LotS/The Story/Scaean Gates/Child of Hell
Child of Hell
Intro
"My daughter must have a vessel worthy of her, a craft fit to bear the jewel of our empire as she serves our subjects across the galaxy. Our allies shall look upon it and be proud to number us among their friends. As for those who wish us ill, they will tremble as they perceive the might and magnificence of their foes." -- The Emperor
They're the best. That's why you picked them.
Men and women in green jumpsuits mill around the hangar, between metal birds of war that gleam with the promise of battles to come. Some of them wore that color, the uniform of the empire's elite squadrons, before the war. They were outside Sian space when the Centurians attacked, or else were ordered to withdraw in the face of the harsh, soul-shattering understanding that the empire's systems were lost and its defeat inevitable.
In their eyes are anger, guilt, and shame. The emotions of warriors who lived while their comrades died, who retreated with the screams of the dying ringing in their ears and the explosions of spacecraft seared into their vision. You doubt a single one of them relishes their continued existence, is grateful that they escaped the Centurian conquest with their lives and liberty intact for any reason but one: it's allowed them to be here on this day, ready to fight and avenge. They're kindred spirits, your brothers and sisters in pain if not in blood.
Others wear the uniform for the first time. You chose them for the honor, reviewing each service record in turn until you found what you were looking for -- the ones who deserved to be elevated, to take part in this mission which any true son or daughter of the Sian Empire would covet. There's pride in their eyes, marred by nervousness, exhilaration, and determination. Some will die in those jade jumpsuits.
Dispersed throughout the green-garbed crowd are individuals in different costumes, an assortment of military and civilian dress that seems incongruous amid the harmonious jade of their counterparts. Most are Sian pilots who declined the new uniforms, and asked to wear those of their old units instead. Some are sole survivors, the orphans of squadrons whose blood and wreckage were scattered across the void -- left to bear decades or centuries of tradition and reputation on their shoulders. The moment they put on another uniform, they'll be consigning little slivers of history to the jaws of oblivion. You couldn't deny them their duty.
A handful have never been part of the imperial military. They're fliers who threw in with the Sian cause after the invasion, people whose skill and allegiance you trust enough to bring them on this most sacred of missions. Together they represent some of the finest the galaxy has to offer, men and women whose names echo across their profession -- spoken in tones of awe, admiration, or envy. Even here, surrounded by other elite pilots, they're attracting their fair share of attention.
Your gaze is drawn to one grey-haired veteran. She sits on the stairs leading up to her cockpit, glowing cybernetic eyes staring into space. Many glances are cast in her direction, and your aural implant echoes her name from numerous lips. But if she's aware of the scrutiny she gives no sign. She simply stares and waits, her right index finger tracing the flesh around the port in the side of her head. Soon she'll plug herself into her fighter ship, and become one with the craft.
Not all of the famed pilots are so detached from the general hubbub. Your eyes fall on a man in red, standing in the middle of an awestruck crowd that's comprised largely of women. Captain 'Ace' Flashheart... One of the greatest pilots in human space. You once heard new recruits in the mess hall arguing about who was better -- you or him. Most picked Flashheart. Well, he'll soon have a chance to prove them right or wrong.
But it isn't just pilots who'll be taking part in the attack.
Across the cavernous hangar, beyond the neat rows of avian predators, are bigger, bulkier ships. Transports. Larger bands of men and women are arrayed around them, making final weapons checks or engaging in conversation before boarding the craft that will ferry them to victory or destruction. There are squads of imperial warriors -- guardsmen, swordsmen, soldiers of all kinds. For them this is almost a pilgrimage, a duty to the Emperor, Princess, and all those who fell aboard the Child of Heaven. Some you selected because of their martial accolades, the skills and achievements which shone from their files. But others are here for different reasons. You gave preference to those who had once served aboard Illaria's cruiser, and to those whose kin perished in the attack -- died while you and she flew to ephemeral safety.
Alongside them are battle bots, their shining metal bodies arranged in perfect square formations. For now they're still, as motionless as the ships themselves -- warlike statues frozen in time, waiting with mechanical solemnity. You envy them their tranquility.
There are other allies as well, troopers and assassins, marksmen and maulers. Assorted killers ready to bring about their various methods of death once the boarding operation is underway.
Telemachus' mech looms above Ragnar, Lu Bu, and a group of Niflung berserkers. Its canopy is open, the young prince perched on the edge of the cockpit. From the look of him, and the way the berserkers' muscles tremble with the force of their roars, they're sharing tales of slaughter -- that which they've wrought in the past, or else the bloodshed they intend to bring about in the battle to come.
But the talk and preparations cease when the alert sounds. It's time.
"See you inside," Talia says.
The gunslinger sprints to her fighter, springs halfway up its stairway in one bound, then vaults into the cockpit with another.
You make for your own craft, dash up the stairs, and drop into the seat. It seems like forever since you last flew a fighter in battle -- ensconced on your own in a cockpit instead of sharing a flight cabin with your companions. An almost mournful aloneness tugs at you. But there's something else as well, a sensation made dominant by years of training and experience that have etched it deeper into your bones than mere thought or emotion. It's like coming home, returning to sanctuary and security, comfort and control. Perhaps this will be the last time... If so, you'll make it count.
Master Wu raised his eyebrows when you told him of your plan. You're a supreme commander now -- the Imperial Jian of the Sian Empire. In truth you should be overseeing this mission from the deck of a warship. But he didn't voice his objection. Perhaps he sensed it would be useless.
When you and Talia left the Child of Heaven, hurtling on your desperate escape, you each piloted a fighter. It's only fitting that you return that way.
On the last journey she was alone. You flew with good men and a great woman. This time there are only ghosts.
Between Heaven and Hell
The hangar's brightness falls away on either side as you fly into the blue energy barrier which seals its vast exit. Azure ripples flow across the cockpit before slipping away to stroke the rest of the ship behind -- relinquishing you to the eternal blackness of the void.
Endless freedom. The star-studded mantle of creation extends before you in its immeasurable dark waves. A theater in which you may move in any direction, unbound and uninhibited. There's nothing like piloting a fighter to bring home the supreme agility of space travel and astral combat.
That sensation, the instinctive delight, is banished in the next instant.
Your arc your craft to the right, joining the host of other fighters pouring from the warship, and see it.
The Child of Heaven. Or what's become of it.
Its hull is black, as though in mourning either for its mistress or for the fate which has befallen it -- the shining whiteness swallowed up, never again to delight mortal eye. Tainted by the void, corrupted by the wickedness of those who now dwell within. The brilliance of its prow, the magnificent gardens which once sang their song of beauty to all who gazed upon the cruiser, has been torn away. A blue and purple sheen glistens upon the gigantic expanse of window, but on the monitor this merciful obfuscation cannot conceal the devastation beyond.
As with the imperial gardens surrounding the palace on Sian, there's only ruination. Charred and blackened vistas fester in that once sumptuous space, hammering into mind and soul that this isn't her cruiser. Not anymore.
Smaller vessels hover around it like parasites, tiny fiends reveling in the gargantuan carcass they've drained of life and stripped of hope. They're moving into battle positions, abandoning the corpse in favor of fresh prey.
Wilex appears on one of the screens, outlined against a backdrop of chaos -- of humans and robots sitting or standing at dozens of tiered stations, flesh and metal fingers clicking controls or touching holographic projections which float before their faces like colorful veils. The bridge of the Asimov, the Chief Assembler's new warship.
"The Cybertollahs were right," he says. "If the Centurians learned what we did to the Zenith, they haven't found a way to defend against it yet. All communications are jammed."
"Understood."
It's a moot point perhaps. When you and Wu Tenchu drew up your battle plans alongside the admirals and generals, you foresaw that no help would come to the 32nd Fleet. The Centurians' other peripheral fleets will have their hands full, and no reinforcements are likely to arrive from deeper in Sian space. They can't spare the ships, not while they await the assault of the armadas you've gathered. If they're to have any hope of maintaining their gasp on the core worlds, the bulk of their spacecraft must hold those systems.
But even so, you relish the thought that the fleet commander aboard the Child of Heaven will be banging her fists against the communications console in impotent frustration.
No aid, and no chance of retreat. The 32nd Fleet is responsible for securing the nearby planets. They won't withdraw, and leave this system in your hands. They'll fight to the end. That suits you just fine.
The Centurians are fanning out, their fighters slipping into their attack patterns. The Child of Heaven looms in the gaping space at their center, ready to bring its cannons to bear.
You fly to meet them, to find your place in the celestial battlefield.
Slaying the Soldiers
It's almost like murder.
Each time you glance at the monitor, gaze out at the tapestry of flashing lasers and whooshing thrusters, you can see everything. Each ship's trajectory imprints itself on your brain, the mind of a master pilot anticipating the maneuvers of lesser fliers -- foretelling which patterns of attack or evasion they'll adopt perhaps even before they know it themselves. That's the essence of astral dogfighting: having a mind quick and adept enough to calculate, and reflexes swift enough to capitalize.
Explosions, one by one. Whenever you press the fire buttons another ship's wreckage is scattered, brief bursts of flame extinguished by the cold, insatiable void. Death dances against the twinkling stars, to the tune of fabricated explosions that exist only in your ears, mind, and memories.
No... There's no one among the Centurians who can match you.
Murder. Pure and bloody.
You pull your ship into a barrel roll, throwing it aside. A blue torrent of energy sears through the vacuum in its wake. One of the Child of Heaven's weapons, screaming for your obliteration.
The Asimov answers.
Missiles erupt from its battery, a volley of pointed cylinders that spiral through the stellar pandemonium -- wending their way between the laser fire, dodging the ships which rush across their path.
Not just missiles... Robots, each with a complex computerized brain. One of the Chief Assembler's special creations.
The Child of Heaven fires in their direction, a great lance cutting through the galactic night. But the intelligent projectiles scatter around the beam with the grace of fish navigating their aquatic realm.
One by one they reach the black cruiser, the dead dream. And they detonate -- buying the cannons' silence with their suicide.
"Launch the transports," you say. "We've cleared enough of a path for them."
You take one final glance at the scanners, assuring yourself that the other pilots can deal with the remaining Centurian fighter craft. Then you head for the Child of Heaven.
Blast doors are closing over the black cruiser's hangars, ebon eyelids making their lethargic descent. With its weapons gone it can no longer voice its rage, cry its defiance. Instead it wishes to shut the universe out. That's not going to work...
The Asimov speaks again. This time it utters gleaming shards, dark diamonds each inscribed with glowing cogs and gears that slowly spin in intricate arrangements. Mere affectations, concealing infinitely greater complexities within. Professor Mycroft, Katrina Malkov, and some of your more eclectic allies designed these. The products of many minds, all brilliant, all determined that their creations should be the catalyst in the Centurian Collective's defeat.
Those bizarre projectiles bite the hull around the hangar entrances, sinking deep into the metal. The luminous arrangements of machinery on their surfaces quicken, spinning faster and faster until their rotation is such a blur that it conceals the details of their design -- rendering them as smooth circles. Their colors shift, blue to green, purple to red. Then the hangars wake from their sleep, and open their eyes. The blast shields retract, responding once more to Sian codes instead of Centurian ones -- displaced sequences gaining mastery of what was once theirs.
Ruined glories escort you on your way, battle damage and vandalism mocking your reminiscences, cleaving through memory and supplanting it with reality. You ignore them. Soon it won't matter...
Shouting and weapons fire rage across the atriums and passages, telling the tale of revenge delivered. Men and robots, humans and aliens, filter through the ship -- enacting the battle plans you established before the assault.
They'll secure the cruiser, eliminate all resistance they encounter. As for you and your companions, there's something you have to do...
"The cells are over here," you whisper, letting the words slip into their aural implants.
Second Jailbreak
Telemachus is the first to round the corner. A scarlet barrage of lasers rips across his mech. His cannon arm returns fire. You're beside him in the next moment, along with the others. Talia's pistols whisper, Ragnar's machinegun roars. Lu Bu darts through the fire, springs down the stairs, and makes for the nearest of the Centurian troopers in their heavy blue armor. His clawed fingers tear through the plates at the soldier's throat.
Yes... Close and personal. Visceral.
You stow your gun and draw your jian. It wakes in your grasp, jade energy flickering into being around its edges.
A jump takes you down the stairs, onto the floor of the atrium. A roll puts you under the angry red that spits from a blaster's barrel. You emerge from the tumble in front of the shooter. Your green-glowing blade cleaves its way upwards, slipping through the blue armor, trespassing into the soft flesh beneath, splitting him from groin to throat.
The wound is clean, cauterized. Unsatisfying.
You deactivate the field when the next Centurian rushes at you, driving azure claws at your heart. His attack ends along with his arm. The foremost part of it clatters on the ground, still encased in the now useless weapon. Blood spurts from the stump and screams from his mouth. Your sword thrust pierces his faceplate with a soft crunch, ending the latter. The former will die soon enough, with the stilling of his heart.
The remaining Centurians run, unwilling to sacrifice their lives for the sake of duty. You can't blame them. What's the good of guarding cells when the ship is being overrun?
But their cowardice or pragmatism doesn't save them.
Ragnar takes the nearest of them, burying his blade in her spine. Talia drops the remainder. Each zapping beam from her pistol catches one in the back of the knee, piercing the joint and leaving them rolling on the floor. In a split-second the other end of the atrium is littered with screeching Centurians. Then Lu Bu moves in with his sword. A moment later there are only bodies.
You move through the doorway, enter the familiar corridor -- its walls lined with barred portals and shining barriers.
The control panel is there by the guard's station. You reach towards it. Then you realize that you don't know the code. She did... But not you.
"Can you hack it, Tel?"
"Step aside."
You move as his mech lumbers forward. It pauses in front of the panel. Then its arm shoots forward, its laser-edged chainsaw penetrating the panel amidst showers of sparks and electronic whines of protest.
Along the corridor, the barriers vanish. Cries of surprise emerge from the cells. Faces appear, pressed up against the bars.
"I could have hacked it," he explains. "But this was quicker."
You nod, then turn to encompass the others with your gaze.
"Break them out."
Fleet Commander Xarpa
The Centurians were telling the truth...
After the attack on the Child of Heaven, their ambassador assured the UHW that it had been conducted as a legitimate military operation -- that every effort had been made to spare the civilians aboard the cruiser. Whatever evidence they provided was convincing enough to the Union of Human Worlds' officials, and now you know it wasn't entirely counterfeit.
"Captain Rhapsody?"
The elderly woman clutches the bars of her cell, her brown knuckles whitening. It takes you a moment to recognize her with her hair loose and disheveled, her uniform replaced with a steel-colored prisoner's jumpsuit. The housekeeper, responsible for overseeing the maids and cleaning drones. A woman who had been on the ship for many years before you first walked its decks.
"Move back," you say. "I'll get you out of there."
The green field returns to your sword with a soft hum. A horizontal sweep cleaves through the bars as though they were butter. A second, lower stroke sends them tumbling.
The housekeeper steps out into the corridor, followed by the cell's other occupants. The last to move between what remains of the bars is a child, in his early teens from the look of him. Something about his features strikes a chord...
"You're Sergeant Tarik's boy, aren't you?"
He nods.
"Your father was a good man. He..."
"They told me what happened." His eyes flash. "You'll kill them? All of them?"
"All of them."
The boy nods. Then the housekeeper takes his arm, and leads him into the throng of men, women, and children pouring from the other cells. Talia is ushering them towards the exit and out into the atrium beyond -- where Telemachus and Lu Bu stand guard.
Ragnar tears the bars from the last cell, breaking them as a normal man might snap twigs. Then he steps aside, allowing a group of young girls to file past him. Three of them scurry along the passage, casting fearful glances over their shoulders at the brutish Niflung. But the fourth throws her arms around him -- or at least as far around his burly torso as she can manage -- and murmurs incoherent words of thanks before running after the others.
Out in the atrium the freed prisoners look this way and that, as if in disbelief at their newfound liberty or the sights and sounds which surround them. Most flinch, alarmed by the noises of distant gunfire and explosions, not knowing if their ordeal is yet over.
"How're we doing, Wilex?" you ask -- directing your sub-vocal question to the Asimov's bridge.
"We're meeting stiff resistance on a few of the decks."
"Where's it most serious?"
"There's a Centurian manning a turret in the largest atrium on your level. She's going crazy... Taken out the better part of two squads already."
"I'll see what I can do..." Your gaze roams across the civilians. "Is the path to our hangar still clear?"
"Yes. My battle bots have it secured."
You and Talia issue the instructions. These people know the two of you, trust you. Even as they cringe at the continued cacophony of death and destruction, they run off in the direction you indicated.
Then the five of you make your way in the opposite direction, heading towards the heart of the chaos.
Two men and a woman in white guardsman uniforms are crouched against the wall of one of the small buildings that line the grand atrium. They look round as you approach. But you stare past them, to the area beyond... To the killing ground.
Broken fragments of robot litter the space. Some are almost intact, but for the gaping holes in their chests or heads. Others are flaming, twisted chunks of scrap -- only recognizable as the remains of bots because of the traces of paintwork. There are corpses as well, and these have suffered just as grievously. Lakes of blood, chunks of charred gore, torn limbs and splattered brains... All the ugliness of war in a microcosm.
"Come on, you Sian bastards!" a woman's voice shrieks.
There's a roar of machinery, a shuddering, grinding burst of savage technology opening its maw. Gunfire rakes across the gruesome tableau, scattering scrap and body parts, tearing corpses into red ruins.
One of the guardsmen is fiddling with a rocket launcher. He gulps, pulls the weapon into a ready position, and starts to move.
Your hand clasps his shoulder.
"Pass me that. We'll handle this."
"Now!" you whisper.
Ragnar drops to one knee, his hands cupped. You jump at the same moment you activate your invisibility field.
The Niflung catches your boot, and flings you upwards. His arms are better than a trampoline. It's like being fired from a cannon.
You land on top of the building, in the remains of a sniper whose rifle lies shattered next to his torn-up torso. So someone else had this idea before you... But they didn't have your stealth technology. That'll buy you at least one shot. Then your position will be compromised...
The Centurian appears in the rocket launcher's sights, behind the turret's big mass, atop the raised metal frame of a platform. There's an insignia of rank on her armor. She's a fleet commander... The woman in charge of the Child of Heaven, along with its subordinate ships.
You aim for her head and pull the trigger.
But she's got her wits about her. The moment the rocket escapes the weapon, it leaves your field as well -- becomes visible as it flies towards her. She ducks behind the turret, and the projectile spins through the empty air above. It explodes against a distant building, shattering the scarred marble, sending chunks of it raining down.
You move, leaping onto the next building as her blind fire rakes the one you were standing on. The rocket launcher fires in your hands, clumsy unaimed shots as you keep yourself in motion. Yet one blundering rocket strikes home. It catches the corner of the turret, and as its explosion dies out you see that one of the turret's weapons has died with it. But the machine is sturdy, built to endure. The other guns keep blasting.
More fire comes from below, where your companions are opening up with their own armaments. Energy blasts from Telemachus' cannon sear across the turret's metal body, echoed by volleys of bullets spat by Ragnar's gun. A clutch of mini-missiles in one of its batteries explodes beneath the assault -- the small, sad detonations of munitions not yet made ready by their internal arming mechanisms.
The Centurian's helmet appears over the thick metal shielding, desperate to see what's going on, to regain the initiative. A laser clips her left eye and she collapses behind the turret once more. A split-second opening. That's all Talia ever needs.
But from the scream, the ferocious cry of an ancient Fury, fierce and primal, you know that the angle was wrong. Talia put out the helmet's eye, perhaps the human eye beneath, but didn't pierce her brain.
No matter... You're in place now.
Invisibility sloughs from you, the field spent for now. It's served its purpose. You're on top of the building nearest the turret platform...
Your companions fire one last barrage as you leap, keeping the fleet commander pinned down, sparing you from the turret's savage mouths. Then their weapons stop. You spare a glance, and see that they're running towards the platform to support you. It won't be necessary.
You toss the rocket launcher aside. That won't be necessary either.
The fleet commander rises. The helmet is off her head, discarded on the floor of the platform. It stares up at you through its eyes -- one bright, the other dull, broken, and lifeless. She whirls round, gazes at you through two undamaged eyes. She was lucky. But her luck's run out.
Her right hand gropes for her pistol.
Your blood rages, surges, seethes. It crashes inside your veins and arteries, hammers at your heart, floods into your brain. Darkness dances at the edges of your vision. Something's clawing at the base of your spine, wrapping itself around your organs.
"Kasan..."
Does the word matter? You don't know. But it feels... necessary. It...
Your fist glows. The blood's slamming against your skin, splashing from side to side, ready to tear from your flesh... The darkness deepens. It's a tunnel, a void, an abyss. You're staring at the world through tiny pinpoints, little circles of illumination.
Her pistol rises.
Your fist lashes out.
Something cracks. Something explodes. Redness...
Redness... It's her. Illaria. She's in front of you, in the darkness. Her face is gone... a ruin... Crushed bone, shattered skull, burst brain... Redness. Only redness.
Your fist is red as well, painted with its guilt.
Her body falls away, collapses, crumples.
And he's standing above her, in his robes, glaring at you in horror, in agony, in fury. The Emperor.
"Murderer!" he cries. "Murderer!"
"No! I-"
But he's right. You murdered her, just like you'll murder him. Because you're the darkness, the screaming blood, the orange eyes.
You lunge, throwing your body into the punch -- driving your fist at his horrified face.
He leaps backwards, slipping beyond the reach of your snapping blow. You move to follow up, to strike again, to murder...
But something grabs your arms, something strong and inescapable that clinches and clutches. You struggle, thrash, but you can't break free. The darkness has you.
"Rhapsody!"
A woman's voice. Her voice! But she's dead... You murdered her. You-
"Rhapsody!"
No, not her voice. It's...
"What happened?" Another voice. A boy's...
"I don't know. She just..."
"What do we do?" A gruff, growling man's voice. "Get her back to the ship?"
"I... No. We shouldn't let anyone see her like this. We..."
"Talia?" you murmur.
The blackness is fading. The abyss is giving you up, pulling way -- cheated, thwarted, disappointed. For now.
Light expands in the middle of nothingness, widening until it creates the universe.
Talia... Her face a mask of pain and worry.
Your arms... Why can't you...
Your head rolls to one side, then the other. Ragnar and Lu Bu, each of them grabbing you, holding your limbs in place with their muscular, mechanical might.
"Let her go," Talia says.
"You sure?" Ragnar grunts.
But the Niflung releases you. So does the robot.
"What happened?" you ask.
"You..." the gunslinger begins.
"You tried to kill Talia!" Telemachus cries.
The prince is next to her, out of his mech. His young face is pale.
"No! I-" You look around, trying to find something, anything that will help you make sense of this.
Your eyes fall on the woman's body. Her upturned face is a bloody mess, like she was blasted with a shotgun. A tremor works its way through your body, recollections tear at you. Your gaze shifts, focusing on her armor -- the dark, thick plate on her shoulder. The Centurian symbol is emblazoned there. There's blood splashed across it.
Yes... You hit her... Used the Imperial Fist. Your chi. Your blood. And then...
Another tremor, another shudder. It wasn't her. It was... her. And then...
You feel the blood draining from your face as you look up at Talia.
"It's okay..." she says. "I dodged. You're fast, but you're not that fast."
She smiles. But it's hollow... The ghost of a smile.
"I don't... I..."
"Perhaps for now we should return to the Asimov," Lu Bu says.
"But..."
"I've spoken with Wilex. Our forces will soon secure the Child of Heaven. There's nothing left for us here."
The five of you stand at the window, the floor-to-ceiling expanse of glass that looks out onto the star-studded universe. The Child of Heaven floats there alone, its silent black mass darker than void itself.
"Do it," you whisper.
The explosion rips through the cruiser, a gigantic inferno that bursts from within -- erupting from its hull in a thousand places, melting and consuming in its fiery wrath. Dozens of smaller blooms ripple in its wake, fanning out across the ship in their voracity. Then there's one final detonation, an immense discharge of energy that tears it apart -- hurling fragments in all directions, casting them into the void to wander for all eternity.
You couldn't have kept it.
It could have been repaired, repainted, restored. Made to look exactly as it once did. A jewel of the empire, a craft worthy of an emperor, or a princess. But it would never have carried her again, never again surrounded her with its magnificence and in turn been illuminated by hers.
No... The Child of Heaven died when she did.
Talia puts her arm around you. The five of you watch the debris scatter, slipping beyond the scope of your vision.
"Are you ready?" she asks.
"Yes."
She says nothing, gives no sign. But you know her well enough to sense her unease all the same.
Your friends made you tell Master Wu what happened, forced you to seek his counsel. Yet there are some things even the cunning mandarin doesn't truly understand. All he could do was admonish you not to draw upon your power again.
"There's too much at stake," he said, "for you to jeopardize it with a moment's recklessness."
He was right... Sian is waiting for you. It isn't time to give into the darkness. Not yet...