The Lost And The Damned (Tall Tales)

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'''Warning: stronger than usual language and discussion of events that might offend. Consider this your only warning
=Story By JA Baker=
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Transcript of interview with Prisoner 74656, September 4th, 3081
[Redacted] maximum security facility, [Redacted].
Please state your name for the record.
Artie Claremont
Your full, legal name, please.
Artemus Quentin Claremont III, which just goes to prove that three generations of my family had shit taste in names.
Can you confirm that you served as a member of the Death Commandos from 3050 to 3063?
Yeah, yeah I did.
Why did you leave?
I had a disagreement with a superior officer. After which, it was suggested that I, shall we say, "Travelled for my health"?
This was the incident on Wei?
If you know I was on Wei, then you known what happened.
For our records, if you would.
We were ordered to kill the planets leaders, one by one. Fine. No problem with that: I was a loyal servant of the Chancellor, and they were his enemies. So we track this one woman down, some government minister or something, only she's not alone. Got her daughter with her. Kids maybe fourteen years old, has no idea why a bunch of armed men dressed all in black are pointing guns at them. Our orders were to kill the minister, but said nothing about any family. CO decides that he's going to "get creative", as he put it. Ordered two of the men to hold the minister in place, and informed her that he was going to make her watch while he raped then murdered her daughter before she died.
And you objected?
I pulled my sidearm and put two rounds through the son-of-a-bitch's head is what I did!
Why?
What kind of ******-up question is that? I was a Death Commando, and I wouldn't have thought twice about just killing the kid if so ordered, but I would have made it quick and painless, something they did actually teach us how to do. But what that bastard had planned? Look, I've done things, okay? Things that, maybe, looking back, I ain't too proud of. Things that have earned me a date with the hangman, now you guys finally tracked me down... But I ain't no rapist, and I never hurt no kids.
Even on Halcyon?
[chuckle] Shit, this is about Halcyon? How long did it take you guys to dig that little secret up?
Tell me about Halcyon.
What's to know? It's a planet, much like any other...
We both know that's not true, Sao-wei Claremont..
It's Mister Claremont, if you're not going to call me Artie. I ain't been in no uniform for a long, long time.
Very well, Mr Claremont. Why don't you tell us the truth about Halcyon?
It's off the maps, right? And it's not one of those "Hidden Five" that everyone's been turning the galaxy inside out to try and find. If I knew anything about those, I would have mentioned it by now. Probably the only thing that would save me from a long drop with a sudden stop at the end. No, Halcyon is... ever wonder why, of all the planets humanity has discovered since the Pathfinder first set out, all those lush, Terra-like worlds, not one has had anything approaching our level? No Little Green Men? Not even an ape banging two rocks together?
I can't say it's something I've ever given any thought to.
Well, you find Halcyon, find what happened there, and you'll have the answer.
And Halcyon was your first mission after you joined the Word of Blake?
I never joined the Word! I may have worked for the crazy bastards, but given the nature of my departure from the Commandos. It's not like I had much choice. Not all of us have big Mercenary units willing to welcome us with open arms, and my choices was the Word... or go cap-in-hand to House Davion. And even after all that happened, I still have some honor left. So yeah, I took the Words money and did their dirty work for them, least until it became clear that everything was going to shit. Then I left, tried to hide among the refugees fleeing... you want to know a secret?
Why else do you think I'm here?
The Jihad? All that death and destruction? Complete and utter cluster-******! Never supposed to happen! Oh, sure, the Blakists built up their secret armies and their cyborgs and their weapons of mass bullshit, but that was all intended to finish up the job started by Opposition Bulldog. Kick the rest of the Clans out of the Inner Sphere and back to where they came. Show them the true price of invading the Inner Sphere. The Word was ecstatic when the Second Star League was formed: It was the perfect opportunity to show off all their new toys to the Great Houses. Only the Dragoons had to go pick a fight with them, and given their origin, the Blakists got spooked. Thought that the Clans were onto them. And so they panicked, which coupled with the Star League falling apart, yet again...well, we all saw how well they took that.
You're saying that the Jihad was an... accident?
An overreaction, certainly.
And how does this tie into Halcyon?
Because the Word wasn't the only group with skeletons in their closest.
Please, explain.
Story I heard was that the Word of Blake didn't know anything about Halcyon until some REMF back on Terra was digging through an old Hegemony archive. Real old stuff, highly encrypted sort of stuff that can take years to make anything of any use. One day, they stumbled upon a reference to a mission to destroy a JumpShip, kill everyone on-board after they'd breached the quarantine around Halcyon. Well, that was enough to get people interested, because anything that the Star League was willing to go that far to protect was probably worth knowing about. So, another year or so of data-mining, and they discover that it wasn't a Star League operation. Rather purely in-house Hegemony Armed Forces. As in, it was something they wanted kept really off-the-books, even from the SLDF.
Well, as you can probably imagine that got a lot more people interested. I doubt anyone in the galaxy is as good at getting information out of a computer than the Word of Blake. When they set their minds to it. So they dig up every data cache, every isolated server and back-up of a back-up they can find, and they start to piece together some information. Not a lot, as much was lost during the Amaris Uprising and all the chaos that followed. He didn't get to everyone at once, and some of those he missed followed protocol and trashed the records as best they could to keep it from falling into his hands. Eventually, they managed to piece together at least something: Halcyon was the codename of a system kept off all official charts, even the classified ones that listed hidden bases and research outposts.
Are you're certain it wasn't one of the Hidden Five?
Oh, Halcyon was hidden, but not for the reasons you might be thinking.
Continue.
Well, once they had an idea what and where Halcyon was, they needed to send someone to go have a look. Someone who can think on their feet, who could handle most situations and is preferable expendable. Well, that's as good a description of where I found myself as any. So I was assigned to a small group of hired guns sent to go stick our heads into the gave to see if anyone was home. Depending on what, or rather if, we reported back, they'd consider a follow-up mission.
And what did you find?
...you don't want to know.
Yes, I do, Mr Claremont.
You don't think that some secrets are best left just that? That some things are just best left unknown?
If there's a chance that elements of Word of Blake may have escaped to Halcyon. We need to know what to expect if we go there. And, to the best of our knowledge, you are the only known living person who's ever gone there.
Then that information should die with me. Trust me: knowing the truth will bring you nothing good.
None the less, I must insist.
Ok, fine: on your head be it. I want you, and your superiors at [REDACTED] to remember that I warned you.
Halcyon orbits a star. No idea what type it was. Big yellow ball of nuclear fire. First thing we noticed was an abandoned station, looked like it had taken a hit from a swarm of micro-meteorites that ripped the guts out of it. Couple of old early model drones floating around just outside. From what I could overheard it looked to have been some kind of prototype for the SDS system the Star League developed, but it was completely dead. Anyway, system had six planets; Three rocks, a gas giant and two ice giants. First two of the rocks were too close to the sun, just hot lumps of nothing. But the third one was in the sweet-spot for habitable worlds, so that's where we headed.
Next big surprise was in orbit, load of old satellites. Mostly observation, but a few equipped with orbit-to-ground kinetic impactor, still in the launch rails. That got a lot of people interested, because you don't install that kind of hardware over a planet without very good reason. With that it mind, we mapped the planet from high orbit. Well above the satellites, less we set off some kind of automatic defense protocol. Couple of places looked like they'd been hit by KKV's in the past, but nothing more recent than a few hundred years. Some careful testing later, and it was concluded that the satellites were as inert as the space station. By then we'd located what looked to be the ruins of a small city.
So Halcyon was inhabited.
...no. Least, not anymore.
They sent us in first, after running every test they knew for biological and chemical agents in the atmosphere and finding nothing. So a shuttle dropped us off on the outskirts of the 'city', relaying everything was saw to the DropShip in orbit.
I've seen enough battlefields to know one by sight, even if the local plant life was doing a good job of covering it up. Buildings, some blown to pieces, others crumbling due to the elements stood silently all around us. I could tell immediately that something was wrong about them, but it was one of the others, a crazy woman named Limbu who pointed it out. The dimensions were all wrong.
How were they wrong, exactly?
The doorways were too tall and narrow for one. I don't care where you are, what planet you come from, but a door is a door after all. All roughly the same size and width. It's one of those universal standards we picked up long before we left Terra. But on Halcyon... they were different. Other than that, it wasn't much different from some of the more isolated worlds I've been to. Places where technology has regressed a little further. No signs of any vehicles on the streets. Its that did feel a little odd, but nothing too out of the ordinary.
So Halcyon was a failed colony?
...no.
Mr Claremont?
It was in the middle of a... it wasn't a square, but it seemed to serve the same purpose. Big slab of armor plate, three meters or so high, maybe twenty centimeters thick. Must have weight two tons. Someone had evidently placed it there on purpose.
And what purpose was that?
It was a memorial. Someone had taken the time to carve a message into the face or it. Just in case anyone had the misfortune of ever stumbling across it.
Can you remember what it said?
I wish I could forget.
On this spot, July 22nd, 2318, the last known member of the Halaconian species was executed, under the authority of Director-General James McKenna, as per Special Order 4119 and in accordance with the Clear Horizon Directive.
I've never heard of any such order or directive.
No, you haven't, because the Hegemony kept it a secret. As had the Terran Alliance before them. Every time they found a world fit for human habitation but already taken... they made it so it wasn't. The Halaconians had been on the verge of an industrial revolution when they were discovered, probably the most advanced of any race who had the misfortune to find itself in our way. That made it all the harder to wipe them out, necessitating the satellites in orbit, ready to drop a Rod-from-God on a any who made themselves known.
God only know how many times they did it, how many worlds we now call home were built in the bodies of those we slaughtered to take them. The Alliance and the Hegemony kept it all quiet, even from the Star League. That because, can you imagine what would happen if the truth got out?
...and you're not worried now?
I'm dead, either way, and I did warn you that the truth wouldn't bring you any happiness.
Why should we believe you, Mr Claremont? For all I know, this could be a ploy to get your sentence reduced to life in a mental asylum.
You go find Halcyon, and then you'll see for yourself just how crazy I am.
ADDENDUM
Prisoner 74656 was found dead in his cell, September 5th, 3081. Cause of death ruled to be suicide by strangulation on rope made from bedsheet by prison doctors. No evidence of outside interference found.
CLOSED DOOR Protocol confirmed success: quarantine of Halcyon system restored.
The End
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The Lost And The Damned
The Lost And The Damned
The Lost And The Damned