/ @ / Ghosts of the Antipode / @ /



.	.	/ < / << / Losses Maria It was a small medical supply station located in the Caloris Antipode region of Mercury. It sat on a small hill overlooking the Antipode's chaotic plains and cliffs, several hundred kilometers from the nearest of the scattered Imperial bases it served. Eight kilometers away sat a small house, its vacuum- and sunlight-impervious shell modeled after a late twenty-eight century Spanish deckhouse. The owner is playing with his young daughter when a harsh shriek comes from the living room computer terminal. He goes to investigate, and his eyes widen as the screen comes to life of its own accord, and flashes all its data at high speed as he watches. The floor trembles as if shaken by a passing earthquake. The child looks out the thick window, points wordlessly. The man grabs his daughter and runs with her to the airlock-- ----- Eighteen kilometers from the station the man's wife awakens at the controls of her Predator. An Immortal retired from a century of service as an Imperial Knight, she now serves the Empire as a courier, ferrying medical supplies across Mercury, responding to emergency calls on occasion. The occasional terrorist or rebel troublemaker who happens to challenge her usually winds up splattered across the seared rock by her missiles. Rarely is she disturbed in her trips, however, and for the most part her runs are silent, peaceful. She has the time to admire Mercury's stark beauty, the cliffs and craters covered in bare rock so different from the other worlds she has visited in her lifetime. Mercury has hope. When the Cybrids strike again, surely they will not waste their resources on such a sparsely populated world. Earth, Mars, and Venus would bear the brunt, and the Empire she has such faith in will destroy them and Mercury will be a safe place for her family. Ten kilometers north of the station she hails the communications center. No response. The accursed solar flares must still be interfering. Five kilometers. Is that a ship in the sky, far to he south? Odd, she muses. One kilometer. She crests the ridge that shields the station. Her eyes widen. The base is utterly destroyed. The crumbled and slagged shells of buildings litter the hill. Debris fills the area. The baked rock is marred by metal wreckage and blackened by weapons fire. Her gaze shifts northeast, and she brings the Predator around and heads for home at a rate that threatens the structural integrity of her tank. She reaches the cliff over her house, descends it, looks down-- And starts to cry. Her house is in worse shape than the station had been. Staring into the wreckage with tears burning her eyes, she does not even notice the two new structures nearby. She seals the helmet on her suit and opens the cockpit, steps out onto the rocks. The house is no longer a house, the house is a foundation with broken slabs of metal scattered over top of it. A faint sprinkling of dust, the exploded bits of her family's possessions, coats the ground. She sees two sets of footprints, lading toward the truck. Boxes dropped in haste are scattered around the truck. She looks inside-- ----- <Warform::231232> acknowledging//submitting. Establishment\\construction of local transporter network\\system has been <completed>. Eradication\\extermination of indigenous human\\animals was <completed> swiftly\\efficiently. Sensors note//detect one human\\animal in <vicinity>. This <unit> is intercepting//engaging. This human\\animal has noted//detected <my> presence. Human\\animal is approaching\\closing at dangerously high closing speed\\velocity. Vector confirmation\\missile lock. Incoming missiles\\mobile explosive projectiles. This human\\animal is skilled//efficient. <Impact> 879690--*123123 3 123Warform is crippled//severely damaged. Weapons are damaged//offl1203120311 *-312113imal is on collision course//imp135120120---3120 *** <Transmission terminated> ----- Her suit helmet clouded with tears of sorrow and rage, she lays the landing beacon of one of the Cybrid Executioners she destroyed in front of her destroyed house, over her family's graves. Hatred fills her as she looks to the north at the Cybrid structures erected on what used to be her property. Too sturdy to destroy and too well-guarded to sabotage, they stand there as a reminder she does not need. Mercury's heat seeps through her suit, burning her knees as she kneels in front of the wreckage. She does not notice. ----- She travels aimlessly across Mercury, the Predator carrying her back and forth over the scorched rock. Cybrids on patrol mysteriously disappear, only to turn up days later in pieces kilometers away. Their last transmissions speak of a Predator that attacks ferociously out of nowhere, unseen until the missiles and the vehicle itself slams into their Hercs' legs. The Cybrids' analyses indicate the pilot is psychologically damaged//non-optimal. ----- "Yes sir, we're sure of it. There is the distinct communications signature of the station's emergency medical courier down there." "That base was razed months ago. How could anyone be alive down there in that Cybrid snake pit?" "Well, I don't know sir, but it’s an SOS and even in wartime we have to answer it." "True, true... Mercury's been hit hard by the Cybrids, though, especially us on the Antipode side. We don't have very much to spare." "What about the eighth division? They have enough to drop a decent force, recover this gal, and get out. Probably enough to take out a few Cybrid installations on the way." "True..." "Shall I give the order, sir?" The Knight gazed out the dropship's portal, at the golden-brown world hanging in the blackness. He nodded once. "Yes. Mobilize Eighth. This poor fool deserves a chance, after surviving so long." ----- Rage, sorrow, vengeance. Little remains in her thoughts anymore. Strike after strike, then a quick disappearance into one of the ravines or craters she knew as well as the controls of the Predator she has been trapped in since time out of mind. She destroys the Cybrid vehicles one by one, viciously and rapidly, takes a piece of the vehicle and the Cybrid brain if it survives, and vanishes again. The brain she puts in the Predator's reactor compartment, to slowly melt and drip out the vents. The trophy she leaves on a crater peak where she has erected a monument to her family. The Cybrids puzzle over the area, run the most detailed possible scans, and leave with no answers. One by one she kills them, wanting to kill a Cybrid for every tear she has shed over her loved ones, while knowing she never will... / < / << /

Losses

Maria