Talitha scrambled awake at the blaring of a klaxon, the electrical wailing combined with a flood of red light and distorted shouting over voice tubes. Her initial thought was frustration, was this a drill? Then realisation set in, this was real, she rubbed her eyes before glancing across her cramped, draughty little cabin, barely large enough for a folding cot. A luxury aboard ship, she had ejected the first officer from her own quarters upon boarding. She shivered in the chill air as soon as her blankets fell away but did not have time to waste being cold even as her skin goose pimpled, jerking open a locker before shrugging hurriedly into her padded silk arming jacket.
No time for any primping or preening, she bundled her hair into an awkward tangle behind her head before lacing on an arming cap, squirmed into pants to match her jacket, stepped into heavy boots. Then she snatched her scabbarded sabre from alongside the door, her belt with her holstered pistol in the other hand, bumped open said door with her hip before barging outside. “Eleni! My armour!”
She emerged into the chaos of the Spear of Retribution's wardroom, the teak dining table being broken down by scared looking young legionaries, the veneer panelling being pulled away and stowed to reveal pierced aluminium struts and metal grill work beneath. Fortunately the armoury was open and her squire to hand, though the girl was looking even more dishevelled than her mistress. Good, she knew her priorities, Talitha gave her a curt nod before handing across her weapons. “Three quarters plate and hurry about it Eleni.” The ship's officers, those who had not been on duty, were also hurrying to get ready, boots hammering down corridors beyond, she looked to the 2nd Officer, Commander Eldon, the third son of a duke which would explain a man having such a posting upon a battlecruiser. “What are we facing?” Her tone was blunt and demanding.
As she spoke her squire began to buckle the laminated plates of her leg armour on, lacing it to the silk points of her arming jacket, rune warded steel buckling into place with practised efficiency. The legionary commander gave a curt bow as his own armour was being laced in place. “Angels.” He spat the word. “At least four of them your grace and only a few kilometres out. They will be upon us momentarily.”
Talitha twisted her face into a sour expression, four. So much for this being a routine voyage, she lifted her arms out from her side as Eleni began to fit her cuirass, a sectional backplate and breastplate encasing her torso in steel whilst barely sacrificing mobility. “How did they get so close without general quarters being sounded, commander? If we survive I doubt the watch officer's career will. But now is not time for such thoughts.” Her left arm now, she angled it, her vambrace and upper cannon already laced together into a single articulated piece now being latched and pinned into place, she worked the limb briefly, a nod, her right arm now.
The commander set his jaw at that, annoyed? Irrelevant especially as the battlecruiser abruptly lurched in the air along with the thunderous aftermath of lightning. A whine of distressed metal then a change in the tempo of the thrumming engines, had they lost one? She could hear the heavy crack of guns and the growl of diesel engines as compression generations spun into action. Eleni faltered, there were some screams, people stumbling, Talitha shifted her stance effortlessly as the deck tilted. “Keep at it Eleni, I will face them once I am fully armed.”
That apparently reassured more than just her squire given the demeanour in the room though there was the continued crack of rifles and the impossible to miss throbbing and pulsing of magic from above. Another shudder passing through the twenty thousand ton hull of the Spear, then sparks overhead as half of the lights in the wardroom exploded, shards of glass raining down to lacerate a few unfortunates still out of their armour. Talitha casually hardened the air above her, leaving herself and her squire untouched as the commander and a few lieutenants rushed for the main exit and out, several of them still not fully equipped.
A shake of her head to Eleni. “Fully armed.” Her gorget followed, her sallet helm, gauntlets, she tugged those on herself as her belt was buckled around her hips. Once completed she could feel the runes inscribed into each plate interlocking, reinforcing each other, she was not just clad in metal from head to shin but protected on a far more fundamental level. She turned to her fourteen year old squire. “Armour up yourself but remain here and only fight in self defence and extremity Eleni. You are not ready to face an angel. Yet.” Then she rushed out into the corridor beyond before launching herself toward the nearest vertical ladder way, gauntlet shod hands and heavy boots propelling her upward as the ship fought around her.
As expected, when she kicked open an armoured hatch to stick her head out of the dorsal hull, things were going badly. Arc lanterns stabbed out at the pitch blackness of the sky overhead whilst turrets stuttered, the multi barrelled weapons spitting streams of inch wide lead projectiles upward as they tried and failed to impact the darting forms of the night shrouded angels. The air compressors thrummed, allowing bursts of rapid fire before each turret fell silent to allow pressure to return. Sporadic rifle fire joined in the turrets of course as legionaries fired at the fleeting targets, more promisingly whomever was in command had gotten the bridge's flare mortars operating, a pulse of starshell glare every few seconds as another magnesium bomb was launched aloft only to then fall behind the battlecruiser's rapid movement and drop away into the gloom.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Above this martial chaos, the angels, huge feathered wings, shrouded in mist, idealised human figures she knew to be over seven feet in height and diving fast toward the ship as they weaved between rifle fire, deflecting it with the winds surrounding them or deft flicks of inhumanly fast spears. Then a flash far brighter than any starshell flare as lightning stabbed down toward the ship. She felt as much as saw the blows, the release of mana unmistakable. It first touched down forward, atop the bridge, a lance of sleeting destruction that then deflected from some combination of the defensive wards and efforts of legionary mages to crackle and discharge across the armoured hull. Then amidships, annihilating a turret and punching deep within the ship, then aft. She was aft.
Talitha acted without thought, unsheathing her sword, lifting it skyward, twisting reality as she brought the lightning down upon her own upraised arm. She caught the blow, gritting her teeth as the surging, searing agony sought to simply wipe her human frame from existence. Instead she channelled it. The howling gale of the Spear of Retribution's slipstream diverted to each side and above as her aura tore at the air surrounding her, crackling, sparks emanating as the runes in her armour lit, her sword cracking into life.
It was trivial to balance herself now as she climbs up onto the hull, undisturbed by the wind but surrounded by her own personal storm. It was fully intended as the challenge that the divine soldiers took it as, though she decided she had to help that along. Sword uplifted, she aimed it at the nearest of the diving angels before focusing her mind appropriately. Anger, rage, fury. Vengeance, no detached and calculated strategy, pure emotion turned to fire. An upward stream of flame erupted from her weapon to wash across the nearest angel, blasting away his concealing mists, leaving him wavering in flight, singing golden wings and forcing him to focus his own power upon the air to divert it around his form as he twisted to dive upon her. Was that a cheer from the nearest firing gallery? She would have preferred the riflewomen to concentrate upon their marksmanship rather than cheering.
No time to think about that though, she angled her weapon, a jarring impact down her arm as the angel's spear struck then spilled to the side to cut a swathe two feet across through the inch thick armour of the battlecruiser's hull. She countered, a riposte, fire burning along the edge of the saber as she lunged forward to try to counter her foe's reach. He towered seven and a half foot tall, overmatching her by two foot, dark skinned, dark haired, golden eyed and winged whilst wielding a three meter long lance of blood red crystal, armoured in bronze and gold. He parried with inhuman speed and precision, far stronger than even his gargantuan frame would indicate, a millennia old servant of the gods endlessly trained for war.
He smiled within his open faced helm, crackled with lightning, then surged it along the haft of his spear, assailing her magically as well as physically as the two exchanged a dozen strikes, parries and counters in three heartbeats. Her hip was struck, her armour held, she clipped his knee, bronze cracked and partially melted, he staggered.
He dropped back, opening the distance again with an effortless snap of vast wings, she answered with another surge of flame that forced him to draw in said pinions as he concentrated his strength for a defensive sphere, something that also served to deflect the opportunistic rifle rounds that sought him out now that a gap had opened.
“How are you so powerful, mortal?” His voice was rich and sonorous, a perfect ideal of powerful male enunciation in the language of Heaven. Talitha declined to answer, instead twisting the air and space around herself, launching forward. Another flurry of blows as she pressed the angel's guard then she had the haft of that crackling spear momentarily locked against the hilt of the sabre. He was far stronger than her of course, starting to bear her down, she could see that he thought he had won.
She drew her pistol with her offhand, angled it, then pulled the trigger repeatedly, emptying the entire magazine and air cylinder into the angel's chest at point blank range. It was a semi automatic weapon, master crafted by the finest artisans to maintain pressure and power, it held a dozen shots. This close, his aura unbraced against the attack? The enchanted bullets cut through his armour near effortlessly. He coughed golden blood, glowing bright in the night, slumped, fell with a crunch of armour and sprawl of gleaming wings to the deck. Then said wings caught in the slipstream and he fell away aft with his spear tumbling into the darkness.
Now there was definitely a cheer and she allowed herself to revel in it, deep breaths, aches from old injuries and from her joints, from her right arm where she traded blows with that thing. But three more angels would have landed on the hull by now and she could feel the pulsing of magic as they fought.
Mechanically, she reloaded her pistol, shoving the spent magazine and depleted air canister into their little pouches, important not to lose those. Then she turned with a clunk of boots, the air still twisting around her in a personal gale as she ignored the vessel's own motion and began to march resolutely forward, toward a breach in the hull where she felt surging power whilst hearing screams, gunfire and blade on blade.
The gods had to die.