It was the very morning of the seventeenth of March in his time zone.
Completeness of the law, mused a pale figure in the shadowy corner of the dining car. I wonder if that's a good sign.
All across the dining car, words were spoken in Rhuskan, Aravine, Dari, and a host of other tongues. The pale one looked up at the carefully-carved ceiling and saw a gold dragon smiling back at him, done in traditional Zhonguan style. It was smiling at him, in a lifeless yet enchanting manner.
Rather than smile back, he took the preemptive strike and blew a mouthful of smoke into its face.
"?? ?????, ??? ?????????," (You know, this room is 'no smoking') reminded a man in a beaten black denim jacket next to him.
The smoker just shrugged.
"???? ????????, ???????..." (It's your health, comrade...) replied the denim-wearer.
"?? ???????? ??-????????????" (Do you speak Emeriquan?) the pale one inquired.
"???, ?????? ?????? ? ?????????," (No, just Rhuskan and Angol) he answered.
"Angol, then," the pale one decided, exhaling smoke once again. "My Rhuskan's utter bollocks and nobody speaks Emeriquan anymore."
"Emeriqua does not have solar imperium, friend," the denimed one pondered. "Why learn?"
"I work for Emeriqua," growled the pale one. "At the moment, at least."
"In Rhuska? But Iorepha Orient Command is in Kyyiv."
"I'm headed to Nippon."
"Really?" asked the Rhuskan. "But you look Aravine. Why they put you in Extreme Orient Command?"
"They don't," the pale man said. "I'm answerable only to the President and the Joyne Sheivate."
The man's face fell as he put two and two together.
"Then you are..."
The pale man smiled as he blew another puff of smoke at the dragon.
"I am he."
The Berberine Avenger then flicked his cigarette at the ground and got up for the door.
***
"All right, folks, I think it's official. I'm gonna turn in."
A sleepy-eyed Lloyd ap Dhia stalked out of the bridge, a mug of Kafano Gold in his hands.
"Tell you when we get in range of New Rhondda?" Paolaon asked, tip-tapping at her controls.
"Yeah, go ahead and do that. But we shouldn't be there for two days."
"I wasn't saying I'd wake you. Good night."
"Or is it day?" asked Deac. "It's all relative, no?"
"Shut yer gob," grumbled Lloyd. "Don't want to bloody think. Just. Sleep."
He made it to the captain's quarters and flicked the door switch to see Amber poring over a book of his on his bed.
"Um, hi Lloyd!" she started, worried and trying to hide the book. "What are you doing here?"
"It's sorta my bedroom," Lloyd mumbled in protest. "In theory. Feel free to use it as a thoroughfare and a library if you so please."
She missed the inherent sarcasm and continued looking at the book. It was flipped to one of the earlier pages.
"What are you reading? Is that my Wyrdikaud?" he asked.
"No, it's some book called Genesis. At least this part is. But it doesn't make sense at all."
Lloyd resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't getting any sleep whatsoever and he hit himself with his last reserve of caffeine. He then set his empty mug on his nightstand and sat down next to her.
"What doesn't make sense?" he asked. "Is it the nature of God presented therein? The cause-effect chain's definition of God as the First Cause and Einsteinian physics' complete destruction of the cause-effect chain?"
"Not quite that," she said. "What's day and night?"
He laughed a bitter little laugh and grabbed a pillow, plugging it over his face and refusing to acknowledge the world any longer as he sunk into his bed.
"Lloyd?" she asked. "Are you okay?"
"Go talk to Deac about day and night. He'll wax the philosophical while I sink into lovely oblivion and get ready for what I have to do in four hours."
The last thing Lloyd contemplated that moment was the inviting arms of somnia.
***
There was, in the same train as Avenger's, a red-bearded man with a luxury cabin. Several of his friends had arrived.
"Are we ready to begin?" he asked in Rhuskan-accented Angol of his friends.
"Most ready," assured a white-robed man with deep blond hair. "The Six support us all this night with their rites. Mendeleev, illuminate our gathering."
The red-bearded one, Mendeleev, reached into his trenchcoat and pulled out a match. He struck it and lit the center candle.
"Ex lucis verus unum illuminamus candelae nostrum," the blond one intoned as he dipped his candle into the central candle. The others followed suit, going around clockwise and repeating the phrase.
"Filius gloria desideramus
Potentis Luciferis
Audit precis nostrum
Animare perditatum..." chanted the leader once through. After that, the others joined in. Together, they chanted four times. After that, the leader got up and anointed each black-robed individual with animal grease, making a cross of sorts up the nose to the forehead, and across the eyebrows.
"Potentis nostrum dominus est," he proclaimed after he had anointed every one of the robed.
"Ergo precis nostrum implebit," answered everyone else in unison.
Mendeleev just nodded as they continued, accepting it all as the price one pays for a cause to fight for.
***
A few cabins down, Avenger was doing something similar. He and another man (who looked Scautish) were sitting on the floor, burning bitter incense that smelled of death.
"What is this, myrrh?" asked the other. "We only use this for necromantic Vespers."
"What do you think we're doing, exactly?" Avenger inquired. "Baking brownies?"
"You haven't told me what we're doing yet," the other said. Avenger then pulled out a small book from his pocket and flipped pages until he arrived at the necessary part. Then he pointed it out to the other.
"You'll excuse me for not saying it aloud, Evan," Avenger said. "One cannot be too careful."
"I... wow. We're doing that, tonight, just us?"
Avenger shook his head. "We're being joined by the Viri from Mercury to Kyriakos and possibly beyond. Such a Vesper is far too great for even the likes of us."
"So when do we start?"
"Not too hasty. First things first. You bring the wine?"
"You brought the bread, I trust."
"Good. We must sanctify ourselves. In what tongue would you incant the Vesper?"
"What would apply to a situation like this?" demanded Evan as he poured the wine into two small cups. "I mean, every tongue in existence is equally likely-"
"Something international, with no respect to anything in particular," decided Avenger. "And not Latin. I hate Latin."
"Don't we all," agreed Evan, handing a cup to Avenger. "But what else is there? Seraphic?"
"But nobody knows Seraphic," protested Avenger. "There have been studies, but the language is too elusive."
"You don't have to know Seraphic to speak it," reminded Evan.
"Maybe you don't, but currently I am not endowed with Seraphic. I probably should have prepared for the possibility, though."
"Too late now. Or is it?"
"Technically no, but we're on a rough sort of schedule. What else?"
"We could do it in Ebreue..."
"That's not international."
"But it is. Sort of. Think about it."
"My Ebreue is rusty."
"Then what do you propose?"
"Wait a minute, look at this." Avenger flipped several pages back, and pointed out another passage. "I think, for a case like this, that we would be endowed."
"We'll have to add that to the preparatory stage. But first, the sacramentum."
They broke the bread and drank the wine, incanting in many languages at once. In their minds, though, they were chanting in Aravine and Angol.
"And he said, 'This is my body, given..."
"Take and eat."
"Take."
"Drink."
Then they set out candles. In the center, there were six black candles, all lit. Then, surrounding the six were twelve white candles, all lit.
After lighting the candles, they then fell silent for a moment, and Avenger whispered "Ruach Hadosach..." with his arms raised. Evan's eyes closed, and he cried in ecstasy.
"Kyrios!" shouted Avenger, his words echoing in every tongue imaginable. "Fill this place with yourself and breathe into us!"
"Oh Kyrios, our own Kyrios cloaked in darkness, reveal yourself!" proclaimed Evan. "Let the dead praise your name, and let the dry bones dance for joy!"
"Let not the Viri fall to shame! Defend your people!" shouted Avenger. "Do these things we have beseeched, prostrate before your throne!"
The spirit in darkness seemed to be right there with them, echoing their words.
Evan bowed his head, crying. "The Xristos is making these same proclamations, these same requests, even now before God."
Avenger smiled, a rare thing. He put his hand out, as if he was trying to feel the spirit with them. He then did an even rarer thing.
"Gloria in excelsis Deo."
"Alle," replied Evan.
They communed with the spirit in harmony.
***
There was near silence in the cockpit. The only interruption was the tick-tacking of keyboards and the clicking away of computers. The ship was coasting at the moment, so the engines were only on standby.
"What are you planning to do when you arrive at Earth?" asked Deac absently, leaning back in the captain's seat. He was twiddling his thumbs, looking at the cramped button-laden ceiling.
"Why do you ask?" Paolaon inquired.
"No reason. I'm just shooting the breeze."
Paolaon looked ahead. "I will do my duty when I am on Earth. That is what is expected of me, is it not?"
"Hmm," Deac mumbled. "What's duty, though? Fighting the aliens? Fighting the ???? Both?"
Silence reigned on high for a minute.
"Duty is doing what is required of you."
No koose, prive i, thought Deac to himself.
"Deac, my buccie!" called out a chipper young voice. Deac turned from his study of the ceiling to see that Amber was in the doorway.
"I don't suppose you have any more of the lovely lovely Kafano Gold on you?" he asked. "Other than that, how can I help you?"
She smiled and approached him. "I read in this book called Wyrdikaud that there are these, these things."
Paolaon's eyes widened slightly, but nobody noticed.
"Things? What things? I assume it was Deac's Wyrd?"
"No, it was Deac's Wyrdikaud," she corrected, not understanding the abbreviation. "There's these things called 'day' and 'night'. What are they?"
Deac sighed. "Um... they're Earthrat terms. Paolaon, some help here?"
"Day and night were coined on Earth, with the period that the sun is in the sky called 'day' and the period that it is not called 'night'. Day is brighter than night."
"Sky?"
Deac sighed yet again. "Here we go with the twenty questions. 'Sky' means 'atmosphere'. But could we talk about the Wyrdik-"
"But the sun isn't in Earth's atmosphere, o my highfly buccies," interrupted Amber. "It's a full aster away."
"That is to say, it's-" began Deac before he resigned himself to not explaining it to her. "Look, go read a book about it or something. Speaking of books, why don't we talk about that book that Lloyd let you read, the Wyrdikaud."
"It talked about a God and him all creating heaven and the Earth and stuff. But it doesn't say anything about Ganymede or Scion of Trinity, although I'm not done with it yet so it might. So tell me, who created Ganymede and Scion of Trinity and the vitasludge bollocks I had for breakfast this morning and the big ketchup stain on Jupiter and the-"
Deac cut her off. "So you only read the very beginning of it? Lloyd didn't let you read the end?"
"What do you mean, I wasn't supposed to read it? And what's at the very end? And why wouldn't Lloyd let me read the end?"
Deac fell silent, shooting a glance at Paolaon. She shrugged.
"Amber, well, you're at the end. That is, assuming we're right."
"Huh? Someone wrote a book about me?"
"Don't worry about it. I've probably said too much already. You should go to bed."
***
Out the window, the sign said "????????????", and below it, "Yekaterinburg". The moon was low in the west as the bullet train clambered to a stop.
People milled about on the platform, greeting loved ones or saying goodbye.
For how many will this truly be the last time? mused Avenger. As always, he was silent and collected as he stalked off the platform. Yekaterinburg yawned before him, a vast sprawling metropolis. She was the jewel of Cyberia, propped up as the center of Rhuskan industry during the last World War. Many of her forty-three million citizens now worked eagerly at building Rhuska's fledgling Cosmafleet. Her lights shined like the very stars she worked to dominate.
Avenger then looked up at the real stars, or at least where they would have been were not the light pollution so severe. He did see one, but he knew it was no star.
"Cabbie!" he shouted at the streets, forgetting himself and using Emeriquan. A taxi pulled up, with words in Rhuskan, Angol, Zhonguan and Emeriquan on the side.
"Where wantat Jo takar you to?" the cabbie asked.
"Saint Romanov," Avenger dictated as he opened the door. "�300 Brytash sif gettat Jo there in twenty minutas."
"Sayat the Cosmafleet base, chief? You not un spy, huh? Comat stealar neuster blueprints yt stuff?" joked the cabbie. Avenger mustered a weak smile.
The ride was uneventful, as uneventful as negotiating busy city streets at 90+ miles an hour could be considered. Avenger had the man park along the side of the road, near an airstrip.
"As promised," Avenger said as he handed him three hundred-pound notes. "Take care of yourself."
"Yt yourself, cowboy," the ever-sarky cabbie replied, taking the money and driving off.
What came next was the hard part. Avenger unholstered his gun.
***
The room was dark, save for the flickerings of seven blue candles burning in a circle, and what little illumination the burning myrrh provided. It was silent save for the undecipherable groanings of the man in the middle of the circle.
Despite the silence and the darkness, Lloyd was at a sensory loss, overwhelmed by the feeling of the spirit he had called.
"Dominus, salvat tuum kyriakos!" was the first intelligible statement he got out.
"Lloyd?" came a whisper.
Lloyd's eyes opened for a second, and he saw, by candlelight, a man in a grey trenchcoat. He was smoking a cigarette and taking a swig from a metal flask.
"Where did you come-" Lloyd began.
"I was sent here. Look, you've got some explaining to do to the kid."
After the man said that, Lloyd's face fell in recognition and he prostrated himself in fear.
"You get it now. Get up, get up. You're wasting time."
"I didn't want to bring it all on too fast."
"Look, things are gonna start picking up around here. You're gonna want to see that she's ready to go. I know you've been holding back because you don't wanna push her. I'm here to remind you that yeah, she's only three; but she's not stupid and you're running out of time."
"She's only a kid!"
"Cael to Lloyd! Aliens are coming! Everyone's growing up quick. You grew up real quick in your day, after all."
Lloyd was silent for a moment. "I've always longed for those days back. I wanted to give them to her, someway or somehow."
"And what's she gonna do with those cheery days of sweet, childlike innocence when she's seven?" He looked at his watch. "Um, here. Give this to Amber, 'kay?" he asked as he handed Lloyd the cigarette and the flask. "I gotta go."
After the man left as mysteriously as he had arrived, Lloyd resumed. Finally, he snuffed out the candles and was packing them away when a knock at the door came.
"Lloyd? Are you sleeping?"
He looked up to, of course, see Amber in the doorway. "Bloody fool question to ask a sleeping man. What's eating you?"
"Ech. It smells like death in here. I take it that cigarette is the incense, unless you smoke."
Lloyd looked down, and noted that the man's cigarette was in his hands. He sniffed it, though, and noted that it didn't smell like tobacco.
"What is that... frankincense, galbanum, cannabis!?" Lloyd stuttered.
Amber sat down next to him on the red, purple and blue cloth he had spread on the floor. "Nevermind all that, Rook told me that I was to come in here and ask to be wafted with your cigarette and get the contents of that flask doused on me after I took a bath."
"What? Rook? Who's Rook?"
"He's one of my friends. He told me that he sent a guy named Gabe to give you incense and oil. I'm guessing this is it."
"Wait... I get it now. I think." Lloyd nodded as he pinched out the cigarette. "Go get Deac and tell him to come in here. We're gonna give you a bath of sorts."
***
Avenger was hidden in a cluster of trees near the pavement, looking for a chance.
As he looked between the branches, he saw a Xe-11 caelfighter on the airstrip. He had to get to that caelfighter, but there were guards milling about.
Suddenly, he came up with an idea. In his native Aravine, he whispered a chant. Then, still chanting, he got up and walked straight for the caelfighter. He passed a work crew on their way to a nearby hangar, and went unnoticed. The pilot of the caelfighter walked directly behind him, but didn't see him. Possibly the only thing that testified to his presence, if one could even consider it, was the sparking and fizzing of security cameras. Avenger could scarcely imagine what was happening with the monitors, but he didn't concentrate on that. He concentrated on his chant.
The caelfighter was nearly fueled up. It needed two more minutes of fueling if it was to rendezvous with the Rhuskan flagship Invarbiel near Mars. However, Avenger wasn't planning on its leaving near orbit, so he climbed in and closed the hatch. Everyone seemed to notice that, though, and those who didn't definitely noticed the extraction of the fuel pipes and the activation of the engines. They shouted and waved, helpless to do much more than that; except one mechanic was calling security.
"Please don't make me have to fight my way out," Avenger breathed. "Whatever of yours is destroyed is that much less to fight the ???."
He activated the hoverjets, blowing away everyone nearby. By then, security had taken note and Avenger heard a klaxon ringing out throughout Saint Romanov. He saw men with guns running out from the hangar, and decided to start forward thrust. He was pushed into his seat by the acceleration as the city disappeared in the horizon. He pulled up, headed out of the atmosphere where the jets couldn't follow him.
That's when the Rhuskan laser system came online.
"Oh, koose..." Avenger cursed as he saw a bright beam barely miss his caelfighter.
***
"What the deuce are we doing here, Moe? We got class tomorrow."
The streets of Dhublaine were bustling, busy. People went about their daily lives. The two of them passed a man with wild brown hair, a black leather jacket, and a silver crucifix around his neck. After much mutual eyeing, he nodded to them and went about his way.
"Odd, that," Lee noted. "But anyway...?"
"We're here to document the evacuation of the Vir from the isle," Moe explained, looking as serious as he could in his Pisutoru Pimpu t-shirt. "It's for Freedom Radio, and it'll be played out on the eighteenth, in two days."
"That's all fine and good, except who are the Vir?"
"The Vir are sort of a Xristion occult group. The Berberine Avenger's one of them. In any case, they hate Chacazzo and thus are our friends. They want us to videotape Eireann cathedrals and the people and the ??? here and so forth to use for a video we're gonna make."
"Did they say why they want Eire videotaped, of all nations?" asked Lee. "I mean, I know they're all anti-Chacazzo and everything, as if Iorepha Starbase didn't prove that. But from the looks of it we're making a tourist video in the middle of a war. What are the Vir gonna do with a tourist video?"
"They didn't say. They also said that we were to be back in Ierusalim by tomorrow morning. Funny thing is, Extreme Orient's saying the same thing."
Lee looked around, and saw a ??? guard standing post on the street corner, arguing with a teenaged girl. He lifted his arm, as if to check the time. But hidden within his sleeve was a fiber-optic cable pointed at the guard, and a sonic sensor that picked up the sounds of that area from a distance, like a boom mike from earlier days. The fiber led to a miniature camera built into the heel of his boot, that the images were recorded onto. The reason for the secrecy, of course, was that videotaping an ??? military post was illegal without a special permit (usually only granted to approved news networks working on pro-human propaganda stories).
"Well, we got a guard," Lee announced. "Now we're gonna work on some cathedrals and stuff."
"Since the footage is rolling anyway, maybe we should stop at a pub?" Moe asked. "Get a feel for the average Eireann's ideas about the Coalition, a sampling of Eireann popular culture, stuff like that? Plus I could use a bite to eat. Haven't eaten since the plane trip."
"Sounds like a plan to me. Oh, wait, it's about six now. The bells."
Soon after Lee had said that, the church bells rang out to mark the hour. Lee aimed his arm at the nearest belfry, pretending to point it out to Moe like they were sightseeing tourists. In truth, he was capturing the sound.
"You never know," Lee said. "The bells may just add the perfect touch."
***
The only bath onboard was bronze-cast, a sign that it was old, dating back to the days of the Bronze Glut when the metal was discovered in copious amounts on Mercury and the price fell so low that virtually everything was made out of it. It was in the ship's cramped bathroom off of the crew's quarters, and there were two identical smooth, bright portions on the bottom of the bathtub where the showering feet had worn away the dullness.
It was filled with water, and Deac was already there. Lloyd and Amber stepped in, barely fitting. Amber was dressed in the white bedsheets from Lloyd's bed, but she made sure they were wrapped securely around her.
"So what do I do now?" she asked. "And how am I gonna scrub like normal, what with this... sheet on me and two guys looking on?"
"Get in the water," Deac replied. "And don't take off the sheet, and don't pick up the soap. This is a different sort of bath."
She stepped into the bath, and sat down in it.
"Do you acknowledge the Xristos as your master, your redemption, your salvation?" asked Deac forthrightly.
Lloyd coughed. "I thought we were gonna do this in Latin..."
"The lady needs to understand what she's doing, Lloyd," Deac replied. "Well, Amber?"
She pondered for a moment.
"Fidem Dei, Amber, you're just supposed to say 'yes'!" whispered Lloyd.
"I thought I was supposed to understand it," she replied, looking at Deac. He nodded.
"What's to understand? We're the good guys, and this is a ritual of ours to confirm you as one of us."
"Not entirely," she said. "I'm not stupid, Lloyd. This is religious. Xristos is one of those names of God everyone was saying a few days back, when Unity Ascendant was nearby."
"You wanna know why everyone was talking about God back then, Amber?" Lloyd demanded. "It's because it's the end of the line. The last act and then we all take a bow. Both the Muslims and the Xristions realise this, and we're banding together to fight the Coalition. Yeah, it's religion; but it's also politics. You've seen what Chacazzo's doing-"
"More than you will ever know," she interrupted.
"Probably," Lloyd conceded. "Well, the Xristos is against him."
"But what about Mr. Sayyif? He said he worships Allah. I trust Mr. Sayyif, and since his faith is the ally of Xristos in all this, why would you care if I became a Muslim?"
Lloyd clenched his fist.
"Remember when I told you that you would lead us all one day, Amber?" Lloyd asked.
"Yeah, it's probably prophesied in the Wyrdik-"
"Who told you that?" he demanded.
"That would be me, cap'n," Deac informed. "I saw no harm in the truth."
Lloyd sighed sarcastically. "So is this it? You wanna go be a Muslim? We're sort of on our way to the general area of Mecca in any case, so go right ahead..."
Amber shook her head. "No. There's these three guys that I guess you could call gods. I think I'm sort of their, well, envoy? Messenger? In any case, they're my friends and I will serve them!"
Lloyd laughed a bitter little laugh, apparently one of his favorite laughs to laugh. "That's the same guy as the Xristos. Or at least one of them is."
"Well, why didn't you just say that to begin with!?"
"Nevermind. Can we just get on with the sodding thing?" Lloyd asked.
"So anyway," restarted Deac, "do you acknowledge the Xristos as-"
"Yes!" she answered, interrupting him.
Deac looked straight at Lloyd. "This is gonna be a long night, I can tell."
***
"Well, we're back," Moe observed. "That was an interesting experience."
"The continuous adventures of Captain Obvious and his stalwart sidekick!" proclaimed Lee. "What evil villains of logic will they grapple with this week? What comely lass will be saved from peril?"
"Shut up already, you cartoon freak," Moe said. "I hate Emeriquan animation almost as much as I hate that show. And in any case, we should check in with Kenich-"
The phone started ringing.
"Yes?" answered Lee. "What? Oh really? Right now?"
"What is it?" Moe asked.
"Turn on the news!" Lee told him.
As he activated the television and turned the volume up, pictures of smoking ??? supply depots were followed by shots of the Eireann flag waving behind a few speakers. One was dressed in the green and blue of the Fianna, and another was dressed in the garb of an officer in the Emeriquan Army. Tickertape at the bottom of the screen, running in both Ebreue and Angol, said that terrorist bombings had destroyed the Chi Xi Stigma's forces stationed in Eire. The anchors kept butting in, denouncing the disgusting cowardice of the terrorist raids. One of them compared it to suicidal Idealist madness that had started World War III, and another likened it to the ancient Wiraldraecin bombings that had initiated the Afkhan War. A third compared it to the ancient Troubles, back when Brytannia had owned the northern section of the isle. However, they all said that at the moment there was no word from the Commander in Chief of the Global Defence Coalition.
"This is great," Moe whispered, wide-eyed and smiling.
"Captain Obvious," Lee replied. "And to think that we helped make this possible..."
***
Above the havoc of Eire, directly above Alaska at the moment, in fact, was a space station known as Vaynaskiy Tri. Originally built by a Brasiline orbital construction firm contracting out to the Rhuskans, it was designed to watch over the ancient Emeriquan energy satellite grid rediscovered by Rhuska during the last war. Three months ago, probably due to some backroom pressure from Chacazzo, the Rhuskan Imperium made aware its existence and 'graciously' gave control of Vaynaskiy Tri to the Coalition. This move, in effect, increased global energy reserves by thirty percent.
By order of Chacazzo the energy network of the entire planet was rigged into it, replacing the piecemeal national networks used previously. Before, a nation would have at least one energy grid in place, and have a decent-sized defense for its control station-that it, decent-sized for a single nation. Now, the entirety of Earth's solar energy passed through Vaynaskiy Tri, with an international ??? force four times more powerful than anything seen before for such an installation.
And of that massive force, it was the CSS Dumbarton Oaks that first spotted a bogey Rhuskan caelfighter inbound for Vaynaskiy Tri from Yekaterinburg. As if its not being scheduled wasn't suspicious enough, it was being followed by a Rhuskan gunship, which by the way was firing salvos at it.
"This is the Chi Xi Stigma Starship Dumbarton Oaks hailing unidentified Rhuskan gunship. Do you copy?" asked a radio signal from the ship.
"Rhuskan gunship Putin copies," replied the gunship in the standard Angol of the Coalition.
"Give us a sitrep of your situation," Dumbarton asked. "Please identify bogey Rhuskan caelfighter."
"It is assigned to the starship Invarbiel but hijacked. Intentions unknown, damaged by Cosmafleet laser satellites. It has not opened fire on us."
A brief silence, presumably as the message was relayed to the station commander.
"Vaynaskiy Tri to Putin. Do not, repeat do not breach station's defensive perimeter. We will destroy the caelfighter ourselves."
"Putin copies, commander. Good luck." The Rhuskan gunship eased off thrusters and headed back to its standard patrol orbit. The ???, for their part, leveled their weaponry at the caelfighter and started shooting.
The caelfighter moved with an unreal fluidness, seemingly beyond the capability of any normal pilot. All of the lasers either missed or hit nonessential areas, such as the wings.
This thing's never seeing the atmosphere again, so what's the wing gonna matter? figured Avenger as he made his way towards the station, dodging the fiery bolts and darts of the enemy.
***
Amber emerged from the water, her hair sticking to the sides of her face. She pulled it back and stepped out of the bath.
Lloyd grabbed the flask out of his pocket, then, and unscrewed the lid, pouring the contents on her. Meanwhile, Deac lit the cigarette, and an unusual aroma filled the air.
She smiled.
"After all this, I was told to join the two of you in the Vesper of Resurrection, whatever that means," Amber said.
Deac's eyes widened.
"WHAT!?" he demanded. "It's time for that?"
Lloyd, however, was more nonchalant. "Right, then. Let's go do that."
"You knew!?" Deac demanded. "Do you ever tell anyone anything? O? My? Buccie?"
"Well, um, let's talk about this later. We have to join our voices with the Vir. As Deac has illustrated with his incredulity, this is not an everyday event. We need to get cracking, then. And burn that cigarette alongside the myrrh. I can't imagine how powerful that koose's gonna be when we use it."
***
In the heavens the great flagship and hope of humanity Unity Ascendant warmed up her weapons and activated her engines.
She was headed into geosynchronous orbit above Eire.
And along the way, she passed Vaynaskiy Tri, which was busy trying to put down a lone Rhuskan caelfighter. The station and its forces weren't having much luck, though, but the caelfighter didn't seem to be fighting back.
Finally, the caelfighter was close enough to the station that something activated onboard. A massive energy surge was registered by Vaynaskiy Tri's sensors, as well as a slight displacement of mass.
The caelfighter crashed into the station's energy grid, blowing into shards and sending the station with it.
Immediately, all the lights on Earth went dark.
***
A man with wild brown hair sat on a gravestone in a crowded city. The flag of the Kingdom of Brytannia, a red cross over a white cross on a field of blue, flew in the distance over the rebuilt Parliament buildings.
"Come on out of there," he breathed while he smoked a cigarette. "This is getting rather tiring, waiting for your lazy bones to rise."
Finally, he heard it. The screaming wail one hears on electronics when nuclear weapons strike nearby.
The man looked to the west and said something under his breath.
The streetlights went out, as if the energy was cut out from under them. And as that happened, he felt a rumbling in the darkness. The gravestone he was on toppled over. He jumped off and shot off a flare, revealing the ground being ripped apart.
"Here we go."
He grabbed a wooden stake from within him and walked away from the graveyard, cautiously but confidently.
The dead had arisen.