Post by dokkywokky on Jan 15, 2023 19:12:59 GMT
The Diadochi Salome of the Marauder Khanate was known for many things; her inescapable beauty, her sharp wit, her silver tongue, and many more. But above all, to those who cared to look deeper (or at least work under her), they knew of her keen interest in the matters of trade. She had a particular belief that rather than using sheer brute force and power to rule, one could manipulate the more subtle aspects of life to use it.
The economy and trade were one such thing. When the Khanate was founded, she played a key role in establishing the economical aspects of the nation, including trade policies and currency. When the Khanate took to the galactic stage, she eagerly began to invest herself into the economic climate of the galaxy. And now, with far more knowledge (or supposedly far more) than she started with, Salome made what would be the Khanate’s first step into the wider galactic economy; an interstellar trade company under the name of ‘Empyreal Forlorn Trade Company’, colloquially known as the Empyreal Company.
Naturally, the merchant princes of the Khanate - the Viziers - protested against this. Many tried to take up their concerns to the Khanate and shut down her project both out of personal ambition and fear for Salome gaining more power over her peers. Alas, she simply whispered into the Lord Khan’s ears and all charges were dropped. So it was that the Empyreal Company strode forwards, gobbling up the enterprises of various Viziers who tried to make their own stakes in the stars. Soon, the Company became Salome’s very own interstellar fiefdom.
One of the many subsectors of the Company, the Empyreal Expeditionary Company, was dedicated to laying claims on far off planets to scour them for everything of value. It was a ruthless branch, equipped with Salome’s own force of marauders to expand their interests. Its primary duties involved setting up mining and industrial bases, trade posts, and subjugating any resistance that reared its ugly head.
Jahuty-12, Jahuty System
Mech Hangar, Empyreal Jahuty Headquarters
Rivaille Rivendare did not know how long it had been since he came to this barren rock, nor did he care. What he did know was that he'd preferred his old post. At least it was a lot more pleasant back on a forest world, where three-quarters of the atmosphere weren't sat frozen on the planet's surface.
Rivaille was a human, and a fairly tall one; with brown hair and blue eyes. His skin had lightly tanned, having been gradually exposed to a wash of UV-Rays from Jahuty's fickle magnetic field. Rivaille let out a brief yawn, then sighed; leaning against the wall of the facility.
He was in a grim hangar, used to store the latest project of the Khan. Or, the 'Khan'. He knew very well that this idea was not his. No: these mech frames were the trademark of his home planet, now just another vassal of the empire. Rivaille looked up at the towering frame of his own machine - a large, bipedal mass of olive green metal. Its body was clunky, and tall: with its 'head' making up most of it. It was massive cylinder jammed into its chest and between its shoulderblades, housing both its reactor and laser weaponry.
Soon, he reflected, I'll be deployed to scout out the planet more. Soon, he'd act under the Vizier Xerxes’ will once more. And why? Why would a soldier of a once proud nation submit and serve to the heels of a tyrant?
“Truth be told,” he said, looking at the singular red optic of his mech, “I don’t even know anymore.”
Patrolling the Jahuty wasteland makes one wish for a nuclear winter, Rivaille mused sardonically. He leant back into the seat inside of his cockpit, taking a sip of water.
Currently, he and the rest of his lance were travelling through the plains, doing their usual security rounds of the area. There wasn't really much to watch out for, but Vizier Xerxes saw it prudent in the case that any rival company would try to make moves here.
Jahuty-12’s cold winds whispered outside the confines of the machine's cockpit. Through the camera-and-screen ‘windows’ of the mech, Rivaille was able to see the barren, vast expanse of frost before him. It wasn't much. No, indeed, it was practically nothing - but the wealth of mineral resources that laid beneath that stark blanket of pure, flat ground was truly something awe-inspiring.
To your average person, however, it was mind-numbingly blank. The star system was swathed in the great, black blanket of a nebula; leaving nothing but its Red Dwarf star shining among the frigid landscape. Save that and the pinpricks of Jahuty’s thirteen other planets, the horizon looked dark and barren. Removed from any context, the place almost felt like some alien purgatory - a desolate non-space where the dying came after death.
Then, the empty horizon lit up before Rivaille’s very eyes.
Was that an aurora?
Ribbons of scarlet and maroon light crackled across the thin atmosphere, looking like some eldritch cross between lightning, flames, and the northern lights. Then, the snow leapt up from the edge of the planet, as if it were trying to leave its surface. The gargantuan plume painstakingly spread out across the atmosphere in a great and gentle blizzard, rolling in a mushroom-cloud of frost.
What.
Just.
Happened?
Rivaille nearly spat out his drink, jolting upright his hands as his hands flew to the control panels. The comms network of the lance flashed to life, audio flooding in from the channels.
“What the hell was that?! Are you seeing this?!” Leto, most likely. He always was a panicky one.
“Aye," Rivaille grunted. "Confirming visual. Lance-corporal Diana, your orders?”
For a moment, there was no reply. After some thought, however, she laid out her instructions. “I’ve reported this to command. Orders are to investigate. Washi, Leto, take point. Rivaille, behind me. We’re going in.” The remainder of the lance mobilized to a chorus of scattered "Yes, Ma'am!"s.
Idly, Rivaille thought back to the old days. Back before enslavement: back before the Khan.
"This really brings back memories, doesn't it?" He mused aloud to himself in the confines of his cockpit. There was no reply, save for the humming of his machine's systems.
As the machines raced across the barren white of Jahuty-12, the planet’s paper-thin atmosphere whispered around them like a skittish cloud of wraiths. The snow kicked up under the lance as the mechs soared across the world, gradually approaching the origin of the aurora. For hours, they could see nothing but the briefest flash of some unknown effect on the horizon.
Then, they came across their first wreck.
It was a massive one, almost as large as one of their machines - and it appeared to be some kind of art display at first glance. After all, no modern machine would use such an extensive array of strange symbols and gears. No current process would produce steel or gold at such an impure quality - and certainly no sane architect would incorporate such basic materials into a frame that large. Yet all the same, there laid on the ground some stony, humanoid statue encased in the golden plates of this machine’s great armor - and all the same did it show the signs of having moved once, with footprints and trails leading behind it already being consumed by the snows and frail winds.
“What the hell is this?,” Rivialle wondered aloud, broadcasting his words to the entire lance. The thing before them almost looked like a mech, but not one he could recognise nor could he make the foggiest details of.
“Did it run out of power?," Another voice chimed in. Washi. He always was a more intellect- minded person, preferring to be more careful and analyze situations before passing a theory. “I don’t see much damage.”
“Does it matter?!” Leto half cried-out, his mech bouncing anxiously to the tune of its pilot. "We should head back to base. Do you see what’s ahead of us?!” As if to punctuate his point, another flash erupted in the distance.
"No."
The lance fell silent. Dana gave them enough time to catch their breath, and then resumed in a hard voice. "We’ve received orders to investigate the anomaly. Lances Gamma and Delta are moving to rendezvous with us near a location marked for us there." But of course, they all knew that. This was just for the transcript after the mission.
Rivaille wracked his brains at the new organization system they'd been using on Jahuty. A lance consists of four mechs, he remembered. Two light, one medium, and one heavy. A total of twelve mechs will be present to check out the cause of this mess, then. The two light mechs - those were meant for conducting attacks from all distances with the advantage of a light and nimble frame. The medium mech was far more durable, and though it was heavier than their light counterparts, it was capable of equipping more weapons and armour. Then, there was the heavy machine - almost always meant exclusively for artillery or close melee.
“Will we be receiving any more support?” Rivaille asked.
“Maybe,” Dana shot back. “A small task force is being mobilized at base but they’re clearly a reactionary force in case anything happens to us. Other than that, we’re... on our own.”
With that grim reminder, the rest of the lance made their way towards the rendezvous point.
Their path was finally interrupted.
Stood at the top of a frigid rise in the snow was a silhouette, marred by the flashing lights in the distance and shadowed by their stunning brutality. Rivialle, Washi, Leto, and Diana had been traversing the bottom of this hill - or perhaps foothill due to their relative scale. There was an intense quiet in the air, because something was wrong.
This statue was moving.
It was a cross between machine and stone, just about as tall as the medium unit the lance had been using. Its gold and steel segments were mottled and splattered with impure ore veins - giving it a strange, almost natural look. In the same way, however, there was nothing natural about the interlocking gears surrounding its almost black stone shoulders, nor was there anything natural about the strangely-emaciated body they are attached to, suspended within the machinery like some homunculus in a flask. The machine-statue's face was covered by a helmet with an upward spike, and its decency is kept by a two-sided robe lashed around its narrow waist by a sharp, evil-looking chain.
Raised in both hands and held like a rifle was something which looks almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a functional mech-lance. While a conical sweep of metal held the thing steadily in place and gives it a sturdy body, there was some kind of revolving chamber set into it. The tip appeared to be bayonetted with some brutal cleaver - and it gave way to something like a Chinese cannon's decorated mouth, giving way once again to a clear gemstone which was shimmering under an iridescent aurora.
It seemed to have some kind of tunnel vision: because it hadn't seen them yet.
The statue was unlike anything Rivaille had ever seen. He could only watch through his screen from the bottom of the foothill. His hands trembled over the controls as he watched it move with uncanny grace more akin to that of a living being than a machine. Instead, it almost reminded him of the stone people that enslaved his world.
“W-what the fuck is that?!” Leto. The poor man must be even more terrified than any of them here. “T-That’s a-another mech! There’s someone else on the planet- w-we need to get out of here!”
“I concur,” Washi butted in. For once, the man almost sounded afraid. “We’ve found what could be the cause of this madness. We are a recon team- not an assault team. We should fall back to base.”
Rivaille agreed with their assessment. The sight of the statue unnerved him and he wanted nothing more than to be as far away as possible. But, before he could voice his assent, Diana's solemn voice came in.
“Fuck."
The others swiveled their cameras around to her frame, looking to it for an explanation. "I'm sorry but… I’ve sent a live visual of this to the base commander. We’ve been ordered to approach and apprehend the mech,” she stated, her tone devoid of all emotion.
"God help us," someone muttered. Rivaille only realized after the fact that it'd been him.
Without any further complaint - save Leto's whimpering over the channel - the rest of the lance approached the statue and broke cover.
As it stood, Leto and Washi both possessed light mechs. The former was equipped with a sniper rifle: clearly meant more for long-range engagements. The latter chose a multitude of bladed weapons and a shotgun for close-range. Rivaille himself had a medium mech that was designed for mid to long-range battles. A missile rack, assault rifle, grenade launcher, and two in-built chainguns. And Diana? She had the heavy mech. A behemoth of a frame, bearing four arms and carrying a chainsword, chainaxe, thermal lance, and a shotgun. Overall, they made a frightening force on the battlefield.
Diana approached the statue headfirst, keeping her mech’s pace slow and steady. Washi followed close behind, while both Leto and Rivaille took a position further back.
In the end, Diana was the one to break the silence: her speakers transmitting more clearly through the vibrating snow than the paltry air. “Greetings, stranger. You are currently in Empyreal Company property. If you could lay down your arms and come with us, we have some questions for you.”
The thing visibly jumped at the noise. Its helmet snapped toward the lance, revealing a visor which seemed to toe the line between a greathelm, an arrow's-head, and the screaming face of a tusked creature in agony. What must have been thirteen eyes blinked open on the otherwise black surface, revealing its mercury sclera and narrowed pupils.
"♩♫♫♬!?"
Its voice was rather shockingly close to the noise of some kind of harmonic, electronic instrument. It growled and slized like a polynote synth, and it swished around, taking on a melee stance.
More flashes behind the thing indicated fighting happening elsewhere; but the Gold Man's attention was fixed on the Lance of mechs. The 'revolver' of the lance audibly clicked, sending a shower of auroric light crackling along the symbols carved into it. The Gold Man gave another musical order, shuffling backward from the Lance and glancing around it. Looking for cover, or perhaps comrades?
“Fuck, man, it’s calling for backup!,” Leto cried over the comms. "We should get out of here!”
“Can it, you coward,” Washi snapped. "We are here on a mission and we shall fulfill it till the end. Now hold your tongue or I’ll rip it from your mouth.”
Rivaille allowed their pointless bickering to fade into the back of his mind, instead focusing on the scene in front of him. The strange golem-like frame wielded a melee weapon of some kind. He didn’t know what it did, but he wasn’t too worried. Diana wasn’t either, judging how she stepped forward and drew her frame’s chainsword from its clamps.
“Rivaille," she ordered, "back me up." He simply stepped forward as well, making sure to spin the barrels of his chainguns to punctuate the point. Though he felt that they were being too aggressive, it was likely the clearest approach. Besides, it wasn't like it could do much against them, right?
Diana's machine bobbed its optic in a nod, and then turned to face the Gold Man. She fired up her speaker again, taking a wide stance. "Just come with us and we’ll get this solved right away." To emphasise her point, she revved the mechanism on her blade. The loud, ugly rumble of its motor shuddered through the heavy mech's arms and into the ground from its feet.
The Gold Man's mercury gaze tilted at the muffled noise of the revving Chainsword. Its carved tusks flashed in the dwarf planet's eerie light, framed in shadow against the crackling auroras of the unseen war behind it.
Light crackled to life over its eyes and bathed the helmet in symbols, reducing any view of the thing's eyes to the cruelly-slashed glow of a humming visor. The gaps between the machine-statue's armor plates and mechanisms were sealed by the same red lights and different symbols. Bands of alien words and a shimmering cape of illusory light flared across its limbs and over what were now clearly clasps on its pauldrons, and it raised its lance in an aggressive stance, taking on a tense pose.
It almost looked like a cross between a superhero, a demon, and a knight. Its overall shape now resembled something of a powerful, metal approximation of a human. It had a tiny waist, and huge pauldrons. Its glowing segments interspersed with its metal crackled in smooth shapes, giving it a muscular, fortified look. The prow-like shape upon its chest gave it a kind of honed, aggressive direction - and the glowing light now searing upon what had once been a horn and was now a plume of phantom fire completed the visual as a finishing touch.
When the machine began its transformation, the entire lance of mechs could only stare up at it in shock. It resembled something out of their nightmares- or worse, resembled one of the horrific memories they all shared of the Khanate’s invasion of their homeworld. The eldritch magic it seemed to have brought forward terrified them all, and poor Leto broke down in a babbling, incoherent mess over the comms.
It moved not like a machine over a dozen meters tall, but like a swordsman hellbent on the task of victory. The clasped jaws of the Chinese dragon were retracted into the hull of its 'lance', and the blade spread across the tip as it struck in an attempt to twist the Chainsword out of Dana's hands. As it did so, it flowed artfully and simply - leaving itself ready in case one of others retaliated. The weapon flew leanly out of her hands and crashed to the snow, its teeth sending up a cyclone of snow and powder.
Maybe brandishing a blade at a guy with a giant polearm wasn't the greatest idea.
There is silence from the group, Leto notwithstanding: but not Rivaille. The two chainguns attached to the shoulders of his mech began to spin, whirring with life. And then, they fired, armour piercing rounds pouring out in streams right at the thing that had just attacked them.
Little did Rivaille know that this would start a War of the Worlds.
The Gold Man reeled at Rivaille's gunshots, flashing its visor toward his machine as its arm was sheared from its body by the gunfire. Metallic, iridescent blood whipped into lava-lamp like globs as they fell in the planet's low gravity; giving its death a kind of strange serenity and quiet. The plume atop its helm flashed into the shape of a white beacon, spearing into the air with searing radiance-
-And then its chest shattered, having been ripped backward by the gunshots. There was an almost-imperceptible crunch-and-squeal of broken stone and bent metal which filtered through the planet's remaining atmosphere. Whatever gore it had was concealed by the blobs of viscera floating before its chest - and it carried these with it as it slowly, gracefully toppled to the ground.
The Gold Man's visor and red panels vanished, leaving its gallium eyes to vacantly and blearily stare through their slit in the helmet. They were covered in a veil of tears, left behind by the agony of its death. For a spell, all seemed totally and dreadfully quiet and still.
Then, the lights on the horizon slowed and stopped.
The noises of alien war fell still and quiet.
Shock soaked the air like the alcohol of a molotov cocktail, saturating it with the acrid anticipation of an open flame. The four mechs were still, all of the pilots staring at the corpse of the Gold Man. None of them seemingly knew how to react to this fact. This simple display of mortality had struck them all deeply, whether they knew it or not.
Rivaille was the first to speak. “W-what the fuck?" He stammered, the shock lifting from his body and unveiling a growing sense of horror. "Was that thing alive?!”
Did he… did he kill someone? He took a breath to steady his nerves and still his shaking hands. Killing never got easier; it always left shock behind.
Diana’s concerns, however, were elsewhere.
"Something’s wrong- I can feel it." she looked at the horizon, where all signs of war had ceased. She rattled off a quick order, realizing what had happened. "Bug out: full speed. We’re getting out of here.”
“What about the corpse?” Washi asked, his mech gesturing to it.
“We don’t have time," Dana snapped; "leave it!”
Quickly, the lance turned around and began to move back towards the base - towards safety. The carbon-snow under their feet fluttered up like a fog as the Lance made their hasty departure. It threw up a smokescreen in their wake, which meant their group wouldn't be caught in the crossfire of any ranged weapons that the things behind them might have possessed. They hadn't made it more than a quarter-mile's length, however, when their sensors registered another spear of light behind them.
A decidedly ominous beacon of light speared into space behind them. It wasn't the white that the Gold Man had projected, however. It was a column of crimson lightning, wrathfully crackling and spitting in the thin air of Jahuty-12. It lashed up from the world behind them in a fit of rage, and then vanished - leaving only questions in its wake.
Only then could they feel and hear the tremors of something coming.
There were eight mech-sized jogging patterns thudding through the ice behind them. Though they all appeared to be fairly heavy frames, that might not have been reliable; as the Gold Man seemed to be both stone and gold-steel in equal parts. Either way, approaching them was something the Lance probably wasn't going to look forward to meeting.
Someone was in pursuit, and they were not happy about it.
“This is Lance-Corporal Diana requesting for immediate assistance! I am located at Quadrant-Two-Oh-Nine and in the Badlands! We are being pursued by hostiles!” She yelled into the open comms, hoping that someone would come to their assistance. Logically, however, she knew that the closest mech lance was at least a few dozen clicks away. Nobody was coming. She gritted her teeth and dared to look at the monitor of the camera behind her mech, only to regret it as she realized their pursuers were closing on them.
“Rivaille!,” she screamed, “my frame’s too slow. Take Leto and Washi to the base. I’ll hold them off!”
She didn't bother to wait for a reply. Instead, she skidded her mech in a 180-degree turn: raising all four of its arms with weapons bared. The dual chain weapons - both its axe and its spare sword - roared to life. Her shotgun barked in their vague direction, hoping to catch at least one of them. Her fourth and final arm reared behind her back and activated the thermal lance, beginning to heat up. It’d take time, but she’d be able to use it soon.
The gyroscope in her mech’s body whirled, allowing her to fling her chainweapon-wielding arms around the machine like a blender’s blade. She charged toward the fray, a ring of destruction throwing the snow up around her in a whirling dervish of steel and death.
She heard Washi screaming something in his foreign tongue and saw his light mech rush by her side to assist. In one hand its submachine-gun vomited led: and in the other, a blade gleamed in Jahuty's light. So, he chose to die by her side, then.
So be it, she resolved.
Diana’s chainsword met a solid object in the mad flurry of snow. For a moment, it was impossible to tell what it was - and then the rest of the massive kite-shield rushed forth from the dust to try and force her weapon back onto her. A spear tipped by an edge crackling with void-and-stars came rushing forth from behind it, but before the bearer could slash at her, their helm was crumpled into a concave ruin by a shotgun blast at point-blank range.
Washi drew forth not spurts of mercury blood, but showers of crystal from the fog. He had little time to register quite what was in the mess before a pair of hands thrust from the vapor, making a flowing and complex series of motions backed by floating rings and linkages. The entire array glowed, finishing a figure-eight shaped apparatus surrounded by lines glowing in the air; and then his machine blurted out a warning. It said it was stuck - but, how?
At his feet, a pile of snow had turned to stone: encasing his frame in the stuff from the ankles down. The crackling aurora from the enemy spellcaster flared again as it prepared for another transmutation, but it was interrupted by a blast of blood as one of Diana’s shotgun-blasts slammed into its apparent chest-area. The resolving silhouette in the cloud stumbled, clutched at its chest, and collapsed: writhing in agony.
The rest of Washi and Diana’s bullets made echoing clangs of muffled noise in the veil of carbon-snow. As the stuff floated away into the planet’s atmosphere, its lifting curtain revealed three more opponents huddled behind their shields. Two possessed literal tower shields, adorned with sigils that flickered and shone when the shrapnel and shells came close to them: and one had a pair of wings splayed before them as a shield in and of themselves. While the tower-shields seemed to be transforming the ballistic flurries into puffs of gas as they came into contact, the wings were looking substantially worse for wear: having no such enchanted defence.
Where were the other-? Wait. There. Two of the alien frames were circling to Diana’s side, with one raising its shield and the other brandishing some kind of ballista: and the eighth and final mech-knight-thing was barreling toward Washi with something that looked like a cross between a rapier and a wire garrote in-hand. Throughout the brief scuffle, Diana had made plans. And all plans were unceremoniously thrown out the window each time these things pulled out another bag of their tricks. She was unable to accurately pinpoint their location due to the smokescreen, but with that gone she could finally take note of what was happening. Eight enemy mechs, all ready to charge and clearly having magical powers of some kind. On top of that, Washi's machine claimed it was stuck.
“Fuck,” she cursed under her breath. She opened a channel to Washi and made her resolutions, sucking in a deep breath.
"It’s been nice knowing you, friend. But I don’t think we can make it out alive.”
Washi laughed, the noise distorted by the channel. “Our comrades will. That’s enough for me!” His mech whirred as it brought out its submachine gun and emptied the magazine into the one charging at him. The charging machine was filled with holes, forming a cloud of glittering, misted chrome blood. As the light faded from its mask, it tried to thrust the rapier toward Washi's hull; but the weapon had gone limp without the mind of its bearer to guide it. The Rapier Knight barreled into him in the low gravity, delivering a full-speed head-and-shoulders-butt to his frame's leg mounts as it tumbled lifelessly through the air in a low arc.
Washi was a skilled pilot- in fact, he was probably the best out of the four. But with his mech’s disabled, he could do nothing but scream in defiance as the lance sheared off the leg from his mech and sent his frame unevenly crashing face first into the ground. Washi most likely survived the impact- but he was out of the fight and not to mention, vulnerable to being finished off by the attackers.
Diana took the moment to wonder what the fuck was going on. An idle part of her mind should be worried by the fact that one of them showed it was bleeding but she had no time to consider that. Instead, she was intent on taking as many bastards down with her. Her thermal lance was charged now, the metal glowing red hot and giving off spoke. She made her mech step forward and thrust the lance right at the one wielding the ballista. If it all worked well, then she’d be able to impale it through the chest and melt the pilot inside.
While these machines clearly had no idea how to react to ranged fire, they were viciously competent in melee—or at least, that's the only real explanation as to how the Ballista Knight threw her lance aside with a square, layered, arm-mounted shield. Though it let off an almost-silent scream of discordant notes in the thinned atmosphere and its ballista had been turned aside by the deflection, it wasn't done yet; drawing forth some kind of pylon-sized truncheon from its side and trying to smash one of the shotguns out of Dana's grasp. As her lance burned through its arm and weapon, she could see the metal sizzling and melting onto what looked like stone flesh underneath: and flowing blood from within vaporized and boiled on contact with the stuff. At one point, her lance even hit something solid within—and there was a satisfying crunch as one of the thing's mineral bones fractured and bent nastily to a wild angle.
Dana only vaguely registered Washi going down. Instead, her main focus was on her scanners. From what they told her… these things were alive?! What on earth had they all uncovered?! For a moment, a part of her relished in the idea that these monsters would cause the downfall of the nation she was chained to. But fear for her life soon overtook her as she realised she was now facing off against these monsters all on her own.
What monster would deploy something like this onto a battlefield?
In the back, the three others lifted their shields (and the wings in the case of one) and began rushing forward—bounding across the frigid surface of Jahuty-12 with spiked and clawed boots and toes. While the Tower Knights reached for weapons upon their backs, the Wing Knight began assembling something from rings and metal frames attached to a belt around its metallic skirt-panels: forming some kind of apparatus as it went.
As the Ballista Knight's truncheon came crashing down, the charging Shield Knight tried to bash her frame from behind—hiding behind its rapidly-disintegrating shield under the volume of her shotgun's fire. With any success, it might be able to knock her off-balance; but only time would tell. The Ballista Knight succeeded in knocking away her shotgun. The Shield Knight was right behind her and she would be unable to block it.
Dana made her choice in an instant. Her chainsword and chainaxe both screamed to life as she brought down both weapons onto the Ballista Knight, completely ignoring the incoming truncheon that would no doubt cave the face of her mech in and kill her. The least she could do for her fleeing comrades was to make sure not as many pursued them in the end.
The Ballista Knight's truncheon connected at the same moment her chainswords did.
The Shield Knight's own implement came slamming in from behind just a tiny bit later, leaving the three in a chilling, static pose.
Jahuty-12 did not have an atmosphere that carried sound. It was thin, and cold, and most of it was frozen as snow upon the ground. It was beautiful and pristine because it had no weather - only the trenches and gouges and mounds carved into it from the movements of the mechs. Thus, when the three came to a stand-still, it felt more natural than any of their brutal, floating dance had before. Snow drifted around their ankles and legs in a veil. The only noise which carried from Dana's chainswords was a harmonic 'thrum': one which tinkled against the stone and metal of the Ballista Knight as it sawed clean through the last of its corpse. Its truncheon slipped from her cockpit as its fingers did, and the Shield Knight solemnly leant back to let the two collapse.
The diorama slowly tumbled to the frigid ground, the battle replaced by a terrible silence. The closed helm of the Shield Knight stared silently at the bodies strewn around it, and then it turned away - unable to bare the sight. As it did-so, however, its gaze fell upon Washi's broken mech.
It turned to its three remaining companions as they skidded to a halt, the Wing Knight completing the last of its apparatus with a triumphant flutter of its feathers. As the Tower Knights stowed their axes once again, the Shield Knight made a silent word. The four stood there for a moment, gesticulating in the near-void as if in conversation. After a while, they came to a decision.
The two Tower Knights came before Washi's mech, examining the remaining light and life within the frame. Satisfied at their cursory peek, the two behemoths crouched and gripped it at the shoulders and hips. With a heave that sent the teeth of their joints clanking and slamming together, they lifted it between them like a triage team. The one at the shoulders waved to its two companions, the raised bands along its pauldron coming together as it flexed. They each gave a gesture, and then turned toward one side of the nightmarish lights in the sky.
The procession marched toward the backlines of one of the battle, their only company the tremors of the earth growing louder as the shockwaves traveled up their feet and into their bodies.
They'd taken a prisoner of war.
Cainabel, Forlorn System
Forlorn Empyreal Trade Company Main Headquarters
“I see,” the Diadochi Salome murmured. She stared at the written piece of paper on her desk as if willing for it to disappear. In the end, she sighed and waved a dismissive hand at the courier. "Leave. Your services are no longer required." The courier gave a short bow and departed from her office, leaving her alone with only her thoughts to accompany her.
The news from Jahuty-12 troubled her. Technically speaking, this was not the first time either the Company or the Khanate had a violent first contact with another species. In fact it was incredibly common nowadays considering how much of a mess the empire was in its current state. Yet this one, unlike the other incidents, disturbed her. According to the report, they had not in any way expected a warring force like this on the planet nor did they believe them to be native to Jahuty-12 according to the predictions of star shamans.
Could this mean these mysterious knight mechs belonged to yet another star-empire?
Truth be told, she had been avoiding contacts like these. The company simply was not suited for wars against an enemy along the lines of a fellow power. Not only would it mean she had to draw in her own resources to help out, but it could also risk attracting the attention of her rivals.
Quickly she began to make preparations, making a list of priorities. First, she was to ready the Company Security in the case that a direct war broke out. This means sending reinforcements to Jahuty-12. Secondly, she needed to put her personal units on standby in case it all went to hell. Thirdly and finally, she was going to prepare a diplomatic and investigation party to prevent a war from actually starting.
“Damn it,” she cursed under her breath as she prepared to summon her lieutenants… only for her to suddenly receive a private message from one her spies. As she took in the content of the message, her eyes widened and at that moment, she realised she had made a terrible, terrible mistake.
[Diadochi Lainar Made Contact With [MENTSHN EMPIRE] and sequestered their assistance in establishing MEGASTRUCTURE in Xibalba System. Likely Chance of Having Heard of Mentshn by This Meeting. ]
This was going to be awkward to explain.
CONTINUED IN: "Casting Down the Ziggurats"
The economy and trade were one such thing. When the Khanate was founded, she played a key role in establishing the economical aspects of the nation, including trade policies and currency. When the Khanate took to the galactic stage, she eagerly began to invest herself into the economic climate of the galaxy. And now, with far more knowledge (or supposedly far more) than she started with, Salome made what would be the Khanate’s first step into the wider galactic economy; an interstellar trade company under the name of ‘Empyreal Forlorn Trade Company’, colloquially known as the Empyreal Company.
Naturally, the merchant princes of the Khanate - the Viziers - protested against this. Many tried to take up their concerns to the Khanate and shut down her project both out of personal ambition and fear for Salome gaining more power over her peers. Alas, she simply whispered into the Lord Khan’s ears and all charges were dropped. So it was that the Empyreal Company strode forwards, gobbling up the enterprises of various Viziers who tried to make their own stakes in the stars. Soon, the Company became Salome’s very own interstellar fiefdom.
One of the many subsectors of the Company, the Empyreal Expeditionary Company, was dedicated to laying claims on far off planets to scour them for everything of value. It was a ruthless branch, equipped with Salome’s own force of marauders to expand their interests. Its primary duties involved setting up mining and industrial bases, trade posts, and subjugating any resistance that reared its ugly head.
It just so happened that a rocky and barren planet came under their attention. Known for being particularly mineral-rich, a force was quickly dispatched to lay claims to it and bring it under Empyreal-Khanate control. It just so happens that this ball of dust, ice, and metal was where the Company was dragged into a war it never wanted against a species the Khanate had never seen.
Jahuty-12, Jahuty System
Mech Hangar, Empyreal Jahuty Headquarters
Rivaille Rivendare did not know how long it had been since he came to this barren rock, nor did he care. What he did know was that he'd preferred his old post. At least it was a lot more pleasant back on a forest world, where three-quarters of the atmosphere weren't sat frozen on the planet's surface.
Rivaille was a human, and a fairly tall one; with brown hair and blue eyes. His skin had lightly tanned, having been gradually exposed to a wash of UV-Rays from Jahuty's fickle magnetic field. Rivaille let out a brief yawn, then sighed; leaning against the wall of the facility.
He was in a grim hangar, used to store the latest project of the Khan. Or, the 'Khan'. He knew very well that this idea was not his. No: these mech frames were the trademark of his home planet, now just another vassal of the empire. Rivaille looked up at the towering frame of his own machine - a large, bipedal mass of olive green metal. Its body was clunky, and tall: with its 'head' making up most of it. It was massive cylinder jammed into its chest and between its shoulderblades, housing both its reactor and laser weaponry.
Soon, he reflected, I'll be deployed to scout out the planet more. Soon, he'd act under the Vizier Xerxes’ will once more. And why? Why would a soldier of a once proud nation submit and serve to the heels of a tyrant?
“Truth be told,” he said, looking at the singular red optic of his mech, “I don’t even know anymore.”
Patrolling the Jahuty wasteland makes one wish for a nuclear winter, Rivaille mused sardonically. He leant back into the seat inside of his cockpit, taking a sip of water.
Currently, he and the rest of his lance were travelling through the plains, doing their usual security rounds of the area. There wasn't really much to watch out for, but Vizier Xerxes saw it prudent in the case that any rival company would try to make moves here.
Jahuty-12’s cold winds whispered outside the confines of the machine's cockpit. Through the camera-and-screen ‘windows’ of the mech, Rivaille was able to see the barren, vast expanse of frost before him. It wasn't much. No, indeed, it was practically nothing - but the wealth of mineral resources that laid beneath that stark blanket of pure, flat ground was truly something awe-inspiring.
To your average person, however, it was mind-numbingly blank. The star system was swathed in the great, black blanket of a nebula; leaving nothing but its Red Dwarf star shining among the frigid landscape. Save that and the pinpricks of Jahuty’s thirteen other planets, the horizon looked dark and barren. Removed from any context, the place almost felt like some alien purgatory - a desolate non-space where the dying came after death.
Then, the empty horizon lit up before Rivaille’s very eyes.
Was that an aurora?
Ribbons of scarlet and maroon light crackled across the thin atmosphere, looking like some eldritch cross between lightning, flames, and the northern lights. Then, the snow leapt up from the edge of the planet, as if it were trying to leave its surface. The gargantuan plume painstakingly spread out across the atmosphere in a great and gentle blizzard, rolling in a mushroom-cloud of frost.
What.
Just.
Happened?
Rivaille nearly spat out his drink, jolting upright his hands as his hands flew to the control panels. The comms network of the lance flashed to life, audio flooding in from the channels.
“What the hell was that?! Are you seeing this?!” Leto, most likely. He always was a panicky one.
“Aye," Rivaille grunted. "Confirming visual. Lance-corporal Diana, your orders?”
For a moment, there was no reply. After some thought, however, she laid out her instructions. “I’ve reported this to command. Orders are to investigate. Washi, Leto, take point. Rivaille, behind me. We’re going in.” The remainder of the lance mobilized to a chorus of scattered "Yes, Ma'am!"s.
Idly, Rivaille thought back to the old days. Back before enslavement: back before the Khan.
"This really brings back memories, doesn't it?" He mused aloud to himself in the confines of his cockpit. There was no reply, save for the humming of his machine's systems.
As the machines raced across the barren white of Jahuty-12, the planet’s paper-thin atmosphere whispered around them like a skittish cloud of wraiths. The snow kicked up under the lance as the mechs soared across the world, gradually approaching the origin of the aurora. For hours, they could see nothing but the briefest flash of some unknown effect on the horizon.
Then, they came across their first wreck.
It was a massive one, almost as large as one of their machines - and it appeared to be some kind of art display at first glance. After all, no modern machine would use such an extensive array of strange symbols and gears. No current process would produce steel or gold at such an impure quality - and certainly no sane architect would incorporate such basic materials into a frame that large. Yet all the same, there laid on the ground some stony, humanoid statue encased in the golden plates of this machine’s great armor - and all the same did it show the signs of having moved once, with footprints and trails leading behind it already being consumed by the snows and frail winds.
“What the hell is this?,” Rivialle wondered aloud, broadcasting his words to the entire lance. The thing before them almost looked like a mech, but not one he could recognise nor could he make the foggiest details of.
“Did it run out of power?," Another voice chimed in. Washi. He always was a more intellect- minded person, preferring to be more careful and analyze situations before passing a theory. “I don’t see much damage.”
“Does it matter?!” Leto half cried-out, his mech bouncing anxiously to the tune of its pilot. "We should head back to base. Do you see what’s ahead of us?!” As if to punctuate his point, another flash erupted in the distance.
"No."
The lance fell silent. Dana gave them enough time to catch their breath, and then resumed in a hard voice. "We’ve received orders to investigate the anomaly. Lances Gamma and Delta are moving to rendezvous with us near a location marked for us there." But of course, they all knew that. This was just for the transcript after the mission.
Rivaille wracked his brains at the new organization system they'd been using on Jahuty. A lance consists of four mechs, he remembered. Two light, one medium, and one heavy. A total of twelve mechs will be present to check out the cause of this mess, then. The two light mechs - those were meant for conducting attacks from all distances with the advantage of a light and nimble frame. The medium mech was far more durable, and though it was heavier than their light counterparts, it was capable of equipping more weapons and armour. Then, there was the heavy machine - almost always meant exclusively for artillery or close melee.
“Will we be receiving any more support?” Rivaille asked.
“Maybe,” Dana shot back. “A small task force is being mobilized at base but they’re clearly a reactionary force in case anything happens to us. Other than that, we’re... on our own.”
With that grim reminder, the rest of the lance made their way towards the rendezvous point.
Their path was finally interrupted.
Stood at the top of a frigid rise in the snow was a silhouette, marred by the flashing lights in the distance and shadowed by their stunning brutality. Rivialle, Washi, Leto, and Diana had been traversing the bottom of this hill - or perhaps foothill due to their relative scale. There was an intense quiet in the air, because something was wrong.
This statue was moving.
It was a cross between machine and stone, just about as tall as the medium unit the lance had been using. Its gold and steel segments were mottled and splattered with impure ore veins - giving it a strange, almost natural look. In the same way, however, there was nothing natural about the interlocking gears surrounding its almost black stone shoulders, nor was there anything natural about the strangely-emaciated body they are attached to, suspended within the machinery like some homunculus in a flask. The machine-statue's face was covered by a helmet with an upward spike, and its decency is kept by a two-sided robe lashed around its narrow waist by a sharp, evil-looking chain.
Raised in both hands and held like a rifle was something which looks almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a functional mech-lance. While a conical sweep of metal held the thing steadily in place and gives it a sturdy body, there was some kind of revolving chamber set into it. The tip appeared to be bayonetted with some brutal cleaver - and it gave way to something like a Chinese cannon's decorated mouth, giving way once again to a clear gemstone which was shimmering under an iridescent aurora.
It seemed to have some kind of tunnel vision: because it hadn't seen them yet.
The statue was unlike anything Rivaille had ever seen. He could only watch through his screen from the bottom of the foothill. His hands trembled over the controls as he watched it move with uncanny grace more akin to that of a living being than a machine. Instead, it almost reminded him of the stone people that enslaved his world.
“W-what the fuck is that?!” Leto. The poor man must be even more terrified than any of them here. “T-That’s a-another mech! There’s someone else on the planet- w-we need to get out of here!”
“I concur,” Washi butted in. For once, the man almost sounded afraid. “We’ve found what could be the cause of this madness. We are a recon team- not an assault team. We should fall back to base.”
Rivaille agreed with their assessment. The sight of the statue unnerved him and he wanted nothing more than to be as far away as possible. But, before he could voice his assent, Diana's solemn voice came in.
“Fuck."
The others swiveled their cameras around to her frame, looking to it for an explanation. "I'm sorry but… I’ve sent a live visual of this to the base commander. We’ve been ordered to approach and apprehend the mech,” she stated, her tone devoid of all emotion.
"God help us," someone muttered. Rivaille only realized after the fact that it'd been him.
Without any further complaint - save Leto's whimpering over the channel - the rest of the lance approached the statue and broke cover.
As it stood, Leto and Washi both possessed light mechs. The former was equipped with a sniper rifle: clearly meant more for long-range engagements. The latter chose a multitude of bladed weapons and a shotgun for close-range. Rivaille himself had a medium mech that was designed for mid to long-range battles. A missile rack, assault rifle, grenade launcher, and two in-built chainguns. And Diana? She had the heavy mech. A behemoth of a frame, bearing four arms and carrying a chainsword, chainaxe, thermal lance, and a shotgun. Overall, they made a frightening force on the battlefield.
Diana approached the statue headfirst, keeping her mech’s pace slow and steady. Washi followed close behind, while both Leto and Rivaille took a position further back.
In the end, Diana was the one to break the silence: her speakers transmitting more clearly through the vibrating snow than the paltry air. “Greetings, stranger. You are currently in Empyreal Company property. If you could lay down your arms and come with us, we have some questions for you.”
The thing visibly jumped at the noise. Its helmet snapped toward the lance, revealing a visor which seemed to toe the line between a greathelm, an arrow's-head, and the screaming face of a tusked creature in agony. What must have been thirteen eyes blinked open on the otherwise black surface, revealing its mercury sclera and narrowed pupils.
"♩♫♫♬!?"
Its voice was rather shockingly close to the noise of some kind of harmonic, electronic instrument. It growled and slized like a polynote synth, and it swished around, taking on a melee stance.
More flashes behind the thing indicated fighting happening elsewhere; but the Gold Man's attention was fixed on the Lance of mechs. The 'revolver' of the lance audibly clicked, sending a shower of auroric light crackling along the symbols carved into it. The Gold Man gave another musical order, shuffling backward from the Lance and glancing around it. Looking for cover, or perhaps comrades?
“Fuck, man, it’s calling for backup!,” Leto cried over the comms. "We should get out of here!”
“Can it, you coward,” Washi snapped. "We are here on a mission and we shall fulfill it till the end. Now hold your tongue or I’ll rip it from your mouth.”
Rivaille allowed their pointless bickering to fade into the back of his mind, instead focusing on the scene in front of him. The strange golem-like frame wielded a melee weapon of some kind. He didn’t know what it did, but he wasn’t too worried. Diana wasn’t either, judging how she stepped forward and drew her frame’s chainsword from its clamps.
“Rivaille," she ordered, "back me up." He simply stepped forward as well, making sure to spin the barrels of his chainguns to punctuate the point. Though he felt that they were being too aggressive, it was likely the clearest approach. Besides, it wasn't like it could do much against them, right?
Diana's machine bobbed its optic in a nod, and then turned to face the Gold Man. She fired up her speaker again, taking a wide stance. "Just come with us and we’ll get this solved right away." To emphasise her point, she revved the mechanism on her blade. The loud, ugly rumble of its motor shuddered through the heavy mech's arms and into the ground from its feet.
The Gold Man's mercury gaze tilted at the muffled noise of the revving Chainsword. Its carved tusks flashed in the dwarf planet's eerie light, framed in shadow against the crackling auroras of the unseen war behind it.
Light crackled to life over its eyes and bathed the helmet in symbols, reducing any view of the thing's eyes to the cruelly-slashed glow of a humming visor. The gaps between the machine-statue's armor plates and mechanisms were sealed by the same red lights and different symbols. Bands of alien words and a shimmering cape of illusory light flared across its limbs and over what were now clearly clasps on its pauldrons, and it raised its lance in an aggressive stance, taking on a tense pose.
It almost looked like a cross between a superhero, a demon, and a knight. Its overall shape now resembled something of a powerful, metal approximation of a human. It had a tiny waist, and huge pauldrons. Its glowing segments interspersed with its metal crackled in smooth shapes, giving it a muscular, fortified look. The prow-like shape upon its chest gave it a kind of honed, aggressive direction - and the glowing light now searing upon what had once been a horn and was now a plume of phantom fire completed the visual as a finishing touch.
When the machine began its transformation, the entire lance of mechs could only stare up at it in shock. It resembled something out of their nightmares- or worse, resembled one of the horrific memories they all shared of the Khanate’s invasion of their homeworld. The eldritch magic it seemed to have brought forward terrified them all, and poor Leto broke down in a babbling, incoherent mess over the comms.
It moved not like a machine over a dozen meters tall, but like a swordsman hellbent on the task of victory. The clasped jaws of the Chinese dragon were retracted into the hull of its 'lance', and the blade spread across the tip as it struck in an attempt to twist the Chainsword out of Dana's hands. As it did so, it flowed artfully and simply - leaving itself ready in case one of others retaliated. The weapon flew leanly out of her hands and crashed to the snow, its teeth sending up a cyclone of snow and powder.
Maybe brandishing a blade at a guy with a giant polearm wasn't the greatest idea.
There is silence from the group, Leto notwithstanding: but not Rivaille. The two chainguns attached to the shoulders of his mech began to spin, whirring with life. And then, they fired, armour piercing rounds pouring out in streams right at the thing that had just attacked them.
Little did Rivaille know that this would start a War of the Worlds.
The Gold Man reeled at Rivaille's gunshots, flashing its visor toward his machine as its arm was sheared from its body by the gunfire. Metallic, iridescent blood whipped into lava-lamp like globs as they fell in the planet's low gravity; giving its death a kind of strange serenity and quiet. The plume atop its helm flashed into the shape of a white beacon, spearing into the air with searing radiance-
-And then its chest shattered, having been ripped backward by the gunshots. There was an almost-imperceptible crunch-and-squeal of broken stone and bent metal which filtered through the planet's remaining atmosphere. Whatever gore it had was concealed by the blobs of viscera floating before its chest - and it carried these with it as it slowly, gracefully toppled to the ground.
The Gold Man's visor and red panels vanished, leaving its gallium eyes to vacantly and blearily stare through their slit in the helmet. They were covered in a veil of tears, left behind by the agony of its death. For a spell, all seemed totally and dreadfully quiet and still.
Then, the lights on the horizon slowed and stopped.
The noises of alien war fell still and quiet.
Shock soaked the air like the alcohol of a molotov cocktail, saturating it with the acrid anticipation of an open flame. The four mechs were still, all of the pilots staring at the corpse of the Gold Man. None of them seemingly knew how to react to this fact. This simple display of mortality had struck them all deeply, whether they knew it or not.
Rivaille was the first to speak. “W-what the fuck?" He stammered, the shock lifting from his body and unveiling a growing sense of horror. "Was that thing alive?!”
Did he… did he kill someone? He took a breath to steady his nerves and still his shaking hands. Killing never got easier; it always left shock behind.
Diana’s concerns, however, were elsewhere.
"Something’s wrong- I can feel it." she looked at the horizon, where all signs of war had ceased. She rattled off a quick order, realizing what had happened. "Bug out: full speed. We’re getting out of here.”
“What about the corpse?” Washi asked, his mech gesturing to it.
“We don’t have time," Dana snapped; "leave it!”
Quickly, the lance turned around and began to move back towards the base - towards safety. The carbon-snow under their feet fluttered up like a fog as the Lance made their hasty departure. It threw up a smokescreen in their wake, which meant their group wouldn't be caught in the crossfire of any ranged weapons that the things behind them might have possessed. They hadn't made it more than a quarter-mile's length, however, when their sensors registered another spear of light behind them.
A decidedly ominous beacon of light speared into space behind them. It wasn't the white that the Gold Man had projected, however. It was a column of crimson lightning, wrathfully crackling and spitting in the thin air of Jahuty-12. It lashed up from the world behind them in a fit of rage, and then vanished - leaving only questions in its wake.
Only then could they feel and hear the tremors of something coming.
There were eight mech-sized jogging patterns thudding through the ice behind them. Though they all appeared to be fairly heavy frames, that might not have been reliable; as the Gold Man seemed to be both stone and gold-steel in equal parts. Either way, approaching them was something the Lance probably wasn't going to look forward to meeting.
Someone was in pursuit, and they were not happy about it.
“This is Lance-Corporal Diana requesting for immediate assistance! I am located at Quadrant-Two-Oh-Nine and in the Badlands! We are being pursued by hostiles!” She yelled into the open comms, hoping that someone would come to their assistance. Logically, however, she knew that the closest mech lance was at least a few dozen clicks away. Nobody was coming. She gritted her teeth and dared to look at the monitor of the camera behind her mech, only to regret it as she realized their pursuers were closing on them.
“Rivaille!,” she screamed, “my frame’s too slow. Take Leto and Washi to the base. I’ll hold them off!”
She didn't bother to wait for a reply. Instead, she skidded her mech in a 180-degree turn: raising all four of its arms with weapons bared. The dual chain weapons - both its axe and its spare sword - roared to life. Her shotgun barked in their vague direction, hoping to catch at least one of them. Her fourth and final arm reared behind her back and activated the thermal lance, beginning to heat up. It’d take time, but she’d be able to use it soon.
The gyroscope in her mech’s body whirled, allowing her to fling her chainweapon-wielding arms around the machine like a blender’s blade. She charged toward the fray, a ring of destruction throwing the snow up around her in a whirling dervish of steel and death.
She heard Washi screaming something in his foreign tongue and saw his light mech rush by her side to assist. In one hand its submachine-gun vomited led: and in the other, a blade gleamed in Jahuty's light. So, he chose to die by her side, then.
So be it, she resolved.
Diana’s chainsword met a solid object in the mad flurry of snow. For a moment, it was impossible to tell what it was - and then the rest of the massive kite-shield rushed forth from the dust to try and force her weapon back onto her. A spear tipped by an edge crackling with void-and-stars came rushing forth from behind it, but before the bearer could slash at her, their helm was crumpled into a concave ruin by a shotgun blast at point-blank range.
Washi drew forth not spurts of mercury blood, but showers of crystal from the fog. He had little time to register quite what was in the mess before a pair of hands thrust from the vapor, making a flowing and complex series of motions backed by floating rings and linkages. The entire array glowed, finishing a figure-eight shaped apparatus surrounded by lines glowing in the air; and then his machine blurted out a warning. It said it was stuck - but, how?
At his feet, a pile of snow had turned to stone: encasing his frame in the stuff from the ankles down. The crackling aurora from the enemy spellcaster flared again as it prepared for another transmutation, but it was interrupted by a blast of blood as one of Diana’s shotgun-blasts slammed into its apparent chest-area. The resolving silhouette in the cloud stumbled, clutched at its chest, and collapsed: writhing in agony.
The rest of Washi and Diana’s bullets made echoing clangs of muffled noise in the veil of carbon-snow. As the stuff floated away into the planet’s atmosphere, its lifting curtain revealed three more opponents huddled behind their shields. Two possessed literal tower shields, adorned with sigils that flickered and shone when the shrapnel and shells came close to them: and one had a pair of wings splayed before them as a shield in and of themselves. While the tower-shields seemed to be transforming the ballistic flurries into puffs of gas as they came into contact, the wings were looking substantially worse for wear: having no such enchanted defence.
Where were the other-? Wait. There. Two of the alien frames were circling to Diana’s side, with one raising its shield and the other brandishing some kind of ballista: and the eighth and final mech-knight-thing was barreling toward Washi with something that looked like a cross between a rapier and a wire garrote in-hand. Throughout the brief scuffle, Diana had made plans. And all plans were unceremoniously thrown out the window each time these things pulled out another bag of their tricks. She was unable to accurately pinpoint their location due to the smokescreen, but with that gone she could finally take note of what was happening. Eight enemy mechs, all ready to charge and clearly having magical powers of some kind. On top of that, Washi's machine claimed it was stuck.
“Fuck,” she cursed under her breath. She opened a channel to Washi and made her resolutions, sucking in a deep breath.
"It’s been nice knowing you, friend. But I don’t think we can make it out alive.”
Washi laughed, the noise distorted by the channel. “Our comrades will. That’s enough for me!” His mech whirred as it brought out its submachine gun and emptied the magazine into the one charging at him. The charging machine was filled with holes, forming a cloud of glittering, misted chrome blood. As the light faded from its mask, it tried to thrust the rapier toward Washi's hull; but the weapon had gone limp without the mind of its bearer to guide it. The Rapier Knight barreled into him in the low gravity, delivering a full-speed head-and-shoulders-butt to his frame's leg mounts as it tumbled lifelessly through the air in a low arc.
Washi was a skilled pilot- in fact, he was probably the best out of the four. But with his mech’s disabled, he could do nothing but scream in defiance as the lance sheared off the leg from his mech and sent his frame unevenly crashing face first into the ground. Washi most likely survived the impact- but he was out of the fight and not to mention, vulnerable to being finished off by the attackers.
Diana took the moment to wonder what the fuck was going on. An idle part of her mind should be worried by the fact that one of them showed it was bleeding but she had no time to consider that. Instead, she was intent on taking as many bastards down with her. Her thermal lance was charged now, the metal glowing red hot and giving off spoke. She made her mech step forward and thrust the lance right at the one wielding the ballista. If it all worked well, then she’d be able to impale it through the chest and melt the pilot inside.
While these machines clearly had no idea how to react to ranged fire, they were viciously competent in melee—or at least, that's the only real explanation as to how the Ballista Knight threw her lance aside with a square, layered, arm-mounted shield. Though it let off an almost-silent scream of discordant notes in the thinned atmosphere and its ballista had been turned aside by the deflection, it wasn't done yet; drawing forth some kind of pylon-sized truncheon from its side and trying to smash one of the shotguns out of Dana's grasp. As her lance burned through its arm and weapon, she could see the metal sizzling and melting onto what looked like stone flesh underneath: and flowing blood from within vaporized and boiled on contact with the stuff. At one point, her lance even hit something solid within—and there was a satisfying crunch as one of the thing's mineral bones fractured and bent nastily to a wild angle.
Dana only vaguely registered Washi going down. Instead, her main focus was on her scanners. From what they told her… these things were alive?! What on earth had they all uncovered?! For a moment, a part of her relished in the idea that these monsters would cause the downfall of the nation she was chained to. But fear for her life soon overtook her as she realised she was now facing off against these monsters all on her own.
What monster would deploy something like this onto a battlefield?
In the back, the three others lifted their shields (and the wings in the case of one) and began rushing forward—bounding across the frigid surface of Jahuty-12 with spiked and clawed boots and toes. While the Tower Knights reached for weapons upon their backs, the Wing Knight began assembling something from rings and metal frames attached to a belt around its metallic skirt-panels: forming some kind of apparatus as it went.
As the Ballista Knight's truncheon came crashing down, the charging Shield Knight tried to bash her frame from behind—hiding behind its rapidly-disintegrating shield under the volume of her shotgun's fire. With any success, it might be able to knock her off-balance; but only time would tell. The Ballista Knight succeeded in knocking away her shotgun. The Shield Knight was right behind her and she would be unable to block it.
Dana made her choice in an instant. Her chainsword and chainaxe both screamed to life as she brought down both weapons onto the Ballista Knight, completely ignoring the incoming truncheon that would no doubt cave the face of her mech in and kill her. The least she could do for her fleeing comrades was to make sure not as many pursued them in the end.
The Ballista Knight's truncheon connected at the same moment her chainswords did.
The Shield Knight's own implement came slamming in from behind just a tiny bit later, leaving the three in a chilling, static pose.
Jahuty-12 did not have an atmosphere that carried sound. It was thin, and cold, and most of it was frozen as snow upon the ground. It was beautiful and pristine because it had no weather - only the trenches and gouges and mounds carved into it from the movements of the mechs. Thus, when the three came to a stand-still, it felt more natural than any of their brutal, floating dance had before. Snow drifted around their ankles and legs in a veil. The only noise which carried from Dana's chainswords was a harmonic 'thrum': one which tinkled against the stone and metal of the Ballista Knight as it sawed clean through the last of its corpse. Its truncheon slipped from her cockpit as its fingers did, and the Shield Knight solemnly leant back to let the two collapse.
The diorama slowly tumbled to the frigid ground, the battle replaced by a terrible silence. The closed helm of the Shield Knight stared silently at the bodies strewn around it, and then it turned away - unable to bare the sight. As it did-so, however, its gaze fell upon Washi's broken mech.
It turned to its three remaining companions as they skidded to a halt, the Wing Knight completing the last of its apparatus with a triumphant flutter of its feathers. As the Tower Knights stowed their axes once again, the Shield Knight made a silent word. The four stood there for a moment, gesticulating in the near-void as if in conversation. After a while, they came to a decision.
The two Tower Knights came before Washi's mech, examining the remaining light and life within the frame. Satisfied at their cursory peek, the two behemoths crouched and gripped it at the shoulders and hips. With a heave that sent the teeth of their joints clanking and slamming together, they lifted it between them like a triage team. The one at the shoulders waved to its two companions, the raised bands along its pauldron coming together as it flexed. They each gave a gesture, and then turned toward one side of the nightmarish lights in the sky.
The procession marched toward the backlines of one of the battle, their only company the tremors of the earth growing louder as the shockwaves traveled up their feet and into their bodies.
They'd taken a prisoner of war.
Cainabel, Forlorn System
Forlorn Empyreal Trade Company Main Headquarters
“I see,” the Diadochi Salome murmured. She stared at the written piece of paper on her desk as if willing for it to disappear. In the end, she sighed and waved a dismissive hand at the courier. "Leave. Your services are no longer required." The courier gave a short bow and departed from her office, leaving her alone with only her thoughts to accompany her.
The news from Jahuty-12 troubled her. Technically speaking, this was not the first time either the Company or the Khanate had a violent first contact with another species. In fact it was incredibly common nowadays considering how much of a mess the empire was in its current state. Yet this one, unlike the other incidents, disturbed her. According to the report, they had not in any way expected a warring force like this on the planet nor did they believe them to be native to Jahuty-12 according to the predictions of star shamans.
Could this mean these mysterious knight mechs belonged to yet another star-empire?
Truth be told, she had been avoiding contacts like these. The company simply was not suited for wars against an enemy along the lines of a fellow power. Not only would it mean she had to draw in her own resources to help out, but it could also risk attracting the attention of her rivals.
Quickly she began to make preparations, making a list of priorities. First, she was to ready the Company Security in the case that a direct war broke out. This means sending reinforcements to Jahuty-12. Secondly, she needed to put her personal units on standby in case it all went to hell. Thirdly and finally, she was going to prepare a diplomatic and investigation party to prevent a war from actually starting.
“Damn it,” she cursed under her breath as she prepared to summon her lieutenants… only for her to suddenly receive a private message from one her spies. As she took in the content of the message, her eyes widened and at that moment, she realised she had made a terrible, terrible mistake.
[Diadochi Lainar Made Contact With [MENTSHN EMPIRE] and sequestered their assistance in establishing MEGASTRUCTURE in Xibalba System. Likely Chance of Having Heard of Mentshn by This Meeting. ]
This was going to be awkward to explain.
CONTINUED IN: "Casting Down the Ziggurats"