Chapter 560: 4th & 10 (1/2)

”I once led a force of 100 Lanaktallan on a mission with no hope. I survived, but out of all 100, only 1 survived. We knew it going in. We were despondent. Beaten before the first gunshot.

”I was tasked to lead a force of 100 Terrans on a mission with no hope. I told them 'men, this mission will be tough, only one or two of us will survive' and they all just nodded. Some smiled. There was joking and laughter enroute to the mission. Less then a dozen were killed.

”I asked my Terran liaison how such a thing was possible. He told me that my original men had all gone in thinking 'we're all going to die', while the Terrans had looked around themselves and thought: 'sucks to be them.'” - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff

General NoDra'ak leaned against the counter and lit a cigarette, watching everyone mill around. The conversations were all buzzing about what they had seen so far. The idea of anyone beyond humans being part of the SUDS was incomprehensible.

How? How did they do it? Why don't we know how they did it? What don't we know? Has the ”Builder's” fear come to pass?

NoDra'ak lit a cigarette, taking a deep drag. His headache had eased up, allowing him to focus better. He looked around at all of the gathered officers whose offices had something to do with the entire thing and sighed.

A Terran manages to claw his way out of the SUDS and that's all they see, he thought to himself. What they are missing is that the human managed to claw his way back from death*.*

He saw a Confederate Intelligence Services Agent by the wall and moved over by her. She turned her head and looked at him, or at least he assumed so since her eyes were covered with mirrorshades, then went back to scanning the crowd.

”You and all of your fellow Agents look the same,” NoDra'ak said.

”Yes,” her voice was flat, no inflection, no accent, perfect pronunciation.

”Why?” NoDra'ak asked.

The Terran turned and looked at him. ”What?”

”Why do you look the same? Are you vat grown?” NoDra'ak asked.

She nodded slowly. ”We are.”

”Who is the genesis seed? Or was it a shake and bake?” NoDra'ak asked.

The Confederate Agent stared up at NoDra'ak for a long moment.

”We do not know,” she simply said. ”We are our Father's daughters. No more. No less. Guardians of the Citizens of the Confederacy and every government before that.”

”So, the Guardians of Humanity?” NoDra'ak asked.

She shook her head slowly. ”No.”

”Everyone?”

”Yes.”

NoDra'ak thought for a moment. ”And if the government of the Confederacy were to turn against its citizens?”

”We are the instruments of the citizenry's ill will,” she simply stated. ”The citizenry's displeasure would be made apparent to those who had corrupted and subverted the will of the people.”

NoDra'ak nodded. ”That leads me to suspect your hand behind the curtain in regards to events during things in the past.”

”Your suspicions are your own,” The Agent shrugged. ”All enemies. Foreign and Domestic. All of them.”

NoDra'ak could feel the antiquity on that statement. A cold chill breeze that seemed to waft through the lounge.

”How long have you been at your posts?” NoDra'ak asked.

”Since our Father was created by the Imperium. One of the Biological Apostles, twisted and warped by the Imperium and Combine to fight on the battlefield rather than succor all sentient life,” she said. She looked around the room then back up at NoDra'ak. ”We live. We die. We live again. Killing us merely attracts the attention of our sisters and our Father.”

”Do you believe Staff Sergeant Nimbly?” NoDra'ak asked.

She was silent for a long moment, going back to stare at the room full of officers.

”He has been beyond the veil in more than one way. He has gazed upon the Lord of Hell, traveled from the afterlife to return to us,” she said softly. ”But I do not think this is an accident. There are things in motion. Great ancient engines, decayed and in ill repair, are shuddering and groaning as they begin to move again, bringing to life timeless ruins and fallen works.”

NoDra'ak stood silent. He had heard more speech in the last ten minutes from the Agent than he had heard in his previous centuries of life.

”They fear 'The Builder's Hypothesis' is coming to pass,” she said softly. She looked back up at NoDra'ak.

”It came to pass upon the Glassing,” she said.

With that, she turned and moved away, deftly slipping through the crowd without making a ripple.

NoDra'ak put out his cigarette just as the chime sounded summoning everyone back to the lecture.

He moved in and took his seat, tapping his datapad to bring it out of sleep mode. He checked his medication levels real quick, made sure the anti-endorphin levels were stable, and waited. The lights dimmed and Exquisite took the stage again.

Frozen in the middle of the screen, when it came out of sleep mode, was an image of a thick bodied woman in an archaic black suit with a single enameled pin on one breast. She looked, to NoDra'ak, like the mother of the Agents. The colors were slightly off, the streaky and lined color smearing of a neural scan image rather than a CGI vid or reality image.

NoDra'ak remembered from a class long ago when he was a Major about how implanted memories are almost crystal clear. The sharp edges of the implanted memory is what kept bringing the human mind back to the memory over and over as their mind tried to soften it.

The fact that image was blurred, color streaked, and distorted was proof it was a real memory, not an implant.

”This is Subject Alpha,” Exquisite said. ”While it may seem as if this is just a construct to move Staff Sergeant Nimbly through the SUDS system architecture, it appears as if it is far more,” she clicked the control and the image cleared, to return to Nimbly sitting in front of the table. This one was unmarred, no writing on it, and a steristrip bandage was on the end of his index finger. The two Mantid investigators were on one side of the table. The collar around his neck was heavier, but still sparking, and the grav-restraints on his wrists were heavier. The two Tukna'rn were in opposite corners, giving them clear fields of fire.

”What happened after you got out of the crater?” Peeks asked.

Nimbly looked down. ”I did not exactly cover myself in glory here,” he said, his voice thick with self-loathing. ”All I could do was scream. Tear at myself. Run. I ran across those plains, attacking anyone I could find, being attacked by anyone who found me.”

He looked up and his eyes glittered with madness for a moment. ”That's all we did. Run and scream and fight,” he looked back down. ”Months, years, maybe centuries went by as I just stalked those blasted plains.”

”I kept reliving that last fight. Over and over. Trying to do different things. Trying to figure out a way I could have done better,” he said, still looking down. ”Then, the memory would fade, and I'd scream and scream and scream. I'd run, I'd climb cliffs, I'd hurl myself into huge columns of fire that erupted from the ground, the fire made of screaming souls. I would be in the fire, screaming, raving, while I burned, until I reached the top of the column and I'd be ejected to land back on the ground.”

There was silence for a long moment.

”Finally, I was reliving the battle again. Screaming, raving, when I realized something. A fundamental truth that I was fighting hard to deny,” he said, his voice almost inaudible.

NoDra'ak noticed that the tendrils of phasic energy were dancing across the Terran's fingers.

”What truth is that?” Peeks asked.

”That nothing I could have done could have changed the outcome. It had happened. There was no changing it. No going back. That all my hindsight, all my post-battle analysis, didn't matter,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. ”That what I did was not glorious, I wasn't a hero, I lost children and I lost my men, men who relied on me, I did only what I could do, what I thought was best at the time.”

There was silent and NoDra'ak and the officers who had been on the sharp end of the stick more than a few times all shifted uncomfortably.

”I had to accept it. I didn't win, but I didn't lose. I died. My best may not have been good enough for some of those children and some of my men, but it was my best. I gave it my best,” Nimbly said. He suddenly looked up, his eyes burning red.

”Fight, fight, as hard as you can, you can't kill me, I'm the Ordnance Man,” he smiled.

Part of NoDra'ak knew he could tell those in the audience around him who had ridden the Hasslehoff from those who hadn't by those who drew back from that terrible smile and those who merely nodded gravely.

Nimbly looked down, mumbling the rhyme to himself several times.

”What happened after that?” Watcher asked.

”I wandered across plains of hardened lava, crossed rivers of burning sulphur and brimstone. The other ones, the ones screaming, they ignored me,” Nimbly said. ”I started finding others, who, like me, were silent.”

He tapped his fingers slowly on the tabletop.

”We wandered, together, in little clumps. Moving slowly, looking down,” he shuddered. ”The sky. The sky was full of falling stars, only, you know, they weren't stars, they were souls as tormented as I had been,” he said.

He scraped one finger across the tabletop, curling up plasteel with his fingernail. NoDra'ak flinched at the scraping squeal, but watched.

Nimbly drew concentric rings.

”We all wandered in the same direction. Sometimes crying, sometimes wailing, but after a little while, I don't know, a couple thousand years, I lifted my head up and looked,” Nimbly said. ”Ahead of me was mist, all around me was mist. I kept moving forward, not following the group when they began shuffling in the wrong direction.”

”How did you know it was the right direction?” Watcher asked.

”There was a light in the distance, through the mist and fog,” Nimbly said. ”It was her. Humanity's Wrath Made Manifest, the Mad Daughter of Prometheus.”

NoDra'ak again felt that shiver as he looked at one of the Confederate Intelligence Agents.

”What is her name?” Peeks asked.

Nimbly looked up. ”I'm not ready to say that yet,” he looked down at the table. ”You should not want to hear such things.”

There was silence for a moment.

Nimbly looked up. ”I could spend a lifetime describing what I found as I moved forward. From a great serpent that chastises you for your lusts to everything else,” he shuddered. ”I know what you're thinking. It was just Dante's Inferno,” he looked up. ”But it was so much more.”