NationStates Jolt Archive

Sometimes, the best way to fix something was to break it up and use the pieces to build it better.

(Warning: This narrative may be unsuitable for those of innocent disposition. Further, the ‘psi-wank’ will be layered on pretty heavy. For those not in the know, this narrative is about what happens to ‘Betty,’ an Allanean pulled off Death Row and exiled to Revenia.

Dysaryn Stark smiled as he lifted the limp form of his new captive former Allanean from the stasis unit she had rested in since leaving that country. She was a slender wisp of a thing, and her mind, even in sleep, was so wrong as to be painful to be near.

Dysaryn gritted his teeth, and carried her over to the large, bare, frigid-cold stone slab that was the centerpiece of a raised platform in the center of one of the branch-caves of the cavern-complex beneath Castle Mortis.

He lay her down upon that slab, arranging her so that she was spread-eagle upon it. Manacles around wrists and ankles would keep her more or less that position.

At this point, four individuals would join him in the room. The first was a tall man with raven-black hair and an aristocratic demeanor. He wore the gray flame-retardant robes of an Inquisitor, and he was, without a doubt, one of the most –frightening- individuals one could possibly lay eyes upon.

The second man was completely concealed by his hooded robe, only a pair of silver eyes staring out from the depths of a shadowed hood.

The third man had silver hair shot with gray, wore a starched and ironed shirt and dress slacks beneath a lab coat, and leaned heavily on a cane. He had the look about him of a practical intellectual. A genius of a scientist who was still a master of application.

The fourth and final man was the shortest of the lot, with curly brown hair and hazel eyes short with silver. His step was perfectly silent, not the practiced silence of Dysaryn’s step, but a perfect silence. Because he wasn’t really there.

In order, the four men were: Kral De’Valoran, Lord Inquisitor of the Cascadian Inquisiton; Xan the Infernal, War Mage and Knight-Commander of the PsiKnights; Vysarian Stark, Chief of Research at RevTek; and Ian Stark, the Philosopher King himself.

They took up position in accordance to necessity, Ian and Kral at the girl’s head, Dysaryn and Xan on either side of her torso, Vysarian at her legs. The five men nodded to each other, and a knife flickered into Dysaryn’s hand. He cut clear her clothing…and they set to work.

Kral De’Valoran was the most powerful specialist telepath in the Supremacy. Ian Stark was a close second. Then came Xan and Dys; in that order, Kral, then three War Mages, then the next guy, whoever that was.

So, naturally, it was job to re-order her brain. He nodded slowly, and began the gentle but unstoppable push that would punch a whole in her defenses. And once that hole was made, Ian was there, holding it firm. Kral rushed through the hole, and he was inside.

Then, he set to work. He was as a surgeon with his scalpel, slicing away the bad to save what little good remained. He ended up killing almost her entire personality, wiping almost all of her memory…but that had been expected, and planned for. It wasn’t long before he was done clearing away the bad, and then it was time to pull out and take a break.

He left her mind, and Ian let the hole go, her defenses snapped closed…but the break remained, easier to exploit, next time.

Dysaryn was working now, keeping her alive. He was the single most talented Vitakinetic to ever draw breath within the Supremacy. Nobody was sure how he did it, suffice to say that he did. At the moment, the girl was incapable of living by herself. So he did it for her.

Then, Vysarian and Xan went to work. Vysarian flicked out his scalpel, the blade was blue-tinted Eldensteel, the edge slice-wire. Vysarian had the unique advantage of not having to worry about killing his patient. Not with Dysaryn keeping he alive. So his cuts were exact, deep, to the point.

The process was gradual. Start at the feet, work the way up. He would lay bare a section of her body with his scalpel, then Xan would set to work with his unique brand of improvements, then Vysarian would perform what cybernetic augmentation as necessary.

Dysaryn would close that section up, and Vysarian would move on. Skipping the gruesome details, by the time Vysarian was done, the girl had a more extensive set of cybernetics then a Devilrunner, was in every way except birth a Halfling Ascended, had all the natural speed and strength of a Seraph, the muscle memory of a Sovereign Protector, and the outward appearance of a sixteen year old girl.

She’d age, of course. Right on up to eighteen. Then she’d stop. She was no longer human.

Then Kral re-entered her mind, and dumped the package that Ian and Dysaryn had written up. And suddenly she was a new person, with a whole lot of capability ‘n even more potential.

They pulled out, Dysaryn did a final once over, and proclaimed the girl to be complete. All that was lacking was a name.
The Warprince inclined his head in the direction of his Philosopher King.

Ian Stark pondered for a few moments, then, “Chella.” (Pronounced ‘Chay-a.’)

Dysaryn smiled down at the girl, resting his hand on her forehead as Kral removed the manacles.

She awoke with a start, to the wonderful sight of her Warprince smiling down at her. She could not imagine a better way to start the day. The haze of sleep fled her, and she was suddenly very aware that she was naked in the presence of her Warprince.

The other individuals in the room didn’t particularly matter to her, save Ian Stark. He was, in his own way, just as important as the shining star that was Dysaryn Stark. She thought she would explode with joy when Dysaryn wrapped her in his cloak and carried her from the cavern.

He carried her away to His place. Carried her way to her knew life. It was sufficient.

It would have to be.

(tag'd)

(OOC: This isn't particularly related to Chella, in and of itself. But I'll get back to her in a bit. This just seems like a nice place to put up this little bit of nicety on Northfell and the Ascended in general, and Dysaryn in particular.)

Dysaryn smiled. Yes, it was –that- smile, that god-damned predatory bone-chilling ever-so-supremely confident, all-too-god-damned lethal smile. It just wasn’t fair. Nobody should be able to put so much meaning into a simple smile.

But then again, was that so surprising? That Dysaryn Stark could do things that should be impossible…no, no that wasn’t surprising. Not in the least.

He stood atop Citadel Celestian’s central tower, the aptly named ‘Warprince’s Sanctum.’ That tower was his home, and it did offer a superb view of Northfell’s beautiful equatorial belt. It was a narrow band of perfect on a world as harsh as any that Dysaryn had ever found in any of his many Wanderings.

His black cape and silver hair were toys to the whim of the wind, as usual. He did not notice.

Piercing quicksilver eyes swept across the gently rolling landscape, taking in the absolute beauty of it. Unmarred by civilization, because what kind of urbanite would want to live on –Northfell?-

There was only on city on Northfell, that being the walled city of Fhellantir, which was less a city, and more a compound. Otherwise, Northfell was populated in scattered enclaves, Noble Holdings, military bases, so forth.

So, Dysaryn had his unmarred beauty, Adrian had his deadly sands, and they all had their seemingly endless snowy wasteland. Hellish planet, and yet…it had given birth to one of the greatest civilizations ever to grace this galaxy.

Because Chaos had chosen this planet for its children, not to nurture and succor them, but to harden them, to force them to constantly improve. They had. The Ascended had not been the strongest, not the faster, the smartest, or the most powerful in ‘magical’ matters. They had merely been, perhaps, the optimum combination of those factors.

Yet even then, they had fallen. Oh, truth, they had survived and prospered for billions of years, undoubtedly. Yet, they had fallen. Nobody was quite sure exactly how they had fallen, save, perhaps, Ian Stark himself. Dysaryn wasn’t about to ask; he didn’t want to know.

Suffice to say that the Ascended had indeed fallen. A scattered handful had survived…Dysaryn’s father, grandfather, mother, and brother among them. Ian Stark, perhaps the greatest Ascended War Mage to have ever lived…had not. However, one did not get rid of an individual like Ian that easily.

When his body died, his mind lived on as a being of pure psionic energy.

Dysaryn had been alive during the fall, but he had been a babe in arms. He had reached his majority post fall, claimed his sword and the station of Changer…eighteen years minus one month too late.

Hadn’t been his fault, but it was his failure nonetheless. It was his greatest failure. He had been born too late to save his people, for the first eighteen years of his life, the Ascended had been without their Changer. They had had no hero. The enemy had seen this, and had acted, and the results, as they say, were history.

Oh, aye, Dysaryn had hunted that enemy, hunted and killed him. Because it didn’t matter who or what you were, the Blood Red Blade would kill you regardless. Everything changed; everything save Change itself.

One man; about six foot three, maybe one hundred eighty five s.pounds; silver hair and silver eyes. He wore a tight black shirt under a loose black jacket, black pants and black boots. He wore a black cape and one black gauntlet on his left hand. Upon his brow, there lay a circlet of silver, and he had one silver ring in his left ear.

Hanging from his right hip was a Warblade of Ascended pattern, three and a half feet of Eldensteel with a foot of hilt, a crossguard, and a single large gem set in the pommel. In this case, that gem was a fat ruby that twinkled as if it was alive.

On his left hip he wore a two-foot short sword, a swordcatcher, as was traditional. On one side of the swordcatcher’s foot and a half blade, there were a number of deep, reinforced serrations, designed to catch an opponent’s blade. Then, with a deft and forceful wrench, snap that blade in half.

In that man, that beautiful, dangerous man…one would find Change. Dysaryn Stark, Lord Changer of the Ascended.

And though he was a man of power, a man above men, aye, a ‘superior being,’ even…he bowed his head, and he prayed. He prayed to a god of men, a god that his church would call ‘The Pancreator,’ and that many would he assume he called ‘Chaos.’ That assumption was incorrect, for he was Chaos in its earthly form, and yet, though he was powerful beyond imagination, he prayed.

For though some might call him a god, he was not. He was a Man, and he prayed to a God of Men, and if that God heard him, he neither knew nor cared. For in the act of his praying, he submitted to God as he could submit to no Man. He prayed because God cared not who prayed to him. God did not care if you were Ascended, human, Veliki, Elf, Imp, Sevle, or Chaoskin. It did not matter to God, because all were equal in his eyes.

Dysaryn needed that. That knowledge that he was no more or less than anybody else, in at least that one aspect, it was as vital to him as the air he breathed, the food he ate, the water he drank…because though he may live life with sword in hand, though he may have found definition as the best swordsman in his realm, though he was the figure at the head of the military that he had built, in the end, he was still the Changer.

The Changer need not have been a physically powerful man or woman. Being The Changer had nothing to do with anything material. It was not some aberrant recessive gene or strange mutation. There was no ‘scientific explanation’ for it. It just was.

And though Dysaryn was this individual, the embodiment of Chaos and Change, though he could do things that defied imagination, though there were effectively no limits upon what he could or could not do, through his prayer, he was a man.

(OOC: We'll get to the point where interested individuals can get in on this soon, maybe next post even. Until then...sit back and enjoy the story)

IC:

Six months among her new father's people had put new muscle on her body, and six months of Cook's cooking had returned her to something that one could see when she stood sideways. Right now, she was engaged in what she was often engaged in...sword drills.

She ws not yet old enough to have her own Warblade, so the sabre she used was of the type normally used by Fhellant'im dancers. It was quite a bit lighter and smaller than her Warblade would be, but it was the best she could get...and it was quite good.

She spun about, the sabre whistling through the air as she worked...her implanted muscle memories served her well in all aspects, so all she had to do was learn the tactics of swordfighting...and she was doing pretty good.

But then her father stepped into the ring, his silver-blonde hair bound back in a pony-tail, sans his usual cloak, with his sword at his side. He smiled at her..

"You are coming along wonderfully, Chella. Care to try a live opponent, now?"

She grinned a massive grin, "Of course, Father."

So, Dysaryn freed Heartsflame from its sheath, the great, powerful Warblade with its three and a half feet of crimson-tainted steel...the slice field that normally caused blood-red energy to crackle the length of the blade was disengaged...but the blade was still -plenty- lethal.

They faced off, and Chella would never know how, but the instant before she was going to move, her father had swept in. She reversed her blade to parry, and felt the shock of the strike vibrate up her arm...then she felt her father's off-hand clasp her shoulder and throw her to the ground.

He smiled down at her, as he took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

"Good, Chella. But watch both hands."

She nodded, and they faced off again. This time, she attacked first. Heartsflame interposed itself beautifully, and blade rang on blade. Dysaryn spun into a disengage, his blade blurring back to strike her own. They traded blows for a time, then she found that his blade did not interpose one of her strikes...and froze...

Heartsflame's tip hovered over her femoral artery. They laughed.

"You are turning out very well, my daughter. Soon, you will leave elsewhere for further education..."

She smiled. Big.

Chella Stark held her APCP in a two-handed grip, her feet about shoulder-width apart. As she had been taught, she lost herself within the Front Sight...her entire universe narrowed down to the Front Sight...

She -saw- the target...but only as the background to the Front Sight...and then she fired...five shots in quick rapid succession. Her hand dropped to the recall switch, and the target moved towards her on its tracks, and she served the shot group.

"Not bad."

The words and the voice didn't surprise her much, anymore. The old saw about "Expect the unexpected" was especially true around here, especially with her Father...

Because, "He -was- the Unexpected, Bitch."

She tilted her head back... like her Father, she was extremely flexible...'twas a Stark Thing.

He smiled an kissed her forehead.

"Sev just wrote me back, the shuttle to The Temple will be here in an hour."

She hugged him, then. RASP training, it had been her goal for so long...

At seventeen, she would be, by far, the youngest RASP operator ever...but she would still be a RASP operator, and that was all that mattered, in the end. Because she had been there to hear her father twisting and turning in his sleep, seen the way he awoke soaked in sweat, with his hair sticking to his forehead...

His dreams must be hell, she thought. The universe was a bitch. Destiny was worse. Nobody should ever have to bear the burden her father did...but he did it, because he was probably the only one who could, and damn the side-effects on himself.

Because he couldn't exactly take a vacation, now could he?

Chella couldn't take away his pain, but she could be his daughter...and soon, she could fight for him, and maybe that would help...maybe.

(OOC)
RASP Mission Readout – Support 516
Operative: Fatal Shade
-Operative Statistics-
Name: Jerrin Crane
Rank: Colonel
Height: 6’1”
Weight: 165 s.pounds
Hair: Dark Brown
Eyes: Silver-blue
Specialty: Deep Infiltration
Fighting Style: Two-Weapon CQB
Weapons of Choice: RevTek APSP and Eldensteel Fighting Knife “Frostviper.”
(End OOC)

---

Demonstrations were a vital part of the RASP training. Students would sit for hours observing RASP Operators in real-time: viewing the action from remote cameras, cameras mounted on the helmets of the opposing force, and cameras on the Operators themselves.

This was the Revenian style. Every individual in the program wanted to be there, thus nobody slacked off, and full attention was paid to the movements, decisions, and methods of each Operator.

Today, that Operator was a man by the name of Jerrin Crane…

The mission was in support of a ground force push into enemy-held territory. The objective was the destruction of a surface-to-air missile site that would have effectively given the enemy sole control of the skies in the pass where the push would occur.

The Operator would be inserted by combat glider close to the installation, infiltrate it, and take it out…enemy presence on the site was heavy, sufficient to prevent its seizure by regular forces, however, intelligence believed that a solo infiltrator might be able to get inside and take out the site…
---
Jerrin rose from his crouch, APSP held in his right hand, knife in the left. Gone was the handsome, respectable noble that was his public appearance, replaced by what appeared to be a doppelganger.

Except that the reverse was true. The noble known as Jerrin Crane was a mask worn by the operative who went by the codename ‘Fatal Shade.’

Now, with the trappings of high society replaced by shadowsilk fatigues and combat harness, sweat-matted dark brown hair tamed by a bandana of darkest green, face smeared with camouflage paint, and Lord Crane’s lifeless Warblade replaced by Fatal Shade’s pistol and dagger…

Now was when the man named Crane died, but the individual named Jerrin lived…as Fatal Shade.
---
Shade’s advance was slow and measured, silver-blue eyes flickering about, scanning for trouble within the range of sight. However, Shade’s true tool of detection was his hearing. As the eyes swept the visual, the ears probed out ahead, listening for footsteps, giving Shade a precise idea of what lay before him, even if he couldn’t necessarily see it.

Something triggered an alarm. His brain had yet to process to the point where he could know –what- that something was, but the fact that it existed was sufficient to send his body into motion. Powerful leg muscles uncoiled, propelling him silently forward and to the side where he flattened himself against a tree.

His fighting knife flicked around in his hand, no longer situated for thrusting but ideal for more clandestine purposes. This entire action was a response to incomplete data, and as his brain identified the trigger-sound, the unbelievable reflexes of Fatal Shade were again shown to be invaluable.

However, with the data fully analyzed, Shade decided to take a bit of a risk. He moved.
---
(New Viewpoint: OpFor Sentry.)
---
The Sentry was on alert. Intelligence said that the Revenians might be aiming for a push through the valley that the SAM site overlooked. Thus, intelligence warned that a strike on the SAM site was definitely possible, given that it would have almost guaranteed that the Revenians would have lost air superiority over the valley.

But aware of a possibility wasn’t the same thing as knowing that it was happening.

Anyways, the sentry was swiftly approaching a turn in the winding trail that followed a stream up to the SAM site. The stream had cut a path through the mountains themselves, thus, the path was bordered on either side by sharp cliffs.

Well aware of the possibility of hostile wildlife (after all, if the Revenians –did- attack, it certainly wouldn’t be through –his- sector,) the sentry rounded the corner with his assault rifle at the ready.

He might have been ready for bears or mountain lions, sure. Not ready for Fatal Shade.

The first indicator of the presence of another sentient was when he was grabbed from behind. Before his brain could even finish analyzing the information so that he could begin to respond, a blacked knife was pressed tight against his carotid artery and a strong hand clamped down over his mouth.
He tried to scream, but the sound was muffled by the gloved hand over his mouth. The sentry’s hand came up, instinctively reaching towards his comm unit; but the knife was faster. He felt a sharp pain, and then he never felt anything again.
---
(Viewpoint: Fatal Shade)
---
The very instant the sentry’s hand began to move, Shade’s brain began processing. It got so far as ‘movement’ and Shade’s reaction began. There was no conscious thought involved; it was simple cause and effect. Shade detected movement from the sentry, Shade’s reflexes reacted for him.

His knife-hand pressed in and pulled out, laying open the sentry’s carotid artery and esophagus at the same time. As he did this, the hand he had over the sentry’s mouth released, went to the back of the head, and in perfect coordination with the knee, pushed forward.

The sentry fell forward, life’s blood leaking out in a puddle. Shade was already moving.
---
There had been no further sentries on that approach. Shade lay prone behind a rock, baffled straight-optical binoculars pressed to his eyes. His analytical mind took in all information, and began to construct an annotated map. The moment of decision came, Shade collapsed the binoculars and slid them into their case, rose into a crouch, and began to move.

He was a perfect shadow, darting through cover in the dark, dark night. The shadowsilk jumpsuit he wore made him invisible to all forms of known sensors save for the Mk 1 Eyeball. That was the way almost every RASP infiltrator preferred it. The technology did exist to make oneself almost perfectly invisible to the naked eye, but it did little to hide the operative from technological means of detection.

Shade’s reasoning was thus: An infiltrator can use stealth and cover to actively hide from the naked eye. But there is little one can do to hide from all-seeing sensors. Thus Shade went without any technological invisibility doo-dads, operating instead as infiltrators had operated for centuries upon end. The art of not being seen.

His approach to the facility’s fence had been flawless, timed perfectly with the patterned visual sweep of the sentry in the watchtower that commanded the approach he had chosen. That sentry was an experienced one, a pattern of slow side-to-side movements of the head swept his assigned zone unerringly, but did so in a predictable pattern.

Shade’s final approach was taken at a dead run, though one could hardly tell. His footsteps weren’t ‘perfectly silent,’ but they did fit perfectly with what the guard expected to hear coming from the particular bit of ground that Shade existed upon in that particular instant of time.

The risky part fast approached, and there was no time to turn back…it went like this:
A few meters from the fence was a rock outcropping that was about two-thirds as tell as the facility’s fence. It was a sheer face on the front end, but slanted downwards at an angle towards the rear. Shade had calculated that if he approached that rock at a given speed and jumped, he would be able to clear the fence and make his entry.

It wasn’t proper infiltration, but Shade calculated that the sheer audacity of such an action would have ruled out the possibility of that particular method of entry from the minds of the sentries. It was unexpected. That alone was an almost priceless advantage.

Shade was an almost supernaturally fast individual, and as he hit the beginning of the incline that would lead to his ‘touch-off point,’ his body lowered slightly, his leg muscles coiling just a bit. Then as he reached the very top of the rock, they tightened and uncoiled explosively upwards and forwards.

He flew, arms coming in to grab his legs and pull himself into a ball as he passed over the fence with just the barest of margins, then appendages flung wide, legs positioned, and as he hit ground he didn’t let his momentum bleed down, instead he ‘ran it off.’

He didn’t slow down. The added ‘stealth’ of slower movements was less of a benefit than getting to the next ‘action point’ in his plan. Thus, he darted across the open-space before any of the sentries got to the point in their visual sweeps where it would have covered the ground he was moving through.

Timing was important in this plan, and like horse-born cavalry, right now Shade’s greatest weapon was his momentum. Thus far, the plan had worked perfectly. He would continue with it until a new factor came into play. Then it would be time to react…

His target was two-fold. The firing controls for the missiles and the missiles themselves. The missiles were easily dealt with, as they were kept constantly on their launch-racks. Right next to the bunker that contained the firing controls.

The bunker and missiles were situated on one end of the rectangular complex. Opposite this was a large building, contents of which were unknown. A watch tower was located at each corner of the rectangular fence, plus two on either side of the entrance gate which was located on one of the long sides of the rectangle. On the other side, at the exact mid-point of that side, a single watch-tower was located.

Shade had made his entrance over the short side, and he was currently moving at a rapid pace towards the bunker. He knew that the sentries in the watchtower monitored their zones with skill born of strict training-by-fear. But like automatons, they didn’t monitor anything –but- their assigned zone. Thus, unless somebody raised an alarm, Shade didn’t have to worry about them.

There would be one sentry patrolling the area that included the bunker and the missiles, and Shade had glimpsed a flash of blonde hair through one of the bunker’s observation windows. Thus, he knew that there was at least one sentient inside.
Otherwise, that half of the complex was deserted. It was late at night, and the intense guard presence during the day had been replaced with a single on-ground patroller, plus ‘ranging’ sentries outside the fence. This should have been sufficient, as at the first sign of anything strange, each sentry had a trained in reflex to hit the panic button on the radio. This set of the alarm inside the base and awoke the guards in their barracks.

Intelligence had been able to observe a drill. It had been less than a minute when the very last guard had emerged from his barracks. Some might not have been fully dressed in their uniforms, but every single one of them had a radio and an assault rifle.

The system was really quite good, because very few people would have been able to get past both the ranging sentries and the superbly alert sentries in the watchtowers. Further, the easier approaches were on the opposite side of the complex, where there were at least four sentries located inside the complex’s perimeter.

The risk Shade had run had been –far- outweighed by the benefits of an unexpected entry. Now, getting out…

But that was a matter for later.

He flattened himself against the side of the bunker, his superb hearing feeding information to his brain…

Patrolling sentry was off on the side of the complex opposite the bunker. The concrete of the bunker was thick enough to quiet out any sounds, but there was an observation slit less than a meter away from Shade’s head. Easy.

He heard a whirring sound which his brain tagged first as the sound of a machine, then further as the cooling fan of a computer. His brain also isolated another sound, tagging it first as ‘breathing,’ then upon further analysis, refined to ‘human breathing.’ Finally, he was made aware of a higher pitch to the inhalation-exhalation cycle, and refined the tag further.

Then the package was neatly gift-wrapped and forwarded to the decision making section. He now knew that there was only one breathing life-form inside the bunker, to his knowledge. Further, he knew that it was a human female. Also, he knew that there was an active computer.

He inched closer to the observation slit and let his left hand rise up to run parallel beneath the slit. His thumb bent back just a bit, and a bit of optical cable extended from the thumb of his glove. His right hand brought the eye-piece to his left eye, and the information was updated.

Attractive female, blonde hair, early twenties; accessing a computer; wearing a distinctive uniform that he’d never seen before, but the shoulder-patch was recognizable as belonging to an elite branch of the enemy’s special military services.
The door Shade had chosen as his access point wasn’t in her field of vision, and even if it had been she was intently studying the computer monitor before her. She carried a pistol in a flap-holster on her right hip, and her rank pips marked her as a captain. ID tags were out of Shade’s line of sight, but it didn’t matter…his decision was made.

This was what they called a ‘target of opportunity,’ and Shade almost immediately incorporated seizing that opportunity into his plan of action.

Thus, he left his weapons holster for the coming action and inched towards the door, noted that the door was hinged on the side opposite him and opened inwards, (which was a mixed blessing. It would allow easy entry for Shade, but it also didn’t provide him any cover as he opened it, which was the idea.)

His left hand snaked out and pushed the door open. The well-greased hinges were silent, and Shade would have smiled had he not already been moving. He didn’t pivot and shoot, as he would have normally, but instead jumped slightly, pivoted in the air, and stepped into as fast a forward motion as he could manage.

He was within striking distance of the female within five seconds of the door opening, she was just beginning to fiddle with the flap on her holster when a powerful arm shot beneath her left arm-pit and the hand grasped her right sight. She was lifted straight up out of the chair she was sitting in, and the scream that was her first reaction simply couldn’t escape past the powerful gloved hand clamped down over her mouth.

She was off-balance, and thus easily propelled forwards into the wall, the arm around her lower torso simultaneous slamming in on her diaphragm, using the shock of the impact of the wall, rather than absorbing it. The maneuver worked beautifully, having the same effect as a punch to the gut.

That gave Shade the time to retract his left arm from around her stomach. Then, his left hand would dart up to her neck, flick backwards, tighten around the injector loaded with tranquilizer that shot from the spring-loaded wrist sheath, and press the injector firmly to her neck.

The only indication of the injector’s action was a slight hiss, then the woman went limp in his arms as the tranquilizer knocked her out for the next hour. He gently lowered her to the floor and prepared to initiate the second stage of his plan.

He left the way he came in, shutting the door as he did so. Then, crossing along the remaining side of the bunker, he brought the missiles into view. He dropped into a crouch and brought his pistol up, not the APSP from his quick-draw holster but the small dart shooter from the holster on his right ankle.

The dart shooter tracked perfectly, the barrel rising up and moving smoothly to intersect with a perfect line that terminated in the neck of the patrolling sentry. Shade squeezed the trigger and the little dart shooter fired with a quiet ‘pfff.’ The dart sped unerringly to find its home within the neck of the sentry, and soon the patroller dropped limp to the ground.

Shade was already in motion, holstering the dart shooter as he moved, his hands were now filled with a pair of detpacks each. He ran right between the four launchers, each hand slapping outwards twice. The detpacks, already activated, adhered upon compact.

Shade peeled off and returned to his previous position, hugging the wall back to the bunker door. He slowed down a bit as he placed a total of six detpacks within the bunker. One for each wall, one directly on the firing console for the SAMs, and one at the exact centerpoint of the bunker’s roof.

He then scooped up the still unconscious female and darted free from the bunker, a time-limit was now superimposed onto his plan. Five minutes.

No fancy dramatic exits this time, but something almost as good. The fence about the complex was chain link: nothing fancy, but enough to keep out wild animals, and you certainly couldn’t just run through it.

But he had planned for a similar exit, and the knife he wore on his right shoulder came free into his hand. It crackled faintly as he triggered the slice field, but the increased chance of detection was a risk he’d have to run…

He barely even had to slow down. The broad slicing action he made before him severed sufficient links that his exit hole bent outwards of its own volition. He jumped through, killed the slice-field, sheathed the knife, and made full-speed for the same small mountain path he’d come in on.

The mission had been flawless up to this point, he hadn’t been detected at all. Still, his movements were coordinated to evade the established sweeps of the watchtower sentries, plus he made a point of remaining behind cover as much as possible.

It paid off: Shade made it to the path without incident, with a full three and a half minutes to spare, but he didn’t slow down…

The mountain path had terminated in a watchtower atop a cliff overlooking the valley. That watchtower had fallen casualty to a Revenian artillery round, and the cliff had been a perfect touch-down point for a high-altitude glider insertion. As it turned out, it was also an ideal point for a little boost to the primary extraction point.

He sped up, stealth entirely gone in favor of speed, and power legs sprang forward. Even carrying another person, Shade was still a fast, powerful man. Before he leapt, he transferred her to both arms instead of just one, carrying her against his chest. Then, as he leapt, his glider-pack unfolded into a combat glider.

With the weight he was carrying, even if he had been able to magically conjure a thermal, he probably wouldn’t have gotten enough altitude to glide very far. Thus, had he failed his mission, he’d have faced a grueling hike to the secondary extraction point. As it was, about thirty seconds after he jumped…

The detpacks went off. The missile warheads and fuel detonated simultaneously, destroying not only the bunker and the launchers but most of the rest of the complex as well. Two detpacks would have done the job just fine, one in the middle of the launcher cluster and one in the bunker, but in this case, collateral damage was desirable.

That explosion was the signal the Revenian forces had been waiting for. Fighters and Bombers scrambled and the armored units began rolling forward, covered by the armored infantry of the Fleet Marines. Most importantly though, one of the ultra-fast, ultra-stealthy slice-craft descended from orbit to the primary extraction point.

Shade almost beat it there. His legs buckled slightly as he touched ground, but he held. The glider retracted fully into its pack, and he jogged forward into the welcoming light of the slice-craft’s passenger compartment.
---
The screens faded to black, imagery replaced by words.

“Mission in support of Operation Vengeful Hammer. Further details classified. Mission reconstructed exactly as it occurred for the RASP Program.”

At that point, the lights would come up, one of the doors would creak open, and the RASP trainees would blink their eyes, first to adjust to the light, then at the two people who had entered with their teachers.

One was instantly recognizable as the female who had been removed from the bunker in the video, but it was easy to see that she was no actor. Further, she was distinctly not Revenian. In fact, she was the female who had been removed from the bunker by Jerrin Crane, Codename Fatal Shade. Not just in the video, but in reality…

The other individual drew a couple of frowns, a couple of gaping jaws, and a couple of smug looks. He appeared, at first glance, to be a poster-child for Halfling Ascended nobility. Then they noticed that the Warblade on the hanger at his right hip rested against a low-holstered RevTek APSP, and that the swordbreaker on the left was in fact a fighting knife.

Then they saw the eyes, and they knew that this perfect image of high society was the amazingly deadly individual they had watched in action mere moments before…

Colonel the Lord Jerrin Crane, RASP Operative, Codename Fatal Shade.

Jerrin Crane smiled as he looked over this year’s class of cadets. He saw a few faces that he recognized: Dysaryn’s adopted daughter, Kaelandar’s son…

Lot of potential.

“Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, my name’s Jerrin Crane, the lady with me is Lady Cassandra Fade. You probably already recognized her from the video you just watched. The story goes on from there, but I’ll leave that to her.”

He smiled at her fondly for a moment, and then continued on.

“You’ve all taken the standard oaths and so forth, and you know that this is a ‘once you’re in…’ program, so I’m not going to bother with that crap. I’m a RASP Operator. You just saw my alter ego in action. I’m here to talk to you about a number of things, foremost among them is the split life that most RASP Operators lead.”

“Effectively, I am two people. The man you see before you is a noble by the name of Jerrin Crane. He holds the rank of Colonel, as he is the on-paper CO of the First Northfell Light Rangers mercenary unit. There is also an individual by the name of Fatal Shade, who just so happens to live in the same body as Jerrin Crane.”

He smiled a bittersweet smile…

“The majority of RASP Operators live dual lives, not allowing their ‘professional’ work to contact their personal lives. Because Fatal Shade can do things that would turn Jerrin Crane’s stomach, and Jerrin Crane doesn’t have to live on a hair trigger like Shade does. You probably don’t understand what I’m talking about, but you will…”

He smiled, then waved his towards the beautiful woman standing to his left.

She smiled, then begin speaking. Her accent was fairly thick, it sounded –something- like an Earthly Russian accent. Pretty close, anyways.

“My name is Cassandra Fade. As you recently saw, I was taken, though I prefer the term ‘rescued,’ from my country by the man to my right. I used to be a Captain in the organization known as ‘Death’s Angels,’ within my country. We were a sort of intelligence agency, specializing in many of the same things that RASP Operators specialize in. Of course, we obviously could not even come close to the skill of a RASP Operator.”

She smiled fondly and Jerrin, “Especially such an impressive specimen as Fatal Shade. Regardless, after I was interrogated, my loyalty fully switched to Revenia. I entered the RASP program with the help of Jerrin here...and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Jerrin put an arm around Cassandra’s waist, as if to reassure her..

“If you were wondering, Cassie’s codename is ‘Full Fade.’’

It was at this point that his smile vanished. His eyes seemed to sharpen, and his arm around Cassandra’s waist seemed to tighten. It wasn’t there to reassure her, it was there to reassure him. Because the questions were always about Shade, and so they should be…and only Shade could answer them.

But Shade was always on a hair-trigger. One of the few people safe around Shade was Cassandra Fade, thus, she was his anchor.

“Most people want to know about my fighting style. It was developed by me, for the express purpose of allowing a seamless transition between mid-range and hand-to-hand combat. Obviously it isn’t of much use with a rifle, but that is what god created holsters for.”

“I carry multiple knives and pistols on my person when I enter into combat. I believe I used my APSP and dart-shooter plus my fighting knife and powerknife in that particular mission, but the point I’m trying to get across is the single most vital one you will ever learn.”

“Options. You have –got- to keep your options open. If you limit your options, you are limiting your ability to respond, and thus lessening your chance of completing a mission and getting out alive.”

The students pondered this, then nodded. Questions would not be asked at this point…because they had already been answered.

Shade continued on…

“You will each adopt or develop your own fighting style. Fade here fights with two pistols, I fight pistol and knife, Hawk (Dark Hawk: Severian Stark) fights with dual pistols, a knife, or a sniper rifle. Justicar (Torin De’Kallos) fights with a Warhammer or his own two hands, Reaper (Dysaryn Stark) normally fights sword-and-swordbreaker, but if he has to go stealthy, he fights pistol and knife, just like me. Every one of those individuals I just mentioned have found a method that works for them.”

He smiled a grim smile, “Before you leave the Temple, you too should have developed your own unique fighting style. So get on it.”

With that, the lesson was over. The students filed out to their bunks where they would think deep thoughts and awake with new resolve and perhaps a few new ideas…

Chella Stark was exhausted. She’d thought she was good, -known- she was good, that the advantage she had over her peers due to the cybernetic augmentation she bore would allow her to ‘breeze’ through RASP training…

She had never been more wrong in her life.

Even with all her augmentation, even with all her advantages, she wasn’t even able to finish out a training session in the Cavern. Admittedly, she outlasted most of her class, hell, she outlasted –all- of her class; save for him.

-He- was the last person she’d have expected to outlast her, because he looked even weaker and wispier than she did, like some sort of ghost. He was taller than she was, with the silver eyes of his Ascended blood, and the strangest hair she’d ever seen: silver with light-red highlights.

But god, he looked like he’d crack in half in a strong wind. Yet he was the only person in her class who was able to walk back to his bunk at the end of the day. It wasn’t fair, but it happened…

Worse, when the students had been required to introduce themselves and speak of their background and wishes and so forth…

“Hello, my name is Thomas Stark. My father is Kaelandar Stark, and my goal in life is to become a Bard. I play the harp and guitar, and I sing. I am here because my Uncle Sev asked me to come.”

Arrogant, yes, but it had proven true in the coming weeks that the boy with the silver-red hair had reason to be arrogant. She had hated him at first, hated him for upstaging her, hated him, though he was her cousin…

Then she had heard his music, late one night. She had heard many fine musicians before: Caspian Del’Riva’s flute, Fal-Tir’ath Neviros’ guitar…

But nothing had ever prepared her for the beauty of Thomas Stark’s harp. Then, he had begun to sing. His words sung softly to himself, and muffled further by the wall, and she could not make them out…but his voice penetrated. The harmonics, the sound, mingling with the beautiful melody drawn from the harp by long, lithe fingers…weaving a tapestry that near brought her to tears.

Hatred of an individual who could bring such beauty was impossible, at least in the case of one Chella Stark.

Yet, even that incapability couldn’t wipe out all negative feelings. She might not be able to hate the young bard, but she could still resent his physical abilities. Especially when they were obviously not his primary pursuit in life…

She felt that resentment strongly as she watched him effortlessly execute the flying acrobatics that were the norm within the Cavern. She had collapsed from fatigue thirty minutes ago, and as always, she would lay there until it was time for dinner, then sleep.

It didn’t matter to her that the rest of her class had collapsed before she had, and for possibly the thousandth time today, she wondered how the hell he did it.

So she watched him, ignoring the resentment and jealousy that he provoked in her. She watched him, and she noticed things that she had not noticed before. She noticed that he never actually stopped, and she learned one of his tricks.

Thomas Stark conserved momentum. He never touched ground if he could afford not to, instead preferring to touch off of the sides of the obstacles and forth scattered around the Cavern, or even the walls of the Cavern itself.

She watched, and she saw the way he angled his body to reduce airflow, and as she studied him closer, she saw that his wispy fragile thin-ness was something of an illusion, a trick given off by the clothing he wore.

She saw that his muscles were hard, the kind of hard that she saw on her father, muscles gained from a lifetime of hard, hard work.

Suddenly, she was startled from her observation and pondering by a deafening thundercrack, louder still since she had had her hearing focused in on Thomas…

Thomas!

Her eyes snapped to where he had been, touching off one of the high-poles, he was in mid-arc when he jerked violently back about four feet off course, and fell, as a bird hit by a blast of birdshot. She saw his body hit the hard rock floor and bounce, contorting as it did so, and she saw the splash of red…and her heart caught.

She screamed.

She heard footsteps about her, and she heard the rapid discharges of Severian Stark’s twin pistols, and she realized that something was incredibly wrong.

She heard the shouted curses of Sev Stark, saw out of the corner of her eye, Jerrin Crane advancing in the unique crouch of his, pistol and knife in hand. He spun and double-tapped somebody in the forehead…

But the few RASP Operatives who were armed and responding was insufficient to see to Thomas…so she lurched up onto one knee and took off in a low crouched-run. But when she arrived at the location she had –sworn- that he had fallen, he wasn’t there.

But a crusty red armored soldier who was –anything- but Revenia was, pointing some sort of rifle at her.

Well, the rifle had been, before a blurring knife sunk deep into the soldier’s back and jerked upwards and to the side, severing the spinal cord.
---
(Viewpoint: Thomas Stark)
---
Tom had been going through with his usual exercises when he heard the first shot, then felt a sharp pain in his side. The impact threw him full off course and he drifted downwards, almost impossibly slow.

He hit the ground hard, bounced, hit again…but on the second impact, he was responding, curled, rolled out of the worst of that impact, came up in a crouch. Hands went to his weapons, freeing his pistol and long fighting knife from holster and sheath respectively.

Admittedly, his APSP was loaded only with tranq darts, but the knife was fully effective, and took the grip of his APSP in his mouth for a moment as he removed a spool of slice-wire from a slot in his boot, notched one end into place, threaded the length of the single-edged monomolecular wire through the groove that ran around the cutting edge of his knife-blade, maneuvered the wire into the lock-point and snapped the spool free with a flick of the wrist.

He might not have his powerknife, but his Eldensteel fighting knife was almost as good…

He paused for a moment, exhaled, and the world sharpened. Thomas Stark had taken his leave…because Tom Stark might be a good enough fighter, but he didn’t have the reflexes needed for what Tom had automatically assumed was a real enemy invasion…

But the entity that Tom had been developing since before he even arrived at the Temple did. The entity Tom had named Spectre thrived in high-risk situations like this, and with fighting knife and pistol in hand, Spectre began to move.
---
He heard Chella’s scream, and long half-leaped strides taken at a low hunch took him into to an observation point, and information was gathered.

Enemy with assault rifle pointed at Chella, Enemy was facing almost directly away from Spectre’s position. His knife flicked about into a thrusting grip, and his pistol went into his teeth. He swung out of his position of cover and seemed to glide forward…

His right hand clamped down on the soldier’s shoulder as his left thrust forward. His now monomolecular-edged fighting knife sliced clean through the soldier’s armor, but the point of impact was slightly off center. Spectre pulled up and to the right, severing the spinal cord, then twisted the knife as he withdrew, simultaneous with a push from the right hand and a thrust forward from the knee.

The corpse fell face forward, Spectre removed his pistol from between his teeth and flicked the fighting knife about in his hands to remove the blood, the let it settle in a down-wards pointing grip. He looked down at Chella and kicked the soldier’s assault rifle away from her.

She looked at him questioningly, then nodded as she realized what he hadn’t had to think about: The good guys here were trained killers. It was entirely possible that some of them were associating the sound of the enemy assault rifle with the enemy itself. Thus, shooting with that particular weapon would probably have resulted in death from a perfectly accurate pistol shot…

Spectre slid a small pistol from his left boot and passed it to her. She knew the type of weapon from familiarization, but had never shot one. Nonetheless, she rested her thumb on the safety and let her index finger run parallel to the trigger-guard. Which was the universal sign for ‘Okay, I know what I’m doing. Let’s go kick some ass.’
---
(Viewpoint: Jerrin Crane.)
---
Jerrin Crane would have muttered about this being ‘utter bullshit and impossible,’ but Fatal Shade didn’t have time to think such deep philosophical thoughts. His focus was on the here and now, and right here and right now, his mission was to deal with the bastards in armor the color and texture of dried blood…

He spun about, a clanking footstep alerting him to the presence of a possible hostile. He caught a hint of dry-blood crimson, and his pistol rose to form a line that terminated in the forehead of the hostile. His index finger twitched twice, and two neat holes materialized, courtesy of a pair of osmium discarding sabot penetrator slugs

He came to ground behind a concrete obstacle and flicked up the Temple Push.

“Fatal Shade on push, request sitrep and preliminary analysis.”

The voice that came over his earbud was exactly who he figure’d it’d be, ‘Lisa,’ the Temple’s Directorate Liaison officer.

“Shade, Lisa responds. Preliminary statement indicates terrorist strike, probable ‘People’s Liberation Army’ links. Estimate of force is around company size. Armament is suit of SIBA equivalent plus e-mag 6mm assault rifle, 35 round magazine. No heavy weapons or high explosives.”

Shade nodded slowly, and then responded with “Fatal Shade off push.”

Company size would put the invading force between one hundred and two hundred hostiles. There were maybe ten full-trained RASP operatives currently within the Temple, plus Directorate security forces, but Shade couldn’t count on them being of any assistance.

He had to operate on the assumption that the enemy had already over-run the entirety of the Temple, save for the Cavern. Lisa would have already sent the distress signal, but he couldn’t count on reinforcements, either…and he only had two spare magazines for his APSP.

He peaked around the corner of the obstacle he was crouched behind, caught a glimpse of dry-blood crimson armor. His right hand flicked up –over- the obstacle and his APSP kicked twice. Range was sufficient that he couldn’t guarantee a headshot with off-hand shooting, which was what he was doing…

But two holes seemed to materialize in the torso plate of the terrorist, then the corpse began to fall. Good.

Shade darted away from behind the obstacle he had taken cover behind moments before somebody raked it with fire -- Shade was already rolling into cover behind a concrete climbing wall.

Even as he had been moving, his mind had taken the originator point of the assault rifle fire from his ears and marked it on his mental ‘map.’ He peeked out around the corner of the wall, saw a bit of crimson armor sticking up from behind a low obstacle, brought his pistol about to form a line terminating in that very bit of armor and fired once. The hostile fell fully behind cover, whether that was intentional on the part of the hostile, or due to the hostile’s transition from threat to corpse was beyond Shade’s control at this point.

He ducked back behind the climbing wall and exhaled...

---
(Viewpoint: Chella Stark)
---
Thomas was a machine. He seemed to possess the exact sort of combat instinct and reflexes that she had seen in Jerrin Crane’s demonstration the other day. That had surprised the hell out of her…she –knew- Jerrin Crane, he was one of her father’s closest friends.

He’d seemed nothing but a high-society dandy then, and when he’d come in to give a lecture, he’d seemed the same way…at first. Then he’d gotten that look in his eyes that Chella had seen in her father when he thought about military matters…

But Thomas wasn’t just surprising, he was –scaring- her. She had assumed that the ‘split personality’ thing would develop over time, not simply appear out of nowhere like that…but she knew what she was seeing in the boy she’d picked out on the first day of her training as being the least likely to make it through…

He had seemed so frail and innocent, especially with that lap harp of his slung over his shoulder…yet here he was, showing that not only did he possess more endurance than she did, but he was also a tad more skilled at actual killing…

She kept her pistol at the ready, covering Tom’s advance. He led with his pistol, knife in a downward pointing grip, kept close to the grip in a sort of modified ‘two-handed shooters grip,’ that merely included a knife. He didn’t seem quite comfortable with it, and she knew exactly why. The APSP he carried was loaded with tranquilizer darts, not solid shot ammo. Further, it was currently command locked to fire at subsonic speeds. That was just fine for target shooting and so forth, but it wouldn’t penetrate the full-body armor that the hostiles were wearing.

The weapon she held in her right hand was a dart-shooter, not even capable of shooting at higher velocities, but it –was- a weapon. She wished to god that she’d worn her weapons today, but she hadn’t thought she’d need them as the schedule indicated that the whole day would be spent doing ‘movement’ training in the Cavern.

Tom’s pistol bucked twice, but the darts bounced off his target’s armored neck-plate. He swore and made as if to charge, but Chella put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. She motioned with her hands, a wide circle followed by a stabbing motion, then a tick-tock motion, followed by a finger pointing at herself, then a pantomimed shooting action with the dart-shooter in her left hand.

Tom nodded in understanding, and crept off away from her. She crouched behind the concrete obstacle they had taken cover behind, then took a deep breath, popped her head out, and began to shoot…
---
(Viewpoint: Thomas Stark)
---
Speed was of the essence. The gunshot wound in his side hurt like a stone bitch, cutting into his thoughts. Couldn’t deal with that now, have to bind it later. He could only set his teeth and run faster.

He reached the point he had decided would be his ‘touch-off point,’ made a mid-air direction change, then darted behind a support for a high-platform. The hostile was maybe three meters away, and Spectre took his APSP between his teeth, shifting his fighting knife to his right hand.

He darted forward, reaching the hostile slightly slower than he normally would have been able to, but normally he hadn’t been exercising most of the day and suffering from a gunshot wound…

His left hand clamped down on the chin of the hostile’s helmet and twisted ruthlessly to the side. Meanwhile, his right hand shot forward, propelled in a curved arc by his uncoiling muscles. Then he retracted his hand swiftly, his fighting knife’s monomolecular edge opened up the hostile’s throat in a fountain of red, red blood…

His hands shot back and he kicked forwards, sending the armored body clanging to the floor, then he jumped right over it and made a wide circle back to Chella’s position. Upon his arrival there he removed the APSP from his mouth and holstered it, then shook his knife free of blood. He set the handle between his teeth and went to examine the wound.
It had been a grazing shot to his left lower torso. There was a lot of blood but no actual critical damage. His moans of pain were muffled by the knife handle he had clamped securely between his teeth, and then he went to work…

He pulled off his shirt and tore it into one long, thin strip. Then he began wrap the wound. The pain didn’t lessen but the bleeding did, somewhat. He spat his knife out into his left hand and prepared to consider his next movement…when the world began to spin.
---
(Viewpoint: Chella Stark)
---
She had completely forgotten about Tom’s wound: the black shirt he wore concealed the blood almost too well. But when he pulled off his shirt, she her jaw dropped. But there was little she could do to help him, so she busied herself standing a sort of guard…

She heard Tom begin to move and looked over at him, prepared to do whatever was necessary...but not prepared for when he began to waver. She cursed herself for not realizing that he had spent almost two full hours more in intensive exercise than she had, plus he had been losing a lot of blood from that wound…

She moved forward, catching him as he began to fall. She held him close to her, protectively. There was little she could do...she possessed the full Devilrunner augmentations, but not all the systems were active. In truth, she began to suspect that most of them weren’t active. She knew that the offensive systems weren’t active, but she had a hunch that the physical augmentations were restrained to merely increasing her strength and so forth to the point where she moved as if the heavy implants didn’t exist.

She was quick and stealthy, but not nearly enough to match what she had seen Tom do. She knew that she would eventually get there…she probably wouldn’t ever match him without augmentations, but she would be damned if she didn’t come close…

Yet that was all in the future, right now she could do little but hold Tom and pray that nobody discovered her…
---
(Viewpoint: Dysaryn Stark)
---
Dysaryn Stark was not a nice person when woken two hours before he wanted to get up. The verbal abuse he had been prepared to bestow upon the offending individual was cut short by a single statement…

“My Lord, the Temple is under attack.”

Very few people actually saw Dysaryn act to the full of his capability. He had then. Up and out of bed, to the closet that contained his ‘fightin’ clothes.’ He pulled on the loose but muffled pants and tight shirt. Gunbelt went into place, combat harness went into place, then the CF-weave jacket with its gear. Heartsflame went over the shoulder, gloves went on the hands. Boots on the feet, and finally the pair of blacked shooter’s glasses…

He was applying camouflage paint even as he ran out the door…

It hadn’t taken long for him to arrive at the Temple complex. It was a series of independently rotating space stations orbiting around one of Northfell’s outer planets. There were a number of craft that he didn’t recognize, but who apparently recognized his ships…because they opened fire.

But Dysaryn’s scratch flotilla was more than capable of taking a little fire. The return volley was sufficient to quiet any opposition, but Dysaryn wasn’t aware of this, as the assault shuttles had launched at the –exact- moment he had specified.
---
One thing Dysaryn had never expected to be doing was a forced boarding of the Temple. He didn’t know how these hostile forces had gotten onboard, but there was going to be a hell of a witch-hunt after this was over.

The airlock opened, responding to the command override codes of the Warprince of Revenia. Dysaryn was first through, leading with his pistol. He identified and shot two individuals in full-body armor the color of dried blood.

As much as it annoyed the rest of his Blood Guard, Dysaryn was a superb point-man. He possessed not only the necessary instincts, but he had been honing his technique since long before most of his guard had been born.

Still, he wasn’t about to lead the primary clearing operation. That would have been –stupid.- No, he was haring off on a totally different and much more personal angle. His daughter was on this bloody station…and if even one single hair on her head had been hurt…he let the oath hang. No time to consider the sorts of things he would do to avenge her.

Dysaryn took a full squad of his Blood-Guard straight to the Cavern. He had queried the schedule, which he possessed as a result of his being the Warprince and all, noted Chella was supposed to be in the Cavern at the time of the attack, and made his decision.

Other units of his Blood Guard aided Jennifer Rodriguez’ Twilight Seraphim in fighting a vicious corridor-by-corridor purge of the Temple complex. The sort of fighting that favored power-armored and highly trained individuals, which fit both the Guard and the Seraphim to a T.

But Dysaryn would leave that to them, they could handle it as well or better than he could have. His business here was personal...

His pistol bucked once, flicked to the side, bucked again: two of the armored invaders dropped to the ground with holes in their vision slits. Dysaryn had already passed them by. This sort of movement combat relied almost entirely on reflex, if you reacted faster than the other guy then you’d probably survive. Dysaryn trusted himself to react first, before his enemy reacted. He also trusted his first reaction to be one that prevented his enemy from reacting at all.

That didn’t change the cold hard fact that what Dysaryn was doing was certain suicide. You couldn’t beat the statistics forever, it was only a matter of time before he didn’t notice something or somebody was just a bit more prepared…

But for the moment it was working, and right now momentum was the greatest weapon Dysaryn could possibly have. He shot another invader between the eyes, then leapt straight up, spinning as he did so. His pistol intersected a line that terminated in the chest plate of the dark crimson armored individual making as if to shoot him in the back for all of an instant, but that instant was sufficient to send forth a single deadly slug…

He turned back towards the Cavern and continued his advance.

The Cavern was hell. He saw motionless corpses in dried-blood armor sprawled everywhere, and occasionally a blur of black and brown or dark-gray and silver as Jerrin or Sev moved from cover to cover.

He also saw a girl with brown hair holding a frail boy that had the most interesting hair. It was silver, but with a faint red highlight in certain areas; very strange.

Regardless, a few hand signals sent the ten Blood Guard following him fanning out to clear the Cavern…Dysaryn went straight for Chella, noting as he did that the boy in her arms was Tom, Kael’s son. Dysaryn’s nephew, Chella’s cousin.

He saw the even in the boy’s apparently unconscious state, he kept a grip on his knife, and a fine knife at that, practically identical to the knife in Dysaryn’s left hand, except Tom’s knife had the distinctive glitter to the edge that indicated he had fitted it with slice-wire.

Dysaryn sheathed his knife and pistol and began to move. He slid in behind the obstacle the pair had chosen as cover and his hands were already moving, catching Tom’s knife-hand and twisting the dart-shooter out of Chella’s hand. He moved closer so that they could see his face…

Then couldn’t move as Chella leapt on him.
---
(Viewpoint: Chella Stark)
---
She heard the movement before she saw it…in fact, she never saw it. She just reacted at the same time Tom did, her dart-pistol rising, finger finding the trigger…then the pistol was torn from her hands and a black-gloved hand clamped down on Tom’s wrist so hard he dropped his knife. It inverted and sunk hilt-deep into the cavern’s rock floor.

Then she looked…and recognized her father. Tom was forgotten in that moment and she slid out from under him, throwing her arms around her father, pressing her face into his powerful chest…and all the pent up emotion came out. Because she was safe now…

Thank the Pancreator it was over. It was finally, finally over.
---
(Viewpoint: Owen Stark)
---
Owen exhaled flicked his bolt rifle to safe. The last clearing squad had reported a clear sector. They had taken prisoners when they could, but from the two hundred fifty recorded enemy contacts, only ten had survived. The casualties in staff had been bad: sixty percent of the Temple’s support staff were casualties, a quarter of the casualties were dead.

By way of combat personnel, the Directorate security team had taken one hundred percent casualties but not a single RASP Operator had been injured. Out of the students, five of the twenty were injured, not a single one was killed. There had been ten students in the Cavern and ten in their rooms, those in the rooms had been saved by the five-cm iridium blast doors that locked into place upon triggering of the invasion alert.

The invasion action was considered to be amazing proof of the success of the RASP program, where five RASP Operators and ten students had kept the Cavern contested for two hours and accounted for a full sixty enemy dead.

Once the reinforcements arrived, Owen and Sister-Colonel Rodriguez had combined their forces, one squad of Blood Guard and one Company of Twilight Seraphim to each of the Temple’s ten independent stations. It had been thirty minutes after the last assault shuttle released their troops to the point that the last invader had been declared neutralized.

The ten prisoners would be disposed of in two groups, one half would go to Harm Coldfist and his Directorate, while the other half would be taken to Pyre, where they would be handed over to Kral De’Valoran and his Inquisition.

Dysaryn had planned this out carefully already, and Owen had a feeling he was already planning possibilities for a retaliatory strike on whoever was behind the attack. Owen felt a pang of sympathy for those poor bastards; he had fought beside Dysaryn Stark before Revenia had even existed, in the War of Reclamation and before even that.

He knew that if there was one sure-fire method of provoking the Warprince of Revenia, it was to not only strike at his countrymen and at his friends, but at his family. To make it personal, as it were. But Owen had a hunch, and he was the kind of man who listened to his hunches, that Dysaryn wouldn’t be after personally seeing to any retaliatory strikes…

Because there were others who deserved that honor ever so much more…

‘n because Dysaryn reserved a particular form of hatred for those who attacked his family that required that he not only respond, but do so in a way that sent a message. But that was in the future...now, Owen had other things to deal with, like seeing that the press didn’t horde any RASP Operators who would probably just now be calming down…

He signaled his first squad forward, and personally imposed his power-armored body in front of a blonde reported who was trying to penetrate to the group of survivors clustered in the cavern…