Slow Burn (Updated Weekly)

Part 8

Part 8

I have never been below doing things I don’t want to do for others if it is something that benefits me in the long run. I guess that is why I became a soldier (and later a freelancer) in the first place, I wanted to live a life in which my anger, my murderous thoughts could be put to some use. In order to live you have to be a productive member of society whether you join the military or serve under a corporation, we are all a part of the system. Even those holistic hillbillies that live off the grid have to rely on the military for protection and the governments for the land in which they live. Nobody is ever truly away from it all (aside from maybe a few that brave the cold outer reaches of Earth and Mars never to be heard from again). They also farm and share their knowledge in books, forms of media (mostly through the net), get paid by the corporations for raising well-bred chickens for the rich (we all know those that live in the slums or lower housing can’t afford that shit). If there was a way to drop out I would have found it. I looked. I tried my best to live a ‘free spirited’ life moving from one country to the next. I use to stare up at the stars and think that that would be my escape. I would venture to another world away from this pale blue dot and there I would be safe. I would make a living painting or making jewelry, maybe even write about my early travels. For a child like me that was only a dream, never would I have made enough money on my own to escape. Never on my own would I have been able to leave the world in which I had grown. 

I can still remember the smell of the streets in South Africa. The small village in which I grew up located outside Johannesburg. It was there that I can still remember my mother bringing me into the city and watching as shuttles left the spaceport that had been constructed there. They did nothing to hide the division between the rich and the poor. The closest I ever got to the ports was when my mother went to the market downtown, going to the market had become a rare treat for my mother and I. I can still remember the scent of fresh fish pulled from the ocean and rivers, the color of raw red meat from cows butchered in the back of shops. The market was alive with thousands of people every day. The military guarded the gates with checkpoints and drones making sure that those with firearms would be arrested on site. They protected their precious city from the rot within itself. There were several groups looking for change, I never saw any of them until I was older sent in to the wild to slaughter them but I could remember the graffiti painted on walls as my mother and I walked the alleys. 

One of those symbols of oppression stood out to me but only when I was older. ‘Sons of Sol’ it had said. The ‘Sons of Sol’ were rumored to be a group of foul politicians and military that funded the ports and controlled the trade between planets. Truth was that was the Hegemony’s job. Each country still had their own system in place but that was a facade. The Hegemony and Terran Military controlled space trade and the resources that made the world go round, they controlled the ships and the technology (reverse engineered for the most part from Skrav vessels dug up from the first invasion years before). Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the ends that the ‘Sons’ would be all that was left of that New World Order. All over the Erebus I could see the signs now. The symbols on the sides of doorways inside corridors, printed on the sides of weapons. The ‘Sons’ had risen and taken control but I guess I can see why they had to be so secretive. If they hadn’t the human race would have fallen during the second Skrav attack, the Trinity never would have been established and the human race would be extinct. The ‘Sons’ had done their job but just like back on Earth there were several parties at play onboard this ship. Miguel wasn’t a ‘Son’, he was a warlord and a terrorist,  a soldier that had fought long and hard against the oppression pressed on the lower class by the corporations. At least that was the information I had managed to find about him searching through the records and ‘net’ available on the Erebus. Supposably the ship carried with it everything that had been created on Earth but somehow I felt like there were things, small bits of history here and there that had been omitted. I almost admired Miguel for the person he had been; freeing nations from corporate control, feeding the sick and finding homes for the homeless. If I didn’t think he had only been doing that to benefit himself; if I didn’t know that he was responsible for ending the lives of thousands I would have respected him. Even if he had asked me to help him I might have even joined his side willingly. I had done plenty of horrible things under the rule of the Hegemony and apparently the rule of the ‘Sons’ myself. God damn-it, Reynolds, who were you? 

I had a lot of time to think. I was sitting inside a transport waiting to descend to the surface world below. They decided to name the planet ‘Shear’. A lovely name, I thought thinking of all the ways I could use the word. Miguel’s voice hadn’t spoken to me in six hours so far. I felt alone, at peace, he was a coward for not doing this himself. Perhaps Miguel would keep his word and free me once my mission had been a success, if he did that would I really have reason to kill him? I am only a pawn in this game and if I had been taken in by Reynolds the mission would only have been in reverse. I wasn’t even suppose to be onboard this ship. I shouldn’t exist in this world, I should have perished with the rest of humanity another casualty of the Skrav. Slen had brought me here and he had known what was going to happen, why me? Why did Slen choose a freelancer like me? He knew his life would be endanger and knew that if someone wanted him dead bad enough they could kill him while he slept. Slen, what the fuck were you thinking? We are all just shades of grey none of us good or evil.