Ghosts of Lyarra Page 32

  One minute; the timer began to flash as time slowed in his mind. He heard the clatter of his soldiers as their restlessness turned to focus. They would be ready when the clock struck zero and so would he. They were about to enter another glorious battle; this one would be whispered about for ages after he was gone. Today was the day the Guild tried to take the Empire from those destined to run it, and today was the day that those people fought back and said no.

  Thirty seconds; time was dragging at a snail’s pace now. Axyn regulated his breaths and concentrated; he readied his shield and checked his rifle before tapping it against his shield with a thud. The energy shield crackled at the impact and sparked; it gave him a feeling of relief and relaxation to know it was all about to start. Then it began; it started with another Ifierin in formation doing the same as he had with banging his rifle on the energy shield but harder. This time, he didn’t stop with one tap and continued it and soon was joined by another and another. Soon, the entire legion of Ifierin were hammering their shields in a thunderous chant that was surely heard on the other side of the lock doors. It echoed in the halls and probably throughout the upper decks of the Dark Light. It was a symphony to his ears and let the Captain know his warriors were ready.

  Ten seconds. A crackle came over the audio in his helmet and the AI spoke up.

  “Your vital signs are surprisingly low.” It began. “Are you sure you are feeling well Captain?”

  “Open those doors, construct.” He growled. “And I will show you how well I really am.”

  One second. The doors hissed and creaked as the latches released. Axyn joined in with the clamor and began to smash his shield. Inside his helmet he began to smile as his bloodlust surfaced in the moment of battle. He could only imagine what was going through the minds of those on the other side of the doors, but knew he would relish in the thought they were terrified and confused at the same time. Shock and awe were the specialty of the Ifierin, not sneaking and subtlety. It was this brute force he was sure his enemies could match and as the doors opened he reveled in the thought of finally getting a shot at the once untouchable Forgotten.

  Zero; inside his helmet Axyn roared as he shot forward and into the station. He was going to enjoy this!

  —

  “All comm lines are down.” The sentry reported to the Dock master as he had frantically tried to restore communications. “It’s like someone just threw the main fuse; everything else is working fine except for the comms.”

  “That’s odd.” The Dock master remarked. “Is it a malfunction or a virus?”

  His years of being honed and focused by the Guild had made him calm no matter what was happening. The Forgotten were trained to analyse any situation and react accordingly; he wasn’t about to jump into a tantrum of anger for a simple electronics failure. A trained and perfected killer in the guise of a simple dock foreman almost made him chuckle as he reached over his worker and began to run a diagnostic on the comms.

  But there was no result to the diagnostics; in fact, it seemed that system too was not functioning properly. His training began to tell him there was something more happening here and he began looking for a more sinister cause than just computer error.

  “How long ago did the Dark Light dock?” he commanded.

  “About ten minutes ago.”

  “And she gave the proper codes?” he asked, pondering the infinite possibilities.

  “Yes, the proper codes were broadcast by Kala herself.” The sentry replied.

  The Dock master thought carefully. Kala was the one destined to take over the Dark Light, and as reported from Zyan she had responded to them without delay when they emerged from jump-space. So in theory, the Dark Light was in full control of the Guild, but the coincidence of this malfunction happening just after the cruiser docked was too hard to ignore. His trained mind began to roll over the facts more and more.

  “Has the Council’s shuttle left for Havyiin?” he inquired.

  The sentry’s fingers scrolled the computer as he actively scanned the docked vessel for the answer. “No sir, it is prepped but as of yet it has not departed.”

  Again he analysed this new information, and began to think that the Dark Light had been infected by some kind of virus in its time out in Terran space. The data retrieved from the assets on Terra Sol told how the humans loved to play with the destructive and disruptive programs leaving little doubt that when it docked and linked with Thsin’s computer the corrupted files were allowed to enter. This was a logical explanation and well enough reason that similar issues were happening aboard the Dark Light that would delay the departure of the new Council.

  But the sound started, and all assumptions of a harmless virus faded quickly from his thoughts. It started as a dull thud; repeated slowly in rhythm over and over. The volume began to rise steadily and rumble the very deck they stood upon. A quick glance around the area told him that it had attracted the attention of every other soul within earshot; all eyes now fell upon the airlock doors of the Dark Light in curiosity.

  He knew that sound, though it took longer than he would like and cared to admit. It was the sound of impending doom; a death knell to all those who stood witness to its sound. It had been half a lifetime since he had heard its call, but the sound of the Ifierin readying to march was one he would never forget. It was his childhood when he had last heard it; in a time when his settlement world had been overrun by the scourge of the Husk and the Fleet had sent help to rescue what few survivors were left. It was the arrival of that help in the form of the Ifierin that sound had announced and with it came the wrath that the vaunted soldiers brought with them.

  It was a sound that preceded a charge; it was the Ifierin letting all before them know they were there in a bold statement. There was no avoiding or hiding; no stealth or sneaking about. The Ifierin wanted the galaxy to know their days were numbered and the greater the clamor raised the more soldiers were in formation. By the power of the sound coming from behind those doors, the Dock master knew the entire legion within the Dark Light was mobilized. He was the only one there that knew with no way to call for help there was little hope of survival. His death march was being sung and as the doors opened he looked straight into the great beyond as the demon clad Ifierin poured out and attacked.

  His last thoughts were that of disbelief; that such a foolproof system had been bypassed by simple soldiers trained to only fight, not to think. It seemed unlikely they could be here; knowing they must have overtaken the Dark Light in force and looked for vengeance within the heart of the Fleet. As a plasma bolt tore through his shoulder, pain knocked him to his knees as the section was being conquered.

  In a final act of defiance, he reached out to trip the alarm. At least the rest of the station would know to expect danger; even if he couldn’t let them know in what form. The second he tripped the alarm, a boot caught him on the side of his head and pinned him against the computer console. From the corner of his eye, he watched as a rifle was lowered to his face before his life ended in fire. In five minutes, the sector had fallen to the Ifierin, but there was so much more to the station than just this tiny wing.

  —

  With the docking module secure, Axyn took stock of the ring layout to better plan the raid. The tough part was the fact that they were fifteen kilometers away from the central hub access that led to Fleet Command. Worse yet, was that the alarm had been raised and the enemy would be ready. This would mean they would be ready for the Ifierin, and it would mean every step of the way would be contested. Axyn smiled to himself; this was going to be fun!

  He would resist the urge to split his forces up in the need to travel quickly to their destination. His men had traversed some of the roughest landscapes in the known galaxy and done so with speed and skill; fifteen kilometers through the halls of Thsin’s ring would be nothing. But it wasn’t the terrain that worried him, it was the opposition. Never before had the Ifierin gone head to head with the Forgotten, but he was dying to break the uneasy
truce now.

  Beginning his planning, Axyn opened up a holographic schematic of the station and pointed out not only the route, but possible points of ambushes and traps. The AI was feeding them with real time information and he could see the troop mobilizations. He glanced over at the section bulkhead doors and reassured himself they were still closed and manned by Ifierin guards. Once he was satisfied all was secured, he began to bark his orders.

  “Solid front formation; wall to wall coverage!” he shouted. “I want shields covering everything and we move as one armored being. Let the Guild toy soldiers try and break our ranks, they won’t even chip our shields.”

  Around him was immediate action as his men took formation ten wide and layered one after another. Shoulder to shoulder they stood with the only gap being front and center which would be filled by the Captain. Axyn jumped down from the hole in the wall where he was perched, donned his helmet and took his place. The air crackled as their gauntlet energy shields sparked to life and were set by the front row in place. Behind them, the second row of Ifierin lifted their shields to cover above and each at the end of the row covered the sides. It was a process repeated all the way down the formation, resembling a turtle shell when completed.

  “Our Empire is being stolen by shadows and whispers.” Axyn called out. “And again we are called to right a major wrong. We face an enemy unlike any before; today we kill Forgotten in our quest for our Empress. The Guild has lain claim to our leaders, and seeks to render us obsolete; let’s show them how obsolete we really are.”

  “All hail the Empress!” the Ifierin hollered in unison.

  Axyn nodded at the men at the gate to open the doors and as they opened he began to scream. His voice was joined by the others around him, and in a single motion they all stepped forward. Immediately they were met by plasma bolts that struck the shields and shrieked as they dispersed. To their enemies it was a painful sound; not unlike scraping metal. But to Axyn and his legions of Ifierin, it was music to their ears. A perfect symphony for a legendary battle, and a great omen going forward.

  —

  Guild World of Ryas, Temple of the Divine Light

  Narig stood admiring the massive temple before him as he scouted the area before letting loose his troops hiding in the pilgrimage shuttles. It was an impressive structure; one befitting of the J’Karin Queen herself as a vacation home even if it was on the small side. It stretched upwards beyond the cloud lines, and stretched hundreds of kilometers at the base. The main steps were large and ornamental, and rose up several stories to the indented main entrance. To the J’Karin commander, the architecture didn’t fit the inhabitants; and though it was not his place or concern to discover why, it seemed the Guild had moved in while the original builders were out of town.

  A few passersby gave him dirty looks and he snarled back at them. It was common for Guild members to look down upon the former race which served them for so long, and his disdain for his people’s former masters was just as strong. It was common teachings to the J’Karin youth that the Guild had transitioned the Empire here, but planned to rebuild it on the backs of the J’Karin slaves. It was the Empress Iana who exercised her power to overrule the Council and offered not only freedom from slavery to the J’Karin, but a seat in the Grand Council as well. Without her, his people would have perished beneath the boots of the Guild by now. It made his thick, black blood boil in rage that these cowards sought to tarnish the legacy of the Goddess of Light.

  He glanced down at his timer and noted it read less than five minutes until they would attack. Normally, Narig wouldn’t take orders from an Ifierin - even if this one was dressed in strange chrome armor - but the High Commander Bryx had seconded those orders and his word was that next to the Queen’s. So he was doing as ordered and reached into his shoulder pack and produced a silver orb the size of a basketball and rolled it around his open palm.

  A grimace fell upon him as even the thought of touching Husk technology made him feel ill, but this harmless looking artifact was the exact weapon needed to bring the high technical dependant Guild to its knees. Every world that had encountered the Husk demons knew this device as it signalled the arrival of the scavengers by encircling the target planet. It was an EMP orb; part of a chain reaction device salvaged from a harvester torn asunder when it chose to attack a J’Karin colony world. To this day, only the J’Karin stood as the only race to triumph over the Husk without calling for help from the Fleet; and to this day, no one in the Empire knew exactly how much of the Husk technology was scavenged from the defeated attackers.

  Narig knew these devices well, and activated both its minute gravity drive and its timer. It had been preprogrammed to hover at five thousand feet on his side of the temple and would be joined by four others being let loose by other nonchalant J’Karin on the other four sides of the temple. In a chain they would ignite a powerful EMP that would render any piece of technology useless. There would be no light bending armor, no plasma swords, and no pinpoint blasters to worry about; the Forgotten would have to face his Elite with old fashioned metal weapons, and Narig enjoyed the thought of such a fight.

  As he let the orb fly to its position, he doubted it would draw much attention; personally he didn’t care if it did. His mission was simple; purge the Guild filth from the temple of the Prophets. There was no quarter to be given and no survivors to be left. Purge the halls in blood and fire to end the threat before it can grow any more. It was a battle he could be proud of, and one fitting of the J’Karin Elite. Even though valiant and strong J’Karin served the Empire as members of the Ifierin, they were shadowed in the ferocity and devout training of the Elite. Narig had brought just one battalion of his soldiers numbering only two hundred; but after studying the Intel on the numbers of the wretched assassins inside being close to ten thousand he wondered if he brought too many.

  He smiled again as he looked up at the device as it began to spin wildly. It would explode soon and the fun would begin, but his intention to enjoy the show of the explosion was rudely interrupted by a security detail of five Forgotten that approached him and shouted out to him.

  “You cannot just stand there tunnel digger!” the leader hollered. “Your kind are not permitted to enter the hallowed halls of the Temple of Divine Light. State your business here before we end your miserable life.”

  “My business,” Narig chuckled. “Is to spill your blood over the stones that line this ancient wonder. It is to crush your bones to add to the mortar that holds it all together; forever ending your pathetic existence.”

  The five immediately reached for their side arms and drew them to point at the lone J’Karin. In a sense of perfect timing, the orb exploded high above and triggered the other three with an EMP wave washing over the entire area. Narig laughed hard when the assassins pulled the triggers with no effect. He loved the look of concern expressed in their eyes as they shared panicked glances. Reaching behind his back, Narig slipped a pair of makkar on; brass knuckle-like devices which bore a large curved blade across its face.

  “What’s the matter, altar boys?” he barked at the security detail. “Have they not taught you how to fight the old fashioned way?”

  The explosions created a stir within the temple as dozens of Forgotten poured out from the main gates to investigate what was happening. Knowing they had reinforcements, the security detail became confident while drawing their jagged swords from their sheaths behind them. In a matter of minutes, Narig knew he would be overwhelmed by thirty or more assassins looking to spill his blood for trophy. It made him grin larger as his senses sharpened; readying for any advance from his enemy.

  “Under Imperial law, you are found guilty of treason against the Empress and your lives are forfeit!” he bellowed with his deep bass voice that carried all the way inside the now open gates. “I have been charged to deliver your punishment and end your reign of terror before it starts!”

  “We are over a hundred thousand strong and you are but one.” An assassin hiss
ed. “I will hang your head in the great hall as a trophy before the day is out.”

  “Barra Kun Harrii!” Narig hollered and caused the advancing killers to draw back.

  Eerie silence followed his cry as the Forgotten looked about in confusion. But the silence was short lived as the pilgrimage shuttles began to shake violently. Doors were kicked away and the four ships spit forth fifty Elite each; all fully armed with makkar, battle hammers, or eight foot long swords. Their silver armor blazed in the light of Lyarra and the ground shook beneath their feet as they marched in perfect formation. To the disbelief of the assassins, what was once a rouge and seemingly mad lone J’Karin was now a force of nature waiting to be unleashed on them. Those just exiting the temple rushed to form the front lines while shouting behind them to rally more to join.

  “My head on the wall?” Narig bore down on the one who had uttered the threat. “I highly doubt that.” He looked up at the others behind him and shouted. “I have been ordered to impart an offer of mercy on any of you that extends to a quick death if you surrender now! I personally hope that none of you take it; it would spoil our enjoyment.”

  The only response to the offer was the clatter of footsteps on the stone stairs as more and more Forgotten lined up to join in. Narig could see there was easily a thousand or more assassins in the courtyard with more clamoring down to join every second. Without looking back at his Elite, he simply extended his right paw to the side and partially backwards and was thrown a giant war hammer which he caught effortlessly. He loved the feel of the weapon - a ten foot metal rod with a four and a half foot, double headed titanium hammer with a blade pendulum at the other end for better balance - felt perfect in his grasp. In all his life, the weapon had never felt this way to him, but now it felt like an extension to his body.