I'm not sure why people keep saying "good ending." Please wait until you actually see the words "THE END."

**********
February 29, 2229 (Iteration Two)
Our Final Stand


Click.

I'd just finished rigging up a whole crapload of blood analogue on an IV drip when Seven's eyes fluttered open. "Ouch," she whispered.

"How ya doin', babe?" I quipped nervously.

"F'rgot to duck," Seven sighed. She glanced down at her tattered uniform, saw that I'd cut most of it away. "Like wh y'see?"

She looked like a mess. It physically hurt to see that gorgeous body torn up so badly, and the field dressings made her look like a patchwork horror movie monster. "Couldn't keep my hands off of ya," I said.

She smiled weakly. "Wait 'ntil 'm feel' bett', an' I'll show you how it really works." She sighed and closed her eyes, and I nearly panicked, but the defibrillator didn't change color to red and start its sequence, so I figured she was fine. I gave her a shot of shock suppressant, and some anesthetic to keep her unconscious, and carried her into the spire room, out of the way of the firefight.

"TRAP!"

I'm not sure how I know that the Yor had set a trap for us. All I knew was that when I grabbed Seven and turned to leave, something made me stop and turn back.

The thing about biological beings is that it's hard to really effectively play dead, because your heart keeps beating and your lungs keep breathing. Yor have no heart and no lungs.

Some of the "corpses" weren't dead after all: they'd been laying there biding their time and waiting for their opportunity, and they saw it when I left the corridor to drag Seven to safety. If they'd waited a moment or two longer, or if I hadn't turned around, they would have killed us all. One and Six would never have seen it coming.

But I did turn around, and they didn't wait.

"BEHIND YOU!" I shouted, and the Yor froze mid-attack.

I remembered what One had said. The Yor were machines: sophisticated machines, but still machines. They did repetitive tasks well, but they didn't adapt well to sudden changes in their world view. Biological minds worked by taking prior patterns and quickly adapting them to new circumstancees. Mechanical minds needed to write up new algorithms and properly weight and arrange them in a decision tree.

I also remembered something else she had said: the Yor don't form personal attachments. Only biological beings do.

That saved One's life. A split second of hesitation and Six pushing her out of the way. The Yor Hunter Killer hit him first, and then the big guy went down with a pair of Yor cutting shears in his gut. One screamed and tried to bring her plasma torch around, and then, I kid you not, I saw Six grab the cutting shears in his bare hands, pull them in until they came out his back, reach up, and tear that Hunter Killer's head off with his bare hands.

The EMP grenade was primed before I'd thought to use it, and it was in the air before I thought to throw it. It went off, and the Yor went down, showering sparks from their casings.

One and I ran to Six's side. It didn't look good. He wasn't hit as bad as Seven, but the wound had hit his liver, and it was leaking blood like a sieve. "Shit, shit, shit, Sov Vekka, Sov Vekka," One whispered. She grabbed coagulating field dressings from her belt pouch and started stuffing them into the wound, around the edges of the shears, which she dared not remove. "Sov Vekka, Imari, Salia Vekkio. . ."

"Sei. Orla Teek," Six replied.

One shook her head. "Nei. Nei, nei, Sovek Yad Chia. . ."

"Sovek Yad Chia." Six touched her face and smiled. "Go."

One closed her eyes, and a tear leaked from the corner of her eye and ran down her face. . . just one. Her eyes opened again, and they were once again as hard as flint and as cold as ice. "Corporal," she said softly. "The detonation wires for the charges. You'll have to tear them loose and bring them here."

"But the detonator. . ."

"EMP pulse. It was a good idea, it saved our lives, but now if we want to set off the charges, someone has to do it manually." She took the detonator from me and showed me how the lights would not turn on, the device had been fried by my EMP grenade. "Six just volunteered."

"Wait. . . set it off manually. . . he'll. . ."

"He'll die anyway. He wants this." One closed her eyes again. "Take care of it. I'll handle the spire and the core." She paused, her hands clenching and unclenching, as if wanting to say more, but there was no way she could say what all three of us knew she wanted to say. Finally, she settled for snapping to attention and giving Six the crispest, finest salute she could, her entire body trembling with the emotions she held back.

Six returned the salute weakly. One turned on her heel and left the room, pausing only to pick up the Interdiction Field Generator Core and carry it into the spire room. I pulled the wires from the explosives, jiggered with the safety devices a bit, and stripped the ends off of two wires before handing them to Six. "Just touch these two together. It'll go off right away. Be careful, you don't want to do it too soon."

"Roger." Six gave me a hard look as he held the wires in his trembling hands. "Good luck."

"You too." If this were a movie, this would have been the time for a manly handshake or hug, but there wasn't time for that because we could already hear the Yor coming down the elevator shaft, and besides, Six's hands were filled with live detonator wires, so I settled for patting his shoulder and running away.

One had made a makeshift barricade out of a wrecked door panel and some broken Yor parts, and she'd already dragged Seven and the Core behind it. I ducked behind the slab of reinforced steel just as Six set off the charges.

Things got very loud for a moment, then very dark.

*****

"Steven. Wake up."

I woke up to the feeling of One's fingertips on my face. "We're alive."

"For now." One helped me sit up, and in the dim light of the spire, I could see that the corridor had collapsed. Where Six and the Yor had been, there was nothing but fallen rock and mangled steel, forming a nearly impenetrable barrier. "Six finished his mission," One said softly.

"He did." I shook my head. "Ears are ringing. . . and I keep hearing scratching noises."

"The Yor are burrowing through the wreckage," One admitted. "They started a few minutes ago."

"Damn, these guys don't give up. . . what do we do now?"

One showed me two wires in her hand, the ends stripped off and taped over lightly, so she could pull off the tape with just a tug of her fingertips. "We wait until they break through, and then we set off the spire charges. We destroy the spire, the Core, and ourselves."

"Doesn't sound like a very good plan to me. . . got any that don't involve dying?"

"No," One admitted. "No weapons. No clever tricks. This is all we have left. We can't let them take us alive, and we can't let them take the Core intact. So. . ." She gestured to the spire and the explosives. "Our last stand."

"Maybe we should set it off now. Save some waiting."

"Maybe. Then again, I don't know. We could get lucky," One admitted.

"Lucky. It would take a miracle," I sighed.

"Yes," One said. "But you never know."

We sat there in the darkness listening to the Yor tunnel through the debris, waiting for them to break through so we could give them one last "fuck you" in the form of a huge explosion. "Liria Mue," One said after a long time.

"What?"

"When we first met, you asked me what my name was. Liria Mue," she said.

"That doesn't sound Terran to me," I said cautiously.

"It's not." She touched the burn scar on her face, and I could see now that it had been deliberately inflicted. "I lied when I said the Arceans went to the Terrans because they wanted to give them time to build the Tir-Quan center. The truth was, they went to my mother first. But my mother didn't believe it would come in time to help us. So. . ." She made a noncommital gesture. "My safety was part of the deal. Six came with me as my bodyguard. I don't think she expected me to actually undergo the training myself."

"Oh." I leaned back and looked up at the ceiling quietly. "Damn. Isn't anyone in the Tir-Quan human?"

"Well, there is Seven," Liria admitted. "And there's you."

"Me?"

"You react fast enough, and you don't leave companions behind. You've certainly got the courage. All you need is the training. You don't have to say yes."

"I'll think about it," I said, knowing that I'd already made my choice. Or perhaps my choice had already been made for me. Jenkins, Higgins, Four and Six had made the choice for me, and paid my price with their blood. It was the least I could do to repay a debt I could never really honor.

I was interrupted out of such cheerful thoughts by a loud rumbling that shook the room like an earthquake. The scratching noises stopped, replaced by panicked Yor beeping, and then by the sound of Yor footsteps racing away. "What the hell was that?" I exclaimed.

I saw One grin again, that same smug grin she'd had earlier. "That," she said, "was our miracle."

You should write a GalCiv2 novel.

Seriously.

~waits for it~ OH, there it is...THE END, now we can say it guys lol.

Great story, cool ending. Now, I'll be waiting for the sequel involving the Korath and the 'mysterious red ship'. I think if Steve though the Yor were a pita to fight as a mudfoot, I can't wait until he gives it to the DLs. Teer-Quan or no, that'll be a good fight.

Author's Notes (i.e. Stuff you probably don't care about)

Thanks for all your support, everyone Writing this as a serial over a period of a couple of weeks was incredibly fun, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

A brief history: when I first joined the GCII forums, one of the things I most enjoyed was reading through the AARs, especially Frogboy's own stories about testing out the AI. One of the ones I stumbled across was an older AAR called "The Ship That Won The War," a tribute by a GCII player to the Small and Tiny ships that he fought the first battles of his campaign with. That reminded me of a game when my "Abh Empire" flagship, "Abriel," somehow picked up so many ship upgrade anomalies that when I upgraded it to a combat vessel, it had something like 100+ hit points and could take down entire fleets on its own. I reframed it as a story about the Terran Alliance (who wants to read a story about a custom race based on an anime series, anyway?) and called it "Goodbye to an Old Friend." People seemed to like it. I asked for suggestions. General Homsar suggested a story from a soldier's perspective.

Thus, "Diary of a Terran Soldier."

Some acknowledgements: the story isn't based on any one campaign, mostly the flavor text that crawls by when you first successfully invade a planet. The general plot itself is basically a blatant ripoff of Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" (Johnny Rico/Steve Lee fights a losing battle against the Bugs/Yor, gets picked up by Rasczak's Roughnecks/the Tir-Quan, and comes back to help capture the Brain Bug/Yor Interdiction Field Generator Core in a desperate underground battle), but with more girls. Steve's situation with his flivver is based on my cousin Josh's own experiences with his Humvee before heading off to fight in Iraq: unlike Steve, Josh got a replacement vehicle before he went into combat, and spent most of Operation Steel Curtain quietly (at least, that's my understanding). The poem that Six recites is, of course, "Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Anyone who's read Dune probably knows where the majority of my version of the Tir-Quan's training comes from.

Seven fans can thank Jazmin (not her real name) for Cassandra's survival: the original concept of the ending had Seven dying of her wounds before she could be rescued, with One and Steve the only survivors. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Seven turned out to be more popular than I'd anticipated. I was tempted to kill her off anyway (kill your darlings) but when I mentioned this to Jazmin, she told me she hated it when authors killed characters off just to be angsty, so Seven lives to fight and. . . fornicate. . . another day.

Answers to a couple of questions people asked.


1. What the heck was up with the block of text in italics? Was it time travel?
A. Not quite. Remember that (my version of) Tir-Quan training revolves around anticipating future events. What happened here was that in some alternate timeline (Iteration One), Steve never saw the Yor sneak attack coming and everyone died. In the canon timeline (Iteration Two) Steve felt alternate Steve's anguish at not being able to save his friends and anticipated the trap. Hence, Apprentice Mirris' comment on Premonition.

2. Will you write a novel?
A. If I can be bothered to get off my butt and write one, yes. I tend towards short stories, because, honestly, I get bored easily. This is one of the longer pieces I've written, and doing it as a serial was a lot of fun. I'll let you know in the off-topic forum if and when it happens.

3. Will you write a GalCiv novel?
A. Don't count on it. This is Brad's setting, Brad's story, Brad's playground, Brad's sandbox, I just showed up with my shovel and a bucket to build a sandcastle. It would be awesome if the devs read this and enjoyed the story, but the story is mostly for the fans who love this game.

4. Will there be a sequel?
A. Probably not. But if there is one, it will cover Steve and the Tir-Quan facing down the Korath Clan and the resurgent Dread Lords.

4. Four is a Jessuins? Three and Five are Snathi?
A. Immigrants or refugees, obviously.

6. I'm imagining Seven as a sexy blonde Altarian. . .
A. By now you know that's not quite right. Seven is Terran. But as for the appearances of the cast: I figure Six looked a lot like the Altarian leader from Dread Lords (I can't remember his name, but he had a blond crew cut.) One looks a lot like Elyse Mue from Dark Avatar, being her daughter (the scar on her face I mentioned at her first appearance is from burning off the traditional tattoos. Three and Five are obviously Chip and Dale. Four is a Jessuins, and weren't you surprised to know what they've got off-screen . Two and Eight no one really saw much of, so they're rather nebulous. As for Seven. . . well, every guy has a different opinion of what is sexy, so just imagine the sexiest woman you can think of and that's her. I know my mental image is a blonde with a great butt. . . anyway.

Final acknowledgements: GalCiv II belongs to Stardock, and so do all the elements from that game included in the story. Thank you, Jazmin, for not being more pissed off that I'm spending so much time writing a video game fanfiction. Thanks for reading this story and enjoying it. It might be a while before I write another AAR given other projects and real life concerns: if and when I do, it will focus on either the influence warfare concept or Technological Victory (probably the latter, there's actually an AAR in here already that does a great job of portraying a culture war between the Iconians and the Terrans. . .)

Claps hands and stands up for an extended ovation!!!!

A sequel with the Korath and the DL...why not turn that into your tech victory..The war was going so badly against the forces of korath and the DL incursions that the only way to win was to abandon violence and pursue a more spiritual means...

Sounds good to me, you will need the Tir Quan of course to hold off the invading forces long enough to achieve a tech victory...

Well done and i wait for more.

Well done, themocaw. Having also tried my hand at writing science fiction, and knowing how difficult it can be, I really appreciate how well crafted this story was. Aside from a few very minor complaints, I thought your story was brilliant. I'll be looking forward to reading any other fiction you write.

Ok, I just have one question. Is there really an interdiction field generator? If so, where is it on the tech tree? And what does it do? (I'm assuming decrease spped of enemy ships.)

There is a starbase module that does something similar called the Warp Field Inhibitor, I think. Anyway, it's a macguffin, trying to explain why the heck the Yor can do that sort of thing. . . and a bit of wish fulfillment regarding my frustrations at seeing my lightning-fast Victory-Class cruisers turned into paperweights ;_;

themocaw, once again let us say "great story".

And hopefully I'm not the only one that missed the connection at first, but realizing Liria's parentage absolutely gave me chills.

Wonderful story

beautiful... simply beautiful. excellent job!

I think we also need a fanart site for people like Formis, who rock hardcore.