The Judge of Omen was caught in a state of self-reflection when the courier entered. She had been trying to ascertain why this was all going wrong. Was it bad luck, divine providence, incompetence, or just plain firepower disadvantage that was the culprit behind the current situation on the front? The Combine was the superpower of its part of the Orion Arm; it held de facto claim, as the nation furthest from the core, to everywhere between itself and the end of the spur. It commanded industrial and military might rivaled only by the Upsilon, and untold billions called the Pos Dynasty their lieges. But now, things were all going wrong, and she couldn’t figure out why.
“Judge Gladius!” the courier saluted as he entered the throne room. Striding down the shining, elaborately-carved stone of the flooring, he came to a kneel before the feet of his master. “I come bearing news from the western capital garrison.”
“Speak.” Gladius said, rising from her jewel-encrusted seat. The courier opened his mouth, but no words came out. The air stank of fear, and–was he trembling?
“Well, don’t keep it from me. Speak.” Gladius insisted. Shocked back into motion, the courier spilled forth the news. “There was a misunderstanding with the reinforcements from the Oxilini fleet and, erm... it escalated.”
“It escalated?” Gladius said, her heart dropping. No. No, this couldn’t be. Not this, not now.
“There was an incident when one of our platoons greeted incoming Oxilini forces. Somebody fired a shot, probably by accident. Beyond that... it’s hazy, ma’am; sources differ.”
Gladius put her hand out in a beckoning motion. “Well, tell me what they said!”
Shakily, the courier saluted. “We don’t know who shot first. We just know that someone almost got hit, thought it was intentional, and fired back.”
He took a breath before continuing. “After that, sources agree that it was chaos. We’ve got about forty dead total, ma’am.”
Gladius cocked her head to the side. “Is this why you are so shaken?”
“No, ma’am,” he made a gesture of denial, “after the fight, the commanding officer of the Oxilini forces stated that he intended to, and I quote, ‘kill every one of those two-timing scum who would dare defy the Overbattlematron.’”
Gladius’ heart somehow found room to sink even further. Then, the fear began to dissipate, replaced, in turn, by white-hot anger. Gladius’ breathing quickened and her words came out as a low growl. “He means me, doesn’t he?”
The courier looked back up at her. “Ma’am, if I will say, we should have patience; perhaps he merely spoke out of–”
“He is a representative of his master, as you are a representative of me,” Gladius cut him off, “it is no different than if Dao herself said it, and I have reason to believe that she or one of her cohorts intends to sell this damned planet to Khopesh, whether we like it or not!”
She took a deep breath, and then continued. “We will be relocating to a secret place posthaste. In the meantime, I want our soldiers to confront, disarm, and intern the Oxilini men defending critical locations. I want them silenced, too; not a word of this can make it to the fleet. Do you understand me?”
“Your will be done, ma’am.” the courier saluted, then turned and started for the door. “Hold.” Gladius held up a hand.
The courier stopped in his tracks and faced her. “Yes, ma’am?”
“I hear that the Squireworlders have taken a level of umbrage to the recent actions of Overbattlematron Dao,” Gladius noted, the air tingling with something approaching opportunism, “inform Battlematron Macuahuitl–quietly, of course–that, in everything she does, she shall have our devoted support.”
“Your will be done, ma’am.” the courier finally dashed from the room, leaving Gladius to her thoughts. This was treasonous behavior, she knew, but Katana would thank her in time. She probably didn’t know about the ambitions of her underlings, but an army was always loudest when fleeing a battle. Once their attack was repelled, the High Judge would surely take notice of Gladius’ good deed. Maybe she’d even reward her with money or titles, but Gladius was getting ahead of herself.
For now, all she could do was dig in and prepare for the worst.
—
“Overbattlematron! Ma’am! Ma’am!” the officer shouted as he burst into the bridge. Dao sprang from her chair in surprise. “What’s happening?”
“Judge Gladius has attacked our forces!” he collapsed at Dao’s feet, panting. “She’s got our Judicial Guard in her dungeons!”
“What?” Dao leaned in closer, sure that she hadn’t heard him correctly. This was an outright rebellion against the Dynasty by a noble, something that had not been seen since long before the Combine first reached for the stars.
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The courier took a moment to catch his breath, and then continued. “They said something about keeping away the fingers of Pollanide. I was among the attacked; my squad and I barely escaped with our lives.”
Suddenly, Dao realized something. “Why am I not hearing this from my communications officer?”
“I’ve heard nothing of the sort, ma’am,” the comms officer called, then narrowed his eyes at his terminal, “in fact, I’ve heard nothing at all.”
“They’ve gone mad with paranoia. They think we’re agents of a conspiracy against them.” the officer said, avoiding Dao’s gaze. Dao looked down in horror. If this was true, it was the realization of centuries of scheme upon scheme upon scheme, all to get a millimeter closer to the High Judge, to be the one to whisper in her antenna. Dao knew that war was a viable method of securing power; it was how the Oxilini Brood rose to prominence. War had always been a theater by which plans were advanced, and now that they were genuinely fighting for their lives, they couldn’t hold themselves back from their daggers.
Dao’s voice, when it returned to her, was flat. “Communications?”
“Yes, ma’am?” the comms officer said, looking up at her with apprehension.
“Draft a statement to broadcast to all native Omen forces. Inform them that their Judge is a traitor to the Dynasty and her orders are not to be followed. Offer a dear reward to anyone who brings her to me, be it her body in chains or her head on a spike.”
“Yes, ma’am.” he saluted, turning back to his terminal and beginning to type intently. With a resigned sigh, Dao turned back to the officer before her throne and said, “You may go. I need to think.”
The soldier saluted, then scurried back the way he came, the bridge doors hissing shut behind him. “Provost marshal?” Dao called.
“Your orders?” the leader of the ship’s marines snapped to attention.
“Gather a retinue,” Dao commanded, “I think I should go out and clear my head.”
—
Not a day had passed before the speech Battlematron Macuahuitl delivered to the matriarch of the Oxilini Brood had been leaked. Information traveled fast in the hallways of a spacecraft, even one as large as the High Judge Sabre, and it took barely twelve hours more before practically everyone aboard could recite it from heart. Most showed mere apathy at the manifesto; divinely-ordained or not, they were still losing the war. Yet more lampooned it, pointing out its every flaw and laughing at the absurdity of how a fully-fledged member of the Elnadar Brood could fall to such madness. However, not all were laughing; to a few, this was no laughing matter.
The words which Javelin recited felt foreign in his mouth, and that was because they were; he had never prayed before. Of course, he had seen the little temples on Aralush that the Aralu had erected for themselves and heard their solemn incantations towards their divine spirits, but that had never really affected him. However, something in Macuahuitl’s words had awakened a hunger within him, a drive to understand the Venerable Ancestor and to prove his devotion to Her, whatever that took. So, he was praying, on his knees, muttering a quiet litany that he made up as he went along. He wasn’t sure when the epiphany would come, but it was relaxing, at least.
“Hey,” he heard the voice of his commanding officer and felt him nudge his back, “these munitions aren’t going to move themselves. Get up.”
Hastily, he stood. “My apologies, sir.” he bowed quickly, then hurried towards the crates of Aerial Knight bombs that were being offloaded from a supply barge, dragging a handcart behind him. With a grunt, he pulled the first box onto his cart and began pushing it towards the docked Knight aircraft, where dozens of squires were running about priming fuzes and hooking on bombs in preparation of the first wave of aerial bombardments of the planet below. When he arrived, he pushed the crate back off, turned around, and proceeded back to repeat the process.
However, as he loaded up another shipment, the mechanical whir of a bulkhead grinding open caught his attention. Curious, he looked over, and–there she was.
Overbattlematron Dao strode confidently from one end of the hangar towards the other, accompanied by a dozen Judicial Guardsmen, their bayoneted rifles held high. The Overbattlematron swept her cold gaze over the scene before her, and then proceeded with her walk.
Right there was the one who denounced Macuahuitl before everyone. Right there was she who would deny the faithful of the Venerable Ancestor to her face. Right there was a Poslushi who, if she could, would enslave her entire kind to her own ambition and sin. The mere sight of her revolted him, but then he realized what he could do to exorcise the demon. He may not survive, but it would be worth it.
—
“This place is somewhat serene in an industrial way, don’t you think?” Dao noted, watching as a pair of men filed past another duo, both sides holding little bombs to their breasts. The sound of fuel lines being connected and engines being throttled up for takeoff was music in itself. It reminded Dao of the factories of Poslush and thus of home.
“I wonder if this is what it would sound like if you could hear the Pollanide Shipyards at work.” one of the guards put his hand to his mouth pensively. “There would be more of that–” another guard managed to somewhat accurately replicate the sound of a plasma welder, “–you know?”
“Yeah, you’re right; too much heavy machinery.” the first conceded. Then, he turned back to the second. “But wouldn’t you also hear–”
Plink-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.
The second’s eyes widened and he screamed, “Look out!”
Dao whipped around to see one of the crewmen she had previously taken notice of running for her at full speed, pursued by a dozen more, still holding the bomb to his chest, the pin from its fuze clattering on the ground behind him. One of the guards threw himself in between the intruder and Dao, and the others leveled their rifles and opened fire, but even as the rogue soldier fell, his body racked with power rifle blasts, he mustered the last of his strength to send the bomb flipping, end over end, towards Dao.
She didn’t even have time to muster forth any emotion. All she could manage, as the munition struck the floor fuze-first, was a calm “Oh.”
Dao was thrown some six meters back, the remains of the soldier who tried defending her splattered across her chest. The others around her were knocked to the ground as well. The lucky ones were silent; the unlucky ones writhed about in pain and terror, howling their lungs out. Dao stared blankly up at the ceiling as it seemed that every nerve was ablaze. She could feel her blood leaking from the chinks in her exoskeleton, and feel that same warm wetness filling her lungs. In a moment, there were physicians crowding around her, and faces bobbing in and out of her swimming field of vision. She could faintly hear the yelling of the Dynastic Commissar, and even more faintly hear a power rifle discharging, but ultimately, all faded away into a cold, numbing darkness, and the body of Dao fell limp.