Chapter 333

18th of November, 2151

Earth, Sol System

Arcadia Inner Core Complex, Meyrin, European Federation

"So...this is what she will look like." Said 'Alexandra' as she touched her face. Alexandra in body, now. Not in mind.

Yet.

"What you will look like." The former high admiral, now officially dead and buried with full military honors, turned her head to face the AI, and smiled softly.

"What I will look like." She said. She could see the bottomless well of pain within Arcadia's eyes. The crude, yet strangely expressive eyes of a first generation full sensory android.

Alexandra wondered how many knew Arcadia still had the first android she had ever gotten. Buried in the deepest reaches of her inner sanctum, only taken out for the most special of occasions. The one and only android she forever refused to replace or change the look of.

The android broke eye contact.

"So, I'll give you some time to acclimate to the new body before...before..." She choked up, and Alexandra raised her hand from the recovery chair, and laid it on the AI's arm, softly caressing the facilismile of skin.

"Shhh...It's alright. It's what I want. I'll still be there, just...offline. Sleeping. Okay? I'll still be there. If you need me, I'll be there for you. Always."

Arcadia shook as tears, or at least the best approximation the old machine could produce, streamed down the android's face.

"Thank you." The AI moved and hugged the former high admiral. "And I'll protect you. Always. No matter what I have to do. I'll move the planets and the stars for you."

Alexandra hugged her back.

"I know Arcie. I know." She chuckled, weakly, but she chuckled. "After all, what would I have become without you to watch over me?"

The AI let out a weak laugh. Then, after a minute, she finally straightened up, drying her tears.

"Come on now. You won't be...you won't be recognized by anyone anymore. Let's make that new body your own. Remember Dave's Burgers?"

"That 'restaurant' you took me out for our first date? It still exists?"

"It does. Let's go have a meal, let's go have...one last date."

The AI extended her hand, and Alexandra smiled.

One last date...before she became someone else.

"Sure. Sounds like a plan, love."

She took the AI's hand.

"Mom? Mom! MOM!"

Alexandra jerked awake, and her vision swam, before focusing into perfection as her programs finally corrected...her entire field of view filled by CQ's concerned face.

"Mom, are you alright?" Asked the boss, worriedly.

"Yeah, yeah. Sorry, just...dreams."

"Dreams?" The boss tilted her head. "You sleep, mom?"

"Apparently I do now." Alexandra blinked, or rather the hologram overlaid on top of the golem did. Sweet stars, had she spaced out like that while possessing the ambassador with the army?

"Okay." CQ reached out a hand, and to her mother's amazement, patted her on the head. "There. Better now, right?"

Alexandra couldn't help it. She just melted at how adorable her daughter was being.

"Yes, all better now." She smiled. "Got what I asked for kiddo?"

"Sure! I got the schematics." She smirked as she pulled out one of her design sketchbooks. "I'm glad I'll be able to be there via ambassador. I don't want to miss mommy's face when she sees it."

"Same." She'd worried about the whole ambassador thing and how to make it work with CQ, but it had turned out to be relatively simple. She already had hologram communications and tracking, so she could just...slave the golem to the hologram. It didn't transmit anything back, and sometimes the golem couldn't follow what the hologram was doing, but it was good enough to let CQ interact even while on the frontlines.

CQ stood in front of her mom, shifting her weight from one foot to the next.

Alexandra knew that look...

She sighed.

"Out with it, kiddo."

"Mom?"

"You're about to either confess to something, or ask about permission, and you think I'll be upset. So what is it?"

"Well, remember the raiding units you're preparing?"

Alexandra nodded.

"Sure. Why-" She froze, before jumping out of her chair. "No! You can't be serious!"

CQ raised her hands.

"Mom, it'll be fine!"

"You'll be behind enemy lines!"

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"With a teleporter talisman! And a bunch of soldiers. And Kara to carry me to safety!"

"But-"

"Mom. Can you think of anyone better? Or a more efficient use of me?"

Alexandra closed her mouth.

"...You've been talking to Seraph and Ghost about this, haven't you?"

Her daughter looked away, and Alexandra sighed as she dropped her ambassador back into the chair.

The worst part of this was...her daughter wasn't wrong.

She'd fought in the battle of the bridge. First she'd helped holding off Sunrise's initial thrust, when they had attempted to attack the artillery, and followed it up by rallying the center, when Sarth's regulars had begun to falter, using her personal guard as an island of firepower to anchor the line, forming a sallying wedge, kind of like a bit taken out of a star shaped fort of the age of sail, to be able to rake either side with gunfire.

Her golems had taken a beating, but with her powers bringing them back they'd been able to hold on, pouring enough fire into Sunrise's flanks to force them to lower the pressure on the regulars, allowing them to rally, and then advance, smashing the attack the pegasus knights were trying to use to overwhelm her now dwindling wegde, enabling her to pull back in good order with the rest of the army when the plasma missiles came down.

Kara, her manticore, gave her great mobility and staying power, enabling her to be mobile enough to evade most threats while having the ability to smash of her way out of sticky situations.

"...Okay." Finally said Alexandra, and her daughter turned back towards her, her face brightening up.

"Really?!?" She squealed, and Alexandra winced. It was hard to remember that, in many ways, she still acted like a kid. AIs technically didn't have a childhood, they were legally created into adulthood.

But CQ was still her adorable, baby daughter. Maybe treating her like a kid all the time was leading to her acting like one...maybe.

She wondered how Arcadia would have reacted to being a mom. Or aunt, in this case. She'd probably spoil the poor girl rotten in the latter.

"Yes. But there will be conditions."

CQ was practically jumping in place at this point.

"What conditions?" She asked, excitedly.

"If things go south, trigger your talisman. Even if that means leaving some of your men behind."

CQ froze.

"But-"

"No ifs. No buts. Do you remember what happened with the duke?"

CQ opened her mouth, before closing it with a snap.

She knew Alexandra had almost nuked Darthar itself when the duke was using the chains of light to slowly burn her to death.

And if Kara hadn't torn her way through her own mech's wreckage to tackle him she probably would have carried through with it too.

"Yeah...But I can't just...leave them!"

"Yes you can. You know why?"

CQ shook her head.

"Because they'll tell you to. Because when soldiers respect their leaders, when they love them, they'll sacrifice their own lives to allow them to live. Soldiers never fight because they want to kill the other side. Those are fanatics. Soldiers, true soldiers, fight to protect. Their loved ones, their homeland, their people...and sometimes, just to protect those who lead them or stand by their side on the field of battle."

CQ slowly nodded.

"Okay. I think I understand. Just like you fight for me and mommy, right?"

Alexandra closed her eyes. She was perceptive.

"Yeah. Exactly like that."

"I understand then."

"Good."

"By the way, uh...will the raiding parties include the masked people? They make me feel weird."

Alexandra grimaced.

After the battle, some of the Kaidani volunteers had taken the face plates of her fallen golems and fashioned them into masks, wearing them basically everywhere, only taking them off when absolutely necessary.

And unless she was seriously mistaken, there were shrines made out of spare parts and destroyed golems that kept popping up. Some of them were even being carried on makeshifts palanquins like...like holy relics.

"There shouldn't be. I'll also have a word to the duke about this. It's...worrying."

"Yeah. What about the other conditions?"

"Those...are going to be set up with your mommy." Alexandra smiled as CQ suddenly looked worried. "No going around her kiddo. Just make sure you get your spiel right."

"Yes mom. You talk a lot like auntie Ghost."

"I know." And it was starting to worry them both. Alexandra sighed, and slapped her thighs, the hologram glitching as metal hit metal. "Alright, no time like the present, let's get your ambassador started up."

*****

Joachim took a deep breath, trying to steady his hands as he looked at the reports.

His lodgings, despite being in the capital while it was being sieged down by Sunrise, were still as secure as ever. But they didn't feel that way, not anymore.

He was starting to wonder if recruiting Orzal Vek had been a good idea. They'd needed him for the attack on the Hegemon, but it had failed spectacularly.

And now...now he had convinced his superiors to ambush the Adjudicator, costing them one of their Relic Guard in the process. That wasn't even mentionning the nuclear warheads they're deployed.

It had been a signal to the Church, one they'd appeared to have received, loud and clear.

After millenia of cat and mouse...the Order was done hiding. They were courting a fight to the finish. Do or die.

Victory...or death.

Those were their only options.

He sighed.

With the news of Alexandra's true identity...that he had slain the Butcher of Europa, his standing with his superiors had nosedived, and many in the know were openly voicing doubts about if Lesly's plan was worth the sacrifice.

The only saving grace was that, with the Butcher dead, few were willing to suggest the operation should scrubbed. Not only because letting it go now would entail more risks that seeing it through, but also because it would make her sacrifice meaningless. And no one within the Order, no one who knew...no one could let it happen.

But he had very little doubt that there would be consequences. Which...he finally realized was fine with.

He had accepted long ago that he would bear the burden of the horrors he would unleash in the name of humanity's rebirth. They said that to embrace the Order was to embrace death, and there was a truth to that.

Everyone knew that if they succeeded, those they freed, those they fought for, would come for them. The crimes they had committed would leave no other choice. Every member of the Order knew that they were making the ultimate sacrifice. Not just of their lives, but their legacy and memories. That all they had done would be dragged through the dirt, and their names reviled by those they had freed.

But free they would be. Mankind would be free. Not under the boot of false Gods slaughtering them like swine. Free. And that would have to be enough. It was enough. For all of them.

He straightened, as the trembling in his hands stopped, and for the first time in days, his mind was clear.

His career, his time spent climbing through the ranks...all of it was meaningless.

Because he wasn't here for himself. He never had been. It had just taken him this long, and to take this big of a shock to finally realize it. Their petty internal rivalries, their ideologies...in the end, none of it mattered. None of it had ever mattered.

They would save humanity. No matter the cost. To himself, and to others.

He would pay for what he had done, rightly so. And if there indeed was some realm of the dead, he would beg the one he had sacrificed for her forgiveness.

In the meantime, he couldn't let her sacrifice come to nothing. It had to mean something.

No matter the cost.