Wraiths
The Smallest Hive
Pt. 5
"If only I had time to kill him again "Erishkigal growled to herself once more. She was in her private sanctum within her mother ship as she let the anger she felt towards its now departed captain and his fatal mistake wash over once more. In his over eagerness to serve her he had alerted her allies of her discovery of the massive alien vessel that dwarfed her craft by several measures. "By rights it is mine and mine alone" she thought greedily. "Oh well might as well get this over with" she sighed. Laying back on the large pillow covered sedan in the lavishly decorated chamber and making sure her outfit was all in place and the extra jewelry she had dawned. One must show the proper appearance when communing with one's fellow gods. Lowering the lights in the room and activating the flame torches the chamber fell into a layer of deep crimson tainted shadows. Feeling satisfied that the proper demonic ambience was achieved she waved her hand at the communication sphere and activated it. The Globe's surface began to flow like mercury as the silver gray color began to blur as the subspace signal began to make the connection with its far distant cousin. Slowly the surface of the globe began to go from silver to a deep black and then to an even darker obsidian. Erishkigal stared into the darkness for a moment before the slightest hint of movement suggested that there was someone there.
Slowly a pair of startlingly white eyes opened and stared back. The darkness engulfing the eyes almost cowardly started to dissipate. The eyes started to calmly rise up and greedily consume the view that the other end of the image feed it. The eyes at first seemed to take in what appeared before them with an animalistic greed, taking every nuance of information that they could before focusing on the Goddess of darkness herself.
"Ah my Lord Gun how pleasant to see again" Erishkigal purred in her most friendly manner at her cousin Gun African God of Iron and War. "Have you found one yet" Gun asked with a voice as brutal and direct as his name implied. "I am doing most well My Lord the warmth of your concern is most comforting" Ereshkigal purred at him. The eyes staring somehow managed to put even more steel into them as they stared back at her. Deciding that the time for levity was over she changed tack to a more direct approach. "No I have not found a Chappa'ai yet but as you are already aware we have been…waylaid by recent discoveries" she says.
"Yes I am MOST aware and I point out once more what you are most aware of. You are a part of the Triumvirate and you have been charged with finding a Chappa'ai as I have been charged with preparing our combined fleets" Gun stated.
"Yes I am most AWARE of my responsibilities and am doing my utmost to carry them out but surely…" Erishkigal was in the midst of saying before Gun cut her off midsentence. "It is Your responsibility to find a chapp'ai above all else" Gun barked at her. "The very survival of our mission in this new galaxy depends upon your finding a chappa'ai" Gun stated once more.
"Direct and as unsubtle as the weapon that is his namesake " She thought with a smug smile on her face. Once Gun had "taken aim" at his goal he was most incapable of allowing anything to distract him from it which is a trait that she could use to work this situation back into her favor.
"I agree with you completely my dear cousin and I will resume the search immediately but I will leave a small taskforce behind. Some of my forces are already on board the alien craft and I will not just abandon them." She had to congratulate herself on her performance. Even she wasn't sure she could pull off a line like that and keep a straight face. If there was one thing Erishkigal is NOT known for was compassion for her thralls. Not that she could tell if Gun believed her not with that steel hard face of his. "Very well" He growled and abruptly cut the connection. "Goodbye to you too my dear cousin" She huffed. She had to smile at her cleverness. She would resume her search as she promised him she just failed to inform him that she would be staying behind with the "small taskforce". No one but her would be able to claim the secrets that the giant vessel held no one but her alone. She sat there in the darkness feeling proud of her self and idly wondering if she would have time to kill that fool captain again.
It was like walking thru a corpse and it felt like it was watching her was the thought that Nef-er'et was unable to keep from going thru her mind. She was starting to get disgusted with herself.
She had fought in campaigns in the service of her goddess on over a dozen worlds and been Erishkigal's iron hand of fear and vengeance on more occurrences then she could recall and she hadn't felt fear like this since she was an orphan scavenging to survive. Sneaking thru dark back alleys and tunnels, and hiding from roving bands with the vermin to keep from being taken. A nightmarish existence until Erishkigal saved her from the darkness, and delivered her into a new realm of darkness and nightmares. Only this time it was her turn to be the nightmare of those that once hunted her like said vermin. That was something she kept trying to remind her self of as she moved cautiously thru the strange tunnels. The walls just seemed to ooze a sense of malevolent hunger. She took every precaution she could to keep from touching them. The further away from their landing site the more it felt like they were somehow watching her.
She couldn't stand it anymore. She reached up and pushed the release catch on her helm letting it recede into her collar. That was better she thought. She much preferred to face the unknown without that annoying contrivance weighing down her head. It also cut her off from the annoying field chatter of the Jaffa. Their constantly reporting out the obvious was almost harder to bear then their current location…almost. Let her 2nd Zor-tel play nursemaid to them. She had a much more important purpose to occupy herself with. Without realizing it she had veered off a side tunnel that separated her from the troop of Jaffa. Blindly she continued on.
In a slightly larger corridor with several smaller tunnels branching off from it, the rest of Nef-er'et's squad of Jaffa were slowly taking in their surroundings, or as Zor-tel would think cowering in fear of the shadows. Zor-tel , once the proud first prime of a rival god to Erishkigal now fallen in battle counted himself lucky to still be alive much less the 2nd to the prime herself.
Old and hard as fossilized reptile skin He was responsible for the training and discipline of the Royal Guard, a task that has been his privilege to carry out for his Dark Goddess for over 45 years. His greatest glory was that he had been the one that had found Nef-er'et in the wastes of that backwater world and trained her and raised her to be the greatest warrior he had ever seen. And to think that these pathetic rabbles are what passed for the "elite". It made him want to toss himself out the nearest airlock. He had seen children show more backbone then they were right now. They kept whimpering about seeing things in the tunnels and hearing whispers behind them. They were jumpier then a field varmint. Not that he could totally blame them. Being in side this haunted vessel was enough rattle even the most hardened warrior's nerves. Even he thought he had seen and heard …something, something's moving in the darkness. Not that he would let this bunch of idiots know that.
*whooosh*
The snap-hiss of the staff weapons cracking open and spinning to all point in different directions at the speed of highly honed instinct should have made Zor-tel proud if he too wasn't just as much on the verge of panicking as the rest of the Elite Guard. He saw …something! He knew he did. It was all …cold , darkness, and HUNGER! By the Gods themselves in his 98 years of life and servitude he had NEVER felt fear like this. It was as if this vessel itself wanted to devour him whole. "I am too old for this." Zor-tel thought to himself.
*RAARRRGHHH/ZWAAPHH*
*NOOO!* Zor-tel screamed as he was engulfed in blue lightening before falling into darkness. The last thing he heard was the screams of the other Jaffa, and the howls of some kind of beast.