The Deian War: Conquest (12 page)

   “Does your plan involve ramming one of our own ships? I quite like the
Infernus
…” Aetius asked sarcastically, indicating the destroyer that the vice-commander was on a collision course with.

   Vulpus laughed. “As do I. Don’t worry, she’ll survive”.

   Continuing on her path towards the legionary vessel, she twisted the Voidhawk from left to right, shaking the enemy fire that sought to end her. Soon the looming hull of the
Infernus
filled her vision and she anticipated the message from its crew before it came through her speakers.

   “Vice-Commander Vulpus, this is gunnery Sergeant Balta of the
Infernus
. We cannot provide supporting fire against your bandits; they are too close to you. Pull out of our fire zone and divert from your collision course”.

   “Negative. I requite your Captain to raise your starboard shields. I’m going to fire my flares at you” Vulpus
replied.

   There was a momentary pause during which she made another series of evasi
ve manoeuvres. Fortunately, though the enemy were relentless, they had terrible aim. Balta came back with, “That’s ridiculous…How can you expect us to allow you to fire on our vessel?”

   The gap
between her and the enemy was closing. She had to convince him fast. “I’m not firing at your hull Balta; I’m firing at your shields! Are you seriously questioning the vice-commander of your own legion at a time like this?”

   “Of course
I’m not, but it is not my ship, it is the Captain’s-”

   “No, it belongs to our Lord Cerberus. Do you think he would like to hear of your disobedience to me?”

   Something clipped her wing. She was getting frustrated now. After another pause of silence, during which she could hear Balta arguing with someone outside their conversation, she saw a brief flash on the
Infernus
as the power of its shields were increased to maximum. She knew the ship would have to sacrifice weapons power to do so, but she wasn’t in need of those.

   “Firing flares!” she announced
, more to herself than any outside observer of her madness.

   The heat-intense projectiles flew from her fighter like a shower of
promising stars. She pulled harshly on her joystick, slamming the engines into full-forward thrust as she forced her Voidhawk into a steep climb. She missed the
Infernus
by a matter of metres, but the Phantoms, dependent on heat-seeking sensors and radar, were too slow to determine which source belonged to her. As she hoped, they tracked the flares instead of her fleet.

   It was not the sight of the explosions that caught her by surprise, but the actuality of them. Part of her expected the Phantoms to see through her plan and to continue tracking the heat of her craft, but instead they
had fallen for her trick like she counted on them doing. Of course, they would have perceived the massive signature of the
Infernus
on their radar, but if they saw what they thought was her Voidhawk continue towards it, they would have assumed it safe to follow her. Instead, they were met with a wall of pure energy that saw them obliterated upon impact.

   “That actually ended well
!” Aetius remarked, close enough to her position to have seen her stunt.

   “Not for them” she smirked.

   When she pulled back round to view the centre of the battle, she could perceive a hundred different events unfolding. Destroyers duelled with each other, a pair of Blackstars fended off an Oblivion, enemy carriers were trying to deploy troops to the ground of Erebos and were harried by squadrons of frigates whilst everywhere swarms of Voidhawks danced with their Nightshade opponents. It was both her training and experience that taught her the skill to sift through what she saw and find the priorities.

   “Aetius,” she began, her voice more serious than it had been for hours since the beginning of the battle. “Identify the ship approaching the planet from the portside of
Nighthunter
. Is it what I think it is?”

   She pushed her fighter towards the scene, twisting out of the path of others and evading the majority of duels where her help wasn’t needed. Eventually Aetius was able to reply, his own reality occupied with
a superiorly numbered enemy. “It is indeed an enemy carrier, if that’s what you mean”.

   Vulpus ignored his attitude. Their friendship existed beyond the boundaries and limits of rank, their experiences in war shaping their understanding of each other to know when things were said with
intent or if they were spoken flippantly. “And those things leaving its belly?” she pressed.

   “They would be Nester drop ships. A
lot
of them, I’ll give you that” he confirmed.

   Vulpus could see that, but somehow she needed someone to confirm it. She groaned to herself. For the last few days the legions had been defending the planet from enemy invasion with everything they had. Very few if any legionnaires, pilots in particular, had enjoyed much sleep. They were too busy fighting every moment
of their waking lives, to save the human population down below who should have been evacuated months ago, to rest.

   Sometimes, Vulpus would resent the Go
thicans for being so incapable of defending themselves and getting away from their worlds in enough time. It was only when she considered the power of the enemy and their speed that she could start to forgive the humans for being so slow. The legions had a duty to protect them, no matter how they felt about it.

   “Then we have failed” she sighed, “and
now the ground war will begin”.

  
A few minutes passed, during which Vulpus engaged and destroyed another two Nightshade fighters. This time the pilots seemed completely mindless, keen to shoot something but inept to avoid being fired upon themselves.

“Should we inform the Apostles?” Aetius
eventually asked, ever conscious of the demi-gods who had authority over them.

   Vulpus was about to answer when she saw the
Nighthunter
disengage from its current feud to begin thrashing the Phantom carrier that had broken through the defensive net. “No,” she answered. “They already know”.

NIGHTINGALE ORDERED THE
Nighthunter
about to bring its broadside guns to bear on the Phantom heavy carrier. By the time the lance batteries and plasma torpedoes had begun to gut the enemy vessel, hundreds of drop ships were already escaping to the planet surface below.

   “Azrael, give the order for Vulpus and the command echelon of the
73rd to return to deck. We are going to spearhead a counter-assault to relieve the humans on Erebos” Thanos said, using the podium on the bridge to communicate with his legionary commander who kept himself to the Primary Tactical Hall to co-ordinate the legion’s forces.

   Azrael
bowed dutifully before disappearing to perform his task. Without further instruction, he would start to prepare the ground troops of the 73rd and the other assembled legions on board the Blackstar for deployment to the ground.

  
“By the time we arrive to support the humans, their capital will already be under siege. There were tens of thousands of Phantoms in those Nesters”
Nightingale thought aloud morbidly, her voice as ethereal and ghostly as her physical form.

   “Then it would be best for us to act swiftly” Thanos replied, turning to regard his spectral kin. “I will lead the attack. I am better suited to a land war where I can feel the soil beneath my feet, not this void stuff where I can only observe and command
, but barely be involved. I never could fly a Voidhawk for
shyl
”.

   Nightingale titled her head to one
, suspicious of him implying something else by what he said.
“Are you suggesting that I would rather stay up here instead?”

   Thanos raised an eyebrow. “No-
”

  
“Because I thirst for real combat too, brother”
she smiled mysteriously, raising herself from the bridge’s throne like smoke from a candle.

   Thanos laughed affectionately. “I forget how much we really do have in common”.

   Nightingale nodded at him and called to her legionary commander who waited for her nearby.
“Naomi, prepare our legion for planetfall.”

   The Commander of the 101st acquiesced by falling to one knee and
dipping her head. “As you Command, my Grace” she said, her voice eerily beautiful and sweet as honey.

  
At the same time, another legionnaire approached Thanos to give him an update on the surface situation. “We are receiving distress calls from the capital. The attack is underway in full. Casualties are heavy, but thanks to the humans following our advice this time, their defences are holding…for the time being” Thanos explained upon seeing Nightingale’s curious gaze, turning to regard a screen that fed them more information.

   “It is time for us to join our legions in the hangar, Thanos. Now is the moment where we can
once more unleash our wrath on the enemy the way we were supposed to; up close and personally”.

   Thanos, feeling himself transform into Cerberus if only by temperament and
his rising battle ire, was already on his way out of the bridge when he answered her. “Phantom presence there or not, Erebos will bear witness to monsters this day!”

ON THE HUMAN world Erebos, shuddering with fear, Albirreo of the Capital Defence Army crept along the hallway of a flat near the outskirts of the city, gripping his rifle to his chest like it was his protective mother. He wept and shook his head defiantly as the images of what happened before returned to him again and again.

He and his platoon had been sent to reinforce the walls of Lotus City, the capital of Erebos. The planet was under attack, that much was
clear by the drop ships that boomed into the atmosphere, but since then there had been little sign of the enemy.

  
All the war tales and stories he’d heard said that at the best of times, a Phantom attack is akin to a master's ambush, planned for years and tweaked to perfection. The enemy just happened to make it look easy in a matter of hours instead of years. Today, Albirreo and his men had found that those tales weren't just rumours; they were true. The first warning came when there was silence after the last drop ship was sighted. On their way to the wall, Matias, one of Aliberreo’s squad mates, remarked about how deserted the capital suddenly seemed to be.

   One moment they were running at a good pace towards the looming wall, which they could see towering above every building
and the panicked cries of civilians echoed all around them, then there was nothing. Not even a single sound. They were alone in the street they were using to get to the frontline, where Command informed them the Phantoms had begun their attack, but until now they knew that everywhere people, whether military or civilian, were going somewhere.

   In unison, the squad came to a halt a
nd tried to listen for movement of any kind. Each of them had a haunting suspicion that the enemy was already there inside the city and everyone else but them had been smart enough to hide. It made Albirreo think something supernatural had happened. Usually, even in a dead city, there were noises. Whether it was the vermin or just the wind, there was always some level of racket.

   Soon nobody said a word. Not even the squad Sergeant could offer anything
up to explain what was happening. It was like they had been transported to a dead city. The silence drowned them. Shouldering their weapons, the platoon spread out, expecting the worse.

T
heir fears were met with sudden alacrity. There was an ear-piercing scream to the right, an agonized cry from the left. One by one they were picked off by an unseen enemy until they reformed hastily into a circle, rifles facing outwards like a prickly ball ready to kill whatever was hunting them.

   They did this, but then there was nothing again. They started to fidget, jumping at the shadows, much like Albirreo was doing in the present in the hallway of the flat. Then the siren came. A loud, slow, wailing shriek. The ground beneath them shook. Buildings started to quake. The men fell to the ground and with a thunderous crash, a creature so huge it ripped the earth in two crashed through it from underneath them.

   Before they had any time to react, before they had any time to shout in terror, its massive fists killed three of them in a flash. The remaining seven of them fled in different directions. Albirreo had heard each one of them die. As if their death cries over the comms-net wasn't enough, the earthquakes of the leviathan crushing them to death was the overwhelming evidence of their doom. Soon enough, there were no more screams, no more trembles; there was just the silence, just Albirreo alone and more afraid than he had ever imagined possible.

   He knew where his squad was; they were dead, but where was everyone else? Where were the city’s inhabitants? Where
was the rest of the damned Capital Defence Army? Albirreo gulped at the possibility that somehow he was trapped as a solitary figure in this little world now, a microcosm cut off from reality. Maybe he actually died hours ago. Maybe this entire thing from the start had been his sentence in Hell.