From: bkoike@sdcc13.UCSD.EDU (Bryce Koike)
Subject: STORY: The Otherworld (Chapter 9)
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.misc
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 18:52:50 GMT

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                   The Otherworld <> Chapter 9

                       :: END OF JOURNEYS ::

                   Copyright 1992 by Bryce Koike
                        All Rights Reserved
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-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
     Any comments, criticisms, opinions, etc, are welcome.  I can
be reached on Internet as:
     bkoike@sdcc13.ucsd.edu
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"The night is dark, the moon is full
Across the blood red plain
Every step and every breath
Brings me nearer home
The spirits watch me on my way
They whisper on the wind
And when the dawn lights up the sky
I'll see my land again"
                            ("Tombstone" -- The Pogues)
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Date:      September 10, 1992
Location:  Northern California
           Otherworld
Time:      9:00 pm

     A half-empty bottle of cheap alcohol leaned against the wall of
a building that had never been used before.  Two glasses clinked
together with a soft reverberation from the bare walls.
    "I think I liked this room more with the decorations, sir," said
Martique.
    "Please, just Dennis!  And I'll just call you John.  And then
we'll all be nice and comfortable, eh?"
    "Alright, if that's how you want it."
    "John, in this room we're just friends, okay?  Let me indulge in
one fantasy: a fantasy that we're long and far away from the wars
and the horrors, from politics and hate.  That the world is a long,
long way away and we don't have to worry about it."
    Martique's smile thinned his already razor-like lips and cracked
his face.  "Alright, Dennis.  Just like the old days, hmm?"
    "Oh, not like the old days.  Back then I was immature and
irresponsible and nearly got my entire command slaughtered because
of a single joy ride."
    John's barking laugh echoed off the walls in a lonely manner.
    "Ah, the days of our youth, Dennis!  How long ago they seem."
    "Longer still now that we're here on some strange planet."
    "Yes."
    They raised their shot glasses and downed their respective
drinks.
    "Lord, they don't serve stuff like this at command," gasped
John.  "Where'd you find this?"
    Dennis laughed.  "I believe that in the 20th Century they called
this item cheap whiskey.  It seemed somehow appropriate."
    "Burn!  Burn!" blurted John.
    They burst into laughter.  "You- you nearly killed us all in
that maneuver!" gasped Dennis.  "You stupid fool!"  He howled.
    "Oh, but the looks on your faces were worth it!  Especially that
damned fool.  What was his name?  Lester?  I think that was it.
Lord, whatever happened to that poor fool?"
    "Ah.  He died.  Stimpson's Planet in '85."
    John's eyes dropped for a moment into his lap.  "The poor fool."
    "A lot of fools died on that planet."
    "A travesty.  Oh damn.  Look, I cut myself."  He tried to wipe
away the blood.  "Now how'd I manage that one?"
    "Forgot to tell you.  The desk.  Splinters."  Dennis smiled.
"Gotcha."
    "Awrgh!  You!  You were the one!"  John pointed his bloody hand
at Dennis. "The damned nail in my boot!  YOU!"
    Dennis wiped the tears from his eyes.  "You deserved that one!
You know it!  Ah, heh, you did, you know."
    "Did not.  I was the perfect gentleman to you."
    "That was the damned point, Mr. Martique.  You were always so
uptight.  I wanted to loosen you up a bit.  You know you could've
been promoted to captain any time you liked?"
    "Didn't want it."
    "Don't think you could handle the responsibility?"
    "You don't understand."
    John abruptly stood and peered out the window at the darkened
city.  He drank the remaining alcohol from his glass.
    "This is what I was meant to do, Dennis.  Lead men.  Not like
you, so far and away from it all.  Did you know that everyone had
orders to keep you out of combat when we hit the Combine base?  I
never wanted to become like that.  I wanted my . . . freedom.  To
choose my moment of life or death.  And not to have someone else
looking over my shoulder.  Freedom, Dennis.  Something I think we've
all forgotten about sometime."
    "Don't you say that."
    "I am saying it.  And you'll listen.  Have you ever wondered
about freedom, Dennis?  We've lost sight of it somewhere between our
wars and conflicts with the Combine, the politics.  Our lives aren't
our own.  Our terms with the military are undertermined.  We get
shore leave when it's convenient for the military, not when we need
it.  We're puppets."
    "That's the alcohol talking, man."
    "No.  That's me.  I'm there with the men, watching them.  You
don't think they're happy here?  Take a look at them!  Their duties
are scant, if any.  They can lounge, talk, drink, go for walks.
They're happy here, Dennis!  I'm not saying that they don't want to
leave.  I'm sure they will once they find out that we're stranded
here.  But the fact is that we've been due a vacation for one hell
of a long time."
    "So they need a little rest, John."
    "They need more than rest, Dennis.  What's their future once
they leave the military?  You know it as well as I.  They're
abandoned.  They're dropped without a parade or a medal or anything.
We're expendable, Dennis, like just another starship or something."
    Bryant sighed.  "That's the price of war, John.  No.  Don't
continue.  We're both drunk and there's no point in this discussion
continuing unless you're really looking for a fight."
    John smirked.
    "So, then.  Friends again?"
    "Yes, Dennis, friends."
    They shook.
    "My hands are shaking, John.  I guess I can't hold the alcohol
like I used to."
    "Mine too.  You think it's maybe the air?"
    "Too clean you mean?"
    "Yes."
    They chuckled.
    Like two disobedient children they talked long into the night,
long after they'd polished off two bottles of bad whiskey.  It took
two men to carry Lieutenant John Martique to his room.  Captain
Dennis Bryant crawled to his bed and collapsed, destined to dream
happy thoughts of pink elephants.
    No nightmares would plague them that night.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Date:      September 11, 1992
Location:  Northern California
           Otherworld
Time:      8:00 am

    The lights dimmed in the room.  Morris walked to the front of
the room and activated a flat-screen display.
    "We received these images half an hour ago," he said.  "A small
group of five.  They were travelling in a vehicle and had stopped
for supplies.  Watch."
    The screen came to life.
    "Three adults, one young child, and one baby.  Two of the adults
are heading for the fast food restaurant to change the baby's
diapers."
    The other pulled a large gas can from the trunk along with a
section of plastic tubing.  He headed toward the nearest vehicle.
The two adults, presumably the parents of the baby, set to work.
The lone child stayed in the car and played with what appeared to be
a doll.
    "We will switch to infrared scanning now and take ourselves up
two hundred meters.  There's two unidentified humanoid forms over a
block away.  There.  That's them.  Notice that they don't show up on
standard video."
    "The aliens," said Bryant.
    "Without a doubt.  There's no hazing as there is with the
Combine technology.  When they turn the corner, one leaves in a
hurry.  The nearest flight unit was Halo 3 and we wouldn't be able
to get it in range for a minute and that forced us to keep watch on
the family here.  The other alien heads toward the nearest stairwell
to observe the family from above."
    For a moment the alien's heat signature seemed to disappear from
view.  As the flight unit adjusted itself, the alien reappeared,
albeit fuzzier.
    "Allow me to split the screen.  Here's the scene from Halo 3.
We're cutting in from the south-west.  There's the family.  We're
now heading in the direction of the direction we saw the alien
heading in.  We don't catch anything for several minutes, so I'll
put this one on fast-forward."
    During this time the two adults finished putting a new diaper on
the baby.  Their child had become bored in the car and she got out
to see what they were doing.  The woman on the other side of the
street had finished siphoning gas after a bit of trouble with the
gas cap and had returned to their car to fill the tank.
    "Are these people 20th Century standard?" asked Martique.
    "From the looks of them, yes.  I was never up on that time
period, though.  I was more into contemporary history if you know
what I mean.  Here now.  Notice that they've got weapons.  The woman
with the gas tank is now checking them out.  Two pistols and a
hunting rifle.  Nothing major, but it suggests that there's danger
around."
    "They could be paranoid."
    "Possibly.  They could be hunting as well, but then why are they
so far from any usable hunting areas?  And why the pistols?  Notice
something here.  The woman with the guns looks up.  It's as if she's
sensed something.  Let's return to Halo 3.  She's picked up our lone
alien.  But it's been met with a force of ten friends.  These DO
show up on video.  Computer, enlarge and enhance."
    "Just like the one in the building."
    "Correct.  And here the first alien drops his invisibility and
shows his true colors.  He's some sort of officer judging from the
way they treat him.  Now they're travelling down the street toward
the family.  Is this a friendly greeting party?  Notice that some of
the aliens are carrying some crude weapons.  I think not."
    "Hostile, then."
    "Yes, but why are they resorting to pipes and wood axes?  One of
their number is carrying a sword, but nothing more.  And I'm not
going to even begin wondering where it got the sword from.  Now at
the same time the woman's going crazy.  The family is packing their
things and preparing to leave."
    Indeed they appeared to be in a panic.  The little girl was
crying as her mother nearly threw her in the car.  The other woman
took the driver's seat and started the ignition.
    "Notice the heat signature from the alien on the roof!  Now!  It
flares!  That guy's got to somehow be generating a heat increase of
at least twenty degrees!  Here's where things get interesting.
We're so interested in what's going on with alien number one that we
nearly forget the people in the car.  Here, we move the camera back.
The driver's knocked out.  We don't know what happened, but it seems
the alien was somehow involved."
    "Heat weapon?  Sonics?  Some sort of internal electrical
ability?" asked sargeant Sutcliffe.
    "Negative.  No chance.  She was on the far side of the car and
was totally hidden from the view of the alien.  We don't know what
it did, but it knocked her out.  In the meantime the other aliens
are double-timing toward the vehicle."
    The man struggled with the driver and finally managed to get her
out of the way.  Just as he got himself into the driver seat,
though, he too slumped over.
    "And the alien's body temperature flares again!  This supports
our belief that the alien's somehow involved with this.  The woman
in the back seat is going into hysterics, but watch.  Now it's her
turn. It's all over for these people.  Now we fast-forward.  Here
the alien welcoming committee appears.  They look over the situation
and then gather up all the people including the baby and the child
and cart them back to home base."
    Morris hit the forward button and switched to Halo 3.  "We
followed them like good boys.  Here's their home base.  A
nondescript two-story office building with few windows.  We're going
to lose most of our detail once they get into the building, but at
least we now know where they are.  There.  They're all in.  And
that's the end of the story."
    The lights came back on.  The soldiers shifted in their seats.
    "Hostile kidnapping aliens, hmm?" said Bryant.  "Now is this a
result of our own actions against them or is has this been going on
for some time?"
    "Probably not our fault, sir.  Their home base is over two
hundred kilometers south of us.  Those two aliens we gunned down
were extremely far from home.  It might be possible that they're
searching for a more suitable home or perhaps they're looking for
more humans to kidnap."
    "I see.  Any way of estimating their numbers?"
    "We're working on that now, sir.  It seems that there's a very
large concentration of them in that building and two others nearby.
We'll have better estimates by tomorrow.  The creatures seem fairly
dormant during the day and the building itself poses interference
problems.  We don't dare move the flight units in any closer than
they already are.  We have no idea as to what kind of technology
these things possess and we can't spare flight units at this time."
    "Understandable.  Report back tomorrow the minute you have
anything."
    "Yes, sir."

    In Jupiter space, the Combine had pulled back.  Their bluff had
been called albeit in a clumsy inefficient manner.  The Hammer had
been ordered back, possibly restricted from ever being used near
Terra again.  In some ways perhaps that was better.  The Hammer
would have no place if peace had finally come to the Terran solar
system.
    But peace would not come to Generald Cimmond who still wondered
what had become of the Callasius, her crew, and her captain, Dennis
Bryant.
    The link crackled with static.  Most of it was contributed by
the scramblers.
    "No sign of her, sir," reported the captain.  "It's like she
vanished.  We've checked all energy traces as well.  The Asians deny
having access to or using any sort of gravitics or any other weapon.
In fact, they too are confused as to why or how the Callasius
disappeared.  I'm not very good at reading faces, sir, but I'm quite
certain that they were hiding something from us."
    General Cimmond sighed.  "Thank you.  I want a full report on my
desk ASAP.  Keep searching in case she does turn up.  I'm afraid
that she probably won't.  If you don't get anything else in 48 hours
I want you and your men to report to Polaris for some R and R."
    And entire troop carrier gone without a trace!  Cimmond buried
his face in his hands and gently squeezed.
    "Bryant, where the hell are you?  Where in the goddamned hell
are you?"

    "No sign of them arming to deal with us?" asked Bryant.
    "None at this moment, sir, but we can't be sure.  It's only very
recently that we've been able to pick up on their location.  I have
noticed one thing, though.  They've got trucks.  The funny thing,
though, was that the trucks they had were dismantled.  That's
assuming, of course, they they were the ones who dismantled them.
We can't be totally certain."
    "And they don't use anywhere near high-tech weaponry?"
    "None that we've discovered, sir.  At least all the ones we've
seen have weilded swords and clubs.  Some of them wear some strange
sort of armor, but most seem naked."
    "No idea as to what they're going to do with the people?"
    "None sir, although they were quite careful not to harm the
bodies.  Perhaps this was just a police group?"
    "Now with swords they weren't.  So we're suggesting that these
beings exhibit some sort of innate invisibility along with the
ability to put others to sleep.  Psionics or what-have-you.  They're
also somewhat warlike and take prisoners.  The people were obviously
afraid of them and were armed.  I think that this tells us just
about everything, hmm?"
    "And what does that tell us, sir?" asked Martique.
    "It's war, sir.  War between us and the first alien race that we
have ever discovered.  A war between humans and aliens.  Morris, we
need more information.  Are there other groups of aliens?  Do they
possess space technology?  What other powers do they have?  It is
imperative that we have answers to these questions before we launch
our first attack or are attacked ourselves."
    "I understand.  We've got the men working overtime right now."
    "Excellent.  Martique, gather the men and clue them in.  Fun and
games are over."
    "Yes, sir!"

    As Captain Bryant walked down the corridors of the abandoned
building, he thought.  It was on his shoulders that this weight
rested.  Would he be able to stand up to the test?
    The sounds of soldiers preparing for battle had begun.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Date:      September 14, 1992
Location:  Northern California
           Otherworld
Time:      12:38 am

    Bryant's wristcom blinked at him furiously, a red blur demanding
attention.  He laid there for a moment, hoping it would go away.
For two days he had worked his ass off, planning and preparing for
war.  Now what?  He pressed a button.
    "Yes?"
    "Sir, we've captured some humans!"
    "Damn.  I'll be right down!"
    Humans!  Other people!  He slammed his legs into his clothes.
    "Slow down, mister," he told himself.  "No sense in looking like
they just woke you up."
    He took the time to put on some clean clothes and straighten
his hair a bit and then headed out the door.  People.  Men?
Soldiers?

    IR scanners gazed out into the distance.
    "There, soldier.  You see them?"
    "Yeah, I see 'em."
    "Awright, on command we open fire."
    "There's an awful lot of them there."
    "You afraid?"
    "No, sir!"
    "Then shut the fuck up."

    No, the humans were not men.  They were three children.  A boy
and a girl in their late teens, possibly in their twenties.  Lying
on a cot on the floor was another member of their group.  Bryant
noticed that the other boy was Asian.  He gave Martique a stern
look.
    "There's no war where they came from, sir," he said.
    But that didn't stop the Combine from sending in spies before.
Could they be sure?  Could they be absolutely sure?
    "Sir," said the girl.  "My name's Tracy and this is my friend
Vince.  Matt's the one on the cot.  You've got to help him."
    Help him?
    "Please, sir."
    Help his kind?

    "Alright, the guys in the robes.  Them's the ones you want to
take out first.  They're the wizards of the group.  Take out the
tall ones next.  They're the big warriors.  Take the rest out at
your leisure.  Men, you ready?  Shenk?"
    "Yessir.  I'm ready, sir."
    "Good 'cuz I want you to give the order to fire.  Whenever
you're ready, private."
    "Um, yessir.  FIRE!"
    Like fireworks sparks exploded along a hill.

    "Bryant," whispered the boy on the cot.  Matt.  That was his
name.  Typical non-Asian name.  It was to be expected.  He would say
that he had been born among Alliance parents-
    "America, Bryant.  20th Century America."
    He slowly pushed himself into a sitting position.
    "You read my mind."
    "And you, sir, state the obvious."
    Matt flashed a cynical smile.  "Interesting compound you have
here, Mr. Bryant."
    "That's Captain Bryant to you," blurted Martique.
    "Ah, and the lieutenant.  Martique, is it?  I've seen you in my
dreams.  You're very old for a lieutenant, aren't you?"
    He coughed.
    "The Eternals are their name.  Their goal is genocide.  Will you
try to stop them?"
    "Who are you talking about?"
    "Wake up, military man.  Do you think you're the only one who's
come across the Eternals?  We have met with them as well.  We have
met with them and done battle and only barely did we win.  You are
watching them now, planning your battle out ever so carefully.
You'll lose, Bryant."
    "I'll lose in honor, boy."
    "There's no honor in war, military man!  You should know that.
No honor in dying for a cause you don't believe in.  I-"
    He doubled over and gave what sounded like a squeak of pain.
    Tracy kneeled.  "It's okay.  He gets like this sometimes."  She
calmly held him although no compassion was on her face.
    Martique looked down at her.  "Your face, it's bruised," he
said.
    "He hit me in the car.  I didn't want to come here."
    She did not raise her eyes.

    Two warriors were knocked down beside him.  The Elder looked up
and heard the thunder of weapons in the distance.  He had no time to
do anything before several bullets ended his life as well.  The
soldiers made quick work of the unprepared Eternals.
    "Good work, Shenk.  Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"
    "I . . . never killed before, sir."
    "Get used to it, soldier.  They're the enemy and we're the only
ones who can stop 'em.  Pack up and let's find out what they've got
hiding in that building, eh?"
    "Yes, sir."

    "Why didn't you want to come here?" asked Bryant.
    "I was irrational.  I just wanted to run.  This has all been
such a nightmare for us."
    The boy Vince sat down in a couch and sipped some hot coffee
which was offered to him.
    "And you?  Vince?"
    He shrugged.  "No real opinion.  I wanted to get away, you know,
but Jiro told us there'd be help to the north.  Didn't know what he
meant until we came across you."
    "Jiro?  Who's he?"
    "Some weird Japanese guy.  Kinda short.  He had this setup that
let him become invisible and stuff.  Didn't have much time to talk
to him or anything."
    Bryant fumed.  So the Combine was here too!
    "Sir?" blurted Tracy.  "Sir, Jiro said something to us before he
left.  He said that on this world there was no place for other
hostilities.  It's us against the aliens.  I agree with him, Captain
Bryant.  If we cannot join forces then we'll die.  All of us here
will die."
    "Die on Otherworld!" spat Matt.  "This accursed land!"

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