Finis

Abandoned by their planet, rejected by other species, Humanity can only wait for insanity.

-Year 2012 AD- Strange gravitational shifts on Earth have begun to pull all but the earth to the air. Cars, people, animals, water, rocks, and even trees slowly hover to a distance of two inches above ground. Eventually small anchors must be stitched into clothing and installed into various household items, not to mention the houses themselves, to live some sort of semblance of a normal life. Humanity must face the too possible truth that they will one day live in space, and soon.  -Year 2025 AD-  Pieces of Earth are breaking off and float into space with little trouble. Space colonies are hurriedly built to house up to five hundred men, women, and children with a limited number of supplies. Due to time limits it is unknown how long the colonies are capable of sustaining life in space, so for this reason another hope is tried. Durable radios and cameras are attached to rising pieces of debris in the hopes of help from intelligent life beyond the Milky Way. Most resources, however, are devoted to building space colonies as the gravity reversal grows worse.  -Year 2030 AD- The remnants of planet Earth are left behind. It is never seen again because, one might say, there was nothing to see any longer. -Year 2044 AD- Scientists from the planet Arai detect a distress call. Instead of answers to deep-space mysteries they find starved Humans aboard their battered colonies, similar in appearance but dangerous in mind. Not long after they are taken in by the alien races of the Ivory galaxy, Mankind develops a mental illness that they come to call 'the Dorothy Syndrome'. Humans of every age become violent and obsessive in their desire to return to planet Earth, using any and all means they can think of to obtain that wish.  Because any Human may be affected at any time, the international peace-keeping organization known as the Universal Nations force all of Humanity to a space colony that they are forbidden to leave. Any who escape are hunted and returned in frozen cryogenic tubes, or otherwise killed if subduing them is too dangerous a task to take. -Year 2297 AD- The demand for euthanization is tempered by the use of Humans in the capture of 'Returners', Humans who have gone berserk due to the Dorothy Syndrome. Those who do so are simply called 'Retrievers', taking back what is the problem of Human Beings and no one else's. -Year 2559 AD- Rain dripped heavily off the edge of torn carpeting and rebar, soaking what remained of the wooden floor between them. Yamato had always liked the sight of streaming water, but his dark eyes now tracked a hulking, slimy mass that moved laboriously down the street. Countless fish from the sea had been drawn together by an electrical force that left the city dry of power. Every now and then a tiny spark made the fish fly, bouncing them off the sides of highrise buildings and leaving a dark silver trail that was barely visible in the rain. Thankfully the water erased any stench that the fish might be giving off. It helped Yamato focus on the gigantic heap with every inch it moved down the street.  As if following the rhythm of his conscious mind, electric blue streams of light pulsed slowly, steadily, through the silver chips magnetized to the temples of his head. Those were the RBC transmitters that performed four main tasks: (1) Keep constant observation of his mental status, (2) connect him to his weapon, (3) allow him to communicate with his unit during a mission, (4) boost his physical abilities, and most importantly, (5) be ready to freeze all brain functions if he showed the slightest sign of going mad. How they did all that without messing his brainwaves with their magnetism was beyond him.  It wasn't as if he was interested in the details of how technology worked. Yamato sighed softly and hoped that no one had heard that.  “ I'm in position,” he reported. “ Took you long enough,” a voice grumbled.  “ Oh, come on, Spencer. As long as he's okay it's all good! Whoo-hoo!” “ It is not all good.” “ Enough,” said a laughing voice. “ But well, Spencer's right. Be quick and efficient in every little thing you do, Yamato, especially during missions, and especially if you're the one who has to start things off like today!” Don't remind me, he wanted to say back, but that fishy bulk was not a harmless pet and this was not a game. Yamato raised the black gun in his hand and pressed a gold-colored button that caused the light of his RBC transmitters to intensify. Side pockets on his uniform trousers popped open to release geometric pieces of steel, each one given the power of flight by the luminescent lines that gleamed at every edge. They snapped into place at the muzzle of Yamato's gun and continued to grow until a long barrel had been formed. Only then did he load two striped cartridges the size of his thumb. He swung up the newly made rifle to rest one end against his shoulder. Hooo boy. Guns had always made him nervous, but tests had proved that he had a natural talent for just about anything. What his unit had needed, on the other hand, was a gunner, so a gunner he became. Yamato set himself at the torn edge of the floor and took aim at the massive bulk coming down the street. Its shapeless form reached a maximum height of twenty stories while it stretched and contracted like a worm to move.  The Universal Nations had dubbed it a 'Leviathan', the name for an ancient sea beast in a Human legend. Putting aside smell, size, and intention, this one looked pretty in the rainwater that streamed off the silvery fish scales. Hints of blue, green, and violet could be glimpsed at close range, but once the Human controller inside was provoked, that prettiness would slam into him and end his life if possible. Yamato shook off the thought and waited in silence for the Leviathan to move past. “ ...Engaging target.” The first muffled blast from his gun struck the top of the Leviathan's body and sent hundreds of fish flying. It was nothing more than a distraction to stop the slimy mass in its tracks, just for a half second if that's all he could get, but the second shot set off a chain of electrical shorts that weakened the magnetic energy holding the fish together. No one heard a roar of fury through the layers of fish and snapping electrical sparks that caused the mass to ripple like a building wave. Yamato shoved himself off the floor and whirled away at a run.  Several floors above him, Captain Liam of the Third Retriever Unit stepped off the edge of the roof with a large claymore in hand, moving oddly as if he'd tripped. The weight of the weapon plunged ahead of Liam but not from his grip, forcing him faster and harder towards the fishy mass, straight down the hole that Yamato had blasted open. The claymore ripped through cables and fishy bodies until Liam finally slowed to a stop, and he stared straight at a man huddled inside a bubble of nearly transparent energy, held together by small silver discs no bigger than a child's hand. Electricity fizzled along the surface and up the length of Liam's blade, but clever engineering kept him from being electrified. He dropped a round grenade that paused on the bubble's surface, then slipped through as he wrenched his weapon free. The extended hilt of a halberd came down right on cue to yank him back up. Liam jumped to the nearest balcony with the girl that held the halberd. They put as much distance as they could between themselves and the Leviathan before the bomb inside detonated, smashing the highrise buildings with a storm of blue-white electricity. The huge mass of fish slapped against the walls of steel and concrete before sliding down in silvery waves to the ground.  The Human that had been inside them was safely protected by the energy bubble and the slow-moving tide of fish. He flopped about inside the sphere until it rolled to a halt in the middle of the street. Almost at once he tried to lurch to his feet and swayed like a stack of wet rags more than a living creature with arms and legs.  The man muttered furiously at himself while stabbing his fingers at a dark control panel held in the crook of his elbow, then he yelped at a nearby rush of steel. A tall Human youth held a hulking, blunt-edged weapon that people called a sword but was used more like a giant hammer, and in this case wasn't used at all in either way. The youth flipped a much smaller knife in his hand and stabbed one of the discs that formed the bubble. Once a spray of yellow sparks had burst along with it, each of the discs clattered to the ground. “ Don't get in my way!” the Returner screeched. “ I want to go home! I'm going home! Let me out of here. Get me off this planet! I'm going home! You can't stop me!” He jumped at a hard prick of pain in his shoulder, dropping his chin to fix a dumb stare on a tranquilizer bullet. Upon impact it had struck out with a needle that flooded his system with drugs that made him feel...so...cold.... “ I want to go home,” he whispered. The low voice was more raw than the yells he'd belted out with the full force of his lungs. Both eyes slid back into their sockets and he collapsed to the ground. Spencer dragged the man out by a leg as Yamato fired a shot into the control panel to make sure that it was destroyed. Then they took refuge from the rain under a stone awning. “ Yamato! Spencer!” The slim girl holding a halberd of now normal length waved her free hand in their direction. Yamato peered through the blurry rain and saw a dark-haired blur that had to be their unit captain.  “ Heyyyy! Everybody alive?” Liam called out. It was always the first thing he asked whenever a mission came to an end. He was a veteran Retriever with a reputation for being protective of his unit members, which was understandable considering that all of his current members were in their mid-to-late teens. Yamato himself was fresh out of training school. When no one raised an alarm he crouched down to check the Returner for a pulse and confirm that he was unconscious. Melissa whacked Yamato squarely between the shoulder blades.  “ You did it!” she crowed, causing Yamato to flinch. The girl had been blessed, or cursed, with a cheerful spirit that had the frightening intensity of emergency searchlights, and he often froze in her presence like the proverbial deer. “ You did it, Yamato! Your first mission! Wasn't that short and easy? Even though that thing was so huge. It was awesome! Didn't I tell you that everything would be okay? It was totally okay!” “ Uh, yeah....” “ Whoa!”  Liam lurched back as the Returner lunged for his head. Bony fingers scrabbled at the RBC transmitters on the captain's head but only manage to yank out a few dark hairs.  “ Be free!” the Returner gurgled. His jubilant tone would have been hilarious if Liam wasn't in danger. The RBC transmitters would shock him into a coma if they were taken off without permission. Luckily those few dark hairs was all the Returner got before Yamato shot the man in the neck with another tranquilizer bullet, Melissa thwacked him on the side of the skull with the butt of her halberd, and Spencer more simply kicked him in the jaw. The poor Returner hacked, coughed, gagged, wheezed, groaned, squeaked, and thumped to the ground at the same time.  “ Whew,” Liam breathed. His hand went to his RBC transmitters to make sure they were secure. “ Thanks. And great reflexes! But did you all have to aim for...?” “ We've been trained to,” Spencer said flatly. “ Oh, gawd,” Melissa groaned. “ He's not a Type-2, is he?” Her eyes squeezed shut with the hope that they didn't have a Type-2 Returner at their feet. Though equally obsessed with returning Humanity to Planet Earth, Type-2 Returners could plan. They could hide. They could act. They could wait while appearing to be sane. It wasn't unusual for them to wait whole years for a plan to come together and finally let it loose over a decade later, spending countless hours and brainpower figuring out ways to sneak Humans onto a planet and convert them into Returners. Leviathans were often the result of Type-2 Returners taking the failed converts and driving them mad deliberately, after which they'd stuff the failure into a piece of alien technology to cause chaos. The details of that were one of the many things Humans weren't allowed to know.  Should all else fail they didn't hesitate to force aliens and fellow Man alike into playing along. Type-1 Returners were rabid but Type-2's were righteous. They didn't care which species was sacrificed for their great cause because it was a great cause. No sacrifice was too much for the freedom of Mankind. No sacrifice would ever be enough! But it wasn't that reason which ate Retrievers alive with the feeling of resentment. A Type-2 Returner meant more work, more trouble, longer missions, more danger, and so many protracted, righteous speeches that Retrievers would rather tear off their RBC transmitters and die. One had to admit, though, that Type-2 Returners were laughingly blind to the obvious. Sometimes the Retrievers really did laugh. The hard part was wading through their convoluted plots and monologues to actually get one's hands on them.  “ That's another one,” Liam sighed. When he turned away to report that the mission was done, Yamato turned a blank face on Melissa. “ It's been happening for a while,” she told him. “ Type-1 Returners jumping up at random and grabbing at our RBC transmitters, saying that they'd set us free. Not all of them have been doing it, but any new behavior in Returners is suspicious. Good news is that so far nothing beyond that has happened.” “ Is the syndrome...evolving?” Yamato dared to ask. Spencer let out a displeased grunt. Melissa paled a little and bit her lip without saying anything. They all feared the possibility that the Dorothy Syndrome could change and get worse. Then it wouldn't take much for the bleeding hearts at the Universal Nations to change their mind and let Humanity be killed off before they harmed the greater good. Only Liam was calm enough to give a loose smile. “ As our alien nannies would say,” he put in, “ it's not our job to figure anything out.” He glanced sideways and blinked at the sharp sheet of rain that was being blown into his eyes. Grim lines drew down their faces at the sight of a small black ship descending from the storm clouds above. As one they backed away from the Returner so the unit formed a crescent line behind him, weapons laid as they knelt on the ground and placed each hand on their doubled knees, ten fingers splayed. The ship was a slim arrowhead and a quiet one as the rainfall drowned out any sound of a gangplank being lowered from its belly. It revealed an Araian woman standing there in the white and gold uniform of the UNM, or the Universal Nations Military. The woman who looked no different than a Human female fixed them with a silent, unwavering stare, one that shone brightly in the gloom. When she narrowed them her gaze it was like being stared at by the points of two violet-colored knives. Liam elbowed Spencer in the side and forced the youth to blink. He stopped returning the Araian woman's gaze with a steady, impassive one of his own, and it hadn't made anyone happy. Yamato's gut went stiff with dread, but not a word was said from that moment on. Everything was routine. Weapons were locked away and so was the unconscious Returner. He was frozen inside a cryogenic capsule while the Retrievers were firmly belted into their cramped seats, given not the slightest space to shift about. Only then did the Araian woman use a handheld device to control the RBC transmitters on their heads. As the blue lights dimmed so did their conscious minds, and within seconds the Retrievers had drooped in sleep.  The Dorothy Syndrome could drive a Human mad at any given time, always choosing a host without discrimination. No one could emphasize that enough. For that reason Mankind's prison, the space colony Fere, was set as far from the planets of the Ivory galaxy as they could get before surveillance became impossible. The Retrievers who were the only ones allowed to leave were put to sleep during each back-and-forth journey while their transport ship was vulnerable in space. They didn't wake up until after they were already on Colony Fere, blinking bleary eyes at a too-bright, too-shiny room with white-painted walls. Dull gray lockers and changing screens did little to ease the intensity on their eyes. Resulting headaches never came as a surprise.  “ I swear they do that on purpose,” Yamato muttered. Dressed in regular clothes he threw the black and gold uniform down a laundry chute. It was a huge relief to have gone through his first mission without a scratch, but there were so many more to come. The next one could kill him, maim him, and worse, Mankind regarded the job as a betrayal. They shouldn't be hunted by the very people who should know exactly how they felt, people who were supposed to be the same as them. Retrievers were better off keeping their work a secret rather than getting stoned by a mob of their own species. The unit had to climb a tightly wound staircase and a hidden passage before they could slip into the crowds milling about a train station. No one noticed five people coming out through a door marked 'Employees Only'. Liam and Spencer disappeared elsewhere to catch a ride, but Yamato went outside the front entrance and raised a hand against the brightness of Colony Fere.  To be perfectly, utterly, thoroughly honest, the three planets of the Universal Nations had gone all-out to provide a normal place to live. Every level of the colony had been designed to hold everything a modern city of wonder should be, everything it should contain. It was a multi-layered maze of sweeping streets, sprawling parks, neatly arranged homes of apartment buildings and less visible houses, shopping districts deafening with the voices of patrons and electronic ads, schools that shattered every eardrum within range as it blared out the signal for students to be released for the day. Walls of blue-tinted crystal and white-washed stone were softened by the scattered presence of green trees, and both conspired to watch over the colony with the air of a benign goddess. People laughed, played, worked, and danced through life. Colony Fere had every sign of being paradise.  And yet Mankind was afraid beneath all that radiance. They lived in quiet desperation that they and their loved ones would be spared from the Dorothy Syndrome, the madness that had no cure or warning. On top of that (though it may be paranoia talking) the Retrievers going in and out from the colony sensed that the desire for Mankind's end was growing in the outside world. Some thought it a good enough reason to end their lives on their own time with their own hands instead of waiting for it to come. “ Everyone's a ticking time bomb,” Yamato thought out loud. In which case, what was the point of living if their only futures were death and madness? So few Humans died of simple old age nowadays, and even then they died with the flat faces of defeat. Yamato was snapped out of his reverie by a buzzing noise at his hip. With a tired sigh he pulled out his cell phone, a flat hand-sized device that he often mixed up with his cash card.  Broken white lines chased each other in a circle on the transparent blue surface, waiting to be dispersed by the touch of his thumb. When he did so the face of a boy with red-brown hair blossomed across the screen.  It was a message from Max, a fellow Retriever he'd met during training. He had no idea how it had happened but they'd struck up a relationship that labeled them as 'friends'. Quotation marks had to be included.  On one hand Yamato was tempted to make up an excuse. As a loner by habit he was more than content to be alone, and he'd just gotten back from his first mission and despite its success, he felt wrung out and dry like a used rag. On the other hand he was occasionally gripped by the desire to socialize and be with people, though the problem usually was that he had no one. Usually. Yamato shook his head and reluctantly agreed to meet up with Max and his sister.  As it turned out they were already in the Glass Garden and they waved energetically the moment he came into view. Sun or 'Sunny', as she was better known, shared the same thin body and brown-red hair as her brother Max, but she was definitely smaller, younger, and female. Once they were inside the Garden she dashed away to gawk at the sculptures, each one bigger than a compact car, and tried to eavesdrop on Max and Yamato at the same time. She knew perfectly well that they were both Retrievers.  “ So...how was it?” Max said nervously. Yamato shut his mouth on the words 'Well, how the hell did you think it would be?' and said: “ Um, not bad, I guess. It was short and everything went by the book. I was the the only one who didn't get close since I'm a long-range type.” “ Really?” “ Well, with a gun you have to.” “ Weren't you, uh, nervous or anything?” “ No idea,” he said honestly. “ I sort of ran on auto, blacking out everything but what I had to do, just point and shoot. Point and shoot. There wasn't much else for me to do anyway, so that made it easier to handle. On top of that I was the only rookie there. Everyone else acted like they'd done it a thousand times before.”  “ Oh, man,” Max groaned. “ How I'm gonna deal when it's my turn? I can't black anything out!” Yamato bit back his words again, though this time a grin was part of them.  “ Considering you're a gun-type too, why not do what I did?” he said out loud. Encouragement was more likely than laughter to boost the other boy's spirits. “ Anyway it's going to be Level 4's unit next, so it'll be a while for yours to get a mission.” “ All that waiting makes it worse!” Max cried out. “ I wish it would just happen right now so I could get it over with already!” “ Mmm....” “ Hey, you listening to me?” “ No.” “ Really?” Max said suspiciously. Yamato couldn't help but crooking a smile. “ Maybe.” “ Liar. What're you really thinking about?” “ Mmm....” Yamato watched Sunny give a start as she realized that the boys had noticed her edging closer. She whirled and pretended to be fascinated in a giant oval-shaped piece of glass. Personally Yamato didn't see what a giant glass egg was supposed to symbolize, and artwork inevitably symbolized something. “ I wonder if anyone's happy,” he muttered. “ What?” “ Just wondering.” “ Wondering what?” Max needled.  “ Just...wondering if anyone's happy enough to live,” Yamato forced himself to say. “ No matter how pretty things look, no matter what we do, all we've got is fear, insanity, and certain death long before we reach old age. If we'll never have anything more than that, what's the point of the Human species bothering to live? ...What?” Yamato saw Max staring again with wide eyes and a shell-shocked face. “ What? Oh, naw, it's just....” Max shook his head. “ I could've sworn that you were the type who didn't care much, y'know? Like you just go with the flow and don't bother getting worked up about anything. Huh.” Max suddenly burst out with a laugh. “ But you're actually the deep and sensitive type, aren't you?” “ How would I know?” Yamato snapped. He was too busy dealing with life at hand to think about what sort of person he was, and it was embarrassing to be described as deep and sensitive. “ I'm just tired of having nothing but Returners, death, and the Syndrome to think about. Haven't you ever wanted one minute, one second, where you completely forgot about it?” “ Oh, yeah,” said Max, still wiping tears of mirth from one eye. “ 'Course I have. Who hasn't around here? But y'know, it could be a lot worse.” “ What?” Yamato looked over at Max with a copy of the dumbfounded expression he'd been wearing earlier. “ How?” he almost shouted. “ Well, we could be alone for one thing,” said Max, “ but we're not, are we? I met you, you met me, and we both met a bunch of other people. Depending on who you're with, what connection you have with them, the people you're with can make things pretty worth it, at least enough to get through another day. Maybe forever. So you can meet them again.” “ Uh...I guess so,” said Yamato. Strangely that did make some sense, and stranger yet he did feel somewhat better. Did he really feel that way like Max did? The artificial sky above them switched from blue skies to flashing red lights. Thousands of panels flicked on a sign that read 'RBC Update' and displayed a countdown of five minutes, bringing all traffic came to a complete stop. A blaring alarm crushed any another sound that tried to be heard, and still Max yelled for his sister. Humans rushed to find a seat or better yet, someplace to lie down on their backs before the software update was remotely sent to their RBC transmitters. A woozy state of mind would take hold while their brainwaves adjusted to whatever it was that the Universal Nations had come up with. Humans weren't allowed to ask what 'it' was and no one bothered to after a while. Nothing painful in any way had happened yet. “ It's nice that they make sure it's painless,” Sunny tried to say brightly, doing anything to lighten the mood. The minutes before upload were always stiff with fright and tension. Being brain-controlled was never a nice thought to have. “ But I feel like a zombie for hours afterwards. It's really annoying when I've got so many things I want to do! All that time goes wasted!”  Yamato replied with a quiet shrug. There was nothing they could do about it, except find a nice soft patch of grass that would cushion their fall if they became too dizzy. The few million Humans on Colony Fere waited for the tickling sensation that signaled the start of the upload.  What they got was a ripple of energy across their temples and a loud crackling noise from their RBC transmitters. They released a man's voice so full of pride and righteousness that people cringed.  “ 'Fellow man, you few who have been chosen by Fate to lead our kind to home and freedom, listen well, for it is time. Let us break free of this painted prison and the invisible chains they have cast over us! You who have known only this false world, who have been taught too well to fear a change for the better, fear not. We shall guide your first steps and deliver you from darkness unto light. Place your faith in us and we shall not fail you. We shall wake you from this ephemeral dream!'” The short speech was followed by dumbfounded silence. What kind of ridiculous announcement was that? Yamato wasn't the only one staring at the artificial sky with a slack jaw and zero ability to form a coherent thought. They couldn't decide if those words were frightening, pitiful, or too much of a joke to be believed.  As if the speech-giver was annoyed by that reaction (or lack thereof), the artificial sky spat and sizzled with electronic snow. Darkness battled with light to unfurl lines of green text. Those with good eyes and technical know-how managed to realize that they were computer code, but everyone else was filled to the brim with panic. Any error with RBC transmitters could scramble their minds and clearly something was wrong! The worries were proven beyond a doubt seconds later when Human heads twitched or fainted on the spot. It took them a few seconds to realize that the whole colony had begun to shake. “ Yamato!”  Thick arms snaked grabbed hold of him from behind in a clumsy attempt to snap his head off. Mindless snarls of fury were louder than the alarms that blared from all sides. Without thinking he wrenched his body into a twist and swung an elbow to slam bone against bone, forcing a man to let go of him with a roar. Yamato caught sight of Max tearing his sister away from a nice old woman clawing for body parts she could not reach with her bite.  Humanity was going mad. They threw themselves at the nearest body to tear it apart, screeching out war cries and not caring if they hit a living creature or a chunk of rock. Even a child cursed out loud as he beat at the object of his rage with balled-up fists. Others chomped, kicked, flailed, or swung makeshift weapons while losing their balance because the colony wouldn't stay still. Those who failed to go berserk were quick to stop with the screaming and get on with hiding. In their confusion few were able to fight back.  Then the colony shifted to one side and Mankind was heaved over as one. Yamato struck the wall of a raised flowerbed right before he saw a wave of Human bodies speeding his way from above. In a panic he scrabbled over the stone wall until he flipped over and was hanging from the edge by the fingertips. Most of the bodies bounced off the flowerbed and over his head, but Yamato grit his teeth and hung on as some ricocheted directly off him instead. The screams that he heard were quick to fall away with the people who made them, but they were easier to hear than the sharp crash of glass and wood, the dull smack of flesh against steel, drowned out by the alarms before they could reach Human ears.  Don't let go! The colony had begun to increase the power of its vibrations with every second. His brain was so rattled that dizziness and nausea were creeping in over his senses. The joints and tendons of his hands felt as though they were about to snap apart. He was going to black out any second now. If Yamato didn't know any better he could swear that the colony was moving! Except that would be impossible. As far as he knew the colony had no capability of movement. The Universal Nations hadn't wanted to risk the chance of Humans, whether they be Returners or not, taking control of Colony Fere and turning it into a mobile base. They made sure of it by keeping watch from both a distance and from a sleek silver column that ran through the center of the colony. Yamato glanced at it before sweeping his gaze around and trying to focus on faces. “ Max? Max!” he called out. “ Sunny! ...Damn it!” Neither his friend nor Sunny were in sight, and he couldn't spend time looking for them either, not if he could somehow stop whatever was happening to them. Yamato tried to shove the pain and worry from his mind as he pulled himself up and climbed the flowerbed like a ladder, then jumped off it to a nearby streetlamp. Crossing the street became easier once the colony shifted the other way, tilting itself almost upright, but when Yamato moved he had to run on the sides of his feet. He went too fast for his body to lose balance because of the constant tremors.  Yamato arrived at the Pillar sooner than he'd expected. Scrambling up a tree, he threw his body through a window and crashed into a rounded hallway. He was dizzy and stinging from the cuts of broken glass on his bare arms, but he stood on his feet at once. Yamato waited seconds for the alien soldiers that would react none too nicely for his unapproved entrance. They never came. Where are they? He lurched to the nearest door and smashed an elbow into the security panel beside it. When the door swished open Yamato almost groaned at how easy it was to break into these so-called high-tech rooms, and from the looks of it he'd found some kind of surveillance chamber. He stumbled towards the bank of monitors on one wall. They were giving him all sorts of camera angles on the chaos taking place throughout the colony.  Yamato looked down in vain at the holographic keyboard flickering at waist level in front of him. They were labeled with alien characters and he didn't know any! There wasn't a microphone or emergency switch of any kind either. How did the UNM soldiers communicate? Where were they? He had to find such a person. With all their paranoia it was impossible that they had abandoned the colony. Yamato turned as the door swished open a second time.  They were bodies dressed in the white and gold uniforms of the Universal Nations Military. Yamato automatically braced himself for a fight, knowing that aliens wouldn't listen to him right away, but then he froze at the sight of ears on the men. He had seen for himself that alien men either had different-shaped ears or lacked ears altogether. These soldiers had the curved, shell-shaped ears of Humans.  “ Returners?” They would be shying away from UNM uniforms instead of wearing them if they weren't.  “ Is he one of us?” asked a man clinging to the doorway. “ Or is he one of the Lost?” “ 'Lost?'” Yamato repeated. That was Returner slang for Humans with a sane mind, people who didn't have the same murderous obsession as Returners did. He lost his temper. “ I'm not lost but we're going to be! Whatever you've done has to stop right now!”  “ Never,” a man drawled. Yamato could hear him with surprising clarity despite the rumble of the colony. “ This is necessary to wake Mankind from the dream world that our alien oppressors have trapped us in. This is all for your sake!” “ I don't care if you're right or wrong. Just stop it! People are killing each other out there!”  “ He is most definitely Lost,” another man sighed.  “ Oh, forget it,” Yamato muttered. He had forgotten Dealing With Returners 101: Talking did not work with them except to create more nonsensical talk. It was better to knock them out now and see if he found anything that could stop the colony's madness.  As if they heard him the two Returners already through the door moved forward. Yamato whirled and smacked the heel of his foot against one head, knocking it into the other. He shoved both bodies so they tumbled against the Returners behind them and became stuck in the doorway. Yamato rammed his shoulder against the lot so they fell on top of each other in the corridor. He grabbed hold of the nearest body long enough to rip from a gun from its holster and slam the butt end of it into the Returner's head. There was no time to check if the gun was loaded with tranquilizers. Probably not. A Returner had gotten his hands on it, after all, and they were not known for their mercy.  “ You fool! Do you realize what you're doing?” “ Why are you going against us? We're not free!” “ You can't possibly want to stay blinded like this!” “ I prefer to be alive to think about it first,” he snapped. “ And it's not like you have the right to decide life and death for all us just because you think you know better!” Yamato fired one bullet for each knee, effectively crippling each of the men. Then he moved on to another door, another room, and this one was slightly different. Two walls were lined with wide-screen monitors this time, one of them focused on the going-ons of the colony and the other displaying some sort of status screen. Yamato fought against a growing headache as he tried to figure out what it meant. At best he could only say that a tiny green star was heading towards a bigger green circle tucked into one corner of the screen.  He jumped at the sound of shattering glass. It came from outside the door. Gun raised, Yamato opened it and nearly put a bullet into a familiar dusky-skinned face.  “ Spencer?” he gasped. “ Newbie?” The youth threw himself upright and nearly swayed. From the looks of it he'd done the same thing as Yamato and entered the Pillar through a window.  “ What're you doing here?” said Yamato. He'd seen Spencer and Liam leave through the station.  “ My train was delayed. Never left the station,” Spencer said shortly. “ What's going on? Where are the UNM soldiers?” “ I don't know, but there are Returners down there.” “ What?” Spencer shouted. “ I crippled them,” said Yamato, “ so they're not a problem.” He spun back into the room with the monitor-lined walls and once again fixed on the one with the moving green star. That couldn't possibly be Colony Fere.  “ It's Colony Fere,” said Spencer, peering at the same screen over his shoulder. “ What?” Yamato stopped turning his head before he cracked it against Spencer's. “ How do you know?” “ Those marks,” said Spencer, touching the screen. “ I've seen them enough times before. They're some alien talk for 'Colony Fere'. But what's that other thing?” “ You mean the colony's moving? Impossible!” Yamato suddenly coughed and wiped at a thin sheen of sweat covering his forehead. Temperatures were rising all over the colony. “ First the Returners somehow hacked an RBC update, it's ridiculously easy to break into the Pillar, and now the colony's actually mobile? Those things aren't supposed to be possible!” “ Do you honestly think that everything we're told is true?” Spencer shot back. “ Or that they tell us everything in the first place? You gotta allow for that kinda thing!”  True. When it came down to the cold hard truth, there wasn't a single Human who really knew anything beyond what they were told and what they assumed. If their species was truly a plague, if their problems were truly so bad when their needs were catered to by the rest of the galaxy, if being provided for was worth knowing the most basic things outside their prison home, of being able to travel without being knocked out and monitored, if it was worth true freedom, if they should just die, they didn't know the answers to any of that. They didn't know a thing.  And, well, that's just how things were.  “ But the UN is just so paranoid,” Yamato muttered. A terrifying thought struck him right then. The growing heat, shaking, and the difficulty he had breathing usually described someone's entry into a planet's airspace from outer space. Impossible! They were too far away from any planet to have reached it in a mere hour or less...weren't they? Yamato didn't know for sure and no one else would. They'd have to leave the colony to find the answer themselves and no one was allowed to leave. What if Colony Fere had been right next to one of the Ivory planets all along?  They'd crash. Or burn on impact with the planet surface. Or splash into the ocean and drown. Perhaps by some miracle the colony would survive underwater. A part of Yamato frantically said no, he shouldn't hope for something so unlikely. They were going to die. They were all going to die. He and others had expected this for so long, only wondering how exactly how it would happen, and yet.... “ How do we stop the colony?” “ As if I'd know,” said Spencer, almost sounding weary. He looked around the room and grit his teeth. “ I can't understand any of this stuff. They make sure of that--” The vibrations of the colony became too violent to stand. Yamato and Spencer were thrown against the wall and kept there by an invisible force that rattled everything beneath their skin. The powerful ache in Yamato's head dulled to a distant pounding and started to float away from him.  We always knew we weren't going to get a natural death and since that was the case it didn't matter how we died, so why...? Suddenly he was furious and he didn't know why. The question of why this, why that, did Humans really deserve to live like this, or was it more merciful to simply kill them all, was driving Yamato insane. None of it seemed to matter right at the moment! A sharp burst of frustration gave him the strength to slid his right arm down the wall until it was pressed against his leg. It was easier to shift his left arm towards the right, and more difficult to work his fingers against the switch and dial on the side of the gun still gripped in his hand. Pinned to the wall beside him, Spencer could do nothing more than watch through one stupefied, half-opened eye.  They were falling. Colony Fere was plummeting through some planet's atmosphere. They were being pulled in. If he simply assumed that they were falling towards a hard surface because of gravity, Yamato could use a trick he'd learned in Retriever training and cushion their landing with a blast of his own. The question was how close were they to this hard surface and if he could stay conscious until the right moment, if the gun was strong enough and if they'd survive a blast up close, or more importantly, if they'd survive the massive impact of a space colony crashing somewhere, anywhere! Dark clouds were gathering before his eyes and his lungs were desperate to burst open. Yamato was sure if he could even raise the gun at the far wall in time. The combined strength of both arms didn't seem to be enough.  “ Depending on who you're with, what connection you have with them, the people you're with can make things pretty worth it, at least enough to get through another day. Maybe forever. So you can meet them again.” Was that why he was making this very likely futile effort? Yamato was aware of a building rage and confusion against the people who had caused this whole event to take place and their bone-deep certainty that it was the right thing to do. He didn't think about Max or Spencer or anyone else he'd spent time with during his life. He only thought that it'd be nice to live long enough to decide those things on his own because it'd be pretty nice if he did have the kind of people that Max talked about. Then going through this wouldn't be so bad. A few things would make sense, and a few things wouldn't matter even if they got worse.  Yamato wondered about it long before a tremendous crash shook a portion of land and sea with fire.

Reviews

[Warrior]

Great story telling. This did justice in the realm of getting the message across. Great message.