The following hours were like sweating off a fever; the resulting chaotic battles quickly died out as the loyalists took to the Victory Spire and other government buildings, then wrapping the looming spire with an impenetrable void shield. As our forces fled for their lives, trying to keep as much of our resources intact as possible, our lines of communication and chain of command were severed.
But as the fallout of the March Revolution – which was what we referred to the initial battle as – faded, and night fell, the atmosphere cooled. There were cracks of las guns and solid shell weapons in the night, and every few hours, artillery strikes would bite into the invisible field of energy over the Victory Spire, responded to by more blind strikes into the dark.
The city had gone overall quiet, and our PDF was perched in hiding all over the cities, taken to the many underground bunkers, and loyal factories of the Mechanicum. As dusk took the city, and from there pitch blackness, the radio quieted from a mad conversation with the depths of insanity and war, to complete radio silence, punctuated every so often as distant groups got into contact with one another, all eventually coming into contact with myself and the three conspirators with me.
I'm not ashamed to tell you, as the night went on and confirmation came that all eleven of the other conspirators, excluding Mavichel, had survived; our return call was a lie. We told them that Mavichel was deep in prayer, consulting with the Emperor alone, and that we dared not disturb him.
That was partly true, looking back. He was in consultation, and had no concern with us for that period.
Quickly, as midnight came, we had reorganized ourselves, consolidating command to the other conspirators. Some argued that we should wait for Mavichel, but Ivan took the lead and told us he had been left with this backup plan by the Arch Bishop. None argued.
It became a matter of taking military control of the city by block, and for that the plans were laid out as the night went on. Me and my staff, in coordination with Major Mitrokhin and his, drafted the plans down to the letter as the night went on, and sent out the orders for the next day.
People might – though I'd think these people are gone by now – have thought without Mavichel, we'd lost ourselves, and in some sense that was true. Us ten or so who knew he had moved on had truly moved beyond hope for that short time, and things did feel up in the air for that time.
But if you want my opinion? It was the most productive period of the revolution. Mavichel was a great friend of mine, and I trusted him as long as I could, but we had started those few days embroiled in war and madness, and left them in a much, much better state.
But as I'm sure you've so far surmised, things didn't stay that way. Could they have, anyways?
-------
General Yevgeni Ivanovsky strode surely down the wide hallways of the Victory Spire, his nicely shined boots echoing off the gleaming marble. The innards of the massive palace were quiet and clean, still held in perfect working order, as they always had been.
He nodded to a group of politicians, conversing off to the side. Their conversation was less frantic than it was only days ago. The fighting had died down, and an element of civility had taken the Spire. Though the General's loyal men still walked the halls and wide open dining chambers and courtyards and antechambers in uniforms, the politicians had calmed down, staying confined to their meeting rooms.
Two armored guards stepped aside as General Yevgeni walked out onto a higher balcony of the Spire. A few figures walked past him, leaving three officials standing by the edge.
"Ah," Ilya Dzhirkvelov, a middle aged woman a fit build, spoke up as she turned to face him, "please, join us."
He stood silently at her side, nodding curtly in greeting to the wheel chair bound form of Governor Lazarus Morgenstern, his form still large as it had been in his prime, but now wrapped in red robes, and armored plates reminiscent of his glory days. His head was lying to the side, his eyes milky white and his long hair and beard white.
The General ignored his adjutant, and Ilya went on. "Never thought you'd see the day, right?" she commented, leaning on the stone wall on the very edge of the balcony. General Yevgeni looked down solemnly at the Parade Route, which was effectively a no man's land.
Through the occasional shimmering of the void shield, he saw the craters blasted into the wide cobblestone street. The dead wrecks of tanks lay scattered every few thousand meters, and red clad bodies carpeted the areas closer to the gates. Oddly, the quarter kilometer courtyard that led from that gate to the massive bronze double doors of the Spire lay untouched and empty.
Beyond that, in the midday sun, smoke rose from burning buildings and muzzle flares punctuated localized battles from structure to structure.
"Yes ma'am," Yevgeni said quietly, his voice stoic and quiet.
"It's a shock for everyone," Ilya went on calmly, pouring herself a glass of clear liquid from a table nearby. "No one would have ever predicted this, not from a people as ours, a people so unified. Treachery and dissent is something for the stagnant races of inner Imperial space, people who take leisure in everyday life. Not for us."
"Noted, ma'am," Yevgeni said, unamused. Ilya offered him a glass but he shook his head.
"Do you disagree, General? Because your animosity for me seems to suggest you wouldn't condemn them as I would."
Ilya took appreciation inwardly as she noted his stricken look. "Of course I condemn them, ma'am. They are traitors. I'll bring them down to the best of my abilities." Ilya smiled.
"Good," she said, turning back to the view of the city, "that's the kind of conviction we'll need in the days to come."
"Yes ma'am," Yevgeni agreed. Ilya waved at Governor Lazarus's adjutant.
"Please take the Governor to his quarters. I think he's tired."
"Of course, Ms. Dzhirkvelov," the younger man said, taking him away. Ilya relaxed a little.
"Honestly, I can't wait for that man to die. Even with him here I pretty much hold the position of governor, but Emperor damn him just seeing that vegetable around makes me sick," Ilya joked, responded to by silence. "Anyways," she went on, turning to him, "I wonder; did you see any of the faces of the conspirators on General Novikov's Baneblade?"
Yevgeni nodded. "Because I don't know the general well enough to say, but I never thought this of the Arch Bishop. Maybe of the Mechanicum, they're always self-serving, eh?
"Regardless, no matter what attempts at peace talks they try to bring up," Ilya began, punctuating her point with a raised hand, "you will greet these men, the March Conspirators as they have referred to themselves as, with violence only. Bring them in if you can, but that failing, I want them dead."
The General nodded, a hint of fire in his eyes. "Yes, ma'am. Understood."
As he strode back into the Spire's walls, her voice called after him. "Sever the head, kill the serpent, General Ivanovsky."
-------
It was early morning, the sun just then peaking over the several story Mechanicum buildings, which for Ivan would have denoted high noon where he lived further up in the city.
All around him guardsmen roused, hefting equipment with them and organizing into squads. He looked about him, sitting in the abandoned innards of a tank factory, the wide roads empty and whipped with dust and the wind that carried it. As the guardsmen, armored in the usual red roused him, he nodded, and stood to follow the rough two rows of thirty men as they trotted off into the dust.
"If you don't mind me saying it," Ivan began, turning to his fellow conspirator at his side, "you make much better company than Willam."
"Oh?" The man spoke up, his voice cold as always.
"You talk less," Ivan explained as they walked on, about in the middle of the column. "By now Willam would've taken every chance to spin this catastrophe to someone's blame."
The man smiled, an easily restrained and carefully measured facial cue. Ivan knew that this man, who was called Erebus and only that, was a well trained and experienced politician. Despite that, he was well built, however well he hid it in his black robes.
Ivan felt he'd seen this type of man before, in his significant travels. Ambition and dangerous men, with intelligence and cunning honed to a razor edge. They were generally self serving, but sometimes so tied to a cause that it was simply that no other man or woman was of concern to them. They were powerful tools, and Ivan had used them before – in fact, he had been one of those people in his younger days.
Usually this kind of man died out young. Domum beat the cruelty and coldness out of them, leaving them with the seem realism, but with a stronger sense of community. It had happened to Ivan. He wondered just who this Erebus, a man with age in his eyes but not on his features, really was?
"Grenade!!" came a cry from the front of the column. Ivan didn't take a second to react, dropping to the ground as an explosion tore through the air in the street. Ivan scrambled back into the cold dark atmosphere of the factory, hiding behind a metal crate. He glanced over the crate, watching as red lines of las fire ripped down from the buildings adjacent, killing the front squad of the procession in seconds.
He ran to the wide door of the factory, keeping ducked down near where the majority of the guard were. His heart was pounding madly, the adrenaline and fear coursing through him uncontrollably. Ivan had never said it, but he'd also envied the guard and what they did, always wanted to experience battle and fight for Domum.
Right then, as las rifles barked off like a symphony, grenades tearing into midday sun, the screams of pain and chaos, dying men and orders rung in Ivan's ears. Somehow, he felt this wasn't for him.
"They've taken the buildings across the way, sir!" a guard yelled to the Lieutenant, over the sound of battle. Ivan glanced up, watching the scattered red clad guard in the tank factory hiding behind industrial equipment and boxes, firing out of windows on the ground floor, the return fire strong but still about even.
"Do we have positions?" the Lieutenant asked. The man nodded. "Then you know what to do!"
After maybe half a minute, the battle calmed down suddenly as one of the guard in the factory fired off a frag missile from his position into the bulk of the enemy force. As the ringing in his ears wore off, Ivan stood and poked his head out of cover.
It had only been maybe a minute, so Ivan wasn't prepared for the carnage that lay in the open street. Several bodies lay burnt and broken, unrecognizable, and others were simply pieces scattered hither and thither. Ivan stood transfixed at the sight of such carnage, wanton and aimless slaughter. What had just been accomplished from the cruel and merciless deaths inflicted on either side?
And what did sides matter, he wondered, looking into the young faces of Domum's sons?
As he pondered this, a strange feeling of hopelessness taking him, Erebus pulled him back into cover gently. "Keep your head down, please, Mr. Serov. Wouldn't want one of the loyalists to see the shine and make a bald corpse out of you."
Ivan gave him a surprised glare. He'd seen bad things in his time, but seeing such pointless death as these, he couldn't simply laugh that off. Erebus ignored him, walking towards the Lieutenant calmly. "Excuse me Lieutenant, but if it isn't too much trouble I'd like to hurry this little excursion along."
"Pardon, sir?" he asked, slightly confused, two sergeants at his sides, discussing how to deal with what might remain of the enemy across the street.
"You see," Erebus began to explain with a little half-smile, "we have previous engagements to meet, and while I appreciate your position, our course," he went on, pointing a finger across the street, motioning to the building in which the enemy took shelter, "goes onwards thusly."
"Respectfully, sir, I can't let you do that. We don't know what kind of weaponry they might still have up there, just looking for a high value target such as yourself or Mr. Serov. We can't afford such losses, so we have to take this cautiously and slowly. We'll be at the com bunker within the week, don't worry."
Erebus nodded, chuckling as the man turned away, going back to issuing orders. "Well, here's a thought: how about you give Mr. Serov and me a sergeant and his squad as an escort and we just up and walk across the street," he suggested, soliciting an aggravated sigh from the Lieutenant.
"I'm not going to let you do that," he said finally. Again Erebus nodded. He turned to one of the sergeants and snapped his fingers.
"Come Sergeant. You take your orders from me now. You're going to take Ivan, your squad, and I, and find us a way to the Arch Bishop's head quarters before days end," he ordered sternly, but still in that quiet, cold tone. The sergeant looked over at his Lieutenant, unsure of what to do. "Don't look at him Sergeant, he's not your daddy and you don't take orders from him any more. Now go on."
The man rallied his squad and Ivan joined Erebus with them as they strode into the street. "That was bold, Erebus," Ivan praised quietly, stepping over the fallen soldiers. Erebus smiled, not even glancing up at the empty windows, leading the way into the building adjacent.
"Feel free to cover our escape, Lieutenant," Erebus called back, responded to by grim laughter amongst his new personal escort.