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Not sure where I'm going with this one, but posting it to encourage me to keep at it.
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The four men who I will shortly kill stand waiting around me. My hands are bound in chains attached to the chair in which they have placed me. The fingers in my good arm worry at the chain-links; the other is dislocated and hangs limply in its cuff. My eyes are bound, but each of my senses is redundant. Should one be impaired, the others are enhanced to levels that provide equivalent information. I can tell by the echoes from my ultrasonic vocalisations everything about the dimensions of the room in which they think they have secured me, and my captors’ positions within it. Bare concrete walls, a drain in the floor for bodily fluids, a heavy steel door.
I am also waiting. The guards periodically bark questions at me, and smash their armoured gauntlets into the side of my face. I moan in pain and fear, playing the part of a rich silly girl who wandered away from the Heirarch’s reception into a secured area. I must maintain this façade until the one for whom I am waiting arrives.
After an hour of this, the door swings open and he enters. I know it is him by his scent, by his tread, by a hundred other tell-tale signs. I hear the door clunk shut behind him. I need him to speak.
“She was found in a restricted area by the generatorium entrance. She had this.” One of the guards. The stocky one with the slight limp.
He refers to the small explosive device built into the necklace I had been wearing that they had discovered. Of course they had; I had intended them to, so that they would bring him to me.
“This is the closest one of these Dawner scum have got to the power plant. We need to organise more raids to disrupt their cells” Another of the guards. He refers to the Glorious Dawn terrorist group that has been plaguing the Heirarch’s security forces for months. I have convinced them that I am one of them.
I need the newcomer to speak. I sense him lean in and inspect my face. Even with the swelling and bruising that I have allowed to bloom on my face I know the image I currently bear is beautiful. With him so close, I can sense the All-Key in one of his jacket pockets; the electro-aetheric field it generates tugs weakly at the electro-sensor wired into my limbs.
“What do you want done with her?” The first guard. Finally, the newcomer speaks.
“Strip her, give her to the men. Then burn the body.”
Not much, but enough. I move.
The corrosive liquid I have been secreting from my fingertips has weakened my bonds to the point where a sharp yank can break them. The auto-muscles in my shoulder snap my dislocated shoulder back in and I pull outwards, shattering the weakened chain-links. In the same movement I fling out my arms, releasing four of my razor-sharp fingernails which fly into the millimetre gap between the guards’ helmets and throat-armour. No, not all four: I hear one thud into carapace armour. I estimate he will vox a general alarm within 2 seconds. I must incapacitate him before then.
I tear off my blindfold and see the Master of Security before me, still dressed in the ceremonial garb he was wearing at the reception earlier. He is reaching for his sidearm, but before he reaches his holster I seize the front of his uniform, brace against the floor and hurl him towards the surviving guard. I see my fingernail embedded in his throat armour – I misjudged his height by a centimetre.
The Master of Security is a heavy man. He impacts with the guard at high speed. Even in his carapace armour, the guard has the wind knocked from him as he falls to the floor. I spring over the chair and bring my fist down on his faceplate. The armoured plastic breaks and I feel the front of his skull shatter.
The Master is moaning and fumbling for his sidearm. His back is most probably broken. I draw his ceremonial dagger from its scabbard and plunge it into his neck. I am still for 3 seconds as I listen for life-signs. None. My electro-sensor detected no vox transmissions. Probability of failure is still negligible. I take the All-Key from the Master of Security’s pocket and leave to complete my mission.
My target is in the Inner Palace. There are few guards in the Interrogation Wing of the Heirarch’s compound. Most are policing the reception. I encounter only two on my way to the connecting wall that I have to kill. I do not hide the bodies; soon my presence will become apparent enough.
I arrive at the wall. Reaching into my mouth, I pull free two of my molars. They split open in my hand to reveal two small but powerful krak charges. I prime them, stick them to the wall and step aside.
They detonate with a dull crump, and I am through the blast hole before the debris has settled. Seconds later the general alarm automatically sounds in response to the blast. It makes no difference. I am sprinting towards my target, and will reach him before security can respond. I round a corner and the door to the Inner Sanctum is before me. Gun-servitors have deployed from wall-mounts. Their stub-rounds are easy to dodge; I have memorised their firing algorithms in advance and can easily anticipate their tracking. I dance between the streams of bullets and cover the length of the corridor in seconds. Two sweeps of the dagger sever their gun arms. They continue to track me, autoloaders spilling ammunition from chest-hoppers.
I place the All-Key against the door’s security panel. I feel my larynx alter I and speak the passcode in a dead man’s voice. The door slides open, and I enter the Heirach’s Sanctum.
He is standing behind a large ornate desk, dressed in his robes of office, aiming a laspistol at the door. He fires at me, but I have read the tensing of his muscles and am no longer where he was aiming. My throw-nails have not yet grown back; instead I fling the dagger and impale his gun arm through the forearm. He drops to the floor shrieking in pain. As I run for him, I realise something is amiss. Something small but important is tugging at my attention. A tiny detail is jarring with the memorised mission intel. It doesn’t matter. The kill is all that matters, and I will be on him within a second.
A final leap and I am straddling his chest. I pull out the dagger from his arm. As I reach back to deliver the killing blow I realise what the detail was. A small vox communication unit is built into the desk. That had not been in the plans of the Sanctum. The Heirach is notoriously reclusive, never leaving his Sanctum and only ever communicating in person via his Master of Security, the only man who had access to him. The unit looks newly installed. A light on it is glowing green to indicate an open link: the Heirarch was communicating with someone. I notice and process all this in the few milliseconds before the knife descends. It is irrelevant; all that is important is that
-STOP-
My arm is frozen. My whole body is immobile.
-STAND-
The voice is clearly coming from the vox unit, but feels as if it resonating from within my chest. I find myself standing before I am even aware of the words.
-TAKE THE GUN-
I pick up the Heirarch’s gun. He struggles to his feet. I see his face – he is terrified. Not of me, but the voice.
-PUT IT TO YOUR HEAD-
I do not understand how he is making me do this. I have been trained to resist psychic manipulation. This is something different. I put the barrel of the gun to my head.
-THIS BREACH OF SECURITY IS UNACCEPTABLE-
“Ye-yes, my lord”. The Heirarch’s voice is tremulous and miserable.
-YOU SHALL ATONE. ANOTHER OF YOUR GRANDCHILDREN. YOUR DAUGHTER’S FIRSTBORN. MAKE HER WATCH AS YOU KILL IT-
“Yes, lord”
-AND AS FOR YOU-
I feel the focus of the speaker fall on me like a chill shadow.
-I KNOW YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE LISTENING. SEND YOUR LITTLE TOYS AFTER ME IF YOU MUST, LIGHTBRINGER. IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE. MY FATE IS WRITTEN BY ONE GREATER THAN YOU OR YOUR CORPSE-GOD. I WILL BURN YOU ALL-
-DIE NOW-
I pull the trig
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