Soon the pallid red sands erupted into blinding explosions around The Dreaded, heavy shells and self-propelled explosives wracking the rolling dunes and incinerating Dreaded by the dozens, the heat of the Terror of Fanloque’s mighty weaponry creating broad plains of glassed sand. The horde began to spread in an attempt to minimize their losses as the bombardment continued. After ten minutes of bombardment, nearly five thousand Dreaded had been slain. The survivors continued to spread until the Frigate’s Captain determined the enemy formation had been sufficiently dispersed. The ship then began to fire at the edges of the formation, corralling The Dreaded with disciplined fire. Their numbers vastly reduced, Bel’Wa signaled the Sentinels to descend in their drop craft—starship bombardment was undoubtedly effective, but it might only take a single escapee to secure a Stone. Stopping that occurrence for certain required feet on the ground.
The Terror of Fanloque had more than evened the odds, clearing the way for a frontal assault. The Sentinels deployed not only two columns of five Hover Fortresses, but also five squadrons of Jet-Lancers, and a single Zin’Thul War Colossus. Bel’Wa would accompany a contingent of ground troops intended to engage the main enemy line. The Hover Fortresses and Zin’Thul would provide fire support for the infantry, while the Lancers would control the enemy flanks and pursue any stragglers. The plan was solid, the scene was set, and the drop craft were readied.
Bel’Wa stood on the bridge next to the ship’s captain. She wore her uniform, a set of robes embroidered with her personal heraldry and styled to be worn beneath armor. She extended her arms and barked a command in the dancing tones of Imperial Common Qixing Speech. Immediately, four servants rushed up to her to begin placing her armor on her. Lifting each of her feet, her boots were put on and followed by her leg plates. Next her breastplate was attached, her arms were swiftly clad in armor, and her hands were bound in her gauntlets. Her helmet was then lowered onto her head, clicking into the neck joint of her armor. The visor flared to life, spewing diagnostic information during the brief instant of its start up sequence. Her gauntlet weapon was slid into place, and her shield was mounted on her left arm. At last her sword and banner projector were mounted to her back. The entire arming process took less than twelve seconds, taking Bel’Wa from a friendly-looking poster child for the Gate Sentinels to a death-dealing incarnation of Torva’Ang’s furious tempests.
At the instant of completion she turned on one heel and stomped down the corridors toward the launch bays, barking commands and exhortations of honor and duty at every Sentinel she saw headed in the same direction. The waiting drop craft was filled with Sentinels locked into their grav harnesses and prepared for battle. She strode up the loading ramp, her own harness awaiting her among the rows of troops within. Locking herself into place, she signaled the pilot to take them out.
The warning lights drenched the bay of the Cruiser in green light as a loud klaxon sounded, signaling all personnel to evacuate the bay. Seconds later the amber all-clear lights activated, and a second blaring alarm warned of immediate depressurization. The bay pumped its air back into the rest of the ship, rendering the hangar a vacuum equal in air pressure to the waiting void of space. The drop ships’ engines flared to life as the bay slid open in silence, revealing the great reddish-brown orb of Yuan’Kiy amid a sea of black. The ships accelerated outward, swiftly reaching speeds of thousands of kilometers per hour in the frictionless abyss. The bay closed as the last transport disembarked, and would remain depressurized until a ship returned to it. Within two minutes the formation of craft was arcing downward through the atmosphere, wreathed in the fires of re-entry.
The infantry formation headed by Bel’Wa was first in line, followed by the transports for the Hover Fortresses, then the Lancers, and finally the mighty Zin’Thul. Though technology had advanced so far since the days of sword and cannon, infantry units remained the greatest way to hold a line. Many species flirted with the idea of automated warfare, but the improvisation and innate will to survive of organic beings always proved the best way to resolve the desperately trying scenarios of the battlefield.
Machines complex enough to wage war effectively would always suffer loopholes, over-literal rationalization of the rules of warfare, and a compromising over-dependence on regulation. A machine that could bend and interpret these directives on the fly was a machine that would occasionally fulfill its coded priorities by committing a war crime. Learning machines would not always learn the right lessons, and it was remarkably difficult for them to properly understand the emotional and psychological imperatives behind so much of the behavior of organics and the rationale informing wartime law.
The Ly Aulth remained the only species in local space to rely on autonomous robotics in a combat capacity, and they were known for failing to adhere to ethical methods. In situations where Qixing or Human military forces fought mechanized enemies, the superior reaction times and calculations of machines failed to bring victory against the math-independent reasoning, intuition, deceptiveness, adrenal capacity, and survival instinct of organic soldiers. AI engineers had maintained for a long time that one day they could achieve an effective and ethical robotic soldier, but the goal post continued to shift further outward—as it turned out, an intelligent being was little able to entirely recreate itself from whole cloth. The machines would always be just far enough behind in some capacity to make them ill-suited for a central combat role. So, as what was to be the future came and went, organic warriors remained the most reliable and effective.
As the drop ships burst into the lower atmosphere and adjusted their course for landing Bel’Wa broke into song, her clear alto tones ringing through the drop craft. The tune was as half-tonal as the rest of the Qixing Imperial tongue, melodic and driving. Partway through the first line, the Sentinels around her joined in. Over radio, the other ships added their voices to the swelling chorus. The Qixing were a refined and advanced people, but they valued their traditions above most other things. The warriors sang an ancient war song, powerfully evocative and heart-felt. They sung together of their warrior spirit, dedication to their people, and the ways in which they swore to bring death to the enemy. Human journalists who previously beheld a Qixing war deployment often walked away teary-eyed and awestruck.
For all their anti-interventionist tendencies, the unleashed fury of the Commonwealth was an enemy few wished to confront. When the Exploratory forces of the Ĥassallcǒtallǟ Regency began to threaten the local systems, it was the Qixing who spat in their faces and threw them back into the void from which they came. When the Great Cartel War finally spilled into the Human border systems, it was the shining spear of the Qixing Commonwealth that pierced the heart of the Triad Families—and slew all three Grand Technarchs in a single night. When the T’hròstag became belligerent, it was the armored fist of the Qixing that held them in check. The delicate finery and well-honed court politics of their people belied the prideful ferocity that earned them the time and wisdom to create a society now so skilled in artistic pursuits. The Qixing did not ever like to be trifled with, and would not permit such a thing now.
The Drop Craft swept in low, the infantry offloading near the top of a sandy crest five kilometers from The Dreaded. The warriors sprinted from the transports with weapons in hand, and rapidly established their defensive fields and remote mines. Long rifles were aimed, and blades were drawn. Bel’Wa stood behind her shield at the center of the line, her arm weapon leveled at the approaching foe. The Hover Fortresses moved up behind them, their weapons taking aim and immediately beginning to rake bullet, bolt, and rocket fire at the enemy horde. The hefty firepower pounded over the heads of the Sentinel infantry in a furious storm, shredding Rabisus and Gugalannas. En-Rabisus fell riddled full of holes, and at least three Ur-Rabisus were downed by focused firepower. The engines of the lancers shrieked to life as the firing continued.
Lancers were open-topped two occupant vehicles toting a heavy weapon, and could hover comfortably at heights of almost a doze
n meters. The sleek lancers rushed out to ready positions on the flanks of the battle, their speed and weaponry making them ideal for hit and run strafes against the ground soldiery. They were to wait for The Dreaded to come within infantry firing distance before ranging out to harry the enemy flank and help disperse the initial charge.
Last to deploy was the mighty Zin’Thul Colossus. The Zin’Thul (crudely translating to ’great-legged deceiver’) was a mythic being from South Jokalan tradition, a great sea-spider whose tales depicted a cunning being of great, hidden power—much like a malignant version of the spider trickster Anansi of Human West-African folklore. The Zin’Thul was a being of great intelligence whose appearance heralded imminent destruction and undoing. The War Colossus that took its name had the precisely same effect. A massive four-legged machine, the Colossus was to a walker what a walker was to an infantry person. The Astral Marines had a number of Colossus-Class walkers, the T’hròstag fielded super-heavy fighting vehicles, and the Ly Aulth possessed war constructs of great size and power, but none ever truly met the majesty of a Qixing Colossus.
The Zin’Thul had a crew of twenty-six, and its main chassis was high enough to pass easily over a Ninurta Heavy Human walker. Legs stronger than a bunker carried it aloft, careful weight distribution and anti-gravity generators preventing its mass from causing it to sink into whatever substrate it strode across. A massive turret mounting no less than four main weapons sat atop the thing, with two lesser turrets beside that one. Numerous smaller weapon and defensive systems were mounted across its surface and underside, totaling something like the combined firepower of an artillery group.
The Zin’Thul could stride surprisingly swiftly due to the sheer length of its legs, and its height granted it a field of fire nothing short of extravagant. Like all Qixing creations, its design was gracefully precise, covered in angular armor that gave it a neat silhouette. Lights and heraldic markings across its surface announced it clearly, and indeed the mere deployment of a Zin’Thul had been sufficient to force surrenders from the foes of the Qixing in the past.
Though not to be used in this deployment, the feature that truly granted the Zin’Thul its name was it ability to fold its legs up and become a heavily-armed emplacement difficult to discern from a sedentary defensive fortification. This trick had been used to great effect multiple times, sending foes into a route as a supposedly immobile position unfurled and began to pursue.
The immense shadow of the Zin’Thul stretched out over the Hover fortresses and infantry, extending dozens of meters ahead of them in the hot sun. The Zin’Thul’s weaponry opened fire in thunderous fashion. Glowing, comet-like trails of large energy weapons flared overhead and reacted with devastating effect among the enemy mass. Missiles, plasma bombs, and a number of micro-bullet coilguns whipped death toward the foe, the combined sound a deafening rush of high noises and deep concussive detonations.
Bel’Wa briefly wondered why the creatures even continued to bother. Any intelligent observer should be able to see—then something occurred to her mid-thought. She switched channels to speak to the Lancers. “Lancer squads three and five, please scout behind our formation. Range as far as twelve curar’nen out, we need coverage to ensure no flanking group was deployed to reach the goal.”
She heard the screech of the jets as the lancers headed off, then switched channels. “Terror of Fanloque, we need scanner coverage north-west of our position—if there’s activity, send coordinates to the Lancers and extrapolate an enemy course.”
Several seconds later, she received a confirmation of enemy movement—her supposition had been correct. The Dreaded knew the Gate Sentinels’ response time and planned for opposition. “Lancer squad four, I need a pickup, we’re rendezvousing at the coordinates just sent from the Terror. Squads three and five, assemble and advance on that position!”
She switched channels one final time to address the rest of the battle group. “Hold the line here. Lancer squads one and two are remaining, but three, four, and five are being diverted to counter a secondary advance. Colossus, you are at discretion to advance toward the projected enemy goal based on the progress of this front. Go with honor and fury!”
The infantry units responded to her call in a resounding return shout on the internal comms. She jogged back past the infantry line as a member of Lancer Squad three swung low and idled. She leaped up the ladder on the side of the long vehicle and secured herself to the extra seat behind the elevated gunner. With a hand motion she signaled the Lancer to take her up and away. Sweeping up over the dark sands, the Lancer accelerated to breakneck speeds, retaking its place in the squad's chevron formation. Bel’Wa felt the inner lining of her armor squeeze her limbs as they sped up, countering the effect of the mounting G-forces. The shapes of the other two squads soon became visible through the heat ripples on the horizon.
By comparing the trajectory of the initial group with the secondary Dreaded group, the Destroyer above determined The Dreaded were likely headed for a point roughly six kilometers behind the initial Sentinel landing site, presumably the location of a Stone. No known constructs were there, but a great deal of Yuan’Kiy remained unmapped from the ground which left any number of possibilities for the exact disposition of the Stone. At the moment, however, the objective was to engage the Dreaded and clear the area.
Squad four put on their afterburners for a short period, catching up to the leading squads as they approached weapons-range of The Dreaded. The enemy mass was definitely smaller than the main group, but did include a fair number of En-Rabisus and five or six Ur-Rabisus among its number. Fortunately their foes were ill-equipped for dealing with aerial targets. The Lancers divided into pairs and swept out across the enemy horde, turning aside as they entered range to allow their guns to leave their mark. Most of the Lancers bore coilguns or rapid munition launchers, while a few mounted plasma burst cannons that left large, shining craters in the sand. After each run, the Lancers would pull out, circle back around, and make another run, each cycle moving back slightly to maintain the same distance ahead of the enemy group. Each time they would change direction and bearing, making their course difficult to predict.
Bel’Wa fired her arm cannon in concert with the coilgun on the Lancer she rode. Her green shots soared downward, blowing large chunks from Rabisus and Gugalannas. Fireballs whipped up behind them as the Lancers flew along, the large Ur-Rabisu projectiles making a much deeper, whooshing sound than the smaller examples of their kind. Meanwhile the Sentinel infantry line engaged, their fire discipline keeping the horde back as the vehicles continued to punish the enemy. The Lancers at the main front lured elements of the enemy force out of position where they could be easily brought down, chewing at the flanks of the foe as the battle progressed.
Bel’Wa rode her Lancer for almost half an hour more of firing, leaving the secondary group whittled down to little but still approaching their destination. In the distance, she made out what appeared to be a cavern entrance among the shifting sands. A second form loomed into being from the obscured horizon, causing her to smile. The Zin’Thul’s weapons flashed, and an instant later the last Dreaded were vaporized in a concerted rush of Colossus fire. She ordered the Sentinels to regroup at the cavern for extraction.
Within, there was little but rock and darkness. She dispatched squads to head down with their lights on and search, and after a half hour, one of her warriors found the object. The Sentinel called to her to confirm he had acquired the correct Stone. She met the soldier thirty meters down one of many winding tunnels, finding them and several compatriots gathered around it. The object was, to every description, that which the CSOE had recovered. Even in the lightless cave, the squared Stone seemed sickeningly dark. She felt a queasiness in her stomach when near the thing, as did the others with her. She ordered it secured in a shielded container, which somehow did nothing to reduce the unpleasant sensation. Whatever it was, the sooner it was somewhere safe and guarded, the better.
In the aftermath of t
he clean engagement, Bel’Wa received word from Sentinel Command she was to pack her belongings and take a transport to a set of coordinates in a Human system for reassignment. Even before she received the details she grinned, knowing only one thing would be likely to bring her out of Qixing space. Within half a day she departed, and was on her way to Raven’s Landing to join Dread Naught.
22. Contact and Convalescence
Nicadzim had seen the horizons of worlds beyond imagining, hiked through poems, and strode the lofty neural spires of a hive consciousness. Currently, he sailed across a roiling sea of liquid subconscious impulses and struck some form of invisible barrier. On impact he found himself elsewhere—which was not in and of itself an entirely uncommon occurrence for Nicadzim. While his bindings to what others considered reality were tenuous to begin with, it took little to transfer him from one plane of existence to another while he “slept.” He was accustomed to alternative visual spectrums, impossibly altered laws of physics, and numerous other disorienting or incomprehensible alterations of his perception.
The place he found himself now, however, felt different than all his the other journeys. Firstly there seemed to be nothing else but darkness and a towering, shadowy shape several meters away from him, just barely able to be discerned from the surrounding darkness. He had been in endless nothings before: but those voids were either filled with sounds and sensations, or his every motion and sound were the first things to exist there.
Here all was peaceful and calm, controlled and steady. The blackness was more like gentle sleep than a lack of existence, and Nicadzim had a strong inclination that the shape before him was something intelligent.
He took a deep breath, then made a conciliatory gesture to the shape before him. “Greetings. I am Nicadzim Alexievich Kuzmako, a Human being from the Milky Way Galaxy, and native to Glenn’s World. I have come here inadvertently and only with the most peaceful of intents. Might it not be impolite to request your identity?”
The Shadow Among The Stars: Book One of the Dread Naught Trilogy Page 24