Hekate's Call, Chapter 43

They were four days into a two-week shore leave on some planet that Krystyn couldn’t bother to learn the name of. Why bother? It’s Central Domon. Every planet was terraformed to hell and back. Perfect picturesque worlds with perfectly tailored, aesthetically pleasing flora and tightly controlled fauna, and the closer you were to a space elevator or mass driver the more Domon the human culture was. You had to take a round of world-specific vaccines and be screened for any viruses, parasites, or bacteria that could disrupt the environment before you could even get clearance to enter the atmosphere.

All of it was managed efficiently by the government if you were a citizen of any world in Central Domon, tracking where you were cleared to go and when you needed to be refreshed for any locations you frequented within the empire. Cost included! How convenient!

If you weren’t a citizen, you had to report to a border station to have all your information recorded and filed away. Days of medical testing, questioning, and gods knows what else. Despite all their medical records, they all had to be retested after spending several years outside of Central Domon, but it was easier than the ordeals the others were put through.

Ilina stumbled along behind Krystyn and Vigil in a daze, occasionally running into one of the two of them if they stopped suddenly, or grasping their clothes when there was a crowd she could be lost in. Maybe she wasn’t in a daze, since she seemed perfectly capable of finding her way around or remembering things they’d passed, or conversations happening around her. But something was wrong.

“Soldiers.”

A useless observation that Ilina had made quarter-heartedly at some point, pointing out a bunch of uniformed nobodies wandering around. Krystyn could tell from the moment they touched down that pretty much anyone you saw on this planet was either a soldier or ex-soldier.

Every world in Central Domon had rotating mandatory military service based on how many laborers the planet needed versus how many citizens the planet was producing. This planet was prosperous and wealthy, and so it would have mandatory military service until some spreadsheet somewhere in the empire was satisfied that it didn’t have an excess of the only resource that the empire didn’t plunder from every other world in the galaxy: people.

There was an excess of uniformed soldiers around though. A rim world always had a healthy standing military. Hundreds of thousands of people paid to do combat drills and run defense duty, routinely rotated between worlds to keep them from settling down too much. Krystyn had never quite grasped all the whys of the empire’s logistics, but nobody she’d ever known could explain it either. It was arcane, seemingly prescient, and ruthlessly efficient.

The three of them called it a day, returned to their hotel room, and checked in with the Gestalt. No incidents to report, no recall order. It was a quick call. There were two slept-in beds and a messy bundle of extra blankets on the couch just in case the hotel staff had questions about three women sharing a room. The sun was setting and the port’s night life started kicking up with lots of little clubs and bars lined the streets below all filling quickly to capacity.

“So, this how shore leave normally goes?” Vigil asked from the bed she was lounging on. “Wander around all day, go back to a hotel room, repeat for two weeks?”

Krystyn cracked open a drink and downed half of it. Cheap beer, but it went down just right. “Manya usually dragged me around shopping,” Krystyn said, with maybe a little more fondness than she expected seeping into the statement. “I just wanted to hit up dives and get drunk and maybe walk out with a boy if I could, but that never happened. I’m sorry your first outing has been like this.”

They hadn’t really done anything so far. Around every corner was bad memories for Krystyn and it was keeping her on edge. No panic attack so far, and she hadn’t even needed to ground herself. Maybe because it was all real? But Ilina had been out of it ever since the first day on that orbital station.

“Where’s Ilina?” Vigil looked around the room as if suddenly noticing the suspicious lack of a trouble-bound cat.

Krystyn motioned to the balcony. The sun was setting and the moon was in the sky, and so Ilina was doing what she’d been doing every evening and night so far. Sitting on the balcony by herself and staring up at the sky, slowly drinking warm, flat beer.

“What happened on the station?” Vigil dropped her voice.

A lot happened. Ilina and Morian almost got arrested, though apparently Irene Hunter had smoothed that over. Manya had gotten tagged in Domon’s systems as a deserter, though her home planet had been out of the conscription rotation for so long there hadn’t been a punishment — even still she opted to stay on the Gestalt and near Velia as much as possible. Crater needed time to call in more favors and get a bunch of paperwork in order before they set off for Errant HQ. Allegedly Sky-Knight Errant had been bought out wholesale, but Liz said the situation was a lot more complicated for them as a subsidiary.

“Irene Hunter?” Vigil paused and mouthed the name again, “Shit, is that Ilina’s mom?”

Quicker on the uptake than Krystyn. If the girl wasn’t some kind of lobodomite savant, she’d feel bad about not catching it as quick. Krystyn nodded and shrugged. “I met her, but I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“No. I want to hear what you thought of her.”

Ilina’s voice.

Krysytn turned to see Ilina at the foot of the bed, still half-dazed, but a little sharper now. Gods below, they needed to put a fucking bell on her. Not that it would make a difference, you could be certain that Ilina would find a way to move silently in spite of it. The floor was full of creaks too but you’d never know it just watching Ilina move around.

Ilina moved with that same level of serial-killer grace she did when Krystyn had first met her. Moving her body weight evenly between her steps in a way that kept her footsteps near-silent, and avoiding the creaks by instinct. Hollow eyes stared at Krystyn as Ilina clambered up into her lap.

She hated it. Fuck. What happened? Everything about Ilina had been wrong since they landed at the station. Her guard was back up after all this time. Didn’t say more than she needed. Head down. So lacking in presence you could forget she was in the room while you stared at her. But one look at those eyes and you knew she was more dangerous than ever.

“Speak.” Ilina commanded, lifting Krystyn’s face with both hands. “What did you think of her?”

That wasn’t a fair question. Krystyn couldn’t lie to Ilina, so she couldn’t lie to herself either about what she thought about the woman. It was a form of torture. A punishment she’d done nothing to earn.

“I said speak,” Ilina repeated, firmer than before. There was something in her voice, some ice in it that Krystyn had only heard before from Elisabet… and Irene. It made Krystyn’s stomach twist itself in knots.

“You can’t get mad at me,” Krystyn attempted, half-heartedly.

“Speak,” Ilina repeated. A finality in her voice.

“Gods below, she’s the hottest woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on,” Krystyn panted, before whining at the way Ilina’s lip curled up. “It’s not fair to make me say it and then get mad at me for it.”

Ilina’s nose twitched like she’d just walked into a foul odor. But she relented, a bit, and let out a sigh. “Are you going to explain yourself, at least?” She muttered. Wait, was she jealous?

“See it from my perspective,” Krystyn sneered, suddenly emboldened to tease just a bit about it. “I walked into a room and saw her topless and stitching a knife wound in her arm shut. Between those empty, hateful eyes and that little sneer, it was like looking at an older version of you, only somehow meaner.”

Ilina’s thighs tightened and she shifted on Krystyn’s lap. Cute thing. “I don’t look anything like her.” Quiet and dejected.

“It’s a little uncanny actually,” Krystyn tilted Ilina’s face back up by the chin. “You’re much prettier, of course.”

There was so much detail Krystyn could go into about the ways they were different. Ilina’s features were a touch softer, and she had less weight on her frame which made her look more feminine. Her freckles drew a nice light line across her nose, probably from covering her lower face in the sun, but Irene’s were dark and were thick across her face and neck. A bad look on a Domon officer. Frankly it was a miracle that Irene Hunter had survived this long as an officer at all.

Krystyn could tell at a glance Irene was from some backwater. Lots of field work with time in the sun, running from camp to camp, coordinating efforts and digging through personnel files. Long, unrewarding hours on bases staffed just enough to operate smoothly while resources were dedicated elsewhere. A dead-end deployment where her career would waste away no matter how hard she worked. Most officers in that position would have quit after their first round of service was up, and hell, maybe the woman did considering how old Ilina was.

“Well, I knew that,” Ilina muttered. “I just wished I looked more like mama than her.”

“Quick question,” Vigil jumped into the conversation from the other bed. “How does that work? Aren’t they both women?”

How did that work? As she opened her mouth to echo Vigil’s question, Ilina shoved both her thumbs in and pried her jaw apart. Her brain ground to a halt as she fought herself to keep from throwing Ilina to the ground, more or less paralyzed with a hand on the girl’s waist to keep her balanced.

“I was told never to tell anyone,” Ilina said as her focus shifted. A smile growing on her lips at the useless noises of protest Krystyn was making. “But it’s not like she’s going to come down from the station to beat my ass here. In Vitro something or other.”

“Designer?” Vigil moved from the other bed to sit beside the two of them. To get a better look at Krystyn, no doubt.

“No, no. Not like that.”

Ilina tilted Krystyn’s head back and loomed over her, forcing Krystyn to her free hand back to steady herself. This was going to be bad, wasn’t it? But she couldn’t exactly bite off Ilina’s fingers, so all she could do was endure whatever was about to happen.

“Chimeric?” Ilina hummed. She really was never good at remembering those kinds of terms unless it had to do with work. “Don’t know many of the details, but mama was the one who carried me to term. You could make the argument that Irene is actually my father.”

Vigil snickered. “I take it you argued that?”

“On occasion,” Ilina matched with a impish little grin. “But that wasn’t what made her angry, I think. I think it’s technically illegal?”

Chimera clones were extremely illegal anywhere Domon had influence, for all the same reasons clone soldiers like Vigil were illegal. Not that Krystyn was capable of articulating the nuances of Domon’s purity laws while Ilina dribbled spit into her mouth. Just how much drool was Ilina capable of producing at a moment’s notice? Krystyn’s body was starting to tremble from how hard she was trying to keep still and quiet.

“Oh, that makes sense.” Vigil tilted her head back and forth until the words clicked into place. “I bet she went back to Central Domon after you were sixteen, right? She waited just long enough to dodge charges for it.”

Ilina withdrew her fingers so Krystyn could choke down the mouthful of spit. She could feel her cheeks burning, and like she was falling further away from the conversation. A little ringing in her ears from all the blood rushing to her head that made it hard to pay attention. Not quite like the same light-headed heat-daze that came with piloting the Inertia, but close enough. It was a bit pleasant, actually. Gods below, was this how Ilina felt whenever she made those dumb distant smiles?

And then the moment passed. Dragged back down to earth from her little trip by the sight of Vigil pulling a black cloth bag over Ilina’s head.

“Hold her,” Vigil snarled as Ilina twisted and thrashed at it.

Without a single thought she grabbed Ilina’s wrists and pulled her down. Vigil moved fast — a little too fast, she’d done it before — and wrapped black duct tape around the bag at Ilina’s throat to keep it in place without getting it on her skin. Don’t want to leave a residue, after all. Then she pulled the bag taut somewhere else and wrapped two layers around her mouth, and then two more under the chin over the top of the head, and then two around the eyes. By the second set Ilina had stopped struggling.

Vigil dropped a pair of shears on the bed while she moved to grab something else and without any directions Krystyn grabbed it and cut a slit in the bag around Ilina’s nose so she could breathe. Just a thing now. Faceless and silent save for the light whining as it got pushed to the side onto her back. Didn’t put up a fight and just laid still with its belly exposed.

How wet would the freak be by the time they got its pants off?

There was that hole in her soul again.

They shouldn’t be doing this to Ilina, or at the very least not like this.

“I’ve given up on ever getting you alone,” Vigil let out a sigh as she returned. “Even when you aren’t attached by the hip to her, then it’s Manya, or Liz, or someone.”

Krystyn chuckled as she glanced up at the dog. “When did I become so popular?”

“I want to say thank you,” Vigil stepped forward and loomed over Krystyn.

Uncomfortable and a bit foreboding. She’d spent years mostly avoiding Symeon Vigil because she was a violent, rabid animal and those hungry eyes had never discriminated between friend or foe. It was hard to dislodge that impression despite how close they’d all gotten.

“I used to think I was broken. That the things I wanted to do were wrong.”

Well, that’s because they were.

“Damaged goods, you know?” Vigil put a knee on the bed beside Krystyn, and Krystyn didn’t react fast enough. The dog snatched up the hand that Krystyn put up to ward it off, interlocked fingers with her just like she’d taught it, and pushed forward onto the bed.

Pinned. Trapped.

“I used to beg Crater to carve out all those disgusting desires I had whenever I saw you slump out of the Inertia in a bloody heap,” that familiar desperation filled its voice. “Or when I saw Manya in the showers on the base. What would feel like to rip one of those horns out of her head?”

Gods below. How many times had Krystyn had the same thought?

“That’s what was going on? I had no idea,” Krystyn said, careful to keep her voice steady. They always wanted to hear the fear in your voice and would get rougher if you didn’t show it. But as long as you didn’t look into what was happening, it would eventually stop.

She tried once, then twice, to twist her hand free of Vigil’s grip. It failed, of course, because she taught Vigil how to prevent that. The mutt adjusted over Krystyn, pinning Krystyn’s free arm now that she had the first one locked, just like she was taught.

“You can’t keep making that face,” Vigil’s cheeks were starting to turn red, panting like she was in heat. It wasn’t a face she’d ever make at Ilina. Ilina was smart enough to not look vulnerable in front of people liable to try to devour her.

Look at that face she’s making.

Charlotte tried not to let out any sounds that could be mistaken for a moan between dives from the other girl. The others in the dim room giggled as she kicked suddenly when the girl on top of her bit at her lip hard.

You think she’s gonna be wet when we get those trousers off her?

A hand grabbed at her belt, and she snapped her legs closed and twisted. Freaks. Perverts. All of them were filthy fucking queers, hiding it amidst the violence of the backrooms. They weren’t any different than those girls in those dark, dingy little bars spiking each other’s drinks.

Krystyn gasped for breath in the moments between kisses. Repeating to herself not to make a sound. Don’t kiss her back no matter what. No matter how much she wanted to.

“You’re so pretty like this, you know?” Symeon panted as she shifted and bit something.

Pisses me off how pretty it is. She’s bigger than Gordie too, isn’t she? Who let this bimbo pilot her machine?

A hand groped her through her uniform. Don’t moan. Another one tugging at her hair.  Don’t whimper. A set of hands fumbled with her belt despite Charlotte’s best efforts. Don’t react. The tongue in her mouth explored freely, wrapping around her own and daring her to do anything other than shirk away. Don’t give them what they want.

And then there was the cold of steel against her flesh. A blade slid between the buttons of her uniform shirt.

She’ll fail dress check in the morning.

Snap. The first button leapt away as the blade slowly moved up Charlotte’s torso, sawing off the first button, followed by the second.

Maybe she won’t. Maybe she’s a little homemaker.

Third and fourth went the same. Echoing little clatters as they hit the storeroom floor and rolled away.

“I want to fuck you up so badly,” Vigil said breathlessly as her thumb dislodged the last two buttons of her shirt.

Krystyn blinked tears out of her eyes and felt the blood on her lip where Vigil had bitten her. She wanted to scream. But she’d only get hit harder. Told to keep quiet. It hurt less when you didn’t fight back. It was supposed to hurt less when you didn’t fight back. It will hurt less. Don’t fight back. Stay quiet and take it. Like a good little soldier.

You’ve always been a good little soldier, haven’t you, Charlotte?

It was hard to tell who was trembling more, the mutt or Krystyn, as it pulled her top open and started tugging her undershirt up. She didn’t want to look at it in the eyes as its nails scraped across her skin. It would see that she wanted it, somewhere in her empty, broken soul. Of course she wanted it. She was a filthy dyke, after all. And the fucking dog would see it even if Krystyn couldn’t.

“Please,” a quiet voice begged. “No. Please, no.”

Krystyn couldn’t see who it was, and she didn’t recognize the voice.

The rest happened faster than Krystyn could react. A faceless toy led with one hand, grabbing at the dog, catching its shoulder as it reared back. And then with all its weight and strength, unnaturally accurate, threw a punch under Vigil’s instinctive guard and knocked the beast off the bed. Ilina’s pause was only brief enough to hear the dog curse before moving to dive after it, fists first.

Krystyn wrapped her arms around Ilina’s torso, finding herself upright and fighting like hell to pull her back onto the bed. Ilina was strong, though you’d never really know it. But once she had the girl back on the bed, Ilina turned around and wrapped her arms around Krystyn and squeezed harder than she ever had before.

Vigil stood up and wiped a bunch of blood from where her lip was split. “And here I thought the hood would be enough to keep your little guard dog quiet,” Symeon sneered, before putting both her hands up in a pacifying gesture. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m supposed to ask first, right? Negotiate or something? It’s just so hard to hold back when you’re looking like that. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

They spoke in hushed tones on the balcony. Vigil didn’t know how to keep her voice down without dipping into that aggressive-sounding growl, so she ended up speaking louder than anyone would have liked. Ilina hadn’t raised her voice even once and wasn’t budging on her position.

Ilina hadn’t asked what happened. Knowing her, she probably wouldn’t. Not out of kindness, letting things be unsaid or giving Krystyn space to process. She’d simply made up her mind and wasn’t about to change it for anything.

Krystyn sat on the bed staring at the floor and trying not to think about anything. She was mostly succeeding. It was easier to give up when you knew every path was a dead-end.

Besides, it was just a kiss. A hand on her abs. It wasn’t a big deal.

It wasn’t.

It was maybe the most chaste encounter Krystyn had ever had.

Ilina was overreacting. Krystyn could take a hit and had been through worse after all. Vigil was attractive, even. Krystyn had come far enough to be able to admit that to herself.

When the balcony door slid open it was accompanied by a burst of cackling laughter from one of the little bars on the street below. Echoing in her head so much she couldn’t hear either of two of them talking to her.

No. No. She wasn’t in the back rooms or the barracks. Not some storage closet with acoustics designed to traumatize you with years of auditory hallucinations. She’d never be in a place like that again.

“I wanted to say that I’m sorry, again,” Symeon whined, somehow getting through the hallucinations. “We get rough all the time, you know? I didn’t think it’d be a big deal. I’m sorry.”

Krystyn nodded. It wasn’t a big deal. It was nothing. It was fine. It was.

“Get your stuff and get out of my sight.” Ilina stood carefully positioned between Symeon and Krystyn at all times. The dog wordlessly packed up its bag and was ushered out of the hotel room after handing over its key to Ilina.

The rest of the week was quiet and pleasant with just the two of them. Or as pleasant as it could be. Ilina didn’t ask any questions about what happened with Vigil, or why Krystyn reacted the way she did. Suppose she didn’t need to.