Risen: Shatterverse - The God War

Chapter 5: Terran Rescue, Part Deux

I had thought the effort to retrieve the terrans from the Merker event was frantic. As it turned out, it was a walk in the park compared to the effort to rescue the Ascendency frontier colony of Travelers' Point.

With Alys and Miranda my newly anointed footsoldiers, I sent them to every conceivable point in Sector Two to make sure we had things ready for the arrival of several more hundred thousand terrans and allied races. Satellite sites were erected, supplies and resources allocated, and infrastructure put into place. And that was just the beginning.

As I felt my internal storage once more filling with converted essences, I made my way to the spot in Point Alpha where the mini-forges were set up. Hand to I/O port, I then began to summon the survivors five at a time from the dying colony, starting with Colonel Tasker.

"Specialist!" she said as soon as she came online. Tasker's eyes immediately narrowed.

"It would appear you also have a metal body," she noted before lifting her hands and looking at them. "But not like this one."

"No, ma'am," I said with a smile. "Rescued, like you, but preserved with a different technology."

"Ah." Tasker took a quick look around. "Are we in a cave, Two?"

"Yes, Colonel. You'll find our situational status and location outlined in General Chohawk's brief, ma'am."

"Understood," she said before the waiting members of the terran intake team caught her attention. "And I believe those folk are waiting for me."

Abruptly Tasker extended her hand.

"Thank you for saving the colony, Two," she said with a smile and a great deal of emotion and sincerity when I took it and gave it a good shake. "We are in your debt!"

"Happy to help, Colonel," I replied. Nodding, she turned and stepped off the assembly pad to make her way towards the intake team, which now included both Chohawk and Colonel Griff.

It was as I watched them go that I was joined by a familiar face.

"As you were, soldier!" a woman's voice firmly ordered. I looked over and found Teal walking towards me, a satisfied smile on her face.

"Cammie!" I replied with a smile of my own before a realization made it drop. "You didn't tell me you were involved in the defense of the Travelers' Point colony!"

Teal shook her head, her expression thoughtful as she stepped to my side.

"My memories were still being redacted while we were in the deepcore sim, so I didn't remember," she said. "And while your Merkur vision restored them, I was still struggling to reconcile my new existence and Travelers' Point got buried beneath existential crisis."

Teal's brow then lifted in curiosity.

"That was your first shatterverse vision, wasn't it? The attack on Travelers' Point by the Vel'thik."

"My very first," I confirmed. "If the alien in my head wasn't looking for improvements for your new bodies, she wouldn't have seen it and the rest of the base and the colony would still be trapped in Garolan's scan."

Teal shook her head, amazed.

"That literally blows my mind," she confessed. "Do you remember who you rode in on?"

"A Ranger Colonel on the perimeter," I said. "Since I was seeing things through his eyes, I originally thought he was an alternate version of me. But the time stamp was all wrong. I originally died over three hundred years ago."

"Yeah, definitely not you, my friend. That would've been Colonel Mayhew. He was the commander of the only Ascendency Ranger unit on the planet. Crazy bastard called in an orbital strike from the defense network on his own position because it was being overrun." She sighed and shook her head.