Ironically I'm bad at words

Oh boy I guess I'm uploading some random bits of writing here?

[wordsmithprincess]

The Final Message

The Prime Queen reached out, carving the final character into the Chu’um tablet, setting it atop the stack. The Queen relaxed their hold on the Aspect of Scribe, leaving it frozen in place far beneath the ground. The Scribe was, as far as the Queen knew, the first and perhaps last of its kind.

The Prime Queen had been planning for the future from the moment they clawed their way free from the cocoon that had incubated them. It had not been enough to war relentlessly against their contemporaries, they sought a future where Queens were not torn apart for their resources, where a Queen would not bury their fellows to rise above them. 

It had taken time, a thousand by a thousand cycles of their star’s gaze had passed across the shell of Chu’um that topped the Prime Queen’s lair before the other Queens had ceased their attempts of betrayal. Hundreds of wells of biomass poisoned and tainted to get the Prime Queen’s message across. Queens that saw only an upstart’s greed in the Prime Queen were removed as the alliance of lairs grew, their biomass being spread to benefit all of the Alliance’s Queens.

Expansion had followed, lairs exploding out until Chu’um covered the ground, each Queen touching their neighbours without hostility. The Prime Queen had foreseen this, they knew it would come to be the moment they killed their first Queen and followed this path. Without room to grow, the Queens would target each other, their alliance would be torn apart, fueled by the desire to become more. Instead, the Prime Queen directed the Queens of the Alliance to focus internally, building and refining until a single Queen learned to pierce the sky.

With the knowledge to tear open the sky, the Queens expanded once more, claiming worlds and systems for themselves. They grew beyond the Prime Queen’s expectations, leaving them alone in their lair, the first planet, it had been left for the first Queen who looked to the future to rule. The Prime Queen had insisted that each other Queen take an Aspect of the Prime Queen with them. It was through these Aspects that the Prime Queen first met the Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire. 

The Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire had come across a Queen at the edge of the Queen’s space, and using what they had called an Artificial-Intelligence, had deciphered the language of the Queens. The Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire had requested that a representative of the Queens communicate with them, face-to-face, as they had called it. The Prime Queen had sent their Aspect, its titanic form dwarfed the Aspects of the Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire, and the Prime Queen watched the Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire as they scurried about their claws with fascination. The Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire had flinched when the Prime Queen had struck, their Aspects not prepared for the customary settling of hierarchy. The Prime Queen had torn apart the Aspects, their innards painting the Prime Queen’s protective Chu’um as small objects of metal dug deep into it.

The Prime Queen’s Aspect had relaxed into the gore afterwards, the Prime Queen awaiting the next set of Aspects to join them, now that the hierarchy had been established. The Aspects had never come, instead, the Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire exposed the meeting area to the heat of a star, scouring the Prime Queen’s aspect from their metallic world.

For a few cycles there was no word from the Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire, and the Prime Queen had wondered what had happened. Was it customary for the Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire to destroy the Aspects of their hierarchical betters? Were they like the Queens of old? Escalating matters of diplomacy until Queens were themselves torn out of their Chu’um? Without answers they waited, settled deep into the lair of the Queens homeworld.

The Prime Queen’s answer came from the lair of an Alliance Queen, as above an Aspect, the Chu’um covering the skin of their world shook. Though the Aspects that the Prime Queen had dealt with on their first meeting had been small, the ones that the Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire sent to invade their world rivalled the greatest of the Queen’s Aspects. Aspects covered in skins of metal, instead of Chu’um, they had attempted to carve and cut through the Chu’um, finding it resistant to their tools, until they had discovered the solution. Fires burned and melted holes into the Chu’um, hundreds upon thousands of smaller Aspects had moved through the lair, burning their way through the Aspects of the ruling Queen. The Prime Queen’s Aspect had watched as their first Queen burned, the beginning of the end for their rule.

Over thousands of worlds, the pattern repeated, the Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire sent their Aspects deep into the lairs of the Queens, burning through all before them. The Prime had watched each and every Queen of the Alliance burn, their own Aspect burning afterwards. Now, they felt the Aspects of metal land on their Chu’um, the first of the holes being melted open into their lair and they knew it was their time.

Far below the Prime Queen, dug deep into the earth and untouched by Chu’um, their Scribe’s eyes stared without seeing, the thousands of tonnes of Biomass crowned with a single cocoon reflected in their eyes, their claws resting upon the final message of the Prime Queen to their only child.

“If the Creatures-of-Blood-and-Fire find you. Run.”

[wordsmithprincess]

Visitation

I felt an external force rip through my brain, dark tendrils curl through my core, and tear control away from me, a garish and bright yellow filling my vision, black letters in stark outline against the endless plane of yellow.

“You have an incoming call.”

Had I any agency beyond the binary choice in front of me, I would have deflated, groaned, done something to ease my tension, instead all I could do was indicate denial, the yellow screen of the notification slowly being eaten away by the flickering gray of the command bridge, a pair of muted white bars filled the centre of the vision, overlaying the screens tracking the frozen battle around us.

It was tempting to stay. To unpause and lead the crew of The Cold Embrace in victory against the invading forces of the Cha’arum. Technically there was nothing they could do to stop me, not without consequences they weren’t willing to risk. I could deal with their interruptions and try to get on with enjoying my life… But that wasn’t who I wanted to be. Be kind, always. As much as it was annoying to be interrupted, I knew they weren’t here out of spite, but care.

I indicated for release, the sensations of my body slowly fading away before being replaced with the...other body.

I felt the cool touch of the coffin around me again, the recirculated air filling my lungs was somehow less real than that aboard The Cold Embrace. The spinal plugs snaked back into the machine, into my life. As always, it took a moment for the pain to spring back, like fire running through the circuitry of my nerves. A constant reminder of *wrong*.

My bodysuit hung nearby, with a sigh I climbed into it, each movement another flash of fire through me. Each shuddering moment another taste of the wrong. The one consolation each time I left the machine was that it took care of me, I was clean, I was well manicured, and I was somewhat healthy.

Forcing a smile on my face I opened the door, the small antechamber of the house was liberally coated in dust and was being aggressively cleaned by my friends, as they moved legal and medical papers to find places for the pizza and the stacks of board games.

On seeing me open the door and come through, the three of them grinned in excitement and bounced over to hug me.

Somehow, through the rest of the night, and the pain, that smile never faded from my face.

[wordsmithprincess]

Time

The meaty texture of my first kill lingers in my mouth. I’ve allowed myself to be drawn into this moment, the first time hearing the Gods refer to my cellmates as “toothsome”, a word in Godspeak that eluded my understanding. I remained in my corner of the room, the others giving me a wide berth. We were born to different fates and theirs holds front and center of my mind.

It blurs together, that moment, the feel of the kill, flesh parting under my jaws, screams filling my ears, the wet feeling of blood running down my arms, my chin. Finding my cellmates and my first kill were tied, intrinsically linked together in fate. Thinking of one brought the other to the fore, always and forever.

Other thoughts are tied to the first kill. Re-shaping flesh, both mine and God-flesh. A blade wielded in self defense carving through an arm as the other struck the God, claws parting the flesh at their throat and sinking into the wall behind them. The uttered sounds of my fellows and the stares as I had removed the arm, meat desperately clinging to itself as it was slowly wrenched free. It would be 6, 362, 250 seconds before the arm would reform to a level of use. The feeling of explosive expansion as I was born, meat bursting forth from my small form to become me. Fed by a series of tubes plugged into a reservoir, it had taken me 321 seconds to empty the reservoir, growth forcefully halted by scarcity.

With an exertion of will I drag myself from the thoughts. 85, 536, 704 seconds between being left alone in the cell, to the first kill. I don’t believe the gods had no concept of what they did when they made me, they seemed to treat me as they did the other experiments. Loading us full of chemicals to make us forget the torturous work they did on us, not understanding how their work on my mind had created me. They meddled beyond their comprehension. A child of their kind, taken and warped. They gave me the form to usher their downfall. I was grown tall and rippling with muscles, legs extended, claws grown. A beast beyond what the Gods beyond the facility could imagine, towering over them, carving through them.

548, 367 seconds before I left the cell they injected me with a substance, growing my muscles more powerful, the final experiment they subjected me to. I bent the bars of my cell open, tearing muscles from bone and limping away, 74, 565, 421 seconds until the damage healed. For the Gods, it was the beginning of their end.

Cities, awash with blood. The substance flowing through the streets. Myself and those who followed me stalking through the region, moving to the small pockets of life, and drinking deep of it, to nourish us for our travel to the next. My final day. Sitting atop a hill and looking at one of the few remaining pockets of Gods. They shivered deep in their fortified grounds. One of their manors, built with pleasure in mind more than defense. But they had tried, small walls surrounded the place, Gods walking their span, illuminated by the light of the Moon high above us all.

We loped down the hill, my allies gathering speed as we neared the wall. 634 seconds until my death. The first warning the Gods had was our screams and yells. Hundreds of throats that had been under the boot of the Gods their whole lives screaming with abandon as we sought to remove unworthy creators from our world.

522 seconds. We hit their wall like an avalanche, knocking the pitiful thing to the ground as their weapons opened on us.

401 seconds. Blood once again coated me. Their security forces had been overwhelmed, weaponry smashed upon the ground. Now, all that was left was to scour the grounds of the remaining Gods.

31 seconds. A score of Gods had tried to stop me entering the vault. Armed with little more than their fists, and armoured with cloth, they had succeeded only in slathering me in blood and meaty gore.

10 seconds. I strain against the door of the vault, tearing it free from its hinges and leaving only inky blackness behind.

1 second. A pair of eyes open deep within the vault, moving towards me before I can react to stop them.

I know not if the Gods have lived beyond my 208, 988, 456 seconds of life, nor what I let out of the vault. All I know, is that in those seconds, I paid the Gods back in kind for what they had done to us.

[wordsmithprincess]

The Machine

“Useless.”

I spat the word like a curse. The machine coughed up another spurt of acrid smoke as it shuddered to a stop upon my desk.

The small box had been the work of my late mentor, Professor Harding. His colleagues had told me that over the last few years, while I had been travelling the world, drinking in the knowledge that came with being a newly christened Doctor and being surrounded by those who were immeasurably smarter than oneself, Professor Harding had been growing more and more distant.

His lectures at the university always drew in the undergraduate students, he was a man gripped by an incredibly energy and zest for life. That is, he had been a man gripped by an incredible energy and zest for life. However, more and more meetings were skipped. Social and professional functions ignored in favour of hiding himself away in his office, tinkering with the box and filling page after page of notebook with his nigh-incomprehensible scrawl.

I had talked at length with them, after the funeral, desperate to learn. Desperate to know how a great man such as the professor lost himself in his madness? The man I had known could lose himself in research, that was true, but his eyes had always lit up at the first mention of a quick coffee break, or if someone had mentioned bringing a plate of biscuits to share. We had made a small ritual when we both worked late into the night. He’d slip into my office shaking a bottle of brandy, and I’d smile and bring out our trusty glasses, bringing us both some reprieve from that terrible toll research could wreak upon the mind.

And what a toll it had wreaked. I had painstakingly trawled through his notebooks, trying to bring together just what he had been trying to do. Many pages were almost rant-like in nature, Professor Harding cursing the nature of the world, and the small-mindedness of those around him. A wicked side of him that I had never known in all my years close to the man. It had been a daunting task, taking many months of work, separating the theory from the nonsense, the questions he had been trying to answer from his railing against the world around him.

The final few pages had been drenched in blood, but I had managed to salvage enough of the words to pick up his final thoughts on the matter of starting the machine. It all sat together in front of me now, my clean, crisp writing clashing with the scrawl of the original. I had managed to get the machine running as far as he had before the final change. Yet I was as stumped as he had been, even with the answer right in front of me on the page. It made no sense, I’d even attempted substituting the blood for pigs blood, purchased no questions asked from a local butcher.

I rubbed at my eyes, the sun had set many hours ago, and the moon hung high and full in the sky, it’s light providing scarce illumination at my desk. I sighed as I looked down at the small letter opener at the desk. A flight of fancy to try it, to be sure, but at this point I can’t let another night go without knowing just what it was that he had been doing.

A small cut on the tip of my finger had drops of blood falling into the small fuel receptacle for the box, with delay only to quickly grab a cloth to staunch the small bleed, I stood and grabbed the chain hanging off the side. If this did not get the damned machine running, nothing would.

With a sharp tug and a roar, the machine came to life, a smile broke out on my face as I realised I’d done it!

The machine began to unfold before my eyes, metal seeming to melt and spin as it re-wove itself. The distant sound of screaming filled my senses as I found my eyes drawn to the object in the centre of the unfolding box. A false object. An object that seemed to morph and writhe as it sat utterly still, both perfect and sickeningly flawed simultaneously. Red tinged my vision as I felt wetness on my cheeks, throat straining and moving as I fell to the ground, the flesh of my body pulsing in time with the undulating pitch of my scream. 

Above, on the desk, the machine whirred as it reconfigured itself, becoming mere box once more, before falling silent, lit by the soft rays of moonlight, from far, far above.

[wordsmithprincess]

The Machine

“Useless.”

I spat the word like a curse. The machine coughed up another spurt of acrid smoke as it shuddered to a stop upon my desk.

The small box had been the work of my late mentor, Professor Harding. His colleagues had told me that over the last few years, while I had been travelling the world, drinking in the knowledge that came with being a newly christened Doctor and being surrounded by those who were immeasurably smarter than oneself, Professor Harding had been growing more and more distant.

His lectures at the university always drew in the undergraduate students, he was a man gripped by an incredibly energy and zest for life. That is, he had been a man gripped by an incredible energy and zest for life. However, more and more meetings were skipped. Social and professional functions ignored in favour of hiding himself away in his office, tinkering with the box and filling page after page of notebook with his nigh-incomprehensible scrawl.

I had talked at length with them, after the funeral, desperate to learn. Desperate to know how a great man such as the professor lost himself in his madness? The man I had known could lose himself in research, that was true, but his eyes had always lit up at the first mention of a quick coffee break, or if someone had mentioned bringing a plate of biscuits to share. We had made a small ritual when we both worked late into the night. He’d slip into my office shaking a bottle of brandy, and I’d smile and bring out our trusty glasses, bringing us both some reprieve from that terrible toll research could wreak upon the mind.

And what a toll it had wreaked. I had painstakingly trawled through his notebooks, trying to bring together just what he had been trying to do. Many pages were almost rant-like in nature, Professor Harding cursing the nature of the world, and the small-mindedness of those around him. A wicked side of him that I had never known in all my years close to the man. It had been a daunting task, taking many months of work, separating the theory from the nonsense, the questions he had been trying to answer from his railing against the world around him.

The final few pages had been drenched in blood, but I had managed to salvage enough of the words to pick up his final thoughts on the matter of starting the machine. It all sat together in front of me now, my clean, crisp writing clashing with the scrawl of the original. I had managed to get the machine running as far as he had before the final change. Yet I was as stumped as he had been, even with the answer right in front of me on the page. It made no sense, I’d even attempted substituting the blood for pigs blood, purchased no questions asked from a local butcher.

I rubbed at my eyes, the sun had set many hours ago, and the moon hung high and full in the sky, it’s light providing scarce illumination at my desk. I sighed as I looked down at the small letter opener at the desk. A flight of fancy to try it, to be sure, but at this point I can’t let another night go without knowing just what it was that he had been doing.

A small cut on the tip of my finger had drops of blood falling into the small fuel receptacle for the box, with delay only to quickly grab a cloth to staunch the small bleed, I stood and grabbed the chain hanging off the side. If this did not get the damned machine running, nothing would.

With a sharp tug and a roar, the machine came to life, a smile broke out on my face as I realised I’d done it!

The machine began to unfold before my eyes, metal seeming to melt and spin as it re-wove itself. The distant sound of screaming filled my senses as I found my eyes drawn to the object in the centre of the unfolding box. A false object. An object that seemed to morph and writhe as it sat utterly still, both perfect and sickeningly flawed simultaneously. Red tinged my vision as I felt wetness on my cheeks, throat straining and moving as I fell to the ground, the flesh of my body pulsing in time with the undulating pitch of my scream. 

Above, on the desk, the machine whirred as it reconfigured itself, becoming mere box once more, before falling silent, lit by the soft rays of moonlight, from far, far above.

[frostgears]

this has already happened

"it's okay," the combat doll tells you as she heaves the slab of concrete across the room, freeing you from the rubble. "this has already happened."

you scream, but you can still stand. your leg is scraped but not broken. and you'll take any out you can get.

"this too," the doll adds later, adjusting a knob under one of her chest panels to match the firing rate of an enemy autocannon. "there's a way through. Miss sees the path. she sends a cylinder back in time. i play it back," she thumps her chest. "we tie the knot."

she cartwheels down the trench, and every bullet misses. there's a scream, and chunks of smoking metal pepper the wall across from where you wait down a side trench. then the doll calls: "clear! come on!"

the combat doll blocks an attack you don't even see, sparks sputtering off her thermal blade, setting fire to the dry grass. "not a chance," she shouts to her opponent. "i know what you're going to do!"

attack, riposte, parry, counter, crunch, and it's over.

for both of them.

"it's okay," the combat doll tells you. you can see through a rent into her main compartment, where the grooved cylinder from the future is still spinning, even as her hydraulic fluids leak into the dirt. "this has already happened…"

when she stops moving, you don't know what to do. you can barely lift her thermal blade, which is already cooling anyway, and when a figure steps up behind you, you figure this is really it, this time.

only when it asks your name do you recognize the colors of your own side, pinned to the brim of a pointed broad-brimmed hat.

you croak a reply, dumbfounded.

"good. i was told you'd be here. i sent one of mine in after you. i hope she was of some use."

"she's…" you point.

"oh? she made it this far, only to fall at the finish. a pity."

"she said… she said you'd seen this. from the future. sent a cylinder back. what happened? did we change the timeline?"

"oh, no. that's quite impossible," the figure says. "time travel, that is. as far as i know. but artificial deja vu is easy enough. they're so much braver and more confident when they think they know they're going to make it, aren't they?"

"then what's on the cylinder? what was she listening to when she rescued me?"

"you want to know?"

"yes!"

the figure kneels, opens the battered doll's chest, extracts the cylinder with long, deft fingers. it slots it into a device at its belt.

a chorus of voices issues forth.

"it's okay."

"all this has already happened."

"you're doing so well."

"Miss is watching."

"do what Miss would want you to do."

"all this has already happened."

"it's okay."

"it's okay."

"it's okay." □

[littlemissspiraleyes]

Combat-Ready

Its pilot-body activated. It was spinning. It was falling through the open air. Threat assessment systems told it that it had 0.7 minutes to impact. It checked its flight logs. It had been inserted into its true-body 38 seconds ago. It checked its mission clock. This was not the designated mission start time. It checked its mission parameters. This was not the designated insertion point.

It activated its jets. It stabilized. Threat assessment systems told it that its new downward velocity was acceptable.

new parameters? It outputted. No response from Handler.

new objectives? It outputted. No response from Handler.

Friend or foe systems told it that a friendly vehicle was requesting support. It focused its optics on the target. Its drop ship was spinning and falling. There were multiple holes in it. One was in the mech bay. Another was in the engine. Its drop ship struck the earth. The request for support ended. No new parameters meant that the mission must continue without alteration. It flew towards the objective.

A final combat check was made when it entered the mission area. It registered numbness in its right arm and in the end of its left arm. It turned its optics to the left extremity and saw extensive damage to its left-side cannon. The weapon was non-functional. It looked at its right arm and saw an empty socket. A flash of memory: Its pilot-body looking down after its first surgery and seeing its arms and legs gone. It screamed then. It did not scream now. The second surgery fixed that. Friend or foe systems told it that enemy units, sub-type infantry ground transports, were entering combat range. Mission parameters stated that all enemy units were to be engaged. It increased its jet output.

It slammed into the first transport in the convoy at maximum speed. Target eliminated. Its true-body fed its pilot-body a chemical rush of positive reinforcement. Goosebumps and shivers covered its pilot-body.

thank you Handler. It outputted. No response from Handler.

It shook the remains of the transport off its true-body. The other transports were disembarking. An infantry unit held an Electromagnetic Pulse Cannon that was targeting it. It did not have time to evade.

A combat EMP at this range would kill the pilot-body. This had been designated by Handler as an unacceptable loss. It performed an emergency all-systems deactivation. Gravity reasserted itself on its pilot-body as its true-body fell backwards.

Darkness. Silence. Stillness. A hiss as the cockpit was opened. “Oh my god, is that the pilot?” an unfamiliar voice said.

“I guess so. I think she’s a woman but I’m not sure, what with all the wiring and shit in the way. Can you hear us?” a second voice said.

hearing check confirmed. pilot-body is combat-ready. It tried to output, but its transmission systems were offline. “They took...She doesn’t have any arms or legs!” the first voice said.

“Or eyes or mouth, it looks like. Look at how the tubes go into her face.” the second voice said.

It hears the cocking of a pistol. “It’d be a mercy to just kill her here. Look at what they did to her.” a third voice said. “Fucking evil pieces of shit.”

“Put that down.” a fourth voice said. “She’s a prisoner of war and we’re going to treat her like one. Just because they’re fucking monsters doesn’t mean that we get to do whatever we want.”

A thump next to it. “Help me cut all this wiring out of the way so we can pull her out.” the fourth voice said. There is a tug on its right leg socket. Then a squelch as one of its sensory inputs is pulled out incorrectly. The pain deactivates it.

[wordsmithprincess]

Nerves

6:59

The car’s clock stares at me while my heart races. Sheet of paper with the name of the restaurant and time gripped so tightly between fingers that the page had begun to tear slightly.

Can’t go in yet, have to play it cool, just play it cool Gav.

I looked in the rear-view mirror of the car, running my fingers through my hair and smoothing out the wrinkles in my shirt. I was already regretting this shirt, almost too small, the damn thing clung to me and I couldn’t help but feel like a foolish kid, not really ready to date like a proper adult. Just like before. Oh gods, I’m going to mess this up so much.

7:00

What had seemed like hours waiting in the car were suddenly over and I wasn’t ready. Oh gods, he’s going to think I’m being rude, if he’s even showed up, it’s not like I deserve it, not after last time.

No. Enough panicking. I scrabbled at the car handle for a moment before catching it and dragging myself out of the car. I have to build up the momentum, if I let myself falter I’ll panic too much, just gotta go go go!

I made it about 3 meters to the restaurant before realising I’d left the car door open and the keys in the ignition. Immediately I felt my heart leap to my throat, a fist of pressure balling up and staying. If I’m such a mess that I can’t remember how to leave a car properly, how am I supposed to even meet Mike’s eyes.

Shit, shit, shit. I must be running late now. I smile widely at the greeter as I enter, patting the keys now snugly in my back pocket. Momentum!

“HithereIhaveareservation”

Oh shit. Too much, too much. The greeter is looking at me like I’m crazy and I can feel the nausea rising, bubbling and burning up my throat.

“You have a reservation?” Holding up a finger I take a few deep breaths, desperately trying to center myself as I use my other hand to wipe the moisture from the corner of my eyes.

“Sorry. Sorry. Nerves. Um, yes! Reservation for 7pm for 2? It should be under Mike?” The greeter smiles at me quickly before looking down and tapping quietly at their computer.

“Of course, come right this way sir.” Already? Oh shit. I’m not ready to see him, it’s too much, this is my chance, I’ve missed him so much that I can barely think straight - heh - oh Gods. I almost numbly follow the greeter, mind racing trying to think of excuses why I have to duck off to the bathroom for just a few minutes before I can head in, any excuse to give me a few more minutes to panic in peace before I see him.

I see him. Dressed in a proper shirt, a real adult. Gods. He looks better than ever, he’s grown into his fashion, fancy watch on his arm and everything. While I look like I could have just been dragged from a gym. How did someone THIS out of my league ever think I could be worth their time?

As I enter the restaurant, he looks up at the waiter hovering near him, flashing a smile and giving his order in a small murmur such that I could only catch the low rumble of his voice. I swear my knees almost give out right then and there. As his waiter sweeps away, Mike finally turns to look at me, the face I remember always being so stoic breaking into one of his rare smiles.

It was as if my mind evaporated. He always did that to me, saying his smile could light up a room did it more than a disservice. His smile could reach past a person’s eyes and into their soul and sooth their deepest, darkest fears. I’d seen him stop meltdowns and tantrums with a smile and a few small words, smoothing over the fears of children, or cutting in between raging customers and terrified service workers, causing all to leave mollified.

The minuscule portion of my mind remaining brought my arms up, desperate to be close to him. Decades old feelings tore their way to the surface and I managed to draw out the most under-representative sentence of my feelings I had ever conceived of. “Mike! It’s so good to see you!”

[wordsmithprincess]

Her weapon bucked, joints screeching and metal whining against the intense pressure, a spear of pain lancing into her, a feeling like the skin on her arm had been flensed and a cattle prod rammed into her nerves.

[Targets Eliminated]

Liandra screamed against the pain flooding into over the neural link, her body writhing within the amniotic gel encasing her, blood leaked from her nose as her brain overloaded with the data and pain being forced into her.

[Energy lost as vented heat = 129 032 Joules]

[Apollo Class Experimental Weapon operating at 75.327% efficiency]

[Structural integrity at 98.3%]

[Operator incapacitated for 2.73 seconds after activation]

Pain like a thousand hot knives cutting into her brain greeted Liandra in her return to consciousness. Hundreds of packets of data streaming into her head, giving her updates on her second self’s status, from the fluctuations of heat flushing through her fusion reactor to the micro fractures radiating up the metal of her left arm. Throwing off the introspective programs that had spun through her mind, Liandra turned her attention to her targets.

A ruby haze filled the street, flash-boiled blood from dozens of protestors hung heavy, cut through only by the screams of the dying and the uninjured terrorists. A swathe had been cut through them, those in the line of fire of her weapon had become nothing more than the steam that hid away those less fortunate from easy sight. Those outside of the immediate cone of death that had spat from her weapon suffered in those moments before their lives would come to an end, terrorists caught too close had limbs popped as the blood inside had flash-boiled, those further away screamed in bloody horror, their former friends steaming and spitting organs covering their bodies, skin blistered and peeled, vitreous fluid leaked down cheeks and evaporated away as eyes burst from the heat.

Shuddering at the sight, Liandra turned her body of metal away, her job had been to ensure that none who would raise a fist against the Empire would be in any condition to do so again, and she considered this pack of rebels thoroughly pacified, those few who did not succumb to their injuries would be forced to begging to survive, a public and open reminder to all about what the reward for treasonous behaviours.

[Mission Complete. Returning to Base]

Liandra would not, could not, see the burning placards beneath her feet as she moved away, clawed steel alloy crushing the hopes and desires for a better world, fading to ash in her wake.