So, this one follows on from the Death of 329 blog, but occurs before it, as regards timeline. As with that one, it's not set in stone, this is all first draft stuff.

 

For some context, at the end of the previous story, the Resistance and bureaucracy ruling Prawa V made a kind of pact which benefitted both, but was ultimately not what either wanted. Reformed into the Concord. Read through previous blogs for more info.

 

This story takes place about 50-odd years after the first story.

Characters:

The Narrator - name is Michał (Michael, pronounced in English like Mi-HOW). He is the Sergeant.  His partner is Łaska (pronounced in English like Was-KAH - means 'grace' or 'mercy'). Age approx 76.

Łaska - Tough as nails, but, although you don't see it in this sketch, deep of feeling. Before they retired, she was Michał's second in the 329 squad. Age approx 70.

Freja - (pronounced fry-yah) - a mid-level analyst in the Concord who has uncovered certain secrets they'd rather not be discovered. Age approx 24.

Krystan - neurodivergent, and I hope that comes across in the writing. Socially awkward; great with machines. I really hope I have avoided the 'gifted' tropes with him and would value any constructive criticism on him, or anything, to be honest.

329 - If you want to know about 329, I strongly recommend reading previous blog entries. It is not sentient, none of that anthropomorphising here. It has programming. But, no-one knows what that programming is, entirely.

 

Background:

 

The Concord has a data centre with records on all citizens and maintains a watchful, intrusive eye on them. I leave it a bit ambiguous. Interpret it as you will. Freja needs to get there to destroy it. Yes, basic, I know, but this is first draft, so am working on refining it!

 

Anyhow, here goes. All constructive feedback welcome!

EDIT: Please do excuse the formatting. The platform I write on and paste into this forums doesn't seem to want to play nice. Have tried to clear it up, but apologies in advance. Also, apologies to @W.A.Rorie, haha

 

=====

 

“We need to wake it up," I said.

“Hmm?”

“You know what I’m referring to.”

Krystan didn’t answer straight away. He looked down at his boots, then back up. “I know.”

“Can you do it?”

He drew a slow breath through his nose, then exhaled. “Yes.”

“You know where it is?”

Another pause. “Yes. But… does it have to be that?”

“I wouldn’t ask, my friend, if it wasn’t our last resort.”

Krystan’s jaw tightened. He stared past me, eyes fixed on nothing and everything. Already, his mind was clicking through the routines: fail safes, heat limits, fuel mix ratios, coolant tolerances. He blinked and nodded once. “OK.”

We didn’t say anything else. There was nothing else to say.

 

The descent into the vault was quiet. Dust clung to the walls, a shadow of how long it had been since anything had moved here. There were no lights but for the ones they brought. No sound but the echo of their steps.

329 was exactly where he’d left it, resting on the ferrocrete, half-shadowed, its armour pitted with time. The numerals still visible on the flank: 329. Faded, but not forgotten.

He spoke to his crew without turning, "Stay here."

A few nods.

He continued, “Primary ignition sequence is triggered from the command cradle. I’ll do it myself.” He gestured at the sponsons without looking, his mind already seated in the cradle, mapping arcs from 329’s point of view. “Targeting gimbals will sweep. Don’t stand in their arc. Don’t wave. Don’t speak. And, please, do not draw attention to yourself. If it doesn’t like you, it won’t fire. If it really doesn’t like you, well, it might.” His voice was calm but inside, his heart was racing.

A young tech shifted uneasily. Krystan didn’t look at him.

“Cooling feeds are bypassed. It'll overheat within minutes unless I balance them. That’s expected. Please, do not attempt to intervene.” Krystan moved, stopped ten metres from it, then softly stepped forward. Climbing the hull was slower now. His knees weren’t what they had been, but the handholds were still there. Muscle memory guided him, a grip here, a twist there. The panel lift was stiff but intact. He dropped into the command cradle with a grunt and sat for a moment, feeling the worn metal beneath his palms.

He ran a hand across the console. “Right,” he muttered. He flicked the manual override. Static. He reset the breakers, one by one. Then, finally, he slid the boot key into its old port, turned it ninety degrees, and waited.

A low hum, barely audible, came from one of the secondary generators. Then the panel lit, faintly at first. One diode at a time.

Red. Amber. Green.

His eyes fixed on the console.

The logic lattice unfolded. A systems handshake. Diagnostics spooled into view. Familiar, painfully so. He’d spent years trying to map the full chain, to coax it into transparency. He'd never had succeeded. But now, it welcomed him.

He felt it under him, that vibration that wasn’t just sound, but a presence. Deep in the hull, turbines shifted while logic relays cascaded. Krystan swallowed. And despite himself, he grinned. Joy tinged with something sharper, fear and awe. The raw rightness of it. He knew power. He knew engines. But this, this was control. Brutal. Absolute. It sang under his spine. And still, he didn’t understand it all.

It was the unsolvable question. The puzzle with pieces he would never fit. But it answered his call now, in this moment and that was enough.

“Hello again,” he said softly.

A line of text scrolled across the upper display:

CRADLE OCCUPIED – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED

He placed his palm on the reader.

KRYSTAN/R/1 – RECOGNISED
SECURITY PROTOCOL OVERRIDE AUTHORISED
WAKE SEQUENCE INITIALISED

The hull trembled beneath him. A long, low vibration, rising through the floor, the walls, the air. From far off came the whine of priming hydraulics.

He braced his elbows against the console, steadying himself.

Then the sound, oh the sound that sent a shiver up him. A bass-deep roar, both mechanical and animal simultaneously. A howl of turbines long dormant, now stirring. The Vulcans twitched and pilot lights flared. Smoke hissed from the exhaust vents. 329 was stirring from its slumber. The systems stabilised and the console stopped flickering.

Krystan exhaled, slowly and silently. He leaned in, one gloved hand resting against the warm metal rim of the cradle. “I need you to do something for me.” He entered the coordinates by hand. No macros this time; it had to be right. There would be no second chances.

OBJECTIVE: CORE FACILITY DOORWAY
PRIORITY: OVERRIDE – IMMEDIATE EXECUTION
CONDITIONALS: DISREGARD RETREAT PATH

He hesitated and let the final line sit there, the cursor blinking.

RAID PROTOCOL: KRYSTAN/1/R – AUTHORISED
EXECUTE? Y/N

He hit Y.

The machine responded. The primary generator kicked in, spooling up and adding to the raw noise. The Vulcans spun up, a mechanical howl that shook dust from the rafters.

Krystan flinched. The sound wasn’t for him. It was an awakening and a warning. He stood, knees crackling under his weight, and hauled himself up through the hatch. He didn’t look back into the cradle, just climbed down the hull, one handhold at a time. He was slower now, but still steady. He dropped to the vault floor with a grunt and stepped back.

329’s drive motors spooled to full torque. The hull shifted and treads bit into decades of settled dust.

The outer blast doors groaned open. Light poured in.

Krystan stood to the side as the beast began to roll forward. Slowly at first, then with growing purpose.

The was no hesitation. It had its task. And it would complete it or die trying.

As 329 passed the threshold, Krystan murmured, “Last job. Make it count.”

In the silence it left behind, the dust hung weightless in the air. For a fleeting moment, Krystan stood, distracted by the movement of the motes in the air.

He stood beside the blast door, watching 329 roll into the half-light. The ground trembled under its treads. He didn’t speak. His eyes tracked the machine until it passed from view, swallowed by sun and dust. Then he turned, slightly.

Freja was watching.

Something passed across his face, a quiet sadness. The kind you carry when something precious slips beyond reach.

He looked away from her, down at floor, and paused. He looked up again, meeting her gaze. He gave her single nod and then left without a word.

 

I moved toward the blast doors and stepped up beside Freja. She hadn’t moved. Just stood there, eyes fixed on where the machine had gone.

I unbuckled the sidearm from my belt and held it out to her, grip-first.

“For you.”

She stared at it with uncertainty. Then took it, with two hands, a little too tightly.

“You ever fired one?”

She shook her head.

“Keep it pointed down unless you mean it. And if you mean it… mean it. Nothing in between. And keep your finger off that trigger unless you do.”

She nodded. I didn’t know if she really understood. But that was all I had time for.

Behind us, the squad gathered, six of them. Younger, keen, and alert, but with the kind of quiet I respected. Not showy. Just ready.

Łaska joined last, her launcher low, eyes sweeping the soot-streaked vault. Even she paused, and if she paused, I knew something was shifting. She caught my eye, glanced at Freja still holding the pistol, and gave the smallest shake of the head as if to say "Really?"

I just said, “Move.”

I didn't shout. I didn’t need to. We passed through the vault mouth, into the access tunnel. No banners here nor signs. Just the wet-metal smell of old air and concrete that hadn’t breathed in decades.

The slope took us deeper. Behind us, the door clanged shut and light vanished. Our headlamps clicked on one by one, narrow cones cutting into stale dark.

We kept walking. Then came the sound, distant, through layers of earth and steel. A rumble, almost like thunder. Then a howl. Longer than before and sharper. Like something tearing loose inside the walls.

One of the young fighters stiffened. “What the is that?”

“Our side,” I said. “Keep moving.”

Even Łaska turned at that one, briefly. Just enough for me to catch it.

“It’s still fighting,” I murmured. Then lower, so only I could hear: “Gods help them.”

We went on.

 

The tunnel constricted the further we went. The air had changed. It was less stale now, more processed and recycled. That told me we were getting close to something still running. Something watching.

The lights from our headlamps caught rust flakes clinging to overhead piping. Some markings on the walls, old Imperial codes, mostly faded. Others had been scorched off entirely.

I kept count of the fighters behind me. Six when we entered, plus Łaska and Freja. Still six, for now.

We pushed on, our steps muted by dust and grime. Every few metres, someone glanced upward, like they expected the walls themselves to shift.Ahead, the tunnel bent hard to the left. I slowed, held up a fist. The squad froze. Something felt wrong. I edged to the corner and peered around. A corridor beyond, straight and tight. No cover. A gantry overhead. Some kind of casing bolted into the ceiling. It was too clean to be old, too silent to be right.

“Eyes up,” I said, quietly.

Freja was breathing too loudly behind me. I tapped her arm once. She exhaled a little. She still held the sidearm too tight.

I waved Czerny forward. Tall, lean, and sharp-eyed. He was our point man. He raised his rifle. He stepped past the bend...
A bolt of blue light punched clean through his chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.

We dropped instantly. Łaska swore through her teeth.

A turret. Auto-linked. Something dormant that woke when it tasted movement.

“Suppressive fire!” I barked.

Two of the squad rolled grenades down the corridor, concussives. The blast slammed our ears and lit the walls in white. When it cleared, the gantry sagged, metal warped and blackened.

I didn’t wait. We moved. Fast, tightly, disciplined. We passed Czerny’s body without a word. Gods love him, but we’d come back for him.

Freja had dropped in the chaos. I reached back, grabbed her collar, yanked her to her feet. “Come on.”

She stumbled after us. Eyes wide. Still shaking.

A few hundred metres further, the tunnel split. A junction, one path descending, the other a maintenance passage running east. We paused. Only five now.

Łaska leaned against the bulkhead, reloading her grenade launcher. Sweat on her brow. Even she looked rattled.

Then the sound came again, that same long howl we’d heard before. But this time it changed, twisted mid-way into something worse, a scream. It was raw and mechanical. Full of fury. Echoing down through layers of concrete and steel.

Łaska didn’t flinch. Just muttered, “Kurwa mać,” and slammed the bolt on her launcher closed.

We didn’t speak. We kept moving.

 

We reached the blast door to the Core. Freja crouched beside the console, muttering to herself, tapping in codes. Her fingers moved faster now, more certain. Whatever she'd found in the archives, it was working.

I stood beside her, weapon raised, watching the corridor behind us and waiting. I could hear footsteps. Distant, but closing.

Łaska came up beside me. One of the squad stood at her shoulder, the others farther back, rifle aimed down the tunnel.

“They’re close,” she said.

I nodded. “Time to move.”

She didn’t flinch. She just looked at me. Really looked. “You want me to take them?”

“No,” I said. “I do.”

Silence.

“You’ve got a squad,” I said. “You and them. That’s it. Take the east vent. Loop around. Make it look like we split. Draw them off. Give Freja the time she needs.”

Her brow creased. “You’re not coming?”

“I’ll be right behind you.”

And there it was. That was the lie. And we both knew it.

Still, I said it cleanly and evenly. Not a flicker in my voice.

She stared at me a beat longer. Then her eyes shifted and her jaw clenched, but she didn’t argue. She knew me too well to believe it, and loved me too much to make me say it.

Her hand came up and brushed my chest. Then dropped. That was all. She turned, gave the signal. The others moved. Quietly, professionally, fast. She hesitated one step longer. Then she was gone.

Behind me, Freja’s voice was calm. “Almost through.”

I turned back to the tunnel. Took position. Raised my weapon. The hallway stretched on, empty for now, but not for long.

Let them come.

 

=====
 

The blast door hissed.
Freja flinched as it juddered, then began to part.

“You got it?” I asked.

She nodded, breath shallow. “We’re in.”

The gap widened, revealing only dark beyond. No light. No sound. Just the dead air of the Core, sealed for decades.

She hesitated. I didn’t.

I caught her shoulder, firmly, and pulled her gently but decisively away from the console and pressed her back against the wall.

Her breath caught. My face was close, my voice low and tight.

“Do you hear that?”

The scream of 329 carried faintly down through the layers above us. It wasn't just a howl now, it was something deeper. Fractured. Dying. A Banshee.

Freja nodded.

“You know what it is.”

Tears rimmed her eyes. She didn’t speak, she didn’t need to.

“It’s dying for you.”

I stepped back. “Now go.”

She went through the gap and into the dark.

The door stayed open. Whether by design or decay, it didn’t matter now.

I heard echoed bootsteps, dozens of them

I dropped to one knee and raised my rifle. I went through the ritual: Breathe in. Hold. Exhale slowly. Squeeze.

 

Black-armoured shapes rounded the corner — rifles up, visors gleaming.

I let loose, full auto, the butt slamming into my shoulder. They stalled. That was all I needed.

Grenade. Cap off. Rolled it into them.
I paused a second as I saw Łaska rolling her eyes in my mind at my choice of words. “Eat this.”

The blast lit the corridor in white. Screams. Scorched metal.

I kept firing.

They wanted Freja. They’d have to go through me.

And I wasn’t moving.

 

My rifle was empty. I dropped the mag, slammed in the last I had, and braced against the bulkhead. My side was slick with blood. One round had found me. Maybe more. I didn’t check.

They were cautious now, the Concord bastards. I’d killed too many. A few rushed, and had died. The rest held back, thinking I might run out of ammo before they ran out of bodies. They might have been right.

Another burst from their side. I ducked but shrapnel bit into my scalp. It didn’t matter. They weren’t getting through that door. Not while I was still breathing.

I pushed forward on one knee, exposed for half a second, and took one in the throat. One of the younger ones. Maybe nineteen, twenty years old. His helmet popped off as he dropped. ":cuss:," I said to myself.

The next came roaring around the corner, bayonet raised and desperation in his face. I side-stepped, caught his collar, and drove him headfirst into the wall. His skull cracked. He slid down, a deadweight.

I backed up, near the door. I heard the whine of their comms. There were more coming.

Then sudden pain, sharp and hot, in my shoulder. I dropped again, my rifle clattering beside me. My fingers were too numb to grab it. My breath was ragged. My vision greyed at the edges. Still, I smiled.

Above me, 329 still screamed. Still fought and still held.

“Good,” I whispered. “You hang on, boy. Just a little longer.”

Footsteps. Five of them. Six. I couldn’t lift the rifle now.

I reached to my belt. My pistol was gone. Ah, I realised. I'd given it to Freja. Well, at least it might give her a chance. Not that she'd got a clue what to do with it.

The first Concord soldier rounded the corner.

And then the world detonated. Not me. Not my grenade.

Łaska came in like a sandstorm. Launcher up, eyes blazing. One round. Two. Shrapnel tore through their line; legs gone, helmets split, screams swallowed by her thunder.

She didn’t shout and she did not and would not stop. She advanced, firing again, calmly, brutally, until the corridor was painted in smoke and ruin.

Then stillness.

I saw her boots first. Then her silhouette through the haze.

She walked to me and knelt.

I lay on the ground, eyes fixed on the ceiling. I couldn’t move my head and my arms barely moved. I couldn't feel my legs. Blood pooled in my mouth. I could taste iron, sharp and bitter. I smelled damp earth. The kind that came after watering. Our crops were blooming. Reaching for the sun. I saw her, moja Łaska, her face above mine, blurred, trembling, and so beautiful. She was talking to me but I couldn’t hear it. "I dream of rain," I whispered.

 

Łaska sat on her knees beside him, holding his hand. "Kocham Cię, my love."