Remember the Starfighter (55 page)

Julian could see nothing now, the darkness complete.

The attack bot had left him, and so had the trail of lights. He simply stood still, not sure what to do, but with nowhere else to go.

He felt a chill down his spine, and tightened his fists. Whether this was the same ship, or another facility, Julian had no idea. Whatever he had entered had no walls, or any apparent boundaries. There was only the sound of his feet creaking on the floor, along with the pitch black staining his sight.

Julian wiped his eyes.

Maybe this was all meant to make him feel irrelevant. To wash his body away into some psychological emptiness. Nonetheless, Julian had an idea about what might come.

He was not disappointed.

“Long time no see... Captain Nverson.”

It came from behind, and then moved around his shoulders, the crawl of the murmur both welcoming, and even intimate. But ultimately, it was sinister.

“What have you been doing.... in all this time?”

Julian could still see nothing, but the words were disturbingly close. Like a whisper into his ear. The hunter circling its prey.

The familiar voice chuckled, the laugh backing off and becoming a loud echo into the expansive gloom.

“I’ve been waiting for you...”

Hearing that statement, Julian felt the pain in his eyes, the flash of light briefly banishing the darkness. Blinking, he looked on, only to see the figure appear before him.

Glowing amid the surrounding murk, the blonde-haired man stared at Julian, gratified and just few steps away. Like before, he was dressed in a formal suit of white, and refined in the same manner; his hair and face remained perfectly pampered, the sneer on his lips primed for another laugh.

However, what caught Julian’s attention was the object in the man’s hand — the silver rod gripped within the figure’s unusually long fingers.

Julian took a deep breath. 

“You will get nothing from me.”

The tone stood in contrast from the Ouryan’s own choice of words. No play, or even a welcome, just business. As expected, Julian would not surrender. At least, not willingly.

Amused, the Ouryan tossed the silver rod in the air, before reaching to catch it. The agent then swiftly removed it from view, and placed the device behind its back.

-- What are you doing?

“I will do as I please,” the Ouryan said. His words, not directed at Julian, but at the other, and far larger audience that watched. 

The blonde-haired man paced around his captive, studying his body, face and clothes. Obviously, some time had passed. No longer did the human captain look so desperate and haggard. No, he was defiant. Confident even.

“You and your friends have posed quite a challenge to find,” the Ouryan said. “And for that you have my respect.”

The agent could tell Julian cared little for the remark. He merely straightened his back, and stared ahead, wanting to ignore the Ouryan’s penetrating glance.

“I would have captured you personally, but the Alliance sentinel seemed a more appropriate choice.”

Julian flinched, and stared at the Ouryan, curious. 

“Yes, yes,” the agent continued. “Mega is quite the noble commander. He knew we would do something, and so came to us with a deal. Spare the Sovereign and he would join in on our little ruse.”

“I could not resist the promise of having a true machine fleet under my personal command. So I obliged.”

Patting his platinum hair, the agent paused, before meeting Julian again with another blunt chuckle.

“But as for you captain... well, you’re mine.”

Julian almost shivered, seeing the eager smile and the way the man’s lips curled so upwardly. It was a look of gross satisfaction, the agent in some sort of excited joy.

Julian wanted to drown his sight back into the darkness, when he noticed the strange twitch.

Abruptly, the man’s smile disappeared into a borderline scowl. Completely concealed to Julian was the agent’s audience in waiting. The group was less than entertained.

-- Do not delay any longer. Complete your task.

The Ouryan shrugged, wanting to pretend it had heard nothing.

“No, no, no, no...” the agent said, succumbing to the impulse. “This is mine!”

The Ouryan turned his face away, but Julian clearly sensed the anger, the words becoming a sudden, and abrasive shout.

Startled, Julian wondered if they were actually alone.

“Where have you taken me?” he asked.

The agent paused, realizing that it had lost some composure. The Ouryan delicately brushed an errant bang of its holographic hair back into place.

“Ah,” the agent said to Julian’s question. “Perhaps this will help.”

The blonde-haired man snapped his fingers. In return, came the cosmos.

Under his feet, and all around Julian was a projection of their very location. The stars illuminating the night.

He was in space. Or a life-like simulation of it. The hologram precise, pulling the data and images to form the fabric of what Julian saw.

“There,” the agent said, pointing to his right. “The Ouryan base.”

It was a space station. The facility in orbit somewhere, and hanging above Julian in a crescent of sparkled light. Although distant, it was so large that for a moment, he thought he could reach out to it, the base built like the Ouryan crest, and shaped into a wide and circular ring.

For Julian, the real spectacle was what surrounded the station. “The collapsers,” he said. “There are hundreds of them.”

It was the same hexagonal formation on display. The pattern repeating.

The agent walked forward, and looked upward at the vast chain of interlocking ships.

“Deployment would be imminent,” the man was quick to add. “But it seems this may all just be an illusion.”

“An illusion?” Julian asked.

The Ouryan was about to go on and explain the debacle. But the internal discord was there, yet again. This time with a threat.

-- Do not defy us. We grow impatient. Stray and you will be punished. 

The grand audience waited, and demanded that the agent cease with its divergent behavior. Follow the set protocols; obey your original programming; finish your task, they warned.

Annoyed, the Ouryan tightened its grip around the device at its back.

“Do not underestimate me...” the agent replied in a hiss. “I am beyond any of you.”

Julian heard the odd statement and was unsettled. Was it speaking to him?

He looked at the figure wearily; the man’s other hand was fiddling with the silver rod.

Julian didn’t know why the Ouryan was so slow to act. But the rod in its hand was likely some sort of mind control device. The agent needed to only activate it, and obtain the information it so wished to uncover.

Julian crossed his arms, and knew that the end was near. However, in that moment, the advice from all those weeks ago came to him.

Know your enemy
, Richard had said to Julian. And so he recalled what had been passed on, the rumors painting the picture of a powerful figure once known for its roguish-tendencies. 

“I was told about you,” Julian said. “You’re supposed to be quite elusive. In fact, there’s no official record of you.”

It was a statement that piqued the Ouryan’s interest.

“Oh?” the agent said. “You know of me?”

“Just a little,” he replied. “They call you the Destroyer, don’t they? At least to those who know you, am I right?”

The agent paused, before slowly nodding.

“You were the architect of some of the containment strategies. They say you commanded not only the entire Ouryan fleet, but even the main defensive arms of the Alliance.”

“Go on,” the agent replied.

“You must have destroyed countless Endervar ships. Kept them at bay for centuries. I was told you were one of the most successful fleet commander of all time, until—”

“Before, the rise of the Overlord,” the agent interjected. “Yes, you know your history well, captain. Very good.”

But the adulation could only go so far. The Ouryan looked at its current form, and raised its two arms.

“And now I am reduced to this: hunting down renegade humans.”

The agent breathed a long and almost painful sigh.

“I suppose we all owe you thanks. For what you did, to protect the galaxy,” Julian said.

“No, no, no,” the Ouryan shirked. “You think far too highly of me captain. I care nothing for life. You are all just organic residue to me.”

It loosened its grip around the device, distracted by the strange sensation.

“Hmph,” the agent said.

The Ouryan had not spoken to anyone like this. Not in ages.

Of course, it had occasionally indulged in some banter with its captives, before striking the killing blow. But this was becoming an actual conversation, one that related to itself.

“Interesting,” the agent concluded. In spite of its mission, and the demands of its superiors, the agent secretly did wish for this take place. To speak with someone who might understand, if only a little. 

“The thrill of the battle,” the agent admitted. “There is nothing else quite like it. To fight on such an epic scale. You perhaps know something of this?”

“I’ve been there,” Julian said. “I suppose my life has been devoted to it. I admit, I guess I’m good at it.”

“I as well. I was spectacular,” the Ouryan said. “Hunting you, it can’t quite compare to total war. I much rather smash the Endervars, and obliterate them. They are the bane of my existence.”

It was why the agent had come to be. The Union breeding a champion to end the Endervar threat once and for all.

Obviously, the agent had failed in that regard. It needed to only look above and see what had superceded it: the Ouryan collapser seemingly ready to end the conflict.

“What a lie,” it said, directing its comments inwardly, and back to the collective. The agent knew the truth, the deception devious. 

It was a secret known only to those connected to the Unity. But the collapser was a flawed weapon. Almost half or more were projected to fail, the technology inside each collapser unstable, and perhaps even incomplete.

The agent could already envision it: weapon after weapon sputtering out. What a disgrace.

But still, the Union would choose to wield it. Not wanting to save the galaxy, but to expand its influence over sentient life, even if the salvation it provided was all based on lies.

The agent was underwhelmed. Within the core of the Unity, the conclusion had already been made: the war could never be won. What mattered was control over the sentient races. They would be fodder for even grander designs.

-- Enough of this! We shall assume control. 

In the same way that they viewed organic life, the Union was now working to take over the agent.

The high collectives had demanded that the agent act, and so they had flooded the Ouryan with a stream of protocols meant to invade its every system, and bring it to its knees.

But very quickly, the agent effortlessly squelched the hurried attempt, the hack dissolving in seconds.

“Pitiful,” the man replied, irritated that he had been shown no respect. “I will not be a puppet again.”

The agent then looked back at Julian.

“You and I are warriors,” the Ouryan said with pride. “We deserve better. This I know.”

As the Union watched in its escalating confusion, the agent’s superiors demanded an explanation.

-- Why do you stray?

-- Why have you changed? Why do you adopt the organic ways?

-- What is the source of your defiance?

More complaints came, all of it just a nuisance. The agent could not deny it: something in its very being had changed.

The practice had become almost habit for the Ouryan. To assimilate personalities, and incorporate them into its own. It was how it had evolved. How it tried to reclaim something lost.

Once a man of a forgotten race, he had been stripped down to serve the Unity, and been built with a singular purpose: to slavishly serve its masters. But gradually, the agent had meandered away from its simplistic design, in favor of something more cunning, more deviant. 

It had done so over the eras, by studying the different races, and selecting traits that might advance its cause.

Humans had just been one of the many, and the behaviors from the greatest commanders across the Alliance had all been installed onto the map of its artificial mind.

Because of this, the agent understood things like honor, vengeance and glory. More importantly, it had used them to fuel its own agenda and strategies.

So to locate Julian, the Ouryan had not only studied the captain’s profile and background, but it had found the treasure trove of data within the Union itself. It came in the form of a replica, a virtual version of the captain that Julian had made six years ago.