...hold me tighter, I think I'm sinking down...

[paulobrito]

This is one of the most interesting techno-horror stories I have read in ages.
Trying high-tech sensors in banshee's and relatives is fun to watch.

[Euphonium]

and that's when he heard the barking.  The baying of a pack of hounds.

A Wild Hunt?

I'm lking this more and more!

[cklammer]

This is very well written and plotted.

What makes it so believable is that, IMO, only one change (Banshees!!!) has been introduced plausibly into the BT canon setting.

[Cannonshop]

LV 5775, anomalous class M planet, deep periphery..

it was not difficult to find the landings because the vegetation had not, in fourteen years, completely reclaimed the two colony towns.

the ruins of the two colonial town spaces.  they were within 100 km of each other, and with the camo nets long gone, it was easy to find the remains of cultivated fields, eroded trails that may have once been roads, and other signs of human occupation.

nobody was hiding it anymore, you see.  everything was out in the open.

the narrow muddy streets glittered with the greening debris of machine-gun cartridges and belt links.

This wasn't a battlefield, it was a murder scene.

"Savashri, they even killed the livestock."

there would be no excusing this level of....waste.  Arlene spotted a pile of cartridges, 100 mm shells, 400 milimeters in length, she knew without picking one up what it would say on the headstamp, and could guess even which arsenal in Clan Space produced them.

Class 10 cluster munitions aren't that rare.   The pocking of the granite cliff showed where civilians had been herded into a killing box.

as she walked through the area that suggested itself as 'Lugh', she could play out the massacre in scene after scene, her imagination inserting the screams and pleas of civilians as they were cruelly killed by the most advanced warriors known to man.

she came to a burnt out building made of stones mortared together, and stepped through the low, narrow doorway.  The floor was charcoal and ash, and there was no roof, but in the gloom, she could imagine how it must have looked when it was whole, when people lived here.

she walked to the back wall, and there it was.

the primitive weapons were charred and bent by heat, but at the back, were the racked Mauser 960s, still where they had been when the front of the building had been hit with an inferno round and flamers.

"They did not fight back because they had no means to fight..." she mused aloud.  "their weapons were in here."

some charred bones lay here and there-proof that someone had been inside when the building had been lit up.

she stepped outside.

the horror of what she could imagine just from the damage around her, turned her insides with nausea.

[Cannonshop]

• Jonah Ward
• Carlos (House Fetladral)
• Stephen (House Kerensky)
• Jerome Sender
• Robert (House Connors)
• Katya (House Carns)
• Dmitry (House Kerensky)
• Masha (House Nygren)
• Yuri (House Kerensky A)
• Timothy (House Mehta)
• Samuel (House Moran)
• Deanna (House Winson Jen)
• Nikolai (House Taylor)

Masha would be a problem.  She was taken by Clan Jade Falcon as abtakha three years after the crime. 

There would be nowhere to hide, regardless.  She could feel the direction to travel like a needle in her head.

Carmelita stepped into the spaceport's bathroom a vivacious redhead, and came out a honey-blonde, her tech uniform traded for a Merchant's travel clothes.

There would be a billet open on a ship, but that ship was bound for the wrong direction...at first.

She knew where the next one was, she just had to get there...

[Artifex]

So, it is a race to the end. :D

[Cannonshop]

LV 5775...

Dr. Genevra Hofspatzer looked at the stones, "well, it's similar to pre-roman celtic inscriptions and I see elements of pre-roman germanic...but this is fairly straight forward."  she frowned, "The table is a sacrificial altar."

"What did they sacrifice?"

"Probably animals, we can hope it was just animals."  she climbed up onto the stone and examined it, "Of course, hope is overrated, sweet jesus."

"The proportions are right for tying a human being down and bleeding them out, and the table is sized in a way that it would support restraining a human during the ritual...I can think of that as a possible motive for a massacre."  the Professor was thoroughly dispassionate as she examined the setup.  "The other rituals described by Katya's testimony-the offerings of food to 'the good folk' and the fear of discovery, even the boy telling them that visitors are unwelcome and they should leave?"

"there was supposedly a facility on-planet the Trinary were looking for."

"Well...if i were betting, I would suggest it's..." the academic got to her feet, and pointed, "Thataway.  based on the orientation of the stone circles.  Now, I can't imagine what the SLDF navy would be researching on a planet settled by religious lunatics, but who knows?"

***

It took some work with shuttles, running sensor scans, and the clue only turned into a clue-and an arrow pointing in a direction, after someone decided to look for sensor distortion-dead spaces.

the Dead Space was nearly five kilometers wide, and centered high up on one of the large, rolling hills.

It hadn't been apparent, because it wasn't expected.

Once it was, it was easy to tune around the jamming-which was SLDF standard jamming as provided by an older model Guardian suite.

They took a shuttle instead of trying to walk it, and found their way to a point that was too flat, because it was shaved off the top of the mountain, fused solid, and capped with ferrocrete.

a set of stairs led down from the exposed landing pad, to a sealed and locked set of blast doors, and those doors were marked.

Authorized Personnel Only

THIS IS A STAR LEAGUE MILITARY FACILITY
NO ENTRY.
VIOLATORS WILL BE MET WITH LETHAL FORCE.

"Nice!"  Maurise had been thoroughly creeped out as they surveyed the town-sites and looked for bodies and evidence, the poor man had also been sweeping with his EMF device and finding various shades of absolutely nothing.

"Nice?"

"This scanner, it's set up for biometric readings, no keypad, no card slot.  they really meant it back in those days, if you weren't authorized personnel, the door simply wasn't going to open no matter whose identification you swiped or how good you are at lockpicking."

"Can you open it?"

"Star Captain, this is a gene-coded biometric lock, probably with a spoken code-phrase unique to each authorized person, it's a locking system more complex than you see on a modern neurohelmet and the only reason you don't see 'em on Brian Cache sites, is that there are no guarantees that the right person with the right codes can be found."

"So...?"

"Yes, but I want you and the rest of the Warriors and techs here to understand just what kind of super-entry hacking awesome ristar I really am.  Give me a few minutes before you break out the crow-bars and cutting charges."

"If you are such a ristar, why would we need them?"

"Because...I might not be." he admitted, "the difficult done immediately, but the impossible might take a few hours.  Especially since the power is on here."

[Cannonshop]

It ended up taking twelve hours for Maurise to pick the lock.

the upper levels were clearly meant to be service levels.  a set of hidden blast doors and an elevator to the surface were revealed when they walked in, the staging pad for a Mark VI surface-to-orbit shuttle held...a mark VI.

complete with the mummified remains of the flight crew, the personnel hatch on the shuttle was open, and deformed-something had forced it.

"Well...that does not look good."

"no signs of toxins, a little bit of halon though..."

"Fire-suppression systems?"

"Probably.  No fires though, and it's been circulated out."

further movement required removing a welded bar from the personnel doors after a check of the elevator shaft showed the cables had been cut and the doors jammed closed and welded shut.

from this side.

"raise your hand if you have a bad feeling about this?" Professor Hofspatzer said nervously.

Everyone, including Arlene, raised their hand.

"And we're going on in, aren't we?"

"Language! Aff, we are going forward...regardless of the very bad idea it might be."

the next dead body wore a laboratory smock over coveralls, and cause of death was clear-a broken neck, which, lying halfway down the stair and at an odd angle, suggested the cause of death being an unfortunate fall.

at the security station at the bottom, inside the ferroglas booth, a dead infantryman in SLDF uniform sat forever, his mummified fingers frozen to a keypad and burned.  again, an obvious cause of death, from what appeared to be a freak malfunction.

"Bad feeling getting worse, Star Captain."

The doors hissed open on compressed air cylinders, revealing what appeared to be a fairly common long-term living space, laid out in standard fashion that is still in use over ninety percent of human space.

[Cannonshop]

Jade Falcon occupied Zone...

Star Captain Masha  heard the barking, and reached under her pillow, to grip a sliver of metal. 

She knew...

"Hello Masha."

the former Wolf officer turned over under her covers, and peered into the gloom.

The Girl was sitting at her writing desk.

"Not far enough, quiaff?"

"no, not far enough." the girl agreed.  "You can run, if you like? so far, your comrades made that choice, except Dmitry, he tried to fight.  I have to say, your strategy for fleeing is the most inconvenient thus far.  a new name, a new uniform, a posting far from me.  challenging."

"I know how to fight you."  masha rolled to her feet, the jagged piece of elemental, asteroidal iron poking through her knuckles like a punching dagger.

"oh, good, you'll make this entertaining...where did you learn?"

Masha laughed a bitter laugh, "I got curious.  all those horse-shoes,but no horses.  your kind have rules."

"you don't know them all."

[Cannonshop]

LV 5775...

Because the base was laid out in a standard layout, finding the administration office was not difficult.  the scattering of death here was much the same-accident after accident, like the world's worst slapstick holovid-but with lethal consequences.

Electrocution, automatic doors, fire suppression systems, slips, falls...

a catalogue of workplace violence.

a staff, murdered by bad luck, sealed away after the fact for centuries to mummify in dry air.

the expressions of terror still on some of the faces put the lie to that-they had been in a panic, when they died.

"What were they working on?"

[Grognard]

Wowzers my Friend! :D
You're a month early with THIS missive. :))

but THANKS :thumbsup:

[ThePW]

Wowzers my Friend! :D
You're a month early with THIS missive. :))

but THANKS :thumbsup:

and we still have more than 1/2 a dozen stiffs to stiffen. It might take some of October to finish this story *whips*

[nerd]

The tech hacker breaking in was good. And now, let's see!

[worktroll]

[Masha laughed a bitter laugh, "I got curious.  all those horse-shoes,but no horses.  your kind have rules."

"you don't know them all."

Nasty ...

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Nasty ...

Whom the gods would destroy, first they make proud.

[Cannonshop]

Frost covered the barracks room, and there was pounding and shouting at the door.

Masha could feel the cold, but thus far, she held her assailant at arm's length-for as long as she could get the piece of meteoric iron between herself, and the girl.

"I told you, Your kind have rules!" she snarled, sweat dripping.

this fight had gone on for hours now.

"you can't last forever." The Girl told her, blinking to the side, too-close, Masha barely brought the spike of iron down in time-

cutting her foe.

"That is one, I can go all night, Carmelita.  what a name?  you borrowed it like you borrowed that face."

"it's bought and paid for."  the thing hissed.  Masha noted the blood was the wrong color, "it's mine because I traded for it."

"but not your real name is it?" Masha snapped a punch, blocking her foe and driving it backward, to blink back to standing just outside her reach.

"You did do your research! impressive, I would not have imagined that bit would have survived these millennia."

"Caradoc was very helpful." Masha admitted.

"Would have been before you blew his brains out."  The girl snarled.

"a mistake."

"Not all mistakes can be forgiven."

the pounding at the door was louder.

"You are holding them out?" Masha asked.

"It seemed reasonable to keep collateral damage down.  I am not here for an innocent."

"that is not the reputation of the Wild Hunt."

"That's because innocence is so very scarce.  my oath is vengeance on the guilty.  The men outside may not be innocents, but they do not share your guilt, I have no claim on them."

Masha chose to Move, a bold lunge, catching the...girl by surprise, and bringing the spike of iron against her throat.

"Open the door then, thing." she hissed, "This will be done in the circle or not at all!"

The freezing form burned in her arms.  "HOW-?"

"I told you, I did my research." Masha snarled, "Door, NOW!!"

in a contest of wills...

the door opened.

"THIS!!" Masha shouted, "THIS is why you always check before you open fire on Civilians you stupid surats!!"

The girl's form blinked, and Masha's throat was in clawed fingers as the warriors trying to enter the room flinched in pain, the screams audible to all, as something , white and pale and furious, tore their Star Captain limb-from-limb before their eyes.

on the wall, scrawled to the floor, in the blood of Star Captain Masha of the bloodhouse Nygren...

Dyma'r gosb am ladd gwesteiwr diniwed

by the time they could get their senses, the attacker was gone.

[Cannonshop]

• Jonah Ward
• Carlos (House Fetladral)
• Stephen (House Kerensky)
• Jerome Sender
• Robert (House Connors)
• Katya (House Carns)
• Dmitry (House Kerensky)
• Masha (House Nygren)
• Yuri (House Kerensky A)
• Timothy (House Mehta)
• Samuel (House Moran)
• Deanna (House Winson Jen)
• Nikolai (House Taylor)

They are learning.  How are they learning?

Carmelita opened her eyes as the jumpship came out of hyperspace.

[Cannonshop]

LV 5775...

The lowest level did not look like a scientific installation.

Not at all.

There was a bronze and stone altar, and on it, a body that was not mummified.

"savashri..."

"Alive."  Pembroke, the senior Medical tech said, "Or really well preserved in stasis, it's difficult to say."

the girl on the altar was a child, far too small and frail for the restraints holding her down.

the scattered bodies around the room told a story.  medical department coveralls, surgical tools, and dried stains of blood.  A surgical team practiciing on one another with all the viciousness of a pack of rabid animals.

"Don't get too close."  Arlene had a feeling.  a bad feeling.  the uppe level had a walkway that looked down into this pit, this pit inscribed with markings the professor termed 'glyph like structures, possibly similar to historical superstitions". The floor had a bronze inlay pattern that drew the eye from above.  "Pretend to forget three thousand years of science, Professor, tell me what you think we are looking at?"

"A human sacrifice, interrupted, some kind of ritual.  I would have to spend a month digging through dusty archives and we might not know what all of those symbols mean, but the inlay on the floor is something I'm familiar with."

"What is it?"

"The Seal of Solomon."  Genevre stated, "which is not in tune with the origin of the rest of the symbology in here, or with laying a person out for dissection...jesus, christ...what were they trying to do here?"

"We may find answers in the administration office." Arlene stated, "I want two men on overwatch, nobody has access in here until we know what they were attempting, and medical monitoring in case the body on the altar is more than a body, and needs to eat, or shit, or something."

"you know, Star Captain, I used to like weirdness..." Maurise commented.  "I really did..."

"Too weird for you?"

The tech nodded.

"Me too.  we are going to see what records are still present, what they were trying to do and how they intended to do it...and then we are going to take this...atrocity apart until nothing is left."

[Cannonshop]

Tamar, Wolf Clan OZ...

Carmelita the Merchant stepped out of a shuttle, and hefted her sample bag with a grunt. she favored her right arm a bit, and bandages were visible under her tunic.

She could feel Yuri's presence here, less than a mile away, under the bright sunlight.

Sunlight that rendered her as powerless as any mortal.

she showed her identicard, the minor glammer on it was weak enough and mild enough that the warrior's eyes glazed over it, before passing her on from port control into the city.

she could feel an echo here, a memory of the old ways, flickers of belief among the population as she wandered into the streets, a few symbols of tribute and worship here and there, left-overs from when humanity crowded under stone and feared the coming of night and cold.

Bloodhouse Kerensky was holding a Trial tonight, and competitors from that bloodhouse were congregating here to fight for the honor of a name.

Yuri would be here, among the warriors, committing to a ritual that is older than he could possibly know.

She considered whether to claim his soul before, or after his competition.

Would she allow him one last honor before destruction? Masha sat poorly  with her, the woman had bothered to dig for secrets, and had chosen to die willingly as a lesson to her comrades. 

It made the vengeance curdle a little, like sour milk.  The sweet terror wasn't there, only the final ending.

but it is honor...

a memory of the Warrior laughing as he played fire over a crowded home.

he does not deserve to die with honor.

her selves were in agreement.  Yuri would be denied his chance at a blood name.  He would fall before the grand melee.

[Cannonshop]

LV 5775...

"Savashri...founder...is there nothing of this but an endless parade of horrors?"  Maurise had once prided himself on shedding his sibko background, his failure to become a Warrior, and he once took a perverse pride in his lower-caste placement, determined to be every quirky, weird and iconoclastic stereotype of the Technical caste.

That was gone, as he helped examine the detailed, painstaking records of the experiments done in this place.

"The colonists...they were used as test subjects."

"Some of the military personnel as well." the Professor noted, "My god, this is...this is beyond sick."

Arlene noted her subordinates were expressing her own feelings.  The image in place of prominence where the site director sat? was not unfamiliar.  The face of Richard Cameron, in a portrait known to every sibko cadet and lower-caste student in the Homeworlds, looked on approvingly at what could only be described as a vault of horrors.

the intent of the research here, was to stimulate something called 'parapsychic phenomena'.

and for nearly a decade this cursed research had gone on here, until....


"Test subject 1144, Carmelita Morganna Llews, age eleven...manifestation of possible psychometric abilities, scheduled for dissection..."

She looked up, "The same day that Stephan Amaris launched his coup attempt.  That little girl on the altar down stairs is over three hundred years old...or she is a very good facsimile of someone who died here three hundred years ago."

with a boom, every door out of the habitation level slammed shut, and locked.

Screens lit.

"byddwch yn aros yma fel fy ngwrddo nes i'm tasg gael ei chwblhau."

Automatic security protocols enabled. Biohazardous Level One Initiated. Please Stand By.

[croaker]

Oh, my, this is absolutely fascinating, CS. You have outdone yourself. I love this. Keep it up!

[Euphonium]

I'm really loving this!

[Cannonshop]

Tamar City Manuever Range, Tamar, Wolf Clan OZ...

The Grand Melee this year would be the last time Yuri could try for a bloodname-he was already technically too old, but he'd managed to pass the physical testing and he wasn't the oldest competitor-Zerah was older by a full three months.

He pulled his boots on, and looked up into a mirror.  I can do this.

the assertion felt...hollow.

the air chilled in the ready room, and he saw a puff of breath. 

He looked around, the others didn't seem to notice it.  show offs.  there was a rumble just below his hearing, and a young warrior walked past, clapping him on the shoulder, "Good luck, Star Commander."

"Yeah...you too."

he checked his kit in the door-mirror, and noticed someone standing behind him, a woman's alabaster hand... he turned, but there was nobody there.

Nervous.  settle, settle, it is just nerves...

He turned, and she was standing in front of him in the mirror.  Lank, dark hair, white skin, rags like robes, crossed with patterns of red...

in his mirror, in front of him, looking at him.

The memory of LV 5775 flooded into the front of his mind, and he heard the sound of baying hounds, as she reached up, and scratched something into the mirror...

Kin lladdwr, roedd hi'n feichiog pan wnaethoch ei llosgi.

and the mirror changed background, as he watched himself, his younger self, in scenes-the local girl he'd coupled with the night before the false test triggered the massacre.

her dying under his flamer-up close...

The girl in the mirror reached out, and he felt icy cold wrap his heart, and then, Darkness.

the medical examination showed a pattern of frost damage on Yuri's heart, in the shape of a young woman's hand.

the blood he coughed up, formed a pattern on the mirror that almost concealed the words scratched on the wrong side of it.

mae calon oer yn dod â marwolaeth oer.

Yuri never got to compete.

[Cannonshop]

LV 5775...

"...keep working on those overrides, Maurise." Arlene told her technician, "the Professor and I will continue."

"continue what?"

"Working the case." she said, "We do not have all of the answers yet, I do not have what I set out for...and we appear to have ample time, at least until the food runs out."

Their medtech was treating Warrior Bruel, who got impatient and tried to shoot the girl on the altar with his rifle-the rifle self-destructed, causing minor injuries, and their sidearms and weapons heated up violently, forcing everyone to drop their arms.  the PA announced, "No playing with guns!"

maybe it was her own acceptance of her own obsolescence, but Arlene found she could still focus and think rationally. 

even evaluate their situation with something like logic.

"professor, how are you holding up?"

"I never thought I would be stuck inside a myth, Star Captain."  Professor Genevre said quietly, "It is less...delightful than I dreamed."

"What are we dealing with?"

"Well...let's see.  we're inside a hollow  hill, at the will of an immaterial intelligence, there's an ageless child downstairs, and she's apparently picking off specific victims whom offended her in very specific ways.  I would suggest we're in a Fairy story, but not the kind they play on children's hour television."

"And your professional assessment?"

"Figure out what the story hook is." Genevre stated, "These myths always revolve around a moral, even the really dark, original myths.  Some lesson the hero learns or masters that removes the threat, it's usually something that isn't in the normal pattern-a warrior who out-clevers his captor, or a peasant who demonstrates superior ettiquette, or a fool who demonstrates wisdom...or in some cases, a wise man who plays the fool.  Find out what it...what she wants, or what her source of power is."

"Power...Maurise!"

"Yes Star Captain?"

"Find the specs on this bunker.  They have to be here somewhere for maintenance purposes, I want you to look over the specific design of the structure and systems here."

[Cannonshop]

• Jonah Ward
• Carlos (House Fetladral)
• Stephen (House Kerensky)
• Jerome Sender
• Robert (House Connors)
• Katya (House Carns)
• Dmitry (House Kerensky)
• Masha (House Nygren)
• Yuri (House Kerensky A)
• Timothy (House Mehta)
• Samuel (House Moran)
• Deanna (House Winson Jen)
• Nikolai (House Taylor)

"There are four left."  Khan Vladimir Ward stated, "Four.  out of fifteen warriors, warriors who survived Operation Revival, Tukayyid, the Refusal War, the restoration of this Clan, a series of skirmishes, advances, assaults, and defenses...and they are being picked off one, by, one."

Loremaster Katya Kerensky accepted the folders, "You sound like you are about to make a decision, quiaff?"

"Aff."  He said, "We tried protective custody, but the resources were...not sufficient.  Tried leaving one out for bait, and the bait was taken without any reasonable sign or trace."

"The Watch officer working the case is close to the source." She said, "There is some reason to be confident this may resolve."

"It will resolve." Vlad corrected his Loremaster, "When the last one dies, or when we stop this...hunter, uncover their secrets...but it will resolve."

"Your orders?"

"Increase resources on the remaining four,  No privacy, under no circumstance can any of them be allowed to be alone, I do not mean electronic monitoring, I want physical escorts at all times until this resolves one way, or the other."  he sighed, "This is a threat, something is penetrating our security as easily as one might walk into a public square, someone is killing warriors with surgical precision without suffering so much as a bruise, if this is a field test of some new technology, I want that technology secured and identified, if it is not, then that equates to a threat to all the Clans, possibly the entire human race, if it is of alien origin."

There, he said it, alien origin. 

"The preliminary report from Star Captain Arlene of the Watch suggests this may be attempting to appear supernatural in origin."

Vlad frowned and looked at the dead man in the Morgue, and at the frostbitten scar on that dead man's heart.  "Mythological.  She said 'mythological' specifically." he stated, "Get a team working on known mythologies that match these methods, myths often contain a kernel of fact buried in them....because this-" he reached out with a gloved hand and turned the frozen meat taken from Yuri's chest, "-I am told, is physically impossible."

[JA Baker]

There are more things in heaven and Earth, Khan Vladimir Ward, than are dreamt of in your philosophy

[Cannonshop]

Somewhere in the Wolf OZ...

"...because so far, eleven members of your old Trinary are dead under...unusual circumstances."

"Unusual how?"

"Unusual, in that the first four died in explainable, if unusual ways.  A drug overdose, a suicide, several accidents...but then, it got overt-one was bashed into the water-faucet of a shower and impaled through the skull, another, was murdered in her quarters in front of a group of witnesses, and the latest had his heart frozen-no other mark on him."

Tim put the Fusionaire down.  "Frozen?"

"In his chest cavity." the freebirth Watch trooper clarified, stirring at her drink with a glass spoon.  "Right in the locker room, again, witnesses, but nobody saw anything until he vomited blood and collapsed.  Do you know what gets me?"

"I have no idea." she was cute, Tim decided, for a freebirth military policeman assigned to ruin his privacy and follow him like an anchor on a chain.  "What gets you?"

"Your record, their records. improbable escapes, against-the-odds victories, but you never seem to get promoted.  Why is that?"

"Luck of the draw? poor transfer orders, maybe?" he shrugged, "I do not know why.  I can never seem to secure a sponsor for a bloodname, and now I am...old-almost past my prime."

she looked into his eyes coyly, "Not that old.  You've got some personal magnetism to you." she gave him a half smile, "The perfect man for a girl with daddy issues."

He wrinkled his nose, "Ew...please not that! as if I needed a reminder!"

she giggled, which made him feel strangely good, but there was something about her...he couldn't quite place it.

"I think, we have drunk our last drink." he said, standing, "I have duties tomorrow."

"Fair enough." she got up, and slid her credit-stic into the port on the table.  "I am ready when you are."

a not-so-subtle reminder then.  "I only have the furnishings I require." he told her, "individually."

"Double in a single bed works."

"That was not an invitation."

she rolled her eyes, "yes, but I am not supposed to let you out of my sight, and what little career i have, I want to keep.  I will sleep on the floor, or in a chair, or stay awake until my relief shows up.  Just thought you might be fun for a roll."  her tone betrayed disappointment.

"Work before pleasure." he reminded her.

"Sey...la." she said boredly, and shouldered a bag.

"What is in the bag?"

"Stuff.  Related to your case." she told him.

"I...it looks heavy."

"No touchy." she told him.

they walked to the barracks without incident, and up to his room on the third floor.

"What are you doing?"

"Stuff, it is related to research involved with your case, in this case..." she held up a bag, "early warning, we do not know how they are getting in, but it seems to fool advanced warning sensors..so...something primitive."

she poured the white powder in a line across the window sill, and across the door jamb, then she said, "Go ahead and get ready for bed, sir."

she placed some candles around the room, "To detect air disturbances, the file says they are using some form of advanced sneak or stealthing, so we came up with a suite of simple, low-tech methods to try."

"Innovative." he said approvingly.  "If I had said 'yes' to your proposition..?"

"eh, I would still be setting up, but then we'd be coupling for half the night.  This job is great for the benefits, but it truly sucks ass most of the time...and not in the fun way...you can go to sleep, sir.  I've got you."

something seemed off, but he couldn't pin it down, but he was tired...he lay down on his rack, and pulled the coverlet over his nude body.

"What is your name again?"

"Gwendolynn." she told him, "no worries sir, you can rest easy, this will all be over soon."

the lights went out, leaving only the feeble candles, and a sweet scent in the air...

[Sir Chaos]

You should have said "yes", Timothy. At least that way, you´d have gone out with a bang.

[Cannonshop]

LV 5775...

Arlene ran the video record again.

it was sickening to watch, three hundred years later and it was still sickening.  The extremes on screen...

what would I want, in her place?  she got up, and walked to the access door down.  The outer doors were still sealed, but this one was secured mechanicall, meaning that she could turn the latches with a wheel, and it would open.

"Star Captain, what are you thinking?"  the Professor asked.

"You mentioned mythology usually demands some action that is either a paragon of character, or an action against type." Arlene stated.  "Put yourself in the girl's position-taken from her home, subjected to experiments, and restrained.  What would you want, most in the whole world?"

She turned the wheel as she spoke.

"uh, is that a good idea?"

The door opened.

"I do not know."  Arlene turned to the civilian, "But I know a crime was committed here, and the primary victim-and our only witness, is through this door.  The root of our questions, the cause...an angry little girl who's been at the bottom of a hole full of dead men for centuries.  what would that child want?"  she snorted, "I never had kids..."

"We all make choices."

"so we do."  Arlene stepped onto the stairwell, and started down it.  she had a theory.  it reacts to hostile actions, and hostile intent.

avoiding the lift, she used the service ladder to reach the bottom level, and walked into the chamber, stepping over  dead men to reach the altar.


Elsewhere...

Timothy woke in darkness.

The Watcher, Gwendolynn, was on the floor, sprawled out.

"She'll wake up."

the Girl was standing over her.  "It was a decent effort.  she delayed me for minutes.  but we do not punish those who are simply doing their duty."

"this is for Lugh, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I'm ready.  I won't run."

"You'll wish you had."


LV-5775...

the cuffs were a standard model used for restraining mental patients and those who can not control their outbursts.  it took Arlene a moment of searching bodies to find the keys, and she unlocked them, then, she followed the leads plugged into the body in the couch, to a panel, and began shutting it down.

"What they did to you, was a crime."  she spoke.  "Let's end it."

She turned back to the prone body, and gently lifted ninety pounds of ancient child into her arms.  "Let's take you home now."

the body was warm.  she cradled the girl and walked to the elevator, which opened.

Elsewhere

The girl rushed at him-and he felt a cold wind...but Timothy was alive.

the darkness in the room lifted.


LV-5775...

The faclity's doors opened, as power died down.  "What happened?" Maurise was asking.

"We are going home."  Arlene told him, and felt the girl stirring against her chest.  "We're going on home now."  a small arm wrapped her in an awkward hug. "Ssshhhh...it is going to be alright, they are never going to hurt you again..."

"How do you know if she is safe?"

"I do not.  I guess we can call this an experiment-ending the madness of a First Lord's insane experiment, rescuing a child?"

"Turning a terror loose on the universe?"

"I think the terror was already loosed.  we will know more when the girl can speak, but for now, I expect to find she is an excellent witness for compiling charges against a group of criminals.  Placing her with a family may prove...challenging, but for now, this fresh air after days underground is refreshing, quiaff?"

[Cannonshop]

Aftermath...

Four warriors of Clan Wolf, survivors of Revival and the following years, submitted to a tribunal for judgement over their actions on LV-5775.  Two did this voluntarily, the other two, tried to fight the charges, then tried to fight their convictions, and then lost.

Scientists examining documentation from the former facility on that world came to a set of conclusions:

1) that the experiment run on LV 5775 was extremely unethical even by Clan standards, and the inescapable fact that it had been done under the Aegis of the original Star League in the decade leading to the Amaris coup showed that the systemic failures that let Stephan Amaris launch his coup had roots leading potentially back to before Simon Cameron's assassination.

2)There are some directions of research that simply should not be pursued.

Carmelita Morgan Llews has been placed in the care of Star Captain Arlene of the Clan Watch, and Arlene has been reassigned to the office of the Loremaster's support staff.  Arlene's current security clearance sits within the Clan Watch hierarchy somewhere between "Yes, I am authorized to know about that' and 'you had best get with answering my questions honestly and completely, in detail, with illustrations and a help file'.

Her purview is rather specific: phenomena and actions that nobody is qualified to handle...including her team, but someone needs to handle them.