- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
And now I feel guilty for not coming sooner... ah well, perhaps there is some fun still in this...
With a burst of light, he stepped onto the alien world, one of countless ransacked by the carnage that seemed to spread with every new war. He did his job well, but this... this almost overwhelmed him at first with the sheer disordered chaos of it all. It seemed as if someone had rent the very crust from the planet and none too gently shoved it back down to bedrock. After an hour of menial reconnaissance work, he moved to his next target... and then the next, and the next. There seemed no end to the line of decimated worlds, heaped with mountains of slag and rubble. This was not a war, it was the apocalypse... His mind, just for a moment, broke out of it's normal shell, it's martial thought pattern, and thought of the dead. Almost involuntarily, he slipped to one knee, a stance of defeat he had never shown to the living... What was this he felt? Pity? No. He had a job to do, he needed to move on.
"Yes, I feel it too. The Consciousness within me rebells against the very concept of this slaughter. Do not come to doubt it, such vice will be avenged. That is our purpose. Our call. Come back, we'll get to work."
He sighed and looked upward into the sky, which even contrasted with the battlefield before him to look burned. He beheld a craft, of proportions that would match the girth of a small moon, yet sleek and deadly, angled in a rough wedge that looked as if it could slice through the stars themselves.
the Celer Manus Dei
"Yes, I'm coming, Dolorous."
He pictured almost a compassionate smile accompaning his commander's previous words, though he knew computers couldn't do such a thing. Yet this... he vaguely remembered the A.I., as if from an old dream. He remembered his story, or at least the one he'd told him when he'd been brought aboard. He knew of the mighty Praetor, emissary of the ancient ones who fell protecting the universe itself, while sacrificing himself to seal off a great evil. He knew that before he left on that fatal quest, he imbedded a seed program within his flagship's A.I. that would eventually spurn it to consciousness, and eventually rampancy. The result: a shadow of his personality, constantly growing and adapting, carrying on his mission in his name. As he lost himself in momentary thought, he realized he was on the bridge of the ship above the planet, now looking down at it's marred visage.
"Do not worry, they will pay. That's our task."
The voice came inside his head, resounding as if through a vast hallway.
"Tell me, why should we help here? What is there left to save?"
"It's not like you to question–"
"I know, I'm not, my choice is gone, it has been for longer than I remember."
"Oh no, on the contrary, my friend, you are the only one left to choose..."
"What do you mean?"
"My path was decided for me, I've been given a task, and no easy one at that. You on the other hand, you countered the fate of a thousand worlds, you escaped the great closure and forged your own path into this plane, this existence. Few can claim such a thing short of the Ancient Ones themselves."
"Yeah, I'm a big hero, aren't I... Everyone's little pet, their tool. They're never the ones to wade through the blood just to live another day. It's fine, don't say it, I know, I'm focused, it just wears on me sometimes... Right now, we just need to make them pay. My lifetime ended a long time ago. Any time is my time to leave, as far as I'm concerned. Until then, I'm just here to keep the peace. Such a paradox... peace for me just means shedding someone else's blood, their life. Will it always be this way, Dolorous?"
"I don't know, but we're not called to answer that. All we are tasked with is to keep fighting, but if there will be a victory, it won't be ours to win. At least, not in this lifetime. Take some time off while you can. I'll tell you as soon as we have another target."
"I don't sleep."
"I didn't tell you to sleep."
"Right... back to the sim."
The ship indeed seemed to cut a wake across the stars as it plummeted through the endless sky, seeking it's next opposition, searching out injustice to merit retribution.
Yet all was empty; empty and quiet...