[Preview]Renegade Ravager Vol. 3 -- Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – 01738.101 AA

The data slate was fed into the computer. The head tech took a seat in front of the console and began to carefully type. Green text flowed across the screen.

“Apologies, Corporal,” the tech said as we waited. “There are thousands of ongoing operations on Valeur Mineure. We are constantly sorting and cleansing documents and data, and new requests arrive by the hour. The Republic and the Martyred Goddess depend on our work to keep our people safe and our history secure.”

It took almost an hour for the ancient console to process our query and return the data we sought. When it finished, the head tech handed Victor back the data slate.

“The records you are seeking are currently stored in hall 412-NDJ, shelf 87-Gamma, Lot B – awaiting processing,” he informed us as he began the ritual of shutting down the console.

The vault door ground opened. The officer that had escorted us was still waiting. Stepping outside, the vault sealed itself behind us.

“May the Martyred Goddess bless your search,” the head tech said before returning to his work.

Victor turned to the guard officer. “You will escort us to hall 412-NDJ.”

“Certainly. Please, follow me back to the tram platform.” The man blinked, likely checking the route on his cybernetics. “It will be a long trip. That section of the facility is even older than this one. It’s only used for clearing low-priority materials.”

As we marched back toward the tram I contacted the others.

“Aggy, how's your hack going?” I asked.

She tsked. “The hardware they’re using is positively ancient, and I can’t tell when the software was last patched! It’s making it harder to break their security since it’s all so out of date. I feel like I’m pushing through digital sludge.”

“We’re going after the logbooks. If you find anything about the Saints or your past, let us know,” I replied.

Tromping back through the computer core, we returned to the same tram station. Our guards looked increasingly uncomfortable with our presence. We carefully took position at the rear of the car and stood there like statues, playing up our role as an impassive, implacable force.

“I didn’t know infiltrating a giant spook operation could be so boring,” Iuno complained.

“Trust me, it’ll be best if we remain bored. If things go bad, they’ll go bad quickly and catastrophically,” Xarl responded.

He was right. The officer and guards escorting us would die in a heartbeat, but they were backed up by thousands more. The security checkpoints we passed were guarded by heavy combat drones, and my cybernetics picked out turrets and other static defenses.

As we had been warned, it was a long ride. Outside the checkpoints, we were often forced to stop, waiting for cross traffic to pass.

That gave us an uncomfortable opportunity to witness the truth being butchered.

We passed huge regions of the moon that had been hollowed out and transformed by military intelligence. Aggy confirmed the core of Valeur Mineure was long gone, replaced by an ancient fusion reactor.

The tram passed through vast chambers where thousands of clerks toiled. They sorted through conveyor belts worth of papers, books, and notes, looking for any signs of treasonous or heretical thought.

They were surrounded by mountains of documents, items saved for later analysis or alteration. The remainder were tossed down chutes that led to incinerators. The air was choked with black smoke.

“I didn’t realize the Republic used this much paper,” Victor said out loud.

“People still love to take minutes, write in diaries, or scribble notes,” the officer replied. “All these documents must be processed. Even a single, errant note written in the margins of a book can shift the course of history if it falls into the wrong hands.”

“We process over five million tons of materials a day,” he continued “Most of the paperwork, the extraneous chaff, is sent for incineration, while the remaining papers are forwarded for processing and then correction if needed.”

A group of scribes hauled a cart full of textbooks and dumped them all into the chute. I imagined that the records of the Star Ravagers, documenting our sacrifices and triumphs, had been incinerated in the same manner.

“History and harmony depend on our guidance,” the guard officer continued as if repeating a mantra by rote. “Logic, Justice, and Reason are the pillars that maintain the Republic. We work in tandem with a handful of other facilities like this one, spread across the Republic. Our efforts ensure that our ideals remain strong, that the civilization the Martyred Goddess built endures.”

I resisted the urge to grab his skull and crush it between my armored palms. Oblivious, he continued to narrate the landmarks we passed.

We traversed honeycombed chambers where electronic communications were monitored and censored. Hundreds of cybernetically enhanced scribes sat in front of screens, scrolling through huge tracts of data. Facts were edited, mistakes were erased, and the course of public opinion was set, ensuring it matched the ideals of the Republic.

“Planetary and interstellar communications, private, public – it doesn’t matter – are tightly monitored and controlled,” our guide explained. “They are routed through facilities like this one for inspection and if necessary – correction. Thus heresy is erased and rebellion crushed before it can infect the larger populace.”

I knew for a fact that if anyone tried to broadcast or send a message that contained heretical or contentious content, they’d have a soldier beating down their door in moments. There was no such thing as free and private communication in the Republic.

We saw editing studios where videos were edited. Scenes were remade to show the Republic and its forces in a golden light. The scribes wound and unwound footage, playing it back and forth until they were sure it had been perfected.

On a gigantic screen, we watched as a group of poorly armed rebels, little more than starving workers begging for better working conditions, were changed into armed, violent insurrectionists. Digital effects were added, making it appear that they were burning down their homes and slaughtering their more loyal neighbors.

Audio tracks were added. A heretical chant was inserted into the film as the group marched toward the nearest government office.

“Damnation wept,” I uttered to myself.

We passed the studio before we could see what happened, but I was certain what had unfolded next. In the Republic, rebellion was crushed without reservation. The Star Ravagers had led countless campaigns against those who had turned away from the Martyred Goddess.

How many had been innocent victims made into monsters by the Republic?

“We had recording studios as well, where footage can be manufactured wholesale,” the officer added helpfully.

When the Star Ravagers had been falsely condemned, we had faced a mountain of evidence proving our guilt, marking us as traitors. Had such evidence been manufactured within Valeur Mineure?

“James, can we nuke this place when we’re done?” Iuno asked.

“Seconded,” Victor agreed. “Imagine how many books these monsters burn in a day.”

“Stow the chatter,” I responded, before pausing. “Unless Xarl has an objection, we’re going to annihilate this place.”

“None,” the old man responded. “It’s bastards like this that condemned the Star Ravagers and then erased us from history. We’ll burn them out in kind.”

Quest Update! – Destroy Valeur Mineure

=======================

It took another two hours for us to reach our destination thanks to the stop-and-go nature of the moon’s tram system. While we traveled, I informed Aggy and the others of our new quest. They were all for it.

“I anticipated this might happen,” the former empress said smugly.

Elspeth snorted. “I love you, James, but you do have an awful habit of utterly annihilating the places you visit.”

“Harmony Prime is still intact,” I countered.

“For now,” she retorted, chuckling again.

“I kept some resources in reserve, in case we decided to destroy the facility,” Aggy continued. “I’ve already begun undermining the moon’s defenses via my hack. Josefine, can you contribute a portion of your horde?”

“As long as the logbooks are secure, my buddies and I will be happy to contribute,” the Yord woman replied.

“Excellent. Destroying the facility will cripple the Saint’s interstellar communications,” Aggy said. “Elsepth has been assisting me in breaking the facility’s network defenses. We won’t be able to take full control of the moon, but we’ll have access to what we need.”

“Just negating some of their defense would make our lives a lot easier,” Xarl noted.

“We’re also working on backtracking the data links to other facilities like this one,” Aggy added. “While we can physically assault them, we should be able to strike at their computer systems.”

“I have a few ideas cooking up as well,” Elspeth added cryptically. “Maybe we can send a broadcast of our own?”

“Have you discovered anything about your past or the Saints?” I asked Aggy.

“Nothing yet. All I’ve been able to find is the sanitized, edited aftermath of their lies,” the AI answered. “I fear the truth suffers a short life within Valeur Mineure.”

We swiftly began re-allocated our forces, putting them in position to strike Valeur Mineure. Josefine was more than happy to redeploy her horde, though she insisted we give the civilians and techs working on the planet a chance to escape. Xarl grumbled about that a bit, but Josefine was adamant.

“I won’t let your vendetta stain my hands with innocent blood,” she replied harshly when Xarl complained. “Many believe they are faithfully serving the Republic and the Martyred Goddess. They deserve a chance to learn the truth, to see the error of their ways. If they still turn away, then I’ll stand with you as we cut them down.”

The quartermaster grumbled, but I was proud of Josefine for standing up for her principles. I would have killed them all, but I trusted my lovers to help curtail my more bloodthirsty solutions.

My telemetry data indicated we were deep beneath the planet’s crust, far from the courier ship. I sent a note to Aggy, asking her to spin up contingencies and alternate escape routes.

The tram platform we stopped at appeared to be old and little used. The walls were filthy and the equipment was poorly maintained.

“We rarely use this section of the facility,” the officer said as way of apology as he escorted us down a long corridor. “This area is used to store low-priority documents, usually older materials that were collected during normal auditing procedures. If you are searching for such documents, I’m sure –”

He was clearly fishing, still trying to guess what we had come to Valeur Mineure for.

“Mind your tongue,” Victor replied harshly. “The secrets of the Grande Assemblée are not for your idle speculation.

The guards around us tensed, and several backed away.

“Apologies,” the officer replied quickly.

We only saw a handful of other people, mostly techs hurrying on some task or errand. In many areas the overhead lights were broken, casting the hallways and rooms in unsettling gloom.

“Damn, and I thought I’d been to some spooky places before,” Iuno muttered. “Bureaucracy truly is hell.”

The officer stopped before an unlabelled door. My tacnet picked up activity on his cybernetics as he communicated with some unseen system. A moment later, the door was unlocked remotely.

“I’m working on commandeering the moon’s security networks, but they’re all isolated from one another,” Aggy informed us. “I should be able to control the doors and locks in a few more minutes.”

Past the door was a massive warehouse. Shelves reached toward a ceiling so distant I couldn’t even see it. Electric lights hummed unevenly, providing cones of light that barely punched through the dusty darkness.

“Hall 412-NDJ,” the officer announced.

Victor turned back toward him. “Leave us.”

The officer made to protest. “But –”

Victor placed an armed hand against the man’s chest and gave him a shove. The officer was practically hurled out of the room.

“We will contact you once we have finished,” Victor said. “Interrupt at your own peril.”

He gripped the door and slammed it shut, the lock engaging automatically.

“What an annoying piece of shit,” Iuno grumbled. “Gossip gathering little bitch.”

“Let’s go,” I said, inspecting the shelves before picking a direction.

We walked deeper into the room, winding through shelves and down aisles. Everything was labeled and laid out using some byzantine organizational system. I would have been lost in seconds without my tacnet recording our path.

There were dusty footprints along the floor, along with tracts from carts and cargo dollies. It appeared the officer had been telling the truth and that the warehouse was rarely used. That made me more hopeful we’d find the logbooks intact.

After fifteen minutes, we reached some kind of preliminary sorting area. Worktables were crowded with books, journals, and loose sheaves of paper. Even more were piled in the cardboard boxes that spilled along the floor.

We removed and stowed our helmets. The air smelled like old paper, all underlined by the scent of hot metal.

“You’re not far above the central reactor,” Aggy explained.

“That’ll make our job easier when we decide to crack this fucker open,” Iuno replied. “I imagine the quickest way to blow this place up is to sabotage the central reactor”

Victor walked to the nearest worktable and began sorting through the documents. “War journals and diaries – Republic Army?”

The papers were stained with blood and mud, the ink running in places.

“Why would the pencil necks give a shit about this stuff?” Iuno asked.

“Setting a narrative,” Aggy explained. “Great acts of propaganda are born from small heroes. Conversely, rebellion can be born from the smallest, unjust act. The scribes and technicians here work to smooth over history, to create an unbroken record of greatness, dotted by heroes and martyrs to support their story.”

Her last words dripped with barely contained venom.

“412-NDJ, shelf 87-Gamma, Lot B,” I repeated. “Once we find it, we have no reason not to leave this place a burning cinder in our wake.”