The Culling

by: Christopher Mitchell

PART ONE: INCURSION

Rocks and dust ground under the feet of echelons as they inched forward, step by cautious step. From near the base of the origin-source, High Clerics gave silent orders. Hand and arm signals, sending enforcers to search for higher ground, urging those nearby to close in to tighter flank formations, and to prime their shoulder mounts for impending engagement. Five thousand souls complied, ranging from newly initiated infantry enforcers to veteran high wardens. The walking tanks were meant to protect their enforcer counterparts and took directions directly from the voices of reason in all-white ECKSO-suits.

The High Clerics had already finished their rousing speeches in the tunnels below the New York origin source, giving the order for radio silence before being cascaded across the vast chasm of light-years to Ophidian, where their greatest mission awaited. They promised an end to Faction oppression. They swore they in The Primacy would annihilate The Faction’s stranglehold on progress. They would do so by relieving The Faction of their greatest weapon.

Easton McKenna longed to be one of those men resplendent in white armor. He wanted to be a beacon for the masses to rally behind. To be the embodiment of bold courage and righteous action, all the things his father was.

He currently fought against a single strand of hair obscuring his vision, irritating the cornea, and making his green eyes water. “Shit.” He said and held his breath while he detached his tac-visor.

The lights and indicators went black, shocking his depth perception as the secondary EMF scrambler deactivated. The beautiful, spectral rainbow disappeared, leaving the land in a hot, red hellscape. Easton closed his searing eyes; his skin burned. They weren’t kidding when they said the temperatures here were uncomfortable. In the shade of the mountain, his visor had read 140 degrees. He quickly dispatched the offending strand of hair, slicking it back into place with the rest, his gloved hand now coated in a light layer of sweat and fear and excitement.

He reattached his visor, the lights and dials slowly resurrecting, red indicators warning Easton of the breach. Then, screaming, a secondary sensor warned of incoming, and a fist connected with the side of his visor, temporarily blinding him.

Aegis was displeased. “Keep your fucking visor on, Tamper.”

“I couldn’t see, sir.” Easton adjusted his helmet. His Primacy code name came through the visor’s built-in speaker system, enhancing the audio profile of all around him, the small coughs, the imperceptible shifts in wind direction, even the sifting of sand over the nearby rocks, descending like granular waterfalls as scouts pursued higher ground.

“Then let this be a lesson to keep your hair in regs, stupid,” Aegis said hotly, “complacency kills.” He gave the hand and arm signal for head and eyes forward–two fingers pointing at his eyes, those same fingers pointing to the horizon–then fit his shoulder mount back into the cradle of his arm.

They were equipped with an arsenal of advanced tech and weaponry; an element small in size and number, but capable of toppling nation-states. Shoulder mounts that tracked biometric pheromone markers, whirring servos in the folds of armor, melding man and machine through haptic inputs, increasing speed and agility. They sported light grenades that leveled homes, war plates–collapsible shield walls for the High Wardens, for when things really went south– and an assortment of knives, hand axes, and truncheons to round out their arsenals when close quarters became necessary.

Easton marvelled at the tech, delicately testing the air of his helmet’s filtration system, letting in microunits of scent, pre-analyzed for his pleasure, ensuring a proper seal. The atmosphere wasn’t poisonous, but a lungful of air left a man feeling two lungfuls short with all this heat.

Underneath the filtered smell of heated circuitry and gun oil, heavy sighs, the shifting of shoulder mounts, and the ginger steps of the front ranks filled out the remaining sensory inputs in his tac-visor. Easton found himself a part of the forward element; he and Aegis partnered as a battle pair, rookie enforcer and veteran high warden–sword and shield. Aegis’ war plate hung half an arm’s length from either side of his back, a shield made from three inches of thick, hot-rolled steel. Copper conduction plates were welded in at the edges that super-heated when activated, slicing through flesh and bone like butter. Easton’s shoulder mount whirred, servos making minute adjustments with each step, accounting for wind, heat, motion, and a myriad of other data points to ensure each shot met with maximum lethality.

Aegis stopped in time with the rest of the front element, mirroring a raised fist to indicate the “all halt”. The coalition of continents stopped as one behind them, raising their arms to relay the information to the farthest rear elements.

“Spotted movement, one o’clock, three hundred meters.” A high cleric’s voice relayed the scout report to the masses, a chorus of murmured “acknowledged” responding across the broad wave channel. Shoulder mounts moved in the indicated direction, whirring as their handlers primed the weapon’s tungsten firing rods; those too far away maintained their sectors of fire. A rumbling, faint beneath their feet, then silence.

The rank and file stood apprehensive, listening…

“Whatever happens,” Aegis stowed his shoulder mount and unclipped the first toggles holding his shield wall in place, “stay beside me, watch your flanks, and don’t shoot me in the ass.”

Then the eruption. Geysers of solid stone cast upward, into the tac-visors of enforcers. Sleek forms of tumultuous, writhing bodies appeared from nowhere beneath them. They were nightmare worms that consumed with insatiable need. Shoulder mounts discharged against the shriek of hundreds of eldritch horrors, enforcers driving round after round of molten hot plasma into the sides and sixteen eyes of the legless monstrosities.

Easton was showered in a drizzle of red mist as the war pair to their left was devoured. The ground gave way, teeth grasped at lower halves, then they were gone; it had happened in seconds. He slipped in the gore and offal around him, crumpling to the ground before the gears and servos could correct his fall. He was coated in another shower of dirt and gristle from a nearby hole, screams filling his comms and dulling his senses. He wiped blood from the tac visor, leaving crimson streaks in finger-width crevices, restoring his vision to the enormous shape of an ophidon; mandibles extended and dripping; a mixture of scarlet life and blue ophidon bitter. The colors marbled on the creature’s exoskeleton, a royal purple against the screams and pleas for salvation from disassembled Primacy soldiers.

 Aegis’ enormous shield, unslung and hungry, was driven into the beast’s hulking form. It severed top from bottom, leaving the ophidon to convulse and die with a mournful, wet howl. The high warden regrouped, helping Easton to his feet, then whirled to block the incoming jaws of a newly erupted ophidon. Its mandibles glanced off Aegis’ shield, severing one against the white-hot conduction plates.

Easton’s filtration unit let in the faint whiffs of seared flesh. It smelled like pork belly, fresh from the skillet, and his mouth watered.  

“Need a hand here, kid,” Aegis said it slightly winded, but unfazed, like he’d just asked Easton to hang a picture instead of putting down an eldritch nightmare.

Easton expended half a rod into the ophidon, going for the weak points at the head and upper half where the vital organs were. The carcass slumped, skin alight with the soft yellow glow of super-heated tungsten.

Aegis nodded in approval. “Nice wor–to your left!”

Easton whirled, leveling his shoulder mount at an inbound ophidon. It was the smallest he’d seen so far, no longer than he was. He dropped it with two well-placed shots in the eyes, the first to breach the soft spots in the skull, then the follow-up shot to scramble the brain like beaten eggs. It ground to a halt at his feet, and he glanced back to Aegis, who swept out in large arcs with his shield, keeping three of the creatures at bay until Easton could expend the rest of his rod into their soft points. His shoulder mount clicked, and an indicator on his tac visor showed ammunition depleted: reload.

He fished for a fresh tungsten rod. His fingers met with the heavy cylinder, and he thumbed back the breach to expel the spent one. He jammed the new rod back into its cargo well before Aegis was devoured. He leveled his weapon, ready to take out the beast creeping on his partner’s blind side, when the ophidons all suddenly froze and looked to the distance. They all let out a singular, overlapping screech that froze the blood of every primacy soldier on the battlefield.

Then, the cry was answered by something deeper…larger. A bellowing, nightmarish roar that Easton felt course through his entire ECKSO-suit.

“We need to go.” Aegis grabbed Easton by the crook of his ECKSO-suit. “Now.”

“What is it?” Easton was dragged toward the crags and nooks of the mountain and saw the breach before he heard it. A small hill in the distance disappeared into the maw of the largest beast he’d ever seen. Skyscrapers could have been dwarfed in its presence. If the beasts they now fought were apex predators, at the top of the food chain, what nightmare creature was this?

“Their queen.” Aegis waded through heaps of parts, both human and ophidon, moving with a grace unexpected for a man his size. “C’mon, kid, before we—”

The top half of an ophidon leapt at Aegis, sinking its barbed teeth and mandibles into the right side of his ECKSO-suit. Aegis screamed, letting go of Easton, then roared. His shield wall streaked through the head of the ophidon, instantly severing the connection between brain and jaws, and the ophidon slumped back dead. Aegis dropped to a knee, his shield wall falling from his grasp, and he unslung the shoulder mount at his back.

“Aegis!” Easton tried to help the large man to his feet, but he could see the sparks and hydraulic fluid leaking green against the red of Aegis’ blood.

Aegis pushed Easton away. “Go on, kid… I’ll just rest here a bit.”

The ophidon queen roared again, and Easton’s comms were going crazy as the shouts and screams of the dying crowded the main channel, asking for assistance…

For medics. For their mothers… For forgiveness…

Easton heard the shouts of High Clerics struggling to be heard through the chaos, coordinating strike forces against the queen, requesting support from Primacy orbitals positioned outside of Ophidian. Unseen forces were ready to drop superheated tungsten rods from the planet’s ionosphere and decimate its surface.

He looked back to their place near the base of the origin source. To his horror, he watched those high clerics running toward the origin source. “Aegis, they’re running! The clerics are running!”

“Figures. Help me up, kid.” Easton put a delicate arm under Aegis’ uninjured side and hauled the big man to an unsteady foot. He collapsed under the sudden weight of Aegis and his damaged ECKSO-suit.

“I got him.”

The voice came from nowhere, and another figure in an ECKSO-suit gingerly scooped Aegis up from his injured side. Aegis groaned against the pain. The stranger just chuckled. “Small price to pay, Aegis, let’s go.”

Easton secured Aegis’ left side, and he and their unknown savior stumbled the rest of the way to the foot of the mountain. Aegis collapsed at the base, unable to carry his own weight any further. The stranger unclipped a wire harness from his shoulder and connected it to Easton’s suit. A red warning indicator popped up in Easton’s tac-visor; the stranger was siphoning some of his suit’s power.

The unknown soldier batted Easton’s hand away. Who was this guy?

“Hey—” Easton started before Aegis held his hand up to stifle the young enforcer’s tirade.

“Shut it, kid. Hammer needs it more than you do right now.” Aegis coughed; it sounded wet.

The stranger bypassed the overrides of Easton’s suit through his own suit’s control bracer, sliding a small green bar until it appeared yellow. “Glad you agree, Aegis. Send an approval message, kid, I need it to pick this big fucker up.”

Easton complied, sliding the dial on his own control bracer until it also lit yellow, feeling his movements grow sluggish as the feedback controls were cannibalized. The stranger–Hammer, Aegis had called him Hammer–leaned down to pick up Aegis. The newcomer was a head taller than Easton, but he questioned how this stranger would be able to pick a man twice his si—

Hammer lifted Aegis into a fireman’s carry, hoisting him over his shoulder with one arm, still holding his shoulder mount up. He hadn’t even huffed against Aegis’ enormous bulk. “Stay on my ass, kid… and shoot anything that isn’t in a suit.”

Easton complied, trudging behind Hammer and pulling security, waiting with bated breath for a sinkhole to open under his feet and feel the crushing weight of barbed teeth against his flesh. ECKSO-suits in shades of dark and light grey–signifying high warden and enforcer, respectively–clambered up the rocky outcroppings, hoping the solid rock would minimize their casualties. As they ascended, this became fact, but the lower echelons were devoured as the ophidon swarm resumed their feast. Small crags were swallowed by the earth, then ophidons swallowed good Primacy men whole, mercilessly, leaving the killing field littered with rubble and refuse and the remains of men Easton had made jokes with only a half hour ago in the tunnels of the origin source. That origin now teemed with the rising number of dead, defending clerics who shoved enforcers back into the melee, scrambling up the ramp to the source’s circular stone edifice.

“Morons.” It was Hammer, pausing to catch his breath. He held Aegis, whose large frame looked close to scraping the ground. Hammer cursed, the queen erupting underneath the feet of the remaining enforcers and wardens at base camp. In an instant, the lights of the origin-source flashed, and the high clerics were whisked back to Earth’s primary origin source. As Wardens disappeared, the queen dove and devoured the hundreds of enforcers and high wardens defending their charges in a single, catastrophic clenching of jaws. They died, their mission accomplished, their wards back safely across the Aether. “They’ll be awarded medals, and those cleric assholes will move further up the ladder.”

Easton assumed Hammer was speaking of the wardens and enforcers. The enforcer shook his head, then nodded it upward, beckoning Easton to continue their trek up the mountainside. Easton obliged, though he had little choice; he was still tethered to Hammer by the siphoning cable. They made it another hundred meters up the slope before Aegis’ hacking wet cough forced Hammer to set him down.

Hammer put his hands on his hips as he caught his breath. “Sun’s setting; temperature should be bearable now.”

Easton’s temp reading confirmed the setting sun had dropped the temperature by a staggering twenty degrees in a matter of minutes. It was still hot, but manageable. He thought of Iraqi summers, on visits to see his father in secret, when the Houthis had rebelled against the Shiites for the hundredth time over the last century. He remembered his father’s orders to turn a whole city into glass. Easton thought back on the pride he’d felt in that moment, watching his father make the hard call, because it had to be done. The stolid resolve on his face, unwavering.

Hammer gingerly felt at the sides of Aegis’ tac-visor, releasing the helmet in a pneumatic hiss of expelling gas, then carefully removed it to expose the Aegis’ cropped red hair and beard. Aegis was in his mid-forties, with a large scar that ran the side of his temple and disappeared underneath the cowl of his ECKSO-suit. Hammer undid his own Tac-visor and Easton did likewise, the three of them breathing in the hot air of Ophidian. He felt a lungful short again, but the bitter breeze blowing from the east cooled his skin by a few degrees, carrying with it the stench of death. The worst he’d smelled up to this point had been some of the impoverished areas of the middle east, where citizens lived by the motto “let the desert have it”, leaving their rubbish to be consumed by the sand and shifting winds of the region.

This was…

“Awful, isn’t it.” It was Hammer again, looking back in the direction of the origin source. His dark hair danced with the wind, and darker eyes surveyed the carnage below.

“Sir?”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me, kid, I actually give a shit about the people I lead.”

Easton bristled; he thought of his father.

“Tamper, meet Hammer.” Aegis nodded his head toward Hammer. “Hammer, this is Easton.”

Hammer held his hand out to the young enforcer. “Nice to meet you Easton, I’m Scott.”

Easton returned the handshake, then noticed that his grip strength had waned; they were still tethered together.

Hammer noticed, apologized, then uncoupled the siphoning cable from Easton, then himself. “That should be better. You ok, kid?”

“Yes sir- I mean yes.”

 “Good. Aegis, how are you holding up?”

Aegis coughed, then spit a hunk of something red to the side. “Finally dying, Hammer… It’s a good day.”

Easton’s shocked expression sent both men laughing, with the remaining soldiers on the mountainside turning their tac visors away from the truth below, toward the sounds of unreality; who could laugh at a time like this?

Aegis smiled. “How are Trevor and Rake?”

“Same as always; a pain in my ass. Trevor at least.”

“And Rake?”

Hammer looked away. “Haven’t seen him much since Dhelilah and I got together.”

Easton could only describe the next moments of silence as awkward. He let it lapse a little longer before cutting in. “What do we do now?”

Hammer set himself down beside Aegis, taking a pull from the water valve attached to his ECKSO-suit. “We wait to die.”

He’d said it so casually that Easton had taken it as a joke and laughed. The looks of resignation on Hammer and Aegis’ faces told Easton he’d misread the statement, and he stifled his laughter.

“That origin source was only set to go off twice.” Aegis held up two fingers. Easton saw them as two fuzzy pillars; he couldn’t take his eyes off the blood smeared on Aegis’ chin. He’d heard stories that the man had survived Faction interrogation twice…twice. Now, the stark outline of crimson against white made Easton question the large man’s remaining durability. “The first time was when we came through—”

“And the Second, when those cowards left the rest of us to die.” Hammer’s statement was vile.

Easton couldn’t bear it. White ECKSO-suits, pushing fearful men back, ordering their deaths to survive for a few more moments, just a little longer to make it through the origin… “They had to!” He screamed. “They’re all that stands between us and the Aether!”

Hammer chuckled and looked down. Aegis just closed his eyes and rested his head against the rock he leaned against. “Kid, I’ve met my fair share of High Clerics; most aren’t worth the paper their promotion orders are written on. Hell, I don’t even like my cleric most days.”

Easton thought of his own high cleric, who more than likely had made it back with the others. He couldn’t believe it. “They had to.” He felt his legs giving way beneath him, lightheaded, thinking back to those days beside his father, who pushed him to stay a grunt, where the glory was.

“Afraid not, champ. They were afraid, and they left us to die.”

Easton was sick. He emptied the contents of his stomach on the ground beside him.

“Cheer up, Easton.” Aegis smiled. “It’ll be the greatest fireworks show you’ve ever seen.” It was the first time Aegis had called him anything other than “kid” or his code name. The warden cocked his head and looked to Scott. “Hammer, did you know that Easton’s father is a High Cleric?”

It was Hammer’s turn to bristle. “Is that right?”

“Yep, Obidiah Mckenna.”

Hammer turned, amazed. “Really?”

“Yep, Obie got someone to sleep with him, and the kid here is proof.”

They howled. Easton blushed.

Hammer shook his head in wonder. “Obie… does he still use that old mahogany cane?”

Easton smiled. “The one with the compass at the end of it?”

“Holy shit, that’s the one!”

“Yes sir- I mean, yeah. He still has it.”

“Ask him about Anvil the next time you see him; he’s the reason he has to walk with it now.”

Easton’s father had said some idiot had fumbled a light grenade; Easton now had a name to go with said idiot.

Hammer smiled, shook his head, and sighed. “Compass had a kid… wild”

Aegis chuckled. “We’re getting old, Hammer.”

“Says you, Aegis, I’m still in my prime.”

Aegis laughed, and they felt the winds shift. Below, the writhing mass of ophidon’s waited in anticipation for their prey- they knew how a siege worked. They knew empty bellies would send meals down in waves, hoping to bypass their ranks for respite, and leaving only bits and pieces remaining in the waiting maws of apex predators.

“Alright Easton, what are your orders?”

Easton looked up sharply at Scott, wide-eyed. Had he just been asked to come up with a plan? “Me? Why me?”

Hammer tapped delicately at Aegis’ body armor. “Big man here has maybe ten minutes left, max.” Aegis nodded, accepting the timeline. Hammer continued. “And I’m a soldier: I do. I’m a doer.” He pointed at Easton. “You… are a dreamer-or your father was, at least. He wasn’t the greatest, but he was better than most. I was there with him in Mosul. He gave an awful order, but it saved my life… saved the lives of hundreds.”

Hammer stood, placing a hand on Easton’s shoulders. “You have his same look, and I trust it. Orders, sir?”

Easton looked around, hoping for a speck of white against the dark and light greys around him. He hoped for a modicum of common sense in a crowd of psychopaths.

“You can do it, son.” It was Aegis, holding his side and spitting out a mouthful of blood. He winced against the pain, and his eyes took on a distant look. “Make me proud…”

He sighed heavily, and he didn’t breathe again.

“Aegis?.. Aegis!” Easton rushed forward, feeling at the big man’s neck, looking for vitals, to—

“He’s gone, Easton. Let him rest.” Hammer’s hand was on Easton’s shoulder again, this time in solidarity. He hadn’t even had time to say goodbye, to say thank you for everything, for being a second father when his own couldn’t be.

So, this was war.

Easton’s vision blurred behind hot tears, behind the anger he finally felt for white armor, behind the weight of responsibility.

It looks for us, Easton, always…

His father’s words.

One day it finds us, and we’re never able to function the same again.

He thought back to another mantra… older than even that one, and whispered it aloud. “To fight well…”

Hammer spun, shocked, to Easton. “Where did you hear that?”

Easton blushed, suddenly feeling awkward. “It’s something my father used to say.”

Hammer nodded. “He was a good man… Did he tell you the rest of the quote?”

Easton shook his head. Hammer smirked. “To fight well, a thankless necessity.”

It resonated, such a profound statement. Hammer… Scott… searched Easton’s eyes, looking for the man underneath the façade of fear, hoping to see the spark of something. 

Looking for leadership. “Orders, sir?”

To fight well…

He could do it… Easton could do it. “Ok, let me think for a second…” He ran numbers, calculating distance and direction to the origin source, ballparked their own numbers from a brief glance at the soldiers around him, then queued his comms. “All stations this net… All stations this net, standby to receive orders.”

A smattering of curious voices answered, requesting authorization codes and protesting the orders of clerics.

Scott queued his comms. “Agent Hammer of the Detroit Origin Source, standing by for orders.”

The questions and protests ceased instantly; Easton was impressed. Scott nodded in his direction, silently encouraging him to plan. So, Easton planned. He swept about the battlefield, looking at the pockets of Primacy corpses–those not sniffed out by hungry ophidons–still dressed to the nines, with their shoulder mounts and ECKSO-suits and—

“Light grenades,” Easton whispered.

“What’s that, kid?”

Easton felt the plan forming. “Light grenades!” He queued his comms. “I need all surviving Primacy members to converge on sector one-alpha to coordinates 88644156, bring all remaining weaponry at your disposal.”

He looked to Hammer. “And I’m going to need an ECKSO-suit.”

PART TWO: EGRESS

Fifteen minutes later, Hammer and Easton were paying their final respects to Aegis, collecting the man’s dog tags and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Not sure the boatman can get him from here, but…” Hammer fished two pennies from a tac-pouch at his side and placed them reverently over Aegis’s eyes. “To fight well, Aegis.” He kissed Aegis’s forehead–a high honor to a noble name–and it felt right, so Easton did likewise, and Hammer nodded with approval. “Alright kid, show me what you got.”

Easton returned his nod, then faced his remaining army. One thousand men, all prepared to die in a shower of fire and fury, waited for his command. He was nervous; most of these men outranked him in time and experience…

It comes for us, Easton, always…

“Everyone knows their marks?” A sea of nods at his comms. “We move as a unit! Stay together! And we’ll pull through this!”

His army took up battle cries, understanding awash in their screams; it was the knowledge of a glorious death, and meeting the reaper with fire in their throats.

“To fight well.” It was Hammer, casting the comms out to the masses, and receiving the completion of the mantra, a thankless necessity from dozens in the crowd. Who was this man?

Easton raised a singular fist into the air and quickly dropped it, sending his Soldiers scrambling into motion.

Hammer held up a light grenade, pressing the blue button at its center to activate it, then pressing it again to arm it. He quickly stuffed the light grenade into the bloodied ECKSO-suit they’d peeled from another wounded soldier. He was a high warden by the name of Targe, and said he’d rather die in his birthday suit than that uncomfortable hunk of shit. That same man now stood, bloody and naked, with a daisy chain of light grenades strapped to his body. His pale skin and drooping eyelids said he was close to the end, so they all cheered him as he lit his own light grenades, then hurled himself from the ledge and into the gaping jaws below.

Hammer cast the ECKSO-suit down alongside Targe. It was filled to the brim with as many light grenades as they could stuff in it.

The ophidons squealed at fresh meat, rending Targe’s flesh from bone with zeal. Then, the light grenades erupted, sending showers of molten rock, ECKSO-suit, and pieces of a hero into the seared eyes and hysterical shrieks of monsters. The blast was intense, and Easton’s tac-visor showed a sudden spike in the ambient temperature around them. If one light grenade could level a home, three hundred light grenades detonated simultaneously would be enough to decimate a large portion of the ophidon swarm.

And It was. The remaining ophidons moved lethargically in the stuttered rhythm of the disoriented.

Easton knew it was time. “First wave!” His orders were barely heard over the chaotic, frenzied war cries of his men, and the follow-up wave had to be held back, lest they spoil the plan.

The first wave had refused to stay behind, deemed the worst of the casualties, and now hobbled and limped their way toward the base of the mountain. They knew their fate, as Easton had, and each had willfully volunteered to give the rest a fighting edge. They now swept the ground in front of them, those heroes, taking as many of the drones and pups as they could while being devoured. Easton had collected their dog tags and placed them securely in the middle of their ranks. He knew their end at the detonation of another light grenade, an eruption of blue flame, then nothing.

These men would be remembered here. “Second Wave!”

The remaining elements rushed down the mountainside, breaking through the scattered ophidons, saving who they could, falling where they fought, using tooth and claw to survive this ordeal. Easton rushed beside them, driving round after round into the eyes and sides of ophidon exoskeleton. He raged against their screams, longing to get in close…

“Sir!” It was Hammer, pulling at his arm. “You’re here to lead, goddammit, now lead!”

Easton shook his head, realizing he’d resorted to old habits…

No longer. “All remaining elements, break contact and peel back to the origin source!”

Acks rained in on the broadwave, dark and light grey ECKSO-suits racing to the origin. A deep rumbling let him know they were short on time, and he triggered his comms. “Pearly Gates, this is code-name Tamper from the Atlanta origin source, requesting a payload at the previously identified coordinates.”

“Affirmative, Tamper, once again requesting confirmation code before I can deliver payload.”

This fucking guy… who sounded like that?

“And I told you,” Easton shouted into his comms. “No one is left alive with that level of clearance. So you either drop that fucking rod where I tell you to, or it’s our blood on your hands!”

“Fuck yeah, kid, tell him what’s up.” Hammer held the trigger down on his shoulder mount, dumping a whole rod into a larger-than-normal ophidon.

There was the slightest pause, then static on the comms. “Roger, Tamper, we’re green light, you have three minutes to vacate the area before we turn that whole planet to ash.”

Three minutes.

They rushed the ramp, fending off the remaining swarm, when another city-sized hole erupted at the mountain. The queen had felt the sacrificial blast that started this light show and now came to protect her children.

The ruse had worked, and now Easton had to complete the final piece to his plan. “Codes!” His command was met with a sheaf of paper forced into his hands, and he rapidly punched the code and sequence into the terminal to activate the origin.

Nothing.

He did it again.

Still nothing.

“Shit!”

“What is it, kid?”

“The code isn’t working!”

Hammer’s laugh cut through Easton’s tac-visor and the chaos of the moment. “Figures.”

“I’m sorry.” Easton hung his head; he was so sure this would work. It had all been pointless… all of it.

“Hey,” Hammer said again, placing his hand on Easton’s shoulder. Like Aegis used to. “You did good, kid, you gave us a fighting chance, and that’s better than any of those shithead clerics could do; did do.”

Hammer removed his hand from Easton’s shoulder and unhooked his shoulder mount from its clip, letting it fall to the ground in a clatter. The battle raged on around them, men taking up the charge, leading in the face of death, becoming who they were born to be. Hammer withdrew a small flask from one of his tac-pouches and removed his helmet.

He took a long draw and offered it to Easton. “To fight well, Easton.”

Easton felt the pneumatic hiss of depressurization, then removed his own helmet. He grabbed the proffered flask and drank deep. It was heaven.

Hammer chuckled at Easton’s look of ecstasy. “Best Twinrye this side of the aether.”

Easton agreed. He’d never been much of a drinker, but the few swallows of this were the best he’d ever had.

“He’d be proud of you… You know that, right?” Hammer watched the chaos around them. While they had chosen their end, others had chosen to keep fighting to their last.

“Who?” Easton asked. “My father?”

“No… Aegis.”

Easton thought back to Aegis, a man larger than life, always there, watching his back. He couldn’t take his eyes from the carnage. Soldiers in ECKSO-suits crawled on the backs of ophidons, stabbing and slicing when ammunition depleted. They threw themselves into the fray, hoping to save the lives of their brothers in arms, uncaring as they were torn apart, tens and hundreds of thousands of light-years from their homes. They fought, and they died, so others could live.

“I get it now,” Easton said as he watched a man pulled between two of the beasts, then popped apart like a wishbone. He refused to look away.

“What’s that kid?”

“Your mantra.”

Hammer handed the flask back to Easton. “Oh yeah?”

“No one will know about this; the death, the pain… none of it.”

Hammer nodded. “Such a thankless necessity…”

Easton took another pull from the flask and shook his head. “A thankless necessity.”

They kept watching, observing. If these men were to die here, then the two of them would witness all of it. Every. Last. Death. Held with love at their noble sacrifice.

The queen had seen their last stand; she now moved lethargically toward the origin… her children would eat well this day.

 A sudden kaleidoscope of lights whirled behind them as the origin source sprang to life, the ancient mechanics grinding and squelching against themselves as the cranking process began.

Beyond the thrill of the impossible, Easton knew, it was now or never. “All remaining units, converge on the origin! We’re getting the fuck out of here, now!”

Soldiers fell back in droves, clambering over the slick dead, and entrails of ophidons. Only a handful of the original thousand remained, and they looked strung out; ECKSO-suits torn away in places, exposing the gristle and bone of lost appendages, tourniqueted and dripping.

Heaving chests, gulping at lungfuls of air, sobbing against their losses, some screaming and tearing at their tac-visors, minds broken from what they’d witnessed here. The queen roared, and streaks of yellow light appeared from the heavens above. The Pearly Gates had finally dropped their payload.

Easton felt the origin pull at his insides, like the tide being ripped away from the shore, then he was back at origin one, underground, on Earth once again.

And he wept.

For salvation, for relief…

For his men.

Each of the remaining Primacy Soldiers celebrated life in their own way. Some prayed. Some called their families, and others just sat silently in the corridors, watching the others cope with their survival. He’d done it… He’d kept them alive! He—

“Who’s in charge here?” It was a cleric, in their pristine ECKSO-suit, a look of indignant disbelief awash on their face.

Easton raged. “You motherfuckers!”

The last was said midway through a wild haymaker, Easton connecting with the cleric’s temple, crumpling the wad of cookie dough in a heap of snoring disappointment.

Hammer laughed and clapped at the show. “Very nice! Do it again!”

“Easton!”

Easton recognized that voice. He turned to face it. Blue eyes set in the stoic, stony face of a grizzled soldier. He leaned on his cane, brow furrowed.

Easton nodded to Obidiah McKenna–his father. “Sir.”

“You just assaulted a high cleric, son.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why.”

“Because these motherfuckers,” Easton seethed, pointing at the lump of jellyfish crumpled at his feet, “couldn’t make the hard call when the time came. Instead, they left my men and me out there, to die, all so they could what? Stay alive for a little while longer?”

Easton turned to face the remaining clerics still in attendance. “You stand there, in your suits of purity, and you ran like whipped dogs?”

Easton held his arm out to the side, and a soldier bearing the greatest burden of them all handed the satchel over. “Look at what you left behind, you fucking cowards!” Easton opened the bag, slinging the contents in the direction of those men, some sporting not a single scratch on their polished armor. He witnessed their humiliation, their shame, as they looked down on thousands upon thousands of dog tags, pulled from the grime and muck as they passed, intent to pay homage to as many as possible… to honor such a noble sacrifice.

“That’s enough!” His father’s face deepened to an angry red, his blue eyes standing out stark against the crimson patina of his skin.

He moved to shout, raising his cane in protest, when Hammer stepped in between father and son. “Sir, permission to speak freely.” He had gone to parade rest, a show of respect to Obidiah, and waited for Easton’s father to regain his composure.

Finally, Obidiah nodded. “Speak.”

Hammer turned to the side so he could see both Easton and Obidiah. “Sir, your son took the remnants of a strike force, broken, stranded, and isolated, and got us back here… Your son, Obie. He’s a goddamn war hero, and he led men twice his age like he’d done it his whole goddamn life. You should be damn proud of this boy, sir… I wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.”

“Hammer?”

A new voice- one Easton didn’t recognize. It was a mousy young man, balding, with a contagious smile on his face.

“Rake!” Hammer broke decorum and raced to the stranger, embracing him, the hard exterior dissolving at the appearance of this person.

Easton watched Scott finally break. He was no longer Hammer. He was just a man once again. The man with Hammer held him close; a fellow soldier weathering the sobs of a friend who had seen too much.

“Who is that?” Easton tried to keep the indignation from his voice.

His father chuckled. “That, son, is Rake: Hammer’s orator.”

An orator? What kind of bookworm could have that effect on a war hero?

“And who is Hammer, sir?”

Another light chuckle. “I’ve been asking myself that same question for years, my boy… Wait until you meet his partner…” Compass looked around at the survivors, searching for something. “Speaking of partners, where’s Aegis? I’d like to speak with him about your little tirade back there…”

Obidiah’s face said he knew the high warden’s fate before Easton pulled Aegis’ dog tags from his tac-pouch.

“He died protecting me.” Easton said, unable to look his father in the eye.

Obidiah chuckled. “He died bullshitting with Hammer, most likely. But at least he died beside a brother in arms, and a boy I knew he looked at with the fondness of an uncle…” Obidiah placed a gentle hand on his son’s shoulder and smiled. “Or a father… I am so proud of you today, my boy.”

Easton nodded, uncaring. It was a thankless necessity, after all… but something was bothering him. “Sir, who opened the origin? Was it you?”

Obidiah huffed and looked around to make sure Easton hadn’t been overheard. “Christ no, son, are you insane? That call wasn’t made at our level.”

“But…” Easton thought of the voice of Pearly Gates and how odd it had sounded.

Gravelly, almost like vocal cords unused to the language.

“Sir,” Easton started hesitantly, “when will our ships return from Ophidian?”

Obidiah looked confused, but a small smile turned up at the corners of his mouth. “What ships?”

Easton ran his fingers through his hair in disbelief, then thought he’d get a haircut tomorrow. His father’s mischievous smirk turned into a full grin. More questions, with fewer answers. He looked once more to Hammer and silently thanked him.

For everything.

Easton chuckled and nudged his father. “Hammer wanted me to ask about Anvil…”

His father hissed and waved his son away, the pair walking out to Obidiah’s rant on drunken fools playing with interstellar weaponry. The Soldier who’d carried the dog tags of thousands started scooping them back into the bag, doing his best to wipe the gore from their metallic surface, until others joined him, and they paid one final honor to the fallen dead.

End