Tag: military fiction

Arc 2 Intermissions [II.4]

The Occupation of Serrano

Fleet Admiral Maya Kolokotronis walked through a concrete hall flanked by sliding metal doors with a reinforced glass slot in each to peer inside the sparse, cramped all-white rooms. Each had enough space only for a bed and a toilet. She was accompanied by her retinue of power-armored Katarran bodyguards and her Commissar, Georgia Dukas, in full uniform, with greatcoat, peaked caps, short dark green capes.

“This is the standard security cell block.” Georgia said, consulting information on a handheld terminal. “And yet every cell here can be made into a solitary confinement cell with a few clicks. I gotta wonder what their supermax looks like. We can probably keep the Serrano bourgeoisie down there to teach them a good lesson, depending on how bad it is.” She put on a cheerful smile contemplating this possibility.

Maya maintained a stony expression as she surveyed the facilities.

“Once we’ve extracted anything useful from them they’re all going to be target practice dummies.” She turned to Georgia as they walked. “What’s the status on processing the existing prisoners? Any news?”

“Maya, there are a lot of people imprisoned here. We’re doing what we can. We have a lot less people working on this than up above, there’s so many hungry and needy folks. This is like fifth priority.”

This was Serrano prison. It had been taken over by the Union military as part of the occupation. They were presently going over the offenses of the prisoners there with the idea that they may have been sentenced unfairly. Any deemed “political prisoners” of the Empire would be released, while those who committed violent acts would receive a round of appeal with a Commissar. Those who committed violent acts against the state, bourgeoisie, or police or military targets, could apply for release. Some truly heinous offenders would not be exonerated. The Empire punished certain heinous and dehumanizing crimes with life in prison, and used these criminals in work gangs — the Union simply shot them. This policy came about because the Union didn’t want to spend resources to indefinitely house prisoners guilty of “abominable crimes,” rare but not yet completely eliminated. The Union was, after all, still “building” communism.

For those people, for now, they would remain in prison with the local magnates, large landlords, and the Serrano political class. Eventually they would be tried under Union law, and possibly then executed.

At the end of the first block, the group took an elevator down to the next level. This level contained very similar cells. This prison was very high capacity, and it was built under the sea floor beneath the station. Because it was only accessible through defensible elevators fed by narrow halls, escape was unthinkable. At the end of the second level down from the first cell block, the group took the elevator down one more tier, and did finally find themselves at the first supermax block. At the sight of the structures before them, the Katarran guards whistled. There were some bleak jokes and remarks made about it. Some were amused, some disbelieving. Maya was old enough to remember service on a Katarran mercenary ship.

And even that level of abuse, was not as bad as what she was seeing in front of her.

Supermax block was a true panopticon, a circular cell block with a central spire that watched every cell around it. However, the cells were so much more cramped– the people inside them were basically forced to stand, and could not stretch their arms. Their faces were always visible through the glass slot in their doors so they could see the central spire and its search lights. They could also be targeted by the automatic 37-mm gun on a remote controlled turret, which could move on a rail to target any cell with a red laser dot to denote its current fixation. It could certainly penetrate the glass, and therefore the prisoners had to be aware at all times that the turret could shoot them right in the head with precision.

“They probably moved the gun around every so often just to scare people in the cells.” Georgia said.

“Jeez.”

“Ma’am, I don’t even know that the Serrano fat cats deserve this kinda shit.” one of the bodyguards said.

Maya shook her head. “Only because I don’t want to waste time before liquidating them.”

This structure was a stark contrast to the punitive measures the Union took, which were not always themselves humane, but were at least efficient. In the Union, they had prisons, and prisons were separative. People were removed from society, but also from the objects of their crimes, so that they could be analyzed, and better understood, and maybe even reformed if it was felt possible. Union prisons were not beautiful, but they were fairer than this. Rather than a prison, this was a large scale torture device. In Maya’s mind anyone evil enough to deserve such treatment should have just been expunged. And more than likely, the majority of the people in these cells were undeserving of this treatment.

“Get a team to release these people and keep them somewhere else.” Maya ordered. “Even if we’re still waiting to check their files. It’s insane that nobody thought to move them before I did, has nobody gone down here? We can’t slack or take it easy when it comes to this job. I want this place taken care of within the day, make sure the functionaries know it. Marceau will hand out sanctions in my place if they don’t.”

Georgia’s skin briefly flashed white and then flushed red. Her chromatophores registered her surprise.

“Yes Admiral. I don’t disagree, but it’s a bigger job than we imagined, and there’s other concerns.”

“I don’t care if the people whose concern this prison is have to put in quadruple overtime. Get it done.”

Georgia smiled, looking amused at Maya’s seriousness. “Indeed, it will be done, Admiral.”

And so, the Union’s culture shock with Serrano’s various systems continued at overtime rates.

One point of contention was the handling of the local police and military prisoners.

For the police, Maya had advised that the officer class be purged while the lower rung investigators simply disarmed and disbanded, and then tracked for some time to insure compliance and transition to productive work lives. A Union-style Public Safety Volunteers corps could then be raised in its place. For the local military, they would tried according to existing POW processes; not so for the Volkisch troops, who would be given no chance of appeal as they were considered too ideologically suspect.

Meanwhile, it was well understood to all levels of the occupation that the bourgeoisie and political class of Serrano was on the outs. Serrano had an elected local government with both a lower tier community council and an upper tier state council, but even the liberal politicians were folding over to accept Volkisch control, so the Union trusted nobody above the levels of clerks and keyboardists with data entry jobs. While there were a few people loyal to the previous administration, writ large, most of the workers at the various ministries and offices and the public services just wanted the storm to blow over.

Because it was such an extraordinary situation, the Union did not have literature and training material prepared ahead of time to train the people of Serrano on Union law and commerce. Such training began to be administered ad hoc by the fleet, and requests for such materials were forwarded back to the Union, where resources began to muster for the task. In the meantime, friction and confusion and ad hoc solutions to problems would have to be accepted by the people and the incoming occupation authority.

Maya Kolokotronis would not be around to see every step of the process, so she felt a sense of urgency.

While she was around, nobody would slack off– but she was not scheduled to remain.

She was recalled to the Union to be paraded as a war hero– a state of affairs she did not begrudge.

Propaganda was powerful, and the Union’s military was heavily political.

More than anything though, she missed her fiance and the Union’s humble cafeterias.

With her recall, Maya’s last action was to choose a military governor in her own place.

From the outset, she already had someone in mind.

Until then, however, if everyone had to work overtime, they would do so, and so would she.

“It’s such a big office! It’s ridiculously big! Even my office back in Naval HQ is not this big!”

“It’s fine, you hardly sit in that office anyway and you’ll hardly sit in this one. You’re always up and about.”

In the middle of the lower tier of Serrano, an enormous central pillar rose up into the sky. A load-bearing monument of concrete and steel beams, it also housed several government offices, and a path to the upper tiers of the station. Thirty stories up, there was a furnished but unused office for the Mayor of the lower tier. South-facing, the office had an enormous reinforced glass window that provided an unfolding view of the sprawl, all the way out to the dark blue glass bubbles sealing off the ships in the port. There was a certain atmosphere provided by the dark steel buildings, winding grey roads and dim yellow light, and the view of the ocean as the true horizon, that inspired an ominous feeling in the occupants.

Admiral Champeaux-Challigne whistled, staring at the port berths in the distance. All that dark water outside, it was like a television screen displaying a yawning void. “It makes me think like, if there was an explosive decompression event, and I was staring right here, I’d see the water pour in, at least for a moment. Right? This office wouldn’t be the first place to be destroyed. For a few seconds–“

“Quit being so morbid. And don’t let your imagination run this wild in front of anyone else. They’ll think you’re not taking this seriously. Serrano is not going to flood yet, so get used to the responsibility.”

“I’m not goofing off! I’m just thinking, you know? We don’t have stations like this in the Union.”

Accompanying the dog-eared Loup Marceau Laverne De Champeaux-Challigne was the cat-eared Shimii admiral Nadia Al-Oraibi. She was shorter, and less statuesque and cut as the Loup beside her, with dark brown skin and messy black hair down to the shoulder, a contrast to Marceau’s olive skin and blond hair. Her ears and tail were light brown and fluffy, while Marceau’s were stiff, tall and dark, her tail bristly. Their green uniforms were same, however, and even resplendent with the same freshly unpacked medals. They had been awarded the People’s Valorous Commendation and the Meritorious Service Award, the first steps in the chain of awards that culminated with the prestigious “Hero of the Socialist Union.”

After the operation, the only admiral awarded “Hero of the Socialist Union” was Kolokotronis.

“Nadia, as the new Military Governor of Serrano, I’m appointing you to lead the regional defense.”

“How selfish.”

“What? You’re just the best person for the job! I demand you accept, I absolutely demand it.”

Nadia threw Marceau a skeptical look as they walked around the office.

“I’m not sure you have the authority you think you do.”

“You’re the one who is misinformed. I confirmed everything with the Premier personally over video call.”

“So you are allowed to appoint personnel in Serrano?”

“I am! So what do you say? I’ll help you: say yes! We can work closely together.”

Marceau gave Nadia a big warm smile. In turn, the cat avoided her gaze and acted aloof.

Upon further inspection they found that the office was not just south-facing, it wrapped around the entire building column with glass doors leading to different sections. There was a room with a desk, a room with couches, a room with a long table with several seats, computers in each room, and a labeled break room which was locked down. Everything was separated by glass dividers with sliding doors except the break room, which had solid walls around the door. Marceau and Nadia stared at it quizzically.

“I don’t see a keycard reader. Do you?” Marceau asked.

“No. This one is locked with a traditional key. There must be something good behind it.” Nadia mused.

Marceau stepped forward, slid her hand into the recessed well for the door latch and tugged on it.

It did not budge an inch.

There was indeed a keyhole in the well, for a physical key to operate the circular lock.

“We have master keys, but obviously for digital card reader locks. Not something like this.”

Nadia stepped forward and peered into the hole.

“Oh well.”

“Not ‘oh well’. I won’t give up so easily while these Imperial bastards hoard things. Stand back from it.”

“Marceau, it’s a steel door–“

Nadia did step aside, and just in time for Marceau to throw a brutal front kick at the door.

Her boot crashed into the center of the door, and the plasterboard wall adjacent to the door, into which it had set, fractured catastrophically, and the entire apparatus of the door collapsed inward. With an enormous crash, the slider and the well into which the door slid, all of it toppled with the wall spilling into the room. Nadia stared at this, speechless. A door was only as secure as the walls around it, she supposed.

“Are you really a Loup? Are you sure you’re not actually a Katarran?”

“Hah! Don’t underestimate the physical feats a determined Loup woman can achieve.”

Neither of them wanted to examine whether anything else in this office was held up by cheap plasterboard. They peered through the devastation that Marceau had caused, and found what appeared to be a well-stocked private breakroom. Some furniture had been destroyed by the collapsing door, but critically, the liquor cabinet at the back was untouched. There were wine glasses, and some accoutrements like citrus juices and sugar syrup for mixing cocktails. Marceau stepped over the door with great relish.

“Look at this! We’ve got grape wine, we’ve got corn whiskey, we’ve got sugar beet rum!”

Marceau loudly went through the available liquor. She set down the rum and two glasses, and poured.

“Mighty presumptuous of you.” Nadia mumbled.

“Aww, c’mon. It’s not haram if it’s rum, right? I purposely didn’t pick the wine even though it’s nicer.”

Nadia finally exposed the slightest little smile. Without a word, she walked forward and took her glass.

“A toast, to the socialist heroes!”

Marceau lead the toast, and the two of them gently tapped their glasses together and drank.

Nadia took a sip, while Marceau downed the entire glass.

“Ahh! C’est magnifique! That asshole mayor doesn’t know what he missed out on here!”

In actuality, the previous mayor operated out of his house in the upper tier of Serrano and there was no record that he had ever been in his office here. This office was symbolic, a place to look down upon the rabble if he so chose, or a place where the rabble could look up and perhaps, imagine to themselves that he was there watching. Like him, but for different reasons, Marceau was not so sure she should use it.

She did not like the metaphorical optics of it and she was not sure she liked the physical optics either.

“Perhaps I will govern out of a boat instead. My Broceliande will be in port, after all.” Marceau said.

“Then why did you drag me out here with you to inspect it?” Nadia protested.

In the next moment, Marceau’s arm struck the wall next to her, and the Loup leaned forward, such that she was looming over Nadia and had her pinned to the wall. Her knee moved between the Shimii’s legs. Marceau licked her lips, and her tail wagged incessantly in the air. Nadia met her fiery gaze and did not once waver, as Marceau’s face neared hers, and the Loup began to nuzzle her neck and hold her tight.

“So we could be alone for a while, of course.” Marceau whispered, her voice tantalizingly low and deep.

“Perhaps I will stay a while then.” Nadia said, releasing a warm breath over Marceau’s hungry lips.

Marceau grinned violently and lifted Nadia to the wall by her leg with one hand, as the other began exploring. Kissing her so hungrily it muffled the few moaning protests, biting her neck and shoulder, her fingers tracing Nadia’s belly and beginning to undo her pants– Marceau made of her Shimii companion what she would. With nothing to cover the sight of them, but no one to see or hear the devouring.

A few hours later, Nadia returned to her docked flagship, wearing a bodysuit with her uniform that covered up to the neck, down to the wrists– more than usual, several gossips quickly took notice.

Marceau stayed the night in the building, drinking, relaxing, and basking fully naked by the wall-wide window in the main office. She decided to keep the office after all, even if the view was a bit eerie.

Nadia Al-Oraibi would be meeting with her frequently now, as the admiral in command of the Defense Forces of the Serrano Military District, which would be headed by Marceau Laverne De Champeaux Challigne as military governor. Though Nadia acted aloof toward the post, several staffers close to her did notice that she began going about her task with a greater spring in her step than the preceding days.

That office would become something special for them in the coming weeks.

A little place where they could escape the flood of bleak stories coming from everywhere in Serrano.

Even if only for a few hours on a few nights.

A little slice of heaven, of their own making, within the hell they struggled to set right.

“Everyone has to do a little social service sometimes! Even a big hero like you, Klob.”

“Okay, but is this really the kind of work I should be doing? Maybe I should be out on patrol instead.”

In the middle of Parrilla Park in the eastern end of Serrano’s lower tier, with the steel sky and sunlamps overhead, surrounded by tall, gloomy buildings, a group of pilots that had fought against the Volkisch with the Union’s Fleet Combat Group C were now unloading crates from the back of an electric truck. They had meal packs drawn from Navy stocks that consisted of wrapped square biscuits, vegetable and soy bullion for soup, peanut butter in foil packs and chewable vitamins. In addition, they would be taking down the names of people who needed accommodations or services, or whose buildings had faulty water or temperature systems, which they promised to fix once they knew the scope of the problems.

Around the edge of the park there was a small group of civilians watching them set up the goods. Slowly they began to feel more comfortable wandering onto the park grass, where the pilots were setting up.

“Please wait until we’ve fully unloaded! Then we’ll begin distribution in an orderly fashion! Thank you!”

Among those pilots was a girl widely considered the Ace of FCG-C during Operation Tenable, the katarran Klob Hondros. A round-faced girl with mottled golden-brown skin and dark beige hair cut to the shoulder and collected into two short tails in the back of her head. Her ears were shaped like the fins of a lionfish, with a pair of black slightly curling horns poking out from under her hair on the sides of her head. With her pleasantly round belly and thick legs and soft arms, she was a pretty, young girl, a true ‘maiden.’

This maiden, however, had destroyed 8 Volkers in Thassal, and an additional 6 and 2 Jagd recently.

Dressed in her combat suit with a uniform greatcoat worn loosely over it, the people of Serrano did not know her accolades at all, and so to them, she was like anyone else who could be distributing aid in the city. They did not know she was a big deal likely about to receive her “Hero of the Socialist Union” medal.

Meanwhile the young woman at the head of the pilots was Klob’s superior officer, Lieutenant Zvesda Petrovich, who had a bright expression, her curly blond hair bobbing about as she floated between the steadily forming crowd of civilians and the pilots unloading the crates, checking and marking things off on a portable terminal and assuring everyone that nobody would leave without their food pack.

Klob stared at her with a gloomy expression while bringing down crates from the truck and setting them down wherever she felt like. All of Klob’s crates were visibly set to the sides or even nowhere near the pile that everyone was building. Rather than being annoyed with her, everyone seemed amused with her visibly petulant behavior, and continued to humor her doing everything wrong throughout the unloading.

“I thought Katarrans were supposed to be super strong?” one of the other pilots teased her.

In response, Klob picked up a 10 kg crate of ration packs with one hand and lifted it over her shoulder.

She puffed her cheeks up in frustration. “It’s not about being strong! I shouldn’t be doing this job!”

Zvesda walked up behind Klob and patted her on the back. “We all have to do our part. I know it’s not in our job description, but it’s important for soldiers to show the people that we’re here to help them.”

Klob was well aware that she was being unreasonable, but she didn’t want to be out here.

She wanted to be back on the ship, sleeping and reading comic books until it was time to fight again.

“I don’t want to lift crates. Let me do security or something.”

“You’re not with security, Klob. If you want a different job, you’ll help me with handing out packs.”

“No! That’s even worse!”

Her petulance was thus punished — Klob would get to sit by the side of the truck during the unloading but she would have to personally hand out ration packs with that annoying ball of sunshine Zvesda. And so the situation developed that standing next to the orderly pile of aid goods, there was on one side a bright, smiling and cheerful Volgian girl and the other a gloomy Katarran with a friendless look to her.

People lined up for the food aid– all kinds of people. There were people whom Klob would have referred to as exceedingly normal, wearing ordinary work clothes and casual clothes in various styles. They did not look like they were experiencing hardship, but that was not for Klob to decide. They had a database that tracked who received food, and everyone was entitled to the same amount. As such, Klob silently handed a pack to a man in a suit, and then handed one to a woman in a vinyl hoodie and sweatpants, and also handed food to bowed, shabby-looking folks with old or dirty clothes, no shoes, shaking hands.

Among the latter group, one particular pair, a woman and her little son, caught Klob’s attention.

When they stepped forward, she picked out two packs from the stack and handed them over.

Her eyes lingered for a moment.

“What do you say to the lady?” The mother admonished her child.

“Thank you ma’am!” Said the child. “We haven’t eaten this good in days! Solceanos bless all of you!”

“Indeed, thank you.”

That clearly tired woman offered the tiniest smile, and Klob felt like, it was the most smiling she could do.

Klob had never seen anything like this.

She had not grown up on a Katarran ship, so she was a pure Union kid.

Intellectually, she was aware that there was hardship like this but–

It was hard to parse– surreal to witness.

“It’s okay. I’m glad you’re getting to eat.” Klob said back in a small, bashful voice.

After Klob handed her the food, Zvesda noticed her and the child and called them over.

“Ma’am, are you houseless? Let’s put your name down here, and write down somewhere that we can find you regularly. We’re trying to get everyone roomed somewhere as soon as possible.” She said.

In this way, they handed out food and took down a couple dozen names of houseless people.

Throughout, Klob felt something eerie. It was a feeling like–

–like she felt when she killed people.

A surreal sense that things shouldn’t be this way. A tiny piece of her heart and soul breaking.

Mute yearning for a better world that wouldn’t be– not just from killing a few enemy pilots.

And maybe, not even from just handing ration packs to a few people.

But both– both were duties that had to be taken. Little steps forward. She had to tell herself that.

After a few hours, the truck was empty and Zvesda’s terminal was full of names and pictures.

They would be driving the truck back to port, and coordinating with the intelligence personnel from Marceau Laverne De Champeaux Challigne’s flagship Broceliande and Nadia Al Oraibi’s flagship, the Shamshir. Both of these docked Cruisers had been tapped into the station’s CCTV and other data and people tracking gear in order to coordinate relief efforts. After reporting back the pilots would be told where else they were needed. They might unload goods at the port itself using their Divers, or they might set up a first aid station, or directly distribute aid, or go on patrol in electric bikes around the city– they weren’t needed for active blue water warfighting, so they were doing odd jobs all day instead.

“Klob, you’re looking a bit spacey. Is everything ok? It wasn’t so bad, was it?” Zvesda asked.

Klob had been standing with her arms crossed, her back against the side of the truck, sighing.

“I just don’t get it.”

“Hmm? What’s wrong?”

Klob shot Zvesda a serious look.

“How come that kid didn’t have any food? I mean– that’s just a kid. It’s not like he can work for food. Kids just get food, or– I thought they did. It doesn’t make sense to me for a kid to go hungry. And the mom, I don’t get it either. She’s old and I thought she might be sick, even if she didn’t want to say. So why–?”

“We grew up like that, but it was different here.” Zvesda replied. “They didn’t just give food away here.”

“But you need it to live. You need to eat or you can’t even work. What did they expect them to do?”

Zvesda smiled at her. “You have a really big heart Klob. Channel it into doing what you can to help.”

Klob puffed up her cheeks. “Bah. You’re just making fun of me. But I’m seriously concerned.”

Zvesda patted her on the back for comfort. There was no good answer she could give.

From that point, until she was recalled to the Union for an award ceremony, Klob did start putting in even more time than anyone else helping distribute aid and helping people get housed. There was no notable change in her gloomy demeanor or her distaste for dealing with crowds or with jobs she wasn’t meant to do– but it seemed like she had decided one day that helping in Serrano was something meant for her.

This would be cited in her commendation ceremony– but Klob didn’t think it was anything laudable.

Much like her piloting, it was the little bit that she could do to make a fragment of the world she wanted.

“Congratulations on your great success, Premier. We are now embroiled in a war.”

“Perhaps, but our territory has expanded by an almost an additional third.”

“Wastelands, a station that’s one giant slush fund, and an extremely contaminated Abyss.”

“And a good few million more people to welcome to the communist fold. Don’t forget it, Nagavanshi.”

In the Premier’s office at Mount Raja, Parvati Nagavanshi had entered through the automatic door and with a blank expression and monotone voice, began clapping slowly as she walked the carpet toward the desk of Bhavani Jayasankar, who watched her approach with an equally stony expression. Bhavani pushed aside the monitor near her face completely off to the side of her desk, and flipped a switch to raise a chair from the floor for Nagavanshi to sit on. Nagavanshi walked up beside the chair and stood the entire time.

“You know I prefer to stand.” Nagavanshi said.

“One of these days I’m going to make you sit down.” Bhavani said threateningly.

“I’m looking forward to it, Premier.”

They gave each other a smoldering gaze before transitioning neatly to their business.

“There is thankfully less of a fog of war than we thought.” Nagavanshi began. “We managed to reestablish communication with all involved fleet combat groups pretty quickly, and Serrano and Ajillo stations are now connected to our laser relay. There’s a bit of a bandwidth choke at Cascabel because the equipment there is in disrepair. But we are working on that, and it should not be a problem in the near future.”

“What are our losses looking like?” Bhavani asked.

Nagavanshi was stoic.

“Minimal. In the realm of small pockets of grief, rather than statistics. Don’t concern yourself.” She said.

“Are any units still actively involved in combat?”

“Not that I am aware of. Admiral Nadia Al-Oraibi is engaged in laying down a minefield between Serrano and the Yucatan as well as the approaches to Rhinea. Our defenses should be completed in a week, and the unit is in a combat posture until then, but we don’t expect a Volkisch retaliation. Everything they could spare from their frontline with the Royal Alliance was already in place in Serrano.” Nagavanshi said.

“I would not underestimate the fascist drive to glorious self-destruction.” Bhavani said. “Reinforce the fleet laying down our defenses. It’s not like anything will come from the Khaybar or the Vekan directions. We also can’t appear too certain of ourselves, or it will become evident to the Volkisch we have a direct line to their plans. They should see us acting a little paranoid for now to sell the uncertainty.”

“As you wish, Premier. I will relay the orders to Naval HQ.” Nagavanshi replied.

“How is the humanitarian situation?” Bhavani asked.

Nagavanshi’s countenance darkened a little. “Worse than we imagined, but not impossible to deal with.”

Upon the completion of the main combat objectives of Operation Tenable, Serrano underwent a political purge. Elected officials, wealthy businessmen, all previous security and police forces, and the heads of ministries and important departments were detained indefinitely. Union commissars, logistics personnel and various functionaries who had been accompanying the combat fleets arrived at the station, along with three troopships carrying 5000 Marines and their supplies to begin occupation duties.

While the work began to set up a Union-aligned government, the occupiers cooperated with existing lower level public workers in Serrano wherever possible, and only replaced them if they were completely unreliable politically. The occupation had the immediate task of collecting vital data on the station, such as demographics and economic data, in order to plug them into the Union’s supply chain as soon as possible. It was a monumental task that went much smoother with Serrano’s own experts aboard.

In the process, the Union occupation began to piece together recent events for Serrano Station.

Since the occupation of the Yucatan Gulf by the Royal Alliance, Serrano station had gone from having access to a functional industrial base including three major mining stations, a handful of civilian stations with productive industry in textiles and other consumer goods, a shipyard and steelworks for heavy industry, and four agri-spheres– to having access to a single local agri-sphere, Ancho, and the local production in Serrano. This shock caused a spiraling economic catastrophe for the station.

Serrano attempted to deal with the Royal Alliance for the purchase of needed goods, but the Royal Alliance needed nothing material from Serrano, so they could make extortionary financial demands. All Serrano really had was money, as the financial and political hub of Sverland, and money was all that the Royal Alliance wanted, as they had been raising morale among their troops and mercenaries with lavish bonuses. Rather than meet these demands Serrano chose to deal with the Volkisch instead.

In the meantime, capitalism ground on. Prices went up, and the market shock was particularly used by landlords to raise rents. Motivations ranged variously from anticipation of market hardships due to rising prices in other goods, to simply wanting to be rid of undesirable Serrano tenants in the hopes they might house richer Rhinean residents if a deal with the Volkisch came through. Houselessness in Serrano rose steadily for the past few weeks to a whopping 20%. Then, when the masses of the poor on the streets became unsightly, Serrano engaged in beating them out of the business districts with police violence.

In the lead up to the arrival of the Volkisch there were a few small incidences of “looting,” as defined by the former government, but once brutal Volkisch-backed patrols began to publically attack people in Serrano resistance became increasingly quiet. Most of the public violence that had ensued during the recent events was caused by the Volkisch and their collaborators within the station, as well as by local and state level police forces. When the Volkisch were put to flight by the Union there were renewed, relatively brief incidences of rioting, looting and revenge killings among civilians, but for the most part, the station’s population tried to keep their heads down, ignore the violence and privation around them, and simply get to their homes, if they had any, as fast as possible. Union troops instituted curfews for a few days, but once aid began rolling out to the public, the incidences of violence disappeared almost entirely.

For those who could afford increasingly irrational prices for housing, the supply of goods, particularly food and medicine, became their pain point. Serrano had a very modest manufacturing capacity, and most of it focused on luxury finished goods, particularly food products and high end textiles. Most people worked in service and gratuity sectors. Meanwhile Ancho station, the Union occupiers discovered, supplied exclusively fresh food with a 20% post-harvest loss rate. Their auxiliary technology focused on packaging and shipping such foods as quickly and as a fresh as possible to Rhinea and the Palatine. Even so, they also often accepted as much as a 15% loss of product at point of sale and distribution as well.

They had remarkably few canneries, very little in the way of drying equipment and curing supplies, they had no facilities for making use of byproducts. In short they had completely pivoted to selling expensive fresh food while accepting every bit of the wastage that came from this– for the Union, which had a strict 0% harvest loss policy, this was an outrageous state of affairs. Preservation supplies and gear were rapidly requested from the Union, hoping to beat the next harvest cycle which was coming in weeks. In the meantime, the Union confiscated and saved whatever food goods they could. In some cases, large quantities of vegetables about to go bad on the vine were picked by Union soldiers and cooked with improvised methods, such as blasting makeshift racks with the heat exhaust from Divers in dry air.

In the Union, agri-spheres were home to a lifestyle in itself. Access to more food, immediately, the ability to cook one’s own food, and being able to live among nature to a certain degree, were marketed as perks of the job, and people were paid more in accommodation, rationing, and other social benefits, than what their stagnant Union credit wage really suggested. In Serrano, however, Agri-Sphere work was low paid work for desperate people who had access to nothing else. The living conditions were miserable, and they had no benefits whatsoever. There were few hands in Ancho, and they were not happy with their working conditions. With the folding of the Serrano government, they wanted to be anywhere but Ancho, which represented additional headaches for the Union occupation authority. For the immediate moment the occupation authority abolished rents and debts, which brought a lot of relief to the farm workers.

Lovers of fresh foods in Serrano were in for a rude awakening. The Union would simply not accept the large scale waste which fresh food export would entail, and the market pressures that governed it. They had no profit incentive to make such niche goods for the markup they entailed in the Imbrian market. Ancho station would have to be geared toward growing high-yield Union GMO crops for large-scale distribution and preservation. It would be a laborious undertaking, but not an impossible one.

In Serrano itself, under orders from Admiral Kolokotronis and later Admiral Champeaux-Challigne, a rationing system was implemented. There was an immediate freeze on cash transactions. All storefronts were inspected and commandeered, supplies were tallied and earmarked. People were encouraged to visit their same shops as before for their food and goods, but they would receive a certain amount of items, and there would be no buying and selling. All fresh food which would’ve gone bad was cooked and handed out in whatever way made sense, often in an ad hoc fashion. All food which was scheduled to be thrown out was reevaluated and disbursed immediately where possible or eaten by occupation soldiers, for whom stale bread and slightly browning fruit was nothing new or particularly unappealing.

Needs began to be identified, and particular attention was placed to what would need to be brought in from the Union. Serrano’s biggest import need was in medicine, particularly medicines for chronic conditions, which were under-produced and highly marked up in the local economy. Even as the Union began to set up the occupation authority, people were dying of relapsing chronic diseases for lack of medicines. Fluids, oxygen and blood for hospitals were in chronically short supply, particularly due to recent spikes in violence and illness, and the Fleet could only donate so much from their own stocks.

Bhavani listened to the unfolding explanation with a variety of facial expressions, while Nagavanshi frequently handed her a portable terminal with numbers and graphics on the screen depicting all the findings of the Union functionaries. Capitalist economy in Serrano had essentially collapsed, which was a boon to the Union because there was less of it for them to visibly destroy by their own hand, allowing the station to more easily accept communist integration in the future– or so the planners hoped.

But materially, Serrano would be a charity case for the Union for some time, which would bite deep into the surplus stocks of food and goods that the Union was building up, as well as its ambitions to build a deeper and broader reserve against famine. This would be compounded if the decision was made to halt construction on a new agri-sphere and its attendant bulk haulers in order to develop more warships.

“Who was put in charge?” Bhavani asked. Nagavanshi showed her a picture on her portable.

A light-haired, dog-eared woman, tail furiously wagging, delivering a big speech in a Serrano park.

“Admiral Marceau Laverne De Champeaux-Challigne. Fleet Admiral Kolokotronis is scheduled to return to the Union soon for the big victory lap, and the fleet wanted an ethnic minority to be visibly in charge, as a counterpoint to the Volkisch sympathies exhibited by the previous station authorities.” Nagavanshi said.

“Yes, that woman is one ethnic minority who will be incredible visible. Incredibly loud, too.” Bhavani said.

She said this with a bit of fondness in her voice and a knowing tone.

Nagavanshi put on a little smile. “She’ll do a fantastic job. She has empathy and irrepressible drive, which is what we need from the political leadership. Everything else is being handled by a legion of analysts.”

Having gone over the whole story, and after a brief discussion of the numbers in greater detail, Premier Bhavani Jayasankar could do nothing but heave a long sigh at the situation they got themselves into.

“This is pretty grim, but we knew from the get-go that it was going to be bad.” Bhavani said.

Nagavanshi nodded. “It makes us look magnanimous, however. Just think of it– the capitalists abandoned this place, but the gentle hand of communism will save them from starvation and take them from living in gutters to having rooms and clean clothes. It’ll make for good domestic propaganda.”

“Speaking of which, what are we doing about the press?” Bhavani asked.

“All state media has been given the appropriate level of information and access.” Nagavanshi said.

“We’re not being too hamfisted about it, are we?” Bhavani asked.

“They’re not being told what to say. They are simply being given a treasure trove of heavily on-message information which they can sort through and make stories about in their own voices. I think that should be acceptable? If it were up to me alone, they would only be reporting approved talking points.”

“If it were up to you we wouldn’t have a press. But it’s a valuable asset, if you know how to manage it.”

“Look at you, giving the people a bit of democracy and free press as a yummy little treat.”

“Don’t be such a brat unless you’re looking to get disciplined, Parvati.”

“At any rate. We have also approved a few specific media figures to travel to Serrano to report on the conditions there. We are not using war messaging, but calling the prior events a special operation.”

“Good. Calling it a war would needlessly raise the hackles of all the old codgers in the Councils.”

“Speaking of those codgers, we are collating reactions and developing lists with regards to the Councils.”

“Good girl. We are about to transition to the homefront phase of the special operation.”

Bhavani winked at Nagavanshi, who, her expression still entirely deadpan, winked back.

“My vote to retain is coming up. But I don’t fancy being voted on in some joke election.” Bhavani said.

Nagavanshi raised her brows. “You don’t like your numbers? It’s not like there are any strong contenders.”

“I’ve floated the idea by you before, why are you surprised? How does Grand Marshal Jayasankar sound?”

“You needn’t scan my expression so suspiciously. Of course I am always going to support you.”

Bhavani smiled. “Everything is going to get ugly and complicated. Are you really so sure?”

Nagavanshi fixed her eyes directly on her Premier. “I told you before. We’ll burn in hell together.”

“I appreciate the devotion, but I wish you’d be so optimistic as to say we’re deserving of heaven.”

The Commissar-General’s cloak billowed a little as she took a few quick steps to the Premier’s desk.

She leaned over it, looking her even closer in the eyes. No on else had ever seen Nagavanshi so close.

“To the class that got to define heaven, people like us can only belong in hell.” She said.

Without word, Bhavani took hold of the back of her head and drew her in, kissing her long and deep.

Previous ~ Next

Sinners Under The Firmament [9.4]

This chapter contains a reference to suicidal ideation.

“All of us trust Murati Nakara. So let me show her the truth.”

Murati stood at her edge of the table, speechless, as Euphrates reached out her hand.

Colors floated off her, at first like wisps of vapor from the end of a vaporizer pipe. They spread and grew, and it was difficult to understand the dimensions of them, the breadth and depth, even the composition. Sometimes they felt like lights, an aura, or a rainbow that if touched would have no interaction with the skin, but at other times, viewed in different angles, it seemed like the gas of a nebula from images of outer space passed down through time by the remains of surface scientific discoveries. There were other feelings associated with the colors that did not even relate to Murati’s visual recollection.

When she focused on them for too long, she felt–

Sounds (soft and whiny like a tinnitus)

Textures (impeccably smooth like cellophane)

Tastes (chalky, salty, like putting sand in the mouth)

— there was no way to square these with the fact that she was still, only, looking.

Murati briefly licked her lips; she closed and opened her hands. She was not scared, but enthralled. Those sensations came and went with the intensity of the colors. Sometimes in focus, in sharp relief; sometimes gone as if they had never been there; but her mind wanted to chase them. She felt like a child staring at the world for the first time, wanting to see, longing to understand, boundlessly curious.

“What are you seeing, Murati?” Ulyana asked. “Is she surrounded by colors?”

“You can see it too?” Murati said, turning to face the captain, to see her response.

Ulyana nodded. Aaliyah closed her orange eyes, rubbed her fingers over them.

“I’m seeing something too.” Aaliyah replied. “La Hawla Wala.” She whimpered after.

Murati did not understand the Shimii speech, but the sentiment was clear to her.

Everyone in the room was seeing something. It wasn’t just her– she wasn’t going insane.

“Fantastic. Colors are what you should be seeing.” Euphrates said with a smile.

“We know those colors as Aether.” Tigris explained. “For us jaded old hags, it’s really difficult to describe these feelings to someone– it’s easier if you can come to grips with it, Murati, and tell everyone else how it feels to you. That’s what Euphrates is getting at. She’ll teach you all about it– and Omenseeing will make a bit more sense to you. But what we do isn’t Omenseeing, so take it with a grain of salt.”

“If it’s not Omenseeing, what is it?” Murati asked.

“What Omenseers call ‘Omenseeing’ we refer to as psionics.” Euphrates said.

“Psionics? Like mind reading and clairvoyance? That’s all fantasy!” Ulyana shouted.

“She just moved an object in front of you without moving a muscle!” Tigris objected.

“That’s–”

Ulyana could hardly formulate a reply to that. She was just lashing out emotionally.

“You’ll see that it isn’t fantasy– if Murati Nakara accepts my proposal.” Euphrates said. “You can say all you want about us and what we are doing. You can claim that it’s all tricks, that we have gotten co-conspirators on-board to rig the room, or that we have prepared special devices– I’ve heard all kinds of explanations in the past from people who won’t accept the truth. But if Murati accepts, I can show her immediately how to access the same power. Would you believe Murati is faking it?”

“What if this is some kind of wild escape plan?” Aaliyah joined Ulyana in shouting.

“They couldn’t escape– they’d be in the photic zone without Arbitrator I’s protection.”

Murati’s was the calmest voice in the room. Though it was she they were all addressing and putting under pressure, there was something in the back of her mind that prevented panic. It was an almost nostalgic feeling. As if these sights and sensations weren’t entirely unfamiliar. She tried to recall– had she seen the colors before? Had she felt the presence of psionics, like she now felt from Euphrates?

Was that sensation of synesthesia she got from the colors truly alien to her?

There were no concrete recollections– but there was a feeling. A feeling kept her steady.

“Correct. Psionics isn’t exactly like Omenseeing. I’m not trying to escape.” Euphrates said.

“We can’t even put a toe out of place right now anyway.” Tigris said.

She vaguely gestured behind herself.

Illya and Valeriya had the two of them in the sights of their assault rifles.

“By any chance can you call off the hounds? I’m worried about accidents here.”

“It’s our duty to keep this crew safe. Be a good girl or I’ll shoot.” Illya said.

“I told the two of you to stand down. I wasn’t just shouting at the wall.” Aaliyah said.

“We’re all tense here, but we’re not shooting each other tense just yet.” Ulyana added.

“Okay.” A sad little monotone voice.

Valeriya stepped back, raised her rifle, and reached out a hand to pat Illya on the chest armor.

Begrudingly, Illya did the same a moment later, withdrawing from the confrontation.

Valeriya then lifted a mask over her face and averted her gaze to the door nearby.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not mad at you, so don’t worry.” Illya said to her.

“We’re going to have to talk about you two getting some problem-solving skills that don’t involve killing people, if you’re going to play a bigger role in this security team.” Ulyana said. She sighed, exasperated, almost grunted. “Murati this situation is insane, but I want to hear from you.”

Now everyone in the room was staring Murati’s way rather than Euphrates’ way.

She was not unused to this sensation either. After all, she delivered so many petitions.

In all of those petitions, she had to get up in front of a crowd, and then explain something which was deeply emotional to her in very rational terms. She had to make her aspiration to heroic military deeds and her belief in radical military action toward the Empire sound reasoned and cost-effective, and not just like the inner workings of a grandiose, self-indulgent fantasy. It was not so different here.

Murati was calmer than she thought she might be and thought she could explain.

“Captain, Commissar; I think I trust Euphrates. She came to visit me in the medbay to talk about my parents. She knew them– she also knew Daksha Kansal. I’d never heard anyone talk about Kansal the way that she did– she even compared me to her a few times, which I found very touching. I don’t know a lot about my parents, but I’d like to believe if Daksha Kansal is a name that comes out of a person’s lips with such affection, rather than scorn or slander, then that person is probably worth listening to.”

“Murati, Euphrates wants to do something to you, who knows what.” Aaliyah said. “You want to trust her because she spoke glowingly about one of your role models? Don’t you agree that’s a bit facile?”

“I’m glad that all of you are worried, but if it’s my choice, then I will talk to Euphrates.”

Murati turned to face Euphrates. She felt her heart stir, but she was determined.

When she first fired a gun, when she first learned to pilot, when she first killed–

In each of those situations Murati was also unlocking powers of the mind and emotion.

There was a frightening sense, each time, that the world would be very different afterward.

She felt shivers when she first touched a gun, first entered a Strelok’s cockpit.

When she took aim and put out a human life, it was an earthquake of horrific feeling.

But at no point, did she cease to be Murati Nakara. Each time, she did what she found just.

After each of these things, she could weep, she could laugh, she could live and love.

And her goals, passions, the duties she accepted and people she loved, did not disappear.

“Euphrates, you say I can access psionics immediately with your help?” She asked.

“All I need to do is touch your forehead for a minute.” Euphrates replied.

“Explain the mechanism by which this will work.” Murati calmly said.

“Of course. Those colors that you see around you, the Aether, are imprints of human emotional and mental activity, left upon the world by our existence.” Euphrates began to explain. Nobody interrupted her. “Aether will resonate more strongly with people who are psionic. We leave our aether not just in places we go to, but even in objects we have an attachment to, and even in people who care about us. Eventually, those people’s minds will develop their own psionics and begin to see our aether, whether fleetingly or in full, via a process we call Aether Baptism. I can accelerate that process.”

“Wait a moment.” Ulyana said. “Can we see your aether, then, because of Arbitrator I?”

Murati knew that what she was actually asking was–

–when did we change? Are we fundamentally different than normal people, and if so–

–when was the crew of the Brigand baptized by Aether if Euphrates is speaking the truth?

Euphrates in turn looked almost excited to be sharing this information.

Her tone was animated, friendly, calm. Even despite the evident tension in her ‘students’.

“It takes a long time for baptism by environmental aether to awaken a person’s psionics. What I’m about to say is pure speculation, but there are a few possibilities: very traumatic and sweeping emotional events, like the Union’s revolution, could have awakened tiny kernels of the power. The Sunlight Foundation has observed that Shimii and Katarrans, who suffered massive ethnic hardships, have more psionic potential. So it is possible that Union folk are also ‘more psionic’ than others. Maybe you also had parents or colleagues with powerful psionics. Contact with Murati would certainly do something— I didn’t choose her solely for emotional reasons. Korabiskaya and Bashara would be more difficult to baptize. Korabiskaya, you, particularly– I can tell you have a near-impenetrable will. Even Norn couldn’t overcome it.”

Ulyana blinked, with Aaliyah staring at her momentarily.

“A near-impenetrable will, huh?”

“Norn was psionic too then?”

Ulyana and Aaliyah looked like pieces of something were falling into place for them.

“We should evaluate the narrative here only after we have a concrete demonstration.”

Zachikova spoke up, uncharacteristically interjecting in the course of events.

It was a rational enough point. Euphrates had set a condition by which ‘psionics would be proven to be definitely true’ — clearly Aaliyah and Ulyana wanted to believe it was true, more than they wanted to be skeptical. But in terms of the scenario, they needed to confirm things before devolving into wild speculation. Not only that, but Murati would have been able to prove that ‘psionics work exactly as Euphrates said’ by having access to psionics herself. In that case, there was only one solution.

“Does everyone trust me and trust my decision?” Murati said.

Ulyana and Aaliyah glanced at each other and spoke up at almost the same time:

“I thought that was self-evident.”

“Of course we trust you Murati.”

The two of them looked at each other, smiled, sighed, and acquiesced visibly.

Murati nodded in acknowledgment. “Then I accept the terms as discussed. Once I have been given access to psionics, I’ll try to explain what I felt and demonstrate its use, and depending on what happens, we’ll decide whether we believe all or part of Euphrates and Tigris have been saying.”

She didn’t really know why– but she still felt that burgeoning confidence in this task.

Just like learning to pilot, learning to shoot, learning history, learning military tactics–

–and an even more salient example, learning about communism and capitalism.

All of these things fundamentally altered Murati’s perspectives and abilities.

She was not afraid that Euphrates would change how she viewed the world.

In fact, there was a part of her that was excited. A part of her that realized before the rest of her faculties that she might become part of uncovering a great, hidden truth about the world. Communism became a clearer and clear example in her mind of a paradigm as magic as this. She imagined Mordecai in his study, when he first drafted a history of productive relations that had been physically present in the world but never named, never truly observed in an analytical way, and explained to people.

Murati thought he must have felt the same way as her.

Trepidation about the world that would follow; and a determination to change it anyway.

In a world before Mordecai, capitalism might as well have been a force of nature.

Things that simply existed; things that were simply done. As invisible as magic was.

When that hidden power was finally exposed and surgically understood–

It created a paroxysm of revolutionary grief at the injustice of it all, lasting to this day.

Understanding communism as an alternative to capitalism could change someone’s world.

And perhaps that knowledge could drive the person a little insane.

But to build a better world, the truth had to be exposed, understood, analyzed.

Murati had to peel back layer of reality– she would not back away from this truth now.

It might even expose something that could help achieve her ambitions.

“It’s the duty of a communist not to shy away from reality. Euphrates, I am ready.”

Murati stepped forward, closer to Euphrates.

With the consent of the room, Euphrates stood, and raised her hand to Murati’s head.

Putting her palm on Murati’s forehead, the fingers gently brushing her hair aside.

“Whether your eyes are open or closed, you’ll see and feel things. Let them come and go.”

For an instant, Murati saw Euphrates’ eyes flash with red rings around the irises.

She felt something push against her, for long enough for her body to record feeling but too quickly to contemplate it. For that infinitesimally small instant of sensation, she felt hot and cold, wet, and dry, and in the next instant, her vision was clouded. She was overwhelmed by color and could not see Euphrates, or the room around her anymore. Red, blue, yellow, green, purple, orange, and tight bands of black and white at the far edges, sweeping toward her like a tidal wave so tall that Murati could see nothing but the body of those great bands of color, near and far, rapid, and slow. She was submerged in them.

Then — she did not know when, could have been minutes, hours — she was drawn back.

Rather than a tidal wave, now the colors appeared as a great vortex in a black, empty space.

As her vision focused on it, and she realized the length and breadth of the phenomenon and the notion of the space around it, she began to see trails far above that fed into the vortex, like the clouds that were known to science but impossible to see from humanity’s new home. These trails fed into the whirling body of the vortex. And the more she focused, the more Murati could see thousands, millions, billions of trails all individual, each its own color. It was not an object, but a mass– made up of innumerable lines.

Murati felt a great shame that she had not known it was so complicated at first.

Now she felt a desire to see, not just each individual line, but how they all connected.

They were a mass, a community, a language, in contact and interaction, communicating.

She wanted to understand– she wanted to know–

if the system was just, if it was worth maintaining and if it needed to change,

if there was someone to help, if there was a battle that needed fighting,

if there was a pain, and if there could be healing, if there was need, that she could fill,

It was difficult to think, to keep her thoughts from drifting, but–

Euphrates had said to let them come and so she did.

Her soul screamed for understanding, justice, and redress.

Suddenly the vortex flashed as if in response to her desires, overwhelming white.

In the blink of an eye, Murati saw out of her eyes not a void but a world.

White walls, white lights, but steel enclosures, LCD screens, beakers, fluids, artificial light. Machines and the logic by which they were operated. She saw humans; she saw, primarily, a man in a coat, shirt, red tie, shiny brown shoes. He approached an enclosure where there was someone trapped, a woman. Her skin was mottled with red rashes and yellow pustules. She was starkly naked and reclining against the back of the enclosure. There was scarring across much of her face, but her mouth could still open, and she had one eye and half a head of pristinely blue hair which was strikingly beautiful.

“Good morning, doctor.” She said. Murati understood the language.

But she also understood it was not her own. There was a strange texture to the words.

Her soul knew what they were saying– not her ears.

Outside the enclosure, sickly green and yellow colors surrounded the man.

While the woman was clad in pristine, euphoric white despite her physical condition.

“Good morning, Euphie.” He said.

That unmarred half of the woman’s face stretched, with visible effort, into a smile.

“It’s dire outside, isn’t it? Your troubles follow you in. I can see them.”

“Everything is dire, Euphie. But you’re doing good. You’re our little miracle.”

His aura writhed as he said those words. Clear, painful lies filled with regret.

There was an increasingly black band filling the edges.

“You’ll cure it soon. You cured the last two. We’ll save the world, doctor.” She said.

She heaved a tired little sigh and closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I can’t keep fighting it. Death. I’ll talk again soon. Once I’ve recovered.”

Murati stood uncomprehendingly as she saw, for a brief second, what she thought were lashing tentacles or worms bursting from the pustules on the woman’s body and striking the enclosure. Blood and fluid splashed on the glass of the enclosure and the woman’s body grew limp inside. Then, she vanished in a cloud of white gas released inside the airtight chamber that had become her grave. There was still something writhing inside– but before Murati could truly understand the horror of it, she, too, vanished.

Disappeared in a white flash and ferried somewhere else.

Above her, there was suddenly a ring of blue sky.

In the distance, seething fog that pulsed bright purple with frayed red edges.

There was a mass of people. Screaming, crying, fighting against a line of armored men.

On the edge of the sky, and the edge of the ocean, there were great, enormous structures, metallic struts and scaffolds of vast size, imprinted with symbols of patriotism that Murati did not understand, flags and insignias. There was an unbroken line of people moving shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, into the great machines. There were colors everywhere, vaporous, and furious, red, and yellow and black, deep and broad black auras, everyone was certain of death, and everyone was afraid of death.

Amid that crowd, a woman with blue hair stood out from the masses.

Wrapped up in a thick coat and fedora, gazing over her shoulder mournfully.

She forced herself to look forward, shook her head, and kept walking to the machines.

“I have to keep moving forward. That’s my curse in this world.”

And she knew, and now Murati knew as well– it would be her curse in the next world too.

For all that she suffered fighting for humanity.

She would be spared the bliss of death.

Murati’s world shifted again, the sight before her eyes–

–dimming

–darkening

She smelled oil and smoke, soot, and concrete dust in the air. Yellow air that dried the mouth.

Amid the ruins of some place, a habitation of some kind, roofs and walls, shattered streets.

Overhead the sky was grey and below the earth was muddy and strangely yellowed.

“We killed more of the civilians than anything. This is a god damned mess.”

Two men in black uniforms with masks over their faces trudged through the mud.

Red armbands on their sleeves contained a strange symbol like a lightning bolt.

“How much gas will it take to kill two million Ayvartan troops?”

“How many did this take out? A battalion? We’re fucked. I’m not even reporting this.”

“We have to say something. Lowball it. Say it was a squadron or something pathetic.”

“That won’t work. They’re dead set on this. They’ll say even that much is progress.”

“Fuck me. We can’t possibly keep doing this shit, can we?”

“Wait–”

The two men paused for a moment. It was impossible to see their faces under the masks.

However, their emotions were not inscrutable. Murati could see the colors wisp from them.

They were surprised and shocked– and there was a brief flash of death in their eyes.

“Is that a kid?”

They walked forward, into a dilapidated house. Murati could see inside it.

“This is– she looks clean as a newborn baby. How the fuck did she survive this?”

There was a girl. Svelte, maybe malnourished. Her little dress was in tatters.

Skin pale as pearl, untouched, not a nick on her. Breathing gently, as if asleep.

Her hair a shocking, pristine blue, long, and loose, lightly curled.

“I– I don’t know. But we can’t just leave her here. Help me with her, quick.”

“Messiah defend, there’s not a scratch on her. She’s breathing. And what’s with her hair?”

“Forget her hair. Look. Her feet have blisters, from the poison in the mud. The rest of her is fine. There’s corpses everywhere. Everyone else around her died. How did she survive the shelling?”

“How would I know? Let’s take her to the medics, we’ve got bigger problems.”

In the distance, Murati heard a whirring noise, and she saw the clouds parting–

Numerous machines, flying high in the air, explosions following in their wake–

As she vanished into a white light with the surroundings she knew Euphrates survived this.

In the next instant–

Metal walls. Vanishing colors.

No texture, except the smoothness of her uniform when she touched it.

Just to feel something– something familiar.

Smell– treated air, circulated by machines. Vaguely sweet, inoffensive.

Surrounded by people and silence.

And the comparatively low pressure of 300 meters of water above them, threatening to crush them any second, with the only comfort being that the ship was used to surmounting over a thousand meters more and could survive close to 8000 meters deep in total. She was back on the UNX-001 Brigand. She was Senior Lieutenant and First Officer, Murati Nakara; she was alive. She was back in her own world.

On the shoulders of Ulyana Korabiskaya and Aaliyah Bashara, she noticed wispy bands of green color with a little band of green and yellow. Aaliyah had just a little bit of red at the edges. These things communicated to Murati’s mind, she understood them as if they were facial expressions or body language. They were waiting, afraid that something had happened to Murati. Aaliyah was trying to restrain her anger that this situation had taken this turn, struggling to take control of it back.

She realized that her eyes felt warm. She knew that there were red rings around the irises.

Though she couldn’t see them she knew that this was the case.

Murati turned around from them and quietly faced the woman in front of her again.

Euphrates retreated back a step, having withdrawn her hand.

“How do you feel?” She said gently.

Looking down at her–

There was a flash in Murati’s mind. Visions of a blue haired girl, lonely and in pain. Tortured endlessly. Places whose forms sat just on the edge of her memory, speech in a language she barely understood, some events in motion like a grainy film with frames missing, her mind had the texture of these things, but the complete form was just out of reach. There was an outpouring of them in her mind’s eye.

Murati’s warm auburn eyes began to weep uncontrollably. Her lip trembled. Her body shook.

She bowed slightly and grabbed hold of Euphrates suddenly, embracing her tightly.

Weeping profusely on her shoulder, stroking her hair, wanting her to feel any comfort.

“I’m sorry!” She shouted. “I’m so sorry! What they did to you– I’m– I–” Murati wailed with an agony she did not understand even in part. Words cascaded out of her lips that sounded less connected to anything concrete with each passing second, channeling the formless pain of another body, as the things she saw and felt in the aether moved farther and farther from the mind but remained in the heart.

Euphrates, smiling, weeping gently herself, silently returned the embrace.

“I apologize. I acted too familiar.”

“That’s quite alright. It just tells me you have a very big heart, Murati.”

Murati sat back down on the table, raising a hand to her chest to feel her pounding heart.

She was red in the face and feeling a little nervous after everything that happened.

“How are your faculties, Murati?” Ulyana asked. “Anything feeling off?”

“I had a strange experience. I went to places and saw things– but I can’t really tell you all of the substance of it. I had visions– I think I saw bits and pieces of Euphrates’ life, maybe.” Murati said, stumbling over words just a bit. “I don’t feel comfortable sharing what I can recall unless she allows it. However, I think I am actually ready to try to move an object without touching it.”

Aaliyah crossed her arms. That red portion of her colors got just a little bit wider.

Murati turned to Euphrates, who walked over to Murati and bent close to her, looking over her shoulder. She took Murati’s hand and guided her to stretch her arm out toward another, intact pen which also sat in the middle of the table. It was out of Murati’s reach and away from the other pen which Euphrates had allegedly collapsed into a sphere of carbon, still sitting at the far edge of the table.

“Alright, Murati, focus on the object you want to move. You’ve seen the Aether auras, the colors, around other people now, right? Did you focus your eyes on them to make them sharper?”

“I think so. I think I can do that.” Murati said. She had done so with Aaliyah, she thought.

At first the “auras” were just colors and a vague understanding.

If she focused on them, she could appraise them better. She realized this now.

It was like the trigger of a gun. She could pull it with her mind to set off the effects.

“Now, try to focus on this object, using the same method. Compel it to move away from you. Trace a line to where you want it to go. It’ll get easier, but for the very first time you attempt this you will really need to focus. Create from nothing a reality where this object is moving.” Euphrates said.

She stepped back from Murati and took seat next to Tigris again.

“By the way, if you want to relay anything you saw in the Aether to the Captain and Commissar, you are free to do so. Those memories are irrelevant to the world of today, and I do not let them govern how I live my life in the here and now. But thank you for the hug. It was very warm.” Euphrates added.

Murati nodded her head. She breathed in deep and then reached out her hand to the pen.

She tried to focus on the pen. She spent a few seconds staring at it.

Move. Move. Move.

She felt like when she was assigned to a psychologist at school, after her biggest protests.

Ink blots and mental exercises– stuff that felt too abstract for her to get a hold of.

It felt silly, talking in her own head like she was talking to the pen.

As the seconds passed, she began to fear she had created a reality where the pen had not moved, and one in which she did not know what would happen next. After all this anticipation, they would be going back to grilling Euphrates about this, trying to prize from her what was real and false about her, about her intentions, her narrative. Murati really wanted to spare her any more pain.

She could not remember in exact terms what she had seen in those visions.

But she knew that Euphrates was extremely old, ancient despite her pretty face, and her long life was filled with such pain that Murati couldn’t even imagine feeling. She felt compelled by her own humanity, even if this feeling was not fully substantiated, to try to do what she could to help Euphrates, to absolve her of other’s doubts and suspicions. Murati’s skepticism told her that it was possible Euphrates was now deceiving her. It just didn’t make sense though– the medbay visit, the HELIOS, all of this.

Meeting her was perhaps serendipitous. One of the greatest coincidences of her life.

Murati had the feeling, however, that Euphrates was not a malicious person.

Even had they never met, even though they disagreed philosophically about certain things.

Euphrates was following her convictions and doing what she believed was right.

Move, damn you!

In the next instant, the pen did not just move at Murati’s command.

It sailed to the opposite wall like a projectile and shattered upon striking it.

Ulyana and Aaliyah stared at it, speechless for a moment.

“Oh. I think I have the hang of this a bit.”

Murati shifted her gaze to the sphere that Euphrates had crushed the other pen into.

She reached out her hand and compelled to move toward her instead.

A microsecond later, an instant of thought, and the little ball shot toward Murati.

Striking her in the chest, and then dropping on the table with a series of little thuds.

Murati grabbed hold of her chest, wincing with pain. Gunther turned to check on her.

“Agh! Damn it!” She cried out.

She had just told her doctor her ribs were okay, and now her sternum hurt like hell.

It did not feel like anything was broken, but she nearly doubled over from the pain.

That would almost certainly bruise.

“Be careful!” Euphrates said cheerfully at the unfolding theater. “You don’t know your own strength. But you’re a very fast learner. You applied the concept of moving the object away to pull the object toward you! Not everyone figures that out within seconds of their first telekinetic thrust. You’ll be learning about vectors in no time with that level of conceptualization– I knew you’d be impressive, Murati.”

“Hmph. I learned it pretty quickly too, you know.” Tigris butted in.

“Yes, and I praised you for it in the moment– many, many, MANY years ago.”

Euphrates laughed and Tigris scowled at her and turned her back once more.

“Hmph!”

Murati could hardly see the humor in the situation because her sternum was still hurting.

“Murati, do you need to go to the medbay?” Ulyana asked.

She glanced toward her officers, trying to appraise their current emotions.

All of the red and yellow had melted from both the captain’s and commissar’s auras.

In their place, thin bands of purple and white appeared to compliment the blue and green.

Pride, Murati thought. Pride and awe or euphoria.

They were both anxious, but they also were starting to realize, perhaps–

–that their worlds had changed a bit too now.

Murati shook her head, in response to the medbay comment.

Ulyana and Aaliyah almost at the same time brought their hands up to their faces.

“What is this even going to look like in a report?” Ulyana lamented.

“It’s not.” Aaliyah said. “I am not going to report any of this. What would I even say?”

“How is this possible? I want to wake up from this.” Ulyana continued to lament.

Zachikova had her arms crossed, deep in thought. Gunther looked quietly shocked.

Euphrates sat back, clearly less tense now that she appeared to be getting her way.

“You are free to disclose any information I’ve given you to your authorities. However, I won’t be able to provide physical evidence of anything at this moment, so I recommend to withhold your reports for now. I do have a condition I must set for myself and Tigris’ continued support, however.”

“Hey, don’t assume I’ll just do anything you want. I’m pretty pissed at you.” Tigris said.

“I would be heartbroken if my irreplaceable partner left me.” Euphrates said.

Tigris’ shoulders tensed. “Ugh. Shut up. Fine. I’m in for whatever, then.”

Ulyana ran her hands over her face, through her long blond locks. She tossed her hair.

Resetting herself. Letting off a bit of steam.

After heaving a sigh, she responded, clearly frustrated. “What do you want, Euphrates?”

“I want to hire all of you. I promise I won’t interfere with your ‘mission profile’.”

“Hire us? Like the original agreement we had with Solarflare LLC?” Aaliyah asked.

Euphrates reached out a hand across the table, symbolically.

“Exactly. Take me to Rhinea and help me investigate Yangtze’s actions. I need to confirm her true intentions. All of us need more information to determine our next moves. Yangtze has ties to the Imperial factions, so ultimately, if you help me, you’ll gain a lot of juicy information on some very bad people. While we are there, you can continue your own activities. I’ll support you as a consultant, and this lady here will help maintain the HELIOS, and help out around the ship. She’s handier than she looks.”

“You’re the one who looks, and is, useless!” Tigris cried out. “They know I’m helpful.”

“Both of us can teach Murati Nakara more about psionics,” Euphrates continued speaking, ignoring Tigris, “then you’ll be able to determine whether it is safe or useful based on her progress. You don’t trust us completely, but Murati is someone you know for sure that you can trust, right?”

Ulyana and Aaliyah exchanged a look. Both of them stood up as if to speak definitively.

“Murati has nearly died for this crew multiple times. Of course I trust her.” Ulyana said. “To be clear– you’re quite right. I don’t trust you anymore, Euphrates, but not because of your actions. I still want to be able to trust and cooperate with you. However, too many unknowns have been introduced.” She paused briefly to gather her breath. “So I’ll tentatively agree to your terms because I don’t have much choice. However, if you step out of line, I am quite ready to shred the paper and do something about you.”

Aaliyah’s ears and tail stood up, tense; but her eyes smoldered with determination.

“I agree with the Captain. This whole situation has gotten out of hand. We’ll have to think carefully about what this means. Psionics, Aether, Omenseers and the Sunlight Foundation– all these capital letter terms hint at a world we were not prepared to tackle with our own resources. Quite frankly, I’m not sure how much of this I’m even prepared to believe. I’m ready to wake up at any moment. But in the material reality of the here and now, we have few choices. However, there’s one whale in the room here.”

Ulyana glanced over to Aaliyah, looking a little bit surprised.

“I think I understand what you’re going to ask. Go ahead.” Euphrates said.

Now it was Aaliyah’s turn to breathe deep and sigh.

“You must have known all along, Euphrates, but we are soldiers beholden to the Union of Ferris, Lyser and Solstice. We are on a Union mission. Your Sunlight Foundation has stayed hidden all this time, but now you are sharing all this knowledge with us. It seems to me that you are desperate for shelter from your organization, so you need us. In that case, I have conditions of my own. Everything you have told us will have to be formally told to the Union government. All these secrets have to be confirmed and reported.”

Murati scanned Euphrates’ face for any sign of concern. There were none.

She was calm as she ever had been, and her aura was as soft and pristine as before.

“Of course. I understand. Here’s my response: help me find Daksha Kansal. I trust her and I want to talk to her about the Union. Depending what she and I decide, we can make formal disclosures to the Union.”

Euphrates truly had a gift for saying things that rendered the floor speechless.

Ulyana raised a hand to her own lips and grinned to herself, laughing a little at the prospect.

Finding Daksha Kansal, the first Premier and legendary hero of the Revolution–

“Daksha Kansal left the Union to foment revolution in the Imperial territories, many years ago. If she’s still alive– well, it could actually be very useful to our mission as well to find her and see what she has been up to all these years. However, none of us have any idea where she could be right now.”

“We all want to believe she’s alive, but we can’t guarantee that.” Aaliyah said in support of Ulyana.

“Don’t worry. I’ll help you find her. Let’s just tack that on the agenda as an item, then.”

Euphrates stood from her chair, reaching out her hand for a shake, still smiling affably.

“Do we have a deal then? Make Rhinea our next destination, and I promise you with your military power and my knowledge and resources, we can absolutely find Daksha Kansal, investigate and overturn Yangtze’s ambitions, and tackle the next phase of your own mission, whatever that might be.”

Aaliyah and Ulyana exchanged another glance, but both of them smiled. Hearing the name Daksha Kansal, and perhaps having the thought of finding her again, clearly lifted their spirits. It was insane, but it was perhaps the least insane of all the things they had talked about today. It was insanely hopeful.

“You better not dare to betray us after all of your theater, Euphrates.” Aaliyah said.

“Bah, if she steps out of line after all this, I’ll be the first one in line to kill her.” Tigris said.

Euphrates laughed.

“I feel excited about this partnership. I think we will do fantastic work together.”

Ulyana and Aaliyah walked around the table and shook hands with Euphrates and Tigris.

They had sealed a deal of absolutely monumental proportions, brought together by fate.

A casual handshake between the material and supernatural worlds.

Murati could hardly fathom where this would lead them all. Those colors eluded her.

Looking down at the little ball, spinning rapidly atop her palm, at her mental command.

Everything felt terribly ominous– but she couldn’t turn her back from it.

Just like when she first understood communism, imperialism, and the war for the heart of the world.

If the world was bigger; then there was more of it to fight for, more of it to liberate.

If there were more enemies; then she would still take them all on as they came.

Her ambition was to set things right. Short of achieving her justice, she knew she would not stop.

“We need to get you a room, then. Maybe move Fernanda and Alex together.” Ulyana said.

“Whatever you decide is fine. Oh, and whenever you’re ready, Captain, we can go over the data from the HELIOS too. First, though, I want to check up on our little empath over here and see how she’s doing.”

Euphrates left the captain’s side for a moment, and given freedom to move, went to Murati’s side.

“Are you asking yourself right now, ‘why me’?” Euphrates said, smiling, patting Murati on the shoulder.

Murati looked up at her, wearily. She saw the colors around Euphrates, calm and unmoving.

She shook her head, smiling a bit herself. “I’m just asking myself what happens now.”

While the Brigand at large put another eerily quiet day in the photic zone behind them, the Captain and Commissar completed their inquiries about the previous run of events, to what was a satisfactory conclusion for the two of them. Both of them agreed to the following immediate terms:

Marina McKennedy’s final G.I.A. rank of Ensign would be respected, and she would hold a position on the Brigand as an intelligence analyst with the rights of any other officer. She agreed to support the Brigand’s endeavors until the formal end of the Brigand’s mission or until they could secure passage for Marina and for Elena Lettiere into the Union. She would work in the conference room next to the bridge, and she would have main screen access from there, to prevent the bridge from becoming too crowded.

Arbitrator I was inducted into the Brigand’s crew as Petty Officer Arabella Oikonomou, a Katarran surname as her appearance could be easily explained that way. As far as the sailors were concerned, she was rescued in Goryk’s Gorge, and anything else about her was classified. She would consult on navigation. While she was also initially meant to work in the conference room with Marina, she demanded to sit down on the floor near Braya Zachikova’s station. This would block one of the four-step staircases up from the gas gunner’s tier below the main bridge floor, but her cheerful insistence wore the officers down.

“I don’t mind it. If a fire breaks out, I’ll throw her in it to open the stairs.” Braya Zachikova said.

“Don’t.” Ulyana Korabiskaya replied.

Zachikova grumbled. “It was a joke.”

“She’s so funny.” Arbitrator I smiled. “Braya! We’ll get to work together every day!”

Euphrates and Tigris were each given the rank of Specialist. Euphrates was placed under Karuniya Maharapratham, formally as a laboratory assistant. Karuniya, who was not privy to the interrogation, stared quizzically at her new charge, instantly recognizing her– but quickly grew fond of the idea of having what she described as a “minion.” She vowed to make Euphrates work hard and earn her keep.

Tigris was subordinated to Chief Mechanic Galina Lebedova, who was happy to have her.

“Ah, fantastic! She was a real workhorse during the repairs.”

Tigris puffed herself up with pride. “Good to be back ma’am. What’s there to fix?”

Unbeknownst to Ulyana, the two of them had really hit it off.

They chatted away like old friends about all the menial maintenance work there was to do.

In this way, their new acquaintances would be able to quietly integrate into ship life.

However, as part of the terms, both of them were also asked to reveal their “actual” names.

“We’re not going to use Euphemia Rontgen and Theresa Faraday. Tell us your real names.”

Ulyana and Aaliyah clearly still felt somewhat slighted about being lied to by them.

“We’ve gone by our codenames for so long it really doesn’t matter. But sure, for you.”

Euphrates was actually Euphemia Levi, while Tigris was Agni Pradesh.

“Levi? That’s an Eloist surname, isn’t it? Pradesh sounds North Bosporan.” Ulyana asked.

“Pradesh is just the High Bosporan word for ‘region’, I didn’t have parents.” Tigris said.

“Eloim is how they are known now.” Euphrates said. “But that surname is as old as I am, so it is as irrelevant as its origin. Humor me, Captain: does the word ‘jew’ mean anything to you?”

“Fine. I get your point. But I’m putting both these down on the roster, end of story.”

“How old is this lady supposed to be, anyway?” Aaliyah mumbled to herself.

“It’s a new world out there, Captain, Commissar! Free of the contrivances of the old and replete with its own. Let’s agree to focus on the things that matter in this world.” Euphrates winked at them.

Aaliyah and Ulyana shared annoyed looks with each other and agreed not to ask her to elaborate.

Xenia Laskaris, meanwhile, was fired by Euphrates and Tigris, which didn’t surprise her.

Ulyana and Aaliyah promised to let her go in Rhinea with enough supplies to tide her over.

Shrugging, the Katarran mercenary simply went back to reading what looked like old issues of fashion magazines. She talked back while her eyes were peeled on pictures of trends from years past.

“I won’t say no to free food, but don’t worry about me. I wouldn’t have cut it as a merc if I didn’t plan for this type of sitch. It was worth it to take this job to see Illya and Valeriya again, even if I didn’t get paid much. Besides, I get a free ride to Rhinea– I hear there’s a Katarran warlord stuck there on a business trip who’s supposed to be a big deal. Don’t tell anyone I told you– but I’ll get another job soon.”

She winked. Ulyana and Aaliyah narrowed their eyes at her casual behavior.

Clearly, she wanted to be dropped off at a specific place, then.

With that smart mouth of hers, it was a wonder she ever got any work.

“How do you know Illya and Valeriya, exactly?” Aaliyah asked.

“That’s classified. Ask Parvati Nagavanshi– or better yet, don’t.”

Xenia smirked at them. Both Captain and Commissar dropped the subject, for their mental health.

There was one final, unrelated task the two of them had to take on that day.

It was a discussion where there wouldn’t be a committee.

Ulyana and Aaliyah made their way to the brig. Because of the soundproof cells it was always quiet even when there were multiple people being kept captive. However, with almost all the occupants released, the brig felt emptier and more disused than it had been when the two of them last visited. There was one last prisoner whom they had to speak to that day: this one they left for last because it was one to whom they had no connection, and they had to be delicate with her. She had not made deals with them, fought alongside them, or saved them from a major catastrophe. Quite the opposite in fact.

They did not know, for example, how some of the more gung-ho communists among them might react to her presence on the ship. Or even worse– how Khadija al-Shajara might have reacted to her based on their tragic history. It was their duty nonetheless to evaluate whether Sieglinde von Castille was a serious defector, and what her agenda was. There were processes surrounding defectors to the Union, but these were drafted for the border forces to induct refugees, or for surrendering vessels. A single aristocrat who turned in the middle of the battlefield fell largely to the discretion of Captain and Commissar.

Complicating things further was the fact that this escapee was the famous “Red Baron.”

At the door, Ulyana and Aaliyah met with Klara van Der Smidse and Zhu Lian. Since the crises of the past few days, the two amicable security girls had been kitted out for combat on a daily basis, wearing armored suits consisting of neoprene bodystockings with interlocking, flexible Kevlar and ceramic plates over the chest, arms, shoulders, and legs. They had been armed with shotshell shotguns, which they wielded with deadly seriousness, fingers off trigger, held at an angle away from people when idle.

Only Illya and Valeriya were formally trained and licensed for safe handling of AK-pattern assault rifles inside ships, so in a situation where the security team was allowed lethal force, but could not risk damaging ship infrastructure, the junior security girls were given shotguns armed with lethal shot. On a Union ship, it was seen as an extraordinary circumstance for security officers to bear lethal arms. It was not viewed the same as arming marines or sailors to secure a station landing.

But after all, they had been guarding a lot of strange individuals– like an imperial ace pilot.

These measures were not overkill when it came to such an unknown situation.

And especially now that Ulyana and Aaliyah had to worry about psychic powers too.

They were both ultimately glad that they decided to open the armory to these girls.

Even if nothing had happened–yet.

“Stay here, we’ll call out of anything happens.” Ulyana said.

She patted Zhu Lian in the shoulder, and the security girls nodded their acknowledgment.

Ulyana and Aaliyah walked into the brig, to the first door. They undid the sound-proofing both ways and opened one of the sliding plates on the door, allowing Ulyana to see inside. The Red Baron sat on the bed, her long blond hair flowing down her back. Her pristine uniform coat she had folded and set down as an additional pillow, exposing her skin-tight, long-sleeved under-shirt. She was a very tall woman, fair skinned, blond, with strikingly pretty face. Ulyana thought she had the build of a fencer, tall with lean, strong, long, and flexible limbs, but her features were like an idealized Imbrian princess.

She reminded Ulyana a bit of herself– not entirely by way of self-flattery.

However, Sieglinde von Castille was apparently Ulyana’s senior by two years.

“Baron, apologies for the delay. We would like to speak to you. We are opening the door.”

Sieglinde nodded her head, stood, and remained at the back of the cell.

Fully upright, she really was taller than Ulyana and Aaliyah.

Her countenance was so strikingly fair and regal, even as she avoided their gaze.

“Sieglinde von Castille, correct?” Ulyana asked.

“Correct.”

“During the battle, you retreated toward our side and broadcast that you were defecting.”

“I did.”

Her responses were quick, but more than enough to communicate her mournful tone.

She sounded on the verge of tears. Her voice was coming out of a ragged throat.

“I couldn’t bear serving that ravening beast Lichtenberg any longer. I felt disgusted with her.”

“And you are looking to replace servitude to her with what? Servitude to us?”

Sieglinde looked at Ulyana in the eyes and seemed to realize the trouble she was in.

“I won’t defend that dreadful Inquisitor; if it was up to me alone then I would be happy for you leaving that volatile tinpot tyrant behind and seeking brighter waters.” Ulyana continued, “However, the tricky thing about defectors is that our first and only impression of one is who they have betrayed. For the sake of my crew, I need to know more about your story and about what you are hoping to accomplish. We have a few people aboard who have good reasons to be wary of your presence, Red Baron.”

“Please don’t call me that.” Sieglinde whimpered.

“That is who you are. You are the Red Baron and you can’t avoid that.” Aaliyah said.

Her tone was rather more biting than Ulyana would have wanted in that situation.

Sieglinde’s gaze dropped to the floor.

“It’s– It’s not who I want to be. I swear to you. I would do anything to put it behind me.”

“And put behind you the lives that you took also?” Aaliyah said.

“That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?” Ulyana said. “Not unwarranted but– harsh.”

Aaliyah crossed her arms and fixed her eyes on Sieglinde.

“All I’m saying, is that she can’t just run away from the title of Red Baron. Sieglinde von Castille fought with the Empire as the Red Baron. She killed our comrades in the revolution, she served Norn and Lichtenberg, fought against us, and endangered our pilots. She has to be held accountable for those things. She can’t run away from that and pretend she can be righteous from today onward by looking the other way. I might be acting harsh, but that’d be a bit too easy for a murderer, don’t you think?”

Sieglinde remained quiet for a moment, avoiding Aaliyah’s gaze.

She raised her hands up to her face. Rubbing her palms over her eyes, digging her nails.

“She’s right.” Sieglinde said. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could be born again today free of this sin, but that will not happen. I want to change– but she’s right. I’m the Red Baron, and I’ll never be able to give back the lives I took. But I want to face justice for what I’ve done. I– I’ve thought about taking my own life.”

Aaliyah and Ulyana both drew their eyes wide open at that statement.

“Absolutely not!” Ulyana said. “That would not serve justice! Nobody here wants that!”

“I do not wish death on you!” Aaliyah added. “Forgive me– I really was being too harsh!”

She really meant it. Ulyana could actually hear the contrition in her voice all of a sudden.

“I– I want to tell you my story then. I’m not actually of noble stock.” Sieglinde said suddenly. She clutched the fabric of her bodysuit over her breast as if to feel her heart through her fist. “Please hear me out. I was an orphan, but I was blond, fair, and blue-eyed, so I was adopted by the Castille family. They were a rich military family with a heroic lineage, but they were recent Peers, and had been stricken by many tragedies and left without young heirs. But because my race could not be confirmed, they knew that the Imbrian aristocrats would be prejudice toward me unless I earned achievements equal to the Castille name.”

“Your parents pressured you to fight in the war. So the aristocracy would accept you.” Ulyana replied.

Sieglinde nodded her head solemnly. Ulyana could hear the bitterness in her voice.

“I was eighteen during the Colonial War. I was a Diver pilot, I became known as the Red Baron, one of the very first Imperial aces. But it wasn’t prestigious. They expected us to die at any time and treated us badly. Every time I sortied, I was terrified. I was killing people out of fear. I was doing everything I could to survive without a point to it all. I couldn’t turn back for fear of being killed by my superiors for cowardice or disowned by my parents for retreating. After the war, they glorified everything to save face.”

Aaliyah averted her gaze. Twenty years ago– she would have been seven years old, just a kitten.

Ulyana had fought in the Revolution herself. She had been sixteen years old back then, even younger than Sieglinde. She understood all too well what it was like; in the moment, there was no killing for righteous reasons, there was only killing. Ideology was ascribed to her battles before and after. In the lead-up to a battle, it was righteous, and after the battle, it was liberatory. In the middle of battle she was killing to survive. It was still very different from Sieglinde’s plight, however. The communists didn’t have a home to return to if they failed. Their meager homes in the colonies were the ones invaded by the Empire.

In her mind that did not diminish Sieglinde’s tragedy, however. Ulyana was sixteen, and this woman had been only eighteen. Both of them had been children, compared to their leadership. Sieglinde had been thrown into war, used as a tool by every authority in her life. She was told that treading upon slaves and peasants was righteous, that it would clad her in honor and make her worthy. And she had to wear that cloak of blood to be legitimate, or her life as she had been raised to know it would end.

“That war taught me that the aristocracy has no ‘nobility’. It was not justice. We were not protecting our families or homes, we were fighting for the greed of the imperial landlords. I hated myself for my participation in it; but I convinced myself there was no changing the path life had given me. I was the Red Baron. Eventually my parents died of illness, the pure blood aristocrats kept me at arm’s length, I fought even more wars that I did not believe in– and I told myself each step of the way that all I could do was conduct myself personally with honor, even as I was surrounded by injustices. I wasted years like this.”

Sieglinde started weeping again. She sank against the back wall of the cell.

One fist held up over her eyes. Her lips quivering with fresh sobs.

“I wasted twenty years. Lamenting, pitying myself, but doing nothing to absolve my sins. I even fought for people like Lichtenberg– I told myself I was doing it to save Elena, but the princess was right to turn away that demon of an Inquisitor. But these past few weeks have been my life in miniature. A servant of evil.”

Ulyana and Aaliyah remained quiet, allowing Sieglinde to continue speaking as she wept.

“I’m so sorry. I know this is pathetic. I know that it is too late. I know I can’t reverse the evil deeds I committed. But even if I’m never forgiven, even if I am always hated– I can’t continue to live in self-delusion, believing my self-justifications while fighting for such depraved agendas! I can’t go back!”

Sieglinde raised her voice and was finally overcome by her tears.

Sobbing too profusely to speak, she slouched her shoulders, covered her face in her hands.

It was difficult to watch this woman so visibly overcome with a lifetime of agony.

She had looked every bit as regal as a princess from a storybook before.

Mixed with a bit of the gallant knight that usually saved such princesses.

Her story showed the ugly reality of such pretty fables. It was now written on her suffering face.

In the Imbrian Empire, princely knights like Sieglinde fought and died for the avarice of callous overlords who would never accept them as equals. Honor and justice were concepts they used exclusively to fool girls like her into protecting the wealth and power of the rich. People only had as much use to them as what they could be used for, and Sieglinde had been used. All of her life, since she was a child, to the current day, made to murder innocent people. Justifying the lies she was told, to live with herself.

For Ulyana, who had been born into the Empire, it was certainly possible she could have ended up the same. If the Imbrian Empire had not purged masses of Volgians like herself, she, and many more people like her and Sieglinde would have been raised to support the Empire, to fight and to die for its values.

Had she not been repressed, Ulyana would have not learned of repression, and rebelled.

The Imbrian Empire had seared into her skin and eyes the will she needed to fight them.

That was the only thing that dictated their opposing sides in the Revolution.

Back then, she wasn’t a communist yet. She was a scared kid fighting for her only home.

Sieglinde wasn’t an imperialist. She was a teenager, in over her head, pressured to fight.

Now despite her privileged position, Sieglinde moved closer to understanding exploitation.

Ulyana did not want to deny her a chance to break free of the Empire’s control.

But it was not so easy. Sieglinde had done their country and people several injustices.

“We will let you recover for a moment, Sieglinde, and then return.” Ulyana said.

She did not want to call her Baron, or Red Baron, or von Castille– not after that story.

Aaliyah nodded her acquiescence and followed Ulyana out of the brig, to the adjacent hall.

Zhu Lian and Klara van Der Smidse entered the brig and stood guard over the cell.

“What do you think?” Ulyana said. “She’s in pieces. I feel really sorry for her right now.”

“We shouldn’t let an Imperial officer’s life’s story sway our decisions.” Aaliyah said.

“Aaliyah, she was just a kid. They raised her like this– and she still turned her back on it.”

“She’s more admirable than other Imperial officers, you’re correct.” Aaliyah sighed.

“I understand your hesitation. It might cause a stink. She’s not a civilian, not G.I.A, not innocent.”

“Everyone saw her come in here on an enemy Diver and get arrested. She’s the Red Baron.”

“Right. But Aaliyah, out there– there’s nothing but Imperials, you know? You said it yourself, before.”

When they were discussing the mission previously, their positions had been reversed. It was Aaliyah who was advocating for working pragmatically with Imperials, even the Volkisch, if it would enable them to diminish Imperial power and support the anti-Imperialist revolution. They did not have the luxury to hold their allies to perfection. Ulyana at the time thought that it was impossible to work with Imperials. She was a communist revolutionary and could not trust them. In the abstract it felt so difficult, such a bitter pill to swallow, to shake hands with an enemy. Now, Aaliyah was confronted by a ghost of the old war, and she was hesitant to accept such cooperation, while Ulyana finally put a face on those nebulous dissenters she was supposed to help nurture, and she felt an emotional connection to their plight.

“I know, Captain. But I wager very few Imperial dissidents actually fought in the Revolution.” She said.

“You don’t know that. We can’t be that picky either. Let’s think of it pragmatically: what matters now, is that she wants to work with us. She wants to take concrete steps to fight against the Empire. She feels duped, she has no path forward, she insinuated suicide— we should welcome her aboard, Aaliyah.”

“She could just be acting.” Aaliyah replied. Her argument sounded feebler than before.

Ulyana smiled at her. She held back the urge to laugh at her pouting Commissar.

“We’ve seen better actors, haven’t we? We’ve been lied to a lot lately.” Ulyana said.

“I can’t disagree with your logic Captain. But I also can’t deny my own anxieties here.”

Aaliyah’s orange eyes met Ulyana’s green eyes. She was ashamed, indecisive, struggling.

Commissars were a visible symbol of communist orthodoxy. They were supposed to be “the best of us.” Learned in theory, law, and philosophy, good at speaking, good with people. With their every step and their every breath, wherever they went, the spirit of Mordecai was supposed to follow them. Aaliyah was a bit of a party girl, and her relationship to her religion was probably a complicated factor in her upholding the secular mores of the Union’s Mordecism. Therefore– could she really work with an imperial soldier?

But above everything– she was a good person. With a kind heart and a clear head.

She wanted to be kind to Sieglinde von Castille. She just forced herself to be harsh.

Commissars locked up imperialists. Imperial soldiers were symbols of reaction, counterrevolution.

But Aaliyah was not just a Commissar. Ulyana understood what she needed to do.

“You don’t have to be responsible for her. I will clean up the broken plates, don’t worry.” Ulyana said.

“Captain– But– I–” She looked surprised at that declaration. She stumbled over her words.

“That’s why there’s two of us, right? Each of us can handle what the other one cannot.”

Aaliyah’s serious face ceded to a very small smile. “Well. I can’t exactly disagree with that.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her. You can hold me accountable for my bad judgment if she betrays us.”

Ulyana reached out a hand as if to shake in order to strike a deal with the Commissar.

“If anything happens you can pass judgment and you can decide the issue. But please– trust me.”

In response, Aaliyah suddenly reached out with both of her hands and squeezed Ulyana’s hand.

The Commissar smiled brightly at her. Her cat-like ears folded ever so slightly, her tail quivering gently.

Her voice was so placid. For a moment, Ulyana was taken aback by Aaliyah.

“Of course I trust you. Ulyana, you are better Captain– and person– than I ever gave you credit for.”

Her fingers squeezed Ulyana’s hand gently before retreating slowly back to her sides.

She was overcome with emotion. Allowing it to wash over her soft face.

Absolutely beautiful. It was impossible to turn her eyes away. Ulyana was stricken utterly.

“I will support your decision. You are right– I was being overly emotional.” She said.

Her tone of voice shifted, she was trying to sound less elated than she was before.

Perhaps she realized how absolutely cute she looked before. Ulyana could’ve kissed her.

But she would not– not right now. She was happy enough to have seen Aaliyah relax.

“Thank you. Commissar, let’s talk to Sieglinde again, and come up with a plan.”

“You take the lead then, Captain. I will be at your side as always.”

Ulyana and Aaliyah returned to the brig with renewed energy. Zhu Lian and Klara Van Der Smidse must have been wondering why they were returning to the brig with such big smiles on their faces given everything that was going on. With the officers coming in, the security girls moved to stand by the door again. The Captain and Commissar reentered Sieglinde’s cell, where she was seated back on her head. Her eyes and cheeks were very red from the violent fit of crying that had wrung through her.

She looked up at the two of them, silently pleading. Ulyana spoke first.

“Sieglinde, we apologize for the treatment so far. We want to welcome you aboard.”

Aaliyah quickly added context.

“There are conditions. We will be monitoring you, and you will work to earn our trust.”

Ulyana clapped her hands together with satisfaction. Another situation resolved!

“You will be formally debriefed at a later date. We’ll move some folks to give you a room.”

Sieglinde stared up at the two of them from the bed, initially speechless.

For a moment, there was silence between the cheerful officers and the awestruck captive.

Then Sieglinde’s eyes filled with tears again.

She threw herself to the floor and bowed, putting her head right to the ground.

It was stunning– at that moment, she was no longer an Imperial noble.

“Thank you. I am overcome by your mercy. I swear I will right my wrongs. I am oathbound to it.”

When Ulyana and Aaliyah were about to tell her to get up, Sieglinde lifted her head again.

Her tear-stained red eyes pleaded.

From the floor, her voice trembled. “I– I apologize but– I also have a request. To meet with someone.”

It happened that evening in the cafeteria.

Because it was time for the sailors to change shifts, there was a decent size crowd in the cafeteria. Nothing like the rush hours that sometimes overwhelmed the poor Chef Minardo, but at least two dozen people, enough to occupy a sizeable percentage of the cafeteria seats. These folks were eating, and making merry, happy that the ship seemed to be faring surprisingly well in the photic zone.

At the Captain’s suggestion, Minardo released some of the ship’s liquor to diners that night.

As such, Khadija al-Shajara found herself sitting on the edge of the cafeteria, turning over in her hands a small square can of corn wine. Shimii religious scholars had lively debates over the legitimacy of liquor-drinking. For hardliners, all alcoholic drinks were haram. However, there also were those more liberal mufti who believed that the prohibitions extended only to grape wine, not grain liquor. Grape wine was an indulgence of the devil, delicate and sensual, that tempted people to sin. Corn wine was just booze.

Khadija, a lively woman who enjoyed a good party, naturally sided with that camp, and popped the top of her can. She took a sip. It was sweet– possibly sweetened to hide the blandness of mass production.

However, it had a nice boozy bite to it, and it would certainly fuck her up.

And getting fucked up was all she wanted in that moment, inshallah.

“Um. Excuse me.”

That voice within the din of the crowd was not as familiar as it should have been.

Before she could chug the contents of the can and try to finagle any more out of Minardo, however, someone had appeared at the side of her table. Khadija looked up, but from her seat, it was tough for her gaze to make it up any higher than a sizable pair of breasts in a button-down synthetic shirt, without staring directly up at the LED banks on the ceiling. Trying to be polite, she stood up from her table, still holding her drink in her hands, and found herself closer to the face of her sudden guest.

Fair-skinned, long blond hair, bright eyes, a striking countenance. Tall, taller than her certainly.

Teal half-jacket, button-down white shirt, black pants, red tie. The Treasure Box Transports uniform.

Khadija’s teeth spontaneously grit together. Her hand squeezed the can she was holding.

She was standing in front of– that shameless bitch—

Sieglinde von Castille. Lower lip quivering, shoulders unsteady, face flushed light red.

“Khadija al-Shajara, Lion of Cascabel– I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I’ll– I’ll do anything–”

She started to lower her head to bow–

In the next instant, Khadija’s hand cracked across the air like a whip.

Slapping Sieglinde across the face with such force it nearly knocked her over.

Leaving a red impression of her fingers on the woman’s pink-white cheek.

Without saying a word, Khadija stormed off, her own cheeks almost as red as Sieglinde’s had been left after the attack. Sieglinde watched her go with a dumbfounded expression, while everyone in the cafeteria and in the halls, literally everyone, stared directly at the two of them, held in suspense.

Standing opposite the cafeteria, Ulyana and Aaliyah covered their faces with their hands.

Previous ~ Next

Sinners Under The Firmament [9.3]

The Medbay was finally lively enough that the sound-dampening curtains between each bed had to be extended to give each occupant privacy and peace. Within her own little curtained stall, Murati Nakara sat on the bedside. She was dressed in the TBT sleeveless shirt and long pants, with the jacket hanging from the backboard of the bed. Rather than Karuniya Maharapratham, it was doctor Winfreda Kappel, with her multi-hued blue hair, charming smile and sharp, appraising eyes, that sat at Murati’s bedside.

She examined Murati’s chest and abdomen, applying gentle pressure to her ribs.

“You’re not flinching, so I’m inclined to believe you that it doesn’t hurt. Or maybe you have a supernatural threshold for pain and you’re able to hide it. Your injuries should have taken upwards of a month to recover, and when it comes to medicine, I don’t believe in miracles. I will continue to have you come in every two days for followups. After a week of that, I might believe you’re well again.”

Murati smiled. It did hurt– a little. But she did feel she had recovered very quickly.

She knew herself, her body. She knew that she was a fast healer, for whatever reason.

“Thank you Doctor. Of course I’ll comply. I’ll even wear the brace and use my cane.”

“I’m glad you’ve decided to be responsible now. Since you helped bring about a bloodless resolution to our last battle, as a crew member, and even as a doctor, I can’t hold it against you. As a bureaucrat, however, I will have to give you a strike on your record for disobeying the doctor’s orders. It’ll be discussed when the mission is over. As ridiculous as that might sound to you.”

Doctor Kappel smiled at her as she showed her a red page on her digital clipboard.

“I would never ask you to let me off the hook.” Murati replied, smiling back.

Of course, it was incredibly silly to discuss.

They might not even come back alive from their mission, after all.

Both of them seemed to know it. Nevertheless, Murati did believe in upholding the process.

“Take care now, Murati. Don’t make your poor old doctor worry anymore.”

“I’m afraid I can’t promise that. I have a pretty grim profession, you know?”

They laughed, and Doctor Kappel left her side and went to the next curtain over.

Murati took in a deep breath and let it out to relieve some of the tension in her.

Her rib stung, just a little, but she could definitely walk. Even without the cane, too.

She would keep the chest brace for a bit, however.

There was an eerie feeling in the air. They had survived another battle. Outside the ship the ocean was bright and sunlit. It was– it was easier. It had become easier. After the Iron Lady, she was laid up in bed, but when she woke up, she really got to thinking about her brush with death. Now they had escaped the Antenora, and from the reports, something even worse after that. There were no existentialist thoughts in her brain, however. Confronting death was just getting easier.

Living with the aftermath of a battle, with the come-down from all the built-up anxiety. That was also easier now. Murati did not cry, she did not want to scream, she did not feel depressed or worried sick about the outcome. She felt, in a grim way, that this was becoming normal, routine. Dock workers got up every day, they hauled crates, checked off their manifests, got in their hard suits and performed repairs. That was normal, automatic, eventually a professional dock worker had no feelings about it. Murati Nakara got up every day and she was ready to fight, kill, and die.

Or at least, in that moment, that was how she felt.

Maybe she would reconsider when death was certain. For her, or someone she loved.

Her next visitor came through the door, distracting her from these morbid thoughts.

It was one of the senior mechanics, Gunther Cohen.

“Glad to see you up and about.” He said. “Are you really doing okay?”

“I’m fine.” Murati said.

“You’re not just being reckless again, are you?”

Murati shook her head. As if such a gesture would really change his mind.

He nodded back at her, clearly unconvinced. “I checked the storage on the HELIOS as you asked. Murati, I don’t know what to say, but there were no videos on it about your parents. There was visual data from the cameras, pattern data for recognizing leviathans and ships. That HELIOS has amazing compute capability packed in, for a Diver– but no files like the one you described.”

Another thing she did not quite know how to feel about.

“Maybe a hidden routine could have deleted it when the HELIOS network came online?”

“I was thorough. For a piece of survey equipment, any actions on its data must be logged methodically. And the logs were incredibly detailed: none of its data was deleted.” He averted his gaze briefly. He looked like he was clearly out of his depth. He had been tasked with something that was deeply personal to Murati and did not know how to break it to her that he had failed.

Or that, perhaps, she had been making it up in her own mind all along.

“Karuniya also saw it. I just wanted it as a keepsake. Could you search again, somehow?”

“I know I’m not missing anything. You may need to confront those two about it.”

His gaze was partially directed beyond the medbay walls, in the direction of the brig.

Euphrates and Tigris. The “Solarflare LLC” scientists they had rescued.

“Until the Captain clears those women– let’s not touch the HELIOS again. Is that okay?”

Murati nodded. She thanked Gunther for his help, and for his nagging but earnest diligence.

Of all the eerie things in the atmosphere– the mystery of those two women hung heaviest.

It had been a few hours since the Brigand had crossed the Upper Scattering Layer. While the alert state had yet to be rescinded, people were working slower, if they were, and a lot of others were taking a break. The Bridge had a strange confidence that nobody was going to be attacked by Leviathans and that no corrupted currents would sweep them off-course. So the sailors could not do anything about it except accept to treat it like any day, and let the officers worry about the rest.

This meant that there was a large flurry of activity to the cafeteria.

After everything that happened, Elena Lettiere was dreadfully hungry.

However, she did not want to eat with too many people– not yet. She still felt awkward.

After all, for all her convictions, and all her lovely rhetoric, she had lied to all of them.

To be Elena Lettiere– she still had to amend for what Elena von Fueller had done.

She wanted to talk to the Captain again– but first, food.

Elena waited for a while, until she saw more sailors out in the halls working again.

If they were walking everywhere else, the cafeteria was probably empty.

Still wearing her dress, Elena emerged from her room and made her way over.

Her instincts had been correct. There were a few men and women eating alone here and there, no big groups, and much of the seating was unoccupied. Those few eyes that were there on the long row seats, having their bread and soup, did not look at Elena as she approached the counter and looked over what was being served. She was so used to grabbing what she needed quickly–

That she didn’t really notice that the woman behind the cafeteria counter was watching.

When Elena looked up, the woman smiled at her.

She reminded Elena immediately of Bethany: a glamorous and energetic older woman, with dark eyeshadow, cheek-length black hair, and dark wine-red lipstick. Wearing an apron over the sleeveless uniform shirt and pants for that fictitious “Treasure Box Transports” company. Her arms were lean, with the slim muscles easily delineated. Her whole body was a good mix of sturdy and curvy– Elena almost felt envious. She approached the counter, still wearing that same smile.

“What’ll it be today, princess?” said the ship’s cook, Logia Minardo.

Elena flinched. Did she know, or was it just a term of endearment–?

Minardo leaned on the counter, closer to Elena. She was laughing, but in good spirits.

“I’m an officer too, you know. And every officer’s been informed of your situation, but the sailors haven’t. Don’t worry though. Us commies aren’t so bad to helpless princesses, and I’m just a cook after all. Now, if you are plotting to raise your own Imperial army, all bets are off though.”

Elena laid a hand over her heart and sighed deeply. Minardo was just being silly.

“I’m plotting nothing of the sort, and I’ll have you know I renounced being a princess.”

“Haha! Well, that’s good to hear! Because you definitely won’t be eating like one here!”

Minardo laid a plate out for Elena. There was a fluffy yellow mound flecked green and red, a penny roll that was warm and only slightly tough-looking for ship bread, and a dollop of beans in a thick, brown sauce accompanied with rounds of something fried to a golden, honey-like color. Everything looked and smelled– fine? Edible; nothing like Bethany’s lavish midday feasts.

But– Bethany was gone. And Minardo was here– this was Elena’s life now.

“Don’t look so glum! Take a seat right here. I want to know what you think.” Minardo said.

She pointed right behind Elena to one of the seats at the edge of a nearby row table.

Though she felt a sense of trepidation, Elena could not make herself refuse either.

Pulling the chair over, she sat at the counter and picked up her spork, looking over the dish.

“Scrambled eggs and pepper, bread, and sweet baked beans with plantain. And, for you–”

Atop the eggs, Minardo scraped off a bit of margarine from a foil packet and laid it over.

Immediately, the dollop began to melt over the eggs. They were nicely steaming warm.

Elena dug her spork into the mound of scrambled eggs. They were fluffy– fluffier than they had any right to be. Though they reminded Elena more of a quiche in texture than the light and jam-y curds of scrambled egg she was used to, they were rich, cheesy, with a nice vegetal bite from the two colors of pepper scrambled into them. She tore the bread roll in half, releasing a bit of steamy warmth from the crumb. It was firm, but softer than she thought it would be, and nicely savory. Then she tried the beans. Sweet and savory, creamy, they practically melted in her mouth, and the fried plantain complimented the soft, creamy beans with their own sweetly starchy profile.

It really wasn’t like anything Elena had eaten before. She was used to fresh green salads, ripe tomatoes with mozzarella cheese, baked baby onions and stuffed peppers, around a big meaty centerpiece of steak, scallops, salmon, or duck. This plate was nothing like what Bethany served her, but it wasn’t bad. It was delicious. It would never taste like home, but it was full of love and care in its own way. So much so, that Elena almost wanted to weep with every bite of it.

“That bad?” Minardo asked, seeing the emotion growing red on Elena’s face.

“No! Not at all! It’s really delicious, thank you.” Elena said. Hopefully it sounded as genuine as she meant. “It is just– it’s clear you put a lot of care into it. It reminds me of someone who used to take care of me. She– she couldn’t come with me. She was the best cook I ever knew.”

Minardo nodded. “I’m flattered by the comparison. I take a lot of pride in my food.”

For a moment, Minardo dipped under the counter.

When she returned, she had in hand a few slips of foil packaging she set out on the counter for Elena. One was ripped from a container of powdered egg, another foil for multicolor pickled peppers, a third canned beans, freeze-dried plantains, powdered yeast, monosodium glutamate–

“What you’re tasting is indeed, a lot of love and effort.” Minardo said, smiling warmly.

Elena looked down at the foils, which must have come from the ingredients–

–and then up at Minardo with a sudden awe and admiration. She did start to weep then.

“Welcome to the Labor Union of Ferris, Lyser and Solstice, comrade.” Minardo said.

She patted Elena on the shoulder gently, and then waved her hand as she left the counter.

Returning back to the appliances and ingredients with which she had worked this magic.

“Our cook is quite something isn’t she? Nagavanshi recruited the best, even in the kitchen.”

Before she knew it, Elena turned her head and found Captain Ulyana Korabiskaya pulling up a seat beside her on the counter. She and Minardo were a lot alike, tall older women with a lot of vitality and youth to them, a certain radiance, but the Captain’s blond hair and bright eyes really made Elena struggle. It was not helping her feelings about Bethany to be surrounded by women like this– she felt a certain inadequacy, dealing with women so clearly, gracefully, beautifully mature when she herself felt like a helpless, idiot, under-developed child in comparison to them.

She wiped her tears and tried to fight off any fresh ones, nodding her head silently.

“Homesick?” Ulyana asked.

Elena felt even more stupid. “Were you eavesdropping?”

“Only a little.” Ulyana smiled.

Elena bowed her head, staring at her empty plate.

Ulyana patted her gently on the back. “You’ve been through a lot. It’s okay to cry.”

“I’ve done nothing but cry.” Elena said bitterly.

“Sometimes it’s all you can do.” Ulyana’s voice was gentle, soothing, and low, she was speaking privately, so only Elena could hear her. A soft cooing. “When you are hurt so deep and so bad that you can’t possibly find the spot that’s bleeding. You feel empty and at the same time you feel so, so heavy. Drinking won’t help; believe me, I’ve tried. It was always the crying that felt the healthiest. You can move on from a good cry– it feels like a reset, even a temporary one.”

“I’m sorry about everything Captain. It was all my fault.” Elena said suddenly.

Not just Bethany, who sacrificed herself because of how helpless she was–

Not just the communists whom she lied to and endangered–

Norn and Gertrude had been dragged into the horrible theater of Elena’s life too.

And she might never even see Gertrude again. She had pushed her so far, hurt her so badly.

Was Gertrude out in the ocean, aimless, heartbroken, her own eyes silently weeping too?

“Everything went the worst way it could have. Because I’m so stupid and useless.”

“You’re alive. And as far as we know, she’s alive too. Despite everything that happened.”

Elena hung her head in shame, tears trailing down her cheeks and onto the counter.

Ulyana continued to rub and pat down her back while Elena cried. Elena didn’t mind it.

“I’m not about to have sympathy for that Inquisitor.” She said. “But it is the absolute truth that if you care for her, these events could have turned out far worse. You two are still alive, and you might meet again. Hopefully not aboard this ship though. I, personally, will be doing my best never to see Norn’s psychotic grin, or the Inquisitor’s friendless, pent-up mug ever again.”

She retracted her hand and crossed both her arms over her chest.

“I suppose so.” Elena said. She was starting to come down from the sudden spiral.

There was a moment of silence. Ulyana seemed to be thinking of what to say next.

“Okay– Elena. It still feels surreal to be speaking to an Imperial Princess, but I just want to say that I respect your wishes. So long as you don’t hold any pretensions toward reclaiming your throne, you are welcome to stay. You are Elena Lettiere, and not a Princess, nor a Republic analyst– just a civilian in our care. Right now, I believe strongly that you’ve been a victim of these events as much as us. History transpired in the Empire that none of us can be held to account for; but Marina did bring you here under false pretenses, and we will need to hold her responsible.”

Elena nodded her head. “I hope you won’t treat her roughly. She’s been through a lot.”

She was still a bit angry with Marina, deep inside. Resentful for everything that happened.

It was childish. And she would have to come to terms with it sometime soon.

Still, she could not deny it. Marina was the visible face of all that had gone wrong.

She was also the only person Elena really had left. Elena didn’t want her to die as well.

Her emotions were complex enough she could neither condemn nor defend her now.

Ulyana spoke like she understood. Her voice, both firm and gentle– Elena really liked it.

“We know. We’ll be fair; but she needs to come clean. We can’t trust her otherwise. We’re running a military operation here. I just want you to be ready for us to potentially have to isolate or punish Marina. She’s not your boss or your protector anymore. You’re a civilian and she’s not. We’re going to treat you two differently, and I want you to stay out of whatever happens to her.”

“I understand. I will trust you Captain. You’re– you’re a very good person. All of you are.”

Elena couldn’t stare her directly in the eyes. She still felt too badly about everything.

Ulyana reached out a hand over Elena’s and squeezed her fingers gently, comfortingly.

“We’re just doing our best to represent the communist spirit.” She said, with a bright smile.

For most of that night, the brig had been quiet. Each of the solitary confinement cells was locked in fully soundproof mode, but Illya and Valeriya had been informed to be careful of breakouts, particularly from the cells assigned to Euphrates, Tigris, and Arbitrator One, all of whom would be held until their interrogations tomorrow. They were unknown quantities, and at least Arbitrator I had exhibited strange abilities that might have enabled her to make an escape.

Nobody seemed interested in escaping, however.

Eventually, Illya and Valeriya left the brig. They were scheduled to switch places with Klara van Der Smidze and Zhu Lian for the midnight shift. Those two were running late– but Valeriya and Illya worked on their own schedules. They were punctual, accurate to the second, a habit from their past. They would not wait for anyone who was not as attentive as themselves. So for a moment, the brig was left unguarded. Not that the two of them knew it, but it was by design.

A design not of any malicious entity but one curious Shimii who had spoken to the girls.

Khadija al-Shajara entered the empty brig and tampered with the rightmost cell.

From the control panel, she set the cell to one-way soundproof.

That meant the prisoner couldn’t hear the outside, but she could hear the inside of the cell.

And the prisoner in question was Sieglinde von Castille.

Khadija put her back to the cell door and stood for a few minutes.

Through the audio outputs on the door, she could hear the Red Baron’s quiet breathing.

She her fingers through her golden hair, waiting. She felt her own heartbeat, accelerating.

“This is so stupid.” She sighed to herself.

What was she hoping to hear? What was she thinking she might see? Ever since she stared into the Red Baron’s eyes she had felt a widening hole in her heart. Khadija was an old woman, an old woman with a past that stretched long behind her like a trailing bloodstain. The Red Baron was another old woman, almost as old as her. But she shouldn’t have been– this was Khadija’s demon to slay, the demon with whom she would bury her painful past. Killing this demon should have avenged all of those who died in the revolution, closed shut the wound from the past. Expiated for the inconclusiveness of that war, the hardships that followed, and begun a brand new chapter.

The Lion of Cascabel did not kill the empire’s Red Baron, however.

When she heard that regretful voice and saw those tear-stained mournful eyes.

She saw herself– and she couldn’t take it. She couldn’t accept that.

So now she was here. Looking for something. She did not even know what it was.

Did she hope to hear the Red Baron gnashing her teeth? Cursing them? Plotting vengeance?

She was probably asleep. It was late. There was probably nothing to hear now.

Yet– she waited. She waited, irrationally, in the silence, for minutes on, and–

“I’m so stupid. So completely, hopelessly stupid.”

–and heard something serendipitous.

It wasn’t her own voice airing this familiar sentiment–

Khadija turned suddenly to face the door. There was another voice coming from it.

Quickly, she put her back to it again. Her fluffy golden-brown ear up against the speakers.

Sobbing.

A blunt metallic sound, a strike on the wall. She could imagine Sieglinde punching it.

“I’ve been such a child. Thirty-eight years old– I’ve wasted so much time. An entire life.”

Thirty-eight– was she eighteen years old when they fought? She was just a kid–

Khadija was twenty-two years old back then. She hardly ever wanted to acknowledge it.

Were her own twenty years since then wasted? No–

Sieglinde let out a cry of anguish that shook through Khadija’s chest.

“Twenty years since and every day I told myself, nothing will change! You can’t possibly even regret it! You can’t do anything! And that girl– you useless idiot, you have less courage, less heart, than that poor defenseless girl! She turned her back on the throne of Imbria! What are you doing? You can’t acknowledge the evils you’ve done? You couldn’t for twenty years? Twenty years a murderer, a killer, and telling yourself you knew what justice truly was? You bastard!”

She screamed at the top of her lungs. Bastard. Monster. Killer.

Stop it. You were just a fucking kid.

Some part of Khadija wanted so badly to talk down to her like she was still a child–

But this was still the Red Baron and that seed of hate was still burning in her too.

Part of her hated this spate of self-pity. Part of her did say ‘how dare you?’ How could you even pretend for a second that you were hurt in any way by this? That your wretched soul mattered even for a second compared to the lives you took? Some part of Khadija wanted to rip open that cell and choke Sieglinde von Castille to death. To inflict the ultimate punishment for her crimes twenty years past. Sieglinde von Castille, you killed men and women who were fighting for their freedom. Cloaked in blue, green and white of the Empire, you fought to spread its oppression! How dare you recognize that just now?

However–

Who could blame her for thinking this way? She was being used; and she knew that now.

She learned the hollowness and hypocrisy of her ideals — and it filled her with self hatred.

Khadija felt ashamed of herself. Because she shouldn’t have been hearing this anyway.

Whatever happened next– this was not necessarily the person that Sieglinde wanted to present to anyone in public. Khadija was peering into her heart and private thoughts without permission. It was dirty, it was unfair to her. But she couldn’t tear herself away from that door. Not when her own eyes started weeping and she wanted them to stop. Not when she wanted to hate Sieglinde von Castille and lay all of the sins of the Empire upon her so she could crush them like her own little revolution.

“Twenty years– I’ve spent twenty years running. Running from the evil I caused.”

Khadija felt a strike against the door. She heard an anguished grunt.

She thought she saw for a brief moment– thought that she felt something, behind her–

The Red Baron, back to back with her. Her and the Lion of Cascabel.

Separated by opposite sides of that prison door. Unable to communicate.

“I almost destroyed these people, who fought so righteously, who saved her in the end. I supported cretins like Norn von Fueller and Gertrude Lichtenberg in their evil ambitions. I was part of it all.”

“Shut up.” Khadija mumbled. “Just saying that won’t change anything, you coward.”

Sieglinde paused for a moment. She recovered her breath– but then sniffled again.

“I’ve spent twenty years on the wrong side. Now– now I’m on the wrong side of this door.”

She broke down crying again. Khadija lifted a hand over her face, covering her own eyes.

“Stop beating yourself up. Do something! Do something if you’re so broken up about it!”

Khadija clenched her teeth. That anchor tying her to the past felt heavier and heavier.

She hated this. She hated herself for hearing this. She hated Sieglinde for feeling this way. For feeling, at all. For not playing the faceless demon to Khadija’s golden heroine. That miserable old story of vile monsters and grand heroes– no matter how much Khadija wanted to believe it–

She knew it wouldn’t be right, it wouldn’t be just, because Sieglinde was not just a demon.

Both of them were just old women whose stories should have ended if stories had their say.

Sieglinde should have given way to the young heroes who would kill her and cleanse her sins–

Khadija should have given way (in death) to the young heroes to take up her vengeance–

Did Khadija have any right to demand that the story of Sieglinde von Castille cease being written? When she had declared so adamantly that her own story was not yet over? Could she look this woman in those mournful eyes and say, that she had no future, that her life didn’t matter? That nothing she did, no convictions she ever held, would ever be genuine, would ever be worthy, because of that bloody chain around their legs dragged from twenty years past? Could she tell her that nothing could ever change?

Right then– she couldn’t say anything. All she could do was weep along with Sieglinde.

“Why can’t I hate you?” Khadija mumbled to herself. Banging her own fist on the door.

Walking. Alone. Step by step over the dust.

Dust of people, places, memories, emotions, whole civilizations.

Walking over the dust, alone.

Her trail of color, the impression, the shadow, that she left upon the world, wherever she went.

Every place where she ever tread. If she tread enough, there would be a mark left.

Every person who saw her, whom she saw. There would be a mark left on them.

In time they would all return to the dust.

So she could not remain. She could not interfere. She could not be responsible.

She would not let herself. For their sake (for her sake).

“The burden of being only a witness is greater than you all know or understand.”

So she walked. She walked alone over the dust of ages. Even while accompanied: alone.

You are not here to save anyone.

“If I played the hero everything would be infinitely worse.”

Those would be the actions of someone taking responsibility

On her chest formed a tiny crack, as if she was a doll made of glass.

“Everything I’ve done is to take responsibility, everything.”

I made the same mistake that you made with—

Crack.

From the wound in her blew dust that reconstituted itself in a great wave of color in front of her eyes. Becoming a smiling woman, hands in her coat pockets, tall and sure, honeyed skin and lacquered eyes, dark hair tied up in a long ponytail. She reached out her hand invitingly, with a warmth like the sun.

I will walk alongside you. I will take up your burden.

I didn’t want responsibility for the world.

“That’s an utter mischaracterization. You don’t know anything about me.”

Crack.

Again the dust bleeding out of her heart blew into a cloud that swept before her. Becoming a woman, tan skin and fierce eyes, bright red hair, in a dirty coat, surrounded by machines and instruments. She reached out her hand, with a bold fire like youth, a frenetic strength that lifted her out of the grave and a smug, assured grin. She could feel that touch, the comfort, the desire, the certainty of a partnership.

I will go wherever you do. I will be your inseparable confidante.

Feelings that she had to force herself to reject.

You are here– to defray responsibility.

“Stop it. You– you don’t get to say that to me.”

Crack.

Her chest peeled away shard by shard, shattering in a slow sequence from her breasts to her stomach.

Each shard became dust, the dust of dead things left behind.

If not dead materially then dead inside her, dead of neglect where she left them.

From the dust formed a figure, grey-skinned and white haired with brilliant red eyes. Her skin lightened, her hair turned golden, and from shabby rags she changed before her eyes, shimmering like a gemstone, crust polished off of her in real time by the dancing color until she stood how she had last been seen.

Euphrates reached out her hand to her, and she made the same mistake.

“Come with me.” She said. “You have the power to avert this tragedy. I’m sure of it.”

That innocent woman took her hand, and it felt like regret, mourning, lies of providence.

As that memory became dust, the last of Euphrates’ body shattered. She, too, finally joined the dust.

—while you pretend to be the hero in the final accounting.

It could only have been her who shattered Euphrates. No one else could hurt so deeply.

But the shadow of her would not stop. No matter how many times she met with destruction.

Everything around her crumbled but–

Her own pieces inexorably picked themselves together.

Continuing her eternal march.

Walking.

Alone.

Because she had to be.

Step by grueling step on legs of glass, trudging through ever thicker dunes of the dust.

Just as she felt like falling to her knees amid the dust of ages in the plain of oblivion–

All of us are drawn together by a current, Euphrates. We’ll be destined to meet again.

With the voice, a different voice than before, reverberating in the hollow of her frail chest.

Euphrates stood unsteadily atop the dust and walked.

Step by step over the dust. Alone.

Then farther ahead, collecting in a front of her like the next dune to climb–

Auburn eyes, dark hair cut messily above the shoulder, a handsome face with the smoldering gaze of a woman with singular ambition, dark skinned, proletarian and boyish in manner but carried by a resplendant elegance in her speech. Guarded by two rapidly fading shadows, her touch feeling like weapons, bursts of gas, blood in the water and thousands upon thousands of deaths.

I really don’t know what to say. Or what to feel, right now. Thank you, Doctor.

She smiled.

Euphrates’ legs gave again. Kneeling with her head down in front of her.

Her voice shook out of a throat of shattering glass. “I don’t want to fail you too.”

Commissar Aaliyah Bashara breathed in deep and released that held breath audibly.

At the head of the table in the conference room next to the brig, seated beside the Captain. Both of them looked like they were exhausted just contemplating what lay ahead of them. There were seats reserved at the end of the conference table for the various suspects. Illya Rostova and Valeriya Peterburg stood at the far wall of the room with their assault rifles loaded with safeties off. Akulantova had assured the Captain and Commissar that those two young women were her very own “monsters” should they need to put down any aggression of their untrustworthy captives. Both of them were professional and lethal.

“I’m a peace-loving maiden with nonlethal training. Those two are real killers.” Akulantova said.

Ahead of the start of the meetings a few ‘stakeholders’ were also assembled.

Braya Zachikova and Murati Nakara sat in attendance, representing the bridge crew and the Diver pilots. Gunther Cohen was there to represent the mechanics and engineers. All of them were sworn to keep secret anything which was deemed classified, and they were all trusted to be able to do so on the pain of permanent incarceration until the end of the mission. It was a serious matter, this conference.

They had a lot of people to interrogate and many questions to pose to them.

“This is going to take us a while, so we’re going to start from the least complicated issue and work our way up to the most complicated issues. Illya and Valeriya, please escort in Marina McKennedy and sit her on the table. Zachikova, you’ll handle the official record of the meetings.”

Zachikova nodded. She plugged in a portable terminal into her tall, gray ear antennae.

She had the advantage of being able to take down notes by just thinking about it.

Illya and Valeriya escorted into the room a sedate and uncharacteristically cooperative Marina.

She sat at the end of the table, crossed her arms, sighed heavily.

“You don’t need to coerce me. I’ll come clean.” She held the Captain’s gaze.

Ulyana scoffed. “Fantastic. How is this conversation any different from the past ones?”

Marina let out a long sigh.

“You found me out already, that’s why. Look, yes, Elena von Fueller was on your fucking ship, I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I lied to you, but do you understand why I had to do it? How could I possibly have just told you that I am bringing Imperial Princess Elena von Fueller aboard? You have her aboard now, you must understand how different that is from having ‘Elen the analyst’?”

“As a matter of fact, no, Marina.” Aaliyah entered the fray. “On this ship, that girl is just a civilian. She commands no authority, and nobody here expects her titles to be fungible in any way. What did you think we would do to her? You could have just introduced her as a G.I.A. asset.”

“You’re fucking communists! One of your things is ‘eat the rich’ isn’t it?” Marina said.

“You really, honestly thought we would immediately persecute some kid, like that would be our most pressing concern?” Ulyana asked. “What does the Republic teach agents about communism?”

“The fact of the matter is, you lied to us, and we were unable to properly assess our security concerns because of it. Not only that, but you also had a tail and refused to acknowledge it.”

Aaliyah interjected again. Marina was already raising her voice again in response.

“I did not fucking know I had a tail! I had no fucking idea! I swear to you, I was not using you guys to fight Norn and Lichtenberg! I thought I had gotten away clean! I did everything I could to avoid suspicion, I dismantled an entire GIA cell to make my escape, to make sure I couldn’t be pursued, I gave up an entire mission and all of its resources to give Elena this chance to be free. I did everything I could!”

“Marina, we have always wanted to believe you, but you really burned us this time. So it is difficult for us to trust anything you say now, and it is difficult for us to trust your motivations here.” Ulyana said.

“My only motivation is that I want that girl to be safe.” Marina said.

“What’s your relation to Elena?” Aaliyah asked. “This is clearly personal for you, not a mission.”

This time, Marina did not try to deflect attention or change the subject.

She took a deep breath, held a hand over the closed buttons on her shirt, over her breast.

Speaking as if she had thought for a long time what she would say in order to come clean.

“Over twenty years ago, I was sent into the Imbrium by the G.I.A. on a mission to gather information on the security of the Emperor, to see if it was viable to assassinate him or anyone key in his regime. We told ourselves this would help achieve military victory in the Great Ayre Reach. This was in the lead-up to, what, the 30th? 31st? Some campaign for the Great Ayre Reach. It doesn’t even matter which.”

She continued.

“You all know how history shook out from there. The colonies rebelled en masse, the Republic attacked, there was a war on two fronts, the Empire retreated from both of them, but the Emperor wasn’t assassinated, the Republic didn’t break through to occupy Rhinea or Palatine to end the war– maybe the only good outcome of all this was that the Union got to stick around until now. It was a big, bloody stalemate. I failed– but the part that you don’t know is that I was involved with Leda Lettiere, the Emperor’s prized new wife, and her entourage. I was– I was intimately involved. I turned her–”

“Oh my god. Marina–” Ulyana interrupted suddenly. “Are you Elena’s real father?”

Aaliyah turned to Ulyana at that moment with a glare like the Captain had gone insane.

Indeed, Ulyana had made a very silly misreading of all the lurid drama and tension.

She felt, and looked, instantly embarrassed. Marina was speechless for a moment.

“What? Are you insane? Of course I’m not! What are you even saying, Korabiskaya?”

“I apologize.” Ulyana said. “I jumped the gun. Please go on and forget I said anything.”

“Fuck’s sake. I’m not her father! But I care deeply about her! She’s innocent in all this!”

“Lettiere– so that’s why Elena chose that surname.” Aaliyah said. “Honoring her mother.”

“We know the Emperor’s wife from that time period as Leda von Fueller.” Ulyana said. She recalled her history readings. “She’s a fairly minor figure in our history. We knew she was purged by the Emperor, and of course we knew there was a Princess Elena von Fueller. But in the Union, all of the events surrounding her death, like the storming of the summer palace at Schwerin, were cast in our narratives as just part of the Emperor’s brutal paranoia stoked by ongoing wars. We had no idea there was a real conspiracy.”

Marina nodded her head. She took a moment to collect herself, and resumed calmly.

“He had concrete reason to be afraid of her. We were this close to having his head and sending the Empire into chaos. Unfortunately, an impassable wall named Norn Tauscherer ended our ambitions. Konstantin was heartbroken about Leda’s betrayal.” Marina said. “I still don’t know why he killed Leda– he was obsessed with her. I know what he did to me, though.” She clenched her teeth.

“You don’t have to disclose any further. We can fill in the blanks.” Aaliyah said.

“Thank you for telling us all of this, Marina.” Ulyana said. “We will take a step closer to the middle with you and believe you, though we don’t have evidence of what you are saying. Can you tell us about current events, however? Aaliyah gathered information about Vogelheim and the disappearance of the princess while we were in Serrano. Those things didn’t matter to us then, but now– I want to know how you were involved. You don’t need to go into any… compromising, sort of details.”

“I was imprisoned for years– shoved in the darkest fucking pit of hell since Leda’s capture. The Empire’s hole in the ground where people go to be erased from existence, called the Ergastulum.” Marina said. She quivered a bit but mastered herself. “Time passes differently there. I couldn’t tell you whether I was there a year or thirty until my escape. I feel like I still don’t know. It had to be at least eighteen years.”

Aaliyah and Ulyana glanced at each other. They had heard something unbelievably grim.

Marina paused again, grinning a bit. “But I got lucky– it was a little over a year ago, a bunch of Bureni nationalists got bailed out. Some terrorist named Ganges staged it, she did a fucking brutal jailbreak. Really skilled Katarran mercs– they just razed everything. Killed every single guard, all the staff, even the fucking clerks got pulped. I saw them– door to door, room to room, they cleared everything methodically, they made Republic special forces look like a joke. Yours too, probably.”

Illya Rostova rolled her eyes behind Marina’s back, while Valeriya Peterburg growled.

“They came for specific guys and took them, but they opened all the cells, and there were guard ships still docked, untouched. I managed to crawl out of my cell and make my way to a ship. Most prisoners’ bodies in the Ergastulum are fucking destroyed, almost all the cells were full of zombies, there was no rioting, almost nobody could take advantage. I was scarred up to hell, and we barely got fed, but I always laid low and conserved all the strength I could. So I was alive enough to escape. Autopiloted out, ate salt pork that tasted like heaven, slowly started being able to hit the gym, and found my way back to the G.I.A in the Imbrium. Laid low for a few months, caught up with what I missed. Then I rescued Elena.”

Ulyana assumed a lot happened during all that laying low.

Like several gender affirming surgeries– possibly her entire body needing such repairs.

That was not something she would ever demand to know about, however.

In her mind, Marina had spun a satisfactory story. More than she had ever said before.

Aaliyah and Ulyana looked at each other, gauging their collective satisfaction with Marina.

“Captain.” Aaliyah said. She smiled toward Marina and then nodded toward Ulyana.

“Right. Thank you for being candid, Agent McKennedy. We hope to continue cooperating with you in the future.” Ulyana said. She smiled too. “Hopefully you won’t think ill of us for this situation.”

“No, I get it. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have had to go through all this shit.”

Marina held a hand to her chest again and breathed in and breathed out.

“It was kind of good to finally tell someone some version of what happened.” She said.

“Whenever you’re ready to give a full account, we’ll be ready to record it.” Ulyana said.

“I’m trying not to live in the past so much.” Marina said. “Our future is looking rough.”

“We’ll tackle it with all of our skills, as it comes. Thank you, Marina McKennedy.”

Marina nodded toward the Captain and Commissar. Illya and Valeriya escorted her out.

“I have no hope for this next one.” Ulyana said to Aaliyah only. Aaliyah nodded solemnly.

“Bring Arbitrator I in next. Let’s get this over with.” She then declared to the room.

When Illya and Valeriya returned, they accompanied a lively woman, bloodless white skin covered in a robe only slightly darker, long red hair with white streaks flowing in her wake as she skipped into the room. Her thick tail trailed along the floor, white and mottled with four soft-looking wing-like paddles arranged at the distal end. Ulyana recalled that there had once been a spot on the side of her head where her hair was a bit thinner, perhaps a wound. Now her overlong locks were the same all around, falling over her shoulders when she stood at her end of the table like long sheets. Across the striking features of her exotic white face stretched a big smile– and her eyes were still the exact green color as Ulyana’s.

“One moment please, Captain.” Zachikova said.

She stood up from her seat on the side of the table and ambled over to Arbitrator I.

“Braya! I’m so happy to see you! I’ve been very polite. Is this a reward for me?”

Zachikova reached into her jacket and produced an object.

She then reached up to the taller woman’s neck and clapped something around it.

“Zachikova? What are you doing?” Ulyana called out.

“I’m taking control of her. You have nothing to worry about now, Captain.”

Turning around to the rest of the group, Zachikova showed them a remote detonator.

With a smug little grin on her face, she pointed the index finger of her free hand to Arbitrator I’s neck, which had been adorned with a black choker that stood out from the extremely pale skin. Upon that choker were a trail of LEDs and four thumbprint sized sockets each containing a shiny red object. Not gemstones, nobody had any gemstones here– it was just meant to look pretty while Arbitrator I wore it.

Ulyana couldn’t knock the craftsmanship, but it was clearly a bomb collar. She was shocked.

The Electronic Warfare officer kept pointing at it with that same quiet, self-satisfied expression.

As if to say ‘check it out, isn’t it cool’?

Murati and Gunther did not seem to understand, but the superiors knew immediately.

“Zachikova! That’s beyond the pale! I forbid this in the strongest terms!” Ulyana shouted.

Bomb collars were torture and control devices.

Beads of explosive material around the neck could cause precise lacerations, choking and bleeding out the victim. It would not be a humane death by any means as the brain would remain intact. This is what made the collar an effective threat to the victim. Once the circumstances were explained to them, they would almost assuredly buckle to their captor’s desires. As a former member of the special forces, Zachikova had surely been trained in the manufacture and use of such devices to control and coerce captives and untrustworthy assets. However, this was not a lawless “special operation” — Ulyana would not tolerate the use of such tactics on her ship. She stood up, demanding that the collar come off.

Meanwhile–

Arbitrator I smiled placidly. She raised her hand to her neck, briefly touching the object.

Then, on the finger and thumb she used, the white skin bloated and peeled back.

Everyone in attendance stared, speechless, as what were clearly two eyes appeared on her fingers.

These melted back into the skin almost as quickly as they had blossomed from it.

“Braya! It’s so beautiful! Thank you for the gift! I knew that you still loved me!”

Zachikova blinked hard, briefly speechless. She looked down at the detonator and tensed.

For the threat to be effective, she had to explain–

“Arbitrator I, if you make one wrong move, with a push of this button–”

Arbitrator I’s disarming smile, as she hung on every word Zachikova spoke–

“–ugh,” Zachikova had to pause and collect herself. “Listen, you– just, do what I say!”

She waved the detonator helplessly in front of Arbitrator I’s face as a vague gesticulation.

Ulyana stared, uncomprehending. What kind of relationship did these two have?

“Oh! I understand. It’s a form of play. You’re the master and I am the slave.”

“Shut up! I’ll blow your head clean off your neck! Shut up right now!”

What kind of relationship did these two have?!

“Ya Allah!” Aaliyah shouted, completely red in the face, ears and tail outstretched. “This is an interrogation not some raunchy kink thread on a BBS! Captain, get the meeting back in order immediately!”

“Me? You’re yelling at me?” Ulyana sighed. She was afraid this would happen.

Trying desperately to take control of the situation again, Ulyana brushed aside the issue of the bomb collar, which, while it bothered her personally, did not seem to trouble its intended victim in any way. Despite how foolish she was acting, Zachikova seemed like she was not going to send geysers of blood flying across the room either. She focused on Arbitrator I and started asking questions.

“Forget the rest of this! Your name is Arbitrator One correct?”

Arbitrator I turned her bright, smiling face on Ulyana and acknowledged.

“Indeed. You can call me Arbitrator I of the First Sphere.”

Ulyana stared at her, trying to appraise anything from her bright, smiling face.

“Not to belittle you, but I need to understand the depth of your current faculties: how much do you know about the present situation? Do you know you’re in Sverland, in the Imbrian Empire? Do you know what the Labor Union of Ferris, Lyser and Solstice is? Hell, do you even know what year it is?”

Arbitrator I put a pale finger on her chin and gazed up at the ceiling in thought.

“How to explain it? On the whole, I should know. But I need time to recall the specifics in detail.”

Ulyana sat back and crossed her arms.

“So, to make it simple, you don’t know where you really are or what’s going on.”

“At this precise moment, there are gaps in my understanding that are hard to explain.”

This was exactly the sort of behavior she worried about. In her mind, this person was certainly different than them, and she certainly exhibited some odd abilities — the fantasy nerd in Ulyana’s heart wanted to call it magic, but the responsible Captain in her mind did not allow this. Her ability to change her body was frightening, and that miracle she pulled off with the Leviathans– ordinary people not running on a crushing high of anxiety and caffeine might have panicked and broken down at the sight of such things.

However, Ulyana tried to take a step back and see things as rationally as possible despite everything. It did not matter what Arbitrator I’s capabilities were, not at the moment. It was her behaviors that were suspicious. Anyone could say they were an amnesiac, that they were from a vastly different culture, that they were ignorant of what they were doing and what was happening, whenever it was convenient. But when confronted with that, how did one believe it? How did one confirm it to be the actual truth?

Arbitrator I had appeared out of nowhere, and she had saved their lives from a catastrophic situation. She had dutifully remained in the brig without causing problems overnight. She seemed to wait on “Braya” to the point of obsession. She had a whimsical or idiotic response to everything said to her. What was her angle? She was cooperating, but what she did want? What were her motives and goals? Those were issues they had to resolve in order to secure the Brigand’s operational security going forward.

It was clear that the issue of who Arbitrator I was would be complicated and fruitless.

However–

“Amnesia aside: why are you cooperating with us? Is there something you desire?”

“Of course.”

Arbitrator I leaned in close to Zachikova, who nearly jumped from the touch.

“I would like to court Braya and to breed with her if she will allow it.”

Her words hung in the air for a few seconds. Ulyana could scarcely believe they were said.

Illya snickered, while Valeriya’s eyes wondered over to Illya as if she had something to say.

Gunther Cohen turned red and looked down at the table. Murati Nakara stared speechless.

“I’m going to push the button!” Zachikova shouted.

“Captain! Stop provoking her to say such things!” Aaliyah joined in the shouting.

Ulyana despaired. She thought this interrogation could be easy to get out of the way if they could reach some kind of agreement with Arbitrator I, some sort of conditions to her stay until they could divine her intentions. But it was clear that Arbitrator I was completely insane, or that she was playing dumb in a way which was uniquely disruptive to the people that were interrogating her. Whether it was stupidity or malice behind it, she was derailing everything quite effectively. Honestly; everyone was so immature.

“You’re all adults aren’t you? Just let the suspect speak already!” Ulyana shouted back.

“Oh, I apologize.” Arbitrator I said. She waved her hand, giggling. “I was– I was joking.”

“You weren’t joking! Don’t lie!” Zachikova shouted. “Answer the questions productively!”

“Oh my– Braya are you jealous again?”

“Do you realize I’m trying to keep you from being launched out of a fucking torpedo tube?”

“Oh goodness– I’m quite sorry. I just got a little eager when I thought about us.”

“For god’s sake. Arbitrator I– what is an Omenseer?” Ulyana shouted over them.

She recalled the conversation yesterday, digging in her memory for something concrete.

Silence fell over the room for a moment. Everyone’s eyes turned to Arbitrator I.

“Omenseers are a culture.” Arbitrator I said. “An ancient culture, though, I would say, its present expression is just sort of a facsimile of its true history. But, isn’t your civilization, also a facsimile of the ones that came before? At any rate– I am a relatively new member of the Omenseer culture.”

“How ancient are they, and how relatively new are you?”

Ulyana was finally getting her talking about something useful now. She pressed on.

“Hmm, the original mystery culture should be many thousands of years old, I think. However, the society that I belong to is significantly younger than that. As for my self, give or take 900 years I suppose.”

“Nine hundred?”

All around the room there were blank, staring faces. Clearly nobody could believe this.

“Hmm? You all look confused.” Arbitrator I said, furrowing her brow and frowning at the silent responses. “There was a world before your current civilizations, you know. I can’t recall much of it– but do you think 900 years is such an impossibly long time? Was the world made out of whole cloth 900 years ago? Obviously not– you are all facsimiles of that world, aren’t you? So you should understand.”

“I wouldn’t call us facsimiles of the surface world at all.” Ulyana said. “That is beside the point though. What we really can’t accept is that you, as a living being, are over 900 years old and still alive.”

“I apologize. I might be communicating ineffectively. You see, this body is not 900 years old, if that is the question you are asking. I suppose that when you refer to yourself, you refer to your current body exclusively. With that in mind, let’s say this: the totality of myself, all the experiences and knowledge that could potentially be called ‘Arbitrator I’, are over 900 years old together. Maybe older– but this body is far fresher than that. Let’s set it as a nice, spry, 22 years of age. How does that sound?”

“Right.” Ulyana said skeptically. “And yesterday, you said you were USL-0099.”

“Hmm?” Arbitrator I tilted her head in confusion.

“The Leviathan. The Leviathan outside, that withstood a mortal blow to save us.”

She was trying to word things in such a way as to universalize the specifics.

Arbitrator I nodded. “Oh, yes. That was my body for a long time. It is because of both the circumstances of its creation and destruction that I am having some difficulty remembering all that I should.”

“Whether or not you are a fish aside, you are indeed claiming amnesia?” Aaliyah said.

“Let me try to explain. You asked me what I know about the current world. I can speak, and I know many of the basic concepts which I need to know in order to interact with Hominins such as all of you, and I know enough to survive. That kind of knowledge is stored in my body. However, my old body was destroyed so I lost a lot of information with it. I still have a substantial amount of information that I can recall, in this body, because that is part of its function, as Arbitrator I. However, at the moment, it’s only contained in my body. It is not available for my immediate recall. It’s not been brought up here.”

She tapped on the side of her head. “To bring it here would be a bit of a project. Given time, I could do so. In fact, I’ve already remembered many things about being like a hominin and acting like hominins do. Give me time to acclimate, and I’ll do a better job answering questions with the information I have.”

Ulyana thought she understood in some way how this could work. Kind of like–

“Like interaction between RAM and storage.” Zachikova said suddenly, as if an epiphany.

She gestured in the air drawing two boxes– maybe to represent the different chips.

“With all due respect, that’s bunk.” Aaliyah said, scoffing and clearly frustrated. “In fact, it’s chauvinistic to think human brains act like computers. Even your cybernetics are more complicated than a computer.”

“Her body might be an organic computer. She’s clearly different from us.” Zachikova said.

“It’s far easier to believe that this woman is either putting on an act, or if we take her at her word, that she has some kind of amnesia or mental instability and needs to reacclimate to society.”

“I’m not saying this from out of nowhere.” Zachikova said. “I’m not just making it up.”

“Aaah, Braya is appraising me. I can feel the warmth of her curiosity in the aether.”

Zachikova fixed her a glare and brought up the detonator again. Arbitrator I smiled.

“Captain. It’s time I told my own version of events. That might help.” Zachikova said.

She drew in a breath, her hands shaking. She looked nervous to be speaking about this.

And indeed, she sounded nervous, as she told the story.

During the battle with the Antenora, the Leviathan USL-0099 had interfered with Norn’s unknown agarthic weapon, sparing the Brigand from certain annihilation. Zachikova had felt some attachment to the creature and collected its body in a swirl of emotions and brought it aboard the ship without permission. Then she met Arbitrator I in the animal’s remains; with whom, Zachikova stated in no uncertain terms, ‘nothing happened’ in the utility hold for the drones. She took her to the captain right away.

“I’ve been flustered by her erratic behavior, because I’m not used to dealing with her– her interest in me.” Zachikova admitted. Her emotions were clearly on the rise as she told the story, and she was feeling the pressure of telling it, but she passionately continued to lay out her case. “And frankly, I am afraid that you will all try to hurt her or get rid of her for being strange– but she’s very valuable! Arbitrator I was USL-0099 that we had under observation. Because of this, I think that if we work with her, it might even let us prove the theory that Leviathans are man-made, biological machines. Also, wouldn’t it be convenient for us militarily if she can protect us from Leviathan attacks, and it wasn’t a fluke? We could go anywhere! I would like to request to continue USL-0099’s observation, personally, and that she remain a subject of study. I can take responsibility for her– it’s not necessary to involve Maharapratham.”

“I have to object. Karuniya will definitely want to be involved in this.” Murati added.

Zachikova looked annoyed to be argued with at the end of her long, impassioned speech.

“She will have to be. But clearly Arbitrator I and Zachikova have an– um– a rapport.”

Ulyana prevented herself from uttering words like tryst or in this volatile situation.

As they were speaking, the captain had come up with what she thought was a clever idea.

“Arbitrator I, imagine you lived in a world where Zachikova did not exist, but you still saved us. In such a world, what would your role be? What would you want from us?” She said.

Arbitrator I looked up at the ceiling again, crossing her arms.

“Fish don’t conceptualize a lot, so I’m a bit rusty when it comes to imagining different worlds– however, in such a case, I believe that we would abide by the ancient oaths between Omenseer and Hominin. In exchange for protein, shelter, and protection from other Hominins, I will help you navigate and act as a guardian for your journey. I will read the omens and guide you to safety, whatever your destination. In the current era, I can help you ward off the poor lost souls so you can navigate the sunlit seas.”

Read the omens– warding off lost souls in the sunlit seas–

“Like you did before. You scared off those Leviathans from attacking us.” Ulyana said.

“Indeed. I even said it in a really impressive way. Like a magic spell.” Arbitrator I said.

She looked happy with herself. Maybe she really was mostly harmless.     

“Zachikova, Arbitrator I can bunk with you then. We’ll get her a uniform.” Ulyana said.

She turned to Aaliyah. The Commissar crossed her arms and sighed audibly, ears drooping.

“I see no other solution to this. No humane one, anyway. I will support the Captain.”

Zachikova clearly tried not to look relieved– but her body language became far less tense.

Ulyana was satisfied. Somehow they had managed to get something out of Arbitrator I.

As sloppy as it had been, the interrogation had yielded some insights and stability.

“Arbitrator I, I have a few final questions for you, if you can answer briefly.”

“Of course, captain!” Arbitrator I said happily.

Zachikova stared but said nothing. Was she being overprotective? It was kind of cute.

“Dagon belongs to the Omenseers too, doesn’t it? What is its purpose?” Ulyana asked.

“Dagon is a warship.” Arbitator I said casually. “Its purpose is to kill and destroy.”

“Omenseer is a really fitting name for the lot of you.” Ulyana said. She felt a headache coming after all this mess. “Should we be worried about this thing roaming around the world? What do Omenseers other than yourself want? They just came out of Goryk Abyss all of sudden and swooped in on us.”

“Hmm. What do they want? Some of them can’t really want anything.” Arbitrator I said. “Others are following their leader and acquiring proteins. And others still are wild and free and living according to the ancient ways. At the moment, I am not able to judge the purpose of Dagon’s appearance, but the creature is also a facsimile of a preceding warship, and that Dagon was quite cruel and destructive.”

“I see. Very well. I suppose we can come back to that at a later date then.”

Ulyana was left with many more questions, but she judged that Arbitrator I was not a threat.

Had she wanted to sabotage them and kill them, she would have let Dagon do it.

It seemed like she really was interested in Zachikova.

So Ulyana would leave her in Zachikova’s hands and take advantage of her skills.

As far as Dagon was concerned– there was nothing they could do about it right now.

“Final question. Can you explain your abilities to me?” Ulyana asked.

“It’s called Omenseeing. It’s where we get our name.” Arbitrator I said. “It is an ancient calculation, learned from the great trees, that turns my will into truth. I used it to communicate with the Leviathans. After asserting my authority, they knew they should not attack this vessel. I can also alter my own body with it.”

“Well then. Okay– I guess I asked and I got an answer of some kind.” Ulyana said.

“She must be running some kind of adaptive biological program.” Zachikova said.

“We’ll leave the wild speculation to you then.” Aaliyah said, exasperated.

“I’m as satisfied as I can be.” Ulyana said, shrugging. “I had very low expectations.”

Because she never stopped smiling, it was hard to gauge, but Arbitrator I sounded contrite.

“I will commit more information to mind in the future, Captain.” She said.

Zachikova watched Arbitrator I intently. “DNA-based storage perhaps–”

Ulyana was not necessarily satisfied with Arbitrator I in perpetuity, but for the moment, she felt that the strange woman was not a threat, and perhaps was more of a victim of circumstance than anyone on that ship really knew. All she could do was file away what she knew about these fanciful new words, like Omenseer and Dagon, and trust that she could uncover more concrete answers in the future.

One thing that life had taught her was that it was impossible to wring all of the answers in one moment– answers about anything sufficiently important simply begat even more questions.

She had the answers she wanted. Arbitrator I was cooperating and did not seem to possess an ulterior motive that would bring harm to the Brigand, at least not one which was immediately discernible. Not only that, but Zachikova had hit the nail precisely on the head about the utility of this woman. They had spent close to a day in the photic zone without being attacked by Leviathans, and without running into any abnormal weather. Being able to travel in such a way, was essentially comparable to being able to fly while everyone else was stuck to the ground. It was a major boon– they would take advantage of it.

Someone more skeptical would have tried to probe further– was it really Arbitrator I who was responsible for their spate of good luck? But after everything Ulyana had seen on this insane mission already, it made no sense to be skeptical of that detail. It would have been harder to say that she had no connection to the events whatsoever, that it was all a huge coincidence. She made a big show of it, everyone saw it, and even if they couldn’t explain it, there was no way to engineer that scenario and its outcome.

Arbitrator I was an Omenseer, with strange powers over her body and Leviathans.

That would have to be accepted as fact. And they would have to live with that reality.

Perhaps they could ask their next guests about the nature of those powers.

After all, those two, Euphrates and Tigris, definitely knew more than they let on.

About everything that had happened.

“You can go, Arbitrator I. I’ll inform Kamarik to pay attention to your consultations.”

Arbitrator I bowed her head cheerfully, and with a final fond look at Zachikova, departed.

“Aaliyah,”

Ulyana turned to the Commissar next to her and spoke with her briefly in confidence.

“Let’s ask Euphrates and Tigris about the topics that Arbitrator I was dancing around.”

“Do you think they will have answers?” Aaliyah whispered back.

“HELIOS identified that monster as ‘Dagon’ too. They definitely know about Omenseers in some way, and importantly, those two can’t pretend that they knocked their heads about or that they have culture shock. And they have a longer way to go to prove their benevolence to us than Arbitrator I did. I’m almost positive we can learn more about all of this cryptic horseshit if we pressure them.”

“Good thinking Captain. Now I understand why you were so calm about Arbitrator I.”

Aaliyah really flattered her there– Ulyana had just been flying by the seat of her pants.

Aaliyah and Ulyana called for a short break for everyone involved in the interrogations.

They also reinforced that everything regarding Arbitrator I would be disseminated only to the officers, in an edited fashion. She would be introduced to the sailors as “Arabella.” There was no helping that she would probably act strange toward a sailor here or there– but contact and information about her would be as limited as possible and she would largely co-mingle with the officers exclusively. Zachikova was made the point of contact for anything regarding Arbitrator I, which everyone agreed to.

Finally, Illya and Valeriya brought in their next pair of guests. The calm, short blue-haired doctor in the pants suit and vest, Euphrates, and still wearing a worker’s jumpsuit, fiery red hair in a ponytail and fiery red temper completely out in the open, her companion Tigris. One was smiling placidly and seemed perfectly content with herself, while the other one glared at everyone opposite her.

“I can’t believe all of you!” Tigris cried out. “After how helpful I was! I can understand if you lock up this ingrate here,” she waved animatedly at Euphrates, who did not even flinch at the clear insult, “but I worked my ass off ever since I got here! I helped save you all! You should heap me with praise!”

“I’m sure they don’t disagree that you’ve been helpful.” Euphrates said calmly.

“They put us in solitary confinement!” Tigris shouted back.

“Comparing the environment I’m in now, with the environment I just left–”

“–Shut up!”

“–it was much cozier in the cell, to be frank.”

Euphrates grinned and Tigris looked like she wanted to wring her neck.

Aaliyah and Ulyana made similar expressions of putting their hands over their foreheads.

Murati spoke up in their stead. Unprompted, but Ulyana did not hold it against her.

“We are grateful for your assistance, and I believe that if you were truly intending malice, you had many opportunities to sell us out or sabotage us in the last few days. However, you still lied, and the information you’ve been withholding has exponentially increased in value.” She said.

“Well put.” Ulyana replied. “Euphrates, Tigris, we want to be able to cooperate with you. That’s why I authorized for you to be informed of events on the ship, even in captivity. We only imprisoned you as a safety measure in a chaotic situation, and to insure that you would attend this meeting.”

“In order to trust you, we’ll need you to disclose information about your real identities.” Aaliyah added.

Tigris balked at this, but Euphrates seemed to understand and accept everything.

“Tigris, please let me do the talking. You’re far too– animated.” Euphrates said.

“Bah! Why are you acting so cool? We’re both in the same world of shit right now.”

Tigris folded her arms in front of her chest, scoffed a few more times and averted her gaze.

“You could say I’m a changed woman. I’ve come to terms with what I have to do.”

“No you’re not! You haven’t changed a goddamn and you never will.”

Euphrates seemed to be trying to gently mollify Tigris– but the redhead wasn’t having it.

Ulyana cleared her throat loudly and deliberately. “Alright. First question.”

“Apologies, Captain. I’m listening.” Euphrates said.

“What is the Sunlight Foundation?”

“Ah. Interesting. That’s a good and meaty question.”

There was a very professor-like quality to Euphrates. Tigris had always acted almost like a sailor, and she had skills like a mechanic. She was boisterous and loud and interested in getting hands on. Euphrates, in her vest and suit blazer, her tie done up and her cotton shirt clean despite having spent a night in solitary confinement, projected a scholarly confidence, as if she knew how everything would unfold already. She spoke in such a clear and direct way Ulyana could almost feel the punctuation. Ulyana had hoped to rattle her with the question. She imagined, however, that Euphrates could rationalize many worlds existing, many possibilities transpiring just then. Euphrates always seemed utterly calm, always a step ahead.

In that mystery mind of hers, she probably did see a reason for them to know that name.

So of course she looked entirely unfazed by the question. Ulyana continued.

“It came up in your conversation with Norn, but Xenia Laskaris also mentioned it.”

Xenia had approached them overnight through Illya and Valeriya, telling them what little she knew.

There was not a lot of substance, but there were enough key words to ask Euphrates pointed questions.

“That girl really hasn’t been earning her paycheck recently.” Euphrates said, amused. “At any rate. The Sunlight Foundation is a community of researchers, engineers, theoreticians, and philosophers united by a shared goal that we hope to accomplish via multi-disciplinary support of the sciences.”

“Give me the explanation that’s not in your brochures, please.” Ulyana said.

“What explanation would be the most damning and sensational in your eyes? You could call us a secret society, maybe even a cult– would that be satisfying enough? It’s not even so important who we are but what we do. We acquire, create and hoard knowledge and technology; we have our fingers in a handful of key technology providers in the Imbrian Empire. Solarflare LLC is simply the one project that Tigris and I have developed over time. Our members have stakes in a dozen others.” Euphrates said.

Ulyana and Aaliyah narrowed their eyes. This was quite a grandiose declaration.

It was unsettling, especially when accompanied by Euphrates’ subdued delivery.

“Back up a moment.” Aaliyah said. “What is the shared goal this secret society has?”

“Turning back the clock.” Euphrates said. “Returning to the surface world.”

“That’s absolutely insane.” Ulyana said. “You can’t possibly be serious with this.”

She said that– but Ulyana also couldn’t imagine someone saying something so outlandish without believing it. Without it being true in some sense. Otherwise, why say such a thing? Euphrates seemed altogether too serious an individual to make up fancy stories on the fly for no particular gain. She might as well have tried to spit across the table at their faces. If she was being cooperative, then–

Then– they had to confront a situation where there must be some truth to her assertions.

Nevertheless, in the Imbrian Empire, no organization like this could act altruistically.

Nothing was truly free under capitalism, after all.

“You’re right. It is insane.” Euphrates said. “And like any insane dream, it has ultimately become subordinate to the steps by which it could be accomplished. To realize our dream we needed space, security and technical capital. We were connected to a few influential people many years ago, so that is where we got our start. Since then, we’ve been an invisible hand. We’ve done more to parasitize upon the robotics and cybernetics industries than we ever have to move humanity closer to its ascension. I regret to say, but we spend more time interfering in the markets for reactor technology and in R&D for navigation gear than we do dreaming about the sky anymore. That’s our mundane reality. We need to acquire funds and resources, and in so doing, we tell ourselves we are stewards rather than a cartel.”

Tigris briefly fixed her with a curious expression before pretending to ignore her again.

Ulyana felt suddenly like she was talking to a rich CEO lamenting the state of her asset portfolio more than a stately professor sharing secrets. It was hard to square the two dimensions of this conversation, the absurd high-stakes conspiracy of this Sunlight Foundation with the lofty, ideological goals.

“What is your role or rank in this organization?” Ulyana asked.

She was trying to extract something more concrete than a ledger of vague goings-on.

“I’m meant to be an upper manager, but I have pretensions of being a hands-on lay-worker, much like my partner.” Euphrates said. Tigris scoffed and seemed to avert her gaze even farther from Euphrates than ever, fully turning her back on her chair. “However, I was one of the founders and am part of the board of the organization. We call ourselves the Immortals. Tigris is one also. We call the shots– but mainly, we stay in the shadows and manage proxies who handle company affairs for us. We become involved if we want to or if our proxies require our direct support. Such as when we need to cover up suspicion.”

“I’m struggling to understand the scope of your operation here.” Ulyana said.

“We don’t have any political power, so you needn’t worry.” Euphrates said. “I did everything I could to prevent us from attaining it. We have a modest security force, a few secretive campuses and compounds, and most of our wealth is in the form of technical capital. Labs and patents. You can think of us more as a mafia than coup plotters. We have valuables squirreled away everywhere, but rather than going into real estate, our money goes to chemicals and minerals. We take advantage of supply efficiencies and good long-term planning. If you think I can overthrow the Imbrian Empire for you, then I have bad news.”

“A mafia, huh? And from what Norn said, they’re trying to whack you now.” Ulyana said.

“I–”

For the first time, the briefest moment, the formidable Euphrates was given a bit of pause.

“I cannot do anything to confirm that until I am back at a Solarflare LLC branch.” She said.

Tigris loudly scoffed once more. “You still have so much unfounded faith in Yangtze.”

“So you believe anything Norn tells you without evidence?” Euphrates said.

Tigris turned back to face the rest of the table.

“I don’t trust either Norn or Yangtze. But you esteem Norn a bunch, so give up on Yangtze already.”

“Like with everything else, I owe it to Yangtze to back whatever suspicions I have with evidence.”

Before Ulyana could ask what the hell they were talking about, Tigris addressed the table.

“Yangtze is the overarching leader.” Tigris said, almost dismissive in tone. “You could call her the most Immortal of the Immortals. When we can’t come to a decision together, we give her the last word. She is formally involved in all our endeavors, so she can mediate between everyone and have a bird’s eye view of the org. Or at least, that’s what she should be doing. But she’s insane– that horrible agarthicite attack you witnessed must be her handiwork in action. She is giving Norn all kinds of crazy toys for god knows what reason and is trying to kill us now. And this idiot here has a crush on her and won’t believe it.”

“I do not have any romantic feelings toward Yangtze.” Euphrates said. “You know that.”

“Do I? Hmm? Maybe I get suspicious whenever you trust her to such insane lengths.”

“It’s not really in my nature to be offended by you, but this is coming close.”

“Hmph. Korabiskaya.”

Tigris gave a smoldering glare at the officers at the end of the table.

“I’ll gladly give you assistance and any information you need to kill Yangtze.”

Ulyana narrowed her eyes at her in annoyance.

“I’ll pass. Getting in the middle of your spat is not part of our mission profile.”

This was not a genuine offer of an opportunity, so it would not get a genuine response.

“Some mercenaries you lot turned out to be! You’ll never make in the world like that.”

Tigris was clearly just trying to get Euphrates riled up now. It was shamefully childish.

Euphrates for her part withstood the provocations with almost supernatural calm.

“You look cute when you’re pissed.” She said. “I’m blessed to see it so often.”

“Go to hell. Go to fucking hell, Euphrates.”

Tigris turned her back around fully on Euphrates once more.

“You make a lovely couple.” Aaliyah said. “Let’s get things back under control?”

“Euphrates, it is pretty hard to believe everything you’ve said so far. You’ve spoken about tech sector conspiracies and shadowy figures, nothing we can actually approach. However, you two have demonstrated before that there is far more to you than meets the eye. So I am quite willing to believe there is something the matter with the two of you. I just don’t know what.” Ulyana said.

“I don’t carry evidence of the conspiracy I’m a part of on my person often.” Euphrates said.

“Would the HELIOS system have anything?”

“Oh, indeed. Good idea. It has identification data for Sunlight Foundation vessels.”

“Then with your assistance, we will go over this data later today.”

Euphrates nodded in acknowledgement. “It may not seem like it, but I want to help you.”

“You have certainly tried. During the confrontation with Norn, for example.” Ulyana said.

“Indeed. That was very foolish. I apologize for giving your doctor a scare.” Euphrates said.

That contrition in her voice sounded more emotional than anything she had said previously.

It wasn’t enough to instantly accept it as genuine however.

“You and Tigris have earned some good will from us. The HELIOS was pivotal to the bloodless conclusion of our conflict with the Antenora and we hope to be able to keep it for our mission. And I want to honor our deal with Solarflare. But to insure our operational security, we have to know who we are dealing with and what kind of a past they might have. I suppose we are closer to that than before, but it’s fair for us to have reason to be skeptical, don’t you agree? And it’s fair for us to demand information.”

This was it– Ulyana was trying to set up her further demands from Euphrates.

Euphrates was unbothered and calmly acquiesced. “Of course. Anything you want.”

“Not anything.” Tigris interjected. “Anything that’s actually in our capability.”

“Ignore her. I think it’s serendipitous that we met.” Euphrates told Ulyana.

Ulyana nodded. “First Officer Nakara told me you said as much to her before.”

Finally, Euphrates was starting to sound candid, rather than just merely matter-of-fact.

“When I saw Nakara, I felt like I was meant to be here. To make up for past mistakes.”

Murati looked briefly surprised at this.

“You’ll never make up for shit if you keep licking Yangtze’s toes.” Tigris grumbled.

“Tigris, please don’t butt in if you have nothing productive to say.” Aaliyah said.

“Hmph!”

“Euphrates,” Ulyana said, “I want to believe that you are speaking genuinely right now.”

“How can I rebuild our trust, Captain?”

Here it comes, Ulyana thought. She had to sound confident and choose her words carefully.

“You and Tigris know more than you are letting on about the events that transpired since we rescued you from Goryk. About the attack of that giant Leviathan– about Norn and about the capabilities of the Antenora. You clearly recognize the weapon that Lichtenberg tried to kill us all with. We need to know that you will cooperate us in ways that count, that we can trust and consult with you when dealing with these unprecedented situations. Your knowledge is worth more now than Solarflare’s supplies.”

Euphrates silently nodded her acknowledgement.

Ulyana, chest tight, voiced her first request. “Tell me everything you know about Omenseers.”

Tigris looked over her shoulder suddenly.

“Oh!” Euphrates briefly became serious. “Interesting. What’s the creature’s name?”

“What’s it matter to you?” Aaliyah said.

“So there is one? You met one? That name will clarify a few things–”

She sounded strangely excited. Aaliyah looked discomfited by this response.

“Arbitrator I.” Ulyana said.

Aaliyah frowned and glanced sidelong at her in clear disagreement but stayed quiet.

“Arbitrator I. Interesting. This is really fate, isn’t it?” Euphrates said. “Let me explain. Omenseers are like humanoid leviathans that can navigate the photic zone. They have a unique culture– they don’t really participate in our society, they almost exclusively are nomads. They cloak themselves as beasts, but they can become humanoid to shack up with individual ship’s crews. They offer to serve as photic navigators in exchange for shelter, access to human goods, and the keeping of their secret. They originate from ancient caves within the Deep Abyss, accessible only through the bottom of the Gorges. In their original forms they were highly intelligent, pale, gelatinous, fish-like entities, with soft bodies composed of many neurons– or at least, that’s my theory about their survival in the Deep Abyss. They can alter their bodies.”

Ulyana felt her heart lift, a weight fall off her shoulders. She felt excited, energized and triumphant.

Now they were finally getting somewhere. Euphrates was actually cooperating.

All that she said squared with what Arbitrator I had insinuated, too.

One more piece of the puzzle. Many more pieces in fact. It was coming together.

“What’s the meaning behind the name?” Ulyana asked.

“Hierarchy.” Euphrates said. She then began to speak as if in lecture, and again Ulyana heard that same confident, smooth dictation. She really was cooperating with them. “The Sunlight Foundation believes Omenseers have a hierarchical structure. They are divided into grouplets called Spheres– these may have served a purpose in the far past, but nowadays its basically an odd surname system. Each Omenseer’s name contains their role, their order of birth into the role, and their sphere. First Sphere Omenseers are the closest to the original culture, while Third Sphere Omenseers are far younger. An Arbitrator is an Omenseer leader, think of it like a tribal chieftain. Or at least, this may have been the case.”

“Arbitrator I was USL-0099, which we identified before we picked you up.” Ulyana said.

Euphrates nodded, unsurprised. “Omenseers can assume humanoid or Leviathan forms, like I said.”

“Wait a minute. Are all Leviathans Omenseers then?” Aaliyah asked.

Everyone on the table was quietly watching the revelations spill out of Euphrates.

“Even with our knowledge, I can’t confirm the origin of Leviathans, unfortunately. There are theories that they could be man-made, or a result of the surfaces’ corruption– but these are just theories. Omenseers are able to assume Leviathan forms, so we call them humanoid Leviathans. They are probably connected, but they are also mysterious enough that it’s difficult to ascertain the utmost truth about them. Did the Omenseers come first, and surface humans designed Leviathans in their image? Or did Leviathans come first, and Omenseers adopted their aesthetics because they were the apex marine predators?”

“That’s good enough doc. We weren’t going to uncover all the mysteries of the universe in one meeting.” Ulyana said cheerfully. “I’m curious: you keep referring to how the Omenseers were in the past, or what you believe they used to be like. How are they different now than they were before?”

Tigris grunted. Euphrates showed no signs of reticence toward the questions.

“There is a group of Omenseers called the Syzygy who follow an Omenseer leader called Arbitrator II of the First Sphere, known as the Autarch. The Sunlight Foundation has had conflicts with them in the past. I believe this creature severely altered the customs and way of life of the Omenseer ‘tribe’ to make them more aggressive toward humans. We killed Arbitrator II before, hoping it would free Syzygy from her.”

Ulyana became wary. She had already seen the results of an Omenseer “dying” before.

“Our Omenseer came back from the dead. So maybe yours did also.” Aaliyah said.

They were on the same wavelength. That Dagon sounded more dangerous by the second.

“That’s a possibility. However, there’s nothing we can really do about it right now.”

“We can’t even confirm the truth about any of this.” Aaliyah shrugged. “It’s all stories.”

“Some of the information will be contained in the HELIOS.” Euphrates said. “HELIOS was one of our tools for studying the Deep Abyss and trying to keep tabs on Syzygy. Furthermore, Syzygy as a group routinely performed small scale biological engineering experiments that it was part of our responsibility to put a stop to. Solarflare LLC was, in part, a front for researching them and preempting their movements.”

“We’ll check out the information on the HELIOS and evaluate further at that time.”

“What, do all of you want to go hunting for Arbitrator II now?” Tigris said.

“Getting in the middle of this bizarre spat is not part of our mission profile.” Ulyana said.

“Arbitrator II also lacks the power to topple the Imbrian Empire.” Euphrates shrugged. “So for now, if she is alive, she is neither an existential threat to you nor an asset in your mission. We should leave her be.”

A solid assessment by the good doctor.

There were all kinds of things cropping up that they would have to make note of and relay to the Union as soon as they were able to confirm any concrete evidence of them. But to interfere of their own accord would have been tantamount to going hunting for cryptids– as much as it made the world far larger and scarier to note the presence of these beings in it, Ulyana had to focus on what she could do right now, and the mission she had been given did not include uncovering all of the mysteries of the Ocean.

This was good information, but nothing immediately actionable.

“You are all remarkably calm about the biological horrors running around.” Tigris said.

“I’ve stared at enough Agarthicite annihilations, seen enough Leviathans and met enough varieties of Katarrans to not be too surprised with what the world contains anymore.” Ulyana said.

“Living underwater makes us all a unique kind of insane.” Euphrates said.

“Right, our brain chemistry is expanding and all that.” Tigris replied.

“Do you have any more questions about Omenseers, Captain?” Euphrates asked.

“One last one for today. Do you know about their ability? Omenseeing?” Ulyana asked.

“Oh boy.” Tigris cried out with exasperation.

Euphrates laughed a little. “I knew it would come to that. Oh boy indeed.”

Ulyana raised an eyebrow. “What’s this response for?”

“It’s a really broad and difficult subject to get into. Would you be satisfied if we said that they have a unique brain chemistry that allows them to affect the material world with their minds?”

“Are we satisfied?” Ulyana asked, looking at Aaliyah at her side.

“I haven’t been satisfied since we interrogated McKennedy.” Aaliyah said.

“McKennedy?” Euphrates said suddenly, her eyes drawing wide.

“Do you know her? She didn’t tell us she was famous.” Ulyana said sarcastically.

“I see. This is serendipitous. A lot of souls have ended up on this ship, haven’t they?”

Euphrates crossed her arms, closed her eyes, and seemed lost in thought about something.

While Aaliyah and Ulyana waited and deliberated among themselves in whispers–

Coming to a decision, the Immortal of the Sunlight Foundation raised her head.

“Captain, I’ll demonstrate.” Euphrates said. “I will need you to trust me. I have good intentions.”

“Hmm?”

Ulyana looked up at Euphrates–

–whose eyes suddenly glowed with a red ring around the irises.

In front of her

a digital pen for writing on portable terminal LCDs

lifted in the air

and turned over itself,

with it the world turned, the ocean turned, a vast, unknown world, turned,

“I am rotating the pen in the air, Captain.” Euphrates said.

“What the fuck?”

Valeriya and Illya suddenly assumed shooting stances and aimed for Euphrates and Tigris.

“Captain, orders?!” Illya shouted.

“Stand down!” Aaliyah shouted back, though her panicked eyes remained fixed on the pen.

Ulyana wasn’t really sure what she was looking at–

It was a pen, spinning in the air. Physically, that was what it was. However, there was a constellation of questions, vast sweeping nebulas and burning suns and rotating planets worth of questions, all surrounding how and why it was spinning in the air. Euphrates had said she was the one spinning the pen in the air, but she was sitting in her chair staring at it with her arms crossed. Tigris wasn’t even paying attention. That pen was in the middle of the table out of arms reach. It was still spinning.

Euphrates wouldn’t have had time to rig the room, she wouldn’t have had co-conspirators.

Magicians set up their tricks, they had rigged gadgets and stages, plants in the audience.

Euphrates said she was spinning the pen in the air. She also said she was a tech monopolist who was involved in a secret society of scientists who were trying to figure out how to return the human race to the surface. She had also claimed to fight Omenseers, the weird Leviathan creature that Arbitrator I claimed to be. All of that– all of that seemed entirely normal compared to–

–compared to the little pen –why of all things was the pen the thing driving her insane–

Euphrates turned those red-ringed eyes on Ulyana with a little smile.

“I was fated to induct you into these mysteries, Captain Korabiskaya. It was fate for us all to meet.”

In the air in the middle of the table, the pen ceased to spin.

Before all the drawn-wide eyes bearing witness, it folded into itself, twice, thrice, compacting.

It looked almost–

–cathartic.

Euphrates smiled, a tired, bitter smile that reflected not the stately professor or the mafia monopolist, but an ancient, weary sage buckling under the burden of eyes and the responsibility she had abdicated. Somehow Ulyana could understand it– as if voicelessly they had made a connection with just their gaze. She thought, against all rationality, that she understood it– felt an inkling of years of deep-buried pain.

She thought she could feel Euphrates’ thoughts spilling from her. They were– connected–

Ulyana, for a brief moment, understood her. At a fundamental and deeply human level.

An inkling of her goals, her desires, and a crushing, ancient agony.

“Nakara, the child of the tragic couple I did nothing to save; and the people begot by Daksha Kansal’s Union, whom I refused to join; I’ve been humbled. I’ve turned my back on too many people.”

Murati stood up at the mention of her name, her fists tight against her sides.

“Euphrates, what are you–”

“This time it won’t be a mistake. I won’t let it.” Euphrates interrupted her.

Tigris kept quiet. She let the gentle and mournful words of her partner cross the room alone.

And with those words, the pen, compacted into a flawless sphere of carbon, rolled onto the table.

Everyone’s eyes followed it, as it paused just short of falling to the ground.

Murati stared, uncomprehending, given pause. That anger in her face melted away.

Euphrates raised her hand to her chest as if in pledge, to a room of uncomprehending faces.

She wept. From the edges of her cybernetic eyes, real tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

Years of emotions repressed to a neutral smile spilled out of her.

Colors erupted from behind her like a smoke projection–

Tigris finally cracked a little smile herself. Turning around, she, too, joined Euphrates’ pledge.

As the colors around them became stronger–

“Murati Nakara,“ Euphrates said. “You can see it, can’t you? I can teach you what it means.“

Previous ~ Next

Arc 2 Intermissions [II.3]

“The Battle Of Serrano”

“Attack, attack, attack, attack!”

Aboard the Cruiser Brocéliande, a loud and boisterous one-woman chant sounded across the bridge.

An astounded crew, who had never seen their commander so excited, put their heads down and focused on their tasks. Behind them, the woman stood up on her seat, pointed a finger forward, and shouted.

Her name was Rear Admiral Marceau Laverne De Champeaux-Challigne, a blond-haired, olive-skinned woman, tall and lean with sharp brown dog-like ears and a tail fiercely wagging. The edges of the main screen of the Brocéliande filled with the impressions of her escorts and subordinated combatants, dozens of Cutters and Frigates, two other Cruisers and a group of two Destroyers defending them. Organized as a three sectioned box, with one wing beginning to expand to the left flank per the Admiral’s strategy.

And in the center of her main screen were the broad sides of an unsuspecting Volkisch Fleet.

Twenty frigates, painted all-black with sharp beaked prows and a handful of small, angular cutters arrayed amorphously around a Cruiser and a Destroyer, bedecked in great winged fins and rounded gun turrets, and escorting two large, boxy supply vessels. They had been traveling from Serrano to link the Volkisch forces there with a larger combat group that had been tasked with occupying Ajillo and Pepadew substations. Admiral Champeaux-Challigne would not allow this. She would cut them off with her Fleet Combat Group C, and then join Nadia Al-Oraibi’s FCG-D for the final assault on the substation forces.

“We have them in our sights! All forces know what to do! I want a fusilade so bright it’ll redden my face!”

Without attempting to establish contact with the enemy commander, Marceau gave the order to fire.

From the edges of her main screen, dozens of lines of bubbles and gas raced toward the Volkisch fleet.

Her left wing began to appear on the distant corner of her screen as more than their gunfire and prows.

Moving quickly to block the escape of the Volkisch forces and pen them into the main fleet’s killing zone.

“Attack! Attack at once! Our guns will be a drumbeat of death! Do not let up the attack for a second!”

Within seconds, hundreds of explosions blossomed into short-lived bubbles and bursts of gas in the distance, amid and around the Volkisch Fleet. 76 mm light guns on her Frigates fired barrages of a dozen shots a minute from multiple turrets, while the 155 main guns on the Brocéliande unleashed frightening and accurate damage, spawning a bubble twice as large as those surrounding and leaving wide, gaping gashes on the broad sides of anything it struck near. Shells flew like the thrown javelins of old hunters from ancient myth, digging into the steel beasts and drawing geysers of metal and flesh from them.

Seventy-sixes were not powerful enough by themselves to gut entire ships. But the Union volley cut vast and swift into the amorphous Volkisch formation. Those hundreds of shells cratered armor with grazes and wound holes into the hulls with direct impacts, tearing out electronic sensors, breaching maintenance passages, damaging the water systems that sustained life and allowed for underwater movement. Recurring shockwaves disturbed the water around the Volkisch fleet and transferred ominous power into the crews in the bridges, hangars, and halls. The flagship’s One-Fifty-Fives created enormous vortexes that tore great fissures into the flanks of the enemy vessels, putting each target out of action in sequence.

After the initial volley, the Volkisch ships were battered. Their crews were shaken. After the second, third, fourth and fifth volleys, within the unending volume of gunfire amid minute-long endless sequences of chaos, ships began to falter, one by one, one after another, taken as surely as if by entropy. From the moment they failed to either escape or engage the Union fleet, from the instant the Union fired the opening, unanswered volley, the fight was theirs. Inexperience and carelessness on the part of the Volkisch gave the Union the fatal opening. It was a foregone conclusion before the battle even began.

It was too late when the Union’s volleys were finally answered by the Volkisch, at less than a quarter the intensity. Stray explosions washed over the Union fleet, barely rattling the wall of guns fast ensnaring their prey. Surviving enemy frigates turned their guns and fired broadside, launching periodic 76 mm shells while dramatically accelerating to escape speeds. There was no organization. After absorbing a few volleys the battle was a rout. Only some of the enemy ships attempted to turn to fight with their armored prows forward, which was foolhardy, as the change in direction made them even more vulnerable targets.

Within ten minutes, twenty minutes, the enemy fleet was cut to a third, then a half, and then to strays attempting to escape whichever way they could. Even as they ran the Union’s envelopment forced the Volkisch’s escape routes wider and farther and bought more time for Union gunners to finish the grim work. Admiral Champeaux-Challigne had hardly needed to shout as vigorously as she was. The Union gave no less than everything they had, and annihilated their enemy in less than half an hour.

“Magnificent! Simply magnificent! Congratulate yourselves, my beautiful fleet!” She cried out.

The Union fleet finally converged on the graveyard of their making. A field of debris where there once had been a few thousand human lives — but the lives of fascists hardly counted as human, after all. Volkisch vessels that retained some amount of flotation while losing most of their crew and propulsion, drifted eerily in their last positions, but most ships sank catastrophically to the bottom, littering the rocky ocean floor of Sverland. Torn open, split apart either neatly or in pieces, the battlefield was a vast, silent field of dissipating gas clouds, micros and macroscopic debris, and hulks, almost two dozen.

The Union did not engage in any rescue operations. They hadn’t the time. Perhaps the reserves could possibly take it upon themselves to do it, but Admiral Champeaux-Challigne had another battlefield where she was needed. FGC-C was the largest Union combat force in the theater. They had been bloodied now, and they would follow the appetizer with a main course. Sverland’s substations awaited her.

“We are about to enter the operational area. Limit all communications, and carry out your tasks according to your briefings. Whether or not the enemy falls for our deception, we will still have fighting to do.”

“Await the acoustic signal to descend, then commence the next phase.”

On the bridge of the dreadnought Typhon, Maya Kolokotronis sat with her hands crossed over her chest, staring at the main screen. All active detection had been suspended, so instead of the predictive array readings and images, there was a preprogrammed map with their trajectory and in the far distance, known enemy positions. They were moving as fast as they could under the circumstances. Fleet communications officers shared final remarks, wished each other luck, and then left the airwaves.

“We are too high up, and too spread out. Is this really going to work?”

Maya received a text message — silence was being strictly enforced.

This message came from the woman at her side. Despite sending it, she had a big smile on her face.

She was a Commissar, named Georgia Doukas. Long, orange and brown hair fell over her shoulders, and partially covered two long tentacles that began at the sides of her head and ended in tight paddles. Her skin was a pinkish yellow, but was also mutable. When they first met, her face was a bit more brown. She was a soft-looking and smiley girl, but nobody made Commissar on a ship without having a will of iron.

“Yes.”

Maya’s reply text was extremely simple.

She glanced at her Commissar from the corner of her eye and watched her begin gently typing.

“Do you think they will take the bait?”

They continued to speak in text messages delivered to their adjacent terminals.

“Even if they suspect detached forces or a flank attack, they will not be able to guess the direction.”

“We are sitting ducks if they figure us out.”

“If you disagree with our course of action, then shoot me and take over.”

At her side, the Commissar giggled gently.

“My, my. You are still such a Katarran at heart. I see how it is.”

Maya herself snickered while writing her reply. “I am a Katarran. That’s the beauty of the Union.”

There was nothing preventing a Katarran from being a communist. Whether one was a humanist critic of the atrocities of Katarre, or whether one still held the ideologies of power and control inherited from the Katarran culture, the Union was still welcoming, provided that humanism served the Union’s people, or that brutal exercise of power be directed at the Union’s enemies. Even someone like Maya, who wanted to believe in the humanist elements of communism while still being swayed by the pragmatic authority of militarized power, was welcome in the Union. In fact, probably most people in the Union were like her.

To the Union’s people, who had been dehumanized and enslaved by the Empire, brutality was easy to cast outward. As emotionally-charged revenge or as solemn and grimly measured liberatory rhetoric. The Union easily accepted the cunning brutality of Maya’s warfare. Soon, she thought, Maya’s warfare, a distillate of Katarran warfare, would just become “Union warfare.” That was her hope with this operation.

“Operation Tenable” — she had been compelled to name it as a form of symbolism.

Other officers had trepidation about a Union attack, an outright entry into the Empire’s war of collapse.

Maya Kolokotronis, however, had always believed that the Union needed to fight the Empire again, with all of its might, at the first viable opportunity. The people of the Union needed to realize they were no longer sheep awaiting the Imperial wolf. The Empire had to become their prey, and they had to become the hunters. They had to awaken the brutal power within themselves, and kill, and destroy their enemies, to prove to themselves that they could do so. To show that fighting and winning was possible, and therefore, that it was worth throwing the weight of their efforts and resources behind fighting to win.

To show that building their own little utopia in a bubble was pointless.

Bubbles were easy to pierce.

Communism had failed in the Imperial heartland. In Bosporus, in Buren, Volgia and Rhinea.

This failure was the seed, the second chance, for a successful communist revolt. A revolt in the colonies where all the failed revolutionaries who were not slaughtered ended up enslaved. And yet, the Union still remembered that failure, told of that failure, in its writings. That failure, and the brutal power of the Empire, cast a shadow upon their works. Until they found the power to kill, that failure would loom.

“Communism cannot survive without achieving the power to inflict mass violence.”

“Is that so? I didn’t take you for a philosopher. This is not in Mordecai’s books, you know.”

“No, but it is. This is class struggle. What we are doing — it’s far above mere Katarran plunder.”

“Impassioned words. I don’t disagree with you, however. I am also glad to be fighting here with you.”

“It’s because we are both Katarrans. The Volgians and the Bosporans don’t know. Maybe the Shimii do.”

All of the world was driven by networks of violence. Katarrans were simply exposed to one far less disguised in aesthetics. So they understood the eat-or-be-eaten mentality of war, perhaps better than most of the other ethnicities that had come to comprise the Union’s population. That was the beauty that communism held for Maya, when she was going through her readings years ago. The Union was something all of them could join hands to fight for– something that was worth fighting for.

It gave her unnatural birth a shred of meaning.

Maya Kolokotronis herself became an existence which was “Tenable.”

Now she had to prove her convictions to the rest of her beloved Union.

And thus, she sailed, in command of Fleet Combat Group A with some forty-odd vessels. Nearly 600 meters above the Sverland seafloor, partially disguised within the edge of the enormous, teeming mass of life that blocked them from the surface waters, known as the Upper Scattering Layer.

It would be a bold plan, if it worked.

A few hundred meters from the main pillar of Serrano station, several Volkisch vessels waited for their flagship, docked in the upper pillar, to report on the status of negotiations with Serrano’s government. These negotiations were mainly for show — the Volkisch intended to take over and the Serrano government did not intend to stop them, but it was necessary theater so the population didn’t feel like everyone had given up without a fight. If the civilian administration appeared too weak and lost control of its subjects, it would have created an enormous headache for the Volkisch occupying forces.

It was important for the Volkisch to respect business in Serrano. There was a growing unrest due to the economic and social situation, so the Volkisch had an opportunity to get in good with the business class by giving guarantees that business would continue as usual. That meant dealing with a lot self interested people, however, and such dealings required time, and also required Bloch and many of his officers.

As such, Admiral Bloch’s retrofitted dreadnought Pantagruel was docked, half-crewed and at low readiness when the fleet’s Aufklärung Frigate detected a incoming ships, moving in from the south.

Initially, there was some confusion as to how to respond. The Volkisch were an invading force in “enemy” territory, and by the book, they should have already disseminated patrols to confirm the disposition of the approaching element. But they were treating Sverland as the helpless, largely civilian territory that it had become, and were at low readiness and hesitant to deploy to respond. The Aufklärungruppen signals reconnaissance team confirmed that the approaching vessels were four or five small, fast ships, based on predictive calculations. They were several kilometers out, and they were not making any effort to disguise the noise they were making. For the veteran Volkisch officers, this was suspicious, but for the majority of the soldiers, it looked like it would be easy prey. But then, to whom did this easy prey belong to?

There had been reports of former Imperial navy vessels that had turned to banditry, particularly against goods-laden ships from Veka and Rhinea in the waning days of inter-duchy trade. Katarran bandits were thought to be relatively common as well. There was always the possibility, also, that these were Union vessels, but that possibility was distant. It could also have been an incursion from the Vekan navy too.

Such things would have to be confirmed by getting closer to the enemy.

Whoever this tiny fleet section belonged to, it would be hunted down and slaughtered.

If it was a trap, they would spring it. If it was a patrol, they would make sport of it.

And perhaps, it would even impress upon the fat cats in Serrano who the real bosses were.

Power and brutality was the way of the Volkisch. None would disrespect their authority so easily.

The Pantagruel, sans Bloch who remained in Serrano, deployed quickly with the crew that it had, while the rest of the fleet, composed largely of Frigates with a single Cruiser in the center, sailed forth to meet the enemy encroachment south of Serrano. In their eyes, this was probably nothing but target practice.

One lead element of five Frigates served as the vanguard, deploying immediately while the rest of the fleet hovered obediently around the Pantagruel. One central element and two wings at just the right distance each to potentially detach and meet approaching forces on either side, depending on which direction a trap was sprung from. Finally, a small element of four Frigates were left behind including the Aufklärung vessel to patrol Serrano station. The Volkisch believed their preparations were adequate. If it was a trap, they had the forces to bait it out and fight it openly, and multiple angles of coverage.

There was about a kilometer between the vanguard and the main fleet, and the vanguard was moving faster to pursue. This caused drift in the formation over time, but the Volkisch did not mind it.

After the fleet sailed out of Serrano they counted down the minutes until they were in range to identify the enemy presence. Finally, the lead element confirmed via active sonar and LADAR on clear waters the identity of the enemy. Five Union Biryuza-class Cutters on a northwestern course. The Biryuzas realized that they were detected immediately due to the active measures, which would have triggered their acoustic and radiation warnings– something of a blunder, but it was overlooked by the Volkisch command as it still effectively accomplished their aim of identifying the enemy immediately.

Having been exposed, the fast Cutters turned back south. The Frigates engaged in pursuit, though they did not have explicit orders to do so. Torpedoes launched from the Frigates as they chased to maintain pressure, but they were too far behind for their main guns to have meaningful effect. This was owing to the fact that they ran active scans at maximum distance rather than closing in further, giving the Cutters room to flee. The Volkisch liked their chances in a chase, however. Even their old Frigates had a larger and more powerful reactor and thrust systems than any Cutter, and they would eventually catch up.

The Volkisch central element around the Pantagruel remained fixed in speed even as its vanguard accelerated further. The Pantagruel finally ordered its left wing of 15 Frigates to join the chase, but to retain its current orientation to the main fleet. That latter detail caused further drift in the formation. As the Frigates achieved pursuit speed, they began to move closer to the center, rather than remaining in the westward direction. This was overlooked, as the Pantagruel’s central element simply moved itself west and became the left wing of the overall advance. Some leeway had to be given to the greenhorns, after all.

The Cutters managed to react quickly enough to stay ahead of their pursuers. Their flak fire successfully neutralized several torpedoes, fending off major damage. Some of the Cutters sustained a few close pressure waves, but it was not enough to stop them fleeing. Eventually, the “chasing” elements became disentangled from the “main” element by about two kilometers, moving them out of mutually supporting range. The mission command on the Pantagruel quickly lost its taste for blood as the separation between its elements and the slow drift of its formation became apparent, and began to recall the pursuers.

It was at this moment that the Volkisch’s right wing began to detect more ships coming in from the southeast. This was a relatively larger formation, and it was the trap the Volkisch expected to meet.

At this juncture, the Biryuzas turned back and headed northwest, and the pursuers adjusted to intercept them. They had not yet been informed of the new enemies as the situation was developing quickly. This led to the Volkisch fleets becoming twisted, the lead elements moving southwest, the western elements pushing south, and the eastern elements slowing down, forming an awkward wedge where every other element was in the way of the Pantagruel and the Cruiser Thor, the biggest guns available there.

Everything was exposed, and the Pantagruel and Thor were being blocked from firing eastward.

Despite this, even with the new enemy force, the Volkisch still outnumbered and outgunned the Union.

For perhaps a few minutes, the few minutes it took for the Union to alert their second hidden force.

What the Volkisch failed to notice, was the trap being sprung that they were not expecting to meet.

While this exact development was not planned to this degree, the Cutters and the fleet they belonged to had achieved their overall objective. They had drawn the Volkisch out far enough away from Serrano where it was safe to shoot indiscriminately at them without involving civilians or station infrastructure, and they had drawn the enemy elements just apart enough from one another to prevent tidy, mutually supporting defensive gunfire. And so, on the eve of cycle 188 of A.D. 979, the signal went out–

“Shatter the sky! Shake the earth!”

Across the Union fleet descending from the Upper Scattering Layer, the attack signal went out, first from the communications officer of the Typhon, to whom the quotation would come to be attributed, but spreading through every communication officer on each of the over forty participating ships in FCG-A. Communications which had lain dormant opened up across every vessel, and there was no more care about what noise was or wasn’t made anymore. On the main screens, the maps which had been previously followed disappeared, and in their place real time predictive data began to flow again as active scans revealed their presence to the disorganized enemies while crucially lighting them up for the guns.

“FCG-B has elements on the southwest and southeast of the enemy, fixing them in place! Descend at once, FCG-A, and snatch the glory which is yours!” shouted Admiral Maya Kolokotronis to all vessels. “Wipe out the enemy! No prisoners, no mercy! All elements, as soon as you reach 1000 depth, open fire!”

She did not have to be much more candid or specific. This was entirely for morale and excitement.

Every ship had been given meticulous orders and knew exactly what to do.

As one, FCG-A’s ships descended from above, fixing their sensors on the Volkisch fleet just a few kilometers to the west. They had always known that their descent would be impossible to coordinate with the exact positions of the enemy, but as long as the initial distance from the enemy was under 5 kilometers they could make something happen. That they ended up 2 km from the enemy was a huge boon. With the tides clearly favoring them, Admiral Kolokotronis’ ships entered the fray as essentially the naval equivalent of an arrow flying past the cheek of the Volkisch, paralyzing them with uncertainty.

Completing their descent, the ships divided into three sections while on the move.

“All missiles, saturation fire on the Volkisch right wing! Now!” Admiral Kolokotronis ordered.

One of FCG-A’s sections comprised eight “missile frigates.”

Unlike the Empire which had dedicated Frigates with supercavitating cruise missile launchers on the upper deck, as well as combination missile/torpedo tubes on its Cruisers and Dreadnoughts, the Union did not wish to introduce such complicated designs to their own fleet. Instead, the Slava-class Frigate could be affixed with Katyusha-class dedicated “missile docks” on its left and right flanks, connected by struts and wired into the Frigate. These appeared to be enormous, angular metal “pontoons” on the sides of the frigates, and each dock contained 18 supercavitating unguided cruise missiles of 2 meter diameter.

Compared to the 8 missiles at a time that an Imperial missile frigate could fire, or the 4 missiles at a time available to a Ritter-class Imperial Cruiser via its tubes, the 36 missiles that could be launched at once out of dual Katyushas was worth sacrificing some mobility. Now, these ships would sound the horn of war.

As soon as the order went out, the Frigates reacquired the relative position of the enemy forces.

Firing solutions piped out to the rudimentary computing equipment on the Katyushas, which were only designed to accept orders to fire, quickly program them into the missiles, and then send the ordnance on its deadly course. Those eight Frigates, each with their two Katyushas, programmed a total of 288 missiles to fire at one second intervals per four tubes. There was a short delay as the Katyushas prepared.

Then, after drawing in a breath, the horns bellowed.

Out in the water, an airy fwip of dispersed water and gas followed by a loud shunt as the seals over each missile tube burst open in sequence, followed by several shocks one after another after another as the missiles rose, achieved supercavitation in an instant and arced out toward their targets. Masses of bubbles and gas surrounded the Katyushas as their payloads soared toward the enemy fleets.

In under 20 seconds, the first missiles collided with the spread-out Volkisch across several kilometers.

Enormous fiery orbs of gas expanded across the entire length of the distended Volkisch formation as if fissures torn open in the walls of reality itself. Blossoming into existence in a brilliant and terrifying sequence, missiles crashed under, over, around and into the enemy hulls. Several Frigates were instantly sunk by direct impacts that first caved in the outer hull and then sucked the guts from explosive, runaway decompression. Powerful shockwaves rocked the water around the enemy vessels, damaging the flank sensor arrays, cameras, and in some cases tearing off control surfaces like fins and the jet cover “wings.”

Then followed wave after unending wave of grey shells cutting a hundred lines in the water.

Amid the shock and awe of the missile attack, conventional gunnery from FCG-A and FCG-B’s Frigates sailed into the reeling Volkisch fleet from south and east, hammering the exposed and disoriented flanks. Hundreds of 76 mm cannons firing three and four times a minute, unable to defeat the enemy armor by themselves but in such volume and with such frequency able to smash those hulls over and over and over again, tearing chunks, battering plates out of shape, and eventually twisting, crunching and tearing until the armor had enough. Breaches followed, small at first but quickly expanding in scope and lethality across dozens of enemy vessels, killing a few and crippling more, disrupting the enemy’s response.

FCG-A and FCG-B pressed their advance, methodically hooking sections of their forces around the enemy’s rear and to the west and commencing a spirited pursuit. Their battered targets accelerated in kind, heading south on a predictable path in an amorphous formation. The Volkisch’s organization on the edges of their fleet grew haphazard and limited the overall mobility of the central elements and therefore, the whole fleet. Very few ships managed to leave the formation entirely in order to attempt to maneuver around the Union, and they were easily picked off when they strayed too far. This meant that the battle was not a dance of two mobile formations trying to break each other, but a hunter pursuing prey.

Clouds of debris and gas spread wherever the battlefield went, a literal fog of war outlining the pursuit.

Already hardly anything could be seen, but visibility only grew worse. This did not slow the carnage.

A paltry few Divers from the Volkisch side attempted to snake out of their own formation, managing to contribute very little; but the Union’s own Divers, keeping clear of the firing lines of their own forces, buzzed the enemy fleet with effective supporting fire. Moving quickly, sneaking over and under the enemy vessels, they took advantage of the Volkisch fixing their flak curtains to defend from the conventional attacks of the large ships. With their 37 mm rifles peppering the enemy’s soft spots, and finding opportunities to lob grenades and even to launch depth charges, the Streloks of FCG-B’s Daksha Kansal carried themselves notably well as an additional striking element, largely unopposed.

As the battle raged, there were inevitable casualties on the Union side as well, as a pair of Frigates and one of the bait Cutters sank under enemy fire. A few unlucky Streloks met their end either at the hands of a few enemy Volkers or by the concerted flak of the single Volkisch Destroyer Troll which was effectively holding its ground with its enormous quantities of defensive fire — until enough larger guns turned on it.

Despite this, Union morale never once flagged. They were dealing the most death, by far.

Throughout the running brawl, an effective barrage of counterfire originated from the central element around the lead ship Pantagruel, but thirty guns on less than a dozen vessels would never stop the encroaching mass of the Union’s fleets. Within twenty or thirty nerve-wracking minutes since the first shot, the battlefield had shifted several kilometers from its starting point but the Volkisch came to be surrounded by over seventy Union vessels and could not hope to escape no matter their speed. They were unable to find a means to meet the Union or hook around to flank, fleeing from start to finish.

The Volkisch fleet was reduced to a quarter its effective strength between destroyed vessels, disabled vessels, and fleeing and abandoned ships. Despite their desperate struggle, they were losing handily.

Soon there was no longer a formation capable of opposing the forces of Admiral Kolokotronis.

There was a flagship and its attendants, and long line of corpses and strays left behind them.

Hollowed-out hulks hit the ocean floor one after another. Guns silenced on disabled ships.

A brilliant purple sphere consumed the cruiser Thor as it rose above the enemy to prevent its runaway reactor from destroying anything other than itself, annihilating whatever crew survived the torpedoes which had torn into the ship. There was not even pause to contemplate this horrifying spectacle.

Pure chaos, the sound of death and destruction muted within the hulls of the Union vessels.

Experiencing war through the relative calm of their station monitors.

There was only chaos within their breasts, as they tried to keep their nerves steady.

They were winning, however. They saw it themselves — they could win against Imperials.

“Helm, move forward! Gunners unleash all arms on the Pantagruel! Let’s put this enemy out of its misery!”

Maya Kolokotronis directed her own ship forward for the coup the grace, and her crew complied.

From among the lead section of FCG-A, the dreadnought Typhon accelerated quickly, an enormous, sleek column of a ship with a tightly arched conning tower and folded fins. Rather than its turret-mounted 76 mm guns, it brought its Republic-style “in-line six” forward guns to bear from its imposing prow, three 155 mm guns in two rows. These guns had devoured many vessels as a former Kattaran mercenary ship, and they would add another victim that day. What they lacked in flexibility, these fixed forward guns made up for in their sheer and rapid brutality, and showed why they were favored by the Katarrans.

Where other ships could put ten rounds a minute out of their twin turrets, the Typhon launched between thirty and sixty. In moments, the Pantagruel’s aging armor was pummeled by long sequences of enormous blasts that tore its prow from its hull and shredded the central pods, casting it to the ocean floor in a cloud of gore and metal. The Typhon’s own attendant Frigates picked off the remaining vessels, but by the time the Typhon fired its impressive barrage, everything had already been decided.

Maya Kolokotronis watched, her heart racing, her face and chest sweat-soaked, standing at the back of her bridge where she had been shouting commands. Through almost purely conventional warfare, before her very eyes, the Union had won a second battle against the Imperial foe. Their own loses amounted to what could be counted on their hands, while their enemy was near totally erased from the world.

In her own mind, Maya did some “napkin math.” She had killed, perhaps, 10000 people that day.

In less than fifty minutes of active fighting. This was war– this was what the Union would have to accept.

This– was what the Union had accomplished. In an offensive battle outside their territory.

The Union had won. The Union had conquered an enemy territory.

“Admiral, how are you feeling?”

Commissar Doukas spoke up from behind her, seated calmly in her chair.

Maya hardly waited to respond. “I’ll only rest under the steel sky of Serrano. Let’s keep moving.”

Volkisch Admiral Vitaly Bloch took his own life a few hours after receiving the news.

Powerful enemy forces had not only destroyed the Volkisch’s Serrano occupation fleet in the south, but they had intercepted the fleet group that was to link the Volkisch presence in Serrano to the advance forces in Ajillo and Pepadew substations. He had a handful of Frigates in Serrano and fifty outnumbered and encircled ships split between Ajillo and Pepadew with twice the number of advancing enemy ships.

Nobody in the Volkisch high command had predicted that the Union would launch such an assault.

Many underestimated the capability of the Union to fight. The Volkisch characterized the Union as a state of ethnic inferiors with a pretend navy composed of lesbians and effeminate men in women’s uniforms. Their government that could barely feed them kept them docile with handouts and propaganda. The masculine and martial Volkisch state, which was already on its way to defeating the Royal Alliance, should have been able to easily cast aside the communists. It was a rude awakening to be defeated by them.

Furthermore, they had no idea about the Union alliance with Veka, which they would have taken seriously.

Veka were also racial inferiors, but they were known to be well-equipped racial inferiors.

Even those who weren’t so blinded by fascist ideology, however, believed that the Union would stay out of the Empire’s business due to a fear of retaliation. For a small child of a country that was still practically building its economy, it was the pragmatic thing to do. But now they had entered the Empire’s business, and there was no way the Volkisch could retaliate. They were barely sustaining their campaigns against the Royal Alliance in the Yucatan, and the Serrano forces were the only invasion group they could spare.

Bloch’s force was on the cusp of losing nearly two hundred of Achim Lehner’s precious ships.

They had squandered almost a third of the Volkisch fighting strength.

It was catastrophic.

It was a turning point.

It was not a fear of facing Lehner nor history itself that led Bloch to his decision, however.

It was more sudden than that. It was rawer, more emotional.

Chiefly, he was tormented by the idea of surrendering to a band of untermensch homosexuals and being subjected to whatever degenerate torments and humiliations they had in store for him as a prisoner of war. A devoted and loyal fascist, Bloch obsessed with this lurid fantasy by himself for over thirty minutes, supported by everything that made sense to him and the brutal shock of his vast, and total defeat. He would not let the communist lowlives make a fool of him and debase him — he would die with honor.

And so he went, locked inside a personal office in the Serrano port authority building.

With his death, “command” over the remaining forces passed invisibly among various men whom the Union was already in the process of destroying. Ultimately, the humiliation finally landed on a man who desired to live more than retain his honor. Captain of the Frigate Ulrich Graf, Arnold Fischer, a member of the Serrano patrol. While the ships under his ostensible command fled in every direction, he accepted an unconditional surrender in place of whatever Volkisch forces had both survived and remained in contact — about a dozen ships and most of the logistical staff scattered around the Serrano and Goryk regions.

There was little time to celebrate the Volkisch surrender, however. As soon as Union forces entered Serrano itself they soon found themselves confronted with their next and most serious set of tasks.

On the upper tier of Serrano, a brown, boxy shuttle craft approached and entered a highly exclusive dock once reserved only for the upper crust, settling next to a sleek, curvaceous 50 meter long superyacht. A watertight compartment encased and held the shuttle, drained the water, and admitted it through an enormous shutter into a bright, beautiful port. Shimmering floors of white stone tile clean enough to eat off of; actual trees, tended by machines but open and accessible on their mounds, rather than encased in bubbles; in the distance, manor houses of false wood, and closer to the center, the Serrano capitol building, an enormous, lavish concrete monument, its colonnaded facade inexplicably intricate.

The shuttle brought down its hatch, and a horned woman in a green uniform, black cape and peaked hat walked out flanked by a phalanx of power-armored soldiers, interlocking angular plates over their limbs and trunk and imposing, visored helmets projecting an aura of invincibility amid the rich surroundings. They carried AK pattern rifles, but the woman in between them carried no weapon of her own in hand.

Maya Kolokotronis beheld the splendor of the upper tier of Serrano with growing disgust.

She had already received reports from the Marines that landed in the lower levels.

“Can you believe this?” She asked aloud. “Such a waste of space? We could house thousands here.”

At her side, one of the power-armored soldiers removed her helmet. Her tentacles, which had been folded behind her head, relaxed and stretched out. Commissar Georgia Dukas sniffed the air.

“Everything smells so sweet too. I can’t understand it. How are they doing that? And why are they?”

“The Marines arrived to a squalid riot-stricken warzone down there. This is– insane to me.”

“You don’t really understand the class divide until you see something like this, I suppose.”

Commissar Doukas and Admiral Kolokotronis exchanged looks, shaking their heads.

After several minutes of waiting at the edge of the docks, a party from Serrano came to meet them.

There were a few men, all in pristine grey suits. At the head of them was a man in a blue suit. Arberth Hoffman, former Defense Commissioner for Serrano, extended his hand to shake Maya’s. She left him waiting, never lifting her hands from her sides. Her eyes gazed critically into his own, she hated him. If her glare could have struck him dead she would have wanted it to happen. For a moment, she blamed him for all of this. That old Imbrian man was the specter of all this injustice. His wizened face glared right back.

“I believed that I would be negotiating with the Union forces.” He said.

“We are Union forces. But there’s no negotiation to be had.” Maya replied.

“I mistook you for Katarran mercenaries. I’m still not sure what to believe.” Arberth continued.

At that point, Commissar Doukas took two steps forward, and smashed the butt of her rifle into his gut.

Behind him, his entourage took nervous steps back, but the power armor troops were faster.

Soon they had everyone on the ground, on their knees, with their hands behind the back of their heads.

Several men had been given a quick butt in the back to make uncertain the folly of their resistance.

“I am in control of Serrano station!” Arberth finally cried out. “Good luck containing the rabble below without my support! You need me! Don’t act high and mighty here, you communist thugs! You don’t know what you’re dealing with! Those undercity mobs won’t care what uniform you are wearing! I have the merchants, police, bankers, the lifeblood of this city is behind me! Even Bloch wouldn’t dare kill me!”

Maya grinned at the assortment of suits brought low before her. Feeling a bit of that old Katarran sadism.

He really believed he was in the right, didn’t he? He really thought he had the high ground here.

She squatted down in front of him, staring at eye level with a smile that rendered him finally speechless.

“That administration ends now, Mr. Hoffman.” Maya said. “Serrano is a now a territory of the Labor Union of Ferris, Lyser and Solstice. I am the law now. Vasily Bloch’s best interests were served by your continuing pathetic existence, but the Union has little use for your merchants and bankers. If you value your life, then assist us in identifying, seizing and distributing necessary goods within the city to avert the crisis. Perhaps your exemplary service will be rewarded with a commuted sentence when we put all of you scum on trial.”

It was a pragmatic thing to say. She still definitely planned to kill Hoffman at the end no matter what.

In her eyes, he was the last Volkisch enemy to be purged here, in communism’s mass, righteous violence.

But for now, there was another matter. That hand which killed had to give way to the hand that fed.

Putting Serrano right would be Operation Tenable’s next task. That too was essential to communism.

Previous ~ Next

Sinners Under The Firmament [9.2]

“Large biological entity rising from the Goryk Abyss, 2 kilometer from stern.”

“Profile matches ‘Dagon’, fortress-class of the Omenseer military group ‘Syzygy’.”

“Shields are at 60% power, no coverage over breached area.”

“Port-side stern guns are not responding electronically. Could still be manually operated.”

“Milord, your orders?”

On the bridge of the Antenora the main screen filled with a red and brown fog as the levels of katov mass continued to climb. Deep within that fog an enormous monster had arisen. Taking turns and speaking quickly but not over each other, the drones delivered their reports. There was no anxiousness in their voices or mannerisms, but they knew this was a crisis and it necessitated alertness and alacrity.

Norn and Adelheid turned from Hunter III, who was caught in a strange panic squeezing up against a corner of the bridge, and they looked over the situation developing on the main screen.

“Retain course away from the gorge for now. Where is the Pandora’s Box?” Norn said.

“They are moving in the direction of the gorge.” Said one of the drones.

Norn’s lips curled into a self-satisfied grin. “Oh, nothing to worry about then.”

“Acknowledged.” Said the drones.

“Nothing to worry about?” Adelheid asked. “That monster’s like Hunter III, isn’t it? The drones said it belonged to those Omenseers. It’d be pretty tough to kill if that’s the case, right?”

Norn glanced at the main screen again, shaking her head.

“We don’t know the full extent of what they’re capable of, but I doubt it’s an Omenseer body. An Omenseer would need to consume an enormous amount of mass to assume such a gigantic form using their powers as I understand them. And even if they had all that mass, they would need even more mass to patch it up against damage from a ship’s gun– it wouldn’t be a fight like those soldiers had at Ajillo against Hunter III where they couldn’t harm her. Regardless, it’s the Pandora’s Box’s problem.”

The Antenora was navigating away from the Goryk Abyss and the Pandora’s Box was set on going to Rhinea, which would lead them to follow the Goryk Gorge westward, closer to Dagon. So in terms of who the monster would see and target first, the Pandora’s Box would present the closest target of opportunity. They would be worthy bait to allow the Antenora to flee easily. There was no danger to them.

Adelheid seemed to catch Norn’s drift– and seemed dissatisfied with it.

“I suppose so. I take it you’re not going to try to intervene for Elena then?”

“Why would I? She could’ve been safe with me, and she chose not to. She talked big about finding her own way– let her taste the consequences of her actions then.” Norn shrugged. “I’m quite happy for Arbitrator II’s timely return to the world. It’ll serve to put Elena back in her place.”

“Sounds like you’re holding more of a grudge than I thought.” Adelheid said, grinning.

Norn tossed some of her blond hair in a dismissive gesture. “Be quiet, you.”

Adelheid was briefly erased from her attentions, and Norn knelt in front of Hunter III again, who had her back to the wall, her eyes glowing with red rings. Hunter III was seeing past them with those eyes, past the walls, past the Katov mass, to the Leviathan in the waters behind them. She was performing psionics, which she would have referred to as Omenseeing, to try to ward off the Leviathan’s attack. And perhaps, for other reasons as well. From what Norn managed to dig up from the archives of the Sunlight Foundation, it was their understanding that every Omenseer had a connection to Arbitrator II. At this moment, if the Autarch was on that biological vessel, she was likely able to communicate with Hunter III.

That was how Hunter III was so certain that the Autarch was near.

What was she being told? Was she trying to resist her influence in some way?

It wasn’t the first time they had seen this. Hunter III and Norn went back a few years.

When she had first found the little creature, unconscious in a puddle of her own filth in the depths of an underclass station habitat, the Autarch herself had given her a warning, in Hunter III’s own voice.

“Titan of Ice, you offer sympathy to this little wretch at your own peril. I am watching.”

Presumptuous little bitch. If Euphrates and Tigris had killed her before, Norn could also.

Still, it was advantageous to be able to travel in the photic zone without coming to harm. This is why tales of things like the Omenseers were once legendary among the ocean-going caste. They had attained all kinds of names in the canon of sailing myths, but all of the stories cast the ancient navigators as kingmakers of legendary ships, bestowing power and treasure. That it came with potentially having a spy aboard at all times didn’t outweigh the benefits unless Norn needed to confront the Autarch directly.

But the arrangement always mystified her. The Autarch was up to something.

Norn had hoped to sever this connection, and thus truly command Hunter III.

However, her confrontation with Euphrates made her realize she was still lacking in ability.

She survived and outwitted Euphrates, it was only their familiarity that allowed her to find an advantage.

Challenging an entity that was powerful in the Aether was trickier than she envisioned.

Even with all of her powers and understanding, Arbitrator II felt farther out of reach than ever.

Norn knew about the act, about the exertions, about the effects of psionics– but not enough about the source of the power, and how it interacted with the invisible world. In order to become stronger she needed to understand and explore Aether itself. She needed to know more about the mechanics of Aether as force, and the makeup of Aether as the space for clairvoyance and spiritual journeys.

Her intuition was deep and broad, it made her strong.

But it was incomplete. It was not true knowledge. And so Arbitrator II still eluded her.

Norn set down her hand atop Hunter III’s head and stroked the creature’s hair tenderly.

“I’m sorry. Please endure, and do not fear for us. I promise that I will free you.”

Hunter III shuddered, blinked, and tears escaped from her eyes.

In the middle of the hangar, the crew gave plenty of space for the confrontation to play out.

The recovered Petra and Yurii, the crew extracting Selene, Adelheid, they watched silently.

“Get up.”

“Master, please–”

“Get up from the fucking floor Gertrude.”

She was kneeling, bowing. After everything she did! That shameless bitch–!

“I fucking said get up!”

Compelled by an invisible force, Gertrude Lichtenberg nearly jumped from the floor of the hangar as if picked up, lifted, and thrown onto her feet. She landed standing unsteadily, and almost fell back down, raising her hands in front of herself desperately as if trying to push Norn away. Norn approached step by daunting step, fists balled up at her sides, red eyes locked furiously on to Gertrude, and as she did Gertrude backed away step by step as if dogged by a predatory animal. In the middle of the hangar, with the drones working around them and the officers staring without expression–

“Please, Master Norn– please listen–”

“Temporal control.”

Norn was too furious, so she could not stop time entirely.

She understood implicitly how slow or how fast time was moving during Temporal Control because of its effect on her heart. It was moving at about “half speed”, so Gertrude could have potentially still reacted, even if it was ineffectual, but Norn would not let her. Moving quickly, she kicked Gertrude’s legs out from under her. She controlled her strength so as not to break Gertrude’s legs.

She only wanted to trip her.

In order to allow Gertrude to begin falling, Norn breathed in–

“Norn–!”

Gertrude cried out in time for the second Temporal Control to take place.

She was suspended in air, parallel to the floor.

Norn raised her hand. She wanted to punch Gertrude to the floor.

In her mind she was already plotting the next few ways she’d inflict pain on Gertrude.

A punch to the stomach hard enough to smash her right back to the floor.

A psionic push to force Gertrude back to a stand, and as she stood, a punch to the face.

Hardening her sweat– freezing her tears against the spheres of her eyes–

Maybe ask her a few rhetorical questions to feed back into her own anger while she beat her. What did you think you were doing? Why did you countermand my order? Selene could have been killed! You could have been killed! Elena could have been killed! Did you want to subvert my command? Don’t you realize I am the one who controls you? Through your actions were you trying to control me?

Her heart and lungs moved even slower– Temporal Control had strengthened slightly.

Enough for Norn to look at her own fist, closed, ready to attack. As if she too was slowed.

That fist– her hand– it was as many things as she was. Locked in a multiplicity of states.

Apostle of Ice.

Immortal of the Sunlight Foundation.

Praetorian.

Head of the House of Fueller.

Commander.

Katarran–

Norn von Fueller. Astra Palaiologos. She was all things that in the world were made to kill, destroy, to unmake and reduce. Her fist was an extension of her great power to kill which she had wielded countless times. She had killed such an innumerable amount of people with her bare hands that she felt her closest instinct was not to touch but to bludgeon, to choke, to gouge, to tear apart. In her mind there was a red haze of spilt blood that reeked of iron. In her ears a tinnitus of snapping bone.

Born in a palace she couldn’t remember; growing up in a hole she wanted to forget.

Had that little creature huddling in the dark even been aware of her destructive destiny?

Was that always the person she was meant to become–?

And– could it ever– change–?

Norn peered deep into the wide, fear-stricken, tear-studded eyes of Gertrude Lichtenberg.

In the time bubble, with her heart slowly failing and her head slowly clouding, it was as if she was transported back in time to when she first met Gertrude, prostrated before her. Alone, pleading, begging for her life. Having no resources, no parents, nobody to rely on in her hour of need. For the first time she called Norn “master.” Back then– she wasn’t useful to Norn whatsoever. However–

–she reminded Norn of him, for a second, didn’t she? It tugged on her sympathy.

She realized that she couldn’t have let Doenitz and Brauchitsch have their way with her.

Now–

Gertrude had disobeyed her. She had almost killed Selene, Elena, maybe even herself.

Her body was suspended before her, awaiting punishment.

Alone, pleading, begging for her life. At her own lowest moment, having lost everything.

Norn drew in a deep breath.

Before her, Gertrude fell suddenly on the floor, on her back. She grimaced, clutching her stomach.

She realized that Norn had not struck her. “Master, thank you! Thank you for sparing me!”

“I’m not your Master anymore, Gertrude. I have nothing more to teach you.”

She wouldn’t make the same mistake as with Konstantin again and again and again.

Looking down at Gertrude, at her expression of renewed horror as she realized–

“Please forgive me.” Gertrude begged. “Master, please I still– I still need you–!”

Norn kneeled down and spoke in a low voice, one only Gertrude could hear.

“I forgive you. I have all the forgiveness in the world for someone like you. It’s my greatest flaw as a person, even greater than my rages and all the blood on my hands. My boundless sympathy for powerless people with dark ambitions. My crazed desire to give the world to fools with nothing but lofty words.” She said. “So I forgive you. But I won’t help you chase after Elena. It’s over, Gertrude.”

It hurt. It really did hurt in a way Norn thought she could never be hurt.

What was Gertrude to her? What did it mean for her to call her ‘master’?

As a teacher, she was neglectful. As a guardian, she was clearly a dismal failure.

And yet, it still hurt– not to be able to crown this pitiful girl king of her own wanton desires.

Norn had really cared about her– she had actually come to esteem her. It had been fun.

It had been fun having someone, for a while, that she thought could aspire to her position. Someone who could learn through her skin the violent language of power and humanity and become a villain as Norn had. She realized too late where she had erred — exactly as she had with Konstantin. Every damn time. She realized too late that the passion she so admired had become a blind, consuming wildfire.

Now, all she could do was continue to play the villain like she had been.

Norn von Fueller could never be a hero, after all. Not even to one single person.

So she stood, turning her back to Gertrude, leaving her in the middle of the hangar.

“Gertrude Lichtenberg! You’ve graduated from Norn Tauscherer’s own school for temerity and bastardy!” She put on a grin and shouted to let off some emotion. Hopefully it was funny to someone else. To anyone else. “I have nothing more to teach you. I will return you to the Iron Lady and should our paths cross thereafter, don’t expect I will ally with you easily. Erich has not been keen on his own support for the Inquisition. I recommend you head to Konstantinople. Your only allies lie there.”

Gertrude stood, slowly, with a grim expression on her face.

“Ma’am, I accept your terms. I have no other choice. But I’d have to go through Rhinea to return to the seat of the Inquisition, and the Volkisch bar the way. It’d be suicidal to head back.”

Even now, Norn felt compelled to give her a parting gift of sorts.

Maybe, if it was Gertrude– if it was her who saw it–

She might understand–

So, foolish as it was, vulnerable as it made her, Norn lowered her voice to the girl again–

“Between Sverland and Veka lies the Abyss of Kesar. Descend Kesar’s Gorge and seek the habitat that lies at 3000 depth, and beyond that, if you have the will, continue descending through the Katov mass. If you can’t find something there to help you, then you were not meant to succeed, Grand Inquisitor. You could give yourself up to the Union, perhaps. They’re certainly more principled than the Volkisch.”

Norn knew it was stupid and sentimental to have said such a thing, even to Gertrude.

But this was the sum total of the legacy that she could bequeath to anyone.

Kesar’s Abyss, where she had grown in the deepest darkness.

And beyond that darkness–

Agartha.

Where Gertrude might acquire greater power and understanding– or die.

Did she believe in her–? Norn didn’t want to have hope for it. She had already said enough.

Gertrude in return had nothing to say to that. Norn imagined her expression darkened and embittered, the way she had raged all throughout the time they chased the Pandora’s Box. Norn did not turn around to face Gertrude again. With her back turned, she made herself depart the hangar entirely.

Whatever happened from now would be Gertrude’s own doing under only her own power.

For the rest of her stay on the Iron Lady they would neither see nor speak to one another.

Samoylovych and Petra detained her for her misdeeds, and she remained quietly in the brig.

“You told her about Kesar. I read it in your lips. Don’t even try to hide it.” Adelheid said.

They took the elevator together, hoping to be ready in the medbay for Selene.

“It doesn’t matter.” Norn said, though it clearly did.

“You’ve never even shown that place to me.” Adelheid added.

Norn laid a hand on Adelheid’s head and ruffled her red hair dismissively.

“Norn–!” She began groaning.

“You already believe and trust me, so you don’t need to see it. But I’ll take you someday.”

“Hmph. Fine. Keep your secrets. I’m keeping mine too.” Adelheid teased, grinning.

Norn narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “Hey. What is that supposed to mean?”

As it was normal for them to do, they bickered childishly the whole way.

Floating in the water before her, crosshairs deadly sited. Enemy suspended between life and death on the instant mercy of a trigger pull. Weapons locked, vision wavering with rage and anxiety, killing blow one twitch removed. Her face reflected on glass across dozens of screens and meters, eyes on rainbow fire, sweating bullets, breath like steam, grin like a knife-slash across the bottom of her face.

Sonya Shalikova!

Your pretend powers are insult to genetic perfection!

Accept your place as a born-to-be corpse!

Die! Die as many times as it takes!

She pressed the trigger again and again and again–

Purple tongues of a great daemonic power surged across her arm.

Selene saw a white-haired white face almost exactly like her own.

Apparition on every screen, pink lips spreading with sympathy to speak,

“I will save you.”

Her arm shattered, her fire leaped back at her in judgment.

What?! No! I’m your master! Shoot her! Shoot HER!

Bolts of purple lightning tore across her own armor, tunneling hex-shaped scars through her cockpit and slicing across her seat like razor serpents, crawling over her body tearing out hex-shaped cross-sections of her face, blood bursting from her like great smoking geysers, organs melting into gore slush, her trapped body writhing and twisting and thrashing, her face frozen rictus of unimaginable agony–

“No!”

With a jump, Selene found herself suddenly no longer out at sea.

Distant furious thoughts that had spun in her brain like a whirlpool suddenly quelled.

She was in a bed, dressed in a patient gown with nothing under it.

In a sudden surge of anxiety she raised her hands to her head. Her indigo hair was all there. Her antennae were still affixed. Her cheeks, her shoulders, her breasts, her stomach, everything she touched was still attached and unbroken. Selene breathed in and out. She scanned the room in a mute panic.

“Welcome back to the world of the living, little ace.”

At her side, Norn and Adelheid took up two chairs adjacent to the bed.

Across from her, the doctor, Livia Van Der Meer watched from her desk.

Selene stared at them, quivering with anxiety, struggling breaths quaking in her chest.

On a wheeled chair, Livia rolled around to the other side of Selene’s bed.

“Take a look, kiddo! It’s pretty fun-looking isn’t it?”

With an amused look on her face, Livia showed Selene a mirror. The girl observed that her right eye had aggressive red veins around the edges, and that the outline of her irises was completely distorted. Half of it had become a rainbow-colored fractal shape three branches deep into the white around it. Her heart jumped at the sight of it. Selene had never seen something like it before in her life.

“What the hell is that?” She asked, turning sharply toward Norn. “Do I have a disease?”

“No. It’s the lingering effects of a psynadium overdose.” Norn said.

“You can overdose on that shit?” Selene asked.

“You can overdose on it! You can even die! Psynadium has been described in the literature of a certain unsavory group as a ‘neural accelerator’ that increases blood flow to the brain and ‘dilates thought pathways’, whatever the hell that means!” Livia said cheerfully. “Thankfully I have been administering psioxone, a ‘neural accelerator antagonist,’ to keep you whole and hale!”

Selene was speechless. Not just at the doctor’s manic behavior, but at her own foolishness.

She had pumped a lot of psynadium during her confrontation with that girl–

Sonya Shalikova.

To think she had to go this far to try to outmatch her and even so–

“I fucked up.” Selene mumbled. “I totally fucked it all up.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t suffer permanent brain damage. Maybe you really are a fucking ubermensch.” Norn said, openly sighed once her last glib statement left her lips. “Because of the psioxone, you’ll be unable to use psionic abilities until you recover. Don’t even try to read auras or look at the aether. It will only frustrate you. You will stay put here and rest until I say otherwise. Understood?”

“Yes.”

What else could Selene say? She felt foolish, like she had lost her credibility.

That manic wind which had swept her since she learned about her origins was no longer rushing her forward. Her first real test of strength, and she had been taken apart by some nobody. She had her at the end but– only with a gun that she couldn’t really fire. A small bitterness arose when she thought of that. When she recalled the events that had transpired at the edge of memory. She needed to know.

“Norn, why didn’t you let me kill her?” Selene mumbled.

“Selene, this isn’t a bloodsport, you know? Think about the bigger picture.” Adelheid said.

Selene shot a glare at the incongruous red-head. “I wasn’t asking you.”

“You weren’t, but she’s right.” Norn added, a quick and sharp retort. “Sure, you could have killed that girl with the cartridge, you can tell yourself you won that bout if it makes you feel better. But our goal was to extract Elena from the Pandora’s Box, and you were no closer to doing so in that situation.”

“Fine, I fucked up. I fucked it all up. Then just– just toss me aside like trash, then.”

Selene’s fingers squeezed the blankets over the lower half of her body.

She gritted her teeth. A spasm of anxiety shook through her chest.

Tears started to build in her eyes. She was useless now. Complete garbage.

Without the Jagdkaiser, or any other Diver to pilot, she wasn’t anything special. Some colossus of genetics she had proven to be. She felt like she was back to square one. She wasn’t some great and invincible psionic super-being, and she hadn’t even proven herself a particular capable pilot either. That Sonya Shalikova had completely outmaneuvered her. Her psionics couldn’t reach that girl. She felt like an idiot, thinking back to every stupid misstep she made during that fight which had grown in her heart to have such a frenzied, insane importance that she had lost sight of everything surrounding it.

Norn reached out a hand and set it right on top of Selene’s head.

Gently ruffling her hair like she was petting a small animal.

“You’re still my ace and the best pilot on this ship.” She said. “I’m telling you already to stop thinking about that one engagement. That goes both ways– don’t focus on it as a source of victory or as the potential for ultimate defeat. At the end of it all, as your commander, I take responsibility for our defeat. I underestimated the enemy, and I entrusted tactical command to the wrong individual. I don’t blame you for the mess that Gertrude Lichtenberg and I created in the first place. Just lay down and relax, ok?”

That hardly assuaged Selene’s fears. It didn’t change what had happened at all.

“I don’t want your pity. How the hell am I supposed to keep going after all this?”

“Live to spite your enemies. Grow stronger to take your revenge. Remember what I said?”

Norn withdrew her hand, and patted Selene on the shoulder.

“I’m not giving you my pity. Once you recover, I’m going to put you through hell.”

Selene raised her head and fixed a quizzical look on Norn’s determined eyes.

“What is that– what do you mean–?”

“I’m going to train you personally. You’re my ace; I’ll make sure you’ll be worthy of that.”

Norn smiled at her. It was one of her usual awful grins but Selene felt it was different too.

“You shouldn’t go too hard on her.” Adelheid said, crossing her arms.

“You get ready too. Your piss-poor psionics are beneath my standards as well.”

“Excuse me?”

Selene felt a strange excitement brimming under her skin at the prospect.

Could she become the true protégé of Norn the Praetorian? Immortal Apostle of Ice?

“Norn, why?” Selene said, interrupting the lover’s quarrel playing out in front of her.

“Why what?” Norn asked.

“I don’t understand. I– I failed you. Why would you bother with me anymore?”

Selene started to actually weep. She couldn’t hold back the tears anymore.

She was a product who had failed to live up to her designed expectations.

Despite all the lofty ambitions which had been ascribed to her birth, she was a failure.

So why–?

“You mean why would I train you? Because you need it, obviously.”

“What? It can’t be that simple.”

“You cry too much. Just calm down already. I’m not such a bad commander, am I?”

Adelheid butted in again with a little shrug. “I can see where she would get the impression.”

“No one asked you. If you’re not going to be productive then be quiet.” Norn said.

“I told you Selene– you would hate it the first time she scolds you.” Adelheid teased.

Those two were putting on an act to try to make her feel better, she realized.

They always did that. They started bickering with each other like a couple of kids–

And it made any situation, no matter how awful, feel run of the mill and every-day.

What a stupid bit of theater, wasn’t it? But it made Selene chuckle just a tiny bit.

“I do think you’re something special, Selene. I didn’t lie about what I wanted with you.”

Norn looked at her again with that determined seriousness she had before.

“It’s not because of your psychotic mother’s obsession with eugenics. Nor is it because of Euphrates taking you under her wing. It’s because you remind me of another girl who felt born from nothing in a deep, dark hole in the ground, growing up secluded from everything. That girl who was whisked away from hiding and fed a grand destiny. I always wished that she could have been freed from that destiny.”

“That’s–” Selene’s face turned a little bitter. “That rhetoric is totally empty to me, Norn.”

“I want you to attain the power to surpass your obligations and protect your own freedom.”

Selene could not say anything to that. They had already had a conversation like this and back then Selene had wanted to say the same thing she wanted to say now: did she want a ‘thank you’ for that? Because Selene would not thank her for this self-serving sophistry. All her life Selene had grown up wanting an answer to a simple set of questions: “Who am I?” “Why was I born?” “What am I meant for?”      

Nobody was giving her a straight answer. All of them could go to hell for that.

She wanted to hear: “You are Selene Anahid. You were born from love and into greatness.”

For the past few days, before she sortied out to be defeated by that Shalikova.

Selene had really come to believe that she was special. That her life had meaning.

That she was born with a great destiny inscribed in her genes.

Because if you weren’t born with a such a destiny, how did you attain it?

Who could give it to you? Who could tell you your life wasn’t just an empty whim?

How did you come to know whether or not your existence had any meaning to it?

People who were born from the womb had destinies imbued into their very flesh.

Families, communities, territories, states and nations, ethnicities, all with their own history.

Selene wasn’t even a Katarran. She was a blank slate. Where did her purpose come from?

“Norn, I– I just want to be able to tell myself I’m more than nothing. Do you get it?”

Norn shut her eyes briefly. She had a little smile again. “I know. But I can’t relate to your anxiety Selene. Because I’ve regretted all the easy answers I was given. Unlike you, I wish that nobody had given me their lofty purposes and made me believe in my own grandiosity. And I don’t wish that regret on you.”

She reached out again and laid her hand on top of one of Selene’s hands.

Still looking her in the eyes. That strange tenderness disarmed Selene momentarily.

“For now, is it enough to be Selene Anahid, ace pilot of the Antenora?” Norn asked.

“I don’t know.” Selene said. Her defiance was weary and waning, however.

Hearing the word ‘ace’ and feeling Norn’s touch really did set her heart alight a little.

“Selene, I need you. Will you stay with us? At least until you have found a better answer.”

That word, ‘need’, really shot through Selene’s chest like a bolt of lightning.

She quivered. Her stomach felt fluttery. What could she say? She tried to be defiant, but–

“Quit patronizing me. It’s not like I can fucking go anywhere else.” She said.

“I can drop you off at the next peaceful dock we find. Free of obligations.” Norn said.

“Fuck no! What would I do with myself? Just shut up and just– keep using me, then.”

Selene laid back in her bed. She felt stupid, like a little kid giddy with her parent’s praise.

A facile, pathetic feeling– to be so validated by such a vacuous thing as being ‘needed’.

“I’ll rest and recover and think about my future after I’m through with your stupid training.”

Selene turned her back on Norn and covered herself up in her blankets with a huff.

Under them, her face felt red and hot, and she wanted to cry. But she felt– less bad.

“How’s life treating you, little Hunter? Oh wait– I can just see it for myself.”

Hunter III of the Third Sphere found herself in a void surrounded by all kinds of colors.

She was seeing through her brainself, dragged to meet the progenitor who lived in all of her kind.

Long red hair, a single horn, a grinning face that was white as bloodless flesh.

Hovering just above the ground. Her arms spread out so the colors could coil about her.

The Autarch of the Omenseers. Arbitrator II of the First Sphere.

“Please don’t make me hurt ‘em. I really don’t wanna. I really don’t wanna, boss.”

Hunter III kowtowed in front of Arbitrator II, weeping openly, her body shaking violently.

Arbitrator II furrowed her brow in consternation. Her lips formed a brutal grin.

“Huh? Really? Weird! But I thought all that you cared about was eating, Hunter III!” Arbitrator II said dismissively. “I was convinced that you were just a stupid little animal who just wanted to stuff your gullet with meat from whatever source you can get it. Last time I ever trusted you with anything you just ran off like an idiot to gorge yourself and ruined my plot! Do you remember? Of course you don’t! Don’t even answer! I know you only remember the taste of meat. That’s all that fills your dim little brain, is meat and eating and looking for your next meal of meat. Even after I uplifted you, rotten little vermin. So would you really be so upset if you ate the Titan of Ice and the miserable hominins in her employ?”

Hunter III looked up from the floor and Arbitrator II’s face was directly in front of hers.

Wide-open furious eyes locking with Hunter III’s own.

“Please don’t– Please. I’ll do anythin’ boss. I’ll really do anything but hurt ‘em, please.”

Hunter III’s weeping eyes just centimeters from the cold, heartless gaze of Arbitrator II.

In the next instant the Autarch returned to her hovering position, laughing to herself.

“You’re lucky that almost to the very last individual, you Hunter caste have all turned out to be totally useless to me. I don’t expect better from any of you, so don’t worry, I have no grand punishment planned. Having you eat the Titan of Ice and her crew would be really funny, even more now that I know you esteem them for some bizarre reason. But it’s better you just stay so I can keep an eye on them.”

Arbitrator II made a subtle beckoning motion with her slender white hand.

In that instant, some of Hunter III’s colors fled from her and formed a bubble.

In the Autarch’s hands, that bubble began to reflect images with Hunter III’s memories.

Eating the delicious steer– killing all the bad men Norn told her to– saving Adelheid–

Norn patting her head– and all the feelings that rushed into her chest when it happened–

“Liberate you? Oh that’s funny. I’d like to see that evolutionary dead-end try it.”

Arbitrator II closed her hand around the bubble of Hunter III’s memories, crushing it.

Colors swirled around her and drifted up into the air like gas.

“You may remain at her side. She’s a Titan, after all. We’re destined to do battle.”

Hunter III looked up from the floor again. Surprised to have received a little mercy.

When she did, Arbitrator II’s face was hovering directly in front of hers again.

“But. Remember this. You and them, are bacteria compared to me. I am infinity itself.”

Arbitrator II gave her that wide-eyed, terrifying stare once more, gauging her reaction.

“Take advantage of their kindness all you want. But if you hold any notion that you can escape from me, you will only suffer for it. I can assume control of your body any time I want. Don’t give me another reason to notice you, little Hunter. Be meek and know your preordained place in my natural order.”

Her slender white finger touched Hunter III’s cheek and laid a scratch mark upon it.

A thin trickle of blood formed on it. Hunter III felt it sting, felt the skin part.

She felt the influence of Arbitrator II’s power over flesh creeping into her body.

“Yes, Autarch! I’ll obey! Please don’t do anythin’ rash!” Hunter III begged.

“Good.”

Arbitrator II returned back to her floating position, this time on her back, facing skyward.

She held the overlong ends of her robes over her face as if shielding her eyes from light.

“Little animals who know their place get to stay in their place, unharmed and undisturbed.” She said. “I must say, I’m really disappointed though. When I uplifted you, I really thought you would appreciate the gift I had given you. Restoring your lost humanity, awakening your potential, giving you mastery over the world. We are divine beings, exalted of the flesh, the apex of biological life. And yet you would give away your holy dignity to comport yourself like a beast anyway. Beasts care only about eating and fucking. Humans should support my Godly ambitions. It makes me angry. It makes me furious that I couldn’t restore the fullness of the humanity you lost– and you don’t even care about it.”

Hunter III felt herself be pulled up as if by invisible hands.

Raised up by her wrists, dangling like a doll in front of the lounging Arbitrator II.

“It makes me seethe to think that bastards from 1000 years ago are still getting their way.”

She made a dismissive gesture, and Hunter III’s aetheric self was instantly torn apart.

Her arms limbs ripped in opposite directions, her torso pinched in half at the belly.

Head burst like a blood-filled boil squeezed by an invisible hand.

That colorful void in which she had been suspended disappeared instantly.

Her eyes had been wide open the whole time, her jaw hanging. When her brainself returned to her biological form, Hunter III blinked, and awakened as if from a daydream. For a brief instant she felt intense pain throughout her whole body, shaking itself out through her limbs, down her narrow chest. She gritted her teeth and wept. But the agony was gone as quickly as it came.

She was on the bridge, her body against a corner on the floor.

Looking up, Norn and Adelheid had gone, but–

“Finally awake, cutey?”

Hunter III looked up and saw the tall, long-haired dog-woman in the gray uniform.

Yurii Annecy Samoylovych-Darkestdays.

She waved at her. Hunter III responded with a far less enthusiastic wave of the hand.

“Where’s Norn? And Adelheid?” She asked.

“They’re tending to Selene in the medbay.” Samoylovych said. “They wanted me to keep an eye on you now that we’ve tidied up everything else around here. And of course, I couldn’t turn down taking care of a cute little snack like you.” Samoylovych winked at her with a big grin on her face. Hunter III pointed a finger at herself in confusion, as if to ask silently if she was really referring to her.

“Me, a snack? What’re you talkin’ about?”

“A delicious morsel. If you were willing, I’d absolutely devour you.”

“Y’wanna eat me? Like really eat me? No joke?” Hunter III asked in disbelief.

Samoylovych laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m a gentleman. I’ll make sure you enjoy it.”

“You gotta be jokin’. I dunno how anyone could enjoy being ate.”

“Ah ha ha! How charming! Well, maybe someday I’ll teach you personally what I mean.”

It wasn’t very alarming, if Samoylovych took a bite out of her she could grow the bits back.

More than anything it was just confusing. But at least it confirmed she had truly awoken.

Hunter III let out a deep-held sigh and collapsed against the wall, relaxing her tense body. Though the bridge’s main screen still showed a lot of red water, she couldn’t feel the Autarch anymore. That was an incredible relief. As if a dozen spotlights had ceased to burn on her specifically. She couldn’t remember exactly what the Autarch told her– but she felt it. As if it had been burned under her skin.

“Hey, can you tell Norn everythin’s okay? I wanna take a nap.” Hunter III said.

“I’ll mention it in my report. But she wants you to check in with the doctor.”

“Okay. I’ll visit Livia after I’ve had some z’s. Night night Sammy. Don’t eat me, okay?”

While an incredulous Samoylovych watched her, Hunter III shut her eyes, relaxed her breathing, her mind slowly emptying of difficult thoughts. Refilling with innocent dreams of juicy, red meat.

That night, Norn and Adelheid assembled together in one of the planning rooms, setting down a pair of bedrolls on one of the fold-out benches along the wall. The officer’s habitats were sealed off due to the breach the Pandora’s Box had carved in their social pod, so they were planning to bunk in this room for the time being. It had a central table, a few ancillary benches, and a terminal screen.

However, they also had an important conference to attend. The Antenora had left the waters of Goryk Gorge, escaping the cloud of Katov mass. They reconnected to the laser relay network once more, and established an encrypted connection to the palace at Heitzing, seat of the Fueller Dynasty and capital of the former Imbrian Empire. On the screen, a young blond man in a lavish suit appeared before them, in the background a great blue and green standard hung from a colorful wall.

A rose on his lapel suggested that he was perhaps readying to attend a party.

“What’s with the getup?” Norn asked.

“Salutations to you too, esteemed Aunt.” Erich said dryly.

He then nodded his head in acknowledgment. “And her adjutant, of course.”

Adelheid bowed her head. “May you live long and prosper, milord.”

She was on her best behavior in front of the Prince. She had already been scolded once.

“Erich, we recovered the defector. Did you know it was Samoylovych’s girl?”

Norn and the Samoylovych family had some history. Pleasant, for the most part.

“I had an idea that was the case.” Erich said. “Did you get a chance to peruse the goods?”

“Yurii is a very attractive girl, athletic, handsome, voluptuous. In full bloom, you could say.” Erich had no reaction to the joke. Adelheid clutched her skirt in clear irritation. Norn continued without acknowledging either. “We’ve discovered that the Vekans are planning a major security alliance with the Union, and furthermore, that they are under pressure from the Hanwans. I suspect the Hanwans will take the opportunity with all that’s going on to make a swing for total control of the South Nobilis gap to secure their mining colony. The question is how hard will Carmilla swing the hammer down?”

Erich shut his eyes as if contemplating what he was told.

“The Union? That’s interesting. I thought they would bide their time until the very end.”

“No reaction to a possible Hanwan incursion from the esteemed tactician?”

Erich shook his head. “Hanwa is an Empire in rhetoric only. Veka will defeat them.”

“If you say so. Then how will you respond to the Vekan overtures to the Union?”

“I’ve got a few levers I can turn when it comes to this Union-Veka alliance. We’ll see.”

“The Union could be an interesting player in all this. None of us have influence in there.”

“What we can’t get done with influence, we can get done with force. I am untroubled.”

Norn smiled to herself. That was the end of the official business she had with him. Aside from the question of what their next move would be, she turned over in her mind whether or not to tell him about Elena. Would he even have a response to it? She was certain he had engineered things such that she would come to harm from the Volkisch. Even if he had not pulled a trigger on her himself, he had implicitly told several willing gunmen where to point their cannons. Did it even weigh on him?

“I have someone that I want you to talk to.” Erich said, interrupting her train of thought.

“Oh?”

“To clarify: she wanted to talk to you.”

Without asking for permission, Erich split his own screen. Himself in one half–

–on the other half, appeared a woman with long, olive dark hair tied up in a ponytail, a pair of modern, chic black glasses perched on her sleek nose. Her skin was very lightly tan, her features typical of an Imbrian save slightly narrower eyes. Wearing a white lab coat over a dark green turtleneck that looked soft enough to have been real cotton. Seemingly youthful, but Norn knew that was all a façade.

Even this particular iteration of the Sunlight Foundation’s “Sovereign,” Yangtze, was at least thirty-nine years old if not “older,” depending on when her body was decantered and reprogrammed.

Certainly, from what Norn knew about her, her mental age may well have been as old as the world they inhabited, counting from when humans first fully settled the ocean “After Descent.” As a group with ambitions to return humanity to the surface one day, the Sunlight Foundation’s most prized talent was the ability to live long enough to see that happen. This unsavory group was therefore led by a collective of people who had cheated death, the Immortals. Yangtze, Potomac, Hudson, Nile, Euphrates, Tigris, and Ganges. Norn herself, as one of the psionic Apostles, had ‘honorary membership’ even to this day.

Once upon a time, even Mehmed– no, even to this day, Mehmed was an Immortal to them.

No matter what she wanted. They would always count her in their number, and him too.

“Cocytus, or should I say, Norn von Fueller.” Yangtze said by way of greetings.

“Don’t call me by your stupid codenames.” Norn said. “What do you want?”

“Such hostility!” Yangtze feigned injury, putting on a childishly petulant face. “Potomac contacted me and told me you treated her roughly. It’s understandable. She was never very friendly with you, and I should have realized there would be tensions. I just wanted to apologize for any offense she caused.”

“No you don’t.” Erich said. “Quit screwing around. What do you really want with Norn?”

“Everyone’s after me today!” Yangtze moped, shutting her eyes, and frowning in a very exaggerated fashion. “Norn, did you end up going to Goryk’s Gorge? Euphrates disappeared there and I wanted to know what happened to her. You must be on your way out of there now, aren’t you?”

“Don’t bullshit me. You know what I would do if I got my hands on Euphrates again.” Norn said.

“Oh dear. Maybe there are a lot of things I’m not realizing.” Yangtze feigned innocence.

“You pathological liar. I’d twist your head off if you were here.” Norn hissed.

“Did you kill her then? If anyone could, it would have to be you.” Yangtze said.

“This is interesting.” Erich interrupted. “Norn, did you kill one of the Immortals?”

“Euphrates can’t be killed. But this bitch already knows that.” Norn replied.

“I resent these accusations!” Yangtze said. “Euphrates has been awful distant from me lately, but I was sending Potomac and Norn to seek her purely out of concern for her wellbeing. I thought you would just rescue or resupply her. I had no idea that it would end in violence! None! I am innocent.”

Norn tried to push down the raging flame lit in her chest by the very sight of the Sunlight Foundation’s Sovereign. Out of anyone in that organization, nobody was responsible for more suffering than this bitch. She was a fixture atop Norn’s to-kill list. “Yangtze, I refuse to participate in your internecine drama. If you want to kill Euphrates, next time, do it yourself. I informed her that you sent me, by the way. She’ll be coming after you now. I can’t wait to see your little club torn asunder by your collective vanity.”

“Euphrates won’t attack me.” Yangtze said, waving her hand dismissively. “She isn’t like you, Norn.”

“You’re right, she’s been a complete pansy. But I’ve seen a lot of people change lately.”

“Yangtze,”

Erich spoke up. His eyes narrowed, his first display of emotion on that call.

“If you attempt to interfere with my personnel again you can consider our partnership over. I can launch simultaneous attacks on every Sunlight Foundation facility in the Palatine, where all of your most precious laboratories are situated. Don’t test my patience. Norn and I are not here to do your dirty work. You are here, and you continue to breathe, to do my dirty work. Do you understand?”

“How can I respond to that when no one believes a word I say? Hmph!”

Yangtze’s half of the screen shut off. Erich heaved a sigh, returning to fullscreen.

“Whatever. Waste of my time. Norn, as you must have realized, I have somewhere to be. Please make your way back to Heitzing. Extract any combat data from the version one Jagdkaiser for analysis and dispose of the chassis. Use the version two model from now on. If you need to make repairs, we have influence in Aachen station on the Rhinean northern border. The Volkisch authorities there are tenuous.”

“Thank you, dearest nephew. Perhaps we will make a stop.” Norn said.

He bowed his head slightly. “Take care. And keep your eyes out for that sun cult.”

At that, the screen went dark. Norn and Adelheid breathed out, releasing some tension.

They were alone in the room again, and it was about time to go to sleep–

“Norn, what the hell was that about Samoylovych?” Adelheid grumbled.

Norn grunted. “Huh? Jealous? Maybe you should tell me about those secrets of yours.”

Adelheid lobbed one of the bedrolls at her in response, a blow which Norn took gracefully.

The Antenora’s brig was entirely standard for an Imperial combatant ship. There was very little thought put into the taking of prisoners, particularly by a flagship. There was a simple brig outfitted with one barred cell that could cram a few dozen people like sardines in a can, and four solitary confinement cells equipped for a variety of punishments. They could be made lightless, soundproof, cold or hot, humid or dry, the fold-out bed could lock against the wall to be unavailable, and so on.

“Put me in a solitary cell. I don’t want anyone to look at me.”

Gertrude Lichtenberg made this request immediately as Petra Chorniy Sunnysea brought her into the brig. Petra stared at her, tipping her head to one side in mild bewilderment. She had walked ahead partway to the barred cell. For a moment she looked between Gertrude and the solitary cell. She walked over to it, opened the door, and peered inside. It was not very spacious. With the bed folded out, there was very little space to stand or walk in. Petra turned back to Gertrude with a small frown.

“Are you sure? Um, this kind is usually for driving people insane.” Petra said innocently.

Without a word, Gertrude entered the cell and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Configure it however you want. I just want to sleep and be alone.” She said, once seated.

On the adjacent wall, a touchpad panel configured the cell’s potential torments.

“If you say so. I’ll make it a little dim so you can doze off then. Nighty night!”

Petra shut the door behind Gertrude, locking all of the lights and sounds of the brig and the Antenora’s halls instantly. Even the air she breathed inside the cell was controlled differently. A cluster of LED lights provided the cell’s illumination, and these dimmed to a very dark blue. She was completely isolated from the rest of the Antenora. Gertrude pulled her legs up onto the bed and laid back upon it.

The mattress and pillow were stiff, and there was only one thin blanket.

She threw her hat on the floor and undid her ponytail, letting her hair down.

Unbuttoned her greatcoat and threw it over herself as an additional blanket.

She stared at the wall.

Without any sound in the cell, and without any sounds from outside, her brain furnished something for her ears to hear in their place. At first it was only ringing, the dull ringing or whistling of metal clashing with metal as if the battlefield had followed her even into this isolation cell. Then came the voices. Of course there were voices– Norn’s shouting, Sieglinde’s final threats, her own cries.

Bury your love for me in this gorge–

Elena’s voice hurt the most. Even more than Sieglinde, who had tried to kill her.

Gertrude turned in bed, staring directly up at the ceiling.

Minutes became hours. Hours became days. Days must have become weeks.

She tossed, turned, wept, scratched herself. Rages overcame her. She pounded on the walls.

Her moods became as unpredictable as the corrupted weather of the surface.

Alone with her thoughts she would find herself swept up in mania, thinking of herself as some ridiculous and farcical character, laughing, unable to see a future before her. Then just as quickly, just as unbidden she would be stricken with a sudden feeling of immense loss. Clutching her hair, shaking all over. Mumbling to herself. Elena. Elena. She would never see her again. She would never touch her.

Gertrude was hollowed out and quickly refilling with gut-wrenching catastrophe.

After Vogelheim Gertrude had turned the uncertainty of Elena’s disappearance into a mix of hope and despair. Knowing nothing, she could be buoyed upon fantasies of coming to her rescue, because there was no evidence she was dead and no evidence she was alive. That Elena was “out there, somewhere” and their relationship had been untouched by the destruction wrought by the Volkisch. Gertrude filled that gap. Sometimes in feverish mourning, sometimes in a grand empowering insanity.

Elena, perpetually in distress, pushed Gertrude to keep moving forward.

Those dreadful events which had transpired in Goryk’s Gorge were completely different than the tragedy at Vogelheim. Elena had “died” to her in a different way. She knew, definitively and without a doubt, that Elena was alive– and that Elena had rejected her. There was no room for doubt. No gaps to fill herself.

She knew, definitively and without a doubt, that everything was her own fault. She had attacked Elena. Boldly and without excuse. This was nothing she could fantasize about. This was a hell of her own making. There was no amount of delusion that could protect Gertrude or give her hope. She had in front of Elena and in front of many others, unleashed arms upon her, endangered her. In her desperation she called upon a weapon she hardly understood, violating the trust of her benefactors, and making herself a villain. She was lucky Elena hadn’t been killed by her hand that day, but that was no silver lining. What overcame her at that moment? What kind of madness was she capable of on a mere whim anymore?

Gertrude stirred up a storm of self-hatred that she wished would slash her skin off.

Sieglinde was right. The Red Baron had been right to try to kill her. To treat her as the villain.

In her world, Gertrude had styled herself a hero, but more and more, she knew otherwise.

As an Inquisitor she had beaten innocents, incarcerated protestors, jailed political dissidents and enforced laws she knew, without a doubt, to be evil and written for cruel purposes. For her own advancement and selfish wishes, she had reached into the guts of the Empire and pulled out handfuls of gore that caked her hands, and she had more than a taste of it. With a grimace she tore into that meat like it was medicine. Fueling her bloody climb to the highest echelons of power off the despair of weaker men.

Even as a Grand Inquisitor she would not have been a class equal to Elena.

She would have been adjacent to her, however.

Access to power meant continuing access to the woman she desperately loved.

And in loving her, protecting her, exalting her, the bloody beast consecrated herself.

It made all of the loss and the pain mean something. Made it worth anything at all.

The Empire was not worth anything to her. Elena, however, meant the world.

For Elena, she would have killed, annihilated, repressed, crushed all of Aer, with a smile.

And in the absence of Elena. She would have done those things also–

–wouldn’t she?

She would have even,

unleashed

that same

violence

upon Elena herself.

If I couldn’t have her, no one would.

That was the dark proof that unmade her delusion.

Because Gertrude Lichtenberg was a being of irrepressible violence. She was a truncheon slamming down on a skull over and over. She was a shield crashing into the ribs of a body and the steel-studded boots crunching it underfoot. She was a rubber bullet smashing the side of a skull and squeezing out the eye like spurting jelly from its socket. Gertrude was not a knight in shining armor.

Knights in shining armor ended their stories with a princess in hand, and a kingdom saved.

Gertrude was the dragon in the tower.

She was the claw and flame, the brick and steel.

Greedily coveting the Princess.

Complicit in her captivity.

Killing to get close to her, to keep her close, to prevent her being taken.

Smiling at every step of the way. I’ve saved her. I’ve made her happy.

Of course she is there only for me. Of course I know what she needs.

Elena was hers to consume. And she had consumed her. All of her that she could have.

Until

she was

gone.

Thoughts descending on her brain like knives carving, neuron as traced lines of agony.

Memories shook her like the volts of the electric chair.

Was it all so pointless, so doomed?

She held herself, held her head, squeezing herself in that bed, tension in every muscle.

“I love her. I love her. I love her so much. What was I supposed to do?!”

She screamed. “What was I supposed to do?”

She was powerless! The world was so vast and cruel! But she loved her! She loved her!

All she wanted was for her own filthy unworthy visage to fill those perfect indigo eyes!

All she wanted was a taste of the paradise promised in that pearl skin!

Could everyone but Gertrude Lichtenberg possess selfish desires?

Was it only her who was cursed to suffer the final judgment for her own?

“Ever since we met as kids! I loved her! Was that so wrong? Was it so evil?”

Elena loved her back! Elena had never said she hated her, never turned away!

She had every right to reject Gertrude’s advances and overtures before, but she never did!

Elena always had the power. She always held the advantage. And even still–

They even consummated their love! They were both in love! Elena loved her back!

If they had been any two other women, there would have been no obstacle!

Not even laws, not even political and military movements! They could have simply been!

But no–

They were Princess Elena von Fueller and Inquisitor Gertrude Lichtenberg.

There was always that wall–

–and in trying to shatter it had Gertrude made some unforgivable sin?

“It’s this world.”

Clutching her own face, Gertrude opened her eyes peering through the gaps in her fingers.

Shaking in the dark, her tearstained, red-flecked eyes drawing wide, her mouth grinning.

“It’s this putrid Imbrium ocean and the bloodsucking amoral mob that owns it!”

I’ll kill everyone, she thought! I’ll send this whole edifice tumbling down into hell!

Erich, the Volkisch, Millenia, Carmilla von Veka, the Royal Alliance–

She would tear their heads from their necks and pull their spines from the orifice and crack their marrow with her own teeth like a fucking dog! She would send their stations tumbling into the ocean floor, send their people screaming in their stupid masses in a great all-encompassing cloud of gore that would spread across the hundred million meters of Imbrian Ocean between continents! Cast their laws into oblivion and consign their history to global amnesia by a sheer, unrelenting brutality!

You want a villain? You want an unworthy swarthy-skinned beast? Gertrude laughed.

Laughter shook through her like shell-quakes in the water.

Uproarious laughter, kicking her legs, squeezing her fingers on her face.

She laughed and laughed and laughed until she sobbed, wept, screamed, and bit her tongue.

Everything drained out of her. She laid limp in her bed rejecting any stimuli.

Mind in a fog, heart stilling, making no sounds but a few involuntary coughs and whimpers.

Cycles of mania and crashing depression wracked her. She turned the same thoughts over and over in her head until they meant nothing. Her head was a revolving door of the same agonies.

Every dreadful thing that she had done was irreversibly inscribed in history.

Sieglinde had been right. Gertrude had been made and unmade. There was no changing it.

Elena was gone. Her hands were stained. Nothing could be the same anymore.

“Excuse me.”

Light intruded suddenly upon the dark world Gertrude had entombed herself in.

She looked to the light as an intruder, an offender. She felt a surge of anger.

“What is it?” She snapped.

She was sweating, her eyes were red, her clothes all half-undone.

At the door was Petra Chorniy Sunnysea once again.

“I was going to bring you food, but actually, we made contact with the Iron Lady.”

“We made contact? How long has it been?”

“You’ve been in there for 14 hours or so. You must have been really tired.”

Gertrude felt her chest tighten with anxiety. Petra made no sense to her.

“Have I been sleeping?”

Petra nodded, her floppy dog ears shaking as she did.

“Every time I checked the camera, anyway. Sometimes you looked a bit rough.”

“A bit rough? I feel like I’ve been kicking and screaming for weeks.” Gertrude said.

“Aww! Oh, that’s so sad miss! You ought not to have stayed here!” Petra’s ears drooped. “You know, I don’t feel any grudge against you, so if you want, I can bring you a hot chocolate and some sweet bread while you wait for your friends to pick you up. We should meet them in a few hours. Norn says you can wait in the hangar if you want too! But if you do that, Master Yurii has to keep an eye on you instead.”

Gertrude could hardly muster a response to that.

She felt like her thoughts were being vacuumed out of her skull.

Raising her shaking hands over her face in disbelief.

That light which Petra had brought into her cell had obliterated her. Hollowed her out.

“I’ll stay here. I– I need to sleep a bit more.”

“Okay! If you say so! Nighty night!”

Petra cheerfully shut the door again, slowly shutting the light back out of the world.

Gertrude sat in the bed. Alone without thoughts. Minutes felt like hours.

And those hours felt like days.

There was nothing she could do alone with her own mind to solve anything.

No matter how much she hurt herself, it would neither expiate nor reverse her mistakes.

She did not want to think about what to do. Not right now.

All she wanted, all she begged for, was for something to make her feel human again.

The Iron Lady and the Antenora reconvened in the northern Serrano region.

Using a natural rock formation to hide the bulk of the vessels as they tried to dock together.

There was a sense of urgency to their meeting that neither side had counted on.

“Milord, the situation in Sverland has changed dramatically,”

On the bridge of the newly-repaired Iron Lady, now spotless compared to the damaged Antenora, Norn appeared on the main screen. Captain Dreschner and his adjutant and communications officer Schicksal exchanged information they had collected on the way to Goryk Gorge with her. Norn briefly perused the data and had a visibly surprised expression on the screen. She gestured something for one of the crew off-screen, before returning her attention to Dreschner with a darkened expression.

“Did you verify this? How are both the Volkisch and the Union here?” Norn asked.

Dreschner had handed her several files which were making their way through the Laser Relay Network from Serrano station. Civilian-captured images of black Volkisch vessels hovering outside the Serrano dock in the midst of being torn apart by shells. Packs of dark blue liveried Soyuz-class Frigates pursuing disparate Volkisch vessels like sharks descending on bloodied prey. Shuttles in Serrano’s docks unloading green-uniformed Marines with AK rifles led by black and red uniformed Commissars.

“While we repaired the Iron Lady we had routine drone patrols out to several kilometers as an early warning system. These drones picked up distant, but ferocious sounds of battle, and hours later, we began to see leisurely and confident Union patrols, and were forced to retreat our drones to avoid discovery. We accelerated our repairs and escaped as stealthily as we could.” Dreschner said.

“What’s your assessment of the current situation?” Norn asked.

“I believe the Union has the upper hand on the Volkisch forces for now. Judging by the ferocity of the acoustics alone, there was a titanic battle near Serrano. Then came the patrols, which were calm and orderly. In my experience, if the Union is now controlling the battlespace, the Volkisch may lack the forces to counterattack. We don’t have a lot of time to spare, lord Praetorian. We should move quickly.”

“Interesting. We will maneuver to dock. We have some supplies we want to drop off and Gertrude Lichtenberg will return to your care, Captain Dreschner. Then we go our separate ways.”

Dreschner bowed his head in supplication, and the two ships set about their work.

There was a hectic atmosphere within the Iron Lady from hours of high alerts brought about by the apparent Union incursion. It was an easy leap to make that if they had already been bested by some Union-equipped mercenaries, and then a Union invasion transpired some time thereafter, then there was a complex Union operation underway that was beyond their ability to contend with.

Within this stewing anxiety, Ingrid Järveläinen-Kindlysong had been unable to get a certain Inquisitor out of her head. Even as she worked hard and did her best to keep the crew focused in her own way, she was preoccupied with the fate of Gertrude Lichtenberg. She was so worried. She did not trust Norn, she did not trust Sieglinde, and she was silently furious about Gertrude chasing after Elena.

More than anything, Gertrude’s vulnerability and mortality turned over in her head.

“Gertrude should have taken me.” She mumbled to herself. “She’s got no one out there.”

Ingrid had felt bitter and hurt.

She had always stood up for Gertrude since they met. Fought for her, killed for her.

Always she had thought of herself as Gertrude’s strongest soldier, her ace, her protector.

But she wasn’t strong enough. Sieglinde was stronger. Norn was stronger.

So they could do for Gertrude what she couldn’t.

For days, she struggled to distract herself with the work throughout the ship, with morale and supervision, trying to fill in the hole that Gertrude had left. A mixture of worry and bitterness fermented in her chest. She couldn’t even drink– she was working around the clock. In time she was even grabbing tools and pushing crates with the sailors when she wasn’t yelling and leading work songs.

Then she finally saw in the bridge’s bearing monitors the approaching Antenora.

Her mind instantly emptied of its previous contents.

And immediately, she ran out to the hangar and rushed to the docking chute.

That one name rang in her mind and in her heart endlessly. Gertrude Lichtenberg.

She was back. She had returned to her. Nothing else mattered to her then.

Ingrid waited, tail wagging behind her, arms crossed, tapping her feet nervously.

Would she be hurt? What kind of violence had she gone through? How would she feel?

The name “Elena” did not occur once in her mind. All she cared about was Gertrude.

When the bulkhead door opened, it was like it had shone the sun upon her face.

There, the very first and only person that she saw was her.

Her Gertrude had finally returned. Clad in her grandiose uniform, seemingly unharmed.

Head bowed, clearly sulking, but alive. Whole. Gertrude Lichtenberg in the swarthy flesh.

Ingrid walked tentatively forward, her lips curled into a smile, her eyes bright and wide.

Gertrude cut the distance between them in a few long strides of her own.

“Gertrude–!”

In response, the Inquisitor grabbed hold of Ingrid, taking her into a tight embrace.

Those strong arms immediately took the breath out of the Loup. One hand around Ingrid’s waist and behind her back, another on the back of Ingrid’s head, stroking her hair and scratching the back of her ears. Ingrid thought she wanted to say something funny– but she felt an unfamiliar intensity in Gertrude’s grip that prevented her from even speaking. Now she really was thinking about Elena– there was no one else coming from the Antenora. Gertrude was there, alone, with only Ingrid in her arms.

For a moment they simply held each other silently. Then Gertrude finally, briefly, spoke.

“Ingrid. I have to talk to Dreschner. Once we set sail again, please come to my quarters.”

She rested her head on Ingrid’s shoulder, they were cheek to cheek.

Ingrid could not see Gertrude’s eyes, could not see her face in that sudden embrace.

Gertrude held her for several minutes more, gripping Ingrid’s clothes as if trying to prevent her from being ripped from her grasp. Subsumed into the Inquisitor’s warmth, Ingrid could not offer any glib retort, could not even interrogate what was happening. She embraced Gertrude back, leaned into the taller woman’s chest, savored the warmth between them. She shut her eyes. It was so calming.

She wanted to weep. Her Gertrude was back– the woman whose hands deserved her leash.

“Of course, ‘Trude.” Ingrid finally said. “I’m so happy to see you. I’ll do anything.”

“Thank you. I’ll see you then.”

When Gertrude released her, without another word, she quickly left the docking hallway.

She had left as fast as she had come. They both had responsibilities to carry out.

Gertrude returned to the bridge and set a course — to Kesar’s Gorge near the Vekan border.

Dreschner informed her that the Union was launching an invasion into Sverland.

“That changes nothing. Our next destination is Kesar’s Gorge. We have received a mission to investigate that area and recover important data from it. I’ll explain in greater detail tomorrow, Captain. For now, we need to escape from here, and I need to get some rest. I’m sure the crew also needs some rest.”

She had spoken with enough conviction and passion that there was no further dissent.

On that bridge, everyone felt that their commander was finally returned to them in full.

Everyone seemed glad to have a destination. It gave the crew something to focus on.

Slowly, the atmosphere of anxiety began to change. There was a plan– they had a mission.

Grand Inquisitor Lichtenberg was back, and the Iron Lady was back in business.

Meanwhile, Ingrid supervised the unloading of a shuttle of goods from the Antenora.

When the rear ramp of the shuttle touched down on the hangar, it unveiled the “supplies.”

To her untrained eye it looked like two damaged Diver chassis. It was quite mysterious.

“Gertrude, what happened out there?” She asked herself. She hoped to soon find out.

Because, in addition to the Divers, which were quickly unloaded, there was also a visitor.

Norn von Fueller. The Praetorian herself– her presence gave the mechanics a bit of pause, but she waved them up and urged them to work fast in unloading. As the mechanics and engineers rushed past her, Norn walked down the ramp at a leisurely pace, grinning with the same distant malice that she always wore. Ingrid, at the bottom of the ramp, watched her approach, eyes fixed on one another.

“Milord,” Ingrid bowed her head, quickly, with the least respect she could offer.

“Sotnyk.” Norn said. “I thought I would see you. That’s what I had been hoping, anyway.”

“How can someone so lowly as me assist you, milord.” Ingrid replied without emotion.

“You desire the power to save Gertrude, don’t you? To surpass the great aces of the sea?”

Ingrid’s face briefly flashed surprise, and a bit of anger, that she had to master that instant.

Norn seemed satisfied with the reaction. “Gertrude failed in her mission, and Sieglinde von Castille is not coming back to this vessel. You must have noticed neither the Baron nor the Princess are here. You don’t need to care about transpired, but what it means is she will be relying on you more than ever.”

Before Ingrid could respond, Norn clapped a hand on her shoulder.

Her lips turned into a dark smile, eyes shaded by her hair, a macabre expression.

For that moment it was almost as if time had stopped, and Ingrid was alone with her.

“That machine was once called the Jagdkaiser, terror of the seas. If you and your crew can repair it, Ingrid Järveläinen-Kindlysong, the machine should be yours and yours only. Among these gnats, only you have the will to wield it. It will grant you incredible power. But power is nothing without an ambition to channel it. I only ask that you have it and that you use it to realize your desires. Protect Gertrude for me.”

Ingrid knew, almost implicitly, she was referring to the larger, darker-colored chassis.

With a pair of severed arms soaked in seawater. Heavy damage all over the hull.

She knew, in that moment, that she could not respond. That she was not meant to.

And as soon as Norn had spoken, in a fleeting, blink-of-an-eye instant, she was gone.

Turned back around, headed up the ramp, striding confidently away.

Leaving Ingrid wondering if a conversation had even happened.

Moments later and with little additional interaction, the Antenora and Iron Lady completed their exchange, and bid farewell. Once the ship was underway, as she had promised, Ingrid left the hangar, which had become abuzz with engineers and mechanics going over the new goods. She made her way to the end of the Iron Lady’s second tier, to the door opposite her own, where her master and friend waited.

She tried to put out of her mind what Norn had told her.

“Some gift, a bunch of junked Divers. But my Jagd is fucked up anyway.”

They could kitbash the parts from her Jagd into that Kaiser-thing. Whatever.

More importantly.

Gertrude Lichtenberg, waiting in her room. They had not seen each other in so long.

Ingrid knocked on the door, and without awaiting a response, let herself in.

“’Trude, I take it you need a shoulder to sulk on?”

Ingrid had finally made her little joke, but she was just a little taken aback as she entered the room and shut the door behind herself. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Gertrude had removed her coat and hat, draping them over a chair. Her white button-down shirt was near entirely unbuttoned, revealing a simple black brassiere which she wore beneath. She was swirling a glass of wine in her hand.

When Ingrid came in, Gertrude smiled warmly. She did not appear to have drunk much.

“I’m happy to see you.” She said. “I was waiting– I broke out the good stuff.”

She raised the glass and pointed out the bottle and an additional glass on the nightstand.

“Oh! Hell yeah!” Ingrid said. “That’s what the fuck I’m talking about, ‘Trude.”

Laughing, she made her way to the nightstand, and poured herself a glass.

Without waiting a second more, Ingrid downed the entire thing in one gulp.

A glossy mouthfeel, a complex hint of sweetness, and rich, boozy warmth. Crazy good wine.

“Shit, you weren’t kidding.” Ingrid said. “This is the good stuff.”

“It’s the finest vintage on the ship. A gift from Vogelheim, once upon a time.”

Gertrude took a sip, set her own glass on the nightstand, and stood up from the bed.

She took a step directly into Ingrid’s space.

Spread her arms and took her close; so suddenly Ingrid nearly dropped her empty glass.

“Hey! Aren’t you handsy. You sure you haven’t put down a few glasses already?”

Ingrid was more than happy to embrace her back. To feel even the briefest closeness.

She was shorter than Gertrude, so when they were close, when Ingrid was being held–

The handsome Grand Inquisitor looked down at her, just a little. Smiling softly at her.

“Ingrid. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I made so many mistakes.” Her hand stroked Ingrid’s hair.

Her touch without gloves was lightly callused yet so soft, so firm. Ingrid could’ve melted in it.

Gertrude bowed just a little deeper, touched her forehead to Ingrid’s own.

“Ingrid. Ingrid.” Her voice was so soft. Her lips so near. “Ingrid. Let me comfort you.”

Ingrid said nothing. She felt the warmth in her own cheeks, her vision hazy, tail wagging.

When Gertrude finally kissed her, she practically dissolved into her arms. She was floating.

“Ingrid. Ingrid. I love the sound of your name. I love you. I love you so much.”

Kisses, tugging on clothes, a hungry grasp upon her breasts, sucking bites on her neck–

Ingrid, Ingrid, Ingrid–

Her name like song, heard from lover’s lips. Gertrude finally took possession of her.

Ingrid closed her eyes and lost herself to the release of years of brimming lusts.

Collar and leash seized, pulled, with enough force to make her gasp.

Previous ~ Next

Sinners Under The Firmament [9.1]

For Ulyana Korabiskaya, her lowest point in life came when she awoke without warning within a chaotic, white-walled medbay in an adjacent substation to Mount Raja. Disoriented, with her hair cut off on one side rendering half her head more susceptible to the stale, chill air. She reached a hand to her head and ran her shaking fingers along heavy stitches. They hurt to touch, sending a jolt of pain into her skull.

Tears came to her eyes unbidden, teeth chattering.

Despite the pain she still felt trapped in a nightmare. Her vision had swam in and out of dreamscapes where her body floated amid suffociating steel rooms, water up to her chest. Ripped pipes vented gas and smoke, fires danced atop shreds of steel sewn with fiber-optic cables torn from the wall. There were people screaming, drowning, burning, dying. She tried to reach out to them, but she would vanish in one dreamscape, passed out, maybe killed– only to arrive at another with the same hopeless scene.

When her eyes adjusted to the light in that bright white room–

There were dozens, maybe a hundred people in the medbay with her. Alive, dead, dying.

Everything suffused by the din of the suffering, the hopeless whimper of human injury.

In adjacent beds were people with all manner of wounds, many maimed, some beyond recognition.

Burn victims patched from head to toe in bloody gauze. Moaning bodies with painful but not life threatening injuries who were last in line for medicine while nurses cried for more anesthetic and painkillers. A soldier assuring the medical staff that a shuttle from Mount Raja would restock them soon. Amputees, at least some of whom were, perhaps by virtue of their time of admittance, already having the remains of the limb prepared for a cybernetic implant to prevent them from being disabled permanently.

This involved bio- and ferro- stitching on the wound in cold blood. These were the loudest cries.

Ulyana did not understand at first. Everything had a very hazy, distant, surreal logic to it.

Had she not been in her bridge? Was she not– was she not the Captain of the Pravda—

Through the door to the medbay, a figure dressed in black and red strode through.

She navigated the packed beds, the struggling nurses and doctors.

Her eyes did not once waver, she hardly took any of the scene around her.

Perfectly composed, she arrived at Ulyana’s bed and took off her hat.

“Yana. Are you awake? I’m so sorry. But you’re alive, for that we must be thankful.”

Commissar-General Parvati Nagavanshi.

Ulyana’s eyes shut, filled with tears. She gritted her teeth, grabbed hold of her blankets.

“No, please, Parvati, please tell me it’s not– please tell me–” Ulyana begged.

“It’s not your fault.”

Nagavanshi reached out and took her hand for comfort.

Ulyana Korabiskaya broke down into sobbing, crying, and finally screaming.

As soon as she maneuvered her Strelok out of the deployment chute and onto the hangar proper, Khadija al-Shajara slammed the button to open the cockpit and practically leaped out of the machine before the doors even fully opened. She fell between a group of engineers. Cranes attached to the roof of the hangar were moved along rails, lowered to the chutes to help the more damaged machines up into the hangar to be secured on their gantries. Red, gaudy red– Khadija was looking for the Grenadier.

“I’ll leave it to you all to get my machine sorted. Where’s the Imperial?”

She saw the briefest hint of a red helmet and shoulders, steel lifting hooks around the hull.

Khadija ran through the mechanics and stopped at the edge of the chute.

Waiting for the machine to be lifted, and the upper hatch of the chute to close.

And then for the machine to be set down and its hatch to open.

The instant that the bottom half of the hatch lowered enough to be used as a handhold, Khadija practically leaped up into the cockpit, charged the seat and grabbed hold with both hands on Sieglinde von Castille’s collar. While the whole hangar seemed to watch, Khadija, eyes afire, fangs bared, teeth gritted, stared into the Baron’s eyes, and held her as if sustaining that gaze would kill her.

“So this is who you are.” Khadija said.

Sieglinde von Castille gazed back, eyes mournful, shoulders slouched, hands shaking.

She was almost a head taller than Khadija but looked so much smaller then.

“Red Baron.” Khadija cursed.

“Lion of Cascabel.” Sieglinde’s voice was almost a whimper.

They stared at each other for what seemed like breathless minutes, the hangar at a standstill.

Khadija clicked her tongue and shoved Sieglinde back into her cockpit.

She leaped down onto the floor of the hangar and walked away, hands balled into fists.

Chief of Security Evgenya Akulantova parted the crowd of mechanics and approached the machine, drawing her grenade launcher in one hand, though it was a two-handed weapon for most. With a rubber padded missile loaded into it, she aimed inside the cockpit and tipped her head to the side to motion for Sieglinde to come out of it. There was a gentle smile on the Chief’s soft grey face, bearing sharp teeth in an almost disarmingly amiable fashion. A gentle, maidenly giant with a brutal weapon.

“You are Sieglinde von Castille, is that correct? Until the Captain gets to talk to you in-depth, we are treating you as a prisoner rather than a defector. Peer titles don’t mean anything in here, but I hope you find the brig hospitable, nevertheless. I strongly suggest to step out of the cockpit with your hands up, and let my subordinates inspect you.” she nodded now towards Klara van Der Smidse and Zhu Lian, who had arrived with similar grenade launchers on slings around their shoulders.

Silent, Sieglinde did as she was told and made no move to resist being pat down.

She was escorted to the brig, and the hangar resumed gawking and returned to its normal operation.

Out of the other tubes, the HELIOS of Murati Nakara and Karuniya Maharapratham was collected next, along with the remains of the SEAL of Marina McKennedy. Sameera’s Cossack was in almost perfect condition and hardly needed assistance lifting itself out of the water. Once all the Divers were collected, they were lined up abreast on gantries at each opposing wall so that they could be inspected. Chief Lebedova took one look at them and lifted her hand over her eyes, shaking her head vigorously.

“Some of these are in deplorable condition. We just got done reassembling that Cheka too.”

As had become usual, the Cheka’s electronics had nearly burnt out and several of the power cells distributed across the chassis as well as a few internal systems would need to be replaced. On one end of the hangar Sonya Shalikova and Murati Nakara (who was blamed as well despite being uninvolved this time) were both being lectured by Gunther Cohen about their repeated misuse of the machine.

Sameera’s, Khadija’s and Valya’s Streloks were all in decent condition.

The Strelkannon was already a maintenance-intensive machine so every sortie meant that a dozen people had to take care of it. That would not change here, and the Chief was already in her mind plotting out the service schedule for it. It had taken a few bumps, and specifically the torpedo launcher was damaged, and it would be a delicate operation to remove the remaining munitions and fix the pod.

Aiden Ahwalia’s Strelok was recovered from the seafloor. He himself was unharmed, but the machine was in pieces, only the cockpit was untouched. It was as if a monster had torn it apart with its bare hands. They could salvage some of the electrical parts and hydrojet components, but the chassis was basically nothing but food for the Ferricycler so they could ferrostitch simple metal parts from it.

They had no spare parts for the S.E.A.L. so that one was a complete write-off.

Sieglinde’s Grenadier was in the same category. They would probably disassemble it.

The HELIOS was in decent condition thanks to its sturdiness, but it was missing an arm which would have to be replaced by kitbashing a Strelok arm, since they, also, had no spare parts for that machine either. It had come out of the container that the Solarflare ladies had asked them to label as “spare parts.” Thankfully the most complicated part of the system, the drones that it launched, were in perfect condition. Those, Lebedova thought, would be impossible to replace if anything happened.

“We have to clone the software on this thing and get a look at the guts.” She noted.

As for the Brigand itself, there was damage practically everywhere.

No breaches, but plenty of electrical systems to replace, armor plates to sub out.

The Ferrostitcher and the Ferricycler would be running day and night.

“I’ll let the reactor engineer know just to be on the safe side.”

This time around there was no round of applause for the pilots.

Not for a lack of strong feelings, as everyone was grateful for their efforts. But because they were recovered in the middle of a continuing alert, where the sailors were still working all around the ship looking for leaks and electrical damage, or in the hangar assessing damage and beginning to put together tools and parts to begin repairs. Even with the pilots recovered, that alert was not rescinded. The Antenora was still being closely monitored as it began its retreat and the record-breaking levels of Katov mass in the water were a concern. Everyone was busy, and there was no time for heartfelt pleasantries.

It was at that point that the bridge informed the hangar of a new development.

They were so busy, and so incredulous, that at first, the danger barely registered.

But they understood implicitly — the danger was not yet over.

Sonya Shalikova stood outside the medbay doors for a moment.

Collecting the military greatcoat she was wearing over her pilot’s suit for warmth.

Clutching it to her chest, heart beating as if she had run a marathon.

The Cheka’s environment control system had broken down during the battle with Selene, so as a precaution, she was being sent to rest in the medbay for observation. However, she had a certain powerful desire pursue as well, having learned that Maryam Karahailos was also being kept in the medbay for observation. Something she had steeled herself about doing when she was out at sea.

“Ugh, is this stupid? I haven’t known her for that long.”

And yet, didn’t people go out on dates as perfect strangers? Didn’t they even have sex?

She probably knew a lot more about Maryam than most people did on their first date.

So then if she wanted to– then it made sense– it wasn’t anything weird–

“You only live once.”

It was a silly refrain but it encapsulated her current motives.

Fighting Selene pushed her to stand on the border to the afterlife and to interrogate herself. She could no longer punish herself and berate herself and live sternly in repentance for her sister’s passing. There was a vast ocean that was full of mysteries, and many people who depended on her. Shalikova had to move on from her past. She had to forgive herself as her sister would have forgiven her, and start to truly live.

And part of living was being honest with herself about what she treasured, what she desired.

This wasn’t some erratic feeling for a stranger. It was Maryam! It was different!

She could do it for Maryam!

Shalikova gathered her breath and strode through the medbay door.

Murati’s and Sameera’s beds were empty– they were both still in the hangar. She had gone ahead.

Farther down the aisle, however, a certain purple cuttlefish girl sat up in bed, humming.

Bobbing her head from side, shuffling her legs under the bedsheets, amusing herself.

She was– she was really cute– wasn’t she? Shalikova felt a fluttering in her chest.

It was as if over the past few days she had put on lenses that made her see Maryam differently.

“Oh! Sonya! Is it really you? I’m not having a medicine hallucination am I?”

Maryam put on a truly sunny smile upon seeing Shalikova enter the room.

Shalikova knew if she responded and started talking to her, that she would lose her guts.

So she strode quickly past all of the beds and up beside Maryam’s without saying a word.

Tracked unerringly by those w-shaped irises from the door all the way into her space.

“Sonya? Did I do something to make you mad–?”

At Maryam’s bedside, Shalikova bent at the waist and grabbed the sister’s shoulders.

Pulling Maryam into a clumsy kiss on the lips. Holding for a second and parting.

Looking deep into those magnificent Katarran eyes.

For Shalikova, savoring the experience of her very first kiss–

It barely felt like anything. In fact it was almost embarrassing how normal she felt about it.

Had she expected firecrackers to go off? Tongue? Her pale skin turned red as beets.

Maryam was also turning red, putting her hands up to her cheeks, swooning and giggling.

Those fins atop her head started to wiggle with delight.

“Sonya–!”

“I– I think I love you, Maryam.” Shalikova said and instantly wanted to kick herself for it.

While the two had their moment, the bearing monitors in the medbay blared a silent alarm.

Unbeknownst to the young lovers, the Brigand was dealing with a crisis yet again.

“Start moving away from it as fast as you can! Now! Right now!”

Ulyana Korabiskaya briefly stood up from her seat to punctuate the urgency of this order.

Helmsman Kamarik did not need to be told twice. The Brigand turned its prow away from Goryk’s Gorge and began to accelerate as much as it could with the damage it had previously sustained. On the main screen, amid a mass of red matter, the predictive imaging attempted to block out a “shape” for the “dreadnought” it had spotted and assigned mechanical explanations to the biological details it was seeing. Everyone on the bridge focused on their stations rather than look at the main screen.

From the electronic warfare station, Alex Geninov waved frantically at the Captain.

“Uh, ma’am, I started to clone the storage on that HELIOS thing like the hangar was asking for, and the HELIOS Information System seems to have data on that Leviathan. As soon as I started a connection to that Diver it started trying to image the Leviathan through the network. Take a look.”

“Feed it to the main screen. Let’s see what Solarflare LLC has dug up.”

Alex did just that, and after a moment to think, the predictive imager discarded the idea that the Leviathan rising out of Goryk was a known dreadnought model. Instead a fully biological classification appeared, and the picture became crystal clear as to the features of the gargantuan monster roaring to life right in front of their eyes. In the HELIOS Information System, this beast was described as a “Fortress-class” Leviathan with a unique name. It was known as “Dagon.” And there was more–

“Syzygy flagship Dagon– what the hell does that even mean? Flagship?” Ulyana said.

“Flagship implies its leading something.” Aaliyah said. “I can’t imagine this is correct.”

“I think the pictures are correct, I dunno about the description text.” Alex hesitantly added.

On the main screen the clarified image showed a creature with a long body that seemed covered in some kind of fur or fibers, black and brown. Upon its back were two sets of appendages that resembled more than anything the wings of a bird, folding on clawed joints. One pair of wings had a truly enormous span and a second, smaller pair guarded what appeared to be attached bio-hydrojets. A smaller set of these hydrojets rested on the creature’s tapering rear, where a massive dolphin-like tail stretched.

Toward the front of the creature was a small serpent-like head adorned with forward and side-facing horns, and a mouth that unhinged horribly to let out great, shrill bellows that Fatima al-Suhar described as sounding like the shrieking of a woman. She was clearly unnerved by them. As more data was fed in and more of the picture was clarified, bio-weapons could be seen, two large bio-cannons on the back and numerous remora-like “Sprayfish” class Leviathans burying into the monster’s skin like gas guns.

“It’s imitating a dreadnought?” Ulyana said. “Damn it, what on Aer is going on here?”

“Oh! Looks like my intuition was right. All of you really are still in horrible danger!”

There was an incongruously delighted voice coming from the door to the bridge.

Braya Zachikova arrived, quiet, with a sullen expression.

And she arrived with a guest.

In the middle of the near-lightless utility room, framed by the dim rays of the LEDs out in the hall, Braya Zachikova had found a woman where she had expected the corpse of a fish. Around her was a puddle of oily colorless flesh like raw leather or wet innards, sliding off her back and limbs like she was dropping a coat from her slender shoulders. That movement, the easy wet peeling of meat from off a human body, when Zachikova looked at it she felt her vision distorted, as if her brain was a predictive imager trying to make sense of something, framerate lagging, pixels out of place. An alien imitation of motion.

At first the smell of her was disgustingly fishy and salty, clinging to Zachikova’s nostrils like the flecks of oil in the puddle below, as if it would be impossible to clean the aroma out of herself. Then however it became sweet, almost floral, as the flesh further contracted and more of the creature’s new, human body appeared in its place. It stirred something inside Zachikova, something under her gut.

There was a quivering feeling, a sense of pressure or contraction in her.

Something new, never before felt.

Speechless, she took a step back, and the lights behind her shed on the woman instead.

The creature’s eyes shut for a brief moment and slowly reopened, as she adjusted to the light.

Seeing her, truly seeing her, Zachikova felt her heart stir as it had done for the dancer.

She was pale as porcelain, skin stark white except for the two thin, smooth, small, upright horns that grew from her forehead, parting her long, swept, red-streaked white bangs. Her eyes were no longer lilac but gold irises on black sclera, reflecting nothing, but striking Zachikova as containing a truly unfathomable intellect. Her hair, red and white, fell in waves of silk behind her back and over her shoulders.

Her pallid figure was slim, long limbed, slender, lithe, every adjective that could come to Zachikova’s mind as her eyes followed the smooth, gentle curve of her round shoulders, crested the hill of her breasts, followed her flat belly and the slight, firm roundness of her hips. From her hips, calves, and forearms, thin white and red fins grew sleek, diaphanous and moist. They resembled the koi fish-like profile that had so enamored Zachikova. Her slender, long fingers looked temptingly soft as the features of her face. Curled behind her was a white tail that could reach to the floor, parting at the end like a dolphin’s or whale’s.

For Zachikova, who had rarely felt physical attraction, looking at this woman sent jolts of titillating electricity into her core, over the tips of her own fingers and to the ends of her own breasts.

“Braya.”

She spoke her name, cooing it softly.

It felt as if there were flesh in her metal ears for that voice to caress.

“Braya. Do you like this form? I wanted to enter the next phase of our courtship.”

Zachikova couldn’t respond to that. She couldn’t master herself enough to speak.

When she had found something aesthetically pleasing in the past, it had often been a design, a machine, or a clever bit of software. She had felt a sense of titillation toward such things in the past on rare occasions, but she knew it was incongruous and ignored it. People had hardly ever interested her, and when she felt that she became taken with her Dancer she knew intellectually that physical affection from it, true skin to skin affection, was something impossible. But it was no more impossible to her than having sex with Semyonova, Geninov, Murati or any human person she had ever felt even the vaguest physical attraction towards. Physical and social permissibility were no different to a heart as closed shut as hers.

In short: to her she it was equally impossible to fuck machines, fish, or people.

So it never mattered. It shouldn’t have mattered. She had been happy to love her Dancer from afar.

To acknowledge her as a superlative design, and feel happy as a witness.

Knowing there was a gap in their species did not blunt her appreciation.

Now however it was as if hormones that had been repressed for decades flowed heedless.

Now– it was permissible. It was permissible to think– in physical terms–

Her imagination could scarcely handle the feelings flooding in.

She thought initially that it had to be the smell– it was enchanting her somehow.

Pheromones. Like an animal– it’s got pheromones– the sweat, the sebum, it attracts me–

“Braya~”

Zachikova stood frozen still as the body in the puddle stood clumsily on her sleek, human legs.

On her soft, delicate-looking feet, balancing herself by that long, graceful tail.

There was a brief red flash in her eyes, clearly visible amid the inky black of them.

Beneath their feet the puddle of flesh stirred one final time.

Gore and guts that had peeled from the woman began to coil around her arm as if alive again and beckoned by her. Glistening grey and brown flesh thinned, dried, and blood dribbled out from it as if wrung out, all while the mass snaked as if on the creature’s fingertips. When it finally settled, she took the mass and casually spread it, having formed a white robe parted down the middle, which she draped over her shoulders, wearing it in a way that her breasts and everything else was still exposed.

At her feet the puddle had turned dark red from all the blood and fluid drained from the robe.

Zachikova watched her, unblinking, as she approached to within a few steps of her.

“Braya. Braya, Braya, Braya– I love saying your name like this. Hearing it in my throat.”

She smiled, her cheeks spreading ever so softly on that smooth, immaculate face.

One hand laid upon Zachikova’s shoulder, and the second gripped her firmly on the hip.

Her touch was like pure ecstasy, being in her presence, held by her, a sweet warm feeling–

It wasn’t pheromones. Zachikova wanted this. Her heart pounded and not out of fear.

Everything that she thought it would feel like, to touch, to be held, to be enveloped in the flesh of another close enough to feel her heartbeat through the touch. This really was her– it really was the Leviathan who had enamored her with its graceful dance. Had she been human all along or had by some miracle a human form been given to her Leviathan, to meet Zachikova like this? Regardless, the press of physical intimacy destroyed all other thoughts in the officer’s mind. She was starving for touch.

Rather than her fantasies of swimming in the ocean together– Dancer had come to her.

That hand laid upon her shoulder glided across, to the back of her neck.

Skin to skin, for the first time. Like a wave that touch reverberated across Zachikova’s body.

As if touching not just the skin of her neck but touching every skin, even the deepest.

“Braya~”

Taller than Zachikova, the woman guided her head to tip slightly up for her access.

While her lips drew near and pressed, touching, at first, glancing.

Zachikova felt the hand behind her press on her flesh and the hand on her hip nearly lift her.

Despite the differences in size and strength Zachikova did not wait.

Reciprocating, she pushed back onto the creature with her own needy kiss.

With ardor they locked lips again and again, lingering breaches inviting brief mutual taste.

Parting less than a millimeter for less than a second before they joined again.

At first their opens eyes were fixed together as tightly as their lips, but as if one the two shut out the light, feeling only each other in the darkness. There was a trust built between their flesh, suspended in an all-encompassing embrace. Zachikova felt her mouth parted by the creature’s tongue and gave no resistance. She felt the weight of her bear slowly down. Compliant, wanting, needy, she let the creature sit her down and let her lay atop her, tongue crawling deep as throat, slender roaming fingers. Undoing Zachikova’s pants and sliding teasingly down her lower belly, across her quivering inner thigh–

Pause–

Zachikova opened her eyes with a start. The woman had turned her head to the wall, eyes glowing red.

Her distracted long tongue retreated leaving Zachikova gasping, shuddering between breaths–

Sloshing thick fluid spilled from her once invaded lips tasting salty-sweet–

Those fingers on her thighs slackening in their grip, ending the fantasy–

What had been pure physical instinct before gave way to the squeamishness of intellect. Realizing there was a woman on top of her of unknown provenance whose fingers were just about to go inside her, whose tongue she had tasted to her throat, Zachikova crawled out from under her in a sudden panic. Everything felt suddenly irrational, though not wholly unwanted– she could no longer lose herself to the longing flesh having been given time to think, and made herself deny the pleasure then.

She retreated back to the unemotional logic that governed her mind.

And away from the intoxicating taste of another body–

“Who are you? I’ll sound the alarm!” Zachikova said.

Pulling her pants up, she put her back to a wall and her hand over a red emergency button.

The creature’s fluids still trailed from Zachikova’s own lips. She had to brush it off.

Her flight triggered no chase. Her counterpart was serene in tone.

An unconcerned, gentle smile adorned the face of the creature as she stood back up.

“Of course you know who I am, Braya.”

“Quit being coy!”

Something distracted her again– the creature kept looking to the wall.

“Oh Braya. Well. I’m afraid that this vessel is not out of danger. We should sort that out first.”

“Do I need to either repeat what I said, or push this button?”

At this, the creature pouted. That expression– Zachikova’s loins stirred again.

She was so beautiful– so beautiful, with an alien eroticism to her every movement.

No, calm down– quit acting so stupid, Braya Zachikova!

“Oh dear, my little Braya– ah, well. I should have known you’d be a little closed minded at first. That’s fine then. We can start over from the beginning. You’re worth it to me.” The creature took the makeshift robe which she had put over her shoulders, and slipped her arms in the sleeves, fastening it around her hips, such that it split tantalizingly just above the knees. Zachikova tried not to stare at her.

“Give me a name or I’ll have security sort you out.” Zachikova threatened.

“You can call me Arbitrator One.” She said. “We write the number in the ancient tally.”

So it was actually written as Arbitrator I, but it was not pronounced that way.

“What kind of a name is that? It’s more like a made-up title isn’t it?” Zachikova said.

“No, it’s my name. But if you want, you and you alone can call me Arabella.”

“You’re Arbitrator I then.” Zachikova said. Trying to make herself be cold to her. To reject her.

It almost hurt. She– she wanted to treat this creature lovingly. It was irrational! She had to resist it.

Braya Zachikova was a machine. She couldn’t let herself act so foolish around this thing.

“Braya, I’m a bit disappointed.” Arbitrator I put her hands behind her back and leaned forward, her eyes narrowed, giving Zachikova a petty, hurt look. “I thought you of all people would understand me.”

“Are you the Dancer?” Zachikova said. Then she realized suddenly– would she even know that name? And before Arbitrator I could respond, clarified. “The Leviathan that– that died in the Gorge–”

“That was a part of me. I am as much exclusively it as you are only the last skin you shed.”

Her eyes lit up again and she started to look around the room again with a sudden urgency.

“It’s really surfaced.” She said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Braya, you’re all in danger. Please believe me.”

She kept repeating that. Was it true?

Then again–

At this point it hardly mattered. Zachikova felt a stab of anxiety. She had to report this– all of this.

The Captain would have to sort it out. Whether Arbitrator I was lying or not.

Zachikova lifted her hand from the emergency alarm, feeling dazed by everything that happened.

“Braya, you need to navigate this vessel away from here.” Arbitrator I insisted.

“Away to where?” Zachikova said, sighing as she humored her.

“Hmm. Preferably we’d go that way.” Arbitrator I pointed her hand straight up.

At this point, in this particular day, the bridge officers on the Brigand had seen enough people come in and make mysterious pronouncements that the moment Zachikova came through the door with her mystery guest, everyone had already made time in their busy schedules to stare at her. However, the last few people that had come in, like “Euphemia Rontgen” and “Elena” were ordinary-looking folks.

Even for a Katarran (they assumed) this new entrant was particular.

Bare-foot, wearing a tight white robe, overlong red and white hair– and those horns!

Those eyes— then again, Maryam Karahailos had strange eyes too.

However, the most salient thing for the officers was where this woman had come from.

Everyone had formally been told of the Solarflare LLC employees, and of Maryam and Marina.

“Zachikova, who is this woman? Where did she come from? Why is she on the bridge?”

Ulyana Korabiskaya was firm but not necessarily adamant.

A lot had happened that day. For the moment she was in a fey mood in which she believed she was ready for anything. Come what may! She was rolling with the punches. Her scientist guests lying about their names and what was in their crates? Fine. Marina had fooled them all into escorting the Imperial Princess this whole time? Sure. She had always expected Marina to be lying, though not with such grandiosity. An enormous Leviathan was bursting out of the Goryk Abyss? Why not, at this point. Bring it on.

She did not want to admit it, but this was a nascent panic beginning to snake through her brain.

“She came from– Um–” Zachikova paused. She raised a hand to her lips. Her face was a bit more expressive than usual, in that her brow was ever so slightly furrowed. She then proceeded to speak, after gathering her thoughts, unsmiling and with a neutral gaze. “She came from outside the ship.”

“From outside the ship? From the open ocean? That’s what you’re telling me?”

“Yes.”

Zachikova made no expression. Ulyana narrowed her eyes. The mystery woman smiled.

“Did the Antenora fire a boarding torpedo at us?” Ulyana said.

“We’d know if that had happened.” Aaliyah interjected, listening to the whole exchange.

“Was she a stowaway with Solarflare LLC’s cargo?” Ulyana asked Zachikova.

“No.” Zachikova said. Ulyana crossed her arms with exasperation.

“Then did she crawl through the vents? What the hell is going on?”

Aaliyah groaned and put her head against the computer terminal arm on her seat.

Ulyana’s brain had briefly pored over the realistic possibilities. None of it made sense.

Zachikova seemed unable to say anything but, “She really came from outside the ship.”

So Ulyana then turned to the mystery woman herself. “Okay, you, identify yourself now.”

“I am Arbitrator One, written with ‘I’. I come from the people known as the Omenseers.”

That woman crossed one arm over her chest and performed a short bow, smiling.

“I’ve been contending with liars all day, so forgive me, but– No, you’re not!” Ulyana said.

Arbitrator I shrugged with her palms up. “Then you may call me Arabella then, I suppose.”

“Don’t call her that.” Zachikova said suddenly. “That’s– That’s clearly the fake one.”

“Aww. Little Braya is jealous– you’re right, that name is only for Braya.” Arbitrator I said.

Zachikova turned sharply to her. “Knock that shit off, they’ll misunderstand!”

Ulyana stared at Zachikova then at Arbitrator I in turn. One flustered, the other grinning.

In her mind she ran through the things she knew about Zachikova.

And the things she knew about the present situation.

Something was connecting, but she didn’t want it to connect.

Because it was too absurd. It was a desperate bit of pattern recognition and nothing more.

Last time she saw Zachikova she had run out after her pet Leviathan had sacrificed itself to save them. Ulyana had heard reports from the sailors of Zachikova running across the hangar to the utility chute near the rearmost part of the ship’s habitable pods. That was where she had recalled her drone to after the previous events. Ulyana, at the time, figured that Zachikova was in a vulnerable state and that she wanted to collect a final memento of the creature from the drone. Now she was on the bridge with–

Now–

Zachikova was here on the bridge– with a mysterious woman who–

–who looked a little bit like if someone was trying to cosplay that Leviathan,

and was saying weird things and had come out of nowhere

Oh no no no no no Absolutely no Absolutely no That is completely insane—

“I’m–” Ulyana had an involuntary twitch. “I’m going to ask again and I want a rational answer.”

“Esteemed Captain,” Arbitrator I performed another little bow and raised her voice as if speaking to an audience. “This vessel is in grave danger, from which you may not be able to escape without my particular expertise. I implore you to defer the matter of my identity at least temporarily until such a time as Braya– and of course other hominins aboard– are safe from Dagon’s emergence out of Agartha.”

Ulyana only heard one word of that. “Did you say ‘Dagon’? Did I hear you correctly?”

“Indeed, that is the name of the creature.” Arbitrator I said.

“Then you’re with Solarflare LLC! Quit making up ridiculous–”

“Uhh, Captain! That big guy is doing something!” Alex Geninov shouted.

On the main screen, a Radiation warning suddenly appeared.

They had been scanned by LADAR, the sensors detected the lasers. This was shortly followed by the sensors detecting that a sonar pulse had bounced off the hull. And then another– Fatima al-Suhar withdrew from her ears her headphones, rubbing the sides of her head in pain. She must have heard the pulse, but she was too dazed– Ulyana realized that all the roaring may have been bio-sonar pulses.

That LADAR warning could not have come from the Antenora either.

Both ships had gone their own ways and the Antenora knew the Brigand’s position already.

“Fatima, are you alright?” Ulyana asked.

“That noise felt a knife cutting across my skull.” Fatima replied, nearly weeping.

Ulyana was speechless. She felt pure anxiety vibrating between her skin and flesh.

“Have you heard any technological noises since the Antenora fled?” She asked.

“It couldn’t have been technological.” Fatima said. “It had to be biological, Captain.”

There was no denying the terrible hypothesis in the back of her mind.

“Take a rest. You’ve done more than enough today.” Ulyana said.

“Thank you Captain. I’m very sorry. I should be stronger–”

“Don’t worry. Please just take care of yourself.”

Fatima nodded her head and leaned back on the padding of her chair, gently sobbing.

Ulyana trusted her. There really were no mechanical ships being caught on their sonar.

So that LADAR had to have come from the Leviathan. It really was an imitation battleship.

Leviathans were much faster than ships. This creature had seen them. Would it give chase?

And if it gave chase could they escape it? Could they fight it off in their current state?

On the main screen, the creature looked to still be extricating its bulk from the Gorge.

They still had some time to react, but how much? How vehemently would it attack?

Ulyana called on Semyonova, on the station adjacent to the despondent Fatima.

“Have Maharapratham called to the bridge right away. She needs to see this.” She said.

Semyonova nodded and began to work on her task when she was interrupted.

A pale white hand gently patted her shoulder as if to say that wouldn’t be necessary.

“Have you perhaps a clearer picture of the danger you are in?”

Arbitrator I chimed in again, reminding Ulyana and the officers of her presence once more.

“Captain, I can tell from your aura, you have acknowledged an idea of what I am. It disgusts you, but it’s the only explanation that makes sense, isn’t it? For now, we can leave it at that– I am indeed the Leviathan that was outside. I am friendly– I want nothing more than to save this vessel. Right now, understanding the situation won’t save you. You will have to trust me and verify later.”

Those eyes of hers, yellow on black like a beast. Even Katarrans didn’t have eyes like that.

Meeting those eyes and the depth of their alien intellect, Ulyana felt her heart quaver.

Then as Ulyana’s own ordinary eyes locked deep with Arbitrator I’s exotic eyes–

The latter’s, in a blink, became ordinary green irises on white sclera just like her own.

She had changed them– right? She had transformed them. They weren’t like that before.

Was she seeing things now? Ulyana relented. She wasn’t equipped to tackle this now.

“Aaliyah, are you okay with adding this to the pile of interrogations we need to do?”

“At this point, I don’t think we have a choice.” Aaliyah replied.

On the main screen, there was a sudden gust of red biomass from the gorge.

As with a flap of its “wings” the massive Dagon finally emerged fully into open water.

They were uncomfortably close to the Gorge and therefore to the creature.

The Captain tried not to show it but her breathing was accelerating heavily.

She felt a pressure so powerful that it was crushing her against her seat.

Watching that lumbering creature begin to move, and begin to turn–

Was she going to lose this ship and the lives of everyone in it, like the Pravda?

Ulyana’s voice caught in her throat. Her chest heaved, her skin felt tense over her flesh.

Her head filled with hazy thoughts of flooding, electrical fires, gorey images of the injured swimming in and out of her vision. Reaching for them, unable to take their hands and save them. Surrounded by the bodies. Would it happen again? Was she destined to lose everything again? Her own life was meaningless to her in that instant. She thought of her crew– what would happen to them? The events of the past few weeks sped through her mind like a blur, could she have done anything, anything at all to forestall this?

Could she do anything now? She was practically choking.

“It’s unmistakable now! It’s bearing right toward us!” Semyonova shouted.

Ulyana felt a stone sinking down her throat and landing heavy in her stomach.

Despite their vaunted position there was nothing a Captain could do but give orders.

They weren’t the heroes– they sent people to their deaths. She was nothing without this crew. This magnificent crew had already done so much, proved themselves so extraordinary while against horrific odds and in less-than-ideal circumstances. Despite their eccentricities, despite their differences, they had survived to this point even as things always seemed to crumble around them.

Ulyana esteemed them dearly. She would give anything to protect them.

Now however she felt like any order she could give would be suicidal.

Where could they run? How could they fight? She had no directions to give.

Every choice available felt like it would lead to their deaths.

I couldn’t redeem myself Nagavanshi. I’m still useless. I’m still powerless.

Staring at that monster on the main screen, she felt like there was nothing she could do–

“Captain.”

She felt a hand caress her shoulder and pat on her back, coming from beside her.

Ulyana glanced at her Commissar, Aaliyah, her ears erect and tail swaying gently.

Her orange eyes fixed Ulyana’s own in a way that sent a tremor into her chest.

“Ulyana Korabiskaya. I haven’t seen you pull off miracle after miracle just to give up now.”

“Aaliyah–”

“We can talk later. Right now, they need the Captain to be decisive. Take a leap, however insane; I’ll follow you, no matter what it is. I trust you. You’ve more than won that trust. We can interrogate all that happened, and all that we did right or wrong, after the fact. You’re not alone; I won’t let you be.”

Ulyana looked into Aaliyah’s unwavering eyes feeling foolish for her lapse in strength.

For everyone’s sake couldn’t let this become like the Pravda. So she had no other choice.

She let go of her trepidation. When it came down to it, she only had one asset remaining.

“‘Arbitrator I’, you clearly are tied into this, so tell me how we can escape.” Ulyana said.

Arbitrator I stared at the main screen with those newly green eyes, smiling contentedly.

As if knowing that her time had come. She gestured her white hands to the main screen.

“Dagon is still immature. I believe its juvenile body will not allow it to rise without being damaged by the changes in water pressure. It needs the deep water to support itself.” She said matter-of-factly, with mysterious confidence. “Therefore, we can escape by going up, Captain.” With that same odd cheerfulness to her pallid expression, she pointed her index up at the ceiling.

Zachikova blinked incredulously at this.

“She mentioned this to me before, but I thought it was nonsense.” Zachikova said.

It was true that the body plans of deep sea fish meant that their flesh and organs could collapse in lower pressure water if they ascended to the photic zone, something that the Brigand as a pressurized steel vessel did not have to contend with. That would potentially prevent Dagon from pursuing if the Brigand performed a “rapid blowout” ascent. However, even if it was true that Dagon was not equipped to rise up the water table, there was nothing waiting for them in the sunlit ocean but more death.

Arbitrator I smiled as if she knew what Ulyana was worried about.

“I can keep the vessel safe from wild Leviathans. I can do nothing against Dagon.” She said.

There was no time. Ulyana had to be decisive. She had to trust this ‘Arbitrator I’ figure.

They only had one choice. They could not possibly stay and fight Dagon in their condition.

And so it was– like in the legends, like in fables told to scare and fascinate children.

To survive, they would have to make myth reality and ascend to the surface waters.

“Helmsman, blow all the ballast water! Angle fins for rapid ascent!” Ulyana declared.

Everyone on the bridge, even the gas gunners two tiers below the Captain, turned their heads over to stare at her as if they couldn’t understand. In response, Ulyana stood from her seat aiming a hand at the main screen with a flourish. “Quit tarrying! Prepare to ascend the photic zone!” For most people, heading surfaceward was an insane endeavor– but on the main screen, there was an even more insane sight, the hulking Dagon looming nearer and nearer, and appearing large and larger than their ship.

Helmsman Kamarik looked back at Ulyana from his station, first surprised then unnerved.

“Captain I– I gotta confess, I’ve never even simulated a rapid ascent.” He said.

“I’ve read about the process.” Ulyana said. She struggled not to stutter or get tongue-tied.

“Well. Okay. You’re the boss. I guess I’ll get the ballast going then.” Kamarik said.

He spoke almost as if in the form of a question but began the process.

As part of their mobility options, ships, whether Imperial or Union, had a suite of control surfaces on the exterior, particularly the main fins and the mast/conning tower fins, and internally, they had ballast tanks to control mass and density at different parts of the ship. Ballast tanks were filled with water that could be pumped into and out of the water system. The amount of water ballast could be reduced by filling them with air from vents to make the ship float more, or increased for negative buoyancy.

Truly expert helmsmen used all of these elements to their advantage for combat maneuvering.

Ascent was normal for ships — naval combat was three dimensional.

Those same mechanisms that could be used to move up and down in a controlled fashion within the aphotic waters could be used for an extreme ascent into the photic zone, the forbidden realm of sunlit ocean beyond the upper scattering layer. Nothing physically prevented them from doing so. There was less pressure in the photic zone, so it was even mechanically safer to operate there. However, the presence of corrupted weather and Leviathans made it a fool’s errand. Only a scant few rapid ascents had ever been performed by Union ships, and it was something that was useless to teach to new crews.

“Helmsman, the only tricky part will be stopping our ascent short of the surface.”

Once the ballast was blown and the ship started climbing rapidly, the water system would be strained.

In order to stop themselves quickly to prevent breaching the surface and exposing the ship to the full extent of the Corruption, they would have to dump water back into the ballast tanks and level out.

Cutters and most civilian vessels did not have internal water systems strong enough to refill the tanks in the middle of an ascension, so they never blew their tanks. Anything Frigate size or larger could do it provided there was water in the system ready to route into the tanks. Ulyana knew, theoretically, that even if water collection was compromised during the ascent, there was always enough water in one place: the reactor cooling. It could be routed into ballast temporarily, leaving the reactor to run hot for a time.

“At 150 depth, we should be able to level out if we pump heavy water into the tanks.” Ulyana said.

Helmsman Kamarik whistled admiringly. “Ma’am, this is fuckin’ crazy. But here it goes.”

“Semyonova, relay to the hangar!” Aaliyah said. “Tell everyone to secure tools, now.”

“Um, yes!”

Semyonova quickly broadcast to the ship– but she had maybe twenty or thirty seconds.

Not nearly enough time to warn everyone–

“Alright, here goes nothing!” Kamarik said. “Blowing the ballast and angling up!”

At first there was a periodic vibration, that traveled from the ship into the bodies within.

As the ballast water blasted out of its hatches and the ship tilted it became a quake.

Rumbling that presaged the beginning of a mythical flight.

Parvati Nagavanshi had been right. Ulyana could either become the greatest Captain the Union had ever seen, or a washed up nobody, reaper of ships, a death-omen if she even survived the madness she had been thrust into. She thought she had come to terms with the last crazy task she had to confront and then there would suddenly be a new, even more startling development to test her resolve.

This time, it wouldn’t be like the Pravda. They couldn’t be any more different.

She watched the main screen as the monster called Dagon left their sight.

Grabbing hold of her chair as the ship angled almost 40 degrees toward the firmament.

Shooting up faster and faster, rattling and shaking, the main computer blaring statuses.

Turbines and pumps and air vents in the water system struggled and cried out for aid.

Already damaged electrical systems reported sporadic failures with lights, circulators, network boards.

Every officer grabbed hold as best they could as the ship climbed.

Arbitrator I seized Zachikova into an embrace and held on to the post of Semyonova’s chair with her tail. Geninov, Fatima, and the rest grabbed on to their chairs which were bolted to the ground. Helmsman Kamarik struggled between holding on for life and limb and continuing to operate his station. As the Brigand tilted to an ever more violent angle and picked up speed, anything freestanding on the officer’s stations like half-empty cups of coffee or broth or cans of protein stew went flying to the back of the bridge, spilling and rattling. Every human body threatened to fly to the back as well.

It was a spectacular insanity. Nobody was prepared for this. Nobody could prepare for it.

Ulyana went from being almost sick with nerves to grinning at the sheer chaos of it.

She felt as if the judgment of God was being cast upon her. Her sins weighed like the ballast.

And despite everything, she had blown them out to begin her climb to paradise.

Having surmounted so much danger, staring the sky in the face, it led Ulyana to finally realize: the Pravda had not been her own fault. She had made no decisions as the Captain of the Pravda, she had no agency in the midst of the disaster. She was a victim. She was in command of a test voyage and the ship’s guts failed that test. It was not like the decision to fight back against the Iron Lady, to charge into Norn’s claws, to trust Elena Lettiere, or now, the decision to follow Arbitrator I, a being who had appeared and spoken mere sentences before suggesting that they ascend the heavens to escape their fate.

Those were pivotal moments where she had affected the lives of her crew.

As Captain of the Brigand, Ulyana had made several choices, pored over, and reasoned to the best of her ability, with all the information at her disposal at the time she made those choices. She gave orders, oversaw plans and organization. People, and the ship, moved as she commanded. On the Brigand, she had been responsible for the lives of many. It was not so when the Pravda met its demise.

That had been a tragedy, a wound in history which she was truly helpless to forestall.

And by contrast, on the Brigand, Ulyana was not helpless or hopeless. She had agency.

She was exercising the power and judgment she had to the best of her ability.

As the ship became free of its water weight and rose, Ulyana shed her own burdens.

No regrets. At every turn, I’ve done the best I could. Thank you, Aaliyah.

With one hand holding onto her chair, Ulyana stretched out the other.

Around Aaliyah Bashara’s shoulder, as the commissar struggled to hold on as well.

“Are you ready to follow me into hell, Commissar?” She cried out, over the rumbling and rattling.

“Always, Captain!” Aaliyah shouted as well.

On the cameras, the red waters were quickly left behind.

Katov biomass readings plummeted, and the water turned from red to black to blue.

Dagon had vanished, and the sight in front of them was a thick cloud of organisms.

“Crossing the upper scattering layer!” Kamarik shouted. “Hold on, baby, hold on!”

Sensing the advance of the ship the teeming mass of pelagic fish and the ordinary predators that thrived on them spread open suddenly as if forming among them a door. A biological gate to the heaven that was barred to humanity, and there were less than seconds of recognition of this grand feat and what it signified as the Brigand hurtled through the 100 meter strata of marine life at immense speed.

“400 depth– and climbing!” Geninov cried out in mixed awe and terror.

On their cameras the surroundings were beautiful and alien.

Blue water all around them. They could see— the water was streaked with light.

Directly above was God, white disk adorned with grand rays. 400 meters, 300 meters–

Beams of light shooting eerily into the water. It was the corrupted surface directly above.

Mere hundreds of meters away. Closing in. Humanity’s forbidden, fallen holy land.

Sinners who had been cast from heaven now leaped toward the firmament.

“Pump the reactor cooling water into the tanks! Level us out now! Right now!”

Against the force of the water the Brigand’s fins returned to their horizontal, level plane.

Through a herculean effort of every available mechanism the reactor cooling pods drained heavy water into the ballast tanks at maximum pump. Red alerts screeched as various components strained under the pressure, turbines grinding, pumps screaming. There was compounding damage everywhere–

“She’ll make it! She’ll make it!” Kamarik yelled.

Ulyana held on to hope as the ship struggled, shaking itself apart.

At her side, Aaliyah threw her own arm around the Captain, clinging tight to her.

With her at my side– we won’t fail.

Judged–

–and found worthy.

Directly below the sun disk, body of God, the Brigand leveled out, avoiding the surface.

A mere 50 meters below the edge of their world.

On the bridge, the officers nearly stumbled out of their chairs, having been leaning to keep themselves level while the ship had been tilted and now finding themselves in obscene angles with the ship righted. All the cans and cups rattled one more time. One final quake spread through the ship that rumbled right into Ulyana’s chest as they stabilized. On the main screen there was bright, blue ocean all around them.

Final labored breaths shook the terror out of their chests. They were– they were safe?

“Damage report.” Ulyana said, exhibiting a slight trepidation.

“We might have some leaky pipes and a few pumps to replace.” Kamarik said.

“We have electrical damage basically everywhere. Core’s heating up.” Geninov added.

“The hangar’s a mess. Tools everywhere.” Semyonova moaned. “A few injuries. No deaths.”

“Subhaan Allah.” Fatima said, holding a hand against her breast and breathing deep.

Ulyana laid a hand over her face. What a mess. “At least we’re alive. Kamarik, get us down to 200 or 300 depth again. Take it slow and start phasing out the heavy water from the system and refilling with sea water. Prioritize refilling the core, even if we have to move at one knot or stay still. Semyonova, tell everyone not to use the faucets or anything right now, it’s going to be full of agarthic salt if they do. God, what a mess. Everyone run checks on your own systems. Are all the sensors still up? We need to plan repairs too. Get Lebedova on it if she isn’t. If she needs additional manpower the pilots can help.”

It was a lot easier to resume the act of being Captain than to take in what had happened.

At his station, however, Kamarik was smiling placidly, leaning back on his chair.

“Something wrong?” Ulyana asked, near breathless from everything that had transpired.

Kamarik shook his head. “No, just taking this whole shit in. We’re naval legends now, Captain.”

He ran his hand over his station screen like he was comforting it. “This dame really did it.”

“We’re gonna be dead legends soon!” Geninov shouted from Zachikova’s station.

Dozens of red flashes appeared on the main screen, target boxes around incoming objects.

Leviathans. Sprayfish class, Barding class, Greathorn class– leviathans of all sizes.

Great maws, long bodies, numerous jets, bio-cannons. All kinds of body plans.

They had detected the Brigand and were approaching, cautiously, curiously, in numbers.

“We traded a big one for every fucking little one in a ten kilometer radius!” Geninov cried.

Ulyana shut her eyes and drew in a breath. She tried not to panic. It was another moment.

One of many that would characterize their journey from here. All she could do was face it.

“You said you would handle this? Show me you aren’t a fraud then– or die with us.”

She turned a glare on Arbitrator I, who seemed perfectly calm with the situation.

Letting go of Zachikova, whom she had been tenderly embracing during the ascent.

She walked forward, between all the stations on the middle tier, just below the Captain.

“Of course. Please observe. I am who I say I am. And with this, I seal an oath to this vessel.”

On the main screen the pack of Leviathans approached, circling, spiraling, hurtling forth–

Arbitrator I raised her hand to the main screen, eyes glowing with red rings.

“Raise not your arms against the master of Lemuria and chosen of Shalash. Omensight.”

Ulyana felt something stir. Something that made the tiniest hairs on her skin stand on end.

In front of her Arbitrator I glowed for a split second with a myriad of colors.

It could’ve been the lights, or it could’ve been Ulyana’s own exhaustion.

These brief explanations could encompass none of what happening, however.

At her command (at her command?), the Leviathans drawing visibly nearer to the Brigand were given sudden pause, those with fish-like bodies hovering briefly in place before turning away, those with serpentine bodies directing their snaking masses in directions away from the Brigand and coiling at a distance. Those with whale-like bodies that could not easily turn their bulk dove deep to swim beneath the Brigand, unable to swim over due to the proximity to the surface. That teeming mass of life which they had attracted crossed past them and dispersed. Ahead of them the ocean became clear again.

Clear of the Leviathans, but in their place, the sunlit world was still filled with life.

With the danger passed, the main screen filled with the beauty of paradise.

White rays of sunlight penetrated the water’s surface and illuminated schools of small fish swimming in their thousands. Jellyfish with surfaces cycling through the colors of natural rainbows rose and fell in their natural diligence. Larger fish preyed on the small as if nothing had disturbed their hidden world. Those Leviathans went from being threats to rejoining nature, navigating with their own majesty amid the ordinary creatures. In contact with the light, and separated from the benthic world of humanity, nature flourished in the photic zone. Ulyana watched this serene landscape, with quiet reverence, as if still counting the seconds of life that she had left in the face of a danger now, finally, abated.

A collective sigh reverberated across the bridge. They were finally safe.

They had survived.

Exhausted officers put their heads on their station desks, deflating after the danger washed over them. Geninov was loudly sobbing. Fatima and Semyonova openly crying. Kamarik repeatedly tapped his fist on the wall near him. Fernanda stood up from her station and bowed her head over it, shifting her feet as if to keep from kicking. Beside Ulyana, Aaliyah’s ears and tail drooped so low they might have fallen off.

In place of the adrenaline and the blood boiling stalwartly in her veins, Ulyana felt a sharp stab of pain in the middle of her forehead. She hardly felt a migraine like this since she stopped drinking herself drunk. Life had stopped moving second by labored second, but she still felt the inertia brimming inside her. All of it was over, finally over. No enemies on their sensors. Just them, alone, and the open sea.

Her crew could rest. A Captain’s work was never done, however.

“Hey,”

Leaning back for comfort, calmly breathing, Ulyana fixed her attention back on Arbitrator I.

“What was all that shit you just said? Explain what the hell just happened. Right now.”

She jabbed an accusing finger at the pale woman below.

Arbitrator I beamed, bobbing her head from side to side with her hands behind her back.

“It was just the incantation to my magic spell!” She declared cheerfully.

Beside the Captain’s chair, Zachikova raised both of her hands to her face, groaning.

Ulyana felt a familiar gentle pat on the shoulder.

“We’ll save it for the interrogation, Captain.”

At her side, Aaliyah Bashare smiled, relieved and cheerful, while comforting Ulyana.

Her face might as well have glowed for how beautiful it looked at that moment.

“To hell and back again, Captain. Or I couldn’t call myself your Commissar.” She said.

Ulyana returned the smile gratefully. “You have no idea how much that means to me, Aaliyah.”

While the ship slowly got underway again, the two of them fixed gentle eyes on one another.

So it went.

For the first time in what felt like forever, the Brigand was free from external, violent threats.

It would take time for Ulyana to feel safe about everything she had learned today, however.

Their horizon was filled with fog and smoke. But they could do nothing but go forth through it.

For the next leg of their journey, the Brigand’s path would be lit by the sun itself.

An even grander journey awaited them. At least Ulyana would not have to command it alone.

Within the roiling red cloud that had burst from Goryk’s Abyss lumbered a great tyrant of the seas.

Rising out of a wound in the earth, roaring its entrance into the world of “human civilization.”

Avoiding its strength, the humans which had borne witness to its rise fled in every direction.

Its name was Dagon. With six eyes on its head and several across its body, the monster watched the machine it had sought to pursue shoot skyward at a bewildering pace. In itself, the beast scarcely understood what it was seeing or what had happened– but deep within the pressurized cavities of the monster there were symbiotic intelligences that understood what had transpired. They guided the creature to resume its flight within the shadowed wilderness of what was known as “Sverland.”

These intelligences did not answer to the beast, however, nor did the beast truly answer to them.

Both Dagon and its navigators bowed before the authority of the being Dagon was born to protect.

“We were tracking a ship, weren’t we? How come nobody’s updated me on it?”

Her voice reverberated across the interior of Dagon’s cerebral pod, stirring semi-transparent teal-blue organelles on the surrounding walls, like sinewy boils in which humanoid bodies could be seen to float, suspended in a film of dimly glowing gel, and affixed by their slender, pale necks to great bundles of nerves and arteries. Moisture glistened on the leather-pink surfaces which hardened black at the edges of the organelles. They shuddered with understanding of her requests and spoke silently to her.

Numbers and coordinates and data filtered into her mind from the minds surrounding her.

“Huh? You all let it get away? Why? There was no reason to engage it? Putting those vile excuses for homo sapiens in their place is good enough for me. It would have taken us no effort to crush them utterly, no? What do you mean? What do you mean it would have been dangerous?”

She developed an angry twitch as she conversed verbally with beings speaking mentally.

“Autarch, the vessel rose to the surface. It was a powerful vessel. We did not engage in pursuit.”

“I know. Navigation told me. But thank you for appearing, Enforcer II, to take the blame.”

In the middle of the womb-like cavity rose a black, crab-legged armored throne upon which sat the exalted Autarch of the Omenseers, known as Arbitrator II. Her current body was still immature, a slender pale figure with red hair longer than herself and a single curled horn on the side of her head. Dressed in a white robe bedecked with biologically luminescent cuticles, a tail twice her size curling around her throne.

At her feet, a pale woman with wavy brown hair kneeled. She had arrived from a sphincter leading down into the lower womb, within which prepared combat bodies were maintained. Her white and black dress had a trim of brown fibers and colored algae and flattered her mature figure. If at present the Autarch appeared like an older teen or younger adult, the creature before her was a middle aged woman.

“Autarch,” Enforcer II began, “Forgive me for the miscalculation, but I’m afraid Dagon is not yet mature enough to rise any further. It was grown in the Agartha, and its body is still soft. It must adapt to the waters of the homo sapiens and must then adapt to the waters farther above. It will take time.”

Arbitrator II rolled her eyes. “Okay but why didn’t we fire at the ship? How mature are the weapons?”

“I’m afraid the bio-cannons have only reached 40% maturity. Missiles are at 50%. Forgive me, milord.”

The Autarch’s voice became slower, deeper, evident of her displeasure. “Hold out your arm. Right now.”

Enforcer II quietly and dutifully outstretched her arm. Arbitrator II did not even move in her seat.

In a split second arm fell from elbow with a violent, bloody discharge as if sliced off.

Blood sprayed in a streak over Enforcer II’s beautiful features. She grimaced, enduring the pain.

On the ground, the severed arm rolled down the pod before the floor itself opened to consume it.

Absorbing the flesh into the surroundings such that it could not be recovered.

“While you reflect upon your gross miscalculations you can restore your arm bit by bit. Dismissed.”

Enforcer II mustered a pained smile and bowed to Arbitrator II, arm still bleeding.

Arbitrator II laid back, sighing. “Oh well. No matter. For now, I’ll just savor the journey.”

Gazing around the kingdom in miniature from which she would survey the “human” world.

Grinning with self-satisfaction. Soon, she knew. Soon, the time of the Syzygy would be upon them.

Dagon glided over the ocean surface, beginning its path through the fringes of human existence.

A great shadow of once-dormant secrets now probing out from within the depths of Aer.

Arbitrator II drummed fingers on her cheek. Idly recalling visions of her previous selves.

She had airy glimpses, passing feelings, of a great history to which she was a crucial part.

“Why hurry, after all? Let’s toy with them a bit. The Titan of Aether has an unchangeable destiny.”

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