SPECTRE OF WAR

Chapter 3 - LORDES

Lordes blinked and jolted upright grasping for the sidearm he always slept with. He found a pillow. Tossing it to the side he took stock of the small room he awoke in. One bed, a small desk, and a stool in front of the desk rounded out the furnishings. Above the desk hung a meter square painting protected by diamothread of battle carnage. Dead bodies strewn about with Ushirians holding their archaic curved blades in victory. Not exactly the sight he desired upon waking in a strange room. It made him wonder what other surprises the starship held.

He swung his feet over the side, stepping on a hard angular object. Looking down he tsked, at his feet Dello with his CLOTH crumpled into a ball on the ground next to the SSR. He picked up Dello, laying her respectfully on the pillow and then shook out his CLOTH before draping it across the mattress. He then made for the toilet.

After the long visit he stood in front of a single sink with a mirror on the wall. Bloodshot eyes stared back at his bald head, nose tilted slightly to the left, a reminder to a particularly enjoyable fight from his youth. He splashed water on his face and once again attempted to voice out loud what he saw in the sky on NS-7. His lips wouldn't even form the words.

"What the fuck?" He slapped the edge of the sink and stormed back into the main room. He pointed at Dello. "You saw it too. I'm not fucking crazy. I saw a..." He clenched a hand into a fist and bit down on his knuckles.

Recalling the name his two interrogators had let slip, Lordes licked his lips, took a breath, and said, "Nissin." He held up a hand. "There. Nissin." He opened his mouth to say, "I saw." Finding himself unable to formulate the words.

He sank down onto the bed and put his head in his hands. Mentally, he told the part of the story he couldn't voice out loud. It didn't make any sense why the words failed to come out of his mouth. He snapped his fingers. "I can write it...I think." He looked around the room for a console coming up empty, then picked up the CLOTH.

Fully dressed, with Dello on his back stuck with geckoglue, Lordes walked into the corridor off the room he woke up in and looked up and down it. A sparkling metal deck ran in both directions flanked by bulkheads of a gold color. He chose left at random and set off with a purpose getting no more than a few paces when a large green arrow appeared on the bulkhead to his left, pointing down the passageway. Acting like any rational person would aboard a ship they been abducted to—he still wasn't convinced the memory block wasn't something to do with the Ushirian and android—Lordes promptly turned around and walked the other direction.

The corridor split into a T with a green arrow pointing to the left. He took a right. Not a chance these bastards were going to corral the great Michael Lordes. They may have got him when he unconscious, but they hadn't met the somewhat refreshed Michael Lordes.

Paintings of more carnage graced the bulkheads with directed overhead lighting illuminating them. Every scene was more or less the same. Cities burning with Ushirians holding their curved blades high in victory. Piles of bodies around the warrior people. Machines of war littering the ground with warriors holding their blades high. Every single painting; carnage and death. It did fit their MO. Not a whole lot of the people was known but what was spoke to their warrior prowess. Even their bodies were perfect specimens. Unidirectional elbows, bidirectional knees, bodies flooded with nanomachines that healed with supernatural quickness, and a spinal column that had the spine separate into individual vertebrae working off a sort of conduction like magnets charging. They were the quintessential warrior race, and apparently enjoyed having constant reminders of it.

"What the?" Lordes looked over his shoulder. The corridor stretched to a T junction. To his left he pushed open a door, looking into the room he had woken up in. "How the hell did that happen?"