Sigil of the Wolf - 26. Chapter 26

Ordinance Depot A-IX, Amsus Hegemony

A flock of birds burst from the forest, a huge black cloud that curled and dived southwards, a few of the stragglers flitting to and fro past the immense Maj'io trees that towered above the smaller conifers below them. They curled and dove down towards the dark and grimy city, its smoke stacks pouring out thick smoke that churned into a thick cloud that settled over everything.

The human workers who trudged through those wet streets paid no attention to the birds. They made their way to and from the factories, weaving through the grimy streets devoid of hope as they ground onwards with their empty lives. Above them, the flickering neon lights of massive billboards reflected off the haze of the near-constant smog.

One stood out above the others - a digital billboard bearing Nicholas Denver's face, proudly declaring the Denver Conglomerate's slogan: 'The future is now!'

A future built upon the broken back of the human race.

A couple of boys played soccer in the street, kicking a hand made ball to and fro, banking it off of the crumbling brick wall of an old warehouse. Too young to feel the depression that permeated the air and clung to the people around them. Splashing through the silt encrusted gutters, trying to avoid the worn trucks that plied wares to and from the factories.

It was in high orbit that the first flash appeared, a shimmering of pseudo-motion followed by the sudden appearance of a small, round object that hurtled through the air at an insane velocity.

The sonic booms over their city caused a few of the citizens to look up, but most had grown accustomed to ignoring anything that was different. They continued to put one foot in front of another, continuing with their lives as if nothing had happened.

The bright flash in the sky was followed by another, and a third. Lightning permeated the smog. They thought nothing of it when the huge advertising screen cut to static and cell phones stopped working.

* * *

"What was that?" The Inquisitor demanded, his unnatural white hand dropping to rest on the back of the young human technician's chair, causing the young woman to flinch.

The technician smacked the side of the old radarscope, beginning to sweat. "Equipment malfunction, Inquisitor..." She replied, licking her lips and getting up from the chair to get a repair kit. The equipment was old; problems arose from it needing constant maintenance, she'd stripped the unit down at least four times in the past month. Yet despite filing the right forms to have the unit replaced, her requests were always rejected by the quartermasters at Kingswell Regional Command.

Around the operations centre of the outpost, other radarscopes and communications grids had gone down. Other human techs were looking at each other, while the Amsus fleet officers standing watch stared at the malfunctioning equipment in confusion. Several of them hurriedly pulled out manuals and began turning the pages, trying to work out the appropriate procedure for a total system failure.

The Inquisitor flexed his boneless hand, turning and walking back across the floor, his long black coat rustling as he marched towards the doors. "We are under attack!" He said emotionlessly, his ghastly blank human face registering nothing as he walked.

"But Inquisitor," An Amsus fleet officer said as he jogged to his side, both marching through the corridors of the outpost's bunker, "There were no indications of attacking vessels."

The Inquisitor never liked how developed the fleet officers were permitted to be, too intelligent for their own good, it led to them questioning orders. In the rush to emulate human beings there were times when they adopted aggravating human habits.

The Inquisitor stopped beside the main armoury doors, activating them and ignored the ignorant fleet officer. If they were under attack, whoever was responsible would regret it. While Mistress Sephradon had pulled most of the outpost's garrison back to Ordessus for redeployment, she had elected to leave him in charge. And he was easily worth the garrison. He began to pull on the pale bone-white armour plates, the expressionless helm he clasped shut over his head. The recent alliance with the Polians had yielded further technological benefits: the weave of the armour plates was designed to dissipate Imperial weaponry, and more importantly it would counteract the deadly PKD weapons the Empire counted on to kill his kind. He was looking forward to being the first to field test it.

* * *

The Hope of the Dawn, escorting the Imperial transports, closed on the world. The remaining Excalibur fighters, the hastily formed 'Falcon Squadron', shrieked in a tight formation around R-403 keeping pace with it on the way down. The objective was to capture the outpost intact and the fighters were there to escort the Raptor to the outpost with the primary strike force, in case the Amsus mounted any kind of fighter screen.

Lauren was strapped into the pilot's seat of R-403, Nazzien manning the guns. The eager Orion's hands opened and closed as he adjusted his grip, his thumb flicking the protective cover off of the fire control button, letting it snap back audibly.

"The Commandos are ready," Mayfair commented, coming up from the rear of the Raptor wearing borrowed Kardiac armour, his own still being on the Excalibur. He adjusted the chinstrap of his helmet. "Once we hit the ground, safest place for you is airborne..."

Lauren cocked her head back and tapped the pair of aviator wings sewn to the sleeve of her jacket. "This is your show, Colonel. I'm just here to get you down on the ground... far be it for li'l ole me to spoil all the fun for you big... strapping men."

Mayfair smiled uncomfortably at her sarcastic impression of a southern Karin farm girl. He strapped his helmet on, shifting his pulse rifle around to his hands as he started back along the ship to the cargo bay, passing Firlotte who was heading up to the cockpit. The Technician leaned on both hands and poked his head inside, taking a second to poke a stray wire back behind a piece of insulation.

"Commander," he called out, "I just secured most of the electrical systems, but the radiation in that planet's atmosphere is going to play havoc with our electronics. The Van Allen belt's polarized and..."

Lauren adjusted the angle of the Raptor's approach, turning back to the red-haired technician. "We're shielded, right?"

"Barely," Firlotte replied honestly, "The Raptor was rigged for highly-charged environments during the Skyella thing, so most of the systems are protected, just our scanning systems and TAC-links are going to be practically useless."

"That's the point, crewman," Nazzien replied testily.

"Yeah?" Firlotte said, looking at the Orion, "Excuse my ignorance, sir, but aren't those guns you're playing with electronic based?" He gave a satisfied look; that's what Nazzien got for being so patronizing.

Lauren frowned as she stared at the weapons console, looking up at the onrushing planet. They'd needed to detonate the nuclear weapons in the planet's ionosphere; the EMP had charged the Van Allen belt enough to shut down the outpost's communications arrays, silencing any potential cry for help. They hadn't counted on it being a two way street.

"Romeo-Four-Zero-Three to all Falcons, break off and pull back to Marshalling point four." She watched as Katz's fighters curved upwards and away from the dark pollution clouds of the ordinance world.

They crackled and burned with the ferocity she remembered from Skyella, a dark storm waiting to devour them. Darien and his damn plans...

Lauren heaved a sigh, licking her lips as she considered the troop transports. They weren't actually about to enter the atmosphere, they were taking up high orbital stations, their drop pods ready to disgorge Kardiac troopers across the world.

"How strong is the interference?" She asked, turning in her seat again, doing a quick review of the attack plan. The drop pods would be okay, they relied on liquid state thrusters and parachutes to slow their ascent; all of them were designed to operate in battlefield conditions, which included post-nuclear environments.

"The pollution is highly charged," Firlotte said, shaking his head as he leaned over the Raptor's sensor station, adjusting the sensitive Imperial sensor package as he squinted over the readouts. He'd never been good at this kind of science. "There's no way to tell how bad it's going to be on the ground. From what I can tell, the blasts have knocked out most of the planetary power grids..."

"We're going to have to go for it," Lauren murmured. Too much was depended on that raid. She touched the sticks again as the Raptor dived for the atmosphere.

* * *

"Something's going on, sir." The young girl stepped back away from the grimy window as the Amsus platoon rushed by it.

"Great, worst storm in months and it has to happen the day before we leave..." Riley cursed, leaning under the piece of heavy ducting to get a look at all the boots running past the basement window, "They're mobilizing for something." He took another step forward and tried to get a better look, "No armour, hell no trucks or anything." He turned, gesturing to the radio, "Turn that on will ya?"

She set her rifle down and picked up the small battery-operated radio and toggled the switch. Nothing happened. "Dead, sir."

"Yep, figured." Riley replied, craning his head to look up at the boiling clouds, crackling. "Someone's nuked us." He pulled back from the window, rubbing the salt-and-pepper stubble on his chin, "If they're attacking the Amsus, it's got to be the Imperials."

"Sir?" The girl asked, "They're here to liberate us?"

Riley grinned, hurrying to pull on his leather jacket and grabbing his captured assault rifle. "Contact the rest of the brigade, tell them to gather at the warehouse."

"General?" The girl asked, almost excitedly, "Do you really think they're here?"

"Taine, it has to be. He's the only one with the balls to come out this far." Riley murmured, standing on the stairs, "We need to give him a hand."

Riley slipped upstairs into the disused store, the wiry man ducking as he jogged past the windows. The Amsus maintained a small but effective garrison on his world. They had to; the local resistance was a bitch to deal with. Riley smiled and shrugged mentally, whoops...

He drew back into the shadows of the doorway watching a second platoon of troops pulling an AA gun into position, hastily tossing down sandbags about it. The Amsus were preparing for war...

It was going to be tough for them to hold the planet with all their electronics knocked out.

He contemplated making a mad dash for the alley across from the drug store he was lurking in, there were enough people running about heading for the shelters. The air raid siren blaring out over the rooftops warned of the impending attack. He'd be another face in a crowd.

He shrugged, keeping his head down as he made a run for it, splashing across the wet asphalt feeling the powerful rain soak his hair in seconds; on other worlds it would be a monsoon, on A-IX it was just pissing down.

He made it to the alley and cursed his luck; at the far end he spotted Hoskins, the local TER-SEC Marshall co-ordinating his patrolmen, taking up defensive positions for his small detachment of men, nodding as he received instructions from an Amsus trooper... They were the only humans on the world trusted with weapons.

Riley checked behind him, thankful that the Amsus in the streets hadn't paid any attention to the middle aged man sprinting to the entrance of the alley. With a loud sigh he gestured with two fingers for Hoskins to see. The General extended two fingers, pointing up and scissoring the fingers.

The Amsus officer must have noticed that Hoskins was no longer paying attention to him, and he turned. Hoskins drew his PKD and shot the unsuspecting officer squarely in the chest.

The surprised Amsus officer crashed to the wet ground as the TER-SEC officer scooped up his assault rifle, unloading a single round to end its struggling.

Hoskins, a round man who was best suited to the purpose of handing out speeding tickets and otherwise acting as the biggest pain in the ass to law abiding citizens, looked out at the General.

"'K Riley, you're gonna explain why I just did that!" Hoskins demanded, bending down to recover the officer's pistol as he handed the assault rifle off to one of his deputies. He motioned to some of his fellow officers as they quickly disposed of the body in a dumpster.

Riley smiled. One of the first things he'd done when setting up the resistance on that world was to heavily bribe the local TER-SEC detachment. He clapped Hoskins on the shoulder. "Empire's here," he said cheerfully, "and admit it," he nudged the Amsus officer with his boot, "you secretly always wanted to do that."

"You know Riley, sometimes you're as dumb as fuck..." Hoskins began, as the first whistling reached their ears. The small round pod, the size of a minivan, screamed out of the boiling clouds, firing its thrusters to slow its decent as small parachutes deployed to brake its velocity, the AA gun on the street behind them opening fire trying to hit the fast moving object before it could land, the loud chatter of the flak cannon ringing out, the tracer rounds going wide as the pod impacted somewhere about a block away.

Riley shrugged. "Don't know about that," he replied, "I think I'm right this time." He looked back upwards as the first pod was followed by a dozen more, as the sky began to fill with them.

* * *

The lights went out.

The children remained in their seats, refusing to so much as look up from their text books despite the fact that they could no longer see. They darted glances at each other and one of them dared a giggle.

"Bi'chez!" Zahn rumbled, closing his book with a snap, setting it down on the massive desk at the front of his classroom.

His beefy hand reached out as he poked the bare bulb, ignoring the heat as he tapped the glass. The huge creature shifted as he crossed to the light switches and flicked them a few times.

"Riley!" Zahn thundered, anger rising in him as he stamped back across the floor to look out of the window at the darkened city. Even the ever-present billboards were dark.

He stood at least nine feet high, his slate-grey skin covering ropey muscles barely contained by the tweed suit that stretched over his hunched form. His long arms that reached to the floor flexed as he scratched the coarse whisker hairs that formed a spiky beard, more sensory than aesthetic. They twitched as they felt the subtle change in the air pressure.

His ear rotated towards one of the schoolchildren who had began to rise from his seat.

"Sit down!" he bellowed, rounding his head on the child and screaming at it with pure fury.

The child snapped back into his chair, biting his lip his eyes grew wide in terror.

Inwardly Zahn chuckled. He loved the way that children listened when he roared.

He watched the troops filtering into the streets. The Amsus garrison was mobilizing; there was something very wrong. And if Riley and his damn rebels had hit the power generators again, there would be more reprisals.

He listened to the sounds of air raid sirens beginning to wail out in the city, AA guns peppering the storm clouds overhead. His eyes narrowed dangerously.

Zahn's heavy feet clapped onto the floor as he lumbered to the door, pulling it open on the chaos in the hall, teachers barely able to control their over-excited students, trying to herd them down to the emergency shelters.

The big creature turned to his class. "Single file, or I eat you!"

* * *

The Raptor cut through the clouds, keeping low as the crackling of the ionised energy slid along the specially designed rods, passing along the ship and dissipating into the dark clouds again.

Lauren carefully piloted the Raptor almost blind. Her electronics were going haywire, the HUD flickering and threatening to give out entirely, as her sensors remained frustratingly offline. She was used to instrument flying, part of why Darien had agreed to let her lead the mission, but this threatened to test even her skills.

She gritted his teeth as she navigated the frigate through the dropping pods, the giant bird-like ship curving one way and then the other as the pods dropped towards the city below. A large pod had touched down ahead of them, its sides unfolding as the Kardiac soldiers leapt free, rushing to secure the area, engaging any Amsus troops unlucky enough to be caught in their path.

The plan was to draw as many of the outpost's garrison into the city to aid in its defence as possible whilst the Raptor deposited its Commandos to secure the vital communications array and the command bunker. However, Lauren was worried that they wouldn't make it.

She stood up, peering out of the rain-soaked cockpit window, trying to make out landmarks, something that would direct her to their target. Sitting back down, she banked the Raptor towards the outpost complex on the edge of the city.

She attempted to switch the Raptor over to VTOL, guiding R-403 in for a landing in the specially marked clearing. She frustratedly tugged on the leaver a few more times before the Raptor complied, his wings locking up and his vertical jets taking over causing him to hover over the ground, bouncing slightly as he landed a few moments later.

* * *

"Go, Go, Go!" Mayfair ordered, as the ramp slid open on the wet ground, the Commando unit sprinting down and opening fire on the emplaced Amsus troopers. Commandos dropped prone as their pulse rifles sprayed the areas with fire.

A burly Taïrian carrying a SAW kept pace with the Colonel, the light machine gun churning out rounds as he sought to keep the Commandos covered as the SPEC Ops team dashed to achieve their first objectives and reach the heavy blast doors.

Two of Darien's Fida'i slipped off and to the right, making for the trees and the shadows there, ready to do what they did best, flank the enemy and take them by surprise. Their reactive camouflage armour adjusting, they faded into the underbrush.

"RPG!" A Commando Private screamed as she dived aside. Mayfair felt his stomach sink as the Amsus trooper kneeling off to the right of the clearing fired the shoulder-mounted weapon, the rocket leaving a contrail that shot past the Commandos and up the ramp into the main body of the Raptor as he began to lift off.

* * *

The explosion slammed Lauren forward against her controls, the Commander wrestling the heavy stick as the Raptor lurched, secondary explosions going off somewhere below her. She tightened her grip, ignoring the screaming instruments as she wrestled the controls over.

Nazzien clambered up and out of his seat as the Raptor swayed beneath his feet, trying to crawl for altitude. The Orion plunged towards the engineering station and hammered the fire control systems, ejecting the Raptor's magazine before the fire could reach it and blow them all sky high.

Beneath the Raptor the separate mounting opened, the missiles dropping into the mud of the landing field as the Raptor, trailing smoke, careened towards the city.

Lauren fought the listing ship level, another jolt shaking the ship as the sky and ground began to trade places rapidly. Every light on her panel lit up as the Raptor tumbled out of control. Lauren fought with her ship for what seemed like an eternity, yet was surely only seconds.

"Come on!" Lauren growled between clenched teeth, "Come on... A little longer..."

The Raptor's nose came up, as the proud ship refused to give up on life because of a lucky shot from his former masters.

"Come on, you can do it, come on..." She panted feeling the fight go out of the sticks as the Raptor levelled off,

"Just a little longer," she gripped the stick as she steered the ship about and she quickly cast a glance about for a place to land, her eyes falling on a large square of concrete near to a squat two-storey building. Short of ditching the Raptor into the city, it was her only option, and Lauren brought the Raptor in for a landing.

"Bring it home... Bring it home..."

The large port landing gear crashed down onto the roof of a parked car, crushing it beneath the weight of the warship as the Raptor made a safe landing; smoke billowed out as hatches blew open.

Lauren slumped back into her seat, bathed in sweat. She rested a hand thankfully on top of the console before her, "Was it good for you baby?" she huffed, blowing a strand of hair from her face.

* * *

Mayfair dropped the Amsus trooper with the RPG. The Kardiac Commandos had already reached the door and were setting the breaching charges. Arguably they were the best special ops forces currently in the Empire, and unlike Iver's Wolves, the Commandos relied upon training rather than armour and technology. He spared a quick glance off to the right where the pair of Fida'i spun in a deadly dance of knives with a group of Amsus troopers. They were mercilessly efficient, hitting and fading with a ruthless intensity, committing everything to the fight, felling their foes before they faded again waiting for the next fight.

Mayfair looked back towards the main city in the direction the stricken Raptor had flown. There was nothing he could do, the TAC-links refused to work so there was no-one that he could alert or send to the Lauren's position. For the time being, they were on their own.

The blast doors blew open and he gestured for the point men to advance inside. They had to move fast; if they didn't, it would all be in vain.

* * *

They were going to get pinned down.

General Riley dodged gunfire as he slid down behind the burned-out car, training his assault rifle and offering some cover fire as he gunned down the pair of troopers that had tried to flank him.

He shook his head. "Keep moving old man!" He chided himself as he got up, spraying a doorway that shielded the last trooper, strafing the area as he walked around the front of the car. Firing short clean bursts, he dropped the last trooper as he tried to get away.

Riley shook his head and looked up at the Raptor trailing smoke roaring overhead. A couple of the TER-SEC officers that accompanied him picked themselves up, following the erratic course of the Raptor as it shifted to go in for a landing over towards the school.

"Aww hell!" Riley's shoulders sagged as he realized where it was going, "Zahn's gonna pitch a fit..."

"Sir?" one of the officers asked, coming up beside him.

"Ever poach a turkey?" Riley asked, straightening up, knowing that Raptors were filled with Amsus troops, and they were bound to be pissed. He counted his men: a half dozen at best, not exactly enough to deal with the Raptor's usual compliment; he had to hope the Raptor was short-handed, then.

He gestured for his men to move out, running through the wet streets, hoping they'd reach the downed Raptor in time.

* * *

Nazzien picked himself up off of the floor, a trickle of white blood tracing the contours of his cheek. Lauren was climbing out of the pilot's chair, shutting down the Raptor's engines as she leaned over the engineers console and powered down the auxiliary systems.

"Quick thinking with the missiles," She commented to her friend walking back along the ship and into the lounge.

Nazzien nodded wiping the blood from his cheek. "Firlotte!" he bellowed back through the ship.

Firlotte scrambled up the gangway, coughing as he stopped a second, staring wide-eyed at the Orion's bloodied features. "We took one square to the cargo bay," he reported, shaking his head and coughing again, "it's a mess, but it didn't hit anything major."

"The crates," Nazzien chuckled, "you know, I always thought that crap would come in handy for something..."

Lauren smiled, patting her companion on the shoulder, before looking back at the technician. "Can you repair the damage?" She asked hopefully, "Get us airborne again?"

Firlotte blew out a thoughtful breath as he looked worriedly at the Raptor about him. "Give me an hour or so, maybe..."

"Do your best," Lauren said as she looked up at Nazzien, "Can you get topside and see if there are any Amsus heading this way?"

Nazzien bobbed his head, hurrying back to the ladder that would pop him out the dorsal emergency hatch and on top of the Raptor as Lauren made her way down to inspect the damage in the wrecked cargo bay.

The rocket had, luckily, impacted in the midst of the contraband crates that R-403 had carried with him since his capture. The reinforced metal containers had taken the brunt of the blast, shielding vital components of the ship from the explosive damage - especially a vital fuel line that, had it been hit, would have blown the ship sky high.

She picked her way to the ramp, staring over the controls, scorched but still operating. Coughing as she hoped to vent the smoke that filled the cargo bay, she opened it, drawing her automatic as she moved down the ramp and onto the wet tarmac of the car park, looking over at the squat building, and across the lot towards the gates and the street beyond.

Not the most secure location she could have picked.

She backed up into the ship, looking towards the armoury and wincing. That had been the cause of the secondary explosions. The ammo boxes had cooked off and were twisted wrecks amidst the shattered remains of the protective cage. Bullet holes patterned the ceiling and he could see up into the small shuttle bay above her where the deck had been blasted through. Fortunately, the explosion had been channelled upwards instead of down through the hull.

It was a mess, but they'd live. Rivet a few patches of steel over top, maybe a coat of paint here and there and Darien would never know the difference... who was she kidding, he was going to have an apoplexy once he saw what she'd done to his ship.

She turned and nearly panicked as a monster walked up the ramp towards her, fury in its eyes and saliva running down from its huge jaws. Uttering a startled cry, she tried to swing her automatic up, fumbling with the safety. The creature looked at her from deep-set eyes beneath a horned head, its jaws opening.

"Silly Bi'ch!" It commented, reaching out to swipe the useless weapon aside, "Who are you?" it demanded angrily, "And why you land on my car?"