July 13th, 2486 - Frontier Space, a Nameless Planetoid

‘Look at the size of this thing!’ Lt. Dondolah gawked.

‘All the more room for the enemy to hide…’ Lt. Larson scoffed.

The church rose from the dusty surface of the planetoid, a bizarre structure built of grey-blue stone, complete with buttresses and miniature steeples. There was no cover, and so Alpha Team approached quickly, scanning the ground for mines as they ran, and the rooftop for enemies. The walls were inscribed with strange, ancient symbols, unlike any written language Olivia had ever seen.

‘Sgt. Hammerdain, blow the doors’, Olivia ordered.

Hammerdain nodded in response, his helmet bobbing, and sprinted to the door. He secured a plasma charge to the door; small, round, and pulsing with green light, it would get them in without causing the whole building to collapse. They needed their prize, hidden somewhere inside, to be in one piece.

‘Get Clear’, Sgt. Hammerdain grunted.

The door erupted with a bright burst of flame, the smoke clearing almost immediately. Lt. Yordo was the first to enter, four other soldiers following behind him, their flashlights dancing in the dark corridor. Everything was silent. A minute passed, and then two more, before Lt. Yordo hissed into his microphone, ‘all clear … no signs of life.’

‘You got a cold Yordo?’ Lt. Larson asked, a mocking tone in his voice. ‘Sounds like you’ve got a sore throat.’

‘All clear’, Lt. Yordo repeated. ‘…no signs of life.’

Olivia gave the order to move in. Alpha Team entered the church cautiously. They swung the beams of their flashlights around, watching the dark corridors with quiet intensity. Olivia and Sgt. Hammerdain stood in the doorway for some time, watching the troops enter. It was eerily silent.

‘Lt. Yordo’, Olivia said into her microphone. ‘Bring your guys back, we need someone on guard at the door.’

‘All … clear…’, Yordo stammered through the microphone. ‘All … all … help … me…!’

Olivia’s eyes widened in shock. She caught Sgt. Hammerdain’s horrified expression, before he shouldered his plasma rifle and trained it on the dark corridors ahead.

‘Awww, you broke him!’

The voice was distinctly feminine, and it came through Olivia’s microphone, followed by a hideous giggle.

‘Commander!’ Olivia’s microphone shrieked. It was Lt. Larson, hyperventilating and hissing in a low voice, causing the audio levels to peak with his fearful breathing. ‘Oh god—I think—we’re surrounded…!’

Gunfire tore through the silence, followed by screams of agony. Olivia stepped into the church, shouldering her plasma rifle. ‘Bravo Team, do you copy?!’

‘S—so—comms—so—jamming!’ came the reply, punctuating by bursts of static.

‘It’s magic! Magic! They’re using bloody—!’ cried another radio wave, cut short by a static hiss.

Olivia sped down the hallway and turned right, into the midst of the gunfire. Three soldiers ran towards her, panting, out of breath, terror in their eyes—she pushed past them, into the corridor. Lt. Dondolah lay on the ground … a glowing blue creature with a long snout, and pale white eyes, held him fast by the neck with its teeth. It bit down hard. Olivia took a step back, raised her gun and fired. The creature wheeled about, screeching, as puffs of white mist erupted from its thin, skeletal body. Olivia kept on firing, not letting up. The creature exploded, its remains dispersing as a pale blue mist. Behind the creature stood a figure in a cyan coloured robe. The figure lurched backwards, the hood falling to reveal a young woman, no older than eighteen, with pale eyes and blood dripping from her nose. She collapsed onto the floor, and stopped moving. Olivia’s heart thundered in her chest. She took a deep breath, and activated the comms-link.

‘It’s … just a young girl…!’ Sgt. Hammerdain gasped. ‘Wait—our troops might think they’re just civilians, or prisoners!’

‘Don’t let up!’ Olivia yelled into her microphone. ‘The girls are not civilians, kill everything that moves and isn’t one of us! Don’t think, just shoot! For the love of the Emperor, don’t think!’

*

Grace’s ears rang. She stumbled through the smoke, coughing and retching. Plasma rounds hissed through the air, and screams filled the darkened hallways. She had to find Clerica, and warn her, before it was too late. Her stomach felt warm. The sensation was spreading across her abdomen. Something dripped down her leg. At last, she reached the door. The sounds of gunfire had grown distant; the soldiers had not reached the dormitories yet. Two girls sat on the floor in a corner of the corridor, holding one another. One of them sobbed quietly, and the other tried to comfort her. Grace pressed her hand onto the door to Clerica’s room. It was bolted shut from the outside. She leaned heavily into the bolt, something that she would normally have been able to lift with ease, and pushed it up as best as she could. The door swung open as she fell on it, clutching the bolt in her shaky hands.

‘Grace! Oh … oh no, no, no Grace! No, please no!’

It was Clerica’s voice. Grace smiled. She felt a hand on her back, and one on her stomach; Clerica’s hands. ‘When did my eyes close?’ she wondered. It hurt when Clerica pressed on her stomach.

‘Please, open your eyes Grace!’

Clerica was sobbing. It was no good. Grace’s eyelids were too heavy to budge. ‘Have the back of my eyelids always been so bright?’ she wondered. ‘Oh right… I needed to tell Clerica something… what was it again?’

She remembered.

‘Clerica?’ she said, her voice tiny, her lips barely parting. ‘You’ll … get through this … remember ... our promise…’

‘I remember … Grace…! I promise … Grace…!’

Wet droplets on her face. Everything was numb.

‘Thanks’ for … coming over… Grace.’

There was a smile on Grace’s lips … but she was gone.

*

The chapel doors simply fell from their hinges. Dei took a step back, readying herself alongside the other six sisters.

‘It’s over, my children’, the Holy Mother said. ‘Let them through.’

The soldiers burst through the doors with their plasma rifles raised. The woman who led them had blonde her and icy blue eyes. Dei felt a shiver run down her spine.

‘Holy Mother of the Sisters of Ulgara?’ the woman said, her eyes fixed on the silvery crystal that hung above the pulpit. ‘Surrender the stone of Ulgara. Your Emperor demands it.’

‘… and where is that coward hiding?!’ the Holy Mother spat.

There was some movement amongst the soldiers. They parted, letting three enormous soldiers clad in black uniforms march between them. Emperor Finlay Var Oostabar Gan Kuji walked into the chapel and took in a deep breath, his eyes sparkling.

‘You taught your children poorly, my beloved’, the Emperor said. ‘You accuse me of cowardice, Yet here you are, safely tucked away from the combat. Most of your girls use projection Mystik; yes, they were all bite, no armour by the sounds of things … so plasma tore through them like they were paper. Still, the one with the puppeteer ability sounded interesting. Pity we blew her up. We have killed almost all of your girls, Freya Var Oostabar Gan Kuji. Your project is at an end. It’s time to give up and come home.’

‘You decrepit old war monger’, The Holy Mother growled, baring her teeth. ‘You tried to have me assassinated!’

‘I was only returning the favour…’ the Emperor scoffed. ‘That time has passed now. I’m not angry anymore, I just want my wife back … and the power that she took from me.’

You should be dead by now! The galaxy is rightfully mine—mine, dammit! If this project had succeeded … I would have overthrown you easily old man!’

‘You dare mock me?’ the Emperor asked, his voice echoing around the chapel. ‘I am the one, true Emperor. This galaxy—all galaxies belong to me. I took you as a wife only because I had to. I let you bear my children, because I was pressured to do so … but no more. As you have used that ancient, Mystik device to retain your youth, old woman, so shall I regain my vitality in full!’

‘Don’t you care about saving face anymore?’ the Holy Mother asked, mockingly.

‘I am the Emperor’, he replied. ‘All I care about is progress.’

‘…Promise you won’t try to have me killed again?’

‘I have no reason to. Nothing can threaten me now.’

‘Fine’, the Holy Mother said. ‘I’ll come home … better than living out my final years on this dreadful rock.’

Dei’s heart sank. She turned her head to look at the Holy Mother. ‘Please’, she sniffed, with tears in her eyes. ‘Tell me that you weren’t just using us … tell me that we mattered.’

‘There’s no point lying to you now, is there … girl?’ the Holy Mother replied.

‘My name … is Dei!’ Dei replied. ‘I am Dei! Don’t you dare forget me, you monster!’

‘It doesn’t matter’, The Holy Mother … Freya Var Oostabar Gan Kuji replied.

The Emperor pointed with a bony, shaky finger at the remaining sisters of Ulgara.

‘Kill them! Your Emperor wills it!’ he bellowed.

In her final moments, Dei made a wish. It was unlike her, and it surprised her. In that moment, she couldn’t help but smile. She wished that Grace and Clerica would be safe. So long as they were okay, her life had had meaning. That was all the proof she needed. She narrowed her eyes and grinned, turning to face the soldiers. The blonde woman with the icy blue eyes had her plasma rifle trained on Dei’s chest, her hands shaking visibly.

‘You’re right’, Dei said. ‘It doesn’t matter … because there were people in this life that were more important to me.’

The blonde woman gritted her teeth and pulled the trigger.