The Deian War: Conquest (33 page)

   Jun could see a wave of nodding heads before him and if there was any dissent, it was kept hidden and private like his own. Something in his periphery caught his eye and he saw a slight distortion to the form of the
closest Senator two seats away on his right. He realised, just as quickly, that a Dawntreader legionnaire had taken a clandestine seat next to him. He looked around the room and saw the tell-tale signs of it happening elsewhere, his training with the 906th teaching him how to spot their movements as they filled the empty seats.

   The Dawntreader next to him said nothing, not even acknowledging that he was there even though Jun had noticed him. The Governor, on the other hand, continued his rhetoric. “
But first, something terrible has come to my attention, something I cannot keep from any of you”.

   Suddenly
, Jun was very interested in what the Governor had to say and he was just as captivated as the fools that genuinely believed he was their saviour. “There have always been dissenters in every government; I am not fool enough to believe otherwise. It is the right of democracy to have different views. In fact, it is after all subjective opinion that drives great change. Yet…that is not what I am here to challenge, I can assure you all.”

   The Governor stepped away from the pedestal now, looking
remarkably less tired and exhausted than before. His body seemed more stable and healthy now, as though the lack in mass and physical weakness Jun noticed before was merely an illusion. He threw his arms open and declared, “Indeed, no! It is the presence of traitors that I contest, for they are sitting here in this room with us right now!”

   Jun felt a chill run down his spine and
saw a thousand eyes wash over him as the Senate reacted by their instincts; search for the accused. He recoiled in surprise as a hand touched his arm and nearly had a heart attack, but when he heard the friendly voice of the legionnaire next to him telling him not to move, he tried to relax despite the hostile atmosphere that now bathed the Great Auditorium.

   Catching his breath, Jun realised that the Senate had no idea who the Governor was accusing of as the men around him looked at each other as well. After a moment in which he
seemed to relish their fear and hate, the Governor continued. “I acknowledge you openly, yet do not name you. I know who you are and I give you this one choice; reveal yourselves to me, privately or here I care not which, and I shall forgive your sin and the treacherous desires you harbour.”

   Jun was entirely lost.
Terror was close to consuming him, yet he couldn’t bring himself to take any kind of action. “What do I do?” he asked the unseen legionnaire, but there was no answer. When he moved his hand to the seat next to him to check the Guardian was still there, he groaned as he encountered nothing but thin air. The Senator in the next seat along gave him a funny look, but Jun didn’t think he was giving himself away as a traitor, just a little unstable in the mind.

   “How does
that
help anyone?” he whispered angrily at the legionnaire who wasn’t there anymore to hear it.

   Then, from behind him, the Guardian
came back and answered “This changes things. We can’t move with this many eyes on us now. Wait for us to make contact with you again, Jun of the Senate. We will end his reign soon enough”.

   Jun turned round to reply, but he realised it was too late
again. Looking back at the stage, he saw the Governor smile at what he had done. In one announcement he had prevented the actions of his would-be assassins, but he had also ensured that no Senator would ever again challenge him for fear of being seen as the traitors he warned the Senate about. Now he stood in complete, unrivalled control and more powerful than he was before.

   He may have promised forgiveness, but each and every man in that room knew beyond doubt that to be a known traitor entailed only one end; death. Whatever the Governor decreed
for the Gothican military now would be scripture, no matter how insane or costly it would be. He could send the entire Gothican fleet to a pointless and outmatched mission to the Frontier and no-one would say a word against it.

“Damn it all…I’ll kill him myself” Jun muttered, hardly believing his own words but knowing what he had to do.

AT THE SHIELD, the interference over the communications had affected the
human systems in the same way as it had for the Apostles across the galaxy. Lupus recoiled at first, but when he saw the figure of Raina replace that of Novus, he felt an unexpected sense of relief. The message played out plain and clear and despite its vagary, he trusted in the gravity of her voice. There was a danger that she had seen, one whose reality he instantly believed in because despite her lack of esteem in him, he had an unshakeable faith in her abilities.

   “What in the
hells
was that?” Sabre asked, rushing into the room that Lupus had requisitioned for his private calls to the other Chosen.

   There was a surprising rush of anger in Lupus’ heart at the Commander’s disturbance, but then he realised that Sabre was only acting out of diligence and alarm and the interruption was not purp
oseless. He consciously calmed down his aggravation, which he had managed to conceal on the inside anyway. To Sabre, he merely looked distressed about what had happened.

   “It was a warning” Lupus answered, turning to the Commander with an unknowable look in his eyes.

   Sabre had been standing next to Whitewolf when she received the same message as a hologram on her wrist guard, so he knew there had been some kind of communication sent in urgency. However, even though he had seen the holographic image of Valkyrie, he had heard nothing from it. From his understanding of the Third Apostle, he reasoned she must have transmitted the message psychically.

From the look on Whitewolf’s face as Valkyrie spoke,
Sabre could tell something was utterly wrong. He could have asked the former what had happened, but as soon as the communication was over, she was too intent on trying to re-establish contact with her sister to make time for him.

   Now he found himself with his own Apostle and things didn’t seem much better. “A warning of what, my Lord?” he asked.

   Lupus had no desire to soften what he was about to say. He would never expect anyone to do the same for him. Only moments before did Novus remind him that they were all fighting a war, one that would determine the fate of an entire race; the one that birthed them. There was no time to be unrealistic, no purpose in pretence.

   “Apollia is threatened
, Sabre. Valkyrie has seen its doom” he said.

   The Commander’s first reaction was puzzlement. “
I don’t understand…Hydron is in the south-west of the Empire. Its eastern flank is so heavily guarded that only the north has seen the Phantoms and the west...The Ghoul Hosts own the west themselves, my Lord. From where could the enemy attack?”

  Even as Sabre
’s words made logical conclusions, Lupus could sense the error in his assumptions. How could they be certain about the enemy’s movements? How could they predict their course of attack at all? They never could. It was always a case of waiting for the enemy to strike and reacting, or anticipating which areas they would assault the Empire’s worlds from; but nothing had ever been predictable. Hydron had always been a bastion of such supremacy that it would be foolish to attack, even with the numbers that the Great Enemy possessed, but perhaps there was arrogance and hubris in that notion.

   There had to be a reason for
the enemy’s decision. As illogical and unpredictable the Phantoms seemed to be, it was always clear that the commanding force behind them, the dark god Himself, was anything but that. He had always fought with a plan. How it worked, however, was a mystery to all of the Apostles.

   “There has to be clues to this…something that would make sense of Valkyrie’s vision” Lupus muttered.

   “My Lord, what advantage could the Phantoms have gained to even tempt them to risk attacking Apollia? Surely they know what it will cost them…” Sabre asked.

   Then it hit Lupus, like a fact that had been obvious from the moment Sabre wondered openly about the enemy’s
new choice of target. “Whoever said they
gained
it? That would suggest chance has a role to play in their tactics. No, Sabre, I think this was their plan all along. We just have to work out how that plan is supposed to work” he told the Commander.

LUPUS REJOINED CALLA and the others back on the secondary deck of the command centre. His first port of call was to establish contact with the other Apostles to try and determine if there was any information he could piece together that would fit the puzzle of the enemy’s apparent plan.

   He walked to Calla’s side, feeling only a sense of concern that replaced the warmth
which was normally there. He didn’t notice the change at first, but his survival instincts were taking over and they seemed to be pushing him towards the conservative side of his emotions. Love, part of him argued, had no place in this new state of confusion and upheaval.

    “Did you get through to Raina?” he asked Calla, already knowing that would have been her own
first priority.

   She shook her head
regretfully. “I’ve tried more times than I can count, but it’s like no-one’s home”.

   “She could be in transit” Olympus s
uggested opposite them. He’d been observing everyone reacting to what had happened in silence, waiting for the moment where he could be useful. He saw little point in adding anything unless there was a point. Now, it seemed there was.

   He saw the expectant looks on the Apostles’ faces
and knew it was best to elaborate without waiting for them to ask. “If she’s on a ship that’s made a jump, nothing in this realm will help us reach her until it’s come out of slipspace” he explained.

   Calla looked at Lupus. “
If Olympus is right, then we already know where she’s heading so quickly. If she believes in what she’s seen so strongly, so should we”.

   Lupus nodded in agreement.
He had never doubted her power and now something in his gut wrenched with the knowing that her vision was true.

   “Before we do the same, I have only one condition” he said.

   “Which is?” Calla asked, anxious to pursue her sister but ever-aware that Lupus had every right to dictate what their next actions would be.

   “I have to talk to the others. Something must have happened to presage this attack and we should have noticed it sooner. If we can understand why the enemy thinks they can take Apollia
away from us, perhaps we can challenge whatever advantage they think we’ve given them” Lupus replied.

 
Sabre saw the flaw in that and he wasn’t afraid to voice it. “My Lord, that could take some time. What if the other Apostles have also made transit to Hydron immediately after your sister’s message?”

   Lupus
turned to him and laughed in frustration. He realised how often he was challenged by his legionnaires and felt a sudden resentment at the fact. “Well we don’t have a moment to lose then, do we?” he said swiftly. “We make the jump too!”

LUPUS CLICKED THE button that would end the communication to Cerberus and Nightingale. Both of them seemed no less impressive in their holographic forms than they did in real life, but it wasn’t their presence and faces that he was interested in. After a short greeting, he cut to the point and asked them to update him on what they had found.

   Interestingly, they had just been about to contact him when Valkyrie had broadcast her warning about Apollia. It was a strike of coincidence, he told himself at first, but when they told him about what they
had found in the Tempest Sector he knew there was a design behind everything that was now culminating to a violent climax. When they explained their theory about the discovered Energy Sphere, it was as unclear to him as it was to them what the Phantoms would plan to do with it if they had captured it, but their attempt to do so and the timing of Valkyrie’s warning told him the two were linked somehow.

  
However, the news wasn’t all bad. They revealed that a contingent of legions, who passed the identification protocols, had found them shortly before and that they now had more strength than ever. The two Apostles insisted that they should heed Valkyrie’s call to arms and abandon the Tempest Sector without delay. Reluctantly, Lupus agreed. Ninety-five per cent of the star system had been vacated of human residence, but it seemed there was simply no time left for them to complete the operation. He assured them the remaining humans would hardly matter to the Phantoms anyway; their target was Apollia and every campaign against them until now had been about distraction and disarray.

   “The Great Enemy always had this in His plan. He spread us out across the stars and now He’s found a way to strike at
the place we hold as most precious. If we don’t regroup immediately, we could be too late” he told his brother and sister.

  
They were as curious as Sabre about how it was possible that the enemy could be such a sudden and perilous threat to Apollia,
but he could offer little in the way of explanation. Neither of them, however, questioned the validity of Valkyrie’s foresight. Somehow they all knew and trusted that her vision was true, no matter how unlikely it seemed. When he directed them to head to Hydron and join up with the rest of the legions, they made a point of describing the Energy Sphere and its potential threat in greater detail.