RavensDagger

  Chapter Three - Wars

  The Lunatic War beloo ae order of space warriors. They weren't the best equipped, they weren't the best traihey weren't the most decorated of bat troops, they weren't the most fearsome.

  Instead, the War was the least predictable of all warriors.

  They prided themselves on having no real of and, except the that whipped new recruits into line when things didn't go acc to their ck of pns.

  Fighting them was begging for chaos. There was no tactic that went unexplored, no harebrained scheme that wasn't schemed, and no way to predict what they would do .

  To the regimented and stalwart Imperial Valkyrie, the worst oppohey could face was ooo stupid to follow their carefully prepared bat pns, and the average Lunatic War definitely fit.

  When a War gets their hey're also given a core.

  The Lunatic fleet has, as far as the Imperial Navy tell, seven-thousand, three hundred and twenty-two cores.

  The Imperial Navy has a few individuals who, alone, hold more cores within themselves. But the Imperial Navy does not hand out cores to every soldier. Instead, eae of their Imperial Valkyries is a trained, disciplined, and proven soldier. They earn the core and the power that es with it.

  Each core holds both potential and power. The first ever used by humanity turned astronaut Linda Alvarez's left lung into a mae while she was still on the moon's surface. Humanity ter learhat that was a rather tame result, all things sidered.

  A core always ged something about the person that used it, it always made them different.

  Giving oo each War turhem into an army of fierce, dedicated warriors with an array of uable, dangerous abilities.

  An army of insane freaks, the average Imperial Navy grunt could deal with. An army of insane freaks who might have ser eyes, or breath fire, or shrug off bullets? That was ahiirely.

  There was a certain quality to insanity, and the Lunatics leaned into it hard.

  So when Ivil's escort frigate linked up with the Paradoxibsp;high above the surface of Haumea and past the ey of the Lunatic fleet, she was expeg to meet the sort of problems that she wouldn't expect.

  She hat Sonic Spectre was looking rather tense. In fact, her entire squadron of Valkyries were looking tehis was, in essence, a push into eerritory. The squad had no workable ihey were esc a VIP. A VIP known to have very little about colteral damage. Worst of all, they were about to meet with some Lunatiervous ones.

  Airlocks opened with a hiss, and Ivil Antagonist started forward without a care. The imperial Valkyries jumped, but started after her a momehey kept in formation, guns trained on the ground, eyes sing ahead.

  The st of the Lucky Despot's airlock doors opened a moment after the first shut behind them. It opeo the exterior airlock of the Paradoxical. There was a rge, upside down smiley face crudely painted across the entire door.

  It hissed aside, revealing a sed door. It too aihis time as a rge face with a fttened mouth. Ivil and her escort started forwards again. The air took on a new quality, the particur stink of oft-recycled oxygen.

  The first door shut, the middle one opehe st had a giant frowny face painted on it, with eyes drawn into a gre.

  "How inviting," Ivil ented.

  "Eyes forward," Sonic Spectre told her squad. It was an unneeded order.

  The door opened, allowing Ivil to step out and take five long steps inte room before anyone could register her movement. The approach caused the people waiting for her to back up a few paces, breaking their little weling formation.

  Wars. Ivil Antagonist swept her eyes across the room. It was a lounge area, with barricades welded to the floors and ceilings.

  The Paradoxibsp;had once been ah Alliance ship, and it showed in its stylings. It was built like a sea-going vessel, then only retroactively redesigo aodate life in zero-g. It had been re-redesigned by the Lunatics. More armoured half walls, more automated turrets, more couches, rge s televisions, aertai suites.

  She we anti-tank guo either side with overpping fields of fire, and twenty-six Wars. Some were C-css. Likely the best of the best they could muster on such short notice.

  They were men and women in neon clothes. Poofy skirts, rge puffed out sleeves, face masks with chequered and diamond and swirling patterns. They had guns. Psma rifles, railguns, traditional kiic ons. Some were Imperial.

  "Well?" Ivil Antagonist asked. "Do you have any questions? ents? Please, I'm nothing if not open to discussion."

  "Who the fuck do you think ya are?" One of the Wars asked. He was rge. A C-csser, so one of their best. He was hanging in the air, rge metallitacles, painted in blue and red, reag out from his back towards the ceiling and floor to keep him pinned in pce. "Some Imperial's whore, here to donate her cores to--"

  His head disappeared. It was empty to begin with.

  "Enough from you," Ivil said. She turned her attention to the C-csser. "What about you? Are you any more polite?"

  This C-csser was a thin, reedy woman. She had four eyes. All anic. Twrowing from stalks on the sides of a head that was a little elongated. Her mask was obviously ised to fit. "I'm Snickers. War of the Paradoxical. you identify yourself..." Snickers gnced over at the headless body currently emptying itself out in the ship's zero-g enviro. The blood was slowly pooling up towards a vent in the ceiling. "Please?"

  Ivil nodded. "I'm Ivil Antagonist," she said. "This squadron is here to keep the brass informed of my movements ach things for me." She gestured vaguely to the squad behind her.

  There was reition at the name. A frisson of terror that circuted around the room. Snickers shifted, l her gun as if she k wouldn't be of any use.

  The War hen she looked at the corpse. The loacle arms were slowly breaking apart, metal folding into metal, a decreasing fibonacci pattern that was entirely impossible to follow. Soon, two dozen small spheres were floating away from the dead War.

  "Did you want his cores? It's your kill," Snickers asked.

  Ivil could sehe displeasure at the question from the other Wars. It was giving away their limited cores. If she was here to fight and kill, theake them. And all the rest of the cores in their little fleet besides.

  But she wasn't.

  "Keep them," Ivil said dismissively. "What's a dozen more cores, at this point? Just brio yleaders."

  The Wars looked to one another for a moment, then it seemed like a sensus was reached.

  Ivil usually got her way. It didn't surprise her that the methods she used in the Empire--the overwhelming capacity for violence--worked just as well with the Lunatics.

  "I'll bring you to Circus," Snickers said.

  "Circus... not the Oracle?" Ivil asked as she started to walk after the young .

  Snickers spun around, twisting her body at the middle so that she could kick off one of the half walls to send herself flying towards a corridor. The other Wars cleared out, but they hadn't received any orders not to follow. Not that they did 'orders' in any case.

  Ivil's squadron followed after her. They had magic boots that secured them to the floor and gave them a strange, halting gait, all except Sonic Spectre, who vanished and reappeared ahead a few feet in a stant stop-go motion.

  Ivil walked as if she was oh. Her uniform acted the same way, because it would have embarrassed her if it did not, and it knew better than to act up.

  "Captain Circus is the Paradoxical's captain," Snickers said over her shoulder. "She'll know what to do. The Cirvoyant is... she does her own thing. She's a little more indepehan most people like."

  The fact that a Lunatic seemed to think that someone was too indepe wasn't lost on Ivil.

  "Oh well. I have all day," Ivil said. She tio follow an increasingly nervous Shrough the halls of the ship and through multiple bulkhead doors.

  The Paradoxibsp;opened up a few passages in, and Ivil ed her head back to take it in. The ship might have been much smaller than an Imperial Star Dreadnought, but it was still one of the rgest vessels created i tury, and while the Lunatics had tur into their home, it still had some of its old luxury uhe garish paint, banners, and posters.

  "I'm looking forward to meeting this Captain Circus of yours," Ivil said.

  ***