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Description

How did we get to this place?

I could see the sun rising across the dark crescent of the Earth. Even from a low orbit it was beautiful, the way the light flared diamond like, against the black of space. Even through the ship’s screens, the light was magnificent. This was our dawn. Those below would still be in the dark of night.

Then the fleet secure broadcast channel broke the magic of the moment.

The war was back with us.

“Ten minutes to drop. Repeat. Ten minutes to drop.”

The voice coming over the comms was not that of an AI. This was somebody live, no doubt from the command ship ‘Puller’. There was a small sound of urgency in the voice, not the mechanical calmness of artificial intelligence.

In the distance, I saw the drive flares of the first wave of assault ships pass us. They would be on their way dirtside, loaded with Hellstorm missiles, chain-guns hot, dropping ECM drones to help cover our drops. They would hit the bastards first, hopefully by surprise, disabling the ground-based space detection systems, destroying the anti-space launch systems. Clearing a path for us.

Hopefully.

My shipboard AI started sending me final trajectory information for the drop, filling my holographic HUD with the glowing green lines showing the path I needed to follow. It would prevent me from colliding with the other dropships around me. I couldn’t see them, I knew they were there, my Sisters in the Guild, each loaded with crew and marines, everyone focused, determined, scared, ready to die and yet not ready to die. No turning back. This was it.

I turned on the view screen looking into my drop bay, back at the marines there. By some crazy circumstance I got an old friend of mine, Kimber Snowfield, now Sergeant Kimber Snowfield, Guild Marines. What a transition the war had made in her, that lithe form now in a black battle suit, pulse rifle slung, looking like fury ready to be unleashed. Her marines in their drop mounts lining either side of the surrounding compartment, eyes glued on her. I could see she was speaking, shouting. I turned on the audio comm.

Her voice came across the comm like angry thunder.

“…WE HIT THE GROUND HARD! SQUAD ONE, STACK PORT! SQUAD TWO, STACK STARBOARD! SQUAD THREE, FORM ON ME! IF ANY OF THOSE MOTHERFUCKING DIRT-EATERS SHOW THEIR FUCKING HEADS, WE BURN THEM TO THE FUCKING GROUND! UNDERSTOOD!”

“SIR, YES SIR!”

I turned the comm off. I saw Kimber, Sergeant Snowfield, hit the alert button to show her marines were ready. She still had those amazing, beautiful eyes but there was both a fire and a darkness in them. She was ready to fight, ready to kill.

How did we get to this place?

I’d asked myself this question before, many times before. In the years up to the Disaster of 2200, there had been so much hope for the future. Despite the problems, people were working together to clean up the environment, promote fairness, and create something positive. The expansion into the solar system was bringing opportunity, new resources, most people had optimism.

Then the Yellowstone Caldera exploded.

The Disaster of 2200, the super-volcano eruption. It had the force of every nuclear bomb of every old Earth nation combined but one hundred times over. The blast left a crater almost 1000 kilometers wide; the shockwave expanded even farther than that. It triggered tectonic activity on a scale nobody could have envisioned. There had not been an event like this in human memory, the last such eruption was 640,000 years earlier.

As bad as that was, with millions killed almost instantly, the worst was yet to come. The seismic action brought on other volcanic events; each spewing ash into Earth’s atmosphere, many of these would not stop spewing ash for months. The sun was blocked; the skies were blacked out over much of the planet. Agriculture broke down, famine followed, starvation ruled. This would not change for three long years.

Then, during the eruptions, the grim news came that the magnetic containment fields on almost every fusion reactor were collapsing. Some were closed without cascading failures, many did not. Vast areas became radioactive hot zones, many still can’t be entered.

These were desperate years. We tried to evacuate as many survivors as possible, either to the few safe zones still on Earth or to resettlement colonies on Luna. Most humanity, literally in the billions, faced anarchy, starvation, disease, and the darkness above them.

As a trained pilot, I was one of those who would escape to space. Out of a planet with an estimated population of over ten billion souls, only about five million made it off world. Most of the planet was devastated, vast tombs of a brilliant past, small pockets of civilization remained. Death and desolation took domain over the rest.

Then, after three years, much of the ash settled, the volcanic action subsided. We all wanted to take back the planet from the darkness, to rebuild, to further rescue humanity as best as we could. It became a new cause, a new purpose. There was a fresh wave of hope. I was one of them. I just wanted to pick up the pieces the best I could.

We came back from space. We brought with us the materials we had harvested from the asteroids. We had survived the vacuum; we had survived the Merchant War. Now we had new hope, we could dream again. I brought down medical and recovery people to one of the new colonies. I had a lot of hope and optimism.

Then we learned about the Ministry.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Description

How did we get to this place?

I could see the sun rising across the dark crescent of the Earth. Even from a low orbit it was beautiful, the way the light flared diamond like, against the black of space. Even through the ship’s screens, the light was magnificent. This was our dawn. Those below would still be in the dark of night.

Then the fleet secure broadcast channel broke the magic of the moment.

The war was back with us.

“Ten minutes to drop. Repeat. Ten minutes to drop.”

The voice coming over the comms was not that of an AI. This was somebody live, no doubt from the command ship ‘Puller’. There was a small sound of urgency in the voice, not the mechanical calmness of artificial intelligence.

In the distance, I saw the drive flares of the first wave of assault ships pass us. They would be on their way dirtside, loaded with Hellstorm missiles, chain-guns hot, dropping ECM drones to help cover our drops. They would hit the bastards first, hopefully by surprise, disabling the ground-based space detection systems, destroying the anti-space launch systems. Clearing a path for us.

Hopefully.

My shipboard AI started sending me final trajectory information for the drop, filling my holographic HUD with the glowing green lines showing the path I needed to follow. It would prevent me from colliding with the other dropships around me. I couldn’t see them, I knew they were there, my Sisters in the Guild, each loaded with crew and marines, everyone focused, determined, scared, ready to die and yet not ready to die. No turning back. This was it.

I turned on the view screen looking into my drop bay, back at the marines there. By some crazy circumstance I got an old friend of mine, Kimber Snowfield, now Sergeant Kimber Snowfield, Guild Marines. What a transition the war had made in her, that lithe form now in a black battle suit, pulse rifle slung, looking like fury ready to be unleashed. Her marines in their drop mounts lining either side of the surrounding compartment, eyes glued on her. I could see she was speaking, shouting. I turned on the audio comm.

Her voice came across the comm like angry thunder.

“…WE HIT THE GROUND HARD! SQUAD ONE, STACK PORT! SQUAD TWO, STACK STARBOARD! SQUAD THREE, FORM ON ME! IF ANY OF THOSE MOTHERFUCKING DIRT-EATERS SHOW THEIR FUCKING HEADS, WE BURN THEM TO THE FUCKING GROUND! UNDERSTOOD!”

“SIR, YES SIR!”

I turned the comm off. I saw Kimber, Sergeant Snowfield, hit the alert button to show her marines were ready. She still had those amazing, beautiful eyes but there was both a fire and a darkness in them. She was ready to fight, ready to kill.

How did we get to this place?

I’d asked myself this question before, many times before. In the years up to the Disaster of 2200, there had been so much hope for the future. Despite the problems, people were working together to clean up the environment, promote fairness, and create something positive. The expansion into the solar system was bringing opportunity, new resources, most people had optimism.

Then the Yellowstone Caldera exploded.

The Disaster of 2200, the super-volcano eruption. It had the force of every nuclear bomb of every old Earth nation combined but one hundred times over. The blast left a crater almost 1000 kilometers wide; the shockwave expanded even farther than that. It triggered tectonic activity on a scale nobody could have envisioned. There had not been an event like this in human memory, the last such eruption was 640,000 years earlier.

As bad as that was, with millions killed almost instantly, the worst was yet to come. The seismic action brought on other volcanic events; each spewing ash into Earth’s atmosphere, many of these would not stop spewing ash for months. The sun was blocked; the skies were blacked out over much of the planet. Agriculture broke down, famine followed, starvation ruled. This would not change for three long years.

Then, during the eruptions, the grim news came that the magnetic containment fields on almost every fusion reactor were collapsing. Some were closed without cascading failures, many did not. Vast areas became radioactive hot zones, many still can’t be entered.

These were desperate years. We tried to evacuate as many survivors as possible, either to the few safe zones still on Earth or to resettlement colonies on Luna. Most humanity, literally in the billions, faced anarchy, starvation, disease, and the darkness above them.

As a trained pilot, I was one of those who would escape to space. Out of a planet with an estimated population of over ten billion souls, only about five million made it off world. Most of the planet was devastated, vast tombs of a brilliant past, small pockets of civilization remained. Death and desolation took domain over the rest.

Then, after three years, much of the ash settled, the volcanic action subsided. We all wanted to take back the planet from the darkness, to rebuild, to further rescue humanity as best as we could. It became a new cause, a new purpose. There was a fresh wave of hope. I was one of them. I just wanted to pick up the pieces the best I could.

We came back from space. We brought with us the materials we had harvested from the asteroids. We had survived the vacuum; we had survived the Merchant War. Now we had new hope, we could dream again. I brought down medical and recovery people to one of the new colonies. I had a lot of hope and optimism.

Then we learned about the Ministry.

TO BE CONTINUED...