Stained Gold, Red Rising Fan Fiction

Red Rise Part 3

I nod. Even if this is the most elaborate trap ever laid, I have to try, my Reaper blood demands it. "You did good, Daughter. Shunt us your navData."

Five minutes later, after having studied the Gorgon positions around the planet, Covin 5, I activate my helmet and call up Herman au Telemanus of House Telemanus and Sevra au Barca of House Barca-Julii. Both stand on the decks of their Reaper-Class Super Dreadnaughts. "We've found the Heir. Are you with us?" I say simply.

Both Herman and Sevra start blathering at once, eyes wide.

I hold up a hand. "We haven't time for your excitement. Pandora is pinned on a planet under Gorgon attack. I'm gonna drop right into that planet's gravity well. The rest of you will keep us alive while we fetch her."

"Yes, Lord," both reply.

"Good. Astrid just shunted you the navData. We jump in ten. Sevra, you're in charge of the fleet. Pound them fucks mercilessly. Hit 'em with everything we've got. Nukes. Sonics. LaserPumps. GravSpikes. Countermeasures. Everything. I'll worry about replenishing the armories later."

"Yes, Lord."

I drop the connection and go fleet-wide. "Dear Stained brothers and sisters. Once again we find ourselves on the cusp of a Rain. Only this time we Reaper Legions fight for ourselves... Fight for that which we were created by the Reaper of Mars himself. Your Heir... Your Empress, Pandora au Lykos has been located. She is in distress and in need of our aid. Spin up your tunnelDrives, my friends, and slave your navSystems to Sevra au Barca's flagship, War Daddy. It's time to earn those Stains." I suck in a deep breath and bellow something I haven't bellowed in a long time: "Hail Reaper!"

"Hail Reaper!" echoes back across the cosmos as every Legionnaire of the Imperial Stained Fleet, the Empress's Own returns the salute. They may have lost their empire to a usurper, but now they have a chance at rescuing their long-lost Empress, and that was a brilliant bloodydamn start down the road to redemption.

                                                            * * *

I sit cocooned in my megaMech, tucked into a spitTube in the underbelly of Ragnar's Tears. Even after having fallen in over sixty Iron Rains, ice water still sloshes the insides of my belly, launching shivers up and down my spine.

"TunnelDrive spun up, my Lord," Astrid says, appearing in my heads-up display. "Also, Warlord Seven-Worlds wants to know why we haven't Rained. How should I respond?"

"Tell him to eat a fat dick. Then send Sevra the green light to jump."

Seconds later, reality spins and warps and distorts for a fraction of a second as our tunnelDrive bores a hole through the known fabric of the Universe to spit us out the other side, deep within Covin 5's gravity well. So deep in fact, that Ragnar's Tears creaks and grones in protest, but the old Reaper Class bitch holds together.

"Code Alpha... Code Alpha... Code Alpha..." blares from the ship's intercom system.

My eyes shift to my son and daughter on my heads-up display. Both sit nestled in their own megaMechs tucked into nearby spitTubes. Both display eager eyes. "Ready?" I ask.

They nod.

I go fleet-wide. "Let fall the Rain."

                                                                * * *

I stumble out of the fetid sewer pipe, covered in mud and muck, but alive. The glaring midday sun bites into my fully dilated eyes, forcing me to squint. I want so badly to plop down on the side of the duracrete drainage channel and ball my eyes out, but Momma had sacrificed her life for mine, so I bend low and sprint up the sloping duracrete embankment as a couple of wannabe snipers lob potshots in my direction. I find cover in some overgrown bushes populating the ass-end of a what looks to be an old boarded-up gravBus station. There I take stock of my situation.

In every direction, north, south, east, and west, explosions and gunfire rock the city. Greasy smoke rises in columns and outdated tracer rounds race up into the afternoon sky in an attempt to take out the modern rockets raining down from the heavens.

I have no idea what to do, and very few friends to ask for help or advice. As a matter of fact, I have only one friend on Covin 5. Oslo, my Obsidian sparring partner. So I suck up my tears and heartache, check the charge level on my pulseRifle, unfetter my razor, and set out on the three- or four-kilometer trek across the wartorn city that will drop me on Oslo's doorstep.

Along the way, I am shot several times, stabbed, almost gang-raped, and run down by a maniac in a mech suit, but never do I sense the Gorgon killers on my trail. At least not yet. The Gorgons are good. They've been hunting me and Mother for years. So I know they'll be back. But never have they hunted us in such force. I wonder what's changed?

My father was a Gorgon. And Momma had done something really bad to piss him off. That's all I know of our connection to the Gorgons. That and they've this scuzzy Scarred tracker named Zorzo who's obsessed with capturing us. Though, ironically, I now suspect there's much more to the story than Mother ever let on.

I kneel across the street from the walled Obsidian compound where Oslo and I used to spar (mostly using the Rumbling Rock razor style his kind favor), and scope the place out. His people are up-armored and have all manner of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weaponry mounted on the duracrete walls. If I step out now, armed the way I am, dripping blood from fifty different places, they'll surely shoot my ass dead. So, instead, I toss aside the now-dead pulseRifle, coil my razor, stand on wobbly legs, raise my hands, and stumble towards the heavy, battle-steel gates