Antumbra - A Lost Cause

Breaking Point - Chapter Fifteen

Gregory tried everything. He tried flipping the switch, he tried manual override, he even tried ripping the destruct system out and trying to hotwire it. But there was no system to be found. Below the switch was nothing, it wasn't wired into his Argonaut at all. It was a dummy switch. How could it be a dummy switch? In his panic following the unsuccessful suicide he'd tried to fly back, but he was running out of fuel and power. He'd never make it, yet still tried desperately to pull himself out of his fall so one of the enemy pilots pursuing him could shoot him down. His forward momentum was too great, however, and as he fell he was becoming harder to catch, and he couldn't even see the enemy Argonauts on his limited radar. This couldn't be happening. This was supposed to be his chance. He'd take all the shame with him, take his incompetence to his grave, but he screwed up again. This was even worse. He prayed he was falling towards a minimum population zone, perhaps South of the Lows, but his freefall had carried him back towards the main Habitat. He would crash not a mile from the city's edge, in full view of the surface population. Why he hadn't been intercepted by friendly units, or shot down by long range particle cannons, he didn't know. It wasn't supposed to end this way.

"Oh God, please..." he whimpered to himself, "God please, not like this, God please not like this..." His family wouldn't be safe. They'd be burdened with the shame of his failure. His son would never get through school, his wife wouldn't receive a dime from his death. They'd be destitute, they'd be cast out. All because of him. Because he panicked, because he is an idiot. This was supposed to be his redemption, his way out. Their way out.

"There has to be something," he convinced himself, "something left, anything-" he pulled up the diagnostics on his Argonaut. Everything was red, main engines, thrusters output, global positioning, altitude control, equilibrium, weapons system, and more. Only two things came up as functional: ambulatory functions, and the reactor. Just enough for him to flail helplessly and survive until the impact. He'd have until the very instant before his death to dwell on and suffer the knowledge of his failure. He recalled his life leading up to this moment. Born into a family of moderate power, owners of a trade company. He'd been in line to inherit the business, but he chose to join the military, be a pilot. He wanted to protect his nation, his people, and his family. He wanted to fly into battle, daring and brave, to be a hero. When the largest battle he'd ever taken part in came, the Pale Umbra, everything changed. It was chaos. He'd heard about it, every year the aces would come back, normally stone-faced men, rattled to their core from what they experienced. The enemy organized an annual assault to storm Parliament during the elections, and every year they beat them back. At a heavy cost, though. Gregory had been so close to an enemy unit, so fearful, he lashed out. He couldn't help himself, it was a reflex.

A finger. A finger off an Argonaut. That was what was unaccounted for. He'd smashed its hand, blasted the rest, but when they picked up the pieces that one finger was missing. The entire reason they used particle beams was to eliminate enemies without leaving evidence of their technology. Melt them and their machines into slag. It was the one thing they swore you in on when you joined the military: never expose the world below to those who lived above. Never leave a link back to the past that persisted just over their heads. Not only had he failed that simple doctrine, right now he was well and truly undoing all Eclipse stood to protect. He looked down to the rapidly approaching ground. At first he thought he'd be falling into a body of water, as he saw what looked like waves or bubbles, but it was actually some kind of residential area of round houses. He closed his eyes, and awaited oblivion.