NationStates Jolt Archive


Realm of the Risen: The Janus Strain [Closed]

Steel Butterfly
20-12-2006, 07:32
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I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel...

I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real...

The needle tears a hole; the old familiar sting...

Try to kill it all away, but I remember everything.

What have I become, my sweetest friend?

Everyone I know goes away in the end...

And you could have it all, my empire of dirt...

I will let you down...

I will make you hurt...

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There was no memorial for the Resistance, no building, no wall, not even a statue. There was a monument for the Outlander, the famous starship which had crashed into the city-planet of Steel Butterfly, tearing a massive scar on the face of the planet and through three city levels. There were various other monuments and mausoleums scattered throughout the Empire in recognition of soldiers from both sides who gave their lives. Still, there was no memorial for the Resistance.

It was reported that Emperor David Christopher Bivens had struggled with the decision as he ran the Empire from his former governor’s office on the planet of Bivens. He was supposed to return to Steel Butterfly, the Imperial capital, when reconstruction was completed. Now, that moment had come and gone, and yet he remained on the planet named after his ancestors and their company, content with living among admirers and not former enemies. The Resistance, as it was, was not fit for the Empire. Rebellion was a concept that simply could not be glorified.

Many still held on to the sides they took in the war, which ended nearly eight years ago, but although the Imperial Police and the military had prevented any violence from breaking out, Emperor Bivens was slowly learning that buildings were far easier to build than trust. The massive Outlander memorial, exquisite and expensive and artistic all the same, inspired only feelings of regret and sorrow for those who gave their lives. The leaders of the Resistance had fought an Empire and a corporation, but the men, the soldiers, had fought each other, blazing through each others’ homes and families alike.

Disenfranchised with the new regime, but still holding a fierce love for their Empire, many left civil service for a far more adventurous life. Others simply grew tired of the military, but quickly realized that fighting was all they could do. Citizens joked that there were more fighters for hire, smugglers, and private armies than there were actual soldiers and policemen, and yet the Empire had known peace and relative economic prosperity in the young emperor’s reign. Nevertheless, the Orion Sector, and therefore the Empire, was now a place of mercenaries.

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Mark Andrews stared up at the underbelly of the massive Outlander memorial. He had known both the captain and the commander of the starship, yet while the names still swirled through his consciousness, as did the names of all those he knew who had met their fate during the war, he couldn’t remember exactly who was who, and couldn’t match up first and last names to pinpoint exactly who they were. Mark was sure that their names were etched into the monument somewhere, but that wasn’t the point. It hadn’t even been eight years, and he was already beginning to forget.

Closing his eyes, Mark reflected on what he had done since the moment the war had ended. His time with Alexei, the hero and savior of the Empire, had been short but worthwhile before Alexei left. He smiled. After that he had gotten married. Mark had always wanted kids, as did Katrina, but they both agreed that now was not the time for either of them to be raising babies. It wouldn’t be fair for the children.

Raptor-Zero, as Mark had been called during the war, was the best pilot the Empire, or more specifically the Resistance, had ever known. In the two years that the war raged on, Mark had gathered more kills to his name than any fighter pilot before him in almost a forth of the time. He had even been awarded the Silver Falcon, the highest military honor in the Empire, after the war had concluded for his heroics throughout the engagement.

He shook his head. Marks feelings, as usual lately, were mixed. On one hand, he was doing what he had to. Military life, especially during peacetime, was neither for him nor his wife. He had fought when he was called on, for a cause he believed was important enough to fight for, but even thought he had been a student at the prestigious Orion Military Academy, the rebellious streak which had gotten him expelled persisted to this day. As long as he didn’t completely disagree with their cause or their goal, he now fought for who had the largest bank account. It wasn’t a life that would win him honor, but he was quickly growing a reputation in the underworld for being a fearless fighting and flawless pilot. If nothing else, it paid the bills.

That wasn’t to say, however, that he enjoyed the life that he now was living. Smuggling and fighting was nothing new to him, and he was good at it, but the middle-aged man that he claimed he would never be was slowly catching up to him. Still young at 26, Mark carried with him a growing desire to settle down. Marriage had brought something new into his life: fear. He feared for his wife, he feared for his future, and he feared for himself, for fear was not something that helped his cause.

“Hey,” a voice muttered. “Hey!” Mark turned around to see a muscular black man standing before him: his newest employer. “You want to sight-see, you do it on your own time. I’m not paying you to stand there and brood.” Mark nodded in response. The man was a dickhead, but there was something to be said about professionalism.

The Sons of Orion, as they called themselves, were as ragtag a group as Mark had ever seen. Nevertheless, they certainly had money, as they were offering a rate that Mark simply could not refuse. There were three of them: Nick Jasud, the muscular black leader, Keaton Miltiades, the explosives expert with the thick accent, and Debora Damiana, the locksmith and lookout. Together, they fought to end the right to arms throughout the Sector. Their battle method of choice was armed robbery and terrorism. Mark had laughed at the stupidity of their irony many times.

“C’mon, pretty boy,” Nick Jasud told Mark, motioning him towards an alley with his hand. Down the alley, Keaton and Debora were on opposite sides of the door, arguing over the best way to get in. Nick, with Mark close behind, quickly put an end to the squabble. It was obvious to everyone except Keaton that this was not a time for explosives.

“Ya really fought in da war didn’t ya?” Keaton asked as Debora picked at the door handle. There were three locks to open, and failing at any of them would set off an alarm. Debora had to move fast, and yet be careful enough to not make any mistakes. Luckily, she was more than up to the task. In response to Keaton, Mark merely nodded. Keaton smiled. “Not ev’ryday ya meet a vet who ain’t still in da service,” he joked. The culture of mercenaries was known by everyone, but no one more so than those who hired them.

The final lock clicked and Debora slowly opened the door. Silence and darkness met them on the other side. It was everything they could ask for. Keaton and Debora quickly sneaked into the hallway. Nick stayed back, as if telling Mark to go before him. However, and Mark took a step forward, Nick grabbed him by the arm.

“I didn’t get your name,” Nick said. His grip was firm, but not hard. Mark pulled away easily.

“I didn’t give it to you,” Mark replied coldly. Keaton and Debora were waiting inside the door impatiently.

“Den what is we suppo’st ta call ya?” Keaton whispered from inside the door.

“Whatever the hell you want,” Mark responded, growing impatient himself. “Don’t kid yourselves. I’m here because you’re paying me. I could give a shit about the right to arms or whatever it is you claim you steal for. Once we’re done, I’m gone.”

“Fine,” Nick snapped in reply. “‘Pretty boy’ it is.” The four of them entered the building, closing the door to the alley behind them.

Pulling their night vision goggles down over their eyes and engaging their laser sights, the four progressed through the building at a quick pace, eventually emerging in a larger, main hallway. The building was a weapons cache for an Imperial arms distributor, and they were going to, as Nick had said, “blow it to hell.” Keaton was almost itching with anticipation.

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They scattered to the four corners of the building, laying the exact amount of remote explosives at critical locations, so that they could destroy this building without terribly affecting those around it. Finally, they gathered in the main hallway once more, preparing to enter the main office and take the money that would finance this expedition. Debora reached down for the door, but surprisingly, it was already open. Nick motioned for her to move back, and lifting a leg, he kicked down the door.

Instantly, he we met with gunfire as a bullet grazed his upper left arm and another stuck into the body armor on his chest. Screaming obscenities, he twisted out of the room and leaned up against the wall in pain to catch his breath. Keaton pulled out a plasma grenade but Nick told him to put it away. They needed that money.

“I knew you motherfuckers would come!” a man screamed from inside the office. Quickly, as the others contemplated a way to storm the room, Mark analyzed the situation. There were two men in the room, from the sound of it, and from the two shots that had connected with Nick, it was fair to assume that they both carried single shot weapons. Perhaps they were old, he wondered to himself. With all the weapons stored in this place, single-shot rifles were an odd choice to defend a building with. Unless they’re overconfident, Mark though, smiling to himself. Perhaps this wouldn’t be that big of a setback after all.

Pulling a smoke grenade from his belt, Mark threw it into the office doorway. Instantly the two men inside opened fire, expecting the team to rush through the doorway, but Mark knelt down at an angle, raising his assault rifle to his shoulder. Quickly he switched his goggles from night to heat vision, and through the cold blue smoke, he could definitely make out two patches of orange. Three-round bursts dropped each of them.

As the smoke subsided, Keaton and Mark entered the office and quickly hacked into the computer. All money in the Empire was electronic, so there would be nothing to carry out. They had set up a program before the mission that would transfer the money to dozens of different bank accounts throughout the entire sector, and every three minutes transfer it again. The stolen funds would be nearly untraceable.

After all the money had been transferred, and they were all quite wealthy, Mark and Keaton ran out of the office to meet Debora and Nick, who was clutching his left arm. The four of them ran through the main hallway back out to the door in the alley. Grinning from ear to ear, Keaton pulled a black controller, about the size of a finger with a black button on the top, from his pocket.

“Not yet,” Nick ordered. Keaton frowned and pocketed the controller. “Wait until we’re on the train.”

The Imperial Monorail, while still a lucrative business for those who ran it thanks to a meaty government contract, had been declining in popularity for years. It was more than likely that the team would be able to have an entire car to themselves. As they boarded the monorail, they were pleased to find that was the case. The four of them spread out through the empty car, and as the monorail sped away, Keaton pulled out the small black controller and pressed the button.

The weapon storage building exploded like a new sun born in the night sky. Nick, Keaton, and Debora smiled to themselves. Their mission had been a success. As the train sped away, they could hear the sirens of the police and fire company speeding towards the fire. Now those weapons could never get to the streets.

“The funds will be transferred to the account you set up,” Nick told Mark, who was sitting alone in silence. “You’re now a very rich man, Pretty boy.” Once again, Mark nodded, this time in agreement. Perhaps this job would give Katrina and him the rest they so desperately wanted.

“So vat did ya do in da var?” Keaton asked. Mark stared at him for a few moments, debating whether or not to respond. Ultimately, Mark couldn’t see the harm in it.

“I was a fighter pilot,” he replied, keeping the information as vague as possible.

“Oh ya?” Keaton said. “So vhy’d ya quit? Not good enough, eh?”

“Hardly,” Mark shot back, his ego getting the better of him. “I was the best. Silver Falcon winner.” The three of them chuckled amongst themselves.

“Sure,” Nick replied, sarcastically. “And I’m General Valkare.” All of a sudden Mark felt a sharp flash of anger. He had lived the last four years escaping his life, but now that they finally didn’t know who he was and what he did, he absolutely hated it. To them, he was some military washout, a failure of the Civil War who resorted to common thievery for work. It was disgusting.

Mark didn’t have much time to lament in his own self-pity, however, as the monorail train quickly came to a screeching halt. All four of them looked at each other with darting, wide eyes, all thinking the same. Had they been caught? Each of them rushed to the windows. The city down below was bustling, even at this hour, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was possible that they hadn’t even heard of the explosion, or simply didn’t care.

“Fuck,” Nick muttered, pacing up and down the car, trying to catch sight of something that would tell them why they stopped. For a moment, the train seemed to shake, as if there was something wrong with the engine, but then it started up once more, and all four of them breathed in a sigh of relief, for a moment at least.

It was then that the door to their car open, and a man, dressed as a monorail conductor would be dressed, was thrown into the door. The man was bloody and bruised, and both of his legs appeared broken. Debora and Nick rushed towards him, rolling the man onto his back. He struggled against them.

“Get…away…” the man stammered, his eyes wide with fear. “G-get off…the…train…”

Mark ran over to the still open door and looked out of the train. Nothing seemed out of place, nothing seemed abnormal, but there was no way this man could have gotten like this by himself. They had discarded their weapons in order to board the train, but Mark reached down, pulling out the dagger from his shin that he always kept with him, reading himself for attack.

The man was rapidly bloating, his skin expanding to inhuman proportions, and the four team members quickly backed to the opposite end of the car. Suddenly, the man exploded. Amidst the flesh and guts that now scattered the car, however, a gas seeped out of his corpse. Mark quickly found himself unable to breathe.

Stumbling for air, Debora and Keaton inched forward through the mess towards the open door. Just then, a man, robed in all black, jumped into the car. Keaton reached out for the man to pull him to safety, but the man instead pulled out a sword and ran Keaton through the stomach. Keaton gasped, gagging on his blood as it rushed up through his esophagus, and collapsed as the man withdrew his blade.

Debora screamed in horror, but was silenced as the man in black swiftly decapitated her. While the man seemed unaffected by the gas, Mark was struggling to even move. His grip on the knife weakened as his mind drifted to Katrina. The man robed in black walked slowly towards both Nick and Mark and addressed them together.

“Hello, Mark,” the man said in a calm voice. “Hello, Nick.” Both Nick and Mark could only stare back at the murderer before them. Their bodies were completely paralyzed. “They were unworthy, but you already knew that, didn’t you? Their deaths were meaningless, worthless, pointless, but then again, so were their lives. I’m offering the two of you a chance to make yours worthwhile.”

“You cock-sucking son-of-a-bitch!” Nick wailed. “How could you do that? What did they ever do to you?”

“Even in the face of death you still won’t leave the dark,” the man told Nick, shaking his head and walking towards him. Nick was behind Mark, and so Mark lost sight of Nick and the man in black for a moment, only to hear Nick scream out in pain before being silenced. Mark desperately wanted to turn around and see, but the man in black walked in front of him once more. “And you?” the man asked. “Have you just stopped trying? Have you given up?” The man was close, so very close. Mark spit into his shrouded face.

“What do you want?” Mark snarled. To his surprise, the man in black laughed at this response.

“Always a fighter, aren’t you?” the man asked, reaching into his hood and wiping off his face. “And now you’re trying to negotiate. Simply priceless. Look around you, Mark; see what I’ve done? See what I can do to you without a moment’s notice?”

“Who are you?” Mark asked.

“Does it matter?” the man replied. “I’m offering you a chance to redeem yourself from the sins you were born into. I’m offering you a chance to live.”

“Why?” Mark asked, growing more confused by this man’s rhetoric.

“Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity,” the man said. “Men are haunted because they die…because they die like these people…” the man pointed to the corpses around them. “…without accomplishing anything. Still, at least their worthlessness didn’t do harm. The ones whose names live on well past their bodies…they are disgusting, unfit to live in a universe far more deserving. These people who live here…your people…will learn the price of betrayal.”

“The Empire?” Mark asked, wondering if he could find common ground with this man.

“Humanity,” the man responded. “It’s a virus…a cancer…a filth that needs to be cut out before it can spread its infection to more systems, to more people.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Mark asked.

“I’m allowing you to be part of the solution, Mark,” the man explained.

“What?”

“I’m offering you a chance to make your life worthwhile,” the man repeated. Mark felt his head spinning. He wanted to vomit. “I’ll be waiting,” the man said, walking to the door and leaping out of the rushing train.

It had occurred to Mark that the train was speeding up, and that without a driver, it could very easily run off its track. Still, there was nothing Mark could do about it. He couldn’t even move his head, let alone leap off a speeding train. All of a sudden, in a planet-city surrounded by billions of people, Mark felt very alone.

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Mark Andrews - Nick Jasud - Debora Damiana - Keaton Miltiades