Vol 3 Chapter 1.1 (1/2)

[Dawnbringer v3] 01. An Ominous Feeling from the First Move - Part 1

We're not dead. We were just slightly less alive than before. Now we're slightly more alive than we were less than alive. Yay!

Translator: Narane

Editors: MadTix

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Within the perfectly polyhedral room was nothing but a single monitor. It was like looking into a section of a mental hospital, or a movie’s special effects background done in the Seventies of Earth. If anyone viewed the room from the outside, they’d see how drab the room looked before all else. Was this room intended for torturing people? I had found many issues, but my biggest problem was being the one in it.

“What have you learned while in contact with the Asa? Private Lezirth Dawnbringer?”

An unpleasant voice made an accusation. The light from the monitor had provided a lighting for the Hispanic-like soldier’s face. Perhaps because I’m too used to the standard light from the ceiling, I found the shadows uncanny when the lighting came from below him. I absently looked him in his face and repeated the same words as before. It was the twentieth time. I was like a hamster running on a wheel.

That’s right. I was being interrogated.

It was a few weeks ago in Earth time, I had been on a return trip from destroying the threat against humanity, the Letix Uberlords. My rank at the time was Vice Admiral of the First s.p.a.ce Marines, and my t.i.tle was Lezirth Dawnbringer, Commander of the Dawn Corps.

It’s embarra.s.sing to mention it myself, but I was a war hero. Despite having the ma.s.sive social disadvantage of being a Replicant, a humanoid of non-natural origins, I was constantly given attention by politicians and paparazzi were stuck to me at all times. That was understandable, however-- after many battles with the hyperdimensional beings known as the Letix, the Federation had only the Dawn Corps remaining as its last standing army, and the defeat of the Dawn Corps meant the end of humanity.

And one day, the alien threat had gone.

Even in the s.p.a.ce Age, the nature of humans hadn’t changed. Humanity immediately went on to act upon the old proverb, to “eat the hunting dog after the hunt is over.” And unfortunately, I had never expected them to act so quickly.

Before some may say that I was an idiot for not seeing it sooner, my excuse was that the Letix threat had not yet been completely eradicated at the time, despite their Uberlord having been destroyed. So, the battle with the Letix was sure to continue, while the Federation army was sharply decreasing in size until there wasn’t much military power to speak of.

How was I supposed to know that I was getting removed before the war was actually over?

And so, I was forced into a cryogenic stasis for one hundred and twenty years, exiled from the world that I once knew.

I was filled with grief at the unfairness every time I remembered the moment-- but rather, should I be thankful that I wasn’t killed off? A political purge usually entailed an a.s.sa.s.sination, or an exile into the vacuum of s.p.a.ce and then being marked off as MIA. Yet, I had received only the cryogenic treatment.

I felt downtrodden for I had found myself saying “it could’ve been worse”, after having been at the rough end of the situation. I was like a slave who had gotten too used to getting whipped. ...Well, there was probably some complicated story that led up to the decision.

After the unwanted years of cryogenic freezing, I had become Private Lezirth Dawnbringer. Once Vice Admiral, and then a Private? Has there ever been anything else more worthy of the word ‘downfall’?

It had been five weeks since my new life as a Private. A lot of things happened in those five weeks. Within four weeks of becoming a Private, I was stranded on a hostile planet in the Azoran System, and awaiting me in the compensatory vacation was an attack by an Asa group.

In the process, Asa princess Riznah Eres.h.i.+kigal kidnapped Sergeant Aroha Pereira, and publically broadcasted to the entire planet their attempt at convincing her to defect. Much of the broadcast was denied by Admiral Luise, but the denial was limited to digital communication.

The live broadcast was not stopped. The population that had witnessed the broadcast must have been in the millions. Even though Admiral Luise had amazing psionic powers, altering the minds of millions was an impossibility.

Naturally, as an active duty soldier, I stood out as someone who had a dangerously close contact with the enemy. Although the contact was clearly due to an attack by the opposing party, there was nothing strange about the military security agency wanting to investigate an individual’s contact with the enemy.

“And how did you end up in that situation, Private?”

Which was why I was stuck in a room that looked like it belonged in a mental hospital, being interrogated by a hardened Gunnery Sergeant who I thought would start torturing me any moment.

After being asked the same question over and over again, a normal person would be scared into changing his words. The tone may change, or different words are used, to describe what the interrogatee thinks is the same answer as before. Then the interrogator interprets the change in tone in whichever way they’d like in order to corner the interrogatee into an answer that they want.

Knowing that, I couldn’t fall for the trick. I was in there for eight hours by then, repeating the exact same answers like playing back a recorded line. When the interrogator changed his words ever so slightly, I remarked on the differences for clarification and then repeated the same answers. Repet.i.tion was met by repet.i.tion, and change was met with change, and so the interrogator let me leave after concluding that there was nothing to gain from me.

Heh. It was totally worth going through interrogation resistance courses during my cadet training. I was proud of myself for remembering a training from hundreds of years ago and successfully using it to defend myself in an interrogation.

But I also had a slight worry.

‘Myself aside, how are Admiral Luise and Sergeant Aroha doing? There’s a possibility that they couldn’t withstand such a harsh interrogation...’

My worries grew worse as I thought that. Were they really safe? They might be thrown into the brig or worse, a military prison. I had to meet up with them to confirm for myself.

The common room was crowded with people.

The members of the newly formed Thirteenth Special Forces Brigade needed to learn about their new workplace and their new brothers in arms. While the same could be said for any other jobs, the soldiers’ lives were on the line when choosing partners. The length of their lives depended on how much they learned who to befriend and from whom to stay away. So, the soldiers couldn’t be blamed for turning the common room into a noisy mess.

Even in the midst of chaos, there was a central point where the attention drew close.

‘There she is.’

I had a gut feeling that the attention was directed towards my colleagues. For better or worse, they were always the center of attention. They were a step above a bad circus troupe, and... they’d get pretty mad if they knew that I called them that.

“Over here!”

A girl with blue eyes and silver hair waved her officer hat upon discovering me. The Ensign insignia on her hat flashed brightly against the artificial lighting. Yet, her silver hair was s.h.i.+ning more brightly than the metal insignia.

Her sharp-featured face, her blue eyes, and her glamorous body were radiating beauty that was hardly covered up by the standardized uniform. But the bigger attractions were the wings on her back. Those wings, producing a silvery glow, were the features of those who had the Elcro blood. They indicated that she was at least partially an Elcro.

She was currently my upper ranking officer, Ensign Liu Meihowa.

“Took you long. Are you alright, Lezirth?”

Sitting beside the Ensign was another girl, with short, hazel hair, giving me worried looks. Admiral Luise Maynard, the ex-Federation Chief of Staff. She was forced into hibernation for a hundred and twenty years with me. The fact that such a pet.i.te girl was a four-star general that oversaw all the military operations of the Federation should have been a surprise, even to those who served in the olden days alongside her.

“Did you get tortured, or something? What took you so long?”

On the opposite side of Admiral Luise was a red-headed lady, throwing a glance at me while resting her back against a bench. As she was almost in a laying down position, she looked like she was almost showing off her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as they formed hills on her chest. Some men near her were blatantly staring at them, and really, I couldn’t pay attention to anywhere else either. She was also a higher ranking officer-- Sergeant Aroha Pereira. She was half-human and half-Asa, the latter race being one of the partners to the enemy of humanity, the Alliance. She was having an energy drink with a tired look.

‘It’s fine. Humans are mammals, so there’s no helping it.’ I made an excuse for myself and forced a smile.

“It looks like everyone finished early.”

“Yep. We took about an hour.”

“....Huh?”

They took an hour, while some poor sap took eight? What’s happening? Was the Federation suspecting something against me? But the one who was kidnapped in the Critik incident wasn’t me, but Sergeant Aroha! There was no sense in Sergeant Aroha being interrogated less than I.

...Did they finally realize that I’m the real Lezirth Dawnbringer?

No, if that were the case, the security agency wouldn’t have sent a lowly officer. Although the interrogator from before was trained very well, if they really suspected me, they would have sent a telepathy specialist instead.

Then, why? Why did they discriminate me in particular?

While I had those thoughts, Admiral Luise whispered. “Uh, Lezirth... did you try to resist them?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I mean, well, that counter-interrogation training that you received in the military academy-- you didn’t follow that, did you?”

“I-I did. What’s wrong?”

“...”

“...I see.”

Sergeant Aroha gave a disappointed look. Ensign Meihowa sighed, burying her face into her officer cap.

They all looked at me like I was an idiot.

Wait, what did I do wrong?”

“Lezirth, put yourself in their shoes. Would you, or would you not think that it’s strange that a fledgling private has an officer level counter interrogation training?”

I felt my face grow hot when Sergeant Aroha finished.

Ah, d.a.m.n, that was the reason. E-embarra.s.sing. How did I not think of that?

“S-so... let’s have a talk. What’s the situation now?” I sat on a chair and looked around, attempting to change the topic.

Admiral Luise gave a sorry look while Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha continued their ridiculing stare. Moving on, why is there an empty seat?

“Ah... I... the cheeseburgers were all gone, so I bought teriyaki burgers instead. I-is that fine?”

There was a voice behind my back. Behind me was a beautiful blonde lady... I mean, a boy who waddled towards the group with arms full of bread and drinks. He was recognizable as a man by wearing the male uniform, but if he were in his normal clothes, he would not have been seen as one. No, even then, he looked like a girl who just happened to force on menswear.

Kiske Risner.

He was the secretary to an Asa princess, Rizna Eres.h.i.+kigal.

I somehow ended up taking him a prisoner, so that the Asa princess could not think of doing anything dangerous against us, and also for information. But I hadn’t handed him over to the Federation government. After creating a fake ident.i.ty of a half-Asa citizen for him, he was placed with us in the Thirteenth Special Forces Brigade.

“Whew. We got a fine errand boy here.”

He was pretty d.a.m.n good at adapting to his situation. He put the breads and the drinks on the table with great difficulty. The others sat back and watched as he did so.

Even disregarding the Asa and Elcro people, many people around the table were very beautiful-- the common room was already very populated with many visitors going in and out, so there was a lot of attention being pulled to the table with all the pretty women(?) forming a group around it.

Kiske sat around the table, being mindful of the attention being directed to him. The way he timidly sat reminded me of a new bride from a nomadic group from desert lands.

“The news that the Federation lost in the Oden system is spreading. Take a look at this.”

Ensign Meihowa showed me an online broadcast through a military computer. The broadcast displayed the many organized protests around the world by right-wing groups, and a never ending line of people rallying to the recruitment offices.

The Federation, after their defeat against the Alliance in Oden, decided that they could not hide their loss, and instead they admitted their defeat as an excuse to issue war bonds. It took only six hours for the war bonds to be considered and then deployed, and the so-called nationalists popped up like wildfire. Among them were idiots who attacked Replicants as their way of denouncing the Alliance.

“What do you think?”

Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha knew that I was the legendary Lezirth Dawnbringer, who was technically KIA in the battlefield a hundred and twenty years ago. Before coming to an understanding, I was considered a psycho, but they had been seeking my advice after that phase. Of course, having been a Vice Admiral and a squad leader, and managing the lives of many people, leaders.h.i.+p had to come as a natural trait.

Right. Now, shall I provide advice to the newbie Ensign as a former commander?

“Enemies on the outside make it easy for the people inside to cooperate.” Sergeant Aroha mockingly replied, before I could say a word.

“...” I felt slightly annoyed, but that was obvious enough to not need my explanation.

“Lezirth? What’s up? You look a little annoyed.”

“...No, no, I was just curious about that. Cooperation is fine, but the problem is that it’s only meaningful if they can solve the problem through cooperation.” I made an excuse, having a cold sweat. But it did sound like a meaningful saying in retrospect.

Kis.h.i.+n Duskbringer of the Alliance-- To be honest, it was not an enemy that the Federation could defeat as of now. They used the silly name “Hyper-Kis.h.i.+n,” but it was indeed much stronger than the average Kis.h.i.+n-cla.s.s Alter-Armour. Even with the aid of numerous Federation Kis.h.i.+ns, they couldn’t take on the lone Duskbringer.

Still, besides Duskbringer, the Alliance was severely disadvantaged in numbers. Perhaps the Federation could defeat Duskbringer through a multi-p.r.o.nged attack.

But that was not possible for a civilized society. Though they were soldiers, they were Federation citizens and no one should order them to a suicide attack. Throwing them into the battle as expendables, even if it were strategically beneficial, was politically wrong to carry it out.

The strategies that seem great on the drawing board were worthless if they could not be realized. Then how could the Federation deal against Duskbringer? Did they have a secret weapon?

“Hey, Kiske. You were in the Asa Royal Guards, right? Don’t you know anything about Duskbringer?”

“Ah, uh, that’s...” Kiske didn’t seem to know what to do.

“Duskbringer. Is that... made with Dawnbringer’s Alter Core? It looks a lot like a combination of Dawnbringer and Tetragrammaton, doesn’t it?”

Kiske looked nervous when I dug into the topic. As a former guard to an Asa Princess, revealing sensitive information was to commit treason. We had kept him here so he wouldn’t face the harshness and the abuse in the military prison, but we’d forgotten that his heart was still with the Asa.

“Hey now, I’m not even slightly trying to hurt the Asa. Honestly, this war isn’t my thing. But who who was that impostor Lezirth, anyway?”

“...That man is called Reiji Dawnbringer. He is the leader of the Alliance Replicants.”

“Reiji... Dawnbringer.”

I shrugged. I didn’t know too much before my cryosleep, but I had heard that the surname Dawnbringer had become common for Replicants.

It’s indeed my own name, but it’s really not a great name to be pa.s.sed down for generations...

“The Asa is a part of the Alliance, but it’s obvious from the actions and the strategies of the Alliance that the Replicants are given full control. What do you say about that?”

“...How attentive. You speak like you’ve seen the imperial plan itself.”

“So... am I correct, or not?”

“Y-yes, that is accurate. Quite right. The Asa court had opponents who disliked that they were handing over the command to the Replicants, and that they were shaming themselves. But the pressure from the humanity was too great for us to not ally with the Replicants.”

Kiske’s words helped me envision the overall picture of the Alliance. The Alliance was a salad bowl of amazingly different cultures, livelihoods, and habits, and there was no chance that their cooperation was going to go smoothly. I’m not saying that there aren’t any people whose sense of responsibility cross differences in race-- it was simply impossible for all those involved to have great patience, tolerance, and acceptance for all kinds of cultural differences between everyone involved.

“So, that Reiji and that Eiredith are the heads of the Replicants? How so?”

“Sorry?”

“I mean, anyone who leads an opposition against the Federation would likely be a high-ranking military officer, or a politician, or a respected professor... I realize that the Alliance is in need of people, but there’s no way that they’re choosing leaders without considering their track records. Even if they could handle Kis.h.i.+ns, they may be treated very well, but it should be difficult to become a head of the entire Alliance. Without having a nice background, that is.”

And if they did indeed have very well-recognized backgrounds, the Federation would have known about them. The Federation’s response to Reiji and Eiredith was utter confusion and unexpected risk, so I could a.s.sume that they had no idea.

“If the Replicants and the Senators backed them, then it wouldn’t be impossible.”

“The Senators?”

“Yes... the Replicants are controlled by the Senate.The Elcro and the Asa are the face of the Alliance, but the brains are the Replicants and its core is the Senate, which we have not yet seen for ourselves.”

Oh. That’s a very valuable information.

“He was once the Asa’s Royal Guard, but now he’s only a source of intel...”

“Sorry?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

But it did pay off to bring Kiske along. I learned a lot about the Alliance. Since he was chasing after an Asa princess all this time, he must have overheard well-kept secrets, and he knew about the Asa perspective on things.

After listening, Ensign Meihowa became frustrated. “I can feel that something’s going on... but I’m a lowly Ensign, so I still don’t understand the big picture. Is this making sense to you, Lezirth?”

I shrugged at Ensign Meihowa. “Well, I’m also a lowly soldier for now. Anyway, it seems like a good idea for us to act together.”

“Right now, we’re all placed in the same squad. I’m the squad leader... we’ll be placed with most of the Bomb Cadet Squad, plus new soldiers, into the a.s.sault squad. The new faces are also Replicants and part-humans.” Ensign Meihowa had a gloomy face. It couldn’t have been by sheer coincidence that the squad was formed with just Replicants and minority races of the Federation. Were they really using us as expendables?

“a.s.sault squad? We’re not even marines, and they want that? And honestly, when was the Bomb Cadet Squad qualified for that?”

There may have been the mandatory a.s.sault drop training as a part of the recruit training, but a.s.saulting a planet wasn’t exactly easy. It was obvious why they were placing recruits without marine training into the a.s.sault squad, despite the fact that we had a brigade-sized army, and there had to be qualified marines. It was a section of the military that had the highest casualty rate.

On top of that, the Bomb Cadet Squad was mixed up in a major incident in the middle of that mandatory training. Was the Federation going crazy, to put us in the a.s.sault squad?

“Hey now, remember who was being treated as an advisor to the Bomb Cadet Squad? When did you get so c.o.c.ky, Lezirth?” Sergeant Aroha joked. Psh... how long ago was that, anyway?

“Doesn’t it feel like a repeat of the recruit training? Are we going to be cannon fodder again?”

But I had felt an even bigger trouble brewing. My instincts were usually accurate at times like these... I had hoped that I was wrong this time.

And my instinct was right.

But I don’t mean that I was sent off as cannon fodder. I was looking at my a.s.signed room, and I sighed. When the Federation military has no shortage of s.p.a.ce, they a.s.signed as much room as they could afford. Claustrophobic environments were bad for the soldiers’ mental health, the galaxy was big enough, and the improvements in construction technology allowed more s.p.a.ce to be used.

When it came to a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, there was a problem. Alter-Drives and cold fusion technology was incomparable to the hydrazine rockets of the old times, but a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p was still a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p-- there wasn’t going to be free s.p.a.ce.

The lowliest soldiers naturally could not receive any more than the minimum required s.p.a.ce. With engine parts, outer armours, and miscellaneous components filling the inside, there were bound to be inconveniences like overly tiny three-man rooms.

And my room was that room. Ventilation pipe and power lines crossed the room, so on one wall was a two-shelf bunk bed, and the other had a tiny single bed. But the bigger problem were the roommates.

“I’m keeping this s.p.a.ce all for myself!”

Pencolt immediately occupied the single bed for himself. Well, that was fine, but...

“Can’t you move this out?”

“These treasures?! You can’t even buy these treasures anymore!”

Crowding the room were unopened figures, models, and various toys. I sighed. The room was already tiny enough that I didn’t even have room to stand, but the toys reduced the s.p.a.ce even further.

“Hey, what’s this? Why did you buy the same thing twice? Thrice?”

“One’s for storage, one’s for display, and one’s for practical use!”

“Practical use? Displaying it is the practical, isn’t it? How do you use this in a practical way? What the h.e.l.l does that involve?” I sighed, and turned my attention away. Behind me was the meek, blonde-haired girl, who was nearly plastered on my back with her head down. Uh, nope, ‘girl’ just isn’t right. No, it was the Asa boy, Kiske Risner.

“O-Onbira are made to use the same room? The Federation is filthy-minded!”

“B-but of course guys would use the same bed. Is it normal for the Asa to have men and women share the same room?” I mumbled, remembering that Onbira meant males in the Asa castes. Since it seemed too challenging to try and take the bed away from Pencolt, I went for the bunk beds.

“Hey, Kiske. Are you going to be bottom, or top? Should I take the top?”