Chapter 17: Storm of Sabers(2)

The voices. Were the voices really back? It was making his skin itch! He had thought he was free of them, had been free of them ever since they had entered this new galaxy... or at least, he had been mostly free of them, he was sure… But now, they are back, yes! And so many! And so confusing! Before, there had been many voices as well, but they had spoken to him, given him orders, made promises, and threats. These new voices... he could not make heads nor tails of them.

"Hey, Gak. Hey!" said Panic, the medic, snapping his fingers in the psyker's face as he did. They were all riding within the cabin of their Commissar's Chimera transport, the whole command squad seated nearby. None of them were overjoyed at the prospect of being crammed into an enclosed space with a battle psyker, but Gaksian Krell had proven himself reliable countless times... despite his admittedly unhinged personality.

Gak's eyes focused and he sat up straighter, seeming dazed for just a second before nodding his head. "Yes, yes I'm fine," he said. Panic narrowed his eyes at that but nodded his head slowly. As the medic of the team, he was the one person who could scrutinize Gak that way and not come off as being overly cautious or superstitious, though he was undoubtedly both.

"If you say so, Gak, but you seemed really out of it just now... What's the matter? You got a bad feeling?" asked Panic.

Gak paused and then nodded his head. "It's... it's the damn voices," the psyker admitted.

"But... but I thought you said they were gone ever since—" started the medic, whispering.

"I know what I said!" Gak blurted, just a bit too loud, drawing some cagey stares from the standard bearer and the ordnance commander who sat nearby. "I know what I said," he repeated, more calmly now. "But they are back, Panic... they are back and weird."

Panic paled a little at that, and Gak felt suddenly guilty burdening the normal with his psychic baggage, but the medic did not back down.

"Weird how? Like 'skin your friends and dress in them' weird?" he asked.

Gak shook his head. "No, nothing normal like that. They aren't making any sense. And there are so many, hundreds at least," the psyker said, still hearing the whispering chatter slipping and sliding over his thoughts.

"Well, what is something they say? Just tell me, it can't make no sense," Panic insisted.

Gak paused for a moment. "Three more on floor eight hundred and twelve," said Gak.

Panic blinked. "What?" he asked.

Gak continued. "Floor six hundred and four is clear. Starting the second sweep up."

Panic rubbed his chin, eyes almost crossing in confusion.

"Are we bringing pets or just people?" said Gak.

"Ok, stop, Gak, none of what you are saying makes any sense," Panic said.

"Exactly!" Gak said. "It makes even less sense than they normally do... and that can't be good, not considering what's... nevermind, just, it's making me edgy," said the psyker.

He pulled his force stave closer to himself, the psychic focus glowing slightly as he did. The object should have made the whispers of daemons and the malefic dead more silent, but instead, it only made them louder.

Panic nodded his head and sat back. "Well, I can see why. You feel like it's going to be a problem?" asked the medic.

Gak shook his head. "No, I mean, maybe, but it won't be a problem for me and my abilities, if that's what you're asking. But I think these whispers... bode... ill…"

Panic grit his teeth, hoping the psyker was wrong, but knowing well enough to understand he probably wasn't. Gak's career may not have started off as impressive as that of some, but his accomplishments over the decades had earned him a respect few psykers could manage to attain. Ever since the Great Jump, Gak had only seemed more in control, more powerful even. But there were forces in the universe that made even the power wielded by a Primaris Psyker seem minuscule in comparison. The very idea of encountering such a thing here, now, attacking the Basilica itself, was chilling in the extreme.

"Huh, from the sounds of it, the daemons themselves are running their own operation, even as we run ours," Panic said, only half-joking. After all, there weren't any such things as daemons... right?

Gak's face did not reflect his answering chuckle, as if the possibility of that being exactly the case was far too large to discount as a superstitious joke. They rode in silence for a time then, and throughout all that time, Gak's mind seemed either unwilling or unable to release Panic's last words from his mind. Then, realization struck him like a blow to the face, and his eyes widened in sudden dismay.

"St-St-Stop the Chimera!" Gak yelled, shooting up in his seat, making all the passengers around him flinch back.

Commissar Terandor looked back from his command seat underneath the turret, eyes fierce as he thumbed the holster of his bolt pistol. But even this subtle act, one which could normally force any psyker to halt dead in their tracks, failed to impact Gak enough to stop him from smacking the large red button that opened the back hatch.

"What in the Emperor-damned shit do you think you are doing, Gaksian?! Sit back down before I put you do—" started the Commissar, already beginning to stand up from his seat.

Gak did not wait for him to finish his threat, jumping out of the back of the still-moving Chimera and hitting the hard, smooth floor of the avenue with a hard thunk, stave landing right beside him. He hissed and reached for the focus, grasping it greedily and hugging it to himself, before looking up at the incoming Chimera that had been traveling behind his own. It swerved to avoid him, hitting the leftmost elevated barrier which separated the massive, suspended road from a near thousand-foot drop to the true surface of Axum. The barrier was cracked but held firm, though that did not stop the officer stationed inside the vehicle from popping the hatch and poking his head out angrily.

"What is going on here?! Guardsman, are you HIGH?!" he accused, face bright red at the sudden intrusion, clearly unholstering his own las pistol until he was able to recognize that Gak was no traditional guardsman.

Gak paid him no heed at all, eyes wide, frantic, looking around, first at the vehicles and soldiers near him, and then up and away, at the surrounding city spires. His act had succeeded in halting his transport column, which slowly brought most things to a halt around it. Leman Russ battle tanks squealed and hissed as they rolled to a stop, guardsmen marching in tight, proud ranks halted to look over at the commotion, Hydra battle tanks stopping their treads, even as their active, anti-air flak cannons continued to sweep and scan for hostiles.

But it was not their thoughts he was hearing. No, they were too weak, guttering flames in the dark of the warp, not bright enough to navigate a stream of piss to the ground, much less loud enough to intrude on his thoughts. Normally, it was only the daemons who could even attempt such things, burning themselves against his mind wards and soul-binding aegis to whisper temptations into his ear. But, if not daemons, and if not the normal men around him, then…

"Gaksian!" The psyker spun at the call, coming to face his own stopped Chimera, and the enraged form of Commissar Terandor. Bolt pistol in hand, though not raised, the man was storming toward the psyker, his eyes promising a throttling at least, his weapon suggesting worse was not out of the question.

"Terandor!" Gak said, as if only seeing him now for the first time that day. He came towards the man, arms outstretched almost as if to embrace him.

"They are here! Right here, right no—" the psyker started to say, before Terandor whipped him across the face with the butt of his pistol.

Gak took the blow hard, blood spilling from his mouth and nose, leaning as if to fall, and then hanging unnaturally in the air, before resuming his former posture, blood still trickling down his face and lips, but his expression that of a man who noticed no pain save that of his panic.

"Right now! Right this moment!" he continued as if the Commissar had not just dislodged two of his molars. That, more than anything else, got the Commissar taking him seriously.

"What are you talking about, Krell?! Who's here?" the Commissar demanded, looking around quickly before redirecting his eyes back to the psyker.

"They, the enemy!" Gak said, eyes wide and wild.

"The toy soldiers?!" Terandor pressed, but Gak shook his head.

"No, no, nothing so mundane! It's their master, my lord, the masters of the Republic have come! They are surrounding us even now, they are—" Gak was cut off as the ground suddenly jumped and quaked a couple of inches, enough to shake several milling guardsmen to the ground. The planet around them seemed to start... groaning under their very feet, the deep sound drowning everything else out.

"What is happening?!" Gak saw more than heard the Commissar say.

Though he knew his response would not be heard either, he gave it anyway as he began to draw upon his power, all of his power, and all of the power around him that was not his, for he knew that he would need all of it in mere seconds.

"They are attacking! They have ordered the planet itself against us! And the planet is… listening!"

——————————————————

"Marshal Doven, there is a message coming across the Xenos channels... it's planet-wide, sir!" said the Tech Adept from his sunken alcove in the command center. Everything was dark there, the room lit by little more than the green hololith displays and screens that the staff used to receive and relay orders and information. The place was bustling despite the lack of light, uniformed bodies of both the Imperial Military and the Priesthood of the Adeptus Mechanicus working and moving over wire-laden floors, clustered control panels, and the many purity seals and holy scriptures adhered onto the ceiling and walls by lavish red wax.

"Nothing over the Vox?" asked the Marshal, standing near the center of the room, leaning over a hololithic table that showed him a display of the entire planet, lit in flickering green. Around its surface pulsed various icons, those in blue representing his forces, and those in red, the enemy. They had all landed near the Basilica of Salvation, something he had not expected they would know anything about. That level of intelligence disturbed him, and it, along with this broadcast, reinforced to him how little they understood the travel and communications capacity of their new enemies.

The Tech Adept craned his head back and shook it no.

"Alright then, patch it through. Let us see what the softies are saying."

The adept nodded and began tapping away. Soon enough, a previously inactive hololith flicked to life and displayed the image of a man, a Jedi General, face scarred and body dressed in the battle plate of this weak Republic. He stood confidently, his face composed of a determined expression which told the Marshal this message meant nothing good.

"People of Axum, Citizens of the Azure Lineage, Defenders of the Sapphire Gate into the Core. We have come," he said. "We are here, in all our strength, to free you from these killers, madmen, and tyrants. The Jedi Order has come, as promised, to defend the gate. Even now we fight, we wage liberating war against the enemies of our venerable Republic. Enemies which make the pitiful Confederates seem like mynocks in comparison. We will fight and we will die, but we may not be able to do this alone."

The man held out the hilt of his weapon and activated the saber.

"So I call now on you, honored guardians of the Republic. You whose lineages stretch back to those most ancient of wars, when all that stood between order and chaos was the Sapphire Gate at Axum! You who still honor your histories in shrines within your homes, who care for and look after weapons tens of thousands of years old. Now is the time to use those weapons again, to honor those shrines with service, in place of sentiment."

"By the end of this day, Axum will be liberated from the Empire. Whether the credit for that liberation goes to the warriors of this worthiest of worlds is yours to decide. Rise, Axum! The Jedi have come, and now, we are waiting."

The transmission ended.

"Holy Throne... Contact all other installations and fortresses planet-wide. Tell them to expect heavy resistance from the civilian population in a short amount of time. Tell them—"

"Marshal!" cried out one of the comms officers. "Battlegroup Alpha, who was heading to relieve the siege at the Basilica of Salvation, they—they've encountered a problem, sir!"

The Marshal scowled. "Spit it out, lieutenant! What is the problem?" he ordered.

The lieutenant simply paled and attempted to speak but only managed to mouth gibberish. The Marshal grit his teeth, waiting until it became clear the man was too flummoxed by what he was hearing to do his duty. He looked over at his second, who snapped a salute and marched over to the comms officer, knocking the man unconscious with an uppercut to his jaw and yanking the headset off his lolling skull.

She kneeled to follow him as he slumped, taking his weight as she pressed the earpiece of the headset to her ear. Though her stern expression did not change, she also seemed to lose color in her face. She barked a few orders to clarify the situation into the headset, but whatever answers she was getting were evidently not satisfying her. Meanwhile, the Marshal turned back to the hololith globe of Axum, manipulating the display to look at the line of blue icons which represented the regimental units and commanders that made up Battlegroup Alpha. He felt his chest cool and then burn, as, one by one, in a line leading from the forward to the back, the icons began to vanish from the map.

"What the fek is happening out there?! Report!" he barked.

He looked back toward his second in command, but she simply shook her head, still kneeling as she took the headset off.

"There was just screaming, sir. Screaming and then silence," she said.

"Groxshit!" he accused, punching the console before him, making it flicker, and causing the Tech Adepts to flinch.

"They must have said something! What was it?!" he demanded.

She bit her lip but then nodded. "There were two words I could understand. Just two before it was cut off."

"And?" he prompted.

"The Spires," she said.

"The... the Spires?" he asked.

She nodded, standing straight.

"The Spires."