068: The Rock, Rolled – Five
The Storlayacas was a massive construct… when it was on land and had familiar objects with which to judge the scale of it, at least.
In the void of space, nothing around it but distant stars, even this great machine seemed an insignificant thing.
Within its cockpit sat Kaizoku, throneless, bleeding. A rent down the left side of her face, her navy flesh scabbed over with dark purple blood, the socket it bisected an eyeless void. Her right had was clutched around the remains of her left arm, the field dressing on the stump of what was left already saturated with blood.
"Bhelguld, Musvir, anyone, do you read me?" She called out over the Storlayacas' communication frequency, but the only thing that responded was empty static.
She gave vent to a wordless shout, leaning her head back against the pilot's seat, her remaining eye closing as her chest heaved with each agonizing breath. All around her, the screens in the cockpit showed the vast empty expanse of nothing around her.
And with her eyes closed, she didn't notice the ship coming up behind her.
For several seconds it advanced in silence, a slate grey craft of sharp angles and a sinister air. And then a burst of static filled the air as the incoming vessel's comms connected.
"So you survived the coup."
Kaizoku's eye snapped open at that, and a wave of her hand had the display directly in front of her showing the the ship that had hailed her.
"If you've come to remedy that, I implore you to think better of it. I have had a most trying day, and will not hesitate to meet your challenge with deadly force." Kaizoku informed this interloper.
The screen flickered, no longer the image of the incoming craft, but its pilot. A deorviran woman, orange furred and red maned, her copper eyes bright within the darkness of her cockpit as she said, "Don't worry, I have no intent of fighting you. Rather, I am here to fight for you."
Kaizoku's remaining golden eye narrowed at this. "And why, pray tell, would you propose such a thing to someone in as dire straits as I?"
The deorviran smirked, her eyes darting to Kaizoku's ruined arm as she told her, "Because it looks like you could use a hand."
The interior of a small ship, the controls ornate, almost old fashioned. An aesthetic of age layered over modern technological advancements. The seats were upholstered in plush leather, more befitting of an office boardroom, not a starcraft. In the pilot's seat sat the human Bathory, her cape off her shoulders, her voluminous dark hair framing her face as she sat with one leg crossed over the other, fingers steepled as she regarded her guest, her dark eyes sparkling with mirth.
In the chair across from her sat an apiarian - lean, insectoid, a teal carapace over grey flesh, the civilian spacesuit she was wearing incongruous with her ramrod posture, all military precision. Her navy eyes regarded the woman before her with cool detachment as she said, "Your summons was light on details."
"A necessity in this line of work," Bathory told her with a conciliatory nod of her head, "You'll find that it's not quite as strict as the military protocols your used to."
"The military operates on a need to know basis, of this fact I am very familiar." The apiarian replied, mandibles twitching in agitation.
Bathory let out a breath of laughter through her nose. "You would be, wouldn't you? Over your long and illustrious career, you proved yourself to be everything that your military demanded you to be, and yet here you are, in the midst of a career change. Tell me, what happened?"
"Fools happened," the apiarian snapped, "Years of dedicated service, undeniable results, but my deeds were erased by the words of liars. Demoted for falsehoods, my superiors ignored everything I had accomplished, instead rewarding these braggadocios fraudsters with commands that should have been mine. I am meant for the battlefield, not a desk, and so I tendered my resignation to seek my fortune elsewhere. And this is what has led to our paths crossing."
"Then how fortuitous for me." Bathory said, a predatory grin stealing across her features, "Are you sure you have no compunctions with joining up with my cause? No regrets about leaving your former posting?"
The apiarian scoffed at that. "None whatsoever. They have sown the seeds of their own fate, and whatever grows from that wretched harvest is sure to be grim."
A planetside shipyard, the local vegetation stripped clear of the area, a military instillation rising from the wreckage. All utilitarian design and bright colouring, it could only be of Thalatte design. Under the glow of this world's ochre moon, sepia light threw soft shadows across the facility, and it was through this gloom that two figures crept.
Neither of them were thalatte, their tails trailing behind them making that obvious as they darted from cover to cover, slipping through the facility's security with embarrassing ease.
A breathable atmosphere meant that neither of these intruders needed to wear helmets, and so the faces of Kaizoku and her Hand were visible when they peeked around one of the buildings within the facility, Kaizoku's artificial eye rotating within its socket as she zoomed in on their destination.
A hangar, locked and guarded, armed soldiers positioned at the entrance and patrolling around it, fully armoured as they scanned their surroundings.
The feed from Kaizoku's eye, an overlay picking out the security measures of the hangar, both living and machine. The hangar doors were the only entrance, a small personnel door situated on one side of it, no way to sneak past those standing vigil before it.
But the door was not the point of ingress Kaizoku sought.
Along the top of the hangar ran a series of openings. Stylistic choices, temperature regulators, cost cutting measures, it mattered not why these gaps in the building's superstructure were there, as they were exactly what the pair needed in order to retrieve their prize.
Carefully watching the patrol routes of those on duty, the two intruders darted from cover the moment their path was free from scrutiny. Kaizoku skidded to a silent halt below one of the openings, lifting her artificial left arm straight up, and with a quiet hiss her hand rocketed upward, a thin filament trailing behind it. In seconds, it had reached one of the gaps, and gripped tightly to the open edge. The Hand was at Kaizoku's side in an instant, an arm looped around her shoulder while Kaizoku held her by the waist, the two of them hauled up by the winch in Kaizoku's prosthetic.
Not a moment too soon, as the guards rounded the building and headed towards where the two had just been standing. Unseen above their heads, the intruders slipped through the gap in the building's walls.
With work shut down for the night, only the dim emergency lights had been left on. Kaizoku and the Hand descended to the floor of the hangar and slipped behind one of the equipment containers scattered about, the Hand edging around the corner in order to raise a handheld device in the air. A few seconds later the lights in the facility flickered, and the Hand nodded to Kaizoku.
Seeing the world through her artificial eye once again, the HUD marked out a path that had been cleared by diverting the cameras and sensors that filled the interior of this military facility. The pair of intruders were quick to make their way down this path to their target.
A sleek, pure black ship.
They made their way to the front of the vessel, to where one of the personnel access doors lay. Another activation of the Hand's device and the door opened, the ramp extending down to greet them. The pair did not waste any time in entering the ship.
At rest, the interior was dark, and it was only thanks to a dim light cast by Kaizoku's eye that they had illumination enough to navigate. The walls around them were stark, bare, in desperate need of a makeover.
A few halls and a few turns was all it took to find the bridge, and the pair split up, the Hand rushing to one of the consoles, while Kaizoku threw herself into the pilot's seat.
The console lit up under the Hand's touch, engines humming to life a moment later. Lights began to flicker on within the ship as one of Kaizoku's hands settled on the controls, the other dashing through a pre-flight check.
As more systems came online, the noise of the vessel became too great to ignore, and lights within the hangar blared into blinding brightness as a distant alarm rang out across the facility.
"Guess that's our signal to get out of here." The Hand said, shooting a smirk Kaizoku's way.
Kaizoku returned it, both hands gripping the controls as she activated the thrusters, and the ship lifted from the ground.
Responding eagerly to her touch, it swung about to face the door with ease, and a single pull of the trigger was all it took for the ship's weapons to blast the doors clean off, leaving nothing in the way of their escape.
"Charging subspace engine." The Hand announced, and Kaizoku flew from the hangar, the shipyard's defence turrets swinging around to open fire.
She wove the craft through most of the incoming fire, what she couldn't avoid was deflected by the ship's shields. Up and out of the atmosphere they flew, more conventional Thalatte ships rising from their posts across the planet in order to give chase.
Straight for the system's subspace gate they aimed, the pastel tear into that other realm kept open by a ring structure big enough to allow for even the most massive of Thalatte ships to pass through the threshold. Their pursuers were only able to keep pace with them, not catch up, their weapons fire falling short due to the speed of all vessels involved.
"They're shutting down the gate." The Hand announced, her grin wild as she nodded at the main view screen. Sure enough, the subspace portal vanished as they advanced.
"What a shame, now we will never be able to outrun our hunters." Was Kaizoku's sarcastic reply, all malicious glee.
Rocketing forward to the ring structure regardless of its lack of subspace access, Kaizoku and the Hand wore matching grins.
The moment the ship entered into the threshold of the ring structure, the Hand activated the subspace engine. The tear it opened was nowhere near as big as the one the structure could create, but the sudden surge of unexpected energy roiled through it, frying circuits and overloading systems so severely that a destructive wave cascaded through the ring structure, triggering an explosion that tore it apart, and destroyed those unlucky pursuit craft who couldn't alter their course in time.
Safe within the confines of subspace, the pair revelled in their success with silent satisfaction, Kaizoku looking over her shoulder to say, "Well done, your performance was as exemplar as always."
"And now we're one step closer to achieving our goals," the Hand replied, "I'm going to give this ship a search, see if I can root out any tracking devices or systems that could tip off our location."
Kaizoku let out a scoff at that. "Please do. I would hate to subject this vessel to more needless combat before we even have the chance to christen it."
Stopping before she left the bridge, the Hand turned back around. "Oh? You have something in mind?"
"I do," Kaizoku told her, turning back around to face the main view screen, a triumphant grin lighting up her features, "The Pelekys."
The arena was alive with spectators, the crowds writhing in excitement as the combatants within the stadium engaged in deadly, thrilling combat with one another. A squadron of Baithaiz T0-K4Y mechs, squat and heavily armoured, were advancing on a lone mech.
And the match was not going in their favour.
Alone as it was, this mech towered over the T0-K4Y, the off white colouration and almost organic appearance clear indicators that this thing was of Hyttan make, and though the general shape of it was similar, this was clearly no Odazaen.
A trio of T0-K4Y launched themselves at this massive machine, a thick cable stretched between them, an attempt to restrain the Hyttan mech in some way. A futile plan, as a sweep of one of its legs sent the three Baithaiz mechs crashing into each other, explosions ricocheting between them as systems were damaged badly enough to blow.
Other T0-K4Y tried different tactics to bring their gargantuan opponent down, and they all met with a similar level of success. In the span of a few minutes, the Hyttan mech had reduced the Baithaiz force by half.
The crowd in the stands could not be happier.
Another wave of T0-K4Y came swarming out from the stadium's entrances, quick to replace the numbers the Hyttan mech was tearing through. From the wreckage scattered across the battlefield, it was clear that this machine had torn through a considerable number of mechs already, and these new ones were destined to follow.
Or they would have been, if an ornate, bronze ship hadn't descended unexpectedly from the clouds above and began opening fire on everything that wasn't of Hyttan make.
With the smaller mechs now occupied by a larger target, the Hyttan mech crouched for a moment before springing up into a leap. At the apex of its jump, thrusters activated along its back and legs, pushing it further up towards the bronze ship. Once it was near enough, the Hyttan vanished with the unmistakable immediacy of dematting, and with a parting salvo the bronze ship turned and fled.
A chase to the system's subspace gate began, Baithaiz ships quick to pounce on the vessel, raking it with weapons fire.
The pilot of this ship was clearly an ace, as they avoided every attempt to box them in with ease. Unfortunately the vessel itself was not capable of meeting all of its pilot's commands, the engines howling as they strained, weapons tearing through the shields enough to rip gouges in the ornamental plating.
But despite the strain, despite the damage, despite the portal within the subspace gate fading away to nothing before the ship could reach it, the bronze vessel passed the threshold of the gate and tore open a path to subspace on its own, and much like what had happened in that Thalatte system on the other side of the galaxy, the subspace gate was destroyed.
Free from pursuit, the ship throttled down to a speed less likely to fry its engines, its destination a mystery as it made its way through the pastel waves of subspace.
Within the ship's cargo hold, the massive Hyttan mech had come to rest, the cockpit swinging open just as two figures ascended the access walkway in front of it.
Bathory and Grim came to a stop a little ways away from the opening, the former casually leaning against the railing while the later came stiffly to attention.
From out of the mech stepped an alien completely covered by an armoured encounter suit. Bipedal with two arms, every other indication about what race this stranger belonged to was obscured from scrutiny.
The alien turned to face the pair that stood before it, the swirling purple fog that filled its helmet obscuring everything but the alien's glowing eyes.
"Chancellor… General…" the alien's voice came out softly, distantly, "I had been expecting your arrival… now our real work can begin…"
The cargo hold, a space vast enough to hold a battalion's worth of equipment.
Yet it felt dwarfed by the single mech that stood within it.
Much as the mech had seemed minuscule against the backdrop of the void, the two aliens stood on the access walkway were easy to miss with the larger than life presence of the mech filling the area.
Leaning an elbow against the railing that ran along the walkway, the Hand turned to Kaizoku and said, "I told you this ship would serve our purposes."
Her own hands braced against the railing, one of flesh, one of metal, Kaizoku returned a smirk as she replied, "If anything, you undersold its capabilities. Our new vessel, our Pelekys, will be the axe with which we shall hew our destiny. Not obstacle will stand between us and our goals."
The Hand hummed out a single laugh at that. "Seeking out the rest of the Storlayacas."
Both of their gazes were drawn up to the mech at rest before them, severe as a monument, but to what? A question they would have to create the answer to themselves.
Kaizoku nodded at the ancient Hyttan machine. "The signal that led to our initial encounter, have you traced it back to its point of origin?"
"I have," the Hand told her, "A research outpost belonging to an exiled scientist. An expert on Hyttan technology, alas, their research practices proved to be too controversial for their peers. They were dabbling with AI."
Kaizoku scoffed at that. "With what little modern scientists have been able to divine of how these Hyttan remnants work, it would behoove them to take advantage of whatever advancement they could."
"Prejudices can cloud even the sharpest mind," the Hand replied, "Just look at how the rest of the galaxy treats our races."
"A valid counterargument," Kaizoku conceded with a nod, "We shall have to endeavour to avoid stumbling into the same pitfall. This scientist managed to create the means to track the Storlayacas, and we must not allow this signal to fall into any other hands but our own."
"Cutting through subspace will have us at the outpost in under an hour," the Hand informed her, "From what information I gathered about the place before I came to pick up you, the defences aren't anything that should give me trouble. Armed security, at least, will be at a minimum. The AI lived up to the stereotype and killed all organics within the facility."
"No doubt they had attempted to stop it from completing its purpose. We will not be doing the same." Kaizoku said, smirking slightly as she turned to stare at the Storlayacas once again, "We shall set course for this outpost, and you will take the tool we need through whatever force you deem appropriate. Before this day is done, that program will be ours."