Gods & Legionnaires (Galaxy's Edge: Savage Wars Book 2) Read online

  They were no longer strangled by their own ignorance. And the galaxy was free of it. Free to become what the Uplifted would make it into.

  You’re doing them a favor, whispered Maestro as he murdered them all.

  One had to be Uplifted to truly appreciate thought and intelligence. Again, there was no lie in this. It was just fact. A fact he’d been taught and had come to know as his own personal truth.

  Like some artist, like a Van Gogh who makes one pass at a painting and yet every stroke is sheer genius, he worked the blazing rifle over their ruined corpses. Thundering forward, sweeping the weapon across their clusters, tearing their fragile meat to shreds, ramming his shoulder into one and knocking the Animal marine off-balance in the dark and emergency lighting of the passage. Watching his enemy slowly rebound into the wall as another cluster of Animal monkey soldiers thought to use this moment to pour their fire into his superior armor. He grabbed the rag-dolling monkey-Animal he’d just knocked into the wall, a wall alive with the electric fire of enemy pulse rifle fire impacts incoming and thundering past him in slow motion, exploding across the node’s processors behind him, and he held that monkey marine lesser being out as a shield against their incoming fire. With nothing but his mind, his will, his desire, he set the HK G-97 to burst-fire mode to conserve ammo, and advanced on them, the Animal marine’s lightly armored body absorbing their return fire until it began to come apart in his gauntlet. He advanced like some angel of judgment, or conquering general, or righteous sentence long overdue against the galaxy, shooting down the last of the clustering monkey marines like mere stray dogs in the end. Clearing the node, finally, of all but his presence.

  “Winner! Winner! Chicken dinner!” exclaimed the in-game announcer in the silence that followed the carnage and chaos of the short yet brutal battle.

  “Miss Cyber Saigon will be sent direct to you in the Casanova Suite at Sin City when the match is over! Congratulations, Crometheus. Game on, player!”

  Gods: Chapter Seven

  To their credit, the Animals put up a noble defense against Crometheus’s devastating onslaught. They fought with their backs to the wall, but they were only Animals in the end. What could they really do against him… an Uplifted becoming a god?

  It was almost laughable.

  He ripped the final security blast hatch from its hinges in an impressive display of cybernetic strength. The energy expenditure from the armor’s onboard power plant was plenty costly, but the effect, as he tore his way into their heavily defended combat brain center, was priceless. The Fury’s ability to fight ship-to-ship lay within his merciless grasp.

  “Gotta make an entrance,” reasoned Crometheus as he began to cut down naval officers and staff with automatic weapons fire. He was still juiced. Hard. He’d didn’t need the whoops and the ululations of the in-game announcer calling out his kill counts as he ran up the score on Tournament Mode. He was flat-out juiced like he hadn’t been since …

  …since…

  …since…

  Bad Thought. Bad Thought. Bad Thought.

  Memory access denied. Forbidden memory kernel.

  Denied.

  Denied.

  Denied.

  He hadn’t felt this good in forever. Everything inside him was rushing like live electricity gone wild as kill after kill added up along the slaughterfest train going off the rails inside the Animals’ premier combat information center. The PITT.

  A thing they must’ve been so proud of, thought the Uplifted marine from those distant constantly calculating background apps of his mind. Their shiny new toy he was now ruining in mass doses of brutal automatic gunfire. He got five achievement points for shooting down a flag-grade officer covering behind a holographic projection table. But after a while, enemy resistance inside the PITT grew less and less organized until in the end he was merely shooting down wounded Animals trying to crawl away from the chaos, while the dull hum of ruined number-crunching machinery, endlessly repeating phrases and images from their comm and combat feeds within the dark of the fleet’s command and control center, reigned supreme.

  He spotted a wounded Animal. A woman. Her pristine deep-blue uniform ruined by ragged gunshot wounds sustained during the firefight. He had no memory of shooting her. She must have been caught in the crossfire, or by a ricochet during his initial assault. Now he crossed over the bodies of dead Animals for her specifically. She would do for his purposes.

  His ceramic combat boots crunched ruined plastic and broken bones, or squelched in the blood running out across the rubberized gravity decking inside the once state-of-the-art combat information center.

  She was crawling away from him as he hefted his powerful HK G-97 with his off hand and removed his most sacred device from the underside of his right wrist.

  Words like “sacred,” or even “holy,” these meant nothing to him in the ever-evolving newspeak of the Uplifted. Evolving because optimization was constant and therefore evolution of words was necessary to become. So say we this because it is our collective truth, he almost murmured aloud in the humming destruction of the place. Thus speak the Uplifted.

  But the device he produced was as old to him as time, even though it, too, was constantly updated and upgraded. Deep within it was a memory module that had followed him through all the years. From rock star to marine, to someday god.

  He followed her trail of blood through the ruin of the PITT and held his most sacred relic out to capture all the chaos and carnage he’d done to them all. His HUD tagged thirty-five dead.

  Easily a shooting spree. Not his best or highest, but enough to qualify as an official shooting spree…

  Bad Thought! Guns are bad! Bad Thought…

  Override.

  Some old programming string from long ago that hadn’t been purged well enough.

  Evolve. Change.

  Guns are good for Animal control.

  When we have the guns, only us, then good can be done for all. Because only we know best.

  Evolve.

  Override.

  Shooting sprees are good. As long as Animals are put down. Kill for a better tomorrow. Good Thought. Good Thought.

  His HUD had fritzed for half a second as old memories and absorbed truths collided. Old data surfacing and needing to be overwritten. That was all it was, he assured himself during the brief telemetric lapse when sudden fingers of anxiety began to run their fingers across his scalp. When the world was a little less bright, the colors not so vivid, and the floating achievement points over the victims of his killing spree blinked out of existence for a brief second and caused him to wonder if somehow he’d lost them all, he felt his heart stop. His brain had frozen.

  True aloneness in the galaxy crept in on him and made him feel tiny and small. Ever so small. An unimaginably microscopic speck against the panorama of existence.

  “Shooting sprees are good,” Crometheus chanted to himself in the quiet. Willing motivation and positive thinking into the gaping void expanding across his consciousness. Spreading like some viral disease run amok.

  The Animals here in the PITT were all dead now and could no longer harm the Uplifted. That was good. Worthy of achievement points being awarded. Achievement points were good. A sign that you were doing good. Progressing along the Path…

  Achievement.

  Progress.

  Becoming.

  All good things to those who deserve them.

  The Uplifted marine bent down on one knee next to the dying Animal officer as the HUD synced with Maestro and came back online. He set his rifle down on the blood-covered deck. Within his HUD he saw her vitals bottom out, and she died in that moment as he considered pulling her close, her bullet-riddled Animal body suddenly flopping to the deck in finality.

  Accepting the way the galaxy would be from now on. Relinquishing her hold and finally acquiescing to post-humanity.

>   She’ll still do, he thought and finished the slow pan of the ruined PITT with his most holy of devices. The device that had first set him on the Path to becoming what he would one day become. When he’d received an email over it one dark night as he stood perilously close to the cliffs of his sanity in Malibu, knowing he was perilously closer to ending himself with a length of rope in the garage. That unexpected email would lead him to a rainy-day weekend seminar out by the airport. And that weekend that would change his life. Forever. Save his life. Forever. Set him on the path to becoming Uplifted.

  He tapped a button on it and now he was looking at an image of himself in his armor, a glorious vision of himself becoming.

  He tapped the button again and in real-time the camera captured the scene.

  He grabbed her hair, the dead Animal beneath him on the deck of the ruined ship, and gently hauled her head into frame.

  The ancient device recorded everything for posterity.

  Like some hunter with his latest trophy.

  Like winning.

  Yes, he thought. That’s what this is. Something as ancient as humanity was long ago. Me mighty hunter. This is my kill. Behold my becoming god.

  Winning.

  Her eyes were rolled white. Her once-beautiful heart-shaped mouth hung slack and open. Her skin was turning corpse-pale.

  What a beautiful Animal, he thought to himself as he studied the kill. She would have been perfect for the erotic zoo back on the Pantheon. Available for viewing and interaction on the Boulevard of Dreams in Sin City.

  A ten-pointer, no doubt.

  He tapped send.

  A moment later the in-game announcer went nuts as he won all the prizes. The entire Pantheon would see his victory live. Would know that he was becoming via the feeds.

  Selfie complete.

  One hundred thousand achievement points awarded.

  Gods: Chapter Eight

  Crometheus’s extraction off the burning United Worlds cruiser Fury took place within hours after the entire Coalition counterattack against the Id’s stronghold on captured New Britannia had been stopped cold. Fighting was still going on across several disabled ships, deck by deck, but the Animal assault had stalled before being able to establish orbit above the sacked world. By then Uplifted drone ships were already scavenging the burning wrecks for tech, intel, resources, and of course slaves where they could be had. The Id had first choice of the captured as this was their planetary system. Their slaves would be broken mentally and then assimilated into the lower ranks of Id culture as was their way.

  Crometheus had earned a major prize for selfie-ing inside the ruined PITT. But the other two major objectives obtainable aboard the Fury had gone to other, now game-overed players. Regalle, who’d been an actual military leader on the Earth of long ago, had neutralized the bridge but had been game-overed when Animal marines tried to retake the command node in force. In his last act Regalle had vented the bridge to open space, denying the Animals access to the objective, even though he had armor integrity warnings that indicated he’d be susceptible to vacuum.

  The Pantheon would award him honor and glory. Its highest acknowledged achievement.

  A reclamation ship had been dispatched from the Id main colony ship in an attempt to save Regalle, but as of a few updates ago the prognosis for salvage didn’t look good.

  Uber Titan had overrun engineering with the rest of his spear, but all of them had been killed when the reactor destabilized and emitted a short yet powerful and very unexpected pulse. It was contained within the reactor shielding, but the resulting reverberating effect had all but fried the entire spear. Uber Titan, being the closest to godhood, was the most missed. The rest had been mere thralls culled from the ranks of the ascending.

  Uber Titan had been awarded the objective posthumously.

  The loss of both players was a brutal blow to the Pantheon. Besides being a capable warrior, Uber Titan had been the chief architect of an orbital gun system being considered for New Vega’s lone moon.

  His loss would be deeply felt along the Path.

  All of the after-action updates were coming in over the HUD as close asides from Maestro, who’d taken, since the massacre inside the PITT, a rather conspiratorial tone with Crometheus as he effected to evacuate himself from the disintegrating enemy cruiser. Maestro talked as though they were old hands sharing insights into the battle as explosions rippled through the superstructure and Crometheus had to keep moving to escape the damaged sections of the ship. Asides, insights, even observations about how things could have been handled better were discussed. Which was incredibly candid for Maestro, thought the Uplifted marine swimming through entire decks immobilized by gravity-systems failure.

  “Alas, Cro…”

  Cro was something new. Maestro was calling him Cro. And, if he was being honest with himself, that was absolutely delightful. A perpetual insider could always tell when a new layer, a new ring, a new circle to the endless layers of inside was opening up. Could access to the Xanadu Tower be close at hand? Being inside with the ultimate insider in the persona of Maestro reminded Crometheus so much of his life as rock star back on Earth. The private parties that had been so ludicrous the press had never been allowed to even get a whiff of them. And the weekend enclaves with peers of all mediums in which no desire was forbidden the participants and every impossible dream about how society could be bettered had been proposed in candid talks that would have been considered genocidal by the bleeding hearts within their own cause. Yes, in that moment they were living like Caligula because of the power they had collectively amassed. But wouldn’t they do good with all that power they’d gotten their hands on? Couldn’t they? And didn’t that make a difference in the end? Didn’t that make it all okay if they made the Earth a better place? They’d asked themselves those questions through a haze of flesh and drugs.

  Then… they’d been brave enough to answer them.

  And that answer had been yes. It was okay, all things were, if it was for the greater good. Toppling governments. Bioweapon releases. Economic warfare. Inner-city slaughter. Persecution of intolerants and backward thinkers who refused to get progressive about what needed to be done if they, humanity in collective, were going to survive. All of it was acceptable if it made the world a better place under the administration of those, them, who knew what was best for it and for all.

  So pass me another underage girl and a bindle full of high-grade coke while we discuss the next ice age and how we can save the planet from ourselves.

  That was how those days had been. Just before the end. Before the shedding of Earth. That first meaningful cutting away of something that allowed them to be free of the Animals. Free to become what they were becoming.

  “Inside” was the best side to be on, he’d always said. Any other status was a living hell. Or rather the hell of being no one… to anyone. Which is what someone once told him hell really was.

  If you believed in such fairy tales.

  And now here he was, exchanging inside info with Maestro. The mind that ran the entire Pantheon. Interfacing with the highest worthies inside the Xanadu Tower. Those who had already become the gods they would all be one day.

  The ultimate insider.

  “Alas, Cro,” said Maestro. “This was at best a cobble-patch battle to aid our fellow Uplifted, the Id. Their success here against the Animals wasn’t as terrifically overwhelming as the Pantheon’s on New Vega. We’ve paid a dear price here in beautiful minds lost forever just to cement an already shaky alliance. Which causes a question to spring to my mind, as it does no doubt yours. I wonder, Cro, was it all worth it in the long run? And… how long can this ‘Grand Alliance’ of Uplifted tribes last?”

  Crometheus was crawling out onto the outer hull of the burning Fury. Id salvage bots already at work on the devastated ship. Tearing apart, dissecting systems, and cutting away valuable tech in an at
tempt to save it before the runaway cascade inside the main reactor burned the whole ship to a crisp disintegrating within the gravity well of this newly conquered world. Crometheus was not without concern about all this, wondering if indeed their allied in-system friends, the Id, would be getting around to pulling him off this wreck any time soon.

  Before it all went too far south.

  It would be horrible to get killed out here after winning so many achievement points today. And truth be told, he was ready for his weekend with Miss Cyber Saigon. Cyberbabe to end all cyberbabes. It was time to do some Sin City.

  “Is the alliance truly worth it?” he asked Maestro as he scrambled forward to reach the shot-to-hell bridge disc. The portside spine of the attack cruiser was breaking apart now. Magazine explosions where the SSMs were stored were igniting, tearing those sections into pieces with brilliant displays of explosive potential realized. The ruined hull shuddered beneath his boots as he clambered onto the disc.

  He crawled out onto the tower of a ventral sensor mast array that hung from below the burning Animal cruiser. Once more he checked the pulse of his emergency transponder. Still working. Help still not on the way. Soon he’d need to weigh some other, more dire, survival options.

  “So true, Crometheus. An excellent question. I see now that you do indeed have the ruthlessness the Pantheon sees in its most empowered. For our many years in the void we longed only for our very own home world on which to finally demonstrate the wisdom of our vision for a better future. An opportunity we were denied back on Earth. We didn’t just flee a ruined home world that wouldn’t heed our smart warnings about climate, governance, or diversity… refusing to grow and believe as we did, refusing to submit to the wisdom that only we possessed in those perilous dark times. Instead the Animals continued to remain relentlessly tribal… clinging to their weapons and religions as we tried to drag a civilization up out of its own ignorant stone age darkness. Yes, it’s true that we fled all that. But we also must never forget… that we fled the other Uplifted too. You know what I mean by this, Cro?”