Kohei paced the deck. The captain of the Audacious ignored him, and the rest of the bridge crew tried to, but they were slightly unnerved by the scowling protem commander of the two stranded divisions of the Second Legion.
Tatsuhiro, recently promoted from squad sergeant to taisa, second in command of the 2nd division, glanced from his immediate superior captain Manzo to Kohei.
Kohei was a bit different compared to other Space Marines of the Second Legion. While most strove to pattern their own behaviors after their primarch, Susanno, the stoic warrior, Kohei allowed himself to display emotions freely, when he felt it would benefit his plans.
Tatsuhiro wondered who this display of anger was for.
"Daimyo?" Manzo called, interrupting the angry pacing. Kohei turned, his scowl not changing as he indicated that they were to approach with an impatient wave.
"Brothers, this is the new liaison from the Army." It was pretty clear what Kohei thought about the idea, although less so whom he was referring to, until the woman watching the Navigator in the nepilla, turned and bowed to the gathered Marine leadership. She bowed in the manner of the people of the Oasis system, a closed fist of her right hand to her left breast, the deep bow from the waist.
In a system thick with blonds and redheads, the woman was something of an exception. Her long raven hair was tightly braided and coiled into a tidy bun. Her skin was pale, like all inhabitants of Sentinel, where sunlight exposure was minimal, giving her skin almost porcelain coloring. Her eyes were the color of burnt honey, an attribute they would later learn as the side affect of the modification process of becoming a Gene Guard. On Tatsuhiro's homeworld she would have been considered a classic beauty. Here, he had learned, that was not the case.
Her uniform was a modified version of the soft body armor the Guard wore, although the white piping was less decorative and more designed to integrate a heavier carapace, should the situation dictate.
Her belt had not changed, an empty sword sheath on the left, and empty holster on the right. Her weapons had obviously been confiscated upon arrival. To lessen the sting of being disarmed, the Legion had developed a formal ritual of greeting and inviting, that included the Master at Arms to relieve the visitor of their weapons (at least until such a time that said guests were deemed safe). Tatsuhiro suddenly wished he might have seen her reaction the first time she was so disarmed. It would tell him much about her character, he believed.
She did however carry her helm, likely a wise precaution given the technological curiosity several of the MarineTechs exhibited. They were doubtlessly scanning her volter and sonic sword even as she stood there. Tatsuhiro felt a pleasant jolt of surprise - he knew her. She wasn't wearing the burgundy uniform of the Genebank Guard now. Instead the dark blue and white of the Army, graced her battlesuit, her right shoulder sporting the Army's device, the left empty, that the Legion's device might be affixed.
So, the display had been for her, Tatsuhiro realized with sudden dismay. He promptly schooled his expression. Kohei's mistrust of the Army was hardly surprising, what with the last liaison getting himself killed in that ridiculous charge against the warp beast that had attacked a cargo vessel. Nor did the presence of the avian xenos called the Kru in the ranks of Army regulars help. Even Tatsuhiro, who had significantly more contact with the Army, still found it a bit of a shock to see the xenos and humans mingling and conversing with apparent ease. Although grateful for the welcome they had received when the wounded Audacious slipped free of the warp storm that dumped them at the far end of the galactic rim four years before, the battered Legion was baffled at how deliriously happy the Kru had been.
Happy humans made sense, especially in this star system completely cut off from the rest of the galaxy by raging warp storms, but the elegant Kru had celebrated their arrival with a month of dance festivals.
"Cáel of Sentinel, at your service." Her voice was the same as he remembered, but there was something infinitely sad lurking in those honey brown eyes. Kohei snorted.
"It won't be needed." He told her shortly. Tatsuhiro was appalled by his rude behavior, but dared not speak out. Not here. Not in front of all these non-Marines. Cáel didn't seem perturbed by it either, gazing back, uncowed at Kohei's glare.
"Then I shall remain here, until such a time." She replied evenly.
"Then rot there." Kohei snapped, turning on his heel and leaving the bridge. Tatsuhiro glanced at Manzo, who was sighing softly. Perhaps if the last liaison hadn't felt he had so much to prove... Manzo caught Tatsuhiro looking at him and shook his head.
"Stay. Observe." He ordered, turning to follow Kohei. The division captains had a great deal of damage control to do, and someone needed to keep an eye on their unwelcome guest.
As it was normal for there to be one or two Marines on bridge of the Audacious at any given time, the regular humans who kept the spaceship running quickly fell back into their regular routine. Akira Hanaringo, the ship's captain, approached the liaison, and spoke with her in a gentle tone. Tatsuhiro strained to hear the conversation, but is was Cáel's response he heard first.
"Thank you, Captain. If there is some place I might stand that is out of the way of ship operations?"
Hanaringo pivoted, his eyes sweeping the bridge. He was a practical young man, the former first mate and nephew of the previous captain. Of all the humans aboard, he understood keenly the line he trod between his crew and the Legion.
Standing her next to his post was out of the question, as was putting her anywhere near the different crew positions. There were plenty of out of the way places to stow her, but he strongly supported the idea of a liaison, if only to force the Legion into greater cooperation with a planetary system that had been delighted with their arrival.
No, he needed a place where the Daimyo could not pretend she didn't exist.
His eyes alighted on Tatsuhiro, standing on the upper deck with a full view of the bridge. Let the mettle of the liaison and the Legion be tested by this, he decided.
"There is an excellent spot on the upper deck, if you don't mind standing beside a Marine." He suggested. Cáel was already halfway across the deck, before he finished his comment. Hanaringo blinked, then permitted himself a small smile.
Tatsuhiro watched as she approached, salute him, and without waiting for a reply, pull on her helmet before falling in next to him at parade rest.
Tatsuhiro felt torn. She hadn't spoken to him, so, in the absence of permission to be casual with her, he had no excuse to speak to her. At the same time, he had a multitude of questions for her. Why was she there? When they had last spoken three years prior she was standing before an inquiry board in regards to the attack on Sentinel's genebank.
He wondered about the outcome of the trial, particularly the one investigator who had suggested the attack was somehow Cáel's fault. Was that why she was the liaison now? Or had a Guard been sent because the last liaison, being a normal human, had no understanding of the transhuman mind?
They stood there, Tatsuhiro wondering, Cáel unmoving for the next three hours, until Manzo recalled him, and another Marine took his position.
"She just stood there?" Manzo queried, when Tatsuhiro reported to him.
"Yes, sir. She did appear to be following the activities of the crew with some interest." Tatsuhiro added, for she had watched the comings and goings.
"Probably learning the bridge." Manzo commented. 'Learning the bridge' was expected of each Marine sent to stand a watch. While not the most exciting of tasks, it gave the Marine an opportunity to learn how and what to expect on the bridge, and when to notice if something was off. It had saved the human crew during the last transit through the immatrium, although it had come at the price of a MarineTech and the ship's original Navigator.
"What are we to do about her?" Tatsuhiro asked. Manzo glanced at him, surprised by the question.
"Nothing."
As the hours wore into days, the human crew began referring to her as 'the statue'. At some point on the third day she lowered her visor, and transhuman eyes noted the faintest luminescent scrawl betraying a datafeed being engaged.
"Does she never sleep?" Kenji, one of Tatsuhiro's men asked him, reporting back from his own turn at bridge duty. The younger Marine was quite positive she hadn't moved at all in the eight hours he stood watch.
"She is a Gene Guard." Tatsuhiro replied, remembering his own past encounters with her. "She may have a catalepsian node."
"They do that to women on this planet?" Kenji looked baffled, causing Tatsuhiro to smile faintly.
"This isn't the Mitsu system. Women are expected to participate in this system's defense."
Kenji tilted his head.
"Do you think she underwent gene modification?" He asked. Tatsuhiro started to laugh, then caught himself, his expression growing thoughtful.
"They call us the Guard of Last Hope, in Krun." Cáel told the three Marines standing in her operations control room. Sentinel's gene bank was buried in the heart of the planet's Arctic mountain range, and previously thought to be fortified against aerial bombardment.
Leave it to a marauding band of orcs to prove that theory wrong.
The Marines had gotten the call seventy-two hours before. Tatsuhiro's squad was dropped fifty-seven hours ago. They had only gained entrance to the gene bank in the past hour. The captain of Sentinel's seriously depleted Guard took a deep breath.
"So let me say this as someone modded to fight anything that crawls out of the Warp. I am beyond glad to see you."
"I think there's a real chance of it." Tatsuhiro allowed. Kenji laughed.
"The Daimyo is in for a surprise then."
"Oh?" Tatsuhiro raised an eyebrow at the youth. Kenji grinned.
"It's been twelve days, Taisa. Which of the two of them is the more stubborn, do you wager?"
Tatsuhiro knew the proper answer was to defer to Kohei, but...
Tatsuhiro fell backwards, knocked down by the three orcs that had tackled him. Over the vox he could hear Hikaru shout profanities as he and Daisuke were similarly ambushed. Pinned down he struggled ineffectively to throw the brutes off of him as another hulking monster almost the size of a Marine lumbered over and raise the power sword over him. Tatsuhiro brace himself for the stroke as a banshee wail screamed through the din of battle. The sword and the arm fell, but not to deliver the death blow. Instead the arm separated from the orc's body, and the orc staring at it stupefied, before the pain hit. Howling in pain the orc wheeled about, only to have his head tumble off, the high pitched wail of the Guard's sonic sword all that was left of the attack that fell the beast. The orcs holding down Tatsuhiro scrambled away as the corpse began to fall, and Tatsuhiro rolled to the side to avoid being crushed.
Leaping through the arterial spray, Cáel set her sword to the back of the neck of the orc holding Daisuke's left arm. The sword screamed, shredding the armor protecting it's neck, and a second head joined the first. Still moving she ran up on the orc trying to pull off Hikaru's helmet, slicing through those unarmored forearms with little more than a whisper of effort from the sonic blade.
All of this, she accomplished before Tatsuhiro regained his feet. The three orcs that had tackled Tatsuhiro threw themselves at Cáel, and in the unforgiving tight quarters of the basalt carved tunnels, she was forced to engage them.
The closest one met the same fate as its leader, the second losing a leg, but managing to catch hold of the sword and wretched it free of her grasp. The third orc slammed into her from her blindside, crushing her against the wall. Despite herself, she let out a shriek of pain as the brute deliberately broke her sword arm.
Tatsuhiro raised his bolter at the orc holding her against the wall, and it's head disintegrated into a green mist. Daisuke, with his arm free, punched through the head of the orc holding his other arm, and kicking the remaining orc off of him. Tatsuhiro fired two more rounds, freeing Hikaru of his encumbrances as the handless orc and the one kicked off fled down the tunnel. Daisuke helped Hikaru stand as Tatsuhiro checked on Cáel.
"It's broken. We will escort you back to the control room." He said.
"It'll heal." She shrugged, and fiddled with something on her injured arm, causing the arm of the battlesuit to stiffen unnaturally.
"It will heal wrong like that." He warned, wishing to give her one last chance to back out. Behind them, Hikaru and Daisuke went around and made sure the orcs stayed dead.
She flipped her visor up, and stared challengingly at him.
"Have I told you how to do your job since you arrived here?"
"No."
"Then kindly return the favor."
Tatsuhiro lifted his visor, matching her challenging gaze with his own, probing how determined she was, then, after a long moment nodded.
The arm still wasn't fully healed when, seventeen hours later the last orc was put down, but not once did Cáel even so much as hint at the discomfort she was undoubtedly feeling.
"I cannot rightfully say. " Tatsuhiro admitted. "But having fought along side both of them, I should not care to wager against either."
Kenji laughed again and Tatsuhiro released the humorous young Marine to his own recognizance, his own mind made up on the matter. The next time he was on the bridge, he would speak to her.
It was nine more days before he got that opportunity, but when he and the others in command were called to the bridge, they had more important things on their minds.
"Distress call. Merchant vessel, by the name of 'Farthest Shore'. They report having picked up an extra passenger while passing through the asteroid belt, it's disabled their realspace drive and forced them into an escape capsule." Hanaringo explained, showing them on the hololithic projector their location in reference to the damaged vessel.
"Play the message." Kohei requested in his brisk manner, his eyes on the blinking green light indicating their position. A series of panicked whistles and clicks played back.
"What was that gibberish?" Kohei demanded.
"The distress call." Hanaringo replied mildly. He had doubted himself when it first broke across the ether, but a helpful translation had appeared on his dataslate.
"Since when did you learn to understand that, that- tweeting?" The Daimyo scowled at the captain.
"I haven't. But we have a native speaker aboard, and I took advantage of her expertise." Hanaringo kept his tone even, and looked past the Marine to the statue still Guard standing on the upper deck. Kohei turned, and from the deepening scowl it was clear he had forgotten entirely about her.
"How long have you been up there?" He snapped at Cáel. She raised her visor, and transhuman eyes noted a distinctive wasting around her face.
"Since fourteen hundred hours," she paused, then as Kohei was drawing a breath, added, "one and twenty days ago."
Taisa: Legion II word for lieutenant.
Genebank Guard: In the Oasis system these women are the elite warriors who guard the gene banks where citizens go to receive medical care for conception, or to correct any genetic damage in naturally conceived children.
Kru: An avian alien race very distantly related to the Kroot
xenos: short for xeno form, meaning alien
Daimyo: commander of the Second Legion forces trapped in the Oasis system
