Age of Space

Ronin's hand slammed into the rock and his sight went black. Somehow the golden rock in the cave had not only affected gravity, but it had also altered his vision somehow. When he came to, he was fighting an enormous creature as large as a world. He also had four fists? Collisions reverberated through the universe, annihilating planets, stars, anything that could be considered remotely close. Space and time seemed to groan as the void screamed, torn apart by the cataclysmic forces.

Am I possessing this being? Are these two aliens fighting!? I can barely keep myself conscious just watching this fight!

Suddenly, the being fighting the enormous creature, the one Ronin inhabited, clenched its four fists. Time, space, gravity, all the forces of the universe seemed to shriek as they condensed into a supreme golden ring circling around its mighty fists. An incomprehensibly momentous punch launched towards the creature, striking it, causing the folds of existence itself to implode, dragging the creature along with it… into nothingness…

Holy shit!

Ronin was stunned. He had never even imagined something like this even when daydreaming. It was just too large, beyond imagination itself... At most he’d been daydreaming about a big warship...

No! He fiercely shook his head. Spaceships were capable of anything given enough technological progress. He refused to let himself be misled by something like this!

As Ronin was busy convincing himself, the being, or more accurately the alien he was inhabiting, was celebrating its victory.

The four-armed alien suddenly adopted a serious expression, then turned its gaze into the void, taking a battle stance, its momentum once again building up. Something began to appear in the void.

Is this really happening? It's not over!? And what in the world IS that thing?

As something that might be called a gate appeared, the enormous scale of the thing began to truly reveal itself to Ronin. This thing... it's bigger than a planet... No, it's bigger than a galaxy!

Numerous symbols began appearing on the gate and an endless fractal pattern emerged as the gate started radiating immense holy power.

The alien spoke: “The final shackle...”

Strangely, Ronin understood the alien language.

As the creature wound up for the final strike, the universe again groaned.

Here we go again! Ronin inwardly grit his teeth as the four fists, once again surrounded by a golden ring, struck the gate. The conflict between the gate and the fists seemed to crack something in him…

No, something else cracked as well. A piece of the gate flew off… And pandemonium followed.

Dark foul energy escaped from the crack, striking the alien with horrifying power.

The creature screamed in agony, the corruption spread through its body, consuming more and more of its essence. The alien gained a fierce light in its eyes, using its dwindling amount of essence, it detonated itself.

BOOM!

As the final embers of light were about to be extinguished from its eyes, the alien looked at the piece of the gate that had flown off, mysteriously imprinting it with its mind.

“Legacy,” The alien uttered. It was the final word Ronin heard before everything went black again.

“...”

Ronin woke up with a piercing headache. In fact, this headache went beyond piercing, it was horrifying, he had never felt anything close to it before. Digging deep within himself he began to think: This is a cave… THE cave... I ran in here...

He remembered. He had fled here to escape the terrorists; they had followed.

Pushing away the pain, he glanced around the abandoned mineshaft. It was surprisingly bright! Wasn't the area pitch black before? There was no light here, the rock which illuminated this section was gone….

It was gone... the rock that gave him the vision, the headache, the very same rock the workers had to dig around, the rock that couldn't be moved had just gone up and vanished after he touched it…. Legacy, the alien had said...

Despite the pain, a creeping feeling of horror began dawning on him...

Forget it! He forced his mind to think about something else.

For now, I need to get out of here, I can see in the dark now, the terrorists on the other hand can’t. I have an advantage, let's use it Ronin! Think!

Dragging himself up from the ground, his legs wobbly and breath shaky, he began braving his path back out of the mining complex.

“...”

Rattle...

Step...

Step. Step. Step...

In the pitch-black darkness of the cave, men were walking along the tunnel wall, approaching another 2-way intersection. Squeezed into a crevice on the other side of the tunnel, Ronin was holding his breath for dear life, hoping for all that was holy and good not to be noticed.

Why are they walking along the tunnel wall like that? They have to be using 2nd rate offhand sensor equipment, clearly not made for this sort of environment? They are literally using the wall to guide them! Even a flashlight would be better than whatever they are using now. Some of the tension released as Ronin's shoulders relaxed, relief blooming in his heart.

“Why are we wasting time searching for this rat?” One of the men grumbled.

“Beiner... right as we launched the biggest operation to date, a kid flies straight into our base, don't you find it strange?”

“Sure,” the man called Beiner acquiesced. “But we don't have time for this! Darth, buddy, the army will be bearing down on us any second now considering what we did!”

“Let them,” another man snorted. Seeming very optimistic at the prospect of fighting the military.

“Listen...” The man called Darth breathed out. “This is the most secure location we’ve used yet; it took months setting this up, the whole damn valley is net jammed, and not a single person besides us has been here ever since we arrived. If this is a spook, we need to know how he found us so fast. This is related to us in some way and the fact that we don't know is worrying. Why did he come here after the attack, not before, and what will he do if he leaves?”

“Nothing good...” the others grunted back.

While grumbling in agreement the men reached the intersection.

“You guys go ahead, I will guard the left intersection, you take the right,” Darth called out. As the steps of the terrorists faded away, Darth fumbled in the darkness, took out a pipe and added some sickly-sweet smelling powder to it that Ronin recognized as fantasia dust.

Not good, how in the world am I going to move now? Think Ronin, think! Ronin's mind was racing. If he moved, the noise would alert his unknowing jailer, if he stayed….

Maybe….

Smoking fantasia dust wasn't exactly the ‘’go-to’’ drug for enhanced perception.

I will wait a few minutes and after he's done smoking then move, Ronin thought as he allowed himself some quiet breaths.

Before the powder was fully smoked however, the man waddled his way towards his hiding spot. Ronin was frozen in fear. Have I been discovered!?

The alien artifact had granted Ronin sight through pitch black darkness. This also gave him a clear view of Darth the terrorist as he approached, dope pipe limp in his mouth, he stopped but a meter or two from the wall. The man grunted, and… unzipped his pants, pulling out Darth junior, he began watering the wall. In fact, more than just the wall was getting watered!

“Urgh!” Ronin grunted as droplets began bouncing off the wall and hitting his face.

Oh no! That grunt was aloud!

Wide eyed Darth reached for his pocket, pulling out a knife. He had noticed the grunt, he knew, and he was going to attack. Before Ronin's mind registered what happened, as the knife was pulled out, he pushed out from the wall, his knee landing perfectly on the pommel of Darth's own knife, stabbing it precisely into the man's heart.

What!? How did I do that? I stabbed a man with his own knife, and with my knee at that! I shouldn't even know where the heart is! Let alone do acrobatics like that, something is seriously wrong with me!

Time seemed to have stopped at that moment, the two just staring at each other. Ronin on top, Darth underneath.

“Spook?” Darth finally broke the silence, his voice weak.

Ronin didn't answer.

The silence returned

“Doesn't...matter...” Darth got out before coughing.

“Listen…freedom exists, but not here... you’ll see... tomorrow... look...the news... they lie...” Darth said before coughing again. There was blood coming out now.

“Implant... they track it... they listen... Concordia IS prison.”

His breath was growing weaker, there was no more talking anymore, he was too weak, now there was only waiting, waiting until...

Ronin reigned himself in, a sour feeling welling up inside him. He had fought before, you had to in the slums, but this was different.

I... I just killed a man.

“...”

Searching a body was more work than one would expect, not that Ronin had ever expected anything, let alone robbing a dead man of his valuables, he’d never even pickpocketed someone before!

Rolling over the body, his hands now bloody after the ordeal, he found another battery pack. The sum total from his looting? Triple the fuel he had before jumping out of the shuttle, 5 times as many batteries for heat control and energy shielding and some other device, he was not quite sure what was yet. Before the qualms behind what he was doing could overtake him, he pushed it down.

This is survival, don’t think about it, don’t think, don’t think, just do. Ronin inwardly began to chant.

After installing all the right packets into all the right places, he dragged the body into the left intersection. Hiding the body into a crevice, he turned and began backtracking out of the cave. He might have been lucky with that last group of people, sensors that worked in the dark weren't really unusual. He suspected he’d gotten lucky due to the jamming field covering the valley.

Climbing grudgingly through the cave, trying to ignore his headache, he encountered another group of searchers. Hiding behind some abandoned machinery, he got lucky, again.

Finally, after passing through one of the narrower passages, he was standing just before the mouth of the mine. He was not faced with engaged terrorists, no shouting or yelling. The valley was silent, bodies strewn haphazardly around as if they had just fallen over.

Some kind of radiation weapon? Weren’t those outlawed?

Switching on the inbuilt Geiger counter on the academy uniform, the air was clean. Whatever had happened, it was over now at least.

Looking up, there was nothing there either.

Orbital strike? He thought, suspicion creeping in. If it was an orbital strike, only the government could be behind it. Further, if the government used weapons outlawed internationally, he’d be damned if he was going to be around too ‘welcome’ the investigation team when they arrived!

He didn’t mind this government one way or the other, he wanted to make spaceships, not become some politician. But this sort of operation… whatever had been done here, it would be better if he was not a part of it. The less people knew of him witnessing this, the better. Him having seen this was already one person too many!

Looking up the wide spiraling road leading up the mining site he made up his mind. Setting the jetpack thruster on burst mode, Ronin began the climb.

“…”

BEEP! BEEP!

Panting Ronin checked the remaining jet-fuel in the uniform.

2 %, that's cutting it close

He’d been running most of the distance himself, on the steep or vertical sections he’d jumped before activating the jet pack. This last jump had been 30 meters, dropping the fuel amount by over 7%. Taking the long way would have been plain stupid when running from a war crime. Instead of running along the spiraling road, he had run straight up instead.

I'm smart that way, Ronin thought as he mentally gave himself a pat on the back.

It was not however good for his already hurting back and legs, well at least the uniform had internal cooling, keeping his body temperature perfectly comfortable along the climb.

Finally back among civilization, Ronin called down a shuttle. He opted out of using his implant this time, the words of the man he killed still ringing in his head.

Implant, they track it, they listen

He didn't really believe it, but it would be stupid not to take precautions considering his situation.

“What the hell happened to you boy!?” The shuttle driver shouted, eyes wide open, shock and horror animating his entire being.

“Bad day,” Ronin curtly responded, not wanting to get into it.

“Void, how are you even alive! You need to go to the hospital?” The driver continued, clearly not mollified

“No, just take me to district 91 street 1204, I'm fine,” Ronin replied.

I can't look that bad, can I?

“Ok, but don't die in the shuttle, ok? If I see you drowsing off, I'm dropping you off,” the driver skeptically voiced back, clearly having doubts about this entire affair.

Not wanting to stay any longer than he had to, Ronin walked into the shuttle.

“The optical implant got damaged,” Ronin stated as he handed over one of the batteries he’d looted earlier.

“Nono, with the state you're in, payment is not important, just don't die on me boy,” the driver graciously answered while not so graciously pocketing the battery.

Leaning back in the seat as the shuttle left the crime scene, Ronin thought back at what had just happened.

Legacy

The words rang in his mind like he was still there. That had been an apocalyptic battle, something which could never be real. But the way he had fought the terrorist, the way his body moved… people didn't move like that, not naturally. No one was THAT precise.

Perhaps he should see a doctor, sometime, but not now.