A SPARTAN'S WAR

SOLMAR

STRIKER 51 AND 52

FEBRUARY 4TH, 1155 HRS, EST

[…daylight mission Milord.] Daio spoke softly to Andro at the rear of the STRIKER. He was using a shielded conversation with his Prince in order to have their words be private. He was a Tier Six Mindvoicer and a Durcunusaan officer so it was easy enough for him to initiate the connection and Andro instinctively strengthened it even more.

Andro looked up from where he had been straightening the saddle on Elynth's broad back. He turned his head and looked at Daio. He was just about the same age as Androcles, as were many of the Durcunusaan assigned to the SCIMITAR. They had been through different hells on Alba Tau, but there was no distinction when it came to that planet. Every battle there had been a nightmare for every Spartan who had taken part. Andro knew Jomann had reviewed every Durcunusaan soldier assigned to him in any way, and if Jomann had elected to keep Daio on the SCIMITAR there was a reason. It was likely that Daio's deep connections to Sparta played a part in that decision. Daio had been born and raised in Sparta just as Jomann and Andro had. In a way Jomann was partial to those Durcunusaan who had been born and raised in Sparta like himself and Andro. It was a tiny flaw in his Captain's mentality, but it was a flaw that Andro himself had.

[What other choice do we have Daio?] Andro spoke softly. [And stop with this Milord sibfla Daio. Not when we speak as we are now.]

Daio nodded his head. [I don't doubt the necessity of the attack Andro. I don't like what I think you have planned in your head however. Why you asked if we can contact them with our COM gear. I have an idea of what you are planning and Jomann would not be happy. I am not happy about it.]

[It's the only way to buy us enough time for Sa'sur and the others to get here.] Andro told him.

[It will also serve to bring every Kavalian ship within range of this planet here.] Daio told him.

[I'm hoping by that time it will be over.] Andro told him.

[And if it's not?] Daio asked.

Andro grinned. [Then we'll have to figure something else out.] He answered.

[Why are you doing this Andro?] Daio asked him. Daio's eyes lifted when Elynth's neck moved and her head came around to stare at him.

[Too many innocents have died because of our actions Daio.] Her voice filled his head easily.

[My actions sister.] Andro corrected her.

Elynth's golden eyes looked at her Bonded Brother. [Your actions are mine Andro, just as mine are yours. There is no distinction my brother. You know that.] She looked back to Daio. [We have to try and save as many as we can Daio.]

Daio nodded his head after a moment. [I understand that. I think you both carry a blame you don't deserve but I can not change that.] He spoke. [But I will tell you this… with your father gone Androcles, you are who all of us look to. The moment I see it is hopeless I will act as my Durcunusaan oath requires that I act. I will secure your safety just as Jomann would expect me too.]

Andro met his eyes. [It won't go that far Daio. I won't let it. I know what is at stake my friend.]

Daio nodded and ran his hands along Elynth's scales. [Then I will say no more about it.] He said. [Though I think Jomann will certainly give you a piece of his mind. Not to mention the Princesses.]

Andro smiled. [Of that I have little doubt.] He said.

Daio nodded. [I will prepare the others.]

[Daio…] Andro spoke drawing his eyes back to him. [Pass the word… I want the officer in charge of this Puma Bane detail taken alive if at all possible. Once we have secured the settlement move as many civilians as we can to the STRIKERs and call for the KADEN. We'll send them north across the ocean and then break for the coast from here with the rest.]

Daio nodded. [Understood.]

Elynth and Ryner flew wing tip to wing tip through the winding valley approaching the settlement. Dorian and Andro both had their Dragon Armor extended around their bodies. The armor glinted in the sunlight and they rode low in their saddles because of it. Their psychic shields would serve to dull most of the glare from the armor. Dreamland's scientists were working on a way to color the armor for operations at night and for general camouflage. The properties of the armor did not join well with coloring elements but Ben had told him they were close. Andro glanced over at his younger brother since he had been silent since they left the STRIKERs some miles back.

[Dorian.] Andro reached out for him.

Dorian's head turned. [I'm scared fervon.] He spoke.

[As am I my brother.] He replied. [This is not limited to you.]

[You?] Dorian gasped. [But you have… you have done this hundreds of times.]

[And we are terrified each and every time.] Elynth answered as she tipped her wings slightly.

[Just remember the training we have given to you brother.] Andro said. [You and Ryner are one… fight as one. Your psychic shield can protect you from most lighter weapons so be mindful of those carrying heavier ones and take them out first. You are more adept with your dual blades, but use your firearms until you close the range. Once you are among them, ignite the light within you fervon and let it shine. Elynth and I have seen it Dorian. Don't hold back and embrace what is within you! Own this time fervon… own this time like no other.]

Dorian looked across the small distance that separated them from each other feeling the pride and confidence swell within him. It came from his brother, from Ryner, from Elynth. It came from the blood of both his parents. [I will make our father proud.] He stated.

Andro shook his head. [Our father is already proud of you fervon. Never doubt that.] Andro said. [Today… today begin the story of yourself Dorian Leonidas. Have faith… and begin your own legend brother!]

[Today we fight to free others!] Elynth spoke.

[And we will succeed!] Ryner chimed in with the same confidence swarming through Dorian.

[Break now fervon!] Andro barked. [I will meet you in the center of the settlement and we will burn the vileness clean as our Tenna's words spoke not so long ago.]

[Ryner!] Dorian called out and Andro watched Ryner dip his right wing and peel away with skin flaying speed. His powerful wings rocketed him and Dorian over the nearby ridge and then he dropped from sight as he hugged the terrain.

Andro turned his head forward and took a deep breath. [Very well my sister.] Andro said softly, his hands spread across Elynth's neck scales and feeling the blood pound through her body. Their heartbeats were like one well oiled machine of precision and this is what set them apart from all the Bonded Pairs except their fathers. They were truly one in every sense of the word. [Once more we are called to act. His speed will put him in position in sixty seconds. Then we roll in and attack.]

Andro felt Elynth's confidence flow through him now as well.

[And we will show them what a mistake they have made by coming here. I am tired of reacting to what others do.] She spoke.

The Puma Bane troops on guard along the top of the wall were expertly trained and very alert. They were Puma Bane soldiers after all, the finest within the KFI. The Bontawillians had used standard Union colony kits in establishing themselves on this planet. The prefab settlement walls were extremely sturdy and allowed for walking patrols along the tops of the wall. This settlement had been established along the northern edges of a river of medium width that supplied an abundance of fresh, clear water to the settlement. The two Puma Bane soldiers were on a normal watch patrol where they walked back and forth between the two T19 Missile Team positions that faced north. Another two T19 Missile Teams faced south on the southern section of wall half a kilometer away, giving the Kavalians a full three hundred and sixty degrees of coverage on the settlement. It was the smallest of the six Bontawillian settlements making up the whole of the colony. Just over five hundred civilians remained from the original population of two thousand. These surviving civilians were now locked down in the main auditorium of the settlement. The building had not been built to hold all of the people together so Major Marsin ordered that enough be culled to allow them to place their prisoners in one building. That had required nearly seventeen hundred civilians be killed during the taking of the settlement.

The two Puma Bane troops had laughed as they gunned down screaming men, women and children in the streets. The vast majority of civilians here were scientists or some sort of researcher so none of them had put up much of a fight and it had been ridiculously easy to trim their numbers as the major ordered. The mainstream of the Bontawillian people were nothing more than scientists and farmers and knew nothing of fighting. The two men were now bored and hoping that the attack on their comrades meant that at least someone on this planet was going to put up a fight. It was nearing midday and the sun was high in the sky and they were only minutes from being relieved.

That relief would never come.

The Puma Bane soldiers were good and both of them saw the flash of black against the daytime sky as Elynth screamed in from over the crest of the ridge, hugging the trees so close that the tips of the giant green and brown leaves brushed her belly. As they raised their weapons and began to scream out a warning they eyes grew wide as Elynth vanished in a shimmer of transparent light and reappeared not fifty feet in front of them, her talons extended out. Neither of them had seen Andro's hand mash down on the teleportation control on the side of their saddle. Though they were designed for short range teleportation, the engineers at Dreamland had been working on the devices continuously since the successful teleportation of his father and Torma on Earth. Two new models had come out in the ensuing months based on that data and Andro had just installed the newest version in their saddle only two weeks ago. Ship to planet teleportation was still an iffy process… but the site to site teleportation had been deemed safe and reliable, though still limited in range.

Their combined focus was so precise that Elynth knew exactly what she was going to do after Andro mashed his hand down on the teleporter control built into every Mark Eleven saddle. They reappeared just where she had planned for them to and her front talons then landed upon and mashed the two Puma Bane troops into the walkway of the settlement wall as she brought her three plus metric tons down on top of them. She ignored the crunch of bone and the sound of her talons puncturing flesh and her armored head whipped to the left even as Andro extended his P190A3 from its bracket on the side of their saddle to the right and Elynth cut loose with the most powerful stream of flame tinged superheated breath she could generate.

That stream of flame reached the T19 Missile Team just as they began to react. Three thousand plus degree heat surrounded by open flame engulfed the three members of the Missile Team and instantly melted their missile tubes and parts of their bodies. Her flame tinged breath also served to ignite and detonate the stack of T19 missiles ready for use and one whole section of the wall erupted in a massive explosion. While Androcles Leonidas preferred to fight close where he could use his swords, he was more than an expert shot. His five round burst caught the missile toting Kavalian in the chest, the rounds walking up and to the right, blowing huge holes in the Kavalian's lightly armored body. The last round impacted the launcher itself, the high velocity kinetic round punching through the casing of the launch tube and hitting the missile. The result was catastrophic as the missile exploded in the tube while the user began to fall and it sent shrapnel in all directions, effectively tearing apart the two other Kavalians in the Missile Team.

Elynth's head snapped to the south and she beamed in pride as she saw Ryner come tearing out of the western sky directly from beneath the sun and above the two missile teams set up on the southern wall. She turned her head back knowing they would succeed and unleashed her voice with a trumpet of anger that shook the nearby buildings. She felt Andro leap from the saddle and she then let loose with a sustained stream of her flame tinged breath, sweeping it across the ground in front of the exterior doors of the settlement. Nearly one hundred and fifty meters her flame reached out, igniting almost everything in its path to include Kavalian troops who were gawking at her in unabashed fear.

Andro landed in front of the massive doors, paused for only a second and then reached deep within his Talon Guardian reserves of Etheric abilities. With a scream not of rage but concentration he directed and set free a wave of Etheric power that struck the massive doors on their weak structural joints. The massive surge of psychic power struck the hinges of the doors not unlike the blast of a hurricane, only with five times the power. The metal was designed to withstand the elements and small assaults by primitive indigenous species, not an angry young man who commanded power most could not understand. The huge ten foot high doors buckled instantly and then blew inward at incredible velocity as the metal bent and then gave way completely. One huge now destroyed door crushed four Kavalian troops as it was propelled back into the settlement and that is when Daio shifted back to human form and with a howl of delight he rushed the now sundered opening in the wall.

The Spartans had gotten as close to the settlement as they were able in wolf form, some of them like Daio, closer than others and scrapping their fur covered bellies along the tall grass and brush. They had tensed briefly when they saw Elynth and Andro execute their maneuver and then Andro had leaped down to the front of the doors and blew them open with his Etheric power. This gave Daio and the others pause for only a split second as they marveled at their Prince's actions and then, like any Spartan from history past, they charged lifting their left or right arms and sending a wave of Shi Viskas screaming forward of their rush.

Andro didn't bother launching his own Shi Viska as the others zipped by his head and he simply reached up and grasped the two odd looking handles attached to the front of his combat harness. As his hands closed around the handles he snapped his hands downward and in a soft flash of white light he called the blades from Flatspace.

The Elven Weapons Master Nehtes knew of what Andro had done by giving the Iphan and Halize Rie Aellseleum to the Immortal Pa'cour. To him it had been an incredible act of selfless honor and trust that had moved the ancient elven Weapons Maker nearly to the point of tears when he heard of the circumstances surrounding it. When he had asked Jomann how it had come about and Jomann told him Nehtes knew…

"The Immortal Pa'cour knew of your skill at creating weapons Master Nehtes." Jomann had told him. "Andro knew there was no time to do what Pa'cour requested. To honor his grandfather's request that Pa'cour be blessed for his actions so long ago, he offered him his own swords. He didn't hesitate in the least for he had seen something within Pa'cour and Yuri both that none of us did. It was a very moving moment."

Nehtes had already been under a directive of the King to build some very special bladed weapons and after Andro's gift to Pa'cour he knew what he would name the dual swords he was making for Androcles Leonidas. He had become the only Weapons Master that Martin Leonidas would come to shortly after the building of Eden City had begun. Nehtes had grown right with the Leonidas family, was allowed free reign within the Royal estates on both planets and was one of only three individuals outside of the immediate family and inner circle of friends that had physical access to all of them whenever he wanted.

Androcles Leonidas was the most gifted swordsmen Nehtes had ever been blessed to witness in all his years of life. The swords he carried, whether he used one or both in combat, they were extensions of his very being. He could make them sing a song of battle that was filled with wondrous power but also incredible grace and speed. Nehtes had already forged the blades themselves and he only needed to complete the pommels. He knew Andro despised opulence in any form and he had forged two simple handles that looked like dragon talons. They were lovingly carved from nearly unbreakable dragon bone given to him by Arzoal, with the talons holding the blade in place. In the rear of each sword was a small power crystal just like in his father's sword, allowing him thirty shots per sword of very intense, focused and powerful energy bursts of phased anti-matter plasma.

Vada Saar for Cana rie Emanur. (The Light and Hope of Eternity.)

The first day Nehtes had seen Androcles wield the swords in a training exercise was a day Nehtes would never forget. One word had entered his mind as he watched that display with dozens of others.

Incorruptible.

With Saar in his left hand and Cana in his right, Andro joined the rush of Spartans just as they reached where he stood.