Chapter 75: Roots that Bind.
After evacuating King Alemon and his people onto the Queen's Heart the large cruiser held its position but rather than be on the ground Sela eleth Mason had ordered them to lift off and maintain a low altitude to make it easier for all the shuttles, landers and Runner's that had been dispatched to all the nearby towns and villages each carrying a royal Beledon envoy to help convince the natives to board the alien ships.
Jack and his family had since returned to the GMF in order to take charge of the relief efforts with each lending not only their command talents but their skills to the efforts, with Tik sending out teams of Hunters by the hundred to areas to help round up not only Beledon but any culturally significant artefacts and art as well though their major focus was obviously the people.
Sela eleth Mason was currently making her parents incredibly proud by conducting the entire fleet like a well-oiled machine, she had turned the GMF into not only a hub for loading refugees into but also a giant air traffic control ship directing all the other ships not only from the CMN but from the other races that had come to help.
Meanwhile, both Jack and Ryan were directing the Seekers to bring not only the message to every Beledon village, town or city they could find but also to act as a liaison between the two peoples as their status among the Beledon as Blessed Ones gave them an edge but even with all of their efforts all of them could feel the pressure of time running out along with a severe lack of resources.
"This accursed clock we're fighting seems to be getting pauking faster with every second that passes, it's like fighting an hourglass where the gap keeps getting wider so more sand falls through!" Jack snarled banging his fists into the Yautja-proof table in the GMF's briefing room in a fit of frustration.
Tik placed a large hand on his shoulder to reassure him and to calm him which was an odd sight, to say the least as both Ryan and Sela were so used to the reverse being the norm.
Ryan looked at his screen in front of him showing the diagram of the planet as a cutaway that showed not only the fracturing crust but the speeding up of the mantle which was causing an increase in the planet's gravity well which was causing problems for the ships in orbit as well as the landers slowing efforts.
Suddenly an idea struck Ryan and he felt like such a fool for not thinking about it before, especially as he was the leader of the Tamers and possibly the most powerful tamer to have ever lived but making this work would not only be a risk it would divert necessary resources away from the direct relief efforts taking up valuable personnel.
"Patriarch I may have an idea but in order to make it work I'm going to need not only you but a good chunk of both our most powerful Tamers and Soul Knights," Ryan said lifting his head to look at his beloved father who turned his bright glowing blue eyes onto him curiously.
"At this point Ryan I'll take a long shot over no shot because at the rate we're going to lose over fifty per cent of the population and that is fucking unacceptable, so what have you got?" his father said.
"Well, we know the Beledon have power deities as they have a healthy population of Dream Warriors hell they even have Nightmare Assassins from what our Seekers have been reporting and didn't you even see that yourself along with Beledon Nightmare Assassins alien ones were pulling the strings?" Ryan said and his Patriarch looked slightly confused and nodded his head.
"Yes from the memories I got from that young human Saviour he fought a Scalathor Nightmare Assassin but was saved by a Beledon Dream Warrior called Ketra and there was another called Ava with them who helped to reunite our lost Runner's Saviour crew together before all of this happened," he said.
Ryan snapped his fingers and nodded his head, "Exactly and given all of the artwork we've been seeing that Matriarch's cultural preservation teams have brought in the Beledon deities are very active," he said and his patriarch looked slightly confused.
"So?" he said.
"So don't you think it's time that we reach out to them and to our own for aid, I don't know what they'll be able to do but I'm hoping that maybe just maybe they might be able to help us hold the planet together just long enough to save as many as we possibly can!" Ryan exclaimed and as he watched his beloved patriarch's eyes not only brightened they became a blue blaze in his skull as his words sank in and his idea lit his soul.
"By the Eternal huntress, you are right! But we will need further aid from our allies if we are going to plug the gap left by the Seekers needed to make something like this work, anyone get any ideas?" Jack said looking around the table and before his eyes, Ryan saw his Matriarch's face light up as an idea struck him.
"Well I've just received a message from Stalker team one who has put forward an interesting suggestion that they believe will get their own people to send more ships to aid the efforts," she said reading a tablet she held in he massive hand, the Clan leadership had put out a Clan wide message before they held this meeting in order to take on any ideas they could to help speed things up and in order to get any thoughts they could to save more people.
"Stalker team one, that's Vippy's pride isn't it?" his Patriarch said and his Matriarch nodded.
"Approve it, my love, their word will carry a lot of weight on the Raptorian home world especially if they get Smoke in on it their people still hail him as the Guardian of Males so that will pull on heartstrings and get more people involved," he said and his Matriarch nodded tapping on her pad sending out her approval to them.
"I'll leave the rest of this in your capable hands my two loves, my and our son are going to do what we can to buy you the time to get as many as you can off-world, we'll see you soon," his Patriarch said leaning in and kissing his Matriarch on the mouth passionately and his sister on the forehead before turning to him.
"Alright my son this is your show lead-on," he said causing Ryan to jump to his feet and to lead the way to their private shuttle summoning his team along the way while his Patriarch did the same.
Once the two groups were on board Ryan began to outline his plan to the gathered Seekers both Tamers and Soul Knights alike, there were a lot of surprised looks being passed back and forth between them but there was a look of doubt, "Do you think we can pull something like this off boss?' Analise asked.
"Don't know but we have to try all we can hope is that the deities of the Beledon stand with us," Ryan said.
As they flew the Seekers air dropped from the shuttle at various points around the planet to coordinate this, this was going to be an effort led by the Tamers as this was really their area of expertise but they needed the raw spiritual power that the Soul Knights could bring to bear to make it work.
Ryan landed their shuttle at the planet's northern pole point and both he and his patriarch got out of the shuttle immediately being whipped by the freezing winds of the desolate frozen wastes of the pole, which thanks to their armour's heating systems they didn't even feel.
Ryan reached out with his senses and used them to pull them towards the centre of the planet's layline which every planet with life had, it was like a flowing invisible river of energy and life that flowed throughout the entire globe.
While Soul Knights could tap into the spiritual realm to call on spirits to fuel them Tamers could call on the very power of life and nature itself to power theirs and these lay lines were the hubs of nature's raw power.
To Ryan's overlayed vision the layline was like a river of green gold energy that made him think of a whirlpool made of liquid gold as all of the laylines swirled and merged together, there would be spots like this all over the planet but the two most powerful were always at the poles, that's why Ryan had sent both Analise and Liam to the southern pole while the others were spread out around the equator to form a massive link with the other two Tamer and Soul Knight teams that both he and his Patriarch had summoned while on route here.
"The power of this layline is so strong that even I feel it my beloved cub unfortunately there is no nexus nearby but I do believe that with a little bit of help we might be able to open a temporary one here though how long it will last I do not know," his Patriarch said holding out his hand over the layline.
As he did Ryan saw his father's fingers plucking at the attracted golden energy which despite him not being a Tamer was summoned to him due to his incredible connection to the ethereal realm he was able to reach out and touch and it made him smile because it made him so very proud to be born to and raised by this incredible ooman man.
His patriarch lifted his eyes to him and Ryan knew it was time, he connected to his comms channel in order to synchronise all of the Seekers involved in this mammoth effort, "Alright people this is it, do or die, it's time for us to give our everything for these good innocent people and by the gods that bless our every pauking day we are going to do just that! So Tamers be ready to follow my lead as this dance must be perfect, Soul Knights stand ready because if the web forms it will be on you to reinforce it and hold it in place, lets pauking do this!" he roared and he heard the cheers and roars in response.
Ryan turned to his patriarch and nodded to say he was ready to begin and his patriarch drew his sword from his back and held it ready nodding to show him he was ready and with that Ryan and all of the other Tamers who were synced up with him began.
His movements while precise were fluid and almost chaotic to the untrained eye but to those in the know, they would understand the significance of it, each movement was crafted to emulate the flow and chaotic nature of life and of nature, this dance was designed to allow the Tamer executing it to tap into the ebbs and flows of nature around them and in this case, the power of the layline directly below him which given the gold and green strand that were now reaching from the ground and catching hold of his limbs so that his movements could weave order into the chaos was working.
Now came the chants, "Great Tree deity of all life this is not our home nor is it yours but the beautiful and innocent people of this wonderful place need our help as we need yours, please Great Tree we beg of you reach out your mighty roots and your wonderous branches to help us bind this incredible world together and to shield it's people while we save them, help us Great Tree we beg of you," Ryan and indeed all of the Tamers with him began to chant in unison.
As he danced the golden energy began to swirl around him like a growing tornado of raw power, suddenly a voice spoke from the energy sounding like it was made of the purest air, "I hear you beautiful one and I lend you my strength use it wisely and save these beautiful people may my mighty roots bind them and branches shield them!" it said and suddenly all around Ryan as he jumped into the air and slammed his fist into the ground massive roots burst from the ground and surrounded him as he was lifted into the air now connected to the layline by glowing gold energy that pulsed and flowed around him as the roots formed a nest below him.
"Soul Knights now! Support our brothers and sisters lend them your strength!" his Patriarch yelled whirling his sword before slamming its blade first into the ground at his feet and channelling his power into it sending him floating into the air connected to it by bright purple tendrils of raw power.
"Guardians of this world we are not of your people and we are not of your soil, we come to your home from across the stars but we come not in aggression but in mercy, summoned here by one of ours that saw the evils inflicted upon your beloved children and refused to let it stand, but we were too late to prevent this evil that has been perpetrated upon them but you have our word that we will not let this vile evil stand, we will not let these pople fall and for every life that is lost this day we will extract revenge for them, we offer you our strength, our love, our power to stand for your children but we beg of you, lend us your strength, use your might, your love and your power to aid us, help us hold this beautiful place together as long as we can and let us take your children from your arms and into ours, help us now, stand for us as we stand for them!" his patriarch bellowed in a voice so powerful that it carried for miles in every direction with the sheer power of the force and intent behind it.
Suddenly clouds began to gather high in the sky above them swirling into a second tornado that reached down from the skies to meet the one coming from the ground and meshing them together in brilliant swirls of white and blue.
A pair of voices boomed so loudly across the area that Ryan actually worried that it would shatter the ice on which they stood, "We hear you children of the Eternal Huntress and our strength is yours, save our children and we will help you to bring the vile villains that did this to our justice," a pair of perfectly in sync voices said.
Through the tornado from the sky, a portal opened and a stream of souls poured down through it into his patriarch's body before their power merged with his sending a stream of power from him into his sword before it reached out and joined itself to Ryan and he felt a rush like nothing he had ever imagined in his life, was this how it felt every time his patriarch was connected to the spirit realm?
For a terrible moment, Ryan worried he would not be able to hold the truly astronomical amount of power he felt a very real fear coursing through him and his will began to buckle, that's when he felt an overwhelming urge to look up.
As he did he found his patriarch looking right at him with his eyes blazing in blue and purple, but there was not a single shred of worry in those amazing eyes of his, "You got this, my boy, I believe in you, you are a Mason and that means you have the stubbornness of Tik eleth and the generations of Yautja before her not to mention the fire of the Celts from me, so dig deep my boy and show the fucking universe why we Masons don't go down easy!" he said in a voice so quiet and yet so powerful it rang Ryan's soul like a bell.
With a primal roar, Ryan focused everything he had into merging the connection between the natural and the spiritual, while at the same time his father acted as well, focusing all of his power into his blade and turning it into a conduit.
From the blade, two huge swirling forms came into being drawing on the energy of the powerful Dream Warrior and spirits he was channelling into the network of energy that he and the Great Tree were fighting to hold together as the mighty roots of the Great Tree spread to all corners of the world in order to hold it together.
From above Ryan a giant glowing ethereal tree formed, spreading its branches out far and wide as the Great Tree tried its hardest to take root in order to hold the world together as long as it could, at the same time from all around Jack figures began to appear and Ryan didn't need to be a Soul Knight like his Patriarch to know that these were the deities of the Beledon, all summoned by both their own and his patriarch's plea to them for aid.
Quick as a flash they spread out and took the roots that were forming from the Great Tree and began to weave them together to form a kind of rope which between them they began to spread out to the other sites at which his fellow Tamers and Soul Knights were located doing their own rituals using those points as spiritual anchors to dig those root ropes into, it was obvious to all that they were fighting a losing battle against the planet itself, by pauk were they going to fight for every second they could give!
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
"Are you sure about this my little love?' Smoke's voice came through the comms in Vippy's suit.
"As sure as I've ever been about anything our love, including the truth of your heart, we need more ships and the only way to get the true weight of my people into this fight is to show them exactly what it is they are fighting for, we need to move them to action, just like we did when you went on the air on the home world and spoke to praise the Surface Stalkers, do you remember how many prides queued up to join us?" she said.
"Well yeah but this is a little different," Smoke said.
"Not really, there are plenty of civilian haulier firms that run cargo and trade not to mention cruise liners, we need them all here and the only way to do that is for a face they know and trust to show them exactly what is happening and what we are doing, we do that and we'll light a fucking fire under their tails trust me," she said.
"I do trust you Vippy, alright I'll hit up those contacts I got in the Pride Life today News studios and Loose Males as well, hopefully, that should do something," he said.
"Roger that my love good luck, we'll keep doing our best down here, over and out," Vippy said and Smoke torched the console as if it was his beloved ones, stoking it as he tried to quiet his fears.
It took less than an hour for him to get a response from the two studios as civilian channels were a fair bit slower than military ones and if it wasn't for the quantum relay station in the Clan Mason embassy on Raptoria he doubted he'd have been able to pull it off but pull it off he did and now they were begging him for the footage he'd promised, so with a heavy sigh he loaded it and transmitted it hoping to the gods he was doing the right thing because a large part of him felt like he was exploiting those poor people's suffering but if it helped save many more of them then it would be worth it surely?
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
In Lespin city the newly voted capitol city of Raptoria Saviour Devlin Thomas was sitting at his desk in the embassy when his console began to bleep and he looked down at the readouts before he read the data packet instructions that came with it, when he realised what it was that was incoming he began quickly routing the incoming data into the Raptorian civilian network and began the parallel data share and no sooner had the share began that he heard the massive screen outside the embassy spark up.
He quickly rushed outside along with two Seekers who had heard the commotion to see what it was that was coming in from the fleet and being broadcast to the citizens of Raptoria but what he saw as he stood in the gardens of the embassy and stared up at the massive screen along with the plethora of Raptorian prides littering the streets both boiled his blood and made his heart ache all at once.
On the massive screen an image of an anchor pride for Pride Life Today news were reading out that they had received word from the newly discovered Beledon home world through a trusted source which showed the odds that both Clan Mason and its allies were facing, they also warned the populace to brace themselves as what they were about to see was disturbing.
The image on the screen changed to a human male in the bright golden armour of a Hunter facing the camera, "Greetings citizens of Raptoria many of you know me as Hunter Smoke the Guardian of Males and I stand here before you today to ask for your help, right now Clan Mason and it's allies including the good people of Raptoria as locked ina race against time, a race with deadly consequences, not but a few short hours ago an act of villainy so vile and unbelivle was enacted on this world you see behind me that it barely registers within my comprehension as to how it could be carried out, but carried it out it was and now the innocent people of this world face extinction, right now Hunters like myself, Saviours, Seekers, Battle Angels and our newest Clan members the War Angels are fighting for all they are worth to rescue as many people as they can from the surface of the planet as the world itself is doomed, even our allies like yourselves have sent ships and aid but we need all the help we can get," Smoke said
Suddenly the image changed from Smoke to suit camera footage from the planet's surface, it showed panicked civilians fleeing their homes and being guided by Clan members of all shapes, sizes and corps into ships, and the image flicked to a Raptorian pride dressed in Saviour blue surrounding a terrified and lost male child who had become separated from his parents and was hiding behind a barrel trying to stay out of the scrum of people before guiding him into the ship where they reunited him with his thankful and tearful parents but it was what came next that truly set every heart ablaze.
Images of the blast zones of what must have been truly massive bombs flashed up showing gigantic craters carved into the surface of the planet with every living thing for miles around reduced to nothing but sand and glass but it was what came next that broke 10 billion hearts all at once.
The images showed the Battle Angels entering the closest villages and towns that were just outside of the blast zone and here the effects of the truly awful amounts of radiation that had been released could be seen, Beledon were missing their fur and skin where it had been charred and burned away like someone had taken a blow torch to them, clothing and armour burned off or armour slagged onto flesh and that was before they got onto the effects of the radiation itself.
Huge open sores, melted flesh, and people's fur falling out in clumps as they simply walked in a daze as the Battle Angels tried their best to guide them into the emergency shielded wards they'd set up to try to treat them but as a team of heavily suited Raptorian medics tried and failed to save a male child who had most of his flesh burned off and his newly grown horns melted his equally injured parents screamed in anguish before succumbing to it themselves but moments later.
The screen flicked back to a very sombre-looking Smoke, "Horrors like this I have not seen in my darkest dreams and Clan Mason will not rest until we bring those responsible to justice but right now we need your help, good people, we need ships any size you can offer will be welcome, for all that we have it is not enough to move and the entire world, so I beg of you good people on my knees I plead with you, help us save these people, help us to show them that there is light in this universe," he said and with that, the transmission cut and the screen returned to the news anchors who by the tears streaking down their snouts were just as shocked as everyone else who had seen it.
That's when it happened, there was a battle roar that would have made an entire Yautja clan proud to have been the one that issued it, but this was no Yautja, this was the hearts of the Raptorian people given a voice, they were outraged at what they had just seen and rightly so, in mere minutes there was a queue so long at the gates of the Clan Mason embassy that Devlin had to hit the panic button to summon as many Hunters and Saviours as he could to control the crowds, but this was not an assault, this was an outpouring of support.
Donations of every kind imaginable began to flood into the embassy, food, medical supplies, blankets, and toys for displaced children as offers of refuge for those displaced young ones, but most importantly, ships lots and lots of ships.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Smoke's console began to bleep widely and he looked down at it as he did he had to rub his eyes, it was a transmission from the embassy on Raptoria and another from the one on the Serpentinus homeworld, they both said the same thing, 'You're message was received and you have incoming,"
No sooner had he read it than hyperspace jump portals began to open at the edge of the system and an almost non-stop stream of ships of all shapes and sizes began to pour through it like metal water, the true children of the Great Tree were coming.
Smoke punched his console, "Envoy one to Hunter one come in Grand Matriarch!" Smoke exclaimed into the comms.
"Go ahead Smoke," Tik eleth's voice replied with such tension in it that Smoke felt her stress even from here.
"It worked Gran matriarch! Both the Raptorians and Serpentinus are coming and oh boy are they coming, patching the feed through to you now!" Smoke said routing the feed from the GMF's long-distance sensor feeds directly to her console.
There was a pause as she processed the information and then when she came back her voice was exactly how he'd always known it, powerful and filled with confidence, "Excellent work Hunter! You and that pride of yours are a true credit to that golden uniform you wear, get to work directing those ships where they are needed, I'm giving you full authority to direct this get those ships where they need to be and by the Eternal Huntress we are going to pull every pauking Beledon off that rock!" Tik eleth roared with such passion that Smoke felt his heart swell like a balloon in his chest.
"Yes Grand Matriarch!" he yelled back and he began hitting buttons faster than the eyes could see.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
"Come on go go go! We cannot wait the pauking water is coming!" Jay yelled as he and Ketra began to shepherd the frightened Beledon towards the waiting landers that were streaming to and from the surface in a near-constant stream.
After evacuating Lord Beltran and his people jay had made good on his promise and had diverted the landers to the coastal city where Ava hailed from, after Ava had shown her lord what was happening and had gotten him to agree to evacuate his people the Clan had set to work pulling the frightened and obviously confused people from their homes and loading them into the landers which ferried them to both the Surefire and the newly arrived King's Love.
Jay understood their fear and their confusion, they had heralds of their Lord telling them all the world was ending and they had to flee and the only place they could flee was right into the arms of a plethora of strange-looking aliens who because of their technology might have very well been gods to these people.
But as if ordained by divine providence that's exactly when the Gods of the Beledon chose to actually show themselves, or rather one did and she had the aid of what could only be the Great Tree and it was a sight that despite living among Seekers all his life Jay would have still never believed if he had not seen it with his own eyes.
The last of the groups which included the royal family of the lands, as well as Ava all of which had refused to leave before the people of the lands, were running towards the waiting landers when Jay noticed something horrifying, the water of the coast receded very quickly to the point where it vanished from sight over the horizon and he knew exactly what that meant.
"Move those fucking tails! We've got a pauking tidal wave incoming!" he bellowed and the Beledon and Clan members began to flat-out sprint but that's when he heard it a dull low roar that was unmistakable in both its source and its power, the water was here.
As he turned to look Jay's mouth fell open as he saw a two-hundred-foot tall wall of water heading right for them, it looked like a wall of pure green glass heading right for them and everything in its path simply vanished like it had been swallowed by the universe itself.
"Oh pauk too late," Jay said as he realised that even with his power-assisted movement there was no way they could make it to the landers in time before it reached them.
But that's when the unbelievable happened, out of the very ground itself a truly enormous golden tree sprang into being made first out of a knot of roots and vines which then wove and wrapped themselves together to form a beautiful and truly behemoth golden tree that stood before the wave like a bastion and along with it sprang a giant Beledon who looked to be made entirely out of clouds that crackled with purple energy, she was truly a sight to behold standing easily three hundred foot tall and dressed in full plate armour while carrying a tower shield made of gold that looked like a wall of sunlight.
"You shall not claim my children while I stand!" she bellowed in a voice so powerful and deep that it made Jay's bones ring like struck crystal as she stood next to the gargantuan tree and slammed her shield into the ground creating a very visible trench.
The wall of green churning water struck her shield with an audible dong that sounded like a bell being struck, but both the giant Beledon and the mighty tree held firm in the force of the entire pauking ocean, between them they carved a channel in the wall which allowed Jay and his companions to reach the last remaining lander and jump in through the open hatch yelling "Go go go!" as he slid along the deck plating slamming the hatch close button as he did.
As Jay pressed himself against the glass of the porthole he swore he could see the giant goddess grinning at them as the little lander circled her and headed for space leaving the kingdom below them to be swallowed by the sea along with the land as far as the eye could see.
"T-T-The gods fight for us, never in a million lifetimes would I have imagined such a thing to happen!" Ava stammered looking like a truly lost little girl as she hugged her legs to her chest from her seat.
"I-I-It's the Grand Patriarch, it has to be," Kess'all stammered and they all looked at her.
"The Grand Patriarch?" Jay said and she nodded.
"They call him the God Slayer and with good reason Jay, he was the first Dream Warrior to defeat a Dark God with nothing but his sheer will power, they say he summoned an army of souls to him and together they tore the Dark god Loki from H'chak, if anyone could bring the Gods of the Beledon out swinging for them it's him, it pauking has to be!" she exclaimed and when they got into orbit they all saw it and as one their mouths dropped open.
Circling the planet and originating from the poles was a latticework of energy, both gold and purple mixed together to form a chain that was encircling the planet, it looked like it was actually holding the planet together like a balloon wrapped in duct tape.
"No this isn't just the Grand Patriarch, it's all of them, the Seekers are fighting to keep the bloody planet together!" he exclaimed.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Jack fought fatigue the likes of which he had never imagined in his lifetime, it felt like, with every ounce of strength and determination out of him, he could feel all of the souls and deities that flowed through him adding their mass and their energy to the effort to hold the planet together as it fought them trying it's hardest to shake itself apart.
That's when the call he had been dreading came through and it came from the one voice that could cut through his fury and his determination to hold the line, the only one he would have listened to in that situation.
"My love the planet has reached critical mass there is no longer anything we can do, I'm coming for you and if you don't get your arse on the shuttle willingly I will drag both you and our beloved cub on board by your pauking hair if I have to!" Tik roared and by the sounds, in the background, her shuttle was already in decent.
Moments later it roared overhead and two very familiar figures dropped from it to the ground while the high-speed assault craft swung around to touch down, Tik threw herself into him and as promised dragged him and his sword from the ground but he simply didn't have the strength to fight her any more, no sooner had she dragged him on board near kicking and screaming than Shena Blackcrest Mason dragged an equally exhausted and wreaked but still fighting Ryan in as well.
"Punch it!" Sela roared to the Saviour pilot who really did not need to be told twice as she began a rapid assent back into the black of space.
All around the globe as the Seekers were plucked from the chain by rescue teams the chains surrounding the planet began to dissipate holding them together just long enough for them to retreat into the depths of space before finally collapsing, that's when jack got to see a sight he had always prayed he would never see, as they watched from the rapidly retreating assault craft the planet simply exploded.
"Hang on shock wave incoming!" the pilot yelled and Tik actually threw her entire self over Jack protectively as it hit throwing them around in the cabin like armoured pinballs with both Tik and Shena grabbing their beloved and weakened husbands and holding them tight as they acted like shields stopping them getting smacked against the bulkheads as the pilot fought to bring the ship back under control as they were tossed around like a cork on a stormy ocean.
When the ship stabilised and they were finally able to peel themselves off the floor Tik helped Jack to his feet while Shena picked up Ryan and the two men leaned on one another as their wives supported them from the other side and as one they looked back out of the window once more only to find the planet just gone, reduced to nothing more than a cloud of floating rubble and rapidly cooling molten rock and metal.
All that it once was and could have been was now nothing more than a floating pile of ash, tears began to run down both Ryan and jack's faces as they felt the wash of the souls that the Clan were unable to save circling them, "We will avenge this in blood and fire, mark my words my beloved ones Clan Mason does not sleep until this is fucking punished, they will NOT get away with this!" Jack said in a voice so quiet but so fierce that even Tik eleth felt a cold shiver run down her spine, she knew her husband well enough to know that he meant every single word, Clan Mason was on the hunt.