//------------------------------// // X. Gateway // Story: The War in Heaven // by voroshilov //------------------------------// “Among all of the treasures encountered by the spread of the Emperor’s Will, there were found a number of installations constructed by powers unknown. When the time came for the transition beyond the Prime Universe, these installations proved their value in allowing Imperial forces to cross the vast inter-universal plains. When Imperial troops returned, laden with resources and fresh soldiers for the Empire, it was the Emperor who said unto his workers: ‘build me these machines with your own hands.’ And thus they were built.” - How the past shapes the future by Mohiam Karn - Penumbra had felt the shift when the fleet entered the Rift, like a sudden knock to her skull, causing a headache to shake forwards to the tips of her eyes. She shook it off within seconds, focusing again on the words of Zealot Kaidon. Beneath their crimson and cobalt armour, they had leathery grey skin, sharp claws, reverse-jointed legs and a jaw more similar to that of an insect than her own. They were shorter than her, but still stood about ten feet, with limb and neck muscles almost as thick as her own. "A sword," they said, voice deep and uncompromising, "press this to activate, then press it again to deactivate."  They handed the thin metal cuboid to her, it seemed to have been fitted perfectly to her new claws, with a notch specially built into the activation switch to allow the tip of her claw to enter. They removed a helmet, almost artisan, royal purple and with a hole for her horn, from the cabinet behind them, slipping it onto her head carefully. When it was fully secured, tabs of glass slid over her eyes, feeding her information as to her surroundings and the person she was facing. "The helmet will keep you updated," they said, "battlefield conditions are prone to rapidly changing, this should assist you in adapting to them.” Whilst she got used to the display, and tested its capabilities, Kaidon fitted more pieces of armour. She eventually had greaves, flank, back, chest armour, and even supplementary armour for her claws. "Emperor Nicholas has ordered you to hangar six," they said, "take the main elevator." They pointed down the hall, then turned away, back to his weapons and armour. A PHALANX team joined her, armour forest green, weapons at standby. One of them turned to her, saluting, before falling back into a square formation, Penumbra in the centre. The elevator was in the hangar within seconds, opening to reveal a bay alive with action. Fusiliers ran back and forth, pilots and maintenance crew tended to fighters and vehicles, whilst Emperor Nicholas commanded the preparations from a makeshift command centre. "Penumbra," he said, turning to the pony and the PHALANX team, "your mission will be to access the main controls to the gateway, find a way to shut it down. Green Team here will accompany you, you will be inserted by drop pod, further briefing will be provided before drop." The PHALANXs all nodded, one gesturing for her to follow, she caught up with them easily. "Ma'am," one said, voice apparently female, "we'll be in bay-6, follow us, we'll get you in your pod." Fortunately, Penumbra had taken the time to immerse herself in the details of the Imperial military. Along with the PHALANXs (or whatever wasn't redacted), Fusiliers and their weapons and equipment, she had also researched the various naval craft. What Nicholas and the PHALANXs were referring to was a "Type-26 Orbital Insertion Pod," designed to be launched from an orbiting craft to rapidly deploy soldiers. Supposedly, they could hold four men, though Penumbra doubted they could hold more than herself and one other. The PHALANXs broke off, filing into waiting pods from a metal gangway. One of the PHALANXs, introducing himself as "Tyler" led her to her pod, marked "C-188". He stood aside, allowing her a view of its interior, slightly modified to allow her enough room to strap herself in securely. Tentatively, she grabbed the side of the opening, which caused the pod to shake on its mounting.  "Don't worry," Tyler said, "it's secured, just shakes a little." She nodded, slowly pulling herself in. She sat down awkwardly, having just enough room for her head if she leaned back slightly, her horn scraping against the ceiling, though fortunately away from the over the shoulder restraint above her. Tyler pushed himself in, checking she was correctly seated, before sitting himself down across from her, only his left arm visible behind the large black pillar in the centre of the pod. A technician came by, wearing a standard grey dress uniform, but with a mask covering much of their face, attached by a hose to a large pack on their back. They stuck their head inside, checking the two were seated correctly, before pressing a button on a console outside the pod, causing the restraints to slowly lower. The restraints were tight, but not wholly uncomfortable, but Penumbra couldn't help but sympathise with claustrophobics. The technician checked them again, pulling at the restraints, checking they were secured properly. Satisfied, they gave them both a thumbs up, before stepping out, pressing another button, and being steadily hidden by the closing door. The walls of the pod, previously solid black metal, lit up with perfect 360 degree images of the outside. "This is High Admiral Baal," a voice came through the speakers, "Emperor Nicholas has ordered the capture of this facility, by any means necessary. Green Team, Grey Team, Black Team and Yellow Team are to secure the facility's command centre intact; protect Praetor Penumbra, she will shut the gateway down, then we can find out what the hell this thing is for. Good luck teams, Baal out." Four red lights ringing the central pillar activated, with a timer appearing just in Penumbra's eyeline. Another voice came over the speakers, "30 seconds to drop!" A rumbling outside heralded the slow movement of the pod, which detached from the walkway and was slowly pulled towards a large, open space. As quickly as it had begun, the crane came to a halt, the pod swinging for a second before coming still. When the timer hit zero, the red lights flashed to green, and the voice appeared again "drop!" Beneath their feet, massive doors had opened, revealing a dark grey metal structure, hanging in space. The ship was far too close to see much of it. Another rumble, followed by a metallic clunk, and Penumbra quickly found herself floating minutely off of her seat. Looking about, she saw the walkway, followed by the ship in its entirety, glide away, upwards, the pod seeming to vibrate when it cleared the doors. Their pod was joined by dozens of others, all rapidly gaining on the structure below, which stretched for miles in either direction. Only a few seconds after the drop, the first hail of fire from below passed between the pods, green beams of light some three metres long cut awfully close to the pod's hull. A few seconds after, another hail broke out, hitting two pods, one was blown apart immediately, sending its occupants' corpses hurtling through space, whilst the other began to spin violently, its stabiliser torn in half. Two more hails followed, damaging another three pods and destroying a further two. Eventually, the hails stopped, the pods seeming to have cleared the worst of the AA. Suddenly, warnings flashed up across the windows and central pillar, whilst the same voice that had commanded the voice came through again, yelling worriedly, "massive energy build up detected on the surface! Brace!" Penumbra pulled her legs close to her chest, clutching the restraint tightly, when a film of blue energy passed over the pod, shutting off the screens and sending it careering off course. The middle pillar lit up again, flashing red warning signs. “Warning, warning," a robotic voice came over the speakers, "pod stabilisers offline." The impact with the gateway was sudden and violent, slamming Penumbra's head into the wall and knocking her out cold. "A warship?" A murmur rose up from the assembled council, the accused looked about, shame keeping him from looking for too long. The judges signalled for silence, which they quickly received. "It fled," he said, the authority his voice used to carry gone, "as we set fire to their planet. I followed with every ship in my command. It's Rift jump was random, only my ship could keep up with it." A murmur rose again, echoing neither support nor opposition, but certainly debate. "Silence," one of the judges yelled, "there will be order!" Another rose from his chair, "why were they not exterminated there? Before they landed on the Shield World." The accused shook his head, "surely you understand," he pleaded, "I could not even break their shields, not with all of my firepower. Only with reinforcements could I have done so..." Another judge interrupted, slamming their fist onto the table in front of them, "why did you not kill them when they left their vessel? You had the firepower then." "I dispatched every soldier I had," the accused said, "but they were massacred. The Precursors must have activated something on the Shield World. They say the forests came alive." Again, murmuring. "Alive?" The standing judge asked, curious, ignoring the clamour around him, "how so?" "I know not how," the accused stated, "but my soldiers reported attacks from creatures, born of wood, ripping apart men and vehicles. By the time my reinforcements arrived, and we accessed the Precursor's ship, they had entered the core, and were gone." She eventually awoke to the sound of echoing gunfire and the screeching of some hidden monsters. As her eyes opened and the fog of unconsciousness faded, she beheld the door of the pod, thrown some twenty feet forwards, the opening surrounded by battered chunks of hull and burning wires, with the outline of a PHALANX just beyond it, firing off bolts into the darkness. Penumbra pulled herself forwards, sitting on the edge of the pod, her legs still not quite up to standing. "Tyler," she shouted to the PHALANX, who didn't turn but acknowledged her with a shout back, "what's happening? Where are we?" She asked, throwing off spells into her surroundings, creating lights and testing the materials. "We fell off course," he shouted back, loosing another burst of fire into the darkness, causing something beyond to scream out and collapse with a thud, "about 4 klicks from the other teams, there's something in the dark ahead, give us some light!" Penumbra shot off a light spell, a glowing ball propelling itself forwards, illuminating small areas of the corridor as it went. Sure enough, the corridor was full of creatures, a few dozen in all, with greying skin, bulbous heads and wickedly sharp teeth and claws. Tyler shot each one as he saw it, his own bolts creating tiny bursts of light, allowing him to target another creature when it came into view. Eventually, Penumbra had fully regained her balance and composure, letting the blood run to her legs again as she stood up and grasped the hilt of her sword. As Kaidon had told her: press the button, then attack. The glowing orange blade was at least two metres long, illuminating a thin area all around her, allowing her to see when the creatures got too close. Carefully, she swung out at one of the creatures, whose entire body collapsed as its head suddenly became detached from its neck. Thin smoke rose from its spine as Penumbra launched another attack, gradually getting the hang of her new weapon. The creatures in the dark were, mercifully, easy to kill. They had no armour and their skin was weak, flaming up when impacted too many times. It was not long before the corridor was clear, silence and darkness falling once again, the only light coming from the lamps on Tyler's helmet, and the sparks and red warning lights from the pod's violent entry. "We're four klicks east of our target," Tyler said, pointing into the darkness, "trouble is: comms are down and scanners can't penetrate these walls, I don't know what's in front of us. We could walk into a hole a fall into space, or into a pit of these things and get ripped apart." "What are they?" Penumbra poked one, which seemed to moan something at her, she immediately regretted going near it. "I don't know," he said, "I thought they were Hollows at first, but they don't act like them, or look like them. I think they're something else, probably from through the gateway. We'd best get moving." The corridor they were in didn't seem to connect with much, there apparently being only one door further up it, through the thick darkness that permeated everything. The door itself was remarkably primitive in appearance, looking like something Penumbra would have found in an Equestrian house, but requiring a lot of force to shift. It opened out with a hiss, revealing another dark corridor that didn't seem to connect with anything, a lot safer than hole into the vacuum but a lot less interesting too. There were no more of the creatures that had attacked them in the corridor, with everything around them being remarkably silent. Penumbra entertained the idea that the previous encounter was all there was going to be. Perhaps, they had stumbled into an alien zoo of some kind. She quickly buried that idea when opening the next door, which was, conveniently, opened for her by one of the strange creatures, screeching at some unseen situation. A single shot from Tyler made its screeching stop, as well as turning its head into atmosphere. The rest of its body collapsed down, the door opening as it fell to reveal a dozen more of the things within a few feet. Penumbra fumbled her blade as she tried to light it, whilst the PHALANX with her showed off his superior combat skills and opened fire. Why not, Penumbra thought to herself, leave the fighting to the soldier and let her, the librarian, not get herself killed? One of the creatures got within inches of her, fortunately, she was so startled by its sudden presence she reflexively swung out with her magic, cutting its head clean off. Its headless and lifeless body dropped to the floor in front of her, Penumbra staring at it with thinly disguised shock, her sword hovering in place a few metres above it. "Nice kill," Tyler called back, having advanced through the door and into the now apparently empty corridor. Penumbra shook herself off. "Thanks," she said, playing it off as coolly as possible, before lowering her voice to mutter, "I totally meant to do that." The corridor they were in was more of the previous, as was the one after, and the one after that too. Penumbra soon realised it was just one corridor, with doors placed every hundred or so metres for, apparently, no reason at all. They had passed through a total of eight useless doors before they arrived in an actual room, though one filled with bodies rather than anything overly useful. They were PHALANXs, or, at least, former PHALANXs, now being badly shredded corpses. Their armour - what parts of it weren't covered in blood - was light grey, as if unpainted, with their still flowing wounds indicating they had died fairly recently. Tyler had gone over to one of them, scanning about the room for traces of the killers, which he found in the form of a single corpse in the far corner of the room. "It's Grey Team," he said, with a slight hint of concern in his voice, "whatever got them got them only a few minutes ago, but it got them good. Let me see if I can pull any logs." He fiddled the most intact piece of chest armour he could find, opening a panel then what looked like a tiny safe and pulling out a tiny, blue crystal stick and inserting it into a socket on his left forearm. He kneeled in silence for a moment, before removing it and placing it into one of his empty ammo pouches. "Nothing," he said, "might be damaged." "Makes sense," Penumbra said, conscious that whatever had killed the entire team was probably nearby. "Yeah, Chris' chest armour's pretty banged up. If I had a proper display system I could probably get the log working, but here, no chance. We best get moving, but be on your guard." The next door along led into another corridor, though this one was distinct in having a hole torn through it, which was covered by a shimmering purple shield, with an empty drop pod embedded into the opposite wall. Its door had fired upwards, landing half a metre beside it and its occupants were nowhere to be seen. Tyler inspected it for a second. "Not one of Grey's," he said, brushing dust off of the identification plate, "looks like one of Black Team's. No corpses, or blood on the ground, so they might've gotten out fine." "Let's hope so." They continued down the corridor, which was mercifully empty and went on for not nearly as long as the previous. The next room they arrived in was, at first glance, empty. Tyler, naturally cautious, shone his lights about the room, falling eventually upon a dark blue PHALANX corpse in the far corner, slumped against the wall, helmet torn open. "Recognise them?" Penumbra asked, as Tyler closed in one the body. "No," was the reply. A few seconds of searching the body later, Tyler spoke again, "they're Mu Company," he said, slightly confused, "Blue Team, Mu Company. Mu Company didn't deploy with us. Must've come in before." Penumbra searched the room again, getting a sudden worrying feeling there was something nearby. "Any logs?" "No," Tyler yanked at the chest armour, to no avail, "chestplate's smashed, can't even open it. Body's about a day old, slightly older I reckon, whatever got them left quick, did a number on them too. ID plate's smashed, so are all of the connection ports, their name ends in "a", only thing I can fully get is the Team and Company." "Do you know what killed them?" "Something fierce, probably. Takes a lot to kill a PHALANX, I'll tell you that much." Something echoed down the corridor, so distorted by distance it couldn't be made out what it was, but it was definitely there. "Should we go?" "Oh, yes, definitely." The door, which Penumbra assumed would lead them to another corridor, was locked. As whatever was approaching them gradually gained, Tyler began to cut his way through the door, using the plasma cutter embedded into his wrist. Every few seconds, Penumbra would yell something along the lines of "are we through yet?" To which Tyler would only respond with a hopeful negative. After an agonisingly long couple of minutes, the PHALANX was nearly through the door, though whatever was approaching them was now only a couple of doors away. As the follower banged against the final door, their escape route was finally open. The door slowly fell inwards, before it was joined by another, far more mangled, door from the other side of the room. A creature, similar in overall shape to those encountered before, but far, far larger, emerged. Its jaws slavered and its eyes glowed lurid yellow. Without any ceremony, it bounded forwards, roaring, followed by dozens of its smaller brethren. A chorus of gunfire emerged from beyond the door, a pair of PHALANXs dragging Tyler and Penumbra forwards, "let's get a move on," one of them, armour jet black, yelled, as his comrades loosed withering volley after withering volley into the large creature, which began to stumble as blood leaked from its legs and torso. As it reached the three quarter point of the room, the PHALANXs turned and ran, only Penumbra's enormous legs allowing her to keep up with the unnatural velocity of her saviours. The three doors along the corridor were all open, leading to another large hall with a pair of forest green PHALANXs standing just beyond the threshold, yelling them on and firing off odd shots from a semi-automatic rifle. The moment the final PHALANX crossed the last threshold, the forest green PHALANXs jumped back and a trio of bombs detonated, the door slamming closed just in time as the massive creature and its fellows were jettisoned into space. "Nice job." One of the Black Team PHALANXs patted the back of one of her yellow comrades. She turned to Penumbra and Tyler. "Thanks for being our bait." Penumbra gave her a curt nod and sarcastic smirk. "Status report," she requested to anyone who would listen, "how far are we from the target?" A PHALANX in black armour stepped forwards, evidently straight-edged from his formal, neutral tone and the straightness of his stance, "Black Team, Green Team and Yellow Team reporting for duty, ma'am. The target is just beyond the next door." A pair of Green PHALANXs were cutting at it with their plasma cutters, though had only progressed about three quarters of the way down. "How long will it take to get it open?" Penumbra asked, doing her very best to fully take command of the situation. "Approximately three minutes," the PHALANX replied, "it's heavily fortified. We do not know how many enemies are beyond it." Penumbra nodded, formulating a plan in her mind, "set up positions around the door, as soon as it's open we engage whatever's beyond it. There is potentially sensitive equipment inside, so do not fire unless you have direct line of sight." The PHALANXs responded by taking up positions, their soldier minds and intense efficiency setting up a pair of gun lines in a hemisphere five metres from the door, with space on either side of it to allow the two PHALANXs cutting to escape once they were through. Penumbra stood just behind their centre, ready with her magic to kill the first creature she saw, the corona of her horn sparkling hotly. "Thirty seconds," one of the cutters yelled out, the PHALANXs all tensing slightly as they steadied their breathing and readied their aim. "Ten seconds." "Five seconds." "Breaching!" The door fell inwards as the two PHALANXs dashed to the sides. Though, to Penumbra's relief, there was nothing alive beyond the door. Two members of Black Team entered first, scanning about with their rifles, followed by two from Green Team and then Penumbra. The room was dark, though a flick of the first switch activated the lights and revealed the control room proper. It was a large square room with a semicircular view port at one end, giving a view of a large purple sphere hovering in space, surrounded at the four cardinal directions by the arms of the gateway structure. There were five consoles in all, two pairs facing away from each other on either side of the centre of the room, with a final, much larger console just behind the viewport. All the consoles were apparently active, their light purple display screens filled with various paragraphs and charts Penumbra couldn't understand. She stepped up to the largest console, believing that would hold the ultimate key to shutting down the gateway. She was presented with a number of virtual buttons, all labelled in a language she couldn't read. "There was an old saying," Radiant-Dawn-of-Remembrance remarked, "it went something like 'let the good fire the first bullet'. The Assembly took that to heart often." "My species," Sunless-Halo-of-Penumbra countered, "believes in peace. We are not a war-like race." Radiant laughed. "We try not to be," he said, "we try. Though, it can be difficult, especially with some of the galaxy's inhabitants. Some of our thrall species prefer to fight themselves than work peacefully." "There are those amongst us who fight." Penumbra ran a small, ornamental dagger through her claws. "Though they typically fight for peace, as much sense as that makes." The central button, its label reading "Prime", would shut down the gateway. How exactly Penumbra knew it would, or what its label was, she didn't know, but she had learned to trust in her instincts. With an outwardly confident gesture, she pressed the button, then pulled back and waited. For a moment, the purple sphere held still in space, before suddenly vanishing. As if by magic, her sensors returned and she was met with a flurry of communications from other teams and the ships that had delivered them. "Baal to Epsilon Company, status report." Penumbra placed a talon to her helmet. "Penumbra to Baal, I read you." High Admiral Baal sighed in relief. "Thought we'd lost you there. Any reports on the gateway?" "It's down, sir," Penumbra reported, a smirk creeping onto her face, "control room is secured." "Copy that. I'm dispatching troops to secure the rest of the facility. I'll have a dropship with you in no time. Good work, Epsilon Company, and Penumbra, Baal out." Penumbra looked out from her view port as dozens of cruisers began to enter the interior of the megastructure, dropships like minuscule insects darting between them and the structure, deploying troops all over. It didn't take long for a pair of Fusiliers, their light red armour identifying them as special marines, to enter the control room and escort everybody out to modified dropships which had rammed tunnels through the structure's hull, returning them to the Night Truth.