NationStates Jolt Archive

It was burning. Everything was burning. The city, the world, everything around her. Burning, all of it. She'd reduced her glorious empire to ashes. Maybe, maybe that would provide a fertile ground to rebuild upon... maybe. As it stood, nothing stood. Hardly a stone remained upon a stone. Flames everywhere.

The air was thick with black and sickly-green smoke. It was very hard to breathe. Her respirator was damaged and hardly working. There was a loud ringing in her ears that she couldn't shake. The carapace of her blue enameled armour felt heavier on her then it ever had. She couldn't feel her left arm. Suppose that anti-tank round took care of that, she thought bitterly.

How had there been an ambush, here, in this sector? Three full sweeps of the city with bombers and artillery had left nothing standing. Chemicals clogged the air and choked out everything that wasn't wearing a gas mask. They didn't have masks, but they still survived. And they knew I was coming, too. That was the more worrying part. They had the right weapons to crack the hefty power armour of her and her geno-kinghts. The five of them lay dead around her, slaughtered by weapons ment for taking out battle tanks. But her attackers lay dead too, everywhere. Almost a hundred of them. Her loyal retainers had given there all to defend her. Surrounded, surrounded by death.

The slug that had obliterated her shoulder wasn't the worst, though. The sniper's bullet to the face of her helmet was probably worse. The helm's eye plates was likely it's weakest points, and the bastard had exploited it. Now, the right side of her face was a bloody mess, since the bullet had shattered and broken the expensive device. It hurt to move, to think, as the still-hot shrapnel made itself felt. And the gas... if she didn't bleed to death, respirator failure could do it. Chlorine, mustard and tear gas... they'd used all kinds of horrible chemicals on the city to flush out the millions of resistance fighters. But they were all here, and they'd all be exterminated here. The war would be over in a matter of days now.

Even if I don't get to rule over my lands, He'll be content. It's done.

So Kestrel sat there, waiting for a rescue that might not come. She couldn't hear or see anything because of the shattered helm. Staring blankly up at the sky, she thought back on the last few years, hoping they wouldn't be her last...

It had started almost seventeen years prior, with the peasent uprising in the quaint island nation of Altairnia. Years of weak rulers, murky succession, and constant political backstabbing had finally crippled the fair land, and it's people decided it was time for a change. In three nights of rioting, seven of the ten noble houses were overrun, their estates ransacked and their private armies left broken. The remaining three, along with the surviving Praetorian geno-knights, managed to comandeer a portion of the nation's idle navy, and make their desperate escape. Fleeing aimlessly, one of the young ladies of House Amea made contact with some old friends in high places... and quickly the wayward fleet had anchorage and a place to hide.

From there, she waited. With her paradice having burnt itself out, she decided it was finally time to return home. But she wouldn't be welcome in Indiastan, so much had to be done...

It took a week short of fifteen years to get everything ready. Massive supplies of arms, munitions and provisions needed to be smuggled into the country and hidden away. But that wasn't the hardest part. Swaying the people, getting them to abandon their sense of national pride and belive the seditious words of a handful of men. It took that long to build the following up, ready for all to act in unity. It had been easy to do in the western portion of Indiastan, which had reverted back to it's ancient, pre-Unification name of Pakistan. The people there were destitute, hardship was rampant, and the government powerless. It was easy. India proper, however, required years of effort...

But it would all pay off in the end, 'young' Kestrel thought as she buckled up the bracers on her polished, blue powered armour. The war starts tonight. Hefting the heavy, tall hammer-scythe that she'd had made sometime in the past decade, she strode out to meet her generals. She would lead from the front, being that the treasonous cult was one that idolized her. It would fail if she hid in a cellar while others led in her place...

"Is it working now?" she heard the soft voice of the doctor ask, as stark white light blinded her vision.

"Yes... it works..." was her answer. Slight lines of static dancing every now and then on the edge of her vision, but she didn't even notice it. Finally, the light clicked off.

"Excellent. The final prothetic will be a further improvement, but this will have to do for now..."

Kes sat up in the doctor's chair, her free hand reaching up to her face.

"Ah, I wouldn't..." the surgeon said, though she paid him no heed as she gently touched the compact steel augmetic that'd been implated in place of her right eye. Eventually it'd be replaced by a proper, artifical eye, but as the doctor said, this was all they could do for now...

"So, who survived?" she said softly, knowing that her senior staff would be present, if out of sight.

"Marlkin," came the answer. She smiled. He was a junior adjutant, and showed promise. "He called in for extraction and heavy support shortly after the ambush began." He was amongst the youngest of the refugees that had joined her cause from her temporary home. It pleased her to know he survived.

"And who leaked the information of the route?" she asked the darkness again, expecting an answer.

"We... arn't sure," came another voice. While the first voice, that belonging to one General Nadeesh, was confident, this one, Lt. Sudha's , was nervous and uncertain. "We're working on it, milady..."

"See that you do. Now, I require..." as she rose from the examination chair, a corpsmen hurried into the ward room and interrupted her; "Lady Amea! There's a... woman here to see you. She says it's most urgent, and that she has a gift for you... We've checked her over twice; she's unarmed, but she has no ID..." Calmly rising and stepping behind a screen so she could change out of her hospital gown, she consented to meeting this stranger.

"Madam!" Nadeesh protested, "In your condition, you need to rest..."

"Isan..." she growled, using his first name, which put him off immedietly, "I will do as I please. The war is over, is it not? Three years and no rest... I will not allow this to slow me down." She strode out, the two senior officers nodding to her as she departed, the corpsman leading her downstairs to a small guarded office room. They unlocked the door for her.

---

"And you would be?"

"He was a signals officer, the one who sold you out," the woman replied, tossing a a pair of slightly bloodsplattered dogtags onto the desk in front of her and ignoring her question, "He's... not going to tell his source about anything else, now..."

Kes scowled. The woman was wrapped in a black cloak, and wore a wide-brimmed hat that covered her face, "Suppose I believe you..." she said warily, sitting down across from her. "What then? And just Who are you, anyways?"

She tipped her hat up, revealing her face. Kes gasped. I'v seen you before, but only in my dreams...

"My name is Yumi. Amea Yumi Saeko, to be precise," she smiled, "We've never met sister; it's taken me so long, almost two lifetimes, to cut through all the lies and cover ups about who you are so that this day could finally come..."