Order of Ashes

Alwen heard the final words of Captain Astarte as if they were a thousand miles away, somewhere deep within her mind she registered the fact that she was about to die, and then discarded that fact. She didn’t stop the chest compressions on Dr. Bachir as his heart rate dipped and he went into cardiac arrest, nor did she stop working when she stabilized the old bear and had to operate on him to prevent him from going under on her. Distantly she recognized that the near death of her mentor should have distressed her more. But to borrow a Terran expression, she just didn’t have any ‘fucks left to give’. The last few days had been a nonstop and losing battle with death, and her mentor going critical was just one more patient in long line of others that needed her help.

After Bachir had been stabilized she idly wondered why she wasn’t dead yet? Weren’t they about to ram the enemy? Oh well, the wounds on an engineer had gone septic and needed her immediate attention, every second she wasn’t dead was another she could spend keeping her patients alive.

As such she was incredibly confused when a short human man and a Lioness walked in and took over handling her patients, they said they were doctors and were there to help. But the only doctors on this ship were herself and Bachir, where had these people come from? They shooed her out of her own med bay, ordered her to get some rest, and closed the door on her. And like that Alwen was standing dazed and confused in the corridor as strangers rushed by carrying welding equipment, scrap steel, and a pallet full of duct tape, when a black and white fur ball tackled into her.

“Haha, we’re alive” Alice shouted from on top of Alwen’s chest.

“Uh, yeah, how?” Alwen asked, the mental degradation of the last few days finally catching up to her, rendering her completely in capable of understanding the strange shift in circumstances.

“It was Lucifer, swooped in at the last moment and annihilated the enemy.”

“Wait, we were saved by the Devil himself?”

Alice cocked her head to the side “No, of course not, I mean the Lucifer, as in the ship.”

Something clicked in Alwen’s mind and everything suddenly made sense, “Oh, that explains the Lioness in my med bay.” Alwen said blankly before she looked up and remembered that Alice was still straddling her chest, she felt her face flush and she had to turn to the side “Um, could you get off me?”

Alice got a mischievous look on her face “Why, you afraid I might threaten your chastity?”

Alwen scowled “Jeez, why don’t you just tell the whole ship while you’re at it.”

“Tell the whole ship what?” Isabela asked, peeking over Alice’s furry shoulder.

Alwen scowled at Alice, and she got off her chest and offered Alwen a hand up. “Nothing.” Alwen said with a grunt as she got up.

Izzy glanced towards Alice, but Alice shook her head “Sorry, this one’s a secret. I’ll take it to my grave… or until Alwen says I can.” Alice said after giving Alwen a reassuring look.

Izzy cocked her head to the side. “Is it about Bones virginity?”

Alwen and Alice stared at her in utter shock.

Izzy looked at them as if they were both morons “What, its pretty obvious. I’ve only seen fourteen years blush less often than you.”

“I thought that was a Torweni thing” Alice mused out loud.

“Nah, hooked up with this Torweni chick from the Asmodeus, no shame whatsoever.”

Alwen frowned “what did she look like?”

“Redskin, taller than you, with bones above her eyebrows that made it look like she had second set of eyebrows. She just glanced at me and dragged me somewhere private.”

Alwen grunted “Southerner, they’re a lot more ‘open’ about sex than we are.”

Izzy smiled and looked lost in memory “yeah, it was hot.”

Alwen shook her head, “Are you two just here to harass me?”

“Mostly, yeah.” Alice said with a smirk. As tense as things were over the last few days, the marines hadn’t had much to do after they dealt with the Venom. They had spent most of their time just sitting in their armory, anxiously awaiting any call to action. That meant they had a lot of pent-up energy that Alwen didn’t really have the patience to deal with right now.

“That and were here to help you pack.” Izzy said, snapping out of whatever lascivious memory she was reminiscing in.

“Help me pack what?”

Izzy quirked her head “Didn’t you get the word, one of the oxygen recyclers was destroyed during a fire, and we had an explosion in the pulse cannons that caused an air leak. Ship can’t physically support too many people right now, so all nonessential personnel is being transferred over the Lucifer.”

“But I’m the ship’s only doctor, I’m needed here.” Alwen pressed.

“Not in your state Bones, you’ve been going nonstop for days, you need to rest. And besides, the captain heard about how you kept working no matter what the ship went through, she was impressed and personally ordered that you recover on the Lucifer. We’re under orders to drag you over if we have to.” Alice explained as she wrapped a muscled arm around Allen’s shoulders.

“Yeah,” Izzy said, casually stepping up to Alwen’s other side, preventing any escape. “You’ve done enough, its time you let someone else take over, Saint Bones.” She said those last words with a huge grin on her face.

Alwen shrank in on herself “Please tell me that’s not my new nickname?”

“Sorry, people saw how hard you were working throughout the whole ambush, you saved a lot of lives. You’re now Saint Bones the Godslayer, I even heard there’s a new verse to the Ballad of Bones the Godslayer.” Alice teased.

Alwen groaned “I’m not even Catholic, or Terran, I can’t be a saint.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Too late, besides ‘Saint Bones the Godslayer’ sounds pretty cool, way better than whisper.” Izzy said as she and Alice began to walk Alwen to her room.

“Fine, how much should I pack?” Alwen said, excepting that she had no control over how long her ridiculous nickname got.

“Enough for a few weeks, you’re going to be bunking with us though in the barracks so pack light”

Alwen turned to Alice “Are we going back to Mars?”

“Yup, we’re in no condition to do anything for a long while. And since the ship’s going to dry-dock elsewhere we’ll need to bunk in the dorms for a bit.”

“Where’s the ship going?” Alwen asked.

Alice and Izzy exchanged a glance with each other, one that told Alwen that they were debating how much to tell her. “Can’t really say, just know that you won’t see the Astaroth for a while.”

Alwen sighed “It’s not like I have much to pack,”

“That’s the spirit,” Alice said boisterously as they walked off to her room.

~~~*~~~

Astarte stood alone in the Astaroth’s bridge and watched as another batch of crew were brought over to the Lucifer. She was reeling with the shock of still being alive, somehow deciding to throw her life away, and surviving said decision had left her feeling hollow. Like she had cheated death and was now stuck in some sort of ‘unlife’, like a ghost.

The door to the bridge opened up, and Astarte heard the familiar clipped footsteps of her mother as she walked in. “Where is everyone?” she asked after glancing around the bridge.

“Sleeping, crying, praying, drinking, fucking, whatever they need to come to terms with what happened.” Astarte said quietly.

The arctic gaze of her mother turned towards her “And you?”

Astarte didn’t have to ask what she meant “I’m still trying to figure out how to come to terms with it.”

“What happened?”

Astarte sighed “During the Battle for the confederacy I let Ah’ared slip away, I didn’t think he was enough of a threat to bother killing. Obviously that came back to bite me.”

“Obviously” Lucile grunted “Who else was involved in this scheme?” she asked.

“Him, the Draxori, and the Guthulu.”

“Draxori?”

“Apparently Kruhur is a Union slur, real name’s Draxori.”

“Fine, do you think the Draxori have had their fill, or will they come after us again?” she asked.

Astarte picked her head up and looked out on the wreckage of the Prophet of Fire “I can’t see how they’ll recover, that ship was like their capital.”

“That wasn’t what I was asking.”

Aster sighed “After the stunt I pulled with that Union fleet I’m pretty sure they’ll have their hands full. The Union’s been afraid of the Prophet for years, without it I think the Draxori will have their hands full.”

“So then, out of those three only the Guthulu remain unscathed?”

“Yeah” Astarte sat up straight and looked her mother in the eyes “What are you implying?”

Lucile fixed her wolfish gaze on Astarte “You and I both swore to afford our enemies nothing less than complete and utter destruction, nothing less. The Guthulu have marked themselves as our enemies, and we need to make them pay. We’ll squash their presence in Sol, and then we’ll move station to station, wiping out their pitiful cells until we learn the big names, then we’ll bring death to their doorstep.”

“When does it end, we keep making enemies and fighting battles, but to what end?” Astarte growled, the frustration from the last few days boiling over, her barely contained rage bursting out. Astarte stood up and looked Lucile in the eyes, “When does it end? When is it enough?”

Lucile’s eyes flashed with rage “It ends when all the vile filth who rule this galaxy are dead, or did you forget just how much of your blood is tainted with that same filth?”

Astarte flinched, and Lucile’s rage drained away. Every argument they had always came back to this one point, and any chance at reconciliation between them was always blocked by the continued existence of one man. Lucile would never be able to fully except Astarte as a daughter because she was also ‘his’ daughter as well. And Astarte could never forget what kind of rotten blood ran through her veins either, not so long as ‘he’ continued to live. They only really had one common goal, and that was to kill her father. Her daughter’s dream, and even Pandemonium, meant less to Lucile than her vengeance, and she only continued to fight alongside Astarte so long as his death was one of their end goals.

Lucile sighed “I didn’t mean that”

“Then why’d you say it?” Astarte muttered.

Her head drooped in shame “I, I don’t know. Lets forget that for now and figure out our next steps.” Lucile looked up to Astarte hopefully.

Astarte gave a short laugh, “yeah, fine.” She said in defeat, knowing that pushing the issue was pointless “Have a seat”

Lucile turned one of the bridge chairs around and straddled the seat while Astarte flopped back into her own chair.

They were both silent for a long time “You’re right about the Guthulu, they need to be dealt with. Their operations continue to undermine our efforts on Earth and around Sol, but we need to dislodge them quietly. We can’t start an open gang war on Earth.”

“The Maidens, Terrors, and Vet clans all want them off earth, maybe we can facilitate a unified front to start a global campaign.” Lucile offered.

Astarte nodded “Yeah, and I’ll have a ship’s worth of Marines who’ll need something to do while the Astaroth is in Temple Drive Yards.”

“Are you finally going to that overhaul?”

“Yeah, the shield breaker cannon works, and it would have saved our lives many times over if we had one. It’s time that I get off the fence and embrace it. They’ll have to call us Astaroth the Undaunted too now.”

Lucile snorted “After all this I think you’ve your own epithet, how about stalwart?”

Aster scowled “Blegh, no. What about indefatigable?”

“That’s not a real word.”

“Yes it is, it means unrelenting or indomitable. I think we’ve earned it after everything we’ve been through.” Astarte said defensively.

“Then why not just say that? Astaroth the Indomitable has a nice ring, or maybe the Indomitable Astaroth?”

Astarte thought about it, and smiled “Yeah, I like that. Astaroth the Indomitable, and Lucifer the Undaunted. The other two will need to earn their own nicknames.”

Lucile smiled “It’ll be rite of passage”

They laughed, and planned their next steps, and when it was time Astarte packed up some essentials and went over to the Lucifer with her mother. As much as she wanted to stay with her ship, there was a lot that needed to be done on Mars after their failed outing. Domnall’s hunting party would have to wait.

~~~*~~~

Vicar Belogahst stared at the wreck of the Prophet of Fire in shock and horror. His crew around him reconciled as if Mulkara herself was standing before them. They had just barely escaped the grip of the Mulka fleet after wounding that powerful battleship leading the charge. Belogahst had thought the pirates were just going to hide behind the Union fleet, and he had charged in hoping to obliterate the pirate ship before the main battle began. However that willy Hellworlder captain had tricked both of them and had escaped unscathed. He had sent word to the High Vicar and he told them to handle the Mulka while he dealt with the Hellworlders personally.

He had been confident that the Prophet could destroy that one troublesome ship, but it seemed that his confidence was misplaced. Belogahst gathered his wits and ordered his crew to search the area for any evidence of what happened. They uncovered the wreckage from a pulse cannon, and an ion trail that hinted that the Hellworlder ship had faced off with the Prophet alone. Then they discovered a warp signature of another similar sized ship that had heedlessly charged into the duel, after that things got confusing. The radiation and the patten of destruction would support the assumption that nuclear weaponry had been employed to some disastrous effect against the Prophet, but the question was how?

Nuclear weapons were very destructive within an atmosphere, but out in space they had little effect. Most war ships were built to handle large doses of radiation, some lesser civilian ships didn’t have sufficient shielding, but using something as valuable as a fission warhead against civilians made no sense. And even still the damage produced by this weapon was far greater than anything he had ever seen before.

To have the sheer overwhelming force to rip apart the Prophets shields and do that much damage in one blow, it must have been an impressive weapon indeed.

His aid stood next to him and watched everything with aghast horror “Its still burning” he muttered absently. It was out of place for a lesser ranked aid to speak with Belogahst so casually, and he would be well within his rights to have this subordinate flayed alive, but he let it slide.

“They ? the fires on the homeworld didn’t go out until the last bits of atmosphere floated away.” Beloghast remarked.

The aid nodded “And from those fires came the Prophet Mu-hileen.”

“From the fires of the Mulka’s wrath many embers escaped the crucible, and each ember will land on a Mulka world and spread the fire they began” Belogahst quoted from the holy scrolls of the Prophet. Mu-hileen’s great prophecy and the Draxori’s eternal quest that had guided them for eons, to bring fire and death to all Mulka worlds.

The aid nodded, “Of those embers the fire burned away weakness. Love, hope, mercy, all were made into ash. Worthless ash.” the aid said solemnly, finishing the quote.

Belogahst glanced to the aid, and said something most would consider blasphemy “but can’t ash be rendered into stone?”

The aid glanced to his vicar, his spiritual guide in life who was supposed to guide him onto the right path, in betrayal. Belogahst watched the aid patiently, waiting for him speak the secret code words of his heretical order. Words that never came from the aid, but from another lesser subordinate behind him.

The helmsman had pulled a pulse pistol out of his holster and pointed it at the aid “and from stone we may rebuild what was burnt” he said before firing on the stupefied aid.

Belogahst felt sad that the aid he had grown attached to was dead, but the aid hadn’t been apart of his order and had to die for their cause. The helmsman stood up and walked up to Belogahst “Is it time for us to come out of the shadows?”

Belogahst glanced to the helmsman and nodded his head “The Prophet of Fire has fallen, along with it the High Vicar has also fallen. The other Vicars will be scrambling to fill his place, they will fight amongst themselves and weaken each other. Now is the time for us to strike, for too long the house of Il has led us in an eternal exile in a hopeless crusade. It is time for the Draxori to move on.”

“The Mulka will not leave us though, their hate has lasted millennia for what our ancestors did. They will come for us.”

“Then we shall seek allies.”

“But who?”

Belogahst looked to the helmsman “Do you really need to ask? With just one ship these Hellworlders have proven themselves to be very formidable. As we take the ancient starholds we will free the Terrans from their pens, and since they seem to detest slavery we shall send rest of the slaves away. We will rebuild ourselves anew, and with their help we may finally find a new world to call home.”

“How very wise your holiness” the helmsman said with a bow.

“Please call me Belogahst.” He said softly.

The head of the helmsman shot up “I am unworthy.” He pleaded.

“No you are not, if we are to begin again we must change at our very foundations, now what is your name?”

The helmsman looked awestruck as he gathered his wits “I am Veral, of the Ket clan.”

“Well met Veral’ket, now come, there is much that needs to be done.”