Chapter 14 – The Calling
The lab in which they'd found themselves had two exits; Coyote-3 rushed to one, and Evoksis moved to the other while Flicker and Virna looked over what remained of Clovis Bray's computer systems. "Do your thing, Flicker," Coyote-3 said as he skidded to a halt. "I'll watch the door."
"Right!" Flicker immediately began scanning.
Virna was right at his side, rapidly drinking in details. They've torn this place apart, she noted bitterly, we'll be lucky if anything works. The Cabal had taken the entire system apart; gutted hardware lay naked on tabletops, all of it connected by snarls of cables to various viewscreens and devices that Virna could only guess to be Cabal computing devices. Translation software, probably, she supposed.
A tremor ran through the building, accompanied by a tremendous groaning noise. Evoksis darted to the nearest window in one of the surrounding hallways and peered out for a moment before darting back in to report, "Getting bad out there."
Before Virna could reply, a bolt of lightning roared through the sky, striking the sand somewhere below and momentarily casting the interior of the lab in vivid blue-white light. She gave a little snort. "Bad for who, I wonder?" She began to trace the lines of cables as they flowed between devices: tiny, discrete streams of data, all of them flowing gradually towards a single source. If this is the delta...
They all converged on one console that was bolted to the wall, still largely intact. Then here's our river. It was an imposing gunmetal grey structure, still holding up admirably despite the years, with several keyboards and one enormous central screen. "Flicker, I think we've got a common point of access, here."
Flicker zipped over and scanned it. "This is in rough shape. Give me a minute." He paused, mid-scan, and swiveled to regard the floor. "And... you might want to get ready to fight. I think we've got company."
"Already?" Virna hissed, pulling out her sidearm. "Dammit. Looks like we're not going to have nearly as much time as we'd like."
"I'll hurry, but I'm going to have to sort through everything the Cabal has picked apart, and unravel all of the old security protocols," Flicker replied, "not to mention running everything back through the translation software, ugh. This is a mess." Another pause. "East entrance—Coyote's going to need your backup in a second, Evo."
Evoksis moved to join Coyote-3. As Virna looked back to the central console she noticed a familiar, flat shape next to one of the keyboards. A scanning pad. Just like the one in the Venus facility… "Flicker, I think we're in luck. We know someone who has clearance." She reached up to her communicator. "Walker, how're you holding up?"
The cacophony of the mayhem outside (which she more or less expected) filtered in through the earpiece, and she winced. It took Walker-17 a moment to answer, and when he did, his voice was ringing with exhilaration. "They don't stand a chance."
"We're up in the lab, out of time, and there's a panel here I think you can activate, if you can reach us. We could be out of here in a flash. How fast could you get up here?
"Instantaneously," he called, "but I can only do it once!"
Virna frowned, but before she could question him, the noise on the other end reached a fever pitch, and she winced again, bringing the volume down. "Walker-?"
Across the room, Evoksis made a startled noise as a burst of pale blue light cut through the shadows, followed by the tell-tale silvery shimmer of a transmat drop. Matthias was quite suddenly there, his fins extended and floating away from his body, wreathed in a bright corona. "One moment," he said, his voice soft with static, "we're far from the Light here."
Virna watched pensively as Matthias struggled, and then, with a final flash, the light condensed itself, tracing out the familiar shape of Walker-17's form. He landed in the room, breathing heavily, and looked to her. "Right. What should I do?" His tone was still oddly low, and throaty.
"Whew," Matthias drew his fins in, "Walker, I don't think I could do something like that twice. Not in here. If we leave, we leave on foot."
"Understood."
"We've got movement contact in the east hall!" Flicker called nervously. "Matthias, I'm leaving this to you—" and with that he vanished, returning to his Guardian's side.
"And that's my cue. Walker—" Virna nodded to the console. "See if that gives you access. We'll hold off as long as we can." She pulled her shotgun off her back and made for the door. "Let us know when it's time to get out of here!" She left. Walker-17 was now protected on both sides by the entirety of the rest of the party; she hoped it'd be enough.
The tower (which was more like one big worksite) wasn't particularly tidy, and there were plenty of crates and loose sections of wall that could be used for cover in a pinch. She slid behind one of the crates at the end of the hall, readied her shotgun, and waited. The weight of the weapon in her hands was reassuring, but even so, it wasn't an ideal choice; close combat with beings who were so much larger and stronger than an Awoken wasn't the best idea.
On the heels of that thought Virna's aggressors came into view, appearing at the top of the stairs down the hall: three lithe, human-sized figures. Psions. "Son of a—" she breathed, and in one swift motion, lowered the shotgun and whipped out her Vestian Dynasty, firing three rapid shots at the middle Psion's face.
Virna's training and the element of surprise took care of that one; it didn't even have time to react before its head simply exploded in a dark mist and a rush of some undefinable vapor. Virna ducked back into cover again just as the Psion's companions rallied themselves. Thin red lines of light traced searchingly over her head.
That Warlock, she thought as she re-adjusted herself behind the crate, had better hurry.
Something in the alarm in Virna's voice cleared the fog from Walker-17's mind. He spared her a single glance, watching her go, before he hurried up to the console, removed his glove, and placed his hand on the panel. Instantly several previously-dark screens lit up, and Matthias flitted about them excitedly. "That did it! All right. Give me just a few minutes—there's a lot of data here, and it's still fragmented."
A series of muffled booms could be heard from the hallway, and Walker-17 looked over his shoulder, tense. "If you've got this, I'll be right back," he said, but as soon as he drew away, the screens went dark again.
"Put your hand back," Matthias said, "this requires continual contact."
Walker-17 complied, but turned to look anxiously back at the doorway. "Hurry, Matthias."
The sounds he'd heard were the retort of Cabal slug rifles; Coyote-3 and Evoksis had already engaged the enemy. Coyote-3 didn't try and hide himself, presenting an obvious target while he lit into them with his hand-cannon, and Evoksis skulked in the shadows, finishing off the weakened enemies with quick shots from his pistol.
Many of the Cabal died without even knowing he was there. The last of the wave that came down the hall was hefting an enormous shield, and as he advanced on Coyote-3, forcing him inexorably backwards, Evoksis scurried up behind him, leaped up onto his back, and plunged his knife into the rubbery insulation just under the Cabal's helmet.
He collapsed, and Evoksis skittered free, hurriedly moving back to cover. "Nice," Coyote-3 said, glancing up at the now-empty hallway. "Okay. Just grunts so far. Coast looks cl—"
The wall exploded, cutting him off. Evoksis and Coyote-3 were both knocked off their feet as something outside of the tower blasted its way in, and raised their eyes in time to see an impressively-armored Cabal descend from his jump-jet's arc into the opening he'd created. Coyote-3 had been closest to the explosion, and was clearly injured, but leaped gamely to his feet, whipping an auto rifle off his back.
He never had a chance to use it. The Cabal charged, moving with shocking speed for something so huge, and jammed his projection rifle against Coyote-3's midriff. He fired once, blasting a hole through the Hunter, sending flaming shrapnel hissing through the room. The Cabal raised his arm, lifting Coyote-3 clear off his feet, and fired again; the fury of the gun's retort shredded what remained of Coyote-3's torso and the rest of his body lit up with brilliant Solar light, dissipating into flickering ashes.
It had all happened in an instant, and Evoksis had been given no time to react. He'd simply watched, horrified, as Coyote-3 was killed. He knew that it wasn't a permanent death, but he couldn't help but be viscerally disturbed by the sight all the same.
The very next moment Flicker appeared, hurriedly backtracking away from the enormous Cabal. The sphere of blue light looked very frail next to stark black-and-orange contrast of the fiery rubble in the night, and already the Cabal was swiveling towards him, firing, forcing the Ghost to zip away from the doorway and cutting off possible escape.
Evoksis snapped out of it. He will only come back, he reminded himself, if his Ghost is protected. Immediately he stepped forward, drawing one of his knives and throwing it straight for the Cabal's face, aiming more to distract him than anything else.
To his shock, the knife-point sheared its way through the glowing eyepiece of the enemy's mask; the Cabal bellowed in pain, a low bass sound that shook Evoksis to his bones. The Cabal whirled, clearly as confused as he was angry, and yanked the knife free, tossing it aside.
Evoksis crouched, readying his shock-pistol out as he did, tense and ready to leap away. He was the last line of defense between Flicker and Bracus Ru'orn.
Virna, meanwhile, was considering her advantages and disadvantages.
Frankly, it didn't look good. The Psions had yet to unleash a wave of whatever strange energies they commanded at her yet, which was the only thing she could say was working in her favor. They currently had her pinned at a distance where their firearms were much more effective than hers. At any given moment they could blast her with that aforementioned wave of weaponized psychic force, and Virna doubted that her armor would give her much protection from that. Furthermore, they probably had reinforcements on the way.
So far, the odds were stacked against her. Think, Virna, she chided herself, you've got to have some kind of advantage you can use.
As a matter of fact, why hadn't they tried to close in? One of them could cover the other. She lifted her sidearm slightly, tilting it to peek around her cover with the mirror. She could still just make out their shadows where they were at the end of the hallway, crouched, waiting. It's possible they're just holding for backup, or... or they're being cautious. They don't know I'm not a Guardian.
All right. Pushing their caution was the only advantage she had for the moment. Virna double-checked the charge on her kinetic armor, swapped out her sidearm for her shotgun, and waited until she saw the red beam of one of their rifles wavering overhead. As soon as it appeared, she vaulted over cover and fired a blast down the hallway at the Psions. At such range it was barely effective, but it was a lot of noise and bluster, and it sent them momentarily scrambling for cover. Virna ducked to the side, taking shelter once more.
The last thing she wanted was to get closer to them, but the best way to make sure they didn't call her bluff was to kill them before they realized a bluff was even in play. As soon as she saw the lights from their rifles she vaulted forward again, and was startled to see that one of them was already nearly upon her. Virna brought her weapon to bear on the closest Psion and fired once, twice; the Psion staggered back and fell to one knee, not dead, but clearly too hurt to retaliate.
Virna raised her shotgun, preparing to finish him off, when his comrade popped from cover and fired. It was a desperate shot, designed more to drive Virna away than actually hit her, but it served its purpose; she dove to the side, away from the ailing Psion. Once again she raised her shotgun, but the second one was already gearing up for another attack: she saw purplish light shimmer over his form, ruffling and churning in brilliant, flickering waves.
He released as she fired. Virna's shot went wild as she was blown back, crashing through the window behind her. For a moment her world was nothing but a wave of pain and confusion. She was falling, and the psionic wave had hit deep, knocking the air from her lungs and ringing painfully in her bones.
Then she hit the scaffolding with a thud, and drew herself up, gasping. Her shotgun had been knocked out of her hands. She raised her head just in time to see a red light shining through the broken window, right at her face, and, still breathless, she threw herself down again as the shot went over her head. She rolled aside, and an instant later the Psion was right out the window after her, landing heavily.
Before her was her enemy, and behind her, only the rickety scaffold and the sky.
The pressure lurking in the back of Walker-17's mind was building as the sounds of battle outside the lab became louder. His friends were out there, possibly in danger, and for all of the powers at his command, all he could do was stand there. "Matthias, is there any way to speed this up?"
"One moment…" One of the screens went suddenly blank, except for a single, wobbly line that cut horizontally across it, and text underneath that simply read: Authorization Required. "There. It looks like it's set up for voice authorization. Try that, while I work on my end."
"What do I say?" As he spoke, the line pitched itself into steep valleys and peaks, forming a sine wave. The text was momentarily replaced with a second message: Authorization Not Recognized.
"A password, I think?" Matthias asked. "it might not even work, but it's worth a shot." He returned to the task of trying to draw together the terribly-fragmented data that the Cabal had left them with.
Walker-17 drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes. I've got some kind of clearance here… or, I did. "Quixote," he said.
Authorization Not Recognized.
Evoksis was still holding himself low and tense. The Cabal, somewhat to his surprise, didn't immediately attack him. He simply regarded Evoksis for a moment, seemingly curiously, and then, to Evoksis's astonishment, he spoke in the native Eliksni tongue. "Vicious little creature. Did I steal your prize, Dreg?"
The projection rifle's tip lowered slightly, and Evoksis followed its movements. He didn't answer. He doesn't know we're cooperating, Evoksis realized, for all he knows, there could be more Eliksni in there. Evoksis carefully began to circle, his pistol trained on the Cabal.
"And how is it you came to be here? A Wolf, strayed too far from his pack?" The Cabal looked him over, taking in the clash of black-and-green armor: faded rags and crow feathers. "No. Not a wolf. Too skinny, too pathetic. A dog. One of the dogs from the mountain."
Again, Evoksis was still by shock. The mountain... "The House of Exile still holds sway on this world?"
"Lived. I doubt there's any of them left; I haven't seen the likes of your kind for years. No, all the vermin have gone to ground, or else been driven out by the Wolves."
"I am not vermin," Evoksis spat. It was becoming obvious why the Cabal hadn't attacked him. He was toying with him. After all, what would he have to fear from a Dreg? An unexpected burst of anger and pride swelled in him. "I am Evoksis of the Reef," he hissed, "And I can promise you this: you've never seen the likes of me before."
The Cabal laughed openly. "You're a fool if you think you can kill me."
"I don't have to kill you," Evoksis said. Across the room, Flicker's light flared once, and the Cabal turned, realizing a second too late that he'd been distracted. He rumbled, low and angry, and turned to fire at Evoksis, who was already leaping away. He wasn't fast enough. Dreadful, fiery pain seared through the Dreg's side, and he hit the ground with a hiss.
He heard Coyote-3's voice as he rolled to his feet. "All right, asshole," the Guardian snapped, "let's try this again."
The Psion slammed rushed forward and slammed into Virna, crushing her hand between his shoulder and the outer wall of the tower. Virna didn't cry out, but merely gritted her teeth and twisted against him. They were too close to use either of their weapons now; what had started as a shootout had become an ugly, visceral struggle for control in the close quarters of the rickety scaffold. The Psion twisted his rifle and lunged forward, aiming to strike her in the face with the butt of the gun, but Virna managed to turn and took the blow to the shoulder instead.
They staggered apart, and as soon as the immediate shock of pain from the blow faded, Virna found she wasn't hurt. It hadn't been a very impressive swing. Both combatants paused for a single moment, staring at one another as they came to the same realization at the same time: She was stronger than he was.
She was a lot stronger than he was.
The Psion moved first, trying to back away in a sudden flurry of desperate movement, but Virna closed the gap, bunching her fist, bringing it around, and catching the Psion with a vicious right hook that sent a shock all the way up her arm. He staggered to the side, off-balance, stunned—and then Virna rushed him, jamming her shoulder into his stomach. For a moment longer they were locked together, him pushing against one another. Virna gathered her strength and, muscles straining, put on a final burst of force, hoisting him over the rail of the scaffold and into the open air. He fell, flailing, down into the dark.
Virna stepped back, panting, and rubbed at her shoulder. There was no time to rest; she still had one wounded Psion to take care of. She grabbed her sidearm and prepared to re-enter the hall. She paused, hand on the windowsill, at the curious site that greeted her: her opponent had lost consciousness, and was lying on the ground. It wasn't holding a rifle in its hand, though. It was holding something small, with a rapidly-blinking red light.
Virna took two hurried steps away from the window, raising her voice in alarm, but it was already too late.
Walker-17 had closed his eyes again. "Thunder Child" and "Conjuration Protocol" had given him the same denial message. Anxiety was ringing through his thoughts, making it difficult to concentrate, and the sounds of combat all around him had grown even louder and more worrying. This was almost certainly his last chance to discover the secrets of his past, and he found that he was faced with a decision. Did he stay, and continue to try uncovering the key to his past, or did he go to help the others, his friends, who could be hurt or dying?
It didn't take Walker-17 long to decide as he began to lift his hand again. It's not worth it, he decided, not if the cost is the lives of my friends.
That feeling, the anxious loyalty and concern for his allies, shot through Walker-17 like a lightning bolt, echoing through the long, long corridors of the years. For a moment, he wasn't there in the ruins of Clovis Bray's greatest city. He was standing on the bridge of a starship, surrounded by a crew of pirates and debtors, enemies made allies. There was an Exo there, a man named Fisher, and all those hundreds of years ago he had raised his head, and he had said—
Walker-17's eyes snapped open and he pushed his palm back down. "The Hand of Solomon."
For a moment nothing happened. The screen remained stubbornly blank. And then… Acknowledged. The Hand of Solomon is moving.
"Yes," Walker-17 breathed, relief and triumph sweeping through him.
Thunder Child en route.
Walker-17 spirits sank. "Wait, what?" Matthias had already hurried to his side and was furiously scanning the control panel.
"Whatever it was you just did, it looks like part of it involves the Thunder Child, because it's on its way here."
"To this location, specifically?"
"To… you, specifically."
"The Cabal are dug in here," Walker-17 protested, "if the Thunder Child gets too close, they'll shoot it down!"
Matthias whirled to face him, optic bright. "Then it's time to go."
Before Walker-17 could say anything else, a wave of force passed through the room, a pulse so strong it stunned him and sent him stumbling to his knees. He didn't have time to ask what had happened, or react in any other way, because the very next second was filled with fire and thunder.
Coyote-3 had immediately moved between Evoksis and Ru'orn. He feinted for the auto rifle on his back, but instead produced a smoke grenade with a flick of his wrist and chucked it directly at Ru'orn's face. The Cabal staggered back, initially disoriented, but roared in shocked agony when the stinging vapor slipped in through his damaged helmet, lighting up his ragged eye socket with pain.
The Hunter didn't wait for him to recover. He began laying into Ru'orn with his hand cannon, aiming for his head. Even if he couldn't kill him in just a few shots, each concussive blow would extend the Cabal's disorientation just a little bit longer. Evoksis readied his pistol, looking for an opening.
The boom of the grenade was loud enough to be heard over the retort of Coyote-3's gun, and he paused a moment, glancing back. Evoksis and Coyote-3 were farthest from the explosion, and had a few precious seconds to react. The floor tilted away from them, listing forward, and the two of them steadied their stances. "Oh god, it's going down," Coyote-3 called over the rising screech-and-roar of the dying building. His head swiveled towards the window. "Try and grab the scaffold! Ride it down!"
Evoksis glanced to him and nodded quickly. Coyote-3 could only hope that a lifetime of clambering through the jungle would serve as experience enough; he could try and break the Dreg's fall, if he had to, but he didn't know how successful he'd be. He had no further time to worry, though, for Ru'orn had leaped backwards out of the hole he'd created in the wall, his jump-jets flaring as he brought his heavy slug-thrower to bear. The muzzle of the weapon was pointed straight at them, ready to finish them off before the building succumbed.
"Shit," Coyote-3 breathed. The building listed again, alarmingly—time had run out. He grabbed one of Evoksis's arms and dove for the window, praying that there would be something on the other side to break their fall while the corridor behind them filled with flame.
The detonation of a single grenade was rarely powerful enough to bring an entire structure to the ground, but for all its sturdiness, the past few weeks of battle and four centuries of decay had taken its toll on the tower.
If one were watching the tower from a distance, the first sign of its imminent collapse would be a brief flash of light from somewhere in the structure: brilliant, but ultimately unimpressive against the bulk of the building. Then, gradually, a low groan filled the air, and the tower began to list to one side. It trembled, at first gently, and then violently, as the last vestiges of the damaged supports gave way with a groaning shriek, and the entire structure began to collapse in billowing waves of smoke.
The scaffolding was twisted away from the side of the building, coming loose piecemeal. From that scaffolding, one might see Virna leaping clear, hitting the sand hard and momentarily skidding down the slope. On the opposite side of the building, a larger figure leaped clear, hovering momentarily and bringing an impressive weapon to bear before it fired three rapid shots into the dying tower.
The bloom of the explosion, all fire and heat, shook the building out of its slow collapse and sent it to a more rapid demise, choked with brief flickers of flame and the low roaring boom of explosives. Virna pulled herself to her feet long enough to see the end of this demise, setting off a chain of smaller explosions. She scrambled backwards down the slope, watching as it all came down in a rain of fire and molten metal.
Virna stared, stunned. Small pieces of burning shrapnel tumbled down the slope around her. It had happened so quick, had looked so unreal, that the enormity of it took a few moments to settle. Guardians could survive a lot of things, but could they survive that? And what about Evoksis?
The crumbling stopped, leaving a dreadful still silence in its wake. A few moments passed. No-one stirred, not even the Cabal. Virna took a tentative half-step back, knowing that she would need to find cover soon, but still she hesitated, looking for any sign that her comrades had survived.
The moments stretched on, still, terrible, and empty, and she was faced with the reality that she might have been the only survivor of the building's collapse. A dreadful feeling, like a black cloud, arose in her. Virna felt it gathering at the back of her mind, and before she could push it away, she found herself paralyzed with loss, loss that welled up from all the places she'd beaten it down over the past few months.
Grief choked her throat, grief for her people, for her Queen, for the ragged and battered Reef, for its uncertain future, and for the three unusual individuals she'd come to know since this adventure began weeks ago. The grief was a monster that had lived inside her for months, clamoring again to be free, tearing at her heart in those few unprotected moments where she was too shell-shocked to fight back.
And then a shape appeared, rapidly skidding by. It was an irregular hunk of metal being pulled down the slope by its own weight. And clinging to it… "Virna! Thank God." Coyote-3 leaped off his makeshift sled. "I thought you'd got caught up in that—" And then the snarl of metal snagged the end of his cloak, knocking him off his feet and dragging him down the slope with it before he had time to free himself.
She stared after him, still stunned. A moment later a skittering figure came around the wreckage of the building and stood. She saw four bright blue eyes fix on her in the dark, and Evoksis hurriedly made his way over, limping a little, but very much alive. "You are all right?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. You… got out in time."
"Rode the building down, part of the way." Evoksis still looked very battered. She could see that shrapnel had shredded through parts of his armor, and the exoskeleton underneath had been warped by some great heat. "Risky. Paid off." He looked ruefully down the hill. "Now, I must go fetch the idiot."
Virna turned to watch him go, and then returned her attention to the building just in time to see a great force punch its way up through the rubble, scattering the ruins with claws of forked lightning. A small, disbelieving laugh forced its way from her throat. Of course their Warlock had to make his reappearance in style.
Walker-17 floated out of the ruins, wreathed in seething electricity, and landed, giving his hands a quick, contemptuous shake to dispel the larger sparks. He began to look around frantically, and, spotting her, hurriedly jogged over.
Virna took one last, deep breath, and felt calm return to her again. The monster had been forced back into its cage for the time being, because, for once, it seemed the worst hadn't happened. She forced a casual, almost humorously bored tone when she spoke. "Hey, W—" She was cut off when he swept her up into a sudden hug, which left her stunned and blinking.
"Thank goodness," he said, his voice raw, "I thought you'd—I thought all of you had—are you all right?" Walker-17 pulled away and grabbed her shoulders, not quite letting her go, but releasing her from the embrace. "Is everyone all right?"
"Yeah. Yeah, we're good." The intensity of his sincere concern had driven her affected wry humor away. She didn't know how to feel. Virna felt traces of electricity tingling over her skin, leaping from Walker-17's robes to her body, but it didn't hurt. "Coyote and Evoksis are down the hill."
Walker-17 sagged with relief, and then seemed to come back to himself a bit. "Thank goodness," he said again, "sorry, I… it was intense back there. I thought…"
"Everything's all right, Walker," she assured him. She glanced down to her hands, where tiny threads of glowing Arc-energy were leaping between her fingers, and Walker-17 followed her gaze. When he saw that he was quite literally giving off sparks, he hurriedly released her. "It's okay," she said, "doesn't hurt."
"Sorry if I, um… scared you, there. With the hug."
"You didn't." She lifted her eyes, and they regarded one another in affectionate silence for a moment. Virna didn't know what to say, but it occurred to her that maybe, for just a moment, nothing really needed to be said at all. Walker-17 seemed to feel the same.
The moment passed, though, and Walker-17 abruptly straightened. "We've got to move," he said, "the Thunder Child's on its way." He began to hurry down the slope, following the tracks that Coyote-3 and Evoksis had made.
"What did you do?" Virna hurried after him.
"I think I just sent it after whatever it is it's designed to find. But it's coming to get me first, so—"
"—we need to get you as far away from here as possible."
"Exactly."
They managed to snag a single Interceptor. The vehicle was already damaged, and not designed to carry more than one passenger, but Virna and Evoksis made do, charging along in the wake of the Guardians' faster Sparrows as they fled the scene. A great pillar of smoke was going up behind them, a dark line against the lurid red of Phobos in the sky.
Once or twice they spotted Cabal on foot, moving towards the site of the tower's collapse, but aside from a few potshots, they were largely ignored in favor of whatever greater disaster they imagined to have taken place there. Walker-17 kept glancing anxiously to the sky, but before the Thunder Child even came into view, they heard the gathering roar of Interceptors behind them.
"Looks like the word's been passed along," Virna called over the wind. Flicker and Matthias worked in tandem, picking out routes that would make up for their Interceptor's lack of speed to try and clear the buildings before their would-be pursuers caught up. The roar of enemy vehicles echoed in the dead streets of the ruins of Freehold, but they managed to stay one step ahead of their foes long enough to see the city limits ahead.
As they cleared the last of the crumbling buildings, the Thunder Child came into view at last. For a moment it seemed to vanish as it angled a long, elegant arc against the reddish cliffs rising all around them, the ruddy hues of its paint blending in well with the colors all around them. Walker-17 had a sudden, powerful flash of Déjà vu, and something he'd forgotten sprang to his mind again: the Thunder Child was recorded to have been built on Venus.
Why did it look like it was built for this world, instead?
He didn't have time to say anything or give the question much more thought, though, because the Thunder Child was moving to intercept them, and from behind the Cabal Interceptors were making headway at last, barreling after them into the open sandy plain. "Matthias!" Walker-17 called.
"On it." In the next moment, the four of them vanished, leaving nothing but shimmering transmat aftermath and a single unmanned Interceptor behind. The Thunder Child wheeled away from the city, framed momentarily by a few desperate shots from the Cabal Interceptors below, before it raised its nose to the sky and rocketed away from Mars, following the centuries-old directive programmed into it and launching itself into space.
The group hauled themselves to seats moments before the Thunder Child jumped into slipspace, and spent a few more moments collecting their breath.
Virna was the first to break the silence. "Where is it taking us?" she asked.
"I don't know." Walker-17 shook his head. "Matthias, you were in the Clovis Bray systems for a while back there. Do you have any ideas?"
"Well," Matthias said as he appeared, "I didn't get as much out of it as I'd have liked, but... there were some coordinates that the Cabal had pulled, that they were sending ships to. It's out in the asteroid belt. I don't think that's where we're going, though."
"We won't know for sure, until we drop from slipspace," Walker-17 pointed out.
"Well, yes, that's true, but we've already passed the asteroid belt."
Nobody knew what to say to that. All of them were beginning to feel weariness tugging on their bones. Evoksis carefully tended to his wounds, and Virna knelt to help him. Coyote-3 looked over everyone's guns, and adjusted the team's loadout with some of his own. Walker-17 stood at the bridge's control panel. The ringing anxiety in the back of his mind had turned into a dull headache.
Somehow he knew that this was it.
Slipspace faded away, revealing an expanse of ruddy, shifting colors that spread over everything, endless bands of smoky warm colors that twisted before them with a ponderous slowness that suggested great size. The effect was disorienting, at first, and none of them were sure what to make of it, until Matthias said, "Jupiter."
The Thunder Child tipped its nose down and dove. "Walker…" Virna said slowly, alarm creeping into her voice. "We can't stop this ship, right?"
Walker-17 looked to Matthias, who swiveled briefly back and forth. "No. Not quickly, anyway."
"This ship... is kind of old. And maybe not using the same tech the rest of us are. Can this thing escape Jupiter's gravity?"
Everyone in the cockpit looked to her. The ship lurched as it passed into Jupiter's atmosphere, plummeting faster and faster towards the perpetual storms that raged far below. "Let's hope so," Flicker finally said.
"Holliday retrofitted the Thunder Child with modern propulsion systems," Walker-17 replied slowly, though his voice was tinged with doubt, "so I think we'll be fine."
Virna sighed. "Well. Guess we'll find out." She looked back to the screen, irritation written on her features. "And of course it would take us back to the outer system."
"I'm sorry," Walker-17 said.
"Honestly, at this point, there's not much we can do. Might as well just concentrate on what happens next."
What happened next was a lot of flying. The Thunder Child continued its decent. The darkness of space faded away into a dusty blue sky as they entered the stratosphere; it was daytime, where they'd descended. The Thunder Child continued to drop until it was flying between enormous pillars of cloud, still high enough to be out of the main haze of the gas giant's lower atmosphere.
"We're in the troposphere," Matthias said softly.
The travelers simply watched the viewscreen in silence. Nobody knew when the next occurrence might crop up that required their attention, so nobody slept or did any resting worth speaking of. Evoksis had finished wrapping up his burns, and though he seemed to be in a bit of pain, was otherwise unhurt. Virna had come away with little more than scrapes and bruises, and the Guardians were fully healed.
"Any sign of the Cabal?" Walker-17 asked pensively, after about an hour of weary silence had passed.
"If they're following us, they're doing it from orbit," Matthias reported, "but I wouldn't put it past—" he stopped abruptly, his optic flashing brightly as a low thrum vibrated through the cockpit. "...well. They'll certainly have no trouble finding us now."
"What was that, exactly?" Coyote-3 asked, strolling up to the viewscreen and looking over it searchingly.
"The transmitter," Matthias replied as a second pulse shuddered through the ship.
"I guess this means we're getting close to what we're looking for," Flicker said, gliding over to stare at the Thunder Child's control panel. A third pulse cut through the air; they were happening in steady, regular intervals by then. "And this probably explains a little about why the transmitter was so sophisticated. It had to operate on a huge scale because it had to find something on Jupiter."
"How is that even possible?" Virna asked.
Flicker swiveled to face her, and his fins rose and fell in a shrug. "Golden Age tech," he said, simply.
"Uh, guys..." Coyote-3 said slowly, raising a hand and pointing at the viewscreen, "I don't think that the Thunder Child is finding something so much as..." he trailed off.
A dark shape was stirring just beneath the cloud cover, and it was slowly coming closer. At first it was difficult to see where it began and where it ended, thanks to the endlessly-shifting swirl of colors below, The travelers thought perhaps they were looking at several something's, because wherever they looked, they saw the darkness moving just below the clouds. As the veil of vapor became thinner and thinner, however, it became more and more obvious that they were indeed looking at one object and this object was absolutely massive.
"As calling something," Coyote-3 finished, softly.
The last shreds of vapor were shrugged away as the object rose, slowly breaching the upper layer of clouds with the ponderous grace of some ancient behemoth. It was shockingly long, shaped roughly like a very, very stretched-out arrowhead, bristling with backwards-tilting spurs that revealed themselves to be some kind of docking bays, all of them empty. Strips of pulsing golden light criss-crossed the matte black surface, weaving in complicated, sigil-like designs, and a cluster of powerful engines ran along the aft third of the ship, pulsing with the same golden light. Despite its monumental scale, the lines of its construction still managed to convey a sense of motion, of speed.
"That's... a space station?" Virna asked, breathless.
"It's either a small space station or a huge ship," Coyote-3 replied, equally stunned.
"It's a ship," Walker-17 said, "It's... definitely a ship." As the vessel continued to rise, the Thunder Child continued to signal to it, tilting towards the other ship and making a slow, but steady approach. "How big is this thing, would you say?"
"A little over four kilometers," Matthias said, "Four thousand, two hundred, and thirty nine meters, if you want to be exact."
"That thing is two miles long?" Coyote-3 asked, disbelieving.
"About two and a half," Flicker supplied helpfully.
This prompted some confusion from Evoksis, who was not entirely familiar with any human measuring system, but after a bit of quick conversion between the Ghosts he seemed to finally grasp the enormous size of the vessel that was slowly filling their viewscreen. In the distance, they could make out a series of blinking running lights that led to a structure on top of the ship, oriented near the middle of the vessel.
There was nothing on the outside to identify it, but as they drew nearer, a simple set of glowing letters appeared in the lower right corner of the screen, identifying the vessel: Ars Goetia.
"Ars Goetia…" Virna looked away from the window, meeting Walker-17's eyes. "Does that mean anything to you?"
His optics narrowed slightly. "I don't think so. It… seems somewhat familiar, but no more or less than anything else."
"Whoever named it," Flicker interjected suddenly, "must have had some kind of theme going. The name Ars Goetia comes from a book. A grimoire." By now all eyes were on him, so he continued. "The Lesser Key of Solomon. It's about spirits. Summoning them for tasks. Don't happen to have it in my personal databanks right now, though. Figures."
"Oh." Coyote-3 crossed his arms. "That's… ominous."
"What does it mean?" Walker-17 asked.
Flicker glanced to him. "Hm?"
"The name."
"Oh. Well… there are two accepted translations, depending on your etymology. If you go with the Greek, 'goetia' comes from a word that has to do with—with evocation, with spells. You could translate it as…" he paused. "As 'The Craft of Conjuration.'"
Silence fell over the cockpit.
"I suppose… I mean, if we're being very loose with how we translate 'ars' it… it could very well be called 'The Conjuration Protocol.'" Flicker finished.
The silence returned, and lingered longer this time. The Thunder Child, still acting on its own unseen objective, made a long, slow arc along the side of the ship. The rest of the area was still clear of interference for the moment, aside from the shifting storm-clouds all around them.
"And the other?" Walker-17 asked, abruptly. Flicker's optic blinked a few times in fresh confusion. "You said there were two possible translations."
"Oh! Oh, right. Well. The second one's seldom ever used, and I don't think it would be of any real benefit to what we need to know, but it is rather poetic, I suppose. Another name for the grimoire," he said, swiveling to return his attention to the viewscreen as the black flank of the Ars Goetia continued to fill the sky. "would be 'The Howling Art.'"
First of all: I've been waiting literally months to post that last line.
Second of all: the pieces are finally in place. Have you guessed it yet? You now have all the clues you should need to get a decent idea of what happened all those years ago, and to whom. Most of the big answers are going to hit us in the next chapter or two, so you won't have to wait long to find out if you're right.