RavensDagger

  Interlude - At Your Service - Part Two

  Sonic paused by her seat, the lesser of the two pced across from each other oher end of the lone coffee table in the room. Dedicate Kirknd moved to the rger, more plush of the two seats, then carefully gestured for Sonic to sit.

  She sat.

  The older woman smiled and adjusted her robes while sitting. Thearted a simple tea ceremony. There was a k as she tapped out an appropriate amount of tea leaves into a gss device. "How do you like yours?" she asked.

  "Pin," Sonic replied. She had long ago lost her stomach. For that matter, she had no oesophagus or even a mouth. All the speaking she did was through a core that allowed her to manipute sounds. She thought that she might regret the choice, but it was surprisingly easy to grow past the o eat or drink. In any case, there was no point in wasting more than just one cup of tea.

  The Dedicate poured two cups, then carefully moved one of them with her sed set of arms so that it rested before Sonic. "There," she said. "Whenever you're ready, sister."

  Soniodded, then carefully adjusted her sitting position and swept her hands down her p to press out any unsightly wrinkles in her skirt. "Is there a particur pce you wao begin?" she asked.

  The Dedicate shook her head. "We have access to your reports up to the entering of the ship known as the Held Together. Afterwards, nothing except for a letter inf the Martian Admiralty of your prompt and immi desertion."

  "Ah, I see. How did they take it?" she asked.

  "All things sidered, rather well," Dedicate Kirknd said. She took a sip from her cup after blowing across it. "The... circumstances allowed freat deal of speongst the few members of the brass who are cleared to know them."

  "And the Ordo learned of my circumstances how?" she asked.

  That was her one point of tention in all of this. She hadn't informed the Adeptus Ancillia. They had simply known. Though to be fair, the Dedicate here was a high-ranking member of the anisation, and she had no reason to believe that things had spread beyond that.

  "We have... friends, in many anisations around Mars. But a lot of what we do know es from MINT. Not through spies or people who spilled secrets, but as a direct warning." She shifted in her seat slightly and gave her teacup to two of her metallids. "They warned us not to interfere the moment your desertion came to light. We asked for more, and they provided."

  Soniodded slowly. She'd... almost fotten about all of that. She was, teically, no longer a member of the Martian navy. Ivil has forced her to sign away that belonging. And now her own brothers and sisters of the Adeptus Ancillia didn't know where they stood. Hence... this very moment.

  She thought back to the moment where she'd agreed to serve the Empress. Had there been anything about keeping her secrets?

  Teically, no. She'd merely told Sonic that she didn't want someone whose loyalties were split.

  And so Soniow had to choose what to say. The truth wouldn't be breaking any rules, but it would spit in the spirit of what the Empress had asked.

  No one survived spitting at the Empress.

  So Sonic started to dance. "I was ordered to leave the service of the Martian navy," she said.

  "By whom? And why, if I may ask, did you choose to obey such a thing?"

  Sonic turned her head away from the Dedicate and instead faced the painting on the far wall. It truly was a masterwork. Had the painter been there? She narrowed her vision down to a pque beh the image. It dated it to half a decade after the third Inter-System war. So perhaps not aness's art.

  "I believe that, were I to report this, I may well be ordered to leave the Adeptus Ancillia as well."

  The Dedicate sat a little taller. "You would abandon your oaths and maidly way of life?"

  "No, I would not," Sonic said. "But I would abandon the anisation in order to better duct myself as is appropriate for a member of the Ordo."

  The Dedicate stared for a long time, her lips drawn into a thin line.

  "It's a beautiful painting," Sonic said.

  "Is it? I've studied it for some hours. It's not... realistic, of course. The real battle happened across hundreds of thousands of kilometres. The image squeezes in the Earth Alliance fleet far too much."

  "Indeed. I'd suspected as much. The Empress was quite different back then. Now she seems far more human. Did you know, once you talk to her, you discover that she has... sdalously human desires. No, don't scowl at me. This is no bsphemy. She is the Empress still. As poised and regal and deadly as ever. But she has the wonts of... a person, heless. I suspect that her return to a human form after... the tributions of the early and te A-Css have enced her to rekindle her humanity. It's quite beautiful."

  "Is it?"

  "It is," Sonic said. "Would that she had a member of the Ancillia close to her now, to serve and protect."

  "Ah," the Dedicate said. She settled her cup into its saucer. The rim cttered slightly. She pced it onto the table and folded all six hands over her p, fingers iwined. "How the Adeptus Ancillia help?"

  A sudden ge of pace, but ohat removed a weight of stress from Sonic's back. She weled it.

  "Interfere this time may be... unwise. However, there is opportunity." Sonic leaned bad sidered how to hahis for a moment. Ivil may well be irate if the Adeptus Ancillia broke her cover with her... potential mates. That would be the first hurdle. Could the Ancillia help beyond keeping its distance?

  It was very likely. They had little influence here, around Jupiter, but little wasn't he Adeptus Ancillia also had a detly strong military capability. This ship alone was rge enough to deter most pirates, and it wasn't the jewel of the Adeptus Ancillia fleet.

  "The Empress is being subtle. Moreso than ever before. I am ag as her liaison but I believe that she doesn't want the fact of her existence here to be known by any."

  "I uand, and I will endeavour to make the rest of the Ordo uand as well," Dedicate Kirknd said.

  "It may be best if instead of making them uand, the truth was simply kept to as feossible," Sonic said. "I am risking much by admitting this already."

  "I see. Your bravery shan't go unnoticed."

  "I appreciate it, Dedicate." Sonic csped her hands together and made a small sign of reciliation and then shifted into the sign for a ge of subjects. This didn't go unnoticed to the Dedicate, who had likely gohrough ten thousand such ceremonies. "There is someone I met that might be of minor io the Ordo."

  "Oh?"

  "Two people, actually, with potentially a third... or fourth. It's a plex matter. But the one I wish to highlight is a young woman, a Saturnian by birth and upbringing."

  "We have few members from Saturn, though it isn't unheard of," the Dedicate said. "Culturally, they tend to chafe uhe striess of the Ordo."

  "I see that, yes. The young dy I speak of may also have some difficulties in adapting. But I think she's worth the Ordo's time. She has a brilliant mind."

  "And she has i in being a member?"

  "I don't believe so. She does have a single core at the moment." The mandate of the Adeptus Ancillia was to assist those with cores. But, generally speaking, they teo assist those with more cores more often than those with few. A single core would barely put someone on the Ordo's metaphorical radar, though it would earn their attention. "I think it may be wise for the Tech Maids of Mars to assist this young woman with her further education, outside of the bounds of the order itself. Perhaps seeding her into one of the Martian engineering colleges?"

  "An iing request, aainly something we could aodate. But why?"

  "Because doing so would give you an excuse for being there, and a reason for me to be speaking to you now."

  The Dedicate stared, or so Sonic chose to believe, her eyes were still hidden by her cowl. "Very well, then, sider it done."

  "Thank you. Now... there are a few more minor requests that I believe may be helpful..."

  ***

  RavensDagger

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