Gamma Nine (Book One) (2 page)

If it was not
for the unsettling and terrifying means the enemy used to make
itself known, we would have never known what lurked in the shadows
of our ever expanding star kingdom. The silence was the first sign
that something was wrong, but what followed in its wake crushed our
spirits before we even saw the enemy. Out of the silent hole that
was the Seraph Cluster came an inhuman scream, carried by the
voices of the infected.

This scream
filled the communication nodes on all broadcasting networks and
reached as far as our home planet, Earth Prime as it is now called.
Those of us that were not weak minded survived the scream’s initial
psychological onslaught, but others were not so lucky. Some were
killed the instant the scream was heard, others descended into
madness. The madness that afflicted the weaker ones destroyed their
minds, and the mindless ripped and clawed at their own flesh.
Survivors of the inhuman scream that penetrated our kingdom and our
minds didn’t dare speak of what they saw the mindless do. The
atrocities of the mindless were, as the future would teach us,
nothing compared to the real reason for the scream being unleashed
upon us.

The monstrous
scream was not a warning of any kind; instead it was the way the
enemy communicated over vast distances. Soldiers that faced the
enemy on the battlefield would later describe the scream as the
voice of demons pouring into their minds. It used our own
communication network against us to awaken the dormant infected
hidden across the cosmos.

The infection
had spread so far and had infected so many. Later testing done by
scientists during the war would expose the manner of infection.
Microscopic spores, disguised as sores on an infected person’s body
would release its deadly invisible payload into the atmosphere,
artificial or planetary, and infect everyone in close proximity to
an infected host. The manner of infection made it almost impossible
to stop others from being infected. Infection rate also increased
after the scream activated the sleeper cells within us.

Infected humans
and creatures on distant alien planets that were scattered into the
wind by time were all awoken when the scream spread throughout the
networks. All of them were instantly transformed in mind, frozen in
a trance state. Shortly after the infected just seemed to stop and
form part of a single consciousness. They moved as one and started
hunting those of us that were not infected. On space stations,
aboard ships and in colonies, hordes of infected moved, stalking
the rest of us like a predator stalking its prey. So many of us
died without even a chance of defending ourselves, we were ripped
and torn apart without a hope of escape. The infected had only one
goal, to feed. And as if the realization of being fed upon by our
own kind was not enough, the mutations that changed the infected
brought new levels of fear to humankind.

The infection
changed and mutated the bodies of the infected into grotesque
parodies of humans. Bones grew to new and horrible forms, some
forming blades, others adding to their bulk. No infected looked the
same, every single one a different creature from our worst
nightmares. Some had elongated faces like mythical creatures out of
ancient tales, while others looked like amalgamations of demons and
men. There was no single template, it was as if the gates of Hades
had opened and every manner of monster had spilled out into our
reality. The most frightening thing was perhaps that there was
nothing supernatural about the mutations. Only the bravest of
humankind could face down the beasts and not falter.

By the time the
survivors had regrouped after the initial onslaught an uncountable
number of humans had lost their lives. The beasts destroyed and
consumed anything in their path. We had lost more than half of our
vast star kingdom to the beasts feeding on our flesh. Most of what
we had built was now a silent tomb to the dead, in some sectors
there were still desperate fights for survival. But the outlook was
grim, and the humans in the unaffected zones held little hope for
those trapped in the dead zones. The monsters we now had to face
were referred to as the Beast by propaganda spewing networks. The
name stuck and our enemy now had a name.

The Beast had
caught us off-guard, overwhelmed most of our colonies in the dead
zone, and it had annihilated man, woman and child without
hesitation. The call went out in the safe zone for all volunteers
to assemble at pre-determined locations to fight the Beast by any
means necessary; we needed to contain the threat before it
overwhelmed the zones that had less infected running rampant.

Many planetary
and void skirmishes were fought to keep humankind from becoming
extinct. Millions of P-SEP’s own personal defence force was sent
from Earth Prime to help with containment. Soldiers from planets on
the frontline between the safe zone and the dead zone fought and
died to protect what was left of our star kingdom. Planets on the
edge between the two zones were highly contested and neither side
could achieve victory. The planets turned in to charnel house for
human and Beast alike. Our military resources capable of destroying
or eliminating vast amounts of the Beast was trapped behind enemy
lines, destroyed or held in reserve around Earth Prime. It was not
yet clear if the Beast was capable of breaking out of the dead zone
and pushing further into the safe zone. Our planet killing weapons
were not yet operational and we were left with a tug of war with
the Beast for over fifty years. Neither side gained ground,
everything hung by a thread as the stalemate could not be
broken.

Our resources
were limited and in some sectors dwindling dangerously low. The
sectors that were safe were mostly newly colonized planets in the
Galactic South. Only a few of the sectors were first generation
colonies. Production and colonization took time and manpower,
things we didn’t have in abundance. We needed something new and
powerful to push back at the Beast. We needed to retake our lost
sectors and re-unite our star kingdom. We needed what the faithful
still among us called a miracle. The answer came not long after our
hope had begun to fail.

“
They were the tip of
the sword. They were the first to deploy and last to withdraw. They
made the best of a dire situation, achieving victory where most
could only see defeat. They numbered only a few thousand, yet their
bravery never wavered in the face of evil and insurmountable odds.
Because of them we were given more time, because of them we were
able to rebuild. The Titans were the hammer and shield of
humankind, but as history taught our race - all Titans must
fall.”

The great minds
of our time spent every waking moment after Subjugation Day - the
name we had given the day the Beast had awoken - trying to find an
answer to the Beast. Intellectuals, engineers and tacticians worked
tirelessly for decades, scavenging for resources to build better
weapons, and research new ones. There were many new breakthroughs
in the fields of weapon development and soldier enhancements, but
none of them were enough or viable on the field of battle against
the Beast.

Chief Scientist
Thomas Wexler from the planet New Horizon P-SEP research centre
gave us the answer we had been searching for. He brought together
multiple fields of research and made them all work in unison to
create what he named The Titan Project.

The Titan
Project consisted of a new type of mechanized suit, manually
operated by its Operator from within. These suits were named
Articulated Refuge Constructs, or ARC suits as the Operators called
them. Operators were enclosed by the strongest materials known to
humankind. Anctinium armour plating covered an Anctinium-mesh suit,
and beneath the mesh suit the liquid nanites protected the outer
epidermis and internal organs from within. The Liquid Nano Robotic
system was injected into an Operator’s body when interfacing with
the ARC suit. The liquid nanites healed any damage an Operator
could sustain during operation. Interface plugs were surgically
implanted into all Operators in the limbs and spine, with the most
important plug situated at the top of the spine just below the nape
of the neck. Without these plugs, Operators could never control the
ARC suits to their full potential. It is said that the surgery to
implant the interface plugs for the ARC suit was excruciatingly
painful.

Only the
bravest and the best soldiers that could be spared from the armed
forces were recruited and put through trials. The Titan Trial was
the worst kind of military training known to man, gruelling and
sometimes just cruel. Recruits were stretched mentally and
physically beyond what could be considered acceptable levels. Out
of over ten thousand recruits less than half survived the trials,
and implantation and calibration with the ARC suits claimed even
more lives. By the time the few thousand Titans that survived the
trials were ready, more than sixty years had passed since
Subjugation Day. The Titans were broken up into smaller squads
before deployment and Operators maintained their former armed
forces ranks.

Their first
deployment would be on the frontline, on the planet Arkelis in the
Iona sector. The Beast and soldiers from the armed forces had been
waging war for over a decade on that planet. Arkelis was on the
verge of being overrun by the Beast, the soldiers stationed there
were barely holding out against our tireless and ravenous enemy. It
was on the surface of Arkelis that the Titan’s metaphorical and
literal metal would be put to the test. Arkelis would be the
ultimate test for our new weapon. Humankind’s future sat on a
knife’s edge. Win or lose, our hope rested solely on the shoulders
of the Titans.

The years had
not been kind to the mutations of the Beast. On the surface of
Arkelis our race saw what time had done to the infected. With every
passing decade the Beast had evolved into more vicious and less
recognizable monsters. What was left of the human templates
underneath the mutating flesh and bone was now completely gone,
soldiers facing them on the battlefields throughout our star
kingdom could not discern if these creatures were once human or of
alien origin. It seemed that a new race had been born into the
light decades ago, a race born to consume every living thing in the
universe.

Humankind stood
in the Beast’s path. We could have left the rest of our universe to
fall under their claws and teeth, running and surviving for as long
as it took for the monsters to find its prey. Or we could fight;
stand against it while we were still able to, and stop the tide of
nightmarish fiends assailing our kingdom’s walls. We were after
all, at least in some way, to blame for what happened.

Our resources
were limited, our soldiers tired and our hope almost depleted. The
fleet that was still available for military action were mostly made
up of infantry carriers and cargo haulers. Very few battle ready
cruisers and scout ships were left, and almost all of them were now
on patrol between the safe zone and the highly contested dead
zones. Subjugation Day had taken its toll on the fleets and the
military docking facilities situated in the dead zones, most of
them now only derelict ghost ships hanging in the void. Only three
capital ships still remained, these armoured and deadly behemoths
were assigned to the defence of Earth and its solar system. After
Subjugation Day, Earth’s solar system entry points were blockaded
by P-SEP and its military wing to protect our home planet from
whatever threat was able to reach it. Nothing was allowed in or out
of the solar system, Earth and its sister planets were all isolated
from the rest of the star kingdom. Like a king going into hiding
during a siege, the councils and leaders of those planets closed
the doors on the rest of us. The rest of the star kingdom could
only communicate with the outer nodes within our home solar system
and report progress on the war with the Beast.

Circumstances
were grim, but we still had a tiny spark of hope left that we had
not used yet. Our experimental weapon was about to join the war
against the Beast. Two cruisers named Hammer Break and Hyperion
were loaded with battle ready Titans and all of their supporting
crew and gear. On the eve before they would take to the field of
battle, the Hammer Break and the Hyperion entered the space around
Arkelis unannounced and unnoticed. The deployment of the Titans
would be a surprise to all that fought on the planet’s surface. It
ensured tactical advantage, something we desperately needed.

Drop ships
descended from the Hammer Break and Hyperion now orbiting the
silent void above Arkelis. The drop ships headed straight for the
largest land mass on the planet’s surface, Evodus; there the raging
battle was the most ferocious. A little over two thousand Titans
were deposited amid the frontlines across Evodus, to the surprise
of the soldiers already fighting for their lives.

The Titans
stormed out of their drop ships and immediately rushed the Beast,
hammering them with volleys of automatic fire while others suited
and outfitted for close quarters charged into the Beast horde.
Soldiers close to the drop points rallied to them without question,
their lustrous new armour like beacons to those around them. Bodies
of the enemy were heaped up around the areas were Titans were
locked in combat with the Beast. They had little difficulty in
dispatching the human-sized infected, bigger and bulkier infected
were downed by squads working as one. None fell during the first
few hours of the Battle for Arkelis, and slowly but surely they
were proving that they could be our saviours. Kill counts and
reports flooded the battlefield networks all confirming one thing,
that the count of enemy dead was in the thousands and climbing all
the time. Soldiers fighting with the Titans witnessed acts of great
valour on the battlefield. The tide had finally started to turn in
favour of the humans fighting on Arkelis. Within a few hours they
had the Beast on the back foot and reeling from their surprise
assault. Already they were becoming legends.