www.thevalentinechronicles.com presents:
Keys to the Kingdom
by Paul L. Mathews
Part Two
Invasion
With walls crammed, haphazard, with monitors and
terminals; floor lost beneath a blanket of cables and wiring and air stale with
sweat and whisky, Ivan’s operations centre reflected the chaos and desperation
into which the campaign had slid. The heat from so many computer processors
made that same air thick and oppressive, and the room pulsed with the muted
rhythm of artillery fire that—even this deep inside the Torch—could be heard as
the battle for Promise raged outside.
Ivan stood at the heart of the room flanked by his
lieutenant, Judd, and one of the Beggar Barons who had hired the Valentines and
the rest of the mercenary army. In silence they watched as report after report issued
from a holograph projector. Ethereal and green, the myriad of projections were
backed by a chorus of gunfire, explosions and panicked shouting as they told
their stories. Ivan stroked his chin, harangued by the worsening news.
“This is Elferink. We have Ildred landing on the
waterfront. We’ll try and hold them off, but we need more men here!”
“We can’t take any more wounded. We’re out of beds
and space on the floor, never mind drugs.”
“We’re under fire! We’re under fi—”
“Long range scans are back online. I…shit…I think the
‘Cracys have more ships on the way…”
“We’ve lost Pavlo and the dogs!”
His shoulders slumped and his head bowed. The dogs?
That meant Stalin, Laika and the rest were gone. Ivan snarled and spat on the
floor. What had that idiot ‘droid Pavlo been thinking?
He turned to Judd. Even in this heat, even after
sixty hours without sleep, the man looked pristine and clean. Ivan grimaced at
him. “This is not going well, yes?”
Judd ceased smoothing his immaculate pencil moustache
with forefinger and thumb, and he drew a gleaming bowie knife from a sheath at
his belt. Holding the blade before his face, he raised an eyebrow at his
reflection in approval. "Still," he said with a sardonic smile,
"at least it can't get any worse, old man."
A further projection shimmered into life—a tall,
raven-haired and flat-chested woman with milk white skin that contrasted with
the polished gleam of her long black cyborg legs, black hot-pants and body
armour. Black Gladys, Ivan thought. Thank God. Someone I can rely on. “Gladys,”
he said. “How are—”
“The Theocracy have offered me more money, Ivan,” she
said. “I’ll give you an hour to get away, then you’re fair game.” She pushed
the fringe of her bobbed black hair back from her forehead and fastened it in
place with a black butterfly clip. “I’m sorry, Ivan, but money talks, and I’ve got to think of my men.”
Ivan’s lip curled, and he ground his teeth. Damn it,
he thought. Gladys and her Plague Rats’ preternatural powers of teleportation
made them one of the best companies left. They could strike anywhere, and at
anytime. No wonder the Theocracy had made them a good offer—an offer Ivan had
no chance of bearing. To lose them was bad enough, but to have to fight them…?
“An hour? We’ll be lucky to last that long,” said the
Baron, voice shrill and querulous.
Ivan eyed the man. One of the youngest of the Barons,
he could barely have been eighteen. Typically effete and pretty, his dark eyes
glittered with the same reflected green light that also made his pale skin look
ghoulish and sick. He smelt of liberally applied colognes and bath salts. His
hands fidgeted across the lap of his dark red robes as he asked, “How long
until your Kithaen creates that portal?”
“An hour,” Judd said.
The Baron almost choked. “That’s outrageous! How can
it take an hour?”
Ivan jabbed the petite man in the chest with his
forefinger. The startled youngster staggered back. “She is navigating the Echo.
Do you have any idea of energies involved? One mistake and there will be no
city left to defend, yes?”
The Baron blanched and looked away as he trembled
beneath Ivan’s glare. Ivan snorted and turned away. To think his men were dying
for these shits…
“Ivan!” Judd shouted. “Look!”
An image of Vassilissa had stuttered into life and
continued to stammer even as Vassilissa spoke. Bloodied and bent, the muscles
in her jaw spasmed. Her blonde hair had become red and spiked with blood that
leaked from beneath her hairline and down her face. Ivan’s own blood ran cold
at the sight of her. “Ivan? Judd?" Her voice was taut and thin. She
swallowed, wincing, before continuing. “We’ve crashed and Gregor’s hurt.” She
stopped, gasping for breath.
Crashed. Vassilissa and Gregor were on the Siberian
Winter providing air-cover for the Cartimundi. For the Winter to be
shot down jarred Ivan: if there had been any doubt as to how hard it would be
to defend Promise…
“We need help here. I’ve stabilised Gregor, but he’s
bad. We need Skullion.”
“It’s okay, ‘Lissa, just hold on.” Typical, Ivan
thought. Always saving little brother’s hide. “I’m on my way.”
He turned, ready to sprint from the room, only to be
arrested by a hand on his shoulder. Judd. Even through Ivan’s body armour, the
strength of the man’s grip surprised him. He looked into the Englishman’s face—mouth
in a thin line, oscillating eyes wide and wet, he looked nervous and… Ivan’s
brow furrowed. Did he look…dejected? Ivan knew the loss of so many of their men
was torture for both of them, and he also had his suspicions about the precise
nature of Englishman’s relationship with Vassilissa, but he’d never seen Judd
look so forlorn. “What?” Ivan asked. “What is wrong?”
“Just…” Judd looked away and let go of Ivan’s
shoulder. “Just be careful.”
“I will. And Judd?” He squeezed the Englishman’s arm
as they looked at one another. “‘Lissa will be fine, I will see to that.”
#
The Troika bucked as it forged its way through
the night sky over Promise. Scant minutes since it burst from one of The
Torch’s courtyards, and already the corvette shrugged off Theocracy fire. Small
arms, rockets, and tracer fire streamed from the streets below. Maser beams
from pursuing Scythes lanced across the sky, and missiles from warships off the
coast tore through the night. But the Troika sped on, resolute. The
masers were swallowed by the corvette’s ECG field which flexed and swam with
kaleidoscopic colour. The missiles exploded in vivid red roses, targeted and
shot down by the chain-guns of robotic Voyska
flight-pods that escorted the little ship. The bullets and rockets bounced off
the Troika’s armoured hull without effect, doing little more than
decorating its hide with sparks and pretty flourishes of transient flame.
Undaunted by this relentless assault, the Troika’s
own turrets and pods responded with a calamitous symphony of cannon fire and
missiles. This chorus of destruction swatted Scythes from the sky, raked
Theocracy infantry below and battered the warships out to sea. The sky pulsed
with explosion and fire, and the city bathed in wreckage and blood.
Below, the docks and the shanty town shorelines were
swallowed by waves of Theocracy marines as they spilled from the maws of
landing craft, and as hunched, amphibious Ildred waded out of the water and
into battle. Elite shock-troops from deep with the Theocracy, they were
armoured, hump-backed and hammer-headed aliens that would not stop until they’d
reached the Tower or were destroyed. Bunkers and pillar boxes spat fire at
them, mowing them down in their droves. Still they came.
Further inland, Theocracy levies swarmed through the
streets, the brass hulks of bipedal Gor Lak walkers amongst them. These
ape-like monsters lumbered forward on their knuckles, the pods of their
shoulders blazing stream upon stream of precision fire. Led by nobles in
gleaming armour, they pushed for the Torch, only to be held by the machine gun
nests, snipers, mines, and barricades of Ivan’s mercenary coalition.
At the centre of Promise the Torch stood proud, the
fire beacon built into its tower still blazing against the midnight blue of the
night. Duelling fighters spun a loose weave of rockets, missiles, and tracer
fire about it, and Scythes spat at one another with ballistic vitriol that
glowed in the darkness.
And yet, for all this chaos, for all this hellfire
and wrath, Promise itself had suffered little damage, the invading force
seeming to treat it with an almost palpable respect. They had come, after all,
to protect the city, not ravage it. This was not a brutal, wholesale demolition
with no thought for life or collateral damage: this was a surgical operation
designed to remove a cancer and aid the patient.
Low to the roofs of tenements and terraces below, the
Troika zeroed in on the vanquished Siberian Winter. The blue and
white craft lay in a crater of decimated houses, obliterated by its crash
landing. Ivan’s ship moved into position to the side of the stricken vessel
and, hovering, lowered its landing gear. More fire raked her armour. Hunched
Theocracy levies, lead by strident brass nobles and backed by the towering
fire-power of more Gor Lak, surged from the surrounding streets. They
fired without pause and charged without hesitation, the Troika swamped
by a tidal wave of deflected bullets and red-hot shrapnel.
#
“Damn it all!” Ivan said as he wrestled with the Troika
flexing yoke. “They knew where we would be…again!”
“Worry about that later, Ivan,” said Thom Skullion.
Sat at the corvette’s scanning station, his faded black t-shirt sported a thick
patch of sweat down its spine and under the arms. His brow glistened, his
lustrous dark hair plastered to his head. “Looks like there’s half the goddam
Theocracy out there!”
Ivan grunted. “Dolly?”
“Deploying anti-personnel measures now, Master Ivan,”
said the android serf as it sat at weapons control. Flashing readouts and data
from the screens were reflected in its blank façade as it tapped at the
controls beneath slim metal fingers.
A subtle vibration in his seat told Ivan the turrets
had spoken, and he looked to a screen above him. Sure enough tiny contacts on
the scanner were blinking out at an astonishing rate. Even the bigger ones—the Gor
Lak suits no doubt—winked out with impunity. He smiled a dark smile. There
would be no easy pickings here.
The Troika shook as it touched down. Ivan took
a moment to offer a silent prayer to God, and then he rose from the pilot
station and strode toward the door. He drew his silver revolver and popped the
chamber to check it was full. “You come with me, Thom,” he said whilst he
holstered the revolver. He drew his automatic and clicked the safety off.
“Fantastic,” Skullion muttered as he stood and
grabbed his distinctive skull-decorated jacket from the back of his chair.
“Grade fuckin’ A.”
Ivan ignored him. He wouldn’t need be here at all if
he had a dollar for every time Skullion griped and belly-ached. “Keep her hot,
Dolly. We will need to leave quickly, yes?”
#
The ramp barely touched the rubble before Ivan
sprinted from it, a unit of Omega Hammers beside him. With the relentless fire
of the Troika’s chain-guns slicing over their heads, they engaged the
faltering Theocracy, their SMGs, rifles, man-portable masers, and grenades
dissecting the levies with a exacting precision. Scythes—the mark of Ivan’s
ally Mottersmead proud on their noses—moved into position above the Troika
and fired on the Theocracy.
“To the Winter!” Ivan bellowed over the
thunder of gunfire and the screams of the wounded. Crouched, he, Thom and a
third of the unit scurried toward the broken Siberian Winter. Barely a
quarter of the way, however, they suffered a withering hail of return fire as
the Theocracy rallied. With men falling about him, Ivan could do little but
dive for cover amongst the smashed walls and masonry of the decimated houses.
His men followed suit, and they crawled toward the downed ship on their
bellies, the rubble and brick beneath biting at them.
“Once,” said Skullion, his voice breathless, “just
once, I’d like to go on a normal date, Ivan.”
“If we get out of this,” Ivan said, his mouth full of
dust, “we retire and live boring life on beach somewhere.”
“Careful, lover.” Skullion’s tone bore needles and
knives. “That’d mean telling Gregor ‘bout us…”
Ivan had no chance to reply. An ill-coordinated
howling and the rapid crunch of rubble under boots warned Ivan of approaching
danger. He pushed Skullion aside as a small knot of levies charged at them.
Some brandished machetes and knives, others began to fire small arms. With
bullets stabbing into the smashed wall behind him and the broken bricks
beneath, Ivan fired both handguns simultaneously, and his assailants fell in a
cloud of spilled blood and splintered bone.
Ivan looked about him. Mottersmead’s Scythes were
being shot out of the sky to crash about them in showers of burning wreckage.
Ivan’s men were already overwhelmed and engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. The
indistinct shapes of yet more Theocracy were moving into view through the
smoke. He grimaced. He’d recognise those silhouettes anywhere: Ildred.
“We need to get out of here, Ivan.” Skullion grabbed
him by the arm and hauled him toward the Winter. “If the Ildred are
here, they must have gone through Elfefrink.”
“I know, Thom,” Ivan said as he turned and sprinted
for his brother’s ship. “I know.”
Damn it! he thought. Elfefrink had been a good man.
Too good to waste on a lost cause like this. Ivan looked about him. More and
more of his men fell beneath the sheer weight of numbers, smothered by levies,
slashed by nobles and crushed by walkers. From tiny, rat-like Herbies to
lumbering, Graven golems, and from the precision and grace of Venleigion
skirmishers to the panicked blur of Jeshan slaves, the Theocracy war-machine
crashed about Ivan’s men. Well-drilled and experienced, the Hammers held their
own, but their dwindling numbers were being divided into desperate knots and
forced back toward the Troika. Amongst them Ivan caught a glimpse of the
Vermiddion child—Vast—in the thick of it all, punching and kicking without fear
or pause.
He tapped at his comm. If the Theocracy had forged on
this far already, they’d reach The Torch before Kithaen could hope to finish
her portal. They needed to get the civilians out another way. “Judd?” he
shouted into his mic, struggling to be heard against the furore around him.
“Judd? Do you copy, over?”
#
Judd knelt over the twitching Baron. Face down, the
effete youngster’s neck spat blood in lines across the floor of the operations
centre.
“I’m here, old man.” He wiped his bowie knife clean
on the Baron’s robe as he spoke. “Go ahead.”
“We cannot hold back Theocracy much longer.” Ivan’s
voice sounded strained and thin. “Get down to crypt and get civilians out of
Torch. Meet what is left of Aurochs at rendezvous point, and they’ll get
civilians off-world. ”
Judd sheathed his knife as he stood. “Wilco, Ivan.”
“And Judd? Make sure Barons are kept safe. They may
be shits but they are still paying, yes.”
Judd looked down at the Baron on the floor. He’d
stopped twitching and what little colour he’d possessed had already drained
from his cheeks. “Don’t worry, Ivan,” Judd said with a sigh, his head bowed,
“the Barons will be well taken care of…”
#
Back at the Winter, Ivan reloaded his
revolver. A group of levies attempted to rush him and Skullion, only to be cut
down in a torrent of bullets from the Voyska
hovering over the Troika.
“We need access now, Dolly!” Ivan shouted over
his comm.
“Copy that, Master Ivan.” As Doll Two’s voice
crackled over his earpiece, the airlock hissed and its iris valve door began to
dilate.
“Bless you, Dolly!” Skullion said as moved toward the
door, only for Ivan to stop him with a hand on his chest.
“Wait!”
“There’s no time, Ivan!” Another ribbon of sparks and
ricocheted bullets across the hull to their left underlined Skullion’s point.
“We need to get—”
Ivan shook his head. “We need to wait. Something is wrong here.” He looked at the
buildings about the crash-site. Something didn’t look right... He tapped at his
comm. “Have you performed scan, Dolly?” he asked as he turned to fire at a
gaggle of charging Jeshans, their green skin bright with sweat and tiny eyes
wide with adrenalin.
“Indeed, Master Ivan, and I see no sign of external
damage sufficient to cause the Siberian Winter’s crash.”
Ivan grunted. Just as he suspected. There was
something about this whole thing that stank. “Go on.”
“Diagnostics suggest that the Siberian Winter’s
Ivan snarled. That’s what was wrong. None of the
surrounding buildings had been knocked down in a way consistent with a ship of
the Winter’s size coming down at an oblique angle. It had clearly
plummeted from the sky.
“Wh—” Skullion ducked as more bullets flashed over
their heads and into the Winter’s bow. Ivan sank to one knee and killed
the attacking Theocracy soldier with two shots. “What do you mean? Someone on board brought the Winter
down?”
Ivan’s shoulders sank a little. He wanted to reply,
but the words tore his throat. A void opened in his belly. To think someone in
the Hammers would betray them to the Theocracy. “Just…” He looked into
Skullion’s eyes and took a moment to stroke his face. The greasy prickle of his
stubble scratched at his palm. “Just be careful.”
#
Judd’s stride
slackened a little as he walked toward one of The Torch’s many banqueting
halls, and a bilious taste welled from his throat and into his mouth. With his
hand over his chest, he could feel the crucifix under his khaki shirt and tie,
but it offered little solace. He gritted his teeth. Just remember why you are
here, he kept telling himself. Remember why the Theocracy are here.
With a deep
breath he pushed open a heavy wooden door and entered the darkened hall.
Ornate, with a high and vaulted ceiling, tapestries lined the walls and torches
burned in tall and golden stands. The windows were sealed and the thick air
stank of sweat and flatulence. Stuffed with civilians, the hall bubbled with
fearful chatter and murmured prayers.
Judd looked
at the menagerie of aliens and refugees around him. Families sat together in
tight knots. Couples, young and old, clung to one another. Soldiers from the
Baron’s poorly equipped militia gathered in pairs. Lone Barons, thin and pale,
moved through the throng offering shallow reassurances. Judd’s conscience
pricked him, and he had to look away. No, he told himself. Don’t be a fool.
There’s no need to feel guilt or shame, You’re doing this for them. Just
remember that…
He looked up,
only to see a smattering of Omega Hammers and their sergeant, Maxim, stood at
regular intervals about the walls nursing their SMGs just as he nursed his
guilt. Frightened children cried and petrified parents tried to calm them.
Frail grandparents and elders maintained a stoic silence whilst their sons
railed at the dulled noise of the battle beyond the shutters, shaking their
fists and vowing a terrible and unlikely vengeance.
The door
slammed shut behind Judd with a boom and the throng of aliens and soldiers
turned to him. Their voices trailed off one by one until only silence remained.
Judd cleared his throat and flinched as the small sound echoed about the vast
space. It’s all right, old boy, he told himself. Everything’s going to be just
fine. You’ll see.
“If I may
have your attention.” He stretched his neck and straightened his tie. “The
battle is over.”
The
continued rumble of warfare beyond the shuttered windows belied Judd’s
statement. Then a tumult of questions and angry shouts filled the air whilst
the Barons and their people demanded answers. His gaze travelled over them, and
their eyes bore into him. At their centre that weird midget cobbler—Rish, was
it?—sat surrounded by orphans. A friend of Ivan’s, he’d apparently turned up on
Promise years ago to ‘mend shoes’, and had never left. He glared at Judd, his
brow knitting before shaking his head in disapproval as though reading Judd’s
mind.
Judd raised
his voice to shout. “The battle is over, and the Theocracy have won. They offer
mercy and zero civilian casualties in exchange for the Barons’ lives—”
An even
greater roar, and the Barons rushed forward, some angry, some scared, and some
confused. Amongst them the Omega Hammers demanded to know what was happening,
and who had ratified this surrender. They surrounded Judd, pushing and jostling
him.
Gunfire
bludgeoned the air, and screams rang out as the Barons and civilians dove to
the ground. The Plague Rats stood amongst them, appearing from out of nowhere
in their own impossible way. Like the Barons, they were thin and pale, faces
sallow and cheek bones high, but they wore the skins of giant rats over their
heads and black body armour. Smoke spiralled from the barrels of their guns as
they trained them on the civilians, the Barons, their militia, and the Omega
Hammers.
“Drop the
guns.” Black Gladys now stood by Judd’s shoulder. Startled, he jumped. He’d
fought beside Gladys and her Rats for years, and knew all about their weird
teleporting powers but still couldn’t get used to it.
A clatter as
the militia dropped their weapons immediately. If any fight still lived in the
Barons’ people, it didn’t live in their militia.
“And
you,” Black Gladys told the Hammers with a thick vein of impatience.
The Hammers,
weapons aimed at the Rats, glanced at each other.
“What’s
going on, Judd?” asked Maxim. A lean man decorated with the scars of continued
service, he looked like he fed on nothing but gunpowder and pack-drill.
“Black
Gladys and I have accepted the Theocracy’s terms of surrender to ensure no
further bloodshed. They don’t want to see any more soldiers or civilians killed
because of the Beggar Barons, and neither do we.”
Maxim
laughed a sardonic laugh. “Okay, but has anybody told the Oprinichki?”
Judd paused.
Ivan’s elite cadre of wardroids, the Oprinichki
were currently in the bowels of
The Torch and charged with defending Kithaen until she had completed her
portal. They’d only stand down when ordered to by Ivan himself. He swallowed.
“They’ve already been destroyed.”
The lie
deflated Maxim and his men visibly, and they lowered their shoulders and guns.
Then those guns fell to the floor as the soldiers placed their hands on their
head.
The last to
drop his SMG, Maxim looked at Judd with a sneer of disapproval. “What about
Ivan? Has anybody told him the war’s over?”
Now Judd and
Black Gladys looked at one another. Judd tried to answer. “We…um…”
“Don’t worry
about Ivan,” Black Gladys said, a delicate smile on her ruby lips. “He’s all
taken care of…”
#
“Transponders
indicate Master Gregor and Mistress Vassilissa are indeed still on the flight
deck, Master Ivan.”
“Copy that,
Dolly. Ivan out.” He turned to Skullion. “You are ready?”
The American
looked at him from the other side of the door to the Winter’s flight-deck. “The
hell I am, Ivan. But I guess we’re goin’ in anyways, right?”
Ivan smiled
a thin smile and thumbed the hammer back on his revolver.
“I thought
so,” Skullion said.
They’d
entered the Winter unopposed and their swift search had met
with a similar lack of resistance. All they found were the unconscious crew of
the corvette lining its corridors and battle-stations. None of them bore a
single sign of struggle, but a cursory inspection from Skullion lead the
American to declare they’d been drugged and left here—along with Gregor and
Vassilissa—as bait. Now Ivan prepared for the final denouement.
He nodded to
Skullion, who punched at the door’s controls. It opened with a hiss, and Ivan
sprang through, revolver raised.
The
flight-deck sat in darkness, its canopy sealed by its armoured shutter. The
lights of its instrumentation were dim and slow, and Ivan caught a glimpse of
the
“Gregor?
Vassilissa?”
There was no
reply, and, with revolver still raised, Ivan crept forward with slow,
deliberate paces. After only a few steps he finally made out his brother.
Slumped in the pilot’s chair, motionless, his chin rested on his chest and
darkness smothered his features. But it was him alright, from the Omega
Hammers’ motif on his jacket, driving gloves, the excessive Gol Jaquan pistol
strapped to his hip, and the tacky cowboy boots, it was him.
Ivan scanned
left and right before he saw Vassilissa prone on the floor. Face down and
unconscious, her breath made a patch of steam on the cold deck against her
cheek. The hairs on Ivan’s neck rose, and he pushed his revolver into his belt
and cracked his knuckles, happier to overcome any prospective ambush with his
bare hands.
His nostrils
twitched. A sickly sweet smell possessed the air: a smell almost unique to Back
Gladys’s Plague Rats… A groan and the thud of a body hitting the deck made Ivan
spin to see unconscious Skullion on the deck with his limbs at odd angles. A
blur of movement on the periphery of Ivan’s vision made him turn again, and he
had the briefest moment to see a black shape lurching for him—a black shape
topped with the distinctive skinned head and pelt of a monstrous rodent. It
came at Ivan as it wielded an inverted SMG like a club.
With a roar
of anger, Ivan felled the Plague Rat with a left hook. More movement in the
corner of his eye made him turn in time to see a further two Rats springing
toward him. Eyes wide, teeth bared, he seized them by their throats and lifted
them from their feet before smashing their heads together.
“Gladys!” A
shower of bone, blood, and brain matter covered his face and chest whilst he
ranted. “You promised me an hour! Traitorous witch! I will destroy you!” She
wasn’t here, but it didn’t matter. He knew her comm link would be open. He knew
that she could hear him. “Do you hear me? Do you?”
A tide of
Rats appeared from thin air and fell upon him. He punched. He kicked. He bit,
but they clung on. Behind them more appeared out of the darkness.
“Come! Come
for me!” He butted the nearest Rat, and it squealed as its face collapsed. “See
what I have for you! See—” Then came the scratch of a needle in his neck. His
vision deserted him and he lost the feeling in his limbs. He tried to rally but
darkness seized his vision. More blows rained upon his head and shoulders, and
he fell to the deck under the sheer weight of assailants. “I will hunt you! I
will find you all! I swear—”
A boot to
his face and the crack of his skull against the deck sealed his fate. Time
slowed and he slid into a black void as his senses left him.
“Gladys?”
The thin and nasal voice of one of the Rats slid into Ivan’s ears from far away
“We have them. I repeat: we have Ivan and Skullion. You can tell the Theocracy
that’s it. Tell them it’s over.” A pause. “Tell them they’ve won.”
To be continued...
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