Out of Space

Chapter 649: Murder Most Foul

Gentle waves broke against the dark grey hull of the anchored UNS Vengeance, creating glowing blue green sprays of seawater. Bioluminescence painted the surrounding ocean waters beautiful, but no one onboard the UNS Vengeance had the mind to admire the night view as the flight decks of the tri hull carrier were being prepped for a major operation.

Elevators hummed as transported aircraft with their wings folded to the flight decks. Crews wearing different coloured jackets were busy with their duties, green fussing over the parked aircraft with their engines powering up, yellow directing aircraft newly exited from elevators to their launch positions, purple running around with fuel hoses and red working with munitions.

A pair of aircraft, larger and looking very different from the usual UN Navy's F/A - 2 Vipers were already stationed at the launch positions of Flight Deck A. Blast shields deployed behind the aircraft that each had a pair of pusher prop engines housed inside an armoured duct. It had a pair of straight wings that was longer than its body and an H shape tail.

In the front of the aircraft was forward facing goldfish bowl like bubble canopy that was protected by a pair of magic barrier runes. Yet that was not the most striking feature of the new aircraft. A pair of quad barrel 20 mm gatling gun was mounted into the fuselage of the aircraft. The newly developed A - 1 Warboa , similar to the late twentieth century A - 10 Thunderbolt, was built over a pair of 20 mm gatling guns.

To carry the internal 20 mm twin gatlings, its 3,200 rounds, four pylons of munitions each on each wing, engines, fuel and other avionics, aetherium was used in the construction of the airframe. Similar to the UNAF's Vector wing ships, aetherium was used to offset the weight of the entire aircraft, allowing the ground attack aircraft to carry an impressive amount of ordnance.

The squadron of A - 1s, were ferried across the End Zone by the Vector wing ships a couple of weeks ago and on this night, it was the 501st Attack Wing first combat op. The yellow jacket crew standing forward of the leading A - 1 Warboa, made a couple of hand signals with his light wand before he crouched down.

The pilot seated inside the goldfish bowl like cockpit gave a salute as confirmation and permission for the launch was given. The brakes holding the launch crate released and the steam catapult threw the whole aircraft forward, sending it up to speeds of 270 km per hour with seconds. The A - 1's twin push prop engines roared as they took over the duty of propelling the aircraft.

Following that, the next catapult down the launch lane, roared, sending the next aircraft of the 501st into the air. Soon, in the short span of ten minutes, all six A - 1s of the 501st Attack Wing was in the air and headed straight into the Protectorate airspace.

-----

The Protectorate, Rendezvous Point Beta

The suppressed M3 sneezed, kicking up dirt and dust in the process as Loke sent another .50 calibre round downrange. Seconds later, under the night vision of his scope, the high powered round blew the upper torso of a priest away. Loke could still see the target's right hand still raised up, holding a tome.

"How many attempts is this?" Loke asked as he worked the bolt of his rifle. He swiftly rechambered a fresh round into his rifle as he returned to sight down at the confused mob in the distance. Beside him, laying down in the shell scrape was Altied who was spotting for him.

Altied gave a shrug as he scanned the mob for another priest. They were easy to spot as they carried torches which literally screamed out to the UN special forces their location. "They are die hard fanatics... Be glad that they are stupid and sending themselves into your sights!"

"Yeah..." Loke grinned as he spotted another Protectorate in that very distinguishable priest garb. "Gonna be morning soon..."

Another powerful sneeze, the recoil slamming into his shoulder pads and kicking up more dirt and dust and another dead priest sent to meet his God. "Easy, easy!"

-----

The rising sun slowly peeked out from the horizon and turned the cloudy skies red with its ray. The six Warboas remained in formation as they cruised across the skies until suddenly a massive shadow appeared through the clouds above them.

The shadow materialized itself out from the clouds, turning into a delta shaped wing ship. The 501st Attack Wing obediently fell in behind the massive Vector wing ship. Refuelling hoses were slowly released from the wings of the Vector wing ship and the first trio of A - 1s carefully manoeuvred themselves into position, their nose probe aiming for the shuttlecock like drogue at the end of the hose.

Once mated, the A - 1s greedily sucked fuel to refill their emptied tanks. Once the first three had their fill, they broke off from the drogue, allowing the remaining three to take over their positions. The whole procedure was repeated once more and the fuels tanks of the remaining Warboas were filled. Having refuelled, the 501st Attack Wing broke off from the refuelling Vector wing ship and continued on their journey while the wing ship rose up into the clouds and quickly disappeared from view once more.

-----

The Protectorate, Rendezvous Point Beta

"Alright, we just kicked the entire murkling's nest!" Hitsu sighed as he looked at the approaching airships. "Seriously? Two Penal class heavy cruisers?"

"We could call for aerial support from Beholder," Wolf suggested as he double checked his gear. "We should be glad they don't have fast ships..."

"Well, I am disappointed at them for only sending two heavy cruisers..." Hitsu replied sarcastically. "I was hoping for a full fleet!"

"People! Gather up!" Tyrier called for attention. He looked around the gathered group and paused at the Princess and her son for a moment before he said, "Our primary objective is to ensure the safety of the Princess and the Grand Prince at all costs!"

He gestured to the two airships in the distance and continued, "We made a mess of the enemy last night and knowing these Beetle Heads, they can be very stubborn!"

"Expect trouble at all times!" Tyrier warned. "We will now head to RP Charlie where we will be linking up with some reinforcements that are on their way."

"I will hope to avoid the eyes of the Beetle Heads but there is not much cover out here," Tyrier gestured around them, the land being sparse and barren. "The longer our presence is undetected the higher the chance we can all go home!"

"I want all our tracks and traces to vanish from this moment onwards!"

-----

The Protectorate, Work Camp Redemption

"A bunch of useless fools!" The Bishop Major glared at the kneeling Overseers and soldiers. "All of you shall be sent to be Judged!"

The Bishop Major ignored the cries for mercy as he turned away from the condemned. Paladins stepped forward and surrounded the condemned and their steam lances hissed. The Bishop Major was disturbed but not by the deaths of the incompetent, but those of his fellow clergy. He saw the bodies, many if not all had chunks of their bodies missing,

They recovered some of the limbs but still, there were too many missing parts, yet no bite marks, making him discount the thoughts of some wild beast. Their deaths seemed too violent as if they imploded themselves. Could it be some spell? Thought the Bishop Major. But magic was something not everyone has access to.

The next strange thing was there were several bodies with holes in their bodies, the holes were not as large as those that imploded but he felt that they were similar to an extend. He stood in the middle of a street where there were four spots stained with a massive amount of blood. He bent down and picked up a clay fragment that came from a broken bowl and frowned before he took a sniff. Next, he picked up a set of robes adorned for Bishops and looked over.

"Lord Bishop Major, that set of robes belonged to the late Lord Enu, who is the Supervisory Bishop of Work Camp Redemption," An aide quickly reported. "He was... erm... only identified by the ring of office in his hand..."

"Who dares to kill a baptized Bishop of the Clergy!" Lord Bishop Major Zakhi growled. He was bald and his current angry expression made him look older than his age of thirty five summers. He wore the crimson robes of a Bishop together with the gold rank braiding of a Major sewn on his shoulders and a sword belt that right hand was gripping tightly onto the hilt of his steam sword.

"Someone else was here!" He declared as he tossed the fragment of the broken bowl to his aide. "Find out who!"

The bell of the supervision church of the work camp had sounded once more, calling for a general gathering. Yesterday night it had tolled an alarm and soon word of the Bishop in charge and Priests were being killed by an unknown hand. The incident quickly raised alarm bells in the local Clergy's military order leading them to dispatch him here. This case made Bishop Major Zakhi angry for it took him away from his orders of reinforcing the attack on the Iron Kingdom.

His anger only rose more when he arrived, finding the majority of the dead were from the upper echelons of the Clergy while the incompetent remained alive and failed to apprehend the murderer. He suddenly spun around and snapped his fingers at his aide. "Order the Promise and the Tenacious to patrol the perimeter of the work camp! They are to report any suspicious activity!"

The tolling of the church bell ended and he headed straight for the supervision church, finding the square before the church filled with kneeling repenters. His Paladins stood silently at the perimeter of the square, watching the crowd for any form of discontentment.

Lord Bishop Major Zakhi climbed up a flight of steps and stood on the balcony built over the doors of the church. The balcony served as both a preaching platform and a stage for judgement of sins. Without further ado, he speak loud and clear, "Last night... There was a Sin most foul!"

"Lord Bishop Enu and Priests of the Clergy..." He stared down at the crowd, trying to see if he could spot the real murderer. "Have been murdered with vile sorcery!"

"The Sinner has no regard for Law and Order!" He continued. "I know the Sinner is among you... Anyone here... who could point out the Sinner... will have his or her term of repentance cleared! For good deeds shall not go unrewarded!"

His words made the crowd astonished as they started to look at each other with suspicion. He gave the fidgeting crowd another once over before he said, "I will be waiting inside the Church! You all have one hour!"

With that, he walked away from the balcony and entered the Church. To call it a church was a stretch as its interior was more like a chancellery as work desks and racks filled with scrolls took up all its space. Only at the front, there was a small area with several pews and an altar with a life sized relief of Ramuh was made for worship.

He did not enter the work areas and instead sat down at the front pew and stared up at the relief of Ramuh. The relief depicted his selfless acts of granting Law and Order down on the people and saving them from chaos. As he stared at the work of holy art, a Paladin escorting a person came in and bowed before stepping back.

The person dressed in rags fell down on his knees and kowtowed, "Y- Your Holiness! I- I s- saw the murderers!"