Veritas

Purpose

The effect of these works on officer attrition rates has been promising. Fewer go now, but those that do know the devious tricks the Neila play on our cognizance.

— Lieutenant Kayode

The purpose of "Veritas" was to instruct new officers in the military of the Dominion of Man on the mechanisms of operation of the Neila and how to counter them. The document is thought to have dated to the later years of the first phase of the Solar War, constructed by one Lieutenant Kayode in literary form from interviews with several of the soldiers who were in the initial boarding wave of a battle-station on the asteroid 490 Veritas in the main belt.
"Veritas" was made as part of a larger compendium of "Know Your Enemy: Neila" first-hand accounts to better instruct commanders on how to counter this growing threat.

Read the Document

Veritas

The following is excerpted from the introductory chapter of the manual, from one Sergeant Lewis who made initial planetfall on Veritas.

In the lore of the ancients, the goddess Veritas was supposed to be the goddess of the truth, a daughter of Saturn. How fitting then, that we now fight a race from Saturn, to reclaim the truth for ourselves. My squad has chosen a more covert route compared to the standard preliminary bombardment, activating contingency codes unknown even to the inhabitants of the research station to gain a foothold in the base.
"We've disabled the guns, Lewis," rumbles Jin, my pilot. I smile. Too long I have waited to spill the blood of the alien, to take vengeance for the death of my family. Today we deploy with new suits that may be able to detect the infestation. Our advance force will land soon, twenty-five under my command to secure the orbital docks for further reinforcements. My blood sings in anticipation.
Our shuttle swoops and dives like a falcon, until we hear the sickening thud of our vehicle landing on the reinforced floor of the station, having cut directly through the ceiling using plasma. My heavy weapons team prepares to demolish the gates barring our way into the station, but they never get the chance.

The gates slide open. My optics light up with a blaze of red.
"Daddy? I knew you'd come to save us!"
I try to reconcile my mechanical display with the bubbly youth standing before me. My daughter was one of the many that could not escape the station when the Neila came. I remember begging in the halls of Mars to lead the first wave, to avenge the death that surely befell her.
"Detection of hostile, 10 o'clock," Barrett intones. The voices of my team crackle through my helm, telling me the same thing my optics do. She is dead. A Neila is wearing her skin, using her memories. And yet...
"Sarah, when was the first time you went to Earth?"
She smiles. "I was three! Are we going there when we're done? The strange ones didn't notice me in the cabinet behind the old books. When I heard the explosion I knew you'd come..." her voice fades, as if she remembers some great pain. "I opened the door for you so we can get rid of the others."
"My lens confirms the hostile. Engaging." Serrano raises her marksman rifle, seemingly oblivious to our conversation. She will not miss. She never does.
Sarah seems confused, staring down the barrel with her innocent eyes.
"Wait! My daughter-" I scream.
The sickening crack of a rifle cuts me off. The mass-reactive round finds its way to Sarah's heart before exploding.

A few paragraphs describing Neila ichor and the ambush waiting in the next room are omitted for conciseness.

The room runs black with alien blood as we set up a defensive position to wait for reinforcements.
"I know that you are uncomfortable with what happened," Serrano offers, before I cut her off.
"What if she had been human?"
"She was not."
"But she could have been." I pause, couching my next words with the logic Serrano is more at home with. "There are many false positives on this new device. The probability is non-zero."
"Does it really matter?" Her reply stuns me. "Say we find a human in a suspicious place, perhaps a base once captured by a terror organization. They could potentially kill any of us at any time. Would we kill them?"
"This one was unarmed. They opened the gates for us and impersonated her perfectly. Does it really matter then, if they are alien or human, so long as they are useful?"
"In this situation, an alien is more likely to betray us. There are ways to hurt our team without weapons." Barrett shakes her head, jumping into the conversation. "Such as leading us into the ambush in the next room. In which case, even a human would be suspicious. It's not like spies don't exist in our world."
"What does it mean to be human?" The words escape my mouth before I even think. "If they act human, if they look human, are they not as good as human?" My command squad glances around uncomfortably. They know the anguish that I face. "Would you have shot them if the computer didn't mark them?"
For a long time, silence is their only answer.

Close

Type

Manual, Military

Medium

Digital Recording, Text

Authoring Date

~2973 CE