The Paragon of Eden

Seventy years…

What a travesty it would have been if Handis had died in prison. Nothing a few doses of Newwork couldn’t fix. He’d live a while longer… As long as he kept his job as the commander of this specialized space base here in the middle of nowhere. A perfect place to disappear from the claws of society, it was also the perfect place to become a very valuable target for any power with enough intel on their hands. And any organization that had that much intel was well worth their funds. And their power.

And it was everything Handis could do to keep his mind off the fact that those powers could very well be aimed at him, just outside of his sights.

There was at least some comfort in the sights that he was granted. While he wasn’t the main figure in charge of what he served, he did have a good grip on the reigns of what he commanded. He looked at what he had, through the square monitors that covered the wall past the railed balcony he stood by. They had no frames or flaws. They were just rectangles of images, showing a vast array of optics, looking out into space in every direction. The wall’s rectangles were mostly black, but some did show the rest of what he had. As the rows of monitors went down, they showed the internals of the base and all of its barely exposed architecture. Most of it compensated for the extensive use of the omni-placement turrets and cannons, structures of dark purple ooze that permeated the entire place.

Those monitors are useless! He thought. I have everything I needed to know about this exact place on the other wall. Handis turned around, gazing at the other wall. If the base was actually attacked, he would need to be the one in charge of interpreting those bizarre diagrams he had learned before accepting his position. Luckily, he was adept enough that he didn’t actually need to see the state of the place to know exactly what was wrong with it. If it got attacked. And that made those bottom monitors useless.

Well, at least it wasn’t his money that was being wasted. Still, his fool men and women gazed on both ends, sitting in their cushioned seats and ready to say the same things to him that he could know by himself. It was better to be alone whenever he could, but he couldn’t help the orders from higher command. Those bastards had left him here to prosper from the pay, but they didn’t treat it that way. Maybe they knew he would be rotting from stress instead.

Well, little did they know that he was fine with that as long as he could live a while longer. He had seen worse.

Outside, extending furthest from the entire structure, stood three massive cannons that could blow the entire base to atoms. They held what was likely the highest level of defensive technology the UPOA could offer. No, they weren’t offering it. This place was part of the UPOA. It was so important that it couldn’t act on its own. Its only purpose was to defend, and its inhabitants needed no other meaning in life as far as command was concerned. That’s why, despite the fact that those massive barrels were aimed into the vast distance beyond the facility and the other fact that their long range compensated for an immensely slow turning speed, they were implemented with the ability to turn all the way backward and shoot the facility if it came to that. There were also several other methods of self-destruction that Handis was not planning on using.

For now, those cannons were his best friends. They always put him at ease when he thought about the oncoming danger and destruction of this place. As long as he was in control, he would prevent them from harming the place he was calling home for now.

Still, there was that nagging feeling that no one could attack without necessary precaution, and whatever that ended up being, it would likely kill him. He looked out through the monitors, towards the distant stars outside of the shining bubble shield of the DA. The advanced technology reserved for warfare had brought him a new kind of DA that allowed him to see clearly through and into space. It was the perfect opportunity to let him go insane with paranoia. He might have even said that it did him more harm than good. Would he have been more comfortable without it? No.

There was a twinkle in the distance. Handis gripped the railings. It was not a star, and it was not a fleet. Some sort of secret weapon, perhaps? The drone cameras could only tell once it had entered the DA. No, he didn’t need them. It was a secret weapon. Those bastards in the Empire had devised some new machine that could take out this whole base by itself.

Handis had heard the stories, and he had studied their strange minds during his practice for high government positions and secret spy work at a young age. They weren’t human. Or, perhaps, they were more human than anybody who belonged to the UPOA. The minds of the researchers of the Empire seemed to work better under the guidance of religion, and they were fanatics. They saw humanity in everything around them. Sure, they could have designed some sort of equally advanced and even more useful fighter jets, but they weren’t normal. No. They were ferocious researchers, but they could only do their jobs so well when they were making another image of themselves. That was the whole deal with the Warbacks in the galaxy. Even UPOA used them, and that was because they resorted to stealing blatantly better technology from the Empire. At the end of the day, it only took more effort to produce equipment like fighter jets and ships that would have been better from the start. But even then, the Warbacks were always better because they were always more advanced, and they were always more advanced because they were always easier to advance thanks to the fanatical motivation brought on by the idea of making a giant robot person instead of a giant robot bird.

It was stupid, but Handis didn’t have the right to say that. The UPOA didn’t have the right to say that. They weren’t as good as the Empire and its Warbacks.

And now, after years of warfare and advancement, would his government be squashed in one fell swoop with the use of this new beast?

The twinkle brightened and blasted into the DA. The disruption caused an explosion of light, illuminating the bubble around the facility and turning it into a blue sky. Surveillance cameras raced into action, catching glimpses of what was attacking them. Handis watched the monitors in front of him with white knuckles. He hadn’t even noticed the blaring alarms and flashing red lights. His army of technicians panicked and shouted at each other, awaiting further orders from their commander.

“Launch all Warbacks on standby and arm all of the inactive unites! Alert every turret on the base with the location and info that we have on this thing! Prime the Accelerator Cannons!”

“Sir, its just one--.”

“I don’t care! We need to make sure we can survive this. Understand?”

“Yes, sir, but--.”

“Listen to me. They didn’t send that thing here thinking we could beat it, did they? No. Arm every Warback and turret. Oh, and call for reinforcements. Now!”

Everyone jumped into action. It would have been a satisfying sight to Handis, but that wasn’t what he could focus on at the moment. He could only think about whatever that thing was that had arrived here.

His heart dropped as he saw the monitors all blink out in rapid succession. In one of them, he saw an explosion that hinted at what was happening. Why? How? What sort of creature operating this thing cared about taking out such trivially small drones? The effort it would have taken…

Handis caught a glimpse of the enemy before the last of the drones vanished. He saw the white, perfect shell of a star-shaped craft, a Warback made from abstract imagery, a kaleidoscope of shifting shapes. It was cutting those drones apart using severed shards it could control remotely. Effortlessly. It was unexpected not because it was so powerful but instead because Handis had already seen it before, although only for a very short time.

The confusion of this sight didn’t last. The enemy moved fast, and before long, there was no need for the drones. The cameras of the base itself began to catch views of the creature. This place was huge, and it could see far and wide. It was like a city, only it was full of battlements. It would take a respectable time to get it all destroyed using brute force.

The monitors started blinking out again. This time, though, it was clear what was happening. That white star shape was crashing into, tearing, mauling apart the turrets and walls of this place. Inside the DA, explosions were hot and fiery, and they carried their shockwaves into their surroundings far and wide. The white star trekked onward, trailing destruction yet ignoring the threats of things too far out of reach. It was headed somewhere. All Handis could see was explosion after explosion on those idiotic monitors. That Warback was heading somewhere. The center. Where the Genesis Shard was being kept. Power, enough of it to supply a planet’s worth of homes. It needed special containment, that thing. Surely, this enemy vessel was to be the first strike of many to come, eventually leading to a carrier craft meant to transport the crystal.

Explosions. Shockwaves. Ripped metal and splashing fluid. All of Handis’ home, gone just like that.

The Warback slowed, stopping in place under the guise of one very special monitor. Handis moved his hands in front of the wall, signaling to enlarge the sight. Yes, that Warback had parked right in front of the tubing and machinery that housed the Crystal, Its two arms outstretched and its legs standing apart and proud, faceless and perfect.

Handis could save this. He knew that Pilot. Seventy years…

“The Warbacks are ready and in position, sir!”

“On my command.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hold. Give me access to the speakers. I’m going to talk to him.”

“Talking to the Empire’s rats?”

“No, he’s different. An old colleague, maybe. Not that he’s here to help. I’m going to buy us some time, and you all get those Accelerator cannons ready. We are going to wait until the other crafts get here, and then we are going to shoot them out of the DA. As for this thing, if he turns hostile again, we evacuate and blow this place up. If we have time.”

“But, what happens to the Crystal?”

“I don’t care. I want to live.”

The technician nodded, and so Handis gained access to the loudspeaker system.

“Long time no see, Pilot. Remember me?”

There was a stretch of silence. Handis counted his breaths.

“Ah, Handis. I remember,” said the young voice coming from the Warback. It sounded too clear to be machinery, but it also wasn’t a natural voice. And it had said his name…

Nobody here knew him by that name. It was confidential information, even without the formalities of address. What was he doing blurting it out like that?

“We shared food and laughter. Do you recall?” Handis said.

“I remember the long nights without my fingernails, Handis.”

“But you got them back, and the Empire never gained the information they wanted, did they?”

“No, and the fingernails weren’t even nearly the worst of it.”

“Which is why I’m surprised that you are working for them now, Pilot. I thought you hated them, as much as our spy work said we could.”

“I’m not here on the Empire’s behalf.”

“So what is it then? A rebellion? It’s treason either way.”

“If I was a spy first, Handis.”

“I thought you were. That’s how it was for us. And that Warback you have, it’s special, isn’t it? I should have known it was some sort of secret weaponry. I can’t believe it was kept secret from me. I guess you were just closer to headquarters than me. I guess I was more in the dark than I thought I was. But I need you to know that the same people who made that Warback built this place you are about to destroy, Pilot.”

“I’m not with the UPOA or the Empire, Handis. Never was.”

Handis chuckled. “So what is this? Your little vigilante mission to right the wrongs you committed in the past? Don’t think I’m a stranger to that. Did you tell your followers about it?”

“Followers?”

“Don’t think I don’t know why you’re here. You want that Crystal in that tube right in front of you. This place is meant to protect that and nothing else. You have no other reason to attack. But that Warback can only do so much, Pilot. You need someone to back you up. Who’s coming to take the Crystal away, then?”

“No one. I came here to get it.”

The two of them spoke of very shaky terms. They threw out sensitive information like candy in a parade. It didn’t matter what happened to it because one side was going to die at the end of this. Still, there was that strange mercenary who had joined them to help protect this place. She was obviously in cahoots with the government. There were ulterior motives at play, here.

The enemy Warback shifted and broke apart, coming together like reflections in water. It stuck out a protruding needle, and the needle grew an appendage. It broke apart the glass tubing that housed the Crystal.

An entire planet’s worth of energy. All this guarding. All that machinery to keep it safe and stable. They didn’t know how to use its potential yet.

The appendage held its joints over the crystal.

All that power. There was no other transport. That Warback was not normal. It was beyond UPOA or Empire technology. Handis wasn’t fighting anything here. He was dying.

The appendage clamped down violently, sending shocks of green energy all around as the Crystal reacted to physical touch. The appendage closed, retracting into the spike. The spike vanished into the Warback. The Warback cracked, but it held together, fusing and shaking as it fought off the immense load of energy. Within the DA, a shockwave brought sound throughout the entire facility, a roar of power.

The area where Handis was located was right above the containment of the Crystal.

The Warback exploded forward, and Handis was killed in the ensuing explosion.