Several hours of nonstop training went by.
Tzorvar Prime came around the G.S.O super structure with a burst of golden exhaust trailing its primary thruster. The four others swiveled on the mechanized tendrils so that they were angled against the mech’s direction of movement, firing small bursts until the giant robot was stationary relative to the space station.
Said station was even larger than the mech unit. It was an expansive sprawl of structures shaped in all kinds of ways made out of blue and white hull plates and decorated with various emblems and icons that used to represent individual ship fleets. Tubular walkways, girders and spires connected the various sections of the structure. Individual buildings were monolithic in scale more often than not. Windows were used sparingly on the G.S.O; they were structural weaknesses as well as a detriment to security. The hull space was put to better use housing defense turrets and scanners to detect threats in the scenario that an enemy evaded the Harmony’s border patrols and was mounting a direct attack on vital points where the Corp’s heads of command were.
But the station was not on the defensive in this case. The militarized sections of the station had their sights on the battle mech, training warheads sliding out from ammo caches onto the missile racks that turned and pitched following the machine. Another volley of missiles were sent off, leaving bright streaks of light as they all converged on the unit. Being analogs of speedy fighter craft, Tsubar got to hone his skills in keeping the pressure off of him when being swarmed. It was a common Hoof-Talon tactic that claimed many a life and space ship, but that would be a thing of the past with the Harmony’s training producing starship pilots as it was.
The incoming warheads were all marked by red holographic reticles that surrounded the sea pony pilot. As quick as a reflex, the metal limbs were held up in striking positions with the Manipulators’ claws spread apart. Almost just as fast they started to pelt the dummy ships with orbs of red magical energy, firing shot after shot and adjusting aim in seconds to track numerous targets at once. Tzorvar Prime showed itself capable of handling squadrons of small scale with the greatest of ease, the warheads dissolving harmlessly upon impact with the magical blasts and the blasts themselves dissipating shortly after.
As if to drive the point home, Tsubar had one of the tentacles lash out and grab one of the last few missiles just as it was closing in on Tzorvar Prime, enveloping the warhead in a magical field that suspended it in between the tendril’s metal claws. Arcs of electricity flowed in between the graspers like the energy flowing around a Spell-core and with a simple thought, Tsubar lined up the missile with another approaching warhead. The claws began to spin and for a few seconds, wisps of energy spiraled into the Arcane-Manipulator before being released as a jet of energy that skewered the two missiles, shearing them apart and turning them into glowing miasmas drifting in the nebula.
“Whoa, Tsubar!” one of the observing technicians chimed in over the Shu’badi’s communicator. “That Spell-core beam came a bit too close to the station! We may be throwing duds at you, but you’re using live rounds out there!”
“Sorry,” Tsubar apologized promptly. “It’s a bit too easy to get… caught up in all this. It’s like the unit wants to destroy everything around it!”
When he realized what he had said, he paused with a sense of dread in the pit of his being.
”It still has an influence? Even with the Hex-core Inhibitor system active…?”
“Just keep in mind that ‘everything around it’ includes the Observatory. Would be a waste if, in getting this unit working, we end up blasting through one of the monitoring centers or something!” said the technician.
Tsubar, still somewhat unnerved by the implications of what happened, replied, “Right… right. Prepare another round; I think I’ve gotten used to moving around in this thing and using its powers. The most pressing issue now is learning restraint.”
“Well at least you’ve gotten past letting them hit your shields. Gotta commend that!” the technician said, and once again Tsubar found the courage in himself to carry on.
”Of course it will be difficult… the unit is a prototype and this is the first outing I’ve had with it. In time I’ll be its absolute master, and it will obey everything I tell it to do without any hassle!"
***
The umbra sands took to the scorching winds, rising plumes of dust mixed with smoke that billowed above the tortured environment. Shambling workers drew upon the powers of the world’s internal furnace, circling the scrap heaps that were plentiful on the graveyard. They held out their extremities and let them ignite with the magical fire. It coalesced around the machines, making them glow hotly, melting down into puddles within the craters they made. The “vats” of hissing, roiling slag would then be molded into shape by the mental power of those among the undead ranks capable of such feats.
These crafters were exceptionally thin, even for walking corpses. More akin to skeletons than anything else, these fiends that defied the natural order of things shone brightly in the artificial twilight their work created. With a gesture, they raised the molten liquid and moved globs of it through the air. Then they shaped the glowing substance into what was needed, and the smelters robbed the slag of its immense heat.
The result: metal sheets and plates as strong as the day they were first fitted to a vessel; perhaps even stronger, by the grace of the occult method of creation. Through this process, what were just grave markers dotting the landscape in pockmark ditches had been reverted to their true nature: war machines. Completed vessels were arranged side by side with a few yards of space in between, husks being created with astonishing efficiency and speed.
And each husk was revived by the Hoof-Talon deathless, channeling their energies into the death-spreaders, or necroliers. Every few minutes, tens more of the stark black ships lit up, a jagged edged rune burning red on the hull before being blown away like an eroded emblem.
These defiled vehicles bore organic features. Cavities and crests uncomfortably similar to bone, thin strips of metal spanning gaps like sinew. Orifices made to look like skulls of different races imprinted on the metal, ridges running across the surface like exaggerated veins. Numerous vents that resembled open jaws filled with teeth of varying quality, from pointed and sharp to blunt and dull. A row of arching girders on either side of the necroliers invoked images of rib cages. Rugged spines jutted from the tops of the ships.
The green fires fluttered like a flag in a gale, the image of the galaxy within rippling and distorting erratically, as if some collection of energy had overtaken the atmosphere inside the great chamber. The corners of the pale creature’s maw curved upwards in some perversion of joy.
“Soon.”
***
The everlasting white faded so slowly to him. Everything that appeared as it disappeared was a sickening blur, shapes indiscernible and blending into one another. Colors were murder to behold. He sluggishly put his hooves over his eyes and started to rub them. When he pulled them away, Phineas beheld the familiar sight of the screen closed over him and the ceiling beyond, tinted a faint shade of blue.
“Welcome back from the dead, Startrot,” he muttered to himself hoarsely. “You’ve been gone from us only…”
He turned his head to look at the pod’s status display. He read the green text sprawled across the screen and groaned.
“… A couple of weeks. Balls.”
He knew he had taken a beating when he fought that damned hybrid. He was burned, electrocuted, knocked to and fro, strangled and stabbed. He even sustained some kind of magical damage, an experience that he would rather not go through again for the rest of his life, however long that would be at the rate he was going.
He raised a hoof and pressed against the screen, lifting it up and then hauling himself out of it. He felt like a wooden board, as if he spent too much time asleep –disregarding his weeks long hiatus from living, that is- and stumbled around for a bit, bracing against the side wall at first before haphazardly making his way over to his cot opposite it.
“Ugh. Get it together, damn it…” he muttered to himself. He rubbed his face with a hoof before stopping abruptly. He tapped a cheek with the hoof a few times before murmuring, “Helmet. I left it in the cockpit. I left it on the floor… for a couple of weeks… ah balls.”
When his legs were feeling more like legs and less like chilled nutrient-gel made to look like legs, he approached the door to the cockpit. It slid open and right there, behind his seat was his helmet. Its inexpressive eyes were staring up at him.
“Oh, don’t you give me that look.”
Phineas walked up to it, picked it up and put it back on. When he looked up through the shuttle’s view screen, he found that the ruined science vessel the ship was docked in was in even worse condition than he remembered. The walls around it had been shredded, exposing the cargo area to space. In fact, the cargo area appeared to have been sheared away from the rest of the craft, which hung mangled over the small spacecraft. This left a fairly large space which he could have flown his shuttle through with very little impediment.
“Uh… what… the…”
His shadow crawled across the room behind him and climbed up the wall. Rising up from below, shining with its horrifying brilliance was the blue monstrosity from beyond the stars. Slowly it made its appearance and Phineas spotted only one of the gigantic tendrils whipping around behind it. He was completely frozen underneath its incomprehensible gaze until by some miraculous occurrence, he blinked.
And when he opened his eyes again those split-seconds later, the Iopteryx was gone. Phineas fell onto his haunches, panting.
“Welcome back, Phineas. Welcome back.”