"… There are only two kinds of beings. Those who fight and those who do not.
In a universe that is always moving forward, stillness leads only to the inevitability of extinction.
That is the most fundamental rule in all of existence. And it is only when faced with the greatest of struggles, the most insurmountable of odds, that something truly remarkable occurs.
Those who fight, those with a will of iron, forged and tempered in the greatest fire, are the ones who shine the brightest. For, as the age-old saying goes,
Struggle is the father of all things..."
- Warlord Kainan I
~~~~
It was far past any hour at which most reasonable beings sought the peaceful, meditative comfort of sleep, or whatever passed for its equivalent among their species. Yet, deep within the solitary confines of the station's Amethyst Suite, Valyra was still very much awake. The more she thought about the day's events, the more she had the sinking feeling that something was not adding up. He was right. That frustrating Terran was right. That the attempt against her life had been sloppy and intended to fail, wasn't much of a surprise, or even something to lose sleep over. Such subtle, layered ploys were to be expected from Great Houses that had spent uncounted eons perfecting the art of political machination and whose plots and schemes, unfolded over the span of generations, even among beings whose technology and attunement to the Veil, allowed them to extend their lifespans far beyond what any of the Lesser Species could even dream of achieving.
And yet, her royal guards, her sworn protectors, should have intervened. While lapses of vigilance might pass for reasonable excuses among other species, the Alvari royal guards were supposed to be in a league all of their own. Indeed, what the humans called 'paladins,' were far more than that Terran words could encompass. They were Thalanar Veytharin, a term which no beings that were not Alvari could ever truly understand. If translated verbatim, or as much as such a thing was possible in the blunt and primitive languages of the humans, those two words meant 'high vigil' and 'those who stand in oath.' And it was not the kind of oath that was merely a string of solemn words, but an ancient, sacred and profound ritual of binding, in which those sworn to be protectors, would bind their very souls to the one whose well-being was entrusted into their care. That they had failed to act, against so basic an attack… Valyra knew there was only one thing that could cause her guards to disregard their oaths to her. And that was if they had received an order to do so, from one to whom they owed an even greater oath of loyalty.
This was her father's doing. This was the High King sending her a subtle message, that she was not as irreplaceable as one might think. Worse yet, that he might even be considering other claimants to replace her in the line of succession. That frustrating human was right. She couldn't trust anyone at all, not even in her own court. Especially in her own court.
And that human, just who exactly was he? A former slave that somehow managed to claw his way out of the Dra'var'th gladiatorial arenas, only to climb high enough among the human hierarchy to effectively create a shadow government which not only replaced their species' previous, failing one, but did so without the Phoenix House even noticing it and now that she thought about it, likely had an instrumental role in ending his species' long-running civil war, then going on to found the most powerful political alliance the Lesser Species had created in three generations. Given his origins, it was safe to say the Dragon House had orchestrated his initial rise to power, yet she would have sensed the telltale markers of brainwashing, had he been their puppet. Indeed, as she already knew, he was even scheming against his former and supposed masters. The more she thought about it, the more those thoughts drifted to that human concept she had run across, the playing of both sides against the middle. And now, she wondered if hers and other species were capable of truly understanding just what that concept meant.
She could trust this human warlord to remain loyal to her, at least for now. At least, as much as one could trust the ambitious, scheming ruler of a Lesser Species which had proven itself so adept at accumulating whatever measure of power and influence, that a civilization of its status could. But there was no doubt in Valyra's mind that his loyalty did not necessarily translate into predictable obedience. He had his own designs, that one, his own plans and schemes for whatever future he envisioned for his species. And he would seize any opportunity to advance his goals, no matter how that might interfere with her own.
And the way he intercepted that bullet, the uncanny, almost prescient way he reacted before the assassin even pulled the trigger… She had only seen such a reaction in species with a high attunement to the Veil and advanced training in the mastery of psionic abilities. Yet, she could sense nothing from him that would indicate such aptitudes. Neither could she sense a lie in that cryptic answer he'd given her and she knew that if the Dra'var'th so much as suspected the humans of possessing the potential for psionics, they would have hunted their entire species to extinction by now.
With a ragged, frustrated sigh, she realized her musings were getting her nowhere closer to figuring out the solutions to her problems. For the first time in as long as she could remember, there was simply too much she did not know, or had been able to divine. And that stirred in her a sinking, unfamiliar feeling that she did not like at all. Perhaps some rest might help her clear her mind…
~~~~
Her dreams were anything but restful, as if even in that place where she was closest to the Veil, the troubles of the galaxy followed her. Even there, she was haunted by the ghosts of her bloodline, by memories of her younger sister, lying on the cold floor of her bedchamber, her lifeblood leaking out of her and an assassin's poisoned dagger protruding from her back. By her mother's last smile, right before she boarded the royal shuttle that had, only hours later, exploded like a blazing star. It had been deemed an accident, yet it conveniently paved the way for a rival noblewoman to marry her father.
Such had always been the way in her family, in the ancient Rynn dynasty, a bloodline that, like the willows it was named after, could be as ruthless as it was elegant. And her father, the High King? He'd watched it all happen, his face a mask of impassive calm, as if he hadn't yet decided who was worthy of his love. Deep down, Valyra hated it all. The crown, the throne, the ruthless system that had shaped her own kin into monsters, though she would never show any hint of it. Indeed, outwardly she had always been the very embodiment of the dutiful daughter.
It was still late, she realized, when she finally awoke with a startled gasp, still feeling just as tired as she had before. The echoes of her dreams still haunted her, for she knew, like all Alvari, that dreams were not just chaotic recollections of buried memories or random thoughts. In that space, between material reality and the realm of endless possibility, one's soul was closest to the Veil. But rather than meditate upon that, she chose, instead, to rise and seek her shardblade, her Eryndai. Because, at that hour of what passed for local night, she could tell something was wrong.
It was just a feeling, an ancient instinct from ages past, from a time when her species still huddled around campfires and learned to sense what lurked in the darkness, eons ago, so long that the other civilizations of the galaxy, hadn't yet even began evolving from whatever ancestral beasts would later spawn them. She stood, slowly, her elfin ears twitching, her iridescent eyes wide open and her breathing slow and measured. With practiced ease developed from a lifetime of training, she cast her mind upon the Veil and reached out with that sixth sense that all psions possessed, beyond the comfortable confines of her opulent bedchamber, beyond the royal suite where she resided, to the space station beyond. And she could sense it, that same, cold feeling from the ballroom, that jagged spike of hostility that could only mean murderous intent.
Focusing upon it, she could sense the bright flares of emotion that were Rinathay adepts engaging in a fight. For her people, motion was emotion given form and for those who practiced that ancient and most sacred art, that was the axiom they lived by. She could also sense that gaping chasm that was at once a burning, boiling hatred and the cold, unfathomable dread of insatiable hunger that was the signature aura of Dra'var'th death knights, psionic warriors who wielded terror like a weapon and fed upon the very souls and life force of their victims. And she could also sense a third presence, one she had never encountered before. These echoes were not the bright flares of emotion of her people, or the terror of the ancient rivals of the Phoenix House, but something new. Something cold, precise, that faded in and out of her awareness, hovering there, at the edge of her perception, then vanishing again.
The lights in her bedchamber flared to life as the doors hissed open and a pair of her royal guards entered without ceremony, alongside her advisor, Ilvandar, whose horrified expression told her everything she needed to know. "Your highness," the shifty lesser noble addressed her after a curt bow. "We must return to the Lightfall immediately! The station is crawling with Dra'var'th death squads."
Valyra nodded, not bothering to retrieve any of her belongings, or change out of her night gown. There simply wasn't time to worry about such things as a princess' decorum, not while assassins were carving a bloody path towards her quarters. She turned, Ilvandar and her guards falling in behind her and was about to step outside the room when she sensed it, that all-too-familiar warning, but this time, very close. She tensed, then frowned. And that one millisecond of hesitation between sense and action was all it took, for as she leapt out of the way, she felt the shardblade's searing touch draw a line of fire along her ribs as her own guards turned against her.
She did not stop to process the pain of her injury, to assess its severity or ponder the betrayal. To do such things, she first had to live and in that moment, that depended upon staying focused on the fight. Her own blade came up, the crystalline sword tracing a graceful, glowing arc through the station's filtered air, psionic afterimages trailing in its wake. She pushed outwards with her thoughts, seeking to overwhelm the nearest guard's senses and flood his mind with static even as her pirouette and slash suddenly turned into a lunge that speared the traitor through the gap between his chestplate and his ornate helmet. Blood, the deep, lapis-lazuli blood of her kind, sprayed forth and she gracefully twirled out of the way as she withdrew her blade, the second guard's weapon cleaving through the place she had been standing just a fraction of a second earlier.
She was a skilled bladesinger, as good as any master, but she was also injured and that one mistake from earlier, had cost her the initiative. The second guard, now more prepared than his comrade had been, was on her, twirling, weaving, feinting and striking, pushing her back with every step, herding her until she find herself pressed against the wall, her strength rapidly fading and with nowhere else to go. She watched as the traitor drew his blade back for the killing blow, her life flashing before her eyes, all her hopes and regrets flooding in.
"Your highness!" came the shout, then the robed frame of her advisor darted in-between her and the guard, hands weakly holding the previously slain traitor's shardblade in a feeble attempt at blocking the incoming swing. The guard smirked and flicked his wrist mid-slash, blade darting forward to slide between Ilvandar's ribs. The advisor staggered back, gasping and clutching uselessly at his injury as the treacherous guard focused once more upon Valyra, but that fraction of a second was all she needed and before he could react, her own sword parted the traitor's head from his shoulders and sent it rolling across the cold floor.
Her head snapped to Ilvandar's sorry form, now slumped against the wall. "No… time, your highness…" the lesser noble gasped, struggling for breath. "You must… leave, now. Before more of them come."
"Ilvandar-" she called out, but the advisor cut her off with a wave of his hand. "Go, your highness… I'll hold them off as long as I can," he hissed, a look of resigned determination settling upon his features. "Besides… We both know this wound is fatal…"
Tears welled in Valyra's eyes and her composure, already strained by everything that had transpired, the assassins, the betrayal, finally broke and she couldn't fight back the ragged sob that escaped her lips. Ilvandar had been an ambitious, shifty scorpion, one who always pursued the advancement of his station by whatever means he could. But he had been her scorpion, for all his faults and failings, loyal to the bitter end. She nodded and honored him with a bow, the man's eyes flaring wide with gratitude at the unexpected honor. If she survived, if she somehow managed to pull off the impossible, she would see to it that his family would be elevated to a place of honor. But that was a concern for another time. First, she had to escape.
~~~~
The scene that greeted her outside her chambers, was one of absolute carnage. The bodies of her handmaids and attendants had been discarded where they died, each of them bearing the cuts and slashes of shardblades, or the jagged, gaping wounds of Dra'var'th weapons. This was her brother's doing, she knew. Vaeloryn was finally making his move, his bid for the throne and it seemed their father had decided he would make a worthier heir than her. Either that, or he was dead, though it was impossible for her to know which was the case.
She stalked through the station's hallways and winding corridors, her hand pressed against her side, her senses alert and focused on the sounds of fighting that echoed in the distance. Again, those same, strange pulses of psionic power, the echoes of beings she couldn't identify, flared all around her and she could hear sounds of gunfire, of primitive human weapons as the Terrans no doubt struggled uselessly against Dra'var'th, Alvari traitors and whoever the third, mysterious assailants were. They would all die here, she knew. They were inconvenient witnesses to her brother's coup, no doubt to be subsequently blamed for her assassination and exterminated to the last. It was a masterstroke on her brother's part and similarly convenient for the Dragon House. Vaeloryn would get the crown, the Dra'var'th would get a convenient excuse to reap yet another species and the High Table would rid itself of an overly ambitious and unruly upstart species, decapitating the Pact in one fell swoop.
A shame, really, for she found she rather liked these Terrans. Or at least, their leader, that frustrating warlord who had somehow managed to match the sharpness of her wit in a way few others had, before him. But such was the way of things. It was a cold, ruthlessly cruel galaxy that made tragedies out of the best and victors of the worst. And she had no time to dwell on such things, for she could sense the echoes of psionic adepts closing in all around her. And she had nowhere else to run.
It was a cruel irony, that she would survive the attack in her chambers, only to die here, alone and forgotten in some remote corner of the galaxy no one of note paid much attention to. She drew a deep breath and let out a ragged sigh, her fingers tightening their grip around her shardblade as she straightened and steeled herself for a final, defiant stand. If she would fall here, she'd take as many of her murderers with her, as she could.
But it seemed fate had other plans for her, for the warriors that filed into the corridor from their concealed position in a maintenance passage that ran parallel, were neither Dra'var'th reapers, or her own traitorous guards. They were humans, not ones dressed in the navy-blue uniforms of Council security officers, but ones who wore long, ashen-gray trench coats with white trim and furred collars over suits of primitive, plain-looking Terran combat armor, their gazes concealed beneath helmets whose glowing red eyepieces stared into her like the empty eye sockets of a skull. On their sleeves, they wore a strange three-pronged white insignia, three stylized arrowheads facing outwards from the center, together forming a downwards-pointing triangle. Above that, a second triangle which pointed outwards, depicting a stylized eye with rays spreading out in a radial pattern around it and separating the two, in angry, blocky human letters, were words she couldn't read, but whose meaning she already suspected.
"Princess," came the already familiar voice of that all-too-clever Terran warlord as he stepped into her view, his stormcloud eyes sweeping over her with clinical concern as he took note of her injuries. "There's no time to waste, the station is under attack and we have to get to safety," he called out, holstering his handgun as he strode towards her while his soldiers took up defensive positions. Valyra did not loosen her grip upon her shardblade, for she knew better than to lower her guard or place her trust in anyone, after what transpired. As if sensing her wariness, he held his gloved hands out in a conciliatory manner that was a near-universal gesture signaling peaceful intent. "Look. I know you have no reason to trust me, but right now, I'm the only chance you have at making it off this station alive. So, I need you to listen to me and follow, because this position will soon be swarming with hostiles and we don't have the numbers to hold all of them off."
That seemed to finally snap her thoughts back into focus, for she nodded once, sheathing her blade, then winced as she took a step towards him, her injury rapidly sapping her strength and causing her knees to buckle. Kainan was at her side in the blink of an eye, his arms already around her to catch her before she fell, mindful to avoid the bleeding gash across her side. "Keep pressure on that," he said, his features twisting in a frown as he took in her condition. She looked like she'd been through hell, her usually luminous complexion pale, hair disheveled and aquamarine eyes deprived of that shine he'd come to know. He swore under his breath, then nodded to his guards, who fanned out in front of them, their weapons drawn, as they made their way towards the pre-planned escape route, one of many he had mapped out and long ago prepared. "My ship…" she managed a mutter, her voice fainter than he'd ever heard it. "Is compromised," he answered her. "I'll get you to safety and we can talk about the next step later, but right now, we have to get off this station before either the Dra'var'th, or the traitors set off the self-destruct."
Clutching her tightly against his chest, he led their small procession through the winding interior of the dying space station, far away from the main corridors and elevators that would undoubtedly be swarming with enemies. He took the side routes, the far less glamorous shafts and passages reserved for maintenance personnel and cargo. Here, the air smelled like ozone and coolant fluid, combined with the acrid tang of electronics running hot, while the silence was replaced by the low hum of machinery and the faint buzzing of power conduits.
It was when they reached the cargo lift that would take them to the hangar bays, that they encountered their first foes. As they rounded that final corner, they came face to face with a squad of six traitorous paladins, who were busy finishing off a group of terrified human mechanics. Kainan's eyes took in the scene, then snapped to Valyra, speaking to her in a firm and weary tone that sent chills running down her spine and caused her adrenaline to surge. "I need you to hold on for a moment while we deal with them. Stand back and don't do anything dangerous, you're in no condition to fight," Kainan said to her and gently lowered her to the cold, metallic flooring of the corridor, leaving her leaning heavily against the bulkhead as he turned to face the royal guards.
Valyra's eyebrows contorted in a frown, that cold dread still sending shivers surging through her frame as she watched him and his soldiers step calmly forward to what would surely be their deaths. Even if these Terrans had some measure of attunement to the Veil, what could three humans do against twice their number of the galaxy's greatest and most lethal warriors? What followed next, was something she could never have imagined.
The royal guards drew their blades and stood there, as if challenging the humans to open fire with their primitive guns, weapons that would surely prove useless against their psionic might and prowess in the ancient art of Rinathay. In a sense, that was exactly what the Terrans did, though it took her mind a few moments to process what she saw and sensed. One moment, the two groups were standing there, facing each other. And then, Kainan stepped forward, his handgun appearing in his grip pointed not at the Alvari, but sideways and downwards, diagonally. The shot rang out and she could feel a psionic pulse. And then the bullet struck one of the guardsmen, from above.
As if that was the signal they had been waiting for, the other two Terrans exploded into action before the traitorous Alvari paladins could even process what just happened. If the Alvari art of Rinathay was a deadly, fluid dance of graceful, endless motion, what these humans did was the exact opposite. They did not so much as move, as snap from one stance to another, like clay figures in a stop-motion animation. There was no wasted energy, no graceful flourish or unneeded movement, only psionics, confusion and lethal precision.
Step. shot. Sidestep. Shot. Half-turn. Another shot. Kainan and his warriors, whom she would later learn were called the Psi Corps, snapped from stance to stance like machines recalibrating themselves into a new position, rather than the flowing, graceful motions she would expect of psionically-gifted warriors. And even with her psionic senses, she could not read their intended targets, or visualize the bullet trajectories in their minds, for it was as if they were each calculating a dozen different vectors at the same time.
Their primitive chemical firearms turned into veritable instruments of carnage by their psionic abilities, the humans carved a bloody swathe of ballistic destruction through the squad of Alvari royal guardsmen, unleashing a hailstorm of projectiles that somehow, impossibly, always found their mark. The paladins first tried what adepts of the Rinathay always relied upon when facing opponents wielding ranged weapons, but without the psionic precognition, their flowing movements were useless against the Terran bullets. And caught by surprise, such as they were, their mental defenses down and not expecting psionic capability from the humans, they were unable to process information fast enough to regain the initiative through telepathic attacks, while the increasingly desperate telekinetic blasts they attempted to unleash were simply countered by the humans with their own abilities.
Up close, bladesingers trained in the Willow Dance were lethal, unmatched warriors. But the humans countered that by simply not allowing them to close the distance. They just kept snapping from one position to another, their guns spewing tungsten missiles that wove and zigzagged their way into armpits, beneath helmets, or into the gaps between armor plating, where flexible, but less protective material fared poorly against small lumps of metal accelerated to lethal velocity.
Three paladins went down before either Valyra, or the traitors, could even register what happened. The last three bladesingers attempted to fan out and converge upon their foes in a multi-pronged assault from different directions, using some cargo crates as cover. Kainan intercepted the first one before the guardswoman completed her second step, his gun snapping out into a lunge that reminded Valyra of a fencer's thrust – if immortalized into a statue by a sculptor's hand. The shot rang out and this time, she could sense the small, psionic barriers he'd conjured, small fields of concentrated energy his bullet bounced off of as it made its way around his opponent's own feeble attempt at a psionic shield. He sidestepped the second paladin, halting his spin to fire at the third, while a telekinetic pulse sent the warrior whose blade he had just dodged, straight into the path of one of the other Psi Corps soldiers' shotgun.
The blast rang out, flechette darts corkscrewing outwards like a deadly, metal flower, then abruptly veered inwards. The paladin's hastily erected psionic barrier managed to halt the first one and somehow, the Alvari managed to dodge out of the way of a second, only for the third and fourth projectiles to slam into the back of his right knee joint and left elbow, respectively. Kainan spun and fired, a near-point-blank shot that speared through the mangled paladin's neck, spraying lapis-lazuli blood all over the stack of janitorial supplies he hadn't even finished falling into.
Then, the human warlord turned his gaze back upon the last remaining paladin, the one he'd shot while simultaneously dodging the other. The bladesinger was feebly crawling back towards the cargo lift, his morale clearly shattered as waves of panic radiated off of him. And judging by his lack of movement in the lower portions of his body, it was clear to see why, for the warlord's bullet had severed the poor bastard's spine. It would have been a scene worthy of pity, had the alien not been a vile traitor. One of Kainan's soldiers ended the Alvari's misery with a clean shot to the back of his neck, right below the helmet.
The entire exchange had taken place over the span of but a few seconds, that was all the time the humans needed to neutralize their foes. To even call it a battle, would be at once an understatement and a gross exaggeration of what had transpired, as the Terrans had systematically decimated twice their number of Alvari warriors with the mechanical precision of a maintenance robot picking apart a malfunctioning engine. To watch them fight, was like watching a mathematical equation unfolding right before one's eyes, all geometry and angles and impossible precision.
Valyra didn't know whether to be impressed, or horrified by the display. And in her current state, she wasn't really capable of deciding between either. And as Kainan lifted her back into his arms, her features twisted into an expression that was somewhere between embarrassment, frustration and relief. Strange, she thought, that he could inflict such savage violence one moment, only to gently cradle her the next.
~~~~
The hangar they emerged into, was swarming with humans and their allies, all crowding around the assembled assortment of starships and nervously eyeing the scene unfolding past the forcefield, into the black void beyond. The Alvari flagship, the Lightfall Upon Still Waters, was exchanging fire with the two Terran battlecarriers that had been, a mere day before, its ceremonial escorts, while simultaneously vaporizing anything that tried to leave the station. And as things were, the outlook appeared to be rather grim. One of the Terran supercapitals was spinning lazily around its axis, lights flickering across its hull as systems failed, while venting plasma from two dozen gaping holes, like a dying beast. And yet, even with its final, fading breaths, the human vessel kept firing, its main and secondary railgun batteries pouring a hail of tungsten darts upon the dreadnought, which sadly failed to penetrate its shields.
"Your majesty," a Terran officer called out, saluting as she approached at a brisk pace. A grim-faced woman in her forties, with flame-kissed hair bound into a severe ponytail. She might have once been a breathtaking beauty, though now a horrid scar ran across half her visage and a whirring cybernetic prosthesis had replaced her long-lost eye. Her lips formed a thin, stiff line as her sight fell upon the half-unconscious Alvari heiress cradled in the warlord's arms. The warlord cut her off before she could even introduce herself. "I need a medic. Now," Kainan barked at her and sent her scurrying off back the way she came. The princess' condition was worsening by the minute and he did not like how much blood she was losing.
He lowered her onto the antigrav stretcher the haggard-looking team of summoned medics brought along and to his dismay, her biometric readings were not painting an optimistic picture. She was fading, fast and even the ministrations of the medics might not be enough to save her life. If she were to perish here, it would practically erase any hope humanity had of surviving what was coming, let alone achieve their goals. So, as the medics brought her to the field hospital they'd improvised in a corner of the hangar, he did the one thing he could, a thing he had learned by observing the Dra'var'th pitmasters using their vile powers to feed off their hapless thralls' suffering. It was a technique he hated, which would leave him drained for days, if not weeks, at a time when he could not afford any kind of weakness. A psionic transfer, an exchange of vital energy from one being to another. It would sustain her weakened body, at least for a little while, hopefully long enough for the medics to save her life.
With a sigh, Kainan sat on a folding chair beside her and took her elegant, slender hand in his, while sitting far enough away to let the medics to their work on the other side of the improvised operating table. He closed his eyes, reaching out into the Veil, then letting his psionic power pour into her like a steady, life-giving stream. It was, in essence, the reverse of what the Dra'var'th did to their victims, a dangerous and difficult exchange that linked one being to another in a way that left a permanent, lingering connection, like the afterimage of a foreign touch upon one's soul.
As he linked with her, he could sense her consciousness, lingering there, at the edge of oblivion, fraying and fading with each passing moment. He reached for her and, diving deeper into the Veil, ignoring the sudden spike of pain in his head, his iron will pushing back against the darkness that threatened to consume them both. He wrapped that iron will around her, coiled tight, then pulled, like a swimmer dragging a drowning person from the ocean's cold embrace. At first, she recoiled, instinctively fighting against his unfamiliar echo with everything she had. And he could sense faint glimmers of her memories, not images, just… impressions. Of her childhood on her ancient and mysterious homeworld, her frustrations with her sheltered, cloistered palace life. Echoes of pain and loss, of love and joy and the all too familiar sour sting of betrayal. It was an empathic connection that couldn't be properly described in any of the languages he knew, almost like one shared between two beings who had known each other their entire lives. It also felt wrong, profoundly so, as if he had stolen something private, something that had not been shared willingly with him.
His eyes snapped open just as the medics finished dressing her wound in antiseptic gel and medical polymer, the stitches looking red and ugly through the transparent bandages, on her otherwise flawless, silken skin. Kainan tore his gaze away, then had to fight through waves of nausea and violent convulsions, the consequences of what he had done to save her life. He felt as if he had been run over by a mining rover, then spaced into the cold, black emptiness of space, while simultaneously having molten metal poured into his veins.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts and clenched his fist tight enough that the implanted talons on his fingers pierced through the tough leather of his gloves and into the flesh of his palms, a trickle of crimson blood dripping from his palm onto the cold plating of the deck. He wish he could just sit there, slumped on that stool and let the darkness claim him, but rest was a luxury for ordinary men, not the ruler of the human race. So, against his body's protests, he pushed himself upright, he forced himself to stand, then took a step and then another, the medics eyeing him wearily, unsure whether to leave him be, or rush to his aid. He waved them off, following along as they transferred Valyra to a cot, then draped his ash-gray coat over her slender form to protect whatever modesty she had left, as her ruined, bloodstained nightgown did not afford her much of that.
He left her on the medical cot, under the supervision of a tired medic just as Second Chieftain Ur-Kagga found him, the Orkyn having exchanged his ceremonial hunting robes for a set of combat armor and a visor, though he'd kept the carved bone charms bound among his dreadlocks, along with a necklace of beast claws from his homeworld and a furred cape that no doubt came from the hide of a mighty predator the Orkyn had personally hunted. He carried a thumper, a kind of Orkyn weapon that vaguely resembled an oversized tube with a rifle stock, which could fire electrified darts that were about half a foot long and could be remotely detonated after nailing whichever poor soul happened to be hit by it, to the nearest wall. "This does not look good, warlord. We are pinned down in here and Dra'noth, the wretched carrion feeder that he is, has overridden the station's defenses," the green-skinned alien grunted in his native tongue, which fortunately, Kainan understood. "Do we know where he's holed up?" he inquired, a hint of his imperious presence slowly returning to his voice.
"Mhmm. The backup command center, hiding like the skrog he is, while his minions carry out his butchery for him," the Orkyn responded. "Well, at least we know how he disabled our defenses. I'm guessing the way there is crawling with paladins and reapers, otherwise you'd have already organized a war party to take it back," continued Kainan. The Orkyn's sullen grunt confirmed what he suspected.
"Alright. I'll take half the Psi Corps operatives, along with six of your best Hunters and… are there any Black Hive among the Chett delegation?" he said to the Orkyn and reached for a spare ballistic vest from one of the crates before the chieftain stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "You look like you got chewed up by a pack of kolgar," the Orkyn chieftain commented as he took in the Terran's appearance. Kainan grimaced. He'd faced those things in the Dra'var'th arenas, what felt like a lifetime ago. Six-limbed predators from the Orkyn homeworld, the size of a rhinoceros and equipped by nature with two pairs of massive fangs that could shear through a bar of steel. "I feel like it, too, but we don't have a choice. We need all the psions we can get, if we're to deal with multiple squads of both reapers and paladins and if we wait too long, they'll either reach this hangar and overrun us, or we'll just get blown up along with the station when they set off the self-destruct."
~~~~
The warlord wiped the smear of pitch-black Dra'var'th blood from his forehead as he withdrew his combat knife from the corpse of the reaper he'd just slain. The black-clad soldier's comrades hadn't fared much better and the last two survivors of their squad, were in the process of being dispatched by the three Black Hive the human warlord managed to recruit, the ringing, high-pitched sound of their needlers reverberating across the bloodsoaked corridor.
Overhead, the emergency lights blinked in and out, painting the station in an ominous red light that told him the self-destruct sequence had been initiated and they were running out of time. He picked up his rifle and checked the magazine – only eight rounds left, not good, considering they hadn't even reached their destination yet and his allies weren't faring any better, half of the Orkyn Hunters having switched to their carbide axes to conserve what few thumper rounds they had left, while the four surviving Psi Corps operatives were also down to their last mags.
Reaching this deep into the enemy-occupied station had cost the warband dearly, having lost half their numbers to Alvari shardblades and Dra'var'th scorchers, weapons that spat bolts of magnetically-contained plasma at their targets, that both exploded and ignited on impact, severing limbs and setting what remained on fire. Between the losses they had suffered and their depleting stock of ammunition, the situation was rapidly becoming desperate. But the biggest problem and the reason they hadn't yet managed to complete their mission, was the pair of massive sliding blast doors which stood between them and their target, which were still sealed shut. That Dra'noth learned of the secondary command center's existence was already bad enough. Worse yet was the fact that it had been designed with only one way in and out and equipped with doors that could withstand a direct impact from a capital ship-grade railgun. The Myiori engineer they'd brought along was working on the problem, but whatever virus the Dra'var'th had infected the computer systems with, was proving to be a challenge.
At least they wouldn't have to deal with Dra'noth and his bodyguards, as the self-destruct countdown being activated could only mean the vile bastard had already scurried off to safety and was likely already aboard his ship and light-years away from here by now. It also meant the way back would be more or less clear, as their foes should, by now, be in the process of tending to their own evacuation.
"Got it, yes, yes!" chirped the diminutive Myiori, letting out a shrill, triumphant whistle as she finally managed to bypass the draconian lock the Dra'noth had placed on the doors. "Good work, Yana," Kainan responded to her. He knew that in her species' culture, it was an important gesture of respect to take the time to acknowledge one's hard work and achievements, no matter whatever else may have been going on at any given time.
The war party marched cautiously into the command center, weapons raised and on a swivel, weary of whatever nasty surprises the Dra'var'th undoubtedly had left behind for them. True enough, aside from the usual proximity mines and one particularly pesky automated turret, the portable kind that could be deployed in the field, they also found that the computer consoles themselves, had been rigged with a variety of explosives, charge shards designed to inflict a very painful and very lethal electric shock on anyone who triggered her and even a particularly nasty canister of gas, hooked up to a motion sensor and loaded with a toxin that would simultaneously paralyze and slowly dissolve whoever it came in contact with, into a puddle of goo on the floor.
It took them the better part of fifteen minutes to disable all the booby-traps, fifteen long minutes that felt like an eternity when the clock was counting down towards their imminent demise. And the mainframe itself was, predictably, just as badly scrambled as the doors had been. "Oh, this is not good, no, no…" said Yana in that quick, chitter-chatter manner of her species. She was already sat at the main console, her fingers flying over the keyboard faster than even Kainan's eyes could register. "I can either disable the self-destruct sequence, or the lock on the defenses, but we won't have time for both. The Dra'var'th virus has a failsafe designed to fry all the computer terminals once either of those things are tampered with."
Kainan spat out a string of profanities in Colonial, two Orkyn languages and one obscure Myiori dialect that made Yana's fluffy fur shiver with what passed for her species' equivalent of a blush, while the Black Hive assassins buzzed and clicked their mandibles in what was the Chett way of expressing mild amusement, though it was normally impossible for humans to understand Chett communication without the aid of a translation matrix and an infonet relay. The Pact had circumvented that problem in a simple, yet ingenious Terran way, inventing a sign language with gestures that both species could perform. It wasn't perfect, but it got the job done and more importantly, it had allowed them to plot and scheme without relying on Council technology that was closely monitored.
Right now, though, no one had time to ponder such things. "Get the defenses online. Shutting down the self-destruct won't matter if we can't get our ships past that dreadnought, which could destroy this station, anyway," Kainan instructed. The diminutive Myiori chirped once, then got to work while Kainan tapped his comlink and patched into the channel that connected him with the Second Chieftain, whom he'd left in charge of the hangar bay while he led the mission to retake the secondary command center. "Chieftain, I need you to get everyone aboard the ships right now! We're bringing the defenses back online, but we can't shut down the self-destruct. As soon as the guns force that dreadnought to change its position, start the evacuation! I repeat, don't wait for us, start evacuating as soon as the ships can safely leave the hangar!"
With that, he shut off his comlink, not waiting for the grumbling protests his old friend was sure to respond with. "Everyone else, check your mags, patch your wounds and be ready to run as soon as Yana's finished! Anyone too injured to keep up, is to be carried by his comrades!"
No one protested that order and not even the Chett needed to have its meaning relayed to them in signs, to know its meaning. With the computer systems as scrambled as they were, they had no way of even knowing how much time they had left until the countdown timer hit zero and the whole station became a miniature star.
~~~~
The air felt like it was burning in his lungs as he and his companions sprinted back towards the impromptu fortified position in the hangar bay where the ships that were to be their salvation, their way off the dying station, awaited them. Around them, the station shuddered with great, rumbling tremors that rattled every loose deck plate, wall panel and poorly-fitted ventilation grate as the great, defensive batteries fired volley after volley of kinetic vengeance upon the Alvari dreadnought.
They hadn't gone back the way they came. Kainan couldn't risk the longer, safer route through maintenance corridors and hidden service compartments. They took the direct way towards their destination, through the station's main corridors, once filled with the roaring chorus of the voices of diplomats, officials and the station's countless maintenance and security workers, now eerily silent aside from the electronic blaring of the warning klaxons and the macabre sound of dripping blood. He had known what to expect, but even so, the scenes he'd come across as he traversed the station, nearly made his stomach turn. Every hallway, every chamber, every stairwell, lift and office, was filled with cooling bodies and all the floors were slick and slippery with blood.
The treacherous Alvari paladins and the Dra'var'th reapers especially, had been thorough in hunting down and murdering every living being they could find, at least in the main area. And while the Alvari had been swift, efficient killers in the manner of their species, the horned fuckers had taken their time, leaving behind displays ripped straight from a hellish nightmare that told the gruesome story of how the last moments of their victims, had played out. More ghosts to haunt his nightmares. Later. If he survived…
Kainan pushed the grim thoughts out of his mind and concentrated on not slipping on the bloodsoaked decks. He had ditched the now-useless rifle and carried one of the wounded Chett on his back, the Black Hive having been clipped by a Dra'var'th scorcher during their mad scramble to retake the command center, leaving one of its spindly insectoid legs partially impaired. It, not he, Kainan had to remind himself, for the spindly Chett were an eusocial species and did not have genders in the same way humans had. Alongside him, Yana huffed and puffed, panting as her short and stubby legs moved like a blur, the diminutive Myiori a deceptively swift and agile species. She had pouted at his order to discard her tools, but had eventually complied, as the need to shed every bit of unnecessary weight did not require explanation.
The Orkyn and his fellow Terrans fared somewhat better, both species being built to be long distance runners, with the constitution to perform such feats of endurance. By the time they reached their destination, they all looked like they'd been picked up by a cyclone and tossed about, or, as Orguroth had put it earlier, as if they'd been chased by a pack of frenzied kolgar. As he finally set down the insectoid, Kainan felt like his muscles were about to fall off of his bones while a grenade was going off in his lungs. To his relief, almost all the survivors who had congregated in the hangar, had made it off the station. Out beyond the forcefield, the Alvari dreadnought was no longer visible, as it had retreated to a safer fighting distance under the combined assault from the pair of stricken Terran battlecarriers and the station's defense guns, the lights flickering in the distance, along with the rumble of the railguns and the occasional whining shriek of an Alvari energy lance hitting a turret, being the only indicators that the battle was still going on.
Despite his orders, Kainan discovered that the Orkyn chieftain was still there in the hangar, refusing to see to his own safety until the Terran warlord and his war party returned. Kainan was too damned tired and too grateful to reprimand him. Instead, his concern turned to Valyra, whose condition he still did not know about. "The princess…" he muttered as his lungs fought for air. He reached up to touch his right shoulder and when he pulled his fingers back, he found them bloodied. Sometime, either as he fought his way to reach the Alvari heiress, or during the mad scramble to reactivate the station's defenses, he must have torn the stitches.
"Still unconscious, but she's stable," the Orkyn leader responded as he unclipped his water canteen from his belt and tossed it to Kainan, who wasted no time pouring half its contents down his throat and the other half over his head. "The medics are preparing her for transport now."
Good. That was good, Kainan thought. He reached out to clasp the Orkyn chieftain's forearm in a gesture of respect. "Well, old friend, this is it. The day has finally arrived," said Orguroth, a solemn look on his weathered features. Before he turned to board his vessel, he reached up behind himself and bound his graying dreadlocks in a rough knot, a gesture mirrored by every Orkyn still present with a kind of solemn reverence that would be difficult to understand for those who did not know the customs of their culture. It was a gesture meant to herald that which was to come.
Kainan nodded, then responded by saluting in the Terran manner, heels clicking and hand raised to his temple. This was what they had been preparing for, both the opportunity they had eagerly anticipated and the great danger that they dreaded. "Good luck, old friend," he responded, then turned towards the sleek Terran deep-space interceptor the medics were moving the princess to. As he strode towards the ramp, he spared a glance out at the empty void beyond the forcefield, then back to the now-empty, dying station, his stormcloud eyes solemn as he muttered grimly under his breath. "And so, it begins..."