Project Genomorph: Remembrance (Prologue - The Future is Closer than we Think) -- (Chapter One - Assault on Prejudice)

Before I write this, I decided to have both the Prologue and Chapter One in the same upload to save points. The Prologue is too short to take up a full 200 points on its own.

Prologue - The Future is Closer than we Think

In the act of remembering our fallen comrades, we begin to drift. Drift into what we call FuturePrec, where our minds begin to imagine what may happen to the world once we are removed from the equation. Will our minds be studied and our decisions evaluated? Will we be speculated over for many millennia? Or will we even be remembered, perhaps put into history books? Our lifespan is merely an instant in the eyes of the Great One, the one ruling over the stars with an iron fist. Our time in the Milky Way does not go to waste, but is incorrectly deemed long and more important than it really is.

FuturePrec can be a mindset. A way of thinking, to put it flatly. A mindset in which we evaluate every single choice and the future outcomes. Every choice has an imprint, an imprint that lasts infinitely longer than we do. Even knowing about FuturePrec will have a large imprint on how people live their lives and spend their short time in this solar system.

But what is FuturePrec, what is it really? Is it just a figment of our imagination, just trying to piece together the endless fragments of this puzzle we call life? Or is it real, a physical object we can touch, see, smell, hear, perhaps even taste? Maybe this is all just speculation, trillions of humans made just to entertain the higher powers. Until we reach eternity, we will never know.

Or will we?

Chapter One - Assault on Prejudice

“Attention: All militants report to the loading bay for transport,” the intercom blares through the Dreadnought 487. No soldiers from Port D move until exactly three seconds after the announcement ends.

“Greasy, over there! Didn’t I tell you to stay still during announcements? One more slip up, and you’re getting iced, you hear me?” Sergeant Gordon barks at a new recruit.

Recruit 4133, the callsign for a man named Lester Brown. Drafted at exactly three-hundred hours on May 8th, he’s only two weeks into his new routine. He’s clearly not fully adjusted to zero-G, but it’s only natural, as most recruits don’t get past three before going mad. Lester, or as Sergeant Gordon refers to him, Greasy can’t even get over the showers.

“But Sir, I don’t understand it! Why is the water bouncing off the floor? It’s not natural!”

“Brown, I’ll whip your greasy ass if you don’t get over it!”

“It bounces off me too! I don’t get it, sir!”

That’s where he got his nickname, too. Ever since the other soldiers heard that, they changed his name to Greasy, Greasy Ass. The shy and pathetic ones just call him “I Don’t Understand.” Most of the soldiers prefer the former, simply because it’s shorter and more vulgar. Plus, how’s he gonna know they’re talking to him if they call him something with “I” in it? He doesn’t understand zero-G physics, so it’s not hard to doubt he’ll understand that, either.

“Greasy, you’re staying here. Everyone else, rise. The announcements won’t wait on us, and neither will the Bravo Shuttle. We missed Alpha, so don’t doubt they’ll leave without us.”

Port D militants, besides Greasy, board the Bravo Shuttle two minutes before launch, and all strap into their seats.

“Shit, Sarge got pissed,” Michael, to my left, says.

“No doubt. Wonder what punishment Greasy’s getting right about now, don’t you?” I ask.

“Considering that we missed the last shuttle and had a whole week of warm up classes, he’s probably running around in some increased gravity right now.”

“You’re probably right. I dunno, I’d assume since he’s the only one who didn’t board the shuttle he’d get a worse punishment.”

The intercom switches on, the familiar female voice beginning to speak.

“Attention all militants, head into the briefing room.”

Michael and I stand up and walk into the briefing room. The rest of our comrades are already present as we sit in the rectangular table. Sergeant Gordon sits at the head of the table and begins to go into detail about our next attack.

“This is an assault mission. We’ll be infiltrating Prejudice, an abandoned military base on Ishtar. There’s said to be a cult, one that worships the goddess their planet is named after. Supposedly, they practice FuturePrec. We’ve no confirmation, but our primary objective is to eliminate the cultists. Confirming whether they actually practice FuturePrec comes second.”

“So, essentially what you’re saying is ‘shoot first, ask questions later’?” Michael asks.

“Yes, exactly. If you so happen to come across an opportunity to confirm it, do it, however do not risk the mission in doing so.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Alright, we’re dropping about five miles south of Prejudice, so it’ll be a hike to get there. However, it is for good reason: we’ve received information that the last assault team was shot down with weapons that include, but are not limited to, RPG’s, homing rockets, high-caliber sniper-rifles, and nuclear rifles.”

“Sir, may I confirm that an RPG is a very old model of rocket launcher that has minimal effects on our ships?” I question.

“You’re damn right it is. You see, when ten or twelve of them are paired up with nuclear rifles and homing rockets, they can deal some significant damage.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“We’re dropping in 60 hours, so get your asses prepped. We’re gearing up 10 hours before dropdown.”

“Sir, yes Sir!” we say in unison.

The other soldiers and I head back out into the social space and Michael and I head into the gearing room. We usually get in early for our preference of guns and so the newbies can’t take ours before asking. The veterans know what we like, so they leave it alone.

My personal loadout is a Barrett Refurb, a model ripped straight from before FuturePrec was invented and packed with some FP punch. On my back, another Refurb of the MP40. It’s a good gun to have when caught off guard, especially for snipers like me. My armor isn’t too heavy, but it does take a good deal of damage. I can survive one of the standard RPG rockets and one shot to the head from any sniper. After that, I’m done. Taking out the RPG rocket, I withstand eight sniper precision bullets or twelve non-precision bullets. Snipers shouldn’t be a problem, though. I’ve a module that allows me to almost perfectly sync with the atmosphere and environment around me, rendering me mostly invisible.

Michael’s, on the other hand, is a KSG Refurb that shoots buckshot rounds and a B23R dual-wield that he’s modified to shoot in full-auto rather than in three round bursts. He usually watches my back while I snipe, but sometimes he’s placed on infiltration and some other guy backs me up.

The infiltration team is made up of two recon soldiers in the front, four heavy gunners in the back, and eight assault in the center. The heavy gunners have LMG’s and a shotgun, the recon soldiers with assault rifles equipped with suppressors and silenced pistols, and the recon have semi-automatic rifles and SMG’s, both silenced. We’ve all got combat knives, and the recon soldiers have electrically charged batons. I operate prone at about a mile radius from the base, my infrared scope aimed near my team. I warn them of incoming soldiers, but there’s nothing to say this cult hasn’t genetically modified themselves to have lower body temperatures than usual. Insulation could become a problem, too. If it’s thick enough, my scope won’t see through it and they’ll be in the dark. The rounds from my sniper can penetrate through thick armor, so if I have to take a guess and fire, even if it risks one of my team members, I’m authorized to. Just as long as I’m almost certain, I can fire.

“Michael, you in infiltration or are ya backing me up?” I ask.

“I’ll be infiltrating. I asked Sarge to let me help you, but he said he needed as many people as possible in infiltration. You’ll be on your own for this one, Allen.”

“Shit, man, what if I get snuck up on?”

“I dunno, but you gotta be careful. Make sure you watch your motion tracker and move around whenever it’s necessary. You do have the extended range on your MT, right?”

“Course I do,” I respond. “It’s a necessity for snipers.”

“Good. Fragmented, I assume?”

“It’s so much easier to know the general area of them with eight quadrants.”

“Just don’t get yourself killed, and I’ll see you after the mission.”

Michael leaves the room and sits out in the dropzone, waiting for dispatch. I follow him and sit at the farthest seat from the exit so I can jump last. I’ve got a Parasuit on and will jump to quickly maneuver to my sniping position. Activating my camo module, I can stealthily get to my predesignated sniper location and move between it and the others if I need to.

“All militants, please prepare for dispatch. The barge gate will open in ten― nine―eight―seven―six―five―” the intercom begins the countdown for dropdown, and Michael, the other soldiers and I stand from our seats to get ready to jump.

“Four―three―two―one. All militants may now safely exit the drop ship.”

Every soldier but me leaps from the Bravo Shuttle, then I fall backwards off of the leaping platform. I glide in a loop and angle myself downward, making myself more aerodynamic. I activate my camo module and see my arms, legs, and chest disappear from my view. Nearing the ground, I flatten myself out to slow my fall and stretch my limbs to give myself the largest surface area possible. Exactly twenty-six feet from the ground, I reorient myself so my legs hit the ground. My armor automatically compensates for my impact, stabilizing my head and very slowly activating the thrusters before I land and lowers my overall inertia in order for my overall welfare. After all, impacting the ground and going from terminal velocity to zero miles per hour in almost an instant can cause some serious damage to the human body.

I was on point with my landing. Seventeen feet away from my position, I walk to it and pull out my rifle. I pull out the bipod mount and lay on the ground, the stock at my shoulder and my finger tapping the trigger guard. I look for my team and turn on the thermal overlay, looking for my teammates. I find them still landing, grouping up around a large tree still a few miles off of the base. I landed much closer, but took a much less linear path to avoid being spotted. I mark Prejudice on their HUDs, showing them the exact direction they need to head in rather than simply south or north.

“Prec Alpha to Prec One, status report, over,” the Dreadnought 487.

“Prec One to Prec Alpha, in position. Over,” I respond.

“We’ve opened a secure channel, make sure you watch your comrades and guide them to Prejudice with minimal harm.”

“Yes Sir.”

“I scope in again and load my first round into the chamber. I look around near my team and near Prejudice for any enemy soldiers with rifles, the infrared scope coming in handy. I see a single sniper in the distance, made obvious by two features: a glint on his scope and a high body temperature. I rest my finger on the trigger, slow my breathing, and in turn lowering my heart rate. I pull the trigger.

The target instantly falls from his sniper tower, his cover no longer of use to him. I could almost feel the bones in his head breaking, the flesh splattering against the back of the tower. I feel it every time I pull the trigger. For the first time in a day, and it’s a good feeling.

It’s almost a sense of accomplishment, ending a life with such little effort put in. All it takes is a single trigger pull and one person, one life is removed from all of existence until Judgement Day. It’s like eating a slice of cake and tasting all the flavors without having to do any chewing or swallowing other than moving your tongue to taste it, and when that cake is the enemy, those who practice FuturePrec, it almost brings a momentary sense of intracranial melancholy that quickly recedes and is replaced with joy, happiness, satisfaction.

Satisfaction, yeah right. When you’re a soldier like me, a sniper, a legal murderer, that sense of satisfaction doesn’t exist. When you kill hundreds of people daily, not a care in the world what might happen to their families, to their homes, what could happen when the mortician brings in a corpse to his or her kids and they say, “Why is daddy sleeping?” When you’re a soldier, nothing matters more to you than the mission; your life; whether your next shot will miss or hit; whether the gun misfires. When you’re a soldier, the mission is your life.

That is, until the enemy takes it. Until the enemy sets off an explosive hidden under the ground beneath your boots. Until the enemy runs in with a live grenade in his mouth and a forty-pound nuclear explosive strapped to his back.

Until that momentary sense of melancholy doesn’t go away. Until you think less of yourself. Until you begin hallucinating that you are that man or woman you killed. Until you think a gun to your head might finally put that pain to rest, put your body to rest.

Until that trigger is pulled, all hope is lost, and one life gone to waste.

“Prec Bravo to Prec Alpha, approaching target, over.”

“A secure channel has been opened, go ahead.”

“Moving in now.”

The infiltration team begins to enter Prejudice, holding a device up to the wall. Michael waves the team in and their heat signatures go dark.

“Prec One to Prec Bravo, I’ve lost my visuals. You’re on your own, over.”

“Channel secured, we’ve got this under control. Our MT’s are partially jammed, so I’m assuming it’s an electrical insulation. We’ll shut it down ASAP.”

“I’ll watch if anyone comes near from the outside.”

I move my scope from the door to the outer perimeter and turn off the thermal overlay. I pull back the bolt and load another 50 caliber bullet into the chamber. As I push the bolt back into place, I hear footsteps behind me. I pull out my MP40 Refurb quietly, trying to hide the fact that I know someone’s nearby. I slip it under my leg and turn on my retrograde camera, looking around behind me to find my oppressor before he knows I’ve learned of his presence. I tap my helmet and turn on a thermal overlay in the retrograde camera, and find that my oppressor is hiding behind a large rock. His gun also has a thermal charge, perhaps infused with incendiary augmentations, meaning if I get hit, I’ll be transformed into a human torch. I turn off the retrograde camera and slowly shift myself to face the opposite direction. I slide the MP40 out from under my leg and move into a low crouch position. I silently move up to the rock and load my gun. I turn up my transparency and walk around the corner. I place a pinger on the other side of the rock which shows me an entire view of the other side of the rock. My enemy wields a shotgun.

With this knowledge, I know I’m outmatched. A SMG can’t kill a shotgun unless he who wields the shotgun has no idea how to pull a trigger or even aim. Unless, by some miracle, I can kill him before his reflexes notice, I’m dead. Perhaps I can sneak up behind him and pull the trigger, maybe he won’t be able to turn around before he’s dead. Either way, I’ve got to do something or I’m screwed.

“Oh my God,” I hear him mumble quietly, “what if he sneaks up on me? I don’t know how to use this thing! I’m just a recruit!”

I laugh silently, keeping my cover so he doesn’t know that I can see him.

I get an idea that I might be able to scare him into dropping his weapon. He’s so scared already, probably wetting his jumpsuit over nothing but anticipating that I’ll kill him, I wonder what he’d do if he knows I can kill him at any second. After all, maybe he’s just faking it. Maybe he’s more than a recruit. I mean, it’s not like the commander would give Greasy the most important job of killing a sniper that can take out an entire thirteen-man squad of people within six seconds.

I slowly shift around the corner of the rock that is opposite of the way my enemy is facing. My heart is racing, probably at around 160 bpm, so I slow my breath and in turn lower my heart rate. I quickly spin around the corner and pull the trigger. I’ve grown so accustomed to the MP40 Refurb that I can excellently control the recoil and make every single shot hit the head.

His already frail body falls to the ground. The blood drains from his head and spills out onto the ground around it, dampening it and drowning it in a color of deep red. His face turns pale and neck turns a much lighter but not quite white colour, his breath and pulse slows to a stop.

I hide his corpse in some foliage, covering him up with large clumps of grass I’ve ripped from the ground, making sure I make his body completely undiscoverable. I spread out other grass around on the places I’ve removed the grass from and return to my sniping location.

Loading another bullet into the chamber, I search for my next target. Finding a straggler just standing next to the entrance, I blow his head off with one shot. I load one more bullet and kill a sniper paying no attention to his surroundings. I load a bullet.

A simple and repetitive process, really. Pull back a bolt, push it back in, calculate the bullet drop, aim, shoot, kill, repeat. A mindless task that anyone should be able to do. Calculating the bullet drop is really the hardest part, though it’s simple mathematics. Just multiply the gravity by the weight of the bullet, then divide it by the velocity of the bullet. One notch is slightly far, two is further, three and so on is further, seven is the furthest. Aiming higher is outside of the scope and sniping at that distance is much less effective.

“Digital insulation is down, take some shots,” Michael says.

“Got it. I see three targets now, taking them down.”

I line his head on the fourth notch and pull the trigger. His head flies backwards, the heat profile slowly draining from his body. I load another bullet. I move the fourth notch to another person, one who’d just shown up with a thermal profile that is somewhat dark. I move to the center of the fourth and fifth notch and pull the trigger.

It misses.

I load another bullet. I move it to the fourth notch. I pull the trigger.

It misses.

Bullet, notch, trigger, miss. Bullet, notch, trigger, miss.

I forget about the target and move to another. My sniper doesn’t penetrate that much metal, I guess, so I won’t be hitting him any time soon. I take out as many enemies in the building as possible before my team even reaches them.

“Wow, there’s literally no reason for us to even be here is there, Allen! You’re killing all the guys before we even get to ‘em!”

“There’s a couple I can’t get. You’ve gotta get them yourselves, my rifle won’t penetrate that far.”

“Other than those, we don’t need to be here.”

“Yeah you do. Who’s gonna provide the challenge for me if you don’t?”

“Haha, very funny.”

One after another, every life form at Prejudice, inside and out, dies, whether by my rifle or by the rest of my team’s guns. I leave my prone position, pull back the bipod on my sniper rifle, place it on my back and start walking to evac. I keep close watch on my motion tracker, but it doesn’t pick up any other than a few bugs or animals prancing about.

We arrive at evac and I board the Pelican, a smaller drop ship that is used for evac and evac only. The rest of my team follows behind me and I pull off my rifle and put it on the floor underneath my seat. The pilot sends a signal from the cockpit, and we send another back telling him we’re ready to leave. He and his copilot grab each of their wheels. A Pelican is controlled by two different users and wheels, but is controllable with one wheel. Two wheels simply makes it easier for the pilots.

Twenty minutes later, we arrive back at Bravo Shuttle which is hovering a long distance away from Prejudice, about four hundred miles. The Shuttle is piloted by eight pilots, and impossible to control with any less. The Pelican docks inside of the shuttle and the soldiers, including Michael and me, climb from the Pelican and wait in our dorms until the Shuttle flies from the atmosphere of the planet which Prejudice is located, known as Epimetheus. At close to lightspeed, it arrives back at the Dreadnought 487. The Shuttle was silent most of the ride, everyone readjusting to an atmosphere of calm without needing to worry about being killed at any second.

I walk off the exit ramp, the sniper returned to my back. I enter the equipment room and step into a machine that pulls off all my guns, all my grenades, ammo packs, armour, and combat suit. I’m immediately fitted into a public suit that looks casual but has one hidden pistol installed on it. The HUD is not removed, providing me with radar, ammo capacity, and waypoints in my daily endeavors.

I walk to a high-speed matter transmitter, or HSMT, that deconstructs matter into it’s simplest form, atoms, and almost instantaneously ships them across a large distance, in this case, my dorm. The transmitter recompiles my materials back into, well, me, and I immediately spot something in the bounty board.

A private task, made specifically for me. I step up to it, sign in, and check it. It reads as following:

"Hello, Allen Gourd. We’ve assigned a special task just for you. We’ve received a request from Cortex that they want a skilled sniper to board one of their vessels and ride along a few other bounty hunters to guard a negotiation between them and a group of savages that currently hold control over the planet Arion. It’s a desert planet with a breathable atmosphere, with no indigenous life forms other than the savages occupying it and some microscopic organisms. They ask that you bring your standard military loadout with you because they do not supply weapons, considering they are a peaceful colony."

Arion? They want me on Arion? Arion’s the most boring planet of all time. It’s a sand pile other than a few small seas and lakes strewn about on the planet. There’s not even any game on the planet. It’s stupid that Cortex wants to terraform a planet that’s mostly made of solid material anyways.

Oh, whatever. I press the “Accept” button on the bounty board and I immediately receive orders to go to the transport dock. I step back into the HSMT and I’m there before you can say “high-speed matter transmitter.” I jog over to a transportation pod and get inside. I set the autopilot to the Cortex mothership, and launch. The speed of the transportation pods is little less than lightspeed, but obviously not at lightspeed since it’s physically impossible for anything with mass to travel at or above the speed of light.

I arrive at the Cortex mothership in a few minutes, and those minutes were spent twiddling my thumbs and thinking about high-caliber sniper rifles. At arrival, I’m almost disappointed that I can’t think about the rifles anymore. If you can’t tell yet, yeah, I really like sniper rifles.

Opening the hatch on my transportation pod, I climb down the side and drop down onto the ground. It takes a couple of seconds to adjust to the increased gravity, considering a mothership is much, much, much more massive than one of Dreadnought’s dispatch ships. Almost immediately, I’m greeted by a female voice in my HUD.

“Welcome, Allen Gourd, to the Cortex mothership. Your temporary dorm room is room 359-C where you have a few entertainment devices and all the necessary appliances like a Nuclear Cooker, Nitrogen-Cooled Box, Liquid Nitrogen Box, and, if it qualifies as an appliance, a FormFit bed. We hope you enjoy your stay aboard the Cortex mothership.”

Huh. That was weird. A colony based on peace welcoming a mass-murderer? I approach a HSMT and report to my dorm immediately, where, on the bounty board, my next task is written. I sign into the bounty board and check for one, where a mission is located, rather than a task. First day and they’re already giving me missions? How odd. The mission briefing reads:

“Welcome, Allen Gourd, to the Cortex mothership. We won’t waste any of your surely precious time, so we’ll go ahead and give you the briefing here instead of at a meeting. You’ll be put in a small team that will be sent immediately to Arion to guard a meeting held there to negotiate whether we, Cortex, have the right to terraform their planet. We want you to eliminate any threats before any damage to our people is done. You’ll be aboard a dispatch ship that will land relatively close to the meeting place, a completely open room so that you can get easy shots on any of our attackers. It should be relatively easy for you to do, but we wanted the best sniper around to make sure the job gets done well. At the end of all this, you will get a large sum of money as your pay.”

Seems like a simple task. The mission puts a waypoint in my HUD and so I use the HSMT to go to the launch bay and see my team, already standing next to a large dispatch shuttle, awaiting my arrival.