;D ;D ;D Nicely set up.
Thanks
I think herding cats might be easier the Khans ;D
:)
----------------
08/17/3070 Location – Grand Canal Industrial District, Mars, Sol ProtectoratePrecentor Poltergeist Omicron Naamah (aka Ebon Magistrate Colonel Nera Artemev) looked out at the canal from the Ares Industrial hover ferry. Robotic watercraft moved in well-defined lanes marked by glowing buoys over the benighted water, like the mythical River of Styx. Just like that river if you jumped in it would result in rapidly dying of either the cold or the fact that is was filled with toxic industrial effluent that would eat away at your flesh. The once Martian playground of the rich was now a land of machines and malice.
Mars had been little more than a neglected mining colony for centuries but The Blood (of Ares) had built it up in secret for decades without informing COMSTAR's Primus. Naamah was terribly surprised when she had found other Wolverines among the Word of Blake during her ascension, other than her own Ebon Magistrate. Of course the two would likely never meet which was for the better. Her own Clan would have reacted poorly once they saw how their kin had developed in isolation on Mars. They did things that would make the most experimental Canopian "Bodymorphs" and extreme Far Looker Adapters squeamish. She was less judgmental, at least on that matter.
Naamah tightened her blood red full body coat and black half-face mask with goggles, the rest of her face was covered by a specially treated balaclava. Mars would never be like Terra even with The Blood restarting some Terra-forming. A frail on the surface would still have to wear a mask to get sufficient oxygen and unless they were fully enclosed even Cyborgs needed more down in the canyonlands to keep their brains healthy. Additionally it was still very cold on the surface, the canyon was slightly warmer as the water was heated once more as a side effect of industry. Her cybernetics filtered out the industrial toxins but she needed a little bit of supplemental oxygen down here around the pollution.
The hovercraft approached a docking station that was just slightly above the water level but well within the hover's air cushion. This “shelf mansion” had belonged to the once planetary governor, Reginald Windsor-Small V, a many times descendant of the ancient Terra British Royalty. Naamah stepped off the platform with her small minder unit of Fidelis, the name a group of 'ascended' ex-Smoke Jaguars had taken rather than their clan identity. They had been liberated by the Opacus Venatori from a DCMS POW camp and ascended to be the Master's own bodyguard under their former Galaxy Commander who had taken the Ascended name of Raphael. They accepted the fate that they would never step foot on Terra but would instead die while avenging the death of their clan which brought some solace.
If only they knew how many of their former Jaguars survived on Tetski. They could never know however, better to let them live out their last fantasy fighting her foes rather than herself. Naamah walked forward and was greeted by Azrael, the normally ranking Manei Domini in the Terran system and former 'Khan/Bishop' of The Blood before they joined completely with the Word of Blake.
“Naamah, Blake's Blessings be upon you.”
“To you as well. Azrael”
“Thanks to you we can spread the Word of Blake once more”
“The Word yes but not his Order. How is The Master?”
“Dead, the uplift was unsuccessful. His mind was lost.”She was not surprised, in fact it was part of Emma's plan to goad Thomas into killing himself with a promise of virtual immortality. He was so delusional to think that his mind could be uploaded into a computer and transferred to Arthur Steiner-Davion's carefully rebuilt cyborg body. The Canopian's successful research into virtual ascension and consciousness transfer was always a lie, but a clever one, and doomed from the start.
“How many know?”“None beyond the Fidelis and you,” Naamah reached forward and thrust a dagger concealed in her coat into him before he could finish the sentence or protect himself. She pulled the dagger back and pushed the rapidly dying man onto the platform before finishing his sentence for him.
“and with Apollyon and Belial dead at the hands of the Ebon Magistrate.” The man's cybernetic eyes were in shock as his 'purified' spirit left him, despite his own delusions he was only mortal after all. Something the non-Ebon Magistrate Manei Domini could never seem to accept was that if you could bleed you can die. There was no such thing as immortality in body, only deed. Cybernetics were crude imitations. Even if they were more potent replacements the human parts were what really mattered and they were meant to be free of eugenics (at least the lab oriented kind) and transhumanism both.
“Well we were tied at the top, Azrael; but there can only be one Master,” She wiped the man's blood off her own dagger, just a little more blood spilled on the red planet,
“and today its me.”The Fidelis were only light armed not expecting this reaction between the two highest ranking Manei Domini after losing their Master.
“There is your Trial of Position Fidelis. I am your Master now,” They crossed their hands over the chest and bowed,
“and we have much to do. Take me to Thomas.”Raphael walked into the mansion which increasingly lost any grandeur to become a very industrial space. Naamah followed and the Jaguars tailed behind. The Fidelis escorted her to the uplift chamber where Thomas' cybernetic body remained. Naamah walked up to the machine's access terminal and the former Master's dead body slumped in a chair.
“I would like a moment alone please.”They departed leaving only Naamah and a dead man,
“Alas poor Thomas. You should have doubted harder. Your delusions were so strong, your fanatics so loyal to their Shadow Primus. It was easy to convince you of almost anything but to stop. Killing Emma was a bad plan, I'm sure she tried to talk you out of all this.” She swept her arms across the massive supercomputer terminal.
Naamah looked out over the window to the chamber toward an automated factory making more machines,
“What a pity then that everything you've built belongs to us now, and I'm going to use it destroy everything you held dear.”The seven drone types (3 Battlemechs, 3 Aerospace, and 1 “Infantry”) assembly line was operating at maximum rate now. Designed by the Wolverines as a weapon to destroy the Clans they would accomplish their intended purpose although sooner than expected.
Machines were so easy to control. They had no fear, no families, no names of their own just like the Manei Domini, but unlike the Ebon Magistrate. Naamah twirled her double edged dagger,
“Revenge is best served with a side of cold steel,” and threw it toward dead Thomas,
“and silicon nightmares.” She looked at The Blood of Ares insignia and smiled. They may be wayward kin that needed to be sacrificed but they were still Wolverines.
“The other Clans will finally die and the Wolverines will be ilClan. Alpha and Omega, First to fall, but yet last Clan standing despite all odds.” Naamah inserted an optical data-cube concealed within a prosthetic arm into the computer that would actually make it work as intended. Not as a consciousness transfer of course but as the central node of a System wide network capable of running war by remote control.
“How unfortunate that I will not be able to see it." Her hands flew across the keyboard as binary code scrolled across the computer screens as she activate the latent data-cube that she had carried for so long,
"Oh well, my sacrifice is just as worthy as Franklin Hallis’ was. One more Warrior sacrificed to save the Wolverines and win the War. Isn’t that right Erebus.”The dead man's cybernetics reanimated momentarily in a ghoulishly spastic manner, like those of Frankenstein’s monster as residual memory from them was drawn into the mainframe. Naamah couldn’t puppet his cybernetic form though that was an idea poised during planning. However, the AI of “Erebus” made for a very convincing virtual copy of Thomas Marik as Emma had known him. His digitally rendered voice came in over the speakers,
“Yes Master.”
“We are going to have so much fun with this Erebus. I can hardly wait.”