PART V: FORCED HAND
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XIII: A Knight, Alone
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Anakin slid the landspeeder smoothly back into its spot in the motorpool, letting it settle to the tarmac as repulsorlifts shut down and the engine trembled off with a low whine. After the monster took off, winging away and out of the atmosphere, their sense of budding triumph vanished like a smuggler when the Stormtroopers came knocking. Sure, they had banished the creature from the plateau and where it might threaten the Praxeum, but now it was heading for a place far, far less defended.
Yavin 8, home of Sannah's people, the aquatic and amphibious Melodies, was a place Anakin and Tahiri knew well. Snakes, spiders, rats - the worst kinds of critters called that moon home, and all of them were way too big and way too hungry for Melodies. They'd met Sannah there, years ago, when escorting Lyric back home for her Changing. What started as a homecoming for Lyric turned into a nonstop fight for survival.
But that was then, when the Melodies were still reclusive and hidden, and now their Changing pools and egg-caverns had electrified fencing surrounding them and early alert sirens. Purellas dragging away adolescent Melodies to string up in their webs and suck dry was a thing of the past, just like Reels crushing helpless Changeling Melodies or Raithes making off with dozens of unhatched eggs. Just a touch of modern technology and the wilderness of Yavin 8 was kept at bay and all the better for it.
Electrified fences and some sirens wouldn't keep that sithspawn away. Not when it could rip open ancient Massassi stone and tunnel through solid bedrock.
All three teenagers sat in silence for several minutes, listening to the gentle metallic pinging of the landspeeder as it cooled down. Each was lost in their own thoughts, just loud enough the others could catch bare surface meanings. Tahiri wondered if it might not have been better if she hadn't woken the stupid thing up. Anakin chewed his lip, thinking about ways they could've sealed it into the cave under the temple, or maybe crushed it instead. Sannah, quietest, had said nothing at all since the monster fled.
She, out of all them, knew how vulnerable her people were. They weren't fighters, not natural ones anyway. Anakin felt a deeper undercurrent to Sannah's mood. She was afraid for her people, that was for sure, but he sensed something else. Something even she wanted to pretend wasn't there.
He sighed, hoisting himself up and hopping out of the driver's seat. The girls started, jerked from their own thoughts by his sudden motion. Tahiri yawned, wide enough to pop her jaw and she winced, rubbing at her cheek.
"Ow. So…what do we do now?"
Anakin held out a hand, letting Sannah use it as leverage as the much shorter girl climbed out of the backseat of the landspeeder and hopped down to the ground. She didn't look at Anakin, keeping her eyes downcast.
"You alright, Sannah?"
She mumbled something, rubbing at her elbow. He felt another flash of that buried-deep feeling. Tahiri, also catching on, paused in removing her boots. Her brown hair, frazzled and tangled from their descent, fight, and flight, fell over her face. Gently, Anakin brushed it aside, crouching down. There were tears in the corners of her eyes.
"Hey," Anakin said gently, taking both of Sannah's hands. "We'll stop it."
"I thought I could protect my people," Sannah sniffed. "If I was a Jedi, like Lyric…"
"You are a Jedi." Tahiri abandoned removing her boots, leaving both sets of laces trailing. She came around, wrapping up Sannah in a hug from behind. "That thing ran away from us, it doesn't stand a chance. We'll chase it back to your home and show it that you can't run from Jedi."
Again, Anakin felt that buried emotion from Sannah, but this time put name to it. Shame. Holding back tears, Sannah wildly shook her head.
"I don't want to go home," she sputtered, furiously wiping away a tear that slipped free, almost angry that it dared to fall. "Atargatis is horrible."
Above Sannah's head, Tahiri frowned, mouthing the unfamiliar name. It took a moment, but it was thinking of Lyric that reminded Anakin. Yavin 8 wasn't 'Yavin 8' to the Melodies, of course. Atargatis wass what they called their home, it meant something like 'the life-waters'. Tahiri felt his recognition and winced.
"I thought I would go and train and be like Lyric and go back home but then I was here and there was so much to do and then I learned about the whole galaxy and Anakin, Anakin I don't wanna go home."
"It's not forever!" Sannah being afraid of the sithspawn, that Anakin could understand. Sannah being afraid for her people, that too. Sannah…having some kind of crisis about growing up, right now? Not as much. "You don't even have to come with us, Tahiri and I-"
"No!" Sannah shouted, yanking free of Tahiri's arms and jabbing a finger at Anakin's chest. "Don't you - don't leave me behind."
"But-"
"Lyric only went back because she had to Change. That's years away, Sannah." Tahiri reminded the Melodie. Help, she sent to Anakin. As if he had any better idea. Worse, Tahiri's words only soured Sannah's mood further.
"I don't want to think about it. But now I have to think about it, and - augh!" Sannah rubbed at her eyes, banishing the last threatening moisture. "I'm acting like a dumb girl," she moaned.
"Uhm." Anakin managed. Tahiri arched a brow at his eloquence, finally kicking off her loosened boots.
"Hey, Sannah, I told you about when Anakin and I had to go back to Tatooine, right?"
Sannah huffed a sigh.
"Yeah."
"Well, I'm gonna tell you about it again. Because I know how you feel. I think I do. No, I do. I was afraid to go back home too. Here I was, at the Jedi Academy! I got to be Tahiri, and figure out who that was. And then I had Anakin too, and our friends, and then all of a sudden…"
Tahiri led Sannah along, chattering away, recounting their adventures of just a few years ago. They had to go see Uncle Luke, tell him what went on…and then figure out just how to comfort Sannah. Anakin rubbed his forehead. What a day so far.
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Mortarch Abandon strode past straggling AT-ATs, the walkers still beating a hasty retreat. One limped past the Imperial Warlord, rear leg dragging on seized gearing. Juggernauts rolled past, each as long as the Warlord was tall, but Noriomi looked down on them from a position of high disdain. A single one of Mortarch's blessed armaments was as long and as heavy as the flimsy quadrupedal walkers. She watched incredulously as one slunk past, wondering at how it managed to stay upright on such spindly limbs. Mortarch's bulky mask craned to watch the vehicle amble by before the princeps hauled her attention and that of the great machine's spirit back to their foes. It vied with her, arrogant and haughty, a Lord who only cared to listen to those it's equal. At the moment it was more insulted by the pitiful facsimiles that passed it by than the enormous beasts far distant.
Another worldeater bellowed, shaking spines and hooting a challenge. The last two, now arriving, took up the call, continuing their ponderous encirclement. Noriomi strode gladly into the 'trap', already flexing the Arioch gauntlet that made up the Mortarch's strong right hand. Mortarch's spirit snarled, straining under her control, hungry to engage. She could feel it trying to divert power to the gauntlet, just as anxious as she to come to grips. A rarity for a Titan vehicle; the Arioch was the far distant cousin of the Astarte's powerfists, magnified into proportions that beggared belief. Legio Lacassex's humour was bellicose and daring, every princeps eager to engage the enemy close enough to exult in the heat of reactor-death and feel the clatter of wreckage against glacis.
Cracks of lightning coiled about enormous digits and the on-board megabolters hummed with eagerness. Noriomi/Mortarch unconsciously clenched and unclenched her/its fist, eager to sink fingers home in their foe and taste the ferocity of their death. With each stride the Titan covered a dozen meters, building into a lope, incongruously graceful and swift in comparison to the plodding walkers left behind. Intricately woven banners flickering with hololiths and circuitry sewn into the fabrics flapped at groin and shoulder, proudly bearing the colors of Ultramar and Lacassex to battle in a galaxy yet innocent in the manner of Titan war. Lacassex's bold colors in the ice-blue of Choleris Prime's oceans and silver-white of the world's frigid snows stood vibrant contrast to the muddy, dark-grey architecture around.
Her cape rippled and she felt her own pride mingle with that of the titan. She could feel the smug superiority of Mortarch's soul, eager to demonstrate the power of the Machine God. For now she kept the reins tight, saturating the Titan with her will.
The two worldeater before the Titan lobbed corkscrewing magma-missiles skyward, a dozen of the flaming projectiles arching high before plunging sharply. Carapace las-batteries fired upwards, but few were swatted from the air. Rippling blinding-bright detonations flared across the voids of Mortarch Abandon and it seemed the worldeater all paused to witness the efficacy of their strike.
Mortarch bulled out of the fire without a hitch in its stride. Its horn hooted in raucous, derisive amusement as Noriomi probed at the strength of her voids.
The gap closed to hundreds of meters. Noriomi itched to come to grips with one of the monsters, but logic tempered her battle-lust. Mortarch sullenly acceded to her reason. With pulses of thought and feeling, she promised the spirit victory. The Titan trusted her. Together they had strode a hundred worlds, laying low innumerable foes. Together they were an unstoppable force. Mortarch/Noriomi watched the two flanking worldeater begin to pull in, closing from the left and right. Another spew of magma missiles filled the sky, this time erupting from all four of the biots.
She chose her target at a whim – either before her was viable. Whimsy decided on the leftward creature. She could pepper the creature with weaker shots, test and try its strength, but brushed aside the idea. Her left hand reached out and fist clenched and the liquid fury of a star erupted from her palm.
A Belicosa Volcano cannon is a las weapon of the scale normally borne by starships. Its normal function was as capital-class discouragement and defense. Beam attenuation was measured in the thousands of kilometers. The curvature of a world its only impediment. Light blasted the battlefield. Shadows flared into ink-dark pools.
Dovin basals, just waiting for this moment, yawned voids wide in the moments before firing.
Countless ergs drained into nothing, devoured by the hungry creatures, shunted into nothingness by short-lived point-masses. Microseconds passed. Still the torrent of ardent, visible radiation hammered in. Overpressure from superheated air rippled outward from the blast. One dovin basal expired, murdered from the inside out by sympathetic aftershocks that stippled a thousand tiny holes throughout its body from misfiring voids. Another died. Another fell silent. A worldeater sported more than a dozen dovin basals, a full choir like might be found on a Yuuzhan Vong corvette of the line.
A fourth was knocked senseless. The void projected stuttered, failed. A fraction of a second had passed.
Several tens of thousands of tons of yorik coral, muscle and worldeater was knocked bodily sideways by the impact, armor and flesh instantly vaporizing and exploding, ablating underneath the judgement of the Warlord. The beast staggered sideways, thrown off balance, columnar legs struggling to stay beneath its centre mass. This time its bellow was one of agony and shock.
A vast slash tore down its side – not a mortal blow but a savage one, searing away a dozen weapon implants. Gellied urang-hul bugs drooled from ruptured gestation sacs. Burst capillaries of magma-fuel leaked steaming, clotted plasma from a dozen points. Flesh was laid down to the bone in some places, ribs as thick as a man is tall cracked and scorched.
Magma missiles hammered once more into the voids of Mortarch Abandon, Noriomi feeling every explosion on the greasy fields like the thumps against her back. Blue and yellow light flared, bruise-like, crackling in haloes of disruption as neutrino bursts and gamma radiation was shunted sideways out of the universe. Violet and black lightning earthed from the barrier to the projectors noduled along her spine.
At this point, in a true engine battle, she would normally be down a void or two, perhaps even three if so outnumbered by enemy Titans. These creatures were massive, but they did not have the bite Mortarch was born to withstand.
Coolant systems complained the great las weapon was still overwarm but Noriomi overrode them, a lifetime of intimacy with the engine imparting reflexive understanding of its utmost limits. Mortarch wanted this kill as much as she. The heatsinks were barely a dull red. Any complaint was half-hearted. She thrust out her palm once more and once more the Belicosa spoke, this time paired with the linked blast from the six barrels of the shoulder-mounted carapace turrets.
The wounded biot had only just found its footing again when it was struck again.
Overtaxed and exhausted dovin basals stood no chance. Beams struck and cored into the chest of the beast, peeling back its flesh and blasting superheated fragments of muscle and meat high into the air. It gave an agonized howl and collapsed, the impact of its fall shuddering through the legs of Mortarch. Most of the front of its chest was vaporized, nearly severing both arms.
It was not, strictly speaking, an engine, Noriomi thought, but did not begrudge her mount's enthusiasm.
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Far, far away, watching on holotanks and from direct feeds from the front, Ullos turned to Lieutenant Optarch, incredulity writ clear on his face.
'What is that?'
'A Warlord Titan, General. Mortarch Abandon.' On the holotank the striding, humanoid construct continued its unerring march, buffeted by swarms of detonations from magma missiles and the splashing of plasma. Its majestic warhorn, one that Paston knew from long experience could vibrate a man's teeth from his skull was reduced to a tinny, static-laded shrill. In the winds of the rippling storms of wounded Fondor, the incongruous and rakish shoulder-cape of the titan rippled and snapped like a vast sail-canvas along with its victory pennants.
'Do you have more?' The Ultramarine was amused by the sentiment: awe immediately replaced by desire.
'Not in this theatre.' Optarch leaned closer, nodding in satisfaction as flames parted around still-present voids, Mortarch as yet untouched. 'Princeps Noriomi would not have it. She wanted to hunt alone.'
'That's not her decision to make, this 'princeps'.'
Optarch forgave him his ignorance and merely shook his head.
'I may not command a Titan Legio, General. Very few can. We can only request. For even one to walk here is an unexpected boon.' Noriomi had been a last-minute addition. Orichi-Mu did not wish her to accompany to Corellia, wondering what use a Titan would be in what should be only a void battle, but the Princeps insisted. Even the Dominus wouldn't gainsay the Chief of Lacassex, and now her mount proved a potent last-resort.
On the holo Mortarch spoke again, sheets of interference from a massive radiation bloom momentarily blurring out all feeds within the area. Zagging lines resolved back into the Warlord titan, seen from many hundreds of meters away, at ground level. It was fully engaged with two worldeater, trading point-blank fire from las-cannon and massive megabolters in the shoulders. 'But the power they bring is worth compromising for, is it not?'
Ullos nodded, watching as a worldeater staggered back, retreating behind its fellow with voids exhausted and a dozen searing wounds along its flank.
'Surely it will be overwhelmed? I can order the remaining juggernauts assets back into the fight –'
Optarch waved it away.
'Noriomi would begrudge it. Mortarch Abandon hunts alone. Let her be.'
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Another wave of plasma hammered into her skin, a solid gut-punch that brought down a layer of voids in a concussive bang of displaced air and violet sparks that visibly rocked the nearest Vong biot. Noriomi grimaced, her massive power claw flexing in sympathetic motion to her irritation. Still she retained her final void shield, but had been unable to secure a second kill. The worldeater, for all their mass, were swifter than they seemed. She suspected some result of the gravitic manipulation powers of their symbiotes, lowering their weight enough for one to shy away from a linked blast of all six las-cannon. It was not wasted, however, as the battle-cannon tore scars a kilometer long in the distant alien fortifications. Mortarch howled in irritation, Noriomi backpedaling to swing around, keeping two biots in her frontal arc. The third remained in her blind spot, directly behind the Warlord, content to pump out insects and plasma to hammer against her voids.
The two biots before her were wary – one scarred deeply by a glancing hit of her volcano cannon, but not out of the fight. It favored its left leg, limping and staying farther back. The nearest was the more canny – still untouched after minutes of exchanged fire. Her Belicosa was hot and steaming, yet unable to come to bear with a meaningful strike again.
Noriomi could see the tiny figures of the aliens milling around far distant. It would not be long before they gathered their nerve and came to the aid of their creature-titans. Already Mortarch's megabolters reached half capacity of ammunition, a feeling like a pang of hunger in the pit of her stomach. With no Knight maniples to keep her feet clear, it was not a potential she enjoyed. She would never lower herself to accept aid from the spindly war-walkers of the Republicans, even if it were to just keep her feet clear of boarders.
This clash needed to be ended now.
She felt her moderati like glowing presences below her, as if they buoyed her up. Their mind-impulses, thoughts, words – all flowed together into streams of consciousness. In the Legio Lacassex cooperation was not expected: utter unity was demanded. The princeps the driving personality, moderati like angels atop the shoulder, offering advice and assistance, but always lesser. And beneath them all the churning storm of the Titan itself, a vast entity unto itself, volatile and godlike, tempered only by the tenuous chains held by its experienced crew.
One day each of her moderati would know what it was to master a God machine, Noriomi thought, as the Motive Force filled the fibre-bundled limbs of her oldest friend. The charge of her volcano cannon ebbed, left hand growing cool and stiff, but ever did she trust in her strong right hand. They too would one day know what it was like to stride the battlefield an impervious avatar of divinity.
The nearest worldeater, the canny one, would not be an easy kill. She set her sights instead on its injured fellow.
Mortarch tipped forward, as if to fall, yet its massive legs found purchase and the Titan, incredibly, began to jog. Rarely did she attempt such a risky motion, for a Titan fallen was often doomed. Gyroscopes and compensators screamed within her chassis, a feeling like bone-deep nausea clenching at her gut. But she grinned. A Warlord could never outpace a Warhound, the smaller scout Titan much more gracile and swift, but there was nothing as heart-stoppingly terrifying as an icon of the Machine God bearing down upon a foe with such fixed fury. Lacassex did strange things to their Titans, other, lesser Legios whispered.
The sly worldeater slid aside, lowing in surprise, scattered plasma fired in haste splashing against voids. The damaged biot had no chance, stolen by its crippling injury. Noriomi struck out, Arioch gauntlet grasping forward, knowing to end a charge without contact with a foe could well tip Mortarch beyond the capabilities of its engineering to compensate for.
She judged rightly. As always.
Digits longer than an Astartes Dreadnought was tall sank home in the slabbed armor plating of the beast, daggering into its throat. Disruption fields screamed and reduced yorik coral to constituent atoms, hissing plumes of vaporized dust and carbonized gore spuming into the air.
The worldeater's roar became a strangled shriek as the Warlord bodily collided with it, forcing the beast sideways and back. It was taller than her, more than twice as long as the Warlord was tall, yet still the impetus of her engine rocked it back. Inside Mortarch the impact was severe, thumping Noriomi hard enough to bleed through her elevated state and she distantly hoped the engineseer and magos had braced.
But the worldeater was caught. Its massive head glared down in pained shock, eyes peculiarly emotive at so close a range.
Good.
She craned to look up into them, to see the animal's primitive intelligence recognize the moment of its death.
Mortarch Abandon hauled it closer, claws fisted deep in the meat of the beast. Scrabbling paws thudded hard against the Titan's carapace, screeching hard claws down her glacis, leaving shining tracks of exposed, raw adamantium. One enormous talon managed to hook over Mortarch's chest plate, tugged hard enough Noriomi winced at the feeling, like a yanked rib.
The beast's jaws fell open, and down in its gullet she saw her own talons, sunk through, soaked in gore, but beyond was a feeble orange glow, deep down in its throat that guttered and died even as it shone past her clenching fist.
A herculean shove pushed the biot away as Mortarch took two long strides back, letting it slump to the soil in ruin. The ruined remains of its throat remained in her grasp, crunching and crackling into dust. For good measure, her shoulder cannon pulsed six bars of searing light into its ruptured throat. The fallen corpse wetly detonated, vast amounts of softer innards and water turned to superheated steam in microsecond, rendering the forward third into a churn of meat.
Noriomi turned to face the final two beasts.
< Et Lacesso Mortem! Yet we challenge death!> The giddy excitement of her moderati infused her. The Titan raised its gauntlet, blood still streaming down fingers and extended one single finger, beckoning. Her cape waved in the wind, the hot glare of the cockpit windows burning.
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Optarch snorted at the display, crossing his arms over the Ultima set in the chest of his warplate. Such showmanship was well known for Lacassex, their incautious gloryhounding setting them apart from the practical Ultramarian mindset. Still, he mused, at least their arrogance was well earned. Rarely had Lacassex ever been bested.
Now would not be one of those times.
Only two Yuuzhan Vong bio-titans remained and he suspected Mortarch would soon be restoring a second void shield. Preparations needed to be made for a further offensive, to follow up support to the Titan once the field was cleared of the superheavy assets. Then would be the time to break the alien entirely (though mentally he grimaced at the inaccuracy of referring to the Vong in such a way, considering that no small portion of the forces at his disposal were, indeed, xenoforms).
With luck, Fondor could be secured by the end of the week.
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Noriomi twitched as her second void shield re-engaged, the static crackle sensation skittering up the nerves of her back. One worldeater still lurked to her flank while the other, surprised by the brutal execution of its fellow, eyed her from a distance. There was a lull, a moment to breathe. With two voids restored, she was confident the battle was all but ended. The two bio-titans were unhurt aside from minor, cosmetic wounds, but Mortarch was hot and blooded. She judged her next move – at half ammunition, she could turn her megabolters on one of the beasts, overwhelm its voids, strip its agility and pin it through.
An odd stance, she mused: not entirely combat-viable, but perhaps a primitive form of intimidation, which she felt Mortarch pulse deep amusement at.
In the swirling drifts of ash and dust that swept through this sector, she caught glimmers of slithering, liquid light reflecting from windborne particulates. Harsh and blue, it crackled to life at the tip of the worldeater's long tail, a spreading wildfire of sudden chemical luminance rippling up its tail toward the vast sails of its back.
Mortarch tensed, bracing, and Noriomi swung her left hand around, bringing the Belicosa in line. Whatever this worldeater intended, it had merely made itself a perfect, stationary target.
Blue light crackled in veins along each of the spinal plates, reaching up to its broad, armored skull. Its dark eyes, no different to the ones she had just seen grow glassy and empty of life in its brother, lit with Cherenkov blue.
The worldeater shuddered, convulsing along the entire length of its body. It snapped wide jaws forward and screamed.
A stream of wild particles in a cocktail of plasma and exotic radiation, tinged white-hot and pale-blue, shrieked across the short span between the beast and the Warlord, slamming into her voids like a kick to the chest.
Alarms immediately howled in the cockpit, Mortarch juddering in shock at the impact.
The newly returned void blew out with a thundercrack, lifting dust and debris into the air for half a thousand meters around.
The white-hot glare drowned out the world, the flare of it strong enough through the windows in the cockpit that Noriomi felt sweat pour down her flesh-body as the internal temperatures sky-rocketed.
The entire titan rocked sideways, joints and muscle fibers screaming. Something had struck them, blindsiding Noriomi through the distraction of the flaring plasma. She struggled to stay upright, staggering sideways, claws sinking into the crumbled duracrete and gouging out deep trenches as she vied against their unknown attacker.
The flanking worldeater, she thought grimly, no longer a coward.
The final void shield collapsed in a thunder of violet sparks.
Plasma washed over Mortarch and Noriomi was amazed that it was still coming.
She threw up her right hand, palm-flat, into the glare and thunder of plasma, desperate to shield her face, her head, her body from the ceaseless torrent. The disruption fields in the Arioch worked, slightly, to destabilize the energetic, superheated matter, but only just. Servos slagged and digits softened; feeling through the sympathetic link like the skin of her fingers crisping and peeling back over raw tendons. The edges of her glory cape caught alight, the adamantium threads heated white-hot, like a lattice of las.
Noriomi screamed with her mount, Mortarch stumbling drunkenly, bellowing its distress through warhorns.
She felt immense pressure in her left arm and craned her neck to see.
Face-to-face she glared at the worldeater, its reptilian eyes gone white beneath nictitating membranes barely meters from the cockpit of the Warlord. It snuggled closer, arms grasping at the carapace of the Titan, biting and crunching deeper at her left arm. Teeth shattered – the thick bone and coral of the biot proving incapable of punishing adamantium.
But it kept on squeezing. Bands of muscle that wrapped about its thick skull bore down. The adamantium and ceramite armor protecting her limb warped. Strained. Bent.
It could not pierce it but the beast did not care. It would crush her instead.
And still the second worldeater screamed plasma at her, wailing an unearthly howl that shook her bones.
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Noriomi took another clumsy half-step sideways, the weight of the creature dragging on her left arm. She could not see her gauntlet through the blinding flare of the plasma, but she could not feel her right hand either. Even her arm felt distant, now.
There was the briefest of pauses, drawn out to aeons in her compartmentalized, elevated mental state.
Noriomi screamed, back arching, vision whiting out and losing all sense of the battle.
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The vong struck again and again, like gnats, nipping at the flanks of a grox. Mantallikes claimed one and Numinus two others, but the invaders learned rapidly. From the strategium of Macragge's Honour, now in orbit of Eboracum, Roboute watched grimly as the boundaries and capabilities of his warships were learned. Now, vong warships lurked here and there beyond the orbit of Eboracum's largest moon, evident and obvious and daring the 4711th to respond.
He knew it would be fruitless. Though Imperial warships boasted significant realspace acceleration, it mattered little in the face of hyperspace. Well before the guns of battleships would come in range of the vong ships they would surely dart away, repositioning by bouncing out and away from Eboracum's gravity well, reorienting, and then appearing elsewhere.
Marius Gage tapped augmetic fingers, rap-tap-tap on ceramite as he stood beside the Primarch, arms folded, Mark IV plate polished and parade-ready.
'I'm surprised by their recalcitrance,' Gage noted. 'Our theoreticals on the vong need to be reassessed.'
Guilliman's eyes worked over the tactical hololith, as if by mere study he might discern the way out of this staring contest.
'I put little stock in the Republican assessment. It is easy to claim an enemy is rabid and without reason, but more often than not, that is a cover for personal failings to prepare for the unexpected. No force can take a fourth of a galaxy if they do not have discipline, reason and talent for strategy.'
The Yuuzhan Vong were zealots, the Republic cried. They were madmen, driven by whim and deranged obsession. They worshiped pain and rejected reason, they spat on common decency and delighted in atrocity. It painted a pretty picture, one that absolved the Republican Senate of responsibility. It painted over the failures of the first clashes with the invaders, that saw losses deserving of courts martial. How could we know, the Republicans cried? How could we have planned for this?
It was a naivete that was surprising, for all of the history of this galaxy that Roboute had plumbed. How quickly did they forget the lesson of the Empire they overthrew, that only decades before had sought to snuff out worlds entire. When Ithor burned, and the Jedi Master Corran Horn took the blame, the Republicans wailed that 'who could have known?'
The burning of Ithor was eminently sound. The excuses made - that it was some ritual to honor the fallen vong Commander rang hollow. The trees of that world exuded a pollen that slew the vonduun armor creature that made the vong's footsoldiers so fearsome. If Guilliman knew of a world that had a natural way of disabling Astartesian plate, the question would not be if the planet burned, but rather if necessity called for declaring the entire system terminatus, and expunging every last planetoid from existence and memory. In fact, the soundest practical for the vong would have been to hunt down the Ithorian herdships to the last and destroy them too.
No, the Yuuzhan Vong were no fools, which meant these probing actions, the handful of lost capital ships - they meant something. There was a strategy within these seemingly feckless diversions, and Guilliman picked back up his dataslate. Beside him, Gage noted with amusement the blur of motion as his Primarch scrolled through sensorium data at a rate that appeared more a blurred waterfall rather than pages of text and diagram.
'Maximal range from Fondor…' Guilliman muttered, just audible. 'Accounts for lance arrays - Mantallikes reveals traversal…'
Gage watched his father work. Centuries of campaigning, many decades now with the Primarch, and yet it remained a true pleasure to watch his sire in his element. His back-trace of the Campanile at Calth was a work of true genius, but tempered by the atrocity of the moment. There was none of that rawness now, just the purity of analysis and consideration.
'Project all vong movements since their arrival, with tracks colored by age.'
'Complying,' droned an implanted servitor and the grand hololith refreshed, sprouting a complicated web of short threads across nearspace, shading from dull red to vibrant violet. They looked haphazard, aimless, yet…
Gage noticed Guilliman eyeing him.
'Do you see it, Marius?' There was a twinkle in the Primarch's eye, the barest hint of curled lip on his patrician face. The red tracks, showing the first places the vong appeared, were closest into the gravity well and the anchored ships of the 4711th. The violet tracks, those of the past hour, drew farther away, up and out from Eboracum.
'They're trying to draw us out.'
'Attempting to. By my order, no ship has leave to give chase. You can see, there, there and there. They are growing impatient. The battleship-analogue killed by Mantallikes appears an anomaly, but in the greater context: it was bait.'
'A pound of flesh to encourage us to respond.'
'Which we did not take. Now they withdraw to the opposite orbit of Eboracum's largest satellite - Yadraig.'
The means of hyperspace travel necessitated distance from gravity wells, either artificial or natural. Yadraig was likely large enough to project its mass shadow. Eboracum's other moons were much smaller, scarcely worth the name at all.
'The question remains: if the vong wish us to follow them from Eboracum orbit, what purpose do they imagine? They cannot best us in fleet action. Cornelius has proven that already. They cannot attempt landing. The Pharisen Redoubt and Lacassex would slaughter their landers.'
'Life-eater?' Gage was loathe to even say the words aloud, but the Yuuzhan Vong had used an equivalent already.
'Unlikely. They could have unleashed it already, if that had been their aim. We cannot interdict the entire planet at this juncture.'
About them, the strategium remained quietly humming with activity, only the occasional glances sent toward the Master of the First and the Lord Primarch as the two deliberated in quiet tones. Until Guilliman reached a decision, the 4711th was to simply remain at alert, engage targets of opportunity, but otherwise refuse to rise to the bait of the vong. It chafed on the captains of the other vessels, to sit idle and watch aliens intrude on Imperial space, such as it was. Their ire grew, banked, building for the right time to be unleashed.
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Lightning jagged down every nerve, seizing her muscles and Mortarch's both. She howled, it howled, they howled together.
Void shield capacitors erupted in sequence down her spine, detonating in sprays of unnatural light and ball-lightning. The grasping Vong beast was struck dumb, so close to the reality-twisting distortions.
Mortarch groaned, the vast spirit pulling away from connection, shocked and numb.
Noriomi chased it. She dove into the Warlord, fingers outstretched, clinging onto the god-machine.
Mortarch was dazed, shocked, its intelligence muddy and fragmented.
I am hurt, it whispered to her, amazed.
Yes, she said. We are.
I am never hurt, it accused, hissing at her, her tenuous grasp on the spirit growing painful at its rejection. In the flesh-sphere the MIU link burned at the base of her spine. Cooked flesh scented the air of the cockpit.
No, Noriomi snarled, grasping the spirit with her mind. We are never hurt. It struggled, wordless, pummeling her instead with emotions, hot and vivid and singular. Hate, wielded like a club. Fear, slicing like a blade. Noriomi took them all, letting the rage sink into her being, find purchase in the mirrored feelings in her own mind.
We are never hurt, she said again and Mortarch growled. We are never hurt, because we are death. We are death and death can never feel pain.
Mortarch ceased its plummet and they hung there, for a moment: a matchstick against a dwarf star.
Lo, she whispered. Behold the Mortarch.
The star burned and burned, self-sustaining, eternal, but dull. Lost. She was the spark. She was the nucleonic reaction, the exotic isotope in the catalyst. Noriomi fell further, the sensation of the MIU scorching at skin and nerve fading away, the sound of her moderati lost.
Who comes with fury and abandon.
Mortarch loomed enormous, blotting out all thought, all reason.
The spark that was all that remained of Princeps Noriomi, Legio Lacassex, eroded and refined by the ego-devouring landscape of the interface, sunk into Mortarch.
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She slammed back into her head with force, shocking back to her flesh-body, back to reality, with a jolt of dissociation that felt momentarily as if she was thrown too far, overshooting her brain before snapping back. Mortarch was there with her, angry and loud, pained and arrogant, willful. Willing. Harnessed.
The barest of moments had passed.
The loss of her void array still flayed at the nerves of her back. The crushing gnaw of the worldeater at her arm still ached and strained at her bones. Numbness and heat still spread up her right arm. None of it mattered. It all fell away. Noriomi/Mortarch wrenched sideways, taking the stream of plasma on their shoulder, sacrificing the defensor batteries, cape and las-cannon to weather it on the thick, hulking armor. Overheated and half-seized gearing and joints wailed as they slammed the molten, slagged mess of the Arioch around, cleanly into the snout of the second worldeater. The beast huffed, snarling, unwilling to release. Again and again they rammed the lump of superheated metal into the biot, cracking the armor of its face, peeling back the flesh, the muscle, until bone chipped and flew. Still it did not release.
Mortarch/Noriomi commanded the remaining las-cannon to decline, barely able to bring the triple-barrels in-line with the worldeater. Red light flared out, over and over, searing channels into the neck of the beast, chipping off armor. Eyes rolled back, glazing over, but still it held on. The molten remains of their right hand joined the barrage, chopping down at the back of the skull, crunching through vertebrae a meter thick.
An almighty wrench decapitated the creature, leaving its brutalized head still clinging tight to their arm.
The spray of plasma finally ceased, the last worldeater gasping, exhaling plumes of steam from mouth and waggling spines that almost hid it from view. She could see it was exhausted, its chest heaving and limbs slack. It did not react to being the last worldeater left.
Unsteady, Noriomi/Mortarch elevated the Belicosa. The weapon was misaligned, knocked askew by the worldeater's gnawing and flailing paws. Sparks flew along the length of it. She heard moderati cry out about power-draw, about coolant levels, about capacitor overload.
She asked Mortarch instead.
Mortarch she trusted.
To whom war is brother…
She fired.
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Optarch winced as the holographic display again filled with a blizzard of disruption and distortion. All conversation in the command centre had died when the Mortarch had become embattled, suddenly fighting for its life.
Scan-lines rippled across the display, restoring clarity and cleaning up decayed data.
They all saw the last worldeater stagger sideways, cored through the chest. From the vantage point of the recorder, the tumultuous sky of Fondor could be seen clear through its body. They all watched Mortarch Abandon stumble backwards, sway, steady, sway again, hold its balance. It broadened its stance, anchoring its weight, and blared warhorns in triumph. Then again, stronger, louder.
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She could feel Mortarch's lethargy. It wanted to sleep. She agreed. Sympathetic pain racked her body, matching very real injuries from overloaded panels in the cockpit and spalled off debris. Disengaging from the combat-meld back to herself was always painful and slow. One day she never would again. One day she would remain lost in the MIU and her withering body would be interred in a floatation tank. There she would command Mortarch until the Titan, like it did all things, finally consumed her.
That would not be today. Noriomi took in the battered cockpit with her own eyes, gritty and aching, wincing at the blossoming purple and black bruises that were beginning to appear on exposed skin. She felt grimy, sweaty and depressingly mortal. This was the moment she hated – the return to the flesh. Both her moderati lived – Tol Tolu sat forward, pulling his MIU link to maximum, hanging his head. Nossem Tolu to her left was sprawled in her couch, breathing heavy, nursing a twitching arm.
Wearily Noriomi signaled to the magi and her moderati. Auspex still showed heavy concentrations of vong xenoform infantry and bioarmor, but with the worldeater slain, a wide line of the lesser walkers emerged from where they had retreated. She cradled her head in her palms, leaning uncomfortably forward to where the MIU tugged at the root of her spine, elbows planted wearily on the sweat-stained armrests. A trickling tickle of blood wended down from one nostril, filling her mouth with the taste of copper. But she watched.
The chin mounted las on the native walkers hounded and harassed the retreating aliens, punching plumes of dirt and smoke with each impact. She watched as the alien retreat slowly became a rout as the phalanx of walkers, many pitted and smouldering from plasma and bug impacts came in line with Mortarch and continued past. One took a moment to nod its fragile, houndlike head to the battered Imperial Titan as it drew alongside. Though disconnected from direct submersion, she felt the nuclear thrum of the Titan's satisfaction.
…and Omnissiah Father…
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With eyes on the Yuuzhan Vong grand cruiser and her attendants, distracted by darting cruisers and daring frigates, a single, small corvette coasting in for a landing on gentle pulses of dovin basal gravity went unnoticed. Though small, Yadraig was just large enough to maintain a thin and turbulent atmosphere, mostly made up of dense hydrocarbons in a near-liquid state. They concealed the little warship in their swirling clouds, hiding from eyes on Eboracum and in orbit as the corvette settled to the gritty pan of the moon.
No longer needing to do more than support the weight of the craft, the corvette's dovin basal choir sung a new chord, opening a singularity below the vessel. Rock and dust swirled and vanished, hungrily devoured as a first a divot, then a depression, then a crater was eaten into the moon's surface. The corvette sank down, burrowing into the crust of the moon. Down it plunged, basal voids excavating easily a tunnel for the narrow, spindle-shaped starship to navigate.
The strain was significant. Dovin basals were not meant for such purposes, and few of the choir would long survive the constant demand. They would each die, in turn, until the corvette could not fly under its own power, leaving it locked in a depthless tomb beneath the moon's surface.
That was quite acceptable, but only so long as the dovin basals lasted long enough.
In the cramped command grotto of the corvette, Commander Harmae listened to the moaning and creaking of the corvette, the clatter of loose bedrock knocking off of yorik coral. Warleader Malik Carr, though holding Harmae's leash tight, had given him this duty. Implantation. One single coralskipper awaited, mated to the rear of the corvette. Commander Harmae had a greater destiny, and the crew of this corvette would remain behind to see their purpose fulfilled.
Ambient heat grew rapidly, until one by one, the sensory biots bonded to the outside of the corvette withered and died. Until sacred paint blistered, scorched, peeled away, leaving yorik coral bare and raw, until even that, too, started to sear. Until the corvette reached the semi-molten mantle of the moon and rested, hull down, glowing cherry-red.
A shaper, nameless, one of Qesud Qesh's get, bowed deeply, perspiring in the rapidly rising heat.
"Commander, Yun-Shuno smiles on us this day. The khot-bru'basal is eager and anointed.'
"Exalted are the martyrs," Harmae declared, bowing low and deep before the shaper.
He piloted his coralskipper back up the excavated tunnel, collapsing it behind him as he went, until he burst out into the thick and viscous clouds of Yadraig. Above him, the infidel world shone healthy and whole.
Deep beneath the surface, at the edge of mantle and crust, a shaper knelt before a heart-shaped organ of intimidating size, colored as dark and rich as fresh-shed blood. Tendrils wove out from it, anchoring into the meat and heart of the corvette.
"Show them Yo'gand," the shaper beseeched.
The dovin basal woke with a cry that churned realms below and beside reality. As it's void-shaping song thrummed outward, it grasped fingers on the bunched-membrane of space-time and prickle-sharp talons punched through. The shaper, insensate to these greater mysteries, continued his communion. The moon trembled.
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Tylos Rubio, Codicier, once of the Librarium, then proscribed, then a pupil of the Empyrean once more, sat in solemn meditation. Removed from his physical body, his inner sight roved the crests and waves of the ocean of the warp. Eddies and currents snarled and swirled as mountains surged upward and valleys clove deep, filling in with oceans of emotion before drying into deserts of indifference. He could not See as a scion of the Navis Nobilite could, but even those ancient Houses did not have some of the deeper lore of the Astartes Librariums.
The Great Angel, Sanguinius, encouraged exploration of the empyrean. The Noble Khan too championed the pursuit, along with the Red Cyclops. Rubio might frown on the fanciful trappings of the Thousand Sons, but what lessons they allowed out to other Legions proved fascinating and invaluable basis for further refinement of soul-warding and psykana.
Today, like many other days, Tylos Rubio attempted to touch the cosmic oddity the locals called the 'Force'. A mundane name for a profoundly curious phenomena. Lieutenant - no, Brevet Captain - Thiel was attuned to the power and in their meetings, when Thiel tried to understand the Warp as a means to master the Force, Rubio took it upon himself to peer at the Ultramarine Captain through his witch-sight.
What he saw was difficult to put to words. Thiel, like all humans that did not bear the pariah gene, had a presence in the Warp. His emotions and thoughts left an imprint, as did all intelligent life. The Ultramarine's 'soul', to use an outmoded and retired concept, though an evocative one, was evident just as any other's would be.
The strangeness began when Rubio attempted to worm his way into Thiel's mind. Aeonid had no psyker training, no mental wards, no caustic mnemonics to draw upon. He, in fact, was never even aware of Rubio's transgression. Despite that, Rubio's careful and precise needles of focus found little purchase in his brother's mind. Thiel did not deflect him, so much as there was a sensation not dissimilar to water and oil and Thiel's psyche remained resolute.
Rubio was not lax in reporting this to the Primarch, as it had been on Guilliman's orders that he had attempted such an invasion of another Astartes' mind.
Yet Thiel was a sample of one, and Rubio found his opportunity when the Jedi Eryl Besa arrived to consult with the Chief Navigatrix. From afar, he attempted, again, a similar action.
Much like Aeonid, his probing was rebuffed and apparently without conscious effort. The young woman's mind slipped and slid away, though he could see her clearly in the Warp, though he could feel her existence, though he could see the imprint she left in the local immaterium. Like Thiel, it was as if she was there and not there, simultaneously.
Thus, Thiel was tasked to learn of the Force from the Jedi themselves, while Rubio was to pursue his own experiments. Fruitlessly. He consoled himself that, unlike his brothers, his rank and experience elevated him from the hard and unrewarding duty the reinstated Lexicanums were tasked with. Along with select Navigators and Astropaths, they continued to plumb the Empyrean for any hint, any vestige of the translation event that delivered the 4711th here. It had been months. Their task had not yet fruited.
Nor had his own.
Exhaling, cycling through a modified variant of the Thousand Sons' Enumerations, Rubio began to relax his hold on the Empyrean, gently hauling on the line that led back to his body.
Something stirred. Prairies of ecstasy went up in flames. Whirlpools burst into streams, diverting placid flows. The Empyrean, locally, groaned. Something near, so near it was upon him, uncurled and made space. The realspace boundary...twitched. Unbeknownst to Rubio, his wards flared ice-cold and white-hot, sudden frost riming his psychic hood. He gripped his mortal tether with both hands, soaring past a small, dark star that devoured and calmed the immediate empyrean with alien song. His impression of it was a glimpse, thundering back into his physical body to meet a surging migraine and fast-clotting blood tickling from his nostrils. The presence remained, like a splinter in his eye, like debris in the aqueous humour, daringly and tauntingly there.
One hand pinched his nose and with numb fingers he fumbled with his armor's vox-link in his gorget. He needed to warn the Primarch.
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Tahiri ended up taking Sannah to go get dinner, figuring the girl could use a good meal and a chance to cool off. That left Anakin to report back to his Uncle, and, oddly, he found him in his quarters. Packing. Not much, but a travel bag, half-full, was out on his bed along with a crate of datacubes, top unlatched and open.
Anakin rapped his knuckles against the frame of the open door. Just a polite formality - he'd already touched his Uncle's mind when they arrived back at the Temple, just to say 'hello' and assure Uncle Luke they were fine. In contrast to Sannah's sudden drop in mood, he found his Uncle almost bouncing with energy. Tossing aside a pair of flight gloves, Uncle Luke beamed at his nephew.
"Anakin! How did the monster hunt go?"
Blinking at his Uncle's broad smile - something that had become more and more rare this past year, Anakin collected his thoughts.
"Well, it's not a problem here anymore."
Uncle Luke cocked an eyebrow.
"That's a careful way to word it."
"We scared it off, but it, well, it kind of flew away…to Yavin 8."
That stifled some of his Uncle's cheer and Anakin's heart hurt to cause it, even a little. There had been so little happiness.
"You're sure?"
"Pretty sure. Tahiri and I could sense its thoughts, and it was thinking of that moon. And then it just - went straight up."
Uncle Luke rubbed at his ear, brows furrowed. His Uncle's enthusiasm waned some, still bright, but Anakin sensed sudden recognition.
"That sounds familiar. I can't put my finger on it - what did it look like again?"
Anakin took his time describing it, both how it physically appeared, and what its mind felt like. Its green hide, glaring, blank red eyes. All the tentacles that sprouted from it, its enormous wings. The kind of strength it had, and then how hard it was to get a grip on its mind, even with Tahiri's help. He felt Uncle Luke's focus, but when Anakin described how it defied gravity and powered up toward space, the Jedi Master shook his head in disappointment.
"It's still familiar, but I can't think of where I've heard of something like that. I'll ask Mara, I'm sure Karrde might be able to dig up some information."
"Aunt Mara?" Anakin gestured toward the travel bag and small crate of datacubes. "You're going back to Coruscant?"
Just like that, his Uncle's smile was back, bursting back onto his boyish features with irrepressible strength. His Uncle actually blushed a little, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Something came up-" He must have felt Anakin's sudden surge of concern. "-nothing bad! Aunt Mara is just fine. She's actually - she's doing great."
Anakin was sixteen, soon to be seventeen. Not that long ago, he'd been what he would call a kid. He treated an ancient Jedi Master like a pet, he snuck out to risk his life with Tahiri - risk her life too - and about all he knew about making friends was to wait for them to show up. Some would still call him a kid, and technically it would be true, but his Uncle hadn't been much older when he blew up the Death Star, and Jaina's boss Gavin Darklighter was just about Anakin's age when he helped capture Coruscant.
He could admit, sometimes, that he was kind of dense when it came to people. Tahiri had drawn him out of his shell and browbeat him into learning how to talk, but it was an ongoing process.
That said, he wasn't an idiot. When they left this morning, Uncle Luke had been solemn and serious, giving his blessing to go after Tahiri's monster. Not even a hint that he was planning to go all the way back to Coruscant. Which meant something came up, something with Aunt Mara, and -
"Vaping moffs," Anakin swore. "You're going to have a baby?"
Luke Skywalker laughed, loud and clear and unburdened.
"Aunt Mara is, actually. I should've known we couldn't keep it from you. She just found out today."
"Wow," was the only word that could come out. He really didn't want to think of his Aunt and Uncle that way, but also - wow. A cousin. A cousin. Uncle Luke's kid. "Wow."
"'Wow.'" Uncle Luke shook his head. "That's about what I said too."
A cousin. Aunt Mara was going to have a baby. Wait - if they were going to keep it from him -
"Does mom know?"
"Not yet. We're - it's early. And with Mara's illness…that's why I'm going back to Coruscant. Cilghal is well enough to come with me too. That's why Kyle arrived today."
"Master Katarn is back?"
"Just to fetch me. He had some things that he wanted to hand deliver. Anakin, I never want to ask you to keep secrets from anyone, for anyone, but Mara and I-"
Anakin nodded, fierce. Aunt Mara took him under her wing after Chewie died, and now Uncle Luke helped him out of his funk after Obroa-skai and then Centerpoint. Keep his lips sealed about Aunt Mara being pregnant for a little while, while they got everything settled?
"That's what family is for, right?"
His Uncle crossed the room, wrapping his nephew in a hug. A little to Anakin's consternation, he noticed yet again that he was taller that Uncle Luke now.
"Believe me, I can't wait to tell Leia and Han, and Talon and -" Luke held Anakin at arm's length, hands on the teen's shoulders. "We just want to be sure. But that's enough about that! You said your monster went to Yavin 8? Sannah can't be happy about that."
Anakin shifted, grimacing. He could feel Tahiri in the corner of his mind, like a comlink just out of tune, kind of a staticky conversation he could catch the tone of, but not words. She was definitely working to distract Sannah at dinner.
"She's worried."
Uncle Luke clapped Anakin's shoulders one last time, then turned back to his small pile of odds and ends he was packing away.
"Peckhum should be back early tomorrow morning, and you three can take Thunderbolt out to Yavin 8."
The old freighter pilot ran supply to the Praxeum and Yavin 8, counted among those trusted with the Temple's location. He was a good man, trustworthy, kind, if a little rough, and Thunderbolt was a fine ship. But tomorrow morning? Tomorrow morning, all the Melodies could be dead, the thing could be in the sanctuaries and-
"Anakin, even if this thing can fly through space, Yavin 8 is a million miles away. If you leave tomorrow morning, you'll still almost certainly beat it there."
"Yes, but-"
"And you all had a long day."
"Obroa-skai was longer," he said, mulish.
"And Sannah is thirteen," Uncle Luke finished. "Get dinner, get some sleep, and then Peckhum will take you over. You could even try to see if you can find it before it lands. Thunderbolt only has one laser cannon, but that might be enough."
"It was hard enough to sense it when we knew where it was." Anakin had thought of that, when they were leaving the vehicle pool. He could hop in his X-Wing and chase it down. He was sure it wouldn't stand a chance to quad-linked laser cannon fire, or maybe a nice proton torpedo. The problem was, it was a tiny, tiny creature compared to the orbit of Yavin and he was pretty sure his sensors wouldn't be able to find it. Leaving only the Force, and, well, that probably wasn't possible.
"We're leaving tomorrow morning too," Uncle Luke flipped the lid of his datacube crate shut with a snap, sliding it into his travel bag. "Just in case you three need anything."
"Thanks, Uncle Luke." Anakin turned, stomach growling, wondering what was for dinner.
"Of course, Anakin. Any time, you know that."