FLUTTERS
Inside her quarters, wrapped up in fluffy blanket, Lan-II-Zohar, the crown princess of ZOLON, woke up.
Still trapped by the last vestiges of sleep that tempted her to return to slumber in the comfortable warmth, she had to dig herself out, feathery antennae poking out first, like radars scanning for the presence of the enemy – which, in truth, is exactly what they were. Content with the safety of her room being confirmed, the princess finally rose, her additional arms helping the blanket slide off of her, the eyes with black sclera blinking as the still-drowsy monarch yawned cutely, kneeling on her bed.
It was all second nature to her, body modified for as long as she could remember for purposes that were as practical as they were purely aesthetic, her body a living masterwork. It was, above everything, a source of pride.
Then, memories came in; where she was, what happened last night, and what will have to happen now.
As Lan stood up, her elaborate multi-layer nightgown of artificial silk gently rustling as she rose to her full two meters height, there were no curtains to part; elaborate as it was, given her position, this was one of the temporary habitats set up for the forces occupying the Evil Mountain, Yamantau, the fortress of death which she finally conquered.
The walls were thick armour, and the quiet hum of an I-Field generator in the background betrayed further measures; Earth was a merciless place and assassination was always a concern. As it was, it'd probably take a mobile suit's anti-ship bazooka to crack this moth's cocoon.
As she walked over to the miniature kitchen and queued up some hot chocolate for herself – there was no need to bother her personal maid yet, though she will have to ask Ariadne for help with the dress uniform later – she considered the situation.
Later today, she would be leaving for Peru, together with some of ZOLON's best suits, including her own Devo, which she privately took to calling Lamia – meaning "radiant" – once it started talking to her. Though could that really be called talking? She had barely started to process the truth of what happened there and what the Jovian machines might truly be, but there is no doubt that without them, the Mountain might have triumphed for the second time, despite all the forces gathered to fell it.
Right now, royal technicians were reinforcing its armour, adding further systems and defences, headed by her own little brother, healing his own wounded heart by focusing on his work. It would be tougher, more flexible and more aware than it ever was in those death-filled tunnels. She would lead the army of devils that she conquered alongside her, the gun pointed at the head of humanity re-aimed at whatever horrors attacked the Covenant. She heard some already started calling her the Princess of Monsters with odd sense of affection after she destroyed that twisted tower and seized control of them, and in this too she took pride.
Never fall into arrogance or hubris, but always take pride in your accomplishments. It's a lesson from her parents that Lan took to heart.
This, of course, meant leaving Yamantau to its garrison – and with it…
The princess reached for the cup of chocolate, just one of many imports from the Freeholds that the opening of relationships between Space and Earth brought to them, and considered her own with her counterpart.
Kyntana. The Eighth Princess of the Siberian Empire, the one who the Tsar sent along to the first battle of Yamantau, and the one who stayed for the second and their ultimate triumph.
Kyntana, the vision of whom standing on top of a shot-down dropship in her clumsy Fallow Zone protective gear, holding a rocket launcher with hands that were trying not to shake even as the beheaded Death Force machine fell before her, saving everyone inside, embedded itself in Lan's memory. Gas mask slipping off, burning eyes where fierce sense of duty clashed with utter terror, the non-metaphorical fire that started at the edges of her fur coat and which she did not notice yet.
Something struck Lan back then, feeling the hot winds blowing through the breaches in her own orbital drop frame, carved out by Death Force weaponry, as she rushed to the downed aircraft, other ZOLON suits laying down covering fire as the crew and the passengers were evacuated.
She took Kyntana into her own cockpit, the two far too close to each other, the Siberian princess desperately trying to put on a brave face and the ZOLON one pretending to not feel her shaking, a reassuring hug that only someone with four arms could give while piloting a mobile suit at the same time that both of them could later pretend was an accident.
The two spent a lot of time together after, passing the time as suits got patched up, tunnels cleared, fortifications repaired; there wasn't much to do in a nightmare fortress within a Fallow Zone, and doing official work as the commander as the Safeguard repurposed the Death Force base could get very exhausting.
There was Aunt Lena as well, of course, but the commando was always bit of a loner, and even busier with exploring the deeper underground section of the fortress, looking for something she called an "Earthmover", that, for all they know, might not even exist, and plenty besides to make sure the mountain is actually secure. Most of the time they just sent each other messages, alongside the daily well-wishes from Lumina, the youngest princess still a boundless font of energy.
But Kyntana was always there, willing to talk the hours away, about Earth, old heroes, poetry – anything, really, her pleasant, silky voice something she felt like she could listen to forever. They could rest together in Lan's cabin watching television, or new episodes of Blade of Artoria that got brought over straight from America. When the first batch of pudding from back home arrived, she gave Kyntana some and watched her eat her way through a full pack, somehow not getting bored.
It might have been a blessing that for Lan, blushing was something that she could just turn off, because it certainly wasn't for the Siberian princess. She definitely noticed the glances that Kyntana kept sneaking at her, as well.
She wasn't sure if she wanted to keep pretending anymore.
Lan looked at the now-empty cup, feeling a sudden surge of uncharacteristic melancholy. Of course, it was not so simple. Her heart might say one thing, but she was the crown princess. What would even happen if she accepted Kyntana's affection, going back home together, and the Siberian princess' own family would all be put to sword – or captured and threatened with such – by the invading alliance? How could she face someone so dear to her and tell her that no, the army of ZOLON would not march to save them, or to avenge them?
And it would not march. As Laevateinn herself said, with all her usual tact, it must never march, because by doing so it would cross a Rubicon, even if it won. And however Lan might have felt about Kyntana, her warmth, her smile, her voice… she loved ZOLON more. The dream that ZOLON was dreaming.
Well, there was no use overthinking these things either. For now, she had a war of her own to command, and who knows what will happen there?
She quickly sent a message on the base's intranet and not even a minute after, Ariadna, her ever-faithful maid came in with her dress uniform. For better or worse, Lan always had problems putting it on, what with the extra arms – but there was a need for certain propriety and dignity here when leading the troops into possibly not entirely metaphorical Hell.
The cybernetic claws that could pierce right through bone put the golden-black uniform on the still-drowsy moth princess with practiced ease. As Lan's personal maid – a maid among maids, one could say – Ariadna was both her friend and bodyguard, a combat cyborg who stood right by her on the battlefield, and would be piloting a Devo herself; her personal unit got shot up in the depths of Yamantau, but Koldmann gave his to Ariadna after he switched to one of the Viggans.
Slightly shorter than Lan and with the tanned skin of a special forces operator, her augments were likewise of finest quality, but she never felt particularly compelled to conceal them under synthetic flesh, taking her own pride in her degree of mechanisation; Ariadna could put a throwing knife through a spacesuit helmet at hundred meters. The monocle was purely aesthetic, but maids were, after all, creatures of aesthetics.
When Kyntana met her, she was quite surprised. Apparently maids on Earth were rather different?
The two worked in silence as Lan prepared, looking the part of the warrior princess, wings and all. But as Ariadna moved on to her hair, combing and dressing the concealed radiators, her normally gentle smile grew mischevious, and she dropped the news like a bomb.
"Incidentally, your royal highness, have you heard? Princess Kyntana will be joining us on the Venus expedition."
"E-ehhh?!"
SINKING
What happened at Venus?
Inside an almost lightless room, locked deep within Yamantau itself, Director Laevateinn asked herself this question, watching liquid that she was never going to drink move from one end of a glass to another, held in a clawed hand of matte-black metal that was only ever made in the internal factories of the
Absoluta, itself now a ship of nightmares.
In the end, she had to accept that she had no answers, and perhaps it might be for the best if their expedition finds as little of them as possible.
When they set out to Venus, they knew about the ruined aerostat cities where many a hopeful settler vanished before the planet acquired a reputation as haunted among the superstitious Spacians. They figured they likely still floated because they were maintained by automated systems, likely also responsible for the disappearances; perhaps the psychic echoes of the war still echoed there. This was all normal, acceptable risks for the nations that organised the expedition and hoped to understand more of the Solar System's mysteries.
But then they found the FOB-12. "12". Such an ominous number in this context. What was there, hidden beneath the clouds, that made the Earth Federation, busy fighting an apocalyptic war with the very existence of humanity at stake, to create an entire network of bases clearly meant to
contain Venus? 12 bases, perhaps even more. There had to be hundreds of suits between them, if not thousands, all bleeding edge models taken from the frontlines in hope to- to what?
Then the Covenant vanished, stuck inside an impossible, fully-functional city.
This could still have fit the assumptions, if not their scale – out-of-control, perhaps insane AIs, spending a thousand years building a city for humans that would never come, defending it with all the power such time and technology could offer. A great enemy, certainly, but still something that could be grasped.
Then, the investigation teams found the statues. She saw them too, eventually, risking entry just to bear witness. She had to.
It was agony.
Laevateinn saw many people die, many of them in terrible ways. She remembered herself kneeling on
Absoluta's deck, trying not to fall, vomiting chunks of her lungs and surrounded by liquified flesh of her comrades. She saw life reduced to weapons, sometimes with cruelty, sometimes merely with utter apathy to human suffering; hearts that did not take joy in the torment of others but just remained completely closed to it; "sympathy has no place in a righteous heart" is such a terrifying motto for a scientist.
Horribly twisted humans, warped in such pure, wretched torment that could make one ill. Mouths opened so far in pain that their muscles tore themselves apart. Every part of them, a masterwork, a reproduction of the human body equal to any of the legendary artists of ancient legends, and then twisted, torn, deformed, tortured with such skill, such attention to detail that the entire exploration team could only ask themselves a single question in hushed voices.
Was this really the work of some monstrous imagination, or did the artist have live models?
Then, they saw the first statue of the humans being consumed, then another, then another – by nebulous things that sometimes had tentacles, but which Laevateinn would struggle to describe, like language itself was worried about giving them form.
But the Director did not have to ask.
Watching them, she felt a crawling sense of doom. Not fear – she was not programmed to feel fear. She was the Sword of Surtr, the blade that could burn the world; and what sword would be afraid?
But even with her implants forcibly shut down, her senses dulled and slumbering, she could sense it. This was a place of neither honour nor humanity.
Something irreversible might have happened on Venus.
Turning back was no longer an option.
She could try to talk Lan out of coming – but she'd never. She'd say something like "what sort of royal would I be if I just sent tens of thousands of people to die and then sat back to drink wine and put my hands on my lover? Not one anyone would respect, that's for sure", laugh and come anyways, because she was very brave and held a genuine love for her people, even if it would kill her and put entire ZOLON in mourning. Because she understood war, and accepted that death was always a risk, and did not let that deter her.
Even after she saw the statues.
Laevateinn was not very brave. It was never a question of bravery. Swords don't need to be brave – they just have to cut when swung, without fail and without question.
The course of action was clear, then.
If a princess was to wander into the den of unspeakable horrors to rescue her people, it would be natural for her to carry a magic sword, shining a path of warm light through the nightmares. It was a story as old as legends, from back when humans huddled together in fear of the unknowable dark.
So, in this hell that was brought forth by human hands.
She will come.
And just this once, she will become Lan's sword.
