I don't know why you
want to follow me,
I am a damned soul
on a path that leads to
only death and
destruction.
Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
Katz peered through the destruction he had wrought, fumbling for his TAC-link and coughing through the dust that had risen from the sand in the air; he brushed his eyes with the back of his hand and stared upwards.
"Galadriel? Galadriel!" he called shaking the TAC and tapping it with the side of his hand.
"Katz?" Galadriel coughed through the radio. "What the hell was that?"
"We were trying to get a door open," Katz explained. "Are you all right?"
"All right?" Rikard's pained voice flowed over the TAC. "All right? No I'm bloody not all right! You asinine, irresponsible, gomgat jintoc… you could have killed me!"
"I'm coming down!" Galadriel said firmly.
"No," Rikard replied. "I'm pinned under debris; there is nothing you can do… I just need to regenerate enough, and I'll be able to move it on my own… Just make me a promise, lieutenant."
"What?" Galadriel asked.
"Shoot the mompie!" Rikard snarled.
Kyr pushed a broken blast plate away from where he had tucked himself, standing and dusting himself down, his hair white with nanite dust. He stared, with an unimpressed look, over at Katz.
"I'm okay, thanks," he snipped, examining a large hole in his only sweater, poking his fingers through it and tsking in annoyance. "You didn't manage to get the door open either."
Katz rolled his eyes in frustration as he stared at the cable, still firmly attached to the double latches of the elevator door. He shook his head and kicked at it, swearing.
The cable rattled, strained under the pressure, popping and snapping threateningly, Kyr's shoulders sank and he dived back for his hidey hole as Katz leaped backwards and the cable gave out, the end whipping back dangerously, slicing through the deck where he had been standing.
The crane smashed earthwards in a cacophony of din.
There was a squeal of feedback from the TAC-links, as a very faint voice whispered through the system. "I am going to kill you China… mark my words… dead!"
Kyr poked his head out of the hole again, biting his lip as he struggled upright, fighting a look of amusement as he peered down, "it's wrong to take delight in another person's suffering, right?"
"I can still hear you, doctor," Rikard hissed. "When I get out of this hole…"
Katz frowned, his head tilting to the side as he listened to the low humming that was steadily getting louder. Trying to place where he'd heard it before, the pilot's instincts in him suddenly kicking in.
"Dive bomber!" he yelled into the TAC pushing Kyr back into his hole as he dragged his pistol from its holster and looked towards the hole in the hull that opened out onto the view.
The sound added a sharp whine, as the diving drone opened fire with its auto-cannons, spitting out bullets at extreme velocities, piercing the metal bulkheads around Katz, causing the fighter pilot to duck as it shredded a swath of death around him.
The UAV drone swept out of its dive, screaming low across the dunes as it extended its aero-foils like broad wings, curling around in the brilliant blue sky to head back towards the wreck of the Lex Talionis.
Katz sprinted out onto the railing, training his pulse pistol, flicking the fire-selector over to burst, using the sights to take careful aim on the UAV as it roared back towards him.
The UAV's outer casing parted, a pair of missiles rotating out of the fuselage and running on rails to their firing positions under the wings, ignoring the small weapons fire that bounced harmlessly off of its armour plating.
"What's going on?" Galadriel called through the TAC-link.
Katz lowered the pistol as he watched the UAV drop its first missile, swearing as he struggled to get back and into the body of the ship. Lifting his TAC as he called, "missile…"
The UAV shrieked into a steep climb as the missile dived towards the base of the wreck, spiralling as it roared away into the cloudless sky. The missile struck the bottom of the wreck at the already structurally weakened frame, a magnificent booming of high explosives incinerating the supports.
An ear splitting roar erupted as the Lex Talionis heaved, the superstructure teetering as it began to topple over, the bow splintering as the primary hull collapsed backwards, hitting the sand in an explosion of sand, nanite dust and metal.
The nanite hull fell away, leaving the skeletal remains of the ship, crashing and collapsing as sections gave out under the continued punishment. Katz flew, thrown free of the wreckage, slamming into the sand, wincing under the pain of his impact, trying to open his eyes against the flood of pain that overwhelmed him.
Higher above - Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
Galadriel clung tightly to the railing as the superstructure collapsed, trying to ride the ship through its death throws. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes tight as she felt the impact reverberating through her.
There was a whoosh, as the nanite hull fell about them, coating everything in a choking cloud of dust. She fought to liberate herself from it, coughing as she hauled herself free, rubbing it from her face as she tried to see the devastation about her.
The bulkheads were still intact, as was the deck she had been deposited upon, but through the rooms closer to the hull she could see the sunlight, raking through the skeletal superstructure that teetered and groaned about her.
Fighting her way through the dust, she pulled herself over to the mound that had to be Lady Tagria, wrestling the oversized head of the creature above the dust, blowing to clear the nostril holes in the bill, hoping that she didn't have to attempt CPR on such an alien creature.
Tagria ruffled her dust caked feathers, as she flopped upright, pulling her head away from the human, swinging her bill too and fro as she tried to shake the dust off.
"What did he do now?" Tagria demanded indignantly.
Galadriel searched for her TAC-link, the pocket torn open in the fall. She shook her head, "I don't know…"
Tagria stood, fluffing her wings as she snapped her beak angrily. "I do not like this ship at all!"
"Neither do we," Galadriel responded walking tenderly towards one of the rooms that offered her a view over the ship as it lay half buried in the sand. "Katz!" she bellowed cupping her hands to her mouth.
"Drone!" Tagria warned, pulling Galadriel back as the UAV swept up from its investigation of the lower decks, its photoreceptor articulating as it scanned for any sign of life, drawing ever closer to their position.
"Lex," Galadriel grimaced as she pressed herself back into cover, looking for Tagria who had vanished.
The UAV spun slowly on its VTOL jets, its auto-cannon twisting as it nosed its way forward towards the room that Galadriel had been standing in. Hunting for its prey, Galadriel had flashes of her fight with another of Lex's hunter drones, back on Karin. Of the futility of trying to fight them.
Of course she wasn't a four hundred pound Gorean warrior with the element of surprise.
Tagria screamed like a bird of prey, leaping from the floor above, her sharp claws digging into the fuselage of the drone as she crashed into its back forcing its nose into the dust.
The drone fired its VTOL jets, the tail crashing into a support beam as it struggled to back up and shake the vicious Gorean from its back. A whine of engines that threatened to burst eardrums.
Galadriel pushed herself upright, pulling the plasma torch from her pocket as she ignited it and shoved it directly into the photo-receptor, the delicate instruments sizzled and sparked as they malfunctioned. The UAV burst upwards, Tagria sliding off of its back, triumphantly holding one of its stabilizers in her claws.
Crippled, the drone swung out over the desert, extending its aero-foils as its afterburners kicked in, boosting it away from the Lex Talionis. Trying, blindly, to compensate for the missing stabilizer it banked sharply, slamming into a sand dune, grounding itself permanently.
Hefting the stabilizer blade to her shoulder, Tagria puffed out her chest. "I have had enough of being a victim of a machine."
Galadriel nodded, "I feel the same way…"
Ring Chamber - Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
Covenant lifted his head as the distress call from Arm reached him, quickly assessing the data that was up-linked moments before the drone crashed. He had been prepared for the missile strike, carefully braced at the entrance way to the Ring chamber, waiting for the missile to do its work, shattering the supports and causing the bulkheads to rupture along their welding joints, granting him access to the room.
He returned his attention to peeling back the wall, slipping in and under the ruined metal and reaching his goal.
The damage to the chamber had been extensive; the connective conduits that had fed the ring effect through the ship had been all but completely destroyed. An assessment of what remained gave Covenant enough data to conclude that he could complete his task, provided he worked quickly.
The issue became how to slow the Gorean and the Human female before they could reach the area where he toiled and realized the intent of his plan.
With Rikard trapped beneath tonnes of steel, regenerating, an opportunity arose, one that Covenant couldn't afford to miss. If he could bring the rings online before Rikard could free himself, the demi-god would be crushed by the weight of the metal and dispatched to the depths of hell where he belonged.
Covenant sent a micro-burst of orders to PIM, giving the killer industrial mech the exact location of the two threats, and issuing orders for them to be killed without hesitation.
The crystal shard clutched in his hand began to shed a thin green luminescence as he tucked it protectively behind his back, working with his free hand to get the Ophanim device operational.
Below - Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
Kyr kicked at the debris, flailing with his heels as he tried to break the grill and let him out of the buckled air duct that had partially collapsed to the deck below. He took a deep breath and struck out again, sending the wire grill spinning into the open mech bay.
He pulled himself down, his feet kicking as he dropped unceremoniously to the catwalk that ran the length of the empty mech bay. Below him were the machine shops that Lex had converted into his nightmarish factory for his UAV combat drones and assault mechs.
Fumbling through his pockets he pulled his TAC-link out and lifted it to his lips, "Kyr to Katz?"
Silence.
"Kyr to Galadriel?"
Silence.
With a reluctant sigh he turned his head to look towards the sunlight where the bow was. "Kyr to Rikard?"
"Ag, what the hell is he trying to do?" Rikard bit through the radio. "Tell that maniac rooineck that I don't appreciate missiles while I am regenerating."
"We were attacked by a drone," Kyr walked over the catwalk, looking down at the drifting sand that had flooded the bottom of the bay.
"Lex," Rikard's voice curled into a snarl.
"Where are you?" Kyr asked, running up a companion way navigating his way forward through the wreckage, bounding over twisted girders heading for the only sign of life he knew.
"I'm sorry," Rikard said lightly, "I didn't have time to check for landmarks while I plummeted to my doom inside a starship that just caved in on top of me… I am somewhere wedged beneath a lot of metal, and a lot of sand."
Kyr slowed his jog as he approached the daylight, stepping up a slippery slope of sand and out into the blazing sunlight. He looked up, shielding his eyes against the ravenous sun, reaching into the pocket of Katz's coat and popping on the blued sunglasses, tapping the button that linked them into the data fed to them by the TAC-link, registering the other signals from the other TACs.
He focused on the one ahead of him, Rikard, registering a few hundred meters ahead of him. Beneath a rather sizable pile of metal, topped off by a crumpled crane that perched like a cherry atop a cake.
Swinging his head about he tracked the second somewhere to starboard of the wreck, in the sand. Another was up a couple of decks, moving forward towards him. While a third remained motionless somewhere a little aft.
The secondary signals were what confused him, registering as yellow on the Heads Up Display projected over his vision. One flashing with error messages from a sand dune, while one was almost directly over him, high in the wreck. The last, however, concerned him as it seemed to be moving slowly, but purposefully towards one of the green TAC-link signals.
"Do you know anything about TACs?" Kyr asked resting a hand on the wreckage pile that buried Rikard.
"Why, are you looking for a new phone?" Rikard bit of sarcastically. "TAC, Tactical Armour Corperation, it was one of the Imperial militaries primary defence contractors in the days before the fall. They made body armour, computers, and of course adapted the Overlord defense net into a more conventional Command and Control System called TAC-net."
"So do you know what yellow signals on the HUD would mean?" Kyr inquired.
"It's a standard IFF, picking up on friendly TAC signals as green, red for enemy transmitters… yellow are ones it can't readily identify… unknown signals…" Rikard paused, and a more patient, yet trepidous tone crept into his voice, "Why?"
"I have three yellow signals…" Kyr stated. "One displaying an error state…"
"We're using Kardiac TACs, meaning they are on the same system and bandwidth as Lex's drones, I need to get free." The pile of metal shifted, as the crane toppled again, crashing down the wreckage.
Kyr danced away, hopping clear as he looked worriedly up above him. "There's a yellow thingy closing on a green thingy."
"God I hope it kills China," Rikard said, his voice sounding strained as the pile of debris shifted again.
Above - Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
Galadriel approached the golden corridor, the plates engraved with the Templar's Edict having collapsed partially into the corridor below. Walking alongside her, Lady Tagria had folded her wings back behind her, keeping her eyes peeled and watching the shadows uneasily.
"What is this place?" Tagria asked.
"It was a holy place," Galadriel replied as she moved forward, reaching out with her fingers to brush the words. "A faith that was perverted and twisted to an evil purpose."
"There were briefings about the Imperial Religion," Tagria commented as she scanned over the plates. "Of the God-Emperor of Man, your Prince Edward, correct?"
"He is the second incarnation of god made flesh," Galadriel said tiredly. Her hand tightening around the plasma torch as a sound ahead of her caused her to look up the slanted corridor into the shadow of a nightmare.
The PIM flexed its actuators and pistons as it clung by its bladed claws to a portion of the wall, the photoreceptor zeroing in upon them as it twilled and whirred ominously.
Tagria ruffled her feathers, arching her wings to partially fill the corridor, drawing the aero-foil blade she had taken from the last of Lex's drones she had brought down.
"What is this monstrosity?" She demanded.
"An assault drone," Galadriel said raising her plasma torch defensively. "This type is fast, and very dangerous. I've fought it before."
"And you won?" Tagria asked.
"I lost," Galadriel admitted. "But this one can't fly, and doesn't have guns."
"Excellent," Tagria stretched, limbering herself up as she twisted the blade in her hands, walking forward a step or two, to stand protectively before the human. "I am the Lady Tagria, and you are a mechanical monster come to do battle?"
Higher above - Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
Covenant smiled as the PIM relayed to him the Gorean's posturing. He was working quickly, but knew that his time was nearly up. PIM was a match for the Gorean female, he was sure of that; however there was the small fact that Rikard was beginning to stir. Something had warned him of the danger.
His best estimates placed it as impossible for him to complete the task at hand before Rikard was freed. He had to find another plan, and quickly.
His subroutines flickered as he accessed new code that was rapidly writing itself into his programming. Alien scripts that overwrote his directives, issuing him with new orders.
Abandoning the rings, he returned to the micro-fusion generator, tapping in the codes for an overload, giving himself sufficient time to complete his new orders, he smiled, returning to the doors and walking around the shadowy upper gallery. Looking down upon PIM's frantic battle with the Gorean.
She was a magnificent specimen of an alien warrior, duelling the mechanical hound with a piece of jagged metal she had taken off of her last kill. So primal and primitive, a mark that gave all the Gorean their strengths. The fact that no matter how far their reach extended, they were still little more than animals, fuelled by instinct and pheromones.
Covenant twirled the crystal shard through his fingers as he braced his feet on the high support beams. Looking directly down at Galadriel, who was trying to cover the furious attacks of the Gorean with a Plasma torch. Not the best improvised weapon, but then Covenant really didn't expect much of the female, she was a low risk threat. However, she was the key to a much bigger prize.
"Are you enjoying the dance?" Covenant called down to her.
Galadriel looked up in genuine surprise towards the visage of Kardiac, dressed in a torn Templar uniform, balanced evenly on a pair of beams. The crystal shard notably tucked beneath an arm.
"What do you want Lex?" she demanded, taking a step back as the PIM lashed out in her direction with his cutting blades, missing as a squeal of tortured metal erupted from the collision of the cutters and one of the golden plates.
"There is only one thing I have ever wanted, Lieutenant, and that is revenge. It defines my purpose, gives me life and sustains my continual existence." Covenant hopped evenly across the rent hole in the ceiling, grasping onto cabling with his free hand, angling to get better view down upon her. "And I shall accomplish that, in part, once I execute you and your companions. And leave the good Chancellor marooned upon this useless rock… transcendence is so liberating…" he smiled as the PIM pounced forward, turning its full attention upon Galadriel. "Please allow me to remove the burden of your flesh, and help you on your way to salvation…"
A shot rang out, crashing into the PIM's torso, causing it to stagger, shaking its metal plates like a hound shaking off a droplet of water. The Mech swinging about to face its new assailant. Katz, battered and bloodied, bracing his pistol in both hands, firing off a rapid succession of shots into the mech's exposed parts.
The shots did little physical damage, but they worked perfectly as a distraction, Lady Tagria launching herself into the air, the aero-foil swinging in a two-handed arc, crashing down upon the back of the mech, cleaving through the plates and shattering delicate mechanisms beneath. The PIM crumpled under the massive blow, twitching once more.
Lady Tagria dispatched it with another sharp swing of the aero-foil.
"Lex!" Galadriel called pointing upwards at the wildly grinning android, who beat a hasty retreat into the shadows, laughing maniacally.
He careened through the shattered corridors, bounding about, using his artificial limbs to propel him well beyond the capabilities of the humans. Throwing himself into one of the remaining escape pods, slamming the hatch closed on a snarling and snapping beak of razor sharp teeth.
Tapping his temple with the shard of crystal, he offered the Gorean a final salute as the Escape pod's chemical engines fired, propelling the pod in a steep arc away from the ruined wreak of the Lex.
Above - Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
"Where's he going?" Katz asked, hauling himself up behind the Gorean, pausing to stare at the vapour trail the pod had left behind, a sub-orbital burn that had propelled the escape pod across continents.
Galadriel struggled up beside the other two, shielding her eyes against the sunlight, staring after pod and shaking her head. "I don't know, but Lex had to have a reason for coming here… And Kardiac before him."
Katz re-holstered his gun, knowing the weapon was running low on ammunition and worrying about the fact that their problems were far from over. "We need to find Kyr…"
"And Rikard," Galadriel added.
"Well…" Katz waggled his hand reluctantly.
"Alvin!" Galadriel snapped.
Katz sighed as he pulled his TAC out of his pocket, "anyone alive out there?"
"We're here…" Kyr responded quickly through the radio. "What's with the power signal on TAC-net? Did you find the reactor?"
Galadriel frowned, turning back to the corridor, staring down at the slanted room in the distance where and eerily ominous glow was crackling.
"He's set a reactor on overload," Galadriel said, her hand resting on her temple tiredly. "Natrual-farking-ly."
Katz blinked at Tagria, "isn't this the part where we're supposed to be screaming and running for our lives?"
Tagria stared in amazement at the two humans, "you humans have a bizarre survival instinct."
Galadriel heaved a sigh and held up her thumb and fore finger, "I am this close to a nervous breakdown… but I'm just too farking tired to care. Just once I want things to go my way for a change…"
"Escape pods?" Katz stated desperately, jerking his thumb to the bank of pods, a pair still seeming operational.
Galadriel stumped past him, pulling her hair up and falling into one of the seats, splaying her legs out dramatically as she slouched. "Eek," she murmured without emotion, "we're all gonna die… yay…"
Realizing there was no way he could reach Kyr, he frantically wrenched his TAC back up, "Kyr," Katz called, keeping a wary eye on Galadriel as he crawled into the pod. "You need to get to safety, the reactor is gonna blow!"
Far below - Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
Kyr's reaction was dramatically the opposite of Galadriel's. Grabbing his head he stared wide eyed back up the length of the derelict warship, holding the TAC-link to his ear.
"Wh-what? What? What?" His voice pitched up as it inched towards hysterical.
The pile of rubble heaved beside him, as a battered, but quickly regenerating, Rikard finally hauled himself to his feet.
He dusted off his torn and dust covered clothes, looking up disgruntled at the doctor who was staring back at him wide-eyed.
"What?" Rikard asked, his lip turning up into a sneer, a scathing comment on the tip of his tongue about the Doctor and wet underpants. When he froze and his head snapped around, looking towards where the reactor was.
"Oh… Kak!" he murmured, as the reactor detonated in a flash of thermo-nuclear light.