Long story short, I think we died. Its the most logical explanation my mind can come up with when faced with the overwhelmingly impossible odds that landed us in this situation.
"Impossible? Go with highly improbable, if you truly wish to be accurate. After all, impossible things don't happen and highly improbable do, no matter how unlikely."
I glared at our resident passive aggressive CMO and my best friend before turning back to the tablet in my hand. I rolled the stylus in my hand mulling over whether to retort something back or not.
Long story short, I think we died. Its the most logical explanation my mind can come up with when faced with the overwhelmingly impossible odds that landed us in this situation. highly improbable odds that landed us in this situation.
"Don't let your grandfather read this. Or anyone of the crew, really. It'd be very demotivational if Earth's Poster Girl for Humanity turned out to be as psychologically scarred and traumatized as the rest of us."
I exhaled audibly, irritation starting to seep into me as fast as lightning. I was coping as best as I could, just like everybody else. Hell, I've been coping with this ten years prior to everybody else and for me, the current situation was an improvement. As much as death and afterlife could be called an improvement to near-total anihilation and carnage like none other in the known human history.
"Can I please finish this without any more interruptions?" I ground out, glaring.
"I thought you didn't like anyone poking around in your head." it was a statement and not a question.
She was right, of course. But I needed some sort of outlet that did not involve wanton violence and massive colateral damage. Hannah said that writing a journal or a diary of sorts would help me with that, as well as with my ever growing paranoia. Hannah was my resident shrink, which was really, really ironic on a cosmic level, considering the closest she'd ever come to actual emotions was when she and her sister were told their brother Sam had died. Along with myself, he was the only other casualty of my team back in... those days.
Anyways. Hannah. Hannah Woodsworth was as petite as they came of us tin cans and she was serene and tranquil and so, so useful even in the most critical situation. Hannah, Helen and Simon Woodsworth. The Woodsworth Sibs. They lost their parents in a car crash when Hannah was just a small baby. It was that car crash that had Hannah devoid of all emotions and having her the way she is now. A high-functioning psychopath. I am sure that she is fond of us in her own, unique way that she was unable to express. But that cold logical void of emotionless stability was practically a pillar for most of us in the Fleet. As our resident psychologist it was her job to prevent us killing each other until we finally reach an actual star system where we could finally take a breather and figure out where we were and how the fuck things went as wrong as they did.
We are the Vestige Fleet. I think it is a fitting title, since I've no idea if we'd ever make it back to the rest of humanity.
"It is quite fitting. But we will find a way home. I've faith in you."
I bit my lower lip and looked at the ground. Maybe years ago I would've jumped at the challenge and given it my all. But now... I am so tired. I am tired of heartbreak and disappointment and there was only so much madness that even the mad could handle. All little miss Dr. Passive Aggressive here achieved was making me feel guilty. Guiltier than usual.
Guilt was a good motivator, too.
I wish things were different. But the cards have been dealt and I always play to win.
"I always play to win." I repeated out loud and finally looked at MJ who was dutifully fixing one of the small joints connecting a wing-plate to the whole complex mechanism that was my left wing. The light blue glow comming from her eyes was still visible, even behind her visor whose HUD was cluttered with all kind of tabs and stats and who knows what else. I always forget to ask her about her visor. For such a neat and ordered person, her HUD was certainly anything but.
"Hannah says you worry too much about everything."
"That comes with my job description of being your boss."
"If I remember correctly Hannah had you on an indefinite medical leave."
"Can we not talk about this right now? I am trying to find inspiration to finish this entry-"
"You've barely started-"
"Because you keep interru-"
"Me? Interrupt you? Why I never!"
"You are do-"
"I would never even think about interrupting anyone, let alone you!"
We would've continued this camaderie if she didn't have to answer her communications array on the other side of the med bay.
"Good news, Donnie. They've found Gravity's arm. This time."
I scoffed.
"She started it." I replied as haughtily as I could, given that if I raised my hackles (my armor plates) she'd probably stick a finger in a sensitive spot and have me squirm in the ground with that holier-than-thou expression on her face just to show me up. MJ tolerated petulance as much as I tolerated traitors. She also happened to come up to my mid-thigh, which made her that more terrifying.
"And you finished it, which, to be honest, I don't care about since no matter which one of you wins the round, I always lose."MJ paused for a moment."I always lose precious free time to fixing you vagabonds"
We bicker a lot. But it's friendly banter, something from the days before the Blitz and sometimes, if only for a little while, I felt like the girl I used to be – no cares in the world, free-spirited and, most of all, happy. The reminder was bittersweet. It was a reminder of how much I lost. How much we all lost.
The Blitz was humanity's first contact with another life form. It was a swift and brutal invasion that ended because of sheer dumb luck, no matter what anyone else says. I'd know best of all – I was the one to end it all. All it took was my life and Simon's life. The end of the Blitz marked the beginning of a new Era for humanity. We were now a spacefaring race, what with all the technology we gained from our victory against the Xarynthians. Well, not so much a victory as it was a culling at the hands of yours truly. You couldn't get more metaphorical than this to boot. Hell, the Xarynthians' whole civilization was hive based, with each and every one individual in their race was neurolinked via a special contraption on the back of their necks. We know that now. Before, the closest you could get to a Xarynthian and live to tell the tale was around fifty meters. Cybernetically enhanced, mecha wielding, slimy, ugly amphibian fucks the lot of them.
So, the hive mind wasn't much of a natural thing with them. Everything Xarynthian was centralized in a single, supreme leading force, all of which happened to be contained on their Flagship, currently the retrofitted Valkyrie Transended. AKA yours truly's very own ship. There's a story behind that too, don't worry. This was also something we found out post factum. But I digress, more on that later.
In typical epic adventure RPG fashion, the hero, along with their faithful sidekicks, stormed the enemy flagship. The end result, you already know. I do not remember some details clearly. It was something to do with the way Human short term memory worked in general. To be honest, I don't really even want to recount in that kind of detail. Sam's tragic demise still haunted my dreams. What I do remember however was the white-hot pain and oblivion searing through my whole being. The white light, the darkness, the stars, the whispers in the void. A rush of everything and nothing, that insane sensation of feeling your own death and the continuous and full realization that death would not mean deliverance from this hell I'd been trapped into. I'd never wish this upon even my worst enemies, this separation of body and mind. I saw my own body obliterated by a massive energy surge. The verb "saw" being ridiculously inaccurate but the shortest possible explanation. I had no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no nothing. Not even darkness. There was only the void and the others. The whispers, a tug upon my very mind.
Terror was replaced with anger and the whispers in the void grew anxcious. Something pulled at me, then something else. Inquiries, outrage, confusion, curiousity. A world of new and foreign emotions, mingling with my own, overwhelming me. There were no sensations, there was nothing to distract me from this chaos, this blistering pull at my everything.
It was too much. Too much and too soon.
Not now, I pleaded. To whom I did not know. Not when I was so close. This had to end.
I pulled.
I pulled harder.
Something snapped.
The whispers in the void became screams of agony.
When I finally broke through these binds upon me the screaming stopped, the tugs stopped and there was nothing and at the same time there was everything. And everything, my whole being, was filled with pure, unadulterated sadistic ecstasy, like a cruelly delayed blissful release but so much more powerful and immeasurably deep.
I blacked out, as much as one could within this strange state of limbo, When I came to, it felt like an eternety of sifting through this void to finally understand and take a hold of my situation.
I had been literally downloaded into the Xarynthians' systems to become part of their hive mind. A fluke or a mistake on their part, I do not know, but here I was, the very epitome of chaos within their very orderly systems and consciousnesses. My accidental invasion upon their most vulnerable parts had rendered their previous leader, this ancient old cunt of a coot, dead and despondant and me their new and glorious leader for all of 0.3386 nano seconds, at which point I had mercilessly and unknowingly laid waste on their collective hive mind. Trillions lives snuffed out like a candle in the wind.
Just like that. An entire civilization gone with nothing but their very own Grim Reaper as a last living vestige of what they once were. It did not matter that said civilization was like a ravenous cloud of locusts, straight out of movies like Independance Day. It does not matter that I had no idea what I had done at the time. All that matters was that I revelled in their pain and destruction and I had taken pleasure from that.
I stood amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls. I ask myself amidst the ghosts of my actions if honor matters at this point. If there is even glory to consider. There was this surreal sense of deja vu that reminded me oh so very much of the video games I had loved to play when I was young.
In those first few days there was nothing but emptiness and self-contempt. In those first few days I made a promise to myself. One that I'd actually strive with all that I am to keep. I was never good on keeping promises to myself, but now things were different.
Never again. That, I promise with all of my being.
Never again will I let something like this happen again. That, I promise.
Remember the lost.
Make Right.
I look at the plates covering my forearms. The carved out sketchy letters were looking slightly fainter, making me scowl. One thing that pissed me off about our self repair systems was how they couldn't take the hint and let the damn letters scar and, you know, REMAIN. I was stubborn like that and since these words were important to me, I regularly self-mutilated my forearm armor plates with my very own wickedly long clawed fingers.
I poised one clawed hand over my forearm but MJ promptly pulled at my very sensitive helm fins, making me gasp and yelp at the same time.
"How many times do I have to tell you not to do that!?" she scolded." I'll gladly carve the words myself with a sterilized medical equipment. If you get another stupid infection, I will not treat it."
I glared at her.
"I mean it."
I shrugged, feeling slightly annoyed, but mostly glad for her support in all of this. MJ's always been there for me. She was what true friends looked like. It's friends like her that you call to hide a body and feel perfectly secure that they wont rat you out or stick a knife in your back. After the Blitz was over, after everything that had transpired, I was left with a precious few true friends. I had... done right by them, to be honest. I doubt many people could boast to have managed to keep their precious people alive through all of this mess and still relatively intact.
I regret the death of my parents. I had never been particularly close to them and I still believe that in life all they've ever been was disappointed with whatever I had become. Still, I sometimes fancy that they would be proud that I had managed to protect my brother. It was luck, really, that we survived the initial wave of attacks. I was with my grandfather, my cousins and my little brother in a villa in the middle of nowhere with MJ, her parents and the Woodsworth siblings. It was a relatively tight get together that had been ultimately aimed to take my mind off of things. Or rather, take my mind off of my baby son who at the time had been given to his father and his wife.
MJ worked carefully and with practiced ease on the healing gashes on my left forearm. Remember the Lost. I had lost my son during the Blitz, and, yet, his father and his wife, who used to be good friends of mine, had lived.
Now, only Rose and her baby girl, an adorable strawberry gold colored flier type, was all that remained. They reside on the Plutonia and Rose is under no circumstances to set foot on my ship. Ever.
Some bridges are best left to burn. Leo had knocked me up, dumped me and then married Rose, to sum up the entirety of my situation. I had tried my best to cope with the situation by running away and hiding for months on end at MJ's home but at the end it was her father who had convinced me to man up and go to my parents before things get any worse. I respect the man for his social standing (he is a viscount), for being an excellent father and for his superb skills as a doctor, but I would never ever again take any tactical advice from him.
My sweet baby boy was born shortly after Leo and Rose's wedding. My parent had all but disowned me, which hadn't been a big surprise to me. I knew that they'd come around eventually, cus hey, I had this absolutely adorable grandchild they'd love to coddle and raise along with Fynn, my brother. But, as everything else in my life, things fucked up. Leo, under the urges of Rose's parents ( all three of them being lawyers), fought for custody of my sweet little Ori and, guess what? He won. How could I compare? I was practically destitute, living off of MJ's family's hospitality. I had nowhere to go and I just couldn't enter any university with my son being this young and needing me.
I had everything I ever loved taken away from me.
When the Blitz had started in earnest I had finally found out what I'd been good at. Tactical decisions, logistics, covert operations. The proverbial balls to pull the trigger and make the hard decisions when needed. Something that, as it turned out, I had inherited from my grandfather. Under his guidance I had quickly rised through the ranks after signing up to help the military efforts.
In MJ's opinion, which she had very reluctantly shared one night, if it hadn't been for Orion, none of us would have been here. In a way, in a very twisted and sick, and cruel, masochistic way, her words made sense and gave me a bit of solace. But in times like these, with the only company for my wayward mind being the gentle hum of the Valkyrie Transended, Sia's 1000 Forms of Fear playing quietly in the background and MJ's scalpel at work, it was hard to find solace in anything. Not when I couldn't even stare at the constelation after which I had named my long dead son.
"You are brooding again." MJ stated without ever looking up.
"It's... hard not to." I admitted softly.
Hannah's decision to give me a break still gnawed at me. I could never cope with not doing anything and just... relaxing for long periods of time. Micromanaging stuff, surrounding myself with things to deal with had always been my way of staving the madness. But now, with my Vestige Fleet flung across a randomly appearing wormhole, I just had no idea what to do. Not when this forced medical leave had my Grandfather operating the whole thing and myself purposefully out of the loop. It would be weeks before we reached the nearest star system and I was already at my limit for Random bullshit that I could handle.
One of MJ's underling medics burst through the doors holding a report tab. She walked away from me and I watched how she gingerly picked up the tab from him, a tiny human. Tiny, compared to my own size. Humans make me nervous and on edge, if only because my flier type frame was built like a death machine slash juggernaut. Very few frames have my particularly imposing size, most of which belong to the surviving members of my own family. Brian, in particular, the second youngest of us, had the largest Flier Frame among the entire fleet.
MJ turned towards me and she had her lips pursed in that particular way that told me I was not going to like whatever it was. Which was easily explained by the fact that I wasnt allowed to take a look at any high-command reports during my vacation. I rolled my eyes and shrugged.
I stood up and carefully stretched my wing plates, so as not to break anything.
"I will be in my quarters." I said to MJ.
" Commander Dawnbreaker." the human saluted and I nodded before leaving.
Vacations suck and that's my final semation.
