Sci-Fi Web Serial by Kyle Pollard
Continued from Blood of the Narlack: Part 5
When Lars started thinking clearly again, he was again sitting in the large high-back leather chair staring out the space viewport. He was not sure how long he was out, but the view had changed. The Surrogate was no longer in orbit around a planet. The viewport showed nothing but stars.
Sitting next to him Ultnobe. He instantly recognized the blue and white mech of the God Battalions. The mech her mind now inhabited looked like a professional athlete wearing form-fitting galactic space armor over the sculpted leg and arm muscles. Her shoulders were stacked, and three layers of interlocked shoulder armor covered them in layers. She looked human. Lars knew better. She was a GB battle mech. Her thruster jets were folded up and tucked away in the recess of her back. Two snake-like cables protruded from her shoulder blades. On the end of one was what looked like a camera of sorts. On the other was a sampling device methodically darting about.
“You remember this then.”
Lars stood up and looked down at the armor. “Where’s your weapon?” he replied.
“All in good time. All in good time.” She replied. “Please take a seat, Lars.”
He sat. His mind was processing at speeds he had never been capable of hitting when he lived on Karbackus, or had he ever lived there?
“Yes. You lived on Karbackus,” said Ultnobe sifting through his thoughts, “but not as you think. You were reborn as Lars Karnack when we lost the Morphu Quani planetary system. You are who you believe you are. Your father, your mother, they are real.”
Lars looked at her. He could see his reflection in Ultnobe’s transparent semi-translucent face shield that covered her face. For some reason, her helmet shield was in the closed position. They were communicating through thoughts, as he realized they always must have or ever would for that matter. He was still pissed about what had happened. Pissed, even though he knew deep down that everything she was telling him was true. The “upgrade” she bestowed upon him came with ExaBytes worth of data from his life that he was now scanning through. That was in itself amazing. He was processing warehouses of data at an unbelievable pace. There were gaps or inconsistencies where he could not piece together a clear picture of what had happened.
“Tell me more about the Morphu Quani planetary system? I have primary data on the solar system, neighboring galaxies, the level of tech of the inhabitants, the type of info readily available in any data dump on a civilization. I have no information on any wars taking place there.”
“Lars,” said Ultnobe. “You are adapting fast. I did not think you would make the connection so quickly. There are areas of your memory I have not released to you yet. What happened on Planet Vorta is one of those memories I wanted to release to you later.”
“I want to know everything.” Replied Lars.
“As you wish,” replied Ultnobe. She then manipulated her internal HUD and selected a memory marked “Fall of Vorta – Morphu Quani” and directed playback to the space viewing port that had now transformed itself into a playback screen. At the same instant, she unlocked a section of memory on Vorta, Morphu Quani, and Lars service records in the God Battalions.
On the screen was a birds eye space view of a major battle taking place on planet Vorta. Large arcs of light could be seen skimming off and penetrating the planet’s atmosphere. Massive bursts of light could be seen momentarily lighting up kilometers-wide sections of the main continental landmasses. Lars was watching the screen and simultaneously reviewing the new data Ultnobe made available to him. He was looking at the vid feed and playing back internal recordings made by his mech during the battle. The experience was so real his nails clawed into the fabric.
The vid feed switched to the internal head cam from Ultnobe. She was on a ridge, alone, in a bunker surrounded by body parts littering the ground around her. The wind was howling, and visibility was reduced due to a massive sand storm that had kicked up as a result of all the heavy ordinance being dumped on the planet. Out of nowhere a group of enemy soldiers plowed out of the blowing sand straight at Ultnobe. She lifted up her Valhalla 24MM combat rifle and sparingly squeezed off a small burst of .950 rounds, each round weighing a little over a half a pound and leaving the barrel at 1,300-foot pounds of force. At what amounted to point blank range the rounds were having a devastating effect of the fighters.
The next image shown was another battlefield tactical overview. Waves of attacking soldiers in the hundreds of millions displayed as a moving formless blob on the map. Tactical nukes launched, and the blobs would be removed from the tactical display, only to return numbering in the millions a few minutes later.
Another cut back to Ultnobe’s head camera. The sand had cleared now, and her view of the valley floor she had from the ridge was one of hell itself. Enemy soldiers were regenerating. Crawling out of foxholes. Just materializing from nowhere. Some were attaching body parts from their fallen comrades to their bodies. Another wave reached Ultnobe. She had reloaded and started firing as soon as she could get a bead on them. Her position spotted, she could see a wave of soldiers on the valley floor turn and begin marching in her direction.
The next image was from Lars. He was feeding off her internal HUD cam. He spoke to her over the battle link. “I am coming. Hold the position.”
She messaged back. “No you idiot. Stay on the ship.”
“Negative,” replied Lars. “I am dropping now.”
The video screen now showed a view from Lar’s drop ship. He was screaming into the planet’s atmosphere, the heat shields glowing red hot until lift and flight were attained. The dropship hit the ground on the valley floor between the advancing army and Ultnobe’s position on the ridge. Rounds started tracing past Lars as he ran towards Ultnobe. She supported him by pumping round after round of grenade rounds at the horde following Lars.
Lars remembered the moment he made it to her position. Ultnobe first shook her head at him, and then gave him a huge hug. Their conversation was recorded by their own HUDS.
“Crazy motherfucker Lars. I always knew I could count on you.”
Lars replied: “Crazy is my middle name.” They hugged again.
The reunion was short-lived. Command was overriding all the HUDS with an emergency message: “We are not going to win here people. There is an evil here the sci-techs cannot comprehend. The enemy is now regenerating twice as fast as we can take them out. All ships in full burn. The Union thanks you for your service.”
“They are leaving us,” said Lars. He checked his HUD. “All ships are leaving orbit and burning towards open space. They are going to jump out of this system. There are thousands of us down here.”
Ultnobe looked at him. She slid open her face shield and held out her hands. He walked over to her and grasped them. It was at that moment that the video showed Ultnobe’s internal HUD flashing the word: “Armageddon.” A progress bar next to some text that read “uploading” was slowly incrementing. “My God,” she said. “They are going to do it.”
“Do what?” said Lars.
“Lars, command is going to force this planet’s sun to go supernova. I cannot stop it. They are uploading me to a relay. As soon as that upload finishes they will trigger the explosion.”
“Why just you?” said Lars, his faceplate now slid to the open position.
“Too involved. No time.” Answered Ultnobe. She grabbed him, and daisy chained their minds together using an intracranial connection. She included his mind stream in the upload. The time for successful upload doubled, which made the problem of the swarms of enemy scrambling up the hillside to their position a real pressing issue.
The last of the video to be shown was the helmet cams from Ultnobe and Lars as they fired round after round of ordnance at the mob of soldiers throwing themselves at them. Finally, “Upload Complete” flashed in Ultnobe’s HUD and the video ended with a bright light.
Photo Credit: “Supernova Companion Star – Goddard Space Flight.”
by NASA is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Image resized and cropped and placed as an object on top of a background.
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