Mission

I have been spent the past few days on border patrol duty. My warship, along with warships from half a dozen Union alliances, was on the frontier enforcing the border closure. The worst part about border patrol is the quiet. I have been alone on the Luna Fuwuyothi since the death of her namesake and fellow crew mates. I have not yet been ready to accept the responsibility that comes with holding the life of another in my claws. My life is meaningless. My body is a genetically engineered husk. My soul is binary code. It is backed up every cycle and beamed through subspace to a cloneing facility on Phao.

Luna and Thaeophyan and Holdorn were real. There was no back up for them. No second, third, fourth, or fifth chance.

My enemies took their lives with a hired assasin. They could not face the real death. So they kept their hands and their consciences clean. Because what happened to me? Dying is painful but not permanant. It is merely an inconveniance.

Luna is dead. I am not. I will never die until I choose to.

But I have found meaning for my safe endless life.

I will bring my enemies real-death.

God of War

I did not enjoy leaving the Luna Fuwuyothi docked for so long without my supervision. But I knew that I could not transport my cargo flying her. Such was the nature of my business that I could not even fly myself at all. I had gotten the cargo from some shady figures that my comrade Stryfe had put me in touch with on Phao. After that I hired a Ska'ari who owned a Harrier-class freighter and could muster some top class counterfit transponder codes. From there it was only a matter of hitting the X-hole to the West Pardus Rim.

I had disguised myself as a crew member of the Ska'ari captain. I mostly sat in the cargo area among a hundred or so tons of rad cells. Once an hour I checked my cargo with a hand scanner to make sure it was not leaking. The seals were good. It would have been totally undetectable, especially behind the masking signatures of all of the rad cells.

The little Ska'ari informed me through the ship's comm that we had arrived in the sector of our destination. I came to the front to give him the final coordinates. We veered away from the wormhole away from the most travelled space lanes. I could see the lights of a hundred ships following one another to a pale blue dot at the end of my vision. We flew at a fraction of light speed for a time. Finally we made orbit over a red planet that had been beaten into what could barely be called Class M status.

We landed in a tiny space port in a region of the world called Argyre. I pushed my cargo down the loading ramp on a light-duty grav cart and walked out into the thin, cold air. A group of humans were waiting for me on the ground. They looked comfortable in the sub-zero air. They were more tall and akward looking than other humans I had encountered.

"I am here to meet Eddie Pearl of the Nergal Underground." I said in my best Human Basic. A bearded Human male stepped out from the group and extended a hand in that oh-so human greeting.

I accomodated his hand shake as he spoke.
"Welcome to Crater Town. You must be the Keldon known as Dex."
"I am." I replied, "and I have your device. It is small enough that you should be able to move it through orbital customs undetected but it is powerful enough for you to make quite an impression."
"Nergal thanks you, Keldon."
I stood by as his comrades took posession of the device. They began to go their separate ways. Before he could leave I asked Eddie one last question.
"Sir, If i may? Why would you be willing to do this to your own people?"
"They aren't my people any more, Keldon. This world has made us different, right down to our DNA. Many of my brothers here are not ready to accept that we are a different species. But you can't hide from the truth."
I looked up into the pink dusty sky at the primary star.
"Very well then, Eddie. Good luck in your endeavor. Do not attempt to contact me again."
I turned and headed for the Harrier. Leaving Mr. Pearl in the cold wind behind me. Before I climbed the entry ramp I bent down to the ground an scooped up a handful of the permafrost. I shoved my nose into it. It smelled like blood on my nostrils. I dropped the handful into the pocket of my coveralls and boarded the ship.