Salvation

by voroshilov

Call to Arms

Their retreat was swift. Much of the journey off the surface was made up of a cacophony of orders: everything from calling for Dominion military forces to calling for cups of tea - as was a standard for Dominion military officers during times of crisis, and, indeed, most other times.

Unfortunately, their calls for reinforcements were met with silence. As Penumbra quickly discovered their communications were being jammed by the Great Void. Or, perhaps, something within its dark depths.

To say she was nervous would be an understatement. She had witnessed an ambush before - though, admittedly, from the other side - and had seen just how deadly one could be. The right person in the right place could kill thousands as easily as one reaped a harvest of wheat.

“We need to return to Sanctuary’s Watch,” Penumbra said, “I need to clear my head and grab a few things.”

Ablazed Glory nodded and began inputting the coordinates - her nerves were originating from the panicked look deep in Penumbra’s eyes, a look that activated some primal fight-or-flight response in her the moment she saw it. As she did so, she called back to Penumbra, “do you have any friends on Chronove? Anyone that could help us?”

Much as Penumbra wanted to say yes - because it would technically be the truth - she replied in the negative. What few ‘friends’ she really did have on Chronove wouldn’t be in any place to help, nor would they do so even if they were. She’d be telling them to fight a hypothetical, with her only proof being a tribal cult and a pair of dreams. Knowing well of the Dominion military’s slowness when it came to confirmed operations, she had little hope they would even pay her any heed.

As they entered the Rift, Ablazed Glory giving herself the go ahead to engage, Penumbra attempted to meditate. In the Rift, it was a fairly simple process, all she had to do was relax and close her eyes. Relaxing was, in itself, the difficult part of the procedure, but achievable with advanced breathing techniques and magically deafening herself for a few moments.

She tried to reach out, find whatever it was that would be coming from the Great Void, but she could see only darkness. It was like trying to find a needle in a cloud of fog, if she didn’t know what a needle was - and if she was certain that something in the fog wanted her dead. She could reach no more than a few feet into the Great Void’s borders before she had to retreat, the darkness choking her and partially breaking her meditative state.

Suddenly, her state was cut off, as the Rift was replaced by real space. A Chronove defence station loomed in the viewscreen, as Ablazed Glory and the Luminary presented their documentation. The trim, black silhouette of a battleship hovered silently in the distance, almost mistakeable for merely a patch of space - visible only through its smooth shine. There was a strange comfort in Chronove’s militarisation, even viewing it from without. It seemed to bring a sense of security - despite being fully capable of killing her and all of her friends within seconds.

Cleared to pass, the Retaliator cruised by the station. From the viewscreen could be seen guns larger than the ship itself, connected to a squat, cylindrical platform the size of a small city, tiny lights and windows all along it, life evidently bustling within.

Chronove Defence Command would be of no use to them: most of their assets were static and those that weren’t were forbidden to leave the system. Chronove was fairly under-guarded as it was - during the days of the Empire there had been hundreds of millions of ships guarding the system, now there were barely two hundred thousand. The fall of the Irenton Empire had come swiftly, but the old habits of 17,000 years of mobilisation and warfare had yet to fully leave even the rather peaceable and diplomatic Dominion.

They had not come to Chronove to gather help, however. Rather, they had come simply so that Penumbra could gather a few things. Foremost was a battery: her armour’s connected battery had begun to decay, so a fully working spare would be a good thing to have around. Then, there were a few odd items; some metal to fabricate plating for the Glow sisters; a few assorted food items; and a new bottle of whiskey.

For an errand trip - albeit a necessary one - it was agonisingly slow, slower than usual. Something had the Dominion military on high alert, though whether it was just a training exercise or something more serious, Penumbra didn’t know. She hoped it was the former, but training told her it was the latter.

After hours, they finally began their approach to Sanctuary’s Watch. Ablazed Glory having fallen half asleep by the time they entered the atmosphere. The rock of the Retaliator’s entry woke her, much to her vocal chagrin. Penumbra briefed her comrades on what they would need to get, planning on making her time on the surface as short as possible. They had already lost precious time getting through Chronove’s zone of interdiction, she was not about to lose any more.

Cain would get the metal, Astrid and Ablazed Glory the food, and the Glow sisters the whiskey. Penumbra would get her battery, along with whatever else she could find on the way to getting it.

Her workshop - if it could be called that - was adjacent to her bedroom, as just about everything was. It was little more than a table, an empty tool box, and a lot of spare parts. Each part was either very, very old, or, thanks to Penumbra’s diplomacy, custom made. Her armour’s battery, designed during the last century of the Irenton Empire, was of the latter category: being fabricated specifically for her by a planet-side manufacturing plant - though she didn’t like to pull rank often, she would be lying if she said it didn’t have its benefits.

However, when she opened the workshop door, she found one extra item waiting for her.

A WarSynth, identical to the one that had first inhabited her tower, save a number of scratches and scuffs and an overall dulling to its colour, stood before her workbench. Penumbra tensed, these had only brought trouble.

“Penumbra,” a voice, slightly more lower pitched than a WarSynth’s usually was, came through it. Unlike previous WarSynth encounters, its central, vertical eye did not flash as it spoke. “I am Celestine, the one remotely controlling this WarSynth. We met long ago, before all of this. I need to speak with you face to face - to show you what I have learned. Travel to the Gateway located in the O6-227D system, follow the coordinates it gives you, find me, then I will show you what I have found. Time is of the essence. I am afraid I cannot say more.”

The moment her speech finished, the WarSynth’s whole form shimmered, then teleported in a flash of blue and white: a pre-programmed long-range transport, not the usual grey, lightning-storm-like combat teleport. Penumbra’s knowledge of the Dauxite Assembly’s technology told her that meant the WarSynth’s destination was very, very far away - extragalactic by her reckoning.

Celestine - Penumbra remembered Celestine - the Strategos class construct she had encountered during the War in Heaven. The one whose speech she had translated for Lotan Nephilim. Evidently, she had learned to speak a language Penumbra’s old Imperial translation matrix could understand. That, or the WarSynth was doing the translation for her.

She trusted Celestine, mostly because she had seemed harmless - apparently also having helped a number of Changelings attacked by daemons. Besides, even if she didn’t trust Celestine, she had gone running after messages she didn’t trust before, why change her tune now? Even if doing so had nearly gotten her killed multiple times. If whatever Celestine had learned was as important as she made it out to be, then perhaps it would make the trip to Sanctuary’s Watch all the more worth it.

The issue would come with explaining the situation to Ablazed Glory.