Advanced Neuronics Astrogation Mastery Initiative.
ANAMI.
I would live this life and no other, until the end of my days when my body may carry me no more.
I thought fondly of days before the implant. The days on Kelvik.
Kelvik was part of a collection of systems commonly known to outsiders as the Skyworlds.
In my mind, Kelvik was the most beautiful and stunning.
I remember it well, the last day I would soar the skies with my white feathery wings, the winds of higher altitudes whipping through my golden hair.
I lived in a smaller country called Poerl. It was an island, with highlands and cliff faces meeting the open seas each and every way. My home was founded upon the precipice of a lush, grass-covered cliffside, in a complex we called the Glimmershire. Solar shingles blanketed the roofs, which were curved artistically and faced in such a way that our Sun always shone upon them during the eighteen-hour days.
Elevators extended down the cliffside to the lower parts of the complex that served as the piers and docks.
I often found myself over the docks. I would perch somewhere on the rooftops at the highest points of Glimmershire, then dive down, tucking my wings in, gaining speed, until I opened them just centimetres from the surface of the sea. I would even push off it with my feet, just to say I was so close to making a fatal mistake.
And then the day came. Behraan came.
As if in just a blink, I was rendered like the rest of my kind on that world. My wings were forcefully removed by their surgeons. They locked me in rooms so dark that even my own eyes could see only the pitch of black--for so long that even my Kelviki mind, one so difficult to break, shattered, as if a crystalline chandalier, the chains that bound it to the ceiling weathered away by a dimunitive leak of water.
We were angels, they said. And we would all be made to fall like so.
And fall, I did. Removed of my wings. Removed of my mind. Removed of my home.
My brother, Makus. My sister, Lilia. My parents.
Removed.
My only safe harbor within me was within the deepest recesses of my dreams. I dreamed of a world, far away from here, a world of two worlds. One place, was a city as ancient as the desert that encroached upon it. There seemed to be no water of any kind. The stars there shone far more brilliantly than even in the starry nights on Kelvik. The moon felt so close that I could almost reach out and touch it.
And then there was the world below. Not devoid of water as the surface was. Yet devoid of any natural light. Devoid of the beauty of the stars and the moon. Another city resided there in the underworld.
Both worlds seemed otherwise utterly barren, lifeless. Yet it was there I longed to be. It was there I felt my dreams told me to go.
The dream came back every night--that is, if my sense of time had not diminished from starvation and encasement in utter blackness.
"She's waking up," said an unfamiliar male voice. Was this part of my dreams? I never saw people in my dreams.
I never had the throbbing pain in the back of her skull during those dreams.
I opened my eyes, eyes that burned from the light that had been absent for so long. I tried to flex a wing to shield my eyes, only to remember that my wings were long gone.
Slowly, the white operating room came into focus, my eyes adjusting enough to see.
Two tall, fair-skinned males in white gowns stood over me, closely examining me.
"Welcome back," said one in my own language.
"Where--" my voice was weak from neglect, "where am I?"
"You're on the Daunting," said one of the doctors, "safe. We have restored you to full health."
"A starship?"
"Yes," said the same doctor, "we're taking you to Behraan. You have been handpicked to participate in a very special project--"
"How long? How long was I in there?"
The doctors looked to each other. The second one then spoke, "ten of your years."
"Ten!?" I gasped, my voice scratching still from lack of use.
"Things have changed for Kelvik," he continued, "since your occupation, Kelvik had been allowed to become a vassal state. It has had nearly all its rights and freedoms restored, in exchange for pledging allegiance to Behraan willingly."
I shook my head as heated rage summoned within me, "you could not restore my wings. My family. My home. You took that from me. You all did. All of you!"
"We know," the first Doctor said quietly, "that's why you were chosen for ANAMI."
I looked at the doctor, my eyes cold and calculative, "Chosen, yet still not given the choice."
The doctors did not speak.
"What is ANAMI?" I asked shakily.
"Your second chance to fly," said a third man who walked in, dressed in typical Behraanese Navy garbs. He could not be more than thirty years old. He tipped his hat, "I'm Captain Alvoa of the Daunting."
"Second--chance?"
"We're trying to give back something for everything we took from you," said Alvoa, "I'm sorry you had to go through all of that. I hope Behraan can redeem itself in your eyes as time goes on."
"I watched innocent lives be raped and slaughtered when your kind invaded," I spit to the side, "there is no Redeeming you. You will all surely be punished in Bentor for eternity for this atrocity!"
"Relax," Alvoa shook his head, "I wasn't even in the Navy when that happened. I know what they did ten years ago was awful. I really do. But it's not my fault. We're actually trying to help you, Grace Lafiere."
"You want to help me?" I leaned forward, "shoot me. Send me to Kabaiila, with my family."
"I am afraid that is not up to me," said Alvoa, "you had best come to terms with your reality. We will arrive at Behraan in one hour."
I wanted nothing more than for the ship to burn up in the atmosphere, but it never happened.
Even while conscious, my mind wandered to the dream. The two worlds in one. For ten years, it was my home. I longed to rest in the cool sands there again. To stand upon the tallest rooves, and dive, then glide forever on my own two wings.
I was taken out of the landed carrier, down a long ramp, where I entered a train. We knew what they were, but never had use for them.
The world was heavy. The air was thin. The sky was green. The whole of the land was covered in city, congested by traffic on all levels, ground and air.
This was not a world fit for my kind.
Off in the distance, kilometers away, a giant building could be seen. It resembled a pyramid, a particularly common shape used by those civilizations that prized themselves to be superior to all those around them. The pyramid was dotted with lit windows and irregular shingling, imperfections of all kinds.
If there was a height in Behraan's time, I missed it.
I was brought within that pyramid. The back of my head itched the whole way, and I knew there was something in there because of the lump that was not there before.
Within that pyramid, it was hollowed out, made into a hangar. Ships small and large docked there, their designs as bulky and cumbersome as the pyramid that housed them.
I was made to stay there, within the pyramid, throughout a program they continued to call ANAMI. Advanced Neuronics Astrogation Mastery Initiative. I would be placed in small liftercraft at first. They put me in a chamber inside the central room of the craft, and hook me up to all these cables. The one that plunged into my implant always made my whole body cringe. My heart skipped a beat at times.
I had lost all desire to resist. Over time, I grew to get used to being connected and disconnected from the progressively larger and more complex ships, and I learned to control them. It was like learning to fly, except in the place of my wings, it was a whole ship.
I was not alone, but I was the first. Others were brought in, often Kelviki like me. Broken and shattered, like me.
I was also the first to be allowed out of the pyramid--so long as I was conducting practice flights within the vicinity.
Eventually, not only was I allowed to, but I had to. I showed so much promise over smaller craft, that I was moved to connect to the first ANAMI-capable frigate. Then the first destroyers. The first battleships.
Five years had passed of this. I always spent some part of the day in that pyramid, even though my training eventually involved me connecting to ships larger than the pyramid. I grew accustomed to Behraan's ways. I knew their laws. I became familiar with the Behraanese Destiny. I learned their language. I blended in with them.
I became them.
One day, Alvoa--then a Colonel--appeared at the Pyramid, and had all of us ANAMI initiates assembled for a speech. I had not seen him since he brought me to Behraan.
"Your training is now complete," he said aloud, "and because of the ouststanding success of this program, you are now to become amalgamated with the Behraanese Navy, effective immediately. You will be given uniforms, ones tailored to the needs of an ANAMI unit. You will be assigned ships that you will connect to for longer periods of time. You will perpetuate the Behraanese Destiny.
"For the Hierarch!" he shouted expectantly.
"For the Hierarch!" we repeated.
I killed a lot of people. I was assigned to command a torpedo cruiser, with a crew compliment of four-hundred. I felt that cruiser. I became the cruiser. And indeed, the Cruiser was named "Grace."
And graceful I was, as I guided my ship to new targets, in space and upon planets, guided torpedoes with a stray thought, and eradicated those my masters decreed to be enemies of the Dominion.
Apparently, I was one of the most successful ships from the program.
But then I began to hear things. Rumors my crewmates passed around about other ANAMI's misbahaving, not acting as themselves, belaying direct commands.
I paid it no mind. I killed again and again, and the only question that grazed my mind was, "who next?"
The greatest thrill, however, was not the killing. It was the ability to think that I wanted to go from one place to the next, many times the speed of light, and it happened for me, every time. Every time, I felt the high I would get from diving off buildings and opening my wings just before I hit the ground or water.
I pushed myself to thirty lightyears per hour, once.
I was rewarded for my efforts. The interfacing technology improved. I was given better power cores. A faster leap drive. I wanted more, and I was given more. Behraan provided.
And then the dream came back. The two worlds. They seemed so much farther away.
Perhaps i could find this world. I certainly had the means to get there. I could cross the galaxy from one end to the other in under a month.
I felt like I was a goddess. But I never let that thought out, and I never let it get in the way of my never-ending work.
Those rumors never did go away though. They became more troubling. Talks about some ANAMI's defecting. One ANAMI turned off life support and killed all crew on board, himself included.
Another locked himself in and did the same, then took his ship and started hitting random targets because he could. The fleet had to hunt his ship down and destroy it.
Before long, it wasn't just one ship, just one ANAMI losing his mind. Entire flotillas formed of these rebels. They became so dangerous that an entirely new task force was devised to take down the new threat.
Leading that force was one Janeth Sehra. She was only a Captain, but after two more years of ANAMI's rising against Behraan and Sehra hunting them down, she became widely known as a war hero, and was given the title of Admiral.
I never strayed. I thought about it. But I never strayed.
And then came Alvoa, again. This time, a General. Wrinkles began to line his brow and his cheeks. Strands of white hair were mixed in with the black.
"Grace Lafiere," he began, standing before me in my chamber, "you are, as we understand it, the last of your kind. You were the first of your kind. And you never faltered. You never failed us. However, the Hierarch now sees that it is time to decommission the ANAMI program, effective immediately. Henceforth, you shall be relieved of command."
I hoped the day would never come, but I knew my time as a minor goddess was finite.
"That said," the General continued, "We do recognize your accomplishments and achievements. We will grant you leave for as long as you wish. Name the place you wish to go, and we will take you there."
I thought long and hard about this. That dream. She wanted to be where the dream was, though it felt even more distant than before.
And all the guilt of killing the tens of thousands of people that I had through my ship, had finally begun to catch up to me.
As I shed two tears--one of sorrow that this was over, and one of joy for the same thing--I looked to the General and said weakly, "Home."
"A fine choice," said the man, as the crewmates began to disconnect her, "and, might I ask what it is you plan to do with your free time?"
I began to think of my family. My wings. My life before ANAMI.
"Atone," I said weakly.
Alvoa nodded slowly, his only response, "let's get you home, then."