A Light Not Extinguished

Chapter 16: Raising Questions

"I do not know much about their pantheon, my children. But long, long, ago, when I was still molten rock and fire, I felt the caress of one, a queen of life and nature, however briefly. She was kind, I think. Perhaps too kind. I do not know where she is, but she would weep now, if she could see what her children have become."
-Localised Planetary Empyreal Entity 'Gaea' when questioned about the seemingly defunct Aeldari Pantheon, M24. 031.

M24. 200.

Damascus System

Alivia Sureka's ship was a small, graceful thing. Barely longer than eighty metres, the Joyrider made up for its size by being equipped with bleeding-edge technology, the most prominent being a minaturised Warp Drive, much to the surprise of their passengers.

"There isn't a STONE Unit on board?" John Grammaticus asked. After warping out of the alien system, Alivia had piloted the ship to a remote location in the Halo Stars- the Damascus System, in which one of her personal bases was located in.

"Your ship needs to be registered to have a STONE Unit, and I'd really prefer her to be kept off the books." Alivia Sureka replied. "You just need a better Gellar Field, that's all. Speaking of which," She turned to the oldest person in the room. "You owe me another favour now, old man. By the way, that's a cute outfit. Did your boyfriend give that to you?"

Ollanius rolled his eyes. "Nice to see you too, Alivia."

"Hey, hey! I'm kidding... mostly. You two are like an old married couple anyways." Alivia took a swig from a bottle of some sugary fizzy drink- it was well known among the Perpetuals that Sureka detested alcohol. "So you two ran into the Cabal again? It's only been what, a couple decades since the last time?" The room they were in resembled a rustic wood cabin, with a fireplace that roared with blue fire. On the side were three arcade machines, made in a time long past in the lands of the Old Orient. The entire place felt like a moment trapped in time- something that the owner had taken great pains to maintain.

"John got ambushed at Nuceria." Ollanius explained. "Adam called me in to bail him out. They used some sort of teleporter to move us into a cell, likely scavenged Necron tech."

"Wait, it was him?" John groaned. "Aw, hell. Now he's going to be insufferable about it again."

"Well, I did save your life after all." A deep voice said next to Grammaticus. "Is it really that-"

The owner of the voice was interrupted by his head being blown apart by a plasma bolt, Alivia having drawn it and blasting the figure that had appeared in a shower of golden light with a shout. Superheated gore splattered all over the place, John screaming as his face was coated with most of it.

Flesh, bone and blood materialised around the smoking stump, reforming into a new head. "Well, hello to you too, Alivia." The Anathema said. "Did you really have to do that?"

"FUCK!" John screamed, cradling his face. "Somebody fucking help-"

Adam waved a hand, the gore and burns on John's face disappearing. "John. Ollanius. Glad to see you all in one piece."

"Ask for permission the next time you teleport into my ship, asshole!" Alivia fumed. Spiderlike cleaning drones moved silently across the walls and furniture, cleaning up bloody fragments and destaining the dirtied areas. "You're lucky I wasn't holding an Anathame." She gestured to Ollanius's weapon, now sitting in a scabbard on his hip.

Adam held up his hands in a gesture of apology. "Sorry for the intrusion." He looked at John. "Which of the Cabal was in charge of the operation?"

"Some Kerillaxian fuck called Saliehut." John grumbled. "And no, before you ask, Prytanis wasn't there. Don't think he was involved, this time."