Halek, The guardian of shade

Here I sit. For over 35 millenia, imprisoned. Exiled from Ibiru for challenging Kronos. I tap my bare feet on the marble ground and gaze out the obsidian doorway. Each day I wait and I watch as the sun rises and sets on the martian horizon. Each day I struggle to escape a simmering anger that only gets worse as I am forced to reflect on the past. Sometimes I have to leave the temple and build empty cities with the martian dust just to keep myself occupied.

Somehow Chyorai managed to get into Cydonia and integrate with the martians. I cannot do that. The last time I tried, the martians nearly killed me.

Each day I tap my fingers on my obsidian throne awaiting my pitiful meal sent to me in sacrifice. Chyorai tells me I'll be released off of Mars if I help him. I don't have much choice but to do what he says. How that arrogant fool is still alive beats me. Somehow he thinks he's going to enter Black Space and defeat Montari. I think he's a damn fool for trying, yet at the same time... I feel he knows something I don't. You can't even look directly at Montari without your soul disintegrating.

But what option do I have to work with an imbecile with infinite resources? He might only be 7 feet tall, and I 30, but he is a force to be reckoned with. There is something odd about him, something unattural, something... lacking about him. He is both unnerving and unsettling to me. I just hope Chyorai keeps his damned promise. If I can help retake earth, maybe Kronos will pardon my sins. Until then, I will probably go on another monthly trek to Elysium to kill some time.

Kigen Tsuwamono

As an urban child from the Utopia region on mars, city life was nothing new to me. The city was always a tangled mess of colors and gleaming structures under the orange dusty sky, and worked in a cyclical class system. The older the father of the family was, the higher up in the hexagonal skyscrapers the family would live. It was that simple. Class seemed automatic and lifeless, yet peaceful, and with one hundred and fifty as the maximum age a Martian could legally achieve, our lives were a simple cycle that was always evolving. Anyone older than age one hundred and fifty participated in a glorious ceremony atop the spire of Cydonia to meet the Archon of Mars himself. Not much is known about the ceremony, or the Archon himself. There’s even a rumor that he isn’t Martian at all. Everyone on the same floor had the same experiences, while everyone on the bottom brought about their own fresh experiences.

At the age of twenty five I decided I would join the military. The military was considered the most honorable profession there was. The idea of giving up your life to protect the common good seemed admirable. It also served as the only means of escape from the city. Those who served in the military would be regarded as nobility.

So I decided to take on that offer and join up. Not only was it the worst decision of my life, but the best one. We were spoiled to excess, yet tormented. The food was not the usual watery bowl of nutrients we ate in the city but entire exquisite meals. The beds had stuffed mattresses, the sinks had drinkable tap water, and we were issued an entire set of clothing to wear around the barracks. It was truly magnificent. At the same time, they worked us hard. If we managed to get two or three hours of sleep during the day, it would be divided up amongst physical training, target practice, and unit tactics training. After a full day of training I would drift silently over to my cot, shoulders immobile and limp, and fall strait onto the bed with the weight of a hundred Cydonian rust oxen.

Time was spent sprinting from one event to the next, several miles apart along the thick martian desert region of Mare Erythraeum. The sprint wasn’t the worst part, it was the sandburn. We wore small goggles and a breathing apparatus to help us navigate, but the power of the sand would cause men to glow cherry red with small trickles of blood streaming down their bare necks. One by one my friends emerged from the orange cloud of dust, diving headfirst into the shaded bunker airlock where we stood still under the heat lamps. Jiro, Yuuki, and Kinjo were their names. The purpose of all this was to get accustomed to the harsher martian biomes, and learn how to focus and stay on track without getting distracted by pain or fear. Our runs included sprints through the polar regions, some caves, and some jungles. When men complained, they were grabbed and taken to a far room to be beaten. It was against the code to complain and spread negative thoughts to comrades.

The trainers wore full martian field uniforms, complete with scarlet spaulders and tiered cuisses. They were a sight to behold, and the thought of attaining that uniform alone drove us through the day.

Jiro sunk to his knees gasping for breath as he entered the airlock. Kinjo sat with his head tilted back against the wall staring incoherently.

Yuuki looked around the room and shook his head in agreement while the four of us shivered in the freezing winds. The doors to the metal airlock shut, cutting off the sandstorms last few attempts to scratch at us. The lights snapped on and the door opened to our next station, where we would enjoy heat, warm food, soft blankets, relaxing conversation, and then sleep for the rest of the day in preparation for our next beatdown.

            Lasting about two months long, the training camp was not the worst part of our career. Stories about our enemies, the Mechs, were intimidating, but didn’t stop us. They protected earth’s former inhabitants, Human kind. It was a privilege to fight alongside other Martians, and brought us honor to know that we fought with our own blood while our cowardly enemies fought with soulless machines. The Mechs were a formidable enemy, as small as they were in number. Living somewhere hidden out in space, their efficiency was something to be reckoned with in proportion to their scarcity.

            We secretly hoped to never face one of the Mechs. Their aggressive attacks were unpredictable and guerrilla in nature, and while we knew they were a threat, we never understood the conflict between the Mechs and Mars. When we asked questions about the war, the officers were just as clueless. We were just glad to serve and defend our planet.

Diridian Two

            The click of the trigger was as soft as the bat of his sweaty eyelash. The air remained undisturbed by the weapon. The assassin’s black gloves melded into the silhouette of his sleeves and his black visored helmet concealed his humanity. In the middle of the multi-moonlit plaza lay a man with a black smoky hole in the side of his head; his audience silent, unsure of what just happened, and never to know.

            Cyanide One, or C1, placed his ten-megajoule laser into its case, followed by the electronic detonator used to activate an EMP canister that completely disabled the lights and security systems of the plaza. The air was silent, and as C1 shut the lid to the rifle case, the air erupted with the screams of thousands of oblivious visitors in the plaza.  He lifted his head, arose, and walked out the door. I followed close behind him with all my emotions pushed aside, focused.

            We were the tweezers of the trinity, the overseeing, all powerful group that watched the citizens of the planet. If there was a job that was too costly for the Legionnaires, or too precise for the Centurion, we took control.

            I never saw his face, not once; and in return, he never saw mine. We would rendezvous at an assigned location, carry out the mission together, and then depart. I was his pupil, and he, my instructor by the name of Cyanide One. My call-sign was Diridan Two. It took all my life to get here, and would cost the rest of my life to maintain it.

Masanori Bata

The red strobe light blinked as sparks fountained from the control panel and bounced off of my visor. Air sucked out of a fist sized hole in the cabin into the void of space. Pushing aside my fear, my mind raced back and forth at all the buttons and dials that displayed the status of my craft. I had to think fast. It’s possible my pursuer shot a hole in the canopy, but that didn’t mean the aircraft stopped working.

I pulled back on both throttles and slammed the right foot pedal as my craft took a hard turn and pointed toward the craft chasing me. As I rotated, the enormous blue moon of Jupiter, Europa, slid into my peripheral. My craft continued hurling backward through the vacuum of space as I proceeded to hurl a barrage of silent projectiles at the enemy, punching holes in it, sending glass and debris in all directions, eventually slowing it down to a halt. The lights within the enemy vessel turned off except for the single red light glowing from inside the robotic pilot’s metal bullet shaped cranium; after feverishly working at his console, the pilot’s head turned toward me to catch one last glimpse of his destroyer. I squeezed both triggers sending two red comets colliding with his craft disintegrating it after a blinding flash of light.

Then my heart skipped a beat as my wing mate, Shoji, radioed a cry for help.

“Mayday Mayday. Bata one do you read?” Shoji’s voice was fast and agitated.

“Shoji where are you?” I called back.

“They got me. I’m hit, the moon is gonna take me, man. Do something. Do something god dammit!” He started to lose his self control and panic.

 I rolled my head in all directions searching for his ship eventually spotting it hurling toward the soft blue atmosphere of Europa. I watched, and I followed, as that was all I could do.

In as soft and calm a voice as I could muster, I spoke to him over the radio, “Shoji I see ya. You’re gonna be ok, but I need you to keep your cool alright?”

There was silence, followed by a sniffle over the radio.

“I have you Shoji. Do you remember your training?”

We were trained, back on Mars, how to survive a re-entry and planetary crash landing. So I watched, and I trusted him to remember his training. Shortly after I spotted him, I saw him eject through the canopy. The breaching weight hurled into space while his still body regained consciousness after a couple seconds. His space suit decelerated him with small thrusters on his shoulders. He was going to have to land on the surface of Europa and survive. Martians never sent rescue missions to the enemy home planet.

Visions of the past shot through my mind. We were the two senior most pilots in our wing of seventy other pilots. This wasn’t our first encounter with a crash landing. At the age of Forty two Earth years old, both Shoji and I survived two previous crashes. The first time, we landed in the terraformed jungles of Shalbatana Vallis. We spent three days trudging through the tall Ceibal tree forests. We found a suitable cave to sleep in through the night, and during the day we’d wander out into the meadows to wait for rescue. After wading through dense vegetation, we sat in a small patch we stomped flat.

While relaxing and enjoying peace and quiet in the wilderness, Mio, one of the other four soldiers with us, ventured out of sight to take a leak while the rest of us sat around a small fire.

I broke the silence with my usual untimely optimism, “Well, at least we can become reacquainted with nature.”

Shoji snorted, “Ha, right, wanna come pick flowers with me?”

“I’d say yes, but that might hint that I enjoy your company.”

“What the hell are you!” he shouted at me with a confrontational look in his eye. I laughed at his insecurity.

Shortly after that, Shoji raised a finger in the air commanding silence, “Did you just hear something? Sounded like Mio.” He twisted around and his eyes scanned the tall grass.

That was the last we heard from Mio. One by one, hour by hour, we wandered out to search for one another, and one by one we disappeared. Paralyzed with fear, the remaining four of us listened to the rustle of leaves around us as the twilight sun descended ever so slowly on the horizon.

Shoji spoke up again, “This is fucked up. Everyone get back to the cave for the night, if they’re still out there they know the drill. We’ll look again in the morning.”

I stood up and turned around to begin the trek toward the cave, but froze with terror as a seven foot tall faceless black stone being stood in my path. I gulped at the air in paralyzing terror as the faceless statue glared down at me. The being wrapped its long witch fingers around my arm and Umeko immediately assisted in forcing the monster off of me. The monster plunged its entire free hand deep into the top of Umeko’s skull, but immediately let go of me. Junko gave a war cry as he pointed his weapon at the monster. Curse words and muzzle flashes filled the night air in a brief moment of utter confusion.

Suddenly a hand grabbed my collar and yanked me onto my feet, shattering my horrified trance. It was Shoji. After quickly yelling, “Run you asshole!” He grabbed me, and he ran for his life. Without looking back, I followed him. We ran. We panted. The leaves crunched beneath our feet. Behind us was a single pop from his rifle and a subdued yelp.

We found the cave, and we hid.

After moment of stark silence, Shoji spoke, his voice hoarse with fear, “Oh my god what just happened why did he, he took out the men, he took them all out, what the hell man, who was that.”

I wrapped a fingerless glove around Shoji’s mouth to silence him, “shh!”

Completely agitated he bit my glove nearly missing my hand underneath, I ripped it out of his mouth and elbowed him in the back of his head, “Get a grip, it's me, man.”

His eyes sparkled in the blue twilight wide with fear, his mouth stuttered for a minute, and then he wrapped an arm around my cold shoulders pulling me in close to him.

Through the night and into the morning, we huddled silently in a dark corner wide eyed with fear. Whatever attacked us, it left us alone, and it didn’t give us trouble when we ventured to a meadow on the other side of the forest for rescue.

Floating in space, I had to make a decision as I watched my friend drift toward the moon. There was no way I’d sleep well for the rest of my life knowing my best friend crash landed and wandered the icy plains of Europa by himself with Soulless Robots hunting him through the night, when I had full capacity to help him. My orders were to stay in orbit and protect the Dreadnought from enemy Mech fighters, but I just couldn’t leave him alone. Once I strayed from my objective, the Martian fleet wouldn’t attempt to save me. If I went down to help him, there would be no rescue. I unfolded a photograph of my family from an air tight compartment next to my foot. All of them were gone; passed away. I was the youngest in the family, at an age of one hundred twenty five. I had nothing left to lose except my best friend.

My heart raced and my hands trembled as I squeezed both throttles and pressed forward toward my friend. Whatever destiny we faced on Europa, we’d share it together.