The alarm sounded throughout the archive facility. Flashing lights of red and white sliced through the sterile corridors of steel. The air hummed faintly, a reminder of the facility’s immense power grid. Inlaid panels displayed cryptic readouts, pulsating dark red as if the facility itself was alive and guiding security forces toward the breach.
The halls were empty. A door opened and a man still putting on a military jacket stepped out. On his chest was an emblem of Planet Earth, with the letters SC-M beneath it.
The emblem denoted Special Command-Major, humanity’s elite planetary enforcers.
“Major!” A Staff Sergeant approached. Under his Earth emblem were the letters SC-SS. Special Command-Staff Sergeant. The sergeant was lower-ranked but still part of the same specialised arm of humanity’s operations.
“Staff Sergeant, tell me something good.”
He was a tall, rigid man with a square jaw and sunken cheeks. Everything about him looked clean cut and militant and his eyes darted with intention.
“We destroyed their ship on approach. They came from the coordinates, just as you said they would,”the Staff Sergeant said.
“Then why am I woken by the sound of the archive alarm breach, Staff Sergeant?” The Major asked, his tone clipped, as they turned a corner.
“One jump ship broke through and docked—” The Staff Sergeant began, but the Major halted and his glare shook the Sergeant. It wasn’t imposing. It was void of emotion and made the Major hard to read—that’s what made his men so obedient.
“—we got them as soon as the hatch opened, Major,” the Staff Sergeant stated proudly. “Crossfire killed four.”
“I’ll ask again, why was I woken by the archive alarm breach?” the Major asked.
“One got through, but we got him. The stun-field at the second threshold of the archives disabled his armor and incapacitated him. We have him waiting for you to question.”
The Major stepped into the elevator, its green glow reflecting on the steel walls.
“What species is the intruder?” he asked, his voice a sharp contrast to the hum of the machinery.
The Wyrd Interlude:
Truth is a fragile thing, buried beneath layers of necessity and power. In the pursuit of self-preservation, even the virtuous walk a path where light and shadow blur. Secrets fester in the dark, and when dragged into the light, they are blinding. This—is wyrd fiction.
A man with a bald head, red skin, broad shoulders, black eyes, and thick, spine-like ridges running down his forearms sat in one of two chairs set facing each other in a room with walls entirely black.
The Major entered and began without dramatics.
“Scan shows us you’re a Tramlidin by the name of Eeasi. And you own a bakery?” The Major smirked. “You have two children and vacation to the south of your world where your in-laws live.”
The Major sat down, crossed his legs, and gestured towards the man with red skin.
“I could own a bakery,” the red-skinned man joked.
“You could,” the Major conceded. “But the fact that you are six-foot-two red-skinned Hadraxian makes it obvious to any partly intelligent being that you are not, nor have you ever been, a Tramlidin, who stand at three-foot-two and have white skin and blue eyes.”
The red-skinned man laughed, and the Major smirked. “You didn’t even try to hide your identity. Yet,” the Major unfolded his legs and leaned over, “your ability to alter official DNA records spanning all aligning governments is disturbing. But I find your low-effort attempt to conceal your identity is slightly more disturbing. Almost as if you wanted to highlight what could be done.”
“I worry you,” the red-skinned man said. “Honesty is a rare trait of your race.”
The Major leaned back. “I’m a transparent man, but do not misalign my sentiment with worry. What is your name?”
“Eeasi,” the red-skinned man smiled. “I own a bakery.”
The Major inspected every inch of this peculiar intruder. “The Hadraxians are a kind race, despite their less than attractive appearance. Now what would make a Hybrid Human Hadraxian break a long sanctioned sector law? I wonder.”
They sat in silence, trying to break one another down without words.
“Why would you and a band of pirates want to break into a Sector Archive Facility?” the Major said.
“This sector archive,”the red-skinned man corrected.
The Major mocked. “Glad you find us special.”
“Stop playing games, Major. You know why I am here. And I know this talk ends with me dead.”
“Oh, God. So grim.” The Major said. “You’re one of those conspiracy maniacs, aren’t you?”
“Maniac?” The red-skinned man’s laughter was bitter. “Sector 14. Uninhabited, right Major? The archduke was killed and the trenches were dug.”
The Major straightened.
“Then flags of red formed an axis. Then a hundred years after, an inverted axis—am I right major?”
The Major returned to holding his signature smirk.
“You and the people of your planet have done such a fine job at pushing propaganda that any who question the validity of Earth’s ever-long peacefulness must be warmongering monsters.”
The Major leaned back, enjoying the rant.
“But I know. I know what Earth was. What humans do. What they will always do.”
“It’s fascinating that this underground movement still survives after all these years,” the Major shook his head, disappointed. He looked back at the guards. “It’s sad the lies some contrive and cling to.”
The red-skinned man lunged without warning, his hands closing around the Major’s throat. They hit the floor hard, grappling for control.
“Do I worry you now?!” the red-skinned man screamed.
The guards moved to help, but the Major had already flipped his opponent around, drew his side pistol and pressed it to the rigid red forehead of the intruder.
The armed guards stood ready.
“This is what happens when beings can’t handle peace,” the Major spat, keeping his gun steady. “They create chaos to justify their existence.”
“Words from a split-tongued species,”the prisoner said. “Tell me, Major—why does a simple archive need planetary shields and orbital cannons strong enough to hold back a fleet? We know what you hide here.
The guards exchanged uneasy glances. One shifted his weight, and he adjusted his grip on his weapon.
The Major took subtle notice.
The red-skinned man pushed his forehead into the barrel of the gun. “Your first contact came wrapped in gifts and handshakes. But I’ve seen leaks from the archives—dissected prisoners, conquered worlds erased from maps. Secret histories. I’ve seen the shadows behind the smiles.”
The armed guards stirred, curious by the words they were hearing. If there was a conspiracy underway, they did not know of it.
“You promote peace, but your very existence is a betrayal to it.”
The Major leaned close, keeping the gun to the alien’s head all the while, and he whispered so no other could hear.
“What you describe is not a betrayal of peace. It is self-preservation.”
An electric boom erupted throughout the room. The soldiers flinched and nearly fired their own weapon. The red-skinned man went limp. A circular hole in his skull sparked with electricity as white fibers coiled briefly before fading. Black blood pooled beneath the lifeless body, staining the metallic floor.
The guards shifted uncomfortably, exchanging glances. One young recruit, barely out of training, tightened his grip on his weapon. The prisoner’s words gnawed at him.
Why did this archive have planetary defenses? Why was it buried so deep in classified sectors?
The Major straightened and holstered his weapon, but his hand lingered on the grip for a moment longer than necessary. In the flicker of a second, memories threatened to surface—faces from his past, moments when his own hands had spilled blood for the sake of ‘peace.’
He pushed them down, burying them as deeply as the archive covered the truth.
What you describe is not a betrayal of peace. It’s self-preservation, he repeated in his mind, as if to convince himself. With a slight shake of his head, he stood. His boots clinked on the metallic floor as he brushed past the guard.
His voice cut through the silence: “Take the traitor’s body to the inspection officers. Run a structural scan of all tissue. I want every detail.”
The young recruit hesitated, his gaze flickering between the Major and the lifeless Hadraxian.
“Is there a problem, soldier?” The Major’s sharp tone cut through the tension.
“No, sir!” The guard snapped to attention, but the question lingered in his eyes.
“Tell them to run a structural scan of all flesh and tissue. I want to know who that was.”
The two guards stepped toward the executed prisoner. Two sequential electric booms shook the room, and both their bodies fell atop him.
The Major exhaled. His face tightened as he lowered the weapon.
“Clean up request,” the Major spoke into his cuff, a communicator wired into his uniform. “SC-SS, clearance Kilgore-Beta-Xian. Priority level… low.”
He strode into the corridor, his shadow stretching long against the sterile walls. The door closed quietly behind him, and the airlock hissed shut, leaving the three bodies in a dark, cold room.
The Wyrd Curtain:
In the Sector Archives, secrets are as vast as the stars and just as unreachable. Peace, preservation, or paranoia—each act builds a fragile balance held together by hidden truths. The path twists further, reminding us that what lies beneath the surface may define the course of galaxies—and Wyrd Worlds yet await.