Faith is the hammer of my resolve
The Black Tower - Karin - Karin System
Two greymen carried the crate between them, Doctor Roberts leading the way as she made for the Propylon Chamber. Unlike her 'Master', she didn't have an overtly optimistic view of the situation outside. She'd spent time in the Gorean Imperium, and it was an experience she had no desire to repeat.
She'd commandeered guards, loaded anything of value she could find into a cargo crate and would be gone, living a life of luxury somewhere lost in the Orion Directorate, or maybe Kule space. They were neutral, and they were also appreciative of pretty things.
The construct, Lauren, marched with her, a certain 'guarantee' for the good Doctor should she run into any of the Imperials. Maybe they'd think twice before shooting at one of their own 'heroes'.
The blast door ahead of them slammed closed, and Roberts stared at it a second, lifting her TAC-link. "Security, raise door Ten stroke Gamma."
The crackle of the radio answered her.
She rolled her eyes, adjusting the device, "Caldone?"
Again she was met by static.
"Great," Roberts muttered, looking to her pair of greymen. "Any of you have a can opener?" she asked looking back at the metal doors. "We go around," she decided, trying to remember the layout of that particular floor. There had been major modifications to assemble the Propylon Chamber, which meant the channels from the windows into the central chamber would be open.
They wound their way around the floor, past crates and construction equipment. Beside her, Lauren walked in stony silence, cold and rigid. Roberts always felt uneasy around constructs, there was something unnatural about them. It was the whole capacity to follow programming rather than emotion, plus the whole back from the dead thing that gave her, an archaeologist with a fine appreciation for the dead, the creeps.
There was a crack, then a section of stripped cubical partitions collapsing, and Roberts drew her pistol. Searching the dimly lit section of the floor, covering her 'payment' as she waved the two greymen onwards, not willing to pause, she guessed that who ever it was probably had bigger fish to fry than an opportunistic doctor.
They rounded the 'channel', Roberts urging them in towards the Propylon chamber, smiling with relief when it came into sight, brightly lit, greymen sitting behind stations. Screw the Gorean, screw the Imperials and especially screw over ambitious demi-gods who really needed to get a hobby.
"Activate the Propylons," she ordered, marching into the chamber, holstering her gun.
No one moved.
Roberts looked over at the officer behind the activation console, who was staring back at her vacantly.
"I have orders from Caldone himself," she blustered. "Activate the Propylons and..." She walked forward and stopped, seeing the bloodstain on the front of his grey Imperial uniform.
She went for her gun again as the shadows erupted, the black clad figure springing onto the crate between the two greymen guards, his hands flashing out as he bounded again and rolled for the darkness.
A damned Fida'i!
Her two guards collapsed before they had even had time to defend themselves. Roberts swore as she fired a shot into the direction of the Fida'i knowing that her Orion sliver gun was a precision weapon and didn't do her any good when she couldn't see her opponent.
She turned as the click-clack of an Imperial Pulse rifle drew her attention. Lauren had bent to pick up one of the greymen's weapons, swinging it up and flipping on the TAC-light mounted to it.
"I'll cover you," Lauren said backing up against one of the support pillars, making sure she had something solid to her back as she probed the shadows with the assault rifle, searching for the meddlesome assassin.
* * *
Rikard moved behind the desk, reaching out to pick up a cup of Caldone's tea. "I have been waiting for you to come to me again. This time, however, you will find I am prepared for you."
Edward shrugged his shoulders, "I'm prepared too. Homework's a bitch, but when you're an engineer, you get used to it."
Rikard gave the young Prince a chilling smile, "When I created you..."
"Copied," Edward corrected. "The only creating you did was stick me into your giant photocopier and hit the big green button."
Rikard nodded. "As you wish," he moved like a predator contemplating his prey, back and forth behind a series of golden rings inlaid into the floor. "I had hoped to be the one to raise you, but fate..."
"My grandfather," Edward corrected again. "So far he seems to be the one playing fate lately. Ever feel like the universe is one big game of dominos? And doesn't it suck, thinking you're the one pushing the first piece, only to find out it's been pushed already by someone smarter than you are?"
The older man's smile grew broader. "But that is what I have been trying to tell you all along, that it doesn't matter." He gestured behind him at the raging battle, star fighters whipping past the window, Predators being chased by the arc winged Gorean fighters, the Imperial fighters swinging around to finish them off, before they got set upon by another wing of Predators.
Edward watched the battle a moment, before turning back to Rikard, "It does matter. That's the point."
"It's as irrelevant to me as an ant colony in the hands of a child. There are far more important things at stake than," he waved his hand again, "any of this, as you will come to learn once we arrive on Peligia."
Edward shook his head. "You're going no where."
Rikard sipped from the cup of tea. "Stop me."
Edward drew back, knowing that he had no choice left. He struck out, pulling from the air again, and forcing the flow of energy to crackle and spit as it flared across the room. The thunder roared as the blast arced towards the former Chancellor, crossing the rings in the floor.
Edward gasped as he felt them sweep the charge, sending it spinning around the loops, speeding into a violent blur of energy, as he sagged.
"The Peligians, like Humanity three hundred years ago, were about to begin a journey. Their people had discovered the properties of advanced genetics and had evolved to a point where they were masters of the time and space that surrounded them." Rikard moved again, the ball of electricity spinning more violently now, rushing around the circles, "but they were careless. They allowed any and all of their kind that chose the path the capacity to evolve. In a society, even one as enlightened as the Peligians, there were deviants, those undesirables that had attained the gift and had abused it. The Ophanim had to devise a way to contain them." He smiled. "And so this device was created."
Edward struggled to stand, shaking his head feeling the pull of gravity, a dull ache of hunger. Mortality. He looked up and watched Rikard's face, seeing the Chancellor shaking his head as well, reaching up to touch his temple, staring in absolute horror at the device on the floor.
"It stops a transcendent from using transcendent powers." Edward stood. "You seriously thought you'd be unaffected by it just because you turned it on?"
Rikard shifted, flipping open one of the desk drawers and pulling out an Imperial pistol. "It doesn't matter. You're contained, and I will be away from here soon." He depressed a button on the desk. "Activate the Propylons..."
* * *
Katz swung the dropship hard over, knowing it wasn't the smoothest ride for the strike team in the back, but really, he didn't have much choice. The sky was filling with Gorean fighters as more Gorean destroyers descended into the atmosphere, their great fighter bays spitting out swarms of fighters.
They resembled hand gliders to Katz, hand gliders with backpack boosters attached to powered armour. He felt the dropship buck from a close impact, swinging his head to look at the sensor scopes showing the pair of Predators that were sweeping back to chase the larger, slower dropship.
Beside him, in the number two chair, Alessandro's hands darted over the console, keeping the ECM package up to strength, trying to keep the Predators from establishing a weapons lock.
"Guns?" Katz yelled back into the body of the dropship.
Behind him, sitting in one of the door mounted auto-masers, Masconi swung the weapon around and thumbed the trigger, sending a hail of shots back towards the onrushing fighters, feeling the cold wind whip by her as Katz pulled a sharp bank, swinging the dropship around an office tower. The two predators, like deadly vampire bats chasing a moth, screamed through their turn, their auto-cannons roaring.
Their chances of ending up in a box were mounting. The dropship wasn't as manoeuvrable as the Polian enhanced fighters, and with each passing second ticking away on the clock, their options were diminishing.
There was a thump and Katz was thrown upwards into his shoulder straps as he felt a sharp pain from where his knee had connected with the edge of the control sticks. The blood in his veins turned to ice as fear reached up and gripped him in a deadly embrace. His reaction was instantaneous, throwing the dropship into a steep climb, but it was too slow. The thumping drummed on the hull of the dropship as it shuddered and Katz jinked out of the line of fire. Red lights lit up the panel. The right engine seized violently and ripped itself to shreds taking a pair of hydraulic lines with it. Bells and whistles filled his ears as he pressed ahead, willing the dropship to fly on.
* * *
Lauren swung the assault rifle, firing from the hip as the high velocity rounds tore through the walls, exploding computers, tracking the rolling figure as he slipped back behind cover.
"Not this time, Jimmy," Lauren called out to him, moving aside to get a better firing angle. She watched while Roberts tried to wrestle with the stubborn Propylon computer, inputting co-ordinates that changed right before her eyes.
Lauren knelt beside a bank of computers, changing magazines. "This is pointless, Jimmy. Just let us go."
She caught the flicker of something, her Orion training causing her to duck back as the black blade sank into the console, James standing up.
Lauren spun, tying to pull the rifle up, feeling it jerk in her hand, she looked down to see the blade had caught the shoulder strap, pinning the rifle in place. She threw herself backwards as James flipped towards her, pulling her pistol out and swinging her legs around to get to her feet.
James bounded aside again, bouncing in behind a support column as she fired off a pair of shots. She rolled to her right coming up and training on the empty space behind the column, James once again retreating back into the shadows.
"Kill him already!" Roberts barked, hammering the controls for the hundredth time, drawing back as the blue orb logo began to light up each of the computer monitors around her, spreading so that a hundred screens all displayed the exact same thing.
Back across the floor the mirrored windows slid open.
* * *
"The Gorean flagship is turning," Commander Durnham reported.
"Open transmission," Darien ordered, pulling on a TAC-link headset and standing watching the tactical map. "Gorean Vessel, this is the HMS Excalibur, state your intentions."
Commander Durnham shook his head, "We're receiving no reply... The other destroyers are dropping troops."
Darien studied the green lights falling from the lowest destroyers, dropping troops by the thousands across the city. It was a sea of Gorean warriors augmented by powered armour. He turned his attention to the Gorean flagship, stroking his chin.
"Gorean Vessel, this is Pax Defende," he said calmly. "What are your intentions."
The holographic displays in the middle of the bridge sprang to life, reconstructing a single part of an image, a large, red, reptilian eye, surrounded by heavy black scales. It looked about the bridge as Darien walked forward to stand before the command chair.
"You are not the Pax," the thick voice hissed out. "My intentions are my own."
As the image faded, the black destroyer outside opened its gun ports again as it sighted in on the Black Tower.
* * *
The dropship, in shambles and bleeding violently from mortal wounds, soldiered bravely onwards as Katz fought to keep it aloft, heading for the metal tower that supported one of the Propylons. It was more a matter of sheer will that kept it aloft. She pressed ahead, bleeding, the needle on the small standby airspeed indicator moving steadily downward as he struggled to keep the stricken dropship upright a mere two hundred feet above the street. Pulling harder and harder on the stick, trying to coax another few seconds out of the battered vessel, he prayed she wouldn't flip over on him, knowing he had nothing left for a landing, and aiming the Dropship squarely for the centre of mass of the Propylon tower.
"Hold on!" he yelled back behind him, as the Marines grabbed onto what ever they could find, Masconi entrapping herself and throwing herself into the body of the dropship as it slammed into the tower between the steel support girders, its engine mounts tearing free as the dropship crumpled and ground. The aluminium frame bent as the steel structure around it refused to give, tearing to a final shuddering stop, wedged into the centre of the structure, its battered nose tilting forward slightly as it came to rest on one of the steel cross beams.
"Up and out!" Masconi yelled, up first, looking at the rugged ship that had been designed to protect its precious cargo in the event of a crash. Grabbing the pulse rifle as she jumped out of the door onto the platform below, her rifle up as the Marine Squad rushed to cover her, she looked towards the criss-crossed stairs that ran up the length of the structure to where the Propylon was mounted.
Katz jumped down with Alessandro, looking to the Wing Commander for direction as she nodded upwards. "We need to secure that Propylon. Move!"
At the other locations, Marines rushed to complete the same task, knowing that survival and victory was dependant on recovering the Propylons.
* * *
Rikard frowned, touching the TAC-link again. "Activate emergency procedure Epsilon." He looked down at the computer, to the blue orb upon it, as the image shifted to that of another dead man.
"For the love of..." Rikard rolled his eyes. "Kardiac. Was there a discount at the local church? Resurrections at rock bottom prices?"
"Not exactly Enarbrem," Kardiac replied. "However, reincarnation seems to be the order of the day. From one death, another is born forth. From your death, another shall rise in your place. Consider it... Karma."
"Is this another of your jokes?" Rikard looked across at the young Prince, standing with his hands up, the roaring energy sweeping between them.
"I'm laughing," Edward shrugged with a smile, "though its more at you than with you."
Rikard shrugged and lifted his pistol. "Perhaps, but then I can always change that." He shot Edward, the bullet aimed low, towards the leg, biting deeply, causing the youth to collapse, clutching at the wound yelping in pain.
"That was a mistake," Kardiac on the screen replied, as a flash from outside showed the Propylons activating.
The young Prince vanished in a flare of light. Rikard's pistol dropped to his side as he stepped forward. "No..."
"Yes," Kardiac replied coldly. "I have control of your Propylons, and more aptly... you."
The Propylons flared again, taking the entire contents of the office, including the walls, and transporting them to the co-ordinates set by Lex Talionis.
* * *
The young prince collapsed to the centre of the Propylon Chamber lifting his head as he saw Lauren battling James, trying to stand, pain shooting through him a second before the Propylons sent him onwards again.
He collapsed onto the centre of the CIC table. Darien was on him in a moment, pressing his hands onto the wound in his leg trying to stop the bleeding. "Medic!" he yelled out, brushing Edward's pain wracked face. "Medic!" he bellowed again.
Edward opened his eyes and smiled. "Hey," he winced again.
* * *
Roberts fell backwards as the room appeared in the centre of the Propylon chamber, the tilting desk, the flooring. She looked at Rikard, desperately running towards her, to get off of the floor before it... he was gone again.
James spun up again, bouncing off of a wall and lashing out with his feet, sending Lauren's pistol spinning from her hand. Lauren grabbed for him, using an Orion martial art throw, tossing him aside as she got up. Looking down one of the main Propylon channels towards the open window and the Gorean Destroyer bearing down on them, the crackling energy of the Plasma cannon built.
Jaems looked up as well, breaking out into a dead sprint as he ran down the far channel, hitting the antigravity harness as he propelled himself into the air, out of the black tower, his momentum carrying him away.
Roberts, staring in stunned silence, moved her hands across the console. "Please," she murmured praying. "Please!" She inputting the only co-ordinates she could think of off the top of her head.
The Propylons activated as the Gorean destroyer fired, the blast smashing through the middle of the glass tower, blowing out the other side seconds before the Propylons engaged, unable to focus properly through the debris they locked onto the area, transporting everything in an single jump. The Black Tower vanished from the centre of Karin City.
* * *
"Fall back," colonel Mayfair ordered, watching the Gorean Army marching through the streets, shooting anything that moved; human, Amsus, anything in their path.
The creatures were built like gorillas, hulking lizard-like beings with sharp teeth, some augmented, others not, each forming a pack around a large serpentine Gorean that directed them like an officer. Giant battlewagons that fought with a ferocity for their massive frames.
Their plasma rifles fired slow, single shots, and as long as the Imperials could keep them at range they could eventually pour enough firepower to gun down the rushing troops. However, they were running out of ammunition, and quickly.
He had four ITE's left after the twin assaults, about a hundred men in his immediate vicinity, most of them were Karin Militia, a couple of platoons of his marines and an SAS squad. His cobbled together fighting force wouldn't last against the Gorean numbers for long.
He glanced upwards, seeing that the Excalibur's fighters were holding their own, darting back to the command Carrier for re-supply as they launched again, and he knew that it was a matter of time. They were forming a tight knot around the dropships, and he gave the order for the full retreat.
His troops ran for the dropships, clambering aboard as four of them swept forward, magnetic clamps locking down on the backs of the ITE's, boosting them upwards as Mayfair called for air support. He glanced across the dropship to where Doctor Kyr was treating some of his men, the grimy doctor treating plasma burns, sparing the Colonel a tight-lipped look as the Dropships scrambled for the relative safety of the Excalibur's flight deck.
* * *
Katz shot the last greyman, dropping to a knee, looking at the flight of Imperial dropships running for the Excalibur, the fighters pulling into a tight formation covering the retreat.
"We're up shit creek again!" he yelled over at Masconi, as the Black tower vanished in a roar.
Masconi reached the black crystal device, pulling it free of its mounting brackets. "When are we not?" she yelled back, pulling her TAC-link out. "Objective one secure, report!"
"Objective three secure!" the radio replied.
"Four."
"Two."
Masconi nodded, turning her head towards five. "Come on five... Come on!"
Katz tensed as a group of Gorean fighters tore past, strafing an Amsus LIM as it fought its way into the now open concourse where the black tower had once been. The Mech swung up, its chain cannons firing, taking down one of the Gorean fighters before it exploded.
"Five secure!" came the breathless voice in the TAC-link.
"Now what?" Katz looked at Masconi.
"All teams, make for the centre of the plaza." She looked down to where the Mech still burned, and then up towards the Excalibur. "Excalibur this is Ark-leader. We need an Evac, centre of ground zero... Can you comply?"
"Ark-leader, this is Excalibur-actual," Darien's voice came over the TAC-link. "You will have your Evac even if I have to come get you myself!"
Masconi passed the Propylon to Alessandro, who carried it close to his body. "Great Actual. Don't keep a girl waiting!" She put the TAC-link away and smiled. "Let's move!"
* * *
Mayfair's dropship hit the deck, bouncing as the VTOL engines shifted to allow it to touch down, troops spilling off of it as they carried the injured, Doctor Kyr rushing between them to the elevators. Around them fighters were making emergency landings, the Excalibur pouring on flak as it swatted the Gorean fighters striking for it.
"Why aren't they attacking?" He murmured, watching the Gorean destroyers, knowing a single Plasma hit would incinerate everyone on the Exposed flight deck.
"Colonel!" A white clad deck crewman rushed across to the Dropship. "Sir, Wing Commander Masconi needs Evac from ground zero."
Mayfair nodded, strapping himself into the gunners seat. "Go," he yelled towards the pilot, making the lift off gesture. The deckhand rushed clear to deal with the other mess of fighters and Dropships still landing on the Excalibur's overcrowded flight deck, trying to clear space.
Back into the bumpy, turbulent air. Mayfair, gripping the sticks of the cannon, looked over at the pair of F-175's that would fly escort. Battered and worn, the fighters looked far worse than they were. The fighters had their teething problems, but they easily matched the Predators, and out flew and out fought the Gorean interceptors in dogfights. It was numbers, and numbers alone, that gave the Gorean superiority in the air.
The dropship curved low, over the pockmarked, crater-filled streets of Karin city, dropping in towards the designated Evac area. The F-175's began their orbit of the place where they intended to land, the dropship surveying it, as Mayfair, the RESCAP commander, cleared the dropship for a landing.
A couple of the marines he had brought with him jumped down before it finished landing, securing the area, as from around the overturned, pock-marked crater of earth, five teams ran in towards them, the Gorean beginning to spill out of the feeder streets closing in hard on their heels.
The F-175's opened fire with their rail cannons, cutting swaths in the rushing horde, hovering on VTOL jets as they pulled back from the smattering of Gorean plasma fire hurled back at them.
Masconi and her group was the first onto the drop ship, Mayfair turning as Masconi helped the survivors of her squad up, securing one of the Propylons in the centre of the craft. She turned, nodding her gratitude to Mayfair as she knelt, firing over the heads of the second group boarding.
It was going to be close. Three and four had no problems, retreating steadily, but five was alone, clutching the Propylon against him as he sprinted, ducking and weaving to avoid the shots of the Gorean bounding after him. Masconi turned her attention on covering the frightened jackrabbit of a Militiaman, Mayfair swinging the Auto-maser and opening fire as at last the boy made it, barely scrambling aboard as the Dropship blasted upwards, shooting on maximum burn, away from the city.
A perdition more sinister than any in the history of the war closed in around the square as Karin was overrun by the Gorean. Suddenly peace, and the end of the war, seemed very far away indeed.