Chapter 19: A Red-Carpet Arrival
Catra stared at the bottle of sleeping pills sitting in her locker at the precinct. It was nearly ten at night station time, and she had slept maybe eight hours total over the past three days. A battle raged in her head over what to do with the pills when she ran shaky hands through her hair and her heart started to race: there was much less hair for her to comb her fingers through than she anticipated.
Then she remembered.
She had cut it one of the first days she arrived on station three years ago and maintained it religiously since then—a shaggy, layered bob cut terminating at her jaw line. The nightmares starting up again recently had brought her mentally and emotionally back to a time when her life was falling apart at the seams, and forgetting how she had purposefully changed her appearance to mark the start of a new life proved how disassociating an effect the lack of sleep was having on her.
She grabbed the bottle of pills and eyed the trash can sitting in the far corner. Heart beating like a war drum, she overhanded it across half the locker room, sinking it into the receptacle with a definitive tinny gong just as the door next to it opened and her Section Chief walked in.
"Are you celebrating getting clean or declaring a start to it?" Dax asked, glancing into the can.
"Neither," Catra said, pulling her security uniform from her locker and tossing it onto the bench behind her. "I pass all the drug screenings every time, even the random ones, so don't bust my balls."
Dax rolled his eyes with a smile and Catra couldn't help cracking one of her own. He was technically her supervisor, but they got along well. Some of the new recruits—the ones hailing from more conservative worlds—had apparently balked at the idea of locker and shower rooms mixing genders and races, but that had been the norm in Etheria's Horde as far as Catra was concerned. She figured the fact she gave him no lip service about it when she first came on had instantly elevated her in his eyes and made her a favorite.
"I ain't busting nothin'." He pulled open his own locker at the end of the hall and began stowing his belongings. "Those are basic over the counters anyway, and you look like shit. Why are you throwing perfectly fine sleeping pills away when it's obvious you haven't been getting any sleep?"
"Maybe I've been busy entertaining guests all night," Catra said, tone brimming with innuendo as she pulled her casual wear off and shoved it into her locker. "What's it to you what I do on my time off?"
"I'm just doing my job and making sure everyone under my command is in solid shape," he said. "Also, I don't buy that for a second. Glimmer's been gone for months, there's no way. Who the hell else would you be 'entertaining'?"
Catra sputtered, her head caught in the neck of one of the clean undershirts she always kept neatly folded in the locker. "Glimmer? Why the hell would…no! Glimmer and I do not have that type of relationship." Her face burned even though she spoke the truth and she focused on threading her arms through her dress shirt and buttoning it up.
Dax only shrugged as he started to button his service shirt. "Could have fooled me. Hell, I'd love to be close with someone who looks as good as her, let alone a Battlemage…" His eyes took on a faraway look and Catra swore she could see the gears of his imagination turning. "Hey," he said, shaking himself back to reality and looking at her. "You wanna introduce us?"
Catra snorted, tugging on her uniform slacks and tucking the shirt in. "Not a chance in hell."
Dax pouted. "Why not? If you aren't with her, then…"
"We've known each other for how long now, Dax? Almost three years? You'd think if I wanted to do that it'd already have happened. Besides, you aren't her type."
"Not her type?" Dax spoke with a certain annoying lilt in his voice and Catra groaned. She'd never had an annoying older brother figure drive her to the brink of insanity from secondhand embarrassment, but Dax was coming close. "What is her type then?"
"Darker-skinned and more wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve than you are." She turned to look him up and down in his half-dressed state, purposefully exaggerating the way her eyes roved over his body. "You need abs too. That's important. Being unable to rock a crop top is a deal breaker for her, unfortunately."
He furrowed his brow. "A crop top?"
"Don't worry about it," Catra said. She felt a little bad talking about Glimmer and Bow like that—especially since they still hadn't made up on account of Bow's stupidity—but Catra didn't want to give Dax any sense of hope about it either; Glimmer wasn't taking her eyes off that man any time soon, regardless of the fact Bow seemed determined to keep a wall between them.
"All kidding aside," Dax said. "Are you sure you're okay for this assignment?"
Catra pulled on her utility belt, checking to make sure her stun gun and electric baton were both fully charged before ramming them home into their holsters. "I'll be fine, Dax. I threw the pills away because I don't think I need them, not because I was afraid of abusing them." She grabbed her cap and placed it on her head and shut the locker.
"Okay, but are you sure?"
"For the love of—yes, I'm sure!" She rolled her eyes before glaring at him, although she wasn't actually mad. The fact he worried that much was more endearing than annoying. "They're OTC like you said. I just don't want to give my body any excuse to start needing stronger stuff. Best to just get rid of it now before it tempts me again." In fact, that was the exact reason she had moved them from her small flat to her work locker in the first place.
"This isn't some regular shift I put you on, Catra, this is Diallo and Moriarty we're talking about—a System Governor and the Regional Admin himself. Security needs to be airtight."
"I know, I know." She walked over to him and punched his shoulder. "I'll be fine dude, and I'll be alert. I promise. Besides, I need the money. Graveyard shift pays well, and the assignment is a step up than the usual stuff."
"You say that like you aren't the one who's been rejecting all the good shit I try and throw your way in the first place. I still don't understand why you've turned down the promotions I've put you up for, either." He stopped when something akin to an epiphany flashed across his face. "Does the fact you took this assignment mean anything about how you'll take my recommendations at your next performance review?"
Catra frowned. How did she not see this line of questioning coming from a mile away? For all the idiocy and buffoonery Dax liked to shroud himself with to seem less threatening to his subordinates, he had a razor-sharp mind she had somehow forgotten about and had now gotten trapped by. Thankfully, a subtle rumble at her wrist came and she pushed back the sleeve of her uniform. The PDA Entrapta and Scorpia gifted her before she left Etheria chirped at her: Glimmer had sent her a message.
Hey you. I should be on Phoenix Station by the time you get this—time displacement and all that, you know how weird things get using an ansible in hyperspace. Let me know when you can meet up?
Catra couldn't help the smirk tugging at her lips and the small swell of anticipation that welled up from inside.
"That thing is like an antique, I can't believe you're still using it," Dax said, craning his neck to the side to try and read the screen. "Who's that, one of your nighttime guests?"
Catra pulled her arm away and spun on her heel to head to the exit. "None of your business," she said, sticking her tongue out at him over her shoulder as she went. "I'll meet you at the staging area."
"Hey, you still haven't answered my question," he said, calling after her. "I don't want to recommend you for another promotion if you're just going to shut me down again. Reviews are in a few weeks!"
"Hurry up or you'll be late!" she said without slowing or turning to look back at him. "Tardiness is my shtick. Get your own." She heard him groan behind her and she smiled as she exited the locker room. When the doors slid shut behind her, she brought up her PDA and opened a blank draft to respond to Glimmer.
Last minute graveyard shift tonight. I won't get off until like two in the morning. Go ahead and get some sleep, we can meet up in the afternoon.
She sent the message off and was just about to head out when Glimmer, completely unlike herself, responded almost immediately. She had definitely already arrived.
You should have something from the Enclave today or tomorrow if they haven't reached out already. I still have that bottle we bought. Been saving it. Let's open it whenever you hear from them, good or bad. You'll tell me either way, right?
Catra's stomach churned. She knew what Glimmer was talking about but had hoped to forget about it at least for the night. Especially since she knew the anticipating and the waiting would drive her crazy.
She started to type out a response, trying to stamp down the nerves. When the words didn't come, she deleted the draft altogether and pulled her sleeve back over the device. She took a deep breath, then adjusted the cap on her head and the 'Station Security' badge pinned over her heart before starting off toward the station's main hangar bays.
Hours later and finally Catra could anticipate completing the last (and arguably easiest) portion of the assignment. Sweeping the entire hangar for security vulnerabilities had taken an agonizingly long time, but she wasn't complaining; the extra pay was well worth the hours of work, and the prestige wasn't something to scoff at either. Other officers would have killed for the chance to join one of these high-level security assignments. All that was left was greeting the arrival party and escorting them to the executive levels.
She fidgeted, standing as one uniformed station security officer among several hundred, arranged in a formation of two sets of neat rows and columns facing one another. The idea was to have the VIPs walk down the center with them on either side, like a parade. Dax stood to Moriarty's left in the center aisle. He had somehow beaten her to the staging area despite Catra having left first, and the teasing looks from earlier in the locker room were gone. Instead, he wore a serious expression and stood straight-backed, his demeanor reflecting the gravity of their assignment.
She was right there with him. A sense of unease had permeated every member of the security detail too during their previous sweep, not just because of who they were protecting but because of who they were working with: Moriarty, the monstrously obese Regional Administrator, had a platoon of white and green-armored Imperial Vanguard soldiers plucked straight from the front lines as his personal guard. Everyone wondered what the hell the Emperor's own, elite soldiers were doing on a quiet mid-rim station, and Dax, as supervisor, was the only one standing with Moriarty who was not Vanguard.
At least they aren't clones, was all Catra could tell herself to keep from side-eyeing them the entire time.
Every head turned at once toward the energy barrier separating the hangar from the vacuum of space outside. A luxury transport, transit-foils folding up against its polished body, taxied across the barrier flanked on either side by escort fighters. The craft's repulsor engines buffeted them, whipping everyone's clothing violently around them in the air. Catra placed her hand atop her cap to keep it from flying away. The standby capture crew sprang into action, moving to guide the three craft to a safe landing before strapping them to the hangar floor.
The ships powered off as the crew plugged refueling hoses into them and ran diagnostics. The belly of the transport opened with a hiss. A ramp extended to the hangar floor.
"Company—Present Arms!"
The commanding Vanguard officer standing at Moriarty's right, a soldier who had likely lived through more life-threatening battles than Catra had fingers with which to count, gave the command. Catra snapped to attention and gave a crisp salute toward the craft in time with every other standing member of the security force in attendance.
A middle-aged man who looked like he spent most of his time hunched over books descended the ramp. He pushed a pair of oval glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked around, clearly taken aback at seeing everyone gathered around. No one else descended the ramp after him.
"T-this is a bit much, don't you think?" he said, ambling up to Moriarty and reaching out for a handshake. "The transport, the escort, all these guards. You d-didn't do this any of my other visits."
"I wasn't up for reelection any of the previous years, Diallo," Moriarty said, lunging forward with a speed that looked off-putting given how fat the man was. He gripped Diallo's arm in a meaty, glove-covered hand that practically engulfed the entire limb and shook with such vigor that Catra swore Diallo's feet left the ground.
"Yes, well t-there's nothing I can say to argue against that," Diallo said, rubbing his arm with a frown after Moriarty released it. It was the stutter that completed the package, Catra decided. Diallo seemed so frail it was a wonder Moriarty hadn't broken his arm clean in two with that handshake. She caught a glimpse of Dax saluting just beyond, struggling to keep from laughing at the humor of the whole situation.
"Company—Order Arms!"
Catra stowed her salute in time with everyone else. The ripple of movement and sound across the hangar made Diallo startle and elicited a bark of a laugh from Moriarty.
"Come!" Moriarty said, sweeping his arms wide and thumping Diallo on the back hard enough he had to readjust his glasses. "The Beast may not be spreading as quickly as it had during the last war, but if anyone even gets the thought it might seep into a system soon, mass panic and evacuations ensue. You and the other System Governors play an important part in maintaining peace and order in my region. We have much to discuss."
From there, the congregation broke out into squads and posts. Some quickly found their team and raced ahead to cover their assigned locations along the convoy's pre-planned route, others stayed behind to look after the ships. Catra, along with two other officers she had served alongside in the past, had been assigned to a relatively important position: following the procession from the back to provide cover from behind.
"Hey rookie," Keren said, nudging her in the side with her elbow. She was a purple alien twice Catra's height and easily four times her weight, so the 'slight nudge' still put Catra back on her heels. "How'd a greenhorn like you get an assignment like this?"
"I've been on the force for nearly three years now," Catra said, putting considerable force into a shove of her own that barely jostled her back. "That's, what, one year less than you? I can pull these assignments no problem."
Keren snorted and ruffled Catra's hair, earning a squeak of protest. She had been one of Catra's first friends when she started her new job, and by the end of the first week they had bonded over pancakes and orange juice at a diner adjacent to the precinct headquarters.
"Technically you are still a rookie, despite the tenure," said the second person on their three-man assignment. Trayn was similarly built to Keren, tall and stocky and strong enough to punch holes into ship bulkheads. But where Keren was softer and squishier on the outside, Trayn was all bony protrusions and armor plating. He was the only one Catra got to unsheathe her claws on during sparring matches, and many of their fellow officers often joked that he didn't even need the body armor or protective vests handed out to all officers when they went on patrol.
"Do not ask me why I keep turning down the promotions," Catra said. She stepped quickly behind Moriarty and his entourage as they headed out the hangar bay, forcing the two of them to fall into formation on either side of her. "I don't want to hear how I'm 'technically a rookie' because I'm still on the lowest rung," she said, making air quotes as they walked. "That's some quality bullshit right there."
"No honey, what's bullshit is you're still on a cadet's paygrade despite three years on the force," Keren said, earning a sharp look from Catra. "Is it true even Taline herself recommended you get bumped up? Like, at least four levels?"
They had reached the massive industrial elevators at the end of the hangar compound and everyone shuffled in. Catra had a choice number of things she wanted to say back to Keren, but chose to keep her mouth shut to avoid an incident. Thankfully, she didn't push her and neither did Trayn. Despite the elevators accommodating the whole group with room to spare, Catra didn't want to start an argument where their voices would echo. It seemed her friends had the same idea, since they didn't speak up either. The Regional Administrator, a System Governor, and a whole squad of Vanguard soldiers would bear witness to their arguing otherwise, and Dax would definitely think twice before ever giving any of them an assignment like this again.
The elevators deposited them onto one of the major rapid transit stations on Phoenix, and by the time the they rode the tram through the station's guts and exited out onto the Atrium, the opportunity for sharp rebuttals had long passed; Keren and Trayn had already moved on to new topics of conversation.
"I can count on one hand how many times I've been up here," Keren said once they disembarked, gazing up at the fountains and sculptures and sprawling levels of office space and luxury apartments towering all around them. Massive flags multiple stories tall hung from balconies and pillars, projecting the green and white of the Horde Imperial insignia for all to see. The Atrium was the pinnacle luxury ward aboard Phoenix Station.
"Dax tried assigning me up here once and I just couldn't hack it," Trayn said.
"Why not?" Catra asked. The procession continued forward and she kept her two-steps-to-their-one pace as they followed VIPs from a distance.
Trayn motioned vaguely at their surroundings, as if that were answer enough. Catra furrowed her brows and looked around. It took her a moment to realize he was indicating the people living in the Atrium district itself. They milled about, hanging out on their balconies high above or bustling to their destinations with eyes on their PDAs, generally just living their lives. None paid any attention to the massive clump of soldiers and officers protecting Diallo and Moriarty as they made their way through the walkways and gardens.
"They're so in their bubble they don't even bat an eye at any of this," Trayn said. "Pompous assholes who are so used to their importance they don't even register what's going on around them. I wonder if they even realize everyone on the other levels are getting squeezed by poverty. The refugees aren't making it easier either, but everyone up here is completely oblivious."
"I lasted a month when Dax sent me up here the last time," Keren said. "The most dangerous thing I think I helped address during that time was someone who claimed their wallet had been stolen. Trayn gets annoyed at seeing everyone live in luxury up here, but I just get bored. It's too safe."
Trayn snorted. "Did you catch whoever did it? Stole that precious planetary governess' or whoever's wallet?"
Keren shook her head, barely concealing her laughter. "No one stole shit. The man," she said, emphasizing how Trayn's assumptions about the victim had been wrong right down to the gender, "was a scion of one of the minor sects of the Vestamid. Apparently he had been shopping in one of the department stores and accidentally put his third credit card in his second wallet instead of the first one, like he normally did. He couldn't find it and automatically assumed it was stolen. The expression on his face when he took a second look and found it was really something."
"That sounds…annoying," Catra said. She ignored the irony of someone from that fanatic religion having three credit cards and two wallets, and instead tried to picture how she'd have reacted in a similar situation.
"Yeah," Keren said. "And remember, that was the most interesting thing that happened to me. It's so boring and inane up here that I asked Dax to transfer me back to the lower wards as soon as possible. Can't stand it up here. The place just makes me feel useless. Like some sort of glorified errand girl."
"And look, still not even a refugee in sight,' Trayn said, not bothering to mask his disgust. "When are they going to open up the Atrium for them? There's way more room than in any of the other levels."
Catra didn't need to take a second look to know Trayn was right. With the Beast crisis snowballing, more worlds were evacuating in anticipation, flooding their neighboring systems and planets and stations with countless refugees. The lower wards and especially the bowels of the stations were practically overflowing with people. Hell, she could hardly get to her own modest apartment without stepping over hundreds of them. But up here? She saw a carefully curated and maintained veneer of perfection; a false utopia.
Conversation turned to less important topics for the remainder of the mission. When Moriarty, Diallo, and the Vanguard entered a gilded elevator at the end of a particularly lavish pavilion, Dax radioed the teams under his command and officially relieved them of their duties. Catra politely declined Keren and Trayn's invitations to happy hour.
"Glimmer just got in," she said, angling her body away from them, "and I have to take care of some stuff and get some sleep before I see her tomorrow." They oooh'd and awe'd and made kissy faces at her, and she flipped them her middle finger as she stalked away. Soon, they had disappeared from sight, and Catra was somewhere else in the Atrium, alone.
There was a reason she hadn't contributed as much to the conversation as she normally would have when on the same shift with Trayn and Keren: she had spent more time on the Atrium than she wanted them to know about. Truthfully, she preferred the lower levels with their bustle of activity and crazy amalgamations of various cultures, but Glimmer spent almost all her time in the nicer areas of Phoenix when on-station, and Taline was practically unreachable when she wasn't up here anyways. And so, here Catra would come whenever she had to meet one or both of them. Even though she'd spent less time here recently than in the past, it still wasn't something she was racing to confess.
Her many visits also never seemed to prevent her from getting lost the next time she came, though.
Motherfuck, she thought, looking around. For the love of…where am I?
She tried to make sense of her surroundings, maybe find a landmark. A large sculpture loomed in the distance next to a bench, framed by the petals of an even larger cherry blossom tree, and Catra made a beeline for it. The one thing she never forgot about the Atrium levels was the statues. Most of them were of Horde Prime, a few of them were of other famous historical figures in the Empire's history; all of them served as a kind of marker for where one could also find a station directory.
She came up on the statue from behind. Sure enough, as soon as she ambled around it, a large touchscreen taller than she was came into view. Advertisements flashed and scrolled their garish fonts and colors at her, and she was about to reach out to tap the screen when she made the mistake of looking up at the statue first, instead.
A towering figure, wrought in obsidian with flowing robes and a deep hood stood before her. It posed with one hand thrust high in the air and the other balled into a fist at its side. Whoever had completed the sculpture wanted to make it look as powerful and dynamic and imposing as possible. At its base lay a plaque.
Corynth—Last Shaper of the Daiamid. Savior of the Empire. Beast Slayer
Catra abandoned the directory and creeped closer to the statue, stepping as a timid but curious animal might. She stared up and squinted at the space inside the hood, where…
"Of course," she said, giving a rueful laugh. "Never seen you before, but you're always depicted the same no matter where on the station they put you, right?"
Catra had watched the documentaries and saw the paraphernalia everywhere: figurines, movies, books, artistic interpretations—she even managed to get her hands on a few seconds of legitimate, first hand footage of his last known sighting before the end of the war. Every depiction showed him wearing a mask, even the larger-than-life sculpture standing triumphant in front of her.
"You saved trillions upon trillions of people," Catra said, speaking to it. "I know you didn't do it alone, but everyone alive today is alive partially thanks to you. And yet no one, not a single person, knows your face. Knows what you really look like under there."
She stared into the black holes in the mask where the eyes would have peeked through had it been a real person, letting the moment drag her into a rare contemplative mood.
"If someone were to ask Shadow Weaver about me, she'd probably go on and on about how terrible I was. She'd probably talk their ear off about how I was nothing but a nuisance and a failure. If someone were to ask Sparkles about me, they'd probably think I was some sort of superhuman genius." She laughed, finding a kind of ironic humor from her words. Glimmer apparently always hyped Catra up to her circle whenever she came up in conversation.
"And you know what? There's a little bit of truth to both, I want to say. Glimmer can get a bit carried away and would somehow make even my bad qualities sound good. I fucking hate Shadow Weaver but, as much as I hate to admit it, she probably knows me better than most. I can't exactly bring myself to say she's wrong when she says I'm a disappointment. How can someone who raised me and watched me almost my whole life be wrong about something like that?"
Catra still couldn't point to one specific reason why she obsessed over Corynth ever since learning about him. Part of her thought that Taline's hatred for him clashed so brilliantly with everyone else's adoration, the juxtaposition alone made her curious. Another, simpler part of her couldn't deny the similarities between Shadow Weaver wearing a mask and Corynth doing the same—simplistic as it was, it was enough for her to consider the possibility seriously. Regardless of where her fixation on him originated, it always seemed to bring her to moments like these: spilling some deep seated and closely held secrets to a statue, alone.
"If someone were to ask Taline about me? Well…" she trailed off, and frustrated tears pricked at her eyes when she realized she had no idea what she was trying to say. Instead, she gave another rueful, self-deprecating laugh. "Look at me, talking to a statue like a fucking crazy person.
"Taline hates your fucking guts and blames you for everything that happened, while everyone else thinks you're some kind of legendary hero. I may be stupid and useless just like Shadow Weaver says, but even I know that the truth about you is probably somewhere in between." She lowered her voice and, speaking more to herself, said, "just like I'm somewhere in between."
She took another step toward the statue. She knew she looked ridiculous talking to it, should anyone have walked by at that moment. She was just projecting onto it, after all.
"Gotta admit that I'm at least a bit curious," she said. "There was a real person behind that mask of yours and I'd love to know…who were you really, underneath it all?"
Something went ping! beside her the moment she finished her sentence, and she barely started rolling her eyes out of exasperation before the voice came.
"Hello there!" said a translucent, green hologram of a young woman with long, flowing hair standing next to her. "I am Hilda, virtual directory assistant aboard Phoenix Station. You are currently in the Atrium, first level."
"How did I not realize that'd trigger you?" Catra asked in a deadpan. She turned and looked at the AI, and it tilted its head like a confused puppy, blinking at her.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand your query. Reverting to last understood question." Hilda gestured to the statue. "This is a rendition of Corynth, last Shaper of the Diamid, Savior of the Galaxy, Be—"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah I know all that already," Catra said, waving a hand through the Hilda's avatar and glitching out the projection. "Never mind him, can you help me find something here?"
The hologram paused again, churning her question through its answer matrix.
"Query understood. What would you like me to help you find?"
"A friend of mine is visiting. Should be here for a week or two and I want to spend some time with her up here. Do you know of any restaurants or stores or whatever that I can take her to and we can have a good time?" She tapped her foot, suddenly embarrassed. "It uh…needs to be within a certain price range."
She cursed herself for getting shy at the end there. She shouldn't be shy. Things up on the Atrium were ridiculously expensive, but she had saved money for this. Plus, the money from the shift she just finished would help, even though she wouldn't get her hands on the funds until the next payday. She could afford to splurge a bit. No reason to be shy about that.
The hologram blinked and tilted its head again. "What price range would you like me to constrain my search to?"
Not long after and Catra had navigated her way through clump after clump of refugees and alley thugs in the station's lower wards before pushing into her tiny flat and locking the door behind her.
She took everything back: there had been plenty of reason to feel shy, even though in hindsight it seemed dumb to feel that way in front of a damn software program. She knew the Atrium was pricey, but how the hell was she supposed to know it was that pricey? It wasn't nearly that bad the last time she had looked at prices in the past, although that was years ago now. The stupid AI had just stood there 'computing' and blinking and tilting its head at her until she gave up on her own.
She hadn't even gone back to the precinct to change before coming home she was so embarrassed. She stripped her uniform off and ran the bath, intent on just warming up some leftovers and throwing herself in front of the television until she passed out. It was when she came out of the bathroom to fish around her fridge that she saw it.
A small envelope lay on the floor next to her discarded uniform, and Catra already knew what it was before she picked it up. Despite how technologically advanced the Empire was, she got plenty of physical mail still: lots of paper bills that kept piling up, tons of junk mail she'd recycle, and countless catalogues she'd comb through for coupons. But the envelope? It was made of expensive cardstock and addressed to her in a flowy, handwritten calligraphy. She flipped it over and the wax seal there was stamped with the Enclave's teardrop wing insignia.
Her breath hitched and her heart raced. With the bath and leftovers completely forgotten, Catra broke the seal and pulled the letter out with shaky fingers.
