"Shut. Up." He growled from between clenched teeth, well aware of the Medusa's head of writhing live wires. Wires hanging just a bit too far into the narrowed passage of his ship. He stopped to analyze the problem and catch his breath. While sitting in pain, he tried to work out a solution that did not involve sending a surge of electricity through the suit, Kitty, and himself.
"Ay, Req?" Vorn's com crackled. "Any chance of you hurrying the hells up?" Vector growled, the connection popping as he shifted and grunted into the receiver. Background alarms blared around Vector's cursing. The instance of Kitty bridged into the Leviathan could be heard instructing Vector on courses of action. It was clear that the battle was going south of satisfactory for everyone.
"I'm working on it," Vorn responded, taking a shallow, rattling breath before he turned his attention back to his fraction of Kitty and the problem at hand. "Kitty, I'm sorry for this." Gathering his strength and covering his visor with one arm, he launched himself through the mangled wires. The surge of electricity into his right arm was less than he had expected. That thought barely registered before he plummeted down the ladderwell on the other side.
Of course he didn't take the easy way down.
He landed heavily at the bottom, wheezing as he simultaneously prayed for both death and oxygen. Pain seared through every nerve as he sat heaped amongst the debris that had been freed from cabinets and anchors. The wind was knocked from his lungs in concert with stars and darkness invading his vision. His already sore and aching body was brutally reminded that he needed medical attention. Even as the darkness faded, little sparks and flashes of lightning fractured his vision. He had to fight to stay conscious.
"Get up! You have to get up, man!" a garbled voice echoed incoherently about his brain in Mac's low baritone. "MOVE!"
Vorn was alone in the cargo bay. Live, unspent munitions littered the entirety of the available space. He shook his head to clear the fuzz in his brain. Rather than clearing his head, it only caused his stomach the heave and the world around him to tilt.
"It's a wonder we weren't blown to kingdom come." He whispered and saw the tell-tale flicker at the edge of his vision signaling that another Ghost, Mac, was accessing his HUD visual feed.
"If you do not get into motion, you may well see that mythical land for yourself, you slag-begotten fool!"Ah. And now Mac was cursing, sort of. That outburst was as good as one of Citram's notorious rants. As Vorn's head cleared, he realised the rumbling was not from the Phoenix, or even his own disorientation.
"Should I ask-" Vorn started, making his way to the cargo personnel hatch.
"Tanks." Came the angry response. "Tanks, Req." Mac rarely used the short form of his call-sign. It was another sobering moment, "Rolling in very fast and with immense weight on our position." Vorn decided it was not worth the effort to correct him with 'hot and heavy'.
"Shite." He made himself move faster.
"Shite, right, king of the understatement. Bug. The. Fuck. Out." Vector interrupted, harshly emphasizing each word of the last sentence. "Pen and I are stretched way too thin keeping your asses un-barbequed." Vector groaned, "Son-of-a-" his com disconnected.
"Raze?" Vorn asked, receiving no response.
"It's getting pretty hot out here. We have to focus on this smutching horde." Citram broke in, replied, and cut out.
"Flux. I'm at the hatch. We got a lift?"
"Laying cover, but it will not last long." Mac responded, his accent thick and his breathing labored. "are you doing the thing?"
"Damn right I'm doing the thing." Vorn had to move a few heavy cabinets that had lodged themselves against the hatch. Then he had to fight against his injuries to get the door lock to swing in, allow the clamping mechanism to disengage, and blow the metal block of a door ten feet out. bless the suns the ship hadn't been buried too deeply. He would have had to use one of the smaller emergency exits had this one been blocked.
Just as Vorn's vision was adjusting to the bright light of the sun, revealing the crater he would have to climb out of, Mac swung into view from the tail of the ship. He was running in reverse with his assault rifle shouldered and firing rapidly. Kitty switched his suit to external air.
Mac continued firing rapidly at targets beyond Vorn's line of sight until the smaller man was almost upon him. He swung the rifle over his shoulder, turned, and pulled Vorn roughly from the ledge of the hatch. The munitions mod on the large rifle was smoking.
Mac was chanting as he sprinted with Vorn tucked under his arm. The man was strong, and made Vorn feel like an infant.
"Move move move move…." Mac rounded a crumbling low-lying wall and dumped them both bodily into the debris.
It was then that Vorn heard the high-pitched humming of what could be none other than the new Banshee Hive, the MiniBH-Red. It was supposed to still be in the testing phase. He looked around the wall to catch a glimpse of the device, resting on the other side of the Phoenix.
He watched in a dazed state of fascination. It was a dull gray, fist-sized grenade filled with nano-robots that would seek and destroy anything not clearly labeled as Conclave. Violently. They were equipped with some rather impressive microscopic infiltration techniques and firepower.
The grenade issued a long, shrill scream before it exploded outward in an angry red haze. The haze swirled and settled into a calm fog before streaking toward the tanks in three arcs. The tanks were indicated on Vorn's HUD. Three red points shone through the debris of the downed Phoenix and heavily damaged buildings.
Mac lifted Vorn to his feet again, wrapped an arm around his shoulder and practically drug him toward DuraCore, where Vidian was leading that assault. Toward Mac's Drakkar and relative safety. Vorn was still unsteady on his feet, but he ran as best he could.
Looking up, Vorn could see the aerial battle. He could see the replacement anti-aircraft turrets being installed atop the taller buildings and the hail of shrapnel raining down on the city and surrounding wilderness. In the distance, he could see the profile of the destroyer Tomorrow, highlighted by the rising sun. It was locked in battle with a Triad carrier.
As Saedah would say; 'The dam to Shit River broke'. They might well drown in it.
With everything happening, Vorn was grounded. That he did not like. That he did not like one bit. This was supposed to be a simple infiltration and extraction. The government and Conclave were not supposed to cross paths, not today.
Instead, it was now a very public confrontation. The Higarin city was the capitol. This was going to ignite a fight where neutrality had previously stood. Conclave wasn't ready to face Higarin head-on, in the grand scheme of things. Conclave was already fighting heavily in RREC1. They were locked in battle on Na'Boht, where HQ had been. Skirmishes frequently ignited in the empty territory between Oon'Aryx and Ceurul. They did not need a front with Higarin as well, on the opposite side of the galaxy, drawing attention to RREC2. Up to today, his sources reported that the Triad governments believed Conclave was confined to RREC1. This Darkness-damned battle could change that, and certainly not for the better.
Vorn was already planning ways to protect Panthra, Neofel, and IcoMera from the backlash. He knew he needed to think closer to the 'now', but his brain would not focus. Events had spiralled too far out of his control.
The forces from HQ had finally caught up, at least. And apparently, so had those redirected from NaBoht. Unfortunately, Higarin also had their own reserves arrive.The Ghosts had been in the fray for far longer than the fresh reserve force, both friend and foe. Performing a quick query through his HUD revealed the low munitions in both the Leviathan and the Kitsune. The Ghosts were either going to have to reload or retreat. In either case, they were going to have to abandon the battlefield to the fomentors for a time.
"Taxi in route?" Vorn asked, hoping for a quick refuel and reload. Since Kitty had disconnected from the rest of Conclave, Mac was his best source of current information.
"In a manner of speaking." Mac responded, grunting with the labor of carrying Vorn. "It may be too dangerous to come here. We have to go to Vidian, then 'work out' an escape from there, if the Taxi cannot reach us."
"What's the plan?" Vorn demanded, trying to get Mac to drop him. Mac faltered, but not due to Vorn's struggling. Vorn had asked him for a plan? His condition had to be very bad, indeed.
"What is your status?" Mac asked instead of replying, tilting his helmet towards Vorn.
"Broken ribs. Maybe a slight concussion." Vorn conceded.
"Internal bleeding? Punctured lung? Dizziness? Nausea?" Mac was in full medic mode.
"Broken ribs. Concussion." He reiterated slowly, a little irritated at the questions and having to repeat himself. He was a bit short-tempered, even for him. He rarely snapped at the medic. "Crabby."
Mac sighed. "'Crabby' is not a medical term." Was he saying he felt like a crustacean, or using the term to indicate his irritability?
"Okay: 'easy to piss-off'." Vorn knew he shouldn't be angry at Mac. It was literally Mac's job to keep them all in one piece, and why they had brought him into the fold; to keep the Ghosts from dying, without having to run to a regular medic every time something happened.
"Normal. I understand." Mac quipped, and Vorn could tell Mac was smiling. He enjoyed the times he could insert a snarky comeback at the others' expense. It did not happen often.
"Plan." Vorn insisted.
"That is usually your specialty, I think."
"Yea, well, I think this is all gone straight to the-" an explosion interrupted Vorn's retort, causing the two to duck and stumble before increasing their pace. "I can't be the only one here with a brain!"
Vorn and Mac made it to the Drakkar just as the Taxi screeched into atmos. The pilots on duty today were earning their keep tenfold with how they were driving the thing. The Taxi was a massive carrier. It tore through atmos with guns blazing in maneuvers the carrier was surely not built to perform. Smaller assault vessels swarmed out of the hulking mass like wasps from a hive. Free from the Taxi and in atmos, the Welkin Guard pilots broke into formations to engage the growing number of Higarin Triad forces. The small single-seater assault-class ships were non-vacuum compatible planetary fighters. There were also a large number of unmanned drones, designed to look like high-profile targets. They appeared to hold a crew of three or four, and were weaponized with the resonance canons.
The resonance cannons spewed forth a liquid-like lightning that was accurate and deadly. It did have a few problems working in space; the primary reason it wasn't integrated into the Ghosts ships. The 'evil geniuses' of Conclave were working to correct the issues, but as of yet, it was strictly an in-atmos weapon used solely by the Conclave Special Forces, the Courtiers. They'd been named Courtiers after their motto, 'Court Death and Vanquish Fear'. Those fools could make Vidian look cautious.
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The enemy had attempted to reverse engineer the cannons, but had achieved no real success. They'd only succeeded in blowing entire laboratories and factories to dust and smoking craters. It was no surprise that Moles reported no further testing of similar weapons.
"Here is an option for a plan," Mac started, "You should take the Drakkar with Penance and Raze. Go find our brother." He halted and looked sidelong at Vorn. "Stay out of any fight. If you find that you face an opponent," he turned fully and forced their helmed foreheads together, "you must, as Raze says, 'bug out'."
Vorn nodded.
"I need to hear the words." Mac hissed. He'd mended Vorn enough to know that the limping man really could not handle much more. While he would prefer to keep Vorn with him, he knew his own job would likely be far more dangerous moving forward; mending and defending the wounded, not to mention covering the retreat with Vidian and her forces.
"I won't engage." Vorn promised, relenting the issue to his comrade.
"Very good." Mac sighed, knowing Vorn would sooner lick his uncle's big toe than break his word. "Now, Penance has a location on the tracer. Go!" In one fluid movement, Mac shoved Vorn toward the Drakkar and unslung the rifle from his back, laying cover fire at the hostiles trying to sneak up on their position. Vorn hadn't noticed them, and that alone spoke volumes to the extent of his injuries.
Vorn ran as fast as his uneven, drunken lope would allow. He halted and turned before climbing up to the cockpit of the Drakkar.
"Flux!" he yelled, waiting for his friend to turn. "Phoenix is lit. If you get her lifted before those idiots trip her," he pointed a finger in the direction of the downed ship, "Remember."
"Duly noted."
Vorn saw a new tag flicker to life in his HUD peripherals. It was the 'no-entry' symbol, visible to anyone with Conclave HUD's. The Taxi would have already noted the addition of no-entry to the low-priority extraction tag. At least Vorn could feel a bit better. The Phoenix would not be responsible for destroying its own carrier. It was only a shame that the Phoenix would be destroyed if the taxi was unable to recover it.
Vorn climbed up to the cockpit, popped the hatch, and flopped into the seat of the Drakkar. The climb was a painful and exhaustive experience. He could have gone in through the hold, but there was still a steep ladderwell that route as well. He itched to be back in the air, but Darkness within… that climb had been painful!
Vorn's knees cramped against the console due to the height difference between Mac and himself. Mac also had a preference of leaning to the left when at the controls. Fixing the seat, the monitors were at such an angle to reflect the rising sun into his eyes. The brightness of the reflection played with the sensors on his suit as they tried to bring everything into visibility. The rapid adjustments caused his eyes to ache. He did not relish another trip to the optometrist. He shook his head.
Mother in Darkness, he thought. Keep it together V.
When he entered the hatch, Kitty connected to the Ghost systems. She entered through a secure connection into quarantine. Her systems ran checks and partitioned the possible corrupt segments away from the rest of her systems. By the time Vorn was completing the launch sequence, her systems had processed and assessed each byte of data she had collected during the minutes following her separation. She'd lost some, but the records of Vorn's status and vitals, the composition of the Higarin atmosphere, and what she had been able to collect regarding the battle, all added up to a massive amount of data.
"I am now repaired and re-connected. Any possible corrupted data has been quarantined and destroyed. Databases restored. Penance and Raze informed of launch."
"Great. What's everyone's status?" He asked into the Ghost's com channel. The 'I'm-alive' lights flickered for each of his team. It was the first time that Saedah had not been able to respond to that frequent question. The absence of the green flicker over the Higarin capitol, Aelmihtig, would be a moment he would never forget.
"Tomorrow this is Penance. Requesting authorization for pursuit; Penance, Raze, and Requiem in Drakkar." Citram stated in her flat 'ghost' voice across all open channels of Conclave.
"Penance this is Tomorrow. Authorization Granted. Gods speed, Ghosts." Tomorrow responded before Citram switched the Ghosts back to their own frequency.
Kitty enthusiastically joined the conversation as the Drakkar lifted from the ground in a cloud of dust.
"The guarded lifts are on descent to retrieve Flux, the injured, and the Phoenix if possible. They have prisoners." Her cheerful metallic voice turned sour as she continued, "If we are exiting Higarin airspace, we need to do so now. We have incoming, with a large signature. Tomorrow informed. Destroyer Milady en route."
"Thank you, Kitty." Citram and Vorn replied in unison. Vector was growling. Vorn got an eyeful of the Leviathan rolling through dangerous evasive maneuvers, struggling to fend off seven trailing, aggressive enemy fighters.
Vorn made to engage, but remembered his promise to Mac. Kitty interjected that there were reinforcements coming, just as a trio of fresh fighters fell through the clouds ahead of the Leviathan and met the Higarins head-on. The Leviathan immediately turned nose-up and sped through the clouds toward space, toward Jump-safe territory.
"Pen, I need the coordinates!" Vector hissed, the stress of the whole ordeal causing his voice to rise an octave.
"Coordinates should be on your NAVs… now." She voiced distractedly, performing a similar move to Vector. A heartbeat later, a trio of enemy fighters marked and locked onto her. She sped over the bow of the carrier Taxi, where a wing guard of conclave fighters met her. They dropped to engage the enemy.
"Coordinates confirmed." Vorn stated, turning the Drakkar, and slammed the throttle to catch the Kitsune before he found trouble as well. He choked on an expletive as the G's he pulled were greater than he had anticipated. The agility of the ship both surprised him and made him eat his heart for a moment.
"Coordinates confirmed, Penance." Vector sounded concerned. "Uh, Req? You good?" Vector asked, probably referring to the muted curse.
"Yea. Not used to the midget." He responded, still trying to reduce his heart rate.
"Do not insult my Drakkar." Mac interjected, sounding winded. "It will not take kindly to the offence. God's Speed, my friends."
"God's speed" Vorn selected the coordinates and waited for Citram to synchronize the jump, as she always did.
"Jumping in 3… 2…" The slight lurch and complete lack of sound was the only significance that the Drakkar had jumped. It was so smooth at everything.
The minutes crawled by frustratingly slow. Vorn left the cockpit to raid the medicine cabinet and pace the narrow cargo bay in silence, all but for Kitty's chatter.
The Drakkar was the first to arrive. This was Vorn's first drive in the tiny toy fighter. He had always wondered if Mac initiated jumps before the rest of them.
He would definitely be asking about the Drakkar's specks later.
Meanwhile, waiting for the others to arrive, he started the sweep. He was finding nothing but empty vacuum, small pockets of dust, rock, ice, and the uninhabitable dark side of Agamid, Vector's home planet. Agamid herself was tidally locked to her sun and rotated on a horizontal axis. One side was a vast desert, always facing the sun. The center of the desert was a black spot of absolute death. Further out from the Center, the land turned from charred black, less-charred brown, tan dunes and loose sand, to the rich brown, green, and blues of fertile land and vast waterways. The dark side was a barren expanse of ice and snow, constantly buffeted by four rotating storms that consumed hot air and spat out colder, stable air. The sun never set completely, but the hemispheres did go through periods of low light as the planet faced the sun on a tilted axis. It looked like a giant eye staring at it's sun.
The Kitsune and Leviathan fell from Jump within a minute of Vorn's arrival. Vorn allowed them the moment to run their scans as he watched for incoming. While he waited, he forwarded his own findings to the pair.
"Blasted sons of a slagheap…" Citram growled and continued to mutter under her breath, insulting the lineage and ancestors, as well as questionable animal husbandry practices, of every misbegotten Triad-sold soul on the Hauler. "His sign has moved. Updating coordinates." She hummed a flat note of irritation, one of her telling habits. In the early days, that alone had nearly connected Penance to Citram. Now she stayed to the Ghost frequencies as much as possible. Still, Vorn recognized that hum as a stressed and unhappy signal. It was usually the precursor to a good dressing down. Or an ass-whooping, depending on who you were and what you'd done. "Disregard. They're moving in hops." She fell silent as she tracked Saedah's movements. They would not pursue yet. They had to weigh the risk of waiting against pushing their ships too far and pursuing in hops, and it would help no one to lose another Ghost. Hops were unpredictable, even though they were traceable. One could tell where an individual fell, but Hops did not have the same downtime as Jumps.
Hops weren't true Jumps. They were slower and covered much less distance. It was also much harder on the ships to Hop than to Jump, presumably because Hops were derived from the ancient technology that made Jumps possible. Scientists had attempted to shorten the Jump times, but had only resulted in partial Jumps, where the ship was still mostly in this plane, but traveling at a much higher speed. The only redeeming quality was that hop technology was vastly, ridiculously cheaper.
Vorn allowed his mind to wander, listening to radio silence. The medication was making concentrating difficult, anyway. He was content with playing with the Drakkar for the first half of an hour, doing twists and turns and gathering the feel for the nimble little beast. Nearing the hour mark, Vorn was nearly asleep. The healing stimulant in his system draining his energy as it knit his wounds.
But the stimulant wouldn't protect any of them from Jump sickness. They were down two jumps. Depending on certain factors, they had two or three more before they were forced to wait out the recovery period. The recovery period was called 'cooldown', and was anything but fun, depending on the symptoms.
"There!" Citram yelled. Vorn winced at the loud exclamation. Vector issued a startled 'umph' and nearly jumped out of his skin. A loud thump sounded across the com. Looking over, Vorn could see Vector rubbing his bare forehead with one hand, and the other fisted on the overhead instrument panel. At some point he had removed his helmet, just to bang it on the low-hanging overhead. "Confirm." She demanded, watching Vector pull his helmet over a bruising forehead.
"Confirmed." Vorn and Vector echoed.
"Jumping in 3… 2…"
The view that assaulted them upon Fall was that of the King's Nebula, flashing from within with the power of the eternal storm. The nebula was made of three pillars, appearing to be almost exact copies arranged in a triangle. They looked like stick figures without arms or legs, with large, irregular crowns atop their bulbous heads. The pillars were a deep fresh-blood red anchored in green and blue gaseous clouds like shrubbery, all caged within rainbow spirals. The spirals appeared to follow the pattern of a magnetic field, but all attempts to study the Nebula failed within certain ranges. It was devastatingly mesmerizing and had the odd impression of three gods overlooking a battlefield. The 'top' half was mirrored to the bottom half, divided by the green and blue gaseous clouds.
Vorn shook his head to clear the errant thoughts and focused on the task at hand. He ran another scan, noting that Saedah's tracer signature was on the HUD. He could see the Dirge sign floating out before the nebula, but there was no sign of any hostile, ship, or life. He couldn't quite pinpoint the distance to the tracer, either, since that was beyond the function of the gadget.
"Is this a glitch? What-?" Vector asked, running the scan for the third time in a row. Vorn could hear the strain in his voice, and knew the younger Ghost was feeling some of the first signs of jump sickness. The Agamid would be the first to fall out and have to retreat and recover. Vector would not be accompanying them any further in their pursuit. He'd have to retreat back to a safe point and wait out his recovery period. But for the time being, he was there. They were all looking between their instrument readouts, HUD displays, and empty space between their ships and the edges of nebula.
The three came to the same conclusion at the same time. It was an audible moment, as the three drew in a shuddering breath. They simply stared at the glowing 'Dirge' mark in their line of sight, projected by their HUDs, floating through empty space, slowly moving toward the nebula.
They crept forward, fanning out to stop nearly directly atop the signal position.
"Walking" Vector whispered. Vorn could hear the clinks of Vector's harness as it was unfastened. He looked to his right and watched as Vector made his way through the cockpit hatch, moving out of sight toward the airlock on the Leviathan.
"Confirmed." Citram responded from Vorn's left. She was angled slightly toward him. The haze of the instrument panel reflecting onto her Skin gave her a surreal and haunted look, as though she were the real ghost of some terrible monster. He looked back to his right, wishing he could have taken the walk, but his suit may well have been too damaged.
That was a fantastic thought for after deciding to chase down known hostiles. What was with him? He never acted so rashly.
Vorn and Citram took alert positions well away from Vector, keeping one eye on the Dirge signature, and the other on possible incoming.
***
Vector exit the cockpit, sealing it behind him, and slid down the ladder to the cargo bay. After double-checking his suit and oxygen processors, he moved into the small airlock. He checked the seal to the cargo bay before turning to initiate the vacuums of the compartment. Before he opened the external hatch he tethered himself with the retractable leash.
He floated for roughly twenty minutes, meandering about the ship from hand-hold to hand-hold, before the HUD zeroed in on a bit of rock thumping silently along the hull of his ship. He pulled against a ridge in the metal and propelled himself forward.
Only to find that the rock was a bit of bone.
Bone, frozen blood, and meat.
"Guys?" His voice was gravelly, and his stomach was trying hard not to empty. "Found it." He knew from the blinking lights in the upper right of his vision that both Vorn and Citram had linked into his visual feed. He cringed.
Citram gasped, but otherwise they were both silent.
"There…" Citram began but had to clear her voice. "There is no Jump trail. The radiation from the nebula is interfering with the read."
"Cold tail." Vorn stated in a cold, dry voice. The voice of Requiem.
"Yes."
"Then shall we return to Higarin and get some answers?" He asked, the slime of anger and revenge thick in his words. He jumped before either Citram or Vector could argue, not that they wanted to.