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Imported post - Written by Char
Under the light of a single moon, a city burned; Leaping flames illuminating a scene of hell as screams filled the air and blood flowed freely. Everywhere terrified men and women ran in shock, desperately pushing and trampling each other in an attempt to flee towards the distant tower that pierced the heavens.
They were not alone; men in dark grey-green fatigues and body armor ran alongside them, waving who they could forwards in exasperation as the last dregs of the Babel Armed Military Forces, or
BAMF
held the last line of defense against the disparate forces of a half hundred warbands once representing the powers of their world now long since brought to ruins by its own greed and hubris; Their attempts to claim and seize for themselves what was intended to be freely given to all. Their goal was the ‘
Tower of Babel
’; A towering monolith of a space elevator piercing the very heavens itself, but the chances of any of them reaching it were slim indeed while even a single member of the BAMF stood in their way.
Behind the terrified crowds came crazed and deranged soldiers from these half-hundred militaries, the only common feature among them the dirt, grime, and blood spattering their uniforms as they gunned down, and through, hapless civilians in their own desperate and mad dash to seize the tower for themselves and the final ship still docked to it; Soon to depart and forsake their world forever. They fell upon the fleeing crowds in a frenzy of bloodletting, tearing, gouging, and violence against all before them. Nothing could stand before them and all mere men could do was to fight or flee.
Along a wreckage-strewn street, a tight knot of civilians and BAMF soldiers fled towards a junction, hoping to take cover among the debris piled up there and to make a stand, but sadly they moved too slowly. A horde of soldiers harried their every move and was dashing after them. Just before the first marauder could lay a hand upon one of the Lady Ishtars people a burning flash erupted past them, leaving a blazing afterimage from any who viewed it as it punched a hole through one of the attacker's chest and exploded on the street behind him; Taking out three more from the concussion and shrapnel alone. It was followed by another and another in the rapid staccato of a heavy automatic weapon, a flurry of firepower that scythed into the enemy horde, blowing man apart with undeniable force. Foul ichor splashed all over the civilians but left them alive if a bit shellshocked.
The disbelieving crowd looked about for their salvation but could barely credit what they saw, standing behind the piles of debris at the junction was a towering giant straight from legend. There was not a man or woman in the Conglomerate who could fail to recognize them, for their images were carved into every man and woman's memory throughout the bloody ten-year war that now inched ever closer to its conclusion. The towering mech, easily twenty-one meters from foot to fuselage strode past them, shaking the ground with each stomp of its fearsome gait; Twin autocannons and rockets flying out of its hardpoints as mounted grenade launchers threw smoke in every direction around it in an attempt to cover the fleeing men and women.
Following close behind other forms came through the smoke and dust of ruined homes, embers and gray wisps still clinging stubbornly to the tattered uniforms of the BAMF’s ‘1st Security Group’, the most veteran force the conglomerate had to its name; Veterans of numerous battles whose sole objective now was to spend the currency that was their lives as best as possible for every second they could. Their weapons drawn not a single one looked back towards the tower they alone moved away from, their lives all building towards this moment.
"Get to the tower!" One of the escorting men with the civilians shouted, glancing after the now distant members of the 1st before continuing on, the flash of explosions in and beyond the smoke the only image left before the group started the home stretch towards salvation.
Finally making the final passage, the group passed through open gates and sentinel towers and defenses as the civilians poured heedlessly into the tower and towards the waiting space elevator.
The few soldiers who accompanied them took other priorities, however, as they diverted towards a munitions depot to re-arm and strike out again for every last soul they could.
Standing amid the debris and makeshift barricades around the tower not far away was a Captain, she bore a golden rank now faded on her epithets. Her name was
Cynane Eurydice
, Captain and acting CO of BAMF’s ‘
OPFOR BLUE
’; A unit of hardened veteran shock troops of unbreakable resolve tasked to hold the final defensive line.
Captain Eurydice watched the last of the civilians flee into the tower, noting their filthy clothes and desperate faces. Among their number was a frantic woman clutching a crying child to her shoulder, the babe was barely old enough to walk and the woman's eyes had the madness to them that spoke of horrors she had no way to process.
As the crowd ran past the captain heard the woman chanting, "The Ladys’ Angels, Lady Ishtar sends her Angels to save us, the Angels have come!"
Eurydice was discomforted by the words and snarled at the crowd, "Keep moving and stop for nothing, head to the elevator, there is still a ship waiting above." The crowds ran on and she let them go as they whispered their thanks and praises.
She stepped back to review her forces, seeing her fractured company hunkered down behind the piles of debris, using them as barricades. Nearby she had two tactical squads, under Sergeants at the front and the third squad in elevated positions to lay down covering fire with their missile launchers and marksman rifles. Behind them waited for an impatient assault squad, their jump packs much like her own held idle on their backs until they would be needed for a swift counterattack. Eurydice also had her own Command squad in the center and she strode over to them, seeing the Company Banner being flown high despite being torn and pockmarked with burns and bullet holes; The vision of the blue skull on a banner of black looking out nonplussed at the burning city around them, it was not the first of the conglomerates' cities it had seen aflame throughout the war.
The captain did a quick headcount and ground her teeth at how small her company now was when all was said and done.
"Situation report." she barked out to a comms officer.
The communication specialist jerked a nod and his armor boasted expanded radio arrays extended, allowing him to link back to the colony ship in low-orbit and docked to the space elevator that held a greater tactical overview.
Since the death of Admiral Arc and Rear Admiral Cato, Eurydice; A mere captain, was now the highest-ranking officer responding on the ground and not already loaded onto the ship with the rest. He spoke up to say, "Heavy fighting in the east, IMR forces are pushing the 1st to its limit and have encircled them! Lieutenant Taurus, now in command there, wishes us the ladys’ blessing and declares they will hold on to the last! The situation north is even worse, the fourth defensive line is broken and the fifth are hard-pressed, they are both fleeing in droves and preparing to sell their side of the elevator."
Captain Euydice snarled, "Damn them, to die so close to the end!" She remarked about the valuable veterans of the 1st Security Group now destined to be ground to mulch under the heels of the invading enemies.
The radioman interjected though, "The 12 Knights have deployed west in their mechs, They are meeting only light resistance and what little armor the enemy has managed to navigate into the city can't match them, Civilians from that direction have trickled to a crawl and the Knights are swinging south to cover the retreat of the Special Projects Group now inside the elevator."
Eurydice listened silently, knowing she could not be seen to give in from the sheer stress of holding together the entire defense nearly by herself and a handful of jumped-up junior officers. The radioman's news was all she needed to hear, and despite the fact, they all went into this fight knowing it would be the end of them giving the final order.
"New orders for OPFOR BLUE and all survivors already inside the elevator terminal: Seal all bulkheads and prepare to board. We will hold this ground until the last moment and take the final lift!"
The Captain was cut off as unexpectedly booming automatic fire raked their position and was answered in kind by the defenders. "Another wave incoming, captain!" Someone shouted over the command line as the incoming fire picked up; Grenades and rockets detonating against their bulwarks in an attempt to suppress them.
Already hard-pressed on their side of the tower by odds in the favor of their enemy it was too much for even OPFOR BLUE to compete against.
About to call for the final retreat, a keening wail even louder than the firefight caught the captains attention as less than fifty meters away two forms scaled the bulwarks with the agility of felines and began laying into the five men at the parapet with claws, blades, and prehensile tails ending in weapons as enemy Gol; Men once, but turned into robotic cyborg killing machines without fear or a sense of pain turned men into corpses and launched themselves with inhuman and startling speed into the chaos of her commander center.
One of them, clearly more ludic than its counterpart, recognized her as a commanding figure and launched itself at Eurydice with a single leap that covered the distance in less than three heartbeats.
It never slowed down, not even when her radioman shoved her out of the way and a clawed raptor-like talon covered foot buried itself in his chest and rode him like a macabre surfboard; His blood leaving a sick trail almost ten feet long and then some as the war machine kicked him off of his foot, now lifeless, and sprung again.
Even with her impressive reaction times, Eurydice had barely gotten her fingers around the grip of her sidearms before the outstretched claws of the Golems hand were mere inches from her face.
By the grace of the lady, it never reached as one of the rare few of the conglomerates' own Gol intercepted it and suplexed it away into a tumbling mass of claws and blades.
“Ares!” Eurydice shouted the name of the allied war machine and unloaded regardless of if she hit either of them. Gol where almost completely machine and short of destroying the brain there was little to no chance of her sidearm doing more than to possibly distract the enemy killer that was easily half again larger than her own.
With luck, Ares was able to detach itself with only the loss of one of his arms and managed to get onto the other Gols back and dug the claws of his remaining hand into grooves on the armored faceplate of the monster and wrenched back, exposing its throat.
With practiced ease the nine-foot long tail wrapped around Ares’ waist like a belt flung out and uncoiled; Quick as a viper it thrust through the larger cyborgs neck and up through its concealed jaw and reinforced skull, turning its still organic brain into mush as the spike at the end of his tail thrashed and flailed inside the braincase of the now corpse.
“Captain?” It inquired at Eurydice in its strange machine-tinted monotone, his own face hidden behind a protective faceplate revealing nothing of what lay beneath. The Gol rarely spoke, and even the more coherent and lucid ones like Ares only ever mumbled or ranted nearly unintelligibly more to themselves when trying to provoke their fragmented memories into showing them a glimpse of their lost pasts; The serotonin their brains released from the recollections some of the only feelings they could experience anymore.
Ares was young enough; Only half a century old since his transformation, that he could still hold Coherent conversation and was less than likely to randomly go into a fugue state where he would kill anything around him regardless of if he was on their side.
Eurydice was about to send him after the other gol when she noticed its limp corpse not too far away. One of the snipers above had taken a well-aimed shot when it paused briefly to tear apart one of her lieutenants that he was able to put an anti-armor round through the back of its skull.
“Prepare to cover the retreat, Ares.” Eurydice changed her orders and began sounding the general retreat into the tower. The machine propelled itself away to find a new hiding spot to ambush the enemy.The next few hours felt like both an eternity and only a single long and stretched-out moment for the captain and her men as the enemy broke against them time and time again. At some point, OPFOR BLUE’s propulsion packs had run dry and even their most hardened of shocktroops were forced to hold ground in small isolated pockets where they had landed.
Eurydice, for her part, was one of the last brought into the tower. Four men carried her in on a stretcher after a lucky ricochet had torn a gash longer than a finger in her jugular and painted the men around her in crimson as her lifeblood geyser from her throat.
She was still alive, and barely conscious as the armored and reinforced shutters closed at their side of the massive space elevator lobby.
Her final memory before she and the last of her men began the high G-force transit into orbit was one of her men; One whose name she selfishly never had taken the time to learn leaned over her and kissed her on the forehead. He had said something to her that through her fading consciousness she could not make out; Focused on the detonator in his hands.
She watched from her stretcher, unable to move, to speak, or to object, as the man stepped back alone onto the massive elevator platform with the hard to miss fission bomb bolted to the ground and saluted to her and his comrades as it began its descent back towards the surface.
One of the final people loaded into the Cryogenic freezing units of the now departing colony ship
Eurydice was one of only a few thousand of the final defenders to have survived the fall of the Tower Of Babel.“In this instance, it is the greatest weapon you will ever wield. It is heavier than any cannon round. It roars louder than the engines of any machine of war. It burns brighter than the very stars themselves, more energetic than the most violent of supernovae. Despite all of this, you will wield this weapon effortlessly for me and for my people, as you will for your entire life. And should this burden be too much for you to bear, simply lean onto me and we shall carry it together always through both love and war.”
Those words had been spoken to her and many others privately by the lady Ishtar herself when she elevated them and made them the leaders of her army when it had been formed. It had been the burden of responsibility she had placed on them to lead men to their deaths throughout a war with no seeming end.
Eurydice couldn't remember the lady's face, her hair, or anything about her. She had been too afraid, like most, to look the revered lady Ishtar in the eyes and betray her expectations.
When the cold started to set in and the last dregs of her conscious mind began to stupor, Cynane Eurydice drifted slowly into a dreamless sleep as the final colony ship departed their homeworld, the Tower Of Babel slowly descending towards its surface to orbit as its tethers snapped and broke; Pulling the tower towards the surface to end its death throes once and for all when the fission bomb severed it at its axis.
Over three decades of travel later their ship would reach its destination.
Cynane Eurydice, like many others who had hoped to never again be woken with their services in need, would find like many others an unfamiliar world of black onyx for which it seemed no light could cast.
Only their ship of many dozens had made the voyage successfully to a world many said the lady herself had someone ‘prepared’ just for them.
Their world would have to be conquered and settled; Its mysteries unveiled. Their lost kin would need to be sought out in the great expanse of the stars and brought home. Their people would need safety and protection from anything their new home, its system, or even this strange new galaxy would have to offer.
The Conglomerate needed Captain Cynane Eurydice and the many heroes like her for these tasks and neither she nor they could rest until it was done.
Resigned to the tasks set before them, many of them wondered if when it was all said and done their lady would come to greet them once more with open arms like the old days. Or would they fail her like they failed a world now forsaken and taboo?
The world of
Ereshkigal
and its three unnamed moons lay before them. A galaxy unknown and untamed around them. These worlds, these places, would tell their tales both grand and great.
For Ishtars’ will was to be done, and they would carry it as the torchbearers of a new age.
On the planet a few months later its first burgeoning city would take form. In the center of it; At over a hundred meters tall and made of a smooth and flawlessly carved basalt the figure stood on a mound pedestal and towered over all the smaller buildings that encircled it.
In the vague shape of a woman in a long flowing garment of cloth wrappings, she stood vigilant over the settlement.
A single hand clutched protectively to her chest of stone and over her heart gave many the impression that the visage of their great lady was holding close the dreams and ideals of her peoples. While the other hand reached out towards the skies; Both beckoning and reaching futilely towards the great and all-encompassing void to which she sought to send her peoples in one final and great gamble to save them.
Her face was featureless and blank. With only a simple rendition of a nose, and lips pressed into a hard line. Any other features from hair to her ears were covered by a drawn-together hood and coif of stone that covered her eyes that would no doubt be daring towards the stars.
A seldom seen part of the great rendition of the lady Ishtar was not at the artists' rendition to perfection they only saw in their mind; Their lady still long in seclusion. But was at its feet, where the wrappings and rags of her basalt garment seemed torn were anything but.
Morphing seamlessly from what would be fabric were the barely recognizable forms of men and women who pulled further and further away to take form as the very hem of her garments seemed to be sculpted into a growing mass of individuals as it trailed down.
More and more detail was put into the smaller, life-sized statues of fatigued and armored soldiers pulling from her.
Like the great lady they had no faces, but their intent from their posture was clear. They took a perimeter around their lady, Weapons at the ready. Nobody who ever looked up to the statue would ever see them from where they stood, obscured as they were. Never seeing them at her feet, but there nonetheless. The ones that stood their ground while their lady and people looked towards the stars. The ones who sacrificed all so that they could reach them.
They would not be the last...