Holden Bloodfeast
Holden bloodfeast let out a tired sigh as he sank down into his chair. He'd hoped to stay out of politics for another few decades. It was all so tiring. The pointless squabbles, the petty betrayals, the endless line of idiots convinced that they alone were unique and special with whatever minor edge they have clearly being new and unprecedented. He idly swirled his glass of amasec as he stared into his burning fireplace. He smiled as old memories surfaced.
He had been young once, a strike craft pilot and one of the best. He'd been something of an outcast for a while. He'd made empty declarations of rage, and of the beauty of spilt blood. But try as he might, combat had roused nothing in him. Simply a cold calculus of how to achieve victory. Saraha, ever bold and meddlesome, had gotten him into axe combat, so sure that it was the distance. He chuckled, she was so mad that he surpassed her skill with blades while still retaining his passionless calculating style of combat.
"How can you be this good and still bored?! I'll find something to get your blood up ya fucking icicle i swear to Khorne!"
He took a sip of his amasec, remembering the day she'd finally succeeded. The mad woman had volunteered them all for a suicide mission. The executioner's blade, the squadron following down a cyclonic torpedo. The rest of the squad had almost lynched her, hell he'd been trying to remember where the rope was as they where on that mission. But then, oh but then.
The world below burns, a wave of fire washes across it like a sharp dividing line. On one side blues and greens and city lights, on the other fire. Hives sagging like blobs of molten wax, mountains reduced to lumps, billions of lives reduced to ash on the wind. Death on a scale beyond the scope of his soul, destruction so through it erased the history of a world in a single perfect flash. Pure, transcendent, bliss.
He smiled, hundreds of billions of souls burned to cinders. It had not been quite by his hand, but him and his had been the ones to see the blow land, ensuring their final desperate attempt at survival was pointless. He still remembered that almost alien feeling of satisfaction as he lined up that shot on the last interceptor as they went in for a suicide run on the torpedo. God, he'd actually kissed her after they came back. He ran his hand over the scar where she'd laid him out for his tenacity.
Those had been the days. Pilots skilled enough to could escort a cyclonic down and return where valuable, where worthy. They had been showered in glory, in gold, and most importantly of all, chances to see that transcendent fire again and again. He laughed remembering the complaints of the mangos about the state his fighters were in. He just never seemed able to fully clear the atmosphere before those wonderful shockwaves hit. His squadmates had poked fun at him, but his commander had understood, The ole' battleax.
Don't you fucking dare turn around! You're the only one who has the fuel to make it out. You keep going, you hear me! Don't you give them the satisfaction of killing all of us.
Holden winced as with the good came the bad. The last flight of the executioner squadron. They had been sent to burn the capital of the twisting realm to cinders in perfect fire. Things had gone so well at the start, the defenders dying like flies in space, the ground defenses pounded to dust, and then, and then. His glass shattered in his hand, splattering expensive liquor over the floor.
The memory never faded, never lost its bite or clarity. The sudden shattering of the calm, the confusion, the feeling of anticipation curdling into horror in his gut. The flash of the cyclonic, that wonderful instrument of murder, as his own squadmate turned their guns on it. He'd hesitated, for the first time in his entire career he had hesitated. One of his own had turned against their shared purpose. He damned himself for that moment, for it had doomed him to survive. Someone else had been first to vector towards their traitour, the first to die to invisible killers that had been closing slowly. He'd been unable to close on the furball, warded off from it by a lurking shadow. He skirmished with them for long minutes before it had become clear there was no one to save. That the only thing he could do was flee, to take the tattered remnants of their honor back home.
He let out a breath and unclenched his fist. Watching the blood and liquor mingle. He still didn't know why Saraha had turned on them all. If she'd been bought, if they'd found some weakness and forced her to betray them, if her mind had been ensnared by sorcery, or even if it had truly been her in that fighter or simply something wearing her face. It hurt not to know, but the pain was familiar. It didn't matter now, not centuries later, whatever the case he doubted she had survived. Not when her lover had rammed her head on with an overloading plasma reactor. But the worst of all had been the end of his career in the navy. He hadn't been forced out, but he'd had no reason to stay.
Without his comrades, without his purpose, the navy had held nothing for him. When his commander told him to retire it had been a rare moment of kindness. He'd searched for decades for something,
anything that could let him recapture just a taste of the feeling of that wonderful perfect flame. He'd lost himself in combat, in the grandest slaughters he could find. He had killed one million men women and children in a single day, and felt nothing but exhausted after. He had wrangled front row seats to the most gratuitous of blood rites, billions massacred in minutes, more death than some of the smaller worlds he had burned.
The small of blood and brass, the chanting of prayer and tingle of power on his soul. His seat was so close to the sacrifice pit that the blood was now lapping at his knees, and all he could think about was idly wondering how the slaughter masters down at the bottom were still breathing.
The conversation he'd had, and connections he'd formed with the skull tenders after had at least been worth the price of admission. The poor fellows really were criminally underappreciated. The way they had managed to render the blood breathable had been fascinating. But the entire affair had been nothing but yet another cold intellectual exercise for him.
Even when he'd orchestrated the destruction of Methish XIII by orbital bombardment, he'd felt nothing but the faint satisfaction of solving a puzzle. The recordings, the burning hives, the crashing evacuation shuttles, the screaming confused masses looking for non-existent safety as the world slowly burned, had been no more interesting than manuals on axe styles or strike craft combat theory.
Lacking his purpose, he had then sought to find new comrades, people who trust him and he could trust in return. He'd made connection after connection, allies, friends, lovers, children, he'd put his trust in all of them, and they had all sunk a knife into his back. One of them had even survived their betrayal of him. Last he'd heard Little Timmy had made damon prince, and the ungrateful little brat still never called, unless he needed something. At least he'd taken care of his mother for him.
Ultimately, all his efforts at finding new comrades had done was secure his political career. He let out a bitter laugh. There could be nothing further from that honest loving bond he'd had with his old squamates than the shifting morasses of alliances, favors and lies that was politics. Still, it had its uses. He had power, he had sway, maybe one day, he could push for a return to the Twisting domain. To see a world burn, one more time. God, he'd do anything, sell his soul to anyone who would take it, betray any of his so-called allies, if he could finish what he'd started, see that world burn in that wondrous flame.
Holden let out a sigh. It was unusual of him to wallow in old pain like this. It must have been that Jack fellow. The young man's adorable attempts at faking a gambling addiction had reminded him so much of his own past, before he found his own vice. The pointless pageantry needed to convince the idiots that one wasn't "soft" in some nebulous, ill defined way. The weakest dogs bark the most, but killing idiots quickly becomes more tiring than showing them what they expected to see.
The kid really was something special, smarter than he let on and a deft hand at combat on the ground or in the cockpit. Whatever his actual game was it would probably be easier to benefit from it than stop him. But he was just one more piece on the board, even if he was one Holden's mind kept coming back to. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something about him felt like the boy might be useful. He had long since learned to trust his hunches. He'd keep his eyes open, and maybe just maybe, he'd find a way to get the one thing he truly desired.
@Durin @Dynamesmouse a write up for respectable bipartisan mr bloodfeast. He has exactly one thing he wants to do and very litle care outside of that. he is also very very sharp.
