“Today… today is the day I die…”
Alina stared at the screen, listening
to the voice of her sister coming from the hidden speaker. Her sister.
They’d been through training
together. They’d ascended through the
ranks together and had often served together.
And then she’d been accepted into the Valkyrie and they’d lost touch. The Valkyrie were the Empire’s elite combat
force. Highly trained, versatile, and
often acting as covert agents at the whim of the Empress herself. Most people in the Empire had heard of the
Valkyrie, but few had ever seen one of them in the flesh.
“The Vreen laid siege to Earth ten
days ago. They were swift and vicious,
leaving nothing in their wake, overrunning the world in hours. The defense forces, both Imperial and native,
were decimated. Only small pockets of
resistance were left, fighting to survive in the hope that the Empire would
arrive in time to save them. Hoping
against hope for us Valkyrie to come to their aid.
“We were too late.”
The voice was rough and ragged with exhaustion. She had been here for days and had probably
slept little if at all. Alina knew how
she felt. Fatigue was a soldier’s nemesis
and Alina had held its hand more than a few times over the years.
“We flew in low and fast, trying to
keep the element of surprise on our side.
Somehow the Vreen were aware of us.
Their anti-air fire took out more than a few of our landing craft. We evaded their fire and made a hot landing
just outside the perimeter of the base, pouring out of the landing craft with
rifles blasting away. Many Vreen fell in
the first few seconds of our assault, but they kept coming. We did our best to surround them but they
managed to break our line, forcing us to scatter and take cover where we could.”
Alina saw the assault in her
mind. She could see her sister in her
combat armor with her rifle unslung, taking careful shots as she advanced with
her sisters toward the enemy, then breaking toward cover when the true battle
was joined.
“My squad found a group of Human
soldiers holed up in a wrecked building.
They were tired, scared and quickly running out of supplies.
“They hoped we were their salvation.”
Alina looked around the room. Bodies strewn across the floor told the
horrifying tale. There had been no rescue. No salvation.
“Before we could regroup, the Vreen
were on us. They came through the windows
and up through the ground, their insectoid armor protecting them from what fire
we could lay in to them, their claws tearing through durasteel armor like paper,
shredding flesh leaving only bone behind.
The few of us left retreated further into the building, blocking the exits
as we went, hoping against hope they would hold. They did.
For a while.”
Alina stood up from the chair she’d
been sitting in and looked around her.
Her sister’s body lay against the wall on the far end of the room, her
eyes closed and a small smile on her face.
Her other sister’s bodies and those of the Humans who had tried in vain
to defend this place were strewn haphazardly around the room. Most were only identifiable as skeletons, but
a few had been spared the Vreen’s embrace.
Her sister’s voice continued as she looked for other information to take
back with her.
“This place is our last hope. We’ll make a stand here and perhaps, Great
Mother willing, we’ll survive long enough to be rescued ourselves, or at least
to take out as many Vreen as we can.
Alina, if you hear this, know that I wanted to tell you everything. It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known, and I don’t fault
you for any of it. We’re sisters, Alina,
and that counts for more than anything in this universe.”
The audio from the terminal was
silent for a short while. Just as Alina
thought to go and check on it, a banging noise erupted from its speaker. Then a crash of rending durasteel and screams.
“They’ve broken through the barricades! They’re coming up through the floor! This is it!
We need to form up! Hold them
back!”
The speaker filled the room with
gunfire. Alina could see the battle in
her mind’s eye. She could hear her sister
barking out orders, urging her own sisters to fight to the last. The noise lasted for all of thirty seconds
and then the room fell silent again.
Alina stood in the room alone. Waiting.
Finally, after an interminable amount of time, her sister spoke again.
“Today is the day I die. We did the best we could. The Vreen were too many. I go to the Mother knowing my sisters fought
bravely and with honor. Today we were
Valkyrie.”
There was a short gasp of air and
then nothing. Her sister had fallen. Alina knelt down next to her, kissed her forehead,
stood up and picked up the materials she’d collected. She walked from the room, moving briskly to catch
up with the rest of her team. The bodies
would be collected and identified by a cleanup team in the next few hours once
the Vreen presence had been completely eradicated. Her sisters would be honored on the homeworld,
as would the Humans who fought with them.
Today was the day her sister died.
Today was the day that her life changed.
Today was the day the world changed.
