"If the syndicate asked you to kill me right now would you?"
Captain Owningsburg stood, with nothing but a stinky T-shirt and training pants before two towering armored knights of Ludd.
Also Joseph, the Grand Magus, but he was much less physically threatening.
"Excuse me magus?"
"Important question Captain, as they say in the syndicate, honesty is the best policy."
"It would be rude of me to kill you."
"But it would be your duty no?"
"Technically…"
"That would be a no then?"
Somehow the magus made it sound like he would have preferred a yes.
The two knights, clearly Oscar and Cotton, two of the eldest didn't reveal any emotion, they could have been sleeping behind their armor.
The left leg of one lifted, just an inch. As if the knight was playing a childish game of balance or "the floor is lava."
The movement was enough to bother Captain Owningsburg.
"Forgive me magus but the church is so forward for me, I must admit I would be bound to kill you, regrettable as it is.
"But would you? You syndicate critters are so scared of liability, even when it is your business."
"Answers are much more dangerous than guns good Magus, anyone who believes otherwise does not belong long in the syndicate. But if you must have it, yes I would kill you.
"My good sir, I believe I have answered my question, I don't think you would."
There was silence in the room, it was a little awkward to see a couple lights flicker on the sides of each of the knight's helmets.
If they were speaking the drone of trickling water drowned them out. Courtesy of the local chapter of Luddic servants. In truth this little bunker, technically a church was a thermodynamic riddle. Heat contained under ice. The planetary religious administration had gotten permission to build right outside a military base too, could walk right in by waving at the guards. Surprising for an unstable planet.
Then considering the official base chapel's placement. They may as well have been the same building. Owningsburg wondered if this was one of the infamous "Church Tunnels"
The knights likely understood each other, as those little blinking lights were how most armored soldiers communicated at close range in a variety of situations.
"Magus if I may be forward"
"Of course son of Adam"
The two knights blinked disapproval, no doubt displeased at the thick cheese the magus was rendering.
"Is this all you knights do? Play at melodrama?"
The knights blinked approvals.
The magus frowned, sitting at his oaken desk as a willow tree about to flop into the river after an unimpressive gale.
"Well as feeble sons of Adam ourselves we are not strong enough to say truthfully we don't enjoy it."
"I jest Magus, but do you think that the church and the syndicate are so evil that we shall come to blows? Surely such a question is romantic only."
"I fear it isn't. I believe that we have been totally cut off. last time I told you we were cut off. I believed that I would retain the keys if I wished to contact your masters. They have in past done quite a few naughty things and abandoning me was one I considered very possible. Though I have had thought this planets oddities would have been handled differently. Forgive my paranoid mind but when things go wrong I am want to assume the worst first. I have a rather active imagination after all."
"Do you care to share grand Magus?
"I don't think it would be good for your career if I did."
"What do you care for my career? If they make me a commodore and all I need to provide to them is there head? Why shouldn't I take such an opportunity?"
"Because we are both melodramatic old fools Captain we are the same species. We got to look out for each other."
The two knight's temple mounted telemetry did not blink anything at this. A depressed silence filled the room.
Oh, but it was not silence for water flowed around the entrance portal It was quite fast.
Only one sound of many if you listened
The second loudest sound was the low-frequency hum electrical heater. Where the church got the electricity was question for engineers to ask the Magus, or the knights was to get a coy non-answer.
A gentle convection from the floor, which concealed the heat was supplemented by a quiet but noticeable thump, thump, thump, thump thump, of an industrial fan unseen.The sound likely an echo from some tube far away blasting forgotten audio into the room.
Owningsberg broke the silence. "Good Magus is there some mission you desired to send me on? If you are worried my Marines and I may be liability. Well the simple solution is that we part ways. I'm sure that you could spare some security at this location. It is quite the experience to live among the knights, but I believe that my Marines would be itching for some sort of purpose. It is not proper to keep them idle for a long they are restless creatures, much more restless than your knights."
The Magus pondered, a gentle "hmmmm" to sagely to acknowledge that they had heard the statements but false and living silence again filled the room.
Impressively the light was natural. A simple lantern rested on the Magus's desk. But that lantern was the only artificial light source apparent in the entire little chamber. The vaulted ceiling revealed two little windows. Each one capturing in portrait, a cold and false reflection of the sun clearly dim by the imperfections of whatever substance had been abused by exposure to the deadly laser's UV radiance.
And though the gentle guiding of the windows light trickled as the water around the room ever so slightly. Two balls of the light fell upon the wall opposite their entry. were a bare face of quartzite caught the light gently and softly. the room was filled with an uncanny, yet, natural muted brilliance.
Aside from the stone and aperture windows that both beheld the same sun, and the ever present, armored suits and violence. There were completing for the attention of all who entered the bizarre and decorated church weapons. Cotton was clearly armed with an in-line auto shotgun along his left arm. That was non-standard armor. It and quite a few worlds would have refused the entry of such a weapon. Even for militaries, let alone the private "Church." The primitive and infamous trench cleaning terror of the shotgun was too much for civilization. This one was nearly concealed within his armor, but up close it was impossible not to notice the clear large bore barrel contained within a forearm of the armor. There was no obvious ammo feed from the outside. I which would leave the observer wondering if the weapon was ornamental and unloaded. Or if the wielder knew exactly how many shells they had to fire.
One assumed they knew how much ammo they had.
Oscar had more standard church armor and the fact Oscar was identifiable was for the fact that they had almost no modifications to their armor ever. Odd for a knight. A factory perfect machine stood judgmentally. That was almost certainly Oscar.
Cotton carried as a primary weapon that guttural submachinegun and its feeder belt.
Oscar carried with him an unrecognizable and exceptionally large caliber short bodied automatic grenade launcher. That must've been what it was. No traditional firearm would fire a bullet that large. A grim and plain bulky cylinder bulged off the side of the device. I there was evidence that once there was a trigger guard and human trigger on the machine. Indeed it seemed the church had made no attempt to hide the comically large accommodations that had made to repurpose the weapon from the baseline human to the independent armored platform standards of the assisted exoskeletons that all marines and many knights piloted
The Magus appeared to wear nothing but a simple turtleneck and a long cerulean robe. The man looks much older and much cozier than the average 50 something..
"Owningsburg, do you trust your marines?"
"Yes."
"How much would it take to bribe any one of them to sell us out?"
"None of them are foolish enough to take a bribe like that."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
The two unarmed men looked at each other, each seemed genuine and convinced of their opinion.
"You Captain are selling me exactly what I should want to hear, that you and your marines shall abandon your syndicate to help the church if violence comes to pass. I want you to know that such a thing frightens me."
"If the syndicate would have us fight each other we would assume it is the end of the world. Allegiances are always born of necessity and if the world should end so abruptly our contracts hardly matter."
"That's exactly what a priest would say Captain. You may not intend it but you are asking me to simply believe you."
"As I said, send us on some mission away from here, so that when the question comes up, we don't need to worry about it. With luck this planet will not see a coherent alien invasion and in fact we shall be at peace soon returning to our home planets with some measure of success."
"Sadly I don't think we are ready to hunt that little alien, heaven knows what diabolism it forges this very second."
"Perhaps we could observe it? Not to fight but to monitor, the syndicate practices this covert art against all its rivals."
"Don't you need special gear for this?"
"Zeypher is a syndicate world, we need only request the equipment from the ZRM."
"Could you requisition equipment for a few of my knights who shall accompany you?"
"I thought the purpose of this mission was to separate us."
"I just want to send three knights with you."
"Leaving you with five? Forgive me but I see this as ill advised, they are not trained in subterfuge."
"Very well, I shall send two instead, Charles, and Lopin very good men, they have discretion and are very obedient."
"Magus, my marines are going to be displeased, training two rookies, forgive me. It Is not becoming for marines of their caliber."
"Then don't train the two knights, just keep them around and busy, you needn't share your secrets with them."
"That's dishonest magus. Unrealistic, they wouldn't be accompanying us then."
"Technically I am still working for the syndicate on this planet so it's the job."
"Very well, though I am unclear on which of us gives orders to the other."
"The creature was spotted entering from orbit at this location."
The magus produced a globe of zephyr from underneath the hash marked table and pointed to a location.
"Rocket transfer or atmosphere?"
"Atmosphere, it's going to take five hours."