Sigil of the Wolf - 19. Chapter 19

HMS Excalibur - en-route to Taïrian Space

Darien rested a hand against his forehead as he stared down at the Peligian diary, turning pages again, trying to glean something from the pen scratches that would give him some insight into the Amsus plan.

Everything revolved around the proplyons, death and rebirth, and time.

VonGrippen had made the search to bring his wife back from the dead. Darien wondered if he could do the same, bring the man he loved back from whichever dark place Evans had sent him on Rikard's bequest.

The problem lay in finding Peligia, a place lost to the ages... a place one man had found and promptly gone insane...

"What did you see there?" Darien wondered, sitting back in his chair. He hadn't changed; the ship was cruising to link up with the transports and he hadn't bothered to remove the TER-SEC uniform. They were still picking up the pieces in the aftermath of the last battle, and experience taught him that his place was in his stateroom waiting for the reports to come in, and not on the bridge breathing down his crew's necks.

He sat staring at the picture of VonGrippen sitting on a side shelf, the regal old man staring back, as if daring Darien to put it all together. A wily silver fox, elusive and cunning...

Darien stood and walked around the desk, staring at the picture and beyond it at his own reflection in the glass of the frame. They were different men, different paths bringing them to the same obsession for similar reasons. But their eyes were the same, dark with the same weight of responsibility weighing down on them. Men of different times sharing the same pressures.

"What did you see?" Darien asked the picture again, "Did you see what would happen if you didn't leave?" he searched that face, the lines that creased it, "What could be worse than what the Amsus did to us?"

He turned his head away from the picture, remembering the devastation of Ararat and the Zemûn people. "You saw what would happen if we won," he replied tiredly.

"Highlord?" Mayfair asked from the doorway.

Darien turned to the Colonel, Mayfair standing easily despite being out of uniform. The two men remained silent awhile, as Darien rested a hand on the Peligian diary.

"I was just wondering what would have happened had we won the war." Darien remarked.

"My life would be a lot less interesting," Mayfair responded with a simple shrug, "I came to tell you that repairs are underway, and that our guests are sharing a set of officers' quarters..."

Darien winced. "Mister Denver must appreciate that..."

"He was mildly put out," Mayfair said with a smirk, "But we have nowhere else onboard..." He paused and looked at the young Highlord, "With respects, sir... permission to speak freely."

Darien sat down in his chair, looking up at the Colonel. "We've been building to this one, haven't we?"

Mayfair nodded. "That we have." He sat in one of the chairs before the desk, resting his hands on the leather arms, picking his words with care. "You attacked another Imperial ship..." he said calmly, "I couldn't support you in that."

"I know." Darien responded calmly, meeting Mayfair's gaze levelly.

"I should try to arrest you, but we both know that this is your ship, and your crew are near fanatical when it comes to obeying you..." Mayfair shook his head, "I don't agree with what Iver's done, but I can't condone you attacking other Imperials..."

"This isn't about yellow, red...or whatever," Darien said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the TER-SEC badge and tossing it on the desk. "It used to be about the law... somewhere along the way I think we all got a little lost in what badges and symbols stand for, instead of recognizing what the men who wore them stood for."

Mayfair picked up the circular badge, looking down at it.

"Bloody mess..." he shook his head again slowly, "I serve Walker von Karin, not General Iver... there's a right way and a wrong way to stop him..." He held up the badge. "I hold you to a higher standard than I do other men, you're Highlord Taine. You're an Imperial Hero, not a cutthroat pirate, and you're not General Iver... I expect more from my heroes."

"I'm just a man..." Darien said simply.

"It's not about what you think you are," Mayfair said, standing up and handing the badge back to the Highlord. "Permission to return to full duty, Highlord?"

"Granted, Colonel." Darien said, turning the badge over in his hands as the Colonel left the stateroom, looking up again at the picture of the old warlord.

"Ever feel like you're being pulled in every which way?" Darien asked, rubbing his forehead against the budding headache, "Everyone having expectations of who you are, and what you should do?" He looked down at the journal, and up again, "Peligia..."

He activated VonGrippen's files, staring at the nonsensical star maps, the ones that directed him to empty regions of space, without any form of logic behind them. Four systems that seemed completely unrelated...

"Computer, chart these systems," he ordered, looking up at the map that formed in front of him: four pinpricks of red light amidst the myriad of stars.

VonGrippen was a cunning man, what was it he'd written in his meditations? The best place to hide was out in the open, in the middle of...

"Computer, draw lines from these systems towards a central point..." The computer complied, drawing yellow lines that intersected in a single system, the Krasnïan system at the far end of the Hagarn trade corridor, deep in the heart of Amsus territory.

* * *

"The joy is missing," Kyr said, poking his food idly and looking around the coldly sedate mess hall, crewmen eating in silence, painfully aware of the empty seats in their midst. They were trapped behind the lines, the ship's ordinance dangerously low, relying on pilots that no longer had an edge.

He'd been hesitant when Masconi had requested they break into the stimulant supply onboard ship. The Combat Air Patrol was thin enough, stretched to cover the Kardiac transports, and with the significantly diminished flight roster the pilots were asked to fly longer and harder than they had been before. And while the stimulants would keep them awake and able to fly longer, they'd be dealing with the side effects and resulting addictions for months.

The cracks were beginning to show in the ship's crew. There was no relief in sight, and no safe port waiting for them. They were on the run from the Empire as well as the Amsus. Kyr had already treated injuries where Karin Marines and the ship's crew had scuffled. Tensions were high, even for the young Kaynin, who used to rely on a small engineer to put a smile on his face.

"It's war," Nazzien said, tiredly dipping his spoonful of baked beans into the relish.

"Don't you miss the way it was?" Kyr pressed, "I don't know, the way it was when all this started..."

"You mean when Elias was... here." Nazzien replied. He looked about him and leaned forward. "I remember when I first got onboard that rust pile down on the flight deck..."

"The Dragonfly?" Kyr asked with a grin.

"Damn death trap with engines, and there was this guy with a hero complex and his plucky sidekick sitting there out to save the day in it." Nazzien grinned, "I bet Shale twenty we were going to be dead before the end of the first week..." He paused, realizing the implications of what winning that bet would mean for him.

Kyr turned his head as the Gorean ambassador slithered into the mess hall. Mister Xanatos, polite to a fault, waited his turn in line like everyone else, save for the fact that he was easily as big as three human beings. He gripped his tray, eagerly eyeing the pots that contained some noxious stew the junior chefs had thrown together and were serving up in the hope that they could keep the crew happy.

"That's it... Joy time!" the doctor intoned, getting up on the table...

* * *

Darien sat behind his desk, staring aghast at the sheepish-looking doctor who was picking stew out of his hair, standing between a pair of MPs who had apparently broken up a food fight in the mess hall. A food fight, allegedly started by the doctor, and finished by a rather enthusiastic Gorean ambassador...

"It's joy time?" Darien asked, looking down at the piece of paper in his hands and back up at Kyr.

"Well..." Kyr said, shifting from one foot to the other, "I was sitting there thinking what would Matt Elias do... and that's when it hit me..."

"To start a food fight?"

"No, the spoon full of mashed potatoes junior gunner's mate Carmichaels threw at me..." Kyr replied, matter-of-factly.

"Was this before or after your rendition of 'Oh come all ye faithful' in Polian?" Darien asked, trying his best to keep a straight face.

"After that, just before I was to sing 'Oh Danny boy'... you know, I think the crew has a thing against Karaoke..." Kyr shrugged.

Darien blinked and shook his head at the small doctor. "Ordinarily I'd ask you to report to the ship's doctor to get your head examined..."

"You know," Kyr grinned sheepishly, "They say laughter is the best medicine..."

Darien shook his head, giving in and laughing himself. With all that had occurred, it felt good to just let go, and he sank back into his chair chuckling. "Go get showered, before you drip more Irish stew on the deck plates..."

"Highlord..." Kyr said, looking up at Darien, "Your crew are tired, demoralized and looking to you for some kind of sign..."

Darien nodded his head, getting up slowly and gathering up his battered leather jacket that he slipped over the TER-SEC uniform. "You're right Doctor, we need some good news..."

He exited his stateroom, making his way down through the ship, fingers rubbing his brow as he formulated what he wanted to say. They needed an alliance, it was the only way that the Imperial lines were going to hold, and desperate times called for desperate alliances.

Taine found him still in the midst of the upturned mess hall, sitting behind the dining counter as maintenance crews worked to clean up the mess. The ambassador was dipping a ladle into the pot and gulping down the stew as if it were a gourmet meal, ignoring the fact that food still clung to some of his matte brass scales.

"Highlord Taine," Xanatos greeted, stirring the pot again and holding the ladle out, "Your crew knows how to enjoy, yes?"

"They have their moments," Darien said, picking his way across the floor, and resting against the counter, "But that's not all they know how to do. They know how to fight as well."

"So I saw," Xanatos remarked, picking out a bit of sausage caught between two of his scales, "Valiant warriors, impressive..."

"I... we... that is, the Empire needs the help of the Gorean Imperium." Darien said cautiously.

"Highlord Taine, as I told your Lord Walker, the Gorean Imperium has no war with the Amsus Hegemony."

"Not yet," Darien replied, "but it will. So far the Empire has managed to keep them back, but once they begin to expand into the Apilon Rift with Polian technology..."

"The Polians..." Xanatos huffed, rearing back, drawing to his full height and towering over the small human, "You should have vaporized their world, done us all a favour..."

"I did the right thing," Darien kept his tone even, "It may not have been the best thing for the Empire, but morally it was the right thing to do."

"It is foolish to not slay an enemy while you have a clean blow," Xanatos said, settling and resting his large head on the counter looking at the human Highlord with a large yellow eye, "You will come to regret not allowing them to die."

"You have a chance to fight the Amsus now, with a clear beachhead and a powerful ally," Darien said calmly, "They have a set of proplyons." He was playing a hunch, and he wanted to see if it panned out.

The Gorean ambassador fluffed his scales, unsettled by the mention of the Peligian device. "What know you, a human, of the Peligians?"

"I know enough," Darien replied, "Enough to know that if the Amsus have found Peligia, and they are in possession of Propylons, it doesn't matter where in the universe you are, you are no longer safe from their reach."

The Gorean's clawed hand streaked out and caught Darien neatly, picking the Highlord up lightly, setting him down on the counter, as the Gorean shifted his bulk to gape his massive jaws at the human.

"The Gorean reach is just as far, Highlord Taine, and we don't fear our food."

Darien remained calm, staring into the creature's eyes. "But you do fear Pax, and I am his heir."

Xanatos drew back a little, surprised at the little human's bold declaration. "You are no VonGrippen..."

Darien smiled a cold, hard smile. "No, I'm Taine," he said firmly, "Now tell me, what would your kind prefer? Remain shut away in your little corner of the universe waiting for the Amsus to come, or take the fight to them, at my side."

Xanatos coiled his tail tightly around the serving counter as he settled back. "Do you know that the Pax once fought one of my kind? A great warrior named Xier, prime of his brood, a great red who inspired terror in those who followed him as well as his enemies... VonGrippen was venerable, sixty of your Terran years, and yet he prevailed. On land, at sea, and in the great vastness of space, he prevailed." Xanatos leaned back, resting his arms on the counter. "You may wear his colours, but you have not proven yourself worthy of being the heir to the Pax..."

"Give me a chance, and I will." Darien said resolutely, "Join the Empire..."

Xanatos huffed again. "If we were to join your fight, it will be as equal partners, not as your slaves..."

Darien nodded. "Side by side."

"Very well... Pax," Xanatos settled back to poking his pot of stew, "I will place your terms to the Gorean council, but do not appear too hopeful, we have little to gain from helping you..."

"And everything to lose if you don't." Darien replied, stepping down from the counter.

"The road to Peligia is bathed in blood." Xanatos called after him.

Darien turned in the doorway. "Maybe, but I won't be deterred."

"Then you must start with Ordessus," Xanatos called out, "The Amsus have been diverting a lot of resources there."

* * *

Rikard drew back. Leaving his cabin wasn't a problem; the Excalibur was home to several thousand souls all crammed together. It was one of those souls in particular Rikard sought to avoid.

It had taken all of his guile to discover her duty cycle, a pretty young gunnery officer proving so helpful as he had found just the right way to ask her questions; simple seduction was a powerful weapon to one unafraid to use it. At least she was satisfied, and as long as he avoided the bridge and specific off-duty areas, he would be able to avoid the First Officer for the time being.

He was out of place there, aboard that warship, Marines and equipment everywhere. Imperials lacked the clean discipline of the Amsus troopers or the bloodthirsty efficiency of the Inquisitors. It had been one of the prime reasons he had created the Amsus in the first place, to remove the constant chaos and unpredictability from the battlefield.

His suit was rumpled and he did his best to pull it straight self-consciously. Excalibur was a busy ship, there were many people about and they barely seemed to notice the dishevelled businessman in their midst. Word had gotten around the ship about the guests and he was treated with a few friendly nods as he went.

He turned, getting his bearings; the ship had changed since he had last been aboard her, one of the many state functions years before the fall of the old Empire. If he made a right... he came out into a large bay that hadn't been there before. Towering Imperial Mechs, surrounded by Marine technicians servicing the four-legged automatons. Hellhounds waiting for war...

He stepped back into the hall he had just exited, trying to retrace his steps of three hundred years past, turning again and finding the small security monitoring station he had been looking for.

It was secured, like many were, behind a large blast plate, and while the new Imperial crew were efficient, they weren't as familiar with Imperial starship architecture as the former Chancellor was. The security station was just small enough to have been overlooked over the years.

He loitered a moment, waiting for the hall to clear, before he triggered the latches on the hidden door, slipping inside and securing it behind him, glad to see that the dust covers had remained undisturbed in the small room. Pulling them free, he began to activate the various monitoring stations.

In a time long past, Imperial State Security officers stationed aboard Imperial vessels would use stations such as that one to monitor the ship. The room contained a powerful independent communications array as well as a remote station that tied directly into the ship's computer.

Rikard leaned down and tapped in an old code he knew wouldn't have been changed. Why bother changing Imperial State Security codes? Especially since the organization that had used them no longer existed to tell anyone about them.

The computer sprang obediently to life, feeding him with data about the ship. VonGrippen had been a clever man when he had left the Excalibur's computer in place, clean and free of the usual State Security countermeasures that would ensure starship loyalty. But he had been naïve in the belief that State Security wouldn't attempt to insert another computer system aboard the ship. He inputted his command lines, placing a series of communiqués using the FTL comm system.

He pulled the small remote unit from its bracket, pre-programming the system as he slipped it into his breast pocket, checking the Propylon actuator strapped to his wrist. He was ready.

He sat back, proud of his handiwork, looking up at the bridge monitor to where she worked. He smiled to himself as he reached out a hand and touched her cheek on the screen.

"My dear," he murmured, "You have no idea how valuable you are about to become to me."

* * *

Edward pressed himself back, trying to be as small as he could as the roar of the siren got closer and swept past. Karin police forces were trying to help wherever they could, but they were woefully under-equipped to deal with the Amsus raiding parties. He stayed quiet, knowing that the siren did nothing but alert the Amsus that a new target was approaching.

He listened to the squeal of tires, the sound of bullets ricocheting off of armour plating, before he watched the police car frantically try to back up the way it had come, automatic weapon fire slamming into it seconds before it crashed into a storefront, the two officers trying to return fire, hopelessly out-gunned.

He was close to the temple, but the Amsus seemed especially thick in that section of the city, and while he tried to move when he could, he did his best to stay down and stay hidden.

He ducked again as the last police officer was cut down, the Amsus squad advancing down the road, moving carefully deeper into the city. The fighting was intensifying; more and more Imperial dropships were descending into various rally points throughout the city, driving the Amsus ahead of them. It was just a matter of time until they were rounded up.

Edward just had to stay out of sight. He blew on his gloved hands, shivering in the cold, thinking about what he knew of the city of Karin. It sat high on a plateau, the fortress overshadowing it. Two main subway lines connected the modern city to its suburbs, the main, red line running all the way out to the great starport.

That was the most likely place for Imperial troops to be.

Yet this was his chance to slip through General Iver's fingers. His grandfather had always taught him to seize opportunities when they presented themselves. He got up and moved to the edge of the alleyway. Checking to make sure that there were no more Amsus troopers, he dashed across and jumped through the rubble, sliding to a stop down beside the crashed police car.

It astounded someone who had grown up in the technological marvel that was the Empire how far Humanity had slipped backwards in technology. All part of the Amsus control, they preferred simple mechanical devices over computerized high tech for its reliability. Few things could go wrong with a decent assault rifle that couldn't be fixed by a trooper with a bit of training. Pulse rifles and other Imperial arms tended to be a lot harder to maintain.

He shook his head. Without regular Imperial suppliers to keep their high tech machines working, even the Commonwealth had been forced to resort to more readily available technologies - the internal combustion engine for one.

Of course, the bullet-riddled car beside him was going nowhere in a hurry, and he simply didn't have the tools to even attempt to jerry-rig something. He instead leaned into the car, trying not to think about the poor police officer that was still sitting in the seat, a gory mess.

He caught the trunk release and pulled on it, glad to hear it pop, and he scrambled back further into the store, glad to not be so exposed as he rooted through the trunk for anything that might be useful.

He tossed the patrol box aside, and pulled out the road flares. Tucking a couple into his pocket, he fished out the small toolkit. Tossing aside anything that wasn't in the remotest bit useful to him, he returned to the trunk, shaking out the heavy police parka and gloves that he traded for his own insufficient gear. He added the furred cap to the discard pile as he tugged on a police ball cap, turning it backwards to hide the bright crest as he pulled the parka's hood up. Duly equipped, and hoping he wasn't readily recognizable, he quickly made his way out the back of the store. He needed to get to a ship and off that world for a start, and then, somehow, he needed to find Highlord Taine.