A ghost with a broken sword, a dying knight, a weary comrade and a forgotten bride, these are the ones who will find the way.
Expedition Two Camp - Aivilik - Eelim Territory
OCCUPATION: DAY ONE-SEVENTY-THREE
"We're getting no return signal." The comm. officer looked up from the FTL unit, shaking his head. "Either Excalibur just jumped, or something happened to her."
Katz looked perplexed, glancing at the collected faces around him, looking at him for leadership. "Can we try another FTL relay?"
"The current one is functioning," the comm. replied, shaking his head, "but we're receiving nothing from the Excalibur's position. They're simply gone."
The TAC-link warbled for his attention, "T'zaht to Paladin-one."
"Go ahead T'zaht," Katz said lifting a hand to tap his headset, turning it on.
"Sir," Chuck sounded tense, "Bogey just entered the system, trying to get a positive ID, but it's a big ship... Battleship by the size."
"The Eelim don't field battleships," Katz answered, climbing the ramp towards the entrance.
"Affirmative, skipper, however this is definitely a single Bogey, CBDR on the planet, just flashed in out of hyperspace... hang on, it's launching support craft."
"Could be Excalibur," Katz said thoughtfully, looking over at Hansen.
"Negative, no recognition signals nor standard IFF," Chuck answered. "Target has launched a hundred smaller targets..."
"Order your men to the T'zaht," Katz ordered Captain Hansen, running to the edge of the shaft and looking down at Kyr. "We have trouble..."
"When don't we have trouble?" Kyr fired back sitting up from where he had been napping, grabbing a pink shirt he'd borrowed from Katz's wardrobe, pulling it on as he scooped up his blue medical satchel and rushing up to join Katz.
Hansen was already barking orders at his men, but holding back with Katz looking uncertain. "What's going on, sir?"
"Not sure yet," Katz said, turning to his TAC-link again. "SIT-REP?"
"Computer's trying to ID it," Chuck fired back, "but no joy. However I have something back on the smaller contacts; computer ID's them as Imperial combat drones."
"Oh..." Katz went cold. "Target is the battleship Lex Talionis, what's the charge on our jump drives? Do you have enough charge to EVAC?"
"Lex Talionis, here?" Kyr asked looking confused, "what the hell is he doing here?"
"Negative on Jump pods," Chuck answered, "shall I fire up the main drives, make a run for it?"
Katz cursed. "Wait for the Marines en-route, get altitude and run like hell." He looked at Hansen. "We need to stay covered here. Will this rock shield us?"
"It should," Hansen answered, "worked on Eelim patrols." He glanced about him. "I've got about five men... we can bunker down and try to mount a defence."
Kyr cleared his throat. "If Lex is here, it makes our job easier."
"He has the drop on us," Katz replied. "How exactly is that easier?"
Kyr took a step backwards and pointed down the shaft. "Because we have a way on board and we still have to get the medical scans."
Katz shifted uneasily. "Do we even know how to work those?"
"We have Doctor Casey's notes," Hansen replied. "Plus it's a simple matter of inputting co-ordinates from the T'zaht; Doc Casey identified what the master computer uses." He led the way back down the ramp and across the main chamber floor to the master computer, kicking the micro-fusion reactor which was chugging away feeding power to the system. "The problem, Casey was saying, was power... we don't have enough juice for a long hop."
"Intra-system," Katz said, gritting his teeth as he examined the system, shaking his head at all the Peligian glyphs that were crawling across the black crystal surface before him. "This isn't going to work. Not without a prayer."
Kyr nudged him aside, fixing his glasses as he studied the board, tapping commands into the computer sitting on the edge of the unit. "Numericals are easy," Kyr said. "Words, though, are tough. What are the Lex's co-ordinates?"
"Can you relay, T'zaht?" Katz asked, watching Kyr working, his finger running over the laptop screen and then running over the alien script.
"Affirmative, texting to you now." Chuck answered, as the TAC-link received the co-ordinates. Katz tilted it to show Kyr, who began slapping the correct numerical glyphs, gesturing for Katz to get into the middle of the ring of stones.
"I don't know if this'll work," Kyr replied showing Hansen the send glyph, "and it's probably a one way trip. But it's the only one we have..."
"So help me if I die..." Katz muttered, drawing his pistol and checking it. "Go. Damn it, just go!"
Kyr took his place at Katz's side, nodding to Hansen that he was ready, finding his hand grabbing Katz's tightly as he screwed his eyes closed. They felt the wash of transit, and the suddenly stale air about them replaced the musty air of the chamber. The humming under their feet left no doubt they were aboard a starship.
Katz dropped Kyr's hand, jogging forward a couple of steps as he glanced up the broad corridor, looking back at Kyr. He noted the bright pink shirt the doctor was wearing; not exactly the most subtle of camouflage aboard a demented mechanized war-wagon of doom.
The doctor cracking open his eyes and quickly checking that he had all of his appendages intact. He looked at Katz in relief, followed shortly by awe as he looked around him.
The Lex Talionis.
Kardiac's pocket battleship was filled with a cacophonous din. Pulsating from the engines, the sounds of machinery in the background spoke of things hard at work deep inside the cavernous decks of the mighty warship. Katz immediately wished he'd brought a Pulse Rifle. He crouched down in the corridor trying to get his bearings.
"Sickbay is aft." Kyr gestured back along the ship.
"That's not aft," Katz pointed out, nodding up to the painted lines on the ceiling. "We've got to follow blue. That leads to medical on Excalibur."
Kyr knelt down beside Katz. "I read Lauren's reports about Lex Talionis... this isn't going to be pleasant."
"Too late now for second thoughts," Katz replied, "we need to get moving."
HMS Lex Talionis - Aivilik - Eelim Territory
OCCUPATION: DAY ONE-SEVENTY-THREE
Rikard walked out onto the bridge wearing a dark Templar uniform, leaving the tunic unfastened. He stared at the holographic display, and up at where Lex was standing at the windows. "I'm ready," he said, staring at the unremarkable world they were approaching.
"I am detecting an Imperial ship climbing towards atmosphere," Lex reported. "Osterberg class, a minor irritant at best. The Propylons are not aboard it."
"I will find them," Rikard stated.
"I will send one of my Mechs to assist you." Lex turned from the window.
Rikard walked around the upper tier of the bridge, shaking his head. "That won't be necessary, it would only slow me down." he dropped his backpack onto the chair closest to the open memory core of the AI. "Don't worry, I'll recover the Propylons and return."
"See that you do, Enarbrem," Lex answered turning back to his view of the planet.
Rikard slipped the detonator into his pocket as he descended to the deck, "A dropship should get me down to the planet."
Lex looked back. "Go."
Rikard bowed his head, returning the length of the ship, winding past the construction, and staring at the scaffolding as Amsus troopers loaded themselves across the gangways, boarding the strange ship built within the great warship. Rikard had the feeling that Lex was preparing to make his move. Time was running out.
He crossed the hangar deck, clasping closed the wraparound tunic as he mounted the steps into the dropship, touching the controls as he prepared his pre-flight checks. He felt the dropship turn as the automated systems pulled it out onto the plane elevator. He waited as it ascended, looking out on the view of the planet and of Lex's drones giving chase to the Imperial Osterberg that was running full tilt for the outer system.
"Run, rabbit, run," Rikard said to himself with a soft smile, shaking his head as the dropship began its descent to the planet. He pulled on a pair of black gloves, removing his glasses and tossing them onto the chair beside him, feeling the rush of his power restored to him as he cleared the Lex Talionis.
His face hardened, the uncertainties melting away as he embraced who and what he was. He wasn't mortal, he wasn't vulnerable. And Lex would soon learn exactly how resourceful he truly was.
The dropship curled about, drifting casually over the ruins, thrusters engaging as it dropped in for a landing. The former Chancellor rose from his chair and walked back through the body of the small support craft, waiting for the hatch to open. When it did, he stepped out into the brilliant blue light of the Aivilik morning.
"Wonderful," Rikard muttered, shielding his eyes as he stared about him, then turning and walking up the hill. He stretched out with his senses, feeling the power source beneath him, the Peligian crystals singing as they fed off of that power.
Stupidly, the Imperial's had left the lights on. It made Rikard's life a lot easier as he picked his way across the low hills, spotting the camouflage netting ahead of him that shrouded the entrance way.
Too easy.
He squared his shoulders, walking in long strides towards it, lifting his hand to telekinetically tear away the duck blind, casting it down the hill away from him.
The marine popping up to open fire on him amused Rikard; he again felt the electric thrill of being connected to everything around him. Agitating the air ahead of him, he deflected the Pulse Rifle fire and then reached out with a gloved hand to catch the marine in an invisible grip, crushing him with a force that snapped every bone in his body.
"Amateur," Rikard sneered, stepping over the dead body and descending into the darkness.
HMS T'zaht - Aivilik - Eelim Territory
OCCUPATION: DAY ONE-SEVENTY-THREE
Lady Tagria bounced around the inside of the trash sluice, using the chains to right herself after she fell again. Damn the humans. She'd make them regret their disgraceful treatment of an avatar of the...
There was an explosion, and Tagria cringed back as one of the main power couplings ruptured, shattering the Plexiglas on one of the sluice access doors. The human ship was under attack...
She didn't hesitate. Leaping up to the ledge, she cocked her head about, hearing the alarms, biting her teeth at the stale ozone smell in the air. An electrical fire somewhere was probably keeping the crew busy. Maybe if she was fast...
Her claw fit through the window, reaching for the button controls that opened the hatch. She withdrew her hand as the lock cycle detached with a dull thunk, the hatch retracting with a heavy hiss.
Free of her prison, Lady Tagria unfurled her body, ruffling her feathers as she sprang out, rushing along the deck back towards the cargo bay where she had arrived. She rounded a corner, and nearly ran into a pair of surprised humans who weren't expecting her, in all her glory.
There were screams from both species, and the humans ran as fast as they could for the gangway. Tagria didn't feel like waiting for them to return with more armed humans. She sprinted the length of the ship, hammered the controls for the cargo doors, and slipped into the familiar space.
It had to be there...
She rushed to where she had secreted the Gorean Portkey, relieved that the humans hadn't found it. She tried to think. Where could she go to escape?
The human ship rattled as it was strafed by fast-moving drones. Tagria limped over to the windows, looking through them at the battleship that blazed like a city in the night. Undoubtedly human as well, but with more places to hide than the little ship she was on now.
She activated the Portkey, using her eyes and the Portkey's computer to select the co-ordinates she needed. She vanished just as the human marines burst into the cargobay waving their guns and screaming for her to stop.
HMS Lex Talionis - Aivilik - Eelim Territory
OCCUPATION: DAY ONE-SEVENTY-THREE
Katz rounded another corridor, his pistol falling to his side as he stared in abject shock. "What the hell is that?"
Kyr came around him, shaking his head. "Don't know," he replied, looking at the massive construction that was hollowing out the insides of the Lex, cannibalizing the ship to build something else. It was a huge monstrosity of girders and gangways, packed by Amsus troops boarding the internal construction.
"Well, they're distracted," Katz said, waving his pistol down the ship. "We should get to sickbay as quickly as we can."
"It can't be far," Kyr said, leaning on a doorway. "This is the galley, when our people were trapped they hid out here."
Katz nodded, still staring at the structure, picking out features such as a zero-point bore that ran the length of a lattice structure. "It's a ship," he said with a frown. "Though why he'd build a ship inside of himself..."
"Nothing he does makes sense," Kyr replied. "We're getting close. We can figure it out later..."
Katz nodded, pulling out his TAC-link and turning on the small portable camera, taking a few images of the ship as he jogged to keep up with Kyr. "This place is..."
"Deus Ex Machina," Kyr answered. "It means God in the machine."
The ship felt damp and dark, with sharp twists and turns that had been designed for a crew at one point. A crew that had never lived to serve aboard the ship. The halls had corroded, dark green and blistered, and Kyr reached out to touch it before Katz pulled his hand away.
"Don't," Katz warned, "I don't trust anything here."
Kyr shook his head, baring his teeth. "It smells like blood."
"Okay, stop," Katz shivered, "this place is bad enough..."
"I'm serious," Kyr answered, leaning in to sniff at the membrane that spread about the lower section of the wall. "It's alive..."
"Okay, so this place just got worse," Katz turned, keeping an eye open behind them. "Why do these places always have to get worse?"
"I don't know," Kyr answered, his voice barely above a whisper. "What could a demented AI of a psychopath want with flesh grafted to his insides?"
"Well at least we know it's not God in the machine," Katz answered. "Unless God looks like pink goo..."
Kyr gave him a look, shaking his head trying not to laugh at the nervous joke. "You're an idiot, Alvin."
"Yeah, so I am, maybe a little," Katz replied, grabbing Kyr and pushing him down, "what's that?"
Kyr watched the octoid machine sweep along the open section of the hall, passing by their ledge and approaching the inner-ship, rotating as it selected tools, beginning to go to work sealing access hatches with a spot welder.
"I don't know," he hissed. "I left my 'freaky machine monthly' on the ship. If it was the inner workings of the body then maybe I'd have a clue..."
Katz nodded. "You're becoming quite an expert about the inner workings of mine..."
Kyr gaped. "Now is not the time for sexual innuendo!"
Katz touched the doctor's arm. "Sorry, I like jokes when I'm nervous. This place freaks me out."
"Yeah, me too." Kyr admitted, stopping as he pointed down across the inner ship's stern quarter. "Human?"
Katz too a peek, shaking his head as he watched the humanoid shape in a Templar's uniform walking along a lower level. It paused, a faceless metal domed face swinging to look about it, as if it had heard something. Katz pulled Kyr back into the shadows.
"Not human," he replied with a whisper, tugging Kyr along with him. "This had better pay off. Or else we're in deep..."
Kyr gestured to the open door of the sickbay, nodding insistently as the pair of them slipped inside. Katz swept the room with his pistol as he pushed his way through polyurethane sheets.
He stopped at the foot of a bed, blinking as he looked at the huddled form lying on it, swaddled in bandages. His heart leaping into his throat and he felt the moisture behind his eyes. "...Galadriel..."
Kyr pushed his way through. Suddenly a professional look crossed his face as he began checking the machines. Reaching out to a tray, he pulled instruments to him, examining her and shaking his head. "Blunt force trauma... broken ribs."
"Doc?" Katz asked, shifting from foot to foot. "Is it her?"
Kyr looked back at him from examining the readouts on one of the machines. "What do you mean?"
"'Cause Lauren..." Katz offered, blinking to keep his tears in.
"She's been beaten to within an inch of her life," Kyr pointed out, "and you want me to..."
"Do it," Katz insisted. "Please, we have to be sure."
Kyr shrugged, punching commands into a diagnostic scanner, turning it on as he collected a sample of her blood. He squinted at the readout as it displayed the results of a genetic scan.
"It's her," he said after a moment. "No construct markers, nothing but pure DNA, she's as real as you are."
"A-alvin?" she slurred around the respirator.
Katz looked at her eyes, feeling his own burning as he fought back his emotions. "Oh God," he sniffed, "it's you... you're alive... oh God..."
Kyr stepped in. "Alvin, I have to work, please... go cover the door."
Katz nodded, swallowing as he scrubbed his eyes with his sleeve, wavering as he returned to the doors.
Barrow - Aivilik - Eelim Territory
OCCUPATION: DAY ONE-SEVENTY-THREE
The bullets from the remaining marines fell silent, as Rikard executed both of them with the same ferocity as he had the others. Walking through the opening and into the Propylon chamber, he breathed the earthy air and smiled. The great Peligians, with their advanced technology. At last he was in a place where their technology had been preserved. Doctor Roberts would have wet her knickers to be standing where he stood.
He reached the edge, looking down at the ring, towards the computer with its patterns sweeping across the walls. The Imperials hadn't damaged it, it was intact...
Rikard's eyes lit up as he stepped off the edge, plummeting down to the ground, using his powers to slow his fall, gliding the last few feet to a landing in the midst of the circle of stones. He was there, the end of his hunt.
Had VonGrippen been there?
The chilling thought caused Rikard to look about him, searching for the inevitable trap, the one that would deny him his prize. But he could sense nothing. VonGrippen hadn't possessed the Peligian Journal, he hadn't known about Aivilik. At last a place that had been untouched by the old devil's hand, a lead that hadn't been tainted by his traps and his deceit.
"Mine," he murmured, walking to the computer, sweeping the useless Imperial laptop out of his way, scanning across the Peligian runes. Reconfiguring the computer from its transit cycle, restoring its database as he punched up data on Peligia.
"I'm not sure what the fuck you are," Captain Hansen called from an upper tier of the chamber, sighting in with his Pulse Rifle, "but I am pretty sure you won't like this." He tilted the weapon to show the Polian Shard weapon attached under barrel to the rifle.
Rikard frowned, looking down at the computer, and back up at the human. "You have no idea who I am," he stated dangerously.
"I don't care," Hansen answered, bracing a foot on the edge of the ramp and training the weapon squarely on Rikard. "You've mowed down my men. That's enough for me to kill you."
"Please," Rikard sneered, "you're pathetic threats mean nothing! Who sent you, Taine? This seems like one of his asinine ploys, but as usual he has all the timing of a broken clock..."
"Step away from the console," Hansen demanded tensely, "or I fire."
"Go ahead," Rikard dared, "waste your time..."
The weapon shifted down a fraction to train on the console. "Well this might convince you otherwise..."
Rikard's eyes tightened. "If since you insist on being an irritant... I might feel the need to scratch an itch."
He lashed out, agitating the particles in the air between him and the Captain, charging the air until, with a boom, electricity discharged explosively across the chamber. It arced around the columns, leaping from the Peligian conductors and seeking the human.
Hansen spun as it struck him, crashing to the stone floor, his rifle falling down into the chamber, clattering uselessly.
Rikard's TAC-link warbled demandingly. "Where are my Propylons Rikard?"
Rikard sighed as he pulled the device out of his pocket. "I really dislike all of these interruptions. I have them..."
"Send them to me!" Lex Talionis snapped.
"Patience," Rikard fired back, running the last few commands into the computer, shaking his head as it turned up blank. All he had were more cryptic clues about Peligia being outside of time.
He frowned in deep contemplation as he picked his way forward into the centre of the stones. Peligia was outside of time, what did that mean?
Gesturing with his hands, he tore the Propylons free of their ancient mountings, readjusting them precisely around him in a pattern he had used before, configuring them to transport themselves and him along with them. If Lex wanted his stones so badly, then he would get them.
A wave of his hand telekinetically activated the controls as he wondered what, out of the clues, had tipped Darien off to the location of Peligia.
The flare swept him and the Propylons away from the chamber. The Imperial fusion reactor finally gave out, plunging the barrow back into darkness. Burying an honourable man, just another victim of the war.