Normally, when the Phantai asked for extra manpower from the Thantir, they only ever asked for a handful of extra fighters. Today though, the Phantai were raiding a larger ship, and Retvik had seen this as an opportunity to do some extra data gathering for what the Thantir were internally calling The Big Plan, but were externally disguising as extra combat training for their Decaylings. For this raid, not only were Elkay, Elksia and Akah fighting, but Phovos, Tenuk, Eksi and Teekay were all tagging along as well, and Retvik, Litvir and Galyn had volunteered as well. Lightblade had considered it weird that both the Thantir leaders were willing to put themselves in harm’s way, and was even more surprised when Phovos, who was a budding Life Goddess, stepped forward. Life Goddesses always shied away from combat, so this specimen wanting to fight was beyond weird.
Still, this was potentially a big raid, so Lightblade appreciated the extra hands. At the same time though, Lightblade didn’t want the Thantir getting in the way of his own operations, namely the destruction of of the central core and respawn pods of the Crystal Centaur, a Voidborn flagship, so he’d blatantly told the Thantir to just keep the Voidborn units busy elsewhere while his soldiers worked. Retvik had happily agreed to that, on the condition that Galyn accompany the main Phantai units so he could kill a higher ranked Voidborn or three. A small reprieve, which Lightblade quickly granted. Lightblade wasn’t sure why three of the Decaylings had covered their armour in black wrappings, but when Retvik stated that they didn’t want to stick out too much, Lightblade just shrugged. The Thantir Decaylings weren’t as experienced as the Phantai were, so a bit of camouflage wouldn’t hurt anyone.
With everyone in agreement, the Phantai and the Thantir loaded themselves up into the Phantai ship Bane of Crystal’s ramsleds, ready to be fired into the belly of the Crystal Centaur.
“Alright, Thantir, do we need to go over the plan again?”
Currently, Litvir was using telepathy to communicate with everyone. The Thantir had their own telepathic channel, which Eksi controlled and Litvir kept secure, protecting it from both the Voidborns and the Phantai. While Eksi was a vastly powerful telepath, he currently had a limited range, and should something happen to him, Litvir would be able to jump in and re-establish a link.
“A quick recap would be nice…” Tenuk muttered, playing with his armour. Getting proper armour that played nicely with his shapeshifting powers had been tricky, and he wasn’t exactly comfortable. Doubly so since he was currently shapeshifted into a Lanex, similar to Akah, but in black, blue and silver, and also lacking a mask. “I just want to know why we’re not testing Elkay with this yet.”
“We are doing min-max testing here,” Retvik explained. “We need to know the minimum level of disguise required to trick a Voidborn, and Elkay does not have the finesse or fidelity to alter himself the way you can. But do not fret, you and Akah will have Litvir protecting you, and Teekay will be following the three of you, trapping any data he can and also ready to teleport you to safety if you need it. Elkay, Phovos and myself will be acting as the main distraction while you four work, Elksia is on medic duty and she will also be protecting Eksi so he can maintain our link. Do I need to go into details?”
“No, I know all that, but…” Tenuk sighed.
“Is something wrong?”
“No. I’m just nervous. It’s been a while.”
“We will be fine,” Retvik smiled reassuringly. “Are we all clear on what we need to do?”
Everyone nodded. Just in time as well, as the ramsled they were all currently in began to jostle. Everyone else was already strapped in, so Retvik sat down and strapped himself in too.
The ramsled shook briefly, then exploded into life, decoupling from the Bane of Crystal and blasting off into the darkness. Not that any of them could really tell, since there was only one small window in the ramsled.
The journey was incredibly brief but very violent. Not only did the ramsled crash through into the Crystal Centaur, but it seemed to cut pretty deeply before juddering to a halt. Once the ship was stationary, Retvik got up and opened a large hatch on the side. Litvir was the first to step out, sending out a wave of telepathic energy that bounced down the hallways they had crashed into.
“Thantir, telepathic comms from now on!” Retvik silently hissed, snapping his fingers to make several orbs of flaming light. “Litvir, numbers.”
“Zero five directly ahead, zero three forward right, zero seven forward left, all in within a 50 metre range. Increased activity forward left,” Litvir replied.
“Understood. Tenuk, Akah, Teekay, on Litvir, hold until we signal. Rest of you, on me.”
Retvik took the lead, not being particularly quiet as he marched down the main corridor, up until they reached a cross junction. As Litvir had stated, there were five Voidborns present, but that quickly turned to three as Retvik melted the lower bodies of two of them. Eksi kept lookout while Elkay and Elksia slowed time around the last three. Phovos removed the masks off two of the Voidborns, then let the Mimic and the Time Drake kill them all.
Phovos handed the masks to Retvik, who then increased the brightness of the orbs of fire he had created. The other Thantir quickly joined them, and Retvik handed a mask to Akah and Tenuk. Tenuk put the Voidborn mask on immediately, and changed the silver on his armour to gold. Akah removed his bright white mask before putting on the Voidborn mask he had been given, using an extra strap to hold the mask in place.
“Litvir, numbers again.”
“Zero four directly ahead, zero three left, seventeen right.”
Retvik grunted. “Understood. Elksia, Eksi, hold here. Litvir, Tenuk, Akah, go on ahead, do not approach Voidborns until we have initiated. Teekay, follow Litvir but keep distance and enact secondary objective if possible. Elkay, Phovos, on me, distraction protocol.”
A single, unanimous “understood” telepathically echoed from the Thantir. Litvir and his squad waited for Retvik to take his team down the right hand path. They remained where they are until they heard a blast of flames. Retvik had started creating a distraction, so everyone else began to move, leaving Eksi and Elksia in the junction.
Akah took the lead this time, keeping himself disguised as a Voidborn, with Tenuk close behind him. Litvir was only about a metre behind, hiding behind a telepathic shield that stopped non-Thantir from seeing him, and Teekay trailed further back, using his own telekinesis to hover up by the tall ceiling.
Up ahead, they could see two Voidborns, both of whom seemed to be standing on guard, their sides facing the Thantir. One of them did see Akah, who turned to face Akah and seemed somewhat confused at first. Akah responded by stepping forward and standing with his arms behind his back, showing he wasn’t a threat. As they inspected Akah, Litvir did his best to try and scan the Voidborn’s mind, but he wasn’t really picking much up.
“May I pass?” Akah eventually spoke. The Voidborns both glanced at each other, then shrugged, holstering their weapons and standing back somewhat. With a small smile and keeping his arms held behind his back, Akah marched forward, and Tenuk cautiously stepped behind him, surprised that the Voidborns didn’t even seem to notice him.
The Voidborns also didn’t seem to notice Litvir, who silently sliced both Voidborns in half with a pair of psionic blades.
“Holy shit that worked!” Tenuk telepathically exclaimed as they continued onwards, only to abruptly stop, mostly because Akah had stopped. The path had split again, with forward, left and right paths ahead of them.
“Litvir, numbers?” Akah silently asked. Tenuk found it odd how quickly Akah (and Phovos, Teekay and Eksi) had picked up on the Rethan military standards the Thantir were currently using. Tenuk had served alongside the Rethan military back when he was mortal and he still wasn’t used to it.
“Zero five directly ahead, zero left, zero two right.”
“Direction?”
“Forward.”
“Understood.”
Akah marched forward, keeping his scythe and shield holstered. They didn’t go too far, as the path ahead of them opened up into a new room, one which had a large console in the middle of it, surrounded by three Voidborns, none of whom were facing the entrance, but two Voidborns were standing by the door. Litvir silently explained that these were the last two of the four he had detected earlier, that the three Voidborns in this new room had been just outside his check radius.
These two guards however, they were directly facing Akah. Akah bowed slightly, then politely asked if he could enter.
“On whose orders?” one of the Voidborns asked.
Litvir quickly scanned the mind of the closest Voidborn inside the room, and handed a name to Akah.
“Lord Kalontar requested my presence.”
The two Voidborn guards glanced at each other.
“And your name is?”
Akah hesitated. He hadn’t thought that far ahead, and Litvir was too slow in grabbing him a name he could use. The two guards attempted to raise their weapons, but both of them abruptly froze in place as Akah cooled the air around them both and trapped them in pillars of ice.
Unfortunately, Akah’s actions had alerted the three Voidborns at the console, two of whom immediately drew their weapons. Akah fired a spear of ice through the third one, which hadn’t turned around in time, while Litvir stepped through a nearby shadow and sliced off the heads of the two aggressive Voidborns.
“I apologize, we should have sorted out a proper identity for you before we started.”
Akah shrugged. “It’s fine. This is just a blind trial anyway.”
“Hang on!” Tenuk nearly exclaimed out loud, but just about managed to stick to his telepathy. “Since when could you walk through shadows and stuff, Litvir?”
Litvir inspected the room, silently checking for the presence of any other enemies before responding to Tenuk.
“I have had that ability since I was mortal. I just very much dislike doing it out here in the Periuniversal Void because… it is weird…” Litvir shook his head, trying to focus. “Zero directly head, zero left, zero right. Coast clear. Teekay, Tenuk, proceed inhere with secondary objective. Akah and I will be on guard.”
Akah unholstered his weapons and stood by the entrance, while Litvir stood slightly ahead, towards the cross paths, acting as a lookout.
Back in the main room, Teekay began silently scanning the central console, only to abruptly gasp in surprise, making Tenuk, who was mostly just looking at the walls, trying to work out what all the screens and buttons did.
“By the darkness, this is perfect!”
“Teekay?” Litvir telepathically asked.
“This has a map of the immediate area. I can’t read the Voidborn language, but…” Teekay fell silent and pulled out a tiny, personal computer, one he had borrowed from the Phantai and had neutered, completely severing its ability to connect to a network outside of a physical cable connection. Using information he had gathered from their last mission, Teekay had fashioned a custom connector, allowing him to connect the computer to the console.
It took a little too long for everything to start working, but Teekay could eventually see a slow stream of data going from the console to the computer. None of it was legible, Teekay couldn’t speak the Voidborn language, but he could translate it all later. What was more important though was that Teekay had found map files.
Suddenly, everything shook. Violently.
“Phantai just blew up the central core!” Eksi’s voice echoed in everyone’s minds. “We got six hundred seconds to get back to our ramsled!”
There was a brief pause.
“Elksia says it’ll take 327 seconds for Retvik’s team to get back to me and 409 seconds for Litvir’s team without advanced movement, so I’d get moving now!”
“Understood, Eksi…” Litvir silently replied back. “Teekay, you can teleport back to the ramsled, yes?”
“Yeah… Don’t want to risk it though…” Teekay set a timer. “Give me 60 seconds.”
“Very well. Akah, Tenuk, head back now. Teekay and I will follow soon.”
Akah and Tenuk both nodded. Akah took off the Voidborn mask he was wearing, put his own mask back on, then grabbed the masks from the two Voidborns Litvir had killed. Tenuk hesitated, then followed Akah, and the two disappeared into the darkness, heading back in the direction from which they came. Litvir remained in the doorway to the main room.
“Hm… I think I might have an active map here…” Teekay mentally muttered.
“Just grab what you can. Time is limited.”
“I know…” Teekay trailed off, spotting something that didn’t make sense. Something written in a language Teekay understood. However, Teekay’s timer hit zero quicker than he expected. With a sigh, he quickly cancelled any remaining downloads, unplugged the computer from the console and put everything away. Then, in a single, clean motion, he rushed towards Litvir, grabbed him by the hand and teleported the pair of them to the ramsled.
“Got anything?” Eksi asked as Retvik pulled Litvir and Teekay into the ramsled, then pulled the heavy metal door shut. After making sure that everyone was strapped in, Retvik made his way to the rear of the ship and hit a large, red button. This triggered the ramsled’s front engine, which forced the ramsled out of the Crystal Centaur and out into the depths of the void. A tracking signal beeped loudly, and, after about a minute, the Bane of Crystal came along and used a tractor beam to drag the ramsled back to it.
A low rumble echoed through the ramsled. Behind them, the Crystal Centaur began to shake and shudder, and the light in the Voidborn ship’s engines flickered erratically. As the ramsled re-docked with the Bane of Crystal, the Thantir were helped out of the tiny, heavily armoured vehicle.
“How many did you kill?” Lightblade immediately asked.
“Enough,” Retvik tutted, reaching back inside the ramsled, then pulling out several particularly large, diamond-covered, antlered skull masks. He, Elkay and Phovos were utterly covered in Voidborn blood. “Do you mind if we keep some trophies?”
Lightblade laughed, then patted Retvik on the shoulder. “You killed FOUR champions? Wonderful!”
A sudden roar rocked the ship. Outside, the Crystal Centaur evaporated into nothingness, and shock waves emanated from where the Voidborn vessel once stood.
“Well, job well done!” Lightblade beamed. “Keep your trophies, you Thantir seem to not have any, and you did a fine job distracting some of the Voidborn soldiers. Let’s get back to the Shimmering Blade and celebrate our victory!”
“Good idea,” Retvik shrugged, not really sharing Lightblade’s excitement. “We all deserve a break.”
“Indeed. Speak to you soon!” The Phantai leader continued to grin as he walked off.
Once he was out of earshot, Retvik switched back to his telepathy.
“Did we get any valuable data?” Retvik silently asked.
Litvir smiled a little. “We did, actually. But some refinement is needed, and we need to comb through what Teekay found.”
“Good, good…” Retvik went back to talking normally. “Alright, everyone, go get yourselves cleaned up. We still have work to do…”