Instead, Akurei looked at what awaited at the rear of the Phantom hordes. It was almost impossible not to notice from her vantage point, now that she had caught a glimpse of it. Everything about it seemed to pull her attention towards it and yet at the same time divert it away. It was like a blind spot that only took a blink to reveal again. She couldn’t name the Phantom that she saw, but she her gut told her it had everything to do with how the enemy had gotten this far.
“Do you see it now?” Phoenix asked her, joining her atop the pillbox.
Akurei nodded. “What manner of beast is that?”
“It’s evil - what more must we know?” Phoenix replied. “Contact the Dark Rangers. I want that thing taken out”.
OZ WAS TOO busy avenging his fallen to worry about the Phantom commander that the legions had started to notice. He was finding new and exciting ways to unleash his wrath on the enemy and only when Volanquis started fighting by his side again did he stop to think through the battle. They were far from losing, but nor did victory seem near.
“My Lord, we cannot hold the line forever” Volanquis worried.
“Such little faith you have, Vol” Oz replied. “I’ve never seen you so…anxious” he smirked.
The Commander unlatched a gauss grenade from his belt, tossed it into a huddle of golems and watched as the majority perished under its atomising power. He smiled with satisfaction as a squad of legionnaires gunned down what remained of them. “It is my realism that gets the better of me, my Lord, not my fear”.
Oz was about to reply with something witty, but was interrupted by a single, booming strike of thunder. Moments passed and it was followed by another, but the skies above were clear bar the plumes of exhaust from Guardian fighters that duelled with the enemy’s. Oz watched the enemy line as on the third strike, the Phantoms physically recoiled in perfect unison. The legionnaires were equally puzzled by the noise, but for a different reason.
Where the Phantoms were confused because they couldn’t recognise the sound, which cut clear through the din of battle, the legionnaires were surprised because they could. The three booms had not been thunder strikes, but the discharge of pinpoint weapons fire. The distinctive mark of sniper rifles employed by a legion, the only one of its type left, was alarming to hear.
“The Dark Rangers…” Volanquis muttered, his voice conflicted with awe and uncertainty.
The legion in question had rarely been seen on the field. They were specialised to take out single targets, not to engage in open warfare against thousands. With such a single task, the legion numbered no more than a hundred, but it was capable of eliminating high-profile targets when working in culmination. Each shot had actually been comprised of a dozen rounds, fired from as many legionnaires. The cumulative sound of their rifles had caused the combatants to notice it, but only the Guardians were able to take advantage of the confusion it caused.
After slaying a witless pair of devii, Oz recognised something now in the enemy that he hadn’t seen for months; disorientation. With a suddenness that could only relate to whatever the Dark Rangers had killed, the Phantoms lost all direction and devolved back to the chaotic beasts that the Guardians were used to seeing. Now, instead of charging the Guardians in overwhelming consistency, they charged in every way and even started to fight against one another.
There was a convicted expression to Oz’s face that Volanquis hadn’t seen since they first came to Kraxus. “Commander, pull back the legion and solidify the tertiary line. Reform the defences and stand ready for disciplined pulsar volleys, then order the artillery back to sporadic fire.”
Volanquis reacted without hesitation, using the small freedom he had from the disorganised enemy to spread the Apostle’s orders. Less than ten minutes later, the legions were once more the main power on the battlefield. Balance was restored and the way of things was how it was meant to be again.
With the Phantoms driven useless by the death of their highest chieftain, the legionnaires were able to enjoy massacring them like child’s play. It was strangely gratifying for the Guardians to cause such levels of death in the enemy’s place for once. Less than an hour later, the Phantoms had completely retreated beyond the city limits.
THE JUMP TO Kraxus took less than an hour. When they arrived, Jestarr saw the genius of Solitaire unravel and reveal itself from under her layers of fun and youth. There was a Guardian naval presence here already, but the stalemate that had been on the ground was mirrored in space. With the arrival of the 109th, the balance of power was tipped in the legions’ favour.
“Fire flares, all of them” Solitaire commanded.
Jestarr turned in doubt. “Everything, my Grace?” he asked.
She closed her eyes when she answered, as if that would help bring clarity. “Yes! Use it all, expend every flare we have!” When she opened her eyes and saw his concern, she chuckled. “We’re at a world that forges millions of them! We can use all we want and never run out” she clapped her hands together in celebration of the fact.
Jestarr felt foolish for having not understood her logic sooner. He gave the order and the assembled fleet of the 109th fired their collection of flares. Moments later, a thousand blips appeared on their radar. Where only a few dozen were there before, now a blinding amount of icons registered on the Guardians’ sensors. They knew which were artificial and could eliminate them from their screens, but the Phantoms’ radar worked by heat alone. They would never be able to determine what was real and what was fake.
“Annihilate them” Solitaire instructed, leaning forward to view the holographic depiction of the unfolding battle. Her voice had a doom to it that made the hairs on the back of Jestarr’s neck rise. Nonetheless, he felt more inspired than ever and before he knew it, he was helping the captains of the fleet to wipe out the Phantom vessels surrounding Kraxus.
The legions that had been present before their arrival were grateful for their assistance, but Solitaire was only interested in hearing the thanks of her brother and sister on the world below. When attempts to communicate with them failed, she resolved to take a drop-ship down to the surface. Jestarr didn’t think to argue with her. As far as he was concerned, the Apostle had every right to do whatever she pleased.
Wherever she went, she defeated the odds. Whatever the enemy presented to her, she crushed with elegant ease. Whole worlds were saved because of her strategies and military feats. If she wanted to arrive on a Guardian world unannounced who was he, or anyone else for that matter, to stop her?
THE HONOUR GUARD of the 109th legion that accompanied Solitaire to the surface walked slowly down a mundane street of the capital of Kraxus, the beautiful Apostle at their head. Rifles held casually at their side or up against their shoulders, for they knew there was no danger here behind allied lines, the Black Guardians still looked fearsome and terrifying in their Harlequin armour.
Each legionnaire had a unique pattern to their suit of protective plate, but each featured patches of black, blue and other, more personalised colours that seemed to shift and swirl as they walked, distracting the eye from what their physique really was. Their helmets bore snarls or grimaces in various degrees that also seemed to change, making it impossible for anyone outstand the legion to understand what they were really like and what they were like to do next.
Jestarr called the squad to a halt as Solitaire stopped dead in her tracks. His was obeyed immediately and he moved silently forward to join her. She was gazing into a house on her right with curious, childish fascination. Its roof had collapsed into the top floor, but somehow the structure had held together, the ground floor unscathed bar the broken windows.
"My Grace?" Jestarr inquired after a short while.
Without saying a word and with no explanation, Solitaire walked into the house and into its living room. Jestarr was used to her odd behaviour, so he asked no further questions and ordered the squad to secure the perimeter. He followed the Apostle into the house.
He found her inside a lounge area, sitting
on the dirty floor. What looked like an incomplete child's puzzle was spread out in front of her. Knowing better than to ask what she was doing, despite the fact they had successfully arranged a war council meeting with her kin since making planet fall and were now late, Jestarr waited tentatively behind her. He couldn't help but check the house by habit, making sure there wasn't any kind of danger lurking in wait, whether that was a terrified human citizen or a dangerous Phantom.
Once he was done checking upstairs, investigating with amused curiosity how the humans lived, he returned to the living room and found Solitaire placing pieces of the puzzle together, like it was she who had started it to begin with. It was as if she had gone away to war as an adult and now she had come back to complete it as a child. Watching her do it served to remind him of her ever-constant dual nature.
"Jestarr," she said in a silky-smooth voice without turning to look at him. "Take the squad and go to the council. Tell them I will be with them really soon and when I join them, I will give my family the plans they dearly desire to win control of this world".
"My Grace, perhaps it is best if at least I remain?" he asked, her safety his foremost priority as always.
Finally standing up to face him, she stroked his cheek with one hand, like a daughter would to her worried father and it struck him that he should never have felt guilty about the way he saw her after all. Clearly, miraculously, she felt the same connection between them that he did. He was at once honoured and stunned. "Please, Jestarr, do as I ask…I will be safe here" she smiled in an attempt to reassure him. She turned and sat back down without waiting for further protest.
Although he was still worried, Jestarr knew at heart that she could take care of herself. He had seen her fight the enemy for long enough to be sure of it. He returned to his squad quiet and determined. He looked at them, some returning his gaze and others focussed on their surroundings and wondered if they ever questioned his closeness to the Apostle.
Their blank expressions told him nothing, but then he decided he was above their judgement anyway. He told them what Solitaire had ordered and the group became to move. With a last concerned look at the house, he turned away and marched onwards with the honour guard to the heart of the war-torn city.
BACK IN THE house, Solitaire was slowly finishing the puzzle with meticulous care and interest. She found it heartening that once it was complete it would be a perfect representation of the world amongst the Empire, like a star map to help human children understand the wider Star Sectors.
Every time she placed a new piece, an important part of her war strategy was forming into a picture in her mind. She didn't know how it worked, or why, but completing the child's toy helped to format the plan that would eradicate the enemy on this planet. It would end a year-long war for Kraxus in a single week. The Lion would be impressed and even Valkyrie would be proud.
She was so intent and focussed on her task that the paradigms that were creeping into the house and gathering behind her thought she hadn't noticed them. There were six of them; six heartless, evil-minded men so corrupt and inhuman they were more like creatures. In front of them was an irresistible prize and they lusted over her with rotting souls.
She was so involved in her own world that some of them had come around her far enough to see her captivating, innocent eyes that contained a dearth of mystery. Her spotless, perfect skin was smooth and inviting to the touch, her curves more pronounced and provocative than a woman of her nature ought to be.
The paradigms, on the other hand, were vile and putrid. They could never be seen as attractive or welcoming to the eye, for they were little short of nightmarish and ghastly to behold. Their physical defects differed from one to the other, but even though their deformities varied, they were each as foul as each other.
They didn't need to communicate their desires to one another; there was a beautiful, childlike woman in front of them completing a toy puzzle. She gave them the impression she was mentally impaired, grown to a woman's age but with the mind of a five year old. For that reason, she wouldn't fight back if they tried to touch her. Looking at each other, a bestial starvation in their eyes, the paradigms decided to act as one.
They sprung forward, like they were in a race to claim her. As the two closest laid their savage hands on her shoulders, Solitaire reacted instantaneously. A mile away, at the war council meeting, Jestarr and his squad heard the screams of desperation fill the city.
THE HARLEQUINS WERE known for their agility. Their abilities as warriors were matched only by their athleticism. They reached the house in moments, jumping over mounds of rubble and burnt out husks of vehicles in the streets like they were the tiniest of nuisances.
Seconds away from the house, the screams and cries that had drawn them back were dying out, but now they sounded struggled and pained. Jestarr bounded through the tattered front door and into the lounge, drew his rifle and took aim, ready to kill whatever he assumed had endangered his beloved Apostle.
His gun was found unsatisfied as he took in the sight before him. There was death all around him, but not of any kind he had seen before. Blood coated the walls and floor in such amounts that only the spray of severed arteries could have caused it. He found the severed heads and limbs of what he could only guess were six Paradigms.
Jestarr had been quicker than the other Harlequins, but now his squad had caught up with him. Like him, their urgency was stopped short as the violent scene in front of them gave an anti-climax to the adrenaline pumping through their veins.
The Commander looked around frantically for the Apostle and as the red mist in the living room cleared, he found her. She was sitting down the same way she was when he left, but now the puzzle was finished.
Solitaire rose from the floor, turned to greet her legionnaires and smiled like nothing at all was wrong. "It’s finished, the plan is ready. It is high time we left, don't you think Jestarr? The war council must be tired of waiting..." she said, ignorant of all the death around her like she hadn't been there when the Phantoms were torn apart and that she had nothing to do with it.
Walking happily past them, she left the house quietly and began to make her way down the street. Still in shock and awe, despite their prior experiences with her, the squad shook themselves free of being mystified and followed after her. They said nothing to each other, but then what they discovered couldn’t be described by any spoken word.
On their way to the council meeting, Jestarr couldn't help but realise something. All those wounds the Phantom corpses bore, the tears in the bodies, the gouges in their flesh...only a beast could have done that, but in that house, it was the monsters that had died. Solitaire, an Apostle that killed gracefully and artfully with her blades, did not have the means to cause that kind of damage.
By the time they reached the location for the meeting, he still couldn’t make sense of what had happened in the house. He played it through his mind again and again, but there was only one connection. Despite all that he knew, the logic meant only one thing; the monster was still alive…and maybe his Apostle wasn't so beautiful after all.
Chapter 10
LUCIUS HADN’T NEEDED to say much to convince Jun of the reality that the Lord Governor, the man with supreme authority over the Gothican Empire, was evil. Not the sort of evil that a man on his own could become, but the kind that something greater could mould him into.
Jun had seen him change over the years; first it was his personality and then his behaviour. Laws were passed that seemed absurd, rules that were archaic were put in place and the military was mobilised in locations that didn’t make any sense. Eventually, Jun couldn’t tell whether the Lord Governor supported the Black Guardians at all anymore or if he just wanted to usurp them entirely.
It was evident, from the fate of Pheia, that the Empire could do little but stand hopelessly in the way of the Phantoms. Only the legions seemed capable of withstanding their power, as seen already by the devastation of the Frontier and the closest neighbouring syst
ems. Whether they were ever really capable of it or not, the Guardians had no hope of controlling the humans from spreading news of the war to each other; the fear and panic of it, the contagious rot, was inevitable and unstoppable.
With this clarity given in abundance, it was madness that the Lord Governor would deploy the Gothican fleets anywhere near the conflicts between Phantom and Guardian forces, unless it was to aid in the evacuation of human worlds. Instead of this sensible exception, some of the Empire’s armies had already been sent to the Frontier to try and reclaim lost territory, though thankfully it was a small fraction of the Gothic military might.
Every attempt had failed miserably, with every flotilla wiped out by Phantom forces. So far, the Lord Governor had not decided to send a larger number of ships and cause further sacrifice and loss.
It had taken the encroachment of the Vorlan Conglomerate to the galactic east to give the Senate enough argument to persuade the Lord Governor to redirect the Empire’s fleets to reinforce The Shield. Even when that had been done, he had sent pickets and flotillas to ‘aid’ the Guardians. A horrible part of Jun’s mind told him that it seemed like the Lord Governor was doing these senseless things on purpose, as if he were allied to the Phantoms.
Yet, if he as a Junior Senator could see the connections and the possibilities and have the doubts, why was it only him and a handful of others? The Lord Governor still had a charisma and a control over the Senate that, quite simply, bewildered Jun.
Lucius had cleared all of that up for him, though. He had made Jun understand. The Lord Governor wasn’t human anymore; he was a Corrupt. Every political nuance that he had before becoming tainted, every part of him that had helped to elevate him to power in the first place was strengthened tenfold. The legionnaire didn’t go into detail, but he didn’t have to for Jun to get the right picture. The Lord Governor was the master of the Gothican Empire, but even he served something else now and it was powerful enough to hide his true loyalty from the doe eyes of humanity.
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