Fiction Gallery

To my Mistress Telona,

It has been forever since we have spoken. The years have been long since you left. As I sit here on the edge of oblivion my thoughts turn to you and all of our time together. It seems like a lifetime ago, sitting in the Sword's Sheath among faces that have blurred from my memory long ago. The familiar smell of the asteroid that we called home can still be easily recalled in my mind but so many other things have become foggy with time, and age.

I have found a new home among the Sons and Daughters of Sadow. I am one of them, but then I also am not. I still feel like an outsider even though they have all but embraced me as kin. The station I find myself in life is one I believe you would be proud of. I have amassed glory and riches as well as honor. I command a Harrower-class Dreadnought among a fleet of other starships. I have the ear of the Summit, including Grand Master Muz Keibatsu. I now possess a Raider Corvette for my own musings to do with as I wish. I have all these things but deep down I still feel like a beggar. As if I am pretending. Like these robes hold secrets and lies that I desperately wish to hold in darkness, scared that the light of day will hold both my skin and sins to bare for all to see.

I do not see how to resolve this doubt that has crept up and taken root deep inside me. It is at times like this that I would see your council and wisdom. I would wait for you outside your quarters, or your office, for hours and hours until your duties brought you back. You would look at me and see my conflict within almost instantaneously. You also knew what to say just as quickly. As you taught me the ways of the Krath I began to understand you more bit by bit. We grew was Master and Apprentice for years until I was Knighted and then, well, you know what happened then.

I sit here, in my office off the bridge. It is filled with accolades and trinkets. I have the command of thousands and thousands of people. Yet I sit alone with not one soul for whom I can share any of this with. For I would give it all away to bring you back into this realm. This is why, while I hold the moniker of Sith, I am not sure if I ever could be able to truly claim that title. You taught me to fight with all of my soul and, like you, hold a piece of myself back from the edge of that particular abyss. To have a purpose in what I do and why I do it. Never blindly following others out of fear but fighting with them for glory and honor.

So here I leave you. I am once again moving out to face the enemy. What lays beyond I have no clue but also no fear. If I do fall, please take me to you and promise never to let me go. I still guard these feelings I have, as did you when you drew breath. They, like you, shall never die.

Yours in eternity,

Hades

Elizabeth-II sat in Nei'kapo's shadow making the ambient temperature even colder than normal. The freezing air felt like it was cutting right through Garret Thorne's armor plates. The mercenary crouched beside a ventilation intake, checking his equipment one last time. In front of him, the massive warrior development foundry hummed with power.

Garret pressed a button on his gauntlet. A swarm of tiny, spherical droids floated up from his back, drifting into the dark like a cloud of dust.

"Spread out," Garret muttered. "Keep the sensors off my back."

The droids drifted off as if caught by a breeze, sending updates back to the display on his visor. All clear, for now.

Garret tapped the armor covering the starburst scar on his neck. The anticipation of action always made it itch. Happy with his gear, and the itch subsiding, he checked the mission brief one last time. The Brotherhood was paying him a lot of credits to blow this place up. He had no particular akk dog in this war, but the free flow of credits set the Collective squarely in his sights.

Getting into the facility was easy. The Collective was focused on the battle in orbit and assumed no one would have made it to the moon's surface yet. Garret had slipped through the ventilation system, down a ladder, and onto a catwalk without even seeing anything resembling guards.

Two cybernetic guards walked below him. Both of them had glowing blue neural jacks at the back of their necks, signalling that they were linked to an AI system.

'Two bodies, one brain. Half the thinking.' Garret thought to himself with a smirk. He dropped off the catwalk as they passed underneath.

He landed hard on one guard, grabbing its neck and twisting it until it cracked. The other guard turned, lifting his rifle. Garret reacted quickly and kicked the guard hard in the groin. His steel-toed boot hit hard, and the cyborg doubled over. Garret drew his heavy blaster pistol and shot the guard under the chin.

"Still human where it counts," Garret said to himself as he dragged the bodies out of sight.

He ran to the main room, moving surprisingly quietly despite his heavy armor and gear. It was huge, full of vats of green fluid where recruits floated and limbs were replaced. The room smelled like burnt skin and grease.

Garret slipped the explosives kit off his back and retrieved several denton charges. He set them on several of the vats and also what intel had indicated were coolant pipes.

As he looked around to check that all of the charges were primed, an alarm went off. Red lights flashed, giving the room an even more sinister vibe than it already had.

"Intruder in Sector Four," a synthetic voice announced with an eerily calm tone.

Durasteel blast doors began closing to seal the room and three guards ran onto a balcony above. They opened fire on him without thought for the collateral damage a stray shot might cause.

Garret dived for cover and shouldered his heavy blaster rifle. He looked out from behind his cover and shot back at the guards, hitting one of them in his robotic arm. The arm went limp and the guard dropped his weapon.

The other two guards jumped down with riot control batons at the ready. One lunged, but Garret dropped his rifle and stepped into the cyborg's attack and stabbed it in the throat with his beskar dagger.

The other guard landed a hit on Garret's shoulder with his baton. The cortosis weave in the mercenary's armor sparked and the baton's pulse generator went silent.

"Oops," Garret said as he punched the guard in the face, denting the helmet and shattering the visor. The guard struggled to remove the damaged helmet, but Garret was already on the move.

Garret ran for one of the closing doors, sliding underneath just in time. He scrambled up and out of the building. He continued running to get some distance before he turned to watch as he pressed the remote detonator. A huge ball of fire shot into the sky, then what remained of the foundry collapsed in on itself.

The mercenary tapped his radio. "Shuttle time. And tell them that they owe me a new rifle on top of my fee."