A 4411 THUG MAFIA JOINT
「そして、これが終わりの始まりを意味する。」
- PROLOGUE
Planet Koalea | Outer Rim | January 03 2784 Universal Calendar
30 YEARS AGO
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Three days ago, the renegade 44th Expeditionary Fleet had entered the Koalea system to continue their unsanctioned onslaught into the Outer Rim, hell bent on destroying everything which called themselves Redeemed. For a battlefleet that was severely outmanned and outgunned, and with enemies on all sides, they still miraculously had many more victories than defeats. In only three days, millions were dead or displaced, dozens of small nations were left devastated, and every single naval task force pursuing the rogue fleet was left in the wake of quick and tactical Strahl Drive jumps.
Three days ago, the combined forces of the galaxy also began a push into the outer rim to mop up what the 44th had not yet found or destroyed. They went planet to planet, system to system, kicking down doors and boarding ships in their hunt for every psychic or vagrant they suspected were Redeemed—innocent or otherwise. Everyone knew that the Redeemed were on the back foot. But it didn't matter if someone was Redeemed or not—more people were going to die regardless.
With one's back against the wall and nowhere to go, and no allies to turn to, desperate measures needed to be done. Gambles needed to be made. Questions needed to be answered.
Hasan knew where to find these answers, but he was running a desperate race against time.
In the eternally twilight skies of the lonesome exoplanet of Koalea, there was a purple flash of a starship exiting FTL from a Strahl Drive. Herds of wildlife fled from around the remote lodge as the boxy spacecraft punched through pinkish clouds, a cyan trail of shimmering light twisting behind the exhaust ports of its white-hot engines, before it landed in the pastures beside the building.
The cargo ramp dropped with a hiss, and Hasan marched out alone, much to Reiko's dismay. There was once again that imperceptible gut feeling tugging on the back of his mind which every psychic knew well as he stepped up to the doors, marked with the same stitched right hand symbol he bore on his ship.
He hit the buzzer. The door sheathed away in two halves, and a bespectacled, somewhat plump human man stood, turning his head up to Hasan. His beard was ill-maintained and his hair was slicked back and wiry, face slightly wrinkled with age or stress. "Hello, Hasan."
"Kurt." Hasan's face was as dull as the colors on his ship. "We need to talk."
"That we do. Come in. I have something to show you," Kurt Tora waved towards himself. "I've been hard at work in the Outer Rim over the past three days, but I'm sure you think our work now is futile. What about you? What have you been doing with your life recently?"
Hasan paused to think. "Trying to survive. Trying to make sense of everything. Fleeing from the 44th, the UN, everyone."
"Excellent. And what have you learned?"
"Nothing."
"Even better." Kurt buried his hands in the pockets of his pants as he looked behind Hasan for a moment. "Your partner can come as well. I sense that she wants answers too."
Hasan looked over his shoulder. Reiko was approaching hesitantly, arms folded across her pilot rig, eyes rheumy and staring at the floor. Hasan could feel a cold, swirling darkness emanating from around her—around Kurt. Around everything. What was this?
"You know you don't have to do this, Hasan," She stammered. "W-we can just leave... no one will ever know that we were—"
"And turn our backs on everything we've been working on, everything we've achieved, and the truth?" He snapped. "And let ourselves live like slaves for the rest of our miserable lives? There's still a chance to find the truth. But we don't have time to argue. You're either coming with me or you're not. Make your choice."
She relented and gulped, taking a hesitant step forward, followed by a second. She looked like she was on the verge of tears. Hasan scoffed. His tears had been shed long ago.
As they proceeded further into the building, Hasan took note of the mangled mess of wires plunging beneath the floor and crisscrossing above it, like the roots of a tree. Pulsating lights traveled along the wires occasionally like blood flowing through a circulatory system. He paused and looked towards an anomaly at the center of all the chaos—an emaciated, hairless humanoid was sitting in a fetal position connected to the mess of wires and computer equipment. He didn't need to use his abilities at all to tell that the body was catatonic. Coils of psychic energy palpable even to the psionically dead emanated off of the body, appearing like the shimmering of air above a hot surface. He twitched as he felt a squeezing sensation in the back of his mind, shrugging off incoherent whispers and compressed mental images of stars in his head.
"I shouldn't be here," He huffed. "Two telepaths in one room is painting a huge target for us. We're done, Kurt, simple as. Why have you brought me here? What do you want me to see?"
Kurt sniffed, pacing back and forth beside the living transmitter. He stared at it with a bit of disappointment. "Tell me: Why is it that we do the things that we do, Hasan?"
The question repeated itself over and over in Hasan's mind: the Redeemed were bizarre, but even in the cosmic abnormality that made up their theory, they made sense. They were a counterculture to the galaxy's status quo. They fought to ensure the free will of all sentient beings. In order to secure one's fate, it was necessary to use force. This meant no gods, no masters, no borders and no nations—these were things which contended that free will. Anathema. This was the same reason they had no leader at all. But at the end of the day, their praxis, if alien, was still sound.
But the question he was being asked now and recent events were a challenge. The Redeemed's ideology was more and more incomprehensible with each passing day. He realized that as time went on, he had fewer and fewer fallbacks and excuses, fewer and fewer anchors to keep himself sane, and more and more uncertainties. Eventually, he wasn't even sure if he had an answer to Kurt's original question.
"I could say that it's because we've been chosen to be Redeemed. The work we do is necessary; the galaxy's status quo is anathema, and we need to be the ones to secure our futures, but I don't think that's the answer we want to accept."
Kurt pushed his glasses up his nose. "Look into this one, and tell me what you see."
Hasan didn't dare look into the void, but the darkness called to him. In his time in the Redeemed, he had learned reality to be full of idiosyncrasy and inconsistency. The day he called himself "Redeemed" was the day his third eye had been opened to the truth. Reality was based on one's perception, but true understanding was in the gray area behind and around it all. Reaching it was the difficult part. Easier for psychics, but not for the uninitiated.
But why hadn't he reached it? Thirty years of searching and nothing had been achieved but senseless violence and death. Was he right or wrong?
"I don't see anything." He breathed out his nose, exiting the hallucination as his eyes refocused around the living psychic battery. "Nothing but... nothingness."
"This is way too pretentious for me..." Reiko sighed. "Hasan, we should—"
"Yes, Hasan, yes!" Kurt shouted. "Nothing is what we see because there is nothing. Nothing but the Void. That darkness you see on the edge of your vision, that you can feel at your fingertips, the line which you tiptoe when you sleep... This is what we battle. This is what we face. This is what we are preparing for! The Void is an aggressive nothingness." He inched closer to Hasan. "Look closer."
Dread clouded his judgment, but it wasn't like he could turn his head away from the gaping darkness. Every second was a lifetime of revelations as he attempted to scry into the meaning of all this, but was it all even worth it?
Why try to make sense of the ineffable?
Hasan felt his mind begin to run away from himself. The psychic corpse in the center of the room was calling his name, whispering instructions in a language he did not know, but he understood. He clutched at his head as he felt blood trickle down his nostrils and upper lip... and then looked further... further... further. Billions of stars filled his vision, blinking in and out of focus...
...blinking...
Couldn't he see it? The end state of things without the Redeemed was pure annihilation from the unknowable. Soon, there would be nothing, no nations, no value, nothing! No matter how hard he strained himself, how hard he looked, how hard he hoped—the galaxy was heading into a downward spiral to an unceremonious death. No level of organization or society or civilization could prepare them for what was coming.
Then he heard a clicking in his ear, a subconscious psychic urge nudging him back to reality. He heard a safety being disengaged from a sidearm and instinctively reached for his own. In a swift motion, Kurt had extended his gauss pistol and let loose a single shot into the psychic's brain. The head split in a dozen pieces, spraying gray matter everywhere as Reiko let out a startled yelp. "No—!"
Hasan waited until the ringing in his ears faded before he spoke, plucking away some of the mess on his fatigues. "Kurt, I was there. I saw it. The Void. You shouldn't have done that, I— I was close. So goddamn close."
"But time isn't on our side. You yourself said this." Kurt tucked his pistol into his shoulder. "The fight is not over, but we need time to recuperate. Go underground. Flee."
"But..." Reiko let out an uncontrolled scream, emotions bottled up over years coming out in seconds. "...Bullshit! Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck! I'm a murderer! I killed for nothing but highfalutin bullshit! I said I was Redeemed for a fad! Why can't I see what you see? Why can't you just listen to me, Hasan?"
"This can't be it." Hasan shook his head in disappointment, ignoring Reiko's pleas. Blood pooled at the base of the corpse's head. "This can't be the only way out for us."
Kurt frowned. "Do you doubt your judgment?"
"I never have,” Hasan huffed. “It's just... there's nothing else for us, is there? The Redeemed is all I've ever known. No community, no sense of 'self', just a name and a purpose."
Again, Kurt put his hand on his shoulder. "You must use the time we've been given now to find yourself. Take what you have now and run with it. Protect it. Spread it if you must, but no one truly can understand it if they are not Redeemed. That is for them to decide for themselves..."
Hasan looked hard and longingly into Kurt's eyes, to the eyelids of the corpse on the ground... to Reiko. "Reiko..."
His head twitched with yet another subconscious "nudge". Hasan snapped his head up to the ceiling, staring beyond the mass of metal and concrete. High in the skies, a large vessel had dropped into realspace from a Strahl Drive's activation. He could feel the emotions swirling of the men onboard; tired, hungry, but eager to kill and get the job done. The red diamond symbol, faded UN flag, and scratched war paint spelled out in plain text who this was and why they were here.
"44th scouts." Hasan lowered his head, snapping out of the hallucination once again. "Too late. I suppose this is goodbye, Kurt, Reiko."
"For me, perhaps, but not you." The man began hobbling deeper into the building. "I'll see you some other time. Go."
Hasan balled his fist, but there wasn't much left he could do. Not like there was much left any of them could do at the moment. He just let out a simple grunt and trudged out the room, brushing past Kurt in a few strides. "Reiko, let's go."
He didn't have the guts to look back at her. Not when they pushed out of the lodge and ran back to the ship. Not when they fled from the white fingers of missile exhaust trails sprouting from the ship that annihilated the lodge in nuclear hellfire, and not when the Strahl Drive activated and reality shifted around their vessel's small frame.
The only thing Hasan looked back at was the Void. In all of its nothingness and depth, in all of its blackness, the truth he saw earlier still remained in his head. Whatever dead end life as he knew it was heading towards was all in part due to the Void, and the Redeemed were helpless to stop it. At least, right now—according to Kurt.
But the more he stared into the Void, the more he began to see a reflection—eyes in the nothingness. The Void was staring back at him.
- LUCY TORA
UN-PK Fort Victoria | Tharsis, Mars | Sol System | January 03 2801 Universal Calendar
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Under the bluish-violet morning skies, the sun rose slowly over the jagged spines of ancient mountain ranges, stretching far into the sky and as far out into the horizon as the eye could see. Lucy Tora awoke in an empty bed and rubbed her temples, staring at the wall opposite to her.
Another day had passed. Another night full of vivid dreams of places she had never been. Past experiences well before her time and future ones she knew would never happen in her lifetime. Another night pondering if she'd ever crack the code behind the Redeemed, or find her father.
The War for the Outer Heavens was nearly 50 years ago, yet it still felt so current. It was as if yesterday she was fleeing from her knife wielding father or running obstacle courses for Peacekeeper selections. In another sense, humanity taking its first steps to the stars also felt remarkably recent. History had a funny way of compressing one's perception of time. Almost 700 years ago, Earth was dying and the human race was extinct. Decades after that, the Strahl Drive was introduced and first contact was made with the Formicids. Everything since then was quite literally history.
But neither "history" nor "technology" had progressed far in those years before the War for the Outer Heavens, save for humanity coming up with more interesting ways to kill itself or its enemies. Nations came and went, revolutions were attempted—some successful—and human history grew to adapt to an increasingly cosmopolitan galaxy.
Humanity had been in the stars to some degree for hundreds upon hundreds of years, yet the Redeemed was still the most surprising thing anyone had established. Alien life was always theorized... but something of that magnitude and nature was unprecedented.
Hundreds of years, yet something like the Redeemed were the most surprising thing found in the stars.
Lucy rubbed her eyes as she stared at the UN flag on the wall, looking away from the white continents of Earth for a moment before finally standing up. Before she knew it, she was out of bed and out of the dorm, having already freshened up and beginning her usual morning routine. It began with an easy three mile jog along Patrol Route Three, a long and winding road around this half of Olympus Mons frequented by supply vehicles and recruits running in formation. They all greeted her with the usual flurry of exhausted "morning, Sergeant Major," as she jogged past in the opposite direction.
When Lucy reached the apex of the hill she was running up, she felt a mental knock on the side of her head. She brought the UN TACNET into her sight with a thought, finding the alert was coming from a certain Colonel back at HQ. If she had to guess, it was more desk work, or more psionic consultations, or a secret third option—playing OPFOR for new recruits.
Regardless of what it was, she didn't want to be late. Timeliness was expected. Work needed to be done.
Best I don't keep 'em waiting.
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It was good to be back. A duty uniform and medals were a fair change of pace from bulky power armor and fatigues.
Fort Victoria was, at least partially, built deep into the mountains like some sort of gigantic termite mound, stacking barracks and supply depots above ground atop tunnels, hospitals, offices, and vehicle depots below ground, along with more tunnels. Lifts with placards beside heavy blast doors filled the hallways, some large enough to fit a full supply truck through. The base was like a throwback to the 22nd century, kept up to date with less dusty but still bulky computers and displays.
She had to respect just how well planned this place was. It was one of the most secure places on the planet, impervious to both missile and storm. It was a fallback point capable of holding the entirety of the nearby city's population if worse came to shove—and it had, especially during the Redeemed's more daring deep attacks.
As she turned one of the corners, Lucy went rigid and stood at attention for a man in a duty uniform, his breast adorned with too many ribbons and medals to count, and the shoulder boards on his uniform decorated with a silver eagle. She almost whipped her hand up to salute the man, but saw the officer point his index finger towards her chest, before jabbing his thumb towards his own chest, and then pointing the thumb backwards towards a hallway that led towards the offices.
She nodded, understanding wordlessly what was going on, then followed her superior into the office space. Aesthetically, it was not too different from any traditional surface office space, cubicles separating workstations and desks and printers running constantly. Men and women in duty uniforms all manned computers or filled paperwork, some glancing towards the blonde woman with probably some of the first combat medals they had ever seen on a person, on top of more medals in general.
Lucy entered the Colonel's office. It was neat and made with intricately covered wood, resembling a home study more than anything else. There were framed vintage propaganda posters and old black and white photographs hanging on the walls. The doors were soundproof and the glass was frosted over. A stand on the desk had the man's name and rank on it: COL. MIKHAIL KASPAPROV
"Sit." Colonel Kasparov’s voice was deep, lined with some sort of Slavic accent—it wasn't like nations or borders mattered anymore. "I read over your file, Sergeant Major. It has been a year since your last psychological evaluation. Since then, I reassigned you to admin and training work here, at Fort Victoria." He gestured towards her. "Do you believe I made the right choice, Sergeant Major Tora?"
She paused for a moment, tapping her fingers together. "I don't understand the question, sir."
"I want to know if a warrior that I've sidelined is a warrior which I can still rely upon." The man tapped his fingers lightly against the side of the oak table as he leaned back in his chair. "I want to know if a year has been enough for you to recuperate."
To that, she tilted her head upwards. "Sir, if I may speak freely—" She waited until she was given the go-ahead with a dismissive wave from Kasparov. "I was ready to return to combat after a week, or even earlier. Modern medicine meant the injuries I received were trivial. Outside of my evaluation, I don't know why I wasn't put back sooner."
"Hm." He nodded. "I'm sure you're aware of this, but your transfer to the Federal Rangers was one with much pushback. Many of my colleagues believe a full Peacekeeper team devoted to the study and observation of ex-Redeemed individuals is unnecessary, a task better suited for the IOD. Do you agree?"
Truthfully, she didn't. The Peacekeepers and IOD had two different mentalities when it came to dealing with things like this. The IOD wished to defeat their foes before they even arose, but they failed with the Redeemed because they represented a threat which was inexplicable, spontaneous. The Peacekeepers stopped what was already happening, but against a foe like the Redeemed, this led to them being stretched thin. Even the remnants today were so few and far apart that Lucy thought they were entirely different organizations.
Kasaprov looked towards the window. "We are at a crossroads. If the Federal Rangers are to succeed, they require results. You are one of the few people I trust who have an intimate relationship with the Redeemed. Your father was one, after all. I'm sure you understand what I am alluding to."
She nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Hangar three." He wordlessly passed along information to her via his own implants. The names and portraits of other Federal Rangers were slid out along the bottom of her vision like a deck of playing cards. "I've checked out the armory for you and prepared a shuttle. Meet your team there. Briefing is in the packet I sent you. I am sending you to the borderlands by Kentauria and the Witch Realms, IOD has relayed information of a potential group of Ex-Redeemed holding out on one of the neutral worlds there. Consider them armed and dangerous, and try to steer clear of the Witches. You are on official peacekeeping business if questioned."
"Yes, sir." She nodded, standing up. She had a mission and a plan to execute it, and now needed to find her team. "Consider it done."
- 44TH EXPEDITIONARY FLEET
Moon of Calypso's Rest, Orbit of Gas Giant Foundry-I, Foundry System | Outer Rim | January 06 2801 Universal Calendar
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It wasn't even the bizarre religious imagery and inscriptions on the artifacts that put a sense of dread in Admiral Kodjoe. It was the fact that all of it was beneath his feet for all this time in Calypso's Rest of all places—the closest thing the 44th Expeditionary Fleet had to a temporary headquarters. He had been planetside and in-system for nearly a year, waiting for the Admiralty to return from plunders deeper in the galaxy as he established a base of operations on the wayward moon. If strange outer rim artifacts were here, then what about at Carlin's Redoubt, or Avalon, or Koalea, or all the other worlds they had set up shop on?
Just how many secrets had they missed? How much money were they missing?
Things were intense on the lonesome moon. Even the air stopped and listened. Not even a breeze blew past them. Kodjoe watched as some more of his marines at the site dug out another set of stone tablets. Their heavy power armor clinked and whirred as they effortlessly lifted up slabs of rock that no normal human could even think of picking up with their bare hands, before unceremoniously dropping them in the wet dirt beside a pile of other artifacts. Something like a gut feeling was telling him that this was too ancient of a site to be at, messing with things he probably shouldn't have been touching.
The Outer Rim was full of so many other unexplored moons and planets with an equal number of secrets. Yet, here he was, digging into the unknown, the unknowable, at a place he didn't originally own, yet still called home..
The alien by his side, too, seemed a bit disturbed, but nonetheless had a stoic demeanor, even if its face was practically invisible beneath a dark cloak. Unlike his colleagues, Kodjoe was not opposed to working with aliens, provided they got the job done and took proper pay without many questions to ask. This one was a local to the planet, his kind spared from a summary mass execution by the good grace of the Admiral. Kodjoe's guards' heads were on a swivel as he snapped his fingers, looking at the alien. "So, these tablets, tell me about 'em. How much are we thinking?"
The alien coughed and hobbled up beside the slabs. "Well, sire, this place was once the site of a great... em... no, Kingdom. Yes. Kingdom. I wager a couple thousand credits per slab. Not even I know when it was built, but I have my theories."
"Such as?" Kodjoe tilted his head, half curious, half impatient.
The alien gave a pause, muttering in its own language before swapping to English. "Ancient civilizations far older than even our own, and most definitely your own. Proto-civilizations, if you will. I have... read your human history, and—"
"Get to the point, alien." He gritted his teeth at the mention of his species.
"Ah..." The alien rubbed its dirty hands together. "You recall the construction of your great pyramids, yes? How it took some twenty years for a thirty thousand strong force of men to build them. This?" It gestured to the digsite. "I wager a hundred years. Millions of men. But there's something else. Have you noticed how oddly human these ruins look?"
Admiral Kodjoe went quiet as he stared across the ruins, lit up by a combination of dropship spotlights, chemlights, and the aurora above. He had seen the ruins of the ancient Greeks and Romans during his time on Earth, well before he had even thought of joining the UN Navy. If he wasn't careful, the ground he stood at now could've been mistaken for ancient Corinth or Rome. The thought of something so familiar so far out in space didn't make any sense. He refused to accept it. He refused to accept the results of carbon dating tests that put these ruins around the time of the Dinosaurs. There might've been aliens that could certainly pass like humans but they felt different.
But why did he feel like he was lying to himself?
It was staggering to even think about. Frightening, yes, intimidating for sure... but... odd.
But this didn't explain the strange spike-like constructs and rock formations, some of which were embedded into the ancient stone buildings, or the tablets with script that matched no human language. The more he stayed here, the more unsettled he got. He needed to take this with him to the grave.
With a simple thought, the dropships loitering in the air suddenly began circling back towards the Hannibal back in orbit. Hollow booms of small craft breaking the sound barrier filled the silence as men and their equipment were withdrawn towards the 44th Battlecruiser sitting in orbit.
His alien "associate" turned towards him with a puzzled body language. Kodjoe's face was stoic as he nodded towards his men. "Hannibal, this is Gold Actual. Priority trip. Ground to TP Bay One, six souls, three tablets. Begin when ready." As a faint column of shimmering golden light enveloped the Admiral, he pointed to his men. "Bring the tablets back with us, I'm takin' it to the Admiralty. Destroy the rest of this. All of it."
"S-sire! But—" The alien pleaded. "This is millions of years of history! Think of the profit—the wealth of knowledge!"
Kodjoe decided he had enough with the little shit. He snatched the diminutive gray alien by the scruff of his robes, lifting him up with one arm as he stared deep into its eyes. "I don't give a flying fuck about history or profit, you gray motherfucker," He growled. "This shouldn't exist. Not here. Not anywhere but Earth."
Before the alien could say anything else, the column of golden light solidified in a white flash and the rumbling of thunder. Only a crop circle of sizzling earth now remained atop where the Admiral and his entourage once stood.
Overhead, crackles of incoming mass driver volleys and cluster missiles came from the sky as the Hannibal unleashed its full broadside upon the ancient city.
