Lux Aeterna

by chip22

Revelations and Shapeshifters

December 12 1303 Hours

“Captain, what the fuck just happened.”

My squad of Gaians and I were busy trying to find any Ing intel when we heard a very loud bang and felt something like an earthquake shake the ground.

“Well, it definitely involves the Ing. They probably all just blew themselves up or something.” My squadmate and good friend, Isach, said.

“Ignore it; intel says that there is an enemy camp up there. If it’s correct for once, something in there will probably tell us what that was.” I said

We all walked on.

We were in a forest with trees scattered everywhere. The smell of smoke and charred wood overwhelmed any other smell, even the stench of rotting Ing and Gaian bodies. The trees that were still standing were charred and black. There were huge ditches from the impact of artillery and heavy weapons everywhere. They were filled with mud, and some had bodies littered in them.

“There must’ve been a firefight here earlier. This blood is fresh.” Our marksman-- err markswoman, Aseri, said, pointing to a spot on the ground that was stained with crimson blood. She ran her hand through it, and smelled it.

“This is Gaian blood,” she declared, wiping her hand on her leg, “Looks like the person was dragged. Should we follow, sir?”

“Yeah,” I said, “Aseri, take point. Everyone follow behind her.”

We started jogging along the blood trail. It went for about twenty feet until it stopped at a Gaian with one of his legs blown off. He was bleeding badly, but still conscious. He looked to be around his thirties. He had slick black hair, and had it combed back. It would’ve looked attractive to ladies, but it had mud and blood caked in it. His rank told me he was a colonel. I deduced he was a pilot, given that many colonels in the infantry would rather ride a desk than fight.

“Sir, is there anything is can do to help?” I asked

He looked up at me. “Yeah, I need to tell you something. To relay back to base.”

I looked back at my squadmates. They all looked like they didn’t know what to do. I didn’t either. This might be sensitive intelligence, and I just didn’t feel comfortable hearing that.

“I know what you’re thinking, but please, just hear me out.” He pleaded. It sounded like he was laboring to even get those words out. I decided to listen, because if we didn’t, then who would?

“Alright, tell us.” I said

He took a deep breath. “I am a fighter pilot. Well I was, until the Ing got lucky. But that doesn’t matter yet. I was deployed on a mission to provide air support for allies. My squadron’s mission was to make sure the skies were clear of any Ing activity. Everything started off well. We scrapped a couple ing fighters, shot some jammers out of the sky. Then, about thirty minutes into the fight, my wingman noticed something. You see, Gaian scientists and manufacturers are currently developing an extremely powerful jet. It’s like a JSF, but-”

“Excuse me sir, but what is a JSF?” Aseri asked

“A Joint Strike Fighter, I think.” I replied

“You are correct Captain. It was designed to replace every jet we have out there.” The downed colonel said.

“Sir, with all due respect, what does this have to do with your mission?” Isach said

“Just wait. You will understand soon. Where was I?” He rubbed the top of his head with his hand, and snapped his fingers. “Oh, right, the JSF! Well it’s currently under production as we speak. We pilots knew about this new jet, what it would look like, how powerful it is, what its weapon systems are. Anyway, earlier I said something about my wingman noticing something. Does anyone understand where this going?”

Everyone was still. He smirked, and shook his head.

“Jeez, what we say about you grunts must be true, then.” He sighed.

“I understand. What your wingman noticed was more Ing fighters incoming. The Ing fighters turned out to be the top secret JSF that is under production. The Ing must have some of them completed before us, which puts us at a huge aerial disadvantage.” I said

“Finally!” He said, “An infantryman with a lick of sense!” it seemed to me that as he was talking he was gaining energy instead of losing it.

“Thank you sir.” I nodded.

“Sir,” Isach interrupted, “With all due respect, what the hell are you talking about? How did the Ing get this JSF or whatever it’s called? How did they know about enough to steal it if it hadn’t even been seen in combat?”

We all sat in silence pondering this thought when enemy gunfire was suddenly directed at us. I looked back at the colonel and saw that a Ing marksman’s bullet made its home, being lodged into the colonel’s skull.

“Get to cover!” I yelled as bullets and dark energy bolts flew past me.

I pressed my body against a fat tree trunk and sat there for a few seconds. Gunfire hissed past the tree, disorienting me for a few seconds. I shook my head, and grabbed my assault rifle. It had been far too long since they’ve shown themselves to me.

I heard a voice snap me from my thoughts.

“Captain, we have to fall back!” Aseri screamed over the gunfire and explosions.

“I’m right behind you.” I replied, running from my safe tree as it exploded into pieces of splintering wood.

Bullets were flying past me, some of them lowering my shields, but most of them missing. Mortars started falling from the sky. I saw one of my squadmates get hit by a mortar blast as I was running for my life.

“Keep moving!” I screamed. A mortar exploded right near us, splattering us with mud and dirt.

“What, you think I’m gonna stop running?” Isach said

As we were running, I noticed something. On our HUD’s in our visors, we have a motion tracker. Right now the motion tracker was showing a squad of friendlies up behind some cover. There weren’t many of them, but enough to stand a chance against the Ing.

“We have friendlies inbound sir!” Aseri said

“Thank God,” I said.

The friendly units popped out of cover and motioned for us to get into cover. I was about to slide into cover with a friendly behind it when he pulled a sword out and slashed at my neck.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled, barely dodging the sword slash.

It was then that all of our friendlies changed form. The forms they appeared as had horns and had holes in them. Their feet, if you could call them feet, had holes in them, and they walked on all fours. They had wings and those had holes in them, too. Their skin was as black as the night. I could tell that they were hostile.

I hit the one in front of me in the head with the butt of my rifle. Its horn flew off and it fell on its back. It was then that I pointed my rifle at its head and clicked the trigger. I fired about half the magazine into its skull. By then it was unrecognizable.

“Keep moving, these guys are hostile, too!” I screamed

We kept running. As I jumped over a log, I sent a hologram of me running forward and ducked into cover against the log. The trick worked. The Ing and shapeshifters fell for it and ran after the hologram. I waited a couple seconds. I decided to pop out of cover and started firing at the Ing around me.

“Come at me, motherfuckers!” I yelled at the Ing.

I heard a click and my rifle stopped firing.

“Oh shit.”

I threw it at an Ing that was running at me and took out my submachine guns that were located at my hip. I aimed both of the SMG’s at the Ing and fired. It was quickly put down and I started scattering my shots. I saw many Ing fall because of my little killing spree, but the shapeshifters were…different. It’s like they were from the light world, as the light bullets would not affect them as much.

You see, Ing come from a world we call “the dark world”. We call it that because its atmosphere is made of dark energy. It’s not just one planet though, it’s their whole universe. That is why this war is so important. We must win it if all light life is to survive. If we lose… well, then everything out there would be killed.

I was up against a huge group of enemies. It must’ve been a whole company at the most. I was enjoying shooting around and eliminating tons of Ing, but it was then that my SMG’s decided to run out of ammo.

“Oh come on!”

I almost didn’t even have time to think that, though, because an Ing destroyer, one of the toughest Ing types to kill, decided it could just rudely barge in and try to kill me. Like, really? Those things had to be at least twenty feet tall, and extremely difficult to take down. It was damn near if you didn’t have ammo either.

It charged at me and I was forced to dive out of the way of its path. I recovered and reloaded my SMG’s. The situation was looking desperate for me. I mean seriously, what a dumbass I am, throwing my rifle at that bastard’s head. And now I’m stuck with my SMG’s against one of a Gaian’s most feared enemies.

I shot the huge creature in the back. It turned around, snarling at me.

“Bad idea, very bad idea!”

It pulled its weapon, a dark multifunctional cannon, up and fired a dark energy beam at me. I rolled out of the way, and started unloading on its headpiece covering its head, one of the weakest spots on it. The thing had shields, though and my bullets only lowered them a tiny bit. Basically the only thing it did was anger it.

A destroyer has a massive amount of shielding and armor, making it very slow. Its slowness is its only weakness. Their cannon have many different modes of fire. Some of those including a laser, a spread of rockets, a dark flamethrower, a pulse cannon and a shit-ton more.

I threw a grenade at it to lower its shields around its head. I raised my SMGs, and fired a three-second burst into its ugly face.

I fired a few more shots into it, and then it started sparking and fell off balance.

“Well thank God!”

“I need help. Come out and help me!” The wounded destroyer said.

“More of them? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

I turned around and saw two more destroyers come out of, well, nowhere, it seemed. The destroyer behind me hit the ground, sending out a shockwave that threw me into the air. I noticed that the whole company that was shooting at me stopped firing as me and the destroyers were fighting.

I fell on the ground, when the destroyer that I almost killed walked in front of me. I was dazed and I dropped my SMG’s when I was sent through the air. In a desperate attempt to make it out of this alive, I pulled out my pistol and finished off the one destroyer with one single bullet. I’m pretty lucky, aren’t I?

One of the others noticed this and charged at me. I guess these next shots were lucky because two of my shots lowered its shields and the third somehow made its way through the destroyer’s shields. The fourth shot cut through its armor and hit it straight in the middle of its head. That one also fell, leaving the last one.

It noticed what I did and jumped high into the air. I started to unload the clip of the pistol into it when I heard the all too familiar sound of death. The noise any soldier dreads. That Goddamn clicking noise. I saw my life flash before my eyes as the destroyer descended towards me. Just then, a white light came from the sky and enveloped everything around me, killing all the enemies in the area.

I sat there, tired and beaten, and rested.

“What the hell was that?” I heard a distant voice say. The voice was Gaian.

I looked up and saw my squadron looking around, most likely trying to find me.

I laid my head back down on the ground. If they didn’t see me I would hope to God that they weren’t just dicking around. Plus, I showed up on their motion tracker so they should see me.

“There he is. He looks like he’s hurt.”

They walked over to me and looked to see if I okay.

“I’m alright. Just a little banged up.” I said as they were walking over to me.

“Good, I thought you were dead for a second there.” Isach said

I stuck out a hand. “Help me up.”

He got me up. “I’m guessing we have a clear path to that camp up there, then.” Aseri said

“Most likely, unless that blast only took out the Ing around here.” I said picking my rifle up from a spot on the ground.

We started walking again, keeping our eyes peeled. After hiking for about three miles through the dense forest, we reached a cliff.

“Is that the base down there?” Aseri asked looking at the bottom of the cliff.

“Looks like it.” Isach said.

The base wasn’t that large, but large enough to hold a company. There were a few buildings scattered inside the gates, and there seemed to be a few Ing milling about, oblivious to the firefights on top of the cliff.

“It seems we finally have a reason to use our wings while we are on duty.” I said

“I don’t know about you, sir, but I’ve had to use my wings many times on missions before I was assigned to this unit.” One of our recruits said.

I looked at him. “Really? Well you’re lucky then. I haven’t been able to use my wings for a while. Anyway, let’s get going.”

I jumped off the side of the cliff and pressed my wings and arms against my body. I felt my stomach lurch and wind begun to blow through my hair. Damn it felt good to fly again. The rush of cool air, the sensation of being in full control of your body. It just felt, amazing, for lack of a better word.

“I’m too young for this.” I murmured to myself

And I was. I was only sixteen and I was already fighting. The reason why is because apparently I was some kind of super soldier and I am supposed to save the world and some shit. I don’t believe it. I’m too young to save the world. Who would?

I looked down and saw the ground speeding towards me. I spread my wings out to slow me down. I started to rapidly lose speed. Eventually I was floating down towards the ground very slowly. I touched down on the ground and drew my rifle from my back. I waited for the rest of my squad to touch down.

“So where are we going first?” Isach said after we had all landed.

“We fan out, search for anything that can give us info about the Ing. Go in groups of three.” I ordered. The squad grunted in compliance. I chose Isach and Aseri to go with me, while I allowed the others to sort themselves out.

“Alright, everybody fall out.” I ordered.

We moved along silently across the base. There were few Ing around, which was weird. They were usually crawling everywhere around their bases. Something was up, and it didn’t seem good.

We searched around the premises for any Ing, but, after finding none, we moved into the base. We searched for anything telling us what happened, or where they were. It wasn’t like the Ing to just abandon one of their bases.

After a half an hour of searching, we walked up to the largest building in the base. It was jet black, and square in appearance with several smaller squares branching out from it.

“We just found their Operations Center.” I said, “Wanna have a look-see?”

“Are you crazy sir?” Aseri asked, “You’re just going to walk in there, and expect no Ing to be there?”

“Well, there were no Ing on the premises,” I said, “So logic dictates that there are no Ing inside. If there are, you were right, ok?”

“Fine.” Aseri said. Sometimes she was a pain.

We walked up to the door, but found it locked. It was then that Isach grabbed his Cryptographic Desynchronizer, a military-grade hacking device, and put it next to the console. He turned it on, and nodded in my direction.

“How long?” I asked.

“About three minutes sir.” He replied, “This is some heavily encrypted stuff.”

“Can’t you tell that thing to hurry up?” I asked complacently, “What if we run into a lot of Ing while waiting for that thing?”

“I can’t hurry it up.” He answered, “We’ll just have to wait.”

I sighed, and crossed my arms. I was always impatient with technology. While everyone else was so caught up in it, I stood by my, unconventional, methods of getting things done. That usually meant with a gun. But, a gun can’t hack into Ing consoles, unfortunately.

And so we waited. When it was done, Isach grabbed the Desynchronizer, and placed it inside a pouch, and grabbed his assault rifle. I walked beside him, and he nodded. We grabbed the bottom of the door, and lifted it up.

When I said that the Cryptographic Desynchronizer was a hacking device, I sort of meant that, but didn’t at the same time. What it does is that it basically shuts down the hacked console, thus making a locked door unlocked, but unable to be opened through the same console. It’s sort of confusing, but maybe only to me.

Where was I? Oh yeah.

Isach and I held the door open for Aseri, and we both let go of the door and ran inside to avoid being crushed. The door fell with a heavy thud. We raised our weapons, and searched the room.

“Looks like no Ing, sir.” Aseri said, “Seems you were right. As usual, I hate it when you’re right.”

I chuckled at that remark, as we moved throughout the compound. Again, there was no Ing to be seen. There weren’t even any traces of the Ing having been here. It was weird. I knew it wasn’t like them to just leave without a trace. There had to be something up.

We were just about finished scoping throughout the Operations Center, when we came upon a dark red door. Aside from this door, it was just an empty hallway.

“Alright,” I said, “Isach, Aseri, be on your guard. There still might be Ing beyond that door. I don’t want to write anything home to your families.”

“No promises.” Isach replied, earning him a punch on the arm from Aseri. “Hey! I thought it was funny.”

“Just open the door.” I ordered. He sighed in defeat, and went up to the console. He pushed a few buttons, and the door opened.

There was nothing in the room except for three screens, and three dead Ing sitting in front of them. Blood was splattered across the screens, and pistols lay next to the bodies. It was obvious they had committed suicide.

I went up to a screen, and shoved one of the dead Ing aside. I pushed a button, and almost a billion folders popped up along the screen. I was so bombarded by content, I didn’t know what to do.

“Isach, can you take this data and send it back to base?” I asked.

“Yes sir.” He answered, “It might take awhile though.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “We have all the time in the world.”