No Fate (Tall Tales)

----
=Story By JA Baker=
----
All this has happened before, and will happen again...
----
I was there when it happened, in the briefing room of the Invisible Truth, as they planed the final assault on Terra.
You won't find my name in any of the history books: I was a young ComTech, simply an aid to an aid of someone more important, but I was still there when we all heard Star Colonel John Lassenerra cry out in surprise. Like everyone else, I looked round, and through the sea of people present, I saw it hanging in the air. I don't know if you've seen the unedited recordings of the meeting, the ones that suspiciously cut-out just as Stone was listing the units assigned to liberate Mars, but if you didn't... I've never really been able to describe it in a way that does it justice.
The first thing any of us saw was the light: a bright but warm golden glow that seemed to hang in the air above the table. Then it... the only way I can describe it it is as if it fractured, with what looked like glowing shards of glass splitting off and rotating around the center, accompanied by a sound I can only describe as slowly shattering glass. It hung in the air, everyone too surprised to do anything more than just watch.
Then he emerged, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he fell through the light, landing with a sickening thud in the middle of the table. His uniform was burnt and torn in places, but it was still possible to see an insignia made up of the the Infinity symbol, over which was the Ancient Greek letter Sigma. Moving slowly, and with obvious difficulty, he looked up, seemingly scanning the room, and I got a look at his face. He was obviously of Japanese decent, but his face bore a number of deep scars that had only been partially healed. But his eyes! They weren't his original eyes, anyone could see that: they looked to be made out of glass, and multifaceted, like those of an insect. He looked around the room until he saw Stone, then smiled faintly.
"Still time..." he rasped, reaching out with his one remains arm, a CD-ROM clutched between his fingers, "It's a trap! Waiting for you! We thought we were doing the right thing, you see." he dropped the bloody disc in front of Stone, "Forgive us..."
With that, he slumped forward, dead, and the light flashed out.
To say the room erupted into chaos would be an understatement. You have to remember that, not that long ago, a lot of people in that room had been trying to kill each other. It was only the perceived greater threat of the Word of Blake that had forced them to stop shooting and start talking. Everyone was shouting, pointing fingers and hurling accusations. Well, almost everyone: Stone was living up to his name, standing there, an island of calm in a sea of chaos. He slowly picked up the disk and examined it for a moment, before finally speaking.
"Can some one find us a stand-alone system, please?"
The room fell oddly quite, then Galen Cox stepped forward, holding a small terminal that was clearly labelled as being isolated from the ships network. Stone thanked him, placed the disc into the slot, and hit play. There was a click, and the small holo-projector came to life.
First there was an image of Terra from orbit, and it soon became clear that we were watching a recording from a Blakist fighter as it maneuvered into position for an attack run. Stars spun around, a massive debris field filling much of the projection, the burning, out-of-control remains of a dozen DropShips burning up as they tumbled through the upper atmosphere. The image focused on the Invisible Truth, or rather what remained of it, the proud ships back having obviously been broken by the same damage that had ripped a gaping hole in her starboard side. The fighter accelerated forward, a pair of missiles shooting forth from under the wings. One was shot down by the remaining point-defenses, but the other struck the crippled Battle Cruiser, and it was enveloped by a flash of pure, white light.
The image changed, now showing a bird's-eye view of a battlefield, countless burning 'Mech's and vehicles scattered around. Only a one-armed Black Hawk-KU OmniMech seemed to be still operational, all be it gimped by a badly damaged leg. As we watched, it straighten itself up, firing at something outside of the field of view, only to be struck by an overwhelming amount of return fire from multiple directions and falling apart as it lost structural integrity.
A third and final image appeared, this time a figure, their face hidden in the shadow of a black robe.
"Hello, Devlin. If you are watching this, Ulysses was successful. Please treat whatever is left of him with respect: he was a good man, perhaps far better than we deserved." a surprisingly young, and very female, voice came from the terminal, "If my calculations are correct, and let's be honest, they usually are, then at least two of the people in the room with you will be able to identify who I am, or should I say, who I was. Yes, Robert, it really is me. No, I didn't die in that car bombing, although you came closer than most. Instead I was recruited by Thomas Marik, the real Thomas Marik, to head up a special unit within the Word of Blake. He not only offered me unlimited resources, but he also saved me from the supposedly incurable disease that was slowly but surely killing me. Although, if you could see under this robe, you might say that the cure was worse than the disease."
"But I didn't set this all up just to catch up on old times. No. See, none of us fully understood exactly what Thomas had planned: we couldn't see just how far he was willing to go how far he would go, if not stopped. We were all taken in by his promises of a brave new world. One free of war and want that all the unspeakable things he talked us into would. In the end, be worth it. He lied, Devlin, to everyone. Maybe even to himself. There was no golden dawn at the end of the storm, only more blood and suffering. His plans were not those of any sane man and if not stopped... I could say that I'm sending you this message in the hope of saving what remains of my soul, but we both know that. If there is any justice in this universe, then I am bound for hell. But I'll go gladly if you send that bastard along to keep me company on the way."
"You'll find everything you need to out maneuver the forces defending Sol on this disc. It won't be easy, but I promise you it must be done. You're the only one who can do it."
The recording stopped, and Stone turned to Duke Kelswa-Steiner.
"Yeah, that was her. I'd recognize that self-righteous, constantly condescending voice anywhere." the Free Skye leader nodded, "I thought we we'd been rid of the bitch almost ten years now, but she always did have an annoying knack for cheating the odds."
"I guess even her luck finally ran out." Stone gestured to an aid, "Have the body autopsied, full DNA analysis: see if we can find out who he was, before... all this."
Everything kind of went into high-gear after that. The body was taken away to the medical bay, even the most basic of examinations confirming that it was a Manei Domini, all be it one with minimal augmentation beyond the obvious replacement eyes. A check of his DNA against records came back with a surprising match for a DEST commando who disappeared at the end of the War of '39. He was blinded in an explosion on the world of Exeter, and captured by the AFFS, but their records claimed he had been handed over to ComStar to be repatriated during a routine exchange of wounded PoW's. But the DCMS records said that ComStar informed them that he died of wounds received in the explosion that had taken his eyes, and he had been cremated, and his ashes returned to his family.
Pre-schism ComStar being duplicitous pricks. Shocking, I know.
Examination of the data on the disk showed it not only contained detailed plans for the defense of the Sol system, including full unit TO&E breakdowns, but also a record of how those units were used to utterly crush everything we sent at them. It's somewhat chilling to see your own name listed among the casualties of a battle that hasn't happened yet.
Fortunately, with the information provided by the disc, they were able to plan around the defenses, and, as history shows, liberate the cradle of humanity from the Blakists. Everyone in the room was sworn to secrecy, while scientists and spies alike tried to uncover exactly what had happened, and how. I never learned who the woman in the hologram was, and I sincerely doubt that 'Queen Bitch of the Bucklands' was more than an honorific title, even if I did hear several Lyran officers use it in reference to her. And that was arguably one of the more polite terms used to describe her, but the others lose something in the translation from German to English.
We won the war, at least, we did this time around. But, if someone can change history once, what's to stop them doing it a second time?
The End
----
--Back to Tall Tales - Main Page--
No Fate
No Fate
No Fate