A Traitorous House on Traitorous Earth: Shattered Past Book 3

Called to Action

"So who was it that you were texting a minute ago?" James asked Nova putting down his cheeseburger.

"I've got a couple of questions for you first."

"Alright, shoot."

"Why is it that you eat? You don't have to, so why do you?"

"Well, you're right, I don't have to. I just do because food tastes good."

"Second, have you thought about actually having a kid of your own?"

"I don't think I can Nova. In spite of how much I would like to, I don't think I can. But I have learned some interesting things about that."

"Really, like what?"

"Well for starters-" James said with himself being interrupted by an emergency message from the Vanguard. The message read 'Your buddy in the reef is calling you for a favor.'

"Alright, Nova can you take these home for me? I've got to head somewhere important."

"That'll be okay James. I'd just need the cash to pay for the bill."

"Sure, take care of the bill and head home alright?"

"You got it," Nova replied to him. She was going to take the food home along with paying for the bill. But she wasn't going to stay at home for very long; it had been a long time since she had seen Katie. James transmatted up to his ship and was greeted by the friendly face of his ship's onboard AI. "Afternoon sir, what's the purpose of our voyage today? Going to test the exterior oxygen and gravity fields again?"

"No Captain, we're not going out of the Milky Way today."

"You know, I can't think of a single person who would take his girlfriend out to the edge of the galaxy for his proposal."

"She's that special Captain,"

"I can tell, and upgrading the warp drive with some Vex time-space distortion tech was pretty slick too."

"Well, how else were we going to get to the edge of the galaxy? As far as I can remember we weren't able to get past the galactic barrier in the golden age. And I remember that point in my life well. Except for the first half of my life."

"Right, you're still missing the other half of your memory,"

James put his hands on the controller and began flying his vessel to the reef. James as far as he knew had three different sections of his memory. The first being one since nine months ago, the second being the one from his entrance into the MDU until his death. Then there was the one from before the time of the MDU. He knew that there was a point after his birth that he had memories of. He knew because he had a memory from his conception that didn't fit into the rest of them. He just couldn't think of where to look.

"Sir? Is there something bothering you?"

"Oh, it's nothing. But I do have a question for you."

"Sure, ask away."

"What happened to the Valkyrie project? The unit that I battled with and piloted?"

The Valkyrie project was a byproduct of the early wars using the traveler's technology. James originally only had theories on golden age wars being fought with traveler given weaponry. Now that he had his memories, those theories became a fact. The Valkyries were colossal three stories tall, bipedal, humanoid, tanks with weaponry equivalent to both aircraft and tanks. Often using large rifles and cannons to fight, these were some of the first vehicles to incorporate energy shielding technology and a neural link. In which a pilot could coordinate strikes with the onboard AI of the vehicle. Duels between Valkyries would sometimes stop fighting all together on the battlefields. One soldier that witnessed a duel between two pilots and their Valkyries equated it to a battle of gods. Caesar was the name of the Valkyrie James used; the two were great friends, borderline brothers.