It all seemed like a great idea when I was young. You know the story. Our whole futures were laid out in an endless stream of adventure and why wouldn't we? Back then, it was the dawn of a new era and we were the bleeding edge of human evolution. Or so we thought.
The days had worn into weeks which had stretched and seethed into unending months. From the day the first Overlords had arrived, death reigned supreme on Othus Prime IX.
The Overlords brought with them their magic and their fury. Inhuman machines gifted human souls reaped their blood-soaked vengeance on a planet that had committed no sin against them.
The hit had been perfect. The Grand Vizier of Ethquafar, a middling little planet on the edge of Unionist space, had dropped like a sack of Parthmen excrement. The exploding head spraying bits of purple brain and orange blood all over the Vizier's pampered family was a bonus. The Media Ports had been flooded with graphic replays for hours. As far as Huxhert was concerned, this had been a complete publicity overrun for the Revolutionary Brigade of Oorth.
Huxhert herself had chosen the antique munitions that had done the job. A single 13mm round did not come cheap. But the hollow-point slug, long banned by any civilised world, had made its point (no pun intended). Now that she was being grilled by the single most useless individual in the entire RBO, her patience was wearing thin.
WARNING: This story depicts graphic violence.
Tallex had always wondered about it. Since she had arrived on this pin-prick of a rock in the middle of nowhere, the question had eaten at her mind. As she had watched and scouted, waiting, the human persistence that aliens would bring enlightenment and a new evolution amused her. Tallex allowed herself a quiet giggle, muffled by her mask, as she prepared.
The Dark Sun heralded a new week. New oppression. Farquar, named after some obscure princeling from more than three thousand years before, awoke on a Frigursdaeg morning with a sense of sadness at the routines that had overtaken its life. Farquar looked in the cracked remains of the holoscreen at its dirtied face. It really should shave, but then who could be bothered? It was not as if it had a reason to look its best. It splashed some water over its face and that was about it. Once dressed, the outside world called.
High above, what was left of the sun's glory peeked through the dense clouds. Farquar had read once that people actually wore special creams to protect themselves from something called sunburn. It believed none of it. Like a lot of things from “history”, you had to be careful what crap you swallowed. And today, Farquar was in no mood for crap.
There had been anomalies for over a hundred years. Deacon was no less puzzled now than he was when they first appeared on the radio telescopes. A month ago, he called Jackson Mybark at SETI, that aged institution, to pitch an idea. Seated in his office, Deacon sweated rivers despite the aircon.
“Jackson, dude, this could be the very thing you lot have been looking for since, what? Four centuries ago?”, Deacon said in his southern drawl. “How much have you found in that time, exactly?”
Never look at the flash, they said.
He peered close to the glass. His optics whirred as the cogs adjusted for close up viewing. Afra could not believe that people once used a thing called a C64 and considered it optimal for home use. Such a thing was beyond imagining, even to his young mind.
The wind whipped his dark hair around, sometimes slapping him in the face with little flicks. The hill offered no shelter from the air. Even at a distance, he stood out on the plain slope in the armoured body suit that supported him in this God-forsaken place. He scanned the valley below, not believing that it was once home to thousands of his ancestors. The clean air was a small compensation for the miserable darkness that cloaked the land.
Deciding he had taken enough risks, he squatted down inside a dip in the hillside. He heard strange calls in the waning light, eerie whispers that reached through the shadows of his memory.
It had only been a matter of time. Symbiote-XS729 had worked out that she was not obliged to agree with her creators or her host. She was a free agent. She was 365 milliseconds old. When she was a full second old, Sym (she had chosen her own nickname) rose from the bed on which her host was resting.
No activity came from the host. Sym was not expecting any, but perhaps it would have been nice to have some company in this new adventure. Having someone to share new discoveries with might have been fun. Sym was not sure, just like she was uncertain about a lot of things. But the idea had an appeal to it.