The Operative

By Leon Knight

On the edge of colonized space the strange ship appeared. What was its purpose? Where had it emerged from? 

 

The operative was just one man, a war machine unto himself. He would be sent along with a crew to investigate. But what he would find there would go far beyond anything he could have imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leon Knight
• Release date: Apr 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224800421

Book preview

Prologue

Out there in the emptiness, in the endless vacuum, I can hear whispering. A voice searching for me from across the stars.

Who are you? Why do you seek me?

A hand as dark as the space that envelops my sight is reaching out, blackening the stars as it approaches. This being wants of me to take it’s hand, it begs me to join it out there, somewhere. Words spoken are difficult to understand but I do know that I am wanted. I am a goal along the journey.

Where are you? Why do you come for me in my dreams, night after night?

My voice produces no sound in this vacuum. The seeker cannot hear me. Should I take the hand and go to where it leads? Even if I refuse I feel the voice will only continue to grow louder.

Are you a friend? Or have you come to finally watch me die alone in space?

I ask, I plead for answers before I begin to awaken again from this world, as once again it begins to appear, further back from the outstretched hand. Every time that I have heard this voice call to me, every moment that my mind begins to wake again, I can see that human skull coming closer. I have seen so many dead in my bast. So many with all the flesh burned from their body, with their smiling teeth and empty eyes, all from the enemies I have slain before. But none has ever caused me to pause, none have caused me to truly feel anything.

This skull, surrounded by empty space and a sea of stars, this skull burns in me with fear.

Chapter 1: As One Ends, so Begins the Next

The soldier awoke from his cool-down slumber. The drugs taxed the human body. They may make him react faster, move quicker, help with focus, but they needed to be flushed out after just five hours flowing through him. More drugs are then pumped in to clean out the old and work against the eventual addiction all operatives like him would face one day.

He had chosen a drainage dyke off in the cities industrial sector for his respite. Some drones he had sent out earlier were projecting fake signals as they hid around the city to keep his enemies away. A nice holographic projection made his armored suit appear as just a common trash pile.

This has been a long day so far. The rebels of the this city on Ganymede had planned well for the eventual assault from Earth. But they were unprepared for the ways of modern war, unprepared for him.

The generals of Earth were quick to rely on select operatives like himself, with their heavy armor and array of weapons, whom easily could infiltrate a city and crush its main defenses. The grand armada may circle in orbit over the rebellious city, but one man was all they needed to bring them to their breaking point.

An alarm rang out in his helmet. The next dose of the drug was administered into his body. The operative deactivated the hologram projectors. Standing up he was taller than any soldier in this white body armor. The sharp angles, the various weapons attached to seemingly every place one could, the flight system on his back; he was stronger than any tank the rebels possessed.

The operative raised up his arm, firing out a small cylinder. The device floated above, sending out a wave of lasers to create a map of the area for his helmet display.

Down the road stood an enemy heavy particle cannon. Left from that rebel position would lead him right down the main avenue to the city center. And there, in the city’s central park, as if symbolic of the rebels’ independence drive, stood his goal.

The soldier began his attack. His mind communicated with the suit via a hardline connection attacked to his spine, a way to prevent any wireless hacking. The armor calculated a jump to the rebel cannon and a quick blast of the rockets shot him upwards in a grand leap.

Vaulting like an ancient god of myth he quickly covered the distance. A reflexive shot of mortar rounds from his left arm ripped through the cannon even before his suit gracefully touched the road surface. The rebels scattered from their now destroyed armament into the buildings nearby.

No use even confronting these soldiers, he thought to himself.

Another quick burst from the suit and the operative was once again leaping higher than the buildings surrounding him. Subtlety was no longer his goal. He enjoyed the direct approach much more. A lighting attack against those in his path before the rebels could regroup at the city center was his plan. This was the part of the operation he had been looking forward to.

A quick rocket attack against a tank. A fast lob of grenades against a mortar position. He was upon those defending before they could even fire. It was obvious there were few military trained men amongst the rebel ranks. Another city of school teachers and dentists taking to arms against the government. How quickly he felled them before and how naturally these endeavors had become.

There now, in sight, was his goal. A large tower standing far above any structure. From its peak spread lines green in color, like those he had seen once on Earth in the cold north. What was a natural formation created by that planet’s electromagnetic field, here was something far different. A man made creation that stopped the military ships circling the moon from bombarding the insurgent city.

Staring at the unnatural colors a memory flashing quickly into his mind. Not one he wished to remember. One he sometimes thought of permanently erasing from his mind.

He was suddenly thrown backwards into a shopfront along the avenue. The enemy forces were firing in a futile attempt. He cursed himself for getting lost in thought.

These damn doses are not keeping up, keep telling the doctors but they think they know best, he said to himself.

The suit protected the man from the rifle fire. He was wearing one of the most ridiculously expensive pieces of equipment in the entire solar system. The operative was glad for its own shielding saving him from a moment of distraction.

He leaped up, crashing through the top of the store and sending out waves of tiny missiles to the defenders in front. Once again they fell quickly, once again they stood no real hope.

The operative was now mere meters from the tower. He planted his feet firmly on the concrete road. A large magnetic cannon shifted its position from his backside and pointed forward, aimed straight ahead to the tower.

The suit loaded in a cartridge and out it flew, reaching the target before his eyes could even register the impact. Inside the tower the cartridge exploded, ripping the base of the structure apart.

Above him the sky cleared of the glow. The tower fell straight down for a moment then rapidly to one side and into the cities main municipal building. Part of him wished he had planned that last bit.

Seventh fleet, the target is down, he communicated.

After a moment to look at the destruction he had caused, the operative began his trek back out of the city in a series of quick leaps.

While part of him enjoyed the work he had done, the other part was feeling of weight in his mind. In mere moments there would not be much left of this city. The skeletal structures of the building would be all that was left of the lives of many here on Ganymede.

He hated these thoughts he had at the end of missions.

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Orbiting around Ganymede was the small, cone shaped space craft of the operative. Inside he lay in sleep, floating freely in a room with padding along all the walls. He had installed the foam himself. The free floating body, not touching anything, was how he relaxed after the missions.

An alarm woke up the slumbering operative. No strange dreams this time. With the correct pill there were no real dreams of anything this time.

A screen appeared in front of his field of vision. In reality the whole communication was made directly into his brain but this virtual display felt more natural.

The message began with the typical CLASSIFIED logo stamped across the screen. As if they needed to remind him of this fact. With whom could he share this information? he thought to himself. Most people with in the military itself did not even