Stress and worry choked Eliza. Nothing came through. Not a single word from the uplink, not a single channel gave words of assurance. Not a single chatter of relevance. Eliza slowly moved away from the monitors that surrounded her.
The brooch on her upper left hoodie felt heavy. She placed a hand to her pink hair, feeling her hairpiece droop ever so slightly.
Unlike those in the room, who wore combat cargos and fatigue jackets over shirts, Eliza seemed like the outcast: wearing a hoodie beneath her suit, with a skirt and similar get-up to the Police Conference.
Everyone was silent on the bridge as Claire, Quinn, Kiri, Zymuel and Lilly entered into the room. Zymuel, the techie-head, was helping Claire walk, she was covered in bandages. The sight slightly uneased her…
She’s seen TECHIE heads on the interweb, but here was one in the flesh, someone who had part of their head completely replaced with a robotic helmet to survive… She couldn’t even tell if they were smiling or frowning beneath that helmet.
“Let’s get the debriefing over, alright?” said Sato, taking a data-pad from underneath her jacket and hoodie. She walked across the room, distributing smaller info-pads, before patting Eliza on the back.
“You know, you should probably be at the med-bay,” commented Zymuel, patting Claire on the back, she had bandages wrapped over her clothes. She shot a glance back at him as he relented. “Okay! Okay… Just saying, Amyé would probably like your company.”
“There’s a reason why Kaz made me Heimfall’s commander…” Claire rolled her eyes, trailing off; Zymuel merely laughed it off. “I wish that tank shell really did take your head off.”
“Hey, I missed the Loyie fights, I gotta get back into it!”
She felt ashamed, this was exactly what Lilly got mad at, her own emotions, heart and worries getting in the way of the mission. She glanced up at them, seeing their exoskeleton-powered armour plates. Arming drones helped take their exoskeletons off.
“He’s…” Eliza trailed off, fixating her eyes on the communication relay.
Any spurt of chatter was checked, yet most of it was simply successful logistics deliveries…
“Stop worrying, Kaz’s a damn leviathan when it comes to fighting… He’s alive. A fall like that hasn’t killed him before.” said Sato, lighting a cigarette. She looked up from the command deck, her eyes glancing across the room.
“If he’s alive he—”
“—His comlinks are most likely off.” Lilly Interrupted, “Low chances of him living, to be fair. But do you really expect a member of the Seven, crim or merc, to die like that?”
“Exactly!” Quinn shot up.
“Worry not, Liz,” Kiri started, leaning on the bannister on one of the upper sections of the command deck. She looked down with Zymuel. “Our short friend’s gone missing many times before, he’s lived every single one of them, much to my own amazement, like the skirmish over Old Terra.”
“Well, it did kinda kill a bit of all of us,” said Quinn. “But being shot out into space and somehow surviving? I’ll just say to leave the suicidal shit to Arbiter.”
Claire tried to assure Eliza. “Kaz’s been marked dead many times, let me tell you: falls don’t kill him! Exospines are made to withstand trauma, painful; but it is what it is.”
But despite all of their assurances, the guilt and the doubt crept in.
Quinn tried to lighten her mood, joking. “Plus, it’s too fucking cold to die, Kazuki won’t let himself be killed there.”
The light-hearted jab fell short. Instead, Eliza fell into a slump as she continued to scroll through the communication channels, trying to find Kazuki… But each passing second gave her more dread, nothing.
She kept worrying herself as she stood up, pacing around her seat before triple-checking the communication uplink.
Here she was complaining about Kazuki again… most of them had lost friends, many - in fact. She was a civilian, she was far from suited for this type of work. But she gritted her mind through it.
Claire reached over, slapping Eliza on the back of her head. Trying to give her a sliver of hope, she said “Hey, I’ll look for Archius. I think he’s trying to cook some shit up. If anyone knows something, it’ll be him.” She glanced over towards Sato. “Hey Sato, do you think you can do anything with Krystalink?”
Now that she thinks about it… Archius isn’t here. She glanced around as she remembered that he left to ‘do something about that’, in his own words.
“Probably not,” Sato deliberated, turning back into a grumble as she slid her chair forward, “Narisa’s fucked in terms of telecommunications, I can barely get a signal down there. But… I think I can try if I connect Krystalink to the Annie.” As she finished, she pressed a few buttons on the deck’s touch screens. Projecting downwards, a large mechanical thing came from the ceiling.
Eliza froze… It looked… disgusting. Steel appendages drifted down.
“Alright, keep it up, then,” Claire stood up, standing up. She gently slapped Eliza on the face. She left the room, unphased by whatever that thing was.
“What is that?” Eliza asked, wheeling her hover-chair away.
“Analyspec,” said Sato. She connected her uplink to the metallic machine. It felt alive, no, it was alive. She could feel the various bulbs stare at her, as if they were a monstrosity of the past. But Sato? She looked as calm as ever, controlling the entity. “It’s one of the AGENCY’s most valuable assets, it can be moved around… but we’d prefer to keep the majority of it on the Phoenix’s Fury.
Zymuel jumped in on the conversation. “Shame that it’s locked up for the most part,” he said. “If you’d allow me, I could probably reel it in.”
“Sure, sure, you arrogant fuck.” Quinn commented, “If three members of the Seven couldn’t, you think you can?”
“Ignore him.” Kiri demanded; a vein bulging on her face as she flicked a few switches on Zymuel’s head, causing the TECHIE-Head to panic as he flicked them back off.
“Wheeling it around’s annoying,” said Lilly. She had a dissatisfied look on her face as she glanced up at it, hovering above the command table. “We normally have the drones and Quinn carry it around if we need to move it.”
“‘Coz you can’t fucking do it yourself,” Quinn snapped back. Eliza kept her eyes fixated on it…
“This is… an abomination?” Eliza’s voice quivered as all thoughts drained. One of its many eyes glanced towards her, before switching back to Sato.
Sato then glanced at Eliza, seeing her shocked expression. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to the sight. It’s a quantum computer infused into a… thing? I don’t really know either. Kaz uses it a lot, his brain can handle this so don’t expect me to be as fast, sorry…”
“No, no, that’s fine.” Eliza burst into a fit of courtesies, glancing down towards Sato. “Quite fine, it’s just that… what is it?”
“Analyspec? It’s a quantum computer, don’t tell me you’ve got Handler’s deaf.”
“Just look away, Liz.” Lilly smacked Eliza on the head with a plastic water bottle, thrown across the room. Eliza looked down upon impact, heeding her advice… Lilly… Dammit, her mind was a complete mess.
“You’re… mad at me, aren’t you?” asked Eliza, turning to Lilly, “I apologise. I shouldn’t have worried so much…”
“Hmm?” Lilly peeked her head up, her hands on her camera. “There’s a time and place for everything.” Her face turned into a scowl.
“Oi, give her a break, this time it’s warranted,” Quinn said.
“I am?” Lilly directed her perceived anger towards Quinn. “I said there’s a time and place for everything; the skyliner op is different.”
Eliza felt somewhat warm from that, as Lilly seemed quite friendly, at least more amicable than furious towards her… But the moment was ruined by Quinn. “Aw, you must be worried about Arbiter.”
She threw her stylus at Quinn, it smacked directly off his forehead before falling onto the command deck. “Shut it, if Kazuki is gone then I’ll have to step up, you know? That means you’ll have to lead Deltastring, and I’ll rip my own heart out before that happens!” Quinn immediately froze in fear at that realisation, fear permeating throughout his eyes and soul as Eliza glanced at him.
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She angrily berated her lieutenant as Sato groaned.
She shut off the analyspec, shaking her head as she looked at Eliza. “Look, just don’t worry about shit you can’t control, we’ll probably have new orders soon enough,” advised Sato. “Martinez’s is already aware of the situation.”
“Yeah,” Quinn started, deflecting a dozen pens and styluses thrown at him from a pissed off Lilly, who aimed at every weak point. “You’re not just here for the sake of being here, arent’chu?”
Lilly, Eliza and Quinn all exchanged glances at each other for a moment, as the three then looked towards Sato, who groaned in return. Lilly said, “Look, you ain’t got to tell them anything, you’re not obligated to give a fucking dissertation, alright?”
“Tch… I second that, I guess.” Sato grumbled, “But you’re already getting into the commanding mood.”
Lilly retorted, pointing a finger at Sato, “AND HOW ABOUT YOU! With Kazuki gone, you’re going to be one of the leading players! And you call me power-hungry!?” Her face contorted into anger.
Quinn found everything amusing, he stood up, leaning against the deck, simply watching as he commented, “Just don’t let Martinez hear this. A little coup d'etat and he’s in charge.”
“Do you even know what a coup d’etat is?” asked Sato.
Quinn chuckled for a moment before confidently proclaiming: “No! But I heard Archius argue with Kaz about it some time ago.”
“Oh… yeah… the coup idea,” Sato trailed off. “Kaz and Archius never told me why they didn’t go through with the idea.”
“Maybe they got found out?” Quinn shrugged. “Coups are bad… right?”
“Kaz is gone… but… how do you guys stay calm in all of this?” asked Eliza.
“It’s happened to us before plus… it’s simple pragmatism.” said Sato, “Back in the navy, it’s typical to have several layers of command. In case one of your superiors got vacuumed out into space.”
But Lilly had a totally different outlook. “In the marines, experience outranks everything. Sergeants from the rank and file probably had more respect than fresh cadets from officer training.”
Eliza backed away, trying to divide herself from the conversation. She had barely slept, not like she got much sleep to begin with, exhaustion was digging itself into her face… She caught the image of her reflection in a piece of shiny metal, a broken facade and mockery of her sister… the visage of her beauty merged with her spite.
Why was she like this? The bags beneath her eyes were getting larger. And as she sighed, she glanced back at the channel monitor, hoping for a change that would not happen.
She felt nothing. Quinn, noticing this change in attitude, decided that he should press on with his question. “So, Liz, you gonna tell us or what?”
It wasn’t out of malice, she could tell that. But her mind ached with stress. It was so personal that she didn’t know if she could tell them… Yet still, Quinn looked only a bit older than her, less than a decade or so. She wondered what he’d have done in her situation.
But all the burdens are on her shoulders… The weight of billions of lives crushed down upon her. She starved her mind for logic between her feelings and thoughts: she bit her tongue, deciding what to do.
“Before I met Kazuki and Archius, I was quite different.” Eliza started, leaning down towards the command table, “You could say I was a bit too logical, and a bit insensitive…”
“So… female Kaz?” Zymuel joined in, fixing his head as he slapped Kiri across the arm.
Eliza paused for a moment, raising a finger as she thought… She placed a hand against her chin. He was right in that regard. She really was like him, though he does seem to have more secrets than her, secrets that seem to eat him from the inside…
She hoped that he’d have told her, to let her help carry the burden; she doubted she’d be able to convince him.
“Yeah? I wanted to solve the P-1 Incident, but my dad wasn’t too keen on it.” Eliza had no idea why her dad refused to help her even now. Maybe it was because she was a teenager? But even during university, his stance never changed. “But when I met Kaz, I found someone with the same objective as me. Met Archius as well… They were the first real friends I’ve had in a while. For the first time since P-1, I felt alive, I felt like I had something to look forward to. Then… all of this transpired - and I still, even now, can’t think of what to say… But, I’m thankful, I think, I’m not too sure about myself really.”
“Awh, that’s nice to hear,” Kiri chimed in again, her brown fringe covering her grin and scars.
Zymuel snickered, adding in through the robotic-head, “Fucking hell, she really did give a whole dissertation.”
“Matt Tessie-Oria…” Sato trailed off, her eyes widening at a realisation, “Kaz killed him for you.” Something clicked in her head.
“I…” Eliza stopped.
She had no idea what she was about to say. Things happened behind the scenes that she never fully understood. All she could remember was seeing Matt’s dead corpse - blood splattered against the fine carpet floor.
“I can’t say for certain. But I heard a gunshot ring out at the Dassant… But… just what am I here for?” Eliza asked, the months of stress accumulated collapsing in on itself.
“Liz?” Quinn chimed in, worried.
“I’m just chasing ghosts, aren’t I?” Eliza asked. Victoria’s dead, and Eliza knows nothing can bring her back but why… Why was she doing all of this? For justice? For her memory? What worth did any of that have… The light that guided her seemed so foreign.
Dread seeped in, remembering what her dad told her.
But Quinn chimed in again, “We all have our demons, Liz. P-1… it’s been nearly a decade. Didn’t the case runcold with the Director’s death?”
“It’s not cold!” Eliza interjected, raising her voice, as she looked up at him with a worried face, “They’re still out there… The mastermind may be dead, but there are others.”
Quinn stayed quiet, thinking to himself for a moment. Then, his eyes slowly opened. Gears twitched inside his brain as did hers. He stayed silent, but something hit him like a brick wall.
But Quinn relented, slowly stepping backwards. “I was on Narisa back then, didn’t learn of what happened till long after.” said Quinn, looking towards Eliza before glancing away.
“Same with me,” said Lilly, “Well, I was in space. Both freezing. I don’t know whether to feel lucky or not that my family was already dead…”
Sato was somewhat silent, scratching her neck as she sighed. “We’re all being open here, then? Fine… I became a handler because of P-1.” She deliberated for a moment as she closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath. “So I guess we’re kinda in the same boat, Liz?”
Everyone’s faces lit up with intrigue as they shot to look at Sato, especially Eliza’s. Eliza knew nothing of Sato’s past, and neither did anyone else it seems. Maybe Sato has a few clues, not anything substantial but anything will do, especially with their slow progress.
“Fuuck, all it takes is Liz to speak and you start talking?” Quinn yapped on, his voice filled with a sense of snarkiness, “We should do this more often, get the Sarimba’s top girl to loosen Kaz’s lips once in a while.”
“Hey!” Eliza snapped.
“Jeez, don’t look at me like that…” grumbled Sato, taking the cigarette away from her mouth. She grinded the cigarette butt on an ashtray. She struggled for a moment, gulped, and then sighed. “I can’t do it…”
“Sato, it’s fine! Just spill the damn rations,” said Lilly, somewhat frustrated, placing the camera down.
“Wow, hypocrite much?” Quinn muttered, attracting Lilly’s ire.
Sato sighed. “I was still in the navy back then, on an emergency deployment to Máwt… Just a week ago, my fiance proposed to me.” She seemed to avoid everyone’s eyes.
Everyone seemed interested, but of course: everyone knew what happened. The set up was there, and Sato allowed Eliza and the rest to fill in the blanks; it must be painful, Eliza thought.
Lilly whispered, “Oh fuck… sorry…”
“It’s been a decade,” said Sato, placing one hand into her shirt as she pulled out a small necklace. “It’s nothing more than a thought in the back of my head nowadays.”
It had a small brooch attached to it, similar to that of Eliza’s… It glistened as she looked at it - it was nothing short of magnificent. Ornate patterns and shiny materials.
“I thought about chasing the perpetrators down, you know? Got into the private sector, started Krystalink. My trails went cold… Eliza, I don’t know much about your story, but… just don’t become me, alright?” She shrugged it off.
A workaholic that only finds pleasure with work, but at the same time despises it. Eliza definitely saw some of that within herself, slowly boiling away at whatever rose out from her teenage years. Eliza slowly smiled, and then said, “We’re in the same boat, then. You want to avenge your to-be-husband, I want to avenge my twin… But I don’t know if I can.”
Sato smiled, for a moment, but it faltered. She grumbled to herself, seeing something within Eliza that sparked her off. “Please… live for yourself. Tell Kazuki that as well, he always seems like he’s after something far away, even when there’s a thousand muzzles pointed at him…”
“I—”
“Eliza.” Sato interrupted her, “I’ll be upfront about this, don’t take offence, please. You’re too reliant on Kazuki. Just… why? You definitely have more book brains than him, and brains will get you far.”
“Not too far,” Quinn commented.
The mood in the room was more sour than ever. It looked like Quinn had something to say, but he couldn’t blurt it out. Sato had stopped her smoke break completely. Sato hid the necklace away as she was wrought with old memories. Eliza understood the pain of the past, and even though she wasn’t able to fully walk away, letting go was nigh impossible for her. Silence encompassed the room as Quinn took out a pack of holo-cards, flicking through them before he did some tricks with them, looking towards Eliza and nodding.
Eliza didn’t know whether to accept the game. On one hand, she was too worried to play with him. Worrying will do nothing. Logically, playing with him was the best option here, but even though that was true: her heart sank at the thought of it. Because if Kazuki was alive… she’d be playing cards as he froze on the planet below…
But before she could give a response, Lilly stood up, placing both hands on the table. “Quinn, Y—”
“KAZ’S ALIVE!” a voice cried out. Sliding through the door, unleashing the hydraulics, Archius entered from the packed halls outside. He smiled at all of them, smirking almost as Claire followed him in, the former looking exhausted, as if she ran through the whole vessel and back.
A spark of hope entered Eliza, firing and igniting the pyre as she shot out from her seat. Claire walked alongside Archius as he slammed a datapad onto the command deck.
It sprouted up a massive… cruiser? It was a space faring vessel? But how the fuck are they going to deal with a cruiser? But as she looked more closely, she realised that it protruded out from the ground, as if it was turned into a makeshift tower-citadel, rising up above the slums below. From her history classes, she could tell it was Imperial-made - similar to the Phoenix’s Fury’s.
“My eyes on the inside have shared some info. They have provided me with his location, he’s being kept captive… here.”
Archius placed a finger at one point along the large structure, one small section in a very large place. The entire output sparked up, linked to the command deck, showing every intricate detail. It zoomed in, showing a makeshift prison-brig. Claire looked at Eliza, smiling. Kazuki’s alive. Now all they have to do is get him back.