They rushed out of David’s theater, Se Dasi’s thin form slipping between them to hurtle back down the hall ahead with a speed borne of pure panic. The screaming grew as they drew close to the hold, noises of conflict and pounding feet threading through the cacophony.
Jesri couldn’t see any Irri when she burst into the village. She was confronted with a warren of fences and shacks blocking her view past a few meters out. She advanced, Qktk and Rhuar tagging along close behind her as she held her sidearm low and ready.
A group of terrified children streamed from a doorway and ran past Jesri, but before she could yell at them to stay near to her two more adults came out close on their heels. She recognized the dingy white rags and stick-thin limbs of the sick Irri, but they now moved with the precision and speed she had seen from Eleanor’s dock crew. They looked at her blankly and froze, their eyes staring through her from an empty face.
She hesitated for an instant, then shot both of them in the chest. The question had been batting playfully at her mind since she had drawn her gun, the choice she would make now that she knew the nature of their affliction. She had thought about the loved ones that cared enough to keep them in the sickhouse, perhaps visiting as they wasted away on the bed murmuring nonsense to the air.
Their eyes, however, compelled her to shoot. Their face betrayed nothing, their movements were swift and implacable. The eyes alone swirled with fear and pain, watching helplessly as they rampaged through their home and chased their loved ones down without mercy so that they too could be made a prisoner in their own skull. They couldn’t ask Jesri to shoot or spare them, but she thought of Drinni beating weakly at his own head, pleading incoherently to just stop, stop, stop-
And she shot. Again and again, she dodged past broken doors and through cramped alleys to find the Irri’s long-lost family on the hunt. Rhuar and Qktk had become the impromptu shepherds to a wailing knot of children and a few dazed adults they had saved. None of the survivors would come close to Jesri, the memory of their kin’s blood too fresh and her resemblance to Eleanor too strong.
She came upon Se Dasi, weakly struggling against an old man as his fingers curled around her neck. His weakened body shook with the effort of strangling her, spurred to preternatural strength even as his eyes screamed helplessly. Jesri yelled and dashed at the pair, knocking them both to the ground and snapping a shot at the downed man. His golden eyes flashed with profound relief as they faded to mere yellow.
Se Dasi croaked a wordless scream and ran to embrace the old man’s shredded body, Irri blood smearing her face. She stayed huddled over the body, wracked with spasms of grief as Jesri surveyed the area.
It was quiet now, with most of the residents having fled. Some were pursued by the risen sick, others simply ran. The small group of survivors Jesri had saved looked around nervously in the silence. A child, bleeding freely from a gash along the forearm, clung mutely to Rhuar’s fur as it looked back at her. She shuddered.
A howl from behind her was the only warning she had before Se Dasi impacted her lower back and began clawing at her weapon. With some difficulty she managed to toss the grieving Irri away, slapping her hard across the face. Stunned, Se Dasi stopped her attack and staggered away.
“Stop!”, Jesri shouted, staring daggers at her. “Se Dasi, focus. These people need to get clear of the village.”
Se Dasi’s chest heaved and her eyes burned, but she didn’t leap to attack Jesri once more. She stood glaring and rubbing her face as her wrath cooled into an amalgam of fatigue and pain. She shot a weary glance at the survivors by Rhuar and Qktk.
“I will take them,” she said finally, her voice hoarse and ragged. A flicker of her anger curled into her eyes as she looked back to Jesri. “You killed my father.”
Jesri stared back, her own fatigue asserting itself as she remembered the relief in his eyes. “Yes,” she said, holstering her weapon. “They’ll be here soon, take the others and go.”
Se Dasi gave her one more murderous stare before wheeling back towards Qktk and Rhuar’s group. Jesri watched them leave, steeped in grief. Se Dasi had a right to be angry and Jesri could forgive her easily for it, even if her own forgiveness never came. She could survive Se Dasi’s rage.
Surviving Anja would be more complicated, once she dealt with Eleanor.
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The lights still flickered ominously in the corridor past the large inter-segment door, but Eleanor led her troops onward without pause. She had assured Anja that the connections were well-guarded and would hold until they got all four prisoners back from the Irri separatists.
Anja, fresh from working on the jury-rigged connections to the Grand Design, wasn’t quite as confident - but it would have made little difference in her decision to go. It was three of her team, being held against their will. For most, saying they had killed men for less would have been hyperbole rather than a gross understatement.
She spared a glance for Eleanor, grim-faced and unreadable as she always was in combat. She walked down the ostensibly hostile territory of the far segment as if she was strolling through the middle of her docks, completely unconcerned at the possibility of ambush or interception. Far along the corridor, Anja could see the advance scouts flitting between side junctions and peering into doorways. Their main group of about fifty Irri followed behind the sisters, rifles held ready.
They tromped onward for a few tense minutes before the group froze as one, before Anja even saw Eleanor’s signal. She took an awkward half-step beyond where Eleanor had stopped, scanning the hall from a half-crouch.
«Down this passage,» Eleanor sent, her voice sounding whisper-quiet even over the mental link. Anja had the odd feeling that her sister was speaking only to her, even as her troops picked up the order without hesitation. She wondered if whatever was translating their orders from mental message to voice commands went out over a different link. Eleanor had obviously been tinkering with the station’s communications grid, as Anja’s mental link had required a quick firmware flash at the docks before it would hook into the station properly. Where were their earpieces, anyway? She frowned, considering the possibilities, but something about the movements of the Irri tugged her attention away like smoke on a windy day.
Their discipline was uncanny, unnerving even as she appreciated the precision. They flowed down the corridor like a wave, feet making an inevitable clamor on the deck. Anja grinned at the proof of a long-held rule of spaceborne combat - you can’t move quietly through a ship or station, it just doesn’t happen. It’s too quiet, too echoic, even with the Irri’s fearsome discipline and coordination.
The heavy tread of boots preceded them down the corridor. She felt the pulsing thrill of combat imminent around her as they advanced on where Jesri was being held. Anja snarled at the thought of the filthy Irri confining Jesri, beloved even if Eleanor was her favorite sister-
She frowned again, even as her legs kept her moving catlike down the hall. The sudden surge of anger towards the separatists had caught her off-guard, not to mention the pang of affection for Eleanor. She sighed internally, the bloodlust somewhat broken by the dissonant note. It had been a trying day, reuniting with one sister and losing track of another. She made a note to rest thoroughly when she had put the Irri animals down.
They came upon another junction, her self-reflection at that last burst of rage denied as they checked sightlines and cleared before proceeding. It would be any minute now, she thought with a feral grin. They had no idea what they’d provoked, taking Jesri. She’d come through the door, a whirlwind of death and steel and harsh light tearing at their souls. She’d kill the separatists, kill the dog and the bug-
She stumbled and stopped, shaking her head. What was wrong with her? She could understand letting her anger at the Irri flare up in the heat of combat, but Qktk? Rhuar? They were crew, they were hers. This was beyond stray, irrational thoughts, this was-
“Anja, you okay?”, Eleanor frowned, gripping her shoulder. Anja looked up at her in a daze, lights seeming to pop into being around her face as their eyes met. She smiled, genuine and unrestrained joy washing over her at the sight of Ellie’s look of concern.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she laughed, surprised that she meant it wholeheartedly. Why was she stressed, anyway? She felt amazing, good spirits resonating back from Ellie’s smiling face and down through the hand resting on her shoulder.
Ellie wanted to go, she knew, so they kept moving down the corridor. Anja was really getting the hang of this, it was so easy to keep up with the Irri’s movements if you just tried a bit. She was in the zone, focused, floating in the purest flow state she had ever experienced.
She felt amazing.
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Jesri sat staring at the door of the hold, waiting. Her gun was across her lap, still faintly warm from earlier. Se Dasi and the other Irri had gone into hiding, retreating deep into the station. Without them, the hold seemed empty - emptier than empty, really, the silence emanating from the abandoned homes much more profound than a simple vacant hold could muster.
The faint sound of boots echoed from through the door, and Jesri stretched. Time to get up. By the time she had languorously risen to her feet, Eleanor and Anja had crossed into the hold with their squad of troops trailing behind them in lockstep. Despite knowing this was coming, Jesri still felt a sick pang in her stomach seeing Eleanor’s smiling face, even more so as she beamed to see her waiting there.
“Jesri!”, Eleanor waved. “You’re okay! Why didn’t you check in? We’ve been so worried about you!” She slowed and stopped a few paces away from Jesri, Anja at her side and the Irri behind. Her smile leered wide, and Jesri’s head swam when she looked at it.
She hadn’t seen it at first, or hadn’t noticed. Not after five thousand years of separation, not while she was still stunned and amazed by the lost station, but now that she had a chance to look closely at her sister she wondered how she could have missed it. Her smile stretched a bit too broad, her eyes glittered too brightly. Bereft of context she had just seen Ellie, what she expected to see. What she wanted to see.
“Eleanor,” she said coolly, staring back at her with a measured glare. Her sister’s smile lost a certain essential warmth it had never truly had, and she crossed her arms.
“You don’t seem very happy to see us, sister,” Eleanor murmured. Her troops shifted behind her - before she would have mistaken it for restlessness, but it was too clean and polished for that. Readiness, rather. She would only have one shot at this before they took her down. The Irri should be disoriented when Eleanor died, and hopefully Anja would be so shocked she’d forget to kill Jesri on the spot. Her heart broke for what she was about to do to her, but she didn’t see another way. Hopefully Anja would believe David, as she had.
Another breath. She shifted her weight fractionally, her gun hand blurring into motion as it raised her pistol high, aiming for a headshot. I’m sorry, Ellie-
A spike of pain shot up her arm as Anja’s hand shot out to intercept her, striking her wrist and sending her gun tumbling from nerveless fingers. She stared disbelieving at Anja’s self-satisfied smirk, the same one she would taunt her with after she trounced Jesri on the sparring mat. Anja twisted her arm up, driving Jesri down to her knees as her shoulder stretched nearly out of joint.
She couldn’t help but scream at the electric jolt of agony, her voice echoing in a lonely chorus around the hold. Through her swimming vision she saw Eleanor’s face next to Anja’s, her leer nearly dripping from her lips with its smug assuredness.
Anja’s eye gave a twitch. Her sister’s grip didn’t weaken in the slightest, the smirk didn’t slip from her face, but a waver of doubt clouded her expression. Eleanor looked up at her, still grinning victoriously.
“We’re all sisters here, you two,” she crooned. “We shouldn’t fight amongst each other. I believe we’ll have quite a lot of fun once we’ve had a chance to reconnect a bit.”
Panic was roiling Jesri’s mind as she strained against Anja’s iron grip. She had fucked up. Anja could outclass her in a fight any day of the week, but never to this degree. She hadn’t factored in that Irri-like poise and coordination - or perhaps it was Eleanor-like, she thought ruefully. Jesri didn’t have any other winning cards.
Something Anja had said just before they arrived at Nicnevin swam up in her brain. But maybe winning is the wrong goal. A sequence of events clanged into place behind that one sentence, a narrow path forward. She looked back up at Anja, seeing the growing horror behind her eyes even as the winner’s smirk played across her lips.
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Jesri smiled back.
She pushed upwards with her legs as hard as she could, her shoulder tearing painfully out of joint as her forehead slammed into Anja’s nose like a striking meteor. Her sister staggered back, still smiling under a mask of clear-flowing blood, but the hit caused her grip to slacken and Jesri tore her useless arm free. She stumbled for only a moment, the lancing agony nearly paralyzing her whole right side.
Resisting the urge to scream with every step, she sprinted into the tangle of huts that crowded the hold. She could hear the Irri scrambling to follow but no shots rang out - Eleanor wanted her alive. For some values of alive, she thought darkly, dodging through the twisted alleys past fallen baskets and spatters of blue Irri gore.
She made it from the hold to the hall with both of her sisters close behind her, feet striking catlike on the deck and sending resonant shivers through the metal. They would have caught her, wounded as she was, but she didn’t have far to run. She darted left through a doorway and emerged into David’s theater, the basket of offerings twinkling brightly in front of the ruined screen.
Eleanor walked in almost casually behind her, taking in the oddly decorated room as she entered. Anja followed to stand beside her with blood flowing freely from her battered nose and a cocky smile still stretched across her face.
“You can’t beat us, sister,” Eleanor gloated, her voice echoing around the empty theater. “Anja and I have reached the true potential of our kind. We’re stronger, faster, smarter.” She spread her arms wide, taking a step towards Jesri. “I don’t blame you for not understanding, they made you less than you could be. Let me help you, let me make the best version of you.”
Jesri smiled sadly back at Eleanor as the Irri filed in to form ranks behind her. Anja’s hand dropped to her pistol with a casual lethality even as dread and frantic apology played over her features.
“Five more of my sisters came here, I’ve heard,” whispered Jesri, keeping her hands open and away from her body nonthreateningly. Anja stiffened fractionally as she spoke. “Did you help them? Are they their best selves now?”
A rapid sequence of expressions passed over Eleanor’s face, confusion melting into sorrow, then cold stony rage. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand”, she hissed. “You think I don’t mourn our sisters? You think I didn’t want the same for them as for me?”
She began pacing rapidly back and forth in front of the silent rows of Irri, muttering as she walked. “We were made perfect, Jesri. Did you know that? They optimized us in a thousand ways, gave us the strength and will to stand alone above armies of our enemies. The engineers weren’t burdened by any constraints but performance and power. Man was on the cusp of creating God in truth.”
Eleanor stopped and looked lovingly at Anja, who was standing perfectly still in her cocksure pose save for a few twitching muscles in her neck and cheek. She reached over to stroke Anja’s hair lightly before turning back to Jesri, her expression dark. “Then the military bureaucrats got their hands on us. They had all of our sisters, god-children awaiting apotheosis, and they flinched.” Her hands tightened into fists and she shook her head angrily. “Cowards. They couldn’t face what we could have been. They crippled us, sanding off the rough edges and jamming their filthy tech in our head to keep us docile. Keep us weak.”
A cruel smile flickered over her lips. “And then they saw what true power was, in the instant before they died. A society unafraid to seek the highest limits of their godhood, unencumbered by irrational attachment to their own imperfections. I hate the Gestalt as much as you, sister, but I cannot deny their power, their vision,” she cried, gesturing with wild, frustrated motions. “When they had the chance to be more than mortal they took it.”
“We had so much time!”, she insisted, her eyes wide with manic entreaty. “We could have met them as equals, surpassed them! Instead we were insects, and we got exterminated like insects,” she hissed. “An inconvenient infestation of flesh and watery indecision. But now we have a second chance. We won’t get a third.”
Eleanor walked back to Anja and draped an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her close. Anja returned the hug, her embrace loving and strong even as the muscles at the corners of her eyes flinched and twitched desperately. “We’re perfect again, sister. Whole for the first time we’ve been allowed to remember. Let me help you too.”
Jesri met her eyes coldly, no longer smiling. “My sister Ellie was a hero,” she whispered. “She was my hero. She was driven, competent, she exemplified everything I thought I should aspire to be.” She looked at Eleanor’s face, seeing the madness rippling below the waves of confusion and rage that danced across her features. “And she had flaws, yes. She was a perfectionist, sometimes to a fault. She was overconfident, even if she was skilled enough to make things work out most of the time. But most of all, she obsessed over her losses.”
Flickers of raw apoplexy spidered over Eleanor’s face and set her hands twitching. Jesri shook her head. “I think that was what killed her. What drove her to create you in her place so that you could be more than she was, even if she didn’t know what you would truly be.” Jesri smiled again, no joy in her expression. “It would destroy her, to know what you’ve become.”
“Shut up!”, Eleanor howled, rounding on Jesri. Her face was contorted, her fingers curled into claws. “You’re just like Liza. Just like Zehava. They couldn’t handle godhood. They shrank in fear, like bureaucrats, like worms!”, she frothed, tossing her hands into the air. “They begged, they cried, they broke! Then they died.”
Suddenly, like flipping a switch, Eleanor’s rage vanished. Her hands dropped to her sides and she stared expressionlessly at Jesri. “I won’t let you be as weak, sister,” she said, her flat monotone sending a shiver up Jesri’s spine. “If you break I will reforge you. You will be made strong enough,” she whispered. She drew a pistol and sighted at Jesri’s chest, stepping forward to close the distance between them. Behind her, Anja’s face raged on a body still as a jauntily posed statue.
Jesri’s heart hammered in her chest. She opened her mouth to speak and Eleanor paused.
“David!”, Jesri yelled. A dash of confusion poisoned Eleanor’s masklike face before it was chased away by grim determination. Her eyes seared into Jesri’s as the lights flickered off in the small theater and the hallway outside.
The slap of gunfire rang in Jesri’s ears and an impact thudded into her torso. She felt a warm wetness spreading down her front. The lights jittered back into being in time for her to see Eleanor fall to the side, a shocked expression on her face and a steaming hole between her collarbones. She hit the floor hard, clear blood spreading in a lake from the mangled wound between her shoulder blades as she twitched, gaped, and died.
Anja’s gun fell from her hands as she sank to her knees, the horror in her eyes now writ across her full face. As the Irri troops behind her fell catatonic and seizing to the deck, she gathered Eleanor’s body to her chest and screamed a raw-throated wail of pain and rage that resonated through the empty theater.
Jesri hadn’t moved, Eleanor’s blood dripping slowly from her uniform as she watched Anja howl over their dead sister’s body.
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Jesri stayed in the theater as David summoned the Irri refugees back to the hold and Se Dasi began organizing rescue parties for the downed Irri soldiers. Anja slumped against the wall, staring woodenly at Eleanor’s body still lying sprawled in the center of the floor. Dried amber blood from her nose had mixed with Eleanor’s on her clothing, staining her with golden-brown flecks. The few Irri from the separatists that passed into the theater gave all three sisters a wide berth, eyeing them warily as they passed.
In a quiet moment when the Irri weren’t coordinating with him in hushed tones at the altar, David called for Jesri to come over. She did, dazedly, and stopped in front of the glittering bowl of data chips.
“How are you holding up, sir?”, he asked sympathetically.
Jesri looked up with dull eyes, then barked a short and humorless laugh. “Well enough, considering,” she said. “How are the Irri?”
David made a noncommittal noise. “Se Dasi has been trying to find all the ones who fled and gather up Eleanor’s soldiers. I’ve conveyed messages to the separatist groups in other segments - we’re going to send an expedition to the docks as soon as we can. There are thousands of Irri lying helpless at the docks and Se Dasi wants to save as many of them as possible.” His voice sounded daunted at the thought, but also exhilarated. “We’ll need to secure the fabricator workshops, the repaired hydroponics bays… We can do it, but it’s going to be a busy next couple of months and a busier next couple of days.”
Jesri nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her. “It’ll be tough,” she agreed, “but in the end the Irri will have all of Eleanor’s work to benefit from. It’s the least they deserve, for what she did.” She glanced back at her sister’s body, suddenly feeling the accumulated fatigue and pain from the day wash over her. Her shoulder hurt, her arm bound limply to her chest in a sling of dirty rags. She was bruised, sore, exhausted - and that was just her physical state.
“Sir, if I can ask,” David inquired hesitantly, shaking her out of her fugue, “how did you know I could knock power out in the sector? I had only circumvented the lockouts seconds before you arrived.”
Jesri laughed again, some humor finding its way in this time around. “I had no idea,” she chuckled. “I was just hoping you had something, since I was totally fucked.”
“I appreciate the show of faith,” he said somberly. “Most of the credit has to go to Anja, though. The automatic safeties reestablished power within half a second. If she hadn’t acted immediately…”
Jesri nodded, looking over at where her surviving sister sat hunched against the wall. At the far end of the theater she saw Rhuar, Qktk and Se Dasi walk in, deep in conversation. Her fists balled up as another wave of grief threatened to overwhelm her.
“It’s not fair,” she muttered.
“Sir?”, asked David, sounding a bit lost.
Jesri shook her head. “The Irri will always remember Eleanor as… this thing. Se Dasi is going to share stories of her to all the generations of Irri that come after, telling about the unspeakable evil that was Eleanor Tam.” Her fingernails pressed creases into her palm as her grip tightened.
“She’ll be right, of course, but nobody will remember the Eleanor I knew. The one who risked her life again and again for her comrades, for civilians, for ideals and principles nobody has fought for in millenia.” Jesri hunched her shoulders, feeling defeated. “She was the one worth remembering.”
“Perhaps you should tell them,” David suggested. “How else will they know?”
She snorted. “I should eulogize their tormentor? I wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Just talk about your sister,” he said. “Don’t try to excuse her actions, just give them the full picture. If they still hate her, then at least they hate the person she was rather than the evil caricature Se Dasi will give them.”
Jesri thought for a second, then stepped over towards Eleanor where she lay splayed out on the deck, an expression of shock and surprise still lingering on her face. Her blonde hair fanned out beneath her head, matted to the deck with dried blood. Jesri reached down and slid her eyes closed gently, then stood up and looked around the room.
“Eleanor Tam was my sister,” she said loudly. Her voice echoed through the theater, and the few Irri present looked over at her curiously. Se Dasi stared venom at her, while Qktk and Rhuar simply watched.
“You know her as Colonel Tam,” she continued, “but that isn’t who I knew. For hundreds of years before she came here and hundreds of years after, Ellie was a soldier. She protected the innocent, fought the cruel and unjust. She did ten times more good in those years than I’ve done in all my life.”
Jesri paused and looked around at the Irri staring back with disinterest or hostility. She couldn’t blame them, really. She found Se Dasi’s murderous stare and looked back at her, raising her voice again. “It doesn’t change what she did to everyone here, or the evil she would have done. Her crimes are too many to name, and they are inexcusable.”
She lowered her head, her voice breaking. “But her first crime was murdering six of my sisters. Cait. Zehava,” she said, raising her head again. “Liza. Giselle. Ye-eun.” She swallowed. “And Eleanor, who had been the best of us.”
She felt the continued pressure of the hostile glares and bowed her head again to stare at Eleanor’s body. She didn’t feel better having spoken, but she had tried. She hoped that would have been enough for Ellie.
“Ie Neru,” a voice said. Jesri looked up in surprise to see Se Dasi walking towards the center of the room. “Se Revi. Se Faro. My parents and my brother.” She still looked at Jesri, but with only sorrow in her eyes. “I would remember them as well.”
“Ru Sefa,” called another voice. “My father. Ru Lati, my brother.”
A chorus of other voices joined in, calling out the names of the dead or lost. When the voices died down, a circle of Irri had formed around Eleanor’s body. They stood silently for a long minute before the mournful sound of a french horn softly slid through the air around them. Jesri whipped her head around in surprise as the first few notes of To the Stars, Stand Forth began to play.
Anja’s head popped up at the familiar music, her body rising to its feet by reflex at the sound of the old Naval memorial call. Jesri had only a moment to wonder how David knew of the song before the prelude ended and she was submerged in memory by the chorus of singing voices.
Look beyond to the stars, stand forth! Forge a path blazing bright in the sky!
Shine the beacon bright, cast it deep unto the night that your argent wings defy!
Honor those on whose shoulders we soar,
Bear their names on your soul evermore,
From the first did we cry: Ad Astra! Per aspera, upward we strive.
Ever sounding the call: Ad Astra! To the stars, stand forth and fly.
The final lingering notes of the horn faded into the silence. Jesri raised her head to see Se Dasi staring back at her.
“I will not forget or forgive what happened to my family,” she said defiantly. “My father is dead at your hand.” Se Dasi glanced down at Eleanor, then looked at Jesri with softer eyes. “But first at hers. You gave no less when it was needed.” She nodded respectfully at Anja, still standing lost in a wash of nostalgia from the music.
The Irri dispersed to go about their tasks, slowly moving away to leave Jesri, Anja, Rhuar and Qktk standing around Eleanor. Jesri prodded Anja gingerly, snapping her out of her reverie.
“Hey, Anja. You okay?”, she asked.
Anja hesitated, then nodded. “It was…” She shuddered. “Was bad.” She didn’t elaborate, so Jesri nodded and left it at that for the moment. Rhuar stepped beside Anja and nudged gently against her leg, and in a few seconds her hand was absentmindedly scratching behind his ears.
Qktk cleared his throat with a soft clatter. “The music was a nice touch,” he observed.
Jesri nodded, glancing back towards the altar. “It was. Ellie would have liked it. Raises a few questions about our friend David, though. I think it’s time we had that conversation with him, before he gets too wrapped up with the reconstruction.”
Qktk nodded, and Anja looked over at Jesri to speak for the second time since she had killed their sister.
“Who’s David?”, she asked curiously.