Refuge in Audacity
Invisible in the dark of the empty hangar, the impromptu "projection room", Azonia Lamiz managed to simultaneously gape and scowl.
The female Micronians began to busy themselves turning on the lights, the machines still working to clean up the unfortunate results of a few Zentraedi females' revulsion.
Azonia had thought briefly of reprimanding the ones who had vomited, but this never had substance. It had taken all her veteran effort just to hold down her own gorge.
Thiswas what they had betrayed their entire race for? For this they had been sitting in the desert, idle and mumbling, while there had been broken ranks and insolent comments, overexcited soldiers?
Yes, the Micronians had tried their best to present a multifaceted presentation, covering aspects of "history" and "culture", and "society", trying to point out that there had been different ways of looking at a situation, no concrete ideal. But it had all just been a flimsy cover for the horror.
The education had begun with the most basic physical information about the world as a whole, perhaps trying to relax them. But when it had gotten into the specifics of female Micronian life and history, Azonia had begun to feel the hammering in her head.
The incongruity and novelty Micronians saw in females as warriors, depicting the results as Praxian-like figures of ridicule! And how Micronians were made, how they emerged, that had been the worst thing, what had brought on more than groans of disgust, screams among her ranks.
And it was supposedly that every female loved it, wanted it, though one presenter had seen fit to add that that wasn't always the case, that it also required education to get right.
And they placed such a prize on the looks of their females, that Zentraedi who resembled beautiful Micronian women would be in danger, and so also would those who did not—-those with scars and overbites and deformed jawlines, the rare ones with skin that was purple, grey, green, or blue.
But Azonia's form betrayed nothing as she slowly rose to tell these tiny creatures that her women would not be subject to this foreign regime. But first, she must restore discipline, put an end to their faint shifting and muttering. "Attention!"
Every female Zentraedi stood and immediately formed ranks. Some soldiers had remained in uniform, but the majority wore green-trimmed blue jumpsuits, black boots, and in a few cases, black gloves.
Yaita was now back by Azonia's side again: good, stoic Yaita, her aide, who wore the blue cowl of the non-combatant. This, along with her purple uniform and red hair, might have made one think of a beautiful, female version of Exedore, if such a thing could be imagined.
Azonia turned to the Micronians and began to speak. "This existence appears to pose unique dangers to our army, and after careful consideration, I've judged that we do not intend to engage with you, except as is absolutely necessary to continuing this alliance." Even if she had secret thoughts of breaking it entirely.
The Micronian females, who had been watching it all in silence, jumped at Azonia's snapping command to open the hangar doors, and scurried to obey.
The Zentraedi were led back out to their camp on a path flanked by Veritechs. It was a barren patch on a barren world, where the females had been told to wait after they made planetfall, after theoretically coming to see more about human culture.
Boxes were now waiting for them, which turned out to be more rations and water supplies, with a notation saying that it was from the females still in orbit, who had been ordered by the Micronians to send it.
Once the Micronians were a good distance away, Azonia pivoted back to her soldiers. They all began to hunch up, one nibbling at her thumbnail before lowering it. Azonia waited for their salutes, feeling her temperature rise.
There came a ripple in the midst of the crowd, and the women parted like a river to let one of the Quadronos come through, one who only stopped when standing too close to Azonia.
A brief glance at Azonia Lamiz and Kazianna Hesh might have thought them clone-siblings: both tall females with short purple hair. But Kazianna was even taller, her hair darker, a slight grey tone to her skin that would have made her look sickly to Micronian eyes, but for the power in her form.
"With all due respect, Commander, are we not Zentraedi? When have we hidden from any challenge and felt right with ourselves? Can't we look at this as just another thing to meet with strength?"
Kazianna was overstepping herself. There was a metal-hard stance behind those words, the silent impression that Kazianna would not be turned back whatever Azonia's reply was.
"Discipline!" roared Azonia in a fashion that caused every female behind Kazianna to straighten up even more. Kazianna herself was already beam-straight, and showed no reaction to the shout.
Azonia continued. "Discipline is the key to our survival. We are all of us tainted. We have aided in the murder of our supreme commander. But that is no reason to forget what we are. We are soldiers; that is where our life and our glory lies. We can still live as we were, instead of lowering ourselves to this."
Through the speech, Azonia's mind was screaming how?, how?, like a heartbeat. But she went on. "We will not forsake our proud heritage for the crush of Micronian female life. If you want to give in to these lies, do not consider yourself true Zentraedi of any gender, and be prepared to cower from the guns of your own."
There was a look, and Azonia thought she must be imagining it, a look to Kazianna that asked, Are you afraid?
Still addressing the entire crowd, she called, "Think carefully about your actions, soldiers. These events have only just begun, and we cannot go acting rashly."
"As you did when you reported to Lord Dolza without consulting the male fleet? Even knowing what it would mean?"
Who was that? Azonia glared into the lines, searching for the voice. It had taken the Minmei cult much longer than this to develop.
"You began this!" claimed another soldier. This time Azonia could see her.
"All right, that is enough!"
One female did emerge from the group and stood by Azonia's side: small Hyptos Marfas, who had never distinguished herself before. "The Commander is still our commander, and what she says is the law. Now everyone is going to set down and think this all through before we do something foolish."
Azonia burned. This singular, this grunt, had said what she had been struggling to. But it had just been the suddenness of the situation that had done it. Soon enough she would be up in control again. Until then, she must act as if she already was.
She lifted her voice again. "I cannot hold you all in chains, but understand that if you try to reach for the Micronian culture, you will only bring yourselves sorrow."
--
Women kept disappearing from the camp. Yaita remembered all the names, and could easily have told Azonia which ones had taken their bedrolls and gone into the night, disappearing with surprising stealth--which likely meant surrender to the little pests who pretended they weren't guarding the bivouac.
But knowing the names meant nothing, not when they were in a wasteland where the traitors could travel anywhere, disappear. This was madness! What in the cosmos was this world doing to her women, and why couldn't she control it? Posting guards and restraining the deserters would not change how wrong it all was. Zentraedi should not fight Zentraedi.
Yet they had. They had fought for their lives rather than submit to the protocols of their elders. (though the eldest had had a hand in that, hadn't he?) Zentraedi should not fight Zentraedi over trinkets, then.
The only consolation was that many had come forth to explicitly declare their loyalty to her and to the Zentraedi way. None had been able to tell Azonia who was going to run next, however, and that was a problem.
But where could the true Zentraedi females go?
Where had Khyron gone?
Azonia almost gasped at the absurdity of that thought. He and his cadre had fled before arrival of the main fleet, and were probably skulking off in the system somewhere, not caring about things down here.
Or afraid to care? Perhaps. But it was also hard to picture any of Khyron's men sneaking off in a Battlepod to listen to concerts and pluck at naturalized food. Whatever else Khyron had been, and he had been a lot of things, Azonia could not imagine him as the type to give in to their toys.
But he was also reckless, insolent, nasty. Too full of passions. He would have thought Breetai should have murdered the defectors.
Where would they have been now if Breetai had? Probably still turned to particles, but perhaps they would have been prouder particles.
"May you win every fight". Joke, Breetai! You and your corpselike little Minister! Pretending honour to her when he wanted dishonour for the rest. It had been no simple decision of hers, Azonia suddenly decided, but a desire for atonement which had led her to make the report to Dolza.
There was no greater honour than to die in battle, so why not die fighting for honour? There was a sharp logic to it, but at the last moment Azonia had allowed herself to fear death, and thus to bring her women into Breetai's shadow.
"Milady?"
Yaita's soft request diverted Azonia from her brooding. She looked to her aide, silhouetted in the moonlight. The backlighting made the truth difficult to see for a moment.
Yaita had shed her uniform for a jumpsuit.
"You do not feel it, do you, Commander?" Yaita asked. "This world is calling to us, offering what should always have been ours, and it's not only drudgery and domesticity that beckons. Everything has a price, however, and not all of us are willing to pay it. I am, and I hope that you may one day find the strength."
Azonia blinked, flinched, scowled, then said, "Leave here before I destroy you."
The other female put her fist to her chest in salute, making Azonia suck air through her teeth. For a moment, she wanted to ask Yaita if she'd heard the deserters leaving and never bothered to tell, but Yaita was already turning, walking off into the desert.
Azonia carried a hidden gun on herself, but she would not fire. It would be too much to plug her aide in the back as she fled.
But enough was enough; that was one of the idioms they'd been taught, and so it would be.
Part of Azonia was standing at her shoulder, watching the display with narrowed eyes. Was she a female Micronian, to be prey to such emotions?
"Attention! Any one of you who is entertaining thoughts of becoming Micronized, leave now before you meet their heaven! This is now a camp for only true Zentraedi females!"
Women ran, stumbling, fleeing without Yaita's quiet dignity. But Azonia felt a knife whistle past her shoulder, cutting the sleeve and severing her command cape. As blood flowed from the shallow wound, Azonia would not react. She had suspected that more than a few other soldiers had carried knives and other small weapons hidden in boots or sleeves, by Yaita's advice that they make planetfall appearing unarmed.
--
When the last of the traitors had gone over the hills, it was time to strike. They would not wait for dawn, not when they were likely already being observed, their intent to betray becoming clear.
Even the slightest-built Zentraedi female had sheer size on her side, and those true ones thundered through the flimsy barricades, risked lives and skins against the mecha guards. Many fell, burnt and screaming, but Azonia spared little thought for them. At the start of the revolt, Azonia had lamented for a Quadrono armour, but some of these were eventually stolen back, having been turned over to the humans in a show of "good faith". Most remained in space, but there was a way to get to them.
Just as Yaita had said, the Micronians were all busy, their forces thin, and even unarmoured and being mowed down, the females had pressed onwards, and a good number of her troops had escaped into the wastes.
After a certain distance their pursuers retreated, likely flying back to their habitations. Azonia wondered if their ideas about females held them back, but it was more likely exhaustion. They would come again soon enough, and she would be ready.
The female Zentraedi kept going north. In their foolishness, the Micronians had also included geographical information in their briefing, telling them of dense areas where the nature had been partly spared.
The place that had stood out in Azonia's mind was the ice lands to the north. Snow and desolation, far from Micronian settlements even on an intact world, and her troops could hunt for their food if need be.
--
It was one of her scouts who spotted the downed cruiser first. No telling who it belonged to, and what the owners would do if they were still alive. Azonia clenched her teeth, instinct readying her to turn away from males. But the thought came up: who where her women more like, female Micronians or male Zentraedi?
She ordered her women to move on the downed male ship without stealth, including several Quadrono suits hovering over the whiteness, flanking their commander.
Battlepods and male power armour were lying down or leaning, some partially buried in the snow. Azonia ignored the mecha and kept walking.
A male soldier came crunching out into their path with a rifle, glaring. He had no helmet, but otherwise his armour seemed intact.
Azonia's mind was blank to the male's identity; it had been Yaita's job to know the names, and then of the female soldiers only. But...he was from the same clone line as the traitor Rico!
Azonia caught herself; that kind of thing would only matter to Micronians.
"I am Gerao Docel," he said in a bored voice, but hefted the rifle at them to indicate he was hardly indifferent. "I'm supposed to ask you what you're doing here."
"You know who I am," Azonia replied. "My soldiers and I have fled the Micronian confinement and are interested in a way to strike back at them."
"That so? Then maybe you should come this way."
The wrongness of the situation struck her again, but Azonia walked, and heard her women doing the same.
Closer to the ship were male Zentraedi lolling around, checking charges and sharpening blades, or apparently doing nothing. Several flinched and trembled as the females passed, others simply glared at them.
Gerao led Azonia and her troops to the nearest doorway.
"Wait here," Gerao said in the same insolent tone. He was showing no ill feeling at being close to a ranking female, and ascended the ramp in a smooth movement.
"WHAT!" eventually came from inside the ship,audible enough to mean the shouter was near.
Azonia recognized the voice, and tensed for the inevitable meeting.
Gerao was the first out again, followed by Khyron Kravshera. Khyron was stripped to military pants and boots and a white undershirt. His purple skin was flushed, probably with drink or that other rumoured intoxicant.
The Backstabber stared for a moment, then exploded into laughter, ending it with a sniff, rubbing at his upper lip. "Ah. So the mighty Azonia has come limping back for help from the only one who would take her, eh? How fortunate for you."
She widened her stance. "Your airs don't impress anyone, Khyron!"
"But you have come here, haven't you? Are you afraid of the Micronians, commander?"
Suddenly Azonia saw Kazianna's face in her mind. "No more than you feared Dolza."
His smile was gone, replaced by a snarl. "So what is it that you do want, if it's not shelter?"
"Shelter! As if we'd take the offerings of a traitor."
"Oh, but we are all traitors now, Azonia. It only matters whom you chose to betray. I am supposing that your numbers have shrunk now, and not just by casualties."
Was that disgusting creature making a joke? She would stop amusing him now. "If you mean they've gone to join the Micronians, then you would be correct. But I never expected to find you hiding in this hole."
"It is because my thoughts have turned to revenge. If the Masters knew of this, they would shove aside my own hand
for theirs. I plan to prove myself to them, but in the process I am going to make these creatures see the truth myself."
And because your cruiser is damaged, you imbecile, Azonia thought, but instead found herself saying, "I would like that." There was no inner voice to disagree this time. "There are no true Zentraedi left but us."
Khyron's eyes narrowed. He had to be sharing the same thought as her.
"It is unnatural," he finally said.
"These are desperate times," she replied.
They looked at each other. Azonia reached up to her left arm, where the throwing knife had torn her sleeve. With a powerful twist, she ripped aside the lower half and let it flutter to the ground.
How like a female Micronian she looked, arm bare and vulnerable. "I revoke my rank, to work anew for the purpose of revenge."
Khyron grinned, then reached in to tear off her other sleeve before Azonia could so much as gasp in indignation. "There. Now you have a matched set."
She snapped her naked arm back and punched Khyron, hard enough to make him reel. But he managed to avoid falling, and spat out a clot of red blood, staining the snow.
"So. An alliance is formed, then."
Azonia nodded, stiffly, ready to crack Khyron if he ever tried anything like that again.
--
Cycles turned overhead, the passing of months making very little difference in the pressure of the cold sky. Azonia could not decide how she felt about the weather; it could test them, purging out those who couldn't handle the conditions, but the ice could be causing apathy, freezing their minds.
More females and males came to join the unlikely rebellion, though now Azonia's own ships now refused her commands to land and join her. Because they wanted to have authority, many Zentraedi still wore uniforms rather than jumpsuits. Azonia had no method to repair hers, and did not want to. Instead, she tore its coattails away and re-folded the cape. It was the closest she would get to symbolism: let her come to destroy the Micronians clad in something that more resembled their females'.
Khyron's uniform was undamaged, but his cape had been folded in a fashion that matched hers. Azonia noticed it several times, and the image somehow rooted into her consciousness, kept recurring at random times. But Khyron said nothing about it, and neither did she.
It was a day like any other when Khyron again spread the crude map over the equally crude table, playing at planning strategy while they waited for something big to happen.
It tired Azonia; Khyron had invited her to the sessions, but only in a sneering mockery of her authority. He believed he was law, owning the rebellion.
Watching him bent over the map, Azonia looked to Khyron's latest drink, resting on a nearby console.
"We will wait for now," he was saying, "There must be a way to get this cruiser functional again."
Azonia stood. "We could spy on them. Find out how their industry functions, and derive some of those techniques. The Micronians might even be putting their pet Zentraedi to work in their own factories, and they would bring it to us."
The theory among many of the males and females (who still were careful to avoid each other whenever possible) was that this had to be temporary, that soon the truth would come back to all the people. Novelty could only carry them so far; the Zentraedi essence was warrior, and nothing would ever change that.
Khyron only scowled, ready to demean and denounce her again, no doubt.
Azonia snatched Khyron's drink from the console, gulping it down. A second later, the sudden gut-fire was the only confirmation that it had really happened, for Azonia could not believe in it.
Khyron looked at Azonia in sudden smoking rage and rushed at her, cursing. They tussled, both staying on their feet. Azonia was no weak female Micronian, and gave back as good as she received.
"Why should you have it all?" she'd finally asked. They were parted, both panting, Azonia's head throbbing. Grel Oigul, Khyron's second, was gawping at them. "I should think that you wouldn't be afraid of some competition."
Scoffing, Khyron was apparently ignoring the swelling of his left eye. "Very well then." He reached to the huge metal container of alcohol, a combination keg and bottle. "If you think you can match me, Azonia, go ahead."
They both ended up slumped at the console.
"Who won?" groaned Azonia, blinking.
"I did. It was obvious."
She could have shouted at him, but instead there was some strange twitching feeling inside her. It was a few seconds before she recognized it and let it free.
Azonia laughed at Khyron, but there was some other strange pleasure in it.
And then he laughed, with the same roaring, mocking sound, but it sang through her nerves in another peculiar way.
The possibility then occurred, created a feeling like being thrown into a rushing river. Did she want Khyron? As Miriya had...oh, no. No, no, no, no. It was everything that they were fighting against.
Fighting together against. Did she not take pride in the fire of Khyron, who also refused to be assimilated?
Still, she would not dare making that assumption, not yet.
--
Micronized Zentraedi slowly came creeping into the cold lands, and as she had predicted, they did carry with them knowledge of how to repair things, knowledge that spared their insect selves from being squashed, before Khyron began promising to return them all to their original size, and to use the capable soldiers to execute raids.
For Azonia the activities brought a relief from the tension, but also a fear which she could not name. And when Khyron pulled her to him for his display to the Lynns, Azonia finally believed it. She thought she really hadn't, not even when caressing his shoulder and talking of how well he handled his soldiers.
But...
"Khyron, what am I to you?"
He frowned. "It is best not to speak of such things, Azonia. It is enough to experience it, and silently judge it for ourselves."
It seemed a statement of uncommon wisdom from him. She went on. "Micronians like to imagine matings lasting an eternity. But I believe there is no eternity for us."
They were sitting in the weapons hold, the sounds of work distant as everyone prepared for another attack. "No, of course not." He sounded perfectly accepting of the fact, not a hint of anguish.
Azonia found none in herself. "You don't want to know why this is so, do you?"
"It is obvious why. We have chosen vengeance over our duty to the Masters. And death is the only way to resolve another contradiction, is it not?" He put his hand on one hip and smirked.
Even though Azonia already knew what he spoke of, Khyron went on. "We despise the Micronians, and yet have embraced their life choices. We've allowed them to consume us, but with hatred instead of hunger. We can only absolve that by death."
The knowledge had narrowed Azonia's focus to a single beam-point. There was nothing worthy in life but war, but they were weapons with no one to point them.
Khyron grinned. "But at least we could take the Micronians with them when we go, eh?"
Suddenly Azonia felt a surge of protest. No, this was all wrong. She'd let her command slip too easily from her grip, decided on suicide when the Zentraedi way was perseverance. This was everything she had feared becoming, a blubbering, fearful female.
Before Khyron could say more, Azonia took his chin between her thumb and forefinger and pressed his face to hers. They twisted and fumbled their way into a deeper kiss, Khyron gripping her upper arms.
It was the only way to stop this talk. There might still be a way to salvage this situation. The truth would not change for their people, and soon the rest of their traitorous kind would discover that.
End.