Returnings[]
- Chapter 8 -[]
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Terran System, Above Jupiter
June 10th, 3151
They had taken six days to make it to the pirate jump point. The fleet of JumpShips waiting for them there acknowledged them as they came in. Tony guided the DropShip to the docking collar of their assigned JumpShip. Once completed, Kendricke ordered everyone to stay on the DropShip and make for the upper levels. People looked at him confused, but they complied. Kendricke then made for the airlock to board the JumpShip to execute the last part of the mission. He was met by technicians who then guided him to the bridge. He entered a bustling center of activity as people figured out who was going where. Kendricke did not care.
"Greetings, Paladin Kendricke. Welcome aboard my ship. Captain Dingo at your service."
"Are we ready to jump?
"Yes, once we get our compliment of DropShips we will be jumping out."
"What do you mean your compliment? I was to be assigned to single docking collar JumpShip. Did someone mess up the orders."
"No plan ever survives the enemy intact, skippy. Be glad you got assigned to a JumpShip at all."
"Are we first to arrive?"
"Yes. We have two more that are burning in and will dock within the next half hour."
Kendricke looked at Captain Dingo with anger in his eyes. Moments passed.
"Clear the room everyone."
All the techs looked up from their consoles and looked at the Paladin.
"By order of the late Devlin Stone, clear the room. If you believe in what the Republic stood for clear the room."
Some techs got up. Others didn't. Kendricke's right arm twitched in anger.
"All right, mate, everyone one clear out. I want to hear what this man wants to say"
"Good."
Everyone cleared the room but the captain. Kendricke floated over to the jump council during the chaos of everyone leaving. He starred at it and switched it over to file mode. The captain was floating over to him and then noticed what was going on.
"Woah there. What are you doing."
"The last will and testament to a man that dreamed of a bright future."
Kendricke pulled the memory chip he had kept and plugged it into the computer.
"A future where there wouldn't be wars and wouldn't be petty squabbling."
He quickly went thru the files and went to an executable file.
"A future that now burns because of the clans. A future killed by a..."
Captain Dingo put his hands on Kendrickes in an attempt to pull out the memory chip he put in. Kendricke doubled him over with a swift kick to his abdomen then pushed him away. Both of them went floating in the opposite directions. Kendricke caught himself on a chair and brought himself down. He then floated back over to the console.
Captain Dingo hit the wall near the door. He was out of breath but managed to hit the open button. A startled crew saw their captain bleeding. He wheezed and coughed it out.
"Stop. Stop him!"
It was too late. Kendricke activated the program that was on the chip. It loaded itself into the computer. Kendricke waited the few seconds that he had been instructed to do. Then pulled the chip out and put it in one of his pockets. He saw the virus begin jump calculations and started to automate the process. There was no going back now. He drew his side arm and aimed at the console and emptied till slide lock. He dropped the mag and reloaded while turning to the JumpShip crew that was entering the bridge.
"In the name of the republic, this vessel now carries us to Stone's vengeance! You will not want to be here when we jump. It will be treacherous and you might not live when we come out the other end. If you wish to come with me, evacuate to my DropShip, and head to the upper levels. Otherwise leave now! Take any escape crafts and escape pods and make for other JumpShips!"
Some crew bolted. Others looked utterly dumbstruck. The captain cussed up a storm now that he could breath again. Kendricke went to the intercom for wide ship use. He glanced down at the jump computer and a count down was initiating thru broken displays.
<<This is Paladin Kendricke to all JumpShip crew. All crews are to evacuate now. When we jump we will not be able to jump again. This is a one way ticket that no one will be able to follow us where we are going. I have told the bridge crew to evacuate already and they are already under way. You have 19 minutes to evac. God speed.>>
Captain Dingo made his way back to Kendricke and he now had a pistol now in his hand.
"You have destroyed my vessel and are initiating a jump to no where? What mad man are you?!"
"Someone who has nothing else left to live for except for my last orders."
Kendricke pointed his pistol at Captain Dingo.
"Put the pistol away now."
"You have taken my livelihood! Why should I!"
Kendricke's pistol barked as he pushed off the floor. Captain Dingos also fired and hit Kendricke in his left arm. It began to twitch as the cybernetics misfired. Captain Dingo though now floated in the room with blood gushing from a head wound. Kendricke made for the door as the rest of the crew scrambled to get off the vessel. That would save himself some grief. Klaxons sounded off warning that a jump sequence count down had begun. He made his way down the hall towards the DropShip. At the airlock he went thru and then sealed it. He made for the bridge. The highest part of the DropShip away from the KF Drive.
The files on the chip he had read had theorized many different things. The biggest one was for any of the crew to survive a jump into Turbline, they would need to be the furthest away from the jump core. Something about how the jump bubble was affected or some other KF science way past Kendricke's knowledge. He just needed to know how to survive the jump and that was to be up in the upper levels of the DropShip. It would have been sardines if the Turblines had survived the barracuda attack. They would have managed, but now. He stopped thinking about it.
By the time he got to the bridge, four minutes remained till jump. As instructed all thirty survivors had made their way to the upper levels. He was also surprised too see two members from the JumpShip bridge actually with them. All he could do is nod to them. Then the last klaxon went off and reality went to black.
It was just as he remembered it when they came out on the other side. The feeling of disorientation and the length of it. As his senses took in reality he started to check himself. He hadn't been shunted. He looked at the other two ghosts knights and they looked at Kendricke weird like he had taken a drug or two. Then the screams began in other sections of the DropShip.
"Knights spread out. You will see horrors before your own eyes. People will have been shifted and shunted like The Fortress Wall device would have done to any invading JumpShips. Tend to the wounded."
He followed them out and located a man that had one of his legs shifted an inch. He pulled his belt off and applied a tourniquet to it. The blood flow stopped and he made for a med kit. Quickly he applied clotting agents and applied bandages. After that he released his belt and looked for more victims. In the end roughly five people had some kind of malady befoul them. One other person had died. Her head had been shunted and her brain essentially bisected. They returned to the bridge after the quick evaluation.
"Did we bounce off the fortress wall? I have seen the holovids that were taken of JumpShips that tried to cross the wall. This is exactly that!"
"We did not bounce off the fortress wall. You know we can leave thru the wall but not enter it. We just entered a system that does exactly what the wall does. Except it is a natural phenomena."
"So we are stranded. Great. Lovely. Hold on! You said we were going to deliver a message."
"Rightly so. Tony, what is the status of the DropShip."
Tony went to the controls. Damage was relatively light. But...
"We lost one of the engines. No telling about the landing gears. Everything else is checking out fine. Feed from the JumpShip is dead."
"That is to be expected, the core is fragged. It will likely be repairable, but will take a team of techs months of connecting shunted wires."
"How do you know this? Let me guess. You have been here before."
"Yep. Welcome to the Turbline system, ghost knights."
"Hold on. Like from those cheap B rate holovids?"
"Yeah, like that."
"Are you telling me that Night Haunts are real too?!"
"Yep."
Both ghost knights groaned. Tony looked down at the computers.
"I am finally getting sensor readings. Multiple JumpShips in system and one warship. There are DropShips and aerospace fighters that seem to be diverting to us. I am also seeing some are of configuration... shades. WHERE are we!"
"There is going no where from here. We are now in the hands of the Word of Blake."
The look on the ghost knights faces was of utter dread. Tony seemed to panic. Kendricke cared not anymore. He had the mission and that was about to come to a conclusion. He went to the radio and opened a channel that would transmit on every band.
"This is Paladin Kendricke of the Republic of the Sphere to The Word of Blake. I seek to speak with Adept Alpha Deback, The Right Hand of Corden. There is urgent information that I need to relay to him. In the name of the late Devlin Stone. I bring news that Terra has fallen. I repeat Terra has fallen. The Republic... is no more. The Clans have successfully taken Terra and are establishing the Star League as they see it. I have Turbline refuges exiles aboard. I await further instruction."
Kendricke closed the channel. They remained in silence for a minute. Tony then saw more information come across the computer.
"The amount of aerospace fighters and DropShips directing us has abated. I read six aerospace fighters still heading directly for us."
"They will likely be on their way to have a look at us."
More time passed and the aerospace fighters slowed their approach. Three of the fighters got within eye ball distance to examine the ships. Then the radio blipped. Someone was calling in. Kendricke took a head set so it could be private then opened the channel.
"This is Kendricke. I am on a private channel."
<<"You are to stay aboard your DropShip until you are contacted again. What is your ships status?">>
"One engine dead. Landing gears are unknown. Life support intact. Cargo bay is blown open to the void. Food and water supplies unknown. Casualties are in the hundreds. Survivors. Thirty Turblines, me, two random crew, and two other Republic Knights."
<<"Your situation has been relayed to proper channels. I say again, stay aboard your DropShip and do not fire up your engines. Welcome back to Turbline. Out.">>
Thirty hours had passed before any significant event happened aboard the DropShip. The remaining Turblines learned that success had likely had come and moods were elevated at least for now. Though the events of the voided cargo bay hung in on everyone's mind. Then the radio feed chimed and Tony had to get Kendricke. By the time he got back it had switched to a video channel awaiting for them to answer. Kendricke sat and hit the button. On the screen was a Manei Domini. One left eye was cybernetic and the face of an older Deback greeted him. Kendricke could tell there was going to be some delay due to interstellar distance so he allowed Deback to respond first.
<<"Last time I saw you I told you never to come back. But yet here you are and with news that has yet to be corroborated. How do I know this isn't a Republic trick.">>
"I have hundreds of dead Turblines in a cargo bay that was ripped open to the void by barracuda missiles! You can come up here and examine it yourself! You will recognize them. You remember Chandra the chef? Herbert the inn keeper? How about Robert the guide? How about Yonny the butcher? Teckler the guard? I can go on and on! I knew these people and was their liaison when I got back to Terra. They were my friends and my own community damn it. If YOU think I would have let them all be killed for some plot for Stone to get to you. Then you can go to hell."
Minutes past and the demeanor of Deback face changed. The names he listed he knew Deback would remember as he had been around them before they choose to goto Terra. Kendricke had all the proof he had in blood and bodies several decks below him. He saw Deback mute the feed as he turned and talked to someone off screen. Minutes past as there seemed to be heated discussion then the feed audio went on again.
<<"Orders are being sent to aerospace and drosphips in your area to escort you to an orbital plane above Turbline. I will meet you there. Peace of Blake be with you.">>
The feed died before he could respond. They waited before they were contacted again and given coordinates to follow. They were escorted by two interdictor pocket warships and a choir of shades. Enough fire power to rip the DropShip apart. They burned one G getting to Turbline which took five days. There they reached the planet and parked in orbit. A small craft then made its way up from the surface to the DropShip, docked to one of the doors. Then came the inhuman knocks.
The door opened to demons. Six of them entered the small room where Kendricke and the two ghost knights awaited. The six se'irim battle armors fanned out doing a standard boarding action. Then they split off deeper into the DropShip. Then a se'irim and tengu battle armor came in. Kendricke wasn't sure which one was Deback so he simply waited with his arms crossed. The tengu approached them and held out its hand. The se'irim spoke in a monotone voice.
"Your side arms."
Kendricke simply drew and slammed his pistol into the Tengu's palm. The other two ghost knights hesitated then did the same. The Tengu myomer clawed hand squeezed and crushed the pistols before letting them drift off. That is when the se'irim battle armor hatch popped opened. Their reunion had finally come.
"I am not sorry to say that I am glad to see you again, Deback. Much has happened on Terra and I am to deliver this to you."
Kendricke pulled out the data chip that Stone had told him to give to the Word. The Se'irim's claw took it daintily and put into an armored pouch. Nothing was said as they both starred at each other for five minutes. Then Kendricke noticed Deback's demeanor changed. A look of utter sadness changed his scowl.
"Hundreds dead."
"Yes, hundreds. I assume one of your Se'irim found the cargo bay and peered in."
"One of them entered the bay and is relaying video to my true eye. I... I recognize some of those faces. A little older but..."
"They died to come home to get away from the catastrophe that has happened."
"DEBACK!"
A Turbline exile cried out and floated to Deback. The Tengu armor seemed to react to a possible hostile but stood down. Deback recognized her immediately as Rachel the... he couldn't remember her title. He just remembered her as she had helped him during his travels to the various towns while Kendricke while still in the dungeons. She came to him and held onto him in an almost hysterical sense.
"They killed all of them! They killed them all! By Corden, they killed them!!!"
Deback took Rachel into one of his battle armor arms and held her as gently as he could.
"Who killed them, Rachel?"
"The ones Corden told us about. The abominations from outside the Inner Sphere. The Clans!"
Kendricke noticed a shift in reaction from both suits of battle armor. Deback's sadness was finally turning to anger. The truth had finally been believed and now was setting in.
"Make them pay, Deback! Make them PAY!!!"
"I am no longer, Deback. I am Manei Domini ascended to Zagagel. Call me that from now on. I will relay the news to those that need to know."
More Turbline exiles were appearing in the hallways connecting to the small room. They starred at Zagagel and different emotional responses came. Relief, anger, sadness, and more could be read from their faces. The refuge stare that Zagagel recognized from his work in pirate hunting was on all of them. These people had seen much strife.
"All of you are now in the hands of Blake. Rejoice as you are now home."
There was some cheering but it was a somber moment. Zagagel looked at Kendricke and the two ghost knights.
"You three on the other hand. I am not sure what to do with you."
"I do not care no more. My mission is complete. My last orders carried out. Everything I have known is ash and the man I put faith in is no more..."
Kendricke then pushed off and floated towards an airlock near him. He hit the side button and the door opened. He entered the small space and went to push the close button so he could space himself. His mission complete, he was done. Then a Tengu claw wrapped around his hand stopping him. He turned to confront who ever was interfering with him from ending it all.
"It has been a long time since we have seen each other. I bid you not to leave just yet."
Kendricke's heart skipped a beat as he was looking at an unaged Corden looking back at him.