The Witch Queen of Altaer

Captain Brennar Houph stood proud at the helm of his dreadnought. Without the Slaughterer’s wide bridge viewport lay the blurring rainbow warp of interstellar lightskip. Star clusters blended into nebulae, entire star systems twisted before Brennar's eyes as the Slaughterer zipped through space at faster than light speeds. Admiral Hansel Ragnoros loomed next to him, the tall Nyven was lank of limb with sickly grey skin reminiscent of a corpse.

Somewhere near, the Slaughterer's twin dreadnought, the Conciliator, paralleled their course at superluminal speeds.

The dreadnoughts tracked along the fringes of Impyrial space, seeking the remains of the Empyror’s grandest generation ship. Six months past the Gallivanter made its final skip on known lanes, entered back into sub luminal space and disappeared somewhere deep beyond the little inhabited Altaer system.

The Emypre heard nothing for months, then a small survival pod appeared at one of Altaer's asteroid mining colonies. Starved and dehydrated, the inhabitants of the survpod had resorted to—unholy—means of survival after the pod's rations ran dry. Only three of the eight survivors were left when the belters picked them up.

The survivors spoke of a swarm of invading ships. Lead by a class of destroyer not recognized in the Impyrial archives, likely of extragalactic origins. The generation ship was bordered by unholy combinations of alien and machine, pale, spider-like beasts armed with pulse cannons. The invading cavalry laid waste to the Gallivanter.

Then came the four-armed bipedal ground troops who stood over two meters tall. They carried shields and short swords that allegedly cut through anything. When Brennar first read the report, while similar sounding to kargrä steel in many ways, it seemed ridiculous. Still it was intriguing, what he could do with a weapon such as that...

The survivors claimed the invaders were led by a being taller and thicker of arm and leg than its troops. It carried longswords of violet ionized energy in two of its four mechanoid arms. Behind its helmet hung a circular energy field similar to the holy halos surrounding the God of Mourning he'd read so often of growing up in the volcano temples of Weura.

They called the invader the Witch Queen. Said it spoke a language they’d never heard in the Imperium, it slaughtered the crew of the generation ship. Thousands of souls from across all Impyrial Space, wiped from the galactic map like ants in a flood.

During the journey to Altaer, Brennar had heard whispers of a 'second coming' amongst the men. The Lord of the Mourning returning to lay waste to the Impyrium at last. Nothing more than foolish fancy, military superstition. Even still, the idea snuck into Brennar's thoughts laying in his bunk late at ship night when the stresses of command would not allow him the gift of sleep.

In truth Brennar wasn't concerned. Sure, this extragalactic being had made short work of a generation ship with little defense to speak of, but up against two fully equipped Impyrial dreadnoughts? With he at the helm of the Slaughterer and veteran of who knew how many battles Captain Gretel Kallisbyr at the helm of the Conciliator? This alien Witch Queen was in for a sweet surprise when they dropped out of lightskip.

“Sir,” Nav Officer Avra Perih began, they’d become close since departing Hwywern all those weeks ago. “Altaer system imminent, dropping out soon. My team is preparing another hyperdrive for the final leg."

“Excellent.” Brennar strapped into his crash couch next to the Admiral.

“Dropping out now." Avra said, the rainbow colors of the cosmos flashing out the viewport settled onto the star speckled everblack of space.

The Slaughterer’s inertial suppression field kept everyone aboard from being smashed into goop by the sudden change in velocity, going from superluminal to mere thousands of kilometers a second. Blue ionized energy blasts glowed from the sides of the bridge's viewport, forward thrusters slowing their immense speed.

“Sir, Conciliator has dropped out of skip and is approaching.” Comms Officer Yallueran said.

The blinding dots of the Conciliator's own ion drives shown out the viewport, framed by the massive blue gas giant of Altaer IX. Twin orbiting moons, large orange Trimon and smaller indigo Calcide loomed, each wastelands as was common in the Universium. Billions of moons and exoplanets, few of which could support life as currently understood by the Empyror’s best xenobiologists.

“Sir,” Radar Officer Lyx Greine's voice was thick and reptilian, it betrayed none of the stress Brennar could almost feel emanating off the Cyrelin's scales. “Unidentified ship on the other side of Trimon.”

“Locals?” Brennar asked, crossing the bridge to look over her shoulder.

“No sir, unidentified, no transponder. I’ve never seen a vessel like it before.”

By the Empyror’s… “Battle stations!” Brennar called out. “Prepare for evasive maneuvers.” The reports of what this Witch Queen had done to that generation ship flashed into his mind, he was taking no chances. The bridge erupted into motion as officers went about getting their crews ready for battle.

“Sir, we have visual on the ship. Coming around Trimon now."

"It's sending out ancillaries."

"Conciliator has launched fighters to intercept."

"Scramble the fleet!" Brennar called over the din.

Crimson lasfire erupted in the expanse, explosions rocking silently in the void. Men and women screamed over the comms as they were blown away by the Witch Queen's ships. Sleek enemy fighters swarmed toward the Conciliator. Gentle thuds sounded in the distance as the Slaughterer's cannons began their assault.

Thousands of enemy ships, small things no larger than Brennar's own fleet of ZX9s, narrow and fast. The Witch Queen's ships far outnumbered their own. Small balls of fire burst on Conciliator's hull as pockets of the dreadnought were exposed to vacuum.

It wouldn't be long before the dreadnought was overrun.

"Commander Synaer." Brennar said without taking his eyes off the command deck's holodisplay of the battle. "Prepare boarding parties."

"Yes sir." The Rilithiri man was squat and thick with muscle, a product of his double G homeworld. Synaer's boots echoed out of the bridge, his hard voice giving commands over his suit's comm as he went.

"Admiral." Brennar turned to face the Nyven, Ragnoros was oddly quiet, observing Brennar's command in silence. "I'm doing no one any favors standing here. I'm putting you in command of the bridge." Ragnoros cocked an eyebrow, but nodded his approval. "Yallueran, open up a line to Captain Kallisbyr."

"Yes sir."

Lavender lights flashed from the base and top of the wide circular command deck. Holographic images of Altaer IX, its moons, scrolling text of the Slaughterer's systems and the raging battle slid to the side as the image of Gretel Kallisbyr flashed to life in front of him.

"Captain, I have instructed Commander Synaer to lead boarding parties."

"I've done the same." Kallisbyr's voice was strained, behind her something on Conciliator's bridge flashed. Brennar chose not to ask.

"Good. I'm joining the boarding party. I've given Admiral Ragnoros command of the Slaughterer until my return."

Kallisbyr smirked at Brennar's blatant disregard for protocol. She knew just as well as he that he'd be more help with lance and shield fighting whatever awaited him on this Witch Queen's ship than he would on the bridge. "Happy hunting, Captain." He nodded his thanks and Kallisbyr's purple holoimage disappeared.

"The Admiral has command." Brennar said to his officers before turning on his heel and striding from the bridge. Admiral Ragnoros began barking orders. Boarding parties were already suiting up when he arrived in the armory.

Brennar slunk into the thin kevlar jumpsuit that stretched tight over his flesh, stepping into the waiting kargrä steel plate and mail. The exoarmor's black breastplate was emblazoned with the twin headed serpentine sigil of the Clegharyon Empyre. He dawned his twin tusked onyx helm all of jagged edges, devilish. His visor flicked to life, displaying weapons and suit systems, comm feeds and the Slaughter's ship status. He holstered side arms then grasped a tall vibroshield in his left hand and long laserlance in his right. Fuligin half cloak flapped behind his knees as he jogged from the armory toward the launch bay.

The Slaughterer's corridors were a bustle of men and women going to their stations, he joined up with a contingent of ground troops running in formation. Let the men see him, their valiant leader joining them in battle, this would be great for morale.

He grimaced, command had bettered him in many ways, but he often wondered if it had bloated his ego in more ways than the betterment was worth.

The dreadnought's launch bay was full of Spinatrous-class boarding craft loading with troops. Small ZX9 starfighters and larger N13 bombers dropped from the tall ceiling and blasted out the glowing suspensor field to join the fray.

He hopped into the same dropship as the troops he'd joined and took the seat closest to the cockpit. The shuttle's ramp rose, the engines roared and the dropship lurched up into the dreadnought's artificial gravity. The ion drives shuddered and launched them into the chaos of battle.

The ship buffeted and rolled, heavy armor and shields struggling to keep them from being blown to bits by enemy fire. Brennar pulled up the shuttle's schematics on his helmet's visor. They were already in worse shape than he'd hoped. Something slammed them to the side, compressed him deep into his seat.

"Helmets on!" He yelled over the onslaught racking the ship. His own exoarmor was insulated with thirty minutes of emergency oxygen in case of this exact scenario. It would be a brutally cold thirty minutes. "Prepare for—" He didn't have time to finish, the dropship flipped, a great shrieking sound deafened him and the back of the shuttle ripped to shreds.

They spun. Brennar's head grew light and his vision began to fade. He had to get out of the ship before he blacked out. Struggling with his harness, he freed himself, slammed once into the bulkhead, flipped, slammed into the other side, then spun out the back into the debris field.

His suit vented gas to slow his uncontrolled spin. Dead soldiers and warped shards of metal floated in the abyss about him, crimson and violet lasfire burst as his fighters continued their desperate assault on the alien fleet.

Brennar rotated slowly, staring into the void. His breath and the gentle fan of his suit was all he could hear. Without his suit’s helm lay the fuligin expanse, the vast nothingness. The shear size of the Universium rarely dawned on him as it did then, looking out beyond the steady lights of distant stars. He’d covered thousands of light years on this journey, sacrificed….seven? Eight hyperdrives? A cool melancholy washed over him, the bitter cold of space sneaking into his armor. He was but a subatomic particle amongst the vastest ocean. Nothing compared to that vacant sea of black.

Brennar shuddered, dragging himself from his reverie, his gaze drawn to the field of battle. The Conciliator was taking heavy fire, and the Slaughterer was in near as dire straights.

He located the Witch Queen's massive starship, larger even than his own dreadnought. The alien vessel was all of jagged edges and vicious points, far longer than it was tall, with duel daggers of twisted metal running triangularly along its hull.

Engaging his boot's propulsion system Brennar shot himself toward the alien ship, rotating at the last second to land feet first on the outer hull. He pulled a small burner from his suit and began cutting, the metal hull shifted color, quicksilver to the deepest black. It cut easy as normal steel.

Ripping the glowing orange edges of his fresh porthole free, atmosphere blasted out before some emergency lockdown equalized the pressure from within. He took one last glance at the field of battle before pulling himself into the ship, the two dreadnoughts were being overrun. There was a flash of ion engines, and then there was but one dreadnought in system.

At first Brennar thought something terrible had happened. That this Witch Queen had somehow managed to decimate his ship. But that was impossible. No, something much worse had happened.

The Slaughterer had lightskipped out of system. Without warning, without telling him, its Captain. Admiral Ragnoros abandoned the fleet of ZX9s, N13s, and all the boarding parties to their demise.

The coward left Brennar and his men to die fighting extragalactic beasts alone. Damn.

"All surviving crew of the Slaughterer still in system," Brennar began over the general comm, still staring at where his dreadnought should be. "This is Captain Brennar Houph, Admiral Ragnoros has abandoned us. I've just breached the Witch Queen's mothership and will rendezvous with boarding parties. Continue the assault, we will win this fight without the Admiral."

Better than nothing. Brennar thought, tossing a probe into the ship and pulling himself inside. He'd never been one for heroic speeches.

He was immediately met by the alien cavalry described by the Gallivanter's survivors. Six limbed, pale, spider-like half organic, half cybernetic monstrosities. Near as tall as himself with twin turrets attached to both front shoulders, Brennar ignited his shield and trained his lance on the incoming swarm.

Lasfire erupted from the end of his weapon, the beasts launched pulse cannons his way. Still reeling from the disappearance of his dreadnought, Brennar embraced battle stasis without thinking, going through the motions of a lifetime of training with lance and shield. Pulse blasts echoed along the corridor, wide arcs of energy spraying from the alien weapons. Brennar dodged and fired away at the insectile cavalry, beginning the long work of tearing the mechanoids to scrap.

"Captain, behind you!" Commander Synaer's gruff voice filled his helmet comm. Brennar dared a glance away from his skirmish and saw a boarding party lead by the squat Commander barreling down the corridor toward him. Joining the fight, Synaer and his elite soldiers made short work the few remaining mechanoids, ripping through them like frenzying sand snakes.

"How'd you find me, Commander?" Brennar asked between ragged breaths.

"I tracked your suit, sir."

"What? You don't trust me to hold my own in combat?"

"No sir." Synaer stuttered. "Not, that at least. I've noticed a trend of superior officers diving headfirst into battle and getting themselves killed. Didn't want you to do the same."

"Good man." Brennar slapped a gauntleted hand and the shorter man's shoulder plate, silently wishing Admiral Ragnoros had shown him the same loyalty. He'd have the bastard's head if they survived the day. "Lead the way Commander, no need for a superior officer to dive headfirst into battle and get himself killed now is there?"

Synaer grunted a laugh. "Yes, sir." Then turning to his men said, "Drakgarohans, fall out."

Brennar ran alongside the Commander leading the charge deeper into the alien ship. It didn't take long to encounter more of the cybernetic white spiders, and soon four armed bipedal alien troops armed with puslerifles and incendiaries. Battle stasis fully embraced, with Synaer's squadron of Drakgarohan soldiers at his back, Brennar dove into battle like he was meeting an old friend.

"Houph." Captain Kallisbyr pinged his helmet comm as he swung lance and slammed aliens with his shield. "We're not going to last much longer out here. Scans have detected the Witch Queen's engine room less than a klick from your position. If you can funnel their forces to that central chamber you may be able to overload their systems."

"Copy—" Brennar paused, a gap in the attacking forces opening, and from around the bend stepped the devil herself.

The Witch Queen of Altaer was massive, near three meters tall, pale and covered in carapace armor, four armed and faceless. She carried two glowing violet longswords of pure energy and behind her head hung a halo of ionized particles. This was no Queen, Brennar realized as he laid eyes on the alien Witch for the first time, this was a God. Rumors of the return of the Mourning Lord flashed back into his mind as the devil and her red armored guards began laying waste to his men.

"Focus fire on the Queen!" Brennar unleashed on the beast, crimson lasfire erupting from his lance until the barrel glowed.

The Witch Queen's six guardsmen were each shorter than she, four armed, ghostly replicants of their Queen. Blood red armor left their smooth faceless heads exposed to the darkness of the ship's corridors. Each carried duel purple ion short swords, a pulserifle, and a shield similar to Brennar's own.

He saw his opportunity. If he could disable one of the guards, get his hands on one of those blades...

"Kill the Queensguard!" Brennar called over the din of battle. Spider-like alien cavalry continued to swarm from the hallway. The Witch and her blood red knights moved on his men, glowing blades slicing through everything in their paths. "Route their forces the engine room!" Kallisbyr was right, the small hairs of his mustache charged with static from nearby energy fields.

Brennar charged, leading his men through the cavalry into the Queensguard. Firing at the nearest, Brennar slammed into the pale beast shield first. The two went to the ground in a heap before the faceless being had time to swing an ionized blade. Four arms grasped and scraped against Brennar's armor, short swords useless in the close quarters of their rolling grapple. He dropped his lance and pulled a side knife from its sheath, stabbing the guard through its smooth face. The alien shrieked through neck gills, nostril slits on its smooth eggshell skull flared as indigo blood bubbled around the wound. Brennar pulled his knife free and cut its throat, whatever constituted as a jugular for the beast severed, the guard shuddered and went limp beneath him.

Leaving his lance with the dead creature, Brennar rose, grasping one of the alien's energy swords in hand. Synaer grasped the creature's second. The blade was heavier than he'd expected, though far lighter than his lance. He swung the weapon once to gauge its balance, then turning back to the fray he raised the blade toward the Witch Queen herself.

Another guard met his sword, brilliant white ionized particles flew across the battlefield. Faster than the first, the guard's red carapace amor shifted with each of its dancing steps. The being used a similar fighting form to that of the fencers of Faeren, a proud style, but one that could be routed. Brennar's own training had been in the brutal tactics used by the tribesmen of Inferno. Fast, hard, and deadly. He did not prance about, swinging the blade like it was some baton in a parade. He swung it like a club, a mace of old, hammering blow after blow against the lanky creature until the dancing thing gave ground.

The faceless guard's shield deflected Brennar's blade whenever one of his blows snuck past its defense. Up, down, high, then low, Brennar could see the beast searching for a pattern to his attacks. He fought with none, battle stasis taking him deep into its vicious embrace. Seeing his moment, he feigned high, struck the guard's shield wide, kicked the alien's exposed breastplate and sent it sprawling. Before it could recover Brennar pulled his sidearm from its holster and shot the creature in its empty white face.

Synaer joined Brennar, two soldiers picked up the fallen ion blades and together they cut a path toward the Queen, the red tides were turning. The aliens began a slow retreat, routed toward the engine room.

The winding corridor opened onto an engine room that could have fit the Slaughterer within itself. Long catwalks and ladders stretched over towers of energy. The fields warped and shifted the air about them, of the same blue as the halo surrounding the extragalactic Queen's faceless helm. The stench of ozone was heavy in the chamber, something inky and cruel twisted and swam within the towering beams of energy, this was no power source Brennar was familiar with.

Then, he saw the swarm. Hundreds of mechanoid spiders, pale and six armed crawling toward them on the catwalks and walls. Shit. He'd led them into a trap of his own making.

“Disable those drives!” Brennar called as he swung against one of the Queensguard.

Two soldiers broke from their group and bounded toward the engine room's instrument panels and their bidepal half alien half machine technicians. They fled before Brennar’s men. The soldiers each jacked into the ship's systems with their own augmented cybernetics. The Empyre's holy ban on crossing man and machine only went so far, so long as there was political or military necessity. One of the Empyre's many holy hypocrisies.

“Be quick about it!” Brennar yelled over the clash of ion blades and lasfire, they didn't have long before that cavalry arrived. He swung low, dodged a fencing strike, cut a cybernetic arm in two, then dove in and took the mechanoid guard's faceless head from its shoulders. Red armored limbs twitched on the ground as neural and electrical impulses failed.

More of Brennar's soldiers took up the fallen guard's short swords and began their dance of death. There were more Naval troops with those blades than aliens now. Brennar smirked, chopping through a pale spider he ran for the Witch Queen. Alone and unprotected, the last of her guards preoccupied with Synaer's powerful blows. They had only seconds until the mechanoids made it to them from across the cavernous engine room.

“Flank her.” Brennar called, two soldiers met her from either side. Her longer reach and ionized longswords made short work of one of the men, cutting him down as though swatting a fly. Brennar barreled toward the enormous Witch as she picked up the fallen soldier's stolen weapon. Four arms, three swords. He met her blade for blade, the strength of her blow near threw him off the catwalk. Another soldier followed up his attack, and more men distracted her from the sides and behind.

Brennar returned to the fray. Synaer joined him, having taken out the last of the Queensguard. Another soldier fell, her head lopped free of her shoulders. The Witch grasped a man with an overpowered arm and tossed him from the catwalk, his scream fizzled out as he hit a tower of energized particles and melted on impact. She bent to grab the fallen soldier's blade, but distracted she lost an arm to Brennar's own stolen sword. He dove onto the hilt of her fallen longsword, tossing his short sword to another of his troops. The longsword was heavier, and he swung it like an executioner, hacking at her with everything he had.

Another of his men was thrown into the energy field, sizzling like an armored sausage. One of the Witch's arms was cut free by Synaer's blade. Sparks flew and blood dripped from her wounds. A soldier sliced through Witch Queen's cybernetic hamstring from behind. She buckled, swinging wildly, cutting two soldiers clean in half. Three troops pounced on her long arm, hacking free first the hand, then the whole limb before the soldiers were swarmed by cybernetic spiders. The cavalry had arrived.

Shit. Brennar turned from the Witch to slice through a pale mechanoid that fell limp before his blade could strike home.

"We got it!" One of Brennar's men screamed from behind. Cyborg spiders froze as whatever virus the two soldiers had implanted into the ship's systems worked its magic. Disabled beasts fell from catwalks and ladders, melting as they struck the energy towers filling the room.

The Witch Queen was left alone, bleeding out, and surrounded by Brennar's men. She continued to fight, though lost a third arm in the process and was forced to her knees by Brennar's soldiers. She hung her faceless helm before him, the ionized halo of energy glowed with less brilliance than it once had. Sparks fell from severed cybernetics, her breastplate heaved, they all knew her demise imminent.

"A little anticlimactic, don't you think?" Synaer said, kicking a rigid alien machine.

"A win's a win, Synaer." Brennar smirked and turned to face the dying Witch Queen. Three of her fours arms missing, the last mangled though still mobile, blood dripped in pools below her left and right cephalothorax.

"What should we do with her?"

As though in answer, her lone remaining appendage rose to release the front of her smooth helm.

Brennar cringed. Synaer and his Drakgarohans stared in silent shock.

A human woman's face lay beneath that helm, cursing them in some alien tongue. The skin at the edges her pale cheeks was pulled tight, connected to cables and electrodes, her eyes glowed an inhuman violet that matched the weapon Brennar held in hand. Those lighted eyes flashed, and the Witch Queen spoke in thickly accented Impyrial basic.

"I am but the first." Her smooth cheeks twitched, blood bubbled from her mouth. The energy halo behind her head faded, she buckled, then lay still on the catwalk. Those glowing eyes darkened to pits in her augmented features.

Extragalactic humans. The implications of that, and the invading force that this 'Queen' spearheaded washed over Brennar and his soldiers like the red seas of Kraeken. She was no Queen at all, merely a scout.

Kallisbyr's hard voice in Brennar's helmet comm tore him from fear. "Throw the Witch in the oven."

Brennar tossed her into the nearest warping tower of energy beyond the catwalk.

The Conciliator limped back across skip-points, sacrificing hyperdrive after hyperdrive to make the long the journey home to Hwyrern. Word of their victory proceeded their arrival, Admiral Ragnoros was taken into custody at the order of the Empyror himself.

The trial was short. The Judiciar offered to let Brennar swing the axe. He chose no axe.

Brennar felt nothing striding up the stone cathedral staircase to the floating platform on which Ragnoros knelt. The Empyror sat the Crystal Throne at the head of the hovering dias, heirs, knights and attendants stood silent at his sides. Thousands of Hwyrern citizens had turned out for the affair, human and other alike. It was not often an Impyrial Admiral was turned out in disgrace.

Ragnoros didn't speak when Brennar ignited the ionized blade of energy taken from the Witch Queen. The Scout. The other weapons had been taken by the Empyror's scientists for study. The violet sword whirred quietly at his side, heat emanated off it like the lava flows of Weura.

The crowd was silent as Brennar held the enormous weapon over Ragnoros's neck. He paused for the former Admiral to say any final words. He said nothing.

Brennar brought the blade down hard.

He thought little of the execution, his mind haunted by impending invasion. Extragalactic humans, likely descendants of a colony long lost to the Empyre. Returned with alien alliances and technology, unholy combinations of flesh and machine the Impyrium was not prepared to fight.

But that was a problem for another time. For now he raised the glowing blade high and the crowd cheered. Captain Brennar Houph had a feeling he'd be getting another promotion soon. The Impyrial Navy was in need of a new Admiral after all.