Darkworld: Earth

2.30.

Eodar activated the systems that he had kept in reserve. A cloud of nanites burst from vents in his suit, seeking out suitable materials in the environment to craft the weapons which made a fully trained scout so deadly.

The infantry soldiers stood calmly, glowing with the soft blue light of a strange matter reactor. Eodar was at forty percent of the energy his suit had started with.

The soldiers had nigh infinite reserves to call upon.

“You do not have to fight, Eodar of the Yonohoah. Put down your weapons, dismiss your suit, and you will be allowed to survive as a prisoner,” a familiar voice said in the Yonohoan language. “I do not wish to fight you and I know that you do not wish to fight. Please, for the sake of peace--”

One of the weapons he had programmed the nanites to create finished forming and it ripped itself from a nearby car into Eodar’s hands. It was a blade as long as Eodar was tall. The physical blade was dull, but beyond it burned with an energy that could cut as keenly as a mono-molecular wire.

He dashed forward at the nearest infantryman, who got his arms up just in time to catch the blade on his vambraces. The protections of his armor held against the weapon, but Eodar continued to press, and he saw the protective field begin to fail.

He had projectile weapons which might be more effective, but if he missed he would cause devastation. Even now he was reluctant to involve the innocent people of earth in his battle more than he already had. He had heard their screams through the night as the people in the streets had run from him and the forces pursuing him, and those screams would haunt him should he survive the night.

His distraction cost him. Before the blade could penetrate the soldiers armor he was struck in the side by an impulse wave. He struck the ground and almost dropped the power-blade, but regained his feet and charged again.

He screamed. Not in rage, but frustration. These ‘assholes’ were preventing him from completing his mission, and his mission was everything.

Didn’t they know?

Didn’t they understood?

Earth was the Origin system. High command needed to know its location.

If they didn’t learn of it’s location before the enemy did, then the enemy would wipe humanity out of existence before they were ever spread throughout the stars.

Trillions of lives were on the line.

Eodar could not give in. He would survive to make his report, even if it meant living in squalor the rest of his life, fleeing perpetual pursuit.

It was his duty to humanity to live.

‎

~~~~~

Eolai wept in silence as he once more battled against his father. While this child was a clone of the men whose memory had once filled him with boyhood joy at their recorded messages and vast wisdom, by the Yonohoan belief he possessed the same spirit.

A curse upon those who had awaken his father from the halls of the afterlife and placed him in the body of a child. A curse upon those who had put that child on a mission with no end, no possibility of success, and no meaning.

The Scout Troops were long retired from service. The military forces of humankind no longer used child soldiers to gather intelligence. This child was a relic from the past. Innocence turned into an abomination through no fault of its own.

And yet it had meaning, he knew. Whatever his father fought for, whatever he believed, it was always for the best interest of humanity as a whole. He wondered what mistaken belief pushed this child so far in the pursuit of his perceived mission.

He wept, and he fought.

“He is running low on energy. When his suit powers down, we can try to take him alive,” Eolai said calmly to his companion, who was dancing with Eodar who continued to wield the force blade like a maniac.

“Easy for you to say, you’re not the one he’s trying to decapitate,” Diego called back.

Eolai fired another impulse blast at the child soldier, knocking Eodar into the wall of a gas station. Eodar changed targets and sprinted at Eolai, raising his weapon high.

“Are you happy now?” Eolai said sadly as he prepared to meet the charge.

“Thrilled,” Diego answered, and he shot Eodar with his own impulse weapon.

This time Eodar lost his grip on the power-blade. Or so it seemed, until another vehicle burst into particles and reformed in Eodar’s hands.

“Get down!” Eolai called.

The energy shockwave from the weapon’s beam came before the blast. The forged plasma beam traveled through the air at near light speed, punching through where Diego had been seconds before, the building behind him, and continuing into the sky in a ray of light that was visible for a million miles.

Knowing that the weapon would have had only one shot, the firing of that plasma lance would have fried its own circuitry, Eolai charged forward. He activated nanites of his own, and the steel from the street signs turned into particles and reformed as hyperalloy blades extending from his forearms.

Engaging with his father in close range, he refused to give the child-soldier time to summon a new weapon. Driving him away from vehicles, he kept up the pressure with slashes, kicks, and thrusts.

Eodar fought back with skill, but Eolai had the reach of an adult and a suit with nearly limitless energy. Eodar was a child in a makeshift powerarmor suit running on a powercell driven by hydrocarbons.

The result was never in question. The only question was how long before Eodar’s suit failed and he was once more as helpless as a child.

The answer was ten minutes.

It was the ten saddest minutes of Eolai’s life.

~~~~~~

Eodar’s suit reached the end of its energy reserves. This was the end. He had failed.

He would not be taken alive.

“Activate Decommissioning protocol,” he told the Rocktala in his suit. “Self authorization protocol Aup pi sina tora pheta kappa.”

“Decommissioning protocol activated,” his suit whispered in his ear. “You have served with honor and distinction, soldier. You may take your rest now.”

Eodar’s world fell into silence and darkness. His body fell to the ground.

A scout must never be allowed to be used against high command. Their systems were designed to end their life upon the receipt of a decommissioning signal from their commanders, or upon self-authorization.

Eodar had activated it knowing he would die.

~~~~~~

Eolai stood over the body of his father as the power armor suit he had been wearing puffed away into powder, leaving an exposed, naked child behind. He forced his nanite systems to create a simple blanket out of a nearby bench, then covered the body to maintain his dignity.

He had known that this would happen from the beginning of the fight.

Never once in history had Eodar allowed himself to be taken alive by those he perceived to be the enemy. Not on their terms, at least. Not without a plan or a scheme to turn the tides of war in some fashion.

Eolai wept, and he cursed those responsible for this outcome.

Including himself

A sudden gasp of breath shook his understanding in the world. Eodar remained unconscious, but breathing. Eolai was so shocked that he simply stared for a moment, then began issuing orders to the Earthlings. He would have taken the body of his father into space and damn the political consequences, but the vessel that had brought him to earth was a one-way vehicle.

He would have to trust in the mercy of humanity that his father would be treated with the dignity that he deserved.

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