The Empress Strikes Back
track: raiser
“Alright, Yua, it's now or never! Take over the controls for me while I focus on aiming.”
“Got it, Master!”
“Ensign, what are you doing?” Grimrock asks, a bit bewildered.
“Finishing the job, captain. I'll see you in a while.”
“Wait a-”
I take off.
“I'm deactivating all of the damaged thrusters and keeping only the verniers that can aid with stabilization.” remarks Yua.
I don't need all my jets – stability is more important than speed here. As the Anhur flies out of Lothal at a fraction of its usual speed, I activate the second stage of my ability. Attacking from the inside is a good way to get me trapped as the colony falls. The glowing blue lines come into faint focus, criss-crossing the colony. With brief commands, I indicate to Yua where I want to go; skimming the surface of the colony's walls, I trace whatever lines I can reach with my saber. I don't stop to survey the chaos I leave behind me. My eyes begin to hurt, but I keep them open nonetheless.
“Where are the warheads?”
“Right ahead, but they're sealed behind a large bulwark.”
I see it; at the front end of the gigantic cylinder. “Get me in front of the colony, Yua.” Swooping down, I find there's no easy line for me to trace in safety. I also don't have any more time to waste on flying around the lines, so... I'll just have to cut it head on.
“Over-charge my saber, Yua. Reroute particles from the barrier generator.”
“Yes sir!”
The generator begins to whine as Yua redirects more and more particles to the saber. At the same time, she pulls power from Anhur's reactor. The screens flicker and dim as warning signals begin flashing all over the cockpit. The flame from the thrusters die off soon after.
“Are we done yet?”
The colony is bearing down on me, a massive wall of screaming death. I better get this over with quick; the Kaguya-hime can still pick me up if I maintain this altitude.
“Reroute complete, Master! Let's do this!”
My saber flares up, sparks welding the hilt to Anhur's hand. The stream of plasma from the saber extends to a length greater than that of Anhur itself, streaking behind me in a disorderly manner – the reactor no longer has enough power to create a field that can contain this many particles. I swing the saber, pushing Anhur's strength to its limit. The burning plasma slices along the line I had identified, cutting through easily with no resistance.
The problem would be with Anhur's arms – they are about to give out from the nonstop fighting. We hadn't had any time to do serious maintenance on it. The CNT muscles begin to fray, and my saber gradually starts slowing down. My brain is screaming at me, and I can feel something warm dripping from the sides of my eyes. It's not just Anhur; I can't hold on for much longer either.
“Not now!”
“Master, there's a large piece of the colony tumbling this way! I don't have enough thruster power left to evade it!”
Well, fuck. Some of the parts I had cut off earlier are still headed towards us. I force Anhur to move its arms more... metre by metre, I inch my way towards completing my cut. If I can pull it off before the piece reaches me...
“Master!”
It's impossible. Should I cancel my attack and run now? I can still make it, but it would mean abandoning what I've set up to do.
Suddenly, a large beam engulfs the piece of the colony's wall, vaporizing it. Far behind the colony, I spot a red Vizala II, missing its right arm. In its left it held a rifle, its barrel glowing hot. The Vizala II continues to fire, picking off all the pieces headed for me.
“Thanks, sis!” I call out to her, not knowing if she can hear me. Time to finish it. I put all my strength into my swing as I shout, feeling my own muscles stretch from the strain. Anhur's arms finally tear, but I complete it – as I fall back, my frame armless, the wall in front of me splits into two. The part with the warhead begins moving on a different trajectory, entering low Earth orbit, just as the colony begins to take on a faint red glow. It's decelerating as it hits the atmosphere.
The damage I did causes the structure of the colony to buckle and fracture in its re-entry, throwing vast amounts of space debris all around me. I can see Rei's Vizala coming towards me, its single arm outstretched. She won't make it in time.
“Master, we're entering the atmosphere.” The frame is shaking horribly, the cockpit bathed in red. The outside of the frame is beginning to peel and flake away from the heat.
“Master?”
Even so, I can't keep my eyes open anymore. My brain gives up on me, sending me into the dark depths of unconsciousness.
***
“Is he awake?”
“Looks like it. The operation was a success.”
“Hey, you're not the village quack for nothing.”
“I'm a doctor! A doctor! I have a license, you know?”
“They say doctors without a license are the most skilled.” I murmur. “Something about underground doctors.” I open my eyes slowly. It's bright. My vision is blurry, and I'm hurting everywhere – it's like someone dropped me in a bath of acid. I hope I haven't ended up with bleached white skin. I try to raise myself.
“Don't try to get up yet. It's a miracle you survived.” One of the voices comes over and pushes me down. It takes a while before my sight returns fully, though it still feels too bright. A few dark-skinned people are standing around me, concerned looks on their faces.
“Where am I?”
“The village of Lagat. We're near the Hispalis border.”
I haven't heard of the place, but judging from the cry of the seagulls, we're definitely near the sea. The voices speak Shinari with a African accent, and there aren't that many places near the Hispalis border
and by the sea that the Empire holds. From that I think I can guess where I am – at the north-western coast of Africa. It looks like I managed to fall a very long way.
I try to raise my right hand to my face to shield my eyes from the light.
There's nothing there, just a stump.
“Oh boy,” I groan. “What happened to it?”
“We found you clutching onto something, kid – it was fused to your hand entirely, like you'd grabbed it and put your hand in lava. Couldn't get it off easily, and your hand was a goner anyway, so we took the whole thing off. It was some sort of black orb.”
Black orb... Yua?
“Where is it? Where's the orb?” I ask, in a slight panic. Is she alright?
“We figured it was something important to you.” said the villager. “It's over there, by the bed.”
I turn over and see Yua's core. Grabbing it, I make a cursory inspection. No good. This is no good. It's fried. The core is horribly scratched, dented and charred from the rigours of re-entry. I can retrieve some logs from it, but the personality matrix is gone. I'll have to rebuild her from the backup data I have... but it won't be the same.
***
I found out that it's been a week since the colony drop incident. They don't get much news out here in Lagat, but they did see a shining star crash into the sea, ahead of many massive flashes in the sky. They must have nuked the colony. From the logs, it appears that with the last of her power Yua managed to get Anhur behind a large colony fragment, steering it away from the colony. The nuclear missiles from the ground had hit soon after – we did not escape unscathed, and now here I am, alone.
Once I got a rudimentary receiver up and running, my theory was confirmed. Even though we managed to avert the worst, the remnants of the colony landed all over the world. Millions were killed wherever they hit major metropolitan areas – even Ankida was not spared. So was Kyoto... I hope my parents and sister are alright. Power shortages have become frequent due to damage to the Solar Ring system.
Two weeks later, I managed to fix one of the television sets in the village.
It seems that Naim was now a Colonel, having been given a triple-promotion for his bravery in defending the Empire from the colony drop. All of the credit had been given to him – there was no mention of me or Anhur. For the first time in a thousand years, the title of Hero of the Empire was bestowed upon a Shinari warrior. The ceremony was pompous and glorious, with the Empress herself bestowing the honours. It was probably trivial for her to arrange this; I had been relatively low-key with my actions, fighting unofficially behind enemy lines and rarely coordinating with our allied fleets. Wiping my deeds from the records would have been easy.
Kyrie's ascension plans had been delayed, it seems. I'm not too sure what is going on there, but the Emperor still appears to be in seclusion, while Kyrie herself has begun to make public appearances as the Crown Princess, visiting areas affected by the colony drop. She had a certain easy-going yet noble charm on screen that would win her popularity polls easily. It's a good thing all these suffering folk don't know her sadistic nature, I think to myself with a bemused smile.
While I recuperated, the war raged on. A tactical nuclear device was used three days after the colony drop on the Indus megalopolis of Karna without warning, killing millions of civilians. A lone Higashi bomber made it past the ocean and dropped an incendiary bomb over the UNS capital of Shulgipolis before being shot down. I sighed when I heard about that; this just ensures whatever sense of horror the enemy civilians had at their leadership's actions over the colony drop would be replaced by anger and self-righteous indignation. If you can only win a war by turning the enemy and their lands into ashes inch by inch, it is a hollow victory paid for in blood. It's definitely not the smartest strategy, though I wasn't aware that the Empire and the Higashi had such hotheads in its command posts.
Rei had appeared to denounce the colony drop publicly and call for a more civilized method of making war, as per my expectations for the cult's attempt to make her a uniting hero respected by both sides, but that didn't work at all.
Someone leaked the involvement of the Apostles of Hiranyagarbha, blaming them for the drop, the day before she did, and named her as their most important member; its Messiah, so to speak. The cult faced instant persecution all over the world, even in the UNS, though they remained somewhat accepted in the Indus. She was shouted off the stage, looking scared and confused, by an angry crowd. By that time, however, the Empire and Higashi's actions had lost them whatever sympathy they had, and the war continued grudgingly. It had become a war against the
other, instead of one conducted for rational interests.
Despite that, things did not devolve into nuclear war. That is the part that surprised me the most; even with such high tensions, they restrained themselves from going all out. Even the Empire did not employ any nukes after Karna. This was, to me, highly suspicious, but I'm in no position to investigate it right now.
Meanwhile, there are some changes to my powers. Stretching my ability to its limits in a life-or-death situation appears to have snapped something in my brain; I can now turn it on and off at will, as if I were using the Inanna drugs. One of my eyes – the right one – has changed too, and not for the better. The lines are beginning to appear randomly by themselves if I see through that eye. The first time it happened, I was reaching for a pen, and I cut the table in two. I put an eye-patch on it after it continued happening haphazardly, though not frequently, but I'm not taking any chances; who knows if I might accidentally kill someone the next time.
I spend my days tinkering with Yua's core, trying to figure out a way to bring her back, to no avail. My injuries are still too severe for me to travel far, though I do manage to build a rudimentary mechanical hand from the scraps the villagers kindly donated to me.
It is a month before she finds me.
***
“Get up here, you useless dog! How dare you keep me waiting for so long?”
The warship bellows its transmission over the village. It was a new
Pimsin II class
, equipped with an atmospheric flight module that allowed it to hover in the atmosphere. We didn't have that a month ago. How fast
was technology evolving? Anyway, I'd know that voice anywhere. Despite myself, an unruly grin spreads over my face. One of the Onuris frames comes over to fetch me. It carries me up into the hangar in its massive hands... and there she is, standing with her hands on her hips, just like the first time I met her.
The instant my feet touch the ground, Kyrie throws herself at me. I feel her lips touch mine and I go red in embarassment and surprise.
“That's... some greeting.” I say, slightly amazed at her daring to do that in front of so many of the ship's crew.
“W-well, you deserve it, you useless dog.” she mutters. “Why did it take you so long to let me know you were alive?”
“Look at me,” I sigh. “It took me two weeks before I could send out a message I knew Anna could pick up and convey to you.”
“Well, it's a lucky thing she did, or you'd just die out here in the countryside, alone.” grins Kyrie, her arms still around my neck. “Anyway-”
One of the crew members interrupts what she was going to say. “Your Highness, the captain says that there's a battleship approaching us. It's one of our own, but it's making hostile overtures, telling us to stand down.”
Kyrie looks perplexed. “What is that about – no, did she follow me somehow?”
“She?”
“Mother. I was too careless! It's all your fault!"
"My fault? How is it my fault that you don't check your back?"
"Well, I was just too eager to - forget it!" she yells, turning red and kicking me. It hurts, but the feeling is nostalgic.
Her worst suspicions are confirmed soon after – as the cruiser stands down, the Empress boards it with a whole contingent of soldiers following her. I see Naim at her side, decked out in military regalia and a whole bar of medals pinned to his lapel. Kyrie curtseys politely as her mother stands in front of her.
“My dear daughter, need I remind you that you should not commandeer our ships in a time of war to go looking for strays?” sniffs the Empress.
Kyrie does not reply, looking at the ground.
“Anyway, this is a perfect opportunity. Arrest that scruffy boy with an eye-patch over there.”
“It's good to see you again, Your Majesty, but what have I done wrong?” I call out. I'm not even going to mention the credit she stole from me; that'd be just petty of me, no? Naim looks uncomfortable, averting his eyes from me. I suppose he knows the truth.
“This boy is a member of the cult that tried to destroy our great Empire!” shouts the Empress. “He is the brother of their self-proclaimed Messiah, here to seduce our Princess astray. Men, take him in, alive or dead!”
“You have no proof.” I shake my head. “I'm not a cultist.”
“Oh, I don't? I have proof of you meeting with the cult's Messiah, that Scarlet Lightning. I have proof of your birth and residence at the cult's quarters. You are not who you say you are, Senya Hoshikawa. The more lies you tell, the worse it will be for you. Give up now and I may refrain from handing you over to the Higashi. They are keen to meet a cultist, especially one related to the high-ranking members... they might do anything to make you talk.” sneers the Empress. “All I want is to prevent you from doing any more harm to the Empire. Cooperate and we will make sure you get a comfortable cell.”
“Is that blackmail, Your Majesty?” I ask. I'm pretty sure by comfortable cell, she means a place on a dissection table.
“So it seems you are stubborn. Very well. Kyrie, get over here. That boy is dangerous.” She raises a hand as the soldiers move forward. Naim looks troubled, but he says nothing.
Kyrie backs into me and whispers, “Perhaps you should run.”
It looks like she isn't confident she will be able to protect me. The balance of power in the Empire must tilt far towards her mother right now. I look around the hangar; the crew are all strangers. I will find no help here - this isn't the Kaguya-hime.
***
A. I 'take' Kyrie hostage and make my escape on one of the frames in the hangar. She'd definitely be more than willing to play along. Why would I let myself get captured by that hag here, after all I've been through?
B. It's too risky to try anything, with Kyrie between me and the soldiers. I give myself up – I can try to look for chances to escape later.
