{"id":17,"date":"2011-12-31T23:59:12","date_gmt":"2012-01-01T04:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/?p=17"},"modified":"2012-01-02T00:02:52","modified_gmt":"2012-01-02T05:02:52","slug":"prologue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/?p=17","title":{"rendered":"Prologue"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.<\/p>\n

— Confucius<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

20 Quadret, 5238 PD<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Water rushed up to meet them\u2014that\u2019s what it looked like.\u00a0 The pilot\u2019s eyes widened as he realized he could see the bottom in those last seconds before they hit.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too shallow.\u00a0 It\u2019s too shallow.\u00a0 It\u2019s too shallow\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHang on!\u201d\u00a0 It was his voice shouting, but he wasn\u2019t aware of making the decision to yell at the troops locked into drop harnesses behind him.<\/p>\n

Hanging on won\u2019t help them.\u00a0 We\u2019re all going to die.<\/em><\/p>\n

The impact was bone-jarring.\u00a0 The dropship, contrary to design, started to come apart as it cartwheeled through the shallows off the coast of the larger of several continents on the colony world, perhaps twenty miles away from where they were supposed<\/em> to set down.\u00a0 To suppress resistance to Corp colonization of the far end of the continent.<\/p>\n

Pain seared through his skull as he was jerked out of his seat.\u00a0 The jacks were stuck.\u00a0 Damnation, the jacks were stuck and he was going to be stuck in the crumbled ball of metal if he couldn\u2019t get out and the thing was going to explode if he wasn\u2019t careful and I don\u2019t want to die I don\u2019t want to die I don\u2019t want to die\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

He fumbled for his combat knife, jerked it from its sheath.\u00a0 He hacked blindly, knowing instinctively that he had<\/em> to disconnect himself from the ship that was coming apart.<\/p>\n

The screaming behind him had stopped.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t sure if it was because the troop compartment had detached or because they were all dead.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re all dead anyway.\u00a0 We\u2019ve failed.\u00a0 If any of us survive, they\u2019ll kill us.\u00a0 We\u2019re dead.\u00a0 The Corp doesn\u2019t accept failure.\u00a0 We\u2019re dead.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s E-557.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have to go back if they\u2019ll take me.<\/em><\/p>\n

But why would they take me?<\/em><\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t see.\u00a0 The pain was terrible.\u00a0 Something ripped and he was flying through the air, tumbling head over feet.\u00a0 He hit the water shoulders first, skipped like a stone, and landed face-down in the water, coughing and choking.\u00a0 His whole body hurt.<\/p>\n

As he pushed his head out of the water, throwing up water and struggling to remember how to breathe, he heard a familiar sound.<\/p>\n

The whine of a gun powering up.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u2022<\/p>\n

Her chest heaved.\u00a0 She pulled the trigger on one of the ones still moving, one of the ones dressed in light powered armor, as he struggled to win free of his drop seat.<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t let them live.\u00a0 They\u2019ll destroy us, if we let them live.\u00a0 They were sent here to hurt people, to kill.\u00a0 Can\u2019t let that happen.<\/em>\u00a0 She pulled the trigger again, to make sure the soldier was dead.\u00a0 Then she marched on.<\/p>\n

She was catching her breath, but her blood was still pounding in her ears.\u00a0 It hadn\u2019t been a hard run out here, but a long one, one of a type she\u2019d grown unused to.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m getting lazy and sloppy, living here.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have to fix that.<\/em>\u00a0 She\u2019d seen a chunk of debris spin out in this direction.\u00a0 Behind her, the rest of the shore patrollers were picking through the debris, trying to sort out what happened\u2014trying to sort out what she already knew.<\/p>\n

They were coming here to distract us.<\/em>\u00a0 She toggled her voice pickup.\u00a0 \u201cNova Spexi, this is Chase.\u00a0 Scramble some fighters to take a good look around and get the satellites pointing everywhere they\u2019re not flying.\u00a0 Chinasia Corp is trying something.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure what, but they\u2019re trying something.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than five thousand years and they still couldn\u2019t get the voice transmissions to be as clear as voices were in person.\u00a0 Distortion was one thing, this was entirely another, she thought with a hint of annoyance.\u00a0 A wave of static passed over the line before she caught the reply from Nova Spexi, the coastal city that had become the nominal capital of E-557.\u00a0 \u201cY\u2019sure, Major?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be making the call if I wasn\u2019t sure, Nova Spexi.\u00a0 Make the call.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRoger that, Major.\u201d<\/p>\n

She clicked the transmitter back off and moved forward, spotting a glint of twisted metal.\u00a0 There it is<\/em>.<\/p>\n

She almost stumbled over the pilot of the craft, a small man, black-haired with the dark parchment colored skin that was a genetic hallmark of the Chinasia Corp conglom.\u00a0 The back of his neck was a bloody mess and he was retching, shoulders shaking.<\/p>\n

She stared at him for half a moment, then powered up the gun.<\/p>\n

At her feet, the man\u2014no, a boy dressed as a man<\/em>\u2014looked up with her, hazel eyes wide, though not just in fear.\u00a0 He knew what was coming.\u00a0 Moreover, he knew why<\/em> it was coming.\u00a0 She smiled a cold, grim smile.<\/p>\n

At least he understands what\u2019s about to happen to him.<\/em><\/p>\n

Her finger tightened against the trigger.\u00a0 The boy closed his eyes and prepared himself for an oblivion that never came.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. — Confucius 20 Quadret, 5238 PD Water rushed up to meet them\u2014that\u2019s what it looked like.\u00a0 The pilot\u2019s eyes widened as he realized he could see the bottom in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-last-colony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s25yjF-prologue","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.embklitzke.com\/e557\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}