A Brotherhood of Crows.

“Damage report!” barked Pillion, as the shockwaves shook the Bridge.

“Reports of hull breaches on deck thirteen, sir,” replied Modaboah. “Teams patching up as we speak. It looks like their firing their artillery mortars at us at point blank range, sir!”

Pillion gritted his teeth. Cerberus had isolated the flagship of the fleet, and while the rest of his ships harried and wore down her support vessels, Pillion moved in for the kill. The Panther class battleship filling his view now had tried to ward Cerberus off with railgun fire, until Alpha Squadron had attacked her from the rear, distracting her gunners for enough time for Pillion to move his ship almost directly on top of the enemy. “Helm, bank us to port twenty degrees. We’ll let her feel our broadside,” he barked. Firing mortars at this range was a desperate move - those weapons were designed to bombard ground targets, often from thousands of feet above - but it was a clever one, enough to force the Cerberus to back off.

“Give me a sitrep,” he called down to the port crew pit, as Cerberus banked left.

“The Portsmouth and Ajax report that they have brought two Panthers,” replied a crew member at the combat station. “Adjudicator and the Huntsman are still engaged.”

“Casualty report?”

“Twelve dead after a kamikaze attack on the Albatross, sir, and Alpha Squadron is reporting a loss of one quarter of its pilots.”

“Severance casualties?”

“Four Panther class vessels destroyed, one crippled. At least five squadrons of fighters destroyed.”

A thin smile played over Pillion’s lips. He tapped at his combat computer and brought up the data Logistics had been able to mine from Gorcrow’s data drive. Four ships remaining; his current quarry, the flagship U.S.S Henry Kissinger. Captained by a Commander Josiah Preston, graduate of the Severance’s finest Military academy in Maine. For the briefest of moments, Pillion marvelled at the depth of the information; schematics of her guns, engineering reports from the present back to when she’d first left dry-dock, crew manifests, even cargo reports for the ship’s mess. But then a line in an engineering report leapt out at him like a flash of silver.

“Gunnery batteries, starboard, mark trajectory 33218. Confirm target?”

“Confirmed.”

“Fire on my mark. One shot.”

There was a pause. “One shot?” the gunnery officer said, uncertainly.

“Yes, Ensign,” said Pillion impatiently. He was aware of Modaboah, between snapping order to one of the crew pits, glancing at him suspiciously. He was aware, also, of the black form of Gorcrow, clapped in heavy irons and flanked by two marines and Jessups, “You have your orders. Fire.”

He turned back to his command console before the airman could object. He swept the screen and brought up a magnified image of the enemy ship’s forward cargo bay came into view. The convex cargo bay doors were sealed - she was launching her fighters from her tubes, same as his ship - and all that seemed apparent was featureless steel. As he watched, a single projectile from one of Cerberus’ heavy broadside railguns smashed into the cargo door.

“Sir, the Severance forces are rallying their ships.” Modaboah called over, “The fleet are requesting orders -”

“Ensign,” Pillion ignored her. “Same target. One shot.”

“Aye, sir,”

“Captain, the fleet -”

“Enough, Lieutenant. Fire.”

He was aware of other orders being shouted across the bridge; aware of Modaboah, unease in her eyes, aware most of all of the silent Crow’s gaze boring into him. Yet his attention was fixed on the cargo bay door as a single railgun blast struck it again, and caused a barely perceptible crack.

There.

“All batteries, same target, full yield. Fire now.”

“Aye, sir!”

Cerberus’s starboard cannons opened up in a blaze of white hot tracer rounds. For a moment they too seemed to spatter across the cargo bay doors. Then -

The entire midsection of USS Henry Kissinger buckled and then ruptured, as it torn apart by a wrathful giant. Great plumes of explosive fire pockmarked her outer armour as she quvered in the air, and then began to almost lethargically sick, burning, from the sky.

Pillion smiled a tight lipped smile, as a feeling of euphoria - not unlike one of his blues, a smart, snarky part of him noted - and glanced at Modaboah, who stood, open mouthed, as whoops and cheers filled the bridge.

“Sir, how -?”

Pillion swiped the screen on his command console. “Observe, Lieutenant. A passing memo to the captain, about a deficiency in the cargo doors. Their materials had been incorrectly assembled; the armour is convex, designed to ricochet multiple impacts. However, the ship’s engineering note a flaw, whereby a single shot might weaken the armour.” He smirked, “Grudgingly, I must offer our guest my thanks. A most valuable titbit.”

Gorcrow cocked his head in that animalistic manner. “Ha,” he croaked, dryly.

Pillion snorted dismissively. To Modaboah, he said, “Patch me through to all ships.”

“Aye sir,”

“Gentleman,” Pillion intoned, as his command console confirmed his link to the rest of the fleet, “We have brought down the enemy flagship. Our victory is imminent. I think it’s high time we mopped up the remains of these rebels and -”

There was a sudden, loud burst of static, so loud that everyone on the bridge winced. The feed went dead.

“Lieutenant, what the hell happened -?”

“Sir!” the gunnery officer cut him off. “Sir, you need to see this!”

Pillion stormed over to the gunnery station. “What is it?”

The ensign gestured at his console, his face a mask of confusion and fear. “I don’t know sir, I’m locked out! But all the guns are coming online, as are our torpedo launchers....”

“I didn’t give the order -”

“I know, sir, it wasn’t me! But,” the man had gone deathly pale, “Sir...whatever’s taken over the guns...it’s targeting our fleet, sir!”

Pillion felt his world turn to crimson. That calm, that control, that peace he had felt since the first shot had been fired, was fragmenting into white hot rage. “Get back control at once!” he thundered.

Something, some great unseen force, crashed in Cerberus, causing all aboard to stagger.

“What in God’s name was -?”

“Massive increase in wind speed, Captain,” Modoboah called back. She was clinging onto the side of the command console and the ship continued to shake. “Air pressure outside is dropping rapidly.”

That white hot rage began to turn to panic. In the back of his mind, the colours of the rainbow beckoned, but there was no time. Pillion hit his com unit, linking him to the science deck. “Hitchens!” he barked. “Hitchens, come in! God damn you, man!” he tried another channel: “Crucius! Crucius, answer me!”

Nothing. Around him, the bridge was filled with shouts and frantic cries and crew members tried to get the guns back under control, while Cerberus shuddered and quivered as if feverish. Pillion fumbled with his com unit hectically. “Logistics. What in Christ’s name is happening to my ship?”

“Sir -” the voice on the other end, “ - That device, the one with the intel, it seems to be hacking into the ship’s central computer, we can’t -”

The call cut out, but Pillion had heard enough. He rounded on the silent nightmare form of the Crow. “YOU.”

Gorcrow gave a little croaking laugh. “Come now, Captain. Don’t play the fool.”

It wasn’t just his hands that shook now, but his whole body. “Jessup -”

“Thought you’d never ask, sir,” replied the Afrikaans, grimly, reaching for his machine gun.

Gorcrow moved. His hands, clamped in irons before him, came up, and jerked apart, shattering the restraints as if they were made of paper. Both hands, now free, arced back, and caught the two marines behind him squarely in the throat with such force that both men staggered back, gurgling and clutching at their shattered windpipes.

Jessup has his weapon drawn, and was bringing to bear on Gorcrow’s head. With inhuman speed, the Crow sidestepped, seized the barrel of the gun and forced it back, so that its muzzle angled towards Jessup’s own skull right as the other man pulled the trigger.

Jessup’s head snapped, violently, to one side, as half of his skull simply vanished in a burst of his own fire. Gorcrow’s other hand shot out, holding something which he had pulled from the depths of his immaculate suit, something diamond shaped, and rammed it onto the dying man’s chest.

And, against all the noise and racket, Pillion heard a small click.

Jessup’s corpse, still standing, snapped back and forth as if electrocuted. Bones snapped and skin torn like clothe, as the Sergeant-at-Arm grew twisted, and grew and grew, a deep searing scream wrenching forth from his elongating, sinewy skull.

Everything seemed very far away from Pillion, as if he was walking the floor of an ancient sea. He saw, dully, Jessup’s corpse - a corpse no longer, but a fire eyed beast with a glowing blue diamond on its ruined chest. He heard the screams of crewmembers, some still calling out sitreps (“Gunfire reported in medical bay, get a squad down there now!”) some howling in horror at the hideous thing, a great form of skin and metal and fire. He heard the sounds of Cerberus’s guns opening fire on her fellow ships, and felt, rather than saw, the impacts of friendly rounds on friendly armour, the panic of her crews, the horror of a sudden betrayal. But what fixed in his gaze was the sky.

For that sky, so calm moments before was crossed with jagged green lightening, and swirling around a great black mass of nothingness, that seemed to draw everything around it into its devouring maw.

And it was at moment that Pillion knew he’d walked into a trap.

Another sound came to his ears. A hollow, metallic rattle. The giddy laughter of the Crow. Slowly, or perhaps swiftly - time felt so different now - Pillion felt his right hand pull his sidearm free from its holster, bring the sights to bear on the cackling Gorcrow, cock back the hammer.

And fire once.

*

It happened in the same way as it always did.

(But it doesn’t have to, does it, chicka?)

Out of the grey fog of a winter’s evening, I found myself wandering down an endless alleyway in an unknown city. I had drifted for what seemed like hours through pale streets, past the ghosts of people, fluctuating in and out of transparency, heads beginning to turn as I passed, white faces and dark eyes watching me, until I came to this place one again. It was always the same.

(Don’t look too hard at those face, chicka…)

Same alleyway. Same step. Same torrential increasing rain. Same crooked little rollie, clasped between thin fingers. Same snick of the lighter. Same old. Same old.

(But something has changed hasn’t it…?)

Across the rain drenched alley, on the brickwork soaked and red, the same words formed:

WHY ARE YOU HERE?

“I wish I knew that,”

(You do know, chika. You’ve always known.)

WE DO NOT WANT YOU HERE.

Same words. Same drag on the same dry fag. Same water pooling around my ankles. Same haze in the air. And then:

WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID.

I - dream I - paused. “...No.No, no, no, no, not this again…”

YOU WALK OUR WORLD. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME.

A weight in my hand. The revolver. One round in the chamber.

DO IT.

And my hand was moving as it always dead, each and every night, raising the gun to my temple. But it felt more real this time. Felt more solid. Felt like sand beneath my free hand, the cloying pressure of the woods around me, and that voice, that echoing metallic voice, and the shimmering feathers.

DO IT

Then a hand seized mine. And Red was beside me on the step, and her hand was on my arm, gently, but firmly, guiding the gun away.

“Not today, chika,” she whispered.

Red forced my hand around, till my gun was aimed at the words on the wall. Her fingers curled around mine on the trigger, and gently, firmly, pulled.

The wall shattered. The rain shattered. The city shattered. The bellow of the shot filled my ears, shattering all other sounds, expect a name, being said over and over:

“Elijah...Elijah...Elijah….Elijaaaaavaron….Avaron...Avaron…..Mr Avaron. Mr Avaron.”

My eyes opened.

I was sprawled on the floor of a bare grey room, devoid of furniture. Bare steel walls spread out from an equally bare steel floor. The only light came from a doorway against the far wall, from which a blazing white glare burned. I shielded my eyes, realising that the room I was in had been lightless, and I’d been lying in the dark. As my eyes adjusted to the sudden burst of light, I made out a shape, standing in the doorway.

“Mr Avaron,” came Dr Crucius’s unmistakable voice, as prissy and contemptuous as the day we’d first met, a lifetime ago and a world away, “I think it’s high time we got a move on.”

I tried to speak, but my throat felt as if it made of dry kindling. “Where….where…?”

Something heavy flew through the air, and I caught it clumsily out of reflex: a bundle, containing my gun belt, revolver, and katai gauntlets.

“You are currently in a prison cell aboard a Commonwealth Battleship, Cerberus,” said Crucius succinctly. His body seemed oddly still, given the force with which he’d flung my gear at me.

“How, I don’t remember -?” I began to buckle on my belt, my hands moving of their own accord, while my mind was...somewhere else. Somewhere made of fog and flashing neon letters gouged into walls.

“I don’t suspect you will,” Crucius cut me off. “And while you do, of course, have questions. We don’t have time. I need you armed.”

With that, he withdrew from the doorway. I finished attaching my katais, and let the blades snap in and out a few times, experimentally. Satisfied, I reached down to unholster my revolver

-You will take that gun and place it against the side of your head and -

But thought better of it. I could tell from its weight it was loaded.

I clambered out onto a grey, metal gangway, elevated about a storey up. Along each side, cells, like metal cocoons lay. The cell doors were at top of each pod, so that prisoners, like myself would have been able to climb out, and guards - who were, currently, conspicuous in their absence, could look down on them.

At one end of the gangway, a set of stairs descended, presumably towards a control room, and at the other, Dr Crucius crouched over another cell pod, muttering. I stood for a moment, and tried to collect myself. Coming out of the dark into the sudden, artificial light was disorientating enough, but…

But it all felt wrong. I was very aware of my clothes, smelling faintly of sweat, hanging off my body, of the normally reassuring weight of my weapons, dulled now, on my arms and thigh. Aware also of deep hum of distant thauma drives, and of a more irregular booming, emanating from outside the featureless walls.

The main focus of my attentions, however, was on that animal Panic, who was wide awake but just watching me, serenely. It made no move to pounce, nor did it look like it was going to try, but rather sat and watched and waited.

I heard the sound of a cell door open, and then running feet, and suddenly arms were wrapping around me.

“Elijah!” Zularna held me in an alarmingly tight embrace, “Thank God you’re ok,”

I hesitated, and then returned the hug. “Thank you...same to you. Without the God bit,”

“I’ll let it pass.”

“How did -?”

“We got picked up by a marine squad after we got you out of there. I didn’t see much - they just came of nowhere and tased us as soon as we got outside.”

“Oooh, are we hugging?” Tobias, now released from his cell, bounded over, “Can I have a hug?”

“No,”

“Dick. Zu?”

“I’m clearly still hugging Eli,”

“Fine! Crucius? Gi’us a cuddle?”

Crucius ignored him. “I think it’s high time we formulated a plan, my friends. Perhaps you might follow me?”

Tobias continued to hold out his arms. “Crucius? I’m here, right here?”

“How did you get our weapons back?” Zularna broke of her embrace and began to check her crossbow and hatchet.

“Crucius? Cuddles? Crui-cuddles? Come on, just a little one?”

“It would seem that Commonwealth military policy is to store the belongings of prisoners in the control point of their cell block,” Crucius said, has he began to lead us away from the cells. “Given our current predicament, I suspect we will need heavy firepower.”

“Sorry, I’m lost,” I said as we began to descend the stairs, “How did we get here? And what’s all that noise, and also what…”

I trailed off. At the bottom of the stairs was an octagonal control room. A central computer suit occupied the centre of the room, with a lift shaft at the far end. But that wasn’t what stopped my voice in my throat.

There were bodies strewn all over the control room. For what I could make out of their uniforms, they were Commonwealth marines, and they had not died well. People who did well tended to have more head.

Zularna rounded on Crucius. “What did you do?” she snarled.

Crucius regarded her languidly. “Nothing, Miss Munro, whatever do you mean?”

Zularna’s face was twisted in an expression of hate. “Don’t bullshit me. You did the same thing to those men in the Archives!”

My eyes stayed on the twisted bodies, but what I was seeing, really, was the man in the forest, twisting my gun on himself in a fluid, graceful movement.

“I am an academic, Miss Munro, I don’t carry -”

“Woah now,” said Tobias, “Let’s not jump to conclusions. I’m sure they all died of...erm...natural causes.”

The triumph in his voice, as the life gurgled out of him. I knew blood and death well but that...that was all just coming together in that same voice, that same hollow rattle.

(I know what you did.)

Zularna and Crucius were squaring off against one another. I noticed Zularna has her hatchet drawn. “You’re going to tell us what you did -”

“Miss Munro, this is hardly the time for this. The situation is dire and many lives are at risk. This vessel is a death trap, controlled by Gorcrow - Mr Avaron?”

I wasn’t even aware of my knees buckling. I would have fallen to the floor had Tobias not caught my arm.

(Do it.)

No. No. No no no no no.

“Crucius…” Zularna lowered her weapon. “Gorcrow’s dead. I shot him.”

“Yeah, and can I add for the record, it was awesome!” Tobias held out a fist, which Zularna bumped without paying attention.

Crucius sniffed. It was the closest I’d seen him come to a facial expression. “Impossible. It would seem that Gorcrow has been hiding aboard this vessel and I fear he is going to -”

“No,” My voice, my own, and yet not my own, spoke, “No. Gorcrow’s dead. I watched him die.”

Crucius clicked his tongue. “Mr Avaron, I can see that you’re distressed, but I assure you, Gorcrow is alive and on board this vessel and -”

(I know what you did)

“No. Goddammit he’s dead. He’s fucking dead.”

I hadn’t intended to scream. That sound and fury that roared out of my throat shocked me, and the others, for their all drew back instinctively, even Crucius.

“Eli,” Zularna said softly. “Put the gun down, Eli.”

“What? What do you -?” I stopped. I had drawn my revolver and raised it to shoulder height, though whether to turn it on the others or myself, I did not know. That animal, Panic, watched, expectantly. With a sigh, I slowly lowered the weapon.

“Err, guys? You might want to see this?” Tobias called.

He had moved over to the control room computer console - gingerly stepping over the corpses - and was tapping away at the screen with one hand, glancing periodically at his wrist unit. “I think Crucius is right, check this out.”

He hit a few more buttons on the machine, and then swept a holo-image before us. The footage, silent, showed a view of armed marines, forming up outside a cabin door. An older man, in captain’s uniform, and younger woman, an XO, waved their arms and spoke soundlessly. As we watched, the marines breached the room, bringing their weapons to bear on a silent, hunched figure on an ornate meeting room table.

A figure with a chrome mask and a wicked beak.

“Fuck,” I heard Zularna murmur.

“This footage is from a rifle cam,” Tobias explained, “I hacked this console and it looks like it was recorded a few hours ago. Mindfuck right? That said, did I mention how awesome that shooting was, Zu, you the -”

“Then who died in the woods?” I snapped.

“An important question, Mr Avaron,” said Crucius dryly, “But one for another time. Mr Rainer, what else can you tell us?”

Tobias was scowling intently at the screen. “Still working my way through this stuff...Commonwealth holo security’s nothing to write home about but the ship’s logs are encrypted...gimme a moment…”

Something heavy slammed into the side of the vessel, throwing us to one side. I managed to seize hold of part of the command console, preventing myself from falling face flat into the viscera smeared across the floor.

“Now what?” cried Zularna.

Crucius barged past us to where Tobias stood at the console. “Run a scan on Chaos levels,”

“What, how? I can’t -”

Crucius pushed him to one side and began tapping at the computer himself. His hands froze midway through typing.

“My God…” he muttered. It was the first time he’d ever sounded afraid.

“Talk to me, Doctor, mainly anything that will answer the question ‘what the actual fuck is going on’?”

Crucius turned to me, and he was pale. “For a few weeks now, I have been conducting experiments on a weather anomaly - an absurdity storm. This storm...the maelstrom, we call it...has begun to form 200 leagues from our position.”

I blinked at him. “Which means?”

“I think it means ‘we’re doomed’. ’Scuse me. That’s for not hugging me.” Tobias gently shoved Crucius away from the computer. “Oh. Oh, oh, this is not good. Look.”

He brought up another holo-image, and swept it out so we could all see. Another part of the ship, a narrow corridor. This image had sound, this time. The sound of gunfire, and frantic shouting. The sound of screaming. And the image of crewmembers, fleeing, firing whatever weapons they had over their shoulders.

And then something bounded into shot: a huge form, running on its knuckles, bellowing an unearthly sound. I saw the fires in its eyes, and needed to see no more.

“That,” said Tobias, “Was captured about 30 seconds ago, near the ship’s medical bay. I’m into the security feed...there are at least 12 of those things running around the ship. Oh, and before anyone says anything, there’s more…”

The holo-image changed to a skeletal schematic of the ship. It zoomed rapidly into one of the vessel’s cargo holds, and centred on a series of nondescript black boxes.

“Now,” said Tobias, “Those there containers are holo-shielded. Pretty advanced work if I say so myself. However, if I just fiddle around a little like this…”

The image flickered, and instead of blank, unobtrusive darkness, we saw an x-ray view: each container was filled with bodies. Bodies made of flesh and steel curled in foetal positions, tightly packed like coffins. There must have been dozens of them in each.

“Shit’s getting real out there,” Tobias continued, “From the looks of these, those beasts are tearing through the ship. Also, it looks like the crew have been locked out of her central operating systems. Whoever did all this has this whole place under their control,”

Something clicked in my mind. “This is starting to make sense. In the woods...it was some sort of facility. A factory, for building those things, like the one we saw in Edinburgh. He said that he was building an army…”

“To use on us? The Commonwealth, I mean?” asked Zularna.

“No...on something else. Something he called ‘Pale Citizens’...” I waved a hand and the computer display, where Crucius’s chaos readings continue to be displayed, “He also said that the only way to reach them was through a storm…”

Crucius nodded, grimly. “This explains why Gorcrow was spying on my research. The maelstrom...it could, theoretically, be a way to access another world.”

“Do you know what these ‘Pale Citizens’ are?”

“I have my theories, but I fear we do not have time for them. If Gorcrow has built an army of these beasts, it is imperative we stop him. We cannot allow the Brotherhood to have such a force at their disposal.”

“Eli,” Zularna interjected. “You said when you ran into a Crow at the Rim, when you killed it, the dead men with it died to, so surely…”

Crucius nodded. “So if we want to kill that army....we need to kill Gorcrow. If he has a link to all those chaos drives, then it might be enough to have drawn out the maelstrom. Thus…”

“...If we kill the Crow, we kill the storm?”

“Precisely.”

I’d heard enough. “Tobias, can you find him?”

“Gimme a second…” Tobias’s face twisted in concentration, “Hang on...hang on...ok, got him. Last known location was the bridge…” he swept a holo-image up, the schematic of Cerberus. A small flashing dot was present at her aft control tower. “We’re down here, deck 31. The lifts are out but there’s emergency stairwells...The bridge is directly above us, but there’s thirty decks of fucking horror monsters and spooked people with shotguns between us and that -”

I cut him off with a wave of him hand. With my other, I swiftly check my derringer and revolver for ammo. “I’m going after him.”

“Not alone you’re not,” said Zularna, loading her crossbow.

“No. That motherfucker is mine.”

“Fine,” she retorted, “And anyone who gets in your way is mine.”

“Daaaaaamn, you guys have this action hero banter thing down,” whistled Tobias softly.

“We will require an exit strategy,” said Crucius.

“Already on it,” Tobias replied, “Our skyskimmer is in hangar bay five, which is...here. Deck 12.”

“Go get it.” I said to Tobias and Crucius. “We’ll need to leave, fast. If you run into any of those things -”

“I suspect we can take care of ourselves,” said Crucius, softly.

Tobias killed the computer screen, and unfurled his staff. Zularna was screwing explosive tipped heads onto her bolts, her face set in grim determination. I tested the edge of my katais, and the first time, felt calm.

(I know what you did)

“Maybe,” I muttered to myself, “But you’re gonna hate what I’m about to do…”