29475 AD

[suicide_tank]

The gleaming towers of Omni-1 reflected the fiery maroon light of twin suns succumbing to distant sandstorms, red dust stirred up by incessant winds along the arched horizon hundreds of miles due north. Large flotillas of ships passed north and west, rising slowly like grey whales drifting to the ocean surface, seeking to avoid the storms by crossing over them. To the east, there was the faint silvery gleam of another flotilla returning from the mines. While the storms were still much too remote to be heard even with the most sensitive of implants Philip Ross felt them. Rubi-Ka was, after all, his world. Not a sparrow would fall to the ground without him knowing. Figuratively speaking, of course. There were no sparrows on this planet. Ross focused. The windows darkened, and the panorama before the him grew dim, leaving his office in a comfortable gloom. The office was located on the top floor of one of Omni-Tek’s most imposing and heavily fortified towers in the capital city. It encompassed a sprawling circular expanse Ross privately thought of as his private Colosseum, and though it lacked lions and gladiators, it had the desired effect on his subordinates and colleagues. It intimidated them. They were impressed with size. Size meant power. His office made them feel small, smaller than him. And everything about Philip Ross was big. He gazed at his robed reflection in the artificially darkened glass. He was taller than most men; grey, chiselled, trim, he possessed the right combination of charisma, maturity, and virility for a person in his position. He was not vain, but he knew the power of appearance. Philip Ross was not one to neglect even the smallest of details. He turned away from the window. His enhanced vision adjusted to the deepening gloom as the sun finally yielded to the escalating storms.There wasn’t much in the way of furniture in the office. The one indulgence in an otherwise prudent arrangement was a mahogany desk imported from Earth and built from some of the last remaining trees of the ancient replanted rainforests. There were only three chairs, imitation leather but comfortable. Unlike many of his associates, he had no need for expensive bronto-hide to impress visitors. There was a single console, not the latest model, but a stable and functional one, more than good enough for his purposes. A corporate-sized screen was tuned to the live Omni-Tek news broadcast when not in use, which was most of the time. There was even a potted plant, a genetically uncontaminated cactus, painstakingly transported from the European desert to an alien world where, against all odds, it seemed to thrive. Last, and most certainly least, the security droid standing to rigid mechanical attention near the elevator doors. The Omni-Pol agents who had installed the defence systems in his office had insisted on this final piece of personal protection, though of course he’d objected. Vociferously. The lethal contraption was obscenely brutal looking, kitted out with energy shielding and what appeared to be a portable cannon. It stood unmoving, awaiting the arrival of something, someone, to destroy. To expect violence was to invite violence, Ross knew. And though he’d never shied from violence, he wanted none of it here in his own home. Home. Now there was a foreign word. This wasn’t officially his home. He had one of those, a home, a fully furnished penthouse apartment with personal attendants and room upon useless room, elsewhere in the city. But Ross spent the lion’s share of his life in this Colosseum, like a jaded emperor, making decisions based on the acts of brutality and stupidity he was witness to on the screen.Running Omni-Tek’s operations on Rubi-Ka was not something done between breakfast and supper. His work was the entirety of his existence, the sum of his life. It was a life truly worth living, there was no doubt about that, but even Philip Ross could get tired. And right now he was very tired. He wanted nothing more than to go back to his grand home and fall asleep in a proper bed, soothed by the cool, clean sheets and the scent of the rose gardens below. He was tired and disappointed, and he wished that the day had brought something to ease the pain brought on by the news of that morning. But it hadn’t. The news had only gotten worse. I extend a conciliatory hand, he thought, I get down on my knees and beg them for peace, for understanding, for a chance to negotiate an accord. And all they do is turn on me and stab me in the back. There were reports of new skirmishes outside the immediate jurisdiction of the city, between Omni-Tek’s pacifying troops and clan-affiliated rebels. People had died, tensions were strained, and both sides were now tugging at their leashes for a chance to go to war again. And while these unfortunate incidents weren’t entirely unexpected, it still angered and saddened him to think of the wastefulness of it all, for both sides involved. Ross knew that he’d made an error in judgement early on. He’d completely underestimated how the disgruntled few could affect the complex machinery of progress. That lesson had been taught a million times over, most effectively a good seventeen millennia past, when, like a latter-day Moses, David Marlin had risen up and brought his people out of slavery, destroying the Omega in the process. The ensuing era had given birth to Omni-Tek, and Ross guessed he owed the man a silent prayer of thanks. But the example he had set…To have imprinted on humanity the virtue of rising up against authority, against government, against corporate dominion, at any and all costs - and to have brazenly professed this to be a good thing, an honourable thing…No, the man had done more to damage mankind than to heal it. David Marlin ought to have laid down his sword after destroying the last of the Omega. The freed slaves, the Solitus, the inheritors of Earth, should have been allowed to decide their own fate.There was no room for gods in the kingdom of man.

Now grand but meaningless words were being flaunted as truth in the face of reason;
words like freedom, liberty, and justice for all. Justice for whom exactly?
Freedom and liberty from what?