Big Dicc Marty
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Katamura, Councilmen and other story-telling elements by Big Dicc Marty
Rustybe by A_Bibor_Farkas
Silently, as if scheduled, millions of years and dominance is challenged.
The missing flotilla, one that had not responded to any calls for months, quietly dropped in a tiny single-white-dwarf-star system with barely a moon to its name. One of very few systems an original flotilla could even get close to. With almost mechanical precision, one minute after dropping dangerously close to the gravity well of this forgotten wink of a star, a call was made across all communications. All shards, fragments, pieces and bits of burial steel that could speak to their siblings in the boundless heavens called for a single guest of honor.
“We want Rustybe.”
It repeated and repeated and repeated, like the most perverted Gift of Song corrupted and torn to call for a single name. The goddess of wrath. Katamura wanted wrath after months isolated from any call for its own name. No other flotilla, no other message.
“We want Wrath.”
Katamura's silence was more than unusual, for a skydasi flotilla to vanish? There must have been other reasons. Many similar questions vexed Rustybe's mind. From her command chair, aboard her ship. The goddess of Wrath, Admiral of the Skydasir and former captain of Skydas itself, could feel a pull toward her. Before the ship's communications erupted with messages, calls and demands. But through all of the white noise."We want Wrath" her rust colored and silver hued orbs snapped attentively to the ship's star map.
Their patrols brought the Tsulrati and skydasir to the brinks of space. Where katamura now resided, calling for the goddess." Chart a course Katamura, we need to find our lost flotilla." As she spoke, her crew carried out each task, ensuring each adjustment was made proper before the massive ship, made its departure. Only to find the great flotilla of Katamura, silent. After all of the calls, every message, every plea for the goddess of wrath incarnate. The once proud Flotilla and its people, we're silent.
The first sight of Katamura was unsettling at best. Any Senti looking at the burial steel, how it connected to theirs, felt a retching hatred and consumption flowing through the steel of the once bustling pirate flotilla. The fact hardly set in before all outgoing transmissions fell silent. Not even as if transmissions had stopped, as if Katamura, every single vessel in the flotilla, simultaneously killed their communication systems. Lights went next, slowly like stars consumed. A wash of darkness fell upon the ancient fleet.
Except one dock on the command ship. A lone light as every other voice had been snuffed out and fled into the cloak of space. The gripping silence, disgust and collective fear still radiated like gel poison from the steel aboard Rustybe’s ship. No crewmate could visibly tell just what was causing such an uproar, but each knew that If’Ni had forgotten her sons and daughters for a moment too long and the reunion was vile.
The single light on the honey-colored steel of the command ship still shone, the only star in this maddening depth. It asked for parley. It asked for a diagnosis. It asked for maintenance. It asked for diplomacy. It asked for mercy. It asked for peace. It asked for war. It asked for…
The throat of Rustybe’s steel croaked pleas for Katamura.
An overwhelming torrent of emotions bombarded her crew, as Rustybe's ship docked with Katamura. The docking bays, pressurized and opening slowly, left the rest of the group dumbfounded by the sheer numbers of demands from the Steel.
Armored boots made a hollow echo as she came closer and closer to the bridge. The emptiness, yet surrounded by the cries of so many. The heavy footfalls finally came to a stop, the entrance to the command room before the Admiral. "Tell me, what have you requested of me for? Are there enemies back from so long ago?”
The hallways felt like a trudge through deep mud, the steel so powerful and hateful even the assistance they begged for was afflicted with a sting like battery acid. As Rustybe met the threshold of the door, it almost felt like a swarm of hands was pulling and tearing at the suit of burial steel she wore, screaming in the re-lived atrocities that had struck the entire flotilla from the black. As the door opened for the goddess, the voices were quelled like crushed light.
Inside was nothing. Just as clean and sterile as the rest of the vessel save the vile monolith standing in the middle of the bridge, about as tall as her. A mechanical intrusion stood next to a body, bearing the wreath and star of the Drhuvian Collective. The machine felt the presence of the crew, or at least the door opening. It turned and revealed the wretched black dagger in its palms, corrupted steel tempered with innocent lives and extinguished memories sent to If’Ni too soon.
It bowed to the captain and extended its arms, presenting the gift with respect due for a goddess.
The presence was reminiscent of her crusade against the Scourge some five hundred thousand years ago. A fire erupted in her heart, and in her rust and iridescent eyes. Hatred filled her every being. Seeing another black burial steel blade was unacceptable. The crew, families and many innocents all from the flotilla of her once honored friend…Katamura now lay still. Aware of true atrocities. As only one who has committed equal could judge." Bridge command, this is Admiral Rustybe ês Skydas. Contact captains, Selevali and Venteset to broadcast to every available ship. War is coming. We will hold an emergency council meeting at once." The comm overlay responded back quietly. "At once Admiral." As her anger turned to the machine she picked the blade from its mechanical hands looking over the foreign style of blade." I'fni forsook me long ago, once again she will turn her eyes, as I begin the process of cleansing this new system of filth." As she spoke, she moved to the command console setting the ship's coordinate for Shurista." Despite my hatred for that ship, I must speak to the council."
The command console responded eagerly to the directions, course for Shurista hastily being set as if the ship itself was waiting for Rustybe's anger. The machine simply remained on its knees even after Rustybe passed. It had served its purpose.
The only body Rustybe has seen or heard of despite the thorough clearing of their trail to the bridge has been the one laid so neatly next to this robot. Warm, tan skin instead of the cool Senti metal. A Drhuvian body with Drhuvian indentification. The only body on the entire flotilla.
As the burial steel lurched its infected mass forward, tearing open reality and shaping a worm hole unstable with its hate and urge for violence it had been created with, Rustybe finally felt a sense of weight loosen from her shoulders. It wasn't her tension of going back to war but…
The steel had chosen her as a form of champion. One that would be propelled by its hatred and agony. It uplifted its champion, eager to give her all she would need to strike vengeance. To infect Rustybe with more of the disease that had slaughtered an entire species.
As the ship lurched toward Shurista, Rustybe studied the body, the enemy she now faced. Knowing damn well the council will fight tooth and nail for peace, despite the recent acts of genocide against her people. Well over half a million years, it had been so long yet felt so short. The feeling of anger, hatred and….wrath…..her people had given her that name. With good reason. The ancient Flotilla lurched toward her sister ship, its golden dome shining in the near by light of a star, like a jewel in the blackness of space. Unbeknownst of the storm coming to their proverbial front door.
"Katamuran command, this is Shurista. You are… quiet… please confirm, we received no prior warning or advisement of your arrival."
Rustybe's brooding was struck with the small prick of reality as the communications began speaking worries. A moment passed of silence before urgent and almost frightened communications began piercing the terrible air almost teeming in the tendrils of hate corrupted steel wrought, "Katamura! Respond! Your steel is unusual, it is wrong. We are not seeing your expected capacity, Respond. Please."
It became desperate, hurried and panicked as Katamura drew closer and as the aura of her Majesty was shown to be a torn and shattered visage above a cataclysmic hatred. Shurista knew something has happened, something terrible. They felt it in the steel before but now, as the original flotilla tore through the black sheet of space, as the fine aura of the steel became apparent but the auras of the lives aboard absent, they knew far more than they ever wished.
From the helm of the now empty Katamura, the goddess of wrath pressed the comms." Shurista, this is Rustybe es Skydas. There has been a declaration of war against our peoples. Gather the council for an emergency meeting. The flotilla has been lost….all of the souls aboard….are….no more…." Her transmission ended briefly as docking procedures came into effect. The massive flotilla connecting.
Rustybe did not get a response. Even as she stepped onto the steel of Shurista, announcing her presence, flanked by curious Senti who had also noticed the drastic absence of life aboard Katamura, nobody spoke a single word. The minutes of her incursion, the champion of broken steel leaving a harsh wake, was a deafening silence wrought with lunacy. It was when Rustybe approached the council room when two civil servicemen opened the doors did she first hear the harmonial song of "her people's" language again.
"They are… eager to understand."
The council room opened with a long creak and Rustybe presented before the highest of Shurista. The almost divine visage of Wrath reverberated a harsh pressure throughout the room, a cause of hushed frenzy and panic as the Council toiled with accepting that Katamura was, simply, gone. The door behind her slammed shut to announce her captaincy. Rustybe faced the council as a spear head of Katamura's trauma, as a demand for retribution.
"What do you mean we are at war?!"
The first, most volatile councilman shouted. He found the weakness in the tension and shattered it through, spurring on the rest of the council in questioning Rustybe.
"You bring Katamura here, missing her crew and…" He leaned forward and stared through the walls, reading the massive squirming auras of hatred a few kilometers away, "...you bring her in the state of Skydas. Rustybe, what do you mean war?"
The Admiral and council
Woman flashed her icy two toned glare at the councilman for a moment."I did not mix my words Councilman. We received a distress beacon, after scanning for weeks. Naturally we responded and when we did. This is how we found her. Her crew gone, and all that was left, was a robotic amalgamation of soulless metal, a corpse and this." With her words spitting out venomous, a flash of her hand sunk the dhruvian designed burial steel blade into the headrest of the. Councilman's seat."that was the answer we found, addressed to me. What more of an insult to the steel do you lot need? Billions! Of our brothers and sisters! Gone, scrubbed clean, and steel that demands retribution." Her eyes flashed brightly, the animation in her voice and body contrasted her usual calm demeanor, as if channeling the lost souls of Katamura."will our people cower like that bastard Sentisura? Or will we remind others who charted these stars? Who has stood the test of time and why we became peaceful?" Her voice shook, as she began to compose herself once again.
The councilman dodged his head to the side. He snapped cold at the threat against them, the rage he watched. His arm raised, hand curling around the grip before yanking the blade from his seat and speaking, "Katamura died of her own accord."
The blade clattered on the desk before him, an unamused attempt to rouse emotion and passion. He locked eyes with Rustybe as he stole the calm posture Rustybe used to champion. "We have heard of this… species. The one Katamura taunted and toyed with." He set his hands on the desk and leaned forward, "Katamura pirated like fools and paid the price."
His eyes fell on the knife, it's horrendous, black shroud that twisted his face into one of disgust and contempt. It was an odd line between not caring for the faults that killed Katamura and the fact that burial steel has been corrupted. Holy items unhallowed.
"I am not ecstatic at their demise. Even as I speak, it hangs heavy on my heart, though…" He looks towards the rest of his council members.
"We will not intervene." A councilwoman spoke up, sharing that uncaring expression for Rustybe's fit. "They were warned countless times. By ignoring these warnings, they trespassed on another and courted consequence with a species known for violence."
Another councilman spoke, stealing the blade created in Senti blood from the desk to examine it's features. It was a curiosity, but was as terrible to witness as a man bleeding out in the street. "As for you, Rustybe." His eyes settled on the point, a fine edge holding a tuft of the headrest with an aura that churned his stomach, "You are…"
"Atavistic. Primordial. A relic from another time."
He set the knife down with all the care of disposing a toddler's diaper, as if to ensure it didn't spread. "We will not be taking orders from an anachronist known to get carried away with them. Nor orders from someone usurped by a fucking courierwoman."
"I'm certain you can find the way out, or the civil serviceman can assist you." The woman from before added. She was starting to become terse, agitated by the continued presence of this terrible goddess so easily corrupted and enraged. She wanted Rustybe to be rid of, to get this ugly sight away. She'd mourn the loss of the friends and potentially family on Katamura later, but not after she agreed to create more widows and orphans.
Her multicolored eyes flashed with a rage unseen by any living person. A calm washed over her body, and distinct laser focused aggression began to well. " councilor, I will not be pushed out and intimidated by a group of children. Who know nothing of the decisions of military leaders. Katamura may have invoked a breach of the First law. But her people did no such thing, katamura followed the old ways, before I and my wife wrote the first law into effect. Or did you forget? I will no longer entertain the foolish ideals of my ex husband. That you all so eagerly took to, including his namesake. You aren't true Tsulrati. You are barely able to be called Senti. Yet you lecture me on what is right?"
The goddess herself, lifted a hand, calling out orders in a much older dialect. Before the doors flew open, the guards subdued and her XO stood next to the Admiral handing over her prized short sword, before, in honor of the long deceased Admiral Katamura, Rustybe mounted her blade diagonally across her chest." The council has hearty been disbanded, if you continue to fight, you will be incarcerated indefinitely. Our laws shall return to what they should have stayed." Looking to her crew, she called out to them." Take the communications array, and send a beacon out. Call out the long silenced drums of our people. We will sing once again, adding to the grand libraries!"
One councilman stood. The mouthy one. The one always with something to say. The rest were despondent and shocked as this… this coup happened before their eyes. But him, he, he stood.
"When you kill women and children, shall we wage war against you? Kill you as we should have so long ago?" He jabbered. Rustybe's boots felt as if strapped to where she stood, chained to the steel. It didn't seem the work of him, no, her chains were palms and finger gripping her calves and pulling her secure.
"When you do as they did, you would have us forgive? You do as the Collective does. You wage your war in a cycle of revenge begets revenge. Were you ever better than the monsters that hunted us, or were you just on our side?" His face contorted into something painful. Not for him, but for her, a piercing and harmful glare against the very fabric of her. It was just quick philosophical blows, as soon as it began, it ended. The heat washed away.
Before her own guards could get to him, to carry out his incarceration, Rustybe moved. Her feet slid as if being choreographed by something greater, one foot in front of the other to fight. Her arm was guided to her holster. Her hands gripped, as if a million others were all putting in their little fragments of effort to move her hand, to lift the barrel and aim it to the mouthy ones head. Even more effort, even more bodies and souls and the waves of the ocean styx washing across her. They moved and set her into position, the one they wanted. Black washed across her eyes until the single focal point of where her irons met his head was visible. The world was a tunnel. The souls gave a choice. A proof of loyalty. A proof of trust. A proof of doing anything necessary. Proof of a point.
They asked her to pull the trigger, to prove herself.
"Our people would have me kill you councilor, the steel that begs for justice, for wrath! I am the Admiral of the gilded shield, the destroyer of the Scourge and the savior of my people. I was never er meant to live in the world we created. It is as you say, to defeat a monster, you must become one." As her words escaped her lips the flash from her beam pistol partially illuminated the room cutting into the councilors cheek." Your intentions for our people are misguided, much like my husband's were. Do you wish to die today?"
The ever constant weight of her people sat against the Admirals chest, a feeling she knew all too well. The time for her to sit was no more, action must be taken, and her fallen people begged for it. The constant wailing that wracked her mind, now returning.
Disruption. Aggravation. It was not enough. The boat rocked and Rustybe felt the ground shift even if nobody else saw it.
"RID YOURSELF THEN. IF YOU WERE NOT TO LIVE, THEN DIE. IF YOU WERE NOT TO STAND HERE THEN KNEEL." The guards caught the man who had given but a deep shudder at the blood running down his cheek, falling to the ground, him following.
The rest of the council remained silent, sat. It didn't matter if they acted or not for it was better to just wait for Rustybe to leave. To not intervene. They saw the mouthy councilor be dragged away to wherever the hell they looked to take him, screaming at the madness of tyranny and the coup that nobody seemed to stand against.
The ocean of souls that had flooded Rustybe wanted and retracted. What once was a great cacophony demanding proof. Proof. Endless proof to her people…
Was a small clatter of a black knife from the desk of the council. A declaration of war.
Rustybe by A_Bibor_Farkas
Silently, as if scheduled, millions of years and dominance is challenged.
The missing flotilla, one that had not responded to any calls for months, quietly dropped in a tiny single-white-dwarf-star system with barely a moon to its name. One of very few systems an original flotilla could even get close to. With almost mechanical precision, one minute after dropping dangerously close to the gravity well of this forgotten wink of a star, a call was made across all communications. All shards, fragments, pieces and bits of burial steel that could speak to their siblings in the boundless heavens called for a single guest of honor.
“We want Rustybe.”
It repeated and repeated and repeated, like the most perverted Gift of Song corrupted and torn to call for a single name. The goddess of wrath. Katamura wanted wrath after months isolated from any call for its own name. No other flotilla, no other message.
“We want Wrath.”
Katamura's silence was more than unusual, for a skydasi flotilla to vanish? There must have been other reasons. Many similar questions vexed Rustybe's mind. From her command chair, aboard her ship. The goddess of Wrath, Admiral of the Skydasir and former captain of Skydas itself, could feel a pull toward her. Before the ship's communications erupted with messages, calls and demands. But through all of the white noise."We want Wrath" her rust colored and silver hued orbs snapped attentively to the ship's star map.
Their patrols brought the Tsulrati and skydasir to the brinks of space. Where katamura now resided, calling for the goddess." Chart a course Katamura, we need to find our lost flotilla." As she spoke, her crew carried out each task, ensuring each adjustment was made proper before the massive ship, made its departure. Only to find the great flotilla of Katamura, silent. After all of the calls, every message, every plea for the goddess of wrath incarnate. The once proud Flotilla and its people, we're silent.
The first sight of Katamura was unsettling at best. Any Senti looking at the burial steel, how it connected to theirs, felt a retching hatred and consumption flowing through the steel of the once bustling pirate flotilla. The fact hardly set in before all outgoing transmissions fell silent. Not even as if transmissions had stopped, as if Katamura, every single vessel in the flotilla, simultaneously killed their communication systems. Lights went next, slowly like stars consumed. A wash of darkness fell upon the ancient fleet.
Except one dock on the command ship. A lone light as every other voice had been snuffed out and fled into the cloak of space. The gripping silence, disgust and collective fear still radiated like gel poison from the steel aboard Rustybe’s ship. No crewmate could visibly tell just what was causing such an uproar, but each knew that If’Ni had forgotten her sons and daughters for a moment too long and the reunion was vile.
The single light on the honey-colored steel of the command ship still shone, the only star in this maddening depth. It asked for parley. It asked for a diagnosis. It asked for maintenance. It asked for diplomacy. It asked for mercy. It asked for peace. It asked for war. It asked for…
The throat of Rustybe’s steel croaked pleas for Katamura.
An overwhelming torrent of emotions bombarded her crew, as Rustybe's ship docked with Katamura. The docking bays, pressurized and opening slowly, left the rest of the group dumbfounded by the sheer numbers of demands from the Steel.
Armored boots made a hollow echo as she came closer and closer to the bridge. The emptiness, yet surrounded by the cries of so many. The heavy footfalls finally came to a stop, the entrance to the command room before the Admiral. "Tell me, what have you requested of me for? Are there enemies back from so long ago?”
The hallways felt like a trudge through deep mud, the steel so powerful and hateful even the assistance they begged for was afflicted with a sting like battery acid. As Rustybe met the threshold of the door, it almost felt like a swarm of hands was pulling and tearing at the suit of burial steel she wore, screaming in the re-lived atrocities that had struck the entire flotilla from the black. As the door opened for the goddess, the voices were quelled like crushed light.
Inside was nothing. Just as clean and sterile as the rest of the vessel save the vile monolith standing in the middle of the bridge, about as tall as her. A mechanical intrusion stood next to a body, bearing the wreath and star of the Drhuvian Collective. The machine felt the presence of the crew, or at least the door opening. It turned and revealed the wretched black dagger in its palms, corrupted steel tempered with innocent lives and extinguished memories sent to If’Ni too soon.
It bowed to the captain and extended its arms, presenting the gift with respect due for a goddess.
The presence was reminiscent of her crusade against the Scourge some five hundred thousand years ago. A fire erupted in her heart, and in her rust and iridescent eyes. Hatred filled her every being. Seeing another black burial steel blade was unacceptable. The crew, families and many innocents all from the flotilla of her once honored friend…Katamura now lay still. Aware of true atrocities. As only one who has committed equal could judge." Bridge command, this is Admiral Rustybe ês Skydas. Contact captains, Selevali and Venteset to broadcast to every available ship. War is coming. We will hold an emergency council meeting at once." The comm overlay responded back quietly. "At once Admiral." As her anger turned to the machine she picked the blade from its mechanical hands looking over the foreign style of blade." I'fni forsook me long ago, once again she will turn her eyes, as I begin the process of cleansing this new system of filth." As she spoke, she moved to the command console setting the ship's coordinate for Shurista." Despite my hatred for that ship, I must speak to the council."
The command console responded eagerly to the directions, course for Shurista hastily being set as if the ship itself was waiting for Rustybe's anger. The machine simply remained on its knees even after Rustybe passed. It had served its purpose.
The only body Rustybe has seen or heard of despite the thorough clearing of their trail to the bridge has been the one laid so neatly next to this robot. Warm, tan skin instead of the cool Senti metal. A Drhuvian body with Drhuvian indentification. The only body on the entire flotilla.
As the burial steel lurched its infected mass forward, tearing open reality and shaping a worm hole unstable with its hate and urge for violence it had been created with, Rustybe finally felt a sense of weight loosen from her shoulders. It wasn't her tension of going back to war but…
The steel had chosen her as a form of champion. One that would be propelled by its hatred and agony. It uplifted its champion, eager to give her all she would need to strike vengeance. To infect Rustybe with more of the disease that had slaughtered an entire species.
As the ship lurched toward Shurista, Rustybe studied the body, the enemy she now faced. Knowing damn well the council will fight tooth and nail for peace, despite the recent acts of genocide against her people. Well over half a million years, it had been so long yet felt so short. The feeling of anger, hatred and….wrath…..her people had given her that name. With good reason. The ancient Flotilla lurched toward her sister ship, its golden dome shining in the near by light of a star, like a jewel in the blackness of space. Unbeknownst of the storm coming to their proverbial front door.
"Katamuran command, this is Shurista. You are… quiet… please confirm, we received no prior warning or advisement of your arrival."
Rustybe's brooding was struck with the small prick of reality as the communications began speaking worries. A moment passed of silence before urgent and almost frightened communications began piercing the terrible air almost teeming in the tendrils of hate corrupted steel wrought, "Katamura! Respond! Your steel is unusual, it is wrong. We are not seeing your expected capacity, Respond. Please."
It became desperate, hurried and panicked as Katamura drew closer and as the aura of her Majesty was shown to be a torn and shattered visage above a cataclysmic hatred. Shurista knew something has happened, something terrible. They felt it in the steel before but now, as the original flotilla tore through the black sheet of space, as the fine aura of the steel became apparent but the auras of the lives aboard absent, they knew far more than they ever wished.
From the helm of the now empty Katamura, the goddess of wrath pressed the comms." Shurista, this is Rustybe es Skydas. There has been a declaration of war against our peoples. Gather the council for an emergency meeting. The flotilla has been lost….all of the souls aboard….are….no more…." Her transmission ended briefly as docking procedures came into effect. The massive flotilla connecting.
Rustybe did not get a response. Even as she stepped onto the steel of Shurista, announcing her presence, flanked by curious Senti who had also noticed the drastic absence of life aboard Katamura, nobody spoke a single word. The minutes of her incursion, the champion of broken steel leaving a harsh wake, was a deafening silence wrought with lunacy. It was when Rustybe approached the council room when two civil servicemen opened the doors did she first hear the harmonial song of "her people's" language again.
"They are… eager to understand."
The council room opened with a long creak and Rustybe presented before the highest of Shurista. The almost divine visage of Wrath reverberated a harsh pressure throughout the room, a cause of hushed frenzy and panic as the Council toiled with accepting that Katamura was, simply, gone. The door behind her slammed shut to announce her captaincy. Rustybe faced the council as a spear head of Katamura's trauma, as a demand for retribution.
"What do you mean we are at war?!"
The first, most volatile councilman shouted. He found the weakness in the tension and shattered it through, spurring on the rest of the council in questioning Rustybe.
"You bring Katamura here, missing her crew and…" He leaned forward and stared through the walls, reading the massive squirming auras of hatred a few kilometers away, "...you bring her in the state of Skydas. Rustybe, what do you mean war?"
The Admiral and council
Woman flashed her icy two toned glare at the councilman for a moment."I did not mix my words Councilman. We received a distress beacon, after scanning for weeks. Naturally we responded and when we did. This is how we found her. Her crew gone, and all that was left, was a robotic amalgamation of soulless metal, a corpse and this." With her words spitting out venomous, a flash of her hand sunk the dhruvian designed burial steel blade into the headrest of the. Councilman's seat."that was the answer we found, addressed to me. What more of an insult to the steel do you lot need? Billions! Of our brothers and sisters! Gone, scrubbed clean, and steel that demands retribution." Her eyes flashed brightly, the animation in her voice and body contrasted her usual calm demeanor, as if channeling the lost souls of Katamura."will our people cower like that bastard Sentisura? Or will we remind others who charted these stars? Who has stood the test of time and why we became peaceful?" Her voice shook, as she began to compose herself once again.
The councilman dodged his head to the side. He snapped cold at the threat against them, the rage he watched. His arm raised, hand curling around the grip before yanking the blade from his seat and speaking, "Katamura died of her own accord."
The blade clattered on the desk before him, an unamused attempt to rouse emotion and passion. He locked eyes with Rustybe as he stole the calm posture Rustybe used to champion. "We have heard of this… species. The one Katamura taunted and toyed with." He set his hands on the desk and leaned forward, "Katamura pirated like fools and paid the price."
His eyes fell on the knife, it's horrendous, black shroud that twisted his face into one of disgust and contempt. It was an odd line between not caring for the faults that killed Katamura and the fact that burial steel has been corrupted. Holy items unhallowed.
"I am not ecstatic at their demise. Even as I speak, it hangs heavy on my heart, though…" He looks towards the rest of his council members.
"We will not intervene." A councilwoman spoke up, sharing that uncaring expression for Rustybe's fit. "They were warned countless times. By ignoring these warnings, they trespassed on another and courted consequence with a species known for violence."
Another councilman spoke, stealing the blade created in Senti blood from the desk to examine it's features. It was a curiosity, but was as terrible to witness as a man bleeding out in the street. "As for you, Rustybe." His eyes settled on the point, a fine edge holding a tuft of the headrest with an aura that churned his stomach, "You are…"
"Atavistic. Primordial. A relic from another time."
He set the knife down with all the care of disposing a toddler's diaper, as if to ensure it didn't spread. "We will not be taking orders from an anachronist known to get carried away with them. Nor orders from someone usurped by a fucking courierwoman."
"I'm certain you can find the way out, or the civil serviceman can assist you." The woman from before added. She was starting to become terse, agitated by the continued presence of this terrible goddess so easily corrupted and enraged. She wanted Rustybe to be rid of, to get this ugly sight away. She'd mourn the loss of the friends and potentially family on Katamura later, but not after she agreed to create more widows and orphans.
Her multicolored eyes flashed with a rage unseen by any living person. A calm washed over her body, and distinct laser focused aggression began to well. " councilor, I will not be pushed out and intimidated by a group of children. Who know nothing of the decisions of military leaders. Katamura may have invoked a breach of the First law. But her people did no such thing, katamura followed the old ways, before I and my wife wrote the first law into effect. Or did you forget? I will no longer entertain the foolish ideals of my ex husband. That you all so eagerly took to, including his namesake. You aren't true Tsulrati. You are barely able to be called Senti. Yet you lecture me on what is right?"
The goddess herself, lifted a hand, calling out orders in a much older dialect. Before the doors flew open, the guards subdued and her XO stood next to the Admiral handing over her prized short sword, before, in honor of the long deceased Admiral Katamura, Rustybe mounted her blade diagonally across her chest." The council has hearty been disbanded, if you continue to fight, you will be incarcerated indefinitely. Our laws shall return to what they should have stayed." Looking to her crew, she called out to them." Take the communications array, and send a beacon out. Call out the long silenced drums of our people. We will sing once again, adding to the grand libraries!"
One councilman stood. The mouthy one. The one always with something to say. The rest were despondent and shocked as this… this coup happened before their eyes. But him, he, he stood.
"When you kill women and children, shall we wage war against you? Kill you as we should have so long ago?" He jabbered. Rustybe's boots felt as if strapped to where she stood, chained to the steel. It didn't seem the work of him, no, her chains were palms and finger gripping her calves and pulling her secure.
"When you do as they did, you would have us forgive? You do as the Collective does. You wage your war in a cycle of revenge begets revenge. Were you ever better than the monsters that hunted us, or were you just on our side?" His face contorted into something painful. Not for him, but for her, a piercing and harmful glare against the very fabric of her. It was just quick philosophical blows, as soon as it began, it ended. The heat washed away.
Before her own guards could get to him, to carry out his incarceration, Rustybe moved. Her feet slid as if being choreographed by something greater, one foot in front of the other to fight. Her arm was guided to her holster. Her hands gripped, as if a million others were all putting in their little fragments of effort to move her hand, to lift the barrel and aim it to the mouthy ones head. Even more effort, even more bodies and souls and the waves of the ocean styx washing across her. They moved and set her into position, the one they wanted. Black washed across her eyes until the single focal point of where her irons met his head was visible. The world was a tunnel. The souls gave a choice. A proof of loyalty. A proof of trust. A proof of doing anything necessary. Proof of a point.
They asked her to pull the trigger, to prove herself.
"Our people would have me kill you councilor, the steel that begs for justice, for wrath! I am the Admiral of the gilded shield, the destroyer of the Scourge and the savior of my people. I was never er meant to live in the world we created. It is as you say, to defeat a monster, you must become one." As her words escaped her lips the flash from her beam pistol partially illuminated the room cutting into the councilors cheek." Your intentions for our people are misguided, much like my husband's were. Do you wish to die today?"
The ever constant weight of her people sat against the Admirals chest, a feeling she knew all too well. The time for her to sit was no more, action must be taken, and her fallen people begged for it. The constant wailing that wracked her mind, now returning.
Disruption. Aggravation. It was not enough. The boat rocked and Rustybe felt the ground shift even if nobody else saw it.
"RID YOURSELF THEN. IF YOU WERE NOT TO LIVE, THEN DIE. IF YOU WERE NOT TO STAND HERE THEN KNEEL." The guards caught the man who had given but a deep shudder at the blood running down his cheek, falling to the ground, him following.
The rest of the council remained silent, sat. It didn't matter if they acted or not for it was better to just wait for Rustybe to leave. To not intervene. They saw the mouthy councilor be dragged away to wherever the hell they looked to take him, screaming at the madness of tyranny and the coup that nobody seemed to stand against.
The ocean of souls that had flooded Rustybe wanted and retracted. What once was a great cacophony demanding proof. Proof. Endless proof to her people…
Was a small clatter of a black knife from the desk of the council. A declaration of war.