The Great War of Shadows; Part 1 - Hope from Above

Mark sighed and calibrated the shields again. Once the ship dropped its modified Alcubierre drive he’d have just hours left to his destination. The old sensors left in system estimated the year to be 2018, during the Great War of Shadows, as his people now called it. He studied his mission parameters. Not because he’d forgotten them, but because they were written in his fathers hand. His final gift of guidance, all he could manage before the malfunction.

And because shit, what was the rush. Next on his list was a 3,000 mile hell-dive from well above LEO (Low Earth orbit) to avoid detection.

That made him laugh. “Hell diving” was the term his people used to describe suit-only space descent (or SOSD). It was also an accurate travel term given the conditions he’d find on the ground. Nations were still being ruled over by a race of iron-fisted, underhanded, trans-humanistic cancer that had metastasized across the planet. It crushed the souls of good-hearted people into a viscus, ingestible gold-like substance called Power.

Contemplating the path ahead of him — and needing a distraction from that thought — he reached for “the codes”, as his father called them. Slowly, he re-read the inscription.

“Mark- you must seek to find the alphas before the end of time”, followed by a list of names.

A short list, but his father promised him it would grow. He said there’d come on a time when I'd feel a call to action, to arms, just as he had. He said it would take faith as foundation and courage of conviction, but that in the darkest of times, heroes would stand and lead. Then others could follow.

And the others did follow.

At least, well… thats how it happened on his fathers timeline. Mark had little idea where he was supposed to start without the rest of his crew, never mind whether he’d be successful. But that didn’t matter, he just had to find the people on his list.

He didn’t know if anyone on there was a real “hero” yet. He didn’t know anything, to put it fairly; but these men had become heroes to his father, and that was enough for now. They were all strangers at the beginning, he’d been told, but what they had in common was a shared mentality — to live as free men, as their forefathers and Father in heaven had intended them to live.

But to create a better world than the one they were born in required work. It required a set of ideals to work towards as people became awake and angry. Perhaps that was where Mark could begin his mission, in bringing the alphas together. Regardless of the role each had to play, he needed them and they needed each other. Each, in their own way, had inspired his father enough to change his paradigm and formulate a plan for victory.

When all else has been taken from them, there is nothing more dangerous than a group of men with a cause, especially one that can offer MEANING and LIGHT. So eventually, his father stood. And they stood. Together, side-by-side, as brothers against the Shadow. Mark would have to do the same, if there was any chance left for the West.

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To be continued