I do know the meaning of mercy. I just choose not to execute it..
The Rock of Braal - Kule Space
They pressed onwards. There was no time to bury the dead, no time to grieve. Firlotte hoped to God that whatever lay inside that place was worth it.
There were signs of death throughout the warren of tunnels, the signs of fierce fire fights, be it Orion merchants with pistols or fully armed Imperial assault teams. All seemed to indicate one common theme: it didn't matter how much firepower there was, death ruled the Rock.
"We should withdraw," Masconi urged, as they emerged into a large circular chamber, a pit of sand in the middle and barred wooden doors around them, "Cut our losses while we still can and come back here with an assault team..." she looked back at the high arched tunnels, "Maybe a couple of ITE's, they'd fit down the main corridors."
"Not like you to get scared," Lauren quipped, her breath frosting before her in the frigid air.
Masconi shot Lauren a dirty look. "Just because I don't scare easily doesn't make me reckless. We're in danger here, I can feel it." She pointed to a group of Orions who had tried to make a desperate last stand in the room, bullet holes puncturing their bodies, like one of their men had panicked and cut loose with a squad assault weapon and gunned down his companions.
Lauren shook her head. "We're fine, just keep our heads on straight and our eyes peeled and we'll be okay."
Firlotte shifted uneasily as the two women argued. He was in agreement with Masconi, he'd feel a hell of a lot better if they had a couple of ITEs, and maybe an extra platoon of marines backing them up.
The Marine squad pressed onwards at a nod from Shale, the large Taïrian ignoring the two as he carried onwards, descending through the tunnels into a large flight of steps, descending in a spiral through the centre of the room to the floor below.
The fighting had been fiercest here. Expended shell casings and empty pulse rifle magazines littered the ground. Orion sliver rounds peppered the walls. Different times, different weapons, and yet Firlotte was willing to bet that the outcome was the same...
"Give me the FTL relay," Masconi tapped Firlotte on the shoulder, keeping her voice low.
Firlotte blinked at her. "But Commander..."
"I know what Lauren's orders were," Masconi stared, her dark eyes locked on Firlotte's, "But if there is going to be a fight, I want us ready to get the hell out of here." She nodded towards the walls, where Shale and Lauren were already making their way down with the marines. "The weapons fire was directed that way," Masconi pressed, "Meaning whatever they were shooting at came up those stairs... if we set it up here, it's ready to go."
Firlotte un-slung the FTL relay and unhooked its tripod, setting the bulky comm. device up in a few seconds, looking at Masconi as he tapped in the activation sequence, glad when the device flickered and its LEDs all read green.
Masconi nodded her head in satisfaction as she gestured for Firlotte to proceed onwards. She herself sat on the edge of the stairs, hefting her Kill'a'ma'jig, content to guard their only ticket out of there with her life.
Firlotte ducked down the stairs, sparing her a final glance, before hurrying to catch up with the others below. Clustered in a small antechamber the Marines shone their TAC-lights on a massive golden portal carved with ancient glyphs and wards that blocked their way forward.
"It's sealed," Lauren observed, brushing some of the dirt off of the writing, "I can't make out..." she squinted at the carvings set into the gold, that same skull faced being holding aloft the same device, people frozen with fear shielding themselves from him. An ancient Kule warning.
Firlotte leaned over her shoulder. "It's a pretty simple door mechanism," he answered, "like a kids puzzle we have on Karin," He touched several panels on the golden disk, the heavy portal grinding as the front panels slid aside and parted, the second and third seals retracting moments later. The sound, like a vault door unlatching, clicked and whirred as the great golden disk slid up into the ceiling.
Water.
It cascaded from high fountains down into a deep shimmering blue pool, roaring like waterfalls, splashing down on either side of a narrow marble bridge, flanked by massive granite columns, stretching towards a low dark throne, carved from the bedrock, and seated upon that throne was a statue of a being.
Heavy armour plates covered his form, a robe like cloak spilled out luxuriously from the carving. Bone plates and cranial ridges covered the face like a mask as it sat, the reflection from the glowing bio-luminescent weeds in the pools shimmered and danced the rippling light over the walls behind him.
Lauren nodded to Hobbes, who gestured to his men, the Marines advancing into the room, keeping their weapons raised and at the ready, searching for any sign of danger. Lauren and Shale walked through a step or two behind, Firlotte ducking for cover behind one of the granite pillars as he waited for the all-clear.
As the strangers entered his inner sanctum, the statue lifted its head. A bright light flickering behind its eye sockets as it stood slowly, eight pulse rifles training on the figure as he rose, the heavy cloak falling about him to shroud him darkly, an ancient warrior blocking their path to the great archive doors sealed behind his throne.
He raised a hand, lifting his gauntleted fingers before him as he twisted the hand, rotating it a quarter of an inch. A bright ball of light screamed down the length of the chamber, smashing into the biggest threat to him, sending the startled Taïrian Captain bowling backwards through the open portal crashing to the stairs beyond.
There was an eruption of gunfire, Marine pulse rifles opening up sending a hail of 9mm ball bearings shrieking through the air towards the figure, who effortlessly raised his other hand, the shimmering field of green light spreading across the room before him, the bullets disintegrating as they failed to penetrate the barrier.
Lauren sighted in with her Kill'a'ma'jig, firing twice as she sprinted for Shale's fallen form, looking up in shock as the golden portal quivered and began to close. She acted on instinct, diving through the hole as the massive cover stone slammed back into place, silencing the gunfire.
Firlotte rolled, as the sound of gunfire shifted to the deadly twupping of Polian weapons fire. The marines switched to their secondary weapons as they begin to fall back. The technician splashed into the foot-deep pool of water as he searched for better cover.
The alien cast back his cloak, a brilliant white flash from his chest as a sigil flared, white-hot. Seeing it coming, Firlotte shielded his eyes from it, shaking the burning bright flash from his eyes as he tried to see. Marines were still firing, but something was wrong; Firlotte blinked through the painful light as he tried to get a better look. Watching as Hobbes, blinded by the flare, gunned, down the first thing that moved... one of his own men.
The ancient alien shifted his stance, raising a hand as the focusing crystal mounted to the gauntlet erupted into a crackling bolt of light, incinerating one of the Marines where he stood. Turning again and blasting a second, grabbing a third marine's rifle from his hands. He sent that one sailing through the air, smashing with a sickening thud into the wall as he walked forward.
Hobbes blinked. Blinded by the blast, he swung around, opening fire with his rifle again, sending bullets careening off of the alien's armour plates as the creature seized him, driving the Marine sergeant into the marble floor with a sharp and terminal crack.
Firlotte panicked. He sprinted for the metal portal, hammering on the door as he turned back, realizing that he was now alone with the creature. Reaching for his own weapon, he shook with fear.
The demon of the darkest nightmare lashed out, tearing the weapon away from his grip as he drove the terrified technician against the portal door.
* * *
Masconi flew down the stairs at the first sound of gunfire, her own weapon up as she watched Lauren dive through the closing portal. The Wing Commander slid across the floor to pound helplessly on the seal.
"We have to get out of here!" she bellowed, looking over to where Lauren knelt alongside Shale.
"They're still in there." Lauren looked up.
"If they had any sense they'd be hitting their recallers!" Masconi yelled, reaching out and doing the same to hers, "Come on!"
Lauren triggered Shale's, before she triggered her own, shaking her head towards the door as above them the explosive boom of the FTL relay jumping indicated that they would soon be out of there.
The portal shivered and began to open, and Masconi stepped back, Lauren turning as the pair of them readied themselves to face whatever emerged, the great alien being casting aside Firlotte's lifeless body as the portal reached the top, his eyes gleaming a sinister red as he took another step forward.
The three survivors were surrounded in bright flashes of light as they disappeared.
* * *
One by one the Polian gunship's systems reactivated, the techno-organic vessel powering back up as Lex Talionis returned control to its systems.
Deep in the hold, the shattered and damaged assault Mech Ezekiel was brought back online. The microscopic nanobots Lex had left dormant inside the Mech's chest plate scurried to and fro, cannibalising the raw materials around it to begin to reconstruct the damaged sections of the robot, pouring to seal the cuts performed by the Fida'i assassin as the hydraulic fluid was literally manufactured on the atomic level by the bots.
Ezekiel shuddered and sat upright in the cargo bay as he took stock of his situation, processing the new directives fed to him by the Gunship's computer that had accessed the Polian FTL communications network and had tied him directly with the master program back on the battleship.
He was aware that as he rose, the great battleship drew closer to the Rock of Braal, an angry predator slinking through the darkness. He updated the Lex Talionis with his diagnostic data, scanning the cargo bay about him for anything that would be of use, flexing his damaged primary arm as he, opened one of the Supply ship crates. He and lifted out the Amsus chain gun, loading the belt feeder as he set about attaching it to himself as a replacement limb.
His task complete he set out, pouncing like a three-legged cat to the dusty ground, bounding across the grime, examining the entrance to the tunnel complex with its battle standards.
As the Battleship slid to a halt, looming over the Rock of Braal, Lex Talionis observed what Ezekiel observed with dispassion. He computed battle tactics, reviewing the time between his shutdown of the Gunship's systems till the time he had intercepted the FTL relay's panicked evacuation order. His powerful sensors scanned the Rock and supplied his mech with a detailed map of the structure.
There was a cold precision in his directives; he had no time for dalliance. Darien Taine would return soon with a sizable military force, in an attempt to take the Rock from whatever guarded it, which meant that Lex only had a short time to accomplish his own goals.
He sent Ezekiel bounding into the ancient stones, the powerful tail sweeping from side to side as he tracked the most direct course towards the central stairs. He paused when he came across the fallen Imperial and Polian soldiers.
Lex's order to halt compelled him, as he settled back on his haunches and reached out with one of his smaller secondary hands to unclip the Polian shield generator from the fallen warrior's arm. He adjusted his nano-bots and integrated the defensive system into his frame before continuing forward.
He reached the stairs, pausing at the spherical hole that the FTL relay had carved when it had jumped to hyperspace, tactical readouts processing the damaged sections of the wall. It advocated caution, and the Mech rose upright, marching downwards, the chain cannon ready to spin up and hurl a firestorm of bullets if he was attacked.
Ezekiel faced the open portal, processed the Marine bodies floating in the water as he stepped through and into the chamber, calculating the trajectories of fire as he gauged each. The Marines hadn't stood a chance.
Lex Talionis smiled on the bridge of his ship.
The figure in the throne was watching him. The Mech's sensors processed the data, reading the slowed metabolism, identifying it as Kule, though the data was flawed. Kule did not live for five hundred years. Yet, Lex knew that Rikard had survived. The anomaly wasn't without precedent.
The Mech's holo-projector sprang to life, as it projected an image of the Lex Talionis's interface in front of the Kule.
"Titan, last of the mighty war gods, I presume." Lex smiled wolfishly.
Titan stood slowly, preparing to strike. Lex Talionis perceived the gesture, comparing the powers being drawn upon as similar to those possessed by his own Immortal Emperor. He had come prepared.
The Kule 'god' lashed out, striking with his precision control of the elements around him, the wave of force slamming into the adapted Polian shield, leaving the mech untarnished.
"You will find your methods of attack pointless,"
Lex tucked his baton under his arm as a heavy explosion echoed through the rock. "That," he glanced up as the ceiling creaked and groaned as a trace of dust trickled down, "was a direct hit by a Polian Zero-point bore. I have four such weapons. Would you like me to test your capacity to survive all four fired simultaneously?"
Titan lowered his hand.
"It is good to note that some things remain common between organics," Lex sneered, "Your desperate need for survival, no matter the cost. However..." Behind him, Ezekiel's barb-like tail rose, the tip exploding as it drove into the centre of Titan's chest, "I have more pressing concerns than your precious existence." He fired instructions to the mech as the barb reached the Kule's brain cavity, pouring polymers that bonded chemically with the so-called-god's brain matter. Without destroying them the transcendent was unable to heal the damage. His brain was solidifying in his skull.
Lex looked up past the throne towards the doors, smiling as Ezekiel stepped over the dying Kule 'god', his large mech hand swiping the throne aside as it clicked menacingly towards the final portal that separated Lex Talionis from the Kule and Polian archives, and the next step in his inevitable evolution.
The doors drew back, the hologram's face twisting into a satisfied grin as the massive portal swung open upon the secret repository of knowledge, the library of the Kule, the archives of the Polian race.
The Mech stepped into the empty chamber, stripped bare except for a pair of silver and gold insignia.
Lex stared about him in shock as Ezekiel bent to pick up the insignia, holding them up so that his photo-receptors zeroed in on the silver fists adorned with golden crowns, the insignia of an Imperial Warlord. Lex Talionis narrowed his eyes, clenching and unclenching his jaw, as the mech dropped them back into the dust.
It was a message left there three hundred years before, left for who ever tried to follow in his footsteps. VonGrippen had been there first. Lex had been beaten by a man three hundred years in his grave.
"VonGrippen!" The howl of rage echoed through the silent halls of the Rock of Braal.
* * *
The Marines appeared in bursts of energy, first platoon sweeping about, heavy assault weapons coming up as the second platoon materialized about two hundred feet to the right. Throughout the Rock of Braal, Imperial Marines appeared in strategic locations, a heavily armed battalion of marines advancing to seize and secure their objectives.
Captain Hansen directed his men through the mammoth structure, leaning over his TAC-link as his men set up a temporary command centre in the lee of the downed Imperial assault ship.
Masconi was in full Imperial assault gear. A pulse rifle with an under-slung grenade launcher was resting on her shoulder as she yelled orders to several men who were setting up sentry guns to protect the command group while men advanced on the chamber.
The Wing Commander had requested that Darien permit her to return to rescue their trapped Marines with an assault group. She hadn't anticipated that Darien would authorize the full battalion to the task. It could be overkill, but then Darien wasn't a man to do anything by half measure. There were men missing, possibly trapped deep below with a hostile alien, and he was going to get them back whatever it took.
"Ma'am," Hansen rested his hand on his earpiece as he moved around beside her, "My men have located the stairwell. Permission to advance?"
"Not yet," Masconi replied, shifting uneasily, "Make sure we have sentry guns set up at the top of those stairs before your men breach the chamber." She looked back towards the crashed Polian Gunship, where a marine Squad was busy unloading equipment, slapping Propylon tags to the crates to return to the Excalibur. In war, every piece of equipment, especially the advanced Polian weaponry, was valuable.
There was another, larger flash, as the Imperial ITE mech materialized in the large bay. The cat-like machine adjusted, its dual rail cannons mounted upon its back angling as it padded around the wrecks, tilting its weapons towards the stone portal and its statues.
Darien was taking no chances whatsoever.
"Hansen, Lieutenant Forbes, Echo company, third platoon," the radio speaker sputtered to life, "We're approaching the chamber door, it's open..."
A couple of computers on the command post's hastily set up tables switched to the marines helmet mounted cameras, showing the bright glow from the open portal, the bodies of Hobbes's assault team littering the floor, floating face down in the water just inside the chamber.
"Take it slow, Forbes," Masconi warned into her own headset, "And pull back at the first sign of..." she stopped when Forbes stepped though into the waterfall chamber, his marines advancing to the columns, keeping firing positions, looking towards the twisted remnants of the throne, to the corpse of the alien guardian and the Ezekiel assault mech standing before a large open set of doors, an Amsus chain cannon cycling up...
"Get out of there!" Masconi bellowed, as the mech leapt forward, its cannon firing as it attacked.
Masconi tore the headset from herself as she vaulted the sandbag defensive wall, running for the ITE, which had come to rest, its cockpit open and its driver leaning down to look at her.
"Get out!" she yelled up at the Mech pilot, who complied clambering out of the cockpit as the Wing Commander scrambled up the leg mounted ladder, not bothering to strap herself in as she fired it up, slipping her legs in to reach the peddles as she tested the Mech's balance, remembering her training, under her father's insistence, that she learn how to pilot one in an emergency.
She didn't have time to think.
The Mech sprang forward, leaping in cat-like bounds towards the broad tunnel, thanking god that the Kule had been accommodating when they had built the Rock of Braal, though she was sure they never had Imperial ITEs in mind when they built the ceremonial corridors.
Marines scattered out of her path as she scraped the silver armour plates against one of the stone columns, sending rocks and debris crashing down in her wake, pouring on the speed as she relaxed into the chair, feeling the manoeuvrability of the agile vehicle in her hands.
"You and me girl," she breathed, jostling to the other side as a collision alarm rang out. It was a tight fit, but she wasn't going to be deterred. The Darien Taine School of Tactics: one part luck, two parts skill, and seven parts sheer will.
The Mech exploded from the tunnel into the stairwell, Marines battling the Ezekiel Mech as it tore its way from the depths below, the auto-maser turrets locking on and hurling fire at it as it deflected the shots using a Polian shield system.
Masconi grunted as the ITE rolled, the mech catching its balance as it came upright, her tactical grids springing to life around her as she sighted in with the heavy rail cannons. The Mech's cannons boomed, the powerful blasts ripping through the air, shredding the ground around the mech, hammering the shield relentlessly. The Polian shield was powerful, but even it couldn't hold back the force of thousands of ceramic slugs being kinetically hurled against it at relativistic speeds. The shield faltered and the first shot penetrated, smashing Ezekiel's side, the second shot blasting clean through his torso, as Masconi kept her thumb down on the fire control, slamming the mech into the stone work, smashing it into its component parts.
Slumping back into the cockpit seat, Masconi closed her eyes and let go of the Mech's controls, rubbing her head tiredly.
* * *
Darien surveyed the damage, picking his way down the ruined stairs, sparing a glance back towards the ITE that perched precariously on the edge of the stairwell, Masconi sitting on one of its 'paws' watching him, a marine field medic treating the cuts and bruises she had sustained from being bounced around inside the thing.
The Highlord tensed, watching the Fida'i about him, shadowing him with the intent of protecting him from harm. Not that they had expected anything; the Rock of Braal had been won, but at such a cost.
He stopped by the doors, looking at Nurse Pia with her clipboard, marines guarding the doors to the waterfall chamber, zipping up black bags as she shook her head back at him.
Darien took a deep breath. It was the cost of war, the price of fighting... but had it been a valuable sacrifice? He had his doubts. The Marines hadn't entered the vaults on the far end of the chamber yet, but Lieutenant Galadriel was sitting on the edge of the broken throne, the Peligian diary in her hands as she looked up towards the Highlord.
"It's empty, we think," she greeted him, stepping around the body of the dead Kule guardian, Titan.
"There has to be something," Darien murmured, looking down at the body, the distinctive barb protruding from the being's chest, the same weapon that had nearly killed Rikard on the Excalibur during the Ordessus mission.
He looked back at Galadriel, noticing the red rings around her eyes. She'd been crying, why had... he looked back at the black bags and back at her.
"Who?" he asked, suddenly trying to think. Masconi had said Marines and... "Firlotte..."
Galadriel looked away, blinking back more tears. "He..."
Darien rested a hand on her shoulder, pulling her into an embrace, closing his own eyes and setting his chin on the top of her head, feeling her shake and shudder, rubbing her arms as he squeezed her compassionately.
"It...wasn't worth it," Galadriel said, stepping back and wiping her eyes, looking towards the guarded vault that stood open, yet no one had entered.
"It has to be," Darien replied firmly, refusing to believe that so many people had died for nothing.
He moved away from her and to the doors, the Marines drawing aside to let him in.
The room had been stripped bare. In an age past someone had come to remove the library and the archive. It couldn't have been the mech; Ezekiel had been trapped there. And the archives weren't within the stones; maybe the Polians had come to collect the forbidden knowledge.
His boot crunched on something, and he knelt, brushing through the dust as he picked up the pair of insignia. A warlord's silver gauntlet and golden crown; VonGrippen's. He straightened up, blowing on them, the man had been and gone, and taken with him the only source to finding Peligia. Ensuring that no one could ever follow him...
The walls pulsed, a single vibrant blue, and Darien looked up at them, shaking his head as it began to swim. Turning slightly, he sagged again, fighting for his balance as he crashed to his knees.
"Darien!" Galadriel as at his side, struggling to help him up.
"I'm okay," Darien replied, shaking his head and allowing himself to be picked up, struggling back into the outer chamber, stroking his temple and taking long deep breaths, "I'm okay," he reassured her warmly, "There's nothing here, we should withdraw."