Chương 240: [Nova Wars] Chapurplepter Purple Purp73 Purp1e Purp13 RED

I do not remember what event took place, what I was exposed to, what deeds I performed, or what lessons I learned in that dark place. I only know that I was there. And that sometimes, in my dreams, I return. - Meditations upon the Barrier War, Lancer First Class Drali'imna Lovefell, Free Telkan Press, 25 Post-Terran Emergence In the dark hold, lit only by the pinlights on his armor, Hetmwit gritted his teeth and forced back the creature made of leftover scraps of a stillborn midnight.

It snarled at him with fangs made of a mother's disappointment and glared with eyes of a dreamer's failure. Claws forged from the anger of the ignorant tried to reach him. The creature screamed at him, foul breath he could smell despite his environmentally sealed armor blowing in his face, but Hetmwit pushed it back harder. Behind him, the slumbering Warbound N44 gave out a rapid clicking of relays the size of a grown human's fist.

He squeezed the trigger and the teeth of the Mark II Cutting Bar ripped the arms off at just below the elbow, sending liquid shadow and chunks of nothingness spraying on the floor. The lights suddenly came on. Cold. White. Sterile. Uncaring. There was nothing personal about the light. It was just there. There was a sigh behind him, hydraulics releasing. The shadows wailed and dissolved as their wails got thinner and more distant.

He grounded the tip of the cutting bar like he'd been taught and leaned on the handle, breathing heavily. After a moment there was slow clapping. He turned around to look and the Mistress of the Black Fleet was walking toward him, slowly applauding him.

"Only the ordinary could have prevailed, my lovely lovely Hetmwit," she said softly. Again, he was struck by how her cold beauty crossed even species lines.

"I have stood with Enraged Phillip, next to Kalki the Unbowing, back to back with the Telkan Warfather, as they prevailed in their own trials and tribulations, my beautiful ordinary one," she said. Instinct, or maybe just exhaustion, dropped him down to one knee, his hands on the crossbar of the cutting bar. Her hand moved forward and came to rest on the back of his helmet.

"Everyone has trials and tribulations in life," she said.

"Some, like this one, you emerge victorious. Other times, as with your father, you taste the bitter wine of failure," Bellona said. Her touch was almost a caress he could feel through the armor.

"But you are not one to resign themselves to the ashen flavors of submission without the slightest resistance."

"No. I have to at least try," he said, truthfully.

"Such a normal, common, ordinary answer, my little radiant Pagrik," Bellona said. Her fingers toyed with the tips of his ears through the helmet, the tips of both ears feeling her touch even though only one hand was extended.

"Your mother must love you fiercely. I would burn entire stellar systems with my pride if you would have been my son." The hand withdrew and she folded them in front of her, her arms at full extension and her hands clasped in front of her polished brass belt-buckle holding her black trench coat closed.

"Rise, lovely one," she said gently. Hetmwit got to his feet, exhaustion filling him, but training and discipline allowing him to stand on his own two feet.

He could remember being face down in the muddy grass, in the rain, while instructors screamed commands at him, trying to do pushups through his fear and exhaustion and one of the instructors put a boot in between his shoulder blades to shove him face first into the mud but he pushed himself back up, his arms trembling, his muscles shaking, but not crying, knowing the truth... he'd asked for it by signing up. Bellona gave a harsh laugh as Hetmwit got to his feet.

"No matter what the species, no matter how much time goes by, we all had that face down in the mud, didn't we, my lovely?" She asked, her voice warm with shared memory. Hetmwit nodded.

"Come. Decken is being brought onboard. He would like nothing more than to see his Number One waiting for him," Bellona said. She turned, executing a maneuver that was obviously practiced that let her turn 180 with just her feet twisting. A toe against the opposite heel and a quick twist. Hetmwit knew he couldn't do that, his hocks would twist. Still, he followed her. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

He expected the inside of the Little Nell of Night to be dark, dingy, dank almost. Instead it was brightly lit. Everything clean and sharp. Everything dress right dress. Even stencils had been redone. Hetmwit spotted the painted warning stencil for the pressurized oxygen line that he remembered being scratched and damaged. It was perfectly redone. He followed her to the bridge. The doors swept open and he saw that Captain Decken's armor filled the Captain's Throne. The robots were in the correct places.

He had half-expected for their personalized stencils and 'tattoos' to be removed. Instead they wore uniforms with their names and ranks on them, as well as armored vac-suits. All of them armed, armored, and ready to perform their duties while wearing exactly what a biological crewman would wear. Because, of course they would. Why wouldn't they? They were crew. At Bellona's gesture Hetmwit sat at his station. She stood in front of Captain Decken for a long moment.

She lifted on hand, her palm flat and level with the deck.

"Awaken," she whispered just loud enough for Hetmwit to hear. She pursed her purple lips and blew purplish and dark blue sparkles and dust from her hand that puffed out and covered the front of Decken's armor. Decken jerked slightly.

"Lady Bellona," Decken said, his voice slightly slow, almost as if the large human had just woken up.

"Captain Decken," Bellona said.

"Are you well?" Decken nodded.

"I am. Thank you for inquiring. And you?" Bellona chuckled.

"As much as I have been these thousands of years," she said, reaching up with one hand to touch her fingertips just below the savage gash in her throat.

"Ah, yes," Decken said. Hetmwit could hear the slight embarrassment in the Captain's voice.

"The Little Nell of Night and its attendant vessels have been prepared," Bellona said.

"You can now sail the seas of Hellspace as well as journey where you must," she pointed toward the viewscreen at the front of the vessel.

"When all is red, look for where it is just red amid all of the red." There was silence for a moment.

"I will remember," Decken said.

"The Tenth Crusade will follow in Hellspace as soon as you reenter n-space and transmit the signal," Bellona said. She looked around.

"Your other two living crew members are aboard. Asleep in their bunks. Your Digital Sentience will awaken once you are underway and away from the Black Citadel." Decken looked at Mister Donald, who nodded his robotic head slowly.

"Time grows short, Captain," Bellona chuckled. Hetmwit opened his mouth to ask what they should do next when Bellona suddenly seemed to grow transparent then vanish as if she was a heat ripple mirage. There was silence for a moment, then Captain Decken shook his head.

"We have received heading, velocity, and terminal coordinates from Glorie," Mister Chatty said, the robot's voice undeniably female. Hetmwit remembered that it's ID card put its first name as Cathy for some reason.

"Alert the Task Force. As soon as everyone reports they are ready to begin movement, we'll head for the coordinates," Captain Decken said. Hetmwit looked down at his console. The coordinates were there, in typical X, Y, Z format, but there were additional references. Q, R, and T. He had never heard of those. But then, he'd never heard of the purple of Deadspace either.

"All units reporting in. Ready for interstellar movement," Mister Chatty stated.

"Mister Smiley, if there is no listing from the Mistress of the Black Fleet, then ahead one-third," Decken stated.

"Ahead one-third, aye aye, Captain," Mister Smiley said. He tapped it on his console but also used the phone on his console. He picked it up, waited for a moment (Hetmwit knew that Mister Smiley had waited for the engine room to answer) and then said "Ahead one-third, confirmed." Mister Smiley hung up the phone. The ship moved slightly to Hetmwit's senses and he knew that it was part of how humans designed things. They didn't trust things that didn't make noise, that didn't blink lights, that didn't have sensation.

Hetmwit had an understanding of it from his time as robot maintenance. There was a faint purple shimmer at the forward part of the bridge.

"Deadshields at optimum levels, Captain," Mister Hefty said from his tactical station.

"Excellent," Decken said. The forward viewscreen came on showing purple. At times pieces of wreckage would sweep by. A gallium atom the size of a small truck hit the forward shielding and exploded into chunks of glitter that grew in size as they flew away from the Nell. There was silence for a long time before the holotank flickered. The shards of glimmering glass, pieces of mirror, and fragments of stained glass, slowly orbiting in a thin cloud of glimmering ground glass appeared in the holotank.

"Good afternoon, Mister Enduring," Captain Decken said.

"Good Morning to you, Captain," the insane digital sentience stated, his voice a hiss of malevolence.

"I had hoped you were dead."

"No such luck, Mister Enduring. How was your time in the Citadel?" There was silence.

"I do not remember. I know I was there, but I have no memory of it," Mister Enduring sounded startled. Hetmwit simply stared at the forward viewscreen.

"But it no longer hurts me to stare at this universe. To see the purple of a place that had died before its birth," Enduring said.

"A place where all have died before their birth, where even in death they may lie sleeping and eternally die."

"Not quite the correct quote, Mister Enduring, but close," Decken said. Hetmwit just sat at his station, looking over his console and boards. It is strange how quickly even the most strange experiences turn to monotony, Hetmwit thought. The chronometers are unreliable at best. I saw a chunk of a star, cold and dead, hit the shields with all the force of dandelion fluff. Yet, I'm bored with it all. He looked around, then at the Captain.

"Permission to go eat, Captain?" Decken thought for a second.

"Check on our other living passengers, Number One."

"Yes, sir," Hetmwit said. He undid his crash harness and got to his feet. He checked to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and headed off the bridge. The main spinal corridor was short, so checking on the two Telkan quickly had them joining him for something to eat. Hetmwit noted but didn't say anything about the slight red tinge to Wrixet's ear fur. He wasn't surprised that neither remembered anything one they had gone through the gates of the Citadel.

He didn't press hard, just instinct told him that pressing hard on those memories might cause them to come gushing out. Not like he had opened an infected wound, but rather that he had ripped the scab off of an artery puncture. When they asked him what he had gone through he told them all of it. There was no reason to hold back. They listened with interest about how he had defended Naxen from the black shades.

"Thank you," Wrixet said, reaching out and putting one of his large paws on Hetmwit's.

"I wish I would have been the one to guard him and I thank you for performing my task."

"He's one of the crew. One of us," Hetmwit said, shrugging his shoulders. To be honest, he was surprised that neither one of them had forgotten he was sitting with them. Part of him wondered if it was the effect of the Black Citadel. He opened his mouth to say more when the klaxon sounded off.

"All hands, all hands, prepare for crash translation! Battle stations! Prepare for.... red [First