[Prologue] The Battle of Luna.
The scene sprawled before me was awe inspiring and deadly at the same time. Twenty ONM marines were crouched behind thick titanium barriers set in a semi-circle around an escape pod bay, poised to attack anything that dares move an inch. Some cried silently, their sad murmurs heard through the over sensitive radio attached to my helmet. ‘I can’t blame you.’ I thought to myself, the situation so dire that these cries were acceptable and, somehow, comforting. It showed that the threat, those monstrosities, cannot take our most precious ability. Our humanity.
“Sierra Foxtrot 1-4 to Celestial Decent?” I said into the mic, my voice smooth and calm despite the situation.
“Affirmative 1-4 sit rep?” came the reply from the command class flagship.
“What the ETA of evac?”
“Negative, even if you survive you risk carrying the disease onboard. Stay put 1-4. We don’t have the man-power to fight them off with you so you’re to stand your ground.” The reply made me stop, my training kicking in as I almost burst at whoever was operating the radio.
“Affirmative Celestial Decent. I am cutting contact.” I then changed channels to TeamCOM. “Okay marines, we’ve been handed a shitty situation and frankly, I would rather not die.”
I could see uneasiness in their posture from my safe position next to the pods. For a second I feared there would be some sort of revolt but then I realized how inconceivably dumb that would be.
“HQ has issued the order to hold our ground and do this we shall because the idea that a bunch of zombies could kill marines is bad enough but for them to also kill the shepherds of fire is flat out stupid!” Several ooh-ras echoed through the COM. “Let’s show these maggot bags that it will take more than meat to kill the grinder!”
Suddenly, as if they were waiting like good little man-eaters, the undead broke appeared at the opposite end of the valley, the grey moon dust kicked up as they broke into a sprint, the smaller ones and crawlers being crushed by the larger ones.
“Fire!” I shouted into TeamCOM before switching to SquadCOM. “Shepards, this is Shepard 1-4, move to defensive positions around the pods. Those marines have an 85% chance of dying and I’d rather not die as well.”
Four acknowledgment lights rang into my HUD. From my sides emerged three other knights, a pink one, a red one, and a white one. They set about setting up a secondary defense.
As they got to work I looked over at the marines, my thoughts swimming with memories and battle plans.
‘What happened to us? We used to be on top of the food chain! We had Earth trembling in their primitive panties and now we’re fending off a horde of undead like panicked children!”
The Oceanic Nation was originally a cult that separated from Europe during the Renaissance. Having dreamed of a perfect nation beneath the waves Jacques Barnobeux decided to use his entire fortune and all his workers to build giant pods that, after ten years housed a sizable population and began to research more.
The age of exploration lead to the creation of submarine pods that could hide the new and developing nation. Fast forward to 1943, where the invention of the rocket engine and later the nuclear reactor saw a whole new age of exploration for the newly dubbed Oceanica National. After seeing the potential of these new technologies the council agreed to start Operation Icarus.
That brings us to the creation of the slip-space drive, a reactor that tore right into a sub-dimension. This also led to the testing of the trans-dimensional trainer. It used principals of slip-space to put people into a macro dimension. It is really complicated but it allows a soldier to train ten years in one day. All this was achieved with one thing: the mana breeder reactor. Magic is infinite and left no footprints allowing huge projects and experiments.
With the growing military population and technological mastery of Ocieanica the council became brave and sent a vote out to expose themselves to Earth. The vote came in and the citizens wanted to do it but only if they would allow a program that was previously vetoed by the council. The knight program. The program involved doing a magical DNA search to locate perfect candidates, all of them under sixteen. When the results finally arrived one of them, me, was special. I had been born on Earth but had the best DNA of the entire one hundred and fifty cadets. After the initiation all the cadets were put into the trainer for three days or thirty years.
I wasn’t though. Due to a mix-up with my questionable citizenship I was stuck in the trainer for a whole week resulting in exposure to the mana current holding the dimension together. This allowed me to train my magical ability as well and I had a lot of it.
I became the face of the knights as I conquered a huge rebellion. This was fine and dandy because while we did this, Earth was having a huge world war to gain as much knowledge of space travel as possible to compete with us. Eventually an anonymous think tank created a virus to deploy into space. That lead to the infestation of everything, Earth included.
I was awoken from my thoughts as the screams of marines killed the peace in my mind. The undead were right in front of the marines yet they held, their weapons firing into the horde tirelessly. The red and white knight moved in front of the pink knight, my girlfriend Rosslyn, and I. They started to pick off the stronger infected with sniper fire while Rosslyn and I primed the pods for launch. I am not going to turn into that.
“Ah! Fuck!” screamed the low pitched voice of the white knight, James, who had taken a giant bone-like needle right through the chest. This needle pulled into the horde, James with it. The red knight, Amaryllis tried to grab him before he went in resulting in her death as well.
Rosslyn, get to the pods!” I shouted, my feet already in motion as the undead stormed past the destroyed fortifications.
We entered our respective pods with me in the lead. Just as her door closed a crawler had managed to snake in, her screams leaving nothing to the imagination. I launched her anyway, emotion clouding my judgment as I hoped she would best it in the fight.
I noticed that her vitals went dead and that she had traces of mutagen in her blood. She was turning.
With a heavy heart I sent her pod into a nearby asteroid. I began to silently seethe, the rage causing me to do something suicidal. I activated the pods cryo system, something known for constant failure.
Goodnight Rosy
