Hekate's Call, Chapter 20

The notice that Morian Kyrnn and Ilina Falke had docked in the zipdrive shuttle came only minutes before a ship-wide alert declaring level one battlestations. Kyrnn was bound to bring trouble with her everywhere she went, but as much as Krystyn wanted to track her down on the ship and put several bullets in her head there was much more important matters to attend to.

She suited up and immediately contacted Control. "Control, sitrep."

Crater's voice was weary over the radio. I just woke up. Morian called the bridge as soon as she was off the shuttle. I'm on my way up to figure out what's going on.

Great, so even Crater was at a loss. Sure was a great idea to bring Kyrnn along by gunpoint, wasn't it? Such an incredible business decision by the bold and intelligent Elisabet Crater to fail to court Carrion and Kyrnn only to drag her off that fuckhole planet so she can ruin all of our lives. Vigil's performance just wasn't worth everything this woman brought with her.

The Parting Word sat lonely in its dock. Or, as lonely as the little power armor could be. Next to it was something else. Another power suit, sleek and tight. It looked like there was a micro-reactor on it, though unlike the Parting Word it's cooling system was just exposed.

Was that what Kyrnn and Ilina went to collect?

By the time she was seated in the Inertia and started through her check-list, the bridge connection lit up. Video transmission. Some scary looking woman, proper military, seated on the bridge of a different ship. Not quite as scary as the Gestalt's Captain Trine, though. Both looked like Domon Imperial Guard, before the revolution.

"This is Captain Aretina Pliler of the Revenant's Remnant. Domon Imperial Gate Control," the woman's icy voice seethed some specific hatred. "The Gestalt and Gravity has been found harboring a wanted fugitive. Surrender to inspection."

Krystyn's fingers tightened around the Inertia's controls. She wasn't even properly booted up, but everything in Krystyn's body screamed to fight her way out. Strangle this Pliler and find some new planet to hole up on. She wasn't about to be taken here and now. Not with so much left to do. She hadn't even put a bullet in Morian's head yet.

"No inspection necessary," a tired, smoke-ravaged voice returned. Morian Kyrnn was on the bridge of the Gestalt. "That uniform looks almost as good on you as it did on your grandmother."

Oh. That made more sense. Morian had left the Gestalt and probably got identified wherever she was. And then dragged all that trouble back here. It would have been better if she'd just been taken there. There was no Charlotte Fellows, only Krystyn Zechs. And Krystyn's job was protecting the other pilots. That was all she had to do here. The tension leaving her body felt sublime.

"Morian Kyrnn. The Necromancer General. The Gestalt must disarm and surrender, or we will open fire."

"Most people call me the Corpse Eater, these days," Morian hummed cheerfully into the microphone. "Unfortunately there will be no disarming or surrendering, or firing for that matter. What is a general without her army, after all?"

There was a brief pause, just long enough for everyone's cortisol levels to spike and for the ants underfoot in the hanger to scramble about at double speed.

"You see, the good Margrave -- I love that title, by the way -- Dote has sworn her warships and soldiers to one of our pilots, and to me because the pilot couldn't be bothered with that responsibility."

More often than not when Kyrnn paused for dramatic effect she ended with something that deflated the whole issue. Mechanics shouted and Krystyn worked her way through the rest of her checklist as quickly as possible.

Krystyn, into her radio. "You gave the corpse eater an army?"

Hunter. Calm down, Charlatan. Morian hates conflict. It's a deterrent.

Control. It's only a deterrent if Pliler backs down.

Pliler confirmed something with someone on their side, before sighing. "Are you willing to go to war with the Domon Imperial Navy, Necromancer?"

"Gladly. Is the Domon Imperial Navy prepared to win a war against me?" Kyrnn asked, a genuine curiosity in her voice. "Do you understand, Aretina, what that will require?"

Combat hadn't started, but everyone was suited up and ready to go. A quick license scan revealed Ilina's new machine to be Again in Hell. The specific data was sealed, which was uncommon. A royal house's custom frame.

House Dote? They had the largest military in the sector, and have stalled out or repelled several annexes. They were Outer Domon, which was to say they were only part of the Domon Imperium by name, and looked after themselves first and foremost. Powerful allies for the Corpse Eater to have made so quickly.

"I am willing to compromise. Instead of sparking a civil war and losing all of Central Domon in the process," Morian cut off a response, "How about a duel. Four of our best pilots against four of yours. If you win, I surrender. If we win, the Gestalt is granted free and safe passage."

Watching the video feeds was stressing her out, but Krystyn really couldn't afford not to keep them open. She needed to know how bad this was going to end up going. Her job was easy. Minimize losses, protect the team. Her only objective. A clarity of purpose granted to her by Crater. Something she could always look to when she was troubled.

Pliler clicked her tongue. "You have fallen victim to your own ghost stories. You're just a woman who's lived too long."

The problem with trying to threaten and posture against Morian is that the longer you tried to the dumber you looked.

Something in Morian's voice shifted. Hardened. "After we take control of the system's gates and power them down, I will rebuild my lazarus facilities and meatshops. We can convert any number of your soldiers we capture into Ghouls, but maybe some of them will make fine Fiends. Then we power the gates back on and make our first advance. Should I continue? I'll need a map to plot the war, but it is quite simple."

Krystyn picked up her radio, "Hunter, translate."

Hunter. Lazarus is where they turn 'corpses' into Fiends. The meatshops are where they make the Ghouls. The Scavenger and the Butcher were Fiends, the cannon fodder and collectors were Ghouls. You need a breathing corpse with an intact brain to make a Fiend, but you can make do with pieces of brain for Ghouls.

Krystyn wasn't sure where to begin processing that. A breathing corpse is just a living human being. There were people in all those little drones the Inertia crushed underfoot. Human beings, converted to mechanical fodder and scrap collectors. The big ones she knew were piloted, but everyone had assumed those small bone-colored things were drones.

Krystyn could go and kill the necromancer right now. Why wasn't anyone on the bridge considering shooting her in the head?

"Don't let your pride get all your people killed, Aretina. Your grandmother wouldn't want you to end up like her." Her bedside manner suddenly on full display. It was terrifying how quickly she could go from one to another.

And then Plilar took the bait. "What is your obsession with her? I've never met her."

"Forty-five years ago, I made the woman an oath," Kyrnn teetered on camera. "I would stay put on FN-4-06 as long as she lived. And I kept that oath! Until Elisabet Crater, commander and CEO of Hekate's Call, destroyed the Butcher and dragged me all the way out here."

Somewhere down below, Ilina had stopped doing her various little stretches and weapon checks.

A video began to play. An aging pilot, dragged out of a mech and bloodied. A white interview room with Kyrnn where the two discussed this oath. There was a fear that Morian Kyrnn, the Necromancer General, would go off-world to seek revenge for the failed assassination or capture of her. The oath was their solution to it.

Over the radio, quietly. Stop.

The footage that followed was split between combat logs of The Butcher, and what was left of the pilot after Morian's surgeries.

The Butcher was a bottom-heavy beast of a machine with a heat axe and too many hooks and arms. It was like the Inertia, only more basic in means. It wanted to move people around on the field and protect others. It used its body as a shield with next to no care for the pilot's own safety, and worked well beside the Scavenger.

The pilot was mutilated. Taken apart. It could barely be recognized as a person. A little screen displayed words, because it had no tongue or vocal cords. Kept alive by machinery as cobbled together as everything else at Carrion.

It was difficult to watch for Krystyn. Ilina had worked there for years, and knew these things. No, not things, people. Fought with them. How did she feel about it?

Morian, please. Krystyn had to crank the radio volume to hear the quiet whimpers from Ilina. There wasn't even a body left. Let her die. Don't do this. Please.

Krystyn swapped her radio over from the pilot frequencies to communicate with the bridge directly. "Kyrnn, turn this off. It's hurting Ilina."

The footage skipped over years. Macabre and hideous years. The worst segment was one of the 'anniversaries' where The Butcher presented Kyrnn with a handful of slightly mangled, but still living pilots like a bouquet.

It was the worst one until Kyrnn introduced The Butcher and The Scavenger to Ilina. Already so proud of Ilina. Shaky-cam home movies showing off Ilina watching movies with the corpse-Plilar, sitting in a little folding chair next to the chassis and eating popcorn.

"Morian, stop!"

Either the woman couldn't hear her, or she was being ignored. But how could anyone ignore the open sobs from Ilina over the radio. Even Manya kept her mouth shut when she would have otherwise teased.

No.

No.

This needed to stop.

If Kyrnn wasn't going to stop this, then Krystyn was.

She was out of her mech and onto the pier in seconds. Scrambling past bewildered mechanics. She couldn't go to any off the lower decks, but she could go to the bridge. She could still hear it through her comm unit, the family video of Kyrnn, Ilina, and their corpses. It would have been tender if it wasn't so absolutely fucked.

She made it up the elevator into the short hallway where the bridge was. She opened the door and pulled her gun, emptying the clip into the back of Morian's head.

It was that easy?

There were screams, of course. But all she could hear in her ears was Ilina's sobs. The blood pooled around the console, flowing down so steady, like a little fountain. It just took a few bullets. One would have done the trick, but Krystyn needed to use them all. It was the only way she could guarantee she wouldn't shoot herself right after.

And then she was in the hallway again.

Wait.

The door to the bridge was closed in front of her. Her hand was on her holstered gun. Ilina sobbing into the radio. Morian's voice ending a speech, ignoring her crying ward.

The door slid open in front of her. Morian exited and looked directly at her.

"Ah, is it that time already?" She glanced down at the weapon, "come, come. It'll be easier to clean up the mess in the medbay. The duel will be held tomorrow, at some station under Plilar's command. Let's get this over with so you have no distractions on the day, yes?"

Krystyn followed behind the Corpse Eater. She checked her gun. It was empty. But the barrel wasn't warm like it should be. The bullets just vanished? Did she hallucinate it? Kyrnn hummed as orders were passed out to stand down.

"Ilina," Krystyn started as they approached the medbay.

"Needs to rest," the woman groaned, "it was hell enough to get her all the way back on the zip shuttle. She really can't handle the in-between."

The woman badged into the room and turned to Krystyn as she entered, waiting.

"Well," Morian smiled her stupid toothy, eerie smile. It made her skin crawl. "Let's get on with it."

Krystyn popped out the magazine and grabbed a spare from her jacket. Morian tilted her head at the motion.

"Do you usually carry an unloaded gun?"

"No, I shot you already," Krystyn grumbled. She did, right? It wasn't her imagination. Why else would it be empty.

"When?"

"When you were giving your little speech. Ilina was crying and you wouldn't listen."

Morian lifted a leg into the air and spun around in her whimsical way. It was humorous before, but now it just made her want to kill the woman so much more. "I should remember that. Why don't I? I usually remember being shot."

Krystyn fired again. Just once. Between the eyes. Grey matter and blood sprayed across the back of the room. Krynn's body hit the ground and blood started to pool. An unlit cigarette rolled across the ground from where it dropped from her hand.

And then it was all gone. All the blood that found the little channels in the floor towards the drain vanished. It would have been less unsettling to watch if it happened in the blink of an eye. That moment where she knows she stopped seeing things. But she watched it vanish. Her eyes jittered in her skull, trying to understand what happened.

A hand on her shoulder.

"That one I remember," the doctor hummed. "Maybe because it was public. Most people try to kill me in private."

There was still smoke coming out of the end of the barrel. The casing was rolling against her boot on the ground. Krystyn really did shoot, and presumably kill, the necromancer. So, what was going on?

"You can keep going until you run out of ammo or you get tired," Morian wandered over to her desk to move some papers out of the way. "Don't tell anyone about this. It will get messy if this gets out."

"You're immortal," Krystyn stared at the necromancer. No. That wasn't what was going on. "No, you can't die." She hadn't grasped the mechanism, but she had some guesses. She didn't come back from the dead. She didn't die in the first place.

"Aretina will be forwarding the data for the duel location. She's insisting that it will only take her one pilot to best the four of you," Morian lit a cigarette and took a drag, "I really tried to urge her to reconsider. I don't want her to feel like she's been cheated."

Krystyn lifted her arm once more and put a bullet in Morian's head. Through and through, just like the last time. And just like last time Morian's body vanished instantly, making Krystyn's eyes jitter. Lit cigarette on the ground, bullet hole in the desk.

"I know everyone hates my smoking," Morian teased, "but I think this is a bit much. This one's still good." She bent over and fetched the one she'd just lit to continue smoking.

The legends stretched back to Domon's founding in the wake of the Sol conquests. The Necromancer General. Stories told for years and years warped over time, but they all held one thing true. She could not be killed, and she could not be allowed to live freely. She was a monster. Sol's greatest sin against the galaxy. And all at once Krystyn had to reckon that monster was now her primary physician.

What was she supposed to do? She can't help anyone. She can't save anyone. She can't even kill one person.

"Go take care of Hunter," Morian took another drag and spun in her chair. "She's going to want to talk about The Butcher to someone. You're probably the best person to go and listen to her."

"What's your obsession with her?"

"Why is it so hard for anyone from Domon to believe that I might actually like helping people?" Beneath the glasses, she looked distant and tired. More so than normal. "It's only Domon that's vilified me so much. The rest of the old Sol empire's long forgotten me by now."

She tapped the ash to the floor. "I saw Hunter swinging in that makeshift hooksuit. Fearless. Every time I hired her for this job or that, she came off so... damaged. Trust issues. Abandonment issues. I just thought she deserved better. That's all."

Krystyn wanted to put another bullet into Kyrnn. Right then and there.

But she agreed. Ilina deserved better than all this.

Krystyn put her gun away and stormed out to go and find Ilina and have her talk about her friend, even if it meant having to pry her away from Velia. She needed to stop looking at the Corpse Eater anyways. It was making her sick and filling her head with ideas to try to get around her revival.