Sigil of the Wolf - 35. Chapter 35

HMS Excalibur - Ordessus System

Kyr ran, sprinting past the crewmembers who were surging to their posts trying to get the Excalibur into some semblance of fighting form, running the last of the precious rail cannon ammunition to the point defences and clearing the decks under Masconi's direction, readying it to fight the encircling net of Amsus warships that hung around them.

Masconi wasn't about to wait for them to come at her; she was going to plunge the Excalibur right into their black hearts.

Kyr stood aside to allow members of the Excalibur crew past. He knew that what she was doing was the only right course of action; below them was Ordessus, around them the Amsus fleet that was poised to invade and rob the Empire of its hard-won freedom. They were out of ammunition, bereft of fighters, and there was no hope in the eyes of the men around him, simply grim determination that if they were to die they were going to take as many of the bastards with them as they could.

He watched the young faces, old veterans now. Each of them had seen more blood than they ever should have in their young lives. Feeling his own resolve, he knew that they would come to depend on him soon, once the fighting began, laying on his surgical table as he laboured to save their lives.

"Doctor!" Nurse Pia caught up with him as he marched through the damaged mess deck towards the sickbay. She looked as rough as they all did, a blackened bruise on her face and her hair in disarray. She tried to smooth it down self-consciously as she looked at the doctor. "It's..." she shivered and looked towards the doors of the sickbay.

Kyr frowned, following her gaze and starting to run, skidding through the hatch into a nightmare.

His sickbay, a place of healing, had become a place of death. Blood-soaked instruments sat in alcohol alongside the surgical table. The massive form laying upon it had been cut open, organs having been removed and set about attached to bizarre alien devices that hummed and whirred.

Kyr slipped on the bloody floor as he backed away shaking his head, staring at the Gorean ambassador's lifeless form spread out in front of him, the tang of blood thick in Kyr's nostrils as he turned from it, sickened. In all the rush to free the crew... Kyr should have come down there first.

Pia, shaken, stood in the doorway. "I should get someone down here, to help us clean up..."

Kyr looked up at her, infinite sadness in his eyes. "Yes..." he murmured, looking back at the Gorean, staring over the devices, and down to the meticulous book beside it, a tightly-flowing script meticulously documenting what had been done. All in the name of science...

He slammed the book cover shut and threw it across the room.

One of the big eyes of the Gorean cracked open, a gasping rattle for air as the massive creature took a shuddering breath. His lungs, set in glass and attached by tubes, inflated. Kyr stared in morbid wonder for a second, realization dawning upon him that Xanatos was not dead.

"Nurse..." he murmured, shrugging out of his lab coat and tossing it aside, "Nurse!" he bellowed out after her.

She came back inside, and gasped, seeing the doctor washing his hands, and realizing what he intended to do. "You can't..." she said, looking at the jars; the monumental task of what he was proposing was daunting to her.

Kyr set his jaw. "We need to prep for surgery, Nurse," he said evenly, "I need your help..."

* * *

Galadriel sat behind Darien's desk, flipping hurriedly through the pages of the diary, reading as fast as she could. They needed to figure out why the diary was so important, and Masconi had left the task up to her.

She rubbed tired eyes, squinting at the hastily penned script, a journal of accounts tracing dead ends and false leads, trying to put together the clues that would lead them to Peligia. Religious rhetoric, vague passages from collected texts, and references that she had no context for that seemed to have been written in a fervour by a man possessed with an obsession.

The ramblings of a mad man.

The alarm klaxon rang out again, calling for general quarters, the ship going to condition red. She could hear the rush of booted feet as people rushed to battle stations outside the torn metal doors.

The book was somehow pivotal. And that confused her more; were she Rikard, she would have simply copied the book once he had it. Her head fell onto her arms as she tried to think. They were depending on her to put it together.

The first explosion took her by surprise, a flash of red-gold light that lit up the Highlord's stateroom. At first she thought that they had been hit, but the second explosion caused her to turn in the chair. The Amsus ships were shifting, firing at each other, splintering into two factions as they engaged each other.

A wing of Amsus Predators were chasing an Amsus Raptor as it dived, trying to use the Excalibur as cover, the pinpoint defences showering both the Predators and their prey with weapons fire, sending them all to their deaths.

The battle had begun.

* * *

Katz swung around the door and into the hall, his rifle swinging to and fro as he kept Firlotte covered, moving slowly as they crawled their way down towards the ship's engine room.

Ashley kept a pace behind him, nervously looking around, fumbling with his pistol as he played with the safety catch, clicking it as he would a pen, on and off.

"Stop that," Katz murmured, glancing behind him, "It's distracting..."

"Sorry, I'll stop," Firlotte replied, lifting his thumb off the safety.

"Not that," Katz said, stopping as Firlotte bumped into his back again, "That!"

Firlotte blushed. "Sorry, I... it's..."

There was a tap; Katz swung the rifle around again, shining it towards a door, holding up his other hand to silence Firlotte. He felt the other man draw instinctually closer to him, slender hands touching his hips as he tried to hide behind Katz.

The tapping repeated. This time, Katz's rifle reflected off of the small window set in the door, a dark skinned face leaning to look out at him, waving and beckoning.

"It's an Orion," Katz said, advancing slowly and reaching for the handle. Feeling the door locked, he drew back, levelling the rifle.

"Wait!" Firlotte hissed, reaching into a pocket of his vest and pulling out a small lock gun. He knelt and fiddled with the door, the lock popping a second later as the door swung open.

Katz shone the light slung under his rifle into the dark room, reflecting off of the Orion faces. One of them, the one from the window, blinked and held up his hand to shield his eyes from the bright light.

"Who are you?" he called.

"Imperials," Katz returned, "You what's left of the crew?"

The Orion nodded. "Most of us were locked in the main dining room," he pointed to a side door, "we managed to get the door open and into the kitchen."

A couple of Orions displayed the cutlery they had improvised into weapons. A particularly large one was wielding what looked to be for the most part a viscous can opener.

Katz hefted his rifle to his shoulder and drew his pistol, handing it across to the leader of the small group of Orions. "Let's get your ship back for you," he said, turning back to the corridor and tapping his TAC-link, "Commander..."

* * *

Deep in the basin rim of Ordessus a piece of rubble stirred, the gauntleted hand reaching out as it took ahold of the stone and prefab steel that had collapsed upon him. Shifting as he rose, he gazed far above him at the facility.

* * *

Colonel Mayfair shifted and looked over at Colonel Ramsey, the other man strapping on his combat gear, getting ready for the second stage of the operation, as around them Amsus ships began to fall upon themselves.

The transponder virus wrought havoc, Amsus Commanders calling to their command ship for orders, the Hope of the Dawn answering that call with orders for them to attack any ship that was perceived as a threat. The communication lines with the High Command facility on Ordessus had been severed by Highlord Taine's team.

"Second Platoon Delta Company is away," a Kardiac Lieutenant reported, hand on his earpiece, "Third Platoon Delta Company is away..."

It was happening quickly, platoons of troops being swept up one at a time and sent across the vast distance to Karin, each of the transports around the Hope of the Dawn emptying of troops. Equipment would follow in the next company as the first battalion of troops would complete its gating.

Colonel Ramsey's Headquarters Company would be next, assuming command over the situation the moment he hit the ground, taking over the...

Mayfair's shoulders slumped, realizing he was directing the invasion of his home. For good or for ill, he was sending troops against his own House. His grip tightened on the arm of his seat, looking over at Ramsey, who finished buckling his equipment.

"Don't worry," Ramsey said, reading Mayfair's lined and drawn expression, "my troops know they are going to protect the people of Karin..."

Mayfair leaned on the chair's arm. "I'm worried about what happens after the battle," Mayfair said, "I should be there..."

Both men looked down at Mayfair's shattered leg, knowing it wasn't possible.

"Whatever happens," Ramsey said, pulling on his blue-marked helmet, "I promise you that House von Karin will stand strong and proud at the end of this." He walked towards the doors. "You have Command, Colonel. Good luck."

"You too," Mayfair murmured, unsettled by his own worries.

* * *

Masconi watched the fighters sweeping across the bow of the ship, the Excalibur's guns batting them away, her rail cannons pounding them out of existence. It wouldn't last, she could sense that as the first of the guns fell silent on the port quarter.

The Excalibur was unable to fight. Bereft of her weapons stores, her rail cannons were beginning to run out of ammunition. Her missiles were gone, and her zero-point bore, though deadly, was not enough by itself to maintain the protective screen around the ship.

A Predator foolish enough to cross an Amsus Raptor's gun sights shuddered and careened into the now-defenceless port side, exploding across the Excalibur's armour plating as it died. The great ship shuddered under the blow.

"Wing Commander," Sub-Lieutenant Ryerson pointed, "The Shifting Sands..."

Masconi spared it a glance. The Orion vessel, damaged after its own ordeal, was slipping its moorings at the space station, pulling the docking arms away with it as its mighty engines pushed it forward. The Tradeliner gained speed as it steamed onwards, the station's guns turning on it and sending shots along the silvery hide, barely scratching the immense vessel's hull plates.

A pair of Amsus Raptors curled in a deadly dance, one straying too close to the bow of the Shifting Sands as it plowed between them, knocking the frigate aside and scraping it along its hull as it charged onwards into the middle of the fray.

"Cover that ship," Masconi ordered, turning to the helm, "Get us closer..."

"What?" Ryerson asked in surprise, "We can barely cover ourselves..."

"Shut up," Masconi snapped, excitedly coming down to the weapons tier, patting the shoulder of the gunner's mate co-ordinating the Excalibur's tactical systems. The Excalibur was structurally in good shape, she could take a beating; the Shifting Sands was not, and while she wasn't sure what the sudden assistance of the Orion vessel meant, she knew that their fate was inexorably tied to that ship. Hope lay in numbers, and if they were going to die, best to die alongside a good friend.

"Give it everything you have," she murmured, "Don't hold back."

* * *

The deck beneath his feet hadn't boiled and bucked so much since the heady days aboard an Orion ship. Commander Masconi was probably finding that command was never an easy burden. But that was not his concern, as the war burned across the Ordessus system Kyr had his hands full in the triage.

Medics and nurses scrambled as they fought against burns, shrapnel wounds and the angel of death that stood in their midst claiming men and women he had gotten to know as their general practitioner over the last two years he had served on the Excalibur.

Crewman Gwen Talin: Kyr had been the doctor on duty when she had given birth to her twins, and now he was the man signing her death certificate.

An explosion near by blew out the main diagnostic console, plunging the triage into darkness. Mournful cries began from somewhere as Kyr wrenched his TAC-link from his pocket, "Bridge, this is Doctor Kyr, I don't know what you're doing up there, but we have no power down here..." He walked around and fumbled with a flashlight, "Restore it or we're going to be neck deep in dead..."

Masconi's voice sounded tense, understandable considering the circumstances, "We are doing all we can, Doctor."

"Understood Commander," Kyr stated, "but you had better do it quickly."

Moments later the lights flickered back to life and Kyr could take stock again of their situation. It was a mess; dead and wounded were streaming onto the medical facilities from all over the ship.

Paramedics and nurses reported to him as he sent them to and fro on efforts to ease the suffering around them. Two Marine medics were already setting up a secondary OR in what had been his office, clearing off lab tables and rigging lights. Kyr was glad of their professionalism, let the warriors fight their battles; it was for the doctors to put the pieces back together.

"Doctor," Nurse Pia grabbed his arm and turned him towards the Gorean who occupied the main surgical table.

Kyr ran a ragged hand through his hair, he had done what he could to stabilize him, but with his sickbay rapidly filling with dead or dying he couldn't spend more time on the being. The price of triage, you did what you could and moved on as quickly as possible.

He weighed the cost of the Gorean dying, against the wounded streaming through the doors. Making a decision, he was a doctor, and he wasn't simply going to abandon one of his patients to die on his table.

He grabbed one of the other patients, a young marine that had a cut on his leg; he was low priority and had a pair of hands, for now that was what Kyr needed. He pulled the boy with him as he gestured and laid the boy's hands onto an exposed organ that was rupturing.

"Press and hold!" Kyr commanded as he fiddled with the laser scalpel; he had mere minutes to reconstruct the exit valve from his heart or the blood build-up would rupture the huge muscle. It was a delicate job during the most stable of situations, but Kyr was on board a starship that was in the middle of battle. If the Excalibur so much as wobbled...

Under the lower hull a Predator, clipped by one of the point defence cannons, careened into the armoured hull plates, wreckage and debris peeling the plates and detonating a series of pressurized pipes that fed coolant to the massive zero-point bore. One of the conduits ran under the medical bay. Consoles throughout the deck exploded, showering shards of shrapnel into medics and patients alike, reducing order into a bloodied, smoking chaos.

The Gorean's heart rate monitor gave off a warning trill as Xanatos flat lined. Kyr's scalpel was nowhere in sight, Kyr had the dim lighting of the emergency lights, and a patient that was dying on him. He vaulted his way onto the table drawing the flashlight from his pocket, clenching it between his teeth and shining it on the wound as he continued to work with a micro-scalpel. He had to repair the damage, before he could resuscitate him.

Moments later he leaned back, taking a breath and wiping his forehead. Emergency crews were trying to fight to extinguish fires around the sickbay, and Kyr realised to his shock that he was the only one not being evacuated. The officers stood well back and let him work. Kyr bent back to it as he began to apply basic heart massages to get Xanatos's heart pumping again. He had been dead for about three minutes, and without proper medical stimulators...

Another doctor pressed a medical kit into Kyr's hands as he moved on to help some other wounded. Gratefully Kyr pull out a long syringe, selecting a high dosage of a stimulant, shivering at the thought of what he had to do as he applied the intracardiac injection and shot the powerful stimulant directly into the Gorean's heart, slipping down to the deck as he pulled a defibrillator towards him. The blast had scorched it, but the device still held a charge. Kyr smiled tightly, the gods were on Xanatos's side as he applied the paddles, looking up and bellowing, "Clear!" Triggering the shock...

With a blip, the monitor rewarded him with a steady rhythm of a heart rate. He was in pretty rough shape, but Xanatos was stabilized for the moment. Kyr didn't have time to congratulate himself as he ran to assist other wounded.

There was no rest, no time. The truest war was there, in that sick bay, fighting the one universal enemy. Kyr wasn't about to surrender a single soul to the predatory angel that skulked in the corner.

* * *

Sephradon marched into the command centre of her ship. "Tell them to stop firing, you fools!" She demanded above the din of alarms and the chattering of Amsus fleet officers directing their own weapon systems.

"Milady, we have orders..." The Amsus Fleet Marshal began.

She pointed to the window and the tracking red halos. "Those are our ships!" she was livid.

"Milady... we had orders..." The Fleet Marshal repeated, confused about what she didn't understand.

"I am ordering you to stop!" Sephradon collapsed into the chair on her bridge, her delicate hand cradling her forehead, "Order all ships to stand down before you wipe out our entire damn invasion fleet."

How? How had they managed it?

She reflected on the situation around her. The Imperials controlled the facility on Ordessus; the troops she had sent there would ensure that the Propylons were recovered. There was no doubt in her mind of that success. The Excalibur was moving to cover an escaping Orion vessel, Rikard's toy. The Excalibur was helplessly crippled...

She let her hand fall, "Destroy the Orion ship," she ordered, realizing what they were planning. She stood. "Stop that ship at all costs!"

* * *

Lauren was thrown across the deck; the explosion from the Raptor ramming the stern section of the Shifting Sands had sent them all sprawling. She climbed back up using the rail as she blew her hair out of her eyes, watching another Amsus Raptor plunging like a kamikaze into the Tradeliner. Around her, the ship's systems screamed.

"How close is the Excalibur?" She called out, looking up to one of the upper platforms where an Orion officer was picking himself up.

"Nearly within the jump radius..." he called out.

The Amsus battleship pulled a sharp turn out ahead of them, the massive dark vulture shape of the ship blocking out the faint Ordessus star as it lined up to open fire. Lauren could see its missile ports opening to fire a nuclear strike at them.

The vessel shivered, a flicker of bright light from its flight deck as a gout of flame erupted from the ship, literally melting from the inside out as it crumpled like a tin can tossed into a bonfire, the ship dying a fiery and explosive death.

"What the hell was that?" Lauren demanded, lunging to the front rail to get a better view of the escaping orange vapours curling away from the Amsus vessel.

"I don't know," the Orion called down, "the ship just superheated and..."

* * *

Darien Taine lifted his finger off of the Propylon activator. "Target the next Amsus command ship." He ordered.

"Sir," Kit replied adjusting the device, "I have locked onto one of the Amsus Command Carriers."

Darien nodded and activated the device again, shielding his eyes from the ring of stones, feeling the flush of heat wash over him. The Propylon's radiation shields ensured that the star fragment, taken from the core of the Ordessus Sun, wasn't able to cremate them. The device whisked it in and out in such an infinitesimally short period of time that all it did was flash-heat the air before sending the fragment aboard the Amsus ship where it incinerated the ship from the inside out.

Darien nodded. Having gotten his point across, he gestured to Commander Durnham to resume gating the Kardiac forces to Karin.

Riley touched his arm. "That was..." he stared in wonder at the device, the true implications of the weapon's potential occurring to the General.

Darien folded his arms, looking grim. "And the Peligians, wielding the power of stars, cast down their enemies..."

"That's the last of our troops." Commander Durnham reported dutifully, turning his attention back to his Highlord, "I distributed them across Karin City in the exact disbursement pattern outlined by Colonel Ramsey."

Darien nodded. "Get our troops upstairs and gate them to the Excalibur..."

He stood from his seat, swaying again as Shale caught him, Riley turning, "You all right?" he asked worriedly, "Maybe we should gate you next..."

Darien shook his head as he stood on his own without assistance, "I'm fine General, I only go when I am certain my people are off of this world..."

"So we get the hell out of here and blow these things, right?" Riley asked as he held up one of the Commandos' recovered satchel of explosives, pulling out the charges and activating the micro tactical nuclear devices. Swift, short, and effective, the Type Fours were the smallest nuke ever designed by the old empire. Riley tried not to think of what he was arming as he set up a trio of them around the chamber.

Darien stood, his arms still folded, Polian shard clipped to his belt as he considered the Propylons. So much life had been spent to reach them, so much blood...

The road to Peligia is paved in blood...

"Commander," he said, leaning down to run a hand over the crystalline surface, "How do the generators work?"

"From what I can tell," Commander Durnham replied accessing the relative files the Amsus had compiled, as well as the Polian ones provided by the technicians, "They operate similar to jump pods in that they create a localized hyperspace event, but instead of simply using this to enter hyperspace like our jump pods, they also create a precise doorway on the far end connecting two specific points in space. The transit is instantaneous."

Darien limped back around to the console sitting down and studying what Kit was displaying for him, scanning as he went. It was physics on a level way beyond his rudimentary understanding of it. There probably wasn't a human being alive who could make head nor tails of it...

Darien wished Elias was there.

"Finished!" Riley announced holding up the remote detonator and returning to the others, hefting the small device in his hands, "One push button nuclear inferno... what?" he leaned over Darien's shoulder.

Darien looked up, "If they work like jump pods, could they simply jump themselves?"

Kit looked thoughtful, "Well theoretically they could, but the focal point of the stones is the apex between them, to create a bubble you would have to rotate the stones so that the glyphs face away from the circle. They would still form the jump event, but instead of localizing it to one key point they would..." Kit stopped, "You're planning to jump the Propylons."

"Yes," Darien replied, looking at Riley, "Can you give me a hand?" The two officers wrestled with the stones, turning them all to face outwards. "Target the Excalibur," Darien ordered as he examined the Amsus-constructed console, lifting off the computer connected to an alien device that presumably controlled the Propylons.

Shale helped him pull the computers inside the ring, tucking Commander Durnham's memory core under his arm. The three remaining Imperial officers looked at the chamber about them as Darien nodded. "Time to go."

The light flared and they vanished.

* * *

Ra marched through the narrow dirty streets of the factory basin, slamming open the doors to one of the factory floors, startling workers confused by the noises, held under tight guard by their overseers.

Ra had no interest in them. He ignored the terrified humans and their handlers, walking towards one of the half-finished Raptors sitting on the assembly line. It lacked any armour plating, or weapon systems, but would accomplish the task that he required of it. The jump pods were in place, undergoing their first test charging.

Ra climbed aboard the ship, reaching out to grab one of the overseers, dragging him up towards the cockpit and all but hurling the petrified man at the controls.

"W-what do you want me to do?" The man grovelled, quaking at the metal armoured being that loomed threateningly over him.

Ra pointed to the jump computer.

"B-but..." The man protested.

Ra's gauntleted hand crashed down on his head in a vice-like grip, pushing the human's face closer to the jump controls. The man whimpered in fear and pain as he stubbed the computer with his fingers, plugging in co-ordinates.

Ra cast him aside as his remaining blades hovered over the controls, looking for the one that would activate the jump drive, touching the switch and feeling the familiar jump affect.

* * *

"Go!" Lauren called, yelling into her TAC-link.

The Shifting Sands bucked as her drives engaged, hurling her, the Excalibur, and the few fighters unlucky enough to be caught in the hyperspace bubble through space to the next system. The ships fell back into the darkness and away from Ordessus.

* * *

Colonel Mayfair turned to the Taïrian Executive Officer.

"Let's go," he ordered. The Hope of the Dawn completed its escape manoeuvre, leaping five hundred miles off of the Excalibur's bow, the captured Amsus Cruiser sweeping down on the Amsus Predators, its weapons firing as it dealt with the survivors.

* * *

On the surface of the volcano basin, facilities exploded, factories gripped in tumultuous fireballs as small mushroom clouds rose, the insides of the factories being incinerated as first one, then another of the facilities were destroyed.

In their centre, the stabilization plant detonated, sending spider web cracks across the volcano's caldera; bubbling magma, freed from its shackles, bubbled explosively towards the surface as the chain reaction liquefied the lava tunnels. The resulting eruption blew upwards, burning through the suspended High Command facility as that too detonated, the nuclear charges wiping the structure from existence, as the volcano boiled over, the lava pouring down the slows and into the Hive complex below.

* * *

"Should we pursue, milady?" The Fleet Marshal asked.

Sephradon looked up from where she sat at her damaged invasion fleet. She'd lost the Propylons, and the Excalibur was gone. But that didn't change the fleet of ships she had at her disposal, nor the sheer number of troopers she was ready to wield.

"No," she said at length, "We know where they are going to run to." She smiled. "Order the fleet to begin the invasion. Even without the Propylons they can't hope to hold against our numbers..."

The Marshal bowed his head obediently. Sephradon returned to her brooding; the loss of the Propylons was a blow to her plans, as was the loss of Ra, but she was not about to let that stop her revenge.

She would raze the Empire to the ground, and when she stood triumphant in its ashes, a minor loss would be insignificant.