Legion Candidate, Chapter 3

The walk to the shower room was a disgusting, sticky affair that only served to rouse Tilt for a round two of public embarrassment. Her shirt and pants stained visibly and her tenting made it a little mystery what the source was, and somehow nobody seemed to pay her a glance. The chaser butch led her past several groups of engineers, exchanging brief nods and a few words, and none of them seemed to notice Tilt’s march of shame.

“Doing alright?” The chaser had been glancing over her shoulder to check that Tilt was still following her for quite a while, but this was the first time that she’d spoken.

“I’m covered in my own cum.”

The woman laughed into her hand, trying not to be so loud as to draw real attention. “The folks along this route have seen much worse, believe me. I can’t count how many times I’ve had to carry Ilina to the showers after the mechanics finished with her.”

Ilina. The small, cute butch. The scary one. Even after only a single, brief interaction, that girl made Tilt queasy the way being on the same planet as Cassie Halbach used to. The same unmatched self-confidence in every movement that reached deep into Tilt’s soul and threatened to rip it out if the word no ever crossed her lips in front of them.

And so, the image of the little wolf getting gangraped by mechanics and walked through a public space to get cleaned off like it was a normal part of life really did emphasize that this place was hell itself, dressed up like a utopian paradise in a school play made of flimsy cardboard and poorly painted wood backdrops. Tilt was already regretting dipping backstage to see Dee already, but it was the perfect bait.

“Ah, Aegis,” the chaser said into her slate. “Can you meet me down at the showers by the hangars? And bring a spare set of clothes too.” A pause. “No, just you. Alright, see you in a few.”

The unattractive chaser led her through a little turn into a locker room and motioned towards a partition that separated it from the showers. “My friend is bringing you a change of clothes, so you can leave yours out and I’ll have them washed and returned to your place.”

Any sense of modesty or excitement collapsed in on itself as Tilt stripped in front of the chaser, hoping just maybe that she’ll leer or make some comment. Of course she didn’t though, nobody had. Back home she would have been subjected to all sorts of laughter and teasing about getting off to her machine. A freak. Pervert. Something to validate her mixed feelings of disgust and arousal.

“Chaser’s my callsign,” she said stepping outside and giving Tilt some unnecessary privacy. “I didn’t choose it, obviously. My name is Krystyn. Is Tilt your name or your callsign?”

“Both.”

“Cool.”

“You don’t think it’s weird?” Most people thought it was weird, even if they didn’t say so, or they would ask questions about why she chose it. Most people had a lot of questions.

“Nah,” Krystyn yawned. “Head over to medical later and let them know though. They pulled Domon medical records for everyone we brought up, so they might have outdated info.”

All the doctors had only referred to her as the patient, and occasionally the pilot, since they didn’t seem that interested in talking to Tilt directly. The experience hadn’t exactly filled her with hope that she’d get any real treatment out of them. Everyone in the neighborhood was nice but the facilities were dreary and serious, including the ones she’d been led past, filled with sharp-eyed and focused people and complicated arrays of machines and scientific equipment.

The showers were clean and well maintained — everything in hell was well-maintained with the worst being some dust in her apartment when she first moved in — despite the obvious traffic. Some lockers were left half-open with greasy coveralls hung up, and some people had left their personal soaps around. It felt like the showers back at Victoria in that way, a familiar shared space where people didn’t worry about things like theft or perverts, even with Tilt around.

Like everything else around the Ossuary it filled her with a sense of unease and she could feel herself edging up to a panic attack again and again. Tilt opted for a cold shower to bring her temperature down and to try to ground herself through the worst of it like Kara made her do whenever she started getting antsy.

“Your voice is getting bad again.” The chaser was speaking to someone she couldn’t quite hear properly. “You told Aril that medical couldn’t do anything about it, but when I checked with them they said you refused treatment.”

Tilt let the water running and moved to the wall where she could hopefully hear the rest of the conversation better. She was never one for gathering intelligence but she could never deny the appeal of voyeurism — or the thrill of nearly getting caught out.

“Don’t tell Aril about that,” a voice like a rasp eating through steel. The kind of shredded voice that she’d heard a dozen times in hangars after protracted battles. “It was doing better until I had to shout over Tin, for the record. She was trying to boss around the girls and was running them all into the ground.”

“Kara Tin? What can you tell me about her?”

“Oh? Is that genuine concern in your voice?” The rasp laughed into a dry, scratchy coughing fit. “Alright, alright, before you say it again I’ll go get it checked. What’s got you spooked about Tin?”

“She assaulted Tilt at medical,” Krystyn said slowly and deliberately, like she was working her way through some kind of logic puzzle. “Is Kara safe to keep on staff if Tilt signs on with us?”

Tilt shifted to peak out at the two in the changing area and realized that the rasp, Aegis presumably, belonged to the pig fat that had been stuck to Kara for weeks. Lard was a greasy and wiry little thing dressed in coveralls and nothing underneath guessing by how clear the barbells in its nipples were against the fabric, with dark bags under darker eyes and a complexion like a malnourished ghost. Lard was a systems mechanic, they all had the same kind of unwashed computer-fondler vibe to them, and with that ruined voice she knew it was a team lead.

“Since when was assault an indicator of how safe someone around these parts?” Lard smiled with the sharp and sleazy glint in its eyes that made Tilt stop going to bars — and getting that look from Kara was cheaper than going to the bar for it anyways. “She almost got in a fist fight with medical trying to get her pilot put in a first-floor apartment, but they’re all taken by disabled folks or families with kids, and same with the second-floor apartments.”

“Why’s that?”

“Active suicide risk.”

“But they let her pilot?”

“What was it Carie said… So dependable in her steel, such a liability in the flesh? Takes all kinds.”

Krystyn flinched and scowled and cursed at the sentiment, it was clearly something that had been said about her then. Lard seemed nice enough, but she didn’t know how to feel about Kara telling the first pig she found capable of holding a conversation everything about Tilt’s history. Not as violating like she expected it to feel, but a discomfort with the idea that Kara would talk to anyone about Tilt honestly. Kara had always told Tilt not to talk about her.

“I should get out of here so your pilot can get back to their shower,” Aegis said scooped up Tilt’s clothes, ”Want me to take the clothes and get them washed?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thanks.”

The march across the lower levels was slower than either of them would have preferred, but the frequent interruptions made it less awkward than it could have been. Somewhere high above them were the two housing districts filled with sandwiches and pigs and pretty barmaids, while around them were the facilities. The chaser led her along, halfheartedly giving an unpracticed tour and was stopped at every other doorway by someone asking her opinion.

Revenant. Would the doctor prefer this or that, Revenant? Have you seen the latest movie, Revenant? Oh, Revenant, I heard your sortie at Pascia went flawlessly! They’ve started growing blackberries in the gardens, Revenant, maybe you and the Princess could try them sometime.

Once they’d finally reached an elevator, having produced no real information that helped or interested Tilt, Krystyn nearly collapsed as soon as the door closed.

“The title is kind of…”

“Trust me,” the chaser whined, “It’s one of the less offensive names Morian’s come up with.”

That didn’t seem right. “Morian?”

“Morian Kyrnn.”

Even seeing and fighting the Necromancer’s forces first-hand on Pascia, even being aboard the Necromancer’s warship — the Ossuary — for weeks, even living within Domon’s borders her entire life, nothing really prepared someone for the reality that the Necromancer General was real in that tangible, physical sense. A woman with a name and a history as diluted by stories as Emperor Domon herself, with even fewer remnants of her likeness. Calling her by name invoked an unfortunate, awkward truth: Morian Kyrnn was a person you could meet and speak to and presumably have a conversation with, and that of course had always been a weak point in Domon indoctrination.

An entire empire with hundreds of years of history relied on one accepted truth: the Necromancer General was a deific monstrosity, cruel and callous and inhuman and immortal.

Immortality was extensively outlawed in Domon. Telomere extension was a well worn field of study around the universe and perhaps one of the most inherently evil things humanity has ever had the hubris of propagating. That those laws stretched even to the royal families, the officer and oligarch classes, was a sign of Domon’s singular conviction on the matter. Every human being, every clone, every citizen of the Domon Empire was a human being and dying was the most inviolable human right.

Nearly every draconian policy and every oppression in Domon could be linked back to the unending war against the Necromancer, and to the horrors perpetrated by her armies in the name of humanity and Sol.

“Don’t get yourself worked up into a frenzy about it. I don’t remember what I thought she’d be like, but you’re going to be… disappointed.”

“Why? Is she short, or something?”

Krystyn tugged at her collar and smiled weakly, half-present eyes like new recruits after their first sortie, before engaging in those breathing exercises the doctors tried to get Tilt to do. It seemed to work for the chaser as she straightened up, slightly rejuvenated. At least they worked for someone seeing as they only ever made Tilt dizzy.

The elevator stopped and the woman had to wave a hand to dismiss a security alert about Tilt’s presence. Only a few people were allowed on these floors, apparently. The hall beyond the holographic display looked nearly identical to the floors beneath district one, grey and utilitarian, with the only decorations being small notes stuck to the wall that read things likes skeleton mural or trail of smeared bloody handprints. Several such notes had fallen to the ground as the adhesives had given way before renovations.

The windows on one side of the hall gave a bird’s eye view of district one. A small sports field ringed by pillars of various heights with wires cut between them at sharp and sudden angles, and further encircled by a standard running track. Medical had entrances in both districts one and two, but Tilt was surprised to see several other facilities on the same edge of the district — an indoor pool was the first thing that caught her eye, though it seemed to be part of the greater athletic district rather than being open to the public. The other side of district one was lined by terraced apartments, relatively luxurious in size compared to the one she’d been given.

“Is all of that for pilots?”

Krystyn stopped beside Tilt and stared down at everything. “It’s called enrichment,” she elbowed Tilt in jest before pointing down towards one of the apartment buildings. “That one is for the Revenants, but it’s mostly empty. The only ones who live here full time are Ilina and I. The other two are reserved for now for state guests and special staff.”

“So, empty?”

“Empty.” Krystyn stretched. “Are you scared?”

The little pit in her stomach turned over and over again looking out the window. The void was quiet because Tilt couldn’t see a way that these windows opened or whether or not she could reasonably smash herself through them. But somewhere down the hallway was the enemy and she was supposed to walk in there and shake her hand. The fall seemed like a mercy compared to that.

“I assume I’m being enlisted,” Tilt said, finally. “Why else would you all patch me up and put Dee back together?”

“Was Pascia under conscription?” Tilt shook her head, staring down at the ground so, so far away, and only a foot of shatterproof polycarbonate separated her from sweet oblivion. “I think I read that it would have been moved into the rotation next year. Not that it matters anymore. You don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna do.”

“That’s it?”

Krystyn adjusted her fraying collar again and Tilt spotted the start of a rash where the edge had been irritating the skin. It must be very, very old and very well loved for the kind of wear it had endured. “Yeah. Let’s get it over with.”

The chaser was right to temper Tilt’s expectations as much as she could.

The Necromancer General was a slight and bony woman in big round glasses, dressed in a gaudy lab coat — embroidered flames danced along the bottom hem while skeletal arms reached as high as they could — who was tiredly snuffing out a cigarette in a pocket ashtray. A plain button down shirt sloppily tucked into khaki slacks terminating in mismatched socks and sandals. Brown hair tied back into what was probably a bun a few hours ago but was now half a ponytail.

Morian Kyrnn was the weird doctor from medical who oversaw most of her treatment.

The little wolf-girl from earlier, Ilina, sat in one of the chairs at the war table right out of one of those movies, big and circular with the giant holo in the center, picking at her fingernails. Krystyn moved to her side quietly and pulled up a chair of her own.

“She always said that the war room should be professional looking,” the weird doctor mused to herself as Tilt followed Krystyn in. Another unadorned room, but with no sticky notes indicating plans to renovate this one. For the best, whoever the doctor was talking about had the right of it. There were several whiteboards were lined up against one of the walls with half-erased diagrams drawn over with a large lizard-thing destroying a burning city. “What do you know about the Sol Empire?” Morian turned her eyes to Tilt specifically.

“Humanity’s crusade across the stars?” Tilt strained to remember the textbooks. The original tales all sounded like bargain bin drivel at a young adult bookstore. “Collapsed under its own weight and fractured into several economic blocks, the only one that has stood the test of time has been Domon. All the others have cannibalized, collapsed, and reformed hundreds of times.”

Morian nodded and motioned to a chair. “None of that is a lie. Well. It didn’t collapse. Isobel carved out the wartime logistics and staged a coup, and my work was done, so I quietly slipped away to let humanity take the reigns.” She paused and swung a leg out, swiveling on her back leg slowly, for seemingly no reason.

“The Domon Empire has proved itself to be a failed project. Its citizens are fed, its planets flourish, and many types of discrimination that plagued humanity have been eradicated in its borders.” The Necromancer spoke deliberately, enunciating strangely, as if she couldn’t see the inherent good in any of that, and then fell silent to chew on the idea. “Humanity should have died on Earth. We never deserved the stars. It’s too late now, of course.”

Tilt sat at the table and listened intently, as she was told, for the inevitable sell. Why should one fell Domon? What was the purpose of the Necromancer’s sudden declaration of war, after centuries of silence and absence?

“You can return to Pascia. If you care about your home then you might prefer that. It will be in a state of turmoil for a very long time now,” Morian raked the back of her neck with her uneven nails, leaving visible red trails. “Many will hold out hope that shipments of food and material will still arrive, and that the government will continue to function. They won’t. People will die. Many more than is necessary before people realize that help will never come.”

The Necromancer continued her speech as Tilt’s eyes glazed over. She described the way that collapse would be slow at first, and would accelerate as panic set in. Pascia wasn’t close enough to the rim of the empire that there would be humanitarian aid from the Federation or the Union, and Pascia had nothing to offer for that aid in the first place. Pascia would eventually reach self-sufficiency, though nobody would be content as all of Domon’s worlds were used to abundance.

“So, you’ve been doing this to every planet you’ve touched down on?” Tilt croaked, interrupting the woman as she explained another path of inevitable, unavoidable collapse that would be the death of millions. “Taking the strong, leaving the weak to die?”

Morian let out a weary sigh and pulled out a new cigarette, and the air scrubber nearby seemed to kick in almost preemptively before it was even lit. “You need to make a choice. The most important work is planetside. It is the endless, unrewarding work of taking care of your neighbors and making sure people are fed and healthy. It will be uncertain, dangerous, and miserable.”

But it is the correct choice. It didn’t have to be said out loud.

“Or you can bring your steel down on the empire’s neck.” Morian blew a smoke ring at the air scrubber and smiled. “We don’t need you, to be clear. Hundreds of years and all of Isobel’s preparations have amounted to little more than a speed bump.”

The wolf-girl let out a loud, irritated groan, silencing Morian’s speech. “We need more Revenants so we can manage more fronts at once, more engineers and scientists and shit to support those fronts, and we need more logistics officers to help funnel aid to planets we liberate, and all of that is excluding all the political bullshit.”

“Well,” the doctor said as nerves crept into her voice, “I didn’t want to pressure her into joining. Now she might feel obligated. I was prepared to do it all myself, you know.”

Ilina stood and made eye contact with Tilt. “Make your decision later. It’ll be a few months before we pick up the other potential pilots, so there’s no rush. In the mean time go down to medical and get whatever gender-affirming care you need. It’s all free and there shouldn’t be a waiting list, but I’ll call ahead just in case.”

The meeting was over as swiftly as it began. The chaser and the wolf-girl left while the Necromancer General wandered off somewhere that Tilt’s credentials couldn’t access, and Tilt was left to find her own way back down to district two in a daze.

Nothing ever happened until it all happened at once. There was a quote from some movie the pigs used to say back home about weeks and decades that seemed apt. Not that she ever wanted to admit the pigs were right about anything.