The Beginning

A Lords of the Stars Short Story

Mattias von Schantz

THUD!

Cold, hard steel struck her left cheek. A hard hand around her neck pressed bony knuckles into her flesh.

THUMP!

The other cheek. Muscles that couldn't handle the pressure. Blood slowly began to drip down her face.

More blows. A man stood behind her, holding her against the wall. A cold, insensitive laugh.

Sound of cartilage being crushed. A freezing pain pierced the nasal bone.

Black. Pain that turned the world black.

June 17, 1999, Sacramento, Earth

07:04 AM

"You don't look very cheerful today, Ellie."

Her father glanced up from the morning paper as she settled into her chair at the breakfast table. A bowl of cornflakes and milk awaited her. She needed a hearty breakfast today.

“I had a really bad nightmare last night; I couldn't go back to sleep after that.” She shuddered at the vivid memory of the bad dream that didn’t want to leave her waking mind.

“No, I can imagine that. You can go to bed earlier tonight instead. You have to make sure you keep up with school at least.”

Yes, of course. Now he would bring up that subject again. Always the same talk. Not that she was slow by any means, but school had never been to her liking. She couldn't really concentrate there, and somehow some of the things she was supposed to learn always became a tangled mess in her head. At the same time, other things she didn’t really need to recall, she could remember in striking detail years later.

Breakfast disappeared faster than usual this morning. Maybe the lack of sleep had increased her hunger, she mused, as she brushed her long, ginger-copper-red hair. She had to wait an agonizing five minutes longer than usual before Sally, her best friend, finally arrived to accompany her to school.

"Did you see what Tom wore last night to the arcade?" Sally asked with a wicked smile.

"He could have been killed for wearing that ridiculous yellow cap!"

"Don't talk about being killed," Ellie moaned, rolling her eyes. "Have you done your math homework? I didn't understand anything of it. Those quadratic equations blow my mind.”

“You really don't look great! What did you do yesterday?”

"Nothing. Forget it. Just a nightmare.”

“It must have been a very convincing nightmare to get you riled up like that. What was it about? Tom's cap, I’m sure?”

“Forget it, I said. And by the way, you shouldn't look at guys who are two years younger than you. Have you done the assignments?”

"Me? Really, what do you think of me?” Sally laughed. “But we can probably copy them from Elizabeth.”

“You’re still blackmailing her? Surely her father can't be that upset…”

“You don't know him. If he knew she smoked, she would be under curfew for the rest of her life.”

“Yes, maybe so. I don't really care.”

”… Sally Hoffman, Jerry Connor, Ellie McBrian…”

Mrs. Johnson fussed as she handed out last week's ink-smeared English papers. Ellie hadn't expected to get a good grade on it, but this was even worse than she had feared. Her stomach tightened as she thought about how she would have to explain her disappointing score to her parents when she got back home.

Oh, how she hated this school. It wasn't the worst school in Sacramento, not by a long shot. But she still didn’t want to be here. She didn't quite know how to describe her feelings, not even to herself. Somehow she was restless, longing to break free, looking to the horizon, to the other side of the sky. She wanted to be someone else, somewhere else. Not a freckled teenage girl who had to struggle day in and day out, both with her grades and her parents. If only she could escape…

She didn't think much about it when she went to sleep that night. But when sleep finally came, the dreams set in, just like the ones the night before…

A click behind her left ear drew her attention. But before she could move, a muscular arm was thrown around her head, twisting it violently so she was staring into the man’s eyes. Her neck throbbed with pain as he forced her head into a position that it was never meant to be in. She dropped the object she was holding in her hand. The man picked it up.

THUD!

Cold, hard steel struck her left cheek. His hard hand around her neck pressed bony knuckles into her flesh. Pain began to spread through her head.

THUMP!

The other cheek. The muscles couldn't handle the pressure. Blood slowly began to drip down her face, soiling her ginger hair.

More blows, on both cheeks, in the face. The man behind her held her pressed against the wall, towering above her. His laugh was cold, insensitive, as if he was tormenting an animal, and enjoying it.

She heard the sound of cartilage being crushed. A freezing pain pierced the nasal bone as her nose was mashed across her face by another blow.

Black. Pain that turned the world black. Her left field of vision became a mess of red and black. How long would he continue this? How long would she last?

August 19, 2347, Lowell City, Mars, Solaris system

18:23

“Welcome home, Mr. Williams. Did you find those criminals?”

“Don't talk about it,” Paul muttered as he stepped into the kitchen. The computer, sensing his mood, fell silent for a moment.

"I was this close to arresting an entire art association," he continued, holding his thumb and forefinger nearly together in front of the well-polished camera lens in the wall. “How do you get people to understand that they should report things like this before they do them, and not after? The woman who reported the mural was absolutely beside herself. That sort of thing shouldn’t be allowed to happen.”

“Would it help to regulate the law concerning such matters?” the computer suggested. “If there were penalties for not informing the authorities ahead of time, people might think twice before acting.”

"Bah!” Paul grumbled as he dropped into his favorite chair. “We might as well just legislate against art associations entirely and avoid the problem altogether. But no, I spent the entire day chasing down a bunch of eccentric artists. How anyone can order art like that is beyond me!”

"It is my firm belief that people’s taste in art varies significantly," the computer replied.

Of course, it had a unique opportunity to judge such things from a slightly different perspective than its flatmate. “Biots are not exempt from that, right?”

“No, of course not,” Paul muttered. “But I can’t imagine living in a house painted like that. I don’t see how anyone else could want to, either.”

“I trust you don’t intend to repaint our home, “ the computer joked.

Paul shook his head and left the kitchen, walking down the hallway that led to the bathroom. He splashed cold water onto his face, scrubbing away at the dust. There hadn’t been anything tangibly wrong with the street cleaning down by Colony Park. But somehow the dust had settled on his face during his time there, and it wouldn't go away when he ran his sleeve over it.

“You have a message from Admiral Otter,” the computer informed him when he returned to the kitchen. "They believe the 256th is due for another training exercise.”

“Of course they do," Paul sighed. "I should just request a transfer. Just because we are the last Army, we have the eyes of the entire Federation on us.”

“Do you intend to protest against the Solar Command's proposal? After all, it has been eight years since you last trained the entire Army.”

“Yes, I know,” Paul said, his voice betraying his resignation. “Well, you can let Admiral Otter know I'm taking them out to the end of the Crazy Century. But it will only be a short training session, a year at most. I feel like I’ve spent the last few decades out there more than I’ve been here.”

June 18, 1999, Sacramento, Earth

10:47 AM

The smell of smoke hung heavily in the air, clouding the atmosphere of the dimly lit arcade. A pair of fluorescent tubes clung to the ceiling, though whether they were functioning or not was a mystery, as no one seemed to care. Just inside the entrance stood a stereo with cracked speakers, blasting rock music that was at least ten years out of date at a volume far too loud for comfort. For most, the place was anything but welcoming, but for Ellie, it was still better than school. At this hour, those who didn’t skip class had to endure the mundane routine of history lessons instead of spending their day among the video games and the older guys who frequented the arcade. Ellie smirked to herself at the thought.

She had already spent all the money she had brought and now found herself lingering by the vending machine, eyeing Sally’s soda and hoping for a taste. Without warning, someone wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Richard? Knock it off, I have better things to do,” she snapped.

"You just say that. Come on, loosen up,” he coaxed.

“No, stop it! Get lost!” Ellie pulled away, frustrated with him.

"Hey, relax, babe!" he said, trying to reel her in again.

“I said stop!” Ellie shoved him.

Suddenly, the world seemed to stand still, as if time itself had paused in some bizarre way. No, not completely still. Everything just seemed to go slower. Richard released his hold as she pushed him, and now she grabbed his arm. Her right hand moved as if on its own, seizing his neck and twisting him sharply, forcing him to turn his back to her. Her left hand shot out, yanking hard. She heard the blood pulsing through her ears, Richard's desperate screams, and the sickening sound of bones snapping.

Ellie jerked back, her heart pounding in her chest. All around her people shouted in terror. Richard stood before her, his arm grotesquely twisted, hanging at an unnatural angle. What had happened? Why was everyone staring at her like that?

“Ellie! What have you done? Are you insane?” Sally was on the verge of panic.

“We have to get out of here, now. Move, Ellie, come on!” She tugged on Ellie's arm, as if to force her to move. But Ellie felt paralyzed, her mind unable to make sense of what had just happened. The world felt upside down, foreign, but eventually her legs responded, and she followed Sally.

They ran in a panic through narrow streets and alleys, their foreheads slick with sweat. They didn’t stop until they were breathless.

"What were you thinking back there?" Sally still couldn't believe what she had seen. “Did you try to kill him?”

Ellie stared blankly, her thoughts jumbled. She hadn’t seen it happen. One second she had pushed Richard, and the next, he was standing there with a broken arm. “What happened?” she asked.

"What do you mean, what happened?" The way Ellie had said it made Sally tremble. She had never thought she could fear her best friend, but now she was dangerously close to abandoning her to her own devices.

After crossing a few more narrow streets, they slumped down in an alley sheltered behind a large dumpster.

"Don't you know what happened?" Sally asked, her voice trembling.

Ellie shook her head in confusion.

"No, I don't understand… Did I break his arm?"

Sally gave a reluctant nod, afraid to say it out loud.

“How could I have done that?” Ellie whispered. “He weighs at least twice as much as I do. Why didn’t he fight back?”

“It happened so fast, I couldn’t even tell what was going on,” Sally said, still shaken. “If I had seen what you were doing, I would’ve stopped you. You mean you didn't do it on purpose?”

“I swear I didn’t,” Ellie said, tears threatening to spill. “I just wanted to push him away, not hurt him like that. Promise me, Sally. Promise you’ll stop me if I ever do anything like that again. I don’t want people to be afraid of me.”

August 24, 2347, Europa orbit, Jupiter, Solaris system

22:30

”Status, Zelenskyy?”

Admiral Nimanja stretched in her command chair, the glow of the large screens around her illuminating her hairy face as she responded to the Special Agent.

"Status report, Sunguard Command Ship Zelenskyy. All systems functional. We await your orders, sir.”

“And your other ships?”

"We are well above error tolerance by a good margin.” Nimanja responded, after a quick look at the status screens. “The Battlecruiser Harrisburg has reported minor issues with its computer systems - nothing that would interfere with the mission, sir. A fighter stationed on the Deep Space Carrier Oradea has reported a suspected burnthrough incident. It is currently being investigated. Additionally, a minor cold cluster has emerged among the Homo sapiens crew aboard the Battlecruiser Kisangani, but otherwise, all ships are operational. We are ready for departure, sir.”

Paul nodded slightly.

"Very good. Initiate pre-jump sequence,” he ordered.

“Immediately, sir,” Nimanja confirmed. “It feels good to have you back on board, sir, if I may say so.”

Paul smiled faintly. “Thank you, Killa. I didn't think I missed the army, but now I realize this is where I belong.”

Her rigid posture softened at the use of her first name. And with no other crew listening in, formality melted away.

"We really need this training mission, Paul. A quarter of our crew has never experienced full-scale training before," she said, her tone casual now.

“I'm afraid you might be disappointed this time,” Paul replied. "I’m going down alone."

“Yes, I understood that,” Killa said with a nod. “But you'll still need our support from orbit.”

"Of course. But those stationed behind Luna, or out in the asteroid belt, won’t get much action.”

“They’ll get their training, don’t worry,” Killa replied. “Being on high alert, 24/7 for a year - that’s more than enough training. It’ll keep them sharp, teach them not to grow complacent.”

Paul chuckled lightly. "You're probably right. I just feel guilty for not training them more often over the past century."

"There's no need for apologies, Paul," Killa said gently. “We all go through different phases. You’ve had a period where you needed to slow down, stay closer to home. You’ve come out of that phase now. You’re ready for larger missions again. And we trust you.”

The Special Agent looked out the massive window from the command bridge of his flagship. There, out in the cold expanses of space around Europa, floated the entire 256th Army of the Sunguard. Two hundred thousand soldiers, men and women, from the four races, stood ready under his command. He didn’t want to admit it, but there was a part of him that felt at home here. Commanding an Army, it suited him more than he liked to admit. He had been designed for this, shaped by his creators to thrive in this role. But why had it taken him so long to embrace it?

"The pre-jump sequence is complete, sir." Admiral Nimanja interrupted his thoughts.

Paul straightened and focused on the task ahead of him.

“Sunguard Special Agent Paul Williams to the 256th Army of the Sunguard. Initiate jump sequence. Target coordinate 19990712AEW32TR. Good luck, soldiers.”

May 14, 1992, Sacramento, Earth

5:37 PM

“You’re ugly, and you stink!”

The young girl in the corner of the sandbox was crouched down, crying. She didn’t know her that well. Her name was Sally, a neighbor’s kid, a few months older than Ellie. They’d never really played before. In front of her stood a boy, two years older than she was, and not from this neighborhood, though Ellie had seen him come here to play now and then. Billy. Billy was his name. Sometimes, little facts like that just popped up in her head, and she knew with certainty they were true. She must have heard it somewhere, at some time, and once she’d heard something, it tended to stick around, even though she couldn’t always remember it.

“Your parents stink, too!” Billy shouted at the crying girl, waving his hands around in an attempt to seem more intimidating than he really was. It wasn’t the most eloquent argument, but then again, being eloquent wasn’t really his style. It still worked wonders.

As she saw the scene playing out in front of her, a tear traced a silent path down Ellie’s cheek. Billy’s unkind words weren’t directed at her, but she could feel what the girl in the sandbox felt. Not literally, of course. But she could so easily put herself in her place, and when she did, she could feel what Sally must be feeling right now. And with the certainty that only comes with being a child, that there is right in this universe, and there is wrong, and what Billy did put him squarely in the “wrong” corner, she stepped forward and told him to leave.

“Go away!” she said with a loud voice. “You’re hurting her!”

Billy turned around, gawked at the scrawny little freckled girl who dared to interrupt his entertainment for the day.

“You stink too!” he spat at her. “I don’t like you!” No, Billy wasn’t exactly a master of words.

But what he said didn’t seem to hurt Ellie the way it had hurt Sally. Ellie knew she didn’t smell bad, so why should she care what the boy said about her? He was just making a faulty statement that said more about him than it did about her. If anything, it was he who stank, Ellie thought. She had always had a keen nose…

She took one more step forward. The boy looked into her eyes, and what he saw there suddenly filled him with uncertainty. There was something there - something almost cold, a certainty about her that made him take a step back, despite being both older and larger. Like she was a predator, and he was merely the prey.

“You will go away. Now.”

Billy turned around and began to run away from the playground. The girl was creepy, and he didn’t want to be around her.

July 12, 1999, Washington, D.C., Earth

1:04 PM

Paul Williams casually strolled down Pennsylvania Avenue, blending in with the pedestrians. A short man with a slight build, dressed in an unremarkable, plain shirt, he did not stand out in a crowd. No one would pay him any attention. The armed guards at the White House were alert, scanning the crowd for potential threats. However, even they didn’t pay him any attention until he was just a few yards from the tall iron fence. Once he got there, they kept their eyes on him, but as long as he remained on the other side of the fence, they wouldn’t intervene. From their point of view, he was just another visitor, gazing at perhaps the most famous building in the world.

But Paul had no intention of staying on his side of the fence.

One second, he was casually strolling toward it, and the next, he was flying through the air, four meters above the ground, in a jump that landed him on the other side of the fence. The highly trained guards, quick to respond, reacted on instinct - despite not fully understanding what had just occurred.

“Halt!”, they barked, pulling their weapons. “On the ground, now!”

Paul's face transformed. No longer unassuming, it now radiated purpose and command. The guards, staring into his intelligent eyes and disliking what they saw, tried to gain control of the situation but found themselves hopelessly out of their depth. They were now facing an intruder unlike anything before.

With a voice that resonated with the might and authority of the entire Terran Federation behind him, he commanded the guards to stand aside.

“This is a Sunguard training exercise. By order of the Solar Command, you are hereby ordered to stand down and escort me to Mr. Clinton. You will comply. Now.”

The guards hesitated. As they did not recognize Paul’s authority, they could not comply. Instead, they fell back on their training and prepared to open fire.

But when they attempted to pull their triggers, their fingers instantly grew limp, as if afflicted by paresthesia. No matter how hard they tried, they could not make their fingers obey.

“You will escort me to Mr. Clinton. Now,” Paul repeated, his voice now even more authoritative.

The guards, now with fear in their eyes, stood frozen, unsure of what to do next. They had been selected for their unwavering loyalty, their ability to follow orders without question, and had been trained to handle high-stress situations. But here, on the White House lawn, they found themselves faced with a situation that defied every protocol. They were now confronted by a being whose existence defied their entire frame of reference.

One of them, a tall, broad-shouldered Secret Service agent, tried to subdue Paul in hand-to-hand combat. After all, that’s something you can do even with a numb finger. Paul broke his opponent’s arm as effortlessly as snapping a brittle twig in the woods. He then continued to walk across the neatly trimmed grass of the North Lawn towards the White House.

Entering the grounds from Pennsylvania Avenue was a deliberate choice he had made. Not only did it put his incursion in full view of the public, but it was also the most direct route to the Oval Office for someone with his capabilities - and, from the Secret Service's perspective, perhaps the route they least expected an invader to take.

Upon reaching the white-stone north-facing wall of the West Colonnade, Paul easily climbed over it and jumped down into the Rose Garden on the other side. The guards on the roof met the same fate as those at the outer fence - swiftly incapacitated, sometimes with broken bones, but not permanently harmed.

When he reached the large windows of the Oval Office a minute later, the once-pristine lawn was now littered with the broken bodies of several more Secret Service agents. All alive, all in pain, and none of them had ever had even the slightest chance of stopping or even slowing him down. And even though he had known this would be the outcome, knew they would never simply follow his orders and let him through, he felt a certain sadness that they hadn’t listened to him. Had they done so, the result would still have been the same - him, inside the White House - but without having to inflict fear and pain on dedicated guards who were only doing their job.

Well, now he was here. He knocked on the reinforced glass. Inside the grand Oval Office, he could see Clinton, his face a mix of uncertainty and tension, unsure whether he should hide in fear or order Paul to leave. In the end, he was the President, after all - and you didn’t become the President of the United States by being a coward, not in this century, at least. Clinton rose from his leather-bound chair, straightened his suit, and walked to the other side of the thick, bulletproof window.

A window most certainly not made to be opened from the outside. Paul smashed the inch-thick armored glass with his elbow. It didn’t shatter but cracked under the force, and he pushed the pieces aside to create a hole large enough to enter.

Paul had to give Clinton credit for his reaction. On other training exercises, he’d seen world leaders cry like children when faced with the awesome might of the Sunguard. Once, he had even seen Mr. Putin lose control of his bodily functions when ordered to withdraw his forces from Ukraine in 2023.

Clinton didn’t crack like that.

“Who are you?”, he asked. Fear was apparent in his voice, but there was strength there, too.

“My name is Paul Williams,” Paul answered. “I am a Special Agent of the Sunguard, on a training exercise from the year 2347. The parameters of this training mission are to enforce a complete ban on civilian use of firearms in the United States in the year 1999. Consequently, I hereby outlaw all private ownership of firearms. You will immediately begin destroying all those that exist within the nation’s border.”

Clinton stared at him in confused silence, his mind racing to process the situation. But he was an intelligent man, and from the way Paul had entered the room - effortlessly breaking the security perimeter - it was obvious this was no mere lunatic strolling into the Oval Office. Although he didn’t fully understand the context, he believed the truth of what Paul had told him. Believing it, however, didn’t equate to automatic compliance.

“While I’m not entirely unsympathetic to what you’re asking, it is something I cannot do,” Clinton replied cautiously. “In this country, we have a Constitution that guarantees the right to private ownership of weapons. I can’t just violate it. I neither have, nor should have, that authority.”

“I am aware of those facts,” Paul answered, his tone unyielding. “You will nevertheless comply.”

Constitution or no Constitution, Paul’s authority as a Special Agent was absolute, in any timeline. And the Terran Federation, by the law of temporal supersession, did not recognize the sovereignty of past nations. Simply put, if you and your descendants were to disagree, your descendants would always be right.

Clinton laughed, exasperated. “But I can’t. There’s no way I can do that. It just can’t be done.”

“You will comply,” Paul repeated, his gaze unyielding. “You have three days to implement a new Constitution. Failure to comply will be interpreted as an act of war against the Terran Federation.”

And then he left.

July 13, 1999, Washington, D.C., Earth

10:18 AM

Paul had somewhat expected to be the target of a massive manhunt by now. After all, he had boldly invaded the White House, and had anyone from this era done the same, the Secret Service would have used every resource at their disposal to hunt down the responsible individual. But clearly, Clinton had believed him, and despite them being on opposite sides, he was astute enough as a politician to realize that trying to arrest a duly appointed representative of a foreign government - albeit one from the future - was not the appropriate thing to do. That, or he had just realized what the dire consequences of trying to apprehend Paul would be.

The world around him had already started to descend into chaos. His sudden incursion into the White House could not be kept secret. There were cameras everywhere around there, with tourists and journalists crowding the district. Day and night, there was always someone recording in the area. Within hours of his tense talk with Clinton, footage of the dramatic events there was broadcast across the globe. While the newscasts lacked the necessary context to make sense of the images, the pictures themselves were enough to sow chaos. Speculation, mostly along the lines of extraterrestrial rather than future visitors, added fuel to the fire.

He had three days before the end of the deadline - not that he anticipated the United States would comply. If they did, well, then his mission would be complete. Although it would be shorter than expected, he would indeed have succeeded. If they did not comply, things would certainly get more interesting. Not that he wanted a war - far from it - but in terms of the training mission, a war would certainly be of greater value for the 256th.

The parameters for the training mission shouldn’t be interpreted too literally, either. If he had really just wanted to remove all firearms from United States soil - and that was the only thing he had to concern himself with - that would have been very easy to do. He could just have given a command to his Army, and within seconds they’d have jumped from lunar to low Earth orbit and deployed thousands of space bombs. The space bombs, precision-guided electromagnetic bottles containing a few grams of antimatter, would have ignited retrorockets to reshape their orbital velocity into ballistic trajectories. Within minutes, impact with the Earth’s surface would have destroyed the circuitry; the electromagnetic containment would have failed, and the antimatter would have come into contact with matter. And a nanosecond later, every square meter of the United States would have been reduced to boiling glass.

That would certainly, and very efficiently, have eliminated all firearms in the country. But it would also have killed everyone, and then the entire point of getting rid of the weapons would have been rendered moot. No, it would likely come to war; he was quite certain of that. But if it did, it’d have to be a limited war, with limited casualties. Otherwise, it would not be worth the cost in lives. If it came down to an exchange of fire, he would have to hit quickly and hard, shocking the United States into submission before casualties had time to accumulate. There would probably be deaths, but they would be military deaths, and he had less of a problem fighting people whose duty it was to fight back. But if it was at all possible, he would like to accomplish the objective he had set for himself on this training mission without killing anyone.

He had two more days. While he waited, he’d enjoy the sights at the end of the tumultuous Crazy Century.

July 15, 1999, Sacramento, Earth

6:42 PM

The world had gone utterly mad.

Three days ago, some kind of monster from outer space had attacked the White House. Or perhaps it was an elite North Korean super soldier creating havoc. Who knew? Ellie had heard both of those outlandish rumors, along with a dozen other ridiculous theories. She didn’t know what to believe. But it was all utterly insane; she knew that much.

Her family was glued to the flickering TV screen. Things were unfolding at a rapid pace now. The United States army had been deployed to Washington D.C., tasked with the job of protecting the White House and the Capitol building from… well, the aliens, Ellie guessed. There were soldiers stationed everywhere, clad in green and brown camouflage. Not so much here in Sacramento, but on the East Coast, they swarmed like ants.

Ellie shrugged. She didn’t quite know if she was scared or exhilarated. Perhaps she was both at the same time. She looked at her father, a concerned look etched on his face as he watched the news. He’s just scared, Ellie thought. Why did she feel exhilaration, then?