Chapter 7: Majestrix's Justice

Images flashed into Sara's mind; images of her childhood, spent in a variety of military bases; her father's betrayal of her, her husband's abuse of her, and her meeting with the X-Men. Then happier memories; working with Scott and Warren on her Chevelle; fighting alongside them against their enemies; working with Xavier and his attorneys on her divorce. Her ownership of Meredith, then the long lonely months of traveling while she got her company back on its feet. That incredible day she got Chang, the subsequent testing that Charles insisted she go through to determine the extent of the sword's abilities, and, in a rush of awareness, the procedure she had endured in the lab.

Her mind took over there, filled in the intervening four days, and Chang saw clearly the operation that had planted tiny metal devices in her abdomen and in her brain to control her. The small near-microscopic metal thing injected into the base of her skull beside her spine controlled her mind; and when she didn't obey immediately, the other device in her abdomen, about the size of a double A battery, sent incredibly painful cramps to her stomach and intestines. Sara could fight the mental chip, but the agonizing pain in her abdomen had broken her in a day. She had become almost an automaton in carrying out Koven's orders.

Chang realized that if he were to save her, that device would have to come out. Silently apologizing for what he was about to do, he took control of her body.

The watching people gasped as Chang slid smoothly into Deathstar's body just below her navel. Blood gushed, and along with it came a black cylinder about two inches long. She curled over, gasping as her body started to heal, and moments later when the skin's surface was healed she looked up at the X-Men with a clear eye. She rose smoothly to her feet and took up Chang.

Koven gaped at her for a moment and then swore, long and eloquently, in the common Shi'ar tongue. "Hellguard!" he rasped. "She's freed herself of my conditioner! Kill her!"

Gero drew his gun and fired off an energy blast that if it had struck Sara would have killed her. Chang rose into the air, a glowing blue-white arc, and the bolt bounced off the blade and ricocheted off into the darkness at the rear of the warehouse. They began to fight, coming together in a flash and dazzle of blue-white sword and red energy bolts. Chang was giving Sara incredible stamina and speed, and she was keeping pace with Gero easily, a pace that would have killed her if she hadn't had Chang.

For nearly a half an hour they fought thus. When the energy weapon ran out of charge, the X-Men thought he would give up. Instead he threw himself at Sara as fast as he could, overpowering her by sheer virtue of his superior mass and speed, and she fell over backward, Chang clattering to the floor somewhere behind her. They rolled on the floor, grappling with each other, and in an unlucky moment Hellguard slipped his hands under hers and wrapped his fists around her neck. She choked, gasped for air, spluttered in rage, as he pushed her inexorably backward. He couldn't crush her neck, but if he cut off her air long enough, she would black out, and probably be out long enough for him to deal her a fatal injury that she wouldn't be able to heal before it killed her. Koven had taught him what her weak points were, so if it came down to one against the other, he would know how to kill her.

But he had done the same for her. She knew where Hellguard was most vulnerable, and she brought up her hands, now, with the last of her strength, and jammed her fingers up to her knuckles into his eyes. He screeched, like a dying vulture, and stumbled backward as she uncurled from the floor and picked Chang up from the corner. For a moment she crouched there, watching Hellguard flail about helplessly. "Master, see I cannot!" he cried. "Help!"

Koven looked at Sara, looked at Gero, looked at her again, noting this time the glint in her eye, and decided to save himself. He turned and ran.

Gero never saw the blue-white sword descend on the half of his head that was not covered by the silver metal. As his body crumpled to the floor there was a mildly surprised look on the metal half of his face.

Sara sprang past her fallen enemy with a snarl of anger and ran after Koven. She backed him into a corner, raised her sword, and brought it down in a fast, wicked slash. Koven shrieked. She slashed again, and again, and again, as Xavier, Lilandra, the X-Men, and the Imperial Guard watched in stunned silence her bloodthirsty fury. She finally fell to her knees, spent, in the middle of the puddle of blood on the floor, and buried her face in her bloody hands, weeping.

Wolverine broke himself out of his shock and ran to her. She sagged into his arms, dampening his uniform with her tears. "Oh God, Logan," she whispered brokenly, "I thought I'd never see you again…I love you so much…"

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly as she shook with sobs.

Lilandra stirred herself at last. "Charles, this shows you just how dangerous she is. She will have to be taken into Shi'ar custody, though I regret having to answer your friendship with such pain."

Charles gawked at her, as did the rest of the X-Men. "Lilandra, she just killed Hellguard and Koven! She saved us…she saved our world! Yet you still want to kill her?"

"Charles," Lilandra said, struggling to keep her temper, "She just killed an unarmed man who was a citizen of my Empire. She is a murderer. What if she kills someone on your planet next? What will you do then?"

"You condemned him to death!" Charles exclaimed. "You exiled him, banished him, and ordered his death! She did your Guard a favor. They couldn't kill him! Now they'll kill her! Lilandra, I love you, but I cannot allow this!"

Sara stood, pushing away from Logan, and walked over to the two of them. She fell to her knees before the Majestrix and held out her hands, palms up. "I am placing myself into your custody," she said, her voice quivering slightly. "Do with me as your laws require."

"Sara!" Logan cried, his voice breaking. Xavier and the others looked equally aghast.

"Sara, don't, we won't let it happen--" Jean began.

She looked at them with tears in her eyes. "Koven planted two controlling devices inside me," she said. "One was designed to cause incredible pain whenever I disobeyed him; when I stabbed myself it came out. The other is a chip injected into the base of my skull here," she tapped the nape of her neck, "that he programmed with orders to conquer this world for the Majestrix, and to protect him. I am to kill anyone who threatens him. It has not yet 'realized' that he is gone; I don't know what will happen when it does. I don't want to kill anyone else, Charles!

"My guess was correct; my ex-husband sold me to him for fifty thousand dollars. After Koven bonded the metal to my skin Hellguard took me to Richard's house. Richard just lay there, he didn't try to defend himself or talk me out of anything. I killed him. I killed him in cold blood. No matter what he did to me, how much he hurt me, I shouldn't have done what I did. This chip in my head makes me want to kill. I enjoyed killing Richard and Koven. I can't allow myself to kill again, Charles. Please, Majestrix," she said to Lilandra, "do what you have to do."

Lilandra looked narrow-eyed at her. "There is a controlling device inside you?"

"Yes," Sara whispered.

"Empress, if I may?" Gladiator put in. She nodded to him. "Empress, if there is indeed a device inside her, controlling her, then she is not responsible for the actions done while she was Deathstar," he said speculatively. "If the chip is removed I believe she will no longer be a threat to anyone. She is not, if I am correct in thinking so, a career criminal like Gero."

"She isn't," Charles said instantly. "Lilandra, Sara had ample reason to want her husband dead. He abused her, hurt her and tortured her during the two years she was married to him. In all that time, she never once lifted a hand toward him, or tried to kill him, though no one would have faulted her if she had. She's not a born killer. She is a doctor, and as such she is sworn to preserve life."

"Then," Lilandra said, "if this chip can be extracted and a promise given that she will never kill another, I see no reason why she cannot be released to you, Charles. But in the meantime, to protect others, I must insist that she be placed in custody."

Sara suddenly jerked in anguish. "It…knows…" she got out through gritted teeth. "It…knows Koven is dead…It wants me to avenge his death. Stop me. Please!"

Gladiator and Cyclops moved together, Cyclops to hold her arms behind her and Gladiator to place energy bindings around her wrists Deathstar raged and shrieked, plunging against the restraints and the two men who held her. "Kill you all!" she spat, hatred dripping from a voice so unlike Sara's they knew that what she'd said was true. Something was possessing her. "You killed Master! You will die! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

It took three of the Guard to get her down to the holding cells below the mansion, and as soon as they put her down on the bed inside she sprang up out of it, cursing. It required three tries before they managed to get out of the cell, leaving her in it, secured by the forcefield. She raged, she swore, she cursed, she screamed, but after the first time she tried the forcefield and it knocked her back into the opposite wall, she did not dare approach it again. As she paced inside, Hank lugged all the diagnostic equipment he could carry to the room outside her cell and ran every scan he could think of.

He showed them an X-ray of Sara's skull. Bone and flesh and brain showed as a mass of variantly shaded grey. In the center of it, at the base of her skull and perilously close to her brainstem, a small object glowed whitely. "It's terribly close to her brainstem," he said, "and I don't want to open her head and do it. I decided to try to use a jolt of electricity to try to short it out. The problem will be to do it quickly."

"Why quickly?" Xavier asked.

"Look at this," he indicated a screen to Charles that showed them her brainwaves. "There are two separate brainwave patterns; one is Deathstar's, and this one is Sara's. Note Sara's brainwaves are dimming. We're starting to lose her, Charles. If she is subsumed long enough by Deathstar, we will lose her completely. We have to do it, and quickly."

Xavier paled. "How soon can you be ready?" he asked.

"In an hour," Hank said. "But I have to do it in the lab."

"I'll get the guys," Jean said quickly.

Gladiator helped Scott, Warren, and Logan to get her out of the cell and upstairs to the medical lab. She screamed at them all, cursing them, and it took a great while for them to get her secured to the table. Logan winced at the sight of her lunging against the restraints, and left as Cyclops began to strap her forehead and chin down.

Xavier was watching from the observation room, eyes bright with tears. Jean dropped a hand down on his shoulders in silent empathy. They hated seeing her like this. The sooner the operation was over the better.

Things quieted down somewhat when Hank gave her an injection that would put her to sleep. He placed small flat electrodes all over the parts of her head that weren't covered by the metal, turned on the bit of Shi'ar technology that would allow him to see what he was doing in her head.

It took only ten minutes for the electrical current to build up to what Hank considered as much voltage as he could safely use this close to her brain. He sent the voltage sizzling into her brain via the wires, and watched as the small chip sizzled briefly. Sara jerked once, and was still. He took off the electrodes and said, "Now we wait. We'll know when she wakes up if it's her or if its Deathstar."

They all sat down to wait.