“I can’t begin to tell you how unbelievably stupid you were, getting in a pissing match with Sergeant Scott, on the battlefield!” Hawkins yelled. They were back in the briefing room, but this time they were going over what went well versus what could go wrong.

“Sir, I…” Chapter 8

“I don’t give shit Private, you forced command on a fellow squad AND threatened to leave them if she didn’t bow to your will.”

“That wasn’t the…”

“Don’t give me that horse crap Soldier, I know you have a soft spot for those aliens. You didn’t think they were worthy of dying to your weapons is that it?”

“No Sir, I…”

“Look, all of you did a great job out there. And I couldn’t be more proud.” Hawkins said with a smile as he sat down in his chair to watch the stunned faces around him. “This squad decided that no more uneccessary killing should happen once the mission was completed. Frankly, I wish more people thought like this. Care to explain why?”

“Well…” Jack stammered, “When I saw their weapons and fighting style, I realized just how much we dwarfed them in terms of warefare. Honestly, I don’t believe that they even built the engine in the first place.”

“So they were primitive?”

“Not quite,” Alec said, “They had technology, but almost nothing projectile based.”

“Almost like it was a honor thing.” Candice said, “But then again… there was that one.”

The room fell silent. Until this point, none of them had confronted watching a fellow soldier die, much less in such a horrific manner. The strange, pitch black creature who’s only similarity to the Oteric was its shape would haunt their nightmares for years to come.

“Yes, you mentioned that one was different, care to explain how?” Hawkins asked, this part was where the real meat of the report would come from. Unfortunately, since they had also lost a squad-mate, it would also be the hardest to talk about.

“Would I like too? No not really.” Jack said, “But since it happened, you need to know.”

Jack went nto great detail about every aspect of the mission. Starting with the landing, he explained how they were ambushed and the efforts needed to defent themselves. Then, he told the officer about the infiltration and how many enemy soldiers needed to be removed before they eventually reached the lab.

When he got to the creature, he froze.

Fear washed through him simply from the memory of the battle. The way the creature moved, it’s all but total immunity to Li-Tech, everything about the creature made him want to crawl into a bottle and pretend that nothing had happened.

But something did happen, and the missing face in Turspier was all too present a reminder to that.

“Sir, the creature… I… I don’t think it was an Oteric. Maybe some sort of shapeshifting alien, or even some crazy cloaking tech that the AHF’s never come across. Either way, it took everything I had to pull a strand out of it.” Jack explained.

“Pull a strand out? I’m not following.” Hawkins said, a perplexed look plastered to his face.

“Well Sir, when I connect to a person’s eyesight, I create a transmit and receive pathway in the Light. That governing law is what allows me to pull your perspective into myself while also sending Light maps and speech.” Jack explained, “This thing, it took the transmit frequency, but nothing was comeing back like it was supposed too.”

“Like old school satellite communications? One way?”

“Kind of. The difference here was that no Light escaped this thing, not a single thread.” Jack said, fear still evident in his voice.

“So how did you kill it? You did kill it, right?”

“I dropped all but a single thread and pulled with everything I had. Eventually, I was able to loop a single thread between it and the rest of the squad. Once the bond was in place, it’s immunity to Light was gone, we dispatched it with extreme prejudice.” Jack described, “Unfortunately, the move left me badly weakend and barely able to hold a single thread until got some rest.”

“What your saying is, if there would have been two of these things, I would have one less squad right now.”

“Yessir.” Dave said, “Sir, I know I’m not the one giving the report here, but you need to know this. It walked through my barriers. Just… Walked. No resistance, no thinking about it, nothing. I threw up barrier after barrier trying to stop this bastard, but nothing even slowed the thing.”

“How could it simply ignore them? Once Light becomes concentrated enough, it solidifies. That’s how our shields work, all of them. If this thing can just step on through with no issues… well, it spells very bad things for this army.” Hawkins said thoughtfully, “Thank you for the report Monroe, I will document the relavent data and send it to command. Don’t e surprised if they have more questions concerning Ortiz and the creature.”

“Sir, will he be rebuilt any time soon?” Warren asked, voicing everyone’s concern.

“Yes, but I don’t know when. Not only that, but newly made Steel Cast take a while to get used to the new body.” Hawkins answered solomly, “Don’t wait for the phone call soldier, just be happy when a friend happens to walk back into your life.”

“Get out of here and get some rest.” He continued after turning away from them, “Sleep, drink, eat, fuck. I don’t care, just anything to get your mind off of today that isn’t related to the AHF.”

They privates stood to begin shuffling out, each intent on doing at least one of those items before the next day. “Oh and Spier Squad,” He said, interrupting them, “Good work out there, you brought a lot of people home that otherwise would’ve never left that planet.”

Nodding their appreciation, they continued to shuffle out. The compliment was welcome, but praise was far from anyone’s focus in that moment.

Later that night, Jack lay in his bunk unable to sleep. He and Thea had excused themselves from the group when it was decided that they should take up the Leutinates offer and spend the night drinking with the other soldiers.

Instead, the couple chose to sit down at the only nice restaurant on the Washington and simply talk about what they’d been through. In part, they were happy that the mission was successful. However, a much larger portion of his mind was hyperfocused on the memory of dead soldiers filling the halls.

He asked himself why they had to die. What excuse could possibly be good enough for them to invade a foreign laboratory, murder hordes of soldiers, and steal the only tech that looked even slightly near what mankind had at it’s disposal?

The truth; there was no excuse good enough.

They had fought soldiers wearing little to no armor at all. In fact, the reason he called them barbarians was simply because they wore skins and wraps like the barbarians of old earth. The weapons were nothing to write home over either; fort the most part, they were nothing more than spears with an electrical charge. Dave alone could have single handedly devastated the entire army given enough time.

So, if the native people didn’t come up with the tech, who did?

His mind flashed to the being of pitch black, contrasting the tan stone walls of the hallway. Its body pressed into a shape similar to an Oteric warrior but otherwise lacking all color. The memory of that single arm unraveling into a writhing mass as it brutally murdered Ortiz causing him to shudder with fear.

Did the engine belong to that creature? If so, it proved that this new foe was many times more technologically advanced than humanity. Was it even possible to fight a creature that bled power like that thing?

A message pinged in the coner of his HUD – he always intended to take it off at night, but more and more often it went forgotten for days at a time. In just two short years, he had gone from carrying a cell phone to wearing the Vis-HUD at all times

Come to my office. I know you’re awake. ­– Albert

Unable to ignore a request for the founder of his corps – and more importantly, unable to lie about being awake, Jack carefully extracted himself from the bed and threw on his uniform. Before walking out, he sent a quick message to Thea informing her where he was going.

While it wasn’t common for soldiers to get in major trouble while on-board, it was simply a courtesy that he felt should be given. That, and he really wasn’t sure what to expect from one of the strange Unranked Officers.

He took his time, partially to avoid retelling the horrific story, and partially because he resented being pulled from his bed for something that could probably wait. Unfortunately, that did not stop the old man from opening the door the moment Jack turned onto the hallway where the office was located.

The moment someone stepped foot into the office, it was clear that Albert Mayer enjoyed oppulance. As one of the Serum’s creators, and the founder of the Optic corps, he was given almost anything he asked for. The desk at the center of his office was a hand-carved wood from Earth – something that was made illegal long ago due to the vat over-farming of lumber.

The walls were covered in bookshelved and display cases. Having spent his fare share of time in this room, Jack knew that the books were all meticulously categorized and placed in an exact order. Physical books had long been out of style, but that wouldn’t stop the thousand year old scientist-turned philosopher from finding first edition copies of his favorite works from millinea past. As for the cases; they were filled with artifacts from people and time long past, each item telling a story better than any record could.

“I got your message.” Jack said as he sat in one of the chairs facing the large desk.

“Obviously.” Albert replied, “I wanted to speak to you in private concerning your mission.”

Jack, of course, knew this already. Any other reason for calling him up to the massive office could’ve waited until morning. Not only that, but there was only one reason for calling a Private when the standard procedure would be for Albert to get his data from somewhere higher in the chain of command.

“No, I’m not going to ask you to replay the battle for me. You will, unfortunately, be forved to do so often in the coming days and I wish to save you from as much pain as possible.”

“Thank you.” Jack said sincerely, happy to find a sense of humanity from an officer.

“No… I don’t think you will want to thank me anytime soon.” Albert said sadly, “You see, we’ve known about those reatures for quite some time now. The Unranked Officers have faced them several times, and though we are able to defeat them time and time again, it isn’t a walk in the park.”

“Where have you fought them? Better yet, what are they?” Jack asked.

“You do not have the clearance for the first answer, and the second will be inadequate.” Alberts replied after a long pause, “But I will try to explain what we do know.”

“We do not know what they call themselves as they are tight lipped even in something as benighn as a name. However, we can tell you the gist of what you already know. They are invertabrates with the ability to mold their bodies into the general shape of any species they choose to make contact with. However, the ability is not one of camouflage since they are unable to change the color of their skin.”

“Have you fought enough to know they cant? Or is is just because you haven’t seen them do it?”

“I’m afraid it’s more of the latter. We all hope they cannot, because if they can, we are in for a world of hurt.” Albert said gravely. “We also know, as your team experienced, that they are incredibly strong and nearly immune to our weaponry.”

“Not nearly, fully.” Jack corrected, “We threw so many rounds at that monster that we nearly exhausted our control.”

“So what did the trick?”

“Me.” Jack said flately, “When I looked at it through the spectrum, I saw that not a single strand leaving out of it’s body. Every shot, every barrier, every thread was simply absorbed. After Orti…. After the accident, I pulled with everything I had and was able to eventually rip a single thread of Light out of it and create a closed loop with the rest of the squad.”

“And that worked?”

“Yes it did.”

“Interesting.” Albert stood and walked to one of the displays. After a few moments, he finally spoke again, “Jack, I need you to know that in the next few days, we will be flying to Pheonix Prime. Myself and your commanders have been asked to give a rundown of what happened today. Frankly, it is more than likely that they will require you and your squad to be in attendance to answer any questions that they don’t think our explainations are good enough for.”

“Who is so far in rank that even you have to answer?” Jack asked, genuinely confused.

“The Senate.” He replied simply before returning to the desk and changing the subject, “So, now that you’ve run a real mission, how do you feel about fighting on the front lines?”

“Honestly, I don’t even feel like I was in the front lines for much of the mission. The handful of times that I was, I believe that it was handled pretty well. For the most part, this mission required me to play backend support and help secure the package.” He explained.

“How very mature of you.” Albert replied, “Based on previous conversations, I thought that you would be on the front row with sword in hand, side by side with Private Walker.”

“I’m not stupid, Sir.” Jack countered, “Truthfully, that would have killed the mission. If I would’ve been up there, then so would Private Olfson. I don’t have to tell you that doing that would have left Private Alexander by himself to secure the machine and open the Gate, one of which he couldn’t have done without the help of my thread back to the ship.”

“I didn’t say you were stupid, I merely hinted that our conversations painted you as a very different type of soldier than we saw on the field today.” Albert placated, “You and Speir squad did very well today. Better than anyone could ask from a group of green soldiers out on their first real mission. Thank you saving the rest of the company, we owe you the debt of their lives.”

Jack didn’t see it like that, and he was damn certain that Sergeant Scott didn’t either. It was his duty to go back for those soldiers, his job to ensure that they weren’t left behind. Unfortunately, he knew that the Sergeant wouldn’t see it the way he did. More than likely, she would hold a grudge against him for overstepping his rank, regardless of whether or not it saved her life.

“Thank you Sir.” He replied graciously.

“Get some sleep Private, you have a long few days ahead.”

Jack rose from his seat before wishing the Officer a good nights rest and returning to his room. While the conversation with his Corp’s patron was enlightening, it still left much to me desired.

Where did they first encounter this race of nightmares from the stars?

What would future interactions look like with these creatures?

The only thing Jack knew for certain as he fell asleep for the second time that night; if he was going to keep his squad alive through whatever war was on the horizon, he would need to be much, much stronger.