A/N: Be sure to read the note at the bottom of this chapter. Thank you!
The wild Valkyries ride the wind. With spear and clanging shield. Where all the Hates embattled. Are met on Vigrid-field; For there shall fall the Mighty Ones.
Ragnarök (the Twilight of the Gods) by Arthur Guiterman
{Wings, this is Ironside. Houston station has been taken. Confirm, Houston station has fallen.}
Angel barely heard the report, her already damaged tourney shaking as Brink's exploded nearby. All the voices shouting on various channels in her ear had dissolved into white noise. Brink dead. Opie was floating after having ejected from his own doomed fighter. Two more from Iota and Eta fell off her scope, vanishing in a blaze of missile fire.
The jump gate was still intact, and Surc's flagship had moved far enough away from Ragnarök that it had vanished on their scopes.
{All Wings, Code Black. Repeat, this is Ironside. We are a go on Code Black.}
She let off another grit-toothed stream of small arms fire at an IB that was dogging Vapor's tail, her eyelids fluttering slightly as it hitched up and then broke apart. The jump gate, a gleaming silver and white capsule floating like a pearl on the endless black of space, was unmarked. The heavy attached to it let off another barrage of fire, and Angel worked her limping fighter out of the way barely in time. Her HUD flashed red as a bolt passed her, then returned to a reluctant green.
{Angel! Angel that's an order!} Malibu's voice finally broke through, and Angel shook her aching head slightly.
"I have the jump gate in my sights," she said. "Ten seconds to code clear for my grizzlies!"
{Angel, abort your run, that is an order!} Malibu repeated. {We are at Code Black. Leave the gate, we're going after the flagship. I repeat, abort your run, pilot! Target has changed!}
Parry blinked again, the words finally sinking through the pain and her focus.
Code Black.
It was too late. Zuhn had either failed to kill his siblings, or failed to take command of the flagship in time to turn back the tide. He and Shadow, most likely, were dead- as were all those that went on his boarding team. There was no point to hitting the jump gate now. The Cats would be at lunar orbit. The Seattle and what few tatters of a defense they could muster out of surviving Fleet ships and civilian craft were all that stood now between the Kilrathi and the direct invasion of Earth. The Cats wouldn't even need to land. As soon as their heavies had torn large enough holes in the perimeter, they could bombard every Earth city, military stronghold, or bunker.
Billions would die. The President and her chiefs of staff would likely either try and surrender themselves in exchange for a cease fire on Earth civilians, or they'd hold out a few days, until the Cats were able to break through their fortifications at Dent Blanche. Either way, the result would be the same.
The war was over. The Kilrathi had won.
Angel laboriously turned her fighter away from the jump gate. It didn't matter now. She and the remains of Eta, Iota, and Alpha would chase the flagship and try and take it down. Angel said nothing to the others, but her guns were almost spent. She was almost spent. Her head and neck were a riot of pain but they were distant and unobtrusive things.
They'd chase down that thrice cursed flagship and when they did, Angel wasn't going to bother shooting at it. She'd arm her last two grizzlies and make a run straight for the engines. With luck, her tourney going up would be enough to compromise their engine feed lines, cause a chain reaction that would send the flag ship to its doom.
It would kill Surc and Sela, if they still lived. It may not be enough to save Earth, but at least it would take those two fucking Cats out with it.
Angel was already hailed as the hero who had killed Ara Chaz. If she was going to be a hero for committing regicide, at least this time she was going to fucking earn it.
She thought about her friends from Rho Wing- Reaper, and Hammer, and the others. If they were still alive she had no doubt they wouldn't be long. They, too, would throw everything at the Cats. They'd die before letting a single Kilrathi paw touch Earth soil.
She thought about Shadow and Zuhn. She knew the only way they would have failed would have been death. Malibu, and the rest of Alpha Wing that remained, had to know that too.
She thought, of course, of Ray.
At least she'll go on, she thought, and clung to that. No matter what happened, even if they killed her human body, Ray would be all right. She'd go back to her home space and she'd go on, and that thought filled Angel with an astonishing amount of peace.
Angel thought back, all those lifetimes ago, to that very first kiss. She thought back to that sweaty, uncomfortable bar on graduation night- of the way Ray seemed untouched by the noise and heat and chaos around her. Of the way she smiled at her in the cool night breeze as they walked back to Yelchin together- their whole lives, all their hopes before them.
She didn't know if there was any kind of an afterlife, or anything that awaited them after death. She'd never been a particularly religious soul. If Heaven existed, Angel decided, then that's where she'd be when this mess was over with. She'd drive this tourney right into that flagship and, if there was any true love or justice in this life, the next moment she'd be on that road again outside the bar. She'd be walking on that road with Ray, and their whole lives would be ahead of them again, and that smile would be the only light she needed in the cool, sweet night of a year ago. That night would last forever, that walk would never stop, and Parry was ok with that. It was a good place to be.
We would have been great together, she thought, as the flagship reappeared on their scopes. Malibu was giving orders but Angel didn't hear them.
They didn't matter. She knew her course, and there was no wavering from it now.
We would have been great together, Ray. I really think we would have. Believe it, or not.
Then the flagship was leaping closer, and she was reaching out to arm her grizzlies, getting her course set toward its engine. It didn't even occur to her that the reason it was leaping closer was because it was no longer running but had come to a complete stop.
{The hell are they doing? Are they just waiting for us to take them out?} Notch's voice broke through, and Parry's finger halted an inch way from the arming switch on her grizzlies.
{Wings, hold fire and hang back. Something's going on,} Malibu said.
Her finger wavered closer to the arming switch for a moment, and then slowly withdrew. Malibu was right- something was going on. Even the few IB johnnies that had been flanking the flagship had halted into idle, neither noticing or seeming to care about the tourneys entering firing range behind them.
Silence enveloped them. The com, which had been jumping like frogs on a hot plate only moments ago, had gone quiet. Then…
{Malibu, I'm showing a course change,} Vapor. {The flagship is- it's turning around. It's recalling its fighters and turning around.}
As the great flagship slowly started to turn, its fighters were vanishing into its landing bays. A notification on Angel's HUD drew her attention and she selected it, then blinked. "Malibu, the fighters pursuing us from the jump gate have turned course, back to Ragnarök- "
{Did it happen? Did Prince-} Deadlock began, but Malibu overrode him, opening a secure channel.
{Vik'Atrilik, this is Alpha Wing on secure 395. Vik'Atrilik, this is Malibu, WC of Alpha on secure 395, come back.}
Silence. Parry strained to hear anything in that silence, but only the pain-thudding of her heartbeat echoing in her ears answered.
{Vik'Atrilik, this is Malibu. Shadow, do you hear me? Shadow, respond!}
The huge flagship had almost completed its turn. Angel half expected to see its missile silos live and ready to fire at them as they had taken out its forward guns, but her scope showed the missiles dead and quiet in their launchers. All the IB johnnies had vanished on board.
There was no response. Malibu changed tack, not sending her next communication to the Vik'Atrilik, but rather on the secure line to the Seattle and Earth HQ.
{Command forward, this is Alpha Wing WC. Command forward, this is Alpha Wing. The Vik'Atrilik has ceased hostilities and is turning back to Ragnarök. There is no response to hails on secure 395; what is the situation?}
{Stand by, Alpha. Stand by…}
The flagship was looming closer and closer, but still making no hostile moves. Parry's finger danced over the launch to her grizzlies but she did not press them. Time seemed to slow into mud, the great ship drifting inch by painful inch toward, and then past them, as if they were not there.
Its engines were nearly even with Angel's tourney when her com sparked to light again. It was Earth HQ. It wasn't directed only at them, but to every ship that was left in the Fleet.
{Confed, this is Ironside,} General Rojas said in that deep, unflappable media voice of his. {We have confirmed, the Kilrathi forces are retreating to the jump gate at Ragnarök. Repeat, all Kilrathi forces have ceased hostilities and they are heading back to the jump gate at Ragnarök. We have no intelligence at this time as to why, stand by for further instructions.}
Notch let a whoop out on their private channel. {She must have done it! Shadow and her team must have taken out the Emperor!}
{She would have shaken back,} Malibu said, and she sounded wary. Hopeful, but wary.
{Maybe their com were damaged?} HiHo asked. {Maybe she couldn't send?}
{Coms couldn't be damaged,} Deadlock said. The flagship was still retreating, and on Angel's scope she could see several more heavies and various support ships, including Zuhn's command ship, heading their direction as well. {They would have had to communicate the cease fire to all these other fuckers to get them to stop, and even then, half of them probably wouldn't have listened. I hate to say it, but maybe Shadow didn't make it?}
{If Shadow didn't make it but they got that red Cat's ass on the throne, he would have said something,} Vapor pointed out.
{Could it be some kind of trick?} Notch asked.
"No, trick doesn't make sense," Angel said, still watching the retreating flag ship on her scope.
{That's right,} Vapor replied. {When you got your enemy by the short and curlies, you don't need to trick them. So, where the fuck are they going, and why the fuck didn't Shadow-}
{Cut chatter,} Malibu said. {I got Nemesis.}
They immediately fell silent while Malibu put her line to Bastille on the Wing private channel.
{Confirm, Nemesis, I have the Wing,} she said.
{Alpha Wing, this is Nemesis.} Angel noted in some distant portion of her mind that even as a Fleet General Bastille had never really left the pit, and it showed in her use of her callsign instead of a more formal designation. {You are closest to Ragnarök. Can you confirm what is happening?}
{The Vik'Atrilik stopped and changed course back to their jump gate,} Malibu said. {It took its johnnies back aboard. The hostiles on our tail also changed course back. One of the damaged heavies we left behind just jumped. I cannot confirm that this is a full retreat until more ships reach the gate coordinates but-…well, ma'am, that's sure as hell looks like what they're doing from here.}
{No communication from Shadow, Prince, or any on their team?}
{That's a negative, Nemesis. Hails ignored.}
{The Cats are leaving Houston as well,} Nemesis said almost thoughtfully. {They docked and were just putting boots on our decks when they turned around, got back on their ships, and headed off. The same is happening in Earth orbit. I'm getting reports from the Wings there and from the Seattle, that all Kilrathi vessels are retreating. Alpha, I want you to return to Ragnarök. Monitor the situation there, but do not re-engage hostilities unless they initiate. I'll be in contact. Nemesis out.}
{You heard the lady,} Malibu said. {Course change on 180, back to Ragnarök. If these Cats are really leaving, we're going to hold the door open for them. Let's go.}
The last Kilrathi ship vanished through the jump gate three hours after the Vik'Atrilik had inexplicably stopped, and not a single one had answered any communications or hails from Earth Command to Alpha Wing.
The last ship to go was the heavy attached the jump gate. It didn't bother pulling the gate back on board, but merely turned and lumbered slowly through the jump. The moment it passed through and the gate severed, it exploded.
The Cats had purposefully scuttled their jump. Vapor seemed to think this made it clear they didn't intend to return- at least not any time soon.
Angel mostly agreed with that, but a further disquiet thought came to her, along with a dull and distant cramp of grief.
They don't want us to follow them.
If Shadow was still aboard that flagship, if she was still alive, she had not disembarked. She hadn't left the ship or been dropped off. If Zuhn had truly been successful, there was no reason that Angel could see why Shadow would not have been let off before they departed Sol, even if he chose not to answer all their pings.
But…no. She was forgetting something. She was forgetting the Nephilim.
They may have opened a jump onto the ship, evacuated Shadow. She could even now be back on Earth and we'd be none the wiser.
With Ragnarök's jump scuttled and all the Cats gone, there was no reason to hold their position. Malibu ordered them back to Houston and back to Houston they went- exhausted, hurting, grieving, but alive.
Alive. And the human race was alive, and though they barely dared start to hope, they looked to keep on living.
When they returned to the station everything was still in chaos. The Cats may have left but there were an enormous amount of injured to attend to, floaters for S&R to retrieve, and dead to recover. Parry wanted nothing more than to get on a line back to Dent Blanche, but it was impossible. Far more important communications took priority.
As they left their damaged tourneys on the flight deck, they were rushed by medics. Parry hadn't realized just how exhausted or hurt she was until she climbed down the side of the fighter and the entire deck seemed to tilt and wobble out of reality. Spotting the blood on her chin, one of the medics quickly looked her over, flashing a light in her eyes.
"You have a concussion- neck hurt? Probably whiplash. No bones sticking out, no burns, no limbs missing- you're clear to get some food and get to your bunk. You're upright and walking which is more than can be said about most of the ones clogging up the infirmary. Before you lay down set your alarm on max for no more than two hours and link it to the medical com. If you don't shut the alarm off within two minutes of it going off a team will be sent to your bunk. If you do, check in with the hospital and see intake status, and then reset for another two hours. You may have to do it a few times before someone can see you. Ok?"
Parry only nodded gingerly and followed the rest of Alpha off the deck.
She didn't even bother with food. She should have been starving but any sensation of hunger was lost in exhaustion. Getting back to her bunk, she set the alarm before she even dared to sit down, getting it wired to the infirmary.
It was seventeen hours later- and after she'd been cleared by the medics downstairs with some soft tissue therapy and pain medication- before she saw Malibu again. Parry stood up immediately, her chest tightening when she saw the look on Rita's face.
She didn't even have to ask.
"Parry, there's a shuttle to Dent Blanche waiting for you on deck 97. Go now. Something's happened with Ray."
Parry went.
Diamila Ndiaye sat down quietly, her dark eyes almost gently taking the measure of the woman sitting in front of her. Of her entire cabinet and joint chiefs, only General Ghislin and General Rojas were present.
"You are certain of this?" she asked after a long moment's pause, reaching for a pitcher of water that had been put near at hand. She filled her cup, then touched the pitcher again and lifted a brow inquiringly.
Ray shook her head absently. Her eyes were darkly hollowed, the corners of her lips turned down. She looked wan and slightly yellowed.
"We are indebted to you for what you and your people have done for us," Ndiaye continued on. "But I must ask. What happened?"
When Ray said nothing, the President shook her head slightly, taking a sip of the cool water. As she set it down, her fingers continued to cling to the glass as if it were a lifeline. "Code Black was issued. The Cats were starting their occupation of Houston station. Within an hour, they would have had control of Seattle as well. Our defenses were broken and while not a single Kilrathi set foot on Earth, we were within hours of that happening. The Kilrathi won this war, Madame Ambassador- "
"Don't," Ray said softly, wearily. Ndiaye nodded absently.
"My apologies. I am simply trying to understand. The Kilrathi won the war, and just at the moment their victory was all but decided, they turn and leave. No communication, no explanation as to why. The Kilrathi simply depart, scuttle their jump gates all the way back to their home system- as far as our intelligence officers can tell- and we have not heard a single whisper out of them since. We have no information on whether Colonel Rochester is alive, whether or not Prince Zuhn Aitken succeeded in his plans to take the throne from his siblings."
"I can give you no answers to this," Ray said, and Ndiaye's intent scrutiny of her gained a little more weight.
"Can't you? Almost the moment we confirmed the Kilrathi were truly retreating you were found on the floor of your appointed quarters, unconscious. You remained unconscious for four days. I do not need to be General Ghislin or even a member of SOTAC to suspect those two events are linked. What did you- "
"Are you able to grant my request, or not?" Ray asked. Ndiaye leaned back a little, but her voice remained gentle.
"Speaking to you not as the President of the Confed, but merely as a human being with an immense gratitude that her people live on, I must say this. You need to understand what will happen if I grant you your request. It is for life. There will be no going back, no reversing this decision. I beg you…please. Reconsider."
For a moment, Ray looked distracted. Thin and drawn as she was, the hair that was regrowing after it had been shaved to the skin gave her an even more waifish, helpless appearance. Her eyes, damp and red, roamed almost idly about the conference room as if it were something she had only seen in pictures before. Ndiaye didn't mistake the look for re-contemplation of her request. She sensed, as she had sensed from the beginning, that Ray Caruso was going to be unswerving on this.
And unswerving she was. As her eyes came back to Ndiaye she nodded slightly. "I know there is no going back. My mind is made up."
Ndiaye nodded slowly. "Eve, then?"
"She has agreed," Ray said. "She's eager to help your scientists, to move forward where I cannot."
"Very well," Ndiaye let out a breath. "My address is planned for this evening. Your name will not be mentioned. I will speak with Eve and introduce her as the official Ambassador for the Nephilim. Outside of the small handful that already know the truth no one will ever be made aware that you are a Nephilim. From this moment forward, your status as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Confed Special Forces: Tactics division is reinstated with all the rights, privileges, and duties thereof. Your existence as a Nephilim is now classified top security- Maurice will make sure that everyone pertinent knows of this new classification."
General Ghislin nodded at the mention of his name, but said nothing.
"You're a human again," Ndiaye concluded. "At least in legal standing, and as far as anyone else will ever know. Under this standing you are not permitted to perform any action beyond the ability of humans to perform- this includes opening jumps, no matter how dire the situation. It will be considered a break of classification and would incur the penalties fitting to that break. Your rights will be the same as any other human Confed citizen, and you are officially declaring that your loyalty will also follow that of any Confed citizen. This is our thank you to you, Lt. Caruso, for all you have done and helped us to accomplish. Do not make us regret this thank you."
"I won't, Madame President," Ray said quietly, and then got to her feet. She saluted.
Ndiaye rose as well, and returned the salute. "Then, report for duty with General Bastille on the Houston, pilot- and good hunting."
Parry was waiting for Ray as she left the conference room, her eyes concerned as she reached out and gently put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you all right?" she asked.
She'd asked that question several times since Ray had woken up, and had always received the same lie in answer.
"I'm fine, Parry. It's done. I'm just a human pilot again."
Parry gave her a gentle smile. "You say that like it's a small thing to be," she said. "I'm glad you are. You belong in the pit, Ray. I need my wingman back again. I need you back again."
I wonder if you'd be saying that if you knew what I did, Ray thought, and for the hundred thousandth time since waking up in the infirmary after the war had ended, she felt like her entire heart may collapse under the weight of it- the weight of what only she knew. What only she could ever know.
Parry hugged her tightly, and Ray returned the hug just as tightly. It was a long moment before either of them pulled away.
"C'mon, Ripley. Let's get you back to Houston," Parry said, then grinned. "If you'd told me a week ago the war would be over and I'd be saying that, I never would have believed you."
"Believe it, or not," Ray whispered.
Then the pain became too much, and she began to cry.
10 Years Post War:
"Sir?"
Private Kane glanced around from her communications board to look at the commanding officer of the TCS Cairo. Captain O'Connell looked up from the reports he'd been signing.
"Private? Have you cleaned up that noise on the 90 band?"
"That's just it, sir. I've isolated the noise but it didn't sound like normal radiation bleed-over to me. The pattern was too regular. I dug a little deeper sir and…I think you should hear this."
As he strode over to her station, she reached out and transferred the isolated signal to speaker. Several of the others on the bridge turned with surprised looks on their faces as the signal began to blip loudly.
O'Connell frowned a moment in concentration, before a look of stunned surprise crossed over his face. Reaching over Kane, he looked at her display, where a single word was flashing in red- the translation of the simple message that his com officer had picked up hidden in background noise.
"You confirmed the origination point of this signal?"
"Yes, sir. It is confirmed."
"I don't believe it," he murmured, then straightened. "Send a message to Earth Command and SOTAC immediately."
"What should I tell them, sir?" Kane asked.
"Tell them that for the first time since the end of the war we're getting a message from the Kilrathi. Tell them…they're not going to believe this."
On the display, the word flashed over and over again. Just a single word.
HELP.
The End
A/N: Yup, that's the end of the Human Heart! As you may expect at this point, that is just the end of this story, but not the end of the story. I'm planning to write a sequel entitled 'The Human Soul' that should start being posted up here in the next month or two. I'm taking a little break so that I can get some of my original writing a bit further along. Don't worry, my Destiny story and my Dragon Age story will continue to be posted on a regular schedule. Dragon Age will now be posted on Mondays instead of Tuesdays, and Destiny will now be posted on Tuesdays instead of Wednesdays. When the new WC starts, it will take Destiny's old slot and be posted on Wednesdays.
Until then, I hope you enjoyed this, and much much more to come!
