The Sentients had won. They had turned our Weapons, our technology, against us. The more advanced we became, the greater our losses. The war was over unless we found a new way. In our desperation we turned to the void. The blinding light, the hellspace where our science and reason failed.
We took the twisted few that had returned from that place. We built a frame around them, a conduit of their affliction. We gave them weapons of the old ways. Gun and blade. A new warrior, a new code was born. These rejects, these warriors, became out saviors. Warrior-gods cast in steel and fury striking our enemies in a way they could never comprehend.
Excalibur was the first.
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Ember-
Three figures waited behind a simple table. Their attention on a single chair, bathed in light. An old woman's voice from the shadow: 'send her in'. Across the room a security officer, stern and plain, opened the door. The Outline of a young woman appeared at the door. She hesitated, but only for instant, then crossed the room and sat.
There was a gasp as the light hit her face. Her right eye was bright was blinking, but her left eye was greasy slit. Her skin had been burned moon-white her mouth was a sagging gash without lips or expression. Her military beret was pulled snug over a scarred and hairless scalp.
The old voice: 'your name is kaleen nodded.'you were the principal investigator of the zairman?' Kaleen's voice was a jagged whisper, a rigid face.'yes.'
Kaleen coughed, straightened: 'The Zairman was lost making the fold from Saturn to the outer gates. Mechanical failure. I notified families and filled a report with the inspections. Nothing ever returns from the fold, so I closed the case.'
'I didn't believe it myself until I stepped aboard the ship. It was completely intact, full environmental, as if it bad never left.'
'And the crew was gone.'
'Not exactly.' Kaleen hesitated. 'We thought it was empty but we began to find....' Her face twitched at remembered pain, 'we began to find children hiding it the ship.'
Kaleen bowed her head, a tear welling in her face sightless eye. 'They were children. They were afraid. They needed comfort.'
'So you broke quarantine and this happened to you.'
There was a silence as kaleen touched her face, 'so what have you done with them?'
The old woman gestured for the officer to take kaleen away. The meeting was over. When kaleen redhead the door she twisted out of his grip and shot back, 'why would you do that? Why would you put children on a military ship?'
'We didn't, that would violate procedure.'
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Rhino-
Red lights flashing on a stark, white walls. Davis is running ahead of me, dropping his notes. We're running for our lives. The fear gives me a strange perspective - I'm out of my body. I've forgotten how I got here. I don't recognize this place.
Davis and I slam pinned against a cell door and he shouts at me. I gave him a dum look. I can't hear him, the sirens, anything,only the muffled throb of terror in my head. I turned away from Davis down the hall and I see it. The hulking mass, flickering red,glinting like a steel and fresh blood. It's skin changes, by the sudden muzzle-flashes. They do no good. The beast surges forward and the security men became Crimson mist and gore.
Im a statue, a cornered animal. A gate opens inside me and recognition floods in. I have seen this monster before. I have its cuts she'll and eviscerated it's brothers. I have given it pain and measured it's response. I have crafted then rejected countless like it. But I've seen this beast before so close without shield, without restraints. I have never seen it....free.
