Harry often did as he was doing at this very moment. He sat at his desk, computer terminal activated, scrolling through the list of battle achievements listed from the conflict on Jupiter. Battle achievements. Commendations. Hero’s welcomes upon their return. All a lie. The truth was far more nefarious. Drusilla had been on the losing end of a war with the Darla over three centuries earlier. Humans were still very much stuck in their own orbit and had no idea what was raging on the far side of the Sol System. In truth, the Darla had been the aggressors at the beginning. They had been the ones to venture out looking to expand amongst the stars, and came upon Drusilla’s home world. And it had been them who had attacked Drusilla’s father out of fear. They fled the planet and returned to Jupiter, hiding underground. But the damage was done. Drusilla’s anger was awoken, and there was no amount of water that could extinguish that fire. It took her two hundred years to travel to Earth, and almost another hundred to manipulate her way into exacting her revenge. And Harry had helped her pull the trigger.
His nightmares were frequent, and detailed. The faces of the children of Jupiter as he burrowed an energy beam through their skull, no emotion on his own face, fully under the control of his manipulator. There was no mercy shown and no quarter given. Only death. Harry was convinced that Earth’s continued demise was simply opportune timing for Drusilla to put together the Utopia mission. The tag line was very catchy.
‘To allow the flower of humanity to blossom amongst the stars.’
The slogan was printed everywhere. Buildings, conference halls, vehicles, television, anywhere the message could be beamed into the minds of the people. Eventually, when it became known that Harry as military commander was brought on board, the slogan was changed to one more befitting potential recruitment.
‘To find salvation amongst the stars.’
It worked. By that point, humanity was desperate and all efforts were made to push ahead with the program. The more militaristic slogan garnered more bodies willing to put it all on the line to save their people, and the vessels were created six years ahead of schedule.
But Harry knew why Drusilla wanted this mission to go ahead so badly. She wanted the Darla refugees destroyed. Wherever they had fled to, wherever they had gone, space itself would not be big enough or dark enough to hide them from her. Which made Harry all the more nervous about why he was planning to do next.
“Bridge to Admiral Ransome.”
Harry closed down his monitor, and tapped the communication device which was sewn onto the cuff of his wrist.
“Go ahead.”
“Engineering reports the Odyssey is ready to depart, Sir.”
“Understood Ensign. I’ll be right out.”
A second tap to the wrist closed the channel, and Harry stood, swept his blue and red uniform jacket from the back of his chair, and as he studied himself in the reflection of his mirror, he paused for a moment.
“Here we go, Harry. No turning back now. For humanity.”
Brushing the creases from his uniform, he took a deep breath and strode out of his quarters, stopping just shy of the bridge doors. He glanced upwards as if talking to an invisible person.
“Computer, locate President Drusilla.”
A momentary pause before an acknowledging chime.
“President Drusilla is not aboard the USS Odyssey.”
“Perfect.”
Harry pushed forward, the doors moving apart ahead of him, revealing the brand new command centre to the flagship of the Utopia fleet. Although he had seen the bridge on the tour with Drusilla, this was the first time he had seen the room fully engaged. It took his breath away. Finally, he was going to be doing what he always wanted to do as a child. Be an explorer. While the stakes were high and there were outside influences, Harry had already decided that this is where it ended.
This is where he told Drusilla to go fuck herself.