The Apostles knew they would come across this type of foe again; a nightmare that they thought was nothing more than that. They dared to hope they wouldn’t face them so soon, or in such large numbers, but here the elite of the Phantoms stood in a show of the Great Enemy’s power.
The cohort of Blood Kings had vaulted the city walls with effortless ease and waded through the retreating Guardians like scythes to a crop. Lupus understood now why the Hollow Bomb was taking so long to detonate; the enemy wanted to toy with them a little more before they destroyed Pheia.
D E C I M A T E T H E M ! A ghoulish voice boomed. It wasn’t loud from the speaker actually shouting, but because it was somehow omnipresent, reaching the ears of every living thing on the planet.
The Blood Kings snarled viciously in response of their master’s command and seconds later obeyed, smashing into the ranks of the retreating legions with increased vigour and laying waste with their oversized weapons wherever they strode. The blood of the dying seemed to fly towards the Phantoms as though the monsters controlled the life fluid with some sickening ability.
“Get inside, NOW!” Oz yelled to the Apostles that still stood at the Stormfalcon’s ramp, guiding their legions in the retreat.
Lupus saw Calla in her white armour again throw Valkyrie into the transport with a human strength heightened by the Blessing, her sister’s ears pouring blood down her cheeks. He knew without asking that the sinister voice had injured her attuned mind, but there was precious little they could do to help her. They had to leave now and heal later.
Cerberus roared, all three heads raising a challenge to the Phantom beasts. Lupus saw him coiling his legs, ready to launch himself into the enemy to save the Guardians now being slaughtered by the Blood Kings. The apocalyptic march of the Phantoms was enough to break the resolve of the legionnaires and they fled the Warhounds, trusting their own legs over the metal treads of their war machines to get them to safety.
“NO, BROTHER! They’re baiting us! Lupus yelled over the insistencies of the pilot as he screamed at the last of them to get on, his duty for their lives overriding the convention for respecting chain of command.
By now all the rest bar Cerberus had joined him on the transport. The co-pilot was shouting at them too now, begging them to climb aboard as the predicted timer for the bomb trickled down. Despite the obvious danger, Cerberus couldn’t let it go. He couldn’t reconcile their defeat with a retreat that ended in slaughter.
Sensing that they were about to lose him, Lupus leapt from the transport and stepped in front of his brother. Cerberus towered over him so far that Lupus felt cold in his shadow. With a grunt his brother Apostle noticed him standing there, brave and stupid. His action had caught his attention off guard. Cerberus growled at him defiantly to let him past.
Lupus shook his head. “You will have to crush me before I let you waste your life, Brother. You cannot save them now, none of us can”. His own words hurt to be spoken, but he was still the First Apostle; the responsibility to see them all safe was his and if he had to be strong and bear the pain better than any of them, then so be it. It would likely crush him one day, when the war was over and he let himself mourn for a mountain of loss, but he could evade all that as long as his invulnerability was needed.
Easily overlooking him, Cerberus watched as whole platoons of legionnaires tried to withstand the onslaught of the Blood Kings. His dark eyes filled with regret and misery. Then it was anger that flooded them and just as Lupus thought he had failed to persuade him, his brother shrank down and changed his form.
Now Thanos again, he looked at Lupus with doubt and remorse in his expression. “We must have vengeance…” he muttered. His tone was heavy with the implication of fact, not suggestion, as a tear ran down his cheek. Of all the Apostles Lupus was likely to see cry, Thanos had been the last on that list and the reality of it was a further wound to his spirit.
As the pilot yelled at them yet again to get moving, Lupus paid the legionnaire no heed and stepped closer to his brother. The other Apostles watched as he wiped his tear away with his hand and looked him directly in the eye.
“We will, Thanos. I promise you it” he said.
They all believed him, even Thanos whose mind had become so full of guilt and cynicism in so short a time. War had a way of doing that, Lupus knew, and it must have taken his brother’s last vestige of faith to trust his words. Finally surrendering to the need to depart, the latter stepped into the transport and held a hand out to Lupus in a gesture of understanding.
As Lupus touched the deck, Calla bellowed back at the pilot to take off. As the Stormfalcon gunned its engines and left the world of Pheia behind, the Blood Kings laid savagely into the remaining Guardian forces that were now unable to retreat with the last of the transports away. As the rear ramp came up, concealing her view of those they had abandoned, she wondered how any of them could ever forgive themselves for running away.
She cradled her sister’s body in her arms, wiping the blood from her face with her sleeve, staining the purity of her armour and clothes. It was more symbolic than she had the resolve to realise.
On the other side of the cabin, Lupus sat and stared at them each in turn. Questions raced through his mind as unforgiving and merciless as the Blood King has been. How could he have been so wrong? How could he have not seen the trap coming? Worst of all, how could he leave the legionnaires behind down there to die?
AS THE STORMFALCON approached the main hangar bay of the Luminon, laden with the most powerful figures in all the Black Guardian legions, the doors opened calmly as though the Dimension only knew peace and allowed the final transport in. The movements were all so fluid that it seemed the vessel was unaware of its impending doom.
As soon as the small craft touched down, Orion’s voice echoed around the hangar, emitted loud and clearly through speakers that could only be seen if you knew the blueprints of the ship. “My Lord, what are your orders? We are ready to jump to Hydron on your command”.
Lupus replied to the air as he and the Apostles walked from the hangar to the bridge, but even though he looked like a madman, the ship’s systems picked up his voice and transmitted it all the same to Orion’s throne. “Take us a safe distance away from the planet Captain, beyond the reach of the Hollow Bomb. Any ships that wish to remain to witness this may do so – otherwise, command them to regroup with the others and wait for us in the Aurora Sector”.
There was a delayed response as Orion processed that they wanted to see Pheia’s fate. They had discussed it on the way to the Blackstar, each agreeing without much debate that they owed it to the people who had died on that world, Guardian and human alike, to see their end. They would need to witness the death of the world, not only to honour those they had left behind, but as a lesson of their underestimation of the Great Enemy’s cruelty and cunning.
“…As you wish, my Lord” Orion eventually said.
As Lupus led the others through the ship, Sabre and Akurei intercepted them. With the chaos of the retreat, all sense of order was forgotten. Whichever transport was nearest belonged to any Guardian that could get to it, regardless of what their legion was. The two commanders were forced to share the same transport, not begrudgingly, up to the Luminon with dozens of mixed legionnaires. They were relieved and happy to have made it safely, that was obvious, but visibly distressed about what had happened. Still, they seemed more concerned about the Apostles than themselves.
The Twelve Chosen stopped in their tracks where the commanders blocked the passage and waited for the two Guardians to say what was on their mind. “There was nothing you could do…” Sabre began. He had wanted to say more, but the look on the Apostles’ faces robbed him of his voice.
Lupus had no words with which to reply, but somehow Gaia did. “You are kind, Commander, but there is precious little that can cover our responsibility for the battle’s result” she told him not unkindly.
Sabre shifted uncomfortably like he was about to say some more, bu
t Akurei stopped him with a hand to his shoulder and they reluctantly let the Apostles past without further interruption. They looked on as the group of broken demi-gods walked down the corridor, watching with sadness at the injustice of their self-punishment.
Lupus paid them no heed. Not out of neglect or coldness, but because his mind was focussed on nothing but what was about to happen to Pheia. Sabre had recoiled at the sight of the Hollow Bomb clutched in the hands of the old man in the city, utter disbelief etched on his face as the same weapon that had brought the war to the Gothican Dimension was about to hurl the human planet somewhere else entirely. Or, just as likely, the uncertain device would fail to create the wormhole it was designed for and instead rip the world asunder as a thousand different gravity wells were created. It was a weapon made by the gods, but now one was in the hands of the Phantoms and they cared not for function or purpose. They would push a few buttons for pandemonium’s sake alone and laugh at the results even if it killed them.
As the Apostles ascended the decks on their way to the bridge, they felt the vast engines of the ship engage as it began to steer them away from danger. Moments later the vessel was wrapped in a cocoon of energy and jumped to the closest safe area on the fringes of the Frontier. The weapon, every legionnaire knew, would have a devastatingly unstable radius. Once it had activated, they would only have moments of security before they had to leave completely.
They reached the bridge and the doors hissed open automatically to allow them inside. Before now, Lupus would have mused at the way they seemed to give him permission to enter when they detected his presence, as if they were capable of determining who could join the crew inside and who could not. In truth, the doors were perfectly capable of doing precisely that. Sensors built into the frame detected, registered and processed every life sign in the corridor, gauging whether or not they had the status and rank to step onto the bridge. All the Apostles had always been allowed to enter, with no update to the system necessary to make it aware of whom they were. It smacked of the Apostles’ psychic presence, something Lupus and the others were becoming rapidly more and more understanding of.
Orion saw them come in and left his throne to speak to them personally. “My Lords, the fleet has jumped to the outskirts of the Frontier. From here, we can see the Hollow Bomb’s detonation” he told them, unsure of which of them to direct his words to. He couldn’t even face the First without feeling rage eat at him for the souls they left behind, but he felt just as ashamed for blaming him for what had to be done.
Oz was already at the bank of view screens to the front of the bridge, seeing nothing but the darkness of space outside. “Captain, could you bring us around? None of us will see Pheia from here, I fear” he asked. Lupus could swear he detected the smallest of jests in his brother’s voice, as though he were trying to lighten the mood with his usual levity despite the terrible situation they found themselves in.
Orion looked at him, unsure of how to phrase his answer. “We are looking at her, my Lord”. He then turned to give an order to his crew. “Zoom in on the planet, Zeno”.
The sensors of the Blackstar class were the best in the Guardian fleet, able to focus on objects of even a Voidhawk’s size regardless of their respective positions in a Sector. Seconds later, the world they had fought in vain to save flashed up on the view screens. Without a word, the Apostles gathered together in a group facing the screens and prepared to watch the planet’s fate.
MOMENTS LATER ON the surface of Pheia, the black orb held between the hands of an old, greying man ruptured with a release of invisible force. It took less than a minute for the Apostles on board the Luminon to notice it, but the luminescence of the detonation was frighteningly magnificent.
The device was a masterpiece of annihilation. It was forged from an unknowably divine technology, a science impossible for the humans to understand and rightly so. Even if a legionnaire were to try and explain its method, they would be stunned into silence by its marvellous complexity and their inability to comprehend the most basic of descriptions.
With a vacuum of energy the orb sucked the nearest star’s fuel from its very core, as if it were a simple magician’s trick and drank the sun’s lifeblood clean. Without damaging the planet itself, as if that even mattered now, the temperature of the star flooded into the depths of the black orb, drained away forever into nothingness.
Now, without its life-giving heat to maintain its nuclear heart, the star collapsed under its own weight. Its gravity ripped it apart in a monstrously beautiful explosion and in its place sat the most violent, terrifying object ever to be encountered in space by Guardian or human alike.
The Apostles and bridge crew watched motionless and without a word as a black hole loomed over Pheia’s moons and swallowed them whole, one by one. It was more grievous than any Phantom could aspire to be, the negative of everything else in the Dimension. It devoured hope, quashed desire and ate everything in its path. Now, a world of the human Gothican Empire was in its way and it knew no mercy.
The planet seemed to enter a sort of slow-motion drift as it became a fluid state, one side being sucked into the abyss before the other. Then, a nanosecond later, the other half went with it and there was no longer any trace of the world the legions had fought and died to save.
Other objects, smaller worlds and moons that were stuck inside the event horizon of the black hole were sucked in to join Pheia’s death. The only thing that pierced the feeling of numbness in Lupus’ core was the realization that the thing destroying everything in its path seemed to be getting bigger.
How is that even possible? He thought, but in his human mind only Valkyrie could hear his thoughts and seemed too intent to watch the screens to do so. He didn’t wait to ask someone; instead, he surrendered his rational mind to the impossibility that a forged weapon could even create the inescapable wrath of a black hole.
“Captain, get us out of here. It’s time for us to leave…” he said determinedly.
Orion was sitting in his throne, seeing with grim acceptance how the Great Enemy had restarted the Deian War.
“Helms, jump us to Hydron. Comms, spread the same order fleet wide,” Orion called out. “See that they are away before we jump. We won’t leave anyone else behind”. Lupus could hear the guilty blame in the captain’s voice, yet there was no venom there with it, only grief and sorrow.
The Apostles, however, stood in silence. Some of them couldn’t understand what had just happened to them. It was all too unbearable, too unfair. They had just lost an untold number of legionnaires on that world with nothing to show for it but pain and misery, yet worse, they had failed to prevent the enemy from gaining the Frontier and consuming the humans.
The news of their defeat was going to destroy the Empire’s trust in them. They would receive the news sooner than the Apostles could explain it, that much was certain and there were no Guardians at the Senate’s side anymore to satisfy their fears on the Twelve’s behalf. What will become of our purpose? Do we even have the right to fight for them now? Lupus wondered darkly.
Oz was the first of them to say anything as the Luminon slipped away to Hydron. “…What did we just see?” he muttered. He wanted someone to tell him, despite knowing the reply would offer him no comfort.
Only Novus, too mortified since boarding the Stormfalcon on Pheia to remain in her Phoenix form, found it in herself to answer him. “We saw what the Great Enemy can do, Oz…and we lost our honour” she said.
Lupus turned away from the view screen, “No, we lost more than that”. They were looking at him for some words to bring them back their hope and to ease their minds, but he had nothing but the punishing truth for them. “The Frontier is gone…all of it”.
THE LUMINON JUMPED once more. This time, its destination was Hydron, now the welcome safe harbour for the Guardians in this time of sudden uncertainty and danger. It was an age of war again, of battles that would decide the fate of humanity, and the legions were off to a losing start.
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The thought stung the Apostles, but they were quickly becoming numb to surprise and injury. They were Chosen for one purpose, to save the Empire and protect its worlds and they were inadequate. They grouped in the Primary Tactical Hall, the commanders of their legions present with them but hushed in resignation, even with each other.
Lupus was the last to arrive, though the others could not fathom a reason why and nor did they want to. They had no desire left to know anything but a new plan. As he approached the holo-table, Calla checked on her sister’s injuries.
Raina held up a hand to back her away. “I’m fine, Calla. Leave me be, will you? I can take care of myself”. Her words were vindicated as she removed her feathered helm and smoothed her head and ears with her hands. The blood vanished at her touch, the wounds sealing themselves and healing at the caress of her fingertips.
Calla hadn’t heard acid in Raina’s voice, but she felt it nonetheless. The others saw the interaction and felt too awkward to intervene. Other than the relationship between Calla and Lupus, the only other connection that was true and natural, not having been forced by the union of the Blessing, was between the two blood-sister Apostles.
Lupus joined them at centre of the group, a question plaguing his mind. “What was that voice, Raina?” he asked plainly, without any formality to the name she would have preferred him use.
She gave him a look that dared him to ignore her title again. “As if you don’t know, Lupus” she replied, keeping her irritation in check. The double standard of using his human name and making it seem acceptable in stark contrast to how he had spoken to her escaped her care. “It’s time you face both your weaknesses and your demons”.
She knew better than to be so hostile against him and the chastising look that Calla gave her was enough to prove it, but she blamed him for what had happened. He was supposed to have more experience than any of them. He should have suspected a trap. They had put their trust in him as the First Apostle, but now a dozen or more legions had been lost to them. It hurt too much to forgive and forget, yet for all that had happened she suspected she was alone in her feelings towards him. Why couldn’t the others see in Lupus what she did? Why couldn’t they see the darkness eating at his core?
The Deian War: Vermillion's Apostles Page 39