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The High Marshal's hand hovered over his king, then moved to push the rook one tile forward to block his opponent's queen.
His hybrid counterpart didn't leave much of his pieces by the time they've reached the endgame. Just his king, two rooks, and a single pawn. Victory was near for the clone, and the growing smile on his face showed that he knew it too.
"Hey, give me a break." Stern muttered, noticing the smirk. "It's been a while since I played."
"As I recall, this was your idea." The hybrid replied, moving his queen to take his rook. "Check."
"It is." Stern stroked his chin, "Hard to believe that we...I was champion of the chess club back in high-school."
"There's no shame in getting beaten every now and then." More pieces were lost. Trapped between queen, bishop and knight, Stern's king stood helplessly on the board. Checkmate. The game was over.
The clone leaned back on his chair, satisfied with his third victory over his older counterpart. "That's why we love this game. Win or lose, you learn something and become better."
"Is that so?" Stern rearranged the pieces for another game, eager to try again. "I thought it was more about the symbolism that lay behind the pieces, the board, and the game itself."
In the weeks that followed after the High Marshal's bio-transference operation, the two Sterns worked together to make the necessary preparations for his succession upon his death. It wouldn't be long, they both knew it.
Most of the work involved a lot of paperwork, some private calls here and there, but most of the time they spent their days together up in the High Marshal's office. They talked, drank, smoked and played chess.
They rarely went out, and when they did it was always a secluded area. The older Stern didn't want to make an early revelation, and made discretion a priority when it concerned his clone. All who were involved in both his security detail and small circle of loyalists in Vault 115 were sworn to secrecy.
People see things, people gossip, rumors circulate and do the truth's work for it. He'd make that revelation on its own time, and on his own terms.
"Ah yes, I remember what it was like when we first took command." The younger Stern picked up his king piece and rolled it around between his fingers, "Felt like we were doing what we were born to do. Became what we were born to become. A warrior for truth, justice and the American way. We feared retirement more than we feared death, leading and fighting had become our lives. Now, I think neither of us will ever fear retirement ever again."
"Feeling's mutual." The High Marshal pushed the board to turn it so that white would be on his clone's side. "You start this time."
The hybrid made his first move, "You miss it though, right?"
"What?"
"Being in the field, doing things beyond the desk?"
"That's grunt talk. You know better than that."
"I know, I know. More things can be done with working behind a desk in the grand scheme of things, but even you can admit that there's no feeling like it."
Stern studied the clone closely, took in the fine features chiseled to perfection by the skillful machines of Dr. Holiday's laboratory. "To fight beside your fellow soldiers, stink of sweat and gunpowder. Rifle in hand, shape history with every squeeze of the trigger? Yes, there's no feeling like it and I do miss it. But I'm no longer just a soldier, I'm the High Marshal. Soon, you will be too. Better get used to staying behind a desk, it's part of the job."
"Yeah..." The younger Stern turned his head to look out the window. "Let me ask you something."
"Shoot." The High Marshal said, half his attention focused on carefully making his next move, his next step towards winning the game.
"You ever planning on making an announcement?"
"On what?"
"On us. On the fact that you're dying, the fact that we basically cheated death and invented immortality."
"Don't flatter yourself. You're not immortal. No one is."
"Regardless, are you going to let the people know? I'm not clear on the plan."
The older Stern sighed, "I will tell them the truth, but not yet."
"Why should you? Why should anyone of us?"
"Right, and that worked so well for the Commonwealth. If you wish to know, I want you to understand my stance on this very carefully. Keeping this particular truth from them won't guarantee it stays hidden for long. We need people to trust us, and the only way to do that is to show some good faith every now and then. As much as we wish this place to be a utopia compared to the Wasteland, we have enemies among us too. Our position is a slippery slope, and if we're not careful we'd just wind up like the many short-lived regimes who came before us."
When his clone remained silent, Stern continued. "I plan on making this technology available to everyone, but only after it has been perfected."
The younger Stern couldn't believe his ears, "You want everyone to undergo bio-transference? Everyone?"
"Everyone." The High Marshal nodded, "It is the greatest gift we can give the human race. The only gift we can give that will ensure our existence remains unchallenged."
"Hmm...I never thought of it that way. I guess old age does put things into perspective."
"Yes, it certainly does. Now, are you going to make your move or what?"
Lt. Hope Weiss glared at the auxiliary, then slowly shifted her gaze to the holo-tape in her hands.
"I-I...I didn't want to leave them, lieutenant." Autumn said tearfully, "Please...forgive me."
The tribal woman had been spotted making a slow approach towards Liberty Point. She was recognized by the heavy-weapons team manning the machine-gun nest in the outer perimeter and sent the report up the chain. Exhausted, shaken and possibly heavily irradiated in spite of the radiation suit she was wearing, Autumn was immediately sent to the decontamination ward in the settlement infirmary.
When the process was finished, she was brought to the lieutenant's office where both Hope and Sgt. Sterling awaited her report.
"I'm not angry at you." Hope said as she took the holo-tape. "You've done your job, now go home and rest. You've earned it."
The woman left and when the door shut behind her, Hope placed her hands on her desk to put her whole weight against it. Sterling was taking it as badly as she did, perhaps worse. Those men who died were his friends, he trained them himself. The only consolation that could be found in their demise was that they accomplished their mission, in spite of their tragic end.
"We attack tonight, Sterling."
"I hear you, LT."
Hope handed him the holo-tape, "Get this intel analyzed and disseminated. Once you've done that, get the men ready. Reinforcements are coming and when they do we'll have all the support we'll need to hold Liberty Point until we've finished with the Cult."
Sterling saluted his superior and marched out of the building to get to work. Planning an attack would take time, but the strong desire for revenge sped things up. There was always the danger of cutting corners, wind up getting a lot more people killed in the name of payback. But having a working military doctrine kept things in check.
The Dominion would strike back against the Cult, but it would be a precise and decisive strike.
By the time reinforcements came, the Dominion Army was already mobilized and set to move. Sterling would lead the assault on the Cult of the Reshapened, as the lieutenant needed to remain back at the settlement to coordinate the defense of Liberty Point should the Badlanders attack again. Every rook deployed for the coming battle was equipped with power-armor and all personnel operating tanks or IFV's wore hazmat suits, to resist the environmental hazards of the heavily irradiated deadzone.
They wasted no time following the path laid out by the recon team, used the Black Bears to punch through any opposition standing in their way, and never stopped until they rode deep into the ruins of the Niner.
It was there, on the blackened skeleton of the crashed airplane, they found the remains of Geist's squad.
The cultists chopped them up into pieces and tied them to the rusted steel spires with old ropes. Geist's body was strung up to form an X, and the arms of his friends were nailed to his chest, stretched outward to depict an eight armed man- an effigy to honor the Cult's high priestess.
The bloody monument was meant to demoralize or ward off enemies, but it only succeeded in angering the rooks. It was quickly broken down, and the remains respectfully bagged away for burial. The desecration of their fallen brothers-in-arms was an unforgivable sacrilege, and no mercy would be shown to the Cult.
Patrols picked up on the advancing army, but were quickly silenced by the powerful guns of the Dominion marksmen. They set up positions, readied the self-propelled artillery units to soften up their enemies, then waited for the sergeant to give the command.
Hannigan's tank pulled up beside the Centaur Sterling was riding in and stopped. The turret traversed towards the ruined city, and the tank commander sitting inside radioed Sterling. "Hey, we getting this party started or what?"
"You understand that we've been up to our necks fighting off their invaders back at the settlement, right?" The sergeant growled back, "We do this the wrong way, we'd be kicking the hornet's nest."
"Good point, 'cept for that one error. It's our nest they kicked. They're due for their share of stinging."
"And they'll get theirs, alright? Hold fire and let the big guns do their work first. You'll get your action soon enough."
Over an over again, the cultists chanted the nightmarish mantra.
"Take our hands, that we may serve you.
Take our eyes, that we may see you.
Take our ears, that we may hear you.
Take our minds, that we may know you."
"Welcome, children..." The Mistress of the Forge extended her many arms to greet the newly ascended cyber-warriors of the Cult. More wasters came to join her church, thanks to the ceaseless efforts of her missionaries. It would do well for the Cult, as many of her zealots recently perished in an attempt to convert the denizens of the Corpse Coast.
Ramoné, once of the Highlanders, delivered to her the heads of the unbelievers who dared to trespass into their lands. He received a new implant as a reward, one that would take away his ability to feel pain and give him the courage to wade into the thick of battle. The tribal man knelt before his priestess and accepted her gift, never once flinching as her acolytes drilled the implant into his head.
"Rise, Ramoné, and stand as the champion of the Cult."
He obeyed, raising his metal arms high to draw the adulation of his peers. As he did so, Arachne paused in her sermon when she felt a tremor shake the whole cathedral. More tremors came, accompanied by the deafening peal of explosions outside. The cyber-warrior's left eye twitched and his lips drew back over his teeth into a frothing snarl. The cultists cowered in fear as the ceiling started to give way.
Dust and debris rained on them as the whole building started to collapse. The zealots instinctively went to Arachne's aid, forsaking the others to preserve their priestess. Years of rebuilding the cathedral came to nothing as the monument to the Cult's rise fell within minutes.
When the dust settled and whatever stood for buildings in the Niner were reduced to rubble, the unbelievers marched upon the Cult to finish off those who survived the barrage. What the shells culled were only the weak, they left nothing standing save for the strongest warriors of the Cult. The cyber-warriors and all their abominations crawled out of the rubble, numbering only by the few hundred after the blasts.
Seeing the unbelievers treading upon their hallowed grounds enraged them, and a brief skirmish ensued.
The rooks learned much from defending the walls of Liberty Point, they knew how to kill the zealots. Small-arms wouldn't do much in the battle, but the cannons they brought with them could more than make up for their shortcomings. The Centaurs fired their devastating 20mm guns, tearing flesh and metal from their bodies until there was nothing left to shred. When they proved too slow to finish off the remaining cyber-warriors, the Black Bears blasted them into oblivion with their 105mm cannons.
No mercy was shown to the denizens of the Niner. The rooks didn't care if the wasters they killed were unarmed. The indiscriminate slaughter, although born out of blind vengeance and pent up frustration, was necessary. Any religious sect or organization the Dominion came across could be tolerated, but only if they were harmless to the new world order.
If deemed hazardous, they would be wiped out. The Cult fit that category.
In the end, only a dozen zealots remained with Lady Arachne. In the confusion, they managed to slip away. With the ruins surrounded by the Dominion Army, and left with no other choice, the cultists retreated into Vault 9.
After its vault-dwellers had long departed to live on the surface, the vault was left largely abandoned. Its treasure trove of technologies had long been spent in the Cult's long crusade to reshape the Wasteland in its own image. Nothing would save the cultists, the vault that served as the instrument of their salvation would become their tomb.
Lady Arachne fled into the overseer's office, the room where the woman she once was used to rule the vault-dwellers of Vault 9. Her whole world crumbled into nothing, and all that remained of her false church was a handful of zealots soon to fall prey to the weapons of the unbelievers. She could hear the thundering footfalls of their enemies echoing through the ancient corridors, the frenzied cries of her cyber-warriors, the rattle of gunfire. The cacophony of sounds was inching closer and closer to the overseer's office, and Lady Arachne felt fear for the first time in years.
Unlike her zealous brethren, she was unwilling to die for the beliefs she once championed. So many lost souls begging for ascension, never once fearing death for a chance to become something more than an irradiated sack of meat. They had courage, she did not.
As much as she fancied herself as a machine god, Arachne was all too human. More than anything, she wanted to live.
The Mistress of the Forge trembled as she felt the floor shake with every step the rooks made. They entered the room, power-armor bloodied and scratched from the fight through the corridors. When they saw her, every gun was immediately trained on the high priestess.
In desperation, she fell to her knees and prostrated herself before her enemies. "Don't shoot. Please...spare my life..."
Sgt. Sterling grimaced in disgust at her display, they all did.
"Why should I?" He asked, "Why should anyone of us spare your life? If you can even be considered alive."
Arachne removed her hood and slowly lifted her head from the floor. Her face was very beautiful, but too alien to be appreciated fully. Her skin had been replaced with a soft metallic polyalloy that shone like polished steel. Arachne's cybernetic eyes glowed bright blue, showing a meticulous craftsmanship that mimicked their organic predecessors. Whatever technologies were used in her transformation, they succeeded in masking the soul with something otherworldly.
If Sterling was honest with himself, he found her intriguing.
"You have destroyed my church, killed my followers...you have won." A very human sadness managed to seep out of her inhuman features, "Our goal has ever only been to ascend, to become strong enough to survive the horrors of this new world. I see now that we were given that chance, and we have failed. But you haven't, it is your people who have become strong."
"You got that right."
The rooks fought the urge to destroy the abomination, but the sergeant had other ideas. "Hold fire, rooks."
Seeing her chance, the priestess bowed her head in submission. "I am all that remains of the people of the Niner. Spare my life, and in return I shall share the secrets of Vault 9."
"Ah." Sterling smiled under his helmet, "Now we're getting somewhere."
"Sir, you can't possibly consider letting her live." One of the rooks protested, "Her people killed a lot of good men."
"And those responsible were killed in turn." The sergeant replied, "This one can prove useful in many ways, she'll make an excellent contribution to the cause."
Sterling reached down and took hold of Arachne's throat. His grip was firm, and if he wished it, he could crush her neck in one quick clench of his hand. The priestess made no move to stop him as he lifted her to her feet, nor did she resist when the rooks tore her other arms out of her body. They restrained her, then hauled her off to be transported back to Liberty Point.
Arachne watched as the soldiers torched the ruins of the cathedral with heavy-flamers, leaving only ash by the time they finished. That day the Niner truly became a deadzone, a veritable ugly scar in the map of the Texas Wasteland. Nothing remained of the Cult of the Reshapened, save for her. As uncertain as her new life as a prisoner of the Dominion, Arachne knew that the memories of her flock would die with her. Even so, she felt contentment.
The technologies of her people would, at the very least, serve a higher purpose.
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