Brides of War

Hope in the Darkness

The wind blew hollowly about me. Everything that I saw before me was as I had never dreamt of seeing it.

The capital city of my nation of Lothanel lay charred to ashes to the point of being unrecognizable. The high-rises, the business warehouses, the expansive markets, and the homes of several million people were all gone.

Not a breath of life remained. Not in the above portions of the city or even in the labyrinth of emergency fallout tunnels that lay below it.

The directed energy weapons of Cherion Prime had compromised everything and as a whole the city had melted. In one vast flaming puddle it had settled out over the plains of Lothanel even as the underground chambers had collapsed in as the ground above turned molten.

There had been little warning of the attack and none originating from the enemy. Every major Lothanian city had been attacked simultaneously.

By all indications the attack had been perpetrated by the use of our own ground-based satellite arrays. In other words, our own weapons of defense had been turned upon us.

How had the enemy managed such a feat of overcoming the many security protocols that had been put in place to avoid just such an outcome? The answer may never be known.

There had been traitors to be sure, but who would’ve guessed anyone to be so culpable as to participate in the annihilation of an entire people. It had taken less than 12 hours to reduce a nation of 193 million people down to a pathetic few.

Over the past three days I and my crew had flown over and scanned the entire landmass of Lothanel both above and below the surface. Not one soul had been found living.

No animals or even plant life of any kind had survived. The small continent that played host to only one nation was a charred and entirely unrecognizable vista of utter destruction.

Its cities lay melted, its topsoil burned away, and its people turned to ash floating about on the breeze. We had tried every channel of communication, but all to no avail.

No other flight cruiser had survived save for the Ark of Wanel and that was for good reason. The Ark of Wanel was the newest ship of the air fleet and the first of its kind anywhere.

It’s technology so top-secret that even I didn’t know the answers to many of its capabilities in terms of how they actually functioned to provoke the result that they did. The ship’s entire construction had been compartmentalized with competing research teams kept secreted away from each other.

The resulting design had been revolutionary. Its overall capability truly a game changer, but now in some ways it lay as the tombstone for my people’s legacy.

The Ark of Wanel with its many advancements represented an unparalleled threat to all the nations of Zalthagor. It had to have been this that had preempted them to strike.

They had destroyed everything except what they feared the most.

The vivid memory of being in the control room as screens blazed alive as they were activated by both heads of state and military assets across the nation assailed me all over again as if I was reliving the moment. The panicked voices and tears of ruling civilians begging for assistance, the grim expressions of top military commanders as they relayed the stark reality that the country’s mainframe had been irreversibly hijacked, to the shouted orders of the president to come pick him up immediately.

All of them had gone off at once as all the screens had flashed vibrantly bright with the first onslaught of the energy weapon assault. At the same time the Arc of Wanel had been hit with temperature extremes up to 3000°, even so the revolutionary design of the ships shielding had held the heat at bay from causing any serious damage.

In the immediate aftermath of the burn, however we had almost crashed out of the air because of the sudden void of oxygen depleted all about the hull by the flash fire event. We had stabilized flight before impact with the ground, but in the days to come we had been left with the vision of what I now gazed upon first-hand.

This was the first time in three days that we had even dared to land on the surface of the continent that had been rendered semi-molten. Staring down at the hard clay that was left, which almost seemed brick like, I wondered if there was even one seed in the entirety of Lothanel that had survived the complete environmental onslaught that had occurred to the land.

Even as the very soil had been consumed so had an entire nation. Lothanel would never be a nation again, at least not here.

Our enemies had finally won in their eon war against us. The reality of such utter deceit was so crushing as to almost be like the effect of someone choking the life out of you.

“Sir? Sir? Please Sir?”

Blinking away tears I looked up from the ground. I recognized my communications officer, Edmund Farland.

I wiped at my face as I realized acutely that I had been crying. Edmund’s eyes were little different, even as the crew as a whole had been one ship full of mourning as we had all gazed upon the reality that everything we had ever known and everyone we had ever known were all gone.

How we had stayed functional enough to even perform our duties was a wonder. That said this was no run-of-the-mill crew.

Each member down to even seemingly the least level of importance had been hand-picked for the job. In many ways I felt outclassed to even have the command over the ship let alone the human talent that guided it.

It was still a mystery to me as to why I had been chosen to be the commander. I was one of the youngest flag commanders in the entire fleet, with many able commanders with years of experience I could not boast of seemingly being passed over for a wildcard like me.

The explanation I had been given was that the Ark of Wanel was a new idea and thus it called for an unconventional minded commander that had the ability to both adapt and learn new ways of reasoning versus a more senior advanced commander intent on doing things the way they had always been done.

Coming to full attention I said, “What is it Edmund?”

“The envoys of several nations are on the video com line Sir. They want to speak to the person in charge of Lothanel.”

I stared at Edmund for a long moment as reality slowly sunk in. I was the leader of this ship that carried 471 souls.

The reality was much broader than this though. Insomuch as I was the leader of this ship I was also the leader of all that was left of Lothanel and right now I was staring at one of the few remaining citizens of it in the face.

Coming unglued I made for the open hatchway. Within five minutes I stood within the control room and became visible to the heads of state of seven nations of the nine that held sway on the bigger continent of Zalthagor.

They all started speaking at once, but quickly stopped and with some degree of separation from each other began to speak legibly, “Have you found survivors?”

“Our sources tell us of massive losses, is it true?”

“The Cherions have been held to account for this!”

I seized upon the last speaker and spoke for the first time, “They’ve been held to account? Would you care to explain that?”

The Prime Minister of Vercha stammered and looking most uncomfortable he said, “What I meant to say is that steps have been taken to punish them for such an obscene breach in ecological and of course humanitarian protocol.”

“Punish them? Exactly how are you punishing them?”

All seven dignitaries fidgeted and on their faces I saw only two of them form the beginning of what I took to be tears. I made special note of that even as I stared around at all seven of them.

Pointing my finger to include all of them, I said, “This should never have happened. The Cherions couldn’t pull this off alone and in this I promise you, I will not rest in terms of searching out who it was of you that helped them carry out this abomination of destruction.”

“Your anger is understandable Capt. Morgan Lee, I believe that’s your name, anyway you must not do anything rash. Think for the sake of your people, I mean the people on board that is. What’s best for them right now?”

“Revenge.” I said without a moment’s hesitation.

Immediately there was an uproar of voices as they all sought to tell me how foolish it was to attack the Cherions.

“You have but one ship.”

“What makes you think I need more than one ship such as this one I command to decimate the entirety of Cherion Prime?”

Silence greeted my rebuttal of one head of state and then the moment was broken as they all began squabbling once more among themselves. Finally, one voice rose above the others and it was Vincent Darcy, Prime Minister of Salano, the largest of all the primary continent nations and the most powerful. “We simply cannot tolerate you using the advancements of your people to wipe out another no matter how wrongful their actions were towards your own people. The reality is this, your people are no more. You and the scattered few Lothanians left abroad at your embassies and so forth account for nothing more than a rather small class of refugee status. I hate to be so blunt, but there it is and as it is the case you have no business in maintaining control over a ship such as you have. Its extreme abilities make you a rather dangerous force even as I discern that you are of a reckless nature and not at all a seasoned officer befitting the posting for such an appointment. If you could but put your grief aside for a moment I think it would become very clear to you that the most logical course of action going forward for the safety of all nations is for the Ark of Wanel to be handed over to a multinational pointed committee that would oversee the decoding of the ships technologies so that all the nations could share in the advancements harnessed within it and in so doing a balance of power could be restored. Face it, your people’s desire for independence and isolationism lays as a primary fault for their demise as much as anything else. I’m not condoning the actions of the Cherions, but it is understandable how they came to the conclusion that a first preemptive strike was warranted.”

Strangely, I felt myself apart from the rage that should be manifesting at hearing such a heartless diatribe of filth laden statements meant to demean and disarm me. Maybe it was the new pressure of being the leader of my land or more aptly maybe it was just the grace of my God helping me in a moment that He knew was simply just too much for me to handle.

Even though I was maintaining a calmness of reserve many of my crew were not. Their voices of descent threatened to rise to a higher level, but I lifted my hand and the sound of their barely repressed wrath went silent once more within the control room.

Refocusing on the seven dignitaries I looked at each of them in turn as they discussed among themselves the proposition put forward by the leading nation of the continent. Three were in agreement with the Prime Minister.

One was asking for the caveat that the two nations not in the video-conference, primarily the Cherions, not be allowed to take part in the exchange of technology. Only one nation, the Velokian Confederation was speaking out against the entire matter as it was being put forward.

Their Prime Minister, Eugene Koraven, was doing her best as she spoke hotly in rebuttal to such a plan, but she was being boisterously talked over by the others and like a smug cat that had gotten exactly what he wanted the Prime Minister of Salona sat back in his chair content to let the others do his work for him. Unwittingly he had tipped his hand.

Now I knew with some certainty who it was that had aided the totalitarian minded Cherions. The Cherions, as a people did not possess the technical expertise to infiltrate our servers and hijack our system from the inside as it had been done.

Not only did they not have the expertise they did not have the kind of monetary capital and patience that it would’ve taken to bribe and recruit a fifth column within our governments’ hierarchal system of control. The Solanians were an entirely different matter though.

Glancing from the screens of angry yelling heads of state I took in my exec officer Thomas Walton, his gaze was already rooted expectantly on me. Speaking clearly I said, “Do you have the tactical protocol, Muddy Vision, ready to be activated?”

“Yes, Capt.”

“Please subtract all Velokian interests from the parameters of the algorithms range of scope and then proceed with the deployment.”

“Aye, aye Capt.”

All the heated discussion upon the screens of faraway places stuttered and came to a halt. Suspiciously the Prime Minister of Solano asked, “Tactical protocol? By the……”

“The solution has been revised Sir.”

Ignoring the pagan Prime Minister’s expletive filled threats of violence I calmly enacted the tactical protocol with a single word, “Deploy it.”

The supercomputers within the Ark of Wanel whirled into action in an unseen frenzy that if heard should surely have screamed past the abilities of the materials they were constructed of and yet the room remained silent as utter financial chaos was instigated. Ashen faced all the dignitaries looked about as each was being informed of an unimaginable financial meltdown of every nation’s economy save for the Velokian held interests.

In fact their country’s net worth was soaring as traders dumped other stocks to invest in the one nation that was not experiencing a complete meltdown of their financial sector. I spoke and a stated hush fell over all the com lines, “As the commander of the Ark of Wanel I do solemnly promise all the nations of Zalthagor that even as we may be but a few, we are all chosen for the task we are now employed in by people that though they may no longer exist nonetheless live on in our hearts forever and we will never let them down. We will not rest until those who have done this evil are brought to justice. We most definitely will not surrender this ship to anyone. Our land may be burnt away and though Lothanel, as each of us knew it to be, will never be again, a future for our people that do remain alive will be my first priority above all else. Hunt for us, all you wish, but know this. One day it will be us and if not us, then it will be our children, which come to hunt any and all that oppose us or that played a part in this tragedy. This you have my word on as the acting commander of this ship and all that remains of the people of Lothanel.”

Before any of the talking figureheads could speak, I manually signed off all the screens and with precision not even requiring a given order silent running mode was enacted even as radar lock-ones from dozens of onrushing foreign nation ships were shed off of us like an old snake skin. The Ark of Wanel was by no means a small ship, but to all the world right now she became invisible.

Like angry hornets they searched about for us as we quietly cruised past all of their radar traps. The ease by which I could bring destruction upon them was unfathomable and yet as great as the ship’s capabilities were I was not going to be able to engage and destroy every objective at once.

To begin such an engagement would temporarily reveal our location and that was something at the moment that I simply couldn’t risk. All that remained of Lothanel for the most part was housed within this ship’s hull.

I had the resources at my disposal to decimate any of the nine nations of the supercontinent, but not all of them at once and even so, was such an action even justifiable?

Did I have the right to end another people simply because my own land had been wiped free of the map?

Were all the people of a nation guilty for the actions of their leadership?

If I killed everyone within a nation was I any better than the monsters who had destroyed us?

Not only did our people need to survive, but perhaps more importantly so did the soul. Without a soul what purpose was there for us even going on as a people?

We had little left to us, but if we departed without the most sacred aspect of our mortal selves we might as well not even exist. The answers to these realities were clear to me, but the driving urge for bitterly enacted revenge was almost overpowering all my nobler emotions of the moment.