Private Meyer bent above the sink and splashed cold water on his face until he couldn't feel it anymore, in a faint hope that he might be able to create an illusion of impassiveness if his facial features were simply frozen in place. But as he looked up at the mirror, that look of exasperation and worry that had carved itself into his features over the past days was still there. He still looked like absolute shit.
There was a constant furrow between his eye brows that he just couldn't get rid of these days. His lips were cracked and pale, and he could feel the familiar tingling of a budding cold sore at the corner of his mouth. The deep shadows under his blue eyes met the bluish traces of the healing bruise in the middle of his face, where the pirate Amy Larsson had broken his nose. The bone had been re-set, and if he hadn't been pale as death, perhaps the bruise wouldn't even be visible any longer.
Ever since he had been informed that his 'hearing' would take place during the weekly assembly in front of the entire division, he had spent every waking hour dreading that moment. And there had been many waking hours. So many that his eyes were now blood-shot and constantly itchy.
He looked like a walking corpse. And soon, he would probably be an actual corpse. Because today was the day. The day his fate would be decided – but he already knew the likeliest outcome of that decision. Today was the day he'd most probably die for desertion.
Oddly enough, he didn't really regret his decision to make a deal with Larsson. He got to live a couple of days longer than he would have if he hadn't, at least. His only regret was that he hadn't found a better way to make use of that time. He had spent it mostly lying on his cot in his room, staring up at the ceiling and pondering the insignificance of his life.
All his life he had tried to bring honor to his family, just like his father had demanded. He had always tried his best, but it had never been enough to please. Perhaps his decision to join the military and become a member of Orion's Reach had, in part, been influenced by his desire to be as far away as possible from that man and his expectations. Still, his father's archaic idea of 'honor' had ingrained itself into his mind over the years, so somewhat ironically, joining Orion's Reach didn't end up helping him escape his father's reach.
He had spent the past four years on Astraphos, had dedicated his life to becoming a hunter, and hadn't ever hesitated following his orders for a second. It had taken the skirmish on Six to open his eyes. Ever since his return, he had come to realize that this whole operation was insane. Orion's Reach was insane. The gruesome stories of their hunts, which people casually shared over breakfast in this place, caused him to shudder now. All of the doubt he should have felt in those four years had come to him at once, in those sleepless nights over the past couple of days.
What kind of honor was there to be gained from hunting down defenseless civilians? From torturing children to scare their parents into submission?From mutilating people who had committed no crimes whatsoever, other than using technology to survive, like each and every one of them did every day on this planet with its barely breathable atmosphere?
If he was to die without that kind of dubious honor being bestowed upon him, he was content with that. If he was to die today, at least he'd die without innocent blood on his hands. The thought of dying did not worry him at all. The fact that he felt like he had wasted the past twenty-two years of his existence - that was what bothered him.
He wiped the remaining water from his face with his hands, turned his back on the miserable man in the mirror, and made his way to the assembly hall.
~ ~ ~
Astraphos was a desolate planet, a grey landscape of ragged rock formations, dotted with craters from meteorite impacts. Why anybody would chose to build anything here, where constant thunderstorms ignited the upper layers of the barely breathable atmosphere, mystified many. Why one of the best-funded branches of the military had their headquarters here baffled even more.
Only few knew that the facility, which consisted of numerous bunker-like structures connected via extensive underground tunnels, had once been a high security prison. The barracks were somewhat reminiscent of this fact to this day, although the cells had been refurbished into small, single-bed rooms and given proper doors.
Astraphos made a good prison planet. Due to its low gravity, long term prisoners would get weaker and weaker as their muscles degenerated. Thanks to the atmosphere, which was not acutely toxic but contained only low levels of oxygen, everybody who didn't use an oxygen mask would live in a constant state of exhaustion. Intense thunder storms raging in the upper layers of the thin atmosphere made it extremely hard for space ships to approach anywhere else except through the three dedicated and constantly surveilled entry points, created by ring-shaped orbital stations that acted like atmospheric Faraday cages and allowed safe passage.
But with time, and due to the harsh environmental conditions on Astraphos, the prison had become run-down and derelict. It had been repurposed to a research lab with a secure storage facility at first, but the operation had quickly run out of money. The building had been left deserted for decades, until, during the early days of the Purge, there had been a desperate need for low-tech infrastructure that could quickly be adapted to run without any use of augment technology. So the old facility had been turned into a base of operations for the branch of the military that was tasked with the capture and retrieval of augments – a special force that soon became known under the name of "Orion's Reach".
As Meyer wandered along the winding underground tunnel that connected the barracks to the main building of the facility, he thought about the history of the building. The sound of his footsteps resounded from the black floor panels, under which an artificial gravity system had been installed during the repurposing. The only other sound was the quiet hum of the ventilation system that now maintained healthy oxygen levels within the facility. Eight years after the original Purge, everything still looked new and shiny – they were well funded to this day.
Still, as he walked through the hallway now, he couldn't shake the feeling that the history of these walls was suffocating him. The facility was a prison, even after all these years. Hard to get in, and harder to get out.
And for him, the only way out now was his death.
The assembly hall might have been a big cafeteria or common room in the past. It was a large room that could easily hold three hundred people, seated in narrow rows. This was where he would normally sit to listen to Major General Yaremova's lengthy sermons. Normally, he'd squeeze into one of the back rows, with Riviera and Dalton, the only two people in his life he would have felt somewhat comfortable calling his friends. His gaze met Riviera's as he passed by, and for a moment, he could see something like concern or worry in the look she gave him. He wished that he could tell her that he wasn't scared of dying, that he wasn't worried about what was waiting for him. He was worried for them.
He made his way straight to the stage at the far end, feeling everybody's eyes on him as he walked. Yaremova was early, as usual, and scrutinized him as he walked up. Six foot two tall, with short white blonde hair that she wore combed back against her head, pale skin, and striking blue eyes that seemed to pierce through everything she looked at, she was quite an intimidating sight. Her uniform only added to that effect, making her shoulders look broader than they actually were. But today, he felt strangely unfazed by her glare as he sat down in the front row, where he would wait to be called up on the stage.
The muffled chatter died the second the Major General sat foot on the stage and faced the crowd, letting her gaze wander over their heads slowly as if she was looking for somebody or something specific. Then she began to speak, her voice filling the room easily.
"Hunters! We have gathered here today to witness the testimony of a brother, a comrade, a colleague. But before we begin, let us take a moment to remind ourselves of the nature of our task, and its importance. Many among you have been with us from the beginning, from those first days of the Purge, when humanity for the first time recognized the dangers presented by the blighted abominations called augments."
As usual, she spat that word out as if it was poisonous. As she spoke, she paced back and forth along the stage in slow and graceful strides, hands clasped behind her back. There was something hypnotic about the way she moved. For the first time, Meyer noticed that every word, every step, every breath was thoroughly planned and executed, the passion and vigor in her voice perfectly timed for maximum effect. He cast a glance back across the room and found that the crowd watched her elaborate choreography intently, eyes wide and burning with the passionate hatred she instilled in them. Had he truly been one of them just mere days ago?
"Orion's Reach was founded to protect humanity from these monsters. And for years, we have fought bravely, hunted them to the edges of known space, done everything to eradicate them and eliminate this scourge that plagues our beautiful galaxy. And yet, some of them still elude us to this day. Some of them even have the audacity to stand up against us, to attack us. And the people we have sworn to protect!"
On the wall behind her, a large screen flared to life. Imagery of explosions and raging fires was displayed, and he recognized the footage to be from Aenara. Everybody had seen those images hundreds of times, on the news or during the countless briefings and de-briefings, and still, the crowd began to stir uneasily. There was something scandalous and shocking about the fact that somebody had attacked a Central World, a place that had always seemed so safe and secure, a pretty little paradise for the rich and powerful. Now it had been razed to the ground.
"How could it come to this?" Yaremova asked as she stopped at the center of the stage. "Well, I hope that we will find out today. Bring in the witness."
Meyer furrowed his brow in confusion. He didn't understand what Aenara had to do with him, other than that he had been sent out with Dixon to investigate any potential leads in one of the bordering sectors of the Outlands. He was no witness of the incident itself.
He was about to rise to his feet to walk up and meet his doom, when he heard a muffled cry and footsteps from behind. He turned and saw two soldiers dragging a man along the way to the front. He didn't look like a witness at all – his hands were tied and he was gagged. He wore a uniform, but he was no hunter. Puzzled, Meyer sank back in his chair and watched as they dragged him up on the stage, placed him on a chair in the center and removed the gag.
The man was paler than Yaremova, who leaned over him and looked him closely in the eyes for a few seconds, before she turned away again. She resumed her pacing, while the man slumped back in his chair, a shivering pile of misery and fear.
"Station officer Becker," she addressed him, "Please tell us, what happened on that day on Aeanara?"
"I-I don't understand," he stuttered, "I don't know - why am I - what do you want from me, I-"
She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at the man with two raised eyebrows, and he fell silent.
"I asked you a question. I suggest you answer it. Now."
The man gulped and closed his eyes, as if to remember better. "Well, there- there was a broadcast. It was... unusual. It talked about a contamination in the ventilation system, and called for evac. I was manning the sweep scanner, and I realized that it wasn't one of our stations sending it out."
"Where did it come from?" Yaremova asked, continuing her pacing.
"I... I don't know. We never managed to track it down. We did talk to her, though."
"Her?"
"That pirate. Larsson."
The mention of that name caused a shiver to run down Meyer's spine, and a murmur to go through the crowd.
"You mean the terrorist Amy Larsson?" Her voice was full of disdain as she spoke her name.
"Y-yes."
"What did you talk to her about?"
"Well, we... I mean.... Commanding Officer Lear tried to... negotiate with her, to get her to stop..."
"He negotiated with a terrorist?"
"Well, I mean..." Becker squirmed uneasily in his chair. "He tried to get her to stop... to save the people on Aenara..."
"Yet she didn't stop. What were you doing in the meantime?"
"I... I was still trying to track down that signal. I thought if we find her, we could-"
She whirled around to face him again, her blue eyes boring through him, and he shrank back even further in his chair.
"Is that so. Nothing else happened? You didn't do anything else?"
"I-I didn't, I just-"
"How many people died that day on Aenara, Officer Becker?"
"S-six hundred... forty-three..." he muttered, his voice almost cracking.
"And only five of them were ground personnel, isn't that right?" she asked, taking a step closer.
Becker didn't answer. He stared down at his feet, his shoulders slumped. Meyer wondered what all of this was about, what this man was even doing here. If he was a member of Aenara control or security, he wasn't under Yaremova's command or in any way associated with Orion's Reach.
And then, suddenly, he understood – the man was no witness. He was a prisoner.
" 'Ignore the assholes ordering you to die, and get out before it gets ugly' " Yaremova said, "What does that mean, Officer Becker?"
She sounded curious, her voice almost sweet, but that only lasted for a moment. When he didn't answer, she narrowed her blue eyes at him, and Meyer knew that this man had made a terrible mistake.
"Isn't that the message you sent to the ground? A warning?"
The man before her closed his eyes, a look of defeat on his face.
"So instead of saving the people you swore to protect, you incited your comrades to desert, is that it?" she snarled at him.
The man's eyes snapped open and he turned to face her now. "I only told them to save themselves! I saved them!" he yelled at her.
"And killed six hundred forty-three others that you swore to protect!" she bellowed back at him.
Everyone else in the room had frozen up completely. Never had they witnessed somebody defy Yaremova like that. They probably though that the man didn't know that it meant for him, that he didn't know in what danger he put himself. But Meyer recognized the look on the man's face, because it was just like his own, and he knew better. It was resignation. Officer Becker had simply accepted his fate. He already knew that he was going to die.
"They would have died anyway!" Becker screamed at her. "Our people tried to get them to the evac shuttles, they tried to to reason with them, but they wouldn't listen!"
He stared up at her, meeting her gaze unmoved but with tears in his eyes. Yaremova took a step back.
"You betrayed your oath. You collaborated with a terrorist. Even worse than that, with an augment. You are just as bad as them. You are vermin," she spoke calmly.
Becker opened his mouth to reply to that, but he didn't get a chance. She kicked against the chair, causing it to topple over, and he fell to the ground. He turned on his back and tried to scramble away from her, but she was already over him, kicking hard against his ribs with her steel-capped combat boots. Becker cried out in pain and curled up into a ball. She went around him, placing herself next to his head.
"And so you deserve to die like vermin," she said, and lifted her foot. "By being stomped out."
It came down against the man's head, shattering his skull with a horrible cracking sound that was barely drowned out by the harrowing scream that echoed through the hall. But it wasn't over yet. He was still conscious. So she kicked him again. And again. Until he stopped screaming and moving, and her boots and the stage were covered in fragments of bone and brain, and drenched in blood. And then she kicked him some more.
The metallic scent reached his spot in the front row soon enough, and Meyer pressed his hand against his mouth and nose to keep his stomach from turning. He hadn't thought that he'd ever see someone more brutal than Dixon. But he had kept his eyes fixed on the woman's face as she had killed the man. There was not a hint of emotion in it, not even anger. This wasn't like Six. This was no battle. This was cold-hearted, ruthless murder. He wondered what other things she had seen and done in her life that would make her so impassive while committing such an act.
"Private Meyer," the sound of Yaremova's voice calling him now was like ice cold water, slowly dripping down on his neck and running along his spine. He felt so violently sick that he thought he wouldn't make it up the stairs to the stage but somehow, he did it. This wasn't over for him yet, it had only just begun.
He understood now why she had done it. Why she had brought that man here, and killed him. She had used him as an opening act for her great show. And now Meyer was up next. The realization that he finally understood what was really going on in this place, and the insanity of it all, made him feel oddly calm as he looked at the audience of three hundred hunters that would watch him die like vermin today.
She made him stand at the center of the stage, in a puddle of Becker's blood. He stared down at it, wondering if Becker had had any family, and if so, what they'd tell them. Meyer had no family, other than his parents. He knew what they'd tell his father – that he had died a traitor, a deserter, honorless vermin. His father would be furious, and the thought that through his last act in life, through his death itself, he could spite him like that, made him smile faintly.
He looked up and found Yaremova staring at him.
"Private. Tell us what happened to your squad," she ordered him.
He took a deep breath and straightened his back. There was only one last thing he could do now, and that was to make sure that he kept his promise. The one that mattered much more than an oath that told him protect ignorant and insufferable rich elites, and forced him to kill and torture those who would truly be in need of protection. He would die protecting the secret of the Town on Six.
And so, in front of three hundred hunters and Major General Yaremova, he told a lie.
With a straight face and without hesitation, he told them how they had been ambushed on another, remote and desolate planet. They had visited that one before going to Six and found nothing, so he had only had to delete the last location records from their ship to erase every trace that they had ever been there. He told them a lie that was very close to the truth – that a band of raiders had attacked them, led by an augur who had jammed the scandroids. That Wald, Cheng, Riley and Dixon had been killed in the skirmish, and with his dying breath, Dixon had ordered him to return to HQ to report. He left out his encounter with Amy Larsson completely, it was better that nobody knew that he knew what she looked like. They might still decide to torture that information out of him otherwise.
When he was finished, he realized that Yaremova hadn't interrupted him a single time. Even now, she didn't ask any further questions, she just looked at him with her ice blue eyes, her face devoid of any emotion.
After a few moments of silence she turned to address the audience.
"Hunters. We have arrived at a turning point in our history. This man you see before you has escaped from the clutches of death to come back and teach you an important lesson."
With her back turned toward him, Meyer couldn't say if her face might have taken on a look that would allow him to tell if she was just being incredibly sarcastic as she spoke. Then again, watching him getting his head bashed in by the Major General would certainly qualify as a kind of admonition.
"As the most revolting examples of these ignoble creatures come crawling out of their holes now, they are attacking us directly. Symoa, Aenara, what happened to Lieutenant Dixon's squad... we cannot allow this to continue!"
She raised her voice more and more, and the people in the audience began to stir with excitement. They were swayed as quickly as her mood seemed to swing between impassive and passionate.
"We have sworn to protect humanity, to uphold the ideals of innocence and purity above all. We will find those who threaten our ideals and we will wipe them from the surface of every planet and every moon! No matter how hard it will be, no matter how high the cost! Per aspera-"
"Ad astra!" the crowd chanted back the hunters' maxim in unison.
"We have allowed them to slip through our fingers for too long," she continued, "We have been soft for too long! There will be no more captives, no more mercy. We will stomp them out. Like the vermin that they are!"
The crowd erupted into loud cheers and applause, and Meyer stared at the scenery before him in utter disbelief for what seemed like ages. He didn't understand anything of what was going on. Why wasn't he dead yet? What was Yaremova waiting for?
Suddenly, he felt her hand on his shoulder and winced in surprise. He realized that he had spaced out completely. The sermon was over now, and the people were clearing out the hall. And he was still alive.
"Private Meyer. Let's have a word," she said.
It felt to him as if he was sleep walking, or dreaming a strange dream, as he followed her down the side of the stage where two men and a woman seemed to have been waiting for her. Yaremova led the way toward the exit, Meyer trotting next to her, absolutely confused, and the three hunters followed closely behind.
"Tell me something about your family, Meyer," she ordered him.
"My family? Uhm. There... there isn't much to tell. I have a father and a mother, no siblings. They live on-"
He hesitated for a second, considering if she would go so far as to abduct them and use them as leverage to get information from him. She cast him a sideward glance, waiting for him to continue, and he decided to take the risk. Perhaps they'd only bring in his father, he certainly wouldn't shed a tear if they decided to torture that man to try and get to him.
"Pecora, ma'am. The colony on Pecora."
"You grew up there?"
"...Yes."
"Have you ever been to Neo-Tokyo or one of the Central Worlds, Meyer?"
"No, ma'am," he replied truthfully.
They continued to walk in silence for a while after that, and he became acutely aware of the fact that the three people behind him were armed. And the woman next to him could probably murder him in less than three seconds, with both of her hands bound to her back and a blindfold on.
She stopped abruptly and turned to look at him. She was tall enough to look down on him, but he was way too confused to feel irritated by her icy glare right now as she stared at him intently.
"You've never got any, did you?"
"Excuse me?!"
"Augments."
"Oh," he could feel blood rush to his cheeks and ears. "No."
"Good," she said. "Very good."
She continued to scrutinize him, from his bloodied boots up to his face, while he tried his best not to scream and run. He had made peace with the world and had accepted that he was about to die, but now he was worried that she had something more horrifying than that planned for him.
"Meyer, how would you like to become a member of the Saiph?" she finally said.
He stared back at her slack-jawed. Out of the million ways in which he had imagined she would punish him, asking him to become a member of the most prestigious and well-respected group of hunters among Orion's Reach, the elite task force called the Saiph Guard - that had certainly not been something he would have expected.
"Wh-what? Why?" he blurted out.
"Dixon's dead, so there's an opening," she explained, and cast a glance at the three hunters next to them. They were Saiph too, he realized now, as he spotted the six-pronged star-shaped insignia on their chests. There was a hint of a smile on Yaremova's lips as she spoke, and it somehow reminded him of something – of someone - and he couldn't shake a strange feeling of déjà-vu.
"You're twenty-two, right? You'd become one of the youngest members in history. You would start as a member of my personal guard. Watching, learning. Occasionally being sent out on missions. If you continue to prove your loyalty like that, I can see a future filled with glory ahead of you."
He couldn't believe it. He still expected her or one of the Saiph to pull a gun on him, or wring his neck, or bash his head against the wall. But nothing of the sorts happened. She just continued to look at him expectantly.
"I... eh... May I ask, ma'am... why? Why me?" he stuttered.
"Loyalty, Meyer. Dixon gave you an order, and you obeyed," she explained. "It is the most important trait in a soldier. Obedience without questioning. Loyalty without wavering. If your commanding officer sends you back, you go back, even if it means you have to leave your friends to die."
"Friends... yes..." he muttered, staring down at his bloodied shoes.
He thought of Riviera and Dalton. He had always wanted to tell Riviera how beautiful her laugh was, and how he loved the way her dark eyes sparkled with excitement every time she found out that it was pizza day in the cafeteria. But he had always been too much of a coward to do it. And he still owed Dalton fifty bucks over a lost bet. He'd have to come up with that money, if he didn't die today.
"So?" she asked.
Honor. Glory. Respect. All the things he had always sought, but which had always seemed out of reach. And in return, all that was asked of him was loyalty. Obedience, no questions asked.
And he realized that he could still do something useful with his life after all. She had just offered him a chance. He had a choice.
He looked up again to meet her blue-eyed gaze and smiled as he gave her his answer.
"I'd be honored to become a Saiph, ma'am."