You Can't Go Home Again

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X: Promise in Blood

The Thunderhawk was gone in the blink of an eye, leaving but rustling gusts of iron-tasting backdraft in the cramped embarkation deck. One of the Jedi's shuttles rocked on its legs and several ratings stumbled. Kyle Katarn and Kam Solusar braced themselves. The atmospheric envelope crackled and popped at the interchange pressure. Only stars glowed through the filmy, flickering field. At speed, the Thunderhawk would already be kilometers away and accelerating. Zalthis may not have had practical training on such a vessel, but Aeonid had no doubt as to the efficacy of hypnomat. His vox bead in his gorget buzzed and voices cried out in confusion. He waved away the shipmaster's confusion and directed to continue the pre-established flight plan. There was no need to pause nor to offer support to the Thunderhawk.

Aeonid was Astartes and he was Ultramarine. The shipmaster did not question.

In this embarkation deck and the one opposite Temerity, he felt the Jedi begin to cautiously unbuckle crash webbing and murmur to one another. He felt grief and shock, he felt confusion and fear. Kam and Kyle, who had gathered with Aeonid to discuss what came next, shared a meaningful look and took their leave, returning to their charges. There were accommodations already set aside and trained handlers brought aboard from Eboracum to interface between the Jedi and the ship's crew.

Aeonid remained, watching the distant stars as Temerity rumbled underfoot, her realspace impeller drive spooling to maximum output for the long run to the Mandeville. He listened to quiet reports fed through his voxbead about the Yuuzhan Vong warships staying their hand, content to watch Temerity flee. Ikrit's death hung over the Jedi as a pall while they mustered, organized, counted heads for a third time, and then exited for the suite of chambers they would stay in. The youngest sniffled and burned like live wires of sorrow, the elders uneasy and concerned.

One mind stayed firmly in Aeonid's attention as it passed from the bridge to the ventral arterial, worked through several decks into an express lift and descended rapidly toward the embarkation deck. Aeonid turned just as the lift door's rolled aside in a clatter, revealing a hulking Astartes walking with purpose and speed. Striding, perhaps. Or stalking.

The new arrival bore recoloured plate, though it still gave Aeonid pause each time to see familiar shapes in unfamiliar colours. An ill-omened pause, a pause that brought memories of other, newly recoloured plate, in an unfamiliar scheme.

This Astartes came to a halt before Aeonid, giving neither salute nor greeting.

'Aeonid,' Sentatus Plianus, Second Captain of IV Astra, made his name sound like an epithet.

'Captain Plianus.'

Where Aeonid's plate remained the long-honoured colours of Ultramar (for his Battalion had not finalized their new heraldry), Plianus wore a coat so fresh it gleamed in the deck's high and harsh lights. A blue so dark it was nearly black shimmered, glossy, across plastron, greaves and arms. Each pauldron bore a darkened gold field, trimmed by white. The emblem of the Astra, a blue Ultima that contained within its arc four white stars emblazoned the right pauldron; the left bore the mark of Plianus' command. Of the rich blue of Ultramar, only the helmet and gauntlets bore the color, enough to mark Plianus still as one of Guilliman's sons.

'Pray tell me - what is the meaning of this? A launch? Unauthorized?'

Plianus went helmed. Aeonid did not. He met the blazing lenses of his fellow captain unflinching.

'A last minute command from me, Captain Plianus.'

'A last - for the love of the Throne, Aeonid-'

'Captain Thiel,' Aeonid corrected. Plianus stiffened visibly. Anger swirled in the other man's mix, leavened by frustration and a few less honorable emotions.

'I do not know how our Primarch expects cooperation with your Company, Captain Thiel, if this is how you mean to conduct yourself.'

He spared a final thought for his two youngest brothers, far beyond his reach. A simple well-wish.

'Operational command is mind to do with as I see fit.'

'Space is my domain. I have been commanding void war since before you even knew what a Black Carapace was. Unauthorized launches bring confusion, they bring disorder, they bring lassitude in discipline. I should have been consulted.'

The anger was the anger of a professional and personal insult. The frustration reared ugly head around Aeonid's relative youth. The other Captain was as open as a book. A different Aeonid would have set his heels and locked horns in return. He would have argued. He would have wielded his authority as a cudgel or as a blade, to batter or slash through whatever he needed to get the job done. He had done so before, at Calth, speaking with the Primarch's authority when he had none. He had done so as a Sergeant, which had earned him the red helm before.

'I agree.'

Plianus paused, wrongfooted.

'Your expertise supersedes mine here; I can only explain that the window of opportunity was small and the decision had to be made rapidly. I hope, in the future, you can educate me on better theoreticals.' He gestured for the lift, Plianus reluctantly falling in step as they made to leave the embarkation deck behind. 'We have a week of travel ahead of us, at minimum. Perhaps joint exercises, between my Company and yours? I am sure Tercinax, Varien and Amalius would welcome the chance.'

Anger remained, but resentment was punctured before it could bloom.

'This should have been done before arrival at the moon,' Plianus insisted.

'It should have. That was my oversight. I am corrected and I will remember this.'

Plianus grunted as they fit into the lift together. Aeonid depressed a rune.

'See that you do, Captain.'

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For three days Aeonid allowed himself the excuse of wargaming with the handful of IV Astra assigned to Temerity. Plianus was slated for a position aboard Opolor's Vow, at the Fondor front, but had attended as an initial shakedown of the IV in action. He brought two squads - one his command, fitted with breaching shields and volkite serpenta in case of boarding and a second squad for rapid reaction. The Ultramarines Astra were an answer to the assault on the Honour not long ago, a recognition of the Yuuzhan Vong's potential to unleash havoc on unprepared warships. Their wargear was myriad and adaptable, their plate reinforced and up-armoured to the fore. Breachers and true marines, the Astra were to be assigned to every Exile warship likely to encounter the alien foe.

Most notably - and most rarely - the Fifth Company of the IVth, under a Proximo Dido, were to be portioned out at squad and demisquad strength as combat strikecraft pilots. Astartes in piloting positions were vastly uncommon to the Ultramarines - likely only a few thousand had true, practical experience in the cockpit of a craft like the Xiphon. Most theoreticals found the usage of transhumans in such a role to be at best ineffectual and at worst, detrimental. In the cataclysmic warfare of the void, the posthuman biology of an Astartes mattered much less when faced by continent-searing firepower and battleships that could crack moons.

Yet Plianus, with Centurion Empion's support, argued his point to the Primarch, who had eventually accepted. Survivors of several wings after the crazed battle over Calth were alloyed together into new squads, new squadrons, and even now, Aeonid knew, the Mechanicum pondered similar questions to what had resulted in his now 'stolen' Thunderhawk.

How might the technologies, if sanctioned, of this galaxy better serve the Ultramarines?

Plianus himself was a master pilot, survivor of a hundred and more clashes through the Crusade and, Aeonid could admit, a far better strategist at void combat than he ever could be. The other Captain's short temper did not settle, but the edges were kept sanded at bay as his pilots and boarders brutalized Aeonid's own squad's attempted strategies. There was an amusement among the 'Space Marines' at the 'groundpounders' being humbled by the complexities of three dimensional and occasionally relativistic combat across millions of miles. Varien scowled, Amalius studied and Tercinax bore each trouncing with phlegmatic amusement.

It was good for his men. As much as they learned, Aeonid did as well. As much as Amalius took notes, Aeonid took more. Adaptive Combat Tactics meant only as much as he had a box of useful tools to draw upon, and he intended to fill that box to overflowing.

So he allowed three days to pass aboard ship. In the first day Temerity made translation, cutting off holonet contact with the outside galaxy - a notable peculiarity of warp travel compared to hyperspace. The Jedi settled into their given spaces and the shuttles and freighters that bore them up were secured. The second and third days he sparred with Plianus in hololith-filled strategium and over broad map-boards of mnemo-plast glassine.

Until, at last, when Aeonid couldn't keep his mind from the thought any longer, and in predictable coincidence, he met Master Solusar lingering outside of the Jedi spaces. He made no overture when he left his private chambers behind nor had he cast his mind abroad - yet there she was, nevertheless. The minds of Katarn, Solusar, Streen and Cilghal remained bright points, but with attention elsewhere. Tionne looked tired and drawn, mustering a thin smile in greeting, her silver hair pulled simply back in a tie.

'Aeonid', she welcomed, her voice as soft as ever. 'What brings you here?'

A kindness, to pretend that she did not likely know better than he why he came.

'Master Solusar,' he offered a shallow bow. The Jedi had no real proper forms of address or formality, but she was a Master of their art and deserved nothing less. 'I…have been thinking.'

'Most beings do,' she chided, a little playfulness beating back the lingering grief around her.

'I'd not speak ill of my brothers, but I know of some that would put lie to that.'

Her eyes widened and she laughed. It was a good sound.

'Aeonid! That's awful!'

He shrugged, rolling broad shoulders beneath his homespun robes. Strangely, after several weeks at the Praxeum, his armor sat almost strangely when he bore it again. Tionne sobered, glancing down and fiddling her fingers.

'Is it about Ikrit?'

He opened his mouth - closed it. Opened it again - shut it once more. Within him, built over days, the pressure looked for an outlet but he could find none of the words that matched. Every one he tried in hours of meditation between different wargames felt jagged and ill-shaped. Prickling and wrong, dissonant even in the privacy of his mind. In each meditation he blocked out all others - a task which came harder and harder - until his sense of the world was only of his body.

'He died.' Aeonid regretted the starkness of the words as soon as they left his lips. Tionne nodded solemnly.

''There is no death, only the Force.''

'What I meant was…' again his voice faltered. Gently, Tionne lay a hand on his chest, over his heart.

'Just speak, Aeonid.'

'I am trying to-' He growled, shaking his head.

Nothing was right. He had no practical. He could ask none of his brothers. He could not even go to his father, because for all that his father was, he was not this. One among hundreds of thousands, one among thousands, surfeit with brothers, Aeonid felt achingly alone.

How could he say that Kyle Katarn had moved and fought and acted like few warriors Aeonid had ever known or even seen? How could he say that the oneness of the 'meld' Anakin introduced had sunken deep into his gut and could not be extracted? How could he say that at the end, that there was still connection, a connection that showed him not fear, not pain; but rather peace. Rightness. A deeper emotion, one that twitched at his heart and twisted his stomach, one that he could name but had never understood - never believed he could understand, for all that it was spoken freely and openly and without thought, as much a part of the mortal life of humanity as everything else he had given up.

Love. Deep, abiding love. A little xeno creature, like some Rogue Trader's pet, swelling with nothing but love before the sudden silence came -

Love for young Anakin and Tahiri, for Sannah the Melodie and all the other Jedi on the fleeing ships; not just the youths but the elder Jedi too.

And for him.

Aeonid.

His mouth twisted and he wished as he had a hundred times before that this Force had not chosen him. Like many times now, the wish was hollow.

Weight drew him down, down to one knee, until he was level with Tionne Solusar. It bowed his head, it drooped his shoulders and Aeonid could not pack it away as he had in constant distraction of wargame and theoretical and review.

In the chambers given to the Jedi they mourned Ikrit, they feared for their three lost children and they loved Aeonid for what he had done.

'Could you tell me of the Jedi?' he asked, quiet and intense.

Tionne's small hands cupped Aeonid's face, drawing his gaze to her silver eyes.

'Which ones?'

Aeonid Thiel inhaled. 'All of them.'

'I was hoping you would ask,' she said.

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"And still no spoor to follow," Supreme Commander Malik Carr sneered. The villip conveyed his displeasure most accurately and the shape of his master's derision sent shivers down Harmae's spine.

"None, Potent Lord. We have seeded wide trackers, but this moon is rife with hostile life. Many predators have found our netting-beetles and syk-ragk tunnelers to be palatable and the Shapers claim they hunt them with much pleasure."

The made-thing vessel that had fallen free of the captured Jeedai starship had been found only two days previous, after close to four days and nights by the moon's own time. It had been ransacked and left abandoned, all supply torn from within. Tracker-beasts ranged out and sniffed for scents, but where misled by pheromone trails of whooping simians and chattering marsupials that swung among the jungle's canopy branches. Worse, much flooding had soaked the soil, creating churned mud from the passage of entire herds of prey-beasts. Any sign of the Jeedai was lost, but that did not concern Harmae the most.

That lie with the Aistarteez vessel that had evaded pursuit, receiving only some damage, before slipping into the churning storm clouds and, like the Jeedai, vanishing. The jungle's ancient trees bore minerals within their trunks that frustrated orbital scryers that peered down from Harmae's two miid-roic. Thermal backshimmer and hot radiation boiling from the bloated gas giant clouded great lenses and gave a thousand false returns.

Not only Jeedai were on this moon but Aistarteez too, and an unknown quantity.

"Execute the least of the yorik-et squadron that failed to destroy the Aistarteez transport." Harmae nodded, not correcting the Supreme Commander that he had already done so. The Paring of the Fat, a favored means of punishment among Domain Carr and a chastisement Harmae knew personally. Other fools like Shai might slay the leader for failure, but to take the least is to encourage only greater service in the eyes of the Gods, so that they might not find themselves judged wanting when the time comes.

"I can spare no more for you, Commander." Harmae remained on one knee, chewing at his tattooed lip. His own countenance would not be repeated - his face was not to be seen in his current shame. "The Warmaster's plans are strict and they are thorough. Already the shortage in yammosks has slowed deployment and mustering. To match His Brutality's timetable, we cannot slip even a day."

"I understand, Potent Lord."

"I gave you four hundred warriors of Carr," Malik Carr admonished. "Fine warriors, all of them. How many were slain in the storm? No, do not speak - my ears rings still."

"The storm…"

"The Jeedai continue to showcase new powers. For this alone, my wroth with you is lessened. But I have grown accustomed to success, Commander. Do not make me doubt your ascension. Do not make me doubt my trust in you again."

"By Yammka himself, never."

"Offer blood to seal this. Do not call on me again until the Jeedai are captured and the Aistarteez slain. Master Qesh offers a bounty for those who deliver an Aistarteez alive, but I will not risk my warriors. Now do my will."

"Belek tiu, Supreme Commander."

The villip schlorped back within its casing, leaving Harmae kneeling before the villip choir. Dozens of villips, all silent and waiting, tied to partners across broad spans of the galaxy. Malik Carr's was the foremost and finest, hide shimmering like oiled leather, slick to the touch and taut.

A storm. The Jeedai conjured a storm, the first storm Harmae Carr had ever felt, smelt or touched. A storm to break his warriors and a storm to befuddle the senses and again they spat in the eyes of the Gods and the Gods seemed to let them. What had the Chosen People done to deserve these insults? What test was this meant to be, as these Jeedai produced trick after trick from their cowardly arsenal.

Master Kwaad was obsessed and when the Supreme Commander had tasked him as her guard and warden, he had sneered at the thought of the infidel sorcerers.

Now, he shared a modicum of the Shaper's interest. She was convincing, in her spiels of how this 'Force' was meant to be a gift to the Yuuzhan Vong. That the Jeedai were the challenge to ensure they were worthy. Pretty words, but they did not salve the ache in his hands. No lives had been claimed by his amphistaff in that long, harrowing night.

The instruction was to capture the Jeedai, but Harmae could be forgiven if one chose to fight to the death. Yes, no one would question that. For all their heathen nature, the Jeedai were known to be warriors and some had made final stands. He'd wet his amphistaff, carve back his honor in blood. Harmae found himself within Yammka's Grotto, the small shrine set aside for the Many Tentacled Lord of War. His feet had delivered him while he mused.

Before the snarling statue in yorik coral, Harmae knelt once more and drew his tsaisi. The small baton of rank stiffened in his grasp and he ran its edge across his densely-scarred palms. Rich lifeblood welled and he beseeched his God, stroking at tentacle and bulbous body, streaking blood across already black-stained coral. Yun-Yammka leered back and the statue's mica eyes caught the luminescent light just right to glimmer. A thrill of superstitious dread quivered through Harmae. He made the promise in his heart with the promise made in blood: a Jeedai would die one last time on this cursed moon.

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Bells rung. Censers swung. Hymnals raised to the very rafters of the grand manufactorum droned and vibrated bones and adamantium skeleton alike. Cantic binhary stuttered and shrieked. Skitarii masters stalked on telescoped legs, rad-rifles left aside for burnished archaeotech pistols and humming flash-rapiers. Magi in every shape and form grouped in clusters. Hunched backs sprouted knotted tangles of mechadendrites; tall Magi called in fleshvoice; wheels clicked and treads ground; white-trimmed robes rustled and swept; optics in every shade of the rainbow recorded and analyzed and peered across spectra.

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Archmagos Veneratus Explorator-Biologis Orichi-Mu, Fabricator-General [Default] of Eboracum remained far afield and, as the saying went, when the Archmagos was away, the cyberape would play.

The Calth Muster was the greatest conjunction of the Eastern expanse in living memory. Two entire Legions challenged even some of the mightiest Crusade formations like those that struck at Ullanor or at the Rangda, and, ever-dutiful, the Mechanicum of Red Mars stood by to offer aid. Calth was a jewel-world, a new-born treasure, soon to slot into the tetrarchy of Saramanth, Konor, Occluda and Iax. As much as it was a world of Ultramar and beloved of Primarch Guilliman, so too was it blessed in the eyes of the Omnissiah and given unceasing industry by the Motive Force. Veridia Forge was the home of the Mechanicum, as Calth was the home of the Ultramarines. The great orbitals of the world were commanded and infested by the red-robed Magi, tending to the great cogitator brains that handled the masterpiece defense grid. Hulls were laid, alloys smelted, superheavies cast and a trillion bolts for a trillion bolters churned by tireless assembly line.

The insult given by the cursed and bastard Lorgar was driven not just at the heart of Ultramarines, but also spat upon the arid and long-memoried face of Red Mars.

The Mechanicum remembered.

The Mechanicum remembered long after all others had forgotten.

The Ultramarines had been lucky to escape with an estimated third to half of their Legion. Calth managed to evacuate millions, even despite the turmoil. Those that remained had the arcologies to flee to.

Veridia Forge was slaughtered like a grox. The orbital yards burned.

Of the masterful Adepts of Veridia: but three hundred and seventy-four escaped with the 4711th. Three hundred and seventy-four. Extrapolation indicated the total survivability of Veridia Forge Magi to be below one hundred thousand, off-world.

Out of tens of millions.

This Aldovv Brane-Ugoln maintained within her active memory coil, branded into the very wafers that managed her blessed processing. Three hundred and seventy-four. Magi, trained Magi, those beyond the base novitiate, were the great minority of the Mechanicum, should the count include menials, tech-serfs, servitors, Skitarii and other sundry servants and chattel of Mars. This was as should be: not all minds and not all bodies were suited to the perilous and precious ascension of knowledge.

Yet for so few…

Brane-Ugoln raised her tetrad hands, simultaneously with blurt-cast across the local noosphere. All attention snapped to her. Unlike the fleshbound mortals, she needed to wait no time at all for cessation of conversation or the slow adjustment of focus. All who mattered here were Magi or Skitarii-enhanced.

+The Machine God bears us to a newfound Galaxy, which spills over with secrets undreamt of+

-This Galaxy is filled with the Alien and the Abominable Intelligence-

+We bring the Comprehension of Mars, which is beyond the scrabbling creatures of this place+

-We number few, and fewer still as war comes to us-

She held her charge at neutral, savoring the chemical gradient flow. All gathered, whether they directed optics toward her upon the manufactorum's primary assembly line or not, tuned to the subtle signal markets in her blurt-cant.

+The Primarch values the Mechanicum+

-The Primarch commands the Mechanicum-

+Our study is unrestricted-

-Our study is unrestricted-

Beside her, the hulking and bullish form of Sarbok Tan-Krato, relayed her words in Skitarii battle-cant, inflecting each phrase eloquently to appeal to the martial minded.

+The Seventh Law is that Comprehension is the Key to all Things+

Motion subtly rippled through those assembled in the manufactorum chamber.

-The Eighth Warning is that to Break with Ritual is to Break with Faith-

A pulsed command through noospheric link commanded forward servitors who drew a flatbedded cart between them. Within, crippled beyond motion but given the unearned gift of continued function, a dozen droids warbled and cried in alarm. A ripple of disgust swept through the assembled Magi and Skitarii, a tangible wave that rustled robes. Brane-Ugoln pointed with four hands at the cart, at the dismembered torso of a silvered mockery of the human form that bleated nonsense in alien tongue.

+Orichi-Mu is most ancient among us+

-Orichi-Mu abdicates responsibility-

+Orichi-Mu acts according to his station: Explorator+

-Orichi-Mu acts contrary to his station as Fabricator-General [Default]-

Queries for clarification pinged across Brane-Ugoln's awareness. Of the seventy-two Magi who attended, at least half stood within Mu's camp. That was well. Spirited theological debate was the blood and mortar of the Mechanicum.

+An explorator is needed in this galaxy. Orichi-Mu is an Explorator of great renown.+

-None save the Omnissiah can bear the weight of too many roles-

+There are other candidates to optimally serve the role of Fabricator-General, such that the tag [Default] might be retired.+

Though her innards strained at maintaining a positive Lorentz gradient, Brane-Ugoln spoke no further. The imbalance showed humility and a positive gradient gave honor to the Mysteries, to offset her preaching of the Warnings.

In the noosphere, as milliseconds passed, discourse flew fierce and hot. Packages were prepared and blurted, unpackaged and consumed and processed and rebroadcast, tagged and categorized. Life-stories were appended, exhaustive with minutia of discovery and faithful cataloging. Magos from across sphere and discipline declared candidacy, argued support of Orichi-Mu, cast doubt and plaudits both at her feet. Nine seconds after she ceased her speech, the first proposal for Aldovv Brane-Ugoln, Veridia Forge, High Magistrix Cybernetica as Suitable Candidate for Fabricator-General [Suitable] for Eboracum flashed through the noosphere.

Another title was added then: Oratratix of the Tenets Cautionary.

She allowed a simulative process to approximate pleasure. It suited her. Her diametric opposition to the Veneratus was one of doctrinal position, not personal. That would be inefficient, after all.

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For the third time, Thunderhawk 5590/a rumbled to life, rocked on her repulsorlifts, cleared her engines for startup and settled again into her nest of heaping bushes, branches and brambles. Anakin leaned back, clapping his hands together though not a speck of dust sat on them. Through the canopy, Zalthis caught his eye and sharply nodded, then stomped back up the opened bow ramp. That was the last of the checks. The hyperdrive was talking to the Thunderhawk again, the repulsorlifts hadn't cut out halfway through startup, power was getting from the reactor to everywhere it needed to go. He couldn't do anything for the physical damage, which meant the ride was going to be bumpy and clumsy until they hit space. Ailerons were shredded, which meant it would be repulsorlifts and reaction control thrusters to manhandle through maneuvering, but from the feeling he got from the transport, they could also just make like a rocket and blast straight up without any issue.

"You're going to need a name," Anakin observed idly, patting the console one more time. He climbed out of the oversized pilot's seat - he would not miss long hours in that giant thing - and stretched.

[Designation Five Five Nine Zero One Slash A.]

"Yeah, but that's a mouthful. I'll think of something."

Zalthis poked his head into the cockpit.

"You're talking to the ship again," the Astartes commented.

"It's not my fault she talks back." He followed Zal back into the main hold of the Thunderhawk where his and Sannah's sleeping bags were set up on some unrolled cushions the Astartes had produced from somewhere. Supplied were stacked off to one side, the vaporator sitting up on the Thunderhawk's dorsal surface to keep sucking in and purifying water. Rations were there, an ammunition crate for the big bolt pistols was there, a bag for their dirty clothes was there - in two days, it had become a little domestic.

Every hour that blurred by stabbed him in the heart. He hated getting lost in the work, because getting lost in it made time fly, time that Tahiri was in their hands. It didn't make sense and it didn't have to make sense. He wasn't going to fly and shoot lasers in his eyes and this had to be done, but each time he checked the chrono and saw another handful of hours had slipped through his fingers like sand, his stomach twisted and he had to take long, deep breaths.

It was done. The Thunderhawk was ready to go.

"I don't get why we can't just fly it to wherever Tahiri is," Sannah said, again, while they broke out rations for dinner. "Vape the vong with the giant gun on top, bust her out, and then burn ions, right?"

She still didn't like to look Anakin the eye, but at least she was talking again. Small victories, he thought grimly.

"Zal's said it already. There's way too many 'skips around here, they'd just shoot us right back down again."

"What if-"

"Sannah."

She looked away, glumly and mechanically chewing on another bite of a ration bar.

"It's alright. I wish we could just go in blasting too, but…we can't help Tahiri if we're dead."

"Anakin is right," Zal agreed. "This is the best theoretical we have. The vong are surely searching for us, which means the Thunderhawk cannot be left unguarded. Either Sol or I have to stay here."

"And I've volunteered," Sol added.

"And Sol has. Anakin and I can cover distances very quickly and we can be back to the Temple Complex in only a few days."

"Then it's a matter of finding where they have Tahiri and getting her out."

Sannah put a wrapper aside in a waste bag, curling up on her sleeping bag. She clutched at her knees, legs to her chest.

"But how will you know?"

"I can still feel her, Sannah."

Sol drummed fingers against the crate he sat on.

"Or perhaps you could take a Vong and force them to speak. A slave, even, if there are some."

The Astartes said it so blithely and blandly that Anakin took another deep, long breath, let it out before speaking.

"As I've said, that's a last resort."

"I do not see why. There are a number of useful techniques to apply pressure-"

"I'm not going to discuss the ethics of torture again, Sol."

The large Astartes shrugged, unbothered either way.

"It's an option, but not one I relish either," Zalthis added.

"It'll work. I know it will."

The rest of their 'meal' was passed in silence, but not an uncomfortable one. Sannah was lost in thought, Zalthis clearly running through a checklist of what gear to bring and Solidian was toying with his auspex. Not for the first time, Anakin pictured where they might be without the two Ultramarines. Probably in some cave somewhere, dripped on by salactites and trying to figure out how in the hell they were going to get off the moon if -when- he rescued Tahiri. Sannah would probably be basically unable to move from those blisters - looking a lot better after the Astartes had shared some salves that seemed about as effective as a good bacta-patch - and as for what he might be thinking…

He imagined doing this alone. Just himself, his lightsaber, against a battalion of vong warriors and Shapers and who knew what other biots.

Together. Ikrit had meant him and Tahiri, but since when did words only have one meaning?

He let the thought go. He wasn't alone. And soon enough, Tahiri wouldn't be either.

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Without Sannah, with a clear goal and with an Ultramarine loping along at his side, Anakin was shocked at how close the Escarpment was. He sank into the Force to keep pace with Zalthis, passing hours in a quiet meditative fugue while they moved south and west, back toward the Great Temple. After assessing the terrain, given where the Thunderhawk came down and how the vong had probably found Lady Starstorm's escape pod, Zalthis pointed out it might be a good idea to move into the rougher and more mountainous northern stretch of the plateau, then work southward, hopefully avoiding vong patrols that would be focusing on the eastern area, where the pod came down.

The terrain would be harsh, but he could handle it. It wasn't an option to think otherwise.

Zalthis wore a stripped down version of his armor, much like the suit he wore when Anakin first met him. They worried about if vong creatures could sense electronics, which was why they tested the Thunderhawk only in short bursts, minimizing any flaring heat or radiation. The massive reactor backpacks of Astartes armor might well be a huge flare drawing the vong to them - it may have just been by chance that they hadn't noticed Solidian and Zalthis on their way down to link up with Anakin and Tahiri.

So Zal ditched the reactor, stripping down his armor to only what he could still physically move in without the augmentations of the suit. Sol had worked on that for him, while he and Anakin finished up with the Thunderhawk. The Ultramarine had a bolter with a long barrel and bullpup grip, several magazines, a brace of grenades and a massive power sword. Even with all that, several times, Zalthis reached out a hand and helped lift Anakin right up a cliff like he weighed nothing at all.

Weigh nothing at all Anakin definitely did not.

Sol almost fussed over Anakin before they left, pushing a bolt pistol into his hands along with magazines, his own sling of fat grenades and even offered another power sword. He'd turned that down - all he needed there was his lightsaber. Armor fitted for a normal human was in a crate in the Thunderhawk as well; when Aeonid was using it as a shuttle to the Praxeum, he had obviously thought ahead to maybe needing a little bit extra, just in case. When Anakin had pointed that out, wondering what Aeonid had been expecting, or even if the Captain had expected a vong attack, Sol huffed a laugh.

"We're Ultramarines," he said, amused. "Planning for anything is sort of the point of us."

Wearing the lightweight but surprisingly durable chestplate, rounded pauldrons and bracers, Anakin was glad for it. It wouldn't stop an amphistaff, but some of those bugs? He'd had enough bruises and slashes to last the rest of his life.

They drove deeper into the rougher northern span of the plateau, areas Anakin had never been. The Escarpment here was steeper and taller. Zal scrambled up it almost as fast as he could cover flat ground, simply gouging his own handholds into the shale and stone. Anakin followed behind, using the new-forged holds and a measure of the Force.

Like that night in the jungle, during the storm, the Force felt clearer and closer than ever before. Stronger, more vibrant, more alive than he could ever remember. The first night Zalthis had offered to stop, but Anakin felt as awake and energized as when he'd just woken up.

He had a goal, he had a mission and he had his best friend curled up and sobbing in the back of his head, keeping him away with iron bars and spikes that tore at him each time he tried to reach for her.

He was one purpose, one man, one purpose, one aim and one unerring direction and the Force embraced him.

Ravines, canyons, sinkholes, lush valleys - all slid past in a blur. Later, Anakin would remember almost none of it. No landmarks, no features. No biots harried them. No vong found them.

His existence narrowed to Zalthis and his unflagging pace, to Tahiri. To the rise and fall of his feet.

They crested one final peak late in the evening. Zalthis paused, going still. Like waking, Anakin blinked and the world fell back into focus. The sun was sinking down, throwing rainbows of violets and indigos and crimsons across the western sky. Yavin glowed on the horizon. He saw what Zalthis had.

They'd reached the Complex proper, the span of the plateau where either geological erosion or ancient Massassi labor had smoothed out hundreds of square kilometers as the perfect stage for Naga Sadow's personal vanity project. Behind them, the northern badlands and crags; before them the jungle. Anakin squinted, peering southward, across the rolling green canopy. Here and there, the old stone of temples poked up, sometimes choked out and sometimes in broad clearings. Whole spans of the canopy were open, testament to the power of Alebmos' monsoon and the lasting damage that would take centuries to heal.

Something was out of place.

Anakin shaded his eyes with one hand, raking his eyes left, right. There was that one temple he never remembered the name of, that smudge off to the west. He was pretty sure from the height they were at that he could see the shape of the Temple of the Blueleaf Cluster too. The lake where Exar Kun's temple once was glimmered in the far distance.

In the middle of the complex were five spacious compounds, each shaped like a many-rayed star. The number of rays varied, from five to nine, and the encircling walls were tall and thick - probably thick enough for rooms and chambers. From their vantage point, Anakin could make out open courtyards inside the walls, surrounding a sort of stumpy, tree-trunk like structure in the center that rose at least half as tall as the Great Temple itself.

Vong 'buildings', or whatever creatures they used as the equivalent. They were huge.

But something wasn't right. The vong buildings were all right at the bend of the Unnh River, right where it meandered…

"Oh," Anakin breathed. Tears stung at his eyes. "Oh."

The Great Temple, built of ancient stone by the labor of enslaved Massassi, which had stood for thousands upon thousands of years and watched the history of the galaxy turn by, was gone. Not even a trace remained. The old halls, walked by the darkest and most brilliant of Sith, by the noblest and finest of Jedi, were gone. The Grand Audience Chamber, which had seen sacrifices by monsters and sacrifices by heroes, was gone. The labyrinthine rooms, filled with old Rebel Alliance tech and drawings by trainees and cozy corners to meditate or read or practice forms: gone. The caves beneath, a place of exploration and mystery for him and Tahiri and a place to feel the size of the universe for others: lost.

"Those bastards," Anakin swore.

He could feel Tahiri, tenuous as it was. Her knot of anguish was there, in the center of the largest compound, the one that had so cruelly replaced the Great Temple.

They'd taken her home.