The following has been redacted to protect the identities of parties involved.

  [REDACTED\

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  /REDACTED]

  “When I was young I remember he was named Caesar.” The Magus would have been young more than thirty years ago. “But no modern records confirm my memory, so perhaps it never was. About a decade ago I read a news article that called my memory a mandala effect.”

  The knights were all in armor. The magus too, it was a rare day they would suit up and navigate the local terrain. Three tracked the magus, then the magus tracked the three. They carried weapons, but equipped near blanks.

  Nearly blanks because the shot’s energy was still existent, it simply dissipated within twenty yards. Training rounds only, the real stuff had to be loaded into their suits.

  Fortunately the knights and magus all wore prodigious armor. The odd scrape was just some “worn in.” Metallurgy. To quote the ancients, ‘steel sharpens steel.’ Not that sharp armor was preferable.

  Consider the blessings the knights felt when they realized that if they had spent only another twenty minutes navigating the nearby basalt stone, glaciers and rivulets they would have missed the rebellious, apocalyptic, but likely entirely syndicate sanctioned message. Assuming it wasn’t an elaborate hoax.

  “Magus shall we consider this a hoax?”

  “I do hope so, it appears to be urging the Bram to eradicate natural borns.”

  “What would be the angle there?”

  “This planet is a sin, to eradicate the evidence of the sin on the ledgers its population must die if the line is to continue to go up. I had feared something like this might happen.”

  “So this maniac adopted Apocrypha to sell the public on his divine right to eradicate them?”

  “It would appear so.”

  “Is this why the syndicate cut us off?”

  “It would appear so.”

  “Magus…” the room was silent, Cotton was the breaker of silence who had paused here considering his rare words. “Shall we prepare to be exterminated?”

  They were in a maintenance workshop, a few electrolyte drinks and a vending machine sat around. There was enough room to crawl out of the mech and observe the machine. A few tools and a rather neat workbench lined the wall. The sterile smell of lubrication, oils, coolant and burning metal dust long since forgotten filled the air.

  The mechanic, an old man in his fifties and missing three fingers puzzled over some metal he was fixing to weld.

  Natural born, he had been a squire in his youth. How he ended up on this planet and lost his job as a mechanic put the adventures of the knights to shame.

  Kind, talented and happy to have a normally slow job, he was an ideal mechanic for the rare visit of the knights.

  He could not hear the silent communicators of the knights, he was listening to music. He could observe some blinking meant they were having a lively discussion.

  “I suppose we must.”

  “Which side are we on Magus? Are we not traitors if we do not beat each other down right now?” Gabriel was pensive, his voice sadder than normal.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  The magus started looking slightly surprised. “Gabriel….”

  Gabriel would not be dissuaded “Foolish as it seems are we not in employ of the syndicate? One of their biggest shareholders, in fact one of their past CEX has ordered us to terminate ourselves for his progeny.”

  The magus softened, it seemed Gabriel was not legitimately considering such a zealous and straight faced read of the orders, but was instead philosophizing.

  “Gabriel this is why the church tolerates and expects such disobedience. You are right, on paper that is our duty. In reality we are natural born and must defend ourselves.”

  Gabriel was unsatisfied “But we are not going to join the natural borns in exterminating the Bram are we? Surely they will try, foul as it is it seems it would be foolish not to expect life to defend itself.”

  The Magus hardened, “We will, I understand your pain here, it seems immoral to join in on such an oppression of human spirit. Most would content themselves with the fact the Bram are corporate meat puppets, less than human, or say they are a biological disease to be terminated before they infect us. But you are right Gabriel, both of those justifications are unsound, impartial and immoral analysis of the truth…”

  “Magus?” Gabriel was politely waiting for an answer.

  “If this is not a hoax we must be busy!” Ambrose spoke, “I shall contact the ZRM immediately to ascertain their intentions.”

  “We need to lock up and shelter those who would die as well, Magus what shall we do about Brams who appear not to rebel?”

  “Gabriel what shall we do about Brams that appear not to rebel.” The Magus now sounded cruel.

  “Magus?”

  “Gabriel you are the most upstanding here what shall we do?”

  “I ask you a simple clerical question Joseph.”

  “We are wasting time!” Cotton and Oscar spoke almost at the same time.

  “NO!” The magus booming over their speaker volume as loud as the armored suit would allow. The squire and the old man of the workshop both paused to look, this was the first they were hearing of the conversation.

  “One must focus before any task is begun in earnest. Gabriel is our perfect optical sensor, let us focus our heart and soul before we likely sin and die. To fail here would be to throw our lives away as meaningless. Gabriel the clock is ticking.”

  The magus had returned to blinking the transmission, no more auditory message was necessary.

  Gabriel did not delay as long as one may imagine. “Our mission is to hunt the alien. Local politics do not concern us, local hazards do. We should shut our doors to non-church members and avoid getting involved in this ugly business.”

  “You know our doors do not shut Gabriel.” The magus continued,

  “Deny entry to non-church members.” Gabriel sounded like he had been shot.

  The magus repeated the more precise rendering to the knights.

  “Our mission is to hunt the alien, local politics do not concern us, local hazards do. We should deny area access to non-church members and avoid getting involved in this ugly business.”

  And so the mission was. Doors were shut, but most church doors locked from the outside not the inside. It was evening, dark outside, the fear of a long night rested ahead of them. But if time waited till morning to move, well there was time enough to prepare.

  The church itself would have been at least healthy without the knights, around twenty staff stocked the base and could defend it. Though they had never seriously considered doing so. The few brams that had been ludically ordained did not attract suspicion yet. The natural borns were not seeming murderous. The church was strong enough to render its own justice if the bad blood, (or syndicate programing) was strong enough to override church programing.

  Outside the chapel and church gates, a few fires began. Brams were ordered disarmed, within the hour a series of trucks and campfires surrounded the little military base. The roads were cut off to their brethren who surrounded the base. The little jail was going to be unable to hold all those who disobeyed ZRM authority. Gunshots were heard before midnight. Official ZRM civilian bunkers were emptied of Bram and the chambers that contained natural borns taxpayers (and perhaps wealthy Brams who had the grace of gene therapy.) were sealed to the outside world unlikely to reopen.

  Just after midnight a news broadcast was caught, it tripped a church computer analyzing feeds for “Thallium” The knights and the magus had dispersed, it was only one of the civilians, the man who kept up the church bell synthesizer who reported the information to the magus, who delegated it to two of the knights were were supposed to be sleeping right now.

  In the mess hall the two knights observed the tablet with the saved recording on it.

  “The city might grind to a halt but the ZRM does not! Civilian airline flights have stopped but reports of unrest near the pole have mobilization supported by new robotic platforms. Thallium Technical Group’s Minotaur platform will be deployed for the first time in an operational environment, along with other equipment from Zellinair, CIAS and L&H. This will be the first operational deployment of the cutting edge technology the ZRM has acquired in it’s mission to of it is intended to permit one peacekeeper to operate with effectiveness multiplied. A strict necessity for the modern warfighter! Back to you.”

  “Holy fried fish my brother.” It was Ambrose, “is there no unrest in the city?”

  “It’s downright ugly here.” Jason sounded amused. “So it sounds like that lady is right.”

  Both seemed not to process that the alien they were hunting appeared to be being deployed to put down the unrest.