Content warning: This story contains themes of suicide and mental illness.
The Martyr
Polity: Duchy of Buren
Naval strength: 500 ships (National Front of Buren), plus Irregulars
There would have been war in Buren even if the Emperor had survived to see it.
Throughout the dark, deep, rocky state of Buren, which straddled the corrupted continent once known as “Nobilis” on three sides, a cry had sounded for generations. It sounded in the mines where deadly Agarthicite could claim the lives of hundreds of workers in an instant. It sounded quietly in the bunks of rank-and-file sailors who dreamt of the legends their grandparents told them about the free nation that they once were. It sounded in the factories that made weapons and goods for the consumption of the rich in Rhinea, Skarsgaard and the rest of the Imperial heartland. It was the cry of the disposessed and the cry of quietly suffering.
“Buren shall be free again!”
A similar cry sounded from the halls of the ducal palace.
“The Nationalists have come to set Buren free!”
Though it was a word that inspired terror in the left across the Ocean, they adopted it.
“Nationalist” made sense to the Bureni folk. Their goal was to become a nation again.
Their freedom fighters named themselves the “National Front of Buren.”
“Buren shall be free again!”
Automatic bursts from Volker rifles muffled but could not silence their cries.
Inside the flat, square station of Lithopolis, the LCD paneled false sky intercut with gray static bands as power fluctuated suddenly. A powerful explosion rocked the station as the waters around it were heavily disturbed. A Koenig-class Dreadnought of the Bureni Defense Forces, struck by multiple torpedoes, sank and smashed into the seafloor around the base of the pillar, setting off a second series of shocks. For a moment, the ground forces that had penetrated the station stumbled, holding on to whatever they could grab for support.
“Have we captured an entry point?”
Radio coverage was spotty as the Diver transitioned from the water to the port interior.
“Yes, commander! You can come up!”
A pair of nationalist Divers arrived through the captured lower port and quickly made their way up into the city through cargo elevators. Blood and corpses and the detritus of ruined divers and weapon emplacements met them as they went. There had been a hellish battle for those elevators, but they were now being held by the nationalists. Both Divers stepped onto the platform.
“Are you ready, Sophia? I have your back, so let’s put a beautiful wax seal on this coup.”
“Irene. If I died today, could you continue the fight without me?”
Neither pilot could see the other’s face, they were moving too quicky and had not established a laser call between their cockpits. But those dire words and their reaction were clear enough from the emotion in both tones of voice. One was exhausted, resigned; and the other was emotional, highly emotional, but trying her best not to let it overcome her as she spoke.
“There is no way in hell you would die here, Sophia. Not when we made it this far.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Sophia was sorry for the task she had made herself carry out.
“Nothing.”
She could not explain to her companion the storm of emotions rolling in her mind.
All she could hope for was that Irene would not be there at the end.
Sophia put on the mask that befit the esteemed commander of the Nationalist Fleet.
Her personal conflicts had to remain hidden. She was walking into a battlefield.
As the elevator rose to its destination the sounds of gunfire intensified. Once the Divers were lifted up into the station proper, they first thing they saw was smoke. There were pits all over the false turf that made the palace look like a rural countryside. Buildings had taken shell blows and half-collapsed into rubble, or been hollowed out by fires. Sophia hoped the palace staff had been able to evacuate. Everywhere she turned, the results of the fight were terribly brutal.
Sophia switched her communications to a radio frequency and called the infantry liaison.
“Command has arrived at the front. I need a situation report.”
“Everything is in place for the final push, Commander! We’re awaiting your orders!”
Inside the cockpit of a Reschold-Kolt license-produced Panzer unit now appearing on the front lines, was the commander of the main nationalist force, Sophia Tzanavaras. All of her comrades had chosen her to lead the attack on Lithopolis, and despite her misgivings, she accepted the responsibility. She arrived at a mustering point on the outer edge of the capitol center, held by a mix of militiamen, riot-armored troops and a few pilots who constituted the first boarding party.
“Were the civilians able to evacuate?” Sophia asked.
“We didn’t see any civvies ma’am, but the port was in disarray. I think a lot of people fled really suddenly. Even the security forces were in chaos. It’s just us and the palace guards now.”
Lithopolis consisted of an outer ring of tenement habitation for service workers and servants surrounding the vast ducal estate. After invading the dock and taking the cargo elevators, the Nationalist troops mustered with the large tenement buildings between themselves and the firing lines from the ducal grounds. Shells and periodic rifle fire flew in between and over the buildings as if to remind the nationalists that there were enemies watching them approach.
Predominantly flat, green terrain surrounded the palace, dotted with buildings. The ducal estate encompassed private farmland, a small pond, a horse track, a gymnasium, and the palace itself in the middle ring. Its buildings were all white, pillared, artistic architecture for the pleasure of the nobles. Through Sophia’s eyes, what she saw was not the beautiful ducal parcels but a complex battlefield with multiple terrain features that was nonetheless quite open to assault.
Outside Lithopolis, the waters sang with the eerie sound of ordnance. The Nationalist fleet had the remnants of the Bureni Defense Forces in the midst of a rout. Sophia had started her rebellion with her own kampfgruppe of defected naval forces and some militias on converted civilian ships or stolen navy ships. Now through the defection of her countrymen and vast mutinies against the officer class, her naval troops outnumbered those of the Duke. Her wish was to provoke further defections, and enhance her own numbers. That was all that prevented her from ordering the outright slaughter of the Defense Forces. Losing the BDF’s leading dreadnought was a pity.
“I’m going through our options. Is this everybody?” Sophia asked.
On the auxiliary video screen of her Panzer, Sophia spoke with a young man, who looked barely old enough to drink, sitting in front of an unfolded communicator box that was sending an encrypted laser video to her mecha. She could also see him in the camera feeds. He was dressed in riot armor. On the floor near him there was a ballistic shield, stained dark brown with blood, as well as an unloaded jet lance. There were six other riot-armored men and women in the mustering point geared up with shields, rifles, jet lances, vibro-swords, and about a half-dozen shoulder-fired, portable missile tubes. Everyone had blood on them, either on their weapons or their armor.
“The boarding party got hit hard ma’am. The enemy’s Divers and ours took each other out almost immediately inside the dock. Then their riot troops came out and set up machine guns and grenade launchers. They tried to block us out of the cargo elevator. We had them outnumbered but they were really entrenched. When the naval battle swung in our favor, they retreated into the sanctum. We weren’t in any good shape to stop them, so we just held onto the elevators. I’m sorry.”
“You all fought valiantly. Stand tall. Buren will commemorate all of your names.”
Around the boy there were also a few dozen militiamen equipped with nothing but worker coverall coats worn over bodysuits for armor. They had surplus rifles loaded with frangible spike ammo to prevent them from damaging sensitive gear inside the station corridors and in the city.
Station fighting was brutal. Layouts were tight and favored the defender as long as they had gear and supplies. Against an enemy force with armor, shields and lethal weapons holding a natural chokepoint in any ordinary station layout, the invading force was bound to suffer losses. Despite the cost in blood, they had been able to come this far. Any armor would break with enough bullets. Even if it took a few squadrons, Sophia and her forces had managed to break through.
Ordinary people could fight the insurmountable juggernaut of the Empire. Any defense could be broken, any stolen land taken back. The history of the Union had taught her as much. In prison, she had found hope in the histories of the Union’s rebellion. It was this hope that led her to join Buren’s own rebellion. For atonement, she sacrificed all of herself that she could and led numerous battles to get here. Despite the odds, they had made it to the heart of Buren’s darkness.
For the bloodletting to end definitively she had to kill the people hiding at the center of this ring.
To atone for having supported the aristocrats, she told herself she had to be the one to slaughter them.
“We could press the assault with what we have, or wait to muster more troops.”
Sophia saw a new feed appear on one of her monitors and address her. This was the interior of the other Diver cockpit. A young woman gave her a gentle smile — an unlikely companion for an unlikely commander. Everything that surrounded them had been a game of pure chance.
“If we give them a chance to regroup, they’ll cost more lives to dislodge.” Sophia replied. “We need to keep the pressure on them, but we might not need the infantry to commit themselves to an assault. I can punch a hole through to the palace myself, if I could get a distraction.”
“You have an army, Sophia. I’m prepared to fight too. I won’t let you martyr yourself.”
On the screen was the face of her adjutant, Irene Dimitros, piloting a Jagd model Diver.
Irene was the only other member of Sophia’s own fireteam.
“It’s not like that.” Sophia said. She stammered, just a bit. “It’s just my responsibility.”
“You don’t have to bear that responsibility alone! Sophia, I’m always at your side!”
Irene looked concerned. Sophia shook her head.
“Irene, I think it would just be better, for less of us to be at the palace in the final hour.”
Her companion’s eyes drew wide. She understood what Sophia meant, and deferred to her.
Sophia turned away from Irene and gave her orders to the infantry over encrypted radio.
“We’ll need coordination to pull this off. On my signal, we will deploy chaff and colored gas to cover the left flank and open fire on the guard compound. I want you to fire on the move but not launch an assault. Stay mobile, commit to nothing, and leave your options open. I need the armored troops to take responsibility for our unarmored comrades. Lieutenant Dimitros and I will launch our own attack after yours. Once we have disabled their fire support, I’ll throw a flare. When you see that flare, then, and only then, will you commit all forces to assault. Understood?”
She waited for acknowledgment, and all the squadron members saluted her Diver.
“Break open a quick ration and catch your breath. We move out in 10 minutes!”
There was a flurry of activity around Sophia’s Diver. Men and women dug into their rations, checked their equipment, stood up from the walls they had been sitting against. Some took off their helmets to rearrange their hair. Riflemen took turns laying down suppressing fire on the sanctum from around the tenement walls, to keep the enemy entertained while everyone prepared.
Sophia took a bite of a seaweed stick and drank down an energy gel as quickly as she could.
“We can do this, Sophia.” Irene said. “In fact, this will be the easy part.”
Irene was right. There would be more battles after this for the National Front of Buren.
For them— but maybe not for her. She was no longer sure.
When the ten minutes were up, her forces started moving again with coordination. From the tenements, the nationalist squadrons advanced northeast around the left flank of the palace defenders, moving through the sparse urban environment on Lithopolis’ outer ring. They employed whatever cover they could find to mask their movements, from abandoned buildings to generator control boxes, wireless towers and discarded monorail cars, to concrete guardrails and vacant guard outposts. In order to sustain the nationalist’s deception, Sophia and Irene moved their Divers into position near the edge of the tenements, where their squadrons had once been. They fired their assault rifles around the blind corners created by the buildings, causing small blasts to go off on the broad green separating them from the palace. Their enemy easily took notice of this activity.
In response, gunfire from heavy machine guns and light explosives fired by stationary tube launchers soared in between the tenement buildings and churned up the fake turf in a series of volleys. Irene and Sophia hid quickly and avoided the retaliation. Judging by the direction of fire, Sophia began to plot how she would move when the time came, and passed the data to Irene. Her enemy’s attention remained squarely on the center, and that was what Sophia wanted for now.
Soon her squadrons had moved beyond her ability to follow with her own sight, but she could track their progress and view their surroundings via a direct link to a camera drone employed by the teams. Inside the station, she had access to reliable, fast wireless data transfer. It was the kind of boon that was easy to forget for soldiers trained to fight in the ocean, disconnected from most communications. Through the eyes of her drone, she watched as her team got into position.
Colored smoke crept across the open field on the eastern half of the palace ground.
Smoke and pops of gray anti-sensor chaff, like glittering trails falling from the sky.
Shoulder-fired missiles soared out of the clouds and crashed into the guard compound.
Fire engulfed several buildings, all of which had been abandoned. No guards were hit.
But the message being sent was clear. An assault was coming from the left flank.
Withering gunfire erupted from defensive positions in the guard compound and the palace farther behind it. Grenades and missiles hurtled back across the field and smashed into the shops, streets and the monorail station from which the nationalist missiles had come from. Massed rifle and machine gun fire from both infantry weapons and a few Volker class Divers raked the cloud of colored smoke. Because of the chaff, their instruments could not penetrate the smokescreen.
The defenders of the palace assumed the nationalists were assaulting the guard compound.
Meanwhile, the nationalists did not tarry in the monorail station or any of the shops.
They were constantly on the move, and more colored gas and chaff covered them.
It covered where they had been, and where they were going, blanketing the entire east.
Their enemy could not tell a direction for the assault except, broadly, “the left flank.”
All of the gunfire that had once massed against the southern, central approach, turned away to the east.
Her enemy had fully redeployed their defenses to what they assumed was the new axis of attack.
“Irene, now’s our chance! Stick close to me!”
Sophia and Irene charged from the tenement buildings out into the field.
The Panzer was heavy, but its chassis developed a lot of power, and its gait allowed Sophia to advance faster than a human could run across the estate grounds. Meanwhile the Jagd was lighter and had a more complex chassis that flowed somewhat easily through the air. Both pilots opened their turbines, sucking in air that kept them in balance as they ran. In the short term this would damage the turbines, which were designed to accelerate cold water rather than warm air, but it supported their charge overland.
Lithopolis was not a fortress. It was not designed as a defensible position. Even the guard compound was just a collection of barracks buildings and training grounds meant to house the guards rather than defend the palace. Though built on a hill, the palace was surrounded by pretty gardens and tended green fields, by tracks and hunting ground and a pond, not by trenches and gun turrets. Even the placement of building cover was purely incidental. There were no defensive walls, no fences, no barbed wire, nothing to stop them.
Weapon emplacements had been set up on the broad, semi-circular portico façade of the palace, and hidden in the second story windows. Divers stood atop the hill, shooting from their vantage down to the green below. Every element of the defense was exposed, and it was only their commanding position that allowed them to disrupt attacks effectively. There was nothing between Sophia’s charge and the enemy in front of her except the distance it took to get near them.
And now they were not even looking her way. All their weapons were turned east.
Once the enemy recognized their approach, it was too late to split their fire.
Sophia charged up the hill as an enemy Volker half-turned and fired its assault rifle.
Chunks of her armor went flying but the Panzer was built sturdy enough for rifle fire and could not be stopped so easily.
Sophia swung her vibro-sword and cleaved an enormous dent into the rotund chassis.
Briefly exposed to the vibrating edge of the blade, the pilot inside collapsed in agony.
From behind Sophia, a pair of jet anchors soared overhead and smashed through two individual windows in the second story of the palace. Each of the ornate bowed windows disgorged a team of men and their tripod missile launcher, crushed or in pieces from the force of the blow and the jets, blade and cables on the anchors — whichever part made contact was enough to kill.
Irene retracted the anchors and climbed up the stone steps to the portico.
Walking forward through small arms fire, she retaliated with devastating bursts of 20 mm explosive bullets from the shoulder guns on her Jagd. Each snapping blast sent casing fragments and chunks of colonnades into the ranks of the infantry. There were scores of the dead, hunkered down where they could be buried in rubble or blown apart as their own weapons detonated. Sensing the plight of the infantry, a second Volker turned from the guard compound and ran to the portico, only to meet an immediate end as Sophia easily put dozens of assault rifle rounds upon it before it could even heft its gun. It fell backward, oozing lubricants, fuel, battery acid and the blood of the pilot through innumerable penetrations in its armor.
Sophia reloaded. There was not much of the defense now left.
She charged around the eastern wall of the palace, coming to face the colored smoke far in the distance. From the shoulder of her mecha, she launched a flare that sailed up into the sky, and burst in a pattern of red and green colors that signaled the infantry to assault. She remained still only long enough to confirm the movement of people past the dying chaff clouds, before turning her assault rifle on the palace itself.
She lifted the rifle one-handed and took aim with it.
Facing the upper stories, she pressed the trigger down and turned her gun systematically from one window to another, putting three rounds into each. Explosions rocked the entire top floor of the palace, one room at a time in turn, until Sophia’s magazine emptied. Glass, concrete and brick expulsed from the building bounced off the pitted armor of her Panzer suit in a rain of debris. Anyone in those rooms would be reduced to pieces.
Once her computer could detect no further hostile activity, she had the Panzer bow down.
Sophia exited the suit, jumping down from the cockpit, between her sword and her gun.
She took off her helmet, freeing her voluminous, sweat-soaked blond hair. Her skin was clammy, and her golden eyes teared up when exposed to unfiltered light and air. She had been fighting for so long. It almost felt like she was taking her first breath of fresh air in weeks. She had nothing but her pilot suit covering her, and even so Lithopolis felt oppressively hot and damp.
Sophia recovered her senses quickly. Her fingers quivered with the knowledge of what she would do. Catching her breath, she produced her sidearm and ran heedlessly into the palace.
She found herself stepping over all manner of broken human remains, spreading pools of blood and molten fat from bodies caught in explosives or set ablaze when their weapon emplacements detonated on them. Irene had completely ruined the place before she moved on from the portico. No glass stood unshattered, every door was off its hinges, every tile cracked by shrapnel if not direct explosive trauma. Sophia rushed through the front hall, a grotesque corridor of dead and dying soldiers. She kicked open the double doors into the inner sanctum of the palace. Imposing as they were, they were not designed to lock securely.
Inside the high-walled, gold and pearlescent white inner sanctum was a shrine to Solceanos, the great sun-deity depicted as a man with a burning halo and surrounded in rays of smoke and fire. At the base of this being, as if he were looking down on them in their hour of desperation, were two figures huddled together. Sophia recognized both, dressed in embroidered silk cloth, bedecked with jewelry, their beauty well contrived even in this hour of wrath, even surrounded by blood and bullets. That was the way of the aristocracy.
Her features twisted with anger at the sight of the Duke and his daughter.
“Duke Pascheladis!” Sophia said. “Stand up! Own up to your sins and face me!”
It was not the Duke who stood first. His daughter Nereida approached Sophia.
“Please, have some humanity! You cannot do this! Look at father, look at what has–”
Nereida didn’t recognize her. Sophia retrained her aim and fired a single round.
As soon as she stood, Nereida fell aside with a hole the width of a finger through her brow.
There was no emotion in Sophia’s eyes. Nereida meant nothing to her anymore.
“Stand up, Pascheladis!” Sophia shouted, spitting fury at the villain before her.
There was no way that this man would stand up to her. She soon recognized this.
On the floor, the Duke was at his most wretched.
Shaking, teeth chattering in the grip of madness. He could not say a word to her. He would not even make eye contact. It was as if he was trying to crawl endlessly against an invisible wall. He scratched at the base of the statue until his fingers had gone purple and red. He wept, and shouted. It was as if the terror of the palace coming under attack had fully robbed him of his wits. Had he ever shown such frailty before this?
Nereida had been tending to him because he had completely broken down.
Sophia’s eye twitched. Her heart beat faster and faster. Her head felt red-hot with anger.
At the sight of the panicking, crying, incoherent Duke, whom she had once respected.
Whom she had once followed as honorably as she could.
“Look at you.”
She turned her pistol on him. He continued to clutch the statue for no reason at all.
Was he begging Solceanos for forgiveness?
It was not he who needed such forgiveness. Forgiveness was for those who would live.
“Look at you squirming there. Do you know even know why you will die? You made me think that it was righteous to beat down hungry, desperate men. To gas crowds with women and children. To send to the deepest holes of the earth people whom you gave no choice but to steal and kill to live. How could I ever believe this? I’m the one here who must have been insane. I must have been insane to follow your orders.”
She walked up to him, grabbed him by the hair and smashed his face into the statue.
There was no catharsis in it. She could torture him all day and feel nothing from it.
“It’s not fair. It’s not fair that you can afford to lose your wits like this and I can’t.”
Surgically, without emotion, she put a single round through the back of his skull.
Duke Pascheladis’ head crashed against the statue plaque, smearing it with blood.
Sophia stared at the revolting sight of the corpse, unable to tear herself away.
In her mind, this moment had gone very differently.
Filled with passionate eloquence Sophia would have confronted the Duke about her transformation. She would explain the clarity she gained from disobeying her orders, from imprisonment, from suffering torture and being made an example of. She would describe to him the power she had found in her comrades, in their rebellion and the leftist militancy that turned so many to her side. He would have argued back that she was betraying her duty, betraying the honor of her position as a soldier, as an inquisitor, as a ducal guard. He would say that if she believed so strongly in the rantings of Mordecai, then she had to die as well!
Sophia would say to him, that she was prepared to meet him in hell right away.
None of this happened in reality. None of it could ever happen.
How long had the Duke been driven into madness? Was this entire battle so pointless?
Sophia was robbed of her revenge and she was robbed of a chance to convince herself of her own atonement.
Pascheladis had to die. But to Sophia, he had to die struggling, cursing her and clinging to his life.
She wanted to be able to condemn him. To watch his eyes water as he begged her for mercy.
Sophia looked down at the weapon with which she had ended the Pascheladis dukedom.
Even if she had not told him as such, she was prepared to meet him in hell.
“I’ve hurt too many people. Innocent people without hope. I’m no better than those two.”
She lifted the pistol to her own head.
She felt her hands shake, her blood run cold. She started to apply pressure to the trigger.
In the middle of that empty sanctum, she would die.
“I’m as guilty as these bastards. I hope– I hope she’ll forgive me–”
“No! Sophia, please, oh my god, please stop!”
Tears streaming down her eyes, Sophia turned around, the barrel of the pistol warm against her skin. She saw a woman her age in a matching pilot suit come running into the sanctum. Without her helmet, she was easy to identify. Irene had such a dignified face, the face of a truly noble soul, expressive, strikingly beautiful, with bright orange eyes and smooth, orderly brown hair, cut to the neck and curling inward.
Seeing Irene weep at the sight of Sophia’s decision was touching to her.
They were unlikely partners, unlikely allies. So much had to happen for them to meet.
She wished so strongly that Irene had not been there. That she would have just found a corpse.
“This is why you wanted to be alone? Sophia, you don’t have to do this!” Irene pleaded.
“I can’t bear to keep lying to myself. My hands are full of innocent blood.” Sophia said.
Irene’s face twisted with fear and pain. “You were a kid! You didn’t know anything!”
“I was old enough! I believed in what I was doing. I caused so much suffering.”
Sophia smiled bitterly. To think they were having an argument like this one last time.
“You reformed! You went to prison for standing against the government! You changed!”
“Changing does not absolve me of what I did. It only made me realize how horrible it was.”
“Quit running away then!” Irene shouted. “Live so you can take responsibility for yourself!”
Irene stomped her foot. Her cries grew more desperate through a flood of helpless tears.
“We chose you, Sophia! Out of everyone, we still chose to follow you! We believe in you!”
“I had military skills, respectability within the officer corps, and access. I was a good tool to radicalize the ducal navy in this time of crisis.” Sophia said. “Irene I can’t in good conscience volunteer to lead the people of Buren. I was a collaborator in their suffering and I will never be able to live that down.”
Her companion was starting to falter, to fall to helplessness. Irene hugged herself, shaking.
Through quivering lips, she began to mutter words that hit Sophia as hard as any bullet.
“Sophia, if I you told that– if I told you that all this time, I had feelings for–”
Sophia felt her heart sink and shouted back. “Please don’t say it! Irene, please! Not here!”
Those would have been the most painful last words she could have possibly heard.
“Please put that gun down! If you want to atone, then do so in life! Atone by my side!”
Irene stepped forward suddenly, holding out her hand, her eyes fixed on Sophia’s own.
Sophia was startled, but she was restrained enough not to pull the trigger out of fear. She thought for a second to threaten to shoot, but she was her own hostage. Her voice caught in her throat, and she could not move as Irene slowly approached her. Their eyes were fixed on one another.
“Give me the gun. Please, Sophia. I will help you; I will do anything for you.”
Irene got so close Sophia could smell the plastic scent of her suit, and the sweat in her hair.
Her hands reached up to Sophia’s own and touched her.
At first Sophia resisted. She did not allow the barrel to be brought down from her head.
Their gazes were locked together with such intensity. Sophia could not shut her eyes.
Irene persisted, tugging gently on Sophia’s hand.
Slowly, the barrel of the gun lifted off from Sophia’s skin.
Her companion turned the gun toward the ground and finally took it from her hand.
Sophia felt all the blood drain from her face. An overwhelming sense of shame overcame her. Like ice water dumped over her head. She wanted to fall to the floor, but Irene wrapped her arms around her.
Shorter by several centimeters, her face came rest against Sophia’s chest.
Sophia could not return her embrace. She felt so unworthy, and laid so low. Everything was supposed to end in this sanctum. There was not supposed to be another day for her; for the Sophia Tzanavaras who had gone from guarding this palace, to being the revolutionary seizing it.
“I never understood how much you were suffering.” Irene said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Irene, I– I don’t deserve this.” Sophia said weakly. She could not protest it much more.
Held in the arms of her faithful companion, and bearing the hopes of so many people, who saw her as a hero who was saving Buren from the evil aristocrats, Sophia could not conceive of how she would move forward from this moment. She felt as if her legs could never move again.
Despite everything, Irene was there supporting her. Sophia could not explain it.
Somehow, her legs would move again. There would be another day in her life.
Shaken by the knowledge that it could have all ended in that sanctum.
And bearing the uncertainty of a life she did not plan to lead.
In that sense, Sophia was just like Buren itself.
Having her past life torn to pieces in front of her eyes. Rediscovering herself as her ideas of justice were completely transformed. Throwing herself into battle after battle to defer the problem of mending her many wounds in a time of peace. Treading blindly to an uncertain future that was full of enemies and difficult questions about herself. What her role would be, how people viewed her, how she could protect their revolution. As much as she hated and feared the thought of living with the pain she caused and the pain she felt, Sophia Tzanavaras was Buren in flesh, and like Buren, her history would not end so simply.
“She could not do it after all. Well, I’m glad. It would’ve been a huge downer.”
Sophia and Irene wept into each other’s chests while a certain busybody peered from afar. Sitting above the Solceanos monument, her hands behind her head, giving her sore body a breather after a long day. She was glad that she did not get out of bed this morning to witness a suicide. That would have wrecked her day.
From a pouch in the ballistic vest worn over her double-layered tactical bodysuit, the spy produced a portable radio and tuned it to a special nationalist frequency. She put the receiver up to her red lips and spoke gently, so that her physical voice would not be overhead in the sanctum below.
“Commander Tzanavaras, it’s me. I apologize for going dark. I infiltrated the palace.”
She played with a lock of graying brown hair as Sophia, far below and unaware of her current position, took notice of the radio call. As soon as she spoke, she sent that tender moment between Commander and Adjutant into a sudden anxiety. Sophia scrambled to take the call by tapping her earpiece, and looked to Irene for support, who simply nodded to her in sympathy and stood by her side to support her. How touching.
“This is Tzanavaras.” Sophia said. She had done a magnificent job at code switching out from a vulnerable, broken-hearted girl’s weeping voice to the imperious, commanding voice they all knew and followed. “Daksha Kansal. Your support has been invaluable. Were you successful? Is everything clear on your end?”
The spy rolled her eyes a little. She should have never trusted this kid enough to have her name.
Even if it was a cheap and easy way to get her trust.
“It’s all clear. I prevented them from destroying any data or locking down the systems, so feel free to send your engineers to the control center. The security forces routed easily due to rumors that the Duke had gone mad and hid in the sanctum to die. Only the zealots stood and fought. Judging by the ruckus I heard, I think you can safely call this your win. On a related note: don’t call me Daksha Kansal anymore, alright Sophia?”
Below, Sophia started pacing out of the sanctum, with Irene in tow. Her movements seemed mechanical, as if a bit lost on how she should be putting one foot in front of the other. She was clearly still shaken. “What should I call you? You are a proletarian hero and founder of the Union. We honor your name quite highly.”
“That’s precisely why you should all forget about that name in the future. We don’t want Buren to live in the shadow of the Union’s deeds — you won’t inspire confidence just by relying on my name. Call me Ganges instead. But anyway, we’ll talk in person soon, Tzanavaras. I’ve got good news from down South.”
“Very well, Ganges. I look forward to our meeting, then.”
Atop the Solceanos monument, Ganges shut the radio antennae and laid back, sighing.
For a moment, she waited for Sophia and Irene to leave the sanctum.
Then she lifted her hand up to the roof.
There was a red glow in her eyes that she could feel as a gentle heat, as she pulled open a trapdoor on the roof from afar. Ganges stood up on the statue, and withdrew her hookshot. She would make her escape soon.
Her body ached in various places. Twenty years had passed since the Union fought off the Empire.
To think rather than lounging in house arrest like Ahwalia, she was still running around like this.
The things I do for my treasured students. She thought. I hope those two appreciate it.
It wasn’t like she hated her position entirely, however.
In fact, she felt privileged, whenever she closed her eyes and felt the wave spreading across the Oceans.
“Being called Ganges again sure makes me feel something.”
Once again, she was part of that revolutionary wave that would change everything.
Hours after the assault on Lithopolis, Bureni stations across the Duchy received word from the nationalists which then spread to the common people. Crowds formed in the parks and squares of several stations, with some crowds celebrating the fall of the ducal government and confronting dissenters against the nationalist cause. Station authorities were threatened to swear their loyalty to the Nationalists and to avoid retaliatory actions. Police forces initially organized to suppress pro-nationalist sentiments, but the total rout of the BDF and the approach of the new People’s Defense Corps fleets forced the surrender of station security forces.
Across the duchy, industrial workers overthrew their bosses, backed by nationalists, and took over the mining and refining of agarthicite and other products. Private transport companies in the state were blockaded by the nationalists and their ships confiscated and nationalized. There would be no more exporting of Bureni wealth to the rest of the Empire. Within days, the state had closed its borders, and one by one, its stations came under the control of the National Front, either peacefully or surrounded by nationalist ships.
Once the National Front could credibly claim to control all organs of state, there was a broadcast across all station monitors from Lithopolis. Inside a Sanctum that once housed an altar to Solceanos, now there was a simple podium where one woman addressed the nation. She dressed in an ornate dark-purple ceremonial military uniform that harkened back to the uniforms of the previous Kingdom of Buren, before annexation by the Empire. There was no mistaking her for a simple functionary or spokeswoman. She was tall, with strong shoulders and long, lean limbs, and a bountiful head of golden hair atop which rested a military beret. Her eyes were as golden as her hair; her pearl-olive skin was done up professionally, as were her lightly red lips.
“My beloved people of Buren! Our country is free!”
This was the beginning of her declaration. Everyone watching felt their heart soar at those words.
“For too long, we Burenis suffered under the tyranny of the ducal state, which turned countryman against countryman, destroyed our identity and history, and made us slaves to the Imbrian Empire! Duke Pascheladis and the ducal court have been broken by the hand of the National Front of Buren. We fought for so long to get to this day, and the fighting is not yet over. But today, my people, the wave of revolution which began in the Union twenty years ago has reached us here in Buren. Konstantin von Fueller, tyrant of the Imbrian ocean, is dead, and his Empire has no power over us anymore. We Burenis are now free to forge our own destinies.”
On every screen in Buren, that woman’s passionate words inspired crowds to roar and cheer.
With the weight of history bearing down on her shoulders, she declared her challenge against fate.
“My name is Sophia Tzanavaras! With your mandate, I have taken up the mantle of Supreme Marshal of the National Front of Buren, to tirelessly protect our revolution! To protect the rights and dignity of all workers, the peace and security of the common folk, and the autonomy of the People’s Democratic Republic of Buren!”
At this point, the camera zoomed out just enough for the people watching to see two Union Streloks appear, unarmed, and kneel at Sophia’s sides. For Imperial citizens, the Strelok’s silhouette was often propaganda for an evil enemy. To see them kneeling around Sophia displayed some degree of martial prowess to the viewers.
“In the coming months, there will be many challenges to our cause, but together, we will overcome anything! We will build upon our history of brave warriors, and the teachings of modern revolution, and triumph!”
When Sophia’s face finally disappeared from the screens, the people watching were already thinking of themselves as the People’s Democratic Republic of Buren, whether they were optimistic of its future or not.