The tactical meeting did not last long, the commanders understanding the strategy seamlessly and without protest. They informed Lupus that the enemy’s ships had been destroyed, with minor losses to the Guardians’ forces, upon arrival to the Sector and that the fleet had been busy with securing the perimeter around the core worlds before tying the knot on Axion. They were proud to be honoured by his presence and excited to see him lead the final attack personally.
Upon the commanders’ return to their ships to organise planet fall and troop dispositions, Lupus called his own legion command to his side and talked through the plan for the last time. He wanted nothing to go wrong, and although he felt his diligence was unwarranted, he could not help but ensure that the plan’s perfection would not go spoiled.
Afterwards, he proceeded with Sabre and Olympus to the legion’s Command Stormfalcon in the main hangar bay of the ship. He was witnessed by hundreds of legionnaires boarding their own transports and he felt a deep pride for the 617th as he saw the disciplined efficiency of their deployment procedures. He reminded himself again that all the men and women around him were soldiers of a war that had lasted a century already, yet none of them seemed tired or reluctant to go on. Even if they were decades older than any Gothican alive today, only their psyches seemed to show it. Physically, the legionnaires appeared as no more than most middle-aged humans.
Lupus walked up the ramp of his Stormfalcon, crested with royal purple stripes along its flanks to represent its designation as a command transport, and sat down in one of the waiting seats comfortably. It was padded as much as any of the others and didn’t stand out - a point he enjoyed to show that he saw himself as no better than his legionnaires.
Pulling the restraints down over him to secure his body for the inevitably turbulent transit down to the planet’s surface, Lupus watched as the transport filled with another hundred legionnaires. It was a large craft, with two decks. A staircase in the centre of the transport allowed troops to move to the higher level, and upon deployment to the ground, the top floor could descend down to the first when the lower floor had fully disembarked.
As the seat harness clicked into place, Lupus felt his mind stray again and wondered what Calla would think if she saw him now. They had talked about the Prophecy before, but he had never admitted its fulfilment and truth to her. Perhaps he had seemed to be a gentle person to her, but now he was about to go into a battle and unleash a ferocious, even bestial side of him against the enemy without relent or mercy. Would she have been able to accept this part of him? Could she have understood his purpose, see that his slaughter of the Phantoms was pure where their own murderous rampages were evil? He quietened his mind again and resolved to focus on the battle as the transport lifted from the deck and dove into space through the gargantuan doors of the hangar bay.
As the Stormfalcon raced towards the ground, Lupus became filled with rage at the Great Enemy’s presence on Axion. How ignorant they are to think that they can resist us, he thought. How mutated a mind must they have to think they can survive our justice?
The noise inside the cabin of the ship intensified as the Stormfalcon broke into the upper atmosphere. Fire raced across its hull as the friction of the air tore against it and Lupus could feel the struggle between the machine and nature as it sped towards the surface.
It took mere minutes for the craft to land on the ground, a time that belied the transport’s size. As it thundered harmlessly to the ground, the seat restraints automatically sprung open and the legionnaires raced down the ramp to the waiting sun outside.
As Lupus waited for enough room to change form and join them outside, he felt the heat fill the transport and klaxons sound as the second floor of the transport began to descend. He reacted immediately and transformed into the Lion once more, darting like the predator that he was to group with his legionnaires already deploying in platoons. From here, under the cover of artillery fire from the legions dug in on Axion weeks before, they would march on the capital and destroy the Great Enemy’s feeble pawns.
The Lion roared in anger, a challenge to the enemy and an inspiration to his troops, a cry that could be heard for miles around. It reached the ears and hearts of all the legionnaires landing around him and they answered with their own battle cries. The First Apostle led the Black Guardian Legions forward to the meet the Phantoms and the crusade to purge the Abodian Sector began.
Part Two
Reunion
10 Years Later
Chapter 6
“ARCADIUS, PASS ME your grenade!”
Arcadius knew who had called to him, even over the din of the battlefield. It was Scipio from the 21st Legion. He ceased fire and ducked down under the lip of the trench rampart he was firing from. Unclipping one of the two gauss grenades strapped around his waist, he threw the explosive device to Scipio and re-joined the firing step to deny the oncoming hordes the ground they sought.
A few thousand Phantom paradigms, the lowest of the enemy troops, were charging the Black Guardian lines en masse. The combined legions, after ten years now twenty strong and under the command of the Lion, had been making fierce progress against the foe in the Abodian Sector. It had taken just a month to purge Axion, but after that, the campaign ground slower and slower as enemy reinforcements converged around the Sector’s planets like moths to a flame, though these insects were nothing short of monsters.
Now, on desolated Dystopian, the final battle of the aptly named Purge Crusades was being fought. As the enemy’s ranks continued to swell, so too did those of the legions. It was known before the war even began, a decade ago that had all the effect of a month on the legionnaires, that there were Phantom forces spread throughout the Empire. Even so, the Black Guardians had no appreciation of their enemy’s true strength until the third world they relieved.
Arcadius had always known the Lion was a wise man and a fearsome commander; after all, he was the First Apostle. The legionnaire had no doubts about the scale of the conflict in the Abodian Sector, a realisation that was rare even amongst the Guardians who were steeped in the life of war. When the Apostle demanded all nearby legions to commit to the campaign, ordering the Recon Master Valerian to broadcast the command to every world within their reach on the Black Guardian channels, Arcadius could not help but obey without question. However, when it became apparent that the enemy was only amassing in this Sector, as if to make a defiant stand against the legions and do what harm was possible before the time-lock on Colossi ended, the Guardians were not merciful or cautious.
When the time-lock was put in place over that dreaded world, the legions were as spread apart as the Phantoms that managed to escape. Intolerable of their existence, the Guardians pursued all trails and signs of the enemy until the latter eventually grouped here in the Abodian Sector. So it was that twenty-one legions, including the 617th, found themselves under the command of the Lion as they found not only the foe they sought, but the friends they thought lost as well. Yet, for all the amalgamated commanders, the complex hierarchy of officers and the multitudinous chains of command, none complained, none disobeyed, when the Lion assumed control. They saw the right of the Apostle and his status and immediately bowed to his position. Their obeisance was not through fear, but through admiration and understanding. Before them stood a living aspect of the Auranair, a remnant of their lost goddess who had helped to create them. He had more power than any human had a right to, but he had grown past that race now. He was one of the Twelve Chosen, the legions his to command by right and purpose.
There were an untold number of other legions in the Empire, many of which were searching desperately for their own respective Apostles. The 617th had come across the communications of many of them, lost out there among the stars looking for their own Chosen. It was said that each of the Twelve had one legion assigned to them, more loyal than any of the rest, devout beyond change. The 617th were exemplary of this, their adherence to the Lion unwavering and their dedication complete. The search, however,
had been in vain thus far and the Lion was left alone to command the legions for an entire decade of warfare. He had grown wise beyond his years, his martial knowledge widened further than any of the Guardians could have anticipated. Even Olympus had put aside his reservations about the Apostle, replacing his doubt and scepticism with esteem and duty.
Despite the Apostle’s power and acumen, the Purge Crusades had not come without a cost. An entire legion had nearly been destroyed on this very world. Arcadius remembered them well; the 212th had been one of the first legions to find the 617th in the Abodian Sector. They had fought alongside them on world after world, ridding the enemy from each and every planet.
Tragedy befell the legions when they grouped for the last push on Dystopian two years ago. The enemy had managed to reorganise their forces, even after suffering punishing defeats at the hands of the Guardians, and made a stand in orbit before retreating to the ground. The battle in space took a heavy toll on the 212th, their flagship obliterated by devastating broadsides from four enemy Hellbirth ships, the rival to the legions’ mighty destroyers. The rest of the 212th fleet was decimated and sent to the Promethian Shipyards, now a vastly improved super-structure above Promethia, the capital planet of the Abodian Sector. There, they had found a handful of other legions that had been drawn to the fleet facilities, but no sign of an Apostle that every Guardian serving with the Lion was hoping for. He was enough to lead the legions as they were, but when more and more flocked to his banner, the battles and casualties would take their toll on him. The other Chosen needed to be found; the mantle of duty and command had to be shared.
In response to the decimation of the 212th, the greatest loss since the Battle of Colossi and the events that precipitated the Blessing, the legions fought back vehemently and without remorse. They wiped out the enemy fleet, rid them from the skies of Dystopian and launched the biggest ground offensive of the entire crusade. No resource went unspent, no quarter was given, no time for respite made. Now twenty legions fought valiantly across the huge, rocky continent of the planet’s Capital to finish the Crusades once and for all.
Back in the present, Arcadius fired his PR-5, a rifle that used super-heated, spherical pulsar projectiles to devastate any target it touched. He cut down a trio of paradigms in the distance; ghastly, abhorrent men whose sickly grey skin and dark, baggy eyes made them look like nightmarish ghouls. They carried their own weapons; crude, brutish guns that were served equally as clubbing tools in close quarters. Yet for all their horror, the paradigms were no match for a legionnaire one-to-one. It was in overwhelming numbers, in the hordes that they assaulted the legionnaires with, that the real danger of them became apparent.
Arcadius saw Scipio throw the gauss grenade into the enemy ranks, further than any human could believe, and realised his target was a group of golems that had hidden amongst the paradigms racing towards the trenches. The device activated a second later, throwing a magnetic shockwave through the enemy so powerful that it reduced them to atoms before sucking them back inside the metal ball. They fell apart in a wisp of dust, and then it was as though the golems had never existed at all.
A few paradigms were caught in the radius of the grenade and disappeared as well, but their numbers were still far too great and they were reaching the legions’ lines too fast. Arcadius heard heavier weapons opening up and felt nothing but pride as thousands of men and women fired upon the enemy in disciplined unison all along the trenches that stretched for miles. Arcadius was thankful for that; golems were two tiers above a paradigm - stony, relentless creatures that were impervious to pulsar fire. Fortunately, gauss grenades cared not for their targets’ atomic makeup – they were deadly to everything.
The vast numbers of the paradigms made them appear as an ocean and Arcadius was disgusted by how many had fled the battle in orbit. Upon planet fall, the Guardians deployed with lethal efficiency as they had always done. Yet, despite their speed the enemy was quicker and had rushed towards their lines from the safety of the now-ruined Capital city in the hope of crushing the legions head-on.
The attempt had failed completely, owed much to the leadership of the commanders and the awe-inspiring resolve of the Lion, but that was two years ago. Since that day, the Guardians had pushed ever forwards towards the enemy’s captured stronghold, a city of the dead and slaughtered, in an effort to end them. For all their advances, the foe seemed numberless and every time the legions gained ground, they would have to entrench themselves again to hold off the counter-assault. Every foot gained was another they had to defend as quickly as they had achieved it.
This time felt different, though. Somehow, and Arcadius couldn’t be sure, the enemy seemed more desperate. It was as if this was their final defiance. Or, more likely, the last of the paradigms were being thrown at them wholeheartedly to create a false sense of security, clouding the smaller armies of golems concealed in their midst to force a breakthrough. Either way, Arcadius reasoned, there couldn’t be many of them left now. That idea made him smile.
A legionnaire jumped into the trench beside him with a heavier weapon and laid it on the lip of the parapet, steadying it on a bulky tripod before opening fire. It was the larger, more powerful cousin to his PR-5, the AGG-II; Avenger Gatling Gun, mark two. It utilised the same pulsar technology as the smaller rifle, but it packed a much faster, far deadlier punch. The legionnaire using it was mowing down the enemy in swathes, their fleshy, eerily humanoid bodies hopelessly weak against the weapon.
“Keep it up!” Arcadius encouraged him, yelling over the noise of the gun’s ferocious bark.
“I plan to!” the legionnaire grinned, switching out the now empty drum-magazine for a spare.
Behind them, artillery batteries were finally awake again. Known as Destructors, they hurled devastating balls of plasma into the paradigm horde, burning dozens at a time and flash-blinding hundreds of others. The weapon pieces were huge enough to incorporate the coolant technology necessary to keep them functional as they fired barrage after barrage, laying waste to the enemy with every shot. The Phantoms were relentless however, and continued to push on despite the catastrophic losses they were suffering.
Arcadius winced as incoming fire tore up the parapet he was leaning on. The legionnaire next to him screamed as a salvo of bullets exploded his right shoulder in a gory mess and collapsed to the muddy ground below. Scipio ran over to assist their fallen comrade, but it was too late. The legionnaire had already passed on.
“We have to get this gun firing again” Scipio snarled, hefting the weapon back onto its mount. Arcadius hadn’t ceased fire at all, knowing that the legionnaire was dead before he hit the ground from blood loss alone. He saw Scipio grip the AGG-II with his massive hands, and as he squeezed the heavy trigger he made the weapon live up to its name.
Still, even against the combined efforts of the legions manning the miles long trench line and the merciless fire they were unleashing on the enemy, the paradigms still raced forward. It was bewildering to see; mounds of the dead littered no man’s land yet still the foe did not turn and flee. Arcadius mused that perhaps they were too mindless to realise their own peril.
It was immediately obvious to every legionnaire that the time was coming for close quarter combat. They just didn’t have enough munitions to push the Phantoms back. Just as Arcadius reached for his blade, an elegant sword forged from unbreakable steel and a unique weapon amongst the Guardians, the familiar growling sound of engines soared through the air above him. He barely had time to turn and witness the approach of the Stormfalcon squadrons as they dove low and unleashed their explosive payloads on the enemy.
Though the transports had been converted into these temporary bombers, the conventional anti-personnel weapons on their hulls also rained down heavy fire on the enemy, clearing whole sections of the horde away in bloody waves. The Stormfalcons banked round and came back to punish the Phantoms again, leaving little behind but a red tide of blood as their monumental firepower combined with that of the le
gionnaires in the trenches. The horde was annihilated in the space of moments. When the last foe howled its death cry, the Guardians cheered in unison at the victory.
A group of the transports circled round and settled down behind the legionary lines before spilling forth reinforcements. Platoons of Guardians rushed to the trenches, scores of medics among them, to replenish the troops already stationed there and Arcadius felt a rush of relief flood through him. It wasn’t for his own sake that he felt glad, but for the wounded that lay strewn across the trenches. They had slaughtered thousands, but they had lost dozens; it was a heavy price to pay, despite the balance.
He sunk to the floor in exhaustion. He barely had time to breathe before a shadow blocked the sun’s harsh light from reaching him. He looked up to see a familiar pair of figures standing on the trench lip. It was the command echelon of his legion. Where the hell have you been? He thought, but didn’t dare to ask out loud. He understood his rank better than that.
“Arcadius, are you injured?” Olympus asked, looking down at him. Arcadius knew he meant no true offence by the question, but nor he was asking out of care; rather, it was out of knowing whether to count him down as a casualty or not.
Arcadius managed to push himself up with Scipio’s help. They were strong allies, having fought together in the crusade for five years now, and he was thankful for his friend’s assistance.
Scipio was the one to answer. “He is not, Sire. Rather, he was taking a rest, now that those in command are actually here at the battle’s break”.
Olympus glared at Scipio with contempt. Who was a legionnaire from the 21st to insult a commander of the 617th?
“Remember your rank and purpose, legionnaire” he spat.
“I will, if you remember yours” Scipio smiled.
The Deian War: Vermillion's Apostles Page 17