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Disrobed and alone in the dark reaches below the cargo decks He sat. Cold metal frame against cold metal floor surrounded by pipes and the whir of ventilation fans. Somewhere in the darkness his staff sat nearby. Completely alone and not even connected to the Dirge. Etrigahn sat and did his best to contemplate nothing. Emptiness and the lack of thought were things he strived for in these moments. Clarity. Insulation from the woes of the mind. Could a calculator have anxiety? Could it make a mistake and add up the numbers wrong when it pressed them on its own interface? Etrigahn had to be certain of his actions at all times. There was no margin for error. Error meant Death. Death meant the end of his journey and there was so much left to do. Now he had Astrophel as well as Allessia to watch over. His little family was beginning to grow.
From that discarded corner Etrigahn's staff lit up. There were purposefully strict orders to not disturb him unless it was a dire emergency. Frustration burned to anger as he stood and checked his communicator. As he read the display Anger let go in to something burning hot. His metal hands shook and had they been holding something fragile it would have been bent or crushed in Etrigahn's grip. His voice screeched on to the comms. All frequencies, emergency bands, the distress Signal was clear.
"Make Ready for Emergency Jump! All Hands to Battle Stations! Death to the enemies of the Dirge! Death to the Sentinels!"
His metal feet did not tread carefully. They took off at a full sprint and the decks of the dirge suffered for the weight of his footfall.
"Hold on Astrophel."
Astrophel had been dealing with numerous complaints regarding sentinels in and around their settlement for weeks. A few drones here, a few drones there, but this was the constant of being the overseer of a settlement. They had chosen to help the Korvax who lived on this little desert world. Something about the way they struggled in their small pairings and convergence made Astrophel almost pity them. Had they always been like that? Would these Korvax ever be free?
They didn't mind the Vy'keen and the Gek that lived there. Though they often worried about what might happen if their Friend came to visit one day. A thought best put out of their mind for now. It hadn't been so bad to deal with the sentinels and the little community was beginning to flourish. Though as it grew larger it seemed to draw more and more attention. The sentinels seemed to come in waves.
The attacks weren't even daily at first. Here and there. Sometimes probing, sometimes scouting, but always lethal. The first combat unit that had shown up killed one of the older Vy'keen community members. That first letting of real blood seemed to almost cause an escalation. The attacks were worse and worse. The Vy'keen in the community moved to arm themselves more aggressively after that day.
When the first Walker came down it had been a tough battle. Astrophel had at one point even taken to Aphelion to strafe the battlefield. Let the damned sentinels feel their wolf's fangs! They bared their teeth together and even shot down a sentinel interceptor who came to assault them. A sad day that would bring mourning for Aphelion. To kill one of their former kin was never an easy task. The way it had screamed on the sensors as it died echoed a promise of the thing it could have been and now it was dead. Thankfully, that had seemed to be the end of the dilemma for the time being.
The village was ready for the next attack but then it never came. Hours turned to days, days to weeks, and nearly a month on from that moment life had more or less turned back to whatever version of normal this sleepy desert settlement had for itself. Things were peaceful and Astrophel was beginning to prepare them self and Aphelion to take back to the stars for a time. That was until a fateful night. One of the Workgek was sitting in the local tavern and pulled out of their bag a Gravatino ball! There were many gasps and much chatter.
Etrigahn took to the Bridge. They were already in hyperspace.
"Interloper-Captain! We approach the coordinates of Interloper Astrophel's settlement. Long Range scanners appear to show that the Great Enemy has settled one of their Capital Ships in high orbit over the planet!" The Vy'keen first officer brought up a hologram of the star system.
"The Roaring Dragon." Etrigahn stated sharply through metallic hissing.
"Interloper-Captain!" The Vy'keen saluted. "All hands brace for impact! All hands to battle stations and pre fuel the squadron fighters! All available power to forward shields!"
The Vy'keen deck crew sprang to life and began to work frantically.
"Helms." His voice was a whipping hurricane of metal. "Turn us so the top deck will be facing the planet's surface. Drop us out of hyper and I will descend to the planet's surface."
"Interloper-Captain!" The crew saluted in unison as Etrigahn went to make ready and stalked out of the bridge. His voice echoed a final command.
"Ready the Deuterium injectors on the launch bay."
The Gravitino Ball was a disturbing sight. That night had been full of questions. The young WorkGek hadn't though much of it. Especially with the sentinels 'Defeated'. The more experienced Vy'keen brought their weapons back out and the community made ready. While lucrative the collection of the relics was always fraught with peril. They were a siren song to the sentinels who had already seemingly already marked the settlement for destruction.
Astrophel hesitated but if the worst were truly coming they couldn't take any chances. Hoping the sentinels hadn't already blocked any outgoing transmissions they activated the beacon Etrigahn had given them. It was installed in to Aphelion who powered the signal. Howling out to the stars to summon the Hound of the Dark Stars. A cry for help as darkness approached on the coming dawn. Astrophel could only hope that He heard Aphelion's Howl.
The scanners on the settlement picked it up first. The Sentinel capital ship warped in to high orbit and essentially blockaded the planet. It would be near impossible for any civilian craft to get off or on world while the ship was present. Astrophel knew that even with fangs fully brought to bare Aphelion would struggle to destroy the ship in its current state.
That's when the sentinels began to come. This time in real waves with true combat units. With the interceptor's watching the skies it was too risky to strafe the field with Aphelion like Astrophel had done those weeks ago. This would be a proper battle and the Vy'keen were ready. They painted Astrophel's frame with the markings of War. The Korvax prepared armor and shields for the settlement. Erected energy barriers and defenses. The Gek made sure everyone was well supplied and the merchants opened their stores to ensure there would be ample medical supplies.
Off in the distance across the desert Astrophel could see them coming. They hadn't understood what the Vy'keen had meant when telling them 'That wasn't a walker' when they destroyed the bipedal machine some weeks ago. Now though there would be no mistaking the truth. Dozens of drones floated towards the settlement. A few of those same bipedal mechs were among them. Then to add to the assault's flanks two massive Walkers were shot like bullets from the Capital Ship from Orbit. The way they splashed down in to the sand and shook the ground surely pulled the color from even the most stalwart of the Vy'keen veterans.
The people of their settlement seemed to falter. Then Astrophel had a thought and a moment of inspiration. They could never ever tell him about this. Astrophel made an odd, loud, chirping sound with their vocal modulator. It was a laugh! "Make Ready my Friends! We Stand Together against The Great Enemy!" Astrophel beat their staff butt against the ground and the Vy'keen looked on in awe. "We will not die here! Yet even if we fall we won't be forgotten. No! The Void Mother will remember our deeds well and our names will be carried!" Astrophel pointed their staff up towards the Sentinel Capital Ship. "Our Foes will die this day!"
Then, as if on queue, a great and terrible light darkened the dawn.A flash of light that could only have been an impossible explosion. For a moment Astrophel looked at their staff in absolute horror! Did I do that?! Then as the light faded it was there. The Dirge of the First Spawn! Its blue-black hull was unmistakable.
That crazy pirate had used the dirge's forward shields like a spear! Timing the drop from hyper space to the nanosecond so that he would destroy the sentinel capital ship instantly! The space battle was already beginning but the Dirge was weirdly oriented. Astrophel was pulled from their analysis of the what was happening in high orbit by the fire of the long range sentinel beam weapons!
"The Fury of Dead Stars is with us! Aphelion's Howl has called the wolves to our door and they feast of the flesh of our enemies! Fight, fight as your lives depend on it!" Astrophel charged forwards as the Vy'keen rallied and let out their own guttural war cries. They could only hope that any of that might have been something He might have said. It seemed to work for the Vy'keen at least.
The Dragon's Roar was a simple, but brutal and dangerous, maneuver. Allessia would super charge the bow shields and then calculate, using long range scanners, the exact position of a stationary space-borne target. With careful precision and an exact to the nano-second drop in to real space the Dirge would strike the target with its forward deflectors. Etrigahn liked to pretend it was a spear thrust but really it was a hammer blow. The massive capital ship could take the punishment with its bow and side plating of course being the most concentrated in thickness. In reality though the deflectors overcharged, and then bursting open in overload, did the majority of the work. Like an anti-personnel mine of electromagnetic radiation and thermal expulsion.
The capital ship was destroyed in an instant and he could hear the Vy'keen on the deck. One of the Vy'keen officers had actually been the one to name the maneuver. Proclaiming it reminded them of a great serpentine beast from their home world that would rain down fire and acid in strafing runs from the sky before swooping down for a killing blow. It was in elegant but extravagant. All in all it suited Etrigahn and his crew well.
Careful haste brought Etrigahn to a special launch and landing bay above the bridge and command decks of The Dirge. From here the squadron fighters scrambled from the launch bay and began to take the straggling interceptors to task. Though he was not out in the vacuum simply to watch. The butt of his staff touched the decking of his ship and in an instant he was the ship. The ship was him. Long range scanners picked up the desperate ground battle. If the wicked and alien machine head could grin it would have. His hand raised towards the planet's surface and the deck guns began to spin up.
This was a losing battle despite the victory in the skies above the settlement. Astrophel knew it too but the Vy'keen that fought alongside her pressed on. They had managed to fell many of the drones but more were still being summoned in from the nest that was no doubt somewhere off in the wilds of the desert. The walkers remained at a distance and one of the mechs began to walk towards them. Its flamethrower already licked flames at the settlement's edges. There was a sudden cry of metal on metal as radio's experienced telltale feedback of being hijacked. Astrophel recognized the noise that came next. A mockery of prerecorded noise and screams. His Laughter.
"Rejoice! Bask in the Glow of Salvation!" Then in an instant of shock and fear Astrophel knew what that bastard was doing.
"Everyone! Get Down!!" Astrophel jumped backwards and several Vy'keen were quick enough to take cover. Then in that same moment the Main Guns of The Dirge strafed the right flank of the sentinel forces. The massive anti-freighter lasers glassed a portion of the desert as they erased a Walker and its support drones, alongside a mech, and half a dozen other sentinel combat units.
In the aftermath of the shock waves of heat and destruction the Sentinels recovered quickly and began to beeline for the settlement! Astrophel worked to rally the defenders but found themselves standing in the shadow of a sentinel Walker some twenty meters away.
What many did not know about The Dread Pirate was that his robes weren't colored blue originally. As he stepped out on to the launch pad several long, snake-like, appendages attached to his jet-pack and metal frame. They injected Etrgahn's form with a pure, highly concentrated, deuterium. The chemical would stain his robes, his frame, the irradiated cobalt blue he had come to be known by. With staff in hand, and using the long range scanners of The Dirge, he aimed himself directly at his Target.
The appendages detached with a hiss. With practiced ease Etrigahn knelt down. He felt the gravity slingshots of the launch pad latch on to him. It dragged him almost to the breaking point of his frame before he leapt. In a moment of brilliant engineering and absolutely foolhardy bravado the hyper-charged deuterium in his frame and jet-pack activated in combination with the gravity slingshots of the launch pad. With nothing short of mass driver levels of velocity the autophage shot himself towards the planet's surface. Whatever leftover deuterium was used to power an immense personal shield he would need to survive the brutal stupidity he was about to take part in.
What did it mean to have a soul? Or memories? Perhaps on possible answer he had stumbled across was to simply be remembered. How better than doing stupid shit.
Astrophel readied their weapon. Brought to bear against the hulking Walker before them. They would sell their life dearly for their people. The Vy'keen retreated to better positions while Astrophel's multi-tool draw the walker's attention. This was it, the best they could do, and it would be to die here.
Except there was a strange light. A blue, streaking, meteor that looked almost like it had launched from The Dirge itself? It was moving so fast! The Laughter was getting louder?! Astrophel barely had a moment to turn away as the thing came hurtling towards them! It slammed through the barrier shield of the Walker. Colliding with the metal frame of the Walker itself. The projectile tore through the Walker's body in a massive explosion of light that sent its frame and pieces flying in all directions!
As the dust settled blue, cobalt colored, radiation splashed out from the crash site. The mangled legs of an Autophage, its blue and black scorched robes, and the butt of a staff wielding a hyper-powered blaze javelin strode from the crater. In a single shot it ended a nearby Sentinel Drone. Astrophel looked on in horror as he turned toward them.
"Sorry I'm late."