"We're almost in sensor range."
Relena looked up, brought out of her thoughts by her pilot's voice. Almost there. Almost to the single largest challenge of her life. If she could pull this off successfully, she could save thousands, millions, of lives.
"My God!" exclaimed her pilot. "They're huge!"
She stood and moved forwards. The shuttle seemed perfectly still, despite its flight. The artificial gravity held everything motionless and serene. She leaned over his shoulder, scanning the sensor screens.
"Is that them?" she asked, pointing to a group of large shapes on the display. They were spread out in orbit over the northern hemisphere, thousands of kilometers between them.
"That's them," he replied. "But look at this." He tapped the largest of the shapes, and the display magnified it. A text box popped up next to it, specifications scrolling across it. "The sensors put this monster as more than seventeen kilometers long! Even the Libra is only a kilometer across! Just think of the destructive power in that thing."
She stared at the blinking image. Why would anyone wish to construct something so huge? Something so aggressive? Seventeen kilometers of warship, designed and built solely to destroy. The thought made her shudder with revulsion.
"Hold on," said Chellan. "We're being hailed. Bringing it up now."
He flipped a series of switches, and a monitor flashed to life. A grainy, static-filled image appeared on it, accompanied by bars of scrolling runes that she didn't recognise.
The image was that of a man, although he looked more like a nightmare than a human. His blocky face was pockmarked with ports and wires, and a thick, segmented cable emerged from his left eye socket. He was bald, and countless wires trailed from his skull, dull lights flickering and sparking. From the eyes down, his face was a mechanical reconstruction. His jaw was square, and appeared to be made of iron, while his mouth was a thin opening amidst a mass of wires and cables. He had no nose, and where it should have been, a brass cogwheel had been attached.
When he spoke, his voice was a mechanical buzz, but Relena cringed as she caught a faint echo of humanity beneath it. "Unidentified craft," he announced, "I am Sensor Ensign Veritas, of the Adeptus Mechanicus heavy transport vessel Honourblade. Supply data and identification of your craft. You are targeted for weapons fire."
Chellan glanced at her, as horrified as she was at the cyborg's aggression and hostility. He punched a set of keys, and cleared his throat. "This the private shuttle Peace, property of Miss Relena Peacecraft. We are unarmed, and wish to extend diplomatic relations only."
Sparks flickered over the cyborg's face. "Transfer relevant data files to the Honourblade, shuttle. Do not deviate from your current vector. We will transmit our position, and an appropriate approach vector. If you are truly unarmed, as you say. If weaponry is detected, you will be treated as hostile combatants, and destroyed."
Relena leaned forwards over Chellan's shoulder as he loaded and transferred the data, so her face could be seen on the display sent to the Honourblade. "What happened to you?" she asked, tentatively.
The cyborg looked confused, or at least, she thought he did. It was difficult to read his face, with half of it made up of expressionless metal. "I have been given the blessing of the Machine God," he said. "I have moved beyond the weakness of the flesh, and into the perfection of the machine."
She recoiled. "You mean… you did this voluntarily?"
"Who would not wish to become one with the machine?" he asked. "Flesh is weak. Nonessential. I need no extraneous functions to fulfil my duty, and so I have none. Excess is imperfection."
How could someone mutilate himself so willingly? What could drive a man to such horrors? What kind of indoctrination did these people go through to twist their minds so completely?
"We have a location," said Chellan. "And we're not being shot at, so I guess the data must have checked out as well." He tapped a flashing blip on the display, the closest craft to them, and it lit up. Specs and vectors scrolled across the screen. "Hm, this one's small, compared with the others. I guess it must just be that it's the closest."
"Or that they don't trust strangers aboard their leader's ship," said Relena. "Bring us in, Chellan."
"Roger," he said. He flicked back to the communication channel with the cyborg Ensign. "Coming to your heading, Honourblade. Arrival in forty eight seconds. Cutting transmission." He flicked a switch down, and the image of Veritas died.
As the shuttle turned about onto its new heading, Chellan looked at her. "Who are these people?" he asked.
She stared out of the forward viewport. The transport was starting to come into view, a faint light ahead. "I don't know," she said. "But we'll find out soon enough."
The Honourblade grew steadily larger as the shuttle approached it, looming huge in the viewports. She couldn't guess at its size, but I dwarfed her shuttle, a huge length of crimson and grey. Gothic spires and gargoyles decorated its hull, and huge letters of brass had been fixed to its sides. Its prow was a narrow, daggerlike shield that swept forwards to a reinforced point.
A massive, blocky shape protruded from a dorsal mount, studded with blinking lights and leering faces. A weapon, she realised, as it tracked her shuttle on its approach. The barrel of the weapon was wider than the shuttle was long, and it glowed from within with an electric blue light.
They closed enough that they could no longer see the weapon, flying close to the transport's hull. Close enough to see the 'decorations' in all their grim horror. Screaming faces and tortured bodies formed columns and vents, and devil-faced gargoyles perched atop spiked protrusions. A docking bay loomed large suddenly, and Chellan guided the shuttle in towards it.
He was visibly unsettled, she saw, at the transport's appearance. The smooth, sleek design of Earth and the Colonies were nowhere to be seen, all sense of the familiar devoured by the oppressive craft. The docking bay was huge, easily large enough to house a hundred craft the size of her shuttle, and empty.
Chellan eased the shuttle down into the center of the bay, and settled it down onto its landing struts. The shuttle's engines died as he cut the power, and Relena felt a judder as its artificial gravity was replaced by that of the Honourblade. The access hatch opened smoothly, and she tentatively stepped out.
The docking bay was dark. Gloom had settled over every corner, shadows waiting under every object. A greyness seemed to cover the air, and the lights overhead barely penetrated to the deck.
Workers went about their business, not even noticing the shuttle. The sharp clack-clack on mechanical limbs on the deck filled the dimness, and she tried not to pay too much attention to them. Vomiting would not be a good start to diplomatic relations.
The walls were lined with gothic columns of iron, with sharp blades lancing out from them. She saw, high up near the roof, nearly lost in darkness, the torso of a man protruding from one. His lower body was lost in wires, and she had the sickening impression that his legs had been severed to integrate him into the column. One of his arms had been replaced with a many-barrelled cannon, the other with a bulky sensor array. She looked away as he saw her, his weapon tracking her movements.
Four figures walked towards her. The front three wore long, brass-edged crimson robes, and what little could be seen of their limbs was polished metal. Each had a cogwheel symbol in brass upon the chests of their robes, and it was banded around the base of their cowls. The rear figure wore a uniform of black, banded in crimson. Brass epaulettes decorated his shoulders, and waist-length hair trailed down behind him, a shimmering wave of midnight black. His features could be clearly seen, and were aristocratic, sculpted. His eyes were startling red.
The four stopped in front of her. A mechanical tentacle slipped out from the robes of the lead one, and a harsh light at the end of it played over her. She tried her best to ignore it. The smell of cloying incense assaulted her nostrils.
"You are the passenger on this shuttle?" asked the leader, retracting his segmented arm. His voice was a robotic drone, and emerged from a grated speaker built into his throat.
She quelled her riotous stomach, and said, "I am. My name is Relena Peacecraft."
He nodded to himself, and stepped past her. He and the two other robed figures inspected her shuttle, more of the tentacles snaking from their robes. She looked at the man that had remained.
"Are you the captain of this ship?" she asked.
"Me?" he said. His voice was low, smooth. "No. I am Princeps Silas Xanax, or the Warlord Titan Mors Mortis. I rank above the Captain of this transport, but that's not why I am here."
Princeps? Titan? She had no idea what these things were, but she elected to ignore it, for now. "Why are you here?"
He looked past her, and she heard the buzzing voice of the robed man behind her. "The vessel is unsanctified. Unclean. It is an abomination in the eyes of the Omnissiah."
The man – Silas Xanax, he had called himself – nodded. "Destroy it," he said.
Relena made to protest, but the snakelike tentacles wrapped around her arms and legs, holding her in place. She tried to pull against them, but they wouldn't budge. "What are you doing?" She cried. "Chellan is still aboard! Why are you doing this?"
Silas Xanax stepped forwards and calmly backhanded her across the face. She stiffened at the crack of the blow, and let her head swing round with the force. Her cheek burned like fire, but she brought her head back round, staring at Silas with unconcealed anger.
"Your place is not to speak, heretic, but to accept," he said. "And, when the time comes, to die. Now, be silent, and accompany me."
He turned on his heel and walked smartly out of the docking bay. She felt the tentacles around her legs unravel themselves, and she was pushed forwards by the robed man behind her. She walked stiffly after the Princeps, feeling unaccountably betrayed. She didn't know why; she had only met the man for thirty seconds, but his actions stung her to the core.
She had reached the high, arched doorway of the bay when the shuttle was destroyed. Weapons, carried by figures like that she had spotted high upon the wall, cycled and fired with a thunderous roar. Thousands of rounds shredded the thin hull of the shuttle to shreds. The cockpit disintegrated under the fire, and then a shot caught the shuttle's fuel tanks, and it exploded violently into flames. The concussion made her stumble forwards, and the heat of the flames burned her back.
And through it all, she heard Chellan's voice screaming in her mind.
Her head hung limp on her shoulders. Tears stung at her eyes as she walked, and she let them flow. Who were these monsters, to so casually kill? How could they end the life of a good man like Chellan? Why?
The shuttle had been unsanctified, they had said. What did that mean? On what religious whim had her friend died? In the name of which God?
"Prepare interrogation bay four-alpha."
It was the voice of the betrayer, the Princeps. She looked up through blurry eyes. He was talking to two of the robed figures. "You will conduct the interrogation personally?" asked one of the figures.
He nodded. "Yes. Inform the Captain."
"As you command, Princeps Xanax," buzzed the figure, and they turned off down a narrow corridor. That left only Silas, the last figure, and herself.
Interrogation. She was going to be interrogated. The word rung in her mind, like some horrible talisman. After all she had done, after all she had worked for, she was to end here in some alien ship, tortured for information. Heat welled up inside her, a core of anger, rage, that burned within her chest. No. She would not die here. If she died, all chance of stopping this war would be gone.
