Balmas

Breathless Dead

Alexa stares at the mic like it's the point of a thunderbolt.

No, that's not true. If it were a thunderbolt, she'd at least know what to do. Some guidelines as to whether to dodge, charge, bring up the shield, something other than gawp uselessly at the crowd..

They're waiting, the air tense, electric with yearning potential and the crackling of a thousand eyes laser-focused on her. Hera and Apollo, oh fuck, she can't-- Can't think, can't focus, can't breathe which is fucking stupid because she doesn't need to anyway and--

This isn't what she was made for! Molech didn't teach her anything about public speaking, or performance! She's the help, the background! If she's with Molech, then he will do the speaking! She goes with him everywhere, therefore there's no need for her to talk, ever, especially not in front of a crowd, and especially not in front of a crowd of people who know exactly who she is!

Oh fuck, they hate her, don't they? They know she betrayed them, turned to Nero, is an oathbreaker, kinslayer, traitor--that's why they're all here! That's why such an eclectic group is all gathered here instead of doing their jobs, is because nobody's willing to miss the execution of the millennia!

The first power chord strikes, and Alexa almost collapses with relief. Thank goodness, thank all the gods, of course Redana would be trained for this. Of course she'd be able to address a nightmare crowd, calm them down, deliver a stirring speech that'd have the crowd on their side in no time. Of course Nero would make sure she knew how to do public speaking!

And now that she actually has the mental space to look at the crowd... Her brow wrinkles as her gaze flits from one nonsense to another. This crowd is madness in every sense of the word. Everywhere she looks, robots are choosing seemingly at random what to--who organized this? There's no patterns! Everybody's mingling with each other--there's no formations, no rigid, segregated ranks. There's a phalanx member mingling with skirmishers, trading for a drink from a legionnaire wearing a paper hat. Cheering and fighting mingle with feasts and--Aphrodite, that's an orgy, good heavens. Brass and soldiers mingle like water, flow from group to group, wander the stands--where's the order, the commands, the sitting in place and listening to the presentation? Even with the background of the wailing guitar and the falling nuclear rubble, the cacophony of the crowd is like standing in chest high waves. No two bots are alike, uniformity and regiments discarded in favor of paint, tattoos, engravings, modifications… And while there's no chance in hell that she could ever do the same--can you imagine the offense to Athena at so defacing her image?--there's a part of her yearns for the floral patterns she sees on the tripod distributing popcorn through the crowd.

None of this should be possible. None of these robots were built with imagination, creativity, anything but war and the few neurons needed to power it! How can this be? This art, this splendor, this… this chaos?

Mmm. This solo is going on quite a long time, isn't i--

Alexa catches Redana's eyes, and just like that, she's dumped square back into the ice water of panic. Redana, no. Redana, you can't be serious. Redana, please.

Gods above, help.

Alexa approaches the microphone like it's a coiled viper. Tosses it from hand to hand, tests its heft, its weight. Traces the engraved handle, appreciates the ornate brass scrollwork. Taps the mic, and winces as feedback screeches across the arena.

She shoots another glance at Redana and cringes at the encouraging grin.

Okay, Alexa. First lines on coming home. Power ballad on the sacred axe of Zeus backing. People who know you and outnumber you five thousand to one. Make it good, Alexa.

"We just flew in from orbit, and boy are my arms tired!"

Nailed it.

Breathless Dead

The fuzz of static stops for one blessed moment, and Alexa's head is her own again.

Molech takes his time fastidiously straightening out the cover on the icon. Only once the sheet hangs perfectly flat and even does he deign to look down into the parade ground. "Do you know why it's not enough to be obeyed?"

Alexa does not, cannot answer. Any movement right now kicks up the mud, blood, and oil coating the ground, and the mere exertion of standing takes all the effort she has. Every heaving breath costs energy. She doesn't dare move to correct her flagging spearpoint, lest she overbalance and fall face-first into her guilt.

"I could simply command you. And so long as I hold this icon, you would be helpless to disobey."

Don't look down, Alexa. He's talking to you. Focus on him. He is your father, your emperor, your god. So long as you're focusing on him, you're not looking at the carnage around you. You're not listening to the moans you've caused, not smelling the bitter iron swamping the air. Not looking at the faces you've guarded for the past six months. Worship Molech as if your sanity depends on it.

Molech sneers. "And so could anybody else holding this icon. Anybody could command you to turn against me. That may do for an army, but for you? For the perfect warrior, for the perfect guard? For the Pallas Rex?"

He rests his hand on the cover and Alexa's breath hitches. Don't stop looking at him. Don't you dare look at them. Don't think about the time you've spent with them. Don't you dare put names and families and card games and stories told and history to faces.

Save yourself, you coward.

"I expect you to do better. How many more will you kill before you figure this out, I wonder?"

And the world is static.

***

Alexa's head swims, lost in the light. The world dims, sounds fade, until all that is left is the soft fuzz and the blissful beauty that is the entire world.

And wouldn't it be nice to stay here? Just sit back, let it happen. Let guarding Redana be somebody else's concern. Let somebody else take the reins. No more anxiety, no more worries, no more questions. Just orders and instantanous obedience. Let someone else assume the burden of what those orders mean for everyone else.

Do it, coward. Save yourself.

There was... Something. She had. Didn't she? Something she needed to. Something she wanted to. To. Erm.

But the light! It's so beautiful. Just stare at it. Let it make you comfortable, let it teach and lead you. Isn't that more important than whatever you were thinking abou--

Faces knock at her mind. Aren't they important, too? Precious, even?

Static mounts around her, a growing fog as the icon presses harder against her mind.

She stands, frozen. Then, a weight at her arm drags her attention away from the light.

It's... herself?

No, a reflection. A mirror image, reflected in the glossy surface of the--of her--shield.

Isn't that important, too, her traitor mind insists?

And the static shatters.

And she realizes a number of things in short succession. First, reflections don't usually nod at you before vanishing. You are here, indeed. Second, there are a number of very pressing concerns in the stands around them. Although, third, she has the Aegis again, and what clearer sign of Athena's favor could she ask for?

Fourth, she should be in front of Redana. There is guarding to be done.
(Overcome: 5,4,4+2: 10)

Fellowship: The Heart

The choice is maddening.

On the one claw, he'd be a fool to turn down this opportunity. This station is the definition of bad luck, the personification of every bad thing that could happen to an engine. And what's worse, it's something he can't fix, should not fix, because if he does then all the bad luck stored here could get out and affect every other crew on the lines. Escaping as quickly as possible is the only option.

But what kind of lesson would it teach Sasha if he let her build the head of steam she wants? Let her flee the station, leaving Ailee and Lucien in a lurch? Would she learn the essential calculations of who to save, how many to save, at what point leaving one or two behind to save the rest become acceptable losses? Would she simply become a coward who flees whenever things get rough?

Ultimately, it's the look on Jackdaw's face that gets him to shake his head. Leaving without Ailee's gonna be a hard sell. Lucien maybe slightly less so, but college friends stick together.

"Have you seen any of the others? Our new friend here said there were a number of factions to check with."

Breathless Dead

She's not fast enough, even as she's too fast.

She can't stop. Her legs move under her almost without direction. It's instant, trained and drilled into her at almost an instinctual level, no matter how much her mind screams no, stop, Isty, don't! Her ward is in danger, and she must protect!

And yet--for all the speed, the training, the drills--she's not fast enough. She just barely feels the fingers slip through her grip--

And spends the last precious seconds she has in the ship sprinting harder. She won't stop, not now, not with this much force. But she can push off towards that eye, and maybe, with the new terrain, she'll have a chance of catching Redana.

Breathless Dead

Alexa freezes.

Idiot! Don't freeze! Defend!

But there's not a lot she can do in this circumstance. It has the drop on her. No matter how fast she is, the bat's trigger finger is going to be faster.

Get in the way of the shot? Impossible. Can't block a cloud. Don't be in the way if it won't help, moron. Maybe if she had the AEGIS, she could plug the hole but that wouldn't stop it from just reloading and blowing a different hole.

How is it up here in the first place? She thought that model was built for close ground support.

She eyes the pair at the center console. They're the most vulnerable here. Could she bring a shuttle in to ground in an emergency? Probably not.

Vasilia's talking. Follow her lead, and get ready to take the helm.

Fellowship: The Heart

Wolf!

See how carefully the lizard moves?

Never once does the little twerp test the limits of the leash. Very carefully, moving only as far as he's able. Not a threat, see? Not going to hare across the station and drag you along like he did just now. Friend! Ally!

And now he steps between you and your snack. This is not how friends act, lizard. Friends don't rob each other of food!

"No! Not food!" he soothes. "Crew! Needed! Important!"

Breathless Dead

Okay, first off. She does not sulk. Alexa has never sulked, will never sulk, cannot sulk. Sulking is not graceful, beautiful, brave, or strong. She does not sulk.

Now, with that said, there may or may not have been a period where she wandered the surface of Barassidar. And yes, there may have been a certain sulky quality to them. But that's not sulking! She fell from orbit! She was recovering. There's a difference.

Honestly, Alexa doesn't remember much of that day. (She suspects it's probably for the best. She's been to the museum of victories, and it all seems strange, far off, like it happened to another person. Which is weird, because there are other things about the exhibit that have always stuck out as being blatantly wrong and incorrect, like how the exhibit Molech's beard isn't rigidly regimented into carefully groomed plaits.)

She remembers the viewscreen. She remembers the way the expanding cloud of glass framed Nero in a ring of kaleidoscopic reflections. She remembers the fall, the reentry. Remembers watching her hand glow as red as her eyes, remembers wondering whether she'd hit the ground as molten slag.

She doesn't remember the impact. Again, it's probably for the best.

Most of the rest of the subsequent weeks was trying to get back to the palace. Trying to find landmarks that hadn't been destroyed, navigating through a land that was no longer home. There wasn't any point, really--even from here, she could see the moment the Spear went critical. Molech was dead, the war was over.

But the alternative was just lying back to die.

She should have known better, really. Nero couldn't let the palace stand. In the end, the only way she got there was by following the smoke plumes.

Alexa doesn't know whether Nero thought to raid the records storage facilities when she sent the shuttle crews to destroy the palace. And she wasn't going to go off-base looking. But if she's here…

Well. Molech kept obsessive records, right? Citizen papers, citizen transfers, enslavement contracts, every detail in the empire had its paper trail. Nero wouldn't burn that, right? There's gotta be a record in there of where Minerva got sent.

It's not going to be useful. It's been over two centuries. She could be dead, or moved on. But… She has to at least try, right?

"I'm pretty sure the Pallas Rex is dead," she says softly. "And the galaxy is a better place for it."

Breathless Dead

"Are you sure this worked?" she very carefully does not say.

Can you imagine the base ingratitude? She almost took a dip in a caged star. She has an arm after all of that! She should be singing the machine freak's praises!

Not, you know, worrying.

It's just that...

She tries, as hard as she can, to wiggle a finger. Come on, thumb, you can do it. Signs of life, people. Something to show that she actually still has an arm, and not just some clay mumbled over by a priest of Ares.

And he won't let her touch it, either. Every time she reaches for it, it's another metallic slap on the wrist. It's not dry, he says. It has to cure before she'll regain sensation. If Alexa touches it, she'll leave indelible marks. Does she want that? Because if so, by all means, be his guest, see if he helps again.

It can't be a trick, can it? What does Iskarot stand to gain from this?

***

She decides that having sensation in the arm is even worse.

Oh, sure. Having a club arm that she couldn't touch was bad. But having a club arm that she can't touch and which itches as it dries?

Torture. That's what Iskarot gets out of this. He's making a point, she knows. "Make sure this doesn't happen again."

The worst thing is feeling like she can't help. The crew has been very understanding, and have taken up the slack. But it kills her to watch Redana doing temple duties, and Isty drilling with Galnius, and be unable to join in.

Useless. It's the worst feeling.

***

Iskarot, after endless days of monitoring and testing and trials, has finally approved her arm for motion. Provided, of course, that she takes it easy, no strenuous activity, and no sticking arms in the Engine.

Which means, of course, the training ground is littered with broken spears.

Hera and Aphrodite, she's missed this.

Breathless Dead

There's no time to curse the Hermetician's name. If she'd noticed half a second quicker--no! No time!

Turn them so Isty lands on--No. Her stone body would be just as deadly an impact as the gravplates.

Nothing to push off of. The wall is so close, taunting her with the array of pipes and sculptures just out of reach. If she could just reach out and grab--

No. Not an option.

No! That's not true! There's something she can push off of!

There's no time to communicate the plan. Just to tap the hands holding her. Let go, Isty. Alexa's got this. She lets the air spin them around. There's nothing to push off of, nothing to arrest their fall, nothing to get them to the handholds on the wall.

There's enough air to spin them around. And Newton still applies.

Alexa shoves Isty towards the wall. She's smart. Isty'll figure it out, she can catch herself.

She can't get them to the wall. But she can get her there.

[10 on Keep Them Busy]

Breathless Dead

This is not the first time that Zeus's majesty strikes the words from Alexa's mouth.

There's just... so much to it. The sky is never the same twice, and each time it's a new delight to behold, full of crimsons, teals, and every other color, playing in a never-ending cosmic chase. It's enough to make a statue feel very small.

Alexa floats, caught in a swirl of color, and wonders.

She wonders so hard, in fact, that she doesn't see the pounce until it's too late and a cold nose is buried in the small of her back.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"