Empire of Decay: Exile

Certain pieces of jargon and units of measurements have been translated into proper human and Earth-based terms, for the benefit of this file’s superior human readerbase.

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Before her were two weapons - a firearm and a knife.

The gun was not a plasmacaster or any sort of direct energy weapon. Not even a smart-bolter with it’s AI-powered, seeking mini-rockets. It was a snub-nosed, slugcasting pistol. As small and primitive as possible.

Similarly, the knife’s blade was not made of novamatter. It had no motor, so it was not a high-frequency razor. Nor was it a plasma knife with an energy blade. It was a plain, unadorned hunting knife with a steel-carbonadium alloy blade.

The two weapons sat on a crate, equidistant from both Mok-1-21 and Jit-10-8. The presence of the knife and gun made one thing clear: Mok-1-21 was wrong again. They had some manner of weapons, just very unimpressive ones.

Having survived the cold, dark night, Mok-1-21 was still sore and tired, but she was happy to be indoors again, and even happier to have her morning allotment of rations in her belly. But those were small comforts, now that she was face-to-face with her commanding officer. Even exhausted and with her head still throbbing, she knew this would be Jit-10-8’s judgment. And she did not like her chances.

For her part, Jit-10-8 wore the detached air of someone going about rote business. Like this wasn’t personal in any way shape her form. Every part of her affected this stance, except her eyes. Small, beady, cruel things. Sharp as obsidian, hard a black basalt. Jit-10-8 wanted to see Mok-1-21 squirm, beg, and apologize. She would not give her commander the satisfaction.

“I would like you to note that my judgment is not entirely based upon your actions yesterday, Mok-1-21.” Jit-10-8 began, doing away with any preamble, her tone cool and professional. “I have spoken with the other members of the cell, and they have told me you have been out of line for sometime now. Making cynical comments behind your superior’s back. Arguing. Fighting. Threatening your sisters. Outright assaulting them.” She clicked her tongue, black eyes alighting with twisted pleasure. “You are a problem child. You have no place in a delicate military operation.

Mok-1-21 said nothing. She remained sitting on the crate opposite Jit-10-8, palms on her thighs, mouth pursed into a tight circle, eyes forward and focused on the elder Dranza before her. Despite the rage in her belly, she did everything she could to remain as calm and detached as possible.

Her commanding officer did not care about Mok-1-21’s nonreaction, continuing without pause. “Thus, my judgment. I will give you a choice, Mok-1-21, I can either kill you now.” Her eyes trailed down to the weapons, and Mok-1-21 couldn’t help but do the same. “Or, these will become your weapons and I will send you out with a mission. Seeing as we have confirmed humans are stalking around, the only way I can see you getting back into the sisterhood’s good graces is by slaying one of those abominations and bringing back it’s head. Execution or redemption, those are your choices, Mok-1-21.”

No, her choices were **** or ****. And while Mok-1-21 did not relish a slow **** to exposure and starvation before the merciless winds of Dallis-5 on a fruitless, impossible mission, it sounded a whole lot better than letting Jit-10-8 kneecap her with that slugthrower and then gut her like a fish. Mok-1-21 always knew her commander was a hard woman, but after being beaten by her, she could see a new side to Jit-10-8. Barely restrained bloodlust. Utter savagery. A battlefield berserker who hadn’t the chance to express her violent nature in years.

Mok-1-21 acted like she was in deep debate over her choice, before stating, “I will bring you your human head, commander. Though I cannot avow for a clean cut with such a puny blade.”

Jit-10-8 sneered in disgust. “Snark and contempt and cowardice. They should have flushed your gene-seed down into the sewer when they had the chance.”

Still, with that last fleeting insult, Jit-10-8 did keep her word, arming Mok-1-21 and sending her on her quest. With her barely functioning suit and filter. a single canteen of water, and her data-slate. And no food. Nothing else was given to her, not even words of encouragement. Her cellmates did not come down to see her off, leading to Mok-1-21 exiting into the badlands with Jit-10-8’s flinty eyes staring daggers into her back.

The good news was, with the storm abated, the air and sky were both as clear as they ever would be on Dallis-5. Sure, the sky on Dallis-5 was a murky orange even at the best of time, but this meant that Mok-1-21 would survive for dozens of hours as opposed to the handful she would be given if caught in another sandstorm.

It did occur to Mok-1-21, as she marched out of the hangar, that she could easily wheel around and empty the clip of her pistol in Jit-10-8. Anger still burned in her for the indignities she suffered, she was already an exile, no one was around to stop her, what did she have to lose?

What did she have to lose… what did she have to gain? If her pride meant nothing in the face of a vast, uncaring universe, then what value did her righteous anger have? Or her despair? Her choices? Her will? What was the point of anything she did or thought of?

Heart heavy with such philosophical quandaries, Mok-1-21 spared her commanding officer one last withering glare before affecting the grim confidence of an exile, marching forward into the dusty wasteland.

////

Mok-1-21’s days in the harsh wilderness of Dallis-5 turned out to be not too different from what she experienced in the cell’s compound. Though, that was more a damning slight against the cell and their way of life than anything else.

Resigning herself to the fact that she would never, ever find a human - that would lead to one of two things: her ****, or being faced with the dreaded NOXET before being geneforged - Mok-1-21 decided her first course of action should be to find shelter. Even if her enviro-suit was mint, the scouring dust and frigid nights of the arid moon would make quick work of her. Not to mention that her most valuable tool - her data slate - would quickly become trashed if exposed to the elements. Fortunately, if there was anything Dallis-5 had in surplus it was canyons and spires and cliffs and other rocky edifices jutting up from the land. And from these edifices came honeycomb networks of caverns, carved from millennia of erosion.

She found a suitable cave to hide away in, several miles from her old home, and it was about as perfect as she could imagine. Free of signs of animal habitation, nestled within a high plateau so that it stood above any other dust storms, yet easily accessible via a winding trail carved in the cliff face. Furthermore, as she settled into the heart of the cave and brought out her data-slate, immediately finding what she had been hoping for. Wormsign.

No, not some great, rumbling beast that swam beneath the sand, but the sharp, unmissable heat signature of thangl worms burrowing within the plateau’s cavern network. Maybe if she had more resources to her name, Mok-1-21 could capture and cage a knot of thangl worms and use their ambient heat for her own ends, but that was a pipe dream. At the very least, she had a quick source of food.

Using her knife to claw at the cave floor (yes, exiled and stripped of duty and she was still scrabbling in the ground), Mok-1-21 furiously scraped and carved her way through flinty rock into the freshly tilled earth below. Using the flat of the blade and her own hands, she furiously scooped out the dirt until the unmistakably high-pitched screeches of the thangl worms filled the air. Shoving her arm up to her elbow into the tilled soil, Mok-1-21 pulled out a fistful of the slimy, writhing, steaming worms out, grinning in utter triumph.

That triumph died out in a hurry, though, when she realized she may have acted without thinking. Fried thangl worm was a common street food all across the Dranza system - spiced and cooked on the flat iron, Mok-1-21 remembered slurping down the yummy, greasy worms by the dozen whenever she had leave. But she didn’t have a flat iron on hand. Or a source of heat. Or even enough water to spare to clean the worms off. What the hell was she going to do with her bounty?

Having put in a lot of effort just to dig the bastards up and not wanting that to go to waste, Mok-1-21 focused more on the pit in her stomach than the screeching, nasty worm before her. She brushed off as much dirt as she could manage, took the smallest worm she had managed to seize, and, with much hesitation, shoved the entire thing in her mouth in one go and bit down.

It was an utter mistake. Horrid, putrid, disgusting. She could not believe she found something worse than stale military rations. The traces of dirt covering them was the least of her problems. The slimy mucus membrane that coated the worms quickly spread to coat every inch of her tongue and throat, a sensation and flavour profile that reminded her of eating soap. Then, the skin of the bloody things proved to be chewier than foam rubber, as she gnawed and worked at it until her jaws ached. Yet the worst came when the skin finally gave way and broke, as the guts of the worm flooded her mouth, replacing the soapy taste and texture with that of raw sewage. Mok-1-21 heaved and shuddered, fighting with all of her might to both not spit up the half-chewed worm in her mouth, but also not vomit up her meager breakfast. Oh, why couldn’t the gene-master have engineered away the Dranza’s gag reflex?

Still, marshalling whatever willpower remained in her broken body, broken mind, and broken heart, Mok-1-21 managed to down that tiny worm and keep it down. When she finally choked down the last bits of the nasty thing, she gasped and shivered, tongue lolling out, as if trying to collect as much of the dusty air to mask the vile taste of what she just ate. Every fiber of her being fought her from snatching up her canteen and washing away the blighted aftertaste that ruled her mouth.

But, despite all that, Mok-1-21 did eat the remainder of her worms. She swallowed them whole in one go, no chewing whatsoever. The sensation of the mucus was bad, but nothing compared to the everything else that came with piercing the skin and experiencing the innards of those damned words

////

Food and shelter sorted away first and foremost, Mok-1-21 spent her days and nights doing everything she could to improve her situation. Now that she had a place away from the swirling winds and clouds of microparticles, she could safely bring out her slate and use it to track and mark various necessities she would need to survive.

Her plateau and cave and the surrounding area were bountiful with thangl worms, meaning she did not have to go far to hunt for the cursed screamers, and soon she was able to find an aquifer with (relatively) untainted water. Combined that with her helmet, some flint, and a some kind of powdered nitrate-based compound, she was able to purify said water and keep her supplies topped off. The fires made from the nitrate burned out fairly quickly and produced a rancid smell, but it was fire and heat that did not come from her suit, meaning she had ways to keep her body temp up during the nights and the more cloudy, cool days.

Before she knew it, a week had passed, and she felt… better. Only marginally so, but about nearly everything. Being solely responsible for her survival gave her purpose and drive, forcing her to stop thinking and simply focus and act. Food, water, shelter. The necessary elements for survival of any race, Dranza or other. Despite the harshness of the landscape she lived upon, Mok-1-21 thought she had performed excellently, far better than she could have imagined.

But, regardless of the limits of her imagination, she knew that this would not be enough. While she may have been focused during the day in her constant quest for survival, at night her doubts and fears creeped back in. She knew she could not survive indefinitely like this. Eventually, her air filter would expire and she would **** on metallic and silicon elements that laced the air of Dallis-5. Or her suit’s heater would expire and she would go into cold stun or hypothermia. Or she would exhaust her food or water or fire sources and be **** to move, unable to find another suitable location. Or a monster storm would sweep in that not even her shelter would spare her from.

Or the human would just say “fuck this” to trying to find the Dranza hiding on the moon and unleash a scourge of Vyraxis shocktroopers to scour the place clean. Or bombard the moon from orbit. Or any number of other horrible things she imagined the humans were capable of.

So, where did that leave her? Finding and killing a human was out. Did she go back to her cell and beg Jit-10-8 for forgiveness. Not likely. Mok-1-21 would sooner eat drongo shit than give that smug, preening vat-scum the satisfaction. She could always use the beacon implanted in her false tooth to contact… whoever it was the beacon contacted. Pick her up and take her to a new cell. If they would take her, that is. If they didn’t agree with Jit-10-8’s assessment that she was a loss cause. And, even if they did take her, wouldn’t that put Mok-1-21 back in the exact same predicament? Toiling away pointlessly for the glory of a dead empire, the pride of a dying people, all to fight a war that was clearly lost?

So, where did that leave her? Back to the common point that her destiny was to be nothing more than a pile of bones, scoured smooth by the arid winds and bleached by the murky sun.

No. Even with her recent nihilistic bent, Mok-1-21 did not want to die. She did not want to suffer such an ignoble fate and fade into oblivion. She didn’t know what she wanted, did not know what her purpose or passions were, but she at least wanted to live long enough to find out.

But if she was behind enemy lines and could no longer rely on her sisters or people, then that left her with one, **** option.

Setting her data-slate to broadcast, Mok-1-21 tuned it to every frequency save the one’s she knew her cell used. There was still a chance other Dranza resistance cells were on Dallis-5 and they picked this up, immediately branding her as a traitor of the worst category. But… well, better to be killed than die, she supposed.

“My name is Mok-1-21. I am a Dranza resistance fighter of a cell located on the fifth moon of Dallis. While this message is meant for any human Federation members, I am specifically addressing the soldier ‘Rainsong’ who discovered me the other day. While I know our people are at war and do not have any formal agreement, I have critical information for the Federation presence on Dallis and her moons. I wish to invoke safe conduct and a formal parley with any human authority that hears this message. My location is as follows…”

If the war was lost and if her people were turning their backs to her, then maybe the best course of action was to cut loose, sell out, and maybe make a break for herself. If the Empire was dead, Mok-1-21 resolved to live beyond it and without it.

She reviewed her recording multiple times, hesitating when it finally came time to broadcast her… plea. Her bargain. Her surrender.

Eventually, she found it within her to hit “send” and then immediately turned away from the data-slate to find something else to busy her mind with.

////

Days later, with her slate broadcasting her message on an incessant loop, Mok-1-21 got her answer.

Her cavern shelter began to rumble. The entire plateau it was nestled in began to rumble. It felt as if the very earth beneath her feet was being shaken to it’s core. At first, she thought it was an earthquake, but it went on for far too long and the roar spread from the earth to the air, transforming into the unmistakable thunder of a starship’s engine.

Scrambling from her hidey-hole and making her way to the top of the plateau in the face of raging winds and the dust cloud’s the descending ship kicked up, Mok-1-21 saw it. There was no way she could miss it, quite honestly. Gleaming white, pristine and untarnished, it’s very presence standing in proud, defiant contrast to the miserable landscape of Dallis-5. The vessel was essentially a flying bolt, a gigantic white hexagon. Mok-1-21 knew it well enough. Human transport ships. This one was clearly a military vessel, something she could tell by it’s size. Larger ones were used for… ugh… the detainment and transportation of unprocessed slaves.

As the flying bolt lowered itself, hovering beyond the edge of the plateau instead of landing directly atop it, Mok-1-21 stood there, paralyzed. Even if she wanted or could run, there was no going back now. Still, she was shocked to see the humans actually here. To have actually responded to her plea. At least, that’s what she hoped. There was still a chance a hatch would open on the vessel, a flood of soldiers would come out, pepper her with stun rounds, electro-pulses, or knockout darts, and then haul her **** body away as a prisoner.

Or worse.

Braced against the billowing wake of the ship’s jets, Mok-1-21 watched it descend beyond the ridge of the plateau opposite from her. As the kicked-up dust and wind died down with the ship’s thrusters pointed away from the apex of the plateau and set to hover mode, a seamless hatch opened up along the exterior of the vessel, followed by a rampway made of hardlight flowing from the base of the opening all the way to the ground.

At the mouth of the doorway was a human figure, standing defiantly before the blasted waste that was Dallis-5. She wore her fatigues and armour, but no helmet or mask. Her hair was a blend of whites and greys, worn short and styled into swooping wings. Mok-1-21 once heard from another clone soldier that human hair was a mark of rank, based upon complex observances based on colour and it’s style. The way this soldier’s hair parted and swooped reminded Mok-1-21 of the great birds of prey of her homeworld. A fitting style for a soldier or officer.

More striking was the woman’s dark, dusky skin tone and the hard lines creased into the flesh of her face. Mok-1-21 had rarely seen humans up close, and had never seen a human with face-lines like that, so it took her a blundering moment to realize they were signs of age. She knew for a fact most humans hid their actual age through gene-mods and nano-tech, not too dissimilar to what high-ranking, non-cloned Dranza did. So either his woman was of an exceptional age that even gene-modding did not hide the signs, or she was not so vain as to care.

For a long moment, the only sound was the roar of the ship’s engines, the woman crossing her arms over her chest and taking the measure of Mok-1-21 from a distance. Mok-1-21 was still paralyzed. She felt like an animal caught within the sights of a predator or hunter. If she stayed still, she was probably dead, but if she moved then she was definitely dead.

After the interminable infinite staredown, the human raised her arm to the collar of her suit, pressing something. A speaker of some kind, since when she spoke, her voice boomed above the drone of the jet engines.

“Are you Mok-1-21?” She asked. After a moment, Mok-1-21 found herself nodding in the affirmative, very stiffly. The human did not seem to care for her very apparent terror. “I am Captain Avarti Najaderesh, Sergeant Rainsong’s commanding officer on this mission. I have heard your message and decided to grant your request of safe conduct and parley in exchange for your information. You have my permission to come aboard this vessel and my vow that no harm will come to you so long as you operate under the rules of parley.”

The Captain motioned to the hardlight ramp before turning her gaze back to Mok-1-21, expectantly but patiently. For her part, Mok-1-21 wanted to treat every word from the human’s mouth as a lie, but that would be counterproductive and self-defeating. She was the one who initiated contact. She was the one who requested parley.

She was the one who offered to sell out Jit-10-8 and the others.

Steeling herself, Mok-1-21 affected the grim confidence of a turncloak and made her way up the ramp and into the belly of the beast.