"Sir more than 30,000 dead, one station and two ships disabled, sir I have never seen anything like it."
Adam stood in the penthouse of the spiral tower as six uniformed men and women surrounded his dining room table, none of them willing to sit, all of them on edge. Conn floated outside the far window leering at them through the tinted glass.
The uniforms of the Arcadia militia were sharp, black uniforms with high collars and waist high grey belts. The Arcadia crest was stitched as patches onto the left shoulder of every uniform, a black field with a diagonal green stripe going from upper left to bottom right with a closed fist and a laurel superimposed on top in white.
Stars marked their uniforms to symbolize rank, but besides that, there were no awards medals or commendations to set them apart.
Just to the side of them, King James of the Neo-Spartan's stood his body marked with lines of metal where his SE armor clung to muscle, and over that he wore his polished red and gold armor, standing in as a representative of his people, as he did own half the planet. He held his plumed Corinthian helmet under one arm his lips pulled into a thin line.
Just across from him, Dzara was standing in for her absent sister. Sunny was off world, coordinating a mass exodus of Drev clans from Anin, groups that were sympathetic to their cause. She was coordinating primarily with the northern Nakt clan, who had been off world for some time, but were returning to gather followers for what they saw as the coming: war to end all wars.
They weren't wrong
"Do you have the footage."
General Kimball shook his head grey hair flickering in the ambient white light which cascaded down on them from the branches of the blue and silver tree, "No, there is no footage. Whatever happened whipped out all the cameras on all the ships. There was only one coherent survivor, and she can't even articulate what she saw.
There was silence around the table.
"If it was just the station that exploded, than how did everyone else die."
More silence as general Kimball shifted on his feet, "Well, sir, about half of them died as a result of self-inflicted mutilation, the other half... well it wasn't self – inflicted."
A muttering went through the room, "Did.... They see it/"
"It seems so sir, that seems to be what caused the.... Madness."
Adam turned to look out the window, over the horizon of peaceful Arcadia, a city that was now only beginning to wake up. Orbs were slowly shifting from blue to white simulating a sunrise. Early birds were already up walking around I the quiet morning darkness, sitting in parks to enjoy the quiet before the rush of the day.
Little did they know what was going on.
News would hit soon enough, but right now, it was their spy satellites picking up on coded signals sent by the UNSC.
Too bad for them the Omen's frequencies were still coed to all their communications, and he was easily able to listen in, like a fly on the wall.
"If anyone had to be right why did it have to be Lovecraft."
Adam sighed deeply and rubbed his fingers into his temples. He wished Sunny was here, but there was nothing he could do about that now.
"Call everyone to their stations now, the entire armada, even the prototypes. Also, send a signal out to Lord Avex, let him know what is going on and order him to be ready,"
"Sir.... You aren't planning on going after it because if you are I am going to have to highly advise against it. Just looking at that thing caused at least thirty thousand people to go stark raving mad before eating each other, the last thing we need is for our people to do the same."
Adam shook his head, "We have to go after it, but you are right, we can't do it in a traditional way." He paused, "I have a plan, some people I would like to speak with before we do anything rash, but I need to see that sight."
The men and women nodded hurriedly, following him as he stepped into the other room loosely clustering in a small group.
He stepped behind a sliding patrician and waved his hand.
There was a soft whirring noise as the wall behind him slid open to reveal Fealty quietly resting and waiting for its next mission.
Adam was sure that this would be a long one.
Concealed behind the patrician, he stripped his casual clothes and donned the tight black body suit that would integrate him with the fealty armor, he could already feel it adhering to his skin, essentially becoming part of him as he stepped onto the armoring platform.
Robotic hands moved quickly to slot his armor into place. He stepped into the botos first and the machine armored him from there, moving onto the greaves, and the knee guards, and the thigh plates.
The chest plate was lowered down over his head before being locked into place.
Once everything was on there was a sharp hiss as all the components engaged and he was locked tight into the suit. A rumble and a whirr moved up his spine, and it suddenly seemed as if his body was larger. He could.... Sense the armor as if it was an extension of his body, feel the joints moving and rotating as if they were his own.
He grabbed the helmet and stepped out from the side of the patrician.
"Simon, NcCaster , get your cruisers and the battleships ready for launch, Kimball, I'm leaving your branch here to protect Arcadia and the people while we are gone, hold down the fort until Sunny gets back. Tell her I'm sorry, I know she will be mad she missed this fight."
Kimball nodded in salute.
Outside he could already hear the sound of sirens going off as the crews were called to their ships.
Adam followed along, taking the lift down and then running through underground tunnels towards the launch field . he burst out of the tunnels from a small stairway and into a skybridge just as the sun orbs had turned white. The morning commute had been disrupted by their call to arms and thousands of bodies were filtering towards the launch field.
Adam was able to take access corridors to avoid the bulk of the people, but when that was not possible the Fealty armor made him imposing enough that most people got out of the way.
Inside his helmet the Ai was gleefully tracking crowd patterns for him, mapping his best rout, and picking out faces of his own crew members from the crowd.
Somewhere along the way he met up with Maverick, finally over six feet tall in her hulking black armor with its blue highlights and shimmering blue visor. She was followed not moments later by the king of Sparta himself, who had lagged behind to return and grab his own SE armor painted in shades of gold, and with a red plume on the top of his helmet which was also made in a Corinthian style. In one hand he held an absolutely massive energy spear, and on his other arm, was attached a module for a pulse shield.
Despite all the gold, he somehow managed to look more imposing than gaudy.
SE soldiers were easy to pick out from the crowds, usually a good foot taller than everyone else, and with that distinctive whirring sound that accompanied SE projects. The suits were very expensive, and it took someone dedicated to war to put on the permanent SE augmentations necessary to wear the suits, so they weren't for everyone, but there were at least ten people he knew of who had chosen to put on the armor.
Maverick
King James of Sparta and his wife Xanthia.
And others.
Xanthia joined them shortly, and together they were such an imposing group that others in the hallway flattened themselves against the walls to allow them to pass.
They broke off when they made it to the launch field, each of them heading towards a cruiser. Xanthia with McCaster, James with Simon, and both Maverick and Adam for the omen, which was still the largest ship in the fleet.
Adam saw Krill off to one side saying farewell to the trio which he affectionately called, the grubs, handing them off to Riss who looked almost annoyed that he wasn't going too consoled by Dr Adric who patted him on the shoulder.
Many of their scientific crew was staying behind for this one, though they were keeping a ghost staff of scientists on board just in case anything went wrong, however, they weren't likely to need them.
This was going to be a military operation.
The likelihood of them requiring a geologist was pretty low.
Soldiers marched in tight columns onto the ships, tying down supplies and locking away weapons. As Adam and maverick made their way into the Omen's cargo hold, the mechanics were already doing a preliminary once over on the outside of the ship making sure everything was in place and ready to go.
Maverick headed off to find the other marines, and Adam made his way up to the bridge.
Sunny wasn't there to man the weapons station much to his chagrin, but emperor Avex had sent the next best thing.
Their backup weapons specialist was also the Celzex envoy: Lady Vox. She was an absolute spitfire, black hair shot through with streaks of color which made her stick out in comparison to other Celzex. Adam though that lord Avex might just be sweet on her, and looking at her, he was sure they would have many adorable babies, many of which she would subsequently eat with great prejudice.
She acknowledged him with a nod of her head, pig ears flopping forward slightly.
He nodded back and took his seat, running through his preflight checklist as the systems were booted up.
"Disabling Gravity field." Someone called.
"Launch in ten-"
Adam took control of the ship, Fealty humming with excitement as the suit integrated itself into the framework of the Omen. Adam had the sudden and unnerving experience of being able to sense the entirety of the omen and everything on it before his brain managed to separate itself forcing himself to keep his focus only on the weapons, which he could feel along the spine of the ship, and the pulsing of the warp and fusion cores, throbbing like second and third hearts inside his awareness.
Outside the gravity mats under the launch field were turned off reducing escape velocity to the point it was almost laughable. Three heavy cruisers took off all at once, surrounded by a swarm of battleships and scout vehicles, all swarming into the sky. As they moved into space, Adam ordered an attachment protocol and hundreds of ships flocked to surround the omen.
Anything without a proper warp core flocked to the three ships that did, attaching themselves to the outer hulls.
When that was done Adam made the call, "We are go for warp"
"Engaging warp."
Then the world shifted around them, sucked forward and then backward, stretched into impossible lengths before being squished inward. The world seemed to fold in on itself mirrored from above and below for an instant before they jerked to a halt. The internal dampeners inside his suit made the stop almost negligible for Adam.
Fealty hummed happily.
By Adam's orders they kept he forward windscreen covered, and used only their external monitoring equipment to make sure the surroundings were safe. Only then was the front windscreen dropped, allowing them to see outside.
The crew made an involuntary gasp.
As the carnage was laid out before them.
Thousands of miles of debris interspersed with small clouds of black particulate. Where once there had been a black void, there was nothing for thousands of light years, though they were now able to see past it and to the stars that had been hidden behind the black wall.
Behemoth was awake, and its resting place was abandoned.
"Do a sweep." Adam ordered, and together the ships fanned out in a search pattern, sending out detection's signals in a wide grid which optimized data collection.
"Sir, we're getting pinged by UNSC craft."
"Let them.:
Indeed he could see another UNSC cruiser lurking at the back of the cloud. There were many other smaller ships too, but most of them were scientific vessels. The other military vessels would be inbound, but it would take time for the bureaucracy to pull them from their original missions.
"Sir we are being hailed."
"Patch them through."
The face on the other end of the communication was familiar. A blue eyed silver fox of a man, who was annoyingly handsome for his advancing age.
Antony Laurelle and that must be his ship, The Avalon
"Admiral Lavelle, I hope you aren't announcing my arrest" The last person who tried that got his ship name changed from Vyechnost to Yimr."
The man tried to smile, but Adam could see the stress on his face, "No, no I'm not dumb enough to fight you. Nice fleet by the way, I see the private sector has been lucrative for you."
"That's one of the perks I suppose."
"I'll ask you once..... you're still on our side in all of this?"
"If you mean taking down Behemoth and the void, than damn straight I'm on your side weather you like it or not."
Lavelle nodded, "Good, than maybe you can help me figure out how to kill it."
Adam smiled grimly, "I know some people who might have an idea."