Author: at the time of writing this, still haven't seen much reaction on Emerald Remorse, though what I have seen appears highly positive, so I guess I chalk down another success for me. Now to get back into the fully planned storyline, Crimson Justice is the start of a string of chapters that is just going to be plain fucking awesome (Crimson Justice, Black Ghosts and Silver Hell), all of which happen more or less within a 36 hour period, as we move more into the middle part of the story and beginning setting up for the next major confrontation, which will occur in North America. All the major players have been established, everyone is scrambling to recover from the twinned events of City of Tears and Indigo Release, and its time for a few bit players to make their presence felt, helping speed along more major story plot events to come. Sometimes I wish I could just slap down the whole interwoven tapestry of plotlines and events for you guys, it is a beautiful thing that you unfortunately must see only one strand at a time until the end. But anyway, let us tune in to the events of Crimson Justice. May Retribution claim the guilty.
xxxx
New Eden, Northern Europe, Former England, 250km northwest of ruins of Neo-London, RI Rehabiltation Center "Camp 1", Jan 5th, 5:40 am
"Judge, this is Jury. Witness reports situation normal, all jurors now moving into verdict positions." The comm crackled lightly in the hastily but cunningly constructed forward command center bunker, about three kilometers into the misty jungles that now covered this formerly temperate nation, away from the large cleared area that surrounded the mission target, the "rehabilitation center", aka Concentration Camp, so creatively called Camp 1. The bunker, scraped out of the ground the night before with the aid of Mobile Suits, was covered in camouflage netting, as well as a hefty amount of dirt, wet plants and special tarps that would reduce or cancel thermal signatures even to most modern sensors. The interior wasn't much more than a dirt cave, with a few trestle tables set up next to a few folding chairs to hold the communication and tactical plotting equipment, lit by portable electric lanterns, but then again, this was a highly temporary post. Assuming all went well, it would soon be just another random hole in the ground.
"Understood, Jury. Order Witness to fall back into supporting positions, pending a more complete report on the status of the defense. We don't want a mistrial because of missed evidence." Retributors Commander Tamara Logan replied, rolling her eyes at the relatively corny code talk. If anyone intercepted their transmissions, it wouldn't take much effort to realize that something was going on that shouldn't be, the code wouldn't change that. What it did do was disguise which units were which, so that even if they were being listened to, they could still preserve some details from the enemy. Though again, this wasn't exactly a very advanced code either. The opcenter, mostly manned by her and a few guards and medical personnel at the moment, was Judge, Witness was the Retributors scouting force with eyes on the target, Jury was the front line commander, with 6 Jurors under his command, each Juror unit consisting of a mix of armored transport vehicles and infantry. Prosecutor was Ashino in the Retribution, and Bailiff was the supporting Punisher squadron, hanging back near the opcenter for the order to engage.
Right now, Witness was still gathering up to date intel on the target, the RI facility, while the Jurors began working into a loose encirclement of the compound, ready to capitalize on the confusion caused by the assault of Prosecutor and Bailiff. In a strictly military sense, the Retributor's forces were too small to have any hope of actually capturing a military facility of this size, they had barely a hundred infantry and eleven armored vehicles, plus 3 Punishers and the Retribution, but Tamara was used to being outnumbered in battles, even raid-assaults, and besides, this wasn't really strictly a military facility. For that matter, there was no discounting the psychological advantage of having a famous Gundam on your team, Ashino's reputation was worth an easy extra few hundred soldiers just by itself. All the same, she wished they had been able to take more of the Justicar's complement down to the surface with them, but there had been simply no way to manage it. The forged logistics documents they had gotten only allowed for a certain amount of tons of "supplies" and "attendant personnel" to be dropped at any one time, and things were dicey enough just smuggling the forces they had!
Tamara had urged waiting a few extra days for the next available drop window, so that the Justicar could send down some more APCs and another Punisher or two, but Ash wouldn't hear of it. It was extremely rare to see him so impatient, especially given the extended and risky nature of this mission, usually he was the very model of calm methodicalness. Something about these Concentration Camps though really seemed to have hit a nerve with him somewhere, and it had really been all Tamara could do to get him to wait as long as he had. Ash was fully prepared to assault Camp 1 solo, with just the Retribution, and while Tamara had little doubt that her lover could probably leave the base in smoking ruins without suffering too much damage himself, that wasn't the point here. This was a raid for information, a humanitarian rescue, and then, lastly, an attack on the USN and RI military forces.
"Transmitting updated base outline diagnostic." Witness reported suddenly, as Tamara's tactical overlay plot began to fuzz and resolve into slightly changed patterns, reflecting the new data. Camp 1 was laid out in a large hexagonal shape, each of the six sides about a half kiliometer long. The camp was bordered by a perimeter wall of reinforced concrete about five meters tall and two meters thick, topped with rolls of barbed and razor wire, some electrified, some merely dangerously sharp. Rows of computer operated spotlights stood atop the wall, along with motion sensors to detect any attempts to cross from either direction. Trees and ground cover were cleared away from the outer side of the walls in a hundred meter wide firebreak, a flat, open stretch of ground that left attackers or escapees without cover on their approach to the wall. Several layers of chain link fence, also topped with barbed and razor wire, prevented easy access to the main wall from within the camp itself, between two of these wire fences, a deep ditch filled with proximity and vibrationally detonated mines was placed.
"Defense" towers were spaced every hundred meters around the circumference of the main walls, basically small bunkers on steel struts contained a variety of heavy anti-personnel weapons and a medium caliber beam cannon on the roof for anti-vehicle and MS combat. At each junction point where the wall angled in a new direction, a reinforced bunker was emplaced, filled with missile launchers and hyper-impulse weaponry designed to fend off determined assaults, these hardpoints were armored like battleship turrets. RI propoganda said these towers were meant to fend off attacks from wild animals and Eddie terrorists trying to stop the peaceful rehabilitation of the "refugees" inside the camp, but Tamara noted that the guns of the watchtowers spent more time sweeping the interior of the "safe haven" than they did facing outwards towards the "threats" in the forest. That could come in handy, those towers would need a second or two to reorient to fire against external threats.
The outer walls and chain link fences were breached into only two spots, on opposite sides of the camp, each gate protected by a pair of the smaller watchtowers, along with ground level bunker emplacements on both sides of the wall, featuring more anti-infantry and light anti-vehicle weapons. One gate opened onto the road leading south, eventually meandering around to dead end at the small but extremely heavily protected logistics and expansion base about four hundred kilometers to the south, the primary USN operated facility on the island. The other gate had a road leading north, up towards old Scotland, where the second Rehabilitation Center, Camp 2, was located. Inside the compound, there were clusters of multistory concrete structures presented as "refugee lodging", but the bars on the windows that did not face towards the front facade was indicitave that most of the buildings more more like prisons. It was impossible to tell which of them were full of Edenites and which belonged to the guards and base staff, or whether the populations were intermixed. They'd have to kick each anthive open before they could find out if it was full of workers or warriors.
The grounds of the facility were mostly given over to agricultural pursuits, which made for nice photography of young Eddenites laboring in the fields to "provide food for refugees and societal reintegrators alike" as one RI pamphlet proudly declared, though Tamara strongly doubted that either the Eddies or the Guards ate anything coming out of those fields. Not more than once anyway. She was far from fully expert on New Eden's flora, but she'd read enough info to be familiar with the most common forms of vegetation they were likely to encounter, and as far as anyone knew, not even most Eddie herbivores would eat Bloodweed or Partisan Ferns, it was more the plants that ate the animals! However, the pulped leaves of Partisan Ferns, and the sap of Bloodweed contained powerful chemicals that could be fused with synthetic elements to create extremely potent recreational and medicinal drugs, and those were just two species of over a dozen plant fields she saw being cultivated. By children. Which made her own heart beat angrily in her chest, even if they were Eddie children and thus somewhat "used" to the risks, forcing them to pick the plants by hand, with only rudimentary tools, was nothing less than a drawn out execution!
"Evidence report." Witness finally said, having finished a preliminary count of enemy forces guarding the facility grounds, the final piece in the puzzle before Tamara could give the go code. "Confirm upwards of four hundred switchblades, around thirty handguns, five rifles and eight SMGs. No Bazooka's seen, but presence suspected. No sign of Drugs or Pimps. Witness now pulling back to support positions."
"Understood Witness, Judge out." Tamara replied, mentally translating the code into figures. More than four hundred armed guards, thirtyish lightly armed vehicles like jeeps, ATVs and APC's, five self propelled artillery tracks and eight medium to heavy class armored fighting vehicles. Not good odds for the Jury to face, though the one ray of light was that there was no sign of Mobile Suit forces in the area, especially not Extendeds or Solar Knights, though it was likely the RI had some of their Striker units and maybe a RIP company nearby... someone had to keep the roads and firebreaks clear, and the job was much too big to be done just by humans or standard construction vehicles. This mission was still more than possible, especially with Ashino here personally. Tamara steeled herself, and then clicked the "transmit to all" button.
"Attention the Courtroom, this is the Judge. The Prosecution may present its arguements now. I repeat, the Prosecution has the floor. I urge the Jury to pay close attention to the Evidence presented." Tamara announced, indicating that the mission was starting, more or less as they'd previously discussed. She didn't have to wait long, the Retribution screamed by overhead less than ten seconds later, not even making a pretense at stealth as Ashino opened up from medium range on the surprised base with his EMC's and VTP missile pods, deciding against the more powerful but much more likely to overpenetrate FRALAs or gatling hyper-impulse cannons. Over half of the defensive positions on the side of the camp facing Ashino's approach never even really knew what hit them, much less managed to fire back at the shimmering, energy scale encrusted Gundam. By putting high temperature reactive dyes into the Retribution's paint, the Retributors had managed to influence the color of the normally aqua-green Citadel Scales into a more reddish, maroon-cherry color a few shades darker than Ashino's hair color, which had resulted in the Retribution's new nickname, the "Crimson Justice".
VTP missiles designed to take down heavy Mobile Suits with a single hit just plain falt out obliterated the light watchtower bunkers, also knocking out ten meter wide sections of outer wall and inner fences as wreckage exploded outward like firecracker embers, often setting off the vibrationally armed mines in the inner security trench, causing yet more widespread destruction and blowing large holes right through the entire defensive perimeter of Camp 1. It was towards these holes that the Jury units were racing towards at all speed, as the Punishers caught up to their leader and added their own supporting fire against the remaining watchtowers and the major defense hardpoints. Landing inside the base itself, Ashino turned and changed out his weapon systems, selecting the "Fragarach" gatling hymper impulse cannons, as he proceeded to vindictively annihilate the hardpoint bunkers one at a time. Alarm klaxons blared, lights flashed and dimmed, and RI guard forces scrambled around like chickens with their heads cut off in the pre dawn gloom, completely unprepared for a major attack, much less from the Retributors, who everyone thought were still out by the Asteroid Belt!
Emergency calls for help went out, to the USN base to the south and even out towards Heaven's Base itself, far to the north and west, the Theatre HQ for the European quadrent of the war, but the technicians at the Judge site had their electronic warfare packages already lined up and ready to go, and not a peep was getting out of Camp 1 until they completely changed their comm protocols, which could take more than an hour. Hopefully, an hour the RI forces would not have. Certainly, they seemed to be loosing forces at a prodigious rate, even before the first of the Jury units had reached the fiery holes blown in the base perimeter, half the RI vehicles, including all eight Viking MBTs, were little more than molten or blasted wrecks, courtesy of the Punishers and Retribution, many of the vehicles being empty and uncrewed at the time of their destruction. Discipline had grown lax and slovenly at Camp 1, with nothing but a bunch of surprisingly meek Eddie civilians to guard, and the RI was getting hammered for it right now.
Ashino noticed that many of the guard forces, who were almost entirely male, who were spilling out of some of the blockhouses were still in the process of buckling on their pants and uniform jackets, and some had even heeded the call to battle in their birthday suits! A part of him might have found that amusing, at the same time as he noted that none of the quick responding guards was wearing Survivor armor or even environmental suits, which meant the facility must have a fairly large supply of Red EDEN vaccine on hand, or else regardless of the outcome of this battle, three quarters of the guard force was going to end up dead or transformed into the very people they were oppressing! And then Ashino noticed that some of the less clothed guards were splashed with a dark liquid that his sensors instantly recognized as human blood, and since none of the guards were wounded, yet, Ashino was forced to conclude they must have gotten someone ELSE's blood on them. And that lent a whole new perspective on why so many of the guards were partially clothed and unprepared for a rapid response, while being uniformly male as well.
As the dark realization of just what those guards had likely been doing in the early morning hours to leave themselves in such a state of confusion and undress, and to whom they had been doing it crossed Ashino's mind, he felt something snap inside him. It was a faintly familiar feeling, though it had been a long time since he'd felt it so acutely... not since Jean had been crippled by the USN forces in the early stages of the Eden Disaster! The first time had been back during the days when he was still a tame BCPU of the Earth Alliance, when the Doc was still alive, at JIHAD actually, when he'd intervened in the interrogation of the Clyne Faction girls that had been captured by Cervantes. The JIHAD guards had been about to rape the girls... Lacus Clyne, Cagalli Zala-Attha, Miriallia Haww and the Belaruse sisters... while they were helplessly bound to chairs, at the behest of one of JIHAD's premier interrogators/disciplinarians, "Nervous" Angie. Ashino would gladly kill a Coordinator or Coordinator sympathizer at that time in his life, but inflicting sexual abuse was wrong no matter who you were dealing with! So he had put a stop to it, which resulted in Angie disabled and the guards all dead. Perhaps that had been the first step on his road to regaining humanity.
Ashino was a supersoldier, a near peerless killer on the battlefield, who could and had done many despicable things throughout his life, often to people who did not deserve them, and sometimes to those who really did. But the concept of one person forcibly taking sexual pleasure from another, especially someone helpless to resist, for the purpose of control or causing pain, was just about the most unutterably evil act a human could do, in his eyes. Though he had never been personally molested in a sexual manner, being forced into becoming a BCPU was in many was a much worse violation of the sanctity of one's body and privacy, and his tolerance for those who would commit this heinous sin was below zero. He was tempted to turn the Retribution's CIWS systems, or even its main weapons, on the vile men right now, but they were still too close to the buildings to risk the chance of stray shots from his weapons. They were here to rescue and expose, not destroy. That didn't stop him from grinning in a positively devilish manner when his sensors picked up incoming heat signatures matching those of RI Striker Mobile Suits, a full dozen of them.
Leaving the subdual of the remaining confused and disorganized base forces to the Jury units and the Punishers, Asino moved the Retribution to intercept the Strikers, many of whom slowed or faltered when their own sensors identified the foe they faced. They were all clustered up, he could have wiped the lot of them out with a few seconds long burst from his Fragarachs, but that wouldn't satisfy the outrage blazing inside him, and so, contrary to his usual battle tactics, Ashino decided to take things up close and personal, stowing his armature mounte dranged weapons on his rear torso mounts as he drew the large mono-molecular halberd from its position across his shoulderblades, tested the action of his heated mono-claws in each forearm, and prepped the CUSA-D sonic weapons in each palm. The Strikers belatedly realized their vulnerability, and began splitting up to surround him, making play with beam rifles, anti-armor shotcannons, and recoiless bazookas. It was a pathetic display of military firepower to Ashino's eyes, uncoordinated and ill aimed, the RI pilots plainly much more used to using their power to intimidate civilians or blow up targets that could neither move nor fire back.
Well, he was neither afraid of them nor stationary and especially not helpless, the Retribution striking the Striker formation like a crimson bowling ball hurled into a cluster of pins, the Retribution itself about half again bigger than the Strikers, Ashino lashing out with halbered and legs, completely disrupting the Striker's attempts to attack him from all sides, and sending two machines plummeting to the ground, spewing flames and sparks from massive clefts in their torsos. Stabbing forward with the halberd again, Ashino left the head embedded into the cockpit of a third Striker, before lashing out to either side with his glowing orange-pink heat claws, shearing off limbs and heads from Strikers trying to swing their chainsaw bladed swords or axes at him. This was hardly even exercise, the RI pilots were scared almost witless, and their attacks lacked even the slightest semblance of cohesion or cooperation... they couldn't seem to decide if they were going to try and swarm him, or flee from him, and while they hesitated, he massacred them.
Less than a minute later, the twelfth Striker had been blasted into its component atoms by multisecond long exposure to the invisible cones of sonic energy produced by his gauntlets, and Ashino found himself alone in the sky once more, the ground below illuminated with brushfires ignited by the destroyed Mobile Suits, the sky slowly lightening from darkness to shades of grey as the sun began to rise to begin the new day. Ashino gritted his teeth, his outrage still far from satisfied, forcing himself to bottle up the uncommon excess of emotion before it became a hinderance to his actions and mental state. He turned the Retribution back towards Camp 1. There would be much to judge here. Much for the suvivors to answer for. Retribution would claim the guilty. He would make personally sure of that!
xxxx
Back at Camp 1, 10 minutes later
Tamara had known from the get go that resistance would be relatively light, but she'd never expected the RI guards to be quite this... pathetic! Even for those who could at best be called amatuer soldiers, it was a poor showing, the entire battle had perhaps taken eight minutes from start to fully subdued finish. She did allow herself some credit for the stunning victory though, pathetic though the defenders were, she had assailed them with a potent combination of threats both physical and psychological, an early morning attack, against a normally peaceful, relaxed posting, the attack coming from an unexpected enemy with a prior well established reputation, with overwhelming force. Maybe not one for the history books, but nothing to kick herself over either. Ash had been in rare form as well, though a mere 12 mass production MS were not exactly a major challenge for him even under the worst of circumstances.
Most of the guards, upon stumbling from their residence halls to discover their heavy vehicles and defensive emplacements already blasted to ruin, had been quick to surrender when confronted by the members of the Jurors, with Punisher's backing them up, and almost three hundred fifty RI soldiers had been rounded up, disarmed and were being held in a makeshift corral created by one of the Punishers uprooting a section of interior chain link fence and replanting it in a rough circle. The only way the soldiers could get out is if they either climbed over the relocated fencing, which would be real hard with the razor wire and a score of armed guards, or wait for the Mobile Suits to lift the barrier once more. The RI troops did not look happy, but neither did them seem to be truly the sort of fanatics that would continue to resist in this kind of situation. Having once been something of a fanatic herself, Tamara judged these RI goons as little more than cheap thugs, they were in the organization for the power, not because they really gave a shit about its goals.
People like them were unfortunately a dime a dozen in the crowded and work poor environments of the Second Earth colonies, which meant the Reclaimer Initiative rarely had trouble filling its ranks. Tamara was happy to turn her nose up at them, but even the most ragged of rats could bite hard when desperate, so when she sent in other members of the Jurors to sweep the buildings in search of hideouts, she made sure they went in teams of at least five and stayed in constant radio contact. other teams were deployed at the gates and the main and auxiliary comm stations to make sure those vital locations stayed locked down. Tamara was chewing her lip a little bit, because as yet no one had seen the facility commander, a man by the name of Arnold Zala. Tamara smiled a very cold smile... she was very much looking forward to meeting that particular scumbag. There was no personal past history between them, but he was exactly the kind of Coordinator that really got her steamy. In a bad way. Shaking off memories of the past, and those smug genetic-supremist bastards that had done for her all those years ago, Tamara turned to greet Ash as he dismounted from the Retribution.
All of the Retributors were wearing Survivor pattern armor, except for Ash who had his flight suit, and everyone had ingested Red EDEN vaccine just before deploying for the mission, in case of a suit breach during combat. They were replenishing their stocks of the highly regulated nano-medicine from Camp 1's own stores, as well as systematically stripping the base of anything they might later find useful. it offended the pride of some to resort to scavenging from their enemies, but the Retributors weren't so powerful and well equipped that they could afford to let good weapons and supplies just rot either. She had dispatched a small crew to do a once over on the ruined Strikers, but she didn't think they'd be salvaging much technology from them, they were fairly basic. Witness squad had access the facilities data files and was downloading the base survelliance records and any other items of interest, and it was just about time for things to get messy.
Tamara did her best to steel herself, exchanging knowing glances with Ash, as they headed towards the nearest concrete blockhouse that had been preliminarily swept clear by the Jurors. She had seen the state of undress of some of the RI troops had been very telling to her of what many of them had been doing when the raid started, and given the glaring lack of female RI troops, she had a fairly good idea who they were doing it with. Or rather to. She was glad for the near casual brush of Ash's hand against her fingertips, as Ash beckoned for a Juror team armed with cameras and recording devices to follow them as they stepped into the buildings. The buildings were fairly clean, at least the hallways and common spaces were, since they were frequently used by the RI and USN forces. The same could not be said of the locked "chambers", more like cells, where the Edenite "refugees" were kept.
The first one Ashino tried was locked, but her lover wasn't of a mind to be stopped, he simply drew back his fot and kicked out hard, striking just above the locking mechanism, and with the tremendous crunch of metal on concrete, the door swung open, the locking bar tearing out through the back of the wall. The room was dank and dark, and Tamara was glad for her self contained armor, because it looked like it smelled awful, judging by the overflowing grate in the corner that looked to be the only concession towards waste facilities. It was also crowded with emaciated figures lying, reclining and sitting along the walls and floor, their skin caked with dirt and dried blood, their chests and limbs thin with near starvation, but their eyes were not dull, save for those who were injured, and the light from the hallway reflected off a glittering array of gold and silver coins that stared warily at the unexpected intruders. Tamara swallowed hard... the way the light reflected from their pupils made her think for a moment that she'd walked into a cave full of angry predators.
"What do you want, USN?" One of the Edenites asked accusingly, slowly clambering to his feet, using the wall to support himself. He pronounced it "Oosen". He looked to have once been a man in his prime, probably early thirties, tall and well built, though his muscles had shriveled with privation. A ragged pair of jean shorts were his only clothing, and his body was marked with puncture wounds and slashes that showed he worked extensively in the fields of Bloodweed and Partisan Fern outside. He was missing an eye, a jagged scar covering the socket, but his other eye burned gold, surrounded by a hint of green, his hair lank and matted and some shade between brown and black, except one spot that had been shaved away so a small device could be surgically bonded to the side of his skull, a brainwave monitor that would shock him unconscious if he tried utilizing the psychic parts of his brain. "It's still before revielle. Or have you come to extend our workday "privileges" again? I don't care how much money we get for "overtime", since we can't spend it and never see it, we need sleep and more food, not pay!"
"There will be no more work." Ashino replied, his voice hoarse and tight, his hand bunching into a fist so hard his glove creaked. Several of the Eddies flinched at the noise, and Ashino instantly relaxed his hand, shame briefly crossing his face. No doubt they thought he intended them harm. Plainly many of them had suffered beatings before.
"Oh, so we've finally qualified to pass on to the "paradise" of Camp 2, have we?" The one eyed Edenite spat in reply. Clearly he was some sort of leader or spokesperson, or maybe just one who no longer gave a fuck either way. "That's funny, we can still walk... I've never seen anyone with a shred of physical capability still in them given the "privilege" of transfer to Camp 2. Is Warden Hazy on another one of his "creative epiphany trips"?" The emaciated Eddie raised one bunched fist menacingly, though really, it was more sad than scary, even with the look in his eye. "I'm not going anywhere until you show me my wife and children again, safe and sound!"
"We are not the USN." Tamara interrupted, seeing that Ash was struggling to contain his outrage again. The blazing golden eye shifted to her, and Tamara could not help but swallow a tad nervously, for all that the man was no physical threat. He had been abused, horribly and repeatedly, and his hatred for his tormenters was a nearly physical thing, like a laser beam shooting out of his eye.
One eye cracked a mirthless grin. "You're not an Edenite. That makes you Oosen."
"We are USN renegades." Ashino answered. "They call us the Retributors. My name is Markov Ashino, I command the Retributors. We are here to set you free."
"So THAT's what that ruckus was all about." One eye maintained his mirthless smirk. "But if you're not an Edenite, you are Oosen, and we hate the Oosens. Oosen renegades? Don't make me laugh. Just beat the crap out of us and stop this pageantry. I won't be fooled by your propoganda tricks again, Oosen." One eye nodded over Ashino's shoulder, at the Jurors with the cameras and recorders. "Never again will I let you coerce me into endorsing what you do to us here!"
"You don't have to believe me." Ashino replied, his voice deadly calm. "Were I in your position, as I have been in the past, I wouldn't trust me either. But we're leaving the door open, and we have people outside preparing food, clothing and medical supplies. They may be able to do something about those control devices on your heads too. But whatever choice you make, you should make it quickly. The Retributors will be leaving within two hours. We don't want to be here when the "Oosen" comes knocking, wondering who took out their base. I'd prefer it if you and your people weren't here either, Mr...?"
"Van." One eye replied coldly. "How do I know there's not just an execution squad waiting out there for us? I've seen what the Oosen do when the Warden gets high and drunk."
"Then stay here, in your cell, and rot in apathy." Tamara replied, following Ash's lead of controlled neutrality. "What have you got to lose? You don't look far from death anyway."
"Typical Oosen thinking... you still don't understand anything about us..." Van shook his head in a mixture of despair, hatred and pity. Before he could go on though, another man stepped forward, even more emaciated and wasted than Van, though he still had both eyes. A scraggly beard of grey shot through with green drooped in tangled knots from his chin, and most of his teeth looked recently lost or broken from a powerful series of blows to the face. His eyes burned silver, surrounded by dark slivers of brown, his scalp mostly balding stubble save for the black box of the brainwave monitor.
"I am Herbert." The older man announced thickly, his words slurred by his still slightly dislocated and damaged jaw. "What did you say your name was again, you in the flight suit?"
"I am Markov Ashino, the Retributor." Ashino replied, neither proudly nor humbly, just stating a fact.
"The Lady spoke your name once, before she was taken from us by the Warden." Herbert said, his eyes misting slightly as he reverentially spoke that title. "She seemed... almost fond in her recollection." Herbert turned to Van, who still regarded the Retributors with extreme suspicion. "I believe they are here to help us, Van. The Lady would not have a friend who would do us harm."
"The Lady?" Ashino asked, an odd twisting in his gut at the word.
"Yes." Herbert turned back to him, dropping his efforts to convince the recalitrent Van. "She came to us a little less than a month ago, a rarity. The number of our people who have walked intact from the belly of a FEAR ship onto new Eden's surface can probably be counted on a single hand. At first she was left to mingle with us freely, and she touched us all with her selfless dedication towards giving us what hope and help she could. She protected the weak from the guards, denied herself food to feed the children, and worked twice as hard in the fields as any man so that others might work less hard and still meet the daily quota without fear of punishments. And so lovely too, she is truly like an angel straight from heaven. That is what the children have taken to calling her... the Lady Angel. She has been the only bright spot of this entire hopeless tragedy... and now I fear the worst. She disappeared one night, by the Warden's personal command it is said, and no one has seen her for more than a week..." Herbert was about to continued on when he was interrupted by a extremely disturbed Ashino, who grabbed the old man's frayed collar and all but yanked the Edenite face to face with him.
"What did you just say?" Ashino hissed, his excitement and anger mixed in a way that Tamara had not seen before. he almost seemed frantic about something. "Did this "Lady Angel" have silver and light grey eyes, red hair, pale skin and stand about five and half feet tall?"
"That's... her almost exactly." Herbert replied, somewhat uncertainly, before his eyes widened, tears of joy glistening in the corners. "You DO know her! My friends, I think our salvation may truly be at hand, by the grace of the Lady!" Herbert commented excitedly to the other Edenites, many of whom were growing quite agitated as well, hope painfully rekindled for the first time in months, or even years for some of them! "Yggdrasil has ignored our prayers, even the Caller has turned away from us, but the Lady arrived from the heavens and has brought our salvation with her, in the persons of these Retributors! Praise be to the Lady Angel! Praise be to..."
"Meyrin Hawke." Ashino whispered, his face going bloodless with sudden worry. He would hestitate to actually call Meyrin his friend, but there was no denying or forgetting that during the late stages of the Eden Disaster, during a serious personal crisis of his own, Meyrin had been there for him and helped him achieved the peace of mind and soul that had allowed him to successfully move on with his life, probably directly saving his life through her intervention, even if her thoughts had been on saving her lover's life instead. Noah and Ashino had been at each other's throats from day one, it was only Meyrin that had been able to interceed and keep their fued from turning bloody at the least opportune moments. Meyrin Hawke, the "Lady Angel" of the Brotherhood, had once saved Ashino's sanity and his future through her simple acts of kindness and understanding, and he was never one to forget a debt like that!
"You mean Borander's girlfriend?" Tamara gasped, surprised even though she knew she really oughtent to be. She knew that Ash had served the Brotherhood, unwillingly, as an Apostle for some time during the Eden Disaster, in fact that was where he'd gotten his Gundam from, but he'd never mentioned being on friendly terms with the infamous Solar Knight traitoress, who had turned her back on her duty and even her own family to stand by the side of the worst criminal in the history of humanity! Save maybe Gilbert Durandel that is, but that was a hotly debated point, even among the Durandel hating Retributors. Tamara was not happy with the way Ashino seemed so galvinized by Meyrin being potentially nearby and in trouble, she recognized most of it as mostly irrational female jealousy, but there was a solid kernel of real concern too. Meyrin had already reminded Ash of a more turbulent, painful time in his life, and Tamara feared for her friend, lover and commander and his ability to remain rational and focused in the face of such awakened memories.
"Where is she?" Ashino demanded of Herbet, forcing himself not to shake the weakened older man like a ragdoll in his haste to get information. "Where was she taken?"
"Rumor states that Warden Zala had her taken to his personal chambers." Van said spitefully. "That was the last anyone has heard from her. I hear the Warden was most distraught to learn of her presence, there seems to be some sort of personal feud or history between them. We haven't seen much of him in the week since." Van closed his eyes, his voice catching as his tough exterior cracked for a moment. "I have heard awful things about what is done to those women and girls the Warden claims for his own personal use. He hates us just as much as we hate him, and he enjoys breaking our wives... our sisters... our daughters... our mother... into mindless servitude. I don't think you Oosen can appreciate what it takes to break the will of an Edenite, who can always feel the support of their family and intimates deep within us, knowing we are never really alone... but that man... Zala... he has broken dozens of our women with his perversity and drugs! He forces them to spread their legs for his minions and the Oosen brass, whoring them out while we slave in the fields to line his pockets, all under the premise of "re-integrating" us into Oosen society! If this is your society, I am glad to be an Edenite... our life is hard, but we are at least not slaves!"
"Show me where these chambers are!" Ashino snapped, his hands flexing in agitation.
"You intend to save the Lady Angel?" Herbert asked, his body trembling with something strongly akin to religious fervor. "You are a blessing upon us, Markov of the Retributors!"
"Save her... or avenge her... whatever becomes necessary!" Ashino growled, testing the play of his combat machete in its holster across his back. Herbert drew back momentarily at those words, his face shocked, before slowly mellowing into comprehension.
"Ah, you are still somewhat Oosen at heart, renegades or not." Herbert heaved a heavy sigh. "Please, no more killing. It is not our way."
"Not your WAY?" Tamara was incredulous. She pointed at Herbert's abused and wasted body. "They've done this to you, done what they have to your women and children, and just because they can and no other reason, and you still would plead for their lives?" Tamara shook her head in disbelief. "I don't even know what to say to that. Have you lost your mind? These men have each committed at least three capital crimes apiece, and the Warden is certainly guilty of crimes against humanity! Lethal injections and the gallows all around! How can you possibly forgive them what they've done?"
"Oosen customs do not matter to us on New Eden, just as Edenite customs do not seem to matter to the Oosen in space." Herbert shrugged helplessly. "By Oosen standards, I guess I must be mad, but here on New Eden, we do not execute our criminals. We do not even have criminals like this, they are an Oosen problem only. The emotional trauma of executing a person could cripple his entire family, even kill them... which is why Van, and the rest of us, would not normally risk our deaths, no matter how much we desire them... our deaths could cause the demise of our wives and children, and vice versa. We must all survive for each other's sakes. Sadly, the Oosen do not fully understand this, though they understand it well enough to know how to keep us in line. But as the Lady Angel says, we are not Oosen. We are Edenites. It is up to us to prove our superiority not merely by believing we are better than the Oosen, but by acting it as well. And Edenites do not kill unless they have no other choice. Not even when we have suffered like we have. Suffering does not equal death, forgiveness or lack of it is not important. We just want to be left alone."
"That's impossible, Bert, and you know it." Van said bitterly. "They have taken us from our homes once, they will not hesitate to do it again. They want our entire world... the world they abandoned... returned to them on a silver platter, and we are just the ants that need to be cleaned off that platter to them. I don't approve of the actions of Garden City any more than you do, or than anyone here does. But I can understand their desire to fight rather than allow themselves to suffer as we have. I just wish I was strong enough to take up arms against our oppressors as well."
"The Lady Angel says that it takes far more strength to put down a gun than to pick one up, even if those facing you already have guns in their hands." Herbert replied resolutely. He turned to Ashino. "Come, I will take you to the Warden's bunker, and pray to that bastard uncaring Tree that we are not too late."
"Pray for Zala's sake then." Ashino replied with an ugly look on his face. He calmed himself with effort and turned to Tam, who was regarding him with concern heavy in her eyes. "I need to do this for personal reasons, Tam, so I'm going to have to delegate leadership of the operation to you. I am too emotionally involved to be trusted to be rational."
"Of course, sir." Tamara replied, feeling that Ash needed her professional side at the moment, though she was surely going to see what she could do with her lover side when they got back to safety aboard the Justicar. Ash was not delicate like some men, but he could still use a good emotional shoring up after a shock like this one. "I will organize the release of the remaining prisoners, while you rescue the Edenite leader and perhaps capture the Warden." Tamara bent her head down to touch faceplates with Ash, so that they could speak privately by helmet conduction. "Just be careful, Ash. And you owe me an explanation for all this later. I love you."
"I will be careful. And I will explain things. I love you too, Tam. Thank you." Ashino replied, pulling his head away and gesturing for Herbert to lead the way in a quick shuffle, leaving Van and Tamara to work out the logistics of freeing almost a thousand captive Edenites from their dungeons and barracks. Time was ticking, after all.
xxxx
Warden's Residence Bunker, several minutes later
Gaining access to what should have been one of the most secure locations on the entire base was proving to be suspiciously easy, Ashino thought, as he followed Herbert's somewhat slump-shouldered form down several flights of stairs under the central barracks-blockhouse. There were security cameras galore, but if anyone was manning the security stations inside the bunker, they sure didn't seem to care that a freed Edenite and an unknown, heavily armed man were making their way towards the base commander's residence. He mentioned his unease to Herbert, who kept eyeing him strangely from time to time, no doubt because the Edenite couldn't feel any thoughts or emotions radiating from Ashino, despite having his control device removed by Retributor combat surgeons after stepping outside the first blockhouse. The devices were glued to the skulls of the Edenites, but it was nothing a careful minute with a scapel and a flask of spray on synth-flesh couldn't cure, especially with a low level EMP emitter used to fry the device first, so it wouldn't shock Herbert unconscious while it was removed.
Ashino could have explained his strange immunity to psychic powers if he'd cared to, but since he didn't really understand it himself, and they were pressed for time, he decided to just let the man wonder. "Probably all drunk or stoned." Was Herbert's answer for why the security forces, if there were any, weren't responding, which had drawn a double take from Ashino, who could hardly conceive of soldiers becoming inebriated on duty, much less so inebriated as to be unable to even sit in front of a security display and watch camera's effectively! Truly, the rot went deep in this RI facility. This would be pure gold on the counter-propoganda front, assuming they could find a way to broadcast it without getting shut out of the networks by Namara. "Hard partier, the Warden is." Herbert continued explaining. "A real pervert, like I said earlier. Haven't hardly ever seen him sober in public, and I imagine he's a lot worse in private. Man's got a lot of sadness bundled up inside, if he'd spend half as much effort confronting it as he does in running away, he'd probably be an all right guy. For an Oosen."
"How the hell did such a freak ever get appointed commander of an important facility like this?" Ashino wondered, truly stumped. Durandel's government was many things, wicked and corrupt foremost among them, but incompetency was not a problem the USN often displayed, at least not incompetency on this scale! His base was under attack and the Warden was drunk or stoned or both in his quarters, along with his whole security detail, and didn't even seem aware that his base was now in enemy hands! "Why do his troops even respect him at all?"
"Respect? I'm not sure that's the right word. Appreciate perhaps." Herbert spat disgustedly. "Young punks, mostly, and he let's em do whatever the fuck they want to us, short of killing or extensive torture, provides free booze, drugs and whores who can't say no. Those who don't indulge in drugs or alcohol get buzzed off the power they wield, and by selling guilty delights to the Oosen brass at cut rate prices, the Warden not only makes a tidy profit, but makes sure nobody pays attention to his operations. When we get worn out, we get sent off to Camp 2, and no one ever comes back from that place. Bad as the Warden is, from what I've heard the guards say about Camp 2, he's a saint compared to the Warden there. Which is a goddamn scary thought. As for how he's in charge, the usual way, he's got important or rich family, and he traded that for influence and position, I'd imagine. Don't get that sort here on New Eden either, we're all born equal after EDEN, ya might say."
"It sounded like not everything is perfectly idyllic here amongst the Edenites though. Van mentioned something about Garden City? I'm not familiar with that name." Ashino prompted quietly, as they continued down into the ground, the small talk helping to keep his mind off the very real possibility that Meyrin would be gone or dead already, and the flames of anger that thought stoked.
"Maybe I do see through rose colored lenses sometimes." Herbert admitted, with a slightly sheepish smile, his pace slowing as his already near drained energy supplies continued to dwindle, even his renewed hope not able to keep him buoyed up much longer. Clearly, the elder Edenite had been close to the end of his rope already. "I'm a deep forest type myself, just me and my family out hunting and trapping in the woods, no allegiance to any of the major City States, just us and our desires and dreams. Those of Garden City fancy themselves first amongst equals, or some such rubbish, and they tend to be kinda bossy and stuck up just cause their city is built around Yggdrasil. Borderline psychotics, all of em... only City-State with a full time military force and all, though looks like there might have been a good reason for that now, eh?"
Ashino was about to reply when they reached the end of the stairway, confronting a large armored blast door, the kind that normally could only be opened by immense hydraulics after inputting a long key code, but when Ashino started digging out his codebreaker modules, Herbert just shrugged and tapped a button beneath the code keypad, and the door hissed open at once. The stupid bastard didn't even care enough to lock his own door! Ashino had NEVER even imagined such negligence could exist, his skin crawled as every one of his instincts started screaming at him that this was a blatant trap. But it wasn't, the security just truly didn't give a shit, the possibility of hostile attack clearly the furthest thing from their likely addled minds! Herbert had to stop for breath shortly inside the bunker doorway, clearly annoyed by his own frailness, and Ashino bade his guide sit down and recuperate for a while, not wanting the man to get in his way, physically or morally, if things got dicey deeper within the bunker. Ashino could respect a strong desire for pacifism... what soldier couldn't... but the Edenites took it too far, in his opinion. Or at least whatever philosophic faction Herbert, Van and the others here belonged to did.
Proceeding with utmost caution all the same, machete in hand but hold low by his side so that no telltale wink of light off the edge might give him away, on the outside chance this really was still a trap. Much of the bunker was dimly lit, though Ashino could discern no good military reason for the lighting to be tuned so low. Being largely immune to the effects of drugs and alcohol himself, Ashino had never experienced a hangover, but he'd heard that bright lights and loud noises could be very uncomfortable when suffering from the dehydrating and withdrawal symptoms of a night of walling in hedonism. The main chamber of the bunker, which should have been the main briefing/tactical and strategic command post. And indeed, most of the equipment for that purpose was still there, but most of it was being used as furniture or impromptu clothing racks, bits and pieces of uniforms, boots, slacks, jackets and underwear were scattered about like a outdoor clothing store that had been hit by a freak windstorm, the disarray was so total that Ashino couldn't even get a rough estimation on how many soldiers were still in the bunker!
It didn't help that the room was lit only with the red emergency lighting systems, with more light cast from the central holographic plotting display, which had somehow been converted into a high definition 3D movie player, the movie playing was unfamiliar to Ashino, though he'd been tricked into watching something like it once before in his life, when he asked for help romancing Jean from his friends Richard and Thomas, of the Hellhounds. He believed they were called "pornography" and it was mostly just random groups of naked people having sex in ways that neither Jean nor Tam seemed to like, so Ashino had no interest in them either. The movie seemed stuck on constant replay, because no one was in the room, the digital people performing their sex acts with a sort of pathetic abandon, considering there was no leering audience to appreciate things. Ashino had to step carefully, besides just the scattered clothes, the floor was littered with empty cans and bottles of various manufacture, and the air was hazy with second hand smoke and fumes from a variety of group sized drug paraphenalias.
His careful search of the room turned up only one person, a half naked soldier slumped behind a bank of communication's gear, semi-conscious and delirious in the grip of some sort of inhaled drug. One look at the man had been enough to tell Ashino that even torture wouldn't get any information from him at the moment, his mind was just too wasted on his intoxication of choice, you could gut him slowly with a rusty sawblade and he'd probably just snort and giggle! Ashino raised the machete to decapitate the fool, before releasing a heavy sigh, reversing the blade and instead hammering his fist into the side of the man's head, knocking out what little consciousness remained with the man. Killing a helpless man who didn't even know up from down wasn't justice, it was just extermination. And while the Retributor's justice was often fast and loose, it didn't generally extended to killing the helpless, no matter how much they might deserve it. It was a slim possibility, but a possibility nonetheless, that this man's only crimes were intoxication on duty and dereliction of duty, and those were not crimes the Retributors cared to administer punishment for. Time, and witnesses from the Edenites, would tell, but for now he still had to find Meyrin!
His search ended in one of the rooms that branched off from the hub of the command center, each sub-chamber accessed by a short hallway that was supposed to have secure, key-coded doors at either end, but like the main door, all the security systems seemed to have been disabled for convenience of movement by large numbers of people that should not normally have had access to this part of the base. It was the third such subchamber he had searched, the first two being the Warden's personal chambers, a cesspit of decadent, corrupted opulence that fairly turned his stomach, and the security force barracks, which was only slightly less bad, though Ashino had been glad to note that the barracks only had bunks for about ten men, so at most he was looking at nine armed opponents and the Warden, none of whom seemed to be in their right minds. The third subchamber he'd decided to explore was the bunker armory, figuring that even if Meyrin wasn't there, he could at least inventory what kind of weaponry he might be up against, and deny it to the enemy.
Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, his audio sensors began picking up the noises of human activity before he was even halfway down the hall, and Ashino slowed his already cautious pace into a true stealth creep, listening intently for a few moments before biting his lip and carefully disengaging his helmet seals and removing his flight helmet. Hopefully the Red EDEN pills he'd swallowed earlier would protect him from any lingering Green EDEN in the environment, and right now he needed access to his full sensory capabilities, which unlike those of humans were generally sharper outside the helmet than inside it, especially hearing and smell. Almost immediately, Ashino grimaced, his nostrils and tongue tingling with the chemical taste of the fumes of a variety of known and unknown intoxicant chemicals, a near visible miasma escaping from around the edges of the armory door, along with low grunts, sounds of exertion and most tellingly, the "SLAP-CRACK" of flesh being beaten by something more solid, perhaps leather or some sort of plastic. Ashino's eyes glinted a fraction more fiercely with every whipcrack sound, as there was likely only one person who was on the receiving end of a beating here.
Grateful for his BCPU training, which allowed himself to distance himself from his newer found emotional instincts, which demanded he rip the door open and charge in with gun and knife in hands to succor Meyrin from this sordid fate, Ashino continued to creep forward silently and slowly, knowing he was outnumbered, and while that might not be a problem for him personally, everything would be pointless if he burst in only to have Meyrin killed in the resulting fracas before he could reach her. He needed solid information on positioning and armament before he could take proper action. So he snuggled up to the door, which was open just a slight fraction to allow the room to vent, else the occupants would have long ago choked out on the fumes of their own recreational drugs. As he got close to the door, another stink assailed his nostrils, the scent of stale human sweat, fresh blood, reproductive fluids and the unmistakeable yet undefinable odor of fear and pain and near despair, and he had to grip his machete grip so tightly his hand hurt to keep himself under control. He knew what he was likely to see, but he still had to see it anyway.
It was every bit as bad as he'd feared... the armory had been converted into some sort of impromptu torture chamber, the racks of weapons and munitions cleared away and perhaps taken elsewhere to free up space for a variety of devices that blurred the line between pleasure and torture. Ashino was aware there was a certain subset of people that enjoyed being tied up, restrained, humiliated and even beaten during or before sex, but some of the devices he could see were extreme even for the BDSM community, racks and wheels and wooden crosses that a victim could be crucified to with straps, chains and manacles and all sorts of suspension harnesses, none of which looked even slightly comfortable. The place was as hot as a sauna, the heat coming from the body warmth of the ten men crowded into the chamber, plus the bucket of cherry red coals in one corner, that had a variety of cruel branding irons protruding from it. Many of the devices showed signs of recent use, stained with sweat or blood or less indentifiable things.
None of the men were wearing a single stitch of clothing, save for somewhat dirty towels, their uniforms and weapons discarded back in the command center, save for a few handguns and knives that were carelessly draped over some of the torture devices not in current use, none particularly close by to the security forces, who were gathered at one end of the room, laughing and jesting and jeering drunkenly as several of their number took turns raping the young woman that was suspended from the ceiling via chains and manacles attached to her wrists and ankles, her body bent like a bowstring, arms and legs bent far past what any non-contortionist would find comfortable for even a short time, much less while being sexually assaulted! Meanwhile, a thinner man with long, unkempt blond hair and ferocious green eyes so similar to his illustrious cousins, was whipping the girl across her spine and buttocks with a flexible wooden cane which left bloody welts as wide as two fingers whenever it landed, adding new marks to a back that was already all but ripped to shreds by the hours long beating. Whenever Hazy's arms grew tired, he would have one of the other guards take over, perhaps while he amused himself with a turn at violating her as well.
It was impossible to tell from Ashino's vatnage point if it was Meyrin that was being abused, the girl had a skintight black leather mask over her head that was locked near chokingly tight around her neck, a scattering of small holes over the mouth part of the mask the only concession to her need to breathe. Her body was a mass of bruises and slowly healing scars, the veins on her forearms and calves standing out starkly, courtesy of rubber tubes tied semi-tightly around her lower thighs and upper arms, constricting her bloodflow so that the smirking guards could see the veins, into which they would frequently inject a hypodermic full of a mixture of aphrodisical and hallucinogenic drugs, further humiliating the bosses bitch by not only denying her a sound state of mind but also making her horny for what they were doing to her. They had to refresh the drugs often because she was a goddamn Eddie, her body flushed the stuff out almost as soon as it was put in, which was also why they'd steadily been upping the dosage, trying to beat down her immune system as well as the rest of her spirit. It was an arduous process, so far the only time they'd really gotten her to sob and weep was after the Boss had used a white hot iron to brand "WHORE" across her groin, just below her belly button.
They'd sought to repeat that effect by using another brand on her buttocks, marking her right asscheek with the crossed shovel and hoe rampant over an Earth symbol of the Reclaimer Initiative, the "RI stamp of approval" as the boss had joked, though the effect, done several hours after the first branding, had been disappointing, she'd barely even winced, her mind obviously retreating towards unconsciousness again. Heavy doses of stimulants had kept her at least semi-conscious for the entire week of off again, mostly on again torment, denying her rest, pushing her mind towards the eventual point of no return. Even the strongest Eddie before this one had only lasted a couple days under the Bosses "special treatment", some of the guards were almost impressed with this red headed bitch, the archtraitoress of all traitors, as the Boss had explained, Borander's own pet pussy! She would scream and cry and curse them, but goddamn it if after seven days of their best efforts, she was still defiant enough to hold her head up high and look down her nose at them, which was why they'd sealed her had inside the leather mask... it was unnerving to see her giving them pitying looks while they were raping and torturing the bitch!
Intent on their efforts, sensing that the Boss was nearing the end of his patience with this haughty bitch, which would mean he was soon going to ask for a knife or a gun to put her out of her misery, the guards jostled and pushed to get their last rocks off on and inside the free whore, which might be their last one for a while if the Bosses displeasure at being unable to break her spilled over to them. None of them noticed the armory door swing open at first, only the sudden gust of cooler air on their bare flesh belatedly notified them that something was wrong. Stoned, drunk and pretty damn tired themselves, after seven days of spending hours and hours having brutal sex and physically abusing their captive, the guards were sluggish in their response, and their opponent moved like lightning even compared to most highly trained and fully sober soldiers! He was short, but massive, and he held a long knife, really more like a single edged short sword, in one hand. That sword almost instantly buried itself in the vitals of one guard, punching in over the kidneys at the lower back, and then ripping out sides, carving through spleen and liver and lower intestines before exiting over the hip in an explosion of bright red blood and entrails!
Continuing his charge without a beat, the short, redheaded man a few of the guards mistakenly idenitifed as a relative of their victim in their panic, landed a heavy punch to the back of another guard's neck, the blow snapping the man's spine like a dry twig, dropping him to the floor, his body flopping like a beached fish, head canted at a crazy angle from his neck. Another slash of the large machete sent another two men slumping to the ground, staring in shock at their opened bellies and truncated arms, blood geysering from the stumps and ragged edged slits, as another man, diving to the floor in search of a gun, instead almost had his head kicked entirely off his shoulders by Ashino's booted foot, shattering the guard's neck and crushing his face and jaw bones inward several inches, compressing his brain so hard it shot out of his ear canals in both directions like thick pudding. Appalled at this violence, the remaining guards and Hazy staggerd backwards from their remorseless assailant, all the fight shocked out of them. The guards died to a man, most whimpering on their knees, run through with the machete or with their throats crushed by a chop of Ashino's fist, the only mercy dispensed being a quick if not always clean death.
Turning on Warden Arnold "Hazy" Zala, who was blubbering in a corner, actually hiding behind Meyrin's suspended form without even thinking to take her hostage in his terror, Ashino raised his machete high, letting the blond haired, green eyed Coordinator watch the blood dribble down the blade, the dim lighting winking off the few sections of edge that were not dyed crimson with the lifeblood of his accomplices. The floor beneath Hazy turned wet and rancid, the ammonia stench of urine barely even noticable in the midst of the stench already filling the room, Hazy closing his eyes and cringing away as blood from Ashino's machete drip-dropped across his cheeks and forehead and down his chest.
"I am the Retribution for the guilty and the corrupt." Ashino said, his voice rigid and icy cold. "Those who would abuse their position and responsibility for personal goals and ends, those would would profit from the suffering of others, those who would prey upon the helpless for their own amusement... these are my most hated foes. I number you among them, Arnold Zala, but though you deserve a death a thousand times worse than any I could inflict, I will not kill you. You're much more useful to me alive than dead, despite your sins, because it is through you and the cooperation you WILL extend us, that a far greater evil shall be cleansed from humanity. Once you have lived out your usefulness, then you will die. It will be quick, clean, perhaps even painless. It will be justice."
And then Ashino clubbed Hazy over the head with the butt of his knife, not being too gentle about it, splitting the Coordinator's scalp and dumping him to the disgusting floor facedown in a heap. Finally, all threats dealt with, Ashino turned to the captive, wincing in dismay as he saw the full extent of her injuries and violations. None of the injuries were precisely life threatening, but after a week of such abuse, even the strongest human being would find their sanity tested to the breaking point... there was no telling what sort of mental state the woman would be in, she might even be comatose or catatonic, like Jean had been for many days after suffering her own injuries. "Can you hear me?" Ashino asked, speaking as gently as he could, as he tried to figure out how to get the woman down from her suspension without causing her any more pain. "You're safe now." Ashino promised her. "No one will hurt you anymore."
"I... strongly doubt... that... ark... ov..." The woman replied, her voice weak and hoarse from a week of screaming and oral abuses. "As long as... Dur... del is in power... me and my... people... will never be safe. And being hurt... is part of living... the path I've chosen in life..."
"Shh, don't talk, Meyrin." Ashino hesitantly reached out to touch her shoulder, carefull avoiding as much of the bruising and welting as he could, but there wasn't much of her body that hadn't been attacked or injured in some manner over the seven days she'd been held here. "I'm going to have to cut the chains to get you down, I don't have time to search for the keys. I am putting my arm on your stomach to support your weight."
"Just... get me down... I know you won't hurt me, Markov." Meyrin's voice seemed stronger with every passing moment. Ashino could not help but marvel at her strength, even after seven days of torture, she remained unbroken, and could talk to him like he was just helping her limp along with a sprained ankle! He gently used his arm to take her weight off of her wrists and ankles, a light gasp from the mask the only indication that she felt the relief of not dangling for the first time in who knew how long, and he hacked through the chains with four sweeps of the machete, striking as close as he dared to the manacles locked so tightly around her skin that they had created bloody sores from the friction of metal on flesh. A few links of chain remained on each manacle, but she was free, and he started to lower her to the floor, before he saw the filthy state it was in and grimaced. She had so many open wounds, putting her down on the floor was just begging for them to become infected, even if they already weren't! Ignoring the rubbish, dried blood and body fluids that were rubbing off her body onto his flight suit, Ashino sheathed the machete and cradled her in his arms, face down so that he wouldn't put stress on her flayed open back.
"I'm going to get you to my doctors now." Ashino promsied her, fiddling with the locking mechanism of the leather hood, before finally just pinching his fingers and snapping the buckles off, tearing open his fingertips in the process, but his blood, unlike Meyrin's, instantly clotted and he barely even felt the sting of the small cuts as he carefully lifted the mask off her head, dreading what he might find, given the state of her body. Dread that was unfounded, though her face was puffy and bruised, her nose likely broken, her lips bloody and swollen, both eyes blackened, there was no remarkable cruelty inflicted upon her lovely face other than a heavy beating. Nothing a lot of icepacks and a few moments with a doctor couldn't fix, though her nose might never be completely straight again without reconstructive surgery.
"They were saving my face for last." Meyrin informed him, her eyes watching his face through a blur of tears she hadn't been able to hold back. "But they got plenty of use out of my mouth for other purposes in the meanwhile. Filthy pigs..." She would have hawked and spat, were her mouth and throat not so painfully dry. "Do you have any water?" She asked, licking her lips.
"I can't even imagine what they did to you. I am so sorry." Ashino replied, his body trembling with anger, as he retrived his emergency flask from his belt pouches and held it up to her lips, making sure to only give her slow sips, not wanting her to choke or vomit from taking too much fluid in too quickly. The thought of which made him flinch, wondering how often she'd been forced to choke and vomit from taking other fluids in too quickly during her torture, and he gritted his teeth in repressed rage, so loudly Meyrin plainly heard him.
"Oh Markov... coming from most men, that would be such an empty condolence, but from you, I imagine you quite literally can't conceive of some of the things they did, and I wouldn't want you to. You have too little innocence left to you as it is." Meyrin replied with a faint smile, feeling much better after wetting her throat with actual water for the first time in more than a day. "Put me down." She added, struggling weakly in his grip.
"I won't hurt you." Ashino reminded her, nonplussed by the way she grimaced at him, until he realized she was just trying to roll her eyes in exasperation. "You're in no state to walk on your own two feet."
"That's my choice, not yours, Markov." Meyrin answered, her voice still exhibiting plenty of the steeliness he'd seen in her while she was vice-commander of the Brotherhood. Hesitantly, carefully, he complied, setting her down on her welt and bruised covered feet, watching her wince, keeping his arms close in case she started to fall, but she astounded him by staying upright even with all the trauma and overstressed and ripped mucles she no doubt had! "You're a good friend, Markov, thank you for rescuing me." Meyrin patted him on his shoulder, using his solid stature to brace herself upright as she wobbled for a moment.
"I did not come here to rescue you, I did not even know you were here." Ashino replied with a careful shrug, knowing that she was still very weak and would need a helping hand, especially with the staircase. "As for being friends... perhaps. You have done me a great service in the past, I could not live with myself if you were in danger and I did nothing to help you. But your path and mine, Meyrin... they are different, and my path has a tendency to cross, violently, with the one you have taken. Were he not already dead, I would have hunted down Noah for the crimes he committed against the people I am sworn to protect. Were it not for my indebtedness to you, I might be tempted to judge you similarly, Meyrin Hawke." He turned his eyes away as she turned to face him, giving her the privacy she had been denied for days, unwilling to look at the evidence of her many violations painted across her legs and body. "Let me find you a blanket. I would not have you forced to show the world what has been done to you."
"No blankets." Meyrin said firmly. "I will not hide what they did to me while trying to break my spirit, because they DID NOT break my spirit. Let the entire world look at me, and see what depravity their own leaders feel free to inflict upon the helpless! I have nothing I want to hide, indeed, these wounds are more like badges of honor." Meyrin's hand brushed across her lower belly, her fingertips running along the raised burn scars that spelled out "WHORE" just above her privates. "This is my crowning glory. They labeled me WHORE as they raped me while I was in bondage, thinking to hurt me, to shame me. But I have come to the realization that it is nothing more than the truth, just not the truth they meant. I have chosen a path that requires I be a glutton for punishment, for suffering as my people are made to suffering. I am a whore for pain and anguish, because in so wantonly drawing them into myself, I may be able to spare those I am responsible for from likewise enduring them. I would rather be whipped a thousand times than see one lash land upon another child of Eden! I would willingly give debauched sexual service to a million USN soldiers if it would garuantee they would no longer hurt or kill my Edenites! I would drink a keg of urine and semen, smile and ask for seconds from the bastards who made me do it, if it meant that even one Edenite was made safe from war! So let them call me WHORE, because I am. I am the whore of EDEN, and I would never have it any other way!"
"I do not understand you." Ashino admitted, not sure whether he should be amazed, impressed, or perhaps even frightened by this naked and abused woman standing next to him. "All you Edenites don't make any sense to me."
"It is our burden." Meyrin smiled, and patted his shoulder once more. "Our burden to be better than you, and by you I mean the "Oosen". Not just in physical characteristics, but in emotional ones as well. Non-Edenites have the luxury of being able to hate and fear the unknown, especially the unknown in their fellow man. The Edenites, who can feel each other's emotions on a soul deep level, cannot be so free with their dark emotions, lest they not only hurt others they care about, but in so doing, hurt themselves. An Edenite that tries to rape or kill someone could easily be driven mad by the raw, unfiltered emotions of their victim, only the very strongest, some might say sociopathic, of Edenites can muster the nerve to kill or hurt other sentient beings. But because we are better, it is also our burden to act better, to set the example for those less fortunate. To show that humanity CAN live in peace and harmony, if only they are willing to try and understand and accept each other. Forgive each other. Even when one party sins egregariously against the other. It is our duty as Edenites to stand above the cycle of hatred that fuels war, to show humanity a better way."
"Pardon my saying so, but isn't it because of thinking like that, that so many of the Edenites are hurt, captured or killed, and sent to places like this, and subjected to humiliations and torments like you have been?" Ashino asked doubtfully. "Pacifism is well and good, but against a foe determined to go to war no matter the provocation or lack of it, all pacifism does is make you helpless."
"It is a hard and bloody path." Meyrin agreed, as she hobbled along, towards the entrance to the bunker. "But what should we do then? Meet hatred with greater hatred, violence with greater violence, until the very world is ripped asunder beneath us because of our rage? I agree that fighting to defend your loved ones or home is perfectly acceptable, but the line between defending and pre-emptively defending via attacking can get easily blurred in the emotional maelstrom of war. The only true safety for either of our peoples, Markov, is in the extinction of the others. We must learn to live without the promise of complete safety. Only by accepting risk can profit be made, in business and in life. Maybe my path can only lead to pointless death in this war torn time... but if that is so, at least I will die while proving that I am a better human being than my killers. Death comes for us regardless of our wants, being able to choose the meaning of one's death is a privilege few are granted."
"LADY ANGEL!" Herbert, still regaining his breath by the doorway, called out, his voice mingled between aghast shock and renewed hope. Herbert finally got a good look at Meyrin, and his face wilted as he saw what had been done to her. "By... by the forlorn Tree..." Herbert gasped. "They have defiled you..."
"No, Bert, they tried." Meyrin smiled through her puffy face at the elderly Edenite. "But all they managed to do was enlighten me and fuel my determination." She held out her hand to greet him, but Herbert seemed to take it another way, dropping to his knees, his eyes full of the tears of a zealot in the midst of a deeply religious experience, and Meyrin cautiously patted the man's shoulder, as she had done for Ashino. "No tears now, this is a happy moment. We have regained our freedom, courtesy of Markov and his fellows, I will have no one depressed now." Meyrin studied the staircase leading towards the surface, and sighed. "Please stand up, Bert, you're embarassing me. If you want to convey your appreciation though, there is something you can do for me."
"ANYTHING, Lady Angel!" Herbert leapt to his feet as if electrocuted.
"For one, my name is Meyrin. Ms. Borander if you must be formal, but I am no angel and not much of a lady anymore." Meyrin gestured at her body, and the brand on her groin for emphasis "I am no more divine than you are, Bert, all Edenites are equal. So banish any thoughts of making me your saint or prophet or whatever... I will lead those in need of leadership, but I am not holy, indeed, I might be the opposite, for the path I intend to tread may very well doom anyone that follows me to a lonely, painful death. But if you would preceed us to the surface and gather up the survivors of our people, I would appreciate it. I would like to speak to them, and wish them well before we part."
"Of course, Lad... Meyrin." Herbert stumbled over the words, plainly still seeing her as a figure of much veneration, despite her admonishment. He scampered up the stairs like a schoolboy who was late for class, any tiredness on his part forgotten in the midst of his desire to see to Meyrin's wish.
Meyrin turned to Ashino, who had returned to the armory chamber during her conversation with Herbet and retrieved the limp and unconscious form of Warden Zala, who he deposited at the base of the stairs. "Give me your arm, Markov... I will climb these steps, but it would take me hours to do it by myself." Meyrin requested, leaning heavily on the short man as they slowly ascended towards the surface. Ashino had put his flight helmet back on, not wanting to chance greater Green EDEN exposure upon the surface than the trace amounts in the bunker, also glad for the polarizing faceplate so that his face could remain hidden as he chewed over in his mind what he was going to do next. He had saved Meyrin, but he still felt that his debt was not fully discharged quite yet, since he'd only saved her by accident. Only by performing a kind service for her with full intention to do so could he lift this burden of indebtedness from his shoulders. Fortunately, he had an idea about how to do so, though he had the nasty feeling Tam was going to freak out when he brought it up.
About ten minutes later, they'd finally reached the surface, Meyrin leaning more heavily upon his arm with every flight they ascended, until he was all but sure she was going to collapse in a dead faint at any moment. She was pushing herself beyond any safe limits, but she would not hear of accepting any more aid from him than she already had. It wasn't out of pride, he didn't think, since she seemed to have no concern for what other people thought, given her refusal of a blanket to cover herself, or even attempting to clean herself off a little bit! Semen was still dripping down her legs from inside her with every step up, her back and legs were a mass of drying blood, and she left bloody footprints from the welts on her bare feet, drool dribble down one side of her chin from where her lips wouldn't close properly at one corner of her mouth, but she acted like she was wearing a classy evening gown! She was making some kind of point by punishing her stressed body like this, but he was damned if he understood what! Taking her hand off his arm with a grateful smile, Meyrin squared her shoulders and straightened her spine... and then strode confidently out of the back door of the central blockhouse, stopping just outside, on the top of the concrete steps that led down onto the base grounds. Markov stepped out behind her, and his jaw dropped, unnoticed through the polarized helmet.
Herbert had somehow managed to gather what looked to be every single Edenite captive of Camp 1 outside the building in only the ten short minutes that it had taken them to get up the stairs! Ashino belatedly realized it must have been some sort of psychic communication, bcause there were easily a thousand Edenites crowded around the building, family groups reunited after months of seperation, tears on everyone's faces, but many of them standing tall and proud and defiant all the same, heads held straight, eyes looking attentively up at Meyrin as she excited the building, an excited, reverential mubling spreading amongst the crowd, along with a intangible "current" in the air that was like the calm before a storm. For all that most of the crowd hadn't had a filling meal in more than a month, and most were so dead tired they could barely stand, this crowd practically SEETHED with energy, and it only intensified with Meyrin's appearance. These Edenites... they were a noble and intensely frightening people, Ashino realized. Perhaps it was a GOOD thing they were so insanely pacifistic... he'd hate to go up against any number of men in that crowd, even in their current state, with that fire in their eyes.
Most of the women and post puberscent girls wore blankets in place of clothing, with bracelets of steel around wrists or ankles that were the remnants of handcuffs that had secured them to their hellhole prostitution beds, their eyes weary but still filled with the spark of life despite many of them spending months chained to their beds, forced to have sex with over a dozen men per day, regardless of how they felt about it, knowing that they had to cooperate or else their husbands, brothers, children and fathers would suffer for their defiance. Behind the crowd of Edenites, at a safe distance, stood the Retributors, most of them feeling quite awkward, judging by their postures, though they too seemed to stiffen as Meyrin came out, their eyes drawn to her aura of intensity even as politeness demanded they avert their eyes from her ravaged nakedness.
Meyrin raised her hand for silence, and got it, instantly, as she peered through her puffy eyes at the gathering of her fellow captives. She smiled at them, as broadly as her facial bruising would allow, projecting her joy and happiness and love for them through the emotional spectrums, feeling them echo it back, subdued and unsure. "My friends..." Meyrin said to them, speaking conversationally, her voice still not up to shouting just yet, but she knew they could all hear her, such was the silence. "Thanks to the intervention of these wonderful people... we are finally free!" Meyrin gestured to Ashino, and then to the Retributors gathered behind the Edenites. "We owe these people, who came to New Eden specifically for the purpose of eradicating this abominable camp and setting us free, a debt that it will be hard to ever repay. They may be Oosens, but not all Oosen are evil. This is something we must all bury in our hearts and minds, despite what has been inflicted upon us. Most Oosen are merely misguided, deliberately so by the true evil in their leadership. But the misguided can still be led back to the path of a joined humanity, if only they have an example to follow! I am that example. YOU are that example!"
Taking a step downwards, Meyrin gestured to her abused body, and the brand on her groin, plainly visible to all. "These are the marks of hate and misunderstanding, meant to hurt, to shame, to break." Meyrin called out, her voice dispassionate. She next pointed to the manacles still on her wrists and ankles. "These are the marks of fear and desperation, meant to control, to limit and to dominate." Meyrin allowed herself another smile, as she spread her arms, displaying her body and all the marks upon it, slowly turning around so the people could see her back as well. "These are the marks of the misguided and the confused. These are MY marks, and with their help, I shall illuminate the path to peace and harmony for all humanity, Edenite and Oosen both! They were inflicted as brands of shame, but I see them as medals of honor! They cannot break me! They cannot bring me down to their level! They cannot take away my humanity! I am better than that! I am better than them! I am Meyrin Borander, and I will never be anything less!" Meyrin challenged the crowd. "What about you?"
For a long moment, nothing happened, no one stirred, no one spoke. But then one of the younger women, about twenty years old, maybe younger, with white-blond hair in a shaggy mass on her head, stepped forward from her group, and Markov noticed that she was one of Van's children, the one eyed man still staring off into the distance as if digesting Meyrin's words. The girl had a blanket draped around her, but she let it fall away from her shoulders as she came forward, revealing her own bruises and scratched naked body, along with a belly that was distended, not with hunger, but with a pregnancy several months along. A broken pair of handcuffs dangled from her wrists, cut when she'd been freed from the bare mattress she'd spend most of the last two months lying face down on, gagged and blindfolded, to be taken from behind at any time of day or night, fifteen minutes for two hundred dollars, no questions asked. "I am better than that." The girl said simply. "I am Vanessa, and never any less!"
"I am better than that!" Herbert shouted, also stepping forward, his body bowed and hunched with the pain of his backbreaking labors with starvation rations, but his mind and soul still strong and vital. "I am Herbert, and nothing can make me less!" Herbert was the start of a wave, a phenomenon that had the watching Retributors staring, stunned, as one after another, slowly at first, but then faster and faster, in larger and larger groups, the Edenites stepped forward, dropping their blankets, revealing that Vanessa was far from the onl girl or woman with a burgeoning pregnancy, baring their wounds and the marks of their enslavement, declaring "I am better than that!", identifying themselves for all to know, refusing to be cowed or shamed by what they had suffered. They were Edenites... and nothing could take that away from them. They were human beings, and never anything less! And every last moment of it was being caught on full 3d recording, by the Retributors, many of whom were sobbing themselves, overcome by the emotion of the moment, many of them having themselves suffered degradation by the USN secret forces, and just now realizing that the burden of hatred and anger they'd been carrying, was so very simple to lay down, if only you had the strength of self to do it. The only person that could make you change, no matter what was done, was you yourself!
"We are better than that." Meyrin said once more, after the last of the Edenites stepped forward, not a single one holding back. "We are the children of Eden, and no one and nothing can make us any less if we don't let them!" She declared, the crowd breaking out in riotous cheers, echoed from within the ranks of the retributors, many completely overwhelmed by the moment. Ashino was one of them, though he did not cheer, but his cheeks were wet with tears that had nothing to do with pain or anger. This was a special moment, regardless of the state of your genetics... humans displaying the traits they were so often misfamed for, the ability to be rational and reasonable even in the face of pain and suffering. The ability to forgive a wrong, in the interest of making everything right. The ability to take the high road, even if everyone else was trying to drag you into the muck. The ability to love, when confronted with hate. No Retributor present would ever forget this day.
Inspirational moment over, Meyrin got down to business. "Few of us have any homes to return to, and even if we could, we would not be safe there. To return as we are would only place us in renewed jepoardy. We have little in the way of supplies, and the forests are pretty hostile, or so I hear. Our saviors, the Retributors, have given us our freedom, the most precious gift of all, but they have their own needs and path to take, we cannot burden them any further. The path ahead will be arduous but..."
"Excuse me." Ashino interrupted her, stepping forward even as he tuned his faceplate into transparency, so the gathered crowd could see his face. He winced, imagining the look on Tam's face when he made the announcement he was planning to, knowing he was committing one of the cardinal sins as far as the Retributors were concerned, utilizing public authority and resources in the interest of personal goals, but he could not, as a human being, just abandon these people now that he had given them freedom, and Meyrin had given them hope. The USN would track them down and either slaughter them or recapture them in days, in their current state there was no way they could run and hide, not with pregnant women, young children and all weak from hunger and privation. To leave now would be to sign their death warrents. "But I believe I have a solution to your problem. The USN will be here in hours, maybe sooner, and even with the detrius of the base to use as you see fit, you cannot stand against them. There is no where you will be able to hide, no where you could run that would place you beyond their reach. They cannot let you be free, the black eye to their image would be total. If you stay on Ear... New Eden, you will all die."
"Then we shall die!" Van shouted back resolutely. "But it will be on our terms, doing what we believe in!"
"And few can ask for more than that." Ashino agreed. "However, would it not be preferable to live, doing what you believe in? I know that my people and I are little better than the Oosen that oppressed you in your eyes, but believe me when I say that I cannot just stand by and let you be swept under the carpet once more. We are not Edenites like you are, but we are still human beings, just like you. So as a human being, I'm asking... will you accept my help?"
"What kind of help are you offering, Markov?" Meyrin asked, somewhat cautiously. "I won't let you risk your life, or the lives of your soldiers, for us. You are too few to stand against the might the USN will bring to bear here."
"Too few to stand, yes." Tamara spoke up from the back of the crowd, her voice amplified by her armor. "But more than enough to run, is what my commander is eventually trying to say. I believe he intends to offer you and your people safe haven at our home base, which is situated beyond the easy reach of the USN, on the far side of the Asteroid belt. Fitting you all onto our warship won't be easy, but by leaving behind most of our vehicles and a few Mobile Suits, and taking as much of the food supplies from the base as possible, we should be able to manage the journey. We won't sacrifice ourselves for you, but if you're willing to take the risk, we can at least make the effort to keep you alive. It would be a waste of good human beings to just leave you to fend for yourselves."
"You want to take us into space?" Herbert asked, the fear in his voice spreading like ripples through the crowd of Edenites. Going into space was practically a euphanism for horrible death on New Eden these days!
"You will have to trust us." Ashino answered calmly. "We are outlaws to the USN as well, I am actually the most wanted criminal in the USN at the moment. As some say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? At Ronin City, I cannot promise life will be easy, nor can I promise that you will not be subjected to prejudices from the people already living there. What I can promise is that the Oosen will not be able to reach you without fighting every last one of my Retributors, including myself. It is the highest degree of safety I can offer you, probably the safest place in the Solar System for those who don't agree with the policies of Gilbert Durandel."
"I can't ask you to do this, Markov." Meyrin whispered to him.
"You haven't." He whispered back. "This is my decision alone. Just like it was your decision alone to help me see Jean back then."
"I never intended to hold you in my debt, Markov."
"It wasn't your choice. This is just how things are, I suggest you take advantage of a good deal while you can. Don't expect a free ride when we get up to space either, I'm sure your people have many skills that could be highly useful to the Retributors as well. Doing this is as much to my advantage as it is yours. The publicity of this event alone, in addition to the documentation we have gathered, is a downpayment worth saving your lives a hundred times over. The only greater black eye we could give Durandel's administration is if we turned up proof that he really had been working in cahoots with your boyfriend from the get go." Ashino replied with a shrug, seeing that the Edenites were plainly waiting for Meyrin to make the call on whether to trust the Retributors or not.
"I can get you that proof." Meyrin replied, surprising him, her eyes glittering like steel coins. "I can get you something better than that even. But first, if we are going to evacuate my people, we need to do it quickly. My experience with USN combat doctrine and response times tells me that we're probably going to have company within the next hour, and then the cat will be out of the bag. Unless we want to do a repeat of the Archangel's first deployment on our way to the Asteroid Belt, we need to slip away unnoticed." Meyrin turned to the watching crowd of Edenites. "Time is short." She told them. "I trust Markov and his people with my life. I will go to space, and lend my support to the Retributors, inasmuch as I feel able to as a human being. I cannot ask you to come with me, you must choose on your own."
"Where the Lady Angel goes, we shall go." Van replied with a flinty grin, a surrussation of agreement rippling through the crowd. "You've given us hope when there was only despair, shown us strength when we only thought we were weak, and we will follow you to the ends of New Eden, or into the depths of space, because without you, we would have been nothing and no one."
"Then it is agreed." Meyrin turned to Ashino, and bowed her head. "Take us to space, Markov Ashino. And consider all debts forever paid."
xxxx
New Eden, Garden City, Depths of the Praetorian Enclave, Jan 5th, 8:00 am
"You ARE a crazy one, Mouse." Zach's voice echoed out of the darkness around her, she could feel his presence somewhere in the chamber with her, but the small lantern she carried didn't illuminate far enough to see him. He must have had his eyes closed, since there were no glowing red telltale orbs in the darkness. On some level, Lilia was forced to agree with Zach's assessment of her mental health. She'd only just been released from the medical center yetserday, and here she was, stumbling around in the darkness, seeking him out in his private places, finding him probably not more than fifty meters away from where he'd attacked and raped her almost a month ago, leaving her comatose and hospitalized until yesterday night! Any sane person would never have gone within a hundred meters of Zach ever again after what he'd done to her. On the other hand, she knew, somehow, that Zach was testing her with his actions, daring her to turn her back on him, just like everyone else had always done. Which was one reason why she refused to give him that vindication. She might be terrified of him, but she wasn't going to let him drive her away either. Because terrified or not, he also fascinated her, she felt drawn to him in a way that made her very uncomfortable... in a distressingly good way.
"Maybe I'm just stupid." Lilia replied with a snort. "Most of my friends would say that if they could see me now. I prefer to call it willful. Did you really think it would be that easy to get rid of me, Zacharis? Don't flatter yourself. I will save you, even from yourself, whether you like it or not!"
"I had hoped it wouldn't be that easy to get rid of you, Mouse." Zach replied, the way he said her nickname making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. An emotion somewhere between between "flee!" and "say that again!". "I am glad to see you do live up to expectations. I would have quite put my foot in my mouth when boasting to Yamato back at Urbanis otherwise." He revealed himself, off to her side, his eyes appearing like twin embers in the gloom, a sensation of heat running along her body when she saw him looking at her, sizing her up, examining her.
Please don't tell me I'm attracted to the guy who raped me and fucked up my memories... Lilia admonished herself with a shiver. Even if he can be a sexy bastard at times, getting involved with him is going to get me killed! I'm not so stupid, insane or willful to think otherwise! But damn it all, if he isn't attractive when he wants to be. If only he wasn't, like, Evil and insane and a complete psycopath. If only he was... well... like Kira. I'd be all over him. No, focus, calm down and stay in control, or you'll end up raped and broken and spending another month in the hospital, assuming he doesn't just kill you! And for Tree's sake, DON'T hit him, no matter what he does or says! Lilia was acutely conscious of the large cardboard box she had slung over her shoulders, bulky but not especially heavy, the box was almost as wide as she was, and nearly as tall. It had been in her room last night after she'd gotten out of the hospital, in all its glory, and it was the main reason she was down here. She hoped.
"I came down here to bring you that gift I promised, but before I give it to you, you have to do something for me." Lilia told him, knowing that she was walking on thin ice, but determined to see things through all the same. He would never learn if people were always too afraid to teach.
"Oh? And what is the Mouse's price?" Zach murmured, thankfully sounding interested rather than angry. "You've dared much just coming here, I suppose that's worth something."
"Give me my memories back." Lilia said flatly. "The ones of my years in the rape dungeon. I want them back." She said vehemently, staring him in his unnerving eyes directly. "You took them from me last time."
"Yes I did." Zach smiled broadly. "You weren't using them much anymore, you were too busy drowning in my memories, after you declared there was nothing about pain or suffering or humiliation that I can teach you. I still chuckle when I remember the earnest look of confidence on your face, Mouse. You really thought you'd seen the depths of human suffering. Its adorable."
"Speaking of your memories, I thought you once said that the Doc memory wiped you on multiple occasions? How could you remember things from that long ago?" Lilia didn't like the topic being deflected, but she wanted to steer away from any comparisons to what happened last time. No point in tempting him.
"Memory wipes, despite the name, are far from "wipes", they are more like "obscurements"." Zach answered. He seemed to have come a little closer, though in the darkness it was hard to tell. "The longer you spend between wipes, the more they start to lose their efficiency. The memories don't go away, they just hide from you. While I was dead, floating in the echoing abyss, I had a long time to ponder my memories. Much that was hidden was revealed to me once more. The only thing the Doc ever managed to actually change about me was my personality, not my memories. Four different "wipes", four different personalities, one Zacharis Quentin Frost. And after the level six surgeries, all those fractured bits got jumbled together, baked a little, and voila, here you have me, Mouse."
"I see." And Lilia kind of did too, which was somewhat disturbing. "But I'd still like my memories back. They may be painful, but they're mine. Without them, I never would have become the person I am today. So give them back to me. Please."
"I think not." Zach smirked at her discomfiture. "I have claimed them for myself. Just like I've claimed you for myself, Mouse. You were not strong enough to hang onto them, they are better off with me than you. They, like you, are no longer yours to do with as you please."
"You can't just claim ownership of people, Zacharis." Lilia informed him with a heavy sigh.
"Can I not?" He answered, his voice smoky with intentions she didn't want to think about. "Take off your clothing, Mouse." He commanded her sibilantly.
"No." Lilia replied firmly, her jaw set, body tensed as she waited for him to lash out and force her. He never did though. Instead he did something a bit worse.
"As you wish." Zach sighed in what sounded like disappointment. His eyes disappeared as he turned his head away from her. "Begone with you then, Mouse. I have no further interest in you. Leave, before I decapitate you where you stand. Go back to the light, and tell your friends that you have failed in your self assigned task. That you have turned your back upon the one person you swore to save no matter what."
"Don't even try to twist my words like that, Zacharis!" Lilia snapped at him. "I have not and will not abandon you, no matter how much you want me to! But you do not control me and you do NOT own me!"
"Prove it then, Mouse." Zach told her smugly. "If you are to stay, you must strip. Otherwise you must go, and if you ever return, I shall slay you instantly. You have my word on that." His smile grey vicious, like a sharks. "Whether or not I own you, this choice is yours. No slave has ever been in bondage save by choice, since the option of resisting unto death always remains open. Your freedom awaits you, Mouse... all you need do is turn your back and walk away. But if you stay, you are mine, and you will strip."
"Damn you, Zacharis." Lilia snarled, but she knew his "choice" was no choice at all. She had sworn on everything that made her herself that she would not turn away from this lost soul, not even if it meant her death in the process. Perhaps he really DID own her, she'd sold herself to him without even realizing it, tossed her soul into his abyss because that was the only way she could see how to provide him light by which to climb out of it! Grudgingly, Lilia reached up and undid the shoulder strap that held the gift box, setting it aside with a thump, before her hands went to the buttons of her uniform jacket and began fumbling with the ties. She tried to remember that public nudity was no big deal in Garden City, much less for a Praetorian, but there was just something so personal about stripping naked by Zach's command, so far down here beneath the earth, where it was just him and her, that made her feel terribly self conscious and vulnerable. Zach didn't turn around until she had tossed aside the last article of clothing and stood shivering in the gloom.
"Very good, Mouse." Zach turned to look at her, stepping closer, slowly walking around her in an admiring circle that caused her cheeks to flush a bit. She couldn't tell if he was eyeing her as a man does a woman, or as a man does a fine steak, but either way, she was starting to break out into gossebumps and she had to fight the urge to fidget and cover herself, not wanting to have the futher humiliation of him telling her to stop hiding her breasts and privates, and being forced to acquiese. Damn it all, but Zach really knew how to take advantage of a good girl's word! "Now that I have unwrapped my gift, I guess its time for me to enjoy it." He whispered into her hear, enjoying the way she flinched and squeaked, ever so softly.
"There's been a misunderstanding here, Zacharis!" Lilia leaned away from him, desperately trying not to think about how, um, exciting, that whisper had been. "I'M not your gift! That's your present, over there!" She pointed at the cardboard box, tied shut with a bright crimson ribbon."
"I know a gift when one delivers itself into my hands, Mouse." Zach corrected her gently, moving around to her front, and tilting her chin upwards with a fingertip. "Don't denigrate yourself, Mouse, you are a FINE gift, one that I have immensely enjoyed unwrapping, and intend to further enjoy playing with for a long time."
"No, R-REALLY, that box has the present in it I promised you!" Lilia protested, though she found it impossible to lift her chin away from his finger all the same, her protests sounding a bit weak and fluttery even to her ears. Tree be damned, for some reason, Zach's playful little testing and teasing was turning her own pretty good. She really must be insane, like he said, no sane girl could possibly be getting horny in this kind of situation! Even though, there were plenty of women that enjoyed a very powerful man giving them directions in an intimate setting, there was no shame in admitting that. And men didn't come much more powerful than Zach. "Just unwrap it! I promise you, you'll love it."
"I'll take that bet, Mouse." Zach smirked at her, his breath misting against the curve of her neck, making her simultaneously want to run, screaming, and hurl herself into his arms. "If I do like this thing in the box, I will reward you. But if I find it tawdry or banal, I assure you, Mouse..." Zach let his lips brush the curve of her jaw just slightly, making her "eep" again. "... you will be punished, severely." He listened to her gulp loudly and let his smirk grow. "Stand where you are, and do not move, not even to turn your head, while I investigate this "present". You don't want to make me angry, remember that, Mouse. So be a good little rodent and freeze right where you are." Zach admonished, as he stepped around behind her, trailing one fingertip down her spine, flicking her just so slightly against the top part of her buttocks as he stepped to the boxed gift. For her part, Lilia squeezed her eyes shut and choked down a moan... Zach seemed to know exactly where to touch her to set her off. Well of course he did, he'd stolen her memories! But that didn't change that fact that she'd enjoyed that WAAAY more than she should have.
It was almost as bad a torture being forced to stand there, staring straight ahead into darkness, while she listened to Zach pick the box up, shake it a bit, and painstakingly unwrap it, actually untying the ribbon rather than just ripping it or tearing it off, methodically disassembling the box in a way only an Obsessive Compulsive could appreciate. He made a ten second job last three minutes, and each minute felt like a month to Lilia! And she knew it was completely intentional, that he was watching her carefully the entire time, daring her to move, to twitch, to balk. She didn't think that he was in the mood to hurt her right now, the opposite if anything, but all the same, she knew that if he said that he would punish her, he definitely would find a way that she would regret. Going through another episode of what had happened last time seemed somewhat likely, if she got him annoyed again. And of course, if she didn't have enough to worry about, the little game was making her really hot and bothered. Usually, when she took a man to her bed, Lilia was very controlling, even with men much larger and stronger than her like Alex, she set the limits and the pacing, the boundaries and the comfort zones. With Zach she could do none of that, and she was finding it unexpectedly stimulating, even without her fucked up memories to haunt her. Or maybe because they were gone, she didn't automatically shy away from being submissive...
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of cardboard sliding on cardboard, and she found herself holding her breath as Zach took the top off the box and peered down at what lay within. Another minute of pure silence passed, and that was perhaps the single most tortuous minute of Lilia's entire life! Was he happy? Was he pissed? What was he going to do to her? Was he even still behind her? She was so DEAD! More than anything, she wanted to turn around and see what was going on. But she forced herself, trembling, to stare straight ahead, arms at her sides, and just WAIT. Screw being tortured with hot irons, there was no greater torment than waiting naked in darkness for your fate to be decided! And then, finally, she heard him reach down and pick up the item in the box, testing the weight, the balance, as he slowly rolled it between his hands, shifting his grip back and forth, one handed, two handed; slowly putting it through a few paces, still behind her, out of her sight of course. And then, he took off the leather binding around the blade, revealing the weapon in all its glory!
Lilia closed her eyes again, picturing the weapon as she'd first seen it, when it had been laid out across her bed by Vaul in anticipation of her return. Just as she'd asked him, he'd made a scythe, which wasn't the most strictly practical of weapons, for all that its design allowed for a maximum degree of cutting power, and a large degree of piercing power, it was just unwieldy and awkward to swing about, especially rapidly and in the press of melee. The shaft was about five and a half feet long, the last six inches being where the blade was attached to the shaft, the entire weapon, shaft and edge both, made of nearly unbreakable Quantum Crystal, specially grown into this specific shape one molecule at a time in Vaul's laboratories. The cystal structure was something like ruby, the shaft so dark it appeared black, along with the back edge of the blade, while the loer, main cutting edge was more crimson and garnet in shade, becoming almost pink at the very edge, like a gumline sharp enough to bisect an atom! Lighter pink strirations ran through the blade, extending like nerves or capilliary veins from the pinkish edge, honeycombing the structure of the blade, lightening it without weakening it. These near microscopic channels were actually tiny wind-tunnels that directed airflow through them at a specific speed, producing a specific pitch of sound, very much like a human screaming in pain, whenever the blade moved.
If the blade moved slowly, it merely moaned and sighed, the last mumbles of a suicide victim with slashed wrists. If swung quickly, the blade shrieked like a banshee escaping from hell, a noise that chilled the blood and loosened the bowels, and it was from this sound that the weapon drew its name. Deathshriek, Vaul had called it, a weapon of malice and terror, infused with the Latence amplifying abilities of one of Vaul's own daughters, to significantly boost the mental powers of any Active to wield it, but especially those that dealt with influencing the the emotions of others in a negative fashion. No wielder of Deathshriek would be interested in boosting the morale of allies, their focus would be on sowing discord and disruption through the ranks of the enemy. It was simultaneously the most awesome and the most horrific weapon she'd ever laid eyes on, much less touched! Her feelings had been torn between singing the praises of Vaul to the heavens, and demanding that he destroy the thing before she could give it to Zach. This weapon embodied everything that was nasty and dark about the Edenites, she felt a bit sick just holding it.
Lilia suddenly jumped in startlement, as the air screamed like a victim of a burning house, just behind her ear, and then she froze into the most stock stillness she had ever managed, since the pink gumline of Deathshriek was resting against her throat in an eyeblink. Even a deep breath could see the quantum edge slice her throat open before she even realized it was happening, and just a twitch of Zach's hands would see her looking up at her own decapitated body before she even knew it had happened. She was quite literally on the utmost edge of death. "Mouse..." Zach murmured, his voice like nothing she'd heard from him before. He sounded almost... surprised. "Why is this thing?" He purred into her ear.
She figured she must have misheard him, so she began to answer the question she thought he'd asked. "It's a LEMIM, thats Latence Encoded, Mentally Impressed Material, QC scythe called Deathshriek, that Vaul made for you at my behest, because I remember how disappointed you were with the blades we had when we went to the Wendigo valley and..." She came up short, when the blade shifted a minute fraction, and she felt blood begin to trickle down her neck and across her breasts.
"I know WHAT it is, I can feel that much." Zach hissed at her. "WHY is this thing, Mouse, and answer carefully or it won't be the only thing screaming..."
What's he asking me? Why is this thing? What's that mean... Lilia thought in a panic, before it finally hit her. No one's ever given him a real present before! He's only ever had bribes and things that were some sort of disguised trick to control him! He thinks that I'm trying to coerce him somehow, or deceive him! Oh shit, I never even thought he'd react like this, and now he's about to kill me! What can I tell him that won't make him angry? Shit, shit shit shit shit... FUCK! I don't know what to say!
"I'm waiting, Mouse... I don't LIKE waiting..." Zach reminded her, the cut on her neck growing a bit deeper and wider, hot blood dripping down her cleavage all the way to her belly button now.
"I gave it to you because I want you to be happy, Zacharis." Lilia blurted out. "I wanted to impress you, and make you happy, so I got you a gift. That is why this thing is." She closed her eyes, not wanting to have to see the blood gouting out of her neck if he decided to cut her head off. "And because... I want you to like me, because if you won't listen to me, there's no way I can save you." She added, chewing her lip almost hard enough to make it bleed, knowing he would be able to sense a half truth from her, which would be just as bad as a lie. There was another long silence, and then a moan echoed through the cave, and it took her a moment to realize it was the blade moving away from her throat, and not her terror finally getting the better of her. Her instinct was to press her hand to the cut on her neck, but she forced herself to remain still as a statue. The last thing she needed was to startle him now!
"You wanted me to be happy?" Zach said slowly, setting Deathshriek down in a corner, the blade slicing into the wall like it was hardly more than mist, the only thing stopping the weapon from just falling forever through the bedrock was the that the haft couldn't fit through the sliced section of rock. The scent of the Mouse's hot blood was intoxicating in the air, along with her sweat and juices and the way she continued to just stand there, caught betwixt terror, desire and determination. He mulled over his responses and then shrugged. "Consider me pleased then, Mouse. You've done well, and earned yourself a reward. You even stayed still, that pleases me more. You've been a very good Mouse today, so I shall give you two favors. One for your people, and one for you."
"For my people?" Lilia asked, not sure what he was talking about.
"Yes. Your smarmy boss has gone and made quite the boo-boo. Normally I wouldn't care, but his efforts have made this war more complicated than it already was. It is obvious that someone more competent needs to step in, and you have just ensured that will happen. The USN TIAMAT system will be destroyed, and the Edenites have your... persuasive abilities... to thank for it. I'll even let you come watch me do it, I know, I am the soul of generosity aren't I?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Lilia admitted her confusion. "What has Kunai done now?"
"That is something you should hear from him." Zach told her with a smile. Poor Mouse, so isolated and blinkered, trusting those who showed no trust in return. He could almost feel sorry for her. He stepped up to her, running his fingertips along her jawline again, studying the way she tensed and relaxed and changed the pace of her breathing in unconscious response. This promised to be very entertaining... he'd never taken a girl without hurting her before. But honesty in the face of death deserved some sort of reward, and as interested as the Mouse was in "saving" him from himself, Frost was much more interested in watching as the abyss swallowed the Mouse whole in the process. How long would she last? What would she become? What would the abyss tell her? It was going to be so much fun to find out. Not all evil was bloody, not all terror stemmed from violence. It was time to envelop the Mouse with a different form of corruption, a warm, safe feeling that only grew dangerous when you realized you couldn't make it stop...
"As for your reward, Mouse..." Zach put his hands on her body, cupping one breast, stroking her stomach, caressing her sides and eventually allowing himself to rub between her thighs, being extremely careful to be the very image of gentle. "Today, instead of making you scream, I shall make you gasp..."
"Zach... wait..." Lilia protested, as she felt herself start to melt against him. Ohh Tree, he's good...
"Don't curse at me, Mouse. I hate that four letter word." Zach admonished her, as he allowed his lips to cover hers, but not before he lapped at the blood from her neck, making her taste her own vital fluids on his tongue as he broke down her defenses one caress at a time. Sweet corruption, it made for a nice change of pace. And he was true to his word... it wasn't long at all before she was quite breathless, her gasps echoing around the cave in mocking pantomime to the previous moans and shrieks of his present. Evil finds its way, after all.
