Chapter 11 - The Fool
Location: Raven's Nest Shipyard â€" Medical Wing
Lance flopped over the table and drew his final breath, he laid there, as silent as a tomb when Diamond administered the shock pad which blasted into his chest. His body gave a shock, his neurones firing from the reaction to that shock but still, to no avail. Lance did not move, he was lifeless.
"Come on!" screamed Diamond inside his head, watching Lance feeling completely helpless, he was only young and did not deserve to die this way. "I'm NOT loosing you now!" he readied another shock and administered it with the same vigour as the first, hopelessly watching the life signs monitors beside his bed for the nearest flicker of life.
There was none... just the silence and the unmerciful glare of space.
"NO!" screamed Diamond grabbing Lance in his arms and administering another pulse shock, and again, and again, and again. After five tries he was still get no response.
"Please... you can't die!" he said in a quiet voice as he held Lance tight and then truly realised the extent of which the government had gone to cover its tracks... the death of an innocent young wolf... Diamond felt enraged but he knew that he had to be quick in order to escape from meeting his own death. He searched through the draws of medical equipment revealing a scalpel in his hands...
He fully acknowledged that he would have escape and to do that, he would have to kill someone.
He opened the door into the main "halo" corridor and a guard stopped him, he looked at Diamond with a professionally cold face. He had either not heard the commotion of Lance's death or he had decided to willingly ignore it. Diamond gave one finally look back at Lance's cold dead copse lying on the bed but he shed no tears for him, he would give the government no weakness, no cause for exploitation... never surrender.
The guard was dressed in combat armour, a breast shield covering his furry torso and a large rifle in his hand which appeared to look as deadly as what it was. His fox glare looked down on Diamond who felt intimidated by his height but understood the brevity of what he had to do. He could no longer watch events go by him without taking an active role in them. He could not... He would not.
"Excuse me" he said, turning his grief stricken face into the best approximation of a smile that he could find. "Could you please show me where the toilet facilities are in this room?"
The guard nodded, he looked about the same age as Diamond, he was young and green and obviously too eager to impress his superiors. Diamond quickly spun round when he entered the room and stabbed the scalpel into his neck, causing the soldier to leak red blood all over him as he pushed the scalpel in further in his neck. Diamond felt a rush, a surge of pleasure that he could not avoid, he watched as the guard collapsed in a pool of blood on the floor, leaving his rifle which Diamond wasted no time in collecting and walking out into the halo.
He carefully slipped along the empty corridor trying to control his feelings, at one point he stopped, the rifle fell from his hands as he collapsed to his knees. He was not a killer, yet he had just murdered a young guard in cold blood... he felt shattered inside, some of him had actually enjoyed the surge of adrenaline that came from plunging his weapon deep into the unsuspecting soldier. The logical part of his mind seemed to want to justify it, explaining that guard would have never let him go and he had to do it. He reached out, feeling the cold metallic grip of the weapon that he picked up. The rifle had been bigger then what Diamond had expected, it was heavy, a weight that was placed on his heart now that he had it...
He had no intention of using it... of killing anyone else... he could not do it but the simple fact was, his rage had consumed him. He had become so angry at the conspiracy taking place around him and the subsequent death of Lance that he could not control his emotions.
"Keep going!" he thought to himself as if one side of him was talking to the other side as he just, knelt down in the middle of the corridor. "I can't..." said another part of himself. "I'm a murderer! Twice now!"
Diamond would have spent hours mulling it over if he had not heard the approaching footsteps walking alone the Halo. He made for a gap in-between two doors and hid in there, part of a conversation was taking place between a gruff-sounding man and woman.
"Construction is almost complete, sir"
"Well done Miss Adara" said the gruff male voice. Diamond recognised the woman as Astra Adara, the woman who had obviously lied to them to bring them here. "And what about the alien weapon?"
"All taken care of President" said Astra, while Diamond listened carefully, knowing that this conspiracy ran deep if the President of Chentrilla was involved. "Oh... the brainwave modifier that we placed on Miss Valentine when she came out of stasis has helped us no end."
Diamond thought for a moment. So that was it! The girl in question had broken out of a military facility when she had been relocated there at government orders... that meant that whole of the government pleading that they did not know what was going on was an act. They had massacred Chentrilla City.
"Good" said the President. "Where is she now?"
"Deck 5, Engineering-Level sir, she is a marvellous construction and her powers surpassed anything that I personally could have hoped for."
"Hmph..." grunted the President. "Your love of power and science is a constant source of amusement to me. Now... what about the two scientists that you brought with you. The ones, with knowledge of our operations and unfortunately did not die when we had Kestra destroy the Valkyrie?"
"Oh those..." Astra laughed for a second before continuing. "I believe I put Mr Amano to sleep. I thought it would be easier for doc to eliminate him first. I do not believe that Mr Dust is a problem either, in fact he seems quiet placid. I believe Mr Amano is already dead and...
Diamond could not take anymore, he jumped out from the gap and gave a glare straight at Astra. "Not a problem, am I?" he said. Before he had a chance to think his actions through, he closed his eyes, fired a bullet that he presumed shot Astra straight in the torso but continued to go straight through her and shot through the window, causing it to smash. He opened his eyes again, realising his mistake.
The room went from silent to blaring wind-like howling as decompression began, both the President and Astra were both sucked out of the window and probably to their deaths. Diamond frantically gripped onto a piece of metal that was sticking out near to one of the doors, he slung the rifle around his back and held on for dear life. This had to be the most stupidly impulsive thing he had ever done.
Siren's blazed as a voice filled the room. "Warning, Warning! Decompression detected in inner core, containment is not functioning... Warning, Warning" The message repeated through a female's voice for several times. Diamond was having a hard enough time trying to hold on and hold his breath, despite feeling great pressure on him to exhale. One wrong move and he would fall into a vacuum that he would not get out of. He managed to pull a hatch on a door open and slip inside, the door snapped shut and suddenly he could breath again, coughing widely.
"Note to myself!" he jested. "Don't get so angry as to fire a gun while in space". He collapsed onto the floor in order to get his breath back. He noted that he was in a stairwell that led down into the bowls of the station, he climbed to his feet, catching his breath again and decided to follow it. His hooves making loud footsteps on the metal steps as he climbed down then. After about ten minutes of descent, he reached a door and opened it, waiting to fire just encase he had stumbled into the guard barracks by mistake.
This room seemed different then all the others, firstly there were no windows and it was all thin and narrow which stretched quite far down. Diamond noticed that strange looking computers, which were of technology that was way too advanced to be modern was lining the walls but he continued down till he found a door made of solid metal at the end of the room with a viewport inside it. He edged himself nearer and nearer to the viewport, half expecting something to jump out at him.
To his surprise, there was a human woman in chains inside this strangely small metal, dark room. She appeared to be the same woman that had destroyed Chentrilla and the had attacked him at Everonth. This was Kestra...
Diamond panicked for a moment, he looked around for the computer that could turn her off but the doors began to hiss open with hydraulic power as if by magic. Diamond froze as the door opened, causing Kestra's chains to break right in front of him... this must have been his end. In a few seconds, he would be dead.
Location: Gateway Station â€" Silmeria
Eclypse was beguiled, he had taken himself all over the large station and was now standing in Main Operations which was busy with Silmerians all doing different tasks. Most of them were sat at consoles directing ships in and out of Silmeria's airspace. His memory was starting to return to him, he remembered the battle between the resistance and the forces of Ada which clinched the war. He remembered helping to set the trap to imprison the powerful Ada, stopping her reign of oppression on the Silmerian people. The people had fought back against a "God" and won, if they could do that... they could overcome any challenge.
Main Operations or "Ops" was a huge room, made entirely of reinforced glass that looked out over the planet and the surrounding space. Eclypse found himself discussing why he had been sent here to the station Commander who was another Rattian, Eclypse found himself staring at another one of his species as if he was surprised that anthropomorphic life was not limited to the Terran world.
"Mr Eclypse" said the commander, his name was Ironheart, Frazer Ironheart and everything about him seemed to be correct to his name. He had a strong, powerful build and piercing stare but also a certain sensitivity and determination to make Silmeria into a world that he could be proud of showed through his dark black eyes. "My father... well everyone has heard the story of how you left Silmeria in order to protect us from the Asgard."
Eclypse sat in his small office, he leant back in his chair to think. How would he explain that he was now just a clone of the original Eclypse working with the Asgard in order to prevent Ada from freeing herself? That was the worst realisation for Silmeria, they waited patiently for the day when Ada would be free, she would undoubtedly burn Silmeria in her fires of hate. But something did not add up correctly... Odin had specifically asked for
Eclypse's help in stopping the Ada-inhabited Freya from reaching her body however... why had the "Gods" had done nothing when Ada captured Silmeria the first time? It appeared that they was more going on then met the eye. "Why do you now return? After one thou'sand years?" asked Commander Ironheart in a gruff and intimidating voice.
"Are you aware of events on Terra?" said Eclypse, wondering just how much he know about other planets, especially ones so far away. The Commander pursed his lips together, obviously he did not like being answered with a question.
"We have never been that far yet, all records of that planet existence are in our ancient records before the time of the oppression..." Eclypse smirked slightly, knowing that their information was out of date.
"Well" said Eclypse stroking his rat stubble. "Basically... There is an Asgardian Goddess called Freya, she was killed during Terra's war with the Asgard however he body was reincarnated into a Terran girl by the same name. I met this girl and from the beginning, I sensed power inside her, I was not aware of it at the time, not knowing my origins myself. I am a clone of the original Eclypse that existed... I am not a "god" figure, just an ordinary Silmerian like yourself. Ada, took over Freya's body... I can't explain it... she used some bizarre, Asgard mind control and took Freya to the ruins of a ship. She needed something... and now she is on her way here... to free her body."
All the time while Eclypse was speaking, Commander Ironheart was wondering what all this had to do with him. However his ears stood on end when he heard that Ada could free herself, he quickly tapped a control panel that was attached to his officer computer. A female voice came over the speaker in the computer.
"Yes... Commander?" she asked, a high pitched voice that was quite difficult to make out however the Commander had heard his deputy so often that he had grown accustom to it.
"Put the entire of Gateway on lock-down, authorisation: Ironheart 2-3-5-Omega."
From the other end of the communication call, the female Rattian gasped in a type of terror that she had never known before. "Sir... does that mean?" she replied, pressing a serious of buttons inside the operations centre but she was interrupted by another man shouting a report. "Sir... we have an indentified sensor contact, moving a very high velocity... it is too small to be ship however it is generating an intense gravimetric field!"
"What!?" shouted Ironheart who rushed out of his office, Eclypse following behind into the Ops centre. One the far left window, a massively bright white star could be seen moving towards the station at high speed. Ironheart knew that it could only mean one thing... Ada was here!
"I want all defensive batteries ready to fire on that target... clear all the station of traffic... NOW!" shouted Ironheart, his loud booming voice making people in the room jump. He then turned round and stood at the top of the stairs as the station became darker, redder, indicating that station was under red alert. He braced himself as he prepared to make a speech. "We have been waiting for this moment for 1,000 years, we knew that what we constructed would not contain her. But the anti-Asgard technology that we built under her oppression will serve our purpose now... I know you are ready!.. Let's do it!"
The large blinding whiteness drew closer and closer to the station, as it deployed its batteries. Large steel tubes swung round from their usual resting spot all over the hull of station, ready to protect Silmeria at all costs.
"Pulse-beams charged and ready on batteries 1..2..3..4..5..." continued an officer that commenced the arming sequence. These weapons were the only technology in the galaxy that were capable of destroy ethereal targets. "Sub-sections 1 through 10 report complete shut-down of none essential areas."
"Charge the shield lattice!" shouted Commander Ironheart as he saw the light draw ever closer to the station. Eclypse stood there, feeling helpless by the situation that had been taken out of his hands, he watched with growing anticipation but something still felt wrong.
The shield lattice, a complex web of beams that surrounded the station deployed itself around the perimeter of the huge complex, surrounding the trapped Ada's body inside the shell of the ring of metal that surrounded her.
Commander Ironheart waited to give the order, his whiskers twitching with anticipation at the growing concern for if Silmeria's defensive systems were not strong enough to stop Ada. He would be among that first to perish, however he faced this time with a growing sense of nobility. "We now ride into the gates of Neifliem" he mumbled. Eclypse looked at him and nodded knowing that "Neifliem" was the Silmerian word for the same concept as Hell. "Target is within range!" shouted the Sub-Commander who had informed Ironheart of the threat.
"FIRE!"
Massive blue beams shot out of the station and headed towards the source of the light, these weapons were extremely fast and caused rippling explosions on the target with no sound due to the vacuum of space. The light exploded and was engulfed by the blackness of space, Ironheart breathed a sigh of relief.
"Target destroyed" cheered the sub-commander and everyone in Ops burst into cheering and applause, all except Eclypse who still had a bad feeling in his gut. The explosion out of the massive window began to die down, revealing several comet fragments which Ironheart noticed first.
"What!?" he shouted, noticing that they had not destroyed and ethereal being but rather a comet instead. "Confirm target lock..."
"I don't understand!?" shouted the sub-commander. "The target was showing a confirmed ethereal signal... but scanning it... it's just a damn comet!"
Suddenly there was an explosion that rocked the station, causing everyone to slightly loose their footing with the ominous words coming from the computer. "Warning... decompression in containment area... seals dropping."
"Fuck! It was a diversion!" shouted the sub-commander who looked at Ironheart. Ada had tricked them into opening fire on a comet so that she could get onboard and slip through the shield lattice while they were occupied. "We have a hull breach in Ada Containment Area... evacuate all remaining sections and deploy ground troops... to..."
She stopped, everyone looked at her as her head twisted all the way around her body and snapped off revealing Freya behind her. She looked darkly at everyone in the room as people scrambled for their weapons and attempted to shoot her with energy pistols. The beams bounced right off of her as she stared at them with cold green eyes, Freya's face completely blank.
"I believe you were expecting me?" she said smiling. "I have come to take back my property."