“The Engineer”. Part 1 of Book II.
Book I: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Interlude.
Book II: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Uncertainty,
fear,
a mind grasping for the loose threads
of almost touched enlightened.

The screeching warning
shocks the sense back to bitter reality,
as the steel shudders and rumbles,
struck by the force of a thousand blows.

The battle has begun in earnest.

I fly, feet barely touching the ground,
hands fly across the keys,
wake up dear soldiers,
wake up feared warriors,
it is a killing day.

The sirens again,
and another wound to my home,
and people wonder why I hate the madmen.

Down the ladder,
seven floors deep,
I slide in a blur
and barely avoid shattered bones.

I pause for moment,
hesistant,
but I perform my obligations,
while praying for the thousand souls behind the armored doors,
sealed in a tomb of dying air.

Another breath,
another breath,
I empty the air;
I cannot bear them to suffer.

The horns again, screaming in my skull,
a cataclysm of vibration
and I’m a rag doll in the hands of angry god…
then darkness.

I awake, my head screaming,
my senses ringing, survivors crying.

Get up.
Get up, Engineer.
Get up.

I stand, wobbling but whole,
check the screens,
make routes for medics,
scan the enemy…

We’ve won,
and the machine-men are dead,
their vessel shattered like clay!

I announce it,
broadcast it to every room and corridor,
but we are a broken people,
taking pleasure in our peace,
but hollow of any victory.

Tertiary systems, brought online,
reboot the interface system,
wonder why they do that,
why some madmen go so far,
and why after they lose enough flesh
they hate us so.

Drone through the prompts,
yes, no, yes, no,
assess…
oh no…
no, no, no…

We are dead in space,
helpless and drifting away.