Chapter 605: No Time for Tears

"While it was said that the Sixth Precursor War was about the Terran Confederacy and the Unified Council, as 435c3417A4323 discovered that there is more to it than that. This discovery helped lend credence to the name itself as the third Precursor known as the Atrekna had consecutively replaced the Lanaktallan for the Precursor being fought."

- History of the Milky Way Galaxy on the Atrekna, published and verified by the Amalgamated Races Research and Development

Nakteti moved down the hallway, escorted by five of Lady Keena's children. Two on each side, one trailing slightly behind. In defiance of her expectations, her escorts weren't unarmed, but rather just waved through the checkpoint manned by white armored troops. She found the helmets they wore slightly imposing and reminiscent of Terran skulls, which she supposed was the exact reaction the designer had been trying to create.

The hallway was obviously built for Lanaktallans, she could tell by the width and the slow corners. The artwork on the walls was a mixture of Lanaktallan and Terran and something else. Lots of paintings of small spacecraft, space battles depicting large wedge shaped ships, and charging white armored troops.

Finally she reached the door at the end and waited as bowing functionaries pulled it open.

Nakteti had to admit, she half expected to find Darth Harmonus sitting on a throne atop a stack of skulls with mostly-nude Terran females chained to the throne.

Instead it was a comfortable meeting room with a large table that she could tell had a built in holotank hidden beneath the wooden veneer. There were multiple chairs at the sides, two drink dispensers, and a nutriforge.

Inside was two Lanaktallan, one in heavy manacles without chains and the other in a severe uniform. There were four Terrans, all of them in military uniforms, a chrome cyborg with a single red eye that moved back and forth across a horizontal black macroplas visor, a glimmering digital sentience made of red and silver...

And of course, Darth Harmonus himself.

Nakteti had to admit, the sight of him took her breath away. He was taller than the other humans, dressed entirely in black combat armor, with a cape that hung down from his shoulders and was held fast by links of polished warsteel. His presence rolled out of the doors, enveloping her with an aura of danger, competence, and malevolence.

In other words, a typical Enraged Terran.

"Lady Nakteti," Darth Harmonus wheezed.

"Lord Harmonus," Nakteti said. Despite the fact she was a planetary owner and ruler she still bowed. She knew power and authority when she saw it and she was in his house.

"Come inside, if you would," Darth Harmonus wheezed, making a sweeping gesture.

Nakteti noted that several of the decorations on the wall trembled as he hand passed them by.

"Grand Most High in Chains Mo'otTwo'ot," Darth Harmonus said, waving at the one with the heavy manacles.

"Lady Nakteti," the Lanaktallan said. Nakteti noted that there was no servile sycophancy in the Lankatallan's gaze, just the steady appraisal of a powerful being.

"Director of Population Therapy and Recovery, Red Prince," Darth pointed out.

The Digital Sentience gave a nod. "Lady Nakteti."

The other introductions went around. Meklords of Terra, the other Lanaktallan was an envoy from someone known as Mana'aktoo, who had defected from the Unified Council early in the war and was allies with the Harmonus Empire and a signatory of the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems.

Nakteti introduced her escorts, all children of Her Grace Khoonkeenadee, the Arch-Duchess of Relflagen, Lady of Magic and Beauty, the Arcane Will of King Nganto, She Who has Birthed a Hundred.

"How is your mother?" Darth Harmonus asked. "I assume she is well and hewing her way through an enemy army as we speak?"

"As we last heard, she is well," Lady Surscee said. "She has been ordered to establish a new fortress and conquer new lands for King Nganto."

"I'm glad to hear such," Darth Harmonus wheezed.

"You know her?" Nakteti asked.

One of the Meklords chuckled. When Nakteti looked at him he smiled.

"My Lady, anyone who spends more than a few decades in the LARP community knows of Lady Kay. She's the top of the ladders," He chuckled.

"Just be glad she was never interested in our LARPs and preferred anarcho-primitivism," another Meklord said.

"She'd own most of the systems," the heavily synthesized voice of the cyborg added.

From there the conversation went of recent news. The Great Die Off, the surrender of the Unified Council, and the Atrekna Counter-Assault. Once that was over, Nakteti asked questions about the founding of the Empire.

Darth Harmonus referred most of the questions to Red Prince, who Nakteti learned was a licensed psychotherapist.

As the day moved on and she snacked, listening to the wisdom and experience of the other system leaders in the room, Nakteti was glad she had come. There were plenty of differing viewpoints on how to handle insurgencies, how to treat victims of millions of years of oppression, how to handle the emotional explosion by people who had spent their entire lives on drugs and suddenly found themselves free inside their own mind for the first time.

As the discussion went on, she realized that her task wasn't one of months or a few years, but decades.

After a luxurious dinner, hosted by Mo'otTwo'ot, there was even more discussion. However, it turned to imports and exports. Darth Harmonus and the Meklords believed that having industry and agriculture, despite the fact it was actually superfluous thanks to nutri-forges, helped the population both in the creation of it and the availability of 'naturally grown' food products.

Part of Nakteti wanted to disagree with how Red Prince stated that some people, even Terrans born into post-scarcity, enjoyed laboring in the fields and in factories, that it gave them a sense of accomplishment.

But she had seen her own people crave the iron hand of dictatorship.

After the meeting she found herself standing outside, in a garden, beside a fountain, when she could feel the rolling waves of pressure coming from behind her, growing stronger with each moment. Magnus shifted slightly, like he was concerned, but Nakteti just kept staring at the water of the fountain where glowing fish chased phosphorescent algae.

"You are discontent with the duties of rulership thrust upon you," Darth Harmonus wheezed.

"I am," Nakteti said.

"I too once was," the Terran said, his voice heavily synthesized.

Nakteti wondered how bad his lung damage was and what reasons there was he didn't get it repaired.

"However, standing next to my loyal troops in conquering the first world, I saw the misery and hopelessness of the common people. Of Lanaktallan barely able to feed their families, of children taken from parents to be raised in creches, of a despotic system with no other purpose but sustain itself unto infinity," the big black cyborg said. "I thought, for a few moments, of just cracking the planets and moving on. Of releasing them from their torment with death. Of getting revenge for my sister and my nieces and nephews by committing the same slaughter I had come to avenge."

There was a long silence.

"Why didn't you?" Nakteti asked finally. "Was it that you did not want to be like the Unified Council?"

"Because it would have disappointed my sister," Darth Harmonus said. "Disappointed the woman who took me in after the deaths of our parents. She would have rather died a thousand times then be the incentive for me to slaughter billions."

"Do you think she would have approved of what you have done?" Nakteti asked.

There was silence again, broken only by the rhythmic wheezing of the Terran cyborg.

"No."

More silence.

"She would not have approved of using martial force to take these systems. She would not have approved my fall to the Dark Side. She would have understood, but not approved," Darth Harmonus said. "She would have mourned every death as if she knew each individual. She would have beseeched me to stop my invasion, stop my armies."

He was silent again.

"But she would, I like to think, approve of what I do now," he said. Another moment of silence. "She told me once, when I was a little boy and had dropped a china teapot, that it was easier to discard broken shards of pottery than it was to rebuild what had been broken."

He held out his hand and a small teapot appeared. It was laced with glimmering gold in a pattern that Nakteti found beautiful.

"A simple teapot of clay, kaolin, feldspar, and quartz, made all the more beautiful and unique by repairing it with gold laced warsteel. The pieces could have been discarded, but then the broken vessel would have never been anything more than shards, never again to be a thing of beauty," Darth Harmonus wheezed softly. "She taught an angry child, raging at a malevolent universe that had taken almost everything from him, to take something broken in rage and transform it into a thing of beauty through passion and dedication."

The hologram vanished.

"The Unified Council broke these people. Destroyed their culture. Made them into nothing more than drones to feed the appetite of generations far in the future," he said. "By destroying, by shattering, the 'protections' that guarded these broken people, it is up to us, our duty and our privilege, to put them back together."

He was silent another moment.

"It is up to us, Lady Nakteti of the Tnvaru Clans, to decide if we shall use warsteel and gold, passion and dedication, to repair these broken vessels," he spun in place, his cloak swirling out.

His voice floated back to Nakteti as he walked away.

"Or if we will use blood and fire."

-------------

Vuxten dropped down on one knee, panting, grounding the tip of the chainsword into the dirt. His uniform was drenched by the rain falling around him, his muscles shivered in exhaustion, and his mouth was dry despite the wet air.

"Better," Lady Keena said from where she was sitting in the doorway of a circular dwelling with a low cone roof made out of animal skins. She had an infant attached to one breast which was trying to look at Vuxten and hold onto the nipple at the same time.

The other infant was being held by Peel, who had the baby on her back on Peel's lap. Peel was holding the baby's ankles and pushing the fussing infants knees up toward her chin with slow, gently, but firm motions.

The baby of Peel's lap broke wind loudly and stopped fussing.

"There you are, sweet pea," Peel smiled.

Vuxten had learned that infant humans sometimes had trouble with intestinal gas and could be quite loud in vocalizing their distress.

"Again," Lady Keena said.

Vuxten struggled to his feet. He lifted the chainsword over his head with one hand, the other hand held straight out to the side at full extension while he stared in front of him.

"Small circles," Lady Keena ordered.

Vuxten began moving his hand in small circles.

"Now hop up and down on one foot," Lady Keena ordered.

Vuxten followed instructions. When he had first tried it, he'd either mess up the hopping or stop circling his hand. Now he was able to do it, but with difficulty.

"Recite the Corps Motto," Lady Keena snapped.

Vuxten tried to shout it out but lost his balance, stumbling, falling down on one knee again, using the tip of his chainsword being thrust into the dirt to stop himself from faceplanting.

"Better," Lady Keena said. She waited a moment. "On your feet."

Vuxten struggled up.

"Again."

Finally, at almost dusk, he was able to recite the entire Telkan Marine Corps motto while hopping on one foot, holding his chainsword over his head, and making small circles with one hand. All without falling over, misspeaking, or stopping the circles.

"Sit, Vuxten, sit," Lady Keena said. When Vuxten sat down next to her Casey handed him a narcobrew. She looked him up and down. "I think we've gone as far as we can for right now. We've got the reflex nerves open, we need to lay in your reflexes now. Reflexes that can save your life."

Vuxten just nodded, taking a long drink off of the cold bottle.

Casey looked up at the rain, closing his one eye and letting it wash over his face. Lady Keena had been forcing him to do what was called 'grass drills', something that Vuxten had become very familiar with during Basic Training when he'd first joined the Telkan Marine Corps.

"You're doing better holding your rage instead of letting it overpower you, both of you," Lady Keena said. She took a drink off of a mug of steaming spiced ale. "There's a few more things..."

The ground suddenly heaved and cracked, the sound of screaming and wailing could be heard as a bright red light speared out of the crack in the ground.

Everyone present came to their feet, Lady Keena reaching out and snatching up her sword, lightning arcing up and down the blade as the quartet spread out, facing the crack in the ground.

Massive taloned fingers burst from the ground, first on one side the crack, then the other. The fingers curled as whatever was inside the crack grabbed the sides and began pulling the crack open.

"Holo?" Casey asked, holding his magac pistol in one hand and chainsword in the other.

Peel shook her head. "No. I can feel the tremors in the ground."

A massive head rose up out of the crack. Black horns, curved, rose up first, then a brown plated head with another set of horns off the side. Amber glowing eyes over a wide nose with a broad mouth full of multiple rows of fangs made up the face. Bat wings extended from the back as the huge figure pulled itself free, standing over seven meters tall when it stood up fully, the winds flapping twice before folding up behind the figure.

The crack in the ground sealed with a rumble and Vuxten noticed that the grass was scorched, yellowed, and dessicated.

"Isn't this sweet," the massive figure growled out as it shook out a chain of black iron threaded through with strands of barbed wire.

"What is thy purpose, beast?" Lady Keena asked stepping forward.

"Quietly. We don't want to wake the babies," the massive demon rumbled. "Babies crying hurts my ears," it said, flapping its large ears twice.

As Vuxten watched the demon suddenly shrunk down, turning into a short matronly looking Terran female dressed in an official looking skirt and blouse, her black hair held in a pair of braids.

Vuxten recognized her from Trucker's court martial.

"The Detainee, Lady of Hell," Casey said, lowering his pistol and chainsword.

Vuxten followed suit as he watched the woman light a cigarette and tuck away the pack and lighter.

"Call me... Dee," the woman smiled, exhaling smoke.