Interlude: Dreamer
Kiphoris bowed his head as he supped from his ether rations, gasping in the clouds of cold, cold sustenance through his rebreather. His father was present; his sister too. The two of them had entered their family's quarters, a basic cabin deep in the belly of the Ketch, and were in the midst of talking about something - arguing, even. But civilly. With concern for one another's points and stances - despite the gulf of authority between them, where the division in ranks should have been prevalent.
Kolkriks raised a hand, to signal that he had a counterpoint to Drevis's argument - something about using a Servitor's shielding functions to protect ether-converters and glimmer-miners in the field, as opposed to hiding them away in Weaver-ships. "But if we take casualties," he softly began, kindly, "then how will we feed ourselves? How will we survive?"
"By striking back and stealing all we need to rebuild ourselves," Drevis replied, savagely, fiercely. Kolkriks laughed; Drevis was his favourite. It wasn't even a competition. Kiphoris had long since come to terms with that.
"And what do you think?" Kolkriks asked, glancing to the side. "Kiphoris? Where do the Servitors of the House belong? On the field of fiery battle, or gliding between the stars?"
At least Kolkriks sometimes tried to pretend otherwise. The gestures always rang hollow, but they were welcome all the same - because Kiphoris could pretend too. "The humans are fierce," he murmured.
Drevis laughed derisively. "So say the cowardly Kings!"
"So say the fearless Devils," Kolkriks said thoughtfully. "Fierce pit-fighters, ditch-runners, and ridge-snipers those Earthborn be. But they have never lived as we have - storming airlocks and weaving through debris-fields. I think... we will bring our war to them - and they will either kneel or fall before us."
"And then - we'll have it?" Drevis eagerly asked.
"The Great Machine?" Kolkriks smiled, turning his attention back to her - forgetting Kiphoris all over again. Theirs was the shared sense of glory of Baron and Captain; no room for a Vandal who'd only just earned his arms back. "Eia. We will have it. We will have it in our claws and we will never let go."
On and on they went, imagining other battles, new wars, further victories. Kiphoris watched and listened; theirs was a love he would never partake in. His hands were better suited to the weaving needle than to the shock rifle. A part of him wondered if he could stomach the look of his father's disappointment if he requested to be reassigned with the civilian Ketches - to rejoin his mother and little siblings, making cloaks and banners for the other warriors. No, he decided, he couldn't.
And the love of his father, even if it paled compared with that given to Drevis, was enough to keep where he was - trying, perhaps in vain, to master the new vocations of all Gentle Weavers: control over shockblade, shrapnel launcher and stealth-locked Skiff.
The humans destroyed them. Killed their Kell. Hit their house so hard half of it was gone. Not scattered, not limping back on damaged propulsion systems to friendly space, but dead. Millions. Devoured by the quick explosive destruction of an icy asteroid-moon, a frigid place ripe with organic molecules and rare elemental components fit for ether conversion.
But now they knew where the other humans were. They had a series of strongholds, hidden away in the plethora of rocks within the system's inner asteroid belt. Different to those of the green-blue planet - for they were quick and silent, not rambunctiously roaring with fury. They were sinuous, elegant glimmer-skinned vacuum-fighters, armed with fractal knives and sleek, tri-bladed dart-ships. They came armed with dread magics and incomprehensible powers - ripping apart their Ceres with unholy children of devastation and animal purpose, great minds of fantastic power and infantile understanding.
They'd killed his father. One Skiff among many - leading a formation to cut into the newcomer vessels, to board and capture all those within, steal their ships and leave them with their lives. That was what Virixaskel had promised. That was what he'd ordered. Merciful - better than any of the other houses would have given them, save for Judgement and Winter. And Judgement said nothing. Winter had already run ahead to join with Kings and Devils.
They'd killed his father. His ship had been among the first to fall - run through with those Herr-buriin-jurs as they shot towards the asteroid, where many of the house were taking on ether. So many had died within the initial blast, so many Servitors and warriors and people lost to an alien pre-emptive strike, to spare a city of thieves sheltering beneath a god not theirs. So much ether lost, so many ships, so much waste - and they would never get any of it back. An irreparable blow; a crippling injury dealt against their House.
They'd killed his father. Kiphoris considered howling with rage into the confines of the Skiff's cockpit like Drevis was doing. The co-pilot was glancing at him worriedly, concerned he'd lose his control and drive them astray, into one of the myriad asteroids and comets lining the jungled ring. He considered it - and disregarded the concern.
He could keep going.
Because they'd killed his father, and he swore to return unto the humans that same pain.
Skolas promised to avenge Virixas. To avenge Kolkriks. Drevis swore her undying loyalty to the Rabid. Kiphoris, part of her crew, was immediately beholden to that same oath. To retaliate against the star-souled and claw down their cool-eyed queen from her throne of soldered salvage and Eliksni corpses.
That was something he could do. That was how he decided he was going to grieve - amidst gunfire and alien screams.
For the father who'd never loved him enough, Kiphoris was going to burn them out of their habitat-cities and terraformed asteroid-forests and show them the price of the war they'd invited upon themselves.
Irxis and Parixas did not agree. Or rather, they did not agree that Skolas should lead the charge. All three Barons, once strong and mighty and noble and united beneath a single Kell and single banner, were reduced to a squabbling the likes of which Kiphoris had only heard in dark tales concerning the last of the lost houses - of Rain, once glorious and reduced to ruin.
Now it was the turn of the Gentle Weavers - of the Wolves.
Skolas ordered them to squabble unseen; to rip and lash out at their rivals among Irxis's and Parixas's forces while swaddled in the preemptively utilized burial wraps of transparent stealth - biting from the emptiness of vacuum with quick, precise bursts of Arcfire, weaving confusion and desperation under Drevis's watchful eye. She was an artist of cloaked combat, and they, her warrior-crews, were her weaving-loom.
In a cold, dark warren Kiphoris sliced into human communications while listening to his mother sing his little brothers and sisters to sleep - those who'd survived the race of all Kell-claimants to seize them for themselves. Not even the civilian ships had been spared the schism of the House. They were killing themselves trying to decide who would have the honour of tearing out the humans' throats. Drevis had set him to the task of watching over what remained of their family and sniffing out the Awoken strongholds - but it was hard. It was hard because the asteroid-people hid themselves well, and because most radio-chatter he picked up was from their ancestral home.
The battle on Earth was over. The Kings, the Devils, and the Winterlings had lost. Heroes had fallen - and there were new foes of renown to fear into their continued Lightless nights: Shakskel and Anabre, Ikha Riis and Lirinox-tu, Zavakel and Osiriks. The other houses called it the Final Attempt. Kiphoris didn't think it fair - his people hadn't yet reached Earth to have their own try. And, at the rate they were going, he doubted they ever would.
Solkis was dead. Craask had gone into hiding. Draksis was taking his Winterlings and retreating to Venus to lick their wounds. Others, dismayed with the defeat and tired of the Long Drift, joined together and became the newest rabble to refer to themselves as the House of Exiles - like the Riisan star-brigands of old.
There was a sigh by his shoulder, and Kiphoris's mother almost collapsed by the half-disassembled communications-array he was elbow-deep in. She picked at the frayed wires running over his shoulders, clicking with exhausted disapproval. "We're not getting enough rations," she whispered. "We're starving."
"Irxis has Orbiks Prime," he muttered in return. Orbiks was the mother-machine - and Kaliks the daughter. And Orbiks was withholding permission for Kaliks-Servitors to convert and produce ether. Only the Splicers were able to break through the lock - and even then, there still wasn't enough to go around.
Irxis was going to break them over her knee with famine, long before their unseen blades could reach her.
"Your sister," his mother began, "she can help."
Kiphoris growled. "She is busy."
"Kiphoris, please-"
"I am busy. Leave me be."
She beheld him with sad eyes. "You are your father's son."
The humans of Earth spoke in the languages of English, French, German, Russian, Spanish and Mandarin. The Awoken of the Reef used the Speech - all those languages at once, somehow. It was a magic of some kind. They always understood each other, always understood their brasher cousins closer to the sun, and they were always understood by others trained in the human tongues.
Kiphoris, self-trained, found himself nodding along to the weak, whispered chatter of Awoken who thought themselves secure. He listened to their elaborate, if clunky words and found they sometimes spoke in code - a runic code based upon their 'alphabet', meaning he had even more work ahead of him. He set himself to the task like a mythic niirsai beast having caught the scent of blood - honing in on it and zoning out all else.
Drevis had to shake his shoulder and pull him from the array just so her words would reach him. She was curt, rough, and her armour was freshly painted with ash and dried blue blood from her hunts against the forces of Irxis near Eos, and she pushed him towards her waiting Skiff without letting either of them say goodbye to their mother - but he'd done it. He'd actually done it. He'd found the first of the humans' hidden treasures.
An amethyst.
Irxis was dead - torn apart by Drevis's Silent Fang and Peekis's fleet. The cost had been huge. Where the Silent Fang had been successful, the fleet's casualties had been wasteful - and so Skolas docked Peekis's lower arms while rewarding Drevis with the next mission. As thanks, Drevis left Kiphoris behind, under the care of Kell and the Judgement Scribe, while she resumed her hunt against their true foe: the humans.
Kiphoris was working on both his bladecraft and his radio-hacking when word trickled back to the Kaliks-Fel and its sister ships - that Drevis and her Fangs had swept through Amethyst station, killing all within, and were leading the vengeful Awoken starfighters in a chase to the asteroid Iris. It was then, Kiphoris learned from the Judgement Scribe's own mandibles, that Grayor (who had been courting Drevis for nigh on ten Riisan years) had been assigned to a similar mission, drawing Parixas's primary Ketch to the same place. A trap had been set; the assassins slipped away while Skolas's rival died beneath the knives and gunshots of twin-souled humans.
The board was finally clear; the followers of Irxis and Parixas returned to the fold, setting aside their ambitions and ducking their heads in shame. Skolas forgave them, but asked for one thing: that they turn their blades towards the Awoken.
Kiphoris, for his part, was informed by a sickly-thin Dreg he knew from before the Scatter of Ceres that one of his childhood friends - a bright-eyed elika by the name of Orxos - had been stationed aboard Parixas's Ketch when it had been overrun with Awoken Corsairs. That she was assumed dead. He said nothing, shed no tears and carried on with his work. There was still battle ahead and a redoubled vengeance to sate.
For giving her Amethyst, Drevis rewarded him with a Skiff and crew to command.
Kiphoris flew against the Awoken of Hygeia with relish.
Hygeia was an asteroid given over to library-cities. Kiphoris ran the gauntlet of ground-to-air missiles and plasma-fire with the rest of the Wolves, and he boarded the nearest pressure-sealed library, called Bibliotheca Alexandrina. It gave way to his first time seeing an Awoken - even humans - in person; there was a guard by the airlock his Skiff docked at, waiting with a steady hand and a loaded pistol as Kiphoris's Splicer overrode the door controls - and its first shot ricocheted right off the Arc-shield Drevis had lent him.
Kiphoris snarled and ran at the thing garbed head to toe in a tight, insulative suit of magenta and black, and he ran it through with his sword. The human shuddered and spluttered and dropped its firearm to grasp at its gurgling throat; he'd nicked a lung. Kiphoris watched it, transfixed, and realized he hadn't activated his blade's Arc-generator in his haste.
It was the first time he'd killed someone. It was his first taste of vengeance.
It didn't... feel right.
One of his warriors yipped, ran past, and encouragingly tugged at his shoulder as she went. Kiphoris shook his head, tugged his sword free and broke the human's neck - and then he ran ahead with his crew, howling and bellowing, tearing through the alien installation to slice into server-terminals and drain the place of all tactical information pertaining towards the Awoken strongholds and militia before they were to give it over to the cannons of the fleet above.
They were being hunted. Drevis had decided to continue their sacking of the local sector even after the rest of Skolas's fleet had departed - until a number of Awoken warships had appeared, bearing the heraldry of the Reefborn's Paladins. Kiphoris didn't know which one; Leona Bryl, Imogen Rife, Abra Zire, or Kamala Rior. He hoped it wasn't Zire - she was the most ruthless of the four, and the only one he truly feared.
The Awoken were more prepared than they'd ever given them credit for before. The Paladin's attack fleet herded Drevis's Ketch, and the closest of the Skiffs, towards Bamberga, and eventually cornered her there - using the asteroid to dash her ship's propulsion systems and leave her stranded while they commenced boarding action. Kiphoris tried to help, tried to break the blockade, but he was forced to order a retreat when the warships spat out wasp-furious Galliots to fend them off. Skiffs were stronger, more resilient - but Galliots were faster, sharper, and he was too wary of their bite to commit any further.
His sister, it was reported afterwards by the Ketch's pilot-Servitor, was captured in the skirmish alongside Kaliks-4, her High Servitor. Skolas, when he heard, was furious, and all but demanded over radio that Kiphoris lead the surviving Skiffs to join Pirsis in an attempt to break her out. Kiphoris didn't argue; honour demanded he do just that, with or without his Kell's assent.
His father was dead, but his sister could be saved. He wasn't willing to lose more family - not to the humans.
They hit the retreating Awoken at Pallas with plasma-burn fury.
The fleet was massive. The largest they could field since the Scatter. Pirsis ruled it; she was queen-Kell of Pallas's skies - and her rule was borne of fear. No Awoken lifted off from the reinforced habitat-cities of Pallas, not with the blockading Wolf fleet overhead. For local years Kiphoris lived amongst the fleet, subsisting on noble purpose and vacuum-dried ether rations. He'd heard that some of his people, lowly Drekhs mostly, had at first taken to tearing at the corpses of Awoken killed in honest combat in place of ether - but that was a step too far for him.
Eating the bodies of the foe - was that not a sign of desperation? Meat was meat, a warrior told him, but Kiphoris stubbornly kept away from all such foul practices. They were not savage Devils or ailing Winterlings; they were Gentle Weavers, they were Wolves! No, he swore to never stoop to such low levels. His days as a Dreg were long gone, and they had the Orbiks permissions once more. They had enough feed to go on for some time yet.
And they certainly needed that time, too. Drevis and Kaliks-4 were prisoners of Pallas, within the custody of the Paladin finally identified as Imogen Rife. Pirsis refrained from opening fire, or even invading. Pallas remained on lockdown. Neither could force the other to budge. A stalemate was met.
One Kiphoris strived to break.
As detestable as those lowly flesh-tearing Dregs were to him, Kiphoris sought out the subject of the disturbing rumours and met with the scrap-thin creature known as Weksis aboard the second Ketch under Pirsis's command. The Dreg was a handsome one, and at first charming, but he was given over to dark vices - or so Kiphoris guessed, reading into the lowly thing's words.
"The Awoken must be growing lean," Kiphoris murmured, more a test to see if those rumours were true - and also an invitation to something else.
Weksis grunted unhappily. "Our spoils wither away, Fang-son. I wish we could break through and finish this once and for all."
Kiphoris clicked his mandibles against his teeth. "Then why don't you?"
Weksis gave him a surprised look - but it very quickly morphed into something else, something hungry. "You... are devious."
"I am mine-father's son."
"Oh eia, I see it now. You have the same ambition." Weksis straightened up, patting the knife strapped by his hip. "We'll break them yet, won't we?"
"For all we've lost," Kiphoris whispered. "Eia, we will."
Weksis organized an assault - one consisting almost entirely of Shanks and Dreg, flooding through a demolitions-carved breach in the habitat-fortress Athen Hull and meeting the Awoken within in close-ranged combat.
They failed.
And Pirsis, mere hours after word had reached them that Weksis and his followers had been imprisoned, summoned Kiphoris to her Ketch.
"Don't think I don't know what you did," the Baroness growled.
Kiphoris closed his outer eyes and bowed his head in a stiff, wordless apology.
"If not for your blood, I would have had you docked."
"I did not mean-"
"But your blunder may prove advantageous," Pirsis added. She motioned to the nearby hologram of Pallas. "Weksis's breach is open for the taking. We will storm them."
"I will join you," Kiphoris announced, "if you will have me, Pirsis-Mrelliks."
"Nama."
"Nama?"
"You will weave terror and confusion elsewhere," Pirsis told him. "It appears you're good at that - much like your sister. I am giving you three Skiff-crews. Do not fail me."
Kiphoris performed for her the most fluid miurlis salute he'd ever managed in his life and left the siege with three cloaked Skiffs - on a burn straight to Herculina, to strike at peripheral Awoken settlements and draw their eyes away from Pallas.
The habitat-settlements they found were hamlets and villages, not cities. They dove down with Arcfire and cloaked warriors, Skiffs darting overhead to offer aerial support and ferry soldiers about. Kiphoris was among the first to drop, slipping into the primary habitat-dome on the asteroid and stalking through while cloaked, each hand filled with a Arc-wreathed blade. The soldiers, and some of the civilians, put up a fight once they realized they were under attack - but Kiphoris and his crew were of the Fang, striking from thin air and disappearing all over again.
He cut the throat of a graceful Corsair in low-g, pushing away to avoid the spray of red blood that would have surely ruined his shimmercloak's camouflage, and chased after a terrified gunman. He bounded after the human into another chamber, jammed a knife up under the creature's chin to kill it quickly, and turned to leave.
Then he heard a sniffle.
Kiphoris twirled about, looked around, recognized the place as the human version of living quarters, and realized the sound was coming from beneath a low bunk shoved against the wall. He strode towards it, dropped down and peered inside.
And stared.
They were no larger than his little brothers and sisters, hidden away within a warren on Eunomia. Awoken - blue-skinned, bright-eyed, with colourful hair and shimmering essences. Clothed in tiny biosuits. Staring, terrified, right out - at where he knew they could make out the slight distortion in the air provided by his shimmercloak.
At him.
"Have you found anything?"
Kiphoris straightened up, turned, and realized Aziriks was by the door - one of Pirsis's warriors, his transparent form outlined by his helmet's HUD. Kiphoris hesitated, for all of a moment. "Just this one," Kiphoris lied, gesturing to the gunner he'd slain.
Who'd run to the room seemingly on instinct, in a panic.
It almost made his hearts stall in his chest.
Aziriks nodded and ducked out, resuming the hunt elsewhere.
Kiphoris spared one last glance the way of the Awoken - of the children - and rushed back out, towards where the din of gunfire was fiercest.
The Awoken noncombatants were herded up in the middle of the habitat's central atrium. The children weren't there. Kiphoris hoped that meant they were still hidden away, as opposed to having been quickly cut down by another warrior passing through. Aziriks paced in front of the group of blue, two-eyed, two-armed creatures, nodded at Kiphoris's approach - and snatched a human right out of the huddled group. Some of them screamed - so Aziriks roared at them until they were quiet, dragged his terrified victim out into the open and raised a sword.
Kiphoris acted before he realized what he was doing, pressed a knife-blade against Aziriks's throat and said, "No."
There was an instant hush - over Awoken and Eliksni both. No one was cloaked anymore, so they could all see very clearly what was going on.
"What are you-"
"We're not killing civilians," Kiphoris hissed. "Put your weapon away."
"But... Pirsis demanded terror!"
"We've killed enough."
Aziriks narrowed all four eyes. "Control yourself, hatchling," he snarled. "I could make life very difficult for you."
"And I," Kiphoris pressed his knife closer, "can end your life in its entirety. We're not killing civilians."
"You don't-"
Kiphoris pushed Aziriks - hard enough to shove the other Vandal onto the ground and stomp on his sword arm. All around them, rifles and shrapnel launchers swiveled about - Pirsis's crews aiming at Kiphoris, Kiphoris's crew aiming at them. An even match - for his were Silent Fang, and the others were not.
No one fired. The only sounds were the crunch of chitin cracking and bone snapping as Kiphoris ground his foot down on Aziriks's wrist, and the other Vandal shrieking. He let go of his sword very quickly.
"No civilians die," Kiphoris declared, coolly looking around - meeting the eyes of every Eliksni in sight, challenging them to contradict him. "Return to the Skiffs. We are done here."
Aziriks took his two Skiffs and fled back to Pallas - probably to inform his Baroness what had happened. Kiphoris followed with all the reluctance of an eliko slated to die, and found to his mixed relief and dismay that they were both too late: Pirsis had broken through, slain Paladin Imogen Rife, but failed to release Drevis - and been unable to prevent the destruction of Kaliks-4. Worse yet, the ethereal superweapons responsible for destroying Ceres had been sighted, and the Wolf fleet had fled. Pirsis had been captured by the Awoken.
And imprisoned right alongside Drevis, both ferried over to the stronghold of Vesta for safekeeping
What Wolf forces survived the failed Siege of Pallas joined with Beltrik, the Veiled, when he left the Hildians to take up Pirsis's place and guide the fleet to victory over the Awoken. Kiphoris fell in line, bitter that they'd been unable to free Drevis and perplexed over his own developing sympathy for the Awoken citizens. None of his crew broached the subject, but they all knew it was there - they'd all seen him pull a knife on a fellow Weaver for the sake of humans.
He didn't have enough time to cycle through his feelings when the Awoken struck - just as a little less than half the fleet were resupplying on the surface of Fortuna, drawing on natural compounds in the ice and rock to convert into ether. The rest of the fleet were above, acting as a shield wall against all encroaching hostiles.
But they couldn't stop the asteroid thrown directly their way, courtesy of the infamous Abra Zire.
Fortuna and Tinette split apart on impact, fragmenting into a thousand jagged pieces. The Awoken struck in the midst of the calamitous chaos; Kiphoris was forced to direct his Skiff through an anarchic battle where Wolf vessels were being steadily overrun or torn apart by the smaller, quicker Awoken frigates and Galliots. He did what he could, but a strafing run from a human fighter took out one of his thrusters and forced him to land on a stray length of rocky jetsam, a dislodged island of asteroid-flesh drifting out into space. His Splicers jumped out to look the damage over - but the Awoken were right behind.
Kiphoris leapt out the Skiff with a pistol in one primary hand and a sword in the other. Battle raged overhead, but it was more immediately pressing matter of his own crew against the might of Awoken Corsairs that had most of his attention. That they'd disembarked from dropships at all, vessels they called Ermine TAC-717s, revealed there to be another malignant purpose to their assault - that they weren't satisfied with destroying the Wolves, that they desired prisoners.
He opted not to give that to them.
Kiphoris fought like he'd never fought before - for this was no slaughter, but a struggle for his very life. His hearts hammered and his blood roared. He roared with it, shooting out the leg of one Corsair and smashing the basket-guard of his cutlass against the side of another's head. Firing and swinging, he fought and fought and fought, his crew fought and fought and fought - and the Corsairs, vengeful and desperate themselves, were every bit their match, and so they fought and fought and fought as well.
Right up until Kiphoris closed his claws around the neck of a final Awoken warrior, realized the sounds of nearby gunfire had abated, and that he was the last Eliksni standing. With a snarl, he tossed the human in his hands aside, roared again - and was subsequently shot somewhere in the belly. He staggered back, pressing a hand against the hissing, bloodied breach in his biosuit, and glanced up.
A Corsair was approaching, carrying their own blade.
With a growl, Kiphoris surged forwards, ignoring the pain. He slashed and slashed, their swords drawing thin sparks in the fraying vacuum, and the Corsair kept pace. It retaliated with its own quiet anger, trying to sate its own vengeance - and that dawning realization was what drained the last of the fight out of him.
They were just killing each other.
For nothing but old anger.
The Corsair flung his shock sword out of his hand with a flick of their wrist, drove their elbow against his mask with enough force to have him flailing back onto the rocky ground, and pressed the tip of their slender sabre against his throat.
And they stayed like that.
"You killed mine-father," Kiphoris hollowly whispered up at the short, thin, fragile creature. "You stole mine-sister. What are you waiting for now?"
The Corsair said nothing.
"Cowardly," he spat at them from behind his rebreather, "like all your kind."
He removed his hand from the breach in his suit. The vacuum ate up his warmth and slithered inside. Kiphoris saw movement, the Corsair who'd disarmed him, other Corsairs too, all moving about him, but they were gradually hidden behind blinding stars dancing in his eyes.
He lost consciousness not long after.
Kiphoris woke up. He was surprised that he did - and even more surprised at where, exactly. Somewhere he didn't recognize. Somewhere bright and white, so much that it hurt his eyes. He heard voices. Human voices, like those from the radios but... clearer, and yet not. There was movement on the edge of his vision. He tried to make it out, tried to figure what was happening, but everything soon went blank.
The second time he stirred back to life, his vision was clearer. All his senses were keener, if still a little dulled. There was an ache in him, above his waist and near his side. A sharp one, throbbing and lancing up to his brain. He weakly shifted himself with a hiss - and that was when he realized he couldn't much move.
He'd been shackled.
Kiphoris's eyes shot open. A fearful chirp slipped through his fangs.
"It's awake!" a human voice called out from somewhere nearby.
There was activity - and there, two shimmering-blue white-clothed humans and a skeletal robot painted in purple and gold. They edged near where he lay - shackled down on a bed laced with the finest, softest material he'd ever felt since leaving his mother's ship. The humans stared; the robot absentmindedly tapped away at a datapad. It was a Frame. He'd seen them before, in other human habitats.
He'd cut them down, too. Just like he had their owners.
"What do we do?" one of the Awoken whispered.
The other gave Kiphoris a stern look - or what passed for stern on a soft, strange alien face. They were wearing masks over their mouths and noses, and he could hear their breaths rasping against the fabric. It irritated him. They irritated him. That annoyed feeling gave rise to a spluttering, dying flame - to a rage that was a shadow of its former self.
"Tell Paladin Zire, I suppose."
Kiphoris went very, very still.
It was her. It was actually her. Flanked by three Corsairs, Paladin Zire entered the painfully bright chamber, marched through to speak with one of the Awoken present, and glanced Kiphoris's way only once - and that was enough to chill his hearts.
Abra Zire. Asteroid-breaker.
He trembled - like those children on Herculina, so afraid of something so alien.
"Condition?" the Paladin brusquely asked. Two of the Corsairs were looking at Kiphoris through the open visors in their black helmets, one of them actively glaring, but he barely acknowledged the threat they posed, because...
It was her. Fleet-hunter.
She was smaller than him (all of them were) and thinner, with soft, un-shelled skin and bright, cold eyes. Her green-ish fur was shaved on one side of her head and barely allowed to hang to her shoulder on the other. Her uniform was almost identical to that of the Corsairs, but with more medals - like a Cabal officer carrying ceremonial trophies on their breastplate with unrepentant pride and a burgeoning ego.
"Alive," the white-garbed Awoken replied, "and recovering. Is there... anything you want done?"
"This one is to be delivered to Vesta. Keep it stable."
"Understood."
Abra Zire turned on her heel, made to walk out, then stopped by the end of the almost too-small bed and gave Kiphoris a piercing look. He could barely breathe, and tried to keep it as quiet as possible - remaining as still as he could.
"We recovered footage from Zenin's Nest on Herculina," Paladin Zire said - voice whisper-soft, knife-sharp. There was a scar on her chin. The mark of a blade. There were the fractional marks of old burns around it, too. A shock blade's work. "You will receive the same mercy you offered my people - but harm a member of my crew, and you will be put down on the spot."
"Commander," one of the white-dressed Awoken began, "it probably doesn't understand-"
"It understands just fine," Zire interrupted. She leaned forward. "Yes?"
Kiphoris instinctively shuttered his outer eyes.
"There we are." Zire turned and left - just like that. One of her Corsairs followed her out. The other two remained.
One of them drew a gun. The one that had been glaring at him.
"Hey, wait-" one of the white-garbed Awoken began to complain.
"Out," the Corsair snapped.
"But-"
"I won't kill it."
"She won't take long," the second soldier reluctantly told them.
With a sigh, one of the Awoken grabbed the arm and led the both of them outside the room. The glaring Corsair grabbed a nearby stool, dragged it over to the counter beside Kiphoris's bed, and sat down.
The other Corsair folded their arms. "Lima, you're better than this."
"I know. But I don't want to be." It, she, put a gun on the counter. It was small, but it looked strong. The message was clear: I could kill you. "You owe me your life."
That made everything very clear. Kiphoris closed his eyes and turned his head away.
"I'm talking to you."
"Lima-"
"These THINGS don't get to-"
"Eliksni," Kiphoris quietly rasped in their human language. "We are Eliksni."
There was a pause.
"No. You're Fallen. You're monsters."
He didn't deign to reply.
They left before long.
The angry Corsair came back, tears in her eyes.
"You killed him," she accused.
Kiphoris didn't know what to tell her. He'd killed a lot of people. Too many.
"Your people killed him."
One of the other Awoken, the ones in white, the ones who called themselves 'doctors' tried to shoo her out - but she stayed, fingers hovering over the grip of her pistol.
"Your people killed him," she repeated. "You killed my brother."
Kiphoris tried to sit up, tried to get a better look at her, and he said in the human language, "You killed mine-father."
The Corsair grew quiet. She tried to say something, failed, and stormed out.
He was abruptly transferred over to a different ship. The angry Corsair was present; she accompanied the doctors wheeling his bed over. She stayed with them, too. With him.
Kiphoris asked how her brother died. She didn't answer.
Not for a while, at least.
"In the Hildians. Chasing phantoms," she muttered. Then raised her eyes - meeting his own. "What about your father?"
Like her, Kiphoris didn't say anything for a long, long time.
But she waited.
"Ceres."
He wanted to hate her. He wanted to feel the need to kill her if he ever broke free. He wanted to be angry - to thirst for vengeance against all things human.
But all he saw when he closed his eyes were the faces of those children on Herculina.
The war was over. An Awoken creature muttered as much to its friend, only just in earshot. Kiphoris tried not to react; they were probably wrong. Or lying.
But then they let him off the bed once his gut-wound had mended over, relocated him to a guarded chamber where other captured Eliksni were kept. One of the more recent additions said the same - the war with the humans was over. Skolas and Kaliks-12 had been captured; Variks of Judgement had sworn fealty to the Awoken queen; Saviks and the rest of Skolas's warriors had bowed before Mara Sov.
The House of Wolves was hers. She was Marakel.
The war was finally over.
And, before the month was out, they were all herded into a station hovering over Vesta and informed they were free to go. That there were colony-spaces being cleared on asteroids within the Reef's domain for their usage. Places to harvest ether and live. That their equipment, technology and ships would be returned to them. That the Awoken would help them rebuild.
Kiphoris flew off with the rest to the first colony on Psyche. It was a shantytown contained in a weak, artificial atmosphere looped around the lifeless rock. But there were forest-asteroids within Skiff-flight distance, where prospective Eliksni could trap and hunt game - within reason, of course. He lasted all of a week before trying to find someone he knew; most of his crew was dead, and some had been imprisoned for good while others had scattered to the edges of the system.
He found an old comrade of his father near the Awoken outpost on Psyche, having just landed with the newest batch of captured warriors.
After hearing what she had to say, Kiphoris ferried a flight back to the Vestian Outpost.
"What do you want?" Lima asked.
They were in the visitor-centre of the station. Kiphoris had waited hours before his request to meet her had been permitted through - and then waited some more until she was free to meet him. Standing with her, unshackled and free, was strange to him - almost too strange. He was used to her standing over him. Now he towered over her. She was not small for an Awoken, but all humans were dwarfed by Eliksni.
Kiphoris gave a weak shrug, glancing out to where the hangar met open space - the purple-hued skies of the Reef beyond, dotted with stars. "Mine-mother is dead," he quietly admitted. "As are all mine-siblings."
Bar the one your people imprisoned.
Lima's eyes softened. "I'm sorry. How'd-"
He didn't wait this time. "The power in their warren cut off. The atmospheric shielding failed. They froze."
"I'm sorry, but-"
"I... don't know what else... I don't HAVE anything else. Anything besides this... with you."
"We're not friends," she pointed out.
"I think all mine-friends are dead."
"... I'll see if I can get you a place. I'm sorry."
AN: Thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!