“You are maggots,” Philips growled as he stalked across the lined-up men and women. “You might think yourself fancy bastards on account of being able to bend spoons and wipe your arse without your hands, but you’re worth nothing to me. You’re idiots, greener than fresh grass, and you’re not worth the dust on my boots.”
The twenty-three not-yet-soldiers dressed in the pitch black of naval armsmen stood at varying levels of attention. Some of them made the mistake of rolling eyes at him.
His experienced eyes picked out the toughest, meanest looking motherfucker out of the bunch. It was a weathered old biddy, by the name of Petra. Despite her advanced age, he knew she was a tenacious bitch and, in absence of Scaiffe, she was the de facto leader of the cabal.
He rounded on her and came to a halt less than an inch from her face. “Do you disagree with that statement, soldier?”
The woman’s eyes met his, amusement visible in them. She was one of the few who had enough experience behind her to understand how this song and dance went. She offered him her best at attention and shouted “Sir, no sir!”
He gave a satisfied nod and prowled down the line, looking for his next victim. There was nothing random about it. He knew who had rolled their eyes. Could see the slouch of some of them. Some of these men and women were unsure. Others just wanted to be let loose at the ones that had locked them up. Others were genuinely scared of him.
Good.
He came to a stop in front of Ooster, a mountain of a man, gifted with strong psionic abilities. The man had been a butcher before his kidnapping, and a loud lout besides. While not a hardened criminal, his slate hadn’t been particularly clean either.
“Rolling your eyes, are we?” he barked at the man, who did it again. Ooster towered over him, and the man’s sixth sense was stronger than his. “If you have that much energy to spare, you can drop down and give me forty.”
“Make me,” the man laughed.
The answer I’ve been waiting for.
He didn't hesitate, lashing out with a vicious punch, slamming it directly below Ooster’s ribcage. The man’s laughter evaporated as Philips drove his fist upward, forcing the air out of his lungs. The man retaliated with his sixth sense, even as was pushed back. Philips tore the wave of raw power to ribbons. Ooster coughed heavily and the fight was still in his eyes. He shouldered through the pain and attacked him, but the man was no trained fighter and a short sweep later the butcher was down on the ground.
Philips walked away, point made. The larger man growled threateningly and tried to get up, but a swift shove with his own sixth sense saw the man’s head slam into the metal floor plates, rendering him unconscious.
“MAGGOTS,” he roared again, putting on his best drill sergeant voice. This time there were none who rolled their eyes, and their at attentions were straighter. Far from perfect, but better. “Since Ooster is no longer capable of doing his duty, it is you who will pick up the slack. All of you, down on the ground, now! And give me forty!”
Scaiffe broke open the lock, using more finesse than she usually would have bothered with. She knew the cabal was in training, but they were kept away from her, at the other side of the vessel. She knew she was being isolated from the others, and while she did not know why, she doubted it was done with her best interests at heart.
And as the door slid open, revealing the giant, armoured form of Charger, she knew she was right.
She had been ready for it, though, and the wave she launched at him would have been more than sufficient to blow any soldier, tin canned or not, through the hallway and into the wall.
Instead he only slid back a few inches, before he plucked her off the ground and launched her through the hallway. She crashed violently into the ground, skidded once, then rolled the rest of the way.
She got up quickly, her own fury evaporating the pain she felt, but Charger was quicker still and before her eyes regained their focus, she felt how a massive gauntlet picked her up by her waist and squeezed. She screamed in excruciating pain, and the grip lessened some, making it barely tolerable.
“You going to be good?” came his grinning voice.
She tried to grasp his mind, crush it, but found only emptiness.
“Come on,” he repeated, his laughter booming through the hallway as he jiggled her. “I like your fire, so tell me you’ll be good, and I don’t have to squish you until your innards shoot out your nose.”
She hated it. Hated the way he spoke to her, how she was ridiculed and… How she was utterly powerless.
“I’ll be good,” she finally admitted, causing the giant to unceremoniously drop her to the floor.
“There, wasn’t too hard now, was it?” He knelt beside her, still towering over her. “I’ll let you in on a little trick. You and I, we are pretty similar.” He looked around the hallway. “Neither of us likes orders too much, but here’s the thing. Stop making an absolute ass out of yourself, accept that you’ll not get a win by trying to brute-force this shit, and start using your head. Even I shot the bastard manning the machinegun before body-slamming everyone into paste.”
With those words of wisdom imparted, he patted her on the head, giving her a concussion in the process, before getting up and walking away, whistling a tune as he went.
The moment the giant rounded the corner, Scaiffe tried getting up, pain, rage and fear warring with one another for supremacy. She began to limp back to her room, trying to clear the dizziness from her head. Hate it as she might, Charger was right. Every attempt she made to break her isolation lead in her way being barred. Until now it had always been by dint of encountering locked doors. Harmless. Until she decided to break the rules. She grimaced as she sucked in a bit too much air and realised she had probably broken a few ribs.
She finally made it back to her room, a cabin now surrounded by silence and emptiness. There were no others left around her. She had been isolated in the dead of night. Not that it surprised her that she had not noticed it. She had made liberal use of her requisition slip and pulled a lot of sleeping drugs out of the nearest medbay. It kept the nightmares at bay. She typically preferred to stay on a hair trigger in a hostile environment, but… As both Charger and the Commander had said, she had no way of defeating them. If they wanted her dead, she’d end up dead, with no means to fight back.
For now, she promised herself. She did not yet know how she would accomplish her vengeance, only that she would. Maybe I can work on Charger… she pondered. He seems to chafe at the leash. It was something. There were malcontents in every organisation. She would find them, and use them. Provided she broke the isolation.
She was pulled out of her thoughts of vengeance by the beeping of her datapad. She coughed once. It proved sufficient for the system’s sensors and it began to play its message.
“An appointment has been made in medbay delta-five-seven at shipboard time fourteen hundred.”
She tried to scream in rage, only to be cut short by the pain of her broken ribs stabbing into her lungs.
“By all the damned Hells,” she wheezed. “I’ll see…” she shook her head, not finishing the sentence. No doubt they were listening in.
She allowed herself to crash onto her bed, using her mind to slowly fold the metal chair into a small ball. I can’t win in a stand up fight, she admitted to herself. It was not easy to do so. She had always been the queen bitch. The ruler of all around her. Everyone bowed to her, or was broken by her. She had never, never, tolerated the idea that someone else might best her. Temporarily cause her to back down, sure, but to actually outclass her?
Yet she wasn’t so blinded by her own arrogance that she couldn’t admit defeat. Even ignoring whatever eldritch being the Commander was, ignoring the mysterious existence of Charger and his ilk, even fucking Philips had her outclassed. The man had torn her attack to bits with surgical precision, and shown her the difference in physical ability.
No… she thought darkly. I can’t win that way.
She switched off the lights and bathed in total darkness. Laying on her bed, staring at the invisible ceiling, she tried something she had never done before.
She would be a good girl.
She fully and totally accepted being weak, accepting the cruel reality that she was no match for any of them.
And then she began to think of a way to amend that Hells’ damned situation.
“The team has potential, sir,” Philips reported, coming down from his salute. He was a captain now. Captain Delgusta of Fireteam Paraenesis. Voids, didn’t that feel weird. Besides him stood Sergeant Diristi, wrinkles and all. Petra was the only person on the team older than him, and she surpassed his age by a fair margin. Yet, for all that, and for all her reluctance to talk about her past —not that he didn’t know, the Commander had given him the psych files on everyone, and they were scarily detailed— she was the most reliable asset on the team, and they were rapidly growing fast friends. She had a mean streak he adored, and he could not help but wonder how someone who used to be a stereotypical friendly grandmother could have ended up with a core of cold iron.
The Commander rolled their head. “Of course they do. I chose the composition specifically with that in mind.” He could feel the grin.
Smarmy bastard, Philips thought, not unkindly. “As you do, sir,” he smartly replied, causing Shredder to hide a laugh behind a cough, and Vector to radiate displeasure. Petra didn’t reply, but he could feel her amusement. There was little he could sneak by her.
The Commander snickered at his remark, earning them another point in their favour. “Kill my fun, Captain, sure. Your report then.”
“General cohesion is good. Strong even. Their ties as members of the cabal and survivors of the prison glue them well together, even if there’s a lot of headstrong individuals in them. Sergeant Diristi ensures they do not step out of line though.”
The woman’s face turned even more wrinkled as she flashed a mean grin, giving off a vibe of malicious content. He was surprised she didn’t begin to purr.
“She holds their respect, and functions well as the bridge between myself and them. The earlier showdowns with the more rowdy privates have established my authority, to an extent. They obey. Here,” he added, earning him a nod.
“I’m assuming that’s the prelude to a request to begin field training?”
“Not quite, sir,” he shrugged. “It’s the prelude to a request to request it.”
How the hell do they make me know they roll their eyes without moving and with a stars-blasted helmet on? he wondered. Still, they kept quiet and so he continued. “They’re too green to go off the ship. From all those gathered I don’t trust any but the Sergeant and Corporal Schulder,” he elaborated, referring to one of his three corporals. Then, tilting his head. “Specalist Briena excluded,” he amended, naming the one non-psionic soldier of his team.
Marie Briena was a frightening woman. She seemed young, mid-twenties, but he knew that was utter bullshit. She was well over fifty, was an accomplished scientist, augmented to the stars and back, and was distinctly lacking in morals. She had already made several highly unsuitable remarks. He doubted it would be long before she’d end up in bed with at least one member of his fireteam. Stars knew she had already claimed a number of victims in the other teams. Yet the moment she was on duty she was a paragon of professionalism.
She had been a gift from the Commander, who figured he needed an ace in the hole. Marie had proved to be reliable and trustworthy, and given that the Commander themselves had assigned the woman to his team, he knew he could count on her. He liked her well enough, though. She was crazy, and would have fit in well with the Delta Goons.
Corporal Schulder, on the other hand, was a simple straight-shooter. He wanted vengeance for those that had kidnapped and tortured him, and was perfectly willing to sell his soul to the Commander and the Outfit, as everyone seemed to call it, to get what he wanted. There was little room for other thoughts in the man’s head.
“I can keep them in line, if you want,” he heard the Commander suggest.
A shiver ran through his back at those words, something Petra noticed. He hadn’t told her. Wouldn’t either. “No thank you, Commander, I’d rather they do it of their own volition.” And not have to put up with the entire unit having nightmares every damned time they close their eyes. He liked the Commander well enough, and his gut didn’t disagree with him there, but the thing frightened him to his very core and he had the feeling that the what of it was best kept under as many wraps as possible.
Another grin that slipped out of the helmet. “Alternatively, I could send Shredder and her team down there. Would make for a nice OPFOR.”
He barked out a laugh. “No thanks, I choose life. They’re not ready for that yet, Commander. Not by a long shot. Stars above, most of them still haven’t cleared basic weapon training, let alone any of the advanced courses. I still got half of them struggling with wearing their combat armour. Power armour training isn’t scheduled until halfway next month!”
“We would adjust our strength accordingly,” Shredder cheerily commented “I would ensure it would be a good training exercise. It would let the men bond.” She shook her head. “So far I’ve been having issues trying to get the rest of the psionics to properly integrate in the larger picture.”
“You have only recently started,” Vector countered. “They have a lot of traumatic memories to overcome, in addition to psych profiles regarding humans with psionic potential being less accurate.”
It was said in a cold, neutral voice, but Philips had the impression that the ever-calculating man did care, in his own way. He already knew he would never like Vector, the man lived and breathed his work and ceased to exist beyond that, but he could respect him for his ability. Especially since the bridge officer pulled double duty as quartermaster, and treated his requisition requests with incredible speed.
“Still,” Shredder sighed, “I’m disappointed by the lack of headway. I think field exercises might make up for that a little. It would be nice to not have to deploy in a sensitive environment for a change,” she pouted.
There was a definite “I never get to play with the big toys” vibe emanating from the woman. Given that she was currently going about with an oversized plasma-caster, he was quietly certain that he did not want to be anywhere near those toys.
Clearly those thoughts were visible on his face, because he felt the woman give him a wink. “Don’t worry, Captain. I’ll not break out the portable fission bomb launcher during training.”
He heard the words, but his brain required a few seconds to parse the full meaning. “Funny,” he finally remarked, hoping that she was joking. The words “fission bomb” weren’t ones that should ever end up in the same sentence with “portable”.
“No,” he told the Commander firmly, putting the distractions aside. “No field training.”
“You’re breaking her heart, Cap,” the Commander tsk’d. “No way to treat a lady, for sure.”
“I’ll take her heart over my bones,” Philips sighed, his eyes rolling towards the ceiling in exasperation. “I would appreciate it if we got access to a large carbo bay and had free reign in remodelling it. I want to run some MOUT drills and see if I can get them used to basic tactics.”
“Done. Bay thirty-nine C will be repaired shortly, meet up with Captain Grauss to discuss the details. When you’re done with that, I want you to think up some scenarios where your team can use their psionic abilities in conjunction with weapons. Once you get the basics of that down, I’ll add some choice exercises of my own. I want your team up to speed within half a year at most. Our first target will be a relatively soft one. Computer node for a central banking system. We’re going to play terrorist there. It’s a soft target, picked specially for you. No civilians. Just security.”
Philips’ eyebrows shot up. “And the catch?”
He felt the grin. “Lots of security. You’ll not want to trigger it on the way in, and you’ll want plenty distractions on the way out. I’ll debrief you fully once the deadline nears.”
“You’re all heart. Sir.” He offered a half-hearted salute and turned on his heels, exiting the bridge. Petra fell in line right beside him.
She waited until they’d put a fair amount of distance between themselves and the bridge, before speaking up. “Philips,” she said, the words barely audible. “What in the name of the good heavens are we dealing with?”
He smirked, but it didn’t bother her. She had a suspicion he knew much about her history, but he kept quiet, and she appreciated that. “Honestly? I’ve no idea, and I’m fairly certain I’ll be happier not knowing.”
“Karos preserve me,” she whispered. “What kind of beings have no soul?”
She felt the turmoil in his mind, the fear, confusion… The hope. Philips, whether he knew it himself or not, was doubling down in his new role. She knew a little about him. Not much, but enough. That he had a wife and daughter. That he too lost everyone he cared for. And that he too, like her, was bereft of a goal. Surviving had a nice enough ring to it, but the idea of vengeance was a difficult one. Alluring, for sure, but the both of them were old and wise enough to understand the size of the organisation they would face, should they walk that path.
Little surprise either of them were willing to sign up with a power that had shown itself capable of going toe to toe with the fuckers.
“I don’t know, Petra,” he growled, cold anger permeating his every word. “Frankly, I don’t really think I care either.” He looked over his shoulder, his eyes clear, the emotions neatly contained and used to fuel the fire. “Do you?”
She felt a smile creep on her face. “No, Captain,” came her quiet reply, voicing his rank almost endearingly. “I suppose I don’t. The question, however,” she continued, barely audible, “is how far you will go to get your vengeance?”
He let out a grunt and gestured for her to follow, changing directions. “Not something to be discussed in the open hallways. Let’s move to the Spot.”
The two walked through the batwing doors, both of them still marvelling at the sight of them. Aside them being highly impractical, it had to have been quite the undertaking to get actual wooden doors that relied on hinges aboard a warship, let alone manging to install them. It did fit with the rest of the bar, though, as the entire thing resembled a saloon from the times the Wild West was still a thing, up to and including the piano and its semi-drunk pianist.
“Heya Emelen,” Philips greeted the bartender, who had already begun pouring two large pints. He got a nod in turn, and by the time they made it to the bar and sat themselves down, the two glasses were already sliding towards them. He grinned as he caught them both and gave the man a nod. Another nod in turn and the drinks were added to his tab. Delightful simple and efficient system.
The bar was relatively empty at this point, only about a dozen and a half people there. All of them officers, leaders, ranking sergeants or similar. They were congregated at a few round tables, cards, curses and coins of all things exchanging hands and mouths freely. It was the kind of friendly shouting and threatening that he had missed. Nostalgia for his time in the Goons threatened to overwhelm him, and he forced his mind to think of the Commander instead. Cold showers had nothing on that.
“So,” Emelen asked Petra. “How you settling in?”
“Right as rain, dear. Right as rain. I do so like what you’ve done with the place. Must have been a lot of work to import all of this.”
“You’d think so,” he grinned broadly, gesturing at the countless antiquities dotting the saloon with his elbows, his hands occupied with drying a glass. “But honestly, all I had to do was send in the requisition forms for foreign acquisitions for morale support and Vector did the rest.” He let out a deep laugh that came from within his belly. “Toughest thing was the oil for the lamps and varnish for the wood. Guy’s surprisingly hard-bitten when it comes to filling out forms for dangerous goods out correctly.” The laugh doubled in strength, somehow not disturbing the rest of the patrons. Philips snickered in turn. He liked the idea of a man encased in power armour, sitting on the bridge of a heavily armed battlecruiser, making a fuss about the dangers of varnish.
“And you keep it all so tidy, too,” Petra complimented.
“Part of the job. I get paid a fair bit to keep everyone supplied, and I’ve always fancied running a saloon, ever since I was little. My dad told me that if I wanted to make a dream come true, I’d better not twiddle my fingers after getting it. He was a mechanic. Told me dreams needed maintaining just as much as any other machine.”
Her nose crinkled up in amusement. “A wise man, your dad. Do you remain in touch?”
“I do!” the man exclaimed happily, finally putting the long dry glass aside and fishing out a small bowl with snacks from under the counter. “Doesn’t know all I do, of course. Knows I’m a merc and a saloon owner at that.” A warm grin. “Even sent him a picture of this place with all the boys in it that the Spot could hold. Faces neatly blurred, of course, but it made him proud.”
Philips grinned into his beer as he listened to the two rattle on, moving his attention towards the rest of the gathered soldiers. The emotions swirled freely throughout the room, revealing the happy, relaxed state of the men and women even as they cried out in mock anger or joy as they lost or won a hand. It was hard to fake that mindset. He allowed himself to relax, to enjoy the atmosphere and the surprisingly good beer.
“It’s nice here.” Petra’s words were accompanied by a slight pressure of her mind, letting him know she was talking to him now.
“It is,” he replied.
“So.” She let the word peter out.
He took a large swig, before turning the stool towards her. “How far will I go. A fair question, I suppose. Were it not for the fact that I think I proved it amply by refusing to join the cabal. By being perfectly willing to take down the queen bitch, even if it cost me my own life.” Another sip, and he kept his eyes on his glass. “I survived that hellhole for a good while. Eight years, it turns out.” He looked up from his beer. “You were there for six months, by the way. Just to give you an idea.”
Petra let out a long, deep whistle. There was no hostility coming from the man, but he was definitely defensive. “You’ve no need to consider me an enemy, Philips. Nor do I desire to compare myself to you. We both know I left my own morals quite behind when I decided to get vengeance, long before I was ever captured.”
He nodded, confirming her suspicions that he knew her past.
“I’ve done things. Things I’ve not proud of. Not everyone who I hurt was… guilty. Some were in the way. Some were innocent, and I didn’t believe them until it was too late. Others just tried to help those who truly were guilty, never knowing the truth,” she whispered, her voice hoarse as the memories raged through her minds. Fragments of emotion, of hate and anger, blood and violence leaked out. Of pain and regret. Of loss and lament. She was the one to cast down her eyes this time.
“It seemed for every bastard’s life I ended, I had to kill half a dozen innocents. I made the trade. Gladly. Eagerly. They had destroyed everything I had cared for, so I did the same to them, never stopping to consider the raw destruction I left in my wake. I was a monster.”
Her tirade was interrupted by soft snickering. Her eyes shot up, anger flaring up at hearing him laugh at the tale of her hurt, of her misdeeds. Until she met his eyes and realised there was pity in them, besides the amusement.
“Stars, Petra,” he smiled at her, a gentle blanket of emotions swirling around him. “You’re not a monster. You’re a civvie. Were one, at least,” he gestured with his glass to her uniform. “Voids, I’ve long since lost count of how many I’ve killed for reasons far more petty than yours.” He shook his head. “The Goons once had a stroke of bad luck. No real contracts, no income for months. We stood by our unit, knew things would eventually turn. First real job we got was defending a cargo train full of supplies. Can’t even remember the name of the planet. We just called it dustbowl. We were attacked. Hundreds of them streaming out of the forest and throwing themselves at us. They had power tools, handguns. Nothing that really threatened us. We responded with fusillades, suppressive fire, grenade barrages and everything. They were starving civilians. Poor, desperate fucks. We wiped them out, the survivors fleeing back into the undergrowth.” He smiled as he spoke. “With that pay-out, I took my wife to a small, dirt-cheap restaurant at the starport, for our fifteenth wedding anniversary. With that pay-out, I bought my girl some new clothes she sorely needed. “
He reached over and plucked a caramelised breadstick out of the bowl Emelen had put out for them, swinging it towards her. “Your mistake is thinking life is fair. What you did back then wasn’t fair, I’ll not disagree with you on that, but it was oh so very human. You think I felt happy mowing those hapless sods down? Of course I didn’t. But by doing my job I ensured my wife was happy. I ensured I could care for my family. And that was why I did it. Me, and every other man and woman in the Goons who stood besides me that day. The difference between what you did, what I did, and a real monster, Petra, is the why of it. You never did it to hurt others. You did it because you were hurt, and wanted to make the ones responsible pay. Just as I shot those farmers to protect my own family. And," he added, "you don't celebrate your actions or claim they were righteous."
He snapped the breadstick in half, pulverising the bit he had in his hand. “Scaiffe, on the other hand, hurts people for the sake of hurting.”
She tried to hide the shaking of her hand as she reached out for one of the snacks herself, using it as a distraction. His words were weighty, but it was the raw conviction radiating from his mind that shook her to her core. “It seems strange that you hang on to your morals then,” she countered.
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“Bollocks. I chose my family’s wellbeing over the lives of people I didn’t know. I chose them having food, clothes and being happy. Doesn’t mean I’m happy having to blow a poor sucker’s brains out over it, but if me being unhappy is all it takes to keep them happy, that’s a trade I’m glad to make.”
He reached for the snack bowl again, pulling out a small drumstick. He swung it at her as he continued. “Now the only people left I give a damn about are the people in the squad. I’m a merc again, and I follow those rules. Does that mean I’ll start gunning down people left and right? Fuck no! But if you or any other bastard under my command gets stuck in a situation where my only options are fighting my way out, I’m not going to go, oh, I might hurt some poor sod so I’ll just let everyone die. It’s a matter of proportionality. Just because I’ll happily body a heroic idiot blocking our path, doesn’t mean I’ll casually start tossing grenades in a fucking orphanage so I can hear their voids damned screams!”
She was about to ask him to calm down, given that he was now shouting loud enough for the whole saloon, as well as that he was standing up and wielding the drumstick like a weapon, when a memory flashed by her mind. Of exactly that happening. She paled, then paled further as she realised the memory wasn’t his.
His unrelenting hate for Scaiffe suddenly made a lot more sense.
Even so, she pulled him down onto his stool again. She glared at the other mercs, who turned their heads again. Some quickly, clearly not wanting to be involved, others with worry in their stare. And two she caught staring with more understanding than she was comfortable with.
“I’m not a saint, Petra,” he growled, his voice returning to a more acceptable level. “But there are lines I won’t cross. Cooperating with a monster, or haplessly slaughtering everything in my path for vengeance are things I’ll not do. Not now, not ever.” More memory shards leaked out of him. Things he’d seen her do in the prison. Things his sixth sense had picked up from her. Things she had gleefully shown him. Monstruous atrocities she had committed just because she could.
She pulled up walls around her mind. She thought she’d done bad things, but…
Philips didn’t give her an I-told-you-so-grin. She hadn’t truly expected it from him, either. He was older than most of the others, and much wiser too. Even now he was far more calm and collected than she would have been, had their places been reversed. Instead he looked at her with weariness.
“You want to kill her,” she suddenly realised, the truth crystal clear.
“Yes,” came the simple admission.
“This isn’t about vengeance at all. Not entirely. You want to stop her from bringing more harm.”
The smile he gave her was an exhausted but determined one.
She downed her beer, needing it. Motioned for Emelen to slide her another, and got it before she even fully finished the motion. She drank half of that before she managed to pull herself together enough to speak again. “So what does that mean for us? For the mission?”
“Same shit, different day,” he sighed, pulling up his shoulders. “You’re my unit. I try to keep you alive long enough to get paid at the end of the day. I bicker with the Commander about whose day we’re going to ruin. I try to find a way to kill Scaiffe without getting anyone innocent caught in the crossfire.” He raised his glass in a mock toast, emptied it, and caught the new one Emelen slid to him without even turning.
“I see. And vengeance doesn’t factor into it?”
He let out a deep, dark laugh. It wasn’t the sound of a mad man, but it came scarily close to it. Would have been well into the regions where insanity dwelled, had it not been for that look into his eyes. “And who do I get my vengeance on? The men who pulled the trigger on my wife and daughter, on my friends and family? The men who ordered it? Whatever powers that be that hold the strings?”
Another not-quite-mad chuckle. “I got a glimpse at the extent of what we’re up against.” His emotions span around him, whirling like a storm. She caught only flashes of it, and her mind reared back in shock at the slightest touch. There were hints of darkness in there. Of the deep, unending, all-encompassing kind.
She met his eyes, her own wide in shock. They were lucid, grounded, and filled with the memory of something nobody should come to face.
“Mortals,” he snickered,” need not apply.”
Scaiffe snapped the book shut, growling a list of slurs as she reached out for her datapad. She flicked through the tabs. Three dictionaries, two tactical books and a dozen wikipedia pages flashed by, before she finally landed on the ship’s internal site. Two dozen curses and a hundred clicks later, she finally found the page about penetrative values on munition types for fortifications of the military and civilian kind. Which were a fucking lot of fucking big words for what demolished what best.
She groaned, swore, complained, consistently toyed with the chair as she either folded it into a ball, or unfolded it back into a chair. The metal was already weakening, and she knew it was a matter of time before she’d have to ask for a new one. Humbly.
In the weeks since her encounter with Charger, she had changed her approach. If they would not let her reach the rest of her cabal, then she would not try to reach them. If they wanted to keep her isolated, she would accept it. If they wanted Philips to play leader for a bunch of weaklings, she’d not interfere. She understood the balance of power, and knew she was at the very bottom. And to reach the top, she’d have to overcome one hell of an inclination.
And so she’d begun to study. The Commander, whatever the hell their game was, did not deny them access to information. Countless reports on the missions this band of military-minded misfits had passed in front of her eyes. They had hit, over the span of decades, hundreds of installations. Preliminary reconnaissance reports, diversionary attacks, hit-and-runs, demolitions, disruptions, distractions, overwhelming assault, suppressive fire, leapfrogged advance, elimination of key targets, breakthrough, encirclement, flash-and-clear, close quarters combat, advancing-by-pairs, … The list of tactics employed was endless and overwhelming.
She hated reading every hellish word. She did not care how grenades or flashbangs were used to clear buildings. She did not care how drones could be used to find snipers. Did not care how angular plates could deflect incoming fire. Certainly did not care how advanced types of smoke grenades could obscure the visible light spectrum as well as thermal vision.
Yet she soldiered on. Both Philips and the Commander had made it abundantly clear that she was no match for either of them when it came to actual combat. Philips, arrogant bastard that he was, laboured under the impression that she was no more but a violent animal, possessing no intelligence save but for what her hedonistic tendencies pushed her towards.
The Commander, on the other hand, seemed to be playing a different game. They were the one she was most wary of.
She had thought long and hard on what to do, what direction to take. Her current strengths were woefully insufficient. For long, cold days, she had locked herself up in her room, knowing that even there she was not fully safe. She had felt like a child again, before her psionic abilities had manifested. Where she was powerless to fight against her abusers. She had scratched her skin until it had been raw and bleeding, echoes of cigarette burns, needles, beatings and rape tormenting her and keeping her from sleeping. The pain had deafened the sting of it, the blood forming a veil over the memories of her past, still as sharp to the touch as ever.
Then her abilities had awakened. She would never forget the sense of elation as the realisation had struck her. Tendrils of power had unfurled from her mind like petals around a pistil. Her mind expanded and reeled, her newfound might roiling like an enraged sea, waves of understanding, of strength, crashing into the edges of her awareness, pushing it out further with every heartbeat until it had encompassed everything around her.
She remembered it vividly, as if it had happened only yesterday. Laying on the ground, bleeding from a large gape in her cheek, her body beaten black and blue and covered in other wounds. She recalled looking up at her owners as they loomed over her. Undressed, their entire bodies speaking of lust and rampant desires. They advanced on her, as they always did, planning to take her. They’d hurt her more, even if she offered no resistance. It was the way they played. It was how life went. If she was lucky, they’d drug her up with something good before they started to get really violent. The memory of how she had prayed for them to overdose her, to finally end it, sickened her. The weakness of it disgusted the woman she was now.
They had, but it had not killed her. Instead, it had awakened her. Not that it had any discernible differences. Twitching, vomiting, screaming, … all the things she usually did when others tormented her, raped her, hit her, abused and tortured her, she still did. No, nothing had been different. Outwardly.
Inwardly, it had been so much worse. She had been unable to comprehend the influx of emotions, and had cowered. The sensation of what was being done to her warned with the feelings of elation of those doing it to her. Pain met pleasure, abhorrence met delight, wrong met right. It was a clash of polar opposites, an endless streams of thoughts, sensations and emotions no child could or should comprehend.
Her mind had lashed out in pure, blind panic, seeking to silence the choir of voices. And so it had. She recalled the scream she let out. The energy that accompanied it. The bed underneath her had splintered, the massive, decorated pillars turning to splinters, the covers torn to shreds. Her tormentors had not even had time to realise what had happened. They were not blown back and slammed into the walls, no… Satisfaction oozed alongside blood as her teeth pierced her lower lip, her body trembling in ecstasy at the memory.
They had been evaporated by the blast.
Back then she had been but a child, incapable of comprehending the things done to her. She had been helpless, only capable to dwell in the pain inflicted on her, and doing her best to remain standing, the power of her jailors too great to challenge with what she had at her disposal.
Now, she thought grimly, it’s the exact, same, hells damned situation. Cornered and overpowered. She grit her teeth —not even truly hers, a bionic replacement given to her by them— until she heard them gnash and felt her gums begin to bleed.
She hadn’t felt like this in the prison. There, at least, she had been able to fight back. The thought of those hapless guards who thought they could have their way with them was titillating and caused her breath to quicken in rapt excitement. Oh, how she had drunk in their fears as her mind had enclosed around theirs, before slaughtering them. They could hit her, they could rape her, break her bones, do all they pleased.
But they could not kill me, she purred.
Now, on the other hand, she was utterly powerless. The Commander was no fool, and they had attention to spare. Everything she had tried had been countered. Forget wounding, she had not even been able to touch them.
But I’m a child no longer.
And that was why she studied, despite hating it. Why she was training her mind further, honing her skills. Why she was determined to get to a level where she could begin fighting back.
Hells damned, she longed for the first mission. It’d be good to kill people again. Memories were so awfully insufficient…
“She is one sick puppy,” Charger laughed, the sound booming through the bridge.
“Yet dedicated and determined,” Stalker’s hoarse voice floated by. “You would do well to not underestimate her.”
“I like her determination,” Shredder added, leaning on her two comrades as they scrolled over the woman’s profile. “Her actions and reasons for… Not so much.”
“Read it well, Charger,” the Commander added, their voice amused. Yet underneath that lay a tone of deadly seriousness. “That’s what you need to take care to never become.”
“Sir,” the large soldier admitted uneasily.
“You like her, there’s no shame in that. Her brazen attitude, the lack of fucks given, the way she tackles any problem head-on, how she uses her strength to crush anything in her path. You are alike, and I don’t begrudge you regarding her as a kindred soul for it.” A gentle hand rested on his shoulder. “But you see what else she’s done. She commits uncontrolled violence. Her actions serve no purpose but to satisfy her own desires.” The hand squeezed hard enough for the armour to register. “I do not hold your emotions against you. I just want you to keep in mind that she is not one of us, nor will be. She’s an external asset, unreliable, dangerous, untrustworthy. Undisciplined.” The last word was said with condemnation.
“I’m aware, Commander.”
“Good,” they said, clapping the man’s back with force. “I know you like to toe the line, but I trust you, and if I’m riding your ass for it, it’s because we need you.” A tilt of the head. “And because I care.”
“Commander,” Vector interrupted, “I do not fully agree with your statement.” He waited until he received an affirmative nod in turn before continuing. “The Empire was willing to take in anyone, regardless of origin, and put them through military training while indoctrinating them. Scaiffe’s value as an asset could potentially be high. I would argue we could condition her similarly, as opposed to leaving her be. It would heighten her value.”
Shredder scoffed audibly at that. “I reckon even the Empire didn’t quite take in people who happily slaughtered dozens.”
“She is quite right,” the Commander added. “No matter how many tricks we copy from the Empire, they did not commit atrocities for the fun of it. Any devastation they caused was supported by a strategic need.” The Commander vested their eyes on all of her soldiers in turn. “Always.”
“Yet Vector has a point,” they continued. “Scaiffe has potential value.” Shredder tensed, but they ignored it. “Potential,” they mused. “Giralde.” Vector nodded seriously, while Stalker tilted his head ever so slightly, his version of rolling his eyes. They grinned. “I am fond of the Empire, what can I say. They were efficient, and multi-faceted.”
“And very up-front,” Charger snickered appreciatively.
“Barring NavInt,” Shredder shot back with a grin.
“Your point, Commander?” demanded Vector, returning them back to the topic at hand.
“My personal obsession with the Empire and their language aside, their words are highly utilitarian for what I am trying to say. Scaiffe’s möeve has led her to becoming an absolute bitch. If we ignore the moral quandary that she is and focus solely on her giralde” —they pronounced the word the right way to encompass the added meaning of being lit by an internal fire— "then she is incredibly capable. If we do not focus on what has caused her to be this way, which is undisciplined, lazy, uncontrollable and sadistic, but on what we can make of her, then she could be a valuable addition to our forces.”
Shredder’s hands were darting over the batteries of her plasma launcher, helmet darting back and forth nervously. She had no illusions to how much crap would go down if Scaiffe were to be added to the roster alongside the mercs, and was visibly unhappy with the direction the conversation was taking.
“Relax, Shredder, I’m just making a hypothetical statement. Truth of the matter is that her möeve has already been written, and the fire has been lit. Philips is her main target, I’m secondary, and you’re all just collateral to her. She’s not going to be an ally to us, given that her main motivation is seeing key assets of our unit very, very dead. Preferably broken, too.”
The woman’s shoulders sagged in relief.
“That said, I want you, Charger, to draw up a physical training schedule for her. Hostile to us she might be, I still plan to squeeze every bit of use out of her that I can, and for that I need her to be at her very best.”
They flashed a grin at Shredder.
“Remember,” they chuckled darkly. “Gentleness is overrated.”
“Transit in twenty,” the automated voice rang through the ship. Amun, commander of the Garuda, made his final checks.
“Confirm docking status.”
“All ships secured, ready for jump.”
“Local transponder?”
“Closed.”
“Core beacon?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Inertia?”
“Within acceptable parameters.”
“All hands, brave! We’re jumping in five, four, …” Amun counted down, his gauntlets clamming down onto the steel chair as he mentally braced himself. The Garuda, massive as she was, began to scream at him as the core beacon tied itself to the incoming signal. The incomprehensibly powerful wave wrapped itself around his vessel. Alerts began to blare as the ship’s navigational computer screamed its inability to deal with the incoming hazards. Sensors were overloaded as the lightyears disappeared in an instant. The universe itself seemed to faze in and out of existence, incapable of containing itself as sight, sound and even the very fabric of reality itself became unsure of what they were supposed to be.
And then they were there.
Amun knew that the transition had only lasted an infinitesimal instant, but that instant could last a surprisingly long time. He got out of his captain’s seat, unsteady on his feet, and shouted for status reports, suppressing the urge to throw up.
“Don’t ruffle your feathers, Captain. She’s no worse for wear than the last time,” engineering reported.
“That’s a diplomatic way of saying she’s clipped,” he chuckled as he regained his bearing. His head was pounding, and not just because of the physical aspects of the transition. His mind was hurting. He set to work fixing that, disengaging his awareness from the vessel he cared so deeply for. That hurt too, as it felt as if he sawed off a large part of his body.
“Feather’s flight, I hate doing that,” he muttered. Then, righting himself. “Set course for Yggdrasil. And turn on the viewing ports. We’re done flying in the dark.”
The bridge crew hopped too and soon enough the external cameras were pulled out of their stupor, electronic lenses blinking to life as hydraulic systems pushed them to the exterior of the vessel. They rotated themselves briefly, checking their statuses and overlapping fields of view, before routing what their artificial eyes saw to the bridge.
Amun whistled at the sight. No matter how often he came here, he would never grow tired of it.
In the void around them, there were no pinpricks of natural light visible. The endless darkness was imposing, overwhelming even. The stars, usually so prevalent wherever they went, were now wholly absent. Here they were hidden, cut off from the universe at large.
Amun admired the way the galaxy was painted black. It was a rare thing, something only a very select few people were privileged to witness. The Garuda slowly coasted closer to their goal, their path made clear to them as they slipped through the cloak of eternal night, following coordinates only he could access.
Yet he knew that the pure blackness around them was far from empty. Countless weapons emplacements, kill-sats that were large enough to qualify as space stations, endless mine fields, force-field projectors, and the winds only knew what other traps High Command had put in place. He and the Garuda had nothing to fear, though. Even as artificial intelligences watched him and his with cold, calculating eyes, their sensors licking unseen at the disruptions his vessel caused in the visual spectrum, their weapons remained dormant, their reactors cold and coasting further in the black line.
Where natural light was in short supply, the artificial counterpart was not. The gargantuan installation of Yggdrasil awaited them. They made their way into a small tunnel within the superstructure. Small being relative, of course. The opening was easily a hundred kilometres wide, allowing passage for a whole fleet at once. Its exact measurements were unknown to him, kept carefully hidden by a network of powerful jammers. Just one of the many secrets of Yggdrasil.
He knew that the walls of the tunnel were lined with more weapons. The shields protecting the station were significantly stronger than anything a vessel could conjure, so their weapons could freely fire at anything hostile trying to break through, without worry for friendly fire. And if there were weapons, then naturally there were…
Yes, he grimaced. There it is. This time they did notice that they were being scanned. Powerful sensors penetrated the hull of the GarudaI, turning the video feed into static and making his skin crawl as the unseen eyes deconstructed his vessel, atom per atom.
He shook himself like a dog fresh out of the water, ridding himself of the disgusting feeling. He had a dislike for the transitioning, but he absolutely hated this part. but he knew both were necessary.
Luckily enough, he thought to himself as the Garuda slid into the internal void within the impossibly large space construct, the view makes up for it.
The Courtyard, as it was colloquially known, was simply vast. And full of light. Where the outside was bereft of any natural light, here the countless sources of its artificial counterpart lit up every square inch of the enormous centre of the superstructure. And as ever, it was quite busy.
Gargantuan rows of forges gleamed in the dark as thousands of tonnes of resources were fed into their ever-hungry maws. Cargo fleets with titanic superfreighters hung in the void, waiting for clearance, before floating closer to designated docking bays. Mag-locks would hold them still as they began to vomit out their payload. Raw ores were sucked into the station, scanned by sensors, sorted and whisked off to a corresponding processing plants.
Large metal walkways and mechanical arms extended from shipwombs and manufactories. Towering gantries sailed across massive railings as they loaded or unloaded cargo or ship parts as countless automated drones toiled on endlessly. Miniature stars formed as armour plates were welded together into a seamless whole. Swarms of tiny engineering droids braved the void, darting in and out of shielded walkways as they emptied cargo servitors and knit together the sensitive innards of future vessels. Massive plasma cannons, dormant reactors, laser batteries, kinetic railguns, point defence turrets, endless kilometres of circuitry, advanced sensors, all of it was whisked into place as the industries of Yggdrasil slaved away at new hulls.
Amun watched on in awe, as he did whenever he visited the heart of their operations. He had no clue how many vessels the facility had birthed so far, would not even dare to fathom a guess. All he knew was that it never slept, never ceased functioning.
This was the centre of power of the Outfit. The very heart of their operations. An impregnable fortress with far more defences than the material. The Giant Void held… Surprises. He was not privy to them. Given what he was privy to, he found himself glad for that. Things existed in the dark.
He patiently waited until he received his docking clearance, and relayed them to his bridge crew. Even now they were scanned relentlessly, dozens of questions asked and answered in rapid fashion as the station and the Garuda spoke. Automated communications, verbal orders and coded answers were exchanged as the final layer of paranoid security was passed. Amun let out a sigh of relief. He had done this countless times, yet this part never ceased to stress him. One minor mistake, and he’d be dead, long before even the thousands of weapon emplacements surrounding him would have time to fire. Yggdrasil's defences extended beyond the mere physical.
A soft shudder ran through the vessel as the Garuda slipped inside a massive hanger. The engines were switched off, thrusters ceased their efforts and the station’s grav-plating took over, pulling the vessel deeper inside. The hull-cameras switched spectrum as the light from the outside faded, displaying the thick armour plates surrounding the hangar doors as Amun’s ship passed through them, scant metres to spare.
Docking arms were extended, maintenance bots dropped down from the ceiling or launched themselves from the walls or floor as they set to work on fixing the damage to the ship. Amun ignored the army of ants washing over his ship as he made for the airlock.
As the lock finished its long cycle, the door slowly slid open, the vacuum absorbing every sound. He walked out, unbothered by it, his armour shielding him, only to come to an instant stop as he found himself facing a small person, covered in the same armour as he was. Before he could take another step, the boy rushed forward and collided with him, catching him in a hug.
“Uncle!” he shouted, their coms automatically syncing.
Amun ran his head over the boy’s helmet, giving him a fatherly pat on the head. He clicked open his own channel. “Hello Toutatis.” Then, kneeling down in front of him, he gave the boy his best stern stare, helmets be damned. “Do you have permission to be here? Or did you sneak out again? How many locked doors are there between your quarters and this hangar?”
The boy snickered in response, before turning around and pulling him along. “Hurry up! The others are waiting!”
He pulled his arm free, laughing, waving the boy along. Toutatis didn’t wait, immediately disappearing into the dark depths of the hallway. There were no lights, no shadows playing on the walls. Just total darkness. Neither of them were disturbed by it. Yggdrasil was their home and birthplace. They were so intimately tuned to this place, they could have navigated it blindly. Amun turned around and waved goodbye at his crew, before following the boy into the heart of the superstructure, enjoying the soft clicks and purrs coming in through his helmet as the facility welcomed a son home.
“So, who are the others waiting for us?” he asked, ignoring the boy’s constant bouncing. Often up the walls. Literally. Whether it was mag-boots or little Toutatis had once again hacked part of the station’s gravity controls was anyone’s guess.
“Uncle Nergal and Aunt Agneya. They’re back from their mission!” the boy chirped happily over the coms. Then, without warning, the boy launched himself down from the ceiling, planning on tackling his uncle to the ground.
Amun could have dodged the boy, but instead allowed him to fall on him. Sort of. He wasn’t a close combat specialist, but it was not too difficult to catch the falling Toutatis and put him in a nasty headlock.
The boy fought back, not to much avail. “I locked down the sensors in this part! You should’ve been blind!”
“I still got my own sensors,” he laughed, before tightening his hold. “That, and you’re predictable. Now behave.”
The boy finally went limp, ceasing his resistance. “Yes, Uncle,” he apologised.
Seeing Toutanis’ remorse, Amun relented. “Come on, kid. You should know better than to do that,” he said, loosening his hold and going for running his gauntleted knuckles over the child’s helmet instead.
“I can’t help it,” Toutanis pouted. “It’s so boring here.”
Amun’s eyebrow shot up.
“Okay, okay. It’s not boring. But I’m the only child here and I have nobody to play with.”
“Is that why you keep breaking into places you neither have access to nor clearance for?” he dryly asked.
The boy burst out into a fit of giggles, suddenly pulling free from his uncle’s grasp with surprising speed, before launching himself back at the ceiling. Despite the height of the hallway, the kid managed to nail the jump neatly, reorienting himself on the way up before slamming feet-first onto the metal plates. He threw his uncle a salute, before running off deeper into the superstructure.
Given the brief pull Amun had felt, he knew the kid had fiddled with the gravity plates to make the leap possible, and shook his head wearily. Toutatis was one hell of a child. Then again it was hardly a surprise given his parentage.
He entered the meeting room, not surprised to find only four other people there. High Command was present, of course, a hand gently laying on Toutatis’ shoulder. The image of a proud parent, who knew their kid had been up to no good.
“Sir,” he greeted his superior officer, before turning to the other two. “Sirs.” The nod towards them was less warm. He knew Admirals Nergal and Agneya were capable soldiers, valuable additions to the Outfit, but their methods ran quite counter to his. And they keep treating me like a messenger boy, which pisses me off.
“Glad you are all here,” their chief began. “Toutatis, pay close attention. To start the brief, the Admirals just returned from a subjugation mission of the… I’ll just send you the name. No way I can pronounce that.”
Agneya let out a laugh, her sultry, high-pitched voice easily bouncing off the walls. “Neither can they…” she purred. The words relayed images of fire and flame, of entire worlds burning. Of sentients choking upon clouds of acrid smoke. Of weapon batteries endlessly pounding the earth, their deadly payloads polluting the sky until the very atmosphere itself was torn asunder.
Nergal just let out a satisfied grunt, but even so Amun could imagine the horror on the poor creatures’ face as his armies advanced mercilessly, combining advanced tactics with remorseless strategic objectives. As soldiers returned home to find their families taken captive, flayed alive. Morale shocks paralysing entire theatres, fear shattering them before any weapons did. Of examples made.
“Losses?” came the simple inquiry, words that buried the story of a civilisation of heavens only knew how many centuries, millennia old.
“Heavy. Ninety-three percent of the fleet was lost,” Agneya shrugged. “They were well dug in.”
Images of avian creatures, armed with crude yet powerful weapons, firing from prepared positions flashed through the room. Thousands of them, crawling around in the ruins of a city, using the demolished buildings for cover as the army advanced. Civilians ran around, running for their lives or picking up weapons of fallen soldiers, stones, pieces of rubble, anything, and trying to fight back. It helped them none. The dark-clad soldiers advanced steadily, leapfrogging and laying down covering fire.
Artillery soared overhead, its distant, muted thumps heralding doom as the high explosive shells slammed into the lines on either side. Towering clouds of dust and debris bloomed, the flashes of lights casting brief, vivid shadows across the battlefield as shockwaves threw bodies around like feathers.
High above, a fleet died, plasma cannons and kinetic batteries shredding the final defenders, even as their guns reaped a heavy toll in turn. Vessels burned, warships died as neither side asked nor gave quarters. Valiant last stands were crushed, entire hulls reduced to loose atomic particles, desperate cries or promises of vengeance were silenced as the black fleet held nothing back, advancing through the wreckage of their earlier waves. Defensive stations were pounded into dust, others illuminated the sky, eclipsing the light of stars as boarders breached the defenders’ lines and overloaded their generators.
Towering guns, finally bereft from target, turned towards the planet’s surface. Energy slivers flickered across damaged shields. Defensive turrets barked out short bursts as escape pods sailed past them. Metal bled from wounded hulls, g-forces tearing at weakened armour plates.
Satisfaction flickered across a dark mind as she regarded the doomed people below. Large, bombing doors slowly slid open and horrible weapons were readied and unleashed, even as the battle below still raged on.
An atmosphere ignited. A planet burned. A species extinguished.
And through it all, a content purr at a job well done rang through the survivors of a once great fleet, as they hunted down what few survivors were left in the already broken wrecks.
“Ninety-three percent,” came the deep sigh. “You barely won, then?”
Nergal threw a sideways glance at his sister. “We won. They’re dead. We had to update our parameters due to… unforeseen events.”
Alarmed cries rang through the networks as strike forces tried to warn command of the incoming danger. Soldiers died in droves as they tried to force a way back out, facing towering armoured suits that blocked their path. Bulkheads slid close, automated defences sprang forth from walls. A renewed battle for the area’s gravity plates began on the digital landscape even as the two sides brutalised one another in an attempt to break through, or break, the other.
A handful made it to a control station, broadcasted the warning.
Yet it was too late.
A fortress died as apocalyptic levels of energy devoured it from the inside.
And far away, a hole opened in space, devouring a fleet…
“They are fully eliminated, however.”
Another deep sigh. “I suppose that is some consolation, then. Their expansion would have put them on a collision course sooner or later, and we can’t have that happen. Still, ninety-three percent. You depleted most of our combat abilities.”
“It will take us a long time,” Toutatis giggled, “to recover from that.” He broke free from his parent’s grasp and sprinted over to Agneya, who fondly patted him on the cheek, appreciative of what he whispered to her.
“Toutatis,” High Command hissed. The boy froze, looked down towards his boots and slinked back to his spot. “You really need to learn to behave yourself,” came the stern response.
“I’m sorry.” The words sounded genuine, and given that they were accepted, they had to be. Nobody pulled the wool over that one’s eyes. Nobody.
“But this is so inefficient! I don’t know why we have to do it this way,” the kid pouted.
Amun felt himself nod along, despite himself. They were being horribly inefficient. He knew the why of it, of course. So did Toutatis. So did Nergal and Agneya. High Command had been perfectly clear with them, cold, logical orders elaborating on the dark, foreboding consequences should they ever break the rules. Any doubts they might have had over the supposed after-effects had been thoroughly squashed by a veritable mountain of evidence. The destruction the two war-like siblings had wrought, the terror they’d caused, the esoteric weapons of their enemies, was nothing compared to that.
Yet none of that kept the kid from chafing at the bit. High Command let out a sigh again, and knelt down, touching helmets with Toutatis. Whatever the two exchanged, it was quick, but intense, the countless status lights flickering briefly as words of wisdom and warning were exchanged.
“Right then,” their superior continued, as if nothing had happened. “The pair of you will be debriefed thoroughly. Toutatis will attend. Teach him as much as possible. Of your failures more than your successes. Test him, trial him.” A proud smile. “Make him regret being a little smart-ass. Take your time for it, too. Restoring what we’ve lost is going to be a long, arduous task.”
The Admirals nodded, making themselves at ease. Nergal leaned against the wall, his dark visor glittering menacingly as he took in Amun. Agneya, on the other hand, leaned down on the table, her red visor dotted with simulated flames. He knew she was still relishing the memories. Planets burning, fleets demolished. Nations rent asunder. An entire race obliterated, bombed to atoms.
“Captain Amun, if you’d be so kind.”
“Yes, messenger pigeon, tell us what you’ve heard,” Nergal scoffed.
Amun closed his eyes in irritation, tired of the constant mockery, only to flash them open when a silent explosion rocked the room. His gaze was pulled towards the still burning wreckage, where his tormentor had been a moment before. He looked around and found the man a dozen metres away, missing a significant chunk of his body, clenching his remaining hand to the massive wound.
“You’re dismissed, Admiral,” High Command coldly informed them. The stress on his rank was lost to no one. “This is your second warning. Next time, it’s your head.” Then, without missing a beat. “Captain, if you please.”
The Admiral slinked down against the wall, his strength leaving him. A pair of attendants walked into the room and helped him up, before escorting him out. Agneya danced on the tip of her feet, unsure if she should follow her brother and make sure he was alright, or if she should stay in the meeting and satisfy her curiosity. In the end, a simple glance of High Command shut her up. She had not received permission to depart.
“Yes sir,” Amun began. “In order of importance, we’ve spotted increased activity in enemy held regions…”