The Milky Way Saga: Cities to Embers (Book 1 of 3)

Chapter 05: Quite a Promotion

1622 Hours, January 17th, 2160

Station 43-B, orbiting Earth, roughly above Australia

I pulled the Microship into the hanger, landed and waited for the hatch to release, meaning that the oxygen had filled the room around me. I jumped out, greeted by twenty scientists. Checking my face, my feet, my hands and then my back, swiping an X-ray device up and down my back.
"Prosthetic, please dob't fiddle with it."  was walked up, out the hangar into a narrow hallway that must've gone through the entire station. "Stay here," one of the men barked at me, as if I couldn't hear them. "Yessir!" I yelled back, half-sarcastic. I stood at attention until he was far enough away to not hear me say son of a bitch. I then waited. It felt like hours, but when I got into the room they finally let me in, the clock said it had only been a few minutes, three at most. Weirder and weirder. 

I sat down next to a big wooden desk. It had to be over a hundred years old, and very well kept. I looked up and saw a picture frame with five little golden stars along the top of it. I looked at the picture in the frame. It was a man, very strong, very serious, not as old as he was earlier today, A woman, very sweet looking, long, flowing black hair with silver streaks, and then a boy, a young adult. He was very handsome, tall, like his father, wearing the Cap and Gown of a newly graduated student. It was from his high school graduation. How beautiful the three of them were in that picture. How unfair it is that I'll never have one of those for my desk.

I stood up as he came into the room, very loud, not as quiet as he was the last time I saw him. He could've sneaked up on a bat, he was so quiet. Not anymore, those robotic prosthetics were loud, and constantly moving. I took his right hand, still human. "Good to see you, sir."
"The pleasure is all mine, Isaac." He was the only one in all of the Navy who would call me by my first name. "How have you been, Admiral?" I looked him over well for the first time since I'd seen him on the view screen. Some details don't translate very well on a screen. How you could see how many fights he'd been in his whole life, just by looking him in the eyes. He was an experienced Naval Officer. You could count how many years he'd been in the navy by dividing the number of ribbons he wore by three. Extremely decorated. Almost like he had a keyboard on his left shoulder. I'm sure there's one on his back, though.
"I've been better," he let out a long sigh, as if he was having a hard time keeping upright, which he probably was, "you? You look like you walked here from Dreadnought." The beard and hair. I still haven't gotten to shave yet.
"I just witnessed a planet get glassed by those Things. What do we have to do about that?"
He sighed and rubbed his brow. "I'm guessing it was Dreadnought? We lost communication about thirty-eight hours ago. We feared the worse, and were apparently right to do so. Damn"
"So, what, that's it? There's nothing we're going to do about it? They just killed hundreds of innocent lives and-"
"Isaac, we've lost far more than just hundreds. Try over two million. Two million soldiers, men, women... children." The amazement over came me. I froze, and my spine kicked into sleep, which it does in times of crisis or sleep or what ever, and I collapsed. Fell straight to the floor. He jumped out of his desk and ran over to me. I saw his legs for the first time. Built off of a bungee, hydraulics system, to absorb shock. Very pristine, very new, and all the while, very unnatural. I bet he keeps them waxed, just like those old boots. I looked up at him, coming out of the daze, and my back started to work again, realigning it's self. "I lost her, sir. I lost Bailey."
"We all did, Isaac. We all did."

Over the next hour or so he filled me in on what was going on now. How we have every member of the Milky Way Armed Forces working to destroy this Empire. Over 500,000 men and women on the front lines. We started to develop a new type of ship about a month into my coma, called them Astroships. Giant, colossus sized ships. Measuring in at over two miles long, and over a hundred stories tall. The first of which, the MWR Free way named after Bailey and myself, that they weren't expecting me to wake up. The Free lasted for a good long while, and is currently under extensive repairs and upgrades. It was hit by a Plasma Torch, what the Denizens use to glass a planet, in it's port side. It was a miracle that it was recovered. I was then told it successfully took out over thirty of their ships. I was glad to hear it.

"Did they ever try to do anything else to us, other than glass our planets? It seems kinda pointless."
Joseph Douglas Ford is a man who doesn't bullshit anything, or anybody. So I was surprised when he gave me this vague of an answer: "Well, they said somethings that were more important than others." I guess I wasn't  on the need-to-know list. He knows something, I can't even imagine what, but something that I need to know.

"So, now what? Our strong point is Earth?"
"No, Isaac, one of our last planets is Earth." This almost was enough to send me back down to the floor. Earth is one of the last ones? How many are left? Mars, surely, and Venus. Those are the second and third most important ones we've got!
"Mars? Venus?"
"Mars, was lost, Isaac. It was glassed when Free was destroyed."
"But, how did they get that close to us and not come after us!? Why did they get that close to us?"
"We had a system, much like this surrounding Mars, only about half the number of stations, though. Then, someone made a mistake. They Jumped from the Gargoyle System, the one that was in Sector 19? They left a Jump-Slot, twice the size of Texas right in the pathway of the Denizen ship. I think they came through on accident. I don't think they have acquired the technology to jump through hyper space. Weird, right? So advanced, so much more powerful than us, and we made the discovery before them? Crazy.
"Anyway, the came out right in front of Mars, the Free started firing, and the Denizens fired back, only with larger payloads than us, blew through the Free and then the security systems in roughly forty-five minutes, glassed Mars, then tried to escape, towards Jupiter... Huh, they made a bee-line for it... Almost like they- where was I? Oh, right. We tore them apart. that ship is floating scrap metal now."

I was at a loss for words. Besides the Ford Military Academy on Earth, Mars was our military strong point. Far superior metals to build from, the whole thing was just where to be if you were military personnel, well I guess so, back then...

"I need to ask a Favor of you, Isaac." He looked at with such conviction. There was no way I was going to say no to what ever he was about to ask me.
"Yes sir? What Is is?"
"I need you back. Back in the Navy. I know that you retired and that you don't like killing and all that bullshit, but, look at the circumstances we've come under. Your wife is dead. My son died last month. He didn't even have a family. What do you say?"
I looked at him for a long while. I didn't know what to say. Yes, of course, but, why? I got out because I felt like every life I took was vengeful, like I was killing those filthy Insurrectionists for my parents, that they might've had something to do with it. That's why I got out. But these things? I felt indifferent towards them. Like it was right to do it, almost like I was programmed for it. Meant to do it. Born for it. "consider me reinstated, sir."

Just like that I was a member of the Milky Way Republic Armed Naval Forces again. Promoted from Lieutenant Commander to Vice Admiral.
Just like that I was handed a Navy.