The first casualty when war comes is truth - Hiram Johnson
Clad in only jeans and a sleeveless shirt he sat on a chair, twirling a dagger he’d borrowed in anticipation of the greenest member of his infiltration force approaching one of his objectives, thinking that it’d be a simple job to observe, record and exit. In essence even for someone with his inexperience with silent infiltration and an unknown planet it’d be a easy job, hard to screw up. But alas, he would if everything went according to plan.
He’d forced the commander to put the rookie on the mission, despite him not being trained as per their strict guidelines, had given him defective equipment that would short out at any time and leave him stranded behind enemy lines. The Cycle would break down upon the agent’s first power down of said Cycle and leave him stranded, just outside the forest sadly. It would have been quicker in the city or by it.
His comms would fail to pick up or receive signals from the ship currently in orbit, but the camera that had been secretly attached to said comms, giving him a view that was more or less consistent with the agent’s. From aboard the Eclipse he could short-circuit the Angelion Fifteen rifle that had been given to the agent or re-activate it if needed be. So he sat upon a rotating metal chair, with a weird hump in the backrest, watching a devoted soldier unwittingly and unknowingly sacrificing himself for more knowledge of a world.
This wasn’t something he’d normally approve of if one of his generals advised it, much less something he’d intentionally do to such a dutiful soldier. He would normally just go down himself and take a gander around, avoiding patrols, Void Fields and more or less stay hidden from the sensors. But here, a good hours travel away with some of the fastest engines ever made on his ships, he could still feel eyes shifting to focus on him. It was like the Abstracts all over again with that feeling, knowing that there was something with infinite more knowledge about how to manipulate the Void if that draconic creature was anything to go by. So he was avoiding setting foot on that planet, or the weirdly inhabited moon right by it, until he had a legitimate reason to go down for.
After he figured out if they were an inherently hostile species or not. If they killed the agent when he had basically no weapons, his species were far from good hand to hand combatants, and utterly defenseless then he could label them as hostile and drop a bio-weapon and kill off their strongest inhabitants. Then use the rest as lab rats so as to better understand variations of the Void. If they didn’t kill the agent and instead imprisoned him then he’d come down with a contingent of his most intimidating soldiers and demand his agent back. After he’d get the agent back he’d get One to compose a translation system and see how they could benefit one another. If they instead dissected him, then they’d be a curious species and he could most likely buy their allegiance by giving them the simplest of technologies and add them to his empire.
Though of course that was with only one species of the seemingly endless ones inhabiting the planet. Dragons, bird-lion things, zebras, miniature horses, half-man bulls, goats, cows, sheep and more were all inhabiting the same planet, at the same time. It was just unheard of for so many species to be inhabiting the same planet at the same time without space-faring tinkering, but that could be on account of the Void. It was also interesting that he recognized several species from his home planet, sure they were different, but the similarities were striking. Also a bit unsettling for some reason.
As he thought about the strangeness of how so many species could co-exist and thought about as many variables as his muddled mind could handle, the screen had flashed by several cottages and gardens, as of yet to see any natives. The screen came to a deadstop as the agent stopped, seemingly seeing something or hearing something he didn’t. As he watched the screen moved down low to the ground, close enough he could see individual pebbles on the dirt road and the cracks in it. Moving to the side as if hovering it came upon the side of another cottage, hay reaching out and smacking the camera lense, and slowly approached the corner then stopped once more.
Ever so slowly it peered around the corner as the agent found whatever it was that peaked his interest and gave Santi his first real in-depth look upon the inhabitants in their day to day lives. Those lives being that were crowding around stalls and selling all sorts of fruits and vegetables, little versions of them running between legs and chasing one another, sun seemingly caressing them in their activities. He frowned as the agent snapped back around the corner, thinking that some native had seen when he could easily tell that she was looking at something else.
How he wish he could be there instead without being noticed, he’d be able to get a feel for the air around them, the smell of excitement, happiness or fear, hear the inflections of their tones in their voices. So much more information could have been gathered if he went down and alas he was stuck to watching a small screen as an inexperienced agent ran around the building, head and body presumably low to the ground to avoid being seen. He was granted view of another street and a row of cottages for an instant before being shown what looked like an alleyway, complete with dumpsters.
Why a small town like this needed alleyways he wasn’t sure but his agent was taking full advantage of that fact as he darted between houses so as to avoid being seen and was actually pretty damn good at it. The agent spent ten minutes running through the town, even peeking inside several houses and giving him an actually pretty modern view of said homes, despite everything else thus far screaming medieval. Even ran past what looked like the cinemas.
Despite his good work at sneaking around and doing what he was told too, it was taking too long so I decided to up the ante. With my free hand I reached into my pocket, cold and comforting shadow enveloping only a small portion of his body, feeling around in the vast emptiness of everything. With nary more than a thought he gathered some of the Void that hung in the air around him, attracting a manageable amount of it and reached out for the agent. Then he let the energy he had gathered up explode outwards from the agent, sending a pulse of his brand of the Void outwards from him.
He knew that would attract the same draconic creature from before to that location. How he knew was simple. Even from here he could feel the different ‘textures’ of the Void that the planet gave off, numbering upwards in the hundreds of millions easily. Surely creatures that evolved on a planet with so much Void energy would learn how to differentiate types of Void.
The agent immediately responded as the Void detector they had given them started to let out a warning, set to the agent’s coms. The camera only caught a flash of the device as the agent brought out the radar like gadget then slid it back into wherever it stored it. His viewpoint immediately turned around and made a mad dash out of there, legs and arms flashing back and forth in an effort to carry the agent out of there.
The agent succeeded in running past several houses, before a familiar hand leapt out of the shadows and grabbed the agent’s throat and held him up into the air. Santi leaned forward as the same draconic creature’s face came into view, one that was curled into a snarl. It’s other hand, a bird claw to be precise, whipped out of view of the camera and shortly returned with the agent’s gun and it looked down at it. Probably recognized the model from being shot at it hundreds of times through his ship.
The agent presumably struggled, judging by the flailing camera, but alas the draconic thing kept him in place. The camera broke into static. Santi growled at that, they might very well be a hostile planet then.
Just as suddenly though the camera’s viewpoint changed to that of a sunny one, white marble walls, stain-glassed windows and a red-rug stretching out beyond the agent’s sight. Then the draconic creature dropped the agent and floated past him, whereas the agent just stared at the floor. The camera remained rooted there for several seconds, bobbing ever so slightly back and forth as the agent did something, maybe rub his neck.
He impatiently waited as the agent sat there before eventually looking back up in the direction the draconic creature went. To give him a weird sight, one that he sure as hell didn’t expect. The draconic creature was busy arguing with some being on the throne, flailing its arms about in some manner while the being sat still, calmly looking upon the agent as if it was something normal for an alien to show up. Said being sat upon a golden throne, sunlight coming in through the windows to shine off of the throne and blind whoever was looking. But yet the throne wasn’t as blinding as the white light shining off the horse upon the throne, ethereal rainbow hair extending from her hair and past the edge of its throne.
More gold adorned the horse’s head and hoofs, as if to draw attention away from its impressive size and the horn that looked sharp enough to gore a man. All in all a impressive specimen of its race, albeit the horns and wing combo was one that didn’t seem to be common to the other photos suggestions. Maybe royalty status then.
The horse looked at the agent for a moment then turned to the draconic creature and started to talk with it for several minutes, all the while the agent sitting there and not doing anything except staring. Poor boy was probably scared out of his mind. Santi watched their lips move as best he could, along with their body movements to try and figure out what they were saying. In the end though all he could figure was the draconic one was mad and the horse seemed to have a bland outlook on life.
The horse’s horn glowed a yellowish color for just a moment and as if it were a signal the draconic one turned around and snapped his clawed fingers. The screen cut to static once more, so Santi kicked back and waited.
And waited.
…..The signal wasn’t going to come back was it?
He sighed and stood up, left hand exiting his pocket and dagger flipping to point backwards away from his stride. That most likely meant his agent was dead, slight chance of some other dimension or what not. Which in turn would mean that the Angels’ leader would raise hell about losing a potential member, demand recompense, which would drag him to the surface and most likely head to head with the draconic creature.
If he refused to go down he’d lose respect, for he had as of yet to miss the first encounter with any enemy, ally or unknown and as such some of his troops may even fear the natives. Simply because of the fact he wouldn’t be there. Not a position to be in for anybody, but he knew that on a subconscious level he wanted that.
Or maybe the lovely voices in his head did, what with their love of wanton destruction and war.
Regardless he had to go down now. Flicking his wrists up the shadows once more encompassed him, a brief sense of security and then dropped away from him as he stepped out into his most trusted general’s room. Chay’ak yelped and fell back onto his cot, as he seemingly formed out of the floor, then snarled at him. “Damnable human, quit doing that before I gut you.”
Santi shrugged as the wolf-like alien stood up, grey fur shining in the dim light somehow, said alien’s claws flexing as if to carry through with the threat. “We both know I’d be the one to do the gutting.” Chay’ak glared down at him as he stood up to his full height and towered over him, while he just stared blankly back. Under normal circumstances and with anybody else this would have intimidated him, what with the meter and a half wide distance in the room, and two meter length, most of which was taken up by that cot. Leaving him practically chest to chest with the alien who was staring down at him.
Chay’ak was the first to break off the staring contest with a smile and relaxed slightly before flopping back onto his cot. “I heard you forced the Angels’ commander to send a initiate down to scout the Void planet, mind if I ask what’s that about?”
“Needed to assess how hostile the natives would be if an operative were to be caught spying on them. Agent got captured, now we just need to go down and get him back, if he’s still alive that is.”
Chay’ak laughed at that. “You could have just gone down there yourself and blown up a city or two if you wanted that reaction Santi!” The wolf wiped at his eye with a claw to rid himself of a imaginary tear. “So you want me to lend you my men for this Op?”
Shaking his head Santi rested his hand on Chay’aks’ shoulder with a grin, reaching up to grab it just barely. “No I was wondering if you’d join me like in the good ole’ days. Going to need the best of the best down there, that means you and the others.”
Chay’ak’s face went blank for a second, or as blank as a muzzle could get before looking back at him. “You’re asking the king of a nation, last of his bloodline and one of your generals to jump into what could be the most dangerous country we’ve ever seen with gods and demons flying around?” Santi nodded. “Just let me pray to the Huntress and we’ll get going then.”
“Why do you still pray to a god Chay’ak? And one for a hunt at that, I know you have gods for conquest and war.” Santi asked, leaning back on the door with a skeptical look.
Chay’ak snarled at him again, actually meaning it this time. “She is the one who helped me prosper and live through my exile, so she is the one I shall pray my respects too. Now begone, I’m sure you still have to round the others together.” His goddess was always a sore spot with him, a spot he loved to poke. Santi just gave a mocking bow and had the shadows leap out of the ground once more to cover him, leaving nothing but a growling wolf-man as evidence of his being there.