So this is an story made of excerpts from my novel, basically I’m taking the prechapter matter from the first few chapters and putting them together. If you like what you read, hit me up for the other chapters, the first one is posted under this bitter horizon: no more dawns.

The war has raged on for decades. We have taken heavy losses. All off-planet colonies have been destroyed. A species wide population of billions has been reduced to mere dozens. Our enemy is implacable, unrelenting. It cannot be reasoned with, cannot be bartered with. Peace, despite all our efforts, is impossible. We have a way to end this, a way to win in such a way that the enemy will never threaten any other race. The mission will be dangerous. Odds of survival are ludicrously small. We are the last. The small remaining band of fighters. Even if we win, the remaining individuals are not enough to save our species. Those of us who are left have voluntarily taken implants, geopbyte capacity adamantyne solid state drives, imprinted with the entire cultural and technological output of our species, from earliest recorded history until now, stored dna samples of every species, past and present, with enough genetic diversity to repopulate our planet and our colony worlds. Every language, every work of art, every idea, from the clay beads and carvings to the latest holo-novel, everything. Each drive also contains a recording of each individual’s mind, in the hopes that something, anything, will survive this last desperate battle for survival. It is our collective hope that these implants will be found by some intelligent race sometime in the future. We know now that we are not alone in the universe. That knowledge has become bittersweet. We had such high hopes.

In the end, there were fifty of us, standing alone against the (translation failure) onslaught. The last, desperate hope for life on this world. The plan was set, we were ready. The last pitiful remnant of our once great race stood together for perhaps the last time, on the surface of our world. I took this last chance to look upon the paradise we were defending. The verdant and ancient forests, the desolate and beautiful deserts, the cold and ethereal polar wastes, the eternal and mysterious oceans. Turning back to face my comrades, we met eyes, and, nodding our agreement, activated our Silverspun suits. As the silvery lines emerged from our nanotech emitters, cocooning us in an airtight shell, I offered prayers to whatever ancient gods that were once worshipped.

Activating the quantum space drives, we ascended from the surface to low orbit. Gathering our meager forces, we set out to face our foe. She was there; bloated and malevolent, an obscenity backdropped against the stars. As we obtained our target lock and moved in for the fight, she spewed forth her millions of children, her defense against us. Our Fleshburner weapons lanced out, destroying each one with one hit. Thankfully, we knew she could no longer birth her destroyers, cruisers, battleships or dreadnoughts. We had deprived her of her needed resources for far too long for that. This would be the final effort.

The battle raged for several hours, each of us taking out millions of fighters, nearly depleting our own meager resources in the process. As we closed in on the bloated form of the (translation error) High Great Mother, we could feel her impotent rage, the emotion tangible and thick, emanating from her. And yet... and yet. Still, there was fear as well. She knew she was doomed. As the fifty of us, last children of our homeworld, fell into formation, she was afraid. Entering the Soulbind, we locked our life energy and willpower into one destructive beam, aimed at her one, staring eye. Our victory assured, we, foolishly in hindsight, allowed ourselves a small stab of celebratory relief.

Moments before she disintegrated into nothingness, she swelled, and with vindictive laughter, expelled a cloud of black and noxious (translation error). As she finally died and returned to the stardust from which all things are made, we watched in horror as the (translation error) hit our planet, and within seconds, spread to cover the globe.

We had won the final battle, but it seems we would lose the war.

The collective horror that flooded through the soulbond was cloying, a sticking, stinking abhorrence tainting our minds. Shaking it off, I moved into action, and the others followed. As we closed in on our homeworld, we spread out, attempting among the fifty of us to cover as much of the surface of the planet as we could.

As my feet hovered inches above the ground, I was struck dumb by the sight of my verdant, beautiful home being corrupted by the dark clouds of (partial translation: shadow matter). Trees, grasses, (partial translation: color plants), all blackening and shriveling before crumbling into dust. The blue sky above me became an angry, blood red. The animals on the plains around me started breathing erratically, laboriously, as the atmosphere became poisonous. My planet was dying, the last vengeance of the (partial translation: idiomatic: fallen one’s) High Great Mother.

My retinal HUD analyzed the environment, computing probabilities and possible courses of action using my cerebral implant, before displaying an itemized list of actions. There was an 85% chance that we would fail, and lose the planet. We had never developed any technology able to deal with this. There was a 99% chance that, even if we did succeed, we would lose all life on our world, including ourselves. In short, the situation was very nearly hopeless. But still, we had to try.

The fifty of us planted ourselves firmly into the soil, our nanites growing carbon nanofiber roots to keep us anchored. Each of us extruded massive nanocore filters from our backs and shoulders, then quickly started drawing polluted air through them. As the poison filtered through our filters, our bodies’ nanite-enhanced immune systems pulled the poison out of our blood, rendering it inert.

I could see forty-nine lights on my HUD, with conditional readouts of each one floating beside it, the last of my comrades. So far they were all strong, healthy, but bearing more strain than our bodies were ever meant to endure. For my own part, the pain was almost unbearable. As hundreds, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of air were pulled through my filters, it burned at me like the very fires of the heart of the sun, scouring and tearing at the very core of my being.

Slowly, oh so very slowly, the poison started to clear. By one percent. For days, we strained, pulling the corruption from the soil and air of our world. The progress was so slow, and the life on our world, the living creatures and plants, withered and died around us, yet still we kept going. Every single light on my HUD was in a damaged condition, and ten of them were flashing at me that they were critical. Anguish and pain flooded the soulbond, but for a time, we each drew strength from the group. We had scrubbed ten percent of the toxins before the first light flashed and winked out, the dying scream of anguish, despair and failure hitting us hard. We had lost a friend, one of the last that we had. We had no time to process the loss, we had to keep going.

And we did. Every so often, we’d lose another, but we kept going, pulling the corruption from our world as much as we could. By the time we had scrubbed 95% of the toxins, we had lost all but three of us, and we three were in critical condition. As I watched, we lost one, his last words urging us to keep on. The soulbond had degraded to a mere personal link, there being too few to maintain a network. I reached out to the one other person still left besides myself, asking her if there was a point in continuing. All life besides ourselves had succumbed, even if we finished, the world would be a barren, dead rock in space.

“We must. If even one of us survives, we can repopulate life on this world. Our implants and nanites can replicate the needed technology.”

“Yes, but to do so, one of us has to survive. It’s looking less and less likely that we will.”

“We have to. Even if we die, life could rise again. It did once before. We have the responsibility as caretakers of this world.”

“Very well. If we must, we must.”

Not long after that, her own light winked out.

I must confess, the loss hit me hard. I was the last person in the universe. Or at least this corner of it. I was alone. And I still had to purify 103 trillion tonnes of atmosphere.

I held on for two weeks, pulling as much air as I could. I had long since overridden the safety precautions of my nanite suite, it may very well kill me, but I would complete my task before I died. As the last hundred tonnes filtered through, I was utterly exhausted. My vision was dark around the edges, my breathing full of liquid and very labored. I was beyond critical condition, continuing on through sheer will alone.

Finally, it was done. The air was blue and clear once again, but I had nothing left. As the nanocore filters and nanofiber roots crumbled away and I fell bonelessly to the ground, I knew I was dying. My nanites had been exhausted, my body’s reserves of energy had been used up. I had no way of replenishing either. My Cultureseed implant had a small contingent of nanites, but I wouldn’t use them if I could. I had succeeded, but the victory would be pyrrhic. I watched slowly as the sun rose over the bitter horizon of my world for the last time. As the first rays of the yellow star’s light graced my face for the last time, I closed my eyes and began the long final sleep.

End recording. Finalize and compile final memories and impressions. Enter sleep and scan mode.