The Deian War: Conquest (31 page)

She ti
lted her head to one side and noticed the world shift and swim as her eyes realigned with the angle she now viewed it in. When she first went into battle with her Apostle, it had taken a lot of practice to get used to the effects of her armour. Now it was like second-nature to her, but she had never experienced something like this before.

   The spherical object defied her
apprehension when her armour was deactivated, but now it yearned for her to reach out and clutch it with both hands. It almost seemed to speak to her, but she knew there was only her and silence in the room to keep it company.

She took a step forwards and felt a vibration in the air. It was undeniable that something about her ethereal state connected with the weapon
’s own. It both spooked her and drove her mad with curiosity, yet her instinct warned her away even as her feet moved of their own accord towards it.

   “What are you?” she whispered to it.

  
“Something that should never have been made”
it answered.

   A chill ran up her spine, but when she turned
through instinct she found Nightingale standing next to her with a calm expression as though she had been there all along. Naomi realised with relief that it had been the Apostle speaking, not the otherworldly sphere.

   “My Grace?” she
said, helplessly intrigued. She looked at Nightingale, wondering at her pale blue form. She had the appearance of a ghost, simultaneously present and absent in the world. Naomi knew she disturbed the members of other legions, but the Commander felt only admiration for her Apostle.

   Nightingale didn’t return the look, but stared at the device with a level of understanding
and knowledge that Naomi envied.
“It feels familiar, doesn’t it?”

   Naomi felt her armour getting heavy, a sign that its power was being drained by
the activation of its shade ability. She brought her left forearm up and pressed a button that brought her out of the shadowy form and there was the faintest whirring sound as the suit’s automatic systems began to recycle the power supply. Only a select few legionnaires had an understanding of even the most basic Guardian armour systems, but they were all aware of the various functions and capabilities.

   Naomi’s vision was no longer blurry, but it was for the better now that she could view the sphere without conscious strain. On the other hand, she could no longer
appreciate its existence as much as before. “It does, though I cannot explain why. When I turn my armour on, it’s like I can…relate with it”.

  
“If you can realise the connection when you do that, then imagine how I feel…”
Nightingale mused out loud, the faintest glimmer of a smile on her lips.

   From the Apostle’s reaction, Naomi could tell the object was deadly in more ways than one. “My Grace, what is it? What have we brought back with us?” she asked, trepidation in her voice.

   Nightingale cast her eyes on the Commander.
“It is an Energy Sphere…the Empire’s attempt at forging a Hollow Bomb”.

   Naomi’s eyes squinted slightly as she tried to understand what the Energy Sphere was from its namesake. She had more questions now, like how Nightingale even knew the humans were trying to recreate the
Guardian weapon that could create a black-hole. More pressing, however, was her curiosity about what the Gothicans had actually made.

   “What does it do?” she
pressed.

   Nightingale took a step forward, reached out a hand towards the Sphere and held it mid-air. Naomi watched in fascination as the haze that formed her Apostle’s skin wavered and shifted as though about to morph into something new. She thought she could see the hint of bare,
human skin, but it was a fleeting moment that passed before she could memorise it.

  
“It manipulates energy…”
Nightingale whispered, almost reverently. She twiddled her fingers and saw the effect it had on her form.
“Beyond that, we can only guess”.

   Her head sunk before she turned round to Naomi.
“Keep a guard detail on this room, Commander. Only those you trust best. Only our legion.”

   “It will not move from here, my Grace” Naomi replied, saluting her as she began to leave the room.

   “Make sure that it doesn’t, Naomi. For good or ill, the Gothicans have provided us with a weapon of great magnitude. All we have to do is figure out exactly what it’s capable of before we can hope to use it”
Nightingale said over her shoulder as she walked past.

   With that, the Apostle left the Commander alone with the Energy Sphere once more. This time, knowing a little more about what it was but more on edge than before, she couldn’t stare at it for long at all. She decided she wouldn’t, in fact. A few moments later,
Naomi called in the guard detail so she could leave the wretched thing behind.

NIGHTINGALE WALKED THROUGH the doors to the bridge of
Nighthunter
. Like so many times before, she found Thanos standing by the view screens, watching something she couldn’t discern from where she was. Instead of approaching him, she went to the Command Throne and took her seat. Her ethereal form felt like it would pass straight through the chair, but one of the first things she had learnt as an Apostle was how to control her nature. If she wanted, she could force her physicality to be as stable as any other Apostle’s. It was a small thing to do, but it helped her feel more human.

   Thanos didn’t turn, but she could tell from the sound of his voice that his face was grave. “Is it safe?” he asked.

  
“As safe as it can be”
she replied.

  
He turned to her, but he didn’t seem satisfied with her answer. He actually seemed worried, which was an expression she never thought she’d see on him. “How did the Empire get to a position where they could attempt to forge a Hollow Bomb?” he wondered.

  
“Innovation and creation have always been key strengths of the human race. Is it any surprise that they witness destruction and want to employ it to their own use when faced by an enemy they can’t even comprehend the danger of?”

   Thanos shook his head
in denial. “There are limits, sister. They should have known such power is beyond them to control…now they have made a device that no-one can decipher. It could mean the death of us, not just those we use it against”.

   “That is why we
must take it to someone who
can
understand it, unlike us.”

  
Thanos looked perplexed. “There is still fighting on the ground below. We’re not going anywhere until this is resolved” he told her.

   “We have time
to do what must be finished, but not much. The nature of this war is constantly changing. If the enemy were aware of this weapon before we were, we have to ask ourselves
how
...and what exactly they intended to do with it”.

   Thanos thought about
that and looked back at the view screens to the vastness of space. As always, he found some solace in its immensity. “Well, we have always wondered where the Great Enemy actually keeps Himself.”

  
“I know what you’re implying brother, but you cannot be right. If He was here, this battle would have been over long ago and we would have been dead long before we even discovered the Energy Sphere”
Nightingale said. She felt conviction when she spoke those words, yet there was a trace of fear in her that almost escaped into the open. The very thought of the dark god was enough to make any of them tremble, even Hydra who was bottled up in the galaxy’s mightiest stronghold.

   “But He doesn’t have to be, does He? He is a god, or have we fought only his pawns long enough to forget our real foe
is still out there?” Thanos challenged. “For all we understand of Him, He could be omniscient and know everything that we do. Even if He’s not, there were Corrupts in the Senate before the Lion and 617th removed them. Who’s to say He hasn’t got more in every sector we fight in, spying on our every move?”

   Nightingale considered what he was saying. She couldn’t deny the truth that the Apostles had long neglected to face up to the reality of their enemy, but she could understand th
e reasons behind that. For as long as the war had been waging, they had only born witness to the Great Enemy on Pheia. Since then, He had remained concealed and hidden from them. Not even the Hydra’s legion, who were famed for blending into the crowd, could determine His location. It was fear that kept the Apostles truly forgetting His existence, waiting to face them in what could only be the final battle.

  
Nightingale refused to talk about Him any longer.
“It would do us ill to try and second guess a deity. All we must do is ensure the safety of the Empire. We have almost secured this sector and once that is done, we can transport the Sphere to where it must go.”

  
Thanos knew where and who his sister intended to take the human weapon to. “Do you really think the Lion will know what it’s designed to do?” Thanos asked.

   Nightingale
felt compelled to leave the Command throne and join his side. She thought about laying a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but given the disparity in their natures it seemed counter-intuitive.
“Emotion is energy and energy can be manipulated. That’s what the Sphere seems to me to do. In that sense, the Lion is our greatest chance of learning its proper use, for as we all know he has the most emotion out of all of us. It is he who wields the greatest energy. The moment he comes near to it, he’ll be able to tell us all we need to know about its purpose, I’m certain of it”.

  
Thanos believed her, but doubted the safety of her plan. “Then surely you know it’s not as easy as that. If you’re even slightly right about this, taking it to him is a risk. We can’t-”

   “Contact! Jump signatures!” someone shouted, interrupting Thanos
and his objection.

   Both Apostles’ heads snapped round to its source and saw Phoebus, the
comms-officer of the 101st, listen in to her headset as she received more details. “I’m receiving a hail now…”

   They waited intensely as Phoebus scribbled down the message. It had been in code, that much was clear. A few moments later, she looked up from her
position and took a breath. “They’re legion ships, my Grace. More of the missing have returned to us”.

   Thanos
couldn’t help but smile. “With their help, maybe we’ll be leaving soon after all”.

   Nightingale glanced at him.
“You know the procedure, brother. First, we need proof”.

THERE WAS NO mistake in what Solitaire had told them. She had revealed that Promethian ships, the same forged in the Abodian Sector by their brother Apostle the Dragon, was heading to Kraxus and were allied to the enemy. What was unclear, and terribly threatening, was not knowing why the fleet that had been designed to destroy the Phantoms was now being used by them.

   “How can this be?” Oz asked.

   Novus shook her head from side to side slowly, disappointment and regret plain to be seen in the gesture. “Now we know what happened all those years ago…the fleet was taken from us right under our noses. No wonder we haven’t seen Samael since before Pheia.”

   She gulped, realising the weight of what she was implying. “We have lost him too. Why didn’t any of us feel his death? Why didn’t
Valkyrie
? The loss of an Apostle shouldn’t just go unnoticed like that”.

  
Oz, however, was determined not to believe in the apparent conclusion. “You assume too much, Novus. For all we know Samael could still be alive somewhere. To assume he’s been killed because the Great Enemy has his fleet is insult to his survivability. No, we don’t know his fate, but I cannot imagine him fading into the night without us knowing” he argued.

   “Then where is he
?!?” Solitaire almost yelled, like an expectant child demanding answers from her parents. Now that she had told them her secret, she wanted an explanation for it all as much as they did.

   Novus looked at Oz, who
in turn fixed her gaze and with a single nod told her wordlessly to believe in their missing brother.
But he must be dead, since how else would the Phantoms use his ships without torturing him to death for the secrets to using them?
She wanted to ask, but as always she felt she had to look after Solitaire’s well-being first.

   Looking at the youthful Apostle, she summoned a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, dear sister. Oz is
quite right - I am wrong to despair. You see, like you I’m afraid” she said, trying to make herself seem scared so that Solitaire would feel less insecure about her own anxiety. Empathy, Novus had learned, seemed to be the best way to soothe her, even if it meant sharing negative emotions.

   If the legionnaires in the room felt any differently about the Apostles
after seeing how nervous they had become, they were doing well to hide it. Despite their acceptance, they were all anxious to understand what they were supposed to do after the new threat was out in the open for all to know.