Timestamp

Item	Quality	Price (PayPal G&S)
Ray-Ban Clubmaster Polarized Sunglasses (with case and lens cloth)	A	$150 shipped (CONUS) OBO SOLD
Ray-Ban Hexagonal Polarized Sunglasses (with case and lens cloth)	A	$150 shipped (CONUS) OBO SOLD

First time posting here, but I've sold on mechmarket
Feel free to PM with questions and offers!

[first] [prev] [next]
The landscape below was destroyed. Parks riven and cold, destroyed buildings covered with a rime of frost from where the atmosphere had frozen to the surfaces when the dome had been breached, vehicles strewn around. There was still the flicker of neon and holograms.
And the white flicker of shades.
"Where are we?" Herod asked as the domed city slowly passed beneath him, as if he wasn't moving at nearly two thousand miles an hour.
"Over the Layer Sigma Worker Housing Area Niner Epsilon Three Area," Sam-UL answered.
"How many people worked in here when it was active?" Herod asked, watching at the shattered edge of the dome slid by.
"Two hundred fifty three thousand four hundred nineteen 'Pure Strain Humans', eighty-three Digital Sentiences, eighty three thousand two hundred nineteen 'gene-jacks', one-hundred sixteen thousand two hundred forty two Cybernetic Collective Citizens, fifteen thousand Treana'ad exactly, nineteen million eight hundred fifteen thousand six hundred seventy six Born Whole maintenance clones," Sam answered.
Herod closed his eyes, no longer the robotic looking eyes his physical interaction frame had started with, and pushed his palms against the eye sockets.
"They all killed each other," Sam choked.
"Steady, Sam," Herod said. The other DS had been alternating between raving and weeping for a few hours prior.
"There's just so many of them. So many of them," Sam's voice trailed off into a whisper.
"Steady, Sam," Herod said. He looked down at Wally, the little robot that had been accompanying him.
Wally could get to the mass storage areas much faster and easier than Herod could.
And unlike Sam and Herod, Wally didn't see the Shades.
Another destroyed dome went by, frozen trees and fields of gain in the darkness. The only light was the pale white flicker of shades moving about, the psychic residue of the last moments of beings driven insane.
"How much further," Herod asked.
"Half an hour," Sam-UL said.
"What do I need to repair?" Herod asked.
Below a complex railyard passed, with the rails moving up into the air.
Behold mine works I doth craft in mine madness and despair, ye who art still burdened with thy sanity, Herod quoted to himself as the mag-lev passenger car passed a train frozen still on the tracks and covered in a layer of frost.
"Main power switching system. Not the computers, but the physical links," Sam said. He coughed, the wet bubbling cough of a man with a punctured lung. "It used old Stappenbury Superconductors."
Herod nodded. That type was room temperature and above but quickly increased impedance the colder it got, a direct reversal of most conductors.
It also excreted flourine gas as it got colder and hydrogen gas as it got hotter.
One of the earliest strange matter applications.
"I'll manufacture the Stappenbury when I see what I have to replace. Do you have a visual on it?" Herod asked, opening up his virtual keyboard and setting to work.
"No. I've got the blueprint, but like we saw in the matter shipment switchback what is on the blueprint and what is reality are two different things," Sam said. He paused for a moment. "It's OK. Don't cry. Let's go find your mommy."
Herod tried to block out the last part.
So, so many children, went through his mind before he could push the thought away.
The power switching section supplied power to the habitats and at first Herod couldn't see why Sam wanted it fixed.
It was the tertiary backup power system for the Born Whole hash system. The bare necessary power for the cold storage to be accessed, much less move base hashes to the 'griddle' to be warmed up and 'grown' so that the 'buds' could be harvested and made into full hashes.
Herod thought for second. There was a reason that any hashes that had been cooked up when the Glassing happened couldn't be used.
They would all be mad.
And Herod had found himself becoming more and more educated on the different flavors of being mad.
The mental image of himself in an ice cream shop, between Treana'ad matrons, picking out a cone of madness to taste made him start giggling.
The giggles turned to sobbing laughter.
The sobbing laughter began to mix with laughing sobs.
The laughing sobs and sobbing laughs turned to screams.
Wally snapped him out of it, patting his back and making soothing musical chirps.
Herod hugged the robot close, weeping, for a long moment.
Finally he straightened up, wiping the moisture from his face, and looked outside the tram.
There was one of the fusion generators masquerading as a sun moving by underneath him, the polarized section facing Herod, so that it was shining light down on the section of the inside of the sphere below him.
Huge tanks, the size of massive cargo ships, slowly moved by beneath him. There were red emergency lights on, bathing the whole place a surreal reddish color.
He could see the flickering pale white of the Shades among the tanks, gathering in number, until he passed over a destroyed area where the Shades were thick.
"Volatile Noble Gas Storage," Sam said suddenly in Herod's ear. His voice was calmer.
Herod managed to keep from screaming.
"Born Whole short life clones, driven mad by the attack, swarmed the workers, killed them, and ate them. The attack damaged the kill-switches in them so the Pubvians working in that section were outnumbered a thousand to one," Herod said. "They held out here, hoping to keep the clones from overrunning their housing."
"Did it work?" Herod asked.
"It didn't matter. Their wives and children had been driven mad," Sam-UL said softly. He hitched a sob. "So many of them need comfort, need the trauma of their last insane moments eased," he said. "I can't do this, Herod. I can't bear it."
"We will do as we must," Herod said, doing his best to keep his voice firm. "There is no-one but us who can do this."
Sam-UL gave another choking sob. "Why, Herod? Why would they bring their children to this place?"
"It wouldn't have mattered," Herod said, watching the dome that was obviously the Pubvians habitat slowly move by underneath him. "Here, Terra, Pubvia, Rigel, it wouldn't have mattered. The Mantid killed over seventy-percent of the Republic's citizens."
"And only managed to kill less than ten percent of its military," Sam-UL laughed. The laughter suddenly cut off and Sam was silent for a long moment. "How, Herod? How did they do it?"
"The Mantid?" Herod asked. He was staring down at long highways, railways, mag-lev tubes below him.
"No. Our parents," Sam-UL said. "How did they forgive the Mantid with the fires of the Glassing still burning on Terra and on Pubvia?"
"Because they did," Herod said. "I don't know. Just being this close to it all, I can feel the hatred beating at me like heat from standing too close to a fusion furnace."
"The sheer pleasure the Speakers and Warriors felt, pushing the deaths of every kill back into SolNet and the SoulNet, it's obscene," Sam-UL said.
"They are extinct now, Sam-UL. Killed by the Immortals and the endless might of the Imperium of Light," Herod reminded the other DS. "No Queens, No Masters."
Sam giggled.
"It was thousands of years ago, Sam-UL," Herod said quietly, hugging Wally. "It's ancient history now."
"Dust in the wind," Sam-UL sang softly. "Just dust in the wind."
Below him there was a huge portal to the next layer, a permeable force field that flickered and wavered in the visual spectrum. Herod knew it was an older model, one of the first generations of such a thing.
"The screen generators are damaged," Herod said, leaning down and squinting to activate his telescopic vision. He could see three damaged points in the ring. "Looks like explosive."
"Power switching station first," Sam-UL said.
"I know," Herod sighed. "I wish I knew what kind of subsystems depend on the flourine or the hydrogen secondary product. It would be safer to use Duvalier Systems Superconductor in that kind of mechanism," Herod said. He sighed again. "I kind of wish Flowerpatch was here."
"She would have never made it," Sam-UL said. "The Mat-Trans would have torn her apart."
"Still," Herod sighed.
"Me too," Sam-UL admitted. "There's just not enough of me, not enough of you. I can touch the face of eternity, feel her tears, and hear the cries of the dead calling out for succor."
"Steady, Sam," Herod said, looking down through the huge circular gate. He estimated it was three or four hundred miles wide.
He could see lights in the darkness beyond.
The portal slid by.
"Herod, can I have your access codes?" Sam-UL suddenly asked.
"Sure, why not," Herod said.
He felt what seemed like a warm finger touch inside his brain and gasped.
"Thank you," Sam-UL said. "You're almost there."
Herod felt the mag-lev car slow down, starting the braking system working. The mag-lev car shuddered and vibrated, tiny flakes of neo-aluminum floating down from the ceiling.
"I'll have Wally warm up the nano-forge," Herod said. He closed his eyes for a long moment. "I can do this because I must."
---------------------
"Where do you think they are?" Torturer asked, staring at the security camera feed. The combined team had only just managed to get the cameras turned back on and the security system to access the feed. There were patches and lockouts all through the system.
"Not sure," Vanishing Point said. He leaned forward. "Look at the stuff scattered around. What were they doing?"
The gathered Digital Sentiences all turned and looked at the small slight woman with short black hair, sunglasses, and a pistol in the armpit of her black suit.
"I will not confirm or deny any theories as to what they were doing," she said, her voice soft but somehow menacing.
The Digital Sentiences all turned their attention back to the camera feed.
"Looks like they were coating something in something," Torturer mumbled. He waited a second. "Flowerpatch?"
They turned and looked at the only DS physically present, who was using a nanite cloud as a distributed network to host her intellect.
She leaned forward, smiling. "Looks like they used strange matter to coat, hmm, judging from the marks left of the floor, it looks like extreme environment hazard suits."
"Why would they need hazard suits?" Nexus asked.
"Unknown," Sigma said, cocking his head. "Herod withdrew equipment before he vanished."
"What equipment?" Flowerpatch asked.
"He ran off a template for a replica of a Third Republic 12mm force pistol," Sigma said. "He then created two hazardous environmental suits, then withdrew three mass tanks, a strange-matter Class XIV nano-forge using historical archive Third Republic designs, three Class XII graviton power generators that were actually pre-Diasporia designs, and two Class XI zero-point difference reactors that were Second Republic design," Sigma pointed at the laboratory. "There are no reactors or power generators."
Flowerpatch had tossed up the specs for the equipment and rocked back suddenly. "All of this came from the historical archives. It's all Pre-Glassing technology."
"Surely you are mistaken," Nexus said.
"No. Look at the dates of the templates he used. All of them are pre-Glassing using only pre-Glassing methods and materials. They chose for inefficency rather than higher efficency and energy to matter conversion rates," Flowerpatch said.
"Why would they do that?" Torturer asked. He turned to the slight woman. "Do you know?"
Flowerpatch was looking right at her when she shook her head and saw, again, something that apparently only she could see.
The bio Terran had a digital presence. It was slightly off, maybe a nanosecond, but she still saw the oddly colored and oddly shaped digital presence of the small woman. It was all gray, silvery, and moved more like water or a thick gas than a pure digital representation.
Flowerpatch filed it away as just another curiosity.
"What could they have wanted that equipment for?" Nexus asked. He pointed at where some kind of hexagonal chamber had been built in the corner of the room. "And what is this? He used one of the larger creation engines to build it, but the template for that is nowhere to be found."
"The creation engine in his lab is under some kind of lockout," Delta said. He turned to the bioform. "Can you unlock it so we can see what he built?"
Again she shook her head. "No. The interlocks are older code, core code. Any attempt to even move the creation engine will cause it to fuse out."
Flowerpatch looked close at the lab. "Is the creation engine why none of us can enter?"
She nodded slowly. "Yes."
"How old was the template he used to create that object?" Flowerpatch asked.
The small female Terran held still for a long moment. "Before your people were born. Sam-UL managed to hack out the schematics and created a template from the schematics using Legion's access codes."
Everyone went still.
"It predated creation engines?" Delta choked out.
"Yes," the woman said.
"And Sam-UL has Legion's access codes?" Torturer said. She nodded. "Why didn't you do anything?"
"Legion gave instructions that we are to ignore all hacking and data theft by Sam-UL with highest priority," she said. She shrugged. "He found something, something nobody else did. Legion's codes were hacked after the Case Omaha went out."
Another of the petite women came in and looked at Flowerpatch. "You are required," she said. Her voice brooked no argument and Flowerpatch could hear the order repeated in digital space.
Flowerpatch stood up, dusting off her hands. "Complying."
She followed the petite woman out even as Torturer argued that Sam-UL had somehow escaped the Black Box with Herod and left everyone else to rot. They wound through the hallways until they stopped at a heavy door.
The slight woman put her hand next to the door and her palm was scanned and her digital identification was read. The slate pinged and went dark as the door unlocked.
"You are the only one with physical form. We lack the empathy to carry out what must be attended to," the woman said.
"You're part of an Immortal, aren't you?" Flowerpatch asked.
She nodded. "Yes."
"The Case Omaha took part of your mind with it, didn't it?" Flowerpatch asked.
She shook her head. "No. My sister's and I's souls. Our Father fights to preserve Holy TerraSol. We carry out his will in the universe beyond so that the enemies of mankind will not triumph."
The door finally finished unlocking and slowly opened. Flowerpatch noted it was two meters thick warsteel and opened into a hallway.
"Are you all the same?" Flowerpatch asked as she followed the small woman, who most people thought of as a "Confederate Intelligence Agent', down the hallways.
"We are all complete," the woman said. "We live, we die, we live again. We do not forget yesterday but we stand today looking toward tomorrow."
Flowerpatch managed not to shiver as the petite woman opened another door. It took long moments before the door raised.
"Do you know where Herod and Sam-UL went?" Flowerpatch asked.
"I cannot confirm or deny any knowledge regarding any such potential individuals nor their possible activity," the woman said. She made a gesture. "After you."
Flowerpatch walked in and stopped. There were cryo-tubes in the room. Surgical ones, where nanites and robotic surgeons could work on someone in cold storage. The room was warm, the cryo-tubes covered with moisture.
The petite woman walked up to one that was dry, putting her hand on the top.
Flowerpatch walked up next to her, watching it confirm the woman's identity. For the first time, concentrating, she saw it as it flowed by.
SANDRA-BLAKE-33928A43
"He will need you," the woman said. "He has recovered from his illness. Legion, my Father's brother, has delivered him from the grasp of Hades."
The tube cracked open and Flowerpatch stared in shock at the body inside.
It shuddered and opened its eyes, staring at Flowerpatch.
"Mommy, I had a dream I had been sick," the young Dogboy said, reaching for her.
Flowerpatch took his hand. "It's OK now, sweetie, momma's here."
[first] [prev] [next]

So I had the rayban hexagonal flat lense sunglasses (RB3548N), polarized, retail from sunglasshut.
I had them for like a month and lost them in the lake (I know, stupid), so instead of spending another $200 on retail I wanted to try to find some reps and see if they compare. HOWEVER, I cannot find them POLARIZED from anyone, Ive checked markin (he sells no raybans, I asked), lat-lon (he hasn't replied to my request on getting them polarized yet), Alan, even looked at Aokoo, even though he doesn't seem good anymore from what I have read on here, and Vincent.
So does anyone know of any other places I can look? Maybe another solution to getting some polarized with a lens swap or something like that? I really loved these sunglasses and it seems the reps are almost all non-polarized aside from a few exceptions.

Hello there, and welcome. I’ll keep introductions brief, as I’m here to share a writing story, not my life story, yes? This is my first time posting here, so I do hope this is up to snuff. It’s been a long time since I’ve put anything on display for public consumption, but it’s been suggested to me that this might be a good place to share this little project, and find potentially useful feedback, criticisms, and more.
“Sea of Hope” is an ongoing passion project being worked on by multiple people. It’s been a labor of love that’s been in development for a long time, undergoing constant evolution. There’s a lot of plot and history that’s been developed, and much, much more still in development. We wanted to share some of that with you, in hopes that you might be interested in going on that journey with us, and discover why we’re as passionate about it as we are.
Thanks for your time, and enjoy the show.
Links
[Part 2]

>>//0740 Hours, 08 January, 2168
>>//Location: Old Gemini/Lost Twin
>>//Sublocation: Clone Civil War Memorial
>>//Terra Nova, Anastasis System, Mare Spera
The ruins of the original Gemini Base were just as he remembered them: A desolate heap of rubble, destroyed far beyond any hope of repair.
YC-012, “Bourbon”—As he was now known, much to his chagrin—stared up at the massive obelisk that loomed over the ruins. To say it towered above his head would be a pitiful understatement; it stretched so far above him that he could not see the top from where he sat. Its width was much more tangible, at least in the sense that one could circumnavigate the thing in a reasonable amount of time. All the same, he wouldn’t want to run a circuit around it; it would just as well become a marathon.
The hexagonal pillar was darker than the abyss itself, a solemn reminder of the deaths it represented. The memorial’s surface constantly rippled and shimmered, forming fleeting constellations against the void of space. Those faux stars, however, consisted of the names of those who had fallen in the Clone Civil War; scrolling, flickering, fading, and appearing once again upon its surface from time to time. It was imperceptible from any sort of distance, and even up close one might find difficulty reading them due to the near-nanoscopic size of the text. The sheer number of names encompassed by the monolith demanded it.
The trillions of names demanded it.
At night, it was only visible due to the spotlights that were constantly shone against it, ensuring that it could never go unseen, the lives lost never forgotten. Bourbon supposed it likewise served the infinitely more mundane purpose of a safety precaution, of course, to avoid potential issues with any air traffic that may have been arriving or departing from the intact sibling base some distance away.
As its name implied, Gemini had been built as two installations, conjoined by a tram system that ran between the two. It was, in essence, the Coalition of Clone Systems’ capitol. He could still remember when it was first constructed. They’d been the Coalition of Clone Nations back then. He could remember when nothing stood on Terra Nova, and the day they first stepped foot on it.
How long has it been? He wondered to himself. He looked down at the stones he held in his hand, bits of and pieces of rubble that had been exposed to the elements long enough to begin eroding them. He rolled them about in his palm idly, contemplating the base’s state. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it in this condition, though his last visit had seen him in a far less observant state. He would have bet money that these were the same stones he’d been fondling during his last visit, if he had any cash on him. Given that the CCS didn’t use currency, however, that would’ve made for a fairly hollow bet.
That didn’t stop him from collecting banknotes from Earth whenever he could, of course. Earth memorabilia was still valuable on its own to the right individual.
He continued to ponder the question he’d posed. How long had it been since the last time he’d seen the military installation intact? November 5th, 2048, he recalled. That was just under 120 years ago now. It was burned into his mind, as it was for many other denizens of the Coalition. That was the date that everything had fallen apart. Any clone who’d lived through that day would remember it well. Not just those who’d been stationed at Gemini, or even on Terra Nova, but across all of Mare Spera.
It had been a lifetime ago now. No—Two…? Three…? He struggled to recount how many times he’d transferred from one body to another now, how many times he’d undergone transference. Sometimes he struggled to recount a lot of things, other times they came naturally. His mind swung like a pendulum between trying to erase it all and desperately clinging to whatever threads remained of his memory. So much had come unraveled.
It was maddening, though part of it was his own fault. They didn’t call him “Bourbon” for nothing.
He found one such thread, and took hold. He followed it backwards through time to revisit—Not for the first time, nor the last he suspected— the day of the surprise attack that launched the insurgency to come. Mounting tensions had come to a head, and fractured the Coalition. The rebels splintered off into their own faction, the Unified Clone Nations, and both sides spent plenty of time killing each other for the next two decades, leaving long-lasting wounds that still had never healed completely.
Bastards didn’t even have the decency to come up with an original name.
“Penny for your thoughts?” came the familiar drawl of an old friend.
He reeled himself back in, looking up from his hand. He adjusted his sunglasses to peer over their rims at the man who’d addressed him. YC-087, “Bull,” stood ahead of him. The Coalition’s Commander-in-Chief was half-turned towards him, free of his aides for at least a moment. Bourbon wished he had a camera. The morning sun cast its soft golden rays across him, painting an image of him that many of the Coalition would’ve very much liked to see.
He was wearing the full extent of his formal attire, sporting the deep red, pristine white, and dark blue uniform that was unique to his station. They were the colors of the Coalition’s flag. The blue was indicative of the void of space. The red and white represented the collided galaxies that formed “Mare Spera,” the “Sea of Hope.” It also served as a slight allusion to the Coalition’s Earthly origins in the United States military.
He sported his ceremonial pauldron on his left shoulder, a remnant or replication of the retired GPAU armor. The GPAU had been their first real armor, as opposed to simple plate carriers and ballistic padding. It had since been replaced by the M-RAU and its subsequent iterations, a much more advanced armor system, befitting a civilization that trod the stars. Its purpose as a part of his uniform was purely for symbolism and aesthetics, with his other shoulder and forearms sporting the segmented angular plating that had become incredibly commonplace amongst Coalition uniform designs.
The creases in his face seemed more apparent every time Bourbon saw him, and the circles under his eyes grew darker. It was hard to place the age of his current body, as it seemed keen on catching up to the age of his mind. Bull came into being in 1988, which put him at 179 years old as it was. Physical age meant nothing to a clone aside from the need for another body transfer and the physical therapy associated with it before they could get back to their duties, but to say age was “just a number” would be disingenuous.
The wind blew gently through Bull’s cropped black hair. Bourbon could remember when Bull fancied himself a charmer, his hair longer and slicked back with pomade. At the time, paired with his personality, it had evoked the image of someone from an old Western movie. He played the part well, complete with drawl and Southern charm. While he had yet to lose his accent, and he could still play the part of the charismatic leader, he seemed to have lost interest in playing cowboy.
Something subtle in his dark eyes told Bourbon that there might have been some hidden level of concern. That was fair, if he was being honest with himself. Bull was the one who’d discovered him here during his last visit five years prior, which had been a sordid affair.
Bourbon realized he’d been staring stupidly at him as opposed to giving him an answer. Seeing Bull after all this time still felt strange to him. All the same, he’d left an uncomfortable amount of time between the question and a response. It took him a moment to remember what the question even was. He chuffed as he remembered, finally answering in his typical low, sultry voice as he readjusted his shades. “You couldn’t possibly hope to afford all my thoughts even at a penny a piece.”
Bull turned to face him fully. “No? How about a dollar for the bushel, then?”
Bourbon grinned, seizing the moment. He mimed a microphone with his free hand. “A penny for your thoughts, but a dollar for your insides, or a fortune for your disaster?” he belted out with gusto. He let his hand fall and shrugged, stating the next line with far less bravado. “I’m just a painter, and I’m drawing a blank.”
“Your musical prowess leaves nothing to be desired,” Bull said, his tone flat in spite of an amused expression. “Save, perhaps, an answer to my question.”
Bourbon took a deep breath and sighed, planting his elbows on his knees. He stared back down at the stones in his hand. He rolled one between his finger and his thumb, then let it drop. “Frankly, I would have been far happier had I never been made to step foot in this festering dung heap ever again,” he said. “Too many memories.” He rolled the stones in his palm again, hearing the clattering. He let another drop. His brow furrowed, and he nodded in the direction of the monument. “Too many ghosts.” He looked back up. “Had you told me when last we met here that I would once more find myself seated upon this same pile of rubble? I believe I promptly would have told you to shoot me on the spot.”
Bull gave him a smug look. “You could always choose another assortment of rocks to perch on,” he offered. He gestured somewhere off to his side. “Those ones look mighty comfortable. You’re certainly not starved for choice.”
Bourbon glanced towards the pile Bull had indicated. It was a spiny sea urchin of debris, bits and pieces of rebar thrusting outwards at all angles. He let yet another stone drop, shrugging. “I’ll pass,” he said, waving dismissively. “I prefer my seating arrangements a tad less likely to give me a case of tetanus.”
“Well. You could always… Stand. Presuming that’s not too… Pedestrian for you,” Bull retorted, rocking on his heels as he emphasized the word.
Bourbon gave a look of mock offense. “Like some kind of plebeian?” he gasped. “That you have the gall.” He paused and sighed, letting all the stones fall from his hand. He dusted his hands off, and pushed himself to stand. He held his arms out wide. “Satisfied?” he asked with a smirk.
Bull chuckled, looking around at all the debris himself. There was a pause before he spoke again. When he did, there was a solemnity to his voice. “You know, when the orbital elevator collapsed,” he began slowly, pointing towards a spot not too far from where either of them stood. “I was standing… Right about there.” Bourbon followed his direction, then glanced back upwards towards the monument. “We were trying to secure the elevator. Just when we were sure we had it on lock, they must’ve detonated charges they’d placed somewhere up above.”
The monument stood now where the orbital elevator once had, on its massive raised platform. It mimicked the shape as the elevator had, large and hexagonal, though not quite the same scale. It was centered the same, positioned the same, though lacking in dimension. Especially vertically. Saying such didn’t diminish the monument’s grandeur in any way, but rather put things into perspective. It was hard to compare anything to something that stretched beyond a planet’s atmosphere.
Bull continued, looking upwards towards the sky, shaking his head. “Worst sound I ever heard, haven’t heard anything quite like it since. The whole thing started to flounder about, not being anchored anymore. Sound of metal twisting and groaning, that odd twang the cables made as they thrashed about. I looked up to watch as it warped and began to shake pieces off of it.” He squinted, clearly envisioning the moment. “You know what the damnedest thing is though?”
Bourbon had a feeling he knew where Bull was going with the story, but didn’t interrupt. Instead he stood and listened, knowing Bull would continue of his own volition. “Watching the other half of it going up into space. One of the craziest things you can imagine, watching something that big just getting sucked out into the sky like that. That ain’t even the worst of it, though.” He turned back to Bourbon. “Worst of it was that I could make out something else moving up there. A ship.”
He put on an expression of amusement, though he was certain it was only to cover the resentment he’d felt. “I could see that ship move in and intercept the station the elevator was anchored to. And they hauled the whole damned station away. Must’ve loaded up the elevator with as much as they could and figured to steal whatever they had still left on the thing. I can’t even begin to tell you what was running through my mind as I watched those bastards steal our elevator.” He chuckled, a hint of bitterness behind it. “Of all the outrageous things I’ve seen, I don’t think anything’s got my goat quite as much as that.”
Bourbon glanced around. He replayed the events of the attack in his head. Things had been utter chaos the whole time, which distorted the timeline in his head to some degree. It didn’t help matters that it had been over a century ago. “I believe that was shortly after we secured the armory, or somewhere abouts. Chi had ventured off to retake the motor pool shortly prior, and I was off with a contingent of my own to take back the nursery.” So much of that day blended together, but he recalled the scene unfolding at the cloning facility well enough—He might have managed to scrub it from his memory, were it not for the fact that a living reminder of it was hounding him constantly as of late. “I recall it was near the end of the attack, at any rate. Seemed pretty apparent that we had the upper hand at that point, if it could be said as such.”
He scoffed, turning his nose up at a thought. “Frankly, I’m still insulted by their choice of cliché. November 5th? Really? They really had to go and pick a date already associated with treason?” He rolled his eyes, taking a few slow paces forward, holding his arms aloft as he posed his rhetorical question. “They decided to go the route of “Remember, remember, the 5th of November,” enact their treason, then stole our bloody name while they were at it? What a joke, with a terrible punchline at that.”
Bull arched a brow at him. “Would you rather they’d have chosen the 1st of November instead, or would you instead be chiding them for their missed opportunity?”
“I would rather they’d not betrayed us at all, if we’re talking semantics,” Bourbon retorted.
“Point,” Bull acknowledged.
Bourbon gave him a shit-eating grin. “All the same, you would, however, be absolutely correct in assuming that I’d have simply taken the other stance. They’d be taking the piss from me in either instance.” He chuckled, moving towards the monument itself.
The monument stood atop the platform their orbital elevator had once occupied, which thankfully had meant that it had a stable foundation as it was. It also made for a very large foundation. A few other things occupied the space as such. Presently, an entire assembly of people occupied the platform, in preparation for the ceremonies to come. Today marked the fifth-year anniversary of the officially declared end of the Hybridas Conflict. Yet another catastrophic war, though not one that the Coalition had in any way perpetrated. Rather, they’d been invaded by an outside force, the Hybridas.
Giving the Hybridas any simple description was a relatively futile effort, though he’d have all day to revisit a description for them. They’d come from the nearby galaxy of Ptolmyra, which was governed by the Ptolmyran Confederacy. The Confederacy was, as one might anticipate, comprised of different groups of Xenos who’d banded together to form an alliance within their own space. The Hybridas were the product of a race who had not been playing by the Confederacy’s rules. Somehow, they slipped under the radar into Mare Spera, where it promptly started destroying entire Coalition worlds.
Oops.
The Hybridas weren’t their only creations. Nor were they the first of their creations to fuck over the Coalition in some capacity. No, they managed to wreak havoc on them far earlier on, during the Sigtri incident… Which would end up being one of the things to spark the Civil War in the first place. And as it would seem, they shared an even deeper history. In the end, they’d had far more influence over the Coalition’s history than they ever should have—Considering that their entire race had been dead before the Coalition ever even left Earth.
A fact they only discovered when they tried to hunt them down, and found the Confederacy instead.
With the Hybridas Conflict wrapped up, Confederate and Coalition leaders were ready to finally sit down and have a chat. They were expecting the Confederate leaders soon. Meanwhile, all of the Coalition’s major players were already assembled and waiting. He gave a sidelong glance at everyone as he strode closer to the structure, mentally taking note of everyone there. He knew he was the odd man out; he had far less business being present than everyone else.
And yet here you stand, Colonel, with a fraction of a galaxy in the palm of your hand…
Aside from the entirety of Coalition High Command, there were the far more permanent objects around the monolith, namely a few terminals placed at regular intervals around the dark object. There was one larger, central terminal at what was deemed the front of the monument, which could be used to control the display on the obsidian surface. That was more or less to be the center point for the whole shindig, and Bull would be using it as a podium as he addressed the alien delegates upon their arrival.
It could be setting to multiple different settings, all serving purposes more or less particular. The way in which the names appeared and disappeared, or scrolled, or even the ability to pull up specific units, ships, or other such things. Ship emblems or even silhouettes could cross the memorial’s dark surface, fleets crossing the space between stars as surely as the stars themselves were on it. Whoever had designed it had surely put a great deal of effort into it.
Its default setting showed the constellations that made up their galaxy, and the names of the fallen made up their stars. The individual stars were comprised of the names of those who came from those systems. The idea was to represent their lives, as opposed to their deaths. It had been built after the Civil War, during a dark time. They’d won, but it seemed they’d lost infinitely more. Many lost the will to go on, and soon ceased to be.
They had a new fight to win. A fight to survive, to keep people from giving up. The “Survivor’s War,” they called it. An apt, if uninspired description. The memorial had been painstakingly constructed in an attempt to commemorate the fallen, and hopefully raise morale. Whether or not it saw any level of success was certainly up for debate. He knew it didn’t do very much for him, not that he’d had many opportunities to witness it. Mare Spera was a big galaxy, and he didn’t spend much time around Terra Nova after the war.
The obsidian obelisk represented something more than that, however. It was a promise. The monument itself was aptly named “The End,” which encompassed many things. It promised that the war was at an end, the violence was at an end. It promised that those who had met their end would not be forgotten. But most of all, it promised the end of death itself for the Coalition. The Lazarus Division of the CRDA managed to reconstruct their ability to create neural templates, mental back-ups. A “save point” in the event of death, to be recovered and transferred into a new body. One would lose their memories beyond that checkpoint, but they would live again, missing only a few months’ worth of time.
There was the argument, of course, that it wasn’t really the same person. Whoever that person was, they had still died. This was a replication. This was how transference worked as well. When one’s body was no longer fit for the tour of duty, a new one was created. If one was lucky, they could get a solid 30 years or so out of a single body before having to switch. The mind was replicated, and they would shed their old body in favor of a new one, physically and genetically identical to their last—So long as they chose not to make any modifications, of course.
The new body would contain the same consciousness as the last, the memories, knowledge, and feelings. There was an adjustment period as one went through physical therapy to become accustomed to their new self, and life went on for them. Everyone either had done it, or would do it at some point. Bourbon had done it, Bull had done it. And they would do it time and time again, for so long as they endured. For all intents and purposes, they had achieved some sense of immortality, so long as they chose not to terminate their line.
Bourbon didn’t know if they’d ever permanently lost anyone after that, with the exceptions being those who voluntarily chose the end. He knew of only one odd instance where the backups were lost, for a single person, and it was still being investigated. Oddly enough, it was Chi, who he’d referenced mere moments ago in his conversation with Bull. Something about that didn’t sit well with him. Many things about her disappearance didn’t sit well with him. Of course, that was true of many things these days. Many would label him as conspiratorial, an alarmist, or in general just distasteful.
They weren’t wrong, per se. He acknowledged that he was all of those things—Including distasteful, at times, depending on how much he was living up to his namesake. That didn’t mean he was wrong either, despite how often people discredited his efforts to raise concern about certain issues. It was all a matter of perspective, and he just continued to hang on to things that many considered dead and in the ground.
Idealism and pessimism were a stone’s throw apart, and he had become quite adept at slinging stones.
He realized that at some point while he’d been mulling things over, he’d found himself in front of one of the terminals. Not the main podium, but one of the smaller, plaque-like exhibits surrounding the structure. They could be used to pull up a great deal of information on the war, ranging from the particulars of separate battles to individuals’ entire service records. He idly inspected it, running a finger across its surface. Clean. It seemed someone had taken the time to dust them off for the ceremony to follow.
A sense of uncertainty plagued him. He didn’t really know how long he’d been standing there staring at the thing. He felt a pang within him, a certain call, and a thousand images flashed before his eyes. One particular scene played out before him, as it had time and again. Something dark stirred in the corner of his vision, and a chorus of whispers, familiar yet unintelligible, echoed in the recesses of his mind. It wouldn’t do him any good to push them aside. There were few sounds he could recall from the memory, and none of them were words.
There was a question that burned within him, longing to be answered.
He contemplated using the terminal, but something else began to burn. Something in the back of his skull felt like it was on fire, and he felt like he was on high alert.
Eyes.
He could feel Bull’s attention on him. He was waiting expectantly.
They both knew exactly what Bourbon was thinking about as he stood in front of the terminal. What he didn’t know, however, was whether Bull would be looking directly at him, or if he would be watching him out of his peripherals. Would he be pretending not to notice, or only marginally aware? Or staring directly at him? He wasn’t sure which scenario he liked better. None of them appealed, really.
He was too sober for this shit.
His hand fell away from the terminal. He decided to play it off.
He closed his eyes and spun on his heel, running his hands through his long, dirty-blond hair to perform an exaggerated hair flip. When he opened his eyes, he put on his cockiest grin, bracing for impact.
Bull wasn’t looking at him.
He released the breath he didn’t know he was holding. Bourbon would’ve been in his peripheral vision, but the Coalition’s leader hadn’t turned to watch. That was the outcome he’d expected, and admittedly preferred. Bull wasn’t stupid, he knew what had just happened. He was undoubtedly aware that Bourbon knew that he was watching, directly or indirectly. He was feigning ignorance for Bourbon’s sake, rather than make him feel as though he was under the magnifying glass. He was thankful for it.
He was waiting for Bourbon to approach the subject of his own accord, rather than initiate a confrontation himself. That was Bull’s way of operating. When it came to decisions that required immediate action, he didn’t hesitate. When it came to smaller things, however, he preferred a more tactful approach. He seemed to instead prefer putting pieces in place and setting them in motion, letting them unfold how they would. He always provided a way deeper in, and a way out.
The door was open for whenever Bourbon wanted to confront the subject. If he wanted to. It was the secret he’d kept from the universe, the one thing nobody was ever meant to know. Bourbon had made the admission to him already, but hadn’t spoken of it again. It wasn’t a conversation he was ready to have.
He hoped he’d be able to one day, but for now, he couldn’t.
Bourbon stepped away from the wretched thing, before he made a stupid decision by changing his mind. “You know…” he began slowly, employing a mischievous tone. “I find myself thinking about how relentlessly dour this place truly is.” He sauntered towards Bull again, coming to stand at his side. He tilted his head to the side as he met his friend’s gaze. He gestured behind him. “The obsidian tombstone’s really quite nice, whoever put it together did a fantastic job. No sarcasm, full truth.”
Bull’s stare was fixed straight ahead, in the direction they expected the rest of their party to come from. He took in a deep breath, bracing himself. “There’s either a “but” or a continuation to this line of thought.”
“Oh, I’m simply idly musing at the idea of using the grounds as a venue for a heavy metal concert. We’ve already got an appropriate backdrop, and plenty of space. Set up a few pyrotechnics, and we could put on quite a show.” He stroked his chin as he pretended to be in deep thought, feeling his fingers running through his facial hair. “Maybe host it on the anniversary of the war’s end? The idea of the monument was to celebrate their lives, what better way to celebrate than with a music festival?”
The Commander-in-Chief slowly turned his head to stare straight at him. His expression was utterly blank, and his eyes bore straight through him. “You’re proposing that we host a rock concert on what some people would view as being tantamount to Holy ground, and others would view as the graveyard of our hopes and dreams?”
“Absolutely. And a fancy barbecue.” Bourbon wasn’t even remotely serious. He was moreso just trying to get a laugh out of Bull. He imagined the man didn’t do much of that these days. “The United States had Memorial Day back on Earth, right? Celebrate the lives of the fallen by hosting giant cookouts every year? Sometimes with fireworks and such? Would it truly be any different?”
Bull’s stare turned incredulous, though his intonation remained flat. Bourbon was beginning to wonder if Bull actually realized that he was joking. “And I imagine you’d like to volunteer yourself to orchestrate the entire event?”
“Who, me? No. I would never. Bull, I would never. Well. I might. Maybe. I might maybe definitely do that.” He shrugged. “Who better? Gaelia?”
Bull stared for a moment longer, but the idea of CWAD’s cold leader hosting any kind of festivities was enough to finally break Bull’s composure. He finally cracked a smile and chuckled, and let out a sigh that might have been relief. “No, I suppose leaving such things to the professionals would be a better choice. Especially now that you seem to fancy yourself a rock legend anyway.”
“Fancy myself?” Bourbon shifted his weight onto one foot, crossing his arms. “Oh, darling, everyone fancies me, regardless of whether or not they’re willing to admit it. They always have. I’m the idol everyone craves, here to bring some sound and vision to the dull, colorless lives of our people.” He made an exaggerated gesture towards the sky. “And beyond.”
“How very noble of you.”
“What can I say except “You’re welcome?"
“And extraordinarily humble,” Bull chuckled, turning his gaze forward again. “Just remember what Lee said. As much as I’m sure the idea of amassing a collective of alien groupies is amongst your highest aspirations, and I know you do so long to wow them, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask that we keep our Summit as…” He paused. "Professional as possible. Save the dazzling for after we get into their good graces, if you would be so kind.”
Bourbon mimed shock, placing a hand over his chest so as to indicate himself. He let out a mock gasp. “Are you implying that I would jeopardize our relationship with the Xenos? Good sir, I am surprised at you. When have I ever given you reason to believe I wouldn’t take such a thing seriously?”
Bull gave him an incredulous look.
“Okay, fine, you’ve made your point. And yet, here I stand. Normal uniform, no personal touches, as requested." He tugged at his leather jacket, spinning in place to display that he’d made no modifications to it. It only displayed the patches associated with himself and his unit, even as vibrant as they were. Other than that, there were only the fairly standard bits of armor that were part of many Coalition uniforms. His featured an armored collar that melded into a plating that protected his neck, upper back, and uppermost parts of his shoulders. The segmented plates likewise graced his upper arms and forearms. If he needed to get into a close-quarters fight, he would have been fairly well off.
The jacket had seen minimal use. Bourbon had another similar jacket that he typically wore instead—One which featured a number of more personal details.
The only “exotic” part of his outfit were his sunglasses, a pair of semi-square, angular aviators with side shields around the temples. The framing around the eyes were black and gold metal, while the arms were made of a matte black plastic. They sported red-mirrored lenses presently due to being in a polarized state, but he could transition them to clear if he so desired. He could use them as a Heads-Up Display in the event that he didn’t want to use his implants, which made them a useful piece of tech. He’d be taking them off when their company started arriving in full, for the sake of formalities and good manners.
“I made sure to tidy up as much as possible,” he continued, extending a leg to indicate the crease in his pant leg. He then pulled up the pant leg itself to show off the shine to his boots. “And I’m sober.” He frowned deeply. "Painfully sober. I didn’t even take a shot before I came here. Surely that counts for something?”
“It does. Speaking of dazzling, how’s that outfit of yours coming along anyway?”
Satisfied, Bourbon crossed his arms. “It’s done. Had to sort of figure it all out myself, we don’t exactly have an overabundance of sequins lying about.” He smirked. “At least, we didn’t. But we did have an overabundance of gemstones that nobody was using…”
“Oh no.”
“Oh, yes, darling. I’d have worn it today if I could’ve gotten away with it. Niki wouldn’t even let me apply any eyeliner.”
Bull blinked, momentarily taken aback by the remark. It only took him a moment to recover. “I don’t know how or why that statement surprises me, yet here we are. You’re committed to this bit now, aren’t you?”
Bourbon huffed, baring a toothy grin. “Don’t you know who I think I am?” he shot back, harkening back to his earlier song reference. Not his favorite band, nor preferred genre, but he’d be damned if he was going to pass up the opportunity to make a musical reference. “The short answer is yes. Besides, I should think that given the day’s events, playing my part should be preferable, would it not? At least later on, when it becomes relevant. The long answer is that I’ve always been this way, just… More subdued? I should hope you’ve not forgotten.”
“My office hasn’t rendered me senile, no.”
“Yet.”
“Yet,” Bull agreed. “All the same, no, I’ve not forgotten. You’ve always been one for theatrics.” He gave a subtle grin. “I suppose the HUB’s just finally given you an outlet for it. Now the Coalition as a whole gets to see what levels of madness you’ve hidden away from us.”
Bourbon gave Bull a smirk. “Bingo, although, come to think of it…” He turned his attention towards the rest of the assembly again. “I suppose most of them would very likely shoot me if I went for the full Monty on this one as it is.” They were all off in their own worlds, tending to their last-minute business. He hadn’t really paid much attention to them until now, though his moment of self-consciousness made him more aware of them. Not the matter of making a spectacle of himself; No, he had no shame, he couldn’t possibly embarrass himself. But the feelings that this place brought to him, the things that had happened here, he didn’t much care to make visible to these people.
[Part 2]

Pac-Man
bow
Apple
chest
six pack
nail
tornado
Mickey Mouse
Youtube
lightning
traffic light
waterfall
McDonalds
Donald Trump
Patrick
stop sign
Superman
tooth
sunflower
keyboard
island
Pikachu
Harry Potter
Nintendo Switch
Facebook
eyebrow
Peppa Pig
SpongeBob
Creeper
octopus
church
Eiffel tower
tongue
snowflake
fish
Twitter
pan
Jesus Christ
butt cheeks
jail
Pepsi
hospital
pregnant
thunderstorm
smile
skull
flower
palm tree
Angry Birds
America
lips
cloud
compass
mustache
Captain America
pimple
Easter Bunny
chicken
Elmo
watch
prison
skeleton
arrow
volcano
Minion
school
tie
lighthouse
fountain
Cookie Monster
Iron Man
Santa
blood
river
bar
Mount Everest
chest hair
Gumball
north
water
cactus
treehouse
bridge
short
thumb
beach
mountain
Nike
flag
Paris
eyelash
Shrek
brain
iceberg
fingernail
playground
ice cream
Google
dead
knife
spoon
unibrow
Spiderman
black
graveyard
elbow
golden egg
yellow
Germany
Adidas
nose hair
Deadpool
Homer Simpson
Bart Simpson
rainbow
ruler
building
raindrop
storm
coffee shop
windmill
fidget spinner
yo-yo
ice
legs
tent
mouth
ocean
Fanta
homeless
tablet
muscle
Pinocchio
tear
nose
snow
nostrils
Olaf
belly button
Lion King
car wash
Egypt
Statue of Liberty
Hello Kitty
pinky
Winnie the Pooh
guitar
Hulk
Grinch
Nutella
cold
flagpole
Canada
rainforest
blue
rose
tree
hot
mailbox
Nemo
crab
knee
doghouse
Chrome
cotton candy
Barack Obama
hot chocolate
Michael Jackson
map
Samsung
shoulder
Microsoft
parking
forest
full moon
cherry blossom
apple seed
Donald Duck
leaf
bat
earwax
Italy
finger
seed
lilypad
brush
record
wrist
thunder
gummy
Kirby
fire hydrant
overweight
hot dog
house
fork
pink
Sonic
street
Nasa
arm
fast
tunnel
full
library
pet shop
Yoshi
Russia
drum kit
Android
Finn and Jake
price tag
Tooth Fairy
bus stop
rain
heart
face
tower
bank
cheeks
Batman
speaker
Thor
skinny
electric guitar
belly
cute
ice cream truck
bubble gum
top hat
Pink Panther
hand
bald
freckles
clover
armpit
Japan
thin
traffic
spaghetti
Phineas and Ferb
broken heart
fingertip
funny
poisonous
Wonder Woman
Squidward
Mark Zuckerberg
twig
red
China
dream
Dora
daisy
France
Discord
toenail
positive
forehead
earthquake
iron
Zeus
Mercedes
Big Ben
supermarket
Bugs Bunny
Yin and Yang
drink
rock
drum
piano
white
bench
fall
royal
seashell
Audi
stomach
aquarium
Bitcoin
volleyball
marshmallow
Cat Woman
underground
Green Lantern
bottle flip
toothbrush
globe
sand
zoo
west
puddle
lobster
North Korea
Luigi
bamboo
Great Wall
Kim Jong-un
bad
credit card
swimming pool
Wolverine
head
hair
Yoda
Elsa
turkey
heel
maracas
clean
droplet
cinema
poor
stamp
Africa
whistle
Teletubby
wind
Aladdin
tissue box
fire truck
Usain Bolt
water gun
farm
iPad
well
warm
booger
WhatsApp
Skype
landscape
pine cone
Mexico
slow
organ
fish bowl
teddy bear
John Cena
Frankenstein
tennis racket
gummy bear
Mount Rushmore
swing
Mario
lake
point
vein
cave
smell
chin
desert
scary
Dracula
airport
kiwi
seaweed
incognito
Pluto
statue
hairy
strawberry
low
invisible
blindfold
tuna
controller
Paypal
King Kong
neck
lung
weather
Xbox
tiny
icicle
flashlight
scissors
emoji
strong
saliva
firefighter
salmon
basketball
spring
Tarzan
red carpet
drain
coral reef
nose ring
caterpillar
Wall-e
seat belt
polar bear
Scooby Doo
wave
sea
grass
pancake
park
lipstick
pickaxe
east
grenade
village
Flash
throat
dizzy
Asia
petal
Gru
country
spaceship
restaurant
copy
skin
glue stick
Garfield
equator
blizzard
golden apple
Robin Hood
fast food
barbed wire
Bill Gates
Tower of Pisa
neighborhood
lightsaber
video game
high heels
dirty
flamethrower
pencil sharpener
hill
old
flute
cheek
violin
fireball
spine
bathtub
cell phone
breath
open
Australia
toothpaste
Tails
skyscraper
cowbell
rib
ceiling fan
Eminem
Jimmy Neutron
photo frame
barn
sandstorm
Jackie Chan
Abraham Lincoln
T-rex
pot of gold
KFC
shell
poison
acne
avocado
study
bandana
England
Medusa
scar
Skittles
Pokemon
branch
Dumbo
factory
Hollywood
deep
knuckle
popular
piggy bank
Las Vegas
microphone
Tower Bridge
butterfly
slide
hut
shovel
hamburger
shop
fort
Ikea
planet
border
panda
highway
swamp
tropical
lightbulb
Kermit
headphones
jungle
Reddit
young
trumpet
cheeseburger
gas mask
apartment
manhole
nutcracker
Antarctica
mansion
bunk bed
sunglasses
spray paint
Jack-o-lantern
saltwater
tank
cliff
campfire
palm
pumpkin
elephant
banjo
nature
alley
fireproof
earbuds
crossbow
Elon Musk
quicksand
Playstation
Hawaii
good
corn dog
Gandalf
dock
magic wand
field
Solar System
photograph
ukulele
James Bond
The Beatles
Katy Perry
pirate ship
Poseidon
Netherlands
photographer
Lego
hourglass
glass
path
hotel
ramp
dandelion
Brazil
coral
cigarette
messy
Dexter
valley
parachute
wine glass
matchbox
Morgan Freeman
black hole
midnight
astronaut
paper bag
sand castle
forest fire
hot sauce
social media
William Shakespeare
trash can
fire alarm
lawn mower
nail polish
Band-Aid
Star Wars
clothes hanger
toe
mud
coconut
jaw
bomb
south
firework
sailboat
loading
iPhone
toothpick
BMW
ketchup
fossil
explosion
Finn
Einstein
infinite
dictionary
Photoshop
trombone
clarinet
rubber
saxophone
helicopter
temperature
bus driver
cello
London
newspaper
blackberry
shopping cart
Florida
Daffy Duck
mayonnaise
gummy worm
flying pig
underweight
Crash Bandicoot
bungee jumping
kindergarten
umbrella
hammer
night
laser
glove
square
Morty
firehouse
dynamite
chainsaw
melon
waist
Chewbacca
kidney
stoned
Rick
ticket
skateboard
microwave
television
soil
exam
cocktail
India
Colosseum
missile
hilarious
Popeye
nuke
silo
chemical
museum
Vault boy
adorable
fast forward
firecracker
grandmother
Porky Pig
roadblock
continent
wrinkle
shaving cream
Northern Lights
tug
London Eye
Israel
shipwreck
xylophone
motorcycle
diamond
root
coffee
princess
Oreo
goldfish
wizard
chocolate
garbage
ladybug
shotgun
kazoo
Minecraft
video
message
lily
fisherman
cucumber
password
western
ambulance
doorknob
glowstick
makeup
barbecue
jazz
hedgehog
bark
tombstone
coast
pitchfork
Christmas
opera
office
insect
hunger
download
hairbrush
blueberry
cookie jar
canyon
Happy Meal
high five
fern
quarter
peninsula
imagination
microscope
table tennis
whisper
fly swatter
pencil case
harmonica
Family Guy
New Zealand
apple pie
warehouse
cookie
USB
jellyfish
bubble
battery
fireman
pizza
angry
taco
harp
alcohol
pound
bedtime
megaphone
husband
oval
rail
stab
dwarf
milkshake
witch
bakery
president
weak
second
sushi
mall
complete
hip hop
slippery
horizon
prawn
plumber
blowfish
Madagascar
Europe
bazooka
pogo stick
Terminator
Hercules
notification
snowball fight
high score
Kung Fu
Lady Gaga
geography
sledgehammer
bear trap
sky
cheese
vine
clown
catfish
snowman
bowl
waffle
vegetable
hook
shadow
dinosaur
lane
dance
scarf
cabin
Tweety
bookshelf
swordfish
skyline
base
straw
biscuit
Greece
bleach
pepper
reflection
universe
skateboarder
triplets
gold chain
electric car
policeman
electricity
mother
Bambi
croissant
Ireland
sandbox
stadium
depressed
Johnny Bravo
silverware
raspberry
dandruff
Scotland
comic book
cylinder
Milky Way
taxi driver
magic trick
sunrise
popcorn
eat
cola
cake
pond
mushroom
rocket
surfboard
baby
cape
glasses
sunburn
chef
gate
charger
crack
mohawk
triangle
carpet
dessert
taser
afro
cobra
ringtone
cockroach
levitate
mailman
rockstar
lyrics
grumpy
stand
Norway
binoculars
nightclub
puppet
novel
injection
thief
pray
chandelier
exercise
lava lamp
lap
massage
thermometer
golf cart
postcard
bell pepper
bed bug
paintball
Notch
yogurt
graffiti
burglar
butler
seafood
Sydney Opera House
Susan Wojcicki
parents
bed sheet
Leonardo da Vinci
intersection
palace
shrub
lumberjack
relationship
observatory
junk food
eye
log
dice
bicycle
pineapple
camera
circle
lemonade
soda
comb
cube
Doritos
love
table
honey
lighter
broccoli
fireplace
drive
Titanic
backpack
emerald
giraffe
world
internet
kitten
volume
Spain
daughter
armor
noob
rectangle
driver
raccoon
bacon
lady
bull
camping
poppy
snowball
farmer
lasso
breakfast
oxygen
milkman
caveman
laboratory
bandage
neighbor
Cupid
Sudoku
wedding
seagull
spatula
atom
dew
fortress
vegetarian
ivy
snowboard
conversation
treasure
chopsticks
garlic
vacuum
swimsuit
divorce
advertisement
vuvuzela
Mr Bean
Fred Flintstone
pet food
upgrade
voodoo
punishment
Charlie Chaplin
Rome
graduation
beatbox
communism
yeti
ear
dots
octagon
kite
lion
winner
muffin
cupcake
unicorn
smoke
lime
monster
Mars
moss
summer
lollipop
coffin
paint
lottery
wife
pirate
sandwich
lantern
seahorse
Cuba
archer
sweat
deodorant
plank
Steam
birthday
submarine
zombie
casino
gas
stove
helmet
mosquito
ponytail
corpse
subway
spy
jump rope
baguette
grin
centipede
gorilla
website
text
workplace
bookmark
anglerfish
wireless
Zorro
sports
abstract
detective
Amsterdam
elevator
chimney
reindeer
Singapore
perfume
soldier
bodyguard
magnifier
freezer
radiation
assassin
yawn
backbone
disaster
giant
pillow fight
grasshopper
Vin Diesel
geyser
burrito
celebrity
Lasagna
Pumba
karaoke
hypnotize
platypus
Leonardo DiCaprio
bird bath
battleship
back pain
rapper
werewolf
Black Friday
cathedral
Sherlock Holmes
ABBA
hard hat
sword
mirror
toilet
eggplant
jelly
hero
starfish
bread
snail
person
plunger
computer
nosebleed
goat
joker
sponge
mop
owl
beef
portal
genie
crocodile
murderer
magic
pine
winter
robber
pepperoni
shoebox
fog
screen
son
folder
mask
Goofy
Mercury
zipline
wall
dragonfly
zipper
meatball
slingshot
Pringles
circus
mammoth
nugget
mousetrap
recycling
revolver
champion
zigzag
meat
drought
vodka
notepad
porcupine
tuba
hacker
broomstick
kitchen
cheesecake
satellite
JayZ
squirrel
leprechaun
jello
gangster
raincoat
eyeshadow
shopping
gardener
scythe
portrait
jackhammer
allergy
honeycomb
headache
Miniclip
Mona Lisa
cheetah
virtual reality
virus
Argentina
blanket
military
headband
superpower
language
handshake
reptile
thirst
fake teeth
duct tape
macaroni
color-blind
comfortable
Robbie Rotten
coast guard
cab driver
pistachio
Angelina Jolie
autograph
sea lion
Morse code
clickbait
star
girl
lemon
alarm
shoe
soap
button
kiss
grave
telephone
fridge
katana
switch
eraser
signature
pasta
flamingo
crayon
puzzle
hard
juice
socks
crystal
telescope
galaxy
squid
tattoo
bowling
lamb
silver
lid
taxi
basket
step
stapler
pigeon
zoom
teacher
holiday
score
Tetris
frame
garden
stage
unicycle
cream
sombrero
error
battle
starfruit
hamster
chalk
spiral
bounce
hairspray
lizard
victory
balance
hexagon
Ferrari
MTV
network
weapon
fist fight
vault
mattress
viola
birch
stereo
Jenga
plug
chihuahua
plow
pavement
wart
ribbon
otter
magazine
Bomberman
vaccine
elder
Romania
champagne
semicircle
Suez Canal
Mr Meeseeks
villain
inside
spade
gravedigger
Bruce Lee
gentle
stingray
can opener
funeral
jet ski
wheelbarrow
thug
undo
fabulous
space suit
cappuccino
Minotaur
skydiving
cheerleader
Stone Age
Chinatown
razorblade
crawl space
cauldron
trick shot
Steve Jobs
audience
time machine
sewing machine
face paint
truck driver
x-ray
fly
salt
spider
boy
dollar
turtle
book
chain
dolphin
sing
milk
wing
pencil
snake
scream
toast
vomit
salad
radio
potion
dominoes
balloon
monkey
trophy
feather
leash
loser
bite
notebook
happy
Mummy
sneeze
koala
tired
sick
pipe
jalapeno
diaper
deer
priest
youtuber
boomerang
pro
ruby
hop
hopscotch
barcode
vote
wrench
tissue
doll
clownfish
halo
Monday
tentacle
grid
Uranus
oil
scarecrow
tarantula
germ
glow
haircut
Vatican
tape
judge
cell
diagonal
science
mustard
fur
janitor
ballerina
pike
nun
chime
tuxedo
Cerberus
panpipes
surface
coal
knot
willow
pajamas
fizz
student
eclipse
asteroid
Portugal
pigsty
brand
crowbar
chimpanzee
Chuck Norris
raft
carnival
treadmill
professor
tricycle
apocalypse
vitamin
orchestra
groom
cringe
knight
litter box
macho
brownie
hummingbird
Hula Hoop
motorbike
type
catapult
take off
wake up
concert
floppy disk
BMX
bulldozer
manicure
brainwash
William Wallace
guinea pig
motherboard
wheel
brick
egg
lava
queen
gold
God
ladder
coin
laptop
toaster
butter
bag
doctor
sit
tennis
half
Bible
noodle
golf
eagle
cash
vampire
sweater
father
remote
safe
jeans
darts
graph
nothing
dagger
stone
wig
cupboard
minute
match
slime
garage
tomb
soup
bathroom
llama
shampoo
swan
frown
toolbox
jacket
adult
crate
quill
spin
waiter
mint
kangaroo
captain
loot
maid
shoelace
luggage
cage
bagpipes
loaf
aircraft
shelf
safari
afterlife
napkin
steam
coach
slope
marigold
Mozart
bumper
Asterix
vanilla
papaya
ostrich
failure
scoop
tangerine
firefly
centaur
harbor
uniform
Beethoven
Intel
moth
Spartacus
fluid
acid
sparkles
talent show
ski jump
polo
ravioli
delivery
woodpecker
logo
Stegosaurus
diss track
Darwin Watterson
filmmaker
silence
dashboard
echo
windshield
Home Alone
tablecloth
backflip
headboard
licorice
sunshade
Picasso
airbag
water cycle
meatloaf
insomnia
broom
whale
pie
demon
bed
braces
fence
orange
sleep
gift
Popsicle
spear
zebra
Saturn
maze
chess
wire
angel
skates
pyramid
shower
claw
hell
goal
bottle
dress
walk
AC/DC
tampon
goatee
prince
flask
cut
cord
roof
movie
ash
tiger
player
magician
wool
saddle
cowboy
derp
suitcase
sugar
nest
anchor
onion
magma
limbo
collar
mole
bingo
walnut
wealth
security
leader
melt
Gandhi
arch
toy
turd
scientist
hippo
glue
kneel
orbit
below
totem
health
towel
diet
crow
addiction
minigolf
clay
boar
navy
butcher
trigger
referee
bruise
translate
yearbook
confused
engine
poke
wreath
omelet
gravity
bride
godfather
flu
accordion
engineer
cocoon
minivan
bean bag
antivirus
billiards
rake
cement
cauliflower
espresso
violence
blender
chew
bartender
witness
hobbit
corkscrew
chameleon
cymbal
Excalibur
grapefruit
action
outside
guillotine
timpani
frostbite
leave
Mont Blanc
palette
electrician
fitness trainer
journalist
fashion designer
bucket
penguin
sheep
torch
robot
peanut
UFO
belt
Earth
magnet
dragon
soccer
desk
search
seal
scribble
gender
food
anvil
crust
bean
hockey
pot
pretzel
needle
blimp
plate
drool
frog
basement
idea
bracelet
cork
sauce
gang
sprinkler
shout
morning
poodle
karate
bagel
wolf
sausage
heat
wasp
calendar
tadpole
religion
hose
sleeve
acorn
sting
market
marble
comet
pain
cloth
drawer
orca
hurdle
pinball
narwhal
pollution
metal
race
end
razor
dollhouse
distance
prism
pub
lotion
vanish
vulture
beanie
burp
periscope
cousin
customer
label
mold
kebab
beaver
spark
meme
pudding
almond
mafia
gasp
nightmare
mermaid
season
gasoline
evening
eel
cast
hive
beetle
diploma
jeep
bulge
wrestler
Anubis
mascot
spinach
hieroglyph
anaconda
handicap
walrus
blacksmith
robin
reception
invasion
fencing
sphinx
evolution
brunette
traveler
jaguar
diagram
hovercraft
parade
dome
credit
tow truck
shallow
vlogger
veterinarian
furniture
commercial
cyborg
scent
defense
accident
marathon
demonstration
NASCAR
Velociraptor
pharmacist
Xerox
gentleman
dough
rhinoceros
air conditioner
poop
clock
carrot
cherry
candle
boots
target
wine
die
moon
airplane
think
pause
pill
pocket
Easter
horse
child
lamp
pillow
yolk
potato
pickle
nurse
ham
ninja
screw
board
pin
lettuce
console
climb
goose
bill
tortoise
sink
ski
glitter
miner
parrot
clap
spit
wiggle
peacock
roll
ballet
ceiling
celebrate
blind
yacht
addition
flock
powder
paddle
harpoon
kraken
baboon
antenna
classroom
bronze
writer
Obelix
touch
sensei
rest
puma
dent
shake
goblin
laundry
cloak
detonate
Neptune
cotton
generator
canary
horsewhip
racecar
Croatia
tip
cardboard
commander
seasick
anthill
vinegar
hippie
dentist
animation
Slinky
wallpaper
pendulum
vertical
chestplate
anime
beanstalk
survivor
florist
faucet
spore
risk
wonderland
wrestling
hazelnut
cushion
W-LAN
mayor
community
raisin
udder
oyster
sew
hazard
curry
pastry
mime
victim
mechanic
hibernate
bouncer
Iron Giant
floodlight
pear
sad
paw
space
bullet
skribbl.io
shirt
cow
worm
king
tea
truck
pants
hashtag
DNA
bird
Monster
beer
curtain
tire
nachos
bear
cricket
teapot
nerd
deaf
fruit
meteorite
rice
sniper
sale
gnome
shock
shape
alligator
meal
nickel
party
hurt
Segway
Mr. Bean
banker
cartoon
double
hammock
juggle
pope
leak
room
throne
hoof
radar
wound
luck
swag
panther
flush
Venus
disease
fortune
porch
machine
pilot
copper
mantis
keg
biology
wax
gloss
leech
sculpture
pelican
trapdoor
plague
quilt
yardstick
lounge
teaspoon
broadcast
uncle
comedian
mannequin
peasant
streamer
oar
drama
cornfield
carnivore
wingnut
vent
cabinet
vacation
applause
vision
radish
picnic
Skrillex
jester
preach
armadillo
hyena
librarian
interview
sauna
surgeon
dishrag
manatee
symphony
queue
industry
Atlantis
excavator
canister
model
flight attendant
ghost
pig
key
banana
tomato
axe
line
present
duck
alien
peas
gem
web
grapes
corn
can
fairy
camel
paper
beak
corner
penny
dig
link
donkey
fox
rug
drip
hunter
horn
purse
gumball
pony
musket
flea
kettle
rooster
balcony
seesaw
stork
dinner
greed
bait
duel
trap
heist
origami
skunk
coaster
leather
socket
fireside
cannon
ram
filter
alpaca
Zelda
condiment
server
antelope
emu
chestnut
dalmatian
swarm
sloth
reality
Darwin
torpedo
toucan
pedal
tabletop
frosting
bellow
vortex
bayonet
margarine
orchid
beet
journey
slam
marmalade
employer
stylus
spoiler
repeat
tiramisu
cuckoo
collapse
eskimo
assault
orangutan
wrapping
albatross
mothball
evaporate
turnip
puffin
reeds
receptionist
impact
dispenser
nutshell
procrastination
architect
programmer
bricklayer
boat
bell
ring
fries
money
chair
door
bee
tail
ball
mouse
rat
window
peace
nut
blush
page
toad
hug
ace
tractor
peach
whisk
hen
day
shy
lawyer
rewind
tripod
trailer
hermit
welder
festival
punk
handle
protest
lens
attic
foil
promotion
work
limousine
patriot
badger
studio
athlete
quokka
trend
pinwheel
gravel
fabric
lemur
provoke
rune
display
nail file
embers
asymmetry
actor
carpenter
aristocrat
Zuma
chinchilla
archaeologist
apple
hat
sun
box
cat
cup
train
bunny
sound
run
barrel
barber
grill
read
family
moose
boil
printer
poster
sledge
nutmeg
heading
cruise
pillar
retail
monk
spool
catalog
scuba
anteater
pensioner
coyote
vise
bobsled
purity
tailor
meerkat
weasel
invention
lynx
kendama
zeppelin
patient
gladiator
slump
Capricorn
baklava
prune
stress
crucible
hitchhiker
election
caviar
marmot
hair roller
pistol
cone
ant
lock
hanger
cap
Mr. Meeseeks
comedy
coat
tourist
tickle
facade
shrew
diva
patio
apricot
spelunker
parakeet
barbarian
tumor
figurine
desperate
landlord
bus
mug
dog
shark
abyss
betray HUH SO HARD

The response to polarized sunglasses indicates some sort of non-cubic structure. Likely hexagonal, correct?

Hello there, and welcome. I’ll keep introductions brief, as I’m here to share a writing story, not my life story, yes? This is my first time posting here, so I do hope this is up to snuff. It’s been a long time since I’ve put anything on display for public consumption, but it’s been suggested to me that this might be a good place to share this little project, and find potentially useful feedback, criticisms, and more.
“Sea of Hope” is an ongoing passion project being worked on by multiple people. It’s been a labor of love that’s been in development for a long time, undergoing constant evolution. There’s a lot of plot and history that’s been developed, and much, much more still in development. We wanted to share some of that with you, in hopes that you might be interested in going on that journey with us, and discover why we’re as passionate about it as we are.
Thanks for your time, and enjoy the show.
Links
[Part 2]

>>//0740 Hours, 08 January, 2168
>>//Location: Old Gemini/Lost Twin
>>//Sublocation: Clone Civil War Memorial
>>//Terra Nova, Anastasis System, Mare Spera
The ruins of the original Gemini Base were just as he remembered them: A desolate heap of rubble, destroyed far beyond any hope of repair.
YC-012, “Bourbon”—As he was now known, much to his chagrin—stared up at the massive obelisk that loomed over the ruins. To say it towered above his head would be a pitiful understatement; it stretched so far above him that he could not see the top from where he sat. Its width was much more tangible, at least in the sense that one could circumnavigate the thing in a reasonable amount of time. All the same, he wouldn’t want to run a circuit around it; it would just as well become a marathon.
The hexagonal pillar was darker than the abyss itself, a solemn reminder of the deaths it represented. The memorial’s surface constantly rippled and shimmered, forming fleeting constellations against the void of space. Those faux stars, however, consisted of the names of those who had fallen in the Clone Civil War; scrolling, flickering, fading, and appearing once again upon its surface from time to time. It was imperceptible from any sort of distance, and even up close one might find difficulty reading them due to the near-nanoscopic size of the text. The sheer number of names encompassed by the monolith demanded it.
The trillions of names demanded it.
At night, it was only visible due to the spotlights that were constantly shone against it, ensuring that it could never go unseen, the lives lost never forgotten. Bourbon supposed it likewise served the infinitely more mundane purpose of a safety precaution, of course, to avoid potential issues with any air traffic that may have been arriving or departing from the intact sibling base some distance away.
As its name implied, Gemini had been built as two installations, conjoined by a tram system that ran between the two. It was, in essence, the Coalition of Clone Systems’ capitol. He could still remember when it was first constructed. They’d been the Coalition of Clone Nations back then. He could remember when nothing stood on Terra Nova, and the day they first stepped foot on it.
How long has it been? He wondered to himself. He looked down at the stones he held in his hand, bits of and pieces of rubble that had been exposed to the elements long enough to begin eroding them. He rolled them about in his palm idly, contemplating the base’s state. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it in this condition, though his last visit had seen him in a far less observant state. He would have bet money that these were the same stones he’d been fondling during his last visit, if he had any cash on him. Given that the CCS didn’t use currency, however, that would’ve made for a fairly hollow bet.
That didn’t stop him from collecting banknotes from Earth whenever he could, of course. Earth memorabilia was still valuable on its own to the right individual.
He continued to ponder the question he’d posed. How long had it been since the last time he’d seen the military installation intact? November 5th, 2048, he recalled. That was just under 120 years ago now. It was burned into his mind, as it was for many other denizens of the Coalition. That was the date that everything had fallen apart. Any clone who’d lived through that day would remember it well. Not just those who’d been stationed at Gemini, or even on Terra Nova, but across all of Mare Spera.
It had been a lifetime ago now. No—Two…? Three…? He struggled to recount how many times he’d transferred from one body to another now, how many times he’d undergone transference. Sometimes he struggled to recount a lot of things, other times they came naturally. His mind swung like a pendulum between trying to erase it all and desperately clinging to whatever threads remained of his memory. So much had come unraveled.
It was maddening, though part of it was his own fault. They didn’t call him “Bourbon” for nothing.
He found one such thread, and took hold. He followed it backwards through time to revisit—Not for the first time, nor the last he suspected— the day of the surprise attack that launched the insurgency to come. Mounting tensions had come to a head, and fractured the Coalition. The rebels splintered off into their own faction, the Unified Clone Nations, and both sides spent plenty of time killing each other for the next two decades, leaving long-lasting wounds that still had never healed completely.
Bastards didn’t even have the decency to come up with an original name.
“Penny for your thoughts?” came the familiar drawl of an old friend.
He reeled himself back in, looking up from his hand. He adjusted his sunglasses to peer over their rims at the man who’d addressed him. YC-087, “Bull,” stood ahead of him. The Coalition’s Commander-in-Chief was half-turned towards him, free of his aides for at least a moment. Bourbon wished he had a camera. The morning sun cast its soft golden rays across him, painting an image of him that many of the Coalition would’ve very much liked to see.
He was wearing the full extent of his formal attire, sporting the deep red, pristine white, and dark blue uniform that was unique to his station. They were the colors of the Coalition’s flag. The blue was indicative of the void of space. The red and white represented the collided galaxies that formed “Mare Spera,” the “Sea of Hope.” It also served as a slight allusion to the Coalition’s Earthly origins in the United States military.
He sported his ceremonial pauldron on his left shoulder, a remnant or replication of the retired GPAU armor. The GPAU had been their first real armor, as opposed to simple plate carriers and ballistic padding. It had since been replaced by the M-RAU and its subsequent iterations, a much more advanced armor system, befitting a civilization that trod the stars. Its purpose as a part of his uniform was purely for symbolism and aesthetics, with his other shoulder and forearms sporting the segmented angular plating that had become incredibly commonplace amongst Coalition uniform designs.
The creases in his face seemed more apparent every time Bourbon saw him, and the circles under his eyes grew darker. It was hard to place the age of his current body, as it seemed keen on catching up to the age of his mind. Bull came into being in 1988, which put him at 179 years old as it was. Physical age meant nothing to a clone aside from the need for another body transfer and the physical therapy associated with it before they could get back to their duties, but to say age was “just a number” would be disingenuous.
The wind blew gently through Bull’s cropped black hair. Bourbon could remember when Bull fancied himself a charmer, his hair longer and slicked back with pomade. At the time, paired with his personality, it had evoked the image of someone from an old Western movie. He played the part well, complete with drawl and Southern charm. While he had yet to lose his accent, and he could still play the part of the charismatic leader, he seemed to have lost interest in playing cowboy.
Something subtle in his dark eyes told Bourbon that there might have been some hidden level of concern. That was fair, if he was being honest with himself. Bull was the one who’d discovered him here during his last visit five years prior, which had been a sordid affair.
Bourbon realized he’d been staring stupidly at him as opposed to giving him an answer. Seeing Bull after all this time still felt strange to him. All the same, he’d left an uncomfortable amount of time between the question and a response. It took him a moment to remember what the question even was. He chuffed as he remembered, finally answering in his typical low, sultry voice as he readjusted his shades. “You couldn’t possibly hope to afford all my thoughts even at a penny a piece.”
Bull turned to face him fully. “No? How about a dollar for the bushel, then?”
Bourbon grinned, seizing the moment. He mimed a microphone with his free hand. “A penny for your thoughts, but a dollar for your insides, or a fortune for your disaster?” he belted out with gusto. He let his hand fall and shrugged, stating the next line with far less bravado. “I’m just a painter, and I’m drawing a blank.”
“Your musical prowess leaves nothing to be desired,” Bull said, his tone flat in spite of an amused expression. “Save, perhaps, an answer to my question.”
Bourbon took a deep breath and sighed, planting his elbows on his knees. He stared back down at the stones in his hand. He rolled one between his finger and his thumb, then let it drop. “Frankly, I would have been far happier had I never been made to step foot in this festering dung heap ever again,” he said. “Too many memories.” He rolled the stones in his palm again, hearing the clattering. He let another drop. His brow furrowed, and he nodded in the direction of the monument. “Too many ghosts.” He looked back up. “Had you told me when last we met here that I would once more find myself seated upon this same pile of rubble? I believe I promptly would have told you to shoot me on the spot.”
Bull gave him a smug look. “You could always choose another assortment of rocks to perch on,” he offered. He gestured somewhere off to his side. “Those ones look mighty comfortable. You’re certainly not starved for choice.”
Bourbon glanced towards the pile Bull had indicated. It was a spiny sea urchin of debris, bits and pieces of rebar thrusting outwards at all angles. He let yet another stone drop, shrugging. “I’ll pass,” he said, waving dismissively. “I prefer my seating arrangements a tad less likely to give me a case of tetanus.”
“Well. You could always… Stand. Presuming that’s not too… Pedestrian for you,” Bull retorted, rocking on his heels as he emphasized the word.
Bourbon gave a look of mock offense. “Like some kind of plebeian?” he gasped. “That you have the gall.” He paused and sighed, letting all the stones fall from his hand. He dusted his hands off, and pushed himself to stand. He held his arms out wide. “Satisfied?” he asked with a smirk.
Bull chuckled, looking around at all the debris himself. There was a pause before he spoke again. When he did, there was a solemnity to his voice. “You know, when the orbital elevator collapsed,” he began slowly, pointing towards a spot not too far from where either of them stood. “I was standing… Right about there.” Bourbon followed his direction, then glanced back upwards towards the monument. “We were trying to secure the elevator. Just when we were sure we had it on lock, they must’ve detonated charges they’d placed somewhere up above.”
The monument stood now where the orbital elevator once had, on its massive raised platform. It mimicked the shape as the elevator had, large and hexagonal, though not quite the same scale. It was centered the same, positioned the same, though lacking in dimension. Especially vertically. Saying such didn’t diminish the monument’s grandeur in any way, but rather put things into perspective. It was hard to compare anything to something that stretched beyond a planet’s atmosphere.
Bull continued, looking upwards towards the sky, shaking his head. “Worst sound I ever heard, haven’t heard anything quite like it since. The whole thing started to flounder about, not being anchored anymore. Sound of metal twisting and groaning, that odd twang the cables made as they thrashed about. I looked up to watch as it warped and began to shake pieces off of it.” He squinted, clearly envisioning the moment. “You know what the damnedest thing is though?”
Bourbon had a feeling he knew where Bull was going with the story, but didn’t interrupt. Instead he stood and listened, knowing Bull would continue of his own volition. “Watching the other half of it going up into space. One of the craziest things you can imagine, watching something that big just getting sucked out into the sky like that. That ain’t even the worst of it, though.” He turned back to Bourbon. “Worst of it was that I could make out something else moving up there. A ship.”
He put on an expression of amusement, though he was certain it was only to cover the resentment he’d felt. “I could see that ship move in and intercept the station the elevator was anchored to. And they hauled the whole damned station away. Must’ve loaded up the elevator with as much as they could and figured to steal whatever they had still left on the thing. I can’t even begin to tell you what was running through my mind as I watched those bastards steal our elevator.” He chuckled, a hint of bitterness behind it. “Of all the outrageous things I’ve seen, I don’t think anything’s got my goat quite as much as that.”
Bourbon glanced around. He replayed the events of the attack in his head. Things had been utter chaos the whole time, which distorted the timeline in his head to some degree. It didn’t help matters that it had been over a century ago. “I believe that was shortly after we secured the armory, or somewhere abouts. Chi had ventured off to retake the motor pool shortly prior, and I was off with a contingent of my own to take back the nursery.” So much of that day blended together, but he recalled the scene unfolding at the cloning facility well enough—He might have managed to scrub it from his memory, were it not for the fact that a living reminder of it was hounding him constantly as of late. “I recall it was near the end of the attack, at any rate. Seemed pretty apparent that we had the upper hand at that point, if it could be said as such.”
He scoffed, turning his nose up at a thought. “Frankly, I’m still insulted by their choice of cliché. November 5th? Really? They really had to go and pick a date already associated with treason?” He rolled his eyes, taking a few slow paces forward, holding his arms aloft as he posed his rhetorical question. “They decided to go the route of “Remember, remember, the 5th of November,” enact their treason, then stole our bloody name while they were at it? What a joke, with a terrible punchline at that.”
Bull arched a brow at him. “Would you rather they’d have chosen the 1st of November instead, or would you instead be chiding them for their missed opportunity?”
“I would rather they’d not betrayed us at all, if we’re talking semantics,” Bourbon retorted.
“Point,” Bull acknowledged.
Bourbon gave him a shit-eating grin. “All the same, you would, however, be absolutely correct in assuming that I’d have simply taken the other stance. They’d be taking the piss from me in either instance.” He chuckled, moving towards the monument itself.
The monument stood atop the platform their orbital elevator had once occupied, which thankfully had meant that it had a stable foundation as it was. It also made for a very large foundation. A few other things occupied the space as such. Presently, an entire assembly of people occupied the platform, in preparation for the ceremonies to come. Today marked the fifth-year anniversary of the officially declared end of the Hybridas Conflict. Yet another catastrophic war, though not one that the Coalition had in any way perpetrated. Rather, they’d been invaded by an outside force, the Hybridas.
Giving the Hybridas any simple description was a relatively futile effort, though he’d have all day to revisit a description for them. They’d come from the nearby galaxy of Ptolmyra, which was governed by the Ptolmyran Confederacy. The Confederacy was, as one might anticipate, comprised of different groups of Xenos who’d banded together to form an alliance within their own space. The Hybridas were the product of a race who had not been playing by the Confederacy’s rules. Somehow, they slipped under the radar into Mare Spera, where it promptly started destroying entire Coalition worlds.
Oops.
The Hybridas weren’t their only creations. Nor were they the first of their creations to fuck over the Coalition in some capacity. No, they managed to wreak havoc on them far earlier on, during the Sigtri incident… Which would end up being one of the things to spark the Civil War in the first place. And as it would seem, they shared an even deeper history. In the end, they’d had far more influence over the Coalition’s history than they ever should have—Considering that their entire race had been dead before the Coalition ever even left Earth.
A fact they only discovered when they tried to hunt them down, and found the Confederacy instead.
With the Hybridas Conflict wrapped up, Confederate and Coalition leaders were ready to finally sit down and have a chat. They were expecting the Confederate leaders soon. Meanwhile, all of the Coalition’s major players were already assembled and waiting. He gave a sidelong glance at everyone as he strode closer to the structure, mentally taking note of everyone there. He knew he was the odd man out; he had far less business being present than everyone else.
And yet here you stand, Colonel, with a fraction of a galaxy in the palm of your hand…
Aside from the entirety of Coalition High Command, there were the far more permanent objects around the monolith, namely a few terminals placed at regular intervals around the dark object. There was one larger, central terminal at what was deemed the front of the monument, which could be used to control the display on the obsidian surface. That was more or less to be the center point for the whole shindig, and Bull would be using it as a podium as he addressed the alien delegates upon their arrival.
It could be setting to multiple different settings, all serving purposes more or less particular. The way in which the names appeared and disappeared, or scrolled, or even the ability to pull up specific units, ships, or other such things. Ship emblems or even silhouettes could cross the memorial’s dark surface, fleets crossing the space between stars as surely as the stars themselves were on it. Whoever had designed it had surely put a great deal of effort into it.
Its default setting showed the constellations that made up their galaxy, and the names of the fallen made up their stars. The individual stars were comprised of the names of those who came from those systems. The idea was to represent their lives, as opposed to their deaths. It had been built after the Civil War, during a dark time. They’d won, but it seemed they’d lost infinitely more. Many lost the will to go on, and soon ceased to be.
They had a new fight to win. A fight to survive, to keep people from giving up. The “Survivor’s War,” they called it. An apt, if uninspired description. The memorial had been painstakingly constructed in an attempt to commemorate the fallen, and hopefully raise morale. Whether or not it saw any level of success was certainly up for debate. He knew it didn’t do very much for him, not that he’d had many opportunities to witness it. Mare Spera was a big galaxy, and he didn’t spend much time around Terra Nova after the war.
The obsidian obelisk represented something more than that, however. It was a promise. The monument itself was aptly named “The End,” which encompassed many things. It promised that the war was at an end, the violence was at an end. It promised that those who had met their end would not be forgotten. But most of all, it promised the end of death itself for the Coalition. The Lazarus Division of the CRDA managed to reconstruct their ability to create neural templates, mental back-ups. A “save point” in the event of death, to be recovered and transferred into a new body. One would lose their memories beyond that checkpoint, but they would live again, missing only a few months’ worth of time.
There was the argument, of course, that it wasn’t really the same person. Whoever that person was, they had still died. This was a replication. This was how transference worked as well. When one’s body was no longer fit for the tour of duty, a new one was created. If one was lucky, they could get a solid 30 years or so out of a single body before having to switch. The mind was replicated, and they would shed their old body in favor of a new one, physically and genetically identical to their last—So long as they chose not to make any modifications, of course.
The new body would contain the same consciousness as the last, the memories, knowledge, and feelings. There was an adjustment period as one went through physical therapy to become accustomed to their new self, and life went on for them. Everyone either had done it, or would do it at some point. Bourbon had done it, Bull had done it. And they would do it time and time again, for so long as they endured. For all intents and purposes, they had achieved some sense of immortality, so long as they chose not to terminate their line.
Bourbon didn’t know if they’d ever permanently lost anyone after that, with the exceptions being those who voluntarily chose the end. He knew of only one odd instance where the backups were lost, for a single person, and it was still being investigated. Oddly enough, it was Chi, who he’d referenced mere moments ago in his conversation with Bull. Something about that didn’t sit well with him. Many things about her disappearance didn’t sit well with him. Of course, that was true of many things these days. Many would label him as conspiratorial, an alarmist, or in general just distasteful.
They weren’t wrong, per se. He acknowledged that he was all of those things—Including distasteful, at times, depending on how much he was living up to his namesake. That didn’t mean he was wrong either, despite how often people discredited his efforts to raise concern about certain issues. It was all a matter of perspective, and he just continued to hang on to things that many considered dead and in the ground.
Idealism and pessimism were a stone’s throw apart, and he had become quite adept at slinging stones.
He realized that at some point while he’d been mulling things over, he’d found himself in front of one of the terminals. Not the main podium, but one of the smaller, plaque-like exhibits surrounding the structure. They could be used to pull up a great deal of information on the war, ranging from the particulars of separate battles to individuals’ entire service records. He idly inspected it, running a finger across its surface. Clean. It seemed someone had taken the time to dust them off for the ceremony to follow.
A sense of uncertainty plagued him. He didn’t really know how long he’d been standing there staring at the thing. He felt a pang within him, a certain call, and a thousand images flashed before his eyes. One particular scene played out before him, as it had time and again. Something dark stirred in the corner of his vision, and a chorus of whispers, familiar yet unintelligible, echoed in the recesses of his mind. It wouldn’t do him any good to push them aside. There were few sounds he could recall from the memory, and none of them were words.
There was a question that burned within him, longing to be answered.
He contemplated using the terminal, but something else began to burn. Something in the back of his skull felt like it was on fire, and he felt like he was on high alert.
Eyes.
He could feel Bull’s attention on him. He was waiting expectantly.
They both knew exactly what Bourbon was thinking about as he stood in front of the terminal. What he didn’t know, however, was whether Bull would be looking directly at him, or if he would be watching him out of his peripherals. Would he be pretending not to notice, or only marginally aware? Or staring directly at him? He wasn’t sure which scenario he liked better. None of them appealed, really.
He was too sober for this shit.
His hand fell away from the terminal. He decided to play it off.
He closed his eyes and spun on his heel, running his hands through his long, dirty-blond hair to perform an exaggerated hair flip. When he opened his eyes, he put on his cockiest grin, bracing for impact.
Bull wasn’t looking at him.
He released the breath he didn’t know he was holding. Bourbon would’ve been in his peripheral vision, but the Coalition’s leader hadn’t turned to watch. That was the outcome he’d expected, and admittedly preferred. Bull wasn’t stupid, he knew what had just happened. He was undoubtedly aware that Bourbon knew that he was watching, directly or indirectly. He was feigning ignorance for Bourbon’s sake, rather than make him feel as though he was under the magnifying glass. He was thankful for it.
He was waiting for Bourbon to approach the subject of his own accord, rather than initiate a confrontation himself. That was Bull’s way of operating. When it came to decisions that required immediate action, he didn’t hesitate. When it came to smaller things, however, he preferred a more tactful approach. He seemed to instead prefer putting pieces in place and setting them in motion, letting them unfold how they would. He always provided a way deeper in, and a way out.
The door was open for whenever Bourbon wanted to confront the subject. If he wanted to. It was the secret he’d kept from the universe, the one thing nobody was ever meant to know. Bourbon had made the admission to him already, but hadn’t spoken of it again. It wasn’t a conversation he was ready to have.
He hoped he’d be able to one day, but for now, he couldn’t.
Bourbon stepped away from the wretched thing, before he made a stupid decision by changing his mind. “You know…” he began slowly, employing a mischievous tone. “I find myself thinking about how relentlessly dour this place truly is.” He sauntered towards Bull again, coming to stand at his side. He tilted his head to the side as he met his friend’s gaze. He gestured behind him. “The obsidian tombstone’s really quite nice, whoever put it together did a fantastic job. No sarcasm, full truth.”
Bull’s stare was fixed straight ahead, in the direction they expected the rest of their party to come from. He took in a deep breath, bracing himself. “There’s either a “but” or a continuation to this line of thought.”
“Oh, I’m simply idly musing at the idea of using the grounds as a venue for a heavy metal concert. We’ve already got an appropriate backdrop, and plenty of space. Set up a few pyrotechnics, and we could put on quite a show.” He stroked his chin as he pretended to be in deep thought, feeling his fingers running through his facial hair. “Maybe host it on the anniversary of the war’s end? The idea of the monument was to celebrate their lives, what better way to celebrate than with a music festival?”
The Commander-in-Chief slowly turned his head to stare straight at him. His expression was utterly blank, and his eyes bore straight through him. “You’re proposing that we host a rock concert on what some people would view as being tantamount to Holy ground, and others would view as the graveyard of our hopes and dreams?”
“Absolutely. And a fancy barbecue.” Bourbon wasn’t even remotely serious. He was moreso just trying to get a laugh out of Bull. He imagined the man didn’t do much of that these days. “The United States had Memorial Day back on Earth, right? Celebrate the lives of the fallen by hosting giant cookouts every year? Sometimes with fireworks and such? Would it truly be any different?”
Bull’s stare turned incredulous, though his intonation remained flat. Bourbon was beginning to wonder if Bull actually realized that he was joking. “And I imagine you’d like to volunteer yourself to orchestrate the entire event?”
“Who, me? No. I would never. Bull, I would never. Well. I might. Maybe. I might maybe definitely do that.” He shrugged. “Who better? Gaelia?”
Bull stared for a moment longer, but the idea of CWAD’s cold leader hosting any kind of festivities was enough to finally break Bull’s composure. He finally cracked a smile and chuckled, and let out a sigh that might have been relief. “No, I suppose leaving such things to the professionals would be a better choice. Especially now that you seem to fancy yourself a rock legend anyway.”
“Fancy myself?” Bourbon shifted his weight onto one foot, crossing his arms. “Oh, darling, everyone fancies me, regardless of whether or not they’re willing to admit it. They always have. I’m the idol everyone craves, here to bring some sound and vision to the dull, colorless lives of our people.” He made an exaggerated gesture towards the sky. “And beyond.”
“How very noble of you.”
“What can I say except “You’re welcome?"
“And extraordinarily humble,” Bull chuckled, turning his gaze forward again. “Just remember what Lee said. As much as I’m sure the idea of amassing a collective of alien groupies is amongst your highest aspirations, and I know you do so long to wow them, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask that we keep our Summit as…” He paused. "Professional as possible. Save the dazzling for after we get into their good graces, if you would be so kind.”
Bourbon mimed shock, placing a hand over his chest so as to indicate himself. He let out a mock gasp. “Are you implying that I would jeopardize our relationship with the Xenos? Good sir, I am surprised at you. When have I ever given you reason to believe I wouldn’t take such a thing seriously?”
Bull gave him an incredulous look.
“Okay, fine, you’ve made your point. And yet, here I stand. Normal uniform, no personal touches, as requested." He tugged at his leather jacket, spinning in place to display that he’d made no modifications to it. It only displayed the patches associated with himself and his unit, even as vibrant as they were. Other than that, there were only the fairly standard bits of armor that were part of many Coalition uniforms. His featured an armored collar that melded into a plating that protected his neck, upper back, and uppermost parts of his shoulders. The segmented plates likewise graced his upper arms and forearms. If he needed to get into a close-quarters fight, he would have been fairly well off.
The jacket had seen minimal use. Bourbon had another similar jacket that he typically wore instead—One which featured a number of more personal details.
The only “exotic” part of his outfit were his sunglasses, a pair of semi-square, angular aviators with side shields around the temples. The framing around the eyes were black and gold metal, while the arms were made of a matte black plastic. They sported red-mirrored lenses presently due to being in a polarized state, but he could transition them to clear if he so desired. He could use them as a Heads-Up Display in the event that he didn’t want to use his implants, which made them a useful piece of tech. He’d be taking them off when their company started arriving in full, for the sake of formalities and good manners.
“I made sure to tidy up as much as possible,” he continued, extending a leg to indicate the crease in his pant leg. He then pulled up the pant leg itself to show off the shine to his boots. “And I’m sober.” He frowned deeply. "Painfully sober. I didn’t even take a shot before I came here. Surely that counts for something?”
“It does. Speaking of dazzling, how’s that outfit of yours coming along anyway?”
Satisfied, Bourbon crossed his arms. “It’s done. Had to sort of figure it all out myself, we don’t exactly have an overabundance of sequins lying about.” He smirked. “At least, we didn’t. But we did have an overabundance of gemstones that nobody was using…”
“Oh no.”
“Oh, yes, darling. I’d have worn it today if I could’ve gotten away with it. Niki wouldn’t even let me apply any eyeliner.”
Bull blinked, momentarily taken aback by the remark. It only took him a moment to recover. “I don’t know how or why that statement surprises me, yet here we are. You’re committed to this bit now, aren’t you?”
Bourbon huffed, baring a toothy grin. “Don’t you know who I think I am?” he shot back, harkening back to his earlier song reference. Not his favorite band, nor preferred genre, but he’d be damned if he was going to pass up the opportunity to make a musical reference. “The short answer is yes. Besides, I should think that given the day’s events, playing my part should be preferable, would it not? At least later on, when it becomes relevant. The long answer is that I’ve always been this way, just… More subdued? I should hope you’ve not forgotten.”
“My office hasn’t rendered me senile, no.”
“Yet.”
“Yet,” Bull agreed. “All the same, no, I’ve not forgotten. You’ve always been one for theatrics.” He gave a subtle grin. “I suppose the HUB’s just finally given you an outlet for it. Now the Coalition as a whole gets to see what levels of madness you’ve hidden away from us.”
Bourbon gave Bull a smirk. “Bingo, although, come to think of it…” He turned his attention towards the rest of the assembly again. “I suppose most of them would very likely shoot me if I went for the full Monty on this one as it is.” They were all off in their own worlds, tending to their last-minute business. He hadn’t really paid much attention to them until now, though his moment of self-consciousness made him more aware of them. Not the matter of making a spectacle of himself; No, he had no shame, he couldn’t possibly embarrass himself. But the feelings that this place brought to him, the things that had happened here, he didn’t much care to make visible to these people.
[Part 2]

Hello there, and welcome. I’ll keep introductions brief, as I’m here to share a writing story, not my life story, yes? This is my first time posting here, so I do hope this is up to snuff. It’s been a long time since I’ve put anything on display for public consumption, but it’s been suggested to me that this might be a good place to share this little project, and find potentially useful feedback, criticisms, and more.
“Sea of Hope” is an ongoing passion project being worked on by multiple people. It’s been a labor of love that’s been in development for a long time, undergoing constant evolution. There’s a lot of plot and history that’s been developed, and much, much more still in development. We wanted to share some of that with you, in hopes that you might be interested in going on that journey with us, and discover why we’re as passionate about it as we are.
Thanks for your time, and enjoy the show.
Links
[Part 2]

>>//0740 Hours, 08 January, 2168
>>//Location: Old Gemini/Lost Twin
>>//Sublocation: Clone Civil War Memorial
>>//Terra Nova, Anastasis System, Mare Spera
The ruins of the original Gemini Base were just as he remembered them: A desolate heap of rubble, destroyed far beyond any hope of repair.
YC-012, “Bourbon”—As he was now known, much to his chagrin—stared up at the massive obelisk that loomed over the ruins. To say it towered above his head would be a pitiful understatement; it stretched so far above him that he could not see the top from where he sat. Its width was much more tangible, at least in the sense that one could circumnavigate the thing in a reasonable amount of time. All the same, he wouldn’t want to run a circuit around it; it would just as well become a marathon.
The hexagonal pillar was darker than the abyss itself, a solemn reminder of the deaths it represented. The memorial’s surface constantly rippled and shimmered, forming fleeting constellations against the void of space. Those faux stars, however, consisted of the names of those who had fallen in the Clone Civil War; scrolling, flickering, fading, and appearing once again upon its surface from time to time. It was imperceptible from any sort of distance, and even up close one might find difficulty reading them due to the near-nanoscopic size of the text. The sheer number of names encompassed by the monolith demanded it.
The trillions of names demanded it.
At night, it was only visible due to the spotlights that were constantly shone against it, ensuring that it could never go unseen, the lives lost never forgotten. Bourbon supposed it likewise served the infinitely more mundane purpose of a safety precaution, of course, to avoid potential issues with any air traffic that may have been arriving or departing from the intact sibling base some distance away.
As its name implied, Gemini had been built as two installations, conjoined by a tram system that ran between the two. It was, in essence, the Coalition of Clone Systems’ capitol. He could still remember when it was first constructed. They’d been the Coalition of Clone Nations back then. He could remember when nothing stood on Terra Nova, and the day they first stepped foot on it.
How long has it been? He wondered to himself. He looked down at the stones he held in his hand, bits of and pieces of rubble that had been exposed to the elements long enough to begin eroding them. He rolled them about in his palm idly, contemplating the base’s state. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it in this condition, though his last visit had seen him in a far less observant state. He would have bet money that these were the same stones he’d been fondling during his last visit, if he had any cash on him. Given that the CCS didn’t use currency, however, that would’ve made for a fairly hollow bet.
That didn’t stop him from collecting banknotes from Earth whenever he could, of course. Earth memorabilia was still valuable on its own to the right individual.
He continued to ponder the question he’d posed. How long had it been since the last time he’d seen the military installation intact? November 5th, 2048, he recalled. That was just under 120 years ago now. It was burned into his mind, as it was for many other denizens of the Coalition. That was the date that everything had fallen apart. Any clone who’d lived through that day would remember it well. Not just those who’d been stationed at Gemini, or even on Terra Nova, but across all of Mare Spera.
It had been a lifetime ago now. No—Two…? Three…? He struggled to recount how many times he’d transferred from one body to another now, how many times he’d undergone transference. Sometimes he struggled to recount a lot of things, other times they came naturally. His mind swung like a pendulum between trying to erase it all and desperately clinging to whatever threads remained of his memory. So much had come unraveled.
It was maddening, though part of it was his own fault. They didn’t call him “Bourbon” for nothing.
He found one such thread, and took hold. He followed it backwards through time to revisit—Not for the first time, nor the last he suspected— the day of the surprise attack that launched the insurgency to come. Mounting tensions had come to a head, and fractured the Coalition. The rebels splintered off into their own faction, the Unified Clone Nations, and both sides spent plenty of time killing each other for the next two decades, leaving long-lasting wounds that still had never healed completely.
Bastards didn’t even have the decency to come up with an original name.
“Penny for your thoughts?” came the familiar drawl of an old friend.
He reeled himself back in, looking up from his hand. He adjusted his sunglasses to peer over their rims at the man who’d addressed him. YC-087, “Bull,” stood ahead of him. The Coalition’s Commander-in-Chief was half-turned towards him, free of his aides for at least a moment. Bourbon wished he had a camera. The morning sun cast its soft golden rays across him, painting an image of him that many of the Coalition would’ve very much liked to see.
He was wearing the full extent of his formal attire, sporting the deep red, pristine white, and dark blue uniform that was unique to his station. They were the colors of the Coalition’s flag. The blue was indicative of the void of space. The red and white represented the collided galaxies that formed “Mare Spera,” the “Sea of Hope.” It also served as a slight allusion to the Coalition’s Earthly origins in the United States military.
He sported his ceremonial pauldron on his left shoulder, a remnant or replication of the retired GPAU armor. The GPAU had been their first real armor, as opposed to simple plate carriers and ballistic padding. It had since been replaced by the M-RAU and its subsequent iterations, a much more advanced armor system, befitting a civilization that trod the stars. Its purpose as a part of his uniform was purely for symbolism and aesthetics, with his other shoulder and forearms sporting the segmented angular plating that had become incredibly commonplace amongst Coalition uniform designs.
The creases in his face seemed more apparent every time Bourbon saw him, and the circles under his eyes grew darker. It was hard to place the age of his current body, as it seemed keen on catching up to the age of his mind. Bull came into being in 1988, which put him at 179 years old as it was. Physical age meant nothing to a clone aside from the need for another body transfer and the physical therapy associated with it before they could get back to their duties, but to say age was “just a number” would be disingenuous.
The wind blew gently through Bull’s cropped black hair. Bourbon could remember when Bull fancied himself a charmer, his hair longer and slicked back with pomade. At the time, paired with his personality, it had evoked the image of someone from an old Western movie. He played the part well, complete with drawl and Southern charm. While he had yet to lose his accent, and he could still play the part of the charismatic leader, he seemed to have lost interest in playing cowboy.
Something subtle in his dark eyes told Bourbon that there might have been some hidden level of concern. That was fair, if he was being honest with himself. Bull was the one who’d discovered him here during his last visit five years prior, which had been a sordid affair.
Bourbon realized he’d been staring stupidly at him as opposed to giving him an answer. Seeing Bull after all this time still felt strange to him. All the same, he’d left an uncomfortable amount of time between the question and a response. It took him a moment to remember what the question even was. He chuffed as he remembered, finally answering in his typical low, sultry voice as he readjusted his shades. “You couldn’t possibly hope to afford all my thoughts even at a penny a piece.”
Bull turned to face him fully. “No? How about a dollar for the bushel, then?”
Bourbon grinned, seizing the moment. He mimed a microphone with his free hand. “A penny for your thoughts, but a dollar for your insides, or a fortune for your disaster?” he belted out with gusto. He let his hand fall and shrugged, stating the next line with far less bravado. “I’m just a painter, and I’m drawing a blank.”
“Your musical prowess leaves nothing to be desired,” Bull said, his tone flat in spite of an amused expression. “Save, perhaps, an answer to my question.”
Bourbon took a deep breath and sighed, planting his elbows on his knees. He stared back down at the stones in his hand. He rolled one between his finger and his thumb, then let it drop. “Frankly, I would have been far happier had I never been made to step foot in this festering dung heap ever again,” he said. “Too many memories.” He rolled the stones in his palm again, hearing the clattering. He let another drop. His brow furrowed, and he nodded in the direction of the monument. “Too many ghosts.” He looked back up. “Had you told me when last we met here that I would once more find myself seated upon this same pile of rubble? I believe I promptly would have told you to shoot me on the spot.”
Bull gave him a smug look. “You could always choose another assortment of rocks to perch on,” he offered. He gestured somewhere off to his side. “Those ones look mighty comfortable. You’re certainly not starved for choice.”
Bourbon glanced towards the pile Bull had indicated. It was a spiny sea urchin of debris, bits and pieces of rebar thrusting outwards at all angles. He let yet another stone drop, shrugging. “I’ll pass,” he said, waving dismissively. “I prefer my seating arrangements a tad less likely to give me a case of tetanus.”
“Well. You could always… Stand. Presuming that’s not too… Pedestrian for you,” Bull retorted, rocking on his heels as he emphasized the word.
Bourbon gave a look of mock offense. “Like some kind of plebeian?” he gasped. “That you have the gall.” He paused and sighed, letting all the stones fall from his hand. He dusted his hands off, and pushed himself to stand. He held his arms out wide. “Satisfied?” he asked with a smirk.
Bull chuckled, looking around at all the debris himself. There was a pause before he spoke again. When he did, there was a solemnity to his voice. “You know, when the orbital elevator collapsed,” he began slowly, pointing towards a spot not too far from where either of them stood. “I was standing… Right about there.” Bourbon followed his direction, then glanced back upwards towards the monument. “We were trying to secure the elevator. Just when we were sure we had it on lock, they must’ve detonated charges they’d placed somewhere up above.”
The monument stood now where the orbital elevator once had, on its massive raised platform. It mimicked the shape as the elevator had, large and hexagonal, though not quite the same scale. It was centered the same, positioned the same, though lacking in dimension. Especially vertically. Saying such didn’t diminish the monument’s grandeur in any way, but rather put things into perspective. It was hard to compare anything to something that stretched beyond a planet’s atmosphere.
Bull continued, looking upwards towards the sky, shaking his head. “Worst sound I ever heard, haven’t heard anything quite like it since. The whole thing started to flounder about, not being anchored anymore. Sound of metal twisting and groaning, that odd twang the cables made as they thrashed about. I looked up to watch as it warped and began to shake pieces off of it.” He squinted, clearly envisioning the moment. “You know what the damnedest thing is though?”
Bourbon had a feeling he knew where Bull was going with the story, but didn’t interrupt. Instead he stood and listened, knowing Bull would continue of his own volition. “Watching the other half of it going up into space. One of the craziest things you can imagine, watching something that big just getting sucked out into the sky like that. That ain’t even the worst of it, though.” He turned back to Bourbon. “Worst of it was that I could make out something else moving up there. A ship.”
He put on an expression of amusement, though he was certain it was only to cover the resentment he’d felt. “I could see that ship move in and intercept the station the elevator was anchored to. And they hauled the whole damned station away. Must’ve loaded up the elevator with as much as they could and figured to steal whatever they had still left on the thing. I can’t even begin to tell you what was running through my mind as I watched those bastards steal our elevator.” He chuckled, a hint of bitterness behind it. “Of all the outrageous things I’ve seen, I don’t think anything’s got my goat quite as much as that.”
Bourbon glanced around. He replayed the events of the attack in his head. Things had been utter chaos the whole time, which distorted the timeline in his head to some degree. It didn’t help matters that it had been over a century ago. “I believe that was shortly after we secured the armory, or somewhere abouts. Chi had ventured off to retake the motor pool shortly prior, and I was off with a contingent of my own to take back the nursery.” So much of that day blended together, but he recalled the scene unfolding at the cloning facility well enough—He might have managed to scrub it from his memory, were it not for the fact that a living reminder of it was hounding him constantly as of late. “I recall it was near the end of the attack, at any rate. Seemed pretty apparent that we had the upper hand at that point, if it could be said as such.”
He scoffed, turning his nose up at a thought. “Frankly, I’m still insulted by their choice of cliché. November 5th? Really? They really had to go and pick a date already associated with treason?” He rolled his eyes, taking a few slow paces forward, holding his arms aloft as he posed his rhetorical question. “They decided to go the route of “Remember, remember, the 5th of November,” enact their treason, then stole our bloody name while they were at it? What a joke, with a terrible punchline at that.”
Bull arched a brow at him. “Would you rather they’d have chosen the 1st of November instead, or would you instead be chiding them for their missed opportunity?”
“I would rather they’d not betrayed us at all, if we’re talking semantics,” Bourbon retorted.
“Point,” Bull acknowledged.
Bourbon gave him a shit-eating grin. “All the same, you would, however, be absolutely correct in assuming that I’d have simply taken the other stance. They’d be taking the piss from me in either instance.” He chuckled, moving towards the monument itself.
The monument stood atop the platform their orbital elevator had once occupied, which thankfully had meant that it had a stable foundation as it was. It also made for a very large foundation. A few other things occupied the space as such. Presently, an entire assembly of people occupied the platform, in preparation for the ceremonies to come. Today marked the fifth-year anniversary of the officially declared end of the Hybridas Conflict. Yet another catastrophic war, though not one that the Coalition had in any way perpetrated. Rather, they’d been invaded by an outside force, the Hybridas.
Giving the Hybridas any simple description was a relatively futile effort, though he’d have all day to revisit a description for them. They’d come from the nearby galaxy of Ptolmyra, which was governed by the Ptolmyran Confederacy. The Confederacy was, as one might anticipate, comprised of different groups of Xenos who’d banded together to form an alliance within their own space. The Hybridas were the product of a race who had not been playing by the Confederacy’s rules. Somehow, they slipped under the radar into Mare Spera, where it promptly started destroying entire Coalition worlds.
Oops.
The Hybridas weren’t their only creations. Nor were they the first of their creations to fuck over the Coalition in some capacity. No, they managed to wreak havoc on them far earlier on, during the Sigtri incident… Which would end up being one of the things to spark the Civil War in the first place. And as it would seem, they shared an even deeper history. In the end, they’d had far more influence over the Coalition’s history than they ever should have—Considering that their entire race had been dead before the Coalition ever even left Earth.
A fact they only discovered when they tried to hunt them down, and found the Confederacy instead.
With the Hybridas Conflict wrapped up, Confederate and Coalition leaders were ready to finally sit down and have a chat. They were expecting the Confederate leaders soon. Meanwhile, all of the Coalition’s major players were already assembled and waiting. He gave a sidelong glance at everyone as he strode closer to the structure, mentally taking note of everyone there. He knew he was the odd man out; he had far less business being present than everyone else.
And yet here you stand, Colonel, with a fraction of a galaxy in the palm of your hand…
Aside from the entirety of Coalition High Command, there were the far more permanent objects around the monolith, namely a few terminals placed at regular intervals around the dark object. There was one larger, central terminal at what was deemed the front of the monument, which could be used to control the display on the obsidian surface. That was more or less to be the center point for the whole shindig, and Bull would be using it as a podium as he addressed the alien delegates upon their arrival.
It could be setting to multiple different settings, all serving purposes more or less particular. The way in which the names appeared and disappeared, or scrolled, or even the ability to pull up specific units, ships, or other such things. Ship emblems or even silhouettes could cross the memorial’s dark surface, fleets crossing the space between stars as surely as the stars themselves were on it. Whoever had designed it had surely put a great deal of effort into it.
Its default setting showed the constellations that made up their galaxy, and the names of the fallen made up their stars. The individual stars were comprised of the names of those who came from those systems. The idea was to represent their lives, as opposed to their deaths. It had been built after the Civil War, during a dark time. They’d won, but it seemed they’d lost infinitely more. Many lost the will to go on, and soon ceased to be.
They had a new fight to win. A fight to survive, to keep people from giving up. The “Survivor’s War,” they called it. An apt, if uninspired description. The memorial had been painstakingly constructed in an attempt to commemorate the fallen, and hopefully raise morale. Whether or not it saw any level of success was certainly up for debate. He knew it didn’t do very much for him, not that he’d had many opportunities to witness it. Mare Spera was a big galaxy, and he didn’t spend much time around Terra Nova after the war.
The obsidian obelisk represented something more than that, however. It was a promise. The monument itself was aptly named “The End,” which encompassed many things. It promised that the war was at an end, the violence was at an end. It promised that those who had met their end would not be forgotten. But most of all, it promised the end of death itself for the Coalition. The Lazarus Division of the CRDA managed to reconstruct their ability to create neural templates, mental back-ups. A “save point” in the event of death, to be recovered and transferred into a new body. One would lose their memories beyond that checkpoint, but they would live again, missing only a few months’ worth of time.
There was the argument, of course, that it wasn’t really the same person. Whoever that person was, they had still died. This was a replication. This was how transference worked as well. When one’s body was no longer fit for the tour of duty, a new one was created. If one was lucky, they could get a solid 30 years or so out of a single body before having to switch. The mind was replicated, and they would shed their old body in favor of a new one, physically and genetically identical to their last—So long as they chose not to make any modifications, of course.
The new body would contain the same consciousness as the last, the memories, knowledge, and feelings. There was an adjustment period as one went through physical therapy to become accustomed to their new self, and life went on for them. Everyone either had done it, or would do it at some point. Bourbon had done it, Bull had done it. And they would do it time and time again, for so long as they endured. For all intents and purposes, they had achieved some sense of immortality, so long as they chose not to terminate their line.
Bourbon didn’t know if they’d ever permanently lost anyone after that, with the exceptions being those who voluntarily chose the end. He knew of only one odd instance where the backups were lost, for a single person, and it was still being investigated. Oddly enough, it was Chi, who he’d referenced mere moments ago in his conversation with Bull. Something about that didn’t sit well with him. Many things about her disappearance didn’t sit well with him. Of course, that was true of many things these days. Many would label him as conspiratorial, an alarmist, or in general just distasteful.
They weren’t wrong, per se. He acknowledged that he was all of those things—Including distasteful, at times, depending on how much he was living up to his namesake. That didn’t mean he was wrong either, despite how often people discredited his efforts to raise concern about certain issues. It was all a matter of perspective, and he just continued to hang on to things that many considered dead and in the ground.
Idealism and pessimism were a stone’s throw apart, and he had become quite adept at slinging stones.
He realized that at some point while he’d been mulling things over, he’d found himself in front of one of the terminals. Not the main podium, but one of the smaller, plaque-like exhibits surrounding the structure. They could be used to pull up a great deal of information on the war, ranging from the particulars of separate battles to individuals’ entire service records. He idly inspected it, running a finger across its surface. Clean. It seemed someone had taken the time to dust them off for the ceremony to follow.
A sense of uncertainty plagued him. He didn’t really know how long he’d been standing there staring at the thing. He felt a pang within him, a certain call, and a thousand images flashed before his eyes. One particular scene played out before him, as it had time and again. Something dark stirred in the corner of his vision, and a chorus of whispers, familiar yet unintelligible, echoed in the recesses of his mind. It wouldn’t do him any good to push them aside. There were few sounds he could recall from the memory, and none of them were words.
There was a question that burned within him, longing to be answered.
He contemplated using the terminal, but something else began to burn. Something in the back of his skull felt like it was on fire, and he felt like he was on high alert.
Eyes.
He could feel Bull’s attention on him. He was waiting expectantly.
They both knew exactly what Bourbon was thinking about as he stood in front of the terminal. What he didn’t know, however, was whether Bull would be looking directly at him, or if he would be watching him out of his peripherals. Would he be pretending not to notice, or only marginally aware? Or staring directly at him? He wasn’t sure which scenario he liked better. None of them appealed, really.
He was too sober for this shit.
His hand fell away from the terminal. He decided to play it off.
He closed his eyes and spun on his heel, running his hands through his long, dirty-blond hair to perform an exaggerated hair flip. When he opened his eyes, he put on his cockiest grin, bracing for impact.
Bull wasn’t looking at him.
He released the breath he didn’t know he was holding. Bourbon would’ve been in his peripheral vision, but the Coalition’s leader hadn’t turned to watch. That was the outcome he’d expected, and admittedly preferred. Bull wasn’t stupid, he knew what had just happened. He was undoubtedly aware that Bourbon knew that he was watching, directly or indirectly. He was feigning ignorance for Bourbon’s sake, rather than make him feel as though he was under the magnifying glass. He was thankful for it.
He was waiting for Bourbon to approach the subject of his own accord, rather than initiate a confrontation himself. That was Bull’s way of operating. When it came to decisions that required immediate action, he didn’t hesitate. When it came to smaller things, however, he preferred a more tactful approach. He seemed to instead prefer putting pieces in place and setting them in motion, letting them unfold how they would. He always provided a way deeper in, and a way out.
The door was open for whenever Bourbon wanted to confront the subject. If he wanted to. It was the secret he’d kept from the universe, the one thing nobody was ever meant to know. Bourbon had made the admission to him already, but hadn’t spoken of it again. It wasn’t a conversation he was ready to have.
He hoped he’d be able to one day, but for now, he couldn’t.
Bourbon stepped away from the wretched thing, before he made a stupid decision by changing his mind. “You know…” he began slowly, employing a mischievous tone. “I find myself thinking about how relentlessly dour this place truly is.” He sauntered towards Bull again, coming to stand at his side. He tilted his head to the side as he met his friend’s gaze. He gestured behind him. “The obsidian tombstone’s really quite nice, whoever put it together did a fantastic job. No sarcasm, full truth.”
Bull’s stare was fixed straight ahead, in the direction they expected the rest of their party to come from. He took in a deep breath, bracing himself. “There’s either a “but” or a continuation to this line of thought.”
“Oh, I’m simply idly musing at the idea of using the grounds as a venue for a heavy metal concert. We’ve already got an appropriate backdrop, and plenty of space. Set up a few pyrotechnics, and we could put on quite a show.” He stroked his chin as he pretended to be in deep thought, feeling his fingers running through his facial hair. “Maybe host it on the anniversary of the war’s end? The idea of the monument was to celebrate their lives, what better way to celebrate than with a music festival?”
The Commander-in-Chief slowly turned his head to stare straight at him. His expression was utterly blank, and his eyes bore straight through him. “You’re proposing that we host a rock concert on what some people would view as being tantamount to Holy ground, and others would view as the graveyard of our hopes and dreams?”
“Absolutely. And a fancy barbecue.” Bourbon wasn’t even remotely serious. He was moreso just trying to get a laugh out of Bull. He imagined the man didn’t do much of that these days. “The United States had Memorial Day back on Earth, right? Celebrate the lives of the fallen by hosting giant cookouts every year? Sometimes with fireworks and such? Would it truly be any different?”
Bull’s stare turned incredulous, though his intonation remained flat. Bourbon was beginning to wonder if Bull actually realized that he was joking. “And I imagine you’d like to volunteer yourself to orchestrate the entire event?”
“Who, me? No. I would never. Bull, I would never. Well. I might. Maybe. I might maybe definitely do that.” He shrugged. “Who better? Gaelia?”
Bull stared for a moment longer, but the idea of CWAD’s cold leader hosting any kind of festivities was enough to finally break Bull’s composure. He finally cracked a smile and chuckled, and let out a sigh that might have been relief. “No, I suppose leaving such things to the professionals would be a better choice. Especially now that you seem to fancy yourself a rock legend anyway.”
“Fancy myself?” Bourbon shifted his weight onto one foot, crossing his arms. “Oh, darling, everyone fancies me, regardless of whether or not they’re willing to admit it. They always have. I’m the idol everyone craves, here to bring some sound and vision to the dull, colorless lives of our people.” He made an exaggerated gesture towards the sky. “And beyond.”
“How very noble of you.”
“What can I say except “You’re welcome?"
“And extraordinarily humble,” Bull chuckled, turning his gaze forward again. “Just remember what Lee said. As much as I’m sure the idea of amassing a collective of alien groupies is amongst your highest aspirations, and I know you do so long to wow them, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask that we keep our Summit as…” He paused. "Professional as possible. Save the dazzling for after we get into their good graces, if you would be so kind.”
Bourbon mimed shock, placing a hand over his chest so as to indicate himself. He let out a mock gasp. “Are you implying that I would jeopardize our relationship with the Xenos? Good sir, I am surprised at you. When have I ever given you reason to believe I wouldn’t take such a thing seriously?”
Bull gave him an incredulous look.
“Okay, fine, you’ve made your point. And yet, here I stand. Normal uniform, no personal touches, as requested." He tugged at his leather jacket, spinning in place to display that he’d made no modifications to it. It only displayed the patches associated with himself and his unit, even as vibrant as they were. Other than that, there were only the fairly standard bits of armor that were part of many Coalition uniforms. His featured an armored collar that melded into a plating that protected his neck, upper back, and uppermost parts of his shoulders. The segmented plates likewise graced his upper arms and forearms. If he needed to get into a close-quarters fight, he would have been fairly well off.
The jacket had seen minimal use. Bourbon had another similar jacket that he typically wore instead—One which featured a number of more personal details.
The only “exotic” part of his outfit were his sunglasses, a pair of semi-square, angular aviators with side shields around the temples. The framing around the eyes were black and gold metal, while the arms were made of a matte black plastic. They sported red-mirrored lenses presently due to being in a polarized state, but he could transition them to clear if he so desired. He could use them as a Heads-Up Display in the event that he didn’t want to use his implants, which made them a useful piece of tech. He’d be taking them off when their company started arriving in full, for the sake of formalities and good manners.
“I made sure to tidy up as much as possible,” he continued, extending a leg to indicate the crease in his pant leg. He then pulled up the pant leg itself to show off the shine to his boots. “And I’m sober.” He frowned deeply. "Painfully sober. I didn’t even take a shot before I came here. Surely that counts for something?”
“It does. Speaking of dazzling, how’s that outfit of yours coming along anyway?”
Satisfied, Bourbon crossed his arms. “It’s done. Had to sort of figure it all out myself, we don’t exactly have an overabundance of sequins lying about.” He smirked. “At least, we didn’t. But we did have an overabundance of gemstones that nobody was using…”
“Oh no.”
“Oh, yes, darling. I’d have worn it today if I could’ve gotten away with it. Niki wouldn’t even let me apply any eyeliner.”
Bull blinked, momentarily taken aback by the remark. It only took him a moment to recover. “I don’t know how or why that statement surprises me, yet here we are. You’re committed to this bit now, aren’t you?”
Bourbon huffed, baring a toothy grin. “Don’t you know who I think I am?” he shot back, harkening back to his earlier song reference. Not his favorite band, nor preferred genre, but he’d be damned if he was going to pass up the opportunity to make a musical reference. “The short answer is yes. Besides, I should think that given the day’s events, playing my part should be preferable, would it not? At least later on, when it becomes relevant. The long answer is that I’ve always been this way, just… More subdued? I should hope you’ve not forgotten.”
“My office hasn’t rendered me senile, no.”
“Yet.”
“Yet,” Bull agreed. “All the same, no, I’ve not forgotten. You’ve always been one for theatrics.” He gave a subtle grin. “I suppose the HUB’s just finally given you an outlet for it. Now the Coalition as a whole gets to see what levels of madness you’ve hidden away from us.”
Bourbon gave Bull a smirk. “Bingo, although, come to think of it…” He turned his attention towards the rest of the assembly again. “I suppose most of them would very likely shoot me if I went for the full Monty on this one as it is.” They were all off in their own worlds, tending to their last-minute business. He hadn’t really paid much attention to them until now, though his moment of self-consciousness made him more aware of them. Not the matter of making a spectacle of himself; No, he had no shame, he couldn’t possibly embarrass himself. But the feelings that this place brought to him, the things that had happened here, he didn’t much care to make visible to these people.
[Part 2]