AN: Up to 20 Advanced Chapters on my Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/cw/Crimson_Reapr
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The colony spread out before a young Mark like something pulled straight from a storybook. The settlement's domes gleamed with polished metal and sun-stained glass, reflecting back a pair of dual suns, one blue and the other red. Vines crept up their sides, and alien flora intermingled with Terran design, as though nature and human ingenuity had finally managed to strike a truce where one doesn't try to eliminate the other.
He squirmed in a woman's arms, laughter bubbling uncontrollably as her fingers teased mercilessly at his ribs. "No! No more!" he shrieked between giggles, legs kicking as she spun him around once, twice, before setting him back on the packed soil.
The woman crouched to his height, brushing dust from his tunic. He looked up to the woman, her face blurred, like a person's reflection on a ripple of water. Yet she emanated an unmistakable presence, the hug exuded a soft warmth, and her voice was filled with boundless patience. "Then quit running like a wild thing," she said, her words ringing clear above the hum of colony life like a melody.
Mark grinned, cheeks flushed, and darted away again, the boundless energy trapped within a child's body fueling his steps. He tore down the winding lane toward the food stalls, where the smell of roasted grain cakes and sizzling meats pulled at his senses. Vendors called out their wares in accents thick and comforting, their words blending into the vibrant chorus of a thriving settlement.
He stopped at a stall piled high with fruit, each orb glowing faintly as though they'd trapped starlight beneath their skins. The vendor, a broad man with laughter lines carved into his face, leaned forward with a wink. "Go on, lad. First taste is always free."
Mark bit into one eagerly. Sweet juice dribbled down his chin, cool and sharp with flavors no Earth orchard could ever mimic. He laughed again, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, the taste forever etched in his memory.
Beyond the square, the hills beckoned. Rolling waves of grass shifted in a breeze that carried the scent of wildflowers and soil. Children chased each other in dizzying loops through the tall stalks, their voices carrying like bells across the open fields. Some dared to climb the half-buried ruins that jutted from the hillsides, remnants of some failed attempts to colonize the planet they now inhabited, their metallic structures shining faintly in the suns' light.
Mark joined them, scrambling up one moss-slick block, arms pumping. At the top, he spread his arms wide as if to embrace the whole world. From here, he could see the colony laid out like a jewel: domes nestled between the hills, plumes of smoke rising from cookfires, banners fluttering lazily. In the far distance, jagged mountains caught the suns' glow, their peaks aflame in orange and gold.
The woman's stern voice carried from the square, calling his name again, this time filled with a hint of patience that was rapidly dwindling. Mark waved toward her, heart swelling with something he didn't have words for as a child.
Was it safety? Belonging? Love? Mark didn't know, and he sure as hell didn't care.
The other kids called for him to come down, to join the next game. And he did, sliding down the stone and racing back into the square, laughter on his lips, feet light as air. The day stretched endlessly before him, a promise that joy would never run dry, that the colony's suns would never set.
Mark rounded the corner of a narrow lane, still grinning, cheeks sore from too much laughter. The air smelled of fried cakes and sun-warmed stone, the kind of scent that could make a boy believe life was endless.
Then the world ignited.
A crack split the air, and light blazed across the sky as if the suns themselves had fallen into the colony. The ground trembled, and screams tore through the colony square.
Shots screamed down from the heavens, tearing through stalls, through people, through the ground itself. Soldiers stormed in their wake, faceless beneath their helmets, rifles coughing death into the crowd of innocent residents. Machines with wings of steel thundered overhead, their shadows blotting out the twin suns.
Mark froze. The boy who had run wild and free just a breath ago now stood rooted, the sweetness of the fruit he had bit into not so long ago still on his tongue as the world soured into ash. He turned, slow as if his body no longer belonged to him, a terrible premonition coming into his heart as it started to slowly tear.
Before him lay a woman. His mother. Her body was broken, twisted on the ground, one hand still stretched toward him as though to shield him from the violence crashing down. Her face was blurred, remaining hidden from him even now.
That, somehow, was worse. He wanted so badly to see her eyes, her smile, her humanity, and yet his mind refused to let him see, cruelly withholding what was rightfully his.
The sound around him dulled, muffled as though he'd been plunged underwater. All he could hear was the thundering of his own heart.
Ba-Dum.
Ba-Dum.
Ba-Dum.
Ba-Dum.
Ba-Dum.
He felt pain, not the kind he was used to from when he scraped his knees or fell while running, but a different kind of searing, soul-burning anguish, tearing him apart from the inside. He fell to his knees, hands digging into the soil as it pulled him into the ground, sucking him to become one with the ground.
Mark's breathing quickened, panic overtaking him as the earth sucked him deeper. When all that remained above the ground was his head, he felt something within him. Something consuming, something hot, something threatening to shake the very heavens. It rose like fire through his veins, burning hotter than the flames that consumed the colony. His small fists clenched. His teeth ground until his jaw screamed.
Anger.
He was angry.
Anger at the soldiers, at the machines, at the unfeeling universe that had taken everything from him, at the man in the sky his mother always talked about. He was angry with himself for being powerless, for being a boy when the universe demanded a weapon.
The image of the world around him had shattered into a thousand jagged shards, but Mark's gaze would not leave her. The blur of her face tormenting him more than the flames, more than the stench of scorched metal and blood clogging his nose. His mother, his anchor, his warmth, his whole damn universe, was nothing more than another casualty on the dirt in a battle waged without their knowledge.
He hadn't noticed the passage of time, the things that had happened around him, the aftermath of the battle of an ongoing war that had supposedly ended hundreds of years ago, yet was being waged in his own backyard.
A hand fell on his shoulder, causing Mark to flinch, his body trying to pull away like a scared cat, but the hand's grip held him in place. It was firm, a human touch in a world that had lost color, that had lost all meaning.
He slowly turned his head, his eyes red from long-dried tears. Standing above him was a man in a battered uniform, streaked with soot and ash. His jaw was clenched tight, but his eyes carried a soft sense of security. The man was Kaelen Strathmore, though back then, he was just another captain trying to shepherd survivors through hell.
He crouched low, bringing himself level with the boy. His voice was a quiet whisper in a world of chaos, as though the sound of it might shatter what remained of Mark's world.
"Hey, kid, it's over now," Strathmore said, though his own eyes betrayed the lie he was telling the child. Fires still burned across the colony. Wails of sorrow and agony still echoed through the distance, muted by the sounds of surrounding activity, but not gone. "You're safe."
Safe.
The word felt hollow, no, it was meaningless to Mark, his gaze drifting back to his mother's corpse that had been draped with a cloth. His body trembled. His throat burned. And still, he said nothing.
Strathmore saw the subtle shifts in the boy. He saw something that was more than grief in the boy's eyes. He saw something dangerous simmering beneath the surface, coiling tight, too much for a child to hold. A deep anger and resentment seeded in his small body, the kind that could burn a life down to nothing if it wasn't given direction and an outlet.
Strathmore's arms encircled him, pulling Mark into a tight embrace. Mark resisted for half a heartbeat, then collapsed into the hug, his fists balled against the man's chest. His small frame shook with silent sobs, his breath jagged as he fought to get oxygen into his lungs, but his emotions weren't allowing him any respite.
"I know," Strathmore murmured, his voice low and steady against the roar of distant destruction. "I know what you're feeling. I... I can see what they took from you. But listen to me, kid… their time will come."
Mark lifted his face, eyes wet but burning with that fire. Strathmore held his gaze.
"There's a lot of politics at play, but the CIV will pay. Every last one of them will pay. You'll make them pay."
Something shifted in Mark then. The grief didn't fade, the pain didn't vanish, but it hardened, crystallized around that ember of rage. His small fists loosened, only to clench again with renewed purpose. He nodded, almost imperceptibly, the gesture of a child who had just made a vow the universe itself would come to fear.
Strathmore held him tighter, feeling the boy's heartbeat hammer against his chest like a war drum. He knew what he had just planted in Mark, knew the cost of such a promise. But in that moment, with fire devouring the only home the boy had ever known, it felt like the only lifeline that could keep him from being swallowed whole.
Around them, the colony's flames painted the sky in hues of red and gold. Ash drifted like snowfall. The machines were gone, leaving silence in their wake, but their mark on Mark Shepherd's soul would never leave.
---
The hum of the Indifference's engines bled faintly through the bulkheads, a low, constant vibration that seemed to mock him with its calm. Kaelen sat in his quarters, a glass of amber liquid swirling between his fingers, catching the faint light of a dimmed terminal screen. He had ordered to be left alone for the duration of the trip. Unless it was an emergency, no aides would interrupt him, no reports would reach him. He would be left alone, just him, the silence, and the weight pressing down on his chest.
The glass made a soft clink as it tapped against his teeth before he took another sip. The harsh and bitter taste of the whiskey burned inside of him, but it dulled nothing. His gaze drifted to the darkened reflection staring back at him from the terminal. The face was familiar but worn, shadows carved deep into lines that hadn't always been there. For a moment, he imagined another reflection overlapping his own, a boy's face, wide-eyed and tear-streaked as he clung onto him.
"You were supposed to make them pay, kid," Kaelen muttered, his voice low, roughened by the weight of the years between that day and the present. His hand dragged down across his face, palm rasping against stubble as though he could scrape away the memory. But it clung tighter and more vividly the harder he tried to push it down.
Having never married or having children of his own, he had grown to love Mark. He raised him as his own, even though his military career barely allowed him to be physically present most of the time. A single tear broke free, cutting a warm line down his cheek before vanishing into the collar of his disheveled coat. He let it fall, finally let himself feel for once. He didn't have the strength to put a stop to his emotions this time around.
He leaned back, eyes unfocusing as they stared up at the ceiling, letting his mind drift where he rarely allowed it to go. He remembered the first day he had come across Mark, that unprovoked attack on a colony of farmers by the CIV. And though the official reports labeled it as a pirate attack, he knew better. After all, he was the one who wrote the official report.
He remembered digging into the images of Flawndora's society after the attack, the images of the wildflowers, and so much greenery. He remembered the boy's fists against his chest, trembling with fury too large for his small self. He remembered the vow whispered between them.
And now the boy was gone, and he was left all alone.
"You were always so damn reckless," the Admiral said as he took a swig of the whiskey. "Always diving headfirst into the midst of it all... but that's what kept you alive. And now you're gone... And all for a damn money-generating scheme."
He set the glass down with deliberate care, the rim clicking against the desk as though punctuating the thought. He turned his head toward the viewport that stretched across the far wall. Slowly, the ship's systems dimmed, and the screen adorning the wall turned on to reveal the void outside.
Indifference loomed at the center of the fleet, one of the few capital ships with angled armor, a behemoth that spanned 1070 meters long as it cut through the void. Around her hung three ships: The Whisper of War, The Lament of Innocence, and The Aide of Death. Heavy Cruisers that boasted top of the shelf weaponry, their blue and white paint schemes adorned with various desings. Each ship was older than he himself was; their names chosen in another age but more fitting now than ever. They were flanked by another 2 Heavy Destroyers, a Fighter carrier, 10 Heavy Frigates, and 12 Corvettes. A fleet that exuded extreme levels of danger..
Kaelen Strathmore pressed his hands flat against the desk, his hands no longer adorned by the leather gloves he had worn earlier, his knuckles whitening with every passing second. His reflection glared back from the glass surface, eyes dark and rimmed red. He was an Admiral, a steel spine of the IUC fleet, a man whose name still carried weight enough to silence a council chamber.
But right now, he was just a man staring at the void while another filled his chest. "You did well, son… better than I ever hoped. You're not gone, just waiting for me in hell." He chuckled dryly, "Ha, yeah... Rest easy now... son..."
---
Darkness had swallowed Mark whole. His limp body sank deeper into the depths of the waters, his mind somewhere between old memories and nothingness, the echoes of fire and screams still burning behind his half-slitted eyes. He thought that a fall from such an extreme height would kill him, but unfortunately for him, he woke up in unbearable pain at the bottom of some sort of pool. It would be some hours until his oxygen ran out, and he would finally suffocate to death. He would die an agonizing and slow death.
He struggled to breathe, barely able to get enough oxygen in his body to stay awake. Every attempt to take a breath was followed by a strange sound, something that gave him a sense of comfort to Mark. It was an indication that at least one of his lungs had collapsed, so at least he wouldn't have to suffer for that much longer.
'I had heard Karma was a Bitch, and Life her sister. I guess it took dying once only to die again in less than a day for me to see it,' he thought to himself.
A brutal couple of minutes had gone by when his pain was multiplied a hundredfold as he felt his body being tugged and lifted from the bottom where he lay.
Whatever was pulling him had a very precise grip. Its long fingers curved like metal around his shattered frame and pulled him from the water's clutch. Mark's blurred vision caught only glimpses of the one who had dragged him from the depths: what appeared to be a figure neither fully machine nor flesh. An intricate dance of both whose form carried an alien elegance. Each step the figure took after dragging him from the depths was silent, almost as if it didn't quite touch the ground.
And yet… sometimes, the silence was broken by short, stifled coughs that would break its rhythm, followed by a hitch in its walking pattern. It wasn't weakness, no, this creature held immense strength and power, its thin muscles clearly outlined through its armor. But every single cough showed just how time had started to take its toll on it.
Mark fought to stay awake, but the pain he was experiencing with every step was too much for him to bear, and as they were entering a chamber, his vision finally faded. The walls of the chamber breathed faint light, lines of circuitry spiraling outward. Sand and the clear wear of time marked the corridor walls. The air vibrated with a low hum as the being lowered Mark onto a pristine dais etched with intricate sigils, though the dust accumulated on the ground told just how long it had been since someone had entered this place.
The creature lingered over Mark, its luminous blue eyes flickering with calm assessment. When it finally spoke, its voice was deep and resonant, not mechanical like one would expect from its appearance, but rather... human. Yes, a human voice, a firm voice that had been weathered by age.
"Bipedal. Your pattern is familiar, similar in some aspects to mine, though… diminished." It twisted its head and looked up to the ceiling of the room, its blue eyes flickering momentarily in shades of purple and yellow. "I see a spark of origin burns within you... a gift of immense potential, though still unawakened."
Its clawed hand hovered above Mark's chest, intending to pry open the suit. But the moment its claws made contact with it, the plating recoiled on its own, as if recognizing something within the creature as it melted away into a liquid shimmer that sank into the small pendant at his throat.
The being stilled. Its gaze was sharply drawn down from the ceiling onto Mark's neck with something approaching awe. A slow breath shuddered out of it, and the faintest cough followed, softer this time, almost as if the being was forcing it down.
"This is... curious," it murmured, words threaded with an endless patience, as though it had all of eternity to observe this single anomaly. "An artifact of our crafters, carried by one so young… so unshaped and so unrefined."
It leaned closer, eyes burning not with greed, but recognition. "You carry within you the echoes of what once was… of what was once lost. We… we are not so different, child."
Another cough slipped loose, quickly buried beneath the quiet authority of its tone. It straightened, its hands clasping regally behind it despite the erosion in its frame, and the chamber seemed to bow to its presence.
"This universe is broken. But you… You are proof that its cycle has not yet ended... proof that history does indeed repeat... It seems I may be able to glance at its beginning this time, perhaps guide it... steer it away from having the same ending..." The being drew slow, deep breaths, and its armor retreated into a small pendant identical to Mark's. "Perhaps I may be able to hold on for some time."