darrekosh

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“In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.”

— Croesus, quoted by Herodotus in The Histories, Earth Wars Anthology

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Joss slipped his hands into his pockets as he made his way down the polished stone steps outside Royal Rheidenas Academy’s northern wing, the last of the orange daylight cutting long shadows of trees and hedges across the checkered granite and marble. The day had been a full one. Unity’s maneuvering had mentally overshadowed any progress the team had made. The city buzzed quietly around him, the whir of airships punctuated by a distant announcement from across the campus. As he picked up speed, leisurely jogging, the noise reduced to a barely registered clamor over the low thrum in his ears. 

He turned, detouring from his usual route home. The district around the academy was filled with old money in generational buildings, and new structures built by off-world investors and diplomats. This led to a beautiful menagerie of buildings in competing styles lined up along the streets surrounding the campus. He’d been eyeing the new building sites and checking on the progress of the masons, looking for an opportunity to explore.

Ever since he was a child, he’d loved to be up high, closer to the clouds. Then, his dreams were of being a pilot and a fighter, fierce and free like in the tribal stories his mother had read to him when he was younger. She was Nekadian, a somewhat distant group of starsystems and territories with a large population and many varied cultures. The Nekadians were very similar to a standard human, except for their subtle and sporadic layer of deep, hidden scales, affording them significant toughness wherever grown. Typically their tone was dark and warm, matching the tone of their bearer’s skin. The only child to a military man and a bounty hunter, he’d been given quite an impressive hybrid education from both his parent’s backgrounds. He reflected on how much he had changed since having those childish dreams. For now though, he still wanted to climb ever higher, as close to the sky as he could be.

He ducked into the alley and slipped along the wall, keeping to the shadows as he’d been taught, until he could peek through the scouted hole in the fence at his target. The crews had already packed up for the day, leaving very little besides the containers of larger equipment to one side of the building’s unfinished entrance. As he climbed the fence and dropped to the ground, he noticed the front doors still hadn’t been installed, and they had already begun disassembly of the fence around the site as their more valuable equipment had been retrieved. 

“Finally. One more day and I’d probably have to pick the lock.”

Inside the structure on the far wall he saw an access ladder within an empty elevator shaft. 

“Bingo.”

He’d been itching to climb the building ever since he’d noticed the catwalk at the top, and the ladder would make that much simpler he hoped. 

“Seems sturdy enough,” he thought, approaching the steel ladder and trying to rattle it. Looking up, the tight pinhole view of passing clouds in the sky called to him. Securing his bag over a shoulder, he began his ascent to the top far above.

The climb was long, metal rungs groaning slightly under his weight as he ascended hand after hand up the tower. By the time he reached the upper catwalks, the wind had picked up, carrying the sharp scent of copper and ozone up from below.

He stepped carefully along the narrow ledge toward the bricklayer’s platform, settling on the grated edge with his legs hanging over the side. The view was worth it. The sun hovered low over the mountain ridge, painting the sky in layers of amber and rose-gold, its light catching on the spires of Rheidenas like molten glass.

He had been considering Liora’s words during the climb. The tension within the team over their direction made him uncomfortable, but Lily had been there to act as the tie breaker. He appreciated the insight of Reid and Haru, and their care for the project. However, neither of them would argue with Lillian when it came to first-hand experience with Unity sponsorship. 

“We don’t need people controlling the team,” he thought, “All we’re missing is a source for Adeios. We’re advancing the multistream function day by day. Protecting the sample and prototype is all we can do for now while we search.”

He surveyed the busy streets below, a light evening breeze flutting the flags and canopies throughout the city. People scurried far below like swarms of colorful ants. He even saw a couple distant city patrols atop their feline mounts, barely visible but unmistakable for what they were. 

“I wish she was here with me. She’d love to paint this.”

He surveyed the city, watching the now small smoke stacks of locomotives and railcarts trail beyond the visible rooftops, but soon rapid movement in the distance caught his eye.

From the horizon beyond the sprawl of industrial depots and research districts, a dozen aircraft rose in synchronized formation. Sleek, sharp-winged vessels with blue-tinged afterburn ignitions shimmered in the twilight, cutting through the sky in a tight procession leaving a trail of color distortion. 

“Flyers!” he thought with alarm. 

The silhouettes were unmistakable. In recent years the Royal Rheidenas Air Force had been subject to a quiet period, in direct contrast with its history. Rheidella, the homeworld of the Royal Rheidenas Protectorate, had largely shielded the young nation in its early development. With a large atmosphere and quiet neighboring planets, civilization prospered. Beyond the typical infighting found in any human-based starnation, the early kingdoms had fought for superiority across the larger continents. Armies had risen and developed weapons and technology to better resist outside hostility and protect their citizens. Now, centuries later, the crimson flag of the Rheiden monarchs flew high on every continent. With few exceptions and pockets of resistance, Rheidella had been largely quiet for decades, and now Joss wondered whether new rumors had held some truth.

Leaning forward a bit, he steadied himself on the rough metal beam at his side and narrowed his eyes as he followed their northward veering arc. He counted more joining them from parallel launch platforms further south, forming up around a much larger shape rising up as if a massive arrowhead aimed at the sun, all merging into a single formation headed in the direction of the mountains. 

He’d heard the whispers over the last month, quickly censored headlines and overheard snippets of discussion among Ventures students. In the College of Ventures, students underwent rigorous cross-disciplinary training in piloting, mechanics, and tactical combat, preparing them for direct recruitment into the Royal Rheidenas Protectorate’s law enforcement and military divisions as cadets. As part of their curriculum, cadets participated in ride-alongs, joint exercises, and maintenance rotations with active military units in cooperation with the Training Division for each of the branches, known as the Sigma Divisions, giving them first-hand exposure to operational protocols as they were assessed for placement within the military. 

Of course, he’d heard more just than that at home. When Joss was young, his father had loped through the door dozens of times after long patrols, exhausted, but never too much so to not sweep him up as he ran to greet him. A pale and freckled man with a short military haircut that fought back a natural cowlick within the thick reddish hair. As he aged he nursed a mustache into being, which had become an orange bushy monster in his older years. His seniority as a pilot of the Iron Horizon, a section of the Heavy Division of the Air Force, allowed him to keep his style. The Horizon was legendary for their reliability. They were not simple personnel transports as most of the public assumed, but rather were the armed units deployed for larger operations, carrying deadly cargo. A few exceptional pilots had been allowed exceptions in turn when it came to personal habits and idiosyncrasies.

The reliability of the section reflected well on his father, and while Richter Mayflower was not a household name, he found purpose in his work. Solid and stocky, he would roughhouse with his son with encouragement from his mother. When they weren’t playing, Richter would tell stories of his training days and would tell about his new experiences in hushed tones after swearing him to secrecy. Nowadays, Joss often found him puffing on his pipe by the fireplace, gossiping with his mother. He mostly trained the new pilots from the academy now. The recent months had been full of stories passed on from the coastal patrols in the north. There was an odd disappearance of a tanker off the northern coast of Maetra, the Rheidenasi home-continent. A prominent military figure had gone missing while on leave in a northern port and the presiding Duke was furious when the investigation had turned up nothing. Like blood in the water, the Printer’s Guild had published any lead they could find. While hardly anything close to a pattern had emerged, the taverns were still full of whispers.

Joss watched the craft until the last trailing shimmer disappeared behind a distant ridge. The wind up on the scaffold had turned cold, but he barely noticed it now. His mind was racing.

What he saw appeared to be a full squadron in tight formation, and not on a routine patrol route. That kind of movement only meant one thing: a deployment.

While they were not often briefed on classified missions, many cadets overheard fragmented discussions during maintenance calls or flight briefings. These snippets, when pieced together, hinted at broader deployments or shifting priorities within the Protectorate’s strategic command. He had heard the rumors of increasing unrest in the north. While the coastal north-western cities were very culturally isolated, they had been quiet trading cities since the war years ago. It was said that the mountain cities had been experiencing more blackouts and strange power disruptions, as well as shipments being delayed with strange occurrences to blame. Someone in his physics seminar had casually mentioned their uncle being rerouted from an expedition due to “security concerns.” Another had said the word insurgency out loud before trailing off. 

“Too much happening at once to be coincidence,” he thought, “but if they’re heading away, the city’s likely safe for now. I hope he’s not with them this time.”

Joss eased himself off the platform, casting one last glance at the distant fleet vanishing beyond the mountains. The golden light was thinning now, the horizon cooling to a dusky lavender. He gripped the cold steel of the ladder and began his descent, the wind tugging at his jacket as each step brought the city closer. The metal rungs groaned underfoot, but the rhythm grounded his scattered thoughts. He was so distracted he didn’t notice the black caped figure perched atop the top of the nearby building studying him as he descended out of sight.

Back on solid ground, he tucked his hands into his pockets and started the walk home, the streets now lit with the amber glow of street lamps flickering to life. The buzz of Rheidenas had quieted to just the occasional passing coach, voices echoing from a distant courtyard, and the low hum of motorized carts rolling by on tracks. Shadows stretched long between the buildings as he crossed familiar corners and winding alleys, the route etched into his muscles from years of repetition.

The city wasn’t always quiet at night but the daylight businesses had already begun closing their doors; He passed a group of three younger boys talking and laughing as they ran out of an alley around one of the vendor’s stands and into another crack in a fence between two brick buildings. He smiled at the momentary distraction but his mind churned with the conflicting dance of competing interests; The military activity and his team’s conflict with Unity Innovations fought for his focus. He was not normally prone to getting lost in his thoughts so these fixations ate at him. 

He thought back to a night months before, his father packing some tobacco in before puffing away, and pulling up the folded newspaper. Joss had set up in front of the fireplace with one of the new control circuits and lap desk, soldering carefully and taking measurements. His mother was still out, visiting with some of her previous crewmates, a late evening for her to be sure.

“Will they not stop digging up old graves?” said Richter, studying some particular passage with disapproval through the light haze of his pipe’s smoke.

“Graves?” asked Joss, quickly glancing up from his work.

“These warmongers.” his father turned the page to face Joss. “Some radicals are calling for the extermination of the nobles.”

He read the title to himself. “Civilization Boiled in Old Blood.”

“Old Blood. That’s what some of the gangs in Layertenne have been painting on homes in the new districts. ”

“I don’t understand.”

Richter let out a slow breath, the smoke curling from the corner of his mouth like a thread of old memory. His eyes lingered on the fire for a moment before settling back on Joss with a tired weight behind them.

“You wouldn’t,” he said. “And that’s wonderful, really.”

Joss frowned and set down the circuit, giving his father his full attention.

“It’s from before your time. Before most of your generation was born, really. During the wars, when everything fell apart, there were people; Leaders, industrialists, even some military, that lost everything when the tides shifted. When the Protectorate started reorganizing, when Roughworks stepped in to patch the holes left behind, a lot of powerful people… weren’t so powerful anymore.”

He tapped his pipe gently against the edge of the armrest, ash drifting into the tray.

“Some accepted it and some didn’t. Those that didn’t either fled to the wilderness or vanished into the stars. Now, it seems like a few buried themselves and waited for the world to forget them.” he gestured with his pipe toward the paper, “Some didn’t forget, and now they want to be remembered.”

Joss looked down at the headline again. “Civilization Boiled in Old Blood.” The phrase was almost too poetic.

“So they’re… trying to start another war?”

Richter shrugged. “Not war the way we did it. Not marching armies and military might, but something’s shifting in the north on the Rebel Coast. These are strange times indeed. We’ll see how far they can go before someone pushes back.”

Joss leaned back, a chill settling in his chest. “But why now? It’s been years. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re stable.”

“Exactly,” Richter said, pointing the stem of his pipe at him. “Stability makes people bold. The new pups have grown up with soft minds and didn’t have to scrabble in the dirt to live. But the elders who survived those times cannot forget them, maybe even passing the torch on. I would guess they think people have grown too comfortable to notice them creeping back and putting out signals. We will see, Joss, we will see.”

At the time, Joss didn’t answer, considering his father’s words and the disturbing new dimension he brought to the rumors. He almost wished for something as straightforward as a war to put his mind to; Enemies and allies was a dichotomy he felt he could understand, an arrangement he could maybe even thrive in. But alas, life was rapidly becoming more complicated than he’d hoped.

While the issues with Unity and their quiet targeting of the top students’ projects were disquieting developments, now Joss found his concern for the work was waning with every step from RRA and towards home. Nearing the house, his tension had finally dulled.

With only a pause at the weathered iron gate of his family’s townhouse, he slipped inside. The warm scent of lentils and cumin drifted from the kitchen. His mother was there at the counter, sleeves rolled up, gently stirring a pot.

“You’re late,” she said without looking up, her voice even.

“I stopped to clear my head,” Joss replied, setting his bag near the door and stepping out of his boots. “Where’s Pops?”

She hesitated slightly, then sighed with a slight turn to glance at him out of the corner of her eye. “Deployment orders came early this morning. He left before first light.”

Joss’s shoulders sank. “Of course.”

She turned then, brushing her hands on a towel. “He didn’t want to wake you. But he said he’d send a message when he could.”

Joss nodded, the heaviness settling a little deeper. He didn’t say anything else, just walked to the side table, picked up the ceramic teacup still warm from the last use, and sank quietly into the dark-stained wood couch draped in layers of plush, soft furs. 

Jimasii came into view, handing her son a steaming bowl and a spoon with a soft smile. Her thick black braids were tied back tight with a precise row pattern, and her apron was spattered with an assortment of spices. Cooking had become her new frontier to conquer after her early retirement last year, and Joss saw that a clear winner of that war had yet to be declared. He sipped the soup, a family recipe his grandmother had drilled into them all during her last visit, and his mind becoming fuzzy with the many comforting sensations. The warmth of home and the soft murmurs of his mother’s voice drifted into the quietness of the evening as Joss finally let sleep take him from another long and stressful day.

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At first, there was only a low mechanical whirring, like the sound of an old engine struggling to start but valiantly fighting the clutches of friction. The darkness peeled back, revealing a strange sky pulsing with slow-moving clouds of deep black and rusted red. Joss stood ankle-deep in a field of charred and shattered glass mixed with twisted metal, the ground shifting beneath him with every exhale of the swirling wind. Above, hanging like the bones of a long-dead colossus, were fractured metal structures suspended in midair as if locked in time, their support beams spiraling into the void like broken limbs.

A shout echoed in the distance.

Joss turned toward the sound and saw a flurry of motion solidifying into a view of Quinn, standing atop a pile of shattered gears and sharp sparking scraps, swinging a whip of crackling energy back and forth and fending off those who got too close with a short sword in the other hand. He toiled against a crawling swarm of humanoid machines. Their forms were misshapen, limbs overextended with exposed pipes and brass fittings hissing steam. Their movements were jerky, unnatural, as if pulled by invisible strings. Some had faces etched with crude expressions, others wore none at all. Their chests or backs bore faint, flickering and burning emblems and symbols Joss couldn’t recognize, but felt uncomfortably familiar and clinical.

The dream pulled him forward with a weightless urgency, placing weapons in his hands, a gleaming pair of jagged daggers, and he leapt to Quinn’s side, striking back the advancing tide. The air was thick with the scent of oil and the constant clatter of collapsing limbs. The machines pressed in from all sides, groaning and shrieking in distorted voices, gears grinding as they raised their arms. 

He felt the connection and pointed toward the pieces of the colossus above, shaking with the exertion as he called them to be and to move. The parts creaked and crackled with sparking cables beginning to move and swirl across the gashes and gaps, reaching across the gaps and sealing together as if a growing mass of metal muscle. 

Quinn scrambled back and forth around him, jumping and sliding to parry blows as he kept the force away from Joss as he worked. The knurled machine forming above them became a massive snaking coil, now beginning to reach down and spear targets as Joss called them out. A titanic fist of pristine polished white metal pushed out from the royaling sea of steel below, extending and reaching toward them. Joss called to the colossal web above them, and it began to slowly form the shape of a hand. He could tell it was flawed and a broken hand, despite his earnest and clear call for it to match the advancing white gauntlet. Quinn flashed him a look of resolve before turning to dodge a thrust of wicked steel claw from a twisted metal Rhakinis, the normally rocky spider-like species. He caught the follow-up claw and all around him stopped for a moment, before the automaton collapsed into pieces on the spot, swallowed by the resumed rush of movement.

As the fist neared, the machines began rising with white lab coats, tattered, stained, too small for their angular frames. Their movements became more precise, more methodical and unpredictable, as though mimicking something once human. One raised a chain whip with a shackle on the end, and another pointed a fist-full of rusted scalpels at Joss, its hand vibrating with energy as the sky began to darken.

In the distance, a shockwave rippled across the field kicking up clouds of rust-colored fog, through the hole in the dark clouds descended a figure, tall, human in shape but glimmering with polished brass and seamless metal plates to make up its skin. The eyes were smooth spheres of illuminated and flashing glass, and it moved with impossible grace, cutting through the mechanical swarm like a wraith. Each gesture was smooth and decisive: a flick of the hand sent machines flying; a raised arm created blue barriers as if instrumental in nature.

The swarm faltered a moment as the titanic fist met with the resistant mass of writhing cables Joss was struggling with. Joss and Quinn backed together, panting, watching as the metal figure pushed through with a heavy silence. The battlefield froze, the last of the rising machines crumbling into dust as if sensing something greater had arrived, leaving only the white gauntlet. The brass figure bowed stiff-backed to the fist, and words rang around them.

“Useless”

The fist vanished, the flash of the after image in their mind as their eyes caught up to the disappearance.

The figure turned to them. It didn’t speak. Instead, it extended a hand toward them, sleek, brass fingers outstretched, palm open, holding a brass box.

Before Joss could stop him, Quinn reached out for the box…

The pull as if from the center of his mind was the most splitting headache he’d ever experienced, but it faded the same instant it arrived from within the distracting swirl of darkness.

Joss woke, heart hammering in his chest, breath catching in the dim light of early morning. He stared at the electric lantern on the ceiling, gently swinging on its chain.

He’d been dreaming, foggy figments of mixed metaphors pulled from his imagination and daily life. Of all the elements, Quinn’s appearance was the least surprising, his closest friend and anchor throughout the years. But this time, it wasn’t just a familiar face in a shifting dreams-cape. It felt more like a memory borrowed from somewhere, or something, else.

Joss sat up slowly, blinking against the early morning light that filtered through the thin curtains of the living room. The furs on the couch fell back, slightly warm and misshapen from hours of sleep. He rubbed at his eyes, his mouth dry, his pulse still thudding like a slow drumbeat in his ears. Outside, he could hear the faint early morning chimes from a local clock-tower along with the rush of wind-blown leaves in the street. But his mind was still caught in the strange grip of the dream.

The smell of charred metal and machine oil hadn’t quite left his nose. He exhaled, hands pressed to his face, then leaned back into the couch, resisting the urge to get up and ready for a new day, letting his thoughts drift back to what he’d seen, or even felt.

A field of shattered glass and twisted metal. Clouds like rusted blood and soot drifting over a sky that pulsed, slow and heavy, like a heartbeat struggling to hold on. Dreams like this were rare for him, in stark contrast to the sleepy calculations and passive brainstorming typical to the sleeping mind of an engineer. Now though, he could almost still feel the crunch of debris beneath his feet, the erratic thrum of ancient machines in the distance. The sensation of lingering touch was so strange. It had been a battlefield, but not one drawn from anything he’d have seen in real life. It wasn’t truly a war zone, however, or even some twisted simulation. It seemed more and more like a graveyard of forgotten ideas trying to fight their way to the surface of his mind. It also was not fading as he woke, the images burning in his memory. Quinn was still there, standing atop that mound of shattered machines, fighting back the swarm.

Joss shivered, finally pushed himself up to start the day. The rooms were still quiet and dark except for the ticking of the clock a room away.  The normally comforting softness of the rugs on the floors were grating on his mind, clashing with the lingering sensation of the dream. Pressing the dispenser to get water flowing from the bathroom sink, he washed his face. As he toweled it dry with a towel he only now recognized was decorative, he sighed and stared at the dark circles under his eyes, considering the circus swimming in his head.

The weapons in his hand, the short blades, the sparks flying as he parried and spun refused to leave his mind-scape. They hadn’t just been surviving, but clearly fighting for, or against something and holding the line. 

“Against what?”

Those figures, those broken, human-esque machines danced menacingly into focus for him. 

“They… moved like dolls.”

Strings tangled in rusty joints, their faces blank or crudely marked, they still moved with intent. Some bore emblems, half-glowing and clinical, symbols Joss didn’t recognize but somehow felt he should. Joss himself, dragged into the scene, weapons placed in his hands, had been fighting alongside Quinn as if it were second nature. He couldn’t forget the way the connection had opened, that terrifying and exhilarating moment when he’d felt the massive structures above respond to him, the broken metal limbs of some ancient titan knitting together in the sky, answering his call like they’d been waiting.

He shuddered. It hadn’t been just a dream.

“It feels real, even… possible?”