All the King's Horses Pt. 07

"-an entitled, racist, short sighted fool. Tell her about the famines, Mark. Tell her about the building projects we're still finding mass graves uner! Tell her-"

Mark glared and as he glared, a golden light seemed to explode from around his body. It was as if a glowing sun had come to life inside the small room. Except it wasn't like that at all. It was that. Sebastian began to scream, thrashing and hissing as his skin began to curl and crisp up as if he was under the blast of a flamethrower. The man with the knife grinned and hooked his arm around Sebastian's throat, holding him fast as the vampire sank into the wild Red Frenzy, the Rötschreck. The fear of the sun.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Tiff screamed. "Stop it!"

The sun faded and Sebastian sagged, his body smoking, his head dangling forward.

Mark smirked. "Tiffany Winters, vampire fucker..." He shook his head.

"Hey, fascist."

Everyone's attention snapped to Bryce. Bryce, who had been kneeling before the group, with a knife to his throat. He had tilted his wrist around and was aiming his wrist mounted replicator upwards. His eyes were hard. Flinty. "Sic Semper, motherfucker," he said. The replicator chirruped, as if it was registering a voice command.

The beams came to life. A disk formed in the receptical bay on the replicator.

Mark's eyes widened.

The disk - a small silver shape the size of a human palm - shot into the air, flung upwards by a tiny flick of Bryce's wrist. It hung in the air for just a second.

A new dawn bloomed and a hurricane force picked Tiffany up and smashed her against a wall and everything went black.

***

Tiffany groaned as she opened her eyes. The howling sound of damned, doomed souls seemed to fill her entire head. It was like being tuned to a dead TV channel but between her ears. She shook herself, groaning, then looked around. Her eyes widened as she saw that she was half buried under the grayish, chalky ash that blew across the whole of this unnamed planet. As she looked around, her brain made sparking connections.

Facilitator sent my picture back to the Capellans.

Evidence led us here.

Mark was waiting.

Mark was Khan.

Khan and the Solar augments and their allies fled the Earth after...

Capellans.

The Capellans were...

Tiff managed to get herself out of the silt and the sand - and she saw the boots sticking out of the pile of dust that dominated the former airlock of the Scarlet Empress. She scrambled forward, looking around wildly. "Master? Master? Master!" She shouted, then scrabbled at the boots. She felt a tiny echo of the fear vampires felt at the sun - except then she realized that she had more people to worry about than just her master. She dragged Bryce out - and hissed softly. His armor was a pock marked ruin, peppered with shrapnel and burn marks. His face mask had polarized and her suit only grudgingly connected with him again - once it did, the helmet was edited out of her vision again. His nose was bent and blue blood was dripping from his nostrils, while several red indicators had blipped on underneath his face.

His heart beat - thready and weak - and other symbols and indicators that Tiff was pretty sure meant 'yo, Bryce has been fucked up.' She gulped. "Still alive, though..." She shook her head, then went back, scrambling, desperately, for Master, looking around wildly.

"Master? Master?" She called out again.

Crackling.

"W-...C..."

She put her hand to her helmet. "Bruce? Bruce, you come in?" She asked, pushing aside some more dust. Then a horrible thought occurred to her. If Sebastian had been decapitated or set on fire or killed in any of the ways that would bring the Final Death...his ashes could be completely indistinguishable from the rest of the ashy, gray swept wasteland of this planet. She sat back, her chest feeling as if someone had kicked her hard. Hard.

"Win...com..."

"Bruce!" She said. "Bruce, we're in a crashed space ship! Solars! There are fucking Solar Augments here!"

"Re...S..."

Then, clearer.

"Repeat! Did you say Solars?"

"Yes!" Tiff said. "Fucking Khan! We're on the same planet as Khan."

"Oh fuck."

The next few minutes passed with Tiffany trying to make herself useful. Her armor had some basic first aid routines loaded into it, and they came up with she swore at it enough. But there was painfully little she could actually do to help Bryce - but as she worked, it helped her not panic about everything else. Finally Bruce and his two fellow marines came into the Scarlet Empress and began to set up a baffling tent to keep the sand and the ash out. Once he had set it up, using the replicator to spit the fabric out, Bruce took his helmet off with a grunt. He shook his head, his bald pate gleaming with sweat.

"Winters, you're keeping it together - that's good because we're in a fuckton of trouble," he said, sniffing at the air, frowning. "Sebastian's not dusted - I can't pick up any vampire corpse here." He breathed in. "But he was definitely taken."

"Taken?" Tiff snarled.

"Our shuttle's gone AWOL," one of the other marines - a woman with a nose that had been broken twice and set poorly over her long career. She looked back from where she was working on Bryce. "That's why we were out of direct contact with you."

Bruce growled. "Some Night Caste motherfuckers just stole one of our shuttles - and with Sebastian onboard, they'll have access to command codes for the DeeDee. All it will take is entry and then the ship's theirs."

Tiff looked at him in dawning horror. "Then what?"

"Then?" Bruce asked. "Then we're fucked. That ship's capable of mass producing weapons of mass destruction. It has a cloaking device and every piece of advanced technology the Federation has - and Solars are the only people in the galaxy who I think can actually reverse engineer it."

Tiff bit her lip. "And they hate you, don't they?" She looked down at Bryce, closing her eyes. "The Capellans were trying to wipe the Federation out - because they're everything you guys kicked out. They're your...skuzztronic underguts, and they're hankering for a vengeance. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!" She slapped her palm down on the metal floor of the Scarlet Empress, denting it inwards slightly with the impact. "They don't even need the We now."

"Oh, they can still use em," Bruce grumbled. "But I don't think they will - the We was before they lured us out here and stole a goddamn DSI frigate."

He stood up, looking around. "This...really their ship..." He shook his head. "They fucking lured us to, what, their first planet?" He frowned, then chuckled. "Of course. We were wondering what had damaged this planet. I have an idea. How many Solars did you see?"

"There were maybe half a dozen?" Tiff asked. "Maybe more - I was kinda focused on the big fuckoff knives..." She glared at the dent she had left.

Bruce nodded. "There were nearly a thousand Augments when they left human space. Who wants to bet they're down to them and their flunkies - brains in jars and slaves." He frowned, slowly, then tapped his fingers on the roof as he leaned against it. "Either way, plan's clear."

Tiff nodded. "Yup. We find em and we kick their ass."

Bruce looked at her, through the V created by his arms as they pressed against the ceiling. "No, we send a signal back to the Federation. They have to know."

"Cool. Then we find them and we kick their asses," Tiff said, scowling.

"How?" Bruce asked, simply. He didn't bridle or get mad. He just asked her how. Tiff brushed her fingers through her hair, biting her lip. She paced forward, then backwards, then forward again. Then she blinked.

"I have an idea," she said, slowly. "Can we get this ship flying again?"

Bruce looked over at the third marine in the group - behind his helmet, he had a short muzzle and frilled out lizardlike scales. Bruce arched an eyebrow. The marine hummed. "Well, sir, it's a two hundred year old starship crashed in an apocalyptic wasteland for decades. If we pool our replicators and the lunar cycle holds to the pattern we observed...maybe a week. More, if we have to do major patching."

"A week?" Tiff hissed.

"Most of the issue isn't going to be parts, it's going to be moving parts and adjusting components and fitting them into place," the marine said. "It'd be easier if we had more garou, they're strong enough to-"

Tiff punched a hole in the wall. It was a short, sharp, jabbing motion, driven by her fury and frustration at the situation. It slammed home and crunched through the armored plating and left her knuckles bleeding and her hand throbbing. She drew her hand back only after her regeneration had popped several bones back into place. The others blinked at her.

"Three days," the tech marine said, nodding. "Four, tops."

Tiff rubbed her hand. "Okay. Now for the hard part." She stuck her tongue out of the corner of her lip. "We're going to need to kill me."

Every marine looked at her at once.

"...trust me." Tiff said, grinning weakly. "It's not going to be fun. But...we're going to have to do it now, before the DeeDee gets too far away."

"Explain," Bruce said, his voice quiet and firm.

Tiff closed her eyes.

"When...when I was seventeen, I fought a vampire called the Master. He was a bald dipstick with a terrible sense of fasion and, uh, well, long story short, I, uh, I died." She gulped. "For about two minutes. Then CPR brought me back - and when I woke up, there was a second Hunter. Her name was Brandy. She...died pretty fast." She looked away, blushing. "She was nice. I failed her. But the Hunter spirit kind of...split between us."

"Quantum communication," the tech marine said, quietly. "Via localized spiritual possession. But how do you know the spirit's going to go to anyone on the Dee-Dee?"

"Well," Tiff said, her voice tight. "I happen to know, there's a candidate that's almost exactly like me, up there. Right now."

The marines all gaped - having gotten it at the same time.

"So! Are you gonna choke me to death or what?" Tiff asked, laughing nervously. "I mean, come on. It'll be kinda hot in a weird way. Right?"

***

The airlock door opened into the DeeDee.

"Welcome b-" Kfap started.

That was when the shipsoul registered the movements of the Augments. There were two Night Castes - the assassins and killers of the Solar project. Blood spurted as their knives slashed through the throats of marines who had come to help the returning crew onboard. Kfap began to send out the warning signals, but one of the Augments had already reached a computer terminal. His fingers flew at incredible speeds, punching in key combinations and Kfap felt herself being attacked at every direction by programs - spun into existence like silk from the backs of spiders. Kfap barely was able to cocoon her deepest personality components before firewalls before the attack programs struck.

And in that time, the Night Caste had disabled or killed thirteen more crewmen and were heading straight for the bridge. Walking behind them, through the carnage, came a man that Kfap immediately identified as Khan himself. Then all of her focus was narrowed down to keeping herself alive. She couldn't even spare more than a microsecond to flash a message on the bridge, hoping that Captain Tobias would have time to prepare a kind of defense.

They didn't have a chance.

The door did close before the Night Caste arrived, but a bullish woman who was built like several fridges stacked atop one another smashed into it shoulder first, the symbol of the Dawn Caste - the front line combat warriors of the Augment program. The door explodes inwards and within a few seconds of vicious, brutal combat, the bridge is taken.

The attack programs draw backwards, and Kfap is fully ensnared within a webwork of code. It's almost intolerable, but she sends off one last desperate little flick. She had read the same journals of revolutionary and guerrilla warfare that the rest of the crew had. And so, she took a short time to fill out a very quick little description of what, exactly, was going on and why cooperation would be a doomed enterprise. Then she sent the description off and allowed her attention to be dragged directly to the bridge.

Looking out from the cameras, at Tobias, laying on his back, his hand pressed to the wound on his chest, put there by a Solar sword. He is trying to look casual and at ease, smirking up at Khan as he walks in. "Ah, Khan. Afternoon," he said, chuckling softly. "Didn't expect you today."

"I have no idea who you are," Khan said, grinning down at Tobias. "But I'm sure we'll get well acquainted and you can tell me all about your fantastic ship here." He caressed the wall, chuckling softly. "Once you start giving me all your access codes. It'll really just make things less painful and a great deal faster. That's all you should worry about - because if we have to play things hardball...well..." He shrugged slightly.

Tobias licked his lips, glancing past Khan.

Sebastian - his body still seared and reddened by his exposure to a fully flaring Solar anima - is dragged into the room and thrown down onto his knees. There, panting and looking through puffy, heavily burned eyes, he nodded to the captain.

"Tobias."

"Sebastian," Tobias said, frowning. He looked up at Khan. "I'd rather scuttle this ship than let you fly her for anything more than five goddamn seconds."

Khan chuckled. "We'll see about that."

***

She had been a Goddess.

An Empress.

A ruler of a billion souls.

Unquestioned master of all...

And she was currently in the form of a teenage human girl, trapped in a brig, surrounded by heretics and xeno scum. She shook her head slightly, trying to not be too disgusted with herself. This was merely one part of the song, her part of the chorus that spread throughout the entirety of her kind. Eventually, the great song would return her to the whole of the Godhead, and she would subsume herself into the totality, and she would be entirely emptied into nothingness and only return when the time came again for her to stride the benighted universe, to ensure the security and happiness of the Godhead through their tools and their people.

She kicked her foot, grumbling to herself. "At least human bodies are relatively enjoyable...lots of erogenous zones..." She nodded. "I do enjoy the nipples. Those are nice. Those are-"

PURPOSE.

Pain. Her hands clutched at her head and she screamed in the voice of the girlchild, Tiffany Winters. She had tormented her, earlier, and now, she wished she had done more - a petty, vicious urge to make Tiffany feel even a fraction of what she was feeling now. But then the pain redoubled and grew heavier, more focused.

PURPOSE.

YOU HAVE A PURPOSE.

She rolled off the cot in the brig, smashing onto the ground, her eyes closed, her teeth clenched. What are you? She thought, furiously.

YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN, TIFFANY WINTERS. YOU ALONE SHALL STAND AGAINST THE DARKNESS. WITH SWORD AND FLAME, YOU WILL DESTROY EVIL AND PROTECT THE WEAK. YOU ARE TH EHUNTER.

The voice faded and she laid on her back, whimpering. "O...Ow..."

She sat up - and she was the Hunter. The feeling filled her entire form and it was deeply disquieting and disturbing. She put her hands to her face, her eyes widening as she whispered. "What the fuck happened?"

A soft groan echoed in her head. That. Sucked.

"Hello?" The Hunter asked, looking around and standing up. She noticed that the brig door was open and a message had arrived on the screen. She walked to it, her brow furrowing. She read - even as the voice in her head continued to speak.

This is Tiff, shifterbro. You're not a Hunter, congratulations.

"Dear Empress," the Hunter read aloud, softly. "The ship has just been captured by genetically engineered supersoldiers who want to destroy the Federation and conquer the galaxy, including your Omni-Imperium. Working with them would be disastrous in the long term. You are now free to leave the brig - I hope you will do the right thing. Love, Shipsoul Killing Fascists for Fun and Profit." She shook her head.

Okay, hide.

The Hunter focused and turned into a fine, dispersed mist. Her awareness dispersed and it was just in the nick of time: The door opened and a tall, severe looking black woman stepped in, frowning as she slowly looked around the room, pursing her lips. She sniffed at the air - and for the first time in the Hunter's long life, she felt a sense of prickling fear while around a solid. The woman's eyes narrowed and she started to slowly look around the room again, as if she was examining every single part of it. Her nose flared again and her eyes narrowed.

She lifted her wrist. "Glorious Khan," she said. "There is someone in this room." She backed up, her arms spread wide, to make sure anyone invisible would get bumped or brushed. Once she was at the door, she sealed it. A few seconds later, the door began to hiss and crackle. The edges, the seams, were being closed.

The Hunter, though, had already slipped out, as a nearly invisible fog.

Tiffany... The Hunter thought. Can you hear this?

Yup! God, this is just as weird as I remember. Okay, long story short, our spaceship has eben stolen by fucking dipsticks and we're going to steal her back, but we're going to need your help.

What do I get out of this?

A bunch of super-human psychos with plans for galactic domination don't conquer the Federation and turn it into a fucking Nazi Germany 2 Electric Boogaloo? Hows that sound?

The Hunter frowned. And she wanted to drive a harder bargain. But there is a crawling, snapping, snarling feeling in the of her mind. It is a quiet, tiger-feeling, a drive towards...not justice. But towards the destruction of the dark. And as she looked down at the Solar Augments moving through the corridors of the DeeDee, driving the Federation crew before them in handcuffs with their arms strapped behind their backs, she can feel their wrongness.

They're knock offs of what we got. That's what you're feeling, Tiffany said.

Right...

Is Sebastian okay?

The Hunter sighed and wished that she had some kind of teeth to grind. But she begins to do what her kind does best. She disperses, slowly. Keeping the threadlike connection between her many constituent parts intact takes skill and focus and not many of the Godhead would be able to do it so well. But she had done this a lot. And so, she settled down and began to watch and take notes. And as she watched and she took notes, she sent them down to Tiffany, through the strange connection they now shared.

She waited a long time before she finally confirms Tiffany's most pressing question. She waits, not because it's difficult to ascertain, but because she feels as if she has been pressed into service in a war she doesn't wish to fight, for aliens she barely cares about, in a galaxy she feels is cursed. And so, she drags things out for as long as she possibly can get away with before, at last, she lets it out.

Yes, he's fine, stop asking.

...you're a bitch.

The DeeDee dropped several megatons of nuclear fire on the planet, saturating the area around the Scarlet Empress - pinpricks of light that blazed through the ashy caul that surrounded the planet. As the caul faded and the heat of the glowing craters blew a hole through the storm, the DeeDee's scanners flicked around it. The attentive eye of the Solars did what they could - trying to confirm if the Scarlet Empress was destroyed.