CYCLE 12874 // MONTH ONE // DAY ELEVEN // REIGN OF BLESSED EMPEROR VOLSIF XCVII
"Wonderful. Another planet caught in perpetual winter," Jaheed remarked dryly, as the Gorger's ramp descended and the aforementioned perpetual winter rushed up to greet them.
"I'm starting to think the Emperor doesn't like you," Kore agreed.
"Oh, he loves me. Why else would I be getting all the good assignments?"
"Do your jobs properly and we won't be here long," Diesch snapped, drawing his coat tight against the freezing wind.
That was as good a mission statement as any, and so without further ado the trio descended the ramp. Waiting for them at the far end of the pad, well-armed and two dozen strong, were soldier-thugs of The Vzngtch - the largest smuggling ring and mercenary cadre in the entire system.
At the head of the procession, a wiry man who could only be Baron Az-Azsad stepped forward, extended a hand, and flashed a row of diamond-studded teeth.
"Jaheed Vell-se," the ganglord grinned. "Welcome to my world."
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The process of actually getting to Horstchia-12 had been a somewhat tumultuous one.
When the crew had consisted of merely Jaheed, Kore, and Tarsus (and a hidden Sekhmet), the mood between them had been easygoing and laid-back. They were all three of them relatively agreeable folk; Jaheed's pickiness and Tarsus' crudeness notwithstanding. But now there were not one but two chaotic new variables thrown into the mix - a woman called Sekhmet, and a man named Abel Diesch.
The two of them were opposites in every way, really, which made the whole thing even more polarizing - and also entirely ironic.
Where Diesch was quiet and withdrawn, spending most of his time at a little-used bar tended to by a century-old system of pneumatic arms, Sekhmet was infuriatingly loud, her voice ringing out clear as day through the Gorger's thin walls and her eight-hundred-pound footsteps a constant, incessant irritant (now that she need no longer conceal herself, she also saw no reason to quiet her steps). Where Diesch responded to slights with little more than a glare and a silent withdrawal, Sekhmet was naturally confrontational and thus constantly picking fights with everyone, Kore excluded - fights she would invariably win, given the clear power imbalance one encounters when trying to argue with a billion-dollar cyborg death-machine.
Diesch was a ghost. Sekhmet was omnipresent. That was why it had surprised Kore so much to see the two slowly becoming friends, or at the very least friendly with one another. Diesch, it seemed, respected her for having deserted the Empire, while Sekhmet herself had found a kindred spirit in a man who bore naked enmity towards the Jade Emperor.
Kore had unintentionally eavesdropped on a late-night conversation between them, once - and what she had heard was not only alarmingly treasonous but borderline heretical. Kore, of course, could give a hot shit about dogma or orthodoxy. But she was keenly aware that the Emperor was the one keeping the lights on, and in truth she was terrified every day that Sekhmet would somehow be ripped away of her. And so she carried with her at all times a small, burgeoning seed of worry. Had she known of Sekhmet’s impromptu meeting with Anansi, that seed might very well have bloomed into outright panic. But, for the moment, that exchange remained a secret – for Sekhmet was too ashamed to admit that she, too, was still held firmly within the Jade Emperor’s grasp.
Despite it all, by the time the Cloud Gorger arrived at Horstchia-12 everyone was in high spirits - even Diesch, to some minor degree - and the crew was finally beginning to resemble, well, an actual crew. The plan was thus: Tarsus would mind the ship, Sekhmet would stalk from the shadows, and Kore and Diesch would act as Jaheed's bodyguard and aide-de-campe, respectively. The three/four of them would meet with the Vzngtch, who controlled the entirety of the southern pole, while the Scion Ket Sal would meet with the provincial governor to the north. If all went well, the two groups would never need meet.
It was all quite perfect and, in retrospect, very obviously doomed to fail.
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They made for something of a mismatched trio, didn't they?
There was Jaheed at the front, bundled up in a stark-white peacoat and jade-colored scarf, both serving to accentuate his orange hair and azure eyes. He was a thing of sharp and vibrant color, immediately drawing the eye as denoted his station.
Beside him, Kore stood in immediate contrast - a looming sentinel with a long, jet-black, high-collared coat open over a padded Imperial uniform. Where Jaheed was vividly bright, Kore was violently dark.
And then, intermediate between them, there was Diesch who wore, as per usual, a dark turtleneck sweater and a faded tan overcoat. In truth the man looked damn near homeless, his back hunched and a cigarette clenched tight between his mechanical fingers.
An odd assortment indeed. Certainly not the imperial entourage one might expect - no faceless Liquidators, no servants, no Se-dai. No yellow-eyed Scion in sight. Az-Azsad's choice of words, then, were perfectly understandable - but still Kore knew she could not allow it to pass.mBefore anyone could get in another word, Kore made an executive decision. She reached into her coat, withdrew her disruptor pistol, and pressed it against the ganglord's forehead.
To their credit, not one of the Vzngtch guards made a move - though quite a few of them tensed visibly. Az-Azsad himself was perfectly calm, somehow managing to refrain from even acknowledging the barrel against his skull as he continued to regard Jaheed with that same diamond-studded smile.
"You are speaking to a Highborn of Mercury," Kore said matter-of-factly. "You will address my liege as Lord Vell."
This was all a bit of improvisation, admittedly - but Jaheed had impressed upon her the night prior that Az-Azsad was a Lowborn, and the difference between them had to be starkly illustrated. Even a subtle jab like the use of his full name could not go unpunished. The criminal side of Horstchia-12 had long thumbed its nose at imperial authority, and now Jaheed was here to remind them just who exactly was in charge. Kore could only hope that the Vzngtch would have the self-preservation instinct not to gun down agents of the Jade Emperor on the spot.
"Of course, of course," Az-Azsad said, steepling his fingers and bowing deeply at the waist. Kore's pistol tracked his skull the whole way down. "My apologies, Lord Vell-se. Your visit was not expected; I know you only as son of Duke Jerohd Vell-ne. I did not know you serve Blessed Emperor Volsif-ke."
"That's quite alright," Jaheed said graciously, giving all the appearance of a man for whom guns to heads was a casual thing. As he spoke, his left index finger twitched the signal for stand down, and so Kore thumbed her pistol off at once, the lights on the side dimming from harsh blue to a low red as she holstered the weapon once more. The same finger twitched twice up, then once down - well done - and Kore did her best to mask a satisfied smile. "These are turbulent times, after all, and confusion abounds. Allow me to make formally clear, then, that I am here at Horstchia-12 on behalf of His Blinding Eminence Doss Ken Volsif, Ninety-Seventh of his name. I serve the Jade Emperor as Acolyte, and I have been granted liberty to speak with his Blessed voice."
"Then I say hail to you, Lord Vell-se," Az-Azsad bowed again. "And hail to the Jade Emperor."
For a moment, there was only the sound of howling wind.
"Well, that was all rather unpleasant," Jaheed chuckled, instantly cracking the tension between them. "I regret the need for such hostilities, my friend. What say we find someplace warm to re-introduce ourselves proper? I can't say the climate here much agrees with me."
"It is an acquired taste for certain," Az-Azsad replied, matching Jaheed’s smile with one his own. If the Baron was angry, he did an admirable job of concealing it. "Please come with me, Lord Vell-se - my office is but a short distance away."
"Lead the way," Jaheed agreed, clasping the man on the shoulder. And then: "Let us discuss the shape of your future, Az-Azsad."
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Kore found Baron Az-Azsad markedly unpleasant.
There was, of course, the whole issue of 'Baron' to begin with - namely the fact that the title was entirely imagined, having apparently been granted by the man himself to establish some veneer of legitimacy. In truth Az-Azsad was but a common criminal, a thug who had his own people in a stranglehold and who grew fat and wealthy as a result. Though organized crime had been all but eradicated – through the brutal, merciless application of military force - on Callisto, Kore nevertheless found herself thoroughly revulsed by the concept of such a parasitic creature, on that leeched off the less fortune with gluttonous abandon.
And then, on a pettier and more immediate level, there was simply the matter of the man's affectations. He spoke with an odd, stilted, lisping sort of accent, occasionally rearranging or dropping a word here and there, and most everything he said came out aggravatingly slow and measured. Jaheed, of course, had spent the weeks of transit studying up on Horstchia-12's mannerisms and was thus nonplussed by the faux-Baron's eccentricities - but Kore found them, in conjunction with the fact he was a criminal being treated like a prince, all just really void-damned annoying.
The lot of them were sitting now in a windowless lounge, one illuminated by warm orange panels that ran in strips around the edges of the ceiling. Everything - the chairs, the couch, the tables - was rigidly geometric, and since their entry into that towering skyscraper Kore had seen not a single smooth or rounded edge.
She was standing at attention now, hands folded in the ready position, as Jaheed and the faux-Baron broke bread, discussing matters of tariffs and jurisdictions the details of which slid like river-water over Kore's skull. The words were meaningless to her; she had not an ounce of the context required to parse anything that the two of them were saying. But she understood well the gist of what was happening here.
Centuries ago, the Horstchia System's sun had suddenly and unexpectedly gone supernova, whereupon every planet within immediately went dark. Horstchia was a system to the far Outer Edge, and interstellar travel was costly and burdensome in those days - thus, the entire system had been simply written off for dead. Twelve billion people garnered no more interest to the overminds of Holy Mercury than a rote accounting error.
It was only several hundred years later that, without warning, the system's 12th planet abruptly 'went bright' again - and began loudly transmitting to anyone who could hear.
Emperor Volsif XCVI - The Gilded Hierarch, and the Jade Emperor's adoptive father - dispatched a delegation and a legion both to investigate, and what they reported back was a largely-uninhabitable planet dominated nevertheless by two domed cities. Cauras, to the north, was ruled by the governor and 'official' representative of the entire planet. But Gaurnan, to the south, was an independent entity entirely - one governed not by the nobility, but by a crime family that had sprawled to rival even the Great Houses of Cauras themselves.
The Vzngtch had been fortunate. Horstchia-12 was a remote, unimportant little ball of ice in a Domain that was, at the time, brimming with interstellar war (a war that was later settled quite decisively by the Crimson Emir, who was then called War-Master Jaras Den San). Thus, the Vzngtch had more or less been allowed to continue on, unmolested by the hand of Holy Mercury, and their system had even been blessed with one of the Kerekt-Hives’ famous artificial suns.
This laissez-faire approach would continue no longer. There was no system, no world, no individual too small and remote to escape the Jade Emperor’s watchful eye. All would soon be within his hands, and it was Jaheed who had been dispatched to deliver the proclamation.
"Let me be clear, then," Jaheed said, replying to Az-Azsad's question with a lowered voice and an expression of great consequence. "I am here to tell you, in no uncertain terms, that you will be given one solar month to merge with the noble Tenko House of Causas - and disband the Vzngtch entirely. Fail to do so, and it will not be I who visits you next." He smiled thinly. "It will be the Se-dai.”
Az-Azsad's expression was entirely blank, for a moment.
"Perhaps," the faux-Baron said, slowly, "we have gotten off onto the wrong foot."
“Perhaps,” Jaheed agreed, leaning back and taking a sip of the steaming drink he had been provided. “Look, Az-Azsad. I’m not a headsman, and I’m not a harbinger. I am a diplomat, and I am here to take your side. The Se-dai? The Liquidators?” He scoffed. “I’ve seen their work firsthand and let me tell you, it is a terrible thing to behold. They take the Emperor’s side, which is that of total obliteration. So-” he raised the glass in salute, “-what say you and I work together to save your skin?”
This time, Kore could see clear as day that there were myriad calculations running behind the faux-Baron’s calm expression.
“I say,” Az-Azsad said finally, “that you and I, Lord Vell-se, are in need of more drinks.”
“I’d say you’re right,” Jaheed laughed, and so the negotiations were on.
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Ket Sal was unhappy. Which, to be fair, was very much his default state of mind. Nevertheless; this day in particular was poking and prodding at his brain like a hot needle, determined to test his mask of control time and time again.
Where to begin the list of grievances? There was, of course, the fact he was here at all - the fact he had been forced to drag poor Maít to this abominable frozen shithole, and that she now had little to do but wait in a shoddy excuse for a penthouse for his return. There was the fact that he was forced to associate in any way with Jaheed Vell, who was apparently going to become a permanent fixture in his life if the events of the past few months were any indication. And, most immediately, there was the fact that he was currently stuck talking to this complete and utter fucking moron.
Two things had become clear to Ket Sal within the first five minutes of his meeting with Governor Ban Tenko. The first; that the Tenko House and the Vzngtch were in league with one another, colluding in secret whilst presenting a divided front to any inquiring eyes.
The second? That Baron Az-Azsad was the real ruler of Horstchia-12, and Governor Tenko was nothing but an imbecilic front. Talking to this man any further was a clear waste of time and yet here was Ket Sal, one of the Voices of the Emperor, responding with rote flowchart-guided responses and queueing up the appropriate expressions/body language as the Governor droned on and on and on about... Horstchia-12's fucking sovereignty, of all things, which was such a ridiculous notion to entertain that Ket Sal found it actively disgusting.
He was almost grateful, then, when the soft chime of his comm-implant sounded within the confines of his skull. It was Maít, no doubt, likely just as bored and miserable as he was. He wouldn't be able to reply - not while the Governor was still holding him hostage - but at the very least he could blot out Ban Tenko's grating register with the pleasant tones of her voice. He accepted the transmission, then leaned back against his chair and folded one leg over another in a parody of engaged and interested listening.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"This is the Scion Ket Sal?" came a rough, unfamiliar voice.
"Yes," Ket Sal said, replying to Ban Tenko and the mysterious voice both. This was rather unusual - few people in the Domain had access to his private number, and those who did would know well to introduce themselves first. Oh, well. Ket Sal was, if nothing else, grateful for a small oddity to disrupt up this unbearable malaise.
The next few words hit him like a mag-train.
"You left your wife, Maít Tas Oan, at the Overlook hotel on C-57 Street," the voice said. "If you were to try and call her, now, she will not pick up."
Every Scion of the Jade Emperor had near-total mastery over their own body, via a combination of psychological conditioning and skin-deep silicon implants. They were quite literally unflappable; they wore human expressions like cheap masks and dictated their appearances in a manner entirely divorced from their actual emotions.
It was for that reason, then, that Ket Sal's expression did not waver for even an instant - even as raw terror shot like lightning up his spine and his heart leapt into a ferocious, breakneck rhythm. An alarm blared inside his skull and auto-injectors acted at once to flood his system with substances that would soothe his mind, allowing him to think clearly and act decisively. Yet even the artificial calm was shredded at once by the storm of panic, rage, and fear swelling up inside him.
Ammit, who had been looming in the corner the entire time like a piece of sentient furniture, now tilted her head ever-so-slightly. Ket Sal knew her well enough to know that this was an expression of genuine alarm, for she of course was listening in on any transmission her liege received.
"That's true," Ket Sal agreed, again speaking to the Governor and the voice both.
"You should go back to the hotel," the voice instructed. "See for yourself that she is not there. Then, we will contact you further." A pause. "We have your comms dialed in, Ket Sal. Make any other calls or attempts at contact and we will hurt her very badly. Do not be slow."
And with that, before Ket Sal could get in another word, the transmission clicked off. SOURCE: UNKNOWN, it read. DURATION: THIRTY-FOUR SECONDS.
Ket Sal decided at once what he was going to do.
He straightened, visibly - flattened his expression, put a finger to his ear in imitation of receiving a call. Ban Tenko observed, silent and curious, as Ket Sal listened for a moment before nodding at nothing at all. He then turned back to the Governor and pasted on an expression that was approximately sixty-percent apologetic and forty-percent concerned.
"Is something the matter, Lord Sal-ne?" the Governor asked. Ket Sal put on a reluctant grimace.
"An urgent matter, from the mouth of the Emperor himself," Ket Sal admitted - and Tenko's eyes widened, at that, because he was a fucking moron. "My apologies, Governor Tenko, but I'm afraid-"
"It is no matter," the Governor said quickly, waving away the Scion's apologies. "Whatever the Jade Emperor wants, it must be of grave importance, yes? We will gather again in the morning."
"Thank you, Governor Tenko," Ket Sal said, throwing on a relieved smile. "Your generosity and hospitality both are blessings to me. We shall indeed reconvene tomorrow, and hopefully continue with this productive and stimulating discussion."
Having groveled sufficiently, the Scion stood calmly and stepped out, his Se-dai shadowing him closely. Behind them, the doors began to slide - and the moment they shut, both Scion and Se-dai broke into a full-on sprint.
"Don't wait for me!" Ket Sal shouted, tearing down the hall with wild abandon. He hadn't bothered to change his face and thus he still wore an apologetic smile, even as his voice was gripped tight with urgency. "Just get the car started!"
At that, the Se-dai took off, clearing the hall in the span of a half-second before disappearing down a long and winding staircase. A minute later Ket Sal hit the lobby and burst out onto the busy street, where - amidst a great deal of traffic both vehicular and pedestrian - there idled a sleek, angular black hovercar.
The vehicle's motor was growling low and dangerous as Ket Sal all but leapt into the car, slammed the door shut, and ordered: "The hotel."
The engine roared and the car shot forward like an enormous bullet, dodging and whipping and weaving through the nighttime traffic with the speed and precision that only a Se-dai could muster. And that same Se-dai was clenching the wheel so tight that the metal was warping, her face obscured but the tension blatantly apparent in the hunch of her shoulders.
Utterly powerless, Ket Sal could only smoke anxiously in the back seat, hands trembling as he stared out and watched the sea of faces blurring by.
"Ket," Ammit said suddenly, as she jerked the wheel and the hovercar entered into a blistering hairpin turn. His head snapped around. It was one of few times he had ever heard her address him by his informal name, though he had long ago given her permission to do just that.
"Ammit," he said, reaching out and putting a hand on her armored shoulder - because right now they quite literally only had each other. The Se-dai's solid, implacable presence served to calm his nerves by a fraction and, finally, that damn trembling in his hands came to a stop.
"If Maít-" Ammit began, slowly. As though afraid of the words.
"She won't," Ket Sal interrupted.
"But if she does-"
"She won't," Ket Sal growled, to himself as much as to her.
"But if she does," Ammit insisted, and this time he could not muster the strength to rebut, "please grant me permission to hunt and kill the perpetrator."
There was a roaring ocean in Ket Sal's ears.
"If she dies," Ket Sal said darkly, leaning forwards, "I will personally see that all life is scoured from this miserable fucking shithole. I will see the poles melt."
If Ammit had a reply, it was stifled at once by the appearance of the hotel. The hovercar all but slammed to a halt, and in an instant both Scion and Se-dai were out onto the street.
"Stay in the car," Ammit ordered, her wrist-blades extending as she sprinted up the stairs.
"Not a chance!" Ket Sal snapped back, jerking a concealed las-pistol free from inside his jacket. The two of them burst into the lobby, weapons at the ready, then shouldered roughly past what few patrons loitered goggle-eyed within. The elevator doors slid shut; Ammit pressed the penthouse-floor button so hard that the plastic actually cracked.
Ket Sal tapped his foot eight-hundred-and-sixty-four times in the span of thirty-three seconds.
"I will get her back," Ammit vowed quietly, her voice low and cold as the grave. "On my blood as Se-dai, I swear it."
"I know," Ket Sal said, gripping his pistol tight. His hands were trembling again. "Thank you."
The elevator dinged, came to a halt. Ket Sal raised his weapon. His hands did not shake. He was ready. Whatever he was about to see, he was ready. He had to be, for her.
The doors slid open perhaps a quarter inch - and then Ammit was shoving him aside as a dozen red lasers boiled the air where he had just been standing, melting the back of the elevator to slag and filling the air with acrid smoke.
"Son of a bitch!" Ket Sal spat, pistol in hand, barely audible over the deafening torrent of gunfire. The two were pinned down on opposite sides, both attempting to conceal themselves behind what narrow cover the elevator provided. Ket Sal’s eyes darted to the cabin operating panel; surely the elevator was still functional. "We have to-" And then, abruptly, the las-fire ceased, and everything went far too quiet.
They were being hunted.
Stay low, Ammit instructed him, via hand-signal, and so Ket Sal dropped at once to a crouch. Some Scions were foolish enough to ignore the commands of their Se-dai, to bristle at the idea of taking orders from a nominal underling. Ket Sal was no such fool. Ammit was staring hard at the ceiling, now, and the Scion realized belatedly that she was using the reflection to study her assailants.
Whatever it was Ammit saw, she clearly didn't like it - because she reached up, removed her helmet, and simply tossed the thing aside. She stared now at Ket Sal with eyes of brilliant silver and asked, with more than a hint of malice in her voice: "Permission for release?"
Ket Sal met her stare - understood, then, that she and he were of one mind - and his own eyes flashed blue, for a moment, as he transmitted his personal authorization code.
"Level one RAGNAROK full release granted, all permissions," Ket Sal declared - and Ammit's eyes glowed even brighter as the limiters on her cyborg body were deactivated, one by one.
Every Se-dai was the master of two weapons.
The first, of course, were the wrist-blades by which the Se-dai were most known. But few knew of the Ker-sot, True Weapon; of the unique and personalized killing tool that each and every Se-dai spent the lion's share of their training mastering. It was with the True Weapon that a Se-dai was most comfortable, and it was with the True Weapon that a Se-dai was at her best. It was for that reason that the True Weapon was to only be unsheathed in times of great difficulty, in any fight where either the life of the Se-dai or the Se-dai's liege was in serious danger.
This time, it was for Maít’s life.
From a compartment on her back, Ammit produced a short onyx rod - a rod that was already extending and shifting in her hands, the nanotechnology folding and overlapping on itself until that foot-long rod had become a seven-foot-tall staff, atop which loomed a hefty cylinder studded with points that very much resembled the jagged edge of a meat tenderizer. It was a sleek, brutal, magnificently unsubtle weapon - and, like every other True Weapon, it exemplified the nature of its wielder in every way.
Ammit dropped low, like a sprinter, Ker-sot held in one hand behind her.
"Confirm final authorization," Ammit said, and the stoic Se-dai's voice was choked thick with barely-restrained fury. The assailants had to be closing in, now.
"Granted with extreme prejudice," Ket Sal declared, drawing to his full height. His lip curled, his heart pounded. "Kill anything that moves."
And then, Ammit vanished - leaving behind a crater that actually threw Ket Sal to the floor as the Se-dai rocketed forward. Ket Sal scrabbled to his feet, daring to peek around the corner as the air erupted into squealing las-fire once more. And he saw Ammit, high in the air, hammer lifted over her head - just as she brought it crashing down with all the weight of the heavens, and the entire skyscraper trembled beneath the force of that monumental blow. Tan-suited men were pitched from a rapidly-swelling cloud of plaster and dust like broken ragdolls, some already in pieces and some shattering when they impacted against the penthouse walls.
Most Se-dai, like Sekhmet, cut relatively lean figures - they were all about packing incredible power in understated forms, after all. Sekhmet in particular was built for speed and aggression, as befit her nature, and thus a punch from Sekhmet usually resulted in shattered or liquefied bone. Ammit's form, however, was somewhat unusual - a tall, bulky, wide-shouldered frame built for power and little else. And thus a punch from Ammit was, in short, an order of magnitude more destructive, which was demonstrated promptly as her hammer impacted against the chest of the nearest assassin. There was a sound like a thunderclap as everything from the waist up was quite literally obliterated - blood and guts turned to pinpricks of fluid and bones all but vaporized entirely.
And slow for a Se-dai was still blindingly fast for a human because already she was moving, smashing one assailant to atoms then rolling forward, sweeping the legs of another, stomping his head into paste and then whirling around and scattering five of their number with one almighty blow. With every movement and every hit the floor shook, and chunks of plaster rained down from the ceiling like a dusty, choking sort of snow.
A las-cannon boomed, blowing Ammit off her feet and leaving her chest-armor charred and smoking – though this was little matter, for the real armor was all beneath her skin - and with an uncharacteristic roar of fury Ammit leapt forward, her hammer sweeping just about the entirety of the penthouse furniture into the air as she simply decimated the poor bastard who had dared actually hurt her.
Yet still there were so many of them, and still Ammit was being peppered with so much las-fire even as she killed and killed and killed, and her armor - which was largely ceremonial in nature – was being reduced to little more than molten slag flash-fused to her artificial skin and Ket Sal watched with mounting concern as she began to sag, her movements slowing even to his untrained eyes.
"Hragh!" Ammit snarled, a wordless expression of animal fury, as she was ensnared now in a ring of las-fire that peppered endlessly against her skin. She dropped to one knee, exhausted, panting heavily, and for a moment Ket Sal thought she was done. He wanted to cry out, wanted to scream - wanted to do anything to help her, in that moment.
And then, slowly, as the las-fire abated, Ammit's head rose. With a deep-throated growl, she slammed her hammer against the floor – the impact of which nearly threw Ket Sal off his feet - and with it she forced herself upright, her back straightening and shoulders broadening as she regarded the terror-stricken assassins with a look of wide-eyed fury.
"By the Old Blood!" Ammit bellowed, pounding a fist against her chest. "By the New! I am Se-dai-ka-vas-necht! I do not bend! I do not break!" And then she dropped to a low crouch, preparing to leap forward once more with every ounce of strength and power she could muster.
She didn't see it, then. But Ket Sal did, and he didn't have even a moment to warn her as a grey blur dropped from the ceiling and drove a narrow blade right through the top of her skull.
"Ammit!" Ket Sal bellowed, eyes wide, as the Se-dai lurched back. He saw her look up to see her assailant - a hairless pale figure in a grey hoodie who smiled as though this were all a casual exchange – and then she surged forward with a baritone growl, heedless of the steel piercing her brain as her wrist-blade leapt for the man’s throat.
And then, again, the man was a blur, ducking her swing and darting around behind her and before she could react he slapped a metal bolt against the back of her neck and then Ammit was on her knees, entire body shaking madly as her face went glassy and slack-jawed and saliva poured from her open mouth and she collapsed, twitching, her entire body contorting wildly as the man just stared down at her, hands in his pockets.
Ket Sal could have just hit the ground floor button and disappeared. He should have, perhaps. But Ammit was family and so he did not hesitate for even an instant to raise his pistol, draw a bead on the man’s pale skull, and fire.
Quicker than should ever have been possible, the man tilted his head to the side, and the bolt seared harmlessly through the back of a shredded couch. Now, he turned, and Ket Sal’s blood ran cold as the man gave him a knowing smile. His eyes were glowing a deep, dull red.
"Whoops," the stranger said. "Almost forgot about you."
Ket Sal squeezed the trigger again, but before the weapon could even begin to fire the man was right in front of him, snatching up his gun-wrist and popping the Scion's shoulder from its socket with a casual, one-handed tug. Ket Sal gasped, eyes going wide with pain and shock both, and before he could even truly register what was happening he felt cold metal fingers close tight around his throat.
The man lifted him easily, now, as though the Scion weighed nothing at all. And then there was a brief, odd moment of silence between them - and somehow, amidst the insanity of it all, Ket Sal found the time to notice that tattooed beneath the man's eyes was a trio of red stars. The sigil of the Vzngtch.
"Goodnight," the Vzngtchian cyborg said, pleasantly enough. And then there was a sharp, blinding impact against the side of Ket Sal's head.
Lights out.
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"Three Scions, two houses," Kore smiled, spreading her cards out across the table, to which Jaheed let out a long and sustained groan.
The two of them were sitting in the midst of a truly luxurious penthouse, playing a casual game of Seno on the countertop - a ‘casual game’ that had quickly turned fiercely competitive - while Sekhmet lounged, eyes closed, upon the couch and Diesch sat by the window, drinking from a steel flash and saying nothing (as was his usual modus operandi). A long, seemingly-successful and mostly-boring meeting with Az-Azsad had finally concluded, and now the crew of the Gorger were finally able to take some time and enjoy a bit of the northern city. They had eaten at a hanging-garden restaurant suspended beneath a giant archway that night - shadowed, not-so-discreetly, by Vzngtch guards - before stopping to see a performance by Horstchia-12's most beloved and infamous musical act, The Seven Dunk. Now they were finally back 'home' and enjoying what they regarded as the fruits of their labors.
Nobody could sleep, anyway - going from Deep Space to planetside wreaked havoc upon a human’s diurnal rhythms. The first night always a sleepless one.
"Alright, alright, let’s go again," Jaheed said, good-natured despite the massive chip deficit between them. Kore just scooped up her winnings and grinned, more than happy to fleece him further. Quite literally everyone on the Gorger was terrible at cards, somehow, which made the ex-miner a shark in a small pond indeed. Jaheed dealt her a seven-card hand, and Kore looked down upon it with the same stoic mask she always wore when on duty. Her cards were complete and utter dogshit.
Just as she was about to bet high on a bad hand, a chime sounded from within her skull, startling her so badly she nearly jumped upright. That damn occipital implant - she still hadn't gotten used to the idea of a screen behind her eyes and a computer in her brain, and the way the ringtone sounded out within her very thoughts always left her deeply unsettled.
Nevertheless, one of her many tasks was to intercept and interpret any messages for her liege. And so she blinked twice in rapid succession, and the message appeared before her eyes, layered overtop Jaheed's face.
"Message for me?" he asked, seeing her eyes go milky-white for a moment.
"Uh huh," Kore grunted, distracted. "Short-burst transmission, from, uh..." She trailed off. "Huh."
"Kore?"
Before her eyes was displayed the following text:
SOURCE: S-D#AM67 "AMMIT"
IMPERATIVE: LUCIFER/NEPHILIM
"!:+:)+;!{=✓✓[]✓®®=}\
TRANSMISSION END
HAIL TO THE SEVENTH-VENERATED EMPEROR
HAIL TO THE GREAT DOMAIN
"It's from...Ammit," Kore said slowly, brow furrowed. "That's Ket Sal's Se-dai, right?"
Sekhmet opened one eye.
"It says imperative is 'lucifer slash nephilim'," Kore went on. "And then the message is just a string of nonsense-"
"Give it to me," Sekhmet said, appearing beside them just about of thin air. "Now!"
"What's going on?" Jaheed demanded, rising to his feet. Even Diesch was looking over now with probing, curious eyes.
"That's a coded transmission – it contains the last thirty seconds of footage from my cousin's eyes," Sekhmet said quickly, gesturing for Kore to pass the data over. "Only another Se-dai can unscramble it."
"Okay," Jaheed frowned, confused and increasingly unsettled. They were all four of them crowded around the table, now. "Why is Ket Sal's Se-dai sending us coded messages?"
"Lucifer slash nephilim," Sekhmet replied grimly, folding her arms. And for the first time in her life Kore thought she heard unease in the rogue Se-dai's voice. "Fallen angels. The little computer in our heads," she tapped her skull, "sends it out automatically, right before we die."
Nobody said a word. Nobody moved a muscle. And suddenly, in that moment, all four of them were keenly aware of just how far away they were from the Cloud Gorger - and from anything or anyone even remotely Imperial.
"It's unscrambled," Sekhmet said, after a moment, and without waiting for permission she cast the message to the holo-projector on the coffee table.
"Woah, hang on," Kore interrupted, as the hologram flickered to life. "This thing is unsecured. Shouldn't we-"
"It was a short-burst transmission," Diesch interrupted, speaking up for the first time in hours. All heads tilted at the sound of that raspy voice - but he only had eyes for the flickering image before him. "Anyone listening could already hear it, plain as day.” His entire body seemed seized with an energy and enthusiasm Kore had not seen since Proxima. "They already know we got the message, and they already know where we got it from. All of us, we're already fucked." He leaned forward, the flickering light reflecting in his eyes. "So let's watch the damn thing already and get us some proper information here."
That was that, then. Sekhmet set the video to play - and all watched in terrible, enraptured silence as a Se-dai died.