Chương 105: KK3 - #24 THE TEARS OF THE SWALLOW (1/4)

#24 THE TEARS OF THE SWALLOW B eyond Neptune lies the never-ending Kuiper belt, a desert of emptiness sparse with icy asteroid fields long forgotten by our star's rays. Recently opened to colonization, the Dwarves of the New Worlds preceded the mysterious and invisible Planet Nine. I had read so much about this mythical world since I was a kitten, even before the Space Agency settled on Quaoar to conduct its research.

Astronomers spoke of an immense celestial body, attracting the entire system to transform the normally circular heliocentric orbit into a gravitational ellipsoid. Unfortunately, due to the numerous failures of interstellar probes, economic crises coupled with the conflict between the Technocracy and the Separatists, scientific efforts were stalled.

Humankind preferred wasting its time into pointless fratricide wars for power, wealth and pride; drowning itself into the coffee grounds of a Great Filter it created on its own. Sacrebleu! Sapiens were so stupid it hurt. I would have liked to be the first feline to set foot on a ghostlike virgin world. But fate had other plans for my partner and I. Leaving Charon's orbit and its port of a thousand pirates on the T. M. S.

Africa, we sailed alongside the last squadron of the Corps still refusing to yield to the complete takeover orchestrated by the Moon's most powerful Metacaste: the Awen of the Arch-Emperor Teutates. After what happened on Io, I was on the lookout—as I proved it, lying gracefully on top of one of the wall air-conditioners units. Being the Kitty's marble pillar, I couldn't consent to let this chaotic situation guide my emotions. Late in the afternoon, nutrigel shrimp chips had taken care of my anxieties.

Ali was trying to keep our space travel busy. She haunted the gym even more often than usual; unaware that I was staying just a few feet away from her—mainly because of my remarkable ninja skills.

"One, two… three!" she shouted before trying to lift four times her weight on the bench press, bulging her sweaty shoulders on the faux-leather. For the first time of her life, I saw her fail her easiest routine. Straightening soon after to recover, Ali wiped her star-scarred neck with a backhand towel. After taking a mouthful of Megatorade, she struggled to catch her breath. My genetically modified sapiens seemed to finally feel the fatigue as even enhanced clones could reach their limits.

Before she could attempt another set, a few notes of music suddenly rang out through the speakers. Braun, his hair short and bleached, entered the room with his leather jacket crumpled over his shoulder. My human showed a pout of disapproval as her favorite verse from Camouflage began. Rasputin had reached her height and took her hand before kneeling to kiss her. Surrendering, Ali lay down on the bench, letting the rebellious Soviet slide over her. She giggled as he crawled his fingers under her soaked brassiere.

The situation became moister than her 10 a. m. aerobics session. The packet of chips almost emptied, I wasn't in the mood for a new exchange of gametes and I decided to silently leave my rostrum, ready to be the kill-joy cats were famous for.

"You folks want to watch Homeward Bound on the cable?" I asked while fixing my gaze on them from the adjacent weight rack.

"Lee! What the fuck?" Ali squealed as she straightened.

"Here we go again…" Braun sighed.

"The mop's creeping on us…" My blood pressure soared, not without the support of my cholesterol. I was reluctant to bite this Diet Kurt Cobain, but as unprincipled humans say, there's a first time for everything.

"Ouch! Ali! Your cat munched my thigh!" the salty ex-DIA officer complained as he massaged his lower buttocks.

"And I'll do it again, rebel scum!"

"Stop it, you two!" Ali ordered as she adjusted her long hair over her pink jacket. The argument was interrupted before it could start with the arrival of Rasputin's superior: Gaylord Graves. The former Colonel, a behemoth at least eight feet tall fed on GMO beef from Mars, struggled to fit through the doors. His testosterone's excess had grown a genuine broom under his nose. As the universe still required balance, he was completely bald except for a small baby yellow puff atop his scalp.

"Are you children done quarreling?" he said in a voice so cavernous that it rattled the spring-loaded equipment and made some dust fall from the ceiling. Asbestos flakes landed on his eccentric purple velvet military uniform as exquisite as it was against every martial regulation. This charismatic giant of indefinable sexuality could turn off Solaris with an inadvertent sneeze.

"Or is it necessary for me to intervene? We need a cohesive team to complete this mission."

"Is the Marine still up for a fight against an Arch-Prince from Lunapolis?" Ali asked as Graves invited us to follow him towards the nearest elevator.

"The Marine?" the old soldier chuckled.

"No! But the T. M. S. Africa is! It wasn't easy to convince Admiral Toto, yet the evidence against Taranis remains irrefutable! His misdeeds ranging from widespread corruption to unconstitutional war can't go unpunished! We will bring justice despite Mars' reluctance."

"Did you come up with a plan?" I intervened as the ex-Marine invited us to follow towards the elevators. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"We have no chance to bring an Arch-Prince to justice in the heart system or even the Outer Worlds," Graves continued, pressing with difficulty the small buttons of the shaft.

"But in Kuiper, no loyalist forces will stand in your way! We need to lure him here!"

"Here, he can't cast a creepy hologram from his Lunar cryochamber," added the Soviet, who hadn't digested his altercation with Taranis' ghost.

"Plus, a ship is not a moon. It can be destroyed!"

"Do you have any news from Nora?" Ali asked as her sister went missing since our departure from Jupiter.

"I wonder though why she fled without sending us a single missive."

"Lieutenant Nikita has always been quite a solitary person. She must have assassins like the samurai after her. If not Taranis himself," Graves went on.

"But that way, she's central to our plan!"

"How come?" Graves explained the program set up by the renegades: once Nora's position was identified, we were supposed to leak it, luring Taranis in the New Worlds towards a non-existent rebel base. We knew he had left the Moon with a small contingent to hunt us all, and that he wouldn't miss the opportunity to kill a Koviràn.

"You can't do that! It's betraying her!" Ali intervened, grabbing Graves' tie.

"She's a soldier and signed for it," said the former Colonel.

"She's not a child. Yet by going silent in a moment like this, she brought nothing but problems."

"But…" Ali insisted.

"Trust us on this…" Braun said.

"The second Taranis shows up. Rockets will take care of him before he could even lay a hand on your cyber-sister." The creaking steel cage dropped us summarily on the main deck, a few meters from the colonel's quarters. In front of her office patiently waited the Admiral of the 3rd Fleet, Sigourney Toto. She was a tall, dry, crane-like woman who had never smiled in her entire life. And yet, her face was no less wrinkled than an oxidized yam.

"Come in…" she croaked without opening her lips more than necessary. Graves and I entered the sparsely decorated room. The first officer of the T. M. S. Africa accommodated herself with the absolute regulatory essentials: a flaky iron desk and a pair of chairs that looked like it barely survived Moscow's bombing. The furniture being covered with dust, it was obvious that Toto spent most of her time on the command deck rather than in this cell. The latter still had a shy porthole through which the stars scrolled.

"Admiral. As you know, we let Mancéphalius employ the listening instruments of the Quaoar science stations," the giant began. Polite, he invited Ali to take a seat in the only chair intended for guests.

"The ones used to scan the void in the outer regions."

"I'm not happy about the Marine giving a compromised data-broker full access to the high-frequency probes," Toto grumbled as he sat down.

"If this deal gets out, I'm court-martialed. Oh! I almost forgot—we're already a bunch of rebels." Looking daggers at both Graves and Braun, she lit a cigarette she stuck at the corner of her thin lips. I understood her distrust. Given the evidence, Graves and Braun had exposed the Awen's treachery and the corruption in the Black Haven. Unfortunately, apart from a few strongly repressed protest movements, the Technocracy hadn't wished to lift a finger.

This matter was already forgotten on Mars, just like the war around Saturn. Medias' focus had switched to a second wave of riots in Las Pallas.

"What did you learn to request this interview, Gaylord?" insisted Toto between two puffs of my old mistress Nicotine.

"Mancéphalius found our agent: Nikita," announced Graves.

"Or rather Nora Koviràn."

"Where is she?" Ali asked, dissipating with a movement of her other arm the sweat but deadly cloud Toto released from her hooked nose. Opening a holographic map from his wrist-terminal, the colossus answered while pointing at a scattered dwarf planet: "Our path leads us to 90377 Sedna." To which the Admiral retorted, choking on her cigarette smoke: "Madness! That settlement is the last place I'd want to station the Africa. Have you lost your mind, Gaylord?"

"Are you afraid of the Flying Dutchman or to scratch the paint, Admiral?" tried the mischievous rebel.

"Plus, former Separatist leaders of Neptune are hiding out there! A perfect spot for a fake rebel base, don't you think?"

"That's risky," Braun intervened.

"Those on Sedna were once Awen agents."

"The Metacaste is hunting down everyone involved or inquiring about the Rings Civil War," Graves explained.

"If they're not already dead. They will undoubtedly fight with us. For the only reason that Taranis would love to make two birds with one stone on Sedna!"

"As undoubtedly as the public support?" the Admiral coughed.

"The Martians abandoned you the moment something newer than the war happened on TV!" My partner picked me up and carried me around her neck towards the porthole. It wasn't a common occurrence these days. This embrace showed deep distress on the part of my glucophilic sapiens. Running my cold nose over her cheek, I inquired as to the source of her trouble.

"Quite a trip…" Ali said while gazing upon the void. I sighed.

"Crab-Face or no Crab-Face, we need to find Nora on that cramped ice rock before she goes to burrow forever in the Oort Cloud."

"—the success of this whole crazy treason all depends on our ability to cross the second asteroid belt," Toto continued, crushing her cigarette butt in a polished glass ashtray.

"And using the gravitational pull of the last Dwarves without attracting all the pirates of the Cliffs is no small feat!" Gaylord Graves huffed.

"All these years of boasting about your hypercruiser then playing coy in the middle of Kuiper? Where is the soldier I survived the Troubles with?" Like us, Braun disassociated himself from the verbal joust between Graves and Toto. A hand on my partner's shoulder, he patted me on the back.

"Thank Darwin we have other allies than this old couple," he whispered, pointing with his chin at the armored window in which my sapien's face was reflecting.

"We've come all the way here for them too."

"A Falstaff?" I said, turning my head to follow the aircraft that had just appeared near the port stabilizers.

"I've only seen one once and…"

"Rodrigue!" my partner shouted. After having gently placed me on Toto's desk, she rushed out of the room. Rodrigue? Alive? The Marquis had vanished during the battle of the Blazing Firmament; presumably killed by Osborne. That was something to rejoice about, although I was already laughing at the situation. Braun and the Marquis on the same ship for a journey of several weeks, this will be very interesting.

"To what do we owe this shady smirk?" Braun asked as he glanced at the Condor entering the Africa's side hangar below.

"Lando Calrissian has landed!" I concluded as I left the room, the tail curved like a question mark.