The Greater Good

“We give thanks to thee, Lord God Almighty, who art and who wast, that thou hast taken thy great power and begun to reign. The nations raged, but thy rath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, for rewarding thy servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear thy name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.” -Revelation 11:17-18

The pressurized cabin of the OF-370 Armored Troop Shuttle, or Phoenix, began to shudder and buck violently as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere. Lieutenant Herman Kraus shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It would be less than half an hour until he and his men reached their designated Landing Zone (LZ). Lieutenant Kraus was a battle hardened veteran, and he looked it. He was well known for his sunken, seemingly sleep deprived eyes, along with his five o’clock shadow and perpetual grimace. Kraus had served for over thirty years, first in the Unified Republic Marine Corps, where he had reached the rank of Sergeant Major. Then, following the war, he had worked his way up to the rank of Lieutenant within the newly founded Global Defense Corps (GDC), an organization created in order to integrate all five branches of the previous government’s military into a cohesive defense force.    

 The lieutenant pulled out a cigarette and lit it anxiously. He had led numerous assaults in the past, and been an integral part of the ongoing campaign against the few large extremist groups that still had the resources to continue their holy wars against the state. Up until now, the campaign had been projected to last for over twenty more years, because although the GDC had yet to lose a single engagement, the casualties were almost always enormous, creating an ostensibly endless string of pyrrhic victories. This mission was suicide, he thought to himself, how could a suit of shiny new body armor possibly make the assigned objective seem even remotely realistic? Could the generals up there on Luna really believe that he could successfully capture a base this extensive with only a small fleet of OF-370’s for air support and fewer than three hundred ground troops? There was no denying, of course, that the Phoenix was a dependable drop ship. After all, it had been in service for over eighty years, since the glory days of the Unified Republic, since before the Great War. But this time Kraus and his men were going to be landing directly on top of the military base of operations for the largest and most organized of the three remaining fundamentalist religious syndicates, a group that called itself Requiem.

This operation was the long awaited test, the first large scale deployment of the GDC’s newest weapon. And as it turned out, it was not a weapon at all, but an advanced suit of armor referred to as the N-Suit. When the lieutenant had confronted Colonel Sherman, his commanding officer, about his various concerns regarding the viability of the orders he had been given, Sherman had been adamant about his confidence in the N-Suit’s performance. “Believe me Lieutenant, there’s no mistake,” he had said. “the orders and mission specs that you have been given are the correct ones. Unfortunately, the mechanisms behind the suit’s defensive capabilities are strictly classified so not even I have been allowed to see the diagnostic literature. However, I have been assured that if everything goes according to plan, you will have no problem capturing the base using the designated amount of manpower and air support.” Unfortunately the prospect of going into battle without a full understanding his own equipment was nothing new, but this exchange had accomplished nothing save to irritate him further, thought the lieutenant as he took one final drag off of his cigarette. He hurriedly stubbed it out on the heat-resistant plate armor of his forearm before standing up to address his men. 

“Soldiers of the Corps,” growled the lieutenant as he pulled a standard issue Holographic Cartographer from his N-Suit’s service belt. All of the other the men in the drop ship immediately fell silent. “In just a few minutes we will be dropped onto what is now considered to be the most dangerous three mile stretch of dirt on the entire surface. You should all take a moment to reflect upon the fact that King Aranis has, above all others, chosen us and not those AOD son’bitches to serve him in the battle to come, to take down Requiem, but more importantly, to aid him in the pursuit of achieving universal harmony. He has called upon our beloved Corps and we will not let him down. We will prove that good old human soldiers can do everything those cyborg fuckers can do and more.

“Alpha team, that’s us, will be spearheading the assault. In order to ensure that this mission goes as smoothly as possible, I have been informed that the nearest orbital defense post will be providing us with an improvised entryway into the base by way of a ten microton meson charge. As soon as the orbital strike on the target area terminates we will be the first group to enter the complex, closely followed by Bravo team and Charlie team. At this point we will clear the base of all hostiles and be on our way. Remember. The heathen cannot be reasoned with, he cannot be trusted, he seeks only to endanger the lives of the innocent and pollute the minds of the weak. Shoot to kill, and as always, leave no one alive. You got all that boys?” his men nodded collectively.

“Sir yes sir!”

“Power through harmony,” growled Kraus.

“Harmony through truth,” chanted his men in response.

“Very good. And how do we ensure that harmony is maintained boys?” he looked around the cabin expectantly, finally settling on a particularly scrawny looking greenhorn. “You, Private. Answer the question.”

The young private was clearly taken aback that he had been singled out. Taking great care to provide a proper response, he cleared his throat nervously and began to speak: “Sir! Uhh harmony is maintained through vigilance, and uhh the willingness to act, without hesitation, in pursuit of the greater good. Sir!”

“Now that’s what I like to hear.”

The voice of the OF-370’s pilot suddenly rang throughout the collective ear of the lieutenant and his men, “Alright everyone, five minutes until touchdown, I’ve got a clear visual of the LZ. The meson charge blew open a nice big entryway for you on the roof of the complex, neuro-scan shows lots of activity. Get ready for one hell of a hot landing!”  

     * * *

Argus 82C was ecstatic. So much information! So much wonderful information was flooding into his consciousness all at once, and none of it was even encrypted! Not that a dark energy encryption would have prevented Argus from accessing the information for very long, for he was by now, quite adept at the baryogenesis decryption process. To think that he never would have given this particular galaxy a second glance if he hadn’t noticed the small blue planet on its outer rim while he was passing by. The intelligent species on this world was quite primitive indeed. It seemed to be some sort of bipedal carbon based organism that was almost solely dependent on a simple hydrogen-oxygen molecule for survival. This world contained vast oceans full of the substance. Those would have to be vaporized in order to ensure that carbon based life could not arise here again.

Unfortunately, this world would have to be sterilized. The technological cut off for permissible carbon based life, was the point at which a species has invented a rudimentary hyperspatial warp drive or has at least circumvented the need for one through the use of stable wormhole generators. However, Argus estimated that at its current rate of technological advancement, this world was still hundreds of years away from such a discovery. It was quite a shame when an intelligent species came so close to enlightenment only to miss the cut-off by a few hundred years. This mandatory cut-off was an unfortunate, but necessary evil. The rate of universal expansion was beginning to slow, after all, and once the universe began gradually contracting back into a singularity, there had to be enough room for every intelligent species to live out its last few billion years without having to worry about habitable living space and universal overpopulation.

Argus could scarcely believe that a life form such as this one could exist happily in the fermionic plane, even though his own species had once existed solely as mortal, matter-based beings as well. But that had been many eons ago, and the horrors of pre-ascendance had long since been forgotten. Of course, he could convert his being, which now “existed” only as pure consciousness, into corporeal matter anytime he saw fit, and had done so on many occasions (mostly because his job as a regulator occasionally required it of him). But never for long, for in the infinitely complex mind of the energy being Argus, matter was simply a plaything. Argus had absorbed more than ninety percent of the little world’s total volume of information before he began to formulate a comprehensive and morally neutral method of sterilization. He gathered the remaining information and contemplated the correct course of action for an indeterminate period of time.

Suddenly he was ready. The task would be easier than he had anticipated. Argus pondered how exactly it was that these hairless bipeds had even progressed this far without destroying themselves. Their minds were so fragile, so prone to paranoia and mental instability, so easy to manipulate.

                          * * *

“Go, go, go!” bellowed Kraus. Alpha team charged onto the roof of the complex without hesitation. The above ground portion of the base was essentially a massive slab of reinforced concrete, however the vast majority of the complex was hidden below ground, where it extended for miles in every direction. Kraus and his men had been greeted by a constant hail of gunfire since the moment they had touched down. The crazed zealots were everywhere, throwing everything they could at the lieutenant and his men, fighting with weapons ranging from modern fuel rod launchers to antique Kalashnikov assault rifles. Kraus and his men immediately began diving for cover and returning fire. A dense mass of armed militants began to pour from the improvised entryway that the orbital strike had created on the rooftop. Suddenly, one of the lieutenant’s men, a greenhorn, rushed directly into the line of fire and began spraying rounds toward the first group of insurgents he saw. The lieutenant watched helplessly as the man was struck squarely in the chest by an explosive fuel rod. It sent the soldier hurtling more than ten meters through the air, smashing him into a stack of metal shipping crates with a tremendous amount of force. Moments later, incredibly, the man simply rose to his feet and began to return fire.

Within a matter of minutes, the GDC forces had already eliminated the first wave of insurgents, cutting them down in merciless swaths of armor piercing automatic fire, which effortlessly punctured through the flimsy barricades they had erected in a vain attempt to hold the rooftop and nearby floors. Lieutenant Kraus was speechless. Could it possibly have been that easy to establish a secure foothold on the rooftop of one of the most well defended insurgent bases in the world? There had not been a single casualty, despite the fact that he had witnessed a man receive a fuel rod to the chest. Under any other circumstances, the high-yield explosive round would have made quick chop meat of the unlucky recipient, however, the man had simply collapsed and gotten back up within seconds, completely uninjured. The N-Suit had passed its first test with flying colors. Lieutenant Kraus’s head began to spin. He could not even begin to imagine what kind of impact this suit would have on the future of infantry based warfare. But there was one thing of which he was absolutely certain: The introduction of this suit would end the war that had been projected to continue for at least two more decades, within a matter of months.

     * * *

Commander Lance Taggard awoke to the soft chime of his auditory canal implant’s wake-up sequence. He was a small, well built man with short black hair and brown eyes, the almost epitomic example of an obedient soldier. After exactly twenty seconds, the chime ceased and was replaced by the emotionless, mechanized female voice of Orbital Defense Post Delta’s central processing interface: “Hello Commander. The current date is January the 8^th, Common Era 2689. King Aranis has relayed a wave coupling transmission to your holodeck in order to communicate your orders personally. Welcome to duty.” He inhaled deeply as he stepped from his cryogenic sleep module. It seemed that the king was again in need of his expertise.

Commander Taggard was the leader of an elite shock troop regiment comprised of approximately five hundred of the deadliest soldiers in the world. Not only had they been genetically engineered for combat and undergone intense battlefield tactics training, but they were also equipped with state of the art Nanorevivification Suits (N-Suits). As the commander donned his own N-Suit, he began to reflect upon the drastic impact of the suits recent implementation. Just one year previously, Taggard would have been awakened at least three times a week in order to combat the various rebel religious factions that still roamed the abandoned surface streets. But eight months ago that had all changed. The advent of the N-Suit had served to virtually eradicate the rebel threat. After all, he thought to himself, only an ill-fated few dared to take up arms against an army of opponents who could not die.    

Commander Taggard had slumbered for over four months since his last mission. He and his men were kept on permanent cryogenic stand-by in a barracks satellite that maintained a precise orbit around the Earth at all times. Whenever their services were required, they were simply revived, briefed, and equipped before being shuttled to within twenty yards of the desired objective via an Individual Objective Force Propulsion Pod (IOF-Pod). It was this method of transport that had earned Taggard and his men the nickname: the Angels of Death (AOD’s), a title Commander Taggard was outwardly opposed to (not least because of the name’s obvious fundamentalist connotations), but secretly quite proud of.  

The commander walked over to his desk-mounted hologram projector and turned it on. The device performed a quick neuro-scan to make sure it was in fact Commander Taggard who was trying to access its contents. Upon the scan’s completion, the plump, jubilant face of King Aranis seamlessly materialized between the parallel projection decks:

“Good morning Commander, I trust you have slept well. I have for you a mission that is of great importance to the continued wellbeing of the human race. As you are well aware, the evil that is organized religion has plagued the Earth with its web of deceit for far too long. For millennia we have allowed religious zeal and mob mentality to dumb down our populous, to destroy the lives of countless hard working individuals. Blind and ignorant faith in institutions that have only sought to amass riches and further their grip upon a world that deserves more- that is what this government has for years tried to put a stop to. And I am relieved to say that our hard work has finally come to fruition.

“Within the past nine years we have accomplished what none previously could, for the first time in history, logic and scientific thought reign supreme. With your help, I have ushered in an age of truly immeasurable prosperity. Universal harmony is at last within reach. Commander, you and your men will have the honor of driving the final nail into the coffin of religious ideology. We have pinpointed the location of a man who may well be the last religious extremist alive, one Mathew Best. Although he is not currently an active terrorist, he could still be a potential threat to future generations. Find him,

and kill him.”  

With that, Commander Taggard awakened thirty of his best men and prepared to depart at once. This mission was truly an honor.   

           * * *            

Father Mathew Best sat silently in the basement of an antique apartment complex, deep within the ruins of old Chicago. He was a thin man, gaunt and fatigued from years of scavenging, with large blue eyes and a chaotic gray beard. He wore only a tattered brown monk’s robe. In his hand was a copy of the Holy Bible, one of the last in existence. The floor beneath him rumbled only faintly now, as the most recent ground tremor began to wane. Within the past decade, worldwide tectonic plate activity had increased almost exponentially in frequency, leading to frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity on a global scale. Luckily, the dwellings of much of humanity had long ago taken to the skies in the form of massive, domed nation states that hovered thousands of feet above the ground.

This was one of the many places Father Best had learned to call home, but he was done running. For almost ten years he had lived in fear, keeping to the obsolete ground level streets and long abandoned subway systems to avoid the police sentries, and hiking from city to city under cover of darkness, all in an effort to survive a regime that had devoted itself to ridding the world of people like him. If only the Unified Republic had won the war, and if only the senate had not been deposed, perhaps none of this would have happened. But alas the Republic did not emerge victorious, and in the winter of A.D. 2680 Gaius Aranis did overthrow the senate, naming himself as the one, sovereign authority, over all of Earth, and establishing a new world governing body to replace the Unified Republic. Thus, the Harmonized Terran Federation was born.

Best was now among the very last of his kind. He, along with all of the other members of the clergy, was automatically deemed a religious extremist, a crime punishable by death. Within less than a decade, he had watched as the automated neuro-scanner technology, once used to protect the rights and well-being of all citizens, was deployed for the sole purpose of rooting out the “scourge” of organized religion. He had watched as billions of innocent people were rounded up and systematically exterminated for their beliefs. He had watched as his life was turned into a living hell.

Father Best was alone. Almost two years ago to the day, he had lost contact with the last of the surviving clergy members that he had known. Ever since then he had lived as a traveling hermit. But now everything was going to be different. He no longer felt it necessary to evade the government. In fact, he had made sure that the government knew exactly where he was. No doubt they had already dispatched an extermination team to track him down.

                            * * *

            After making a quick stop at the ship’s armory, Commander Taggard and his men marched silently to the IOF Docking Bay. Every man was equipped with a state of the art, modular assault weapon, capable of four distinct firing modes, each employing a unique type of round that was specifically engineered to fulfill its particular function. They were also equipped with custom N-Suits that had high energy containment sheaths attached to the back of each suit’s shoulder so that every man could carry a compact, Extendable Plasma-tipped Blade (EPB) in case close combat was required.

 After making sure that every soldier who was taking part in the assault was safely within his designated IOF-Pod, Taggard climbed into his own.

            “Control, this is Commander Taggard, we are ready for mission commencement.”

            The mechanized female voice of the ship’s central processing interface rang throughout the ear-pieces of all of Commander Taggard’s men:

“Understood Commander, all designated Propulsion Pods are fueled and ready for launch.”

            “Thank you, Control. Initialize ignition sequence.”

“Yes Commander. Airlock depressurizing. Prepare for launch on my mark:

Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Ignition.”

In an instant, each IOF-Pod simultaneously emitted an immensely powerful burst of gravitonic energy, sending Commander Taggard and his men hurtling silently toward North America at over seventy thousand kilometers per hour. It would take only minutes for them to reach their destination.

The IOF-Pods impacted with a series of deep, resounding thuds, each vehicle creating a sizeable crater around its landing site. Commander Taggard and his men quickly leapt from their IOF-Pods and began to observe their surroundings. Chicago, a sprawling metropolis once considered a prime example of mankind’s technological dominance over nature, was now in a state of utter disrepair. The city was unrecognizable. None of the tall, distinguishing skyscrapers remained standing, for after years of constant ground tremors their foundations could no longer withstand the strain and all had collapsed. The city’s concrete streets were now riddled with cracks, and thick foliage had sprung up to fill them. Mother Nature was reclaiming the city, slowly beginning to wipe away any trace of mankind’s ancient architectural achievements.

Commander Taggard’s navigational system pointed him toward the intact half of a collapsed apartment complex; the building looked as if it had simply snapped in half, as a large portion of the upper floors was now lying in ruins, perpendicular to the main structure. Directly underneath the intact portion of the building, Taggard could detect only one bio-signal. A quick neuro-scan indicated that it was Mathew Best. Taggard ordered six men to accompany him into the target building while the rest of his team set up a perimeter outside. Now the mission would be simple, he would do what he was trained to do.

                                              * * *

Father Best continued to sit in silent meditation. Suddenly, his train of thought was interrupted by a series of loud explosions. They had finally arrived. His heart-beat began to quicken. At long last the day that had been spoken of in prophecy was at hand. The clattering of footsteps began to echo throughout the room as his pursuers made their way down the stairwell. When they reached the basement, the footsteps ceased. For a short time there was silence, then one of his pursuers began to speak from outside the door:

“Mathew Best, under imperial decree, you are charged with religious extremism and crimes against humanity, the penalty for which is death. If you do not resist, you will be given a clean and painless execution.”

With a loud bang the man kicked through the door, shattering the sturdy wood like glass. The man and his counterparts immediately surrounded Best as they entered the room, rifles trained on him in case he made a move. Father Best stared at the man whom he assumed was their leader. This was the man who was destined to fulfill the prophecy. Best could no longer contain his joy. He began to weep. 

                                              * * *

Commander Taggard was stunned, this was the man he had been ordered to kill? He seemed so harmless, so frail. What harm could an estranged old hermit possibly do? No matter. The King’s orders were very clear. This man had to die… for the greater good. Commander Taggard raised his assault rifle and set it to semi-automatic. The man did not appear frightened, though thick rivulets of tears streamed down his face; in fact, he continued to stare at Taggard, as if to plead for him to continue. The Commander took a deep breath, trained his gun sight on the man’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. In an instant it was over, the man slumped off his chair and crumpled to the ground. A small pool of dark, viscous blood began to form around his head.

            Suddenly, gunfire erupted from outside the target building. After only a few seconds it died down and then stopped completely. Taggard quickly tried to contact the men he had stationed outside to find out what was going on. There was no response. He received a hail from Orbital Defense Post Delta’s Central Processing Interface:

“Commander, I have detected multiple intense spatial fluctuations in your immediate vicinity. Several unidentifiable craft have converged directly over your location. They seem to have been able to slip through our global defense network undetected, and are likely equipped with some method of mass transference that is as yet unknown. I am also reading that the vital functions of twenty four of your men have gone dark. They are most likely deceased.”

“Control, are you sure that they are all dead?”

“The likelihood of survival without functioning vital organs is on the order of .000001 percent. I recommend that you, as well as your remaining men, hold your position within the target building and wait for reinforcements.”

“I’m sorry Control, but I can’t do that. Those are my men that are dying up there. I have to try and get them to safety.”

            Commander Taggard began to sprint up the stairwell, closely followed by his remaining men. Whoever the enemy was, they would not get away without a fight. The Commander hurried through the decaying lobby and burst through the thin glass of the two front doors, ready to engage the enemy on sight. As he and his men exited the building they halted abruptly. In front of them was a creature the likes of which none of them had ever seen. It resembled a man, but it was massive, with luminous, almost transparent skin. There was an ethereal aura surrounding it that caused its features to constantly pulse and fluctuate. It wore only a flowing white robe. Behind it was an army of similar creatures, lined up in perfect formation. They all seemed to be staring directly at the commander. The bodies of his men lay strewn across the cracked ground like rag dolls.

            “Who are you? And what gives you the authority to attack my men without provocation!” shouted Taggard.

            The creature cocked its head in surprise and began to speak.

            “Those who are righteous have already ascended. They will come to no harm.”

            Taggard was furious.

“I said who are you? Answer me!”

            The Creature smiled and replied:

“I am one and three. I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. On the cross I died and descended to Sheol and after three days I rose again. The rapture is at an end. All ye sinners, tremble now! For the final Judgment is at hand.”

Suddenly, Commander Taggard felt a tremendous surge of heat shoot through his body. The pain was excruciating, unbearable. The agony was so intense that he barely noticed as his body was picked up and hurled through the air. After a few seconds of freefall, he crashed into the hard concrete. All of the bones in his body seemed to shatter upon impact. As he breathed his last, he felt a warm blanket of white light consume his vision and then suddenly, darkness.

Commander Taggard awoke and was surprised to find that he was completely uninjured. For a brief moment, he wondered if he was in hell, but the thought passed quickly. This could not possibly be hell, he reasoned, for he was far too happy. As he watched the sun slowly rise over the ruins of Old Chicago, he realized that for the first time in his life, he was truly content. He looked around and noticed that the rest of his men were alive as well. He got up and began to walk northward. Looking back, he noticed that his men were beginning to do the same. He didn’t know why but he knew that he had to keep walking, without pause, until he reached his destination.

                                             * * *

As Argus 82C slowly drifted away from the small, now sterile world, he felt a wave of sadness wash over his thoughts. Even after eons of serving as a universal regulator, he could not destroy a sentient race without suffering the inevitable emotional repercussions. He had watched and waited to make sure that every last one of the bipeds that had lay claim to this planet were dead, before he began the final phase of the cleansing process. After taking the time to undo their physical means of reproduction whilst they slept, manipulating the species’ brain chemistry had been exceedingly simple, and it was in this way that he had made their last days ones of unimaginable bliss. With the last of the sentient beings gone, he was obligated to finish the job, and did not hesitate as he quickly incinerated the planet’s vast multitude of lower-order life forms and vaporized the little world’s oceans. He took one last glance at the scorched brown surface of the planet, before making a quick hyperspatial jump toward the nearest galaxy. As was the case after almost every job he completed, he never wanted to come across the little world again.

 

 

 

 

by ZR92