Ravens of Eternity

90 Discord and Strife

Eva groaned loudly as the troops she was controlling were torn to shreds by her newfound pilot buddies. Over the last few hours, they shared laughs, drinks, and names.

The two guys were Colin and Oratus, while the two girls were Kayt and Jinti. All four of them were only in their mid-twenties, and had been assigned to the asteroid straight out of boot. In fact, many of the pilots on the base were relatively young.

The older pilots had experience, but were still green in terms of conflict. Only a handful of pilots were actual combat veterans, and they typically led the base’s squadrons. But these four were still relatively green, having spent only a year or two on the asteroid base.

Since the whole thing was a military secret, they literally saw zero action. The closest they had ever gotten into a sortie was with the game they were playing.

And they were incredible at it. Although they all fumbled once in a while, their tactical ingenuity greatly impressed Eva.

“I don’t know how you managed it,” said Jinti, “but you literally lost three times in a row. I thought you were supposed to be a badass. I mean, you had some really great tricks and hit really hard, but you almost always left yourself wide open for a counterattack.”

Eva laughed before she shrugged her shoulders.

“Dunno what to say. I’m just not a strategically minded person.”

“It’s fine,” Colin chimed in. “You really rock against one opponent, but you’re otherwise blindsided by all of us combined. You gotta really pay attention to everyone else on the board, not just who you’re gonna hit next.”

.....

“It’s just so weird,” said Oratus. “We’ve seen your ‘Casts. You play a ton of people for fools, and you trash them really easily on top of it. Beating us should be cake for you.”

“I’m just a simple pilot,” she replied. “Not some battlefield commander.”

“Yeah, an incredible pilot with crazy skills. How’d you get so good at it anyway?”

Eva leaned back and took a swig of her drink. It had a light amount of alcohol in it, and relaxed her mind a little. She used to drink a lot more, and was used to getting trashed on it. It helped numb her to the most painful portions of her life. Well, her old one, anyway.

Regardless it was kind of an expensive vice, so she had no choice but to drop it. She ended up exchanging the addiction for Bellum Aeterna. Ultimately cheaper, but equally destructive.

“I just put in thousands of hours in, um, training simulations. I used to fly when I was depressed, when I needed to get away, when I needed to take my mind away from reality. I flew because it was the only bright light in my life, yannow? Eventually, it was the only thing I had left and ever did... I guess that’s why I can do what I do.”

Eva toyed with her bottle as she spoke, then set it aside when she realized she was fidgeting with it.

“Dark,” joked Kayt.

The jab elicited a few chuckles, especially from Eva.

“My life hasn’t always been the best,” she said. “And I’m glad all that darkness is behind me, finally.”

An alarm chirped on a nearby datapad, which one of them checked.

“Ugh. Playtime’s over. Gotta rest up before the next shift, or we’re gonna be hurting.”

“Yeah,” Eva replied. “I oughta head out, too. There’s some stuff I gotta go figure out. And, well, speaking of which, have any of you heard about Dendrus Four or something called Godeater?”

The four looked at each other quizzically. Neither of those terms rang a bell. Kayt suddenly shot up in alarm.

“Oh! I do! Well, sorta. My uncle definitely does. Never shuts up about it. Always going on about Dendrus this and Dendrus that.”

“What kind of stuff does he say?”

Kayt scratched her head.

“Tell you the truth, I don’t really pay that much attention to what he says. It’s always about death and darkness and doom and gloom. His CPU got overboosted a little too much, know what I mean?”

“Can you introduce us? I wanna talk to him about it.”

“You actually want to hear him ramble on his nonsense?”

Eva nodded firmly.

“Jeez, alright,” continued Kayt. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. But yeah, I can go take you to meet him, no problem. We can go the next time I’ve got shore leave.”

Eva quickly sent Kayt a friend request through her DI, but something didn’t quite add up to her. Dendrus happened over a century ago. Why was her uncle talking about it?

“How does he know about Dendrus?” she asked.

“Oh! He served there, he saw everything with his own two eyes, no cybernetics, no stims. So he says.”

“What? He served?! He must be ancient!”

“Um, a bit, I guess. He’s almost a hundred and thirty now. He’s got probably thirty or forty more years left. Was fresh offa Mars when he helped people evac off of Dendrus.”

Eva gawked.

People live to a hundred and sixty now?

~

A shadowy man sat in a dingy little comms booth. The terminal in front of him was well-worn and had finger grease smears all over it. On its screen was Merlin, in a dark, secluded area on Tartarus.

His image glitched out every so often as he spoke.

“Three of my Bluffs went dead a few hours ago,” he said. “I think someone mighta found ’em.”

“Have you been compromised?” asked the shadow.

Merlin shook his head emphatically.

“Nah, or we wouldn’t be talkin’. And I’d be in a cell. Or dead. Or both. Still, I got a bad feelin’. No-one’s found a single one after so long, y’know? Why now?”

The shadow nodded in agreement. One missing was an accident. Three missing meant intent. Maybe the base’s security got lucky, but they couldn’t count on that. They needed to assume that they were going to be figured out at any moment.

“I hear ya,” he said. “We need to move the timeline up. Toss everything you got out there asap. Don’t bother with the slow-grow. We’ll get ready on our end.”

“When do I trigger the burst?”

“I’ll message ya when we’re ready. Do whatever it takes, but be in the core when you trigger. We’re gonna scoop you up the second we pop in.”

“I’ll pop it when we go out for maneuver testing. We’ll be outside and in our jets.”

“Great. Don’t fail us.”

“I won’t. Hail Eris.”

Merlin signed off, and the shadow’s terminal went dark.

The shadow exhaled deeply, then got up and left the booth. He went out into the dark red passageways of the ship and climbed up steep metal steps to the top deck.

There, he turned towards a guarded door emblazoned with a golden apple. The guards on each side acknowledged him, and allowed him to continue on unabated.

The shadow adjusted his coat and cleared his throat before he entered the bridge.

The Pirate Queen Eris sat on her command chair and surveyed the space beyond the bridge of her ship. All of it was ripe for the picking, and nothing was out of her reach.

On her body was a set of A-ranked Fire Obsidian Plate. It was sleek and strong armor that gleamed red in certain angles. On her hip was a sheathed A-ranked Plasma Cutlass. The thing was technically an experimental weapon, and was prone to shredding opponents with devastating ease.

Eris herself was a woman in her 40s. Her hair was a wild red, but had a grey streak going through it. She was tall, strong, and taut.

In one hand was a ripe green apple, and in the other was the dagger she was slicing it with. She ate a slice just as the shadow came up beside her. She quickly smiled at his presence.

“Templar Valos!” she said jovially. “What brings you to the bridge today? I hope you’ve some wonderful news to share.”

“I do, a bit. You remember that project I’ve got going?”

“Mm. The one with the potential recruit? And Federation secrets? Something like that?”

Valos the Shadow nodded, then handed her a datapad. She gave him her half-eaten apple in exchange.

“Yeah, exactly. Something like that. Well, we’ve got a chance to snap up some prizes, but I’m gonna need your blessing to deploy.”

He took a bite as Eris looked down at the datapad and scrolled through the list. It took some time.

“It’s quite a blessing you’re asking for.”

“Not gonna lie, it is a shitton to ask for. But in the end we’ll get another refugee pilot and a whole lot of secret tech to sell. He’s itchin’ to go and light up a flare for us to see. I know it’s costly, but damn just look at the profit.”

Her eyebrow arched as she focused in on a few line items on Valos’ list.

“How costly?”

“We’ve gotta go up against a secret Federation base. Super hush hush and high sec.”

Eris thought about it for a moment. Federation bases were always great to crack open. They were always filled with wonderful treasures like weapons and armor. But secret bases – those things were always filled with the real treats. Weapons and armor, sure. But also military intel, or coveted research.

Everyone wanted those, and demand was always high. Especially for Federation secrets.

“Yeah, that definitely sounds costly as hell... How much profit?”

Valos lowered his voice. This was info he didn’t want everyone to hear.

“Reached out to a few friends,” he said. “The usual, you know. They’re interested in putting in a bid if we get our hands on it.”

“Sounds standard so far.”

Valos leaned in slightly.

“Sure. But get this – the Hegemony’s piqued, too. From what I could tell, they’d kill for this tech. They were practically already bidding the moment I told ’em.”

“The Hegemony’s putting out? Now that’s a bed I wanna get into.”

“So I got the green light, then?”

.....

Eris grinned widely at him.

“The Federation could use a little more chaos in their lives... Make it so.”

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