Chapter 4 Prologue. 4

Chapter 4 Prologue. 4

Aboard the HFAX Silent Night orbiting Odeus 5, two months after the initial assault.

It was a long two months but we finally routed Elunari forces off of Odeus 5. Their fleet jumped away last week, and there were only small pockets of resistance left on the planet. It was a shame we couldn’t just bomb them from orbit, saving a countless number of our soldiers' lives. The lush world was just too valuable for Humanity’s future colonies to be devastated in such a way.

All of Hades Squad were currently gathered in our shared “multipurpose room” as the engineers called it. It was just a tiny fighter hangar that had been retrofitted to fit our needs. The room had everything, from our training grounds, to Hepestus’s engineering bay, to Apollo’s medical station. Even Nyx had a little spot with a couch for her naps. But I couldn’t for the life of me remember where she got that thing.

I was rhythmically smacking my hand against a datapad confirming these damn reports. I had long since given up on reading these tedious AI-generated reports. They were just the same thing over and over again. Weapon replacements here, munitions requests there, armor repair over there... get me out of here. As if responding to my request, the hangar filled with the chimes of our communicators getting a ping.

That’s odd. Usually, everybody doesn’t get a ping about a mission unless it goes through me first.

I scrolled through the packet that had been sent to my datapad which described a search-and-clear on an abandoned Elunari space station? The Elunari rarely used space stations. It didn’t make sense for them when they had so many habitable planets to live. Not only that, they were orders from a Fleet Admiral, the highest-ranking officer in the Navy.

Artemis, who was practically smashing her datapad with her finger, groaned aloud. “Commander, this is some BS. Why the hell are we going to some abandoned station in the middle of nowhere!?” Artemis asked fiercely.

That is something I wanted to know as well. According to the maps, this station was at the fringes of Elunari space. Not only that...The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøv€l-B1n.

“Who is a part of this Elysium Squad that we know?” questioned Apollo.

It seems I’m not alone. I’ve never heard of this Elysium Squad. And it was the lack of details about the squad that bothered me.

“According to the briefing, they are a fairly new team put together only a week ago. This is to be their first mission,” informed Nike.

Not only that, it was a Death Commando squad wholly composed of the new third generation. So it was also abnormal that at least a second-generation wasn’t leading them. Usually when we worked with a squad, I could pull up everything from medical records, past missions, even their specialties. But this Elysium Squad had almost no available information. Some of them didn’t even have names.

“I mean, I guess the information is incomplete if they are new. Makes sense to me,” shrugged Zeus.

“Doesn’t matter. Orders are orders. We won’t be taking the Silent Night out there, so get ready. We depart in two hours for the Stormspike,” I ordered.

—-

Two weeks later on the bridge of the dreadnaught class capital ship, HFAX Stormspike. In the fringes of Elunari controlled space.

Another two-week trip to the middle of nowhere, but we finally reached our destination. Currently, I found myself alone meeting our commanding officer for this mission. I gazed out from the glass windows into the black void of space.

My eyes drifted towards a short, older woman with blonde hair in bright white officer attire who stood at the helm of the dreadnaught, Stormspike. Very few people outranked a Commander of a Death Commando squad. I technically only answered to officials on Mars. Still, as per orders, I was to follow the commands of Rear Admirals or higher, sometimes even Marine Major Generals or higher as well.

To be issued an order by a Fleet Admiral was a first for me. But, of course, there were only about twenty of them in the entire Human Navy, and they were responsible for whole fleets. I imagine they had far more critical things to deal with than handing out missions to Commandos, but I guess it’s time to find out.

The Fleet Admiral turned and gave me a professional smile while extending her hand and saying, “At ease, it’s an honor to finally meet you, Commander Kronos. I’ve been looking forward to giving you my thanks in person for years now.”

I returned the tiny Human’s handshake. Had I met her before somewhere?

I must have had a dumb look on my face as I thought this because she answered for me. “I don’t suspect you would remember me, Commander. I was just some lowly Captain when you saved the life of my crew and ship at the battle of Ingor. You knocked out the planetary guns just in time to save us. So, thank you, Commander. I owe you one,” she said thankfully with an awkward smile.

Ah, the battle of Ingor was a particularly bad battle for the Navy, if I remember correctly. The Zantons were an aquatic Xeno race with living bio-weapons that ate away at even our most robust metal. It was a gruesome fate to be blasted by one of their weapons.

“Just doing my job, Admiral. But I suppose I’d like to call in that favor early. What can you tell me about the situation?”

“Straight to point with you, huh? Well, this mission has two objectives, Commander. First, you are to search the space station for anything of importance along with the reason the Elunari abandoned it. And you are to be with Elysium Squad on their maiden voyage.”

I see. What a roundabout way to ask for my guidance on a mission. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to lead another squad to teach them the ropes.

“I understand. I’ll do my best, ma’am.”

“I know you will, Commander. In regards to the space station. All bio-scans have come back negative for signs of life. However, the station’s defense systems are still online. We will jump as close to the station as possible. Then the fleet will engage with the station’s automated defenses. Once we wipe them out, you will board the station with Elysium Squad, understood?”

“Understood, ma’am. We will complete our objectives at all costs.”

“Good. We plan to make the jump in two hours. You are dismissed, Commander.”

At least Admiral Wilson moves quickly. I imagine everybody doesn't want to be out here any longer than we have to be. But I have to agree with Artemis. This does seem trivial indeed.

—

Hangar bay of the HFAX Stormspike, thirty minutes before assault.

I jolted awake in my harness. Another nightmare. This time was different, however. This time I was that Xeno child. I was falling as a long black arm stretched out to grab me. I felt so afraid and confused.

Afraid? Fear... is that what it’s like to be frightened of something? I’ve never felt that way before.

But what does this damn dream mean? And why would it change now all of a sudden? While combating my conflicted mind, I peered downwards. Nyx was crouched down in front of me, staring into my eyes intensely. Her nearly black eyes gazed right through me.

“Are you okay? You normally don’t doze off before a mission. That’s normally my thing,” she asked with a hint of concern.

“I’m fine. Just a dream, that’s all,” trying to reassure her as much as myself.

She stood up and furrowed her brows at me. “Actually, I’ve never even seen you sleep before. Do you even sleep, Commander?” she asked honestly with a tilted head.

“Yes, Nyx, I do sleep when I need to. I just don’t have to very often. I’ve been exhausted recently, is all,” I said, shrugging off the feeling these nightmares left me with.

After Odeus 5, I’ve had this lingering feeling of fatigue over me that I can’t seem to shake off. Not only that, I wasn’t sure why I was telling Nyx my problems. Maybe I just felt comfortable around her.

Nyx transferred to my squad after her entire team was wiped out. She was the sole survivor, and she has been with me ever since. She should have been promoted to a squad Commander by now, but she had turned them all down. Maybe I was just looking too much into this. Not everybody wanted to be a Commander.

Nyx gave me a quick nod and stood up. “If you say so.”

Currently, Hades Squad was making its final preparations for the assault. However, it shouldn’t be much longer before we launch in a Tiger class transport craft. The Tiger class was a flying tank designed explicitly for boarding enemy stations and spacecraft. The craft used an onboard AI to fly the ship, which allowed the vessel to forgo having a cockpit that was usually a weakness on most spaceships and enabled the craft to boast an immense amount of frontal armor and a more robust plasma shield.

While walking out the back of the craft to grab my bolter, the door to the hangar bay opened up. A group of twelve individuals wearing Navy blue and Marine red Death Commando armor sauntered into the hangar.

Why isn’t their armor black? I had never seen Commandos not use the standard black armor.

Not only that, why was the squad double the standard size? Most Commando squads utilized five to seven members. Perhaps they were trial-running everything with this new squad?

A tall, lanky man with short-cropped dirty blonde hair swaggered over to me. He was wearing the bright red version of the armor. He extended his hand. “It feels good to finally meet the famous Commander Kronos. Not only that, I get to go out on my first mission with him. It’s an honor, sir.”

I took the man’s hand. This was always an awkward situation. Although we share the same rank, I was technically his senior. However, he was nearly double my age and had probably been serving before I popped out of my growth tank.

“Likewise, Commander. Say, what was your callsign? I didn’t catch it? And it wasn’t in the documents.”

In truth, I didn’t know any of Elysium Squad’s names. Apparently, I hadn’t been privy to that information.

“Ah, sorry, that was rude of me. Commander Nicholas Clarkson, former Marine Force Recon turned Death Commando.”

No callsign? What was the purpose of that, I wondered? Why would they give the squad a name associated with Human gods but not assign names of gods to themselves? I didn’t understand Doctor Octario’s logic on this one, but then again I rarely understood her genius.

Not noticing my internal struggles, he continued talking, “Anyways, I figured since the station has two wings, we can just split the station in half and work through it that way.”

“That’s fine with me. Do you want us to take a few of your members with us? Balance things up a bit more?” I suggested.

Clarkson had to reach high but he just gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Nah. No need. Might as well start working together as a team now, you know?”

I can’t let her die here. Guess I won’t be getting a medal for this. Not that I wanted any in the first place.

I grabbed a shredder grenade from my belt and turned off one of the plasma shields. Typically, a simple shredder grenade would barely damage a Death Commando in their armor. But combine that with a plasma core explosion and the following explosion would mince anything. I used my shield's last bit of energy, stepped into the hallway, and tossed the grenade along with the shield core down the hallway.

I took cover as a burst of white-hot plasma flashed, and the shrapnel turned the hallway and most of its occupants into a red mist. I motioned for Nyx to get ready as I unslung my bolter to finish off any survivors. We charged down the hallway and blasted a few stragglers who had managed to survive the explosion. Most of them were discombobulated or attempting to stem the flow of blood from their missing limbs.

As we made it down the hallway, a door suddenly slammed open as a tall man in navy blue armor shot me in the shoulder. The bolter round at close range tore through my armor and exploded. He must have had time to close the door and hide in the room, lucky bastard.

Nyx reacted faster and blew his head off with a single well-placed shot. I signaled a “thanks,” and we began to move down the hallways. My shoulder was torn up but it was still usable. My armor had taken the brunt of the attack while my Ambrosia-enhanced body dulled any pain. We had to get out of here, and the only chance we had of surviving was to make it to Elysium Squad’s Tiger.

The bulwarks started closing manually while sprinting down the hallways at breakneck speeds. Our engagement had killed half of Elysium Squad, and now we were being corralled like livestock through the station. Unfortunately, I only had one more plasma core and we were nowhere close to the Tiger, so I couldn’t brute force through the bulwarks.

We kicked up the pace, and Nyx was keeping up with me, which meant she had also injected her Ambrosia. A thunderous boom echoed through the halls, and time slowed as I barely managed to turn my head around to see Nyx shove me out of the way.

A rail gun had just been fired.

My brain shut off, and muscle memory took over as I scooped Nyx and carried her down the hall. I barged straight through a door, hoping to find somewhere to hunker down for the moment.

I looked down at my hands and shoulders, which were now smeared with red blood. Blood was pooling around Nyx quickly as I noticed the head-sized hole in her abdomen.

No... no, this can’t be happening!

The railgun had gone clean through her, destroying her insides and spine. Time was moving so slow as I racked my brain to find a way to save her.

Nyx dimmed her crimson visor to reveal her pale face. “Sorry, Commander. Sorry, Commander. Sorry, Commander,” she repeated like a mantra over and over again.

“It’s fine Nyx, you are gonna be okay,” I lied to her as much to myself. I tried injecting hemostatics to slow the bleeding down but it wasn’t working.

“Hey Commander... we were friends, right? Like real friends?” she asked, coughing up blood into her helmet.

What? Why are you worried about this now of all times, you idiot! And I... I don’t know. What’s it like to have a friend?

Nyx didn’t talk to anyone. I guess she spoke to me the most out of everybody, and I did feel closer to her. It’s not that I wasn’t close with the rest of the squad. It was just that I was closer to Nyx. She always made an effort to speak to me, even if it seemed to make her uncomfortable. I was just thinking earlier about how I felt comfortable around her.

Perhaps. This is what it means to be friends. I stopped fiddling around with random medical equipment and steeled myself. I can’t save her... I can’t save my friend.

I dimmed my visor to respond, “Yeah, Nyx. You might have been my only friend. Thank you for sticking with me all these years,” I chuckled nervously to myself for the first time in my entire life. “I probably wasn't a very good friend.”

She gave me a genuine ear-to-ear smile. I had never seen her smile so brightly before. “Yeah— you kinda sucked. I wasn't much better, but I’m glad... and hey, I told you, didn't I. That I didn’t trust Zeus and the 3rd Gens,” she said weakly.

She has lost a lot of blood. The fact she was still alive was a miracle in itself. She should have died instantly from this wound. I ignored the thundering of metal boots outside. It didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was seeing my friend off.

“You did try to warn me. Sorry, I failed you.”

“It’s fine. I’m just sorry I have to die first. I didn’t want you to go alone but it looks like I failed the both of us,” she said, even weaker now. The light was starting to fade from her eyes.

There was no point in sugar-coating it. The odds of us surviving this was astronomically low from the start. Even if we managed to get to the Tiger, we were surrounded by an entire fleet with a dreadnaught. We wouldn’t have even made it out of the station alive.

“I’ll be joining you soon enough, Nyx,” I said.

With her dying breath, she left me with one final wish. “Maybe... just maybe...if we are lucky... I’ll get to see you again someday, Commander.”

I shut my eyes tightly. I never would get an opportunity to respond to her final wish as her squad light went from a bright red to black.

I prayed for the first time in my life, not for me but for Nyx. Perhaps, if there really were a god, it would be merciful to her. She didn’t deserve to die, not like this.

A familiar voice called out to me from the hallway. “Doesn’t have to be like this, Commander, just turn yourself in and this can all be over,” yelled Zeus. I could see the barrel of the railgun he was carrying from the doorway.

Currently, I was in some type of shopfront type room behind the counter. A swelling feeling rose in my chest and reached my head. It clouded my vision and my heart thumped in my ears. Is this what it’s like to feel anger?

I might have been suppressing this rage since the raid on the facility, unsure what to do with it or even make of it. But, I had never felt that way until that night.

I should just give in, turn myself over to them. Fighting these soldiers has no point anymore. My time has come, and I should be embracing the fact that Humanity no longer needs me. It means I’ve finally completed my purpose. But when I look down at Nyx’s cold dead body.... none of that matters anymore.

I prepped and tossed another shredder grenade with a plasma core towards the doorway. If I was going to die then I would take as many of the scum that killed her with me to hell.

What I had not been expecting was for Zeus to suddenly appear in the doorway and activate a plasma shield. He used the shield like a bat and swatted the grenade combo right back at me.

The following explosion destroyed the counter I was using as cover and decimated the entire room. White flakes of heated plasma metal pelted my body. I didn’t need to feel the pain to know I was beyond repair.

My legs had been ripped clean off from the wave of superheated plasma from the core explosion while the shrapnel turned me into mincemeat. I had taken an immense amount of internal damage. I was only conscious because of the combination of my armor working overtime to stem my bleeding and the Ambrosia coursing through my veins. But my hands still worked, and I wasn’t dead yet.

I took out my bolt pistol and began firing through the walls. I heard the distinct whining noise of Zeus’s plasma shield being battered, so I adjusted my aim further down the wall. I was rewarded with sounds of bones and armor being blown to smithereens as my bolt rounds exploded through the walls into anyone unfortunate enough to be in their way. I wasn’t sure to what extent the other members of Elysium Squad were involved, but it didn’t matter to me.

They will pay for their transgressions with their dying breaths. Unfortunately, I had to reload, and no good soldier would let me get away with that. Not to mention my ammo was stored where my legs used to be, and those excess rounds just added to the carnage.

Finally, my bolt pistol clicked with every pull of the trigger, the steam rising from the red hot barrel clouding my vision. Elysium Squad breached the room and dispersed the haze. A random soldier shot me once in the shoulder, only for the round to ricochet off my armor.

Zeus slapped the weapon away and sauntered over to me, and crouched down in front of me with a plasma pistol in hand, poking my chest. “Well, you just had to go and make a mess? Do you know how many good men died today because of you? You killed a lot of my friends today...” Zeus gave my helmeted head a hard slap. “Hey! Are you listening to me?!” Zeus continued to yell at me while driving the barrel of his plasma pistol into my injuries.

Of course, I felt nothing, and I said nothing.

He just laughed. “Look at how the mighty have fallen. Don’t tell me you bled out now, Commander? Surely this can’t be how Humanity's finest weapon is done in? By losing a little bit of blood? Pathetic. Guess your stories were just stories after all.”

Zeus seemed to be enjoying himself a little too much. Perhaps he is a sadist or something. But his overconfidence will be his downfall. He got careless. I may be dying but I am far from dead, as I was beyond angry for the first time in my entire life.

With surprising speed from what seemed like a corpse just moments ago, I swatted the pistol out from his hand then dragged his arm into me as I put him in a bear hug. I mustered all my strength and squeezed as hard as I possibly could. I felt my ribs crack even more, but I also shattered his in return. I put every ounce of strength I had left into crushing this man into a pulp.

He was screaming and trying to push away from me. He was far beyond an average Human in strength and speed but he was nowhere close to me. Ambrosia only made the gap between us wider.

However, it seems I underestimated my injuries as I began to waver. I guess I had lost a lot of blood already. I was probably squeezing even more of my own blood out of me now. The warning in my helmet was ringing incessantly but I ignored it.

Eventually, I couldn’t keep the same strength up as he pushed off me and rolled over gasping for air and coughing through his helmet. Finally, Nike walked over to us while I began to struggle to stay awake.

“You fool, Zeus. You should have just shot him in the chest and been done with it. Doctor Octario only needs his head intact. Now here you are dying right with him. Just because you wanted to play around, you always do this crap,” Nike reprimanded.

Nike stood over me now and pointed his bolter at me. “Sorry, Commander. It really wasn’t personal, but I guess you had to go and make it personal. In my honest opinion, I thought you were a good man and a good leader. And if it helps, I am sorry about Nyx. She shouldn’t have died with a bastard like you. I'll make sure her body gets a proper burial."

I heard the bolt rack as time slowed down again. The bolter round barreled into my stomach as I began to blackout.

At least I could die in solace knowing I had avenged Nyx. I used Zeus’s ribs as daggers to stab into his lungs, stomach, and heart. It was doubtful there would be enough time to save him even if they worked right now. Even a Death Commando needed a heart. I felt the round blossom with heat in my chest and expand.

Then there was nothing.

I seemed to be floating away in an endless black void now. So, this is what it’s like to die. It was warm, even comforting in a weird way. No pearly gates or bearded man awaiting me, nor was there a hellish fiend waiting to drag me down to the depths of hell.

Wait, what was that? Who’s there?

The feeling of someone being there was replaced instantly by a bright light. Ah, the infamous light at the end of the tunnel, huh? I had heard many final breaths on the battlefields as Marines called out to the light, embracing it, only for the light of their life to flicker out from them.

I had often just ascribed that behavior to the dying mind, but now it seems it is accurate. I was moving faster towards the light, or was the light coming to me? I guess it doesn't matter. Suddenly, the light began to hurt, and excruciating painful noises assaulted my head.

Wait... pain? You aren’t supposed to feel pain when you die.