55 Days in Kalunda.

[Vianca]

But her body adapts to it, not completly, but it is still what it does.
Els, she whould be sick with even a smal amount of Taloran food, right?
Also, it seems as if it feeds a person better than human food, if they don't get sick, that is.
Or will it take more energie for a human to digest it?

I wonder who of them will begin to think outa there race-box (or cultures box).

[Steve]

But her body adapts to it, not completly, but it is still what it does.
Els, she whould be sick with even a smal amount of Taloran food, right?
Also, it seems as if it feeds a person better than human food, if they don't get sick, that is.
Or will it take more energie for a human to digest it?

I wonder who of them will begin to think outa there race-box (or cultures box).

That's where enzyme supplements come in. They enable Dani's body to digest Taloran food. The same is true for Jhayka and the other Talorans for eating Human food.

[Vianca]

Thanks.

Is Fay in the Aria of Ar, or some other place?

[fgalkin]

Berglund, as the header of the posts proclaims.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Vianca]

Yea, but I don't have a map of that planeet, so I don't know how far this two places lay from each other.
For all I know, they could be build almost on top of each other, only in a other district.
Or on the other side of the planeet for that mather.
Maybe I should have been more clear.

[Steve]

Colisseum, Ar, Gilean Primitive Zone
30 October 2841
26 December 2162 AST



The gladiatorial arena was a fine place, seating fifty thousands, and built of stone. Jhayka was seated in Xueson's box in the section for wealthy foreigners. Her eyes were quite impassive and invisible anyway under her heavy mask. Here, Ilavna had not accompanied her. It would be much to painful for a psychic to watch bloodsport, and Jhayka would not inflict it upon her.

And bloodsport was the order of the day. In the Norman arena, mercy was rare, and the combatants were motivated by a particular kind of intense desperation, particularly if they were female, for their fate if spared death might be worse than death. Jhayka knew all of this, and watched, anyway, because she knew that this rite was indeed very important to Norman society; it had to be understood, and recorded, and toward the later end she had surreptitiously brought a recording mechanism concealed in her long garments, quite capable of providing a good three-dimensional capture of the field below.

There was something solemn, even so, about how the fighters were presented. The combats in the Norman arena were short and brutal and they didn't go for the mass slaughter of animals as an appetizer to the bloodsport, which left just a few scenes of man against animal. This provided a single goring which would have made someone less experienced with violence than Jhayka rather sick.

She watched it impassively, feeling no particular bad feelings; the animal and man alike had been given a fighting chance and it was an honourable enough sport, with a volunteer, the Norman version being more or less simply a bloodier variant on the bullfight, throwing javelins driven home through flight or fist again and again until the animal was worn down and then dispatched by a hatchet. It got the crowd warmed up, and increased their lust for human blood. The goring scarcely sated it, and even as the dying man was carried off with his entrails oozing onto the ground, the crowd was rumbling for the coming attraction, so much that the Ubar in attendance waved off the last animal fight to bring the humans out immediately.

Fast foot of the Norman style—kebabs wrapped in a sort of thick unleavened bread as best Jhayka could tell (she wasn't trying any, for she would have had to descend into the lady's parlour to unmask and eat), among other similar things, and of course lots of alcoholic beverages—were available from vendors in the arena, and most people were eating and drinking as the violence continued, thoroughly inured to it, blatantly eager.

A parade with blaring trumpets appearaed in the ring of the arena, as the male slaves who raked the sand over to hide the blood from the earlier fighting finished their job and disappeared down the support tunnels. Drums followed, as men in gaudy red costumes and armour paraded before the champions. A second parade—that it followed the first in arriving meant that it was the challenger's—followed solemnly. Two men this time, one it seemed al-Farani (the victor of the last bout)--and the challenger most likely some local criminal.

Their parades halted in the middle, and then began to fan out, the men forming to ring the arena and blowing a fanfare as, in result, the two fighters were revealed to all. They fought almost entirely nude, just a loincloth to cover them, but each carried a heavy slashing sword and a large round shield, plus a helmet and sandals besides that. Certainly for a challenger to remain in the ring after a victory in a fight like that to the death meant that he had little choice, but the man seemed confident.

Perhaps because confidence in war was a powerful motivator, if properly tempered with skill. The crowd was silent, until the trumpets stopped, and the musical instruments were set aside and the men in the ring around the arena symbolically drew their swords to indicate that there was no escape from the field. The men were trapped, and the winner could only get out by killing his foe. At this, the excited rumble of the crowd began to build.

The Ubar stood, and with a speaking trumpet, issued the awaited command:

“For your lives, and your honour, I command you in the name of the people of Ar—fight until one is dead, or one yields, but either way there is no chance of leaving this arena alive save on the weight of your own skill! Commence the bout!”

Two great gongs in the stands sounded powerfully, and as the ringing faded from Jhayka's sensitive ears, she saw the criminal rush forward, trying to get his opponent off balance. The al-Farani settled back and waited for him calmly.

The criminal, a tough, giant of a man against the coiled power of the body of the smaller al-Farani, paused when his opponent wasn't moving away, or back to meet him, and circled more cautiously.

Above, the crowd howled wildly, screaming and demanding blood, the sound reverberating through the arena as the whole of the populace of Ar seemed channeled into the desperate bloodlust of the sport.

Suddenly the al-Farani lunged. The criminal caught his sword just in time with his shield and counterthrust, but the al-Farani had with surprisingly mobility already moved clear, and used the exposed counterthrust to strike again. It was happening with a viper's quickness, but everyone in the stands, used to the violence and used to violence in their own lives, was clearly able to follow it and enjoy it.

In a flurry of strikes the criminal fell back to avoid a blow and lost his balance. He fell, and immediately rolled to avoid a thrust of the al-Farani's sword before he pushed himself up to try and regain his footing. As he did so, however, the roar of the crowd deafening, the al-Farani struck him a blow in his shield, and caught it as he tried to rise, twisting him and snapping the criminal's arm. The sound of bone breaking was lost in the howls of delight of the crowd, but the man still managed to stagger to his feet, the shield dangling, no longer a weapon or an effective defense but still strapped to his arm, even as he brandished the sword, still potentially lethal.

For the al-Farani man, however, was every advantage now, and he pressed them home, his blows no longer countered, as the criminal's sword was required entirely for parrying. This continued for not less than some minutes as the crowd screamed for blood and began to grow impatient. The al-Farani balanced his need to make the crowd enjoy the show and his desire to tire the criminal before delivering a killing blow.

He struck. The man again lost his footing in a desperate effort to avoid the worst effects of the blow, but it cut through his abdomen anyway in a gush of irridescence under the sun as vital blood was released in a delightful spurt as far as the crowd was concerned, their delight not hidden in any way. Not immediately fatal, but it would be without immeediately attention, Jhayka noticed.

A cold sort of anger congealed inside of her, remembering that she was seeing sentient beings fight like this for the amusement of other sentient beings. She was not one to dismiss it as the barbarity of humanity, however; she knew too many humans to do that, and particularly Danielle's loyalty affected her now. Bloodsport was a common part of all the histories of sentient races evolved in their forms. There was nothing to do about that, save alleviate it. And here, the only way to end this practice, to alleviate the condition, was certainly to end the society. But whether or not this could be done was not up to her.

As the wounded man bled out, the al-Farani looked up through the roars of the crowd to the Ubar, who again stood, holding out his fist. And then he stuck out his thumb. Downward.

In Rome that would mean that the convict was to be spared. But the Normans had not copied the custom correctly; here, it meant death. And Jhayka, strangely captivated by the whole thing, watched as the al-Farani bowed his head, turned, brought up his sword, and began a series of hacking strikes, six in all, which severed the head of the criminal. After the second, he had stopped screaming, whilst his arterial blood sprayed out onto the sand.

A shudder. Perhaps it was something speaking to the dark, bodily lusts, to the realm of Idenicamos, which no sentient could see and remain entirely sane. But Jhayka, the cool, rational observer, maintained herself through the event, succombing neither to entrancement nor anger, even the battle toward both was deeply set in her, and seemed to coexist rather than counterbalance.

The victor was crowned in laurels, and led from the field, fists high as the crowd cheered him uproariously, no doubt enjoy ravenous feasting and drink and orgies with slavegirls that night in celebration for a second victory on the field of the gladiatorial arena. The body was removed by slaves, and the sand once more raked over, this time for the blood of a man killed by another man.

The parade was again repeated; the same style as before. Except this time, instead of a criminal and an al-Farani, a Norman professional gladiator, a man who fought for a living in this arena, who chose this bloody life—and a captured Amazon warrior, no easy foe, who no doubt considered victory her only chance to avoid that fate worse than death, which Jhayka had earlier considered. She was given one concession to practicality, a strong boiled leather bra which served to keep her breasts from painful and encumbering movement in the fight, but otherwise was dressed as her foe. Jhayka osberved this, and then settled back again, even as her ears hurt and she wished to rub them, from the hideous bloodthirsty roaring of the crowd as they prepared for this bout, with more of a leering sense of hatred for their foe in it, a chance at their traditional rivals, after all.

The two opponents circled each other for some time, both weary and cautious fighters. That just let the crowd built up to a truly maddening fever's pitch of roars and encouragement for their chosen champion.

It also offended Jhayka's sense of fair play, and she was tempted by a sudden romantic impulse to lend her voice, magnified as it was through the gas mask, to the Amazon's moral support, not because she found anything particularly sympathetic in that equally strange society, but because a Taloran noble really never approved of a fight where one of the warriors was so manifestly the underdog, let alone one of bloodsport like this. In that, she nearly forgot that she didn't approve of it at all, and pulled herself back from the tense edge of going from rational observer to full-fledged participant.

They came together almost of one will, and a flurry of blows was exchanged. The Amazon was given, thankfully, a light shield, which her upper body strength could more effectively wield, and she knew the use of such a shield to the best effect against the heavier concave shield of her Norman foe. For the longest time the fine swordplay was maintained and the use of the shield on the defensive.

They twisted about and exchanged blows and twirled in the ring, staying on their feet, and the crowd howling about them, yet such was the intensity of the fight that the clangor of sword upon sword, and the low drum's boom of sword against shield could be discerned by the excellent hearing of the Taloran, and Jhayka in this way was graphically reminded through another sense of the deadly earnest of this primitive fight, such an ancient and hoary tradition which made it no less real in its barbaric glory and festive indulgence in blood.

It was not like the other fight, which came to an end with a sustained struggle. In this one, the fighters were sufficiently evenly matched that one error only was made, but that error, by their skill, was fatal to their chances.

In the end the amazon could not bring her shield to the right position in time. A downward blow cast it aside, twisting her arm though not breaking it, and the sword skittered against the boiled leather of her bra-form before chopping a grevious injury along her right side. It did not bleed greatly, but it was deep and serious. She fell, though without a cry; she was to good of a warrior for that, and feared more, besides, what would happen next.

The crowd was howling in delight as the Norman gladiator turned to the Ubar and awaited the proclaimation. Jhayka could not, of course, help in also watching.

To her surprise—to the gladiator's surprise—to the surprise of everyone, the thumb was up.

And the Ubar began to speak—addressed to the amazon. “After such a gallant display of swordplay and a fine fight, I pronounce thee freed upon my cognizance to return to your people, our friends in the fight for autonomy, and tell them of the mercy of the Normans.”

Jhayka felt a chill creep through her, even as grievous murmurs crept through the crowd. This war shall come much sooner than even I expected.


That Night

When Dani emerged from the shower she was wearing only the towel draped over her, noting wryly that it covered more of her body than the slave silks that she had been wearing while undercover. Jhayka had returned hours ago, spending her time making notes on the gladiatorial fight.
For the first time in a while, Dani didn't put anything on before slipping into bed, laying there in the nude. The shower had felt good, a literal and figurative cleansing of the filth of Ar. Her investigations had taken her across the Upper Quarter and into the other areas of the city, the even nastier, dirtier areas where she'd seen many other slave girls accosted as she walked by. Jhayka's cover for her was to buy various trinkets and goods. The first few days were uneventful, though she'd admittedly remained in the Upper Quarter only and not stayed out for more than a few hours. These last few, however, had netted her some information as slave girls, on their own, struck up conversations with her upon recognizing the "alien woman's" insignia on her collar (one of the first errands Dani had run had been, in fact, to procure the manufacture and delivery of those collars and tags).
So now she knew of a number of places that "the green-skinned man" had visited during his stay in Ar. These all had to be checked out. But she'd have to get with Jhayka first, since she'd need a good reason to be in that area.
For all of her efforts, she had been forced to flirt with stinking, ugly men a number of times, her breasts had been groped about a dozen times, her butt about twice that much, and three men had attempted to get their hands between her legs before seeing the color of her silk. One drunk had tried to go even further, and had to be hauled off by a compatriot who recognized the insignia on Dani's collar and had done so just before Dani had given a defensive reaction.
And like she'd been for the last few days, Dani was too tired now to do anything but fall asleep.



Trajan returned to his room after a day's work and looked about. "Juliana? Juliana, where is dinner?" He was immediately worried, since it was not like her to neglect to make him a meal. He walked into the pantry and found a bit of a mess. A couple of pots on the ground, splattered water, and an opened unused container of noodles told him everything he needed to know.
His massive body trembling with anger, Trajan literally stomped through Xueson's mansion to the "great fur room" Xueson kept, where his guests could make use of slave girls. The laughing he heard as he opened the door made Trajan's blood cold.
First he saw Tarl Ikmen the diplomat and his entourage laughing, wine glasses in each hand. A younger man, Ikmen's son from the look of him, was laying over one of the fur rugs. Below him was Juliana. Her head was covered by a leather sack, the drawstrings tied around her wrists which had been placed behind her neck, and she had been stripped naked. She struggled without effect, screaming while the younger Ikmen finished grunting and moved away from her, pulling up a pair of trousers. Muffled weeping came from beneath the sack's cover.
"What is this?!" Trajan stomped forward.
"Ah, Xueson's dark giant." Ikmen smirked. "This is your slave girl? I'd never own such a stupid creature. She doesn't even do the positions right."
Trajan reached down and untied the sack, lifting it from Juliana. She looked at him and rolled onto her stomach, grasping his ankle and crying. "Oh, isn't that cute! She's too stupid to take a proper position, but she can mewl to the master who doesn't use her!" Ikmen laughed, his entourage joining in. "What kind of useless, unmanly culture spawned you, giant, that you don't make use of such a pretty kayira?"
"She's a defenseless girl and she belongs to me!" Trajan roared.
"I have plenty of kayira that other men use!" Ikmen shot back. "If you wanted her reserved for yourself, you should make her wear white!"
"You entered my room and seized her!"
"It's my room, Trajan," said a new voice. Heads turned to see Xueson walk in. He looked from Trajan to Ikmen. "Sorry, Minister, Trajan is like me, a foreigner, and he hasn't yet fully learned the ways of the Normans." Looking back to Trajan. "I told Minister Ikmen he could have use of any open slave girl in my home, not counting those bought by the Taloran. Juliana was humbly attired in cotton, with not a piece of white silk upon her. She was fair game."
"I told you before, she is not here to service men, she is here to maintain my rooms," Trajan rumbled.
"Nevertheless, you are here among Normans, you must honor their ways," Xueson insisted. "They had every right to take and use her."
"'Use' her? They raped her!"
"Foreigner fool, that is what a woman is for," Ikmen growled. "She is there to provide pleasure. Perhaps your people are eunuchs or what have you, or your unnatural creation includes alterations so that you do not feel lust as we normal men do, but that is no fault of our's. You do her a disservice, making such a lovely young girl a mere maid and not letting her learn to be a woman. She doesn't know the positions right, and she hasn't learned the right response to a man even! She screams and howls during use like she's some Amazon barbarian....."
Trajan bellowed in rage and thrusted a massive, muscled finger at Ikmen's chest. "I will put you into your place! I challenge you to a Circle of Equals; honorable combat, man to man!"
Ikmen smirked and turned away. "I am not warrior caste, I am merchant. I will have one of my warriors accept your...."
"COWARD![" Trajan went to lunge, but Xueson and several of Ikmen's men grabbed him and held him back. "You have no honor!"
"And you have no dick!" was Ikmen's haughty reply.
"I'll grind your bones to dust, you...."
"Trajan, stop this at once!" Xueson pointed a finger in the larger man's face. "I'm your employer, remember? A word from me and you'll be deprived of your ownership of her and kicked out of the city, and I'll have little Juliana here sold to the arena so she'll be forced to pleasure any gladiator who wants her! Now get out of my sight immediately!"
Trajan's rage was still built up, but he had seen how the girls at the arena had been treated by the gladiators there. He couldn't bring himself to abandoning Juliana to that. He relaxed and the men holding him let go. Snarling at Ikmen's satisfied smirk, Trajan went over to Juliana where she lay weeping and lifted her up into his arms. He carried her out, trying his best to ignore the laughter and insults behind him for her sake, and vowing vengeance for her.
When he returned to their room, he placed Juliana on his own bed. She whimpered and refused to let go of him, so he laid beside her, waiting for her to go to sleep. Feeling safe with him, she finally did, and with a little effort Trajan got out of the bed and left Juliana to sleep.
Walking over, he looked at a flickering, dying candle beside his copy of The Remembrance. He picked it up and opened the front cover. Again the words of his ancestor presented themselves to him.

"The role of the warrior is to be more than the highest of castes. It is to protect the weak, defend the innocent, to be more than just a mere soldier as in ages past. No, a warrior is more than the genetics that have formed him or her. They are to be the embodiment of my vision, a new direction for our species."

After a few readings of those words, Trajan roared and threw the book into the wall. He crumpled to his knees, and despite all of his training to avoid it, he began to cry. "Founders! Genemother! Forgive me!" He collapsed onto all fours. "I am unworthy!"
And so he was. He was no warrior. He was a coward, a fool, a damned disgrace. He'd come to these savages to fulfill his desire to be a great warrior, to bring honor to his dead Clan's name and that of the Osis Bloodhouse - which still lived in his veins and the blood of all those alive who carried the bloodline of Franklin Osis - and all he had done was make himself a servant to these disgraceful.... disgusting.... perverted.... dishonorable cowards! He had no honor left. Nothing left. He was nothing. He was a nothing, unworthy of his Bloodhouse, unworthy of his Clan.
He had awoken Juliana, though he did not notice it until she crawled up to him on all fours, holding The Remembrance in her hands. He took her hands, seeing how small they were compared to his, and closed them around the book. "This is your's now, Juliana." He sat back onto the floor, and Juliana - as if she were but a child - crawled into his lap and rested her head against his chest. He held her tightly as she began to fall asleep once more. "I am nothing, but you.... you must be protected. The Taloran woman, I know she will free those she has bought when she returns home. I will give you to her tomorrow, and she will give you a future of some kind, something better than your existance here. That is all I have left to do."

[Steve]

Upper Quarter, Ar, Gilead
31 October 2841
27 December 2162 AST

Jhayka had with an unusual gentleness taken Ilavna away from her duties only a few minutes before, and led the priestess to a spot in the kitchen, where they spoke low in High Taloran, which the Norman girls doing work in the kitchen could not of course understand, and frankly they were in trepidition of the conferring of the two Talorans. "I'm getting pretty worried about remaining here, Ilavna," Jhayka had begun to say. "I told you about the arena last night. But what I want to make clear is that what happened at the end should not have happened. It was a needless gesture of chivalry--laudable, but implausible from an Ubar in this society and culture in the extreme. You may have been deceived by viewing it in the light of a Taloran noble doing the same thing, but please don't consider it that way. The fact of the matter is that it made the crowd angry, and needlessly lowered the Ubar's popularity with his own people. It was, in short, a foreign diplomatic move. He was playing to the Amazons, and that means he views a threat to his city greater than all the old rivalries put together. An existential threat."

"It looks like I'll only have time for a survey, then," Ilavna answered a bit sadly with a hiss of air through her teeth. "I should have liked to genuinely try and redeem some of these people. But the security is too tight and the culture is too hostile for it. At least you have those girls to free, and hopefully raise properly. How long do you think it will be before they revolt against the central government?"

"One local month. Six Taloran weeks at most." Jhayka's voice was heavy and guarded, her ears flexed down.

Ilavna actually gasped that time, her wide eyes betraying her youth. "Your Highness... Then we can scarcely expect to continue the survey, you do realize that..?"

"Possibly. I will try to leave Ar a bit early. There is lots of territory to cover. I want to record events of what happens, and continue to try and study the cultures as best we are able. I can hire more mercenaries for the train if I must, and pay them more; our current ones are good enough for a fight. Do not worry, Ilavna. Anyway, I want to wait and see what happens. You are right; there may be opportunities here after the current structures are torn up."

A frown from the Priestess: "You refer to government ones, I think. But you're not sanctioned to do such work."

"We'll see." But just then Jhayka shifted to look as one of the newer slave-girls she had bought, a mountain girl who had been taken from their vulnerable communities by perhaps a small raiding party, only a few months prior, and still retained the will to resist, even if she had been nominally trained, unlike the others. Her face was a sheet of obvious consternation as she arrived and bowed, then began to speak using the form that Jhayka had requested rather than "mistress", which brought frowns to the other girls.
"Your Highness, there is the great giant of the keep, the guard of Xueson, here, and he desires to speak with you."

"Very well. And a brave girl you are, at that." Jhayka looked significantly to Ilavna then, letting the girl have the compliment for what it was worth to her battered mentality, as her hand fell to the hilt of her sword and spoke again in Taloran. "Just in case, keep the third eye open, hmm?" And at that she turned and walked toward the entrance to the collection of apartments that made up the wing. Ilavna followed, abruptly all business, for what Jhayka was asking meant that she thought danger or deceit might be in the air. It only took them two or three minutes before they had arrived at the vestibule, and the two Talorans--probably the only people that the foreign giant had encountered in his own height range--opened the inner doors and stood face to face with Trajan and his girl. Since they had not been bothered before except by slave girls carrying messages, Jhayka made a point of answering the door only in her jumpsuit and sword belt, and of course Ilavna was wearing one of her usual set of flamboyantly colored aquamarina pantaloons with a vivid yellow shirt splashed in red.


Trajan had been a bit surprised that Jhayka had answered the door herself. Looking at her and the blue-haired Taloran woman beside her, Trajan immediately felt respect - here, she cared not for the ways of the Normans and wore clothes she felt comfortable in, as did her charge. The colorful clothing of the Talorans contrasted sharply with Trajan's somber black leather tunic and pants.
Beside Trajan was Juliana, wearing silks now since the cotton clothes he'd bought for her had been ripped the previous night. She looked around curiously, clearly afraid. Trajan put a reassuring hand upon her back, since her shoulder was far too small.
"Your Highness," Trajan rumbled, "I am Trajan. Thank you for receiving me." He bowed respectfully, Juliana mimicking the move.

"You are quite welcome, Trajan." Jhayka answered, speaking to him forthright. "This is Ilavna Lashila, my confessor. I'm quite happy to speak to you, though I say that it is a very surprising event. What is your purpose here? Did you come of your own cognizance, or are you serving as a herald of Xueson?"

"I am here for my own purposes." Trajan nudged Juliana forward. "I will not delay you for long, Highness. The reason I have come here is this. I have named this girl Juliana. I bought her from a small shop in the city's Lower Quarter to maintain my rooms. I am unsure of what is wrong with her, but she does not speak, and she seems unable to follow certain orders given her. The men I bought her from considered her to be merely stupid, but I believe it is more than that."
"Yesterday, after I returned from the Colisseum, I found that some of my employer's guests had seized Juliana from my room to make use of her. Xueson has given them run of the house and use of the slaves here, and when I... objected to the use of her, he threatened to have me banished from the city and to seize Juliana and sell her to the arena for gladiators to use. She is young and cannot defend herself. Now that I know I cannot protect her, I must find someone who can. I believe you can do this."

"I can," Jhayka agreed, her gray eyes turned to the girl, her hand still rested on the hilt of her sword, very comfortably as in an experienced duellist. "Though I find it odd that you trust an alien you have never spoken to with this girl; perhaps a bit flattered, if you think so highly of me by reputation alone. Yet that really isn't important, I suppose; what is--why should I do it? I could, potentially rescue hundreds of girls from this city. But it would be obvious, then, that rescuing is all I am here to do; and the Normans would thus not lightly part with their slaves. Tell me, then, why the wisdom which counsels to me not to do as my heart compels, here, and be happy with a few, should not also apply to Juliana? I very much do not think she deserves to remain here; but you could tell me the stories of ten thousand other women in this city and I would be forced to say the same thing."

Trajan blinked at the woman. "One more will not harm your standing in the eyes of the Normans at large, since I am just another foreigner selling or giving away a slave that it is known I do not use. My employer may suspect my reasons, but that is a matter between him and I. It is not like she is valuable either, since she is considered too stupid for anything but the most basic taking of pleasure, as these savages reason it. I do not see why this one can do any harm to your efforts here."
Trajan narrowed his eyes. "If you would prefer a more selfish reason for accepting her, Princess, then upon the end of my contract with Xueson I will seek you out and offer you my service at whatever price you desire, in whatever fashion you desire."

"No. I do not care about money, and I fight my own battles. You are a good bodyguard, I am sure, but the only people I hire are armies--like the train--not individuals. After all, an individual cannot fight an army; so there is nothing wrong with buying one. But an individual can fight an individual." Jhayka frowned deeply, her ears flexing downward and her emotions rather obvious. "I just don't understand, precisely, why you are giving her up, to me, for a loss to yourself. Certainly it is not out of mercy, though you feel a desire to show it to her, I suspect; that is what I meant to say; since if mercy alone drove you then you would fight to save every one of the slaves in this city rather than work for Xueson. What, praytell, is it, then?"

For the first moments, Trajan frowned deeply. His heart was filled with pain, and this damnable woman was being entirely too curious. Why could she not just take the good deed at face value? Why did she have to press?
Trajan looked down at Juliana. She was clinging to him tightly, perhaps a bit tighter than before. For whatever reason, Trajan knew that she would not accept seperation from him, even if it was for her own good. But she would have to.
"I was born to be a warrior," Trajan admitted. "Bred in the iron wombs of my Clan's scientist caste from the genetic material of a Howell and an Osis. I was born to be an Elemental, one of my Clan's armored infantry soldiers. For two generations, in my fifth and tenth year, I passed the trials where others failed, waiting for my twentieth year and the chance for a Trial of Position to become a warrior."
"And then, eleven years ago, when I was still a sibko child, the Alliance came. They declared the Clans must be destroyed, and with their advanced technology and their many ships, they succeeded. I was just a child when my Clan was destroyed. All that remains are the Bloodhouses of our Founders. I am of the House of Osis, a descendant of Franklin Osis, the founder of the Smoke Jaguars. My sibkin and I have spent the last eleven years searching desperately to find a way to keep the honor of our house. I came to this world to find a way to fulfill my purpose and become a warrior. I met Xueson in East Port, where I had fought as a free man in the fighting circles there. He invited me here to be his personal guard. I had heard of the Normans in East Port and that they, like the Clans, kept a warrior caste. I believed if I came here I could find a way to becoming a warrior."
"Now I see my error. The Normans are cruel savages, not honorable warriors. I can learn nothing from them, but I am bound here now and have nowhere else to go." Trajan placed his hand gently on Juliana's head. "Since I bought her, I have felt a great responsibility to Juliana. Franklin Osis declared that the place of a warrior was to protect the weak and defend the innocent, and I vowed to do this for her. And I failed. I have been a fool, Highness. I had not realized just how utterly cruel and evil these Normans are, and I never saw how wretched they were until they attacked Juliana when I was not here to protect her."
"So I ask you, Highness, to please spare Juliana from my failure. I am unworthy of anything, as foolish and blind as I've been, but she should not suffer for what I have done." Trajan was trying to read those cold gray eyes, to see if this alien was understanding what he was going through. "Highness, I will beg if I must, because my honor is nothing but tatters now anyway. Please, take Juliana. Leave me here to wallow in my disgrace, and perhaps - if chance or my courage allows - I will yet take up the sword to free more slaves here and die for it. It might be the only way I have left to remove the stain on Osis honor that my failure has created."

Jhayka glanced back with those big fish-eyes, and quoted something very softly: "No Country, no Law, no Religion, no Life, no Faith, no Quarter, Death waits." A small, vague smile touched her lips. "Once you accept that death is all you have left, Trajan, it is easier to defend your honour. Even when everything else you believe in has been crushed down into dust. After all, if you are going to die no matter what, why not die standing? If you have left only honour--don't waste it simply because you're doomed."

Ilavna was silent, with pursed lips, Jhayka's advice not exactly being right with the Farzian faith, but close enough in the purity of its moral purpose toward an upright path, that she held her tongue and simply walked to the exchange between the two cultures of honour, in a respectful silence.

The smile fled from Jhayka's expression, and she slowly drew her six-fingered hand up, gripping the hilt of her sword until a length of the blade was revealed. Her other hand grasped the pommel, and with the first, she touched the blade, coiled her hand, and pressed until she winced and drew blood. At this sort of barbarous oath Ilavna was more deeply perturbed, and determined to speak to Jhayka about it later; but the moment was to precious, and the old grim nobility of the line that her family served once more was stoked bright in those eyes, as Ilavna saw them as only a Taloran could. Here, then, was another beautiful piece in the redemption of her Princess, no matter the ancient form that it took. Jhayka, letting the blood well between her fingers, spoke firm and sure words in response to Trajan's request. "You have told me of your dishonour, and left it to another house to be judged. But you did so to protect an innocent; I recognize this and so on my mother's blood and steel I vouchsafe for life of this girl and her freedom; she is my duty now, and as Ilavna may attest, nothing has yet prevented me from fulfilling my duties."

Ilavna mustered herself at the natural moral distaste for the display--it was surely true that Jhayka was still somewhat affected by having witnessed the grotesque sentient bloodsport the day before--and whispered small and true words: "Her Highness the Princess itl dhin Intu'it, shall have many things spoken of her when she is laid in her grave. But all, friend and foe alike, will thence attest that she never forsook an oath in her life."

"I have no doubt, Confessor. And you, Highness, have my gratitude. And if you do not need individuals now, if you have a need for one later and I am still alive, you need only ask, and I will do anything you require." Having unsheathed his own dagger, Trajan cut his palm and opened it so they could see his blood flow. "This offer will be open to you or to your House until I am dead. Seyla."
Juliana looked up at Trajan with tears in her eyes. She shook her head and made a mumbling sound, clearly disagreeing. Trajan dropped to a knee to bring himself closer to her pretty face. "Juliana, this is best for you. This woman is a warrior, she will protect you as I tried, and you will not be harmed again."
Juliana began to cry. She embraced him as effectively as her arms could, though not able to get around his massive shoulders.
"Do not cry. I know that you love me, as much as you understand what love is. Please, show this to the Princess Jhayka. Do this as one last thing for me."

Ilavna was the more affected of the two. She could not help it. She had been a serving girl herself, even if her family was of comparatively high stature in the household, she was still, ultimately, the daughter of domestic servants, and Jhayka held a certain romance over her, the image of the dashing Princess who had returned from the campaigns of the Empire. Then there had been the decline, under the deletrious effects of her relationship with the communalist and her compatriots. And then the madness that followed the action which was required to hold true to oath when the plot dropped like ripe maggots from a festering corpse, to be cleansed only by fire. And now, the broken woman's gradual recovering into the daring cavalier of Ilavna's earliest memories about the house, such that she stood before this alien in perfect understanding and respect, calming waiting out the sad parting before them with bloodied hand gripped around the pommel of her sword, as she extended a comforting arm to Juliana when the girl could at last be convinced to part from Trajan.

Finally Juliana let go. It was hesitant and slow, as if at any moment she might clamp on again. Crying, she looked to Jhayka and walked up slowly, staring up at the strange, alien eyes as if she were trying to see the same thing she'd seen in Trajan's.
Trajan stepped back just out of Juliana's reach, as if to insure she could not simply turn around and latch onto him again. "I will be needed shortly with Xueson, Highness. My best wishes to you," Trajan said to her. He seemed somewhat effected himself, and in his heart Trajan understood that Juliana had been the only person in this alien existance to willingly come close to him. He would miss her, with his only consolation being that she would be happier where Jhayka would take her.
Juliana turned back in time to see Trajan wave goodbye and turn to leave. She tensed up as if to chase after him and yet latch herself back onto him, but she did not; instead she seemed to have accepted that this was Trajan's wish for her, and inside her tortured mind, Trajan was the only thing that had begun to matter. She looked back to Jhayka yet again, as if to continue her search for a soul like the one she'd seen in Trajan.

"Hankerchief, please," Jhayka asked, removing her bloody hand from the pommel of the sword. Ilavna shook her head faintly and moved to pull out a hankerchief and use it to bind the wound across Jhayka's palm. Jhayka's eyes remained focused on the girl, gently, considering and thinking about what she must have been through to be silent like that, and not realizing it. Now she had her duty to do her best by the girl.. And the hand was still extended. She wasn't expecting to embrace Juliana, but perhaps just to have the girl touch her and demonstrate some kind of recognition. Focusing in, she spoke.. "Where I am taking you, you will have what Trajan wants you to have. I do not ask you to love me, or work for me. Just stick close to me, and I'll see to it that you get what he wants you to have."

[Steve]

Oops, forgot; in the two posts above, all parts with Jhayka were written by Marina, as you'd expect.

[fgalkin]

I was wondering about that, and whether it was a slip on your part or something else (but since you have not been eviscerated, I went with the "slip' theory).

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Steve]

Again, Jhayka is written by Marina. But you knew that, didn't you?

Upper Quarter, Ar, Gilead
31 October 2841
27 December 2162 AST


Dani returned in the early afternoon, having spent the morning on another "errand" to get her close to a favored slave of the Kalveos household. She was wearing one of the immodest wrap-around suits, showing far too much of her cleavage and barely going past her upper thighs, with a very unwelcome "disrobing" loop on her left.
Still sweating from the heat of the day and still literally feeling the rough grope she'd gotten from a man while walking back to the Upper Quarter, Dani stomped back into her room and quickly changed into something much more modest, tossing the silks under her bed as she always did. From there it was to the pantry, where she met Illavna; the priestess had noticed her enter her room and sent the slaves off to another wing, letting Dani know so she could converse with Jhayka. She was surprised, however, to find that Jhayka was not alone. There was a young girl with her, dressed in slavewear, sitting on a floor mat with her legs curled up. "I haven't seen her before," Dani asked. "Who is she?"

"Her name is Juliana. She's Trajan's girl. Xueson's clan-based bodyguard." A pause, and a slight look of amusement: "Though I am, now, legally her owner--Trajan sent the paperwork up to me and I signed it and everything. I paid him a gold thaler so that nobody would know that the actual value was ridiculously small. He didn't want to accept any money, but I told him it was necessary for the sake of maintaining legal propriety, and since I'm assuming that we're all under surveillance--I told him that, too--it was necessary. So he agreed. Reluctantly." A look of curiousity touched Jhayka's face as she crossed her legs, modest enough in her jumpsuit, and gazed to Danielle. "Unfortunately, I don't know much about the clans.. Perhaps you can tell me. But he was a very honourable man, caught in the most unfortunate of circumstances. I wish him well. And now it's my job to see that this girl can get the life she deserves."

Dani looked back to the girl. She was cute, but she seemed very withdrawn, mostly staying beside Jhayka and doing little more than looking at Dani. "Don't know much about the Clans myself. But is she talkative? I mean, can we discuss things in front of her?"

"She can't talk. Though she can understand us very well, I do believe. Smart enough young lady. She's just suffered a lot. I think that Ilavna can maybe help her some." Jhayka answered, offering a gentle and tolerant smile down to the girl on the floor mat. She wasn't trying to change Juliana's behavior to quickly, knowing that it would take her a while to get used to being around them, and take her long still to get used to freedom and to behaving in ways other than a slave. And, of course, that teaching her all of that would be foolish before they had left Ar.

Dani nodded. She settled into a seat herself, in a t-shirt and slacks that were lightly less modest than the wear she'd adopted upon first arriving in the rooms. "Well, my progress hasn't been encouraging, but I'm getting somewhere. I know pretty much everywhere Oloparatho went during his stay, but so far I can confirm he only sold one slave, an Orion woman. I did hear from a girl today, though, that he spent some time in one of the buildings in their warehouse district just outside the Upper Quarter. That area is where all of their power generation is. The buildings there have technology, including, I'm hoping, computer records. At least some visual stuff. I might be able to find out what he sold there." Dani frowned. "After that, we're back to square one. It's simply impossible for him to have sold her any place else."

"That's going to present some problems for you to get into, I'm afraid," Jhayka answered immediately, recognizing the referenced location. "Those areas are fairly well secured, in part to prevent smuggling of prohibited items, or runaways trying to hide in packages to reach the railways, and so on. They would rather look askance at a slave girl going in there unaccompanied. It would not be illegal persay.. But there would be lots of suspicious eyes following your every move, I'd wager."

"Well, I was thinking of that on my way here. You brought some human retainers here with you, right? Ones actually from your universe? Were any of them men?"

"Well, there's also the mercenaries I hired in the security contingent, and better still, none of them have been seen outside except in armour," Jhayka replied, and then frowned deeply. "Which, I believe, means that I've recognized that you intend to have one of them pretend to be your master as you go into the warehouses, is that not correct?"

"Yes. Though, I won't have a final plan until I try something." Dani put her hands together. "Can I return to the train in the next couple of days? I remember you had some materials there and I want to test something. I'll also need several sets of wrist shackles for this, the kind that slaves are put into when their masters take them places. If possible I want to avoid having whoever it is bring me in, since I may need to be in there for a while. Besides, the best time to do this is at night, when nobody is using the warehouse and it's under guard, and I have a way I might get in alone despite this."

"Of course. I'll ask Captain Arshon to select a reliable man who can act well in a pinch, out of all of her ranks. We have complete freedom of movement to and from the train, so feel free to do it whenever you want. And I'll send Ilavna out to buy the wrist shackles later. She's taken to go out at night into the souk-markets, though I don't have an idea as to why." A slight frown, there. "I don't really like either of you two going out around here, to be honest, even though I suggested it in your case."

"Well, you were right that they'd leave me alone with the right color. Or should I say, they wouldn't try to have sex with me if I were. I've been touched, groped, fondled, and outright harrassed more times in these excursions than I have in my whole life before." Dani grimaced. "I could tell you stories, but I don't think you want your sensibilities offended."
"But why Illavna?" Dani matched Jhayka's frown. "This place is far too dangerous for her to be alone. Does she at least go in the mask? That way they might think she's a man."

"You shouldn't be so protective of her. I'm the one who's like her second mother," Jhayka answered, frowning deeper. "And I apologize that you've been so roughed up by them--and, no, Ilavna doesn't go out in a mask. She just wears the clothes of one of the lower castes around here.. I forgot which. Male clothes, granted.. I.. Hm.." Jhayka reached up and flicked lightly at her own cheek a couple of times, like in thought. "I've never precisely gotten a full handle on what exactly they taught Ilavna..." An abrupt look toward Danielle. "I never told you that she was a psion before, did I?"

Dani looked at Jhayka for a long moment. "No, you didn't," she said with some irritation. Just how much has Illavna been looking in my mind these past weeks? Wait, no, don't get mad at this Dani. She's a priestess of a faith you're not even in. She has no reason to read your mind. I bet she doesn't even think of reading it.
"And, I'm so sorry if my concern for her encroaches upon your turf," Dani added wryly, a bit irritated that Jhayka had reacted to her concern. Illavna was a friend, after all, and why wouldn't Dani be interested in her safety? "I just hope she manages to hide the fact that she's female. Maybe you're thin enough that Human men won't consider you appealing, but exoticness can make up for that. Forcing sex from an alien girl might just be something a Norman worker would brag to the other guys about, knowing how these bastards are."

"They wouldn't want to try that. My only concern is that it would start a diplomatic accident, not that Ilavna would be raped. People don't rape psions. Or if they try, they soon stop. I'll leave you to consider why--there are several excellent reasons. Though many of them are even unnecessary in Ilavna's case." She was silent for a moment, and then: "I've seen what people in her order can do before. I've seen someone who--for perfectly moral reasons, mind you, they are rigorously trained to be moral--got his brain chopped up so thoroughly by one of them that his short term memory more or less ceased to record. It's quite possible that someone trying to rape her would end up running home when they realize that their father wouldn't want them out past nightfall. A thirty year old with his own household, mind you. And he'd be in that sort of state permanently, with the quality of neurological health treatment around here--that is to say, nonexistant. I think she's going out explicitly for practice in concealing herself mentally, you see." A wave of her hand. "But you doubtless have similar such people in your own society. Ilavna's like are, even among us, extremely rare, and psions of her power are exclusively wards of the Church from the moment they're discovered. Those with lesser abilities are still rigorously trained... But it was quite a shock to all of us when she manifested the abilities, and quite a relief when she came back well-adjusted from her training. Except that her taste in clothes has gotten exceptionally flamboyant." A faint gray-green flush was fighting to conquer her cheeks, though, and she continued a bit hesitantly: "Anyway, don't apologize about your concern for her. It was valid, but... Well, since I've always felt a bit like a godmother to her, when you expressed that attitude I got to thinking in the same light about you, and, well.. It was just a stupid association."

"Ah, well, no harm meant." Dani stood up. "I'm going to go bathe to wash off the dirty feeling this city gives me. Maybe we can have some lunch? I do want to get some of those shackles today, though, and be back to the train, well, how much longer are we going to be staying?"

"Five days, I think. I'm trying to get out of here earlier than I planned.." Jhayka was relieved that the subject had passed quietly. "Anyway, yes, we should by rights get everything prepared the sooner the better, since I want you to do well with this. I'm serious about doing what it takes to help you find Fay."

"I know. I thank you for that. But, if we only have five days, I want to get started by tomorrow, since it'll probably take me a couple of days at least to see if I can make my scheme work. If not, we'll have to infiltrate in broad daylight somehow, and that's far more dangerous." Dani sighed and looked to the pantry. "So, want to have some lunch? We can talk about more pleasant things."

"I assume Ilavna has even had the girls make something for us. She's very conscientious about such things." a smile. "So, let us, indeed."


Kalunda, Gilead
1 November 2841
28 December 2162 AST


Tessa was in the middle of packing when there was a knock on her door. She looked back and called for whoever it was to come in. Amber entered, as she'd expected. "I heard you were going back."
"There is nothing I can do here now. Julio's made that quite clear. I just hope he doesn't regret this." Tessa returned to a bag and, after rummaging through it for a moment, took out a PDA and tossed it to Amber, who caught it with seemingly no effort. "That's an intel report from someone we have monitoring Ar. You might...."
"This is about the Amazon getting spared, isn't it?"
Tessa stopped speaking and stared at Amber for a moment. "I should have known," she finally said, "that you would have your own sources in Ar."
"I just got the report this morning myself. I was about to go show it to Julio."
"You know what this means, don't you?"
"What, that the Ubar of Ar angered a crowd of fifty thousand Normans by giving mercy to an Amazon gladiator and ordering her freed?" Amber frowned and handed the PDA back. "They're up to something. That much I'm sure of."
"I hope that maybe Julio will rethink his decision now."
"Don't count on it. But if you want, you can come with me to see him."


Julio was dressed casually for his position, reading correspondence of state when Amber and Tessa presented him with the report. He read both versions before looking up at them. "Highly suspicious. But hardly a problem. Look at the states of Kellervil and Ar. Are they any threat against the Pope of Avignon and the Emir, not to mention us? Let them ally."
"Julio, honestly, you're taking this too light..."
There was a knock at the door. Julio nodded and Amber opened it, admitting a messenger. The clothing style suggested he was a Norman assigned to their diplomatic ministry, which was confirmed by the crisp and quick manner in which he bowed to Julio. "Your Majesty, correspondence from Ar. The Ubar himself sent me."
Julio nodded and bid the man to stand fully. The Norman took out a specialized key and used it to unlock a small satchel with formal government markings, from which he removed a paper. Julio motioned for him to leave and he did so, though not before giving Amber a second look. She frowned and slammed the door behind the Norman while Julio read the message. He stood and appeared rather surprised. "It seems that whatever is going to happen is going to happen soon," he said. "The Ubar has asked to hold a diplomatic summit with me and the other leaders of the Eastern Region in 20 days in Runnterson."
Tessa looked at him. "Why not East Port? That's your neutral location."
"It should be obvious," Amber replied for Julio. "East Port is, technically, territory under the Gilean planetary government, not an enclave. He doesn't want to enter their jurisdiction."
"I wonder why." Tessa frowned deeply. "I have to tell the others. This is starting to sound bad."
"Yes. You're leaving later today, right?" Julio smiled sadly. "I'm sorry, Tess, that you couldn't enjoy your stay as much as you probably wanted to."
"Majesty, please. Reconsider your stance on the issues at hand." Tessa now opted to give this one last try. "The coup is going to happen sooner or later. If it fails, I shudder to think of what will happen here on Gilead. The entire Gilean Confederacy might be torn apart by civil war, and if that happens, there are plenty of other imperial powers ready to try and take advantage of it. Britain might not be able to stop it this time."
"Tessa, I understand your concerns, but I've dealt with Gilean politics for four decades now. This world is composed primarily of tough-talking cowards, on all sides of the political debate. It will not come to violence."

[Steve]

By me and Marina, of course. In fact, most of this is Marina's (Illavna, plus the Jhayka part of the scene afterward):

Upper Quarter, Ar, Gilead
2 November 2841
30 December 2162 AST

A whirl of cobalt hair, and the traditional Norman dress of an innkeeper of the shopkeeper's caste, rather low on the rung but someone you'd expect to see in a souk, a traditional open-air market, in Ar. The cobalt hair, so long and fine as it was, was anything but; yet this was tied up sharply in a bun before the figure headed out of the shadows.

Nobody seemed to notice that she was different, or even a she. Ilavna moved effortlessly through the crowds, passing, as it were, through the mind's eye, just a shopkeeper buying supplies for the morning's meal, or heading back home after a late-night meeting with some friends in another quarter of the town. She didn't speak, she didn't interact. That would have broken the spell, as it was. She was just there, a ghost in the society.

The stall-keepers were all scarcely wealthy, and some were fully swathed women of the poorer castes, wearing the niqab, with their own young sons as their guardians. Sweet-meats were for sell at many of the stalls, and Ilavna indulged herself and left behind the money for it—never actually making an exchange, but giving an honest sum to be discovered when the food had gone missing—it was moral enough, considering the stall in question had been manned by a fellow who had a slave at his side.

Ilavna was no longer giddy about her explorations, but this would be the last one, as the next day would be their last full day. They would leave in two days in the evening, and she would spend the next night on the train supervising the loading and conferring with Captain Arshon. Her thoughts were, to some extent, distracted by the fact that Danielle Verdes had not yet found Fayza, which she thought to be indeed a most regrettable fact about this horrid society.

They did not distract her from the task, though, of gently nudging the minds around her so that she was not noticed, as she had been trained to do while in the Order schools, and had mastered rather well. It was just training, really, but it allowed her to absorb the odor of the city, even as she enjoyed her sweet-meats. Ilavna was still very young by Taloran standards, and would have to spend another year in school to complete her medical degree, but as was customary a long absence from education to gain worldly knowledge was accepted among a priestess, particularly she who had such talents as her own, which needed experience to develop to their fullness.

The smell of grilling food, of kebabs and fresh-baked unleavened bread, filled her nostrils, along with the strong scent of the hot 'black wine' of the Normans and the alcohol of the place as well as she traveled through the food districts, pausing once in the dark behind an enclosed stall amidst the filth to pet one of the stray dogs that crammed into the place, though it flinched from her and her alien scent, and with wry look she carried on.

Voices assailed her, in constant haggling over prices and maddening negotiations, while slaves hauled the rickshaws of wealthy merchants through the streets of the souk. She paused for a moment at a commotion, and winced when she saw a vendor slamming his cudgel again and again into the hand of a sobbing little boy of a street urchin he'd caught trying to steal a trinket. People watched for a moment, and moved on, themselves, eager to carry on in the souk, which was open in some fashion or another until late in the night, leaving the boy to his informal punishment.

Paga-taverns lined the sides of the souk, and in these, slavegirls danced their erotic dances, shamelessly baring the flesh of their fully nude bodies to the crowds beyond in little window enclaves covered by iron bars, so the men could not reach in and molest them. They were, of course, available for sexual services inside, but that cost money, and their purpose in the windows was to tempt, as blind or crippled men were paid a few bits of silver to play drums and flutes throughout the night outside of the taverns to provide the music that the girls sashayed and undulated their hips to.

Ilavna passed these by silently, and they gave her perchance to think on the hideous society which had been created here. It was rigidly stratified, to be sure, and held to a certain barbarian glory, but it was, in every sense, vicious to the core. Little boys were beaten out of hand and it was considered good, lest they become criminals who should have their hands cut off. Women were hustled about by their male relatives in entirely form-concealing baggy garments, unless, of course, they were slavegirls in their garments so skimpy, and carrying money around their necks, for the law forbid them to touch it.

A hopeless society, for half of it, and for more than half. After all, all the men of the lower castes might aspire to do is own a woman and abuse her. It was fundamentally perverted, fundamentally ill, and Ilavna felt a righteous indignation at it. She wanted to show these people the truth path; but what would happen to her if she tried might well be worse than death, and would certainly end in it. Jhayka's fatalism about war was increasingly seen in Ilavna's eyes, through these soul-searching moments of daring and danger and concealment in the souk over the past nights, as the beginning of something righteous.

She traveled onward, toward a seedier part of the souk, and noted here that there was a weapon's vendor. He had spread out a rug upon the dirt of the ground and had a pavilion over it, and inside were tables and racks, with countless sorts of swords and spears and bows and quivers of arrows: But also kalashnikova, and other modern assault rifles and even rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and even some sort of primitive local Arrian gun, made with a bolt-action. He sat, a fat man with a big belly, smoking from a water-pipe and haggling with his customers in incredibly rapid-fire speech as they looked along the sights of guns. Apparently modern weapons were now the best sellers in Ar, for even the most delightfully primitive barbarians cannot resist the chance to kill a foe from a thousand meters.

Here, also, were the slave-chain sellers, where she had quickly made a purchase four nights before to secure the chains that were needed for the deception that Danielle was undertaking—that frightful effort that she rather preferred not to think about—and it had required a lot of effort to deceive the merchant throughout the act of haggling, and more to the point, do it without immorally cheating the bastard. But she had, and the personal success bouyed her tonight, so that when she reached the side of a big mud-brick home on the edge of the Souk that she vaulted herself up the wall with the daring of a thief, and dropped into the garden beyond—the wall wasn't built to keep out someone of long arms, and two meters of height, and the defensive wires ontop were easy enough for her slight form to slip between.

It was rather like being a spy. It was also a strangely peaceful sight, under the starlight, this fine garden with wonderful fountains. And then she noticed that she was not alone. In these protective gardens, Ilavna saw for the first time a Norman freewoman unconcealed by the heavy garments which they were forced to wear around the city. A young girl, likely the daughter of the merchant who owned this home upon the great souk, looking up at the stars in wonder, herself.

Ilavna concealed herself and watched for a while.

The girl was silent, looking up to the sky. She was dressed modestly in robes, but without a veil and without a headscarf, being in the confines of her own home. She seemed enchanted, and spoke to herself, in a quite and futile musing and expression of the ultimate frustration of this place, which had walled itself off from what was beyond, rather than accomadate it:

“There are worlds out there—and whole other universes!--which I shall never see, because I must marry a man of the city to keep my honour. Yet father says war might come soon, with the government beyond the stars. I.. Oh gods that I say such a thing but I wish the city might be thrown down and a man from that place take me as a slave; I hate the slavegirls so, their lavicious ways and wanton lives, but at least then I would have traveled the stars once before I die.”

Ilavna was struck by a strange sort of kinship, and with the recklessness of youth, made a daring move. She drew a dagger from her belt and stepped forward, behind the girl, and in a swift and silent motion brought it to her neck.

The girl froze, rigid and silent in mortal terror. She assumed, of course, that a raiding party had gotten into the fortified compound of the home and intended to make a slave of her, which she could now scarcely avoid save by death.

Then the voice proved itself to be female, if unnatural in its timbre.

“Do not scream when I let this dagger from your throat, for it will only get me in mortal trouble, and get you in some as well. I am a friend and perhaps a kindred spirit. Now I ask you to not turn and look to me.”

“I swear by my homestone,” the girl answered softly.

Thus Ilavna drove the dagger into the dirt next to the girl to prove she had no ill intents. “I accept the oath of your honour,” she replied. “Now, you wish to know of the stars?”

“I do,” the girl said, not looking behind her as she had sworn, though seeing that the shadow of the woman spoke that she was some strange creature.

“There are a thousand ten-thousands of suns up there, each like the sun of your world, and each surrounded by a planet or more inhabited by people; and on these worlds the females are like me, in the most, and can walk around unveiled, and are respected by men, or perhaps feared in other cases. Where marriage is a match of equals.

“We hew to doing good, and do not keep slaves. So your wish need never come true; though, also, you shold never voice it.”

“I know this well, for what the men would thing that my heart sings for a collar, when it does not,” the girl answered, educated as a Norman woman would be, mostly in rhetoric and classical poetry. “But it is such a sore fate!”

“I shall return here, sooner or later if God wills it, and do the work of my beliefs amongst you, with the power of my people at my back. Hold faith that the universe is of justice, and stand for justice as you may, while this world retains its harsh grip upon you, and perhaps you will be rewarded for this stand by the Lord Farzbardor.”

“The Lord Farzbardor?”

“He is the God of the universe, and holds nothing to the priestly caste of your people, which is corrupted by evil and riven with deception, for they know that their religion is false.”

“It seems a cleaner belief than what we have. And that is all you do? To do justice by others?”

“Yes, in principle.”

“Something so simple—yet, from what my humble eyes see, so hard!”

“So it is,” Ilavna agreed quietly.

“There is little to tempt a woman here, save to abandon all the strictures and become an indolent slave, and I am not such a freak and a failure as that,” the girl said with a bit of haughty contempt that was perhaps earned. “I can do as you say. But how is it that you think you may come back?”

“Because I am from a great and powerful realm, and we shall make the words of our Lord heard upon your streets, sooner or later. And when that is done I shall take all into shelter, and send them on to the stars, as I can manage—and you will be the first. And I shall do this for nothing, save to prove the point that your society is under the heavy hand of the deceiver and that even if you do not believe in our Lord that you still deserve to be freed from this hand of evil.”

“Then you have a heart of a true noble.”

“I am but a humble serving girl by birth, yet the Lord accepts all as his servants.”

The girl smiled. “You still have the heart, even if you do not have the blood. You have given me hope that I shall see the stars.”

“You may even live among them if you wish.”

A gasp. “Tell me how this is so!”

“Shh.” A smile. “It is in our power to build great artifices in space, cities built like your great towers in one whole shape, many tens of parasangs long, in which the population of Ar could live many times over; and in which there are gardens, and seas without water in which fish are grown.”

“Seas without water? Such wizards are the people of the stars. I cannot imagine such a thing; such a construct.”

“Ah, but it is made possible because when you go beyond the confines of one planet, you and all other things also have no weight, and therefore you may move as effortless as a bird through the air.”

“Tell me what I must do to experience this marvel.”

“Keep the faith, and I will work my best so that you may all do this, and leave behind this sad place. Do not give in to temptation, or to hopelessness, for these are the works of deception.”

“Then this I shall do.”

The girl never saw her face.

“RODAKA! RODAKA!” A voice shouted, a man's voice. “I have heard you in the garden—what are you going on about? I am coming out right now, to see that you are not in some flighty or stupid woman's act to bring shame on this house!”

Rodaka burst to her feet at once, and Ilavna, by instinct and more than a bit of fear at the sudden realization of how foolish she had been, followed, grabbing her dagger from the grass as she rose.

“Through the servant's gate, quickly. I shall lock it behind you.” Rodaka offered in a swift whisper, and dashed to the little portal to unbolt it and open it. She caught a glimpse, as the gate was opened, of cobalt hair passing and those high ears, and perhaps the sight of Ilavna's lean face in profile, and then she had to close and bolt the gate quickly, and move to conceal herself somewhere in the shrubbery so that she could make it seem she had been there among the plants all along to her father. She knew that night that she would dream of the star-woman, and for many nights to come.

Early in the morning, in the predawn hours, Ilavna finally returned to Xueson's palace, entering through the door to the wing they had been given, with the key that she had.

Jhayka sat in a chair, there, a blanket folded up around her, and woke the instant that Ilavna entered, gray eyes in the dark.

“Why were you gone so long, Ilavna Lashila? I worried about you.”

Ilavna looked for a moment, and then whispered. “I was learning to find your war you think shall come to be a just thing, Your Highness—and I also learned, by the will of God, that it is not only the slaves who are oppressed here.”

“It is hard to realize just the lengths that a society can do evil to itself by,” Jhayka agreed. “Now rest. For tomorrow shall be busy.”

“But only if you also go to bed, Your Highness. It is not good for you to sleep in a chair like that.”

“I have slept in harder beds on campaign,” Jhayka answered diffidently, but she did indeed rise and follow Ilavna upstairs for a needed but fast sleep.


Upper Quarter, Ar, Gilead
3 November 2841
31 December 2162 AST


Dani's return to the mansion was done with as much swiftness and subtlety as could be managed, since she didn't want anyone to know what she was bringing with her. That night the merc, a Devenshiran man named Lyle Madsen, would be coming back on the return trip after Illavna left for the train, and she would finish filling him in on the plan.
After shedding her robes and mask in exchange for a comfortable sleeveless silk blouse - from Kalunda, as green as her eyes - and slacks, Dani went to find Jhayka, a box of shackles in her hands.

Jhayka was, unusually, getting up late that day. She had clearly not slept as well as she usually did the night before, but she had made up for it by sleeping longer. It also meant, however, that Danielle caught Jhayka in her robe after just having bathed in her portable steam bath, and she was drinking some of the hot local black-wine, since Jhayka was the sort to thoroughly enjoy the local culinary experience, no matter what exactly it was. Gray eyes focused in on Dani with the box in her hands and she gestured faintly with the cup. "Good morning.. Or afternoon. Or whatever. I'm afraid you caught me at rather a bad time, silly me, but I'm not needed for the packing up, anyway, so I suppose I'm just going to enjoy my last day of Norman hospitality," a wry smirk, "before we head out tomorrow. How are things coming along for you?"

"Here, I'll show you." Dani set the box down on the nearest convenient table and took out a pair of shackles. They looked mostly unchanged. "Mind taking these?"

"Certainly.." Jhayka picked them up, simply holding them in one hand, before remembering and quickly setting down her cup and then taking them in both hands. "What next?" She seemed to be maintaining a strictly intellectual interest in it, but of course she was worried about Danielle in fact.

Dani promptly turned around and placed her hands at the small of her back, not saying a word and succeeding in resisting an impulse to smirk mischievously. "Isn't it obvious?"

"I feel a bit uncomfortable doing this to you," Jhayka admitted, as she worked the shackles, though, like an expert, snapping them on Danielle's wrists and rather uncomfortably crossing them to maximize their effectiveness in restraining her hands. Perhaps the reason she was uncomfortable is that she normally did not shackle people so that they could easily escape, or really avoid discomfort while they were shackled. It also left the question of where she had learned how to do this, but with the last click, that Jhayka stepped to the side and frowned. "You do have something in there which can release them, right? That will get fairly unpleasant fairly quickly."

Dani couldn't help herself and giggled. "Oh, I've.... never mind. Anyway, watch and behold the amazing Danielle Houdini!"
Turning back around to face Jhayka, Dani gripped the linking chain with both hands and dug her thumbs into the central link. She grunted with effort as her arms and shoulders clearly tensed up. After three seconds, there was a loud snapping sound and Dani showed Jhayka her hands, the chain linking the shackles' wrist bands broken. "Great, huh? It took me about a dozen tries with some of your equipment to get the weakness just right without showing any visible signs."

"Houdini?" Jhayka frowned, and then smiled at the display. "Very good, indeed. But that was not, I hope, your only pair so modified." A wry laugh.

"No, I have three more. I'll go over them tonight to choose the one that looks best. I hope you'll help, you do have good eyes."

"Of course," Jhayka replied rather quietly, going back to retrieve her cup of black wine and seeming somewhat altogether distracted by inner thoughts. "I'll want to see you off, after all."

"Yes. And Arshon's man, Lyle, is perfect. He's tall, handsome, has a bit of a rough accent, and he looks scary." Dani went to her box and retrieved the key to unlatch the wrist bands of the broken shackles. While removing them she asked, "How's Ilavna? She's okay, right?"

"I'm glad of that." A sip. "Yes, she's fine. She was out late last night, though. That is, in truth, why I did not wake up until now. I stayed up waiting for her to come back. She did, of course, but she stayed out long enough to worry me. I'm still not sure why--though I think her opinion about this place has really hardened. She has reached the point where she can morally condemn them through and through, to the point of violence, yet I see a lot of pity in her too.. Someday I will ask her what she saw."

"You've known her for far longer than I have, but I do think she's changing a bit. Maybe it's because, well, to me it looks like she's been sheltered, but here in Ar, she's realizing just how the real world, so to speak, is." Dani sighed. "In a way I feel sorry for her. Ignorance can be bliss sometimes."

"Ignorance is never a problem that psions suffer from in their lives. If she had any then she's lost it now, to be sure, as I've taken her into enough seedy dumps on this place.. Granted, she was really affected, even ill, by the slave auctions at first. But she's learned to master that. She has a future, I think, a very great one. I'm glad that she grew up in the house of my family, and I think I had some part in that," Jhayka mused, reflectively, and cast a baleful eye around the room. "It is fascinating to think about how this genuine evil had such innocuous beginnings. I would like to have the chance to do something more concrete about it. But, I am already askance with my government, and Gilead remains for the time being a sovereign country."

"Well, maybe if something does happen here, when the smoke clears Ar will be rubble. Then again, a lot of people are going to die." Dani got herself some of the coffee - she was sure the "black wine" was coffee - and returned to a seat. "I know you're worried about me. I'm personally scared shitless when I think of what could happen. This isn't just sneaking about the city dressed up as a slavegirl. This is sneaking into a guarded, secure building." Dani stared down into the coffee for a moment before sipping at it. "Do your people believe suicide is a sin, Jhayka? No need to go into specifics, I just want to know the basics of it."

"Yes. We have our reasons for it. Ilavna could talk about them for a long time but I doubt we have the time for that, or you the interest. Though the definition of suicide is only in the conscious termination of one's life by one's own hand--it's very narrow. There are numerous morally acceptable ways to die in a hopeless situation, and of course I know all of them." A definite frown, and her ears bent low. "Why are you asking this, precisely?"

Dani scratched at the back of her neck. "Because I was raised Catholic and for Catholics, suicide is a one-way ticket to Hell. And though I'm not a practicing Catholic, it's one hell of a complication when I'm considering killing myself if it's clear I'll be taken prisoner by them. So I have to choose the certainty of being raped until I learn to enjoy it against the possibility of eternal torment, which is even worse." Dani made a grunting noise. "Though, bah, I haven't had Confession since I was a girl, I never Confirmed, and I'm probably going to Hell anyway for various things. So maybe if it comes down to it, I should just get it over with, hmm?" Shaking her head, Dani quickly added, "Oh, Jhayka, I'm hopeless, aren't I? I'm putting my neck on the line and for all I know, Fayza's right now sitting in the Alliance Embassy waiting for news about me after escaping or being rescued or who knows what?"

"No, I would have been informed about that through certain channels of communication via the railroad," Jhayka replied, matter-of-factly and rather stiffly, and then added a moment later. "Don't kill yourself. You don't want to end like that.... I don't want you to end like that. I'll come and rescue you if I have to. I told you that if you found Fayza but couldn't buy her out, that I'd burn the city down to rescue her. The same is true about rescuing you, if it comes to it. I like you too much to leave you to a fate like that. I would never think of leaving here without you.. No matter what the repercussions for me were back home."

Dani looked at Jhayka for a moment. "Thank you," she finally said. She tried to smile. "I hope I'm not presuming, but I'd like to think we're friends now, and if you think so too, I'd be very proud of that. You are quite simply one of the best people I've ever known."

"Ahrrrm. Hmmmf. Well." Jhayka offered a slight smile. "Yes, I suppose we are, after a fashion. You are really charming company, even if your behaviour is not up to.. Propriety. But I never really cared much about propriety. It's gotten me into trouble before, but I don't think that bone has changed a bit."

Dani laughed, and then added, with mocking disappointment, "I'm not proper enough? Oh, Jhayka, you wound me." She put her hand over her heart and gagged comically. "And to think of all the things I could've teased when you put those shackles on me and didn't!"

Jhayka flushed green, as she was want to do when confronted with such a comment, and turned her head aside, and spoke in an embarassed mutter: "My main problem in life is that I consort with those below my station, not that I seek to dominate them."

"Ooh la la." Dani smiled, and her old mischief was showing again. "Well, things change. I could always dominate you."
After cackling at the increasing green on Jhayka's face, Dani's expression became more of a pleasant one without the mischief it'd had before. "Anyway, up for any lunch? I'm going to eat now so that I don't have a full stomach when I go out, and just today a news broadcast I picked up before coming here reminded me that it's New Year's Eve on the AST calendar. Maybe we can have a nice meal, drink something to steel my nerves for later, and celebrate the New Year. I'll make it my New Year's Resolutions to not get captured tonight and to work even harder on my propriety!"

Jhayka forced herself to recover, mostly on account of an iron will, though her rather bulging fishlike eyes seemed a bit wide as she looked to Danielle. "Ah, alright. I'm not really sure what your New Year's customs are--we celebrate our's with raccous street parties and the firing of guns and explosives and so on. But they're, time-wise, rather further apart than your's..." A pause. "You know that the rotational period of Talora Prime is very great, yes? More than three of your years.." Yes, she really was trying to change the subject as far from what it had been as she could.

"Parties and fireworks. And alcohol. Copious amounts sometimes, and it makes New Year's a real bitch sometimes. Years are rather long, y'know, and people like to unwind. Of course, your's is much longer." Dani smirked. "So, what do you say? A nice meal, some fine wine, and I'll make the resolution to not make your pretty face turn green anymore and to not force you to come rescue me?"

"Don't make oaths that you can't be sure you'll keep," Jhayka answered, but then smiled and gestured obligingly. "But, certainly, Dani."

[Steve]

Upper Quarter, Ar, Gilead
3 November 2841
31 December 2162 AST


Before entering the warehouse district, Dani slipped into an alley with Lyle, who was dressed as a lower-class merchant and who'd been following her without interacting for some time. He was dark-haired, with gray eyes and a Caucasian complexion, and had the advantage of being short and stocky so that he didn't look too tall to pass for the average Norman.
One in the alley the bag of money around her neck was removed, pocketed by Lyle, and replaced by a rope leash. She held her hands behind her back and allowed Lyle to cuff her in her modified shackles. He did it in Norman fashion for slave transporting, actually looser than what Jhayka had done earlier in the day, and they resumed their way to the warehouses, Lyle leading the way as was supposed to happen.
Warehouse 44 was the building Dani was interested in. It had been the one stop of Oloparatho's that she'd not yet accounted for. If she found nothing here, the trail would go dead.

The Norman warehouses were hardly "secure" by modern standards. No sophisticated internal sensor system, no video cameras. Just a few keypad-operated doors and probably a bit of security for the computers used for record keeping. However, there was still the old-fashioned security to deal with, in the persona of the two guards at the door.
"Remember the plan?" Dani asked as they came up to the far corner.
"Yes," was Lyle's reply. "You're my pleasure slave. I bought a new one and you clawed at her, so I'm punishing you by letting them have you for the night."
"Good. And?"
"If they take you in, I leave and come back in ninety minutes, waiting for you to come out. If they decide to rape you on the spot, I help you bash their heads in."
"Exactly. So, let's get this show on the road."

As they came about the corner, Lyle barked, "You had this coming!"
"But Master...."
He cut off her whine with a hard yank on the leash. "I don't want to hear it!" He pulled Dani toward the door while she struggled against it. "You stupid jealous kayira!"
Dani continued to struggle while Lyle pulled her up to the front door. He looked to the two guards standing watch, armed - surprisingly - with small sidearms. "Master, please forgive! This slave was being foolish! She is only devoted to you!" Dani had to purposely think through every word, making sure she only referred to herself in the third person.
"Hey you!" Lyle called out to the men, who were already watching with some interest. He pushed Dani toward them, knocking her to her knees in the process. "How would you like some company tonight?"
The two men looked at each other and looked over Dani. She had fallen over to all fours and from the slight distance it gave the two men a good look down her cleavage.

The taller one asked, "Well, maybe. What's wrong with her?"
"She's being jealous. I bought a new girl today - a nice virgin - as a gift for my nephew, but my own kayira thought she was a replacement and attacked her. Since she's so scared of being away from me, maybe a night with other masters will make her think before she ever acts so stupid again."
"Master, please!" Dani wailed while Lyle extended his hand holding the leash toward the two men. "It won't happen again! This slave adores you!"
After a moment of whispering between each other, the shorter one took the leash. "We'll make good use of her."
"Good. I'll be back in the morning for her." He waved them off and began walking away.

Dani came to her knees and watched, almost breathless, for what they would do. Her gamble paid off when the shorter guard said, "It's time for my break anyway, I'll send Rogar out to join you. Come on, girl, time for you to see our fur room."
Mewling and teary-eyed, Dani made herself seem reluctant to follow. Some yanks at the leash forced her to follow, and as she entered the door at the shorter man's command, he smacked her on the head. "Get a move on before I go find the whip!"
Dani allowed the man to half-drag her into the warehouse. They started in an open area filled with wooden crates. It was across this high-ceiling area that the small office area was placed. Another man, about as short as the man pulling her, was there, and was motioned by the man holding her to take his place. "You can have her later," Dani's captor remarked to him as he eyed Dani up.
When the man was gone Dani had scarcely any time to do anything. She was dragged to a small side room with a fur rug laid in the middle of the floor. She immediately went to work on trying to break the chain, just to be forced to stop when he walked up behind her and released her leash. She dropped to her knees and got her hands back into position while the man began removing his trousers. Needing a few extra seconds Dani purposely stood herself up and moved against the nearby wall. He noticed her move and turned. "Just what do you think you're doing?" He stomped toward her. "Get back on that...."
Snap.
Surprise had only begun to register on his face at the sound of breaking metal when the bottom of Dani's right foot smashed into his throat. He wheezed for air and didn't resist her fellow-up strike, grunting impotently at Dani's knee smashing his groin. She shoved him to the ground and took his sidearm out of his pants before he could reach for it. She didn't recognize the make, and she wasn't about to fire it, so she instead pistol-whipped him in the back of the head. He fell unconscious.

"Sorry, pal, but you're not my type," Dani muttered. She looked around, but the room lacked anything to hide him in. Fortunately, he at least had intact restraints on him which Dani immediately used to latch his wrists together behind his back, trying to copy the way Jhayka had done it to her earlier. She placed him beside the door so that, when opened, someone would have to enter the room and look around it to see him. Scraps of fabric from his clothes made for a good gag and something to tie his ankles together, and with this done Dani departed to head for the office.
It was barely furnished, with just a single desk and chair with a monitor and small computer unit. The wiring around it, and where it went into the floor, made Dani suspect it was tied into a larger network, which was fine by her. She sat in the chair and looked into the right hand drawers. Sure enough, after moving a few items around she found an ID code and password penciled in. At least it's alphanumeric, she mused as she activated the system and began copying the ID and password in. Then again, who would the Normans have to worry about finding this stuff? The big powers don't give a damn about them.
Once into the system, she called up the manifests for the date she knew Oloparatho visited the warehouse. The amount of crates was listed, as were the times and the location of their storage with a helpful little map of the building possessing section labels, but Dani could find nothing on the delivery of a female slave. Dejected, she was about to turn the system off when she noticed the location for Oloparatho's deliveries was marked "U" - the warehouse's areas had been divided and identified by a letter and number grid-square coordinate, not mere letters. She left the manifest area and went into the area listing sectors. Several were blacked out until Dani hovered the mouse indicator over them. When she clicked, the map that appeared was not what she'd expected.
Underneath the entire district was a near labyrinth of corridors and storerooms, each building having a lift and stairs to connect it to the underground floor. Dani's eyes widened as she examined the layout. "U" was pretty close to this building. She memorized the directions she'd have to take once in the underground level and left.

She returned to the warehouse's massive storage area and navigated through the piles of crates to the far wall. Wood paneling that looked permanent was easily removed after she noticed the worn spot on it and a door keypad appeared. Taking in a breath and holding the guard's sidearm close, Dani keyed in the passcode she'd used on the computer system. To her relief the system's light was green, and the floor near her opened up. She followed a short flight of stairs down into a lighted receiving area, which led her to another flight of stairs to the lit corridors of the underground storage area. Remembering her way through from the map she'd seen, she soon found herself in front of a door labeled "U". Again she keyed in the code and entered.
It was a lit room with boxes stacked everywhere. Dani walked around the perimeter, looking for any kind of open cage in which Fayza might be held. She finished a second circuit and then a third, growing increasingly distressed. There was nothing. She'd snuck into this place for nothing.
A horrible thought came to her. What if Oloparatho had murdered Fayza? No, no, she couldn't even think of that. It had to be something else.
Now Dani was suspicious. If Oloparatho only sold one single, lone slave here, why did he come and stay for so long. At least I should see what's so important to hide down here, she thought to herself. If anything, Jhayka might enjoy warning of the Normans planning anything. Tentatively, Dani searched the room until she found a pile of crowbars. She picked it up and brought it over to a box. She stuck the curved part in and with a grunt of effort pushed down on the bar to open the crate. Dani looked in and gasped.

Piled neatly in the box were probably dozens of assault rifles. She was no gun expert and didn't know the make, but she was certain they looked depressingly new and advanced.
Walking to the next box, Dani opened it and found a Cardassian anti-tank RPG, surplus from their production before the Dominion War. It had plenty of ammo with it.
Dani left "U", determined to go back and tell Jhayka. She nearly ran back to the entrance to go back to the warehouse she'd entered in when there was a wailing sound in the air. The corridors turned red. "Security Breach!" a male voice shouted over the PA. "Intruder believed to be in the underground passages!"
Oh fuck!

Above she could hear rumbling - footsteps. Her would-be attacker must have been found. She fled in the opposite direction and toward the nearest store room, G. When she keyed in the code she found, it refused to work. Damn, they must have found that out too.
Calm down, Dani. Yes, you're not fucking Harriet Summers, but you can get out of this if you just keep your head. Gotta outthink these bozos.
Restricted now to the corridors themselves, Dani headed further into the labyrinth. She turned right here, left there, trying to stay away from the tromping of footsteps. Occasional glances at doors were helping her begin to form a mental map in her mind of what was were.
Unfortunately, it didn't take long for the footsteps to be coming from every corner. If Dani didn't hurry she'd be trapped. She thought of all the places she'd run by and decided to try for what she thought to be the nearest set of stairs to a warehouse.
As she came up to a corner she could tell there was a man coming. She tensed herself up and attacked as soon as he came around, driving the bottom of her foot into his sternum. This knocked him back and Dani cursed her luck - she'd been aiming low to account for the Normans being shorter. Feeling no choice, she brought up her gun and fired a single shot into his shoulder to get his gun away from him. His hand went limp and the gun fell, allowing Dani to follow up with a punch to his head that made her hand flare in pain. She'd had the misfortune of hitting bone. Nevertheless he fell over unconscious. Dani turned to run, thinking she was now close to an exit.

Suddenly a wave of hot pain rushed through her muscles. There was the sound of crackling in the air and she recognized it - the discharge of a stun gun. Her body tensed up and she fell over. No! NO! I HAVE TO MOVE! She desperately ordered her body to move, and it did. Despite the pain of her muscles she began to stand once more.
A second wave of pain came down on her, and then a third. She screamed. God help me! No! NO! Now she couldn't move. Her muscles ached horribly and would not respond. She laid on the floor helpless. A rush of footsteps for several seconds was followed by strong hands seizing her arms. Dani grimaced and made a low grunting noise as her arms were painfully placed behind her back and shackles fixed to her wrists, far more roughly and tighly than Jhayka had done. A hand grabbed her hair and pulled her up. "This is Lewis, I have the intruder," a strong male voice said.

Dani tried not to scream, not to cry, as she was roughly dragged up by Lewis. She was taken to the nearest set of stairs and brought up them, only slowly getting feeling back to her leg muscles as they made their way up. Only when they emerged onto the floor of one of the warehouses did Dani regain her ability to walk. I shouldn't have done this, oh God, I shouldn't have done this! Oh God, please help me! They're going to rape me! They're going to... Dani sniffled, fighting down the terror that gripped her.
Then she saw what was in the warehouse. Her jaw dropped slightly, because this she recognized. It was a French (SE-1) AMX-270 self-propelled artillery gun. She'd seen them before in a picture sent by an old boyfriend who'd identified the vehicle he commanded. Her terror disappeared for a moment, replaced by complete and utter surprise. My God, where did they get that?!

She was led past the vehicle and faced another vehicle. This she didn't recognize, save that it was a self-propelled gun of some kind. Dani's jaw hung open. Why do the Normans have modern armored weapons?!
A couple of men came out of this warehouse's office. Lewis asked, "What do we do with her?"
"Xueson will know what to do. Let's get her to his place."
Dani's heart froze; Jhayka's host was in on this. She could have endangered them all!
Before she could consider more on that issue, or on her own predicament, the sound of a stungun discharge came once more. Dani screamed as the energy enveloped her, her voice trailing off as she fell unconscious into her captor's arms.

[Steve]

Upper Quarter, Ar, Gilead
4 November 2841
1 January 2163 AST


A hard blow to her cheek forced Dani awake. A gruff voice said, "Time for you to answer some questions," and Dani opened her eyes to look at a scar-faced bearded man in simple vest and trousers. She thought she recognized him as one of the many men she'd seen around Xueson's manor.
Behind the man was a wall of bluestone that Dani didn't recognized, but the nasty looking instruments mounted there made her blood chill. Dani tried to move and found her arms suspended over her head, her wrists locked into a metal stock hanging from the ceiling. Her silks were missing and she was completely naked. She tried to lift her feet and couldn't. She looked down and noticed that her ankles were also locked into stocks set into the floor.

She had little chance to take this in before the man's hand grabbed her by the chin and lifted her back up. His dark brown eyes were cold, the snarl on his face vicious. "You're awake," he said.
"No shit, Sherlock. What's your next observation? That I've got boobs so I'm obviously a woman?"
Her smart remark won Dani a punch to her jaw. She felt a tooth come loose. She gathered some spittle with her tongue, now mixing with her tooth and the blood coming from where it had been, and spat it out at the face of the bearded man. The tooth hit him in the cheek. "Stupid woman!" he growled. His fist now slammed into Dani's stomach. "I'm starting to look forward to breaking you."

Dani doubled over from the blow to her stomach, or at least as much as she could given the suspension of her arms above her head. She wheezed sharply at the blow and bit into her lower lip. Bravado wasn't going to do her any good but, then again, the only other thing she could do was let herself get worked up wondering what they were going to do to her. I'm fucked anyway. Might as well get some digs in on these morons. As soon as she regained her breath, Dani retorted, "Stupid? I'm a naval engineer who can build matter-antimatter reactors. What do you have a degree in? Managing good body odor?"
A backhanded slap took her in the cheek this time. "The only thing I want to hear from you is who you work for."
"As of about two weeks ago, I work for myself. Before that I was in the Allied Nations Stellar Navy as an engineer."
Another slap.
She would begin bruising soon, but Dani started to ignore the pain and continued, "I also once worked for a Burger King." This time it was another punch, this one to her face that thankfully failed to knock out another tooth. Smirking, Dani said, "Okay, okay, I confess. Once on leave I was a freelance dominatrix. I tied up and punished bad lesbian girls by putting alligator clips on their nipples and ravishing them with a strap-on. But that's a secret, so let's just keep that between you and me."

"Jeson, wait!"
The bearded man looked behind Dani. "Yes sir."
Dani thought she recognized the voice. This was confirmed when Xueson walked from behind her, his head turned to look at her. "Dani Verdes, yes? The woman who escaped from Norman auction guards," Xueson said.
"Only my friends can call me Dani. To you it's Miss Verdes."
Xueson laughed. "Ah, you're fiery. I like fire in a woman." The laughter had brought a grin that now disappeared. "But right now I don't like it in you. I want to know who sent you to spy on us."
"Nobody."
"Oh really? So you decided to sneak into a guarded warehouse dressed as a pleasure slave.... for the hell of it?"
"I'm looking for my friend Fayza."
Xueson put his hands together. "Ahh, I see. The girl Princess Jhayka inquired about. She's not here."
"So you say." Dani narrowed her eyes. "But you have every reason to lie."

"Do I? I'm not a Norman. I don't give a damn about their philosophy. All I care about is their gold." Xueson put a finger on Dani's nose. "And I don't believe you. A naval engineer who made a daring escape from a slave auction? With such skills at hand-to-hand combat? Please. Now, who are you working for? Alliance Intelligence, maybe? Perhaps you were sent to track down Oloparatho?"
"I was hunting for my friend. Oloparatho had her here."
"You must think me a fool."
"Think? No, pal, I know you are."
Xueson brought his fist back and Dani flinched, prepared to take the hit. But a chuckle from him made her look again. He had placed his hands together again, a false image of serenity. "I don't believe in hitting a lady."
"How noble of you."

"My Norman employees, however, believe in doing.... other things to a lady. And they really enjoy it with defiant ladies." Xueson smirked at her. His hands went from his side to her hips and buttocks. "You know what I mean?"
Dani swallowed and tried not to lower her eyes. Her heart pounded faster in her chest and her hairs began standing on end. She did not enjoy his touch at all and readied herself for what he'd do next. "Yes. So stop playing and get it over with."
Xueson's hands moved forward. One moved into her pubic hair but didn't touch anything intimate. Dani's breathing picked up. "What do you mean? Get what over with?"
"You know what I mean."
"I honestly don't."
Dani stared into his eyes and could see the malevolent intent there. "Just get it over with, dammit! I know you're going to rape me so stop dicking around and do it!"

To her surprise, Xueson broke out laughing. "Ah, so I see." Xueson stepped away from her and walked to the corner of the room. Dani turned her head and followed him with her eyes, watching as he picked up a stool and brought it back in front of her. He sat down about five feet away. "I already told you, I'm not a Norman. Hell, I've never raped a woman in my life. I prefer willing partners." He pointed his right index finger at her. "But I can see now that you're not quite as confident as you look. Oh, you've got a lot of bravado, but it's a veneer for your terror. You're afraid of the Normans because you know what they'll do to you. Their people would think you were simply afraid of your own nature. I just think you don't want to get raped and turned into a pet for their pleasure. And if you cooperate I may just spare you from that." Xueson put his hands together. "Now, Miss Verdes, who do you work for?"
"I told you."
Xueson looked past her. "Jeson?"

Dani steeled herself, knowing something would happen. But she was woefully unprepared for Jeson's strike. It was like he had run razor blades across her upper back and shoulders. Flesh was ripped away, strips of it mingled with blood torn off her body and sent to the ground. Dani let out a howl, one she'd never made before.
A second strike came lower than the first, drawing another cry. Dani's fists clenched and her arms strained against the stock and the strong chains holding it to the ceiling. She couldn't move and she desperately wanted to.
"That was a Norman whip they use for their male slaves. As you can no doubt tell, it's very powerful." Xueson yawned. "Sorry, didn't have a good sleep thanks to you. Anyway, that whip strips away flesh with every strike, and the scars it leaves are very unflattering. I wouldn't want to scar you any further, but unless you cooperate you'll leave me no choice."
Dani snarled. "God dammit, I told you the truth! I'm looking for my friend."
"Jeson, give her another three strikes. We'll quench that fire yet..."



It was time to leave Ar. Just another four or five hours here at most, and then on to their next destination, across the mountains. Jhayka was packing up a duffle bag of her belongings which were still here—just a night's belongings as a matter of fact. Everything else had been sent back, even the portable steam bath; she'd bath once they were leaving on the train.

The slave-girls had been sent back to the train as well, all of them except for Juliana, whom Jhayka considered as to vulnerable to be kept away from her. Juliana wasn't really attached to Jhayka like she had been to Trajan, but Trajan had given her to Jhayka, not to anyone else. So she just had her sixteen human mercenary guards and a small contingent of four Talorans, plus herself and Ilavna, and Juliana. Twenty-two...

..And a twenty-third. Danielle Verdes. The twenty-fourth was with her, Lyle Madsen, except that, of course, he wasn't with her anymore. They were making their separate ways back for security reasons and would meet up around the Grand Souk. At last, in the morning, he had arrived while Jhayka was packing—a process she was horrible at, seeing as that even in the military she'd had a batman. But as she stared with frustration at the bag and wondered how in the Deceiver's name that Ilavna could easily pack it when she ended up overfilling it or being unable to close it every time, when the guard hastened in and came to attention. They were late. Very late. Worse: Danielle wasn't with him.

“Ma'am.” Lyle saluted. “We've got a problem. Miss Verdes didn't come to the meeting point at the Grand Souk. I headed back toward the warehouse district, but I was stopped, because there was a security cordon around the warehouses, and the guards had been replaced by soldiers of the Ubar.”

“Soldiers of the Ubar,” Jhayka answered negligently. Then she turned her head up from the bag, and the look was cold and maybe more than a bit concerned. “How long did you wait for her?”

“An hour and a half, ma'am.”

“And you retraced the route she was supposed to take to the Grand Souk when you went back to the warehouse district?” Jhayka's ears were up and alert, but it wasn't a happy but more of a worried connotation, now.

“Yes, ma'am.” Lyle looked on stiffly and nervously. He didn't want anything to happen to 'Miss Verdes' himself, in this slimey shithouse of a neo-barb city. He hoped that Jhayka looked at it the same way..

“Then we have a situation, and one that we can't bring up to the authorities either...” A thoughtful frown. “Perhaps it's nothing, of course. She might have gotten distracted, or even found a solid lead to Fayza which she had to follow immediately. At any rate.. Pack my bag for me, soldier. I'm going to wake up Ilavna and confer about this.” She looked to Juliana, sitting quietly on the bed. “Stay here, dear, and I'll be back in a few minutes.”

Well, there's worse shit in this world for fatigue duty than packing an noblewoman's bags. Though—eww. What if I stick my hand in a box of Taloran tampons and don't even realize it? He gritted his teeth and got to work.

Jhayka in the meanwhile—only slightly regretting having a stranger organizing her bag for her—had jumped into Ilavna's room. To her surprise the priestess was already awake and looking to her rather bleary-eyed.

“I was having a bad dream, Your Highness,” Ilavna confessed a bit shyly. “I am late for packing or something? It didn't seem that I slept that long, really.”

“Something wrong, dear? I'm not a stranger to bad dreams myself, you know,” Jhayka offered, not immediately bringing up the subject at hand.

Ilavna winced, and turned her head away. “They're torturing someone in the basement. I can feel it very strongly—very rough, very bad stuff. I think it's a woman, and she's in quite a lot of pain.”

“All the more reason to get out of here quickly,” Jhayka muttered. “Except that we have a serious problem. Danielle has not come back.”

“Ghastil shavant! Ilavna bolted upright in bed and pushed herself to her feet, eyes wide. “Your Highness, what if they..? We will not leave without her, surely!”

“Never. I swore to her that if something happened to her I'd bring her out of here. But for the moment it might just be a delay, she might just be following a lead, and we need to be sure. Though..” Jhayka frowned deeply. “Get yourself something to eat, Ilavna, and pack. We may need to move quickly.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” Ilavna frowned. “Where are you going?”

“The barrack-room.”

Only her retreating back was visible. Ilavna headed off, herself, to eat quickly, and take something to control the feeling in her head, which was very painful.

Jhayka dropped down to the lower floor taking the steps two at a time, easy with her long legs, and pounded on the door to each of the shared rooms of the troops in turn, eight in all, plus the last room shared by the four Talorans, until they had all turned out in the hallway. Then she spun, and with a hand on the pommel of her sword, looked to them grimly. “Alright. It may be nothing, but Miss Verdes hasn't returned from her mission yet. I want you to eat quickly, then pack up, suit up and lock and load.” A glance to the Talorans. “You've all got national service training and body armour. Turn out—and prepare our weapons.”

“We're going to go get her?”

“If she's in trouble, absolutely,” Jhayka nodded stiffly. “I don't know enough to say for sure yet. If that's all..?”

Silence.

“Then do it.”



It was dawn when Trajan entered Xueson's office, just to find him not present. An aide told him that Trajan had gotten up early due to a "problem" and was not available. This told Trajan that something was wrong, since Xueson never traveled anywhere without him. Or at least did not, but my fight with Ikmen has probably done great harm to my position here.
Trajan turned to leave when a call came up for the aide. He looked up at Trajan and informed him that Xueson would be there shortly. Trajan stood and waited patiently.

When Xueson arrived, it wasn't from the front door but from his office. This told Trajan that he'd either been in his office or in the basement, which the office had it's own door to. He was well dressed and looked rather awake, if a bit tired. "Trajan," Xueson said simply, a trace of irritation in his voice. "Good morning."
"Good morning, Xueson."
"Listen, I want you to make a little run for me today to the warehouse district. Just.... keep an eye on things there, until I send for you."
Trajan raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Don't ask why, just do it." Xueson immediately turned and left. Trajan watched him go before leaving.


As Trajan exited the manor, he found himself wondering what was going on. Xueson being awoken in the night, with the irritation that Trajan knew came from someone not giving in to him, and the fact he wanted Trajan out of the house and watching things in the warehouses.
Going further, Trajan began to worry about what could be going on. Whatever it was, he needed to warn the Taloran so she could get Juliana out of the potential danger.
Carefully, Trajan doubled back to the manor. He had his own keys to the rear doors, allowing him to go to the back where there wasn't as much security. He only had to hope that Xueson hadn't informed everyone that he was supposed to be gone, and apparently Xueson hadn't, as Trajan was barely noticed by security as he came in the back door. He immediately made his way to Jhayka's wing.


Jhayka headed back to her bedroom after checking up on a few more things following her conversaiton to the men, where she found that to her slight embarassment, her bag was packed. Juliana was looking on with costernation, though, she hadn't been comfortable in the room with Lyle, understandably. But she'd have to learn to be comfortable with him.

“Okay, Corporal,” Jhayka said, recalling his rank. “You don't have your power armour here, so you're going to suit up in some of our spare regular body armour. Your job, if it goes to the knife, will be to make sure that Juliana gets safely to the train. With your life. You will even ignore me if I am in trouble to make sure Juliana gets there. She is now your principal. Understood?”

Lyle came to attention and saluted stiffly to the alien woman taller than he. “Understood, ma'am!”

“Alright then. Take my bag, too—but drop if it if you need to. There's nothing important in it.”

“Understood.”

Jhayka smiled to Juliana. “This man is under my service, and I have ordered to make sure that he keeps you safe; you need not fear him, but you must do as he says if this situation becomes dangerous, do you understand?”

Juliana nodded in such a way that Jhayka believed that, though tremulous and filled with fear, she would obey.

So Jhayka left at once, and headed for the kitchen where she expected to find Ilavna eating, and did. The troopers were eating from ration-packs downstairs, of course. “Feeling any better?”

“Yes,” Ilavna answered quietly. “But the torture is continuing. It's not the usual punishment of a slave, it's something far worse. And I think it's a woman, Your Highness.”

Jhayka frowned deeply, ears flexing, but said nothing. Then she reached for a hair band and grabbed at her unruly length of pink hair, to force it back into a pony-tail and thus get it out of her way. A minute of silence passed. “This could be really bad,” Jhayka finally observed, mildly, and then turned away to go to the window of the living room of the suites they'd been inhabiting, and gaze out of it toward the peaceful visage of the city waking up for its morning routines, to the garden below, all through the protective latticework that hide her from easy sight. It was probably going to be the last time she saw Ar like that.

Ilavna finished meal and returned to her room to begin packing, which she did in haste, and with a sense of queasiness in her stomach. She had only just finished packing up and slung the bag over one shoulder when there was a knock on the interior door of the alcove leading out of their wing. She went for it, and saw Jhayka, too, the two of them falling in together and reaching the door, which Jhayka opened slowly, a hand, however, on the pommel of her sword.

It was Trajan.

“Can you tell me what's happening, Trajan?” Jhayka asked with a deceptive calm.

"I am unsure," was his reply. "But I know there is something wrong. Xueson woke up in the middle of the night and only came up to his office so he could order me to spend the day overseeing his warehouses. He seemed irritated at something." Trajan's frown grew. "I fear something is amiss."

Jhayka nodded. "Come inside, and secure the door behind you." Then she stepped aside and looked to Ilavna with a dawning expression of great concern and trepidation. "Tell me, Ilavna Lashila, can you look into the mind of this poor woman who's being tortured? Right now?

“Yes,” Ilavna answered, a quiver taking her hands. “But it will not be pleasant.”

“I am asking you to do it because I believe the life if someone is in mortal danger by evil. Do you concur?”

“I concur,” Ilavna answered, taking a breath. “So the use of the powers is of course legitimate.” She closed her eyes, and concentrated on the hidden world. It was easy to find the pain and the intensity of what was going on. She focused in on the woman, definitely a woman, and began the work of peeling away, gently, the mental layers that defended the conscious mind and then the subconscious as well, and a horrible scene presented itself:

There was the awful whine of another turning of the rack's wheel, and Dani made another howl as the pain in her limbs grew. Sweat filled her vision of Jeson, the man overseeing her torture, while he pressed his finger onto the controls for the machine. The chains to which her wrists and ankles were bound were as taunt as her limbs, being pulled by the wheels on both sides of the horizontal metal table. The cold of the metal added to her discomfort, aggravating the bloody wounds of the earlier whipping. The table was now wet from where water had dripped off her head and from her disheveled hair, this coming right after they'd spent a seeming-eternity dunking her head into a barrel of water repeatedly.
"How's it going?" she heard Xueson's voice ask despite the whine. Jeson released the pulling button and the whine stopped, allowing Dani to hear the footsteps of Xueson approaching.
"She still won't talk."

"You are a glutton for pain, Miss Verdes," Xueson said. "My patience is beginning to wear thin. I want to know why you're here."
"I've already told you several times," Dani rasped. "It's not my fault you don't believe me."
The rack activated again. Dani moaned loudly and closed her eyes, lacking the energy to do much more as her limbs were stretched further. "Okay! Okay!" she shouted. "I'll tell you why I'm here!"
Xueson nodded to Jeson, who stopped the machine. "I'm all ears."
"I actually here..." Dani's eyes opened and she looked at Xueson. A cruel grin slowly formed on her face as she said, "I'm here to get the secret recipe for the sweet-meats served at the Colisseum. Then I can open my own fast food chain and make a fortune!"

Frowning, Xueson himself pressed the button to turn the rack back on. Dani's pained moaning resumed until it suddenly turned into an agonized shriek, accompanied by a sickening sound from her upper legs. "I think that was her right hip," Jeson said over the whine and Dani's wail. The wail suddenly picked again and was accompanied by another similar sound. "No, that was the right hip. Shall we turn it off?"
"No."
Dani's wailing continued for another fifteen seconds before it reached a crescendo again. This time Xueson turned off the machine. He walked around from Dani's left to her right and inspected her right armpit. "Looks like I've dislocated your right shoulder too. Shall we try for the other shoulder and make it four for four?"
"Fuck you," Dani rasped.

"Still bravado? Well, as I said, you have fire, and I'll give you that. But that just means you'll break all the harder." Xueson nodded to Jeson, who disappeared from Dani's vision as he went to get something. "What do you think I'll do to you after this? I can torture you for weeks here. Your Taloran protector - or perhaps employer? - will never know you're here. You'll just be here, suffering, until we go ahead and get rid of you. Or, perhaps, I'll make a pretty penny by selling you to a Norman man. What do you think about that?"
Dani didn't reply. Her heart froze and she, without wanting to, began to think about being enslaved to the Normans. A tear came to her eye as she imagined being reduced to a wretched woman living only to give pleasure to another man. Of losing herself.

Xueson saw her tear. "Would you rather die then? You'll be surprised how many new slave women claim just that. That they'll resist the conditioning and kill themselves rather than serve. But eventually they break. It's like brainwashing. The human spirit can only endure so much before it breaks. I think you'll make a wonderful, beautiful pleasure slave one day. What do you think, Jeson?"
"Of course," the torturer replied, walking back up to Dani. He had in his hand an iron rod with a cupped end. She could feel some heat radiating from it and knew what it was for. Dani swallowed.
"Ah, you brought it. Well, Dani, to prepare you for your future as a kayira, here is an instrument of punishment used for severe misbehavior. Jeson?"

Dani closed her eyes, not wanting to further torment herself by watching him press the rod's end against her. As she waited for the new pain to join the pain she already felt, Dani felt something. A whisper in her very being, a slight breeze, as if the core of her mind and soul had been touched gently by something. Between her bloodied back, her strained limbs, and her dislocated hips and shoulder, Dani could barely be certain it was actually there.
Illavna?
At that point the hot cup at the end of the rod pressed against Dani's left breast, the pressure of the iron against her nipple. A bloodcurdling scream erupted from Dani's lungs.

“Ilavna,” the voice thought, recognizing her. And Ilavna recognizied her in return. “Danielle!” She shouted, and reached out as though she could touch the woman—and then felt the horrible, intense pain, which left her to scream out in terror and agony and clutch at her breast as though she herself had been injured, until her mind snapped shut the connection and she fell back against the wall, and then to the ground, puking violently.

Jhayka helped the young girl up at once, her face a terrible rictus of violent determination. “They're torturing Danielle down there?” She asked in a measured clip.

Ilavna nodded shakily and forced herself to talk over the lingering effects of what she'd felt. “Yes. Yes they are Your Highness. I felt it, I saw it, putting the hot iron to her breast...”

Jhayka turned around slowly, trembling with rage. “Trajan, are you with me?”

“I swore an oath,” he replied simply, trembling with rage himself.

“Then follow me, and we'll get you some extra weapons.” She looked back to Ilavna. “You've got to pull yourself together. You'll have to fight too.” A breath, and Jhayka reached into one of her pockets and took out a small bottle, from which with one hand she picked out a single pill and handed it to the priestess. “Take an upper.”

“Ahh..?” Ilavna asked shakily.

“Sometimes it's just a fact that increased concentration and physical energy are required in shock-troop operations in tunnels,” Jhayka said without elaborating. She was a pioneer, after all.

Ilavna took the pill and swallowed it dry. The three started off. Jhayka paused for a moment and shouted down into her room to Lyle: “Lock and load and come out front to wait for us!” And then proceeded, at the affirmative, down to the lower level of the wing immediately. They arrived to find the soldiers and the remaining Talorans having packed and suited up in armour with their weapons. A lot of weapons. Jhayka looked over what was available, and immediately hefted in both hands a squad automatic weapon with a 500-round drum magazine of ammunition, and handed it to Trajan—along with bags containing extra magazines for it, considering the awesome physical strength of the 8-foot gene-engineered warrior. The four Talorans were forming two bazooka teams as it was, to boot.

Jhakya removed her scabbard from her belt and set it down. “Armour,” she said simply, and some of the Talorans quickly handed it to her as she began fitting on pieces of body armour with an expert precision, covering herself as thoroughly as it was possible without a full power suit, save for the helmets, which none of them had on—yet.

“We may need to use gas to insure the safety of our target. Mask up.” She reached for her own and pulled it over her face with practiced ease using the donning tabs and did a seal check for the filter and the speaking attachment, then glanced back to Trajan. “You'll need to hang back, I'm afraid, during the actual rescue, if I elect to use tear gas.”

An unhappy but stiff nod, the man was, after all, a soldier through-and-through.

Jhayka checked to make sure that the other Talorans were getting Ilavna properly armoured and suited up—she wasn't entirely ignorant, after all, having had national service like everyone else—and then went back to the table in front of her, grabbing her coal-scuttle style helmet and setting it on and strapping it. Then she reached for her sword and strapped it using a spare belt to shoulder, where a long camoflauged poncho served to conceal it from sight, preventing anyone from noticing immediately that she was an officer and making her into a target for snipers. That, in turn, was secured under her belt to keep it tight to her body.

Then she reached for a REQ-49B, slammed in a 200-round magazine for the railgun and cycled the feed to make sure it was clear of jams, and then affixed the vibro-bayonet for close in fighting. A moment later a vibro-dagger was clipped to her belt, and another the combat boots she already wore out of habit. A clap of her hands as she rested the railgun assault rifle on its combat strap. “Grenades. Half frag, half tear. Same for Ilavna.”

Two bandoliers were wordlessly handed over, each with six grenades. Jhayka herself reached for a bag carrying more grenades, including rifle grenades, and then for a satchel charge as well, both slung around her body. Then she held out her hand to Ilavna. “One of your pistols, please. I only need one—and you only need one, for this.”

Ilavna smiled shakily, and handed it over, Jhayka checking it and thrusting it into her belt.

Ilavna was done a few minuts later.

The Princess flipped up her comm. “Captain Arshon?”

“Your Highness?”

“Go to combat-readiness. Condition one. Man the all the guns and active the automated defences. Pull clear of the station, and await for further orders.”

“We expectin' a good fight?”

“That's affirmative.”

“We'll be waiting, Highness—and good luck.”

“Thanks. Over and out.”



Dani's wailing ceased when the heated cup was removed again from her right breast. Both hurt terribly now and showed burn marks from where the iron had pressed against them. Her entire body was aching. Her face had tear lines running down from her eyes to below her temples, as the pain had been so immense she had started weeping due to it. Lungs heaving, Dani blinked her eyes and looked through her tear-blurred vision at Xueson, who stood with armed crossed while Jeson put away the cup-tipped rod and went to get another torture device. "I think we're beginning to chip away some of that exterior," Xueson said. "Don't worry, it won't be long now. I can see it in your eyes. You're close to breaking."
Dani clenched her fists as well as she could. She wanted to spit in his face but couldn't muster the strength. Her mind couldn't think up some witty retort either, because she really was wearing down. Dani wanted the pain to cease, and she knew it wouldn't. Her despair was joined by the fact that Xueson wanted to hear a lie, and she would not be able to lie convincingly. "Please, you have to believe me," she said softly. "I.... I just wanted to find my friend Fayza. She was... abducted before I was. Oloparatho has her. Please..."

Xueson sighed. "You know, I'm beginning to think maybe you're telling the truth. That you're just a normal woman, normal save for your fighting skills, and that you're just being loyal to your friend. But in the end, it doesn't matter, since you've seen too much and it'll be safer to keep you quiet. So, I might as well make sure by breaking you completely. Jeson?"
"It's ready, Mister Xueson. Battery is fully charged."
"This is probably the most severe form of physical punishment ever used on a slave girl here. Of course, it's only used in rich households. The poor here in Ar or in the countryside don't even have electricity."

Dani swallowed and her heart quailed when she saw Jeson holding clips, like those on old-fashioned jumper cables, in each hand. "Oh God," she wheezed. "No, oh God, please don't..." She winced and began to get tears in her eyes again when the clips were fixed into her areolae at the base of her swelling nipples. Her eyes widened with horror when Jeson got several small white discs with thick wires hooked up to them. "Please, please no, I... I'm not a spy. Oh God." She felt him put the electrodes on her belly, her thighs, and a few other locations.
"Who do you work for?"
"Nobody. Please, I'm telling the..." Dani watched him twist a dial. An electric shock went straight into her body through the clips and the electrodes and seized every muscle, every part of her. She screamed and screamed until the electricity stopped, leaving her throat raw. The tears were flowing now. "Please stop it, I'm not a spy," Dani begged. "Oh God. Oh Go..." She was broken off in mid-sentence when the she was shocked once more, screaming once again. Finally even the scream stopped as the shock heightened in intensity, paralyzing her muscles and making her nearly unable to breathe. Her lungs hurt and she was starting to turn a bit blue when the electricity shut off again. Dani's chest heaved, hurting with every move of her diaphragm, and she could not speak for several seconds.

Xueson stood over her. "How much longer do you think you can last? It can get worse, you know. Most Norman masters who use this machine don't have electrodes, but prods. I'll be demonstrating those soon enough unless you begin to cooperate."
"I'm... I'm not... a spy," was the hoarse reply.
Jeson turned the dial again. This time it was on for a full three minutes of varying strength as he literally toyed with her, raising it to suffocating intensity for five or six seconds before reducing it, just to raise it again ten or so seconds later. For Dani, three minutes might have well been three hours. Her throat was growing too hoarse to scream. She desperately wanted this to end. If she were a spy, she might very well have given it at this point, but there was nothing to give.
"We can do this all day," Xueson informed her after it was over, as Dani tried to regain her breath, now openly weeping. "Perhaps if you keep this up, I'll have to send my men to get Jhayka. Can you imagine her here with you, Dani? I know Jeson here is interested in seeing how she will respond to his techniques."
Jeson nodded at that, just within her sight.



Jhayka looked around at everyone, and then nodded significantly to Trajan. “You have point until I say otherwise,” she said simply. “Now take us to Danielle.”

“Understood, My Liege,” Trajan answered formally, and started to lead them upstairs again. There they found Lyle and Juliana, and Juliana at once dashed to Trajan and engulfed in a tight and deliriously happy hug.

Jhayka watched the reunion in silence, thinking of Danielle, and spoke softly. “I ordered Corporal Madsen to guard her with her life. They'll take the rear of the column, and wait for us in the grand parlour if that makes sense..?”

Trajan nodded once and spoke to Juliana: “Juliana, my dearest, you must stay close to this man. He will protect you while I go fulfill my duty to the Lady Jhayka, and then I shall return and guard you also myself.”

Jhayka did not contradict him. The meeting was gradually ended, and then they all started off, with Lyle as the tail of the column, save enough for now, as they tramped through the wing of the palace and then pushed out of it, massive Trajan taking point and Jhayka stepping lightly after him with Ilavna ferociously at her side as the stimulants took effect.

At each doorway to a major hall, point-teams of four men peeled off to cover it as the rest passed, then formed up to move back into formation. The exoskeletal power armour they wore made them all, in total, close to Trajan's height and body size, so the effect was almost as if a clan combat squad was there. They reached the grand staircase, and there Trajan suddenly appeared into view to the startled servants and door-attendants below, hefting the RET-212 automatic railgun in his hands, having instantly adapted to the heavy Taloran weapon. “NOBODY MOVE!” Trajan bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Silence reigned.

They descended the stairs under the cover of the guns as the servants watched unbelieving, trembling in fear. The huge, palatial size of the building meant that moving a force of two squads was easy enough down the hallways and spreading out in the grand parlour equally easy.

“Secure the entrance,” Jhayka ordered cripsly.

As a four-man team secured the entrance at her immediate order, and Lyle decided to guide Juliana in with them, they started forward, Trajan leading them to the staircase which led down to the basement. There was a guard at it, and another guard watching him from the guard booth. Under the cover of the guns, and surprised, they hadn't tried anything, yet.



Dani tried to regain her breath. Jhayka wouldn't leave without her, but would she know she was in danger herself? As Dani thought, desperately, of what to do, she thought of Jhayka's promise. Jhayka, where are you? What's happened?
As she saw Jeson's hand go to the dial again, Dani heard a loud series of cracks from above. Seconds later this proved to be the harbinger of something even greater as gunfire and explosions echoed in the room.



Everything had been going fine in securing the palace. Everything, that is, until the man in the bullet-proof windowed guard post decided to play hero. He leaned his kalashnikova out of that seemingly secure position and squeezed off a burst..

Everyone hit the floor or dived for cover at once, everyone except Trajan, who simply swung the RET-212 around with terrible ease and let loose on full auto. The long, powerful railgun fired its 4.9mm tungsten hypersonic penetrators with sonic booms which killed the hearing of everyone in the room in that confined space, temporarily, anyway, unless they had ear protection, which of course only Jhayka's troops—and, by Lyle's thoughtfulness, Juliana—had. The servants were rolling around on the floor, screaming, mostly, with both eardrums ruptured on each and every one.

The penetrators easily shattered the window and fifteen rounds tore through the man, their velocity translating into such thermal effects that his chest cavity was essentially liquified and it killed him outright, his corpse catching on fire around the wound as he toppled down to the floor, dead.

The other guard dropped his kalashnikov and kicked it away from himself, stepping away from the door.

“Bind that man!” Jhayka snapped, and then nodded to Trajan.

He dashed forward down the stairs at once, since time was now of the essence. At the bottom the door was kicked open, and he laid down a suppressing fire with the RET-212 as Jhayka arrived and, in the snap-instant decision of someone who was a veteran of bitter fighting in confined spaces, grabbed for a frag grenade, pulled the pin, and through it around one corner. “FOLLOW ME!” A piece of shrapnel richoeted down and bounced off her helmet as she rolled out after the blast, Trajan firing away down the other side of the corridor, and brought her REQ up and squeezed off suppressing fire on full automatic while a combat team of four men spilled out and assumed positions against the wall, firing away at whatever they could see, as another team followed to support Trajan.

There was nobody firing back. The smoke cleared, half the lights in the hall knocked out, and in the crazy semi-dark, Jhayka saw that she had been more or less literally firing at shadows; there hadn't been anybody down that corridor. A shrug. Such things happen often enough in war.

Down the other corridor, however, there were six twisted bodies of men that Trajan and her own troopers had blasted to pieces before they could fully react. Speed was not half the battle in close-quarters assaults—it was nine-tenths of the battle.

A door opened down the hall in the direction that Trajan faced. Five guns cracked as one. A man toppled out, dead. Trajan covering them, the fire team dashed forward down the hall. Nobody else came out.

Jhayka followed, a pale and yet hyper-eager Ilavna at her side. The fire-team formed a covering position on the door, ignoring the corpse on the floor. She glanced to Ilavna. “Gas grenade.”

Ilavna and Jhayka pulled one from their bandoliers each and then pulled the pins, gripping down on the release handle. Then she held up her free hand.. “Blow the door on count of three,” she said to the corporal who was the team leader, and then to Ilavna: “We throw on zero.” A tight nod.

“Three... Two...” The team leader had reversed his rifle, aiming the butt at the doorknob. “One.” He slammed it forward and broke the door open. “Zero!” Jhayka through her grenade, and Ilavna, sensing the word before it was spoken, threw her's identical to the time of Jhayka's.

They clattered in, and instead of exploding persay, instead explosively decompressed cannisters of tear gas into the room, filling it with thick, roiling clouds within four seconds. Jhayka grabbed her rifle from the combat strap and went in first.

There was another guard here, coughing, his weapon tossed aside as he clawed at his throat and his eyes. Taloran tear gas was released at exceptionally high concentrations for maximum effect.

Through the clouds of tear gas, she saw another door, and not waiting a moment, speed over all else, kicked it in. The corporal of the team was at her side only a heartbeat later in his exoskeletal armour, and he pushed Jhayka aside, so much the better, too, as a series of pistol shots richoceted off his armour.

She was back to her feet in a moment, looming through the billowing clouds of tear gas which were now invading the next room, vibro-bayonet presented to the figure of Xueson, who was obviously wide-eyed and terrified as he threw his pistol to the ground. She saw, too, that there was another man in the room, now covered by one of the multitude of rifles poking through the door, and on the table in the center, with wires attached to her, obviously in horrible condition, was Danielle.

Jhayka turned her attention back to Xueson, furious, and spoke in a low and dangerous voice: “One of the interesting facts about Gilead is that only weapons of mass destruction are banned to the ownership of private citizens. The same for Ar. So, yes, I had a whole Slavstervakin' platoon arsenal in your house. Now. You violated the laws of hospitality and tortured one of your guests, so...” She reached for her pistol, mindful that a gunshot here would rupture Danielle's eardrums.

“By all that's holy—I shall help you! I'm just a businessman,” Xueson sobbed at, falling to his knees.

Jhayka aimed the pistol and fired one shot into Xueson's head, the bullet tearing through and leaving a massive exit wound in the back, blood and gray matter painting the floor, as he doppled over dead.

The Norman tried to dive for cover, but a second pistol barked, and he fell, too.

Jhayka looked, and saw Ilavna, the girl's eyes burning in righteous fury.

“My duty, too,” she whispered softly.

“Yes. But now, priestess, tend the sick. She must be able to move.”

Jhayka set the pistol on safety and shoved it back into her belt, then reached for her comm. “Traincom, traincom, read me?”

“Loud and clear, Highness,” Captain Arshon answered tensely.

Emotionless: “Take down the western wall.”

And it was matched in the reply: “Understood.” A pause. “It's going to one hell of a New Year's Day. Over and out.”

But Jhayka had already moved to embrace Danielle.

[Vianca]

Great as ever.

[Steve]

Post co-written by Marina and myself:

Upper Quarter, Ar, Gilead
4 November 2841
1 January 2163 AST


Ilavna's first step on reaching Danielle's side--even as Jhayka was still given instructions to Captain Arshon--was obvious. She ripped an emergency gas mask out of her corpsman's kit--they all had several for just this purpose--and put it over Danielle's mouth, also adjusting it to a filtration setting to give her more oxygen to the lungs, as at the same time she sealed the woman's nose with a clip, and leaned in close, eyes intense with the stimulants that Jhayka had had her take as she leaned in and whispered with a determined urgency. "You'll be fine, Danielle. We're here now. Just breath in through your mouth." The emphasis being clear enough, as teargas was already roiling into the room.

Dani's breath had just begun to recover from the shocking when the mask went on. She wheezed, "Thank.... you...."

Ilavna began to remove the metal clips on Danielle's chest, next, and then worked on the electrodes, wanting them off immediately so that she could avoid any danger with the equipment and prevent accidentally shocking Danielle. She worked like she was possessed, and in a sense she was certainly just that motivated. "You're going to be fine, Danielle, just fine," Ilavna repeated, not once, but several smiles, managing a grim smile the whole while as she finished up removing them and then, started to access Danielle's injuries--she realized that Danielle was in a very bad position at the moment, but only removing the electric equipment was critical, and Ilavna desperately needed to know first of all that Danielle was not in immediate danger of dying before she unchained the woman.

But then Jhayka came over, in a rush, and stared down at Danielle for a long silent moment with a look of relief purely in her eyes. "Oh, my Danielle.. Such a thing as this I have let happen to you..!" She exclaimed, silent for a moment before and filled with a sudden wave of guilt at having come up with the idea of disguising Danielle as a slave, before instinct and action took over and she worked to free her from the bonds which Ilavna neglected toward the more important task of assessing, by scanner and simply old-fashioned feeling of the flesh, the extent of Danielle's injuries.

"Couldn't find.... her...." Dani didn't dare move her legs or right arm, as wracked with pain as they were. Even the left arm was stiff and hard to move, but she managed to bring it down. She looked at Jhayka. "Shouldn't have.... made a.... promise... I couldn't keep...."

Jhayka wanted to hug Danielle, but Ilavna pushed her out of the way. "Sorry, Highness," she said simply, a dutiful med student--pushed to the very limit of her incomplete knowledge with a serious triage case. Ilavna rolled Danielle carefully on to her left side, "I'm checking everywhere for you," and then openly winced when she saw Danielle's back. Immediately, indeed, wordlessly, she reached into her medkit and took out a bottle of antiseptic wound sealant, spraying the substance over Danielle's back where the hideous metal-shard-studded whip had literally ripped the flesh from the whole of her back, leaving only strands between the raw and bloody wounds. This was now replaced by the foam, which quickly solidified, like it was glue or drying liquid rubber, to provide a protected, disease-free environment for the wounds. "Both your legs and your right arm are dislocated. I'm setting them while you're on your side and then we'll get some medications for you."

"Be careful of shock," Jhayka added, trying to be helpful--she knew that Ilavna had never trained in alien biology. "Humans, including human females, are a lot more susceptible to it than we are."
"Noted, and get out of my way," Ilavna replied as she moved to do Danielle's right leg first.

Dani couldn't help but wince at the sensation of the sealant touching her torn back. She kept her focus on Jhayka, her lungs slowly gaining ground on the breathlessness she'd felt earlier. "Fay.... I didn't find her...."

"Don't worry, Danielle. We'll get her, sooner or later. We'll track her down. I promise you that, that she won't just vanish into the dust. But first I'm going to have to get you out of here--and I'm going to make a promise I can keep: We will get out of the city just fine." Jhayka spoke firmly.

And then, of course, Ilavna had positioned herself right, and using the force of her body and hands carefully placed, relocated Danielle's right leg. Doing it like this, under field conditions, it was going to hurt like hell, but the pain would settle down as soon as it was done. Then Ilavna went to her right arm, and repeated the procedure, wanting to get Danielle onto her back--the sealant made it actually the ideal position for her now--and the drugs inside of her as quickly as possible. The kit was, fortunately, made for human standards there--Ilavna had a second one for the Talorans in the party in case they were wounded.

Loud moans came from Dani at the painful resetting of her dislocated limbs. "Thought.... the torture was over... with," she muttered, though the very slight grin on her face was enough to confirm that her intent was humor. Dani let Illavna roll her onto her back, now easier to lay upon with the foam covering her wounds. She still didn't dare move much, as each attempt brought pain from muscles that had been stretched and shocked. She looked at Jhayka intently. "I wasn't good... enough... to escape again... If not for you...."

"It's okay. I thought that derring-do rescues of hapless maidens was part of the job description for princesses according to human myth," Jhayka answered, her ears, of course, not showing the usual range of motion--because they were pinned in her helmet, as were Ilavna's. But the grin on her face was if anything more obvious.

Dani's grin grew slightly. "Actually.... it's usually the job.... of a prince.... to rescue the maiden.... I'd explain more.... but then I'd break.... my other promise...."

Ilavna, for her part, had no sooner set Danielle's left leg than she'd taken and prepared a cocktail of drugs, which were injected via a hypospray directly into Danielle's cartoid artery. Then she looked to be preparing another injection, as she explained: "Painkillers, corticosteroids, and anti-inflammatories. The next one is a muscle relaxant and heavy adrenaline." That was followed by the second injection, which was given in the shoulder muscles rather than directly to the blood. Then she set to work placing gauze over the burn wounds to protect them. "I'm probably going to give you an antibiotic just to make sure, considering these burns, while small, are severe," she added, then, head hurting, remembering the man she had killed, wanting to do everything at once, and focusing on her patient, forcing herself to. As promised, that came next, as Jhayka looked on with a clearly worried look. But she was worried about more than Danielle now. She was worried about the time it was taking.

"Do whatever you think is necessary," Dani replied. It was noticably the first full sentence she'd managed without wheezing.

Now, Ilavna gave a subtle nod to Jhayka. "She's stable for transport," she said softly, and smiled down to Danielle broadly. "No dying, now, I promise." But already Jhayka had moved to tightly embrace Danielle, in the first whole-hearted show of affectation that she had really made for the woman.
"Don't worry about your promises to me right now, Danielle. But let me instead get you out safe; that is what matters," she said softly, and then glanced sternly to Ilavna. "Help me to get her through to Trajan. He'll have to carry her for us to be able to keep up a good speed on foot, and that's the only way we're getting out."

Dani had never seen Jhayka get this close to her. She gingerly reached her right arm up and put a hand to the back of Jhayka's helmet. "I wish I could be more help.... Wait." Thinking back through the hours of suffering, Dani remembered why this had all happened. "Jhayka.... they have modern weapons. RPGs, rifles, armored vehicles. That's what I found in the warehouses. It's why they tortured me."

"The better the equippage of the foe, the more the glory," Jhayka replied negligently. She could not, of course, change those facts, and accepted them without recourse, which was the reason for her devil-may-care attitude in response. "Now you just try to heal yourself, Danielle. We'll get you out of here." Not really abandoning the hug, but just shifting herself, she moved to take up Danielle's shoulders, as Ilavna went to heft up her legs, and thus together the two of them took her out of the room, now foggy with teargas. "Move out!" Jhayka barked to the troopers, as she navigated with the burden split between her and Ilavna, into the hall, over the blasted dead bodies of several of the guards, to where Trajan still stood, weapon ready, by the stairs, at which Jhayka directed to him a severe look. "Faithful Trajan, I must ask you to carry Danielle. You are the only one among us who can do it without being hindered or slowed, and we need that or else we will all die in fighting our way clear of the city."

Trajan nodded. "I will guard her with my life." Slinging the machinegun over his shoulder onto his back, he accepted Danielle into his arms as if she were a child. "My apologies to you."
"Don't worry about it," was Dani's reply.

Jhayka smiled to Danielle. "We'll talk more when you're in bed on the train, Dani." And with that she waved her hand toward the stairs as she hefted her assault rifle and togged on her comm for the troops in the grand parlour. "Alright, we're coming up. Prepare to bug out of this place the moment we're to the lobby." Even as she finished, she'd started up the steps, two at a time...
...And outside, a great thunderous roar could be heard as the guns of the train commenced to fire.

[Steve]

Everything except for the place/day header is by Marina.

Ar, Gilead
4 November 2841
1 January 2163 AST


“Rotate guns to left flank,” Captain Arshon ordered from the command center inside the heavily armoured central car of the armoured train. “Plasma cannon aim in on wall sectors West-North grid 24X 16Z. Particle guns to West-North grid 24X 15Z to 12Z. Shields to maximum power.” The armoured train was named the General Faeria, after a distant cousin of Jhayka's family centuries before who had employed its predecessors in action during the intervention in the Ras'merin civil war pre-unification.

The Normans had gone on high alert the day before when Danielle Verdes had been captured by their arms depots, and had begun immediately moving all the arms from them that they could to dispersed locations in the city. They had also called in their patrols, mostly mobile infantry on technicals, toward the city, and doubled the strength of the garrison by calling up reserve units.

Jhayka's assault in Xueson's palace had not gone without warning others that violence was happening. The Normans now had known about the combat for around ten, closer to fifteen minutes. The Ubar of the city was not incompetent; he ordered a general muster of the male citizenry from fifteen to sixty to form in each of the Wards with their arms in hand, and the supply units were designated to distribute what modern arms as they could to those who did not have them.

A mobile response group inside the city had been immediately dispatched to the vicinity of Xueson's palace. The city gates were closed, and the people who lived in the homes built on the walls were ordered to seal their shutters and arm themselves. In short, every preparation that could be undertaken, both primitive and modern, was being undertaken.

Captain Arshon was about to show the Normans how unprepared they really were. The ten heavy particle guns of the armoured trains were run out of the requisite gun ports on the left side of the train, their squat three-meter barrels extending to loom down over the city from the commanding position of the railroad embankment. The plasma counts on their flatcar pintle mounts swung about, fully enclosing armoured shields encompassing these faster-firing guns as they charged up.

“Activate atmospheric containment shields and increase internal air pressure to one and one-fifth atmospheres,” Captain Arshon ordered next, as the giant blowers and filtration systems installed on the train, in conjunction with light shields over unsealed areas, guaranteed a positive atmosphere which would prevent the entrance of poison gas, should the Normans have it.

One of the crewers in the command compartment, which contained only three other people-the rest were manning the weapons or the engines, and the control needed no others-swung her chair around. “Captain, all sectors report green.”

Arshon took a deep breath. Okay, let's see how this contraption can fight, she thought, and toggled the intercom. “Weapons free. Weapons free. All guns commence firing along designated sectors. Rapid fire.”

The particle guns firing, recoiling onto their mountings. Ten blue streaks burned across the retinas of the Normans and slammed into the outer wall. They were followed by the rapid-fire stutter of the plasma cannons slightly ahead of their fire-point. Hundreds of tons of energy were transmitted at once. The outer rock wall explosively decoupled for a distance of 350 meters. Chunks of rock weighing as much as two tonnes were thrown six hundred feet into the air to come crashing back down as a hail of stone chips tore through everything in the vicinity.

The outer walls of Ar were 80ft high and 80ft wide at the base, 60ft at the top. They were, fundamentally, simply a sloping stone wall on each side holding in a 40ft wide core of rubble and dirt, with buildings and a military road built on top. The entire outer stone face had simply collapsed into a pile of about half that height at the base of the wall. The rubble and dirt briefly held up without it, having been compressed into place over more than a century. But then the second slavo crashed home against the wall, and though the dirt absorbed the force of the blow, it, too, was blasted out and spread up, and came down in a sundered pile. The buildings across the top of the wall collapsed at this point and several hundred people not yet dead from the flying rocks and the heat energy were smashed down to their deaths in the pile of rubble.

At this point, people began to flee the buildings on the higher inner wall, despite orders to defend them. The outer wall, however, remained a formidable barrier, and it took another half-dozen salvoes before the General Faeria had smashed town the inner rock to the level of the collapsed rubble, which now formed a great rough and uneven pile perhaps thirty-five feet high. The train continued to fire at this, tearing it up, melting it, blasting it through and through and spreading around the dirt and smashed rock, literally working to pound the outer wall along that segment completely flat. This process took much longer than the actual physical demolition of the structure of the wall, and consumed the fire of the guns for some time.



Jhayka dashed through the grand parlour to the exit of Xueson's palace while the thudner of the guns raged outside. She turned then and looked to the twenty-four others behind her. “Alright. Drop all of your personal possessions that aren't weapons or medical equipment, now. Corporal Madsen, that includes my bag,” she said simply. “We've got to move fast for the western wall. We'll be crossing the city, and I expect this to be under heavy fire the whole way. The only support we can really expect is heavy mortar fire from the train, and we'll have to advance some way before we'll be in range of even that.”

A breath. The gray eyes looked around. “I lead. No questions about that. The people we're guarding are Danielle and Juliana. I am your force commander-nothing more. Now, here are the rules of engagement:

“None. Kill everything that moves.”

Even the mercenaries didn't look perfectly happy at that, and Jhayka sharply elaborated: “They'll have their women and children inside. Everyone on the street will be a fighting age male, and don't assume that they're unarmed. They might be carrying grenades in their pockets to get close to us, or a satchel charge. I want everyone moving to be shot down at least fifty meters from us if we can manage it. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir!” Echoed through the room.

“Good. Now. If we get in possession of their kalash's, I want them. We may run out of ammunition for our own weapons and if we do we'll use their's and the clips we can loot off the bodies of the dead. Same thing for grenades and MANPADs. Last thing-you with the power armour. If anyone gets wounded you're carrying them, since you've got enough power assist to do so without slowing down. The nearest person to the wounded takes him and runs with him until we get to cover and can assess the injuries. We should expect to essentially be under fire at all times.”

Then, smiling vaguely, she turned toward the coat room and ducked inside for a moment, returning with a large, ankle-length greatcoat for a man, and padded over to Trajan. “Settle this over Danielle, alright? I'm tired of letting Normans look at her nude body.”

“Of course, My Liege,” he answered stiffly.

“It's just Sir now, we're in combat,” Jhayka answered lightly, and then jogged forward to the double-doors in front of them, waving with her hand for the lead fire team to follow. She hefted her assault rifle and flicked off the safety, pushing open slowly one of the grand doors of the palace. There was nobody in the garden.

“Section four, cover. Platoon, forward!” She shouted, and led the way, the fourth section taking up the rearguard with Trajan with Juliana and Danielle and Lyle Madsen at the rear save for that section, and the other three four-man sections ahead with Jhayka, Ilavna, and the ATGM teams.

They reached the garden gate. It was open. Outside, armed men were starting to appear in the streets as bells clangored over the firing of the guns of the train against the wall, a steady roaring rumble outside of the city. The fourth section was following the principals down to the gate when Jhayka signaled by hand for the first to follow her.

She dashed out with four men behind her, as the other sections hastily, on initiative, pushed up to the low front-garden wall and opened up. Twelve assault rifles sprayed out 4.7mm tungsten penetrators with enough force to tear through the armour of a 20th century tank across the street, felling dozens of unprepared Normans. Jhayka rolled to the pavement on the far side of the street, reaching for a grenade and pulling the pin, pitching it up into the window of the building she had landed against. The section with her fell prone along the street, firing their guns with three-round bursts from prone-position at the Normans in the street.

The explosion spread fragments out the window, and then immediately Jhayka leaped up and sprayed the interior on full auto with bullets as well. She pushed inside, and the section followed her. They spread out through that floor of the building, tossing grenades into rooms and spraying them with bullets through the walls as they assumed positions at the windows to fire out on the Normans along the street.

Jhayka brought her comm up. “Alright. We've got a covering position for you. Now get across!”

Ilavna led the rest of the party across the broad street, which now seemed to have a hundred chopped up Norman corpses in it, though it was surely many less. They filtered down a side street covered by the guns in the building Jhayka had stormed.

Jhayka and One Section pushed out the far side, pushing through an alley and back to the street, joining with the main body once again. From one of the buildings, a man threw a spear at Jhayka. It hit the pavement beside her, and the assault rifle of one of the mercs barked. There was no obvious effect, but no similar such primitive weapons were thrown again on that street.

They had just reached the next street when someone in Four Section shouted over the comms link:

“Technicals six o'clock!”

Jhayka spun about. A group of light trucks were driving up to the Xueson mansion and had spotted them. Two, with heavy machineguns mounted high to fire over the roofs of the cabs, were already turning down the street they were on, the beds loaded with Norman warriors who casually held kalash's, their legs dangling off the sides that they sat on, most of them smoking cigarettes.

“Cover!” Jhayka shouted back over the comm. “MANPADs, take 'em out!”

The short platoon dropped for cover in the streets and the buildings to either side as the heavy machineguns chattered out their lethal fire, high velocity chemically accelerated rounds chewing up the pavement as the trucks raced forward and others now followed them. The fire was, fortunately, incredibly inaccurate.

The two Taloran ATGM teams were made of veterans. The weapons were swung about, already loaded, and fired immediately, following laser designator beams from the barrels of the launch tubes straight toward the trucks. Both were hit. The missiles were designed to damage modern main battle hovertanks. The trucks exploded with massive detonations and then secondary detonations as their fuel went up all at once. The burning bodies of the infantry riding them were flung to both sides, spinning, fried forms of individuals, some of them trying to run out of the flames with their entire bodies engulfed in fire, every part of their flesh burning even as they ran alive until they had collapsed from the injuries and the shock to their bodies. The vehicles themselves tumbled back onto the far street, completely engulfed and already burnt through hulks, shattered into several pieces.

“Okay! Let's get out while the flames cover them from the street!” Jhayka shouted, pushing herself, waving onward down the street. They'd turn left within two blocks, as Jhayka expected the Normans to get through or around by that point.

It didn't take long, they must have been making at least a one hundred and sixty paces to the minute as they quick-stepped it down the street, weapons up toward the buildings around them. They reached the street where Jhayka intended to turn....

...And were confronted by the muster of one of the wards. A more hodgepodge force could not be imagined. Some of the men were wearing traditional steel armour, others had none, others did not even have military clothes. They were armed with a mix of kalash's, rocket-propelled grenades, and spears and bow and arrow and swords, and some improvised guns and older weapons as well. They were clearly looking for a fight, and opened fire the moment one of the soldiers came into sight.

He hot-footed it back as a skittering of wild firing of bullets tore through paving stones and the buildings around them.

“Gas grenades!” Jhayka waved to Ilavna and trotted over to the position taken up at the edge of one of the buildings. They pulled gas grenades, and threw them, and pulled off their bandoliers and threw those as well the moment the pin was pulled, until they'd tossed ten or so into the street in the path of the advancing Norman armed mob. The grenades rapidly decompressed their contents into the street, high-intensity tear gas form a wall between them and Jhayka's platoon.

Jhayka leaned around the corner and opened fire. Both sides couldn't see the others, but of course Jhayka had the advantage in actually knowing what suppressing fire was, while the Normans fired wildly through the fog of tear gas, she raked back and forth across the street at a single height, knowing it would be difficult to miss anyone in that packed mob, at that height. The rest of the lead section joined in.

“Now cross while you're covered,” Jhayka instructed, and the rest of the party began to crawl across the broad street, hugging the ground for cover, one section at a time taking their turns to shift and, from a prone position, pour more fire into the Normans who were hung up on the cloud of intense tear gas. Bullets fell down onto the ground around them from the Normans who were hopelessly firing directly into the air, having no experience with firearms. One man was actually hit on his armour by a random arrow.

On the far side, Three Section positioned themselves on the corner as well once they were across, lobbing fragmentation grenades and opening up into the crowd. Jhayka could hear the screams of the wounded. The rest of the party was across.

“Grenades, then we go!” She grabbed one, pulling the pin, and holding down the lever, taking a glance around. Ilavna and four others.

Tensing her muscles, she rushed forward and threw the grenade toward her left, at the foe. Five followed it, into the cloud, into the vague forms as it faded, and tore them up. They fired from the hip to keep the Normans down and ran. Soon the cloud would be entirely dispersed..

She could see figures writhing on the pavement who had inhaled to much of the gas. She could see the wounded, now, and the blood pooling in the street. Someone raised up a form of a weapon, very close through the disappearing gas... He fell from the fire of Three Section. Someone raised up a similar weapon. A rag covered his face.

They hit the ground, but one of the mercs wasn't fast enough. The RPG round actually physically clipped him and exploded, blasting his body in half immediately.

There was no time for laments. Jhayka brought her rifle up and opened fire into the crowd. “Go, Ilavna!”

She went. The others followed, and the last across the street, Jhayka dived for cover and was immediately at her feet once again when in the clear, and starting down the street.

Though she didn't know it, they had already killed more than three hundred Normans.

The platoon dashed down the street and reached the next corner. This street was empty except for a few men who took cover immediately. A desultory fire commenced, but Jhayka charged ahead through it anyway. They cleared the Normans with grenades and automatic fire at point-blank range, certainly killing a dozen as they swept through the block and allowed the principals to follow safely.

“We'll have to double back at some point and then follow that street we just cleared down to the west wall-it goes all the way,” Jhayka noted, as they looked around and took account of their losses. Nobody had suffered more than a non-penetrating hit to their armour save for that one unlucky bastard struck by an RPG.

Jhayka noticed something interesting about the district of the city they were entering. It was very old, and the buildings were mud-brick, built up right next to eachother and often sharing walls. One could, quite easily, walk from rooftop to rooftop. In many places the Norman love for high bridges in their cities showed through with walkways for this second street across the main throughfares. The first and obvious thing was that it was a perfect position for moving snipers, and the second was that it was a perfect and commanding position for the platooon to move forward on. She pointed to the nearest of the buildings that began that series.

“We need to take that building, and get up to the roof-ways, and gain that commanding position-we'll even have defensive crenalations, the way the Normans build their homes,” she noted.

“Do you think it shall be defended? Or that there are people inside?” Ilavna asked.

“It's probably a home and some shops. I'm afraid we'll just have to go through it no matter what.”

“I understand, Highness.” Quietly said.

“Let's go!” Her hand brushed reassuringly across Ilavna's shoulder before she started forward.

It turned into a vicious little fight. Jhayka was knocked down by a rifle bullet to the chest, which her armour stopped well, and Ilavna hefted her up for them to storm the entrances to the house with grenades. The scene before them was horrible, the torn up members of the family, some with their entrails visible and blood everywhere, and the ones still alive coming in close with spears. They were met by the vibro-bayonet, and universally killed as the blades cut through them like butter. Then they pushed upstairs, leaving a living kayira to sob over the body of her dead master as their boots tramped up to the upper levels.

They dashed from rooftop to rooftop, firing at anything that moved. They pitched grenades down stairs and fired through the roofs at times, moving with the utmost rapidity until they were near to exhausted, and then forcing themselves onward, fighting a series of vicious battles with the men who had dispersed and tried to meet them hand to hand. Moving along the roofs like this they had soon made several miles of distance.

Normans came against them, however. Technicals raced up along the buildings, firing their machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades at the roofs, racing about the streets to avoid damage. They crippled several by firing into the engine blocks, however, and then let loose with everything they had on the occupants, often tearing the men in the beds of the trucks to hamburger with rapid fire.

Two soldiers (one male and one female), through their armour, suffered light wounds in this stage. But they were able to keep up, and eventually, they reached a point where they could not go any further on the rooftops. Worse, still, it could be seen that large masses of people fronted with technicals were rolling down two streets toward them. Despite their best efforts to move quickly, the Normans had finally coordinated a major assault against the platoon.

Quickly, mortar shells began to rain down on them from drop-fire mortars mounted in the backs of large delivery trucks. With the trucks moving toward them, the fire was highly inaccurate, but it was a worrying development. They took cover on the roof, below the crenalations of mud-brick that surrounded it. Machinegun bullets thunked into the thick walls below them.

“One ATGM team to each side, three and four sections to the right-we'll take the right, too.” A gesture to Ilavna. “Trajan, position your machinegun on the left. Danielle can't do anything except lay down right now and that's what she needs to do anyway. One and two sections on the left. Corporal Madsen, you've got the stair-guard.” Jhayka directed quickly.

They couldn't stand a siege here, but they couldn't make it out against that kind of fire either, which meant that they would have to force the Normans to retreat. Jhayka settled into her position and brought her rifle up. “Weapons free!”

Anti-tank missiles were fired in each direction, picking off the mortar trucks at once. They burned fiercely, and the other technicals around them slewed to a halt and disgouged their fighting men before starting to accelerate again, though another four were quickly picked up in the process of their doing so. Burning men covered in flames stumbled amidst those who had successfully made it off, more thoroughly trained men who dashed ahead of the mobs of the muster, as the other drivers raced forward again with their machineguns chattering.

Trajan opened fire at once with his machine-rail-gun, glad to be back in the fight, empty five hundred round magazines of hypervelocity penetrators in a minute with a torrent of rounds that disabled the engine blocks of many technicals and slaughtered countless Normans who advanced without cover in the street. He immediately reloaded and began to fire again.

On Jhayka's side, they had three extra rifles to Trajan's, and that compensated for the lack of the machinegun to some extent as they poured down fire onto the Normans as well. The Taloran missileers proved splendid, using their rounds to maximum effect, killing a technical with every one, until the streets were covered in the carcasses of burning, overturned, blasted apart trucks, completely blocking the path of advance for the rest of the vehicles.

They continued to press forward, though, filtering through the buildings around the wrecks. The smarter ones were the ones who were still alive, and they stayed to cover, they and those with better training, forcing Jhayka's troops to expend more ammunition to kill them or even simply pin them in place. The use of missiles to blast apart their cover and kill a half-dozen or more at a time was also rapidly eliminating their supply of the missiles, and Jhayka knew they might have more pressing needs for them in the future.

“Cease fire, missileers. Save your remaining ammunition. Team two, shift to right side. We need more rifles over here.”

That brought another four rifles into action on the right side of the Norman attack even as they lost the support of the missiles, and this proved sufficient to compensate for the lack of the machinegun. Regardless, on both sides, the Normans were still advancing, very close to the building now. Jhayka frowned heavily and thought for a moment, then grinned.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” She shouted over the comms. And then, a moment later: “Rifle grenades! Fire on my order only!”

They grabbed for rifle grenades, afixing them to the barrels of their rifles, and waited as ordered. The 4.7mm tungsten penetrator had such speed as that the transfer of velocity could hurtle those grenades a considerable length, hundreds of meters, in fact, and they were quite powerful.

As Jhayka suspected, the Normans thought that they had run out of ammunition. A great roaring cheer filled the air from both directions, and thousands of Normans seemed to appear from behind cover and out of the buildings, dashing forward in a great packed mass to overrun them, most firing wildly, hoping to get in close and kill the men honourably with cold steel, and capture the women.

“Fire grenades!”

On the right, fifteen plasma-warhead rifled grenades exploded in a burst of sharp light and energy across the street, setting the buildings on both sides on fire several hundreds of meters down, frying literally hundreds of Normans in the intense heat. Jhayka actually saw someone run forward even as their body was covered in liquid fire, not collapsing out of shock but because their muscles had actually been burned through and the almost-skeleton simply flopped down, burned away. Similar scenes of horror were brought back to her mind, from fortification fighting miles below the surface of heavily defended planets when people had been drenched in burning napalm by flamethrowers.

There, the Norman attack simply collapsed. The immediate resumption of the rapid-fire of the assault rifles made it worse, tearing through the survivors before they could recover or take cover. They broke and fled.

On the left, there were only nine grenades detonating, and the effect was not thus dispersed enough to set the buildings on either side of the street alight. The Normans pressed through them and continued to attack, even when Trajan's machinegun opened fire through their ranks, felling dozens before they could reach cover once more. Jhayka saw at once that there was still a threat on the left even as the attack on the right had collapsed.

“Rifle grenades!” She snapped again, the righthand troops refitting rifled grenades to their rifles. She rose at once, and led them to the left side of the building quickly, as fire from random snipers and the wild shooting of the people pinned down along the streets echoed around them. Then suddenly came a close-by burst of fire, and armour-piercing bullets ripped through one of the men of Four Section, felling him. They hit the roof. It had come from the building behind them: While they were fighting off the attacking columns, the Normans had managed to get infiltrators down the buildings and up in close to them where they could not be seen and attacked at a distance.

Ilavna moved to tend to the wounded man as best she could, as he twitched and screamed in pain from his wounds as his bled out on the roof.

They stayed low, and Jhayka led the remaining twelve up to the far side of the roof. Already she could tell that the situation here was much more serious, Normans using cables and crowbars had managed to clear a path through the wreckage and more technicals were racing through, including one which dashed up and swung around to the side to present a battery of rockets fitted to the bed. Without the ATGM crews ready they weren't able to take it out in time, and Trajan, by instinct, fired at the engine block first... Disabling it, but not halting its deadly payload from firing.

“Cover!”

A brace of twelve rockets slammed down around the building and upon it. Several holes were blasted in the roof and fires were started. One of the riflemen along the wall was knocked out, wounded.

Jhayka rose up. “Grenades, fire!” She salvoed her own, staggering at the heavy kick. Bullets were being fired at them from the adjoining building, and again Jhayka felt the kick of a round that knocked her down, her armour yet again saving her life as a third person was wounded within a matter of minutes. But thirteen plasma rifled grenades exploded among the attacking Normans. At least another two hundred were killed outright by the intensely energetic explosions in such a concentrated area, and here as well the buildings were set on fire. This second grenade attack finished the Normans on both sides. They retreated before the casualties they had suffered, which were on the order of a thousand fatalities and three or four times as many wounded.

Jhayka's troops had expended almost all of their ammunition, and they were under fire from the buildings in the direction that they'd come, a very intense fire. “Missile teams, sing out your rounds!”

“Four, ma'am!”

“Three, ma'am!” The team leaders answered sharply.

“Team one, put a missile into the roof hut of that adjoining building,” Jhayka clipped out the words, even as the smoke rose up from the fire in the building they were in gathering momentum. She reached for the satchel charge that she'd slung over one of her shoulders before going for Danielle, and armed it.

The missileer popped up and expertly salvoed a round into the small structure on the roof of the other building which covered the stairs coming up from the rain. It was completely destroyed, and four burning bodies of Norman soldiers were flung out of it. The blast suppressed the Norman fire for a moment, and Jhayka thrust herself up and dashed to the roof of the building.

Ilavna glanced up in shock, and then pressed herself lower to her dying patient at the futility of stopping Jhayka now; rather than watch she tore herself away from the man to to for the other one, who could perhaps be revived and thus still fight.

Jhayka reached the roof of the other building, and through the smoke and flames stripped off the satchel charge and activated it, and then tossed it through the smoke and flame down the staircase into the house. At once she turned and lunged for the house they'd made their defensive stand on. A bullet structure her helmet, and she toppled down, feet on the crenalation. The nearest one of the soldiers reached out and grabbed for her, dragging her to the tenuous cover just in time before the satchel charge went off.

The blast blew the roof of the house apart, and seriously damaged the walls, sending flaming debris down onto their own platoon and cracking the northern wall of the house they were in quite severely. It also slaughtered another ten Normans and removed the path for the rest to close in with the platoon.

Jhayka pushed herself up to be confronted with Ilavna's worried eyes.

Someone shouted “She in shock!?”

Ilavna glanced back. “No, not even with a concussion. We're more resilient about shock..” She looked into Jhayka's gray eyes. “You're alright, yes, Your Highness?”

“Y, yes. Now let's go. This building is going to collapse in another few minutes.” There was only a desultory fire of poorly aimed bullets around them now, and they could easily make the jump to the ground. Jhayka went for the left. It would take them to a street which would bring them directly to the west wall. As they went through the still-burning battlefield they could see hundreds of charged or chewed apart corpses from their defensive fight, and on Jhayka's orders, everyone took a kalash and as many magazines as they could carry.


Captain Arshon had demolished the whole three hundred and fifty meter course of the western outer wall that she'd been ordered to demolish before the Normans were able to put together their attack on the train, using technicals, heavy trucks carrying mortars and katyushas, and a platoon of twelve self-propelled guns, supporting several thousand infantry armed with kalash's and RPGs.

“Fire shift! Fire shift!” She ordered at once. “Fire shift to right! Engage enemy armoured vehicles! Priority to armoured vehicles!”

The guns swung around as the train shuddered under the impact of plasma shells from the SP howitzers. The particle cannon were rolled out through the appropriate firing slits in the trains and dialed in, and immediately commenced to fire, having never been ordered to stop. Four of the SP guns were quickly hit, the powerful bolts slamming through their armour, lighter than a proper heavy battle tank's, or blasting off their turrets, finishing them either way. The other eight quickly retreated and used their long range indirect fire to their advantage, as the kaytushas had from the start, and the mortars.

“Mortars, grid coordinates west R-24-E, south T-22-I,” Arshon ordered next, sweating tensely from inside her command center as the train was rocked with the hits against its shields and armour-but, as of yet, was undamaged.

“Commence mortar fire.”

Five heavy 240mm rifled mortars opened up on the designated positions. Firing four rounds minute each they were dropping special plasma-armour-piercing (PAP) cluster munitions on the more vulnerable upper armour of the SP guns and on the completely unprotected Katyushas and mortar trucks. The former proved strongly built enough to survive it, but the Katyushas and mortar trucks were all silenced, and the hits to the train greatly lessened in number. The whole of the battle had lasted perhaps ten minutes.

In the meanwhile, the technicals pushing up the slope encountered a fierce battery fire from the train's direct-fire guns. Each shot completely annihilated the target vehicle, and the General Faeria only had the chance to destroy twenty-two before the rest began to retreat. Nine more were destroyed as they retreated back to cover from the murderous fire of the heavy guns, the crews working them in the stripped down cars, aiming and firing, maintaining a great rapidity of aimed fire until the slope was by now covered in on the order of 40 burning wrecks from every phase of the battle.

As soon as the vehicles were dispatched, finished off, and generally routed, Captain Arshon ordered the guns of the train back against the city. They now fired against the 100ft high inner wall, 100ft thick at the base and 60ft thick at the top. This much more sloped wall was therefore much more resistant, and it took three salvoes to completely demolish the outer rock face instead of the one for the outer wall. In the meanwhile, fire from the eight intact SP guns was still raining down around the train, but it was not accurate nor intense enough to cause damage that would overwhelm the shields; where it did so temporarily the armour held.

Captain Arshon had a limited tolerance for being fired at, however. “I want mortar fire resumed with full HE shells. Let's see if we can't force those bastards back or knock them out with soft-kills.”

“Understand, Sir,” the gunnery coordinator for the mortars crackled back.

A moment later, they commenced firing again, this time sending 200kg HE shells plunging down amidst the formation of eight SP guns. They tore craters through the ground, shook up the vehicles, and did not, initially, actually do any damage to them. But then a single one was hit directly and the power of the explosion jammed the gun elevation and turret mechanism, forcing it to retreat, while another was trapped in place by track damage. The rest stayed in the game, continuing to pound the armoured train even while it was systematicaly blasting apart the inner wall of Ar, this one having thankfully been evacuated so that hundreds of innocents were not again killed.

The Norman infantry had by this point reached the area around the railroad tracks. They attacked indiscriminately, so that a large body of more than five hundred pressed home an attack against the neutral bystanders of the railroad company. The some eighty-five railroad employees at the Ar station, including thirty women, were soon forced to defend themselves with small arms against the attacking Norman infantry, and the situation, even in their semi-fortified buildings, quickly became precarious.

Norman attacks by foot soldiers with satchel charges and MANPADs against the General Faeria proved spectacularly unsuccessful. As soon as they closed, the flamethrowers engaged them. Dozens of Normans were burned alive, their munitions exploding as they were splashed with liquid, burning napalm. Ten flamethrowers were engaged against the Norman infantry, and around fifty machine-railguns. When they got in too close despite the vigorous fire from those weapons, claymore mines on the train auto-detonated, sending thousands of steel balls into the light armoured infantry, shredding the men to the consistantly of a wet goo. Several times the anti-missile defensive weapons nonetheless had to be used, and the crew of the General Faeria quickly found that those weapons, built on the principles of the 'metal storm' gun system, firing plasma grenades, were equally viciously effective against infantry.

The flamethrowers continued to sweep back and forth, sending waves of fire down the hillside and fully engulfing the Normans who could not escape in time, most of those who tried being shot down by the machineguns anyway. The whole of the hillside was within fifteen minutes a sheet of pure flame, while the flamethrowers continued to sweep their great jets of napalm back and forth further down the slope.

Despite all of this, the Normans pressed an attack on the other side of the train, where the same number of weapons was waiting for them. Perhaps because the train had heavy guns which could only engage to one side at a time they'd assumed that was the case for the light weapons as well. It wasn't. Men were turned into walking torches by the dozens as they tried to attack, and then, before that hellish experience of modern war-no Norman force had ever faced flamethrowers before-tried to retreat, while the General Faeria pitilessly continued to sweep her flamethrowers back and forth and the machineguns chattered all the while.

All at the same time, the train was continuing to fire at the inner wall with the heavy guns, thoroughly demolishing it as it had the outer wall, and now working to turn it, like the outer wall, from a high heep of rubble into a completely flattened corridor for freedom and safety. At last, the infantry attacks had clearly been totally routed and even chased out of the range of the defensive weaponry, and Captain Arshon ordered them to cease fire.

Four self-propelled guns were still operational and engaged against the train, but they had by this point used up all but a few rounds of their ammunition and any ammo trucks trying to reach them were immediately destroyed by the HE rounds from the rifled mortars, so in the end the SP guns soon afterwards also broke off their attacks, having expended their ammunition, and retired to reload and then return to resume the attack as best they could. To date the General Faeria had suffered no casualties and only minor damage.

However, the Normans attacking the railroad installations were dangerously close to overruning them, and the railroad employees were frantically contacting Captain Arshon, begging her to save them from death and fates worse than death. She deferred the question to employer, and had Jhayka brought up on direct intercom link, punching through the very limited jamming the Normans were miserably attempting.

“Your Highness?” Captain Arshon asked, breathlessly, for she was not sure for some time how the fate of the platoon had been progressing.

“I'm here,” Jhayka answered quite bleakly and wearily. “We're pushing toward the Western Wall. I can see the effects of your firing already. We've lost three altogether now and we've got four walking wounded who're still fighting. We're still fighting fit, but we're out of rifle ammunition and we're using captured kalash's now for small arms. What is it, Captain?”

You don't sound fighting fit, but there's not much I can do. “Well, Your Highness, the Normans have started attacking the railroad facilities. Either in revenge for letting us use the tracks, or else because they simply got confused in the heat of the battle. The Company employees want us to rescue them. Do I have permission?”

“Permission is granted. Go drive the Normans back, get them onboard, and then return to finish demolishing the wall and covering our retreat. It will be a while yet before we need your support directly.”

“Understood. We'll handle it quickly.”

“I'm back to work. Over and out,” Jhayka cut off the comm.

“Bring us up back to the platform of the Ar Station,” Captain Arshon ordered to the engine crews, and then sent the following message to the gun crews: “Keep firing until your targets along the wall are masked. Then cease firing until further orders are given.”

The train lurched and began to head back toward the Ar Station from its position somewhat beyond it, that it had assumed to bombard the western wall. Shifting from gun-port to gun-port the crews of the guns continued to fire, and the pintle-mounted forward plasma gun in fact never ceased firing, not being masked, though the particle guns soon ceased fire.

As they approached the station, the Normans turned their attention on the train. In response, the General Faeria gave them a good dose of napalm from the flamethrowers. Machineguns firing with the maximum rapidity, defensive clusters spewing out thousands of plasma grenades in a literal heartbeat, and flamethrowers burning everything in sight, the great armoured train ripped through the Norman besiegers of the depot, soon checking all but machinegun fire for safety reasons as it rolled up, and armed men appeared at the doors, opening them and leaning out to position themselves for covering fire with their assault rifles, as the survivors of the railroad company personnel-sixty-eight of the original eighty-five, including twenty-six wounded-were hastily evacuated into the cars of the armoured train, Arshon breathlessly waiting so she could reposition the train to provide mortar support for Jhayka should she need it when she made her dash for the walls. Just a few more minutes...


Bullets, with hideous sound, tore up the marble of the grander buildings here around them. They were close, now, only five blocks from the walls. They had come a long way, fighting with Normans all around them, and only lost one more man, to a sniper using a big-game rifle with armour piercing rounds that had sliced through even the heavy powered armour suits easily from a distance. A missile round had been required to clear him so they could move past, leaving them with only five left.

Jhayka felt exhausted. She'd given herself the maximum safe dose of 'uppers', stimulants, and was fighting on them entirely, being battered and bruised more than she cared to say. The same was true of most of them, particularly the walking wounded, except for, of course, redoubtable Trajan, who handed the machinegun over to a designated crew of two soldiers-it had been given all their remaining railgun ammo--and then hefted a kalash and used it one-handed even while carrying and somehow protecting Danielle from the hell around them.

Now, though, they were pinned down from every side-except for the side they wanted to go on, thank the Lord Justice. Exhausted, scarcely talking except for clipped orders, in a miasma of smoke and war and the sounds of bullets firing all the place, but the guns of the train eeriely silent, they covered another block under the constant fire toward the shattered remnants of the wall.

And then, halfway between them and their goal, came the rumbling of treads from around the corners. “To cover!” Jhayka shouted hoarsely, over the comm and in the air, as they dropped down into stairwells leading to basements or ducked behind those of thick granite leading up to formal entrances, the rest laying prone in the street. And then they saw them, converging, two platoons each of four self-propelled guns, swinging down onto the broad boulevard and their turreted howitzers aiming in for low-elevation point-blank shots down the open sights with HE.

The guns opened fire, and the first rounds roared overhead and blasted into the buildings and the streets, blowing apart rock and brick and showering them in pebbles and shards, ears thoroughly deafened. Jhayka's face fell. They were somehow going to have survive those eight guns, and all the converging soldiers and technicals around them, long enough for the General Faeria to get back in position. That meant hunkering down and-the crashing roar of another salvo tearing through the street-trying to survive the bombardment and the hoardes that would soon be at close quarters..

..Or taking on the vehicles themselves.

“Missileers, stand ready!” She mustered the strength to shout in her full voice, and then: “Report numbers of satchel charges!” The Normans might prefer close quarters with knives, but Jhayka was a sapper, and if it came to it she'd go close quarters with those SP guns using bombs. Survival was, of course, up to God.

[Steve]

The small bit in Kalunda is by me, the rest of the battle is by Marina of course.

Kalunda, Gilead
4 November 2841
1 January 2163 AST


Julio was at a desk in his private office, plainly dressed, reading a letter from Sara. He had a smile on his face at the great news from her trip to her old home.
He was working on his reply to her, filled as it was with lamentations of wanting to be with her again, when the door was thrown open. Amber entered and, much to Julio's distress, she was dressed in the Crimson Guard's camo uniform, plus the formal red beret bearing the royal crest of Kalunda. "Majesty, there is fighting in the streets of Ar."

Julio rose from his seat. "What?"
"Our agents radioed it in. The entire city has been mobilized and fighting is raging in the Upper Quarter of Ar." Amber's jaw clenched. "There's also been a bombardment of the western portion of Ar's walls."
"Near the train station." Julio walked from around the desk. "The Princess Jhayka, did she leave Ar yet?"
"No, we'd heard she was to leave today."

Immediately Julio considered the possibility that something had happened and that the Taloran woman had caused something. Or stumbled upon it. "Well, let's be on the safe side. Make quiet preparations to mobilize and get warnings to the people outside the city to come into the city or head to Winson's Port."
"Yes Majesty." Amber saluted and left the room.
Julio took a look at his unfinished letter and returned to it. He immediately began to write once more.


Ar, Gilead
4 November 2841
1 January 2163 AST


“One and Two Sections” Jhayka snapped tensely as the self-propelled guns rolled forward. “Take the left and right buildings, get up now, we'll cover you. Get up as high as you can.” Two Section had the machinegun now. “Drop satchel charges and molotovs on the tanks. Two Section, direct your fire toward the engine grills with the machinegun, the bullets might be able to penetrate.”

Shells whooped overhead and crashed into the buildings once more, shattering windows and rock around them and sending smoke and flame roiling up.

“Three and Four sections, stay in cover with satchel charges ready. Standby to attack as the opportunities present themselves.” Jhayka glanced to Trajan. “Get Danielle and Julianna down in the basement,” she gestured toward. “Then leave them there. You and Corporal Madsen, stay with me and Ilavna. We're Section Five now.”

The lead SP guns were rolling forward, three abrest...

“Teams One and Two, got a lock?”

“Affirmative,” one of the Talorans, a female, answered crisply.

“Go for the treads. We might not have the firepower to penetrate their frontal armour,” Jhayka replied. “Fire.”

The two missileers rose and sighted in their lasers where the initial targeting lasers had told them to. They fired, and held steady to guide the missiles in. The heavy machineguns of the SP guns opened up, clattering, and Jhayka saw one of the missileers coldly fall, torn and mangled beyond hope with red spurting out from her shattered armour and shattered body, the one who'd just replied, the elder of the teams. She'd made the shot run true, and both the SP guns—they were really more infantry support guns, now that Jhayka thought about it, even if the howitzer was capable of high-angle fire--had their tracks blown straight off. They careened to each side with one track operational until the drive was killed, and that served to block the whole street.

“GO GO GO GO!” Jhayka shouted, gesturing wildly sections one and two. “Get up in the buildings NOW!”

The remaining intact team loaded up their last missile. “Reloader Team One, turn your ammo to Team Two then fall in with me,” Jhayka instructed, holding her kalash intensely and waiting for any other threat which might appear. The teams dashed across the street while the front of the enemy attack was disabled.

The third AFV shifted to get around the block, driving over a huge, steep staircase into a large stone building in the next block. As its treads powered up the flat side of the staircase, the whole AFV reared up, and in doing so the belly of the vehicle was briefly presented to the surviving missile team. They fired.

It immediately exploded from the bottom up. The turret of the AFV was blown clean off as the ammunition detonated first, and the power of the explosion as the missle cleanly penetrated the lightly protected underside of the AFV flipped it back over as the rest of the ready ammunition burnt off in a serious of hideous crackling sounds. The other two AFVs, disabled mobility-wise but still operational otherwise, pumped HE rounds around the position of the missile crews, filling the street in a cacophony of explosions as the street sections of the platoon cowered on the stairs to basement entrances and behind other obstacles, heavy machinegun bullets chattering over the rock and tearing up paving stones.

For the moment, the street was blocked, and the remaining five AFVs revved up and shifted, three going to one side and two going to the other, to get around the obstacle and attack from both sides. It was still precarious for the platoon, though, as the heavy machineguns and main howitzers of the AFVs trapped in the next block with their disabled treads were firing the moment they saw anything like movement.

Jhayka realized they needed to get the remaining two missiles up to a higher elevation, to be able to fire down into the AFVs to kill them on their weaker upper armour. And they needed something else to somehow stop the tanks.... Or slow them down.

A careful, precise eye caught something out of the ordinary for a street in Ar. Electricity had never been fully banned in Ar, and was available for the very wealthy. This was one of the highly wealthy districts. There were actual, honest-to-god, above-ground powerlines here, unheard of in modern cities but set up like they were in many primitive cities not as sheer, bloody-mindedly locked into the veritable predynastic period like Ar was. They were strung from building to building... And Jhayka remembered, with a start, that she had come over mention of the fact that in Ar, because there was so little demand for electricity, they just used small, local generating stations which delivered direct current.

These gloves are part of an NBC kit. They're rubberized, and rubber is an insulator.. The suits of the power armoured troops are insulated as well.. Jhayka flicked on her comm. “Section One. Copy?”

“Read you, Sir.”

“I want you to find the power cables on the outside of the building on the west-facing street. Knock them off the building. Don't cut them—just knock them loose.”

“Copy that—knock the power cables loose..?”

“Yes, that's right. Do it now!”

She looked to Ilavna next. “Ilavna Lashila, you're going to be commanding this section. Hold steady and remember, kill anything that moves, but don't stand up against those tanks—if they get within satchel charge tossing range, though..”

“I understand,” Ilavna answered tightly. “You're planning something?”

“Yes.” Jhayka looked to the surviving Taloran ATGM team, crouched down behind the grand staircase, then gestured up. “Follow me!”

She leaped and pulled herself over the side, and they followed, climbing and crawling into the building as machinegun bullets leaped all around them from the alert gunners of the tanks. Then a shell hit the building. It seemed like everything was collapsing all around them, but the massively strong stone structure held and the blast wasn't close enough to kill. They staggered on, now up the darkened interior stairs of what had been a grand palace. Now everything was shattered and smokey.

They reached the fifth floor as part of a desperate climb, and pushed on to where Section Two was positioned in what had been the servants' quarters of the building. Children's toys and clothes and slave's silks were scattered everywhere from cabinets and dressers knocked over from the shaking caused by the impact of HE shells lower down in the building, and all the mirrors were broken.

Jhayka could see Norman infantry advancing down the side street toward the street the rest of the platoon was holed up on. “Hold machinegun fire!” She snapped. None of the mercs seemed surprised by the fact that she was there. “Stand by with kalash's and grenades but don't fire until I say.”

She ducked into the bathroom adjoining the room, looking for something, anything, that would do the trick.. It turned out to be painfully simple. A long rod for a shower curtain, with a thick, wide flange on it for attaching the bolts. Jhayka grabbed one of her vibro daggers, and began to cut through the wall on each side. It was attached into the wood of a partition, and cut easily with the vibro dagger, such that a large piece of the reinforcing beams of the wall remained firmly attached to the bolts on one side. Securing her dagger, she walked out with it firmly held in the rubberized gloves on her hands.

A glance out the window confirmed what she'd thought. The AFVs were coming around and advancing down the street, along with at least two hundred men, a whole company of infantry, and probably more.

“Missile team, take up positions in the next room, overlooking the corner. But hold fire until I say.”

“Understood!”

The AFV's trapped on the street were firing again at Ilavna and the sections still down on the street. Jhayka wished she was not giving Ilavna her baptism of fire like this, but it was now necessary for survival.

She stepped over to the smashed open, broad window. “Okay..” A glance to one of the mercs. “Michelson. Get over here and cut off the electrical wires from their support on the building.”

“Sir!” He set down his kalash and stepped over, determined, now, even if nobody else quite understood what was happening..

Jhayka carefully extended the shower pole with the wooden cross-beam still attached down, down, until she could slip the wood under the live wire, now hanging dangerously low from where it had already been cut from its supports on the building across the corner from their's.

Private Michelson leaned out the window, and began the dangerous task of cutting the last support in a two-block length for the electrical wires. He had all but finished, when suddenly, someone in the street shouted and spotted him. Kalash fire was coming all around, but at this range his armour protected him even as he was staggered by the blows, and another round glanced off Jhayka's helmet. She desperately held her ground, keeping the pole in place..

“Got it!”

Then a deep-throated roar of the anti-aircraft machinegun on the AFV firing under remote control almost straight up could be heard, and a pattern of blood, brain, and bone painted the room and the children's toys in hideous colours as Michelson's corpse, head literally blasted to bits, toppled out of the window and fell to the street below.

“Covering fire!”

Three kalash's opened up, as the gunners didn't have their machinegun ready per her order. These three infantry men had the advantage of height and cover and fired on full-auto just to keep the heads down of those below.

Jhayka was not a stranger to such death hideously close by. She did what she had been planning to do, with only a moment's hesitation and none after she'd barked the next order, pushing the wire out on the shower pole as far as she possibly could. Then she twisted it, and let it drop.

The live wire bundle plunged to the street, lwhere it crashed flat across one of the AFVs. Several men were hit by it, as well, and they were fried immediately, screaming as their bodies were convulsed by powerful electric shocks.

The AFV had steel tracks. It wasn't insulated against electricity... And inside, the four man crew was been electrocuted, coursed through with energy until they burst into flames like victims of a malfunctioning electric chair. The AFV's engine caught on fire even as the men inside were electrocuted to death. Jhayka was already back inside the cover of the thick stone walls. Almost cover. An RPG round hit the wall at that exact moment, its sheer power buckling even solid stone at the immediate point of impact. But it would have to do.

A distinctive whoosh! could be heard from the next room and an ear-splitting eruption outside, followed by a series of distinctive secondaries.

“Got one AFV. The other two are withdrawing,” the voice of the remaining missileer crackled into her helmt-mounted comm.

“The remaining one is withdrawing here, too. They'll be coming around and hitting our position from the rear..” She looked to the remaining man of Two Section, even as rifle fire crackled in the streets below and one of the trapped AFV's fired another HE round in their building, higher up, this time. The whole structure swayed but held. It would take more than that to knock down the massive pile of stone they were in. “You stay here and try to pin down the men on this street from advancing. Give me your satchel charge..”

“Sir!” He handed it over.

“Machinegun, with me.” She turned and walked out, freezing, though, when her boot cracked on a piece of bone she hadn't seen to step over. Wincing internally but too cold of this sort of thing to show it visibly, she kept on walking. “Missileers! With me!” Collected the ATGM team, thusly, and the five of them headed down the building, working through the dust-covered, abandoned floors—the owners had fled as the violence approached—until they had reached the far end.

Here she could see what the three sections down in the street were firing at. It seemed close to a full battalion was pressing in—only, almost hilariously, to have to withdraw again to make way for the remaining three AFV's coming up, now attacking from behind after they'd circled the block in each direction.

Then her comm crackled again...

“Princess, are you still with me?”

It was Captain Arshon.

“I am. Are you in position, Captain, over?”

The voice was clearly relieved: “Yes. We're in position.”

“Okay, do you have the street grid in with my position?”

“Yes, we've got it up.”

“Lay down a shrapnel mortar barrage along the street to the west of us—one hundred meters in each direction. For two minutes. Then shift down one block from my position and hit that area with anti-concrete rounds for three minutes. Those should punch through the AFV armour.”

“We'll totally expend the CP rounds in two and a half minutes of rapid-fire. That sufficient, Highness?”

“It'll have to be. Commence fire. Over and out.”

Jhayka finished leading her tiny force to the side of the building facing the far eastern corner, where the main Norman advance was taking place toward what had been their rear. At the exact same time, the General Faeria opened fire with her five 240mm mortars along the street to their west where Jhayka had just electrocuted the tank, and Michelson had been killed. Each mortar firing four rounds a minute, they carpeted a 200 meter length of the street in shrapnel and kept it up, firing in total fourty of the awesomely powerful rounds in two minutes, each weighing 200kg and radar fused to explode over the street from above, making anything except a fully exclosed area open to its shrapnel. There, almost all of some 450 Norman troops were killed or wounded by the tremendous display of firepower within those mere two minutes.

The AFV's, however, could not be fired upon without endagering the rest of the platoon on the ground below—and themselves, for that matter. They'd have to be taken the old fashioned way. The machinegun was quickly set up, and their two satchel charges readied. The missileer leveled his tube for the last ATGM shot... All around, the Norman infantry was advancing..

“Fire!”

The last ATGM shot was loosed, lancing into the lead AFV, blasting through into the engine compartment. The hatch popped open with flames licking at it, and the four man crew tried to climb down and take cover, but the platoon sections on the street opened fire at once and cut down every man.

At the same time the machinegun opened up, firing their precious last tungsten penetrators through its high-velocity grav accelerator, aiming for the ventilation grills on the nearest tank, full automatic, trying to spray through them... Somehow, the powerful rounds tore through, and engine smoking, the AFV ground to a halt only a few seconds after the crew of the first had been cut down. But it was still operational, otherwise, and a howitzer shot ripped through the building directly below them with such force that it knocked everyone down, and buckled the floor visibly. The building was also now on fire.

“SATCHEL CHARGES!” Jhayka screamed, priming her own for a short fuse. She lunged forward and threw her own down, trying to hit the AFV below. With it were four others. They were the last weapons they had a reasonable chance of knocking out the tank with, each 4kg of high-end plastic explosives. Diving back for cover against the chatter of the kalash's of the infantry, the rippling of the powerful explosions could be clearly heard, and then the blessed sound of ammunition cooking off in the turret of the AFV, which must have had a satchel charge land next to it and detonate close enough to cut through the side armour.

The remaining AFV was accelerating past its stricken breathren, when One Section in the far building used their weapons on it, throwing three satchel charges down toward it and then heaving molotov cocktails they'd improvised on the retreat, draining gasoline from abandoned technicals into bottles. Against a manoeuvring AFV, however, the tactic was far less effective. The three satchel charges exploded clear of the AFV, not damaging it, though one of the molotov's hit it, not in a critical place, fire wreathing the AFV as it accelerated forward, pumping HE rounds into the building and the estimated hiding position of the platoon down on the street and in the basements below. All of this happened during the two minutes that the armoured train was firing on the infantry in the street to their immediate west.

The General Faeria had shifted fire to the two disabled AFV's down toward the west on the street, slamming down twenty CP shells a minute, infrared guided toward the heat of the disabled AFV's, pounding them, chewing up that whole next block in a hail of high-powered explosives, going off so close that the sound, the sight, the intensity of the shock waves, the damage being done, was even from their perch, further down the block, something that seemed almost impossible to survive.

“Section One! Get to street level, then take cover and fight!” Jhayka gestured to the men with her. “Okay, let's get out of here. We've done all we can from here.” She started heading off through the shaking, blasted building, still taking HE fire, to pick up the cover man they'd left on the street to the west and then try and find a safe stairwell going down.

The buildings lining the next block westward were collapsing under the tremendous impacts of the CP shells of the General Faeria, and the roar and the huge clouds of dust as they went down could discerned even from inside the building.

On the street below, Ilavna's sections worked desperately to free two of the mercs who'd been trapped by part of the street and building collapsing in on their position by the basement-level windows. They just got them clear when the AFV rolled up, barrel depressing to pump howitzer rounds into the floor directly above them. The ceiling began to collapse.

“Trajan,” Ilavna cried out in a voice of desperate passion at the moment, burned through with the fire of the heart. “Double two satchel charges and set their fuses together. I'll cover you.”

“Ma'am!” The awesomely powerful clanner looked for a moment at the young Taloran, but nodded and taking two satchel charges from the platoon doubled them up and set the fuses..

“Go!” She lunged forward, pushing herself up out of cover and rolling grenades toward the Norman infantry as she fired her kalash on full automatic, everyone else, from cover, doing the same. Ilavna was staggered as two rounds impacted with her armour, spinning her back, and another cut across an unprotected shoulder segment, bringing a cry of pain from the girl. Trajan dashed passed, for the AFV. Its machinegun chattered but was covered from hitting him by the blasted remnants of the grand staircase...

He popped up, hurled the doubled-up satchel charge under the AFV, and divided back, crashing down ontop of Ilavna such that the air was knocked out of her in his own need to get clear, the short fuses quickly going off, a powerful explosion ripping through the bottom of the AFV, the last the Normans had in the area. The driver was killed outright, but the turret crew—their clothes on fire—managed to get out before the ammo cooked off, just to be blasted apart by the automatic weapons fire of the concealed sections.

Trajan dragged the wounded Ilavna back under cover with himself. “My apologies,” he rumbled out.

“We..” Ilavna coughed heavily. “Both alive.”

It was all that mattered by that point.

The mortars of the General Faeria had ceased firing. The block down, westward, was a shattered moonscape, for two square blocks. The AFV's were blasted ruins only, completely torn apart in a street turned into craters.

They had an escape route, but they had to get clear, now.

Jhayka led her bedraggled band, six including herself, up to into the shattered basement. The sight of blood on Ilavna attracted her attention immediately. “You're alright?”

“I'm having a bit of difficulty with the arm, but I'm okay,” the girl answered defensively.

“Okay. Here's how it goes people. Trajan, you've got Danielle again. We'll push out the western side of the building, then through the rubble to the wall. We'll have to climb about ten meters through more rubble to get over the inner wall, since it isn't fully demolished. I'm going to have Captain Arshon lay down a reverse-rolling barrage to cover our retreat. There's to many of them for anything else to work. The main guns will be firing at the points of demolition along the walls to keep the Normans from posting snipers where they're intact.”

“Everyone clear?” Nods all around. “Then we go.” She brought up Section One on comm. “Clear out to the west, make your own way to the wall,” she ordered, and then brought up the comm. “Captain Arshon. I want you to roll a barrage set back east of my position, adjusting with my position. Understood?”

A long silence. It was a highly dangerous act, after all. Finally: “We're on it, Your Highness.”

They started off through the shattered basement, as fire chattered around them and the Normans tried to get down into the basement to seek them out in close quarters, as they worked their way around collapses and shattered columns and through battered partitions, Ilavna turning a vicious look toward a torture chamber that they passed through.

Pushing up, they reached the western street. Here there were no Normans left unwounded. Instead, just the shattered corpses of the dead and dying and wounded from the barrage of the General Faeria's guns. Blood and entrails were pooling in the street as they raced their way across to the cover of the blasted rubble beyond. The barrage started behind them, too, fragmentation warheads slamming down, creeping up behind them, tearing through the Norman ranks...

There were Normans close enough, down the central avenue, though, to fire on them. Bullets pattered off their armour at that range, though several of them fell from the kinetic shock and had to be helped up, pusing on into the rubble. The rush of the impact of rockets all around them, though, told them of another threat. More trucks carrying rocket-launchers were being brought into action, beyond the current fire-range of the General Faeria.

One of the soldiers was screaming. Ilavna saw dimly that his leg was missing, sliced off by shrapnel from one of the rockets. She reached down, to try and drag and help him through the rubble of the collapsed building, but one of her own arms she could scarcely move. Someone helped her.

“Move! We've got to keep moving!” The barrage was rolling closer. They pressed on toward the safety of the wall, safety from their attacks and from their own barrage.

The man hefted his comrade up and continued to press forward, even though the man might very well be dead from blood loss by the time they were in any position to save him, but the attempt had to be made.

With death and fire behind them and more death and fire raining down from above, Norman light mortars joining in, they staggered and slipped and pushed their way through the treacherous footing of the stone rubble.

Steadily, the soldier carrying his comrade was falling behind, and as they raced ahead, Ilavna realized what was going to happen...

They pushed out more into the open, the man bearing his wounded fellow in the rear, now, with a lancing piece of shrapnel at the extreme range of the barrage tore through the bearer and flung his bleeding, perhaps almost dead burden to the ground. They were both doomed, now.

Ilavna had an impulse to stay, but that was of course madness and death. She forced herself on, until they staggered out of the buildings beyond. Ahead was the broad military road around the city, and then the wall.

“Shit fire IMMEDIATE—frag warheads to cover the approaches to the wall gap!” Jhayka snapped. Just as the shells crept up on them, the horrific, incredibly intense roaring of their aerial detonation and the spray of shrapnel all around, the fire was shifted to cover the intact ends of the walls, already under a vigorous barrage from the direct-fire weapons which were further demolishing them and widening the gap.

Ilavna stared at Jhayka, eyes sad and full of a strange curiousity. “We.. We killed them.”

“Yes, and one of them was Corporal Madsen, too,” Jhayka said with a heavy sigh. “But we would have all been dead without that barrage—and, quite simply, it happens in war, my good priestess. They are with the Lord now.”

Ilavna shuddered and though of the bright-faced and brave man.

“Over the wall!” Jhayka shouted for the company, and led the way, falling in as she did with Section One, which had made it out intact.

Of the original twenty-five combatants and principals, only seventeen—those who had survived--rested the rubble-ruins of the inner wall and pressed down to the glassed plain where the outer wall had once stood, making their way across the now-cooled ground toward the slope beyond that would take them up to the railroad embankment. The guns continued to pound away at the walls to their left and right until they were several hundred meters beyond them.

At that point, fire from the energy weapons was shifted again, to provide a general cover along the city walls, including the gap, to prevent any kind of pursuit. The mortars ceased firing to conserve ammunition.

They trudged up the hill as fast as they could force themselves onward. It was slow going, through the burnt-out grass, the blackened soil, where little brush fires burned here and there, and the entirely burned skeletons and steel equipment of close to a thousand dead Normans who had tried a frontal assault into the massed weapons, particularly the horrific flamethrowers of the train, had breathed their last about an hour earlier, a grisly scene straight out of hell.

They were all wounded by that point, all of them except for the principals, Danielle and Julianna, whom they had somehow managed to protect. Most of the wounds were not serious; but those fifteen, they had, at the least, bled, and some were scarcely on their feet up the horrid scene of the blackened embankment.

Four explosions echoed around them as blurs of exploding shells came in overhead and from the sides, and the acrid of yellow smoke of cordite as HE exploded from in-close hits all around them, digging craters in the dead soil. They all hit the burnt and blackened ground as a second salvo of rounds soon followed the first.

“Where the hell is that incoming from!?” Jhayka screamed into her comm.

“Four Norman SP guns,” Captain Arshon replied coolly. “They're on the far side of the train. They withdrew to reload earlier but they've come back in now and they're hitting beyond us, trying to kill you it seems, Highness. We don't have any ammo for the mortars that can take them anymore, and we don't have a direct-fire bead for the big guns. We're trying for a soft-kill...”

Just as Captain Arshon said that, the train's mortars opened fire again, pumping HE toward the distant group of SP guns which were causing so much trouble.

As for the survival of the platoon, that was up to Jhayka. “Into the shell craters! Into 'em!” They were the only cover around, and once in that cover, they could dig them deeper. Somehow, they all made them safely into some of the shell-craters that were now pock-marking the embankment, and taking out their entrenching tools, dug as their lives depended on it—and, of course, they did—even the wounded. The fire continued to rain down all around them.

“Highness, are you going to try to dash for the train?”

“Negative. Keep at them until you force them to withdraw,” Jhayka answered in a pause from digging she could only just allow herself for something of even this import. “We're going to wait it out until they withdraw to reload again.”

“Roger that.”

It turned into a twenty-minute-long private little hell, as they stayed low in the shell craters and dug deeper for as long as they had the strength to do it, more HE shells crashing down around them as the burnt dirt was torn up. And, overhead, the direct-fire energy bolts continued to smash down around the walls of Ar, preventing any pursuit or general attack from being developed.

Fifteen minutes in, it seemed that they were all going crazy from the danger, from the sounds of the shells coming in, from the rumbling of the ground around them, of the dirt sliding back into the holes from the power of the bombardment, when it abruptly slackened. Cheering broke out—the General Faeria had managed to kill one of the SP guns with heavy HE shells alone.

The last five minutes were passed with a renewed hope, and suffering under a lighter bombardment. At last, it ceased entirely, and it seemed as though they were reborn, though Jhayka, ever cautious, forbade them to leave for another minute in case the gunners might clear the tubes by firing a last volley. It didn't happen.

“They're withdrawing,” Captain Arshon confirmed via comm. “You've got your chance. We'll maintain fire with the guns until the last moment.”

“We're coming in, then.” Jhayka pushed herself up, a grand sweep of her right arm, lancing out right forward, giving the obvious signal. In desperate hope, they raced and stumbled and pushed their way up the rest of the embankment, as the fire of the energy weapons tore through the air over their heads with the scent of burning ozone.

They kept at it until within a hundred meters of the train. Then the fire, ripping dangerously close over their heads, was dutifully checked. Those last hundred meters were taken with every last bit of energy in their bodies.

Behind them, the Normans, ever bold, began to push out from their tenuous cover of the blasted rubble of the inner wall, at the gap, as other forces started to issue from the nearest gates.

The platoon reached the doors of the train, opened on the left side from the moment that fire had been checked. And thus, one by one, they staggered on inside. Trajan, carrying Danielle and shepherding the petrified Juliana, who, to her credit, had never hesitated when Trajan had asked her to move, ended third to the last. There was just Ilavna and Jhayka, then, and Jhayka pushed Ilavna up, to be helped by one of the crewers already on the train.

She was alone, standing on the rail embankment. Jhayka turned, and surveyed the Normans issuing forth, surveyed the burning places in the city where she could identify that her platoon had fought, the city that she had left eight dead in. The blasted portion of the wall where hundreds of innocents must have died. The ruined buildings of the wealthy west end. It was time to go...

...But... “The Lord Farzbardor as my witness, I will return and see that those I have lost are given honourable burials,” she spoke softly in High Taloran, and then turned, reached for the handrail beside the door, and hauled herself up into the General Faeria.

“Take us clear, Captain Arshon, and lay down a desultory barrage against those cheeky bastards daring a sally as we go!”

[Steve]

Co-written by Marina and myself, of course


Upper Quarter, Ar, Gilead
4 November 2841
1 January 2163 AST


The High Ministers of the Norman society were gathered in the well-furnished conference room, grim-faced and awaiting their leader's entrance.
When Park entered, it was with Tarl Ikmen, who was clearly shaken and irritated. "To begin, we all owe condolences to our peer Mister Ikmen, who's son was among those killed today by that treacherous alien bitch and her degenerates," Park began. "We have also lost Xueson, who has done so much to help us prepare for what is to come."

"What is to come?" The slightly overweight head of the storekeeper caste spoke with a clear whine. "My brother lost his home and his son today. Our wall is in ruins and everything between the western wall and Xueson's manor has been demolished. And we're still counting the dead!"
"The Taloran woman had barely twenty warriors with her, and they've killed hundreds of our warriors. And her train's modern firepower destroyed our wall and slaughtered even more warriors along the raillines."

Park looked across the room. Most of the faces showed fear and shock. This was natural; Ar had suffered a deadly blow in the day's fighting, and insult had been added to grievous injury by the successful escape of the Taloran and her entourage. Worse, he could now see that the first taste of modern war here in Ar had dampened the enthusiasm of the leadership for the coming fight. "Yes, today has been bad, but we should not lose heart. We had not completed the training of our warrior cadres with the new weapons and better tactics. This setback was to be expected."

"This 'setback' saw thousands of our warriors killed for what? How many enemies died? Three? Four?"
"Eight," Ikmen corrected.
"The matter remains! Ar is not ready for this kind of war." The leader of the blacksmiths slammed a meaty fist on the table. "You have squandered our remaining gold for weapons we cannot use, Ubar! This mad plan of your's to oppose the Confederacy government will never work. You're dooming us all!"
There were nods, save from the reclusive assassin caste leader. "We can deal with the government of Gilead," the leader of the priests remarked. "We should forfeit our new modern weapons and rely upon diplomacy."

"No!" Ikmen stepped forward, being Park to a rebuttal. "You cowards! We have endured forty years of insult and you want to keep cowering in the corner like a misbehaving kayira watching her master get the whip! Our only hope for survival is to strike hard against those weaklings in the tech world! We must assert our independence and ways with strength or we will be destroyed!"
"It is too late anyway," the leader of the warriors spoke calmly. "By now many of our neighbors are learning of this occasion through their agents, and the news will quickly spread that we have modern weapons. The central government will come down on us without hesitation. We must prepare to fight on. I propose we finish mobilizing and march south to pursue the Taloran woman and seize East Port and the armories there, which we can use to arm ourselves and our allies."
"And what of Kalunda?"
"Kalunda will either join us or be destroyed." Ikmen replied. He sneered. "Preferably the latter. Kalundan women make good slaves."

"This is madness!" The storekeepers' leader arose from his seat. "You are dooming us all! The lower castes won't allow you reckless few to drag us into a war that can only end in our annihilation!"
Without any hesitation Ikmen stepped forward and drove a dagger into the storekeeper's throat. He toppled, blood welling up from his throat, and Ikmen tossed his body aside and leveled his bloody dagger toward the others. "I will kill any of you too cowardly to do what is necessary! We shall take back what is our's! We shall honor our predecessors by reclaiming our empire and we will ravage those who disgraced us! Kalundan and Zhai women will fill our slave markets and their silks and horses will fund the new empire we will form while the weak tech worlders tremble in Cranstonville, unwilling to face us! And we shall give them their turn soon enough!"
With a sinister grin Ikmen swept his arm out toward the city view outside the windows, where night was already falling. "This is only the beginning! We have seen the folly of remaining primitive, but just because we embrace the weapons of the tech world doesn't mean we will lose our way! This will be the beginning of a new empire of the Normans, one that may one day stretch out across the ocean and into the tech world, where we will find slaves and gold to satiate all of our hunger for wealth and power!"
"The lower castes will accept this, despite this coward's claims, because they would prefer the glory of the coming battle and the chance to claim their own slaves and new lands instead of allowing the weak techworlders to come to us and force us to give up our slaves and what wealth we have left! We will not be denatured by them! This I swear!"

Some of the ministers nodded, some grumbled, but all relented to Ikmen. Park looked on with some hesitation, and indeed worry, because Ikmen could too easily replace him. "And what of the Taloran woman. She will undoubtedly leave Gilead."
"No. No, I will not allow her to escape." Ikmen's fists clenched. "I will have that bitch on her knees before me. I will personally break her and, when I am through with her, I'll have her impaled and leave her rotting corpse for animals to feed on."


Eastern Region, Gilead


It was nighttime outside the General Faeria as it thundered across the plains toward Kalunda. Within the armored train's confines, Dani began to awake. She found herself clad in a modest robe with an IV attached to her hand. Her head hurt a little and her ears were ringing. After a moment Dani also began to feel tendrils of pain across her back, bringing to mind the brutal whipping she had suffered. Other pains were present but light.
Dani looked to her side and saw Jhayka in the easy-chair beside the bed, asleep and covered by a blanket. So we escaped. Bits and pieces of the vicious battle came to Dani's mind, but she could not remember any particulars. I wonder what will happen now. She sighed deeply.

Jhayka had bathed. She had to; she forced herself to stay awake to bathe because it was a cleansing ritual, really. To remove the stench and the horror and the legacy of combat from the body. Smells are primal, and she hadn't really left the field until she'd slipped into the bathe, and scraped and steamed and sweated away the smells of the fight and replaced them with the calm relaxing scents of the vihta, that overwhelmed her and restored her body; hair pleasant, skin clean and pleasant; it was like a different world. She'd only been able to slip into a robe and head for room, then, when Ilavna had sheepishly stopped her and told her that Danielle was on her bed; with the personnel of the Ar railroad depot evacuated onto the train, there had been nowhere else for her, and the little medical bay of the train was crowded with the more seriously injured of the railroad personnel. Jhayka had just acceded to the fact of the situation gracefully, taking a blanket and falling into her plush recliner in slippers and robe, curled up, her pink hair undone and splayed out behind her, ears comfortably settled slightly forward. And then she had slept for a long time. Danielle had, too; they must have slept for many hours, perhaps close to twelve, by then, and Jhayka's body's demands for sleep did not easily relinquish their hold over her mind.

As she awoke more fully Dani realized she wasn't as well off as she'd felt. Feeling the need to use the restroom, she sat up gently and swung her legs to the edge of her bed.
Well, it was more of a try. As she moved pain rippled up her legs. Her muscles were stiff and unresponsive. Dani winced, clenching her teeth so that she wouldn't make a noise and wake Jhayka up. With her right hand Dani gripped the wheeled pole her IV was attached to and began to limp toward the bathroom. Her right arm proved as unwilling to move as her legs, and it was with great effort that she made her way across the room to the bathroom. She closed the door behind her.

Jhayka began to wake up then, more or less from the lack of presence of Danielle. She had an excellent spatial presence; it was easy for her to wake up from the mere absence of something, as she did now, as it was for her to wake up when disturbed, and Danielle's movement, and the feeling of her being gone, roused her from her groggy state. She glanced around, and frowned deeply at once on seeing Danielle gone, trying to figure out just where she might be.. A claw of worry gripped at her heart and she sat straight up, and then relaxed, for by the time she was fully awake, she could hear and see the door to the suite's bathroom opening. Stupid. "How are you doing, Danielle?" Jhayka asked most quietly, and a bit subdued.

"Lousy," was the reply from within the bathroom. "Did I wake you? Sorry."

"It comes with the territory," Jhayka answered. "I'm fine. It's been eleven and a half hours anyway," she added a moment later, and then fell silent, not wanting to disturb Danielle and feeling a bit odd talking through the wall.

"I'll be out in a bit," was Dani's reply. While she finished her business, Dani thought little more of anything.
Finally she was done. After flushing and washing her hands Dani limped back out into the bedroom, facing Jhayka. "Eleven hours? We must be almost to Kalunda then."

"Something like that. We should get there somewhat after dawn, I do believe. The rising sun will be very beautiful." Jhayka gestured to the bed. "Do you need any help laying down again? You were worked to within an inch of your life, you realize, and then all the movement through the city was scarcely helpful to your condition, either."

"Don't worry, I can make it." Dani winced while limping back to the bed. It was slow going. "I can't remember much. Is Illavna okay? Lyle? And the others?"

"Ilavna was hit in the shoulder. Corporal Madsen is dead." A grimace was obvious, there, though she held Danielle's eyes as she continued. "He was hit by our own artillery barrage on the way out. Unfortunately, I had to order it in close to the platoon to keep the Norman battalion pressing on us from getting to grips at close quarters. It was very tense for a while in there--we lost eight altogether."

Dani's heart sank. Tears began to well up into her eyes as she struggled toward the bed. She was within a couple of steps when she fell to her knees, her free left hand covering her face. She began sobbing. "Oh God, it's all my fault. It's all my fault..."

Jhayka pushed herself up and made her way to Danielle, reaching to help her up. "Come on, let's get you to bed, you don't want that IV coming out," Jhayka spoke calmly. "Please. It wasn't your fault at all. It was mine. It was my responsibility to swear an oath to rescue you, it was my responsibility to carry it through at the cost of those under my power. It was my responsibility, ultimately, to decide to support you in every way. I have been a brigade commander before; I've had to report the deaths of hundreds to their families. It was my responsibility then, too. That's the responsibility I was bred to uphold. Do not take it upon yourself when it was my choices alone that brought this about it. Please, Danielle. You deserve better than that."

Dani accepted Jhayka's hand and strained to get back up. "I was so stupid," she wept. "I'm no spy. I should have found another way." She let Jhayka lead her back to the bed. "It's my fault you had to rescue me in the first place."

"It was morally right of you," Jhayka replied gently. "You were being loyal to your friend. And we will get her back eventually, wherever she is. I promise you that. We're stuck together now, anyway, if for no other reason than I'll want you there as a witness if I'm called before the Convocate to explain my actions. Though I'm not really worried. It would be very unlikely for them to strip me of immunity, seeing as my course of action was morally correct. I'm frankly more worried now about what's going to happen here. You should be glad, Danielle," a wry look. "You have uncovered a very serious plot on the part of the Normans. Blown it wide open, as a matter of fact."

Dani's sobs quieted a little. "Was it worth that, Jhayka? Was it worth finding out about those weapons?"

"I'm not sure yet. Regardless, it was worth it in that you were trying to rescue Fayza. The rest is just a bonus, if it should be counted at all," Jhayka replied simply as she helped Danielle settle back into bed. "Come on, Danielle, I don't want you to think those deaths were your fault.." Her look was certainly concerned. "I want you to remember that you were indisposed of, to put it mildly, at the time that I made my decision. And none of it was something you could have influenced. You didn't know what was going to happen; I am the one who made a very conscious choice to risk those under my command."

Dani nodded slowly at that. Again, Jhayka was insistant on taking the responsibility, even if in Dani's heart she felt guilt over what happened. And Dani knew she'd never win if she tried to fight for the burden of responsibility. "Jhayka..." She took one of Jhayka's hands into her own. Her heart began to rise again in her chest. "I...." Try as she might, Dani could not think of more to say. She swallowed hard. There was so much she wanted to say, so many emotions roiling through her, but none of the words that came to mind did her feelings justice. "Thank you. I.... I don't know what would have happened to me if not for you."

"There's no thanks needed. I did what was my oath-sworn duty," Jhayka replied with a calm sort of noble bearing, sad, though, for it had come at a stiff price. She wrapped her free hand around Danielle's as well. Her hands were much warmer than her face, and perhaps their touch spoke more than her face ever could. Then, she spoke very softly, and very gently, probing. "Ilavna didn't have the time to check. So I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you. They didn't rape you, did they, Danielle?" Her voice held a querrelous quality at that, a great hesitancy at even answering the question and a fear of the answer.

Dani breathed and softly shook her head. "That was about the only thing he didn't do to me."

"Well. Our Lord showeth mercy," Jhayka seemed to deflate in tension, and a slight, warm smile touched her lips. "You'll be better as soon as we can get you into a full-scale Kalundan hospital with proper facilities for the quick regeneration of wounds on a human. After the wounded are taken care of, and the issue of the railway company employees handled, well, I guess we'll stay there to assess the situation. It recommends itself that we leave, but the discovery of the arms has changed everything. I must, at the least, confer with King Julio. This planet is soon going to be the midst of a civil war--within weeks, if not days."

There was nothing that could be done about that. "Maybe he'll find a way to deal with this without that." A pause. "How long will it take for me to heal? Does Illavna have any idea?"

"It's just superficial. Your joints will be sore for weeks, but other than that, once you've had regenerator treatments, two or three days to be completed healed. And one can work around soreness." She was still smiling, there, and holding Danielle's hand. "The scars will, of course, last longer, though you can have them removed eventually if you want. They're not exactly in the right place to be bragging scars."

Dani smiled weakly. "Yeah. Not the kind of thing you want the girls on the beach to see when you walk by in a bikini." She winced at the memory that was causing pain to shoot along the lines of her back. "I felt like I was getting smacked by razor blades. Did it look that bad?"

"You didn't have skin on your back. You still don't--it's covered by a wound sealant at the moment," Jhayka answered flatly. "I've seen what such whips can do, they tear out great gouges of flesh, and it was applied liberally to you. I'm sorry."

"Ah," was Dani's simple response. Then, much to her surprise, she yawned. She felt tired despite the sleep she'd already had. Feeling one last bit of comedy in her, Dani's grin returned. "I don't suppose they made me taller when they stretched me out like a rubber band, did they?"

"I suppose they might have been a little. Temporarily, anyway... ...Not used to being the short one, are you?" Jhayka querried, rather deadpan, all things said.

Dani giggled. "No." And then she yawned again. "I've been out for how long, why do I still feel tired?"

"Because your body is healing major flesh wounds," Jhayka answered laconically. "I should let you sleep, that said. There's a lot that I've got to go through now that I've rested--and, ugh, I need to eat something, too. I haven't had anything since breakfast yesterday morning. That's been nearly twenty-four hours, and.. Well, it was quite the battle. If I hadn't been doing it on my own time, it would be one for the histories of my old unit." A sigh. "There were many more than just eight people killed yesterday. Many of them likely deserved it; a fair number more didn't. But don't worry about that. You can see what combat footage as we have once you've slept again. I'll go eat, and then start on inventories, and check on you later, alright?"

Dani nodded, replied, "All right," and laid her head back on the pillow. As Jhayka turned to leave, Dani reached a hand up and called out, "One more thing." The grin became more of a friendly smile. "Please, start calling me 'Dani'."

"I've tried to before but it's a bit uncomfortable, being so informal..." A wry look. "I suppose there's nothing to worry about now, though. You're sleeping in my bed." Jhayka shrugged faintly. "Alright then, Dani. Consider it done. But you're going to go back to sleep now."

Dani nodded. "Yes, I am." She immediately closed her eyes and soon drifted off into sleep.

Jhayka watched Danielle drift back to sleep, and only then moved to step into her attached wardrobe, and dress there before heading out. Comfortable pantaloons and modest blouse, nothing more. Her sword belt, with sword, had been thoughfully emplaced there for her by Ilavna, somehow, in the midst of all the hectic things Ilavna was doing while wounded like she was, herself, and tending to the rest of the wounded. Jhayka shook her head in bemused wonderment at the efficiency of the girl, and then headed out. Though she didn't want to say it to Danielle, and had managed to avoid doing so, they were scarcely out of hot water yet. But the reprieve was nice, and tested in combat, Jhayka was again confident that she could see the fiasco that Gilead was turning into to a safe conclusion, for herself, for the people. But most of all, for the human woman left sleeping wounded on her bed.

[Steve]

Written by Marina and myself:

Kalunda, Gilead
5 November 2841
2 January 2163 AST


Julio was roused from his sleep by a call. He lifted the receiver off it's base upon his nightstand and heard Sarina Kellius' voice on the other end. "Majesty, we've just heard from the train station. Princess Jhayka's train has arrived. She has wounded aboard and has also asked to speak with you."
"Summon my guard. I'll be right there." Julio slipped out of bed, bewildered. Reports from Ar were still sketchy, but the gist of it had revealed Jhayka as being the cause of the attack in some way. He wondered just what the Normans had done to provoke her, since he was quite sure she hadn't been seeking a fight.

Throwing on a camo uniform, Julio met a detail from the Crimson Guard in the hall outside his bedroom and made his way to the private rail car that brought him to the train station. As he approached, the silhouette of the General Faeria could be made out from the lights behind it, reminding him of the heavy guns mounted upon it. Guns that, by all reports, had made short work of the "invincible" Wall of Ar.

The rails pulled up and Julio found himself beat by a medical team from the Royal Hospital, which was tending now to wounded wearing the uniforms of Eastern Rail Ltd. He continued on toward the train to find Princess Jhayka.


Jhayka had already been in conference while traveling with the management of Eastern Rail, Ltd. They were not pleased, though they were not given to immediate retaliation, even though their corporate body was armed, because Ar was a valuable customer, and it had been a genuine accident, it seemed. On the other hand, they had agreed to send out several priority trains that Jhayka had requested from East Port, and arrange their loading. Then she'd made several calls to some agents she'd gotten to know in the city while assembling the armoured train. Now that they were in Kalunda, the unloading of the wounded was proceeding. Jhayka and Ilavna alike were themselves wounded, but with modern medical technology it wasn't serious, and so Ilavna had simply gone about transmitting the information to the Royal Hospital medical teams on the status of the patients and arranging for their unloading. Jhayka was coordinating, vaguely, but with Ilavna on top of things she was mostly waiting...

...When Julio approached, she caught the movement and turned, bowing politely from the waist. She was dressed in massively flaring-legged pants and a modest blouse, both black, with a long greatcoat of drab green hanging over them, and her sword at her side, looking none the worse for wear now that she'd had eleven hours of sleep and two baths since the fight; along with, of course, a lot of food. "Your Majesty. I apologize for bringing the evidence of War upon your nation, but the medical treatment required is, for most, rather immediate, and they were neutrals caught up in the fighting for the most part, anyway. My soldiers, ought be treated last, though it grieves my heart to say it."

"That is understandable. However, I am more concerned with what has happened." Julio's expression was grave. "We've gotten reports from Ar, but so far nothing of strong substance. What happened?"


Jhayka put a hand to her head tiredly. "They're arming for a guerrilla war, Your Majesty. We encountered--and essentially destroyed--an operational company of light infantry support guns. We also have evidence that they have extensive numbers of heavy self-propelled guns and maybe some tanks--the later is a guess, but an educated one. They're thoroughly equipped with small arms, and are demonstrating large numbers of mortars and rocket launchers, lots of small civilian off-road vehicles modified with automatic support weapons, they're called technicals, that sort of thing. I'd say that they have modern weapons for at least 70% of the fighting age male population--fifteen to sixty, say--and lots of heavy explosives." A pause, a breath. "Miss Verdes found out, accidentally, while she was looking for her friend, Fayza. They captured her in the restricted areas and began to torture her, but one of Xueson's mercenaries had already pledged his support to me, for reasons I prefer not to explain at the moment, and reported suspicious activity, which I was able to confirm. So I armed my retainers, and killed Xueson and rescued Miss Verdes."

"Unfortunately the Normans were fully alerted, and armed themselves also and turned out the civic muster; so I had no choice but to fight my way out of the city, and ask the General Faeria to demolish the walls and provide fire support. I lost eight soldiers getting out of the city, including one old veteran of my brigade. But we got clear; and the General Faeria fought off a general attack. We did heavy damage to some quarters of the city, destroyed about four hundred meters of the walls, either partially or entirely, and, I'd say, inflicted thousands of casualties on them. But we scarcely touched their modern war-making potential, and from a city of a million, the casualties they took can be absorbed right enough. They are now a power, and a power against the government, at that."


Julio's jaw clenched as he heard Jhayka give her report of the happenings. Things were starting to make dreadful sense now. "It appears I was wrong. Please, excuse me for a moment, Highness." Julio took out the specialized cellular phone and keyed it to the city's military command. As the line was secured, those on the other end would know it was him. "Begin mobilization procedures immediately and have Minister Kellius meet me here ASAP."
"Yes, Your Majesty," was the reply on the other end.
Putting the phone away, Julio looked to Jhayka. "I took the precaution of making early preparation when we learned of the fighting in Ar," Julio explained. "This is a very bad situation, Princess. If the Normans have armed themselves with modern weapons, they pose a threat to every sovereign society in the Eastern Region. I will need to make this an issue in Cranstonville." Frowning, he added, "But I am quite sure that this will not be resolved peacefully, now it cannot. And, I fear, the Normans will cause more than just a local guerrilla war. I fear that the Gilean Confederacy will be torn asunder. It may be advisable to you, Highness, to quickly make preparations to depart Gilead for your homeworld."


"I have no intention of leaving, Your Majesty. I'll stay in the city, here. The railroad company can be brought to support us easily enough, accident or not having been the cause of the losses to their employees, if general war commences, and I've sent for ammunition already. It would be false of me to abandon you if the hammer is to fall against you as a result of this spark that I have set, by my own decisions. And, at any rate, the bodies of some of my soldiers were left back in Ar, and I should like to retrieve them. If you do not want my help--and it is no small thing, for I am a trained siege engineer and, by your gregorian count, a sixty-year veteran of the Pioneers, half-pay furloughed with the rank of Brigadier." She stretched out rather gracefully, though she winced slightly from the strain on a still-healing wound. "Your choice. I can fight my own war on the railroads, for a while at least, should it come to it. I am already facing a trial before the Convocate for my actions, to be sure, and holding firm will be better for me now than to cut and run."


A thin smile appeared on Julio's face. "Yes, that is impressive. Well, Highness, if you insist, I will gladly accept your aid if it becomes necessary, and if it is acceptable you will be at that time be granted my commission at an appropriate rank. Normally our women go into the Guard and the men into the Army or Militia, but given your race and noble rank, the choice between the Guard and Army will be your's to make."


Jhayka thought for a moment, ears bent down with her head as she mused, and finally replied: "Give me that commission, and your weakest and your worst troops, Your Majesty--or even the musters of the militia, if you so prefer it. There is still enough time to make soldiers of them, and it will give me something to do. Your army and your guard has its own customs, I am sure; I do not want to interfere with these. Let me take the clay of those who are the least-sure in their traditions, and mould them into something better. With training, and with solid officers, any soldiers can become heroes. Provided, of course, they are given the chance to bleed." She added darkly at the end, for she surely expected that it would happen. "In the meantime, I would suggest that you acquire all the weapons which can be got here before a Norman army could arrive, by hook or crook. I'll provide you with a list of suggestions of additional equipment on top of that, useful for supporting the defence of the city."


For a moment nothing was said. Julio was, honestly, hoping that the Normans might yet be convinced to stand down. If he brought Jhayka in, however, there would be a fight. In fact, another ruler in his stead might have dismissed Jhayka and banked on maintaining peace with the Normans and perhaps a joint stand with them against the government.
But Julio knew the Normans too well. If they had modern weapons, they would inevitably turn them against their neighbors. They yearned for a new empire above all else. Even if their initial intention was to fight the Confederacy government, they would end up attacking Kalunda and other nations bordering them in due time. There was nothing else to be done.
"I will make the arrangements for you to be invested as Marshal of the Kalundan Militia. And on another note, I may as well tell you that earlier this week I received a note from Ubar Park, inviting me to attend a summit in three weeks time in which all of the Eastern Region's leaders would be present. I now believe he was intending to ask me to form an alliance against the government."


"Well, I do not think it likely that you fancy to have me lead your militia against the government," Jhayka smiled grimly, and pushing back her greatcoat settled her left hand upon the pommel of her sword. "So we shall start preparing to stand a siege, then, Your Majesty?"


"Yes." Julio's smile now matched Jhayka's in it's grim nature. "It appears that for the second time in my life I will have to endure a Norman siege of my city. I do not intend to have the same result as before and force my citizens to repeat the feats of Jovina and the veteran Janissaries who covered my unwilling escape the last time." Julio subconsciously rubbed his jaw at the memory of one of his retainers, the Duke d'Kellius - the father of Amber and Sarina Kellius - knocking him out with a single punch so that he could be smuggled out of the city under the protection of the younger Janissaries as their mothers and commanders fought the victorious Normans to the last woman, a glorious stand that saw the Duke killed and not a single Janissary being taken captive. "This time, I don't have the Duke d'Kellius to strike me. Kalunda's fate is going to be my fate. So, Marshal, what equipment do you desire?"

"Bulldozers," Jhayka answered simply. "And any vehicle which can be modified into one. Backhoes will also work for some things. Tunneling machines. Chemical refining mechanisms, if you can get them. I'd like a list of all the industrial equipment in the city. Lathes. Do you have a nuclear or other uninterruptible power-source for the city? That will make things much easier. Milling machines and stamping presses. Scrap metal. Rubber or plastic clothing materials. Salpetre--abandoned underground areas should have it if we can't get enough quickly. Charcoal can be made on site. Sulphur. Try to secure as many of the river boats as you can in the city. And again, make sure you bring in all the armaments that you can. We'll fight outside the city, first, berms and trenches in as many layers as we can make. And then we'll fight from the walls, and when they're gone--and they'll go, if the siege lasts that long--we'll fight street to street. The new factory districts, the palaces, every building that civilians won't be stuffed into for shelter, we'll turn into a fortress, to be held at all costs. The fighting in a siege with modern weapons does not hinge on the walls. It is carried on room-to-room. When they have taken all the buildings of the cities, well, we'll try to have dug as many tunnels as possible, and utilized all the tunnels and caves and underground spaces you already have. I'll need maps. Then we'll fight in those, and keep fighting, until we are all buried alive or burned out or flooded. They will pay with the life of a man for every square meter they must take. Everyone will be mobilized for either the production of military equipment or fighting. No trench, no section of the wall, no building, no cave, will fall without having first offered resistance."


Julio nodded as each item was listed off. He had called his military HQ again and made sure they got every item as it was read off.
As this part of the discussion continued, a figure was coming up from the station. It was only just after Julio had confirmed that the HQ got the entire list when Amber walked up, wearing camo as Julio was complete with beret. She saluted him. "Your Majesty?"

"It appears the fighting in Ar was worse than we thought. Princess Jhayka and her entourage uncovered Norman stocks of modern weaponry."
Amber's face lost a bit of color. "Oh no. That means...."
"They were planning an uprising, no doubt. I have already ordered full mobilization."
There was a nod in reply and then Amber looked to Jhayka. "Highness, if I may, where is Miss Verdes? Was she hurt? Is she okay?"


"She was tortured by the Norman retainer, Xueson, in contravention of their customs of hospitality, Lady d'Kellius," Jhayka answered rather bitterly, turning toward the train. "We got her out alive, and she should be exiting the train soon--her condition is stable so she was not one of the immediate evacuees. But she'll need several days in the hospital, at least, to recover fully. She was the one who found out about their weapons stockpiles, so you have her to thank for it. We just got her clear of the city."

A pause, and a breath was taken, whilst she gestured vaguely and looked back to the two. "It was probably the most difficult combat of my life, and I have lived a long one. They're very courageous men, and we only got out because they were inexperienced with their modern weaponry. There were several occasions where we were outnumbered a hundred to one, or more, and with two non-combatants to protect, it was a severe trial. Yet Trajan--Xueson's man who came over to me, of the clans of the ADN--protected her entirely from further harm, after Ilavna Lashila had done a splendid job of patching her up. She'll be fighting fit in time for.. What is going to come after this."


"I'll send messages to the other rulers of what is going on. They must be warned of the Normans' new arms." Julio looked to Amber. "We need to get the military on alert and the reserves called up. And we'll need for those weapons we've stockpiled to be distributed, and for the resources and equipment Marshal itl dhin Intuit requested to be procured. We may only have a week.... or simply days. Even now I'm sure the Normans are making preparations to send troops south to pursue the Princess and her armored train."
Amber nodded. "I will get right on it, Majesty." She saluted and Julio dismissed her.

Looking to Jhayka, Julio asked, "Are you well? Do you need rest?"


"I rested well on the trip here. I'll be sending my riding animals back to East Port on the company trains, and conducting further modifications to the train. Captain Arshon will command it, of course; I'll take my picked veterans with me to establish a core of officers for the militia with combat experience." Jhayka stretched slightly.. And then smiled, as she saw a stretcher bearing Danielle being brought out of the train. "At any rate, I'll want to move back into the city, Your Majesty, and get my household set up.. But if you'll excuse me for a moment...?"

Julio nodded in reply.


Dani had been jostled awake when the attendants had attempted to gently move her from Jhayka's bed to the stretcher. Aside from answering questions about her condition, she had remained silent while being wheeled through the train and out into the Kalundan station. She turned her head briefly and saw Jhayka approach, briefly noticing King Julio standing near Jhayka.


Jhayka paused, gesturing for them to hold the stretcher for a moment, as she bent down, and braved a smile to the wounded human woman. "Well, Danielle, they'll have you fixed up almost good as new in a few days. I'll be along to see you at the hospital this evening. Right now I'm... Handling some rather important matters with His Majesty." A wry grin. "I've gotten a rather hefty promotion, to. His Majesty has made me commander of the militia of Kalunda. Unfortunately, of course.. This means it may be a while before I get to show you the family estates."


Dani looked at her and reached a hand out for Jhayka to take. "It can wait. We have more important things to deal with right now."


Jhayka grasped Danielle's hand gently between her own, holding it as she spoke. "Yes. At least our seasons are long, so you will not miss much by my time spent tarrying here. Though.." A breath, unsteady. "If you want, Danielle, I could arrange for a railway train leaving for East Port to take you a board. I'm sure the Duchess d'Kellius would concur with that proposal; she asked after you. And from there, a connection to the safety of the tech regions can easily be made, or even orbit. That I am staying does not force you to do so, as well, certainly not."


"I have nowhere to go. I don't have the slightest clue where to look for Fay, I have nobody at home now, and I don't have a career either." Dani shook her head. "I'm not leaving you here, Jhayka. I've had a part in this too and I'm not going to leave you to clean up the mess alone. And even though I'm a starship engineer specifically, I'm still an engineer, and I can help you arrange the city's defense."

Dani's hand tensed as she gripped one of Jhayka's, while the other remained clasped upon the back of her hand. Her eyes, green and brilliant, had a subconscious luster to them. "I'm staying, Jhayka. We'll do this together or die trying."


"I'll look forward to having you at my side in the days ahead," Jhayka answered with a shiver, squeezing Danielle's hand. "Get better swiftly. I want you on your feet, if you're going to stay." She smiled very fondly as she said that, though the smile on her lips was rather sad, and slight, for the circumstances, after all, were scarcely good ones.


"I'll be back in no time." Dani tried to make her smile less melancholy, if only to cheer the rather grim mood a little. "We'll make those bastards pay."


Another squeeze of Danielle's hand. "Yes. That we will. Now, go get better, Danielle. I'll see you tonight." Very reluctantly, she let go of Danielle's hand.


Dani brought her hand back onto the stretcher. As she was pushed away, she suddenly called out, "And you're still forgetting to call me Dani!", winking at Jhayka as the attendants, who'd stopped for a moment, resumed pushing her to a waiting train car.


Jhayka looked back, and then in something very un-typical of her, replied loudly: "Well, Dani, I promise I'll remember someday!" The familiar interplay was probably not what the King had expected, but she walked back to him, after having waved to Danielle, quite contented, and with a slight smile.


"Well, Your Majesty. There is a lot of work to be done, and not much time. But first, if you can have the specifications for the uniform sent to my tailor." The smile brightened a trace. "I should like to get settled in, for it seems I am going to be spending much longer in your fine city than I had originally expected."

[Steve]

First bit is by me, the news bit is by Marina.

Cranstonville, Gilead
5 November 2841
2 January 2163 AST


Tessa was again seated with some of her associates. General de la Hoya, the leader of the Gilean military chiefs favoring the coup, and Marlborough, the MI6 spychief in Gilead, were with her, as was a dour Israeli she had just been introduced to, Isiah Shameel.
"The fighting in Ar is a precursor of worse to come," de la Hoya said. "Satellite recordings confirm that Norman forces counter-attacked the Taloran woman's troops with modern weaponry. They've been violating their charter, and the only reason a society like the Normans would accept modern weaponry is if they planned rebellion against the central government."
"We may have to move sooner than anticipated, depending on what the Normans do." Marlborough looked to Tessa. "You need to contact King Julio or one of his advisors and see if you can find out more of what's going on. Maybe, with this revelation, we can finally get Kalunda on board."
"I'll try."
"How are our preparations for getting more support?" This question was aimed at de la Hoya.
"Contacts in the Kamasawa enclave's militia indicate strong support for the coup," de la Hoya replied. He went on to explain other advances made, but Tessa could not get her mind off Julio's warnings.... and what the new developments would mean for their plans.


QUESADIA DAILY POST

Princess of Lesser Intu'it caught in neo-barb city on anarchist world of Gilead; besieged with a hundred men by tens of thousands of barbarian hordes...

While conducting ethnographic studies on the planet Gilead in the so-called 'CON-5' universe, Jhayka the Princess itl dhin Intu'it, was, it is reported on sources of good account, ambushed in the great barbarian city of Ar, population numbering more than a million. The world of Gilead is inhabited by debased and primitive humans, who have universally abandoned monotheism and have devolved to the most horrific and extreme forms of pre-Farzian despotic civilization as existed only in the far-flung reaches of Talora Prime, millennia past.

In an effort to understand the behaviours of these savage tribes, the Princess idn Lesser Intu'it was conducting an extensive survey of their general customs and mannerism, when, motivated by superstitious fervour that grew from the charitable efforts of the Farzian Priestess of Her Highness' reutine to save their debased souls, thinking that her work would anger their Gods, the peoples of Ar flung aside the conventions of hospitality and the thin veneer of civilization they possessed and descended in hordes, young and old, to waylay the Princess and her party for the purpose of enslaving them in their fiendish and satanic system of ritual captivity. Fortunately alerted by other expatriots in the city, a fighting retreat was conducted through the town with the aide of the guns of the armoured train, the General Faeria, which then left immediately for the friendly city of Kalunda, long-opposed to Ar, that city having previously received Her Highness with all the pomp and ostentation of a luxurious despotate.

The Arrians, filled with their savage thirst for vengeance at the devastation Her Highness wrought on their city for their capricious ambush, at once mustered their allies from the surrounding regions and set out with an army of, altogether, more than one hundred thousand barbarian warriors to besiege Kalunda, with many more moving to join them. This enemy prevented Her Highness from effecting an escape from the city, where she is now besieged by this great barbarian host, and commands by her superiour skill at arms the forces of the terrified Despot of Kalunda, who's resistance to the great hosts before his city, we are told on good information, is supposed by the determined stand of the foreign expatriots of the various civilized nations of the universe who, caught there, and possessing a higher moral fibre as believers in One God and as citizens of nations which know of Law, have taken it upon themselves to save Kalunda from the enemy which the Kalundans themselves cannot otherwise face, out of their awe for their numbers and barbaric pomp, save when given the stern example of higher peoples when faced with danger from evil.

In light of this it seems natural that Her Highness has refused any evacuation from the city by the stellar forces of the Gilean Confederacy, unless they militarily intervene to save the people of Kalunda from the vast host confronting them. Though this report is unsubstantiated it is said that the Viceroy of the New Territories is taking it very seriously, along with an appeal supposedly received from Her Highness for the relief of the city, in lieu of any action by the government of the Gilean Confederacy to restore order over the situation. In no case, besides, has any provision been made for the great number of expatriots in Kalunda, long considered the most stable city of the region, of whom it could not be reasonably expected of any noble to abandon.

The situation therefore seems one of a disturbing type, played out on many neo-barb worlds, where the complete ineffectiveness of the local governing regimes has forced a desperate defence on the part of civilization. Her Highness is in a most severe danger, yet has stood her ground to persevere a siege of Kalunda for the sake of the downtrodden masses of that city. Of the Princess itl dhin Intu'it, it has been most often said that she is a champion of the lower classes, and though this has brought scandal upon her name due to the late Ghastiok Affair, her handling of the reality of that situation and the threat to the person of Her Serene Majesty was impeccable in loyalty and the execution of duty in a judicious fashion. Now, having taken extended sabbatical from the Intu'it, it seems that her usual behaviour remains the same, and her determination is now to hold the city of Kalunda for the sake of the huddled and miserable within its walls.

Unfortunately, there is every indication that her life and the lives of those within the city are in the greatest of danger, and that the government of Gilead is completely incapable of intervening in the situation. Being simultaneously a highly loose and weak federal organization, in which the autonomous regions, even those filled with primitive savages, have a right of veto over the actions of the government, and a government subjected to strange whims of democracy in which those same savages have full voting rights, chaos has inevitably prevailed in the worlds of the Gilean Confederacy, and they have suffered numerous outbreaks of the vile practice of enslaving sentient beings, particularly for uses to horrific to detail in this publication. For this they have been previously chastised, but the British government has refused to take serious action, finding the weakness of Gilead admirable for her designs on controlling the trade of the CON-5 universe.

Due to this it is simply unknowable as to if any force to relieve Her Highness can be mustered, and from whence it will come, for even the efforts of our own gallant Imperial Army might be useless if they are prevented from acting by the British. At any rate, the time to mobilize an expedition may be great, and so every Taloran soul must watch the stand of Her Highness with somewhat baited breath, knowing that the prospects are grim, no matter the undoubted courage of a (half-pay) Brigadier of the Pioneers, when faced with the capricious whims of a democratic regime in combination with the hosts of the savages that they harbour.

Further reports from Gilead will be continuously provided, and we are hastening correspondents to the Confederacy as the story develops.

[Steve]

Kalunda, Gilead
8 November 2841
5 January 2163 AST

Drilling, drilling, drilling, with everyone she could spare from her Company now as officers of the militia, and the train's ranks replaced by the best and brightest of the militia wherever they could be, so that those more experienced and trained in war-fighting could lead and organize the militia regiments, and the reduction in the competency of the crew of the General Faeria could be made up for with sheer numbers of the comparatively great population of Kalunda. Jhayka had been intensely busy, sleeping little, and yet had managed to bathe daily, to come out fully pressed in her uniform, and, on each of those nights, to dine with the King and discuss strategy with him. Now she was coming home after the latest of her desperate efforts, overseeing the materials brought into the city continuously on the trains arriving as fast as they could and being sent back for more materials, even as she prepared the industries of the city for a siege, and all equipment was being used to dig ditches, raise berms, reinforce the walls with dirt, prepare the buildings as strongpoints, and even citizens with shovels were used when they could find no other useful work for them except to put their backs into it. And all the while, of course, she worked to make the militia as ready for the fight as possible, and oversaw the distribution of fresh supplies of arms. Now, at last, she was heading 'home', to prepare for her evening dinner with the King, except that there was to be a welcome surprise as she headed into her suites.

Dani looked up from where she was sitting when Jhayka came into the suite. She was adorned in a long one-piece silk robe that flowed from shoulders to ankles, loose but just tight enough over her to reveal slight hints as to her figure. Her movements were still a bit stiff, though it didn't stop her from basic work given the scribblings on the paper sitting in the tray on her lap. It was a boat - not just any one, but a lightly armored nimble one that could survive anything up to anti-armor rounds that could be used to not just defend the river but also carry direct-fire support guns. "Jhayka, welcome back," she said, standing.

"Oh! But it's wonderful to see you in one piece, Dani.." Jhayka sighed happily and walked over. She did not, of course, actually go so far as to touch Dani, but at least called her by the short-form of her name and seemed to express some actual emotion. "I've been waiting for you to get out of the hospital, believe me, I'm very glad to see you fit again.." A dark look touched her, as she stood respectfully there. "It was horrible when we first found you.. I suppose all you remember is mostly the pain." A pause, uncomfortable: "I'll tell you about the fight out of the city some time, in detail, if you don't remember it; it was a rough thing, but also splendid, to see us all wounded and streaming with blood and multitudes slain. Not the sort of sight that is supposed to be seen in modern war; not like the wars I have fought. But then, it was more a feat of honour." Jhayka smiled sadly, but also pleased. "It has been a long time since I felt that--doing something honourable like that, rescuing you. If only we could have gotten free-clear; but that is the reason I've stayed here, you know. I must go back for the dead. You will stay by my side, until we have done this, yes?"

"Of course." Dani smiled gently at her. "They told me you were busy, and it took me days for them to let me do something on my own. I've been thinking about some river gunboats. We could use direct-fire howitzers and heavy infantry arms to provide support. I got a list of some of the materials we have to work with, but I'm not sure the boats will be able to hold heavy armor, so I might need to design them an armored escort, maybe if we can get some elec...." Dani suddenly stopped. "Oh, I can't believe I'm so rude. I just launch right into business."

"It's alright," Jhayka said gently. "You're worried about the situation at hand, though," a faintly devious look followed. "You need to gain some more experience in the terminology of land combat. A howitzer is a high-angle weapon intended for indirect fire, Dani."

Dani cringed. "Aagh. I thought it was a generic term for a big frickin' gun. Okay, what do you call a direct fire gun? Something we couldn't just shoot over our own walls?"

"A cannon," Jhayka answered promptly, and then clarified: "Cannon are low-angle, direct-fire weapons. Howitzers are high-angle, indirect fire weapons. Mortars are extremely high angle weapons for plunging fire. You're looking to mount cannons on ships, which is quite good. I have some spare barrels brought in, but they're rather heavy, so we can mount at most one on the sort of ship we're thinking of... I can hook you up to the materials database this evening if that would help? It's organized with everything we have available for the construction of military engines."

"That'd be good." Dani sighed. "Unfortunately, the basic stuff is all I'm good for. My specialty is starship power and drive systems, plus I've gotten pretty good at Gauss Cannon tech. But we don't exactly have need for a matter-antimatter reactor or a Cochrane drive and I doubt we have the materials to build a forty-four point four centimeter hypervelocity coilgun, nor would it be that useful." Dani's expression was sheepish as she settled back into her chair and handed Jhayka her design. "What do you think so far?"

"It can work. I suggest, though, that we switch out a few of the machinegun emplacements for pumps--we've been working on modifying a large number of fire-pumps which can be hooked up to generators. They are intended defensively, but it now occurs to me that they could be used on boats very effectively. You see, we're modifying them to project liquid napalm--flamethrowers." Jhayka sighed. "More than that, I'd like to look at putting in an air generator to create positive-pressure in the crew spaces, since we're probably going to be using gas at times. I'm not sure what ADN law on the matter, though we're reluctant, we can use chemical weapons. There's supplies of both prussic acid and chlorine here, along with some chloropicrin and phosgene--all for the developing industrial industry of Kalunda, or as insecticides and fumigants. I'm working on creating--ah, I think you'd call it sarin--out of dimethyl methylphosphonate. They're all common industrial chemicals, and unfortunately we don't have enough of any--except Chlorine, which is the weakest--to make any really big impact, but they should be quite the surprise each time they're used, since I don't think the Normans have purchased protective gear. I thought to tell you about that in case you had any moral objections to the use of chemical weapons, so you'd know about it well in advance."

Dani was silent for a few moments. "Well, I.... I don't like the thought of using those kinds of weapons, but it's no worse than what the Normans want to do to the people here, so no, I won't object to it." She accepted the design back from Jhayka. "As for flamethrowers, well, that could work. And it might be useful if they try to put boats on the water."

"Through thick and thin, then," Jhayka smiled gently. "Yes, particularly if of wood; but also to sweep the banks. And, if it comes to it and we have to abandon a district the city, setting it on fire beforehand would be nice," she added, then took a breath. "But let's talk more about this later. I have a dinner with His Majesty and the Duchess d'Kellius tonight... Would you join me? I'd appreciate your presence there quite a lot."

"Of course." Dani nodded. "I'd love to." A twinkle came to her eye. "I just hope the Duchess doesn't make you feel jealous."

Jhayka flushed that odd faint gray-green, the different reaction of her skin's pigment to the blood rushing forward. "Forgive me, I had assumed that you had dismissed her from your, ah, interests, after her propisition to you... And, though you are a sweet person, to speak very intimately, I, well, Ilavna is right; background has never mattered to me, but, ah, we are of two different species, and I could scarcely feel jealous of what's natural between the two of you, it wouldn't be my right."

That prompted a sigh and a shaking of the head. "I was teasing, I didn't think you'd react that way. No, I have no interests in her. But I can't be sure she won't still feel something like that." Dani paused a moment. "Though Jhayka, even if we're of two different species, we still have souls, right? And true love doesn't come from the physical world, it comes from the soul. That feeling, deep within you, that another person is the one you want to spend the rest of your life with. Someone who loves you, who you love, and who you can never live without." She kept her eyes on Jhayka to see her reaction. "And isn't it the soul that lasts forever, long after the body's nothing but ash and dust?"

Jhayka flinched, and turned slightly to the side, holding up a hand. "Please. Dani--I must live my life alone now. I've committed grave sins. And I'm not a trustworthy love to anyone, Taloran or human or some other species." She walked slowly toward the windows in the room, looking out over a far more pleasant courtyard than the ones in Ar. "I'm unnatural, Dani, a pervert by the standards of my species and my class, romancing below my station for marriage, attracted to figures we normally find unappealing, and generally... Finding myself with a severe weakness for pretty and exotic women." A breath. "I now confide in you something, which shall repulse you, I think, for you won't understand why I did it, but I assure you, it is confided in you for your own sake. So that you stay far, far away from me and my cursed hands." A longer, slow breath, and then she spun around to face Danielle, gray eyes dull as she began. "I was in love with a woman once. Her name was Lashila, Lashila Yuvan Ghiatar. She was a communalist--a communard, you'd say, though not in the sense of marxism but sort of a religious cult of general equality. They're banned by the government and Church alike because they seek to overthrow the nobility and the priesthood, redistribute all the land, and eliminate marriage and replace it with free love.

"She.. She seduced me, and I loved her very deeply. And she came to love me very deeply, even though she had been ordered to seduce me, not that it came out of her own desire for me. We had a happy year together, and a bit more--the long year of my life, when I thought I would have her as my mistress forever. Then... She tried to get me involved in a plot." Grasping, desperate, was Jhayka's look as she whispered: "A plot to kill the Empress, and set the Three Sisters at each others' throats." Jhayka slumped back against the window sill, as though merely speaking filled her with terrible memories. "I had no choice, of course." Fists clenched, she forced herself on. "I made the necessary reports. The group was rounded up and executed, one and all... Save for Lashila Ghiatar. I was suspect. They interrogated her. Finally, I met with a close confidant of the Empress, the Archduchess Leluno, heir to the Great Queen of Lelola Colenta. She communicated to me that the Empress was prepared to consider that I had upheld my oath, if I demonstrated my willingness to deal with the problem, under observation, personally.

"I put my lover to death, Dani." She stiffened as though mustering some hidden inner resevoir of strength. "Once convicted in the court system of the principality, it was my duty to carry out her sentence, her execution for High Treason. I pronounced it, read the roll of death to her face, heard her last words and last exchange, and at the roll of the drum, gave the order to the firing squad--for I wanted to give her the honour of at least dying by firing squad rather than hung as a common criminal.." A ragged breath there, and it seemed even her last reserve was close to being torn asunder from her. "She wasn't killed outright. She was to tough for that, the stocky girl of a miner's family.. Oh, God forgive me.. So I had to put the finishing shot straight into her head with my own hand."

Dani listened to this confession, standing up and walking near to Jhayka as she continued it. She listened quietly. She dared not make a judgement even after Jhayka had finished. The Talorans were still an alien people, with their own ways, their own beliefs... their own code of justice.
Though Jhayka would have disagreed, Dani did not consider her cursed or a monster for what she had done. She had upheld the ways of her people at horrible personal cost. This, then, is what had driven Jhayka to Gilead, to her mission here. There was too much pain back at her home.
Dani's heart was pained because an element of Jhayka's story had struck home. Jhayka's lover had betrayed her. And Dani too had been betrayed. She thought of her last lover, the last partner she'd considered a lover. The poor woman, confused, uncertain of her feelings, and Dani had taught her to accept her new inclinations. Dani had been there for her, had held her after every nightmare, had taught her new ways to give release to passion, she'd done everything for her. And then she had left Dani the instant her love had returned to her. She'd dumped Dani, carefully but suddenly, as if they'd meant nothing to each other.

Though she hadn't wanted to speak, the memory of treachery finally brought her to. "Jhayka, oh Jhayka... you aren't cursed. She was the one who forced you to choose between her and everything you held dear. The love she may have felt for you..... she based it on herself. If she truly, fully loved you, she would not have tried to force you to choose between her and the vows you made to your Empress. I have no idea what was going through her mind, but even if she thought it was still love, it was selfish of her. She might not have seen that, but that was how it was." Dani took another step toward her. After a moment she forced herself not to try and embrace Jhayka, though she could see Jhayka needed comfort. "Jhayka, you are.... you are the most noble person I've ever seen, ever heard of. You can't blame yourself for a choice that was forced on you by this woman. Don't let her destroy whatever chance you have for some happiness in your life. Please..."

"Please. She did love me. Somewhere she did. I just didn't get through to her in time," Jhayka choked, turning away again, hands gripping the window-seal as her body seemed to visibly shudder. "Oh, Dani, perhaps I will be happy again. Though I fear it is not the kind of happiness you should like to see me enjoy. But don't hold in so high esteem this miserable wreck of a woman; here, at least, I live or die by skill alone, and my only regret is catching you and Ilavna up in it all. I'd love every second of this war otherwise, however evil it is. It's the only thing I've got left; the only thing I've ever been good at. I'm a killer.. Even of those I love."

Dani was again caught silent, unsure of what to say. "I hold you in high esteem because of the person you are. You are devoted to doing good for others. You may have wanted this war, but so did I, and a lot of others, because we've seen how evil the Normans are and understand that they must be destroyed, even at the cost of our lives." Dani walked up behind Jhayka. Uncertain, she put a hand on Jhayka's shoulder, a touch she'd never dared before. "Jhayka, you weren't just deceived, you were deceived by the truth. You can't blame yourself for that, or for what happened afterward. And you can't let it cloud your self-worth."
"You saved me, twice. You'll argue honor and duty, yes, but those things can only be meaningful if someone is brave enough to give them meaning. And if that doesn't satisfy you, you've done the same thing for that poor girl Juliana. And Trajan! Have you seen him, Jhayka? Have you heard the way he speaks of you? He doesn't just admire you; he wants to be like you. He had nothing when he met you and you've given him back his self-confidence."

Tears rolled down Dani's face. "Back in Ar, when I was.... a captive.... the only thing that kept me going was my faith in you. I knew you would come for me, because that is who you were. A noble woman who keeps her promises. And the people here, they trust you with their lives and they have faith you will save them. Even the mercs are loyal to you in a way they wouldn't be to other employers, because they can see what kind of person you are and know they can trust their lives to you. Jhayka, all of these people, they can't be wrong. You..." Dani began to weep. It broke her heart to see Jhayka like this, to not understand she didn't deserve the scorn she felt for herself, that she deserved so much more. "Just... why can't you see yourself like we see you? Why must your torture yourself? It hurts me, it makes me desperate to make you see the truth."

She quivered faintly at the touch of Danielle's hand, but didn't try to brush her away. Perhaps it was appreciated, and perhaps simply that would require to much effort for her to attempt in that state. At last she began to speak again, gentle and rather sad in her voice. "You would say that I have these virtues? Dani, perhaps I do. But I was bred to have them. They don't excuse my failings. In others, virtue might be praiseworthy, even when balanced against failings.. Yes, we are equal as souls. I would not deny this tenet of my faith. But I was raised in a hard school, forged and tempered for one purpose in life, and the best that may be said for me, perhaps, is that I've tried my hardest to adhere to that purpose, to the holy mission of my existence." A deep breath was taken, then, and she turned slowly to Danielle, the hand now draped fully over her shoulder from the way she'd shifted. "Dani, I'm not torturing myself. I just can't escape who I am; I don't have the right to, nor the desire to. The only time I tried, I brought evil on myself and my house. And that's what I can't forgive myself for. Only God can forgive me for that, if I have paid my penance. Now perhaps I shall be able to be happy again... I have not felt alive in so many years, until I came here." A breath, slowly taken. "I am living a pure life now, and we'll live it, together, in this forge of fire. Let's not worry about anything else. Our survival might well depend on how well I recall the virtues of my ancestors, and so I would not have them frown down upon me from heaven's host now."

Dani's mouth opened slightly. She had more to say. But she restrained herself, knowing that it was best to say nothing more for the moment. Perhaps later, in a better time, Dani would convince Jhayka that the virtues she possessed did balance that mistake she'd made, and that the purpose of her upbringing did not change that fact.
Dani's hand went down the outside of Jhayka's arm, following down until she could grip Jhayka's hand. A little quiver ran through her heart. It was a personal mannerism, the running of her hand from another's shoulder to another's hand - it had been an intimate one, usually followed by her other arm taking the waist of her lover, bringing her lips to the other's for a kiss. Her arm twitched, almost ready to move on to the next move, and she restrained the impulse of habit immediately.

Before Jhayka could react to the gesture; her perception told it was of deep meaning; the faint buzz of her comm sounded from her wrist. Free one, fortunately, for she was not much inclined to loose her hand from Danielle's. "They wouldn't be contacting me unless it was important.." A faint frown, as she spoke into the receiver, not minding Dani's close presence. "Go ahead."

"This is Candall Reichstadt at East Port central dispatching. Both tracks of the main line between kilometer posts one-thousand fourty-two and one-thousand fourty-four have recorded a break in signal. It's a large area, we think there's missing track for at least two hundred, perhaps three hundred meters. Our track maintenance personnel agree it's most likely sabotage."

Jhayka listened impassively to the crackling, staticky voice. "Alright. Thank you, Mister Reichstadt. Can you concentrate all the trains incoming we have at the nearest marshalling yard toward the eastport side, and keep shuttling them there for as long as the security situation makes it possible..?"

"Yes. The Lushult yards will do, Ma'am."

"Alright then. They should be on immediate standby to move--I'm sending the General Faeria to repair the breach and keep the line open as long as possible--immediately."

"Understood. We'll be on it."

"Over and out, then," Jhayka concluded, and offered a wry look to Danielle. "Sorry. But it appears they've finally gotten around the city."

Dani nodded stiffly. "Then it looks like things are going to go south quickly. So, what are you going to do now?"

"Send Captain Arshon with the General Faeria to repair the bridge." Jhayka smiled. "And then go to dinner. We're not in any hurry yet, Dani; it will still take them some time before they reach the outer ring of defences."

"Well then, dinner it is." Dani grinned slightly despite the news. "I should go get ready."

"Yes, you should." But even as she said that, Jhayka squeezed lightly at Danielle's hand. "I'll see you out in a few minutes."


The dinner party had an air of falsehood to it. Even as thousands of Kalundans dug ditches or readied their weapons, the elite of Kalundan society gathered in dress and regalia. Julio was wearing his military dress uniform, complete with his formal rank as High Marshal of the Kalundan Army. Amber and Sarina Kellius had come in Crimson Guard uniform, healthy and attractive looking in their form-hugging red silk corsets with cloak and baggy pantaloons. Sarina's uniform was matched by the lighter-skinned redhead to her left, the Baroness Major Joanna d'Tumia, her high society lover whom she was escorting (the Baron, Joanna's husband, held her other arm - Dani shook her head at that display of Kalundan ideas of "fidelity"). Other nobles also wore dress uniforms, but they were still dress uniforms, and it all looked gaudy.

Dani was dressed more like a Taloran, though for more reasons than just modesty. Though she wore a strapless Kalundan silk bodice instead of a bra - naturally one that split at her cleavage - and a high skirt Dani also had on a long, flowing robe tailored for her by Jhayka's entourage. It covered her scarred, disfigured back, and she'd tied it tightly enough to cover her cleavage as well. She sat quietly beside Jhayka, this time taking the seat right by her instead of Illavna (mostly from Illavna simply being late getting to her seat, not out of any design). She looked to Jhayka. "Isn't this a bit like dressing up good while waiting for a lifeboat on the Titanic?"

"I'm not sure of what that means," Jhayka answered as they were introduced in sequence and moved to sit.... She was, of course, wearing the uniform of a Field Marshal in command of the Militia. The post was intended for a man, and so clothes, modified to Taloran proportions, and the helmet cribbed from her Brigadier's uniform to fit her ears with the approval of the King (it was a high-domed thing with down-sweeping neck guard and effavsur plume) fit in, certainly, in terms of gaudiness., whereas the masculinity of the attended attire provided the necessary modesty. As her titles were rolled and her name was called, she started forward--and then was surprised to hear Danielle's name following shortly after. Normally the seating arrangement, on Kalunda, was only violated in terms of dignity to keep lovers together, and Jhayka was slightly embarassed, but took it in stride, though she wondered who had arranged it.

"The Titantic. A big 'unsinkable' ocean liner from the early 20th Century. It struck an iceberg and sunk. Hundreds of people died because there weren't enough lifeboats." Dani looked around. "We have a saying back home about doing futile things. 'Re-arranging deck chairs on the Titantic'. I just improvised the dressing good part because it sounded more fitting."

"No, it's not futile at all. The common person is reassured in seeing that the better sorts are unconcerned by the dangers around them; it provides them an example to live up to. Though I don't think Julio would have held this dinner if he'd know that the rail-line was cut, but that's why I didn't tell him yet," Jhayka added very softly--and then pulled out Danielle's chair and offered her hand to help her sit. That was something she would have only done to someone she was, essentially, dating, in a situation like this, however subtle a gesture it was. In her part, it was intended, though, solely on the maxim that, having been placed together, she intended to play the part even if it was erroneous.

"Thank you." Dani took the seat, knowing full well that etiquette demanded it, and waited for Jhayka to be seated. She whispered, "Why haven't you told him?"

"There's no reason to worry anyone yet," Jhayka replied. "I'll tell him shortly, and say as much. We're all still going to be here a human month from now--though longer than that I can't guarantee--so why not let the city enjoy one more night of peace?"

"Can't argue with that." Dani turned and looked at Illavna when she sat down. "How have you been?"

"Sore, a bit, in the shoulder," Ilavna answered a bit absent-mindedly. "And very busy, as Her Highness' staff officer." Which was a mild understatement, considering the flurry of activity in the past days.

"Sorry to hear that. My shoulder's a bit stiff too." Dani nodded.
Now everyone became seated. Julio stood at the head of the table. "To begin the evening's dinner, I propose a toast." He raised a glass of wine just poured by one of the attendants. "To Kalunda's freedom and our devotion to maintaining it!"

The toast was seconded around the table, "hear, hears" from the bravado of these nobles, some of it very genuine.. Some.. Well, that would just have to be said. Jhayka raised her glass, immediately after. "A special toast I would propose, Your Majesty, if I may--to the crew of the General Faeria. Before arriving here, I dispatched them to reopen the tracks to East Port, for the Normans had cut them, and let us toast to their success, now, for if they succeed then we shall have at least another twelve days of supplies brought in before the siege is closed." The request for the toast had framed the situation succinctly, but also bravely. And Jhayka thereby showed to all that she had no concern, a need for rush, or any kind of urgency in the situation. Just as she wanted it.

Nevertheless the news caused a few looks of worry. Julio looked evenly at Jhayka. "Indeed, Marshal. A toast, then, to the crew of the General Faeria." The toast was delivered and Julio sat, a fine meal arranged before everyone.

Jhayka decided that the best way to calm this group was to behave lightly, and be a good raconteur at table, so she ventured, cautiously, then, for the events would not be pleasant to remember, but it would be worth it to put a little steel into their spines. "If it pleases His Majesty, let me recount for you all, in detail I have not had the time to enter into before, the minutes of my escape from the city Ar."

There was interest across the table, especially from Amber and Sarina. They looked to Julio, who nodded with a smile, understanding Jhayka's intent. "Very well, Marshal itl dhin Intuit. We would be most pleased to hear of your accomplishment."

[Steve]

Cranstonville, Gilead
9 November 2841
6 January 2163 AST


Callum Crayshaw, President of the Gilean Confederacy, was a lean and scrawny man. A social activist and agitator in his youth, he was long known as an opponent of British economic influence, "unregulated" capitalism, and "moral compulsion" - he believed that Gilead was made a great place to live by the freedoms it allowed to alternative lifestyles and "views" and that the government's main purpose was merely to restrain the upper classes where possible. Though the Gilean Confederacy government was restrained in doing this in many ways by their constitution, it didn't stop him from taking those measures where necessary.

General de la Hoya had finished briefing him on the latest developments in the Primitive Zone. Then, at the appointed time, the representatives from Ar and Kalunda appeared. Crown Prince Carlis, the half-cousin half-nephew of the ruling King of Kalunda, and his counterpart, Tuvil Marius. "Gentlemen, the news coming from the Eastern Region is very disturbing." Crayshaw stood up. "We now have reports that Norman forces have cut the rail lines linking East Port to Kalunda, in violation of the law."

"President, Ar has the right to protect itself. Kalunda has mobilized it's forces against us and was shipping in war materials to attack us," Marius argued. "We had to cut the rail line. And I might add that an armored train, the same that bombarded Ar and killed thousands of our people five days ago, has since repaired the line and has been bombarding our forces that attempt to re-establish the blockade." He pointed a finger at Carlis. "Kalunda has given sanctuary to the Princess Jhayka itl dhin Intuit, who without provocation launched an all-out attack on Ar while masquerading as a guest, killing her host I will add. The Princess, acting in concert with this supposed Alliance naval engineer Danielle Verdes, who was caught spying in our sensitive areas and who's skills imply she is not an engineer but quite possibly a foreign agent sent to interfere in internal Norman, or perhaps Gilean, affairs. It wouldn't be the first time foreigners have tried to interfere with us."

Carlis frowned, knowing that argument would have pull with Crayshaw. He cut in. "Mister President, we still don't know everything that has happened. The Princess Jhayka has no history to suggest she purposely intended to attack the Normans..."

"She's a woman from an unnatural matriarchal society! That's suggestion enough!"

Carlis waited for Marius' outburst to finish before he continued. "....there is nothing to suggest she intended this. Something happened in Ar that we believe provoked the Princess. And my own reports have suggested that the Princess Jhayka only acted because a member of her entourage, aforementioned Alliance national Danielle Verdes, was being tortured by a non-Norman resident of Ar, and that she only launched her attack upon Ar because the Normans mobilized in response to her forceful rescue of Miss Verdes."

"That is a lie!"

"So you deny that Wolfgang Xueson or any other resident in good standing with your government submitted Miss Verdes to inhuman acts of torture and cruelty?" Carlis glared at Marius. "We have pictures of Miss Verdes' scarred and disfigured back. We have doctors of the Royal Hospital who have signed affadavits that Miss Verdes had her right shoulder and hips dislocated by use of a torture machine and that she showed burn marks on her breasts consistant with one of your slave punishment rods."

"By our charter we are given the right to punish criminals under our laws and how we see fit. These 'acts of torture' you refer to are legal acts of interrogation and punishment by Norman law, and Norman law - not Gilean domestic law - governs Ar." Marius looked back to Crayshaw. "Mister President, Kalunda has finally acted as we have long warned. Her ruling class, ruled now by men and women who hate Ar, have violated their initial charter with Gilead and used a moment of scandal and government weakness to negotiate a new charter that allows clear violation of the Primitive Zone Establishment Act, which specifies the technological limitations of all five regions of the Primitive Zone. King Julio, seduced by that feminist Sara Proctor - who has long functioned as a British agent and who is now a Grand Duchess of Devenshire, which I will add now has clearly become a British client state, King Julio has been seduced by this British agent and is now working as a British agent to enforce British moral views, including abolition, on Gilead. Our citizens have the right to accept slavery as a fulfillment of their natures, their personal choice of how to live, and these Kalundans seek to seize it from them!"

"This is paranoid ramblings, Mister President. Yes, Kalunda opposes slavery, yes, Kalunda supports abolitionist movements and provides refuge to runaways..."

"There is no such thing as runaways! They are fictions! They are...."

"Representative Marius, please, let Representative Kalundius speak." Crayshaw looked back to Carlis.

"Thank you, Mister President. As I was saying, yes, Kalunda is fundamentally an abolitionist nation now, and we reject the slavery of Humans and other sentient beings as barbaric and uncivilized. But, we have never had the intent of forcing abolition upon the Normans, no matter how much the thought may tempt. The will of Kalunda is to live peacefully. And now I will add that the Normans clearly possess modern weapons they are not legally permitted, as confirmed by satellite footage of the fighting in Ar. They have mobilized their armies and are now working to encircle Kalunda and besiege it. We insist that the government of the Gilean Confederacy honor the pact it made to the nations of the Eastern Region over thirty years ago. We insist that you employ orbital and air-based weaponry to help us repel the Norman encirclement."

"That pact was illegal under the Constitution," Crayshaw declared. "It was made at a time when Britain was placing unlawful pressure upon Gilead that the government proved too weak to resist."

Carlis frowned. "That pact, Mister President, was made in light of the discovery of how the Normans had abused their autonomy and rights to oppress the peoples of the Eastern Region."

Crayshaw frowned and shrugged. Marius saw that and smirked. Carlis, frowning now too, continued on. "Nevertheless, it is our intent to live peacefully, and our arms are strictly defensive. The Normans have been quietly hording a modern army, and for what purpose I ask?"

"Ar has acquired some modern technology for purely defensive purposes, so that we might protect our autonomy from Kalunda and other British agents," Marius insisted.

"Likely! But now you mobilize it and send it against Kalunda!" Carlis again looked to Crayshaw. "Mister President, you must do something!"

Crayshaw again shrugged. "By my reading of your charters, any direct intervention I could order could be ruled unconstitutional, and I am against such things. I will, however, offer my services as mediator in this dispute."

General de la Hoya tensed up. Marius nodded at the President. "Ar has already drawn up terms, Mister President. We demand that Kalunda demobilize, that it allow Norman observers to oversee it's demobilization, that it hand over one half of it's modern arsenal - rated before the recent surge in deliveries - to the Gilean government, and that they turn over for trial the Princess Jhayka and her entourage."

Carlis blurted out "Outrageous!" in response.

Crayshaw held up a hand. "Well, those first items I can agree to, but the last? The Princess itl dhin Intuit is a sovereign Taloran noblewoman, a member of their Convocate I'm told. We can't just arrest her or the Talorans might use that as pretext to an invasion. And her entourage is mostly composed of foreign nationals, including Miss Verdes from the Alliance. Again, turning them over to you custody - and your legal system - could cause an interstellar crisis. Could Ar perhaps allow her to leave and instead I will demand recompense from the Taloran government for her actions, to be paid to Ar? I could also ask them to try her."

"Mister President, she committed an unprovoked act of treachery and killed thousands of Normans. We can't allow that to go unpunished!"

"I will press in the strongest terms for her own people to punish her for her crimes against Ar," Crayshaw promised. "But the Gilean Confederacy will not risk interstellar war, we cannot."

Marius nodded stiffly. "I will inform my government of your decision on that matter and your counteroffer. But, either way, Kalunda must disarm."

"We will not disarm and open ourselves to Norman aggression," Carlis proclaimed angrily.

Crayshaw looked at him. "Representative, please. The Normans have offered a good concession, I think you need to give one too. Certainly your government can trust that the Gilean government will protect your rights."

At that Carlis smirked. "Oh? You promised that before, and now you, President, tell me that promise was unconstitutional and non-binding. What has changed now?"

Crayshaw frowned deeply. Marius pounded a fist on the nearby table. "You will disarm, or you will starve!"

"Representative Kalundius, you and your government must be reasonable," Crayshaw said. "Ar has demonstrated some very clear concerns about threats you pose to their rights and security. If you continue to refuse to concede, then I may have no choice but to agree with them. It will threaten your new charter, certainly. And I will, if necessary, order the seizure of the Kalundan treasury to repay debts owed to Ar over damages inflicted to them."

Carlis didn't reply at first. "I will consult my government."

"Please, do that," Crayshaw said.

[Steve]

Worcesterville, Illustrious
9 November 2841
6 January 2163 AST


Due west of the city center of Illustrious' capital of Worcesterville stood the Ducal Palace of Illustrious. In the early 25th Century it had been built with slave labor - slaves drawn from the very people of the planet - to celebrate the conquest of Illustrious by Devenshire's King Ian II. Only in the following two centuries, under King Ian III and the five rulers afterward that history now knew as the "Glorious Six", did Illustrious become mostly free once more.

This part of the Palace's history had made Sara Proctor skittish at first about inhabiting it. She had floated the idea of moving to the "resort estate" of the Illustrious Ducal line that was just outside the city so that the Ducal Palace could be converted to a memorial and museum. But the local leadership had persuaded her otherwise. After centuries the locals no longer thought of the Ducal Palace in quite that fashion anymore and they would much prefer her proximity.

It was the early afternoon and the Palace's courtyard was alive with activity. The orange sun of the Illustrious system was warm and brilliant, the skies mostly clear, and the temperature pleasant. An orchastra seated in the north end of the courtyard began to serenade the crowd with a piece from Petrovsky, the great Slavian composer of the 27th Century.

Sara had relented to the forms and fashions of Illustrious instead of wearing a military uniform - her rank now elevated to Admiral of the Royal Fleet of Illustrious and Marshal of the Army of Illustrious, as well as being Colonel-in-Chief to about five more regiments of the Devenshiran Army. Her ankle-length dress was cut below the shoulder, baring her arms and shoulders, with a modest cut so as to not show her cleavage. It was a lovely red trimmed with blue, the colors meant to highlight her link to Kalunda and it's royal house. Blue elbow-length gloves covered her hands and forearms. A necklace with her family seal fixed in alloyed latinum with gold, newly forged, hung around her neck. She was, to say the least, extremely uncomfortable with the gaudy display that her new position was imposing, and would frankly have felt more comfortable with Kalundan silk bodice and skirt, no matter how immodest they were.

The attendees were mostly local - prominent citizens and figures of Illustrious and the worlds under it's jurisdiction - with a few higher officials, including the Alliance consul-general from Worcesterville. Some were themselves soon to receive noble titles from Queen Minerva in a continuing effort to rebuild the aristocracy that was going to be a vital, if regrettable to some, link to maintain the ties that kept Devenshire as one nation. It was an ongoing effort across the Kingdom, aided in Illustrious and some of the other regions by the fact that Plymouth and New China had unceremoniously eradicated noble families tied to the old slavery system, leaving open many positions and titles that were now being filled as these area continued the long-term rebuilding and transition from military occupation government to civil government.

Sara was not alone. Her mother was in bed upstairs with a slight illness, being watched over - and watching in turn - the youngest three of Sara's grandchildren, who were too young to realistically attend. As it was Sara's namesake granddaughter, Sara Heresford, had just been old enough to justify her coming. She was in a dress mimicking Sara's, save for the cross necklace and the simple white bonnet that Sara herself had often worn at that age.

William was also there. He had fidgeted uncomfortably when being introduced as "His Grace the Duke of Illustrious", the official title of the direct heir to Sara's position. He was wearing a dress uniform from the 1st Royal Illustrian Hussars, an armored cavalry regiment he had been assigned to as a lieutenant for officer training. William had little love for the idea of being in the military, but as the heir he'd have that obligation and the sense of duty and selflessness ingrained in him from the better values of Plymouthite society would keep him to that.

There were other young people in the party as well, with Sara Heresford as the youngest present by about three years. A group of well-dressed young girls, some almost immodestly so, gathered about William, who dealt with them carefully with many glances toward his grandmother and sister to please come to his aid. Sara tried to hide amusement, having glanced his way as she was speaking with a bank CEO from New Chicago.

Finishing the Petrovsky piece, the orchestra turned to a favored Hertzhoff dance piece. A few couples took to the dance floor. Sara looked on, her conversation ended, and received a surprise when she saw her granddaughter on the floor, an older gray-haired gentleman gently teaching her the steps.

"Excuse me, Highness, may I have this dance?"
The gentle voice made Sara turn to her left. The man in front of her was Sir Jason Tremble, once a prominent Illustrian abolitionist living in exile in Britain and now Vice Minister of Consular Affairs in Devenshire's Foreign Ministry. He looked as young as she though he had twenty years on her in age, and his gloved hand was outstretched. Sara smiled and took it. "A pleasure, Minister."

He led her out onto the floor, his left hand and her right gripping, his right and her left around the other's back in a modest middle-position between the waist and chest. They danced quietly for a moment, moving and twirling with the tone of the music. "I see you have settled in well, Highness."
"I make do, Minister."
"The Queen was very delighted when news came that you had found your family, though we were all saddened to hear about your daughter." Tremble was sincere, though in the limited way that someone not directly affected often was. "The suffering caused by Hanson Leewood has stretched everywhere."

"That it has, Minister." Sara fought down the pain that Tremble's words had recalled. "Here we are finally making progress on that."

"I can tell." Tremble waited several moments and movements before contining to speak. "I have learned of some things that the Ministry has ordered me to not volunteer to you, Highness."
Sara smiled at him. Bureaucratic double-talk could be entertaining, and it was clear that this was information that they officially did not want her to learn but, unofficially, they either wanted her to know or thought she should. "I could never resist a good mystery, Minister. What is this information you're not supposed to volunteer to me?"

"There has been trouble on Gilead, Highness. Just five days ago there was fighting in the Primitive Zone city of Ar."
It was all Sara could do to keep her feet moving and the dance continuing. The memory of the people of Ar, particularly her first personal encounter with a man of Ar and how that had ended up, was a constant source of nightmares for her. "Fighting you say?"
"Yes. With modern weapons. From what we know, a sovereign Taloran princess, a vassal of their Empress, was on a voyage to write an ethnographic study of the Primitive Zone, and she was staying in Ar when for some reason or another she came under attack from the city's warriors and militia. The Normans claim she murdered her host, and we have learned little of her side yet save that she was forced to fight back. Which she did, successfully escaping from Ar with most of her entourage under the guns of an armored train she had built and manned for her voyage."

"My prayers will go out for the those innocent souls in Ar now lost forever," Sara remarked through nearly clenched teeth.
"A fine Christian sentiment, Highness. But that is not all." The Minister's expression became grave. "The Normans have mobilized their army and are said to be preparing to march south in pursuit of the Princess itl dhin Intuit. She in turn has stopped in Kalunda. King Julio has mobilized his own forces in response to the Norman actions and they are, according to our contacts with the Alliance consulate in Kalunda, manning their walls and readying field fortifications. As of our last report, we've learned that saboteurs have cut the rail line linking Kalunda to East Port. The Gilean government is being asked to weigh in, but they are in no political position to do so." Tremble paused for the moment it took for him to let Sara step away and make a turn, their hands till intertwined. "It is likely that within the next few days, Kalunda will be besieged. And there is no telling what this will do to Gilead's delicate political situation."

Sara listened with interest and now fear. She had been intending to wait a couple more months before going back to see Julio, hoping that within the next few years he might yet be able to abdicate and come marry her. But now he was in danger.
Calmly she continued the dance. Only near the end, she said, "Well then, you can report to your superiors that you fulfilled your orders and did not volunteer information to me."
"Thank you, Highness."

The dance ended with some applause. Sara walked over to where her granddaughter was and the man beside her. Sara Marie Heresford looked to her and said happily, "Grandma Sara, um, Highness..." Suddenly remembering the etiquette she'd been quickly taught over the past month, she sheepishly added, "This is Patrick Howell-Kingsley, Earl of Henfordshire."
"Excellent, Your Grace," the older man said to Sara Marie in a cheery English accent. "Your Highness, the pleasure is all mine. I had the privilege of knowing your old friend Dame Stuart while she was in Parliament."
"Earl Henfordshire, I'm afraid you have the advantage on me then."
"Ah yes. I am currently the overseeing officer of the Anglican Charity and Missions branch here in the Illustrious-Firgrove region. I was speaking with your bright granddaughter here, this marvelous girl, about our relief efforts. She knows quite a deal more about agriculture and property-management than some of my staff do."
"It is how we were raised back in Giles," Sara said.

"Ah yes, you Proctors are rather hardy Puritan stock, aren't you? Say what you will about Calvinism as a religion, but it does produce good men and women." Earl Henfordshire clasped her hands together. "I hope you don't mind, Highness, that I went to the floor with the Duchess. She said she wasn't sure she knew how to do the dance, and it isn't fair that a young lady of any Court should be unaware of proper dancing etiquette."

"Oh, no problem Lord Henfordshire. I'm glad to see she's taking so well to it." Sara looked back to her granddaughter. "Now, Sara Marie, please join me so that we can rescue your older brother from all of those girls who are hoping to become his bride. The formal introductions will soon begin."



That night Sara was finally out of her dress, mostly sober despite the wine served at the banquet and clad in a simple pink nightrobe. Now that she was alone, she had her majordomo try to get her a commline to Kalunda. She sat for a time and sipped at a wine before, finally, the voice of her beloved came over the line. "Sara, hello?"
"Julio." She picked up the wireless phone on the nightstand. "Julio, I was just told."
"I see."
"Julio, what's going on? What happened with the Normans?"
"To put a long story short, love, Princess itl dhin Intuit had in her group a woman from the Alliance that escaped the Norman slavers in East Port. This woman, a Miss Danielle Verdes, had a friend whom was also being held...."
Sara listened, hand over her mouth, as Julio quickly laid out what happened. Miss Verdes found modern weapons in the Norman warehouses, was captured, tortured, and then rescued by the Princess, who then fought her way out of the city, losing eight of her mercenaries and retainers in the process. Now the Normans wanted revenge, or perhaps more. Sara asked,m "They were going to revolt against the government, weren't they?"
"Probably," Julio answered. "And I'm not about to trust them. I've made Princess Jhayka Marshal of the Militia. We'll fight here until relieved or...."
"I'll come," Sara quickly said. "I'll get what troops I can. Mercenaries, anything. I'll come for..."

"Sara, you know you can't. Devenshire can't just intervene like that, and you have duties too." Julio's voice sounded a little strained. "We will survive this, Sara. Just... don't come. I don't want you here if something goes wrong."

"I can't leave you alone like this, Julio, not after all this time." Sara felt tears come down her eyes. All of her plans, all of her dreams, and they would die now. It wasn't enough that Henrik Rasgoz had violated her so many years ago - now his descendants, his people, were going to steal her happy future from her too. "Julio, let me come."

"I can't, Sara. You have people who need you now. Just like my people once needed me." There was a pause. "You taught me that."
"I know," Sara sobbed.
"You taught me that being a King wasn't about fancy dinners and a harem of beautiful women." Julio's voice also sounded a little choked up. "It makes me think of our first night."
"It was the first dinner we had without your mother," Sara remembered. "I wore red again, like you wanted. We had a pot roast, a beef stew..."
"I took you to my balcony and you told me about the distand stars."
"I promised you I'd show them to you one day..." Sara's eyes filled with tears.
"And then.... I'm still surprised that you made love to me that night. At that time I would never have thought you actually would. You seemed above that."
"Oh, I wasn't." Sara set a free hand down on her thigh. Memories of the night filled her. "Julio, please, don't die."
"I won't. But you must promise me that you won't come. Promise me, Sara."
"I.... I..." Sara's voice struggled as she tried to make the promise. She was just about to get the sound out of her throat when there was a click sound on the other end. "Julio? Julio?!" Frantically she rung up her palace's communications room. "What happened to the line?!"
"I'm sorry, Your Highness, but it was cut off at the source."
Sara knew what that meant. She gripped her phone receiver to her chest and began to cry.


Kalunda, Gilead


Julio heard the click on his end and looked to his receiver's status screen. He'd been cut off. He briefly wondered if Sara had done it so as to not have to give him that promise, but he knew in his heart she'd never do that to him. She'd be up front and honest with him. And, indeed, if she'd not seemed to relent so fast, he would have given in himself.

He put in a call to Kalunda Communications Ltd, if just to verify his fear. "What happened?" he asked when an answer came. "I was cut off in a call to Grand Duchess Proctor."

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty. But we've lost all our main commlines. Land-based comms are down and our links to satellites are suffering interference."
Julio thanked the man and hung up. It wouldn't be long now....


Worcesterville, Illustrious


After crying for a short while, Sara resolved herself onto a course of action. She placed in a call on the main public lines to a spaceport to the east and south, in the city of Masterson. A Scathfordian-accented voice on the other end answered, "Hello?"
"Lisa?" Sara recognized the voice of her old Third Mate, Lisa Spinozi. "Lisa, this is Sara."
"Oh, Sara! Or should I say 'Your Highness'?"
Sara smirked. "Sara will do, Lisa. Listen, I need you to do me something Get Rachel, Aziz, and Calvin up ASAP and begin launch preparations for the Fabian. I'll make sure Worcesterville Spaceport has a berth for you. Then contact old MacGruder and see if he has any military goodies on special with the war over and all. If we can't get energy rifles, see if we can get some good quality solar-powered matter replicators for the old-fashioned rifles."
"Huh? What's going on?"
"We're going to Gilead, Lisa. The Normans are acting up again, and this time, I'm going to deal with them permanently."

[Steve]

This was written by Marina.

East Port-Kalunda Mainline
7 January 2163 AST

Another freight was rumbling past the siding that the General Faeria was resting on. It was one of an endless stream, of every train that could be mustered by the rail company officials, rolling past with every conceivable kind of item which might be remotely useful in a siege, directed with all the efficiency possible of modern industrial organization. One care after another, wheels click-clacking along steel as the broad-gauge line ran to maximum capacity.

They'd opened the line late on the night of the 5th of January, and now for more than fourty-eight hours they'd kept it open as they shoved everything they could down the track at five minute intervals and brought it back just as quickly as they could. They were going to run out of time soon, very soon, and Captain Arshon knew it. The reports they had been getting were progressively more disturbing.

To cover the side of the track where the freights were passing and masking her guns, she'd dispatched a group of armoured fighting vehicles which had been carried on the General Faeria in the car originally reserved for the heavy rostok Jhayka had originally brougth with her for exploring the countryside. It was night, but all sensors were fully operational and for the personnel on the train it might as well be as clear as day, though the Kalundans were still getting the hang of operations. They simply didn't have enough time.

Suddenly an alarm blared. “Combat alert! Combat alert from AFV squadron!”

Captain Arshon swung her chair to bring up the protection, even as a staticky mic crackled with a warning:

“Alert! Tanks! Alert! Tanks!”

“Copy that. This is Captain Arshon. Get me a read on numbers, now.” A pause, then, train-wide: “Full alert! Man the guns! Shields up, air pressure positive.”

Sensor relays came in from the AFV's, patched through on a link that the brute energy of the train could bring through the jamming fields here. They were facing big 150t MBT's, heavily armoured enough to actually have a chance against their guns, and probably fifteen or twenty of them. They were nosing forward quietly, the Normans apparently thinking that they could not be detected in the darkness with their heat levels kept to minimum, but the sensors on the train were to refined for that.

“Should we give a warning to the freight, Captain?” One of her control center crewers asked.

“Negative, they want to get as close as possible before surprising us, they'll just spring the trap sooner and hurt the civvies if they start to do any fancy acceleration. Send a telegraph tap through the line, though, tell them to halt all further trains and in fact standby to start withdrawing toward East Port.”

“Fuck, it's that bad?”

“Belay that!” Arshon snapped. “We're facing.. Hmm..” The numbers had refined. “Sixteen MBT's. We can take 'em, but I want the railroad employees prepared in case it's worse. They don't deserve to get caught in this, anyway..” A frown, a brief thought. “Dump all the data we've got back to Kalundan control now.”

“Understood, Sir.”

“Order the AFV's to head west. I want them to get to the flank of that tank company so they can use their LOSAT's on their side armour, with luck.” Muttered a moment later, softly, to herself: “Damn it all that they've got forest cover like that...”

“Copied and transmitted..”

“..Receipt acknowledged.”

“Confirmation from Kalundan control.”

Captain Arshon listened tensely as the reports came back in. The unknowing crew of the train was already long past, as the last cars of their 450-car heavy freight consist rumbled past the point where the General Faeria waited. The forward gun of the train was already unmasked, and it immediately swung toward the forest...

A howl was audible through the train as artillery crashed down around them from several guns.

“Get me a source!” Captain Arshon shouted, then a moment later: “Weapons free! Weapons free!” She flicked on the battle-link to the AFV's. “Hold LOSAT fire until you're in position! I want side-shots only with those missiles, we don't got many!”

A quick-thinking assistant tagged on the order to the slow freighter to accelerate out of the area, even as its last cars were just passing by the rear of the General Faeria. The guns there immediately swung out to face the forest even as the forward guns opened up. Plasma bolts flared across the open spaces along the railroad track and tore through the forest, igniting dozens of trees into towering infernos in a heartbeat.

Another salvo from the artillery, wherever it was, rained down. This time there was the hideous sound of impact as one of the shells hit the top armour of the train. On the gun-car that was struck, the roof plates buckled slightly and metal splinters were sent flying about the upper gun-compartment, knocking one machinegun out of action temporarily; all the crew had personal body armour, though, and was unhurt and quickly repaired the mount.

“We've got approximately eight heavy self-propelled guns.. Look like ADN models.. Probably 200mm's.”

“Sounds about right for the dent that made.” Arshon commented wryly. The main broadside guns were now firing on the surprised tankers, who were not expecting to be the first target for the vengeance of the train from the fire of their artillery. These were by far the best-trained Normans, operating their best weapons, of which they had precious few, and they'd learned from the fiasco in their own home-city.

The tanks rolled, firing on the move and angling to avoid the areas of the forest set on fire by the rapid stutter of the plasma guns. Shots from the broadside powerguns slammed into them, but they kept their frontal armour facing the General Faeria, and the immense glacis plate of the tanks was sufficient to absorb a hit from even the powerguns at that range.

An armour-piercing shot from one of the tanks hit home. It shattered a plate of side armour and sprung the structure of the car it had struck—the accomadations car.; their car. It shuddered violently, but nothing more. No threat to the battle damage, though Captain Arshon was glad Jhayka was not aboard; though of course her principal would have been here, running the show instead of herself... And of course the control compartment itself was much more heavily armoured than even the rest of the car.

One of the tankers made the mistake of even slightly presenting the side of his vehicle as he turned to avoid one of the vast confalgrations in the forest ignited by the plasma fire. Even as more artillery fire hit the General Faeria, the gunner on one of the broadside powerguns lined in for his shot and caressed the trigger. The bolt snapped through and penetrated the side armour just below the turret which had swung to avoid presenting its own side to the General Faeria's guns. Here, the armour could be penetrated even at this range, and it was, the tank's engine demolished by the strike, and the crew leaping out for cover as their vehicle caught on fire.

The General Faeria's mortars were now opening up, and they were using CP rounds like before, which presented a serious threat to the top armour of the tanks. At 240mm they presented an almost indefensible threat to the vertical armour of even these massive tanks. The shells crashed down about the moving vehicles, but were, being from mortars, rather inaccurate against rapidly moving targets.

One shell hit the forward repair cars from the artillery, smashing the undefended vehicles thoroughly. A damage control officer in the armoured control compartment used electronic controls to automatically unlock the couples from the damaged set of flats. Another two tank shots crashed into the armour of the General Faeria, but it held....

Then the AFV's were in position, and opened up with their LOSATs. They scored two hits on the side armour of the tanks from an extreme angle, smashing through and connecting with something vital enough to fireball one. The other was crippled and the crew bailed. With three of the sixteen tanks knocked out, the Normans withdrew slightly to regroup—and suffered even more. The gunners on the mortars had been firing somewhat high, anyway, and as the tanks retreated, a CP shell crashed down into another one. It fireballed, too, adding to the carnage in the forest.

“Okay. Recall the AFV's now!” Captain Arshon ordered crisply. “They won't last long out there if the artillery fire-shifts.”

Even as the AFV's were coming in, bad news was reported. A second Norman tank company was detected by the sensors coming in from the opposite side. They were going to try and, it seemed, completely surrounding the armoured train and smash it through both numbers and firepower.

“Expedite recovery, and prepare to pull back to the city. Inform Kalundan control that we're withdrawing under the threat of battalion-strength armoured forces.”

“Understood, Sir.”

The names were running together in the ask of the action; a young woman in a Crimson Guard uniform asked: “What about the tanks coming in, should we fire-shift, Sir..?”

“Negative—belay that, just the plasma cannons. Swing 'em around and rapid fire on the fresh company, let's see if we can burn off their sensors and soft-kill 'em.”

The order was implemented at once, even as the armoured doors to the transport car were dropped down from the AFV's to quickly drive up onboard. The two plasma guns on their pintle mounts at either end of the train presented their armoured shields to the second tank platoon and opened up, rapid fire. The bolts tore through the forest like before, igniting countless trees, but also, now, they focused in on two lead tanks, covering them in high-intensity plasma fire which set their paint alight, starved the tank of oxygen to the engine and the crew compartment, forcing the later onto their survival tanks and the former to temporarily stop, as many of their more advanced and vulnerable sensors were melted away.

It halted the advance just long enough—the moment the plasma cannons shifted to another two tanks, the previous ones started up and began to rumble forward again, guided by periscope and internal vibration sensors. But in the meantime, the AFV's had been recovered, the armoured doors snappeed up on their powerful hydraulics.

“Tracks still confirm intact and clear?” Arshon asked one last time, even as the whang! of the first AP round from the new tanks hit home against them, so damn incredibly loud against the armour, with no insulation.. Though the sound wasn't that much different from the artillery still firing at them.. Yet, he tanks they'd defeated on the far side were started back toward them. They could stand and take out many of their enemies, to be sure, but it was getting to hot to handle, and the firepower of the train would be better used in close proximity to the city, with infantry support.

“Confirmed! We've got a clear track into Kalunda.”

“Full reverse power!” Arshon ordered without further wait.

As the General Faeria accelerated back toward Kalunda, the Norman forces—including almost 2/3rds of their heavy armour—which had been detailed to defeat her instead had the slightly lesser honour of cutting the East Port-Kalunda line for good, and formally beginning the Siege of Kalunda. There was no way out, now.

[Ford Prefect]

Well, I caught up. And I have to say, you two are great. It's so well-realised, and so well executed.