Book One - Chapter Three: i
When good men are unable to know wrong from right,
Darkness fills their souls and quenches their inner light,
And so in this way another demon is born,
An evil slave to join the army of hellspawn.
- Cillian O’Tuathail - Book of Collected Poems - Volume III, 2609
Local Time: Unknown
Date: Day 127 of the Year 2623 according to the Galactic Calendar
Location: Unknown Planet - High Risk Zone - Galia
Six and half light years away from the planet Bohemia lay a small, unassuming planet. Possessing a thin atmosphere, frigid temperatures, no apparent flora or fauna, no surface level water sources and virtually no mineable resources of any value, it was quite possibly one of the least appealing planets in all of Galia. Over the centuries, it had been scanned on countless occasions by passing ships, and each time, the results had been the same. Both surface level scans and deeper penetrating scans had consistently not detected anything of interest. As a result, it had not been visited by any sentient life forms for several millennia.
That being said, some thirteen years ago, the planet had been struck by an asteroid. An asteroid that had recently travelled through the cataclysm zone. The asteroid itself had been obliterated on impact with the planet, but it had been carrying something on it. Something living. Something that had spread and grown across the planet over the past thirteen years.
“Captain Rivik,” said a junior Jorvik Pirate, her heels snapping together as she saluted.
Captain Rivik ignored the interruption. His gaze was fixed on the planet that was visible through the front viewing glass of the VZUS ballad ship, his expression unreadable. Captain Rivik was a giant of a man, measuring a towering seven feet tall with a chest circumference of fifty-eight inches. He was, in truth, a massive beast of a human. His heavily muscled body was augmented by a multitude of cybernetic implants and augmentations. Whilst his cybernetic titanium hands were the most obvious modification, what was not immediately apparent were all the changes that had occurred beneath his skin.
Ten years prior Captain Rivik had undergone an illegal and highly controversial procedure known as Tempering whereby he had been injected with a serum filled with nanobots and trace elements of titanium. The nanobots had then spread throughout his body, concentrating on and within his skeletal system, where they exerted an influence over the activity of the various bone cells responsible for the natural processes of bone synthesis, resorption and mineralisation. As a result of this nano-bot influence, instead of calcium hydroxyapatite being deposited in the osteoid matrix of the bone, as it normally would, titanium was deposited. The end result was that over the following years, his entire skeletal system had been gradually replaced with titanium, transforming him into an incredibly powerful cyborg. The only ongoing maintenance requirement was the daily consumption of a serum containing trace elements of titanium.
Without turning, Captain Rivik spoke up and said, “Have we located the Verudium yet? You better be bringing me some bloody good news.”
Verudium was a very rare and valuable metal and was the sole reason that he and his crew had stopped at the planet. Two days prior, their long range scanners had picked up a faint trace of Verudium in this region of space, which was unexpected as the cartography data they had access to indicated that no Verudium should have been present. They had investigated further and had tracked the source of the Verudium readings back to this planet. The readings from their scanning equipment were, however, quite anomalous. One moment the readings showed only the faintest trace of Verudium and then the next there would be a massive spike on the charts which, if accurate, would suggest the presence of incredibly vast quantities of Verudium. The Science Officer aboard the ship suspected that the Scanner Array was faulty, which was the most logical explanation for the erratic readings, but greed got the better of Captain Rivik. Despite how improbable it was that an enormous node of Verudium existed on the planet, the remote possibility that it might exist, was sufficient justification for him to send an exploratory landing party down to the planet’s surface with the goal of mining directly for the Verudium.
The junior pirate stopped saluting and ducked her head in an unconscious display of subservience.
“Uh… well actually, Captain…” said the junior pirate, her nervousness clearly showing as she fumbled her way through the report. “You see, Lieutenant Beol asked me to tell you that, uh… it’s… not good news, Captain. You see, our chief botanist was… uh… just killed. We don’t know —“ but she got no further than that, for at that moment Captain Rivik had pivoted around on his heels and with an unbelievably fast speed that belied his massive form, he grabbed the pirate by the throat. The surprised pirate was lifted up off the ground, the toes of her boots clearing the floor as she ascended.
“What did you fucking say? I didn’t quite hear you, you pathetic worm. Did you say the news was not good? Speak up, would you!”
But the pirate could not respond, as she was choking. Unable to draw in breath or respond, she simply squirmed in the air, futilely pawing at the Captain’s iron grip.
The Captain held on for a few moments longer, staring into the pirate’s bulging eyes, a look of wicked glee on his face, before he let her go and turned away. The pirate fell to the ground in a heap, ragged breaths being drawn in to her lungs.
Captain Rivik flicked a switch on his helmet and spoke into the mic.
“Lieutenant Beol, please come back to the ship to provide me with an update in person. Your messenger has been deemed unworthy. Also,” said Captain Rivik as he turned back towards the prostrate pirate. “We have some dead weight on board that will need to be jettisoned out to space.”
On hearing this final statement, the pirate began to crawl away from the Captain, pleading for her life between sobbing gasps. Captain Rivik advanced on the pirate until he stood right above her, his left hand on his hip, his right hand raised before him, and a diabolical smile on his face. His hands were a cybernetic addition to his body, formed of an extremely strong titanium alloy and controlled by numerous micro-controllers and actuators. Suddenly, Captain Rivik snapped his right hand into a fist shape and bent forward to bring his face down to just above the pirate. Even in the midst of her anguish, a disassociated part of her mind reflected on how acrid the Captain’s breath was. But the thought did not last long because the next moment the pirate felt the Captain’s oversized cybernetic right hand cupping the back and side of her head, the thumb pushing up painfully beneath the jaw as the other metallic fingers gripped the back of her skull. The pirate began to scream out of pure, unadulterated fear at what she knew was about to happen, the piercing sound echoing off the walls of the bridge.
“I warned you, didn’t I? I said it better be bloody good news. But it fucking wasn’t. Was it?” yelled Captain Rivik over the sound of the pirate’s screaming. “And now you have forced me to give you the bloody good news, emphasis on the bloody!”
A thousand micro-actuators within the cybernetic hand activated simultaneously and suddenly the air was filled with an explosion of blood as the pirate’s skull imploded beneath the Captain’s crushing grip.
Captain Rivik stood up slowly, a mist of blood surrounding him, his weaponised hand dripping with gore. He took one last look of satisfaction at his handiwork and then turned away. He clicked on the helmet mic.
“Lieutenant Beol.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Waylay my last order, as I don’t want you to come back to the ship any longer. Instead, have someone prepare my VZUS ambwe. I am coming down to the planet. I need to see for myself what is actually going on down there. Oh, and I still need someone to get rid of the dead weight. Send a cleaning crew to the bridge.”