Cabal War Diary

Rotation xxxviii, Orbit mcmdccxiii, Reign of Ghaul, Era of Iridium

Big earthquake today when we were at the secta. One wall started to collapse so I braced it with my back until the others got out. Bra’athor called me The One Who Bears the Building On His Shoulders. Made me proud. Happy.

Hot, light breeze, few clouds.

Rotation xxxix

Received our aptitude test results. I will be a miner. Bra’athor, Ardusk, Dra’azon and Oku’ura will all be miners. Almost all the age pod. Tau’ulug will be a gladiator, he is the fastest and strongest. Gol’arath will be an administrator. She is smart. In two rotations we leave for the moon of Mina’atl. I will be a miner.

Hot, no wind, clear.

Rotation xl

I will not be a miner. The gladiatorial school Lanista came to the secta. He had us all assemble in the atrium.

Congratulations, he said. You are all being recruited.

They will be miners not gladiators surely you don’t need so many, said the Magister.

Gladiators? Who said anything about gladiators? No. You have all been conscripted into the army. As of today, you are all legionaries.

I will be a legionary. So will Tau’ulug and Gol’arath. I am happy. Proud.

Hot, light breeze, medium clouds.

Rotation xli

The age pod all marched down to the spaceport. We waited in lines to register and receive our assignments. There were over 2,000 of us and only four scribes. I had to wait for a long time. It was hot.

The scribe was missing both legs.

My name is, I started to say when it was my turn.

Doesn’t matter, he said. You are Phalanx mcxviii.

He handed me an ID slate.

A Phalanx? I will be a shield bearer? Because I bore the walls upon my shoulders?

He shrugged. One in ten are Phalanxes. Just your lucky day.

Which unit? I asked. The Siege Dancers? The Red Legion?

He laughed. The Meat Shields, he said. The Shock Absorbers.

I never heard of those units. I checked the slate. It said MMXIV ATTRITION REPLACEMENT LEGION, so he was wrong.

Hot, no wind, clear.

Rotation xlii

We are on the carrier Tachyon Aquila V. On the way to the front. There are no windows so I cannot see out. Oku’ura says we are part of a fleet of 20 carriers. We sleep five deep on cots stacked to the ceiling. Maybe two thousand on this deck. The smell is strong. The ones on this deck are all from my birth pod, Zete’etik, so we are among friends. That is good.

No weather. On carrier. Air is dry.

Rotation xliii

Oku’ura scouted the other decks.

They are all from Vala’arath pod one deck down. Kthulu’uku below that.

So?

So there are maybe 50 decks on this ship, every one of them packed with entire age pods from our province. Two million runts just on our flotilla. They must have emptied every pod on the continent.

No weather. On carrier. Air is dry.

Rotation xliv I think

The world is called Tu’uonela. It is an anath anaeth it is a library world.

A Val met us on debarking. You are my cohort, follow me.

We received our training. It was much simpler than I expected. They handed me a slug rifle and had me fire three rounds single fire and one burst at a target. I missed. They said not to worry.

I received my armor and shield from the weapons master. He showed me the button to activate the shield.

Ardusk said her helmet was too big. I can barely see out, she complained.

The weapons master said it will not matter.  He was missing an eye and half his face.

We are marching towards the front now. I think about the battle to come. I feel sorry for those who will die here, as some of my fellows are sure to. But I will remember them. We go on. We are Cabal.

Strange weather. Heavy clouds. Black, almost green. Strong wind.

Rotation xlv

Marching. It was a long march but we are Cabal, we endure. We passed an artillery battery. Guns the size of mountains. Shells the size of Harvesters. They were firing non-stop and it was too loud to talk.

There was a destroyed Goliath tank. It had been sawed in half. Spiky black mold or barnacles grew on the hull.

A unit was coming back from the front. Their armor was torn and scratched. They watched us march past and didn’t say anything. There was a Colossus, twice my size, in gold armor.

What unit, I asked. What is your name?

I will tell you tomorrow, he said. The others in his unit laughed, as if this was a big joke. I don’t think it was funny.

When we camped, I could see the horizon light up, purple light against the underside of the clouds. I asked the Val about it.

That’s the front, he said.

I watched and watched but the light never stopped.

Cold. Heavy clouds. Strong wind.

Rotation xlviii

Bra’athor, Ardusk, Oku’ura and Tau’ulug are dead.

We went to the front. The fighting never stops there, so we had to squeeze past the other units to reach the enemy. You cannot see the ground, because it is covered by them. A living carpet of foes. They are small and ugly and made of bone and there are a lot of them. Artillery shells pound them like meteorites. Interceptors and Goliaths and Harvesters fire and fire. That doesn’t stop them. They come running and screaming at you and I turned on my shield and fired and killed a lot of them. Not enough. They grabbed the edge of the shield and tried to tear it from my hand.

Then Tau’ulug charged them with his pack of war beasts and his twin blades and cut a lot of them but they swarmed him and dragged his arms down and tore out his throat and killed his pack. I shot them but it was too late and he was dead.

They don’t stop. If you shoot an arm or leg, they keep coming. We fought without rest for three days. We are Cabal, we endure.

On the third day, big ones with horned heads came. They have big guns and swords and black shields and are as big as us. Our shield wall broke and Bra’athor and Ardusk and Oku’ura died. I would have died but the Colossus came back, the one I saw earlier. His volley of missiles killed a lot, blinded and stunned the rest. Then he swept the ground with his heavy rifle mowing them down rank and file, a dozen killed with each burst.

Gave enough room for the next unit to fill the gaps while we were taken out of line.

So you lived, said the Colossus to me. My name is Hora’acrius.

Cold. Heavy clouds. Slight gusts.

Rotation lvii

Second time at the front. They have small glowing ones. You have to shoot them first because if they get close they explode like bombs. There are ones that fly and they set fire to the air and shoot with their hands and make the air turn to poison. Ten of us have to shoot at them to bring one down. One of them killed Dra’azon. He was an incendior and the floating ones hit the tanks on his back and it exploded and killed three others.

The Val used his jump jets and his shields were like a miniature sun above the line and he took down two of them, but that made him an easy target. They blasted him from the air. Gol’arath and I are the only ones left alive, out of a cohort of 100. We endure.

Even the little ones are harder to kill now. You have to hit them with two or three shots before they die. Before it only took one.

We watched a fresh legion of runts march past. They called to us and asked what unit, what are your names, but we did not answer. There is no point in talking to the dead.

Cold. Heavy clouds. Rain.

Rotation lxiv or later I am no longer sure

Third time at the front. Our unit becomes jumbled. Sometimes drop pods land with reinforcements, two or three at a time. Some of them fall in with us. There is a little thing with horns on its head. Hora’acrius said it was an ally, a Psion. It shoots very well and is called Quiqeg.

Quiqeg says this is a fight we cannot win. Sounds like defeatist talk to me. Gol’arath grew angry. I think she wants to kill the Psion. She is always angry now and wants to kill everything. Hora’acrius says to pay it no mind, the Psions all talk like that.

There were two with spiny armor and masks and they said they were a species called the Clipse. I never learned their names. They both died on the sword of one of the knights. The biggest I’ve seen. It took a direct hit from a Goliath shell to stop it. Our slug rifles are almost useless now. You have to empty an entire magazine into one to bring it down.

Cold. Heavy clouds. Thunder but no rain.

Lxiv maybe I cannot see the sun

We are in the library. The line failed. We held them for a while, but then their ships appeared behind the line, came out of black holes in the sky and dumped hordes of them behind us. It was confusing. We would have died but Hora’acrius held them, until three of the big ones with no eyes that shoot fire from their heads came.

We must something-something, Quiqeg said. It was a strange word. It sounded like ree-tree-tuh. I was confused.

Strategic reposition, inside the archive, he/she said. Follow me.

We went inside the library. Hora’acrius held off the enemy until we could get the doors closed. I put my shoulder to the door. I’m the One Who Bears the Building On His Shoulders. I closed the door. I saw Hora’acrius fall when the big ones came. We can hear them scratching and pounding on the doors.

Dark. Very dim light. Cold.

Sometime after lxiv

The library is very big, very dark and empty. The layout is confusing and repetitive. There are three of us, Quiqeg, Gol’arath and me. There is no food, only room after room of black stone and metal and blue lights. Quiqeg says it was built by the former emperor Calus. I spit on his name. Quiqeg often disappears for long periods, Gol’arath thinks he/she is trying to run away but Quiqeg says he/she is looking for a way home.

I hope he/she finds one soon. Today we finished the last tube of nutrient paste. We have only three slug rifle rounds and a single magma grenade. I gave two rounds to Gol’arath and kept one and the grenade for myself.

Quiqeg talks a lot. Don’t you wonder why they grow stronger and stronger the more we kill them, he/she asks.

No. I don’t wonder.

There is a deliberate thought behind this battle of attrition, he/she says. The enemy commander seeks to maximize casualties on both sides. As though it is a smith forging its armies on the anvil of the Cabal. They are a blade we are a whetstone.

I told Quiqeg to be quiet and let me get some sleep. I couldn’t sleep though, there was a series of great explosions outside that rocked the building.

Atomics, said Gol’arath. The Primus is using atomics.

Over the thunder, I heard her laughing.

Dark. Very dim light. Cold.

Later

They have taken the first floor. Quiqeg alerted us, got us moving when the gates splintered and broke. Something huge was there, outside, bigger even than a Colossus. It reached for us and told us to fight but we strategically repositioned. Its voice was very loud.

We raised the central lift and there are no stairs so they cannot follow. A dozen leaped on the platform and Gol’arath and I cut them down with our forearm blades and as we rose I threw the rest off the edge of the lift with a sweep of my shield. We can hear them scurrying about below us. Quiqeg says they are looking for something.

Gol’arath is wounded, though she says nothing. I can see green-black rot spreading from the wound.

The enemy thrives on conflict, says Quiqeg. The more we fight, the more we feed them. Either we find a way to resist without fighting, or else we join them.

I don’t know what that means. Gol’arath thinks he/she has gone mad. But we Cabal will endure. I bore the building on my shoulders. I can bear this.

Dark. Dim. Cold. Hungry. Tired.

Later

The walls blister with strange growth. Like we saw on the tank.

Quiqeg says he/she has found the answer, the way to evade Xivu’arath, whoever that is. He/she giggles and laughs and says he/she is a genius. Very insistent. Very sure. Up, up, at the top level. Gol’arath doesn’t trust the Psion we have no other plan so we took the lift up. Quiqeg is in the other room now, in the main generator room. Preparing. Something.

Shoot me if they break in, says Gol’arath. Kill me and then the Psion.

The poison has spread across her abdomen and down one leg. It bubbles and curls like the stuff on the walls. Death and killing is all she talks about now.

We will kill each other, I promise her. She wraps her honor silk about my neck. But we are not mated, I say. I will never mate, she says.

Dark. Very dark. Tired. Very tired.

Now

They are outside. They must have climbed the walls. I am holding the doors shut. A little longer.

Quiqeg said he/she did it, found a way to escape the Hive god, found something in the library. He/she rigged something to the building’s generator, some round portal of quicksilver and light. Gol’arath got angry. She said it was better to fight and die and shot Quiqeg through the head, then tried to shoot me. Her shot went wide, mine did not. She promised me we would go together. But she is dead. Black and green spikes and thorns grow all over her body. I think they reached her brain.

I placed the last of my grenades in the generator. It will bring this entire building down. Let it fall. I will bear it on my shoulders.

Dark.

So tired.