And there, on high, the Peligians dwelt, watching.
And yet, like angels, they soon fell to Earth.
Orion Transport Roaming Bazaar - Daso-Muwe System
The holographic image melted around him as the projectors deactivated, restoring his normal surroundings. The former Chancellor leaned on the small railing a moment, allowing a slight smile to drift across his face before he stepped down from the platform. He recovered his greatcoat before he removed the Excalibur's FTL transceiver from its access port. Taking the time to examine, his watch. They were due to arrive soon, and he could feel the slight bumping as the Orion transport he was riding on began its descent towards the planet.
He ducked through the hatch and climbed through the ship. Behind him he felt two of his three remaining Praetorian skulking along after him, guarding their master, shrouded by their natural camouflaging, as he maintained the careful ruse surrounding him.
The bridge of the personal transport had a core of his sleepers, the only people he trusted with the secret location of Doctor Roberts's research outpost on the shimmering ocean world of Daso-Muwe. The planet was an endless sea that stretched out before the under-slung command gondola of the bulky Orion vessel that skimmed the wave crests, heading for the horizon.
"Issue the appropriate codes," Rikard ordered, turning up the collar of his greatcoat as the command gondola's observation windows retracted and fresh air was allowed inside, the wind picking up and blowing the salty air over them as the ship curled about and began to circle an empty stretch of ocean.
The Orion captain obliged, inputting the appropriate signals into the comm. unit, looking up towards the sea as it began to bubble, the loading platform bursting from the waves in a crest of white water as it rose shimmering in the glorious sunlight to meet them. The large transport slipped towards the docking spire, a gangway extending to meet the dripping structure as they docked.
Rikard nodded in satisfaction as he walked towards the companionway, descending past Tilly who had changed from her typical business suit into something more practical, loading an Orion sliver gun as she moved to follow him.
He eyed her a moment, studying her elegant Orion features, black horn-rimmed glasses over ivory eyes... "Your master is expecting a report from you," he said calmly, "You should be certain not to disappoint him."
She never batted an eyelid, simply levelled the weapon at him. "How did you know?" she inquired evenly.
"His watchful eye has never been far away," Rikard said, turning to look at her, "That, and I am not a total idiot." He batted the gun from her hands effortlessly as it slid across the gangplank and into the sea. Gesturing with a hand, he pinned her arms to her sides, lifting her off of the deck. "How is old Petrov?" he asked, leaning in, "Still meddling in affairs that do not concern him?"
"His watchful eye sees...all." Tilly gasped as she felt the air around her hardening like invisible steel.
"I have a message for that old worm," Rikard said calmly, "That I will pluck out his watchful eye if he interferes with me again." He dropped her to the deck. "And that next time he decides to send a spy, to try to be less obvious about it."
He turned and marched across the gangplank and into the waiting elevator, feeling his two shadows accompanying him. He allowed the third to remain on the transport, sure that once Tilly delivered her message, she would be disposed of. Rikard wasn't foolish enough to allow her to lead Petrov to Peligia.
He descended into the dark underwater realm, the elevator connecting to a large sub-marine complex, a scientific community drifting under the ocean dedicated solely to one task and one alone: interpreting the Peligian mystery.
There were labs sitting in separate modules, some of the greatest minds toiling away under Amsus guard. Rikard took no risks; the staff at the facility had been gathered from every corner of the Hegemony and a few from beyond its borders. They lived and breathed for their work. There was no means of communication out from Daso-Muwe. No FTL comm. or any kind of communication relay. Many of them had no idea where they were; there were advantages to hiding the facility beneath the sea. It meant that there was nowhere for the scientists to escape to, and even if they were to get a message out, there was no possible way to direct help to a location they didn't know.
Doctor Roberts had been consigned to Daso-Muwe after losing the Peligian Diary to Taine's first officer, Lauren.
She had taken over a large lab, working furiously, knowing that the only chance for her to ever leave that watery hell was to uncover what Rikard wanted to know. The one thing that had stumped archaeologists since the early days of space flight: the location of Peligia.
Her tables and workspaces were covered by ancient stone fragments and relics collected from a hundred worlds. Up on a number of screens were photographs of the Peligian Diary. There in one corner, picking through dusty relic boxes all labelled with the sigil of the old Imperial Museum, Doctor Roberts sat, looking up at him.
"Figured you'd show up sooner or later," she said, tossing another priceless but useless relic onto a pile.
"Your time is running out," Rikard said, calmly stepping over a sleeping dog that had sprawled across the doorstep. The large hound lazily opened an eye and yawned before flopping its head back down again, ignoring him.
"Really?" Roberts asked, "'Cause last I checked, Peligia had waited five millennia to be found, and isn't in a hurry to go anywhere."
"Don't be facetious," Rikard warned.
Roberts stood, dusting off her knees, looking Rikard up and down. "What's with the coat, decided to have a retro-style day? Teal isn't your colour though, I picture you in more of an arterial red, personally."
He smiled at her acrid words. "You could say I felt...conflicted," he murmured, picking up a shard of black Peligian crystal, turning it over in his hands - Kardiac's baton, a gift to him by the Bishop Lamont when he had been made the second Imperial Warlord. As ironic as that had been, having two commanders-in-chief of the old imperial war machine. He tucked it under his arm as he looked across at her. "Where is Peligia?"
"How the hell should I know?" Roberts bit back, "What do I look like, a psychic?" She kicked the pile of junk relics. "There's nothing here that hasn't been examined by a hundred different scholars. I'm starting to wonder if Peligia actually exists, or if it's just a delusion caused by smoking too much ganja..."
Rikard reached into his pocket and drew out a flat octagonal disk that he tossed to her. "This was what was in the cover of the Peligian Diary," he said calmly.
"Yeah?" Roberts said, as she tucked her hair back under her stained expedition hat and picked up the piece of metal, "It looks new."
"It is a recreation," Rikard said absently, "I want to know how you missed the fact that the disk was in the diary in the first place"
"Look," Roberts grumbled again, "All I knew was that the diary was physically important, I didn't know about anything being hidden in it. How did you recover this?"
"I have access to the HMS Excalibur, and they can be very careless about conversations they think are private." Rikard said absently as he bent down to examine a piece of Peligian crystal, tracing his hands over the octagon with its raised bumps, "I can be very resourceful when I try."
"Too bad you're not resourceful when it comes to my salary," Roberts remarked, joining him at the crystal device, turning the piece of metal over as she set it in place with a click.
Both of them stepped back as the crystal came alive. Ghostly images filled the room around them, an ancient and lost language being spoken in earnest by a shadowy figure who hunched over the device.
"A Peligian," Roberts said, "The quality of the recording has degraded, probably a result of the condition of the crystal itself."
"Is it useful?" Rikard remarked.
"The Highlord Taine has you skittish, doesn't he?" Roberts said, not looking up as she grabbed a pad and began to scribble notes.
"We are in a race," Rikard said, playing absently with Kardiac's baton, "And while we are ahead, I have learned not to... underestimate our opponents. Highlord Taine is... clever."
"Oh, gotten past the whole underestimating your enemies thing?" Roberts inquired, "Why exactly is it Taine you've picked for your particular nemesis in all of this?"
Rikard smiled, twirling the baton through his fingers. "Because our dear Highlord began all of this. He is after Peligia... and because he wears VonGrippen's colours."
"Ahh, you have a little transferred anger," Roberts said with a sly smile, "He has claimed to be VonGrippen's heir, and you have seen fit to allow him to inherit your hatred of an old enemy..."
"I know VonGrippens," Rikard said evenly, "It's a specific manner of thinking they possess that makes them so dangerous. The fact that they always seem to pop up in the wrong places, Alexander was exceptionally... distressing for that." He shook his head. "Do you know he very nearly stopped my Invasion plans for the old Empire?"
"Oh?" she asked absently, trying to feign disinterest.
"After the fall of the United Nations, the Amsus seceded from the Empire in the chaos that came with the Emperor's rise. They claimed their freedom after loyally fighting the Emperor's war for him. They were our foot soldiers, and VonGrippen was the mind that wielded them..." Rikard chuckled, "So many of our weapons from that war were put aside in favour of the new 'enlightened order'."
"So like a sword that had outlived its usefulness..." Roberts surmised.
"Indeed," Rikard smiled lost in his memories, "Conversion to ploughshares and all of that. Ridiculous optimism on the part of the Highlord council, but then they were never known for their brilliance. You cannot build the perfect soldiers and then expect them to simply vanish in peacetime. VonGrippen understood this; the man was far cleverer than his contemporaries, including Kardiac, gave him credit for. He knew that the Amsus had a new purpose, and would have uncovered my plans for them... were it not for the timely death of his wife, and someone carefully supplying him with an idea that Peligia was the way to get her back."
"You killed his wife?" Roberts knew Rikard was divulging some of his inner thoughts, and she felt uneasy, not sure that she wanted to know them. What if he realized that she knew too much?
One look into his eyes told her that she already knew too much. Rikard would never allow her to live past her usefulness.
"I was the one to point him in the direction of Peligia," Rikard smiled coldly, "And if I hadn't underestimated VonGrippen, all of this would have been over three hundred years ago. But I made the mistake of viewing him as just another man, and so here we are three centuries later. I am not about to spend another three hundred years playing Galactic Administrator trying to find the location of Peligia, all because I underestimate another VonGrippen."
"Yeah, I'll bet," Roberts said, pausing and leaning in, "look at this, it's a star pattern." She gestured to the ghostly image over their heads above the projections of the Peligian, where faintly flickering lights like stars could be discerned.
Rikard smiled. "Can you extrapolate where the planet is?"
"That is going to take some time," Roberts replied, sketching the constellations, "And there are no guarantees that this actually is Peligia."
"Maybe not," Rikard said, gesturing to the flickering image, "But that is the first concrete proof I have ever seen of a real Peligian." He swung the black baton in the way Kardiac had once done to illustrate his point, swinging it up to under his chin. "I am taking the stone rings."
Roberts turned in shock. "You found an Oracle?"
"I made one," Rikard replied as he marched to the door, carefully stepping over the dog, "See that they are loaded aboard my transport, and as soon as you have the location we are going to leave."
"I get to leave?" she asked incredulously.
"You are going to succeed where everyone else failed," Rikard said, turning back, "As for the rest of these incompetent..."
Roberts nodded in understanding as she set back about her work.
* * *
He stood with his arms crossed, staring into the cell at the COB sitting staring back at him. He had slipped his old leather jacket on, striking falcons on the right shoulder above the golden-embroidered command pilot wings opposite the Peligian winged sword on the left. The glittering silver Captain's insignia on his collar caught the light as he stared down.
"Why?" he demanded standing angrily, feeling the cut of the betrayal, sharp like the memory of being shot.
The COB looked up through the bars at his Skipper, all pretenses had been dropped "You need to ask?" he responded, setting his hands on his knees.
"Yes," the Highlord replied, still before the cell his fists tight, "I want to know why."
The COB stood. "Because my master gave me a command."
"You have been a model Non-Commissioned Officer on board this ship," Darien said, the anger in his voice scathing, his words clipped, "You've served this ship since the liberation of Karin, you fought at Eisenhower, Tempus, Arcanis, Haligonian Station, Ordessus... you could have obeyed your master at any time... why now?"
"It bothers you, doesn't it Highlord," the COB stood. ""that someone you had come to trust could betray you so succinctly?" his voice pitched almost to Rikard's accent, "The master has many tools at his disposal, and he has boundless patience. It could be anyone that strikes at you, it could be your best friend, your most trusted ally." The COB bit out a laugh. "There really is no one you can trust who hasn't been tainted by the Master's hand in one fashion or another."
The COB came forward to languish against the bars languidly. "Do you know what really terrifies you, Highlord?" he asked a note of amusement in his voice.
"What?" Darien asked.
"That even after all you have been through with them, your friends still have the potential to turn on you. " He narrowed his eyes as he smiled, "That you are truly alone..."
"If your Master really thinks that, he's wrong," Darien smiled as he, turned and walked from the brig, gesturing for Colonel Mayfair to walk with him.
The Colonel kept up with Darien, walking now, finally out of his cast. "Skipper?"
Darien paused, turning, as he looked at the Karin Marine.for a long moment, "Do we have any idea of why?" he asked quietly, keeping his voice low as they stepped to the side of the main corridor.
"Not much of one," Mayfair admitted, heaving a long sigh, "Nurse Pia examined his medical records. They turned up Amsus DNA strands..."
"How the hell did we miss that?" Darien asked incredulously.
"I don't know," Mayfair said, "Everyone was screened by Doctor Kyr as they came on ship; now, it was in his medical file, but... you know what it was like when we first got on ship, everything was such a damn confusion..."
"Or someone let it slip through." Darien closed his eyes, keeping his arms tightly folded. "I want you to pick two of your best men, station them in sickbay and order blood screening for the whole crew. All results need to be double-checked."
Mayfair nodded in agreement. "What about... well..."
"Everyone," Darien said calmly, "No exceptions."
"We should notify Sentinel Station and the other Imperial outposts." Mayfair shook his head. "Christ this is a mess..."
"We're learning as we go," Darien said calmly, "Let's try not to have a repeat lesson." The wound their way up towards the Propylon Chamber. "Have you assembled your Dragoons?"
Mayfair nodded. "Sixteen men, the best we have. I'm ready to leave when you give the order..."
"Go Colonel, and good luck." Darien tapped his friend's shoulder. "Let me know what you find."
"We will," Mayfair smiled tightly.
* * *
The stillness of the world was broken by a rush of light, as the sixteen-member platoon appeared in a flash of light inside the ring of stones.
There was a taste of rain in the air, freshly fallen, the ground spongy and wet with mud beneath the Karin Marine jackboots. Trees swayed in the wind ahead of them, dotted and dark with rich foliage that seemed to shroud some menace.
There was an age-old fear bed in every soldier's heart when it came to jungles.
Colonel Mayfair lifted the DT-09-a4 rifle and checked the clip on the Amsus Drop Trooper weapon. They were heading into unknown territory, and while pulse rifles were well-designed, they weren't as rugged as the Amsus DTs. Typically Imperial Recon teams preferred the enemy's weapon for its light weight and dependability. It was the reason the Amsus preferred them as well.
"Lock and load," he ordered, blinking up at the brilliant sun overhead and already beginning to feel the sweat on his brow. It was going to be a warm day on whatever world they found themselves on.
Around him, his men pulled on the arming handles of their DTs, ramming a round into the chamber. They were far from home, deep on the furthest edge of the Amsus Hegemony, almost in Polian space. It was definitely enemy territory.
He checked the right sleeve of his ascent jacket, making sure that the small recall device was in place within reach should they get into trouble. They each wore one, but under the oppressive heat of the relentless sun above them a number of his men were stripping down to their bare essentials, pulling the removable linings out of the jackets and tossing them into piles with the others. A couple of his men were setting up the Hyperspace relay that would blast itself into hyperspace and carry their signal back to the Excalibur for recall if they needed a speedy evac.
Mayfair nodded to Sergeant Onaka, who began issuing orders to one of the squads of men, establishing a base camp close to the ring of stones, while Mayfair himself took a moment to examine them.
Propylons.
They were worn, and the crystal seemed caked with moss and other sediment, but the size and position matched the set that were in place aboard the Excalibur. They were definitely on the right track.
He motioned to a four-man fire team to accompany him, looking off towards the trees and the darkened 'path' that cut through them. Mayfair's grip tightened on the wood stock of the DT-09 as he watched one of his men, young First Lieutenant Grogen, dart off to one side. Something was tickling him as wrong about that place. The Lieutenant hefted the VLR-01 sniper rifle, taking his customary flanking position to scout out ahead of them and keep them covered; Mayfair's anxiety didn't ease at all.
They filed out in a single line, Onaka remaining back with the second squad to secure the base camp and the FTL relay, their only ticket home should anything go wrong. They made their way down a small hill from the ring of stones towards the ominously waiting trees.
Spread out in a long, straggly line, they marched through thin grass as the undergrowth changed to patches of thick, gnarled brush. Clumps of trees rose three or four feet from the ground, with thin pale green leaves. The bark was rough and pitted. Solitary trees announced the edge of the forest ahead.
Around him, his men darted their eyes back and forth, a few of the marines opening their jackets and stripping down to their tee-shirts. They were Karin born, not used to fighting in the heat. Even Mayfair could feel the oppressive sun beating down on them. He kept his eyes peeled, on the watch for anything out of the ordinary as the warm air began to climb towards hot as the sun rose higher.
Mayfair eased the safety off of his rifle as a distinctive smell tickled his nostrils. They were approaching a particularly thick patch of bushes. It was a foreign smell, hard for him to describe, a faint musty smell of something smouldering. It was a smell that didn't belong in a place rich with scents of trees and foliage, a peculiar aroma given off by molten steel. Some men never learned to distinguish smells, but something about this odour set off an alarm bell in his head - there was an enemy nearby.
He drew up his hand, flat drawing his squad to a halt. Each of them scanned the bushes for movement, apprehension growing. The veteran Colonel narrowed his eyes as he knelt, gesturing for one of his three man fire teams to skirt around to the right. He could feel the eyes on him;. There was something out there, without a doubt. However, it would choose the time and the place they were to meet.
"One from Two," his TAC-link crackled at him, sergeant Onaka letting him know that the base camp was secure and the FTL relay was in place.
He lifted it, depressing the button. "Two, One, go ahead."
"One, Two, Firebase one secure, holding for orders."
"Two, One, understood,, out.." Mayfair said quietly, releasing the radio and moving forward again down the gently sloping hillside.
The forest grew open and airy, not like the thick jungle it had been to begin with. Tall trees rose above them, thick vines hanging low scraping the ground. Leafy green bushes were dotted about, covering the soil, and young saplings stretched upwards to the open sky above. The shade offered some refuge from the relentless sun.
Occasionally, along the path they walked, small stones and crumbles masonry could be seen, indications of a lost civilization, forgotten amidst the grass and short bushes.
He sighted his second fire team moving parallel to the path along a small ridge, almost invisible in the shadows of the forest, sweeping around searching for the enemy who still refused to show himself.
As Mayfair's squad climbed slowly up another hill, he drifted off of the path to one side, pausing to check his compass, frowning as the needle steadily swung, as if the magnetic pole was drifting steadily to the east. He shook it a few times and checked it again, realizing that the electronic instrument had probably been damaged in the Propylon jump. Anything that unleashed that much energy would play havoc with electronics. He cursed and slid it away, taking another step forward.
In an instant, the ground gave way beneath him. His right leg went down, and him with it, causing him to instinctively throw his weight away from the hole and scramble for purchase on the side, letting go of his rifle to grab for some gnarled roots as his legs slid down the side of the pit. He caught hold and managed to latch on; his weight landed him on the solid ground, preventing him from sliding any further in. Quickly, several of his men reached out and grabbed his shirt and shoulder harness, pulling him up and to safety.
He sat a moment recovering his rifle, staring at the punji pit. A thin lattice had covered the hole, a thin layer of material that shimmered and morphed its colours to disguise itself as undergrowth, hanging down to conceal it. The hole beneath was about five feet deep. Tall sharpened stakes were implanted in the bottom, standing straight up, waiting to impale the unfortunate victim. If he had stepped just a little more to the side, he would have tumbled in, his weight driving him onto the stakes. As it was, the tough sole of his combat boot had pushed the first stake to one side, leaving his leg free to drop down the side unharmed. A single rip in his pants showed how close he had come to disaster. It was a closer call than he liked.
Mayfair picked at the piece of adaptive camouflage, looking around again. His friends in the trees had left gifts for them. Creatively as well. The Amsus always set traps exclusively with explosives; the pit trap too creative for them.
Sure that their Colonel was all right, they started out again, down the far side of the hill towards a marsh, a mile or so east...drifting south according to Mayfair's compass. Navigating was becoming a bitch, especially when he discovered that all of the compasses, including the magnetic ones, were similarly afflicted. But they pressed on, marking their path, dropping down towards the widest point of the marsh where the hillside was shallower, reaching the water and staring across at the open clearing beyond. There was nothing for it. The platoon waded forward into the water and chest high grass. They were spaced twenty to thirty feet apart as they neared the shore. The meadow had once been a part of a square; crumbled sunken buildings descended into the rock, cut back from the forest in a time long past. Tall trees lined the edges on three sides, and there appeared to be a dirt wall or what had once been an embankment along the forest's edge.
Mayfair scanned it through the scope of his rifle, again glad that he had the DT-09. A pulse rifle would have digitally enhanced the image and would have made a mess out of the finer details the optical scope afforded him. He sent the second and third men forward, while the rest of his squad crouched in the water and grass. A feeling of suspense filled each of them. The point man walked halfway across the field, then stopped looking at the forest around him. Satisfied, he turned and waved the rest of them forward.
Mayfair walked forward, carefully picking his way through the ruined structures, staring at the dirt mounds, realizing that they had once been fighting positions. The layout of the overgrown ruins, the positioning of the mounds of dirt - it all spoke to him of a bunker system; the refuse of a battle fought so long ago that only the ancient dirt remembered it, scarred by the brutality of living beings killing one another. What had happened there, Mayfair may never have known, but the fighting had been fierce enough to leave its mark.
He shook his head, making a note of it on his pad with his pencil, ordering the recon team forward again as he checked his watch. It was slow going, and they had no idea what they were searching for. He sucked some air through his teeth. Aside from the nagging feeling that they were being watched, and the smells on the air, and a single trap, there was no sign of the enemy.
Pushing deeper into the dark forest, they left the ruined bunker system behind, climbing a ridge. A steep bank was all that separated them from the top, covered in dense brush. The platoon searching for a break in the foliage where they could make their ascent, making their way up towards the plateau once they had found it.
The explosion from the head of the line sent the men scurrying for cover, sweeping the high ridge above them, as Mayfair cursed himself. Another booby trap, and why not? He'd ignored another rule - never take the easy way, the trail. His enemy had anticipated him taking the path of least resistance, and he had walked right into their trap.
The mine, similar to a claymore, had been set up to one side of the natural trail, the laser trip almost undetectable in the brush. The weapon was a small plastic dome containing shards of crystal, which had burst outwards like a shotgun blast, shredding the first three men.
Private Kowalski had been on point and had taken the full force of the blast. It shattered this DT-09, shredding the wood stock and twisting the metal barrel at a crazy angle. The explosion had also detonated a white-phosphorous grenade attached to his TAC-vest. The explosion had killed him instantly, but the phosphorous was burning fiercely, eating away at his flesh, the grenade still firmly attached to his gear. The heat was causing his body to twitch convulsively, but his eyes no longer contained any spark of life. A dense white cloud rolled into the sky, and sparks sputtered as the white-hot grenade burned out of control.
Off to his right a tremendous explosion roared as a column of dirt erupted into the air, another of his platoon stepping back from the gruesome sight, falling foul of another mine.
"Hold still!" Mayfair ordered, looking about him, trying to see any more of the lethal weapons that had now claimed two of his men. Instincts kicked the revulsion of what had just happened to the back of his mind. He had to keep his men alive, which meant...
The rain began. It started with a downpour, and then got worse. The forest around them grew dark as night as the thick and heavy clouds rolled in with surprising speed. Visibility was reduced to nearly zero, and he could barely see the men around him. Of all the times...
A burst of automatic weapons fire exploded somewhere in front of him, and mines became the least of his problems. Pulling up his own rifle, he and his men took covering positions, as a dull thwup echoed in deadly retaliation to the gunfire, silencing the stattaco chattering of the DT-09.
Confusion reigned in combat;. Everything spiralled so fast that it was nearly impossible for one person to see the whole picture. No one knew what would happen next, or where - at times stumbling blindly right into it.
Mayfair peered through the haze and rain, as beside him, one of his Privates lifted his rifle and began to fire.
The deadly bolt of energy thwupped again, incinerating the centre of Private Connor's torso.
Mayfair catapulted himself to the side, feeling the energy bolt searing its way through where he was standing, a tree exploding under the weight of the blast. Looking about him, he saw another of his men die.
"Fall back!" he yelled, as his second fire team moved forward to give the first some cover fire. Mayfair desperately looked for an opportunity to get his men out of there. He grabbed one of his men, lifting the wounded man to help him back. The energy blast had shorn off his right arm. The smell of charred flesh was sickening in the humidity. He pulled the man back, watching as the wave of energy blasts ripped out of the rain haze cutting down more of his men. A few turned and fired again, each of them dying a few moments after their gun fire began.
Mayfair stumbled backwards, unable to keep his footing with the extra weight of the man on his shoulders as he crashed wetly to the mud.
The hissing splats had him roll over, his hand seeking for where the DT-09 had fallen, reaching out to grasp it as the shifting metal foot crashed down upon it, driving the weapon into the mud.
Mayfair turned, rolling up on his right shoulder, looking at the Polian in the rain, the hissing armour plates, the staff weapon pointed down at him, knowing that he was probably going to die.
The Polian looked about him, his visored helm swinging to and fro, as the sounds of battle drew still and silent. The staff weapon prodded Mayfair's uniform, pushing him forward a little, so that the Polian could take a better look at the white winged sword printed onto the shoulder of the dragoon jacket.
The Polian spoke something in his language, his third hand reaching down to tear the sleeve off of the Colonel's shoulder and smear it in the sticky red blood from a cut Mayfair had taken in his fall. He repeated his words again, slowly as if sounding them out for a child, tossing the bloodied winged sword down onto Mayfair, before he reached down, grabbed the small human with his third hand and wrenched him to his feet.