Overlord

"Describe the Pyramid."

Jaxson took a deep breath. "It... it was alive."

"How so?"

"The air... sometimes it felt like wind. A breeze. But... no, cross that. It was more like the ship was breathing. Everything was in flux. The Dark was static for the most part, ingrained in place, but the Light - it moved. It made the Dark move. Uprooted cities' worth of space to fill with its own mass."

"The Traveler fired upon it."

"I'm not sure... naw, 'fired' isn't the right word," Jaxson said. He chewed his cheek, trying to find the words. "It... it wasn't an attack. No one got hurt. The Light just... it settled where there was room to grow. The place was like a field, barren, and the Traveler scattered seeds to make a point. To make it beautiful."

"Beauty," Osiris thoughtfully mused, "is in the eyes of the beholder. Quantis Rhee described it as unfettered chaos."

Jaxson shrugged. "Sure, but that's life in a nutshell. We're just picking patterns outta nonsense."

"Astute."

"If you say so."

"I'm curious about this dragon," Osiris said softly. Testing the waters. Jaxson wasn't sure he liked it.

"It spoke, it fought, it died," he said. "Nothing more to say."

"Ahamkara make promises. They prey on our fears, our desires. What did it offer you?"

"The same ol' gibberish. You know the kind."

"Humour me."

Jaxson shifted with discomfort. "... A return. To how things used to be."

"Regarding the Light? The Traveler?" Realisation dawned and Osiris's mouth set in a thin line. "Your Fireteam."

"It's fine."

"It's not." Osiris paused. "But who am I to judge. The dragon's remains are neutered?"

"Yeah."

"Are you certain?"

"Relatively."

"Young Wolf, that does not inspire confidence."

"Then maybe you should get to work on that." Jaxson quipped. "Self-esteem's a one-man journey."

Osiris sighed and regarded him blankly. "Humourous."

"That's me."

"I can't abide a conscious Ahamkara."

"You won't have to. Drifter already had a look."

"Drifter?" Osiris's eyebrows rose. "I didn't see him."

"He didn't let you." Jaxson cocked his head. "Maybe you should call him up. Heard you two already had dealings, right? He'll be happy to vouch."

"No. No, I trust you aren't lying." Osiris stood up. "You were never one to play games."

"Never saw the point. Man has something to say, he best say it. So."

"So?"

"Say it."

Osiris made a face.

"You're bothered by somethin'," Jaxson clarified. "Dunno what, and I don't think it's me, but I ain't sure."

"Astute again. Ever the clever sort. Something many of your peers lack."

Jaxson couldn't tell if Osiris meant New Lights or Titans in general, Saint notwithstanding. Maybe both.

"The Witness's delegates anticipated the Traveler's intervention," Osiris continued, "and your incursion. I cannot help but feel we are being manipulated."

"Again?"

"Savathûn was a known variable. Nezarec is not."

Jaxson grunted. "If that even was him back there."

"You don't agree?"

"Oh, I agree, but there's no way in hell I'm treating a dragon's word as gospel."

"I have reason to believe it spoke true. I saw your Ghost's feed."

"So you know what the Pyramid was like."

"One cannot record feeling, no matter the quality of their software. Wonder cannot be transcribed to video or file - and sensoriums are few and far between. I wanted to check if there was something you noticed that everyone else missed."

"You've asked the wrong Guardian."

"No, I don't think I have." Osiris craned his head around to the door. "Come in."

It slid open. Saladin stepped inside, his helmet tucked under his arm - the new tusks framing the steel fangs of a snarling wolf. An artificial likeness, but still convincingly real. The Imperial armoursmiths knew their craft. Cabal embroidery lined his cape, tracing over the dendritic pattern of the Iron Lords. A pendant hung over his breast, bearing the Empress's royal signet.

"We're closing in on Neptune," he brusquely announced. "Calian forces are pushing hard. They've entered close orbit."

"So they're not targeting the civilian ships?" Jaxson inquired.

"No. Primus Orra'ak is building a defensive screen, but his fleet is fracturing. The three additional rested legions are approaching from the Kuiper Belt to reinforce, but they won't arrive for another hour." Saladin paused. "Do we know what they seek?"

Jaxson looked at Osiris. Osiris grimaced and stood up. "A paracausal artefact bearing some relation to the Traveler."

"This is the Black Fleet's doing," Saladin said slowly. "I see."

"We cannot let them land."

"Is there anything to land on?" Jaxson asked. "I thought Neptune was just wind and diamonds?"

"The upper atmosphere is gas," Osiris confirmed, "and the lower is predominantly liquid, but it has a mantle."

"The pressure'll be killer. Even Cabal can't survive that."

"Certainly. But..." Osiris paused. "Ana reported a number of derelict Golden Age installations in Neptune's gravity well. It stands to reason others may have drifted into the planet's pull. If any of them have survived-"

"That's where we find it," Jaxson finished. "But we've been over this before. The Hidden scoured the place. They found nothing."

"Calus's forces are determined," Saladin interrupted. "They may know more on the matter."

"Then it's imperative we strike quickly," Osiris said. "We'll need to board a Calian vessel and hack its database - if not kill Calus outright. We have Splicers?"

"We do. I shall inform Primus Tha'arec immediately."

"I shall join you for that. Young Wolf?"

Jaxson dragged himself back to his feet. "Yeah yeah, I'm with you."

The bridge was a scene of ordered chaos - Psions and Cabal hurrying around, shouting reports, buzzing telepathic memory-packages. The very air shimmered with psychokinetic energy, so thick Jaxson could all but taste it. A trio of Flayers guided the effort, positioned at the helm in deep concert. They floated, legs crossed, and their eyes blazed with power. The diaspora of colours from the viewport danced across the chamber, painting everything in the shifting shades of warp-speed.

To the rear of it all, overseeing the hubbub with a critical eye, stood Primus Tha'arec. He was, in a word, huge. Even bedecked in nothing but a reinforced undersuit he dwarfed most every Cabal present. An ugly scar ran across his face, bisecting his mouth which had thus been replaced with a steel gum and prosthetic teeth. The blackened edges of the gash were indicative of soulfire burn. A Hive Knight's handiwork. The grizzled visage, though, clashed with the wide smile and bellowing cheer he let loose as he bade them welcome.

"The little one!" Tha'arec roared, staring down at Jaxson. "The little godslayer. Valus, you bring me a gift."

"Not for keeps," Jaxson automatically responded. The Primus's entire entourage were looking their way. Some bashed clenched fists to steel-clad chests - a soldier's salute. "Here on loan only."

"Never said otherwise, Ler'rux," Tha'arec chuckled. He nodded to a nearby holoterminal. "Welcome the war beast who hunts your enemies. That's an old legion adage."

The projection displayed the fleet's present formation. There'd been no preamble, no debate, no hesitation about mustering forces; the Cabal had been ready from the get-go. Three Cabal carriers and twelve battleships launched from the fleet, carrying with them several cohorts' worth of warriors - five thousand souls ready to wage war against their own.

"Gotcha." Jaxson looked around the room. Beyond the volume of bridge crew the place was full of decorated officers and champions swathed in audacious Imperial and legion-based heraldry. A couple of House Light Splicers worked at a device that, at a glance, looked to be kitbashed out of House-tech and scavenged Vex components. Whatever its purpose was, it wasn't immediately apparent. "What's our ETA?"

"Mere moments." Tha'arec's voice fell to a growl. "We'll seize this mongrel and march him back to the Empress once and for all."

"What opposition should we expect?" Osiris smoothly interjected.

The Primus spared him a curious look. "You're the advisor?"

Osiris inclined his head, expression schooled. "I am an aide to the Vanguard."

"You approved, Valus Forge?" Tha'arec threw Saladin a look.

"I did, sire. Osiris carries my trust."

"And precious little of mine. He is your responsibility. Am I clear?"

"Aye, sire," Saladin said stiffly. "You are."

Tha'arec harrumphed. "I expect to be informed of those you bring aboard. This is my ship - and you my subordinate. There will no repeat of this."

"Yes sire."

"And you..." Tha'arec turned his attention back to Osiris. "Eight cohorts. Four warcarriers, fifteen battleships and a Leviathan-class vessel of unknown make. Our Psions suspect it's a Black Fleet construct."

"Then they know," Osiris breathed.

"Know what, human?"

"We think there's an artefact of paracausal origin planet-side," Jaxson explained. "Something the Black Fleet wants."

Tha'arec huffed. "Planet-side? There is no planet-side, Ler'rux. Only winds and pressure and ammonia."

"All the same, we can't let them reach the planet."

Tha'arec looked ahead to the frontal viewport. "My priority is reinforcing Primus Or'rak. But beyond that..." He rolled his shoulders. "Valus Forge, prepare your Iron War Beasts for boarding action. Optus Viiak, prepare Harvesters. We find Calus, we end this farce."

"As you will, sire." Saladin stepped away, sparing Jaxson a pointed look. Get ready, Wolf, it seemed to say. We'll be in the thick of it yet.

One of the Flayers perked up. "We are arrived," it droned in Uluranth. Ghost translated for Jaxson's benefit.

The fluorescent display outside was torn away in a moment, the universe slowing down - concentrating to a single bulbous mass of blue set against a canvas of stars. Flashes of light sparkled along that thin line where diaphanous atmosphere met open vacuum. Jaxson could scarcely make out even the largest battleships at play. Just dots on an alien horizon.

"Hail the Orra Redempta III immediately," Tha'arec bellowed. The viewport shifted for a moment, but the new projection failed to manifest.

"Error," another Psion reported. "Orra Redempta III has taken significant structural damage. Visual is corrupted, audio remains."

"Pick up, Or'rak," Tha'arec snarled. "Pick up you bastard."

The radio terminal spat static, whining as the Psions forced a connection. "-ayday!" a Cabal voice yelled. Ghost translated the noise into English, beaming it into Jaxson's earbead. "Intruders on deck, intruders on deck - not Shadow Legion! Thunder Warriors, do you copy?!"

"Cloud Cleavers, we are inbound, repeat, inbound! Secure yourselves, reinforcements are en route!"

"They're here, they've reached the bridge, THA'AREC PLEASE-" the radio cut off with a static scream. In the distance one of the tiny blips erupted, the briefest flare of impossible heat before vacuum stamped it out.

"Orra Redempta III is scuttled," the Flayer reported. "Spectral readings indicate means of assault occurred via paracausal manifestations. Extreme psionic flare."

"Accursed Councilors!" Tha'arec spat. "Calus's needling puppets. Forward! Bolster the Cleavers!"

The battlefleet surged forward - firing ahead in a synchronized micro-jump guided by peerless Psion mind. The very moment they exploded out of non-space kinetic rails and plasmic cannons opened fire. Three Loyalist frigates were shredded on the spot, bleeding oil and components and bodies in plenty. A warship to their left thrusted ahead and focused its shields towards the prow to make a blade, ramming into the closest vessel and splitting it into two. Bodies and debris spilled out into open vacuum

This was Cabal warfare - which was to say it was Hive warfare. The Hordes of Xivu Arath had shaped Torobatlaan culture into a warrior-nation where the only enemy that mattered was the one in front of them. The intimate closeness of it all made the back of Jaxson's neck prickle with unease. The engagements were suffocating. For a moment he imagined he was stood on the deck of some ancient man-at-war, firing point blank into a privateer vessel with black-powder broadsides. The reality of his circumstances was the same - fighting against the quaking of enemy hailfire to keep his balance and watching helplessly as both fleets crashed together in a no-holds-barred rugby scrum. No quarter, no retreat. Harvesters and Threshers filled the spaces betweens, buzzing like furious hornets, but it was the Loyalist crownship that bothered him most.

The thing was massive. Massive - as in several kilometres long if not wide. Large enough to rival Caiatl's own flagship, to even surpass it. The architecture was only vaguely Cabal in nature, concentrated at the colossal Uluranth-headed sphinx jutting from the wedge-shaped prow, but it lacked the flamboyant tabards and illustrious gilding so typical of the Emperor's craft. Everything was just... dark - and Dark. Instead of steel it looked to be cut of the same geometrically-scarred obsidian as the rest of the Black Fleet, which rang more true with every volley levelled against its hull. Where the rest of the Loyalist vessels took grievous damage the sphinx-ship rested unmarred. Each rocket, each hydrogen-packed missile and each superheated laser thrown against it simply... vanished. Disappeared. Scraped from the fabric of reality. Untouchable.

Like a Pyramid.

"Press them for all their worth!" Tha'arec boomed. He swung his fist through the air, almost taking Jaxson's head off. "As Acrius is our witness, we will have them!"

Saladin pulled Jaxson out of the danger zone. "Now is your time, Young Wolf."

"What?" Jaxson stared. "I can't get through that-"

"My War Beasts will cover you. Board that carrier. Find Calus."

"What about you?"

Saladin grimaced. "I must hold here. The Empress bade me."

"Bade you..." Jaxson's gaze drifted back to Tha'arec, who was animatedly stomping his feet and crashing his fists against his breastplate. Like a toddler throwing a tantrum. "Right."

"Go." Saladin gently shoved him away. "Osiris-"

"Three Splicers, five Centurions and a Flayer," Osiris cut in. "Can you provide as much?"

"Two Flayers," Saladin shot back, "and no less. You'll need them."

"Two Flayers, then. But I need those Splicers more." Osiris glanced at Jaxson. "Ready your ship. We'll join you shortly."

Jaxson hesitated a moment - and only that, because another barrage of Loyalist fire rocked the warcarrier and snapped him out of it. "Right," he grunted, and took off running.

His Oviraptor waited in the midst of ordered chaos - scores of Threshers taking off chrome and returning broken and charred, if at all. The atmospheric containment field sparkled at the point where launch bay gave way to open vacuum, flashing when shrapnel and heat splattered across the carrier's shield. Jaxson sent Ghost onwards to kickstart the engines while he tore through his armoury. He quickly clipped a silvered hammer on one hip, holstered a Cryosthesia-77k model sidearm along the other and sheathed his Lament along his back. He chose the Xenophage to round it out - something heavy enough to punch right through a Colossus' armour. Already he could hear Omar's squeaky chirps of sadistic anticipation as he took the machine gun up. Oh, it was the stuff of nightmares.

"Osiris is coming!" Ghost called back. "Do we have space?"

"Better hope so!" Jaxson rushed up to the cockpit and slid into the pilot's seat. "We good to go?"

"Yeah, but... it's hectic out there." Ghost floated down to the dashboard, right over the holo-radar - where swarms of alien craft battered against one another. Too many to possibly track, let alone fight off.

"Saladin's boys'll be on the watch."

"Think they'll see us through?"

"They better." The defense grid lit up; motion detected outside. "Let 'em in."

A clatter rebounded up from the hold as the boarding party clambered inside - Uluranth veterans and Eliksni war-techs. Osiris leaned through the doorframe at the cockpit's rear and nodded. "You're clear to take-off, Young Wolf."

"Closing hatches." Jaxson flicked a switch and the ship's interior repressurised. The air filtration systems hissed - it didn't like having to account for so many living things in so small a space. "This'll be rough. You really shouldn't be here."

"That's for me to decide," Osiris stubbornly retorted.

"Saint's gonna kill me."

"Not if the Witness ends us all. This is our chance. I won't miss it."

"Suit yourself. Ghost?"

"Disengaging docking clamps... Clear."

The Oviraptor rose into the air - and thrust forward, diving out into the gulf of Neptune's orbit. For a moment the front display was dominated by the azure giant, bedazzling them with its limitless blue expanse. The next a Thresher cast in Loyalist colours crossed over their line of sight and shattered the reverie with a burst of Solar fire. Jaxson activated the Oviraptor's targeting system, paused to let it settle in, then keyed in a firing sequence at the first green light. A burst of transmit-beamed Arc-fire tore the fighter apart, overheating its electrical systems until it melted from the inside out. The husk flew onwards, smashing against another carrier's flank and shattering into a thousand pieces.

His radar whined as additional vessels sidled up around them, but the display marked them for Imperial Ascendancy forces. Friendly and don't you dare forget it.

The maelstrom of violence overtook them, enveloped them, swallowed them whole. The sphinx-ship hung on his mind the whole time but it was like fighting the tide; there wasn't any straight path to it. Loyalist and Imperial fighters blazed around them, hammering their hate with armour-piercing shells. A storm of shrapnel, that was all it was, and some of that shrapnel was alive. Vessels crashed into each other here and there - and not on accident, no, the Cabal had peerless pilots. Just not the kinds who considered their lives worthier than the cause.

Jaxson's own entourage were daring, physically putting themselves in between himself and the enemy - often to their own detriment. Soon enough he was trailed by a half-dozen, then just a pair, then nothing, all of them torn away by death or diversion. But that was fine. That was acceptable. The Oviraptor handled better than any mass-produced Thresher. A Golden Age smuggler's little hauler - reconverted into a beast of war. And Ghost was a better hand at piloting a Jumpship than any organic being.

They cut towards the sphinx's belly, weaving around needling blasts as the neighbouring warships disgorged cruel weapons of monstrous make - twisting steel, shepherding vacuum, compressing overshields until the hulls underneath gave way. The silence was the worst part. Hundreds died in the space of seconds and there was nary anything to mark their passing. Just flashes of light and gurgling broadcasts - the latter of which grew sparser and sparser the closer they flew. A strange... wailing took over the radios, a deep cetacean-song of melancholy radiating straight from the sphinx's own mouth. A land-whale, Jaxson thought. The ship had the shape of it, just like the Leviathan before it. He'd never seen one personally, but it placed too highly in Cabal folklore to not notice the mosaics, the poems, the very litanies murmured between engagements. A piece of old Torobatl, preserved yet in memory alone.

The Oviraptor swooped beneath the ship's gargantuan prow - and Jaxson gave a start as the black sky above them began to grow closer.

"It's diving," Ghost reported. "It's trying to reach Neptune!"

Tha'arec's Thunder Warriors must have come to a similar conclusion because they focused their fire with greater intensity - all of which were intercepted by ontological theft and rival hulls. The Loyalist armada threw itself in the way, making their own defensive screen lined with their wrecks. They were buying time. Giving Calus a chance to delve down, down, down into the gas giant.

And if Tha'arec's doomsday weapons couldn't break the flagship... then what was to say the planet would?

"Strike now!" Osiris insisted.

"Can't!" Jaxson growled. "Nothing to hit! It's all blackstone!"

"There has to be an openin-"

"There's not!" The Oviraptor ran to the rear of the sphinx-ship. "Ghost, thrusters?"

"No-go," Ghost replied. "They're reinforced. Only way in is through those exhaust ports - and they'll burn us to a crisp."

"What about transmat?"

"Local space is scrambled. We'd end up inside a wall."

"We have another way," Osiris said softly. "Are we close enough, Wolf?"

"It's too Dark." Jaxson made a face. "I don't like it. There's no telling, and I'm not about to try."

Osiris slid into the co-pilots seat and produced from the confines of his robes his rosetta cubes. "Bring us closer."

Jaxson sucked in a deep breath. "You got it." He and Ghost drove the Oviraptor onwards, looping over the sphinx-ship as it made its gruelling descent. "They're moving fast. We're about to hit the exosphere."

"Remain on target."

"Osiris, they're picking up speed. Soon enough they're going to hit a point where we can't follow."

"Wolf, keep going."

"We do that, we die."

"There's interference," Osiris said. "But... I can feel something. We need to get closer."

"To the ship?"

"To the planet!"

Something was happening. The dice were shining, shifting, crackling with arcs of pale lightning.

"Vex," Jaxson breathlessly realized. "The Vex are here."

"The Nexus is trying to analyze the flagship," Osiris replied.

"The Dark doesn't like that."

"Vex don't care." Osiris paused. "It's strong. Can you manage?"

"Ghost," Jaxson barked, "take over." He unclipped his seatbelt and pulled himself back to the bulkhead, all but throwing himself through. The nearest Centurion caught him and helped him rebalance; they were hitting the edge of Neptune's gravity and it was incessant. "Splicer," he gasped. "Need a Splicer!"

A three-way chirp answered him. He saw blue eyes, blue eyes, red eyes - and passed over them too quick to follow-up on that.

"Any of you work a Splicer gauntlet?" he inquired.

A single chirp this time. Red eyes - framed by pale, deadened flesh and black horns. Ah, so that was it. The Captain pushed through the press of Cabal bodies and presented themselves: a four-armed beast half again his height and compounded with armour and muscle. Translucent piping along their arms and shoulders funnelled raw red fluid along their body. Long, wicked dark talons sprouted from their fingertips. No mere Splicer, but a Devil still swathed in their plagued livery. Their cloak was the only indicator of their changed allegiance - bearing the muted red-purple and criss-crossed banner of House Light.

"Right," Jaxson murmured. "Okay. Wow."

"Am Irxan," the Devil said. It had a voice unbecoming of human language, rife with croaking Eliksni enunciations and an echoed otherness. Like a malfunctioning Frame arguing for its prolonged function. Nodes of hardened SIVA dotted its neck and along its throat, glowing red as it spoke. "Irxan-Veskerisk pak Kaloesis."

"Jaxson Ineta," he said in return. "You can work a gauntlet"?"

"Eia." It brandished a dominant hand already equipped.

"Then come up front." Jaxson all but fell back, catching onto the bulkhead and then his seat below. The Devil clambered after him with a sort of dexterity he envied, moving like a vastly overgrown spider along the wall. He caught his own gauntlet as it appeared out of transmat (muttered a quick "Thank you Ghost" while at it) and struggled to pull it over his hand. The blades engaged and flipped out, trembling as they caught hold of ambient Vex code.

-an unknown a new variable a test an intruder a lack of control-

"Oh," Jaxson gasped. "Oh, I see what you mean."

"We can slip onboard through the Vex network," Osiris clarified. He sounded awfully at ease.

"I can't open a terminal in moving space, Osiris," Jaxson snapped. "Not long enough to get everyone through. We have to stop."

"Don't."

"It won't work!"

"Pull the jumpship through," Osiris said calmly.

Oh.

Oh.

"You mad bastard," Jaxson sighed. "Irxan pak..."

"Pak Kaloesis," Irxan corrected.

"Can we do it?"

"Eia." They settled in beside Jaxson, clutching the back of his chair. "But we will be trapped."

"There's no choice," Osiris interjected.

"We may perish," Irxan added.

"It doesn't matter."

"Fucking maniac," Jaxson cursed. "This is why the Speaker exiled you."

"I was exiled-"

"Ghost?"

"We're in the stratosphere," Ghost reported, "and falling fast. We'll burn up before we hit the crush zone at this rate."

"Where are we aiming?" Jaxson asked. "Because if we spontaneously re-manifest inside a solid surface, that'll kill us all."

"The Vex will know-"

"The Vex know jack shit." Jaxson glanced at Irxan. The SIVA needled on his mind; it was a reminder he could've done without. "You good?"

Irxan gave him a blank look.

"Are you ready?"

"I follow your lead, human."

"Fucking hell... Right, let's see what we can do." Jaxson activated his gauntlet. He could feel the machinery at work all around them - the workings of the Oviraptor, the BattleNet stemming from Cabal armour in the hold, even the subdued whispers of the dormant SIVA right next to him.

And the Vex followed after. The local Network was strong. Thick enough he almost feared breathing it in, infecting his lungs with viral radiolarian microbes. Even a stray idea, improperly cordoned off, could've taken root in his brain and grown a new vector from there. It tasted like... like sterility. Like something too clean to have a taste. It tasted of tastelessness, but it felt like static, painless and yet all the more disturbing if only because it was alive. Jaxson heard something akin to pure white noise - the kind that led to straight tinnitus.

-an object a query an investigation an inquisition-

The Vex were alarmed and not because of their meddling. The ship dominated their focus. They feared it. They hated it. They couldn't understand it and it frightened them like nothing else. But it was all Jaxson needed. He rode along the sensations of alien curiosity and through it he charted a path. Irxan followed at the edges of his manifested self, a bodiless presence full of machine malice and predatory hunger; she was a virus in the Network, custom-built to kill any wandering programmes too inquisitive for their own good. It would only work for a time. Whatever Mind was orchestrating the analysis, it was going to notice them eventually. Jaxson wanted to be through long before that.

And, on a stroke of luck, he found a way in.

"Ghost," he said. "Kill the engines on my go."

"We're going to die," Ghost groaned.

"We'll haunt the fuck of him, promise. On three... two... one!"

The ship shuddered, still falling - but into a flexing, yawning conflux, tearing through Vex time and space and plummeted/plummet/will plummet. Eternity stretched/stretches/will stretch all around them. For all time they fell/fall/will fall and in that eternity a temporary instance of Jaxson turned/turns/will turn quite mad.

... And then they were through. The split-second they rematerialized was all Jaxson had to think up a Duskfield, freezing the Jumpship and everything inside into solid Stasis before their velocity could smash them to smithereens. Another thought released them - and that was it. The Oviraptor scraped to an anticlimactic stop, coming to a rest against a blackstone wall. Darkness, silence, the pressure of psionic rage pressing down on his skull - they'd made it and every living thing inside the flagship now knew they were there.

"Here we go again," Jaxson grumbled. "Alright, everyone out now!"

The Oviraptor shuddered as boarding ramps unfolded. The airlocks whined open - safety protocols overriden and hatches shoved out of the way. The Cabal all but raced out, blocking the immediate hail of slugs from outside with their armoured bodies. Jaxson was right behind then, pulling the Void inwards and shrouding both him and those nearby in shimmering overshields.

Beyond, lurking in the shadows, marched Loyalists clad in the deepest purple and peerless gold. They made no sounds; their rifles did all the talking for them. In unison they advanced and when struck by returning fire they fell without a noise. Nothing. Like those aboard the Pyramid there was something different with them. Something intrinsic. It was almost like they lacked life - lacked the very souls that made them for Cabal.

Jaxson waved the following Eliksni down - but they were warriors in their own rights and took cover behind the Centurions, picking off unseen targets with wire rifles. Soon enough the chamber was clear of hostiles. Loyalists hadn't been expecting them; Jaxson was surprised there had been any opposition at all. Without the Leviathan their ability to clone new warriors should have been cut off, and yet...

And yet there was a veritable legion of them left, even after all the losses they'd taken in the last year. More than there had any right to be.

"We need to move," Jaxson said. "Gather up, pack your stuff, follow me-"

"Wolf!"

Jaxson turned. "Osiris-"

Osiris strode past him, a scout rifle already in hand. "We have to find an access terminal, splice into the database."

"I'm more concerned about Calus." Jaxson felt Ghost return to him, hiding in transmat. "Oviraptor purged?"

"Systems are bust," Ghost chirped. "Damn shame."

"Don't I know it."

"Psions know we're here."

"That's obvious. Means we can't stop." Jaxson looked around. "We find the helm or whatever they have here, kill everything inside, bring this damn thing back up to orbit and carve a transmat zone from there. No promise it'll stay that way, but we'll operate on that basis. Clear?"

He received nods and vocalized affirmations of varying enthusiasm.

"And you," Jaxson turned back to Osiris, "can do your biz along the way."

"It has to be our priority, Wolf."

"My priority is keeping this system safe. Calus dies today. We can throttle the Witness's location out of him before we hand his rotted carcass to Caiatl. Look, we gottta go, so if y'have to just argue on the way." Jaxson moved on. "Ghost, what're we looking at?"

"Still scanning," Ghost replied. The others fell in rank behind them. "Uh... we're somewhere in the lower decks, midsection. I don't know where the bridge is. This whole place is a maze."

"We'll find it."

The corridors of the ship wound round and round, packed behind reinforced hull gut-tight. The walls moved; they slithered, shifting and flexing where no one looked. Pale lanterns in the shape of cylindrical glowing jars laid cluttered at every junction while fluorescent veins of golden luster and crimson nightmare ran across the ceilings. Of life there was little - a score of Legionaries waiting in silent ambush here, a slathering war beast there. Jaxson had the feeling the ship was testing them, anticipating their next turn to set a new horror upon them.

He wasn't left waiting long in waiting.

At one hallway, broader than the rest, the lights gave way to deep shadow. The glare of Jaxson's helm-propped flashlight did little to banish it - only illuminate that which lurked within. The white light cut across a hand, alien in its arrangement, that quickly retracted from view. Jaxson swung his head up to catch the creature - and sorely wished he hadn't. It was no Cabal, shorter and slighter and thus his first thought was Psion. Already he felt the Flayers at his back rousing their power to do unseen battle, but no psychokinetic strike came their way. Because Psion though it initially appeared, it was... wrong. It wore not the factory-produced armour of the legions but a tattered cloak, hood pulled up over its head. A peek of its face revealed no eye but a mass of wriggling wet growths - not the tendrils of a Jovian like addle-brained Xûr but something more solid, more physical and organic and more alien as a result. It entirely resembled a swarm of pallid maggots trying to take the form of a man.

"Kill it," Osiris whispered. "Wolf-"

Jaxson fired. Just the one burst was all he needed - the Xenophage's munitions were overkill more often than not. The creature died on the spot, its seared remains splattering across the corridor behind it. The ship... shuddered.

Oh yes, something sang - something far away and close by all at once. Something monumental, something other. Something beyond their scope. The screams of distant Psions echoed through the ship, from the walls and the floor and the ceiling above. Oh delectable.

"Calus..." Jaxson hissed. A sickly white smoke rose up from the alien's remains

"Affix rebreathers," Osiris ordered. He dragged one out of his robes and secured it over his face. "Wolf, are we clear?"

"Dunno. Can't stick around as is." Jaxson approached the scattered little maggots that had survived the initial shot. They flexed arrhythmically, but they tried to reach up to him with tiny jawless mouths. Their flesh was pale and sinuous, with the occasional bracket marking the beginning and end of another slimy segment. They were half the width of his finger at most but the largest, so far as he could tell, were a whole foot in length. Where their mucus-laden flesh touched it seamlessly melded together only to separate all over again, searching for another connection, another worm to join with. There was no order to any of it. No sense.

Do you like what you see, my little mongrel?

Jaxson straightened up and twisted around - half expecting to catch Calus leering down at him. All he saw was more blackstone and the alien intricacies therein. He said nothing.

Because they are fond of you. Flesh is their bread and fear-laden thoughts their wine. And you, my darling wolf, are a meat-thing. You are prey. So welcome them! Welcome the adrenaline that pumps through your veins; welcome the violence they come to bear, the very animal-terror they elicit. In this you are alive. In this they will season you to their own satisfaction. Beautiful.

"Where are you?" Jaxson growled.

In truth I hadn't thought to see you again. Not in this universe. What a fool I was. Of course they come not one, not two, but in threes - those locked into service, dissolving their once-sworn oaths to me. Errant hounds to the last. A shame. A pity. A travesty. Of all things I've given you, I thought an honourable death would have been enough to glut your battle-hunger. I expect Oma'alos, beloved by all, now lies dead?

"It didn't have to be. Give it up."

I think not. The Witness has shown me things - great, wonderful, terrible things. Things you have not the spirit to bear. But I do. It would be remiss to let these things pass unmarked, uncelebrated. I am a Bringer of Joy and in the onset of oblivion I will give annihilation a terrific shape.

"You gonna kill every Loyalist for this scam?"

Shadow. Loyalist no more - for that man they served is desiccated and dead. You'll come around. The Emperor chuckled. The ship reverberated with it. My Shadow Legion's desire is my desire. My vices are their mission. Their deaths butter my love for them. So kill, wolf. Kill and know I wallow with delight in their noble ends. Who knew your kind were such misers? To die is to experience like no other! In this I find my pleasure. So be a dear and slaughter as you see fit. I will savour every bit of it.

At last he fell silent. At last the ringing notes of the Emperor's words faded, imprinted with heat into Jaxson's mind until he pulled the Void to the fore, dousing his thoughts in vacuum-chill.

"We go on," Jaxson croaked, his voice sandpaper-raw.

And it was at that moment they came. It was that moment they struck. All around him, all around his retinue men built of maggots stood up from the shadows, ragged cloaks clinging to their frames. A deep-set groan echoed from behind them - something huge was coming their way. Jaxson turned and spotted the eerie light of a Tormenter's neck-stump, saw the biomechanical abominations it ushered onwards with its scythe. A dark shepherd armed with the wickedest of crooks, guiding its hungry herd onto fresh pastures.

"Fuck," Jaxson breathed - and the next moment violence overtook them all.

One of the maggotmen grabbed a Splicer's arm, writhing fingers passing through exoskeleton, flesh and bone with pitiful ease, it's very touch caustic. The Eliksni screamed and drove a shock dagger into the thing's head - and it fell back with a shrill cry sung from a thousand tiny throats. Oh it didn't like that. No sir. Not one bit.

"Fire!" Osiris shouted.

Bronto cannons, slug throwers, wire rifles - they carved channels through the closest maggot-mounds, burning mass and scattering worms to the walls. The Cabal and Splicers cut a fighting retreat, making for Jaxson, but one of the bio-constructs opened fire. A blaze of green light hit a Centurion's absorption shield and it cracked apart with a sizzling pop. The warrior beneath shouted as the last dregs of the blast bit into their armour, driving them to their knees.

"Back, back!" Jaxson roared. He pushed past them for the injured warrior, annihilating three encroaching maggotmen with concentrated blasts. "Run!" Jaxson braced the Xenophage against his shoulder, abating for a moment to reach back with his other arm, to catch the Void as it came to him and toss a discus of humming violet. It rebounded down the hall, catching the closer of the spider-legged constructs and chipping along one of the Tormenter's root-laden pauldrons. The second firing platform he cut down with the rest of his machine gun's mag, but another bio-machine remained: a huge bloated thing shaped like a tick, limbless and floating with a translucent abdomen containing...

...heads.

Cabal heads. Psion heads. And... Scorn heads, still somehow alive and gnashing their rotted mandibles in senseless frenzy, spitting Dark Ether and pus at the fleshy walls that confined them. Jaxson balked at the sight of it - a momentary failing, but no less egriegious for it. A sudden force took him off his feet and threw him down to the floor. A maggotman straddled him, reaching for his face and hissing as its fingers sizzled against his overshield. With a roar of rage and fright Jaxson swung an electrified fist and the alien horror disintegrated on the spot. Another tried to lunge for him, but a volley of mixed gunfire sent it reeling back. Jaxson scrabbled back to his feet - too late. Too late for the Centurion left behind, too late to stop the tick as it caught the soldier with innumerous fleshy tendrils and raised it up, too late to stop it biting down on the yelling warrior-

-too late to block his ears to the sound of crunching armour and cracking bone. The Centurion's body kicked, jittered, and fell still. The bioconstruct tossed their headless torso aside and moved on. Still hungry. Looking for its next victim. Jaxson tossed down a Voidwall and staggered back, the sudden flash of violet flames almost blinding him. He waved back to the others. "Run!" he shouted. "Go, go now!"

"Fall back!" Osiris called out.

Jaxson scooped up his Xenophage and fired through the voidfire, hitting the Tormentor hard enough to make it stumble - and he ran.

He almost lost them. Cabal, Psions, Eliksni, even Osiris - they were quicker than he gave them credit for. Jaxson probably could've channelled his Arc to outpace them, but that was a commodity he preferred to save for the next confrontation. As it was he could still hear the whispering maggots and the thumping of the Tormentor trailing after them - growing quieter and quieter, but refusing to fade entirely. Dogged bastards.

Irxan slowed down for him. They were quieter than the rest, but the sight of their SIVA-altered biology still gave him pause. "Hurry, Lightbearer," they hissed. "They are upon us!"

Flashes of gunfire ahead gave him an idea of what awaited - more Legionaries, more maggotmen, more blasted constructs. They came from adjoining hallways, funnelling them towards some unknown destination. At some point a Centurion, or perhaps Osiris, must have grown tired with the farce and forced their way through a throng of Calus's Once-Loyalists. Jaxson skidded to a stop as Irxan turned in, almost tripping over a body, and he scampered after them. The ambient Darkness flocked to his flashlight, overloaded his helm's sensors and all but stole his sight from him. A hand shot out of the gloom and caught his arm, blessedly solid and lifelike. Irxan pulled him into a squat service room where the others waited.

"Quiet," Osiris whispered.

Jaxson switched his flashlight off and willed his heart to stop racing. The thumping sound grew louder and louder, soon accompanied by the Tormentor's heavy rumbling voice. His blood chilled to ice as it passed outside. And carried on. A couple of smaller, wetter patters marked the maggotmens' progress as they followed along. Soon it all fell away to a keen-edged silence - something he was reluctant to break.

Another light flickered on. Osiris held aloft a lighter, the flame flickering weakly in the starless dark. Jaxson took a moment to look around: one of the Centurions was knelt by the injured Captain, treating their wounded arm with legion-supplied salve, while the other Splicer and a Flayer worked at a small Darkness idol that could have been a terminal or equally an altar, or even both.

"Calus appears to be expanding his ranks," Osiris mused drily.

"Never seen anything like 'em," Jaxson huffed. "Where're these things coming from?"

"The Witness must have held these other agents in reserve. Now that the Black Fleet is opting for open confrontation..."

"It's bringing in all the beasties it can," Jaxson grimly finished. "We can't stay here. They'll double back before long."

Osiris shuffled over to the idol. "What have you found?"

Mechanisms in defiance of logic, o peerless lords, the Flayer projected.

"Kana pak veriitiks," the Splicer added. "Much strangeness."

"Wolf?"

"Why am I your first candidate when it comes to anythin' Dark," Jaxson grumbled. He pushed past them, Stasis already crystalizing in his palms. The idol warbled to life at his approach and at the moment he touched it a string of dilapidated consciousness tethered to his own. It was like pulling on a second skin; to some it may have resembled a psionic metaconcert but it was too quiet. Psions were an aggressively social species. They filled their neighbours' minds with chatter, with suffocating presence. The Dark was the very opposite of that. It was ego made manifest - so much emptiness to fill, to expand, to pig out with pride and hate and all those big, burgeoning emotions that made monsters of them all. It was territory to mark, so when another arrived it encouraged competition. Conflict. The taking of life and overarching dominance of strength, of violence, of efficient brutality.

But there was order in the chaos. There was noise in the silence. Something had passed through - the will of something larger, something worse. Calus or something wearing his voice. The blistering touch of egregore and hunger was rife across the ship, slithering between the walls. Jaxson flitted through the spaces - from corridor to sacrificial chamber to flesh pit to...

A throne room.

Found you.

Something was there, it was opening its eyes, saliva was lathering across its naked fangs-

Oh wolf, He purred. A god in name before, but something beyond mortal scope now. And He was not alone. Another slithered in and out of focus - a red-flesh thing of no definitive shape, no single identity, an imprint of raw sensation. It was an amalgamation of- of- of- of fear. Of fear itself. Jaxson's blood turned to ice and his heart, oh his heart was about to burst, his very body was acting out and he couldn't understand it, couldn't comprehend it. It was feeling and it was manifest.

I. See. You, Fear said. The Terror, the Horror, the Dread, the ring of mismatched eyes framed in shifting meat scuttled back. It clambered over the spine of Calus's wine-stained throne and it raised its wings, spread its claws - framing the Emperor with its nightmarish being. Ler'rux. Wyrmwolf. Pedestrian of that eleven-fold path. I see you. I know you. I have known you since your advent. I am the Devils over your grave. I am the Garden-Keepers in prayer. I am the eyes in the dark and the conqueror of Mars. I am nightmare. I see you. Don't forget me.

Calus bellowed with sick laughter, wheezing wetly. Curling tusks split His rotted jaws, digging back into His own gums and left him delirious with twisted pain. Jaxson saw the Witness's touch in Him and it was hideous. Bravo! He cackled. Bravo. Exult, Wolf. Exult in the presence of your gods - o Eater of Worlds and Haunter of the Eye. Bask in this. Savour it before your end.

Jaxson backtracked. It was a sight not meant for him. His psyche burned for it. Memories rose and died, never to be recovered. A black spot in time and space, torn open in his mind. Secrets buried - secrets deemed unnecessary, worth cutting away if only to spare the rest of him. He fled, bleeding experiences, and his flight sparked attention. Councilors reached with needling claws, dragging against the perimeters of his consciousness. Where are you? they demanded, shrill with sensate hysteria.

But he found his way back and in doing so, retreating before the flare of their beings, much was illuminated. Sights otherwise hidden; treasures buried with lingering guilt.

Jaxson woke with a full body shudder, a whimper rising from his lips. Oh Traveler, oh Traveler, oh Traveler preserve them all. Preserve them-

"Wolf," Osiris pressed, grabbing his shoulders and shaking them frantically.

"I'm here, I'm here," Jaxson snapped. He shoved Osiris away, fighting a retreat - and stepped right into Irxan. The Captain caught him, steadied him, and it was all he could do to not summon his Solar Light and obliterate them on the spot.

"Jaxson," Osiris said placatingly, raising his empty hands for peace. "What did you see?"

Jaxson sucked in air like a drowning man. Blood pounded in his ears. Everything was out of step. "They're coming," he gasped. "But I know where to go."

It was a hard thing, fighting through the ship. He had the name of it though, gleaned from death-dried channels in its archaic thought-systems: Typhon Imperator, which, to Jaxson's limited knowledge of Uluranth dialects, translated to Predator Unequaled. And a predator it was, its agents hunting them through its intestinal tracts. The Shadow Legion had a heavier presence but they shied away from confrontation. The Emperor was preserving them for another purpose - whatever He thought to find in Neptune's depths. The progress, so far as Jaxson could tell, was slow going. The elements were working against the ship. The elements, the Vex, and something else.

They carved their way along the ship's core, cutting into the very heart of it. The architecture was indicative enough of the Typhon's qualities, but it was not without its Calian influences after all. Theft was the Emperor's vice and broken promises paved the roads He walked. The very propulsion systems were a grade different to the ship's Pyramid sisters - because it ran not on the impossible laws of the Dark, but on another, morally worse grounds. Life. Life at the centre of it all, stolen and shackled. Life Jaxson was only halfway familiar with, having wielded it unknowingly some time before.

The doors to the 'engineering' deck, if it could have been called as much, was heavily guarded. Another Tormenter stood in their path. Jaxson froze it solid and dragged it, shattered, to the ground - thus leaving it in range of his fists, his hammer, his searing Light. It struggled to bring its scythe around and certainly not in time enough to catch him, as a series of bone-splitting blows had cracked its armoured skin open and released the dendritic energy within. A tree of hardening Luster sprang out, impaling the Tormentor on its own essence. The accompanying guards, those maggot-ridden revenants, were gunned down with Arc weaponry by his cohorts. There was no mercy. They had none to spare. Not for these filth.

Beyond the doors, caught between limbs of fractal black, hung trapped conglomerations of sizzling energy. They flexed in tandem with each wire rifle fired, stretching to join with electrified bolts of metal as they whined past their holdings - chained to a madman's purpose, fated to dark servitude. Not the most inspiring of prospects.

"The Arkborn," Osiris recognized. He strode ahead, robes trailing after him. Even Lightless he stepped well, avoiding arcs of stray lightning with such ease it was as if he still had it in himself to call the storm.

"Calus swore to leave them be," Jaxson said. "His scribes recorded it. 'Course he defaulted on that promise."

"Why induct a causal drive engine when you can enslave a race of living energy," Osiris added bitterly. "All the better to mark him above the rest of us plebeians. Is this all of them?"

"I don't know."

"I always imagined more."

"Maybe there were," Jaxson said. "Maybe he chose to make an example. There were some on the Leviathan. They... didn't end well."

Osiris turned. "What do you mean to do, Young Wolf?"

Jaxson waved to the most senior of the Centurions. "You. Name?"

"Val Ushotan, lord."

"Watch the door."

"With our lives, Ler'rux." The Val hurried and his warriors followed.

Jaxson grimaced. "That name-"

"It means Wyrmwolf," Osiris explained. "They mean to honour you."

"I know."

"What do you intend here?"

Jaxson gestured to the Arkborn. "We free them, this ship goes down."

"And plummet into Neptune's crushing depths. I am no stranger to risk, Wolf, but that strikes me as suspiciously close to suicide. Do you think we might hold the ship hostage?"

"From Calus? No chance of that."

"I thought not."

Jaxson plucked at the deactivated blades of his Splicer gauntlet. "We can piggy-back an exit through the Network."

"Dangerous."

"Didn't you map the Infinite Forest?"

"I had Reflections," Osiris retorted, "and lives to spare."

"And we have Splicers. We don't need to go far. Just somewhere with an exit."

"You have a destination in mind."

"All roads lead to the same place," Jaxson murmured.

Osiris inhaled quickly. "The Garden? Are you mad?"

"I've survived it twice already."

"You are lucky, Wolf, and I make no small matter of it. But I have never dared to cross those bounds for good reason - and I don't think I'm willing to start now."

"It's linked to the Moon. We survive 'till there, we reach the nearest Hidden outpost and send a signal home."

"It's a poor plan."

"Got any better ideas?"

Osiris levelled him with a sullen look. "I do not."

"Then let's run with what we've got." Jaxson gestured to the Arkborn. "Any idea what we do with these?"

"Break their bonds."

"Ain't that all that's keeping them together? They're energy, Osiris. Raw stuff. That dissipates."

"We require a medium to-"

A tremor shook the room. It came from all around, up from the floor and down from the ceilings, but all the same Jaxson's attention drew back to the doors. "Company!" Val Ushotan gleefully bellowed. All the remaining Cabal - and the two uninjured Eliksni - had their shoulders braced against the door. It wasn't going to be enough. Not for long.

"Here!" Jaxson called, and the Flayers flocked to him. He pointed them to the prisms containing the Arkborn. "How do we get them out safely?"

There may not be time for 'safely', one of the Flayers commented.

"Humour me."

The Psions shared a look before setting to work. Lighting flared from their eyes - winding, touching, joining with the Arkborn. Investigating. Understanding. Communicating. The universe's foremost translators. Why use words when thoughts sufficed?

"We still lack a medium," Osiris objected.

Jaxson glanced at him. "You have your Sunbracers."

"...I do."

"Are they empty?"

"Since Luna," Osiris admitted. What Jaxson heard was since Sagira died.

"Can we rework them? Raw Arc ain't so different to raw Solar."

"There's a world of difference, Wolf, but I take your point. It's feasible. A fine idea at that." Osiris all but tore his bracers off his wrists. "Can your Ghost-"

"I'm here." Ghost manifested between them. "I've got Glimmer enough but I don't know where to begin. Jaxie?"

"I can tinker, but we don't have time for that," Jaxson said. A new idea struck him. "Wait here." He ran to join the others at the door, slammed into it and pushed it back into its frame. There was something on the other side - something big. "Irxan," he gasped. The Captain looked at him with, all four red eyes narrowed to needling points. "Osiris needs ya."

"Hold for me," Irxan murmured, then darted away.

Hold for me.

Easier said than done.

AN: All the thanks to Nomad Blue for editing this.

This chapter was getting way too long, so I opted to cut a portion off for the next - so yeah, that's about halfway finished too.