Memories of a world far, far away

by H.C. Andrei

2004
 I died, but I am alive.
Hard to believe. But true.
First things first.
I come from a world far away, both in time and space. You could
say that I come from a completely different dimension. My race is very
similar to this one. More specifically, we have the same form: two
hands, two legs, body and head.
Otherwise, I can say that we were never peaceful. Ever since we
learned to kill each other we continued like that for thousands of
years. History has been shaped by conflicts and the leaders those
conflicts propelled to lead our nations.
However, our race has managed to survive. And evolve.
We managed to get through simple weapons, over the internal
combustion engine technology. Even beyond nuclear weapons, that seemed
the most terrifying weapons in the universe. We got to know the
terrible forces of antimatter.
We mastered these forces, bending them to our will.
We've changed our bodies with the help of genetic transformation
reaching perfect shapes. We created artificial minds that could think
alone forming cognitive processes along cold electrons and without
feelings.
We were at the height of glory.
But to reach this point, we have destroyed our world, our home.
Not at once, of course, but in time we destroyed it. Not that we were
sorry.
At that point in our society development, we were at a point
where we enjoyed more the artificial than natural beauty.
Few complained about her dying.
The planet, however, turn on us. We had earthquakes, floods,
terrible storms. The destruction was enormous.
Both the material cost and the cost in innocent lives as well.
We did not care. We already colonized two planets in the solar system
where we could live and thousands of artificial habitats. All filled
with people.
Robotic probes and ships reach other solar systems, but found
them empty and deserted. In one discovered a planet but was not
friendly to us. Not habitable for our species without major genetic
transformation. The area seemed uninteresting in terms of economic
resources, the corporate barons contented with our solar system. To
finally be able to leave our native world, most were already thinking
about forming a new, artificial planet. One formed in the image of our
current needs.
It seemed a more profitable investment.
 In this mad rush of technology we lost something very important.
Our faith. The world of spirit and heart, pure feelings, has been
replaced by the material world, profits and calculation.
A cold world ruled only by money.

*****

At that time began our end.

Those who have studied the obscure sciences found a way to open a
portal, an interdimensional vortex to another place. Another world.
We've all been extremely happy. A quick way to transport to what
seemed an unspoiled world full of resources. Our leaders threw
themselves immediately at the opportunity that opened like a miracle
before them.
Unfortunately, unknown to us this world already had other
masters.
First we met peaceful beings with several tentacles, very unlike
our own race, which seemed to practice large scale agriculture with a
fairly primitive technology.
But after a while we realized that in fact the aliens were not
what they seemed to be, residents and owners of this world, but mere
servants.
Their owners were strange creatures with even more stranger
powers. No fixed form, consisting of what we called, because I did not
have another term - ectoplasm, and extremely intelligent.
At first we were treated like some friends, but in a very short
time they went on the offensive.
Do not think, however, that only they were planning to attack.
Our own armies were just waiting for the order to attack and conquer
the new world, stealing the technology of the aliens and turning them
into slaves. Our government was just finishing the plans. The enemy
was just quicker.
But when the attack order was given the soldiers could not hear
it. With obscure technologies they had at hand our opponents attacked
their bodies and minds. We noted with horror that our soldiers have
their will and discernment passed under enemy control. Their powers
corrupted the artificial intelligences.
It spread like a virus and orders came from beyond the portal,
unleashing havoc in our own solar system.

*****

And so began the war.

Our armies fought ferociously.
Both on the foreign world and in our own solar system. Home, we
struggled with our own machines trying to get them to their original
programming, but in vain. Fortunately most of the affected computers
were not operating in areas of military, and civilian machines were
not worthy opponents against the armed forces. Once they mobilized and
reform.
On the foreign planet the things were quite otherwise.
In war, we used all the weapons we had on hand, including our
stockpile of atomic weapons. The world was scorched by the flames of
atomic war, reduced to an area in which nothing could survive. But our
enemies did not care. We found out that there were other worlds under
their rule, so that they could sacrifice one without problem.
Atomic flames scorched our own armies. Protective shields like a
green aura failed and thousands, tens of thousands of soldiers were
charred.
Giant space fortress and the enemy air forces swept our own from
the sky and space. Swarms of angry bumble bees that were our hunting
planes and our space forces found themselves fighting a losing battle.
Hordes of modified creatures, or better said genetically built for
war, came over our positions like an endless wave.
It was the most important part of the war so far (in time will
prove that it was the most important part of the whole war). It lasted
for days. All of our reserves sent into battle trough the vortex
fought a vicious battle against the creatures and their strange powers
and technologies.
The battle became increasingly longer. The enemy army was like a
horde of ants migrating. If one died another two took it’s place. End
after the crowd of creatures, of all shapes and sizes, were coming
biotech heavy war machines spreading death around them. Literally, the
aliens possessed advanced knowledge in the field of vital, life
energy, their mechanisms spread fields disruptors which disintegrated
life in every human being.
In an act of desperation our leaders decided to use antimatter
weapons on our own positions, where the battle had became hand to hand
(or hand to tentacle, which way you prefer). Those who opposed the
decision were considered weak and pushed aside.
And so the holocaust was unleashed over our troops.
Few lived to tell the story of their betrayal. And it was all in
vain, because the enemies have continued to come like an unstoppable
torrent. Despair came on all of the upper levels, as the enemy threw
back the energies of the atom unleashed upon them. Enormous fields of
force rejected the destructive forces enveloping the big biomechanical
war machines.
Seeing no other solution, the leaders of our world acted with all
speed, and sent troops to sacrifice, to slow down the enemies giving
them time to close the interdimensional gateway. Huge machines were
closed and the vortex lost slowly power.
Maybe you think, why not closed it immediately. Well, it's about
almost impossible, at least so some of my colleagues explained, those
that understood dimensional physics. Feed-back results would be
comparable to an explosion of ten antimatter bombs and ruined an
entire continent.
But eventually we closed the vortex.
We all breathed a sigh of relief. The danger had passed. Our
enemies were imprisoned in the immeasurable distances of time and
space without being able to find us.

*****
How wrong we were.
A few spins of the planet around its axis after the gate was
closed, more interdimensional vortices were opened in our entire solar
system.
Hundreds, thousands of creatures that could live in space and
massive ships went out of them destroying everything that came in
their way. Leviathan bio-ships emerged following the smaller ones, so
big that were small planetoids.
The enemy had found us.
Taken by surprise and still barely recovering after the war we
waged against artificial intelligences in our solar system battle
analysts lost valuable time strategizing the situation. Then the big
fleets were sent to make opponents dust.
I was on a terrace when the terror began, the heavens of my world
began to rain with black spores death.
These spores were launch from huge creatures entering orbit.
Those that resisted the attack of our orbital defense, opened into the
atmosphere spreading diseases, viruses and death.
The disaster was indescribable, hundreds of millions of people
have been infected across the planet. Diseases easily passed our
defense and even seemed to be helped by genetic improvements. It
seemed that even in this area the aliens were more advanced than us,
some viruses were constructed so as to take control of the implants at
the genetic level.
Other portals were opened on the surface of our world allowing
them to bring hundreds of thousands of creatures to fight.
The space colonies have been spared in the first cycles of the
attack, the invaders did not know their exact location (although
probably knew a lot about our race from prisoners) and were able to
build a defense. After the first clash it has become clear that the
invaders focused all their forces on our homeland.
A fierce battle ensued around the planetary defense as other
vortices open and the aliens brought more forces, more bio-ships. This
battle has grown into a battle of attrition, in which the one who has
more forces wins.
And they seemed to have unlimited reserves.
By changing tactics, the invaders began to hunt our space
habitats. Not able to run at high speeds, space habitats turned out to
be an easy target for plasma weapons and flocks of space creatures.
Our fleets tried to come to their aid but the gap proved too large and
did not arrive on time.
Acting hastily the fleets found themselves open to attack,
meeting the enemies midway to their destinations, in open space.
Without the aid of orbital defenses and facing superior technology we
lost the battle.
 And with them died the last chance for space colonies and
habitats, which were left defenseless before the fury of the invaders,
with just a few guns and missiles.
Through the eyes of observation satellites we saw energy
projectiles hitting habitats, I watched with horror the walls blowing
in all directions and shock waves spraying the last shreds of life
left in them. Those that were not destroyed were immediately boarded
and filled with deadly creatures who ruthlessly hunted all survivors.

*****

Do not think it was over so quickly.

Our fleets and our warriors fought hard for several months. But
the first few weeks were crucial. Fleets have been reduced to a few
ships, our colonies were purged by fire, infected or the soldiers were
slaughtered like animals.
There were attempts to escape from this nightmare.
Some tried to flee with personal spacecraft setting them on
vectors that would carried them to remote systems. Others tried to
leave with whole space habitats. Unfortunately, habitat velocity was
lower than that of high-speed projectiles launched from mag-gun after
them.
Explosions, and all were disintegrated, forming hot clouds of
debris. The same thing happened with the large number of vessels
trying to escape, less than a few managed to escape unnoticed. Or
lucky.
Who knows if they will survive to destinations?
I can only wish them luck.
Although the battle seemed lost, the survival instinct, that we
as all beings made by the Creator have, pushed us to fight. We still
had available planets from which to draw resources. There was very
strong resistance, especially planetary ion cannons that ravaged the
aliens space fleets orbiting the homeworld.
We tried to use an interdimensional portal to send some of the
survivors on a planet at the outskirts of our galaxy.
A big mistake. A very big mistake.
The invaders seemed to go crazy. Whole swarms of creatures
descended from heaven to the site, trying to destroy the portal.
Thousands fell dead, but others creatures passed over their bodies and
their number seemed to be growing. They followed with the warships and
their ground forces didn’t stopped until the portal was not destroyed.

I work at one of the laboratories in charge of special projects

for the Army, with bio-weapons division. We had an underground
facility in an isolated area. Our work was focused on the existence of
strange energy fields, in particular the possibility of energy beings.
Living energy beings.
In the last month we were lucky. One of our commando troops
managed to capture a sensor, an alien energy being almost invisible,
usually used for infiltration missions.
 After being isolated in a perfect force field was brought into
the laboratory to be studied.
Taking advantage of the carelessness of some researchers tried to
escape but was caught between the quarantine fields, triggering off
the alarm instantly.
The investigation began immediately, we wanted the creature
powers for us or at least a weapon to use against them.
While we continue our research in the deep earth, above, our
world was dying. The aliens have already won the space war. It gave
them the ability to position forces in the orbit, in key strategic
positions.
Weapons Division research data gave no visible results, results
which we hoped could turn the tide of war. And now there was simply no
time, or energy reserves to try other methods.
The last remaining representatives of our race on the planet have
retreated behind the high mountain chains in the East and expected the
last attack.
They didn’t have to wait a long time. As soon as they reorganized
their forces the aliens began to push again, smelling the fear of our
leaders. Sensing that all will be over soon. They attacked in all
places at once, destroying dozens of resistance points with blind
rage. Finishing us.
We, in deep laboratory, we found out just what happened through
the information transmitted over the data cables, cables buried deep,
impossible to be detected. One thing was certain, We did not have much
time.
We did received some news that somehow, made us, at least me to
feel better. It was our beloved leaders. Who tried to escape using a
small inter-dimensional portal.
What they did not know was that the others could break the thin
fabric of space-time portals that were smaller and more fragile. They
destroyed the portal being used to escape by the fools that got us
into this mess, after which they sent “seeders”. These scary creatures
are able to pierce the target with hollow, thin, needles, and then
inject tiny eggs in it. Seeder eggs have a very short incubation
period. After the larvae hatches it begins to eat everything along the
way, which is usually the victim, and believe my word, they are hungry
little buggers.
Personally, I’m glad that those idiots died. They caused the
destruction of our entire race.
We blew up the tunnel that led to the surface, leaving only a
single mode of access to the area. A one meter diameter pipe, coming
out that comes to the surface in a hidden place which also houses data
cables and pulse transmitters.
Our experiment was in the final stage and we decided to test it.
And it worked! You can tell how happy we were when we managed to
turn one of the test animals in an energy matrix. Our prisoner died.
It seems that you need to regenerate energy from time to time if not
the matrix begins to unravel like a fabric that you pull one end of
thread.
 Given that the next step is to test one of us, we took special
care and saved energy, what we call the vital energy, in giant
capacitors. We did not kill anyone during the process of obtaining the
vital energy, but we tried and manage to get the energy from
electricity passed through subatomic particle field and magnetic
coils.
A very unpleasant surprise hit us when we enabled the device.
There was a problem with one of the generators and all exploded.

******

I survived. Not only me but most of our team.

With one, but pretty important problem. We were all converted
into energy matrix. Soon afterward we recovered and learned to use the
new state. In fact we realized that the conversion was different from
the original alien sensor creature.
In short, if we remain in the state of the energy matrix for a
longer period of time, even if we had vital infusion of energy we
still will disintegrate. We needed bodies.
Seeing as the rest of the laboratory was destroyed we could not
make contact with the world. Only one solution was left.
The pipeline brought us to the surface. The plan was to enter
bodies, some creatures and to escape.......
How wrong were we thinking. You see, the opponents had ways to
pinpoint energy beings. Most of us have been captured or destroyed
immediately. Few escaped.
I escaped getting a creature. You can not even imagine how hard
it is to control a creature with mental patterns that do not resemble
anything that you can you represent. I survived. I hid deep in the
creature's thoughts and I slipped on one of the "meat" transport ships
from my world. A "meat" transport ship is a ship carrying living
beings, prisoners already infected or inoculated y the invaders, back
into their worlds where they were used for various genetic
experiments.
On board I passed from one body to another until I managed to
take complete control of the ship. In a frantic attempt to escape I
went into a interdimensional portal, overloading my engine at the same
time.
I tucked in one of the rescue capsules and waited.
I was lucky.
Distortion in the whirlwind threw me into a living universe.
After a few weeks a ship passed through the area and gathered my
survival capsule. With my last forces I invaded the bodies of the crew
and I was taking over command of the ship before they realize the
situation.
Technology was quite primitive and helped by the memoirs of my
hosts I didn’t took me a long time to decipher it. I activated the
hyper engine and we headed to the home world of the crew, who were
pretty similar to me and I could easily control.
When I came in orbit of the planet I destroyed the vessel pushing
her into the atmosphere while I took a shuttle, hiding behind the
trail of debris the ship left, to reach the ground undetected. You
might think it would have been better if I had presented myself to
this bipedal race. But the survival instinct, which is a very
powerful, prevented me.
It's not hard to figure out what would have happened. It was hard
to trust someone who can change his body and take possession of
another (it happens quite often in primitive cultures). Probably would
have tried to kill me, which was not so difficult in view of the state
in which I was when I was found in space, almost dead from starvation.
No, it's better that way I've chosen.
My material body didn’t survived the descent. My energy matrix
did.
I did not have to wait long before taking control of another
native.
Since then everything is history. I stand at the fringes of
society and feed on vital energy from animals (in rare cases that of
intelligent beings, just when I need to change my body because the one
I inhabit becomes too old).
During experiments at home it has been established that without
outside intervention, like, attacks or major accidents the matrix
energy, which I basically am, may last up to 10,000 thousand years.
Enough time for a lot of things especially if these creatures
leave me alone. Their technology could detect me so I am cautious and
interact as little as possible with them.
My body died long ago but I am still live in stolen bodies. But
what counts it’s that I’m alive.
But from time to time I remember my world and I miss it. I miss
the Earth. I hope one day to find others who have escaped the
holocaust of humanity. Or may find a way to change things, they spoke
of something based on time travel. I have enough time.