> ‘Do you not taste the sparks on the wind? Does the scent of war not catch your nose?’
>
> - Forge to the Flame.
image [https://i.imgur.com/mA3AY5I.png]
image [https://d.wattpad.com/story_parts/918769933/images/1620b277fe28aa41269008742412.jpg]
----------------------------------------
Kenya hated meetings.
Especially ones aboard ships, it was notoriously difficult to dodge a meeting aboard a ship. Nearly every inch of it was covered in some kind of watching device. Especially if it was a warship, like this one was.
They were also a profound waste of time. Especially meetings like these, that could have just been an email.
Kenya doubly hated meetings with the top brass. Especially these two. Being stuck in a small room in the heart of a cruiser wasn’t what he enjoyed. These two made it so much worse.
You would have thought Kenya had failed, with the looks he was getting. The wrath in Admiral Kirsk's eyes was… palpable. For the shorter man that he was, Kirsk looked officious, imposing. He looked middle aged, but Kenya knew that he was well into his fifties, he could see it in the wrinkles of his forehead, along his cheeks and around his eyes, in the greying of his mostly chestnut brown hair; all peeking through his well maintained appearance. Kenya didn’t know if he considered getting sucker punched as failing, but the brass must have.
Task force Commander Fish leaned forward, his elbows pressed into the hard glass of the holotable in front of him. He looked younger than Kirsk, despite his heavier build and above average height. The scar on his face aged him, though. Tracing from his milky right eye all the way down to his chin. His brows were furrowed so tightly that if the wind changed Kenya thought his face might freeze.
‘Right then son… fae the top. Yi went in, ‘alf cocked. Got yer arse smacked like a wee bab, n then yi let them escape,’ Fish said.
‘I… I don’t know if I’d have put it like that sir, but yes,’ Kenya said.
Kirsk eyed him, ‘This… metal being, you mentioned in your report. You said he wore some kind of battle suit, or you suspected as much?’ He placed his kepi cap on the table, a soft sigh escaping him.
‘Aye sir,’ Kenya said, ‘He wielded some kind of hammer capable of breaking through my abilities. He was also durable enough to take a direct hit from a forty millimetre cannon.’
‘So I read,’ Kirsk said, ‘regardless, I also noticed that you mentioned a passing thought towards this being a connected attack, a sign of wider rebellion,’ he levelled a hard stare at Kenya, ‘I want you to throw these things from your mind. There is no rebellion, there are no connections. Am I understood?’
Kenya ground his teeth. He usually didn’t mind Kirsk, but he could be a pompous prat.
‘Aye sir.’ Kenya said.
Fish eyed Kirsk from the side, before turning towards Kenya fully and speaking, ‘wiv bin sent new orders, fir you specifically. Yiv to provide one of the Guild-Lords company, pamper ‘im a little. The Union of Labor wants us to make the local population mare… compliant. Yer off tae 8812-C. Go, yir dismissed.’
‘Aye sir,’ Kenya repeated. He turned to leave, but Kirsk coughed, prompting him to turn.
‘Don’t… mess this up, Commander,’ he said, his eyes narrowed pointedly, ‘and maybe wear a uniform next time instead of… whatever that is.’
Kenya simply nodded.
He really fucking hated meetings.
image [https://i.imgur.com/mA3AY5I.png]
That meeting had rattled Kenya, he realised on the dropship ride to the planet's surface. He had departed from the cruiser maybe an hour after the meeting had concluded, meeting Tobi on the way. He had been briefed more by his second. They were to leave immediately. They weren’t to dawdle, not even to eat. If Kenya was being honest, that pissed him off more than anything else.
Something dug at his gut, though. Something told him that something, something, hadn’t been right. They were hiding things from him, which wasn’t a new thing, but this time felt… he didn’t know what it felt. He could just tell. From the warning to Kirsks annoyance. He had stumbled on… Sargon, he hated thinking. Kenya didn’t know if he knew anyone that did. Well, maybe one person, but she was on the other side of the Supercluster.
He didn’t want to be doing this. Not for any particular reason other than the fact that mining districts stunk to high hell, and only the Sargon himself knew what went on in the lower levels of those Extraction worlds. Yet here he was, on the dropship down. Entering Atmo. All he could really even think about was how hungry he was. He was so mad about missing dinner.
His jaw hurt. He wondered if he had been grinding his teeth.
Tobi nudged him with an elbow, nodding towards the pilots. From where they sat, they could just about see the right side of the co-pilot through the door to the cockpit. Kenya couldn’t fly, not a dropship, not a fighter, so the man's movements didn’t strike him.
He etched an eyebrow turning to tobi, ‘What?’
Tobi narrowed his eyes slightly, ‘He’s been fiddling with the comms knobs since we started our descent.’
‘Interference?’ Kenya asked.
‘For this long? I doubt it,’ Tobi said. ‘Something’s up.’
Kenya bit the inside of his cheek. Just his fucking luck.
Kenya grabbed the sides of his seat to get up, but the dropship lurched as though something had pushed it. Kenya was knocked back onto his ass. It lurched again, shoving him into Tobi.
‘Tobi stap in,’ Kenya said, ‘I’ll go see what’s going on.’
Kenya made his way up to the cockpit, with no small amount of effort, the dropship continued to move erratically, as though they were… dodging something.
When he finally got into the cockpit, he could see the pilot's hands winding furiously across their control panels, the dropship lurched to the right as they simultaneously tore the controls in that direction. There was a sound like an explosion out to their left.
He could see it through the viewport, a sky choked by fire. The ground was burning too. Entire industrial complexes consumed by infernos so tall they might have scorched the underside of their ship. There was another explosion, a sound like peppered metal on the outside of their hull.
‘The fuck is going on?’ Kenya asked.
‘Anti-Air fire sir,’ one pilot called, ‘we’ve no idea why, and no calls are going through. The entirety of the main complex's airspace is full of shrapnel, we’re gonna have trouble putting you down anywhere.’
Anti-Air fire? What Extraction world had Anti-Air emplacements?
It didn’t matter. If they were firing at a marked dropship they had been taken over. If they were taken over, they must have been manned. There was no way a V.O.X node could be corrupted or tainted without the central intelligence shutting it all down to run diagnostics. A local AI then…? The military didn’t typically field those, and if they did, he doubted they’d allow the Union of Labour to do anything with them.
Kenya scanned the ground. Fire, more fire, and more fire. They weren’t close enough to see anyone on the ground, and most of the landing pads would be covered by AA. The only real buildings he could see were… there, that would do.
He pointed to a large metal slope, the side of a processing hub, ‘fly as close as you can to that and open the bay doors. Rise up and then dive if you have to, whatever gets us there the quickest. I can get myself to the ground using that,’ he said, ‘take yourself outside of AA range and land, we’ll need you for an emergency pick up once we’ve secured the package.’
The pilot nodded, ‘Fantasia guides you sir,’ he said.
Kenya swung himself around to face the back of the craft, and moved to the middle of the floor on shaky feet. He used his tendrils to tie himself down to the floor by Tobi. His second had strapped himself in as commanded. There was a faint look of worry on his face.
‘We’re going for a trip,’ Kenya said, ‘untie and hold on to me.’
Tobi groaned, ‘why do I feel like this’ll be the exact same stunt you pulled back on 4040-B,’ he said.
Kenya smiled, and waddled forward to the door with Tobi in toe. He slammed his hand into a large red button to his right, marked with an arrow facing away from them.
In front of them, the bay doors opened, exposing them to the noise of the world outside. It was horrific. Somewhere far away, something exploded, the light framing the awe in Tobi’s eyes.
The pilot's voice came out over the dropship's speakers, ‘thirty seconds till our dive sir.’
Tobi gave him an incredulous look, ‘dive?’
Kenya smiled wider, ‘just like 4040-B,’ he said.
He took Tobi’s arms, and brought them under his own, using that goo to stick them together. The dropship began to tilt, gravity pulling Kenya back. If he fucked this, they’d die.
He’d be lying if that didn’t excite him, just a little.
‘Happy hunting, sir,’ the pilot said.
Kenya let go and they were both dragged out into the shrapnel filled sky.
https://i.imgur.com/mA3AY5I.png [https://i.imgur.com/mA3AY5I.png]
Tobi was screaming behind him. Actually, earnestly, screaming. Kenya didn’t blame him. They were miles in the air, rocketing towards a metal building, with explosions and metal flying all around them.
Kenya had always wondered what it was like to be able to fly. This might be the closest he’d ever get.
He hadn’t actually been able to see it, but he had assumed that the sloping metal ran all the way down to the ground, or at least some level of the higher Arcology floors. He just needed boots on the ground and a V.O.X console to figure out where that Guild Lord was.
Very, very, luckily, he was right.
They were coming in faster than he would like, and at a more extreme angle, but this would do.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Kenya wound his arms around and around, the goo spreading from his body. He was going to have to dig deep. He pulled and pulled, his blood turning corrosive in his veins once more. He had to bite his lip against the pain. He could manage this. He could.
The goo surrounded the two of them in a ball, a sphere, they would slam into that slope and roll down. He hoped. He had no idea how the physics behind that even worked.
‘HANG ON TOBI!’ Kenya yelled.
He counted it out in his head. One one hundredth, two one hundredths, three one hundredths, collision.
The ball slammed into the metal so hard that Kenya bit his tongue, the warm sensation of blood, that taste of iron, filling his mouth. They bounced once, twice, three times.
Then they were rolling.
Kenya shot out tendrils from his body to the sphere, spinning them like the inside of a gyroscope. He didn’t know how long the slope was, and in truth, hadn’t seen it connect to anything. He cursed himself for his lack of forward thinking.
It was so terribly exciting.
They were picking up speed at a rapid pace. Kenya could almost sense it, the goo serving as an extension of his senses. He couldn’t quite see, but he could vaguely sense the world around it.
It was a handy skill, but it had its downsides.
Like the fact that Kenya didn’t notice that the processing hub wall didn’t connect to anything until they were right upon it.
Shit, shit, shit, he thought. He had to think quickly. He really didn’t want to die on an empty stomach.
He extended his mind to the bottom of the sphere. It was hard to grasp, to imagine, as it was constantly moving, but he could do it. He just needed to put a little pressure on the bottom, a little nudge with his mind and it would react.
He dug deep. Let his mind wander into that dark place, a recess within a recess. Rolling, rolling, rolling.
THERE.
The very edge of the hub, as it dove into a crevice, the nearest patch of ground was far enough away that he could just scarcely sense it. He threw his will into the goo.
They were launched into the air, held aloft for what felt like simultaneously an eternity and a single second. For that second, Kenya worried they would plummet to their deaths, but the trajectory of the sphere held and they slammed into the ground with a thud that caused Kenya to bite his tongue, again.
They came to a rolling stop, and Kenya let the goo fall around them, including that which held Tobi to him. His second fell to the side and wretched, before vomiting all over the ground.
They had landed on some… catwalk? It was wider than he would have thought. Probably for the shifting of raw materials via hover-trucks.
Tobi got up, wiping his mouth. His nose crinkled in disgust. When he turned to look at Kenya, he thought it might have been the closest he’d seen the man to angry.
‘Don’t. You. Ever. Make. Me. Do. That. Again.’ He said.
Kenya almost giggled. The sounds of battle brought him back to reality. This entire planet must have been in the middle of an active revolt. They hadn’t received any word of it.
Tobi pointed, ‘V.O.X console, there,’ he said.
Kenya ran to it, almost slammed into it, and shoved his security cylinder into the slot.
Information whizzed by, reports on shipments, status updates, machine integrity scans, it was almost too much. Even a quick glance told him it was all useless.
They needed to find the Guild-Lord. Where to even look.
He turned to Tobi with what he knew were expectant eyes.
Tobi scanned the screen, his own eyes narrowing, ‘We aren’t seeing any active distress calls,’ he said, ‘is that because they’re being sent internally? On a channel this console isn’t connected to?’
Kenya ground his teeth, ‘we heard nothing on the way in,’ he said. His hands tapped across the console. Where to look. He tapped across channels. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Noise. Text flying across the screen. Transcripts of distress calls on an internal channel that wasn’t set to broadcast outside of bouncing between planetary relays.
Kenya scanned through it, passover over call after call after call. An entire planet in the midst of a revolt.
‘There,’ Tobi said, ‘High priority call. Landing-pad 4A-C. It’s the only one I could put my eyes on.’
Kenya trained his eyes on it, North-Northwest of where they were standing. Heavily armed combatants. Workers in control of Anti-Air emplacements.
‘We have a direction then,’ Tobi said.
‘That we do,’ Kenya said.
https://i.imgur.com/mA3AY5I.png [https://i.imgur.com/mA3AY5I.png]
Kenya slid behind a crate, overlooking the landing pad that distress call had come from. Kenya hated meetings. He didn’t hate many things more than he hated meetings. Of that short list, included hostage situations.
They had taken the Guild-Lord hostage.
The landing pad was held within a soft depression, towering walls of metal all around it. There were few overlooks, perhaps three including the one Kenya hid upon. The landing pad was covered by crates and boxes, and a ruined dropship. He must have been caught trying to escape. He would have been blown out of the sky regardless of what he had tried, but these types were always cowardly. You take away their control and they start to crumble, incapable of getting it back.
That was probably why he hadn’t sent out any distress calls.
Above Kenya, held within towers, were the Anti-Air emplacements. Only one of the four held here was still firing, the others either jammed or out of ammunition, Kenya didn’t know. He watched as the six large barrels rotated and fired, tracking another fleeing ship. He didn’t know how they distinguished between friend or foe. Didn’t know if they did at all.
He had sent Tobi to deal with the one remaining. He should be capable of that.
Kenya watched a small group of men surrounding a larger group on the ground. The men were armed, though they weren't soldiers. They were too skinny, too boney. They looked like they hadn’t ever seen a good meal nor a good night of sleep. There seemed to be one in the centre, a leader perhaps. He looked like a younger man, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties with almond shaped eyes. He seemed like the skinniest of them all. Kenya took out his P.D.A and snapped a picture of him. It would come in handy later.
He focused, he could hear their conversation from where he was hiding.
‘We should just kill them,’ one said, ‘he deserves to die.’
‘Should I?’ he said. ‘Do you want to live, Sir?’
‘Yes… yes… you need m–’
The leader took a foot and rammed it into the man, the Guild lord by the look of his outfit, dressed in fine clothes embroidered with gold trims, and pushed him to the ground.
He leant in, ‘I think you should die, I might have used you, I might have needed you before, but when they come, none of that will matter anymore.’ He put his hand on the Guild-Lords throat. In a matter of seconds, the Guild-Lord became gaunt, lifeless, as though every last nutrient had been drained from his body, and the leader…
He looked so healthy, so rested. Some kind of AuraCell ability then, a meta-human, perhaps. Kenya didn’t know.
The Guild-Lord struggled scratching and scratching until he became so weak he couldn’t lift his arms, couldn’t move… he was dead.
Kenya was going to get into so much shit for this.
The leader turned to his men, ‘Secure the area, if the transmission they sent me was earnest, they’ll be here soon.’
His men nodded, trailing off.
Kenya took his P.D.A back out, and set it to record. Engaging this would be insane, especially alone, especially with something approaching them from the sky.
He tapped the comms device in his ear, ‘Status update,’ he said.
‘Towers clear, they had two men up here, unarmed barring their control of the guns. I’ve got my hands on the controls now,’ Tobi said.
‘Understood,’ Kenya replied, ‘Eye on the sky, hold your fire for now.’
He had spotted it a second ago, a dropship. It bore markings that Kenya didn’t recognise. A blue cross over the silhouette of a cog. The cog felt familiar. The Fitfth Army's logo bore a similar marking. He noted that and tucked it away. The dropship was OverWatch in make. Kenya recorded that too. The brass might have denied larger activity, but this was a pattern, he was sure of it.
The dropship landed with a thunk, the bay doors opening to reveal two men. One older, one younger. Kenya narrowed his eyes.
That was the mother fucker that sucker punched him.
They rushed to the man, shaking his hand and taking him into a hushed, extended, conversation. Kenya couldn’t hear them as well as he could before, it was like they were paranoid of being watched.
The conversation did grow louder. He could catch a word every now and again, exclamations, some angry, some excited. As the conversation wound down, the older man spoke loudly, proudly, ‘You join us now, son, not as a nameless miner, but as Famine, third of the Four Horsemen. You’ll come with us to Earth, to find the final member of your cohort.’
The Four Horsemen…? Earth…? He only vaguely recognised that second thing, though he didn’t know where from. Kenya stopped the recording, packaging it and sending it off to the soldier that he had told to make inquiries for him. He attached a message.
Burtrand, search databases, four horsemen, whatever Earth is, any connections to defecting officers and the planet I’m currently on.
There was a pause, and he made to put his P.D.A away, before there was a response… A response?
Aye, aye Captain.
Kenya eyed the message… He’d never known that man to… whatever, it didn’t matter.
They were climbing up into the dropship, Kenya couldn’t let them escape. He leaped over the crate he was hiding behind, plummeting the twenty or so feet down to the landing pad. He braced his legs with the goo, which absorbed enough of the impact that when he rolled, it just barely hurt.
The man that had punched him spun his voice raised in alert, and Kenya raised his hand to his comms device, talking into it.
‘TOBI,’ he yelled, ‘WHEN THAT DROPSHIP IS IN RANGE, BLOW IT OUT OF THE FUCKING SKY.’
The gun began to rotate, and they raced into the dropship. It was already lifting off as the man that had punched him got himself inside. He gave him a smirk, and sketched a mock bow, taking his hat off to wave it before the door closed.
Kenya was going to get that mother fucker.
The gun opened fire, but whoever was piloting that dropship was supernaturally gifted. He tore around every blast of shrapnel. He could hear the soft cursing of Tobi in his ear at every miss.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Kenya said. They were escaping into the sky, avoiding a great deal of the shrapnel.
‘Sorry sir,’ Tobi said over comms, ‘whoever their pilot was, was able to dodge guided aiming. I couldn’t get a sight of them with my own hand either.’
‘S’alright,’ Kenya said, ‘shit. Radio our pilot, we’ll have to regroup.’
‘Aye sir.’
image [https://i.imgur.com/mA3AY5I.png]
He could just see the dropship on the horizon by the time he got a ping on his P.D.A, most of the fighting having died down. The local Internal Service Force Team worked fast the moment they could regroup with Naval Reinforcement. He’d keep that out of the report. If he even wrote it. The Guild-Lord was dead. Cardinal preserve him. Kenya looked down at his P.D.A., flicking through his pings until he got to the report he had been sent... Burtrand was working fast, much faster than usual.
‘Nothing significant on those Four Horsemen you mentioned, couldn’t find anything outside of vague religious texts, though it lines up with what you’ve mentioned so far. If it goes by Earthly parables, the first you met would have been war, or conquest. The second would be famine, the one you just met. The third would be pestilence. Though it doesn’t line up with what was said by the man, unsure on if it is coincidence or relevant.’
There was a second paragraph.
‘Along those lines though, I was able to pull access to current mission reports for 5687-C, which is the Earth you mentioned, and its surrounding planets. There is a small raid planned on a town named Maplewood, sometime in the next two weeks, unsure on relevance but it was noted to be a large grouping of ‘refugees’ and dissenters. Could be connected? If following you’d have to leave now, travel will put you within three days of mission start if you’re quick. No time for debate with brass. I’ve attached relevant reading to all discussions. Happy hunting Mister Kenya.’
Kenya eyed the report. "Mister" Kenya? It was odd to read that coming from his subordinate instead of just "sir" or "commander". Maybe Burtrand was feeling… informal. He couldn’t blame him, not really. He didn’t do much to enforce… procedures or etiquette, not really
The dropship landed, and Tobi approached him. He offered Kenya a quizzical look.
‘We’re headed to Earth,’ Kenya said, and held his finger up as Tobi opened his mouth, undoubtedly to complain, ‘I have clearance, based on current reports, it's our next logical step.’
Tobi eyed him, suspicion laced his gaze, ‘Aye sir.’
They boarded the dropship together, their destination set. Earth.
Kenya couldn’t help but feel a little bubble of excitement in his gut, not just at breaking rules and refusing to follow orders, but at going to earth.
The favoured pet planet of one of their glorious Administrators.
He was positively giddy.