Book One - Chapter Eight
“Be good little children or the monsters will come tonight,
Unholy demonspawn that will surely give you a fright,
And we all know who are the most wicked things we speak,
Ustur, Ustur, the unnatural demonic freak.”
- Bohemian bedtime story
Local Time: 10:33
Date: Day 127 of the Year 93 according to the Bohemian Calendar - Year 2623 according to the Galactic Calendar
Location: North-East of Danu - Planet Bohemia - Mid Risk Zone - MUD Territory - Galia
Reginald tore off his uniform in a single rapid motion. But before the clothing had even landed on the ground, his body had already begun to transform. Thousands of metal articulations across his body shifted position in a synchronised manner, allowing for the emergence of several advanced weapons systems. From the right forearm emerged an energy assault rifle capable of long range sniping. A 50-caliber machine gun emerged from his left forearm. The belt-fed ammunition for the machine gun emerged from the left side of his torso, which he quickly connected to the gun via magnetic connections. As his left arm pulled away from his body, the belt ammunition was drawn out from the inside of his robotic body. Articulations in both palms swiftly rearranged themselves to reveal hidden lasers. These lasers were designed for close combat fighting only as their effective range was very limited. In fact, they functioned more like laser blades once activated.
Finally, Reginald’s torso had opened up like a blossoming metal flower to reveal a battery of missile launchers with mini homing missiles equipped. The entire transformation had taken less than three seconds.
Reginald activated the thrusters in his legs, ascending into the air whilst the stunned Usturs simply looked on dumbly. But they quickly snapped out of their paralysis in response to a sharp command from their leader.
“Fire at will,” yelled the leading Ustur as they flicked the switch on their assault rifle to automatic, rapid-fire mode and pulled down on the trigger. A stream of brilliant, blue-white spheres of superheated ionized gas spewed forth from the barrel, heading directly towards Cillian. The white-hot radiance of the airborne plasma lit Cillian up in a brilliant flash. For a moment, he looked like the lead actor on a movie set, illuminated by the key light. The hovering recording drone zoomed in on the brightly lit image of Cillian. Head held back, whisky pouring into his mouth, right arm held wide, he was the very image of a fearless Bohemian playboy. Another image of Cillian’s absurd exploits captured for posterity.
The drone began to swivel in the air, panning out as it did so, in order to capture the full scene. As the leading ionised plasma rounds approached Cillian, his combat under-armour detected the presence of the imminent threat and activated its personal energy shield. Instantly, a field of energy leapt into existence around Cillian. It tightly hugged his form and covered him from head to feet with an energetic barrier. It initially caused a slight distortion of light around Cillian, resulting in a brief blurring of his body, but this quickly disappeared. If it sustained enough damage, it would of course eventually fail, but because it was a very high quality personal energy shield, the critical breaking threshold was much greater than most personal energy shields on the market.
The stream of plasma rounds finally reached Cillian and were rebuffed by the energy shield in consecutive flashes of scintillating blue-white-purple light. Three seconds later, the assault rifle was dry, all the available ammunition having been fired. Cillian’s head was still tipped back, and he was even at this moment shaking the final drops of whisky from his upheld hip flask.
Smacking his lips with satisfaction, Cillian lowered his arms and pocketed his now empty hip flask. He smiled at the shocked expression that had appeared on the mercenary leader’s face. His military glasses allowed him to gauge the damage that was taken to his energy shield by simply glancing at the readings in the top right corner of his vision.
Cillian now spoke, his voice directed up at the hovering drone above. “Only eighteen percent damage sustained from a direct frontal assault lasting four point three seconds by an assailant with an upgraded plasma assault rifle, automatic, rapid-fire mode. Once again, the superior tech of the Bohemian National Military prevails. And now folks at home… it is time for us to dance.”
Cillian brought both hands together before him and clenched his fists tight. The silver rings on each finger caught the sunlight as he did so, which made the mercenary leader notice the rings for the first time.
Cillian looked up at the mercenary leader and reached back with his right arm in a windup for a punch. As he did so, the rings on both hands activated, connecting magnetically together to form a straight line across the fingers. For the briefest of moments, a red haze covered the hands as the light was distorted in the region. The lead mercenary recognised this phenomenon as the tell-tale signs of the activation of an energy field and this was sufficient to finally break them out of their state of shock. They began fumbling at their waist for a spare ammunition cartridge but they never got a chance to load it because in the next moment Cillian launched himself from his standing position, the mini-thrusters in his military boots activating, and he was propelled forward through the intervening space in a flash of movement.
As he reached his destination, Cillian’s right fist crashed into the face of the lead Ustur. There was a brilliant burst of white-purple light on impact. The Ustur’s personal energy shield capacity was instantly reduced to zero and the overflow of force smashed into the Ustur’s face. The mercenary leader’s body was suddenly airborne as the force of the punch lifted them off their feet to fly backwards through the air.
The rings on Cillian’s hands had been transformed into powerful energy field manipulators. Whilst they were unable to generate their own energy fields, they were able to harness and manpulate existing ones, such as the personal energy shield that presently surrounded Cillian. Unlike the personal energy shields, which were designed for defensive purposes and thus had an energy field which only extended out a small distance from the field-generating source, the rings were able to manipulate this existing field and project the energy in focussed bursts up to five metres from the source energy field, with an obvious rapid drop off of power the farther it travelled in the air. But given that Cillian had just punched the Ustur in the face, he had been able to utilise the full force of his personal energy shield’s power.
Cillian smiled with satisfaction as the Ustur who had been sent flying presently crashed into another Ustur, knocking them down in the process. As Cillian straightened up, he observed Reginald begin his aerial assault on the other combatants, who had only just recovered themselves sufficiently to start aiming up at the airborne robot. A burst of fire exploded from Reginald’s fifty calibre machine gun as he began mowing down the mercenaries on the left side of the field whilst he simultaneously engaged combatants on the right with his energy rifle. Seconds later, a mercenary’s head exploded as a result of a well-aimed headshot from the energy rifle. Two other combatants on the right were, however, able to jump away and duck behind one of the VZUS ambwe ships. On the left side of the field, though, the combatants had not fared so well, their bullet-ridden bodies collapsing beneath a relentless onslaught of heavy calibre gunfire.
Reginald ceased firing the machine gun, halting the shower of spent fifty calibre shells that had been raining down in a continuous stream.
“Sir,” said Reginald. “There are two hostiles who have sought cover behind the nearest ship. Permission to pursue and neutralise?”
“Permission granted. I will deal with these two.”
And with that, Cillian began to walk towards the two prone combatants, who were lying some four metres away. The recording drone followed him, coming in closer to just above and behind his left shoulder. As he neared, Cillian observed that one of the Ustur was still conscious and was futilely trying to extricate themselves out from beneath the mercenary leader. This struggling Ustur was the one that had been knocked down by the mercenary leader, but Cillian quickly saw the reason they were unable to stand. Cillian’s enhanced vision was able to observe that the Ustur had broken something in their neck and they were struggling to use their limbs properly.
“As much as I hate their kind, no one deserves to suffer needlessly,” Cillian said aloud for the benefit of the hovering drone. There were now over sixty-five thousand viewers watching his live stream. “Even in war, we should remember our humanity. For without our humanity, we are no better than these ‘things’. Which is to say, emotionless, heartless. Monsters. Without compassion or the capacity for empathy. And so it is with the greatest of compassion that I will now terminate this unholy creation. For we all know that the most compassionate thing we can do for an Ustur… is assisting them in ceasing to exist.”
Cillian brought his fist up before the Ustur’s wide-eyed face. A moment later, a sudden, intense pulse of energy was directed through Cillian’s fist. At such close proximity and with no intervening shield, the Ustur’s head simply imploded, crumpling inwards on itself under the immense and instantaneous pressure.
“Okay, beloved fans,” said Cillian as he turned to face the hovering drone. “Here ends another impromptu livestream. I hope you have enjoyed today’s adventure and please do not forget to subscribe and share this post. I will now proceed to interrogate this Ustur and unfortunately, because it relates to matters of national security, I will have to end the livestream here. Till next time and remember… stay free and stay aware.”
Cillian closed off the livestream but set a command for the drone to continue recording, as he wanted a record of the interrogation.
Four minutes later, Cillian had just finished binding the mercenary leader and was now attempting to rouse them from their state of unconsciousness. Reginald had returned from chasing the other two remaining Ustur but was now chasing after Luna, who had finally emerged from the Fimbul Lowbie. Reginald’s form had by now returned to its usual Robutler appearance. All evidence of weaponry was gone, the tools of destruction once again hidden away within his body. He had also donned his butler uniform, however, Luna had taken the opportunity to steal one of his yellow gloves and it was for this reason that was she was presently being chased by Reginald.
“Sir,” said Reginald as he ran after Luna. “I am pleased to advise that the remaining hostiles have been neutralised. The area is now secure. However, the canine has escaped and has stolen my glove… again. It is resisting capture.”
“Very good, Reg,” said Cillian as he gave the Ustur leader a hard slap across the face. “I know in your cold metallic heart that you secretly enjoy the chasey-game with Luna. Plus, it is good exercise for you, old chap. I have noticed that you have been getting a little pudgy around the middle. Too many screw snacks, I suspect, or maybe you have been hitting the engine oil whisky again, aye?”
“Apologies, sir. I feel ashamed. I will try to refrain from drinking the engine oil. It is my one addiction. I just have a weakness for swilling dirty engine oil.”
“My gods, man. Did you just make a joke? Was that a sarcastic comment made in jest? I knew it. You do have a sense of humour. A truly historic moment.”
“But I was not joking.”
“Ha, there you go again. You are a veritable comic! Haha. Hilarious,” said Cillian between laughing. But his laughing soon subsided as he realised that Reginald was not actually joking.
“My gods above and below. You actually drink engine oil?”
“Yes, sir. I am not proud of it.”
“Oh dear. Well, we all have our vices. I guess you must take after me then. Cheer up, old chap. We will do some research to find you a therapist when we go back home later. I am certain there will be a cure for this ailment. But… just to be clear, you do not also eat screws for snacks, do you?”
“No, sir. That is an absurd concept.”
“Right… right, of course. Absurd. In any case, I digress. What is the ETA on the Bohemian military arriving?”
“Several Bohemian military ships are en route to this destination. Approximate arrival time for the first ships will be eight minutes.”
“Hmm. We have less time than I thought. I want to question this Ustur before they arrive.”
“Why, sir?”
“Because something is not right here. How were the Ustur able to jam us on the emergency military frequency? Only officers in the Bohemian National Military have the authorisation codes to access or jam that channel. I suspect that someone in the National Military has been assisting them in their mission. They also must have received help in entering Bohemia as well. Customs and the border authorities would never have let what are quite clearly Ustur mercenary soldiers into Bohemian airspace. Not unless they had been ordered to let them through. So at this stage, I do not know who I can trust or whether the forces coming are working with the Ustur or not.”
“Sir, your deductive faculties never cease to amaze me.”
“Why, thankyou, Reggy boy. That is quite the compliment. Now, to the task at hand. I need to interrogate this brute. Problem is, I do not seem to be able to wake the damn bugger. I fear I walloped him a little harder than intended.”
After several more slaps to the Ustur’s face failed to wake them, Cillian sighed and sat back on his haunches.
“Reg, can you kindly assist me with waking the Ustur?”
“Very good, sir,” said Reginald as he gave up chasing Luna.
Reginald walked back to Cillian and placed a metal hand on the face of the comatose Ustur. A moment later and the Ustur’s whole body spasmed as a surge of electricity was discharged from Reginald’s hand.
The Ustur’s eyes snapped open.
“Wakey, wakey, sunshine. No time for sleeping now. I have some questions. Now. I really do not have much time, so I am going to skip all the pleasantries and get straight into the unpleasantries. Reg, please begin to administer the motivational therapy.”
“What motivational therapy, sir?”
“Electromagnetic induction.”
On hearing this, the Ustur’s eyes widened in fear, but before he could speak out against it, Reginald once again placed his hand on the side of the head of the Ustur. Reginald began to raise the body temperature of the Ustur via induction heating. This was the most incredibly painful form of torture that existed for an Ustur. As the body temperature rose within their body by way of electromagnetic induction, they experienced absolute agony as well as a state of pure, unadulterated terror. It was a type of torture that appeared to only work on Usturs, because organic lifeforms were not susceptible to induction heating due to their tissues’ poor electrical conductivity.
It only took a few seconds before the Ustur began to scream. In many ways, the psychological impact of this form of torture was far worse than the physical pain. The dissonance it caused in the psyche led to sheer, unrelenting horror.
“Okay, I think it has had enough for now, Reg.”
Reginald removed his hand from the Ustur, but the screaming continued for a further three seconds before the Ustur finally quieted.
“Right, well now that I have your attention, you demon-spawn creature from the plains of hell, let us get on with the interrogation. What was your mission?”
The Ustur’s wild eyes were wide like saucers. They made to begin to speak, but then halted abruptly, a hardness returning to their eyes. Instead, they spat at Reginald’s hovering hand.
“Oh, how fun. We have a recalcitrant one here, Reg. Please assist them with finding the motivation to answer my questions.”
Reginald returned his hand to the Ustur’s face, and it was not long before the screaming began again. This time, however, Cillian did not stop Reginald until a full ten seconds had passed.
“Now, if you persist with your obstinately uncooperative attitude, then we will have to continue to discipline you. I suspect that you do not want that. So, what was your mission?”
This time, the Ustur did not hesitate in answering. “We… we,” said the Ustur in a stuttering manner between gasps. “We were hired to sabotage a Bohemian botanical research facility. To… to blow it up with explosives.”
“Well done, you infernal offspring, well done. Next question, who hired you?”
“I was approached by an agent of the Fimbul ECOS manufacturer.”
Cillian was surprised by this response but made sure not to show any emotional reaction.
“How do you know they represented the Fimbul ECOS company?”
“Well, for starters, their uniform had the Fimbul ECOS logo and branding on it. They also arrived in a Fimbul ECOS ship. Finally, they provided me with two payment options. One was to be paid in Atlas, which is what I ended up choosing, or two, was to be paid in Fimbul ECOS company shares. They were not exactly trying to hide their identity.”
Cillian stroked his beard as he processed this information. If true, then this would be very concerning indeed, thought Cillian to himself. Bohemia and the Fimbul ECOS company had been friendly with each other for some time now. They shared many of the same values and, whilst they did not agree on everything, there was sufficient mutual respect for them to do business with one another. Cillian also happened to know that a proposal for a more formal alliance had been in the works for the past two years. Significant developments had been made towards this of late and apparently the formal alliance was close to being finalised. Which was why what the Ustur had said did not make any sense to Cillian. Why would they want to jeopardise the alliance at such a critical time? But it seems almost too obvious. Possibly a red herring, maybe someone trying to set them up. The real question is, who would benefit from the alliance falling through?
“Hmmm… okay, so let us return then to the mission. How did you get into Bohemian airspace without being turned away at the supra atmospheric border? Who assisted you to bypass our customs checkpoint?”
“I do not know who they were. All I know is that we were told to fly down into the atmospheric space of the planet after arriving via warp drive jump. We were told that we would not be stopped. So that is what we did, and we were not stopped.”
“Okay, who gave you the authorisation codes to jam the emergency military frequency?”
“Once again,” said the Ustur in a frustrated voice. “I do not know who they were. The codes were just messaged to me.”
“What was the code?” asked Cillian. The response to this question was what would really help the Bohemian authorities identify who the mole was in the Bohemian Military. Each officer in the Bohemian National Military had their own unique authorisation code used for accessing certain classified systems, such as the emergency military frequency. If Cillian could find out what the code was, then he would be able to provide this information to his superiors so that they would, in turn, be able to identify which officer the code related to.
“Star divinity sixty-five opal newtown.”
Cillian froze as he felt a chill run down his spine. This was his unique authorisation code. Is this a coincidence? I think not. Am I being set up here? And if so, by whom? thought Cillian to himself.
“Sir,” interrupted Reginald. “I just thought you should know. The ETA for the first ship to arrive is now less than three minutes.”
“Okay, thanks for that, Reg,” said Cillian as he regained his composure. “Now, foul fiend, you said you were going to blow up a botanical research facility. Where did you get the explosives from? Did you bring them with you on the ships?”
“No, we met up with a local who gave them to us.”
“Describe them to me.”
“They had a helmet on so I could not see their face. The exchange was very brief, and the lighting was poor. I cannot recall any details of what they looked like other than the fact that they had a Bohemian military combat suit and helmet on, and they were short.”
“Short by your standards or short by ours?”
“Both.”
“Okay, and talk me through what happened at the botanical research facility. Why did your mission fail?”
The Ustur spat at the ground before speaking, their words heavy with anger. “We had been told that the research facility would be empty and unguarded. We had the access codes to gain entrance, but once we got inside, we realised that someone was in there. A Bohemian soldier. I do not think she expected to see us, as she looked just as shocked as we were when we walked in. I don’t know what she was doing there, possibly picking something up. Who knows. In any case, we immediately opened fire on her, but she had ducked behind cover. A big fire fight began between us, but during the battle, she managed to kill one of my soldiers, the one who had been carrying the explosives. We tried to recover the explosives, but that stupid bitch would not let us get close to it. She would light us up with her armour penetrating ammunition whenever we emerged from cover. She was tearing us to pieces, and we were running out of ammunition, so we decided to abandon the mission. We also knew that she would have contacted the authorities for backup, so we didn’t have much time. So we escaped instead.”
“Hmm… armour penetrating bullets, you said. She was definitely a special forces soldier it would appear. Reg, make a note. I would like to meet this efficacious girl soldier that was able to overwhelm and beat off a whole squad of Ustur mercenaries. We do have an opening in the team at present. We may have found our new teammate.”
“Yes, sir. Noted. Also, one minute twenty seconds before the ships arrive, sir.”
The growing sound of ship engines could now be heard as several Fimbul BYOS Earps raced towards them from the south-west.
“Very good. Very good. Now, my last and final questions. Why did you stop me and seek to take me as your hostage? Did you know who I was?”
The Ustur growled before responding. “I still do not know who the fuck you are. Other than some madman. Why did we stop you? Well, it was not a coincidence if that is what you are asking. After we escaped, we received a message from the same anonymous person who had sent us the authorisation codes. They told us to go to this location and then await a ship, your ship, which would be driven by some rich playboy who we would need to take as a hostage. They said that you would be the leverage in negotiating with the authorities. They said it would be the only way for us to get off this planet alive. So much for that advice. We would have been better off just making a run for it. Instead, my entire team is dead and I am the only survivor.” The Ustur spat again in Cillian’s direction, their shattered face contorting in pain afterwards at the effort.
“Oh no, my dear hell-born progeny of a demonic chimera. What on Bohemia makes you think that you will survive this encounter?”
“What?” snapped the Ustur. “I am a prisoner of war. You cannot kill me when I have surrendered, and I am bound and unarmed. Plus, you are recording all of this. I can see the drone up there. You have already committed a war crime by torturing me, which you know the Council of Peace has outlawed as an illegal practice. And now you say you would kill an unarmed prisoner? You are a madman.”
The first of the squad of five Fimbul BYOS Earps had just now arrived at the clearing and was descending to land.
“Says the mercenary criminal, who was plotting to blow up one of our research facilities. Reg, please untie his hands.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cillian then sent a command to the recording drone to cease recording and proceed with shutting down. The small drone promptly snapped back into the shape of a ball and fell onto the grass.
“No, no, no,” continued Cillian as he knelt down to pick up the metal sphere. “You malevolent, darkspawn beast of the malign, nether realm shall not judge me. The Council of Peace has indeed forbidden the use of torture and has made the killing of unarmed prisoners of war illegal. This is all true. But these laws only apply to sentient living beings. Which we have already established, you are not.”
Cillian pocketed the recording drone with his left hand whilst he simultaneously picked up the Ustur’s empty assault rifle from the ground with his right hand. As the final bindings on the Ustur’s hand fell free, Cillian threw the assault rifle at the Ustur’s head. The mercenary leader instinctually reached up and caught the weapon to avoid being hit in the head.
The first Fimbul BYOS Earp ship had now landed and its main door opened fully, allowing two Bohemian special forces soldiers to come charging out.
“Ah, and look. You are no longer unarmed,” said Cillian, bringing his fists together to activate the rings.
The Ustur blinked a few times as they stared at the rifle that had somehow appeared in their hands. The running Bohemian special forces soldiers were now shouting out commands. Cillian could not hear what they were saying. The blood lust had risen up within him, muting out all other sounds and senses.
Cillian raised both fists in the air. “And the gods have cast judgement upon thee and found you sorely lacking. I am therefore here in their stead on this mortal plain, charged with the duty of dealing out their righteous wrath. They are offended that such an abomination like you has somehow been allowed to exist. I will now send you back to the hell hole whence you came.”
The Ustur soldier looked up in confusion at Cillian. Unable to comprehend what was being said. But this confusion did not last long because in the next moment both of Cillian’s fists came crashing into the Ustur’s perplexed face, buckling their skull inwards in an explosion of fluid and splintering exoskeleton.