"So you're saying that you were going fine until you hit a roadblock, and that roadblock happened to be an ancient crazy esper-android?"
Rune nodded. "That's basically what I'm saying, yeah."
Rika just looked at Rune as if he had a screw loose. She wasn't the only one who regarded the magician that way, both Hahn and Chaz wore similar expressions too. It wasn't as if they thought he was lying, it was just a little difficult to believe, that was all. They were back in the main area of Zelan now, the master control room with some people sitting in metallic chairs, a few just standing up and the rest had taken residence sitting on the floor. The meeting would have appeared very casual to the eye of the unattached observer, a bunch of friends just chatting away, but the topic of their conversation was anything but casual.
Two people had seen this 'ancient crazy esper-android' but only one person was willing to tell the tale. Rune had taken up the role of storyteller while Wren was sitting down and kind of staring off into space. Demi glanced over at him from time to time, in worry. "We were going to go grab a shuttle so we could reach the worldship but there was a large machine blocking the way. I eventually recognised it because it was very similar to the cryogenic chamber that the Lutz incarnations sleep in. This one looked newer, I think. But that part doesn't matter, the guy that came out of the machine does."
"Did he wake up when you approached the machine or did you have to wake him up yourselves?" Hahn asked with one hand on his elbow, the other one touching his chin. Rune seemed absolutely wiped out right now but he had been able to change back into the rest of the clothing he had left on Zelan, grateful for the exchange. They were lucky that Rune or Wren had not been hurt. From Rune's story he could tell that they had just escaped by the skin of their teeth.
"First we tried to move the machine by ourselves. It was massively heavy so it didn't work, even with Wren helping me. It was his idea to wake up the person inside and have them help us move the chamber out of the way." As he finished speaking the esper looked at his friend who had also been there. Wren finally glanced up at him when he detected the mention of his name. Rune hadn't meant to make it sound like he was accusing the android of bad judgement, but one way or another it came out sounding that way.
It didn't matter how Rune phrased it anyway, because it was the truth and Wren knew it. If there had been any mistakes made during that mission it had been that one, and it had been his. The wren-type was vaguely apologetic. "That is correct. I awoke the android in the hopes that he would aid us in out predicament. The siren class android was in good working order and showed no hostilities to anyone until he encountered Rune. At that point he became violent and we attempted to restrain him." He explained in monotone.
"He was a racist jerk." Rune announced with a large dollop of bitter relish, crossing his arms. "He was being all buddy-buddy with Wren but the moment he saw me I was dubbed a 'filthy Layan' and he tried to shoot my head clean off my shoulders. I wasn't going to stand for that, so I let him have it with a flaeli and you know what happened? The android turned it right back at me! My spell! My esper spell!" His proclamation didn't receive the shock and amazement that it should have. Most of his audience just stared back blankly at him.
But Rune knew that if Kyra had been around her jaw would have hit the floor. He felt the need to elaborate some more. "Only espers can cast the flaeli spell. Only magicians can use true magic, not just techniques. We espers are a proud line of flesh-and-blood people, with realsouls that aren't just a pile of microchips and plastic. I can't understand how an android would have knowledge of any of the esper teachings. I'm the damned Lutz and I know this wisdom is locked up tight."
"Um… Rune?" Demi interrupted meekly from where she was sitting, her pale green eyes looking slightly hurt. "Are you saying that you think androids don't have souls?" Rune had been the one to talk about racism earlier but he had just said something pretty tactless himself. He hadn't meant to, but he had been thinking about it earlier and it had slipped out of him along with the rest of the story.
"That's, uh, that's not what I meant." He backtracked sharply, raising his hands in self defense. Rune liked the little android and he didn't want to hurt her feelings. This strange sort of tension, it came from that ruined spaceport on Azura, where espers and androids had once been mortal enemies. It was like that line of thinking had infiltrated his brain now and he couldn't easily shake it free. Doubtless Wren was also feeling the very same way, that was why he had clammed up so suddenly. Poor Demi was ignorant of what he and Wren had seen. She would not be able to understand.
Chaz cleared his throat and Rune welcomed the interruption. "Getting back on topic now, you've said that you had to retreat because this android was targeting Rune especially and you two were afraid his space suit might get wrecked?" The blond hunter got an affirmation out of Wren and a nod from Rune. He didn't know what to make of this information but it was good to know that people still paid attention to him when he talked, even though he was not their leader anymore. "It reminds me of that hunter's guild case we took on a few years back, the one with Daughter and Vahal Fort. What is a siren specifically, anyway?"
"A siren is specifically a wren-type android geared for tactical warfare, infiltration, espionage and information retrieval. All the dirty, unscrupulous missions were taken by siren androids when the administration could not afford to deal with the bureaucratic red tape associated with normal government agents. The name Siren is a truncation of 'Silent Wren', because if a siren completes its mission properly then nobody would detect it until it is too late." Wren informed everybody matter-of-factly. He had dealt with a few of them a long time ago during the collapse wars, back in the jungles of Motavia when there had once been such a thing,
Rune sighed deeply. "I don't think this has anything to do with Vahal Fort, but if we're gonna discuss things lets keep it nice and simple, okay?" An ironic request, seeing as he had been the one to bring up magic and souls in the first place. "I don't really want to go back to Azura, not with that Siren thirsting for my blood. But if all the people living on that worldship are ever going to have a chance at finding a planet of their own they need to get moving again. They have to get out of Algo as soon as possible, so Wren and I have to go back."
"I do not like the idea either," Wren agreed, "but Rune is correct. We have infiltrated Azura once and we can do it again, and next time we will have some idea of what to expect. We must devise a plan to dispatch the siren while keeping Rune unharmed." Easier said than done. Nobody even had to first inklings of a plan yet.
"Wait." Said Hahn, still musing like the perfect scholar that he was. He had listened carefully to what everybody had had to say and felt that he needed to put his two meseta in now. If he didn't everyone might not see what he saw. "From what I hear the siren only got angry when he saw Rune approach him. He was acting friendly to Wren beforehand, right?"
"To an extent." The android confirmed.
"So what if Rune just stays here with us and you can go and sort out Siren by yourself, or with Demi if you don't want to go alone? If he only wants to consort with his own kind just let him, and then when his guard's down… bam! Spark him good!" Hahn looked pleased with his own ingenuity, but Wren didn't seem too thrilled with the idea. He had fought back against the siren android in defense of his friend, that was all. He didn't want to be the one to maliciously start a confrontation despite it already having moved far past that by now.
Demi brightened a little. "Are you saying that I get to take Rune's place? Oh Hahn, I'm terrified of leading a mission by myself but I'd be more than happy following Master Wren's orders! Battlefields and enemy targets don't scare me!" She asserted, pressing her hands together. The Lutz wouldn't have minded giving up his seat on the Myau Eighteen to Demi if only it weren't for the insistent troubling feeling that if Demi went out on a dangerous mission she wouldn't come back alive again. He had felt it before and now he was feeling it again through his tiredness and headache.
The one thing that Rune's mind wanted to spin in circles about was the notion of an android esper. It wouldn't go away, wouldn't leave him alone, because his lineage was pure and thinking of Siren throwing that spell at him tainted it in some way. Maybe he wasn't as open-minded as he had originally thought himself to be. "No… no." He said to the green-haired girl firmly. "I don't mind if you come too, Demi, but nobody's kicking me out of this mission. I was there when it began and I'll be there when I see it end. I have a grudge against Siren now."
"I was getting really jealous of you, Rune." Chaz said as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He appeared very honest in his face and he smiled. "I wanted to go to Azura instead. But seeing what happened on that camera and how you looked when you came back here, it kind of put me off the whole idea of being a space explorer. You look just like crap right now." The youth laughed. Rune was not amused. It had been a very long day.
"Thanks Chaz. Bottled air and having gravity stretching you every which way can do that to you, so I'm told." Rune replied to Chaz sarcastically. "Sudden combat don't help either. I'm tired, I want to go to sleep…" And with that announcement he leant over and rested his head on Rika's shoulder, the side that had not been torn by Mieus' flailing claws. She didn't shove Rune away as she would have if the esper was a stranger, he was a very close friend and he had worked himself hard today. He deserved it, and she knew that Chaz wouldn't mind. Rika gently put her arm around Rune, holding him nice and steady.
Chaz smiled at his fiancée and his friend. "Okay, now I'm reallygetting jealous of Rune!" His exclamation coaxed a wicked little grin onto the magician's face. Raja and Hahn laughed at that and it seemed like the meeting was beginning to wrap itself up with their linchpin getting too tired to talk anymore. It made sense, Rune had been up since dawn and by now it would already be deep into the dezorian night.
Wren personally didn't want to end the meeting so soon seeing that no definite plans had been made, but he was dealing with mortals here and he knew they tired easily. Three years with Demi for company had nearly made him forget the months of travel he had undertaken with the others, and all on a palman's twenty four hour schedule. He had adapted to it and he would have to do so again. "We shall continue this conversation later once those requiring rest have slept. There are some dormitories on the southern side of Zelan. They will accommodate you if you wish. Demi can take you there."
"Did palmans used to live on Zelan?" Hahn asked when the prospect of a bed and a room to sleep in came up. He had expected that if they were going to stay on the space station overnight they were invariably going to have to sleep on the floor. He was glad that was not the case, his back was delicate and sometimes the slightest thing could set it off. A thought came to the scholar and he brightened, answering his own question. "Oh, that's right! Zelan was a climate control and weather forecasting station before it became as important as it is today. So there would have been whole teams of scientists living here long before Wren would have shown up."
The dark-haired android quirked an eyebrow at Hahn, intrigued. The scholar's guesswork had hit remarkably close to the mark. As a history teacher he must have been taking his studies very seriously. Palmans had not lived on Zelan for at least seven centuries but the station could still accommodate them in case it was ever required again. Those were the days when he had been a servant and not a master, just another face in the crowd when his use as a weapon had come to an end…
He registered that Demi was speaking a few seconds after she had begun talking. The way that she animated herself when she spoke about something positive was interesting to watch. "I didn't think everybody was going to be sleeping over or else I would have gone to the dorms and tidied them up a little. I've never been there and I have no idea what state they're in. Please let me apologise now in case they're a mess." She bowed dutifully in order to show her sincerity.
Rune opened his eyes and sat up straight again, taking his head off Rika's comfortable shoulder. "It won't take much to make it nicer than my cave." He assured her, feeling Chaz looking at him in amusement at the notion of him living in a cave. The young hunter could see in his mind's eye a cranky rampaging Rune living at the top of some snowy peak and he could understand why sightings of abominable snowmen were so common. He snickered at the thought.
"Just give me a bed, a blanket and a corner to pray in and I'll be happy." Raja said as he put a hand on Demi's small shoulder. They had been protectors of Algo, they had roughed it in dozens of different climes so this would be nothing. They all got to their feet in ones and twos, those who had been sitting down that was, and expected to be led like little lambs to wherever they were meant to go.
Wren fit in one last closing statement. "Azura is a hostile environment. Demi will accompany us next time, so I will leave Rika in charge of Zelan in our absence. I will conduct a briefing in nine hours time. I expect to see everybody assembled here without excuse. You are dismissed."
The sudden army-talk came as a bit of a surprise, even to Demi. Wren looked rather preoccupied with whatever it was he was processing so she decided to leave him be. It wasn't in her place to ask questions, even though she wanted to.
The amount of secrets that a person can keep in their lifetime is simply staggering. Everybody carried them, including Demi, but Wren had, perhaps, the heaviest secret there could possibly be.
And it was about to get them all killed.
†††
"Well, here we are!" That exclamation was coupled with a strident crash. Demi had wrenched the stuck hallway door leading into the dormitories open with her bare hands. Maybe she had pulled a little too firmly, or maybe this door was made of a particularly weak material because she nearly yanked the whole thing off its hinges. There had once been a lock on the door but it had been made of a rust-prone metal and wore away. The crash that they had all heard was a pile of forgotten tools and things tipping over and scattering on the ground.
The entrance to the dormitories had a conventional swing door instead of a futuristic sliding one. It might have made the scientists feel more at home. Demi looked down at the disturbance she had caused and put her hands to her mouth in surprise, but the others didn't really care. They were tired and they wanted to get some sleep, especially considering Wren was going to drag them out of their beds in about nine hours time.
The dezorian, the numan and the three palmans navigated around the dropped instruments with measured care. The tools sort of looked like stuff that might be used for surgery. Demi hurried after them, making a mental note to clean up the mess when she had a chance. The hallway of the dormitories looked like the most abandoned area within Zelan, but as Rune glanced around it with exhaustion-blurred eyes he could tell that it also felt the friendliest. It wasn't a sterile metal hallway, not entirely at least, the palmans that had been living here had done their best to make it feel like home.
"Wow…" Hahn breathed as he inspected the place, looking up and down the long corridor. Nobody had been in here for so long that it was a perfectly preserved historical site, displaying palman culture from a thousand years ago. The scholar had half a mind to kick everybody back out of the area so they wouldn't disturb or mess the place up. Each door leading into a dormitory had a little plastic cover on it, about the size of an envelope, where a piece of paper could be slipped underneath and protected. The notes contained the occupant's name and profession, along with any other tidbits scribbled on the paper.
The doors and walls were also decorated with posters, pictures, photos and some sparse graffiti. Only palmans could have been so messy. Intrigued, Hahn and Chaz ran ahead and looked over the walls with childish interest, afraid to touch in case the pictures crumbled away. "Oh wow, look at this Hahn! This looks like a picture from… well, I dunno where, but look! The ground is entirely green! It's all grass and oh my god, can you see all those trees? I've never seenso many in one place!" Chaz exclaimed, reviewing a picture of old Piata.
"I like the looks of thisscenery better!" Raja called from the beginning of the corridor, examining a poster of a rather skimpily dressed pin-up girl. She would have been just fine, if only she had been green skinned and hairless. Oh well, the bishop felt that he could still appreciate the picture anyhow. He laughed loudly and heartily when Chaz rolled his eyes at him, moving on.
"This graffiti here reads; 'Melchaiah you bastard, give me my money back', and another says; 'The rebels are cowards, Orakio will lie in a mass grave with all the others'. Oh, and this one here says to disregard that, somebody named Reyenne likes to suck…" Hahn halted, then smirked a little. "Oh dear. That doesn't sound very scientific or polite at all." He said.
"Look at the names of some of the people that lived here." Rika pointed out as she walked down the corridor by herself, pausing only to read out the name and tap the piece of plastic with a finely manicured nail. "P. Rosenberg, meteorologist. A. Larson, astronomer. A. Lanning, roboticist. J. Sakamoto, another roboticist. One more meteorologist here, S. Steiner, then V. Bush and J. C. Lilly. Those two don't have their jobs written down. I wonder what they did around here?" Rika wondered out loud.
"Does it really matter?" Rune answered irritably. "All of them are dead now."
Rika seemed to take Rune's harsh statement personally. Frowning sadly she ignored him and went back to what she was doing, reading out the names, as if speaking them aloud would somehow bring them back to life. "These ones have full names here. Lawrence Antony, Leera Darling and Gibson Gold. Hellion Harvey, and hello… what's this?"
She stopped at one of the doors that looked no different to the others. It caught her eye because the name on the door was exceedingly long and decorated with many happy little smiley faces. Also, crammed into the plastic along with the name and profession tag was a badly-folded piece of paper. It seemed like it had been shoved in there with haste centuries ago. Rika carefully coaxed it out with two fingers and read the name tag beneath. "'Doctor Samuel Zonderling the twenty eighth. Shall I reiterate? Doctor, my friend'." She turned to her friends dotting the hallway. "That's actually what's written here. How eccentric!"
"Sounds like he might be related to Raja somehow." Chaz joked, walking up the corridor to his fiancée's side. Rika was telling the truth, it was all written there on the door. The happy smiles were a nice touch. The hunter's gaze dropped down to the folded note in Rika's hands. "What do you think that might be?" He pressed curiously.
"Let's see…" The girl mumbled quietly as she unfolded the paper to its original shape. It was in pretty good condition because Zelan was such a sterile environment, but Rika was still afraid she might tear it by mistake. The very first thing that stuck out in her mind was the letterhead, printed neatly at the tope of the page. It read; 'Motavian Department of Criminal Affairs'. Below was just a very short message written in black ink, simple and concise. She read it out loud for all to hear.
"Hey Doc. I bribed a guard to get this note sent to you. I figured that after everything I've done so far what harm could one more little crime do? I just wanted to thank you for trying to defend me at the trial. Even if it didn't make any difference it's the thought that counts and I do appreciate what you did for me. You're a good person, Doc."
"I overheard that they're going to be giving me over to the firing squad. There's also talk that Lieutenant Colonel Forren will be heading it. Looks like he's jumped out of retirement to wish me a fond farewell. It might be pointless to say that I'm sorry for what I did, but I don't regret it what I did either. I'm sure I did the right thing. Goodbye Doc. See you later. I'm not allowed to write down my name anymore but you know who I am. Take care."
Rika folded up the note again and stuffed it back into the plastic case in the door. It didn't make much sense to her and nothing stuck in her mind particularly, but it felt like that note had been very serious and very important once. Not anymore, but it had been an interesting read. "Demi, isn't Wren a forren-type too?" She called to the android girl, busy tidying up the fallen mess from earlier.
Demi looked up from what she was doing after stacking a case of trimate on top of something to be identified as a case of very long-expired beer and surgical clamps. Straightening herself up after the job was done she seemed pleased. "Oh yes, but there were about a hundred and forty forrens in circulation during the last years when these dormitories were used. I've never heard any lieutenant colonel stuff from Master Wren either, so I believe that little piece of paper must be referencing somebody else. It's a shame though, the way that capital punishment was so strict in those days." Demi shook her head in dismay. "Life is too precious to send out in front of a firing squad."
The way that Demi said that, and the feeling she used to say it with grazed the edge of Rune's heart like a strobe light. The proof that some androids did indeed have souls was self evident in this green-haired girl. There was caring in those words, something that could not be a farce. But where did that leave Siren, who had also cast a spell that required a soul to create? If there had been complexity in that cold monster Rune had not stuck around long enough to find it.
Similarly Rune was not going to stick around long enough to fall asleep on his feet. He pushed in the door of the room closest to him and poked his head inside. S. Steiner's room looked clean and tidy enough, and there was even a little chess set left on the table, a game still half-complete. From what Rune could see the black army had been winning substantially. This place would be good enough for him. The magician turned to Chaz and smiled. "Well, I'll see you guys tomorrow then. Goodnight."
His friends wished him a small collection of goodnights and Rune closed the door leading into the hallway, stumbling over to the cleanly made bed and then flopping down into it as if all his bones had suddenly dissolved. Great Light, he had forgotten just how good and soft a real mattress could feel. The bed wasn't extremely comfortable but it was far better than a sleeping bag on the floor, so Rune was completely dead to the world in just under five minutes.
The others on the outside were picking out their rooms too. Raja took the one with the pretty girl poster on the door while Hahn had poked around and found that Leera Darling's room was packed with pre-collapse books. When he realised that Hahn was already sold, even if the dormitory had belonged to a woman and pink had been her favorite colour. Chaz and Rika were going to stay in the eccentric doctor's room in case they found any other interesting little pieces of history in there. The rest of the protectors weren't quite as tired as Rune was so they were free to take their time.
Chaz had gone over to Raja's room to see what the old bishop was guffawing about now and Rika could hear the hunter exclaim; "Oh wow… you sure this is where a priestshould be staying?" then both he and Raja were laughing together. Doctor Zonderling's room was clearly something else, it was in a state that only a hyperactive six year old could maintain, provided that six year old liked to play with surgical equipment, machines and tools. Despite the state of the place Rika felt that she could feel at home here, as if the hospitality that had come from the occupant of a thousand years ago had seeped into the walls.
The numan girl sat on the bed that was just about the tidiest thing in the room and waited for Chaz to come back, toying with the rip in the fabric of her dress with an idle hand. Nobody had pressed her firmly on the reason why her clothing had torn. They had been too busy worrying about Rune and Wren, yet Rika could not forget about the sleeping girl in room thirty nine, on the other side of Zelan. The Alisa Three and the android Siren were the topics of the night but that did not concern her as much as the girl did. Probably because the worldship was so far away and Siren was just a distant notion to her, while Mieus had been real.
She had left the door open for Chaz so her voice would be able to carry well. "Demi." Rika called clearly and in about fifteen seconds the shorter green-haired girl appeared in the threshold of the dormitory. Rika gestured for her to come inside. "Demi, can I talk to you about something before Chaz comes back?" She asked. She didn't want to keep any secrets from Chaz, Rika loved him enough not to conceal things from him, but what she had seen tied itself solely to Demi, and perhaps maybe Wren, and she needed to talk to one of them privately instead.
"Of course. What is it, Rika?" Demi smiled as she entered the room. Rika scooted over a little on the edge of the bed so her friend would have some space to sit down. Demi's feet barely touched the floor from where she sat. Looking over at the pointy eared girl the android could tell that something was wrong. This wasn't going to be a light-hearted conversation but she might find out what had been keeping Rika quiet all evening.
Demi had very honest eyes. That was what made it easier to admit where she had gone. "I went for a walk this afternoon and I wasn't completely truthful with everybody regarding where I had gone. I went into the storage area, block A, room thirty nine." When Rika told her this Demi placed the tips of her fingers against her mouth again and her whole demeanor changed. She went from seeming concerned to seeming downright sullen. The android averted her gaze from Rika and looked at the floor. "I was curious because you seemed so sad when you were staring at it, just as sad as you seem now. I'm sorry."
"No, you don't have to apologise." Demi answered without looking up at her friend. The floor was easier to talk to right now than Rika's face. "Nobody told you not to go in there, so you didn't break anybody's trust by going inside. In retrospect maybe I should have said something earlier. Did you see anything in particular that you wanted to talk about?"
Knowing that she wasn't in any kind of trouble didn't necessarily make Rika feel better. She was surprised that Demi, who was usually a little bundle of cheer looked so withdrawn now. She wasn't in trouble but she had caused trouble all the same. Still, she had started this line of inquiry so she might as well see it to the end. "Why is there a girl sleeping in room thirty nine? I thought the storage area was only used for broken androids and things. When I woke her up she didn't seem damaged, but she did get violent."
The android gasped and jerked her head up to stare at Rika. "You woke her up?" She breathed.
"Um, only for a minute or so, then I put her back to sleep." Rika explained nervously. "Nobody got hurt."
Demi was in deep thought for several moments before she answered, mimicking a sigh. "Well that's a big relief to me. I don't want to see any of my friends getting hurt. I'm glad you told me about this instead of Master Wren, he gets very touchy regarding Mieus. If you had told him he might have moved her body away from A block and put her somewhere else. He might not have told me where he'd put her and then I'd never see her again. Maybe he'd even destroy her to keep it from ever happening again."
Would Wren really do that if it made Demi sad? Doubtless that android girl had been extremely dangerous, if it wasn't for Rika's amazingly honed reflexes Mieus would have easily slit her throat with her claws. Demi knew that Mieus was dangerous but cared about her all the same. She was a very caring person but it would have taken a lot more than unattached caring to make Demi appear so sad. "If you don't mind, could I ask why that girl is hidden there and subdued with a slave collar? If she's so dangerous why don't you and Wren just destroy her?"
"I could never kill her, and I could never let Wren kill her either. I'll never let him." Rika was silently surprised when Demi either forgot or deliberately didn't use Wren's honorific. There was a faint undercurrent of determination in her voice that rose for only a few seconds and then faded away again. "But I should not be mad at him. Everything that he did was in order to protect me. I just wish there could have been another way." She watched Demi clasp her hands in her lap. "Years ago Mieus killed a lot of innocent people, and when I stepped in to stop her she tried to kill me as well. That was when Wren said enough was enough and he stopped her himself."
"Who is Mieus? Where did she come from and how was she able to kill people? This happened on Zelan, didn't it?" Rika pressed, a picture that clarified what had happened forming in her mind. It was rude to ask so many questions of Demi but Rika really wanted to know. Rune and Wren were dealing with Siren, Rika wanted to deal with Mieus too. These were the last questions she needed to ask to make the puzzle complete.
But Demi was prepared to answer only one of the questions, not both, and briefly at that. She and Rika were friends but there was a limit to which that friendship could stretch. Those were private matters for herself and her master to deal with. The android girl got up off the bed and quietly walked to the entrance of the room. She turned back to observe Rika who looked sad. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'm sorry Rika, it's nothing personal."
"I understand. Really, I do." Rika offered in feeble consolation.
"You know, it really is my fault and I've taken full responsibility for it. For her. I love Mieus, I thought everything would work out fine, but from the very beginning there was something I missed, something Wren discovered that I never did. I still don't know what it was." Demi smiled a little, bravely. "Mieus is my daughter, and I'll always love her for that alone. Goodnight Rika. See you tomorrow."
The little android girl left a speechless Rika behind with a small wave. It was an unexpected revelation, but in an odd, twisted way it all made sense somehow.
Rika did not tell Chaz anything when he returned. For all intents and purposes that conversation had never taken place. She went to bed with Chaz resting beside her and pretended that they were home again in Aiedo, where everything was alright. It was only through this fantasy that Rika was able to drop off to sleep.
†††
It was easier than Siren had expected to get aboard Zelan undetected.
It was simply shameful, really. All he needed to do was get close enough to the station with his space shuttle and then send out an alarm interrupt program wirelessly to Zelan, killing off all the warning signals of an approaching ship. Zelan's security system was a joke, if was almost as if the floating castle in the sky had not anticipated an attack for hundreds of years. Anyway, the firewalls that protected Zelan's security system were so pathetic that Siren thought he might even be able to crack them wirelessly, then and there.
But he wanted to get inside Zelan before he did any serious damage. Poking a hole in the alarm and intruder notification system was enough for now. Siren flew his ship closer to the station with his arms folded and his eyes closed, steering and monitoring solely through the connections that he bore. He dwelled on thoughts of dark revenge, as he always did, punctuating the pulses of the security firewall breaker he was pushing deeply in his mind. He was chloroforming Zelan silently, as was the wont of the Silent Wren, and nobody on board had even noticed yet. If everything went well, flawlessly, nobody ever would.
If Siren was anything he was dangerously experienced. A thousands years of inactivity had left him practically itching to do as much damage as possible. He almost hoped that the personnel aboard the station would notice him, just so that it would make his mission all the more interesting. That did not permit or excuse any mistakes, however. All there could be was perfection, nothing else.
Another factor that made it so much easier to get inside the space station was its low personnel count. The red-haired android didn't know how many were up there but he assumed that it would be a lot, not just seven different people gathered from all sides of the Algo system. Wren, who should have been monitoring the security of Zelan was off somewhere else planning out the strategy for the next move on Azura in the morning. He hadn't anticipated or even conceived of the idea that Siren might be coming to them, instead of the other way around. This was another one of his mistakes that would cost him so badly later on.
Once the firewall was satisfactorily disabled Siren searched through all the different programs to find the switch that would open the space station up for docking. Several of Zelan's programs were accessible from his hacking distance but others required manual, physical manipulation from the computers on Zelan's bridge. Siren just followed back on the log of who had activated what programs for the last couple of days and noticed that only two androids, a wren-type and an unknown type to him called a demi had been accessing Zelan at all for a very long time. Of course the layan and the layan sympathizer must have docked at Zelan no more than a few hours ago, so Siren backtracked and found what he was looking for with relative ease.
The fact that the log was so repetitive with its users gave gravity to the idea that there weren't many people living on Zelan, yet that did not excuse them for being worthless layan scum. The lack of people, security and complications would just make Siren more difficult to detect. The ill-willed android took his time docking his space shuttle and wisely left it hidden behind the mammoth Landale, where it could not be seen. He had come prepared with his gun, his magic and his wits about him. It was time to begin.
The spaceship bay was completely empty. He could not detect any biological or electrical life signs anywhere. On the flip side of things nobody would ever be able to detect him. He'd stay out of the line of vision to any flesh-and-blood layans and his own electrical signal would not be discernible to androids either. He was the Silent Wren, after all. Siren quickly made his way down the ramp with his gun at the ready and exited the docking bay, making a quick note of how many spaceships were resting within. There was no telling if that information might come in handy later.
His destination was the main bridge and the control center of the station, yet Siren took an extremely roundabout way in reaching it. The greatest and most important piece of advice regarding infiltration, other than the obvious 'Don't be seen' was; 'Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted'. They were wise words. Once upon a time they had been his master Orakio's words. To know his enemy Siren did as he was bade.
The hallways of Zelan were adequately lit and Siren didn't like that at all. He stepped out into the corridor and glanced left and right tensely, looking for enemies. Taking his hand off his gun for a moment he reached up and touched the underside of his jaw and neck, where his pulse should have been, activating his most clever and crafty disguise. Siren's form shimmered for a bit before it nearly faded out altogether, cloaking him with a reflective silhouette. Thermoptical camouflage had been one of the palman government's greatest inventions before the entire planet had been destroyed.
Siren was nearly impossible to see now, especially in the drab metallic hallway. A person would have had to stare at him for a good long while before they caught the tiny tricks of the light that would give his location away. Anybody who laid eyes on him wouldn't even get a second to stare before Siren silenced them for eternity. The wren-type smiled wickedly, invisibly. He was glad that his thermoptics still worked. Now it was time to get to the bottom of this dreary little pit full of vapid heathens.
He stalked the hallways of Zelan like a watchful ghost, inspecting and calculating all that he saw, at the same time drawing up a very detailed map of the space station's structure and layout. It was important to understand where everything was in case his quarry beat a hasty retreat to the exit. Siren already had a pretty good idea on what he was going to do to them. It took about an hour of careful scouting for the invisible soldier to make a round of Zelan and then end up where he had started from.
Zelan had a main control area, an extensive storage area, a large scientific laboratory area and a cozy dormitory area. It really was too good to waste, but it was time to get on with it. Siren had even gone deeply into the dorms, had listened to the breathing and snores of the people inside and knew that it would be so easy to sneak in and throttle them all in their sleep. Easy but tooeasy, perhaps. As the android walked to the bridge he thought that the layans deserved to be perfectly conscious and terrified when they died.
Hours after Chaz and company had gone off with Demi to rest Wren was still at the bridge. He was sitting down in one of the metal chairs in front of Zelan's mainframe and looked to be lost in thought, or maybe he was programming wirelessly just as Siren had done so an hour earlier. The cloaked android entered the bridge without making a sound and Wren did not notice him. How could he? Siren was invisible, both physically and in almost any other kind of way. In truth, only Rune could have sensed him for the esper power that was in his body, but the Lutz was snoring and drooling into his pillow half a space station away.
Siren savored every little step he took toward the layan sympathizer, and the closer he got without Wren sensing him the greater his pleasure became. This was why Siren liked what he did, there was power in being a force of righteousness on the verge of committing cold, heartless, enthralling justice. Wren leaned forward to hit a button on the control panel just as Siren was practically standing behind him at the shoulder, within the reach of his arm. The wren-type had not noticed the security breach, had not noticed anything!
In the name of Orakio Sa Ruik, of all the Sa Ruik clan, and by the will of the Great Light Siren took revenge.
His thermoptics deactivated as Siren lashed out like a viper and grabbed Wren around the neck with both arms, his gun-arm pressing ferociously hard against Wren's throat while the other one wrapped around to cover Wren's mouth. It was this hand that crackled with green, jagged spark electricity. Siren was leaning over in a way so that he couldn't see Wren's face, but he didn't need to. Wren had begun to raise his hands to his throat when Siren said, venomously; "Move your hands at all and I will force-feed you this spark I have here. Place your hands by your sides and then do not move."
"Mmnff." Wren said after a hesitant second and then did as he was told. There was no guessing over who was standing behind him, he knew. Damn it! How had Siren gotten on board? How did he get a spaceship and why hadn't Zelan alerted him to his arrival? Wren wasn't afraid of what Siren could do to him but he wasvery surprised. The only fears he had were for his friends, and for Zelan itself.
Siren squeezed until the pressure became uncomfortable, then let up a little. "I was quite disappointed when you and your layan friend decided to leave. You did not give me a chance to say goodbye. I will say goodbye to you now, but first do you have anything to say to me?" The red-haired android moved his hand so that Wren was able to speak verbally again, grasping Wren's left audio sensor and then pulling until the other android had to tilt his head to avoid injury.
"You do not know what you are doing. Siren, this is now a world that you will not be able to understand." Wren said coldly, without emotion.
Had it been a plea for mercy Siren would have given it to him. He had decided on as much earlier considering that this wren wasn't a layan and was only a sympathizer. There always lay the possibility that the layans might have tricked him somehow. But Siren had given him a chance and Wren had ignored it. That was too bad, because he fancied that he would need servants in this brand new world soon enough. "Goodbye Forren." Siren said curtly and then electrocuted him, sparking him right to the side of the head.
For as big and as strong as Wren was, all it took was a single spark to bring him down. Moments later the caretaker of Zelan was slumped in his chair and completely unconscious, that was, until his self-repair and reboot functions would kick in to revive him. Siren was not perturbed, he smiled as he grabbed Wren by the shoulder and roughly shoved him onto the floor, enjoying listening to the heavy crash. He had about six to ten minutes before he'd have to deal with Wren again, but by that time he'd be long gone from the room.
The android from Azura had only had one target in mind when he came to Zelan. After taking Wren's seat he found that target within moments.
To create a painful death for all who breathed, Siren made a few gentle keystrokes on Zelan's control panel and ordered an emergency shut down of the life support system, locking it afterwards with a secure password. Death for layans, death for allof them! In half an hour Zelan would become totally uninhabitable, like the surface of his beautiful blue moon.
As he turned to exit the bridge, leaving Wren crumpled on the floor, Siren laughed.