“Load dormant plasma rounds in the starboard escape pods,” she called out in over the comm lines. “If we are going down, we will take these bastards to the afterlife with us and make the gods proud!”
She was rewarded with smiles around her, and battle cries echoed in the halls—the Dark Light may have met her end far too soon, but in her death she and her crew would live on forever in tales of lore. Injured but proud, the crew carried out her commands as the seconds ticked by, the Husk vessel slowly beginning to turn her nose towards them, but was so damaged it took more time than the enemy wanted it to.
“Are the PACs functional?” Lyxia asked, unwilling to wait silently for the end.
“Cannons two and three are a-go and ready to fire,” a voice called back.
Lyxia’s head hurt and she felt the warmth of her purple blood pouring from her forehead as it matted her hair; the wound had caused her once hawk-like vision to blur. She was sure she was injured badly as her back and entire left flank roared in pain as she stood tall, but in the face of death one didn’t give in to pain. It was the sight of their bloodied but proud leader standing proud that helped the crew of the Operations deck carry on.
“If that shot spins us like ours did to them, fire at will without orders! Let’s give Terra Sol a show and the best chance at survival!”
There was no response, but the orders were clear and made ready. Everyone held a collective breath as the Husk vessel almost had finished its turn and its vaunted cannon readied to fire in a hellish glow. Lyxia closed her eyes and waited for the end—to watch it come was unbearable. She had been so close to the one thing that had eluded her for her entire life, but at least she got to feel what love felt like for a moment and for that she was grateful. It was a shame she didn’t get to hold him in her arms before it was over. As she took a deep breath, she heard his voice.
“Hold the last stand shit for a second.”
It wasn’t a dream; Aen was on the comm line and as Lyxia opened her eyes she saw a massive bolt of light strike the side of the Harvester as it began to fire. The main cannon belched out its round of burning gas, but the impact of the Amarra’s volley had moved it from destroying its prey as the shot flared off into the darkness as it missed wide. Aen had saved them, Aen had saved her!
Lyarran Vessel Amarra, Low Earth Orbit -
Three Days, Seven Hours since Arrival
“Caretaker, I need two jump navigation plots and I need them quickly or the Dark Light is dead!” Aen called out as the trap unfolded and the side of the Lyarran vessel erupted. He only had a few minutes to adjust his plan and he hoped it would work. In his mind he remembered the Empress’ plea to keep her child safe; No matter what he had to save Lyxia!
“Please state desired destinations.” Caretaker droned back in response.
“Destination for the second jump is the furthest and coldest ball of ice you can imagine that this wreck can manage on a single jump.”
“You are running from the battle? How unusual.”
“No, I’m taking that hulk with me, and that’s why nav point one is directly in front of that gaping hole in the Harvester’s port side.” Aen said, pointing to the screen for reference.
“I don’t see how destroying us both will win this battle, but nav points are laid in and….wait, what is being uploaded to my memory core?”
“You aren’t coming, my friend. Use your drone to plant you memory matrix in the reactor room escape pod and eject once the door shuts. Only activate your homing beacon in the presence of the Lyarra’s Fire so you don’t fall into the wrong hands.” Aen said soberly. “And that file is for its intended reader and them only, so don’t go reading it or sharing it with anyone either. Her eyes only, got it?”
The drone placed the AI’s core into the processor unit of the escape pod, for a moment Aen wondered if the construct had actually heard him and was choosing to ignore him, but the silence was broken by the echo of the pod’s speaker system.
“Understood; for her eyes only.” It said in its usual plain sentiment. “Good luck, Harbinger, it was a pleasure to serve you.”
The hatch hissed as it closed and the pod shot outwards from the hull without delay as it raced towards the lunar surface. Aen was sad to see his only friend depart, but to waste such a valuable resource was unthinkable; the Lyarran Empire could learn so much from the years of knowledge in that ever-thinking brain that was Caretaker.
He watched the pod speed away, he gave the mental order to fire the first PA cannon round at the Husk Ship and began to pour power into the jump engine reactor. He felt a huge weight in his chest as the ship began to pull everything it could from him as he activated the first of the two navigation points and readied the old and broken ship for her last journey.
The comm line to the Dark Light had remained open the entire time, as Lyxia had requested, and Aen listened intently as they made their plans to go out valiantly in battle, but his plans called for a different ending to this tale.
“Hold the last stand shit for a second.” He said, hoping to stall the suicide run for a moment.
Just after he said the words, his first round hit hard on the bow of the Harvester and spun its nose away from the helpless cruiser as it fired its weapon out into space; he had made them miss! Quickly, he fired the second, then the third and final PAC rounds consecutively as he fired the jump engines. The Amarra jolted and shook, then shimmered with a ball of electricity and disappeared in the dim lit glow from the planet below.
Lyarran Vessel Dark Light, High Earth Orbit -
Three Days, Seven Hours since Arrival
“Jump space field detected,” Kala called out in the Ops Con to all who would listen.
They all watched as the Amarra saved them and collectively exhaled held breaths. But now they sat helplessly, as the badly aged vessel shot two more plasma rounds at the Husk Harvester then flared her jump engines brightly.
“What the fuck is he...”
Lyxia never finished her thought as the second PAC round struck the nose cannon of the hulking enemy ship, obliterating it in a wave of liquid plasma that washed over it like a sudden tsunami. In a flash afterwards, the third round struck the ship on the port side and tore an already gaping wound wider. The ship listed slightly and its lights dimmed, but what followed was the most unexpected of all and left more questions than answers.
Space itself boiled over in a ghostly electrical charge just off the damaged port side of the Harvester as the Amarra appeared suddenly and smashed dramatically into the damaged hull of the invaders mother ship. The old Lyarran frigate disappeared into the more massive enemy ship, but the momentum of the impact shoved the burning hulk sideways and away from the predatory position over the Dark Light and away from the planet below. He was using the jump engines momentum to push the Harvester as far away from the planet as possible.
“Is he still alive in there?” Lyxia asked desperately, her heart searching for the answer more than her head.
“Readings show the aft section of the Amarra still intact, but damage to the vessel is catastrophic,” Kala called back. “Multiple systems failure in the Harvester; her drive systems are starting to go critical!”
“Launch a rescue team and get him out of there before it’s too late, Aen is far too valuable to lose now,” Lyxia hollered.
“Jump engine field detected,” Kala cried once more. “The Amarra is readying...”
It was as if one of the gods had exploded, as both the Amarra’s jump field had activated while triggering the Husk reactors to detonate. The ships had managed to drift far enough that the explosion caused no damage to the Dark Light or the planet, but the effects were felt as hard as if they were right there. An enormous ball of light grew and dissipated as the blast wave circled outwards from the epicenter and washed over the hapless Lyarran cruiser, the energy reigniting the Dark Light’s remaining reactors that shut down wh
en it was hit. As power was restored and systems rebooted, the pride of the Fleet roared to life once more and her crew stood mesmerized by what they had witnessed. The Husk Harvester, the Amarra, and most importantly, Aen were gone! All that remained were small chunks of debris and plasma particles glowing wildly as the frigid cold of space rapidly cooled their embers. For now as the Dark Light’s shields were re-established, they were safe but Lyxia truly wondered if that safety had come at too high of a cost. Aen was gone, and with him certain glimpses she had been given on the future would disappear too! She had failed to save him, body and soul!
Lyarran Vessel Amarra, High Earth Orbit -
Three Days, Seven Hours since Arrival
Aen felt the enormous pull of the Amarra as her jump engines lit and along with the disorientation that came along with the entrance to jump space itself. It felt like standing at the helm of a rocket sled as it roared to life and flung you down the test track. For him, time stood still; he hadn’t had time to study the physics of jump space travel but understood that when in the field time was perceived very different then out of it. A jump of a few thousand miles felt like an hour, but soon the dizziness returned and the Amarra tore through the fabric of normal space once more.
The Husk Harvester lay looming at the bow of the Amarra; its scarred and battered hull was all Aen could see in the brief instant before impact. There was no way they could have guarded against such a maneuver, no way to calculate for a variable like this and he knew this plan was desperate but more than effective! In the seconds before impact, his body once again reacted defensively and raised a shield that encompassed the entire aft section of the ancient vessel. There was no time to think now, only time to react. He felt the bow hit the first remnants of structure as the Amarra’s nose entered the hole torn in the port side of the Harvester by the PA cannon barrages as impact waves shook the entire ship. Being connected in such a way, it felt almost like pain as the nose hit solid structure and crushed under the momentum; the Amarra was now completely inside the enemy ship and was pushing it away from where it could harm anything else. The deck rippled, beams and bulkheads broke, and the ship groaned as the stress of the impact and continued force upon her frame was more than it was designed for when whole; all of which reverberated into his body. The ship cried for it to end, but Aen held it together—there was one more thing to do before the Amarra could finally rest in peace.
Closing his eyes, he concentrated on pushing his heart to new heights; in a heartbeat he poured out more power than all the power plants around the planet produced in an entire year. Through the connection the massive power influx ran, as it raced towards the waiting jump space reactor. Once there, the dormant chamber sparked to life and ignited a massive reaction, the Amarra’s jump space engines spooled up and the second navigation point locked in. Power raged from the tattered ship and spilled into the wreckage of the Husk Harvester; its systems were not designed for such a wave of energy and began to short circuit violently in revolt.
Explosions riddled the wake of the power surge as the wave swept towards the enemy’s main reactor; the hive mind raged in fury and screamed a thousand obscenities in unison. There was no stopping the chain reaction that had begun with the ignition of the Amarra’s drives as the events were beyond comprehension; self-sacrifice like this did not compute! They had been beaten; not by the humans or the horrid Empire, but by the Infinite that had yet to live up to his potential until now. Their screams escalated, but were lost in the vacuum of space and heard only by the rest of the Husk connected to them, the energy pulse from the Amarra hit the reactor and it all went silent suddenly.
Aen felt the explosion before it even began, and initiated the jump sequence to end this fight. He felt the Husk reactor buckle and give way as its power output was amplified by his, and exploded out from its confines. The light show must have been immense, but he wouldn’t see it; Aen simply closed his eyes and let his power overtake him as he gave his essence to the very task at hand. In a few seconds, the Harvester erupted in a brilliant explosion which was quickly followed by the jump space field opening that swallowed any wreckage that would ensue. Space lit up bright as a birth of a star, and then returned to its normal state of darkness in an instant. Both ships were gone; only a small bit of debris floated about the site of the explosion was the evidence that something once stood there.
Las Vegas, Nevada -
Three Days, Seven Hours since Arrival
Axyn was in his glory; his armor was covered in the blood of his enemies and he was knee deep in their carcasses. War was his release, his drug, and over the years the time he spent not at war was time wasted. It was more than living up to a legacy, it was fulfilling a need by his Empress that he was more than happy to fulfill. He had sat quietly as Council Lyxia had told them of the plan to race out to the unknown and only feigned interest when she told the tale of the ancient war story relayed to her from an age old expeditionary force. It was an entertaining tale, and if even partially true then he thought it would be an honor to fight with the humans—an honor for them, that was.
When they had landed in the desert, he wasted no time deploying of his troops as he spent the entire drop time assessing the battles raging below. His entire life had been spent on the battlefield one way or the other, and at the age of 498 years old, Axyn had few things to leave him surprised. But what he had seen as they descended indeed surprised him; an undeveloped technological world like this was taking it to the Husk and even though they were not able to win this fight, they had more than earned the Captain’s respect for how hard they had fought in the face of death.
He quickly surveyed the landscape below and split off the landing forces to the most desperate and urgent battles. He and his group—two drop ships holding over three thousand Ifierin itching to fight—made their way to a place known as Las Vegas. He had to restrain his men—and himself—from rushing head-on into the battle once they landed, instead he marched them efficiently towards the front lines and into the fray. The Husk were taken off guard and the Ifierin used that surprise to push them back from the overwhelmed humans. In the space of an hour, he was in a state of total bliss as he hacked away at his enemies’ limbs with his plasma blade and joyfully blasted away with his plasma rifle. It was not only him in the state of pure enjoyment as every other Ifierin felt the same. It was difficult to face an opponent that truly enjoyed what they did, and the Husk were simply unable to match the fervor shown by the Ifierin as they began to retreat. There was no retreat though, only death, as Axyn’s deployment had encircled the gathering Husk with battle starved Ifierin who now slaughtered the enemy without a second thought.
It was the first blast in the sky that caught his attention and turned his gaze to the heavens, the moment the Husk Harvester let loose its trap and crippled the Dark Light, but he knew not which vessel had struck the mighty blow. There was a minor change in the alien infantry at that point, an uneasy smugness that they knew more than he did at what was transpiring above and he hated that. Axyn leapt forward to the nearest Husk soldier and wrapped his arms around its neck to angle his flying body to come around it and take position on its back. Even sealed in his armor he could still make out the faintness of rotting flesh filled with preservatives; these fucking Husk always carried the stench of death with them! Pulling its head upwards, he sunk his fingers into its skull and tore the face off the creature; killing instantly.
“Smile about that,” Axyn spat at the headless corpse twitching on the ground as its servos released stored energy as the body died.
Then there was another flash, closely followed by two others and then what was unmistakeably a jump space rupture. Axyn was confused—Imperial law stated that a ship couldn’t jump within two million miles of a given planet, but yet he witnessed one just now. As his mind was processing that, he saw the rupture reappear further over in the sky. Then came the screams, not from the cries of battle and the wounded or dying, but from
the Husk as a whole—all looking and reaching skyward and wailing at the top of their lungs. Something serious was obviously going on up there!
“Dark Light, what is your status?” he asked as he chinned his comm line in his helmet’s HUD.
There was no answer. Axyn was worried; the Dark Light was state of the art, but this was a high risk mission and that Harvester was one of the largest he had ever seen.
“Council Lyxia, do you copy?” Again, no response. “What the hell is going on up...”
In the sky, a new sun awoke and shone so brightly that his HUD couldn’t handle the dramatic increase of light and went into reset mode. All he could see for a few seconds was black, but he could hear confusion sweep through his Ifierin ranks. Axyn couldn’t wait and tore his helmet off, craning his neck upwards in time to see the circular blast wave sweep across the sky. He had seen a wave like this but on a larger scale long ago; it was a day he saw a God die and it was a day he would never forget.
Then he looked around, noticing that all his men were looking skyward too. This was not your run of the mill happening to stop the Ifierin bloodlust in its tracks, but this had. It wasn’t until that moment that Axyn had noticed that something was missing; the Husk had stopped wailing and simply stood there in a dumbfounded state. Something serious had happened indeed, but his work here wasn’t finished.
“The blood of our enemies still has yet to be spilled completely!” he hollered to recapture his Ifierin’s attention. “Without an end, the battle has no meaning or honor!”
To lead, he swung his helmet and flung it at the head of a motionless Husk a few yards away; a sickening crunch broke the silence as the creatures skull imploded from the impact. His men roared in approval and began to join in; simply pounding the brain dead enemy with their fists as no opposition was given. What was left of this ground force of Husk lasted only a few more minutes before there was none left standing but the triumphant Ifierin. Victory was theirs once more!
Rise of Aen Page 38