Chapter 23
I Still Serve
Artru - Tyrlon
21st January, 3025
Artru - Samuel Ostergaard
The Iberia approached Artru with incredible caution as Ostergaard saw it. His guts turning to jelly as he watched it moving. His Jumpship had found itself under the guns of an Achilles and swarm of ASFs as the three Star Lords and Invader made their presences felt and seized it.
The fear in his guts didn't change when word had come that his Jumpships crew had been isolated and locked into cargo holds with no view of space. And he understood why now. Halfway to Artru it had come about, spinning in space like a giant bar it had burned hard. Burned harder than he could have believed possible, the baroque mass of the goliath burning brightly towards the Iberia like a the hammer of god. It's prow proudly facing him as its figurehead changed even as he watched, going from a vast mechanical sigil he didn't recognise, wings rose from recesses, the sigil became a semi-mechanical skull and its eyes began to glow a baleful red as it poured on six gees of acceleration for two days straight bringing the massive vessel up to almost two percent of the speed of light before making its deceleration burn to match his own velocity.
The fear was real as it slowed and approached at ever closer velocities, it's sun-bright drive plumes distorting any possibly meaningful sensor readings. Before finally it was too late. It had approached to within a hundred kilometres and it's drives fell down through the range until the burning pillars matched their own velocity falling only marginally behind.
Nobody on the Iberia could speak of what they saw except in hushed tones as the monstrous ghost ship came alongside. Its dorsal weapon turning on its axis to face them at all times as flights of an unknown ASF made their runs past. It was only a day from Artru before the ship finally made contact. Continuing to ignore their own transmissions.
"This is Admiral Spire of the Kane's Legacy. Commodore Samuel Ostergaard, you have been registered as an enemy of the Raven Guard and cannot be permitted to set foot on Artru. Maintain your drives at one gee and prepare to be boarded."
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I stood on the Teleportarium with Miranda, Kamea, and a almost two dozen of the ships security detachment. It was not time to reveal myself, not fully. But it was time to demonstrate that I was not going to be pushed around. We were no Astartes. But human powered armour had been developed, and now we three all wore it as the device powered up and I lifted a weapon I had pulled from the armoury in one hand. Chainsword in the other. "Initiate."
Crimson unlight reigned as with a clap of ozone we were displaced over to the Iberia. Weapons were raised as our troops prepared to cut down any one of the Taurians that demonstrated so much as a glimmer of resistance. There was a moment as one of them stood and attempted to run for an alarm panel before the screaming sound of my chainsword revving cut his velocity to zero in pure terror.
I marched over, footsteps sounding like a Mechs on a smaller scale, the Storm Bolter lifted to face his chest. Instead I pressed a button on the intercom. "I am Duke Kane Giordino. Father of the Lathe Nation Reborn. Report to the mech deck in the next two hundred and forty seconds or I begin cutting down your people."
In all fairness, the man did not dally, arriving with a squad of his own men carrying heavy rifles bought from the Federated Suns. The surprise was clear on his face as he faced his people. "Love, mind throwing the beacon to a clear space and signal for Glitch."
Miranda activated the teleport beacon and tossed it well clear of our group, the Taurians near it running away from the destination. The crackling unlight and burst of ozone as the Teleportarium flared left Taurians screaming and running for cover as the Cerastus class knight stood there, its left arm bore the Acheron flame cannon the other having its reaper chainfist.
The sound of the chainfist revving was a piercing scream like a thousand nails being drawn down a thousand chalkboards, the spark of a tiny burp from the flamer making it clear to everyone present what the weapon was.
Terror was evident on every single face as I stood there. Staring straight at the Commodore. Weapons held at the ready as I moved over to my people.
"What is the meaning of this!" Samuel said rage and a lingering hatred in his voice, but only lingering, as if he was working hard to not feel that way. And why had he come alone?
"You are Commodore Samuel Ostergard of the Concord Navy." I said as he walked down the gantries, his attendants, bar a woman with a laser pistol, seemed too terrified to follow. "And this is the Iberia, a ship of the Concord Navy, your unwelcome boarding is...."
"Cut the shit." I snapped and it cut him silent. "You have been in pursuit of me since the Directorate ordered a false flag operation by assassinating your son, my condolences by the way. In any case, why have you not returned to Taurian space?"
"Because, officially, we've all gone AWOL." He said face going red as his hair as he marched down the last set of stairs to face me directly. "I hated you, and you Lady Arano. I was going to enjoy painting whatever world you chose to make your stand on red. I hated you with the passion of a thousand burning sons, and then I learn..." His voice was raising as everything came to a head, "and then I learn that I have been not only hating the wrong people, but have to face that I was deceived into hunting you for the very people responsible. I want revenge. I want to spill the blood of every Espinosa I can find. I want to..." He shouted soundlessly without meaning for a second. "I want to put into practice what you did on Mandalas. I want to take everyone responsible and literally crucify them in the streets for the galaxy to see." He hissed with almost pure spite and hate thrumming through his veins. "And I don't care what it takes. If I have to help you, I will do so. If you turn me back, i'll burn Coromodir myself!"
He collapsed onto the deck, weeping as only a parent whose lost his kid can. "We never represented a real threat to you did we, you were laughing at us the whole time, hiding this leviathan." He laughed maniacally for a moment. "Look at it, you fucking teleported onto our ship. Your own craft never seem to need to slow down, they probably have this gravity plating we kept hearing about and nobody was willing to sell us."
I sat down as well as power armour allowed. "You were the greatest threat i've faced directly since returning from beyond the Periphery. But, I don't know if we could ever trust you Ostergaard. Look at it, you went back to Weldry with a Battalion of Liao funded mercenaries and began abusing the population simply to draw us into battle."
Kamea looked on the verge of speaking but stopped. She had expected a quick seizure of an enemy who'd foolishly tried to play on our terms. And yet once more, I was working to subvert expectations. An enemy had come to try and join our crusade.
"And how can I possibly prove my commitment, is not the fact I act to avenge my murdered son enou..."
"No Ostergaard it is not." I said plainly interrupting him and his expression was both offended, surprised and terrified. "I can't trust words. Only deeds. In ancient history, or mythology, the Hero Hercules had to complete twelve tasks to prove himself. The twelve Labours of Hercules." I said plainly.
"Twelve tasks considered virtually impossible, so much so that anything of massive difficulty is still frequently called a 'herculean task'. Well, I am more generous than the Oracle of Delphi. I won't ask you to slay the Nemean Lion with your bare hands, or wrestle the Cretan Bull." I stood and stared down at the man almost broken in grief.
"So what 'tasks' would you have me perform." Ostergaard actually looked hopeful.
"The first. And most crucial task. Is to prove yourself worthy of piloting a Knight. Prove yourself a worthy man. Prove yourself in a way more completely than ever. It will change you. And it will tie you to my house more completely than any oath can. It will alter your mind. It will exaggerate dominant personality traits and suppress lesser ones. It will promote loyalty, honour, and a form of fealty." My words were pitched intensely but Kamea could not hear how I had betrayed her. I would not risk Trotter deciding I was no longer worthy for his services. "Or, it will kill you."
Ostergaard looked worried, fearful and unsettled as I spoke. "What do you mean it will kill me."
"Knight testing is beyond anything you have ever experienced. If you are physically fit, you will be granted the implants I wear. Then you will be put through a trail that is so profound it effects your very psyche. If you are not up to that final trial however, it is absolutely lethal. One in ten candidates die. You prove yourself worthy, or perish." I helped him to his feet as a hardness set in, a perceived slight against his worthiness.
"And the other 'tasks'." He said wanting to hear it all.
"The second task is that we go to Weldry. And with your people at the fore, with you at the fore. Utterly destroy the Northwind Highlanders sent after me. Absolute annihilation. No man, woman or mech to remain. Utter and total destruction." My words brooked no discussion and I saw the pain there. He'd made at least one friend in the Highlanders Battalion.
A stepped back. "And for the final task. You, and your entire crew, will renounce Thomas Calderon and swear fealty to the Lathe Nation."
All the Taurians present, including the woman he'd brought with him, an advisor or XO perhaps, all expressed borderline rage at the suggestion. "And if we cannot do that?"
"We will come to that bridge when we get to it." I said stepping forwards. "And if those tasks are completed, then and only then will I consider you worthy of trust, and then you will join us and burn the Directorate to the ground and reinstate its rightful leader. Lady Kamea Arano."
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So it was to be a fight. I thought as Kamea entered my stateroom and closed the door, Miranda looking up from the book she was reading before putting in some headphones and turning up her music. "That man... that man oppresses my people and you offer him a job. You had no right to go over my head and negotiate with a war criminal."
"I had every right. Artru is my system. And that bastard was deceived into doing your Uncles dirty work. And, quite literally mad from grief did things that were reprehensible in the extreme, if we hadn't actually been innocent i'd have bet a billion C-bills that he'd have shot everyone that refused to continue his crusade and prosecuted it anyway." My words were edged, but I struggled to word to avoid tripping any more overt reprogramming the Throne Mechanicum emplaced. "I am not going to waste a potential asset that we can turn on our other enemies. Twelve mechs. Twelve tanks and a company of infantry are based on that Fortress. As well as bringing a second Long Tom."
I sat down. "It brings us the firepower for a final push on Coromodir sooner than we could have expected. Are there other things that need to happen first? Certainly. But you wanted me to save the Coalition, and I am going to do that. Butchering him in cold blood is only going to make Thomas Calderon, an already paranoid neurotic, an angry enemy."
Arano dropped into a chair and put her head into her hands. "I am trying to protect my people, I failed them. As it seems my bloodline failed to protect the very secrets needed. Artru wasn't ready for any return, its secrets all but forgotten into some folklore." I saw the very fragile confidence of a woman who felt like she'd completely failed on all fronts. "The concentration camps, the people under the heel, my own Lords resisting my authority because of how I failed them. You may not know it but you're a hero of the Aurigan people, they see your sigil as a sign of power that will bring them freedom once more. I won't give up on my people, not now nor ever. I will not allow failure to be the only Arano legacy."
"I understand Kamea, I do." I said taking up a dataslate. "Better than you think I believe. But I need you to trust me. I'm not old Zachariah, I am not going to abandon the Aurigans because I think you're trying to sleep with my wife."
She laughed. "You know I wouldn't do that Kane."
"Pity I'd have paid good c-bills to see it." I said with a wry grin and chuckled at her reaction. Almost completely mortified and blushing all at once. But there was no spark between any of us. The sense of connectivity in our fates didn't go that far, not even within my own breast. "Of course, there is every chance you will get your wish and Ostergaard will fail the trial."
"The man had the conviction and strength to follow us for months, I doubt that..." I held up a hand.
"The trial you undertook was tempered by using my own Throne Mechanicum, you were never exposed to the greatest dangers the trial offers. And Ostergaard's sanity is in an already fractured state. He is a man surviving purely on rage. His sole motivation for revenge is the only thing that has kept him from eating a bullet so far." I said calling up the display for the Chamber of Echoes. "We've managed to build a Styrix using the STC on Artru, but the process is not fast, and it cannot be quickly moved to other projects. The Throne Mechanicum belonged to one of the failed supplicants from your own test. It has seen several pilots."
Arano sighed and stared at the table. "I almost wish you had not done me that favour."
"The price we pay is greater than others could ever understand." I said pouring three tumblers of drink.
"I... I didn't understand at first. But every time i've gone into battle, I feel like less when I leave the machine. I cannot wait to submerge myself in union with it once more. I hear the call to battle even when I sleep. And... I was warned that Ambition would be amplified by it, but I feel part of myself was lost somewhere. A tempering voice." She drank deeply as she stared at the table.
"Because it probably was lost." I said drinking myself as I watched Ostergaard seated on a Throne Mechanicum.
The look on her face was almost one of terror at my words. I realised then she was seeking validation that she was still herself. That she had not been too greatly changed, and that my response was probably the worst choice of words short of 'by the way, I forgot to tell you about the brain-washing part that encourages loyalty to me'. Instead, I tried to mitigate the damage.
"The Throne Mechanicum, as we said, has some severe effects on the psyche. It greatly exaggerates strong personality traits. Your resolve is stronger than ever before. Do you think, for even a moment, that before all of this that you would have allowed the people of Weldry to suffer while we acted against other strategic targets?" I said plainly, "Do you think that you could have allowed the destruction of Jumpships on the possibility of saving Raju?"
Her head dropped as she considered my words.
"Your strength has increased many times. And if you believe you lost part of yourself and ability to Temper things, might I point out you aggressively vetoed the proposal to destroy their jumpship fleet before?" My words began to bore into her as Ostergaard became embroiled in with the machine spirit. "You have not lost anything that you are not better without. You lost your naivete. You lost perhaps a more childish vision of how this would progress. What the throne mechanicum did burn out of you was something you could afford to lose. With only one vast downside."
Miranda proved she'd been listening in by speaking in a quiet voice quite unlike her normally.
"We feel less without the union." She fidgeted as if unsure how to say what was coming next, "Which is why I have to say that the Doctor has forbidden me battle for the next seven months." My heart stopped in naked terror. Please be some sort of horrible neurological injury that took months to cure. I could even tolerate nurgle rot or space aids. But my heart thumped in a frankly terrified staccato as instinct predicted why a woman would be forbidden from entering battle with such a suspicious time.
"You..." Arano said jumping up with a smile on her face.
"I am." Miranda said.
"I'm so happy for you..." She said throwing a giant hug around my wife as my blood went cold as ice and a desire to throw up intensified. C'mon Ostergaard. Have a good one. I need to kill a lot of things to get these butterflies to die.
"So how's it feel to have an heir on the way Kane?" Kamea asked seeing that I'd gone green.
"I'll let you know when my brain starts working again." I said grinning weakly. Miranda started laughing uproariously.
"He can face a Battalion of Mechs and be confident he can take the very world in his hands, but the thought of fatherhood paralyses him with fear." She said between laughter as I felt the fear set in twice as hard with the word being uttered. "I'm loving it."
"Hi Loving It, i'm Dad." I said. Wasn't it the law to do so?"
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Ostergaard
Cold sweat as Ostergaard knelt on the cold stone deck of the Chamber of Echoes. The ritual had been beyond anything he could have imagined, far beyond anything that Kane's words made seem even remotely plausible. Anything sane. And yet.
The voice of the machine had soared through him. Encompassing his rage. Thirsting on his need for vengeance as it fed him memory after memory after memory of every man and woman who had sat in it before. Feeling like he'd been dipped into lava, then ice water and back again he shivered as the man called Trotter came to face him. He'd made sure to drill him before the Rite of Becoming and understood the full implications of what the Throne might do to him.
Samuel felt up around the implants checking them, the faint smell of blistered flesh. "You almost did not make it." He said plainly. Checking all of Samuels vitals.
"I didn't ask for this." He said, "Your boss made it a condition. And I will not be denied revenge." Samuel panted as he drank deeply from a water canteen. "But the last man to pilot this, actually pilot it,... his daughter was killed in front of him. Piloting another Knight. She..." Tears flowed freely, the emotional connection was almost too strong, "she reminded me of my own son. Allowed me to pull myself together and push it out. To shut the gates in my mind to it and force it to obedience... its alive."
Trotter shook his head. "Yes, and no. The Throne Mechanicum itself is not completely alive in the sense of sapience, or there would be no need for a pilot. But the spirit is alive and aware, it, combined with the Knight Styrix and you will provide a wholeness, a new self. A greater one. When you pilot it for the first time, you will never feel truly whole again except when connected."
"My son was murdered for the intrigue of that traitorous Directorate. I will never feel whole again anyway." Samuel said with a shudder. Trotter didn't try and correct him. It would take experience for the man to understand. While familial loyalty was enhanced beyond almost sane reason, he would not understand until the first true union that mere biological life would always hold second fiddle to the union between man and machine.
"Now. Inform Kane i'm ready for his second task."
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Weldry: 17th February 3025
The Iberia burned in ahead of us transmitting normal signatures as my dropships followed, covertly using Concord Navy transponder signals to deceive the Highlanders. Kamea had returned to her own people with the wealth of SLDF machines as she prepared for the final assaults on key strongholds of the Directorate. My own comm officers were on the Iberia with guard to ensure nothing of the Legacy was spilled by the people aboard. Every log they had purged of anything resembling sensor recordings or data. Personal devices confiscated and erased to prevent any discovery.
And yet, I felt a strange trepidation going into battle this time as we headed for the landing field that the combined forces had been using. The heavy landing as four major dropships burned into the atmosphere had caused a flutter on the local comm nets, but nobody had suspected as we captured the Highlanders Jumpship.
The Highlanders it seemed were concentrated in one place, running a camp with little real commitment anymore. Waiting for the day that we came to pit ourselves against the thirty-six mechs of their Battalion.
The Warden's Justice burned in hardest near the Iberia as Behemoth's Rage and Warden's Wroth came down a bit further. The Behemoth's Rage spewing six Fury Interceptors into the atmosphere. Powerful drive plumes punching them away at massive velocity.
And yet the landing wasn't contested. The three Highlander Unions at rest.
Landing gear deployed and all four Dropships set down with as much grace as they could muster. Ramps began to deploy as two massive machines began descending the ramp of the Iberia.
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"Even in death I still serve!" Raju's Telemon lumbered next to Ostergaard's Styrix. The second machine occasionally twitching as if it had developed a nervous tic. The violently inclined machine spirit finding itself neatly chained, and yet indulged, by the man who was piloting it.
It was more lumbering than the Knights as the Highlanders began running for their machines or dropships while they still had time. But caught so unexpectedly with their pants around their ankles only those mech pilots already on duty or on ready alert stood any chance of reaching their machines in a reasonable timetable.
Unfortunately, they didn't have a reasonable timetable. Raju didn't wait, the Arachnus Storm Cannon opening with a massive volley of powerful laser fire as the missile launcher on its back began to hurl rockets at isolated pockets of infantry. Ostergaard, as I watched waiting, Volcano Lance aimed squarely at its back, he lumbered into range and opened fire with the Volkite Cheirovile.
It was then the true panic began as the unusual properties of the Volkite weapon swept over infantry and light mechs alike as techs tried to service them in peace, the sweeping heat rays devastating everything they touched and initiating a conflagration only matched when Glitch charged into battle. The flame cannon roaring as it was unleashed against the tents and barracks structures.
"Questoris. Take down the Heavy Mechs." I said designating the targets as a pack of Armigers charged into battle. Even calling battle was insulting as I unleashed the Plasma Decimator against the barely noticeable engine cones of the furthest Union and stabbing fire from the Volcano Lance towards its buried and armoured fuel reservoirs deep within the ship.
There could be doubt. This was murder of the foulest sort and I felt myself waver as I realised what I had done by giving Ostergaard such an uninhibited challenge. Though his Styrix had a graviton gun where the rad cleanser should have been the Volkite Cheirovile was still entirely a vicious and cruel weapon that he played about concentrations of enemy troops wherever they gathered, his loyal mech pilots following him into battle at a distance, unwilling to close near the deadly machine.
As my own guns blazed at anything that came beneath them part of me wondered at the wisdom of allowing Ostergaard this chance, even with the Throne Mechanicum shaping his thoughts could his insane grief overcome even that? He reached one of the Unions and simply ripped off a slab side of armour with the Hekaton siege claw and discharged his weapon into the vessel. The unholy deflagration caused by the powerful heat rays were visible jetting out from weak points on the ship that allowed it to penetrate.
But with less than a third of their mechs ready for battle, the assault was performing well over expectations, with the Highlanders seeming to prefer targeting the Armigers or Ostergaard's own mechs. Another Armiger was taken out by the combined effort of a Warhammer and two Catapults before they could cripple another Dekker unleashed the Lightning cannon he'd mounted on the Lazarus for this battle, the leaping arc rippling across the mechs the electrical discharge playing unholy havoc with everything they touched before Raju reached them and the Plasma Projector sprayed out a cloud of plasma directly into the back of the Warhammer before a backhand with the same fist crushed its right torso like a beercan at a frat party.
I missed having Miranda beside me. But then I was swept up in the chaos of battle once more, a Grasshopper and two Trebuchets emerging from the only Dropship that had yet to sustain damage and I knew, in an instant, the Grasshopper was piloted by the man in charge of the battle here.
He turned towards me and signalled, the Trebuchet's firing a volley of missiles at me.
But it was too late. The Volcano Lance discharged and his torso disappeared. The Plasma decimator fired next, the incandescent blue blast detonating against one of the Trebuchet's cockpits knocking the other over like a six year old between a fat man and the dip at a party. With it, the battle in truth was over as the Union broadcast its surrender as loudly as possible and the remaining Highlanders cast down their weapons or powered down while broadcasting their own surrenders.
I wanted to finish them off. But propriety demanded reason and a peaceful end.
"Power down everything. And gather in the centre of the camp. Anyone found to have so much as a pocket knife they forgot to declare will be summarily executed on the spot." I declared over the channels and through speakers.
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The Highlander leader sat down in a Camp chair as his medics treated the severe burns he'd received as his cockpit had launched off the ruin of his mech. "Look," his thick scottish accent belied his name, "We were hired to do a job, yes we work for the Capellan Confederation, but that's all i'm obliged to tell you under..."
"Under the Mercenary Review Board treatises on inter-mercenary combat?" I said as I stood holding something I didn't even like to be near, let alone holding it. "Like the fact what you did here is regarded as a War Crime under virtually all civilized powers?" I nodded and one of his men was brought up, a man who'd had to be beaten to compel his surrender. "You know this man?"
"My brother!" Timothy said jumping to his feet, or at least as far as being cuffed to the ground would permit, "I thought he was dead."
"No, but the pilot of the other Trebuchet is," I said plainly looking at the second man, "do you remember the machine that ripped a piece out of a dropship and... deflagrated... the interior?"
Timothy looked instinctively towards the mech that Ostergaard had been piloting. I didn't let him know it was Ostergaard who commanded it. They had worked together to try and bring me down, there was no reason for that betrayal to be revealed. "I don't know what nightmare weapon that is.."
"It's called a Volkite Chieorovile. It is one of our most terrible devices, I don't like them, I don't like being near them. They were one of the few weapons I have that were not originally developed by my Uncle, but by one of his enemies, nobody ever said which, the man was executed for crimes against humanity, unfortunately the weapon was too effective to be buried and forgotten."
I held up the pistol in my hand. "This is a Volkite Serpenta." I powered on the weapon and its coils began to glow that evil orange glow. "It is as you likely guessed, a smaller version of the Chieorovile. And if I don't get the answers I need, I will shoot your brother with it. So I am afraid, you are going to talk or witness your brother discovering his new career as a roman candle."
The man looked into my eyes and then at the pistol. "And if you do that, then you have no bargaining power left."
I cocked my head. "Incorrect. We have seventy five more bargaining chips. Oh I give you, you might care less about them than you do your brother, but can you honestly say that resolve will remain after the tenth, fifteenth, twentieth?" I said casually turning my back on him while my troops kept their own weapons on him.
"I am not a naturally cruel man. I hate this weapon. But I have gotten tired of this game of cat and mouse with some mysterious enemy in the Capellan Confederation. In all honesty. I only have one question of you that you haven't already answered. Who hired you."
I turned back to find him staring at his brother, restrained now against a sturdy post. "Romano Liao."
Fuck. Of all the enemies in the Capellan Confederation to make, it was goddamned mad marge herself. She may not be in charge of the Cappies yet, but gods help her enemies when she did ascend to the role. I knew I was going to make enemies of the Capellans but upsetting her this soon was well outside of my planned parameters and I almost shot the mans brother simply to get that out of my system. Instead I shut down the pistol and carefully put it in its case.
"Well fuck." I ended up saying instead of shooting someone.
"Welcome to the Aurigan Coalition. You are all now prisoners of Lady Arano, to be tried for crimes against the Aurigan people or until the Lady decides otherwise. Your property is now considered lawful salvage of the Raven Guard and will be taken into our possession." I said following the script I had given myself.
A cold fire ran through my veins.
When Romano learned of the defeat of her paid help either she was going to pay for a lot larger group. Or press Maxmilian Liao himself to get involved in matters. Instead I opened up comms. "Love, tell Lady Arano that Weldry is secure once more and she can begin relief efforts. But our timetable has been moved up. I give it several weeks before Romano Liao puts the thumbscrews to find out why her paid thugs haven't reported in and pushes for daddy to make a more significant involvement."
"Romano, the crazy Liao?"
"The one and only." For now. Her daughter would be just as bad, if not worse.
"What do you want me to suggest." Miranda's voice was calm and I knew she was composing the message already.
"We assault Tyrlon in two weeks. And we put an end to them once and for all at Coromodir in six." I moved away from the interrogation as the Telemon class walked up next to me. Raju had been listening to the conversation naturally.
<"A risky course of action. Victoria and Santiago are going to be expecting an assault sooner than later, their defences have proven inadequate on every front. But I feel that we've not seen the best they can bring to bear."> He said with the same sage wisdom he was known for. He paused, the massive mass of the Dreadnought coming to a halt. <"Don't trust all you've faced so far. They are going to have something up their sleeves. They framed you with a superheavy mech of some sort."> He finished off.
I paused as the realisation hit. Raju was right. It was the presence of a superheavy mech that had convinced the Taurians based on what they'd heard about us.
The Espinosa's had something big hidden behind the curtain.
And I had no idea what it was.