Chapter 4
May 3, 2517
Soaring Hawk Residence,
25 miles west of Utgard
Harvest
Epsilon Ipsi System
Human space
Jacob Soaring Hawk coughed as he drove back to the family home. He pulled up in the driveway.
"Dad, you really need to get that cough checked out." His son, Christopher, told him worried.
"He's right, old man. Either you get help, or we lose the one old man we can turn to for guidance." Susanne said from the back of the pick-up truck. Jacob grunted in response. His silver hair had gone whiter since they found Michael.
The tribal elders had clearly told them to stay away from the village as Michael was most definitely the strangest thing. He wanted to swear and rage at those fuckers. Forty-years ago, he had given his twenty years to the UNSC Marines as a way to show his people that times had changed. The White Man wasn't as bad as people believed anymore. Nobody cared what race one was so long as you did your part and duty for mankind.
The shaman then, the current shaman's late mother, had banished him the second he stepped out of his car to see the village. They let his wife and his son, Chris, be joined to the village, but not him. They wouldn't let him see his son for so long. Then, his kid went off and joined the Marines.
He had seen his share of fighting, witnessing the horrors of the Insurrection. He had come out with his own scars, just like him. Now, it appeared to be little Michael's turn. Only, he wasn't 'little'. All had noticed how big he had grown in the past six years. He was growing too damned fast, faster than any normal child. He was 5'8. Most kids would be around four feet high. He was also buff, like he'd been working out. They had also noticed that not once had his ribs ever shown. It was like they were fused together.
They were afraid to take him to the hospital to get checked out for fear of the possibility that ONI would take him away. He shivered. He had seen what they could do. The way they interrogated prisoners, played with their heads was downright liable for human rights violations... all in the name of 'national security'.
They arrived at the house's dirt driveway. He sighed. They got out of the truck.
Susanne followed, a bit slower, than usual. Earlier, on the way to Soaring Hawk village, she had started having a worried look. Both the men had asked her about it, but she had been adamant that she was fine. She didn't look fine.
Susanne was the first to the door. Jacob sighed. Ever since his son and he had brought him home that day, she had doted on the boy, though even the boy found that embarrassing.
"Michael!" She called as she entered the dark house without even turning on the lights. Jacob looked at it before entering. It was a two story house that he had bought from the son of a rancher here who lost his parents due to a severe case of fever. He had bought it at a good price. In the daylight, it was painted green with four windows out front, two on both sides and four windows out back with a backdoor.
"She's been acting funny since that night we took him to the shaman," Christopher said. Jacob looked at him.
"I've noticed, son. You've been saying that since it happened." The father told his son. He stood over his son like that of a bear over a much shorter bear.
"I'm serious!" Christopher hissed.
"She touched the shaman and she saw something. Her eyes rolled back into her head!" He emphasized the last bit.
"That's something we shouldn't ask her. It was her business," The father told the son, frowning. The night sky over them all as witnesses.
"I can see you're worried about your wife and son, kid." Chris said, putting a hand on his son's shoulder.
"But, I'm telling you now: leave it alone. We'll all get answers someday. Perhaps not now." Christopher said. He would come to regret that last sentence.
All of a sudden, they heard screaming from inside the house. Both men turned in shock at what was heard.
"MY BABY!" They bolted into the house and stormed up the stairs as she screamed. The lights for Michael's room were on. They walked in to see Susanna crying over Michael as he lay in his bed.
Christopher walked over to her to see what she was crying about. Chris gasped.
"My god," He whispered, shaking his head. Jacob went over, slowly, unsure of what he would find. He swore and stepped back.
What lay in the bed, though in the same jammies that he had worn, was definitely not Michael. It was some kind of sick joke, some sick mockery of him.
The thing's skin was blue and deformed. Its eyes were malaligned and its arms were freakishly huge.
"What the fuck?!" Jacob breathed. He shook his head. This didn't make any sense?! What the hell happened?! He had been fine when they left home over two or three hours ago! What the fuck happened?!
"This isn't him!" Susanna sobbed, angrily. Chris, his son, put an arm over his wife as she wept. She pushed it away and stood up.
"Look at his left hand! He had a scar on his left hand from where it got shot!" She shouted. Jacob and Chris looked at her in confusion and then looked at the thing's left hand. Both men swore. The two men made a very angry and sour look.
Someone had taken their son and stolen him from them. That same person left this mockery of a corpse in their very house... in their kinsman's very bed! Jacob fumed angrily. The sheer madness and evil of this act. He looked at the boy's bookstand and saw the fabled war hatchet of their ancestor. He grabbed it and looked at it. He tested its sharpness, feeling the blade cut his skin and make his thumb bleed.
Christopher watched and nodded with an angry look. In times like this, tradition had to be followed.
In the days before space travel, before even airplanes took flight, the Natives of North America warred against the descendants of European colonists that were under the banner of the old United States of America. Whereas they waged war with muskets and cannons, the Native tribes and clans fought with bows, spears, daggers, and hatchets. The amount of death and destruction was terrible. Whole tribes were slaughtered, women were raped and children were murdered or taken to American schools for assimilation. The so-called 'Indian Wars' ended when the last rebellious chief of a large tribe had signed a treaty with the US Government. And the European colonists' descendants exploited this to their advantage, forcing them onto reservations that were too small.
A tradition from those days, when the Soaring Hawk clan was part of the now-extinct Asanagu tribe, a small tribe in what was now Southeast Kansas, when war or a wrong was done against a clan or the tribe, the head of the tribe or clan took his or her hatchet, cut his hand, spilling blood on the ground before his grasshouse and then wiped his blood on the outside entrance of his family's dwelling as a sign that wrong had been done. There were two ways when that smear on the entrance was gone: painted over or burned by an enemy.
Jacob went outside of his house and cut a bloody line through his palm. He took his bloody hand and wiped it on the sides of the doorpost to his house and the top of it. He also put blood on the ground as well. Blood dripped down to the ground.
He looked up at the starryr night sky and screamed a rage-filled scream that he prayed reached his ancestors in the Land of the Ancestors.
"STORM RIDER! SON OF BLASTING THUNDER! LAST SON OF THE SOARING HAWK CLAN AND OUR ANCESTOR! HEAR ME AND WITNESS!" He roared at the night sky in anger as he invoked his long-dead ancestor.
"WRONG HAS BEEN DONE TO MY HOUSE AGAIN BY WHOM I KNOW NOT! I CALL UPON THY AID TO FULFILL THIS OATH! I SWEAR THAT THOSE WHO TOOK MY SON SHALL FEEL MY WRATH! LET THEIR SORROWS BE MANY! THEIR WIVES BE BARREN! THEIR CHILDREN SUFFER AS MINE OWN HAVE!" He swore, raising his bloody left hand as it still dripped in blood. His daughter-in-law and son went outside. Her daughter saw what he did in horror, having been raised in Christianity by her parents who abandoned their ancestral ways, as did their forefathers, though they kept a few aspects of their old culture. She had never known the clan that she married into could be so bloody. She looked at the old man in fear as he swore further in the Asanagu tribe's dying tongue.
"MAY OUR ENEMIES SUFFER UNTIL MY GRANDSON, YOUR DESCENDANT RETURNS HOME TO MY FAMILY! DEAD OR ALIVE!" He shouted.
"I SWEAR BY ALL WHO HAVE LIVED BEFORE ME THAT I AND MY SON SHALL FIND HIM UNTIL HE HAS COME HOME! MAY NONE STAND BEFORE US AS WE SEEK OUR OWN! MAY ALL WHO STAND BEFORE US DIE!" He spat with venom as he shook.
Christopher fumed as he watched the old man. His adopted son had been taken and replaced by a cheap mockery. Whoever did this would suffer death or worse for this
Ares City
Mars
Sol System
Human Colonies
Sol set in the distance, making Ares City shine in the dying light. Mostly it was glass and an advanced form of concrete along with metal spires and what have you. Shah Aslan smiled as he sipped his coffee. He recalled how in another life and another time as well as another dimension, Mars had been one of the many worlds that produced his weapons of war and industry. Mars, before it was ruled by the Adeptus Mechanicus, or then- Martian Mechanicum, it had been terraformed as well with the aid of certain machines. When the terror of Old Night had hit, Mars became once again a barren place of sand, forcing the survivors to turn into the machine cultists that worshipped technology to repair and rebuild. Mars became a mighty technological and industrial empire with vast deserts, though. Olympus Mons became one of the great volcanic forges to make the mighty Titan war machines that would tower over any building in this city and put them to sheer shame.
Of course, if this reality was like the old reality, Mars would be again an industrial and technological powerhouse, having orbital plates and a vast ring in orbit that was a shipyard and a mighty defense system that kept out intruders.. though, it would be devastated. That is, if he was still in this reality and if everything happened again. He was pretty sure it wouldn't though he was a fragment.
He sighed.
So much time had passed since he, a fragment of the mind, memories, and power of the Original Emperor, had been reborn ten thousand years ago in Anatolia, former Turkey of Earth. He had to go through ancient human history all over again, though having little-to-no memories of what happened as he was shattered during the final battle with Horus Lupercal... his lost son.
He shook his head and put a hand over it as he sat back down.
"Horus," He whispered. He had been forced to kill his best and brightest pupil, his greatest son whom had been corrupted by the wiles of Chaos! He gritted his teeth. Damn the Dark Gods! Damn them! He wanted to scream and shout at the Warp though here it was calm. But, he didn't do it as he didn't want the Ruinous Powers to put their filthy footsteps in this reality. One reality had been devastated by the four false gods. He would not have that happen again!
He then heard a beeping noise in his ear. He sighed. He tapped it as he spun his chair to turn towards his terminal.
"This is Shah Aslan, how can I help you?" He asked, his customary greeting in a respectful and cheering tone.
"Boss, it's me." A rough voice said, the electronics crackling in his ear. Aslan sighed as he facepalmed.
"Jordan... what did you do this time?" He asked, shaking his head. He loved humanity as he was once its rulers... but aspects of humanity tended to annoy him. Jordan was one of those aspects.
"Boss, I didn't do anything bad, but I can't speak about it here." Jordan said, his voice crackling in his ear. Aslan blinked and then realized what he was inferring.
"Alright, meet me at the usual spot." He told his subordinate. He tapped it, the call ended. He then stood up and put his black great coat over him. It was winter on Mars. Snow didn't fall, but it did get cold. Aspects of before it was terraformed still held on for dear life. He walked out of his office. He looked around, seeing his subordinates and partners work fervently on cases. He smiled.
It had taken a long time to get this up. In fact, if he was correct, he did this sort of thing back in his home reality before he founded the Imperium, before the sufferings of Old Night. It was how he fought his secret war with Chaos.
He then had a bit of a trip out of the building. The security guard at the front desk greeted him.
"How's it going, Shah? Shouldn't you be leading Iran?" The guard said, jokingly. Aslan smirked as it was said.
"And deal with the Revolutionary Guards? I think not!" He called back as he turned to face him while walking. It was a bit of a joke between them as they both knew their history, though one knew it better than the other. The two laughed as they walked away. Aslan knew for a fact that the former nation of Iran had not had political leader in around four centuries after the war in 2169 when the UN gained massive strength and power. There had been those who resisted... they didn't last long. Resistance was pacified and and the world for the first time... had not a single war waged on it for nearly four hundred years.
Aslan Shah was happy about humanity finally united for the first time in its history in this reality, but there were always problems of disease and the war with the Insurrection. Shah shook his head. Those fools! If they knew what he knew, they'd stick to the UNSC like bear cubs to their mother! He gritted his teeth, his anger showing as he thought about the alien threats he had faced and the betrayals he witnessed.
He remembered the pacts of friendship that he had witnessed behind the scenes back home, only to later discover that they had been deliberately broken with glee and the humans enslaved or worse! He took pleasure in wiping them off the map, them and their whole damned species! He had loved it as his sons massacred the xenos filth! Killing whole populations for the mere crime of being alien! They had been humanity's friends and they betrayed them, the curs! And then, there was the eldar, those arrogant p-
The most powerful psyker in human history stopped for a moment, realizing what he was getting into. He sighed and took a deep breath as thunderclouds formed over the city with people looking up in awe. He took a deep breath and tried to relax himself before walking again. The storm clouds overhead dissipated.
He sighed. He had tried to control his anger ever since he was a child in this universe and even back in his home reality. He had witnessed terrible things in his two lives. And thinking about them made him so damned angry and violent at times. It was one of the reasons why he never married or fathered children in this new lifetime. He didn't want to run the risk of being an abusive father. He didn't want anyone to know about his dark side. Not even his own sons.
Aslan recalled what the last priest on his old reality's Earth had told him before a brick from the collapsing church crushed him. Those words haunted him ever still in the back of his mind.
The fragmented Emperor-turned-PI caught a cab to the usual spot that he met Jordan. The cab dropped him off in the west side of town. It was one of the newer sections of the city, a place called Weirton, after the 21st century science fiction author Andy Weir. There had been talks in the days of founding Ares city about calling it 'Weir City' but sadly, they died as they wanted the name of the city to reflect Mars. Which sucked, as Aslan preferred places to be named after people that were prominent and famous not just for their achievements, but for their virtues as well.
The fragment found himself on a city street surrounded by a variety of shops after leaving the cab. People were heading indoors, not wanting to be in the cold. The Emperor smiled.
He watched a family of five walk into a pizza parlor after what appeared to be an indoor hockey ring from that hockey place back in the eastern part of the place. The Emperor smiled. This was what life must've been like for certain families before everything that happened to this world... before the Dark Age of Technology, the Age of Strife all of it. He sadly couldn't remember the Dark Age of Technology, but he did remember the Age of Strife and afterwards.
He then remembered what Mars would turn into much later. Pizza parlors would be gone. Almost every creature comfort that humanity knew would be gone: pizza, hamburgers, video games, that sort of thing: all gone. An age of barbarism would come that would last milennia. And he would be there to pick up the pieces. But, life would still be hell for most people.
He sensed for Jordan and found him in a bar opposite of the pizza place. Aslan scoffed. You had to be kidding! He preferred a finer dining place than a bar. For Aslan, bars reminded him too much of old Wild West Saloons in which if one made the slightest mistake as they walked inside, he would be killed.
He didn't need a gun as he was one of the most powerful, if not the only, psyker in this reality. He walked in, smelling the cigarette smoke and beer, along with buffalo wings and other such things. He walked in and found Jordan way in the back booth. His gray eyes were tired from traveling from Harvest. He wore a dusty rancher's jacket and cowboy boots. He wore a stained brown shirt with work gloves on the counter. He had messy brown hair and a goatee to match.
"Boss," He said, nodding as he chowed down on a hamburger. Aslan sighed and put his coat in the seat opposite of Jordan.
"You wouldn't come back here unless it was very important," Aslan said as a waitress came over. He ordered a Porter house steak with vegetables for sides. He then continued with the waitress out of earshot. What have you discovered on Harvest?" Aslan asked. He then raised a finger and then made a telepathic link between the two of them.
+++What happened on Harvest? Don't speak out loud, just think of it. I would rather have it said in your mind as opposed to be out loud. Your old employers may be listening as we speak.+++ Aslan mentally said. Jordan's eyes widened and he sighed.
+++I'm not going to get used to this.+++ Jordan thought.
+++Most never do+++ Aslan said, smiling.
+++ You've got to tell me how you can do that, though. I mean, how many others know about your secret?+++ Jordan asked. Aslan gave him a look.
+++That is my concern, not yours+++ He said, flatly. Jordan nodded, making a calm down gesture.
+++Okay, so get this: I'm in Harvest right? Looking around to see if there was anything about a pod from like, six-seven years ago?+++ Jordan began, his eyes and head making movements as he spoke.
+++I ran into an old buddy of mine from back when I worked for ONI+++ Jordan said. Aslan raised an eyebrow.
+++Relax, he didn't rat me out!+++ Jordan said, making another gesture. Aslan sighed.
He recruited Jordan Keller straight from ONI as he was one a low-level investigator ONI had, going after mainly Insurrectionists and renegade military personnel. He had a drug problem in those days though and while high, had confessed some kind of interrogation he had done to a girl he thought was a prostitute, but wound up being an Insurrectionist. Said girl sent the Innies after him and ONI found out sending their people after him. He had been in Epsilon Eridanus II back then. Aslan found him along with members of his company and offered him a job, along with rehab and expunged his record and crimes. No one that was aligned with Aslan knew what happened to both the Insurrectionist cell that was after Jordan or the ONI team sent after him... save Aslan himself. Burnt ashes were found at both of their hangouts/ headquarters and any and all recordings were irreversibly deleted. Certain ONI officers had been reported AWOL as well.
With his drug habit kicked, and his pride and arrogance from those days completely gone, Jordan was now more of an annoyance than before being in Aslan's employ. Aslan had kept tabs on him, to see if he had really kicked the habit. The worst vice that Aslan discovered had been Keller's sexually immature lifestyle.
+++ I don't think he heard about what happened on Eridanus II, I swear!+++ Jordan pleaded.
+++Go on+++ Aslan gestured with his hand.
+++Okay, so, the guy is one of the people in our line of work that do acquisitions for certain test subjects in some projects that we do, right?+++ Keller told him, leaning forward. He set his burger down and swallowed a bite.
+++Some real nasty shit you may or may not have heard about: Chemical and Biological weapons testing, for one. +++ Keller had a serious look as he spoke about it. He shivered.
+++I told him I left the business for the private sector as a PI, y'know, the truth and we got to talking about what was going on+++ He continued.
+++I ask him what he's doing on Harvest for? So he tells me 'Can't say nothing,'+++ Keller said.
+++And?+++
+++That's it!+++ Keller told him. Aslan blinked and shook his head. Keller sighed and scratched the back of his head.
+++I'm sorry, I just had to tell you about this+++
+++ I told you to come to me directly when you have news about a specially made pod with either a 'II' or an 'XI' on the top or about a man that's about four stories tall that can do-+++ Aslan said, his mental voice slightly rising. Keller gulped.
"B-" He started to say.
+++Boss, that's all I've got! Something happened over on Harvest that made the acquisition guys come in! That's all I know!+++
Aslan thought for a moment.
+++Was there anything detected six years ago in Harvest orbit? A 'slipspace event' that you know of?+++ The fragment asked. Keller shook his head.
+++No, that's above my paygrade or it got compartmentalized. I don't know crap about it... but-+++ Keller tapped his jaw in thought. His eyes widened.
Images of reports of a shooting appeared in both men's minds.
+++There was a shooting three years ago on Harvest. An Innie cell of six attacked Utgard Mall and got slaughtered by a bystander there.+++ Keller told him. Aslan blinked.
'Three years ago?!'
Keller realized his mistake. He then had to tell what he knew of that incident. Aslan looked at him.
+++It was a boy? Not a man?+++ The one-time Emperor asked for reassurance. He cancelled the connection right as the ex-ONI man responded. Aslan looked away in thought.
'One of my sons was on Harvest... this whole time? And he was still a child at the age of three? Something's not right' The former Emperor thought. All primarchs were adults by the age of one year on all of their homeworlds. Something happened with that Primarch's pod while in transit through the Warp...
"A crack," He muttered, shaking his head. The Chaos Gods got to his son through a crack that ocurred during the event. He shook his head. And now, the boy's growth was stunted. What else was wrong with him?! Aslan pounded the table with his fist making said table flip with one end going down and the other end with their food going to the floor.
Keller looked at him in horror as everyone else looked at the table. Aslan stood up, his face an unreadable expression. He stood up.
+++Get back to Harvest and meet us there. I must prepare for a very long trip.+++ The Emperor thought-said. Keller nodded and scurried out of the bar, not asking about the 'us' part. The Emperor looked around and his eyes glowed, using what power he could use to erase everyone's minds. Everyone blinked and started looking around, dazed and confused.
After that, he paid the owner for his troubles and then got a hold of the camera footage on the bar's surveilance system. He erased the full conversation between him and Jordan, having it loop. He then left to begin preparations.
His mind was full of thoughts.
His son was on Harvest... or rather had been. Someone from ONI was involved. He could go after ONI with all he had, having enough secrets and agents of his own that they didn't know about to strike at them until he could get what he wanted. But, first, he had to learn the boy's identity. And so, whomever took him had a bit of a head start... but he would catch up. And when he did, he'd make ONI pay for taking what was rightfully his... in a very unpleasant manner for their insolence and arrogance.