Shattered super-soldier

“...The Marquis is dead?”

“Very much so, we were also forced to annihilate the fortress when he ordered an attack on us”

Duke Adam closed his eyes and massaged his temples, he had requested an update on the situation regarding his release from Matthew and even if he had expected something had gone wrong since he had yet to be released he hadn’t expected the negotiations to fumble at the last moments, finished gathering his thoughts Duke Adam opened his eyes again and looked straight at the monitor that displayed Matthew

“...So what happens now?”

Matthew shrugged, he appeared unconcerned, but the Duke knew from observing him over the period of his imprisonment that he was testing him, it had become clear to him that Matthew was far older and wiser than his appearance and mannerism suggested, besides this the Duke had also become increasingly convinced that the Major was some sort of deviant from the apparent pleasure he took in doing these ‘test’ in almost every conversation the two had

“Was there anything odd about the Marquis after I spoke with him?”

The Duke noticed it, a flash of subdued emotion flashed through the Major’s eyes, it appeared that he had asked the right question

‘There it is again…’

“Well, shortly after the Marquis’s demise I caught a Mystic that had transformed her appearance fleeing the screen at inhuman speed, she appeared to have manipulated the Marquis to the extent that he decided to order the attack”

Duke Adam blinked a few times before he leaned back in the metal chair and massaged his temples again to slow the approaching headache, the pieces of information Matthew had given him made him see the whole picture, and it wasn’t one he liked very much, after a few moments he muttered

“Damned Skinweavers of the far east…”

“Skinweavers? Is that what she was?”

Duke Adam nodded before he spoke

“It’s the name of a tribe originally from the far east, those of pure blood can take the appearance and mystic abilities from fresh corpses… They’ve caused quite the havoc in the central plains for a few decades now”

“Fascinating… Do they have any relation to your teacher?”

Duke Adam felt a pang of pain when Matthew referred to Saratheen, his late teacher and mentor in his life, but still he shook his head, then he noticed Matthew’s sly smile and asked

“How did you make that conjecture in the first place?”

Matthew shrugged and spoke

“I just saw two Mystic abilities that seemed oddly unique and suggested they were related, but I guess not… Saratheen is alive by the way”

Duke Adam narrow his eyes as his face hardened before he spoke

“Consider your words, Major”

Matthew’s smile widened slightly as he waved his had to dismiss Duke Adam’s anger as a picture flashed up on the monitor which displayed an orb that looked like it was made of obsidian glass as Matthew spoke

“Her physical body is dead, that much is true, but after taking possession of her younger brother we discovered that their kind store their consciousness in this orb located in their upper bodies… Aea haven’t quite crunched the numbers on an interface yet, but it should be ready in a few weeks time”

The Duke stared blankly at the black orb in a daze for some time, evidently a rather long time as when he snapped out of his daze he discovered that Matthew’s figure had disappeared from the monitor at some point, the Duke silently wiped the tears from his old eyes as a thought passed through his mind

‘...Looks like that deviant of a Major has at least some amount of tact”

-

“Well, it seems like the nature of Saratheen and Ukiad is unknown to the Willmir royalty too”

Alina nodded, she had been watching Matthew’s conversation with Duke Adam on the sideline, or more accurately from front row seats, she had been glued to Matthew since she ended her 3-day-long meditation session last night, Matthew could feel it even though he wasn’t a Mystic, after his teaching session about space and the wider solar system her abilities as a Displacer appeared to have undergone a significant chance

‘It’s like the very space around her is vibrating from being overloaded with pure energy…’

“So, what should we do now?”

Matthew thought for a few moments before he looked to the side where the newest construction project was nearing completion

“Well… There’s still a little time left before the Mass Driver is completed, so should we go shoot for a bit?”

Alina nodded and got up from her seat (Matthew) before she tightly hugged her walking aid (Matthew’s left arm) the two took the short walk over to the shooting range which consisted of a single wide shooting booth directed towards the South where a 2-kilometer range had been cleared out of the forest with around 150 different static and movable targets were placed at various ranges, Alina picked up her Coil pistol from the rack

“Do you still remember what we went over last time?”

Alina nodded to which Matthew showed a smile and spoke

“So unlike a rifle, pistols are a generally less accurate at long distances, this is to a number of limitations, some of the weapon itself, but most are due to—”

As Matthew continued to teach Alina about firing pistols, which she had shown a preference for after completing Matthew’s general shooting course, time passed, and soon the sky turned orange as the sun slowly sank towards the horizon in the West, as the day neared its end a notification from Aea sounded out over the local net

[Mass Driver construction completed]

Matthew looked at Alina with practically sparkling eyes, he was like a kid at his birthday looking at a parent pleading with his eyes to open his presents and like a dotting parent Alina didn’t require much puppy dog eye contact to be convinced and put down her pistol

“Sure, let’s do it”

Matthew nodded and spoke out loud

“Load S-0001’s launch vehicle into the Mass Driver”

[Orders received, loading launch vehicle into Mass Driver…]

Alina and Matthew made their way back to the roof of their house, where they watched as the crane finished lowering the launch vehicle into the Mass Driver, the Mass Driver itself stood almost 10 meters tall and featured a 6 meters wide 20 meter long barrel, it was in essence a large Rail cannon, but instead of being tasked with putting warheads on foreheads, Mass Drivers were rather commonly used in civilian industry for surface to orbit transport, of course due to the local conditions Aea had calculated a Mass Driver with a barrel length of over 100 meters was needed to put a satellite into a stable orbit with purely electromagnetic propulsion, this is where the Launch vehicle came into the picture

[Loading completed, go ahead with launch?]

“Go”

[Go confirmed, loading capacitor banks for rapid charge… 1 minute 30 seconds until launch]

The Launch vehicle was in essence a two stage rocket booster, the first booster utilized a solid propellant that would carry the satellite into the upper atmosphere where it would separate before the 2nd liquid rocket booster would carry the satellite further up and into a stable orbit

[Final checks green, 5 seconds until launch]

Matthew opened his mouth before he reached up and covered his ears just in time as the Mass Driver fired and the Launch vehicle was propelled into the air and towards the East, Matthew and Alina followed it with their eyes as it felt across the sky for a few moments before the first booster ignited and accelerated it further

“...How’s it looking, Aea?”

[All system readings are stable, optical tracking isn’t showing any problems either]

Matthew let out a sigh of relief, so did Alina, or at least she followed a similar motion to that of Matthew since she didn’t exactly have lungs to sigh with

“And that’s that, should we go back to shooting, Alina?”

Matthew looked over at Alina and saw that she still gazed East, her body frozen for a few moments before her blade like ears began moving, quietly swishing through the air

“What’s wrong?”

A moment after Matthew asked, Aea delivered a report over the local net

[S-0001 is receiving an encrypted data package, standard BlueArrow encryption, decoding message…]

Matthew felt the hair on the back of his neck stand as he quickly looked back towards the Eastern sky

[Data package decrypted… Message appears corrupted, decoding…]

Matthew felt a pit in his stomach as a flash of pale blue light struck the Launch vehicle, smiting it with the force of a meteor, which made it instantly disintegrate in a spectacular explosion

[Message decoded, playing now… This is F-F-Flight assistance A. I. WWWWWWWWWWicka of BlueArrowwwww Jump Freighterrrrr Mighty EEEEEEndurance Planet #1230710287479 is under quarantineeeee, allllllllllllll attempts to violateeeeeeee quarantine willlllll be mettt with deady forceeee]

Then it happened, appearing as if the sky moved backwards in time the stars above disappeared as an eerie pale blue glow covered the sky and dyed the world below in its haunting blue radiance as the devil comet twisted into reality in the sky right above Basecamp, Alina acted at once and instantly teleported Matthew inside the house

“Aea!”

[Moving to red alert, deploying defense forces]

Matthew hurried down to the basement and entered his Mk. 22 just as he entered it Alina voice echoed out over the local net

[Meteors are falling from the sky!]

[Intercept at will!]

[Orders received, Rail-001 to Rail-003 tasked with interception, firing]

Matthew rushed out from the house just as the 3 rail cannons let loose towards the sky, now protected from the madding influence of the pale blue light Matthew gazed up at the sky as the 3 metal penetrators impacted one of the 4 blue meteors, or at least logic would have dictated so when in reality the projectiles passed right through their target without doing any damage

[Hammer ineffective, loading High explosive munitions, fuses set to proximity]

Matthew brought his coil rifle up towards the sky as he selected high explosive and set the voltage to the max and squeezed the trigger, a few moments later the meteor was blanketed in explosions from both Matthew’s fire but also the rail cannons, after a few moments the first contact broke apart

[Contact 1 breaking up, continuing intercept]

As the first meteor broke apart, Alina appeared next to Matthew, however after hitting the 2nd meteor a couple of times it as well as the other 2 meteors suddenly disappeared from the sky

“What the f—”

Before Matthew could finish his curse, he and Alina were blown away as a sudden impacted rocked Basecamp, Matthew blacked out for a moment but was made conscious by Aea after a few moments

[Heavy trauma suffered, all Trauma patterns assigned]

Matthew got on his feet and saw 3 Titan automatons that were in the process of tearing the defenses of the Basecamp apart, pale blue tendrils were twisted through their armored plating and writhed around their bodies as they extended out and whipped apart everything near them, Matthew kicked off the ground and sprinted to the side as he opened up fire with his coil rifle on the Titan automaton that Alina was engaging

[These things are tough! I can’t Displace them either!]

“Focus on the joints, that's where the armor plating is the weakest!”

Matthew continued to provide cover for Alina as they slowly withered down the first Titan automaton, however just as they were about to bring it down the other two had finished dismantling the other defenses and launched themselves at Matthew and Alina

“ALINA!”

Matthew just managed to warn Alina as he had spotted something falling from the sky, however his warning was a moment too late as a spear of black crystal passed through Alina’s collarbone and all the way through her body as it nailed her to the ground

“SHIT!”

Matthew cursed and attempted to open up the distance, as the 3 Titan automatons instantly shifted their focus to him, however just as he kicked off the ground sending him flying backwards one of the automatons disappeared and reappeared behind him, an instance later Matthew felt something pass through his waist and a moment later his severed lower body entered his vision tumbling through the air just as he did

‘...’

Matthew’s mind was blank as he watched the world tumble around him in slow motion, Aea had pumped him full of stimulants and ran the Code Arrow 09 on overdrive to boost his combat performance which slowed his perception of time, however having been bisected at the waist Matthew and thereby losing his mobility knew it was over, he could only stare at the Titan automatons as they rushed towards him with a maddened frenzy ready to reduce him to red paste on the ground

‘...Sorry’

Matthew shifted his vision and gazed over at Alina that still struggled against the black crystal that expanded from the spear that had impaled her, she was reaching for him desperately

‘Guess this is it…’

However, just before the Titan automatons reached Matthew the space around him distorted as Alina sent him away, just in the nick of time