Going Dark

Posted on Sat Nov 19th, 2022 @ 9:28pm by Xavier X-1
Edited on on Wed Nov 23rd, 2022 @ 8:16pm

2,997 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Short Treks
Location: Heiros IV
Timeline: Two Years Ago

Dark ominous clouds hung on the horizon like low flying carrion birds looking for a meal. For most of the afternoon it had been alternating between sleet and snow, but now it was too cold for either. A group of refugees who had been harassed, harried, and hunted for the past fortnight by a vastly superior force were near the end of their endurance. They lay huddled together in the remnants of what had been the manor of the Francian Crown Prince. There was little left of the once proud structure; only one room survived and that was without windows or a roof.

That was where the survivors, about a score of them, mostly women and children, were gathered. They were debating whether it would be better to build a fire and attract the attention of the enemy ensuring their capture and most likely torture, or slowly freeze to death.

A lone sentry stood watch outside the building. He was unaffected by the cold, but he was standing still as possible. His reasoning was twofold. First to guard against being spotted by enemy observers, the second to preserve as much of his waning energy supply as he could. It had been more than 30 hours since he had had a chance to recharge and there was little chance he would be able to do so anytime soon.

Of course more than likely everyone would be dead or a prisoner by the time, it became critical so he didn’t think it would matter much. “They’re close, Prince Josiah,” he informed his charge, his liege, his friend. “I could probably sneak down there and make enough noise, cause a distraction and lead them away from you. Buy you some time so you can get the little ones into the caves. You could lose yourselves in there.”

“I can’t ask you to do that Xavier, even you wouldn’t last long. Not against those odds.”

“You’re not asking, I’m volunteering.”

“They will deactivate you. That or worse. They are monsters, there is no telling what they will do.”

There was a momentary pause as the android tilted his head at the odd angle that Josiah was so used to. “I don’t have a soul like your Book Of Promise, says you do. But still, if my death purchases your freedom and the lives of the others. then I will have fulfilled my purpose.”

“I’m not sure if I believe any of what the Book claims the Twins say anymore. But if it is true, who is to say you don’t have a soul? I think you do somehow. I think you have to. You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“Yes, I do,” he said as he kissed the Prince on his left cheek, before turning and heading down towards the encampment.

Josiah watched his friend walk away with mixed emotions. Grief, joy, hope. Before he had even disappeared from sight though he turned back to his once proud home. If Xavier was going to ransom the lives of the remnant then he had best do his part he had to get them to the Caves of Chaos. His youngest son Kyle was nowhere to be found and while this was troubling he did not worry over much. Kyle was a visionary. He had the Gift. If anyone could take care of himself it was Kyle. He would just have to trust the boy would find them.


*********************
Xavier knew exactly what he had to do. Get close enough without being captured, at least right away, and make enough noise to draw curiosity and pursuit without having all the Klingon allied forces rain down on him at once.

"Please! Just let us go!" The man pleaded with Eftrar but the Cleric was unmoved, simply looking on from under the shadow of his hood as the Blessed secured their newly acquired captives; a man, his wife, and a child, a young boy. A fanatic scanned the man first. "Healthy. No aberrations."

Eftrar nodded, then spoke to the man. "Do you wish to embrace the Entity or turn your back on her magnificence?" So far today he'd had a good day, achieving most of their objectives in record time. And as he spoke of the Holy Entity's boundless virtues, the Cleric decided to offer a taste of magnanimity to this hapless infidel. "Choose."

He glanced at his wife, who nodded solemnly; obviously knowing the fate of those who resisted. "I wish... to be converted."

"Very well," the cleric smiled slightly. "A wise choice. Take him, brothers," he ordered two fanatics who promptly picked him up.

"Wait! What about my wife and child? Please! Don't take them away from me!"

"They will join you soon enough," said the fanatic with the scanner as he looked over the female next. "Healthy. No aberrations. Fertile." The technician looked at the Cleric. "Brother Cleric, we are short of lifebringers aboard. She would be a fine addition."

"Very well," he approved then turned his eyes to the young boy the mother would not let go of her grip. "And the child?"

"Unhealthy. Unfit. Terminal."

Eftrar didn't even blink. "He will still serve a purpose. Bring him along."

"Yes, Brother Cleric."

Xavier was close enough to hear the conversation or at least snippets of it. He felt sadness for the family. Sadness and a little anger. But he did not allow himself to dwell on those things. It would have distracted him from his primary mission.

He was just about to step on a branch to attract their attention when he froze. His leg suspended in mid-air. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a strawberry blond mop of unruly hair, that could only belong to the Prince’s son. He was headed towards the Alliance party.

Xavier let out a curse that was partly in Francian and partly in his base language which was more a series of what to human ears would be a series of tones. Kyle was either unaware of the danger he was headed into, or more than likely was aware and in his adolescent angst was going to try to play the hero.

But what was even stranger than his dangerous move was that the Alliance members didn’t seem to be at all perturbed by his presence. The soldiers only gave him a cursory once over then brought their attention back to the perimeter. The only one among them that paid the teenager attention was Eftrar who acknowledged him with a nod. “You are proving to be faithful to your vow. That was the third we located with your help.”

“I told you that I would. I always keep my promises,” he informed Eftrar.” I trust you will keep yours too. You know what I want to be done with my family.”

Xavier cursed again, this time it was solely a series of seemingly meaningless tones. This was the last thing that he expected. He continued to listen intently to see how things would play out. Was young Kyle attempting to save his family through exploiting others, which would have been bad enough, or had he truly turned his back on them? Had he truly turned traitor or was he just being incredibly naive and foolish?

“I haven’t forgotten,” the hooded Romulan replied. “It will happen as the Entity wishes it so.”

“Infidel!”

Anything else was cut short by the cry of a patrolling fanatic who had spotted Xavier lurking in the bushes. Like most Acolytes, he had quickly switched from his rifle to his dagger to adapt to the closer range and charged the discovered interloper.

Xavier’s foot which had remained in mid-air suddenly came down. Xavier was quick. Quicker than most humans, but his speed was not pernatural and he had been too focused on the exchange between Kyle and the hooded man. He tried to dodge but was only partially successful. The dagger intended for his heart had he had one, landed instead between his left nipple and his collarbone. It penetrated his synthetic skin but just barely.

He smiled a wicked smile, grabbed the soldier by the lapels of his uniform, and tossed him into the snow a few feet away. Then he took off running.

The mystery of Kyle's allegiance and purpose would just have to wait.

The Acolytes were all suddenly alert and a large portion of the contingent broke off in pursuit at Eftrar's approval. The Cleric, on the other hand, eyed his guest. "I hope for your sake that this was not a taste of deception. The consequences are far worse than you can imagine."

"I didn't know who that was!" Kyle protested vehemently. "And I know well enough to know what will happen if I betray you or the Entity. Believe me, I don't want that to happen at all."

Eftrar nodded. "Very well. We'll see how things prosper. Though it shall be determined once we capture the interloper." The cleric turned his head towards the woods. "My brothers and sisters are very good. It will merely be a matter of time."

Meanwhile, progressing deeper into the woods, a certain android was being pursued by at least a dozen armed men, all yelling at him to stop or be shot. Indeed, several plasma bolts streaked through the air but none struck their intended target.

Xavier knew he had minutes, perhaps seconds before he was caught or killed, but he had no intention of stopping. The longer he was able to elude his pursuers, the more time his friends would have to escape.

He could tell from the growing din of voices behind him and the shots getting closer and closer that his time was running out. Then, as he was crossing a narrow precipice between two lips of land his foot landed on an undetected piece of black ice. His legs slipped out from under him and he found himself tumbling over the edge of the cliff.

He dropped a good 20 feet, turning a flip or two in mid-air before he hit a boulder. He landed hard on his shoulder and felt something give in his collarbone, then continued to roll end over end until he came to a halt about 75 feet lower than where he had started. He felt something then that he had never felt before. Pain.

Because of the terrain, it took his pursuers a while to get to him but eventually they had him surrounded; plasma rifles and lances were trained on him as he lay there in agony. Eftrar arrived a few seconds later with Kyle in tow as the fanatic with the scanner took readings. A healer stood nearby but she didn’t move to help, looking towards the hooded man for orders.

“Xavier!” Kyle exclaimed as he saw their quarry in pain on the ground.

Eftrar looked at the boy. “You know him?”

Xavier stayed where he was, though he very much wanted to get up and throttle the hooded man or Kyle, possibly both. He noticed his left leg was bent at a rather funny angle now and it looked like part of his carbon fiber bone was protruding out of the fabric of his pants. It was the servomechanism in his shoulder that was his worst problem though. The one causing him the most pain.

He wasn’t about to try anything foolhardy, even if had he been able to move. It wasn’t that he was afraid to be deactivated, or so he told himself. But it would accomplish nothing. Keeping them talking on the other hand would.

“Kyle, how could you do this? Betray your father and your family. What in the hell do you think you’re trying to accomplish?”

“Don’t speak to me as if you know what I have done!” Kyle all but screamed in retort, his guilt and youth making him emotional. “All I have done has been for my family; for my father. These people are strangers to me and between them and my family, I would do anything for my family. So yes Xavier, I made a deal and joined them to save all that I care about.”

Sympathy and sorrow replaced the anger that had been running through Xavier’s mind. He slowly shook his head. “I know you may have meant well, but your father would not want this. He would die before he would let someone else, stranger or not become a sacrifice for him. You've betrayed every principle he stands for. And for what. Do you really think you can trust these zealous bastards to live up to their end of the bargain? Son, son they’re just using you to get what they want, then they’ll go after your family.”

Kyle stepped closer and looked down at the damaged android. “And what then Xavier? Spend weeks, months if we’re lucky, out here in this godsforsaken snow? To watch each other freeze to death or succumb to disease or starvation? I won’t let my father and my family suffer that fate. So if we can continue to live as part of them, why shouldn’t we? Join them or die, Xavier… do you have a better idea?”

“I’ve never been human like you. Even your father is not sure about the soul right now. But whatever you call that spark, that essence that makes you who you are. When you join them, you’ll lose that. And if you lose that, what is the point of your existence?

Why do you think I’m here Kyle, why do you think I let myself get caught?”

Yet the teenager was oblivious to Xavier’s reasoning. “So join them and lose sight of who I am, fight them and wish I was dead or flee and watch everyone I care about suffer and die while everything I care about crumbles around me as I slowly fade away.” He shook his head firmly. “Between all that, I’d choose life. We can’t win against them and we can’t keep hiding forever. I may be young but I am not naive enough to dream of hope when there is none.”

At that point, the fanatic technician looked up at the Cleric. “He’s not what he seems. Inorganic. A machine. One of their alter people.”

Eftrar eyed Xavier with curiosity. “I haven’t seen one of their kind for a while now. I didn’t think there were others that still worked. Is he too damaged?”

“We can take him back to the ship brother. There we will be able to do more.”

Xavier glared at the Cleric and at the technician, “While you’re in the process of taking me back to your ship. There is one more thing you can do. Although I’ve been told it is an impossible task.”

“We do not take orders from machines,” the technician retorted. “Especially infidel machines.”

The cleric on the other hand was more curious. “What is it?”

“You can go fuck yourselves!”

Eftrar laughed and nodded to the technician. “This one has more gumption than the others of his kind.”

The fanatic, at the cleric’s nod, pressed his hand into the android’s injured leg; not to help stop the bleeding but to cause more pain, especially as the shard of bone inched a little back into his appendage.

Xavier fell back onto the ground, his face twisted in a mix of agony and anger. He let out a piercing cry that sounded more like fingernails across a chalkboard than anything resembling a human.

He had no desire to prolong that which had never experienced, but the longer he held out, the longer his friends would have to get away. Making the assumption that they wanted to keep him alive and in pain as long as they could and calculating that they would not risk firing when they could hit one of their own. He brought his good foot up between the fanatic’s legs as hard as he could.

The man screamed in pain, staggering back with his hands on his crotch before falling to the ground in a writhing heap. The other fanatics and blessed started to move but Eftrar held up his hand. “We do not give infidels their martyrs. He wishes to be one, we’ll give him a chance… aboard our ship. Take him.”

When his own pain had subsided enough so that he could speak, he turned to Kyle, “That’s the alternative you were looking for. I prefer sacrifice over life. They can take me now, I’ve completed my task. By now your family is in the caves and are gone. They’ll seal the entrance soon and no one can get in.”

A tear traced its way down his face, “Don’t you see what you’ve done son. You’ve cut yourself off from everyone. Everyone except your new friends.”

Fear, anger, and hate rolled within the youth, hands balled into fists as he tried to come to terms with his fate. “If they’re safe then I’m happy with that but choosing pain and death over a chance to live? Then I guess that makes you a fool Xavier.”

“Perhaps I am a fool Kyle, but at least I die as a free man who has not compromised himself. Tell me this Kyle, how will you look in the mirror, how will you sleep at night?”

“I don’t know but I’ll let you know when I visit you in your torment,” Kyle glowered. “So revel in your fate you free fool.”

Xavier had no real answer for that. So he made none. He simply shook his head and waited for fate, or the gods or whoever was in charge to deal him what he knew must be his final hand.

 

RSS Feed