Manifold [An Interstellar Sci-Fi Progression Story with LitRPG Elements]

A wan and dirty light was upon the whole of Saltilla. It was a mix of twilight and dawn—imperfectly drawn over the City because gargantuan rubble outcroppings jutted ominously every couple of blocks, these outcroppings casting long shadows across large sections of the rubble-strewn streets.

Betelgeuse was moving quickly at the head of the force, taking in the shadows and involuntarily reminiscing about the Leviathan he had seen atop the peak of Edom those many years ago. He couldn't even remember why he had been on top of Edom anymore. The only thing that remained was the image of the great starship's belly splitting the clouds beneath it.

There were shadows in front of him; but that starship had cast larger and darker shadows. Maybe meeting it had cursed him to this life of hardship and flight.

The contingent daisy-chained from cover to cover. The streets were mostly deserted, although the occasional raggedy individual crossed their path. These, Betelgeuse permitted to pass unmolested, although it was impossible to tell which way their allegiances lay.

Nor did he really care. He wanted out of Saltilla.

It was about 10 minutes of careful travel before they came to the vehicle park. Guards had been posted at the entrance. However, using his authority as a PDF Captain, Cacliocos was able to easily commandeer an APC; they loaded up the vehicle and sped off in the direction of Marlowe Street, Von having taken the wheel.

They went several blocks before realizing that the APC's fuel tank was almost empty. They had no choice but to continue. Speed was of the essence.

They secured the box of Incunabula from Marlowe Street within the hour and loaded it onto the APC. When asked by Cacliocos what it was, Betelgeuse simply replied that it was their ticket out of the City.

They set off again, managing to find their way a little bit past Lent Hospital before the APC sputtered to a stop. The fuel tank had run dry.

The contingent alighted and continued on foot, passing from stagnant light to shadow. Entuban carried the box of Incunabula with scarcely any trouble.

Tactical movement was arranged according to the following configuration:

Betelgeuse headed the contingent. Entuban and Cacliocos were right next to Betelgeuse. Venna, Von and Belekov formed the middle section. The rear guard comprised Thete, Douglas, Voke and Misha.

"We are doing the run from here to the wall?" Entuban rumbled softly. His eyes were calm as ever, although his demeanor bore some traces of anxiety.

"Not the wall," Betelgeuse said, his tone authoritative, his dark eyes never leaving the path ahead. "Once we secure the goods, we'll set up at Metternich Station. Entrench that position until Tenzhian returns, or until it becomes clear that he won't return."

"I will return" Tenzhian Cacliocos said, turning to regard Betelgeuse with a determined expression. "I just need to find Aisya."

No longer was he the 'Captain' to Betelgeuse. No longer even 'Cacliocos'—merely 'Tenzhian'. Something drastic had changed within Betelgeuse; he took on the demeanor of someone in charge.

And the Jegorichians under Tenzhian, now almost completely exterminated, lacked the stamina to quibble over who was their leader.

Betelgeuse Sakar was in charge not only because he acted like it, but because Tenzhian understood that Betelgeuse took responsibility for the escape plan. Betelgeuse had the Nook contact, and he had the will to lead them to safety.

Tenzhian felt also that Betelgeuse possessed an aura of repressed violence. Every word he spoke seemed laced with the compulsion. Tenzhian stayed silent on Betelgeuse' ability to use the compulsion matrix. He knew that if he challenged Betelgeuse' authority, Betelgeuse would fight him every inch of the way.

Tenzhian was intimately familiar with the compulsion matrix himself. He could tell that Betelgeuse had an affinity for it.

After almost an hour of quiet travel, they threaded into the Agave streets under the aegis of the perpetual twilight. They shortly came to the junction with Talonne, at which point Tenzhian split off from them and went his way, passing into the shadow of an Obelisk whose entire facade looked half-melted by fire.

The rest of them continued onward for several blocks. As they came toward Metternich Station, they took cover behind a pile of rubble that had once been a concrete wall. The rubble was scorched black, with some portions of it having completely disintegrated to ash. The building from which it came was a bombed-out husk. It had been destroyed by an intense fire.

Ahead of them was a contingent of General Strike terrorists, some of them armed with carbines, most of them wielding dented pipes and pieces of blacksteel rebar. They were covering variously behind brightly-colored pieces of barricade and steel tables that had been turned on their sides.

"We'll have to fight," Betelgeuse intoned, his back flush against the rubble-cover. He slowly inched his head out of cover and peeked at the terrorists' position, counting the number of them, before drawing himself back.

"About ten to twelve. A small force," Betelgeuse said, hefting his railgun and initializing its acceleration-supporting solenoids. The whine tickled his eardrums and caused goosebumps to appear on his skin.

Pursing his lips, Entuban set the box gently onto the ground. He didn't know what it carried, but he wasn't one to ask questions. He cocked his carbine and signaled to the others to ready themselves.

"How are you wanting to do this, Sakar?" Entuban said. The Staff Sergeant addressed him by his surname, and Betelgeuse could feel that a rift had opened up between them.

"Standard tactics. I'll use the compulsion, then the rest of you gun them down," Betelgeuse said without emotion. "I'm not certain I can get every one of them, so be ready."

"And after that?" Entuban said, narrowing his eyes perceptibly.

Stolen story; please report.

"We must go into Metternich, find the Underground passage connecting to the maintenance-access tunnels. One of those leads directly into the Nook," Betelgeuse explained, locking gazes with Entuban. "I'm given to think every Mainline Station in the Western Quadrant has a Nook access."

Entuban could see the penal brand burned into Betegeuse' forehead and noted that it seemed slick, as though pus was seeping out of it.

A clear voice drifted over from the direction of Metternich Station. One of the terrorists was singing a jaunty tune. The rhythm spoke to a carefully cultivated musicality.

'They're not soldiers,' Betelgeuse thought, turning his head slightly so that his helmet ground against the wall of rubble behind him. 'No discipline.'

"Check ready," Betelgeuse intoned.

Entuban shuffled down the line that was crouching behind cover. He went down to the end, where Betelgeuse saw him exchanging a whispered word with Thete, before he shuttled back up, passing by Douglas, Voke, Misha, Venna, Belekov and finally Von.

"Ready," Entuban said, his carbine held before him. His eyes were glistening in the dimness, and Betelgeuse thought he saw in that wide face something approaching regret and sadness.

Betelgeuse pushed off from the wall, strafing sideways and leaving the protection of cover.

He came to the middle of the wide thoroughfare. The melody caught. The terrorists noticed him. They blinked and stared at him. They might have yelled one or two words.

"Come out! Come out now!" Betelgeuse said, smiling internally, struck by a sudden sense of mirth as he laced his words with the compulsion. He imposed his will upon them, forced their various scattered intentionalities to follow the meaning of his words. "It is the will of the Mandalazief!"

Perhaps it was because they were confused. Perhaps because they were taken by surprise. Regardless, he felt their minds yield quickly, and several of them raised themselves up from their cover.

Betelgeuse aimed and fired. One of their heads was disintegrated into a fine red mist.

To his side, the rest of the contingent opened fire, cutting down those before him. All of the exposed terrorists were killed in an instant.

Betelgeuse could still sense some minds holding out.

"Come out! The Mandalazief commands it!" Betelgeuse roared, stepping forward. He continued yelling the same line, over and over again, until he reached the barricade and jumped over.

The first person he saw was a youth who was barely older than him. His hands were pressed to his ears and he had bitten into his lower lip until it bled.

Their eyes met.

Betelgeuse depressed the trigger of his railgun, evacuating the youth's brains out the back of his head.

Before Betelgeuse could react, a second figure rushed him, jumping over the slumping corpse and slamming headfirst into his body. Betelgeuse grunted and crashed to the ground. It was a woman, her skin smooth and dark, her body lithe and muscled.

Betelgeuse struggled to bring his railgun to bear, but her fists slammed down hard into his chest.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Betelgeuse yelled: "Halt! I'm friendly!"

Struck suddenly by the full force of his intentionality, the woman wavered. Betelgeuse released his grip on the railgun trigger and unsheathed his combat knife. Seeing this, the woman angled another vicious hammerfist downward, but Betelgeuse stuck out the tip of the knife and she gored her own palm on it.

She recoiled, screaming in pain. Betelgeuse was instantly upon her, slicing his knife free of her palm and sticking the tip up through the bottom of her jaw, puncturing up through the roof of her mouth and into her brain.

Her body shuddered, then became still.

The next moment, the barricade exploded outward. Entuban had smashed through the flimsy fortification and started firing his carbine into the bodies of the enemy, cutting them down like flies.

Betelgeuse tore his knife free from the dead woman's jaw. He could see the entrance staircase leading down into Metternich about 15 meters away. To his left, the rest of the contingent were forging forward toward the barricade line.

Betelgeuse sprinted forward, passing Entuban and motioning for him to follow. They ran over the bodies of the newly dead and slammed shoulder-first into the concrete siding that went around the staircase' landing. The staircase led downwards into Metternich Station.

Betelgeuse heard shuffling sounds and bootsteps echoing through the stairwell, suggesting that more of the terrorists were coming up.

Raising his face over the concrete siding, Betelgeuse yelled into the stairwell, lacing his words with the compulsion and reaching out to grasp at the frantic minds below:

"Those beside you have betrayed the cause. Kill them!"

Shots rang out, echoing throughout the space. Panicked cries issued up from the confines of the stairwell.

"What are you—"

"No!—"

"Compulsion!"

Betelgeuse could sense six or seven Incunabula below them. Of these, only one was turned by his use of the compulsion.

If I make them do crazy things, the compulsion is less likely to work. Nevertheless, it has its uses in injecting confusion into the enemy's ranks.

Someone screamed that he was hit. The shots died out. Whoever Betelgeuse had turned was already dead.

Betelgeuse retrieved a nitroglycerin canister from his pouch. Tenzhian had passed one to him earlier, on his request.

Turning to Entuban, Betelgeuse said: "Throw a grenade."

Entuban did so, and Betelgeuse let the nitroglycerin canister drop into the stairwell after the grenade.

Yells of surprise and confusion, as the objects tinkled down the steps. The next moment, the stairwell erupted into fire and smoke. The ground beneath them shook. Betelgeuse felt the various threading intentionalities snuff out.

"They're dead," Betelgeuse confirmed, turning to nod at Entuban. By now, the rest of his contingent had made it over the barricade.

After instructing Douglas to collect any intact Incunabulum from the bodies, Betelgeuse told Entuban to retrieve the box from their original cover. The fresh Incunabula—about 4 Ash grades, 1 White and 1 Hollow—were loaded up into the box. This made a total of 28 Incunabula, comprising 4 Hollow grades, 5 White grades and 19 Ash grades. Unbeknownst to the others, Betelgeuse also carried 2 White Incunabula with him: 1 from Salleh and 1 from the enemy he had killed at Marlowe just after the General Strike broke out.

As Betelgeuse opened the box and cleared away the rotting sheafs of corn, the eyes of the rest of them widened.

"This…" Entuban began, but found himself at a loss for words.

"It's our ticket out of Saltilla," Betelgeuse said, eyeing the Jegorichians gathered around him.

Of them all, Belekov showed the least emotion. Voke had distanced himself from the box, as if ashamed to be associated with the crime. Douglas was right beside Betelgeuse, smiling in a mixture of pride and triumph.

"Entuban, you'll continue to carry it," Betelgeuse said, indicating to Douglas to close the box. "Come on, we should make our way down ASAP."