The Deian War: Conquest (29 page)

   “It’s a big galaxy” the Commander of the 18th, one of the new legions, had commented. Her name was Lauria and she had been glad to offer her support to Oz and Novus, but both were keen to discover more about her. The war on Kraxus had denied them that
chance, however.

   The memory of that moment, spurred by the discussion they were now having with Solitaire, reminded Oz of someone else they thought missing. “Has anyone yet reported on Samael? Surely there must be news by now…”

   Solitaire shook her head sadly. “Maybe he got lost somewhere and just can’t find his way home…” she hoped aloud.

   Novus rubbed her chin. “We have sent scouts into every Sector of the Empire and their borders. Unless he is in enemy territory or dead, he doesn’t want to be found. In any case, his fate cannot be in good terms”.

   Oz disagreed. He would not be so pessimistic. “We can’t know that. For all we know, he could be fighting his way back to us even now. If he’s taken a leaf from my book, he’s doing it the slow, invisible way”.

   Solitaire burst out laughing. “Hah!”

   The inappropriate sound caught the attention of everyone in the room and under their demand, she was compelled to explain. “What part of the Dragon
ever
seemed invisible to you, big brother? He was always so…loud and angry”.

   “It hardly matters when we can’t predict the enemy
any longer. Their movements at first seem sporadic and then they employ a strategy so beyond our expectations they wipe out our defences before we can react. Today we were fortunate…but it won’t be so easy to identify their commanders again. They’ll remain hidden now we know what they look like. We cannot hold the line forever against their numbers and combined military minds” Novus said.

   “But we must!” Solitaire insisted
. She began to cry. “They are coming for this world, to take it all! If we let them have it…They’re coming…they’re coming with everything they have…” Her words were confused and stammered now. A sudden emotion had overcome her, an unexpected anxiety that matched her inconsistent nature. It scared both of her fellow Apostles to see the most brilliant military mind in the galaxy made afraid by the Phantoms after all this time.

  
The only conclusion they could draw was that something had changed. “What’s coming, sister? How can it be everything when the enemy is spread out so far?” Novus asked, moving to Solitaire’s side so she could comfort her.

   Solitaire sniffed back a
nother nervous tear. “I couldn’t stop them all, you have to believe me….You do, don’t you? Say you do,
please
!”

   Oz joined them on her other side. He laid a hand on her shoulder and tried to
permeate an air of trust, but there was something in her eyes that refused to be beaten back. It both pained and unnerved him to see her so unsettled.

   Solitaire eventually answered. “I tried to stop
them…If it was only one, I could have done it. I saved a human fleet from one, after all…but now it’s a fleet of them…carrying millions of creatures…monsters…things…” she said, but the other two were no closer to understanding her than before.

   “What, Solitaire? A fleet of
what
?” Oz urged.

   She looked at him, then Novus and back again. She was more timid than ever, but she made herself reply. She couldn’t hide it anymore. The secret had to be revealed. “I-I think…they’re…well, they must
have been…” she tried, but the impact of the truth was still too raw for her. To her legion she could disguise herself and keep a veneer of stability, but when it came to her family, it felt impossible.

   “Solitaire, you can tell us…” Novus said gently.

   She looked down at her feet, like a child expecting to be in trouble for confessing to something. “P-P-Promethian ships…” she muttered.

   The answer struck
Oz and Novus like a thunderbolt. They stared at each other in open dismay. “No…it can’t be” Oz whispered.

LUPUS REMOVED HIS helm as the airlock closed behind them. The world was brighter and more interesting in colour now that he wasn’t looking through blue lenses. Calla and the legionnaires did the same, almost in unison. There was an audible hiss and series of clicks as the seals in their armour were broken. Some held the head-armour under their arms, whilst others attached it to their hips by the magnetic locks built into the Guardian plating. Lupus was one of them; he didn’t like to carry things unnecessarily, preferring to always have his hands free for when situations demanded action.

   The Admiral, waiting beyond the second door
to the defence platform’s interior, gestured to the staff that accompanied him. Through the window slit in the hatch, Lupus saw them move in separate directions until they were out of sight, but shortly after there was a hissing sound as the door lifted and the sloping metal was pulled back into the roof. Now the only thing that was between them and the Admiral was the exchange of oxygen across the hallway and the airlock section.

   “Apostles and Black Guardians…welcome to The Shield” the Admiral said
, his voice stony but proud.

   Lupus and Calla walked into the hallway and the legionnaires shouldered them. There was a visible twitch in the men that stood with the Admiral
again. Lupus thought it was apprehension, but he realised it must have just been a reflex over the security of their commanding officer. The Guardians and the military of the Empire had rarely met, let alone over matters like this. Nobody seemed comfortable.

   The Admiral noticed the atmosphere as well. “Majors, please, at ease” he
told the men guarding him. Lupus saw a change in their posture, but it didn’t seem very relaxed.

   “Thank you for the welcome, Admiral” said Lupus. He noticed the bay windows lining each wall
of the hallway and walked over to the right side, admiring the powerful cannons and array of weaponry that the defence platform consisted of. “Impressive” he noted aloud.

   The Admiral joined his side and revelled in the sight as though it was the first time for him as well. “There isn’t a moment when I don’t feel proud for what we’ve accomplished” he
admitted. “There has never been a greater line of defence made in the whole of history. This is where we will hold them, Apostle. This is where we show the Vorlans and Phantoms alike that they were wrong to underestimate us. Maybe we will even earn the respect of you and your allies”.

   Lupus looked at the Admiral’s blank face, trying to read the emotion that he attached to the last comment, but couldn’t identify what it was. Instead of affirming that he had always held mankind in high esteem and that he
still considered himself to in fact still be a part of that race, he turned his gaze back to the platform outside.

   “Tell me, can anything survive out there? If something was to land on the deck
unannounced, I mean?” he asked.

   The Admiral knew what he meant. “If you’re asking whether we have countermeasures
for unwelcome guests, then yes we do. The Empire was forged from war; we know enough about it by now to seal up the flaws in anything we make. There are scores of sentry guns and manned positions, but as I’m sure you can understand…I mustn’t discuss them in detail”.

   Lupus nodded. “You say sentry guns…those are fully automatic?”

   “They are” the Admiral answered reluctantly, deciding that the type information was harmless.

   “Then even allied troops, intention aside, would be targeted without authorisation and clearance to be on the deck?”

   The Admiral shifted on his feet, unsure of where this was going. “Well, of course, but every member of the defence station knows the due process…You ask with such direction you make me wonder if you’d ever plan to come without notice”.

   Lupus kept his poker face
on and turned to the Admiral. “No, I wouldn’t do such a thing, but others might. I just like to understand everything about what interests me.”

   The Admiral seemed to buy it. “Well, we can’t see much more from here. There’s only so much you can tell by looking out th
ose windows” he gestured. “I can take you to the Command Centre and show you everything you could possibly want to see from there”.

   Lupus looked at Calla and the legionnaires. They shared the same expression; everyone wanted to know more
, not just him. It was impossible not to be more curious about The Shield now after what they had already learned.

   “Lead on, Admiral” he said.

THE NETWORK OF halls
that led to the Command Centre was bathed in fluorescent light. Lupus could tell that they were heading further into the middle of the defence station and gradually, the chances to view the outside world ran out as the corridors began to intertwine and pass over each other. On more than one occasion they passed through a junction room where four or more paths diverted away from the one they were on.

   He walked in silence, Calla at his side and the legionnaires behind them. The Admiral and his men took point and after a while, Lupus noticed that several more human soldiers had joined them at the
rear. He was satisfied with that though. In truth, the Admiral and his men had every right to treat them with a security escort, whether through unnecessary protection or suspicion.

  
After a short while, the group came to a bulkhead door. It looked just the same as every other they had passed by, but Lupus could tell there was a significant difference with this one. It was the way the Majors that shouldered the Admiral stood that suggested they had arrived somewhere important. When the latter put his code into a hidden access panel and the space beyond was revealed to them, Lupus had his assumption vindicated; they had arrived at the Command Centre.

   Lupus stepped inside after the Admiral and his men. Calla and the legionnaires followed closely behind and the remaining soldiers filtered in and went to what Lupus assumed were pre-assigned positions. The Command Centre was more complex than the bridge of a Blackstar, with a series of three ascending decks that began at the
entrance. The furthermost edge of the room was surrounded by the same bay windows from the hall at the airlock and looking outside, Lupus felt a pang of familiarity.

   The sight outside was eerily similar to the one he and Calla witnessed on the observation tower of the Luminon
, though it was far less beautiful and cosmic. There were a thousand things to wonder at, a vista of things he couldn’t explain or try to comprehend. The only difference was that the galaxy of suns was natural and full of creation, but The Shield was its opposite; a vast network of fabricated weapons that was meant for the utter destruction of things both living and material.

  Lupus took in the lay of the place as the Admiral climbed the stairs to the second tier. There were banks of data terminals on the ground floor that transmitted information from sensors, satellites and communications from other stations to the equipment on the middle deck. There, three surfaces that appeared to be inferior versions of the holo-tables the Guardians used were sat purposefully, surrounded by various Gothican officers. They were discussing the various data that the first deck screened up to them. Lupus was well aware that The Shield was not entirely complete, but he wondered what the high-ranking men were talking about when the void outside was so empty and quiet.

   Looking beyond them, he noticed what constituted the third and final deck. Though he had to ascend to the second, resulting in a multitude of mixed reactions from the human officers, he could easily understand what he saw
even if he didn’t want to accept it. Two dozen men and women were sat in a ring around the room’s outer edge. The stairs ran from the second floor to the third, but Lupus had to climb them halfway to see it.

   The third deck was suspended above the other two by a series of supports around the outer edge of the Command Centre. The men and women who were sat on the small, hollow ring were all plugged into computer banks by means of neuro-cables that accessed their brains and nervous system. Those that he could see without going all the way to the top, something he now didn’t want to do, looked half-mechanical.

   “They are the gunnery crew” a voice said next to him. He realised it was the Admiral and wondered why he hadn’t noticed the man move to his side. Lupus guessed the sight of the gun operators had been discomforting enough to distract him, which hadn’t happened before according to his perfect memory.

   “Are they always…” he began, but he couldn’t finish the question.

   “Plugged-in?” the Admiral said for him.

   Lupus tore his gaze away from the third deck to nod. “Are they even self-aware? They seem so focussed on their t
asks”.

  
The Admiral shook his head. “Whilst they’re locked in like that, nothing from the outside world gets through. No emotion, no fear…not even spoken orders. Everything they know and do is directed by the data passed from the first floor, which is filtered by the second and passed on directly to their brains”.

When he saw the faint look of disgust in Lupus’ eyes, he continued. “I know how it sounds; trust me, when I first saw the plans for the defence stations I railed against them, but
after a time I understood. The chaos of battle can affect any mind, Apostle. It doesn’t matter if you have decades of experience or if you’ve seen things that would normally break anyone else…war is damaging and sooner or later, it gets to everyone. Being locked-in…well, that prevents it. Those men and women up there, all they know is data and calculation. To them, every battle, no matter the odds, is just that - ratios and statistics. There is no connotation, no meaning, just a need to address the equation”.