He turned to Sabre, purposefully capturing the attention of the room to emphasise the importance of what he demanded to hear from the commander.
“Why wasn’t I told about the enemy slipping the net during the Blessing, Sabre?” Somehow the familiarity of Lupus using his first name only served to unsettle, rather than calm, the legionnaire. Sabre assumed that was on purpose. In his heart, Sabre had known that this moment was inevitably going to come. He had hoped that he would be able to broach this topic to the Apostle himself, but Orion must have slipped up before he could.
“My Lord, I thought it wise to avoid the truth of the enemy strength with the humans around us. We feared that if we told you about the Phantom presence scattered amongst the Empire, the Senate would overhear. They have many spies and rats, even those who are not Corrupts. It was a risk we could not take. I promise you, my Lord, that I would have told you personally today had the Captain not beaten me to it”.
Lupus held the commander’s gaze intently and tried to detect any ounce of trepidation in his voice. He found none, there was only honesty.
He smiled at Sabre warmly in reassurance. “I believe you, Commander. You did what you thought was best, I understand that, but do not ever hesitate to tell me something like this again. There is too much at stake in all this for anything – anything – to be kept secret for long”.
Sabre nodded apologetically. “Yes, my Lord”.
“Olympus?” Lupus voiced.
“My Lord?”
“I realise that you’re reluctant to pledge this fleet to this operation. Understand this – if we do not commit and ensure the destruction of the enemy, and the reinforcements they are more than likely to receive, it would be the first mistake that could unravel everything we do after it. We cannot afford to let that happen.”
Olympus had been standing again since the Apostle entered the room and looked now as if he wanted nothing more than to leave.
“I understand, my Lord” he lied.
It didn’t evade Lupus, but he had to accept that even the legionnaires, whose duty was attached to his life, may be slow to acknowledge him wholly. “Thank you, legionnaire. Do not forget that I respect and love the legions, even though I have yet to truly witness you in action with my own real eyes. Please afford me the same benefit of the doubt”.
Olympus looked at him and nodded. It was a far more subtle movement than Sabre’s had been, but it was enough to show the Apostle that he was acquiescing. Lupus looked across at the other legionnaires around the table, taking in the feeling of their presence and gauging how they felt. Despite his inexperience, he got the impression that they, at least, found it hard to doubt him. Olympus was the exception to the rule, not the majority.
“Good,” he said, both to his own observation and the second in command. “Let us plan our strike against the Great Enemy. We shouldn’t suffer their existence any longer than the speed of our ships forces us to”.
LUPUS AND THE legionnaires stayed in the Primary Tactical Hall for more hours than anyone cared to count. They meticulously planned their attack on the Phantom forces in the Abodian Sector, discussing various strategies to ensure the utter defeat of the enemy with minimal cost to the legions.
The legionnaires were surprised to witness the military acumen of their Apostle at first, reeling back at his wisdom and his understanding of war-strategy. They were more than capable of comprehending his plan, for they were veterans of a struggle that had already lasted a century, but the speed of his familiarity with their methods of fighting was ferocious. Every time they found a flaw, he would reseal the plan with a strength double the size of the weakness it replaced.
To begin with, it seemed that the Apostle wanted to win the war singlehandedly. His ideas and tactics were so unusually brilliant, even to the legions, and so profoundly hopeful, that his apparent military cunning seemed little more than optimistic blundering. However, the more complex his plan became, somehow the more obvious it was that it could work.
Valerian had disseminated the current status and disposition of the Black Guardians already in the Abodian Sector and the Apostle used this to orchestrate the moves of the 617th and their accompanying legions. He wanted a decisive, fast victory not only to smash the enemy asunder, but to show them that the legions were the dominant force. They would not suffer any trace of the Phantoms in the Gothican Empire for as long as the humans wanted them as their protectors.
Despite the solidity of his Apostle’s plan, Olympus continued to have nagging doubts in his mind. The man standing at the head of the table with them clearly knew what he was talking about, as if he had been with them all through the war since its very start. Yet, that wasn’t true; why was he the only one that seemed to know it? The Apostle only seemed this way because the Blessing moulded him into something entirely different than what he was at birth; he was a demi-god not by origin, but by manipulation. Vermillion may have transferred Her knowledge and power to him, but he still began his life as a human. The legionnaire was beginning to question whether or not all that sharing of experience would actually translate onto the battlefield, because if it didn’t, the plan would crumble the moment they touched the ground and the death started.
Still, his concerns would have to wait. He had already been chastised by the commander and he had to admit, the Apostle certainly seemed to understand the art of war, even if it was bourn from false memory and shadowed experience. Despite his misgivings, he also had to acknowledge that the Auranair Herself chose this man to be an Apostle. That alone demanded his respect and obeisance. He would not openly question the right and status of the Lion; instead, he would wait for his evidence in the battles to come. He hoped dearly that his pessimism was unfounded, because its growing darkness was eating away at his spirit. Now that their great Queen was dead, the legions needed real leaders, not just children with the powers of demi-gods.
A few days after the strategy meeting, with the Luminon still in transit to the Abodian Sector despite the Guardians’ master of space travel, Olympus decided to try and qualm these numbing thoughts by training in the ship’s Practice Arena. It was a week’s trip at best to the Abodian Sector because the Lion didn’t want to take any risks by sacrificing shield strength for speed. Olympus needed to be in complete focus in time for their arrival. When he walked through the double doors to the massive room, he beheld a view of dozens of groups of legionnaires disciplining themselves, both physically and mentally, for the battle ahead.
There were boxing rings for unarmed combat, gun alleys for perfecting aim, various machines to work on desired musculature and holo-domes that provided ultra-realistic battle environments. These last facilities were the closest thing a legionnaire could come to experiencing a confrontation with the enemy, to any desired degree, before landing on actual soil and coming face-to-face with them for real. They proved to be an invaluable resource for training and the technological complexity of the systems allowed for all severities of conflict to be fought across an unimaginable range of planet types.
Olympus had heard the rumours, like everyone had, of the Apostle participating in one of the holo-domes. The whisperers claimed he was getting an impressive understanding both of his own abilities against the pretend Phantom enemies and of the legionnaires in the 617th. Stories were told in the barracks of how the Apostle had yet to lose a holo-battle against the enemy, even with the extreme odds stacked against him by the battle-systems. By this time, he had already started to combine the complete loyalty of the legion with admiration, respect and trust. He was already winning the love of the men and women around him; despite himself, Olympus had to marvel at that.
The second in command decided to investigate the truth of these rumours in the small hope residing in his heart that his doubts could be swept aside earlier than he expected. He asked a legionnaire close to him, Caius, where to find the Apostle.
“In the third holo-dome, Sire. You have to see him fight, it’s like nothing we expected” Caius had told h
im.
Olympus nodded curtly in response and made his way to the battle arena. Once there, he entered through a circular portal and climbed a flight of stairs to an observation deck. The small balcony allowed any legionnaire to overlook the holo-battle taking place. Commanders often used it to assess the strengths of their tactics and the abilities of their legionnaires. More often than not, new information about the enemy would be uploaded into the computer systems of the domes and the training environment would adjust accordingly so the Guardians could encounter their new foe in a non-lethal setting.
Today, Sabre and his command platoons were fighting with the Apostle against a horde-class enemy format. Olympus should have been with them, but he had other duties as second in command to attend to. The commander insisted that he should train alongside the Lion, but Olympus tactfully declined.
The dome had produced a rocky landscape typical of the worlds in the Abodian Sector to provide the legionnaires with what they should expect. It was so frightfully natural that even Olympus had trouble believing it was superficial. Besides that, the experience of the Black Guardians and their technological prowess was so vast that the pre-programmed enemy had become as adaptive as they were in these holo-domes, making the training even more ruthless than before.
Of course, the battle was still far from real; he wondered if the rest of the command cadre remembered that. The weapons fired holo-projectiles that would shatter the simulated enemy, and the Guardians would be knocked to the floor by return fire, but there was no permanent damage. Still, the system had stretched to such an extent that the projected environment seemed physical enough and with the right amount of power supplied to the system, the legionnaires couldn’t slip through the fake rocks. They would have to face the terrain as if were wholly physical and if they fell from a great height, the arena would capture them in a beam of energy designed to bring them safely back.
The battle arena was so advanced that even in close combat the enemy was fearsome and deadly capable. The same rules applied here as for ranged fire fights and were equally realistic. All this functionality, added to the malleability of the environment inside the dome, allowed for the perfect battlefield training.
Olympus watched as the Apostle emerged from a rocky outcrop in his form as the Lion, roaring at the enemy who had been pouring fire at him and the suppressed legionnaires. The Phantoms were massive, bestial bipedal creatures carrying pole arms that spat fireballs at the Guardians. These were the devii troops; the second lowest form of the enemy, yet the enemy’s equal match of the legionnaires. They seemed sentient in only one respect; they were lethal in their function of destruction.
If Olympus tried to describe them to a human, he would resemble them to bull-like horrors that could stand on their rear limbs. Their legs were covered in thick black hair, their feet were stone-hard hooves and their broad chests were covered in skin the colour of blood. They had heads with bulging, black orbs for eyes and long, brown-bone horns that would gut a man in seconds. They snorted and growled as they fired at the Guardians and their totems of death attached to their insufficient, rotten metal armour added to their malefic appearance.
The devii were a prime example of why the Gothican Empire was not ready for this war. Had the Guardians in the dome been a human unit they would have fled in sheer terror even with the knowledge that the enemy were nothing more than holograms.
The Lion roared proudly and defiantly at the enemy, somehow withstanding the fire pouring onto his body. Olympus thought to himself that this was why the Apostle was so confident; his apparent invulnerability that the Auranair had bestowed in the Blessing extended from his body to his authority and status as well. No man could be afraid if he wore armour impervious to all things.
Olympus saw Sabre rise up from under cover to join the Apostle, the distracted enemy focussed solely on the Lion. As one, the other legionnaires added their firepower to his own even as they divided into two groups, splintering off at each side to outflank the Phantoms. In less than a minute, the legionnaires destroyed the devii and a klaxon sounded in the dome to announce the end of the scenario.
The Lion, Olympus realised, was being surrounded by the legionnaires as they returned from the fight. It was clear from their morale that there had been no casualties, even though they would have been artificial. Olympus couldn’t help but smile at the truth of the rumours and felt, for the first time, a hint of pride to serve in the 617th. He watched as the Apostle changed back to the man he really was and wondered how he remained clothed despite the change between forms. Then he remembered the Lion was a demi-god; such things as insuring the safety of his own garments would have been simple to the point of triviality to him.
It was a fleeting thought though, one that hardly mattered, and Olympus remembered why he had come to the Practice Arena to begin with. He left the holo-dome feeling surer of the battle to come and made a mental note to keep this memory alive; if there was any ever doubt to the Apostle’s status, what he witnessed today should sweep it away again.
Resigning himself to one of the boxing rings, he smiled as Caius approached and offered to practice with him. If Olympus enjoyed anything it was a good fight, and Caius could never disappoint any opponent.
IT WAS THE final day of the jump to the Abodian Sector. The fleet was mere hours from reaching the worlds of this part of the Empire and Lupus’ mind was running rampant with thoughts about the coming battle. He was confident about his legion and their abilities; he had both implanted memories and, now, first-hand experience of their presence and power. It was not them that he worried about, but himself.
He had spent every day training with the 617th, taking on every form of enemy the holo-domes could throw at him, and he always won. Yet these victories were not enough to quell the thoughts that he wasn’t ready. Perhaps he never would be, not until he touched the ground of war with his own feet. In some ways, he wanted to be a part of this fight just to get the feel for the chaos and bloodshed of combat. He knew that the time was soon coming when he would have to engage in engagements so massive that they would make the present battle seem tiny and inconsequential. Part of him was convinced that for victory to be certain he had to fight alongside his legion at all times until the end; despite their high spirits and confidence, he felt like the legionnaires’ morale depended on it.
Such a necessity would seem foolish to anyone else, even Sabre; the Black Guardians knew no fear, so it was claimed. They had fought alongside Vermillion at the Battle of Colossi, witnessed the full horror that the Great Enemy could unleash, and faced them down with honour and stoic reserve. Lupus knew, however, that there were greater terrors to come and all the legions would be tested beyond their current experience of the war. It was imperative for him to solidify his standing as an Apostle now so that he was ready to take his legion into the nightmare hell of Colossi later on.
Lupus met with Sabre and the command echelon of the 617th on multiple occasions in the last hours of the transition, updating the plan with minor details that would make major improvements to its success, each adjustment assuring a better victory. When the fleet finally translated in-system, they detected no trace of enemy ships, but found dozens of legionary vessels orbiting the various worlds of the Abodian Sector. The vast majority were stationed around a desert-like planet with continents of sand dunes and cities of yellow stone. When the 617th joined with the fleet surrounding the world, the fellow legions rejoiced at the coming of the First Apostle and accepted the Lion as commander of the campaign without question or hindrance. Had Valerian sent word ahead of us? Lupus wondered.
“It will begin here,” Lupus intoned as he once again gathered with his legionnaires in the Primary Tactical Hall, “On Axion”.
On the table a holographic projection of the world appeared. It rotated slowly, showing the areas where the enemy was dug in and where the Guardians had already landed and begun to make progress. Areas in red highlighted where resistance was fiercest and green indicated safe la
nding zones for the legions. Blue arrows marked deployment actions and troop advances were shown in purple.
As Lupus discussed his plan for invasion with his legionnaires, he thought about the world’s natural inhabitants and how it must have felt to have their home invaded by Phantom forces. It would have been no less than a living nightmare; the men would have been slaughtered first, the elders left to rot and wail, the children harvested as slaves and the women, if they were lucky, shared for rape by the paradigms, the lowest of the Phantom ranks.
Though these morbid thoughts came easily to him, Lupus had to keep his resolve and focus on the successes, little as they were. He was impressed to learn that the legions had arrived in time to suppress all calls for aid to the Gothican Empire by the residents – a necessary evil to prevent panic spreading rife to other worlds and Sectors.
These thoughts of his old home and birth-race strung themselves together and lead Lupus to think of something much more personal and dear to him; Calla. It had been days since he thought of her in any detail, but to witness a world being haunted by the enemy, homes being torn apart by monsters and families being destroyed for monstrous fun reminded him of the injustice and mystery of Calla’s disappearance. Had a Corrupt known who he was? Had they taken Calla to weaken his heart, knowing it would make him vulnerable in other ways?
He had to force these thoughts back as commanders from other legions, who boarded the Luminon earlier to join with the 617th in discussing deployment plans for Axion, waited patiently for his answers to their questions. He managed to give each one a confident response and reassured the men and women around him that he wasn’t distracted, that the core of him was actually intact, but privately he confessed that until the cleansing of this world was over, he could not allow himself to think of Calla again, lest it disrupt him at the cost of lives both human and Guardian.
The Deian War: Vermillion's Apostles Page 16