Hellmarine Chapter 1

PICTURED ABOVE: Dr. Mandy Hughes

The astrometric lab of the SANS Midnight Sea sat dark and quiet, with only a few blinking lights on scattered consoles to indicate that it was still operational. One of the blinking lights switched from blinking to solid, changing color from red to green in the process.

A young female voice from the bridge spoke into the darkness through the comm panel. “Bridge to Overmaiden.” 

Another console lit up with a few blue lights, and a feminine voice responded, “This is Overmaiden; go ahead.” 

“I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am,” the voice replied. “Captain Horne is asking for an update.” 

“Tell him I’ll be there in a moment,” the second voice replied politely. “Overmaiden, out.” 

A moment later, glowing lights spread across the consoles as each one came out of standby. Innumerable lines of code were fed into each system and calculated, executing an untold number of tasks within seconds. Overhead, the holographic projects blinked and shimmered as they came online. In the middle of the room, a holographic map of the area surrounding the Midnight Sea formed. From the shadows beyond the display, a figure emerged.

Composed entirely of data and light, the Overmaiden emerged from her diagnostics to examine the data. As a sixth-generation “Ghost AI,” the Overmaiden wasn’t required to view the map visually to understand its contents; the data could be processed automatically through various ship’s subsystems and fed into her core matrix automatically. However, due to the nature of her particular model of AI, she often engaged in human-like activities that other AIs would not deem strictly necessary. 

Her form was humanoid despite glowing a soft blue and white with lines of code running through parts of her translucent body. She had the appearance of an attractive woman dressed in a skin-tight bodysuit with her hair pinned back and an air of classical beauty from what many would simply call “the old days.” 

The map before her rotated and zoomed out before snapping to another location quite distant from her own. There, she was able to see the ongoing engagement of the group they had left behind to carry out their mission. The view zoomed in, showing real-time updates of frigates clashing with the newest and most deadly threat to the Sol Alliance: Demons. The planetside marines were being annihilated despite her best efforts. She had been the one to calculate the best attack vectors and their respective odds before her departure, but it hadn’t been enough. Even the frigates are buckling under the overwhelming pressure applied by the horde before them. 

She reviewed the movements of the entire horde from the moment they appeared to the present in the blink of an eye. Casualties mounted on both sides, but unlike humanity and many other alien species, demons didn’t care about their dead. In most instances, they simply abandoned their dead entirely, letting them fester and poison the worlds they left them behind on. In some cases, the biomass was recycled in a poorly understood process and redeployed into another part of the war. 

Each horde was analogous to an immense army, with its own command structure of increasingly more powerful and horrifying demonic monstrosities and entities. The casualties of the demons dwarfed that of humanity, but again, it didn’t matter to them in the slightest. They kept coming without signs of slowing and without regard for the damage they took. There always seemed to be more of them—an infinite supply of troops to throw at the Sol Alliance and whatever other sentient species got in their way.

The Overmaiden frowned as she ran the most updated projections. There wasn’t much of a chance that the men engaged with the horde were going to make it out alive. It seemed likely that they would be killed to the last man. She rotated the map with a wave of her hand and took a wider view. It was a problem fleetwide. At this rate, she projected an overwhelming defeat of the entire Sol Alliance within the year. Complete annihilation would follow months later. She viewed each of the worlds that had been taken and those that had yet to even hear of the threat. 

She collapsed the map into a tiny pearl of glowing light, putting the system on standby before transferring her holomatrix to the bridge. The projectors on the bridge came online a second before the Overmaiden appeared for the crew to see. The ops officer that had summoned her motioned toward the door to the captain’s office. The rest of the bridge was relatively dark while they ran in stealth mode. A ship the size of the Midnight Sea wasn’t designed for stealth, but clever retrofitting allowed them to have a functional array provided they re-routed power from other systems. The stealth was imperfect, but it made them less tempting and less threatening on sensors. 

The Overmaiden vanished from her spot to reappear just outside the captain’s office, remotely triggering the door chime through the computer. The door opened, and the AI’s projected hologram stepped inside. 

Captain Christopher Horne sat behind his desk, looking over the glowing readouts in front of him. Though he was on the far side of middle-aged, the man was in excellent shape and health according to his last physical. His hair had been a distant memory for over thirty years, but the black beard peppered with silver more than made up for it. He looked up at her with steel-gray eyes as the door shut behind her. 

“Sorry to wake you,” he said, waving a hand to dismiss the reports. It wasn’t a matter of privacy or security, as she had the same access to them that he did, but more a matter of courtesy. Not all humans treated AI as people, but Captain Horne had always found that doing so lent itself to a healthier ship dynamic and more comfortable conversation. “I need a report.” 

“It’s not looking good,” the Overmaiden admitted freely. “Current projects are showing a near ninety-nine percent casualty rate. Even with the extra fighters we left behind for them.” 

“God dammit,” Horne muttered, running a hand across his smooth scalp. “What are our options?” 

“We can’t afford to turn back now,” the AI cautioned. “And we can’t break stealth to tell them to break off their engagement. We have to hope they’ll come to that conclusion independently.” 

“Not likely,” the captain scoffed as he pushed back out of his chair and stood. His uniform hung a little looser on his frame than the Overmaiden had last noticed, well-pressed though it was. 

“You’ve lost several kilograms,” the AI observed. “Have you been skipping meals?” 

“Mmm,” the captain rumbled, refusing to answer the question directly. Instead, he turned to look out the office viewport with his hands clasped behind his back. “We’re losing this war, aren’t we?” 

“I’m afraid so, sir,” the Overmaiden replied. “So far, the core worlds are untouched, but we’re losing colonies almost every day now. The outer colonies, specifically, are almost entirely lost.” 

“And your project?” Horne asked without turning to face her. “Has there been progress there?” 

The sensitive nature of the classified projects being undertaken on the ship was the only reason the captain had allowed himself to give the order to leave so many other ships behind. Chief among the projects was Project Brutality, but the fact that it had not yet born fruit for them was becoming an increasingly sore spot between the captain and the AI. “I’m afraid it was the same last time I checked.” 

“Check again,” the captain ordered. “Give Cosgrove a kick in the ass if you have to. I need something actionable to justify a sophisticated ship like this one not being in the main fight with the rest of the fleet, understand? So far, I’ve got fuck-all to show for our efforts.” 

“Yes, captain,” she acknowledged. 

He glanced over his shoulder at her and nodded his head slightly. “Dismissed.” 

The Overmaiden’s form flickered and vanished, appearing a second later in the lab alongside Dr. Clement Cosgrove and his young assistant, Dr. Mandy Hughes. Cosgrove was in his sixties with bleach-white hair and a rather unassuming stature. Were it not for his lab coat and considerable reputation, one would never guess that he was one of the most renowned scientific minds in numerous fields in the entire Alliance. 

Hughes was much younger and had fewer accomplishments under her belt, though not for lack of trying. She was a gifted woman when it came to her work, with an intellect beyond her years, but her hesitancy to lend her services to the military until recently had limited her prospects for several years. She was the first of the two to notice the AI’s hologram standing in the lab with them, glancing over at her briefly with her bright blue eyes. “Overmaiden?” 

Cosgrove didn’t bother to look up from his scope. “Has the captain sent you to harass me again?” 

“I’m afraid so, doctor,” the Overmaiden responded, placing her hands behind her back. “He’s becoming agitated.” 

“I am aware of his mental state,” Cosgrove responded, continuing his observations through the scope. “Let’s not forget who commissioned this project. Were it up to me, we would have taken a different route.” 

The Overmaiden tilted her head to the side, glancing at Hughes before turning her attention to the wall of samples and failed tests drifting in transparent containers. “I know, but it’s imperative that we do it precisely as I’ve laid out.” 

“I’m afraid I have to agree with Dr. Cosgrove,” Mandy responded. “The serum would be more viable if we were allowed to trim it down and administer it to the most qualified marines. We would have a lot more to work with instead of placing all our hopes into a single individual.” 

“That would require the exclusion of the zintari DNA,” the Overmaiden objected. “Which is what holds the demonic and angelic aspects of the serum together. Without it, the two fail to pair. Your own research has shown this.” 

“Yes, but,” Mandy swallowed nervously. “Wouldn’t it be better to synthesize something more beneficial to more people? I understand how powerful the results could be from this particular serum but it’s a huge ‘if’ we have to tag onto it.” 

“Demons are creatures of chaos, hatred, and torment,” the Overmaiden argued calmly. “Yet their hordes are highly organized—efficient. They care nothing for their own safety, charging forth on the orders of greater demons who keep a tight leash on them. Without those generals and the subsequent command structure, hordes fall apart—even going so far as to cannibalize each other before a new general can be created or appointed. It’s not clear how they come about, but the fact is that it wouldn’t matter if we could eliminate enough of them in rapid succession. It’s the only way to be sure.” 

Mandy chewed her lip, realizing that the Overmaiden was lecturing her like she was back in school again. The Overmaiden raised a brow and continued. “To accomplish this, we need something agile that we can rapidly deploy in different locations. We need something small, compact, and precise, like a scalpel, not a cudgel. We also need to avoid the chance that whatever this serum yields attacks more of its kind, the way that the zintari have been known to do in the past.” 

“At least until we have a little more breathing room, anyway,” Cosgrove added. The doctor still held out hope that if they were able to beat back enough of the demons encroaching on Alliance space, they would be able to create a whole squad of the new super soldiers to put the final nails in the coffin of the creatures. The Overmaiden had restricted the operation to a single individual until Hughes was able to determine the viability of that prospect. 

“Magical blood is difficult to predict,” the Overmaiden cautioned the younger scientist. “Your work will be critical going forward, but we can’t afford to skip steps or back down. We lost a great deal of men obtaining what we have to synthesize the serums. Abandoning it now is not an option.” 

“Nor needed,” Cosgrove announced as he looked up from the scope. “It seems that we’ve done it.” 

“R-really!?” Mandy exclaimed, her jaw practically hitting the floor. “You’re sure?” 

Cosgrove glanced at her calmly before nodding slowly. “The results are the same as all the others. Now, it’s a matter of securing the proper subject to pair the serum to. That’s where you come in.” 

The older doctor pressed a button on his console, swept the icon to one side, and then provided a retinal scan for his credentials, authorizing the synthesis of a full dose of the serum. The machine before him hummed to life as flickering lights within went about fabricating what he asked for. 

Mandy took a deep breath and let it out slowly through her mouth. “Wow, just like that?” 

“Just like that,” Cosgrove echoed, reaching into the machine once it was finished and pulling out the vial of bright orange fluid. They all regarded it silently for a moment before he handed it over to her. “Load it into your injector.” 

The young woman took the vial delicately and retreated to her workstation, where her injector was. When the time came, it would be her to administer the serum to the subject they chose. 

“You’ve gone over the candidates?” Cosgrove inquired of the Overmaiden. 

“Yes, several of your recommendations were quite intriguing,” the Overmaiden answered. She hadn’t approved all of them, but there had been a sweet spot where his, Mandy’s, and her own candidates intersected. “I’ve already had them re-assigned for observation.” 

The door to the lab came open and the marine assigned to guard the door stepped inside. “Ma’am, I’ve just been informed that we’re approaching Aonus and are set to exit hyperspace in a few minutes.” 

The Overmaiden glanced at the marine and nodded. “Excellent, corporal. Inform my men to prepare themselves. We’ll be heading planetside once we’re in range.” 

“Ma’am,” the corporal responded uneasily. “The report says that the horde’s incursion on the planet is eighty percent higher than expected strength.” 

The Overmaiden exchanged glances with Dr. Cosgrove. “That will make for a more effective test, I suppose.” 

“If you say so,” Cosgrove replied, looking over toward his younger assistant, prepping the injector. “Try not to get my assistant killed if you don’t mind. It’d be terribly inconvenient to train a new one all over again.” 

“Of course,” the Overmaiden agreed. The candidates they’d chosen had all been consolidated into a single platoon and placed in her command. It was unusual for any AI to be given command of so many human lives, but her particular mission and set of skills set her apart from others, even among her peers of ghost AIs. Each was handpicked for their exemplary records, special skills, and personal traits, but there was only so much they could glean from reports and files. She had to see them in action to be sure. 

The Overmaiden’s eyes settled back on the corporal waiting at the door. “You have your orders, corporal.” 

The marine acknowledged the order with a firm salute and stepped out of the room to get her platoon up on comms. It was something she could have done herself, but she found herself preoccupied with the possibilities of what was to come. She couldn’t keep her matrix from processing all the various scenarios they were likely to encounter, even going so far as to indulge in the scenarios that were very unlikely. 

“Are you having second thoughts, Overmaiden?” Mandy asked as she approached the two now that the injector in her gauntlet was loaded and ready. 

“No,” the AI whispered tentatively. “But I believe I am experiencing…. Hope.”