by M. D. Cooper
Katrina realized she must be on a medtable. A medtable where she was being restrained.
Restrained by who?
“We need to contact Lady Armis,” the first voice said. “If we try to keep her under, we might kill her.”
“Armis is busy. Besides, she told us to keep her under ‘til tomorrow’s tribunal.”
Katrina finally managed to figure out that the second voice was female, and the first was male. The male voice sounded familiar.
“Tom?” she asked weakly, still not opening her eyes.
The worry came that she was still in Revenence Castle, and that the events of the last few weeks had just been hallucinations, brought on by beatings and sunsickness.
That means Juasa is alive!
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but I’m not Tom.” The man’s voice was wary. “Don’t try anything, we have you wired up. Even think about taking over our brains, and we’ll fry you like a potato.”
“Seriously, Al, she’s not going to—”
“Shut up, Barb. You know what she’s capable of. This is the most dangerous, most brutal bitch you’ve ever laid eyes on. Killed her own lover just to get to Jace.”
“Juasa,” Katrina whispered as the pain of her love’s loss crashed into her once more, making her chest feel like a giant weight was pressing down on her, squeezing the breath, the very life, from her body.
“See?” Barb said. “She’s a mess. Look at that response. Can barely inhale. We’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“We still need to call Armis,” Al replied. “She’ll want to know that we can’t keep her sedated any longer.”
“I’ve already called her. She’s sending Korin.”
Korin? Here?
Katrina wondered if it was worth opening her eyes. Korin’s presence at…wherever they were…meant that she’d been betrayed.
Well, not betrayed. Katrina knew that she’d never really earned anyone’s fealty.
She’d been deposed.
A laugh escaped her lips. What would Markus think of her now? A deposed dictator, probably to be taken before a tribunal and executed.
“I’ve become my father in every way,” she whispered.
“What?” Al asked.
Katrina cracked an eyelid open to see the man standing near the wall, long pole in his hand.
“Nothing,” Katrina muttered.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Al said. “One hit from this,” he brandished the pole, “and your insides will cook.”
“Fry all your nano, too,” Barb said, and Katrina turned her head to see the woman standing on the other side of her, also holding a pole. At the foot of the bed were two MDF soldiers in powered armor, both holding kinetic rifles.
Katrina attempted to release a nanocloud. If she could disable the electrical prods and lock up the soldiers’ armor, she’d be out in minutes.
The moment she tried, though, pain wracked her body, and she convulsed on the table.
“Sure, try to use your nano,” Al grinned. “That’s a new collar from Kurgise; one that you don’t have the codes for. You won’t be hacking your way out of this.”
Katrina’s head fell back.
Apparently not. Maybe this is it.
There was a sound at the foot of the bed, and Katrina lifted her head to see Korin walk in.
“I wondered if they were joking,” she said quietly. “I wondered if maybe you’d show up in a situation similar to mine.”
“I’m sorry, Katrina. I really am.”
She could see in his eyes that Korin wasn’t lying. He was genuinely sorry.
Whether or not he was sorry about what was going to happen to her, or sorry that he had to feel bad about it was less apparent.
“Lady Armis, then?” she asked.
Korin nodded. “She has a vision for a better Midditerra. One where it’s not a cancerous growth, selling stolen goods and humans. You weren’t going to make it better, you were just going to make it strong—and that didn’t work out, either.”
“Bollam’s?” Katrina asked.
“They fled, what was left of them. Armis took the dark layer route and showed up just as they were falling into disarray from the comm hijack you did.”
“And Nesella?” Katrina asked.
“All but destroyed. Over a hundred million dead.” The accusation in Korin’s voice was undisguised.
“I didn’t ask for this, you know,” Katrina whispered. “If Jace hadn’t—”
“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Korin replied, his voice cold. “You’ve committed crimes, Katrina. Even by our laws, grievous crimes. For Armis to build a new future, you have to answer for them.”
“Fine,” Katrina replied. “Take me to your kangaroo court.”
“It’s not ‘til tomorrow,” Korin replied.
Katrina suddenly remembered the events of—she checked the timestamps—two days ago. “What happened to my ship, Jordan, Norm, and the rest?”
“The ships you had in that shield bubble?” Korin asked.
Katrina nodded, not liking the tone of his voice.
“When the Bollers blew the Nova Star, they were passing right by Regula…Jordan and the rest got pushed into the planet. They never emerged.”
“Did you look for them?” Katrina asked. “You didn’t, did you?
“It’s still chaos out there, Katrina! There are millions of people in escape pods, half of them at risk of falling into Regula themselves! We can't go hunting for lost causes."
Katrina strained against her bonds, sneering at Korin. “You’d better hold your trials soon—either that, or just kill me now. If you leave me here for a day, I’ll get free. And if I get free….”
She let the words hang, and Korin’s face grew stony.
“This is the real you, isn’t it?” he asked quietly. “There’s no humanity inside anymore. You’re just this monster.”
Katrina felt the hate well up inside of her. She hated Korin, Armis, the entire Midditerra system. She even hated Juasa for dragging her heart through this mess, and Tanis for abandoning her.
Katrina hated them all.
Everyone.
“I hope you die horribly,” she hissed at Korin, then screamed incoherently as Al drove his electrical prod into the wound on her leg.
“I’m really sorry it came to this,” Korin said sadly. “I’d hoped when we came out here that things could end peaceably…that you’d be exiled. But—”
“Just fucking die, Korin! Die!”
Korin’s face grew ashen, and he shook his head, leaving the room silently.
* * * * *
Katrina stopped paying attention to time, she didn’t want to think about the minutes that were passing by, ticking closer to her death.
It was surreal to think that she’d come so close to having Troy and the Voyager back, only to lose them again. Of all the stupid things. She should have just turned on this miserable system and left when Troy and the crew arrived.
Though she tried to ignore the passage of time, Katrina did pay attention to the guards and the two medtechs—both of whom seemed more than happy to stay out of the room as much as possible.
The guards changed shifts once, and then shortly afterward, Armis arrived.
“Tomorrow already?” Katrina asked. She couldn’t help but check, and saw that only five hours had passed since Korin’s visit.
“No,” Armis replied as she stood near the foot of the medtable, looking Katrina over. “I took your threat seriously, and we held your trial in absentia. You’ve been convicted of a variety of crimes. Mostly murder. Lots of murder.”
Armis folded her arms as she stared down at Katrina, a deep scowl creasing her forehead. She seemed angry; whether at her own words or at Katrina’s deeds, it was hard to say.
“And do I get any reprieve for all the people I saved?” Katrina asked.
“Saved? Who would that be?” Armis took a step closer, but one of the guards placed a hand on the canton leader’s shoulder.
“Lady Armis, it is not wise to get close to her.”
Armis shot an unreadable look at the guard, then nodded. “Right.”
“Do you want a list?” Katrina asked.
“What?”
“Of the people I saved. You asked who.”
“Well, I know all the people you killed.”
Katrina groaned. “Midditerra is doomed with someone as stupid as you at the helm. You’re complicit in the system that allowed Jace to capture me. Sloppily, I might add. So I killed him and took care of Malorie, saving the people of Revenence from slave labor in the fields. I was going to work out a plan for them to move to new crops.”
“How magnanimous of you,” Armis drawled. “I’ll be taking over that process now.”
“I hope you appreciate that it was my actions that gave you that option. I saved most of the inner system MDF fleets from Jace’s clutches. Stars, I saved the whole system from that. An opportunity I was given because of Lara’s greed. Then I saved most of the people of Teegarten. Following which, I dealt the blow that broke the Bollam’s World’s attack.”
“An attack that occurred because of your presence here,” Armis shot back. “You’re responsible for the deaths of over a hundred million people.”
Katrina nodded solemnly. “I am. You’re right. The leader is responsible. But know this, Armis. That Bollam’s world fleet left for Midditerra long before they could have heard of my presence here.” She let the words sink in, watching Armis’s eyes grow wide before continuing.
“That means they were coming anyway. If I hadn’t been free, the BWSF would have steamrolled through Midditerra and taken me by force, laying waste to everything they passed.”
Armis’s expression hardened once more, and she shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll never know. All we have are the facts.”
Katrina snorted. “The fact is I’m the savior of Midditerra.”
“No!” Armis shot back. “You’re just another cancer. I’m going to save this system. You’re going to be pushed out an airlock, then burned to ash by my ship’s beams.”
“Fine,” Katrina growled. “Let’s just get it over with.”
EXPUNGED
STELLAR DATE: 02.09.8512 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: CDS Talisman
REGION: Regula, Midditerra System
Katrina stood in the airlock, waiting for the outer door to open, for the nightmare to finally end.
She was ready. Juasa was dead, and all her allies had abandoned her.
It’s over.
Armis would be the new ruler of the Midditerra System. Given Katrina’s performance, that would likely be for the best.
A minute passed, and the outer door stayed closed.
Katrina wondered what was taking them so long. Maybe someone just wanted to make her sweat before they finished her off.
I’m sorry, Juasa. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. Sorry I betrayed what we had. We should have left on the Castigation like you said. I’d—
Katrina’s thoughts were interrupted by a flash of light in the airlock. For a moment, she wondered if it was something the depressurization had done to her eyes. She’d never heard of that effect, but…
Her vision began to adjust, and she realized it wasn’t a flash of light, it was light. There was a bright light in front of her, drifting in the space between her and the outer airlock door.
“What…?” she said softly, reaching a hand out toward it.
“You’ve made a lot of mistakes,” the light said.
Katrina heard the words, but she wasn’t certain if her ears had been involved. The sound was like a wind blowing over a plain, grass whipping to and fro, a high-pitched hiss over a low rustling.
It made her feel cold and alone, like she was surrounded by nothing but this singular force. A force against which all of her efforts were futile.
“Who are you?” Katrina asked, barely able to comprehend that the thing before her had been the speaker.
Another hallucination. I’m going insane. My mind is ruined by grief…or something…
“You’re not going insane,” the windy voice said, the words whispering their way into her mind. “Touch me.”
Katrina realized that though she had begun to reach out to the light, her hand had stopped, trembling in place.
“What are you?” Katrina asked again.
“Touch me,” the voice whispered again, the wind punctuated by a peal of thunder in the distance.
Katrina reached out and touched the thing before her. At first it felt solid, like hard light riding the surface of an electrostatic field, but then her hand slipped through and it felt warm, comforting.
“What—?”
“I am Xavia,” the being said. “I have come to you, because your work is not yet done.”
Katrina couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh it’s done alright. I don’t know if you noticed, but my people are about to space me. That’s about as ‘done’ as you can get.”
A part of Xavia moved, and Katrina wondered if the being was shaking her head. “They are not your people. Your people are coming for you. They’re nearly here, but you need to remain strong.”
“Why?” Katrina asked. “Why should I stay strong?”
“Because,” the being of light replied. “If you persevere, you’ll meet Tanis again. I promise this.”
Katrina’s eyes widened. “No…how do you—? I am hallucinating…. The airlock has opened, and this is my brain dying, freezing in hard vacuum, trying to make sense of it all.”
“Look beyond me,” Xavia said, and Katrina leant to the side and looked beyond the being.
She gasped, realizing that the airlock door was open, she should be exposed to cold, hard vacuum.
Katrina sucked in a deep breath in surprise, then blew it out, knowing that when the vacuum hit, holding in air would blow her lungs apart.
Not that it mattered; she wasn’t going to survive anyway. Maybe a quick death would be better.
“Relax,” Xavia said. “I’m holding the air in. You’re not going to die. Remember, I need you to meet with Tanis, and she’s not going to arrive for some time.”
“I don’t understand,” Katrina said, a frown creasing her features.
“You will,” Xavia replied. “First, I need to fix you. You’re broken. Inside and out.”
Katrina nodded slowly. That was more than true. She was standing more out of force of will than anything else.
“Be strong,” Xavia whispered.
A moment later, Katrina felt as though the hand touching the light-being was on fire, her every nerve ending screaming in agony.
“This is your penance,” Xavia said, as Katrina pulled her hand free and watched the steel armor that was her skin begin to melt off and pool on the deck.
She thought her entire hand would disintegrate as well, but the change stopped at her exposed muscles. She couldn’t help but flex her fingers, staring in terrified wonder at the macabre sight before her. Sinews and muscles stretching over bone, blood throbbing through veins in a slow rhythm.
“You did this once before,” Xavia said. “You turned yourself into a monster to combat monsters. Now I’m turning you back into a woman so you can live amongst humans again.”
More of the armor began to melt off Katrina’s body, and she screamed in agony as her nerves were shredded, muscles and bones exposed.
“You think you deserve this,” Xavia’s voice was like bolts of lightning in Katrina’s mind, a sharp crack followed by a thundering boom, the very sound of it shaking her body. “You’re not wrong. You have earned this, but know that this penance is not all you need. The dead cannot absolve you. I cannot absolve you. The living, the people you thought were your allies, they have exacted their punishment by sentencing you to death.
“Now you must forgive yourself.”
“I can’t!” Katrina wailed as she watched the armor-skin slough off her chest, exposing her sternum. Through thin muscle stretched across her r
ibs, the form of her heart was visible beneath, pushing against bone and sinew. Katrina screamed in agony, unable to close her eyes, unable to cry.
“You must!” Xavia insisted. “I chose you for this, Katrina. I chose you because I know what strength you have within you. The road ahead is going to be long and hard. More than you know—but you’ll have passed through this, the crucible.”
Katrina was lost in the agony that wracked her body. She was unable to speak, unable to form thoughts. All that remained was the pain, and Xavia’s voice, whispering into her mind, explaining what had come before, what would come to pass, and what Katrina must do.
All that Katrina could see was Xavia’s light. She had no more eyelids, nothing protected her mind and body from the being before her. The being that was ruining her to offer salvation.
Then a strange feeling came to her right hand, the hand that had touched the light. Katrina didn’t understand it at first, but then she realized what it was.
There’s no pain.
She looked down and saw skin on her hand. Perfect, unblemished skin.
It began to appear on her arm, on her chest, across her entire body. Her breasts grew back, her navel formed, soft hair on her stomach standing up in the cold air.
She held up her hand to see fingernails regrow, and then felt a tickling on her scalp and knew hair was growing out from her head.
She blinked, skin sliding over her eyes. An amazing delight—she had almost forgotten what it felt like.
“I’m me again,” Katrina whispered, running her hands across her body, tears welling in her eyes.
“You were always you,” Xavia replied. “You just forgot who that was. You touch all these things, you live in their worlds. But you are not them, and they are not you. You are Katrina.”
Katrina’s chest constricted, and she gulped a deep breath, tears streaming from her eyes.
“I am Katrina,” she whispered.
“Louder,” Xavia replied.
“I am Katrina.”
“Believe it.”
“I. Am. Katrina!”
“Good. Now go. I have work for you.”
Suddenly the light was gone, and all that lay before Katrina was the starlit expanse of space, waiting for her beyond the yawning portal of the airlock.
