“Lili is it hurting bad?” Mienna asked, her face twisted into worry. She cringed with every click of the stapler. When the bombs fell, Liera hugged her and kept her pinned under her weight as the falling red sands buried their tent.
“It does, Yeah” She winced in pain. She had to be strong for her sister, but the stapler without any anesthetics put tears in her eyes.
“Oh I’m sorry” Mienna hugged her. They were both sweaty and hot, but she always gave her sister what she wanted, whenever she wanted. A year has passed without their mother and her death shattered Mienna in ways Liera never expected. Mienna’s eyes lost all spark, her smile and laughter was gone for months. She had to be force fed sometimes. But now, Mienna had just talked again. In a twisted way, the bomb had shocked her back to the little sister that Liera always knew. The sparks in her eyes were pure terror, but sparks nonetheless.
“What are you apologizing for,” She asked, kissing her sweaty forehead,” The ones that bombed us aren’t sorry,” She learned this from her father. Everyone had to know where to place the blame, at all times. Everyone, even six year olds needed to have hatred and rage in their hearts pointed in the right direction, sharpened to spears and blades that may one day pierce their oppressors’ hearts.
“But it happened because you helped me!”
“I will always help you. That’s what I do, That’s how things work,” Liera told her. She also had to know the hierarchy of responsibility. “Never say sorry for things that weren’t your fault. People will use it against you.”
“Uh, alright…” She whispered, hugging her again.
Their father returned half an hour later. He had joined the group that took down the Mektian warship. Mienna immediately clung to his huge arm for comfort.
“Oh? Were you scared Mie?” He patted her head, surprised to see his little daughter being affectionate again. He was worried she would never recover from her mother’s death. He had talked about this with Liera for months. He raised her with one hand and kissed her small forehead. “It’s over now, don’t be scared,” He told her sweetly.
“We caught 171 alive,’ He told Liera, placing his unmaker on the canvas of their ruined tent.
“That many? Didn’t the ship explode?” She found it surprising so many could survive the crash. The warship had active camouflage. She had learned about it from a book her father brought her. This was a Sol system technology that only few other colonies had resources to produce. Someone’s unmaker beam was lucky enough to break an integral part of the cloaking system. If it wasn’t for that, they’d still not know where the bombs fell from. Hundreds of unmakers fired at it from all directions mere milliseconds after its cloaking failed. She was surprised the ship fell at all, it looked like it should’ve been vaporized with the amount of beams that cut through it. “Looked to me like they all died.”
“Ship broke in half when it fell. Their escape cylinders didn’t work. We have an entire chunk full of them, like a damn bugs nest,” This was a common tactic of these Mektians. Their military doctrine maximized survival. When things went wrong for them, they always scattered in their escape pods. Their hope was saving some of them, but no one stood a chance on foot against Solarii war parties in these red sands. Even now, they kept firing unmakers randomly at the sky, paranoid about another invisible warship.
“We can get some of our people back then?” Liera groaned, adjusting her posture. 171 was a lot, They could exchange prisoners with Mektians.
“Only 37 woman among them, 23 runts. The rest is all men,” He sounded disappointed. The Solarii never exchanged the majority of men in prisoner swaps. All captured men above a certain maturity met their gruesome deaths within a week. The ’runts’ were youngest men. They had better chances of survival in Solarii cave prisons. Their lives would still horrible, but Solarii were open to swapping after few months of breaking their minds. Only women stood a guaranteed chance to make it out alive, but they were also appropriately broken, just like Solarii women were broken at the hands of their captors. The swaps were then proportional, damaged people for damaged people.
“Show me your leg, Lili.” She wasn’t afraid of her father like other children in their tribe were when it came to their fathers. He was an affectionate, kind man in private. If there was anything that she was afraid to do, it was showing him any injury of hers. He had his traditional, efficient ways of dealing with them and that usually involved a lot of pain.
He checked his own hands carefully for any cuts and wounds of his own. He was still very much paranoid about the blood curse. He drenched both of his hands in strong alcohol from a bottle that he pulled out from his waist bag, Just to be on the safe side of everything.
“N-no, It’s fine, Pa. I stitched it already,” But it wasn’t that easy to get away from him when he was worried about his blessed daughter. He rotated her as easily as a doll and pulled her leg to his lap.
“No, this won’t work. You have to let it bleed, this will rot your blood,” He told her, his rough fingers grazing the purple skin around the cut. She rushed to staple it just to keep her father off her leg, but that was all in vain. He pulled out his knife and began taking the stitches off. He had his own medical supplies on him at all times, none of it offered any comfort. He only had things that burned. Liera groaned and yelled until he finished treating her leg.
“It’s good now, Lili,” He announced, tying the knot on the fresh bandage. “Come here, you did great, you protected your sister,” He kissed her temple, She felt his rough beard brush her skin. She was already an adult in their tradition but he was reluctant to treat her that way since her mother’s passing.
“We’re going to kill some of them. You should join us, If you can still walk,” He told her, helping her stand. Mienna still clung to his arm and he didn’t let go, balancing both of his daughters at once. Liera tried walking but the sharp waves of pain running up her body weren’t easy to deal with. This could take weeks to heal, she couldn’t imagine another day of this pain.
“I need something for the pain,” She told him, her eyes reddened, breathing heavily with every step back into their toppled tent. She had heard of these executions before but this was the first time she was invited to one, or rather, the enemy had brought themselves to one near her.
“Let it hurt you. It’ll be useful. I’ll get you something after we’re done,” Her father told her as he bent to pick up his unmaker. “Now, you, young lady. I think you’re going to stay at Ceni’s for a bit. Can you be good?” Mienna was still weirdly shy and averse to talking with her father after months of staying silent. She simply tried to cling harder, but their father took her away to their nearest neighbors. She was two years too young to watch the executions.
Later that day, Liera’s father carried her. She was dressed head to toe in a veiled skin suit. The red robe that she wore was a heirloom from their mother’s lineage. It was tied loosely at her waist with a pale gold strip. Six different bone cutter knives decorated her waist. It was a hassle to get into this outfit, but it was required for a woman to participate in an execution. She was also made to wear gloves and a face mask. Her father didn’t want her to be exposed to any blood curses from these unfortunate strangers.
They arrived at a cave entrance. Hundreds of Solarii war parties gathered at sunset, idling patiently to watch the executions with bloodlust in their eyes. These were important traditions for Solarii men, to show their women and children the spoils of war, to deliver them their own chance at sweet vengeance.
Her father set her down next to a sizable gathering of women and girls, all dressed in the same way that she was. Few of them had injuries from the evening’s bombing, she saw a girl with her arm in a sling, another with a bandage around her head.
An old woman clad in a black robe arrived to offer her silver cup filled with fine red sand with thousands of sticks stabbed into it. She picked one randomly. The buried half of the stick was red. She had been chosen.
“Ah, look at that,” Her father exclaimed, taking the stick from her. “You’re the deliverer, this is the first time too! you’re lucky, Lili,“ He told her happily. “You’re so blessed.”
“I doubt that,” She whispered in a sigh that only they could hear, she didn’t like his divine talk all that much but a daughter shouldn’t act disrespectful towards her father in public.
“Well, the blessed are blessed whether they believe or not,” He retorted, kneeling before her. He was too tall to face her. She had her mother’s height. “You know how to kill animals, I’ve taught you that. So, don’t panic.”
“I won’t panic, Pa,” This was all new, but she wasn’t nervous at all. She was usually averse to violence, but things were different today. Maybe it was the burning pain in her leg, maybe it was the hatred, maybe it was the hole that her mother left in her heart. She didn’t care what it was.
“Do you know why we do this? Why we kill some of them on the first day like this?” Her father asked, he was wearing his serious face. The face of the Solarii warfighter, not her kind father.
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“To break the hope and resolve of others, I know”
“Do you know how to do it better than anyone?” This was a question that she didn’t expect. She wasn’t taught how to torture prisoners. That was a man’s job, she only grew up to be a mother. The war has changed them and their traditions.
“It‘s the face. Don’t go for the body before you destroy the face. It’s one of the fastest ways to get the message across,” He unsheathed two of her knives as the horns rang in the distance. “You have to make someone they know, someone they don’t know and wouldn’t want to know. Make sure they see what you did to yours before you finish him off,” He gave her the knives and rubbed the back of her neck. ”They killed your mother, repeat after me.”
“They killed my mother,” She recited, feeling the heat spread from her heart through her body. “They killed my mother!” The second one came through clenched teeth behind the mask.
She walked past 150 terrified prisoners. They were restrained at wrists and feet, staring wide eyed at the 21 men arranged in front of them on a ridge. They were close enough to see their friends’ doomed faces. The men were tied and anchored in place with ropes, freezing their upper bodies in place. Mektians were larger in size, well fed and healthy. This was the first time she saw one in the flesh. Everything she read and heard about them were true. They were horrid people that came from a blessed planet. The man wore a blue and silver military officer outfit, ripped to shreds by his Solarii captors. He stared ahead, his eyes blank with fear. There was no fight left in him. Liera looked at her father, he stood cross armed, standing behind the prisoners looking directly at her. The prisoner glanced hopelessly at her, he couldn’t hide the shivers as screams erupted next to him. He was begging with his eyes to make it quick. He used his chin to point at his chest. He wanted to be stabbed in the heart.
“…killed my mother!” She recited, her heart was about to explode.
She held both her knives in strong, backhanded grips. She squeezed the handles until her fists trembled. She raised her hands high and brought them bearing down towards either side of the man’s head. The left blade sank into his cheek, the right one sank into his jaw. She didn’t wait for him to scream. Gripping both knives, she pushed him forward with her good knee while pulling the blades back with all her strength. She felt the knives scrape against his skull as she carved deep cuts through his face.
The unmaker beams filled the sky like fireworks, men cheered like pack animals. This was a great victory for the Solarii. She saw her father, firing his weapon at the clouds like a madman as he pointed out his blood soaked daughter to his closest friends. She hadn’t seen him so happy in years.
The prisoner was the last to die and Liera was the last girl to stop. He was already dead by the time her knives sank into his heart.
Commander Brenvalo opened the box the priestess delivered with her ball robot at the end of their conversation. It contained a silver cylinder the size of a handgun. He picked it up and unscrewed the lid. The priestess had left his door unlocked, telling him to wait for a sound. He listened for it very carefully, his ear against the metallic wall. He heard it nearly 20 minutes after she left him. The servo creaking of the dock closing.
He stood on his one good leg and he used the chair to limp out of the room as fast as possible. He had to make the distance before he heard that sound again. She had told him to remain hidden if the dock opened again. The chair clamored loudly against the floor as he hopped along the corridor. He couldn’t afford to fail her again. He had a reason to exist now, to justify his life for himself after it was swallowed by that fear. For the first time since he saw it, he had something to distract himself from it.
Turning a corner, he suddenly bumped into something that came flying towards him. The silver cylinder rolled away from his hand as he suddenly found himself on his back.
“P-priestess!” he gulped, looking up at the ball robot with all three of its arms pointing different ways. “W-was I too late!” He yelled, angry at himself.
“Eh? What are you talking about?” The ball asked, bewildered. The voice was that of a boy. The priestess told him about this in passing. There was no time to go into detail. He knew she had a little boy in this ship but the ball robot was the last place he expected to meet him.
“You must be the boy!” Brenvalo launched himself off the ground, getting back on his good leg. He grabbed the silver cylinder off the ground.
“Yes! I’m a boy!” The ball answered with a happy twirl around itself. “I like this ball though, look I can draw with lasers!” He started burning a nearby wall. Brenvalo jumped away just in time to dodge a careless laser beam from one of the three spindly arms. It didn’t punch a hole through him as he expected, it just burned a circle into his uniform. This wasn’t the same laser that cut his leg off.
“Nevermind that! I have to get to the cargo bay!” He yelled, hopping away from the ball.
“Wait! I’m coming! Why are you going there? Do you need lasers too!? I already looked there. No lasers!”
Brenvalo couldn’t even comprehend what he heard. What was with this boy and lasers? Why would he need lasers!?
He dropped the chair and used the wall to guide him towards the next corner. As he turned, he stood before a wall with a gigantic drawing. The ball bumped into him uncontrollably again and he nearly fell face first into the wall.
“Ah, I was drawing that!” The boy said, pointing at the rough sketch on the metallic wall. It was a circle divided at the middle with a diagonal line. It had a smaller circle on the lower half. “This is episome 3,” The boy told him proudly.
“What-“ Brenvalo was confused out of his mind. This felt like a dream to him. Had the priestess forgotten to tell something crucial? Why was there a toddler in a ball robot, drawing on the walls with lasers? Their meeting had to end abruptly. But this was something major that she had left out. Brenvalo panted, clutching his chest. Running on one leg wasn’t easy.
“Heh, It’s where mom and Li is! they’re exploding but they’re fine, Sainu told me,” Brenvalo stared at him dumbfounded. He had never felt illiterate before in his life, but these words didn’t mean anything to him.
“Which way to the cargo bay, boy? ” He asked, coughing, He pointed at either direction of the junction ahead. “Which way, hurry, Please, I’ll draw with you later!”
“Really!? Alright! this way, come,” The ball dashed in-front of him through a corridor. “No lasers there though!”
“That’s fine, I don’t need lasers!”
The ship grumbled. Brenvalo could feel it, the slow, rising hum of reactors powering up beneath his feet. This was the third sign that he had to look out for.
He rolled into the cargo bay in a mad dash. He had nothing to grip to stand with. He summoned the combat training he had as a cadet nearly 30 years ago. It wasn’t very effective, but he managed to roll towards a crate and use it to stand. He saw what the priestess told him he would see, the Red Priest.
The priest was coming out of a well lit room. He had the priestess slung over his shoulder like a towel. He carried her with ease and he seemed to be in a hurry to get to the dock. Brenvalo was supposed to get here faster. He was supposed to catch the priest when he was vulnerable, she told him the priest came here to sleep, and that she could keep him occupied. In that version of the plan, all Brenvalo had to do was delivering the cylinder to her. But now it was too late.
“Fuck” He whispered under his breath. “God help me!” He prayed for the first time in decades. He couldn’t imagine fighting with this huge muscular man in a good day. Now he had to try it with a missing leg. The priestess told him his part was relatively safe, that she would be the one to play the main part. By the looks of it, she had failed too. She was already passed out.
“What the heck?” The ball asked loudly above him. “Hey! That’s my body!” He dashed towards the priest.
Brenvalo’s eyes widened. He knew what he had to do. He hopped across the crates and pillars, sticking to darkness as the ship’s ambient noises kept rising in a slow, menacing crescendo.
“Give it back! It’s mine!” The boy yelled, he couldn’t stop himself properly and he bounced off the priest’s back. “Hey! You gave me food and all but this is not cool!” He said, recovering from an uncontrolled spin.
“Stay out of this child,” The priest told him kindly. There was no sharpness to his voice. “I don’t want to distress you. This is for your own good.”
“I need that body! Lira gave it to me!” The boy yelled. “She said I’m going to be sick if I don’t stay in it!”
“Child, calm down, I don’t want to hurt you!”
“Lira! Where are you! He’s taking our body!” He yelled desperately. “I said give it back!” He dashed again at the priest.
The priest suddenly swung his massive arm at great speed, hammering the ball on the face.
“OUH-AAAAA”
The ball flew back into the darkness, hit a crate and fell to the ground. The priest rubbed his bruised knuckles on his robe. Brenvalo managed to jump several meters, using all of this chaos to his advantage. He wasn’t trained for stealth but there were enough noises around him to mask his movements. The priest had no idea. That meant he still had a solid chance.
The priest stood patiently at the dock. He briefly interacted with a console on the wall but it turned red. He slid his free hand into his robe and he had a holographic screen wrapped around his wrist when he pulled it out.
“I can’t open the dock. She did something to it,” The priest spoke to his wrist. “Trip the control module, Cinetra knows how.”
“No, she doesn’t,” The voice came from all around them. Brenvalo recognized it immediately. “My priest, as of this moment, you’ve lost. She wanted you to know this,” Brenvalo knew this voice very well. It was the psychotic old man that used the ball to cut his leg off! He would know this voice anywhere as long as he lived. It was the second most fearsome thing that ever happened to him. Brenvalo still hated the arrogance dripping in that voice but this was the greatest distraction yet. The priest looked genuinely upset, his face was twisted into shock and anger.
“What is the meaning of this!?”
“I think we’re all about to find out. Please do not resist. I’d hate it if your invaluable biologics came to harm.”
“The ascendant is here! This ship’s about to jump! I repeat, this ship’s about to jump!” The priest yelled at his wrist.
“YOU! GIVE MY BODY BACK!!!” The ball dashed out from the dark, firing three laser beams at the priest.
“NO, CALAN, CALM DOWN!” The old man’s voice echoed loudly. “YOU’LL HURT HER! CALM-“
Two of the beams hit the priest on the back and the third grazed the priestess on the side.
“HE HIT ME! TAKE THAT! TAKE THAT!!!” The boy screamed, Firing more lasers. His aim was good now and he landed several on the priest’s exposed skin. One burned a patch into the pit of his jaw. He was disoriented. He tossed the priestess to the ground and dashed for cover.
The priest dashed straight into Brenvalo, hiding behind the nearest crate. He felt all the air in his lungs leave from his mouth as this boulder of muscle hit him squarely on his torso. This wasn’t a good day. He groaned, loudly.
“I GOT HIM!” He yelled victoriously, slamming the silver cylinder deep into the nearest muscle of the priest. He pushed it down as hard as he could, while using his good leg to restrain the priest for a moment.
“CALAN STOP!” He heard the old man’s voice echo around him.
The priest stood off Brenvalo and landed three hits directly to his torso. He felt his bones crack beneath the weight of his punches.
“I GOT HIM!” Brenvalo yelled again as his vision darkened. The priest swayed as he pulled the silver cylinder off his back. The boy was hovering over priestess’ body.
“IF YOU HIT ME AGAIN I’LL BURN YOU!!!” He yelled his head off at the swaying priest. He took three steps towards the ball, his eyes rolled back and he collapsed face first.
“3…2…1,” The old man’s voice sang as the ship’s whirring reactors reached their fever pitch. Brenvalo closed his eyes. He did what he was told to do. He didn’t fail the priestess again.
“Jumping now!” the old man announced as everything around him trembled.