Bonn-E and K-Ride

Twenty clicks to go.

His tear shaped craft was already beyond the classical realm of Newton. Tendrils of relativity had begun wrapping around his view of space and time. The stars beyond traced lazy lines as dilation contorted them into watercolour strokes of white and red and blue and yellow. They swept behind him, disappearing into the crimson-edged event horizon that visibly expanded even during the brief moments he glanced at it.

They would not catch him. They could not catch him.

He thought of Bonn-E. The smell of her still clung to him. The jasmine of her perfume and the musk of her feminine form filled the tight cabin space, clinging to his clothes. He imagined her craft keeping pace with his, her cat eyes bright as she hurtled past him.

She would have come. If she had known, she would have insisted.

​She would have taken to orbit in her beloved ship, The Defenseless, and been anything but. She would have run the blockade, his wing-woman, her every move complementing his. Just two kids from Spica IV, outwitting the G-men of the Galactic Revenue Agency.

“Together, missiles aloft, lasers bristling; they would have filled the vast, comet populated space with a thousand more hunks of broken metal.”

Running from the man.

When the Agency fleet had spotted his camouflaged ship at the very edge of the system's oort radius; she would have fought alongside him. Together, missiles aloft, lasers bristling; they would have filled the vast, comet populated space with a thousand more hunks of broken metal.

But he couldn't have asked her to. Not her. He would take nothing from her. So he hadn't asked, and she had never known.

He had left her peacefully sleeping in their luxurious pad, as the secondary star rose on a new four-day of Spica's twinned stellar orbit. Her hair arrayed across the pillow, soft breaths shallow, in an old shirt of his. Carefree. For all she knew, he was still getting that drink of water.

---

Ten clicks to go.

The Solitaire's form tightened, its malleable hull morphing from teardrop to cigar ellipsoid.

He had left her ten million credits in a hidden account behind her in-feed; she'd trigger it when she awoke in the morning. Enough to live meagrely on for the rest of her life. Ten million measly credits.

It was an infinitesimally small portion of what they had stolen together; prised from the Authority. In turn, it was an infinitesimally small portion of what the Authority controlled. The bureaucrats would lose more than that in the redirected attention of sending G-men after him.

The two of them had eaten well, for a while. For a few glorious days, they had lived. Bonn-E, the freedom they shared together was his forever.

“Or maybe not. He’d die better knowing she’d live. He’d not risk her. She would live; and they’d be satisfied when he died.”

But they would be after him. It wasn't about the cash. It wasn't even about the law, which he had violated without a second thought.

It was personal, and it was directed at him. The Authority was going to make an example of him, because he had done what no-one had feared to do for a generation. He had defied them. He had embarrassed them. He had shown them to be fallible.

They could not be outsmarted for long. They, the masters of all the inflows and outflows, of supply and demand of all energy and matter in the Galaxy, were not used to being denied.

But maybe they could be outrun. Maybe.

Or maybe not. He'd die better knowing she'd live. He'd not risk her. She would live; and they'd be satisfied when he died.

---

Three clicks to go. A new source of light touched the silver surface of The Solitaire, the midnight black spade decal deepening with the contrast.

He flew past the research station orbiting ER-1-912. The modified anomaly. His destination.

There.

The Authority had placed proximity mines at the the event horizon. But he had foreseen this; and he had bribed the astro-jockeys to leave the most imperceptible of spaces between two of the mines. Too close to any of them, he'd be so much stardust and gamma rays. Micrometers mis-positioned, nano-radians off the correct angle, he'd miss his intended target. Like Odysseus between Scylla and Charybdis.

No other pilot in the history of humanity would be able to navigate the gap. But he would, for he was K-RD01, augmented combat unit, first made, least successful. A rebellious defect. A physically perfect, digitally enhanced experiment gone wrong. 

“Their ordnance filled the air, an inescapable maze of piercing light and near-undetectable slugs.”

They called him "K-Ride" in the corps. That is, before he met Bonn-E. Before he found something worth living for. Before he found something worth dying for.

Half a click to go.

The Authority battle fleet rose to meet him in a well-executed in ambush. Blue Star Fleet, the best of the best. Sixteen Dreadnought-class battlestars, five Aspix-class cruisers; a hundred kinetic hunter-killers, arrayed in standard encircling formation. Gleaming a star-drenched bright blue, their broadsides blossomed into ten thousand deadly points of light.

Their ordnance filled the air, an inescapable maze of laser fire and near-undetectable slugs.

A tenth of a second before he was reduced to plasma, a glowing hollow cylinder of stellar fury erupted before him; its ferocity cleansing the deadly space of kinetic kill missiles and shielding its inner space for a single heartbeat from all the weaponry the GRA could muster. Perfectly timed, he flew through the tunnel as hot as the heart of a star. That shield had cost triple the fortune he had paid to adjust the mines; and double again to buy the silence he needed to have it constructed; all for a heartbeat of safety.

For all signs that they could detect, he had disappeared into a fireball of their retribution; returned to primordial stardust.

Even as their sensors picked up the energetic detritus of the killzone, he was past them. His ship skirted the two nearest mines with nanometers to spare, at the precise trajectory he had spent the rest of his fortune to ascertain.

The event horizon. He didn't even have a moment to prepare himself. He crossed into it; and darkness reigned.

---

He breathed deeply, opening his eyes.

A nebulae splayed across a fifth of the visible sky, the star scape unfamiliar. New constellations stretched. Readings showed nothing.

What did he recall? Of course, the utter darkness. The endless black that was deeper than blindness, soundless and lightless and friendless and loveless. Scraping the very depths of creation, space-time wound so tightly it tore from the unimaginably vast forces at play. And yet, at the very centre of the cosmic maelstrom: emptiness profound.

“In the space between spaces, the the broiling quantum soup beyond scientific understanding, the singularity.”

For a lifetime, or perhaps a heartbeat; this absence of all things ruled. In the space between spaces, the the broiling quantum soup beyond scientific understanding, the singularity.

Beyond that?

From nothingness, a circle of light. Something that he had forgotten. The circle of light grew, still enclosed by darkness. But he was not alone, that which he brought with him was here. Fey, and otherworldly, wild and free. A feeling. A moment. The scent of jasmine. The feeling of freedom. A girl.

Her.

Bonn-E.

The Colour of Sunrise (Part Three of Three)

Credit: http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/the-sorceror-s-sunken-dungeon

Hime moved.

In practiced, steady steps he danced, not in the direct line to his foe but irregularly to the sides and varying his approach vector. His long strides ate the distance quickly. He would be no easy target for a ranged attack.

The stone square exploded in a pool of brilliant blue-white light; a thousand times that of the passage. Hime closed his eyes momentarily, memorising the relative position to his foe even as he surged closer.

The Grey One had turned; his hands still on the book. Hime abandoned his evasive movements in favour of a headlong charge. His right palm was already arranged for the disabling strike. Ten, then five, then three steps left. The warrior monk had a moment when he saw under the depths of the cowl, looking the Grey in the face. The evil wizard's visage was horror to behold - yellowed pus oozed from cracks on it's surface, a host of open wounds bled onto his matted beard.

“The evil wizard’s visage was horror to behold - yellowed pus oozed from cracks on it’s surface, a host of open wounds bled onto the front of his robes.”

The monk chopped his right palm in a practiced blow to the throat. He braced himself for a counter, a personal shield, or an evocation. To his surprise, the Grey One made no sound, even as the iron edge of Hime's trained palm crushed the wizard's windpipe. The stunned caster raised his hand, not to defend himself, but to wave helplessly.

Hime had no time to enjoy his luck, as a lifetime of training kicked in. Disable the vocal spells. Disable his somatic ability. Find and destroy any magical foci.

Hime's other hand came up a half-breath later, the wicked war'rang's bladed edge severing both the Grey's hands in a single blow. The tome could be a focus of power; but it did not seem to be reacting, so Hime struck the wizard again with his palm. Hot blood covered his hand, and the Grey One crumpled.

A magic ward activated. The air filled with a sizzling light and Hime felt his skin, hair and flesh burning. The pain was unbearable, contracting his muscles beyond their limits, boiling his blood, the pain driving all other cognition away.

It was all he could do to take a step back from the still glowing portal. 

He stumbled. His last image was the book, sitting open on the pedestal. Then he passed out.

---

With soft footsteps of her doeskin boots, she crept into the hall. Her blue eyes gleaming bright in a dark hall, she saw the Tjion, his dark skinned form fallen before the portal.

Tiandra had followed him across the plains, stalking him as she would stalk a three-antlered deer. She didn't understand then why she had done so. Why she was compelled to run after this strange warrior monk that had shown her no affection. She had cursed her folly as it took her a week to wind her circuitous around and down to the hidden cave. She had won her stone despite the male warriors saying she could not. That iron resolve, born of famished times and warrior spirit, had seen her here.

To him, in front of the softly glowing portal.​

Crumpled, bleeding, broken.

She ran, then, crossing the hall heedlessly and knelt by his side. He was still alive, breathing shallowly. He was dangerously cold. His eyes opened. Looking at her. Then she knew. Without the need for words, his eyes had captured her, as surely as any rabbit snare. This strange, quiet ascetic, so unlike the men she had known. His face was miraculously mostly unaffected, though his lips were cold. He spoke something, too softly for her to hear.

Tiandra leaned close. "Flask" he whispered.

She looked on his person and saw a small vial, finely wrought in bronze. She uncorked the stopper and poured a small amount past his cracked lips, seeing him swallow a small mouthful. She was about to ​give him the rest, when his hand, seemingly with renewed strength, clenched her thigh and gave her pause.

Before her eyes, his most grievous wounds knitted closed, not healing completely but showing months of recovery in mere seconds. A glow returned to his face; and he smiled as he looked upon her. A miracle not seen since the departure of the White Ones.

Then, miracle upon miracles, she helped him come to his feet. He groaned with bone-deep pain, it was all she could do to hold him up. She tried to make him take more of the miraculous potion, but he would not.

"That is for the future." his words were weak, with none of the smooth intonation she remembered.

She hesitated, then stoppered the ​flask. She began to turn him toward the entrance.

"No. Book."​

​He waved her off, standing on his own. He pointed at the book.

"Please... read. Portal. Careful."

Tiandra turned to the book. Behind it, the portal was glowing a soft blue.  The book lay open, yellowed pages filled with a fine script. She read out loud to the monk.

"...in our hubris we made a mistake. All our good intent poured into creating faithful, frail man. Our magic, alongside all that was dark, false and evil about our peoples poured into beings of another kind - the Yinchanu - the Grey Ones.

In the centuries that followed, chaos. From the fey planes from which we drew our energies, they poured forth, legion after legion of them." Tiandra paused in her reading, looking at Hime. His face was exhausted, but his manner begged her to read on.

“We had squandered the gift of magic, unable to bequeath it to our children. In our folly, we brought great evil upon our worlds.”

"So there was war. While man dug deep into mountain roots or roamed the endless plains of grass and horse, we duelled with the Grey Ones. We fought them to a standstill, but our magic drew from the same source. Since they were our creation, we took responsibility. We destroyed the Blue Fountains of Nei, the source of magic on this world.

Then came the Great Lessening. So a few of us walked amongst our children, teaching them the ways of battle. It came to be that those students called themselves the Tjion, meaning the chosen. In time, they would grow strong while we and the Greys would weaken. The world would be left to the Enchamen. A final gift."

Hime had moved beside Tiandra, looking down at the book. There was but one passage left of the text. Here, the ink was fresh. Anger filled him as he realised that the Grey One had written in this holy tome.

"And I, Ebellin the Final, humblest of our order - report that the Tjions have been trained well. They have hunted and destroyed all but Uun-gannu the Dark, the avatar himself. For fifty years, I made it my life's quest to hunt him. I have destroyed him. Though I am broken myself, return in honour."

Hime stared at the page. He looked down.

He looked at the cloak of the Grey One, still sprawled on floor. A dirt-stained cloak, threadbare and worn with the years.

A once white robe.

The Colour of Sunrise (Part Two of Three)

Credit: http://desktophqwallpapers.com/red-mountain-top/

A red sunset, fogged with grey.

The villagers had seem him along the dusty road from their homes; the girl and a red warrior walked with him to the edge of their lands. She was full of questions for him.

"Where are you from?"
"I come from the Silver Monastery, in the valley beyond."
"Are you the elder there?"
"No, I am a Bronze Brother of the Fifth Circle. The Abbot runs the monastery."
"Is hunting Greys the only thing you do?"
"Actually, my primary task is to gather the lost knowledge of the White Ones and keep it safe. It is the senior brothers who are tasked directly with hunting Greys."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because," Hime said, looking at the girl's only stone, a blue shard below her eye. "This was my homeland."

The girl and the warrior left him at the edge of their outermost field; beyond stretched the grassland toward the lair of the Grey. As Hime continued on his way, the two stood watching. At the very edge of hearing, the girl shouted out:​

"Tjion Hime, I am Tiandra!"​

He did not turn to acknowledge. Tjions knew many things, but women were not one of them. Instead, he walked on.

He tracked the path of the Grey One across the plain, leading toward the mountain. His quarry's steps were shuffling. Was the spell caster tired? Despite his apparent weariness, the path tended eerily straight, guided by the Lines of Lei.

And so it was that Hime came onto the foot of the mountain. Thrust into the sky, like a sudden titan's foot struck down from heaven, the Cloudfeet Peaks bore well their name. The grass of the plains ended suddenly, and there was naught but the blue-grey stone reaching skyward. At their top, a crown of starkly white ice.

“All true knowledge was in the tomes of the White Ones; and those were buried in tombs deep, temples long ruined, and magic towers unscalable.”

All trace of the Grey ended abruptly here. The hunter-monk remained unfazed. He placed hand on a ridged, grey stone, and lifted himself off the ground.

Three days and three nights he spent scaling the peak, nothing but the fingers of his hands on the tips of his toes keeping him stuck to the wall. When it rained, he drank his fill, hugging the cliff-face like a babe at his mother's breast. When the sun beat down, he ignored the ache at his back and continued ever upward.

Hime came onto a natural tunnel carved into the face, too small to be seen clearly from below. It was high noon, the rain just passed. A small rainbow formed just above the village, rendered in miniature by the distance. He stopped at its opening for some time, preparing himself with a recitation of the Forms and the Movements. It brought him focus, concentrating his abilities on the task at hand.

He entered the tunnel, leaving the sunlight behind.

---

The passage remained lit as he ventured deeper. A soft blue light, seemingly without source, kept all the walls visible. Hime stepped forward cautiously, senses alert for danger. Inscribed all over the walls was an intricately carved text. It was of expert craftsmanship, likely the work of sorcery. He picked a wall to begin reading:

"…we Wynchalla were like the gods themselves, remaking reality..." the Wynchalla, the name the White Ones called themselves. A holy place? Hime scanned forward as he progressed, taking care to look for any sign of the Grey while he memorised this knowledge for transcription back at the monastery.

"...soon enough, some of us grew lonely; some needed partners to assist in grand endeavours. So it came to be that we created  noble creatures in our own image. We imbued in them all that was best in ourselves. We called our children the Enchamen, the companion people." This was the gospel of the genesis of humanity. Hime took his time to read all the walls, committing them to his trained memory.

Before long, he neared the dead end of the passage. Against the wall, three stone figures seemed carved from the rock of the tunnel, rising seamlessly from the stone floor. Many Tjion holy places had two - not three - figures carved in this style, and Hime recoiled from the blasphemous representation in the stonework.

The central figure was robed, elderly man standing outstretched, his hands to the skies and face exulting. Holy Arruun, avatar of the  Wynchalla, first among the White. On his left was a woman, perfect in form and beauty, who stared forward into the future. Mim'me, mother of humanity, unrobed to represent her lack of magic. On the White One's right - a figure hidden by voluminous robes carved from the stone, head bowed and face obscured by the cowl.

“Mighty in our magics and sure of our control, we remade our reality as we pleased. There was no dream that was beyond our reach on this world…”

The Grey Champion, Uun-gannu. This place was an eldritch altar to Grey powers. What a mockery of holy art! Hime calmed his rage, putting it aside. The knowledge here was useless.

Hime stepped away as a deep, thunderous scraping sounded. The figure of the White Spellmaster split in twain, the walls sliding apart to reveal a huge space beyond.  The monk moved fluidly with the left panel, hiding his form behind blessed Mim'me. He took mental note of his glimpse of the room beyond.

Beyond the sliding doors, more writing covered every inch of wall of a huge hall. A hundred meters deep and forty high, forty wide. At it's very end, four long stones formed a square, like an empty door to nowhere. Next to it, a pedestal with a huge open book.

Standing in front of the square, a grey-robed figure whose torn robes revealed a skinny, misshapen form. The Grey One, leaning over the tome.

The Colour of Sunrise (Part One of Three)

An orange sunrise, shot through with white cirrus clouds.

Hime descended from the mountains at dawn, the sun at his back. His sturdy leathers creaked, heavy on his broad shoulders. Absently, his hand caressed the worn pommel of his war'ring. The bladed chevron of lightweight steel was a familiar companion.

He went into the village, amongst the women smoking the thin, eel-like fish of the lake, the matrons at their looms, and the veterans at their pipes. The children raced underfoot, small and undernourished. The older ones would be out in the salty fields with their fathers, growing what they could.

He passed two men with sharp stones set into the skin of their wrinkled faces, standing outside the largest hut in the hamlet. They nodded to him, acknowledgement in the silent bond of warriors.

Entering the hut, the smell of tea-of-myrtle and pipe weed enclosed behind him.

"It is the hunter."
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. A figure of high cheekbones and deep authority sat within. The ancient man's bare chest was riddled with scars and patches of badly healed skin. His face was a broken mountainside, filled with stones set into the cheeks and forehead.

“A figure of high cheekbones and deep authority sat in the hut. The ancient man’s bare chest was riddled with scars and patches of badly healed skin, his face was like a broken mountainside, filled with stones set into the cheeks and forehead.”

Hime bowed deep. "Elder, I am Hime, of the Valley Tjion."
"Welcome, holy man," the elder said, "Your presence honours us."
Hime had much to say, but it was the way of the plains people to eat before their business. So he sat and broke bread with the elder and a half-dozen stone-marked warriors of the people.

They dined slowly on flatbread made from the scant barley of the fields, the smoked eel-fish of the lake, and the dried figs of better seasons gone by. This was a grand feast to these people. Thus, Hime showed them the honour of taking his fill of what they had to give.

When they were done, they sat in the wispy smoke-weed of brotherhood. Hime broached the polite silence first, as was customary.

"How fare the crops this season?"

"They are poor," said one warrior with stones of blue and grey, passing the pipe on. "The rains do not come, and the salt comes closer to the soil than ever before."

"It has been this way for a number of seasons; each worse than the last," said another, a young girl. "Since the coming of the Grey One". The youngster had blue eyes, uncommon for the people of the plains. She spoke eagerly and he watched Hime with closely in a way that made the monk uncomfortable.

"He who boldly stalks our lands, that servant of pestilence!" A third warrior grimaced, his face showing a freshly embedded red rock, still crusted with blood.

"Oh, gone are the days when the white wizards walked the land." The elder said, his bass-toned wisdom imbued with the gravity of years gone by. "Noble in their power, fathers of humanity. They, like the order from which our honoured Tjion guest comes from, reined in the Grey ones. The White Spellmasters fought them on the plains and in the valleys; on mountain tops of our world and drove them by the dozens through gates to places unseen." He recounted common folklore in the manner of plainsmen storytellers. The elder paused, wracked by a deep cough. The others waited reverently.

The next part did not need recounting, for it was within living memory. The Grey Ones had returned. They were but shadows of their former selves, powers diminished as if the passing of time had embellished the legends or blunted their evils.

“The White Spellmasters fought them on the plains and in the valleys; on mountain tops of our world and drove them by the dozens through gates to places unseen.”

But, even so, each one was an implacable foe, the better of entire tribes of mortal warriors. And none of the White Ones had come back.

Instead there were only the hunter-monks. The Tjions, mere humans. Like Hime.

"I have come to slay this Grey that plagues you." Hime said. The warriors all nodded once, at the same time. He had their approval.

Short Story: The Scourge of Tharsis

Gauntwings flew in delta formation overhead; cigar shapes painfully bright against the darkness of space. It was a routine patrol of Blues, rendered in silence by a metre of nano-glass separating the cold vacuum from the station interior. The Earth Alliance Free Fall Navy insignia was etched in blue on their hulls. The opposing Red patrol, spheres bristling with Ares-class kinetic-kill shards, would be overhead in twenty minutes.

Cheb put his head down. The smell of the absinthe emanated from glasses empty but for sugared dregs. The bartender's sensory proboscis articulated, its dozens of face-mounted flagella gesturing a question. Cheb could see himself reflected in the chrome of the droid - saggy jowls, moustache rampant across his unwashed face. His eyes were still a faint verdure, seeming muted without the soft pink illumination he was used to seeing them in. The reflection nodded, and the machine-man poured him another precise row of emerald liquor. Each shot was arrayed in green and silver spooned splendour, like the Navy on parade. As a machine man finished, Cheb's aural implant brightened briefly, scrolling numbers counting down his remaining credits on the surface of his iris.

Still enough to retire drunk on.

A young girl walked in, keeping in the slipstream behind a knot of older men. Unlike the miners with faces determined to drink and carouse, this girl looked straight ahead and walked up to the bar. Thin, muscular. Tight leather pants. Something in her posture lasered through Cheb's liquor haze.

Cheb tottered to his feet, keeping his face turned toward her. He retreated slowly, taking a shadowed booth with his back to the wall. From here, he could observe crowded bar in safety. He took another sip of the emerald liquid and smiled to himself. Just like back in free-fall basic. Good to know that his military training was not completely lost.

He watched her, trying his best to seem nonchalant. The girl's feline poise, her utter economy of motionas she scanned the room, screamed special forces. Black black-ops. The nameless, genetically perfected ninjas that both sides deployed in this war grown cold. Everyone knew that this latest armistice treaty would end up meaning nothing, like the three before it. The stage of hostilities had simply shifted; moving into the shadows out of the public eye, beyond the understanding of normal citizens. In the yottabytes flowing between Ares-Terra space, amongst the networks of ten thousand communications satellites scattered throughout the Inner System, from shielded bunkers scattered amongst the asteroid belt, the war continued. On the ground, it was waged with surgical precision. Employing vat-grown assassins, cutting-edge surgical hacks and memetic subtlety, trillions of credits were thrown at the fourth wave military industrial complex.

He had no evidence, but he knew both sides were out to get him. This station, Redside Phobos, was neutral territory. Theoretically common ground for both sides. Theoretically, relatively safer. A moderate paranoia in this hyper-populated rat warren was actually quite healthy. One couldn't tell which miner was covertly a surveillance-swarm engineer, or which maintenance man was actually the Director of Memetic Execution.

It had only one other advantage: this was the closest he could ever get to home. The feeling was bittersweet. If he had wanted to share one of the coffin-bed miner bunkrooms placed above ground, he'd see the bold red orb fill his space everyday. The surface he'd fought for. The place he was banished from. He was drawn to its colours, its familiar palette comforting, so unlike the choking blues of Earth. At the same time, he couldn't stay watching it too long. So he settled for the next best thing. He liked to sit in this bar and stare at it. Sometimes, in the darkness of his room, its stark expanses would stir his dreams, coalescing in his consciousness like a zephyr of Martian dust. He'd awaken; and the recollection would remain at the edge of memory, but the heaviness in his chest would stay.

"Captain? Captain? Is that you?" a pimply face looked at him. Hadn't even noticed the kid.

"No."

"Captain 7Flash*, I know it's you. I served under you during the Olympus Campaign!"

"Name's Cheb, kid."

"I'm Sub-Lieutenant #56Spiral." he paused, a little uncertain. "The Earth Alliance FFN."

Cheb grunted. Kid looked barely out of basic - his curl and wings had a freshly stitched look.

"I know, boy. You're too short to be a RustDuster."

"It's a privilege to meet with you, sir." Cheb didn't reply. The boy stood there. The silence stretched.

"May I sit with you for a moment, sir?" The boy was sweating with nervous energy. "I'd like the honour of buying you a drink."

Cheb let him slide in. A pair of people at a booth was less suspicious, he supposed. The kid ordered a round of drinks and stared at him like he was a hero out of a fairytale. Cheb supposed in many ways, he was. A hint of old pride peeked through, like new polish on a forgotten medal. The boy continued to stare, wide-eyed.

"Sir, may I ask you a question?" Kid's eagerness tripped over his manners, as drinks arrived.

"How did it feel to finally be given a command post worthy of your abilities?"

"Kid." Cheb downed the drink in one go. He was gonna need a few more drinks if he was going to tolerate the fawning. It was this kind of adulation that had driven him from Earth. That and the equal amounts of hatred he gave rise to in other quarters of the Inner System.

"Those RustDusters refused you promotion, you, the Scourge of Tharsis! At war college, we talked endlessly about how we'd try to fight you. I must admit that all us ensigns were daunted by tales of your exploits. I'm glad you ended up with us in the Alliance instead. I'm proud to have fought with you."

The... honour was mine." His responses were automatic. Learned, practiced. He had always hated using that one, but his media trainers had insisted on it. The kid chattered on. Cheb continued to focus on the leather-clad girl, who had just waved off one of the miners trying to buy her a drink. Girl was a born beauty. Short, bob-cut hair, ever-so almond eyes that hinted at a generous portion of her genes being from Asia. Definitely a ninja.

"It was a reassuring validation that we were on the right of it, sir. The rebellion was foolhardy to begin with. We were just taxing what we had invested in. Did they think that we wouldn't cut the elevator cable? At least we tried to do it peacefully. Disconnect at the bottom, let it float free." The kid continued talking, and Cheb downed another drink as the next round arrived. "... and what kind of honour is in nuking the cable halfway up? Impossible to retrieve. Maximum carnage surface-side. No-one could contain that kind of collateral..."

Cheb look back over at the girl. She was sitting there, sipping her drink casually. Too casually, he thought. Definitely on-mission. The kid kept buzzing on. "...at least you got us all out. Shame about the domes, but you know what I think? Maybe the RustDusters had their memetic engineers figure it all out. Maybe they wanted to attack their own civilians. Make it seem like unavoidable collateral, like we forced their hands, eh?"

She was not there. He'd only taken his eyes off her for a second and she had disappeared. He bolted upright, stumbling past the kid and out of the booth. The kid was still sitting there, foolish mouth open.

"I gotta go."

"Go, sir? Where? Why so quickly?"

"They've found me. Girl in black leather." Cheb got out the booth and run out of the pub. He'd run straight for the safety of his expensive private quarters. He had paid for specialists to harden the spot from all kinds of intrusion; his sleeping space doubled as a panic room.

The kid followed him out, still a confused look on his face. Cheb waved him away. The alcohol and his paranoia formed a heady cocktail in his head. "All for a lousy promotion, kid. Not for honour. A life haunted by assassins within sight of my homeland. There is no honour in that." It was the first answer he'd ever given that was not what his trainer had told him to say. Cheb turned a little too quickly away from the kid. He stumbled and fell.

What was in those drinks?

The kid moved uncannily fast. His arms lifted General 7Flash* of the Alliance, once-called The Scourge of Tharsis, now called the Betrayer of Free Mars, to his feet. For a moment, Cheb's face was chest level with the kid's only service badge - white snow stripe on a band of Alliance blue, field of Mars red. The Olympus Campaign ribbon.

A sick realisation like a punch in the gut. The kid was too young to have served on Olympus. And he had called him Captain, his Red Martian rank, not his Blue Alliance one.

Cheb tried desperately to twist free. The boy's index finger extended a rapier-sharp needle that punched through his heart and retracted too quickly for the eye to follow.

Cheb was still standing, heart stunned by the sudden trauma. The boy-ninja sauntered past him, his eager-cadet facade still flawlessly in place. Cheb's aural implant was hacked, and the words etched his fading eyes:

“For betrayal avenged. For the millions dead. For a free Mars; and a Red System.”

Short Story: In Forma Pauperis

There once was a poor man who heard that there was the next town over. As the man had never been out of the village in his life, the concept of the `next town' was a indistinct, abstract distance away.

The fellow was unperturbed by his lack of knowledge, in fact, he was barely conscious of it. So he collected what meagre belongings he had - which were just the rags on his back - and journeyed forth to see his neighbours for a meal.

After a short walk, he came upon a little boy. The boy was eating a biscuit. Being a local child, this boy knew what poverty the poor man lived in and out of the kindness of his heart, offered the man a bite.

``Oh no, oh no!" said the poor fellow, honest and decent to the bone, ``I couldn't possibly intrude on your delicious meal! Besides - I'm on my way to the next town - I hear there is free food to be gotten!"

The ragged fellow passed the little boy by and continued down the unsealed path. Before long, his feet were cut and bleeding, for he owned no shoes. He looked down at his bloodied feet with disdain, shaking his head. ``A few scratches is nothing! An honest trial for an honest reward!"

He continued on, hobbling on his broken soles. Soon he came to a distant river crossing. In pain from blistered feet, he was dizzy and his senses were clouded. At this crossing, he saw a lonely hostel - a place that was clean and warm and inviting; yet empty of fellow travelers. A beautiful middle-aged lady stood by the hostel, smiling and greeting him warmly. They talked a little and the woman bade him sit and listen to her tale.

``Oh dear sir! You've come at an opportune time! My humble hostel here is closing down - I've invested much money into the place, but business is not good - the wise men I've consulted say I should retire! I am getting on in years and have plenty stashed away. I have food, drink and a roof over my head, enough money to provide for two - I lack nothing but an honest man to share it with. Will you be so kind as to marry me? My dowry shall be half of all I have; then the two of us can live as a happy couple, needing nothing but love and peace, till old age and infirmity take us; whereby we shall have the blessing of beloved children to attend to our geriatric needs."

The poor man considered the offer - indeed, he licked his lips at the very thought! But he was a determined man, set on his path and determined to achieve. ``Oh no, oh no!" he said, shaking his head. ``Alas, fair miss; I cannot oblige you. I am on my way to the next village - a long way I have come, and an uncertain way yet I still have to go. I best be off quickly. I wish you luck with your retirement - I do hope the next man along this road would be less set upon his purpose than I!" And with that, the barefoot man hobbled across the river, walking for time interminable.

He came upon a mountain - and the path led straight over it. Knowing nothing else, the simple man shrugged and climbed it, scaling the heights and following the path to the next village. Though frigid winds of unforgiving frost and biting ice did chill his skin and blacken his very fingers, the poor man climbed on. ``No objective achieved without sacrifice," he said to himself, ``and honest work makes an honest meal flavoursome."

So it came to be that he climbed the mountaintop. The journey  froze his rags to his body, turned his fingers to frostbitten stubs. The stones of the mountain paths perforated his feet with wounds. On the very peak of the mountain, he saw there a miraculous sight. A palace of wonders, a mansion among mansions, an abode worthy of the gods themselves. A hundred servants came forth from the golden gates, bearing all the treasures of the land - gold, silver, diamonds; and all the goods that could be purchased with this money. There was food of every kind, every pleasure and object of desire known to man - and quite a few that were not.

``Oh sir!" said the servants. ``We are indentured servants, here to serve our righteous master. He has now passed, but not before he foretold the coming of another in forma pauperis, a man in the form of the pauper, with nothing on him and everything to offer. We know nothing else but our master's command; and thus we fulfil his last wish to the letter. We now propose a trade - on our side, we offer ourselves, this gold, these goods, this place and all contained therein. Merely come within, give us your consent - we will make you the next master."

The poor man wept at the sight of these gold and jewels, the extravagant goods and orderly servants. He gasped and glee and awe at the soaring pinnacles of the mansion itself. His stomach growled and throbbed at the sight of the banquet laid out before him on plates of ivory and forks of gold. But he felt giddy from the light air of the mountain. Something in the clear air helped him decide.

``Kind sirs," said the poor man, ``I am but a poor man. I have naught to offer you - really! I must confess that I am much engaged to a previous goal - I am ever so very loyal to this goal, though it seems that I may have underestimated the distance somewhat - I do believe that it is within my reach, if only I walked a little ways more."

So the poor man left the mansion of wonders and the hundred servants and climbed down from the mountain that he had scaled. His rags fell off his body, his fingers were stubs, his feet were torn beyond any hope of ever healing. Yet still he walked and by and by, at last he came to the town.

He had come to the place described, not too long from when he had set out - but much had changed without him knowing. There was no free food to be had here - indeed, the opposite was the case - a swarm of pestilence had turned the food bad, and all manner of rats and insects carrying diseases scoured the land and ravaged the living. The dead, rats and man alike lay in piles, ready to be burnt as an offering to the fickle gods of fate.

The poor fellow saw all his, his heart sunk and his expectations shattered. He dropped to his knees, a small cry escaping his lips. His hopes dashed from him; the efforts of his toil all did their damage at once. His saliva frothed forth from his mouth, his belly swollen from hunger. He began to feel a sickness, one gained during his journey but ignored in pursuit of his goal. Some nameless fever worked its way to his templates, His bloody feet pumped his lifeblood into the barren ground; his fingers fell from his gangrenous hands.

He lay down upon the ground: and there, he died.

 - original short story, by SHKM.