LOCATION: ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT
PLANET: BASTION 123295 CFP
STARDATE: 4205779x03 | TIME: DEEP NIGHT
The long night drew on, and Aureth Vallor followed the Supreme General to the holding cells.
It wasn’t a long walk from the administrative center of Bastion City, and the weather was pleasant enough, if a little chilly.
Vallor thought back to his dinner. Six had been unusually compliant this evening, and he made a mental note to reward her for that.
If you don’t reinforce good behavior in those who serve you, how can you expect them to remain loyal?
But that being said, he resolved to replace Six with Eleven as his secretary. It was time to take his mother’s advice to heart.
Eleven had her own unique sort of beauty, but it wasn’t so overwhelming as to distract Vallor while he should be focusing on his work.
Yes, he thought. That’s the way.
They arrived at the holding cells.
As they progressed through the winding hallways of the recently constructed building, the General explained to Vallor what he had approved three planetary cycles ago.
“Three Bastion years ago, you signed off on this plan. I realized you hadn’t been given a proper tour, so allow me to remedy that oversight.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary, General,” Vallor pleaded. “You shouldn’t waste your time with—”
“We’re here for a reason. So listen up.”
Vallor stopped talking and the General continued.
“As you know, Combat Force Projection planets normally have only barracks for troops and living quarters for everyone else.”
Vallor nodded.
They passed through a second security gate, where three soldiers stood at the ready and scanned them with devices.
A beep sounded for each of them, and they were allowed to pass. They began descending stairs, burrowing deeper into the core of the planet as they did.
“When we acquire a new labor force from a captured planet, the new population is fitted with a System that controls them and limits their abilities to retaliate against the Empire.”
They turned around a small landing and continued down the stairs.
“This is all standard procedure, as you know,” the General continued. “But that new target they call Earth has been… difficult. They are fighting back with more ferocity than we had expected, forcing Portal Tech to step up their work.”
They reached a new floor, deep beneath the surface of Bastion.
The two soldiers opened the double doors, and the General and Vallor passed through.
“They’ve created a new weapon that combines our most explosive payloads with portal technology,” the General said as they walked through a dingy hall.
“Just wait until you see how it’s powered.”
He kept walking, but the dark smile on the General’s face haunted even Vallor to the core.
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They passed by three different control rooms, each filled with five or six technicians typing or fidgeting with dials and levers.
When they arrived at the fourth one, the General stopped and gestured for Vallor to enter.
“This is it,” the General said. “I’m going to show you why the Obsidian Empire is the most feared and powerful force in the multiverse.”
Thousands of miles to the south, Kaela, Elena, and Evan scouted for the nearest one of the openings.
The task was much easier now that they had a functional map, but it was still a long walk.
The drone hadn’t returned since flying away to the north.
“It’s starting to get cold,” Evan said, wrapping his robes a little tighter around himself.
They arrived at the first spot, and Kaela looked around.
The entire zone was filled with grasslands, but every few hundred feet, laid out in an even array, the grass gave way to a perfect circle in the ground.
The circle was capped with metal, and about four feet in diameter.
“It really does look like a missile silo,” Elena said, crouching down to touch the metal. “It’s warm to the touch. That’s strange.”
“Let me see,” Evan said.
He crouched down and placed his hand on the surface.
He closed his eyes and appeared to be focusing on something.
“I can’t sense much, but it appears to be a tube that stretches pretty far down.”
Kaela accessed the map again and started playing with the settings.
“Wait. This planet is called Bastion 123295 CFP. Any idea what that means? Combat… something…”
“Combat Force Projection, maybe?” Elena asked. She was looking at the same information now.
“A planet in the middle of nowhere,” Kaela said, “filled with silos of some unknown purpose. This can’t be fucking good.”
Elena nodded.
“And what’s worse, we haven’t seen any indication of the Peacekeepers yet. With a name like Bastion and force projection, this is probably a fully militarized planet.”
“We should report back,” Evan said. “We need to return with more troops.”
But then, the ground began rumbling.
Two hundred feet away, one of the caps in the ground opened with a mechanical groan.
The three turned toward it.
Elena started moving closer, but both Kaela and Evan grabbed her arms to hold her back.
The rumbling intensified until a burst of light shot forth from the hole in the ground. It was white and bright against the darkened sky. The beam shot so far into the sky that Evan had trouble estimating how high, even with all of the advanced mathematics that were built into his class.
A sonic boom sounded out and a shock wave blasted across the grass, knocking Kaela, Elena, and Evan to the ground on their backs.
Kaela lifted her head, resting on her elbows, and watched as a four-foot diameter cylinder of steel blasted out from the tube, shooting straight up through the column of light.
When it was a few dozen feet clear of the ground, another bright flash erupted, and then the missile detonated in a violent explosion that blew shrapnel outward in all directions.
Evan erected a force shield that took the brunt of the debris, but before he could get it in place, all three were pelted with shards of metal and biological matter.
The shield held while metal and blood rained down all around them. Seconds later the grasslands were quiet again.
Evan fell to the ground. A triangular piece of steel was embedded in his neck, less than an inch from his jugular.
Elena rushed to his side and gently eased him back on the ground.
“Hold still,” she said. “Kaela, get ready to pull the shrapnel out.”
Kaela, who herself was bleeding from her nose and ears but otherwise relatively unscathed, nodded and got into position.
“Tell my parents—”
“Nope, we’re not doing that,” Elena said. “You’re going to be just fine. Now hold still.”
Elena held her hands out and prepared the biggest healing spell in her arsenal.
“Now.”
Kaela carefully pulled the shrapnel from Evan’s neck, and Elena’s hand lit up with a warm white light.
Kaela, with her high Perception, could see tiny nanites run from the plates on Elena’s shoulders, arms, and chest, down her hands and out through her palms into Evan’s neck.
The bleeding was excessive at first, but five seconds later, it was already slowing as Evan’s natural regeneration worked in tandem with Elena’s nanite infusions to seal the damage.
He groaned in the grass for a few minutes, and then it was done.
Elena sat back upright.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
Evan reached up with his left hand and rubbed the spot.
“Shit, that’s much better. The pain is almost gone already.”
Evan’s breath was still ragged as he sat up, but through his heavy breathing, he said, “That was a fucking portal.”
“What?” Elena asked. “A portal that opened in mid-air? How is that even—”
“I don’t know,” Evan said, “that missile exploded before it could pass through. But if they can open a portal and shoot a missile through, we are completely fucked. We have to get back and warn Earth.”
Kaela’s own bleeding was already slowing.
She sat up in the grass and tried to calm her nerves.
It wasn’t working.
“Do it,” she said. “Let’s get the fuck out of this place. We’re in far above our heads.”