The Traveler

After shooting their way through a couple hundred insects, they rid the ship of them all and recover the item requested. One member has to switch to a sidearm MTP while carrying the briefcase.

Lieutenant Travis and his squad escort the briefcase back and return it via mini trans-portal on their shuttle before heading back out, sending it away to check in with them a half-hour later.

Returning to the downed, heavily damaged flagship, the squad quickly spot a trail leading away from the site to some jagged peaks in the distance. Following the drag trail and seeing some traces of blood on the ground into some tunnels, they find themselves in a large chamber filled with glowing egg sacks.

He looks at the egg sacks with disgust and softly says, "Burn them all." and uses his flamethrower to destroy the life forms within.

Deep inside the central hive, the insectoid's queen howls in pain as she feels a large clutch of eggs being burned alive. Using some of her magic, she then directs a phantom appearance of herself into the cavern and looks at the humans with anger and sadness bellowing loudly, "I AM THE QUEEN, AND THOSE ARE MY UNHATCHED YOUNG YOU ARE DESTROYING! I COMMAND YOU TO STOP IMMEDIATELY! YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!"

Travis looks up at the transparent form of a tall, slender black creature having six legs and two pairs of arms with a segmented body having an enormous thorax hanging near the ground and huffs saying, "We're winning a fucking war is what we're doing, insect lady."

Shocked by his reply, tears trail down her chitin-clad cheeks as she bellows again, "YES, BUT YOU ARE DOING IT IN THE MOST HORRID WAY! YOU ARE SLAUGHTERING INNOCENT CHILDREN THAT HAVE NOT EVEN DRAWN THEIR FIRST BREATH! STOP PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU!"

He looks down as the others continue to destroy the eggs, running a finger along the bottom edge of his helmet for a moment asking, "What will you do for us if we do stop destroying these things?"

A glimmer of hope appears in her heart as she then replies in a softer tone, "I-I will surrender and never trouble you humans ever again."

Travis considers the offer for a moment before shaking his head and says, "Not good enough, return the humans that you have stolen...ALL OF THEM OR WE WILL FIGHT YOU TO EXTINCTION."

The Queen sighs heavily and then makes a gesture with one of her arms, saying, "Very well...return the breeders we have abducted."

Looking to his squad, he calls out, "Ceasefire!" and watches as they all stop immediately and shoulder their MTRs. Moments later, a cacophony of insects walking on stone reach his ears as he sees both female and male humans being brought or carried up on the backs of the four-legged warriors. Using his scanner to identify them, he doesn't find his sister among them until he sees her being carried on the back of the last four-legged soldier. Noticing that they don't have spacesuits on, he asks, "How are they still alive? There is no oxygen on this planet."

She smirks and then says, "It is a simple barrier upheld by my magic that creates breathable oxygen, which you humans have not yet discovered."

Travis hurries to her side and looks her over to see that she has blood running down her legs, making him lift her skirt a little to see that she just has a cut on the inside of her thigh, saying, "I'm glad to see that you are in one piece at least."

Tracy looks up at him with slightly deadened eyes that brighten back up with recognition as she hastily throws her arms around him saying in an overjoyed tone, "Oh god, I so hoped that you would come rescue me someday!" She then plants her lips on his visor and kisses her half-brother boyfriend affectionately for a moment before pulling away and saying, "My knight in shining armor..."

With his lover returned to him, he sighs with relief and strokes her hair saying, "We're going to get you all out of here, so stay strong." He then looks to the queen and says, "I am going to contact a ship to transport these humans to safety, permit our ship to pass through your barrier."

The queen waves her claw, feeling humiliated at having to surrender to save their race from extinction saying, "It is done, now call forth your ships to take your people away."

Travis touches the communicator on his helmet and says, "Actual, this is Hunter Squad, over."

His commander quickly responds, saying, "This is actual, go ahead Hunter, over."

He then looks over the count of survivors and says, "I have recovered numerous survivors from the downed ship and others that were taken from Earth. Some are in bad shape and need medical attention, we will be sending them back via Mini Trans. Please prepare to receive many survivors, over."

Shocked, the commander then asks, "Just how did you accomplish such a feat, what on Earth did you do?"

The lt then shrugs his shoulders and says, "The usual, my team and I went in guns blazing and were making a nice bonfire when we encountered a shadow form of the queen, so after a brief bout of negotiating...I managed to get her to offer up a surrender and a promise that she will leave Earth and the human race alone as well as returning the humans she stole from Earth previously, over."

Horrified at hearing what he did, the commander shouts, "HOW DARE YOU BEHAVE SO BARBARICALLY TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS! THERE ARE RULES TO FOLLOW WHEN FIGHTING A WAR, OVER!"

He looks away and says, "These creatures are not human, so the rules do not apply to them. Those are the very words that you yourself made me remember. Commencing rescue operations, Hunter Squad out."

The commander sinks in her chair as she remembers what she told him over and over, the day her entire family was slaughtered in front of her as her mood sours, making her think, 'I never knew that my actions would come back to haunt me like this...' and presses her communicator button saying in a monotone voice, "Affirmative Hunter Squad, Actual out." then sucks up her building grief and heads out to prepare to receive survivors.

After radioing their location to the shuttle, Travis uses a new development his AI came up with to carve a large enough hole in the ceiling to allow the ship to fit through.

Tracy looks at his MTR with jealousy and says, "You're going to have to share your developments with me when all this is over, mister!"

With his sister in his arms, he watches the survivors make their way through the portal until the very last human walks through it, saying, "You go on through, I will be on my way back once the negotiations are finalized."

Returning to her own two legs, she takes her lover's face into her hands, saying, "They had every opportunity to ravage my body, but they didn't...at her command. Don't be too harsh on them, okay sweetie?"

Sighing at her touch, Travis grumbles and nods, saying, "As you wish, though they will still pay a heavy price for taking you and how they treated the other humans."

Letting out a relenting sigh, she drops one hand and caresses his cheek, pleading, "Okay, just don't exterminate their entire race...you are not a monster despite what others say."

Nodding and caressing her cheek in return, he says, "I'll listen because you asked me so nicely."

Pulling her hand away and stepping back, she smiles and says, "That's my sweetheart, I shall be seeing you soon." Turning around and making her way towards the mini transportal, she stops and looks back once more to blow him a kiss before going through the portal.

With Travis's lover free and secure, he turns around and holds his MTR in both hands and looks up at the Queens image, saying, "Although I am glad to see my sister unharmed and untouched by your kind's chitinous appendages, I am going to ensure that you all learn a valuable lesson before letting you go."

Not liking how that was worded, she cocks her angular head and crosses her arms, asking, "And just what might that be?"

With his squad at his side, he looks up at the reflection and says in a cold tone, "Come here so that I can tell it to your hideous face, Bug Queen. Fear not, for I promise you that neither my squad or I will attack you."

It takes her a few minutes to consider whether to listen to his request, but curiosity gets the better of her as she huffs in annoyance, saying, "Very well, human, I shall entertain your request, but keep in mind that I could kill you all in the blink of an eye with a single spell." Dismissing her projection, she then proceeds to head down the tunnel big enough to accommodate her size.

It takes twenty minutes for the queen to arrive at the entrance of the tunnel with her royal guard as Travis notices how massive the queen is when he hears her formally announce herself as Queen Cryxala of the Changelings. A flash of green then surrounds her massive body for a moment, then leaves her looking like a disturbing combination between insect and horse when he asks, "What is with your new look?"

With a higher-pitched chuckle, she says, "This is how I normally appear to my loyal subjects, human, so be grateful that I chose to grace you with it. Now tell me what we need to learn so we can move on to a new place."

Nodding his head, he says, "Very well." and reloads his weapon, continuing, "I want you to pick ten of your absolute best from each caste of your race and flee. You need to think on the terrible things you have done to other races to expand your own, think about the repercussions that will come if you should ever cause harm to another. If I ever hear about another race suffering attacks from your race, I will hunt you all down and exterminate every one of you to finish the job."

Shivering in arousal at the threat, she starts to quickly tremble in fear as her mind finds that there is another, unspoken message in those words and asks, "What shall become of the rest of my colony if I should do that?"

With a cold, remorseless tone, Travis says, "They shall be left behind to pay the blood tax for attacking the human race."

Anger rises within her at hearing the bloodthirsty demand and then cries out with rage, "I'D RATHER DIE THAN LET MY SUBJECTS BE SLAUGHTERED LIKE CATTLE!" then shifts into her battle form and raises her arm scythes while charging towards the human squad, giving her subjects the command to kill these pathetic humans.

Using his scatter blaster to try to reduce the queen's threat to his squad and him, he manages to blow one off at her torso as he then rolls out of the way of her charge while his squad opens fire on the insects swarming towards them with their most destructive weapons.

Explosions fill the chamber as the queen watches her subjects and the eggs get blown apart mercilessly, noticing from the corner of her eye that ten warriors, ten caretakers, and ten infiltrators make their way into the queen's chambers. Surprised to see her subjects doing so without her orders, she charges at the lead human a few more times until her last arm is blown off.

The fight soon runs out of the queen as several holes in her body ooze out green blood when he sees her green fire return her to her original hybrid horse form, saying, "Stubborn right to the end, aren't you?"

With a light chuckle, she coughs up blood and smiles, saying, "Such is the fate of a queen when a new hive must be created...the duty shall fall to my daughter to lead the swarm. I am just glad that I shall be able to assist her on her journey, through the blood memories of past queens."

Travis cocks his head at her words curiously, hearing her let out a final breath as the shooting continues around him. A bright flash above him catches his eye as he looks up to see a massive orb fly through the sky inside a green fire, saying, "Even though you can't hear me, my word to you still stands." Crouching down to close her eyes with his fingers, he slides her eyelids down before returning to his feet, taking his weapon into both hands once more and shouting, "KILL 'EM ALL!"

Once the fighting ceases, his squad returns to the ship and watches him bring out a few large boxes and start setting some strange device up, when one of them asks in a female voice, "What are you doing with that device, Sir?"

Turning his head to the others, he says, "Just bringing the events on this world to a close and setting up a pretty light show to celebrate our victory, nothing more."

With the device set up, Lt Travis returns to his ship as the device counts down from five minutes and takes off swiftly. Getting a safe distance away while keeping track of time, he pulls the ship to a stop and turns the ship to face the planet. Getting a hovering recon drone ready, he accesses the feed and starts the recording while typing a message across it, reading: {THE WAR BETWEEN THE BUGS HAVE ENDED! PREPARE TO WITNESS A FINAL VICTORY!}

After setting up a live stream, he activates the camera to record everything seen from his cockpit with only the backs of his and his copilot's helmets in view on the far left and right of the screen.

Once the stream goes live across every TV station and broadcasting network, citizens stop what their doing, be it driving their vehicle somewhere, doing work outside, or even sitting in an office and turn their attention to the video screen closest to them. Able to see the inside of an unknown hauler and the backs of the pilot's and copilot's helmets, they realize that they are both military when the message moves to the bottom of the screen and shrinks down in size. As a strange, dark grey planet comes into view, they shift their attention to the planet and wonder what is going to happen. The number ten appears across the center of the screen in big red digits and begins to count down with every second that passes, then disappears shortly after reaching one to reveal the planet center view when a brief white flash comes from the planet's surface near the center. Only a few moments pass when yellow and blue cracks spiderweb out from where the flash originated and rapidly spread out across the planet, with numerous geysers appearing across the whole surface and spewing flames varying between different colors. The flames coming from each geyser is different, being blue, white, or orange. The whole planet watches as smaller cracks spiderweb from the others as a massive crack splits the planet into two pieces until a blinding bluish purple flash causes the screen to go completely white for a split second, but the AI swiftly adjusts the video for human eyes to reveal the planet being blown apart by a massive explosion. The debris is reduced to dust as the outward explosion ends, but it all starts to get drawn back into the center of the planet.

Several minutes pass by until the remains of the planet disappear into the newly formed black hole and leaves only darkness behind with bits of the cockpit at the edges of the screen and the backs of the military helmets visible when a caption flashes across the screen, reading {LIVE FEED BROUGHT TO YOU BY...THE TRAVELLER. ALL HAIL WORLD PEACE!}

Watching the video stream come to an end with a shocked speechless expression on her face, she sees the pilot's uniform in the reflection in one of the gauges. Anger rising up within her after witnessing what he just did to the planet and the entire race causes her fists to clench in rage when she gets a call on her personal phone, hearing the voice belonging to the president herself say, "You know what must be done now, right, Commander?"

Her rage falters for a moment as she answers with a cold tone, "Yes, ma'am. I will do it myself, to ensure peace throughout the world."

Brief time skip

After returning home to Earth, Travis is dishonorably discharged from the military and thrown into a federal prison to serve ten years for his war crimes against the insects.

Unable to retrieve the blueprints or any data regarding the wmd used on the planet, the military rescind every piloting license he holds and puts him on every no-fly list across the planet.

Once released, Travis continues living with his sister until she resigns from the military and picks up a career flying passengers to other planets.

Several years later, the virus spreads from A.T.L.A.S. to several of the civilian drones and takes over their operating systems, causing war to break out between the humans and the machines. As a couple years pass, the humans find themselves on the losing side of the war when Travis and his sister are called back into service to help save mankind from extinction.

Managing to help the humans defeat the drones and drive them off the planet in their ships, Travis and his sister return to their normal life when he receives a full pardon and reclaims the piloting licenses he once held. Although he is clear to fly and haul cargo, he helps bring the black market into outer space and secretly sets up mobile trading posts with the help of his AI Evette and his sister's AI Giles.

A few years turn into a few decades as Earth's atmosphere begins to turn against the humans, causing them to construct Space Stations to live on when massive worm-like creatures awaken deep within the earth. It takes quite an effort to bring one of the worm-like creatures down, and once the scientists study it, they discover that it is far older than even the dinosaurs that once roamed the planet before humans and leave the dying planet to them to go find a home somewhere else.

Making several advances in exploration technology over a couple decades, mankind attempts to settle on a few planets with a sufficient atmosphere. Occasionally, they have violent encounter with a group of hostile drones as they make a living on their planets.

End of Time skip

After making another successful delivery, Tracy gets a notification on her suit's comms channel and brings up the window on the built-in comm band at the end of her exosuit's right arm. Opening the notification, she reads through the attached message and automatically receives a set of coordinates her AI plots into her ship's navigational system. Unsure whether she should believe it, she asks Giles, "This message is really suspicious, what are your thoughts about it Giles?"

Appearing as a mini hologram on the hauler's dash, the AI crosses his arms behind his back, saying, "I can assure you that it is a genuine message and not a scam from the encoding, shall we make our way there, posthaste?"

Shaking her head, she says, "Not yet, I must contact my husband and find out if he received anything?" Just then, she receives a call from him and answers, "Speak of the devil... Hey hun, did you receive any notification about gifts being ready for pickup?"

Surprised, Travis chuckles and says, "I was going to ask you the very same thing dear, but yeah I did. I take it you got the same coordinates that I did that lead to an defunct military defense base called NORAD?"

Checking the coordinates herself on the console, Tracy responds, "I did, do you want to warp to the Milky Way and meet on the surface, or do you want to go together?"

Wanting to spend a little time with her, he says, "I will meet you outside of Earth's orbit in thirty minutes, I have to drop something off first at Linas Vegari."

Knowing that there is a black market hub on that moon, she huffs and says, "Just be damn careful when you're traveling there, alright? There are pirates that love to shoot and loot, leaving your body for the wildlife."

Grinning, Travis chuckles and say, "Worry not, for I also shoot and loot, though I do eventually report finding them. No one will ever get the best of me, for I am the Grandfather of the Black Market baby, and am king of the pirate world."

Letting out a defeated sigh, Tracy shakes her head, saying, "Alright, but keep that head of yours on a swivel, mister. If anything happens Evette, I want you to ensure that he makes it back to me before his life is in danger."

After his AI affirms his wife's request, he feels betrayed and huffs, saying, "You always have to put up a safety net under me, don't you dear."

Chuckling in brief amusement, she warns him, saying, "Don't make me bring out the training wheels or I might just ground your sexy pirate butt." Moments later, the sounds of battle between ships comes over the speaker followed shortly by a loud chink noise and then a warning buzzer.

Cussing the bastards out for taking out the navigational system, Travis says, "Will you bastards stop taking out my nav system, it's a real pain to find material to repair that if I don't have any on hand!" Executing a tight, hairpin turn to get behind one of the fighters, he selects his infra-knife accelerator and lines up for a shot. Pulling the trigger after following him through a turn, he says, "Eat some phosphorous asshole!" Once the ship's shield is down, he quickly switches to rockets, saying, "I'll wave at you as I pass the scrapyard bitch!" Then turns and goes after another pirate ship when his shield takes a few hits.

Shaking her head at hearing the words coming from her husband's mouth, Tracy waits for the fight to end, saying, "I can't believe you're still taking on fighters in that fat-ass hauler of yours."

Evading fire from another fighter while firing rockets at another vulnerable ship, he says, "She's not fat, she's just big-boned and has lots of cargo space!" and watches the ship explode after being hit by the three rocket salvo, saying, "Later loser, better go back to flying school!"

Suffering through the cussing and the trash-talking of her husband, she says, "I look forward to when we go back to exploring worlds and getting him away from picking fights with the rogue drones and pirates...perhaps then we could start expanding our family."

Hearing his wife's voice mumble something at the end, Travis says, "So do I dear, all this fighting gets old after a little while. But did you say something at the end there? I didn't quite hear it."

Chuckling and blushing, she responds, "Pay it no mind, I was just talking to myself is all. Anyway, make sure that you make it to orbit, alright dear?"

Weaving left and right to dodge the photon cannons, he says, "I will, don't worry sugarbear, semper fi." then blows a kiss to her through the call.

Smiling like a fool at hearing that, she blows a kiss back, saying, "Thank you knothead, semper fi. I'll be waiting." then ends the call and prepares to take off from the landing pad, saying, "I'm going to take a short nap after leaving the atmosphere, Giles, so please let me know when my hubby and Evette arrive?"

Taking over flying, Giles speaks over her communicator, saying, "It would be my pleasure, miss. I will notify you if anything unusual happens in the meantime."

Once she takes off and flies into the sky and past the atmosphere, she throttles back a bit and says, "Alright Giles, she's all yours now, thank you so much for taking over for me after that long flight." Moving her hand to her seat's controls, she reclines back and straps herself down for the warp back to the Milky Way galaxy.

Glad to assist, the AI increases the throttle to full and waits for her to finish strapping down, then says, "Initiating warp in 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1..."