She moved over silently to the command throne and sat down. Her fingers towered together to form a rest for her chin as she looked ambiguously at the fiery planet shown on the view screens. She had learnt to master her body language and facial expressions long ago, unwilling to let anyone read the one person that could read everyone else. It was a matter of personal pride that people had to ask her what she was thinking.
After a while, Severus approached her. He gave no salute other than the faintest of bows. “My Grace, as you predicted there is a handful of human vessels in a nearby nebula. Should we try to contact them?”
Valkyrie said nothing at first. She was focussed now on trying to determine the finality of the human world’s fate, despite its apparent death. She thought she could detect a psychic signature on the surface, but from this distance it would have to be several thousand humans to create it. It didn’t seem possible that there were any left alive at all, but neither did it stand to reason that it could be Phantoms given the lack of enemy ships in the area.
“No, let us go down to the surface” she replied, looking Severus in the eye so he would listen without question. It would have unnerved most legionnaires the way she seemed to see through him, but he was used to it by now. “Let us witness the cost of laxity so that we may bear the news to the Apostles that will hear it. The humans will contact us, if they have any desire to…though I doubt any attempt would be for a good reason”.
Basilius hadn’t moved from his position where he had been the first to comment on Byzantium. When he overheard Valkyrie’s plans to go down to the surface, he felt compelled to warn her of what only seemed obvious to him. “Something else is happening here. The Phantoms don’t destroy planets like this…they pillage, harvest and consume, but they do not torch whole worlds. They have the power, certainly, but they don’t have the patience to take the time something like this requires. This was done on purpose, by something new; it was designed. I fear us discovering it like this was meant to be.”
He turned to Severus and Valkyrie, concern plain on his face. “It is a warning sign, an omen of things to come, my Grace”.
Valkyrie was caught off-guard that he could see something she could not, but it was also why he was the Recon Master of her legion. “What future do you think this portends exactly, Basilius?”
“The same one we all secretly know to be true; the end of Mankind”.
“IT IS AS we were informed; not a single Phantom vessel” Fabius confirmed.
Gaia stood with her arms crossed in consternation. “That doesn’t mean nothing’s here, Fabius. You ought to know that” she gave him a look. It told him her admonishment wasn’t a personal thing; if Corvus or Ria had said it, she would have been just the same with them.
She looked back at the holo-projector underneath the view screens and watched for key details from the data that was thrown into the air before them. “No, I rather think they’re still here…on the ground, deeper in the forests perhaps. I can feel them. They violate our world with their presence, few as they are”.
“But how did they get here?” Corvus asked.
“That concerns me too, but as we all know, the Phantoms refuse to be captured easily. It is their enemy’s death or their own; there is no in-between. We will find answers if we can, but first we take them away from Eve, dead or alive I care not which”.
Ria joined them on the bridge. During the journey she had been overseeing the training of the legionnaires. Complacency was dangerous, even to soldiers whose lives meant war and nothing else. She looked tired, but Gaia could tell that was only because she looked after the legion before caring for herself.
“Who will accompany you?” Corvus asked, stealing Gaia’s attention back from the Commander.
“I want this done delicately and precisely. Ria and Fabius will join me; there is no need to take anyone else. The forest of Ardenne is our greatest ally, not a company of Warhounds”.
Corvus bowed his head. “As you command, my Grace. We will monitor the sector from here and try to communicate with Cerberus and Nightingale. Perhaps they know more about this since the Lion shared their warnings with us”.
Gaia turned to Ria again. “What are your thoughts, Ria? You are never this quiet”.
The Commander’s eyes visibly focused on her immediate environment, revealing to Gaia that her mind was somewhere else. “It is wise, my Grace. It is a risk, however, that even I and Fabius accompany you; the trees of Ardenne know no friend but you” she answered, showing that part of her had been paying attention after all.
“That is nothing to fear, Ria. Eve is my home, I can teach it who is friend and who is foe” Gaia replied, but in her mind she added So what really bothers you? It is written plain on your face yet you hide it from me like shame or guilt.
Ria opened her mouth to reply, but she hesitated. She decided it was better that the Apostle thought she was feeling afraid than to understand what was really going on in her mind. The very idea of a legionnaire admitting the slightest of trepidation, unthinkable and unknown as that may be, was the greater alternative. She nodded her understanding to Gaia and clasped her hands behind her back.
Gaia looked out to the view screens again and saw the green surface of the world she grew up on, the planet she formed her identity as the deity of nature. She couldn’t comprehend how it came to be that Phantoms had invaded the land, but she cared more about their extinction than the cause.
“Prepare a Stormfalcon. Load it with enough airborne jump equipment for two legionnaires; I will not have the beauty of Eve tarnished any more than it has to be” she said aloud, not to anyone directly but then she didn’t have to. She knew Corvus would contact a suitable pilot and Ria would leave immediately to ensure things were done properly. She could already hear them as they moved and spoke to others.
“We took too long to save you” she confessed to the planet, “but we’re here now. The enemy will pay for their trespassing”.
THE STORMFALCON THAT bore Valkyrie and the command echelon of her legion glided over the burning surface of Byzantium. The cities were aflame with such intensity that it seemed they would never fade out. The legionnaires had already sealed their helmets in preparation for the toxic air outside. The air filters in the mouth and nose sections were so advanced that no level of adverse conditions could affect them.
Valkyrie directed the transport over the capital cities of the planet, taking interest that only a handful of notable land masses existed. It reminded her somewhat of Hydron, though this world had a handful of vast islands rather than the lone continental fortress like the Hydra’s House. This was not the only difference between the two worlds; Hydron was intact, but Byzantium had been destroyed and laid to waste.
“I have never seen such destruction…” Basilius whispered as they passed over a dead city. Its fires had mostly burned out, but there was no relief from that. Ash coated everything like a flood of death and they could only discern the husks of buildings; the only other evidence of humanity were the odd skeletons and ruined vehicles. “It is as if an inferno covered the world a thousand times over”.
Valkyrie nodded slowly in thought. As the transport flew closer to the centre of the city, whose name was impossible to tell from what little identity its carcass had left, she told the pilot to settle down in a courtyard. From the governmental flag that miraculously remained untarnished, she knew that any answer they could get would lie here.
As the Stormfalcon approached the landing zone she indicated, the pilot protested. Here the ground was still ablaze. “Open the access-hatch” Valkyrie ordered. The sound of her voice gave no option for further dissent.
The ramp lowered and she recoiled as the toxic air bathed the interior of the transport. She instinctually threw up a shield of psychic energy around herself so that she could breathe. The worried gestures of her legionnaires ceased just as abruptly.
Now, taking a cautious step forward to the limits of the metal deck, Valkyrie took her left hand an
d held it out in the air towards the flames. The fire was so thick she couldn’t tell what lay beneath, but when she waved her arm to create a wind of force the blaze was blown away.
When she saw what had previously been hidden she caught her gasp before it was audible to the legionnaires, but her eyes belied her efforts to conceal her shock. Here was the evidence that the planet had ever been populated. Bodies lay strewn together, their flesh black and fused together. They had been thrown in piles around the courtyard flag in sadistic mockery and desolation.
Before she knew what she was doing, Valkyrie stepped off the Stormfalcon and dropped two storeys to the ground. Luckily, her unconscious mind was aware of her danger even though her conscious self was morbidly preoccupied. She landed in a bubble of energy and the effect startled her out of her fixation. In the meantime, the transport had descended enough for the legionnaires to join her.
Severus was the first to move up to her side. She wore a look on her face now that suggested she was over her initial reaction to the horror around them. He followed her gaze and saw a building that was lopsided from fire damage. His boots were already coated in ash and he knew that when they returned to the Blackstar, it would take days to clean his armour of the dust that floated through the air.
Fires still burned brightly in the distance, but there was nothing they could do to ease them. “What do you make of all this, my Grace?” he asked.
Valkyrie looked around, trying to find an answer but unable to see one. “There is no Phantom archetype that we have yet fought against that is capable of these things. These fires are unnatural…Something with great, dark power caused this.”
In the corner of her eye she could see Basilius crouch down to retrieve something from the ground. He had to move an eclectic mix of objects to get to it and when he pulled it out with a grunt of effort he didn’t know how to react. Severus, on the other hand, did not share his hesitation.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asked the Recon Master, pointing to the weapon in his hands.
Regaining his composure, Basilius nodded in confirmation. “Yes, it’s a PR-5…”
Ides, the banner bearer of the 402nd that had joined them, stood to one side. Her banner was rolled up and secured in a cylindrical case on her hip, ready to be unfurled and attached to its pole on her back should a fight erupt. Valkyrie knew that battle had long left this world, but it didn’t hurt to make the legionnaires feel useful and wanted. In truth, she would rather have seen all this alone, but leadership demanded more from her than selfishness.
Ides put a hand cautiously on the pistol that was holstered on her other hip. She wasn’t that easy to intimidate, but things were getting too complicated and illogical. “What the vecq is a Pulsar rifle doing down here?”
“Easy Ides…” Severus told her. “There are answers here; we just have to find them”.
“Before they find you, that is?” a strange voice replied. It was as unfamiliar as it was caustic. Neither Valkyrie nor the legionnaires had to turn to know it didn’t belong to a Black Guardian. Nonetheless, when they saw that it belonged to a human soldier, they had nothing ready to say.
GAIA STEPPED BETWEEN the trees with all the grace of her nature. Fabius and Ria kept pace behind her, but they winced as their heavy boots crushed the undergrowth, snapped sticks and knocked aside small rocks. Despite their caution and effort, they felt like they were hurting the world. The fact that Gaia didn’t admonish them seemed to make it worse.
Their descent to the surface of Eve went unnoticed by the enemy, whatever capacity that involved. Gaia was able to drop to the ground from the Stormfalcon without impediment, the strength of her bones proving more than enough for the impact. The legionnaires used jump chutes, deploying them with care. The packs on their backs used thrusters to mitigate their fall, but they deactivated them once they were high enough to drop safely to the floor. They would need fuel to ascend to the transport on their return journey, so they found a safe place in an earthen burrow to conceal them. They were unsure how Gaia would return.
Fabius had discerned that the Phantom golems were last detected two kilometres to the east in the outskirts of the Ardenne forest. The trio were making their way there now, but every so often Gaia would stop and lay her hand against the bark of a tree or the leaf of a flower and close her eyes. She seemed to connect with the flora as if it could feed her information like an access terminal on a ship or a computer bank.
As they approached the likely position of the enemy, she did it again. “The Ardenne is in pain…” she sighed. “It cannot be rid of the Golems fast enough, yet if we reveal ourselves in haste the Phantoms will cause more damage than I can allow”.
Ria stood next to her and tried to see through the wooded environment, but it was hard to see far at all. “Why haven’t they wrought any yet? I’ve never known a Phantom to resist destroying things unless a force has prevented it. They are beasts; they do not know control…”
Gaia did not answer, but proceeded forward. Soon she could hear something in the distance. They advanced in silence until they came to an abrupt slope in the ground. Below was a pool and on the other side, a waterfall that cascaded down to create it. The sides were rocky and festooned with a motley collection of trees and flowers, but the water had a bank that was sparse in comparison. There, two golems sat and stared at the pool, unfathomably mystified by its tranquillity.
The Phantoms failed to notice Gaia and the legionnaires as they stood on the high ground and gazed down at their prey. “Easy pickings, you could say” Fabius remarked.
“This doesn’t make any sense…” Ria said. “First they find self-control, now they discover beauty?”
Gaia agreed, but she could find no explanation for it. “Even the darkest of hearts can appreciate some light eventually” she murmured, but she wasn’t sure she even convinced herself. “Whatever the case, this changes nothing; we can trap them and take them with us.”
“Despite what miraculous changes these two golems show, they will never learn to talk my Grace. How do you expect to get anything from them?” Ria asked.
“I won’t…but my sister Valkyrie could” Gaia replied. “Arm your rifles with paralysis ammunition. If we fail, I will call on Ardenne to help us”.
Before Ria or Fabius could request a plan of action, Gaia swept down the dirt slope and confronted the Golems personally.
IDES INSTANTLY THRUST her pistol out of its holster and aimed it at the human soldier. “Identify yourself!” she demanded, though there was more surprise in her voice than authority. Witnessing the devastation on Byzantium had gotten to her more than Valkyrie realised.
She looked at the legionnaire and spoke to her psychically. Lower your weapon, Ides. He is not the enemy. Pointing a gun at a survivor is the last way to earn their trust and communication. The message had the desired effect and Ides slowly relaxed her arm so the pistol aimed at the ground, but she didn’t put it back in its place. Valkyrie could settle for that.
She looked at the human and could tell that he understood she had used more than body language to disarm Ides. “Who are you?” she asked gently.
The man had come upon them from the ruined building to their rear. Valkyrie sensed he had been there ever since they arrived, but only after observing them and seeing their reactions did he decide they weren’t the enemy. Nevertheless, he kept his hands on his own pistol as though he couldn’t trust anyone anymore. “I am Sergeant Roberts of the Byzantium 4th regiment, belonging to the Gothican Frontier Armies.”
“Were you here when this happened?” Valkyrie asked, gesturing to the catastrophe around them.
Roberts shook his head. “Not for the initial attack. I was in the outlands when the first assault began, but I was called back in time to see out the death of the city. I had to fight through miles of engagements before I got here to the see if anyone survived from the government, but I wasn’t in time. What’s your excuse for being late?”
Valkyrie felt sympathy for the
Sergeant. It was a rare emotion for her to feel at all, let alone towards anyone that wasn’t an Apostle or legionnaire that she liked. There was something about this man that told her there was purpose and meaning to his survival. “We were fighting another war for another world. If we could save every planet, we would have done it by now” she said, but she could see he wasn’t any more satisfied with the failure of the legions to save his planet.
Roberts shook his head. “You don’t understand, do you?”
Valkyrie had no answer for him and when he laughed at her darkly, she began to feel dread crawl up her spine. “You think the Phantoms did this?”
Severus tried to divert the soldier’s rising anger from his Apostle. “Then who…?” he asked, earning his attention.
“It would actually be wrong to say the legions were late. They were the first ones here” the Sergeant spat.
Valkyrie felt sick as she realised what he was saying. “You can’t mean-”
“But I do” Roberts interrupted.
“No, you’re mistaken. The Phantoms are deceptive, more than you know” Severus denied, making the same connections that Valkyrie already had.
Roberts gave him a menacing look. “Do not doubt my intelligence, legionnaire!” he yelled, his pistol aimed at his head. “They bore numbers, just like you! The 808th, 91st, 23rd, 75th, 415th, 89th, 531st…I could go on, for there were scores of them.”
Severus took a step back, holding up his hands in a gesture that called for reason. “But those could be false numbers…we do not know those legions anymore” he said.
“Have you got crap for brains? They were led by one of you! Some kind of high commander, a coward that never showed his face!” Roberts cried.
Now Basilius came forward, aware that the Sergeant was about to crack. Valkyrie stopped him, reluctant to let anyone else spur his rage. The man had gone insane. They needed him to calm down if they were to discover the truth of the Phantoms’ trickery. “Sergeant,” she said forcefully, emphasising his rank to try and give him back a sense of power and sanity. “What number did the commander’s legion bear?”
The Deian War: Conquest Page 18