Omnium's Fables

Omnium 21295:Vienne

In the boundless void of space, planets are born from the aggregation of dust and gas, a chaotic embrace that tightens around a star, a nucleus of fire and light. Once shaped, they bow to their fate, condemned to orbit it, bound to the star in an eternal cycle, an orbit that confines them for their entire existence. No matter what happens, what storms shake them, what cataclysms brush past them: as long as they exist, they will follow that predetermined path, a perpetual motion that knows neither rest nor rebellion.

I, too, am trapped in a cycle, an orbit that binds me like an invisible chain. Mission after mission, I receive an order, and I execute it. There is no room for satisfaction, nor for despair. I just do it. Without a purpose, without a question, without warmth. It is a mechanical action, a lifeless reflex, like the turning of a planet around its star. I remember nothing of myself, as if my memory were a black abyss, a void that swallows me whole. Yet, it is as if I myself am closing my eyes, refusing to see. I don't want to see, and for this, I lie to myself, building a prison of falsehoods that protects me from the truth. I don't want to see, and so I forget, letting the past vanish like ash in space. I don't want to see, and so I run, speeding away from what I might discover if I would just stop and look.

But am I also condemned to this cycle for the rest of my existence, an endless orbit, a fate that binds me like the planets to their star? Is it from this very cycle that you, too, Jessie, have tried to escape?

Year 21295, Route between Wasteland and Osiris

The military vessel Vienne, the pride of the Maverick army, was traversing the infinite void of space, heading towards the purple planet, Osiris, a world shrouded in an aura of mystery and war. Recalled to the front lines to provide support in the Great War against the Papacy, the Vienne had a crucial objective: to contribute to the conquest of the Origin, a mysterious source of infinite energy discovered hundreds of years earlier in the Angel’s Gorge, a region on Calypso on Osiris, the epicenter of a conflict that consumed entire generations. The Origin manifested as a sphere of tangles and strings of Imprint, an energy so powerful that it was visible to the naked eye even to those unable to manipulate it. The pressure it emanated had, over the last fifty years, become a palpable presence throughout the region, an oppression that grew as one approached the Gorge, making it almost impossible to proceed, as if an invisible entity were repelling every intruder.

According to the beliefs of Maverick and the Papacy, the Origin was a part of the god Meyneth, a divine inheritance that fueled their superstitions. But it was not an isolated case: similar energy sources had been discovered in other systems, and even among distant races it was narrated that these "Origins" were fragments of the gods, a myth that spanned the galaxies, uniting different peoples in an unsettling reverence.

The crew of the Vienne belonged to a branch of the Maverick Eighth Division, a unit composed exclusively of human beings, led by Commander Gugnir, a man considered among the most powerful of his species. Gugnir and the rest of the division were already on Osiris, ready to fight on the front lines, while this branch of the division, aboard the Vienne, was heading towards the purple planet to join the battle. The Vienne was their outpost in space, a flying fortress designed to face the most extreme challenges.

The ship was a technological marvel, among the most modern the Axis army could offer. Its main structure, called the Vault, was shaped like a massive cylinder, a metal behemoth that rotated slowly on itself, generating a centrifugal force that maintained the internal gravity at Axis parameters, an illusion of stability for those living aboard. The Vienne was divided into three distinct zones, each with a precise purpose: the residential sector, the hangar, and the operational sector.

The residential sector was a microcosm of life, an echo of Axis itself, designed to preserve the mental sanity of the soldiers in an environment that replicated the warmth of solid ground. The cabins, which were cabins in name only, were actual apartments, separated by wide green spaces: lush gardens and courtyards adorned with synthetic trees that projected delicate shadows under artificial lights. At the center of the sector, a square opened up, a pulsating heart of quiet where a fountain reigned, its gurgling an hypnotic song that welcomed the crew onto polished metal benches; all paths branched out from there, leading to the cabins and the infirmary, an oasis of care hidden among the foliage. This corner of normality was essential: soldiers, forced to face dangerous situations and long periods in space, needed an environment that maintained their psychological state stable. The journeys, though long, lasted at most a few months, making the use of cryostasis inefficient, an obsolete technology that caused too much damage to the body for such short displacements. Modern ships, like the Vienne, traveled at speeds that made such methods a memory of the past.

The Vienne's engines, called Sails, were a prodigy of engineering. Thin structures of Pririum, hundreds of meters long, extended from the ship's perimeter like immobile, elegant, and sharp wings, capturing the residual Imprint from stars and planets. This energy, which traveled in space like an ethereal wind, visible only to Imprint users, was collected and converted into a propulsive force that allowed the ship to reach incredible speeds, traversing the void with an almost supernatural grace.

The second sector, the hangar, was the pulsating heart of military operations. Here were stored the mechs—four, to be precise—along with other transport vehicles intended for surface missions. The hangar was an arena of activity: technicians moved with precision among the metal giants, performing maintenance under neon lights that cast sharp shadows on the walls. The mechs were launched through a central platform: anchored to it, they were released and shot vertically once the exit doors opened, a system that transformed the platform into an elevator to space. At the center of the hangar was the Gate, an enormous structure used on the surface for the deployment of vehicles, but also in space for the return of the mechs, equipped with a depressurization and sterilization chamber, a bulwark against the contaminations of the void.

The last zone, the operational sector, was the brain of the Vienne. In the lower part was the command bridge, where the Captain's station reigned: a manual control console flanked by the automatic guidance system, which also functioned as the ship's central computer, an artificial intelligence that monitored every aspect of the mission. Connected by a network of elevators, the upper part housed separate cabins for the scanners and weapon control, the eyes and the shield of the Vienne, instruments that watched over the darkness of space and protected the ship from every threat.

In all three sectors, discreet panels gave access to a complex labyrinth of corridors that ran along the perimeter of the Vienne. These passages, an intricate metal maze, served as emergency connections between the various zones, allowing rapid access to every area of the ship, including the engines, in case of need.

Here, in one of these narrow corridors, an imposing man dominated the space with the presence of an ancient titan, a mountain of flesh that seemed to defy every law of gravity. His massive and heavy build evoked an old, gnarled tree, rooted and immovable, the fat collecting in folds beneath a sweaty shirt, stretched to the point of making the buttons groan, as if the fabric itself pleaded for mercy. Middle-aged, he bore the signs of time not in wrinkles—few, to be honest—but in the way he moved: slow, methodical, every gesture a compromise between a primal strength and a weariness that weighed on his shoulders like an invisible burden. His hair, short and black as coal, clung to his skull in damp tufts, shiny with sweat that dripped down his forehead, where a patch of grease had imprinted itself like a trophy from his duel with the Sail engines.

In front of him, a control panel lay open, a tangle of metal and pistons that revealed the mechanical viscera of the ship, an intricate mess of cables and gears that seemed to pulse under the dim light of the corridor. His hands, thick and calloused, moved with surprising precision for their size, gripping a wrench with the familiarity of one who had spent years taming similar beasts of steel. Every movement was a ritual, a silent dialogue between the man and the machine, punctuated by the clang of tools and his breathing, a low wheeze that mingled with grunts of effort and concentration.

The smell of oil clung to him, a pungent aroma that permeated every fiber of his skin, a scent that for him was home, more than any other place. On the verge of completing the routine maintenance, the man paused for an instant, his body stilling as if he had perceived a change in the air. Light footsteps resonated behind him, an echo that broke the rhythm of his work, accompanied by a young voice.

"Hey, Ron! How much longer until you finish the maintenance?" the boy asked, his tone formal, almost military, but with a note of impatience that betrayed his youth.

"Just a few minutes, Jessie," Ron growled, his voice a low thunder that rumbled in the corridor, charged with aggression. "A little longer and I'll be done, so if you've got nothing better to do, leave me to work in peace!" He turned, the movement slow but heavy, like a mountain turning to face an intruder, and his gaze, not particularly docile, flashed at the young man from the moment he diverted his attention from the engine.

Jessie, a boy between twenty and thirty, slowed the determined pace with which he had approached, stopping at a discreet distance, intimidated by the tone of the giant before him and by that gaze that seemed to pierce him. His face was a fascinating contrast: kind eyes, a clear blue that evoked the cerulean skies of Atum, the capital of the Meyneth Papacy, shone with a contagious cheerfulness, as if they carried an innocence ill-suited to the harshness of war. His blonde hair, long and rebellious, fell in soft strands that brushed his shoulders, but one side was neatly shaved, revealing light skin marked by an intertwining of piercings. On his eyebrows, nose, and ears, those small metal jewels glittered like falling stars, giving him a wild yet refined air. He wore a black military jumpsuit, typical of the Maverick army, close-fitting to his slender, sculpted body, crossed by metallic lines that reflected the light in fleeting flashes, like sparks in the darkness. On his right arm, embroidered in a silver-white that shone like a seal, stood out the words "Eighth Division," a symbol of belonging that he wore with a pride veiled by the uncertainty of the moment.

"I see you're still mad about the argument with Gabe the other day, huh?" Jessie said, trying to diffuse the tension with his usual cheerful tone, yet maintaining that safe distance from the man, like a deer approaching a wolf.

"Mad, you say?" Ron roared, his voice rising like a wave ready to crash. "Mad doesn't even come close to how I feel, Jessie!" He tightly gripped the wrench he held, shaking it as if he wanted to hurl it at the boy, the metal glittering menacingly under the dim light.

"I really don't understand you," Jessie continued, his tone tinged with growing irritation. "We're soldiers, I remind you. If we don't fight, why are we here?"

"My son shouldn't have even gotten on this ship!" Ron exploded, spitting on the ground with contempt, a gesture that seemed to want to chase away a poisonous thought. "If it happened, it's all because of you and your stupid enthusiasm. Friends for life, what a load of crap! He should be at some university on Axis right now, becoming an engineer, not getting himself killed on the front line with you!"

"Now it's my fault?!" Jessie retorted, irritation turning into anger, his voice cracking under the weight of the accusation. "Gabe has his own mind, he's capable of thinking for himself!"

"What mind?!" Ron thundered, his face contorting in a grimace of frustration. "You're just two stupid kids! You barely know how a warship or a rifle works, let alone how to fight." He paused, his breath heavy, then continued in a darker tone, as if digging into an ancient pain. "But do you know what it means to be an Eighth Division soldier, Jessie?"

"To fight to give freedom to the people of Maverick from the Papacy and create a society where we can coexist with other races?" Jessie replied, his voice softening, almost uncertain, as if reciting a memorized lesson.

"The front line," Ron interrupted him, his tone bitter, laden with a resignation that weighed like a millstone. "That's what it means, Jessie. The damned front line!"

"But then why are you here, Ron?" Jessie asked, his voice rising again, a mixture of challenge and confusion. "It seems like you don't care at all, right?"

"I'm an engineer, Jessie!" Ron snapped, his tone roaring back, a fire burning under the ashes. "For me, it's just work, I'm not going to get myself killed on the front line like you! And besides, this whole coexistence nonsense again! Do you really think it's possible to achieve peace with a war that's been going on for centuries? What? Do you think you're going to stop it?!" His voice rose in a crescendo, a mixture of anger and disbelief, as if he were talking to a child who doesn't understand reality.

Jessie remained silent, irritation burning within him, a fire that found no outlet. He huffed with his mouth, a gesture that betrayed his disagreement, and made to turn away, ready to leave, his steps already prepared to carry him away from the confrontation. But Ron continued, his voice lowering to a grave, almost pleading tone, filled with a bitterness that seemed to dig into his soul. "Trust me, Jessie. Forget about what the law and the Hereditas say. Run away from that war, go to another system, and don't look back. Your parents would understand. I would stop my son if I could, but people who can't manipulate the Imprint, like me, can't do anything with people like you. And that boy knows it well, he doesn't listen to me at all." He gritted his teeth, the anger at his helplessness contorting his face, a man fighting against a fate he couldn't change.

Jessie stopped, silence wrapping around him like a blanket. He perceived the man's Imprint, weak but sincere, an energy that could not lie. Despite the anger, behind those words was a deep concern, not just for Gabe, but for him too, a shadow of affection hidden beneath layers of frustration. That feeling silenced him, a knot tightening in his throat, preventing him from answering. The dull sound of Ron's tools, as he returned to work with a tired gesture, and the footsteps of Jessie, who walked away into the darkness of the corridor, were the only sounds to break the silence, an echo that faded into the obscurity of the Vienne.