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Whoo hoo! :) Here we go, here we go. More, again, in a couple days! Also at AO3.
Qemuel - Destroyed by God (Jensen’s Story)
By 2236, the ANGEL system has been refined, streamlined – and militarized. Unlike the single-purpose use the system was originally designed for, militarized systems use a cocktail of compounds to enhance speed, strength, endurance and stamina. Coupled with articulated, hydraulic-assisted armor, it was soon obvious that normal human bodies could not function without sustaining repeated, crippling damage. A regimen of drugs and stem-cell implants was implemented, and the new ‘super soldiers’ grew denser bones, stronger muscle fibres and connective tissues, and nerves that reacted at three times the speed. It was also discovered that this regimen had to be maintained and refreshed, or the body would begin to reject the new growth. Other compounds were added to help the soldiers deal with their tripled or quadrupled sensory input. A second port was added at the base of the spine to facilitate different drug mixtures and faster delivery of bulk amounts. The delivery net, it was noted, continued to grow after implantation. It was named ArchANGEL, to distinguish it from the simpler, civilian system used extensively by the medical community.
They say you don’t dream in the Between, when ships are neither here nor there. You strap in, drug down, and ride the Between unconscious - helpless and naked in the void. They say you don’t dream, but Jensen always does. He dreams of cold and grey and pain. He dreams of an endless, grinding hunger, and air that stinks of death. He dreams of himself, filthy and aching and mute, static-noise of nothing in his head. When he wakes up, he does anything - anything at all - to make himself forget.
2294 - Orbiting the red dwarf Gliese 581 in the Libra constellation.
The planet was called Gl 581 g, or so they’d been told. It didn’t matter, it didn’t need a name. Five called it Judecca, but Five spent too much time plugged in, and got funny ideas. Jensen didn’t call it anything. It was just a ball of ice and rock, with a howling wind and a dozen or so Stick bases sunk deep into bedrock, and Jensen was here to dig them out; him and his Angels. He crouched on a ledge of rock halfway down a sheer cliff, armored fingers sunk deep, claws keeping him steady against the wind.
His HUD showed him his squad all around him, green-glowing dots in a double-V formation. Five’s squad was directly above, and Jinx and Kee were across the valley, pinpricks of yellow, blue and white. Morgan was out there somewhere, keeping an eye on them with the LT, cozy in their dropship, keeping tabs on everybody, ready to call down the regular troops once the Angels breached the Stick bunker. Other platoons down-the-well would be hopscotching across the surface, hitting every bunker and installation they’d found. Total destruction.
Jensen chinned his suit-mic, three hard clicks, and a moment later got double-clicks back from Five, Jinx and Kee. All ready-steady, and he sent that back to his squad, an impulse through the ‘net-com, alerting them. He could feel his mouth stretching wide in a teeth-baring grin inside the helmet. His armor flexed around him, reading his tension, his intent. He felt the whisper of vibration that was the go-pack kicking in, and a moment later his system flooded with adrenals and endorphins and his jaw locked, teeth clenched tight.
Go, go, go! His command was subliminal, subvocal, and instantaneous, and as Jensen leapt, he saw every colored tell-tale leaping with him. He bounded down the cliff-face in huge leaps, claws and cleats catching and holding and releasing, suit ailerons lifting and flaring at his shoulders, biceps, ribs and thighs to keep him balanced, silver-foil feathers with razor edges. Around him, the rest of the platoon flowed like a wave, all but flying down the cliff, huge gouges left in the rock, chips and dust flying, a howling over the net-com of thirty-five voices in full-throated anticipation. Thirty-six, because Jensen was screaming along with them, the shocks of his descent nothing through the armor, the drugs, the desire. Tracers and live rounds flew past, streams of yellow-orange in the HUD as the bunkers started up a defensive barrage. But his Angels were too fast, too agile - too good - only baptized by a rain of debris from the pulverized cliff face, untouched otherwise.
They hit the valley floor at near sub-sonic speeds and Jensen pushed up and off and leapt again, skimming the ground as he ran, hands coming down to steady and push, helmet up, fixed on their target. My gazehounds, Morgan called them, grinning that crooked grin of his. But they were fallen angels, they were Enim, and Naphaim and Gibborim; Terrifying, Weakeners, Giants. They were unstoppable.
The Stick bunker was blood-red in his HUD, and Jensen saw the lines of his squads sweeping forward, precise and perfect, Gibborim to the fore in their heavier armor, with their bunker-busters and hydraulic spikes, ready to crack the bunker like an egg.
The Naphaim came next, less bulky, with actinic fire and single-line EMPs to sear and disable. Then Jensen came, then the Enim, sleek and streamlined, with titanium APDS rounds and plasma-pulse rifles with the capacity to chew Stick armor and bodies to rags. The first of the Gibborim weapons hit like a fist of the gods, and Jensen felt the shock of it through the rock underfoot, through the dense, murky atmo. He felt it in feedback through the net-com, a body-wide shudder.
He screamed aloud, propelling himself forward into fire, smoke and chaos, his squad around him, their voices in his head, resounding in his skull. The bunker was a crater now, and the spindly, weirdly articulated bodies of Stick soldiers were tossed across the rubble like trash. A lock opened and more soldiers surged up - a black, skeletal wave - and the rifle that was part and parcel of the arm and shoulder of Jensen’s suit snapped into being in his hand.
An impulse - a nano-second’s thought - and the plasma bolt shot out, striking the nearest Stick in a shower of white-hot sparks. The Stick fell, kicking, dead in an instant as Jensen vaulted the body and plowed forward. Another explosion came, somewhere down deep, and the shattered bunker heaved and lifted, and then settled again.
Dig them out, bring them up - impulse and command - and the platoon moved as one entity, sinking shaft-cutter bits down into the rubble and sending the EMPs in after, the Gibborim shifting chunks of bunker out of the way, and the Naphaim scouring it clear with blasts of incandescent fire. A crack in the rock at Jensen’s feet showed weak light - tool-cut tunnels and shadows, moving - and Jensen keened in sheer, reflexive blood-lust.
“Helel, bunker is breached, we’re going in, copy!”
“Negative, Jensen.” Morgan’s voice was rough and brittle, fury barely held in check. “They want the Federals to clean it out, think they got intel down there. Finish your sweep and report back, over.”
Jensen stood panting on the crumbling lip of the fissure, his entire body shaking in minute tremors, his go-pack pumping in potassium and sodium and all the other minerals he’d depleted in the minutes since plunging off the cliff face. It spiced his blood with opiates and stimulants and heat, making it impossible for him to be still. No fucking way were they going to retreat now, not while there were still Sticks left. Jensen lifted his head, impulse fired through the net-com, and saw his troops still and turn and flow toward him, inexorable.
“I see troops massing, long-range weapons and bio-suits, we need to contain and nullify. Going in, off-link, out,” he snapped. He shut down the link and took a shuddering breath and then, as one, thirty-six Nephilim dove from the fissure’s edge like swimmers into the sea, the metallic fins of stabilizing ailerons glittering as they fell.
The ice-rock-rubble of the crater heaved again and then was still as the first Federal dropships touched down.
The dropship Helel docked to the Tiamat with a clank and a sigh, and Morgan was on his feet before the all-clear had even sounded, harrying them up and out of the flight webbing, out of the ship all together. They pounded down the ramp, heading for the ready room, eager to skin out of the armor.
At the foot of the ramp, Morgan caught Jensen’s shoulder with his own armored hand, and Jensen rounded on him, lips drawing back in a snarl and one hand coming up, rifle half-constructed before his brain caught up and put it away again.
“Stand fucking down,” Morgan growled.
“Don’t fucking touch me. Sir,” Jensen snarled back, and they stood there for a moment, unmoving, as the disembarking platoon pushed past and Five and a couple others milled around nearby, ready to come between them if the aftermath of the fight - the drugs - was too much.
“You went overboard, down there. Tore the damn place up.”
“So says the Morrígan.” Morgan was known for his scorched-earth policy. Jensen didn’t see the point of this conversation, not when he was still flying on the after-effects of the go-pack, not when he still wanted to moverungo.
Morgan scowled. “The Federals are on the LT’s ass, which means the LT is chewing my ass. They’re afraid you destroyed intel, loused up their mission statement.”
“We’re better than that,” Jensen said. “We didn’t take out anything they needed.” He was sure of that. Pretty sure. The last six fucking hours were a damn blur and he did not want to be standing here talking about it. He was itching inside his armor - he’d swear there was blood in there, ash. Jerking and shifting and sending a hundred half-realized signals to its on board computer, the whole suit rattled around him, joints clicking and plates lifting, ailerons flaring out again and again like the agitated wings of a raptor. He felt like he was going to shatter, and Morgan wouldn’t survive that, half-armored as he was. The Stick base had been more than a base, it had been a fucking settlement, and the lowest levels, the most heavily defended, had held a crèche, full of tiny Stick babies in nests. Nests that were no match for sticky fire incendiaries. Thank fuck Five always had a stash - had dumped the little twist of pale-blue powder into Jensen’s open mouth before they’d climbed back up out of the pit. Just a little something so Jensen could stop shaking.... “Morgan, fuck’s sake, let me go.”
Morgan sighed, scrubbed his hand back over the brushy inches of his buzz-cut with a whispery rasp that made Jensen twitch. Morgan’s left arm was polycarbonate and circuitry, a relic of a particularly bad wound from years ago. “Do as you’re told next time, Corporal.”
“Sir,” Jensen said, and twisted on his heel, striding rapidly away, Five and two others - Kerrin and Max - falling in behind him, on his six, buffering. Jensen heaved a sigh of relief as the ready room door thumped shut behind them and they were home. No officers allowed, not now, not in the adrenaline crash that was coming for all of them - not in the aftermath of what they’d just done, and the extra little hit Jensen (and Five and Sous and Perin) had taken. Morgan knew fucking better than to get in his space immediately post-mission, but there he’d been, presuming on an intimacy long cold. Bastard. Three missions into his conscription, bad intel and Marines on a hair-trigger had sent the whole operation spinning out of control. They’d lost three Nephilim, and Jensen had been on stand-down for five weeks, healing, resting in Morgan’s bunk, rolling over for him because he was shiny and new, then, and sure he’d fucked up. He’d needed the reassurance. He didn’t need it any more, but Morgan didn’t seem to want to let it go.
Umbilicals and special hooks hung in clusters from the web of struts above, and as each soldier stepped onto the pad below, the suit called them down, plugging in and suspending so that when the suit un-seamed and peeled open, it could stand on its own, ready for scrub-down, repair - whatever was needed.
But that would come later. Much later. Right now, they needed something else. Naked, hairless bodies slipped out of their metal sheaths, heading straight to the dispensary on the wall. They stood on the X so the robot-arm could strip out the go-pack and plug in the down-pack, a little bubble of chemicals the system would mix up and disperse, opiates and nutrients and stuff to take the go-pack edge off. Stuff they needed, or they’d be tearing into each other like wild animals, and coming down like the junkies they all were.
Jensen got his pack and then got under a free shower head, bumping elbows with Five on one side and Sinna on the other. Hot water like a blessing poured over him, and he shut his eyes and just braced there until the flicker-flash of memory caught him. He jolted out of it and reached for the soap dispenser, fingers bumping into Sinna’s on the same mission, a little touch from Five on his hip. He could tell what both women wanted, but he wasn’t in the mood for that this time. Not after the mission; not after his run-in with Morgan. Fucking Jeff.
This time, Jensen wanted to be pounded straight through a wall, but, as hard-core as both women were, he still topped them by a good six inches, and it just wasn’t going to be enough. He scrubbed the saline gel off his skin - exuded by the suit to give the dozens of sensors one hundred percent conductivity - rinsing off goop and suds to reveal the lines of tattooing that twisted around and around, from knuckles to biceps to throat and across his chest and shoulder blades. He hadn’t felt right - hadn’t felt like himself - until he’d gotten that work, slender lines of red and green, blue and yellow and black like plaited wires. They were part of him in a way he didn’t like to think about, a jerky, monotone memory that made his stomach twist even as he knew he had to have them.
Jensen ducked out of the water, giving Five a little crooked grin. She nodded and hauled Sinna in by the back of her neck, mouth to mouth and hip to hip with suds still sliding down their legs. They were fine without him. Jensen snagged a towel out of the bin and wiped his face dry, then ran the soft cloth over his freshly shaved head and across the down-pack socketed snugly into the port at the base of his skull. He did a fast tooth-brushing at the row of steel sinks and drank a mouthful of flat, cold water as he watched, in the mirror, Malik and Kane behind him, over in a corner. They were already halfway there, Malik crowding Kane’s smaller frame against the wall, his mouth making a bruise on Kane’s pale throat, both of them hard, hips doing a slow push and grind that made Jensen’s heart pound.
Jensen swung wide, so they’d both see him coming, and stepped up close. He put a hand on the dark skin of Malik’s back, a fingertip tracing the metal edge of the lower port, the raised whorls and dots of his scarring. Malik arched and pushed back, lifting his mouth from Kane’s throat.
“Qemuel,” he rumbled, and Jensen shivered violently. Qemuel - his battle-name, his Angel name. Hearing it still sent a shock over him, made his skin pebble and his cock throb between his thighs.
“Xaphan,” Jensen said. He could see the speculative light in Malik’s gaze, and the way Kane had gone from pliant to predatory in an eye-blink. “I...need-”
“What do you need?” Kane asked, rough-voiced, one hand lifting away from Malik’s hip and latching onto Jensen’s, pulling him in. Their bodies were fever hot - hard with muscle, roped with scars both decorative and not, inked with tattoos - and Jensen groaned, shoving his rapidly hardening cock against Malik’s thigh.
“Need it to hurt,” Jensen said, and Malik laughed and snaked his head forward, taking Jensen’s mouth in a kiss that was more teeth than tongue while Kane’s hand found his balls and squeezed. Malik tasted like toothpaste and the chemical-lemon by-product tang of the go-pack, pharmaceutical decay. It overpowered the ghosts of char and ash Jensen swore he could still taste, and he pushed into it hungrily, little noise of pure want escaping him.
“We got you, Jensen,” Kane reassured him. “We got you.” They pushed him and turned him and all three of them stumbled toward the barracks, toward the dim, padded spaces already half-full of the rest of them, of Nephilim in pairs and triads and quads, rutting and twisting, moaning and breathing. Coming down, letting go, they were proving to themselves with tongues and fingers and cocks and cunts that they were alive, all alive, all here, all safe. Kane sprawled down onto a wide, cushioned bench, someone’s feet near his hip, and Malik wrapped himself around Jensen from behind, dragging his blunt nails down Jensen’s ribs, his mouth at Jensen’s ear.
“You’ll scream,” he promised, and then he shoved Jensen down, half on Kane, half on upholstery, and followed right behind.
R1A1 was a refinery...somewhere. Jensen hadn’t been paying attention - fuck, no one had. Why they were even told those kinds of pointless details, Jensen couldn’t figure, but they were. It was there, Jensen knew, on his hand-held, the one he only ever used for games or pictures, because he’d never gotten the hang of reading and the briefing packet was a huge collection of useless squiggles and some numbers and not enough images.
He mostly paid attention to the pictures and schematics and relied on Jinx to read out anything important, a little trick they’d figured when about eight Nephilim had turned up illiterate. Jensen just told Morgan that it worked better to hear it out loud, as a group, and since Morgan wanted them to do whatever worked....
Some raider outfit had blitzed the refinery and wrecked their transmitter - although, not before an SOS had gone out - and was now crouching there, blockaded in and under siege, trapped. There’d been a failsafe that someone had gotten to, shutting everything down, sealing off most of the refinery and locking the docked ships in, and so it was either sit there or rip their own docking rigs out getting away. For six fucking months, real time, they’d stagnated there, waiting while the Angels and Marines were in transit.
“Why’d they not hit the fuckin’ self-destruct,” Sinna muttered, and a low chorus of agreement went around the room.
“Here’s why,” Jinx said, angling his hand-held, one narrow, black eyebrow lifting. “Fucking thing was a month out from capacity - it’s worth a couple trillion. Bet they didn’t make the destruct section-specific - they don’t wanna lose that pay out.”
“‘N’ they think we be better?” Kee muttered, and a low laugh went around the room from bodies sprawled half on each other, half on the cushions.
“Guess they’re cutting their losses. ‘S why they didn’t let their fly-boys try anything, either,” Jinx said, referring to the fleet of five Company ships, about thirty security personnel in all, that patrolled this bit of Company space. Jinx scrolled through a few more pages, frowning, and then tapped up a holo display, so an image hovered in blue-white bars of frozen light above their heads. “Says this is where most of the miners are, and the raiders, too.” The habitat module glowed, pinpricks of green where long-range scans had found lifesigns. “Pretty much the only place big enough for ‘em all.”
They all examined the holo, and Jensen got up on his knees, looking closer. He gestured for Jinx to rotate it - enlarge - and pointed swiftly to five spots on the diagram.
“If we put charges here and here...see? This whole section comes away.”
“Yeah.” Five was up, too, peering closer and checking her own hand-held. “Leaves the main processor intact...most of the refined stuff, too. Just cuts the raiders off.”
“It’s gone, f’we do that. Decompression,” Kee pointed out, and she was right. That section was storage, admin and habitat, and while it would have section seals to prevent any small hull breach from becoming a big one, it wasn’t built to withstand complete, explosive uncoupling from the main unit. But miners were non-essentials, as far as the Company was concerned - easy to replace and they’d all signed waivers, had supposedly been told everything they needed to know about their life expectancy, how safe it was to bring their families and make a life here in the vast Dark.
“Looks like that’s a go, then,” Jensen said. Demons, he knew, were being tasked with taking out the raiders’ ships, and the Seraphim with securing the refinery itself, and taking out any stragglers. Dominions were going to go in disguised as a company ship, offering a deal - the most boring of the jobs, but somebody had to distract them.
“Squad leaders to main briefing, on the double,” Morgan announced, his low rumble of a voice making the com crackle. The holo vanished with a tap of Jinx’s finger as he, Kee, Five and Jensen untangled and stood up, straightening twisted hems and brushing themselves down. Off-duty for all of them was loose-fitting, navy blue cotton trousers and undershirts, though everyone at some point added some small item of personal significance. Jensen habitually wore a thin, knitted sweater, one he’d had...well, for a very long time. It was too big, hanging down to mid-thigh, and too thin to do much more than provide a tactile comfort, but that’s all he needed from it.
They rolled out of their section and down a corridor, crowding into the lift with the squad leaders from Archangel, nostrils flaring and skin shivering at the scent and feel of foreign bodies - outsiders. Archangels all had facial tattoos, swirling lines of blue and silver from their shaved hairlines down. The designs came forward, around their eyes and down their cheekbones. Jensen didn’t like the narrow, predatory look it gave them. He bared his teeth in silent antipathy and the Archangel nearest him did the same, a hissing sound of pure displeasure rasping between her teeth.
The lift opened before it could go any further, and Nephilim and Archangels stalked down the main corridor separately, nerves going tighter and muscles bunching as they came into main briefing and spotted Demons and Seraphim already there. Morgan shifted between them immediately, herding his platoon off to one side while other Gunnery Sergeants did the same and the Tiamat crew exchanged looks of exasperated irritation. The wide, transparent rectangle of the holo unit in the middle of the room was already activated with a wire frame of the refinery, with different colored pinheads of light showing accesses, power sources, miners and raiders. Their LT was there, Lieutenant Wisdom, his face set in its usual scarred, sombre mask. Two sides of the unit were taken up with officers, Tiamat crew and mining Company suits, and Jensen felt himself bristling.
“Settle the fuck down,” Morgan snapped. “Pay attention.”
Jensen had the gun-metal grey sleeves of his sweater pulled right down over his fists, rubbing the thin, stretchy material between his knuckles, one hand against the other. His teeth gritted together, spastic, and his gaze leapt from person to person in the room, cataloging every twitch and turn and breath. The others crowded in closer, no calmer, and then Morgan tapped something into his hand-held and they all relaxed as a brief burst of ultrasound, keyed to the ANGEL systems, triggered a hit of serotonin. The urge to sink his teeth and fingernails into a living throat and rip ebbed away, and Jensen could finally concentrate on the briefing.
He listened as the Major gave them a brief rundown of the situation, her voice emotionless, her whole demeanor radiating an icy calm, while the Tiamat crew sweated and fidgeted and tried not to look too closely at the Angels. They radiated unease that made the Angels shift restlessly, keyed onto their fear; the serotonin hit only went so far.
When it came to his turn, Jensen outlined his squad’s mission, and acknowledged that whoever was in that section, unsuited, would probably die. A Company man - all suit and slick hair and fashionable, glowing optics on little frames over his eyes - mouthed some kind of bullshit about doing their best, preserving life, acceptable casualties. Jensen showed him a mouthful of teeth and the man looked hastily away, flushing.
“Lying shit,” Five whispered. The miners and their families would die, but nobody would care, because the refinery would be saved, and the raiders gone, and the money would keep flowing. Jensen rocked on his toes a little and stared hard at the back of Morgan’s neck, hoping for another hit of the ultrasound. Morgan ignored him.
“Right. We’ve got sixteen hours for transit and prep. Platoons, you know your assignments.” The Major’s gaze swept over the room, lingering for a moment on the Angels. “I expect the all-ready at...twenty-two hundred hours, understood?” Agreement came back from around the room, platoon leaders and squad leaders, and the Major gave a brief nod before turning her back. “Dismissed. Platoon leaders, keep me apprised.”
“Let’s go, on the double,” Morgan said, and the Nephilim went, striding quickly away down the corridor and back to the lift. Morgan stepped in behind them and slapped the ‘door closed’ button, fast, so the Demons following would have to wait for the next one. It was a relief to get off the lift, to get back to their section, their dorm, their own. It smelled right, the light was right. The walls stopped being industrial grey and instead were covered in looping graffiti and muted swirls of color, an ongoing project that took up the down-time and marked this as their territory.
“Squad leaders, you know your assignments. I want you to get on suit prep and weapons detail now, and get it done. Make sure you double-check those seals, we don’t want any leaks.” Morgan ran a hand back through the inch-long black and silver hair on his head, scrubbing a little with his meat hand. He looked tired. “I want this to go down fast and neat with no damn mess. If you think you can seal any of the raiders or miners into a secure area, do it, but they are not the priority. Understood?”
“Yessir,” Jensen muttered, and Jinx did, and then the rest, a ragged chorus.
“Brief your squads. Get a move on. Let’s go.” He turned on his heel and left, and the Nephilim surged up, surrounding Jensen and the others, quick, light touches confirming they were there, back, part of the whole again.
“All right, you heard him!” Jensen raised his voice and his troops fell silent, oriented to him, listening. “Get on suit prep and make it perfect, people. We’re gonna free fall from the Tiamat to the refinery, stealth mode, and set our charges. There’s three areas in that zone where we can ride it out with minimal exposure There’s a couple tugs attached to the refinery itself, Seraphim are gonna pilot those out and catch us.” Jensen grinned, humorless. “Apparently, they figure they can rehabilitate that section, not have to construct a whole new one for the next batch of miners.”
“That’s so practical,” Sinna said, her voice high-pitched, full of mock adulation, and Jensen barked a dry laugh.
“That’s suits for you. Let’s get going, Nephilim.”
“Sir, yessir...yessir...sir.” The squads moved, heading to the ready room for suit prep, and another wave of ultrasound rolled through the room, serotonin and dopamine hitting their systems seconds later. Jensen grinned fiercely at the overhead, knowing Morgan was watching, rewarding him - them - for good behavior. Loose and happy and ready to move, Jensen pushed in along with the others, finding his armor in the dangling rows of suits and calling the comp terminal up from the floor, activating the first in a long list of chained tests to be sure every system was up and running. There was a scorch mark along one thigh that he didn’t even remember getting on their last mission, and he rubbed a thumb over it and wondered if he’d have time to repaint.
Someone hit a switch and music flooded the room, loud and raucous and full of random ultrasounds that would have them all leaping and snarling and ready when the time came. Unapproved and banned, but - out here - overlooked.
Jensen shouted the chorus along with the rest of his Angels as his suit twitched to life, gleaming black and copper and vivid yellow-green, the polished edges of the ailerons silver in the overheads. It was his gorgeous, deadly alter-ego, his battle-name stenciled on the back, Sinna’s weird, recurved designs acid-etched down the chest plate. His body was already humming with adrenaline and arousal; go-time always gave him a hard on.
This was gonna be good.
The refinery looked dead. It drifted, dark and listing, just high enough above the plane of the dust belt to escape any real damage. A light or two shone down near where the raiders were docked - three ancient hulks cobbled together from spare parts and spit, bristling with illegal arms. The other two were on a tight patrol to the zenith and nadir of the refinery, and it had just been their very bad luck that someone had been awake when they’d stormed in, com-disrupters flaring and every jammer going full bore.
So they’d been stuck for six months real-time, sniping at the Company fleet, protected by Company greed, the fleet leashed as they were by the rules, the suits, the money.
A stray shot or two had holed the refinery in a couple spots - nothing too bad, section seals had contained it - but it added to the overall air of an abandoned, lifeless hulk. Jensen scanned the image on his HUD and felt his heart kick, a little too fast, a little too hard.
“Simmer down, Jensen,” Morgan’s voice purred over the link, and Jensen flexed his fingers on the safety rail, armored feet magnetized to the narrow catwalk extruded by the Tiamat just below the lock access. His squad was strung out beside him - Five behind, then Jinx, then Kee - backs to the reassuring bulk of their ship, faces out to space. All waiting on the signal so they could detach and dive, minute avatars of death against the refinery Leviathan.
“Give us the go,” Jensen muttered, single-channel only, and he could hear Morgan’s rasping laugh in his bones.
“Patient, be patient, my gazehound.” His voice caressed, and Jensen shivered, ailerons flaring. Then his voice changed, switching to all-channel. “Dominions are engaging-” Morgan’s voice droned on, status and count-down, and then the HUD lit up like a bomb, explosions of light and data sleeting across the interface, and Morgan’s voice was growling in fury. “Fuck, they fired. Nephilim, go, go, go!”
Jensen snarled the command before Morgan was even done talking, the suit’s mag-lock coming off and his hand opening - propulsion jets firing as he and his Angels peeled away from the Tiamat and flew. They arched out and away, the Tiamat receding and the refinery bulking in their forward view, HUD and real-time display overlapping and then matching, a flare of blue-white as everything lined up and the go-pack kicked in with an extra burst of adrenals. Off to the zenith and about ten degrees to port, the Archangel ship and four of the raiders were exchanging fire, blips of light in the periphery of the HUD, the suit tracking and then ignoring bursts of debris, the internal AI collating and refining data, pinpointing their targets.
Gibborim were handling the charges, Naphaim backing them and providing cover as Enim secured the three maintenance hatches they’d found. Three ways into the habitat module itself, so they could ride out the decoupling explosions and secure the unit for the Seraphim to latch on and tow it back to the refinery. It was a weirdly shaped, clunky module that would surely spin out of true when the charges went off, and Jensen wanted his troops wedged in tight somewhere, safe.
He could feel and hear the platoon chatter over the suit ‘net as, one by one, they lighted on the module’s pitted skin. Aluminum, poly-composite and glassine tiles all showed the wear of a dirty system and indifferent maintenance, and Jensen pulled himself rapidly, hand over hand, to the hatch that was half-hidden behind a bulging array of antennae and cameras.
He saw Sinna in the HUD, coming down parallel to him, clinging at the top of the hatch while Jensen synched his suit to the module’s system and told it to open up.
The door shivered beneath him before lifting up and sideways, and he slipped in around the edge before it was done moving, Sinna darting in behind him. The gravity was off - they were only tugged weakly toward the floor, and Jensen drifted, calculating. The hatch and bay behind it was big enough for the bulky repair pod stored in the wall to detach and maneuver easily, but that was about it. They’d have to get the inner hatch open and move through into the module itself - no way a dozen of them in armour could fit into the bay.
“We’ll have to lock through, half inside, half out here.” Jensen pushed away from the wall and moved to the inner hatch. He could see a dim corridor through the pressure window, clean and empty.
“Charges set,” was coming over the ‘net, one after the other, and Kee and Five had secured their own maintenance bays and were just waiting on the rest to come in.
“I’m going through,” Jensen said, more for Morgan than for Sinna, who could feel his intent through the ‘net, could hear it in her head like her own thoughts. She keyed the outer hatch closed so Jensen could open the inner one, keeping the module’s atmo in place even if they didn’t need it. Jensen stepped through and the hatch slid shut behind him, and he felt the first of the Naphaim at the outer door, waiting on Sinna to open up.
The corridor was short, barely three meters, and there were emergency holds at intervals, recessed into the walls - a good place to ride out the explosions. Jensen stalked forward, his HUD showing him faint traceries of circuitry and wiring beneath the dull-white corridor sheathing. His suit-mic wasn’t picking up anything but the faint hum of ventilation fans and the metallic clank of his own booted feet. At the end of the corridor was a T-junction. Left was a section seal, truncating that way less than a meter in. Right was an open corridor and...a person.
Jensen reacted and his armor with him, arm coming up and rifle forming in his grip, targeting array pinpointing the killshot. The figure froze, eyes huge in a gaunt, dirty face and Jensen...couldn’t move. He could feel his heart pounding, harder and faster. He could feel his lungs working, but maybe not working right, because he wasn’t getting enough air, he wasn’t; just tiny sips of oxygen that were making him feel light-headed, his vision dimming, going to a tunnel, sparking black, the ragged figure the only clear thing in his sight.
Dimly, Jensen could hear Morgan on the com, saying something, insistent and furious, and Jensen could do nothing but stare at the thin, shabby figure that was staring back, frozen in a darkened doorway. A moment later, Jensen groaned, the armor shuddering around him as the suit shot a new compound into his system. In seconds, Jensen’s blood stream was awash in a complex mix of mood-stabilizers, tranqs, and adrenals, and Jensen dragged in a huge lungful of air, vision snapping back, his head clearing, rush kicking in. He growled, furious at himself, and shook his head sharply, the armor rattling.
“Jensen, you back with me? Report, damnit!”
“Yeah, yes - yessir. Civilian personnel spotted.”
“Sir, we’re on count - twenty seconds.” Sinna’s voice in his ear brought him back all the way and Jensen let the rifle retreat into the armor, turned and strode away, back to the corridor, back to his squad. He turned the corner and joined the five Nephilim that were locked into the handholds already; braced for the explosion, braced for decompression.
He curled his armored fists around the last handhold and locked down, sent the mental impulse to the mag-locks in the armor’s feet to seal him to the corridor floor, and dismissed from his mind the scarecrow figure of the dirty, starving child that was surely about to die.
“So what the fuck was that?” Morgan growled, and Jensen jerked away from his grip, same damn scene playing out all over again, except this time Jinx and Kane and Sinna were shouldering in between them, shoving Jensen back hard, their own suits flaring and chattering, too keyed up to be still or to care. Five or six others milled near the ready room door, hovering uncertainly, their drug-hyped senses reacting to the tension - feeding it right back through the ‘net - and Jensen could feel the rest of the platoon reacting, moving. Not good, not good, but oh, so comforting.
“Not fucking now, just back off!” Kane snapped, and Morgan glared at him, polycarbonate hand resting on the grip of his service weapon.
“Get out of my face, soldier, or I’ll take you out.”
“You can fucking try,” Kane snarled, hand coming up, tell-tale flashing amber to green as his gauntlet taser powered up. It could kill a man, you hit him just right, and Kane could put his armored fist through Morgan’s ribcage, if he wanted to - fry Morgan’s heart in point zero zero one second.
Morgan’s own teeth were bared. He took one step back and his meat hand came up, flare of blue-white light that hit Kane and sent him, seizing, to the floor. Kill-switch, KO, the only thing that would stop an Angel without killing them. It glowed in Morgan’s palm like a star, looped around his fingers, and Jensen vaulted Kane’s shuddering body as Jinx and Sinna used their own armored bodies to brace Kane’s.
One good shove, before Morgan could act, sent him slamming into the wall hard enough to dent it. Morgan bounced off it with a snarl, teeth bared. He unholstered his weapon, his grip activating the power cell, a little click and whine that the suit mics caught, and every soldier in the room reacted to the flare of fightdefenddanger through the net. Morgan’s polycarbonate thumb moved, sliding the safety off, and eight rifles formed and lifted, every soldier but Kane targeting Morgan, the metallic scrape of armor and rifle parts shivering through the room like a snake’s hiss.
The barrel of Morgan’s weapon hovered, inches from Jensen’s face, and even the suit couldn’t close the faceplate fast enough, if Morgan fired. “I said - what the fuck was that? Corporal.”
“Fuck you, Morgan,” Jensen said, his voice soft as a whisper and edged like steel, and Jensen swore he saw Morgan’s finger twitch on the trigger.
“Morgan!” The bark of a baritone voice cracked like a whip and everyone in the room jerked in reaction. “Stand the hell down, all of you!” It was the LT, Lieutenant Wisdom. His round, dark face was set in a furious scowl, his hands nowhere near his own weapon, and the Angels obediently shifted to ready-rest stance, rifles sliding away, arms coming down. Morgan didn’t, and Wisdom rounded on him, his dark eyes narrowed.
“I gave an order, Gunnery Sergeant,” he said. His voice wasn’t even raised, but the fury and the steel behind it were evident, and Morgan shot one wild, furious look his way before letting his weapon drop. Wisdom spoke to the room at large, but kept his gaze fixed on Morgan. “Nephilim, you did an outstanding job. Stand down. We’ll be in-system for at least three days, or until this mess is contained.” He finally looked around at them, one long glance followed by a crisp nod. “After that, we’re bound for Reveille. Gunnery Sergeant, my office.” He turned on his heel and stalked away. Morgan slammed his weapon back into its holster and then he, too, was gone, gunshot crack of his boot heels on the corridor floor echoing behind him.
Jinx and Sinna hauled Kane to his feet and Kerrin got a gauntleted hand on Jensen’s shoulder, pulling him back. Jensen grinned fiercely at the impulse through the net - ownership and affection and protection. His Angels. Turning around, he herded them all through to the ready room and the rest of the platoon that waited just inside the door, anxious, on edge.
“Fucker. Asshole. What in fuck-?” Kane snarled, his voice ragged, and Jensen pushed in close and gave him a hard, biting kiss.
“You stupid bastard,” Jensen muttered, Kane’s lips against his, and Kane kissed him back, drawing blood.
“Got your back, Qemuel. Always,” Kane murmured, and it was Jensen sending it out this time, the pack-feeling, nest-feeling, love, that hooked in and never let go.
“Sariel,” Jensen murmured back, and then he stepped away, lifting his head, surveying the room full of Angels half out of their armor or still in it, buzzing with post-mission energy. “The LT says we got shore leave, soon’s we’re done here. Let’s get squared away, Nephilim, I’m ready to fucking celebrate.”
They roared back an affirmation, one voice, one surge of overwhelming emotion, and Jensen never wanted to be anywhere else. Ever.
2254 – the year Jensen becomes an ArchANGEL
Platoon Nephilim: 36 soldiers + LT (Lieutenant Robert Wisdom) plus Platoon Gunnery Sergeant (Jeff Morgan).
Four squads of nine (complete) ArchANGELs. Squad leaders Jensen, Five, Jinx and Kee.
Other platoons are Dominions, Demons, Seraphim, Ophanim, etc..
Dropship Helel with assigned pilot, navigator, and armscomp. Dropship crew are regular AFSPC (AirForceSpaceCommand), and modified (incomplete) ArchANGELS .
LTs and platoon Gunnery Sergeants are modified (incomplete) ArchANGELS, mustered out Marines with either honorable or dishonorable discharges.
Troopship Tiamat, with a compliment of 500: 12 platoons w/LT/Gunnery Sgt/Squad leaders (480), plus one medevac (12) and ship’s actual crew (8). Medevac and Crew are not ArchANGELs.
APDS rounds - Armour-piercing discarding sabot.
For visual's sake:
Malik = Charles Malik Whitfield
Kane = Christian Kane
Lt. Wisdom = Robert Wisdom
Gunny Morgan = Jeffery Dean Morgan
Part Three
Qemuel - Destroyed by God (Jensen’s Story)
By 2236, the ANGEL system has been refined, streamlined – and militarized. Unlike the single-purpose use the system was originally designed for, militarized systems use a cocktail of compounds to enhance speed, strength, endurance and stamina. Coupled with articulated, hydraulic-assisted armor, it was soon obvious that normal human bodies could not function without sustaining repeated, crippling damage. A regimen of drugs and stem-cell implants was implemented, and the new ‘super soldiers’ grew denser bones, stronger muscle fibres and connective tissues, and nerves that reacted at three times the speed. It was also discovered that this regimen had to be maintained and refreshed, or the body would begin to reject the new growth. Other compounds were added to help the soldiers deal with their tripled or quadrupled sensory input. A second port was added at the base of the spine to facilitate different drug mixtures and faster delivery of bulk amounts. The delivery net, it was noted, continued to grow after implantation. It was named ArchANGEL, to distinguish it from the simpler, civilian system used extensively by the medical community.
They say you don’t dream in the Between, when ships are neither here nor there. You strap in, drug down, and ride the Between unconscious - helpless and naked in the void. They say you don’t dream, but Jensen always does. He dreams of cold and grey and pain. He dreams of an endless, grinding hunger, and air that stinks of death. He dreams of himself, filthy and aching and mute, static-noise of nothing in his head. When he wakes up, he does anything - anything at all - to make himself forget.
2294 - Orbiting the red dwarf Gliese 581 in the Libra constellation.
The planet was called Gl 581 g, or so they’d been told. It didn’t matter, it didn’t need a name. Five called it Judecca, but Five spent too much time plugged in, and got funny ideas. Jensen didn’t call it anything. It was just a ball of ice and rock, with a howling wind and a dozen or so Stick bases sunk deep into bedrock, and Jensen was here to dig them out; him and his Angels. He crouched on a ledge of rock halfway down a sheer cliff, armored fingers sunk deep, claws keeping him steady against the wind.
His HUD showed him his squad all around him, green-glowing dots in a double-V formation. Five’s squad was directly above, and Jinx and Kee were across the valley, pinpricks of yellow, blue and white. Morgan was out there somewhere, keeping an eye on them with the LT, cozy in their dropship, keeping tabs on everybody, ready to call down the regular troops once the Angels breached the Stick bunker. Other platoons down-the-well would be hopscotching across the surface, hitting every bunker and installation they’d found. Total destruction.
Jensen chinned his suit-mic, three hard clicks, and a moment later got double-clicks back from Five, Jinx and Kee. All ready-steady, and he sent that back to his squad, an impulse through the ‘net-com, alerting them. He could feel his mouth stretching wide in a teeth-baring grin inside the helmet. His armor flexed around him, reading his tension, his intent. He felt the whisper of vibration that was the go-pack kicking in, and a moment later his system flooded with adrenals and endorphins and his jaw locked, teeth clenched tight.
Go, go, go! His command was subliminal, subvocal, and instantaneous, and as Jensen leapt, he saw every colored tell-tale leaping with him. He bounded down the cliff-face in huge leaps, claws and cleats catching and holding and releasing, suit ailerons lifting and flaring at his shoulders, biceps, ribs and thighs to keep him balanced, silver-foil feathers with razor edges. Around him, the rest of the platoon flowed like a wave, all but flying down the cliff, huge gouges left in the rock, chips and dust flying, a howling over the net-com of thirty-five voices in full-throated anticipation. Thirty-six, because Jensen was screaming along with them, the shocks of his descent nothing through the armor, the drugs, the desire. Tracers and live rounds flew past, streams of yellow-orange in the HUD as the bunkers started up a defensive barrage. But his Angels were too fast, too agile - too good - only baptized by a rain of debris from the pulverized cliff face, untouched otherwise.
They hit the valley floor at near sub-sonic speeds and Jensen pushed up and off and leapt again, skimming the ground as he ran, hands coming down to steady and push, helmet up, fixed on their target. My gazehounds, Morgan called them, grinning that crooked grin of his. But they were fallen angels, they were Enim, and Naphaim and Gibborim; Terrifying, Weakeners, Giants. They were unstoppable.
The Stick bunker was blood-red in his HUD, and Jensen saw the lines of his squads sweeping forward, precise and perfect, Gibborim to the fore in their heavier armor, with their bunker-busters and hydraulic spikes, ready to crack the bunker like an egg.
The Naphaim came next, less bulky, with actinic fire and single-line EMPs to sear and disable. Then Jensen came, then the Enim, sleek and streamlined, with titanium APDS rounds and plasma-pulse rifles with the capacity to chew Stick armor and bodies to rags. The first of the Gibborim weapons hit like a fist of the gods, and Jensen felt the shock of it through the rock underfoot, through the dense, murky atmo. He felt it in feedback through the net-com, a body-wide shudder.
He screamed aloud, propelling himself forward into fire, smoke and chaos, his squad around him, their voices in his head, resounding in his skull. The bunker was a crater now, and the spindly, weirdly articulated bodies of Stick soldiers were tossed across the rubble like trash. A lock opened and more soldiers surged up - a black, skeletal wave - and the rifle that was part and parcel of the arm and shoulder of Jensen’s suit snapped into being in his hand.
An impulse - a nano-second’s thought - and the plasma bolt shot out, striking the nearest Stick in a shower of white-hot sparks. The Stick fell, kicking, dead in an instant as Jensen vaulted the body and plowed forward. Another explosion came, somewhere down deep, and the shattered bunker heaved and lifted, and then settled again.
Dig them out, bring them up - impulse and command - and the platoon moved as one entity, sinking shaft-cutter bits down into the rubble and sending the EMPs in after, the Gibborim shifting chunks of bunker out of the way, and the Naphaim scouring it clear with blasts of incandescent fire. A crack in the rock at Jensen’s feet showed weak light - tool-cut tunnels and shadows, moving - and Jensen keened in sheer, reflexive blood-lust.
“Helel, bunker is breached, we’re going in, copy!”
“Negative, Jensen.” Morgan’s voice was rough and brittle, fury barely held in check. “They want the Federals to clean it out, think they got intel down there. Finish your sweep and report back, over.”
Jensen stood panting on the crumbling lip of the fissure, his entire body shaking in minute tremors, his go-pack pumping in potassium and sodium and all the other minerals he’d depleted in the minutes since plunging off the cliff face. It spiced his blood with opiates and stimulants and heat, making it impossible for him to be still. No fucking way were they going to retreat now, not while there were still Sticks left. Jensen lifted his head, impulse fired through the net-com, and saw his troops still and turn and flow toward him, inexorable.
“I see troops massing, long-range weapons and bio-suits, we need to contain and nullify. Going in, off-link, out,” he snapped. He shut down the link and took a shuddering breath and then, as one, thirty-six Nephilim dove from the fissure’s edge like swimmers into the sea, the metallic fins of stabilizing ailerons glittering as they fell.
The ice-rock-rubble of the crater heaved again and then was still as the first Federal dropships touched down.
The dropship Helel docked to the Tiamat with a clank and a sigh, and Morgan was on his feet before the all-clear had even sounded, harrying them up and out of the flight webbing, out of the ship all together. They pounded down the ramp, heading for the ready room, eager to skin out of the armor.
At the foot of the ramp, Morgan caught Jensen’s shoulder with his own armored hand, and Jensen rounded on him, lips drawing back in a snarl and one hand coming up, rifle half-constructed before his brain caught up and put it away again.
“Stand fucking down,” Morgan growled.
“Don’t fucking touch me. Sir,” Jensen snarled back, and they stood there for a moment, unmoving, as the disembarking platoon pushed past and Five and a couple others milled around nearby, ready to come between them if the aftermath of the fight - the drugs - was too much.
“You went overboard, down there. Tore the damn place up.”
“So says the Morrígan.” Morgan was known for his scorched-earth policy. Jensen didn’t see the point of this conversation, not when he was still flying on the after-effects of the go-pack, not when he still wanted to moverungo.
Morgan scowled. “The Federals are on the LT’s ass, which means the LT is chewing my ass. They’re afraid you destroyed intel, loused up their mission statement.”
“We’re better than that,” Jensen said. “We didn’t take out anything they needed.” He was sure of that. Pretty sure. The last six fucking hours were a damn blur and he did not want to be standing here talking about it. He was itching inside his armor - he’d swear there was blood in there, ash. Jerking and shifting and sending a hundred half-realized signals to its on board computer, the whole suit rattled around him, joints clicking and plates lifting, ailerons flaring out again and again like the agitated wings of a raptor. He felt like he was going to shatter, and Morgan wouldn’t survive that, half-armored as he was. The Stick base had been more than a base, it had been a fucking settlement, and the lowest levels, the most heavily defended, had held a crèche, full of tiny Stick babies in nests. Nests that were no match for sticky fire incendiaries. Thank fuck Five always had a stash - had dumped the little twist of pale-blue powder into Jensen’s open mouth before they’d climbed back up out of the pit. Just a little something so Jensen could stop shaking.... “Morgan, fuck’s sake, let me go.”
Morgan sighed, scrubbed his hand back over the brushy inches of his buzz-cut with a whispery rasp that made Jensen twitch. Morgan’s left arm was polycarbonate and circuitry, a relic of a particularly bad wound from years ago. “Do as you’re told next time, Corporal.”
“Sir,” Jensen said, and twisted on his heel, striding rapidly away, Five and two others - Kerrin and Max - falling in behind him, on his six, buffering. Jensen heaved a sigh of relief as the ready room door thumped shut behind them and they were home. No officers allowed, not now, not in the adrenaline crash that was coming for all of them - not in the aftermath of what they’d just done, and the extra little hit Jensen (and Five and Sous and Perin) had taken. Morgan knew fucking better than to get in his space immediately post-mission, but there he’d been, presuming on an intimacy long cold. Bastard. Three missions into his conscription, bad intel and Marines on a hair-trigger had sent the whole operation spinning out of control. They’d lost three Nephilim, and Jensen had been on stand-down for five weeks, healing, resting in Morgan’s bunk, rolling over for him because he was shiny and new, then, and sure he’d fucked up. He’d needed the reassurance. He didn’t need it any more, but Morgan didn’t seem to want to let it go.
Umbilicals and special hooks hung in clusters from the web of struts above, and as each soldier stepped onto the pad below, the suit called them down, plugging in and suspending so that when the suit un-seamed and peeled open, it could stand on its own, ready for scrub-down, repair - whatever was needed.
But that would come later. Much later. Right now, they needed something else. Naked, hairless bodies slipped out of their metal sheaths, heading straight to the dispensary on the wall. They stood on the X so the robot-arm could strip out the go-pack and plug in the down-pack, a little bubble of chemicals the system would mix up and disperse, opiates and nutrients and stuff to take the go-pack edge off. Stuff they needed, or they’d be tearing into each other like wild animals, and coming down like the junkies they all were.
Jensen got his pack and then got under a free shower head, bumping elbows with Five on one side and Sinna on the other. Hot water like a blessing poured over him, and he shut his eyes and just braced there until the flicker-flash of memory caught him. He jolted out of it and reached for the soap dispenser, fingers bumping into Sinna’s on the same mission, a little touch from Five on his hip. He could tell what both women wanted, but he wasn’t in the mood for that this time. Not after the mission; not after his run-in with Morgan. Fucking Jeff.
This time, Jensen wanted to be pounded straight through a wall, but, as hard-core as both women were, he still topped them by a good six inches, and it just wasn’t going to be enough. He scrubbed the saline gel off his skin - exuded by the suit to give the dozens of sensors one hundred percent conductivity - rinsing off goop and suds to reveal the lines of tattooing that twisted around and around, from knuckles to biceps to throat and across his chest and shoulder blades. He hadn’t felt right - hadn’t felt like himself - until he’d gotten that work, slender lines of red and green, blue and yellow and black like plaited wires. They were part of him in a way he didn’t like to think about, a jerky, monotone memory that made his stomach twist even as he knew he had to have them.
Jensen ducked out of the water, giving Five a little crooked grin. She nodded and hauled Sinna in by the back of her neck, mouth to mouth and hip to hip with suds still sliding down their legs. They were fine without him. Jensen snagged a towel out of the bin and wiped his face dry, then ran the soft cloth over his freshly shaved head and across the down-pack socketed snugly into the port at the base of his skull. He did a fast tooth-brushing at the row of steel sinks and drank a mouthful of flat, cold water as he watched, in the mirror, Malik and Kane behind him, over in a corner. They were already halfway there, Malik crowding Kane’s smaller frame against the wall, his mouth making a bruise on Kane’s pale throat, both of them hard, hips doing a slow push and grind that made Jensen’s heart pound.
Jensen swung wide, so they’d both see him coming, and stepped up close. He put a hand on the dark skin of Malik’s back, a fingertip tracing the metal edge of the lower port, the raised whorls and dots of his scarring. Malik arched and pushed back, lifting his mouth from Kane’s throat.
“Qemuel,” he rumbled, and Jensen shivered violently. Qemuel - his battle-name, his Angel name. Hearing it still sent a shock over him, made his skin pebble and his cock throb between his thighs.
“Xaphan,” Jensen said. He could see the speculative light in Malik’s gaze, and the way Kane had gone from pliant to predatory in an eye-blink. “I...need-”
“What do you need?” Kane asked, rough-voiced, one hand lifting away from Malik’s hip and latching onto Jensen’s, pulling him in. Their bodies were fever hot - hard with muscle, roped with scars both decorative and not, inked with tattoos - and Jensen groaned, shoving his rapidly hardening cock against Malik’s thigh.
“Need it to hurt,” Jensen said, and Malik laughed and snaked his head forward, taking Jensen’s mouth in a kiss that was more teeth than tongue while Kane’s hand found his balls and squeezed. Malik tasted like toothpaste and the chemical-lemon by-product tang of the go-pack, pharmaceutical decay. It overpowered the ghosts of char and ash Jensen swore he could still taste, and he pushed into it hungrily, little noise of pure want escaping him.
“We got you, Jensen,” Kane reassured him. “We got you.” They pushed him and turned him and all three of them stumbled toward the barracks, toward the dim, padded spaces already half-full of the rest of them, of Nephilim in pairs and triads and quads, rutting and twisting, moaning and breathing. Coming down, letting go, they were proving to themselves with tongues and fingers and cocks and cunts that they were alive, all alive, all here, all safe. Kane sprawled down onto a wide, cushioned bench, someone’s feet near his hip, and Malik wrapped himself around Jensen from behind, dragging his blunt nails down Jensen’s ribs, his mouth at Jensen’s ear.
“You’ll scream,” he promised, and then he shoved Jensen down, half on Kane, half on upholstery, and followed right behind.
R1A1 was a refinery...somewhere. Jensen hadn’t been paying attention - fuck, no one had. Why they were even told those kinds of pointless details, Jensen couldn’t figure, but they were. It was there, Jensen knew, on his hand-held, the one he only ever used for games or pictures, because he’d never gotten the hang of reading and the briefing packet was a huge collection of useless squiggles and some numbers and not enough images.
He mostly paid attention to the pictures and schematics and relied on Jinx to read out anything important, a little trick they’d figured when about eight Nephilim had turned up illiterate. Jensen just told Morgan that it worked better to hear it out loud, as a group, and since Morgan wanted them to do whatever worked....
Some raider outfit had blitzed the refinery and wrecked their transmitter - although, not before an SOS had gone out - and was now crouching there, blockaded in and under siege, trapped. There’d been a failsafe that someone had gotten to, shutting everything down, sealing off most of the refinery and locking the docked ships in, and so it was either sit there or rip their own docking rigs out getting away. For six fucking months, real time, they’d stagnated there, waiting while the Angels and Marines were in transit.
“Why’d they not hit the fuckin’ self-destruct,” Sinna muttered, and a low chorus of agreement went around the room.
“Here’s why,” Jinx said, angling his hand-held, one narrow, black eyebrow lifting. “Fucking thing was a month out from capacity - it’s worth a couple trillion. Bet they didn’t make the destruct section-specific - they don’t wanna lose that pay out.”
“‘N’ they think we be better?” Kee muttered, and a low laugh went around the room from bodies sprawled half on each other, half on the cushions.
“Guess they’re cutting their losses. ‘S why they didn’t let their fly-boys try anything, either,” Jinx said, referring to the fleet of five Company ships, about thirty security personnel in all, that patrolled this bit of Company space. Jinx scrolled through a few more pages, frowning, and then tapped up a holo display, so an image hovered in blue-white bars of frozen light above their heads. “Says this is where most of the miners are, and the raiders, too.” The habitat module glowed, pinpricks of green where long-range scans had found lifesigns. “Pretty much the only place big enough for ‘em all.”
They all examined the holo, and Jensen got up on his knees, looking closer. He gestured for Jinx to rotate it - enlarge - and pointed swiftly to five spots on the diagram.
“If we put charges here and here...see? This whole section comes away.”
“Yeah.” Five was up, too, peering closer and checking her own hand-held. “Leaves the main processor intact...most of the refined stuff, too. Just cuts the raiders off.”
“It’s gone, f’we do that. Decompression,” Kee pointed out, and she was right. That section was storage, admin and habitat, and while it would have section seals to prevent any small hull breach from becoming a big one, it wasn’t built to withstand complete, explosive uncoupling from the main unit. But miners were non-essentials, as far as the Company was concerned - easy to replace and they’d all signed waivers, had supposedly been told everything they needed to know about their life expectancy, how safe it was to bring their families and make a life here in the vast Dark.
“Looks like that’s a go, then,” Jensen said. Demons, he knew, were being tasked with taking out the raiders’ ships, and the Seraphim with securing the refinery itself, and taking out any stragglers. Dominions were going to go in disguised as a company ship, offering a deal - the most boring of the jobs, but somebody had to distract them.
“Squad leaders to main briefing, on the double,” Morgan announced, his low rumble of a voice making the com crackle. The holo vanished with a tap of Jinx’s finger as he, Kee, Five and Jensen untangled and stood up, straightening twisted hems and brushing themselves down. Off-duty for all of them was loose-fitting, navy blue cotton trousers and undershirts, though everyone at some point added some small item of personal significance. Jensen habitually wore a thin, knitted sweater, one he’d had...well, for a very long time. It was too big, hanging down to mid-thigh, and too thin to do much more than provide a tactile comfort, but that’s all he needed from it.
They rolled out of their section and down a corridor, crowding into the lift with the squad leaders from Archangel, nostrils flaring and skin shivering at the scent and feel of foreign bodies - outsiders. Archangels all had facial tattoos, swirling lines of blue and silver from their shaved hairlines down. The designs came forward, around their eyes and down their cheekbones. Jensen didn’t like the narrow, predatory look it gave them. He bared his teeth in silent antipathy and the Archangel nearest him did the same, a hissing sound of pure displeasure rasping between her teeth.
The lift opened before it could go any further, and Nephilim and Archangels stalked down the main corridor separately, nerves going tighter and muscles bunching as they came into main briefing and spotted Demons and Seraphim already there. Morgan shifted between them immediately, herding his platoon off to one side while other Gunnery Sergeants did the same and the Tiamat crew exchanged looks of exasperated irritation. The wide, transparent rectangle of the holo unit in the middle of the room was already activated with a wire frame of the refinery, with different colored pinheads of light showing accesses, power sources, miners and raiders. Their LT was there, Lieutenant Wisdom, his face set in its usual scarred, sombre mask. Two sides of the unit were taken up with officers, Tiamat crew and mining Company suits, and Jensen felt himself bristling.
“Settle the fuck down,” Morgan snapped. “Pay attention.”
Jensen had the gun-metal grey sleeves of his sweater pulled right down over his fists, rubbing the thin, stretchy material between his knuckles, one hand against the other. His teeth gritted together, spastic, and his gaze leapt from person to person in the room, cataloging every twitch and turn and breath. The others crowded in closer, no calmer, and then Morgan tapped something into his hand-held and they all relaxed as a brief burst of ultrasound, keyed to the ANGEL systems, triggered a hit of serotonin. The urge to sink his teeth and fingernails into a living throat and rip ebbed away, and Jensen could finally concentrate on the briefing.
He listened as the Major gave them a brief rundown of the situation, her voice emotionless, her whole demeanor radiating an icy calm, while the Tiamat crew sweated and fidgeted and tried not to look too closely at the Angels. They radiated unease that made the Angels shift restlessly, keyed onto their fear; the serotonin hit only went so far.
When it came to his turn, Jensen outlined his squad’s mission, and acknowledged that whoever was in that section, unsuited, would probably die. A Company man - all suit and slick hair and fashionable, glowing optics on little frames over his eyes - mouthed some kind of bullshit about doing their best, preserving life, acceptable casualties. Jensen showed him a mouthful of teeth and the man looked hastily away, flushing.
“Lying shit,” Five whispered. The miners and their families would die, but nobody would care, because the refinery would be saved, and the raiders gone, and the money would keep flowing. Jensen rocked on his toes a little and stared hard at the back of Morgan’s neck, hoping for another hit of the ultrasound. Morgan ignored him.
“Right. We’ve got sixteen hours for transit and prep. Platoons, you know your assignments.” The Major’s gaze swept over the room, lingering for a moment on the Angels. “I expect the all-ready at...twenty-two hundred hours, understood?” Agreement came back from around the room, platoon leaders and squad leaders, and the Major gave a brief nod before turning her back. “Dismissed. Platoon leaders, keep me apprised.”
“Let’s go, on the double,” Morgan said, and the Nephilim went, striding quickly away down the corridor and back to the lift. Morgan stepped in behind them and slapped the ‘door closed’ button, fast, so the Demons following would have to wait for the next one. It was a relief to get off the lift, to get back to their section, their dorm, their own. It smelled right, the light was right. The walls stopped being industrial grey and instead were covered in looping graffiti and muted swirls of color, an ongoing project that took up the down-time and marked this as their territory.
“Squad leaders, you know your assignments. I want you to get on suit prep and weapons detail now, and get it done. Make sure you double-check those seals, we don’t want any leaks.” Morgan ran a hand back through the inch-long black and silver hair on his head, scrubbing a little with his meat hand. He looked tired. “I want this to go down fast and neat with no damn mess. If you think you can seal any of the raiders or miners into a secure area, do it, but they are not the priority. Understood?”
“Yessir,” Jensen muttered, and Jinx did, and then the rest, a ragged chorus.
“Brief your squads. Get a move on. Let’s go.” He turned on his heel and left, and the Nephilim surged up, surrounding Jensen and the others, quick, light touches confirming they were there, back, part of the whole again.
“All right, you heard him!” Jensen raised his voice and his troops fell silent, oriented to him, listening. “Get on suit prep and make it perfect, people. We’re gonna free fall from the Tiamat to the refinery, stealth mode, and set our charges. There’s three areas in that zone where we can ride it out with minimal exposure There’s a couple tugs attached to the refinery itself, Seraphim are gonna pilot those out and catch us.” Jensen grinned, humorless. “Apparently, they figure they can rehabilitate that section, not have to construct a whole new one for the next batch of miners.”
“That’s so practical,” Sinna said, her voice high-pitched, full of mock adulation, and Jensen barked a dry laugh.
“That’s suits for you. Let’s get going, Nephilim.”
“Sir, yessir...yessir...sir.” The squads moved, heading to the ready room for suit prep, and another wave of ultrasound rolled through the room, serotonin and dopamine hitting their systems seconds later. Jensen grinned fiercely at the overhead, knowing Morgan was watching, rewarding him - them - for good behavior. Loose and happy and ready to move, Jensen pushed in along with the others, finding his armor in the dangling rows of suits and calling the comp terminal up from the floor, activating the first in a long list of chained tests to be sure every system was up and running. There was a scorch mark along one thigh that he didn’t even remember getting on their last mission, and he rubbed a thumb over it and wondered if he’d have time to repaint.
Someone hit a switch and music flooded the room, loud and raucous and full of random ultrasounds that would have them all leaping and snarling and ready when the time came. Unapproved and banned, but - out here - overlooked.
Jensen shouted the chorus along with the rest of his Angels as his suit twitched to life, gleaming black and copper and vivid yellow-green, the polished edges of the ailerons silver in the overheads. It was his gorgeous, deadly alter-ego, his battle-name stenciled on the back, Sinna’s weird, recurved designs acid-etched down the chest plate. His body was already humming with adrenaline and arousal; go-time always gave him a hard on.
This was gonna be good.
The refinery looked dead. It drifted, dark and listing, just high enough above the plane of the dust belt to escape any real damage. A light or two shone down near where the raiders were docked - three ancient hulks cobbled together from spare parts and spit, bristling with illegal arms. The other two were on a tight patrol to the zenith and nadir of the refinery, and it had just been their very bad luck that someone had been awake when they’d stormed in, com-disrupters flaring and every jammer going full bore.
So they’d been stuck for six months real-time, sniping at the Company fleet, protected by Company greed, the fleet leashed as they were by the rules, the suits, the money.
A stray shot or two had holed the refinery in a couple spots - nothing too bad, section seals had contained it - but it added to the overall air of an abandoned, lifeless hulk. Jensen scanned the image on his HUD and felt his heart kick, a little too fast, a little too hard.
“Simmer down, Jensen,” Morgan’s voice purred over the link, and Jensen flexed his fingers on the safety rail, armored feet magnetized to the narrow catwalk extruded by the Tiamat just below the lock access. His squad was strung out beside him - Five behind, then Jinx, then Kee - backs to the reassuring bulk of their ship, faces out to space. All waiting on the signal so they could detach and dive, minute avatars of death against the refinery Leviathan.
“Give us the go,” Jensen muttered, single-channel only, and he could hear Morgan’s rasping laugh in his bones.
“Patient, be patient, my gazehound.” His voice caressed, and Jensen shivered, ailerons flaring. Then his voice changed, switching to all-channel. “Dominions are engaging-” Morgan’s voice droned on, status and count-down, and then the HUD lit up like a bomb, explosions of light and data sleeting across the interface, and Morgan’s voice was growling in fury. “Fuck, they fired. Nephilim, go, go, go!”
Jensen snarled the command before Morgan was even done talking, the suit’s mag-lock coming off and his hand opening - propulsion jets firing as he and his Angels peeled away from the Tiamat and flew. They arched out and away, the Tiamat receding and the refinery bulking in their forward view, HUD and real-time display overlapping and then matching, a flare of blue-white as everything lined up and the go-pack kicked in with an extra burst of adrenals. Off to the zenith and about ten degrees to port, the Archangel ship and four of the raiders were exchanging fire, blips of light in the periphery of the HUD, the suit tracking and then ignoring bursts of debris, the internal AI collating and refining data, pinpointing their targets.
Gibborim were handling the charges, Naphaim backing them and providing cover as Enim secured the three maintenance hatches they’d found. Three ways into the habitat module itself, so they could ride out the decoupling explosions and secure the unit for the Seraphim to latch on and tow it back to the refinery. It was a weirdly shaped, clunky module that would surely spin out of true when the charges went off, and Jensen wanted his troops wedged in tight somewhere, safe.
He could feel and hear the platoon chatter over the suit ‘net as, one by one, they lighted on the module’s pitted skin. Aluminum, poly-composite and glassine tiles all showed the wear of a dirty system and indifferent maintenance, and Jensen pulled himself rapidly, hand over hand, to the hatch that was half-hidden behind a bulging array of antennae and cameras.
He saw Sinna in the HUD, coming down parallel to him, clinging at the top of the hatch while Jensen synched his suit to the module’s system and told it to open up.
The door shivered beneath him before lifting up and sideways, and he slipped in around the edge before it was done moving, Sinna darting in behind him. The gravity was off - they were only tugged weakly toward the floor, and Jensen drifted, calculating. The hatch and bay behind it was big enough for the bulky repair pod stored in the wall to detach and maneuver easily, but that was about it. They’d have to get the inner hatch open and move through into the module itself - no way a dozen of them in armour could fit into the bay.
“We’ll have to lock through, half inside, half out here.” Jensen pushed away from the wall and moved to the inner hatch. He could see a dim corridor through the pressure window, clean and empty.
“Charges set,” was coming over the ‘net, one after the other, and Kee and Five had secured their own maintenance bays and were just waiting on the rest to come in.
“I’m going through,” Jensen said, more for Morgan than for Sinna, who could feel his intent through the ‘net, could hear it in her head like her own thoughts. She keyed the outer hatch closed so Jensen could open the inner one, keeping the module’s atmo in place even if they didn’t need it. Jensen stepped through and the hatch slid shut behind him, and he felt the first of the Naphaim at the outer door, waiting on Sinna to open up.
The corridor was short, barely three meters, and there were emergency holds at intervals, recessed into the walls - a good place to ride out the explosions. Jensen stalked forward, his HUD showing him faint traceries of circuitry and wiring beneath the dull-white corridor sheathing. His suit-mic wasn’t picking up anything but the faint hum of ventilation fans and the metallic clank of his own booted feet. At the end of the corridor was a T-junction. Left was a section seal, truncating that way less than a meter in. Right was an open corridor and...a person.
Jensen reacted and his armor with him, arm coming up and rifle forming in his grip, targeting array pinpointing the killshot. The figure froze, eyes huge in a gaunt, dirty face and Jensen...couldn’t move. He could feel his heart pounding, harder and faster. He could feel his lungs working, but maybe not working right, because he wasn’t getting enough air, he wasn’t; just tiny sips of oxygen that were making him feel light-headed, his vision dimming, going to a tunnel, sparking black, the ragged figure the only clear thing in his sight.
Dimly, Jensen could hear Morgan on the com, saying something, insistent and furious, and Jensen could do nothing but stare at the thin, shabby figure that was staring back, frozen in a darkened doorway. A moment later, Jensen groaned, the armor shuddering around him as the suit shot a new compound into his system. In seconds, Jensen’s blood stream was awash in a complex mix of mood-stabilizers, tranqs, and adrenals, and Jensen dragged in a huge lungful of air, vision snapping back, his head clearing, rush kicking in. He growled, furious at himself, and shook his head sharply, the armor rattling.
“Jensen, you back with me? Report, damnit!”
“Yeah, yes - yessir. Civilian personnel spotted.”
“Sir, we’re on count - twenty seconds.” Sinna’s voice in his ear brought him back all the way and Jensen let the rifle retreat into the armor, turned and strode away, back to the corridor, back to his squad. He turned the corner and joined the five Nephilim that were locked into the handholds already; braced for the explosion, braced for decompression.
He curled his armored fists around the last handhold and locked down, sent the mental impulse to the mag-locks in the armor’s feet to seal him to the corridor floor, and dismissed from his mind the scarecrow figure of the dirty, starving child that was surely about to die.
“So what the fuck was that?” Morgan growled, and Jensen jerked away from his grip, same damn scene playing out all over again, except this time Jinx and Kane and Sinna were shouldering in between them, shoving Jensen back hard, their own suits flaring and chattering, too keyed up to be still or to care. Five or six others milled near the ready room door, hovering uncertainly, their drug-hyped senses reacting to the tension - feeding it right back through the ‘net - and Jensen could feel the rest of the platoon reacting, moving. Not good, not good, but oh, so comforting.
“Not fucking now, just back off!” Kane snapped, and Morgan glared at him, polycarbonate hand resting on the grip of his service weapon.
“Get out of my face, soldier, or I’ll take you out.”
“You can fucking try,” Kane snarled, hand coming up, tell-tale flashing amber to green as his gauntlet taser powered up. It could kill a man, you hit him just right, and Kane could put his armored fist through Morgan’s ribcage, if he wanted to - fry Morgan’s heart in point zero zero one second.
Morgan’s own teeth were bared. He took one step back and his meat hand came up, flare of blue-white light that hit Kane and sent him, seizing, to the floor. Kill-switch, KO, the only thing that would stop an Angel without killing them. It glowed in Morgan’s palm like a star, looped around his fingers, and Jensen vaulted Kane’s shuddering body as Jinx and Sinna used their own armored bodies to brace Kane’s.
One good shove, before Morgan could act, sent him slamming into the wall hard enough to dent it. Morgan bounced off it with a snarl, teeth bared. He unholstered his weapon, his grip activating the power cell, a little click and whine that the suit mics caught, and every soldier in the room reacted to the flare of fightdefenddanger through the net. Morgan’s polycarbonate thumb moved, sliding the safety off, and eight rifles formed and lifted, every soldier but Kane targeting Morgan, the metallic scrape of armor and rifle parts shivering through the room like a snake’s hiss.
The barrel of Morgan’s weapon hovered, inches from Jensen’s face, and even the suit couldn’t close the faceplate fast enough, if Morgan fired. “I said - what the fuck was that? Corporal.”
“Fuck you, Morgan,” Jensen said, his voice soft as a whisper and edged like steel, and Jensen swore he saw Morgan’s finger twitch on the trigger.
“Morgan!” The bark of a baritone voice cracked like a whip and everyone in the room jerked in reaction. “Stand the hell down, all of you!” It was the LT, Lieutenant Wisdom. His round, dark face was set in a furious scowl, his hands nowhere near his own weapon, and the Angels obediently shifted to ready-rest stance, rifles sliding away, arms coming down. Morgan didn’t, and Wisdom rounded on him, his dark eyes narrowed.
“I gave an order, Gunnery Sergeant,” he said. His voice wasn’t even raised, but the fury and the steel behind it were evident, and Morgan shot one wild, furious look his way before letting his weapon drop. Wisdom spoke to the room at large, but kept his gaze fixed on Morgan. “Nephilim, you did an outstanding job. Stand down. We’ll be in-system for at least three days, or until this mess is contained.” He finally looked around at them, one long glance followed by a crisp nod. “After that, we’re bound for Reveille. Gunnery Sergeant, my office.” He turned on his heel and stalked away. Morgan slammed his weapon back into its holster and then he, too, was gone, gunshot crack of his boot heels on the corridor floor echoing behind him.
Jinx and Sinna hauled Kane to his feet and Kerrin got a gauntleted hand on Jensen’s shoulder, pulling him back. Jensen grinned fiercely at the impulse through the net - ownership and affection and protection. His Angels. Turning around, he herded them all through to the ready room and the rest of the platoon that waited just inside the door, anxious, on edge.
“Fucker. Asshole. What in fuck-?” Kane snarled, his voice ragged, and Jensen pushed in close and gave him a hard, biting kiss.
“You stupid bastard,” Jensen muttered, Kane’s lips against his, and Kane kissed him back, drawing blood.
“Got your back, Qemuel. Always,” Kane murmured, and it was Jensen sending it out this time, the pack-feeling, nest-feeling, love, that hooked in and never let go.
“Sariel,” Jensen murmured back, and then he stepped away, lifting his head, surveying the room full of Angels half out of their armor or still in it, buzzing with post-mission energy. “The LT says we got shore leave, soon’s we’re done here. Let’s get squared away, Nephilim, I’m ready to fucking celebrate.”
They roared back an affirmation, one voice, one surge of overwhelming emotion, and Jensen never wanted to be anywhere else. Ever.
2254 – the year Jensen becomes an ArchANGEL
Platoon Nephilim: 36 soldiers + LT (Lieutenant Robert Wisdom) plus Platoon Gunnery Sergeant (Jeff Morgan).
Four squads of nine (complete) ArchANGELs. Squad leaders Jensen, Five, Jinx and Kee.
Other platoons are Dominions, Demons, Seraphim, Ophanim, etc..
Dropship Helel with assigned pilot, navigator, and armscomp. Dropship crew are regular AFSPC (AirForceSpaceCommand), and modified (incomplete) ArchANGELS .
LTs and platoon Gunnery Sergeants are modified (incomplete) ArchANGELS, mustered out Marines with either honorable or dishonorable discharges.
Troopship Tiamat, with a compliment of 500: 12 platoons w/LT/Gunnery Sgt/Squad leaders (480), plus one medevac (12) and ship’s actual crew (8). Medevac and Crew are not ArchANGELs.
APDS rounds - Armour-piercing discarding sabot.
For visual's sake:
Malik = Charles Malik Whitfield
Kane = Christian Kane
Lt. Wisdom = Robert Wisdom
Gunny Morgan = Jeffery Dean Morgan
Part Three
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