Chapter 1: The Foolish

fiction by Grenzenlos

The Silverback-class Carrier jostled heavily, as the heavily armored bulk bounced across the plains at eighty miles per hour, bouncing roughly, jostling its occupants roughly. Most of them didn't notice, except for the youngest and most inexperienced soldier.

Within, a young, red headed Wafan slouched over in his seat, leaned forward, and huddled as small as he could possibly make himself. All around him, his fellow Maverick Hunters bellowed, and guffawed. His name was Hubart, and he was starting to wonder if this wasn't all just some big mistake. He wasn't a fighter, he was a tradesman.

He lifted his head slightly, his large soulful green eyes lazily drunk in the almost surreal sights around him. The interior of the craft was almost completely dark, save for the vertically aligned rows of slits along the side of the vehicle, which did nothing to keep out the dust and grit of the plains. Although he was sure his fellow riders didn't see it, they lived in fast-time, like almost every other Wafan on New Horizon.

He gripped the haft of his axe tightly, as he observed each and every mote of dust more then a hundred microns in size, so desperate was his urge to keep his mind off of the imminent battle by pushing his sensory input to the limit. So far, it was working.

Abruptly the loud hollow tang of gunfire, along with the hollow zing of energy weapons fire against the hull, snapped him out of his reverie.

The hoots, hollers and screams intensified as the Silverback slammed into a heavy object, and the front door exploded outward, smashing through a wall, and energy fire immediately erupted into the heart of the vessel, answered by return fire from the raiding team.

"Give them hell!" Bellowed the freshly Sergeant in charge of the raid, an imposing animaloid, named the Hellcry Lional. Every single gun was trained on the exit, and a veritable hellfire of mixed artillery battered the crumbling wall, and the structures that lay beyond the haze of dust and shrapnel. Screams told the young soldier they were chewing up the Maverick defenders. But too his eyes, it was all in slow motion, like a perverted ballet.

"Move out!" The Lional bellowed, sweeping a massive paw. "Go, go, go!" At once, all but one soldier darted for the exit, uniformly slipping through, while firing, avoiding the enemy fire as best they could - but still, two or three hunters fell as they went through the gap.

The recruit was frozen in terror, his advanced processing computing the probabilities of his survival, again and again. The probability grew lower with each second.

"Hubart!" Bellowed the Lional. "You have three seconds left to be afraid with, you horrible little man! After that, you're going to fight, or you're going to get left here to die!"

Hubart snapped to. "Sarge!" He bawled,. He still trembled. "If we go out there, we're going to die!" His eyes flicked back and forth between the carnage outside, and his sergeant.

"You'll be a lot more likely to die if you stay here, red." The sergeant said, with no trace of irony, or even anger. "But if you'd rather die cowering in this tin can, than die fighting like a man, than so be it." The Lional dropped to all fours, it's glittering, razor mane retracting towards his head, and then ducking and charging through the doorway, with a roar that shook Hubart to his Damascus-alloyed bones.

Why am I here?! He demanded of himself. Just what did I think I was proving to my father? I'm no fighter. All I am is a spoiled political brat. Hubart's hand wrung his axe haft tightly.

His father, Rumnist, the consummate scientist, the one who always knew the right thing to do, and say, who told Hubart his place was in a lab developing the technological foundation of the future. As more and more shots ricocheted off the hull of the Silverback and the fighting outside intensified, Hubart squeezed his eyes shut tightly, his mammoth thought processes turned not towards his own mortality, but the words of his father, that rung so hollow in his own ears.

The future lies with us, my boy. Fighting men on either side of any war are irrelevant, small-minded beings that were born only to die. Why try to ease their suffering, when most of them were so small minded the world is made a better place with them gone? He had scoffed.

Part of Hubart had believed the words of Rumnist. But his father's disdain for the non-intellectual seemed appalling to Hubart. Why must others lives mean nothing, simply because they weren't the same sort of people? A single bullet penetrated the hull of the Silverback, and lazily burrowed a path through the dusty air, sending the molecules into an erratic dance in its wake until it buried itself in the seat across from him.

Hubart was snapped from his introspection, as a second bullet came through the wall, close at hand, and nearly grazed his head. That's when his fear turned to blind panic. Hubart bolted for the door, axe clutched tightly in his fist. His feet chewed up the distance between him and the door with the sort of frantic motion that could be brought on only by fear.

Hubart leapt through the door, and his first thoughts upon landing weren't for his comrades, but for his own survival. His thoughts of escape were drawn up short, as the butt of a rifle was smashed into the back of his head so hard his main processor skipped, and the world temporarily went blank. When his consciousness resumed, the ground was rushing up to meet him.

Hubart tried to scream, but a foot slammed down on his head, skipping his processor again, and he was kicked in the ribs, knocking him over. Stunned by his first experience with intense pain, Hubart stared slack jawed at the sickly green and gleaming gold Core Stealer soldier above him, wielding a sparking metal prod.

"If only they were all this easy." The Core Stealer sneered, his mouth masochistic rictus, his eyes invisible behind his blood red visor. He plunged the prod into Hubart chest, sending an EMP charge that would have fried an APC through his body.

Hubarts entire world was pain, for the next five seconds. For Hubart, though, it was nearly an eternity before a blissful silent darkness took him away from his suffering.

NEW HORIZON © 2003-2007.