To Walk the Constellations Pt. 13

Techne nodded. She'd heard of Lord Vorsoth. Mostly hushed whispered and terrified, shit yourself at night nightmare stories.

"People of the Hegemony," Lord Vorsoth's computerized voice boomed from the pillar. "Listen, and know your place in history. The Hegemonic navy has engaged and destroyed the rebel base at Gem. Their people, slaughtered. Their planet, glassed. Their so-called Liminal Knight unmasked as a sham and crucified." The image shifted to a pitiful looking man, nailed to a crossed pair of metal spars. Techne scowled. The man in question was a human with green skin and chitinous growths on his face, with a set of mandibles and bright red eyes. He writhed in agony, chattering and hissing.

The crowd cheered.

Techne forced herself to clap. Next to her, Mal whispered. "Why not show Venn's body, if they..."

"They're fascists, telling the truth isn't one of their major character flaws," Techne whispered back.

The holographic image snapped off.

***

The warehouse in question was situated almost two days away. The distance hadn't really impressed itself on Techne until she actually had to walk it -- what had seemed a short trip on the relatively rudimentary city map had unfolded into a harrowing trek. A march past buildings the size of sundivers, where hundreds of thousands slept in niche rooms and trudged to work on slideways. Sleeping in alleyways and sharing ration packs, and having to turn away curious homeless people who came to see what the deal was. Each day, waking up with a new sense of dread. The endless vastness of Eudaimonia kept on pounding into the back of Techne's mind, like a railroad spike being tinked into place by a weak, but persistent, worker.

Over the course of the second day, they moved from a part of the city that, while poor, was at least active. But as if they had crossed an invisible demarcation point, Techne and her marines entered into a part of the city where the buildings were left mostly empty. People still lived here, but they scrambled for cover and watched with glaring, empty eyes. Here, Lt. Tarks suggested and Techne agreed to bringing out their guns and setting their armor to full.

Armed and armored, no one tried to bother them until they had almost reached the warehouse. They were walking down a street that was about fifteen meters wide, with several rusted hulks of what had once been cargo haulers perched on the sides of the road. The buildings to the left and right had been hab-blocks, but signs of battle still scarred them: Bullet holes, las burns, and browning bloodstains. As Techne walked and kept her eyes open, a voice called out.

"Ho!"

A gunshot followed the cry. The bullet sparked off the ground to Techne's feet. The men snapped their weapons up, while Rossck growled and hefted his rifle. He swung it around, glaring. Techne stood perfectly still. She lifted her hand, and her men tensed, waiting for her order.

"What's your calling here, mercs?" the voice that had called out before came down -- echoing off the walls. "You're not Eudaimonia regulars, not shocks. You sundivers?"

"Yeah," Techne called. "We're looking for free room and board. There's a warehouse, claimed by gaunts?"

"Yeah, I know it," the voice called again. This time, the figure let himself be seen. He stepped around one of the rusted haulers. He was rangy and skinny and looked as if someone had taken a human and a panther from one of the ancient picts and merged them. His fur was matted and he looked like half his muzzle had sunken in. His eyes were yellowed and jaundiced. Even with his baggy shirt, Techne could count his ribs. "What do you want with it?"

"Free room, free board," Techne said.

"That's a fuck of a lot to go for," the man said, frowning. "When there's a gang of twelve techgaunts in there."

Techne smirked. She wasn't about to bring up that the warehouse was also hardened against everything up to light artillery and had its own power source, a power source the gaunts would have secured and maintained. Instead, she just said: "We'll trade food for safe passage." She pointed at one of their supply wranglers. The woman nodded and slung her backpack off. She set it down, kneeling down and flipping the backpack open. The panther man stood perfectly still. The marine held up several of their ration packs.

The panther frowned. "Those shock food?"

"Yeah," Techne said.

"Where'd you get it?" the panther asked.

Techne let a bit of savage cross her face. "We asked. Politely."

The panther regarded her impassively...and then threw his head back and laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed, then slapped his thigh. "I like you. There's only three gaunts in there. We upped the number to keep the cops out of the area -- high enough that the cops piss their piggy pants and low enough the shocks stay off our backs. Come on." He jerked his head. "We got a better place for people who ask politely."

Techne grinned. "Sounds good. The name's Techne, by the way."

The panther nodded. "Seth."

***

Seth and his gang -- Techne wasn't about to call them freedom fighters, but it wouldn't have been far from the case -- gave them a set of rooms in an abandoned hab block. There was power and they were secure enough that everyone could unwind. The gang took the food with delight. They took the extra guns with even more delight. And Techne, Mal, and Lt. Tarks all hunched around a defunct public information terminal. It took two days to retrofit it, and then less than an hour to get it synched with the computer systems of Eudaimonia.

"Okay," Mal said, stretching as one of the ration packs started to heat on the ground beside him. "In the original plan, we had a fucking Liminal Knight to help us here. But we can make do. I'm a fairly decent hacker." He cracked his knuckles, cracked his toes, then sat back down before the modified terminal. The guts had been opened, pieced back together, and patched into a set of cables cut out of the floor and dragged into place. The whole room was covered with pieces of machinery, screws, tape, and other detritus of the electrotech's trade.

Techne patted his shoulder. "I trust you."

Mal started to tap away at the comptech. He slotted in several of his pre-programmed units, then hummed to himself. His brow furrowed. "I'm getting a message."

"A message?" Rossck, who was pacing around in the corner of the room, asked.

"From who?" Tarks and Techne said at the same time.

"Hiiiiiiiii!" Enriquah's voice came from the crappy speaker they had gotten working again. Techne sighed.

"Why am I not shocked?" Tarks muttered.

"Enriquah, where the fucking hell are you?" Techne snapped.

"There's no mic," Mal whispered back.

Techne rolled her eyes to the ceiling, then leaned over Mal's furry shoulder and started to hammer away at the keyboard.

"In a nice apartment, why?" Enriquah asked. There was faint crunching sound. "Mmmhmmph, I forgot how fucking good these apples are."

Techne looked to the ceiling again, then typed again: JFC, Enriquah, we're still on a mission!!

"Yeah, I know," Enriquah said around a mouthful of apple. "Uploading."

Mal blinked, then leaned forward and examined the screen closer. "That's...a lot of credits," he whispered, softly. "And a set of full security pass-keys, fake IDs, and...holy shit, she's diverted an arms shipment for us, with blanked chips and full ammo."

"What? It wasn't hard or anything," Enriquah said, cheerfully. Smugly. Real smugly.

Techne scowled. "I thought you said there wasn't a mic," she muttered to Mal.

Mal started to check through the guts of the terminal and found no sign of a microphone.

The arms and armor drop was secured within the hour. Then...they had to wait. And listen. And plan.

***

Techne hadn't known that waiting in the guts of the enemy's city with baited breath could become mind numbingly, brain destroyingly tedious. But it had taken about a week of waiting and checking the sliced reports before she and her marines started to go up the walls. Even with what entertainment they could siphon off the Hegemonic comptech, they were getting strained to the limit as the weeks became a month, then two. They practiced what shooting they could in the abandoned city blocks they were holed up in. They trained with the power armor. They practiced signal codes and communication techniques. They went over the blueprints Enriquah provided of the Machine Temple and what she knew about the throne room of Emperor Daniel Golgotha Rehoboam IV.

And they fretted.

And worried.

And at night, Techne had scream yourself awake nightmares about Venn. Months on that corvette. Would she even be sane?

And then, suddenly, all the waiting, all the time collapsed. It vanished, like a puff of smoke. The alert came in the morning: Lord Dark had returned. The marines started to dress in their stolen power armor, the armor sealing up around them with hisses and clicks. Mal, who would be flying the transport and providing close air support if needed, checked everyone twice. Techne and Rossck would also be going armor free -- Rossck with his tail couldn't fit, and Techne's mechanical systems interfered with the force feedback units inside of the power armor.

Techne was a bit glad, personally. It meant that Venn would see her face, first of all.

They piled into the transport that had dropped off the supplies. Enriquah had used her spooky powers to divert it to where they were hunkered down, and Mal squeezed himself into the seat. Despite his grumbling, he brought them into the sky within a few moments. Soon, the beetle shaped vehicle was buzzing towards where Enriquah had been enjoying her stolen fancy apartment. They landed on the roof, flashing authorization codes to any inquisitive vehicle. Enriquah bundled in, sliding in through the side hatch and beaming at the power armored troops before swaggering up to Techne.

"Told you," she said.

"Yeah, yeah," Techne said, her guts knotting.

The transport flew through the city. On the horizon, the pyramidal shaped Machine Temple grew larger. Larger. Larger. There were almost no guards on the upper levels. But why would they be needed? According to Enriquah, the Emperor was guarded by his select Liminal Knights. The hope was that their spoofed codes would get them close enough, give them just enough time to open fire with a devastating barrage of explosive, dumbfire rockets. Then...

It was up to Christ.

The Machine Temple grew larger and larger. As it grew in size, Enriquah's grin grew broader.

"Why are you so fucking smug looking?" Rossck growled.

"Just jazzed," Enriquah whispered. "I never thought I'd be on this side. But it's really exciting. The Hegemony was boring, you know?"

"You terrify me, Quah," Mal said, then flicked several switches. The pale light in the back cabin flared to red and the marines started to check their gear. The transport's engines rose in pitch and the transport slewed to the side, then settled down on the landing pad right next to the angular, bulky corvette that had carried Lord Drak and his captured Venn all the way here. Techne grabbed up her rifle, grunting as she felt its weight tugging at her arms. She hopped out first -- not caring that the power armored troops should lead the way. She had to do this.

She had to.

The bare bridge that led from the landing platform to the Machine Temple seemed to stretch on and on and on forever. She rushed forward, her mechanical legs whirring and pumping. Enriquah and Rossck ran behind her, while the false shocktroopers fanned out, to give themselves clear lines of fire. They started up the stairs. Techne gritted her teeth. She knew they'd have one shot. One chance. One tiny sliver of opportunity. Then she was at the doors. Then she was through -- into the throne room of the Emperor himself.

The room was a large red space -- a warping of space time created by a dozen gravitic generators, used to fold the universe itself into the shape of a hypercube. It was a mind bending, soul shocking thing to see -- and that was the entire point. Though the gravitic generators were also used, according to Enriquah, to maintain the massive throne of solid, jacketed neutronium that served as the seat of Hegemonic power.

Techne froze.

The throne had two halves of a man before it. The upper half was a sallow, twisted body -- with a shocked expression frozen on his face. The legs were spinly and narrow, and they were completely drenched in a thick, blackish puddle of nanoaugmented blood. The blood had tried to staunch the flow, but the man had been cut entirely in half. Then she saw the Hegemonic Knights in their unique armor, bearing their signature weapons. One had been decapitated. Another had had both arms sliced off. One had been...well, it looked as if he had been thrown into a blender.

And in the center of the bloody mess, was Lord Drak Thale and Venn of Stumble.

Kissing like teenagers in heat.

"...wow..." Enriquah said from beside Techne. "I leave you guys alone for five fucking minutes? Honestly!"

Thale and Venn sprang apart as if they had become opposite magnetic poles. Behind Techne, she heard thundering foot steps as Thale gaped at Enriquah. "...Quah?" he asked, his face going slack, his ears drooping. From the shadows emerged a broad shouldered, blond hunk in a skintight pink shirt and loose leggings. He laughed and dropped his own sword, rushing forward.

"Enriquah!" He said, grabbing onto Enriquah's shoulders, squeezing her. He looked back at Venn, who was looking like someone had just smacked her in the temple with an entire spaceship.

Enriquah waved at Venn. "Hey!" she said. "...no...hard feelings about the arm, right?"

Venn continued to gape at her.

"Eh," Enriquah said, waving her hand dismissively. "You got a slick new cybernetic arm, it's fine."

Mal, who had been sprinting up behind Techne, gasped as he came to a stop. He looked around the room, then laughed. "Venn! Vennn!" He thundered forward and hugged Venn tightly, picking her up and nearly snapping her spine. Venn squawked and kicked, and Techne felt as if every knot in her gut had become undone at the same time.

Venn was Venn.

And everything would be okay.

Venn slapped at Mal's shoulder and wheezed. "Down. Down!"

Mal set her down, while Thale -- his head shaking from side to side -- held up his hands. "How. Who. What. Where?" He blinked. "What?" His tail lashed from side to side as the faux shocktroopers stepped into the room. Thale snapped up his sword and triggered it with a squeal and hiss of displaced air.

"They're Alliance Marines!" Techne said, quickly.

Enriquah nodded. "They got the Quantum Forge. Since I survived Venn's cheating." She shot Venn a glare.

"I didn't fu...you cut my fucking arm off!" Venn said, her hand going to her shoulder.

"Yeah. I won. You cheated and stole my win," Enriquah said, putting her hands on her hips.

"Quah," Thale said.

"Yeah?" Enriquah looked at him.

"Shut up," Thale said. But there was no harshness, no cruelty to his tone. He was actually smiling. There was a tiny, catlike purr to the sound of his voice, and it made Techne want to smile back at him. Enriquah blushed and closed her mouth. Thale looked back at Techne. "You need to go."

"I...well...yeah, actually..." Techne said, looking past Thale. "Is that..." She nodded to the bisected, gaunt man.

"The Emperor?" Thale asked, quietly. "Yeah."

"You...killed the Emperor?" Lt. Tarks whispered.

"No," Thale said. Then he nodded to Venn. "She did."

Venn smiled, shyly. "I, uh, had help." She patted the big blond guy. "This is Prince Adoran. He's Thale's fiance."

Techne's eyebrows shot to the edge of her forehead with an audible whirs.

"It's a long story," Thale muttered, looking aside.

"I love him," Adoran said. "And she's growing on me." He smirked. "Short story."

"Jesus Christ," Rossck muttered. He was at the edge of the door, looking for the controls. He pressed his thumb down on a switch and the door whirred shut, cutting out the outside world. "How long do we have before the entirety of Eudaimonia goes nuts?"

"The shift change is in twenty minutes," Thale said, his voice husky. "I have a plan."

"Let's hear it," Techne said. But she saw that Venn's face crumpled at the mention of Thale's plan. She turned and leaned into him and Thale's arm slid around Venn's back, drawing her in closer. The way she leaned into him, the way she mashed her face against his chest, the way that she seemed to need him more than oxygen...it hit Techne in the gut with something sick and twisted. She tried to keep her face straight.

"Alliance terrorists broke in using Praetor Theodosius' codes, killed the Emperor and the Lords and the Praetorian Guard, destroyed the Imperial gene bank, then escaped. I and Adoran barely survive and..." He breathed in. "As ranking Liminal Knight...I become Regent."

Venn shook her head. But she didn't speak.

Techne's eyes widened.

"I need you to fire on the bodies. Hit them with explosive rounds," Thale said, his voice growing more ragged. "Blow them into shreds. Hide any...distinctive marks. Then..." he pointed. "Hit me...here. The detonation will do enough tissue damage to get me down, but I'll live. Hit Adoran there." He pointed again.

"You have to be fucking kidding me," one of the marines whispered.

"No," Venn said.

"Yes," Thale said, grabbing her hand. "Go. Enriquah knows where the gene bank is." He leaned forward. The kiss that followed was so...burning that Techne had to look away. She swore she could feel the heat of it against her cheek. She chewed her inner cheek as the kiss continued for about five or six eternities. Then Thale shoved Venn away. She stumbled. Mal grabbed her arm. Venn looked at Thale, her eyes fierce.

"I'll be back," she whispered. Mal dragged her to the door, whispering.

"You don't want to see this."

"I'll be back, Thale! If you die, I will fucking kill you," Venn hissed. "Do you hear me?"

Then she turned and started down the stairs.

Enriquah, glancing around, knelt down and grabbed one of the dropped threshold blades. "Yoink." She smiled at Thale. "Have fun with the boring shit, Thale." She waved, then started down the stairs.

Techne looked at Thale.

"Keep her safe," he said, his voice tight. "Both of them."

Techne hefted up her rifle. It was Hegemony issue -- a semi-intelligent rifle that could fire everything from hollow point expanders to needlejets to dumbfire rockets. She sighted and her targeting reticule dragged itself directly to the point that Thale had pointed to. His jaw was tight. His tail lashed. Techne's finger slid along the trigger. This should have been easy. But she imagined what Venn would say if she missed.

"Do it," Thale hissed.

Techne gritted her teeth.

Thale closed his eyes. The gun fired itself. The dumbfire rocket flashed faster than she could see. The explosion came under the skin and Thale was flung backwards, blood spraying into the air. He skidded along the ground. Adoran grunted as he was shot as well -- the dumbfire rocket smashing into him. The two groaned on the ground as the marines hurried forward. They fired a rain of rockets -- not only against the corpses, but into the walls. Turrets blew apart, and the walls became smeared with smoke and marks.

"Come on," Techne hissed.

On the transport, they arced around the Machine Temple, finding the brilliant gold dome of the genetic store of the Imperial Line. It had several layers of defenses, including an antimissile system and gravitic shield array. Both went down as Venn glared at the dome. Then Mal thumbed down the toggle on the dashboard. The transport shuddered in the air and a dozen missiles -- normally designed to support shocktroops on the move -- plunged into the genebank.