Ultimate Hack 0.8: Extreme Prejudice

A Shadow Soft Production

Story by: Ashanti Luke


	   You arrive on the United Federation Defense Base, Daedelus weary from a long trip through hyperspace. You feel like you've just been through the spin cycle on an industrial washer, and are ready for the final rinse. You step out of the shuttle craft with the rest of your recruit class a motley bunch of recent Academy graduates from the Beta quadrant; inexperienced, wet behind the ears, but anxious to serve on the finest Federation defense base ever built. You feel your heart beating harder against the wall of your chest as you are escorted through these imaculate halls to your living quarters. You wish your parents could see you walking through these halls, chest out, chin up, eyes wide with anticipation despite the fact your head feels like wrong end of a well used sledghammer but that, you know, is an impossibility.
	   Your parents. Shuffling through these halls, you look down at your duffle bag as you think about them. Suddenly your eyes aren't so wide, your chest not so far out, your chin, lower, as you think about your mother and father. Two people you can barely remember, and will never see. But you look up and ahead, further down the hall to your future, and what lies ahead of you. You try to forget about what happened or at least what you've heard happened on the Marathon 19 years ago.
	  	Your squad leader leads you to the last room at the end of the hall and you salute him as he leaves. As the door closes behind him you wonder how many of the other graduates lost their parents on the Marathon. You wonder how many of them were awakened from their cryochambers on the Marathon, just little, innocent toddlers, to find that they no longer had any parents.
      You don't even have a chance to unpack before your grief and your headache join forces and convince you fall asleep. But even in sleep you cannot escape. You dream of gargoyles and demons, ripping and tearing through your mind on a rampage, bent on devouring you, bent on pulling you into the foul depths of the Abyss. But rather than run, you fight. You fight because it is the only thing you know. You fight because running is not an option. These demons have already taken your parents away. That was your edge. They took what you needed, but now, you had what they wanted and they couldn't take it from you. 
	   In your dream you manage to lock the demons in a small cell, but they scrape at the walls of the cell, they pound at the door, struggling to break free. They pound, and pound, and suddenly, the door opens. As the demons break lose you realize they are not demons at all but men, or rather one man, in an attack suit, standing in front of you with a pistol to your head. You react instantly, blocking the gun away from you head with your right hand, and left fist across the man's face hard, sending him to the ground. Suddenly you hear machine gun fire rattle through the halls. Something is not right. Quickly you take the man's pistol and ammunition, remove his attack suit, and put it on, praying that this is all still a dream; but your throbbing knuckles tell you it isn't.