"...well?"
"Well...it's ready. All I have to do—all we can do, now, is flip the switch and hope."
"And hope?"
"What do you want me to say? This entire endeavor is a blind leap into the yawning unknown, you both knew this. I cannot possibly predict with any certainty what will happen next."
"...I mean, she's already dead, right? There's no real risk to any of this."
"What if she tears herself to pieces again?"
"That is indeed a distinct possibility."
"I don't like this, Ket."
"I'm not thrilled about it either—but what choice do we have?"
"Gentleman, lady. A decision, if you would."
"...do it."
"Yeah. Just do it."
"Very well, then. Here...we...go."
----------------------------------------
Sekhmet
Her eyes snapped open.
She sat straight up.
Involuntarily, then, everyone took a step back. Because one moment she had been an inert object and the next, here she was — the fastest, meanest, scariest thing on the entire planet, upright and alert, her skin audibly thrumming with barely-restrained power. Her eyes were gleaming like twin suns. Within her, the old engine was churning itself to life once more, and the heat was spreading like wildfire all the way down to the tips of her fingers. She raised a hand; curled her fingers into a fist, one by one. And then she looked right at Ket Sal and asked, in a voice brimming with vitality and strength:
"What's the situation?"
He didn't answer, not right away. Instead, Ket Sal's first act was to simply bow his head and smile. "Sekhmet," he grinned, with real pleasure. "Welcome back."
Sekhmet's only reply, then, was to leap to her feet — and then immediately drop to her knees, the tiled floor nearly caving in beneath her weight. Ten thousand alarms and notifications popped up; she silenced them all with three blinks and an irritated snarl. Something was wrong, she was certain. Something was terribly wrong. Her body felt like a stranger's; her limbs too long and her movements too sluggish. A fog hung over her every action, a measurable if infinitesimally brief delay between command and follow-through. This couldn't just a byproduct of rebooting — this was something else entirely.
"What did you do...?" she demanded, her words temporarily jumbled before unscrambling into proper human speech. She glared up at the three faces looming over her, searching for an answer — or something to blame — in their countenances. There was the Scion Ket Sal, of course, and beside him his wife, Maít Tas Oan. Ammit was nowhere to be seen; instead, it was a stranger who joined them, a man with a birdlike face and a hooked nose and wires running from the back of his skull to some manner of black box on his hip.
"I repaired you," the stranger explained primly, folding his long-fingered hands before him. Well, okay. So she had died — that made some level of sense. Doing what...? It didn't matter; she'd know in just a few moments. "To the best of my abilities, at any rate. There were, ah, certain material limitations, and of course it was all I could do to try and reverse-engineer the work of the enigmatic Fleshweavers..."
"What are you talking about?" Sekhmet furrowed her brow, distracted, as she ran a dozen different diagnostics, trying to get the full scope of just how much had changed. She was, nominally, at full functionality. But things were most definitely off. "You repaired me? That's impossible. You're not of Ceres."
"Well, uh, yes. It was impossible." The bird-man told her. "Until today." A sly, smug smile crept across his face, and he extended to her a skeletal hand. "Professor Cervas Raiqas, at your service."
Sekhmet didn't consider shaking it for even a moment. Disorienting and distracted as she was, she still found the entire premise of that deeply revulsing, almost on a primal level. The idea of this man, of those long fingers, piecing her apart and rifling through her remains...but at any rate, there was no time to ruminate on such thoughts. She was close to a full boot, which meant her memories were about to-
"Kore!" Sekhmet blurted out, at such a volume that all present physically flinched. She shot to her feet, unsteadiness be damned, and now her head was snapping with mechanical precision and speed between the three faces before her. That old engine was churning fast, leaping straight from an idle chug to a breakneck throttle. "Where is she?" Sekhmet demanded, cracking the tile with one thunderous step forward. There was a literal snapshot in her head of the last look she had gotten of Kore's face — and right now, it was driving her to a literal frenzy. Her every instinct as a Se-dai was screaming for her to exert herself, to flex those almighty muscles and make use of her terrible strength. To do something, above all else.
"Let's just take a minute to get settled, okay?" Ket Sal offered, daring a couple steps closer. His face was lined heavy with uncharacteristic concern. "We can all just relax and talk-"
"She's in trouble," Maít told her bluntly, with not an ounce of preamble.
The engine kicked into an even higher gear.
"Understood." And then Sekhmet was striding for the door, with not so much as a glance over her shoulder — and then, for the first time in all her life, she slipped and fell.
Powerful combat drugs kicked in, heightening Sekhmet's perceptions and seeming to slow the pace of time itself, and so she had an eternity to ponder the insanity of what had just occurred. She had planted her foot wrong, somehow, and her ankle had twisted and suddenly the momentum of her enormous weight had simply carried her straight down to the ground. Which was, well, impossible. Se-dai didn't trip. They didn't step wrong.
Then, of course, she hit the floor, and the entire room shuddered from the impact that followed.
As she lay there, too stunned to even move, a surge of white-hot anger flared up within her. There was a time when Sekhmet would have simply raged; would have lashed out and smashed or broken whatever unfortunate object was nearest. Like a petulant child, she would have simply carried out her own instinctive emotions in the most destructive and violent way possible. This time, however, there was something far more important at stake: Kore's life. And so, Sekhmet overrode her own feelings and forced herself into a state of calm focus, then looked up and the three concerned faces and agreed, somewhat sheepishly: "Maybe we should talk, for a bit."
----------------------------------------
They all sat down in the foyer — Sekhmet on a leather armchair; Ket Sal, Maít, and the itinerant professor on a well-worn leather couch. Ammit was still nowhere to be seen. Across from them both, a fireplace roared, the flames crackling iridescent purple and brilliant azure. Sekhmet was certain she'd have a headache, at this point, if Se-dai ever experienced such things.
The rogue cyborg made for a grim sight indeed. Though the skin on Sekhmet's face had largely regenerated (save for a sliver of turquoise running along the side of her scalp), the same could in no way be said for the rest of her damaged body. Much of her torso was entirely skinless, as were her three new limbs. The ridged, segmented teal carapace beneath her skin was now on full display, which left Sekhmet — a woman with little, if any sense of modesty — feeling oddly yet profoundly exposed. She liked the human veneer she wore, and though she was proud of her strength she was less than fond of what actually went on 'beneath the hood', as it were.
And what did go on, beneath the hood? Well...
"My first problem, as I said, was one of material scarcity," Raiqas explained, in that damn grating voice of his. Sekhmet found the man thoroughly unpleasant, for reasons both conscious and subconscious. "Mithril is perhaps the rarest substance in all the Great Domain, one that can only be synthesized by the Master-Alchemists of reclusive Ceres. And they guard their secrets jealously, oh yes indeed."
"We offered what we could," Maít chimed in, apologetically, which Sekhmet felt was entirely unnecessary. "Ammit gave up her wrist-blades to be melted down, as well as some inessential pieces of her carapace." Now that was baffling to Sekhmet, the idea of willingly subjecting oneself to such an invasive process for the sake of a hated rival. Sorority, sisterhood — these were powerful things indeed, for one who actually believed in them. Sekhmet found herself surprisingly melancholy, to know that she could not possibly relate.
"And your katana," Ket Sal added, somewhat sadly. The very symbol of his gratitude for Sekhmet's rescue of his family, now reduced to a sacrificial offering. Just one more log to be placed upon the pyre of her fading life, then. "A shame. It was a fine weapon."
"All of this, combined, added up to only half the requisite material," Raiqas went on. "Nevertheless, I was able to synthesize a steel-mithril compound, a hybrid material that should be able to withstand the incredible exertion and strain of a Se-dai's muscles. And they are incredible muscles, by the way. Your entire interiority is nothing short of a masterwork. The Fleshweavers are truly artisans without compare."
"I'm sorry," Sekhmet interrupted loudly, fixing Raiqas with a harsh stare, "but just who the hell are you, exactly?" Her ire was rising by the minute.
"I already-"
"He's an old connection, from my college days," Maít cut in, sensing at once the Se-dai's pugnacious intent. "A friend of a friend of a friend — that sort of thing. He was also the only person I could think of in the entire Domain who might have been able to fix you."
"Cervas Raiqas," the professor intoned again, with a small bow of his head. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss Sekhmet."
Now, it was Ket Sal — who had, for the most part, been smoking in silence — who leaned forward, ring-laden fingers interlaced and umber suit-jacket draped over him like a cloak. "In his college days, Cervas Raiqas was a maverick scientist with an eye for the biological disciplines. Post-graduation, he became an iconoclast — a celebrity, in the worst possible way." The Scion spoke freely of the professor's life, as though the two were not currently brushing shoulders, and for the professor's part he seemed entirely unbothered. "He delved far too deeply and publicly into biotechnology, the foul and forbidden art of weaving flesh and metal as one. You already know, Sekhmet, that by Imperial Decree only the Se-dai of Ceres may engage in such vile practices. For any ordinary man to do so is heresy of the highest order."
"Heresy," Raiqas practically giggled. "An apostate, they called me. The late Emperor called for my head, yes, but he was slow, so slow, and so I made my escape and burrowed in deep." He pointed down. "Right here." Here, in this case, was this hodgepodge manor on the remote and nigh-uncharted moon of Tirinos-9.
"The Jade Emperor has in no way condoned my activities," Raiqas went on. "Yet still I live, unbothered and unmolested, and still my work continues on. Perhaps he discreetly approves. Perhaps he takes pleasure in seeing the Sovereign's secrets wrested from his millennia-old grasp. Or...perhaps he is simply not as all-knowing as the dogma suggests?"
"Careful," Ket Sal warned, and there was real danger in that low and measured voice. Raiqas, unflappable up until this point, straightened at once and offered the Scion a mumbled apology.
"At any rate," Raiqas went on, after an awkward and hesitant silence. His fingers began to drum anxiously — or excitedly, perhaps — against the arm of the couch. "I cut dear Ammit open-" Maít flinched, and Ket Sal shot the man a vicious glare, "-and used her as something of a working model, by which I might then reassemble you. It was, I must say, the most arduous trial that has ever been set out before me. Ceresian technology has evolved in total isolation for centuries, you understand, developing slowly but steadily into something entirely unrecognizable to our modern conception of science. Flesh, in place of steel. Brains, in place of computers. And so, I delved freely and without fear into truly uncharted territory — and so, I have emerged victorious." A wide, rictus grin split his leathery face. "You are living proof of my most monumental achievement."
Abruptly, Sekhmet had heard enough.
"I don't give even a fraction of a fucking shit about your achievement," Sekhmet told him, in no uncertain terms and with no small level of rancor. "The Bouchers are just that — butchers — and it disgusts me to hear the knowledge of their vile trade being spread. The only reason I don't tear my own heart out right this very instant is that somewhere, somehow, my girlfriend is in trouble." She jabbed a finger at the far wall, at whatever point in space she imagined Kore to be currently inhabiting. "My girlfriend might be dead, for all I know, and if she is then it is all my fault."
"Sekhmet-" Maít started.
"Easy-" Ket Sal attempted.
"So you, Raiqas, are going to tell me only the things that I specifically need to know," Sekhmet growled, rising to her feet. Her eyes were glowing brighter and her voice was growing deeper and now she was looming over the three of them like the shadow of death itself. "And then you're gonna shut the fuck up and stay the outta my way."
A tense, heavy silence hung between them — the air literally rippling and shimmering with the heat of her emotions. Sekhmet glared down at him, with narrowed eyes, and Raiqas glared right back with defiance that nearly matched her own. In doing so, he was miscalculating entirely; Sekhmet was but a hair's breadth from crushing his windpipe and simply being done with him.
The professor did concede, however, after just a few moments longer. "Fine," Raiqas practically spat, the word dripping with pique and venom. "What do you want to know?"
"What the hell is wrong with me?" Sekhmet gesturing sharply to her own body — to the exposed carapace beneath which she knew a chimera of machinery and vat-grown organs yet hummed. "Everything feels wrong. My depth perception is off. My body is unbalanced. Sometimes I'm too slow, sometimes I'm too fast." She raised a hand, clenching and unclenching it three times in the literal blink of an eye. "A Se-dai's body should be perfectly, unerringly precise. Mine is decidedly not. So what the fuck did you do to me?"
Raiqas' eyes were narrowed to slits. "I did," he replied, his voice brimming with barely-restrained indignation, "the best I could, with the meager resources and woefully insufficient knowledge at my disposal."
"You put me together wrong." Sekhmet folded her arms.
"A full third of your body was outright missing," Raiqas practically shouted back. "I literally had to grow certain organs from scratch — and let me tell you, almost none of a Se-dai's organs are even remotely analogous to that of an unmodified human being. There were certain part of Ammit's body where all I could do was try and infer their purpose, to deduce the very nature of the thing I was trying to recreate!" He scoffed, disgusted. "It's a miracle to see you walking at all, much less standing and shouting and acting decidedly ungrateful. I expected this to be a doomed venture, you know, albeit one in which I could gaze upon a veritable treasure-trove of forbidden knowledge. You, my dear loudmouthed wretch, are but a byproduct of an empirical endeavor."
"I could snap your neck," Sekhmet told him, in no uncertain terms. "Effortlessly."
"Only because I resurrected you," Raiqas agreed, spiteful and smug to the bitter end. Sekhmet, again, strongly considered putting an end to this contention with her own two hands. Thankfully, it was at that moment that Ket Sal intervened.
"That's enough." The Scion paused, then, and in the ensuing silence he took a long, long drag from his cigarette. Any vexation he might have felt was masked behind a false face of calm, pleasant indifference, and now he was, effortlessly, the focal point of the entire room. "Cervas, you're a lifesaver — and I mean that quite literally. I'll see that your money and your pardon are both transferred by the close of day. Beyond that, however, might I request a word with our newly-christened Lazarus in private?"
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"Lazarus?" Raiqas furrowed his brow.
"Don't worry about it," Ket Sal waved him off, with just the faintest hint of impatience. "The room, please?"
And so, the three of them were alone, and now Sekhmet was pacing in livid circles around the room. Sitting on the couch with hand in hand, Ket Sal and Maít looked not unlike a pair of concerned parents, which Sekhmet found a both ridiculous and slightly infuriating sight. She was beginning to spiral once more, the weight of her current inaction constricting like a serpent around her neck.
"Ammit will be awake soon," Maít offered, for some reason. "If you want to see-"
"I don't," Sekhmet said sharply. And then, a bit gentler, because Maít was a good person: "Tell her I said thank you, though. Seriously. I don't know..." She trailed off, uncertain as to whether or not she should finish that sentence. "I don't know if I would've done the same for her."
"It doesn't matter," Ket Sal said, rising to his feet and stubbing his cigarette out on the arm of the couch. He too, it seemed, harbored no great love for Cervas Raiqas. "What matters is that she gave you a gift, Sekhmet; you need to focus on not squandering it."
"How long was I dead?" Sekhmet demanded, rather than reply to that.
"We brought you here three weeks ago."
"Putain!" the rogue Se-dai swore, whirling around and slamming her fist against — and clean through — the fireplace mantle. She let loose an irritated roar and kicked, sending a chunk of concrete flying through the air and splitting the armchair clean in two. "J'ai perdu trop de temps, putain!"
"Ralentissez, pour l'amour du vide!" Ket Sal barked, his composure finally giving way — and hearing those words in her own language stopped Sekhmet dead, snapping the Se-dai out of her vitriolic doomspiral. She whirled around to stare at Ket Sal, with bafflement and surprise writ large across her face.
"Where did you-" she started.
"Ammit taught me — now sit down!" Ket Sal commanded sharply, pointing at the couch. "There are things that you should be made aware of, first."
"Such as?" Though she did not sit, she was indeed now listening. Ket Sal had been an enormous benefactor — void, he had literally just saved her life! She was embarrassed, abruptly, to hear him shouting at her in such a fashion.
"The state of your mind," Ket Sal told her, tapping the side of his skull. "Ammit got you into stasis as quick as she could — but that still wasn't fast enough. Your brain was decaying without oxygen for two full minutes, Sekhmet, and there was almost certainly irreversible damage as a result."
Sekhmet frowned. "I feel fine."
"You just woke up," the Scion countered readily. "Neither of us have any idea what's gonna happen to you, from hereon out, nor do we have any idea whether or not Raiqas' work will actually hold." At that, Sekhmet glanced down at her smooth-metal hand — at a carapace that was not teal mithril, as it should be, but rather a marbled blue-and-grey composite. She felt a keen sense of dysmorphia, then, manifesting itself as nausea in the back of her mechanical throat. She swallowed, forcing her unease down with not-insignificant effort. She had to focus. She had to. Kore was still out there, and Sekhmet still had a job to do.
"You want me to stay here," she declared, folding her metal arms. "You want me to do nothing."
"I don't want you to die," Ket Sal clarified, somewhat plaintively, which was very much unlike him. There was real and uncharacteristic emotion in those words, even when issuing from his usual mask of indifference. "And I know what you want, Sekhmet, is to leap into the fray — just like you did on Madriu. You want to get ripped to pieces as you push yourself further and further and further past your own limits, just like you did on Madriu."
"Didn't push far enough, did I?" Sekhmet snapped, bitterly. "I failed her."
"You did no such thing!" Maít shouted, rising sharply to her feet. For a moment, any healthy fear of the immensely powerful cyborg was forgotten, and the Scion's wife dared put a hand on Sekhmet's arm — making direct contact with that warm, exposed metal carapace. The thing that, in Sekhmet's eyes, should never be seen and absolutely never be touched. On instinct, the Se-dai flinched and pulled back.
"Listen to me, Sekhmet," Maít said anyway, taking a step closer. Her eyes were locked onto the Se-dai's own. "You did not fail. This is not your fault. I've seen footage of the incident — we all have, by now — and I'll never forget the sight of you, deadly and terrifying and magnificent, moving faster than any living creature I've ever seen. Don't you ever pretend, even for a moment, that you didn't give her everything you possibly could."
"It still wasn't enough," Sekhmet replied, her expression growing doleful and contrite. She closed her eyes, turned her head away. Shame hung about her skull like an iron crown. "If she's dead, then I don't deserve to live. Until she's safe, I don't deserve to live. It's a simple equation."
"They conditioned you to feel that way," Maít insisted, softer now. "The Sovereign, and those other fucking bastards on Ceres."
"...Ammit told you about that?"
"Ammit tells us everything," Ket Sal confirmed, from behind. "Look, Sekhmet. Whether you believe it or not, you owe Kore nothing. You did not sin, and you do not need to atone. You are a victim, just the same as her."
And for whatever reason, it was those particular words in that particular order than unlocked something within Sekhmet. The entire concept of 'Kore is in trouble' went from simply being the premise of her situation, of being a simple and incontrovertible fact, to something entirely more nebulous and visceral. It became...just tragedy, really. Plain and simple. The grief hit Sekhmet like a las-cannon shot to the chest.
"Elle me manque tellement," she wailed, dropping to her knees and burying her face within her hands. No Se-dai was capable of producing tears; thus, her sobs manifested only as full-body shudders. "Elle ne peut pas me laisser! S'il vous plaît, s'il vous plaît, elle ne peut pas me laisser. Elle doit revenir, elle doit revenir..."
Slowly, fearlessly, Maít crossed the gap between them. "I know," she offered gently, kneeling down and rubbing a hand along the Se-dai's back — which was an extraordinarily dangerous thing to do, and one that Sekhmet appreciated, nevertheless, more than anything in the world. "I'm sorry, honey. I promise you, we're going to get her back." And now slowly, slowly, Sekhmet was beginning to calm, for the warmth of the other woman's touch was like a guiding lighthouse amidst a raging storm.
"Damn right we are," Ket Sal chimed in. His voice was hard and resolute. "Jaheed's on the warpath, and there's nothing he won't do to see her safe." And that, too, calmed Sekhmet even further, for the Scion Ket Sal had been one of the steadiest and most dependable fixtures of her entire life. If he said it, then it was true. That was simply the way of the world.
Sekhmet sniffed — which was a purely vestigial reflex, a genetic echo of creatures that actually experienced runny noses and nothing more. She turned, reluctantly, to meet Ket Sal's yellow eyes, and he held her gaze in turn. The Se-dai was finding her focus once more, now. The grief within her was squeezing aside, forced to make room for duty, obligation, and above all else a sense of fierce determination.
"What's the situation, then?" Sekhmet asked, and her voice cracked only a mite. Maít gave her a small, warm smile, then stepped gracefully back and ceded the floor.
"The mother planet, Tirinos, is a giant comms deadzone," Ket Sal explained, one hand in his pocket and the other now clasping an unlit cigarette. "The ninth moon is no exception; I've had to fly nearly eight hours out just to get a signal. What I'm getting at, see, is that my information isn't exactly up-to-date — but I do know this. Jaheed and Diesch have been nipping at Heraldry's heels for weeks and they are close, Sekhmet. They are very, very close. I don't know all the details, but...well, let it suffice to say that there are a great many plans in motion. Jaheed's been using every ounce of clout and muscle at his disposal, plus a fair bit of my own."
Sekhmet's purpose, then, was all but certain. "He'll need my help." She rose at once to her feet.
"Maybe," Ket Sal conceded. "But still-"
"Listen," Sekhmet interrupted, because she had to. "Ket, Maít..." She trailed off, her voice breaking momentarily. "I can't thank you both enough. I can't. My heart..." She searched, desperately, for the words that would adequately convey the love and the gratitude that she felt. "Mon cœur est rempli de toi. Je ne vais jamais oublier vos gentillesse," she declared, finally.
"Je t'en prie," Ket Sal bowed his head.
"De rien," Maít agreed.
"But I can't stay," Sekhmet went on. "I just can't, not while she's still out there. Whatever happens with her, with everything—I have to be a part of it. I know you might not understand-"
"I understand just fine," Maít interrupted. And without further ado, she hitched a thumb over her shoulder. "You can take my shuttle, so long as you promise not to push yourself too hard." She narrowed her eyes. "I mean it, Sekhmet. We all love you dearly. Don't you dare go out and die on us again."
"Je promets." Sekhmet put her hands together and bowed her head, something she had not done since her half-blood days on Ceres.
"The sword's gone," Ket Sal chimed in, sadly, reaching into his jacket and pulled out that antique old katana-hilt. Sekhmet took it at once, felt the familiar ridges of the grip — sans, of course, the weight of the mithril blade. Just one more loss for the tally, then. "If we had more time, I'd ask Raiqas to forge you something. As it stands-"
"It's alright, Ket," Sekhmet nodded. "Thank you again. Both of you."
And so the Scion and his wife watched, in somber silence, as the Se-dai turned to depart.
----------------------------------------
The Brachylogy was, as Ket Sal had claimed, the fastest ship Maít could possibly have purchased on such short notice — a razor-thin wafer of a vessel, long and narrow and pointed on both ends, its smooth shape punctuated only by eight cylindrical thrusters that blazed, now, as the lightweight shuttle tore its way out of Tirinos-9's pallid atmosphere.
Sekhmet sat alone in that pristine cockpit, flying with effortless skill via the knowledge long-ago imprinted in her head. She was clad now in dark slacks and a grey sweatshirt; both were hand-me-downs from Maít. She considered, for a moment, ripping the sleeves off — asserting, in typical fashion, her own rebellious Sekhmet-ness over this distinctly un-Sekhmet outfit — then decided immediately and violently against it. The sight of her uncovered carapace still provoked only shame and revulsion within her and so her entire body would remain hidden away. Discomfit clawed at the edges of her mind, and if she pondered her current appearance too hard — if she dared look into a mirror, for void's sake — it was entirely possible that she would tear herself to pieces. She had felt this way long ago, when first she had been birthed from Ceres' vile womb, and now those old feelings were resurfacing once more as her brain once again came to terms with a body it did not recognize.
Finally, when the Brachylogy had knifed its way into featureless voidspace, Sekhmet rose to her feet, ordering the shipboard computer to simply continue along the preselected skein. She stepped out onto the bridge and stretched, feeling the clicking and popping of muscles and machinery in her back, in her shoulders, along her arms and her legs. Yawned, which was little more than a convincing imitation of a phenomenon no Se-dai ever truly experienced. Glanced around, licked her lips. Tried as hard as she possibly could not to think of Kore's face. Tried to ignore the sound of Kore's voice. Tried to forget the sensation of those tough, calloused hands, running down along Sekhmet's smoothly-manufactured skin until they reached...
Sekhmet shook her head violently, like a wet dog. Her brain had just recently been awakened after weeks of disuse; it, too, wanted to flex its muscles. Wanted to race around in circles, to daydream of terrible things Sekhmet would ordinarily have cherished, under different circumstances.
Discipline, she knew, needed to be enforced. And so Sekhmet committed herself to drills she had not practiced since her time as a half-blooded neophyte — forms, rituals, and exercises that strained her body to the absolute limit, all of them requiring strict focus and perfect control.
She failed, invariably, over and over again. By the time six hours had elapsed, she was exhausted, and steam was billowing in a heavy cloud from her mouth and nostrils. Everything Raiqas and Ket Sal told her had proved true; her body was, indeed, severely diminished. Though her prodigious speed remained undiluted, her strength had lessened by a noticeable degree. Fast as she was, her reaction and response times were delayed by nearly an eighth of a second. And, by far most notably, there was his damned fatigue draped over her now like a ten-ton blanket. After what should have been light work, she was instead absolutely exhausted, and her internal heat was nearing dangerous levels.
Sekhmet felt tired. Sekhmet felt old. And, worst of all, Kore was not there to comfort her. Kore, whose laughter Sekhmet loved so dearly. Kore, the stoic bodyguard from whom Sekhmet never failed to provoke a reaction when she-
Thankfully, an insistent chime cut her thoughts off before they could spiral any further. Sekhmet had set an internal timer for six hours; now that the allotted time had passed, she made way to the navigation terminal at once and bade the Brachylogy to depart the void and re-enter the known universe.
The vessel did so gently, smoothly, the transition into reality leaving Sekhmet entirely unharmed. Now, her hands were a blur as she sent a tight-burst, encrypted transmission request to the coordinates Ket Sal had provided. That was the Cloud Gorger's current holding position, when last he had heard, and Sekhmet could only hope that the aging cruiser had not yet traveled onwards. She was beaming this signal from nearly a dozen systems away, after all; she had little hope of tracking the Gorger down otherwise. And so the terminal beeped as the signal emanated forth, and Sekhmet tapped her fingers against the seat faster and faster and faster and faster until-
The panel blinked green; the transmission has been matched and accepted. Sekhmet's fingers had drilled five holes straight through the arm of the chair. Immediately, she cued up the viewscreen, only to be met with the words AUDIO-ONLY. Fine, then. That would have to do.
"Jaheed," she greeted, before the man on the other side could even begin to speak. Time was of the essence, and pleasantries were well and truly beyond her.
"Who is this?" came the indignant and imperious reply. That was Jaheed, alright. "Identify yourself at once."
"It's me, you dumbass garçon riche," Sekhmet shot back, quite unhelpfully. What followed then, after a brief silence, was a sudden noise of wordless surprise.
"Wait-Sekhmet?" he blurted out, the ice melting away at once. "Is that you?!"
"In the flesh." She paused. "Mostly."
"He...so Ket Sal did it, then?" And thus the Acolyte was composed once more, his surprise and elation buried at once beneath cold, commanding control. His time without Kore had changed him — Sekhmet could hear that clear as day. He truly was on the warpath. "I'm relieved to hear that. Welcome back, Sekhmet — will you soon be joining us?"
"As soon as possible," Sekhmet confirmed.
"Good," Jaheed replied, curt and to the point, "because we just found her."
For a moment, Sekhmet simply had nothing to say. A forbidden sense of hope sprang up within her chest, and with it came a great and terrible yearning that she knew would most certainly be her undoing, should she allow it to blossom unrestrained. Instead, she choked it down, strangling those feelings with her bare hands and casting them roughly aside. They would only to mislead her. "Just tell me where to go," she told the Acolyte, her words thick with fiercely-burning resolve.
"I'm sending you the coordinates now." A moment later, the navigation terminal was blinking, and Sekhmet was looking at a projected course. "This is the rendezvous point, before the full invasion begins. The gathering is to take place in three days' time — I'd love to have you, Sekhmet, if your ship can make it by then."
"I'll be there in two," Sekhmet confirmed. And then, she had to ask: "Are you expecting a fight?"
"Oh, yes. Tsen has her tucked deep within a Heraldry base — a veritable fortress, carved into the side of an asteroid. It is going to be an arduous day indeed."
"Then you're gonna need my help," Sekhmet declared, already plotting in the coordinates with her free hand. "I'll be there, Jaheed. Count on it."
"I will." There was a long pause. And then, in a voice that was only marginally softer: "It's good to have you back, Sekhmet."
"Il reste encore du travail à faire," was Sekhmet's only reply, and before he could say another word she clicked the transmission off.
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Jaheed
"That was Sekhmet," the Acolyte confirmed, to which Diesch's eyes went wide. Jaheed glanced down, clicked his wrist-comm off, and glanced around at his surroundings with a banal little sigh. They two of them were standing in the Gorger's interrogation room, with a third fellow — a beaten, bruised, bloodied heap of a man — kneeling between them. This particular room had been seeing a great deal of use, as of late.
"She's alive?" Diesch blurted out, unable to restrain his elation. His spindly metal fist was still dripping crimson ichor. "By the void, I never thought I'd see the day."
"Neither did I," Jaheed agreed, the both of them entirely ignoring the trembling elephant in the room. That part was business as usual, after all.
"How did she sound?"
"Rough," Jaheed answered, after a moment. He furrowed his brow. "Resurrection does seem like it would be rather taxing, doesn't it?"
"I'd pass on it, myself," Diesch deadpanned in reply. Then, nevertheless, his grin returned at once. "But shit, man. Finally some fucking good news."
"Lots of good news today," Jaheed agreed, cheerfully — and then, right on cue, the Heraldy man between them let out a small whimper. Both heads turned to him at once.
"Please..." the man choked out, between bloody lips and broken teeth.
Jaheed was looking at him with an expression of vague annoyance. "Yes?" he asked, quite dryly.
"I told you everything..." the Heraldry agent rasped. He stared up with desperate, pleading eyes. "Please, just let me go. You promised you'd set me free..."
"I did indeed," Jaheed confirmed, reaching into his jacket and withdrawing a silver fletchette-pistol. The Heraldry man opened his mouth to shout, to protest, to beg for his life — and with little fanfare, Jaheed shot him twice through the heart.
It was the third time the Acolyte had ever personally taken a life; all three had occurred in the span of just the last week. And just like the other two, Jaheed felt nothing more than, perhaps, a small sense of satisfaction. "Diesch," he requested casually, tucking the weapon away, "would you mind disposing of all this? I have some rather significant calls to make."
"Yeah, I got it," Diesch grumbled, hands deep in his pockets as he knelt down beside the rapidly-cooling body. "Airlock, like the rest?"
"Airlock, like the rest, please," Jaheed called over his shoulder, and then the doors hissed shut and then the Acolyte was gone.
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Sekhmet
She just sat there, for a moment, staring at her reflection in the viewscreen with narrowed and eyes.
And then, with a few rapid keystrokes, Sekhmet sent the Brachylogy roaring back into voidspace — her augmented physiology working overtime to mute the nausea that followed — and then she was pushing the throttle further, further, further. A red light blinked. Alarms began to blare. Still, Sekhmet pushed further.
Faster, faster. Just like her, the Brachylogy could always go faster. Just like her, the Brachylogy still had more to give. And just like her, the Brachylogy still had a job to do.
Now, then. Two empty days lie ahead, and Sekhmet could either leave them bereft or fill them with something productive.
Inevitably, she chose the latter.
The vast majority of a Se-dai's memory was kept as a digital record, one that they could flip through freely, if the need arose — though only if the need arose, for protracted diving through one's own memories was known to induce an invariable psychosis. Nevertheless, Sekhmet's mind was painfully unquiet, and she needed a locus upon which she could center her attention. She flipped, painfully, through slideshow images of her own perspective as she leapt from car to car, landing finally upon that hateful black hovertruck and ripping the roof free with a single broken hand. She froze it right there, zoomed in — did everything she could to avoid looking at Kore, beaten and bloodied — and focused, instead, on the dark-haired man in the trenchcoat, who was currently looking up at her with infuriatingly calm expression on his face.
Jiang Tsen. The bastard, the betrayer. The man who had hurt Kore; who stalked her for all these years just to find her and hurt her again. The man who might very well have murdered her.
Sekhmet brought herself down to low-power mode and leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes and allowing her overtaxed systems to cycle down, one by one.
She meditated on the image of Tsen's face for a long, long time.