Shadow Liberty : Prologue

The Apocalypse War is over. The Free Systems Alliance is destroyed and with nothing to oppose them the Dominion of Steel begins to spread its influence across the colonies. Cybernetic enhancement and mechanical symbiosis are regarded as the next stage in human evolution — and the Dominion will not stop until every human in the galaxy has ‘evolved,’ or been enslaved.
Ex rebel Captain Dimitri Voroshilov is a marked man. Hunted by the Dominion he searches the ruinous colonies for the men who betrayed him. A mysterious message brings him to the planet of Metropol 16 where a former ally offers him the chance to take the fight back to the Dominion — and a mission to find the Eden protein a weapon that could turn the tide of the war. Reunited with long lost comrades, Dimitri takes his crew of former rebels and their stolen ship the Shadow Liberty into one last battle against the Dominion. But friends are not always who they used to be, and in every shadow the Dominion lies in wait...       


PROLOGUE: HOPE IN HADES VI


He flicks the syringe and smiles. It’s a show of course, a pantomime designed to create terror, to stimulate compliance. Captain Dima Voroshilov knows his men, though. He also knows that the VX security android taking short and purposeful steps toward him, syringe held high, is taking great pleasure in the torment of the moment. Machines that could experience pleasure were a Dominion favourate and they designed their interrogation droids to do just that, only... they had to inflict pain and extract information first. It was their only mission, there sole purpose, and the closest thing they'd feel to actual life.
         The VX kneels down. Dima looks up into the eyes of the machine, so perfectly lifelike and yet so dead; they stare. It takes a deep breath and exhales slowly.
         “One more time, Captain,” the VX locks its gaze onto Dima’s face, swaying at the pain, “Where is the Eden protein?”
         Dima doesn’t answer because Dima doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about.
         The VX sighs, “I grow tired of this, Captain,” it turns back. The holding cell is large, large enough to hold a dozen captured prisoners. Tied by the wrist their bodies hang from their bracers. The meagre amount of supplement required to keep a human in a talkative state is fed directly through a tube from drips in the wall. The cell reeks of sweat, piss and shit; there are no toilet breaks in a torture session. You shit where you stand, you piss where you stand; it’s all designed to de-humanise you. Right now the cell holds the remains of the 44th Infantry division – ‘Renegade Battalion,’ a division of twenty thousand soldiers from the Free Systems Alliance, reduced to six. Four that Dima didn’t know, but brothers and sisters nevertheless. Jarred ‘Jarhead’ Cassidy, a petty officer, slumps sideward’s towards the VX. He’d kept himself sane by repeatedly reciting the complete history of Napoleon Bonaparte, some warlord from the ancient times. Even now he continued in whispers as the VX regarded him. There was Sara Anderson, a private and shit-good soldier, and then there was Sergeant ‘Snake’ Fital. The mean son-of-a-bitch had been in the same position he’d took when they’d locked them up here, knelt staring at the floor, eyes alight in furry, his mind a work playing through the many ways he’d kill the punk-bastard that got them all here. Nothing else mattered to him – and the VX, entranced by Dima’s well acted display of suffering, had completely overlooked his empty shackles.
         “The Eden protein, Captain,” The VX snaps him from his trance. Dima looks once again into its eyes, but this time he smiles. This takes the machine off guard. For days now it had grown accustom to the Captain’s fearful eyes and whimpers of pain, practically an orgasm for the machine. It’s what kept it focused on him instead of the Sergeant.
         The VX grasps Dima’s jaw in a vice-like grip, as if to want to crush away the smile.
         “Any minute now,” says Dima, as best as he can through his squashed lips.
         The android grimaces. “What?” Dima feels his jaw-bone crunch as the machine pulls him forward. It pulls him right up to its ear. “Any minute now,” whispers Dima, struggling to keep in the laughter. The VX pushes him aside and stands up.
         Dima rolls his jaw back, looks up and does the only thing he knows will piss the VX off even more. He sings, and he does it with a smile. “Soyuz nerushimy respublik svobodnykh splotila naveki velikaya Rus!”
         “What is this?” The android demands, in complete incomprehension, his malleable play-thing - his orgasm, had just proverbially snapped his dick off.
         Dima rises to his knees, and then to his feet, the smile etched on his face, “Da zdravstvuyet soz-danny volley narodov yediny, moguchy sovetsky soyuz!”
         Jarred smiles and joins in the song, it’s an old song but one the ‘Renegades’ know well. “Slav’sya, otechestvo nashe svobodnoye,” the android lashes out in a backwards slap, splashing Dima’s jaw. His face is sent sideways, the pain and dislocated jaw making it impossible to sing, but it’s too late, the 44th has taken over and the cell room echoes with the song-full voices of the triumphant. The androids head snaps around, “Silence!” it shouts. It doesn’t even know it’s lost. It freezes when it finds the empty shackles.
         Then the crescendo; a massive explosion rocks the facility, the singing drowned out by the emergency alarm, its lights turning the dark cell-room into a seizer educing display of reds and yellows.
         Dima’s shackle snaps open. The VX spins around and with a sudden robotic shriek charges forward.
         Dima dives under a wild swing, ducks left and slams his fingers into the back of the androids neck. He grips, twists, and with a crackle of electricity the machine clatters to the ground in a rag-doll heap, buzzing and twitching as Dima turns to help his comrades, whose shackles break free not seconds afterwards.
         Most are up in an instant, all but a few. Sara and another soldier take one of the most wounded around their shoulders’ as Jarred moves into position beside the door. Dima moves to join him but it happens quicker than they expected, with a hiss the door comes open. Two Dominion soldiers with rifles forward charge in. Jarred reacts, hooking his arm under the charging soldiers own, lifting him into a rising knee to the gut. The soldier drops to the ground, but his friend is already coming around. In one seamless motion Dima snaps up the androids syringe, throws it to Jarred, who spins, catches the needle and slams it into the guard's neck. Jarred grapples with him, holding the rifle away before the guard flops, falling into a quivering heap on the floor.
Jarred charges the rifle lever and throws it, Dima plucks it from the air with one hand and marches for the door whilst Jarred takes up the other soldiers rifle, who was recovering from his blow, and with the butt-stock made sure he wouldn't get up again for quite some time.  ,
         “Come on,” Dima calls out to the rest as Jarred joined him at the door. The plan was working thus far. Through the smoke and confusion the released prisoners of Hades VI were creating a maelstrom of havoc in the cell bays beyond, the Dominion VX guards in their small number struggling to fight back.
         Still, it wouldn't take long before they do. Dima turns back to the last remnant of his troop, “Stay behind us at all times, and remember, get straight to the hanger bay.”
         “What about the Sergeant?” Jarred says eyes afire in the spinning emergency lights.
         “Don’t worry about him,” Dima replies, “On me.” Dima takes his men through the chaos, the prisoners seem more concerned with exacting revenge on the androids than with them, and that suited him just fine. The corridors were littered with bodies, both men and VX alike, and all around them madness spread like a plague.
         The comm system came to life over the battle, “Reaction force to section 6. Reaction force to section 6. Security lock-down imminent.”
         Dima curses under his breath as they dash right down a corridor. Soldiers burst out from the doorway further down, particle beams slicing through the air toward Dima and his men. “Cover!” he shouts and drops to his knees into a slide, rifle up and finger smashing the trigger sending bolts of lethal energy straight back at the soldiers. He slides behind a gap to another cell. Jarred hitting the adjacent wall, sweat drenching his face and his teeth bore in a snarl.
Dima rolls his head away from a particle bolt striking the edge of his cover. Molten steel spatters in front of him. His soldiers hadn’t moved in time, a bolt slams into the wounded mans chest, he shudders and then falls limp, a smoking, quarterised cave left in his chest cavity. Sara and the soldier carrying him drop the man and dash in opposite directions to cover. It was a harsh thing to say, but they’d be able to move quicker now without having to haul the injured man to the hanger. Dima finishes a silent prayer for a fellow soldier and hopes Fital has managed to fulfil his part of the plan and still be alive.
         “Captain,” Jarred cries, “We’re pinned down.”
         Dima glances back at the corridor. The armed reaction squad was beginning to win back the block, and the prisoners were slowly retreating back down to the lower cell blocks. Some had taken up arms and began fighting back, but their attempts were wild and disorganised, most falling quickly to the trained soldiers. Soon Dima and his team would be surrounded, or dead. Their situation began to look dire.
         A particle beam smashes into Jarred’s cover, he curses and slips back, thrusting his rifle around the corner and blind firing in automatic. The sound is terrific and the scream of charged protons being launched in rapid succession threatens to deafen the lot of them. The desperate move overheats the petty officer’s weapon, caustic smoke fills his alcove and he bursts into coughs.
         Dima takes his hand from an ear, staring. The fucking genius.
         “Jarred, override the heat-sink.” The officer looks up from his fit of coughs looking confused. Everybody’s eyes meet him. “The heat-sink, override it,” Dima repeats this time a little more impatiently.
         Jarred’s eyes read the floor for a second and rise, his mouth curling into a grin. He snaps open the weapon’s maintenance pod. Energy bolts begin smashing like hail into the corridor. The prisoners are routed; some of the soldiers turn back and begin marching up the corridor in their direction, rifles up.
                “Now!”
         Jarred slings the weapon from behind his cover, a high pitched echo moving through the corridor with it.
         The facility jolts from another explosion. Limbs and viscera splash around them, the screams of the dying erupting through the hall. The soldiers moving up the hall get staggered from the blast, their arms slinging over their faces.
         Dima looks back, “Now! Make for the hanger!”
         Everyone takes to their feet in an instant. Dima and Jarred move out of their cover and run out for the corridor, walls tainted with carbon burns and stained with blood. Survivors that were smart enough to find cover dive out at the sound of footfalls. Dima brings his rifle to his shoulder; a single trigger squeeze sends a man to his knees with a smoking, cavernous face. Another shoots back, a wild, misplaced shot that strikes the wall to Dima’s right. You only get one chance. Dima levels his sight - centre mass, his target’s eyes widen with realisation as half his digestive system becomes carbon matter.
         Now bolts begin zipping past them. The soldiers behind must have found themselves and started shooting back. Someone cries out behind him, instinct pulls his head away just as two soldiers appear from the doorway; He’s too late, he’ll die next to the man he’d killed in the same fashion; he’s pulling up his weapon and looking down the barrels of two rifles. A smile spreads across the face of the soldier aiming through his sight. Dima swallows, this is it.
         The blade flashes behind the first soldier sending a crimson fan from his neck. The blood splashes into the others face. He flinches and pulls the trigger. Dima’s ear buzzes as the bolt flies past his head.
         An arm wraps around the soldiers neck, the blade slicing upwards in a vicious arc into his lower back. The man doesn’t scream. He’s pulled backward by the figure in the doorway, his rifle blasting upwards before the blade meets his throat.
         Snake Fital trains one motherfucker of a handgun down the corridor toward Dima and Jarred and there pursuing allies. Dima smiles once again; the sergeant’s particle beams fly past, and the vicious sound of super-charged matter smashing into flesh echoes behind them.
         Fital is still firing as they reach him, knelt sideways on one knee.
         “This wasn’t part of the plan, Sergeant,” says Dima, rolling around the door into cover as what’s left of the team rushes through. All exept Sara; the lose hits him like a cold punch to the gut. Damn it...
         “We all know what happens to the plan, Captain,” the Sergeant replies, diving up and hitting the door panel. It closes in a slam and the sergeant shoots the panel with a blast of his pistol.
         “The ship ready?”
         “Andreas is loading the rest of the VIP’s on board, we need to get there fast,” Fital starts down the corridor and turns back briefly, “They’re operating a strict first come, first served policy. The cunts,” the sergeant growls under his breath.
         It was nice to see Keiron back to his normal self again. He turns back, “Thought you’d want this back,” and flings a holstered handgun toward him.
         Dima catches the Balitov, his favourite weapon and watches Keiron’s wink and smile.
         “Thanks.”
         “Hurry up,” is the reply.
         The short run to the hanger bay takes less than sixty seconds, so far, the plan was working. All the prisoners in section six: the murderers’, the rapist and all the other psychos in between were released; a diversion. In section two however, the section set aside for Alliance sympthisisers and political nay-Sayers, the majority innocent, their only crime that they spoke out against the Dominion, examples being made out of in the final hours of the war. Their cell bays’ were unlocked because they’d be needed if the resistance was going to live on. 
         Inside, Andreas and Tasha load the prisoners from section 2 onboard the small courier’s vessel. Dima finds a pang of regret as he approaches the loading ramp. There were other innocents here on Hades VI, locked away by the Dominion for one reason or another. They were being left here to fend for themselves. The team thought it best not to mention to the other prisoners about their escape, not only to prevent any leakage, but also to try and avoid the inevitable guilt they’d feel as they left the others behind, watching their knowing faces as they passed by. The scheduled vessel was only big enough for the select few, and Dima was quite aware of this reality. It didn’t help his conscience though.
         As the last prisoners are herded onboard Tasha looks around, completely around, missing Dima, Keiron and every one behind. Her pistol comes up, “Soldiers behind you!”
         Dima spins. Keiron dashes for the cover of a storage container. Everyone else makes for the ramp. Particle bolts pepper the hanger from every direction. Dima staggers back, taking what little cover he can behind the ships pneumatic arm and returning fire at the guards pouring out from the prison.
         The ships engines stir. They mingle with the sound of the battle. Dima staggers away, up the ramp toward the ship’s cargo bay. Tasha’s pleading cries evaporating into the chaos.
         “Keiron, come on,” Dima shouts. The amount of fire splashing around the sergeants cover is rapturous. Echoes of the energy splashes’ drowning out Dima’s cries. “Move, now!” Dima falls backwards as the ship judders, his weapon falling from his hands and sliding off the ramp. He curses as he claws his way backwards. The ship’s engines roar. “Wait, we can’t leave yet!”
         Hands find his collar and he’s dragged upwards, Tasha is screaming the same plea’s as he is.
         The ramp begins to retract. The sergeant could still make it.
         “Fital you motherfucker, run!” Dima cries.
         Keiron’s eyes snap to his. It’s as if his body has been switched from pause, to play. He charges forward.
         
         Cries and hails erupt around the ship; begs and chants, prayers and curses. The sergeant’s eyes show no fear as his body takes to flight toward the ramp. Particle fire erupts from behind him, splashing into the floor and into the ship’s hull; smouldering metal volcanoes erupt, his arm slings across his face as the sparks shower him.
         The ship starts forward. The ramp almost out of the reach. The Sergeant dives, an arm outstretched. One of the bolts finds its mark.
         Dima lurches forward. Fital’s eye’s burst wide, and then, come to rest in a blank stare as his body sinks to the floor, the outstretched arm now a wretched stump, cannot catch the ramp.
         “No!”
          Dima dives forward but Tasha grabs him by the collar, pulling him back.
         “We’re leaving the seal we need to get inside,” she cries.
         “Let go!” More hands pull him back to the door, “Get your fucking hands off me!”
         He watches as the sergeant looks back from the hanger bay floor and he can see that still, even now - there’s no fear, just a blank, uncaring stare; fateful realisation before the butt-stocks come down upon him  and the door seals away Dima’s vision.

         The ship's engines power out and the shuttle leaves the orbital prison complex. Dima backs away from the door. The men and women on opposite sides of him watch with regretful eyes. That is of course - before they see his hands.
         He needs to sit down. His legs make him and he tumbles into a sitting position on the cold steel. The ship’s cargo door becoming a video of flashbacks and memories of and for his fallen comrades, most of whom were dead. And it was all his fault.
         The people inside started to whisper and murmur in lulled voices.
         “Captain.”
         He never sees her as she approaches, but Tasha pushes her way through the gathering crowd and kneels down in front of him. Jarred’s outstretched arms barricade the curious bodies that were forming around the Captain. Tasha lays a hand on his shoulder, looks at him with sadened eyes and offers him a pair of fine leather gloves.
         He swipes them away. It didn’t matter anymore. His secret was out.

(Chapter 1 to follow. Thanks for reading. Please leave your comments and suggestions. I'd love your feedback. Dean)