Everchosen : Interlude 6

-991.M41-

-Launcel IV, Segmentum Solar-

-Finlay “Waaghbreaker” du Prise, Pilot of the Venerable Knight-Suit “Foehammer”, Freeblade-

That damned relic pretended not to notice him as he approached, stomping forwards with a furious pace. The men at arms crossed their spears as he approached, but he barreled through them anyways, both common men struggling against his noble thews as he pushed up to the source of his frustration.

“Launcel! We will have words damnit!” He snarled, holding against the spear shafts and reaching forwards to jab harshly at the ancient man’s plated torso. 

“I see you have arrived well, Sir Finlay.” The relic replied calmly, ignoring how he strained against the spears and how the younger members of House Launcel brought their hands to their sidearms, looking at him with suspicion and distrust for the sudden intrusion. The relic nodded a withered, wrinkled head. “It is good that you received our communication, lest you be absent.”

“Yes I’ve received your communication- a mere six hours before they arrive!” Finlay growled, gesturing widely around. The great courtyard of Launcel, a kilometer in any direction from the central dais, was filled with the enormous number of men and machinery that the houses of the Launcel System could muster.

The spots that were most visible to the landing-dais were, of course, already taken by knight-suits bearing the colors and heraldry of house Launcel. The towering warmachines, freshly washed and painted, with honors and trophies mounted on every inch of their many-meter bulks. Blue and black and painted with enormous reliefs of glorious campaigns and the words of their house. 

‘From all men, their duties.’

“Six hours is the chartered period allocated to informing individual knights of the system of new arrivals.” The withered relic replied with the assurance of words on paper. 

“Six hours is barely enough time to prepare our frames and move them here, you loathsome fossil!” Finlay roared, shoving the spearmen to the side and standing tall before the Lord of house Launcel. “The Emperor Reborn arrives and you take the opportunity to insult us by doing the bare minimum! You should have informed us immediately upon their arrival to the system!”

“No more, no less.” Lord Launcel repeated the unofficial motto of his bureaucratic nightmare of a house calmly, making Finlay’s scowl deepen even further. “Besides. You have arrived in time, with the various Freeblade suits in order, from the looks of it.”

No thanks to you, you colossal groxfucker.Finlay clenched a fist and pulled back, closing his eyes and slowly taking a breath. The younger members of house Launcel, what few were present, knew to stay their tongue lest he start demanding honor-duels.

And all of them knew they would lose to him if they were forced to that, but neither could he afford to declare a duel now, with the news of the arrival to their system.

Voice of the Emperor, Divine Avatar, God-Incarnate, and Star Child. Confirmed by an entire conclave of inquisitors- a message announced by their Astropaths mere weeks ago, now in their very system. 

The shame would be on his name forevermore if he started an honor-duel the same day that their sovereign lord arrived in the system. 

“We will be having words later, Launcel. We and Plaugmann both.” Finlay declared in a cold voice, turning on a heel and stomping his way back to his own cohort of armsmen. Men sworn to him, wearing the dull purple of his now-fallen house, with shields, swords, and gonnes on slings. He growled, reaching up to grab the side of the cart before pulling himself up and into it. 

“Back to the other Freeblades.” He ordered with a wave of his hand, too angry to sit, instead standing with arms crossed in the middle of the cart, his armsmen piling up in the chairs to either side. The driver nodded, using the reins to snap across the lancroc’s back and usher it forwards. The enormous lizard huffed and then started a steady gallop.

Down along a central causeway, Finlay passed by row after row of knight-suits painted in blues and blacks. There weren’t many, with how much the martial strength of house Launcel had dwindled over the centuries, but there were enough to provoke a seething anger in his breast. 

They had delayed so long to take the best spots, he was sure of it. Even house Plaugmann was informed earlier than they, with how they occupied the other half of the closest spots to the central dais. Unlike Launcel, the strength of house Plaugmann was barely diminished from their founding. Nearly three hundred knight suits were present, a full half of their house, with the other half away on one campaign or another. All clad in the bright greens and yellows. 

He knew they were informed ahead of time, because their keeps were located on the moon. They had to load up their suits in transports and make it across the void before landing and distributing, and they were still here in time to occupy the other half of the best spots.

A blatant conspiracy to shut out the last third of the knights who made the Launcel system their home. 

He briefly cursed the whim of bureaucratic mismanagement that resulted in this even being possible. The freeblades were gathered under the promise that this world had been destroyed, that they would need to repopulate and rebuild it as a new knight house.

They arrived to find the planet and its populace intact, knights still standing despite losing all contact with the imperium in the latest of so many black crusades, with valid charters to the system holding. If it was merely happenstance, he’d brush it off as a stroke of misfortune and leave it at that.

Unfortunately, this was a pattern, because house Plaugmann arrived to the system under the exact same circumstances millenia ago, finding those Launcel fops and their abhuman commoners still alive. It felt much more like a cruel joke in light of that.

Barely enough room in this system for two knight houses, let alone three. 

He dismounted the cart and shook his head, raising a hand up to his brow with a weariness in his shoulders. The freeblades, bastarded by chance, never given time to unify into a proper house. He looked up, at the ships that descended across the edges of the island-keep and the many dozens of knights that strode out.

Many as small as seven meters, lone armigers without masters, painted in colors unique to themselves. Most the ten meters of the questoris, knight-errants with no retinue beyond scraps of loyal men. A bare handful of towering, twelve meter domini, lurching with heavy guns.

All of them with the wear and tear of battle littering their adamantium plates, chipped paintwork, and only a very recent washing. Even sharing their resources like they had been, there was only so much they could do on so little time.

The knight-suits walked in clumsy fashion, manually operated by squires or servants, as the pilots in their best suits and brightest colors rode or ran up to him.

His own knight suit stood next to his cart, last-minute polishes and oils applied by hasty servants hoisted on thin, improvised cranes and ropes. Its stealth-cloak pulled away from the joints and plates to hang loosely, catching the light in glimmering patterns and making the light purple plates stand out in a field of blues and greens.

Its visage seemed to sneer in sympathy with his own mood. 

“Sir Finlay! What did they say?” A young knight, Sir Erie, called out as he approached. Helmet carried under one arm and plates of armor bouncing as he dashed. Banished from his house by the machinations of his brothers. 

“Did they deign to offer an apology for the late notice?” Another knight, Sir Gillad, asked with a cynical growl in his voice. A wash of golden hair blowing in the seabreeze as he rapidly walked over. The orphan of a now-shattered house, scions sent to all corners of the galaxy after the destruction of their homeworld.

“Lord Launcel did not.” Finlay grumbled, as more and more freeblade knights approached and surrounded him in a broad semicircle. “I have yet to speak to King Plaugmann, he was elsewhere when I arrived.”

“This is crocshit.” Sir Tuller declared, always willing to give an open insult if it meant honesty. His knight was in a constant state of disrepair from the honor duels he caused and lost. “If the King doesn’t have a good fucking execuse for this, I’m going to-”

“What, get challenged and lose again?” Another freeblade asked with a sneer, waving a hand. “Just hold your tongue Tulley, getting thrashed proves nothing.”

“None of that.” Finlay growled sternly before an argument could start. Two dozen knights, most of them at least a decade younger than he, had gotten within earshot by this point. “No bickering amongst ourselves, not right now.”

“Do you really think the Star Child is coming here, Sir Finlay?” Dame Uthel asked, a note of girlish wonderment in her tone. Bright green eyes and light pinkish hair complemented her uncanny innocence. 

“That’s what they say, at least.” Finlay nodded, turning an eye back towards the Launcel delegation with a sour expression. “The other houses probably wouldn’t be here if they didn’t believe it to be true.”

“Its probably another fucking tithe-ship, just trying to take double.” Sir Casm grumbled, planting a hand on his hip. “We won’t even see the Emperor Reborn, he’ll be conveniently busy in whatever ship they say he’s in.”

“Don’t say that when they arrive, shit-for-brains, lest they request inquisitorial presence on Launcel!” Another freeblade growled, reaching forwards and shaking the embittered Casm by the collar. “You remember what they did to Valen III!”

“Yeah yeah- I remember, I remember.”

“Ships coming over the horizon, Finlay.” A weathered voice called out to him. The aged Sir Lovhaug, with long white beard and heavy brow, gestured at the sky with a nod of his head. The oldest of the freeblades, the legacy of a previous freeblade. 

Finlay turned and looked up to the sky. There, faintly, barely visible through the pale blue atmosphere, the tiny shapes of approaching starships. 

“Everyone into places!” Finlay called out, waving a hand to dismiss the knights that had accumulated around them.

“What are we going to do to stand out, Sir Finlay?!” A younger freeblade asked with a nervous voice. “We’re all on the outskirts of the landing pad, they won’t see us!”

He didn’t know. “I’ll handle it! Go- by the side of your suits!” He barked, scaring the young knight off. 

“No ideas, huh Finlay?” Lovhaug muttered sympathetically, holding near him while the younger knights scattered. 

Finlay grunted. “Any suggestions, old man?”

“I got it.” Lovhaug shook his head. “Lightbringer has flares for a reason. I’ll shoot them in salute when the ships touch down.”

Finlay closed his eyes, then nodded curtly. “I’d appreciate that, Lovhaug.”

The two of them watched as the various freeblade suits were marched into position and stationed, their pilots barking orders at their handful of loyal retainers and taking up rags themselves to make final polishes. No one suit looked the same, no shared colors, no shared words, no shared symbol.

A ragged bunch of orphaned banners. 

“The younger knights… they have no future on this world.” Lovhaug muttered knowingly. “I don’t either, but I’m old. I don’t have much of a future regardless.”

“It's their only home now.” Finlay muttered back, shaking his head but not truly refuting the older man’s claim. 

“Its a world, certainly, but it's not their home.” Lovhaug declared. “It never will be. There was never enough room for them here.” 

The silence held for a few moments longer.

“...I’ll bring up the topic, when the Emperor Reborn speaks with us.” Finlay relented in a manner that did not actually relent.

Both of them knew that the likelihood of the Emperor Reborn speaking to him personally was very low. If he was even here.

—

The ship that descended was shrouded in a halo of light. A thin ring of gleaming radiance that illuminated it as it lowered itself elegantly upon the central dais, surrounded by row after row of knights in bright colors. It was a smaller ship, not large enough to transport even a single knight, but large enough to fit rows of men in its bulk. It descended with an escort of a dozen other ships, dedicated fighter-platforms that roamed ever-vigilant for anything that might threaten their ward.

As the ship landed, every knight suit in the courtyard brought one weapon-arm up, as high as they could go, in a mechanical salute of enormous scale. It was not any particular order or signal that provoked this, but rather a kind of instinct. Finlay could describe it no better than that. 

The salutes were directed by manual operation by squires, judging by how clunky and ponderous the motions were across the field. A knight-pilot could make the machine move as if it were his own body, but most pilots were standing before their suits and ready to greet the delegation as they exited the transport craft.

The ship’s doors opened, and a ramp lowered to touch base earth. 

His eyes narrowed as the halo of light seemed to shift and move slightly, although it was difficult to tell from his position. He was at least two hundred meters away from the central dais, probably closer to three hundred, and his eyes weren’t what they used to be. He had taken the gleam to be some manner of shielding for the ship, but shields didn’t typically move in such a manner…

A bloom of emotion sprouted in his chest, and his arms shook lightly from an indescribable feeling. Barely visible at this distance, the light was centered around the men and women walking down from the transport craft while fighters danced overhead. 

There, in the very center of the ramp, a figure in black armor walked. Golden fire surrounded his head like a crown of ethereal light, and a sword hovered in the air behind him, suspended by yet more light. He was surrounded by dozens of figures in heavy armor, wielding great guns and shields, and priests and cloaked men followed before and after him. 

Finlay’s eyes were drawn to this figure above all others, for the radiance and the burning nostalgia that the figure provoked in his heart. 

There was silence for a few, long moments.

Then- the faint golden radiance exploded into a column of light. Like a volcanic eruption, it roared as it ascended, banishing the darkness of the courtyard before it. 

Faintly in that light, Finlay could see a towering figure. Larger than any of the knights that saluted it, in plantasmal plates of ancient armor with sword and shield in hand. A figure he had never seen but immediately recognized. 

It was He. It could be no one else. He looked upon them with eyes hidden behind a visored helm and the faintest hint of a smile across a strong chin.

Of their own volition, Finlay’s legs gave way, and he fell to his knees. He did not fight this impulse, rather, his hands raised in a salute across his breast.

Distantly, he heard the many flares of the Lightbringer fire off in salute, and saw as the hundreds of other knights in the courtyard fall as he did. 

There was no need for introduction. 

Finlay knew exactly who this was.

—

“Prepare yourselves for battle, knights of the Launcel system.” The Emperor Reborn spoke with a smooth, drawling voice. Simultaneously refined and rural, with hints of archaism and abbreviation both. He was not a particularly large man, nor a particularly short man, and his dark brown hair fell in broad, smooth waves. It framed a barely-tanned face, with a strong, clean-shaven chin and thin red lips.

The eyes though, the eyes he could not look away from. The pupils glowed a shade of rich blue, with flashes of brilliant gold, and were cast in shadows by the depth of his brows. They were clearly machine in nature, with the whites replaced by pitch blackness, and expanded and contracted with easy focus. 

That smooth voice drawled again. “Enemy fleets hound our path back to Terra, and while your system was but a stop on our journey, it is likely to be targeted as well.”

“We will be ready to crush them when they arrive, Your Divinity!” King Plaugmann spoke firmly, slamming a gauntleted fist across his broad breastplate. All knights in attendance repeated the gesture. “They will break across our armor like waves on the shore!”

A faint smile came across the face of their Lord Reborn. “That’s good to hear, King Plaugmann.” The smile dropped back into a neutral expression, a faint pulse of light coursing through his aura and reigniting the fading crown that floated about the man’s brow. “Still, recompense is warranted for the inconvenience brought to your system. If any lord has a request, make it of me, and I will hear it out.”

“Your generosity honors us, Your Divinity.” Lord Launcel bowed his withered head like the social parasite he was. “How long will you be staying in the Launcel system?”

“No more than three days, then we will depart again.” Their Lord Reborn shook his head. “Again though, I must stress, ready yourselves for battle. I would rather you hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive rather than hear news of your destruction.”

Unfortunately, he had to fulfill his obligation to his old friend. “Your Divinity, I have a request that honor demands I make.” He spoke as firmly as he could, even as his voice was filled with regret that he even had the audacity to make any request at all. Almost every knight in attendance within the great hall of Launcel turned to him with indignation and outrage.

Those uncanny eyes turned to him, and with kindness He nodded. “Of course, Sir Finlay.”

Damn you, Lovhaug. “The Launcel System is abundant with knights and poor with opportunities for their futures… I would like to request transfer be made available to any of the freeblades I speak for to more prosperous stations… Should they wish, of course.”

The indignation turned to outrage, and furious mutters arose about the indecency of his request to their sovereign lord. Career advancement- what a wretched thing to ask of their Go-

“Of course.” The Emperor Reborn spoke easily, nodding as if the matter was a simple one. “I’ll take on any freeblade who would like to swear service to me- I’ll certainly have no shortage of enemies to face.”

Ambivalent to the sudden silence that overtook the great hall, the Emperor Reborn paused, seemingly thinking of something, then spoke again. “Provided they have their own transport, that is- our cargo holds are currently quite overstocked. That will change once we return to Terra but-”

An exceptionally shameful outburst followed, as dozens of knights in the great hall shouted out that they were willing to forsake their current positions and take up the offer of direct service. 

Finlay included.