Authors: Max Feinstein
All hope felt him before he could even reach the couch completely when he saw a glimpse of pale flesh that quickly turned into an outstretched hand. There, now laying in front of him, was the body of Ashley on top of a large pool of blood. Her long blond hair splayed out in all directions covering her lovely face.
Down over the top of her legs laid his son, Martin. The boy’s eyes appeared to still be open. Tears swelled in his eyes at this horrible sight and Jonathan’s head began to spin causing his legs to give way. In the following second he found himself kneeling beside the bodies of his dead family members, his wife in one hand and the form of Martin in the other.
As he wept openly for his loss Jonathan began to have terrible feelings of guilt for their deaths. He couldn’t figure out the reason of this feeling. He had taken no part in their murder, but there they still were. Something inside him kept shouting, it’s all your fault.
‘ It’s all your fault’, he heard louder this time and in what sounded like a distorted version of his son’s voice. Looking down slowly towards Martin, Jonathan nearly jumped. The boy’s dead eyes were now fully open and looking directly up at him. His mouth moving slowly.
‘You brought this,’ it told him, this time sounding nothing like his son.
‘Your fault…stolen...must be returned…made right,’ the boy hissed up at him.
He looked down shocked, totally in disbelief of what was happening, when the figure spoke again, ‘Odyssey’
.
“Sir!”
he heard a familiar voice yell out and with a hard jerk Colonel Hallsworth’s eyes snapped open. No longer was he inside his home. His arms were empty. The only thing directly in front of him was his dreaded report covered desk. The nightmare appeared to have ended and he was back in control.
“Yes Lieutenant? What can I do for you?” Jonathan blinked quickly once more and asked while turning his head up and back towards the voice that had aroused him.
Lieutenant Barmir Ankar stood there beside the colonel’s chair at full attention now with hands behinds his back, “sorry sir. My other attempts failed to rouse you.”
“Was just resting my eyes for a moment, Ankar,” Colonel Hallsworth lied flatly to the member of his command staff and himself. He was truly ashamed at having fallen asleep in the midst of all the work still on his ‘to do list’ for the da
y. Jonathan slowly reached out and ran one hand over the holographic input pad projected on the surface of his desk, making the image floating above it change to a new report.
The other officer continued to stand there motionless and speechless, waiting for the colonel. Jonathan thought he saw a hint of amusement in the young man’s face that disappeared just as quickly. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“I need your pending approvals for the Ops we have scheduled today. In actuality, Captain Lemowiz and Lieutenant Epifanio are the ones awaiting your go order for their operations.”
At this Jonathan finally gave in to a small smirk and shook his head as he set about to give his electronic blessing to both operations. Any other commander would have probably chastised the young lieutenant, but Colonel Hallsworth was not just any such man. Over the past many days he had gotten to know Barmir and respected him as a man and an officer. Jonathan actually saw a version of himself, albeit a previous much younger version, and couldn’t help but befriend the man. Barmir had a healthy sense of humor about him that Jonathan and others found refreshing in the somnolence of war that everyone now existed in. The commander believed that some levity was necessary
during harsh situations in order to keep moral up and people from going into despair. This was especially true for the civilians now being cared for by his troops inside the Bastion complex.
Many of these nonmilitary persons knew Lieutenant Ankar well because of the comedy shows he put on and organized in the recreation centers as well as the music concerts and sporting events he established. Even with so much on his plate the lieutenant still seemed to have no problem accomplishing his normal workload that was part of his duty.
“There, finished. Are you satisfied?” Jonathan turned his chair around and looked up with a mock stern face directly at the man of average physique.
“Yes Boss, very much so, thank you,” he smiled back seeing right through the colonel and spun around on his heels to walk back towards the door before pausing, “contact with General Hadim in one hour twenty.”
Surprised by this last reminder Jonathan quickly darted his eyes downward at the chro
no glowing inside his wristcom. The time shining back at him actually gave him a second of pause and confusion. No way he had slept that long, the colonel told himself, but the clock did not lie. For the first time since the assault on Frontiera had begun Jonathan had slumbered for over a single hour. In fact according to his watch it had been five times as long as previously. For the past ten days Jonathan had been kept awake mostly by the weight of responsibly pressing upon him as well as with the help of stims coursing through his body.
Thinking of the sleep brought his mind back to the recent dream he had just experienced moments ago. It had started mostly like his previous two
during his catnaps, but those had been only flashes of images. This one felt much more real, not like a dream at all. It seemed to be entirely something different that Jonathan could not put his finger on.
When he looked back up Barmir was no longer in the office, having left almost immediately to carry out other duties. Jonathan took a deep breath, ran his left hand slowly through his slightly matted hair
, reminding himself of a long overdue shower, and leaned back into his chair lost in a moment of reflection. The image of his son and wife dead in his hands still so fresh and shocking in his mind. He could almost feel the weight of the two lifeless bodies in his arms and tried to console himself in that it was just an awful nightmare with no more bearing than such. Deep inside, however, Jonathan knew what a full out war against the Federation could do. He had seen such horrors within Destona itself.
Finally regaining control of himself, the colonel forcibly pushed the thoughts deeper into his mind, burying them so they would not bother him further. He had more pressing matters closer at hand that demanded his undivided attention.
Jonathan leaning forward once more and pushed himself away from the desk with purpose. His intelligence reports had informed him earlier with reasonable certainty that the enemy was in possession of some sort of mind control weapon. He had seen reports and even combat footage of such from the first day assault on Destona. Perhaps he had just experienced something like that, Jonathan asked himself. If that was in fact true than he resolved to not give the enemy any satisfaction. He would not let them control him or feed off his fears.
With
unyielding purpose Colonel Hallsworth rose to his feet, felt the uniform readjust itself to his new posture, and strode out of the room. He walked down one of the white and light brown sterile corridor that led to the transit station. The civilians now living throughout the Bastion complex must be thinking how Spartan everything looked inside the sprawling facility. That is if they weren’t still so traumatized from having had to witness the horrors of war and being torn from everything they knew and owned. Jon could not blame them in the least. There was a reason some people chose the military as a profession and others did not. It was also only after years of training and drilling that soldiers learn to deal with what they might come across in a battle environment. Even so, the colonel thought, he had personally witnessed some of these men and women at arms break down mentally in the midst of intense combat.
As he neared one of the civilian habitat blocks that had been taken over and converted from a former soldier barracks he began to see the surroundings slowly change. Parts of the hallway were littered with luggage along the walls, while other sections had various drawings at the lower edges of the rounded wall surfaces. In the past week more people from the surrounding area had wondered into Bastion or had been rounded up and evacuated by some of his forces. Because of these new additions the bunker complex had swelled to over one hundred thousand people. This great number strained
resources to the breaking point, but how could Jonathan, in good conscience, refuse their entrance. As a result people already living at Bastion were asked to contribute further and free up more space for these new arrivals. The already overflowing habitats were made even more claustrophobic, but that couldn’t be helped. Most civilians cooperated freely, remembering vividly what they had gone through, while others had been more combative. In the end those pockets of resistance were encouraged to soften their attitudes by a stern warning from the Colonel. To ease the situation what remained of Jon’s meager engineering units had started excavating further into the mountain in an attempt to construct more livable space.
Jonathan rounded a soft corner and felt his heart warm as he noticed one of the base’s newest editions sitting on the floor with a marker in his small hand. The five year old boy paused in the middle of his wall drawing and looked up at Jonathan with a big smile, waving happily at the big colonel. Jon smiled and waved back at the boy, whose name was Telis. He remembered the child well as he had been among the last group of Destona civilians evacuated a few days before by his men. The entire family had suffered
great misfortune at the hands of the enemy. Reviewing their files Jonathan saw that they had three other children, all of whom served the Federation. One son had been a soldier stationed on the planet and had died in the initial phase of the invasion in defense of SP Mironia. Their daughter was part of the Destona Security Force and had perished while protecting groups of civilians as they moved towards their designated evacuation point. Their last son, the oldest of the four, had chosen a career path in the Federation Marine Corp and was currently assigned as the head of security on the Rahias Advanced Projects Facility.
All of this was seemingly lost on the young boy as he proceeded to draw pictures on the wall. Jonathan admired the ignorance and resilience of youth.
There were actually a surprising number of such children that had taken their relocation remarkably well, thinking of it more as a vacation than anything else. The after effects of such uprooting would probably manifest themselves later in their lives, Jon thought to himself as he looked down at the child. Reaching down he playfully ruffled the boy’s hair and wished him well before continuing on his way.
In another moment he started to hear voices coming from up ahead of him. Jonathan began to fear another confrontation between
the population before he realized that the sounds were not of anger or hatred, but of cheer and union. The noise grew louder until he passed the recreation room they were coming from. Looking to his left Jon noticed the entire doorway decorated with homemade streamers and signs along with other inviting decorations. There was also music playing in the background, something Colonel Hallsworth had not heard in quite some time. It actually made him pause in mid stride and take a closer look inside.
The room was rather large, designed to house over a thousand people at one time, and from what Jonathan saw it
looked to be filled to capacity. There were tables and chairs set up around the room where people could sit and eat together. He could see groups of these people sitting around and talking to each other. After so much pain and suffering it was refreshing to finally see some of the civilians in a more relaxed environment. It was really his first time since the invasion that he had seen them smile, let alone laugh.
Jonathan took a long breath and let the music
warm his soul for a second. Unfortunately he did not have more time to stay and slowly turned away from the party being had. Happy inside that people were finally starting to get along and perhaps getting back some small semblance of their prewar life. With that he moved along to the HTram station not letting anything else interrupt his progress.
It took only a few minutes for the levitated train to reach its destination within the depth of the Bastion complex.
This was the most secure section of the facility and it was only because of Bain and Jonathan’s Neural Cognitive Implant that he was able to clear the many checkpoints without slowing down. Bastion’s AI detected the colonel approaching thanks to the NCI and allowed him to pass into the TACCOM center without pause. It also let everyone within the command center know of the colonel’s arrival so it was no surprise that Major Prinesa Girard was already waiting him when Jonathan stepped out of the tram car.
Jonathan was not surprised to see her humorless stern face and ridged stance greeting him as he set foot into the Center. Prinesa had been assigned to his unit just before their deployment to Frontiera and was his second-in-command
. Judging by her records and past reviews she had a brilliant mind, but was plagued by a less than ideal personality. She was cold and rather unfriendly to those around her, preferring to conduct herself in a strict ‘by the book’ manner. In truth Jonathan saw her as almost his exact opposite and therefore found her somewhat difficult to work with at times. He had to admit, however, that even with her troubles getting along with the other soldiers, Major Girard was a great asset. She would never be his number one on the frontline, but he trusted her completely to oversee that his orders were carried out throughout the various units now under his command. Her diligence to duty and attention to detail in the officer role was the reason for all of her past promotions.