Chapter 10

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[previously...]

• Samuels set the shattered remains of his scotch onto his desk and adjusted his glasses as he considered the implications of what he had just witnessed.
• Drake swallowed hard as he watched the girl breaking his toy super-soldier. He was certain she wasn't Val, but whatever she was he knew they wouldn't be far behind. He was out of time.
• With a couple of taps on a desk panel he called in every slagman in the vicinity to attack, and opened a secret hatch to his escape vehicle. A few minutes later he was on a suborbital trajectory to his new multi-billion dollar facility in China.

[and now...]
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"Who's going to tell the boss?", Shen mumbled as he paced around the lab. He may be in charge here, but today he felt himself rather the antithesis of his namesake. "She was just a girl... how did I know she could stop a tank!? Its not like I left it there on purpose... ohhh, he's going to have my head!"

"Maybe I could tell him it was Dan Ping's fault!? He's always screwing something up -but no. It will be my fault, EVERYTHING is ALWAYS my fault. Ehuhhh, guess that's the price of being his go to man. Still, there was nothing I could have-"

An alert popped onto Shen's com, signaling Mr. Samuels arrival, weeks ahead of schedule. Or, to quote Shen, "-OH FUCK!"


. . .


"At least something is on schedule", Samuels sighed as his pod began reentry over the west pacific. Just then the power gauge blipped a warning that he had tipped into the one quarter emergency reserve. The trip had burned 17% more power than he had anticipated he would need to have the propulsion lab check out-

Something didn't look right... where was the lab?! As Drake drew to within a hundred miles he noticed almost a quarter of the facility had been omitted from his plan! The building was carefully tapered around something small- he zoomed the tracking camera over that area, "a hut!?", Samuels exclaimed as he smacked the control console a bit harder than he should have.

The pod spun and inverted and almost missed the landing field. Drake's craft was centered and lowered through the enormous magnetic ring into the bay, the damaged gyrostabilizer system did not, however, return him to his original upright position. He stared furious at the boots before him as his men approached the craft.

Drake's glasses clattered to the ground as the pod opened. He quietly crawled out, came to his feet, straightened out his suit and slid his glasses back on as he turned away to compose himself. "Who... modified... my... design?", he inquired in a slow and unnervingly calm tone, his back still to his men with only the corner of his eye revealed.

Shen whined, "Mr. Samuels, sir, there was... a Girl-" -Drake's face exploded in rage, sending his left lens tumbling through the air for several seconds before clattering to the ground and shattering under his heel as he walked off speaking into his wristcom, "Send a team in to clean up the mess. And SOMEONE get me that security feed."

As he walked on, thirteen broken bodies collapsed behind him, leaving only Shen untouched; the maneuver left him barely able to stand, but it had the desired effect. He felt their fear wash over him, slowly recharging his reserves... too bad there were only a half dozen men in the surveillance office at the time. And Shen was too useful alive, so long as he's properly motivated...

What Drake really needed was a larger audience, a larger spectacle if he wanted to regain his former glory. Something in the ten-digit range should do nicely, he thought, but it would take more than the fear of one man to do it. It would take an apocalypse in slow motion to stir such a terror; time to see whether the lab was online, he mused as he continued down the hall.


. . .


A third of the galaxy away, on the remote world of Aldus VII, in a long forgotten chamber in the temple city of Angeline...

"It is time. Do you have the artifact?", Seer Nasmat asks her young acolyte.

"Yes, Prioress."

"Good. Bring it forward and place it in the tureen.", Nasmat instructs as she removes the lid.

The young girl nervously steps forward and deposits an antique looking silver garnet ring inside. "Is it really meant for... for a man?", inquires the young pupil.

"Yes, child. Is that so odd?", the Seer teases knowing full well that this is a most unusual blessing to bestow upon a male, as it is quite rare for one to possess the talent to use it.

"Dreyanna's will be done", the acolyte responds, happy to have thought a way out of this uncomfortable conversation.

Nasmat smiles and places her hands upon the vessel beginning the ceremony of translocation.


. . .


Meanwhile, in a mobile command center hovering a few miles from the temple...

Lieutenant Victoria Irons III, daughter of the late Commodore Irons - the hero of Vealor IV, who's whole career had been spent being compared to her legendary mother, reported as ordered to Brigadier General Girshon office.

"Lieutenant. Come in.", the aging man ordered. Girshon was large set for a man and must have been fairly intimidating in his youth, though Vicky had no doubt she could take him. "At ease, Lieutenant.", he said, breaking her from such mutinous reveries.

"Would you care to explain to me how the whole goddess damned planet has decided to go on a pilgrimage, and you are still here?? You must be the only woman on Aldus who didn't answer the...", he trailed off looking for the right term.

"-Calling, sir?"

"Calling.", he said, rather unnerved at the interjection. He briefly considered dressing her down for it but then remembered how badly he needed her help. In truth, he was merely Acting Brigadier General, prior to the mass exodus of women from Alden society he was pining for Major. Since then he had done his damnedest to step up and hold his airbase together.

"Duty first; sir. My place is here."

"You really are your mother's daughter", he mused, earning a contemptuous scowl for just a microsecond. It was brief, but he saw it... exactly what he was hoping for. This girl wanted out from under her mother's shadow, wanted to make her own name in the force. "I want you to infiltrate their ranks, lieutenant. Infiltrate and report back what the hell is going on here. I want to know why half my cities lay barren; why a million husbands are in ICUs! What's more, I want to know how the fuck two billion women can FIT in that little city!"

Irons didn't feel right about that order, but she understood where it came from; to avoid total civic collapse he needed to restore order, and he couldn't do that without her help. Teeth half clenched she replied, "understood, sir. Is there anything else?"

"Dismissed, lieutenant", Girshon barked adding in a softer voice as she left, "good luck... for all of us."


. . .


Slowly Andrea's eyes drifted open, burning and heavy they finally parted enough that she could see... her. "Hey", Dre smiled weakly at Jen who rushed over and into a flying hug which Drea tried to brace for. It didn't hurt... it took Andrea a moment to realize that Jennifer had caught herself with her hands on either side. Slowly Jen descended, filling Dre's view.