Spoiler: Real Team SixHive spire, Tephaine
As with all militaries, it was a Nebula tradition to party as hard as possible a few nights before a deployment, but to Alicia it had always held a bittersweet quality - when you were the Hero of Siculi you had to be a role model both on and off duty, and so parties had increasingly become things that happened around her rather than with her. The inquisition had been no different, and every memory of her time play-acting as Dosi was tainted by what had followed.
And yet tonight, in contrast to the Nebula soirée the previous evening, she found herself feeling genuinely happy. She even laughed as Nara sipped the Double Sun that she herself had just made for her, rolled it around her mouth, and pulled her face through a series of complicated expressions.
“No.” Nara declared after swallowing. “I will fight you on this, Alley. A proper Double Sun needs at least three measures of grana.”
Alicia smiled. Her cheeks were numb and tingling from the alcohol. “It’s a Double Sun. The clue is in the name.”
“The name can get frakked. It’s too weak.” Nara declared, and then rubbed her eye, “And it’s still going straight to my head, where’s the damn snacks on this table?”
She cast her eyes around the central table which held rather more bottles than finger foods, and groaned when the bowl of root twists that she had fried up for the occasion turned out to be empty.
“Here,” Ella suggested, fishing a shallow dish from the other end of the table and putting it down in a space next to Alicia and Nara. “Try this.”
Nara made a face. “What in the Prince’s name is that?”
Alicia’s jaw twitched at the unusual and highly blasphemous invocation. I’m having fun for the first time since forever…and it’s with a psyker and a gang of cultists. What was she to make of that?
We could go home? the Tâin offered. It might be best. She had told it to stop using her mother’s voice, but its tone was still parental.
No. Alicia told it firmly, and focused on the dish Ella was holding up for Nara’s disapproving inspection. It looked like thin strips of some leafy vegetable, bleached by the acidic-smelling juice it had been marinaded in.
“Just try it.” the astropath insisted. “It’s called sour crout.”
“What’s in it?” Nara asked suspiciously, prodding the rubbery twists with her fork.
“Pickled col.” said Ella. “Or as close as I could make it, anyway.”
Nara hesitantly spooned the concoction into her mouth, and made another elaborate charade of savouring it.
“I actually…don’t hate this.” she admitted at last. “And I hate the fact that I don’t hate it.”
Ella giggled shyly, and held up the bowl. “Alley, want to try?”
Alicia blinked. “Me?”
“Yes you.” Nara rallied around her psyker charge. “I’m sure they served up some gods-awful military rations in the Corps.”
Alicia smiled, though a little hollowly. The last thing she wanted to be reminded of right now was her oppressively idealised public persona.
“So,” Nara went on, “You’re going to have to tell me if that stuff’s actually palatable or if my tongue’s just numb after all those Double Suns.”
Alicia looked from one expectant woman to the other. Nara was smirking, glamorous as always in a pink wraparound sari that matched the iridescent powder she had shadowed around each eye. Ella’s makeup was no doubt her work as well, though in Ella’s case matching her skin tone apart from a subtle blush on her cheeks, a hint of colour on her eyelids. It suited her. If Alicia was still Theodosia, she would have complimented her on it. Then again, Dosi had never been a personality so much as a rejection of the buttoned-up, professional Hero of Siculi that she had hated.
And Dosi complimented Marc and Vincent and Kally too. the Tâin pointed out. Not people you would be rewarded for forming strong attachments too.
Vincent’s gone. Alicia thought - with a slight pang, in spite of everything. But the daemon did have a point. Ella, though...
She was still unpicking what all of those social calls had really meant to her, but it had been obvious enough for Crenshaw and Sapphira and even frakking Merle to call her out on it. Maybe she should take Stan’s advice and figure it out sooner rather than later. All else being equal, she knew that she didn’t want to cause Ella any pain.
Any more than I’m already causing her, you mean?
Shut up. Alicia thought, shaking her head. Just shut up.
She looked down at the plate Ella was holding, before she and Nara took her unease for more than just the sight of the food. Hesitantly, she pinched up some of the slimy vegetable between her thumb and a bionic finger, and popped it into her mouth. She chewed. It was salty sweet, and tasted strongly of vinegar. So strong in fact that she coughed as soon as she had swallowed it. Nara laughed. Ella hurried forward to thump her on the back.
“Oh thank the gods, someone had a normal reaction.” Nara smirked.
“It’s actually good!” Alicia choked, squinting through watery eyes. She caught Ella’s gaze and grinned in what she suspected was a most unattractive manner. Ella laughed.
“I hate you both.” Nara said with affection, and sidled round the table to where the digital gramophone was turning. “May I change the music? Ella’s church songs are lovely and all, but it gets boring without being able to see the handsome choristers.”
“As opposed to your music that sounds like a roomful of angry tech-priests screaming at each other.” Alicia countered.
A head craned up from the sofa beside the window. Jesska Freylis was not a tech-priest that Alicia knew, other than that she was earmarked for Delzharian’s Skorgulian deputation, though Stan seemed relaxed enough around her - and if nothing else, Alicia found herself trusting the electro-priest’s judgement.
“What’s this now?” Jesska demanded in a lilting voice.
“Blasphemy.” Ella explained, with a mischievous glance at Alicia.
“Wonderful.” the tech-priestess replied brightly, and touched Stan’s elbow to pull him back into whatever conversation they had been having.
It was at that moment that Ani, who had been hovering on the periphery of the two tech-priests, put down her bottle and walked quietly out of the room. Ella noticed too, and turned her blind eyes towards Stan. The electro-priest quietly folded his hands over his belt buckle, and exhaled down his nose.
Alicia wished she knew what they were all feeling - if they were really as happy as they looked, or if this was just the manic desperation of people about to ride into hell. Despite the Tâin’s urging, she had left her vials of Spook stoppered before leaving the spire hab. Hypocrite, she knew, but the thought that Ella would know had somehow made her put her safety net back in its lockbox.
“I will have to excuse myself.” Stan said after a moment, spreading his hands towards the table. “But please don’t stop the festivities on my account.”
He smiled with incongruous warmth before bowing and following Ani through the open door. Alicia was confused for a moment, but then the answer came to her. He wasn’t worried about Ani.
“It’s okay.” she said to the other three women who were now exchanging curious glances. “It’s a positive development.”
“Alley.” Ella chided her.
Alicia flinched. “I…didn’t mean it like that. I mean Ani just needs a bit of space, I think.” The kind of space I should have looked for, instead of breaking myself to try and impress the wrong people.
From what Arcolin had told her, that was something she and Ani had in common. He had also said that their sparring sessions were going well. Very well, judging by the bruises on his jaw. The thought made her smile a little. She had been right about her brother - he really was trying to change, and to help others change too. She was proud of him for that.
“Space from what?” Jesska asked as she joined the other women at the table.
Alicia pursed her lips, and realised it probably wasn’t her place to say. Ella was looking right at her, head slightly cocked. No doubt the astropath was searching her aura.
“I’m sure Stan has things in hand.” she reassured, hitching up a smile. “Come on, let’s make some more Triple Suns.”
“Agreed.” Nara said decisively, and began gathering together several hi-ball glasses. Something about looking down at them made her chuckle.
“What’s so funny, like?” Jesska asked, tilting her head.
“If we include our absent friends, there’s six of us.” Nara hummed quietly to herself. “I think that’s a good sign.” She picked up one of the glasses and tipped it in salute. “To the real Team Six.”
The tech-priestess was lost. “What’s so fu-nny about that?”
“Blasphemy again.” Alicia deadpanned.
“You’re right, we need a code name.” Nara tapped her glass with a fingernail. “Ella, what’s Team Six in Sancta Heroican?”
Ella rubbed the back of her neck. “Um…Gruppe Sechs.”
The other three stared at her. Jesska cracked first. “It is fu-cking not.” she challenged.
Ella pursed her lips, trying to hold in a smile. “It is.”
“Incredible.” Nara laughed, and flourished her glass in the air. “To Gruppe Sechs.”
Spoiler: BreakthroughThe forest garden was quiet, by hive standards. The rail lines and industry of the midhive were far enough below to reduce their clamour to a distant rumble, as were the wheezing air circulators that kept the leaves gently swaying. Stan paused for a brief moment, captivated by the movement. The trees here were not native - to their spire-top home, if not to the planet entire - but still they had taken root, adapted and thrived. He took heart from that as he traced the path down through the garden.
He heard voices ahead, and was surprised to see Sharma and Tyria crossing his path, uniform jackets slung casually over their shoulders. Sharma greeted him by name.
Stan acknowledged them with a nod. “Have you seen Ani?”
Sharma half turned to point. “She ran by us a few minutes ago. She looked…”
“Angry.” Stan supplied.
Sharma nodded. “I hope she’s okay. You should talk to her.”
You should talk to her. Stan noted with silent approval. He has no interest in accosting her in a vulnerable moment. How respectful.
He offered the Nebula and his companion a bow of thanks, and carried on until his silver eyes registered a tight-wound ball of bioelectricity slumped on one of the park benches. Ani was drawn in on herself - knees together, feet splayed, chin in hands. There was no way her sharpened senses hadn’t noticed his approach, but she didn’t react as he padded across the grass and sat down, a respectful distance to her right. They sat there for about half a minute before Ani silently reached over, pulled his arm around her shoulders, and shuffled in to rest against his chest.
“You know I hate parties.” she said at length.
“Then I’ll take it as an even bigger compliment that you came for my sake.”
He felt Ani sigh deeply. “I wish I’d had a big brother like you. Back on Vax’. I bet I’d have frakked up a lot less.”
Stan scratched his beard with his free hand. “It’s hard not to, when everything around you is frakked up too.” He chuckled under his breath. “Prime example: me.”
His greyscale vision flickered with a projection of memory - a swift and bloody fight, an evil man dead on the floor next to his high-spire bodyguards. Petrosyan’s knife fighters gaping at him as he confirmed the word that had just blared from the speakers of a gunship outside. Inquisition. They had bolted, following Nara who had ducked away just before the fight. All except Ani, who had glared at him with something like affront.
“How the frak can you be…?” she had spluttered at him. “They’re not even…!”
Stan remembered his own, entirely inadequate response. “I am a man of…contradictions.”
“No shit!!” Ani had snapped at him. The fear sparking through her brain impulses was eating her alive, and she was overcompensating hard. “You’re a cogboy but you’re freaked out by your own implants. A cogboy who frakked Nara right before telling us you were gay.”
Stan had flinched a little at that. He was far less ashamed than he would have expected, though he remembered wishing that Nara would have been less open about it than she had. Then again, it was hard to keep a secret in a place like the Refuge.
And so he had sighed, and given the answer that was correct, honest, and human. “I am a walking mag-lev accident.”
Ani had looked at him curiously. When he had turned to leave, he realised that she was following him.
Ani shifted on the bench, crossing her legs. She looked at him with a crooked smile, clearly remembering the same thing. “Walking mag-lev accident, right?”
They were silent for a moment.
“I still wish I’d had someone like you around.” Ani said, and abruptly snorted. “Even if I’d have to compete with you over the few boys worth a damn. I’d probably have lost, as well.”
Stan laughed. “If I had been born on Vaxanide, I would not have been rebuilt to look like this.” He squeezed her shoulder, gently. “All the same, a little sister like you would definitely have made me…a more complete human.”
Ani looked at him sidelong, her hair falling across the side of her face.
“Nevertheless,” Stan admitted after a moment, frowning. “I would extrapolate that we’re better off now. Here.”
“In Adrantis.” Ani clarified without enthusiasm.
“Yes.” Stan persisted. “Far from Vaxanide and Vostroya both.”
There was another pause. Stan didn’t try to fill it, instead giving Ani time to gather her thoughts.
“I hate it here.” she mumbled at last. “Well, no, I don’t. It’s complicated. I’m glad you’re here. And Rajiv, I guess.”
“Rajiv Sharma.” Stan smiled knowingly. “The Nebula?”
Ani cuffed him across the chest, half-heartedly. “Yeah. For a guy so devoted to the Emperor he probably doesn't even jerk off, he’s alright.”
She went quiet again, one thumb picking at the edge of a fingernail.
“But you’re both going away. Out into that…shit storm.”
Correct. Stan mused. “As an envoy.” he said instead, by way of reassurance.
Ani snorted again. “As if the Imps’ll care if they find you. And anyway, that‘s not why I’m pissed, I know you can look after yourself. It’s hard being left behind. Just me and Nara.”
Stan’s mouth quirked into a wry smile. “She can look after herself too.”
“Her and the spook.” Ani said.
“Ani.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry. Ella.” She paused. “And that Arcolin guy.”
Stan noticed that her thumb had moved to her gloved left hand, subconsciously rubbing the palm.
“How is that going?” he asked.
“Beating up spire nobles never gets boring. He’s getting better though. And…yeah, he had it rough with the Change.”
Stan just listened, not wanting to push too soon. He watched the electric pulses flicker and dance inside Ani’s skull. She ground her thumb into her palm again, into the tattooed cross that she hid beneath a fingerless glove.
“Can we get out of here?”
Stan squeezed her shoulder again. “Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere downhive.”
Stan considered. “I believe Dashing did offer you a lift in his grav car once. It would be only correct for him to provide the transport.”
Ani immediately perked up as she understood his meaning. She smiled a dangerous smile. “Can I drive?”
“Certainly.”
Spoiler: BondingManufactorum district, spire midhive
The air smelled of grease and welding fumes from the foundry complex that loomed above - if it bothered Stan he didn’t show it, but as for Ani it burned her throat as she swung up the driver side door and stepped out.
“They’re staring.” she observed, jerking her head to direct Stan’s attention towards a trio of red-robed cogboys who were gathered round a substation box - two working, the third counting out prayers on a chaplet of wingnuts. With grav cars being a rarity on Tephaine, their arrival had drawn interest. “You sure they won’t nick it?”
She was less concerned about Dashing’s grav car than their ability to get home. Though it wouldn’t be so bad, just disappearing into the midhive, me and Stan. She shook her head, angry at herself for the sheer naive childishness of the thought.
Stan’s lips twitched with a smile. “I’m sure.” He proved it by directing a complicated gesture towards the tech-priests. All three paused in their task and linked their thumbs in the cog sign, bowing solemnly towards Stan.
Ani arched an eyebrow. “You know them?”
“I helped persuade their chief magos to re-fire his forges and join the Patriot cause.” Stan explained as he passed a hand over the car door, causing it to lock with a soft snap.
Ani grunted in response, wondering just how he had managed that one. The other cogboys being swayed by talk of keeping the lights on for shivering kids in the underhive seemed far fetched.
The smell of burnt metal was replaced by one of bitter recaff as they strolled down the street, past one of the 24-hour worker bars that clustered round the feet of any hive’s manufactura. Stan caught her glancing at the neon sign.
“Have you ever been to a menial bar?” he asked.
Ani shook her head - for one thing she had never understood the menial passion for drinking recaff instead of alcohol, and for another everyone knew that the ad mech bars only took factorum coinage. “You got the right credit wafers?”
Stan raised his eyebrows. “As a matter of fact, yes.”
The strange melodic beeping that passed for music among Tephainian menials drifted up to envelop them as they stepped inside. The bar interior was spartan, with exposed pipes zagging across the ceiling, blowing stale air down through rattly vents. Stan frowned up at them for a moment before greeting the bartender and exchanging a few words. The owner - a pallid hiver with a bionic claw-arm below one elbow from some old industrial accident - seemed wary at first, but eventually smiled and pointed towards a wall panel behind the bar.
“What can I get you?” the barman asked, turning to Ani, “On the house, for your friend’s help.”
Ani looked up at the chalk sign above the bar, squinting at the Tephanian script. “I’ll have the…uh…small black.” she said, aware of her low-hive Vaxan accent bleeding through. She noticed the tell-tale flicker in the barman’s eyes, but he just nodded, said “Sure,” and started pressing buttons on the boiler apparatus mounted to the back wall.
Still better than the spire-top dickheads, she mused as she picked a seat - close to Stan, away from the other occupied tables, and angled so that a mirrored plaque on one wall reflected anyone coming in the door. A few of the punters glanced briefly at her - and then at Stan as he delicately pulled the panel off the wall and inspected the compressor unit behind - before going back to nursing their drinks. Even so, she could feel the sense of separation, of not belonging. Like she had stumbled into the temple of a foreign god.
“So this is what it feels like to be the outhive refugee.” she murmured aloud, in Vaxan.
“Chevek, as they say on Vostroya.” Stan replied as he knelt to make adjustments to the compressor controls. “These menials are nothing compared to the uphivers who have never met a refugee, I’m sure you agree.”
Ani curled her lip. “That’s because they can see you’re being useful.”
“Requiring refugees to be useful to deserve help is a dangerous path to take.”
Ani pushed spilled sugar grains around the tabletop with a finger. Making them useful was Petrosyan’s line, and Slaver Sam’s. Nara’s, too. And she had stood by them. Nothing she and Stan had done in the Vaxan uphive would ever wash that out.
“I know that.” she snapped, a little more sharply than she had intended. “People got their own problems too, y’know. Without having to worry about outhivers.”
“Who told you that?” Stan asked, without accusation.
Ani shrugged. “My mum, the other juvies.”
“And where did they hear it?”
“Dunno.”
“Someone like Souvage, would be my hypothesis. Behind every piece of divisive propaganda is a demagogue with an agenda. Usually, covering up for their failure to provide for their own citizens.”
Ani grunted. “Maybe we should ice him, then. Like the other noble pricks on Vax’.”
“If only.” Stan smiled wanly, and turned back to the compressor. “It would be enough to take on the lesson that I learned at the Refuge. That humans have differences, and there is no sense in pretending otherwise, but for all that there is more commonality. And there are many greater examples of it here in Adrantis than any lies that people like Souvage can tell.”
“They’d better prove it then.” Ani said. The Imps are coming. The barman appeared, his augmetic claw whirring as he deposited a steel cup on the table in front of her. She mumbled a thank you in her sketchy Tephainian.
“They are proving it.” Stan answered her once the barman had returned to his post. “The Nebula corps for one. I’m sure you’ve seen all the different backgrounds they come from, from all your time with Sharma.”
Ani looked down sharply at him - it was the second mention of Rajiv this evening. “I said he was alright. He’s still a repressed creed-thumper with no clue about the Prince, or the underhive.”
It sounded unconvincing, even to her own ears. Underhive boys were unpredictable, except for the fact that they all just wanted to frak. And even Petrosyan, at the end of the day, had only trained her so that he could use her as a weapon. Sharma was so divorced from both contexts that she was still half-convinced it was an act, even after probing both Alicia and Tyria for more information about the real Rajiv.
A flicker in the mirror drew her eye, followed by the sound of the cafe door squealing as a knot of menials pushed inside, sweat-sheened from the forges, and bantering back and forth in Tephainian. Ani noted with a kind of resigned annoyance that the reflections’ eyes locked onto her and roamed down her back onto her arse one by one, neat as clockwork as they filed past. That alone was too prosaic to bother her.
The last one stared longer than most, which caused his closest companion to laugh and punch his arm. “Aye, put a ring on that one and breed her, if you’ve got the balls to ask.” he chuckled, “Omnissiah knows that we need more pure-born Tephainian babies in this hive, and it’s about time you started pulling your weight!”
Stan raised his head ominously. The menials wouldn’t be the first people to make the mistake of thinking that he only had a normal person’s ears.
“Don’t mind ’em.” Ani warded him off, pleased by how the newcomers’ covetous expressions soured when they heard the unfamiliar Vaxan cant leave her mouth. “Frakkers ain’t worth it. What do you think of Rajiv anyway?” she added, trying to distract him.
Stan settled back down, thinking. “What would you do, if I told you that his intentions were pure?”
I’d ask him out. Ani knew - and then, with a touch of humour, Prince knows I’d have to be the one to ask an’ all.
Sharma was so straight-laced that he actually apologised any time he accidentally brushed her tits during a grapple. Hell, he even apologised when Ani accidentally-on-purpose groped him back.
She realised that she was dangerously close to smiling, and that annoyed her.
“You could have just given me a straight answer, you know.” she accused Stan.
“And you understand why I didn’t?”
Ani fidgeted. “Yeah.” You don’t want some other guy making a call that big for me…even if it’s you. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hug him or punch him.
“I trust you to make your own decision, in your own time.”
Ani rolled her eyes. “Because I’ve made such great calls so far.”
“That makes two of us, then. Remember though, you don’t have to make any decision until you’re sure.”
“Be like him, you mean?” Ani teased, “Wait until marriage?”
“If you think you can.” Stan returned the joke. “I can at least reassure you, he is no Duke. Or Dashing.”
Ani sipped her recaff to avoid answering. It was bitter as hell, disguised by too much processed syrup. She liked it. Would waiting be so bad? the sudden thought came to her. The field in uphive Tephaine had proven just as barren and poisonous as that of the Vaxan sumps, after all. She shook her head - she was getting way ahead of herself. She took another swallow of recaff.
“I can also reassure you,” said Stan, “That I will warn you and Nara if any such predators are around.”
Ani grimaced. “Don’t be so frakking dramatic.” She put down her cup. “Speaking of Nara…how are the two of you doing?”
She was pleased to see Stan being the one to look uncomfortable this time. “It’s complicated.”
They held awkward eye contact for a brief moment before Stan went back to the compressor.
“You know…” Ani began. You know she’s not really good for you. she had been going to say, but it seemed ungrateful. Even if Nara didn’t know what she had in him, apart from the obvious. “Nah, doesn’t matter.”
“Hey!” one of the menials who had just wandered in snapped from his position by the bar. “Speak Tephainian, would you? Or are you both plotting something you don’t want honest folks hearing?”
Ani looked up, contemplated them for a moment, then turned back to her drink.
“Hey.” a second menial joined in, pushing himself off the bar. “He asked you a question.”
“I know you know what I’m saying.” the first man scowled. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, out-hiver.”
Both Ani and the menials flinched as a roar of static whited out the music from the cafe speakers. The wall panel slammed back into place as Stan uncoiled from his hiding place behind the bar and drew himself up to full height. He did it slowly, snapping the fingers of one hand like a wrist chron counting down while his silver eyes fixed on the menials, unblinking.
For a brief moment, Ani saw the luminen who had descended into Vaxanhive to kill them all. Who would have killed them all, had chance not scrambled his memories just long enough to remember that he was human.
Petrosyan’s promised saviour, she thought, with foreboding.
Stan laid a hand gently on her shoulder, reassuring. “Your language, gentlemen,” he addressed the menials in their native Tephainian, “Is most impolite.”
The menials looked at Stan. If nothing else, they seemed to respect such an obvious dominant male.
“Sorry, big cog,” the leading menial said with a nod. “Didn’t realise she was yours.”
“She is not mine.” Stan corrected frostily. “She’s my sister.”
This time Ani did smile, and she made no attempt to suppress it. Her stomach jumped again when Stan glanced sidelong at her and returned the smile.
Sister.
The menial boys at least knew when to back down. They turned headed for the door. Stan extended a hand.
“Allow me,” he intoned, as the metal bolt on the door screeched across of its own accord. “To impart some of the Omnissiah’s Knowledge.”
The menials turned, eyes darting first to the barman, who was keeping well out of the way, and then back to Stan. They huddled closer together, reminding Ani of frightened rats.
“I’m trying not to kill or shed blood these days.” Stan said. Ani could tell that he was enjoying this. “Joints, however, are fair game.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t bring my knife.” Ani joined in. “Otherwise I’d be removing you from that precious Tephainian gene pool.” She gave them her ugliest grin. “Never mind. You pricks ain’t worthy of it anyway.”
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