Centauri Central News Report - 20/7/2847
—Good Morning, Centauri Prime. I’m Alice Elkin of Centauri Central News and this is your quick update on Settled Heavens Politics.
Tensions continue to rise between the United Terran Republic and the Aberdonian Federation as multiple UTR starships have been seen flying in orbit of the planets Rama and Daethrass. The UTR says that such ships don’t exist within the Epsilon Indi Star System, and the Aberdonian Federation is attempting to incite an unnecessary conflict between the two nations. The UTR has openly said that it will defend itself and its allies if the Aberdonian Federation ever attempts to undermine them again. Both countries have had hostility between each other since the Terran-Aberdonian War where, after the economic and infrastructural disaster of the Interstellar Collapse, the UTR used draconian measures to ensure the planet Aberdon, the capital of the Federation, would not leave the Union. This resulted in a war between Earth and Aberdon that cost millions of lives, ending with Aberdonian victory. But with tensions rising once again, experts place a border war between the two nations in the next year as an extreme likelihood.
In more positive news, another breakthrough in technology has occurred for space travel as the interstellar corporation Alpha Star Industries has announced the creation of Void Technology. Although details have been sparse, the interstellar giant promises to be space travel''s future.
That’s all we have for now, coming up in the next hour, the installation of Corporate AI into the brain might just be the next big thing to help you in your daily life, all here on Centauri Central News.
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July 20th, 2847
200 years after the Interstellar Collapse
Sol Star System
Outside Neptune’s orbit
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The ship moved like an inchworm as it slowly coasted through the security gate. Several robotic drones scanned with x-ray vision looking for illegal contraband. Alpha Star Industries really spares no expense, thought West Taalmore. Behind him were Evelyn Tess, James Rufus, and Q. Evelyn was a cyberhack, said to be among the best in the business at breaking into servers and stealing encrypted data, while James was a hired assassin and an expert in guns, lying, and quiet deaths. Q on the other hand was just a basic military robot but could do all manner of tasks for West if he commanded it.
The light outside turned red and a loud beep could be heard. The security drones outside then moved to the reinforced plexiglass and shined red dots on everyone’s heads, guns armed at the ready. The intercom speaker on the pilot seat then crackled to life as a middle-aged man’s voice burst through it.
“Stop right there. Vulcan Starship #66092411, care to explain the large number of munitions, automatic weapons, and a military android stored in the back of your vehicle? Refusal to do so will result in immediate arrest and/or termination.”
West took the communication speaker. “Apologies sir, my superior failed to mention our arrival. We’re arms dealers on behalf of the SaturnTech Corporation heading towards Centauri Prime. Our validation code is XK-92541. I repeat the validation code is XK-92541.”
Evelyn immediately went to work on rerouting the security system to a network she had set up in the last five minutes to provide the Alpha Star security a false-positive and allow them entrance. And just like that, her magic touch worked and they were allowed access to the Light Gate. West turned to the others behind him as they sat there with at least 500 other spaceships. Evelyn was carelessly leaning back in a chair, Q was deactivated, and James was sitting still as a corpse. “Alright, does everyone understand what we’re doing?” he said. “Yeah,” said Evelyn. James simply let out a small grunt of confirmation before speaking in a gruff voice. “Remember, don’t say anything while we’re in line. They can hear us.”
It was true, it was best not to say or do anything that might infer a plan of hostility against the corp. Who knows how many tiny microphones were tracking even the smallest of sounds? It didn’t matter if they were in space or not, sound was nothing more than vibrations within the atoms and could be picked up effortlessly by anyone with sufficient technology.
Finally, the Light Gate began to spin. Hundreds of curved arch-like pieces of metal, some big others tiny, began to spin around and around all the different starships. Blue electricity formed from their sides as West could see space begin to distort and see the twinkling stars begin to grow longer into straight lines. Then, all the ships within that metal cylinder of blue jumped forward across four light years in space and arrived at Alpha Centauri, a binary star system with only a single planet to its name. A planet that was the beating heart of all corporations: Hecate.
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When they landed on the nightside of Hecate, they were met with a sight very few on Earth ever saw. Great towering monoliths of steel, glass, and concrete; Titanic orbital stations hovering just above the cloud line. Streets of smooth, solid concrete and asphalt with almost golden street signs and cars made of exquisite, smooth metal speed down the highway like lightning.
But what caught West’s attention the most were the neon advertisements. Everywhere he looked, there was the flashing of light, the sounds of pop music, and the displaying of products. One skyscraper even had the entirety of one of its sides covered in a soda ad. Everything everywhere was an advertisement, to the point where it felt almost overwhelming to West. Evelyn didn’t seem to like it either as she huddled her arms tight around herself as if it would provide some kind of protection against the oppressive screens. James meanwhile seemed unphased by it all, although the air around him held a kind of tension that West couldn’t describe.
One could be forgiven if they thought the entire planet was as fancy as this, but no, Hecate was not a “fancy” place, just this particular sector. Everywhere else was a crime-infested hellhole wrapped in 5 more crime-infested hellholes. Any crime one could think of and the poorer sectors of Hecate will have beaten them to the punch. The entire planet was covered in a city, making almost every nook and cranny a den where gangs could commit any number of heinous crimes, sometimes for profit, sometimes just for fun.
They carried small but heavy metal boxes of bullets and guns, one of which was slightly heavier than the rest. Q carried most of the crates, while West took the lead toward Nova Corpus Plaza, Evelyn stayed behind in the ship, and James followed West and Q inside. They had all gotten dressed for the occasion too, wearing the simple black and white suits SaturnTech provided its investors. The inside of Nova Corpus Plaza was a beautiful sight indeed. The smoothness of everything, from the floors and walls to the blue and green plants, was everywhere. The main lobby was like a great cathedral to the monochrome black and red that signified corporate power, with a titanic square atrium that reached up and hollowed out the building with beaming, golden rays of light.
West was only mildly impressed by the display, knowing full well that it was more a show of force than to look beautiful. All around them were the comings and goings of businessmen and women sipping champagne and eating exquisite foods, the humming of automatic drones, and the laughter of men who never seemed satisfied with the power they had.
West and James kept to themselves for the most part. Once and a while they had to play up an act to some already drunk fool. “Did-*burp*-ah, you hear the news? There was a terrorist attack down on-*hick*-the…Ganymede at uh, at uh, *burp*, at the Jovian Congressional House. You, hahaha, you what that means? More security for us, hahaha!” said a man with golden metal fingers, practically drooling white wine.
“With weapon stocks rising, I plan to put an investment down with VulcanCorp to have 4500 Hades Tanks down on Daethrass and Rama by the afternoon. It will be great what with tensions rising between the Federation and the United Terran Republic, and I implore you to do the same.” said a woman in strict, almost military garb. “I have a meeting this afternoon with some arms dealers to give some poor schmucks down on Proxima an upper hand against some revolutionaries. It will be a good source of PR once we’re done cleaning them up. Let’s just say they’re terrorists and go from there, yeah?” said a man with a mechanical arm.
West really didn’t like hearing what they were saying, treating the world like a game of chess rather than seeing the real people living in it. It reminded him a lot of when he was just a boy on Earth. It reminded him more of his father and how he had died.
Nameless. Forgotten. Just another victim in another war. Meaningless.
An announcement speaker cracked to life. “Ladies and gentlemen, please enter the Grand Amphitheater for the big event!” West turned to James and Q. “I’ll go inside, you two find a way downstairs.” Both nodded, with Q carrying the crate that was heavier than the other in his metallic hands. West followed the crowd inside a closed amphitheater with hundreds of rows of seats surrounding an oval space at the bottom, a bright beacon of light shining down upon whoever was presenting. West took his seat and remotely called Evelyn using his commlink with his cybernetic implants. “Evelyn, we good?” he asked without speaking.
“Yeah, security should have no idea who we are. Rufus and Q are heading directly below the amphitheater. They''re ready on your call.”
“And the data, you digging it?”
“Almost there. Should take a couple of minutes or less.”
“Good.”
The oval bottom of the amphitheater opened up and West hopped off the call. The crowd clapped and whistled for the man that rose from below. Morrison Albright, CEO of Alpha Star Industries. He was a simple-looking man, with a white-collar shirt and black tie, tight khaki pants and leather belt, and plain black dress shoes. His hair was white and gray with a smooth bald head and he smiled warmly.
“Greetings, one and all, to a pinnacle moment in history,” he said. “Today, I show you all the future of interstellar travel. A little gizmo we like to call Void Tech!” A small pedestal was erected up behind Albright from the smooth marble ground. On it, a small white cloth covered a cube-shaped object. Albright raised his hand and grabbed the white cloth to reveal the wondrous technology. Except there was no wonderous technology, but instead, an armed bomb placed by James Rufus, with a special note saying: ‘Told you we’d meet again—signed Caleb Whesker.’
BOOM!
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May 4th, 2815
21 years ago
Sol Star System
Earth, City of Sacramento, North American Union Zone
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When West Taalmore was an 11-year-old boy, he saw things no boy his age should ever have seen. Old friends falling into addiction and slowly poison themselves. Family members getting caught in the crossfire of street warfare. Poor veterans with too much cyberware augmentation losing their minds to cyberpsychosis and going on bloodied rampages, only to be put down by an uncaring police force. But what West probably should never have seen were the stars.
The smog-choked sky of Earth should never have revealed them. But today, the clouds had parted ways, the city no longer produced light because of a blackout, and the wind had blown away all the dirt and dust in the air to reveal a couple hundred twinkling lights in the night. Luna, Earth’s only moon, still stood at the forefront of it all, reflecting the light of the sun down upon West’s face as he basked in a sight very few ever got to see. If he squinted, he was pretty sure he could see the city lights from the megalopolises of Tycho, Copernicus, Artemis, Chang’e, and Zvezda.
“You know, back then you could see every star clear as crystal,” said the Old Crone.
“I know. You told me it was like before,” said West.
“Before what?” said the woman.
“Before the Interstellar Collapse, when the United Terran Republic wasn’t divided and humanity was actually happy for once.”
“Good,” said the Old Crone. “Remember that, ‘cause not a lot of people do.”
Just as she said that, the neon lights and loud advertisements of the city came back to life and the distant glow of the stars quickly dissipated. The only lights in the sky remaining were the eternally present pale Luna and the holographic banner towers that showed still images of ads as they gently drifted into the darkness above. “What was it like before? Before the megacorporations ruled the stars?” asked the young West.
“Well, life was certainly better than it is now,” said the Old Crone. “People could live up to 500 years, space travel wasn’t limited to the rich, Earth was greener than green, Aberdon wasn’t a fascist state, technology propelled us to the stars, and morality was a guaranteed truth. But I guess that wasn’t enough for the power-hungry and narcissistic. Besides, who would ever want to listen to the humble ramblings of a woman who has seen it all when you could control peoples’ lives and make the best outcome for yourself,” she spat with vitriol.
West turned his head to the frail woman. She was dressed like any grandma would, with a wooden walking stick in her hand and a simple cotton dress. West still couldn’t believe that she was over 300 years old or that she was once a government official for the UTR. He turned back to the night sky. The stars were all gone, and only a pale glow barely piercing the dirty clouds from the moon up above remained.
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BOOM!
Evelyn Tess was digging through a mountain of internal data from the starship. Not a detail was spared from being collected and stored on an external drive. Financial logs, interview logs, investment discussions, stockholder sessions, weapon designs, starship designs, light gate designs, everything was up for grabs. She cracked through some of the toughest code she’d ever seen but eventually came across a rather interesting file. Opening it up, her eyes widened in horror.
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It contained the schematics for a weapon. The most powerful weapon ever developed. A starship, larger than any ship built before it, with a weapon capable of burning an entire planet’s atmosphere away. The more she read, the worse it got. Once fired upon a planet, special radioactive energy would then “infect” an atmosphere and ignite, literally burning the sky as all life on the surface of that world screamed in agony.
Evelyn read and read. They called this starship the Hyperion and its construction has the approval of Alpha Star Industries, SaturnTech International, Damian & Roe Inc., the S.C. Bio-Dyne Corporation, Barnard''s Star Banking, and most disturbing of all, the approval of the Aberdonian Grand Military.
Once construction ended, they would send the ship into Aberdonian Controlled Space and fire it upon the planet Havion, a world containing 6 billion lives. They would then pin the planetary genocide on the United Terran Republic and go to war with Earth. The Aberdonian Federation hiring corporations to kill its own citizens on its behalf, then blaming Earth to start a war, Evelyn thought. Damn fascists! No line they won’t cross and defile!
Evelyn thought about it some more and came to a terrible realization. This will just be the spark. This will be bound to get the other nations involved! The entire Settled Heavens will be at war. The UTR, the Aberdonian Federation, the Corporate Systems Alliance, the Union of Independent Socialist Systems, the Sovereignty–they’ll all be wanting to kill each other over this. When this war breaks out, companies like Alpha Star Industries and VulcanCorp will make more money than imaginable by selling weapons and ships.
Shit, I have to get to the right hands!
Evelyn went to copy all the data down when suddenly…pain.
Evelyn''s head began to throb with excruciating pain. All the cybernetic implants in her body began to hurt and it felt like her bones were being ground against each other. Her ocular implants were glitching out and causing a seizure of colors, her metallic arm was turning erratically, and her brain felt like it was being fried. Soon, the woman that was Evelyn Tess was no more and had been transformed into a blabbering mess to be thrown on the streets to suffer the long-term effects of cyberpsychosis.
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BOOM!
James Rufus was not his name. His real name was Caleb Wesker, and this was not his body. Caleb used to work for Alpha Star Industries as a personal bodyguard for Morrison Albright until a deadly and disastrous attack on Pluto caused by insurgent cells of both VulcanCorp and the United Terran Republic resulted in his near death. But because Alpha Star isn’t wasteful, he was selected for experimentive cognitive transfer into another person''s body. Ever since then, his life has been a living hell. He left the company, stole a military android, and split his consciousness with it, naming it Q.
He kept that secret safe from the others around him. After all, he wasn’t here for money, or West and Evelyn, or to stop the corporate regime, as that was never going to change. Instead, he was here for himself and to settle a score set long ago. Just because that bomb had destroyed Morrison’s body didn’t mean he was dead. A man like him wouldn’t be content with simply dying and letting go of all that political power. It had been more than enough time for that cognitive transfer tech to be perfected and for Morrison to use it on himself in case of his death. That way, he’ll be able to transfer his mind into a new body and pretend to be someone new in charge, but it’ll just be him. Always him.
Caleb moved underground with the Q part of him stomping behind. The robot was holding in its hands a black, perfectly square cube. This was the future of interstellar travel, right here, in the palm of his cold hands. It was apparently made using quantum mechanics, something about changing the elemental structure of a quark to create a kind of wormhole across spacetime. He didn’t have time to think about that right now, he had places to be. Nova Plaza was owned and operated by Alpha Star, and as such, it more than likely had a secret monorail station underneath its bouls. Caleb remotely called West with his forced cybernetic implants. “West, you good? You read me?” The screams of panic were on the other end but a voice silenced them out.
“Yeah, I’m good. You got the device?”
“Yeah, I do. Head downstairs to where I am, we’ve got a place to be.”
“What? What do you mean by-”
“I said head downstairs to where I am!” he yelled.
West’s voice stopped and the blaring of alarms filled the building.
“Call Evelyn,” Caleb said.
West grumbled but acquiesced. “Evelyn, do you read me?”
No response.
“Evelyn? Evelyn, are you there?”
A voice, distorted and disquietingly smooth, spoke.
“Evelyn is not here right now. She’s off in a different place of mind,” said the Corporate-made Artificial Intelligence.
Caleb then quickly turned off the commlink and severed his connection with West. He then bolted straight for the monorail station, without ever looking back.
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West Taalmore was pinned between a rock and a hard place. It seemed that Evelyn had been made and her code system figured out. Meaning that everyone knew who he was. Which also meant that everyone''s gun was pointed at him. As bullets chased through the halls, West ran towards James, following a trail of used bullet shells and dead bodies into a concrete tunnel. West found James and Q at a black and red monorail station.
Q was climbing a massive mech that had gun barrels half his size while James was struggling with an Alpha Star security agent. West grabbed a gun off the floor and shot into the back of the security agent. The bullets did nothing to kill him, but they did stun him, giving James enough time to cut his throat with a knife. Meanwhile, Q ripped out the mech''s small fusion core like it was beating heart.
James had multiple bullet wounds on his body; his once fine suit was now stained with dark crimson blood. Thankfully, none seemed to be mortal. James was panting heavily and Q went to support him with his steel arms. James took his help and looked to West.
“What happened to Evelyn?” he asked in a raspy voice.
West answered honestly. “She got made by a corporate AI. Our covers’ blown,” West reloaded the acquired gun. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said, walking past James and into the monorail.
“No,” said James.
West turned around. “What?”
“I said no.”
West’s face turned into that of confusion. “What do you mean ‘no’? We’ve got the tech, we got the data, our cover is blown, and we’ve got Alpha Star angry, let’s bail!”
Q raised his left arm to West. From it, the large barrel of a gun emerged.
West was filled with shock. “Whoa, Q…what are you doing?”
West signaled for Q to drop the gun from his cybernetic implants, yet nothing happened.
“He’s not connected to you. He never was.”
West looked to James. “James…what are you doing?”
“Sorry kid,” said James. “Nothing personal. It’s just…you’re playing a game too big for you to comprehend.” The next thing that happened was the sound of a gunshot.
And just like that, West Taalmore, for all his worth, was dead. He was a pawn in a game of chess with two players. A game that was about to end.
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The black monorail zoomed like a bullet. Its dark chrome skin was tearing at the air like paper. On the inside, however, it was perfectly calm. Caleb Wesker rested down on a seat, supported by the robot that shared his consciousness. Q wasn’t a sentient being and it wasn’t even capable of speech, but it was intelligent and it shared about half his brain in a digital form.
Caleb was capable of seeing the world as Q saw it, just as Q was able to see the world as he did. That meant when Caleb felt an emotion, Q would represent that same emotion. Which would explain the melancholy air that filled the air of the train. Q was standing still at the conductor terminal, its metal hands still wrapped around the cube-shaped Void Tech. Caleb could see through Q’s ocular lens which acted like eyes and looked at the cube. So much trouble, all for something so small, he thought.
An odd pain of nostalgia then hit Caleb and he began to reminisce about the moments in his life that led up to this. Walking to that dump of a school, being picked up by an Alpha Star Child Soldier selection group, training under Sir Dolan, becoming one of Morrison Albright’s personal security, being blown to near pieces on Pluto, unwillingly transferring his consciousness into another body, walking down the rotting streets of Earth, passing above fascist Aberdon in a commercial starship, and agreeing to West Taalmore’s plan for stealing corporate tech. The monorail stopped and its doors opened. Caleb half expected what lay beyond to be nothing but armed soldiers. Instead, there was only a black hallway lit by red and white lights. At the end of the hallway was an open elevator waiting for him.
Caleb used the Q half of himself for support as he limped out of the train. They approached the elevator and Caleb noticed that the interface that normally showed the floor level had instead text. It read, ‘I’ve been waiting for you, Caleb.’ They descended to the deepest floor possible.
The doors opened. Caleb and Q limped out into a great chamber of black walls, blue and red light, and whirring machinery. Sitting in the middle of the room was a man at a desk. He had a round body, white hair, a full beard, and the finest suit ever made. Morrison Albright, the CEO of Alpha Star, wasn’t quite dead yet. Both Caleb and Q raised their guns and fired multiple bolts directly at his head. None hit him, but all made contact with something else. Something large, like a man but of ungodly size and made entirely of metal, had zoomed into place to intercept the bullets. Morrison, now in his new body, got up from the chair and began to speak.
“You know, I don’t why you’re complaining Caleb. This new body isn’t painful at all.”
Caleb growled. “It’s not that it hurts on the outside, idiot. It’s what screams at you on the inside that hurts. I’m in a body that does not belong to me, and every second of every day I’m reminded by my very soul that this is wrong. I don’t belong in this body or this world!”
Morrison chuckled. “Ho ho ho, ‘don’t belong in this world.’ Tell me, why do not belong in this world? This is simply the way things are. There’s the High, the Middle, and the Low. The High are to rule over both the Middle and the Low, the Middle is to overthrow the old ruling class and become the new High, and the Low are simply born that way, forever to be downtrodden by the Middle and the High. I saved you from that purgatory, Caleb, you should be thanking me.”
Caleb yelled out. “No! No, I don’t! I don’t even remember my mother’s face because of you! You took my life away from me and made it your plaything!”
Morrison scold. “I am merely playing my part in all this, Caleb. I am the High and you are the Low. It is my purpose to use you however I want. You should have realized this a long time ago.”
The large metal man that blocked the bullets from before stood up. Its eyes then lit up in a deep scarlet and lasered onto Caleb and Q. “However,” Morrison spoke. “I will make you an exception if you can kill me again. First, however, you’ll have to go through an old friend.”
The lights in the room brightened and showed the surface of the metal man. He was nothing but pure steel, gears, and guns. His entire body was covered in cyberware, from his head to his feet. The only thing that vaguely resembled an organic human being was the left side of his face, showing pale skin covered in scars with a mechanical eye that shined a brilliant red. Caleb’s face dropped in horror, as it was a face he recognized.
“William?”
William Areson had been an old friend of Caleb. They trained together under the tutelage of Sir Dolan, fought side by side during battles for Morrison, and even died together on Pluto. It seemed, however, that–just like Caleb–William was also brought back from the dead. But unlike Caleb, there was no humanity left under that cold gaze.
“Long time, no see, Cal. How’s sharing that machine’s body feel?” he said in an automated, electronic voice devoid of joy.
“William, what happened to you?”
“Same reason as you. Brought back for the company’s sake, not my own.”
Caleb sighed, discontent with what was happening. “Yeah,” he said, raising his rifle and having Q raise his arm canons. “It’s a special kind of hell, isn’t it?”
Both opened fire. A storm of hot lead sped its way toward William, enough to shred any man who got in the way. William, however, was no longer a man and they simply deflected off him. A massive gun then emerged from William’s back and stood above his shoulder. It fired, releasing a rocket that exploded in orange flame. Caleb and Q jumped in opposite directions to dodge the sudden heat but bits and pieces of shrapnel managed to cut Caleb’s cheek and hand. Caleb gasped in pain, a trickle of blood steadily leaking out of his hand like a facet. Caleb ignored the pain and saw an opening through Q’s vision. William’s face looked to be slightly less armored than the rest of his body and would make a prime target.
Q fired several bullets into the left side of William’s head. Many simply deflected off him but some had managed to cut into his skin, though rather shallowly. If William felt pain, he didn’t show it and reached behind him and pulled a massive LMG. Q ran to dodge William but it was too late. It took a single round from the gun to remove Q’s left arm. Caleb’s conscious took action and commanded the robot to throw the Void Cube to him.
The robot hurled the cube toward Caleb but in the moment after, William loaded the android full with a stream of bullets. It was then that Caleb’s mind felt like it was being torn apart. It screamed and thrashed and clawed within his half-metal skull. Caleb yelled out in a groaning pain that was gnawing on his brain as the other half of his consciousness was rent apart into a heap of scrap.
“I’ll offer you one last chance, Caleb,” said Morrison you had a glass of alcohol in hand. “You can be by my side once again. You’ll never have to feel pain ever again and I promise to mend the wounds of the past for you.”
Caleb’s mind felt like it was shattered and he looked to Morrison. Vile hatred filled his face as he looked at that elitist monster. William stepped forward and offered a hand. Caleb didn’t take it. Instead, he used the last bit of his strength to crush the Void Cube and threw it at William.
A blast of purple and black particles spewed forth in a cloud as electric lightning danced across the chamber floor. A loud crack of energy was released and the chamber looked for half a second to be brighter than any star Caleb had seen. When the smoke dissipated, half of William was gone, reduced to a molten slag of metal. A slag of metal that was still operational. A gun appeared from the other half of William and pointed at Caleb. Then a came loud bang and Caleb Wesker was dead. At least he died with a smile on his face.
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Morrison and William were on the starship Crantashaar, in a stable orbit around Centauri Prime, now overlooking the stars. Down below, city lights covered each section of the planet, even the oceans weren’t spared of the urban sprawl. Twin suns–one orange, the other yellow–burn themselves across both the planet’s surface and the darkness of space.
Officially, Morrison Albright was dead and replaced by a man named Desmond Hyde. But it was just Morrison using a new body under that name. “Well, glad we got that out of the way, wouldn’t ya say?” he said.
“Sure,” said William, now fully repaired from the battle with Caleb Wesker.
“By the by, remind me that Void stuff can be used in Project: Hyperion. Oh, and be sure to tell the Applied Fore Department to send the UTR some 25,000 warships too.”
“Yes, sir.”
William didn’t like Morrison, not one bit. But he was forced to do his bidding. This is how the world worked after all. He looked out to the stars, those twinkling lights that represented hope to so many. It was strange, it seemed they had grown just a shade darker than before.