No answer.
"Elena!" Frost grumbled again. "You'd better not be dead! If you've died, I'm not paying for your damn funeral!"
"No need..." A faint grunt from just behind him was assurance enough that White continued to breathe. "I'm still here..."
"How many flies are there on the ceiling?" asked Frost.
"I'm counting one..." White mumbled, staring at the hangar ceiling through the cracked cockpit glass. "No, wait – two. No, one. Two. One. No, two. Baaaahhh...!"
"Do they crawl?" asked Frost.
"Ehhhhhh..." White pretended to care. "Probably. Are we dead?"
"I don't think we're getting a free ticket to Valhalla just yet," Frost remarked with a groan. The thumping headache had begun to subside, and with it his vision returned to him. It was at this point that Frost could determine for certain that there was just one fly on the ceiling.
"God dammit, I could sure use a good fuck right now..." White grumbled, shifting herself out of her seat.
"If I survive the next hour, half of me is thinking of taking you up on that offer," said Frost.
"Nah," White shot him down. "You're too old. I prefer boys with energy."
"Fuck you," Frost grumbled with a smirk. "You're not even my type. I don't even know why I put out to begin with."
"Well then the entire problem is rendered moot anyway!" said White with a shake of her head.
The bark of a megaphone scraped against their eardrums.
"Out of the gunship!" a voice ordered them both. "Keep your hands in the air!"
The voice turned out to be a platoon's worth of OCCS troopers gathered behind a phalanx of armour-plated riot shields. The soldiers had surrounded the gunship, all of their guns pointed toward the crashed vessel from behind their heavyweight shields.
"We're corp security, you idiot!" White shrieked as she heaved herself from the wreck, falling flat on her face as she escaped the ruined cockpit. Frost followed with the rapid, tepid pace of a drunk snail.
Just as White and Frost had both predicted upon their reawakening, the gunship was positively trashed. Somehow the machine had landed upright as opposed to upside down. Had the ship struck the floor on its top, White was certain that the fuel tanks would have exploded and ended their play-date with space in uncomfortably short order. On the bent starboard wing, one of its exposed missiles dipped perilously close to the floor on its pylon; none of the troopers went anywhere near the damaged gunship, and perhaps this was why they had brought their shields as well. Not that it would have done them any good.
"Stand down, men!" Kane's authoritative voice called from behind the phalanx. "These two are ours."
At once the shields parted and the soldiers backed down as ordered. Three familiar faces took shape as the group opened up; Kane, Morgenstern and Wilkins.
"Mags..." White greeted her comrade. "Am I glad to see you!"
"Where's Ryan?" Frost cut straight to his point as he approached Kane.
"Out in the suburbs," Kane answered him. "He landed there with some of the dropships a few minutes ago."
Frost's paling face told all that needed to be told about his state. "You said Jason would be safe!" he bellowed.
"And he should be," Kane stayed calm, eyebrows raised. "Sparrow's soldiers are with him."
"Should be?!" Frost almost punched Kane in the face, but kept his fist down for his old friend's sake. "Tell me you've at least got our gear!"
"Outside," Kane motioned for Frost and White to follow, with Frost moving ahead. "There's a convoy waiting to get moving. The enemy's landed at least a company's worth of soldiers in this district alone, with an estimated thousand more coming in. Ground fire is keeping most of the dropships at bay, but they only have so much ammo. Same with Sparrow's men."
"What about the fleet?" asked White. "The Ghoul's dead."
"Our missile attack and your little escapade in that gunship has tipped the odds well in our favour," Kane answered. "The Ghoul's galleons have sustained heavy damage, but nothing close to what the Iron Fleet's sustained – mostly thanks to you."
"Good," White said with bitterness in her voice. "I was almost worried my old man would have died for nothing."
The precentor glanced at her. "I'm sorry for your loss."
"Don't be," said White, trying to obfuscate her grief. "Rule number one of bereavement – don't be sad they're gone, be thankful they lived. We might have had a rocky relationship at best, but there's nothing he hasn't taught me that hasn't helped me stay alive to this day."
"There'll be time for grieving once the battle's over," Morgenstern cut to the point. "Let's just focus on getting old enough to tell them first!"
"Good idea, Mags," White spoke with a modest grin on her face. "You learn fast! And here I was thinking all dust-heads were just a bunch of barely civilised potato farmers."
"I already had to tell Morgenstern off for using slurs," Wilkins joked.
"Sue me, dick-wad," White answered. Her grin disappeared like a torch flash.
True to the precentor's earlier word, the streets had been evacuated in their entirety, with not a panicked civilian in sight. Kane had already seen to it that a perimeter had been set up outside of the hangar, with soldiers in blue posted behind sandbags, machine gun posts and two armed MRAPs. A third vehicle, an assault van, already lay open as a mobile armoury, with guns, vests, helmets, grenades and magazines all housed inside of it.
Most notable of all, however, was a large suit of heavy powered armour in the back. The suit was similar in size to the armour that Ryan and other Iron Knights wore to battle, though it bore a blockier and more modernised design, akin to the suits worn by Sparrow's homunculus soldiers. The predominant colour in which the battlesuit had been painted was a smoky grey, accompanied by a dark gold trim around the pauldrons. Frost picked up the quasi-black helmet that came along with it, staring into its wasp-like expression and filter grill.
"Haven't worn power armour for years," Frost remarked, scanning throughout the mobile armoury for his Cyclone. "Where's my rifle?"
"You're standing next to it," said Kane, motioning toward one of the weapons. Frost's eyes settled upon a blocky battle rifle, the weapon being of the same design as the exotic weapons that the homunculi had trained on him in the situation room.
"Courtesy of Sparrow," Kane elaborated. "That old Cyclone won't do much good against the Hound's armour, and especially considering he has Sokolova's fusion sword. Oh, and might I also suggest you put that armour to some use?"
Frost put the helmet down and started to examine the unusual weapon, checking its barrel, trigger assembly, and the chevron-painted battery pack in the stock of the gun. The lack of iron sights betrayed it as possessing an integrated sight package.
"This is all custom-made..." Frost stated his realisation aloud.
"If today goes as Sparrow anticipates it will, it won't be your last gift from her," Kane stated.
Frost decided not to dignify that last cryptic statement with anything even remotely resembling an answer. In the meantime White forced herself to front and centre with a murderous glint in her eye.
"Get me my gun and my exo," she demanded. "I'm going with him!"
Just as she made her way to the armoury, Kane grabbed hold of her shoulder.
"This is a personal mission for Frost," he stated. "We need you and the rest at the front!"
"Fuck the front," White protested, struggling to free herself from Kane's patriarchal grip. "The Hound murdered my father! I'm not going to stand by while that bastard does the same thing to Frost!"
"White!" Frost bent down as with before and stared her square in the eye. "Look at me, Elena! I told you to focus on the fucking mission! It's bad he killed your father, and yes, it sucks that he's dead – but right now making sure we don't all die is more important. Now go with Kane and Mags. You're more useful with them than you are with me when you're in this state."
A tear fell forth from White's eye as she gritted her teeth.
&nb
sp; "Alright," she relented with a seethe. "Just swear to me you won't die out there!"
Frost slipped on his helmet, the armour piece slotting into the rest of the armour, and the heads-up display within blazed to life. He spared one last look at White, turning around; the vespoid optics within the helmet fired a cerulescent stare toward her.
"I'm not making any promises." His voice made an iron resonation through the mouth grill, similarly to Ryan's when his helmet was over his head.
White was left unsure by his refusal of a guarantee. In spite of such she hardened her face and nodded. Frost returned the gesture as he readied his rifle and set off for battle. The mechanised thud of each step grew quieter as his armour suit rumbled into the distance, before disappearing altogether.
~
Multiple life signs detected in area. No friendly units operating in vicinity. Caution advised.
This was the first that Frost knew of his new armour suit possessing an onboard artificial intelligence – and, for that matter, a vitality scanner. Each gaze he diverted to a nearby building gave him an uncannily detailed diagram of the interior, a small label coming off of each denoting NO LIFE SIGNS DETECTED. The helmets issued to the OCCS possessed HUDs as well – far more rudimentary than what the bleeding-edge secret weapons of Sparrow's personal army could possibly offer, needless to say.
It was also at this stage that Frost learned the identity of the immense firearm he was presently lugging through the streets of Port Royal's District Two. A glance at the weapon referred to it as LINEAR PARTICLE ACCELERATOR, XM-40. Whatever a linear particle accelerator was supposed to be, Frost thought to himself; certainly nothing of its like was even available to the special forces of the International Treaty Organisation when he fought the Martians for them during the war. The most advanced firearms he could have acquired back then were phased plasma casters, even then only by looting the corpses of Martian combat operators. Even these beasts of weapons back in their heyday were of equivalent size to this weapon, and probably equivalent power as well – a plasma bolt, as he could personally attest through his recent duel with Ryan wielding a smaller model on Hygiea, could detonate with the force of an explosive fifty-cal bullet.
Frost was also aware that his latest powersuit contained two bayonet-like blades built into the gauntlets; his immediate presumption was that the blades would be used to augment his punches should he get himself into a fight in close quarters. He had never, however, known of diamond-edged synthetic lonsdaleite blades to be used outside of incredibly specific situations. Further credence lent to the reality that Sparrow had had this suit engineered just for him to battle the Hound of Sokolova.
The next corner that Frost rounded unveiled the 'multiple life signs' referred to just a moment prior by the AI. A technical bearing seven knight levies, clearly having made planetfall with a larger force before Frost and White staged their explosive return to Port Royal. The car, a pickup truck bearing OC markings, lay at a standstill; Frost realised that these particular invaders had been posted around as a quick reaction force. As their casual conversation denoted inaudible to even Frost's helmet-amplified hearing, they were unaware of the captain's presence. If he was quick enough he could kill the driver with one shot and fire snap shots at the rest, suppressing them for enough time to recharge his 'particle rifle' before he opened fire again.
Target locked.
So declared the soothing female voice of the AI as he settled the little blue dot that marked the targeting reticle upon the driver, just as he took a cigarette from the comrade sat next to him. He gently eased the trigger before pushing down in full...
A deafening electric crack ripped through the stale recycled air as a brilliant magenta bolt shot across the roadway, leaving in its wake a great trail of purple fire and a heavy smell of ozone. The particle blast smashed into the car like a plasmatic meteor, punching through the windscreen like a fiery fist to bring about the absolute obliteration of the driver and the levy riding shotgun. The rest of the pickup burst into a spectacular fireball as the infernal stream set the seats and then the gas tank ablaze, sending metal and burning body parts rocketing into the air like flaming party streamers.
Target destroyed. Shots remaining: 999.
Frost's gaze upon the total devastation this exotic weapon just wrought blended awe and terror into a single package. He knew that Sparrow had been hard at work over the course of ten years, such as she needed to be, yet only now could he begin to grasp just how much preparation she had been making for her personal war against Strasser and Sokolova. More to the point, what else had she been cooking up in those labs of hers...
A metallic spark-shedding ping resounding from his armour drew Frost back to reality. One of the levies had drawn out his pistol, screaming in agony as his clothes burned up his severed leg stumps. The pistol would never punch through this armour – they could hardly penetrate even OCCS body armour, let alone the latest power armour model – that much Frost could be certain of. Yet even as he raised his particle cannon to fire again, he almost pitied the levy for what was coming to him.
Almost.
Frost squeezed the trigger once again. Another blast of amethyst fire shot forth from the terrible dragon in his hands. The road beneath the levy melted into lava; everything above the levy's pelvis had vanished like acetone, only his separated leg stumps betraying any hint that there was ever a human being there.
Shots remaining: 998.
After this short and hideously one-sided firefight, Frost proceeded further down the streets, ignoring the horrible shrieks of one female levy in the process of burning alive after the truck explosion. He had his own mission to attend to, and he knew that his neighbourhood was not far from this site.
~
In the Frost family's neighbourhood, a thick iron stench hung in the air. A miasmic river of red blood ran down the street surrounding Frost's home, flowing into the gutter; the stream had a streak of dark gold running down the middle, with corpse ashes floating atop the river. The bodies of hundreds of dead littered the road, all of them Iron Knight levied militiamen. Most of the slaughtered warriors bore huge burn marks from particle rifle blasts; chests were burned clear through, limbs were seared off, and some of the invaders had been disintegrated entirely.
As Frost proceeded through this ersatz graveyard and came nearer to his home, the corpses were more intact, less charred; instead they possessed bullet holes, many through their heads and the rest blasted clean through their centre of mass. Those closest to the home had been cut down with gauntlet blades, the crimson gashes in the bodies mimicking those that Frost's own set of blades would have left in their wake. Finally, beside the smashed door stood two of the homunculus soldiers themselves, slumped with streams of yellow running from their throats to the floor. Four others lay around the front garden; two were buried under the carcasses of levies, the remaining pair lay face down in the dirt. All had their gauntlet blades flicked out, stained as they were with the blood of their enemies. One had a molten burn mark of his own, that of a sword through his armoured chest.
As he stepped through the door frame, the telltale spectral breathing reverberating from the living room told Frost all he needed to know. He made his way there with rifle in hand, resting in full expectation of the worst.
Two armoured giants stood in the room; one silver and red-eyed, the other smoke-grey and blue-eyed. On the couch sat Jason, the brother of one and son of the other. In the brother's right hand was clasped Sokolova's energy sword, unpowered, awaiting his command to ignite and devour his enemies with cerulescent fire like an azure hellhound.
"The defiler returns," Ryan remarked, his stone-cold voice grating through his fanged helm. "Our family, reunited at last – and you can't even bring yourself to show your face."
"Whatever you're planning to do with him, don't," Frost's own voice rumbled through his wasp-eyed helmet as if resonating from within a mountain. "Leave him out of this. This is between us."
"Is it
true, Dad?" asked Jason, a tear in his eye. "What he said?"
"That depends," Frost kept his eye on Ryan. "What did he say?"
"He told me about Sokolova," answered Jason. "About the way you abandoned him. About Grandad Raymond. About everything."
"Did he tell you about what his plans are for me?" Frost asked. "Did he tell you he plans to kill me?"
"No," Jason answered. "He just said he plans to absolve you."
"And you accuse me of hiding my true intents..." Frost growled as he turned his attention back to Ryan. "I won't tell you again, Ryan. Leave him alone."
"I already told you – none of it matters any more," the Hound rasped back.
"And I already told you," said Frost. "I'll fight to keep Jason safe. Don't make me destroy you."
"Dad, don't hurt him..." begged Jason.
"Oh ... he's already done that." The breathing from the Hound's mask was transmuted to the ripping grates Frost knew from Hygiea, his malice so palpable as to crawl through the flesh like parasites. "I already told you that."
The lights on Frost's power helmet dimmed like ice. "Don't you dare growl at my son."
The lights on Ryan's grew like fire. "You came here to do one thing, and one thing alone! You came here to kill me!"
"No..." Frost growled, although the trained ear could perceive sorrow and trepidation. "I already told you that I came here to save you."
With that, he threw his particle rifle aside. The blade on his right gauntlet flicked out with a whiplash, a gentle hum filling the living room betraying it as a vibro-blade. The Hound raised his mistress' sword, gripping the handle with both of his armoured hands and raising the blade into an inside right hold. The sword was soon encapsulated by a volcanic burst of plasma creeping up the blade from the hilt. In a matter of milliseconds, the blade was subsumed in its entirety by a molten blaze of iridescent sapphire.
"Please, don't..." Jason implored, only for his plea to go ignored as the Hound charged into battle with a lunge and a draconic roar.
Frost caught the blade on his own, sparking against the metal; he thrashed it away from him as he barged forward into Ryan. The cacophony of their armour smashing against each other rang throughout the room, a punch from Frost's left hand producing such a noise as to drown out Jason's cries of horror. The Hound staggered back from the strike, but recovered long enough to twist Sokolova's sword into a backhand swing. The blade cut through the air with a thunderous hum; Frost ducked and skidded his right foot backward as the fearsome weapon ripped over his head, tearing a massive rent through the wall and destroying the holovision set. Plasmatic sparks shed from the sword like jets of fire, causing the rug below to ignite with a flash.
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