The Deian War: Conquest (25 page)

  
Yet, the thing that was assaulting him was not physical. It was immaterial, an emotion and its name was shame. Tiberius had arrived back from his mission and he had brought with him the cargo that he’d asked the Commander to obtain. He could see plainly on the legionnaire’s face an experience that was at once full of duty and conflicted by a broken morality.

   Hydra knew that what he ordered
his legion to do was wrong. No matter how many ways he looked at it, he could never truly justify the act of stealing the human population of a city and bringing them here to Hydron, even if it was so that they could pass through the Gate and be safely harboured on Apollia. Seraphim didn’t seem to disapprove, but did that make Hydra feel any more vindicated? No, of course it didn’t.

   Once the
Astral Titans had returned home, he asked Tiberius to begin moving the humans through the Gate to Elysium City. Hydra had already discussed the logistics and the plans with Seraphim and his brother had already laid aside a portion of the glimmering citadel for the human refugees.

   H
ydra knew it had to be done. Despite the nagging sense that it was completely, undeniably wrong, he knew that there was no guarantee that he and the other Apostles could actually win this war. Yes, they had secured victories and they had saved worlds. They had evacuated tens of millions of humans back to the Meridian Sector in preparation for a final battle against the Phantoms, one that together with the Empire’s forces they stood a chance of winning, but the success of that required all of the Apostles to play their part and one of them was still missing.

   Nobody had any clue where Samael had disappeared to. After Pheia, they had tried to find him together
as a family, but there was no sign of him in any of the sectors. At first, they searched the Abodian Sector where his home world had been, but there was nothing there. Even the Promethian Shipyards had vanished without any explanation. It was as if he had never existed at all.

   The Lion had been the
foremost to emphasise the importance of the Apostles working together. It had also been the hardest for him to cease the search for their missing brother, despite the previous tensions between the two, but in the end the war demanded their full attention. The Apostles had resorted to each using a portion of their legions to continue the search, but their hope grew dim as time went on.

   It was for this reason, this disturbance of their purpose and obstacle to their destiny that Hydra had chosen to act on his own intuition. The humans may
have seen Gothica as their home, but what good was a world that could be blown away by the Phantom fleets with ease if the Guardians were defeated? To Hydra, the extinction of mankind was a very possible future. He had no choice but to prevent it; after all, that was their true purpose, wasn’t it? If morals had to be broken to achieve that goal, then he would break every one, whether that meant sacrificing his soul or not.

  
His mind was in a civil war with itself all the time now. He sunk down into a chair and was about to try and reconcile what he had done for the thousandth time against what he hoped to achieve, but when the stairs resounded with the sound of an armoured figure descending them, he was interrupted from trying to settle his conscience.

   He looked up, already knowing who dared to disturb him during this time. “Brother,” he said. “What could you possibly be here to discuss with me that I could think important now? Have the humans realised what we’ve
really done?”

   Seraphim shook his
unarmoured head, the sanguine features of his face mismatched by the smile that split it. “No, but that’s not why I’m here”.

  
Hydra laughed, the expression frustrated and tired. He rubbed his forehead in consternation. Of course Seraphim would be oblivious to the validity of his anxiety and worries. “Alright, spill it out then”.

   With that, his brother dropped a heavy-bound pack of parchment onto the table. There was an audible ‘thud’ as it crashed onto the wood and Hydra tried to conceal
the natural pique of his interest. He didn’t like playing games with Seraphim, but this was the first time since Pheia that it seemed he was coming with more information that would actually help the Apostles learn more about themselves and Vermillion’s path for them.

   “What’s this?” Hydra prompted when it
became clear Seraphim was waiting for the question.

   “That,” Seraphim began, pointing a finger at the pack and sitting himself down as though they were two old men about to have a debate, “is a record of everything the caves under Elysium
have to say about us.”

   Hydra gazed at the papers for a long while, trying to outwait his brother, but his patience grew thin more quickly than usual. “Out with it
already” he demanded.

   Seraphim had a slight grin to his lips when he answered. “What, exactly, do you think when you hear about
The Four Immortals?” He let the question hang in the air before adding, “And which of our family, do you expect, are one of them?”

THE NIMERIAN SPEARED into the Frontier like a silent knife in the dead of night. Accompanied by a modest flotilla, the Blackstar completed its jump from the Abodian sector with finesse. The other ships were equally masterful, keeping themselves undetected the moment they arrived in-system. It took only moments to ascertain that there was no Phantom presence here; at least, not near Byzantium and its neighbouring worlds.

   The fact was not a cause for relief, however. The damage had already been done; that much was clear from the devastation wrought on Byzantium. As the Black Guardian vessels drew nearer to the planet, like moths drawn to a light, they maintained the systems that would help conceal them in lieu of speed. It was clear to them that they were too late to save the humans, but it didn’t hurt to protect themselves even if the enemy did seem long gone.

   The
Nimerian
held anchor when Byzantium filled the view screens of the bridge. Valkyrie had demanded caution, but there was a need to understand what they were witnessing the aftermath of.

   “This world is
completely aflame…” Basilius muttered. “How can that be?”

   The Recon Master was on the bridge with Valkyrie, the rest of the command echelon of the 402nd and the crew itself, yet no-one seemed willing to answer. Eventually, Valkyrie herself spoke. Upon seeing the state of Byzantium, she had been fighting deep-seated bile in her throat that was spawned from
both anger and disappointment.

   “It can be because the Lion has failed. He promised things that couldn’t be delivered, assured us of things that were far from reality. He made an assumption, one that I always knew was wrong yet could not sway him from
; that the Great Enemy had forsaken the Frontier because
we
had.”

   There was sadness in her voice that belied her unconscious emotions. Truly, she never wanted to be right because being right meant this, the death of worlds. As she removed her blue helm and ran a hand through her long, soft white hair, she closed her eyes and tried to deny the
fury that rose within her. “I told him we should have left someone here…I told him…” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else just so she could get it off her chest. “Just because the Phantoms overlook something doesn’t mean they forget about it. Pretending to ignore Byzantium was a game, a trap to see how much like a puppet we could be played…and now they know”.

   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.