Patterns of Chaos: Book One - The First War
Chapter 9

While this was occurring, the Earth Alliance was not idle. Scientists and engineers from formerly opposed nations began collaborating in earnest. Before long, the first fighter craft capable of both atmospheric as well as low orbital combat was produced. Of course, knowing the exact distance the Chancel was from the Earth, low-orbit was insufficient for a first-strike scenario. As such, the prototype craft were assigned patrol duties as it had become obvious that Stragdoc was still involving himself in Terrestrial affairs.

Those outlaw nations who refused to join the Alliance suddenly began wielding weapons of obvious Psi-Omegan manufacture, warning others from their borders with them. Organized crime groups in various Alliance countries committing crimes with similar weaponry further strained tensions. Whether they had purchased them from Outlaw Nations, or from the Empire directly was deemed irrelevant by the Alliance Congress, who labelled these criminals as terrorist allies, allowing the Alliance to begin using military force against them, causing several cities across the world including New York, Montreal, St Petersburg, and others to become miniature war zones. Following that, the Congress began exploring options to isolate the Outlaw Nations from further weapon shipments.

Elsewhere, the youthful-appearing Jennifer Safyo was meditating, trying to strengthen herself. Certainly, she was capable of telepathic contact over a massive distance, but she knew that Stragdoc had spent more time honing his abilities. She had never attempted the level of telekinetic carnage he had caused in London, nor did she particularly want to, but she wanted to be far more precise with it. He was a storm, capable of crushing buildings and lives. She wanted to be able to unleash that kind of force, directed at a single point.

To that end, she was levitating nickels, getting a firm mental grip, and then hurling them into a piece of sheet metal. She imagined his face leering at her, challenging her.

“You don’t understand?” His voice mocked her from the past; so long ago, but the betrayal was still fresh. “They have to die. Because then we can rebuild the world.”

He had taken their school hostage. Him and friends who shared his insane vision of a world run by him. In addition, one lovesick girl, confused, torn, who had known him from childhood. He was going to kill the student body, he said, to prove that he was best suited to decide who could live and who could die. In his mind, the fact that he simply condemned them without personal malice showed that he was the right man for the job of ruling everything.

Thunk. One of the coins embedded itself in the metal.

“Paul, we don’t need to murder! Don’t you understand, this whole thing has gone way too far! If we stop now, perhaps the authorit-” He had struck her then, a look of confusion on his face.

“You don’t get it! After all this, if we turn back now, the appearance we project will be weakness!”

Another coin shot forward, penetrating a little deeper than the first.

She had fallen to the floor. A small trickle of blood formed at the corner of her mouth. “Mercy isn’t weakness.” She stated flatly.

“To you, maybe. But to those in power?” He sneered. “Ruthlessness is the only power they recognize. The only language they speak. So I will speak to them in such a fashion, if only to claim my birthright!” She realized at that moment the enormity of the lie she had perpetrated on herself, how utterly mad he actually was. His ‘accident’ when he had his skull fractured years and years ago had warped him so utterly that hate, anger, pain were the only things that he understood. When he turned from her to radio instructions, ordering the slaughter, she had tackled him, driving his head against the wall, knocking him out long enough for her to get away. To fake new orders ordering that everyone evacuate, while she activated the bomb he had planted. It was designed to take out their school as a distraction, he had told her.

He had lied to her.

This time the coin shot halfway through the sheet of metal.

Better.