No Particular Trouble, Chapter 2
Castide swung his weapon in a wide arc back and forth as he moved down the corridor, checking for any possible threats no matter how unlikely it seemed. They just cleared another large octagonal room containing yet another carriage holding another warmind, albeit far more skeletal than the first they discovered. The facility was far too clean, far more than any other golden age complexes they traipsed about in their years together till this point. No dust, no decay, no overgrowth of nature coming back to claims what was once hers, and oddly enough no…
"Bodies, Cas." Agama chirped, as they came to an alcove.
"There's always some at some point." Castide returned.
They stood before a large blown out door inset several feet into the wall of the hallway they were exploring. Scorch marks fanned out around the opening, a stark contrast against the pure white, almost too pristine walls that the lower level of the facility consisted of. Several frames lay scattered around the door all with that blackened pattern haloed around their forms, like some twisted seedlings left from the mother flower now gaping at them.
"Whaddya' think Aggy? Golden gun? Sunsinger?" He said as he knelt to prod the headcase of one of the frames.
"No sun-breaker has this precision, the door simply screams titan, but this…" He continued, gesturing to the wounds on the androids.
"Means the fallen weren't here first. So, whoever did this opened our way in." Agama finished for him.
"This was solar energy, or something incredibly like it. I have no records of any guardian operating out here with any substantial finds, so it's either one of Ikora's shadows, or a rouge guardian." She added.
"Get anything from them?" He asked.
"Nuh-uh, memory cores were the kill shot. Completely vaporized, even their weapons were either destroyed or taken."
"And this is our stop?" He asked as he gestured to the blackened room, only lit with the dull glow of a command prompt blinking on a single console.
"This is the only room listed 'Archive' in the schematics I've got." She answered.
"Lets see if anything is left." He said, as he stepped through the door.
Agama moved in front and above him to shed bright white light into the room they entered. Revealing massive data storage tanks, a single console with it's ever blinking command prompt, and a toppled chair.
"Guess they didn't like what they learned." She said.
She veered in closer to the console and briefly interface with a bank of data ports adjacent to the console.
"Well whoever was here first left it open for us, security has been bypassed, no firewalls, and all files unlocked… strange…" She mused. "Any specifics you want me to look for? Or…" she asked.
Castide threw his hood back and toggled the hermetic seal on his helmet, removing it.
"Keep an eye on that corridor, and find us an escape route. I can do this on my own, I hope." He said.
"Just sing out my name if you need a hand." She announced as she swooped on close to his face waggling her sensor whips in a mocking manner, then darting out of the room to survey their area.
Setting his helmet on the desk and kicking up the chair into its designed position. Sat down and rolled close to the console.
"Search. Castide, Roahn." He spoke to the console.
"Searching" a static voice echoed out of some unseen speakers.
Three files Blipped on screen, one manifest labeled "personal effects", two encrypted.
Castide reached out and tapped the manifest icon. The monitor blinked out and then back on displaying the information:
-Subject: 656/AD-
-Name: R. Castide-
-Inventory-
-1- Antique 45. Caliber sidearm (loaded)
-3- Magazines containing 45 caliber ammunition
-1- Novel "The Martian Chronicles" by R. Bradbury
-1- Metallic disk with green jewel (vibrating?)
-2- Blades 15.24cm in length
-1- Personal data pad (Non-functional)
-1- ERF Deployment jacket ==DESTROYED/BIOHAZARD==
-1- Set ERF Fatigues ==DEESTROYED/BIOHAZARD==
-1- Pair ERF Boots ==DESTROYED/BIOHAZARD==
-2- Pkg. Tobacco product ==DESTROYED/BIOHAZARD/CONTRABAND==
-END INVENTORY-
- ITEMS INTERRED: MERIDIAN BAY, MARS. C/O CLOVIS BRAY—
Castide let out a long sigh. "When she's right…"
He keyed back to the first of the encrypted files, flexing his fingers and rolling his shoulders. Golden age encryption wasn't too much of a task when you know some of the tricks, and when you can butter up a cryptarch, you learn all the tricks.
"looks like I owe Kreth another drink." He mused to himself.
The file's lockout melted away after he punched in a few keys into the security algorithm. Revealing a badly damaged or corrupted video file.
Castide traced the warsat shrapnel imbedded in his skull, grunted, and punched the play icon.
Static? he thought until the audio kicked in.
"—raveller is on earth! Sec-com stated it left Io, but didn't get a chance to say where it was headed before comms gave out!" said a voice off screen.
The camera pans around to take in the scenery. Snow rolling down in rippling sheets and a blurred black figure clambering up an incline of rock and ice.
"Guess we found out." Said a closer voice. "Must be the camera's operator, sounds familiar." Castide thought
"The warsats have gone haywire, Warminds across the system have grounded all off-world transit, I'm not of the mind to assume it's just because the cue-ball decided take a holiday." Called back the blurred figure.
"Skyshock alert placed it this area but I doubt we'd find anything in this… Holy…" said the camera operator as they crested the rise.
The video stuttered and blinked until it held the image of the traveler floating several kilometers above the valley they were above.
"WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! What's it doing!?" Said the companion. "looks like it's melting or seeding something!" he continued
The traveler seemed to be shedding billions of small bright orbs of light into the air around it, only to have their brilliance fade away as they came into contact of the valley floor, and others being cast off to parts unknown.
"Call it in. I'm heading down there to see if I can grab a sample of whatever those are and…" The camera operators sentence was cut short by a blaring rapid report of some unknown weapon cutting down the camera operator's companion. The camera panned in a wide arc, the operator searching for the origin of their comrade's death.
"Get down!" a third voice screamed.
A blur of blue glow and hard angles slammed into the camera as the sound of that weapon started up again, ending the feed of the video.
"Agama?" Castide asked out loud, pushing back from the console.
That was her voice! It's seared itself into his audio receptors. It almost burned behind his eyes.
That WAS her! But why. What was the traveler doing? That was my voice, right? It was far more organic but that was my voice, I think… Was that where the ghosts came from? Did I just see the traveler do what I think it did?
Castide's head swam trying to make sense of all the questions he was asking himself. Every time he answered himself, a dozen more questions would rise in his psyche.
He stood with both hands on the console staring up into the towering memory cores of the archive in which he stood.
"The birth of the ghosts." he said the final answer out loud.
The buzzing in his head stopped.
"We've got trouble!" Agama called out as she careened back into the room. Shaking Castide from his shock.
"Captains, Vandals, and Dregs. They found a way in and they're headed right to us!" She exclaimed.
Castide stared directly into her eye for a split second and said nothing.
He grabbed his helmet pulling it over his head, snapping the seal closed.
Pulling up his weapon and toggling off the safety and racking the charging handle once, sending a single round flipping through the air.
Snatching the round out of the air and running his thumb over the tip of it.
"First things first." He said to himself sliding the round into his harness.
"Get those files and point me in a direction." He called to Agama.
He exited the room and stopped to cover the direction of their infiltration.
"Aye-aye!" She exclaimed. "Oh! And left… we should probably go left." She continued as she turned to interface with the console.
She sped out of the room to stop above his shoulder only too see two vandals stop at the end of the corridor, all eight eyes burning with malice, look towards them. They raised their upper arms and screamed in battle cry, while their lower arms, brandished weapons took aim.
Castide, with Agama safely in a satchel behind his right shoulder, started forward. The visor of his recently donned helmet reflecting the lazy glide of the Fallen's weapons discharges, the flashes of his own weapon's response, and the screaming escape of ether from his target's vital points. All of it streaming on like a distant memory in slow motion, all in a few scant seconds.
Castide reloaded and re-readied his SMG and sped off towards his failed killers before their bodies completed their collapse.
Tekris stood before the Incomplete warmind, mouth agape and arms spread wide. She moved around the hulk taking in her surroundings. Tekris and Vikram finally made their way down the winding shaft and entered the room, their regiments piling in after them.
Tekris looked to them. "Taksis, take half our force and continue the hunt." She said as she pointed towards the southern gate.
"Vikram, take some of your most trusted and find a way to open the great gate. Get that old fool and Tenkacks down here…" she said as she turned to look up at the hulking frame. "This is how our house will rise."
Taksis moved towards cavernous entrance to see five of his vandals scurry off towards their prey.
"Over-eager." He grumbled to himself. He turned to look towards his brood brother Vikram and grunted.
Vikram raised his head and eyed his brother. "Glory to you Taksis." He said as he turned to head back up the shaft.
Taksis watched his brother go before he turned to leave. Taksis and Vikram were brood twins docked together when of age, and un-clamped together by Grigis as they made their exodus from the House of Winter. Tekris shared her ether with them, allowed them to grow strong. Vikram always had an aptitude for the machines, but Taksis had the battle-lust. Tekris recognized this from early on from when they were dregs, to later as they were allowed to grow their arms, and always used them to their fullest capability. This was why they respected her, recognizing and using their talents instead of twisting and pitting them against each other as Grigis would do.
Taksis nodded towards Tekris as he turned to follow his compatriots.
"I will be along shortly Taksis, do not forget, the ghoul is my prize. Corner it and kill it's pet if need be, but it will be MY prize." She said without taking her eyes from the warmind.
Taksis growled low in accordance and stalked into the corridor.
"It will be her prize, but not before I dock it and shatter it's pet against my blades." He thought to himself.
He felt his ether seethe, and drank deep from it. If he could best this she'lot, this beast that docked her. Then he will wipe that shame from her, he will call her Kell, Vikram will call her kell, and she will name them barons.
He bristled with pride at the thought of it, and quickened his gait. If he proved his strength, and his brother proved he could do what their servitors could not, she will acknowledge their strength to Grigis, cementing their place in the house. She will be made Kell, and when she is Kell, she may take him and his brother as brood-mates, and their progeny will be the strongest of all Eliksni. Proving themselves so early that they will never taste the docking blades. Their house, the House of never docked.
Taksis froze as he upon opening to the tunnel. It was quiet, far too quiet. No sounds of shrapnel launchers, no crackling of shock-blades save his own.
He moved forwards into the room stopping as something crunched under his massive foot.
As he looked down to see escaping ether leak out of one of his vandals under foot, a burst of fire lit up in his peripheral. Several rounds smacked into his shields harmlessly, while the rest flew into some of his dregs spraying ether, and shattering the shanks serving as his out-riders.
He spun and let loose a volley from his shrapnel launcher towards the fire. Teleporting away and into the cover of the great machine in front of him. Quickly taking in his surroundings he finally found the forward half of his force.
Dregs and vandals spread out across the room, lifeless, missing heads, limbs. Some scorched beyond recognition, some seemingly just… Broken. He looked up to see the corpse of a dreg dangling from the massive skeletal machine, spinning just enough to show Taksis the charred hole burrowed into the chest of the hapless thing.
Taksis felt something well up inside of him, something he never felt before. He roared and pushed whatever it was back into himself and stepped out weapons at the ready, when he finally saw what had wreaked such havoc to his group. A black and crimson streak slammed into one of his vandals tearing out the things throat out, then leaping to the top of the machines scaffolding, firing its weapon as it moved, downing three of his dregs, and using the vandal's body to block the return fire from its once comrades.
That unfamiliar feeling welling back into being.
Castide swung his smg back and stowing it away. "Three mags left, good for the fodder, a solid purchase". He thought to himself
He pulled the Third Ring and The Bastard from their respective holsters and cocked both hammers back simultaneously. Kicking the body of the vandal he dragged up onto the incomplete warmind down to the bewildered captain's feet causing it to take a few steps back. The beast looked up at him and screamed firing it's shrapnel launcher recklessly at his direction.
Castide dodged left and back sliding off the opposite side of the warminds' carriage. He landed and fired, taking out the last of the shanks, the Bastard and The Third Ring booming out in unison. Dregs heads disappeared at the command of the Third Ring, and vandal's bodies flew back and away every time the Bastard barked. Castide produced a grenade from his harness channeling solar energy into it and flung it towards the captain. The overly large captain still firing its weapon wildly, trying to track Castide's movements. It stared down at the glowing ball that came to rest in front of it.
Castide stood, holstered his weapons and held out his fist palm up.
The beast looked up from the thing on the ground to Castide, eyes gleaming with defiance. The Captain roared and levelled his weapon at Castide.
"Boom." Castide said casually, as he flicked his fingers up.
The grenade exploded, knocking out Taksis's shields and sending his body flying into a bank of consoles at the wall behind him.
Taksis head reeled in pain, the world turned white for a second, and slowly the ceiling of the facility came into focus. He rolled his head around trying to figure out what happened.
His upper arms felt numb, his mask was leaking ether. He looked down to his legs, one was missing, he tried to get up, but his body screamed at him.
The she'lot stood before him drawing out one of it's weapons. "Come closer you damned ghoul." Taksis thought.
Taksis gripped the hilt of his shock blades, thankful that his lower arms still worked.
As the ghoul leaned in he thrusted and swung, lunging his body forward against all the pain it caused.
He watched as his blades spun uselessly into the air behind the ghoul, his lower arms following closely behind them. He started to roar and immediately stopped when he felt a sharp sting press through his mask and into his jaw.
He stared through the haze of escaping ether coming from him, and into the mask of the daemon that had bested him. He looked from the jutting protrusions at the top of it's head, to the carvings on it's face covering mimicking a mouth full of sneering teeth, and finally to the reflection of his own battered face in the visor, bleeding, broken, and hissing with escaped ether.
The sound cut out, no crackling embers from his burned comrades, no hissing vapor from his mask, no wheezing from his labored breathing.
"Da'dan kas yur Taksis. Tan zes'ne fre she'lot" Taksis rattled out, spitting blood and ether.
Just behind the reflection of the daemons mask, he could see it, one single eye, baleful cold green, remorseless, drilling right back into him.
"Da'shan dis, ba'sloat." Castide spoke.
Taksis' eyes widened and started to curse the daemon when a single sound shattered the silence, a singular metal on metal sound.
Taksis felt his head jerk, and he saw no more.
"Well that was brutal and maybe, a little unnecessary." Agama said.
They moved down a corridor east-ward away from the warmind assembly line, unlike the most of the facility they have seen, this section seemed to be running on reserve power. All wall mounted consoles, keypads, and security stations were dark. All the lighting that cast the "outer ring" of the facility in such brilliance was absent, save for the ground level emergency lighting. Lighting that now cast their dim shadows upward, giving the two an eerie countenance.
"Six fronts, Twilight gap, and Hearthwall. Brutal? Yes. Unnecessary? Never." He responded.
Since the elevators were out they were moving up a stairwell sometimes entire flights at a time slowing and stopping only to cover an opening on to a unvisited floor, or to pause and make sure they weren't being followed.
"Ya know, "Tekky" won't be letting this one go." She informed him. "Next floor, westbound a few hundred yards, an armory." She added.
"Please don't give them nicknames." Castide pleaded in flat monotone.
"Well how many times have we run into her since Venus?" She asked.
Castide grunted as he pulled himself up over the stairwell railing. "Invite her to the ship for cocktails and board games. Once she stops trying to kill us, then she gets a nickname." Castide retorted
"This is it, sub-level six, straight back and on the right." She said. Stopping and slowly rotating to look pointedly at Castide. "We have board games on the ship?" She added, barely hiding her enthusiasm, sensor whips wriggling.
Castide looked at her head cocked to the side and sighed.
Castide loped down the hallway both hands gripped around the Third Ring. He stopped at the door with the words "Armory" printed in 4 different languages, stepping away with his back against the opposite wall scanning both directions of the hall for contact.
"Still has power!" Agama said as she moved in to interface with the pale blue glowing keypad.
"Oooh look at the security on this bugger." She said, mostly to herself.
Castide snapped up his gun at what he thought was movement, but instead was a power fluctuation in the lighting system.
"Cas?" Agama asked.
"All good, just some buggy lights." He responded
"Mmm… And got it!" Agama exclaimed.
As she finished hacking the door lock their entire world lit up, main lighting snapping on in sequence down the hallway. An automated voice seemed to rev up from slow motion into a more normal cadence, Informing the facility of standard information and benign announcements for a staff long gone. The armory door hissed to life revealing rows of armaments and ammunition.
"They got the main power back on." Agama said looking around nervously.
"Seal it back up Aggy, tightly. We'll be back for it when we have the leisure of a shopping day. For now, we should move." Castide decided, pulling the detonator remote from his satchel.
"Sealing it up Cas." She acknowledged. As she went back to work she noticed a weapons case just inside the door with markings she recognized. She tagged it for transmat, watching it glow and fade from existence as the door hissed and slid shut.
"I got you a present!" she said in a low and teasing manner.
She loved how she could see his eye brighten behind his visor when she said that.
He sprinted down to an area of hallway with two adjacent alcoves, signs indicating elevators.
Since the power was back on, they might as well expedite things little.
He keyed the call button just as he armed the detonator in his hand. Setting the detonator for 10 minutes, the elevator door slid open. He stepped inside the elevator car just as he triggered the activation key on the detonator.
"Sub-level 1 has an emergency exit causeway through a secondary control room. Leads half a kilometer into the forest south/southeast." She informed him
He hit the level indicator on the elevator cars control panel.
"ever since the facility came back on-line I now have access to all the sensors, locks, and cameras" She said.
"Cas…" she paused. "They have a prime, it's moving down towards the assembly line, to those incomplete warminds we found." She continued.
"How long till they reach the line?" he asked
"five to six minutes, the managed to get the main loading bay open so they have a straight shot down to the assembly."
"Perfect." He said as he slid the detonator back into a pouch on his harness. "This place have a contingency plan for situations like this?" He asked.
"Yeppers. R&D sub-levels seven through nine are all outfitted with demolition charges, so is the assembly line, but they're all hardwired to two control stations. I can't activate it remotely." She Said.
Castide holstered his hand-cannon and brought his smg back around from its storage from just below his shoulders. He readied it after checking the magazine, took two steps away from the elevator doors, and leveled it. "Directions if you please, Aggy." He asked.
Tekris stalked the corridors fuming and howling. She kicked open doors and overturned desks and cabinets, searching for that damned one eyed she'lot. She knew for certain it was him now. She had only seen that kind of carnage few times before. She faced him on mars after linking up with some of Skolas' wolves, he managed to escape by using incoming reinforcements of those giant lumbering idiots claiming the planet. He buzzed her patrol on a stolen pike while she was meeting up with an exiled house for a supply run on their home planets moon, stopping only to make eye contact and speeding off. A dying dreg from the exiled house retold a story of a daemon smiting his brethren with a flaming finger, scything through their forces like a hand wafting through dissipating ether. The rage welled within her.
She saw the aftermath all those times, but today marked the first she saw it wreaked upon her kin.
She was filled with sorrow and rage. Anger for herself for sending her best into that… that…. Whirlwind. She froze.
She willed the dread that built up in her away.
She lamented losing Taksis. OH! She should have sent Vikram, he would have known to run. He was always the smartest of the two. The rage threatening overtake her completely.
She remembered stepping into the room, seeing the dreg hanging from the machine, the ground littered with blood and body parts, spilt ether hanging low along the ground creating an eerie fog. Then she saw him laying amongst the refuse, his arms freshly docked and still twitching next to the blades they once wielded, the front half of his face… gone. The rage was drowning her.
Bellowing into the empty corridors she continued her hunt.
Grigis ran his slender finger along the frame of the warmind shell. "The wonder of it all." He thought to himself.
He was frail but towered over even Tekris herself.
Grigis spread all four arms wide and spoke.
"This is our banner-call!" He called to the dregs and vandals around him.
"This is our link to taking back the great machine! Our final journey will be through the work that ancient humans have begun! We will destroy their predecessors and reclaim what is rightly ours!" He continued. "We will grind the she'lot into the dust from which they sprang forth, and rightly take our place as the caretakers of this world. Then we will make the exodus back and retake our world!" He finished.
The dregs and vandals around him were emboldened by his speech, but still weary. The room was far too bright, and several points around the room started to blink intermittently. It was far too much uncertainty for them to become completely enraptured in his words.
Grigis saw the fire in their eyes so he was not put off by their refusal to cheer at his oration. He turned to his servitor Tenkacks and stroked it lovingly.
"Drink it all in." He said to it. "This is where you become a god."