Gabriel approached the erstwhile Prophet Lawrence Kane, rage steadily building in his chest at the insanity and death this little coward, this one sad little traitor, had unleashed. Gabriel had lost his LMG again, his xenotech sword had been broken into pieces, and the combat claws on his right hand had been sliced clean off. That left only the claws on his left hand, his unused sidearm, and the combat knife on his shoulder.
Gabriel drew his knife.
He gripped the man’s hair and pulled back his head, looking the false prophet in the eyes. The microdots in his skin were still visible, but they were only useful against bullets and blast force, they could do nothing against a blade. Gone was the look of smug triumph that had been smeared across his face; now his expression was blank, and his eyes were wide and dazed, like a man who had just discovered that the world around him was a lie.
“All hail Lawrence Kane.” Gabriel sneered, his helmet speakers turning his voice into a deep and demonic snarl, “Leader of the Faithful. Prophet of the Voice.”
“You…” the prophet stammered, “…don’t know…what you’ve done.”
“I destroyed an alien threat to Humanity.” Gabriel replied.
“…Destroyed?” Kane murmured, then his voice became filled with anguish and rage, “you have destroyed NOTHING! What you have inflicted is a mere pinprick upon a god! The orb we found; it was an atomistic part of a far greater whole, a vessel for aeon’s worth of knowledge! Knowledge gathered from countless civilizations long extinct! Knowledge that could have been ours to wield!”
“What are you talking about?” Gabriel demanded.
“The Voice,” Kane continued, his own voice trembling, “It was the voice of an entity more ancient and more powerful than you could possibly imagine. I know because it touched my mind, just as it touched the minds of my followers and the mind of your comrade.”
Hearing Ogilvy referenced gave Gabriel the sudden urge to slit the self-styled prophet’s throat, but he resisted for the moment.
“The Voice speaks cosmic truth beyond the comprehension of creatures of mere flesh,” Kane continued to blabber, “it can bestow the knowledge to manipulate the building blocks of the universe at the quantum level, and the knowledge to construct world engines that can create and destroy planets and stars. All this and more!”
His rantings were getting more unhinged, and yet more fascinating.
“The Voice spoke, and I listened,” Kane’s ravings continued, a deranged smile starting to curl the corners of his lips, “the Voice spoke through me, I became the voice of truth! So much truth which I recited to my Faithful, and which I can recite for you!”
“I don’t want your recitation,” Gabriel replied coldly, “I want you silenced.”
Gabriel flicked the switch on his knife, flash-heating the blade. Then he sliced carefully across the top of the false prophet’s neck, directly above the thyroid cartilage. The incision was just deep enough to open up a slit without actually cutting his throat, and the flash-heated blade instantly cauterised the wound.
As the dying prophet reflexively choked and gagged, Gabriel deactivated the blade and replaced it in its sheath. Then he stuck his fingers into the wound. The dying Kane’s eyes turned wide as Gabriel wormed his fingers inside his neck and upwards, closing his grip around the tongue. Holding on tight to Kane’s head with his free hand, Gabriel yanked the false prophet’s tongue out through the slit in his throat.
There was a sickly series of tearing noises as Gabriel ripped the entire organ out through Kane’s neck, snapping it free of the muscles and tendons which held it in place. The prophet keeled over backwards, choking and gurgling blood from his now tongueless mouth and the crimson maw in his throat. And he wasn’t actually dead yet; the shock might cause him to lose consciousness, but blood loss would take several minutes to kill him.
It was a fittingly poetic end, and a deservedly gruesome one at that.
Gabriel stared at the mutilated corpse of the dead Lawrence Kane, wanting to feel satisfaction, or better still, vindication. Instead, he felt troubled.
He had no qualms about executing an enemy of Humanity, or the macabre method by which he had carried it out, but the dying words of the erstwhile prophet and the numerous implications they carried were what troubled him. What was the Swarm, and what did Kane mean that it was part of a greater whole?
There were countless other questions swirling around his head; fortunately, some of them could be answered immediately.
“Observer!” Gabriel called out through his helmet speakers.
“THE VOIDSTALKER IS TO BE CONGRATULATED ON HIS SURVIVAL.” The observer acknowledged, its voice booming out across the giant chamber, “PERHAPS YOU WISH TO KNOW HOW IT WAS THAT YOUR DEVICE DETONATED EARLY?”
“That’s one question I have!” Gabriel shouted in reply, turning away from the dais and walking back towards the rear of the scaffolding platform.
“The Swarm’s thralls – your kind – utilised primitive radio technology to communicate across distances,” the observer explained, adjusting the volume of its booming voice lower as Gabriel approached the wall of the chamber, “easily detectable and easily intercepted.”
“What about it, then?”
“Your communication system is far more sophisticated.” The observer continued, “It utilises extremely precise gravitic waves transmitted in the form of precisely timed quantum pulses. These pulses produce miniscule, but measurable, distortions in the…untranslatable…, which the observer can detect, but cannot intercept.”
“That doesn’t explain how the bomb detonated early.” Gabriel pointed out.
“Recall that when you were separated from your subordinates, you were unable to communicate.” The observer explained, “The observer has the ability to block the transmission of these quantum pulses. When the device was detached from your armour, the observer detected a similar signal from your armour to the device. The observer concluded that your life signs were directly tied to the device’s triggering mechanism.”
“So you disrupted the signal once the Swarm was inside the containment shield in order to detonate the bomb prematurely.” Gabriel guessed.
“Correct.” The observer confirmed, “There was no guarantee that the containment shield would retain enough power for long enough to wait for detonation. Furthermore, the observer could not guarantee that the voidstalker would survive further combat.”
Cato had found his way back and was tending to Viker’s head injury. Viker had his helmet off, revealing a grizzled face with the pale complexion of an Undercity dweller and the buzz cut of a marine. His eyes were brown and still slightly dazed from being smacked in the side of the head. Bale was sitting nearby, nursing the hole in his shoulder where the spiked baton had been rammed through, having survived being tossed into the air.
“Good to see you’re alive, colonel.” Bale said as he attempted a salute. The muscles in Gabriel’s arms were still burning, but he managed to salute back.
“There is no need to keep any further secrets.” The observer said politely.
“You said you wanted to guarantee my survival,” Gabriel called out, “Why?”
“The observer has three priorities: containment, observation, and self-preservation, in descending order of importance. Now that the Swarm has been destroyed, there is nothing left either to contain or to observe, leaving only self-preservation. Whatever authority sent you is evidently prepared to take extreme measures to neutralise perceived threats. In the interest of self-preservation, the observer wishes not to be perceived as a threat.”
“You want to use us as bargaining chips?” Gabriel asked.
“No, rather as emissaries.” The observer clarified, “threatening or terminating your lives would not engender goodwill from your superiors, and would most likely result in the observer’s own destruction. Whereas releasing you alive and unharmed would produce a chance of goodwill from your superiors.”