Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Bad Guy ❯ Chapter 6

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
John had lost track of time since he left the Male homeworld. As he got closer to unknown space he found himself evading not only his fellow Males but also the Females, who were allowed to keep their own forces. By this point he had lost any regard he once had for his Imperial Forces rank, and he now saw himself simply as a renegade.

Finally, he reached an area of outside Imperial control. He set the ship down on an asteroid and then looked through the ship to see what supplies he had. His unfamiliarity with Female ship designs caused the search to take twice as long as it normally would have. When he was done, the news wasn't good; there was only enough food to last a month. (It would be a few day's worth if it was feeding a crew, as intended.) This meant he would soon have to go back into the Empire to resupply.

To kill some time, he turned on the video screen and happened upon a report of a battle of the War. He recognized the details and the report, realizing this was the last battle he ever fought in. Then he noticed something; his XO during the time was being referred to as the ship's captain. John figured he might've been removed from the Empire's official history, but it still stung. The report addressed "rumors" of a Bad Guy who'd taken part in the battle, dismissing them as lies made up by "traitors" and "Females insurgents".

He was about to plan out his next move what he realized something; he just didn't care anymore.

When he first joined the Imperial Forces all those years earlier, he had no doubt about the righteousness of the Empire's cause, or his own. He knew for a fact that Bad Guys were scum, and it was his right and duty as a citizen to torment them. He also dreamed endlessly about the Empire's inevitable victory over the Females, who would be restored to their rightful place under Male dominance. For him knowing these things seemed as natural as breathing.

Gradually, though, this worldview fell apart. When the Empire declared him a Bad Guy, he knew he'd done nothing to deserve it, and that it had to be a mistake. The way the state dismissed his protests and cast him out of society made him question how just the system really was. His banishmest to an assignment that meant certain death was the final straw; at that point he realized he never meant anything to those in power, and that at any time any one of his ex-comrades could suffer the same fate. He now cursed himself for ever buying into any of it. Still, he couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for his ex-Supervisor, Samuel Jones, who was now a Bad Guy himself. (John discoverved this through an intercepted message from the Ministry of Freedom.)

In short, he no longer had any motivation to go on. It was only a matter of time before he starved to death or was recaptured. He decided it would be best for him to end it on his own terms. He powered the reactor up to maximum, and then vented all the coolant. He now had less than an hour to live. That was long enough to record one final message and launch it into Imperial space.

He began recording. "Hi. This is John Roberts," he said. "If a Male citizen is watching this, know that I was once like you. A Male with no doubts about the Empire. That is, until I was betrayed by the very people I'd sworn to serve. They made me into the one thing I used to hate, just so you'd have something to rally against. All so they could keep their grip on power. Now, with the Females conquered, we've lost our best hope of ending this tragedy. Still, ask yourself, isn't there any part of you that doubts whether we're doing the right thing? Can we be doing better?"

He was going to leave it at that, but he had one more thing to say. "On the other hand, if you are a Female, I'm asking you not to give up on your dreams of freedom. You fought against us for generations, and it would be a shame for you just quit now. Your government may have submitted, but you still have a chance to do the right thing. That's all." He stopped recording and save the video file onto a probe.

He then watched it shoot out of the ship toward the Empire. It was at a safe distance by the time the ship's reactor went critical; John was vaporized before he had a chance to feel anything. The probe gradually made its way into Imperial space before coming across a ship, which brought it aboard. It was another week before the crew saw fit to inspect their new cargo. They looked at the probe, noticed there was a message, and decided to watch it.

THE END