Father, Fighter, Future

Dustin adjusted the strap of his pulse-carbine where it was digging into his shoulder. Originally, he’d planned to go into this battle armed with only a repeater crossbow, the same as the squad of butterfly folk he had under his command - but in the aftermath of Meli’s news he’d completely changed his equipment. He was already wearing a low-range shield, designed to minimize the risk of any real damage from archers, but he’d also opted to swap back to his main weapon. Rye had at least done a good job of camouflaging it; rather than the sleek lines of a normal firearm, it now looked more like a tree that had been twisted by the powers of the Fractals, all black wood and metal.

Pondering the merits of keeping a few weapons made up to look similar in the Solar Ascent’s armoury long term as shock-and-awe weapons, Dustin glanced at the rest of his squad and pressed a finger to his ear, activating his communicator. A handful of soft words with the other team leaders and he straightened up. A short distance away, the crew of the ballista stared at him, awaiting his signal to fire on the dimly-lit walls in front of them.

Torches blazed around the gatehouse, and inside the temple’s outer walls pyres cast sparks high into the night - but the remainder of the outer wall was dark save for a handful of guards holding torches as they changed positions. The fact that the guards were using fire to light their path on the high walls was ironic; one of the lessons humanity had learned early on in combat was that when guarding at night, if you have light near you all that happens is that you can’t see out, but people outside can see in.

Dustin raised his arm, then with a softly whispered “Now!” into his communicator, dropped it again. The heavy twang of the ballista reverberated through the night for a fraction of a second before Rye’s custom-made explosive bolt hit the wall. A great gout of fire shot skyward, dwarfing the clouds of smoke from the pyres as a sizable chunk of the wall blew inward, the massive stones cast aside as if they were nothing more than a set of children’s building blocks.

Before the dust could start to settle, Dustin and his squad were already running forward. They were heading into the breach and from there to the main gate without stopping; behind them, the second squad would sweep in and secure the breach against counter-attack. Further behind that second squad, two figures stood in a pool of darkness away from even the glow of night-vision goggles. Yril’k’s warrior evolution had made navigating by faint moonlight trivial, and Defia could see into the electromagnetic spectrum - neither of the women needed any illumination to begin their slow stalk towards the compound behind the main ****.

Reaching the walls, Dustin scrambled up just in time for his shield to crackle as an arrow brushed past his ear. In response, he levelled his weapon at a sneering guardsman and squeezed the trigger. A fraction of a second later, the butterfly warrior fell backwards off the wall with the arcing crackle of a pulse round still sparking from his chest-plate, while the rest of Dustin’s squad made it up alongside their leader. “Move, quickly, take the gate.” Dustin barked, taking off at the head of the squad. Ahead of him, the guards were rallying - but his little group had the element of surprise, as well as weapons better suited to the terrain.

Repeater-crossbows sang as the advancing squad worked the Rabyth-built mechanisms. Not all of the bolts struck true - the “soldiers” Dustin had at his command had only a few days training, and for all her skill Rye was making weaponry out of essentially spare parts. Thankfully, accuracy didn’t matter however due to the sheer rate of fire the attacking **** was able to bring to bear. Of the guards at the first tower on their route to the gates, only one was able to even draw his bow before being felled by their advance - and that single arrow spun harmlessly off to one side, striking the earth beneath the wall.

The heavy twang of the ballistae firing again echoed out across the night, and Dustin saw the bolts slam through the side of the main gate’s towers ahead of him. Between his location and that objective however there stood another minor tower, it’s edge packed with more archers - archers who moreover had now obtained enough time to get into ready positions. The first wave of arrows arced down, and to either side of him members of his team dropped. Dustin fought his instinct to check to see if they were alive - hesitation now would mean **** for everyone involved. Sweeping his arm forward, he barked “Run, while they reload!”

The men and women under his command obeyed; they might not be soldiers, but a lifetime of living under a regime that demanded obedience had conditioned them to follow firm orders instantly. Bolts spat up at the tower guard as Dustin readied his weapon; this tower had a stout door that the archers on top no doubt thought would keep them safe from the advancing squad. Indeed, it might have done so if they’d just been using bolts; Dustin was suddenly glad he’d ordered the change for himself and for Rye who was leading the troops on the other side of the temple grounds. Reaching the door, he pushed past his squad, flicked the carbine to wide-burst and held the trigger down.

A moment later, the door disintegrated in a cloud of flying splinters, the blast knocking over a hurrying guardsman on the other side; the click-twang of one of Dustin’s squad’s crossbows ensured he’d not rise again. “Clear the tower” Dustin said, stepping over the debris and gesturing with the barrel of his gun. “Hurry, then on to the main gate.”

With the external towers knocked out and the gate under continual ballistae bombardment, it didn’t take much longer for Dustin and Rye to meet in the room housing the gate’s mechanism. “Ladies first” he said, grinning as he gestured to the lever; Rye winked at him and gave it a casual backward kick with her heel that sent chains rattling as the entrance to the temple fell open. From outside, a cheer arose on the part of the attackers, while cries of alarm and dismay came from what few guards were left around the walls.

While all this was going on, Defia walked through the temple complex like a ghost. The place was strange; the lines were almost but not quite those of a Fractal facility, and the temple itself shaped not too dissimilarly to her people’s early ship styles. If she had time, she should analyse the rationale for the biologicals to build thus, but at present she held a mission from the primary unit. A guardsman stepped from an alleyway, sword descending towards her, but she didn’t even look in his direction. Twin chitinous slicing sounds echoed off the walls as Yril’k moved from Defia’s shadow, blade arms severing the man’s sword arm at the elbow and decapitating him in one singular fluid movement.

The temple steps ahead of Defia were filled with a handful of people, just over twenty in all. As she approached, they recoiled - all save one who stood at the top holding what looked like a staff of some kind. “Begone, horror!” he said, his voice nasal and weedy, as if used to a life of little more than being cruel to servants. Defia climbed towards him without hesitating; another guardsman lunged but this time she moved herself rather than wait for Yril’k; a casual backhand blow that send him spinning down the building’s steps without breaking her stride.

A handful of archers emerged from doors behind her at the base of the building - before they could draw a bead on the ascending Fractal, Yril’k had moved in a frighteningly efficient dance, blood fountaining behind her as their bodies dropped one by one to the floor.

Defia hesitated as she reached the top of the temple. All around her, the remaining loyalists screamed defiance. “Unit Yril’k, Query-request. Confirm appropriateness of my action, please.” She said, a hand shooting out like lightning to grab the high priest by the collar and lift him in the air. “Statement. All units in the vicinity are hostile combatants, those most loyal to the enemy and require removal, correct?”

Yril’k’s voice came up from the bottom of the temple where she had just finished off the last of the archers. “That is correct’k. I suspect the captain’k would like them taken captive’k as he is kind’k, but it is unwise to leave enemies’k alive.” Defia nodded, tilting her head from one side to another as dark strands slid out from her feet. A moment later, she fixed the struggling man in her grasp with a sharp-toothed grin.

“Statement. I can detect the dried residual DNA of nineteen thousand, five hundred, seventy three units on these temple steps. Analysis. Sapient sacrifice, abhorrent to primary unit. Statement. Please die now.” Her voice came out quieter than usual; Yril’k wouldn’t have heard it if she hadn’t been straining to listen. A moment later, spikes erupted from the temple floor - from everywhere Defia had spread her strands they rose up, a macabre thorn thicket impaling the remaining loyalists.

Defia retracted the spike that had protruded from her palm into the priest’s neck, severing his brain stem. “Statement. Twenty-three hostiles terminated.” She lowered his body to the ground, turned, and then sat on the steps with her eyes fixed on Yril’k. “Query. Was my action appropriate in the circumstance?” The insect woman stalked up the temple towards her, blade arms held ready as she considered the bodies. Each had a single, narrow wound; **** had been near instantaneous. “You’k were merciful to those that did not’k show mercy to others’k. Emely told me some of the things’k that happen in these temples’k. I will vouch for your actions’k with the captain, if that is your concern’k.” The Vex’ess warrior said at last, turning to drop into a low crouch beside the rogue Fractal, both women staring out across the temple complex as the rest of Dustin’s forces began the busy work of getting everyone ready for what came next.