+CYCLE 12872 // MONTH THIRTEEN // DAY SIXTY-TWO //
TIME // 20:57:22
Two Agamemnon-Class Imperial voidships emerge into realspace just outside Callisto's defense-grid.
TIME // 21:23:45
Imperial Agents embedded in security-critical positions neutralize both Callisto's planetary defense-batteries and early-warning system. The arrival of the voidships goes undetected by the Callisto Royal Defense Force.
TIME // 21:25:18
Eight Amenhotep-Class assault-vessels are deployed from the voidships. The dropships descend through the layers of Callisto's artificial atmosphere. Simultaneously, Imperial Agents make use of three Steiman-type devices to envelop the Royal Palace in a communication-deafening bubble. The palace is now rendered mute, deaf, and blind.
TIME // 21:34:49
Dropships reach the Royal Palace, and both the 34th and 98th Mercurian Liquidator shock-troop battalions breach the palace through six distinct points of egress. They are joined by the Holy Se-dai warriors Oshun, Chronos, Sekhmet, and Bhagavan.
TIME // 21:36:42
Surprised and disjointed, palace security is slow to respond. The Liquidators sweep through the palace section-by-section and execute any and all combatants. Non-combatants - servant and noble alike - are either executed as well or rounded up and gathered in the central foyer.
TIME // 21:38:57
Duke Jerohd Vell is identified and neutralized by the Holy Se-dai warrior Chronos.
TIME // 21:42:26
Palace Security rallies, and Liquidator forces are temporarily pushed back.
TIME // 21:44:02
Liquidator forces counter-attack and begin to decimate any surviving security personnel.
TIME // 21:47:43
Marquess Jaheed Vell is identified by Liquidator forces.
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Jaheed was staring straight down the barrel of a gun.
His hoverchair lay beside him, charred and smoking and riddled with holes - and he, too, was sprawled out upon the carpeted floor, his crippled legs refusing even now to respond to his mind's frantic commands.
This was too soon. This was far, far too soon.
It had came without warning - one moment, everything was calm and quiet, and the next Jaheed's lifelong home had transformed into a nightmarish battlefield. Black-and-jade soldiers that Jaheed knew well could only be the Emperor's Liquidators had swept like a storm throughout the palace, slaughtering the inhabitants with almost mechanical efficacy.
Palace Security had come at once to escort Jaheed from his chamber to his family's underground bunker, one located miles beneath Callisto's surface. Jaheed, of course, had acquiesced - and now, here he was, surrounded by the corpses of his guards and having made it not even halfway to the elevator waiting on the other side of the palace.
"You don't understand!" Jaheed was shouting, his voice raw with desperation. "I am the Duke's son - his firstborn!"
"Uh huh," the Liquidator replied, his voice muffled by his narrow-visored helmet. His partner beside him let out a dry chuckle. "Sure you are."
"By the Seventy-Fifth Imperial Precept, only the Blessed Executioners may lay harm upon one of noble birth, or one of direct relation!" Jaheed snapped, holding himself partly aloft on his elbows. It was a shameful, undignified position - but at the moment, being forced to grovel before these lowborn scum was the least of Jaheed's concerns. "It doesn't matter what state my family is in - as of this moment, we are still nobility, and you are still a dead man if you so much as touch me!"
Then, there was a blur - a short, sharp stab of pain - and Jaheed's head snapped back as the rifle-butt impacted hard against his jaw. He scrabbled back, now, eyes wide with fear and hand covering a mouth rapidly filling with blood as the Liquidators let out harsh, barking laughs.
"Shut him up pretty good," the second chuckled, to which the first stepped forward and pressed the barrel of his disruptor-rifle against the stricken Marquess's skull once more.
"Do you have any idea," the soldier growled, "how many dead, dumb bastards have claimed to be the Duke's kid today?"
"Everyone's a highborn when they're under the gun," his companion added. "Funny coincidence, that."
"You- you-" Jaheed stuttered, still reeling from the pain that scorched across the surface of his skull like wildfire. "You idiots! You really don't know-"
"I mean, really - you expect us to believe that you're a highborn cripple?" the first scoffed - and with a trio of low tones, his weapon primed to fire. "Can't fault ya for tryin', I guess."
"Listen - I made a deal!" Jaheed shouted, raising his hands. "I spoke with the Scion - with Ket Sal! He promised me-"
The Liquidator's finger tightened on the trigger.
And then, in the corner of his vision, Jaheed saw her.
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Kore was, in every sense of the word, a pragmatist. She had never been one to bemoan her situation, nor one to sit in baffled bewilderment at changing circumstances. To her, the situation was just that - the situation. Her only response was to take in the new information, process it, and then act or respond accordingly. It was thus that even the news of her impending death had - for a time, anyway - hardly fazed the hard-headed ex-miner.
And it was, then, for this reason that Kore's immediate reaction upon hearing the explosions and screams tearing through the air was to leap out of her bed, don her boots, tuck her knife into her sock, and run as fast as her feet would carry her.
She had, briefly, considered hiding in her room and killing any who dared approach. But she knew well that Palace Security employed las-rifles in the Vell family's defense - and she heard quite clearly the sounds of deep laser-retorts being drowned out by shrill, shrieking disruptor-fire. Whoever the invaders were, they were defeating Palace Security quite soundly, and thus the only logical course of action was to escape the palace as quickly and efficiently as possible.
All around her were grisly scenes. Corpses of guards and servants alike were strewn wildly about, every one of them shredded nearly to pieces by repeated disruptor-fire. The palace's ornate finery, too, had been reduced to smouldering wreckage - statues riddled and blackened, paintings and rugs burning, stained-glass windows shattered to pieces. There was a thick, dark haze to the air, and Kore was forced to tear her sleeve free and tie it into a makeshift mask as it grew increasingly difficult to breathe.
She made a turn - saw a dozen Liquidators with their backs turned, gunning down fleeing servants - and whirled around, choosing instead to make her way down an opposite passage the walls of which were streaked and splattered with melted blood.
Another turn, then another, then down a flight of stairs - ignoring a bisected guards, his entrails dragging behind him as he bellowed without a voice - and then Kore came skidding to an abrupt halt.
There were two Liquidators, one observing silently while the other held a young man at gunpoint. Kore turned at once to leave - and then, almost involuntarily, her eyes drifted back, and she saw then that the man on the floor was none other than the crippled Marquess.
He was saying something, gesticulating wildly as the barrel of the gun was pressed against his head.
Kore watched in silence as the crippled young man was about to be executed - and then, despite it all, despite everything, she couldn't help but feel it. A pang of sympathy.
Get in.
Be invisible.
Do the job.
Get out.
That was the mantra that Kore repeated once more, to herself - and then she leapt forward.
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"Tough luck," the Liquidator scoffed. He squeezed the trigger - and then, with a blur, he was gone, his rifle discharging a bolt of molten orange directly between Jaheed's legs as it went spinning across the empty space where he had once stood.
The other Liquidator whirled, raised his rifle - and had just a moment to see the dark-eyed rebel looming over him before she came crashing down, grabbing the barrel of his weapon and yanking it to the side as she slammed her fist hard into his abdomen.
The soldier let out a muffled cough of pain, staggered - but still, his rifle discharged, and now it was Kore who cried out as the white-hot barrel boiled the skin of her palm.
Still, she did not let go - instead jerking the rifle from the Liquidator's hands and smashing the butt of the weapon against his helmet, shattering his visor and heavily denting his mask. He lurched, dropped to a knee - and in one smooth series of motions Kore flipped the rifle, tucked it neatly into her shoulder, and leveled it square against the Liquidator's now-exposed visor.
"Kore!" Jaheed shouted, just as the ex-miner detected a hint of movement in her peripheral vision, and she had only a fraction of an instant to whirl around before the other Liquidator tackled her head on, taking her all the way across the hall and slamming her hard against the wall. In his hands now was a grey-steel mag-knife, the edges of which rippled and blurred as it inched closer and closer to Kore's throat, its glowing bottom-edge searing a molten trail across the top of the rifle between them.
The first Liquidator was on his knees, coughing, scrambling for a weapon - and just as he reached for the pistol on his hip he felt a pair of pale, lanky hands wrap themselves around his waist.
"No, you don't!" Jaheed bellowed, to which the Liquidator simply backhanded the nobleman hard across the face. Jaheed fell - but as he did, his hand closed around the grip of the pistol, and so he yanked it free from its holster as the Liquidator stomped towards him death blazing in his exposed eyes.
The Liquidators were brutal, efficient, storied fighters, all of them veterans of countless battles. The were trained from a young age to fight and to kill and thus their bodies were in peak condition, honed and hardened through constant and continuous violence. However - in a contest of raw strength, no Liquidator stood a chance against a woman who had grown up working the hellish cordite mines of Callisto. And so, gradually, Kore forced the knife back, the veins bulging in her neck and her face thick with sweat as every muscle in her body strained, and as the pain of her ruined palm rose to a fever pitch there came from deep within her a roar of equal parts fury and agony.
Kore shoved the Liquidator back - pounded his chest with a trio of titanic blows, then dropped down to one knee and reached for her concealed blade - only for her head to snap around at the sound of a disruptor-pistol's sharp retort.
Jaheed lay on the floor, bleeding and bruised - but alive, nevertheless, the pistol smoking in his hand as his assailant plummeted like a stone with a trio of smoldering holes in his breastplate.
His eyes met Kore's own - and then they went wide.
"Behind you!" he shouted - but Kore was already turning, feeling the cold steel of the blade in her hand as she rose to meet the surviving Liquidator's attack.
She took a punch to the chin, spat, and blocked another, wrenching the man's arm aside and slashing open his throat with one short, sharp gesture.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
And then, as the second body hit the floor, nobleman and rebel turned to face each other once more.
Kore was panting heavily, her entire body drenched in sweat and her hair hanging matted and uneven over her face. A trickle of blood ran from her left nostril, and both her knuckles were purple and swollen.
Jaheed, too, was drenched in sweat, his robes tattered and disheveled and his face bloodied and bruised from the Liquidator's beatings. His own hair, usually slicked back, was now hanging down in every direction conceivable, and both his hands were trembling involuntarily.
They just stood like that, for a moment, both of them exhausted beyond words - and then, finally, Jaheed spoke.
"It's you..." he trailed off, his voice distant, and Kore could see at once that the nobleman was in shock. "The-that servant. I remember you."
"Yeah," Kore nodded simply, between ragged breaths. "It's me."
Another long moment passed between them - and then Kore bent down, scooped up a disruptor-rifle, and turned to leave.
"Wait!" Jaheed called, as the towering woman strode away. "What are you doing?!"
"Leaving," Kore replied, over her shoulder. "I advise you do the same."
"I-I-" Jaheed sputtered, momentarily at a loss for words. "I can't, you disloyal cur! I can't even walk!"
"Not my problem," Kore shrugged, examining the rifle as she continued down the hall.
"I am highborn!" Jaheed bellowed, struggling to rise on his elbows. "I command you to halt!"
"Really?" Kore snapped - whirling around to face the stricken Marquess. Exhaustion, confusion, and the slowly-fading adrenaline of recent battle were all coursing through her veins as she spoke. "You really think that matters? Here? Now? You think anyone gives a shit who's born when or where?"
"Of course not!" Jaheed shot back - himself, too, momentarily lost in the sheer mania of all that had occured. "I was about to die at the hands of a lowborn, and despite all of my power and all of my influence and all of my titles I couldn't do a thing about it! You think I don't realize the situation I'm in?" He gestured to his ruined legs. "You don't think I realize how utterly powerless I am?"
"Then maybe don't try and boss folks around," Kore scoffed, shaking her head and turning away. "Arrogant little shit."
"I'm asking you," Jaheed called, his voice cracking - and again, this time after a moment, Kore paused. She closed her eyes and sighed.
"Please," Jaheed's voice came. "Kore. I'm not asking you as a noble, or as a highborn. I'm asking you as a fellow human being."
Slowly, the ex-miner turned, and her eyes fell upon the Marquess' pitiful form.
"Help me," Jaheed said, and Kore saw terror in his eyes. "Please. I don't want to die."
Get in.
Be invisible.
Do the-
With a heavy sigh Kore stepped forward, wrapped an arm around the Marquess' waist, and heaved, hoisting the nobleman over her shoulder - keenly aware, all the while, that she had been conspiring for months to see this man and his family dead. Keenly aware that the shockingly weightless young man hoisted over her shoulder was the enemy, the force that had been choking the life out of Callisto's people for generations. Keenly aware that there was no logical reason not to snap his wretched neck right here and now.
"Thank you," Jaheed said quickly. "Your reward shall-"
"You wanna live?" Kore growled. "Keep your mouth shut."
"Noted."
And then they were off.
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"Left!" Jaheed ordered - just as Kore hooked a sharp right turn.
"I said left!" the highborn repeated, his brow furrowing. "That's the way to the bunker!"
"Ain't goin' to the damn bunker," Kore grunted, deftly surmounting a railing and sidestepping a pair of Liquidator corpses.
"What?" Jaheed demanded - still hanging upside-down behind her back. "Are you mad? It's the safest place-"
"You really think they won't clear that bunker out, too?" Kore scoffed, rounding another corner. "Safest place to be is as far away from here as possible."
"That-" Jaheed began - then, he fell silent as plans and possibilities arced across his mind like crackling electricity. Ten seconds later the Marquess had devised exactly the most logical course of action.
"Okay, listen," he said, to which Kore merely offered another grunt. "I have a friend in a high position at a spaceport twenty kilometers from here. The Emperor's forces should be mostly confined to the palace itself. If we manage to escape and hit the streets, I should be able to get us swift and anonymous passage offworld - unless, of course, there's a blockade in place, in which case..." He trailed off. "Well, I suppose we'll gave to find some rathole to cower in until the danger has passed."
Kore had no intention of doing any of that. In fact, her primary intention was to simply dump the nobleman on the street and immediately get as far away from him as possible. Already she was beginning to question and regret her decision to save him - and, in equal measure, she was already imagining what Heraldry would do to Jaheed if they caught him. She might very well have rescued him from a swift execution, only to deliver him unto hours of agonizing torture.
"So, really," Jaheed's voice came from behind, interrupting her thoughts. "Who are you?"
It was a lot easier to feel sorry for him when he wasn't talking.
"We had this discussion already," Kore muttered, stumbling momentarily but quickly regaining her footing. "I'm Kore."
"You just attacked two of the Emperor's men with not an ounce of hesitation."
"Like I said," Kore replied through gritted teeth. "I was a miner. It's tough work."
"Bullshit," Jaheed shot back. "I spend every waking day surrounded by liars - do you really think I don't know how to spot one?"
"I-damnit!" Kore snapped, her patience wearing thin. "Do you really wanna know the answer to that question, smart guy? Or do you just wanna sit tight and shut up while I save your ass?"
Jaheed considered it, briefly.
"Fair point," he conceded, finally. "I just-Kore!"
The ex-miner skidded to a halt and whirled around, bringing her scavenged disruptor-rifle to bear with one hand - ready in an instant to obliterate whatever stood behind her.
Involuntarily, the hairs on her arm stood up.
Standing there in the flickering light was a lithe, agile figure, one of smooth black metal and beautiful gilded embellishments. Her face was no face but a dark, featureless, reflective oval, a void from which no emotion could possibly be discerned. And she advanced now like a panther, slow and calculated and perfectly self-assured as she sized up her prey in silence. Her gorget read SEKHMET - the lion-headed goddess of ancient Egypt who descended from the sky to slaughter innumerable mortals.
Kore's knowledge of the Domain outside of Callisto was all but non-existent - but even she recognized at once that what stood before her now was one of the Emperor's elite cadre of invincible, superhuman warriors. A Se-dai.
As a youth, Kore had listened keenly as others at the orphanage told stories of the Se-dai. They claimed that they were demons made flesh; inhuman creatures from beyond the stars that never ate and never slept and never, ever died. And now Kore was face-to-face with one.
Her expression remained unchanging as she released Jaheed, allowing the nobleman to drop quite painfully to the ground. But there was no complaint - for the Marquess found himself frozen in terror at the mere presence of the Blessed Executioner.
"Kore..." he said slowly, his voice little more than a hushed whisper. The ex-miner's eyes were narrowed, her entire body perfectly and utterly still. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her nose. "I think we should-"
Even against a Se-dai, Kore didn't hesitate - not even for a moment. She simply raised her rifle, sighted in, and opened fire.
And then the Se-dai was a blur, and moments later Kore was reeling back as the two neat halves of her rifle arced in opposite directions. Between them was the Sekhmet, monomolecular blade extended, and Kore had only a fraction of a second to even comprehend what had happened before the Se-dai whirled around and sent her flying with a lightning-fast kick to the chest.
Kore slammed hard against a wall, and for a moment everything went black. And then she was awake once more, panting heavily, the sensation in her spine and skull so screeching loud as to be almost unbearable. And through blurred, shaky vision, she saw the Se-dai stalking forwards once more, her blade now retracted.
Again, Kore didn't hesitate. Without fear, she lurched forward and raised her fist for a clumsy right hook.
"Kore, stop!" she could hear Jaheed shouting - though his words were muffled by the ocean roaring in her ears.
The Se-dai sidestepped the punch with ease, then simply kicked Kore's leg out from under her. Armored boot collided with shin and Kore felt something crack, then pop - and then pain the likes of which she had never felt before shot up the rebel's leg, into her stomach, along her spine and finally it reached her skull like a bolt of lightning and with a cry of agony she crumpled, her muscles simply refusing to obey any further.
"Boring," came a low, modulated voice - and, overwhelmed by sensation as she was, it took Kore several seconds to realize that it was the Se-dai herself who had spoken.
"Leave her be!" Jaheed was shouting, distantly, from across the hall. "I order you, Se-dai, leave her be!"
"That's what this day has been," the Se-dai continued, crouching down to meet Kore face-to-face. Her movements were at once casual and perfectly calculated. "Just boring. I thought I'd finally found someone interesting - figured I'd knock you around for a while, maybe have a bit of fun. But you break just as easily as all the rest."
"I am the Deiform Ascendant Heavenly 43rd Imperial Marquess of the Most-Hallowed Thrice-Honored 257th Dukedom Jaheed Kores Gragnad Demnod Vell, and I command you, Se-dai, to step away from her at once!" Jaheed roared, his voice growing hoarser by the minute. "Do you hear me, you cyborg abomination?!"
"Quiet, young Marquess," the Se-dai replied calmly - and her monomolecular blade was slithering from its sheath as she spoke. "I'll see to you in just a moment. Your death, at least, may yet bring me some measure of satisfaction."
She brought the blade to bear against Kore's throat.
"Or perhaps," Sekhmet declared, "I should simply accept that this is going to be a wasted, uneventful day."
Kore stared with bloodshot, blurry eyes into her own wounded countenance. Reflected there in the Se-dai's visor, she saw just saw weary, just how exhausted she was - and she couldn't help but let out a hacking, sputtering attempt at a laugh.
"Ah..." Kore sighed, her cracked lips twisting into a grim smile. "Fuck it, man. Just..."
Then, there was a blinding flash of light - and overwhelming blast of sound - and then all sensation gave way to a void of inky black.
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The sky was the wrong color.
Kore stood in a field of thin, pale grass that rose nearly to her chest - and smiled.
There was a cool breeze blowing, one that sent the reeds cascading to and fro in gentle, syncopated rhythm. The ground beneath her feet was a collection of smooth pebbles from between which the reeds sprouted, all of them packed in so tightly together as to appear as one flat, solid surface.
And the sky...
The sky opened up and Kore was screaming without sound as raw, animal terror gripped her throat and the sky split one way then another then another and THAT was seeping out from behind it and THAT was visible even as Kore squeezed her eyes shut and THAT pierced directly into her skull and suddenly Kore saw herself, older, scarred, outfitted in a clean-pressed uniform and strangling the life out of a withered old man. Then, she was sobbing on her knees. Then, she was speaking casually. Then, she was loosing careful shots with a bulky las-rifle. And then she saw death, and devastation, and life, and beauty, and things so bright she could hardly stand to look at them for fear that she-
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Kore's eyes opened slowly.
At first, her vision was naught but blurred, stabbing bursts of color. Then, gradually, the images began to refine, to come into focus, and soon Kore found herself looking sideways at an enormous heap of rubble.
The air was thick with dust, and the light from the one remaining luminary filtered lazily across, painting Kore in a sardonic sort of spotlight as she struggled without success to rise.
She forced her head to tilt up - and found herself staring at the starless night sky through a massive, gaping hole in the palace ceiling. She looked down - and around her there lay all manner of scattered rubble and concrete.
From beside her, there came a weak cough - and she turned to see Jaheed, battered and coated quite thoroughly in dust but nevertheless conscious, despite it all.
"Kore," he choked out, weakly. "Still alive?"
"Yeah," Kore replied, after a moment, leaning her head back against the wall. The words were nothing short of agony in her chest. "I think."
"You are," Jaheed confirmed deliriously, giving a weak nod. "I...I can see you. And you can see me. So we're...definitely both still alive. Right?"
"Hooray," Kore coughed, hacking up a chunk of dust in the process. "What...what happened?"
"There was a ship..." Jaheed said - pointing a trembling finger towards the ceiling. "It crashed, I think, skidded off the top of the ceiling there. Sent all this shit," he, too, let out a hacking cough, "falling down on our heads. I dunno...if it was one of ours, or..."
Kore would've laughed, had her ruined lungs allowed her. The two of them had been saved by nothing more than pure, impossible circumstance from the blade of the-
Kore's eyes went wide - and she shot to her feet, only to let loose a scream of pain and crumple to the ground she put weight on her destroyed ankle.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Jaheed demanded hoarsely. "Kore, just take a moment to breathe and-"
"The Se-dai!" Kore snapped, her eyes darting frantically about. "Where-"
And then she saw her.
The Se-dai had remained standing, somehow, even with a twisted length of rebar running directly through her faceplate and thigh, pinning her upright like a taxidermied animal. Pallid illumination shone down upon her like a muted halo, illuminating the Blessed Executioner's demise for all to bear witness.
And yet even still, the Se-dai clung to life - her fingers twitching, involuntarily or otherwise, and slowly her skull slid further and further down the length of rebar.
And Kore realized then that this dying, inhuman monster still meant to kill her.
And so, with great care, Kore rose, finding another length of rebar to use as a makeshift crutch as she lurched forward, her ruined leg dragging behind her all the while.
"Kore?" Jaheed asked, his eyes tracking her as she shuffled towards the broken Se-dai. "What are you-"
"It's still alive," Kore said simply, bending down and retrieving a discarded disruptor-pistol. She turned the weapon to the side, checking the ammunition count. Three shots remained. "It's still alive, Jaheed."
"Impossible," Jaheed breathed - but he, too, saw now the opening and closing of the Se-dai's gloved hands.
"By the void..." he muttered, astonished and horrified in equal measure - as Kore primed the pistol and placed it squarely against the side of the Se-dai's head.
Through a crack in the visor, a single steel-grey eye moved to regard the weapon - then, slowly, it traced up Kore's arm and chest until, finally, it locked onto the rebel's own bloodshot gaze.
Kore saw neither rage nor sorrow in Sekhmet's eye. Only cold understanding.
"Surely, it can't still-" Jaheed started.
The pistol barked three times in rapid succession.
The Se-dai stiffened - her hands clenched tight into fists - and then, finally, her body went slack, sliding down the full length of the rebar and collapsing to the ground in a bloodied heap.
Kore stared at the corpse of the legendary, invincible, superhuman warrior for some time - once myth, then real, and now dead at her feet. And then, finally, she turned to face her companion once more.
"Jaheed..." she began. "I think we-"
And then, they stepped into view - two-dozen Liquidators at the far end of the hall. Kore found herself almost completely unsurprised as she stared down the barrels of their disruptor-rifles.
"No..." Jaheed breathed, beside her. "No, no, no, no! We've come too far! We can't just-"
But all Kore could do was laugh - laugh and laugh and collapse to her knees beside Jaheed as the soldiers of the Emperor moved in to finish that which the Se-dai had started.