The Celestial Way

Chapter 9.3 - Clash of Ways

He awoke abruptly. The room was dark, save for the faint glow of the medical screens and the viewpanel. It was night outside. Something scraped at the edge of his hearing. He stared at the viewpanel. The stars shone brightly, yet the sky had a strange orange underglow.

Fire.

The lights flickered, and the viewpanel flashed with static. Airo sat upright in the healing pod. Something heavy lay on his legs. He peered in the darkness and realized it was Veralla. The dragonet had coiled upon herself, her pitch-black body looming at the other end of the pod like some floating void. Airo pulled his legs out from underneath her. She murmured sleepily, but didn't wake. He stood carefully. The weakness was gone; he was cured. He went to the corner, where the power armor hung on a frame, with his other gear placed in a small locker beside. He took his grid caster, donned the armor, clipped on his katana, and holstered the veronite blaster.

As soon as the armor's helmet enclosed his head, he whispered, "Cloud, status report!"

Something was very wrong, because the artificial cheer was absent from the SAI's voice. "Commander, the shrine-town is under another attack. Almost half the population is dead. I suggest you take yourself to safety immediately."

Airo rushed out of the room. He found he was inside a medical facility atop one of the cliffs. "How long ago?" he asked.

"Nine-point-three minutes since the first perimeter alarm. Eight-point-seven minutes since the first casualty," Yeoman Cloud reported. "Commander, most of Dragon Retreat's infrastructure is in critical condition. I advise immediate evacuation."

"Let me decide for myself," Airo growled. "Provide tacnet access!"

He ran outside the medical center. Immediately two lightwraiths emerged from the nearest cliff and charged him. He narrowly dodged one raking claw of the nearer apparition, and drew his katana. He made two quick cuts, destroying the lightwraiths, and paused to take stock of the situation.

Most of the lights around the shrine-town were uncharacteristically dark. Atop the mesa, the geodesic dome was burning in one giant inferno. The environmental shield was gone, and cold snow drifted inside the canyons. The air was devoid of screams or alarms, although rifle chatter and small explosions echoed sporadically in the distance. On the horizon, the energy pillar glimmered in the darkness, ever-present.

Airo ran down the cliffside toward the town's center. According to the tacnet, a large concentration of hostiles was in the area around the High Temple. Airo fri-skied downward, the katana raised high, and dove straight into a melee of lightwraiths. He swung madly left and right, disintegrating a dozen of the monsters. The lightwraiths howled and made to overwhelm him, but then stopped. Airo whirled around, seeking the source of this disturbance.

Then he saw something to the side, and froze in his tracks.

There, on a terrace in front of a lovely cliffside home, stood a single man. He wore a massive armor in crimson color, its chestplate emblazoned with a golden star. The man wore no helmet, yet he seemed unaffected by the fiercely cold air. His short, sun-blonde hair waved erratically in the sparse blizzard. He was looking down at a transhuman couple embraced in their death, and his deep green eyes were filled with remorse.

The man noticed Airo, and lifted his gaze. Suddenly, Airo's helmet retracted without warning. The cold bit savagely into him, yet he held steady, gripping the katana with both hands, and his armored gauntlets creaked. He and the man stood unmoving for what seemed an eternity, facing each other, while the horde of lightwraiths hovered around in wait.

"Airo," the man nodded.

"Ferrtau," he said. The blood-red anger that bubbled inside him rose to white-hot fury.