Chapter 39
"Wrath"
It was the final pace from those damned books - or close enough. Hawkmoon didn't care to split hairs; the star-spanning waltz Oryx and His Sisters had been dancing with the Taishibethi was all but over. Hive came flooding out of the Raven Bridge, screaming and bright-eyed. They died quickly enough, melted down by plasma or shredded into a fine mist by a flurry of crystalized flakes. Savathûn's barrier had fallen away; the others had joined her in opening fire on the horde spilling through. Cyberwarp dragged her back, even, when the throngs of shrieking Thrall began to fall too close for comfort. Hawkmoon's injured arm wasn't complying with her, and her wing was blaring damage reports directly into her processor.
And all she could think was that they'd lost.
The Hive ranks died the moment they set foot on Enlightenment, but they didn't care.
Death wasn't going to stop them.
It never had before.
"Call Ikitri," Hawkmoon gasped - venting fiercely. "Call the Board. Call the Star-Court. Now!"
::On it,:: Nacelle replied.
It was too late, though. She knew it was too late. The rift was open; the Hive had found them. Savathûn had them dead to rights - and She'd served them on a silver platter right to Her Brother and Sister.
When the Hive had their claws in something, they never let go.
It had been the same with Bhutan.
The same with the Parisian catacombs.
The same with the Cosmodrome.
The same with Luna - and the Hellmouth they dug there.
Hawkmoon remembered. She remembered the early years, when reports of three-eyed demons first started to trickle in, when the City was still in the midst of finding its footing. She remembered her first encounter with them, fighting them at Burning Lake and realizing - these weren't Fallen. They didn't fight the same way. No, the Fallen were like her; the Fallen were clever and quick and adaptable and they were as much in the business of struggling to survive day-in, day-out as humans were. The Hive had been something else; they were ancient and cruel and powerful and they were particular about how they fought. So much so that everyone else had to adapt to them, rather than the other way around. They gave Light-gifted immortality a run for its money. They carried their own dread power, balanced on the edges of their wicked blades and on the tips of their vile tongues, ready to let fly Dark spells at a moment's notice.
She remembered the Moon. She remembered Mare Imbrium - the Ocean of Storms. She remembered the fight for her life, her world, where thousands of Guardians rallied against the foe gathering in the hollows beneath Luna's crust, where thousands of her people were slaughtered for the sheer audacity of having tried to kill a god.
She remembered exulting in Crota's death screams many years later.
But she never forgot all the blood spilled to get there.
And with Oryx, Xivu Arath, Savathûn Herself...
She remembered the nightmares. Exos never outgrew them - be they mortal or Risen. Every other month, every other week, universe made sure she never forgot what she was: a facsimile of someone who used to be alive. She remembered struggling to reach the dark tower, to fight through the army built of people she'd known from every life she'd ever lived. She remembered waking up with a muted cry on her vocalizer and her shaking shoulders caught in a tight grip. The grip of a friend.
Things had gotten better when she'd made the effort to be something approaching cordial to the old tired Warlord who'd walked into a City-owned LZ with a convoy of refugees behind him. Ikharos had been grumpy from the beginning, touchy and suspicious where their own kind were concerned, but reaching out to him had been the best decision of her life. He'd stuck by her for a hundred years straight, holding her steady when the lingering visions of machine-dreams threatened to tear her frame apart. He'd understood what it meant to be damned from the get-go.
She'd tried to do the same for him, in the weeks after he'd put a lance of Arc straight through the Taken King's heart. After he'd reduced Crota's daddy to some ossified dead thing floating in Saturn's orbit. After he'd combed through what records they could salvage from the Hive God's personal library - and read through the Books of Sorrow.
It would have been poetic to say he'd wept a tear for every civilization the Hive had razed.
But life wasn't a poem - and they didn't have enough tears between them to even make a start.
They had to keep going. Because it wasn't over, that war of theirs. Oryx had only been one part of three - and the Sisters were sure to come seeking vengeance.
It was the only thing the hateful aliens seemed to understand.
They had no blood to spare. The price was too high. They couldn't meet it - Cybertron or the Protectorate. They quite simply wouldn't. Few were willing to sacrifice trillions just to make a point. No, that was a sector the Hive had a monopoly on - beating them at their own game was a fool's errand, but any and every alternative was, in truth, merely temporary at best.
"Hold her still," Quell said suddenly.
Hawkmoon blinked. The mech had appeared by her side seemingly out of thin air. He spared the held-back Hive a nervous look, then quickly looked over her lame arm. Cyberwarp had one of her servos on Hawkmoon's shoulder, while the other was transformed and unloading into the slowly-encroaching press of chitin-clad killers.
"Don't like this damage," Quell muttered. "But I can give you an emergency patch."
"Can you-"
"Restore some function? I don't know. I'll-" He produced what looked like a syringe of something out of internal storage and injected it into the break. "Semi-intelligent pre-programmed Cybermatter mesh-cast," Quell explained. "It'll link up your ruptured sensory cables. Your nanites should do the rest. Look, it's rudimentary and you'll have to get real replacements before these dissolve or crust, but-"
Something big roared from the other side of the space-bridge.
"-it doesn't look like we have many other options," Quell hastily finished. "Try not to force a transformation; this stuff doesn't play well with that sort of tension."
Hawkmoon glanced at him. Her faceplates must have been showing... something, because Quell flinched and backed off the moment he was done. She rolled her shoulder; it felt like someone had pumped her full of anaesthesiaa, with the surrounding tissue 'fizzling' like the secondhand version of pins-and-needles. Nothing close to what had happened when she'd touched Augur's shell, but - it was something. Her digits twitched and servo trembled, though that was about the extent of it.
Still, it was fine. She could work with one hand.
She'd done more with less.
Roaring things stepped through the space-bridge. Knights in red-purple armour, she saw, two of them. One she recognized - Mengoor, Sterile Knight and the Learner, and so the other must have been Cra'adug, the Lesson, who had been Taken in her own timeline. Not as tall or large as her - but their blades were fearsome things all the same. They were His - of His Court, of His own reserve. Oryx's dyad paladins, harbingers of bloody, primal battle. Champions of the God-King.
Hawkmoon reverted her carbine into a servo and engaged her foldblade - and extended an additional heat-charged wrist-blade over the edge of her knuckles.
"Fall back," Swiftsear shouted. "Fall back now!"
Hawkmoon pointed her Nullblade and glared down the length of it - right at the Knight pair. They stared back. They grinned. Started advancing. Every shot sent their way only left their shells blackened with soot, no real damage; they weren't of the causal variety.
She'd already figured as much.
"'Moon, don't," Cyberwarp urged. "Please."
Hawkmoon jutted her helm back. "Get going."
"'Moon-"
"I'll be right with you, keep them off you. Go. Now." Hawkmoon looked at her. "Cyberwarp. This isn't a request."
Cyberwarp's faceplates hardened. "I'll give you covering fire. Keep them off you."
"... Fine," Hawkmoon bit out. "But we still have to move."
She readjusted her shoulder cannon's aim and shot three times, at the space-bridge's frame. The ring of metal and glass shattered, and the Raven Bridge flickered - then steadied and morphed into a full Hive rupture-portal.
"Frag," she swore. "Okay, now we move."
They attempted a fighting retreat - which meant abandoning the space-bridge centre before the Hive could surround them, backpedaling down an adjoining corridor where their firepower could create a chokehold, and shuffled their way out from then on. The corpses piled before them, hundreds of Thrall and Acolytes eager for blood, for glory, for an end to their Worms' hunger. It was almost enough to clog the Hive in - if not for the Knights carving a path through, regardless of whether the bodies in front of them were living or dead.
Mengoor and Cra'adug led the chase. They bayed and bellowed, brandishing their blades and begging for a fight. Hawkmoon pinged formation comms, said, ::Check your fire,:: and met the Knights in kind. Mengoor reached her first, running ahead with her cleaver already swinging, and Hawkmoon redirected the blow into the wall with a flick of her own sword. A shelled fist followed the blade, forcing her to jerk back, and she rewarded the Hive's eagerness with a quick snick at the base of her elbow. The arm hung limp; Mengoor howled, tugged her cleaver free and glanced down at her limp arm.
Cra'adug overtook her, snarling something in the Hive's lesser language, not their universally-comprehensive Royal Tongue but a peasant dialect - alien and utter nonsense as far as Hawkmoon was concerned.
"Yeah yeah, prattle on," Hawkmoon grunted. She raised her Nullblade to take the vicious downward strike coming for her helm, twisted her wrist to allow Cra'adug's momentum to drag him forward as she sidestepped, and jammed her clenched fist against the side of his head as hard as she could manage. Her wrist-blade punched through shell and bone with a decisive crack, and the Knight slumped over.
Mengoor roared, beyond furious, and came swinging. Hawkmoon danced back, again and again, and blocked the final thrust that would have otherwise claimed her spark. Their blades locked together, Mengoor pushing closer and closer-
Until Hawkmoon activated her shoulder cannon and shot her in the face. The Knight blinked - unfocusing her long enough for Hawkmoon to slip by, retracting her foldblade, and jab her knee into the Hive's abdomen. The warrior-morph gasped and stumbled forward, doubling over - the fragile underside of her chin falling over atop of the Nullblade's hilt.
Hawkmoon flicked the button that engaged the panels. They burst out the top of the Knight's skull in a quick but grisly display, and she shouldered the dead thing off.
How do you like that, Oryx?
Not well, apparently, because the Hive ranks surged forward with increased fervour - as if hell itself was rising just behind them.
Which probably wasn't far from the truth.
They staggered out into the nearest hangar. A number of Tai gunships were already there, and the ranks of disembarking Myods fell into formation at the sight of them - and the Hive on their heels. Railcannons cracked and roared, energy weapons screamed, a Taishibethi yelled orders. The rounds snapped past them, into the horde of invaders just behind. The station suddenly rocked; an explosion briefly flared out beyond the hangar, some miles out in open space, before the vacuum ate it up. A starship had been at the core of it, spiked through with emerald fire.
A transmission blared across all local channels, scrabbling for Hawkmoon's attention.
::This is Marooner-Captain Ikitri to all system-side Protectorate forces - the Foe is here! I repeat, the Foe has arrived! The Raven Bridge is compromised; I'm detecting hostile energy signatures around Enlightenment. They're coming through!::
Hawkmoon didn't stop, not as the others did. They slowed down as they neared the relative safety of the Tai soldiers - but not her, not her, she had to-
She leapt out into open space, activated her thrusters and soared out. The panicked chatter of interplanetary communications boomed in the emptiness of space, desperate radio signals flying in all directions. There were pinpricks of light as other ships jumped towards Enlightment, as others warped in from neighbouring systems. The End of Reservation glided close, disgorging troop-carriers en masse - and all were headed towards the station. But its guns were aiming elsewhere; it was headed somewhere else.
Hawkmoon twisted around.
The Raven Bridge was open.
It was open.
Emerald-wreathed space-bridge portals were pulled ajar by vile magics. The alien technology was merely the medium - and hexed as it was, it became a beacon for the Hive to jump to. She could feel the space-bridges blinking open - and that was it, the moment the Wizards on the other side had their grip the bridges ceased to be constructs of feasible science. Ascendant space burned on the other side, shadowed over by the hulking forms of Cryptships and Tombcarriers. Bone-pale Karves shrieked through, followed by the dark hulls of Tombships. They swarmed through, like a kicked wasps' nest, buzzing and flying for terrible retribution.
One portal was so close it almost sliced through the hull of Enlightenment itself, disgorging the jagged form of a Hive warship. It fired chained barbed anchors into the flesh of the space-station, tearing out entire internal compartments, and Hawkmoon could spy the tiny forms of Thrall clambering down those dark steel links like so many spiders.
::Get out now,:: she croaked. ::Get out!::
The End of Reservation deployed its complement of foldfighters, and the silvery ships raced towards the Ttombcarrier - opening fire on the colossal shackles. The plasma bit into the accursed metal, but only so far; each link was the size of the Aurorus. Hawkmoon transformed and raced after them. She only became aware of her own trine and Northwind's following right behind her when a trio of Karves set upon her. Hawkmoon shot down the first, crippled the second with a quick shard burst, and completely rolled around the other - leaving it for Northwind to tear apart, his servo punching through the thin chitinous hull with relative ease.
She reached the first chain and put everything she had into breaking it. Everything she had to shoot was shot. It didn't make enough of a difference.
::This is Ieshí'bhartos, 3rd Velidron Squadron Lead,:: someone pinged her. ::Seeker, clear now.::
Hawkmoon swerved away, throwing her newest pursuers off with the impossible angle of it. A formation of foldfighters loosed a series of automated missiles - but when they hit the chains, they didn't explode.
::Targeting spikers planted!:: the squadron leader yelled. ::End of Reservation, you are free to fire.::
The arsenal ship loosed a rail-round. The slug pierced through the anchor and kept on going sunwards. The link that it hit shattered into a million pieces, and what was left floated back to slap against the side of the Tombcarrier. Other foldfighters, when they had the chance, did the same with the rest of the chains. The End of Reservation broke them all - and then turned its full firepower onto the Hive warship itself. Flames briefly billowed out where the carrier's hull was shattered through, air bubbles catching alight and immolating everything within.
The carrier, though, or at least the commander behind it didn't seem to mind that very much.
They don't fear pain, Hawkmoon had to remind herself - the mantra everyone eventually learned where the Hive were concerned, be they mortal, Guardian, Awoken or alien. They don't fear death.
It usually made more sense when the brood leader at the core of it all was an undying Ascendant.
The Tombcarrier swiveled. She could see its intent - well, if you won't let me secure your pretty space-station in a conventional manner, I'll do it my way. Its prow turned towards-
::This is Marooner-Captain Ikitri'velus,:: the End of Reservation broadcasted. ::Good luck.::
The arsenal ship boosted forwards, thrusters burning at full power. It hit the larger Tombcarrier's portside. Knocked it off target. The front of the Taishibethi warship crumpled in on itself like a crushed soda can, while its momentum propelled what remained into crunching deep in the Hive ship's flank. The fires filling out the Tombcarrier's broken hull took on a green note; it could have been anything from the spell-bound reactor setting off or a Wizard's curse ingredients having caught some unlucky sparks. The result was the same - it exploded from the middle out, catching the End of Reservation in its blast. Steel blistered and burst - and the killing magic ran right down the vessel, inside and out.
The wrecks floated away.
::Ikitri!:: Cyberwarp yelled.
::He's dead,:: Hawkmoon told her. ::Keep your processor in the game.::
::But-::
::Focus, 'Warp! You have two fighters on your tail!:: Hawkmoon turned, caught one in a hail of shard-fire. Quell grabbed the second, tearing one of the scoutship's wings clean off with his claws.
The other portals were vomiting more Karves. More Tombships. More Cryptships and Tombcarriers. Many of them were making for Enlightenment. Others were chasing down newly-arrived Tai vessels. The remainder seemed intent on chugging towards the local Tai worlds for easier pickings. It was chaos - and the Hive...
They outnumbered everyone.
::'Moon!:: Nacelle cut in.
::What?!::
::Can you close them off?!::
::Close-... No. No, I can't. The Raven Bridge is in their hands now.::
::Is there any-::
Hawkmoon didn't wait. She signalled towards the Tai ships, hoping for someone, anyone, and found-
A plateship just warped in. Three entire battle-plates. Those would work.
::This is Cybertronian Seeker Hawkmoon,:: she transmitted, ::hailing whoever's behind those capital ships. By whatever authority your Emperor's invested in me and universal common sense, fire on Enlightenment.::
There was a pause.
::This is Admiral Haritas'noiphas of the Bellicose Interdiction, please repeat.::
::Hit Enlightenment, now! The Hive are hotwiring your Raven Bridge to portal in!::
::You're instructing me to open fire on a holy place?::
::Yes!::
::I... copy. Charging coilguns now.:: Another pause. The Bellicose Interdiction began transmitting across all local Taishibethi channels ::All forces, evacuate Enlightenment airspace immediately.::
::Let's move,:: Hawkmoon said, returning to formation-comms. They flew out of range, faster than the Hive Karves could follow, and watched as the battle-plates armed their railguns - or coilguns rather. When they fired, there was no sound, no real fanfare. A quick glinting flash, maybe.
But the impact was a whole other story.
All three kinetic rounds needled through Enlightenment's hull, quaking the entire station. Fissures ran down the length of it, and the area around where the slugs smashed through was flayed open, plating folding up on itself and peeling off through the sheer force of it. The rounds ripped right through to the other side, burst out and kept on flying into open space towards the - speeding comets of artificial make, destined to orbit around the Sun forevermore.
Who was, as far as Hawkmoon could tell, watching it the entire disaster develop with bleary disinterest.
The countless Hive portals shuddered and began to destabilize. A number of warships were caught within, neatly bisected, and others yet were stranded on the Tai side of space. Another pair of battle-plates warped in and, alongside Admiral Haritas' ships, they went about massacring everything leftover.
The scuttled form of Enlightenment trembled, even long after the kinetic rounds had passed through. Green fire blinked out of the hollowed breaches in its hull, branching out like strands of spectral webbing. The fiery threads twisted and turned, creating an eight-pointed star - each point an arrowhead, contained within the perfect curve of a protective circle. A summoning rune, Hawkmoon knew even at a glance. Like the hundreds of others she'd seen before, when Wizards on the frontier called for reinforcements, just... larger. Horrifyingly so.
The portals reopened, rekindled by a new magic.
Damn Her.
::You need to get out of here,:: Hawkmoon whispered. ::Now.::
::You mean... to Cybertron?:: Northwind asked, subdued.
::No. No, not a chance - they'd follow you all-... Where's Swiftsear? Where's Sandstorm? Where's- where's the Aurorus?::
::We were bringing it through Enlightenment before-...:: Quell trailed off. ::There. I have it. It's- There they are.::
Gliding out into the side of space in the hands of the Tai, Hawkmoon noted. The Aurorus was firing on all cylinders, Sandstorm and Swiftsear covering its back. It almost-
::NO!:: she yelled. Shot after them, pushing herself to her limits. ::Swiftsear, you can't let them, they'll lead the Hive-::
::Hawkmoon?!:: Swiftsear slowed, turned about. ::They're indisposed. We-::
::Cybertron has to be warned,:: Sandstorm coldly interrupted.
::They won't know where Cybertron is!:: Hawkmoon argued. ::Not unless you let them follow the Aurorus home.::
::They don't have the means to follow-::
::OF COURSE THEY DO! They shouldn't have the means to operate space-bridges - and look! FRAGGING LOOK!:: She tailed after the shuttle. ::Deciforge? Deciforge, can you read me? Don't jump. You'll kill Cybertron if you do. Don't-...::
She caught a whiff of the fading EM field readings running after the shuttle. It scream pure, unadulterated terror. Existential dread. Inconsolable panic. From four mecha, joined together in a need to survive.
They weren't soldiers. Not really. Not even Seeker Elites proper. Just jumped-up techies conscripted into service.
Hell, even the 'soldiers' present were floundering.
::Don't jump,:: Hawkmoon whispered. ::Don't.::
The Aurorus adjusted its trajectory. Its warp-drives powered up.
::I'm warning you.::
::Can't stay,:: Voltadron squeaked.
::I know. We'll work something out, just... don't go. We can't bring this home.:: She paused. ::This is your last chance.::
::What are you...:: Sandstorm trailed off. ::No. Don't you dare!:: He swerved to intercept - just as the Aurorus steadied out, the telltale telegraph of an imminent warp-jump.
Hawkmoon vented a sigh, inaudible to all but herself, and opened fire. The first burst only just managed to cut through the kinetic shield around the shuttle, but the second hit the rear-end thrusters, left the ship careening at a wild angle. The warp-drives disengaged with an electronic choke she could hear over their shared comms, narrowly avoiding a messy (if instantaneous and relatively painless) demise.
Sandstorm roared and came at her. He'd been angry with her before, everyone knew that even at a glance, but this just raised it to a new level - and, in his fury, he forwent his inbuilt ability to shoot from afar and came at her with clenched servos. Maybe he didn't want to kill her; maybe there was something in his processor telling him no, you can't kill a fellow Seeker, it just isn't done.
It didn't matter. He darted for her with claws and fists and a taser-thing, and Hawkmoon transformed just in time to meet him. One of his servos closed around her pauldron, just to anchor them together, and the other jabbed towards her abdomen with that sparking thing, trying to induce her into some form of mostly-harmless stasis-lock. Hawkmoon caught it, hooked the edge of her talons around the wrist-mounted contraption and ripped it off. Sandstorm grunted, resorted to scoring his own claws over her chassis, raking them across the glass canopy of her cockpit. Hawkmoon snarled, drove her helm forward, forehead meeting faceplates - and though he lacked a nose to break, the strike still left him dazed, optics blinking.
Hawkmoon grabbed his neck for stability and clocked him across the cheek. The force of it, along with his slackening hold, had him tumbling away - and she thrusted back to jam her wrist-blade into his back, where his thruster-systems were located.
Swiftsear yelled, grabbed her and tossed her away. Hawkmoon went with the motion, willingly, and stabilized her ejection some ways out.
::No one goes back to Cybertron,:: she warned. ::We're not running that risk. Am I understood?::
Sandstorm curled in on himself, and Swiftsear barely had time to spare her a brief glare before trying to stem the worst of the damage - but it was done. Sandstorm wouldn't be flying unaided anytime soon, and Swiftsear wasn't about to abandon him. The Dartwings still lived, but without the Aurorus they wouldn't be making the journey home.
Which left her own trine and Northwind's, basically. Most of which were staring at her, some accusingly.
::I'm not about to let our world die for our mistakes,:: Hawkmoon asserted. ::Northwind - you said you wanted to fight.::
::We're going to die here,:: Skydive whispered. ::We can't-::
::We have to try.:: She narrowed her optics. ::I don't want to do it - but if anyone tries to lead these things to Cybertron, I'll stop you. By whatever means necessary. Am I understood?::
::Clearly,:: Nacelle muttered. He looked angry, just… hard to read who it was at.
Hawkmoon sighed. Spared Sandstorm and Swiftsear an apologetic look - and then the same for the Aurorus, only slowly reasserting control over itself. ::I'm sorry, for what it's worth. Really. But don't test me. Don't. I'll... call the Tai, get them to pick you up. .::
::'Moon...:: Cyberwarp said weakly.
Hawkmoon avoided looking at her. She couldn't bear to see whatever horrified expression 'Warp was wearing. ::I'm headed back to Enlightenment. I'd appreciate the back-up, if you're still willing to follow me.::
Northwind moved forward. Grabbed her arm. Stared at her with wide optics. ::You just... you STRUCK him.::
Hawkmoon pulled away, hard. ::And I'd do it again, if I had to.::
::You... I feel like-::
Hawkmoon ignored him, transformed into her alt-mode and retraced the way back to the skirmish around the broken space-station - to where Tai arsenal ships and battle-plates traded fire with Hive warships in brutal close-quarters engagements.
No one did. Follow her, that was. Not immediately, as far as she could tell, and after that focusing on the fight ahead took precedent. It stung. In her spark - which she hardened soon enough, in anticipation of what was to come.
She fought. Hawkmoon fought, with everything she had - carbine, cannon, blades, claws, even sheer mass. She fought the Hive for every inch of cold space, fought them around Enlightenment and under the ranks of Taishibethi warships and in the no-man's-land between practically filled with lancing particle beams and rivers of searing soulfire. The Hive came soaring out of portals big and small, sneaking up on the Tai to unleash point blank blasts, and the Tai - they adapted as well as they could, with a desperation that could easily be mistaken for bravery.
The Hive kept coming.
But so did the Tai. Because they knew this was it; this was their capital, the very heart of their beloved Protectorate, and they made the Hive bleed for it. They came from all around - battleplates, more arsenal ships, a Myod supercarrier, a brigade of Eecharik oval-ships, Meex barges and Uui-built automated battle-satellites. They threw themselves at the Hive - sometimes literally. Ikitri's self-sacrifice wasn't a unique case before long; crippled foldfighters, dying frigates and even a capital plate-ship overloaded with hexfire threw themselves against the swarms of enemy vessels, all in an attempt to take as many down with them as they could.
And the Hive returned the sentiment with glee. They rammed their Tombcarriers against the Tai offensive, beat the corpse of Enlightenment like a drum with a thousand shrieking Seeders, needled it through with newborn nests and clever little covens from which to weave their terrible spells against the Protectorate's forces. Hawkmoon ran bombing runs against them where she could, transforming and doing battle with the Hive on foot when she couldn't - hunting and being hunted within the burnt-out husk of the once-grand space-station.
She tried making her way towards where the portal-spell originated, in the remains of the space-bridge centre, but it was like trying to fight the pull of a black hole - only in reverse. It pushed her away, as if she and it were magnets of the same charge, and even getting within a two-mile radius of it was nothing short of exhausting. The Taishibethi had tried firing on it. The heavier rounds, those of kinetic make, were split apart into so many pieces as they hit, fragments cutting past the core of the incantation and ripping out the other side of the station. Those of lighter make, like particle beams and heat-needles, were devoured by it. Somehow; the Hive and their weird magic just grabbed natural physics, shook it about for the sheer thrill of it, and tossed it over their shoulder when they got bored.
In human layman terms: it was a fucking nightmare.
The Hive had a hold.
They weren't letting go.
And the Tai were forced to meet them at every turn, feeding into their mythic war machine. Lords of science and physical law - laid low by the attritional devastation brought to them by a foe that couldn't be defeated, couldn't be reasoned with, couldn't be understood with any degree of certainty.
Hawkmoon had heard, once, of a pre-Collapse creature that lived on Earth called the 'crocodile'. She'd heard that when they caught the limb of some prey animal or unlucky human in their jaws, they wouldn't let go - that their victim would often be better off cutting away their own arms or legs to escape, lest the beast drag them down to a watery grave. She would've advised the same to the Taishibethi, just cut the star system away, but it was Tai Prime.
The crocodile had snagged them by the neck.
There really wasn't any helping that.
Didn't mean she didn't try. She tested the spell's boundaries, trying to find a crack in its otherwise impervious defense. Some spells needed mediums, like crystals, to keep going. Nothing from what Hawkmoon could see; it was a stretch, a scrambled grasp at something familiar, because Savathûn was a stranger to her - and those Hive gods played with older, stranger magics than the rest of their kinds.
Regardless, the Hive lurking in the ruins of Enlightenment made her fight for every step taken, doggedly harrying her at every angle. Run-of-the-mill sort of riff-raff, so she cut through them easily enough - with time leftover to prod experimentally at the hex-barrier.
At least up until the Ogre showed.
She heard it roar first - and then spied the silhouette in the green-tinged energy field beyond, within the spell itself. It lumbered forward, revealing first its bloated purple-red head pulsing with agony and rage, then the green-moss-on-white-shell of its engorged body, vaguely reminiscent of that of a much smaller Thrall but ballooned up to monumental proportions. And she knew it - kinda. Not like the others from the Court of Oryx she'd personally helped kill; not like those monstrous people (in the loosest terms) with personality and tastes and individual behaviour. No, it was Krughor, whose only defining feature was that it was big and it had a tricky protective ward cast around it: a shield of raw kinetic energy drawn from some ancient Hive enchantments. And its only weakness was... how did it go again?
"This thing's death lies in another curse altogether," Ikharos muttered - barely audible past the shrieking bellow of the abomination they'd come to slay. "Right, Jaxson, how do you feel about punting exploding things?"
"What? Oh, um, not great, so-"
"Doesn't matter; you're doing it."
"Aw man..."
Ah, yes, that was it.
Well, it didn't look like there were any Cursed Thrall about, so-
The Ogre's boil-covered face lit up.
She dove aside - taking to the air while doing so.
The tortured thing spewed forth from its bulging head a stream of heated Void energy. It cut into the buckled steel of one of Enlightenment's inner chambers and melted through - or otherwise straight converted the metal into a glassy material of a deep violet colouration. Hawkmoon darted around, keeping down and out of sight lest the Ogre swing its eye over her way. It was half-blind, less than fully aware, but all it needed to do was look and she would be dead. Staying in one place a second too long wasn't an option.
Hawkmoon fired at Krughor, missiles and shards both, and found to no surprise that neither form of munitions could break through the hex-shield. Krughor trudged out of the protection of the greater spell behind with the singular desire of sharing its pain, damned be the consequences, and it took all of Hawkmoon's skill to dance around the eye-beams. Really, she was just biding time - trying to hold out until the limping, starved form of a blue-headed Thrall appeared so she could throw it at Krughor. And hopefully not lose her hands in the process, as Jaxson had so long ago. His hesitation had been his undoing; she couldn't risk the same.
::Seeker,:: someone said, her comms crackling online so suddenly Krughor almost caught her while she flinched. ::Watch out.::
It turned out waiting was the way to go, just not for a Thrall - because a black-winged shape dove down and ran the Ogre through with four superheated claws, shattering its shield almost effortlessly. Krughor shuddered, its spine broken and ribcage laid open, and released one last guttural roar before slumping over. Another two massive, hulking figures crashed down, magnetic locks on their boots engaging the moment they landed, and they swung their railcannons around, searching for more hostiles.
Hawkmoon slowed and floated down. Almost drew in a shaky breath before she remembered it was impossible when Úthaessel straightened up, flicked green-black blood from her talons and turned to face them. The Emperor looked... haggard. There was no other word for it; the jade scales around her dimmed eyes had dulled and lost their sparkling lustre, and her feathers no longer sheened brilliantly.
It struck Hawkmoon, then, that they were still theoretically in open space - and the Taishibethi wasn't wearing an insulative biosuit or a rebreather.
Just one of the perks of being the progeny of something less-than-real, she supposed.
Fucking dragons...
Úthaessel gave her a look, almost as if she could hear Hawkmoon's thoughts. "I leave for a battle," she retorted - words carrying across what little air the damaged atmospheric-filters were still pumping out, "just one battle, just one world - and I return to find my home on fire. What happened?"
Hawkmoon afforded their surroundings a final cursory look - just to be sure they weren't about to be set upon by another monstrosity - and straightened, clasping her servos behind her. "The Witch Queen rolled through. She was... disguised as Iix'ii'xii. I don't know for how long; a while, I think. She's been among us, watching us, learning all about us. And..."
"Yes?" Úthaessel impatiently demanded. She sounded... angry. Trying to suppress it and sort of failing.
"She killed Oor'un'xu," Hawkmoon blurted, voice thick. She grimaced. "Yeah, She... She... She killed him."
Úthaessel blinked. Trembled. A single tear rolled out of her right-most eye and solidified into a sparkling diamond, clinking off the ground and then floating up. "My home burns," she said, softly. "My oldest and truest friend is dead. My people face extinction. Tell you succeeded. Tell me he's here. Please."
"Úthaessel-"
"Seeker. I have just returned with my flagship, with all the battle-ready flotillas I could gather from the nearby star-systems, with millions of my people ready to fight. It won't be enough - and you know this as well as I do. Not unless he is here. Tell me you brought the Khargrive."
"I..." Hawkmoon shook her helm. "He isn't. I'm sorry. He wasn't even-"
"You're 'sorry'," Úthaessel echoed. "I... I thought, with you, we might have a chance to avoid this. To avoid this fate. To... survive. My people... they're going to die. The Foe is going to kill them all. I thought having you could change that."
"You need to call your people to evacuate."
"Evacuate? The Foe will hunt down the refugee ships far and wide. There is no escape."
"Some could survive," Hawkmoon persistently pointed out. "It's their only chance."
Úthaessel paused. Her claws curled into her palms, parsing through the short feathers there and breaking the skin just below. "What of this?" she said, gesturing with a wing towards the hex-field behind her. "If we stop this-"
"It's too late to save the system," Hawkmoon told her. "The Hive know where it is. But... look, if we break it, if we can cut them off for now, it'll give your people more time to run."
"Call them, then," Úthaessel sighed, defeated, to her and one of the Myods both. "Call my fleets. Tell them to evacuate. Tell them to flee. Tell them I order it."
Hawkmoon nodded, already in the midst of piecing together the announcement, and just before transmitting asked, "What about you?"
"I will do as you propose. This... curse needs to end. It is a blemish on the Sun's light. I will end it, by whatever means necessary." Úthaessel raised her beak. "What of you? Where are your kin?"
"I left them behind. I..." Hawkmoon hesitated. "I'm hoping they'll go with your people."
Úthaessel slowly nodded. "But you fight."
"It's all I know."
"Even for this losing battle."
"Again," Hawkmoon said, "it's all I know."
"I... have one last request to make," Úthaessel said, almost reluctantly, "if you are willing to grant it."
"Shoot."
"Guard me. While I exorcise this once-sacred place." We're going to die here. I'd like not to die alone.
Hawkmoon paused. Schooled her features, tried to rein in the terrified thrumming coming from her spark. "Of course," she said at length. Ditto.
Úthaessel graciously dipped her head, turned around and held out her hands. Flames licked along the edges of her wings and tailfeathers, running in rivulets like veins along her body and under her reinforced robes, over her shoulders and neck, along her arms and sizzling as they reached her talons. The Sun's magic - the dragon's magic - flooded out, stabbed through the soulfire field ahead and levered it open. The pair of Myod Excubitors went first, cannons at the ready and with their beam-lances in reserve, and Úthaessel strolled after them. Hawkmoon followed, her good servo transformed into a shard carbine, and she braced the other close to her chassis.
"There has to be a crystal in here somewhere," Hawkmoon announced. "To fuel the spell. The protective field, anyways. As soon as we break it, it'll come down."
"And the rest we may leave for my fleet to destroy," Úthaessel surmised, nodding. "I had presumed as much."
"That Ogre probably wasn't the la-"
One of the Myods surged forth, grabbed up a Knight hiding under some rubble and crushed its head in its massive hand. The mollusc ruthlessly stomped down on the Acolytes scuttling out after the dead warrior-morph.
"Yeah, that," Hawkmoon lamely finished. She watched as the Myod finished off the leftover Hive critters. "I'm going to be honest, it looks like you're well-guarded already. I mean, sure, it's an honour to be here and-"
Úthaessel glanced back at her. "You're beginning to ramble."
"Mm, that happens when I get a little anxious."
Úthaessel faced ahead once more, saying nothing.
Hawkmoon, feeling that, yes, they probably needed some quiet to sort out whatever inner turmoil they were wrestling with (her own was a lost cause, so she just settled for ignoring it) before... well, whatever came next.
The crystal, they found, had been planted in the ruins of the space-bridge centre - or just below, where the floor had cracked apart and given way to a spellchamber. There was no way to tell if it was a recent construct or not, whether Savathûn had made it before She opened the portals or left it to seed itself, but ultimately it didn't matter. They were long past the point over worrying about who did what - all that really mattered was what came next.
Anyways - the crystal. It was a tall, towering thing of purple-pink, with reflective surfaces and sharp edges. A bracket of dark chitin held it in place, wearing a diadem of smaller, glowing-green crystals all around the base of the pink one, like those eerie torches Hive hoisted up onto the walls of their nests deep underground.
Above the crystal floated a familiar Wizard armoured in red. Balwûr, a daughter of Savathûn. Her claws glowed with Dark magic, her fangs dripped venom, and she sat high upon a throne of deathly black mist, letting it seep from the edges of her bloodied robes into the air around the spell-engine.
"Emperor," the witch called out in a scratchy, hushed voice. "Seeker. Welcome."
Hawkmoon aimed with her shoulder cannon and opened fire - but the witch merely dipped back into a flashing rupture leading to the Ascendant plane, leaving behind only the echoing notes of mocking laughter in her wake as it closed after her.
She was gone.
They waited a few minutes longer.
Still no sign.
Hawkmoon didn't like it one bit.
Úthaessel stepped up to the crystal, waved the death-mist aside with a flick of her fire-wreathed claws, and placed a palm against the crystal's surface. The malign growth shuddered and began to... melt. It grew wet everywhere it met open air - or open space, rather - and droplets of molten crystal began to trickle down its edges to gather in a glazed pool on the floor below.
"It sounded like she was expecting us," Hawkmoon said carefully, optics darting around.
"A trap, yes," Úthaessel confirmed. "We expected this coming in."
"I... suppose..." Hawkmoon frowned. "But at what point does it spring?"
A howl emanated from the way they came. The Myods turned about and opened fire - one the swarm of Hive charging towards them.
"No, no that's not it," Hawkmoon vented.
The crystal cracked. Úthaessel snarled and lashed at it - and broke it through, leaning back to let the slushy shards and chips fall away. There was a black steel rod in the centre of it. She plucked it out, held it up at eye-level - and broke it across her knee.
The soulfire-lights went out.
The sizzling hum of the hex-field around them faded away.
And the remnants of the chamber's roof were torn away by a transdimensional gale, a hurricane of disembodied paracausal energy - to reveal the battle overhead once more. Something was different, though. A shadow moving across the bright glare of the sun, blotting out the stars, absorbing the light of distant naval engagements on the edge of the conflict. It slowly began to take shape as something more than a gloomy blotch the closer it lurked. Soulfire-pits twinkled around the ovoid shape like blisters.
"Warmoon," Hawkmoon identified with a whisper, craning her neck to look at it.
The dark warmoon, almost as if hearing her call its name, bowled into the battle proper like an oncoming avalanche - taking the Tai beams and kinetic rounds against its hide with little concern for the raw destruction they wove across its surface. It retaliated with quaking volcanic bursts of emerald fire, catching Taishibethi ships and melting them down to atoms.
Úthaessal snarled beside her. The Emperor's eyes glowed with fire - and then, there, above them, something took shape out of glittering light and pale snowy dust. New fires flickered within, blooming and raging to flesh out the ethereal construct, giving it life.
"Kill," Úthaessel ordered, so softly Hawkmoon almost thought she'd imagined it.
The thing moved - and it slithered through the chaos of battle, basking in the light of the Sun and the death all around. It was a serpent, feathered and winged, a proxy-avatar of dragon-magic, borne by the Anthem Anatheme - the power to pick between the gradient of reality-as-is and reality-as-desired. It grew and grew, the fiery raven-serpent, catching the Void on its wings and in its craw, tearing a burning path across contested space towards the warmoon. The dark sphere paused, those within the dread fortress perhaps realizing something was amiss, something was coming, something they couldn't merely pummel until it died - but before they could act on that suspicion, the raven-serpent had them.
It coiled around the warmoon, invading the lost satellite's dangerous atmosphere, coiling like an orbital ring but steadily tightening its grip, around and around until it broke through the stratosphere and cut into the moon's crust - and it kept going, on and on, tighter and tighter until the shrieking moon split open and the raven-serpent slithered inside, devouring everything material and immaterial with a unquenchable appetite.
"Your claw is sharp, milady," something coughed nearby. "You break a warmoon and kill its brood. A lineage is lost, dead by their own bravado, dead by the hand of another stronger than themselves. This is the proper way. Aiat."
Hawkmoon's EM field flickered. She pulled it in tight and twirled around, carbine at the ready.
Oryx stared back.
Magnificent, terrible, a living nightmare built of flesh and bone and shadow. Oryx - with His dark armour and reddish-purple robes of flayed alien leather. Oryx - with His great chitinous horns, His trademark headdress. Oryx - with the wings of something close to a dragon, emulating the Worm, His God. Oryx - with one of His hands clasped around His infamous cleaver, Willbreaker itself.
Beside Him floated His niece, Balwûr, seemingly already a member of His Court. She lingered behind as He approached them, her hands clasped and head bowed.
::Hawkmoon-:: Cyberwarp suddenly cut in, making Hawkmoon tense.
Oryx paused. Looked at her. Tilted His head.
The Myods took up position between them and opened fire.
And Oryx killed them - just like that, moving from one point to the other in the blink of an optic, Úthaessel-quick, both Excubitors reduced to piles of torn muscle and splintered bone.
::No no, shut up, don't, get out of here, GET OUT!:: Hawkmoon screamed back.
"You," Úthaessel exhaled. "You. Arch-Fiend. Vile-Foe. Servant of the Worm. You. You did this. You did this." She threw her arms out, as if to gesture at the entirety of the station, the battle, the war itself.
Oryx nodded. He straightened up. Flicked off the blood from His sword. "I did. I will. Again and again, if it must be."
"You are foul. You are cruel. You are monstrous. You... you are misguided." Úthaessel stomped forward. Hawkmoon had to snatch her elbow and hold tight to keep her from marching right up to Him. "You are a villain. A villain. You've ruined a good thing; we had it all, and we were kind about it. We monitored our economies and agriculture so that no child would ever go hungry. We cooperated with every race we ever met, made room for all to flourish. With our gentle philosophies we tickled the gods! We had a good thing."
Oryx growled. "No. You fell into the trap - the trap of all life guided down the path of lies. Cushioned life grows stagnant; a life lived in strife grows strong." He lifted His sword. "This is the only god, this ability to dictate what will and will not exist, this power to go on existing. This is your god. It is never ticklish."
"I disagree," Úthaessel bitterly spat. "I disagree with every molecule in my body, every element of my Sun-blessed spirit."
::Hawkmoon, they're flooding through, you need to-:: Nacelle called.
::Shut UP and RUN!:: Hawkmoon shot back. She reverted her carbine into a servo and reached for her Nullblade - and knew it was next to useless.
"So you remain unconvinced?" Oryx smiled. "I see. You require a demonstration, milady." He lowered His sword and held out His fist - full of black fire. "Listen to me now, Emperor Raven, and I will describe to you the Last True Shape, which is written on my tablet. It is final; it is ultimate; it is perfect. I-"
A hail of furious gunfire cut him off. Plasma bolts discharged and broke on Oryx's hide, Cyberwarp unloading a missile on the Hive tyrant to boot. Nacelle dove on Him while the smoke was still dissipating, blades enaged-
"No!" Hawkmoon cried out - moving before she realized what she was doing.
It was too late. Nacelle hit the King-
And the King pressed His black-fired hand against his chassis.
Nacelle dropped to the ground, blinked, stumbled back. The dark star-charged energy coalesced around him. He looked back up at Oryx one last time - before the power tugged him through a wound in reality full of lost stars and deep back, swallowing him whole.
The trine-bond encoded within Hawkmoon's spark ripped apart. Nacelle's end closed off. The pain was brief, but it was there, and it drove her to her knees.
Nacelle-
He was gone.
He was gone.
Nacelle-!
"Bastard!" Hawkmoon roared. She flew at Oryx, Nullblade already swinging. He caught it on Willbreaker, shoved her back and smashed a clenched fist against her chassis. Her plating buckled and the glass of her canopy shattered. She tried to gasp, found she couldn't and stumbled back.
Oryx raised His sword high.
Úthaessel slammed into him, her claws sinking deep. Oryx bellowed, tossed her off and spread His wings. She raised hers. Both flew up and crashed together all over again - one alight with orange flames, the other with black. Talons scratched against shell and hadium steel, and hadium bit deep, spilling purple blood.
Hawkmoon spluttered with the white-hot agony in her core, in her heart. The connection was gone, it was empty, it was hollow - but there, that last fading memory of sensation, the complete and utter annihilation of mind and body frozen in the moment, in the exact moment of it, it stayed there, hung there, hung on the forefront of her processor.
So that was what it felt like to be Taken.
She was still moving, Hawkmoon realized a few seconds - or minutes - later. Over to where Cyberwarp lay in a crumpled pile. Helped her up. Neither said a thing. Neither could - it was just about physically impossible.
He was gone.
He was gone.
Nacelle...
"He's... dead?" Her hands shook/shake/would shake.
"Are you listening? His shell was/will be pierced, and where did/will his Light go? Between the Dragon and the Worm who both salivate over the chance to eat some Light and life, it fled to the nearest sanctuary it could find. You. The energy that was your 'Gecko' is now and always will and will never be a part of you."
She stopped/stops/would stop listening at that point/all points/no point. "NO! NONONONO!"
He was gone. Not dead. Somewhere as good as - and so much worse.
"Hawkmoon," Cyberwarp gasped, near despondent, near insensible, near gone herself.
"Do you want to get even?"
She hardened/hardens/would harden her gaze. "Yes."
"How far are you willing to go?"
"What?"
"How far?"
It didn't/doesn't/will not take long for her to decide. "As far as I need to. Gecko was mine."
"'Warp," Hawkmoon croaked. "We... we need to go- need... need to get ou-"
"Nacelle," Cyberwarp said. She straightened up, still shaking, and leaned forward. "Nacelle."
Hawkmoon turned around, afraid - because she knew what she was going to find.
There he stood. His plating, his entire frame blanketed over in the same starry veil of hopeless night. His helm bore only a single bright white eye, a swirling mass of incandescent energy.
"Nacelle, you're-" Cyberwarp started to say - but then Nacelle was there, fresh out of a teleportation suspiciously like a Light-fueled Blink, and his talons coated with crackling Arc planted themselves in her chest.
"NO!" Hawkmoon lashed out, slammed her servo against his head, shoved him back, plucked Cyberwarp up and flew.
She flew. Away.
As far as she could.
And then some more.
Right until her thrusters gave out and they were left drifting.
Hawkmoon found them the wreckage of a burnt-out Cryptship to shelter in. She laid Cyberwarp against the inside of the hull and started counting out what supplies they had at their disposal. Not much, she concluded. Not much at all. Nothing fit to last them through the couple of jumps to the next civilized system.
Nothing fit to fix up Cyberwarp.
Most of their medical equipment was on the Aurorus - which she'd scuttled on the other side of the battlefield - or with Quell - who wasn't answering his comms. None of them were. Not Northwind, not Swiftsear, not Skydive, not even the Dartwings. They might've let out a distress signal earlier, but she'd been too busy trying to keep Cyberwarp conscious that it would've just passed her by.
"I can fix this," Hawkmoon promised, her servos trembling. She pressed them over the open break in Cyberwarp's chassis.
It was bad.
It was very bad.
Nacelle had stuck her deep. One of his claws had raked over her sparkchamber - exposing it and... leaving an ugly scratch on the delicate construct in the process.
The energon kept leaking out. Hawkmoon tried pressing some spare metal sheet over it, but she didn't have enough. She tried cannibalizing parts of her own extraneous plating, cutting pieces off with her deactivated foldblade, but that didn't work either. She couldn't reach the severed cables and tubes within. She couldn't pinch them shut or press them together.
She couldn't-
She just... couldn't.
"I can fix this," she said again.
Magic would work.
But Úthaessel was dead. Hawkmoon had heard her death knell only what felt like seconds earlier, tearing across the entire star-system. The very Sun had dimmed with her loss. All that left was the Hive...
... and the Hive didn't heal.
"I-I can fix this," Hawkmoon repeated a third time, stammering. "I can. I w-will."
Cyberwarp's optics, dull with fuel shortage, met her own. Her own servo raised up and pressed against Hawkmoon's wrist.
"Adria," Cyberwarp said, weakly.
And she died.
Hawkmoon stayed there for a while, in that exact position - crouching over Cyberwarp's limp form, digits hovering around the mortal wound. It took a few joors, but eventually the warnings from her knee-joints and leg-sockets got to her, and she fell back against a chipped pillar.
She stayed like that for a couple days more.
Her fuel counter ticked down.
Her commlink remained dead-silent.
Her trine-bond rang empty.
Because there was no one left to share it with.
Hawkmoon gathered Cyberwarp's body up in her arms, pushed out of the Cryptship and floated. Waited - for energon loss or a hungry scoutship to claim her, she didn't care. Either or worked.
Instead, She found her.
AN: Huge thanks to Nomad Blue for the edits!
He called me a mean bastard. I've chosen to take it as a compliment.