Ramirez's execution of their escape had been possible, but not particularly pretty. He could fly a shuttle sure, but when they were all used to Adam taking the joystick, to have anyone else do it was a bit of an ordeal.

"Should have seen that coming." Sunny snarled, "Should have known she was going to backstab us like that."

Lanus, busy scrolling through baby pictures, looked up at his daughter from where he sat next to his son in law. The expression on his face was one of deep sadness. Sunny had had plenty of time to get over whatever lingering feelings she might have had for her mother, and move straight on into hatred, but Lanus had died before really experiencing what she had become.

The wounds were still fresh.

Out the front windscreen, things were not looking much better.

Shots were yet to be fired, but the two standing armadas bristled with waiting action, slowly forming into more cohesive attack formations. On their left was the Maker army, with the Empyrean at the center of a wide formation done in ever decreasing concentric circles.

On the right, was the void armada, and they were doing something...

Odd.

Adam stood rom his seat, walking forward to rest his hands on the back of the copilot's chair, "What are they doing?"

Behind him, the others crowded inward. Adham rested an absent had on his shoulder squinting out towards the flurry of motion baced by the blackness of space. The ship were difficult to see, but the orange light emanating from their engines gave them away enough to watch as the armada retreated, forming a vast sphere around the Necritorium.

As they watched, a russet grid of orange polygons began to erupt around the planet, forming some sort of defensive shield. Ship engines glowed orange as their energy stores were expended.

The russet shield pulsed.

And the planet began to turn, rotating vertically even as it continued to spin on its axis.

"I don't like the look of this ." Adham muttered

The rest of the crew couldn't help but agree, but all they could do was watch in helpless confusion as the entire planet was rotated into place. Behind it the black hole pulsed with many waving tendrils of blackness stretching out from its center and out into the black reaches of space, Apollyon defying the very laws of nature.

"Where's the architect?" Ramirez said

The question was very sudden, almost out of the blue, but when he asked Adam realized that he had been thinking the same thing this whole time. He wasn't sure what he had expected from the architect, probably not a matching tentacle mass but in white instead of black, that would have been a bit too obvious, but the man stepping up to take hold of the empyrean and lead their armies might have made more sense.

Adham was silent for a long time, and Adam was surprised when it was Lanus who spoke next, "We don't know."

Adam frowned, "What do you mean you don't know."

Lanus shrugged, "The architect is.... Surprisingly unobtrusive. The few times he shows himself he takes a new form every time. He likes to disguise himself as common soldiers until he is needed and tends to communicate telepathically when something needs to be done.... his ... presence is all around us. It is just simply not as tangible as some might prefer."

Adam sighed, "Well that is incredibly helpful."

Lanus shrugged

Adham sighed, "Either way, what matters now is figuring out what they are trying to do wi-"

He was cut off as the ships comms buzzed.

"Who?" Adam asked.

"Empyrean, patching them through." Ramirez said

They were close enough to the empyrean now that the people on board could probably have waited, but whatever the empyrean needed to say, they needed to say it fast. "Adham sir, the empyrean is detecting massive energy readings of the necrotorium. We have stealth shuttle images of the surface of the planet. They're uncovering some sort of massive hole reaching down towards the center of the planet. Our calculations figure its aimed right at the center of the black hole if that means anything.

Adam shifted nervously and glanced at Sunny, "I really don;t like the sound of that."

"That makes two of us." She said, reaching out a hand to rest on his arm.

"What else do we know?" Adham asked

The radio was partially silent for a moment before the voice continued"The energy buildup, as soon as the hole was uncovered we detected massive energy readings, and I mean massive. Something never before seen is kind of massive."

"I don't like the sound of that." The sentiment was voiced by multiple people inside the shuttle as they approached the docking bay.

"Yes sir, if they were to reverse the directionality of their funnel and use all the energy they have collected from the Necritorium..... Well, they would essentially be feeding Maker souls directly into the black hole.... Directly to Apollyon."

Adham went very rigid and very silent. The rest of the shuttle took a little longer to understand what that meant before Ramirez finally caught on whispering, "He'd eat all the energy..... Destroy the maker souls..... Destroy all of that energy."

Who knew, the black hole could get bigger.

He could destroy everything

Make it so that nothing existed.....

Again.

"Holy shit." Adam muttered

Lanus squeezed Sunny by the shoulder, his face grim.

"We have to do something."Adam said, just as Ramirez touched them down upon the ship's deck inside the safety of the Empyrean's belly. He slammed his fist against the release catch on the shuttle hatch and stepped out onto the frantic landing bay. All around them, ships were being outfitted for war, but he ignored them as he turned to look at his companions, sweeping his eyes over each and every last one of them until his eyes landed on Adham, "We have to stop them. The necritorium, we have to shut it down before they are able to open that beam."

Adham nodded, 'That is at least something we can agree on. If that beam goes off, if they do what it looks like they are planning to do, trillions of lives, trillions upon trillions will be lost. Apollyon will grow in power and begin to consume the universe as we know it. Everything will be destroyed. This is the first step in that plan."

Adam nodded, "Only option is to go down there, dismantle everything, free the trapped souls if we can."

"Kill Kazna." Sunny growled.

Lanus paused, "I am not sure if that is a good idea.... She might be more powerful dead."

Sunny frowned, "We will burn that bridge when we get to it.

Adam nodded, "This is it, it's going to take us a battle to get to that planet, to make it through that shield. We are going to have to put together a strike team with the best chance of getting things done," He looked at Adham, "You make a team, and I make a team. Hopefully one of us is going to make it through."

"You have someone in mind?" Adham wondered.

Adam smiled only slightly, "In fact, I have an army."

***

He wasn't kidding about the army, at least not really. Adam had been expecting something like this, and aside from the armada he had legions of foot soldiers to follow along, and many others had offered their services to the cause including plenty of familiar faces.

Of course there was Celex, Sunny, Ramirez and Conn serving most commonly at his side since the early days, then there were others, people like Kanan, Dzara, Etium, King James, Queen Xanthia, Sgt Kimball, Steel Eye soldiers Jane and Lindsay, Hijan, who insisted on coming despite her age, she wished to die in glorious battle and this may be her last chance to do so despite the risk at which she put her soul.

There were hundreds more, thousands more, Thousands of eager drev warriors, including the clans headed by Hizad and Ranasash, Neospartans, UNSC soldiers under the command of President kelly. There was lord Avex and millions of Celzex soldiers all ready for battle, entire swarms of Burg ships. All of these supported by Finnari and Vrul eager but terrified to be involved.

But his only goal now was to make it to the surface of that planet.

That was the plan.

A full orbital assault, like nothing that had ever been coordinated in the history of the GA.

He spoke with Adham, they would attack from all sides, and hopefully one of them would manage to make it in.

This was it

This was the day he would go to die.

It was the one horrible thought he kept in his mind as he prepared his jet, an F-90 Darkfire, an old model now but one he was familiar with. If he was going to go down it would be here, now in something familiar. He certainly didn't expect the tap on the shoulder that nearly startled him out of his flight suit.

He turned, Surprised to find Krill standing at his back, not in his human form just then, but followed by a rather winded looking soldier who huffed and puffed against a cart upon which he pushed a steel eye suit.

"Krill, is everything alright."

The little alien buzzed his antenna.

"I will be coming with you."

His proclamation was enough to floor adam for a brief moment, until he found himself confused and sputtering.

"No, I need you back on this ship, to take care of the injured."

"You are taking an army into enemy terretory, and the consequence of you dying is getting your soul sucked into a torture funnel. I do not wish to let that happen."

Adam shook his head, "Krill I can't allow."

"This was not me asking for permission, Human." Been a while since Krill had called him that.

"I will help you, I will see this through to the end."

"But.... your body, the G forces of something like this WILL kill your normal body."

Krill shook his head, "I have thought of this, and I have a plan."