Detailed info

Andromia Gate

To the young links in the Chain, to our old brethren in the Infinite Divisor Order, and to my fellow Keramites, I greet you in the peace of the three Prime All-Fathers.

I, now a Keramite with full faith in the Path of the Eternal Horizon, though myself never having an experience qualifying as ‘mystic,’ have nevertheless witnessed the power of the Void such that I could not deny its reality. I write not to convince you of its reality as a member of the faith, but as a covert operations officer of Keram’s Horizon, as a matter of inspiration, edification, and kindling the spirit of mutual affection between us as brothers and sisters in the one Chain, for we, as divided as we are and as solemnly or bitterly as we look back upon the blood shed between us, may all look now to those lone, noble figures who often lead us: the Commanders.

It was a dense, foggy morning on Andromia Gate, once belonging to those feckless Armadans many of you will recall. We were deployed with our Castros and our Deceivers, our Shurikens landed waiting for orders, and at the time we were part of Mantleguard’s Infinite Divisor Order. We were led by one Tarpor Rymhirsk, one of the very first pre-Commanders—and on the man himself there is much to say, so a lengthy diversion here is appropriate.

Rymhirsk was once an affable, even jolly fellow before the Void touched him. His constitution was robust, though his face sallow and nose long, and his moustache swept in a humorous curl. He was fond of dining sumptuously, proclaiming that a fatty Tarqhorn steak and a hunk of Teizer Goat sweetcheese were as vital to his tactical prowess as the disciplined fasting he observed every other day. Indeed the Cold Divergence was strong in him, he was among us one of the most human: he embraced his emotions fondly while never being beholden to them.

In those days, Rymhirsk’s prowess as a TLCP commander was great. He would draw the Armadans out on one flank by threatening with a formation of Incisors, bogging them down through a hidden defense in depth, then crush through their weakened main formation with a flood of Fiends. And, his cooperations with his fellow TLCP officers and the manned craft on the ground was renowned, no doubt due to the sunny opinion he could garner from anyone, and the display of his chivalric spirit preserving the lives of his subordinates and civilians.

Inevitably, he rose through the Chain and took on a Keramite innovation: a neural link to an All-Father Node, created as Cortex worked through the technical debt we owed from relying so heavily on the Cortex Prime All-Father. There, his tactical genius found a larger audience.

Regrettably, it was that same technical debt, and the yet unrefined nature of the neural links, that took his sunny personality away from us and made him the Commander he is today. A feedback cascaded through the All-Father Node, and flooded his sense-perception with far more data than anyone else would be able to handle.

Here, I am convinced, it was Rymhirsk’s supreme spiritual mastery of the Cold Divergence that kept him sane when the Void touched him in that moment, for a lesser man would go mad. Afterwards, he would not so much grin and laugh with us in fellowship, but only smile with a gentle humor. His fasting increased, and his indulgence of simple human joys decreased, though not entirely I must say; I caught him in private enjoying a bottle of wine, finely aged, from the Lexwright Vintner’s Guild on Teizer—alas for Teizer’s desolation!

But we must return to the main, the Siege of Andromia Gate. Rymhirsk had just returned to duty, his Mantle was returned to the lower position of TLCP officer not for dishonor but for simple concern of his state of mind, and his new talent had not yet been made apparent. It was then, as we were deployed by Hercules and Hephaestus, he spoke up to his fellow TLCP officers of the Infinite Divisor Order, among them myself. He had been reviewing the intelligence on Armadan positions and said, “I know what must be done. Transfer command to me.”

Naturally, we were reluctant because our old friend had changed, but we, one by one, relinquished control to him. It was just as natural: he was, until a week prior, our superior in the Chain. He fell silent then, and the silence unnerved my comrades, and issued orders through the TLCP command interface. Our Grunts moved, and we had only to trust. He himself, with his mech Echoveil—a predecessor of the Commando—took me and another officer and left the landing zones, going out to the south far away from our own forces.

As the silence went on, one of the officers in the landing zones demanded his units back, but it was half-hearted and went unheeded: in the next moment, we watched the data feeds in shock as he—with seeming prescience!—pulled a group of Grunts back just before an Armada Bull formation rolled over a ridge and gave chase. They scattered, ducking through gulleys and amongst trees, wasting the Armada’s time.

They would not have given chase if they knew the extent of the forces that had landed here at Andromia Gate, but a few unmanned Grunts and Rascals died, giving them an illusion of progress that kept them on the chase. As the hour rolled on it seemed like the entirety of the Armada’s patrols were whipped into a furor over formations of scouts rolling through empty, foggy terrain. Their TLCP systems were already failing, brittle things that they tended to be, leaving Stouts waiting for orders in ditches.

Finally, in a culvert just outside an Armadan logistics base that doubled as a command outpost—our target—Rymhirsk had us nanoprint a Castro and several Hercules. Then, we cloaked and slipped past the Dragon’s Teeth after another patrol rolled out. Inside, past the imposing Pulsars and Overwatch turrets, Rymhirsk deployed us at energy storages on opposite sides of the base, where we laid our mines. He himself laid two mines—heavy mines—at the entrance to a closed bay, then we regrouped.

“When our cloak runs out, we seize the Tenebrium and evacuate,” Rymhirks informed us, an eerie calm about his voice. One of the Hercules rose above the ridge, and the Pulsar fired on it. Our medium mines detonated, with them the energy storages. The Pulsar did the work for us, draining the energy of the defenses. Our cloaks dropped, and the Armadans were alert! They had Maces and Fatboys in the base, but Shurikens flew over the wall and swarmed the lot, leaving us free to do as we pleased.

Ah, but, where was the Tenebrium? I was unnerved, we were just standing there, and our pre-Commander was waiting… The bay, one of many, opened, and a mech I’d never seen before walked out. I barely had time to register it, an early prototype of the Armada Commander chassis, before it stepped on the two heavy mines. The base was torn open, and we moved towards an opening in the side of the main structure.

Rymhirsk got out of the Echoveil and walked inside, telling us to use our mechs to work through the exposed crates and retrieve the Tenebrium. By that point, I knew the operation was in the palm of his hand, and all concerns left me. My compatriot, not so, and he fretted and worried about the enemy returning to the base, about a flight of Falcons tearing through the Shurikens and Hercules. They did not. Later, I learned Rymhirsk hacked Armadan command interfaces, good Infinite Divisor soldier that he was, and threw their reinforcement schedules and commands into disarray.

So, our mechs and all the Tenebrium secured on the Hercules, we left. Not a shot fired from one of our forces, not a soul lost. Armada’s hold on Andromia was crippled, and the Cortex invasion force rolled over their foes.

Triumphant we returned to space. Commendations and promotions followed, along with a solemn warning to not so easily give up our Mantles when one of our peers demands them. Well, he was no longer our peer after the promotions.

I must warn you, try not to take on the burdens of the modern NCS protocols, to follow in Rymhirsk’s footsteps, the neural load is far more likely to induce death than unlock your potential—what’s more, you might run afoul of the Echelon Code for unauthorized access. Even so, be inspired by his initiative, his mastery of the Cold Divergence, his sheer prowess.