” he asked, “Can you puncture a small hole for me?”

“You’re leaving!”

“I need to get to the sun.”

“... I’ll have it ready in ten.”

The two picked up speed as in the distance, green bolts converged on the creatures, sprays of silver blood and carapace shot through space, quick plumes of flame which quickly extinguished as the spiders shouldered through. Their path was clear, those billions of beating hearts on the station.

The first wave crashed around the station. With spiraling razor maws, they burrowed into the titanium. Thesakle heaved his axe, and swift with his momentum, cleaved a chittering beast at the stomach as it raised up. Silver blood sprayed, and he landed— secured by electromagnetic soles.

The creatures turned, and scuttling on ten legs, met his charge. By the distant rays of the sun, the axe’s head shone bright. Wide swings over the top and around the side, legs and carapace drifted through space.

A maw of spiraling teeth like a living garbage disposals shot from his blindside. He raised his arm for cover, but the horrid face crashed against a titanium staff. Deianira and Thesakles’ drew back to back, weapons ready as the things surrounded.

“Advice?” she asked.

“I was going to ask the same thing.”

Halved bodies, still twitching, carried around Thesakles’ axe. Mangled heads spouted silver life, crushed under the force of Deianira’s speed. They spun, hacked, and split. Defensive forces circled back. Green blasts scored their carapace. Through the cosmic detritus, the leviathan neared, eyes turning the system over, slithering across space in a slow S. His panic was broken by a firm swing which shattered the back of a charging spider and sent it drifting.

“Thorne!” Ross said.

He turned to the rippling space before the station and the white event horizon around the wormhole. Dienaira’s staff whirled overhead before cracking two creatures. Something grave inside him reared its head.

“Captain,” he said.

Vera looked back.

“I didn’t mean to let you down.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“Trust yourself.”

Caught by the gravitational tide of the event horizon, his frame elongated, time stretched, and through the short passage, the colors of space twisted like taffy. He shot forth from the hole, face to face with the blazing red sun. A quick thought passed of how— even at ten thousand feet— small he was. He turned and brandished his cannon. The rear core access opened and, like a deep inhale, began swallowing a stream of solar tendrils.

“Drop intake blocks,” he commanded. “Maximum power absorption. And funnel all energy directly into the quellcannon.”

His thumb slid the power up to one hundred percent. Blinding red energy flared through the power lines and into the cannon. Sparks burst from the mangled shoulder and ribs. Heat mounted in the cockpit and a cautionary voice spoke, “Energy systems unstable, life support systems compromised, multiple fires detected in the core, emergency escape pod ready for deployment.”

Sweat burned his eyes. He slung the barrel over his mangled shoulder and secured it in place with his chin. Down the sights, he set his aim on the ghastly pale leviathan, baleen spread, nearly in reach of the station. Through the darkness, he saw the bright flares of green particle beams, spiders racing over the surface of the station, blue flashes, and a spinning staff.

His head spun within the overwhelming heat. “Core in critical condition. Emergency escape recommended.”

The rifle burned bright, surging and crimson. The trigger pulled easily. A vast beam soared, the circumference of a planet, rippling with electricity at the speed of light. He fired backwards against the force. A boiling sun seared his back and cracked the cockpit displays, yet he held the trigger through. Jets fired to counteract the force, a weak struggle against its strength and the sun’s gravity. Sweat slicked his face. He felt his skin sizzling. No longer could he hear the alarms over the terrible shaking of the cockpit. Lights flashed him senseless. He closed his eyes to the blinding rays of the sun behind. Each breath brought in less. He forced one eye open, needing to know if it hit.

But the alarms went silent. All he felt was the sudden force of the quellcannon’s explosion, then spinning flight. Hot and cold, the vacuum suck through the shattered visor, soaring within Thesakles’ dismembered head. Vertigo and an airless hull proved the final nail. He closed his eyes and thought, I didn’t go gently—

————

Hector sat numbly in the wheelchair, staring at the faux-pine desk. Around him, the frenzied talk of reporters, congressmen, and protestors on both sides washed into nothing, it was nothing, not compared to the pitch of the sun swallowing his second body, the world devouring quake, and utter quiet which followed. As he’d closed his eyes to that black night, he’d been ready. But the living weren’t done with him.

A sudden pain flared through his right leg. He grasped at it with his right hand. For a moment, it felt like something was actually there, not just an empty pant leg and armless sleeve. A camera flashed on his right, a perfect shot of all the burns.

The Head of Congress banged her gavel and a restless silence came over the chamber. She put her glasses on and asked, “Captain Thorne, before we dismiss for today, is there anything you’d like to say on behalf of your defense?”

He looked through public seating, hoping to spot Ross or Vera, maybe his daughter, but there were too many faces and they all looked the same.

“I freely admit my actions. I warned Kroan in advance, I broke out of my cell, hijacked Thesakles, interfered with a mission set on behalf of all Animus, and in turn caused the destruction of a major military asset.”

Silence. It seemed she wanted him to plead but they already knew his actions had led to the leviathan’s destruction, that he’d protected the station, that— for five minutes— he’d given his life.

“So why, after over fifty years of service and four and a half Conquests, did you choose to betray your people?”

His gaze fell to his burned left hand. For a moment, he saw Thesakles’.

“Since I was in diapers I always imagined saving something. We say the few for the many, but there was a time when we were the few. For millennia humanity did what it had to in the name of survival, but we’ve become complacent, blinded by tradition and fear of destruction. Maybe I’m wrong, but I couldn’t damn another planet for the sin of those past. The lives on Kroan, like all those I took before and all those in this room, deserve a chance. If we only look back on betrayal, that’s all we’ll ever know. Scared species running from life…”

He looked around the room, unsure where he was going. He heard his father’s voice and echoed out his mouth, “There’s beauty in every world and every soul. Do what you must with me, but for your sake, I pray that you see that there’s no end to this stomach.”

The congressmen and women around the hearing stand shared perplexed glances.

“Is that it?” the head congresswoman asked.

Maybe one day they’d go back for Kroan. Maybe he was a traitor. But he was only in charge of one man. Who knew what that really meant.

He nodded. “I doubt it. But it’s all from me.”

THE END