Sergeant Matoi bowed to one knee before Lord Drak as, in the background, several deployed autocranes strained against the weight of ages as the Domain era transport was righted, lifted, moved. The bulk of ten million tons of synthetic metals and composite materials blotted out the smeared circle that was the dominant sun of the Stumble system. Matoi ducked her head forward, and she spoke. "I'm sorry, sire. They had a fast launch shuttle -- it hit orbit before we could track it, and they've gone completely dark."
Lord Drak stood -- perfectly silent as the shadow grew deeper and thicker. The only sound that seemed to come was the distant roar of the surf, the straining cables, the crack and snap of his cape as it was caught in the wind.
"It was my fault," she said. "I had a clear shot, I-"
Lord Drak shifted from foot to foot, plastic pebbles creaking under the soles of his boots.
Matoi tensed, as if ready for a blow. It was easy to see -- she had eschewed her armor for a tight fitting skinsuit with impact plating. Her head was bared and her blond hair tumbled in the blood-hot breeze, tinged with the taste of shredded plastic and burnt rubber. When the blow she expected didn't come, she lifted her head, her nose plugs and transparent mouth-filter glinting in the sudden blaze of sunlight that came from around the transport as the cranes began to swing to the left.
"You were facing a Liminal Penitent," Lord Drak said, his voice a dark rasp beneath his opaque mask. "They can deflect any targeting system in any power suit. You know for next time." He turned on his heel and began to stride off. "I shall not be so lenient after the next encounter, Sergeant."
"Yes, my lord," Matoi hissed, her head ducking low.
Lord Drak did not look back. He focused instead on the press of the helmet against his face, on the tightness of his armor. He focused on the sound of the surf, and on the low rumble as the transport was set down. Engineers from the Victrix were already on the ground, dressed in their bright orange uniforms, holding their equipment: A motley collection of plasma cutters, gravitic winches, crowbars, hammers, sonic drills, and scrapper gel. They would work at the weak points of the transport's hull, to get at her secure cargo hold.
Lord Drak watched -- and frowned behind his helmet as the internal cameras overlaid a glowing blue figure in his field of vision. The blue faded and the figure took on the natural colors of the scene -- as if the man was truly standing on the beach, not simply projecting his image to Drak from a mile and a half away. Even his pale white hair was stirred by the wind. The man was tall and muscular, broad shouldered and narrow in the face, with a fearsomely hooked nose and piercing, sky blue eyes. His uniform was sharp, and his sneer was impressive.
"Lord Drak," Praetor Theodosius said, his voice dripping with scorn. "I hear that you've been bested by a little girl."
Behind his back, Drak's hands tightened. The cargo hold swung open and engineers cried out to one another. One went running, sprinting really, away as the chunk of hull plating they had wrested free smashed to the ground with a spray of dust and a shower of pebbles. Sitting within the hold, preserved from wind and tide for who knows how many thousands of years, was exactly what Drak had traveled eight hundred jumps to claim. The scrapper's leader had hoped to distract the Hegemony with the new tech field he had discovered, of the old ramships. But this? This was what had brought the Victrix so far. Contrasting it against the girl, 908-101g, it seemed no prize at all. Like ashes in his mouth.
"She's irrelevant," Drak said, his voice growing tight. "A child, trapped on this planet. We have what we came for."
Theodosius snorted. "What
I
came for, Lord Drak. Remember that. Bring the cargo to the Victrix and I may omit the fact you allowed a terrorist cell to slip off planet." He shimmered, then faded away -- dissolving first into static, then into a haze of interference patterns, then nothing. Drak's hands tightened. He heard the creak of the gloves. And deep in his mind, he heard the voice that was not a voice. It hissed and whispered.
His head would look remarkably nice on a pike somewhere.
Drak turned on his heel. "Get that thing into the Victrix," he snarled. His ship waited for him. The sphere closed around him with a thought and he reclined in the darkness, feeling the interior shift to his body. His hands grabbed at his helmet, and the urge to rip it off became overpowering. His fingers fumbled, questing for the latches, the catches. And for just a few seconds, they refused to give. His fingers strained and he felt his claws, his
real
claws, coming out, pressing against the inside of the gloves. The gloves were made so that when
that
pressure hit, they tightened on his fingers. Pain laced through his hands and Drak hissed, then snarled, then screamed -- and the mask came apart, whirring and clicking as the machined components compacted and folded themselves. Soon, he was holding a rectangle of metal with only the faintest impresses of a face.
Drak put his hands to his face, forcing down sobs of frustration and agony. The false claws of his cloves -- the hideous jokes that they were -- rasped along his scalp His shoulders hunched and he felt his ears flatten back against his head as he lifted his hands and glared up into the darkness -- the interior lights of his ship whirring on as his mind reached out and touched the magic of the ship. He coaxed the gravitic engines to life and felt it whirring and thrumming with life. The faint pressure of movement came afterwards and he tried to stretch the time out between privacy and having to put the mask on again.
The light, though, brought another torment. The interior of the ship was as reflective as the exterior -- and so, with light, he could see his own bare face reflected back. Purple eyes. Black hair. The mutagenic feline ears, emerging from the top of his head, from his black hair. His eyes were rimmed with purple circles, and his skin looked greasy with sweat. His lip curled.
Drak Thale, Sub-Lord of the Hegemonic Penitents, sprawled in his chair and hated himself more and more with every second.
***
Praetor Theodosius preening was nearly as insufferable as Praetor Theodosius sullen, Praetor Theodosius in a temper, or Praetor Theodosius in a paternal mood. He walked along the vast gantry bay of the port cargo hold on the Victrix, parading himself before an entire regiment of shocktroopers standing at attention, and simply radiated lethal levels of smug. Drak stood beside him, impassive. Once more, constrained by his hateful mask. The Praetor stepped forward, then reverently laid his hand along the side of the cargo.
"Can you imagine it, Lord Drak?" Theodosius whispered. "It's exactly as the programmer-archaeologists described."
What they had described -- and what now was contained within the Victrix's cargo holds -- was a fifteen meter by fifteen meter cube of matte black material that refused easy classification. Every scanner built into his mask balked when asked to even scan it. Visual light told him where it was less by reflecting and more by simply being utterly absorbed. It made the box blacker than black, and simply looking at it would have been unnerving, if Drak hadn't been far used to being unnerved than most people. But he could tell the shocktroopers were getting restless looking at the thing.
"The Quantum Forge," Theodosius crooned. "With this, all of human space will be the Emperor's -- something your order of pathetic sorcerers has yet to accomplish." He turned to Drak, his eyes narrowing. Drak bristled. Ever since he had set foot on the Victrix, he had
known
that Theodosius had been made aware of his...condition.
And Theodosius had nearly a
year
to grind that awareness into Drak's spine. Meals being delivered to his chambers cold or simply cooked imperfectly -- meat left red and rubbery in the middle, overcooked at the edges, rice that nearly broke his teeth when he chewed on it. Snubs for official functions every time that they stopped by a link in the Chain to show the Hegemonic flag, veiled and overt insults during the briefings and conferences. And he had born it all, born it because Theodosius had rank and Drak labored under his
condition
