Bridge, battlecruiser Hyperion
High orbit, Agria, Terran Dominion
June 28, 998.M41
Event + 9 days
Jim Raynor still wasn't sure how Matt Horner managed to make "We need to talk" sound like a death threat. Perhaps it came with the captain's bars.
He sighed slowly, dreading this conversation. "Matt-"
"No!" Raynor exhaled again: the Hyperion was Matt's girl, and his girl had gotten real shot up yesterday. "Jim, our 'allies' just fucking tried to kill us!"
"No, Matt, some of our 'allies' tried to kill us. We wouldn't have made it through the swarm if they hadn't helped."
"And if they hadn't been trying to murder us all we wouldn't have had to fly towards the Zerg in the first place!"
Seeing the Hype's bridge crew giving worried glances at their quarreling superior officers, Raynor decided to move the conversation elsewhere. Pointing his thumb at the exit, he ordered, "Armory. Now. We'll talk with Swann."
Armory, battlecruiser Hyperion
High orbit, Agria, Terran Dominion
June 28, 998.M41
Event + 9 days
"So," Swann breezily began, "let's recap, shall we?" Ignoring the simultaneous death glares from Raynor and Horner, Swann held up a finger: "We've got a bunch of crazy humans with crazy weapons, crazy shields, a crazy religion, and did I mention the crazy yet?"
Another finger. "Some of these crazy humans actually like us. The ground-pounders drool on my boots whenever they show up here, and the cogboys," he glanced at Raynor and Horner, seeing their incomprehension, "the ones with red robes and a gear fetish, they'd drool on my boots too if they hadn't upgraded from spit to machine oil. Anyhoo, those folks love us and the monsters in the green-white armor seem to like us too."
Another finger. "The crazy priests and the ones with the funny hats seem to hate our guts. Ditto for the flyboys, I dunno why. In fact, considering that a couple flyboys from that big floating cathedral just tried to murder our asses, cowboy, I'd say they really want us dead."
Another finger. "These crazy people seem to be real sure about bug-killing, which I got no issue with. Problem is, some of 'em are warming to the idea of us-killing, too, and I ain't so sure 'bout that. I keep hearing somethin' bout bad religion-stuff over the translators, but we haven't worked it all out yet."
Another finger. "Then there's that damn holo they fight about, the one with Walker the crazy Agrian and some red-armored crazy being buddies. I swear to ya, cowboy, we've had to break up a couple fights over here, of all places, when one of our new visitors breaks out the damn thing. It's a symbol, and so's Walker himself."
Another finger. "So, we've got the 'bad new humans' crazies trying to kill the 'yay new humans!' crazies. Cowboy, with how well-armed they all are, I'll bet you my claw there'll be a big crazy damn fight over this. I'd go on, but I'm out of fingers."
Raynor sighed, kneading his forehead. "Look, Matt, I-" He was cut off by the comm at his belt. Jim picked it up, feeling particularly put on today. "Raynor here. What's up?"
"Sir, we've got a situation."
Freighter Ship for Brains
High orbit, Agria, Terran Dominion
June 28, 998.M41
"Primary objective: Ensure asset security from hostile agents."
Thud.
"Secondary, uh, secondary objective: Secure asset for extraction at useful age."
Thud.
"Tertiary objective: Ensure agent anonymity and safety- aah fuckit, too late for that now."
Father Jeffries, still wearing his clerical collar, sprinted through the Hercules-class freighter. His left hand clutched a holdout gun, useless against the threats he faced now. The priest's right hand kept his guts inside his body, a red stain spreading steadily across his white cassock.
Thud.
Civilians scattered from the priest's way, a faraway klaxon blaring as Jeffries' pursuers came closer. The priest ignored shouts and questions hurled his way, jumping through a hatch and slapping the "Emergency Shut" controls. Knowing what would happen next, Jeffries ducked away and sprinted down the corridor as fast as his wounds would let him.
"Primary objective: Ensure asset security from hostile a-"
Thud.
The recently-closed hatch burst open as a metal fist batted the atmospheric seal aside like paper. A green-white monster stepped through the human-sized hatch, bending and warping the weak civilian-grade neosteel of the bulkheads. A similar figure followed, helmet off and carrying a crackling staff.
Jeffries checked his nav system, the fist-sized device showing his location relative to the asset's position. Not for the first time, Jeffries cursed the asset's tiny size: had it been larger, he could've pursued and apprehended it before these "Imperials" showed up to cause trouble.
"Secondary objective: Secure asset for retrieval at a useful age – hell, I'll take any age right now."
Thud.
Another hatch, another two-second delay. Jeffries ignored it, knowing he didn't stand a chance against these monsters. Skidding around a corner, the priest – it was a nice identity to live, while it lasted – sprinted down a long corridor and threw himself one-handed through another hatch. A bolt flew past his head, missing by inches and detonating harmlessly farther down the corridor.
In a familiar pattern, the priest's hand flipped the cover off of the failsafe trigger on the back of his nav system, and his mouth silently formed the words that he dreaded to say:
"Primary objective: Ensure asset security from hostile agents. Terminate if necessary."
Stella Waters had learned a lot since the Bad Thing had happened. Being hungry wasn't nice. Herky-bird freighters were cold if you didn't have a bed. You could crawl through the vents if you were careful and quiet.
And people really didn't like it if she talked to them, but she could get them to get her some food if she just whispered real quiet-like. Stella didn't like to do it 'cuz Mommy and Daddy said she shouldn't, but Mommy and Daddy weren't here anymore. She tried not to think about it, but she couldn't stop thinking about Daddy and-
Stella quickly stuffed her fist in her mouth, biting down to keep from making too much noise. Her right hand already sported teeth marks, mementos from previous breakdowns. She couldn't hear anyone coming, but if she listened properly, she could sense angry grownups thumping around outside. One of them sounded like Father Jeffries from the scary-church where Jesus's heart was on fire. He used to talk like everyone else, but he'd become silent when Stella turned seven, and didn't talk right anymore. Stella listened real close, and thought she could hear him whispering, but she didn't listen too close. They didn't sound like nice thoughts. Jeffries was running around through the ship, and the other…
Stella instinctively drew away from the other. He was scary, full of faith and fire and fury, and Stella knew she'd get burned if she stayed too close, like that time when she put her hand on the hot stove and Mommy- she bit down on her hand again to dispel the memory.
Scooting through the Herky-bird's air ducts, Stella wriggled away from the silent preacher and the burning other. Quiet time in a cold corner didn't sound so bad right now.
Librarian Marcellus was annoyed.
As most denizens of a Warp-filled universe instinctively knew, an angry and powerful psyker was slightly more dangerous than most natural disasters, and often caused more property damage. A Space Marine psyker, with all the physical stamina and centuries of mental discipline that implied, could be an apocalyptic problem.
Thud.
As previously stated, Librarian Marcellus was only annoyed. This meant that the neosteel bulkheads in his way 'merely' went flying ten meters, instead of ripping open the side of the ship. Pounding through the cramped ship, the Librarian caught a pauldron on a low-handing duct before ripping his arm free and continuing forward.
Not for the first time, Marcellus cursed the too-small ship and its human dimensions. Had they been on a properly Marine-sized ship, the Librarian could have broke into a run and caught the elusive enemy agent already. As it stood, the massive Astartes was slowed to a crawl by the too-low ceilings and tiny pressure hatches, obstacles rupturing and breaking as the Marine forced his way through. Lightning arced from the Librarian's form, unnaturally running along the bulkheads and arcing over impossible gaps. The two Mentors following Marcellus, one a psyker himself, held themselves back from the Librarian's thunderous form.
Thud.
As the next hatch flew away from the Marines' path, Marcellus sniffed the air, the motion gathering the psyker-smells out of the local "Warp." He could smell the iron fear-stink hovering around the civilians, mixed with anger and curiosity and everything that a human should smell like. The Librarian ignored these scents, concentrating instead on the elusive dust-dry smell of his target. The enemy agent was almost impossible to recognize, his psychic footprint unnaturally light and difficult to track. Something was shielding him, somehow; had he ever gambled over anything but killing foes, Marcellus would bet money on it being technology-based. Even with training, it was difficult to conceal one's psychic print with mental discipline alone. Emperor knew, Marcellus had tried it often enough against the damned Tzeentchian cultists with little to show for it.
No, this human enemy had a method of shielding himself that went beyond known Imperial methods, which made capturing him important enough as is. More critical for Marcellus, however, was the one word he'd heard from the enemy agent: "asset." This agent knew something about the young psyker aboard the ship, and the Librarian would not stop until he'd found it.
Thud.
Young psykers were a constant worry for Imperial authorities. Unless properly controlled or executed, they could wreak untold havoc if (not if, when) possessed by a daemon or seduced by Chaos. Marcellus hunted untrained psykers whenever possible, having prevented several Warp-gates and recruited several young Mentors by doing so. He would not stop until this one was found.
Thud.
Another physical obstacle, another psychic explosion. This one was powerful enough to make the deckplates buckle slightly. Stepping through the smoking ruin, the Librarian found himself becoming mildly angry.
Bridge, battleship Armageddon
High orbit, Agria, Terran Dominion
June 28, 998.M41
Event + 9 days
The primary command throne of the Armageddon remained dark and shadowed, its occupant similarly hidden and unknown. Fearful and superstitious crewmen talked of the Admiral in hushed whispers, calling him a mutant, or – far worse- a Warp-daemon in human guise. After all, he seemed to relax, of all things, when the mighty battleship engaged her Gellar drive and jumped into the maelstrom!
Other crewmen hissed at the gossipers, driving them to silence while glancing over their shoulders. As anyone with a grain of common sense had quickly learned, the Admiral ran a tight ship – he had a fearsome spy network that extended over the entire Entente Sector Fleet before said Fleet had arrived at Trieste. The Admiral's control was much weaker over the 157th Fleet, formed from the remnants of the Trieste debacle, but the Armageddon was his personal fiefdom and run as such. No matter the officer's frequently dubious decisions, no one on board dared raise more than a whisper in protest.
Currently, however, the Admiral's attention was focused beyond 'his' battleship, beyond the 157th Fleet and beyond the planet and its unfortunately independent armies below. Instead, the Imperial Navy officer's laser-like gaze was zeroed in on a much smaller target, serenely orbiting near Agria's upper atmosphere.
The Admiral's lips drew back in a feral snarl. "Hyperion."
Within a single week, the damn pack of traitors and heretics had sunk their hooks deep into the fleet – his Fleet! Imperial Guards officers (and, most shamefully, many good Navy men as well) were clamoring to "inspect" the wonder ship, and presumably to pillage the techno-heresies inside. A quick flick of his wrist brought up a report from the Beneficent, one of the fleet's Dictator-class fleet carriers; the officer's report was seemingly dry but obviously panicked if one recognized the signs.
Beneficent's captain had published some excerpts from his lower-decks spy reports, with several parts highlighted; the Admiral read through them with a leaden feeling in his gut. Apparently, the Catachani aboard the Beneficent had disposed of most of their radios, the large sets piling up in hidden compartments that the deviant deathworlders had likely thought were free from prying eyes. Their radio specialists now sported small, strange radios of an unknown make, not coincidentally after the Catachani delegation had visited that devil-ship.
Another flick of the wrist, and several more screens superimposed themselves over the Admiral's vision. The sheer numbers of missives from the normally quiet Mechanicus representatives had nearly overwhelmed his comms officers, and his pale and shaking adjutant had given his commander a few excerpts from the pile. The elusive cogboys were normally silent, preferring to communicate in the noosphere, but apparently every single red-robed individual in the Fleet had decided to message its commander.
Some messages were frantic, properly decrying the techno-heresies that were far too close to loyal Imperial ships for comfort. Others asserted the Mechanicum's claim to anything mechanical, while others simply urged caution when dealing with strange outsiders with apparently miraculous technology.
Other messages, however, either verged on heresy or merrily danced through it while painting bullseyes for puritan Inquisitors. Many messages – far too many – declared the Hyperion the technical find of the millennium, while others urged action to immediately seize the "ship of wonders" (apparently even Techpriests could give into hyperbole) and its miraculous contents. Several messages even recommended this mere technician "Rory Swanne" for sainthood under the Omnissiah's eyes for his innovative new ideas! The Admiral's withered hands clenched the arms of his command throne with an iron grip, his teeth clenching in rage at the mere thought.
Intellectually, he'd always known that the Techpriests of a Deep-range Explorator Fleet were techno-heretics sent away to innovate far from Imperial oversight, and that their insane ideas might infect his Fleet slightly. Yet the potent combination of these Terrans and the Techpriests' own ideas was potentially explosive, so much that the Admiral's chief priest had included the Explorator Ships as among those needing purging.
Almost unbidden, the Navy officer's hands danced over the interfaces embedded within his command throne, bringing up that damn holo once again. At heart, it was a simple sight: a one-handed Terran Marine and a limping Space Marine, each holding the other up and using their opposite's own weapon, standing tall amid a sea of filthy xenos. Despite himself, the Admiral felt a grudging appreciation for the holopict and its near-automatic veracity. The flaws in its execution: the rushed and slightly blurry pict itself, the chaos at the edges, even its off-center orientation and excess bloom said "this is real" in a way that no words could accurately convey. His own propaganda department likely couldn't have staged it better. It had split the fleet down the middle, dividing Radicals from Loyalists – some had even begun to describe themselves by their new titles.
This would never have kept up in a proper Sector Fleet, or even one on campaign. Discipline was, as always, extremely tight in the Imperial military. The first sign of disobedience would have seen the offending ships checked, investigated, and purged of undesirables within weeks. Although the ship's firepower would be drastically lessened by a complete lower-decks purge, and although the security forces would be stretched to kill every lower-decks menial quickly enough, the resulting discipline was always seen as worth the cost. Even now, the Admiral wished dearly that he could simply order his uncorrupted Naval Security troops to clear out the rabble.
The 157th Fleet could not afford that cost. The ever-effective escort squadrons had already encountered vacuum-capable "Zerg" bioforms, and the escort ships had quickly destroyed these targets with the fury borne out of the losses at Trieste. There would be more, though – there were always more. Every ship in the fleet was already under strength due to previous losses, and if the Navigators were correct then there were no loyal Imperial worlds nearby to get new menials at – none in the entire galaxy, in fact. They were alone, surrounded by xenos and heretics, and now the heretics' most potent weapon had bypassed defense guns and void shields and adamantium armor to strike at the Fleet's most vulnerable target – the ever-fallible hearts and minds of its human crew.
They needed a spark. The Admiral's lips pursed as he contemplated the situation: much as he wished to simply order an alpha strike against the Hyperion, he could not risk a full-blown revolt by ordering the Armageddon's lance batteries to take the insignificant "battlecruiser" under their fire. He'd carefully planned the previous attempt, organizing the defense of Agria in such a way that the thrice-damned Hyperion was under his battleship's guns in the swirling Zerg swarm. He'd quietly given the sealed orders to one of his most loyal and effective lance batteries, and watched as they had followed his instructions to the letter – and failed.
Grinding his teeth in fury, the Admiral quickly regained control over himself. He'd failed before, after all, when he'd brought the entire Entente Sector Fleet to bear against the Tyranids at Trieste, and watched as his Fleet fell prey to uncountable swarms of foes. The fleet - his fleet - had been slaughtered, but he'd retreated successfully and bought enough time for the patchwork reinforcements to let him take and hold the planet. He'd failed before, but he'd been persistent, and come back to finish the job properly. The Hyperion might have escaped him once, but he would find another way.
An eye-blink brought forth a strange intercept from Psyker Command: apparently a "metal monster" ('Space Marine,' the Admiral translated automatically) was causing havoc in one of the freighters tailing the Terran battlecruiser. Inspiration struck, and the Admiral paused for a second before sending his orders out. The situation was tenuous, and it merely needed a spark. In fact… he altered his orders, sending out the Armageddon's Alpha Squadron. This time, he and they would do the job properly.
Menials finishing the repairs to the Armageddon's bridge reflexively flinched at the laughter coming from the ever-shadowy command throne.
Armory, battlecruiser Hyperion
High orbit, Agria, Terran Dominion
June 28, 998.M41
Event + 9 days
"Report." Horner's voice, calm once again, cut through his subordinate's panicked babble.
"Sir, the big ship over there" – now a euphemism for the Imperial fleet – "it's launched fighters, and they're heading in our direction. Plus, we've got a distress call from one of the Agrian stragglers. It's the…uh, Ship for Brains, and the captain's yelling to us about some Marines or something tearing up his hold."
Raynor sighed slowly. "Please tell me you've got some good news."
"Sorry, sir, it gets worse. Looks like the 'Marines' over in the freighter are Imperials, and one's a psyker. Either that, or he's found a way to put Tesla coils in his eyes." The operator's attempts at a joke went over like a lead balloon with the Hyperion's leaders.
"Cowboy, no way in hell is this a coincidence," Swann piped up. "Hey, radio op, what color are the crazy Marines over there?"
"One sec, boss…green and white, they're saying."
Swann snapped his claw once. "See? It's not right, somehow. Those green-white fellas actually like us, not like the red armored ones."
Matt picked up on the train of thought. "And the green-white ones don't seem to get along well with their Navy men. Why would the Navy be supporting them?"
"It's a trap," Raynor concluded.
"A trap?" Swann seemed unsure. "So they're going to destroy a couple of their own people over here?"
"Not for them," Raynor stated quickly, his voice unable to keep up with his thoughts. "Trap's for us, fellas. We do anything to harm them, the Imperial flyboys got a reason to blast us all."
Swann scratched his chin. "So, all we gotta do is ignore them and they'll have to go away?"
Raynor paused for a second. "Looks like. We stay out of their hair, the flyboys got no reason to blast us. I think they're too divided on us to decide, which means they need a reason right now to wipe us out. Long as we don't give them a reason to shoot us, we should be OK."
Matt was busy checking the armory's limited holodisplay. "Sir? You're not going to like this."
Four left. 4/10. 2/5. 60% casualties, from mere minutes – less! – of combat.
It didn't look any better any way you put it. Sword Flight had gotten savaged, without even the dignity of shooting back against those "Lightning" interceptors. Lt. Imai and Swords 4, 6, and 8 had buried their troubles in the cantina for days, nervous crewmen keeping them away from "Imperials" tramping through the ship. They'd drunk, they'd cried, they'd reminisced, and they'd sworn to get even.
It was a Wraith pilot's lifestyle, really. Despite speed and stealth, the agile fighters had short lifespans – Wraith pilots were called "hotshots" for more than just their personalities. They burned up, too damn often, and this wasn't the first time that Imai had sworn revenge against an enemy that'd claimed another squadron mate. They'd carried it out, too, carving their names into the enemy with blood and Gemini missiles. Raynor might play nice with the "Imperials" for now, but Imai and the remnants of Sword Flight only saw targets.
After one too many bitch-sessions in the Hyperion's cantina, Horner had assigned them to fly CAP for the civilian fleet, more to keep Sword Flight away from the bottle than for any real defense reasons. They were darting between lumbering Hercules-class freighters and streamlined Albatross passenger ships when the call came in.
"X-ray, X-ray, X-ray, we have unidentified contacts approaching from over there," announced the radio operator, too flustered to keep proper radio discipline. Imai ignored the stuttering radio op, her attention focused on the contacts showing up on her display. The Hype had her weapons systems off, and only her nav sensors were tracking the targets, but Imai recognized the contacts and the attack pattern.
Lt. Imai clicked her mike to squadron-only broadcast. "It's them. Translators are calling them 'Alpha Squadron,' or something like that. Whatever they're called, they're ours now. Turn and burn, mask heat-sigs by skirting the civvies, and stealth once you've hit 250." Fluent in Wraith-speak, the other three Wraiths of Sword Flight turned and engaged their main engines, the muted heat signatures lost amid the muddle of the civilian fleet they were escorting. As the four Wraiths hit 250,000 kilometers per hour, they cut their engines and engaged their stealth systems. Rapidly shunting thermal energy to internal heat sinks and sending power to their passive emissions-control systems, the Wraiths quickly went "black-on-black" against the vacuum of space.
Communicating on tight-beam transmissions, Sword Four asked, "Boss, how're we going to hit them? I don't bet our Geminis will do much against those damn things." Due to his own screwup, Sword Four had missed the plasma explosion that had claimed the rest of the flight. Survivor's guilt had gnawed at him, and Imai knew he desperately wanted to take the flight's killers down.
"Check your missile loads, and load the fourth one," Imai ordered. "I got one of the armory techs to put a single nuke in the tubes and to hide it like a regular missile, just in case we got the chance." Transmitting the correct missile code to her flight-mates, Imai watched as a single missile on her display blinked from a conventional white to a deadly radiation-yellow. Muffled curses over the radio let her know that the other Swords had noticed the change.
"Sword Flight, Sword Flight, RTB, I repeat, abort mission and return to base ASAP," called the radio op. Imai ignored him, her attention focused on her heads-up display as the distance between her and her targets slowly shrunk.
"Sword Flight, Sword Flight, do not attack, I repeat, do not attack those Imperials!" squawked the radio operator, now frantic.
"You sure 'bout this, boss?" asked Sword Six. Imai almost cursed him out, before reminding herself that Six was her second-in-command now and supposed to be the voice of reason. "Revenge," she whispered, more to herself than to her squadron. "They took ours. Now we take theirs."
Heavily stealthed, the four nuclear-armed Wraiths flew towards the ten Lightning interceptors of the Armageddon's Alpha Squadron in a moment eerily reminiscent of the same incident nine days earlier. Deep within the Agrian ships, a little girl unconsciously turned her head and uttered words she didn't understand:
"And so we dally on the threshold of apocalypse."
Freighter Ship for Brains
High orbit, Agria, Terran Dominion
June 28, 998.M41
Event + 9 days
"Secondary objective: Secure asset for ext-"
Thud.
"Father Jeffries" gave up his identity and mission litany under the strain, the man formerly known as "David Brie" half-stumbling away from his doom. The bulkhead behind him nearly clipped the agent as it flew past, slamming an unfortunate Agrian civilian against the wall. Ignoring the blood squelching underneath his boots and the bone-and-brain chunks decorating the walls, the Dominion agent kept running. The constant pounding behind him never abated, and the electric sparks running along the bulkheads kept getting closer.
Vaulting through another hatch and slamming the seal to gain himself another second, "Jeffries's" hand adjusted the psy-screen implant at the base of his skull. He'd known the dangers of the damn thing, but he'd finally given in around the asset's seventh birthday and kept it on whenever the asset – girl – was nearby. He'd kept it going ever since the Zerg invasion, and he knew that it'd started to tear his mind apart. Then again, without the screen the asset could do it perfectly well on her own, or the psychic "Imperial" behind him.
Thud.
As the hatch behind him predictably flew apart under the psychic assault, the agent reached for his nav system and flipped the failsafe open once again. The "inoculation" he'd given earlier this year was still viable, and with a single flick of the switch he could mission-kill the asset and deny its use to the enemy. "Jeffries" knew he should've already done it – he had a snowball's chance in hell of getting away from the monster behind him, and the mission always came first in times like this. Wheezing as another spell of dizziness hit him, David-"Jeffries" kept running.
Space Marines, despite their constant Litanies of Hatred, are surprisingly calm in practice. Considering that blood-rage is an easy road to Chaos, Chaplains unsurprisingly counsel against it, and most Marine officers avoid encouraging anger in order to preserve good discipline.
Librarian Marcellus had passed "anger" a long time ago. Now his entire body and armor were covered in psychic fire, the neosteel of the ship's hull scorched and burning in his wake. He'd known that this "Father Jeffries" would be an elusive target, but the man had proven to be worse than the Eldar about avoiding a fight.
A single memory cut through the Librarian's internal storm: Yes, young idiot! You have a brain, so start using it! Remembering his own mentor's advice and cuffs to the head, Marcellus slowed and reached out with tendrils of psychic power. Without the turbulence of the "normal" Warp to hinder him, the Librarian could see with near-perfect clarity through his psychic senses, and he immediately locked in on the unnaturally quiet signature of his target. Ignoring his confused subordinates, the Marine reached through space and clotheslined the enemy agent with a blow to the forehead.
The Astartes found himself chuckling as he strode towards his downed target. Recover a new piece of heretical technology, find and stop a dangerous young psyker, and get off of this tiny ship. Finally, something's starting to go my way!
Armory, battlecruiser Hyperion
High orbit, Agria, Terran Dominion
June 28, 998.M41
Event + 9 days
"Sir, this is bad." Raynor didn't even have to look at Horner; he could feel the desperation in his tone.
"Yeah," Raynor responded hollowly. They were heading for disaster, and he didn't know what to do. The remnants of Sword Flight, the Hyperion's primary Wraith squadron, were refusing orders and had disappeared from the display. Raynor considered his options: he could try to find and stop the Swords, but he didn't place much hope in that. They only had the Hyperion's upgraded sensors to find the stealthed Wraiths, without a science vessel or a Raven to do the job properly, and a whole lot of space to cover. Besides which, Raynor knew Lt. Imai, and remembered that she was a crafty bitch and damn near impossible to find if she didn't want to be found.
He could warn the Imperials – Raynor quashed that thought with a mental snort. His 'supporters' over there were on the fence about Terrans, at best, and wouldn't back him up if the Swords started shooting. He could run…but the civvies couldn't, not soon enough at least.
"Give me the comm," Raynor ordered, striding over to the armory's central console. Swann yielded it with some reluctance, and the resistance fighter tried to reason with an unreasonable pilot.
Freighter Ship for Brains
High orbit, Agria, Terran Dominion
June 28, 998.M41
Event + 9 days
He was a dead man.
Oh, his heart still beat clearly and his mind was still his own. His arms and legs still functioned, and a strangled gasp of pain let him know he still had a voice. Dominion Intelligence operative David Brie knew, nevertheless, that he would die when that Imperial caught up with him. From the sounds of it, his life could be measured in minutes, perhaps even seconds.
"Primary objective: Ensure asset security from hostile agents. Terminate if necessary."
His hand hovering on the failsafe trigger, David Brie considered his options. Screw it. He knew his mission, he knew his duty. Without extraction from her environment and proper Ghost training, Stella Waters was a potential threat to the Dominion. He couldn't let personal feelings for the asset get in the way of the mission. Her injection was recent, and the kill-switch was virtually a guaranteed kill against someone that small.
Yet no matter how much he tried, "Jeffries's" hand hovered over the failsafe. He knew the mission, he knew the stakes involved. Yet his memory slowly, unstoppably drew back to the Sunday school classes he'd taught on Agria, teaching half-remembered lessons from his own youth to wide-eyed colonist kids. "Jeffries" loved them like his own kids, and could remember them with picture-perfect clarity. David knew what he had to do, but "Jeffries" couldn't pull the trigger.
A last Thud, and he was out of time. "Jeffries" watched mutely as the green-white-armored giant loomed high above his broken body. He felt the psychic yank that ripped the psy-screen from the base of his neck in a shower of blood, and the psychic presence that bored through his mental shields.
Father Jeffries came to a conclusion. A quick hand-flick armed the nav system's incendiary detonator, and a coded series of blinks armed his personal suicide method. As Stella's kill-switch trigger burned itself to slag in his hand, and as his own brain melted before the Imperial could read it, Father Jeffries smiled and accepted his fate.
Failure. The Marine rolled the idea around in his head for a moment, before deciding that he didn't like the sound of it.
He hadn't done it often. A genetically-enhanced superhuman clad in ceramite and exotic alloys, armed with Imperial faith and Warp firepower, Librarian Marcellus hadn't failed a mission for the last three decades. Yet here, now, his target lay dead before him with a brain that was quickly turning into unrecognizable goo. A quick psychic scan found the enemy agent's mind gone, and a taste of his brain matter found it too poisoned to be useful. Many Marines used the omophagea in their gut to glean memories from the recently-deceased, but the enemy agent's suicide technique seemed almost tailor-made to prevent that.
Shaking his head, the Librarian turned away and witnessed the results of his single-minded pursuit. Shattered bulkheads gaped at him, the wide-eyed humans cowering behind them not much better. Several uniformed Terrans were already pointing small arms at the Marines, while a child sobbed next to the corpse of the human he'd regrettably crushed in his pursuit.
Marcellus cast his mind outwards, smelling the rancid stink of shock and fear throughout this Terran ship, along with anger and hate directed towards the armored destroyers – them. Turning away to see the fleet's status, the Librarian was horrified to see Terran strikecraft, white-hot with anger and fury, race towards confused and unwary Imperial pilots.
I caused this. The thought echoed in the Marine's mind, rueful and tinged with regret. Turning back to the corpse that had caused him so much trouble, the Librarian glanced at the tiny electronic device nestled in his ceramite-clad gauntlets. It was a small plastic chip, still streaked with blood from where he'd ripped it from the enemy agent. It was presumably powered by the carrier's own power, somehow: even as he held it, the device's psychic null-space dimmed and died.
The Librarian desperately searched through psychic 'imprints' on the device, on the agent's corpse, on anything, to find out what this unknown weapon was and what it could do. Lost in thought, he ignored the unarmed civilian walking towards him.
"That…that's a psi-screen," stammered the man, shocked. Marcellus quickly turned to the terrified civilian, catching the relevant information with a sweep of the man's surface thoughts. Dominion psi-screen, rarer than nukes and more expensive, only given to Dominion agents…
Had Marcellus not learned the value of keeping a dignified façade, he would have punched the air and yelled for joy. As it was, the Librarian somberly opened his mind to the ship and mentally announced, Attention, Terrans! I have caught a Dominion agent – he showed glimpses of the tiny "psi-screen" device and several whispers from "Jeffries's" mind – and stopped him from calling the Dominion fleet here to destroy us all. It was a lie, but one that the Librarian sold with gusto and more than a little desperation. He had no doubt that these Terrans, frightened and looking for comfort, would believe his words.
That still left the Librarian with an uncontrolled psyker, and a powerful one at that, running around on an unsecured starship. Marcellus momentarily considered ordering a Thunderhawk to destroy the ship, before abruptly reconsidering. I've done enough damage for one day. Instead, the Librarian retraced his passage through the ship, awkwardly trying to fit broken hatches back into place and to re-seal broken bulkheads. As he gently lifted a broken girder from his path, the Librarian wryly considered that he was much better suited for destroying than for creating.
And deep inside the Ship for Brains, a hunched figure cowered in stark terror, peering through the ventilation grille at old Father Jeffries. He'd fallen, and then that little plastic thing had flown out of his head, and then Stella had heard him clearly. He sounded so sad, like he'd lost someone too, and then…then the other had caught him. Then it had gotten really bad.
Stella decided that the other was never going to catch her. Never never never.
"Talk to me."
A pause.
"Imai, talk to me."
A pause.
"1st Lt. Imai, this is your commanding officer. Talk to me or by God I swear I'll arrest your ass and put you on dropship duty for the rest of your miserable life!"
"Sir, I-" Closing her commlink, Lt. Imai mentally kicked herself. You can take the girl out of the military, but you can't take the military out of the girl. A quiet laugh from Sword 6 let her know that her team was listening in.
"Imai, this'll end badly. You know it."
A pause.
"The flyboys over there are looking for a reason to blast us all, Imai. You take that shot and it's war – and we'll lose that war real quick, no doubt about it."
A pause.
"Imai, there are almost ten thousand refugees in the ships behind us. If you take that shot, you've signed their death warrants."
Imai found herself choking up. "Sir, they fucking killed my people! They're waiting for a chance to take us all out! They're-"
"I know." Raynor sounded regretful, and Imai knew the Boss actually was regretful. No matter how often or how bad the Boss hit the bottle, the whole crew knew he believed in the cause with his whole heart. "Imai, they're bad all around, no doubt about it. But there're too many lives on the line for us to screw this up."
A pause.
"Warren Mears. Seven years old. Lived at Planetfall Point, now in the Arrellaga. Cute picture, actually – the little guy looks like he drives his momma crazy. The Arrellaga wouldn't even survive a single laser blast from the Hyperion, let alone anything those Imperials have."
A pause.
"Ying Ni. Nine years old. She doesn't have her two front teeth in this picture, so she's about the cutest little thing you ever saw. She's living with both her parents on the Quetzalcoatl, which is still leaking atmo right now and probably wouldn't even hold up to a Gemini missile from your Wraiths."
A pause. Imai blinked away tears, her deep-seated need for revenge warring against her core of morality that had led her to abandon the Dominion to join up with a ragtag bunch of 'freedom fighters.' For a single moment, Imai's finger was poised over the weapons controls, her single nuclear missile armed and target lock blinking a deadly green.
No.
The psychic voice didn't force her, didn't coerce or yank her hands from the controls. It said a single word to the four pilots, loaded with more regret than any of them would feel in ten lifetimes. Imai and her flightmates felt the sorrows of a galaxy's worth of mistakes and screwups crush them down, of a single bad choice damning civilizations, planets, species to ruin. Despite the high-oxygen mix they were all breathing, all four Wraith hotshots felt themselves hyperventilating under the guilt and pain and oh God why-
Then the voice was gone, and the four pilots found themselves coasting towards annihilation with their fingers on the triggers. Six was the first to break, turning and burning towards home and leaving his comrades' murderers behind. Eight was on his tail shortly after.
Imai found herself moving in slow motion, still in control but almost detached from her movements. Carefully, like demonstrating for the instructors back in the Academy, she safed her weapons and deactivated the targeting system, closing the missile bays and venting emissions back into space. She slowly reefed her Wraith into a turn, the engine vibrating the hull of her tiny craft. Swords Six and Eight showed up as dots on her display, but Four was still in stealth and heading towards the enemy.
Lt. Imai reached for the com slowly, clicking it open for several seconds before saying anything. "Let it go."
"Ma'am, I-"
"Tim. You did good. Now let it go."