The Deian War: Conquest (21 page)

   She saw his expression as he spoke, one that belied his
worried curiosity about the city. “What concerns you, my Lord?”

   Thanos sighed and turned to her. She was his confidante, the only person outside his family that he could trust with anything from
dark secrets to trivial things without fear of judgement or apprehension. “Doesn’t something feel strange to you, Vulpus? The enemy’s attack here seems rather…desperate, don’t you think?”

   Vulpus thought for a moment, but she couldn’t
find a reason to agree or know where he was coming from. “They are meant to slaughter their prey; they know nothing but haste and chaos, but there’s no desperation in that”.

   Thanos nodded, knowing all too well the truth of that. He fought back the images of the places he had seen laid to waste before he and his legion were able to save them. “Yes, but today…this…there’s something more to this world. What information do we have on
it? What is there of key interest and importance to the humans?”

   Vulpus frowned. “Not much, really. It seems to be a standard world with a capital just like any other we’ve fought for. It has a military base, hospitals, residential districts, industrial estates, laboratories, factories, schools…I could list the similarities to every city we’ve been to all day, but I couldn’t name anything special”.

   Thanos listened carefully, but he wasn’t persuaded from the hunch that he had. “We always accepted the Phantoms would want to destroy everything and leave Gothica for last, even if it meant coming this far east to get to the Empire’s outermost worlds, but there’s something else here, something they want to capture. This wasn’t just a sadistic trip for the Great Enemy, there’s a prize here He wants.”

   Vulpus was unsure what to say, so she gave no answer. After a long while, during which Thanos turned back to look at the city as though trying to decipher the secret it held, he said “I need to speak with Dael. Tell him I want to see all the enemy’s movements and trajectories.
There has to be something they’re aiming themselves at this time.”

   Vulpus didn’t reply. She knew not to question the Apostle’s desires, even if she couldn’t make sense of them or agree with them. Instead, she put a hand to her ear and she activated her comms-device. She spoke into it, to a legionnaire whose attention she wasn’t interested in, but who
could get the one she needed.

   “Yes, Commander?” the voice asked.

   “Avitus, tell Dael to come to my position. Tell him today he proves his worth as Recon Master”.

TEN MINUTES LATER, Dael arrived on the hill in a Thundertrack, the cousin APC variant of the Warhound tank that sacrificed the tank’s powerful turret and side-guns for troop-space. When he stepped out, helmet held under his arm, he had two other legionnaires carry out a heavy orb and asked them to set it on the ground in front of the Apostle and Commander.

   “Greetings” he smiled, a little too casual for Vulpus’ liking.
They had never seen eye to eye precisely because he seemed to have a little too much humour for what his job was. She couldn’t deny his uses though, so she had never had enough reason to find a new Recon Master. Besides, the Apostle seemed to understand his nature and accept it, so she was trying to find a way to do the same.

   “Dael, what can you tell us?” Vulpus asked
, without seeing the need for polite chatter. Whilst they were up here, there was a battle raging for the city. Though Stormfalcons were constantly dropping reinforcements from the 73rd and 101st, it would be some time before the Guardians could repel the enemy indefinitely.

   Dael was going to say something about the lack of friendly conversation to the Commander, but then he saw the expectant look on the Apostl
e’s face and decided to get to the matter at hand. He knelt down to the device that he had brought with him on the APC and pressed a series of buttons, activating an impressive holographic display that projected itself to chest-height. The three of them gathered around its light as it began to form into a map of the city.

   “
Initial Phantom forces moved against the city walls from the north and west” Dael began, showing the troop movements in red arrows. “However, there were several ambush sites towards the south-eastern parts of the city, near the industrial areas. Each was conducted primarily by the Phantom archetype that you fought, my Lord. The men are calling them Typhons” he went on.

   Thanos looked at the images intently before saying, “Dael, highlight each of those attacks”.

   The Recon Master did as he was bid and Thanos felt his eyebrows rise in reflection of his realisation. The attacks, bar a handful, had all been loosely centred on a group of buildings that, on the outside, seemed bland and unimportant. However, the coincidence didn’t escape him. “What are
those
, exactly?” he asked.

   Dael was quick to answer, suddenly aware that he had missed something he shouldn’t have. “It’s a laboratory complex, my Lord.”

   Thanos closed his eyes, regretting having ever asked the question. He knew the answer to his next one would be even more displeasing. “And what is its purpose, Dael? What studies are made there?”

   “Something to do with human weapons and military advancements, but nothing significant” Dael replied.

   Vulpus rolled her eyes. How could the Recon Master not see it? “Well, obviously there
is
something significant there” she admonished him.

   “The Phantoms wouldn’t bother with the distractions and the subterfuge if it was just another laboratory
…” Thanos agreed.

   Dael looked to him and then to Vulpus and the weight of his failure dawned on him. “I’m sorry, m-my Lord. I have made a great error in judgement. It will not happen again”.

   “Hmm” Thanos replied. It was the most terrifying answer he could have given to Dael, because it revealed nothing about how he felt about the Recon Master now. Then he added, “Get me a link to my sister and get it fast. Whatever the Phantoms are after, they will not stop at one attempt. To get it before them, we need the help of the Shadow Legion”.

THE SOUND OF war could be heard across the breadth of Lotus City. The evacuation had been going on for hours, though few could understand its purpose. The Black Guardians had been defending Erebos for weeks, but only now did they decide to safeguard the population properly. Citizens across the world were all asking the same question - why?

   To some, it hardly mattered. All that did was getting to the nearest Stormfalcon so that they could be taken away to a safe place. The legions represented the answer to their prayers and who were they to question the nature and time of their salvation? In the end, everyone saw things for how they really were - the monsters were at their doorstep and the angels couldn’t hold them off forever.

   Now, as the human populace withdrew from their underground tunnels, caverns and hideaways, they fled to the streets in groups to get to the transports that would take them far away from the nightmare they had woken to. Parts of their humble city already lay in ruins despite the enemy being denied access and the loss was steeped in dismay.

   What hurt the most was seeing homes destroyed. Who could say if the owners had made it out alive in time? Even for those that did, walking past the ruins of their houses was the hardest thing they had ever done. Children cried as their parents tried to hush them, but the adults were feeling the pain as well. They were afraid, they were tired and they were hateful.

   Legionnaires from a multitude of legions occupied the streets in pairs and directed people to the nearest evacuation zone. It was the first time any of the people of Erebos had seen a Guardian in real life. It brought out many mixed emotions and reactions. Some threw their arms around them, kissing them and thanking them with all their hearts for saving them. Others ignored them completely, unsure of how to talk to the men and women who had assumed control and protective authority over their Empire.

   One boy, walking with his mother and father along the dry tarmac of the street, rounded the corner and saw a Guardian standing there. With a rifle slung over his shoulder and his helmet on, the legionnaire was an imposing figure of black that seemed capable of killing just about anything.

   The boy murmured, “Ma…is he a Guardian?”

   Though his voice
was inflected with awe, the legionnaire could hear a hint of fear in it. The boy’s parents didn’t answer, looking instead to each other to see if one of them should say anything to the armoured soldier. Eventually, it was the legionnaire who spoke first.

   “I am
indeed a Black Guardian, child. What do you know of people like me?” he asked. He spoke through the microphone in his helmet, which gave his voice a resonance to it that almost sounded mechanical.

   The boy recoiled slightly in shock of the sound, but he was still too amazed to see a soldier from legend to run away. He looked to the ground, though, as if he was being tested by the legionnaire and he was shy about how little he knew. “I…I know you fight the m-monsters…the ones that came to get us today”.

   Slowly, emphatically, the legionnaire nodded. “Do you fear them?”

   Now the boy looked up into the helmet of the Guardian and saw something in his blue visor that made him want to be open and honest. “
…
Yes
” he frowned.

   The legionnaire had known that was going to be the answer. He looked to the boy’s parents who in return pleaded with their eyes for him to give their son some hope. What he said next would forever change the way the boy felt abou
t everything; the war, his life and what would happen to the Empire.

   The Guardian knelt down so that his head was level with the child’s. He carefully removed his helmet so that the intensity of his eyes and the sharpness of his facial features didn’t scare him. Gently, he asked “Have you ever wondered what the
monsters are afraid of?”

  Now it was the boy that slowly nodded.

  “…They’re afraid of
us
” a Shadow legionnaire answered, materialising in front of them. With that, the boy would never doubt humanity’s safety for the rest of his life.

BY THE TIME Nightingale came down to the surface of Erebos, the majority of Lotus City had been evacuated. There were still thousands more citizens remaining, but that was a fraction of the number that the swarms of Stormfalcons had already relieved. She was taken to the south-eastern part of the city, to an area that granted an expansive view to the laboratory complex that now held equal interest to the Phantoms and Guardians.

   She met Thanos on the hill that he occupied. He shared his information with her and after only a short discussion, they both agreed what they should do next. During her arrival, several more attempts to take the complex had been made by the Phantoms. As Thanos predicted, they weren’t going to give up on it.
He had already sent a legion to secure it, the 711th who were allied to his own.

He felt more comfortable about using the 73rd where they were best; at the frontline, enduring and fighting through the worst. The 711th were better at holding a position on their own than they were fighting alongside others. The decision had been an easy one.

   It had become clear that Thanos was not suited to capture the laboratory complex. If the enemy were encroaching on the buildings, he would inevitably have to take his form. When he was Cerberus, things had a way of being collaterally damaged. Nightingale, with her abilities to pass through any material, was far better suited to steal the prize away from the Phantoms.

  
“Do we have any idea what it could be?”
she asked Thanos.

   He had thought about it for a long time, but the truth was that he had no way of knowing. They would have to go and get it to be sure, but how could they find something if they weren’t sure what it actually was? “It could be a weapon, though I can’t imagine anything manmade that the Phantoms would crave enough to risk their elite to capture”.

   Thanos had meant no offence to his parent race, but the look that Nightingale gave him when he phrased it that way made him regret his choice of words. “I didn’t mean to insult the Empire Night, you know that. It’s just…if the Great Enemy wanted a weapon that was held by our side, wouldn’t He search on Kraxus first where we actually produce them?”

   Nightingale’s reason told her that Thanos had a point, but her instincts railed against logic. “
Reality seems to disagree with that expectation, brother. There has to be something the humans have forged that intrigues Him so much”.

   “The problem is, how are we supposed to know what that is?” Thanos asked.

   Then Nightingale smiled, an expression that looked haunting and eerie when it was worn by her.
“We get them to show us”.

   Vulpus, sharper than most legionnaires, especially Dael it seemed, was the first to challenge that. “What? Are you suggesting we let them take it first?”

   Nightingale turned to regard her. She looked the 73rd Commander up and down and gave off the impression she could see right through her, though the threat was unwarranted.
“Yes, of course”
she said matter-of-factly.