Chương 197: Nova Wars - Chapter 153

To understand humanity, one must understand themselves - Treana'ad Cattle Wisdom Life is nothing more than a chaos seed generator. Humanity is how there is a new seed so quickly. - Lanaktallan Wisdom JAWNCONNOR! - Leebaw Wisdom Dee's eyes were cold and unreadable as she watched Marco/Pete/Doctor Igwe pull on his heavy boots. Next to Pete was Harry, putting on his coat and checking his gloves.

"Whatever is attacking Atlantis is putting fifty thousands years of soul collection at risk. The exact thing the Onion was built to avoid," Pete was saying.

"I know that," Dee snapped.

"I'm just not sure either one of you are up to what's going to happen." Pete looked up at her, frowning.

"Like what?"

"There. That right there is what I keep talking about. What that big thug Daxin was always talking about," Dee snapped, crushing out her cigarette and standing up.

"You don't actually make plans, Pete. You just waltz in, trusting in your 'superior intellect' to allow you to figure out ways out of the perfectly predictable predicament you've found yourself hip deep in."

"It's the Onion, the most secure thing of all secure things," Pete scoffed.

"That has multiple ways into it you never foresaw," Harry added, adjusting his gunbelt. He reached out and touched the table, fatigue passing through his eyes.

"And Harry isn't even close to being ready for walking across the room without stumbling, much less whatever dumb shit you two have thought up," Dee said. She stomped into the hallway.

"Don't leave without me, numb nuts," she snapped. Harry noticed, but didn't point out, that in her anger she hadn't completely put out the cigarette and it was now eeking out a thin trail of smoke. He reached over, picked up the crushed cigarette butt, and put it out properly.

"How bad do you think it is?" Pete asked. Harry glanced at him.

"In the middle of the Gestalts trying to update with TerraSol the whole system crashes and we have reports of sections of the Onion and Atlantis going down?" he asked.

"I'd say it's bad."

"How the hell did they beat the architecture? It's the first line of defense, even before the cross checkers," Pete mused.

"You'd have to know the architecture, you'd have to be able to attack the software, the firmware, and the hardware. Then you'd have to be able to lift your attack into a viable entry port." Dee chose that moment to stomp out. She was wearing an old Prairie Dress with a gunbelt buckled on it, holding a breech action shotgun with a floppy hat on top and heavy boots. Harry knew better than to snicker. Plus, he wasn't going to be a hipocrite.

"Let's go," Dee snapped.

"How are we getting to the Onion, much less Atlantis?" Pete asked.

"I know someone," Dee said. She lifted her free hand and snapped her fingers. The kitchen was suddenly empty with the fzzt on the back of the molars. 0-0-0-0-0 Nakteti couldn't stop hugging her mother. Since arriving at the expensive hotel in Chromium Saint Peter's City, she spent as much time as she could with her mother. And couldn't seem to stop hugging her. Passing by her. Being near her. Just seeing her in the morning or after a short separation. She just kept going up and hugging the elderly matron.

The first week she had cried at the sight of her mother. Like a lost child suddenly found when they had felt all was lost. Then she got down to sobbing. Now she just hugged and breathed deep. Nakteti broke the embrace and stared at her mother, who stared back with black warsteel eyes surrounded by white fur. The red stripe, like bloodied fur, started at the tip of Sangbre's nose and went up over the top of her head.

Despite Sangbre's age, the matron stood firm and tall, her back unbowed and her gripping hands still strong.

"My daughter, it is good to see you. I am gratified that you had time to speak with me at my request," Sangbre said, her voice soft and almost choral sounding. Nakteti blinked, realizing this wasn't just her mother teasing her by making an 'appointment' to see her daughter. Since returning to Sol she had found the ship-mates she had thought were lost forever, as well as tens of thousands of Tnvaru who had been present when The Bag had been activated and had turned into tens of millions of the last fifty years.

She had gone to see her own movie twice. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. She shook herself slightly to refocus her mind.

"It is good to see you, mother," she said softly. Her mother let go of Nakteti's catching hands with her own, turning and tapping her way over to the chair to sit down. One of the Pukan maids in a little black and white maid outfit moved over to set down a teacup and pour tea and milk before mixing in honey and withdrawing. Nakteti sat down, staring at her mother. She looked down and saw her mother still had salt crystals in the tread of her shoes.

Her mother finished the second sip and leaned back, folding her gripping hands over the top of her cane.

"I have come to warn you, daughter mine," Sangbre said, her voice distant and soft. And spoken entirely in High Trog.

"Things are in motion again. The Titans of Eld have begun to waken and with them their terrible tasks will be laid upon the shoulders of mortals like a yoke upon an oxen, with all the understanding of the beast of burden." Nakteti took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. Not good, she thought.

"What threats have your warsteel eyes foreseen, mother?" she asked. Sangbre lifted her cane and tapped it on the floor. Once. She stood up. Twice. She spread out her catching hands. Thrice.

"BEHOLD!" Sangbre called out.

"BELONNA!" Purple smoke erupted from the floor, lifting up in a tight spiral. The smoke seemed to tighten and then wisped away. A Terran girl stood there, dressed in diaphanous white silk that was sheer enough that Nakteti could see the purple scars graven into gray pallid skin. The figure's throat was cut, with black blood having run out of it to stain the girl's breasts. Her eyes were purple fire. She closed her eyes, threw her head back, and spread out her arms as if to embrace the world.

"WARE! WARE AND WOE!" the girl screamed out. Her voice shattered glass and crystal alike.

"THE DETAINEE SHALL BE REVEALED! THE AFTERLIFE IN DANGER! THE MATRON OF HELL WILL STRIDE THE LAND OF THE LIVING IN HER TERRIBLE FORM ONCE AGAIN!" Nakteti could feel the force of the scream push her back into her chair, feel it deform her flesh like standing in a wind tunnel.

"SHE COMES IN SLOW FOOTSTEPS, FIRE AND SMOKE HELD IN HER HAND! WARE! WARE AND WOE!" The girl suddenly vanished, leaving behind a puff of purple smoke that began to tatter away. Nakteti blinked a few times to get her blurred vision set right.

"That's... ominous," Nakteti said. Sangbre nodded.

"I had the vision of Bellona appearing and hurried to warn you. I did not know her message."

"Had you asked me, as a young Tnvaru girl, if magic was real, I would have scoffed at your words and mocked your lineage," Nakteti said.

"It is technology so far advanced and used in such a way as to appear magic," Sangbre agreed, sitting down. She shook her head.

"I see the souls leaving the bodies of the dying, being lifted up to a white light, and being greeted by those who have gone before," she shook her head.

"The Terrans has made the argument of whether or not the soul exists by creating it or being able to scientifically prove and call upon one."

"Technological necromancy," Nakteti agreed. She shivered.

"The things I saw in Atlantis." She took a sip of tea to settle herself.

"Children, enraged infants, possibly even ones that had never been truly born, impressed with the personality and memories of experienced soldiers," she shuddered again.

"Horrors and miracles in equal measure," she said softly.

"Deep within the salt caves of the Vodka Trog Cradle, I saw technology made into both horror and the miraculous," Sangbre said. She gave a deep heaving sigh.

"I guided all of the refugees, those pinned within the claimed lands of Tuvan Warsteel Horde, Cossacks of VodkaTrog Siberia, succored those set adrift by the war and the Council's invasion of Fortress Sol."

"And now more is coming," Nakteti sighed. She set the tea cup down and opened her mouth. There were three sharp raps on the door of the hotel room. The two cyborgs, nearly inhuman in appearance, both went to high alert. Tentacles snaked out from behind their backs, out from under the rude canvas cloths that were decorated with paint. Weapons clacked and capacitors whined. Two extra arms unfolded and the previously visible arms split into two arms each.

The lack of eyes or part of the forehead made them look incomplete, alien, as they turned and faced the door. Nakteti checked her eye implant. Nothing, nobody was there. The three raps happened again. Nakteti looked over at Captain Manners, who was sitting in one of the chairs. The recently returned to the land of the living human soldier nodded, adjusting his arm so that Nakteti could see he was holding a heavy magac pistol hidden in his arms.

One of the cyborgs moved forward, opening the door, firmly ready to start firing or just delivering a sharp verbal rebuke. Instead, Nakteti saw the cyborg reel back, stumbling back into the room before going down on one knee, on hand making the sideways figure eight while the others pressed to the floor. The other cyborg copied the action.

"It's nice to get some respect," the woman's voice was smokey, rich. High heeled boots clacked as the wearer walked into the room, followed by two men. Nakteti recognized the woman immediately. She too went down on one knee, three of her hands pressed against the floor and her left gripping hand making the sign of the Digital Omnimessiah in front of her. Nakteti realized she was praying under her breath.

"She's praying to be delivered from evil," one male voice said.

"See, this is why I can't take you places, Pete, you have this reaction on people," the woman's voice said.

"It means you," a tired sounding voice said. There was a forced exhale of breath.

"I know that, you killjoy," the woman's voice was harder, edged in brimstone.

"Get up, all of you. You look stupid," the woman said. Nakteti looked up, half expecting it to be some kind of trick. The woman that stared down at her had cold gun-metal gray eyes. Familiar gray eyes.

"We need a ride to somewhere you've been once," the Matron of Hell said.

"Pete will explain." 0-0-0-0-0 The teacup chattered as Nakteti set it on the coffee table with one shaking hand.

"Steady, my daughter. Deep breaths from the stomach, from the deep center of your spirit," Sangbre said. She puffed on her pipe, then blew smoke rings at the ceiling.

"The Matron of Hell, the Detainee, in the flesh, was not something my sight had prepared me for."

"I don't think you can be prepared for it," Nakteti admitted. She shuddered.

"It's not the first time I've met her. She tempted me and the others in Atlantis when we were there. She was there when we discovered the horrible truth behind the ChronoKnights." Sangbre just nodded.

"But this one feels different," Nakteti admitted.

"There's something different about her this time." Sangbre touched the tip of her nose with one claw.

"My eyes see much and I can tell you, this was no hologram, no nanite creation. She was real. I could see the pulse in her veins, smell the pheromone laden sweat even she was unaware of." Nakteti frowned.

"My first encounter could have been generated by the SUDS system itself. The digital mistress of Hell made flesh by esoteric means."

"Which means this one was real," Sangbre said. She sipped at her own coffee and waiting for her daughter to finish sipping at her own. She smiled at Nakteti when her daughter looked at her.

"Tell me, daughter mine," she paused for effect.

"Can you feel the yoke laid upon your shoulders?" Nakteti stared her mother in the eyes for a long moment before breaking the silence.

"Moo."