A Dynast Soul is a person who cannot die. Not truly, at least. They are the reason there are no monsters under your bed. They are the reason humanity still exists. They are the immortal protectors who keep the darkness from swallowing us whole.

  I miss the days when life was simple. Point the sword at an obvious foe, and allow it—them—to do the job. There is something to be said for mission creep. A slow march from good intentions to hard decisions, then the wrong decisions, then tragedy.

  We failed in our mission. Humanity has destroyed itself. I made the wrong decision, and all that remains is tragedy. Maybe they wouldn’t have turned against each other if they’d had a better leader.

  How did they phrase it?

  ‘It isn’t our job to protect them from themselves.’

  You tried, my friend. You succeeded. But we couldn’t protect them from us.

  I’m sorry, Marielle. You deserved a better leader. I pray for your happiness as you cross the stars.

  -Lamentations of a Leader, Earth Year 2061 AD

  Really, I wonder how I ended up in this situation. This is a nightmare.

  "Captain, snap out of it!"

  That joke is getting old. Marielle looked up through blurred eyes, but there was only a chaotic haze of fire. Nothing left for me here now. Time to try again with a new life.

  She didn’t know where her emotional tears stopped and bleariness from the most recent explosion began. Everything that mattered to her was gone in the first explosion, after all. Her head was fuzzy, but it didn’t feel like the pain of a concussion…

  Slap!

  "Ouch, what the hell?" Marielle's vision cleared quickly, and she made out the blood- and dirt-stained face of her subordinate, Lieutenant Vilke. The lower escarpment ahead of them—and the colony built there—was in flames, dying the early night sky with a vibrant crimson and drowning the world in a dull roar.

  "Cap— Major, I need your orders.” He didn’t really need any commands, but his words were meant to shake her back into focus. “Let's move away from this fire first."

  Before she could try to move, she'd been forced to her feet. Strength slowly rushed through her body once more as a fresh filter was attached to her breathing mask and her lieutenant started moving with her towards the launch pads at a jog. He was right to get her to focus. If she gave up, it would harm far more lives than her own. She owed it to them to try to find the right path forward, even if she ended up alone.

  And so, they started an unsteady jog towards the upper plateau, where the shuttle landing lay.

  "Damn those CHARs... they must have snuck a suicide operative into the ship with this new virus," Vilke's deep, brassy voice cursed.

  "No, I cleared every person on board myself."

  Mari had to defend herself on those grounds, and something about the Lieutenant's claim just didn't feel like it was the whole picture. Maybe it was when the first infected person raided the blood sample storage, but within a few days, they'd found one of the infected inside the quarantine zone had cut open the throat of a medical officer and was drinking her blood.

  "I doubt the Chars could develop a bioweapon that made vampires," Marielle responded with a heavy breath through her respirator.

  A sudden screech resounded from behind as they ran, causing both soldiers to turn, weapons raised.

  "That didn’t sound human," Vilke spoke in a hushed tone while their ears hung on every minute noise.

  Nothing was there, so the pair put their backs to one another, stepping in a slow circle as they edged their way towards the launch site. The fire at the colony was causing soot to rain around the soldiers, clouding the visors of their masks, but the sound was gone.

  Then, Marielle saw them. Red, hungry eyes gazed down at her from the ridge to the north, shining in the darkness of the moonless night. The team must've been close enough to the launch pads that the automatic lights reflected in its eyes.

  The next moment, she blinked and suddenly there were four eyes, then eight.

  "Targets sighted, eleven o'clock. Keep your eyes up, multiple hostiles."

  "Copy that, same here, your five o'clock. Just out of range."

  Their primary weapons were advanced slingshot rifles that fired bursts using stored kinetic energy. In short, the recoil of a normal gunshot was absorbed and turned into power for the next shot. The ammunition was easier to restock, but the cost benefits didn’t exactly matter when shit hit the fan. She’d complained about the stopping power during testing, and suddenly Marielle wished she had raised a lot more hell about it.

  "Slowly, wait for them to come to us." Marielle gave a simple command that Vilke didn't really need to hear. They had been in the same squad for years, and he could read her commands like they were telepathic.

  Suddenly, the first pair of eyes descended from the ridge with an inhuman speed, not to mention that it tried such a leap from a height of twenty meters up. It definitely would've landed on or near her if she hadn't pulled the trigger.

  The rifle in her hands let off soft humming sounds as the bullets rocketed toward the figure wearing what used to be a matching black and gold military uniform to theirs. The body armor was no joke, but the second burst caught the throat after the first had halted its leaping momentum.

  She could feel Vilke firing his own weapon as they hurried their steps towards safety. Thankfully, Marielle had the supposed genome pattern that the bioweapon didn't seem to like, so it wasn't after her, and she mostly needed to protect the Lieutenant at her back.

  In truth, it was her very nature that prevented infection, but that was hardly something she shared publicly.

  A frown was steadily growing on her face as she emptied her magazine and swiftly reloaded her last. The sheer number of targets made no sense, though. There were only ten infected patients in quarantine.

  "Why are there so many?" Vilke's voice sounded as worried as she'd felt.

  Maybe it was a trick of the darkness, but they didn't seem to end, and after a few moments, Marielle realized she no longer recognized the clothes they wore. The outfits the creatures were clad in looked pristine and colorful, without any tears, and then suddenly, she noticed her bullets no longer penetrated the fibers of those clothes. The projectiles were met with fabric that outperformed her own armor.

  Marielle shot one barely human thing that skittered along the ground, feeling her skin crawl at the sight of joints bent out of shape. Another leapt from above, and she carefully aimed for the head to conserve ammunition.

  "Are they...? Was this planet inhabited before? Is this how they all died out?"

  Marielle felt her boots sink into a muddy patch of ground, fouling her aim and creating an opening.

  She cursed under her breath as she tried to reposition her aim entirely for exposed body parts, no longer keeping the enemies at bay with the rifle. The rifles were annoyingly low power anyway, so as soon as they were close enough, she let the less effective weapon dangle from its strap and reached for the last gift her father ever gave her, a reforged jian—a long, straight sword used by his Chinese ancestor on his mother's side.

  Thankfully, Marielle had fairly clear memories of how to use such a slender and fine weapon. Marielle was half Japanese and had trained with weapons from the day she’d decided who she truly wanted to be. The blade wasn't a katana, so her lessons from her most recent lives were useless, but her body still knew the comfortable feel of the weapon.

  And it was no normal sword.

  "I will show you the full weight of my soul!" Marielle's battle cry almost seemed to halt the advancing creatures, which had steadily degenerated until they only barely looked like they could have once been human. Then they responded in a chorus of horrific wails that grated on the ears.

  Damn, I used to be so uncool in past lives, she lamented her corny challenge as she set to work.

  The elegant blade hummed with hidden power as it flashed through the dim light while she held the vampiric monsters at bay. Thankfully, they were intelligent enough to not throw away their lives for a little blood snack. The two of them could've been overrun easily if that weren't the case.

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  She just needed to hold them off for a few more seconds as they headed for the safety of the shuttle platforms.

  One lunged at her, and she responded with a quick slash towards the throat followed by a powerful kick to repel the vampire into its kin. Another tried to lash at her flank with overgrown nails that had hardened and sharpened to nasty points. She twisted her arm and flicked the blade of her sword in a short arc that had the creature sever its own hand with the momentum.

  Her armor was made to handle any manner of beasts they might find on the new world, so she wasn’t worried about any attacks that failed to reach her joints or head. With reflexes like hers, all it came down to was defending Vilke’s back.

  The creatures were odd, though. The bodies weren’t dead, but their flesh was tough to cut through even with an empowered blade. She almost wished she had time to figure out what made such monsters so durable.

  Desperate battles were poor times for an autopsy, sadly.

  Clang!

  Her boot finally landed on metal with her steady steps. As if on cue, bright light bathed over them, and Marielle saw true horror in that moment. The smell of blood hit the air thick enough to even penetrate the filtered masks as the full floodlight array of the gun towers at the launch pad switched on, and the guns of said towers rained death on the swarm around her.

  "The cavalry is right on cue." Vilke never stopped firing his prized handgun for a moment. At some point, he must’ve run out of ammo in his rifle.

  They dashed for the heavy doors, Marielle clearing a path with her sword and Vilke with his sidearm and a heavy baton.

  Their breathing wasn't even hard after such a trek on foot. The healthy soldiers Marielle had sent ahead already had the shuttles warming up to take the survivors into outer orbit where the colony ship was waiting. The bloodbath behind them was sickening, but she held it down in front of her subordinates and made a dash for the soldiers inside—each of them poised to gun down any stragglers that made it past the turrets.

  "How long until we are good to take off, and how many made it out alive?"

  "Sir! Takeoff as soon as everyone is aboard. Two shuttles have already launched with all 58 remaining non-combat personnel. Thirty military personnel, including yourself and Lieutenant Vilke are awaiting evac on the next shuttle, and the remaining two shuttles are prepared for autopilot to return to orbit."

  "Good, get those doors sealed off and load everyone in. I'll be the last one aboard."

  The poor lieutenant seemed hesitant, but he accepted and relayed the orders. Marielle drew her Remera, a heavy revolver, in her left hand and watched the walls all around the launch site. In the event of an emergency, the area was fortified as a shelter with tall stone walls built for weathering natural disasters. The shuttles were to be returned to the separated quarantine zone on board the ship in space, which hadn't been used before. Medical robots would treat all incoming colony members and check for harmful pathogens before returning each to their freezing pods.

  The whole situation was Marielle's failure, and she couldn't let anyone else cover the retreat after they'd lost over four hundred civilian and military personnel back at the colony. When the power generator exploded, the air inside the filtration facility that was attached to it had caught fire due to the oxygen content. All she could do was watch and think of all the friends—as well as her newly budding family—she had let down with her incompetence. Sure, she hadn't literally killed them, but as a leader, she had to take responsibility for those in her care.

  The guns in the towers went silent, bringing her thoughts back to the present as soldiers boarded the shuttle behind her. The shrieks of disfigured human voices rose to a deafening volume as the addled minds of the afflicted realized their prey was escaping. The first of them appeared over the walls as the shuttle engines fired up to full strength, signaling her to board the ship.

  The shuttles on autopilot took off first as she climbed the ramp and the afflicted rushed forward into her handgun's precise aim. One, then another, then a third. All perfect headshots. She hadn’t gotten rusty, at least.

  I'm nothing if not a skilled killer, she supposed. Despite the unusual clothing, the pitiful things looked very human. How her colony survived for so long without finding them before was a real mystery.

  As the ramp closed, she hurried up toward the pilot's seat, joining Vilke in hovering just over the pilot’s chair in the cramped space.

  "Any sign of life in the colony now?" She had to find out.

  "Hard to say if they're afflicted or healthy people. But I am seeing way more than just four hundred on the IR sensors," Vilke's voice was a strong anchor for her weary mind.

  The pilot spoke up then. "Oh... heavens, no. What is that?"

  Below their ascent and off to one side was a massive pit in the ground. The entire interior was illuminated with lights and colorful banners. An entire city had been built into the ground, and even as they watched, massive doors slid closed over the city, sealing away the horrors that had come from within.

  "A city of indigenous peoples? I guess now we know where the rest of that mob came from. So many of the afflicted, though. More notably, that region lines up with where the first patrol was when they came back infected. But why would the city open up now?" Vilke frowned so hard she could hear it in his voice.

  "No idea. I need to take stock of our next course of action."

  "Listen, I didn't say it before, but I think Dr. Locke was still in the main facility when..." Vilke trailed off.

  "I know,” she bit out.

  She didn't want to think about it. Her soul was never meant for love, it seemed. Dr. Locke was the geneticist in the colony, and as a trial run... she was carrying a genetically designed human baby using a combination of Marielle's DNA and her own. To be blunt, she was carrying their child. Marielle had simply steeled her heart and killed her emotions to force herself onwards. It wouldn’t last forever, but she couldn’t break down yet.

  She needed to focus on work. She opened her phone and checked the communications for any reports on the supplies still left aboard the colony ship when something caught her eye. A communication from one “Sylvia Locke.” Addressed to Major Marielle Smith (soon Maj. Marielle Locke). After a long moment, she opened it. Video mail from just a half an hour before the explosion occurred.

  "Hello darling. You asked me to tell you as soon as I had confirmation, and I can confidently say our baby girl is wonderfully healthy. What do you think of the name Anise? I’m so excited for our wedding next week, and I am glad we could arrange it before I started showing so much I wouldn't fit my dress. Keeping these normal events really helps distract from the hard work of the terraforming project. Keep up the good work on those patrols! I'll be waiting back at our room when you're done for the day. Oh, and tell Vilke I'll be happy to get things ready for him and his wife once she's allowed to come down from the colony ship in the next wave."

  It was all she could do to hold back her tears as she looked at her lover's face in the video message. No matter how many lovers she'd lost or left behind in past lives, it still hurt just as much each time. Marielle had never once received a happy ending with a lover in all her past lives. She had given up on the idea a few hundred years before her life as Marielle, but Sylvia was persistent—and so damn charming—she couldn't lie to herself anymore. Besides, she wanted Marielle to be a DNA donor for the genetic work she had planned. After the cryogenic freezing that carried them through the stars there, the male population was rendered almost completely impotent. They knew in advance that it would be that way, so each of the Hope-class colony ships were staffed with a team of genetic researchers to combine different DNA types into successful offspring that could one day breed into a new, thriving human race on qualifying planets.

  Marielle forced away her tears, aware that her subordinates nearby were watching with pitying gazes as she moved to look for any other info she needed.

  "’Baseline conditions met for human survival have been reached. However, only in a few regions are conditions stable…’ That could explain why that city opened up. It had turned into a bunker to maintain living conditions until we terraformed enough for the restriction to end... and release a horde of those creatures."

  Marielle couldn't believe they had missed such a huge structure underground like that, even with seismic testing. She continued her research and formed a plan, forcing all thoughts of Sylvia out of her mind. First and foremost, she had a job to do. Even if they could return to bury her, she doubted she would even recognize her lover’s body anymore.

  I can't endanger any more lives over my feelings.

  By the time the shuttle docked at the colony ship, she had everything planned and ready. As soon as she reached the intercom access, she used her code for an all-call to address the refugees and the active personnel that were maintaining the ship while the main group was on the planet's surface.

  "All personnel, this is the ship’s captain... Major Kishibe.” Her name was a complicated subject. Functionally, she had two names. One was her Japanese name—Kishibe Mari—and the other was easier for international travel—Marielle Smith—chosen by her American mother. It didn’t help that everyone aboard kept calling her “captain” when her rank was supposed to be Major. “At approximately 1900 hours, the colony power generator exploded due to unknown causes. All personnel who were inside the attached main complex at that time were... lost.

  “Among those lost were the heads of four of the major divisions of the terraforming project, and the head of genetic rehabilitation, Doctor Syl—Sylvia Locke. The loss of these individuals is a shock and I am sure we all lost many close friends and f—family. My condolences for everyone’s losses. We have the personnel to move on and attempt to terraform another planet, however some of the species and subjects we lost from the most recent cargo deployments are irreplaceable. Many specific sections of the food chain in some climate regions were lost, and without them... I fear our next attempt at terraforming will be a failure before we even begin. Normally I would confirm this with the specialists in those fields, but that is not an option now unless I wake up other members of the crew here on board.

  “I am ordering the bridge to chart a return course for Earth with plans to wake up necessary personnel at the edge of the solar system to survey for the status of the planet upon arrival. If we are lucky, the Cooperative Human Advancement Regime will no longer be in power, and the planet will not have been completely ravaged by the fallout of the war and continued environmental collapse. I am sorry I could not save those we lost… but let us stand strong and not despair as we push onwards. That will be all."

  Marielle had a complete roster of surviving crew members prepared along with notes for promoting people into the posts that had been left vacant. She focused on her work, informing her crewmembers of their new positions as she was checked over by automated medical equipment for any abnormalities. Once she was beyond the main medical checkup and decontamination, she pushed on to her quarters, where she meditatively cared for her sword and stored it alongside her old rifle from WW3. She could at least count on them not to rust in storage there.

  Then she opened the incident report she’d been working on, revising it heavily while the exhaustion settled onto her and pulled her into an emotionless state of half-focus.

  First colony attempt unsuccessful. Critical resources have gone up in flames. It started out as a strange sickness. We identified it as a bioweapon that targeted genetic structures in the human genome. We quarantined the infected personnel, but it seemed to mutate and spread rapidly. We knew it was genetically engineered based upon the behavioral patterns, but tests showed it to be far beyond bioweapon technology we saw in World War 3 back on Earth…

  That exhaustion clung to her body as she headed for the bridge to check over the arrangements her crew had made. She felt weaker than she had in all the wars and lives she’d experienced going back over a hundred years. Like a part of her was just… gone.

  Stepping through the doorway, she was greeted by a familiar announcement.

  “Captain on the bridge!”

  "Captain! Fourteen returning individuals from the surface have traces of the bioweapon in their system. We have them in cryo sleep in the quarantine pods of the ship. Course is charted as instructed, and we should arrive back in Earth's system in four hundred eighty-six years."

  "Very good. Continue as you are."

  The ship did not make it to Earth in four hundred eighty-six years. In fact, it never made it at all.