Copy of a psycho (Dust 514-based story)

Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

As I lay in a pool of my own blood wearing shattered armor, I stare at the sky above and watch what looks like a star flash above me. The light was so beautiful that it shifted my attention from the pain, and the bullets that are quickly causing the collapse of my vital organs. I try to remember the mission, what we're fighting for... and more importantly what I'm fighting for on this planet, but none of that seemed to matter now as I watch what looked like a bright star smash down causing massive casualties.

It wasn't until after I was "reborn" that I realized that it was an orbital strike, beautiful nonetheless. As soon as the neurons of my new brain start to fire, my mind races with a thousand thoughts, but mostly one thought; I am not Varrian Wulf anymore. I stopped being that man the first time I died. Wish I thought about these philosophical implications before becoming a merc, but I wasn't much of a philosopher before before being a corporate murderer needing to escape reality with useless thoughts. I am not me, I am a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. Not because the original matter that made me up no longer in me, since the human body is loses of the matter that originally made it up throughout one's lifespan. Not because of any lack of supernatural identities like a soul, because that is just superstition. It isn't even our memories and emotions and such that make us who we are, a man with his memory erased is still considered the same man. The problem is that I can be perfectly copied, with all my memories, emotions, and mental functions, but my point of view... the window through which I view the world is different. How can I live knowing I am just a copy? Oddly enough its pretty simple, the instinct to survive has always been enough for Varrian Wulf, so as his copy its a good enough reason for me.

The black dropship slowly descends down into the desert while carrying me and my squad, and small ripples form in the sand as the ship lands. The commander, our CEO tells us on our communication channel that several enemy squads have been sighted advancing towards the planetary artillery. We've been given the order to reinforce the perimeter of the artillery. The commander tells us that our capsuleer allies have been destroyed by our enemy's ships, and orbital strikes will keep coming down on us unless we keep the planetary artillery operational to defend against attacking ships.

We unboard the vehicle, and prepare for the enemy. I lag behind the rest of the squad while staring at the back of their armor. The stark contrast of the black shiny armor against the background of this orange desert planet, its almost art. I walked faster to catch up as my squad leader yells at me to catch up. I hear them in the distance laughing about some crude jokes, and trash-talking about the enemy, it becomes harder to hear as the wind blows harder. I can't relate to most other mercenaries in my corporation, I didn't even bother to learn the name of my squad members. I guess I'm bad with the "brothers in arms" squad bonding type stuff. Despite not exactly fitting in, there is a reason I joined this corporation; The CEO Namir Serr, an ambitious Minmatar woman on a path of conquest. Her final goal is to form a society independent of any government, but instead will rule over the four great empires (Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar, and Amarr) from the shadows. She is unaffected by nationalism, or other "dividing poisons", as she calls them, but instead sees opportunities for uniting the four empires where others see conflict. You have to be at least a little insane to pursue such an ambitious goal. I usually don’t care about the goals and feeling of others, but seeing if she will succeed is why I joined this corporation, keeps life interesting. A sandstorm gradually forms, it becomes hard to see, but we eventually reach the waypoint.

Sniper rifles, assault rifles, and rocket launchers pointing forward to scan for approaching enemies through the scopes. We lay down on a cliff overlooking where the enemy should be passing, and wait for the enemy. I use to hate waiting, but now I realize it gives me time to think. In these situations I mostly think about how I will die again, and be reborn... adding yet another layer of falsehood to the name I carry. I tell myself I imagine my own death because its to anticipate, and prevent my death. I am lying to myself. Most of the time my death "predictions" are totally off, but what really bothers me is when I get it right, I hate it, I hate it, I fucking hate it. I hate the thought of seeing myself die, and not being able to stop it. Death terrifies me no matter how many hundreds of times I die, maybe its because I really only die once since I am not my predecessors, they each only die once, just like I will only die once, and my next clone will just be a copy... no, that isn’t why I'm afraid, its nothing that complex. The self-preservation instinct doesn't care that I am "immortal".

I hear commander Serr on the speaker of my jet black helmet, She tells us 3 vehicles are almost at the planetary artillery; two Gallente light attack vehicles (LAV), and an Caldari heavy attack vehicle (HAV) guarded by four soldiers. I look past the dust storm through the scope of my assault rifle. The squad leader tells the snipers and rocket launcher-carrying members of the squad to fire on the count of three. In the seconds before we unleash hell on the unsuspecting enemy, I think about how I've always thought I would be a sniper, but never had the patience for it. The squad leader barks "fire!" with his abrasive voice, perfectly matching the gunshot sounds and explosions that followed. Rockets smash into the HAV causing substantial damage, and one of the LAV's. The LAV explodes in a bright blaze. two of the soldiers guarding the HAV got taken care of by the snipers. The two other soldiers run forward in search of cover, while dodging sniper rail shots as the second LAV humvee explode behind them from rockets. A soldier emerges from the burning wreckage of the second LAV crawling, but carrying a rocket launcher. My squad leader calls for suppressive fire, but a rocket smashes into the cliff causing the edge to get blown apart and collapse. The two snipers of the squad laying on the edges fall to their death and get buried under rubble, assuming they didn't die from the explosion. I start to panic a bit, but I tell myself we still have the high ground. I aim down the scope to try to get a a lock on the enemy mercs, the soldier on the ground prepares to fire another devastating rocket strike, but not before I pull the trigger. A feeling of great anticipation always floods my mind before I make a kill, and this time was no different. The bullets roar, they erupt from the barrel in a bright flash, and half a magazine gets emptied into his flesh. I could never stop smiling as I watch people die, nothing makes me feel more alive, nothing else makes me feel much of anything actually.

The rest of my squad joins me in a symphony of automatic fire, and smashing rockets against the HAV. The enemy peeks up from behind their cover to fire back at us, as we exchange shots, the HAV fires its cannon. The blast rips through the helmet of our squad leader, I watch his body fly back. I wish he could see his skull fragments crumbling apart like glass, and his jelly brain being liquified by the blast. I have a camera module fitted into my helmet recording the destruction of his head, but I doubt the beautiful way he died would be appreciated by him though. So far we lost three squad members, including our squad leader. One of our remaining squad members peeks down to fire one last rocket and destroys the HAV. The commander sends a transmission telling us reinforcements are on the way, including allied capsuleers. We shoot another one of them, the thrill of taking a life is almost too much. It feels like we're about to win, we're about to... somehow I’m in a pool of blood again.

I'm waking up in a clone with fresh armor and weapons once again, I am no longer the same copy that I was before. Fuck, I died, and apparently so did everyone else. They tell me that I was shot in the head from behind, and that the mercs engaged were a distraction from the real attacking force. Hopefully the reinforcements gets there in time to prevent the enemy from disabling the planetary artillery.

We are told the capsuleers are handling the attacks on the artillery, and that we along with two other squads are to head over to the primary objective in dropships. We’ve been ordered to defend the energy mainframe of our outpost from enemy attacks. They are attempting to stop the mainframe from directing energy to our mobile command center’s shields, so they can destroy it. Our squad leader is being pissy, “I rather go back there and kill those fuckers!.. I can still almost feel my face being ripped apart by that HAV cannon” he said. I hate his voice so damn much, I’m pondering murdering him, but would be kind of hard to explain it to his copy, I’m pretty sure his next clone won’t share my view that he isn’t the same person as the clone that was killed by me, so yeah.. his clone will take it personally. “Fucking cowards should fought me like men instead of staying inside that..” his annoying macho sentence was interrupted by the loud crashing sound of friendly orbital strike. The dropship shook violently as a result, most of us fell off our seats. We position ourselves back on our seats, I’m still thinking of killing the squad leader.

I hold the my assault rifle close like a gentle pet while I distract myself with violent thoughts. I learned its best to keep these thoughts to myself, the Minmatar military apparently wasn’t too happy about finding out about my antisocial personality disorder, turns out most people aren’t comfortable with psychopaths with guns.