NOVEL NEXT Ch64.2 Dilinur: Moondust Glory (Scene 2)
Osram Time: 11:11, March 19, 2295
In the Dragonfort's cargo bay, about a dozen Peons in low-budget jumpsuits strained against massive chains, their emaciated bodies working to move the Moondust Crystal onto its transport platform. The twenty-meter formation pulsed with ethereal blue light, each pulse seeming to draw strength from the suffering around it.
"Faster, dogs!" An overseer's energy whip cracked above their heads, leaving ozone in the recycled air. "The Imperium demands perfection!"
The Peons groaned and heaved, their barely armored shoes slipping on the metal deck slick with sweat and blood. When one collapsed from exhaustion, they were dragged aside and replaced. There were always more Peons. The Imperium made sure of that.
The Crystal's platform—a massive anti-gravity sled reinforced with quantum stabilizers—slowly descended the cargo ramp.
Dilinur rushed to the bay, clad in her ballistic silk robes. Her Psi Fan Tarim Aytün hung at her side, now folded, its silverite guard reflecting the Crystal's glow. She stepped over a dead Peon without looking down. "Report!"
"Ready for deployment, Prefect," the overseer reported, bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the deck. "Though moving it back will require...fresh Peons."
"Then get to it! The Imperium's glory demands sacrifice."
Your sacrifice, a treacherous part of her mind whispered. Never mine. I'm safe in my robes while you die in rags.
She crushed the thought. Sympathy was weakness. The despicable Governor Qin had taught her that, among other lessons. "Teams Ox and Tusker! Rally to the Dragonfort. To Moondust Crystal!" she spoke to her earpiece.
The transport platform touched down on Mare Cognitum's surface, its anti-gravity systems whining under the Crystal's impossible weight. Immediately, a squad of Bloodtroopers formed around it as the Peons continued their struggle, now fighting against the Moon's low gravity that made their footing even more treacherous.
Hafgrim's attention snapped to the Moondust Crystal like a predator scenting prey. "The artifact!" The psychic roar staggered everyone within a kilometer. "I must seize it! Primarch Skarn shall be most pleased!"
The ancient Kraken surged toward Dilinur's position, her massive bulk crushing friend and foe alike. Bone Fiends and Skuggrs that had been supporting the Fenris assault rallied behind their own commander's charge.
"Protect the Prefect!" Joon-Seok commanded, his Psytum Sword carving through a leaping Bone Fiend.
And Iron Roach was already moving.
The cybernetic man's leap carried him directly onto Hafgrim's path, his enhanced legs absorbing the impact as he landed on her bulbous head. "Round two, stupid octopus!"
His shotgun rang repeatedly, each blast tearing chunks from Hafgrim's flesh. Black ichor sprayed from her ancient form, instantly boiling away into vapor. But the Kraken barely noticed, her attention fixed on the Crystal.
"Your toy barely functions against me," Hafgrim's psychic voice held something beyond rage. "I am the Eldest of Radi-Mons. My regeneration, beyond comprehension!"
"Don't care!" Iron Roach reloaded with mechanical precision. "You get in our way, you die!"
Hafgrim's arms whipped upward, and this time Iron Roach couldn't dodge them all. One caught his left leg, crushing the cybernetic limb with a sound like breaking steel. Another wrapped around his torso, squeezing.
"Dinu!" he managed to gasp. "Fucking do it now!"
Dilinur stepped forward, her hands already weaving the activation sequence. The Crystal responded to her touch, its inner light intensifying until it hurt to look at directly. She could feel its vast consciousness pressing against hers, alien thoughts that had no human reference points.
"Akhandit chetna, kalateet rahasya. [Unbroken consciousness, timeless mystery.]" she began in flawless Devavani, each word precisely pronounced. "Tere madhyam se, main shakti ko jagrat karta hoon! [Through you, I awaken the Power!]"
The Crystal pulsed once, twice, and then erupted in brilliant blue radiance.
The light washed over the battlefield like a tide of frozen starlight. Where it touched Radi-Mons, they stopped. Not killed, not damaged, but simply stopped, as if someone had pressed pause on their existence.
Bone Fiends froze mid-leap, hanging impossibly in the air before gravity reasserted itself. Skuggrs halted their acid attacks, the corrosive bile freezing in their throats. Even the other Krakens ceased their movements, arms going slack as their eyes glazed over.
Only Hafgrim resisted.
"No!" Her psychic scream shattered rocks, sent cracks spider-webbing through helmet visors. "I am Hafgrim of Enceladus! First of my kind! I will not bow to you ants!"
Unfolding her Psi Fan and holding it in her right hand, Dilinur spread her arms wide, and the Crystal's light intensified beyond blue into something that had no name. "Meri aatma ko, tere prakaash mein samaahit kar! [Immerse my soul in your light!]"
The psychic battle erupted with the force of colliding stars. Hafgrim's millennia of existence crashed against the Crystal's alien will, with Dilinur caught between them like a conductor channeling lightning.
"You know NOTHING!" Hafgrim's psychic assault came with flashes of memory—blue-skinned beings among stars, humanity in chains of their own making—but Dilinur pushed through it all. The visions burned but she would not yield.
"I know enough!" Dilinur snarled, blood running from her eyes as she forced the Crystal's power deeper into Hafgrim's mind. The silverite fan in her hand grew hot, channeling energies no human tool was meant to contain. "Yield or be crushed!"
The ancient Kraken's defenses crumbled like a dam before a tsunami. Piece by piece, memory by memory, Hafgrim's will shattered under the Crystal's relentless pressure.
Then something impossible happened.
Hafgrim's massive form began to writhe and compress, her flesh rippling like liquid shadow. The bulbous head that had dominated the battlefield folded inward, tentacles coiling tighter than physics should allow. The transformation was horrifying to witness—bone and cartilage cracking, reforming, becoming something else entirely.
"What in the Emperor's name—" Joon-Seok gasped over the comm.
The regolith beneath Hafgrim began to crack and buckle. Ancient lunar stone that had lain undisturbed for eons suddenly erupted upward as the Kraken's body became a living drill. Her flesh had taken on a metallic sheen, arms fusing into a spiral configuration that tore through solid rock like it was water.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" Kaori shrieked, her composure finally shattering completely. "My scans showed solid basalt for kilometers!"
The ground shook violently. A massive crater opened where Hafgrim had been, edges glowing with strange bioluminescent residue. Bloodtroopers stumbled backward, some falling in the low gravity as the moonquake spread outward. The hole she left behind seemed to descend forever, a perfect spiral.
Stolen story; please report.
As she vanished into the depths, her psychic voice erupted one final time, not just in their minds but seeming to resonate through the very stone: "Savor your insignificant victory. When Skarn returns to this realm, you'll learn why your ancestors feared the Radi-Mons!"
"Since when can Krakens burrow through fucking rock!?" Iron Roach's voice cut through the stunned silence, his disbelief echoing what everyone was thinking.
"The eldest ones..." Marisol's voice came through the comm, her usual playfulness replaced by genuine unease. "There are legends even in the Americas, stories passed down from before the Digital Era. Creatures that could move through stone like water. Thought they were just... cuentos de viejas."
"Then we fucking track her!" Roach called out, but Dilinur could see the futility of such action.
"She's gone," Kaori reported from atop her Draconic Engine. "Thermal imaging shows...nothing. It's like the monster vanished into another dimension."
"Let her run to whatever hole spawned her," Dilinur commanded, wiping blood from her face with savage satisfaction. The crimson smeared across her palm, but she felt only triumph. "We have what we came for. Secure the field!"
The battlefield erupted into disciplined violence.
"¡Andale! Team Dragon" Marisol's voice rang across the comm, her professionalism returning. "Slay all Radi-Mons not under control!"
Bloodtroopers moved among the fallen with precision. Thermal axes rose and fell, severing heads from bodies that still twitched with fading life. The dominated Radi-Mons stood motionless as their former packmates were butchered beside them, unable to react without Dilinur's command.
"Look at this!" A Bloodtrooper held up a severed Kraken arm, its flesh still pulsing with bioluminescence. "Trophy to show my children!"
Others joined in, collecting claws, fangs, pieces of carapace. One enterprising soldier used his thermal axe to carve intricate patterns into a Bone Fiend skull, creating a grotesque piece of art.
"Dominated creatures, form ranks!" Dilinur commanded through the Crystal's connection. Immediately, the surviving Radi-Mons moved with eerie synchronization. Bone Fiends lined up in neat rows, Skuggrs arranged themselves by size, the younger Krakens floated in perfect formation.
"They move like proper soldiers now." Marisol breathed as she came to Dilinur's side, watching the display. "Better than some of these pendejos we call troops."
"Better than soldiers," Iron Roach corrected from his medical gurney, gesturing with his shotgun. "Some fuckers question orders. These dogs just obey, right?"
Kaori's voice crackled over the comm, excitement replacing her earlier panic. "Prefect, I'll deploy the Draconic Engine's full capabilities on the hive cluster."
Dilinur turned toward the massive organic structures. They stood empty now, their defenders either dead or enslaved. But they remained a monument to Radi-Mon presence on the Moon's Near Side. That couldn't be allowed.
"Do it," she said. "Leave nothing standing."
"The rest of you, make way!" Kaori's laughter held a manic edge as the Draconic Engine rumbled into optimal firing position. Its barrel swiveled, targeting the nests.
The Imperial forces pulled back, leading their new Radi-Mon slaves. The dominated creatures moved without protest, their will completely subsumed.
The first Havok-Class warhead struck the central spire of the hive cluster. Nuclear fire bloomed in the low gravity, a perfect sphere of destruction that expanded outward with mathematical precision. The organic structure didn't just collapse—it vaporized, exotic proteins and biomass reduced to their component atoms.
"Feel the Engine's wrath!" Kaori screamed with joy, Dilinur could hear her hands dancing over the controls even over the comm.
Warhead after warhead rained down. Each explosion painted the lunar landscape in stark whites and shadows, the lack of atmosphere creating perfect spheres of annihilation. The hive's subsidiary structures—breeding chambers, nutrient pools, defensive nodes—disappeared one by one.
The Radi-Mon architecture vanished in minutes. Strange fluids that had pulsed through organic corridors boiled away instantly. The very regolith beneath the hive turned to glass, then shattered under thermal stress.
"Glorious," Joon-Seok murmured beside Dilinur, his face illuminated by nuclear fire. "Though one wonders if such thorough destruction was necessary."
"Terror is a tool," Dilinur replied, watching the devastation with satisfaction. "Let any Radi-Mon watching from their holes see what happens to those who oppose the Imperium."
When Kaori finally ceased firing, nothing remained of the hive cluster but a series of overlapping craters filled with radioactive glass. A Geiger counter on Dilinur's belt clicked rapidly, warning of lethal radiation levels that would persist for months, if not years. The Draconic Engine was one of the very few fission-based weapon that still remained in the world.
"And target destroyed!" Kaori reported, her voice hoarse from shouting. "Radiation will ensure nothing grows there again."
"Good." Dilinur turned to survey the battlefield one final time. "All Golden Serpents, report to me for final assessment."
Minutes after, they gathered around her—Joon-Seok with his red Psytum Sword powering off, Marisol coolly professional with her rifle across her back, calm desite the many troops she'd had to coordinate, Kaori's gigantic Engine practically glowing with post-destruction euphoria, and Iron Roach on his gurney but still managing to look dangerous.
"Sector by sector," Dilinur commanded. "Report."
"Eastern perimeter secure," Marisol began, her usual playfulness replaced by military precision. "Seventeen Bloodtroopers from Teams Dragon and Tiger still combat effective. We've collected approximately two hundred viable trophies for the glory halls. Though I must say, Prefect, their taste in souvenirs is... questionable."
"Northern approach cleared," she continued, checking her rifle's lever. "Good thing I did not have to use my precious ammunition. These bolts are expensive, no?"
"The Engine's ready for continued operations," Kaori excitedly purred from inside the siege tank. "Forty percent ammunition remaining. More than enough for Yosemite."
"And I've still got one good leg and a full shotgun," Iron Roach grinned through obvious pain as he lifted his head at the rows of Radi-Mons behind him. "Hey, these dogs follow orders, right?"
"Use Medi-Vap after this." Dilinur reminded him as she nodded.
"Our Conjurers..." Joon-Seok's voice held regret. "Three confirmed dead from psychic backlash. Two more may not survive transport. Their sacrifice honors the Imperium."
Dilinur lowered her head. Around them, surviving Imperials moved, loading equipment, securing dominated Radi-Mons, preparing for departure. The efficiency was beautiful to observe.
"Still, the Crystal performed beyond expectations," she declared. "We'll prepare for immediate departure. Yosemite awaits."
As they moved toward the landing zone, Dilinur walked among the dominated Radi-Mons. They stood in perfect formation, awaiting commands. Through the Crystal's connection, she felt their simple minds—no fear, no rage, just empty obedience.
"I wonder. Hafgrim's final words." Joon-Seok remained beside her. "About Skarn returning 'to this realm.' Are we ready for that?"
"Ravings of a defeated beast," Dilinur dismissed, though the words gnawed at her. "The Imperium is always ready."
"Dinu." Joon-Seok's delicate eyes narrowed in concern. "Are you well?"
"I've never been better, my Joon-Seok." She turned to meet his gaze, her voice silky and soothing, with an edge of seduction that surprised even herself. Barely felt like her own words, but she let them part from her lips anyway. "How about you?"
"I am well." He nodded cautiously, with a polite smile. "I am well." He repeated, looking away carefully as an eerie silence settled between them.
The loading process began with military precision. Dominated Radi-Mons marched up cargo ramps without hesitation. Wounded Imperials were carried aboard with honor. The dead were stacked for later cremation—all except the Peons, who were simply left where they'd fallen.
Dilinur stood at the cargo ramp, watching Mare Cognitum recede. The battlefield looked almost peaceful now—scattered corpses slowly freezing in the vacuum, the glass craters where the hive had stood still glowing with residual heat, Earth hanging in the sky like a judge delivered verdict.
"Prefect Altai! Prefect Altai! Prefect Altai!"
The chant began spontaneously among the Bloodtroopers and spread throughout the ship. Victory songs erupted in the corridors. Someone had already begun carving the battle's date into a bulkhead—a tradition as old as the Imperium itself.
Only when they were well away from the Moon did Dilinur finally return to the Crystal's chamber. The cargo bay still reeked of death—fresh Peons had already replaced the old, their faces holding the same hollow resignation. She walked past them to where the Crystal waited.
It pulsed steadily in its containment field, and when she pressed her palm against the barrier, the warmth that greeted her felt almost... alive. For just a moment, she could have sworn she felt it matching her heartbeat, synchronizing with her very life force.
"Moondust," she whispered to it. "You've served me well."
The Crystal pulsed once, twice, then settled into a rhythm that was undeniably her own. Whatever this artifact truly was, it had accepted her. The thought should have terrified her.
Instead, Dilinur Altai smiled as she turned and paced away.
Soon, Yosemite's shard would be hers. Then perhaps Earth itself. And when the Imperium stood triumphant across all planets and moons, there would be time to remove the Emperor, the Empress, to bring about a new order. Her order.
And perhaps, if mood struck her, she'd leave a place at her side just for Joon-Seok. To rule the Five Realm together.
Behind her, unseen but felt, the towering Moondust Crystal continued its now-perfect synchronization with her heartbeat, patient as the ancient stone it was.