They brought death, and they lay waste to all in heir path. She was with her family far up north but the atrocities of the newcomers reached everyone within a week.
"Ceni told me they have flat noses" Mienna told her, flattening her small nose with her finger. "And they're all mean looking with no women"
"How did Ceni know all of that?" Liera asked, curious to know how her sister's 5 year old friend came upon this piece of information.
"She said her brother killed one"
"And how did he know that one didn't have a woman?"
"I don't know maybe he cried about it"
Liera laughed. Her sister had her moments of unintentional humor. She knew this detail about the lack of their woman before Mienna did, she knew it in gut wrenching detail.
Her father told her all about it the day before. He asked her to accompany him to the nearest water spring. With Esil gone, she thought he finally wanted her to have more physical responsibilities. Her father was a man of many adventures, twice as tall as she was. She could never spend as much time as she wanted with him because all adults slept through the day to get ready for the expeditions at night. He was one of the most useful for the tribe with scars to prove it hundred times over. It was rare for him to take a break.
On this day, she was only happy about it on the way to the water spring. On the way back, her eyes were clouded and all the joy was drained from her face. Her father spared no mercy in telling her exactly what he saw on his latest expedition to surveil the invaders.
He told her the state of the dead. They had been the lucky ones. The living were mostly female and it was the first time she was told the extreme fates that awaited them at the hands of their captors. She was raised more sheltered because she was 'blessed'. Her parents adored her too much to upset her with such dreadful topics. This was a sledgehammer to her perception of the world.
Narbuls and their Mektian masters. They were on a war path with these new arrivals. Her people were war-like since they colonized Solarak Prime. It was necessary to survive in the harsh conditions of the planet. Whether it was hunting big game or keeping territory from other tribes, Every Solarii had the spirit of war burned into them.
But that alone wasn’t enough.
Her father didn't admit to it then but the newcomers were stronger both physically and technologically. Narbuls came from an icy planet. Their culture was a ruthless product of cold and hunger. Mektians were their opposite. They came from a lush green planet with slightly higher gravity. They were well fed and well trained. One Mektian could easily handle two Narbuls. It was one of the major contributing factors for their enslavement. A Solarii could barely handle a single Narbul with their weapons and tactics.
"Lili, If they ever get this far and no one's around to protect you, You'd have to kill yourself and your sister" Her father told her with no change in his tone or expression after telling her all the ways the weak could be tortured. "Can you do that?"
"N-no! how can I do that!" Liera cried, outraged. It was more about Mienna. She couldn't even pinch her ear to discipline her.
"Good, Then you fight like hell. You fight in any way that you can so you'll never end up in that position"
"What if I said yes?"
"I'm not that clever Lili, I just wanted to tell you what I told you no matter what answer you gave" He smiled sheepishly at her.
Twenty eight days later, the invaders made their way up north. It cost thousands of men to push them back, allowing their families to scatter across the dunes. They sought refuge in the deep cave systems but those weren't safe for long. The invading space ships parted the clouds, dropping rock melting bombs. They had triangle ships and giants, just like Mienna saw in her dream. They lost contact with nearly half their tribe as they escaped to the cold, harsh dunes of the north pole. They prayed for their father and Esil every night, huddled in a cold cave. Mienna had bad dreams every time she slept and some of them came true for relatives and neighbors.
About 3000 Solarii men died to hold off the Narbuls who had no problem with the cold. They came day and night to hunt the scattered families. This continued for two months until Solarak Prime saved them with its sandstorms called 'The Giant Wall'. The invasion ground to a halt, their war machines buried in red sands. The Solarii learned quickly by torturing captive Mektians and Narbuls. They had their own war machines to dig up as the sandstorm passed over the frontlines. A week later, there were rumors of a group that managed to bring down a space ship. The crash site brought them valuable supplies and new knowledge.
As the men dealt with this chaos, Liera, Mienna and their mother grew thinner than they ever had been. There wasn't much food to go around and they rotted in the darkness of caves with no stimulation. They were different people by the time sandstorms passed over them. Mienna's eyes had less spark and Liera's beauty was hindered by too many visible bones. Their mother no longer joined the hunting expeditions as she couldn't trust her body to keep up.
Her father returned from the frontlines with a damaged right arm and two weapons of the enemy as his reward. They were called 'Unmakers' and they could cut through war machines. He brought with him bad news that hurt them even more than the hunger did. There was no sign of Esil. Their brother and the group of boys that went off for training had vanished with their mentor. She cried until she couldn't anymore.
"Still want me to kill myself?" Liera asked her father as they stared at the sun. It was the most peaceful evening they had since the beginning of this invasion. He pulled her frail figure to his side with his injured hand.
"I thought about it at one point" There was a sharpness in his voice. "We were surrounded. There was nothing else we could do. Someone had to get their attention" He cleared his voice. She listened carefully. Her father had never spoken about his bad experiences before.
"You're here, It's fine" She rested her head on his shoulder.
"Only because someone else did it" He sighed, running his thick fingers through her red strands. "I pray you never become that someone else"
He couldn't have known it back then, his prayers were all in vain.
> L98 Bframe: transmission received
- Sineul: My priestess, the boy? your biologics! Where is he?
Liera emerged out of the haze as soon as the battle-frame culled its broken sensors, opting for the uncorrupted data from the intact ones. In her dazed state with no sensory input, she experienced a neurobit artifact. It felt like a dream, she had gone back in time, a long buried memory fragment. The nauseating grief resulting from it faded quickly as the battle-frame sensors recalibrated her awareness.
She had to find the boy.
> L98 Bframe: transmission sent
- Sineul, can you locate him? Is there any way you can help him?
> L98 Bframe: transmission received
- Sineul: He's below surface level, my scans are not working. I can’t fire without a precise target, too risky
Liera hunched forth and rolled herself into a crouched position. Her balance was off now that both her arms were missing. She made additional changes to redistribute her weight as she stood up and she walked towards the exit that Calan ran out of.
"-hear me! Can you hear me! Can you hear me!!!" His panicked voice came in a transmission.
"Yes Calan, I'm on the way. Can you get back to me? Do you remember the way?"
"There's crazy people flying everywhere! I'm running! but I passed this big door twice now! they're behind me!"
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Flying crazy people? She couldn't picture this new threat with that description. Was he being chased by something? Could it be another Anarul? For a moment, Liera considered her options. She was in no condition to fight another one. Her klin shield was flickering. In this condition she couldn't even delay another red priest. Thinking about it a bit further, this was unlikely to be Anarul. Calan wouldn't have survived long enough to make the call if he bumped into a mad red priest. If he had a chance to get away on foot, this was definitely a lesser threat.
"They want me to join them! They're crazy!" He went on describing his predicament between panicked breaths.
> L98 Bframe: located [L98 Spacesuit]
> Navigation: path mapped to [L98 Spacesuit]
- 307m away
"You're close, I'm coming" She put most of the remaining power for the run. She had to be careful. She weighed nearly 4 tons. If she bumped into Calan, she could easily kill him. She almost toppled over a couple times but she managed to keep herself going with the stub of the arm scraping against the wall.
"I can hear you coming!" Calan said.
She turned a corner to see him running full sprint at her with tears in his eyes. Behind him, she spotted the most bizarre threat that she had ever encountered. Blackened people weaved in and out among themselves in a thread like formation, chasing after him.
She stopped to allow Calan to run past her. When he was safely behind her, she launched all 4 tons of herself towards the coming pile of living corpses. She used the remaining power of the klin shield to propel herself forwards. She hit them with the force of an industrial press, crushing them against the corner wall in quick succession. Their tarred bodies meshed into each other and turned to pulp as she bounced off the wall, leaving a thick pile of corrupted meat behind. Their ripped limbs flew in all directions and their screams were silenced by her successive quick slams. By the end of it, the wall was decorated with biomass worth 28 humans.
> L98 Bframe: transmission sent
- Good thing it was that easy
> L98 Bframe: transmission received
- Sineul: that's one for the records. But what a relief!
She engaged her mag pads to stand and turned to Calan.
"Please don't come near me!" He whined, pointing at the squashed head sticking to the chest plate. An assortment of body parts hung of the battle-frame in all directions.
"But you have to get back in" Liera told him. This was unfortunate for him. She didn't think about it when she hammered those people with the battle-frame. All the hollow gaps were overflowing with tar and body parts.
"No way!" He protested, stepping back when she moved towards him.
> L98 Bframe: transmission received
- Sineul: We don't have much time, AUM Galactic might send reinforcements any minute
"Fine, then help me clean it" Leira opened the locks on the battle-frame and shook everything to dislodge any body parts.
"I'm not touching that!"
"You're not touching it, you're in a spacesuit. Get here and help, Calan" He inched closer, looking at his hands apprehensively. He double checked his gloves as if he was worried they were permeable in any way.
"I'm going to throw up" He complained after dragging an unidentifiable piece of meat from the shin of the battle-frame. "what happens if I throw up?"
She could hear his voice twisting as he heaved his stomach.
"It'll get filtered out, don't overthink it, Do try to hold it in though. You're not getting out of that suit anytime soon"
Calan reluctantly helped clean out the battle-frame. She guided him to check the makeshift reintegration plug. Luckily for them, it was pristine, spared from the coating of degusting tar. When it was finished, Calan stepped into the battle-frame and the plug connected to the back of his neck. Liera felt the awkward weight of the battle-frame shift. It was much easier to control with her body.
"What now? do we go home? please tell me we can go back home"
> L98 Bframe: transmission sent
- Sineul, what's your status
> L98 Bframe: transmission received
- Sineul: They're here!
L98 Vellek idled near the ER-Madec after firing its main cannon in a precision beam. While Sinuel respected all the Red Sect Sovereign, he only owed his loyalty to his priestess. The sixth of the first was merely a threat to be vanquished. While he helped her with the messy situation, he also kept an eye on the destroyer behind him. There were occasional lasers from their long range weapons. The survivors were rightfully seeking revenge for what he did to them. These beams deflected off the Vellek easily, as they lost power by the time they made the distance.
The worrying signal came much later when his priestess managed to coax the insolent child back into the battle-frame. He detected three gravitational anomalies forming a considerable distance away from the destroyer. He knew what they were before they made their appearance.
Jump ships. Four massive pillars came through holes in space like slow lumbering giants. Each of them could carry several destroyers in their gigantic hangar bays. All 3 had AUM Galactic insignia with red and blue accents denoting their fleet. 177, a pioneer fleet that was last deployed some 3000 light years away. Hundreds of interceptors peeled out of them the moment they arrived and several destroyers followed.
Sineul used invisibility yet again, this time it was crucial to keep it up at any cost. Interceptors swarmed his last known location next to ER-Madec and soon they arranged themselves in a sentry formation, facing 12 directions. He had to drive them away from his priestess. These new arrivals had enough firepower to vaporize the entire resonator in a blink. This was a fleet that could invade a fully developed planet.
He dashed towards the empty spots, switching the invisibility on and off for milliseconds. The interceptors gave chase immediately. They were much more experienced and methodical than Commander Brenvalo's. He could barely keep a 1 second gap between them and lasers hit him the moment he turned the invisibility off even for a a single millisecond. The destroyers fired area denial and loitering weapons to corner him and he weaved through, barely making it with thousands of explosions behind him.
Each time he turned invisibility off, he sent a transmission to his priestess. They needed to talk about this as this was a dire circumstance they couldn't have predicted or prepared for.
> L98 Vellek: transmission sent
- This is unprecedented, they sent a conquest fleet, the 177 for this small skirmish
> L98 Vellek: transmission received
- L98 BFrame: They didn't send it for us. They sent it to cover their tracks on what they did to that reactor. Someone's throwing a lot of money around.
> L98 Vellek: transmission sent
- Do you have a plan, my priestess?
> L98 Vellek: transmission received
- Yes, one that I don't like
He couldn't tell what she was referring to. There were a lot of things that she didn't like. There were lots of people that she wouldn't call for help. There was a reason why he only mentioned 76th Red Priestess when he asked her about the beacon. It was the only contact nearby that was in good terms with his priestess. If she had a plan that she didn't like, it would likely be someone that she hates.
Sineul didn't have any records of another Red Sect Sovereign nearby that could level their playing field. 76th was as enigmatic as his priestess. She also had a similar configuration but with an oversized cargo ship. Unless she carried thousands of void bombs inside it, she couldn't help much going against a conquest fleet. What was this undesirable plan?
> L98 Vellek: transmission sent
- Is it someone that I know about?
> L98 Vellek: transmission received
- Varul
He recognized that name immediately. He knew the respect that name commanded. The second Red Priest, Varul. It was the obvious choice, considering what he was capable of. But there was a problem. His last known location was 6787 light years away.
> L98 Vellek: transmission sent
- But he won't get here in time! how do we even contact him?
> L98 Vellek: transmission received
- I'm in a resonator, Sineul
Sineul was elated when she pointed this out. In his rush to counter every threat he had almost forgotten the reason they came here.
Liera waited for the communication chamber 1 door to open. ER-Madec was still functional despite Sineul punching a hole through it. Conveniently, she was positioned just at the right location at the right time. In trying to kill her, they've given her exactly what she needed to summon reinforcements.
"What are we doing here? aren't we going home?" Calan asked. He'd had enough with this whole situation.
"We need to talk with someone"
"Is this that meeting thing?"
"No, I think that's off now"
She stepped into the ring inside the room. It scanned her from top to bottom and drowned her in blue light. Small holographic particles danced around her, arranging themselves to a perfect grid.
> ER-Madec: please provide the contact token
- checking...
- maximum effective range 87 light years
- do you wish to proceed?
The display turned purple.
> L98 BFrame: transmission received
- there's a problem, I don't think this piece of garbage was repaired
- You're very limited with the range.
- Maybe relay the messsage to 76th? she can definitely find a better resonator
> L98 BFrame: transmission sent
- We don't need 87 light years
Liera knew this might shock Sineul. She didn't need 87 light years to reach Varul. She knew exactly where he was. She was following the same thing he followed. The mysterious disappearance of Anarul the first. Repairing herself came as an afterthought when she discovered a fully functional Illuvium sanctum on Ephistome III. She didn't find anything worthwhile and decided sleep and repair was best.
> L98 BFrame: transmission received
- wait, what do you mean, my priestess?
> L98 BFrame: transmission sent
- he’s beyond the frontier
The communication chamber whirred, its walls rotating around her in a slow crescendo. At the peak, it equalized its sounds and visuals to a white void.
"Woah! where are we?" Calan exclaimed, looking all around him. It felt spacious, there were no features to this space but the feeling of grand scale lingered even without anything to compare the scale with. The white void turned dark, resolving into a picture of a metallic interior.
In front of them sat an intense looking man with red hair and orange eyes. He wore a black robe and and had black lines all over his exposed skin. He was engulfed in darkness up to his chest.
"What brought you here, Priestess Liera?" His voice was smooth and deep.
"Your brother, I found his sixth" Liera told him bluntly. "And I'm declaring war on AUM"
"I beg your pardon?" His face emerged from the shadows. He frowned at her with his sharp orange eyes.